J Edgar Movie Review
Do you like brooding? Than this is the movie for you.
I am a fan of Clint Eastwood movies. I think he is a talented movie director who gets the most out of his actors, whom he has cast with expert precision. That being said, I don’t think J Edgar was his best effort.
To be sure, it is entertaining, and Leonardo DiCaprio (Inception, Titanic. Titanic image courtesy of the Funny T Shirt category) delivers a stellar performance, with excellent dialog, supporting cast, and visuals that transport you back to the periods in question. The problem is I felt I was watching two different movies at the same time. The first one was a History Channel documentary about the creation of the FBI with no real connection from period event to period event. The second was a character study of a miserably closeted megalomaniac who let his obsession with Communists rule his life. The movie started out more documentary and in time shifted more towards the character study, but finished up floundering around looking for an ending more tangible than “and then he died and was dead happily ever after.”
This was not a feel good movie in any way. For the most part all the main characters are miserable throughout the film, especially Hoover, and the documentary of the FBI makes a lot of American history look dark, and even manages to cast aspersion onto some of the great triumphs of the FBI. I actually applaud this dedication to the art of movie making, rather than the art of creating worthless pap for the mindless consumption of the American population. However, know going in that you will likely not come out feeling any better when the credits roll.
The story is, of course, the history of the FBI as told from the perspective of the founder, J Edgar Hoover. It goes through founding as a branch of the Department of Justice and highlights some of the more infamous cases, particularly the Lindbergh baby. It details how Hoover got the Bureau started, and each step of the steady increase of power they enjoyed. During the course of the movie we see details of his paranoia regarding Communists, his need for acknowledgement and adulation, and most significantly his lifelong suppression of his true sexuality. This was most strongly manifested with his relationship with his best friend Clyde Tolson (Arnie Hammer-the Social Network) who was also deep in the closet. It is also reflected in his relationship with his spinster assistant Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts-King Kong, the Ring, Mulholland Drive) and his controlling mother (Judi Dench-Quantum of Solace, Casino Royale).
Don’t get me wrong. This movie was good in many ways, and an order of magnitude better than most these days. The problem is the fact that it views like reading someones diary. Each chapter is almost a complete story in and of itself, with the overriding theme being repressed homosexuality. That self imposed repression turns into the worst part about this movie, as you sit there willing any person on screen to do anything at all to make themselves happy. It tends to make the movie very frustrating to watch.
The stars. The acting from everyone, especially Leonardo DiCaprio, was excellent. Three stars. Good dialog with effective direction and filming. One star. Very much in period. You really feel like you are in the 30’s, especially when Hoover takes over the smoking lounge for his crime lab and one of the evicted agents asks “Where shall we smoke?”. One star. No attempt was made to “happy up” the ending in order to suit the tastes of the unwashed masses. One star. The story was a very interesting piece of American history. One star. A detailed character study and illustration of the stress and frustration of not accepting your own sexuality. One star. Total: eight stars.
The black holes. Frustrating. One black hole. The whole documentary style story telling thing. One black hole. The ending felt horribly unresolved and incomplete. In spite of going 137 minutes the film felt about 15 minutes short. One black hole. There were a few points where the pacing seemed to drag on. A heavier hand on the editing might have been called for. One black hole. Total: four black holes.
So a total of four stars. Not bad, but it could have been a lot better. I was actually expecting more from a Clint Eastwood film. It’s no Gran Torino. However, worth watching. I don’t know how it would do as a date film, unless you are gay, in which case you and your partner will probably leave the film with an overwhelming sense of gratitude that you are out. If you are a fan of 20th century American history I think you might well enjoy it. Worth seeing, but maybe wait for video.
After watching the upper crust of film making I think I need to lower my brain down, and will therefore see A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas this afternoon. Look for that review tomorrow. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you later.
Dave
Dream House Movie Review
House of Confusion.
This movie was bitterly disappointing for me. Not because I was expecting something great. I went into it expecting it to suck. It disappointed me because I could see elements of a great movie in here that failed to surface. It’s like the ship the U.S.S. Bad Script sailed to within sight of the Port of Good Movie only to run aground on Fumble Reef. (Titanic image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)
The best way to describe this movie is confused, in that it shifts gears several times. It started off as kind of a really interesting psycho drama, then alternates back and forth between a haunted house and whodunit with a miserably predictable ending. It looked great as a psychodrama, decent as a ghost movie, and painfully stupid as a whodunit. I can almost feel the inexorable hand of the studio pulling the puppet strings to cause the tonal shifts.
The other weird thing about this film was the two stars, Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, met and fell in love in real life while working on the movie yet the on screen chemistry seemed a little off. I think the problem is they acted like a new couple, which in real life they were, but in the movie they had been married for at least seven years.
Anyway, the movie. Daniel Craig quits his job as an editor in NYC to move to his new house in the burbs. His hot wife Libby (Rachel Weisz – the Mummy, the Mummy Returns, the Constant Gardener, the Fountain) and two super cute daughters (Taylor Geare – the little girl from Inception and Clair Geare, the younger little girl from Inception) are glad he is going to stay home. Things seem idyllic but there is some guy running around outside, and some teenagers holding Black Mass in the basement. Turns out the family that lived there before were all killed by the father.
I don’t want to get too into the story, as this is a mystery and a spoiler would definitely detract from your enjoyment of it. Mystery/ghost movie/psycho drama hijinks ensue in almost equal portions. The story kind of plods along, and the whole mixing genres manages to take 90% of the horror out of the film, especially at the end. There are a few startling moments, but nothing that really shocked anyone.
The stars. Daniel Craig. No one does intense like him. One star. Overall the acting from all parties was really solid. One star. Some decent camera work to reflect the shifts in tone needed for the psychodrama shifts. One star. Dialog was decent, and most of the relationships on screen seemed solid. One star. Total: Four stars.
The black holes. The movie couldn’t decide what kind of film it wanted to be when it grew up. The genre shift was really annoying, especially at the end. One black hole. The police acted unlike any police I have ever seen or heard of. One black hole. The movie kind of trudged along. Pacing was really slow. One star. The ending had a funny smell on it from being pulled out of the scriptwriters ass. One black hole. A suspense film with little to no suspense and a thriller with no thrills. One black hole. Total: five black holes.
So a total of one black hole. Kind of a neutral score, which reflects how I felt coming out of the theater. Not really dissatisfied, but not really satisfied. Is it worth seeing? Not at full price. Is it worth $5 on a Sunday? Sure, if there is nothing else playing. Honestly, if you are looking for scary seen Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. More thrilling Real Steel. Better drama 50/50. I think the biggest problem this movie faces is that there are a bunch of other, better movies out at the moment.
Thanks for reading. Sorry about the short review but when a movie doesn’t really grab me or annoy me I find it hard to write about. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. I might do a list tomorrow, or another Star Trek retrospective. I’m up to Insurrection, which means I am almost at the worst of the dross. Oh, well.
Dave
What’s Your Number? Movie Review
I guess my number is 2 (black holes).
First off, let me curse Regal Jack London Theater to the very bowels of Hell for being sold out on Dream House, forcing me to watch this chick flick.
Anyway, this movie is yet another female-centric R rated comedies that wants to make women talking about their vaginas a subject of humor. Unfortunately, Bridesmaids already did that this year and, more importantly, did it competently. I say female-centric because it features a female protagonist who says a lot of raunchy things, but in all honesty if I were a woman I would be pissed off at such a passive doormat being a main character in this film She takes no action or charge without help from her friends, gets regularly treated horribly by the men in her life and never speaks out against them, and can’t even accomplish her stupid goal without enlisting the aid of the man across the hall.
The movie starts off with Ally Darling (Anna Faris-Scary Movie 2 and 4, Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs, something called House Bunny) getting dumped by her lame vegetarian bike guy boyfriend, who leaves her with a line that any self respecting woman would have punched him in the balls for but in another womens lib inhibiting move she takes with a smile (Vegetarian image from the novelty t shirt category). She gets fired later that morning and on the train ride home discovers in a women’s magazine that the national average number of sex partners for women is 10.5, and any woman who sleeps with more than 20 is not likely to ever get married (fortunately, if I were a woman I would still have quite a cushion, if you know what I mean). She does some math and discovers that she has just been dumped by number 19. She sets a resolution to not sleep with number 20 until she is sure he is the one, and then proceeds to get drunk off her ass and sleep with the boss who just fired her.
So, with her second virginity plan shot down, she now comes up with the completely ridiculous plan of trying to hook up with one of her ex boyfriends, due to the fact that her sister is getting married to her ex (there is an extensive sub plot surrounding her sisters upcoming wedding. It is actually pretty integral to the story, so I won’t black hole it). In order to track down (stalk) her ex’s she recruits her across the hall neighbor Colin Shea (Chris Evans – Captain America, Fantastic Four. Actually quite a good filmography from a nerd perspective), who is a sleazy womanizer who seduces a different girl each night and then needs Ally’s help trying to get rid of her, or at least Ally’s apartment to hide out in until they figure out how they have just been used and leave. Anyway, unfunny romantic comedy hijinks ensues. Colin manages to track down a series of men who are all, for one reason or another, inappropriate. Naturally romance ensues between the woman who has sworn celibacy and the man who plans to sleep with every woman in the greater Boston area. The romance has all the chemistry of mixing green food coloring into beer to make St. Paddy’s Day beverages. The plot plods towards the painfully predictable and totally expected ending.
The stars. Acting was decent. You do tend to believe the characters. One star. Anna Faris is cute if you are into blondes, and whoever they got to be her body double in the extremely brief and non-revealing nude (nud-ish) scenes was pretty hot. One star. Decent supporting characters, including her mother (Blythe Danner), sister (Ari Graynor), the bridesmaids, and the assorted men. One star. Dialog was decent. One star. A few funny moments. One star. It’s nice to see a movie shot in Boston, as opposed to LA or NYC. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. Predictable with a capital P. I’ve had more surprising endings from kids singing the A-B-C song. One black hole. The two main characters, Ally and Colin, are both in their own way so unlikeable that by the end of the movie I hated not only them but everyone in the city of Boston (sorry if you live there. Nothing personal). She’s a whiny passive aggressive loser and he’s a sleazy aggressive loser. One black hole. Anna Faris may be funny, but she has a voice that could cut glass. If you loaded 6-9 cats into a cement mixer and turned it on you might approximate the sound. One black hole. Shockingly few funny moments in a so-called comedy, and most of them were one the basest level. One black hole. Ally’s father was the only supporting character that felt fake and out of place. One black hole. I’m going to put this out as bluntly as I can: if you are going to have a Rated R movie and it’s not for violence, for the love of all that is good include a couple decent nude scenes. The ones in this movie were fleeting and mostly covered. One black hole. The romance felt forced and lacked chemistry. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
So a total of 2 black holes, and hence the subtitle for this movie (my real number is not two. Not a ton more than that, but not two). Meh. If you are looking for something cute that you won’t have to use your brain a lot for, go for it. I can actually recommend this as a date movie, in that if she starts thinking about her number she might have to decide you are the one. On the other hand, if you haven’t yet slept with your date this may well backfire on you when she decides you aren’t worth adding to her score, so tread carefully.
Short review, but honestly not a lot of meat for me to chew on here. Thanks for reading. Still more to see this week, but I might just do another Star Trek retrospective tomorrow, or maybe think of something new. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you all soon.
Dave
Killer Elite Movie Review
Neither killer nor elite.
Before I get into this movie, can I say that I wish Hollywood would get over the idea that parkour is still cool. Sure, it’s fun to watch idiots jump off buildings in a Darwinian attempt to improve the human race, but in movies, when we know there are all kinds of wires, safety bags, and, most importantly, stuntmen, all it does is remind us that what was cool in 2004 is lame in 2011. Hollywood has only itself to blame, as years of quick edit movies and television has given America the attention span of a three year old, and expecting us to like something even six months after it was cool is ridiculous. (I do all my own stunts image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Anyway, Killer Elite. The trailer was amazing. Robert DiNero, Jason Stratham, and Clive Owen in an action packed Bourne Identity-esque assassination movie? How could that go wrong? Unfortunately, the only thing they kept from the Bourne Identity was the horrible quick cut action scene editing thing that annoys me so much, as it means you can never really follow the fights (normally I would say this is due to the actors not being coordinated enough to do a single punch at a time, but I thought Jason was an experience action star). The story is ass, Robert DiNero spends most of the movie looking and sounding like a drunken homeless man, Jason Stratham’s character doesn’t seem motivated to continue breathing, much less do any action stuff, the romance story was crowbarred in so strongly they bent it, and a huge piece of the basic premise behind the story I found disturbing on a serious level.
What do I mean by that? Basically Jason’s character Danny is being blackmailed into killing three men. Who are these three men? Dangerous crime lords? Small country oppressive dictators? Ruthless corporate heads who advance themselves through the immoral exploitation of the little man? No. They are dedicated British SAS military officers who’s only crime was obeying their orders. Sorry, but I think this “Dark Horse Hero” trend in movies has just jumped the shark. You want to root for Danny, but he is killing innocent men. The so called “villain”, Clive Owen as Spike, is an ex SAS man who only wants to protect his fellow soldiers yet is painted as the evil antagonist.
Anyway, the story. Danny starts off as a hit man in Mexico, but decides to get out of the business when he comes close to killing the little girl of the man he just shot in the face (in front of her). I guess Hollywood can recognize a limit after they bulldoze right past it. He retires to Australia where he starts an awkward romance with all the chemistry of mixing dirt and water to get mud. Meanwhile, his mentor, Hunter (I don’t want to be a party pooper, but Hunter was the name of Brock Sampsons mentor in the Venture Bros. Can you guys even try to be original?), the great Robert DiNero, got himself kidnapped by an Arab sheik for the crime of not killing the SAS men who killed the sheik’s sons (in case you were thinking that maybe the SAS men were out of line, in three separate flashbacks they showed the death of each son and in each case they were armed). He is going to be executed unless Danny completes the job. Unfortunately he is only given the name of one of the men, and has to get help trying to suss out who the other two are. That tips off Spike, who works with “the Feather Men”, a cabal of ex SAS officers turned businessmen who work to make sure the ex SAS men are all protected. He is the only character worth anything, and he sets out to find Danny and save the lives of his compatriots. Assassin chaos ensues. Stuff gets blown up, innocent men get killed, and in the last 20 minutes of the movie the story, which until then had been so linear it looked like they used a laser to align it, takes so many turns and convolutions it ended up looking like someones small intestine. I thought about it all day and am still not sure what the hell was going on.
The stars. Robert DiNiro. One star. Clive Owen’s character was actually kind of cool. One star. Spy movie. One star. Decent action, at least as far as the gun play goes. One star. Decent special effects with minimum CGI. One star. Set mostly in England, which I kind of like. One star. Total: six stars.
The black holes. Except for Spike, there was no sign of a motivation from any of the character to do anything, including the peripheral characters like the British government. One black hole. Bad romance. One black hole. The story was stupid simple for the first 80% and then stupid complicated for the last 20%. One black hole. The story was written like the writers all had accounts at Unnecessary-Flashbacks-R-Us and they were having a two for one sale. One black hole. A complete misunderstanding of what insulin is and how it works (I am a type I diabetic and should know). One black hole. Somehow Danny sneaks into a high security SAS base, joins a huge unit of soldiers, and walks out with them on a maneuver, and none of them ever say “Hey, who are you again?” One black hole. For some reason Jason Stratham never, ever shaves, even when he is sneaking into a hospital to disguise himself as a doctor or into a military base disguised as a soldier. He must have the five o’clock shadow thing written into his contract. One black hole (speaking of guys in need of a shave, Robert DiNero looked like a bad Santa Claus for a lot of this movie. I won’t give them a black hole for it, but still). The sheik says he wants the British to know that the war isn’t over and he wants to make an example of the SAS men, then orders Danny to make their deaths all look like accidents? One black hole for stupid script writing. The whole quick cut bad fight choreography thing. One black hole. The victims were pretty much undeserving of death in any way. One black hole. Total: ten black holes.
So four black holes. I don’t know. If you like Jason Stratham go see it. If you like Robert DiNero don’t go see it. It had some entertainment value. Just not a ton of it.
By the way, I’d like to tangent off a little and talk about something related to this movie but more related to nerd dating and my current lack of success in it. In this movie Jason Stratham enjoys an awkward and stilted love interest with a hot girl (Yvonne Strahovski). I think a lot of that ended up on the cutting room floor, but I noticed that during the course of this film Jason never ever seems to say more than five words to her at a time. There is no easy banter, no sharing of feeling, none of the crap that women claim to want from a relationship. I thought back to every other Jason Stratham film I have ever seen and realized that he pretty much does the same thing in all of them. I guess if you’re good looking enough you don’t need to do any of that pesky personality and relationship stuff, and if you aren’t all the being witty, caring, funny, interesting, having a cool t-shirt selling website, and writing a detailed and well thought out movie review blog means diddly. Women, you can collectively bite me. Not that I’m bitter.
Meh. I’ll feel better tomorrow and probably apologize. Don’t listen too much to me when I am like this. Speaking of bitter, I’m off to see Abduction and expect it to suck like the world’s biggest vacuum cleaner. Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu. Talk to you soon.
Dave
Straw Dogs Movie Review
Hollywood faces a dilemma. You see, with the rising multicultural awareness and political correctness we have enjoyed over the last fifteen years or so, there is no longer a go to race we can paint as the villain. For years it was Native Americans (then called Indians), but the slow realization that we more or less were the real bad guy in that dynamic and the fact that they were never really a threat and perhaps not as bloodthirsty or dangerous as they were painted to be kind of killed it. With WWII we had Germans and Japanese for a while, but now the Japanese are like another state and we are hoping the Germans can keep the EU from economic collapse. For a while it was the Vietnamese, but the guilt and shame we feel about that war and they way we treated our returning veterans doesn’t make for a real feel good situation (look at how Rambo returning to Vietnam was received). In theory it could be the Iraqis or the Afghanis, but since we are trying to build stable governments there from locals that are friendly to the US we can’t really demonize them as a race. Really it should be the Chinese, but since we count on them to manufacture 80% of our country and they are also responsible for a lot of overseas movie sales we can’t really alienate them. And the one group who actually could be seen to deserve being the villain in a lot of situations, white people, is the group for the most part Hollywood is trying to sell it’s product to.
Who, then, to make the bad guy? Well, the answer is pretty obvious. Redneck hillbilly white trash. Poor in culture, hygiene, and tolerance of outsiders with a bent towards drunken violence and a tendency to own a lot of guns, they are the clear cut winner in the “What marginalized group can we ostracize without getting into trouble with the rest of them?” contest. The funny thing is, most white trash really don’t have that much of a problem with it. They kind of see things in movies and are for the most part cool with it in ways no other group would be. It’s a weird phenomenon. (Trailer park image courtesy of the funny t shirts category)
So, Straw Dogs. I know it’s yet another remake of a film shot in 1971 staring Dustin Hoffman, and a few of the reviews I saw try to compare the two, but I never saw the original and therefore will review this film on it’s own merits. I think the movie had issues from start to finish, the main one being I couldn’t figure out who to have sympathy with. In theory it was the protagonists, Hollywood script writer David Sumner (James Marsden – Cyclops from X-Men, Superman Returns) and actress wife Amy (Kate Bosworth – Superman Returns, 21, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton (?), the Warrior’s Way (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. I forgot she was in that one. God awful)). They are the outsiders coming into town and getting abused. However, he comes across as way too good for the locals and does everything in his power to alienate them, including bailing out of church service mid sermon in order to take a nap in his $100,000 car. It’s like he taped his own “Kick Me” sign on his back as he rolled into town. She is originally from the town, but does all she can to stir up trouble. I totally support a woman’s right to dress as she sees fit, but at some point you have to take reality into check. I don’t care where you are living, if you have a crew of men including your ex boyfriend working on your property try wearing something other than super short short shorts and a braless tank top, if only out of respect for them. She also manages to avoid visiting any of her old friends, which kind of pisses them off. In a way, you could have some sympathy for the local yokels who later attack them, headed by Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard – Zoolander, True Blood), as they really were just minding their hillbilly business, but then they turn out to be rapists. There is a developmentally challenged young man you could be sympathetic to, but then he actually commits the crime everyone was afraid he would (blatant rip off of Of Mice and Men). There is a young girl who you might care about, but she is obviously trying to create problems for the challenged guy. The guy I felt most sympathetic for was the local Sheriff (Laz Alonso – Avatar, Fast and Furious 2009, Jarhead) as he seemed to be trying to keep the peace in a really tough situation, but even he seemed to not want to really take any kind of stand. By the end of the movie it becomes apparent who you are supposed to be rooting for, but the murky nature of what was going on really drained a lot of my sympathy.
Anyway, this movie starts off with David Sumner and hot wife Amy coming to Blackwater, Mississippi. She spent most of her childhood trying to escape this backwater and really doesn’t want to come back, but he seems to think it would be a great place for him to work on his script about Stalingrad (absolutely no foreshadowing there. I guess subtlety is not director Rod Lurie’s strong point). Also, he must think forcing your wife to relive childhood trauma is good for a relationship. Anyway, her father passed on and they are going to live in his old place. The barn was damaged by Katrina and he hires Charlie and his crew of white trash stereotypes to rebuild it. Turns out Charlie was Amy’s ex boyfriend, something 30 seconds of conversation might have established before offering him the job. Charlie and crew do the whole creepy eye thing with Amy, which bugs her at first but then, after a fight with David, encourages by undressing in front of an open window. She and her husband bumble about town alienating the locals. Eventually they have to fire the crew.
I’ll say that up until here I was with the movie. Seemed a little annoying, but solidly in the 3-5 star range for me. Then, while most of the work crew take David in a snipe hunt (if you don’t know what that is Google it) we get to the horrific, graphic multiple rape scene. I am pretty sure this scene was part of the 1971 version and kept in for artistic integrity, but it really threw the whole film off the rails and into a deep canyon. The scene itself was eye gougingly, skin crawlingly creepy and awful as possible. The worst part was the progression. At first it looks like it could happen, but you keep thinking, “OK, David’s going to come home and interrupt, or the guy is going to feel like he made his point and cut out.” But no, it keeps progressing to it’s as bad as you can imaging ending. Then, another guy comes in for anther one. Sorry, but as I mentioned yesterday in my Drive review violence against women is something that I do not abide, and rape is so disgusting an act that it makes me ashamed to be at all associated with men capable of that, even genetically. Then, to make matters worse, Amy does the rape victim thing and does not report it to anyone, not even her husband.
Other stuff happens. The very predictable sub plot of the developmentally challenged kid comes to fruition. David and Amy end up besieged in their house by Charlie and his crew. Stuff blows up. David uses a lot of ingenuity to shoot, burn, nail, and at one point bear trap the hated white trash foe. The end.
The stars. Good acting from the entire cast. One star. The dialog and screenplay was well written. One star. Filming and editing was really good. Some of the hunting scenes were really well shot. One star. Kate Bosworth was looking really hot (although given what happened to her character I feel dirty saying so). One star. In spite of Hollywood’s attempt to demonize them, I find Southern culture and accents charming. Everyone is so polite. One star. Total: five stars.
The black holes. Horrible, graphic rape scene (come on guys. We weren’t making the Accused here. I’m going to have to play a lot of video games to wash those images out of my brain). Four black holes. Every interaction David and Amy had with locals had an obvious “We are going to kick your ass” undertone that neither of them seemed capable of perceiving. One black hole for stupidity. The last 20 minutes of violence, while entertaining (and, to be honest, cathartic), took on a Wile E Coyote slapstick comedy note that was not really in tune with the rest of the movie. One black hole. The whole not sure who to be sympathetic to thing. One black hole. And one more black hole for exploiting every southern white trash stereotype possible. Total: Eight black holes.
So a total of three black holes, a pretty bad score. Unfortunately the actors did a better job than this, and if the writers had tightened things up a bit and done something different with one scene it probably would have scored in the stars region. It was kind of entertaining if you can ignore a couple things. See it on your TV, as most of the film work does not require a big screen to see it.
Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu for laughs and annoying questions. I’m going to try to see something tonight or tomorrow. Maybe I’ll suffer through that Bucky Larson fiasco. Should be fun to review.
Movie reveiw: Our Idiot Brother
Not as idiotic as I thought it would be
I’m not saying this movie is great. It is not a milestone in road of cinema history. It is not even a cobblestone. On the other hand, it’s not a washed out bridge either. I think the best way to describe this film is with “in-” words. Inoffensive. Pleasantly innocuous. This movie is like watching two dogs play in a park. Fun to watch, but except for a warm, pleasant feeling you won’t gain a lot from it. It sets out to make you feel good, and accomplishes that goal.
I’ll say this has been a lesson for me in the “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover” vein, although in this case it’s you can’t judge a movie by it’s poster. I never saw a trailer but when I saw the poster said to myself “There is no way this cannot suck”. I really thought this was another load of excrement dumped into the sewer of bad rated R comedies I have been drowning in all summer. Wrong. It was really not bad. I left the theater feeling OK about the universe.
Not that the movie doesn’t have it’s faults, which I will get into shortly in excruciating detail. I also have a couple of personal issues with the premise, the first being that I have moments of absolute contempt for the whole hippy movement. I grew 
up in the 80’s, and there was very little that annoyed me more than aging hippies telling me how great the free love was back in the 60’s and 70’s. Sorry, but I couldn’t even talk to a girl without tripping on my tongue back then and the whole free love thing had been replaced by leg warmers and big hair. Listening to some long haired smelly old pot head drone on about it is the equivalent of a rich man going to a Greyhound station and telling everyone how great it is to live in a mansion. Screw you, hippy! (South Park image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
The other thing about this movie is I have two sisters, and have been called the idiot brother myself. That being said, I don’t think my interaction was ever this weird with my sisters.
Anyway, the movie. Ned (Paul Rudd, who until now has mostly had supporting roles in movies like Knocked Up, the 40 Year Old Virgin, and Dinner for Schmucks) is a Jesus looking smelly (I assume. None that I have known were renowned for their hygiene) hippy who gets busted for selling pot to a uniformed cop. This sounds like the dumbest move ever, and actually threw up a warning flag for me early on, but as you get to know Ned you kind of get where he was coming from. Anyway, he spends eight months in jail and comes out to find that his girlfriend is kicking him out and keeping his dog, Willie Nelson. I mention this because the dog is pretty much the only motivation Ned has to do anything during the entirety of the film. Anyway, he heads into New York city to couch surf with his three dysfunctional sisters: a bitchy, bossy high strung magazine writer (Elizabeth Banks-the 40 Year Old Virgin, Spiderman), a bisexual girl with no apparent job who can’t control her libido (Zooey (Zoo-ey? How do you pronounce that?) Deschanel-Almost Famous, Your Highness, a bunch of other stuff I never heard of), and a downtrodden housewife married to a complete lame, pretentious intelligentsia filmmaker who is working on making some dumb documentary and raising the wimpiest kid in human history (Emily Mortimer-Shutter Island, Lars and the Real Girl, 30 Rock, and a bunch of other movies I never heard of. Her husband is Steve Coogan, from Tropic Thunder and the horrible Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief) who also can’t control his libido (relationship betrayal is something of a theme for this movie). Anyway, Ned is a loose cannon in all of their lives, seemingly wrecking them all, but the truth is he is more exposing the hypocrisy they all had riding under the surface. He didn’t cause any of the people with relationships to get into cheating situation. Just exposed it all. Throughout the film he bumbles along with a faith in people and an innocent belief that if you trust each other you won’t get burned. It is kind of annoying at first but by the end I was kind of buying into the vibe (time to go download some Grateful Dead songs, I guess).
Anyway, sibling hijinks ensues. All three sisters have their lives turned upside down and then somehow set back upright again. Ned gets his dog back.
The stars. I felt kind of good watching this movie. I can’t put my finger on why, but I left with a warm feeling in my cold, dark heart. Two stars. All the acting was really good. One star. The dialog felt like brothers and sisters arguing. One star. All the sisters were pretty easy on the eyes, especially Elizabeth Banks, and they had a bunch of other hot sophisticated New York women, particularly my future wife Janet Montgomery (the casting person obviously shared my preferences, as there was not a blond to be seen). One star. There was a supporting hippy character that was actually really funny, and his sisters lesbian girlfriend was pretty cool too (Rashida Jones, whom I fell in love with in the Office). Also his parole officer was cool and added to the film. One star. The dog was really a cool looking dog (a beautiful Golden Retriever). One star. They didn’t try to shove a love story into the film for Ned. One star. Ned’s nephew was in training by is overprotective parents to be a victim for life but kind of turned out cool. One star. Overall a pleasant movie going experience. Two stars. Total: eleven stars.
The black holes. Hippies. One black hole. The love interest for the bitchy magazine sister kind of bugged me. One black hole. The three sisters, in spite of having completely different lives, were kind of interchangeable to the point that I had to struggle to keep track of which one was which. The only one that stood out was the housewife, and that was only because she was the only non-brunette. One black hole. While Ned’s innocence and trust was refreshing, I found myself wanting to reach into the movie and shake him for being such a dope. One black hole. The filmmaker character kind of bugged me too. He was sleazy from the get go and gave the film a greasy feeling every time he was on screen, to it’s detriment (greasy film? Me so funny!). One black hole. Total: five black holes.
Total of six stars, a great score for a Rated R comedy. I was honestly surprised at how much I enjoyed the experience, and this film is a candidate for best feel good film of the year when I get around to doing my end of the year awards (probably some time in June, given how I keep up on these things). Definitely worth watching, definitely a good date film. It won’t stick in your brain and you won’t be quoting it, however. Nothing in this requires a big screen, so if you want to wait for NetFlix that is cool. Thanks again, and don’t forget to sign up for the RSS feed and follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu. Talk to you soon.
Movie Review: Colombiana
Luc Besson sequels the Professional by making Kill Bill.
OK, I was sold on this movie by the trailer. I guess I am a sucker for slick media campaigns (by the way, have you seen the new Slim Jim commercials? I have been eating those things by the bushel). As I gain experience in the movie review world I am learning to watch out for certain things, and movies that are released in late August generally seem to be the wimpy kids that are picked last for softball in grade school (something I know a good amount about). Was this movie bad? Not especially. Was it good? Not especially. It had some good elements, but overall seemed a little confused and disjointed. I think “meh” best describes it.
After seeing the movie last night I was kind of perplexed as to the origin and did a little research. Apparently this was supposed to be the sequel to the Professional and Luc wrote it with adult Natalie Portman in mind. After she passed he rewrote it with a South American back story stapled to the front end and ran with it. It did star another unrequited love of my life, Zoe Saldana, which was a big plus (I fell in love with her as a big blue alien in Avatar. Yes, I am one of those guys).
What is the real problem with this film? Well, it has several, including the fact that Luc Besson was “inspired” by about 2o different movies, but the real issue with this film can be summed up in one rating: PG-13. This movie really should have gone hard core for an R rating, and not just so I could see some gratuitous nudity on the screen. The combat seemed tame and disconnected, which aggravated the incredulity the audience has to constantly fight when watching a 90 pound girl beat the hell out of dozens of fully grown and extremely well armed men (sorry, ladies. I am sure there are any number of martial arts trained women out there who could beat the hell out of me. I just have a hard time believing Zoe Saldana has the upper body strength to pull herself out of a wrestling hold with a dude. Hate me if you have to). I’m not saying I can’t suspend my disbelief enough to make it work. I’m just saying in order for me to believe it I actually need to see the violence and gore in a realistic, R rated manner. Also, a little gratuitous nudity would not have hurt.
By the way, I thought at first Colombiana was the female form of Colombian in Spanish, but a little research shows that it is actually a term for black people living in Colombia. Not the most racially sensitive term I have heard used for a movie title, and I am reasonably sure a little research might show it is kind of derogatory. Not that Luc Besson is known for being PC.
Anyway, the movie. A young Colombian girl (Amandla Stenberg) has her parents killed in some kind of drug deal gone bad. She has some kind of data chip (this is 1992. Were they making mini disks the size of dimes back then?) her father gave her that has details of the bad guy’s never defined business. We see yet ANOTHER parkour chase scene through a South American hillside city slum (it really, really, really looks like Rio de Janeiro, in spite of the fact that is is supposed to be in Colombia) where an eight year old girl managed to give about 20 armed men the slip and also has the strength to lift a manhole cover from the inside (I know this is petty, but I am going to give them a black hole for this. I happen to know from personal experience that manhole covers start at 300 pounds and go up from there, and are really hard for a grown man to lift from the inside (please don’t ask me how I know this). This little girl lifts one like it was made of Styrofoam (it probably was). Can movie makers not respect their audience on any level, please?). Anyway, she uses the disk to get a ticket to American from the CIA, where she gives her handler the slip and travels to Chicago to hook up with her uncle, who in a blatant example of bad parenting decisions agrees to train her as an assassin. Skip forward 15 years and she is now a professional killer who uses her sex appeal, appearance, and lithe form to get into places others can’t. She is on a personal revenge kick after the Don who killed her parents, but does contract jobs for her uncle (he is also some kind of ill defined crime lord. How do these people make money, besides from murder for hire?). Somehow he is cool with her killing for money from all of his clients but freaks out when he finds out she is killing the people who killed her family (see what I mean about disjointed).
Anyway, a bunch of minor characters and sub plots, including an FBI investigation and some kind of CIA cover up, are introduced and go nowhere. Soft core explosive hijinks ensues. Henchmen die in droves. The part time love interest manages to completely screw up the girl’s life and more or less is forgiven in spite of directly causing the deaths of pretty much all of her friends and relatives. Other movies are blatantly plagiarized. More stuff blows up. The end.
The stars. Zoe Saldana, and while it was a PG-13 the director (Olivier Megaton??? No joke, he took this name because he was born on the 20th anniversary of atomic bombing of Hiroshima. What an a-hole. I wonder if he knows Megatron. Rising Sun image courtesy of the political t shirts category) took every single opportunity to show as much kid safe skin as possible. A scene doesn’t go by without Zoe running around in panties and bra, or skin tight body suit. Let’s just say wherever they were shooting this flick must have been cold. One star. One thing Luc Besson can do is write action scenes, even if they are really derivative of a bunch of other movies and a little hard to believe. One star. Revenge movie. One star. Somewhat exciting. One star. Lots of guns and explosives. One star. The opening hit, where she has to sneak into the Bakersfield police station (I’ve been to Bakersfield many times, and the police there are far less incompetent than this film makes them out to be. They also have a reputation in the Central Valley as being quick on the trigger, so take it from me, don’t mess with them) is actually really cool in a sneaky crime sort of way. One star. Filming was reasonably competent, and the running chase scene from early on (as lame is it was from a logical point of view) was well executed. One star. Total: seven stars.
Now the black holes. PG-13 when it should have been R. One black hole. Acting start to finish was flat and uninspired. One black hole. Little girl lifting manhole cover. One black hole. Subplots and minor characters that add nothing and go nowhere. One black hole. A really dumb scene where the little girl’s uncle pulls a gun out and shoots up a passing random car on a busy street in order to make a point to the girl, then sits there for about half an hour lecturing her before walking away with no consequences whatsoever (pretty much a rip off of the scene of Natalie Portman shooting out the window in the Professional, although I can’t call it plagiarism as Luc Besson wrote that too. I guess he really likes his own writing). One black hole. Every time they added a scene where they tried to inject some kind of emotion it was awkward and too brief and simplistic. Basically brought whatever momentum the movie had a that point to a crashing halt. One black hole. For someone who has worked for 15 years to kill a specific man, the girl kind of left his final death in the hands of fate. No real backup plan for any of her hijinks, but I guess that is typical Luc Besson. One black hole. While the gun fight scenes were pretty well shot and reasonably coherent, the one really big melee fight scene devolved into a million 1-1.5 second edits. I hate that fight scene style. Gives me a headache and no idea of who is doing what to whom. It pretty much says either the fight coordinator sucked (or didn’t exist) or the actors involved lacked the basic martial arts skills to reasonably execute more than one punch or kick in a row. One black hole. Story was overly complicated in a dumb way. A complicated story is good if the complications enhance the story and add depth. This was just complicated for complications sake, and really dragged down the story. One black hole. Total: eight black holes.
In the irksome category, I have some issues with the father. If you are going to confront your crime boss and you think there is a reasonable chance he will want to kill you and your whole family, would you not take the precaution of maybe having your wife and daughter somewhere other than where the bad guy knows they are? I’m just saying. If you are planning on leaving the country anyway (this was implied) and are about to have it out with the big man, maybe have your daughter and wife on a flight that leaves an hour before your meeting. Also, if time is a factor maybe tell your daughter how much you love her and give her the family medallion in the car while you are bugging the hell out of town, not while the bad guys are incoming. You know, just thinking out loud here. Also, they painted every American law enforcement person as kind of cowardly when confronted with a hot chick who threatens their family and life. It must be a French thing (Megat(r)on is French too) to try to constantly show Americans as incompetent, corrupt, and cowardly. Seems I can remember a certain European country surrendering pretty damn quick during a big war a few decades ago. Also, didn’t you get your butts kicked by Mexico on the 5th of May? I’m just saying.
I really didn’t want to see this movie end up in the black hole region, but try as I might I couldn’t find another star to give them. Even a couple of the ones I gave them smacked of pity stars. I like Zoe Saldana a lot and want to see her succeed, and feel gratitude for Luc Besson for the Professional (Taken wasn’t bad, either) and would like to see him do well, but I can’t really find another good thing about this movie. It’s not really bad, and you can get some excitement from it. Some of the action sequences are pretty good, although the best scenes are of Zoe sneaking around Splinter Cell style. It just doesn’t coalesce into a really good film. See it if you are really into Zoe and/or Luc Besson, but maybe wait until NetFlix.
The Harry Potter marathon continues: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
What a crock! Just when I was starting to like Dumbledore and think he was more than a manipulative, conniving old fool who got a thrill out of seeing young people risk their lives on stupid stuff he has to go and take a nose dive off a tower and die of kinetic energy poisoning. It’s really kind of unfair. Part of the reason I was starting to like him was in this and the last movie he more or less showed what kind of kick ass wizard he was. Now it’s nothing but kids.
This movie was good as the rest, but I am really starting to feel the lack of knowledge not having read the books is handicapping me with. The first few stories managed to avoid that, but as the whole story progresses it gets more and more complex and it is pretty obvious now that the series really is for the people who read the books. I think the biggest part of my confusion has to do with all the girls. Somehow in this movie they managed to introduce between 3 and 8 girls who all more or less look the same, talk the same, have the same dialog writer, and are so interchangeable that I can’t tell which one is which and how they got involved in the first place. Was the girl who helped Harry hide the book Wealey’s sister, or the one with the love potion? How did she even know about the book or know that Harry had to hide it? Could she have been the one who tried to kill Dumbledore with the necklace? Why is it the only girl who looks at all distinctive (blond hair, super pale) is the local space case who can’t be counted on to deliver any dialog that isn’t surreal? It’s actually kind of infuriating. Weasley was dating a girl early on and then seemed to dump her when they found out he was under some kind of love potion, but it also seemed to be implied that there were two different girls.
I also think it worth noting that this movie doesn’t really seem to make any pretense of racial diversity. At least in the last one you had the two cute Indian girls and a couple of black people. In this one, except for the super hot waitress at the start of the film (Elarica Gallacher) it was a sea of whitebread. Even all the villains were pretty white. Not sure what that implies or says, but aside from the socio political ramifications it helped make keeping all the characters except Ron, Hermione, Harry, and Draco apart really, really difficult. They all seemed to blur into a sea of blandness.
Anyway, the movie was pretty good, and I have to say I am totally hooked and want to see how this thing ends. I will also say that while watching this film I had a sudden flash of insight about what may or may not be the big surprise at the end of the series. I won’t say it now, as some of you may have not seen the last one and also, if I am wrong I can just never mention my insight again to avoid embarrassment. If I am right, however, I hope you all remember this when I claim credit for being a super genius.
Once again I am force to point out that Harry and his Mystery Gang failed miserably to figure out who the bad guy was, and only found out when he revealed himself. I am actually really disappointed it was Professor Snape. That just seems really obvious and simple minded. It’s like having the bad cowboy always wearing the black hat. The really interesting twist would have been if the Death Eater turned out to be Professor McGonagall. From what I hear J.K. Rowling creates quite the diverse and descriptive world in her novel, but so far she hasn’t really shown that she understands what subtlety or plot twists really are.
I am going to boil it down for Harry and his crew for the next movie. If you want to figure out who the villain currently is, ask the following questions:
1. Is the person associated with House Slytherin in any way?
2. Is the person the current instructor of Defense Against Dark Magic?
If the answer to either of these questions is yes, the whip your your wand and blast him or her where they stand. They might as well rename the position the “Professor of Kill Harry Potter” (Curses Foiled Again image courtesy of the novelty t shirt category).
As always, this movie has inspired some other annoying, specific questions.
First off, I have to go back to Quidditch again. As far as I can tell, Hogwarts has one Quidditch field, yet with four houses has four Quidditch teams. When they were showing the tryouts for the Gryffindor team it seemed like they had the field to themselves. I have been on several athletic teams in my life (football, wrestling, and rowing) and in each case we practiced a minimum of five days a week for 3-4 hours a day, after class. Do the Hogwarts teams only practice 1-2 days a week? There are only so many hours of daylight after class in which they could actually do anything, so how to the teams practice? If they all practice at the same time wouldn’t that more or less make it impossible to develop new strategies without the other teams finding out? A Quidditch field looks pretty crowded with just two teams on it. Wouldn’t having four teams plus alternates on the field more or less make for mass confusion and/or mid air collisions?
Second, when I was in high school chemistry we would play with some dangerous stuff (acid, etc) but nothing that would do more than give you a horrible, disfiguring burn. How, then, can the new Potions Professor ask these 15 year old kids to make something called “Liquid Death” (I think) that he says “One drop could kill us all”? That’s like asking a high school chemistry class to make up some nerve gas. It’s pretty much guaranteed one of those kids is going to screw up and spill the stuff all over the place. Even if it wasn’t pure enough to kill the whole class it still sounds really dangerous. I think OSHA might have a few words to say about the lack of gloves and masks going on in that room. Also, what idiot thinks that 15 year kids are emotionally stable enough to be trusted with the knowledge to create a WMD in class and not use it? I can tell you that at age 15 if I had had the knowledge all it would have taken was one more wedgie to see me dumping in the school water supply. Maybe British kids are better adjusted, but judging by what is going on in London right now, I wouldn’t bet on it.
Third, while the whole movie really tries to make out Draco Malfoy as a young villain, I have to say I have nothing but sympathy for him. Sure, he as some serious issues getting on with fellow students, but he is obviously a very troubled boy. He is ambitious but constantly having his achievements and abilities superseded by Harry, who seems to succeed without really trying. His father looks like a Wraith from Stargate Atlantis and just turned Death Eater, after infecting him with all kinds of class and racial prejudice. He is kind of being alienated by most of the rest of Hogwarts. He is a member of the most evil house in the school. He doesn’t apparently have anything even remotely resembling fun in his life. Is it any wonder he is a member of the Trench Coat Mafia? Honestly, it seems that a caring and alert school official or instructor might have seen trouble coming with that one and perhaps tried to intervene in a positive manner rather than teach him how to make death potions. Is there no one who can spot a desperate cry for help? I’m probably just bitter because I had a laundry list of problems in high school that secretly I always hoped someone would notice, but no one did. Draco Malfoy, I hope you end this series in a positive place, but given J.K. Rowlings sledgehammer approach to story crafting I doubt it.
Fourth, while I understand the theory behind the concept of a boarding school, the fact is these kids are spending nine months out of the year away from their family. Ron seems OK as his brothers and sister are around, and Harry can’t get away from his aunt and uncle fast enough, but Hermione seems to imply she has a loving home of Muggle dentists somewhere in the world. No one sees a problem with the fact that parents never come to visit, or the kids go home on weekends once in a while to reaffirm their family ties? Sounds like a recipe for future sociopathy.
Finally, I’m a little confused as to when Ron became the Hogwarts sex symbol. As far as I can tell, he’s a mediocre wizard, not terribly witty or charming, doesn’t appear overly burdened with good looks, and not the brightest bulb on the tree. His only talent lies in being a Quidditch goalie. Why does he have every girl after him? I do gain some satisfaction in seeing Hermione interested in him, but I see that as more an offshoot of their long time friendship than anything else. I do hope that romance continues.
That’s pretty much it. My cousin just moved back to Oakland and is dragging me to see Tree of Life tonight, so expect a review for that one tomorrow. I have no idea what it is about, except possibly living and/or a tree of some kind. I’ll watch the next Harry Potter tomorrow, and then see the Deadly Hollows part 2 at the theater. Bye for now.
Movie Review: The Change Up
Baby Excrement Jokes-a-go-go
So I did watch this last night, and realized something important about seeing movies you really don’t want to see: you don’t really mind getting a crappy seat. I was right up front, and while that played out painfully at certain overly visual moments during the film, really didn’t care much. It wasn’t like I was seeing this for the visuals.
So this movie. Was it bad? Yes. Did it have good moments? Some. The problem was it really shifted back and forth without warning. It kind of felt like you were driving down the freeway when all of a sudden you accidentally shift your car into reverse, tearing out the transmission and more or less ruining the trip, except it was happening every ten minutes. You would actually be enjoying a funny scene and then, like wearing a dog shock collar controlled by an insane schizophrenic, you are suddenly subjected to an image or concept so jarring and and disconcerting that you feel like you were physically assaulted. The earliest and most jarring one was when daddy got woken up at 3am by his twin babies. You see the kids and they are cute, if noisy. You are kind of into the heartwarming daddy scene and then all of a sudden he takes off the diaper and you are looking at (no joke) excrement covered baby taint. I know there are some lowlife degenerate perverts for whom this is awesome (and honestly, they should set up a camera in each theater and just arrest anyone who doesn’t cringe), but for most humans this is god awful. Then, as if that weren’t enough of a punch in the balls, the other baby starts puckering his anus (again, I wish I were joking, but I’m not) and literally excretes into daddy’s face and mouth.
You know, I like to think I am kind of normal, but I really have a major problem with human excrement. I don’t want to see it, smell it, or in any way deal with it outside of the limits that I have to as a human being. However, if this passes for normal humor and is not disturbing to the majority of movie goers than I am some kind of super freak. I would be OK with that if this were the case.
This actually brings me to my major issue with this film, and an ugly trend I am seeing in current movies. I know that, thanks to the Hangover, rated R romantic comedies are all the rage, but I am seeing more and more of what can only be described as trying too hard. It’s like in 5th grade when you finally get comfortably saying the F word, so you end up saying it as often as possible to prove to your friends how grown up you are. This movie does everything possible to stay R and more or less almost pushes the X border, honestly to it’s detriment. I am a fan of gratuitous nudity, but they explored every creepy possibility. The occasional F bomb can be used to enhance dialogue when it flows naturally, but when you try to jam it into every sentence like trying to fit eight people into a Prius. It just gets awkward and really stupid. Some prime examples of this over the top effort to stay R rated include but are not limited to: multiple excrement jokes, a soft core porn scene (literally) with an aged porn star with breasts so fake they might as well had Goodyear stamped on them, a naked pregnant women, and multiple discussions of topics best relegated to the dregs of the internet. Really, guys. Rated R is one thing, but completely classless is another. Crude humor in a sophisticated film loses impact and just turns into 11 year old kids saying the F word in the most awkward manner possible.
(Hangover Baby Carlos image courtesy of the funny t shirt category)
Also, this film lived up to my every expectation regarding Ryan Reynolds and his inability to play any character other than Van Wilder. If you have seen him in any other movie he has done in his career than you have more or less seen this film.
Sigh. The movie. Van Wilder and Super Dad are childhood friends. Van Wilder is a slacker actor who gets into soft core porn. Super Dad is a high paid lawyer with three kids and a pretty hot wife. They go out drinking and end up wishing for each others life while pissing into a magical fountain (God, this actually hurts to type). They switch bodies and have to spend the rest of the film not screwing up each others lives. The story grinds out in a horribly predicable manner: Van Wilder learns to be more responsible and not such a flake, and Super Dad learns to relax a little and not be such a workaholic. They both dance around doing stuff they normally couldn’t do but back off before doing anything that could be considered really life altering. The magic fountain was moved and they spent a lot of time looking for it, only to find out it was relocated into a busy mall, where they have to urinate in public (did I also mention that they both have to whip out their penises and urinate in front of a group of Girl Scouts? This movie is like a sexual predator training film).
The stars. Some fun moments here and there. One star. In a weird twist, I kind of got more into the sub plot of Super Dad trying to negotiate a major company merger than the actual main story. Maybe I was secretly hoping it would turn into Wall Street or some other film that didn’t involved scatological humor. One star. In another weird twist, I was far more engaged and interested in the two female supporting characters than the main guys. They seemed much more three dimensional and interesting. One star. That’s pretty much it. Three lousy stars.
Now the black holes. Where to begin? I could give one for every time the movie went from tolerable to claw-your-own-face-off bad, but that would add up to like 150. I will give it three, with one bonus black hole for the baby excrement scene. Four total. The movie pretty much undoes all the good work that Megan’s Law has done. Two black holes. One black hole for the fact that I spent most of the movie trying to figure out who was who between the two guys. You would think with only two characters switching it would be easy, but the two characters are so two dimensional that I honestly had to think about which of the two was saying what. One black hole. Literally none of the nude scenes were in any way appealing, and more or less made for some really painful to watch visuals. They not only made me ashamed to me a man, but ashamed to be human. Two black holes. Way, way, way too much foul language. One black hole. Yet more of the whole “negative behavior without any negative consequences” I have been railing against ever since my review of the Hangover Part 2. Baby licking an electrical outlet and sticking it’s hand in a moving blender? Saying things to a female coworker that should get you and your company sued? Exposing yourself in public in front of kids and befouling a public fountain, also frequented by kids? No way should any of these result in some kind of consequence to pay. One black hole. Van Wilder rides again. One black hole. Total: twelve black holes.
So a grand total of nine black holes, a truly terrible score. Not quite as bad as the other Ryan Reynolds film I have dumped on recently (Green Lantern, with 10 black holes), but really close. Please, please don’t see this movie. If it tanks maybe someone will get a clue and put some thought into the next rated R rom com instead of just vomiting all over a script. I suppose some argument could be made for the whole “bromance” aspect of this movie, but that is like saying that your chemotherapy is saving you a fortune in haircuts. Ironically, the R rating will really hurt this film at the box office, as the only people who should actually enjoy this film are too young to see it. Or maybe in a coma.
The Harry Potter Marathon continues: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
OK, the biggest thing I have learned so far from seeing two of these movies is that they are freaking long. I am going to have to revise my estimate of how long it is going to take me to get through all these. Secondly, they aren’t as annoying as I first thought they would be. Some issues, of course, but no more than 90% of the other movies I have reviewed. They are indeed enough to keep me engaged.
By the way, I recently made friends with some people who do Goth costumes, and since Goths are a kind of nerd I have to appreciate what they do. It occurred to me as I wrote this that you could use their Goth costumes to make a pretty spifffy Voldemort outfit with relative ease. They also seem to have a good selection of Steampunk, which as you should know appeals to me a lot (Steampunk Goth image courtesy of the funny t shirt category).
So it is year 2 and Harry is still dealing with his abusive uncle, who seems immune to all kinds of child abuse laws. Seems last time I checked locking a kid in a room and preventing them from attending school was pretty illegal, but maybe they have different laws in England (I kind of doubt it). He needs his friends to bust him out so he can go back to school. If I were one of Harry’s friends I would have to advise him to not return after the school year and possible hang out at a Motel 6 somewhere, but I predict the next movie will start off with Harry trying to escape his families clutches again. Anyway, again I am not going to get into the whole story, but just run over my impressions, ideas, and questions.
First off, I found out I completely spelled quidditch wrong the other day. Thank you for the zero loyal readers who corrected me on it. My issues with the game rules remain, although I found out that in the books there are games that can last years. However, remember that I refuse to base any of this on the books I have not read. The movie should stand alone.
Second, I will say they are really miking the PG cow by having all the the basilisks victims become paralyzed in spite of the extremely deadly nature of it’s gaze, at least according to the movie. How many devices can they come up with to make his gaze slightly less dangerous? I will say I liked the whole Thomas Riddle/Voldemort plot thread. Nice twist IMO. However, there is definitely a pattern so far of suspecting someone of being the bad guy only to find by the end of the movie it was someone entirely different. Very Scooby Doo-like, except that the Scooby Doo gang more or less catches the bad guy eventually and so far Harry Potter and his crew generally has the villain reveal himself in a classic villain monologue. If Thomas Riddle hadn’t bothered to reveal himself to Harry he could have had the girl take the blame entirely and kept manipulating things for years. However, it seems that villains feel an ego based need to have their cleverness acknowledged by the heroes they plan to kill in a couple minutes, and Voldemort is apparently no exception.
I know I mentioned this before, but why is it Harry is the only person willing to say Voldemort’s name? In his own way he is even less powerful in this movie than the last, and saying his name does not seem to be making him manifest. Just an aside.
If Harry can talk to snakes, why does he have an owl as a familiar? He should be like the snake king. He kind of looks like this kid I went to grade school with named Brian, who was the local weird reptile kid. He had all kinds of snates and lizards. Also, talking to snakes seems like a pretty obscure talent, and even the others who know about it admit it’s extremely rare. Why, then, does it have specific name and everyone except Harry know everything about it? Also, snakes aren’t really known for large brain capacity. Seems like they wouldn’t have much to say except for “Hisssss” and “I want to eat you”. I put that talent on the same level as the fact that I am double joined in my left thumb. Interesting, but usually pretty worthless. However, I suspect the author will find a way to crowbar in something useful for Harry to do with it in every film.
Anyway, that’s pretty much it. Most of my major questions were asked in the last one. I am going to get going as I have a yoga class to attend. By the way, last night at my friends movie night we saw Let Me In. Really great vampire movie. Talk to you tomorrow.
