Movie Review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem 

Directed by Jeff Rowe

Written by Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg, Jeff Rowe, Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit 

Starring Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Hannibal Burress, Rose Byrne, Nicolas Cantu, John Cena, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jackie Chan, Ice Cube, Post Malone

Release Date August 2nd, 2023 

Published August 6th, 2023 

I watched the 1990 live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles recently for a review timed to the release of the latest attempt to rebuild the Turtles as a viable movie franchise. What I found was a movie that I absolutely loved. I was too old when Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was released in 1990, I was 14 and I thought it was for much younger kids. Look back now, with the wisdom of more than 30 years, I can say, yes, it is a product for young children, younger than 14 even, but it's a wonderful product. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 is a ridiculously fun movie. It's filled with wonderful invention and kid friendly action. 

Everything that came after that movie, not counting the television shows that I've never seen, has been a dreary slog. Each new film iteration of the Turtles has carried with it the very obvious burden of corporate exploitation. Each of the various filmmakers who tackled the franchise appeared to be doing so with a studio held gun to their head that dictated exactly how the movie should be geared toward selling merchandise and creating sequels was the only reason these movies existed. Thus, we got a series of joyless, unpleasant live action and animated attempts to leverage a popular I.P into a cash making machine. 

I say all of this to demonstrate the bias that the latest iteration of the Turtles on the big screen was up against in my mind. To say that I was cynical about seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the big screen again would be a grave understatement. What a lovely surprise it is then to report that the newest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles adventure, subtitled Mutant Mayhem, doesn't completely suck. In fact, it's actually pretty alright. The team of Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg and director-co-writer, Jeff Rowe have found a tone and spirit that does well to hide the high level corporately leveraged truth behind its creation. 

Mutant Mayhem is yet another Turtles origin story. We have the back story courtesy of a flashback to the origin of our antagonist, a fellow mutant named Superfly. Superfly was the creation of mad scientist Baxter Stockman. Baxter created the ooze but was killed not long after by an evil organization who wanted to steal his ooze and use it to create their own mutant army. A very young Superfly fought off the baddies, rescued his fellow mutant babies, and fled into the night. He left behind one last tube of ooze which breaks and drips into the sewer. There, it finds the Turtles who are rescued by Splinter (Jackie Chan) who gets into the ooze himself. 

Splinter is rightfully afraid of humans. His first time taking his turtle babies to the surface world nearly ends with them being killed. Thus, Splinter becomes deeply overprotective. He spends the next decade training his Turtles, Leonardo (Nicolas Cantu), Donatello (Micah Abbey), Michaelangelo (Shamon Brown Jr.) and Raphael (Brady Noon), to fight. Using old, abandoned VHS tapes, Splinter trains his Turtles to be able to defend themselves against humans. As the Turtles grow up into their mid-teens however, they've only become more and more curious about humans. They wonder if humans arent't as bad as Splinter claims. 

Read my full length review at Geeks.Media

Movie Review Insidious The Red Door

Insidious The Red Door (2023) 

Directed by Patrick Wilson

Written by Scott Teems 

Starring Patrick Wilson, Ty Simpkins, Sinclair Daniel, Rose Byne, Lin Shaye 

Release Date July 7th, 2023 

Published July 7th, 2023 

The key to the Insidious franchise is the wildly brilliant mind of writer-director Leigh Whannell. His consistently terrifying and inventive work on each of the Insidious films, co-writing and directing the first two and providing the screenplay for Insidious The Last Key, are proof that he's one of the modern auteurs of the horror genre. Thus when I saw that he'd neither directed nor provided the screenplay for the latest Insidious movie, Insidious The Red Door, I was immediately skeptical. My skepticism peaked further when it was announced that star Patrick Wilson would be making his directorial debut with Insidious The Red Door. 

That's not intended as a negative judgment of Wilson's work before I had seen it, rather just a manifestation of my overall skepticism of an Insidious sequel without the direct influence of the franchises creator and steward. Whannell does make a cameo in Insidious The Red Door, but his presence behind the camera and the keyboard becomes notable as the film goes on. Insidious The Red Door is lacking the essential ingredients of an Insidious movie, those that Whannell's fertile, creative, and slightly disturbing mind had always provided. 

In his directorial debut, Patrick Wilson also stars in Insidious The Red Door, reprising his role as Joshua Lambert. As a child, Joshua discovered that he could travel into a nether-realm called The Further. There he would be menaced by demons who would attempt to steal his body to return themselves to the real world. Joshua's mother, played by Barbara Hershey, was able to rescue her son with the help of a psychic medium named Elise Rainer (Lin Shaye). Through Elise, Joshua was made to forget his ability to travel into The Further. 

Cut to many years later, Josh is married to Renai (Rose Byrne), and they have three kids including their oldest, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), who has been exhibiting some odd behavior. When Dalton ends up in a coma, his grandmother recognizes what is happening and is forced to confront Joshua's past. She once again calls on Elise to save her family. The solution to the problems was supposed to be once again hypnotizing Josh and also Dalton, so that they forget about The Further. Naturally, this won't be enough to keep their memories at bay for long and that's where the story of Insidious The Red Door kicks in. 

We are nearly a decade in the future from when Dalton and Joshua were hypnotized into forgetting The Further and both, father and son, are having strange dreams and fuzzy memories. For Josh, the decade since the hypnosis he's struggled with daily tasks and has become a shell of his former self. Things are so bad that he and Renai have separated and Joshua has become distant from his three kids, including Dalton who is now getting ready to leave for college. Since Joshua and Dalton rarely talk, Joshua volunteers to drive Dalton to his new college. This only serves to further the rift between father and son. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Insidious Chapter 2

Insidious Chapter 2 (2013) 

Directed by James Wan 

Written by Leigh Whannell 

Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Leigh Whannell, Ty Simpkins 

Release Date September 13th, 2023 

Published July 8th, 2023 

The first Insidious Chapter was an impressively creepy movie for a PG-13 rated horror movie. The film achieved a solid atmosphere and via tremendous production design, makeup and practical effects, the film became a smash hit. And it deserved to be a hit, James Wan and Leigh Whannell had managed to create a wholly original horror movie at a time when franchises and familiar I.P remakes were the norm in Hollywood. It was a no-brainer that there would be an Insidious sequel but what no one could expect is how much of an improvement the sequel would be over the terrific original. 

Insidious Chapter 2 picks up in the wake of the shock death of Lin Shaye's iconic and immediately beloved, Elise Rainer. The Lamber family is now living with Lorraine Lambert (Barbara Hershey), Josh's mom, in the wake of the horrors that led to their son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), spending a year trapped in another realm called The Further. Josh (Patrick Wilson) had managed to save his son from this other realm but, as observed by Renai (Rose Byrne), Josh did not come back the same man he was. Instead, an unsteady, often volatile Josh stalks their home, only occasionally showing off the qualities that she loves about him. 

The plot of Insidious Chapter 2 kicks into gear quickly with Lorraine realizing that her son is not the man she knows. Knowing something is very wrong, Lorraine seeks out Elise's team, Specks (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson), who are now at Elise's home. They've found a key piece of evidence that shows Josh may be trapped in The Further. With Elise gone, they need a new medium and Lorraine calls on another old friend, Carl (Steve Coulter), the man who initially connected Lorraine with Elise when Josh was a child and traveling dangerously into the further. 

Via Carl we get the backstory of the person who has been stalking Josh all his life, The Black Bride, a vicious and very dangerous serial murderer. Is the Black Bride the entity who has possessed Josh? How will they find their way into The Further to find out? And how will Elise come back to help? These questions have solid answers that build brilliantly on what you already know from Insidious Chapter 1. Watching Insidious Chapter 2 it appears quite clear that James Wan and Leigh Whannell had a plan for a sequel all along as moments from the first film provide a perfect foundation for what we get in Chapter 2. 

It's almost like a fun little game, recalling things that happened in Insidious Chapter 1 and seeing how they happened via Insidious Chapter 2. The seamless integration of the two films gives a little kick to the proceedings of Chapter 2. For me, auteurs are filmmakers for whom details matter. Meticulousness is a strong trait among our best film storytellers and James Wan, along with Leigh Whannell, are an auteurist team who care deeply about the minutia of their storytelling. They recognize the joy that can from having lore and how discovering lore can bond and audience with a story. 

The Insidious movies are thick with lore but not so dense that they become incomprehensible to new audiences. It's a delicate balance, but one that Wan and Whannell achieve via studious attention to details that audiences can choose to follow closely or simply experience on a per thrill basis. You can either actively involve yourself in Insidious or simply enjoy the horror movie ride of the Insidious films without taking note of the layered and extensive lore. For me, I love the lore, I adore the attention to detail and the care with which the filmmakers take to build a community around the Insidious films. 

I also love, love, love the work of Lin Shaye. It was clear in the original Insidious that she was the star of the movie and perhaps the biggest failure of Insidious Chapter 1 was not pivoting away from her ending in that movie. Shaye was the breakout character and the filmmakers recognized that going foward when they bring her back here in Chapter 2 and go back to her in subsequent features, minus Wan but with Whannell firmly shaping the lore. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review Knowing

Knowing (2009)

Directed by Alex Proyas 

Written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden, Stiles White 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Liam Hemsworth, Ben Mendelsohn

Release Date March 20th, 2009

Published March 20th, 2009 

I feel I may owe Nicholas Cage a modest apology. In rereading a few past reviews of his films I find that I have spent an inordinate amount of time commenting on his hair. In my defense, Cage's hair has seemed like a separate entity all its own in many of Cage's films. That receding, patchy fro from in Adaptation, the wild out of control hairline from Bangkok Dangerous, and the utterly criminal use of extensions and plugs in various Cage efforts. The man's hair is often as memorable as the movie he's in.

That said, Cage's personal appearance is a matter for his stylist not a review of the quality of the film he is in. Of course, makeup and hair are departments on a film set. Awards are given for great designs in both fields. When you think about it; actresses are constantly judged by their looks in movies whether consciously or otherwise.

Why should Nic Cage be excused? Why should he have a separate standard? Just because he has chosen to look so utterly bizarre on screen I as a critic of film am supposed to pretend I don't notice? How is that at all fair? You know what? Modest apology rescinded. In Knowing, Nicholas Cage's unyieldingly bizarre hairline comes second to the bizarre plotting of director Alex Proyas in a biblio-scientific melodrama about the end of existence.

Knowing stars Nicholas Cage as an MIT professor whose son brings home a piece of paper that had been buried underground for 50 years. The long ago students at his son's primary school buried the time capsules filled with their visions of the future some 50 years ago. When it was opened and his son was given a particular drawing from the capsule, all it had on it was a series of numbers.

Bored and slightly drunk, Cage begins examining the numbers and thinks he sees a pattern. The number 091101 2388 happens to correspond to the date of the World Trade Center attack and the number of people who died that day. Further investigation finds that most of the numbers are also dated and the number dead in every tragedy for the past 50 years.

Worse yet are numbers that correspond to future dates including several in the near future. The idea of determinism vs randomness has been the professor's field for a very long time and his conflict is well founded until he begins trying to alter the future and finds nothing but futility. Rose Byrne plays the daughter of the woman who wrote the numbers 50 years earlier. She now has a daughter who, like her grandmother, is hearing strange voices and numbered warnings. Strangely, Cage's son is also hearing these warnings and eventually unconsciously scribbling numbered warnings.

Director Alex Proyas is a master of this kind of supernatural oddity. His Dark City and The Crow are underrated epics of the macabre and dangerous. Head trips into the souls of people whose souls are questionable at best. Unfortunately, with Knowing he has found his M. Night Shyamalan-The Happening moment.

Ok, Knowing isn't nearly the abomination that The Happening was, but in the context of the two filmmakers, the parallel of the visionary artist finding his absolute nadir, the comparison is apt. Proyas's commitment to the absolute oddity of tone and utter lack of interest in crafting a competent narrative perfectly mirrors Shyamalan's unbelievable commitment to his bizarre meta-environmental parable.

Knowing's milieu is the kind of end of the world prophecy that the religious right oriented Left Behind movies have cultivated for years. Except, replace god with aliens. Yes, ET is somehow woven into this plot along with theology, numerology, Cosmology and even cosmetology as once again Cage's follicles cry out for attention as they hold on for dear life at that place he wishes were his real hairline.

As goofball plots go, Knowing is a doozy of goofball elements from aliens to car chases to the end of the world to moments of family reunion hokum. Director Proyas throws a whole hell of a lot of stuff at the screen. Not much sticks. There is an almost joy in the film's heedlessness of convention and willingness to be so earnestly cheeseball. The appreciation fades however in the final hockey moments.

Knowing is a disaster for director Proyas and yet another bizarre signpost in the career of Nicholas Cage. Add Knowing to Bangkok Dangerous to Next to The Wicker Man and you actually begin to see a pattern of complete disregard for convention that makes Knowing seem perfectly logical for Cage, even as it is a disaster for director, co-stars, producers and subsequent audience.

Movie Review Insidious

Insidious (2011) 

Directed by James Wan 

Written by Leigh Whannell

Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye 

Release Date April 1st, 2011

Published April 1st, 2011

The creators of "Saw" and "Paranormal Activity" have come together to create a PG-13 creep-fest that doesn't lose anything for its lack of gore and swear words. "Insidious" stars Rose Byrne as Renai and Patrick Wilson as her husband Josh. Together they have three kids and a brand new dream home.

Dream home becomes a nightmare

Unfortunately, that dream home quickly turns into a nightmare when Renai and Josh's son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) explores the house he ends up falling off a ladder. Soon after, Dalton falls into a coma and that's when things get weird. Dalton's doctor informs mom and dad that their son has no physical trauma from his fall and there is no medical reasoning for his coma.

Dalton is taken home and for a few months he simply seems to sleep. That's when the haunting begins. First, the whole family is taunted by some entity that sets off their security system. Then Renai begins seeing figures walking around the house. Finally the family is forced out of the house, assuming that it is the house that is haunted. I will stop the direct plot description there.

There's something about Elise

The fun of "Insidious" really begins after the family moves into their new home and the ghosts move with them and Lin Shaye, best remembered as the overly suntanned neighbor of Cameron Diaz in "There's Something About Mary" joins the cast as Elise, a psychic, paranormalist and expert in something called 'Astral Projection.' Shaye's performance is arguably the most entertaining in the film as she is both oddly sunny and believably strange.

Elise with her team, including "Insidious" screenwriter Lee Whannell, informs the family that Dalton is not in a coma. What's wrong with Dalton is one of the many fun secrets of "Insidious" that I will not spoil. Director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell prove with "Insidious" that they don't need the torture implements of the "Saw" films to earn screams from the audience.

If you thought Tiny Tim was creepy before...

In "Insidious" Wan and Whannell use clever imagery to get the big scares. Watch the windows; in nearly every window frame in "Insidious" there is a frightening glimpse of something creepy. Wan and Whannell don't stop at pictures however and when the spooks and demons begin coming into the room things get really creepy. Wan and Whannell even turn Tiny Tim's ukulele anthem "Tiptoe through the Tulips" into an eerie set piece.

"Insidious" is a smart combination of Wan and Whannell's talent for fright imagery with the concept of the "Paranormal Activity" movies with their endless numbers of cameras, doors that shut by themselves and ghastly ghostly possessions. It's a surprisingly good mix that somehow works even with the restrictive PG-13 rating.

Movie Review Instant Family

Instant Family (2018) 

Directed by Sean Anders 

Written by John Morris, Sean Anders

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, Isabela Merced, Margo Martindale, Octavia Spencer 

Release Date November 16th, 2018 

Published November 17th, 2018 

I have struggled genuinely with how I feel about the comedy Instant Family starring Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne. This family comedy about a childless couple who decides to become foster parents to three orphan siblings is at times maddeningly, cringe-inducingly hard to watch. Characters occasionally drift into an area of being inhumanly silly. And yet, at the end of the movie, the uplifting message kind of works, to the point where I teared up. 

Did I tear up because the movie is that effective or because Instant Family is based on a true story and is, in many ways, a commercial for a charity of the same name, Instant Family, that works to unite orphaned kids and foster parents? I deeply admire the message of Instant Family and the few human moments that the movie gets right, it gets very right but did the movie cheat? Or is it actually good? 

Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne star in Instant Family as Pete and Ellie. Pete and Ellie own their own house flipping business where he handles the carpentry and she handles the design. Their lives are perfect but they’ve been so busy with business, they’ve neglected the notion of family. With Ellie’s sister Kim (Allyn Rachel) and her husband, Russ (Tom Segura), talking about having kids, it gets Pete and Ellie thinking about it. 

Both Pete and Ellie agree that they don’t want to be old parents, that they are passed the idea of having a baby. They are however, the right age for a 5 to 8 year old kid and thus adoption enters the equation. After Pete looks at a website of kids in foster care he is overwhelmed by the cuteness and the two enroll in an 8 week course to determine their fitness to be parents. Comedian Tig Notaro and Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer are the heads of the adoption agency. 

After several bad comedy scenes of Pete and Ellie and a group of colorful but not too colorful extras failing and succeeding at the basic necessities of being parents, the couples are ready to choose their kids. For Pete and Ellie, they fall for Lizzy (Izabella Moner), a teenager who they feel pity for because no one even talks to kids Lizzy’s age about adoption, she’s 15. Lizzy has more reasons why she’s been hard to place, she has two younger siblings, Juan (Gustavo Quiroz) and Lita (Julianna Gamiz). 

Challenged by the adoption agents, Pete and Ellie decide to take a big swing and agree to become foster parents to all three kids. Now the question becomes, can they actually handle having an instant family? And what about the kids’ mom, a former alcoholic who is just out of prison and in a program in hopes of perhaps getting her kids back? Will the forced drama ever cease and allow the movie to have a genuine moment. 

Instant Family was co-written and directed by Sean Anders whose taste for low brow humor and gag focused nonsense, led to the creation of terrible movies such as That’s My Boy, Sex Drive and Daddy’s Home 1 & 2. I recognize that some people like the Daddy’s Home movies, but I do not and by extension, I really don’t care for Instant Family either. I was wondering throughout why the shrill, awkward, and unfunny gags of Instant Family felt so familiar, then I looked at the director’s resume. 

Anders has a hard time trying to bring a real moment to the screen. He’s so focused on terrible jokes that he loses track of trying to tell actual stories with relatable characters. His taste for broad and crude caricatures sinks what little good there is about Instant Family. Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne, and co-stars Margo Martindale, as Wahlberg’s mom, Tig Notaro and Octavia Spencer, appear to be trying to get to the heart of his material but the director and the script keep interrupting with nonsense. 

There is a running gag in Instant Family where the son, Juan, keeps getting hurt. It’s never funny but it just keeps happening where he’s hit in the face with any sporting equipment nearby, he steps in broken glass, he gets a nail in his foot. Why would anyone think this is a funny running gag for a child in a movie? Especially a child in foster care who may or may not have a history of abuse? 

There are occasional moments where the characters are allowed to be real but they are drowned out by moments of shrill hysterics such as a dinner scene that begins with a minor disagreement and ends with the kitchen table on fire and Wahlberg trying to put out the fire with ketchup. That sounds much funnier than it plays in the movie. In the movie it’s a lot of yelling and chaos and zero laughs. 

So why did I cry at the end of Instant Family? Because the film ends on a genuine note with Lizzy realizing that her new parents do really love her and her brother and sister and then the film cuts to a picture of the real family the movie is based on. And then it’s a montage of photos of families that the charity Instant Family has united over the years. You’d have to be some kind of soulless monster not to be moved by these photos. 

Does that mean the movie succeeds? No, it’s definitely cheating, even if it is cheating for a good cause. The movie is mostly bad but it does have its heart in the right place. I don’t recommend it as a movie but I do recommend Instant Family as a charity. It’s nice that Hollywood was kind enough to make a 100 plus minute commercial for Instant Family but that doesn’t mean the movie is worth your time. 

Instead, why don’t you google Instant Family Charity and look at the pictures of newly united families. You will have a far more moving experience without having to have this movie shout shrill gags in your ear for nearly two hours. 

Movie Review: 28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later (2007) 

Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo

Written by Rowan Joffe

Starring Robert Carlyle, Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Imogen Poots, Idris Elba 

Release Date May 11th, 2007

Published May 10th, 2007 

There is something horribly insidious about the creeping terror of modern horror. A creeping lack of hope and humanity. Directors like Eli Roth revel in it. Movies like Roth\'s Hostel and soon Hostel 2, Rob Zombie\'s Devil\ 's Rejects, Greg McLean\'s Wolf Creek or Alexandre Aja\'s High Tension, exist to profit from the exhibition of this newfound lack of hope and humanity.

Some have theorized a political motivation. A reaction maybe to the Bush administration\'s leadership that has bred a hopelessness for the future. He has made us less secure with his policies and this has led to hopelessness expressed as artful horror violence. I think this kind of intellectual leap of faith gives these filmmakers far too much credit.

The real fact is that these filmmakers thrive financially from out grossing, literally and figuratively, their predecessors and the lack of humanity is merely an extension of the directors, producers and studios, avarice.

The latest exhibition of this avarice comes in the sequel to the cult hit 28 Days Later. 28 Weeks Later is an ugly, hopeless exhibition of humanity at it's lowest point. While some critics perform the intellectual gymnastics necessary to find politics in this horror, all I see is the kind of lack of humanity that simply does not belong in mainstream cinema.

Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later is a grotesque exercise in grisly violence. Robert Carlisle is the ostensible star of this mess as a father who is reunited with his children following what the American military believes is the end of the viral outbreak that devastated much of England. 28 weeks earlier the so called rage virus turned citizens into blood thirty zombies. Now the infected citizens are assumed to have all died and life is being restored to the continent.

Don (Carlisle) was one of the lucky ones. While he hid out in a farmhouse with his wife and a few other survivors, his children were safe on a trip to America. Now that he is reunited with his daughter Tammy (Imogen Poots) and his son Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton), he has some explaining to do as to what happened to their mother.

Turns out, mom didn't die at the hands of the infected. She, in fact, is of a rare breed of human who is resistant to the rage virus. When she is discovered and brought to the Americans for testing, a scientist, Scarlet (Rose Byrne), uncovers the possibility that her children may also be resistent and thus able to provide a cure for the virus.

That sounds like a hopeful plot but as played out by director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later is just a grim exercise in Hollywood cannibalism and the lowest aspects of humanity. Where Danny Boyle\'s original 28 Days Later had a visceral artistic quality, 28 Weeks Later attempts to leech some of the viscerality of the original but fails miserably, falling back on the mere exhibitiion of the ugliest forms of violence.

This ugliness would be excusable if there were a point to it. Give us something to hang on to, a good performance, a charismatic character, or even a shred of artfulness. Unfortunately the whole effort is so slapdash that the only thing the film has to fall back on is the violence. The filmmakers simply throw a bunch of blood and guts at the screen and hope that no one notices how empty the whole thing is. Needless to say, they fail miserably.

The oppressive air of hopelessness hangs over 28 Weeks Later from the beginning and never lifts. The film lurches from piece of disturbing, bloody violence to the next. Some may argue that blood and guts violence is a hallmark of the horror genre and of course they are right. However, great horror movies have ideas behind them. The first Nightmare On Elm Street played on the fears expressed in our sub-conscious.

The Saw films deliver a complex examination of the meaning and importance of life. Jigsaw is unquestionably a villain and a psychopath but there is a deep method behind his madness. Teaching those that do not take care with the gift of life, how tenuous that gift can be is a rather deep message for your average mainstream horror film.

28 Weeks Later has some alleged political pretensions but god help me I couldn't locate them. The kind of intellectual gymnastics necessary to bring politics to bare on 28 Weeks Later are simply beyond my capacity. Instead, all I witnessed in 28 Weeks Later was the continual explication of the most vile and disturbing violence.

What was the purpose of this film? Is it meant to be entertaining? Titillating? Horrifying? If someone is entertained by this that worries me. It takes a pretty twisted mind to find this level of viscera entertaining. The same goes for those who may be titillated by this. Horrifying? Not really. The film is supposed to be tense and breathtaking but as directed the story is so hopeless and the characters so thin, what tension there is can only be wrung from the cheap plot device of children in danger.

And even the cheap trick child in danger plot fails to hold us because you never for a moment feel that director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo would have a hard time killing children in this movie.

I don\'t understand the purpose of a film like 28 Weeks Later. Hopeless, ugly, mean spirited, 28 Weeks Later appeals only to the darkest parts of the human mind. What entertainment is to be gleaned from watching human beings tear one another limb from limb? What are we supposed to take away from the oppressive hopelessness of this plot?

Movies like this and Hostel and Devil\ 's Rejects, et al, revel in the worst of humanity, the ugliness of the world recycled onto the film screen without any purpose. Can someone please explain why?

Movie Review Marie Antoinette

Marie Antoinette (2006) 

Directed by Sophia Coppola

Written by Sophia Coppola

Starring Kirsten Dunst, Jason Schwartzman, Judy Davis, Rip Torn, Rose Byrne, Asia Argento 

Release Date October 20th, 2006

Published November 19th, 2006 

It is very quiet.  Austrian Archduchess, Marie Antoinette (Kirsten Dunst), aged 15, has just been betrothed to Louis XVI (Jason Schwartzman), the future king on France.  Throughout the long trip from Austria to France, there is an odd expression on everyone’s face.  It’s as if the air itself is uncomfortable.  As the French court awaits Marie Antoinette’s arrival, they putter around amidst the leaves and talk amongst themselves about nothing at all.  They all seem to be thinking something to themselves.  Judging from the same puzzled expressions on the moviegoers’ faces at the screening of Sofia Coppola’s MARIE ANTOINETTE I attended, I think they might be thinking how strange the entire scenario seems.  

Everything feels a little bit slow, a little too quiet and mostly out of place.  It is too early to give up on the film at this point.  After all, this is Coppola’s follow-up to the haunting, offbeat LOST IN TRANSLATION.  We are in good hands.  This uneasiness must be in step with what Marie Antoinette is going through.  Once she finds her footing, I’m sure she will break out of her shell and show these French folk how to live freely and the film will follow.  Well, Marie Antoinette, the person, gets the hang of it but sadly, MARIE ANTOINETTE, the movie, never does.  It remains hollow and aimless, leaving me wondering how Coppola could have been happy with it.

Coppola took a decidedly different and brave approach to chronicling the woman who became the queen of France at age 19.  She cast American actors in French roles and did not have them speak French or even with an accent.  She boosts the soundtrack with 80’s new wave music instead of music of the period.  The choices are meant to highlight the lonely plight of Marie Antoinette, to show that her emotional journey is timeless.  

Only Dunst shows hardly any emotion in the title role so there is nothing to take away.  She can handle isolated and she can party with the best of them but she doesn’t show any turmoil or inner-conflict.  It doesn’t help that Coppola’s script features naturalistic dialogue either.  People rattle on about nonsense and gossip but rarely ever say anything of note to each other.  Perhaps this is what Coppola had intended to show but meaningless conversation needs to give insight into a character’s mind at the very least.  Here, all the minds are empty.

If it weren’t for the fashion and the food (and the fortune that must have been spent on making everything look so lavish), there would be nothing at all to focus on.  For such famous historical figures, very little actually seems to happen to them.  For what seems like half the movie, the entire plot focuses on how Louis won’t have sex with Marie Antoinette.  It is certainly a pressing matter as an heir has to be produced in order to validate their marriage.  If it is not consummated, it may even be annulled.  

When the “great work” was finally done, Marie Antoinette is elated but there is no explanation as to why it was so difficult to begin with nor does it seem like it became any more frequent afterwards.  Her brother had a chat with the future king and that supposedly did the trick.  There is no mention as to what that chat was about so your guess is as good as mine as to what finally turned him on.  

Historically, Marie Antoinette became the scapegoat for France’s increasing deficit.  Whereas the majority of France’s money had been sunk into the 7 Years’ War and aiding the Americans in their struggle for independence from England, the masses pointed their fingers at Marie Antoinette’s frivolous spending.  She went from an adored queen to being chased from her palace.  The build that led to that change must have been tumultuous but Coppola leaves history at the door while very little happens inside.  By the time the mob shows up to drive her and the king out, it feels more like a device than a moment in time.

I can see why the French booed at Cannes.  MARIE ANTOINETTE is a calculated project that was troubled since its conception (Coppola abandoned it during the script writing process to create LOST IN TRANSLATION because she wasn’t sure how to make it work).  The deliberate disregard for historical accuracy may have been valiant to start but finished feeling labored.  Coppola’s previous works relied on emotion more so than dialogue to get under the skin of the viewer.  

Their success announced great promise for MARIE ANTOINETTE but Coppola lost her edge somewhere among the hundreds of pairs of Minolo Blahniks custom made for the film.  A lesser director would not have taken such an ambitious approach to this story.  A lesser director would have made a film far worse than this one.  May MARIE ANTOINETTE be but a misstep along the path of a brilliant career.

Movie Review: Wicker Park

Wicker Park (2004) 

Directed by Paul McGuigan

Written by Brandon Boyce 

Starring Josh Hartnett, Rose Byrne, Matthew Lillard, Diane Kruger 

Release Date September 3rd, 2004 

September 2nd, 2004 

When Josh Hartnett starred in Jerry Bruckheimer’s awful blockbuster Pearl Harbor, his next-big-thing status was just hitting its stride. Then, his first solo starring gig, 40 Days and 40 Nights tanked. Then his shot at action stardom opposite Harrison Ford in Hollywood Homicide also failed. Suddenly the next big thing was next to nothing.

That may explain why the film Wicker Park, a once highly buzzed about remake of a French movie called L’Appartement, ended up in the September waste bin. It is quite a shame that MGM has chosen to give up on this film because it’s really not that bad.

A plot description for Wicker Park is a bit of a minefield. There are a number of important twists and turns that are better left unmentioned. What can I tell you without giving anything away? Well, Josh Hartnett stars as Matthew, a dour young ad exec who has just moved back to his old Chicago neighborhood, the artist enclave Wicker Park. Two years earlier Matthew moved to New York to escape the memories of a lost love.

Her name was Lisa (Diane Kruger) and it seemed like they would be together forever. Then out of the blue, right after he asked her to move in with him, she vanished. No note, no phone call, no explanation whatsoever. Despondent, he took the gig in New York and disappeared himself.

Now back in Chicago, Matt has reconnected with his old friend Lucas (Matthew Lillard), thanks to a chance meeting on the street while Lucas was leaving lunch with his girl, Alex. Alex has a mysterious connection to Matt that is one of the film’s more intriguing plot points. Later, as Matt is having dinner with his new fiancé Rebecca (Jessica Pare), he thinks that he saw Lisa leaving the restaurant, a sight that sends him into a tailspin and effects everyone he knows.

Director Paul McGuigan and writer Brandon Boyce, adapting the original French screenplay by Gilles Mimouni, have crafted a dense, often confusing story of lost love, manipulation and heartbreak. Step away from the movie at the end and you realize that this twist filled story has a rather thin plot. The film uses many flashbacks, often covering the same scene more than once. This use of flashbacks tends to confuse the film’s timeline and leave the audience playing catch-up.

However, as confusing as this film can be it’s also surprisingly engaging. Hartnett in particular does a tremendous job of drawing in the audience, gaining our sympathy and delivering in the big emotional moments. He is well matched with Kruger (whose face launched a thousand ships in Troy) with whom he has a terrific chemistry. Matthew Lillard is quite a surprise in a strong supporting role in which he drops his usual obnoxious posing in favor of real acting.

Lillard does not spark with Rose Byrne’s Alex but he’s not necessarily supposed to. Alex is the most complicated character in the film and also the most difficult to describe without giving something away. I can say that Byrne, who had a walk on in Troy with Diane Kruger, does what she can with this difficult role. If she did not succeed it’s likely because of how the character is written as opposed to her performance.

McGuigan, whose previous film was the underrated The Reckoning, does a fantastic job of disguising this paper-thin plot. His film style evokes a Eurpoean aesthetic, a likely nod to the film’s French roots. From its color palettes to its somber mood, it is very easy to imagine Wicker Park set in the classic French traditions of sidewalk cafes and disaffected artists. The script includes a quick nod to the Italian master Fellini, who also knew a little something about making the most of a thin plot.

Wicker Park is a stylish, well-acted romantic drama the likes of which we rarely see anymore. Yes, the plot is thin and becomes quite obviously so after you leave the theater but the good in Wicker Park far outweighs the bad. What makes it work is Hartnett in what could have been a comeback performance if MGM hadn’t decided to give up on it. What a shame to have your career best performance in a film so few people will see.

Movie Review: X-Men First Class

X-Men First Class 

Directed by Matthew Vaughn 

Written by Matthew Vaughn, Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, Jane Goldman 

Starring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne, Kevin Bacon, January Jones, 

Release Date June 1st, 2011 

Published May 29th, 2011 

It's not a reboot or a re-imagination. Nor is it a sequel. "X-Men: The First Class" is that rare breed known as the prequel, a recap of events set prior to a previous story. In this case fans of the 'X-Men' movies get to go back in time and see where Professor X and Magneto came from and why they developed into mortal enemies.

A Traumatic and Dramatic Childhood

"X-Men: The First Class" takes us back to 1942 and recalls for us, as previous 'X-Men' installments have, Erik Lehnsherr's torturous childhood in which he survived a Nazi death camp. We've seen what happened when his parents were torn away from him, 'The First Class' shows us what happened next and the traumatic experience that created the monster Magneto.

Meanwhile, also in 1942, a young Charles Xavier, tucked safely away in his parents' upstate New York palace, begins to discover his talent for reading minds. It's a trick that comes in handy when a burglar somehow invades the home pretending to be Charles's mother. The intruder is actually a young mutant named Raven but we will come to know her as the assassin Mystique.

Erik Lehnsherr Nazi Hunter

Cut to 20 years later, Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is a Nazi hunter torturing and killing his way up a list of Nazis on the run on his way to his long time tormenter, Dr. Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon.) Naturally, his search leads to Argentina, often thought of as a haven for ex-Nazis, and a scene for the former "Inglorious Basterd" Fassbender that evokes a little violent, Tarentino nostalgia, with the gore dialed down just a tad.

Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and his adopted sister Raven (Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence) are together at Oxford when Charles is approached by a CIA Agent named Moira (Rose Byrne) who accidentally stumbled across Dr. Shaw and his assistant, a telepath named Emma Frost (January Jones), plotting the start of World War 3 and a worldwide nuclear annihilation that only mutants could survive.

A Nod to the Faithful Fanboys

It would take far too long to detail what comes next with the discovery other mutants and their powers and the founding of the first X-Men team and to be honest, none of the young mutants is remotely as interesting as Professor X, Mystique or Magneto. This is their origin story and it doesn't help that of the other mutants in 'First Class' only Beast plays a role in the sequels and that is only a minor role.

The main flaw of "X-Men: The First Class" is too many characters and not enough interesting things to do with them. Director Matthew Vaughn in a nod of faithfulness to X-Men comic book fans, I'm guessing, has kept these peripheral young mutants in the story because they were part of the first troop of X-Men in the comic but the reality of the movie is, these kids only seem to get in the way of the action and bloat the film's run time to a butt-numbing two hours and 25 minutes.

Putting aside the film's flabbiness, there are enough effective scenes and compelling performances in X-Men: The First Class for me to recommend it. I mentioned earlier Fassbender's scene in Argentina, an effective and exciting bit of violence. Also excellent is the scene of Kevin Bacon's malevolent Dr. Shaw forcing young Erik to use his talent through torture and the astonishing aftermath of his cruelty.

McAvoy and Fassbender

Those and just about every scene between James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender elevate "X-Men: The First Class" above many other comic book movies. When these two exceptional actors stare each other down the air around them is charged, even during a friendly exchange. McAvoy's Professor X and Fassbender's Magneto are so perfectly matched that a whole movie of them talking to each other about revenge, morality and murder could be worth the price of a ticket.

I am recommending "X-Men: The First Class" for McAvoy and Fassbender and for the terrific atmosphere of early sixties paranoia and excitement created by director Matthew Vaughn. Yes, Vaughn should have been a little less faithful to the fanboys and spent a little more time in the editing bay but what he captured in the history of the 'X-Men' movie universe and in the relationship between McAvoy and Fassbender is really really terrific and highly compelling.

Movie Review Juliet Naked

Juliet Naked (2018) 

Directed by Jesse Peretz

Written by Tamara Jenkins, Jim Taylor, Evgenia Peretz

Starring Rose Byrne, Ethan Hawke, Chris O'Dowd 

Release Date August 17th, 2018 

Published October 15th, 2018 

Juliet, Naked stars Rose Byrne as Annie, a museum director in a small suburb of London. Annie’s life is growing a bit stale. Her job is boring, her sister is a mess, and her boyfriend, Duncan (Chris O’Dowd), is obsessed with a rock star named Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke) who disappeared into obscurity after making just one really successful record. For 25 years Duncan has collected and obsessed over scraps of information that he puts online at a website he made and dedicated to Tucker Crowe. 

At first, Duncan’s obsession was cute but after a few years of living together, Annie has grown tired of it and of Duncan. The plot kicks into gear when a mysterious package arrives at Annie and Duncan’s home. Annie finds it first and inside finds something called “Juliet, Naked.” Juliet was the name of Tucker Crowe’s only record and the ‘naked’ of this title refers to demo tracks of Tucker’s first record more than 25 years old. 

For an obsessed fan like Duncan, Juliet, Naked is like finding ancient religious scrolls or an authentic shroud of turin. It’s legitimately, to Duncan, an act of betrayal when Annie finds the CD and listens to it before he gets the chance. The betrayal deepens when Annie states that she finds the record insufferable and says so in a review that she posts on Duncan’s own website under an assumed name. 

Things take a turn for the surreal when the real Tucker Crowe reads Annie’s review and sends her an email telling her he agrees with her. Tucker has been a ghost for 25 years for a reason and part of it is how much he doesn’t like his own music. Tucker and Annie begin to correspond and as they grow closer, she and Duncan grow further apart until apart is all that they are able to be. With Duncan out of the way can Annie actually be in a relationship with the target of her ex’s obsession? 

Clever sounding premise aside, Juliet, Naked is one of the bigger disappointments of 2018 for me. I have been anticipating this movie since I heard about it. The film is based on a novel by Nick Hornby, my favorite writer whose books have inspired a couple of terrific movies, including an all time favorite of mine, High Fidelity starring John Cusack. I desperately wanted this movie to be great and sadly, it's only okay. 

What are the specific issues with Juliet, Naked? For starters, a complete lack of ambition. The movie is so elegiac, so lacking in vitality that it feels at times to be at a crawl. I don’t need this to have the pace of a Fast & Furious movie but the montage of Annie and Tucker’s email exchange is glacially paced even as it features very charming actors providing voiceovers for the scene. Even with Ethan Hawke and Rose Byrne, the scene is lifeless. 

And then there is the character of Tucker who is a complete disaster. Ethan Hawke plays Tucker as a sincere and forthright failure, a loser who has multiple kids by multiple mothers and lives off the residuals of his one big album, sleeping on a pull out bed at his ex’s farm so he can be close to his youngest son. That’s a lot of stuff to play as a character but Hawke doesn’t do much of anything with it. The film appears to rely solely on the charm of Hornby’s character to make Tucker interesting but somehow he appears stuck in the pages and not on the screen. 

The film reaches toward a moment of transcendence when Annie invites Duncan to come over and have dinner with her and Tucker at her home as a goodwill gesture. Duncan can hardly hold back on his fanboying and tells Tucker how much he loves his record and what it means to him. Tucker replies that he hates the record and the person he was when he made it. Duncan is wounded but defends himself and his love of Tucker’s record. It’s a good moment capped off by Duncan saying that art is not for the artist but for those who appreciate it before storming off. 

The film approaches something fascinating here about the relationship between artist and fan but director Jesse Peretz fumbles the moment slightly. Is Duncan a fool or are we meant to sympathize with his love of Tucker’s music? Is Tucker a jerk? Yeah, kind of. He’s kind of like those people who can’t graciously accept a compliment and instead come off as rude and unappreciative of genuine kindness. 

That could be a perfectly acceptable response on Tucker’s part but the way it plays in the moment makes both Duncan and Tucker look equal parts jerk and offender. We do find out why Tucker hates his own creation in the following scene but he really loses our sympathy in the previous scene and the rest feels like the character and the movie are making excuses for his rude behavior, excuses that don’t hold water. 

If Duncan is a buffoon then let him be a buffoon. Juliet, Naked takes such pains to be evenhanded about these characters that it lacks any perspective whatsoever and leaves a wishy washy impression of all three central characters. Director Jesse Peretz took a similarly even handed approach to his comedy Our Idiot Brother starring Paul Rudd to a similarly wishy washy effect. It’s as if he doesn’t want to offend anyone to a point of pointlessness and an aimless narrative. 

This is supposed to be Annie’s story and yet until the end of the movie, Annie is a mostly listless character. The world continually happens to Annie aside from when she posted her negative review of Tucker’s record. Everything that happens with her after that is dictated not by Annie but by everyone else. Rose Byrne is capable of carrying this story but the movie continually lets her down scene after listless scene. 

All of that said, Juliet, Naked is not a bad movie. It suffers from a conventionalism that is rampant in modern movies, an eagerness to not offend anyone or make anyone uncomfortable. Everybody is flawed and no one judges anyone and even when they do, they are justified in doing so. This is supposed to be akin to realism but in the sacrosanct world of romantic comedy, realism doesn’t translate. Pretty much all romance is hyper-realized or idealized because real romance is hard work and we don’t go to the movies for hard work. 

There is no hard work in Juliet, Naked. The filmmakers want both to be ‘realistic’ and exist in the idealized world or romantic comedy. The dissonance is maddening and leads to a movie that moves with little momentum, features idealized characters in a contrived narrative and yet the filmmakers want to play at being taken seriously because the problems these characters have, their flaws and how they work towards overcoming them have a whiff of the real. 

Perhaps it is possible to make a funny romantic comedy that is also based in something real and insightful but Juliet, Naked never bridges that divide. Instead, it’s a maddening, slow moving, not entirely terrible movie featuring some genuinely good actors and some genuinely good moments. There is a good movie here but it’s missing a director who knows how to get at what is good about it.

Movie Review Sunshine

Sunshine (2007)

Directed by Danny Boyle

Written by Alex Garland 

Starring Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity. Michelle Yeoh

Release Date July 20th, 2007

Published July 19th, 2007

Director Danny Boyle hasn't always been my favorite director. I am one of the rare critics who found Trainspotting tedious. 28 Days Later was an undeniably impressive move into the horror genre. But with the release of his minimalist family drama Millions, I joined the Danny Boyle fan club. That was such a wonderfully small film with such grand ambitions that it burst from the screen.

Now, with his latest film Sunshine, Boyle once again shows that there is no genre limitation to his work. Sunshine is an intellectual dissection of morals, instincts and the basics of human nature all couched in a sci fi landscape with a dash of old fashioned horror movie tossed in for good measure. It's great idea that unfortunately gets lost in space.

Sunshine stars Cillian Murphy as science officer named Capa. A keep his own council type, Capa is the outcast of an international space flight crew that includes Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada), Life support officer Corazon (Michelle Yeoh), Navigator Trey (Benedict Wong), chief mechanic Mace (Chris Evans), medical officer Searle (Cliff Curtis) and pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne.

This is the crew of Icarus 2, a crew charged with the modest task of saving the world. It's 2057 and the sun is dying. Soon the earth will be pitched into a permanent, lightless winter and all life will quickly die. The Icarus 2 project's goal is to kickstart the sun by precisely dropping a nuclear weapon, the size of Manhattan, into the center of the sun.

This is the earth's last best hope after the first Icarus project failed and was never heard from again. That is until Icarus 1 is heard from by Icarus 2. As the crew moved out of range of earth communications they found another signal in the middle of space. It's a several years old distress call from Icarus 1. Now the crew must decide whether to continue the mission as planned or to rendezvous with Icarus 1 to check for survivors.

The side trip would be beneficial to Icarus 2 which could take on a second nuclear payload and thus two chances to save the world. Also, Icarus 2 has suffered some damage on the way, so scavenging what they can from Icarus 1 could be a big help if the crew somehow manages a return flight home.

That is the surface area of Sunshine, a deep and disturbing idea from the fluid minds of the 28 Days Later team of director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland. Beneath the surface of this homage to Kubrick's 2001, is a terrific study in character and the effects of isolation on the brain. With a large and capable ensemble we witness unique human dynamics emerge and an intriguing study of people in confined spaces under intense pressure.

Interesting idea, but where do does the movie go from there? For Boyle and Garland the exercise in human endurance unfortunately devolves into a slasher plot involving the survivors of the original mission. Up until that plot emerges, and in minor moments thereafter, there are a number of really interesting and abstract  ideas in Sunshine.

Danny Boyle is a director highly skilled in crafting tense, character testing situations and filming them with precision. In Sunshine his skills take aim at a terrific ensemble cast and put them through a series of trials and tribulations that are eye catching and intense. Cliff Curtis is a standout as the medical officer who is drawn to the ship's observation deck for searing stares at the surface of the sun.

We don't truly understand his motivations but Searle's odd musings and matter of fact approach to his insane and painful sunlight obsession are quite intriguing. Also good is Michele Yeoh as the life support officer Corazon. In charge of the ship's oxygen garden, Corazon's cabin fever has bonded her to her plants as if they are her children. When an accident destroys most of the garden, it pushes Corazon to unexpected lengths. Her character is unexplored by the end of the second act but there is nevertheless some very fine work from the underrated Ms. Yeoh.

Sadly Rose Byrne, Troy Garrity and Chris Evans are, for the most part, cyphers. Portrayed as delicate, ignorant and determined in that order, each takes that one character trait and is able only to work that. Whether there wasn't enough screen time for each to go deeper in their character or if they just weren't that interesting and thus left on the cutting room floor, is undetermined. My guess would be the latter.

As for star Cillian Murphy, this is another strong performance from this peculiar performer. Murphy's odd physicality and palpable vulnerability give an interesting twist to his characters. These traits work especially well for Murphy when doing genre work as he did as the villain in the thriller Red Eye and as he does here in Sunshine. His uniqueness gives a different context to typical characters in typical movie situations.

Sunshine is an ambitious sci-fi epic that comes up just short of greatness. Bowing to commercial concerns, director Danny Boyle succumbs to the money men and abandons the idea driven elements of Sunshine in favor of 28 Days Later in space. This approach is no doubt more marketable but it's far less satisfying.

That said, there is enough good work, from the cinematography of Alwin Kuchler, to the terrific, for the most part, ensemble cast, to Boyle and Garland's many unfinished ideas, that I can give a partial recommendation to Sunshine.