Movie Review The Heartbreak Kid

The Heartbreak Kid (2007)

Directed by Peter and Bobby Farrelly 

Written by Peter Farrelly, Bobby Farrelly, Scot Armstrong, Leslie Dixon, Kevin Barnett

Starring Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman, Michelle Monaghan, Jerry Stiller, Rob Cordry, Danny McBride

Release Date October 5th, 2007 

Published October 4th, 2007 

Ben Stiller has the astonishing talent to remain as funny and likable in bad movies as he is in good movies. Night at the Museum, Meet The Fockers, Envy, all not so great movies and all movies where Stiller outshined the material provided to him. Stiller is once again in better than the movie mode in the Farrelly Brothers comedy The Heartbreak Kid. This sorta-romantic comedy, a remake of the 1972 Elaine may-Neil Simon teaming, has a terrific idea at its center and Stiller in fine form. Unfortunately directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly can't help but succumb to their worst instincts in a vain attempt to recapture past glory.

Eddie (Stiller) is 40 years old and never married. He was engaged for 5 years, but as we meet him in The Heartbreak Kid, he is attending his ex-fiance's wedding. Both Eddie's dad (Jerry Stiller) and his best pal Mac (Rob Corddry) give him no end of crap for not settling down when he had the chance. Thus when Eddie meets Lila (Malin Akerman) he rushes things a little bit.

Eddie and Lila fall into a relationship not long after he attempts to foil a bad guy who stole her purse. A whirlwind courtship leads to the hasty decision to get married and a disaster on the horizon. Taking their honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas, Eddie quickly realizes that Lila is a little off. She sings along with every song on the radio, she's horrible at math, and she's desperately in debt. She's also not very bright, thus why she is almost immediately laid up in the hotel room with a bad sunburn.

The time alone allows Eddie to meet Miranda (Michelle Monaghan), a beautiful women's lacrosse coach vacationing with her family. The two spark quickly and after spending a day together drinking and soaking in the local culture,  Eddie realizes he is in love. Now, he has to figure out a way to break it to Lila that they are not working out and make sure he has won Miranda's heart.

The set up for The Heartbreak Kid is solid, this is a terrific premise. Unfortunately, the Farrelly Brothers, back behind the camera for the first time since 2005's Fever Pitch, can't resist a return to their basest instincts. Fever Pitch was a sweet, good hearted romantic comedy that played straighter than any previous Farrelly's comedy. The Heartbreak Kid is a throwback to the less interesting Stuck On You, Shallow Hal, Me Myself and Irene days.

Those films distilled the essence of the Farrelly's oeuvre down to the lowest common denominator. Each has its moments, but for the most part each is a lesser and lesser version of the Farrelly's one true classic There's Something About Mary. The Heartbreak Kid is the palest imitation of all; featuring Stiller in the earnest, frustrated good guy role he played so well in Mary.

Sadly, The Heartbreak Kid fails to capture what made Mary such a great comedy. The combination of heart and humor in There's Something About Mary is a near perfect combination of good hearted romance and lowbrow, genitalia based humor. It's a combo nearly impossible to pull off and The Heartbreak Kid doesn't even come close.

Disgusting for the sake of being disgusting, slapstick for the sake of slapstick, The Heartbreak Kid constantly steps on the more interesting aspects of Eddie's romantic dilemma by dropping in unnecessarily crude humor. Do we really need Carlos Mencia as a porn loving, sex offending, hotel manager? Do we need Jerry Stiller grossing out everyone in earshot with his many horrifying sexual innuendos?

Did we need to see Ben Stiller getting peed on or a visual gag about women's privates that may be the lowest joke of any movie in 2007? I certainly don't think so. Not when Ben Stiller, Malin Akerman and Michelle Monaghan are doing such great work creating a comically tense love triangle. The crudity only serves to distract and get in the way.

Ben Stiller gets better and better each time out. In fact, Stiller has never seemed more comfortable onscreen as he does in The Heartbreak Kid. Granted, he's played the flustered good guy for more than a decade but really, you can finally see him losing his many tics and affectations and becoming comfortable being himself on screen. This newfound comfort only serves to turn this already funny actor into a more charming and interesting screen presence.

Stiller's work clearly has a good effect on co-star Malin Akerman who does much of the heavy lifting in the broad comic moments. Akerman is a great beauty who gives herself over to broad comedy in the most unexpected ways. Not everything about her performance works, but you have to respect her bravery and willingness to do anything that was asked of her.

Michelle Monaghan is the perfect romantic foil for Stiller. The two have tremendous chemistry and the romance between them was more than interesting enough to make The Heartbreak Kid work as a romantic comedy. It's unfortunate that Peter and Bobby Farrelly didn't trust their stars enough to back off, just a little, on the lowbrow stuff.

The potential is there for a terrific romantic comedy in The Heartbreak Kid. It's undone by writer-directors desperate for faded glory. Peter and Bobby Farrelly have seen diminishing returns on each of their films since There's Something About Mary. Only Fever Pitch betrayed an attitude that they really didn't care about mimicking their past success.

Reteaming with Ben Stiller however, the Farrelly's sensed an opportunity to regain their A-list status and went for broke trying to recreate something that just can't be captured a second time. Certainly not with such desperate pandering as that which breaks The Heartbreak Kid.

Movie Review: Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked

Alvin and the Chipmunks Chipwrecked (2011) 

Directed by Mike Mitchell

Written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn

Starring Jason Lee, Justin Long, David Cross, Jenny Slate, Anna Faris, Amy Poehler 

Release Date December 16th, 2011 

Published December 15th, 2011 

As a professional critic I know I shouldn't be biased against any movie but indeed I was biased against "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked." The first two "Alvin and the Chipmunks" big screen adventures are moronic and terrible movies that flashed pretty colors and loud music in order to distract children and parents into thinking they'd gotten their money's worth.

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" on the other hand has a richness and thoughtfulness that was lacking in the first two movies. In no way is 'Chipwrecked' a great movie but by the lowered bar of the first two films it's a "Citizen Kane" level effort.

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" opens on a cruise ship where a family vacation is, of course, upended by Alvin's hijinks. Dave (Jason Lee) makes the mistake of leaving Alvin alone in their state room and he leads a break out of the room that takes him to the casino and the Chipettes to the dance floor for a dance off against some Jersey Shore babes.

The ship scenes are very reminiscent of all the things wrong with the first two 'Alvin' movies and my heart sank for about 10 minutes until Alvin took flight on a kite with Simon, Theordore, Brittany, Eleanor, and Jeanette hanging on the tale end. The kite carries the chipmunks off of the cruise ship and off-course to a lost little island.

Dave gives chase after the kids on a hang glider and is joined by his music industry rival Ian (David Cross) who gets caught up attempting to stop Dave from going after the kids. Ian is now a mascot for the cruise line and spends most of the movie dressed as a giant pelican.

In my favorite part of "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" former SNL bit player and "Bored to Death" actress Jenny Slate plays Zoe, a castaway on the island. Slate's wacked out Zoe has a running gag about sports balls, ala Tom Hanks in "Cast Away," that somehow got a laugh from me every time the movie brought it back.

Will kids get a reference to "Cast Away?" Probably not; but the wacky bits that Slate does with the balls, including naming them, are expansive enough to get laughs no matter whether you get the reference. It's also nice to see the creators of 'Chipwrecked' throw moms and dads a bone.

"Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked" is not a great movie; it doesn't rise to the level of great family movies like "The Muppets" or "Rango," but the fact that the makers of 'Chipwrecked' worked hard enough to improve this awful series is admirable. Director Mike Mitchell could have coasted on the 'Alvin' brand name and he didn't and I appreciate that.

Unlike the first two films, there is the sense of an actual idea in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked." The movie aims to dialogue a little with kids about growing up and learning and earning responsibility. It's a little idea and it's not pursued with much depth but it's one more idea than existed in the first two movies combined.

Movie Review A Haunting in Connecticut

The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) 

Directed by Peter Cornwell 

Written by Adan Simon, Tim Metcalfe

Starring Virginia Madsen, Kyle Gallner, Martin Donovan, Amanda Crew, Elias Koteas 

Release Date March 27th, 2009 

Published March 26th, 2009 

Virginia Madsen is a very talented actress. This assertion on my part is well demonstrated in her Oscar nominated performance in Sideways. However, her name on a marquee inspires the kind of fuzzy, hazy, disconnected state that only Pink Floyd could properly describe. Place her name above the title The Haunting in Connecticut and the combination inspires the kind of yawn that can only be described as jaw breaking.

The Haunting in Connecticut is a movie that commits the cardinal sin of movies. It is not merely bad, it's boring. Not boring merely in the way that one could be doing better things with their time but boring in a way that one is subjected to. As if locked in a room with blank walls and no windows. Gene Siskel put it best 'This movie does not improve upon a blank screen viewed for the same length of time.'

Virginia Madsen is ostensibly the star of The Haunting in Connecticut though one might fairly claim ennui as the film's true marquee element. Madsen plays a country mom to a cancer-addled son, played by Kyle Gallner, who decides to move her family to a suburban home closer to the local hospital. Because the family is not rich she accepts the first home in their price range. This, despite the fact that the home used to be a working funeral home. Poverty is stronger than the darkly ironic, fate tempting idea of moving her dying son into what used to be a funeral parlor.

Dad (Martin Donovan) is forced to stay in the country for work reasons but the rest of the family is coming to the creepy new house. The rest of the family include a toe-headed little brother and a pair of female cousins whose living arrangements are somewhere in the exposition, likely during the onset of my movie-long malaise.

Of course it's not long before the ghosts begin tossing plates and the shrieking musical score begins trying to convince us that all of this is pretty scary. I remain unconvinced. Along the way we greet a few more unhappy clichés including conventional horror movie misdirection where people hear noises that they think are scary but are really cats or birds or relatives.

There is even a brief digression into the child in danger plot as the youngest children are briefly menaced by apparitions. This is thankfully brief but hey if you are going to fly by on cliché you may as well throw them all in there. Clichés at the very least are familiar and even distracting yet somehow even they come off as boring in this film. It's difficult to describe this level of boredom. Imagine Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller mode reading the instruction manual for a ford fiesta. Now take that down a notch and you can imagine something close to what I felt during The Haunting in Connecticut.

This is surprising considering the 'true story' the film is allegedly based on. Al and Carmen Snedeker are a real family who moved into what was a former funeral home in Connecticut back in the mid-80's. After moving in they did indeed report a number of creepy goings on. Their story inspired Ed and Lorraine Warren, the spiritualist con artists who crafted the Amityville Horror legend years earlier, to come and craft an elaborate haunting for the Snedekers.

Not surprisingly, the whole thing became a bestselling book and now this movie. Except that the movie seems to have left out some of the more juicy and entertaining details. Not the ghosts, the bodies allegedly stuffed in the walls, or the alleged séances that may or may not have taken place as a regular bit of funeral home business. That's all in there somewhere, I think, I may have blacked out briefly. 

No. It's the part where Al and Carmen cop to having been raped by apparitions repeatedly over the TWO YEARS they lived in this house. Disturbing on so many levels? Yes, but definitely not boring. This detail was dropped from the movie either in a nod to good taste (Booo) or because writing this detail into the movie would take more effort than the writers were willing to put into it. 

Or, even more likely, it was a commerce over creepiness decision. The film is more bankable as a PG 13 feature not featuring ghostly forced sex. I'm not sure what this says about me but I cannot honestly tell you whether I preferred the boredom or the creeptastic, ungodly alternative left out of the final film. I guess we'll never know. The Haunting in Connecticut is what it is, an utterly mind numbing bore.

Movie Review The Haunting of Molly Hartley

The Haunting of Molly Hartley (2008) 

Directed by Mickey Liddell 

Written by Rebecca Sonnenshine, John Travis

Starring Haley Bennett, Chace Crawford, Annalynne McCord, Ron Canada 

Release Date October 31st, 2008

Published October 31st, 2008 

If PG-13 horror movies get anymore tired they are going to have to sell Starbucks coffee with every ticket. I needed an extra strength caffeine back-up to stay awake during the latest mind numbing PG-13 'horror movie,' The Haunting of Molly Hartley, a slow witted, formulaic piece of over-marketed junk.

Haley Bennett is Molly Hartley, a pretty but troubled young girl whose mother tried to kill her. Mom stabbed Molly but she survived and mom went away. Now Dad (Jake Weber) has moved her to a new High School where she befriends the most popular and handsome boy in the school, Joseph (Chace Crawford).

But, of course, Haley's past can't help but follow her to the new school. First it's terrible nightmares about her mom's attack. Then word gets around that her mother is in an asylum, kids can be so cruel. Then Molly begins to have her own psychotic freak outs, just like mom's and then... well things get even worse with one last twist.

First time feature director Mickey Liddell directed The Haunting of Molly Hartley with all the skill of a sledgehammer hitting cement. The film offers thuddingly loud jump-scare sounds, whipsaw camera tricks and faux suspense to build what little atmosphere it can in order to hold us in place till the big twist is revealed.

It doesn't work. By the time we get to the 'twist' the audience's minds have drifted to other things such as, dinner after the show, laundry, ceiling tiles, napping., stamp collecting, texting, crossword puzzles, the stimulus package, navel lint, favorite beers, ear hair, other movies, is it cold enough for a winter coat or warm enough for a jacket?

Should I go back to the gym? Did I bring my checkbook? That was a good milkshake? Was that my phone? What's that stuck to my shoe...

Oops sorry, The Haunting of Molly Hartley is so deathly dull and preposterously forgettable that I managed to drift off during my review. You can go ahead and skip the rental on The Haunting Of Molly Hartley, unless your most inane thoughts need a dull bleating soundtrack. Then maybe.

Movie Review The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things

Movie Review The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2006) 

Directed by Asia Argento 

Written by Asia Argento, Alessandro Magania 

Starring Asia Argento, Jimmy Bennett, Cole Sprouse, Dylan Sprouse, Marilyn Manson, 

Release Date March 10th, 2006

Published July 17th, 2006 

We have seen manic moms portrayed on the big screen before. Most often they are wild eccentrics who try harder to be their child's pal instead of their parent. They are loving but scattered mom's who are often as childish as their kids.

The mother played by Asia Argento in The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things is no loving eccentric. After retrieving her seven year old son from a loving foster home this manic depressive, drug and alcohol addicted sex worker proceeds to drag the kid through some of the worst experiences that the modern American underbelly has to offer.

At the age of seven Jeremiah, played by Jimmy Bennett, finds himself forced from the only home he has ever known. The mother who abandoned him as a baby has somehow procured custody of him and is determined to play mommy.

Over the course of a few years Jeremiah is subjected to numerous abuses, is forced to witness mom turning tricks, often just a few feet where he cowers in fear. His mother gives him drugs and alcohol and allows some of her men to abuse him the way they abuse her.

Then she's gone again and Jeremiah is left with her most recent 'new daddy'. This didn't last long as the new daddy really wasn't interested in raising a kid. So, after being sexually abused, Jeremiah somehow finds himself in the Christian fundamentalist home of his grandparents played by Peter Fonda and Ornelia Muti. They are strict, even vicious about their Christianity but anything is preferable to life on the streets.

Cut to three years later and Jeremiah, now played by twins Cole and Dylan Sprouse, is an 11 year old street corner preacher when mommy returns and wants him back. This leads to further horrors physical and sexual abuse, drugs, alcohol and a near death experience.

Asia Argento who plays mom in the film also directed The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things. Her direction is relentless and at times arresting. However, as I'm sure you have culled from my description, the film is all dark with no light. I have no idea what to take away from this picture but utter despair.

It is undeniably brave to present a story as bleak and heart-rending as this and to not dose it with irony or even a hint of goodness. The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things challenges its audience to look away. Look away from the constant horror that is this child's life. Turn, if you can, a blind eye to the fact that there are children out there living this life.

Just last week in the tiny town of Spencer Iowa a woman left her five year old son in the car while she was inside a bar getting drunk and stripping on a table top. The incident would have gone unnoticed if the mother had not gotten herself arrested. This scene is played out in The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things except there is no police interference. Young Jeremiah witnessed the alternate reality of that Spencer, Iowa scene.

The ending of the film is bitter, sad and open ended. Young Jeremiah's life remains in the horrifying orbit of his mothers disease. A disturbing end for a thoroughly disturbing film.

Movie Review Hostel

Hostel (2006) 

Directed by Eli Roth 

Written by Eli Roth 

Starring Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Rick Hoffman

Release Date January 6th, 2006 

Published January 6th, 2006 

Filmmakers have a very interesting mental link between sex and violence. Because both are really the last societal taboos, certain forms of each are in violation of all social graces, they can be exploited in order to shock and titillate audiences. Movies as varied as the brilliant A History Violence and the abysmal Devil's Rejects have drawn sex and violence together as if the two things were inextricably linked.

Eli Roth, the director of the horror flick Hostel, is a true believer in the link between sex and violence. Hostel puts the two subjects in direct relation as college-aged protagonists seek cheap, meaningless sex on a trip through Europe and end up paying dearly for it in the typically mindless, blood-soaked fashion of modern exploitation flicks.

Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and Josh (Derek Richardson) are fresh out of college and ready to party. They have traveled to the modern day Sodom that is Amsterdam in search of the holy grail of twenty-something morons: loose woman and legal hash. Paxton is the more indulgent and headstrong of the two, partaking in both the willing bar girls and the pay-for-play gals lining the streets in lighted window displays. Josh, on the other hand, is slightly more reserved and even a little put off by the sex on sale.

Once Paxton and a fellow traveler, Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), who the guys hook up with along the way, have exhausted the local talent, they come across a German teen who has the inside scoop on the best looking and loosest women in all of Europe. There is, the teen claims, a youth hostel that is on no map, and where the local women are dying to sleep with any foreigners. All the boys have to do is hop a train to scenic Bratislava.

A lengthy train trip later; the three friends have found the mythic hostel. The story is true: naked flesh is easy to come by and the naked women are easier than ever imagined. The fun, however, does not last long. After an epic night of debauchery, that even Josh partakes in, Oli disappears with a young Japanese girl. Soon Josh too has disappeared, and Paxton seeks out their new female companions to find out what happened to his pals.

He is told that both guys are at an art show, and, in standard Eastern European fashion, the supposed "art show" is housed in a slaughterhouse. Of course, by now we in the audience are well aware that the art show is actually a brutal torture chamber where hostel stayers are kidnapped and killed in the most horrifying ways imaginable.

Director Eli Roth showed an interesting level of originality in his first feature, 2003's Cabin Fever. That film was a skin-crawling genre exercise that twisted expectations by not focusing on a human killer but a timely viral killer. That film was not all that visually accomplished, partly because of its low budget, and neither is Hostel. The films share a low budget aesthetic, but Hostel, with a slightly higher budget and the imprimatur of Quentin Tarantino, makes it fair to wonder when Roth will finally show a talent for crafting visuals that don't rely on special effects splatter.

Of the many attempts at scary visuals, only a scene where a character has his kneecaps drilled and his Achilles heel sliced comes across as shocking. A later, gorier scene in which a woman's eyeball dangles precariously from its socket is truly underwhelming as both an effect and makeup. Poorly executed special effects aside, Roth lacks the necessary skill to negate his low budget with story tension.

Jay Hernandez, so impressive in the 2001 teen romance Crazy/Beautiful, fails to make a compelling lead in Hostel. His boorish American tourist bit is believable but not all that enjoyable or relatable. Co-star Derek Richardson's own wet blanket character is even less impressive, and thus no help to Hernandez. Only Icelandic actor Gudjonsson manages to be entertaining, but he is quickly dispatched. His charming comic presence is missed once he's gone.

Hostel has the hallmarks of the exploitation genre down cold. Buckets of blood are spilled, copious amounts of naked female flesh are displayed; all of the basic horror elements that had once held the genre in the movie ghetto of late night pay cable and direct to video land are featured in Hostel. Something about all that nudity in Hostel, combined with the lack of even one strong female character in Hostel, leads me to wonder whether Eli Roth has a problem with women. 

Hostel is not merely misogynist, the film demonstrates a direct loathing and objectification of women. The women of Hostel  exist to remove their clothing and die horribly. Whether this is a symptom of Roth's inability to write for women, a similar lack of compelling female characters plagued Cabin Fever, or he really does dislike women is up for debate.

Roth apparently enjoys the company of Quentin Tarantino and yet he seems to have never seen Kill Bill, which provided more than a few examples of how to write convincing, compelling female characters. Then again, writing is not Roth's strong suit anyway. On more than one occasion Roth comes within a few lines of something interesting and walks away to throw more blood and gore at the screen.

Hostel comes close to a clever parody of the current anti-American attitudes so pervasive in Europe where American travelers are encouraged to claim Canadian citizenship to avoid a hassle. Sadly Hostel comes to the precipice of joking about this timely subject but then travels the easier path to exploitation success, more naked flesh and piles of human remains.

There is also, I believe, an unintentional undercurrent of puritanical feelings bubbling beneath the surface of Hostel. The way in which sin and vice lead almost directly to death in Hostel is rather Old Testament. Hostel shares this sex-death link with classic horror movies like A Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday The 13th, but oddly no horror film director has had the nerve to explore this vengeful god scenario in an intellectually satisfying way.

Eli Roth may have earned the appreciation of a true genius in Quentin Tarantino, but there is no evidence in Hostel that Roth actually learned anything from his new mentor. Where Tarantino crafts artful visuals from the lowest of genres, Roth can barely craft a solid scare. That is not to say that Roth won't develop into a good director someday, but for now his work is merely terribly overrated.

For lovers of the exploitation genre, (what writer David Poland has cleverly dubbed the "horror porn" genre, including recent films like Devil's Rejects, High Tension and Wolf Creek) Hostel will be a huge hit. But for fans of well made movies, Hostel is yet another waste of screen space. 

Movie Review Piranha 3D

Piranha 3D (2010) 

Directed by Alexandre Aja 

Written by Peter Goldfinger, Josh Stolberg 

Starring Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Adam Scott, Jessica Szohr, Jerry O'Connell 

Release Date August 20th, 2010 

Published August 20th, 2010 

I don't understand the appeal of a 3D penis destroyed by flesh chomping fish. Call me a buzzkill if you wish but I cannot understand why this is funny. As for it being frightening, it's certainly frighteningly poor taste but not frightening as presented in “Piranha 3D” which is, I'm assuming, supposed to be some kind of comic send up.

I assume this is comedy because the audience I watched it with were laughing far more than they were covering their eyes or ducking their heads to the shoulder of their dates. This audience cackled at the penis eating scene and roared approval during the underwater, nude, lesbian synchronized swimming scene. They roared again during the centerpiece gore-athon in the lake when the Piranha's swarmed the spring breakers leaving behind boney carcasses. I was left perplexed and a little depressed.

A lake that is home to a Sodom and Gomorrah of Spring Break debauchery is hit with a massive earthquake just before the partygoers arrive. The quake opens a crevasse that had been sealed for millions of years. Inside is a fully evolved and deadly species of Piranha seeking to quench a million years worth of bloodlust.

On land Sheriff Julie Forrester (Elisabeth Shue) and her top deputy Fallon (Ving Rhames) are readying for the arrival of drunken revelers when they get a call about a missing fisherman (Richard Dreyfuss). As we have seen in the film's opening minutes, the fisherman was the first victim of the piranhas and when the cops find him well, they catch on quicker than your usual movie cops.

Opting to try and close the lake, they also call in a team of scientists lead by Novak (Adam Scott). The scientists are the ones who find the piranhas, but not before two of them are turned into piranha food. The closing of the lake meanwhile isn't happening as the tiny police force are no match for the drunken partiers about to become Piranha meat.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Julie's son Jake (Steven R. McQueen) takes a job as an assistant to Derrick Jones (Jerry O'Connell) the creator of Wild Wild Girls. Derrick plans on filming girls taking their tops off and even tries to recruit Jake's crush Kelly (Jessica Szohr) to star alongside his protégé Danni (Kelly Brook) in his latest video, much to Jake's consternation. Naturally, all will end up face to face with piranhas, who survives and who has their penis torn off I will leave you to discover.

It's supposed to be camp right? Kitschy, over the top, Herschel Gordon Lewis, Roger Corman stuff right? I get that, I do. But, as directed by Alexandre Aja with a surprising amount of skill and directorial touch, I found “Piranha 3D” more in poor taste than campy and fun. I know, it's supposed to be in poor taste and I understand that appeals to some but I have a hard time enjoying this type of bad taste.

There is something nihilistic about the approach to the gore of “Piranha 3D.” Directors like Alexandre Aja and his protégé Eli Roth, who has a cameo in “Piranha 3D” as a wet T-shirt contest host, enjoy their violence and gore so much that the humans lose their value. Aja has the wrong kind of rooting interest at heart in each of his films. Rather than placing a good person in peril and asking the audience to root for their survival, Aja crafts awful human beings for the purpose of watching them be comically destroyed. It's ugly and brutal and I fear for those who find this kind of thing appeal. 

This is an ugly, inhuman perspective that I find impossible to get behind. I find the approach depressing and the enjoyment that so many seem to take in the destruction of their fellow man, no matter how fake or outsized it may be, just makes me sad. Say what you will about the quality of movies like “Halloween” or the original “Nightmare on Elm Street,” the characters mattered in each of those films, especially those played by Jamie Lee Curtis and Heather Langenkamp who always had our sympathies and were held above the evil they faced. 

When those films became hits and “Friday the 13th” started showing off Jason, things began to turn. When Freddy, Michael Myers and Jason became the stars, horror began to change and the rooting interests turned ugly. That leads us to where we are today with people cheering for human suffering, rooting for the gore and delighting in the degradation.

Yes, it's just an over the top horror film. Yes, it's not at all realistic. If that’s enough excuse for you to delight in watching people shredded limb from limb then enjoy. Just don’t ask me to join you. I’m going to find a movie where characters are held above their use as gory props and sex toys. By the way, if this is your kind of movie, I don’t think you and I should hang out. Just saying.

Movie Review: Halloween Resurrection

Halloween Resurrection (2002) 

Directed by Rick Rosenthal 

Written by Sean Hood, Larry Brand 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Busta Rhymes, Tyra Banks, Sean Patrick Thomas, Thomas Ian Nicholas 

Release Date July 12th, 2002 

Published July 12th, 2002 

Earlier this year horror fans were pummeled by the horrendous Jason X, the 10th film in the Friday the 13th franchise. Now another horror franchise returns to the big screen, the 8th installment of the Michael Myers lead Halloween franchise. Halloween Resurrection is everything Jason X wasn't, funny, exciting and hopelessly inept…in a good way.

Rapper Busta Rhymes is perfectly cast as Freddie, a fast talking Internet producer who on Halloween arranges a webcast from the home of legendary mass murderer Michael Myers. The reality show webcast features cute college kids attempting to survive a night in the house where Myers' killing spree began over 30 years ago. Amongst our group of Internet victims are a couple of familiar faces, Sean Patrick Thomas from Save The Last Dance and Thomas Ian Nicholas from the American Pie movies. 

The casting of these two semi well-known actors, rising stars, is exactly what might have spiced up Jason X instead of the community theatre troupe they went with. Also in the cast of Halloween Resurrection is a girl named Sara played by Bianca Kajtich. Sara is our heroine, the one with the most screen time, and the one most likely to return for the next sequel. The film also features the return of Jamie Lee Curtis in what looks to be her final installment of the series her lungs made famous.

This film is the exact opposite of Jason X, it's exciting and funny-ironic without trying to be clever. There is no winking at the audience, no “look how self aware we are.” Just straight ahead classic gore. Michael Myers is in fine form cutting off heads, nailing people to walls, and murdering the overly sexed. For a serial killer, he's quite a prude. The film is at times outright hysterical; Busta Rhymes especially tears into his role with multiple well-timed one-liners, and not to mention his karate skills.

I admit I have a twisted sense of humor. Watching someone stuck to a wall by a pair of kitchen knives, or watching a girl's head roll down steps like some messed up slinky makes me laugh. It's funny because it's cartoonishly surreal, much like the Itchy and Scratchy cartoons on The Simpsons. Director Rick Rosenthal, who also directed the first Halloween sequel, knows he's not filming Shakespeare. His special effects and makeup are cheesy and he doesn't care. If the effects weren't cheesy and he tried to make it more realistic, the film wouldn't work.

It's interesting that this film opens the same weekend as Road To Perdition. The two films have nothing in common but are a counterpoint to each other. Perdition portrays realistic violence with consequence. Resurrection portrays obviously fake violence to shock and desensitize the audience and does so effectively. Violence in Halloween is of no consequence, thus realism never enters into the equation.

The fact of the matter is that Halloween Resurrection, much like it's predecessor H20, is an exciting, funny, campy riot that’s definitely worth the price of admission. 

Movie Review: Transporter 2

Transporter 2 (2005) 

Directed by Louis Letterier

Written by Luc Besson, Robert Mark Kamen 

Starring Jason Statham, Amber Valletta, Keith David, Matthew Modine, Jason Flemying 

Release Date September 2nd, 2005 

Published September 2nd, 2005 

The first Transporter movie was a rather innocuous exercise in combining American style action movies with Asian style violence and European locales. Memorable only for its rising star Jason Statham, The Transporter made little box office noise before being shuffled off to DVD. It is in this fast growing market that a small cult formed. For some reason people started buying the DVD and an underground of Frank Martin fans managed to turn the DVD into a big enough hit that a sequel was necessary. Four years after the original made its minor box office impact, Transporter 2 hits the screen with a fury that box office hits are made of.

Jason Statham returns as Frank Martin, a character he created for a stylish car commercial some four years ago. That lead to The Transporter in which ace getaway driver Frank Martin is hired to deliver a package that he finds out is actually a human being, a really sexy Asian woman to be precise. Violating his rules of non-involvement in his clients' business Frank set about releasing the girl and protecting her from his thug clients.

Four years later, the sexy Asian woman is a memory as is Frank's dangerous past. Now living in Florida, Frank has taken a gig as driver and bodyguard for the 8 year old son of a high profile government executive named Billings (Matthew Modine). Frank was hired at the behest of Mrs. Billings (Amber Valleta) who was concerned that her son might be the target of kidnappers because of her husband's high profile job.

Oh how right she was. On a routine trip to a doctor's office Frank and the boy are attacked by a group of thugs lead by the super sexy and psychotic Lola (model, Kate Nauta). After a massive action sequence culminating as they often do in this film with a giant fireball, the boy is eventually taken and only Frank Martin can save him.

The plot is far more complicated then that however.  Eventually it involves a hired hitman played by Alessandro Gassman, and a deadly virus spread through breathing that has only a limited amount of antidote. The plot is dopey and convoluted but who cares.  The action surrounding the goofy plot is what makes Transporter 2 the kind of enjoyable action junk not seen since the heyday of Jean Claude Van Damme.

Jason Statham, auditioning for the James Bond gig, has his stone-faced intensity and agile fighting stance in full effect in Transporter 2. Even in the film's most outrageous contrivances Statham's taciturn charisma and dangerous demeanor draws you in and helps you forget about the number of times he outruns giant, physics defying fireballs and survives ridiculous explosions, car wrecks and a plane crash.

Even more durable than Statham is his 2006 Lexus which is scratch proof, bullet proof and nearly bomb proof. The driving stunts are, as they were in the first film, exciting and well executed but really nothing more than a commercial for the car itself. In fairness, it's a gorgeous vehicle and the makers of Transporter 2 do a wonderful job of showing it off. It's basically Statham's top supporting cast member and as silly as that sounds, it works for this ultimately silly action movie. 

Director Louis Leterrier is no stranger to popcorn action junk. Earlier this year he delivered the awesomely entertaining actioner Unleashed with Jet Li. In Transporter 2 he brings that same sense of action and fun. Fight scenes choreographed by Cory Yuen, who performed the same task in the first film, have the feel of Jackie Chan's comedic approach to combat, combined with Jet Li's power. Watch out for a scene in which Frank employs a fire hose ala Jackie Chan and an awesomely coordinated scene with a pair of handcuffs similar to a scene in Jet Li's The One.

That is not to say that Transporter 2 is derivative but that it's a movie with keen awareness of its influences. Leterrier, a French Director and protégée of Luc Besson (who wrote both Transporter films), is developing a reputation for his love for and emulation of Asian style action and acrobatics. His love for this material showed greatly in Unleashed and continues remarkably well here.

Another well-acknowledged influence is American style action junk ala Van Damme or Seagal. Transporter 2 lifts heavily from the conventions and clichés of 80's and 90's action movies but with a slightly more stylish execution and a sly knowing wink to break the spell of earnestness that makes so many of those oh-so -serious action vehicles so campy in retrospect.

Transporter 2 is just wall to wall goofiness grounded, somewhat, by the sly but serious performance of star Jason Statham. Regardless of how outlandish the film's stunts and plot are you cannot help but enjoy watching Statham walk through it all with stoic dignity. This is the kind of movie star presence that made Mel Gibson a superstar in Lethal Weapon or at the very least made Steven Seagal a lot of money in a short period of time.

Whether this will be enough to land Statham his dream role as 007 is questionable but the producers would be smart to take a long look at both Statham and director Louis Leterrier, both of whom could bring some lively action to the moribund spy series.

Movie Review: The Spy Next Door

The Spy Next Door (2010) 

Directed by Brian Levant 

Written by Jonathan Bernstein, James Greer, Gregory Poirier 

Starring Jackie Chan, Amber Valletta, Madeline Carroll, George Lopez

Release Date January 15th, 2010 

Published January 14th, 2010 

It is far too easy to rip a movie like The Spy Next Door. The plot is dimwitted and derivative, star Jackie Chan has far too little mastery of the English language to be given this many lines, and the supporting cast is a minefield of overacting and over-arching cuteness. Way too easy. The harder thing to do is admit that despite all the garbage in The Spy Next Door, there are a few modest pleasures and even a couple of smiles to be had.

The Spy Next Door is an accidental re-imagining of Vin Diesel's Disney flick The Pacifier. Take the world's greatest super-spy and leave him in charge of some precocious pre-teens and wait for wacky stuff to happen. The only difference is where Diesel seems terribly uncomfortable; Jackie Chan seems right at home playing with the kids.

Chan is secret agent Bob Ho, a spy on loan to the CIA from Chinese Intelligence. Bob is tracking a Russian bad guy named Poldark (Magnus Scheving) and his evil gal Friday, Creel (Katherine Boecher) as they seek to destroy the world supply of oil. Helping Bob are a pair of CIA agents, Glaze (George Lopez) and Colton (Billy Ray Cyrus).

Meanwhile, Bob is looking to wrap up his spy career so that he can marry his next door neighbor Gillian (Amber Valletta) who does not know that Bob is really a spy. Even bigger than that obstacle however is getting in good with Gillian's three kids. Farren (Madeline Carroll) is a severely moody oldest daughter who nastily calls her mom Gillian. Ian (Will Shadley) is the middle child and a power nerd who, though only 9, reads physics for fun. And finally 4 year Nora (Alina Foley) who is convinced that Bob is what Ian calls a ‘cyborg.’ Together the siblings look to get rid of boring Bob before he can marry mommy.

Yes, the plot is exceedingly dopey and condescendingly simple. But, you know that when you buy the ticket. Given that knowledge going in makes it easier to appreciate the few charms that The Spy Next Door has. Jackie Chan is now 50 years old and years of daring stunt work have taken their toll. Nevertheless, Chan gives it a go in The Spy Next Door and his brand of martial arts crossed with Buster Keaton style slapstick hasn't been this much fun in a while.

The kids in kid’s movies can be terribly irritating, either too precious or too grating. They are at times both in The Spy Next Door. That said each of the child actors has a good moment or two, especially young Alina Foley. It's cheating to have a sweet little four year old whisper 'I love you bob' as he sings her to sleep with a Chinese lullaby, but it's hard to deny how cute the scene is.

The Spy Next Door is not 'cinema.' This is not a great movie but it never pretends to be. The Spy Next Door is briskly paced, breezy, goofy and, best of all, over before you really tire of its idiot plot. By the lowered standards of kid’s entertainment this qualifies as something I can recommend. Kids won't be harmed by it and mom and dad may actually stay awake during most of it. What more can you ask of low rent kids entertainment. 

Movie Review Grandma's Boy

Grandma's Boy (2006) 

Directed by Nicolaus Goosan 

Written by Barry Wernick, Alan Covert, Nick Swardson

Starring Alan Covert, Linda Cardelini, Kevin Nealon, Shirley Knight, Shirley Jones, Doris Roberts 

Release Date January 6th, 2006

Published January 6th, 2006 

Just how powerful is Adam Sandler in Hollywood? Apparently, in the wake of the release of the comedy Grandma's Boy, he can pick guys off the street and by attaching his name to them, get them on the big screen behind and in front of the camera.. The new stoner comedy Grandma's Boy is directed by former Adam Sandler gofer--okay, "production assistant"--Nicholaus Goosan and stars Sandler's entourage of worshipful friends, led by the charisma vacuum, Alan Covert. Grandma’s Boy  is a stunning example of both the continuing devolution of the modern comedy  genre and the star power of the only superstar ever created by SNL.

The Adam Sandler cult of personality--including Allen Covert, Peter Dante, Nick Swardson and former SNL chums Kevin Nealon, Rob Schneider and David Spade--come together to make Grandma's Boy, a fatally dull exercise in Sandler-style humor that fails to rise to even the low standards of one of Sandler's own films.

Allen Covert stars in Grandma's Boy as Alex, a 36-year-old stoner and video game tester who gave up the yoke of an accounting gig for life spent playing XBox with teenagers. When his stoner roommate gets him kicked out of his apartment, Alex is forced to move in with his grandmother Lilli (Doris Roberts, Everybody Loves Raymond) and her two roommates, doddering pill popper Bea (Shirley Knight) and foul mouthed, sex-obsessed Grace (Partridge Family star Shirley Jones).

At work, Alex and his even more arrested-development pal Jeff (Nick Swardson), a 20-something, footy pajama wearing mama's boy who sleeps in a race car bed, are testing the latest alien shoot-em-up videogame for a company called Brainasium. Kevin Nealon plays their stoner, vegan, boss who hires the super hot Sam (a slumming Linda Cardellini) to be Alex and Jeff's supervisor.

Alex has a rival at work, a game creator named J.P. (Joel Moore, Dodgeball) who, like Alex, develops a quick crush on Sam.  J.P, however, is no threat, as his proclivity for dressing like Neo from the Matrix and speaking in the voice of a robot when nervous or angry prevents him from much of any social interaction. The plot, such as it is, kicks in with Alex having created his own video game but being a shiftless, pothead layabout he does nothing about it until his idea is stolen. Then, in a requirement of the film's plot and title, only his grandma can step in to save him.

That is the story (or at least what passes for a story) that propels Grandma's Boy toward an ending. However, this is not a movie that is concerned with plot. Rather, drop the 'l' and you get what the real subject of Grandma's Boy, getting super high. I have no problem with that, but don’t make a movie if your only idea is to get high and play video games. Just stay home and do that. As a ‘movie’ Grandma's Boy is a stoner movie with all of the stoner cliches of munchies, morons, and a monkey. The monkey is actually a carryover from Adam Sandler’s movies as he requires a funny animal bit in all of his movies, regardless of whether it's funny or not. 

The actors in Grandma's Boy are  obviously Adam Sandler's comic B-team and I imagine behind the scenes, this group of friends are a riot. On screen, I am at a loss to see why they are appealing. Covert and the rest of this cast have little to nothing original or funny to say or do. It’s as if Sandler owed a friend with a screenplay a favor and then realized that even he had a standard he could not drop below. Instead, he handed the script to Covert and tricked a studio into letting his buddies make a movie. 

Poor Shirley Jones. The former mama Partridge humiliates herself in the role of a slutty older woman who claims to have slept with Charlie Chaplin and Don Knotts on different occasions. In Grandma's Boy, Jones thinks she is in on the joke of her character being a sex mad older woman but in fact she is the subject of the joke in which she seduces Nick Swardson's manchild Jeff. Grandma’s Boy is a movie made by people who think that just the idea of a person over 60 having sex is somehow funny. 

The only actor to survive the carnage of Grandma's Boy is the lovely Linda Cardellini. Far more skilled than the "actors" she has chosen to work with, Cardellini gamely throws herself into the stoner fun of Grandma's Boy. However, when it comes down to it, you can tell Cardellini is not inhaling the fumes. Cardellini picks up her paycheck and escapes the fray of Grandma's Boy by affecting an above-it-all air.

That Grandma's Boy did not go directly to the video store is a testament to Adam Sandler's clout and nothing more. That he does not even deign to cameo in Grandma's Boy and still manages to overshadow every aspect of the film. It says something, not anything good, about Sandler’s connection to his audience--the audience for Grandma's Boy likely loved Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison--and how his entourage of pals pretending to be actors are linked to him. Grandma’s Boy doesn’t exist without Sandler wielding his star power to get it made. 

Fans of pot humor, old people having sex, and monkeys may find something to enjoy in Grandma's Boy, but for the other 98% of the movie going public there is nothing to enjoy about this Adam Sandler-less Adam Sandler flick.

Movie Review Gran Torino

Gran Torino (2008) 

Directed by Clint Eastwood 

Written by Nick Schenk 

Starring Clint Eastwood, Ahney Herr, Christopher Carley, Bee Vang 

Release Date December 12th, 2008 

Published December 11th, 2008 

Clint Eastwood is a national treasure. Over his five decades in Hollywood he has created indelible characters, images, and phrases that will live long beyond himself. That iconography brings us to his latest film Gran Torino which combines the modern Eastwood image as a filmmaking auteur and the classic Eastwood icon of a tough guy, man's man. The combination gives life to an odd but engaging drama.

In Gran Torino Clint Eastwood is Walt Kowalski. Walt's wife has just died and the last thing tying him to life outside of the four walls of his decrepit house has disappeared. Walt doesn't appear suicidal but he is certainly unmoored as observed by the young priest (Christopher Carley) who presides over his wife's funeral and who, at the wife's behest, drops in on Walt from time to time.

More than anything, Walt just wants to be left alone. Even his grown sons do nothing but irritate him, one of them by trying to get him to move to an old folks home. Further irritating Walt is the change in his neighborhood. Hmong refugees began moving in more than a decade ago and they now dominate the local populace, much to Walt's dismay.\

As the story progresses, Walt is forced into the lives of his Hmong neighbors when their teenage son, Thao (Bee Vang), accepts a gang initiation that has him attempting to steal Walt's prized Gran Torino. Walt catches him in the act but doesn't call police. When confronted by gang members about his failure, Thao tells them that he won’t try to steal the car again and Walt ends up having to rescue Thao, brandishing a trusty shotgun at the wannabe gangsters. 

This leads to more involvement with his neighbors and eventually a begrudging respect begins to form, mostly thanks to Thao's outgoing sister Sue (Ahney Her) who befriends the old man with beer and really great Hmong food. If you guessed that the gang thing comes back and plays a major role in the movie's finish, points for you. How it plays out however, you won't see it coming. Eastwood is a master of misdirection as both Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby have shown. Eastwood takes pleasure in rarely doing what the audience expects.

There is an odd quality to Gran Torino and it comes in the film's strange sense of humor. Though the movie carries the heavy air of drama there are moments when Walt is dealing with his neighbors, and especially when dealing with his two beefy, lunkheaded sons, where laughs are mined that wouldn't be out of place in a sitcom. I'm not complaining, I laughed. The laughter however is awkward when considering how oppressively serious the rest of the movie is. Then again, there goes Clint, once again confounding our expectations.

Movie Review Gothika

Gothika (2003) 

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz 

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr, Natasha Lyonne, Charles S Dutton, Penelope Cruz 

Release Date November 21st, 2003 

Published November 21st, 2003 

The title Gothika seems curious even after you've seen the movie. Only after looking up the film’s website and consulting my dictionary for the definition of the word 'Gothic' does the film's choice of a title become clear. It relates in fiction writing as a horror mystery and in architecture as dark imposing stone structures, buttresses, arches and high ceilings. The title has a double meaning related to the film’s story and its choice of locations, but mostly it just sounds cool. In fact, everything about Gothika from it's super hot star to it's indie credible director sounds cool. Sadly the film never meets its cool potential.

Halle Berry stars in Gothika as criminal psychologist Miranda Grey. Dr. Grey works in a prison for the criminally insane treating female patients under the watchful eye of her husband Dr. Douglas Grey (Charles S. Dutton), the hospital's administrator, and alongside her good friend Dr. Peter Graham (Robert Downey Jr.). Dr. Graham seems to be harboring a rather obvious crush on Miranda.

After working late on a dark and rainy night, Dr. Grey is driving home when she swerves off the road to avoid a young woman standing in the middle of the road. When Miranda goes to help the girl, played by an almost unrecognizable Natascha Lyonne, the girl bursts into flames but not before touching Miranda's face. The next thing Miranda knows, she is locked up in her own hospital being treated by her own staff and her husband is dead.

What else can Miranda do in this situation other than break out of the hospital and investigate the situation herself in hope of finding out whether she actually did kill her husband and why she's being haunted by this ghostly girl? Mostly though, Miranda wants to know for herself if she really is crazy. There is also mystery surrounding her connection to one of her patients, Chloe (Penelope Cruz), who is also being haunted by a dark spirit that may be more real than Miranda's ghost.

Halle Berry is a terrific choice for Miranda because she quickly earns our sympathy and her understated performance early on perfectly sets the stage for her brief meltdown and finally for her more rational approach to accepting her situation and solving her problem. She plays her intelligence on her face with her eyes and her perfectly controlled emotions. Even as the film goes off the rails around her, you never question Ms. Berry's commitment to the role, she damn near saves the movie.

Sadly, no one in the supporting cast has much of an opportunity to make an impression. Robert Downey Jr. continues to be a welcome presence even in an underwritten role. I wished Downey Jr. had more to do in the plot. Mostly, he’s concerned about his friend and nurses his unrequited crush. He has a brief hero moment but the role is otherwise far too bland for someone as talented and charismatic as Robert Downey Jr. 

A big failure of Gothika is how director Matthieu Kassovitz and writer Sebastian Guttierrez never establish the rules for the film. Obviously a film with ghosts isn't playing straight with logic but in a horror film, the filmmakers must establish film logic, a set of rules that govern the film’s created universe. In A Nightmare On Elm Street, Freddy could only come out of a dream if Nancy held onto him and woke up. 

In the recent horror flick, Darkness Falls, you were only a target of the killer if you looked at her. That film repeatedly violated its own rules and thus failed. Gothika doesn't establish its own logic and without it, the story never feels grounded. Why, if the ghost can open doors and manipulate objects, does it need to possess a body? Why use Dr. Grey to begin with? Was it just because hers was the car that happened by at that moment? There are many more questions but they are spoilers. See the movie and see if you can answer those questions. A game might make the movie more interesting. 

There is one moment in Gothika where I was willing to forgive the film’s lack of story logic. It comes when Dr. Grey herself questions the necessity of logic. It's a very funny line of dialogue because it’s a haphazard comment on this moment in the movie and about the movie itself. It’s not an intentional joke, but it is one moment when the need for story logic didn’t matter and I didn’t mind being subjected to Gothika, an oasis of unintentional charm in a desert of horror atmosphere and murky motivation. 

Director Kassovitz does have the other important elements of filmmaking in place. He is terrific at manipulating the camera. The way he keeps the camera moving is hypnotic and unlike David Fincher in Panic Room, the camera moves never seem flashy. In the few moments when the camera isn't moving, Kassovitz finds interesting angles and visually interesting backgrounds.

Gothika makes excellent use of its gothic location though I would hope a prison for the criminally insane doesn’t look so frightening, the people inside are frightening enough.

Gothika has been compared with The Sixth Sense and The Ring but I found it had most in common with the Kevin Bacon ghost thriller Stir Of Echoes. Both films are about normal people driven to mental breakdown by ghosts. Both are about the mystery surrounding the deaths of the ghostly characters. The difference between the two movies is that Stir Of Echoes has the established film logic that Gothika lacked as well as stronger supporting characters. In addition, Stir Of Echoes has the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black in a prominent role in the film. Gothika, on the other hand, features an awful cover of The Who's Behind Blue Eyes by Limp Bizkit. Ugh! 

Then, as the movie was mercifully coming to an end, they teased a sequel. As if what came before wasn’t misguided enough, this nakedly commercial, ‘just in case this movie makes money,’ sequel tease is a rotten cherry on the rancid sundae that is Gothika. 

 

Movie Review Good Luck Chuck

Good Luck Chuck (2007) 

Directed by Mark Helfrich 

Written by Josh Stolberg 

Starring Dane Cook, Jessica Alba, Dan Fogler 

Release Date September 21st, 2007 

Published September 20th, 2007 

The appeal of comedian Dane Cook has eluded me. I have nothing against the wildly popular comic, I just don't see what's so funny. His stand up repertoire seems to consist of wild, Jim Carrey like gesticulations used to sell underwhelming, punchless punchlines. His physicality is entertaining insofar as mimes trapped in that glass box are entertaining; but for my money, his act isn't all that funny. That's not even considering accusations that the unfunny jokes he tells are stolen from other comics. 

As for Cook's movie career, thus far, it's not quite as funny as his stand up career. His debut, in a starring role, in last fall's Employee Of The Month, was a bland, forgettable romantic comedy with the acting challenged Cook playing off the even more challenged Jessica Simpson. Now, for Cook's latest starring effort, after he tanked in a dramatic role opposite Kevin Costner in Mr. Brooks this past summer, Cook upgrades his romantic partner and still delivers a bland and forgettable effort. Starring opposite the endlessly appealing Jessica Alba, the appeal of Dane Cook continues to baffle the mind in Good Luck Chuck.

Charlie (Dane Cook) has never had trouble meeting women. Staying in a relationship however, has been mission impossible. The odd thing about the end of Charlie's relationships? His ex's always seem to marry the next guy they meet. It happens every time and women are beginning to take notice. A posting on the internet about Charlie the good luck charm turns the serially single Charlie into the most sought after stud in his area code.

Is this newfound appeal a blessing or a curse? Charlie's lecherous pal Stu (Dan Fogler) thinks it's the greatest thing ever. Charlie however, finds it to be a burden, especially when he meets Cam (Jessica Alba) who proves to be the girl of his dreams. Unfortunately, if the curse is real and he sleeps with her he could lose her forever; should she meet someone else.

That is a clean description of a plot that is in reality quite ugly and at times even mean spirited. Mark Helfrich, in his directorial debut, attempts to pull off what Judd Apatow and his creative team did with The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up. What is lacking is just about everything that made those two films so ingenious, daring and lovable.

Both Virgin and Knocked Up featured outlandish low humor that some might find off putting. Each film overcame that obstacle by giving the characters equal amounts of heart and humor to offset the raunch. Good Luck Chuck is mostly heartless with only one character we really give a damn about, Alba's Cam is an oasis in a desert of bad. Charlie, or Chuck from the title, isn't exactly detestable but there is very little appealing about him as he launches into a series of heartless sexual escapades to prove or disprove his curse.

The attempt to justify Chuck/Charlie's behavior by giving it the noble purpose of helping lonely girls take advantage of the curse to then meet their true love fails due to the film's vanity. All but two of Charlie's partners are models whose appearance in the film are not meant to propel this plot. Rather, they are used for the prurient purpose of having them get naked and keep the guys in the audience from nodding off.

The two other women, the ones who don't generally meet societal standards of beauty, are used as comic fodder in mean-spirited jokes at their expense. Only a movie as heartless as Good Luck Chuck could think that mocking these poor desperate characters could be a source of humor. An attempt to keep one of the encounters from being completely heartless and mean fails miserably and comes off not only mean but fake and insulting of both the character in question and those of us in the audience.

Dan Fogler is a Tony Award winning actor. I mention this because it kind of blows my mind. How can an actor be so successful in one medium and so remarkably unappealing and unfunny in a different medium. On stage, Fogler is a comic dynamo beloved by audiences. In movies, Fogler is an embarrassment, a remarkably unfunny presence. In his first starring role, the ping pong comedy, Balls of Fury, Fogler was utterly repellent. In good Luck Chuck, in a smaller, supporting role, he manages to somehow be even less appealing. 

As Stu, Charlie's misogynist best friend, Fogler is a breast obsessed plastic surgeon whose hobbies include masturbating into a grapefruit and worshiping the breast implants of Pamela Anderson which he purchased on Ebay. Why anyone thought this character was funny is beyond me. Jonah Hill portrayed a raunchy over the top character in Knocked Up but Hill did it with a charming and vulnerable quality that revealed how that character used vulgarity as a cover for insecurity. There is zero nuance in Fogler's performance in Good Luck Chuck, he's just a creep. 

Even as I was drifting out of Good Luck Chuck, when I wasn't actively being repulsed by it, I did see some moments where this story or this plot might have worked. Cut back on the prurience, strengthen the characters, and give more time to Jessica Alba's Cam, the only truly likable character in the film, and maybe you could rescue this movie from the garbage. That ship has sailed however and what we are left with is a mess of ugly misogyny, disturbing fetishes, and a lame and completely unbelievable  romance. 

Good Luck Chuck makes Adam Sandler's style of humor look good by comparison. 

Movie Review Going the Distance

Going the Distance (2010) 

Directed by Nanette Burstein 

Written by Geoff La Tulippe 

Starring Justin Long, Drew Barrymore, Charlie Day, Christina Applegate, Jason Sudeikis

Release Date September 3rd, 2010 

Published September 2nd, 2010 

The trailers and commercials for “Going the Distance” do not promise much. It's fair to predict, upon seeing the film's cutesy promos, that you are getting a trite and predictable romantic comedy. The actual movie however, though it is a romantic comedy, is something more than a series of rom-com clichés. In Going the Distance, stars Drew Barrymore and Justin Long display stunning romantic chemistry that brings life to the story of two people attempting a long distance relationship. These two terrific actors, once a real life couple, have each other’s vibe down and they bring a real feeling and romantic vitality to the conversations that these two characters have.

Garrett (Justin Long) has just bombed badly on his girlfriend's birthday; he didn't get her a gift. Dumped because he thought she meant it when she said not to get her anything, Garrett finds himself downing beers with his pals Dan (Charlie Day, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and Box (Jason Sudeikis) when he spots Erin (Barrymore), a hard drinking, foul mouthed, one of the boys who happens to be tragically pretty and utterly irresistible.

Unfortunately, Erin is not in New York for long, only six weeks before she has to move back to San Francisco to finish school. The two agree to keep things casual and spend the next 6 weeks attached at the lips. When the day comes for Erin to go home, Garrett pitches a long distance relationship and “Going the Distance” eases comfortably into the expectations of a romantic comedy but with just enough surprises to keep things lively and fun.

Nanette Burstein is best known for the unconventional documentary “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” based on the life of Hollywood legend Robert Evans. In that film Burstein steered around the limitations of typical documentary filmmaking by toying with the form and allowing the pompous yet fascinating Evans narrate his own life as if he were sitting on the couch next to you recounting his life story while images flashed all around as if in 3D broadcast from his mind.

Experimenting with the form of a romantic comedy seems, to me, to be an even greater challenge but one that Ms. Burstein was up for and though “Going the Distance” is no radical rejiggering of the form, her more modest innovations liven things up. For instance, when Garrett and Erin go on their first date Burstein switches from conventional film stock to handheld digital. The movie is briefly wrenching but it does increase the intimacy of this romantic moment by taking advantage of natural light and seemingly un-choreographed street scenery. She sticks with the device for the following few scenes, a montage of the six weeks of getting to know you time and that works as well.

The other innovation is the use of four letter words. Yes, we have heard cursing in movies to the point of being completely jaded but there is something in the way Drew Barrymore says the F-word, something so delightfully naughty and unexpected that it plays kind of sexy in a strange way. Co-star Jason Sudeikis also makes clever and unexpected use of obscenity that, because of years of SNL censoring, has a jarring yet hilarious effect. Sudeikis has never seemed more natural and appealing on screen as he does in “Going the Distance” describing the challenge of a long distance relationship and dreaming up what Erin might be doing in California in filthy/funny detail.

Finally and even rarer still, the trailer material for “Going the Distance” has the rare quality of being the least interesting and least funny bits from the film. So often we have complained about movies using the best gags for the trailers and commercials but in “Going the Distance” the weakest and most conventional gags are used in the promos while the best stuff is in the movie. A surprisingly R-rated and unconventional romantic comedy, “Going the Distance” thrives on the exceptional chemistry of Drew Barrymore and Justin Long and the daring if not boundary breaking direction of Nanette Burstein. 

Going the Distance is a wonderful and welcome surprise. 

Movie Review Godsend

Godsend (2004) 

Directed by Nick Hamm 

Written by Mark Bomback 

Starring Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn Stamos, Robert DeNiro, Cameron Bright 

Release Date April 30th, 2004

Published April 29th, 2004

The moral and ethical debate over cloning is fervent ground for drama. That drama was well explored in the little-seen 1997 sci-fi film Gattaca with Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. That film was set in a universe, years in the future, where cloning was more than a reality, it was a way of life that had replaced nature with science. The latest examination of the thorny issue of cloning takes place in a modern context, a time when cloning is almost a reality. Godsend however, is not as much interested in the science or  morality of cloning as much as it is interested in atmospherics and melodrama.

Adam Duncan (Cameron Bright) has just celebrated his eighth birthday. His mother Jessie (Rebecca Romijn) and father Paul (Greg Kinnear) are happily married living in New York City but they are contemplating a move to the suburbs to find a safer place to raise their son. Their idyllic family life is shattered when a tragic car accident kills Adam as his mother watches helplessly.

At Adam's funeral, the couple meets Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) who has a strange offer for them. Wells is an expert geneticist and he claims to have perfected a way to clone a human being. Wells' offer is to use some of Adam’s cells, which are useful only for 72 hours after his death, to clone the child back to life. The child can then be genetically replicated and placed in his mother’s womb. Just like in-vitro fertilization, the child could be carried to term and re-born as Adam Duncan down to the last hair on his head.

There are some rules that the couple must agree to first.  One is that the couple must move to Massachusetts to be near Dr. Wells' Godsend research clinic. They must then sever all ties with friends and family. Finally, Dr. Wells must be the only doctor Adam ever sees. Aside from that, the doctor sets the couple up with a beautiful house and a teaching job for Paul. The couple can raise Adam as if he had never died, starting over from his birth. The only question is what will happen to Adam when he crosses the age at which he died.

That last part is where the film draws most of it's drama but it's also the most dubious of the contrivances of the film. There is never any kind of scientific or theoretical reason given for why anything in Adam would change when he turned eight years old, the age he was when he died the first time. It's not like the kid can have all of the experiences he had from his first life again. He's going to meet all new people, spend time with Dr. Wells, go to a different school, his parents are different people than they were before his original death. 

I realize that I am asking questions that the makers of Godsend would rather avoid but these are the questions that this plot raises and it is a fatal flaw for this movie that they can't answer those questions. That could be as easy as making Dr. Wells the real villain, a man trying to turn this boy into an Omen, Damien style villain but that doesn't happen. Robert DeNiro is far too checked out and obviously bored to try and be part of this plot anyway. 

First-time director Nick Hamm does a good job creating a creepy horror atmosphere. Even in the film’s dream sequences, Hamm never resorts to CGI trickery, preferring to create his atmosphere naturally. A challenge he more than meets with the help of cinematographer Kramer Morganthau. Nick Hamm's other achievement is making this cute kid Cameron Bright a viably dangerous presence right up until the end when the film’s second big contrivance kicks in and snuffs out what was good about the film. As the director told Sci Fi Wire, they shot five different endings. Unfortunately, they chose the wrong one.

Greg Kinnear is such a reliable dramatic presence that he is able to ground the film in some kind of reality. Kinnear makes both Rebecca Romijn and Cameron Bright better for having worked with him.

If only Robert De Niro had paid a little more attention to his understated co-star. Lapsing into Jeremy Irons like self-parody, De Niro over-emotes, eats the scemery and generally throws dirt on his legend that grows more tarnished by each subsequent late-career performance.

Godsend isn't as bad as I am making it seem. The director Nick Hamm is very talented and Greg Kinnear is giving it his all to sell this deeply flawed premise. Sadly, with DeNiro lapsing into parodyh out of seeming boredom, and the logical failures of the script and premise, there was no overcoming the flaws in Godsend. Creepy visuals and strong sense of atmosphere are great but when your audience is busy deconstructing your plot flaws instead of being impressed with the look and feel of your movie, it's just not working. 

As muich as I have issues with the movie, I will say that if want to see Godsend, see it for Greg Kinnear genuinely good performance and for the low-tech horror atmosphere created by talented director Nick  that works without any CGI trickery, something most films can't resist.

Movie Review: The Tourist

The Tourist (2010)

Directed by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck 

Written by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck 

Starring Johnny Depp, Angelia Jolie, Paul Bettany, Timothy Dalton, Rufus Sewell 

Release December 10th, 2010 

Published December 9th, 2010 

The novelty of placing pop culture icons Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp in the same movie is nearly too much of a burden to bear for the slight, off-beat, spy comedy "The Tourist." Director Florian Von Donnersmark, in his English language directorial debut, takes on the Herculean task of capturing these two supernova stars in the same shot and not having the camera overload from all of the star power.

"The Tourist" stars Johnny Depp as Frank a mild mannered Wisconsin school teacher who finds himself whipped into a world of intrigue, adventure and danger when he is approached by an unbelievably beautiful woman on a train ride from Paris to Venice. Her name is Elise and her extraordinary calm while picking up this odd stranger on a train is quite unsettling.

Upon arriving in Venice Elise absconds with Frank's bags thus forcing him to join her at her high dollar hotel, not that he really needed to be kidnapped. Frank will be Elise's date for the evening while she awaits the arrival of her loutish, criminal lover who, unknown to Frank, urged her to find a tourist who looks a little like him and frame that tourist while he and Elise make their escape.

The only thing that Elise could not count on is falling for the doofusy math teacher. Meanwhile, as Elise is pretending to seduce Frank, and accidentally falling for him, the duo is being tailed by Interpol agents lead by Inspector Acheson (Paul Bettany) and by an evil Russian gangster (Steven Berkoff) who believes Elise knows where his stolen money is.

The plot of "The Tourist" is meant to combine a touch of Alfred Hitchcock with a dash of Cary Grant at his most fleet footed and charming and while it conjures some of those memories, "The Tourist" is far more interested in the modern, tabloid-esque notion of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie making goo goo eyes at each other.

During production of "The Tourist" Johnny Depp insisted on never being alone with Angelina Jolie where paparazzi could get a picture and create a story. In the movie itself, director Von Donnersmarck goes for a similar paparazzi voyeurism in scenes where the camera just observes Depp and Jolie smoldering at one another.

Depp and Jolie's beauty as a couple is the true appeal of "The Tourist," so much so that the plot becomes an impediment as it too our ogling of the stars. Yes, there is plenty of daring do and mixed up identities, even a chase scene that is unlike most other chase scenes (it involves a pair of boats tied together and a slow speed ride through the stunning canals of Venice) but none of it registers beyond the pull of these two stars.

What stands out in "The Tourist" are scenes like those set on the train ride as Depp and Jolie feel each other out with lustful glances and hushed conversation. Later, Depp and Jolie send sparks flying as they gaze at one another over dinner in a gorgeous café with candlelight and the moon glimmering off the canal in the background. Cinematographer John Seale's imagery here will make you want to live in this scene.

The adventure stuff, the spy stuff is treated with a light heart and good humor in "The Tourist" but it's beside the point. "The Tourist" is about two unbelievably attractive people being unbelievably attractive together against Parisian and Venetian backgrounds that can almost compete with the actors in radiance. This may not have been the overall intent of the makers of "The Tourist" but it works and I can recommend "The Tourist" because I can recommend ogling these megastars.

Movie Review: Tideland

Tideland (2006) 

Directed by Terry Gilliam 

Written by Tony Grisoni, Terry Gilliam

Starring Jodelle Ferland, Brendan Fletcher, Janet McTeer, Jennifer Tilly, Jeff Bridges

Release Date October 27th, 2006

Published November 17th, 2006 

Writer-director Terry Gilliam has always directed his fantasies. Be they weird or myopic or paranoid, Gilliam directs entirely from his imagination, practical concerns be damned. His latest dream-scape is a perfect example. As Gilliam is forced to admit, in a bizarre opening behind the scenes prologue, Tideland is his own fantasy of what life would be like if he were a pre-teen girl. Based on a novel Mitch Cullen, Terry Gilliam's take on life as a tween girl is even more disturbing and bizarre than even his most ardent fans may expect.

Jeliza Rose (Jodelle Ferland), the daughter of a pair of serious heroin addicts, watches first her mom (Jennifer Tilly) and then her dad (Jeff Bridges), die of drug overdoses. The heroin prepared for mom and dad by Jeliza herself, causes her to recede into her self created fantasy world where a witch named Dell (Janet McTeer) and her mentally challenged henchman (Brenden Fletcher) become her pseudo family and the doll heads she wears as finger puppets carry on long, imaginative conversations with her.

Terry Gilliam isn't kidding when he claims this is what his life would be like were he a pre-teen girl. Wild, imaginative, perverse visions of love, death, sex and parenthood are all themes that Gilliam has tackled before. However, Tideland takes Gilliam's extreme fantasies to a whole new level of perversion. Perhaps Terry Gilliam has finally tweaked a puritan part of my brain but I find there to be something very wrong about presenting a Terry Gilliam fantasy through the eyes of this little girl. 

This is a fantasy that includes not just the drug overdose deaths of two parents from heroin doses administered by their own daughter but also the subsequent gutting, embalming, and slow decomposition of the father as the child continues chatting away as if dad were just napping. Then there is the creepy pseudo-romance. The pre-teen girl has a childish dalliance with the mentally challenged guy. In scenes that are both creepy and strangely sweet these two people who have no idea what intimacy is engage in the kind of childish exploration that would be cute if the mentally challenged guy weren't in his mid-twenties and quite insane.

There is, at the very least, some exceptional visual artwork in Tideland. Cinematographer Nicola Pecorini does some fine work giving vivid life to each of Terry Gilliam's most twisted ideas. For better or worse, the look of Tideland is as impressive as the story is disturbing and horrifying. And yet, Gilliam doesn't treat the horror as horror, there is a distinct sense of dreamlike fantasy, not light-hearted really, but Gilliam is not leaning into the horror that is very much present in this story and while some find that dichotomy compelling, I found it repellent. 

Every experience Terry Gilliam's pre-teen protagonist has, from watching both parents die, to the creepy mentally challenged 'boyfriend,' to the presence of the witch in her fantasies, are all played to such a low key whimsy that they barely register. You may watch in horror as scenes of degradation and dark humor play out, but you will also likely find your mind wandering as Gilliam underplays the horror of the scene in favor of  playing off a more goofball dispassionate response from this deeply troubled and traumatized young girl.

Terry Gilliam has demonstrated the genius of his myopic, selfish approach to film-making in movies as varied as 12 Monkeys, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas. In Tideland however, he takes that weird personal vision to its navel-gazing nadir. This is a movie made by Terry Gilliam for Terry Gilliam and while I admire any filmmaker who doesn't bow to audience concerns about what the majority of people want to see, that doesn't make a movie like Tideland fun to watch.

Movie Review: Crazy Heart

Crazy Heart (2009) 

Directed by Scott Cooper

Written by Scott Cooper

Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Robert Duvall 

Release Date December 16th, 2009 

Published by December 15th, 2009 

Very often the Oscars turn into the Hollywood Lifetime Achievement Awards. That will likely be the case with the Oscars this year as one of Hollywood's most beloved actors, Jeff Bridges,is the front-runner for one of Hollywood's biggest prizes, Best Actor in a Leading Role. Now, to be clear, I love Jeff Bridges. “The Big Lebowski” is my favorite film of all time. However, Jeff Bridges' work in “Crazy Heart” is solid but not spectacular and certainly not the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. 

For one thing, George Clooney delivers a far more complex, thoughtful and engaging performance in Jason Reitman's wonderful drama, “Up in the Air.” For another example Jeremy Renner's intensity and focus in The Hurt Locker would be a winner in any other year. Bridges' performance is authentically battered, broken, and genial but there is little depth to his drunken country singer, Bad Blake, in “Crazy Heart.”

Bad Blake was once a pretty big star in the world of Country Music but alcohol and a lack of a good accountant have laid him low. These days ol' Bad can be found playing rundown taverns and in an early scene, a bowling alley. There is still hope for Bad but he will have to clean up and swallow his pride a little. Bad's former back up band member Tommy (Colin Farrell) is now a huge star and he's willing to give Bad a break if he'll take it.

While Bad's busy fending off Tommy and his second chance, a trip to New Mexico brings Blake into the life of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a wannabe music journalist. Jean wants and gets an interview with Bad Blake that she believes could be her big break. Bad, meanwhile is quickly smitten with the much younger and very beautiful writer. His music charms her into his bed and soon Bad is bonding with her very young son.

Where the story goes from there is for you to discover. Jeff Bridges makes all the minor melodramatic turns affable and helps avoid most cliches of this kind of redemption drama but there is nothing particularly special about Crazy Heart. Director Scott Cooper doesn't reinvent the wheel with his dusty, slightly battered shooting style that, though it does well to match Bad Blake's boozy and beat up lifestyle. it lacks insight and the drama is relatively inert in its predictability. 

Movie Review Intolerable Cruelty

Intolerable Cruelty (2003) 

Directed by The Coen Brothers 

Written by Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, The Coen Brothers 

Starring George Clooney, Catherine Zeta Jones, Geoffrey Rush, Billy Bob Thornton, Cedric the Entertainer

Release date October 10th, 2003 

Published October 10th, 2003 

There are two unique qualities that mark Joel and Ethan Coen when working in comedy. The first is their writing, smart, funny, and slightly off-kilter surrealism tempered with sweet natured humor. The other is the look of their films, established with the help of cinematographer Roger Deakins. Consistent color patterns that have the same surreal quality of the stories they are background to. These two things are once again on display in Intolerable Cruelty, the Coen's skewed take on the modern romantic comedy.

George Clooney stars in Intolerable Cruelty as divorce lawyer extraordinaire Miles Massey, author of a prenuptial agreement so tough it's never been broken and is the subject of its own course at Harvard law. Miles' specialty is “impossible to win” divorce cases. Miles chooses cases specifically for the challenge of winning the ones no one expects anyone to win. Miles' latest case is that of Rex Rexroth (Edward Herrmann), a real estate millionaire who was caught dead-to-rights cheating on his wife Marilyn (Catherine Zeta Jones).

Marilyn, you see, hired a private investigator named Gus Petch (Cedric The Entertainer) to follow her husband and Gus now has videotape of Rex's infidelity. Obviously Rex is caught but with Miles as his lawyer, he somehow walks out of court on the good side of the settlement. In fact, Rex's now ex-wife got nothing. Nothing that is, except for the admiration of her husband’s lawyer.

Despite all of Miles' instincts about marriage and divorce, he is totally smitten with Marilyn and her shady search for gullible rich husbands. Even after she has married yet another rich dupe, a Texas oilman played by Billy Bob Thornton, Miles still can't help but fall for Marilyn. She, of course, has a few more surprises for Miles to come throughout this comedic story.

Intolerable Cruelty is a surprisingly conventional piece from the usually more off-kilter Coen Brothers. It is, in most respects, a romantic comedy and contains a number of the perfunctory touches of that genre. The coincidences and luck that are hallmarks of most romantic comedies also show up in Intolerable Cruelty, only slightly skewed by the Coen's snappy dialogue and bright colorful production design. The production design of the film is far better than most other films of the genre.

George Clooney and Catherine Zeta Jones spark some terrific chemistry but some of the film’s third reel twists undermine that chemistry with a little more detachment and cruelty than you want from a romantic comedy. Nevertheless this is still the Coen Brothers and the dialogue is smart and snappy and the two leads are more than equal to it. The good definitely outweighs the bad in Intolerable Cruelty. I'll take their version of the romantic comedy over any of the most recent releases in that genre.