Movie Review The Hills Have Eyes 2

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007) 

Directed by Martin Weisz 

Written by Wes Craven, Jonathan Craven 

Starring Michael McMillian, Jacob Vargas, Flex Alexander, Jessica Stroup 

Release Date March 27th, 2007 

Published March 27th, 2007 

Wes Craven is a terrific director. His work speaks for itself, when he is behind the camera, horror, suspense, blood and guts are on near perfect display. However, when Craven puts his imprimatur on a film without taking part in the film's direction; the quality dips dramatically. In the late nineties and early in this decade; Craven seemed to put his name on any piece of garbage horror film that came his way.

Craven has stopped placing his name above other people's titles in the past few years but his behind the scenes, non-directorial work continues to suffer. His latest effort is a remake of a sequel to a remake of an original that he directed. The Hills Have Eyes 2 follows a remake of Craven's original The Hills Have Eyes. Like the 2006 remake, The Hills Have Eyes 2 suffers for Craven's work in the background rather than the foreground as director.

In 2006's The Hills Have Eyes, as well as the film it re-imagined, a family took a wrong turn in the desert and ended up victims of hill dwelling mutants. One year later, the military has moved in to look over the areas where they once dropped an atom bomb; to find whether it has become inhabitable after 50 years. What they found, unfortunately, was an underground tunnel system overrun with man-eating mutants. Whoops!

A group of new recruits, on a training mission in the desert, are supposed to be delivering supplies to the soldiers and scientists in a remote desert outpost. However, when the recruits arrive; they find the camp empty and signs that the soldiers and scientists did not leave willingly. Somewhere in the barren hills surrounding the camp there may be survivors, but more urgently, those killer mutants are waiting for more victims.

Last years The Hills Have Eyes remake benefitted from a skilled cast of a higher quality than most b-movie horror flicks. Cathleen Quinlan, Ted Levine and Aaron Sanford are strong actors with strong presence who brought strength and gravitas to a rote horror formula. Director Alexandre Aja, who I am not a great fan of, is at the very least highly skilled in his presentation of horrific gore.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 ,on the other hand, features the 5th lead from Snakes On A Plane, Flex Anderson, in the lead role, or at least as the only actor onscreen I was able to recognize. The rest of the cast is desperately in need of a scorecard. These aren't bad actors, they are merely young, inexperienced actors whose inexperience shows in nearly every scene.

Add to that, the relative inexperience of director Martin Weisz, who I'm told is a highly skilled music video director. His work on The Hills Have Eyes 2 goes to show how very different the mediums of music video and film really are. Weisz is not necessarily a bad director, but one who doesn't yet understand the medium and thus relies on his music video tricks and a good deal of rote interpretation to direct this film.

There really isn't much to enjoy about The Hills Have Eyes 2. The film is stock horror clichés combined with ugly special effects and a barren location that offers little escape from the dreary story being told. The film has no sense of humor to speak of and the young, inexperienced cast is at a loss to bring anything other than their unsteady, babies learning to walk, style of acting to these roles.

There is something sorta charming about these actors but not anything that makes me want to watch them die horrifically, or more importantly, not die horrifically, in a horror film.

It's interesting to note that there was a The Hills Have Eye Part 2 back in 1985, a sequel to the original. That sequel was so awful, and so long forgotten, that no attempt was made to remake it. That film was directed by Wes Craven, who created the original, and it may be the genesis to his current philosophy of anything for a buck.

The script for The Hills Have Eyes 2 was written by Wes Craven with his son Jonathan which goes to show that nepotism in Hollywood is alive and well. Would this movie have been made without Wes Craven's name somewhere in the credits, beyond the based upon notice? No. And, frankly, we would be better off. However, Mr. Craven's bank account would not be better off and that is apparently what really matters when it comes down to it.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 serves its purpose. Made on the cheap, the film will make money and Wes Craven will take home a tidy sum. Congrats Wes, enjoy that new wave pool. I'll let you know if I stumble across your artistic soul somewhere.

Movie Review: An American Crime

An American Crime (2007) 

Directed by Tommy O'Haver

Written by Tommy O'Haver, Irene Turner

Starring Elliott Page, Catherine Keener, Hayley McFarland, Ari Graynor, James Franco

Release Date January 19th, 2007

Published January 15th, 2007 

There is a delicate balance at play in An American Crime. At once there is a need to demonstrate the abuse heaped upon the unfortunate young woman at the story's center. On the other hand, you risk losing the audience if you dwell or linger on the girl's suffering. Writer-Director Tommy O'Haver takes a just the facts, scholarly approach that does well not to linger but in the end fails to connect emotionally beyond  the simple demonstration of human suffering.

Sylvia Likens (Elliott Page) was by all accounts a pious, devoted young woman who loved her mom and dad and little sister and never harmed a soul.  When she and her sister Jennie (Hayley McFarland) were left in the care of Gertrude Baniszewski (Catherine Keener) it was thought that they would be there just a few months while their parents made their way around the carny circuit.

Three months turned to four and five and though their parents paid Gertrude 20 dollars a month to care for their daughters, that didn't prevent Gertrude from taking out her many problems on young Sylvia. Initially, Sylvia had bonded with Gertrude's oldest daughter Paula (Ari Graynor) but when they had a falling out, the abuse began. Sylvia is blamed for all of Paula's troubles and soon finds herself the subject of inhuman abuses.

Director Tommy O'Haver presents An American Crime with an almost documentary seriousness. Managing the delicate balance of not wanting to revel in Sylvia's pain but needing to demonstrate it, O'Haver retreats often to a courtroom setting where former West Wing star Bradley Whitford is prosecuting Gertrude for Sylvia's abuse.

The court room set allows O'Haver to keep some of the abuse in description rather than having to show too much. The courtroom scenes are based on actual court records, giving authenticity to the scenes and an extra little emotional punch when you see Gertrude's young son Lester (Nick Searcy) describe not just his mother's abuse of Sylvia but also his own. Searcy's sincere, unapologetic recounting of events is chilling.

Oscar nominee Elliott Page continues to seek the anti-Juno, a role that won't remind people of her indelible, fast talking, pop spewing pregnant teen. An American Crime is certainly far from Juno. Unfortunately, it also lacks Juno's ability to connect emotionally. Page's Sylvia is really nothing more than a demonstrative device. We watch as she is abused and we connect as we would with any child being abused but nothing beyond that. An American Crime fails to deepen the tragedy by giving us a character we really bond with.

The same sense of demonstration over connection affects the performance of Catherine Keener. Like Page we witness her actions but we don't connect with them specifically. We know this is a tragic situation and that Gertrude is a bad person but what led her this way? What made Gertrude commit such a heinous crime? An American Crime is good at demonstrating the crime but doesn't venture to guess why the crime took place.

It has to be more than just Gertrude decided to destroy this beautiful young girl. Was she sick? Was she abused? Did Sylvia do something that set off the situation? There is obviously no justification for the crime that was committed but something motivated this crime and failing to ascribe some motivation to it is a dramatic failure.

Near the end of American Crime there is a device employed by director O'Haver that can fairly be called a cheat or merely O'Haver screwing with the audience. I won't go into the details because it may be a mystery to some who see it, but I was irritated by it. It comes down to a series of seemingly important scenes that turn out to be the director's way of filling time and creating false drama.

If An American Crime was so unfilmable that this device was necessary to invent and inject some drama into the movie, don't make the movie. The crime seems compelling enough to me. The device employed is an unnecessary screw job to the audience.

An American Crime is based on a true story from Indiana in the 1960's. At the time it was the single worst documented case of child abuse in American history. The prosecution of Gertrude was a national story and today would likely be the subject of endless Nancy Grace hours and CNN specials. Writer-director Tommy O'Haver connects with this story better than our drive by media likely would but not by much.

His scholarly chronicling of the crime and word for word courtroom reenactments are better suited to the documentary feature than to the dramatic movie. His approach is too distant. Without the ability to get closer to these characters we are merely left as after the fact witnesses to the demonstration of pain and suffering.

Movie Review Post Grad

Post-Grad (2009) 

Directed by Vicky Jenson

Written by Kelly Fremon

Starring Alexis Bledel, Zach Gilford, Rodrigo Santoro, Jane Lynch, Carol Burnett, Michael Keaton

Release Date August 21st, 2009

Published August 20th, 2009

The late great Gene Siskel is quoted as having asked this question about a movie: "Is this movie as interesting as watching a documentary of this same group of actors having lunch?".  It was a pass/fail standard that Mr. Siskel established for good and bad movies and applied to the new comedy Post Grad, we have a definite failure.

With a cast that includes Carol Burnett, Michael Keaton, Jane Lynch and Alexis Bledel, I would have rather watched them read reviews of their other movies than watch them play out this brutal mess of a comedy.

Post Grad ostensibly stars Alexis Bledel as a disastrously put upon college grad. As Ryden Malby, Bledel is a bright. sweet and utterly clueless gal who fails to secure a job before she graduates college. Hanging her hopes on one interview at the only company she wants to work for, Ryden not surprisingly finds herself jobless when the company hires someone more qualified than she.

Her troubles send her back to mom and dad's house. Mom and dad are played by Michael Keaton and Jane Lynch as the wacky approximations of sitcom characters. Keaton is an endlessly tinkering oddball who, in classic sitcom fashion, loves a good get rich quick scheme. They have another child, much younger than Ryden, who is even weirder and more off-putting than his bizarre parents.

And then there is grandma played by Carol Burnett. Her main character trait is waiting to die. She has an oxygen tank and at one point calls her family, including her young grandson, to a funeral parlor where she is looking to purchase a high end casket. This idea plays out in such a broad and bizarre way that sympathetic gang members and a casket on the lawn are somehow the result.

Of course, a film this mindless and idiotic has romantic complications. Ryden has a best friend played by Friday Night Lights QB Zach Gilford. Of course they are meant to be, he's in love with her for reasons only he knows, she's written as a dummy who can't see he's in love with her. Meanwhile, Ryden has a dalliance with a doofy neighbor, ten years her senior, that only exists to delay the inevitable. The neighbor has a cat and.. well... the less said about the cat the better.

Really, the less said about this movie the better. A week after audiences so foolishly passed on the terrific teen comedy Bandslam we get Post Grad, a movie with more power behind it and thus more likely to be seen. What a shame. Bandslam will likely be out of theaters by the end of this weekend while Post Grad stinks up far too many screens.

Post Grad is an idiot movie, filled with idiot characters trapped in an idiot approximation of a plot. I am begging you, if you can find Bandslam, see that movie and forget you have ever heard of Post Grad. Bandslam doesn't have long before it leaves theaters all together.

Movie Review Suspect Zero

Suspect Zero (2004) 

Directed by E Elias Merhige

Written by Zak Penn, Billy Ray 

Starring Aaron Eckhardt, Ben Kingsley, Carrie Ann Moss

Release Date August 27th, 2004

Published August 26th, 2004

“Remote viewing” is something fans of late night radio host Art Bell are very familiar with. The CIA is rumored to have used remote viewing to locate dangerous criminals until the concept was found unreliable. Remote viewing is essentially a psychic phenomenon. Viewers claim to be able to find people using only their mind, describing what they see by drawing a picture with their eyes closed.

While remote viewing has been debunked, see Penn & Teller's brilliant "Bullshit" series, it does make an interesting plot for a movie. Suspect Zero, starring Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley, makes good use of it as a plot point but a weak performance from Eckhart is the film’s undoing.

Eckhardt stars as FBI agent Thomas Mackelway, recently returned to duty after a suspension. Mackelway had once been a top guy in the bustling Dallas office but now has been busted down to the relatively mundane Albuquerque office. As he's settling in to what he thinks will be a pretty dull gig he gets a big case, a murder that places the body directly on the New Mexico-Texas border.

Because the body is on the border, it is a federal investigation. The murder has the telltale signs of a serial killer. Numerous markings, a strange symbol (a zero with a line through it), and the victims eyelids have been cut off. The capper though is that, like most movie serial killers, the killer has specifically chosen Mackelway to be his opponent in a murderous game of cat and mouse.

Ah, but this film is a little more complex than other films of its genre. Our killer, Benjamin O'Ryan (Kingsley) has chosen his victims because they are serial killers. One of the victims happens to be the reason why Mackelway just got off suspension, he attacked the man and thus he got off on a technicality until O'Ryan came along and killed him. The manipulation here is pretty good; you sympathize with O'Ryan because he is killing bad guys.

O'Ryan tracks the killers through remote viewing, a skill he developed as an agent of the FBI. O'Ryan believes that Mackelway may have the gift as well. O'Ryan wants Mackelway to help him track down a killer he calls suspect zero, a killer who has killed indiscriminately across the entire country with no serial pattern. This suspect zero, O'Ryan believes, may be responsible for most of the unsolved murders in the country.

The film was directed by E. Elias Merhige, whose Shadow Of The Vampire was a quiet success back in 2000. Here his direction lacks the precision of Shadow. He falls way too in love with moving his camera, neglecting at times to secure it before moving it on a dolly, thus the camera shakes to distraction. Merhige uses way too many super tight close-ups, so close you can count nose hairs. Thankfully, toward the end of the film, Merhige's direction becomes tighter and the final 20 minutes get real good.

The most glaring problem of the film is star Aaron Eckhardt whose performance is uncertain and imprecise. It may be more the fault of Zak Penn's script for underwriting the character but clearly the character is off balance the entire film. The subplot about Mackelway possibly having the gift of remote viewing is never resolved though he spends a good deal of energy selling the pain of the migraines and visions that accompany the gift.

Also, hasn't this guy ever heard of the Internet? How is there not one computer in the entire FBI office? There is also a throwaway romantic plot with a former girlfriend and partner played by Carrie Ann Moss that just seems rote and unnecessary.

Who can blame Zak Penn for underwriting Eckhart's character when Ben Kingsley's O'Ryan is such a great part to write for? Kingsley is becoming known for strong performances in weak films, even earning an Oscar nomination for the over-hyped Sexy Beast. He's even not horrible in Thunderbirds where his righteous overacting is at least worth a few chuckles. Here he is riveting and more than believable as a man who has seen too many horrible things.

There is something so seedy and yet appealing about vigilante justice. You can't say it's okay to kill people but when O'Ryan comes upon a serial rapist, beats the hell out of him and kills him, you can't help but pause for a moment and think it's not so bad. I always love movies that test the limits of my morality, and sense of right and wrong and Suspect Zero does that.

I wish I could give Suspect Zero a full recommendation but that is impossible when the lead character just doesn't work. On the strength of Ben Kingsley's performance and the very good final reel, I can give Suspect Zero a partial recommendation.

Movie Review: Fair Game

Fair Game (2010) 

Directed by Doug Liman

Written by Jez Butterworth, Jon Butterworth

Starring Naomi Watts, Sean Penn, Noah Emmerich, Ty Burrell, Michael Kelly 

Release Date October 1st, 2010

Published October 2nd, 2010 

Is it just me or does the American left wing love remembering their failures? Whether it's Paul Greengrass in “Green Zone” relieving many of the massive intelligence failures that slipped past us during the Iraq war or Doug Liman building a lovely monument to our ignorance of the truths uncovered by Ambassador Joe Wilson in “Fair Game,” we cannot seem to get enough of reminding ourselves how powerless and ignorant we were.

The left loves mulling over it's failures and “Fair Game” is nothing short of a commemorative plaque to failure, a paean to blithe ignorance and a testament to the left's love of pointlessly re-living the past while ignoring the present and failing the future. Oh and I haven't even yet mentioned director Doug Liman who apparently must have been made quite ill by what he found in the story of Valerie Plame as his camera whips and sways about like vertigo patient off of his meds.

Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts), for those who are somehow still ignorant, was a CIA agent working on intelligence in the run up to the war with Iraq. We pick up her story in that brief respite from September 11th, the bombing of Afghanistan and the rather bizarre decision to attack Iraq. Plame was working around the globe all the while returning home on weekends for dinners with friends and nights with her former Ambassador husband, Joe Wilson (Sean Penn) and two children.

When the White House made the attention shift to Iraq Plame was among the working class analysts who looked at the data with zero agenda and offered sane sound evidence. Among the many intelligence gathering tasks Plame's group was assigned were allegations that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy Yellow Cake Uranium from the tiny African nation of Niger, not to be confused with Nigeria; two different places.

Knowing that her husband had contacts and experience in the region from his time in the Ambassador corps; Plame recommended Joe be sent to meet with a group put together by the Vice President who then sent Wilson to Niger on a fact finding mission. That mission revealed that Niger had almost zero capability of transporting the alleged materials if indeed they ever had such things.

Meanwhile, Valerie's own intelligence gathering seemed to uncover that Iraq barely had the weapons to rub two sticks together let alone create a working nuclear program. The greatest danger in the country lay with the scientists from the long defunct nuke program whose knowledge and capability might be valuable to another more viable enemy such as neighboring Iran or even North Korea.

Valerie was on task to gather many of these scientists to bring to the US when all hell broke loose. Watching helplessly as the White House ignored and distorted evidence he had gathered, Joe Wilson took to the op-ed pages and the Sunday talk shows to reveal the lies of the Bush Administration. In retaliation a coterie of Bush henchman including Richard Armitage, Karl Rove and fall guy Scooter Libby leaked the name of Joe's wife and set off a tidal wave of lies that likely lead to more death and future instability in the Middle East.

Sounds like a wonderful narrative for the American left doesn't it? Well, it's not so much a narrative, that's what truly happened. Wilson, Plame and numerous others told us this was happening as it was happening and have since written comprehensive non-fiction accounts of it all. We simply were not listening. Now, Doug Liman offers “Fair Game” and because it is such a lazy, slipshod effort we will continue not listening.

”Fair Game” offers nothing new to the story of Valerie Plame, nothing that those already interested in her story don't already know and nothing that anyone opposed to the Plame 'version' will willingly listen to. It's great to have yet another pop cultural recording of our failure to stop the war in Iraq but like Paul Greengrass's “Green Zone,” we needed this movie five years ago.

We needed movies like “Fair Game” when John Kerry was being beaten in a must win 2004 election. We needed movies like “Fair Game” when people on our side of the argument like then Senator Hillary Clinton voted to send us to Iraq.

We knew then, even before Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame were being dragged through the mud that we were being lied to and we did little to nothing to oppose it. “Fair Game” would be worthy now if it offered some object lesson for us to learn from. This would be a worthy effort if it gave us something useful to carry forward. Instead, “Fair Game” is merely a checklist of our failures recounted with tremendous historical accuracy.

And then there is the bizarre direction of Doug Liman, one of our finest action directors (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Bourne Supremacy, Bourne Ultimatum) who battles the straight drama of “Fair Game” with an action directors eye. Using a handheld camera, Liman acted as his own Cinematographer and attempts to give us a firsthand point of view of the events inside the Plame-Wilson household.

It’s a bold experiment except that Liman’s idea of a firsthand account is a whipsaw move of the camera from one character to the next as if we were strapped to the back of a fly on the wall. Bring your sea-sickness meds, especially for the dinner party scenes where Liman attempts to take on the perspective of every character at the table in very short order.

Late in the movie, in a quiet scene between Penn's Joe Wilson and Watt's Valerie Plame, Liman's camera can barely stay still to keep Ms. Watts in frame. Yet, in the next moment it is trained almost perfectly on Mr. Penn as if the actor, who is a fine director in his own right, demanded Mr. Liman pauses while filming him.

There is a scene between Watts and Sam Shepard who plays Valerie Plame's father where the director actually seems to have left in a frame where someone off screen bumped the camera knocking both actors almost completely out of frame. Whether this is some sort of cinema verite experiment or just plain laziness is anyone's guess.

I truly despise much of “Fair Game.” As someone who opposed the war in Iraq from day one I am tired of reliving our failure to prevent this massive screw up. It's done, millions of Iraqis are dead, hundreds of thousands of our soldiers are dead and no one, not even the beloved President Obama, can give us a reason why or voice any kind of proper outrage about it.

Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame have tired of the topic. Having moved from Washington after writing their books they are content to leave it all behind. Their approach is my approach. Unless you can show me something new, a lesson that we can pass on from this devastating, destructive, nearly decade long failure that is Iraq, I am simply not interested. “Fair Game” is irrelevance in film form.

Movie Review: Firewall

Firewall (2006) 

Directed by Richard Loncraine

Written by Joe Forte

Starring Harrison Ford, Paul Bettany, Virginia Madsen, Mary Lyn Rajskub, Robert Patrick, Robert Forster, Alan Arkin

Release Date February 10th, 2006 

Published February 9th, 2006 

It's been a tough millenium for Harrison Ford. Since the year 2000 the man who was once our number one action star has had one hit movie, 2000's What Lies Beneath. Ford has worked sparingly since, and each of his three projects has been creakier and more tired than the last. In 2002,  K-19: The Widowmaker featured Ford with an embarrassing Russian accent in a film that was otherwise entirely forgettable.

Hollywood Homicide (2004) was meant to share some of Ford's action-star status with Josh Hartnett. That slipshod effort, however, did nothing for either actor. Now comes the nadir of Ford's recent career, a techno-thriller called Firewall.

Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) is the top bank security officer in the field. His computer network is seemingly impenetrable. In fact, its only flaw is Jack himself. In a situation that he or someone from the bank might have predicted, a group of bank robbers lead by Bill Cox (Paul Bettany) has been watching Jack and his family. When Jack takes a late-evening meeting with Cox he has no idea that Cox's thugs have taken his family hostage.

The plan is not all that ingenious really. The bad guys threaten to kill Jack's family unless he will use his security knowledge to find the robbers a way to steal the cash. Naturally, the evil plot involves framing Jack for the theft while the bad guys sneak off to the Carribean with their cash in one of those offshore accounts that are so ubiquitous amongst movie criminals.

Firewall is merely the latest in a new genre called the techno-thriller. It's a genre that requires actors to spout techno-jargon while outwitting one another at computer terminals. What sets Firewall apart is star Harrison Ford who, at 63, could not possibly seem more out of place. The crotchety action star never for a moment seems comfortable with the techno-jargon. Only when the techno-thriller devolves into fistfights does Ford rouse slightly from his discomfort.

Criticizing Harrison Ford is not easy, especially for a fanboy like myself. The man has earned undying appreciation for being Han Solo, Indiana Jones and Jack Ryan. However with his last film, Hollywood Homicide, and now Firewall, the man once considered America's number one action hero is more than showing his age. Ford looks tired throughout Firewall and it's not just because of the character's stressful situation.

Watching the clearly bedraggled action hero vainly beat on his much younger nemeses and expect us to accept it is sad to watch. Someone needed to pull Ford aside and tell him that this role is no longer his strong suit. Ford should be seeking the kind of elder statesman roles that befit someone of his age and stature. Never one to seek awards recognition, Ford might consider chasing more challenging and more rewarding pictures. Certainly no one would begrudge one of our great heroes were he to launch an attempt at being taken seriously.

Director Richard Loncraine, who directed a British thriller called Bellman & True with a very similar plot to Firewall, brings a levelheaded professionalism to his direction. Loncraine is a veteran who knows how to build tension, but working within the constrictions of this genre and a sub-par script by Joe Forte, there is not much even a pro like Loncraine could do.

Loncraine, however, must take some of the blame for taking care of his star's vanity. It is Loncraine who allowed Ford to monopolize the film with his vain attempt at recreating past heroic glories. I would not want to be the director who has to tell Harrison Ford that he just doesn't have that action juice anymore, but someone needed to take responsibility and the director should have been the one.

It took about 15 minutes into Firewall before my eyes began rolling. Once the villains begin talking about encryption codes and servers I wanted to walk out. These computer terms became tired tropes around 1998 when Sandra Bullock ran them into the ground in the identity-theft thriller The Net. They were painfully dull once again in 2000's Swordfish with Hugh Jackman and John Travolta. And I had hoped they had passed for good after Michael Douglas' oh so lame Don't Say A Word. Sadly, Firewall rolls the clichés right back out and reminds us why they were so lame the first time.

Don't Say A Word is an even-closer cousin to Firewall, and not just because Douglas is in Ford's age bracket. Both films indulge another tiresome commonplace plot device, the all-seeing cameras. Big Brother plays a big part in Firewall as the baddies have invented all sorts of neato electronic gizmos to spy on the security expert and his family. In fact these items, along with their laptops and the leader's high-performance sports car, lead one to wonder why they need to rob a bank at all. Simply sell that high-tech equipment and there is a million bucks in your pocket right there.

Firewall is not Harrison Ford's first disaster--Random Hearts, Six Days Seven Nights and Hollywood Homicide could each qualify for that. Firewall, however, is somewhat sadder than the rest. This is the first time that Ford has looked worn out, beaten and defeated. Maybe that was the intent of the performance and, if so, it was a bad decision. Ford looks tired. He looks like a guy in need of retirement or a very long vacation and that just makes the film sad to watch.

Movie Review: The Woods

The Woods (2006)

Directed by Lucky McKee

Written by David Ross

Starring Agnes Bruckner, Patricia Clarkson, Bruce Campbell, Rachel Nichols

Release Date September 26th, 2006 

Published December 29th, 2006 

Lucky McKee's debut feature May should have made him a star director. With rave reviews from Roger Ebert, Ainitcoolnews and several other high profile outlets the film had killer buzz and somehow never made it past a couple hundred theaters. The botched release of May did no favors for McKee's follow-up a boarding school set creepfest called The Woods.

Havng been completed in 2004, the film was shelved when M. Night Shyamalan briefly considered the title The Woods for his own film which later changed to The Village. The Woods ended up temporarily without a studio home until MGM snapped it up. Then the film was lost in that company's collapse. Two years later the film is now found dumped unceremoniously on DVD and another brilliant example of talent of Lucky McKee goes unnoticed.

Agnes Bruckner (Blue Car) stars in The Woods as Heather a troubled teen who finds herself being dumped into a creepy all girls school after she nearly burned her house down. The Falburn Academy is located in the middle of a forest that has a creepy legend attached to it. It is alleged that some years ago three girls were found in that forest and taken to the school. There; the girls were suspected of being witches and were subjected to horrible taunting.

Somehow, after escaping back into the woods, the three girls turned their classmates into their co-conspirators and returned to the school late one night to murder the headmistress with an axe. Even before hearing this legend; poor Heather has seen this story play out in her dreams. Heather isn't the only one hearing voices; her bitchy rival Samantha (Rachel Nichols) and her only friend Alice (Emma Campbell) hear them as well.

All of this is somehow tied to the creepy faculty lead by headmistress Ms. Traverse (Patricia Clarkson). The headmistress pulls Heather and two other scholarship students out of class often to work privately. These private lessons often lead to inexplicable supernatural occurances all of which are somehow linked to the legend of the woods that surround the school.

The story of The Woods is rather convoluted and often misunderstood. Working from a script by David Ross, director Lucky McKee seems far more interested in his directorial toys than with telling a creepy compelling story. The difference between the Lucky McKee of May and the Lucky McKee of The Woods is this time McKee did not write the script. First time screenwriter David Ross has a good sketch of a horror movie idea but it never comes together.

This may be why McKee throws himself so much into the technique of filmmaking and ignores some story aspects. There are gaping holes in this plot and occasions when the younger actresses, Agnes Bruckner especially, seem lost. That is as much McKee's fault as Ross's

There is no denying that McKee's direction is first rate. The look he achieves for the film, with the help of cinematographer John R. Leonetti, eerily evokes the 60's and 70's work of Dario Argento and Roman Polanski. Pay close attention to the clever and creepy way McKee uses sound in The Woods. Listen to how certain effects are used, how footfalls are occasionally louder than need be, the way wind and rustling leaves so deftly mix with the film score. Sound design is an underappreciated art but in the hands of a master like Lucky McKee it certainly gets its due.

Kudos to Lucky McKee for hiring Bruce Campbell to play Heather's father. Just when you think its only a cameo, McKee brings the greatest B-movie actor alive back into the action late in the film. If only he had access to a chainsaw; I might have found fanboy nirvana.

The one actor who thrives in The Woods is Patricia Clarkson whose perfectly measured gentility never boils over into cackling villain overkill. Clarkson's headmistress is far more intriguing for being serene and eerie and that is just how Clarkson plays it. The oscar nominee brings gravitas to an otherwise B-movie cast and her presence raises the level of the actors around her.

The Woods is a rare example of how great direction can be a form of popcorn entertainment. For fans of the techniques of filmmaking a movie like The Woods is as enjoyable as any average good movie. Lucky McKee's little filmmaking touches, his use of sound, his evocative visuals, his numerous homages to genre veterans, all of these things are so clever and entertaining that I can forgive the rather mundane story he's telling.

Not nearly the masterpiece that was May, The Woods is an example of the talent and potential of Lucky McKee. He should probably stick to self generated material from now on in order to keep himself interested in all aspects of filmmaking. His storytelling in The Woods suffers mostly for lack of attention as much as not having great material to work from.

Flawed but still quite engaging, I am recommending The Woods but be sure to see May first. That way you will have a full understanding of just how talented Lucky McKee really is.

Movie Review The Grudge 2

The Grudge 2 (2006)

Directed by Takashi Shimizu

Written by Stephen Susco

Starring Arielle Kebbel, Jennifer Beats, Amber Tamblyn, Takako Fuji, Sarah Michelle Geller

Release Date October 13th, 2006

Published October 13th, 2006

Some say that Ju-On, Takashi Shimizu's 2001 horror flick is a Japanese horror classic. I've seen Ju-on and I was not that impressed. I was further unimpressed when Shimizu adapted his film for American audiences in 2004 and called it The Grudge. I missed Ju-On 2, sad for me, however I did see The Grudge 2. If the Ju-On sequel is anything like its American twin I'm sure I would have been just as unimpressed.

Sarah Michele Gellar briefly returns to the role of Karen in Grudge 2. If you recall, Karen was an American student attending school in Tokyo when she was cursed by entering a house where a brutal murder took place. Now Karen is in a mental institution because no one believes that the murder victim, now a ghost, is after her.

In Grudge 2 Karen's sister Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn) arrives to take Karen home but unfortunately she arrives just in time to witness Karen's seeming suicide. (If you are calling this a spoiler you haven't seen the film's trailer which features Karen's death). Of course, Karen's death was no suicide; something Aubrey finds out from a journalist named Eason (Edison Chen). Eason has been following the story of the murderous house and the deaths of the people associated with it and soon he has drawn Aubrey into the ghostly danger.

Meanwhile in another movie, I mean subplot, three teenagers arrive at the Grudge house on a dare and soon find themselves cursed by the house and followed by the deathly pale ghost of a dead woman and her dead son. While two of the teenagers disappear another takes the Grudge ghosts home to America with her where they begin to infect the inhabitants of a stately Chicago apartment building.

The Grudge 2 is what I like to call a 'BOO' movie. Essentially the film plods along with dull expository dialogue, then the eerie soundtrack kicks up, and the bad guy turns to the camera and says 'BOO'. Then more dull dialogue and another 'BOO'.

Director Takashi Shimizu does not know how to craft a creepy atmosphere. His use of gray offset at times by bright colors is interesting. Unfortunately, the atmosphere is the only interesting thing about The Grudge 2. The story of the movie is so convoluted and ludicrous that figuring out the plot is a lesson in futility. What is The Grudge? Is the creepy house called The Grudge? Does the house have a grudge against the people that walk inside it? Does the ghost have a grudge against the living?

I don't need the answers to all of these questions but some recognition of the confusion caused by this odd title is something it would not have killed the filmmakers to provide.

The PG-13 rating of The Grudge 2 takes most of the fun out of the scares. Blood and guts aren't absolutely necessary for a great horror film but the best of the genre certainly make good use of them. The Grudge and now Grudge 2 are pretty well bloodless and rely almost entirely on atmosphere, creepy music and 'boo' moments when something leaps out of the dark, perfectly timed to a screech in a music track.

My main point is this, if your film is so obviously devoid of scares then, at the very least you could spill a little blood, display a little carnage, show a little skin. This is the genre that toys with the senses, titillating in one moment, repulsing in the next. It's one of the things we go to a horror movie for, that push and pull of emotions, the manipulation of the fear response and the gag reflex. Without those elements a movie like The Grudge 2 is just dull.

BOO! can be scary when you aren't expecting it. When you buy a ticket for a horror movie however, you are expecting BOO!. Thus, a good horror movie needs more than BOO!. The Grudge 2 augments the BOO! with a creepy atmosphere but nothing more. That may frighten a two year old but not many two year old's will be attending The Grudge 2.

Movie Review The Goods Live Hard Sell Hard

The Goods Live Hard Sell Hard (2009) 

Directed by Neal Brennan

Written by Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Kevin Messick, Chris Henchy

Starring Jeremy Piven, David Koechner, Kathryn Hahn, Ken Jeong, Jordan Spiro 

Release Date April 14th, 2009 

Published April 13th, 2009 

The makers of the comedy The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, owe a deep debt, possibly even royalty payments, to John Landis who's 2004 documentary Slasher is undoubtedly the inspiration for this comedy about a group of mercenary car salesmen who stage massive sales for desperate car dealers. No mention is made in the credits or on the film's IMDB page of Slasher but I fear, honestly, litigation could be on order.

I had time to ponder this as I watched The Goods because this inconsistent comedy leaves a good deal of time for thinking about other things.

in The Goods Jeremy Piven plays Don Ready. His job, really, his life, is selling cars. With his for hire team of mercenary salesmen, Don is in a new city week after week with a new sale to run and new suckers to take advantage of. His latest job however, in the middle of nowhere town of Temecula(?) has some unexpected pitfalls.

Hired by Ben Selleck (James Brolin) to save his used car lot from bank foreclosure and taken over by his rival (Alan Thicke, in cameo), Don finds himself beginning to question his mercenary lifestyle. In the course of business Don meets and falls for Ivy (Jordan Spiro), Selleck's daughter. And then there is Blake (Jason Sadowski) , a Selleck employee who may or may not be Don's illegitimate son via a one night stand two decades earlier.

Meanwhile, Don's team are also meeting new challenges. Brent (David Koechner), the team finance guy, has to fend off the unwanted advances of Mr. Selleck. Babs (Kathryn Hahn), team eye candy, falls for Selleck's 10 year old son. Don't worry, he's a ten year old in the body of a thirtysomething and played by comic Rob Riggle. Jibby (Ving Rhames), the team's ethnic diversity, falls for a stripper and hopes to 'make love' for the first time.

Naturally, there is an enemy and he is played by Ed Helms as a rival car salesman who also happens to be engaged to Ivy and a member of a so-called 'Man band' whose claim to fame is once having opened for the group O-Town. If you think he has much hope of competing with Don Ready you probably haven't seen many movies.

The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is yet another in a long line of comedies that tries to get past predictable plotting by being exceptionally raunchy. The formula is however kicked up a notch thanks to the casting of some of the best comic supporting players working today. The all star team of supporting players is lead by Ken Jeong (The Hangover, Role Models), Tony Hale (Arrested Development), Wendie Malick and Craig Robinson. This terrific group pull laughs like the pros that they are and they elevate the otherwise forgettable movie with their uncommon talents.

Not that the main cast isn't good. I really like Ving Rhames in a very non-typically vulnerable performance. David Koechner's performance never goes in the direction you expect it to and Kathryn Hahn more than holds her own against the veteran launchers like Koechner and Helms.

The one performance that is just a degree off is Jeremy Piven who seems adrift between being the Fonzie and the affable, likable lead. The balance is never found. Don Ready is something of a loser, so no cool to fall back on and he is never all that likable even when he is supposedly playing vulnerable and in love.

I don't know if Piven is miscast in the role but he is definitely one of the things in the movie that doesn't completely work. The other is the stilted direction of TV vet Neal Brennan. Underlining all his points, Brennan directs The Goods as if mimicking, even parodying, other raunchy comedies of recent years.

There is nothing to really set The Goods apart from other R-rated comedies. Is it funny? Yes, and for some that will be enough. Myself, I was hoping for something more. Oddly enough, that is likely the feeling of most people who buy cars from guys like Don Ready.

Movie Review Grindhouse

Grindhouse (2007) 

Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarentino 

Written by Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarentino'

Starring Rose McGowan, Freddie Rodriguez, Kurt Russell, Tracy Toms, Zoe Bell, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Release Date April 6th, 2007

Published April 5th, 2007

Director Robert Rodriguez knows a little something about high camp. His Spy Kids movies, earnest as they were, often drifted across the line from family comedy to high camp gobbledygook. The same could be said for portions of his cult vampire flick From Dusk Till Dawn; a film that wavers between horror and high camp Roger Corman feature.

For his latest feature, half of the Grindhouse double feature, Planet Terror Rodriguez takes camp well beyond Roger Corman's wildest dreams. This off the charts nutty sci fi zombie flick flies so far off the rails, in terms of camp kitsch, that it's difficult to tell if his attempt is at homage or parody.

An ex-military unit, just back from Iraq unleashes a deadly toxin that turns citizens into flesh eating zombies in Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez's contribution to the Grindhouse double feature. Rose McGowan stars as Cherry Darling, a go go dancer who aspires to be a stand up comic. Freddy Rodriguez is her ex-beau El Wray, a former sniper turned criminal. Somehow both Cherry and El Wray are resistant to the zombie toxin and with a small band of survivors set out to battle the military behind the attack.

That is a rather straightforward description of a not very straight forward effort. From interviews you get the impression that Robert Rodriguez intends to pay tribute to the low budget sci fi trash that he grew up watching. However, much of Planet Terror plays like bad parody in the vein of 2004's forgotten Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, another lame attempt at a sci fi send-up.

There are a few cool things about Planet Terror Planet, the coolest being Rose McGowan's kick ass M-16 leg. After Cherry is attacked by zombies and loses a leg El Wray first fashions a table leg, which she puts to good violent use. However, later she gets another new leg and this one has awesome firepower and makes for one very cool visual.

The rest of McGowan's performance is a relative disaster of overly arch delivery and poorly delivered punchlines. The trailers for Grindhouse played up the gun leg and the badass action elements of her performance. Watching Planet Terror you may be quite surprised how ineffectual and often in the background Ms. McGowan is.

The badass of the movie is the slight, babyfaced Freddy Rodriguez. Not the most likely action star, Freddy Rodriguez is actually an inspired bit of casting. Back in the day when this type of low budget flick was made, directors could rarely get the actor they wanted for the money they could play and often ended up with miscast leads. Rodriguez as a bad boy action stud is a cute little inside joke nod to those low budget days.

The troubles of Planet Terror fall squarely with director Robert Rodriguez who fails to establish a consistent tone of sincere homage or high camp send up. There are little touches that work, like the small role for legendary special effects man Tom Savini and the occasional use of his old school effects rather than CGI.Then there is plenty that doesn't work like most of Rose McGowan's performance and the film's many gross out moments which are so stomach turning disgusting that many will want to walk out. These gross out moments further muddy the waters of Robert Rodriguez's intentions with Planet Terror, the homage versus parody battle that unsettles the entire picture. Some of the gross out is funny; some is merely off putting.

When compared with the film it shares the double bill with, Quentin Tarentino's Death Proof, Planet Terror is an utter disaster. Where Tarentino provides sincere homage combined with highly skilled filmmaking, Rodriguez can't decide what he's doing and ends up just tossing anything and everything at the screen to see what sticks.

When it comes to Grindhouse, wait for the DVD. That way you can skip Planet Terror and just watch Death Proof.

Quentin Tarentino is the preeminent film artist of the modern era. A savant like talent who learned filmmaking by watching movies, Tarentino has turned applied knowledge into great art and even now in his tortured partnership with Robert Rodriguez on the twin bill Grindhouse, Tarentino takes his applied knowledge of low filmmaking and turns it into yet another masters class in filmmaking.

Death Proof is an homage to a certain kind of 1970's drive in slasher movie that is actually still being made today on the fringes of the straight to video biz. The film stars Kurt Russell as Stuntman Mike, a Hollywood stuntman well past his prime.

With the advent of CGI guys like Stuntman Mike are a dying breed and you can hear the resentment in his voice as he recounts his history in the business, back in the day when he was a double for Lee Majors! He still works from time to time but he knows that his days are numbered.

It is this resentment that may explain, in some odd way, why Mike takes his anger out on unsuspecting women. Luring them into his tricked out stunt car which he claims is death proof, Stuntman Mike intentionally crashes the car and kills his passenger. The car is only death proof if you're in the driver's seat.

Setting his sights on a verbose group of women in a bar, a radio DJ and her three friends, Stuntman Mike first seems like just another creepy patron hitting on younger girls. When they end up rejecting his advances he takes it out on them in a horrifying car chase.

Then the scene shifts to a diner in Tennessee where four different women; working on a film crew, are sitting around discussing movies and men. Abbie (Rosario Dawson) is the makeup girl, Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Kim (Tracie Toms) and Zoe (Zoe Bell) are stunt women.

Zoe is visiting and has heard that a local man is selling a 1970 Dodge Challenger, just like the one Barry Newman drove in the movie Vanishing Point, pristine condition, right down to the color and the four barrel engine. Zoe wants a test drive and something more. Little do the girls know that Stuntman Mike is nearby and wants a piece of the action.

That scene leads to one of the greatest car chases you have ever seen in a movie. Tarentino's filmmaking skills create a visceral, emotional, physical experience. These chases are as good as his dialogue which is, as usual, dense and filled to overflow with pop culture bacchanalia.

The characters in the first half of Death Proof, aside from Stuntman Mike, are a verbose and intelligent lot who have interesting, involving conversations that sound mighty familiar. Peppered with references to the Acuna Boys (Kill Bill), foot massages (Pulp Fiction) and Red Apple Cigarettes (every Tarentino film), these conversations are so inside baseball they could make Kevin Smith Blush.

I'm not saying that Death Proof is for Tarentino fans only, it just deepens the experience if you get the references. This is a terrifically smart and entertaining and exciting movie regardless of whether you are a Tarentino fan. Besides, the chase scenes are essentially wordless and are the most entertaining and invigorating part of the film.

Everything about Death Proof works. This is among the best works of Tarentino's career and one of the best movies you will see in 2007.

Movie Review The Incredibles 2

The Incredible 2 (2018) 

Directed by Brad Bird

Written by Brad Bird 

Starring Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Vowell

Release Date June 15th, 2018

Published June 14th, 2018

Why don't I love The Incredibles? I have been racking my brain trying to come up with reasons why I have fallen out of love with the Pixar franchise and there really are too many little issues with the story, characters and lack of laughs for me to narrow it down. After sitting through nearly 4 hours of an Incredibles 1 and Incredibles 2 double feature I walked out baffled that the magic I felt back in 2004 was missing.

The Incredibles 2 picks up the story of the Parr family led by Bob Parr AKA Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) and Helen Parr AKA Elastigirl and including their three children, oldest daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell), middle child Dash (Huck Milner) and baby Jack Jack (Eli Fucile). Like their parents, the kids have superpowers as well with Violet possessing invisibility and being able to create force fields and Dash having super speed.

And then there is Jack Jack whose powers only came out at the end of the first Incredibles movie and only when mom and dad couldn't see them. In Incredibles 2 a significant subplot is dedicated to Jack Jack's developing more than half a dozen superpowers, none of which he can seem to control and some of them incredibly dangerous. Jack Jack's powers are the bright light of this otherwise drab outing.

The main story of Incredibles 2 centers on Helen taking a job as a superhero and leaving Bob at home to care for the kids. The CEO of a major corporation, Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) has dedicated some of his vast fortune to helping bring superheroes out of hiding. If you remember the original film, Supers were driven underground following a series of catastrophes and lawsuits. Deavor wants to use Elastigirl to show the world it still needs superheroes.

Helen immediately finds a nemesis in The Screenslaver, a villain who uses screens to hypnotize people into doing his bidding. Using her smarts Helen is able to make quick work of The Screen Saver but she wonders why it turned out to be so easy, considering how brilliant the villain had seemed as he was executing his plan for world domination. The answer is rather unsurprising, I had the villain guessed rather quickly and had to hope that the movie would find a clever subversion of expectations. Sadly, that never comes.

There is nothing all that remarkable about the story being told in Incredibles 2. Where most other Pixar movies have invention and humor on their side, The Incredibles relies on vague allusions to deep issues intended to flatter the audience for recognizing them. This is however, only puddle deep philosophizing. The makers of Incredibles 2 claim to have something to say about gender roles as they put Helen in the workforce and Bob at home but there isn't much beyond that presentation of the idea.

Helen is a terrific hero, smart and tough and a great role model of how a woman can be both a world class superhero and a great mom. This isn't exactly new ground that we are covering here, The Incredibles 2 is set in a vague early to mid 60's aesthetic and is deeply rooted in the aged politics of the time which seem quaint in today's environment. The Incredibles 2 director Brad Bird brings nothing new to this and the lack of depth in the characters is exposed by how simple the empowerment message is.

Yes, it's a movie for kids, I can hear and I am well aware of what The Incredibles 1 & 2 are. Toy Story is also a movie for kids and yet the makers of that film franchise still find deep and meaningful messages about family and aging and acceptance that go beyond the surface while maintaining a story simple enough for kids to follow. The Toy Story movies are also wildly funny on top of the deep themes, something that neither of The Incredibles movies are.

There is a distinct lack of laughs in The Incredibles 1 & 2. In fact, Incredibles 1 is downright disturbing at times in its lack of a sense of humor. A running bit about the dangers of capes features multiple deaths of superheroes and eventually the death of the film's lead villain. Then there is the Razer Blade scene wherein our hero hides behind the rotting corpse of a former friend to escape detection by a high tech hunting gadget. Incredibles 2 doesn't have anything that rivals those dark moments but it's not much brighter in tone either.

Watching this double feature of The Incredibles I was taken aback by the lack of fun. There is a dourness that hangs over these films, an oppressiveness that edges into the movie in the subplot about superheroes forced into hiding. The stories nod toward Ayn Rand of all people in blatant talking points about how super people have to sublimate themselves to make average people feel better about themselves.

In The Incredibles 1 the super villain, Syndrome (Jason Lee), wants to give everyone high powered gadgets so that everyone can be super and thus no one can be super. The Incredibles 2 turns Winston Deavor into a John Galt like figure who aims to create a utopia where superheroes can once again take their rightful place in society, out of the shadows. I'm not here to argue Randian philosophy, I'm just expressing how off-putting it is to endure such mediocre philosophy during what should be a fun adventure.

In The Incredibles 2 there is an attempt to hypnotize supers and use them for villainy. Some have pointed out that this is akin to the government using the best and the brightest to further the agenda of the mediocre. I'm not saying that was Brad Bird's intention but the film is so obvious in the Randian comparisons that I can see how people would arrive at the conspiracy theory. Here again, even if there is an agenda at play, there is no depth or commitment to it just as there is no commitment or depth to notions about gender roles.

The makers of The Incredibles 1 and 2 seem to want credit for depth without actually having to be deep. The defenders of these movies want to claim they are 'just kids movies' while still wanting to claim they have deeper themes. None of it works because neither The Incredibles or The Incredibles 2 commits to a specific idea of what the movie is supposed to be beyond a pastiche of superhero cliches dressed up with the talent of Pixar animation.

Then there is the villain, The Screensaver. This is not a particularly compelling villain. I already mentioned how obvious the identity of the villain is and how the film fails to make the character or the plot all that interesting beyond the predictable reveal. What I haven't yet discussed is the very notion of The Screensaver as a character. The character uses screens to hypnotize people. The movie is set in the 60's so the screen in question is the television screen, for the most part.

The obvious joke however is like a dad joke observation at its most lame. The Screensaver is a puddle deep comment on our addiction to our screens, our phones, tablets and other such modern technology. Like the attempts at Randian philosophizing and gender role questions, this idea is underwritten and relies on surface level observations. Obsessing over screens is bad, put away your screens and spend time with your family and blah, blah, blah. Thankfully, this a mostly unformed idea and we don't spend too much time on it but it's another failed attempt at a deeper theme, a hallmark of The Incredibles movies.

I have long been a Pixar apologist, one who has gone as far as defending the quality of The Cars franchise, which yes, I do believe is a better and much funnier series than The Incredibles. I have loved nearly everything Pixar has done and back in 2004, I was a big fan of The Incredibles. I had misgivings then but I brushed them aside to focus on how fun the movie was. It's less fun on a rewatch however as its flaws stand out more now that I am so familiar with it.

The Incredibles 2 underlines the flaws of the original and piles on even larger flaws. Brad Bird's baby is filled with underwhelming ideas and a lack of laughter. There is a distinct joylessness to The Incredibles 2. The filmmakers need to lighten up a bit and while scenes involving baby Jack Jack have a light funny feel, the rest of the movie is rather drab and obvious. Worst of all, the fun is undermined by the faint notions of depth, ideas dressed up as deeper themes but lacking actual depth.

Movie Review Stomp the Yard

Stomp the Yard (2007) 

Directed by Sylvain White 

Written by Gregory Anderson

Starring Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Ne-Yo, Darrin Henson, Brian White, Laz Alonzo, Harry Lennix

Release Date January 12th, 2007

Published January 16th, 2007 

MTV Films has pioneered a new kind of filmmaking. It's a low budget, high teen appeal style that involves formula stories about young protagonists and killer soundtracks that drive the film's marketing. It began with the dance drama Save The Last Dance and continued through the surprise 2004 dance hit You Got Served. The new movie Stomp The Yard is not an MTV film but it follows the MTV Films business plan. Made on the cheap, with a killer hip hop soundtrack and cameos by hip hop stars, Stomp The Yard made its budget back over the opening weekend.

That is great for business but the formula filmmaking is tired and the cheapness shows in the low quality of the filmmaking. Stomp The Yard may have youth appeal but it lacks greatly in story and filmmaking appeal. 

In Stomp The Yard Columbus Short plays D.J, a wrong side of the tracks kid from the L.A streets who finds himself in college in Atlanta after the violent death of his brother Duron. At Truth University his hard ass uncle Nate works on the campus landscaping and had to pull every string imaginable to get D.J in. Once there, D.J's culture shock includes a crash course in stepping, a dance competition among historic African American fraternities.

D.J knows how to step, he and his late brother and a team of friends were battle dancers back in L.A before Duron was killed after a competition. Now in Atlanta, D.J is shy about getting into stepping but after showing off for a girl in a bar, D.J becomes a hot commodity among the top two frats on campus, who also happen to be the top two stepping frats in the country.

The girl D.J danced for is April (Meagan Goode) and she happens to be the girlfriend of a top stepper, Grant (Darrin Henson) and the daughter of the school provost. If you think both of these attributes will be laid out as romantic obstacles and then easily overcome, then you have likely seen a few of these formula films in the past. Indeed, those on the wrong side of the tracks always seem to get the girl, especially when the upper crust of society forbids it.

There are few clichés that Stomp The Yard doesn't stomp all over on the way to its rote conclusion. Director Sylvain White, like most directors of January filler material, isn't so much a director as he is a vessel for transporting this cliché ridden script to the screen with little innovation. His style choices are sloppy and he seems to have no interest in the story beyond the opportunities it offers to film elaborate dance scenes.

Throughout Stomp The Yard White opts for a shaky handheld camera work that is sloppy and distracting, especially during the dance scenes where the camerawork makes you doubt just how spectacular the dancing really is. Throughout the film there are confusing scenes where one person or a team dances and one is alleged to be better than the other but we have no idea why. Each side is precise and athletic, even charismatic, but why one is better than the other is left completely subjective to individual taste. The way these scenes are put together however, it seems like we are supposed to understand that one side has been shown up, but for the life of me I had no idea why.

There is an interesting idea buried beneath the retread plot of Stomp The Yard. A movie that focuses its energy on why stepping is so venerated and why it is such a marvelous tradition. Stomp The Yard simply wishes for us to assume stepping is an important part of the culture, it never bothers to explain why. An education in the styles and grading of stepping might make an interesting movie or a better documentary.

For an education in battle dancing, more specifically a battle between krumping and clowning, check out David LaChappelle's documentary Rize. That film is gorgeously shot with no cuts during the dance scenes to prove that indeed no tricks were used, these dancers really did those amazing things. The crew of Stomp The Yard could have learned a lot watching Rize.

As it is, it seems that the Stomp The Yard crew watched how successful the clichés of 2005's You Got Served worked as a business model and simply copied them with slightly less skill. Yes, Stomp The Yard makes You Got Served look better by comparison. That is really saying something.

Movie Review Repo Men

Repo Men (2010) 

Directed by Miguel Sapochnik

Written by Eric Garcia, Garrett Lerner

Starring Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber, Alice Braga, RZA, Yvette Nicole Brown

Release Date March 19th, 2010 

Published March 20th, 2010 

Warning: The movie Repo Men has been sitting on a studio shelf for nearly three years. The film starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker never developed a reputation as a troubled project but for some reason the studio never saw fit to put it on the screen until now. This is, generally, a bad sign. Films that sit on studio shelves for a while have an almost literal stench of failure attached to them.

Repo Men stars Jude Law as Remy, a man with a very unique and disturbing profession. It is Remy's job to retrieve property but not just any property, Remy retrieves internal organs. A company known as The Union has developed mechanical organs to replace failing human organs of all types, lungs, heart, kidney et cetera.

The catch is that  these mechanical organs are unbelievably expensive, so expensive that the company offers an exorbitant payment plan. If you default on your payments for more than three months the Union sends Remy and or his pal Jake (Forest Whitaker) to retrieve the organ by any means necessary. Bloody gutting and death are the usual result.

As you may have learned from the trailers and commercials, Remy has an accident and ends up with a mechanical heart courtesy of The Union. Becoming a transplant patient changes Remy and he can no longer be a repo man. Also helping change Remy's perspective is another former patient (Alice Braga) who Remy falls in love with and eventually goes on the run with in order to escape the repo of both of their important parts.

Repo Men has an interesting idea, one that could be played to capitalize on the current debate over health care reform in America. What better way to parody the heartless insurance and HMO conglomerates than with the mass, bloody retrieval of organs that patients fail to pay for. The satire practically writes itself. 

That, however, is for another movie, as noted above Repo Men was made nearly three years ago before the battle over health care reform became a daily lead story on the national news. What Repo Men is really about is hardcore bloody violence reminiscent of the recent blood and guts epics coming out of Japan and South Korea. Repo Men apes a number of Asian action and horror conceits, especially the bloody violence of Chan Wook Park's Oldboy.

A scene late in Repo Men seems entirely lifted from Oldboy. In it Jude Law takes on several bad guys in a narrow hallway with a knife, a saw, and some sweet Kung Fu. It's a terrific scene but also derivative and in the end pointless. I won't spoil the ending but trained film watchers will be disappointed at how Repo Men tips its hand early on and cheats to the finish in a most irritating way.

I don't know exactly why Repo Men was left on the shelf for three years. There is little that could have been done in that time to improve it. My guess has less to do with production trouble than with marketing challenges. The studio (Universal) was likely holding the film until Jude Law regained his status as a marketable leading man.

In 2007 Jude Law was coming off of a series of box office disappointments and indie movies that barely made it beyond the art house. He was also a rising tabloid star having had a troubled marriage and well publicized affair that kept him from making many movies from 2004 to 2007.  In 2009 Jude Law came back to the top of the marquee starring opposite Robert Downey Jr in Sherlock Holmes. With Law's name recognition once again on the rise, and his tabloid troubles seemingly behind him, Universal likely felt they finally had a marketing hook and Repo Men arrived.

None of this means much to the quality of Repo Men. It's merely one of those notable Hollywood stories; a peculiarity of the Hollywood system where stars are coveted for their ability to sell a movie with their name and persona but shunned at the mere mention of potential scandal or perceived lack of appeal..

Repo Men is the result of that bizarre Hollywood system where marketing means as much or more than the quality of the movie. No one seemed to care whether Repo Men was any good, it's not great but not terrible. The more pertinent concerns for executives were whether the movie could be sold. In 2007 it wasn't an easy sell. In 2010 it became an easier sell.

Putting aside the Hollywood junk, if you are a fan of hardcore, blood and guts violence or a fan of Jude Law you will find a lot to like about Repo Men. If you prefer movies with strong story, characters and motivations skip Repo Men which pushes aside an interesting cast and story in favor of more blood and more guts and more spectacular ways of displaying them on screen

Movie Review Ratatouille

Ratatouille (2007) 

Directed by Brad Bird 

Written by Brad Bird

Starring Patton Oswalt, Ian Holm, Janeane Garofalo, Brad Garrett, Peter O'Toole, Will Arnett 

Release Date June 29th, 2007

Published June 28th, 2007

Brad Bird began his career as an animator on some lesser Disney efforts in the early 80's. He then moved briefly to the art department for The Simpsons and has since taken what he's learned in both of those unique arenas to feature films. His Iron Giant was a wondrous combination of classical animation and lovely storytelling. Sadly that film was never appreciated upon its release and only now seems to be gaining the classic status it so richly deserves.

His follow up, 2004's The Incredibles, thrust him to the forefront of modern animated artistry. His take on the all too real lives of superheroes was humorous, heartwarming and action packed and combined Bird's talent for beautiful animation with deeply human animated characters in extraordinary situations.

That film was, of course, a Pixar animation effort. The company that leads the way in computer animated artistry has once again teamed with Brad Bird for another exceptional film. Ratatouille, the story of a French food loving rat, is a loving tribute to food lovers everywhere and a supremely entertaining movie for anyone who enjoys movies. Not just animated movies or kids movies, Ratatouille is entertainment for everyone.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat in species only. In his heart Remy is a foodie, a lover of the greatest culinary delights. When he finds that he is living in the sewers beneath Paris, Remy see's a whole new world of foodie delights. Accidentally separated from his family, Remy seeks a new home and finds one in the kitchen of the late world famous Gusteau (Brad Garrett).

Gusteau is world famous for his cookbook ``Anyone Can Cook", a book that Remy has read cover to cover and taken to heart. Separated from his family, Remy develops an imaginary friendship with Gusteau who leads him to his restaurant now run by the miserly tyrant Skinner, Gusteau's ex-second in command. Skinner has turned Gusteau's into a money machine, marketing microwave food under Gusteau's world famous name.

Remy arrives at Gusteau's at the same time as a timid young man named Linguini who has his own connection to Gusteau. Linguini has been fired from numerous jobs and see's Gusteau's as his last chance to find something he can make a living at. A letter from Linguini's mother convinces him to hire Linguini as a garbage boy. However, when Linguini decides to help out with the soup, Remy has to step in and help him out.

When the soup is a hit, Linguini is put in charge of the soup and the two form a partnership and a friendship that could return Gusteau's restaurant to its former glory.

The key to Ratatouille is establishing its heart. We are talking about a movie whose star is one of the most reviled characters in the animal world. When you add the fact that our lead rat character is going to be involved with food and you have an awkward mix. However, the power of animation can tend to soften our feelings toward any species, but the real reason we come to love Remy is the terrific voicework of comedian Patton Oswalt.

The caustic comic surprisingly finds the perfect mix of winning humor, and passion that makes Remy a lively lovable character. Listening to Oswalt as Remy talking about food; you hear excitement and the purest of all joy. Remy has a desire not just to taste great food but to create and share great food with anyone and everyone and you hear that zeal in the voice of Patton Oswalt.

Credit director Brad bird for recognizing that passion and genuine enthusiasm in Oswalt's voice when he happened to hear Oswalt giving an interview on the radio. Oswalt was doing a bit from his act about the Black Angus Steakhouse chain and Bird decided then and there he wanted this guy's eager, earnest, enthusiasm for Remy.

The rest of the voice cast is equally well placed with the legendary Sir Peter O'Toole oozing worldly expertise as the tough as nails French food critic Anton Ego. It is O'Toole as Ego who is at the climax of the movie, its most important character and he delivers the climax in a wonderfully unexpected way.

As with all Pixar creations, the animation of Ratatouille is first rate. I mention Pixar because their stamp of quality brings an extra bit of credibility to Ratatouille. But, even working for Pixar, director Brad Bird has put his own stamp on the film. As he did with his previous Pixar produced work, The Incredibles, Bird brings his talent for traditional hand drawn animation to the world of computers and creates his own unique palette.

The look and feel of Ratatouille and its animated Paris milieu is warm and inviting with just a hint of the traditional Paris attitude. The look is timeless, not unlike the real city of lights, thus why you can't really get a sense of the time of Ratatouille. It has both modern and classic touches to the storytelling and the animated locations. It's in no way alien, just unique, its own sort of universe.

So many wonderful things stand out about Ratatouille and one of the most pleasurable is the genuine love of food. The film is a carnival of carnivorous delights making it the perfect movie to see right before going out to a nice dinner. If this movie doesn't stoke your appetite, you simply don't know how to enjoy good food.

Ratatouille is yet another triumph for Brad Bird and the team at Pixar. A joyous celebration of characters, story and animation. What a delight it is to see a movie that delivers in nearly every way imaginable from direction, to storytelling to casting. Nothing is left to chance and we in the audience are the ones who reap the rewards.

Not just a movie for the kids, but by no means over their little heads, Ratatouille is a complete movie. The rare treat of a movie that all audiences can enjoy.

Movie Review Pride and Prejudice

Pride & Prejudice (2005) 

Directed by Joe Wright 

Written by Deborah Moggach

Starring Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Tom Hollander, Rosamund Pike, Jena Malone, Dame Judi Dench

Release Date November 11th, 2005

Published November 10th, 2005 

My initial reaction to hearing that Pride & Prejudice would once again be adapted to the big screen was a massive groan. How many times can filmmakers tap this same material for a movie; I whined. I was rather surprised then, in my research, to find that Pride & Prejudice had been adapted for the big screen, in its original form and setting, only one other time. In 1940 Greer Garson essayed the role of romantic heroine Lizzy Bennett opposite Sir Laurence Olivier's stolid Mr. Darcy.

The familiarity that induced my groan of reluctance and apathy was actually related to the various attempts to update Pride & Prejudice over the years. In 2003 Lizzy became a New York college student and in 2004 a Bollywood style song and dance romantic. And let us not forget the many offspring that, while they are not straight adaptations, owe their various romantic cliches and complications to Jane Austen's seminal work.

Movies such as Bridget Jones' Diary, the multiple pairings of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and really any attempt Hollywood has made at creating romance on the big screen owes a nod, in one way or another, to the conventions cemented by Pride and Prejudice and Jane Austen.

How this brand new adaptation of Pride & Prejudice overcomes this over-familiarity is extraordinarily simple. The film, directed by big screen novice Joe Wright, remains as faithful as possible to Austen's work and casts exceptional actors to bring the already stellar material to life. The result is a movie that does not redefine Austen's masterpiece on the big screen, but rather allows it to exist anew for audiences who may never have experienced it before.

Keira Knightley stars in Pride & Prejudice in the role of Lizzy Bennet the 2nd of five daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet (Donald Sutherland and Brenda Blethyn). As we join the story Mrs. Bennet is obsessed with marrying off at least one of her daughters, preferably her oldest Jane (Rosamund Pike), because, with no male heir to take over the family land, when Mr. Bennet passes, the family stands to lose all of the land and their wealth upon his death.

Only a rich husband who can provide for the Bennet woman until each is married off, can save the girls from destitution. Thus it is big news when a new neighbor, a moneyed young nobleman, Mr. Bingley (Simon Woods); announces his intention to appear at a formal occasion the next weekend. Each of the Bennet women will have to be on their best behavior to help Jane attract Mr. Bingley whose wealth is far more attractive than his slight and awkward appearance.

At the party Mr. Bingley arrives with his sister Caroline (Kelly Riley) and a fellow nobleman Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen); a stuffed shirt with an air of superiority that surpasses mere arrogance. Darcy clearly feels everything and everyone is below his standards and even after meeting the spirited and lovely Lizzy; he scoffs that she is not handsome enough to tempt him. Regardless of Darcy's attitude, Bingley is smitten with Jane Bennet and it is Bingley and Jane that keep our antagonistic lovers, Darcy and Lizzy in contact.

The dislike expressed by Darcy for Lizzy is mutual. She overheard his 'handsome' quip; and has vowed to loathe him for all eternity. However, after a number of paths crossings and numerous misunderstandings and missed intentions it's clear that Darcy and Lizzy are meant for one another. The plot, adapted by Deborah Moggach, throws in some well reasoned roadblocks to keep our two lovers apart but it is Austen's shrewd dialogue and the performances of Knightley and MacFadyen that make Pride & Prejudice rise above typical romantic cliches.

Keira Knightley is absolutely radiant in the famed role of one of literature's shining lights of romantic optimism. Helping us forget her misanthropic turn in the ugly and forgettable Domino, Knightley reestablished herself as a star of the future and an actress to be reckoned with.

Matthew Macfadyen, in his first major international role, essays an aristocratic, measured, and intelligent Mr. Darcy whose romantic side is cloistered in a wall of self defense. Darcy's money has made him suspicious of romance and looking toward marriage as an arrangement of interests and not in any way related to destiny, fate or love. Macfadyen, like his character, comes to life in Lizzy's presence and his wall of defenses crumble in a beautifully acted scene where Darcy and Lizzy argue in the rain.

The supporting cast of Pride & Prejudice is equally as delightful as its two leads. Brenda Blethyn is the standout as Lizzy's busybody mother. Her desperate need to see her daughters wed to wealthy men is the film's driving force. Is she annoying? Yes. But, it's part of who this character is and if you accept this story you have to accept her. Each of the remaining Bennett sisters make lesser impressions but not so much that they hurt the rest of the picture. Best of the rest is Jena Malone as the impetuous Lydia Bennett who runs off and marries the foul soldier boy Mr. Wickham.

A period romance is a tough sale to modern audiences, even one with the literary cache of Pride & Prejudice. Look at Shakespeare, his plays have been successful in movie theaters only when updated with modern reimagining's or in the case of Romeo and Juliet, a bumping soundtrack and some cool looking guns in place of Shakespearean-swords.

Pride & Prejudice itself has been reimagined with modern trimmings but as this new film version shows, the original is an untouchable masterpiece. That is because; more important than her romantic ideals, Jane Austen's words are her true subject. It is the way her characters communicate their feelings that is as much or even more entertaining than how they act on those feelings. You can update the plot; it is a clever romantic plot -especially by modern romantic comedy standards- but without the words the impact is lost.

The words of Jane Austen, only slightly altered here by screenwriter Deborah Moggach, are smart, funny, warm and witty. Every word has its own sub-textual joy. There is joy and pain in every syllable, a deep meaning in every phrase and a romantic sigh in every pause. The words of Jane Austen have stood the test of time for a reason folks.

One of the great things about the written word is its ability to last forever. The words of Jane Austen in Pride & Prejudice will, no doubt, last forever because of their beauty, wit, and romance. Now those words are also immortalized in a cinematic form that also can last a lifetime in DVD collections of millions of romantics and fans of great words.

Movie Review National Treasure 2 Book of Secrets

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets 

Directed by Jon Turteltaub 

Written by Cormac Wibberley, Marianne Wibberley, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio 

Starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Helen Mirren, Harvey Keitel

Release Date December 21st, 2007 

Published December 19th, 2007

2004's National Treasure came out of nowhere to become a late season blockbuster. With its popular take on legendary conspiracies, big time action and stunts and its family safe PG rating, National Treasure was like a perfect map to blockbuster success.

Naturally, with a film so successful there would have to be a sequel and the crew of National Treasure is indeed back. Nicholas Cage returns to the role of Benjamin Franklin Gates, historian, adventurer and most of all treasure hunter. With his electronics wiz pal Riley (Justin Bartha), Ben has been chasing all sorts of treasures for years.

The latest adventure has an important personal connection. As Ben is lecturing to a group of students on the history of his famous family of adventurers and treasure hunters, he is confronted by Mitch Wilkerson (Ed Harris) who claims a scrap of paper from the diary of John Wilkes Booth proves that Gate's great great grandfather conspired to kill President Lincoln.

Knowing that his family history proves otherwise, Ben sets out on a new adventure to track down the evidence that proves his great great grandpa's innocence. The trail leads Ben, Riley and Ben's dad Patrick (Jon Voight) to an ancient book passed down through the ages from one President to another. It's the legendary presidential Book Of Secrets.

Home to all of the greatest conspiracies in history, the book holds the key to whether great great grandpa Gates was a traitor or not. Hot on the trail of the book as well is Wilkerson and his secret society of thugs and Harvey Keitel as an FBI agent whose job has long been keeping on what Ben Gates is up to.

It is impossible to deny the fun of the National Treasure movies. With their goofball stunts and good humor, the movies are inoffensive and easily digestible. While you are watching them you smile and chuckle and for most that will be enough to call it successful.

If you like your movies with low brain power and plenty of distracting explosions and diversions, you will love National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. You won't recall the experience 10 minutes after it's over, but at least it won't take up space in your memory as it didn't in mine. I have seen National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets twice now and I still needed the Wikipedia plot description and Rottentomatoes reviews of my fellow critics to remind me that the film existed.

Forgettable, low watt entertainment, if you like movies the way you like a good candy bar or a can of soda, you'll like the disposable entertainment of National Treasure.... uh, what was that subtitle again? I forget?

Movie Review: The Wolfman

The Wolfman (2010) 

Directed by Joe Johnston 

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker, David Self 

Starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving 

Release Date February 12th, 2010 

Published February 11th, 2010 

Andrew Kevin Walker is one of the most daring and dark screenwriters Hollywood has ever known. As famous as his script for Seven is, Walker may be known better as the most rewritten screenwriter in history. Rewrites of Walker screenplays include 8Mm, Sleepy Hollow and countless un-produced properties from Superman to X-Men.

His work has been criticized for being too dark and violent for mainstream audiences, despite Seven having made more than 300 million dollars worldwide. It was with this in mind that Walker went to work on a remake of The Wolfman in 2007. Today, The Wolfman is ready for the big screen and, no surprise, Walker's work has once again been rewritten into a compromised, mainstream ready version.

The Wolfman 2010 remixes Lon Chaney's classic creature with modern day special effects wizardry. It is directed by Jumanji and Jusassic Park 3 director Joe Johnston as a wild ride of techno factory dreariness. Benicio Del Toro takes the lead role of Lawrence Talbot an actor raised in America but born in Wales.

Lawrence happens to be touring in England when his brother Ben is mauled to death by some unknown creature. Ben's fiancee Gwen (Emily Blunt) informs Lawrence of his brother's death and calls him back to his childhood home where Gwen is staying with Lawrence's estranged father Sir Jon Talbot (Sir Anthony Hopkins). Father and son parted ways when Lawrence was a child and witnessed the aftermath of his mother's suicide by cutting her own throat.

Lawrence spent years in a mental health facility before going overseas. His return is warm enough for a father who put his son in a psych ward but the undercurrents of discord are resonant in their halting conversations. Lawrence gets on far better with Gwen whose grief rather quickly gives way to a sad flirtatiousness that Lawrence welcomes.

Unfortunately, the romance has to be put on hold as Lawrence searches for the beast that murdered his brother. The townsfolk blame a dancing bear owned by local gypsies but Lawrence, visiting the gypsies, encounters a woman, Maleva (Geraldine Chaplin) who has a different and far more terrifying theory: a Werewolf did it.

Lawrence has no time to be skeptical of Maleva as soon the camp is overrun by villagers and then the angry, ravenous beast himself. Lawrence chases the beast into the forest and is bitten. When his wounds heal startlingly fast there is only one conclusion, he will become a beast himself.

While Lawrence ponders his fate, Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving) arrives and with suspicions cast on Lawrence he aims to keep a close eye on him.

The plot puzzle that emerges in The Wolfman fits together well enough. Sadly, director Joe Johnston's hyper-kinetic style does not seem to fit a story that thrives on atmosphere and heightened emotions. Johnston cuts to quickly, whirls and tilts his camera and relies on too many cheeseball effects scenes for the gothic atmosphere to set in.

Watch The Wolfman and you find that stars Benicio Del Toro and Sir Anthony Hopkins are making one movie while director Joe Johnston seems to be making another. Del Toro and Hopkins halt and suspect and busily feel each other out as fits a movie of a slower, more deliberate pace. There are important father/son issues they hope to seed into the story. Director Johnston leaves them no time for that however.

Johnston's charge is to make a fast paced monster movie with modern tech and modern gore. Neither approach is wrong really but the two together are ill-fit and the film falters for a lack of a singular vision. That vision likely could have been writer Andrew Kevin Walker’s whose script the cast signed on for and then saw rewritten when director Johnston came on board by the more by the more mainstream horror writer David Self (The Haunting, Thirteen Days).

The failure to meld two visions into one movie is the failure of The Wolfman and yet it is hard to call the whole film a disaster. Makeup and effects legend Rick Baker's work on Del Toro, what little we see of it in the final CGI heavy edit, is solid as is the work of Del Toro who cuts a strong figure as the titular Wolfman.

It's unfortunate that once again Andrew Kevin Walker finds his work compromised into a by-committee, safe for the simpleton mainstream crowd horror movie. Hollywood studios it seems are the first to underestimate the brains and taste of the majority of audiences and that is part of the downfall of The Wolfman.