Movie Review The Bucket List

The Bucket List (2007)

Directed by Rob Reiner 

Written by Justin Zackham

Starring Jack Nicholson, Morgan Freeman, Sean Hayes, Rob Morrow 

Release Date December 25th, 2007

Published December 24th, 2007

"Dying is easy, Comedy is hard" the alleged dying words of British actor Sir Donald Wolfitt are somewhat ironic when related to the new to DVD movie, The Bucket List. Directed by Rob Reiner, The Bucket List is a comedy about dying. It's also a comedy that proves just how hard comedy is as a pair of old pros, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, fail to get hardly any laughs at all in this desperate comedy.

Jack Nicholson is Edward Cole and Morgan Freeman is Carter Chambers. Aside from age, Edward and Carter have nothing in common except that they are both dying from cancer. After digging through the perfunctory getting to know you scenes, Edward, a millionaire who actually owns the hospital the two men are in, and Carter, a middle class mechanic, bond and decide not to spend their last days in bed.

Together they will blow off their families and friends in favor of a round the world jaunt that will help each accomplish all of the things on their 'bucket list', the list of things they wished to do before they 'kicked the bucket'. For Carter just leaving the country is one thing, Edward on the other hand wants to climb Kilimanjaro.

So what about their families? Edward is a loner who hasn't seen his only daughter in over a decade (no points for guessing that we will meet the daughter before the film ends). Carter's wife, played by Beverly Todd, is rightfully indignant until Carter plays the 'I'm dying, I'll do what I want' card.' It's a jerk thing to do to the person you supposedly love, leaving them right before you actually die to travel around the world with a virtual stranger, but nothing about these characters is all that likable anyway. 

The around the world journey is filled with charm even as it is slightly offensive in nature. Really, how many people really dying of cancer could just pick up and go around the world? Granted, movies are all about wish fulfillment, but there is something unseemly about the carefree attitude of The Bucket List in relation to cancer and the honest suffering of so many real people.

That aside, from a strictly filmmaking standpoint The Bucket List is a mixed bag. There are laughs, mostly from the two stars bantering off of one another, but The Bucket List is arguably the laziest movie Rob Reiner has ever made. The film moves from one expected scene to the next with little more than the charm of Nicholson and the sturdy presence of Freeman to carry us past the predictability.

Eventually, even these two awesome talents can't prevent us from getting bored with the progression from one expected scene to the next. There is an inevitability to the story, of course it's about two guys dying of cancer, but Reiner makes little attempt to mix up the journey with something we don't expect or that he doesn't tip his hand to several scenes ahead of time.

The dull predictability combined with the overall morbidity of the central story can't entirely dim the charm of these two stars but not even the talents of Freeman and Nicholson can overcome the rote anticipation of The Bucket List.

Movie Review: Bourne Ultimatum

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Written by Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns, George Nolfi

Starring Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, David Straithairn, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney, Joan Allen

Release Date August 3rd, 2007 

Published August 3rd, 2007

Though Daniel Craig has brought some of the cool back to the James Bond franchise, most I'm sure will agree that the spy franchise of this decade is not Bond but Bourne, Jason Bourne. The Bourne Identity, Bourne Supremacy and now Bourne Ultimatum are pulse pounding, non-stop thrill rides where big time action meets grand drama and suspense to create a near masterpiece of genre fiction.

When last we left Jason Bourne he was getting revenge for the murder of his girlfriend and just beginning his determined search for his past. Now in Bourne Ultimatum, Jason is after his past again. He wants desperately to know how he became a globetrotting assassin, who he killed, why did he kill them and who told him to do it.

What this information will do for him is Jason Bourne's private business. Matt Damon and his poker face keep things close to the vest. That is fine with us in the audience because plot is not the point of the Bourne movies. Like Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy before it, The Bourne Ultimatum is about non-stop propulsive action of the most skilled and determined kind.

Director Paul Greengrass is a master of the big action scene; as he demonstrated with the jaw dropping Russian car chase scene in Bourne Supremacy. In Bourne Ultimatum, Greengrass tops himself with a fight scene set in the row houses of Tangiers that must be seen to be believed. The fight between Bourne and a man sent to kill him is so fast paced, up close and quickly cut that audience members will feel as if they need to duck some of the punches that fly.

As the first two films have been set apart by exceptional car chases, The Bourne Ultimatum too has a killer car chase. Set on the streets of New York this tightly paced, high speed ride has our hero driving a stolen police cruiser chased by CIA spooks and one determined assassin who is the last line of defense between Bourne and his past. How this scene plays out is a perfect microcosm of the complex action of this terrific film series.

As Bond has had some memorable villains, Jason Bourne can lay claim to some of the finest character actors ever in the business as his top adversaries. In Bourne Identity it was Oscar nominee Chris Cooper and Brian Cox as Bourne's former controllers turned pursuers. In Bourne Supremacy Oscar nominee Joan Allen joined the returning Cox as CIA Bourne chasers.

Now in Bourne Ultimatum add two more Oscar nominees to the list. David Straithairn plays the head of CIA black ops who hopes to keep Jason Bourne from exposing some of the illegal activities of his clandestine enclave of the CIA. Also joining team Bourne in Bourne Ultimatum is Oscar nominee Sir Albert Finney as a man with up close and personal knowlege of Jason Bourne's true identity.

With a cast like this; story depth is built into the margins; freeing director Paul Greengrass, himself a recent Oscar nominee for United 93, to focus on making the action kick as much ass as possible. He satisfies action fans with some serious ass kicking, car chases and edge of your seat suspense of the kind that sets the Bourne franchise apart from other classic franchises.

Matt Damon has been adamant that The Bourne Ultimatum will be his last Bourne film. Whether the franchise will continue without its star seems without question. What a shame that will be. Damon is Jason Bourne and it's unlikely any other actor can bring the same fierce intensity and integrity to this role that Damon has. Like Connery with the original Bond or Michael Keaton's Batman, Damon's Jason Bourne is definitive.

The Bourne series will not be the same without him. For now at least, bask in the action glory that is The Bourne Ultimatum, the perfect kickass coda for one of the best action franchises of all time.

Movie Review: Becoming Jane

Becoming Jane (2007) 

Directed by Julian Jarrold

Written by Kevin Hood, Sarah Williams

Starring Anne Hathaway, James MacAvoy, Julie Walters, Maggie Smith, James Cromwell

Release Date August 3rd, 2007

Published August 3rd, 2007

The real life of legendary romance writer Jane Austen is shrouded by mystery and mostly lost to history. All that remains of the real Jane Austen are scraps of letters she wrote to her sister, most of which her sister burned at Ms. Austen's request. Also left is the one and only portrait of Jane Austen, a hand drawn caricature also done by her sister. That portrait remains a treasure in England where it hangs in the Jane Austen museum, the home of her brother where Jane wrote her masterpiece Persuasion before passing away at age 41.

Jane Austen remains a national treasure in England where her Pride & Prejudice has seen remarkable sales for over a century. The books many adaptations have won accolades, television ratings and banked large box office sums as well. Now comes an American attempt at telling the life story of this British legend. Becoming Jane stars American Anne Hathaway and posits a fictional romance in order to tell the story of Ms. Austen's inspiration for Pride & Prejudice.

This may sound like blasphemy to any Englishman with good sense, and indeed it may be. However, much of Becoming Jane is a splendid little trifle of a romance that is never dull and often quite enchanting.

Anne Hathaway, the gifted young star of the Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, takes on the challenging role of Jane Austen the author of such timeless romances as Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility and Persuasion. Becoming Jane is a fictional take on how Jane Austen was inspired to write her first masterpiece, Pride & Prejudice, and the decisions about love and family that would shape her too short life.

James McAvoy (Starter For 10) plays Tom LeFroy, a real life aquaintance of Jane Austen, though they were never romantically linked as far as any historian knows. In the fictional world of Becoming Jane, LeFroy is a boy lawyer living off his uncle, a judge, when he meets Jane, the eldest of the Austen sisters and the one required by family to marry above her station in order to keep the family solvent.

Jane's younger sister Cassandra (Anna Maxwell Martin) is already promised to a young man who will take over their father's church one day. Thus, it is left to Jane to make certain that her mother (Julie Walters) and youngest brother, a handicapped boy, are taken care of through her marriage. Jane however, refuses to marry without love.

Unfortunately, Tom is not of rich enough stock for Jane to marry. Being a young man in the law profession, it will be many years before he is solvent and able to take over the family fortune and good name of his uncle. Even then, he will need to be well married in order for his uncle to approve and their is simply no way that his uncle would approve of Jane, the peasant daughter of a church minister.

Thus the story of Pride & Prejudice played out in the life of Jane Austen. In reality, it is far more likely that Jane witnessed similar stories from afar or simply imagined the class warfare and invented her work. Historical fact however, is irrelevant to a light hearted, childish, Disney romance like Becoming Jane. This a simpleminded romance with only the goal of placing obstacles between two star-crossed lovers and hoping that we are compelled to ooh and ahh at their potential for life long companionship.

That Becoming Jane manages to be quite winning even as it tramples upon the real life story of a literary legend is quite a feat. Nevertheless, Becoming Jane is a real charmer.

Put aside for a moment the many blasphemies of Becoming Jane, such as a plot so easygoing and unpretentious that Ms. Austen herself likely would have trashed the paper it was written on. Forget the historical inaccuracies and the fake romance and the carelessness inherent in adapting the life story of a legend and then bending the facts of her life to the conventions of a typical romantic comedy.

Forget all of that for a moment, and understand that Becoming Jane may be an awful idea in theory, it is quite successful in execution. Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy spark a lovely little onscreen romance of salty banter, smoldering gazes and painful partings. Meanwhile, director Julian Jarrold keeps the mood light and airy but with a professional flair, with just a hint of the goofy vibe of his previous international success, Kinky Boots.

The Jane Austen cult is likely to revolt over seeing the life of their legend so simplistically drawn on screen and they have a point. Becoming Jane plays fast and loose with the life story of a historic literary figure. But therein lies the boldness of the enterprise. Their is a cheeky vibe to the lack of kneeling and bowing at the feet of legend and that gives just a slight spark to an already sparky, charming little romance.

For non-Austen-ites, Becoming Jane is just the kind of movie treat that goes down easy on a friday night.

Movie Review: Who's Your Caddy?

Who's Your Caddy (2007)

Directed by Don Michael Paul

Written by Robert Henny 

Starring Big Boi, Tamala Jones, Jeffrey Jones, Faizon Love

Release Date July 27th, 2007

Published July 29th, 2007

There have been too many Caddyshack ripoffs to count since that comedy classic arrived more than 20 years ago. Few however, have been so blatantly thieving as the comedy Who's Your Caddy. Though it is given a racial twist, Who's Your Caddy lifts the raucous, us vs them scenario of Caddyshack and does little to distinguish itself from the dozens of other imitators.

C-Note (Big Boi) is the impresario of one of the largest empires in all of hip hop. Puff Daddy asks this guy for a loan. C-Note has it all but what he wants more than anything else is admission to a prestigious golf club that he has always dreamed of playing at. Unfortunately, the club's stuffy owner Mr. Cummings (Jeffrey Jones) and his stable of cronies refuse to let him in.

If you think C-Note would accept such rejection you are mistaken. Buying property that includes a small portion of the golf course, C-Note won't give up his new digs, and give back the courses 18th hole unless they let him become a member. In the meantime, the club dispatches their new chief legal counsel, Shannon (Tamala Jones) to try and negotiate things. No surprise, C-Note falls for the lawyerette.

If you guessed that everything comes down to a contest on the course, well duh! Of course it does and I bet you can guess how that turns out as well. Sometimes it's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it. Who's Your Caddy offers little of anything new in what it's about but does have some charm in how it goes about it.

Who's Your Caddy is amateur in direction but what it lacks in cinematic chops, it attempts to make up with energy and good humor.  The cast is game, the humor is inoffensive and the hip hop soundtrack, including new music from star Big Boi, is not bad. Indeed Who's Your Caddy is not a bad movie overall. It's just not a very good movie.

Rapper turned actor Big Boi has three major credits under his belt, ATL, Idlewild and now Who's Your Caddy, and while he lacks the polish of his fellow portly rap star turned actor, Ice Cube, or the raw energy and charisma of his Outkast partner Andre Benjamin, he does have a laid back comfort on screen that plays like charm. His work is effortless and at ease and he makes Who's Your Caddy float by in its just over 90 minute runtime.

Not a truly bad movie but far from a good one, Who's Your Caddy is another forgettable Caddyshack rerun that fails to provide any motivation for audiences to get excited about it. The cast is amiable and good natured and they seem to be having a lot of fun on screen but that fun doesn't always pass on to the audience.

There is potential in Big Boi as an actor but he needs to leave behind forgettable, juvenile junk like Who's Your Caddy.

Movie Review: The Simpson's Movie

The Simpsons Movie (2007) 

Directed by David Silverman

Written by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean 

Starring Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Albert Brooks, Tom Hanks, Harry Shearer

Release Date July 27th, 2007

Published July 27th, 2007 

20 years in the making, America's funniest TV family is now on the big screen and funnier than ever. The Simpsons, Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, have been a dominant force in American pop culture for years now. With the release of their first movie, their place in our cultural history grows in proportion. The Simpsons Movie transcends the small screen not by leaving behind the aspects that made it such a wonderful television enterprise but rather by blowing it up to a new size for a different screen.

That the transfer is so amazingly successful is a testament to the brilliance of the material and the creative minds who have made it so.

The Simpsons Movie finds our hero family in more jeopardy than they have ever faced this side of a Halloween episode. Lake Springfield has been so badly polluted that just one more dumping of chemicals could make it completely toxic. Naturally, that one last dumping would come from Homer Simpson, defying a new city ban on dumping in the lake, Homer drops off a silo full of pig droppings, courtesy of his new pet pig, into the lake and thus sets off an environmental disaster.

The situation in Springfield Lake is so bad that it reaches all the way to Washington D.C where President Arnold Schwarzenegger conspires with the head of the EPA Russ Cargill (the blessed Albert Brooks), to deal with the Springfield problem in ways the President doesn't have to read about. Thus, Springfield is cut off from the outside world by a giant dome dropped over the city. Soon the EPA will launch a plan to destroy the city whole, that is unless the Simpsons can save the day.

That is a very simple description of a plot far more rich than my description. The Simpsons Movie, like the TV show, is rarely about its plot. Rather, the Simpsons thrives on what can be done in and around a particular plot. In this case, the environmental destruction plot offers the opportunity for political humor aimed at both sides of the political spectrum.

Both environmental activists and the political hacks and contractors who thrive on environmental destruction are painted with the same skeptical brush. Admittedly, the creators of The Simpsons Movie have a more liberal perspective, but they do go out of their way to try and be fair and balanced, in the tradition of their sister news network.

The real source of humor in The Simpsons Movie is the Simpson family themselves. The love and exasperation of being a family is what has always been at the heart of America's favorite family and the writers of the Simpsons and now The Simpsons Movie, know how to tap that for big laughs. The deep abiding love the Simpsons have for each other binds them together and opens up wide avenues of humor.

Little moments like Lisa decking Bart after he mocks her crush on an Irish heartthrob or bigger moments like Homer's entreaties to get the family to follow him to a new home in Alaska and the line "I've come to really like you guys", are the kind of familial grace notes that the series has built over the years. There really is nothing they can do that they won't forgive, no matter how outlandish. It is the cartoon's most human and yet broad element.

The Simpsons have made a nearly flawless move from the small screen to the big screen and have begun, what I hope, is a renaissance for america's favorite family. The TV's show's ratings have slipped in the past few years and many long time fans have said the show has lost a step. The Simpsons Movie is proof, that simply isn't the case.

The Simpsons are funnier than ever in The Simpsons Movie. You've got to see it for yourself.

Movie Review I Know Who Killed Me

I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

Directed by Chris Sivertson

Written by Jeff Hammond

Starring Lindsay Lohan, Julia Ormond, Neal McDonough, Brian Geraghty

Release Date July 27th, 2007

Published July 26th, 2007

It was the great John Waters, in a cameo on an episode of The Simpsons, that gave me my definition of camp. "It's Camp, the ludicrously tragic, the tragically ludicrous". It is that line that resonated deep within my mind as I watched the new Lindsey Lohan pseudo-thriller I Know Who Killed Me. There are few things in Hollywood at the moment more tragic than Ms. Lohan. And, there are few movies more ludicrous than I Know Who Killed Me, a wacky torture porn wannabe, too squeamish to commit to full on exploitation and too balls out goofy to be merely bad.

Aubrey Fleming  (Lindsay Lohan) has these really vivid dreams that she turns into stories for her creative writing class. They tell the story of a girl named Dakota whose life of crack houses and strip clubs provides a rich background for Aubrey's burgeoning storytelling talent. Aubrey's writing is taking her to Yale in the fall, or it would have; if not for one fateful night after a football game.

Aubrey was supposed to meet friends for a late night movie. When she didn't show, her friends got scared. They called the police; who called Aubrey's parents, Daniel (Neal McDonough) and Susan (Julia Ormond), who also did not know where she was. Weeks go by until a body is found along the highway, a leg and hand severed, but still alive.

The girl looks exactly like Aubrey but when she comes to, she claims to be Dakota. As the cops press her for information on who cut off her hand and leg, Dakota maintains that she is not Aubrey and spins a fantastic tale of how her hand and leg simply shriveled up and fell off. This as she sleeps with Aubrey's boyfriend (Brian Geraghty) and searches for the killer in her own unique ways.

That is the spoiler free version of the plot of I Know Who Killed Me and as often happens with movies this bizarrely bad, my description is far more concise than anything in the movie. It took me two showings of I Know Who Killed Me just to come up with that description. Watching the film for the first time, with a critic friend of mine, I could not stop laughing long enough to try and put the pieces of this ludicrous trash epic together.

Directed by Chris Sivertson, I Know Who Killed Me has delusions of grandeur as an art film, a torture porn ala Hostel with a dash of M. Night Shyamalan and just a hint of Brian De Palma at his most over the top. None of it ever approaches coherence but it's never boring. Imagine all of that crammed into one picture and then blended with a group of performances so off key you almost hear dogs barking and you get just a sense of how truly, brilliantly awful I Know Who Killed Me is.

It is so rare in modern Hollywood to find true camp or kitsch. Modern films are so self aware, so self consciously willing to wink at audiences that camp becomes manufactured or forced. Rarely do you get the earnest achievement of true awfulness. A group of actors and filmmakers who have truly deluded themselves into believing that what they are doing is working.

More often you get movies like Snakes On A Plane where the kitsch became the marketing hook, thus subverting the camp into simple bad filmmaking. Either that or you get a movie like Redline or Because I Said So, movies that are just so horrendous that you can't even take joy in the badness. There is no commitment on the part of the actors who are too bored or dull-witted to care whether the movie they are in is any good.

In I Know Who Killed Me however, you can see the grand delusions of all involved. You can see from the care taken to craft out their visuals and the attempts to create a color motif (blues and reds dominate the screen in a self conscious battle for control) that director Chris Sivertson and his team were convinced they really had something here.

Not unlike the work of the great Ed Wood who believed earnestly in his own talent, the creators of I Know Who Killed Me evince utter cluelessness as to how brilliantly awful this trash epic truly is. It is that joy of creation, that misguided judgment, that makes I Know Who Killed Me a truly wonderful bit of camp. That, and of course, the schadenfreude of watching star Lindsey Lohan hit bottom on the big screen as she hits bottom in real life.

You can see in Ms. Lohan's performance a level of commitment that says she truly believed the things her characters were saying. More important though, from a camp perspective, you can see how desperately out of her depth she is trying to give life to the goofiness she is trying to play as serious drama and mystery. And worse yet, you can see how her real life drug problem may have contributed to how truly awful her performance is.

On the one hand, I don't want to take pleasure in Ms. Lohan's problems. On the other hand, she is young, rich, privileged and not dead, so I don't feel too bad. Plus, her real life tabloid problems give trashy subtext to an already trashy movie and increase the camp pleasure of I Know Who Killed Me to a degree where I could actually recommend it in an ironic way.

Poor Ms. Lohan, she's not a bad actress, just one who doesn't make good decisions. Watching I Know Who Killed Me; one cannot escape the idea that the poor girl is being taken advantage of. Watch the stripping scenes, Dakota is a 'dancer', and you cannot help but be more embarrassed for Ms. Lohan as opposed to being titillated by her gyrations. She simply looks lost and sad on the stage and it's unclear whether those emotions are intentional or just a sad realization of how low her career has sunk.

I cannot recommend I Know Who Killed Me, from a typical movie standard. However, I can tell you that if you are looking for an ironic laugh, you might wait for this DVD to come out, gather some friends and have fun at this film and Ms. Lohan's expense. It sounds a little mean, but it's undeniably funny.

Movie Review I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007) 

Directed by Dennis Dugan 

Written by Barry Fanaro, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor 

Starring Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Jessica Biel, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Dan Akroyd

Release Date July 20th, 2007

Published July 20th, 2007

For every little bit of progress Adam Sandler makes as an actor; he seems to take one step back. His performance earlier this year in the 9/11 drama Reign Over Me was a tremendous step forward for Sandler as an actor, if a bit of a step down from his usual box office stature. Like his very impressive turn in P.T Anderson's Punch Drunk Love which Sandler followed with the juvenile animated effort 8 Crazy Nights and the dull, unfunny rage of Anger Management, Sandler chooses to follow Reign Over Me with the childish attempt at P.C laughs in stereotypical clothes, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

Larry Valentine has a big problem. As a firefighter who rushes into the blaze to save lives, his life is often on the line. His work is very dangerous and with two kids at home to take care of, Larry wants to make sure they get his pension should something happen to him. Unfortunately, a paperwork snafu, in the wake of his wife's untimely death, has left Larry in a real bind. Should he be killed in action, his kids won't get his pension unless he gets married.

Unfortunately for Larry, there is only one person he would trust enough to make sure his kids were taken care of. his lifelong pal, Chuck Levine. This is where Larry crafts a real hairbrained scheme. Seeing a story in the paper about how the city of New York has legalized domestic partnerships for gay couples, Larry gets the idea to marry his pal Chuck.

Chuck is not exactly the ideal choice for this scam. He has a rather legendary reputation as a ladies man. In fact, when we first meet Chuck a pair of sexy twin sisters are fighting over him after he slept with both of them. Later, when Larry goes to tell Chuck his plan, he interrupts him while he is romancing several women at the same time.

Nevertheless, Chuck owes Larry his life after a fire call went bad, so he agrees and the two head for Canada to make it legal. Things get complicated when the city challenges the authenticity of their relationship and Larry hires a sexy lawyer named Alex (Jessica Biel) who immediately strikes a chord with Chuck and puts the whole scheme on thin ice.

This being a typical, brainless Adam Sandler effort you expect and get just about every stereotype known to man thrown in as comic asides. However, surprisingly enough, the biggest problem with I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry is not insensitivity, the film actually offers a pro gay agenda. Rather, the problem is much simpler than that. It's just not a very well made movie.

Directed by Adam Sandler's pet director Dennis Dugan (Big Daddy, Happy Gilmore), I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry never establishes a solid tone or any kind of charm. The film is crude and resorts more often to dull slapstick than to anything organically plot driven. The plot should be the focus, it's a big broad topic with many opportunities for satire. That, sadly, is well beyond the intellectual scope of Dugan and Sandler.

While there will be many who will be offended by the many stereotypes at use in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, you will be surprised how fairminded and pro gay the film really is. Though the support is shallow because of the gutless direction of Dennis Dugan and the strip mined script by Sandler and Barry Fanaro, the film's heart is in the right place.

What really stinks is that you can see the potential for something a little more thoughtful, deeper and more satisfying. Jim Taylor and Alexander Payne, the team behind Election, About Schmidt and Sideways, delivered a version of this script that, those who have read it, say is sharper and more pointed in its humor and perspective. That version was flamed in favor of a more Sandler friendly version with all of the slapstick and self serving ego indulgences that are Sandler's hallmarks.

My biggest fear was that I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry would be a series of stereotypical jokes with a liberal use of the word f****t. Watching it, that is what we get. However, a heavy dose of positivity manages to balance things out in a very surprising way. That positive feeling however, is not enough to make the film funnier than it is or more believable than it is.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry suffers the ego of its star Adam Sandler who compromises much of what might have worked in the film in favor of fellating his own ego. What a shame, there was a good deal of potential here.

Movie Review Roll Bounce

Roll Bounce (2005) 

Directed by Malcolm D. Lee 

Written by Norman Vance Jr. 

Starring Bow Wow, Chi McBride, Mike Epps, Meagan Good, Nick Cannon

Release Date September 23rd, 2005

Published September 23rd, 2005

In preparing my review of the new roller-disco flick Roll Bounce I came across an article in the New York Post about roller skating movies of the past and it mentioned a true forgotten classic, Skatetown U.S.A. This 70's gem starred Scott Baio, Patrick Swayze, Ron Palillo (Horshack from "Welcome Back Kotter") and former Brady Bunch star Maureen McCormick. The film is about rival roller disco gangs competing in a skating tournament set to disco rhythms. I thought I only dreamed of this movie.

Maybe someday someone will look back on Roll Bounce and be as nostalgic, or sarcastic take your pick, as I am for Skatetown U.S.A but without the perspective of time, Roll Bounce is a relatively relatively unmemorable 70's throwback that needed more of a sense of humor about its subject as opposed to trying to ring actual tension out of a movie about roller skating.

Rapper Bow Wow stars in Roll Bounce as Xavier or X to his crew of rolling skating friends including Junior (Brandon T. Jackson), Boo (Marcus T. Paulk), Naps (Rick Gonzalez) and Mixed Mike (Khleo Thomas). Together the boys spend every summer at the roller rink where they perform choreographed routines for fun. The fun stops, however, when the local rink is closed down and the boys are forced to go to the upscale rink on the other side of town where skating is a competition not a pastime.

The boys are harassed by the locals as they attempt their routines and get shown up pretty fierce in their first visit. However, you just know that when the time comes, as in the 500 hundred dollar cash prize skating competition, the guys will be more than ready.

Parallel to the skating story is the story of X's home life where he and his sister and his father (Chi McBride) are coping with the loss of their mother. Not only that but dad has also just lost his high paying gig as an airplane designer and has not told his son. The family drama is a tad bit cheesy in a movie as gregarious and loose as Roll Bounce and the father son tension only serves to weigh the film down when it should roll with the skating.

Roller skating is a goofy subject for a movie and the last thing any movie should try and do is take it seriously. Yet that is what director Malcolm D. Lee and writer Norman Vance Jr. try to do. They try to make you care about the outcome of this superfluous, overblown and rather ridiculous competition. Don't get me wrong, the action on skates is impressive but it's also quite goofy.

Juxtapose the roller disco of Roll Bounce with the disco of Saturday Night Fever and they may look similar in their weightlessness. However, where Fever earned its melodramatic side by delivering a complex and fascinating lead character, Roll Bounce never establishes X as either fascinating or complex. X is a nice, kind of goofy kid who's a great dancer on skates. The detail of X attempting to cope with his mother's death seems tacked on to give him a dramatic weight and works only to take us away from the more genial and fun story of the roller disco.

Malcolm Lee is a terrific director as he showed in the friendly comedy The Best Man and the awesomely funny 70's send up Undercover Brother. One is left to wonder where that sense of humor is in Roll Bounce. There are occasional funny moments but the film goes for very long stretches without laughs. Lee and writer Norman Vance too often get bogged down in trying to create a family drama and trying to make you care about roller skating that they forget that their real subjects are fun and nostalgia.

Both Lee and Vance could use a refresher in how to write female characters. None of the women in Roll Bounce are anything more than minor characters. Jurnee Smollett, Meagan Goode and "The Bernie Mac Show"'s Kellita Smith each play a different variation of a love interest for the main characters and they are defined by being the love interest and nothing more. None of the women take part in the skating and are left in another typically female role as a cheerleader.

When Roll Bounce is in its retro groove with its killer soundtrack of seventies classics, Bee Gees, Chic, Kool and The Gang and such, it's an enjoyable little throwback. However, when Malcolm Lee attempts to shoehorn in the family drama the movie becomes bogged down and the good time vibe comes to a complete halt.

Roll Bounce does manage to find entertaining moments that showcase these young actors' talent for having a good time. The skating is pure kitsch and when the actors are allowed to take part in that kitsch spirit the film comes alive. That spirit is captured by Nick Cannon's cameo as a seventies style ladies man and Wesley Johnson as the skating rink superstar called Sweetness who enters the rink with his own 70's style theme music and two female valets on his arms like some roller skating pimp.

The retro good time vibe is there in spirit in Roll Bounce but it is too often undermined by forced melodramatics. Still if you were a fan of great disco, roller skating, or high camp you may find something to really enjoy in this inoffensive retro retread.

Me? I'm going on Ebay to find a copy of Skatetown, USA.

Movie Review Role Models

Role Models (2008)

Directed by David Wain

Written by David Wain, Ken Marino, Paul Rudd

Starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Christopher Mintz Plasse, Elizabeth Banks

Release Date November 7th, 2008 

Published November 6th, 2008 

Paul Rudd had threatened to become a big star a couple of times. His work in Clueless received a great deal of positive buzz and his turn in Neil Labute's caustic drama The Shape of Things had a number of major critics talking about his dramatic chops. Rudd went a different direction. After a very funny role as Phoebe's boyfriend Mike on Friends, Rudd found his new home in comedy playing Brian Fontana in the wildly funny Anchorman.

Since then Rudd has been part of the Judd Apatow comedy repertory troupe, taking on supporting roles Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. And now Rudd moves into the lead of the new comedy Role Models. It's not quite the fulfillment of his leading man potential but it's a good start.

Danny (Rudd) hates everyone. He's been miserable much of his life but finding he has spent ten years at the same company, hocking horrible energy drinks to high schoolers, his misery becomes a full on meltdown of anger and desperation. He gets little help from his pal Wheeler (Seann William Scott) who only adds to Danny's stress with his constant smiling and good natured oafishness.

When Danny gets it in his head that marrying his girlfriend Beth (Elizabeth Banks) he is stunned back into his angry haze when she says no. Ticked off, depressed and high on energy drink, Danny gets kicked out of a high school assembly for praising drugs and insulting his own product. Then the company truck is being towed away so Danny jumps in and tries to run the car off the back of the tow truck.

He ends up shoving a police officer, recklessly endangering said cops life and property damage to the school when he drives his bull themed truck up onto the back of the school horse sculpture. Beth, a lawyer, manages to get the boys community service which is assigned to Sturdy Wings, a big brother style program where each will have to connect with a troubled kid.

Christopher Mintz Plasse, Superbad's charming McLovin, is Augie Fowler and Bobb'e J. Thompson is foul mouthed 10 year old Ronnie. If you think the two slacker doofuses are going to be energized and reborn through their connection to these two kids, well, you're right. Role Models is, if anything, a formula comedy. However, formula doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing.

Writer-director David Wain, best known for absurdist fare like Wet Hot American Summer and the little seen spoof The Ten, makes the formula feel fresher than you expect. Seizing on Augie's love of an elaborate role playing game, one where teens and adults dress up and play in the park with rubber swords and medieval costumes, Wain finds a twist on the formula that spurns your expectations of where you think Role Models are headed.

Keep an eye out for a nod to the Kiss Army that will have fans and non-fans rolling on the floor laughing.

Nearly stealing the whole show is a supporting performance by the sublime Jane Lynch. Playing the owner operator of this big brother program, Sturdy Wings, Lynch digs into her character's bizarre background to find big laughs. Constantly reminding whoever is listening the horrible things she did when she was a drinker and a druggie, Lynch's character takes no BS.

Her rants and Rudd and Scott's stunned, off balance reactions to them earn laughs that come in strings of unending giggles. It's fair to say that director Wain overindulges the comic wealth of Lynch's performance but it doesn't matter when it's so consistently funny.

As for Paul Rudd, his raging angry id is quite funny, especially his many pet peeves, but it's the restraint shown by Rudd and director Wain in not reveling in his anger that keeps Danny from turning into a downer. Yes, he's angry but that anger isn't his defining characteristic as it may have been in the hands of a less talented actor and director.

Role Models is a formula comedy that doesn't settle for the formula but improves on it. The final third of the film takes place during this medieval role playing game and you will be surprised by how natural and comfortable the ending in this setting is. Rudd, Scott, Plasse and Thompson work terrifically well together with Plasse delivering the heart of the film in his earnest passionate embrace of his geekiness.

Well observed with just enough big laughs to make you forget about the few issues in the plot, Role Models is worth checking out in theaters.

Movie Review Rock Dog

Rock Dog (2017) 

Directed by Ash Brannon

Written by Ash Brannon, Kurt Voelker

Starring Luke Wilson, J.K Simmons, Eddie Izzard, Lewis Black, Kenan Thompson, Mae Whitman

Release Date February 24th, 2017

Published February 24th, 2017

To complain that “Rock Dog” is a low-quality bit of animated flotsam is something akin to complaining about the wind blowing, that’s simply its nature. “Rock Dog” is an animated cash-in from China that isn’t meant to be good but rather is intended as a product, and a cheap one at that. China may still be under the boot of Communism but the burgeoning capitalists working their way around the government have learned a thing or two from Hollywood charlatans who pump out products rather than art or even the modest bit of fluffy entertainment.

“Rock Dog” features the voice of Luke Wilson, a paragon of youthful enthusiasm at a mere 45 years old, as teenage mastiff singer Bodi. Bodi lives on Snow Mountain with his bruising mastiff daddy Khampa (J.K Simmons) who has seemingly planned Bodi’s life for him. Like his dad, Bodi is expected to become a guard dog, protecting the simple and sweet sheep of Snow Mountain from the dastardly and deadly wolves, led by Linnux (Lewis Black).

Bodi however, dreams of music and when a radio falls from the sky from a passing airplane Bodi finds his muse in a rock singer named Angus Scattergood (Eddie Izzard). With dreams of having Angus teach him about music, Bodi leaves his family behind to travel to the city and join a band. Unfortunately, the wolves see Bodi leaving and see it as a chance to attack the village. Can Bodi achieve his dreams and still find a way to protect Snow Mountain? Will you care?

Don’t let this incredibly funny voice cast fool you, “Rock Dog” has only three laughs. Mostly “Rock Dog” seems to exist. The story is rudimentary, as my description indicates, when it isn’t filling time with nonsense about wrestling a murderous bear or padding things further with voiceover from Sam Elliott as, ugh,….. Fleetwood Yak. Somewhere several screenwriters high fived over that pun.

No, Fleetwood Yak is not one of the three laughs in the movie, though it did rank among the uncountable groans. No, Eddie Izzard’s rock star cat was responsible for the laughs “Rock Dog” inspires. One comes when he is forced into a bit of old school Warner Brothers slapstick, the second when he feels guilty for stealing a song from Bodi and is shamed by his robot butler and the last wasn’t memorable enough for me to recount but I can at least admit the laugh was there.

Does a negative review of “Rock Dog” matter in any way? Of course, not. Most parents don’t care what they throw in front of their small child’s consciousness. That said, for the few parents who do care, for the parents who are vigilant and give thought and care to what their children consume, this review is for you. This review says don’t waste your child’s developing brain cells on this. It’s not that “Rock Dog” is offensive or even bad for the children who do see it. Rather, that “Rock Dog” isn’t worth the 89 minutes your child could be reading or imagining or exploring a worthy work of pop entertainment. This review is for anyone who actually read all the way to the end of a review of “Rock Dog.”

Movie Review Robin Hood (2018)

Robin Hood (2018) 

Directed by Otto Bathurst 

Written by Ben Chandler, David James Kelly

Starring Taron Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, Eve Hewson, Jamie Dornan 

Release Date November 21st, 2018

Published November 20th, 2018

Robin Hood is among the most ill-conceived blockbuster action movies in history. The attempt by Hollywood to sex up and modernize the Robin Hood legend is sad and desperate instead of new and cool. Director Otto Bathurst, a veteran of numerous popular TV shows, botches Robin Hood so badly you're left to wonder if it was intended as serious or as parody. The film is riddled with so many genre cliches that parody feels like a genuine possibility. 

We begin just as the crusades are getting underway. Young noble, Lord Robin of Locksley (Taron Egerton) is madly in love with a peasant girl named Marion (Eve Hewson). Their love affair is interrupted when Robin is drafted into the Crusades by the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn). He leaves and finds himself somewhere in the Middle East where the film becomes a straight up, modern war movie. 

This sequence is laughable with arrows that destroy walls more effectively than most bullets and fly at a rate that only cartoon arrows have ever flown before. Cartoon is an appropriate metaphor here because the arrows are a laughable example of bad CGI. Here, Robin Hood plays out a sequence that is a remarkable cliche from every modern, Iraq war era war movie. An arrow shooting machine gun has the crusaders pinned down and only Robin can get to him to shut down that arrow gun. 

This sequence made me laugh embarrassingly loud. The creators of Robin Hood believe they are bringing Robin Hood into a more modern context but the attempt fails miserably due to the remarkable series of incongruencies and anachronisms. On top of this, the idea that Robin was ‘drafted’ ruins the idea of Robin as a noble man disillusioned by what he thought was a just war. Instead, you just have Robin as a bratty dilettante who happens to be the only Englishman with a conscience. Here the movie tries to be a Vietnam movie and once again, I was embarrassed for myself laughing and for the actors selling this nonsense. 

During this sequence Robin meets John (Jamie Foxx), a middle eastern fighter who sees Robin as someone in a position of privilege that could be to his advantage. Stowing away on the ship taking an injured Robin back to England, John seeks out Robin and unfolds the plot. They will train and become thieves and steal the fortune of the Sheriff of Nottingham, disrupting the funds needed to continue the Crusades. 

In his time away, the Sheriff has condemned and burned Robin’s home and announced him as having been killed in the war. Because of this, Marion has left and moved on and is now in a relationship with WIll Scarlett (Jamie Dornan). Marion is also secretly conspiring with Friar Tuck to uncover a piece of information that will take down the Sheriff and his supporters among the corrupt Church of England. 

Could any of this nonsense have worked? Maybe, there are a lot of elements in play, plenty of complexities that could be explored. Sadly, the script for Robin Hood is so dopey that it botches everything from beginning to end. There is a conspiracy plot at the center of the movie involving the Church and the Sheriff and it’s all complete nonsense. There is a plot involving stealing documents that then play no role whatsoever in how the story plays out. 

The documents prove a plot that the sheriff is involved in but he’s already robbing and killing the people of Nottingham. Do they really need a conspiracy to want to stand against him? The unneeded nonsense piled into this story only serves to drag things out in remarkably ill-conceived. At one point a character played by the wonderful F. Murray Abraham arrives and appears solely so that he can help Ben Mendelsohn deliver one of the dumbest talking killer monologues in the history of talking killer monologues. 

Because the script is so incredibly dumb and the plot is so remarkably convoluted, the actors are rendered silly throughout. The cast carries out actions that are mostly nonsensical, as if the plot were being written and rewritten mid-scene and all they can do is try to minimize how confused they appear to be. Poor Eve Hewson is the most let down by the nonsense script as Marion appears capably inept, able to steal useless information and just as quickly deliver dialogue dismissing the importance of what she just risked her life to steal. 

I must mention the anachronistic costumes as well. Wow! Leather bars don’t have leather as lovely and durable as they had in the era of The Crusades, several hundred years before leather was even invented. The sheriff wears a gray leather duster that I am pretty sure you could buy at a store for well over a thousand dollars. I realize that the suspension of disbelief is required but the modern touches brought to this story are never justified. 

Set the film in an alternate universe, include magic or monsters, or make it a fairy tale universe, do something to establish a universe where the ludicrous anachronisms aren’t so silly looking. The filmmakers do nothing to make this a believable period in human history and yet it uses history, i.e the Crusades as a touchstone. I am being unnecessarily pedantic about something as dimwitted as Robin Hood but I am trying to contextualize my reaction to this movie which was repeated, embarrassed giggles. 

These giggles were not intended. The movie doesn’t want to be laughed at but I couldn't help myself. The laughable script, the awful CGI, the ludicrously faux cool costumes made me repeatedly burst into giggles I found hard to stifle. I was laughing at the movie and not with it and it was not fun. I didn’t go to this movie to laugh, I wanted it to be the adventure that the marketing promised but no, it’s just all so terrible, so hysterically terrible. 

Movie Review Prey for Rock N Roll

Prey for Rock N' Roll (2003) 

Directed by Alex Steyermarck 

Written by Cheri Lovedog, Robin Whitehouse 

Starring Gina Gershon, Drea de Matteo, Lori Petty, Shelly Cole 

Release Date January 20th, 2003

Published January 25, 2004

At one point in her career, Gina Gershon was destined for stardom. Sadly, what may have been a breakout role as a sexually voracious Vegas Showgirl turned into one of the most infamous bombs in film history.

Gina Gershon was undeniably sexy in Showgirls but the film was nevertheless a rather big setback. Even with the success of 1996's Bound, her career has yet to recover. Her latest step toward maintaining an under the radar indie career is the rock melodrama Prey For Rock N Roll, a low budget grunge rock movie that gives Gershon the best character of her career.

In Prey, Gina Gershon is Jacki, the lead singer of an all girl grunge rock band that never broke through to the bigtime. Now Jacki is nearing forty and she and her bandmates are drifting through various personal problems that take time and focus away from playing for thirteen dollars a night in dingy LA clubs. Jacki finally has to start looking at whether or not being in a rock band is worth it anymore.

Jacki's bandmates include Tracy (Drea de Matteo), not a bad bass player but a trust fund baby with a taste for drugs, booze and abusive men. There’s Faith (Lori Petty), a very good guitarist and probably the most well adjusted of the group's members. Finally, Sally (Shelly Cole), the drummer and youngest member of the group. Sally and Faith are a loving romantic couple but Shelly has a number of family issues in her past that come roaring back when her brother Animal (Marc Blucas) is released from prison and needs a place to stay.

From this setup, the bandmates are treated to every number of worst case scenario trials. Rapes, beatings, OD's and a death and through it all they keep playing music. It's a little hard to believe that four people could be treated to so many of life's worst moments in such a short period of time but as wild and out of control as these women live, the possibility for the worst consequences is certainly there.

Prey For Rock N Roll is based on the life of rock singer Cheri Lovedog, who wrote a play based on her own life in an all girl rock band. Her band, the Love Dogs opened for other girl rockers like L7 and Hole but never achieved the success of those bands. In many ways, her lack of success is more interesting and dramatic than if the band had made it big and melted down in that typically VHI Behind The Music sort of way.

Unfortunately, director Alex Steyermark and co-writer Robin Whitehouse weigh down Cheri's life story with unnecessarily dark melodrama. There is very little light in the film and what little light there is comes from the band on stage. The performance scenes are too few and far between.

Gershon doing her own vocals is surprisingly good for a former Cat's cast member. Singing on Broadway is very different from singing heavy metal grunge rock and Gershon had to forget how to sing in order to pull off the rock vibe. She pulls it off magnificently.

Gershon is by far the best thing in the film and she keeps the whole thing from melting under the pressure of so much melodrama. Personifying the term Sex, Drugs and Rock N Roll, Gershon is the embodiment of rock sexuality. Ambiguous in her sexual preference, Gershon has the sexual attitude of a man and is as intimidating to men as Robert Plant was to women. Her presence, everything from the curl of her lips to the half closed eyes and fiery appraising stare, drips with sex.

If the rest of the film were as exciting as Gershon's performance, we would be talking about one hell of a film. As it is however, it's a film that is noteworthy for fans of Gina Gershon and the mini-genre of rock movies.

Movie Review Precioius Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009) 

Directed by Lee Daniels

Written by Geoffrey S. Fletcher 

Starring Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz

Release Date November 6th, 2009

Published November 5th, 2009

The last time I had a feeling like this was after watching the 9/11 movie United 93. That film left me with a mixture of awe and emptiness. On the one hand it is a remarkable film. On the other hand I could not imagine recommending the experience to anyone. People-watching the day the film was released; as audiences lined up with pop and popcorn in hand was a surreal and dispiriting experience. How could anyone eat popcorn while watching an accurate recreation of the horror of 9/11?

Precious left me with that same empty sadness. Do I appreciate aspects of the film? Yes, the acting in Precious is top notch. The problem is an overwhelming sadness and sense of despair that suffocates while the movie plays and lingers afterward. Like United 93, regardless of what's good about Precious, how can I recommend it?

At just 16 years old Clarice 'Precious' Jones (Gabourey Sidibe) is pregnant with her second child. Both children are born of rape; rape by Precious's own father, an abuse witnessed by her mother Mary (Mo'nique). Precious deals with these horrors by escaping into fantasies of fame where she walks the Hollywood red carpet with her light skinned boyfriend.

At school Precious can hardly read. She has like far too many American students been passed along by a system ill-equipped to deal with her level of trauma, abuse and an almost genetic trait of ignorance and despair. When she finally arrives at an alternative school, where she belonged all along, it's almost too late.

At this new school Precious finds uncommon kindness from her new teacher Ms. Rain (Paula Patton) and acceptance from her fellow alternative school classmates. Ms. Rain, like anyone else, is incapable of dealing with the Jovian hills heaped upon poor Precious but unlike so many others; she doesn't try and pass the buck. The film gets its most painful, emotional moments out of Precious and Ms. Rain's scenes.

Outside of the scenes between the newcomer Ms. Sidibe and Ms. Patton, Precious plays like a horror film with Mo'nique as a strange sort of villain who begs for our sympathy in the end for the horrors she brings, an Eli Roth ‘Hostel’ villain but with scruples. There is nothing wrong with Mo'nique's performance, it is effective and memorable, the issue is the amount of her time spent committing heinous abuse.

I understand wanting to demonstrate what Precious is up against but the repeated horrors contribute to a suffocating air of depression that does not allow audiences to feel anything else. Do you sympathize with Precious? I guess, but not in the way I'm sure is intended.

Precious is meant to elicit our sympathy and like a victim in a horror movie she has our sympathy on a basic human level. Once the horrors are piled on our sympathies deepen because Ms. Sidibe is a fine actress, but at a certain point the sadness, indignity and despair suffocate any and all feelings other than severe depression. I'm not saying lighten up, I'm saying there has to be a more effective way of making the point about Precious's circumstances than bludgeoning the audience with sorrow.  

I think the point that director Lee Daniels is trying to make in Precious is that there are girls like Precious out there and something needs to be done about it. That is an unquestionable fact. However, the movie is far from the most effective tool for doing something about it. The series of horrors depicted in Precious will not send audiences home with thoughts about fighting poverty and abuse; rather they will want to rid themselves of the experience of so much forlornness and melancholy.

Movie Review Power Rangers

Power Rangers (2017) 

Directed by Dean Israelite 

Written by John Gatins 

Starring Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Bill Hader, Bryan Cranston, Elizabeth Banks

Release Date March 24th, 2017

Published March 24th, 2017 

The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers was a goofy live action cartoon that was never intended to be taken seriously. Even as the franchise became a marketing powerhouse and made the leap to the big screen in the late 90's, it was still just a doofy kids show with silly costumes and plushy, oversized villains. The new-fangled Power Rangers on the other hand are still silly but with an ever so slight edge. 

The Power Rangers have been the protectors of Earth for thousands of years, having sacrificed themselves to stop the Earth from being destroyed. The part of the Power Rangers that lived on are in the form of colored power coins which, when discovered by a disparate band of teens, kick off a new age of the Power Rangers and set the stage for an all new battle to save the Earth. 

Jason (Dacre Montgomery) is the leader of the group, a former Big Man on Campus turned teen criminal. Jason meets Billy (R.J Cyler) and Kimberly (Naomi Scott) during detention at Angel Grove High School and the three wind up together at a local quarry where Billy is sure he is going to discover an ancient artifact. Indeed, Billy does discover something quite remarkable when he accidentally blows up part of the mine, something that draws the immediate attention of Trini ( Becky G) and Zack (Ludi Lin) who happen to be nearby. 

What the five discover are the legendary Power Coins and the coins give them superpowers, strength, speed, and intelligence. This also leads to the discovery of an underground spaceship, home to the last of the original Power Rangers, Zordon (Bryan Cranston) who is trapped between the world of the living and the world of the dead, and his assistant, a robot named Alpha (Bill Hader). 

With the guidance of Zordon the Power Rangers are fitted for battle against Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks), a former Power Ranger turned villain who has returned to life and seeks to raise a dire monster called Goldar by stealing gold anywhere she can find it. With the aid of Goldar, Rita will battle the Power Rangers with designs on destroying the world on her way to conquest of the Universe. 

Yes, it's all very silly, especially Elizabeth Banks' wonderfully silly performance as Rita. The strength of this iteration of Power Rangers is that it has zero pretensions. The film owns its goofball past and simply improves on it with a more modern style of both action and storytelling. The film retains the doofy spirit of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, especially its goony villains but isn't imprisoned by the past. 

Each of the young actors cast as Power Rangers is able to make a good enough impression here that we care about them in the big fight. My favorite is Billy, who's last name "Cranston" is an homage to his co-star Bryan Cranston who has a past connection to the Power Rangers having voiced characters on the original show. R.J Cyler plays Billy as Autistic and while there is danger of slipping over into uncomfortable stereotypes, the young actor soft plays the character tics and delivers a lovable performance. 

This movie was not made with critics in mind, in the end this is a film for very young children. What I admire about Power Rangers is that it never feels limited by being 'just a kids film.' The story has brave and bold elements to it, a very, very very slight edge to it. The film is silly and playful but has just enough weight to it that I kind of cheered at the end and I wasn't ashamed of it. 

It seems impossible to believe it myself, but I actually recommend Power Rangers. It has a positive message, solid thrills and a story that is safe enough for kids without having to pander, a rather remarkable feat for a film based on a series that was almost entirely pandering in its heyday, as much marketing machine as it was a TV series.

Movie Review P.S I Love You

P.S I Love You (2007) 

Directed by Richard LaGravenese 

Written by Steven Rogers 

Starring Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Harry Connick Jr., Gina Gershon, Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Release Date December 21st, 20007

Published December 22nd, 2007 

If the movie P.S I Love You were a person her name would be Sybil. The name synonymous for multiple personality disorder is all too fitting for a manic, tone shifting on a dime, romantic comedy about a dead guy who romances his girl from the grave.

Hilary Swank stars in P.S I love You as Holly Kennedy. Her husband Jerry has died and her mourning takes the form of her hiding out in their apartment, wearing his clothes and singing along with songs in old movies. Three weeks after Jerry's funeral, weeks where she never left the apartment, Holly's 30th birthday arrives along with a package.

It's a birthday cake with an inscription from Jerry. Also included is a tape he made from his deathbed advising Holly on how to move on without forgetting him. For the next several weeks more letters will arrive and Holly is required to follow them literally. Instructions include, buy a pretty dress, sing karaoke, travel to Ireland and finally, find another man.

Directed by Richard LaGravenese and based on a novel by Cecillia Ahern, P.S I Love attempts to weave grief and humor and the mix is awkward, uncomfortable and a little creepy. Though the central theme is dealing with loss and it's clear that the character of Jerry wants the best for his wife; by not going away the character causes more problems than he solves.

As this gimmick plays out it becomes achingly clear that P.S I Love You is not instructive, insightful or even modestly comforting in the way it deals with grief and loss. Jerry and his letters are a ploy to create a plot around which goofy romantic encounters can play out.

Throw in a character played by Harry Connick Jr. that is arguably one of the worst written characters of all time and an ending so hackneyed it makes The Wedding Planner look like The English Patient and the result is an agitating, irritating shambles of a romantic comedy.

Are we supposed to laugh at Holly or with Holly? Do we feel grief and loss or just darkly goofy? P.S I Love You is so erratic you'll likely be at a loss to feeling anything other than ripped off for the cost of the rental on DVD.

Movie Review Overlord

Overlord (2018) 

Directed by Julius Avery

Written by Billy Ray, Mark L. Smith

Starring Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, John Magaro, Bokeem Woodbine 

Release Date November 18th, 2018 

Published November 17th, 2018

Overlord stars Jovan Adepo as Boyce, an infantry soldier, completely out of his depth when he’s dropped behind enemy lines in France during World War 2. Boyce, along with a group of 20 or so other soldiers have the task of destroying a German stronghold where a radio tower stands. The soldiers must destroy this communication tower, inside an old French church before the troops hit the beach at Normandy, the famed D-Day raid, and keep the Nazis from being able to radio for help. 

The plan requires men jumping from a plane over heavily guarded German territory and while the infantrymen are fooling themselves as best they can, they know that of the 20 or so on the plane, only a handful will survive the drop and be able to try and complete the mission. Boyce has an antagonistic relationship with many in his squad but the movie is smart not to linger over this with exposition, we will get around to that. 

The plane gets shot at and is about to crash when Boyce gets tossed out by his Sgt. On the ground, after nearly drowning in a lake, Boyce meets up with the few men who survived the drop. These include the commanding Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell), the bullying Tibbet (John Magaro), an AP cameraman and soldier named Chase (Ian De Caestecker) and one other soldier who is not long for the movie. 

You will recognize the dead meat guy pretty quickly as he is the first and only one of the soldiers to spend time talking about what he plans to do when he gets home. He may as well have a wife with a baby on the way and a sign that says shoot me. The character is kind of a parody of the classic trope about the innocent lamb being led to the slaughter of war, but Overlord is not meant to be a parody.The film's modest sense of humor appears tacked on.  

Here we make the turn away from the plot and into a discussion of the movie as a conception. Overlord appeared to be, from the trailer, a wild-eyed zombie soldier movie that would be a rollicking ride. It is not quite that, not exactly. Instead, Overlord is a surprisingly straightforward World War 2 thriller that takes on elements of science fiction via historical speculation about the Germans experimenting on Jewish people, captured soldiers and their own dead soldiers. 

There is history to back up the idea that the Germans were committing horrific atrocities in the name of science. In fact, you might not want to dig too deeply into how some of the medicines of the day today came to be via what monstrous German scientists did to a lot of innocent people. I won’t cite a specific example here so as not to get bogged down in conspiracy theories, I mention this only to provide an insight into where the makers of Overlord are coming from. 

The intention here is to make an entertaining thriller with elements of science fiction and horror in the midst of the genuine, human drama of war. This is not a movie to be taken seriously but Overlord is a movie that surprisingly earns a little bit of self-seriousness that I know I wasn’t expecting from what I assumed would be a World War 2 zombie movie. There are elements of that zombie idea, but the story actually appears more at home in the world of speculative science fiction than the braindead horror genre. 

Speaking of horror, the best element of Overlord is the body horror element. The special effects at play in Overlord, especially the makeup effects, are superb in how they turn stomachs. One particular soldier's gruesome death is preceded by a transformation from man to God knows what kind of monster, featuring some truly gut wrenching visuals. Director Julius Avery may be a newcomer to big budget horror but he has a tremendous vision for terror, a mastery of creepy imagery that should bode well for his career. 

Overlord is tense and fun, a tad slow at times, and rather conventional given the zombie premise, but I do recommend the movie. Overlord is a terrific piece of war-time suspense and speculative science fiction. German scientists did horrible things to people in the name of war and Overlord is the rare movie to push the boundaries and look closer, even from the pop sci-fi perspective, at the horrors of Nazi scientist war crimes. 

Think of Overlord like a thought experiment that goes to the most broad and even ludicrous lengths regarding speculation over  what Nazi scientists were willing to do to those they deemed inferior to them. There is real life evidence to suggest that German scientists may have experimented on dead bodies and reanimation of corpses. That’s not me saying that Overlord has a basis in fact, it doesn’t, but I don’t see the harm in taking the idea of what Nazis may have done to people to an extreme conclusion. 

The World War 2 backdrop gives Overlord an unpredictable and chaotic bit of suspense that really works and keeps us in the audience aware of the constant  danger, not just from monstrous reanimated corpses, but from the Nazis who make a great villain. 

Overlord is in theaters nationwide now and is worth a look. Even if you wait for DVD and Blu Ray, if you’re a fan of horror movies, you will enjoy Overlord. 

Movie Review Our Idiot Brother

Our Idiot Brother (2011) 

Directed by Jesse Peretz

Written by Evgenia Peretz, David Schisgall

Starring Paul Rudd, Zooey Deschanel, Kathryn Hahn, T.J Miller, Steve Coogan, Adam Scott, Rashida Jones

Release Date August 26th, 2011 

Published August 26th, 2011

Paul Rudd is so appealing in "Our Idiot Brother" that you barely notice how thin the story is or how poorly drawn the supporting players are. The star of "Role Models" and "I Love You Man;" Paul Rudd has become known for his fidgety, acerbic, tightly wound comic characters. Now with "Our Idiot Brother" he has expanded his brand to include, shaggy, good natured stoner.

Ned (Paul Rudd) is just a great guy; unassuming, trusting and ready to help when needed. Thus, when a cop, in full uniform, approaches him and asks for some weed, Ned obliges only after hearing how tough things have been for the cop lately. It's a wonderful scene and Rudd's affability sells it.

When Ned gets out of prison, early release as he was everybody's favorite inmate, he finds that his girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn) has kicked him off of their organic farm and moved on with a new guy, Billy (T.J Miller). Worse, she's keeping Ned's beloved dog Willie Nelson.

Homeless, Ned moves back home to New York, briefly living with his mother (Shirley Knight) before crowding into the lives of his uptight sisters. First up is Liz (Emily Mortimer). Liz is married to a jerky documentary filmmaker, Dylan (Steve Coogan), and has two kids; the boy, River (Matthew Mindler), is quickly Ned's best friend.

By the formula, since Ned has two other sisters, he will screw up Liz's life and be fobbed off on the next sister; in this case Miranda (Elizabeth Banks) who makes the mistake of having Ned help her out when she has an important celebrity interview to conduct. He also gets in the middle of her friendship with Jeremy (Adam Scott).

Finally, there is Natalie who seems to be defined by her lesbianism; she lives with her longtime lover Cindy (Rashida Jones). However, when a cute boy artist (Hugh Dancy) shows her some attention, even offering to help out Ned, things in Natalie's life get very complicated and of course, Ned is there to make an even more interesting mess.

"Our Idiot Brother" is highly formulaic and has a highly predictable ending but the journey to get to that ending and the modest detours from formula make it worth your time. This is among Paul Rudd's best performances, a loose, sweet and terrifically funny performance that evokes a younger version of Jeff Bridges's legendary The Dude.

The rest of the cast is not as well defined as Ned and are really only in place to give Ned something to do. It's as if writer Evgenia Peretz and her director brother Jesse Peretz came up with Ned first and then built a movie around him. That sounds bad but Ned is such a terrific character, and so remarkably well played by Paul Rudd, that "Our Idiot Brother" actually kind of works.

"Our Idiot Brother" doesn't work in the typical way that great movies work. However, on its own terms, "Our Idiot Brother" has such a great vibe and is so well centered on Rudd's performance that it works in its own very unique and often very funny way. It's a bit of a strange recommendation, you have to have a soft spot for stoners and Paul Rudd, but I do recommend "Our Idiot Brother."

Movie Review Our Family Wedding

Our Family Wedding (2010) 

Directed by Rick Famuyiwa 

Written by Malcolm Spellman 

Starring Forest Whitaker, America Ferrara, Carlos Mencia, Regina King, Lance Gross 

Release Date March 12th, 2010 

Published March 14th, 2010 

Oscar winner Forest Whitaker is not known for his sense of humor. It's not that the actor best known as the embodiment of the evil dictator Idi Amin in Last King of Scotland cannot be funny but rather that he is better known for self serious drama and outright frightening evil. The comedy Our Family Wedding is an absolute out of the box move for Whitaker and a testament to his talent that he melts right into a comedic role despite how truly lame all around him is.

Our Family Wedding is a comedy of interracial manners starring Forrest Whitaker as the single dad to Lance Gross as Marcus a kid about to graduate from college and become a doctor. Marcus has a surprise for his dad though, he's getting married to Lucia who he has been living with for two years and plans on taking her with him on a Doctors without Borders mission in Southeast Asia for the next two years.

Whitaker's Brad is not the only one who will be shocked by these revelations, Lucia's Father Miguel (Carlos Mencia) is certain to be surprised by his daughter choosing to marry an African American, non-Catholic who wants to take her to Asia for two years. Oh, and Lucia is dropping out of law school to be with Marcus and her mother (Diana Maria Riva) knew about this but did not tell her husband.

The set up is not bad actually, it has a lot of built in conflict to build on. Unfortunately, director Rick Famuyiwa (Brown Sugar, The Wood) doesn't believe in his material and prefers relying on lame coincidence and goofball slapstick moments to pad the film out to feature length.

Because he couldn't think of anything less original or interesting, Famuyiwa has Whitaker and Mencia meet cute in a most convenient and unfunny fashion. The two push the racist stereotype button repeatedly until the joke becomes unfunny and by the time of the reveal that they are going to be family the joke is worn out.

Race issues are addressed only briefly and with no honest insight. The script by director Famuyiwa, Wayne Conley and Malcolm Spellman injects racial stereotypes as a punchline but fails on all accounts to take race seriously as an obstacle to Lucia and Marcus's romance.

The only really good part of Our Family Wedding is Forest Whitaker who slips comfortably into this comedic role and is the only actor who brings anything of depth to his character. Whitaker indulges the whims of his director, he does chase a goat in the movie (Ugh) but in the non goat chasing scenes he crafts a real character from the minor pieces given to him.

Our Family Wedding is dopey and second rate with a dearth of comedic interest. Forest Whitaker is solid but the film built around him is a rickety mess of lame stereotypes and dopey slapstick. Rick Famuyiwa is a much better director than this film demonstrates. Check out his smooth, smart romance Brown Sugar and skip Our Family Wedding.

Movie Review Resident Evil Apocalypse

Resident Evil Apocalypse (2004) 

Directed by Alexander Witt

Written by Paul W.S Andersn 

Starring Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Jared Harris, Mike Epps

Release Date September 10th, 2004

Published September 12th, 2004 

As bad as the first Resident Evil film was, written and directed by Paul W.S Anderson (ugh), could the sequel be any worse? Paul W.S Anderson stepping aside as director was a good first step, as is a script and story more faithful to its videogame source material. However first time director Alexander Witt, who's assistant director resume includes Speed 2, XXX and The Postman seems uninterested in improving on the original, unless you call being bigger, dumber and louder an improvement.

We begin where the last film left off. Our heroine Alice (Milla Jovovich) has just escaped from the Umbrella Corporation's evil underground lab The Hive, where she spent the previous night fighting the undead. Temporarily captured by Umbrella's evil scientists for a quick genetic upgrade, Alice finds herself in the chaotic remains of Racoon City, which has been overrun by zombies.

With most of the once peaceful town infected, and the evil Umbrella scientists having closed the only way out of town, Alice must team with the remaining survivors to fight the zombies and find a way out. With Alice are former cop Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory), armed forces specialist Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr), former pimp L.J (Mike Epps) and a small band of cannon fodder who are picked off in rather predictable fashion.

As the survivors battle the zombies, the chance to escape comes from a former Umbrella scientist Dr. Ashford (Jared Harris). The good doctor will get them a helicopter if they will go to the town’s only school and retrieve his young daughter Angie (Sophie Vasseur). Standing in their way are an assortment of zombie children and a return of those feral organs-on-the-outside Dobermans from the first film.

Let's start with some good things like star Milla Jovovich who, though she has limited range as an actress, is amazingly hot and has a terrific physical presence. She's agile and good with a gun and a believable action heroine. In a better action movie she could be quite effective, but in the midst of this film’s mindlessness she's reduced to repeating herself into tedium.

The supporting cast of Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr and Mike Epps don't have much time to make an impression in between all of the explosions, zombie bites and gunfire. Epps at least has a couple of humorous moments that he is well suited to deliver. The film could have used a little more of Epps' humor but that would require a far better script.

We cannot be surprised that a script this witless and banal was written by the master of witless banality, Paul W.S Anderson. Every line of dialogue, every moment of exposition is just killing time till the next explosion of big, dumb, loud violence. This can work if you have the slightest bit of wit or sense of irony but Anderson has none. Director Alexander Witt doesn't have any either. His visuals consist of properly framing for the explosion and.... well, that's it.

This plot is at the very least more closely related to the popular video game, a fact that might appeal to fans of the game but is of little comfort to non-fans. Compared to the first film, this Resident Evil manages to be bigger, dumber and louder than the original and that is certainly not an improvement. On the bright side it's still a better video game based movie than Tomb Raider.

Movie Review On the Basis of Sex

On the Basis of Sex (2018) 

Directed by Mimi Leder

Written by Daniel Stiepleman

Starring Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Sam Waterston, Kathy Bates 

Release Date December 25, 2018

Published December 21st, 2018 

On the Basis of Sex stars Felicity Jones in the life story of sitting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We join the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg as she became one of the first classes at Harvard to allow women, all the way back in 1954. Mrs Ginsburg was already married to her beloved husband, Martin (Armie Hammer) and was eager to start a family all while navigating the sexist and incredibly demanding schedule of a Harvard Law student.

As if her life weren’t difficult enough, in short order, Ruth becomes a mother and her husband develops testicular cancer and cannot attend his own Harvard law classes. So, Ruth attends and takes notes in Martin’s classes, attends her own, writes papers for herself while taking dictation from Martin for his coursework and while the two are raising their baby daughter. To say this woman was driven and brilliant is quite the understatement.

When Martin graduates and accepts a position at a high powered New York City law firm, Ruth completes her Harvard coursework while also attending classes at Columbia to be close to her husband. She then struggles to find a law firm that will hire her despite graduating at the top of her class. Ruth ends up accepting a teaching position at Rutgers where she finds herself at the center of a cultural revolution as her students are taking to the streets to demand social change.

Inspired in part by her students and by her daughter, Jane (Cailee Spaeny), Ruth finds a lawsuit that challenges the status quo in a way that will reverberate through the years in the battle against sexism. A Colorado man was denied a caregivers tax break because only women were allowed to be caretakers to family members who were incapacitated by illness. If Ruth can prove that the tax law is discriminatory against a man, it could create a precedent that could knock down dozens of laws that give different rights to men than to women.

On the Basis of Sex was directed by Mimi Leder, a solid pro director who brings a strong polish to this otherwise very straightforward biopic. There is certainly a remarkable amount of hero worship going on but it’s not entirely unearned. As played by Felicity Jones, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is some kind of real-life superhero, a rebuke to anyone who says you can’t have it all. Top of her class, married, two kids, and one of the most notable legal careers of modern American history. Indeed, that is heroic.

If I have any issues with On the Basis of Sex, it’s with the compressed timeline of the film. At times, because of the editing and the odd transitions, it can be difficult to track where we are in time. The film employs time jumps to get to the juicier parts of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life but in that, we have a moment where she goes from having one child to suddenly having a toddler son in such an abrupt fashion that you might miss a scene just catching up to where we are in time.

On the Basis of Sex is just a tad sloppy here in there from a structural standpoint but that’s a relatively minor issue. It’s one of those things that separates a good movie from a great movie. On the Basis of Sex is quite a good movie in my estimation but it’s not great. Leder’s approach to the life of Ginsburg is just a little too antiseptic. I am not asking for there to be dirt or grit, but some will find the level of hero worship approaching hagiography.

On the Basis of Sex is the second movie of 2018 dedicated to the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The other is a more necessary and comprehensive documentary called RBG. That film does render On the Basis of Sex a tad redundant. While On the Basis of Sex is kept to a specific portion of Ginsburg’s life and that gives it at least a different focus, RBG’s comprehensiveness makes it the far more essential portrait.

On the Basis of Sex is a sturdy and involving drama, a little loose in the editing but certainly not a bad movie. The lead performance from Felicity Jones is energetic, intelligent and engaging and the supporting cast is solid, with Armie Hammer as the standout as Martin Ginsburg, an unsung hero who supported his wife every step of her journey, even as every other man in her life created new barriers to her success.

If you had to choose one movie on the life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, RBG is far more essential but On the Basis of Sex is strong enough that I can recommend it.