Movie Review: Wolf Creek

Wolf Creek (2005) 

Directed by Greg McLean

Written by Greg McLean

Starring John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra McGrath 

Release Date December 25th, 2005

Published December 31st, 2005 

Are there any words, in relation to movies, anymore full of shit than 'Based on a true story'. Take the term 'based on'. It's a term that means the instances depicted here on are free of the strictures of what really happened. The words state that what really happened is not as important as how the filmmakers are going to present it.

The term 'based on' could be applied to nearly any film. Deuce Bigelow could be based on a true story. After all there is such a thing as a male prostitute. That is all you need to base a story on. In terms of the horror film Wolf Creek the 'based on a true story' tag is part of the films charmng little ad campaign that attempts to portray the film as a new kind of horror film. A more brutal and realistic brand of horror free of the comic nature that overtook much of the genre in the era of Freddy and Jason and further free of the ironic, knowing humor of, what I call, the Kevin Williamson era, the Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer era.

The marketing campaign however, like most marketing campaigns, is a complete lie. Wolf Creek brings nothing new to to the genre. Despite its supposed basis on a true story, Wolf Creek relies on the common attributes of the genre. The film is about the re-creation and presentation of uncommonly brutal violence, sadism and death. Thus, it is no different from Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers or the masked man in Scream.

The stars of Wolf Creek are three previously unknown actors. Nathan Phillips is Ben, Kestie Morassi is Kristy and Cassandra McGrath is Liz. They are three party hardy pals taking a roadtrip through the outback to check out a famed tourist destination called Wolf Ceek crater.

In the midst of the desolate, dry, climes of the outback a meteorite hit and left what is said to be the largest crater known to man. The impact, is said by Ben, to have been equal to several nuclear blasts. It is an impressive sight as are a number of the gorgeous outback vistas and mountainsides in the film. The scenery is at times so lovely as to be nearly hypnotic.

After visiting the crater the trio find that their car will not start. After a few hours they are lucky to meet an outback dweller named Mick who offers to fix the car for free back at his camp. Unfortunately for our trusting trio, Mick happens to be a sadistic murdering psychopath and they are about to be subjected to some stomach turning brutality.

Written and directed by aussie Greg McLean, Wolf Creek wants to be an edgy new brand of horror that plays on peoples real life fear of being lost with no help in a vast possibly metaphoric wasteland. But in the presentation of its brutal violence Wolf Creek shows itself to be no different than any other horror film.

Most horror films are not about characters, storytelling or skilled filmmaking, they are about the ways in which violence is presented. Some films revel in the creative ways they can present a violent death (Final Destination, Saw 1 & 2), some are about the comic ironic ways of violent death (Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday The 13th et al) and some are about sheer brutality (Last House on The Left).

Wolf Creek falls into the last category and is nothing special in that right. The violence in Wolf Creek is no more shocking or horrifying than anything in Hostel or Last House on The Left. It is in fact lesser than either of those two films because its characters aren't as deep or interesting. Not that I am a fan of anything in either Hostel or Last House on the Left, but atleast neither of those films bored me the way Wolf Creek does.

The characters in Wolf Creek are the typical stick figure representations of real human beings that are typical of the genre. Just because the director is following these characters with a handheld digital camera does not make them any different from the camp counselors who line up to be shredded by Jason Vorhees.

This is where the based on a true story tag, I gather, is supposed to make the difference between Wolf Creek and typical horror films. By convincing us that what happens in this film may have happened to someone in reality, we are supposed to be more horrified. However, because violence and sadism is presented in the typically broad fashion of the genre its never believable as a reality.

It is factual that people have disappeared and are presumed dead, even murdered, in the vast wasteland of the Australian outback. The deaths however are likely no more elaborate than the average murder. The creators of Wolf Creek are not interested in presenting a realistic scenario of murder in the outback, i.e someone killed in the commission of a hold-up, a robbery or a car-jacking. A realistic scenario is not elaborate enough. So director McClean and his collaborators amp up the sadism and brutality as a cinematic convenience. A tacit admittance that Wolf Creek is merely a genre excercise and not an expression of true fears.

In being solely about the presentation of shocking (or not so shocking) violence Wolf Creek is merely typical of its genre.

Movie Review: Four Brothers

Four Brothers (2005) 

Directed by John Singleton 

Written by David Elliott, Paul Lovett

Starring Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese, Andre Benjamin, Garrett Hedlund, Terrence Howard 

Release Date July 1st, 2005 

Published July 1st, 2005 

The amazing John Singleton has, according to some, never lived up to the potential shown in his debut feature Boyz N The Hood. This perception is not shared by this critic. I have enjoyed all of Mr. Singleton's films, save his Shaft remake out of fealty to the original as much as a negative opinion of the filmmaking. His Baby Boy and Rosewood are extraordinarily underrated and even his most commercial effort, the car porn 2 Fast 2 Furious was at the very least high camp popcorn entertainment.

Mr. Singleton's latest effort, the revenge drama Four Brothers, combines elements of Mr. Singleton's artistry and commercialism better than any of his previous films. This ostensible modern remake of the John Wayne western The Sons Of Katie Elder, is stylish in its homage to classic westerns and the ouvre of Charles Bronson and brilliant in its sense of compelling violence and family drama.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Bobby Mercer, the oldest of four troubled adopted sons of the saintly Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanigan). When Evelyn is killed in the midst of a convenience store robbery Bobby comes home to reunite with his brothers, Jeremiah (Andre 3000 of the rap duo, Outkast), Jack (Garrett Hedlund) and Angel (Tyrese Gibson). Soon after the reunion Bobby rallies his brothers to find the guys who killed their mother.

According to the cops, the friendly detective Green (Terrence Howard) and the shady detective Fowler (Josh Charles), Mrs. Mercer was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, soon after launching their far more extensive and violent investigation, the Mercer boys uncover a dangerous conspiracy that leads to the halls of Detroit's City Council and naturally to the city's top thug, Victor Sweet (Chiwetel Ejiofor).

Each of the four brothers is a fully fleshed character with backstories that include multiple stays in prison, the military and a litter of failed relationships. For Angel, returning to Detroit means rekindling a dangerous romance with Sofi (Sophia Vergara) that, while not the film's strongest plot, does provide much of the film's humor. Vergara is very sexy but underserved by a role that simply asks her to be needy and screechy when she is not needed to simply provide eye candy.

Hustle and Flow's Taraji P. Henson shows up in Four Brothers as Jerimiah's wife. Her role is limited to being constantly worried and put off by her husband's brothers and the trouble that seems to follow them, but Ms. Henson is a welcome presence for what little screen time she has.

Surprisingly there is no attempt to give Bobby a love interest, a choice that breaks the mold of typical screenwriting that always calls for the star to be paired with someone. That someone, more often than not in films so heavily infused with testosterone, is a functionary role, a mere plot point and not a character.  So it is a welcome relief that the filmmakers refrained from employing that tired device.

While some complain that a career as a genre filmmaker was not what they had hoped for in John Singleton, I think it suits him. Moreover it suits the genre film to have such a talented artist bringing such talent to bear on what is essentially B-movie material. It would be nice to see Singleton deliver another powerful drama like Boyz N The Hood or Rosewood, but I for one will follow Mr. Singleton's work wherever it takes him.

Movie Review: The Chronicles of Narnia The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe

The Chronicles of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005)

Directed by Andrew Adamson 

Written by Ann Peacock, Andrew Adamson 

Starring Liam Neeson, Tilda Swinton, James McAvoy 

Release Date December 9th, 2005 

Published December 9th, 2005 

So much has been made of the religious elements of The Chronicles of Narnia that I expected Mel Gibson to direct it. With the films marketing campaign targeting churches and Walden Media producing, one might fairly expect a screed or religious tract. Thankfully this live action take on the epic novels of C.S Lewis is neither a screed or a tract.

In the skilled hands of director Andrew Adamson, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is an exhaustively exciting epic of wonder, imagination and technology.

Escaping the Nazi's nightly bombing raids in London, the Pevensie children, oldest son Peter (William Moseley) his brother Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and two sisters Susan (Ann Popplewell) and youngest child Lucy (Georgie Hensley) are sent to a large country estate owned by the eccentric professor Kirke (Jim Broadbent).

Trapped in this middle of nowhere mansion the children's natural curiousity leads them to search the innumerable rooms. In one room young Lucy uncovers a large wardrobe that she seeks to use as a hideout in a game of hide and seek. Once hidden in the wardrobe Lucy finds something extraordinary. The wardrobe is a portal to an alternate universe called Narnia. In her adventure Lucy meets an odd creature named Mr. Tumnus (James McAvoy) a faun, half human, half deer. Lucy bonds with Mr. Tumnus and she cannot wait to tell her brothers and sister of her discovery.

Not surprisingly, the older siblings believe that Lucy is imagining things but soon all are traveling through the wardrobe to Narnia and a meeting with destiny and prophecy. According to some helpful exposition, first from Mr. Tumnus and then from some helpful beavers voiced by Ray Winstone and Dawn French, the arrival of four human children in Narnia is a sign that will bring about the end of one hundred years of winter brought about by the evil white witch (Tilda Swinton).

The children's arrival also means the return of Narnia's rightful leader Aslan (voice of Liam Neeson). Aslan's return is met by the white witch and her army of thousands of blood thirsty half humans and other mythic creatures. Aslan's own army of similar half humans and woodland creatures meet the white witch on the field of battle and the Pevensie children must join the battle for there to be peace in Narnia.

The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe is an astonishing work of tremendous imagination. All credit goes to director Andrew Adamson who brings the same sense of excitement and delight to Narnia that he brought to both of the Shrek films. Adamson directs much of Narnia as if he were directing an animated film. The same limitless creativity that animators approach their material with Adamson brings to this pseudo-live action epic.

Many films with this level of CGI work tend to forget to do the basics of filmmaking right. Adamson, however, does not fall into this trap. Each element of filmmaking from the effects to the casting is spot on. Adamson manages this massive undertaking like a veteran director, which is a tall task considering that The Chronicles of Narnia is Adamson's first live action film. Before this film his only experience came directing the Shrek films.

Given the amount of CGI effects in The Chronicles of Narnia directing a computer animated film like Shrek was actually the perfect training ground. Considering that one of the problems Adamson faced while directing Shrek 2 was rendering his cartoon characters far too realistically, the real people of Narnia must have been a breeze in comparison.

Adamson's great achievement in The Chronicles of Narnia may be his striking attention to every detail of filmmaking. With all of this technology on display Adamson never loses focus on his actors and helps, especially his young actors, to draw out exceptional performances. The difference between a good director and a great director is a command of all aspects directing and, while it may be a little premature to call Adamson a great director, The Chronicles of Narnia is a great first step toward that title.

Adamson is aided greatly by a cast of tremendous young actors who nail nearly every beat of their performances. Especially strong is young Georgie Henley as Lucy. Henley's sense of wonder is captivating and watching her eyes light up at the sight of Mr. Tumnus and the many wonders of Narnia gives you a similar excitement. This is one of the most phenomenal performances by a child actor that I have ever seen.

While the remaining Pevensie children do not stand out as well as Henley, each has their strength. Skandar Keynes captures Edmund's sniveling selfish qualities early on and manages a strong redemption as well. Ann Popplewell as Susan seems to have been the casualty of the film's runtime. The few moments that Popplewell gets to establish Susan's presence, such as strong speech over the fallen body of Aslan and a late movie turn into an action heroine, work very well.

Finally, William Mosely as the oldest Pevensie child, Peter, has arguably the most difficult of the roles. As written, Peter is solely heroic and noble with little room for much of a personality. Moseley performs well as an action hero and his bravery in the final scenes is compelling even if Peter overall is a bit on the bland side.

Arguably the films biggest challenge and it's biggest success is the computer generated Aslan voiced to perfection by Liam Neeson. Narnia writer C.S Lewis was said to be opposed to any live action movie version of his Narnia tales because of a fear that the animal characters would look foolish. Well I cannot speak for Mr. Lewis, but I can say that Aslan is rendered as realistically as technology will allow and is certainly not foolish looking. Embodied with Neeson's thoughtful fatherly tones, Aslan is a deep and integral part of what makes The Chronicles of Narnia an outstanding film.

Aslan is not the only exceptional CGI creation in The Chronicles of Narnia. The beavers who guide the children through the middle portion of the film providing wise council and important plot points are equally as well created as Aslan. Also well made are the many Centaurs, Minotaurs and other mythical creatures of Narnia. One simply cannot find enough praise for the awesome, if at times slightly overwhelming, CGI creations in The Chronicles of Narnia.

While many will distract themselves with the religious subtext of The Chronicles of Narnia, the important thing to remember is how entertaining the film is. With its epic technology, budget and runtime, Narnia bears a fair comparison to Peter Jackson's Lord of The Rings trilogy and the four Harry Potter films. That Chronicles of Narnia not only stands up to such lofty comparison but exceeds, in my opinion, atleast two of the LOTR films in terms of entertainment value, is an outstanding achievement.

Yes, the religious subtext is there in The Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan's sacrificing himself to save the children is comparable to a Christ-like sacrifice. His eventual rise from the dead is obviously quite similar to the Biblical resurrection. But the subtext of The Chronicles of Narnia is only on these few occasions heavy-handed. For the most part, C.S Lewis's story is more interested in establishing its own universe and mythology. It is Narnia's own mythos that will matter as the series progresses into sequels and that will be what keeps audiences returning to it.

The Chronicles of Narnia could stand an injection of humor. At times the film takes itself far too seriously, almost to the point of parody. Thankfully, the beautifully captured images of the grandiose Narnia and the effervescent performance of Georgie Henley lighten the mood and help your imagination soar over the occasions when The Chronicles of Narnia becomes overly serious.

With Walden Media and Disney already committed to making Narnia sequels, the best review one could give The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is to say that I cannot wait for the sequel. Indeed I can say I am excited to see where director Andrew Adamson will take this other worldly adventure story, if in fact he is allowed to continues as the director.

I was not excited when I went in, I expected to be preached to. The Chronicles of Narnia does not preach or attempt to convert anyone. It is on a whole simply a very entertaining movie.

Movie Review: Abduction

Abduction (2011) 

Directed by John Singleton

Written by Shawn Christensen 

Starring Taylor Lautner, Jason Isaacs, Alfred Molina 

Release Date September 23rd, 2011

Published September 23rd, 2011 

How bad is "Abduction?" I kept trying to imagine the characters from the brilliant "Mystery Science Theater 3000" sitting in the row in front of me making the experience of "Abduction" tolerable through snarky commentary. "Abduction" is mind-blowingly bad from the action to the supposed suspense and especially to star Taylor Lautner who is entirely over-matched by this awful material.

Nathan (Taylor Lautner) is a below average High School teenager who, when we meet him for the first time, is riding on the hood of a speeding truck for fun. Putting aside the complete and utter irresponsibility of such an action, is this the best way to introduce a main character?

Nathan only gets dumber at a party where he gets blitzed and wakes up on someone's lawn. Again, why are we being introduced to our main character this way? Nathan gets picked up from the party by his angry father (Jason Isaacs) and his punishment is a fight, not a screaming match, an actual fight. Dad makes Nathan put on some boxing gloves and box while hung over. What does this have to do with anything? Who knows?

Eventually, the movie does get down to the promised business of Nathan finding his image on a missing children website. The site turns out to be a front for an international terrorist who has apparently been waiting 18 years for one kid to search one of several hundred websites for his own picture.

The terrorist wants to abduct the kid but first he has to find him, kill his parents and fend off some CIA folks who are also tailing the kid; Alfred Molina plays the CIA guy and does what he can to make his character interestingly ambiguous. Sigourney Weaver is less successful as Nathan's shrink with a secret.

Poor Lilly Collins, so interesting in "The Blind Side," so whiny and forgettable in "Abduction." The only way that "Abduction" might have worked is if director John Singleton had switched the genders of the lead characters and had Lilly Collins as the butt-kicking teen abductee and Taylor Lautner as the simpering sidekick/romantic interest.

Ok, there isn't really anything that could have made "Abduction" interesting. Director John Singleton is far too talented for a movie this bad and yet his name is on it. Singleton, who has in the past taken clichéd action stories and turned them into fun exercises in B-Movie cliches in movies like "Four Brothers" and "2 Fast 2 Furious" fails miserably with the same formula in "Abduction."

Taylor Lautner is, I am sure, a very nice kid. Unfortunately, his acting is blank eyed and stony. Lautner has the body of an action hero but the acting instinct of someone not being properly directed. Lautner's eyes are constantly searching for something off camera to reassure him of what he's supposed to be saying or doing.

"Abduction" suffers right along with its star, desperately seeking a direction and finding only one nonsensical situation after another. The plot of "Abduction" relies on more contrivances than your average direct to DVD thriller. Among the humorous low-lights: CIA Agents and bad guys who can always find the good guy no matter where he is or what he does yet act as if they couldn't find their keys with a map.

"Abduction" could be fun just as it is in the hands of Mike Nelson and the "Mystery Science Theater" crew. I am not half the snarky quipster those guys are and I managed to entertain myself thoroughly at the expense of "Abduction." I can only imagine the fun that a trained group of jokers could have watching this hysterically bad movie.

Movie Review: A Serious Man

A Serious Man (2009) 

Directed by The Coen Brothers 

Written by The Coen Brothers 

Starring Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed

Release Date November 6th, 2009 

Published November 4th, 2009 

Are the Coen Brothers making movies or conducting symphonies of word and image? On the basic level, of course they are movies. However, to the observant filmgoer, one truly engaged in the work of the Coen's, the symphony unfolds before them in remarkable movements that occur and recur over and over all the while deepening and expanding. It is a wonder to behold and in their latest masterpiece, “A Serious Man,” it is oddly, wonderfully exhilarating.

Ostensibly, we are watching a story about a put upon sad sack professor named Larry Gopnick. Poor Larry is stuck in a loveless marriage, could be on the verge of losing his job, has a pair of vile teen children, a lay about his brother and a pair of neighbors each offering their own trouble.

From a linear perspective we watch as Larry seeks the advice of local religious leaders, five different Rabbis from his local synagogue. Four of the Rabbis offer quizzical expressions of support, the 5th refuses to see Larry for reasons that never become clear. Again, that is from a linear perspective. Taken from a more abstract perspective each scene in “A Serious Man” offers dialogue that rises and falls, repeats and remits, furthers the story but doesn't. Moving the story along isn't so much the purpose as presenting dialogue and image that will eventually coalesce to an outlandish but highly effective crescendo.

Though the soundtrack bubbles with 70's rock standards from Hendrix to Santana to a special focus on Jefferson Airplane, the true musical expression of “A Serious Man” is as a symphony, a 104 minute epic symphony rising and falling, quiet then suddenly uproarious. It's a stunningly complex rhythm that few other filmmakers could match or even attempt.

The rhythm of a Coen Brothers movie requires an actor who can without question give himself over to the Coen style. Broadway veteran Michael Stuhlbarg does just that finding the perfect pitch for Larry Gopnick. Never over-playing Larry’s sadness while nailing his general apoplexy, Stuhlbarg captures the complexity of the Coen’s script while making Larry a simple, Jewish everyman whose life is suddenly one bad turn after another.

Much has been made of the Jewish aspect of “A Serious Man.” I cannot speak to the authenticity of how the faith is portrayed. I can tell you that Larry is a faithful man who even in his darkest moments, even as Rabbis repeatedly offer him little to know comfort from his problems, never turns against his faith. Judaism like everything else in “A Serious Man” is one of many repeated verses. It rises and falls on the Coen’s masterful melody.

For those who are not fans of the Coen Brothers, those who haven’t pored over the catalogue as I have and seen each film on multiple occasions, you may need to see “A Simple Man” more than once to get what I am talking about here. Fans of the Coens however, will absolutely flip for this coalescence of the Coen’s style into its most pure form.

“A Serious Man” is the synthesis of a style the Coen’s have cultivated since “Raising Arizona.” It’s a style they nearly perfected in “The Big Lebowski.” Listen to the dialogue, the ways in which it repeats throughout the film is intentional and each line is part of a bigger whole that won’t come clear right away. It’s not the lines themselves, taken individually they may be quite ordinary lines, but as they are reprised they blend into a whole that is very much like music.

Oh what wonderful music it is. “A Serious Man” is a symphony that works on multiple levels, a hypnotic rhythm, elegant reprises, humorous rises, dramatic falls, all the way to a biblical crescendo that, abrupt as it is, is really the only way it could end. “A Serious Man” is the best film of 2009.

Movie Review: Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo

Deuce Bigelow European Gigolo (2005) 

Directed by Mike Bigelow 

Written by Harris Goldberg, Rob Schneider

Starring Rob Schneider, Eddie Griffin 

Release Date August 12th, 2005

Published August 15th, 2005 

It's good to have friends in Hollywood. Look at Rob Schneider.  This talentless ex-SNL star has managed to land lead roles in mainstream Hollywood comedies thanks almost entirely to his close friend Adam Sandler. It was Mr. Sandler's clout that helped launch Schneider's first ode to bad taste Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo and then The Hot Chick, both films also featuring Sandler in cameos. Now with the release of Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo, Mr. Sandler has once again somehow duped another major Hollywood studio into bankrolling his buddie's career.

Deuce Bigelow (Schneider) was once a mild mannered aquarium cleaner with dreams of being a marine biologist. However, after an encounter with a gigolo (Oded Fehr of The Mummy series slumming outside the action genre), Deuce met T.J (Eddie Griffin) a pimp who convinced Deuce to become, in his terminology, a man-whore. From there the film wallowed in low humor and earnest sentimentalism before shuffling off to DVD with way more box office revenue than it deserved.

With the sequel Deuce has given up the gigolo life to once again work the aquarium biz, however after a bizarre encounter at the beach Deuce accepts an invitation from T.J to go to Amsterdam where the latter has become an even more successful pimp. Naturally the permissive atmosphere of Amsterdam is quite conducive to T.J's lifestyle, prostitution not only being legal but apparently a respected trade.

Unfortunately someone has taken to murdering T.J's stable of man-whores and T.J himself has become a suspect. Only Deuce can prove T.J's innocence, but to do so he must once again become a gigolo. Along the way he meets Eva (Hanna Verboom) and wouldn't you know it, she has a weird connection to the crimes at the center of the plot. Well I don't know if plot is the right word, this movie stretches the idea of a movie 'plot' to a breaking point. 

If I may make an odd comparison, Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo reminded me, in its sort of nihilistic approach to bad taste, to Rob Zombie's horror flick The Devil's Rejects. Both films are pointless and inane in ways that leave the viewer more indifferent than offended or sickly entertained. Both films play as filmed masturbation: kinky, desperate expressions of the creators' id. Both Rob Zombie and Rob Schneider seem as if they really enjoy their films with very little regard to whether anyone else would enjoy them.

Trashing Deuce Bigelow for its incoherence, its crudity or its ineptitude would be too easy.  Those failings are a given when one buys the ticket. A critic could write that review without having watched the film as far as I'm concerned. I'm left with my own fascination as to who is supposed to enjoy Deuce Bigelow and why. What type of twisted sense of humor do you have to possess to find a laugh in such desperate inanity? 

There is a kind of trainwreck fascination to the film that I can understand but I think that would be giving Rob Schneider's core of fans way too much credit. For some reason there are people who find this brand of comedy funny and for the life of me, I cannot understand it. 

Movie Review The Dukes of Hazzard

Dukes of Hazzard (2005) 

Directed by Jay Chandrasekhar

Written by Gy Waldron, John O'Brien 

Starring Johnny Knoxville, Seann William Scott, Jessica Simpson 

Release Date August 5th, 2005 

Published August 5th, 2005 

Critics like myself are a pretentious lot. However when the majority of critics write a negative review of a TV remake like the Dukes of Hazzard it is not out of artistic pretension. Indeed the film in the classic critical sense is not very good. However there is something about Dukes that even this jaded and pretentious critic found very entertaining. Maybe it's nostalgia, I was a fan of the show as a kid, or maybe it's the enthusiasm of its creators and actors that comes off the screen in waves. Whatever it is, I liked Dukes of Hazzard.

Bo and Luke Duke (Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott) are good ol' boy cousins tearing around Hazzard County, Georgia in their bright orange '69 Charger, The General Lee. Whether they are running moonshine (do southerners still make moonshine?) for their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), or defending the honor of their cousin Daisy (Jessica Simpson) in a bar fight, the Duke boys always seem to be getting in trouble.

The latest bit of trouble the boys are in once again involves their nemesis Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (M.C Gainey) and his boss, County Commissioner, Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds). In a plot that feels directly lifted from the TV series, Boss Hogg is stealing the land of Hazzard County farmers, including the Duke's farm, so he can strip mine for coal buried beneath it. Only the Duke boys can stop Boss Hogg by winning a dirt track car race and generally creating havoc throughout the land in the General Lee.

Director Jay Chandrasekhar (Super Troopers, Club Dread) is really not much of a director in the classic sense. He has no distinctive directorial style, no real sense of rhythm in his storytelling and, in the case of this film, leaves much of the real direction to the stunt coordinators who filmed the car chases that compose some 90 percent of the film.

That said, Chandrasekhar does have a talent for creating a good time atmosphere. For all of his lack of artistry Chandrasekhar in his previous films with his comedy team Broken Lizard created atmospheres that made obvious just how much fun both cast and crew had making the movies. That same enthusiasm radiates from Dukes of Hazzard in the joyous performances of stars Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott as well as the supporting cast that includes David Koechner from Anchorman and Broken Lizard member Kevin Heffernan.

Maybe the most important element of why I enjoyed Dukes of Hazzard is the nostalgia factor. Mr. Chandrasekhar's fealty to the TV show is astonishing. Where TV remakes like The Honeymooners and Bewitched ditched the source material, Dukes Of Hazzard embraces it's TV parentage with zeal. The plot is seemingly a direct lift from the show and Mr. Chandrasekhar's Hazzard County almost perfectly mimics the Hazard of memory. This won't do anything for non-fans but if you loved the show like I did as a kid you can't help but get caught up in the nostalgic vibe.

If I have one major issue with the film it is the casting of Jessica Simpson as Daisy Duke. There is an insidiousness to her casting and the way she is used in the film. Ms. Simpson seems taken advantage of, something that may just be my perception based on her well-cultivated dim bulb persona. Ms. Simpson simply cannot act-- not that a film that is ninety percent car chases requires acting-- but I really felt that she did not know what she had gotten herself into. The script and direction never ask her to perform anything close to acting, rather she is simply paraded in front of the camera in skimpy outfits as if she were there as an advertisement for a strip club rather than an actual member of the cast.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed ogling Ms. Simpson as much as anyone but the exploitation left me with a sickening feeling. Nevertheless, when Dukes of Hazzard is working its good time vibe as opposed to its exploitative one, it's a whole lot of fun. The car chases are spectacular and most of all the car itself is spectacular. Dukes of Hazzard is not a great movie, but as a nostalgic waste of a Friday night, it works.

Movie Review Pacific Rim Uprising

Pacific Rim Uprising (2018) 

Directed by Steven S. DeKnight 

Written by Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, T.S Nowlin 

Starring Scott Eastwood, John Boyega, Cailee Spaeny, Charlie Day, Adria Arjona 

Release Date March 23rd, 2018 

Published March 27th, 2018 

Pacific Rim is from that part of Oscar winning director Guillermo Del Toro that we’ve all agreed to ignore, alongside the Hellboy movies and Mimic. It’s not that Pacific Rim is bad; rather that it is a tad undignified compared to the awards caliber work he gave us before moving to Hollywood and now his Oscar winning triumph, The Shape of Water. It will always be better to remember the visionary work of Pan’s Labyrinth and ignoring the time he played with his toys on a multi-multi-multi-million dollar budget.

Pacific Rim Uprising is, no surprise, not directed by Del Toro as he was distracted from his toys by a lovely love story that happened to be about a woman and fish Jesus. Del Toro has leant his name to the marketing of the Pacific Rim sequel as Executive Producer but it is television veteran Stephen S. DeKnight playing with Del Toro’s this time and having a great deal more fun than we are watching him play.

John Boyega is front and center as Jake, the star of Pacific Rim Uprising, taking the mantel from Charlie Hunnam and Idris Elba whose characters have been killed off screen as we join the story. Elba’s Stacker Pentacost was Jake’s father and Jake was his constant failure. Jake was a washout from the Jaeger patrol, Jaeger’s are the giant robots humans pilot in the battle against Kaiju, giant monsters from another dimension.

Jake is brought back into the fold by his adopted sister Mako (Rinko Kikuchi, one of the few returning cas tmembers from the 2013 film) who wants him to train the next generation of Jaeger pilots alongside his former partner turned rival, Ranger Lambert (Scott Eastwood, trying hard to out-squint his legendary daddy). Among the new Jaeger pilot recruits is a young named Amara (Callee Spaeny), who built her very own Jaeger out of scrap.

Also back for the sequel is Charlie Day who was arguably the most entertaining aspect of the original Pacific Rim. Day is also the most entertaining part of Pacific Rim Uprising but not for the right reasons. Day’s arc in Pacific Rim Uprising is so ungodly silly it almost makes the movie a candidate for ‘So Bad It’s Good’ status. Unfortunately, most of Pacific Rim 2 is so clumsy and shambling that even ironic appreciation eludes the movie.

Director Stephen DeKnight, who, it should be noted, did remarkable work on TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff, Angel, fails to take control of Pacific Rim Uprising. Instead of establishing a tone that is funny and in tune with the silliness of the first film, Pacific Rim Uprising plays everything straight and the thin premise can’t bear the weight of the emotion Uprising wishes it were evoking in audiences.

Note to the makers of giant robot vs giant monster movies in the future: make it funny. We are never not going to laugh at this stuff so lean into the pitch and stop trying to make us take your story or characters seriously. Pacific Rim does try to packs in some jokes, mostly at the expense of Boyega’s Jake’s inflated ego, but the insistent action score and the self-serious performances of everyone else in Pacific Rim Uprising keeps everything flat and mirthless.

It seems impossible that one could watch a giant robot versus giant monster movie and not have fun but here we are with Pacific Rim Uprising. This sequel is at times genuinely unpleasant. The one big laugh the film gets is one that the makers likely did not intend and the fight scenes that were skillful and silly in the original are miserably clumsy exercises in sub-Transformers, derivative, CGI slop.

Movie Review The Death of Stalin

The Death of Stalin (2018) 

Directed by Armando Iannucci 

Written by Armando Iannucci 

Starring Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell, Michael Palin, Jeffrey Tambor 

Release Date March 9th, 2018 

Published November 5th, 2018 

The Death of Stalin is the latest work from the genius of Armando Iannucci. The man who brought us the brilliant absurdity of HBO’s Veep has crafted a truly daft history of Russian leadership in the wake of the passing of legendary monster Josef Stalin in 1953. The Machiavellian machinations of Stalin’s cabinet, including future Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev have both an authenticity and an absurdity that only a master of form and tone such as Iannucci can deliver. 

The Death of Stalin features a cast stuffed with some of the most talented English actors in the world. First there is Adrian McLoughlin as Josef Stalin in his final days. McLoughlan isn’t around long, as the title would indicate, but his Stalin is nevertheless a figure of benign menace, signing off on hundreds of deaths a day of dissidents and potential dissidents while forcing his cabinet members to jockey for position in his favor. 

Most prominently, there is Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) who is in deep competition with Lavrenti Beria (Simon Russell Beale) for Stalin’s affections. Both of them are somehow behind the sniveling Georgi Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) in the leadership line, though each assumes they can take control of Georgi as needed to get their way. Also weighing in is Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin) whose support both Beria and Khrushchev covet. 

The casting is impeccable and extends to the brilliant Jason Isaacs as the head of the military, Rupert Friend as Stalin’s drunken, moronic son, Vasily, and Olga Kurylenko as a dissident pianist who plays a key role in the plotting between Khrushchev and Beria. Her role isn’t large but Kurylenko invests it with passion. She, along with Andrea Riseborough, playing Stalin's daughter, are the only women in the movie and both are inspired choices for their roles. 

The trick of The Death of Stalin is the tricky tone of the script which feels at once authentic and absurd. The key is finding the absurd within the authentic and Iannucci does that brilliantly, especially with an opening gag involving another brilliant character actor, Paddy Considine. As the film opens, Comrade Stalin is listening to a live performance on Moscow radio of a live band. Stalin decides he wants a recording of the performance but the performance has not been recorded. 

Immediately we sense how dangerous this moment is for Considine. It’s all in structure. We’ve seen Stalin’s death lists being signed and death squads being spread across the city. Considine’s producer has been told without it being said that if he can’t reproduce the broadcast he will be killed. So, he kidnaps what’s left of the audience and the band and sets about having the concert performed again under the threat of death for everyone from the band to the ignorant citizens Considine wrangles off the streets to fill in for missing audience members. 

It’s a masterfully dark gag and one that sets the darkly humorous tone for what is to come in The Death of Stalin. Iannucci appears to take many parts of this story quite seriously and allows the absurdity to arise from the bizarrely dire circumstances. Take Palin’s Molotov, a brilliantly doddering character, Molotov praised Stalin for seeming to have murdered his wife only to have her returned to him alive by Beria who has kept her under wraps just in case he needed her to bargain. 

The scene where she is returned is a Noises Off style gag wherein Khrushchev arrives at his home to scheme against Beria only to have Beria show up and just as Molotov is talking about how his wife deserved to die for criticizing Stalin, she is brought in the door and he welcomes her home, only to then make a running gag about how she deserved the fate that Stalin had assigned her even as he’s happy she’s home. 

My description doesn’t do justice to Pailin’s brilliantly absurd performance. He along with Buscemi are truly stand outs in this ridiculously talented ensemble. The two of them appear to have been ready built for Iannucci’s ingeniously dark and hysterical style of storytelling. Buscemi is particularly adept at switching from comedy to seriousness at the drop of a hat and without losing the complex rhythm of the story. 

Movie Review: Best F(r)iends Starring Tommy Wiseau

Best F(r)iends Volume 1 (2018) 

Directed by Justin McGregor 

Written by Greg Sestero

Starring Greg Sestero, Tommy Wiseau 

Release Date March 30th, 2018 

Published March 27th, 2018 

“If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college” – Lewis Black

This brilliant non-sequitur line from comedian Lewis Black ran through my head more than once during the duration of “Best F(r)iends,” the new collaboration from “The Room” co-stars Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero. Where Mr. Black’s non-sequitur was the result of a brilliantly orchestrated anecdote, one which contained a beginning, middle and an end, “Best F(r)iends” plays like one, unending, logic free gag that lasts nearly two hours.

Written by Sestero, “Best F(r)iends” stars Tommy Wiseau as the owner of a mortuary, maybe, or perhaps an independent morgue… if such a thing exists. As the owner of the morgue Wiseau’s Harvey invites Sestero’s homeless man, Jon, to come work for him… sort of. Harvey appears to be bereft of friendship though for me to say that’s why he opens up to Jon would be reading a lot into the character on my part as Wiseau gives Harvey little inner life.

After seeing a story in the Wall Street Journal about gold and silver prices, Jon gets the idea to steal a cache of gold and silver teeth that Harvey has collected from corpses over his many years as a mortician. Harvey has collected so much tooth scrap over the years that he has a small fortune. How will Harvey react to finding out his new friend stole from him? You will have to see “Best F(r)iends” to find out.

It’s strange to say but I am deeply concerned about spoilers for “Best F(r)iends,” more so than I am normally regarding a movie I am reviewing. And yet, I can’t honestly say what I would be spoiling. “Best F(r)iends is so ludicrously incomprehensibly incompetent that I don’t know that I could ‘spoil’ anything about it and yet I don’t want to chance it with too much description. I say ludicrously, incomprehensibly incompetent but that is not me saying that “Best F(r)iends is bad, not by a long shot.

In fact, “Best F(r)iends” is one of the best movie going experiences of my career. I watched “Best F(r)iends” with a very small audience at a preview screening and we had an incredible time being completely baffled, appalled and wildly entertained by this ungodly mess of a movie. Somehow, despite the weight of expectations brought on by the cult success of “The Room,” arguably the greatest bad movie of all time, “Best F(r)iends” manages to recapture the unique and wonderful qualities that have made “The Room” an indelible part of popular sub-culture.

I genuinely have no clue as to whether director Justin MacGregor, working from the script by Greg Sestero, is the world’s greatest prank artist or a severely incompetent clone of his leading man, Tommy Wiseau. “Best F(r)iends” exists in this incredible uncanny valley between art and disaster and Mr. MacGregor rides the line between loving send-up and honest badness brilliantly.

A scene early on in “Best F(r)iends” has Greg and Tommy playing basketball outside the mortuary and the echoes of “The Room” are inescapable, enough so that you allow yourself to think the movie is self-aware parody. Then things take another crazy turn. MacGregor keeps employing unnecessary and off-putting camera tricks, something an amateur might try if they were trying to use a film camera for the first time and was wondering what each of the buttons were for.

“Best F(r)iends” has no scene to scene continuity. Scenes happen, normal dialogue is pitched with bizarre non-sequiturs interrupting the flow and then the next scene begins as if what we’ve seen had been completely forgotten. “The Room” played in a similar fashion and again the movie opens the door to the idea of self-awareness and then it turns again into some seemingly improvised nonsense.

All of this reads as a negative review, but I don’t mean for it to be negative. I legitimately LOVE “Best F(r)iends.” The incomprehensible aspects of the movie are the best parts. The WTF moments come from the very beginning and never let up. Dead clowns, underground stolen teeth rings, basketball, rubber masks for the living and the dead, scars that appear, fade, and appear again, are sprinkled throughout this gloriously, hilariously nonsensical movie.

You have to be a fan of “The Room” and “The Disaster Artist” to enjoy “Best F(r)iends.” If you aren’t already on the wavelength of ironically adoring the Tommy Wiseau mythos, you will not understand the appeal of “Best F(r)ends.” If you don’t love watching a bad movie and laughing at them with your best friends, you will not get the appeal of “Best F(r)iends.”

In fact, the biggest part of the appeal of “Best F(r)iends” is the feeling of inclusion, of being in on a joke that only a few people understand. When “Best F(r)iends” ended, my small preview audience could not stop quoting the movie together. It was ours; the jokes belonged to each of us and only to us. We wanted nothing more than to share that joke with other in the know fans of Tommy Wiseau.

Regardless of the quality of Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero’s art, they are bringing people together. The bizarre anti-quality of “Best F(r)iends” appeals to this wonderful niche of likeminded people who can’t help but point and laugh but also find genuine pathos and joy in the effort made toward something so failing. “Best F(r)iends” is a rollercoaster of emotions ranging from confusion to adoration before settling into a spent bewilderment by the time it reaches an ending.

When I found out that this was only part one of “Best F(r)iends” I was more excited about this news than anything related to a super-hero or sci-fi franchise. That’s how much fun “Best F(r)iends' ' truly is for the cult of Tommy and Greg. I am anticipating part two of “Best F(r)iends” in the same way I anticipated “The Phantom Menace” before we found out what a disappointment that movie was.

“Best F(r)iends” part 1 debuts Friday, March 30th and is playing in theaters nationwide for one night only. Part 2 is coming and June and I want to buy my ticket right now! In fact, I want to watch both films back to back and perhaps watch them again just to see if I can finally determine whether they are an elaborate, arty prank, or a genuine failed attempt at making a real movie.

Movie Review: Colossal

Colossal (2017) 

Directed by Nacho Vigalondo 

Written by Nacho Vigalondo 

Starring Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Tim Blake Nelson, Austin Stowell 

Release Date April 7th, 2017 

Published April 7th, 2017

As metaphors go, Godzilla has seen his fair share of interpretations. While most often Godzilla is a stand in for nuclear age mismanagement, the big guy has also been used to further environmental messages, anti-war messages and in his latest and most unique incarnation, in the comic-drama “Colossal,” Godzilla stands in for the emotional trauma people can inflict on others. As unique as “Colossal” is in the interpretation of the legendary movie monster it does adhere with the idea that the humans are nearly as monstrous as the monster we created.

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is a mess. She has no direction, no job and few prospects. Oh, and Gloria has a serious problem with alcohol. Gloria’s issues finally come to head when her live-in boyfriend Tim (Dan Stevens) kicks her to the curb. With nowhere to go, Gloria returns to her childhood home, recently abandoned by her parents, and squats on mom and dad’s dime, eventually finding a job at a bar owned by her childhood friend Oscar (Jason Sudeikis).

I say that Oscar is Gloria’s friend but as the story of “Colossal” plays out the dynamic between Oscar and Gloria will evolve in some very unexpected ways. Unexpected is a hallmark of “Colossal” which comes to find that Gloria’s many, many issues have manifested through some sort of portal that links her thoughts and actions to a Godzilla like creature that wreaks havoc in South Korea each time Gloria goes a little too far in her self-centered partying.

This is no dream sequence in “Colossal.” The story here, crafted by veteran Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo, manifests Godzilla as a real monster that does attack South Korea and mimics the actions of Gloria who decides to turn her life around so that she can avoid killing thousands of people each time she gets drunk and rowdy. Oscar has his own connection to this unique manifestation but that would be far too spoiler heavy to reveal here.

“Collossal” is not at all the movie it appears to be in advertisements and trailers. The marketing for “Colossal” plays up the comic aspects of this story despite the comedy being almost incidental to the psycho-drama that the film becomes as it goes along. There is a darkness and complexity to “Colossal” that producers have apparently been attempting to hide from audiences on the assumption that people aren’t interested in a unique premise, they just want to think they are going to laugh.

As insulting as the marketing of “Colossal” unquestionably is, the film itself is rare and authentic, a work of a wonderfully inventive filmmaker. I am, in all honesty, not familiar with the work of Nacho Vigalondo. That said, “Colossal” is a fantastic introduction to a filmmaker with a unique vision and approach to storytelling. This is just the kind of original and exciting filmmaking that I hope we can encourage more of in the future.

Movie Review Smurfs The Lost Village

Smurfs The Lost Village (2017) 

Directed by Kelly Asbury 

Written by Pamela Ribon, Stacy Harmon

Starring Demi Lovato, Mandy Patinkin, Joe Manganiello, Danny Pudi, Meghan Trainor, Jake Johnson 

Release Date April 7th, 2017

Published April 7th, 2017 

Nothing against the wonderfully talented Neil Patrick Harris, but I was very happy not to see him in the latest iteration of The Smurfs franchise. For all his immense talent, Harris never belonged in a Smurfs movie, nor did anything else from real world New York for that matter. Taking The Smurfs out of Smurf Village to the non-animated New York City was a terribly unnecessary gimmick that drowned the first cinematic outings of our beloved blue heroes.

Back in the animated world of the forest and Smurfs Village, the new animated adventure “Smurfs: The Lost Village” is not all that much better than the previous two Smurfs outings but better enough to warrant taking note.

Smurfette (Demi Lovato) is struggling with her identity. For those not familiar with the background of the only female Smurf, Smurfette was created by Gargamel as a honeytrap intended to lead him to the Smurf Village where he hoped to capture Smurfs and steal their magic. Fortunately, the Smurfs won Smurfette over and instead of helping Gargamel, here voiced by Rain Wilson, she became a member of their family.

Still, despite the love and support of all of the Smurfs, the guidance from Papa Smurf (Mandy Patinkin), the friendship of Hefty (Joe Manganiello), Brainy (Danny Pudi) and Clumsy (Jack McBrayer) and the acceptance of the rest of the Smurfs, Smurfette can’t shake the sense that there is something missing from her story. When she gets lost in the forest while playing with her friends she encounters for the first time a Smurf unlike her brothers and a new adventure is begun.

The Lost Village of the title is a village filled with female Smurfs including Smurf’s voiced by Julia Roberts, Michelle Rodriguez, Ellie Kemper and popstar Meghan Trainor. Naturally, there are around 100 of these female Smurfs because there are around 100 of the boy Smurfs and reinforcing gender norms is kind of part of the package for this film. I will leave it to you to decide if you want to take offense to that or not, I merely took note of it.

As I mentioned earlier, this version of Smurfs The Lost Village is only a minor improvement over the first two live action/animated hybrids. I’m very happy they ditched the live action but I wish they could have added a few more laughs to the mix. Smurfs: The Lost Village is not very with laughs coming a distant second to the visual razzle dazzle and a couple of modestly rousing action set pieces, the best involving a magical river and a very small raft.

It’s just unfortunate that the film lacks laughter. I could count on one hand, not using all the fingers on that hand, the number of laugh out loud moments in Smurfs: The Lost Village. The film comes from director Kelly Asbury who garnered a great deal more laughter from his work on Shrek 2 and more action from his Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Here, Asbury never seems to find the right tone for The Smurfs, the action is fine but the Smurfs isn’t an adventure series, it’s a children’s comedy and this isn’t very funny.

And when I say Smurfs: The Lost Village isn’t funny; I am being very serious. The movie takes a turn in the 3rd act that I will say is quite bold and unexpected but may have the child core of the Smurfs audience very upset. Parents will want to be prepared, the dramatic turn of the third act of The Lost Village will be one that young children may be deeply affected by.

So, do I recommend Smurfs The Lost Village? I didn’t hate the movie but I don’t think it’s very good. It needs more laughs, the last act is borderline disturbing for young audiences but, for the most part the film is inoffensive and may be quite funny to a child, if rather tedious to an adult. The last act could be a little scary for the youngest moviegoers, but this is a Smurfs movie so you can trust that the scarring is minor and well healed by the ending.

Movie Review The Belko Experiment

The Belko Experiment (2017) 

Directed by Greg McLean 

Written by James Gunn

Starring John Gallagher Jr, Adria Arjona, John C. McGinley 

Release Date March 17th 

Published March 17th 

If you like mindless splatter and especially if you like exploding heads, “The Belko Experiment” is the movie for you, if not the movie for me. Though pretending toward a satire of life in a mundane office turned upside down by the absolute most violent of downsizing, “The Belko Experiment” is far too shallow for satire and far too pointless for me to care about.

John Gallagher Jr, last seen opposite crazy John Goodman in “10 Cloverfield Lane” is Mike, the office nice guy at a seemingly typical American office. Except, this office isn’t in America. Despite being populated by an assortment of run of the mill office types, this office is in Bogota, Columbia, of all places and though nondescript, the setting creates unease right off the bat.

Why are a bunch of workaday American office drones working in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, is a question that lends some early suspense to “The Belko Experiment.” It’s a clever bit of shorthand that, if you had not seen the trailer and weren’t aware of the premise of the film, you would certainly take note of the setting.

Mike’s day is mostly ordinary; he flirts with his secret office romance, Leandra (Emerald City’s Adria Arjona), he confronts the office creep, Wendell (John C. McGinley) and shares an awkward moment with the bigwig COO Barry (Tony Goldwyn) who catches him in a moment with Leandra. Everything is mundane until a heretofore unheard of public address speaker screeches to life and informs everyone that this will not be just another day at the office.

The voice on the PA instructs that the office workers must kill their co-workers or the voice will do it for them in the form of a bomb in everyone’s neck. An indication that The Belko Corporation had this bloody endgame in mind all along is that they convinced their employees to get trackers in their necks to aid them in case they get kidnapped in Bogota. The implants are now revealed to be bombs and a gruesome end is ensured for just about everyone.

“The Belko Experiment” is a spiritual cousin to the “Saw” franchise. Both films center on God-like figures setting other people up to kill or be killed in a bizarre social experiment murder spree. The difference between the “Belko” and “Saw” however is the point and purpose, “Saw” has a point and purpose and “Belko” doesn’t.

As gruesome as “Saw” unquestionably is, Jigsaw is a strangely benevolent figure. Each of Jigsaw’s victims has the chance to survive if they put aside their self-centeredness and work as a team with their fellow captives. The only reason Jigsaw victims die is because they are out for themselves and make selfish choices. There is no such equivalent in “The Belko Experiment.” This film is ONLY an exploitation splatter flick with modest, mostly unrealized pretensions toward social satire.

Is “The Belko Experiment” a good exploitation-splatter flick? Yeah, if you like that sort of thing it’s fair to say this is on the higher end of that low-end genre. The film is clever at building and sustaining tension throughout and the gore is believably visceral but it’s far too pointless for my taste. None of the blood and guts matter. The characters are far too shallow for them to matter beyond how well their heads explode.

If well rendered exploding heads is enough for you, then by all means, enjoy “The Belko Experiment.”

Movie Review Table 19

Table 19 (2017) 

Directed by Jeffrey Blitz

Written by Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass 

Starring Anna Kendrick, Wyatt Russell, Stephen Merchant, Lisa Kudrow, Craig Robinson 

Release Date March 13th, 2017

Published March 29th, 2017

Undoubtedly someone will relate to the idea of being invited to a wedding where they are not expected to attend. At least, that is what the producers of the new comedy “Table 19” would like to think. The premise here is that several people have been invited to a wedding where they were just expected to pick a gift off the registry and send that in with their regards. Instead, each of these oddballs decides to attend the wedding and wind up at the table of misfit guests.

Anna Kendrick stars in “Table 19” as Eloise, the former Maid of Honor turned pariah after she was dumped by the Best Man who is also the Bride’s brother, Teddy (Wyatt Russell). Eloise has backed out of the wedding several times since the breakup only to show up on the day of the wedding with everyone concerned she might make a scene. To mitigate her potential meltdown, Eloise is placed as far away as possible, at Table 19.

Joining Eloise are a random assemblage of guests including Jerry and Bina Kepp, (Craig Robinson and Lisa Kudrow) business acquaintances of the Bride’s father, Jo (June Squibb), the Bride’s former Nanny, Renzo (Tony Revolori) an awkward teenager, and Walter (Stephen Merchant), a business associate of the Groom’s father. Walter is fresh out of prison and hoping no one knows about his prison stay or how he got there; why he came to the wedding or was invited is anyone’s guess.

“Table 19” has the appearance of a movie but not the story of a movie, at least not a good one. At times the film feels like each actor was given one idea for a character and then told to improvise some comic situation. Unfortunately, despite a very talented and game cast, no one, not even the lovely Anna Kendrick finds much beyond one note to play and that one note is rarely ever funny.

Stephen Merchant is a very funny and talented man but his Walter is an absolute comic dead zone. Walter’s one note is that he is just out of prison and hoping no one notices. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know how to lie properly so he keeps stumbling into awkward and contrived conversations that the makers of “Table 19” apparently believed were hilarious. They are not hilarious, tedious is the more apt description as Merchant plays the same awkward gag over and over until you wish his character would just leave the rest of the movie alone.

Craig Robinson and Lisa Kudrow have a slightly different problem, they are way more interesting than the one note characters they are given to play. As a married couple seemingly headed for a breakup, Robinson and Kudrow at times seem to border on a much better movie, a more European style character comedy where we might explore their marital problems with a wedding in the background. I kept dreaming of that far funnier movie while “Table 19” forced Kudrow to carry one joke through the movie, she has the same color jacket as the catering staff. Ha Ha.

And finally, there is Kendrick who should be the star here but is instead treated as a member of a wacky ensemble. Unfortunately, that ensemble isn’t funny or even all that interesting while Kendrick is her usual appealing self, her charisma and beauty calling for our full attention while the film forces us to endure her one-note table mates to ever more unfunny situations and dialogue.

I had high hopes for “Table 19.” Anna Kendrick, to me, is a genuine movie star and I wanted to see where she might lead this story. Sadly, the wacky, one note ensemble strands her in the role of straight-woman to a group of terribly unfunny side characters. There is a very funny Anna Kendrick wedding comedy trapped inside of “Table 19” trying to get out but is entirely thwarted by the filmmakers. 

The Bride's parents were right, these wedding guests should have just stayed home.

Movie Review: Collide

Collide (2017) 

Directed by Eran Creevy 

Written by F. Scott Frazier 

Starring Nicholas Hoult, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Felicity Jones 

Release Date February 24th, 2017 

Published February 24th, 2017 

“Collide,” starring Nicholas Hoult, Anthony Hopkins and Ben Kingsley has been sitting on a shelf for three years. Do I need to tell you much more about “Collide” than that fact? Okay, fine, movie reviews are required to be more than two lines so I will do my best to discuss the merits of “Collide” but again, if you understand the nature of the Hollywood release schedule, the fact that a movie has sat on a shelf for so long is very, very telling.

“Collide” stars Nicholas Hoult as Casey, an American living in Germany and making a living as a small-time drug dealer. Casey decides to give up drug dealing when he meets and falls in love with Juliette (Felicity Jones), a fellow American expat turned bartender. Things are looking up for the young couple in love until it is revealed that Juliette has a severe movie disease and needs an expensive plot point to save her life.

To get the money for Juliette’s transplant Casey takes a job from Geran (Ben Kingsley), his former drug dealing boss. The job pays just enough to pay for Juliette’s surgery (KISMET!) but it is also very dangerous. Casey and a partner must steal millions of dollars in cocaine from Germany’s biggest drug dealer, Hagen Kahl (Anthony Hopkins). The plan is silly and overstuffed and naturally doesn’t go as planned. Kahl figures out who Casey is, takes Juliette hostage and the stage is set for a lot of shouting into cell phones and car chases only slightly noisier than the shouting.

Speaking of shouting, does Ben Kingsley remember a time when he wasn’t shouting? Once a well thought of character actor, Kingsley has receded well into parody. Many critics, myself included, used to joke about Kingsley simply nabbing paychecks by accepting every role he’s offered. It’s not funny anymore. Sir Ben has morphed from the actor we laughed along with as he hammed his way through “Bloodrayne” or “The Last Legion” to that actor we pity for having lost his touch.

Anthony Hopkins hasn’t quite sunk to Sir Ben’s depths but he is not far off. Hopkins gives Kingsley a run for his money in the not giving a single damn about his performance. Hopkins can still put a bit of sizzle into his hammy monologues but “Collide” contains far too many instances of Hopkins monologuing just to keep himself awake in a scene.

Poor Nicholas Hoult is caught in the crossfire of the senior hams and is rendered bland in comparison. In his desperate attempt to take seriously the silliness he’s given to deliver and endure; Hoult is amiable but wholly defeated. It is Yeoman's work to take seriously the over-complicated silliness of “Collide” and it is hard to fault Hoult, an otherwise handsome and welcome presence, for being tired and overwhelmed.

Full disclosure, “Collide” was delayed because it’s original distributor, Relativity Media, went out of business and not necessarily because it isn’t any good. Of course, if the film were good it likely would have been bought out and released sometime in the last three years. Why the film is in theaters nationwide now is a mystery likely linked to a contractual obligation of some sort.

Movie Review Split

Split (2017)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring James McAvoy, Anya Taylor Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, Betty Buckley

Release Date January 20th, 2017

Published January 19th, 2017

Despite positive notice for 2015’s The Visit, the belief was that before Split, M Night Shyamalan was done as a big time director. Split changes all of that and puts the former twist-meister back on the A-list. Split was a stunner, a film that quickened the pace of the usual Shyamalan piece while maintaining the kind of suspense and tension that made Shyamalan the supposed modern day Hitchcock.

Split stars James McAvoy stars in Split as Kevin, a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder. It’s hard to know which of Kevin’s numerous personalities is going to show up. Kevin’s psychiatrist, Dr Fletcher (Betty Buckley), has grown used to talking with Barry, Kevin’s effeminately homosexual personality, who acts as a spokesperson for what he has come to call ‘The Horde,’ a nickname for the 23 known personalities, part of Kevin’s Dissociative Identity Disorder.

Lately however, Barry doesn’t seem like Barry and Dr Fletcher begins to recognize Dennis, arguably the most dangerous of Kevin’s personalities. Barry has been emailing Dr Fletcher at night with concerns about Dennis and The Horde and then downplaying his late night emails when he talks to her during sessions. The dynamic chemistry between McAvoy and the veteran Betty Buckley is fantastic and makes the mind games between the two are exciting and riveting.

Indeed, Dennis does prove to be dangerous. With the encouragement of Patricia, another of Kevin’s Horde, Dennis has taken hostages. In a mall parking lot Dennis murdered a man and took his daughter and two of her friends as hostages. Dennis and Patricia plan to sacrifice the teens to a creature they call The Beast, a heretofore unknown 24th persona for Kevin. The Beast is indeed a terror as Kevin’s very body chemistry changes to match his personality and as The Beast you can imagine the horrors to come.

The precision of James McAvoy’s performance cannot be understated. This is one of the most remarkable acting jobs I have ever witnessed. Sure, most actors put on and take off many different personas during their career but rarely are they asked to create distinct characters inside of one movie. McAvoy sells each personality as if they are the lead in their own movie and each persona is distinct and provides another layer to the thriller.

Perhaps the most important of these personas is Hedwig, a nine year old boy. Hedwig has the heavy lifting of getting us through the second act and into the third. It is as Hedwig that McAvoy spends time interacting with Anya Taylor Joy, Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula as the kidnapped teenagers. Hedwig has a load of exposition to unfurl in this time as the movie lays the groundwork for the reveal of The Beast and he is a fantastic vessel for this. We’re never bored by the exposition because we are transfixed by McAvoy’s take on a 9 year old in an adult body.

Anya Taylor Joy, one of the stars of the equally ingenious The Witch before taking on this role, is a brilliant foil for Kevin aka The Horde. No innocent herself, Joy’s Casey has flashbacks amidst the kidnapping plot and the payoff to these flashbacks is every bit as shocking as the final reveal of The Beast. The empathy she offers to Kevin’s varying personalities is a terrific counterpoint to the menace of Dennis, Patricia and The Beast.

Split is one of my favorite movies of this young century and that it was folded into the universe of Unbreakable is a tasty cherry on top of an already great dessert of a movie. The final reveal of Bruce Willis in Split was a jaw-dropper for those of us who saw it opening weekend and then rushed home to spoil it on the internet with our speculation on how a sequel to Unbreakable featuring Kevin would play out.

It was as if we were part of the market testing of an Unbreakable and we didn’t even know it. The choice felt organic at the end, after we’ve seen Kevin become the almost supernatural figure, The Beast and considered how one might oppose such a figure. Seeing Bruce Willis was amazing in that moment and the catharsis of feeling the pieces of Glass fall into place was a terrific Adrenalin rush following what was already a great thrill in Split.

Movie Review Rango

Rango (2011) 

Directed by Gore Verbinski 

Written by John Logan 

Starring Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin, Alfred Molina, Timothy Olyphant 

Release Date March 4th, 2011

Published March 3rd, 2011 

2011 has seen very great movies. For me, the best film of the year, before the Oscar bait stuff arrives in October, November and December, is the animated Johnny Depp comedy "Rango." This endlessly inventive animated feature stunned me back in March of this year and has lingered in the back of my mind ever since.

"Rango '' stars Johnny Depp as the title character, a movie loving pet chameleon who gets lost in the desert after falling out of the back of a car. After meeting a Possum named Roadkill (Alfred Molina) Rango wanders off into the desert in search of the spirit of the west.

Eventually, after being chased by a hawk and passing out from the heat, Rango meets Beans (Isla Fisher), an iguana from a western town called Dirt. Through a series of mishaps Rango becomes the sheriff of Dirt and is tasked to stare down Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) while uncovering a scam to steal the city's water supply.

"Rango" was directed by Gore Verbinski, best known for the "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise, and written by John Logan, writer of "Gladiator" and "The Aviator." Together, Verbinski and Logan have cooked up an animated western that gathers influence not merely from the obvious sources, the westerns of Clint Eastwood and Gary Cooper, but also the HBO series "Deadwood" (Timothy Olyphant voices a mysterious character known as the Spirit of the West) and even the forgotten Lee Marvin classic "Cat Ballou" and the epic "Once Upon a Time in the West."

The references are literate and lively and will delight western fans to no end. But the mimicry in Rango doesn't end with the western. Rango includes nods to everything from "Star Wars" to "Raising Arizona" to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," the last two, of course, starring Johnny Depp.

The plot of Rango turns on the same premise of the film classic "Chinatown," a corrupt man taking control of a town's water supply. Most kids won't get the reference but the key to Rango's charm is the way it keeps both kids and parents wildly entertained. While parents are cataloging the numerous references to classic and newer movies, the kids will love the cleverness of the story as well as the marvelous color and the energetic voice performances from Johnny Depp, Ned Beatty, Isla Fisher, Abigail Breslin and more.

Unlike most animated films where the voice actors are recorded over several months, often one voice at a time, the cast of Rango recorded vocals all at the same time with the cast often acting out the action of the animated characters. The lively interaction of the cast and the way the animators worked to capture the emotions of the actors in their animated characters gives Rango its unique energy.

The animation of Rango is phenomenal with bright colors, visual nods to the work of Sergio Leone, the legendary Italian master of the Spaghetti Western, and an almost Dali-esque sense of the absurd, captured especially by a dream sequence involving a floating, wind-up fish.

Rango is entertaining on multiple levels from the film encyclopedia level of movie references to the extraordinary animation and the lively, boisterous, and wildly talented voice cast led by the brilliant Johnny Depp. With these elements combined, there is no question that Rango is, thus far, the best movie of 2011.

Classic Movie Review: A Fish Called Wanda

 A Fish Called Wanda (1988) 

Directed by Charles Crichton

Written by John Cleese

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, Michael Palin, John Cleese

Release Date July 15th, 1988 

Published July 15th, 2018

It’s so strange, sometimes movies get a reputation for genius and you hear about it and hear about it and then you see it for yourself and you wind up wondering what all of the fuss was about. That’s the case for me with A Fish Called Wanda. Yes, I had seen the movie before, back when it was on HBO in the 90’s and I think that I tried very hard to like it as much as the critics of the time seemed to like it. I liked it so I could seem smart.

A Fish Called Wanda turns 30 years old this weekend and once again I watched with the aim of wanting to like it so I could seem smart. Only this time, I am mature and confident enough to say I simply didn’t care for it. A Fish Called Wanda just doesn’t work on me. I disliked the characters, I was barely amused by the gags and Kevin Kline’s Academy Award winning supporting performance, for me, came off as forced and shrill.

A Fish Called Wanda is a comic heist movie which stars Jamie Lee Curtis as Wanda, a woman who is dating a thief named Georges Thomas, played by Tom Georgeson, a gag funnier than most in the movie. Wanda is only setting Georges up so that she and her lover, Otto (Kevin Kline) can double cross him and their other partner, Ken (Michael Palin). Georges isn’t stupid however and to insure his cut, he hides the loot until he knows he’s clear, an idea that pays off when Otto secretly turns him, unaware of where the loot actually went. 

To figure out where the loot is hidden, Wanda and Otto begin a convoluted plan surrounding Georges’ barrister, Archie Leach (John Cleese). The hope is that Otto will give Archie the location of the loot as a way to reduce his sentence after he is caught. The plan is for Wanda to seduce Archie to get him to reveal the location of the loot so that they can steal it back and leave the country. Things take a turn when Wanda develops a soft spot for Archie.

A Fish Called Wanda was directed by Charles Crichton, sort of. Though John Cleese claimed to have put his name on the co-director credit in order to allay studio fears about the fact that Crichton hadn’t worked in 23 years and was in his mid-80’s, it appears from on-set stories from Curtis and Kline that Cleese was the creative force. It was Cleese who came up with the memorable running gags about Wanda’s fetish for foreign languages and Otto’s insecurity about being called stupid.

 There are other Cleese-ian touches as well such as Archie having a wife and the two of them having separate beds ala his character on the famed British television series Fawlty Towers. Regardless of who is responsible however, not much of anything in A Fish Called Wanda got a laugh out of me. Whether it’s the door slamming, Noises-Off style gags of people running in and out of rooms and weaving elaborate lies when caught in the wrong place at the wrong time or the almost nihilistic approach to right and wrong, I found nothing appealing about A Fish Called Wanda.

The characters in A Fish Called Wanda are all terrible people, and that includes Palin’s Ken who, though he may feel guilty about a few of his evil deeds, is nevertheless as terrible as anyone else and has arguably the most notable body count in the movie, if you count dogs. The gags involving the elaborate ways in which Ken accidentally murders an old ladies three dogs is some of the ugliest humor I can recall in a supposed comedy.

We are supposed to like Ken because Palin plays him as a simpleton, a dupe who thinks he's helping his friend but is blundering his way into crime. We are supposed to either sympathize with or find funny his stuttering but it only engenders a sad sort of pity that is far from funny. A scene where Palin and Cleese finally share the screen comes late in the film, as we've anticipated seeing the Python guys together, and the scene is a wretchedly excessive scene of Palin struggling with his stutter and Cleese becoming more and more explosively irritated while trying to stay calm. There is no gag here other than Palin's stutter and it's never funny, merely insensitive. 

A Fish Called Wanda presumes its own sophistication. The filmmakers and stars appear as if they should be erudite, sophisticated players in a farce but somehow the film never earns a laugh. I shouldn’t say never, I was amused a few times, such as when Cleese dances about spouting Russian phrases while Jamie Lee Curtis writhes in ecstasy but the amusement was tempered and rare.

In his 1988 review of A Fish Called Wanda, Roger Ebert says “One of its strengths is its mean-spiritedness” and I could not disagree more. I don’t find the mean-spiritedness of A Fish Called Wanda to be a strength. It’s my least favorite thing about the movie. I don’t enjoy these odious characters and their greed and I especially don’t care for the ending that rewards each of them in some strange way.

I revere Roger Ebert which explains why, nearly 30 years ago, I watched A Fish Called Wanda and desperately attempted to like it. I wanted to seem cool to a man I would never meet. I wanted to impress this idol who didn’t know I existed via some transference of psychic energy; as if the universe might inform my hero that I was no ordinary teenage movie fan, I was a teenage movie fan who liked A Fish Called Wanda.

I still revere Roger Ebert, his writing will influence me for my lifetime but as an older man I find myself able to politely disagree. While Roger enjoyed this movie, I loathed it. I didn’t enjoy the mean-spiritedness because the characters weren’t pleasant or entertaining enough to earn it. I don’t mind a mean character winning in the end if they are charming or interesting enough and they are perhaps thumbing their nose at some societal ill. But when characters are just terrible because being terrible gets them what they want, I lose interest.

The characters of A Fish Called Wanda aren’t charming, their ugly. I don’t mind that they are criminals, I mind that they aren’t interesting or funny criminals. I don’t mind that they are killers or thieves, I mind that they aren’t charming or silly or funny killers and thieves. The characters appear as if they and what they are doing should be funny and yet I don’t laugh. I dislike these characters and thus they never become funny.

Movie Review: Who's Harry Crumb

Who's Harry Crumb (1989) 

Directed by Paul Flaherty

Written by Robert Conte, Peter Martin Wortmann

Starring John Candy, Jeffrey Jones, Annie Potts, Shawnee Smith

Release Date February 3rd, 1989

Published February 3rd, 2019 

Who’s Harry Crumb is a childhood guilty pleasure for me. This 1989 John Candy goof-around hit my 13 year old sensibilities square in the bullseye. Dorky, awkward and deeply silly, this detective spoof, for me, was peak John Candy. And that is saying something considering that John Candy was the defining comic face of my childhood. While others worshipped at the altar of the SNL crowd or Steve Martin or Eddie Murphy, John Candy was my comedian. 

Admittedly, much of John Candy’s work hasn’t aged well and Harry Crumb is a good example of that. Much of what John Candy did was variations on the big guy falls down style of humor, before Chris Farley picked up that mantle, but Who’s Harry Crumb at least wasn’t all humor based on Candy’s size. Most of Harry Crumb was based on the pure silliness of Candy’s persona, his talent for goofball antics and comic mimicry.

Who’s Harry Crumb stars John Candy as the titular detective, Harry Crumb. Hired to investigate the kidnapping of a millionaire’s daughter, Harry doesn’t know that he’s been hired specifically to screw up the case. Harry’s boss at the Crumb & Crumb detective agency, Eliot Draisen (Jeffrey Jones), specifically gave the case to Harry because Harry is the least competent detective in the agency. Eliot himself is behind the kidnapping of fashion model Jennifer Downing (Renee Coleman) and Eliot assumes that Harry can't possibly solve the case. 

Harry’s style is bizarre as he enjoys wild and elaborate costumes that he believes fool everyone when in reality, he’s fooling no one. Harry’s saving grace is Nikki (Shawnee Smith), the sister of Jennifer, the kidnapped model and the one person who believes that Harry can crack the case, if only with her help. The duo gets on the trail and despite Harry’s bizarre ways, they manage to crack a couple of leads.

No, as an adult viewer of Who’s Harry Crumb, I cannot defend this goofball nonsense. But, as a piece of loopy, childish, nostalgia, I still can’t get enough of this movie. It’s like fatty food, I know it’s not good for me, but Who’s Harry Crumb is really great junk food. It all comes back to John Candy who was among the most lovable lugs ever on the big screen. Candy, for a kid, was comic gold. His anything for a laugh approach never failed to hit me right in the funny bone. 

A scene set to Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out for a Hero with Candy riding atop an airport staircase vehicle, chasing down the duo of Tim Thomerson and Annie Potts, is such a dumb and cliched scene but I could not stop laughing at it as a kid and the nostalgia makes it hold up for me today. If a movie today featured a similar scene I would probably complain but because it is Candy and it is Who’s Harry Crumb, I find it completely hysterical. 

A new edition of Who’s Harry Crumb is coming to DVD and Blu Ray on Tuesday and if you have young kids who love truly goofy humor based on daft characters falling down and dressing up in strange costumes, I kind of recommend this movie. It’s rated PG. Some of the costumes probably don’t hold up to modern standards of Political Correctness, but it’s hard to hold that against the movie and especially against the late Mr Candy who was always a good hearted goof.