Movie Review: Abominable

Abominable (2019) 

Directed by Jill Culton 

Written by Jill Culton 

Starring Chloe Bennett, Albert Tsai, Eddie Izzard, Sarah Paulson, Tsai Chin 

Release Date September 27th, 2019 

Published September 27th, 2019

“For me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy” Roger Ebert 

There is a moment in my experience of the movie Abominable that reminded me of that Roger Ebert quote and why Roger was always the best of us, always so prescient. Our young protagonist in Abominable has a violin that means the world to her, a gift from her late father and it appears to be broken and lost forever. 

Behind me, in the dark of the theater, a little girl, who couldn't have been older than 5 or 6, says to her mom, ‘oh no her guitar,’ with genuine concern and empathy. The poignancy of this moment cannot be understated. Abominable inspires feelings like that and while it may not be perfect, if it inspires one child toward that kind of genuine empathy, it’s worth more than all of the greatest movies ever made. 

Abominable features the voice of Chloe Bennett as Yi, an industrious teenager who, since the death of her father, has barely stopped working long enough to grieve his loss. Her absence from her mother (Michelle Wong) and her Nai Nai (Tsai Chai) is deeply felt but mom fears interfering in her daughters coping mechanism, even if it means not being able to offer the comfort she desperately wishes to give. 

Yi’s multiple side hacks, including dog walking, babysitting, and emptying fish guts in the trash of a restaurant, are her way of avoidance and her way of raising money for a trip she and her father had planned and she’s determined to take. But all of that will have to wait when Yi finds a yeti on the roof of her apartment building. Yes, a yeti, a big, white furball of a yeti with more than a touch of magic and wonder to him. 

The yeti, which Yi nicknames Everest, after his home summit, has escaped from the laboratory of a big game hunter named Burnish (Eddie Izzard). Burnish encountered a Yeti as a young man when he climbed Mt Everest and he intends to prove to the world the yeti exists. With the help of his Zoologist sidekick, Dr Zara (Sarah Paulsen) and his bumbling team of security Burnish will do anything to bring Everest back to his lab to exploited. 

Helping Yi and Everest on their journey, as Yi has decided to return Everest to his home, are Jin (Tenzing Norgay Trainor) and Jin’s young cousin, Peng (Albert Tsai). Jin had no intention of helping but when Peng ran off to join Yi and Everest on a departing ship, he leapt after him to protect him. Jin also provides a lucky cover story for the trio as well as he had a trip to Beijing planned for his college visits and he claims Yi and Peng are accompanying him. 

That’s all I will tell you about the plot of Abominable, an unfortunate title for this delightful movie. Truly, THIS movie deserves to be called Everest and it is a shame that the awful mountain climbing movie from earlier this young century claimed that title first. The two films are remarkably different in story but also in quality as Abominable is a wonderful adventure and Everest is a paean to the courage of people dying for no reason other than their ego. 

Stepping off my soapbox, Abominable was written and directed by Jill Culton who has greatly improved her work since the slight and forgettable animated animal flick, Open Season, in 2006. Abominable has the heartfelt care and craft of a Pixar movie without the lowbrow pandering of most non-Pixar animated fair. The animation is lovely, even as the character design choices are a little odd. Not so odd as to be notably bad, just a few unusual choices. That’s just critical nitpicking. 

The eagle eyed among you readers were likely struck by a name in the credits of Abominable, that of Tenzing Norgay Trainor. That’s not merely an homage to the man who joined Sir Edmund Hillary as the first men on the top of Mt Everest, Tenzing Norgay. Tenzing Norgay Trainor is the grandson of Tenzing Norgay making Abominable an apt tribute to his grandfather’s legacy. Trainor was an inspired choice for the role of Jin not just because of his heritage, but also because he’s a star on the Disney Channel and has a naturally expressive voice. 

The most important thing about Abominable is that the story is full of heart. It’s the kind of movie that overwhelms you with a big, lovable heart. These are wonderful characters inside a terrific story filled with adventure and laughs and a few well earned tears. Watching Abominable in a theater full of children and watching even the most attention span challenged child slowly become mesmerized by the sights and sounds is an utter delight. 

The experience of Abominable was nearly enough for me to recommend it. That Abominable is a genuinely wonderful movie, is icing on the cake. 

Movie Review The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009) 

Directed by Niels Arden Oplev 

Written by Rasmus Heisterberg, Nikolaj Arcel 

Starring Michael Nyqvist, Noomi Rapace, Ingvar Hirdwall 

Release Date October 9th, 2009 

Published October 9th, 2009

The character of Lisbeth Salander had, for a time, become the dominant pop cultural notion of an international ‘hacker.’ Or, at least she was until faceless Russian trolls became the top meme on that front during the 2016 election year. Before that though, leather, spikes and punk attitude, epitomized by Lisbeth as written by the late Stieg Larsson, was the dominant mode of our imagination of the hacker. 

That is because Larsson’s characterization of Lisbeth Salander as the ultimate, badass, rebel, outlaw of the internet was so incredibly juicy. Pansexual, androgynous, covered in leather and spikes with a photographic memory and an intuition to match. And, she can beat up just about any man put in her way? That’s a recipe for an irresistible pop culture heroine. Add to that, Noomi Rapace’s iconic Lisbeth in the 2009 film adaptation and it is no wonder that Larsson and Lisbeth have lived on long past the author himself and his Millennium franchise. 

With the latest, and the first under a new author, Millennium franchise story, The Girl in the Spider’s Web about to return Lisbeth Salander to our collective pop culture radar, now seemed like a good time to look back at the first big screen incarnation of the ultimate hacker icon, Noomi Rapace’s 2009 award winning performance in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo introduces us to Lisbeth Salander as she is investigating a crusading journalist, Mikael Blomqvist (Mikael Nyqvist) who is being set up to go to jail. Blomqvist got suckered into a big investigative story about a powerful Swedish businessman but once he completed his story, he found that all of his sources had disappeared and he could go to jail on Sweden’s harsh libel laws. 

This, however, is not why Lisbeth is investigating Blomqvist. Instead, she is working for another billionaire businessman who wants to hire Blomqvist to investigate a 40 year old disappearance. Blomqvist specifically has a connection to the woman who disappeared, Harriet Vanger, as she was his childhood babysitter. Henrik Vanger, Harriet’s uncle, is betting that the personal connection and Mikael’s desperate situation will make him the ideal person to find evidence that no one has found in the past 40 years. 

Lisbeth’s part of the story should end there but she is deeply fascinated by Blomqvist. Investigating his case she found him to be the rare case of someone who has nothing to hide, a genuinely good man, caught up in a scheme not of his making. When Blomqvist accepts Vanger’s invitation to investigate Harriet’s disappearance, Lisbeth invites herself into the investigation and becomes Blomqvist’s partner and lover. 

The mystery at the heart of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo oozes with intrigue including incest among Swedish elite, billion dollar fortunes, a serial killer and secret Nazis. It’s a whole lot of story for a whole lot of movies, the film, directed by Niels Arden Oplev, comes in at a fully packed 2 hours and 30 minutes. In that time, we also get to know some of Lisbeth’s frightful backstory as an abuse victim who has only begun to fight back. 

We learn a lot about Lisbeth’s resolve and strength in a violent subplot involving Lisbeth’s new guardian, played by Nils Bjurman. The film never explains why Lisbeth, who is clearly of an adult age, needs a guardian but the hint is that she is a recovering addict. Regardless, the brutal guardian exacts a toll on Lisbeth by taking over her finances and strangling the control she has over her life.

This subplot has received a great deal of controversial attention for having a brutal rape as its central conceit. Many have asked why this scene or even the subplot as a whole exists in the book and in the film. The answer is complicated, at least from my critical perspective. I can understand that the scene in question is brutal and could be fairly called exploitative. On the other hand, this subplot comes to play a larger role in the Millennium series as it goes on. 

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo introduces this complex, traumatic and problematic subplot and it can be fairly seen as extraneous in the stubborn context of just this movie. In the Millennium franchise however, this subplot has a much larger part to play and comes to be if not a central component of any of the other stories, it’s one that communicates a great deal about Lisbeth, her history and how she copes. 

That director Niels Arden Oplev has done little since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in 2009 to distinguish his directorial career, does little to dim my opinion of the movie. This is one of the most riveting mysteries of this young century, a fascinating, twisty, and riveting work of suspense with an R-rated grit that makes it certainly not for everyone, especially those without a strong stomach. 

If you’re interested in the story of Lisbeth Salander ahead of the release, this weekend, of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, this 2009, Swedish language thriller, is the best possible introduction. Yes, even better than the American version of the story. That’s saying something as the 2011 version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo carries the distinguished reputation of director David Fincher. 

Nevertheless, consider 2009’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet’s Nest as required reading for true fans of Stieg Larsson’s dark, gritty and yet deeply commercial, mystery franchise, before or after you see The Girl in the Spider’s Web.

Movie Review Mission Impossible Rogue Nation and Ghost Protocol

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011) 

Directed by Brad Bird

Written by Josh Applebaum, Andre Nemec

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Paula Patton 

Release Date December 16th, 2011 

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation (2015) 

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Written by Christopher McQuarrie

Starring Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames, Rebecca Ferguson

Release Date July 31st, 2015 

Published July 25th, 2018 

Mission Impossible 3 made an indelible mark in my mind as the most entertaining and accomplished take on the entire Mission Impossible franchise. After seeing both Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, I can now say with certainty that the series peaked with number 3. J.J Abrams' kinetic direction was artful and exciting with an eye toward drama, action and suspense all in the same package.

That’s not to say that Ghost Protocol and Rogue Nation are bad, they just lack the same clarity, focus and skill of MI3. Neither directors, Brad Bird or Christopher McQuarrie, appear capable of imposing their vision on the franchise, or at least, they didn’t impose it as well as Abrams did as each seems far more at the mercy of stunt coordinators and the daredevil antics of star Tom Cruise than Abrams was.

Ghost Protocol picks up the action of the MI story some five years after the action of MI3. Ethan Hunt is behind bars in a foreign country, accused of having murdered 6 Serbian nationals. We will eventually be told that his wife, Jules (Michelle Monaghan), a prominent part of the action in MI3, was killed, but death in a spy movie doesn’t always mean death. The big bad this time out is a man code named Cobalt (Michael Nykvist), an arms dealer with the aim of ending the world with a nuclear missile.

It will be up to Agent Hunt and his new IMF team, including Field Agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) and Jane Carter (Paula Patton). Carter is still reeling from the murder of her partner, Agent Hanaway (Josh Holloway, Lost) who was murdered by a killer for hire employed by Cobalt. They are joined by Analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) who gets added to the team after his boss, the Secretary of the IMF (Tom Wilkinson) is murdered and the team is disavowed.

Brad Bird is a competent and highly capable director who keeps the pace up and the action well managed. Unfortunately, the film is little more than set-pieces strung together by a thin plot and a less than compelling villain. Ghost Protocol is remembered for the controversial CGI destruction of the Kremlin and a death-defying sequence in which Cruise appears to scale the outside of the world’s tallest building, Dubai’s Burj Khalifa.

Both sequences are solid and well captured with the Burj Khalifa climb coming the closest to evoking the best of the franchise. That said, they appeared to have the stunts before they had a script and wound up tailoring the story to the stunts. This was seemingly confirmed when writer Christopher McQuarrie was brought on half way into production for an uncredited rewrite of the script by Andre Nemec and Josh Applebaum.

Does this make Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol bad? No, it means that it comes up short of the legacy crafted by Mission Impossible 3. That film had big stunts and a big story to tell along with it. Ghost Protocol has ambition stunts but lacks the story to lift it to what I had hoped the series would be after MI3. Still, the movie is good enough, entertaining enough, and has just enough appeal that I don’t dislike it, but I don’t love it either.

Mission Impossible Rogue Nation, at the very least, improved upon Ghost Protocol. Here, Ethan Hunt opens the movie by being captured by the big bad, this time played by Sean Harris. Harris’ Solomon Lane has been eluding Ethan for two years since Ethan began to track him down. Lane has remained 2 steps ahead of Ethan while creating a series of tragedies intended to have a drastic effect on world markets.

Ethan is in so much hot water that the CIA, seen here in the form of a blustering Alec Baldwin, believes he is responsible for the terrorist acts caused by Lane’s outfit called, The Syndicate. In attempting to stop The Syndicate, Ethan recruits Benji to join him on the run from the CIA and they are joined by a British double agent named Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) who has infiltrated The Syndicate and is the key to getting to Lane.

Director Christopher McQuarrie both wrote and directed Mission Impossible Rogue Nation and that fact does lend some clarity to the storytelling. The conspiracy in play is a wild one and rather clever and well executed. The film is still defined by one big stunt, in which Cruise legendarily clung to the side of a plane as it was taking off, but the stunt doesn’t completely overshadow the movie as the Burj Khalifa sequence in Ghost Protocol certainly did.

McQuarrie marries the slick, shallow thrills of MI2 with a little of the grit of the original with the craftsmanship of MI3 and creates easily the second best of the then 5 film franchise. I especially enjoyed the use of Rebecca Ferguson whose lithe physicality matches that of co-star Tom Cruise. The way she floats about fluidly in major fight scenes is really cool and in keeping with the action style of most of the Mission movies. She’s a really solid addition.

Sadly, the villain of Rogue Nation is once again the weakest part of the film. Who’s Sean Harris? He’s not a bad actor but I have no reference point for who he is as an actor. He’s not remotely on the star level of the rest of the cast, even Ferguson who makes her debut in this film. Harris’s lack of a profile makes him forgettable and when compared to the best villain in the franchise, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s exceptional, Owen Davian, he comes up well short.

The character of Solomon Lane is not all that compelling. His aims are clear but the character is a shell and a full-fledged villain should be. He has no life, no personality, he’s not tough and while he’s portrayed as super-smart, our first time seeing him, he immediately chooses not to kill Ethan Hunt even though he easily could. The sequence makes the character look silly, especially when the script gives him zero reason to keep alive the one man he’s aware could stop his agenda.

The lack of care in the details of the script of Rogue One is part of what keeps the film far from greatness. It’s still solid and has terrific stunt work and top-notch action scenes, but sadly I was hoping for more of a brain. Instead, we get yet another Tom Cruise running chase scene and another Tom Cruise motorcycle chase scene, obligatory action beats that likely existed before a script ever did.

McQuarrie is also the writer-director of Mission Impossible Fallout which hits theaters this weekend. I believe Fallout will be good but my expectations have dimmed for the franchise. I had hoped Ethan Hunt would usurp James Bond as the top movie spy of all time. Sadly, Bond’s legacy is kept safe by a star too eager for stunts and directors unable to make the stunts into a fully compelling story beyond the mere presentation of spectacle that just happens to be part of a story.

Movie Review: A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas

A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas (2011) 

Directed by Todd Strauss-Schulman

Written by Jay Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg

Starring John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris, Paula Garces, Daneel Ackles

Release Date November 4th, 2011

Published November 3rd, 2011

"A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas" is gloriously offensive. There are scenes of such specifically offensive humor that I really don't feel comfortable describing what takes place in any kind of detail. With that offensiveness stipulated, let me state clearly that I loved this movie. I'm not sure I can recommend it, but I love. "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas" finds our friends Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) having grown apart. Harold has chosen to become a grown up. He has a job on Wall Street, a house in the suburbs and he and his wife Maria (Paula Garces) are trying to have a baby.

Kumar on the other hand has stunted his maturity. Kumar is a degenerate pothead, who we see buying pot and smoking up with a mall Santa Claus in the opening scenes of the film. Kumar lost his job because he failed a drug test and lost his girlfriend (Daneel Ackles) because of his slothfulness. Our heroes are reunited when a package appears at Kumar's apartment addressed to Harold. Kumar delivers the package to Harold's house and from there the latest H & K adventure begins and proceeds in the most irreverent and stunningly offensive fashion.

Also returning for "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas" is the brilliant Neil Patrick Harris who finds new and wondrous ways to send up himself. Harris came out a few years ago and naturally Harris makes great sport of his homosexuality in "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas." Thomas Lennon gets in on the fun in A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas. Lennon, best known for "Reno 911," plays Harold's straight-laced suburban best friend Todd. Poor Todd and his baby daughter Ava get dragged into H & K's adventure and what happens to little Ava will have many parents in the audience either rolling with laughter or asking for their money back at the box office.

I can't stress this enough, if you are offended by drugs, sex, violence, racial humor and such, you don't want to attempt to watch "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas." This movie presses the most offensive hot buttons and does not let up for more than 90 minutes. A particularly offensive and completely hilarious scene involves paying homage to the holiday classic "A Christmas Story" in a way that you must see to believe. There is also a reference to "Annie Hall" involving the baby girl Ava that is startlingly funny.

"A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas" is up there with "Bridesmaids" as one of the funniest movies of 2011. I completely loved this movie and I cannot recommend it for any audience. The film is so outlandish and so very, very, very R-rated that only a select audience will be able to tolerate the well beyond risqué humor. How "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas" did not get saddled with an NC-17 rating is beyond me; the film definitely is offensive enough to deserve it. If you are not easily offended, you are going to love "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas."

Movie Review: 50/50

50/50 (2011) 

Directed by Jonathan Levine 

Written by Will Reiser 

Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anjelica Huston, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anna Kendrick

Release Date September 30th, 2011 

Published September 30th, 2011

Cancer is a topic of grave seriousness. To even attempt to place the word cancer near the word comedy could be seen as folly. Yet, we have 50/50 a very funny comedy about a young man who faces death from cancer. The tightrope that 50/50 walks in creating its comedy, a broad swath of Knocked Up style irreverence, Seth Rogan is a co-star in 50/50, and the kind of gallows humor that permeates many war movies.

If you were a casino game, you'd have the best odds

Adam (Joseph Gordon Levitt) is 27 years old, he has a pretty artist girlfriend named Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), a great job working at NPR in Seattle, and he has this pain in his back that just won't go away.

That pain turns out to be a malignant tumor attaching to his spine. Adam has cancer and faces the 50/50 odds of survival with a serious course of chemotherapy. First however, he has to survive telling his family and friends.

Rachael seems to take the news as well as could be expected. The relationship is relatively young for such a heavy burden to be placed on it but she takes it on, first buying him a dog and then being there when Adam tells his mother (Angelica Huston).

I'm moving in!

Adam next tells his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogan). Kyle's emotional reaction is indicative of most reactions to Adam's news. Kyle doesn't process the info well and Adam ends up having to console him.

The same can be said of Kyle's mother who is already caring for Adam's Alzheimer's afflicted father (Serge Houde). Mom wants to move into Kyle's house to care for him but Adam tells her that Rachael is taking care of him.

We know, and he will soon know, that this will not be the case. Rachael isn't a very good person but in fairness, who could be prepared for such a shocking turn of events. The fact that the relationship was sputtering before the cancer diagnosis should also be noted.

Humor from the gallows

Though Kyle proves to be a stalwart friend he to struggles with how to help Adam. Being a typically Rogen character, one lacking in maturity or a filter for his thoughts, Kyle's notions of helping amount to helping get Adam laid and getting high with him.

The only people who react appropriately to Adam's diagnosis and offer honest comfort are two men Adam meets in chemotherapy. Played by Phillip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, their journeys could likely make wonderful movies of their own.

Somewhere in the middle of the appropriate and the misguided is Adam's therapist, Katherine, played by the terrific Anna Kendrick. We get right away that these two have chemistry beyond the patient-therapist relationship; Levitt and Kendrick however, surprise us by underplaying the attraction to great effect.

A very funny movie about a guy who has cancer

Trying to recommend 50/50 is more challenging that it should be. 50/50 is very funny and humane and is populated by terrific performances, especially from Levitt and Rogan. It's just difficult to get past the idea of a 'Cancer Comedy.'

If you can get past preconceived notions about cancer and comedy being mutually exclusive and give yourself over to this being Adam's specific experience of cancer you will be rewarded with a great movie going experience.

Movie Review: Contagion

Contagion (2011) 

Directed by Steven Soderberg

Written by Steven Soderbergh

Starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard

Release Date September 3rd, 2011

Published September 3rd, 2011 

Director Steven Soderbergh has described "Contagion" as an Irwin Allen style disaster movie. For those not up on their B- movie history, producer-director Irwin Allen presided over some of the most celebrated disaster movies in history from "The Swarm," to "The Towering Inferno" to "The Poseidon Adventure."

Only horror movie mavens have produced as many dead bodies on the big screen. The Irwin Allen comparison is apt. Allen's formula, a major catastrophe populated with a galaxy of well known stars, is essentially what "Contagion" attempts to be. The only difference is that Soderbergh's level of skill prevents "Contagion" from drifting toward the kinds of caricature that Allen's characters often became.

"Contagion," at first, stars Gwyneth Paltrow as Beth, just another woman on a business trip in China. However, after a layover in Chicago, Beth has returned home to her husband, Mitch (Matt Damon,) and their son, and has fallen ill. It's mere days before Beth is dead. Meanwhile, a video has spread across the internet of a man falling ill on a bus in China.

That man was with Beth in China and now both are dead. Soon, a man in Chicago has fallen ill. A woman in Kiev who had brief hand to hand contact with Beth in Hong Kong has died and her family is infected. Back in Minneapolis, Beth's son has died and her husband is presumed ill while his daughter is returned from her mother's and isolated.

At the CDC Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and his team begin retrieving data and attempting to piece together the spread of the virus. In Hong Kong WHO Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard) has a key piece of evidence from the security camera at the Hotel/Casino where Beth stayed. The video tracks the very start of the spread.

In Minneapolis Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet) attempts to organize the CDC response as the virus spreads like wildfire. Soon, however, because a hotel worker went to work while sick, Dr. Mears falls ill. Soderbergh's "Contagion" has no respect for Awards or star-power as the Oscar winners seem to be the first to fall.

There is a calm and precision to "Contagio"n that is both comforting and limiting. Soderbergh has taken pains not to allow the film to cause massive panic attacks ( though I would urge hypochondriacs not to see Contagion) yet in doing so he contains "Contagion" into a box that prevents it from being as affective as it could no doubt be.

I don't want "Contagion" to cause a panic ala Jaws depressing beach traffic in the summer of '77 however, it's fair to say that "Contagion" has the opportunity to be more fear inducing and thus a more viscerally satisfying than it is. As it is, "Contagio"n could almost be considered hopeful, in its way.

Many critics of "Contagion" have wondered about the character played by Jude Law. Law portrays a blogger who finds a chance to profit off of the spread of the virus by promoting a Government conspiracy and an herbal medicine that he claims is a cure. When there is a run on the herbal medicine, Law cashes in on the stock jump of the company that makes it.

The character however, is vague in purpose. At different moments he ranges from rambling street preacher to Alex Jones style maniac before eventually being taken seriously before yet another final and strangely vague twist. Jude Law's performance is not up for question, he's highly committed and engaging but the character never finds his footing.

"Contagion" is an artful pseudo-documentary in the hands of a master director. Steven Soderbergh's command of this story takes what could have been sensational and exciting--in a terrifying B-Movie way--and makes it thoughtful, cautionary and occasionally moving. It's nice to see a director who though he demonstrates the worst of humanity at times, allows the best of humanity to rise as well.

There is a surprising and unexpected hopefulness at the heart of "Contagion" that keeps it from tipping into something merely intended to terrify. The hope is needed at the end when the film flashes back to the start of its outbreak and reveals the modest and completely plausible series of events that began the outbreak. So simple and so horrifying.

Movie Review: Bubble

Bubble (2006) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh

Written by Coleman Hough

Starring Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin James Ashley, Misty Dawn Wilkins

Release Date January 27th, 2006 

Published January 26th, 2025

In 2006 Steven Soderbergh, the multiple-times Oscar nominee and preeminent auteur launched a new career as a film entrepreneur. With the help of billionaire Mark Cuban, Soderbergh attempted to change the way movies are distributed to the masses. The idea? Day and date releasing. Soderbergh's then new film, the low budget indie flick, Bubble, was released to theaters, TV and DVD all in less than a week.

Does this mean that Soderbergh invented day and date releasing? No, or maybe, it's debatable if he was the pioneer in that idea. What is not debatable is that Bubble is an intriguing little experiment in its own right. The small-town murder mystery starring non-professional actors and shot on location by Soderbergh with a single camera, is a hypnotic, disturbing little flick about small town artifice.

Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review: Daddy's Girl

Daddy's Girl (2018) 

Directed by Julian Richards 

Written by Timmy Hill 

Starring Jemma Dallender, Costas Mandylor, Jesse Moss, Britt McKillip

Release Date September 29th, 2020

Published August 23rd, 2022 

Daddy’s Girl opens on an ambiguously ominous sight. A very sad young woman sits at a kitchen table with a gun in front of her. It appears that she is going to kill herself before we cut away and begin the story. The kitchen table scene is in the future, the next act of the movie will be about how we arrive at that kitchen table and what has made this sad young woman so desperate as to be considering ending her life. 

The young woman at the kitchen table is Zoe (Jemma Dallender). Zoe’s life is as tragic and horrifying as the opening scene indicates. Zoe lives in a backwoods town with her father, John Stone (Costas Mandylor). John is a serial murderer who uses his daughter as bait to lure in his victims. The two go to bars and seek out young women on their own, preferably drifters who might not be missed all that much. 

These young women are seduced by the idea that if this older man has this beautiful younger woman on his arm that he must be harmless. That’s when he slips something into their drink. Zoe becomes part of the seduction and the idea of kinky sex drives these young women to go home with the couple. There is no sex waiting in that backwoods home however. Instead, John takes these women into his dungeon and tortures for having thought they would go home with a man and a woman for sex. 

John is not interested in sex with his victims, he only has eyes for his daughter. Yeah, the movie appears to go there. I can’t say for sure that John is actually Zoe’s biological father but she does call him daddy and your skin crawls when she does. Zoe is not fully complicit in John’s crimes. The film indicates strongly that she’s been groomed and abused into this position and that perhaps John had murdered Zoe’s mother in order to frighten her into compliance. 

John’s double life as serial killer and loving father/owner of a small town mechanic shop becomes threatened by the arrival of a new young deputy. Deputy Scott Walker has recently returned to his hometown from several tours in Iraq as a military police officer and has been tasked with investigating the disappearance of a local girl. Scott is not the only newcomer in town as he meets a drifter named Jennifer (Britt McKillip) just as she is arriving in town. He warns her about missing girls in town and she indicates that she’s not staying long. 

That last part is deliberately vague as Jennifer has a part to play in how Daddy’s Girl plays out. Daddy’s Girl is a nasty little slasher movie that never finds a second gear after general cruelty toward women. It’s not that the movie is nasty and misogynistic enough to be memorably awful. Rather, it’s a more mundane sort of misogyny rather typical to the horror genre and thus nothing special. I can’t bring myself to completely condemn Daddy’s Girl, it’s neither poorly made enough or hateful enough for harsh condemnation. 

No, in fact, in the performances of Jemma Dallender and Britt Mckillip we have two charismatic women who give the story more credibility than the movie can bear. Both actresses are quite compelling with Dallender having a lot of trauma to play with and McKillip a mysteriousness that is intriguing. Their coinciding stories are remarkable for how these two actresses play their roles. It's a shame that their performances are undermined by how trashy the movie around them is. 

Daddy's Girl wallows in the muck of the genre and it never feels organic or well displayed. Instead, the trashiness takes away from what little good there is about Daddy's Girl. 

Movie Review: Eros

Eros (2004) 

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Michaelangelo Antonioni, Wong Kar Wai

Written by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh, Torino Guerra

Starring Gong Li, Chang Chen, Alan Arkin, Robert Downey Jr, Regina Nemni 

Release Date April 8th, 2005 

Published August 18th, 2005 

Three brilliant directors come together for a series of short films under the title Eros. Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michaelangelo Antonioni contribute short films to a trilogy that via the title Eros are about sex... or are they.

The Hand, Mr. Wong's contribution, is sexual in subtext but seems more about an unusual and somewhat disfunctional connection between two strangers. Chang Chen plays a tailor, a mere apprentice when we first meet him, who is assigned to make a dress for a high class prostitute, Ms. Hua played by Gong Li. In their first meeting Li's prostitute sexually humiliates the tailor. She claims it will make him a better tailor and she's right.

Soon he is inspired and continues for a number of years crafting beautiful outfits for the prostitute. The nature of the relationship is mostly business but as time passes and the prostitute falls on hard times she finds that the tailor, though he has never touched her, is the only man who has ever really known her body. The two have an erotic connection through the clothing that is more powerful than other relationship either has ever had.

I love the way Wong Kar Wai uses slow motion. By simply slowing the frames by a fraction and showing his actors moving at just slightly slower rate of speed he gives the impression of a montage without edits. The slow motion marks the slow passage of time. The film covers this relationship over a number of years and they pass in dreamlike fashion.

The Hand is unquestionably the best of the three films in Eros.

Steven Soderbergh's contribution to Eros is called Equilibrium and it stars Robert Downey Jr. as an ad executive and Alan Arkin as his shrink. Shot mostly in black and white the film has the look of a noir detective story with rascotro lighting, Downey wearing the traditional private dick garb, the fedora and trenchcoat and there is a mystery albeit one from a dream.

In the dream there is a beautiful naked stranger, a nondescript hotel room and a ringing phone. Dream analysts I'm sure could have a field day with this scenario however neither we nor Mr. Soderbergh is as interested in the dream as we are in the bizarre behavior of Arkin as the shrink. While Downey lays on the couch with his back turned and his eyes closed, Arkin is frantically trying to get the attention of someone outside his office window. What was the point of this film? I have no idea. I know it's exceptionally well shot. The look is beautiful and every angle Soderbergh chooses is very eye catching, often distracting from the somewhat meandering plot.

Equilibrium is an interesting exercise in filmmaking technique and maybe if you are more observant than me you can glean some hidden meaning from it. On that basis I recommend checking it out.

You however might as well skip Michaelangelo Antonioni's contribution to Eros, an Italian exercise in softcore porn called  The Dangerous Thread. The film is a pointless and painfully protracted exercise in female exploitation. As a couple argues about the end of their relationship, they pass a beautiful woman in a restaurant. The man asks if his soon to be ex knows the woman and she does. The woman lives in a castle just a few miles away. The man visits this beautiful stranger and with a few words they are in bed. Then the beautiful woman and the ex girlfriend each go for a walk on the beach in the nude. They meet somewhere in the middle and simply regard each other for a moment and the film ends.

I must say that Mr. Antonioni is a legend. I have seen his L'Avventurra and was blown away by its beauty. But now at more than 90 years old the master has become nothing more than an ogling old man. That is fine in private but on film it's rather tedious.

Documentary Review: Earth

Earth (2007) 

Directed by Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield 

Written by Documentary 

Starring Planet Earth 

Release Date April 22nd, 2009 

Published April 22nd, 2009 

We are definitely spoiled when it comes to the modern nature documentary. With what the BBC and the Discovery Channel did with the documentary Planet Earth and what Imax filmmakers have contributed in just the last decade, the allegedly new documentary Earth from Disney looks a little like a modern Mutual Of Omaha production. Then again, the whole thing is basically lifts and leftovers from Planet Earth, what does it matter.

Disney's Earth arrives on Earth Day 2009 and feels like a cynical capitalization on the burgeoning holiday. More and more schools and businesses have come to embrace Earth Day and that makes a venture like Earth potentially viable in the marketplace, if not such an artistic endeavour.

That is not a shot at the filmmakers, directors Allistair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, did some astonishing work. It's a shot at Disney for recycling the work of the BBC and the Discovery Channel and pretending it's something new. The fact is, some of the footage cut together for Earth was actually used in Discovery's 12 hour doc that transfixed documentary lovers in 2008.

When not recycling, Earth fills out 90 minutes with the stuff that didn't make Planet Earth. This amounts to some comic relief, monkeys and penguins, and some striking shots of Great White Sharks and baby ducks learning to fly for the first time. Don't get me wrong, even the stuff cut from Planet Earth is pretty impressive looking, it just feels icky that Disney refused to come up with something of their own instead of feasting on scraps.

At the very least, the Mouse House could have released Earth in Disney Digital projection, if not using their dazzling 3D. But no, the release is on average, everyday film stock and thus even loses a generation of quality from the awesome HD presentation of Planet Earth.

For school field trips and those desperate for a way to celebrate Earth Day indoors, Earth may be worth the ticket price but if you have seen the Discovery documentary Planet Earth or can get over to the IMAX for any one of their current offerings, you can skip Earth.

Movie Review: Uglydolls

Uglydolls (2019) 

Directed by Kelly Asbury

Written by Allison Peck 

Starring Kelly Clarkson, Nick Jonas, Janelle Monae, Blake Shelton, Pitbull, Wanda Sykes 

Release Date May 3rd, 2019

Published May 3rd, 2019 

The mindless simplicity of Uglydolls is almost charming. The guilelessness, the complete, earnest, lack of edge, approaches something genuinely appealing. I can’t sit here and tell you that I, a 43 year old, single, male, film critic, enjoyed anything about Uglydolls but there is a limit to the amount of disdain I can set aside for something so legitimately harmless. There is nothing remotely offensive about Uglydolls, even as there is nothing particularly interesting about it either. 

Uglydolls features the voice of pop-reality star Kelly Clarkson as Moxy, an uglydoll who is not aware that ‘ugly’ is meant as an insult. She, along with the rest of the denizens of Uglyville, have no notion that they are not simply, acceptably, who they are. The people of Uglyville have no pretension, they have no capacity to judge the others who have judged them as lesser. That many of them are not aware that a world beyond the walls of the city exist probably helps matters. 

Moxy however, is obsessed with the notion of an outside world where she can fulfill her destiny as a beloved stuffed animal to a child in need. In order to get to the outside where, she recruits her dog, Uglydog (Rapper Pitbull), Luckybat (Leehom Wong), Wage (Wanda Sykes) and Babo (Gabriel Iglesias) to climb to a giant hole in Ugly mountain that she believes must lead to the outside world and to kids and homes and love. 

For the most part, Moxy is right. The real world exists but to get there, the Uglydolls will have to cross through, Perfection. Perfection is where perfect dolls are built and judged on whether or not they are perfect enough to go through the portal to the real world. Even among the perfect there are those who aren’t quite perfect enough, a fact we learn in song from the dreamiest man in Perfection, Lou (Nick Jonas). 

Lou acts as a gatekeeper who only allows perfect dolls to go through and become a cherished friend to a child in need. Lou uses his handsome looks and big, beautiful singing voice as a cudgel against anything deemed imperfect. Though he welcomes the Uglydolls initially, it only takes singing a few bars for Lou to unleash his evil toward the newcomers. Lou’s desire to appear benevolent toward Moxy and friends kicks the story into a perfunctory third act teaming with simplistic metaphors. 

Getting annoyed at the predictability or over-familiarity of Uglydolls is a fool's errand. This is barely a movie and what is there is of an actual movie isn’t all that much. Uglydolls features a cast of well known and charming singers and actors who bring a good deal of energy and good cheer to their otherwise unmemorable performances. Strangely, the villain, voiced by Nick Jonas does most of the singing during the movie. Lou has multiple songs and a reprise of one of the songs during what is only an 87 minute movie. 

Uglydolls is a musical though none of the songs in the movie are particularly memorable. Each of the songs are either mindless child self-esteem boosters or plot heavy exposition by Jonas’s villain. None of the songs are likely to have a life outside of the movie on pop radio, spotify or YouTube. Kelly Clarkson, Jonas and Blake Shelton have name recognition and huge fanbases but even devotees of their work are unlikely to even be aware of Uglydolls and its bland soundtrack. 

There aren’t many laughs in Uglydolls. For the most part, the film is mildly amusing at best. The kindest thing I can say, from my admittedly not all that valuable perspective of this genre, is that the film is not offensive. Uglydolls is harmless, brainless, minor entertainment that kids 8 years old and under can safely consume and forget about, aside from maybe wanting to buy their own Moxy doll or one of Moxy’s fellow Uglydolls.

There is perhaps more money in merchandising Uglydolls than there is in making this movie. The sales of stuffed Uglydolls will likely go well beyond the box office of Uglydolls and there’s nothing wrong with that. Uglydolls is one of those rare, utterly inconsequential movies that doesn’t need to exist but doesn’t change anything by existing. The world will not remember Uglydolls in a fews after release and I can feel it already leaving my mind even faster. 

I do recommend Uglydolls however, for parents in desperate need of a TV nanny, something for little, little kids to enjoy for bright colors, a forgettably safe empowerment message and something so ridiculously safe for their developing minds, it might as well be a nap in the form of a movie. 

Movie Review: Curse of the Golden Flower

Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) 

Directed by Zhang Yimou 

Written by Zhang Yimou 

Starring Chow Yun Fat, Li Gong, Jay Chou 

Release Date December 21st, 2006 

Published January 3rd, 2007 

Director Yimou Zhang is an extraordinary talent whose work in the movies House of Flying Daggers and Hero is a wondrous combination of poetry, romance and awesome visual splendor. Zhang's attention to period detail and fluid, langorous camerawork create a visual tapestry unmatched by any of the greatest directors working today.

His talent for visual splendor is certainly on display in his latest film Curse of the Golden Flower. Unfortunately, in recreating China's Tang Dynasty circa 928 A.D, Zhang neglected his storytelling in favor of the most lustrous visuals he has yet brought to the screen. Curse of the Golden Flower is a feast for the eyes but in story terms, your average soap opera has less drippy, high falutin' melodrama.

Emporer Ping (Chow Yun Fat) has been plotting to eliminate his unfaithful wife, Empress Phoenix (Li Gong), for months; since he found out that she was having an affair with his oldest son Prince Cheng (Qin Jungjie). Prince Cheng who happens to be carrying on an affair with the daughter of the Emporer's medicine man who happens to be in charge of the Empress's daily medicine which is being spiked by the emporer with a poison that will slowly drive the empress insane.

Meanwhile the middle son of the clan Prince Jai has returned to the kingdom. He is to replace his weak willed older brother as the next in line for the throne but before he learns of the honor, he discovers his father is trying to kill his mother and decides to join the coup she has been planning for months. Oh, I mentioned Prince Jai's older brother, actually Prince Cheng is only his half brother, hence the affair Prince Cheng had with the empress wasn't really incest, though that incest ship hasn't sailed just yet, but I will leave that one for you to discover on your own.

Indeed, the plot of Curse of the Golden Flower does read like your average New York gossip column or bad episode of Melrose Place. And unfortunately the actors play the material to that same pitched melodramatic level. Gong Li, beautiful as ever as the empress, vamps like she graduated from the Joan Collins school of drama. The usually reliable Chow Yun Fat delivers a couple of badass moments but for the most part is stiffer than John Forsythe's corpse. (Is John Forsythe dead? Just checking)

Director Zhang Yimou adapted the screenplay from a popular Chinese stage play Yu Cao and retains some of the same broad theatrical beats in the direction of his actors who tend to belt each emotion to the back of the room as if in a large playhouse as opposed to a movie set with mics and sound techs. Still, Yimou's visual signatures are in place and that goes along way to making Curse of the Golden Flower passably entertaining.

All of the appeal of Curse of the Golden Flower comes from the visual wonders created by Zhang Yimou and his team including cinematographer Xiaoding Zhao and production designer Tingxiao Huo both of whom worked on Yimou's ostentatiously beautiful House of Flying Daggers. Because of the extraordinary work of these artists, Curse of the Golden Flower could be presented as a work of art, were it brought forth as a silent film without subtitles.

The eye popping production with it's massive ornate sets, and costumes that would put any Milan fashion show to shame, became the most expensive film in the history of China's movie industry, well over 100 million dollars American. The film is already profitable in the country and around the rest of the globe though it's American release has been something of a non-starter.

Curse of the Golden Flower is without a doubt a visual masterpiece, something that Hollywood studios likely feel won't appeal to American audiences. They might want to try selling the outlandish melodrama of the story. Why, I could see a marketing campaign that could turn ancient China into an old school wisteria lane, that sure seems to be what director Zhang Yimou was going for.

With it's opulant sets and breathtaking costumes,Curse of the Golden Flower is truly a feast for the eyes. The great visuals make the film that much more disappointing. Where his Hero and House of Flying Daggers were poetic, romantic and mostly silent, but also visually stunning, it is shocking to watch director Zhang Yimou deliver a film so tone deaf in its drama.

As a visual work of art, Curse of the Golden Flower is awesome eye candy. As a movie it's an irritating caricature of haughty night time soap opera melodrama.

Movie Review: Attack the Block

Attack the Block (2011) 

Directed by Joe Cornish

Written by Joe Coronish

Starring Jon Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail, Nick Frost, Luke Treadaway

Release Date May 11th, 2011 

Published August 14th, 2011

"Attack the Block" director Joe Cornish recalls, in the making of documentary that accompanies the DVD release of "Attack the Block," one of the most talked about independent films of 2011, that he was watching the M. Night Shyamalan film "Signs" when the idea for "Attack the Block" came to him.

"Signs," for those that don't recall, was about an alien invasion and how a family living on a farm in Middle America dealt with this bizarre occurrence. Cornish imagined a slightly different scenario for aliens that landed on the block where he grew up, in a dodgy part of London.

The essential idea behind "Attack the Block" is simply what might happen if aliens attempted to invade a gang and drug infested block of a bad London neighborhood. The story unfolds with Moses (John Boyega) confronting and eventually killing the first alien invader.

Unfortunately, the first alien is merely the bait for an invasion of much larger and much more dangerous aliens that resemble a monkey crossed with a large dog. As more aliens arrive on the block, Moses and his crew including Pest (Alex Esmail), Jerome (Leeon Jones), Dennis (Franz Drameh) and Biggz (Simon Howard) end up in a fight for their lives.

Along for the ride is Sam (Jodie Whittaker) who goes from being mugged by the gang to joining them on the run from the alien beasts. Ron (Nick Frost) and Brewis (Luke Treadway) are drug dealers and customers who get dragged into things when the gang brings the first alien corpse to Ron's apartment for safe-keeping while Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) is a drug dealer who targets the gang for revenge.

Writer-director Joe Cornish takes his very simple premise and infuses it with the energy and creativity of a cast of first time actors; of the gang only John Boyega had any previous screen credit. The energy of "Attack the Block" as well as the authentic sounding slang, delivered through thick, almost indistinguishable accents, give "Attack the Block" a ballsy, nervy essence that is infectious.

"Attack the Block" is an exciting and energetic feature that clangs by at an incredible pace toward an unexpected and ingenious ending that evokes elements of "Independence Day" and "Die Hard" on a much smaller, no-budget scale.

"Attack the Block" emerged at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas back in March and looked as if it might become a major release phenomenon. Soon after that however, after critics raved about the film, talk turned to an American adaptation and the film lost momentum in a modest platform release.

Now, "Attack the Block" is on DVD and Blu-Ray. Don't wait for the American adaptation; see "Attack the Block" today, even if you do need the subtitles to understand it.

Movie Review: Bad News Bears

Bad News Bears (2005) 

Directed by Richard Linklater

Written by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa 

Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Greg Kinnear, Marcia Gay Harden

Release Date July 22nd, 2005 

Published July 22nd, 2005 

Director Richard Linklater has cultivated the persona of a Director who can bounce between brilliant, artful indie films (Before Sunrise, Dazed and Confused) and mainstream stuff without compromising his vision. 2003's School Of Rock was a big studio comedy with a rising star, Jack Black, that studio execs were eager to exploit. Linklater delivered a film that was mainstream funny with just enough of a nod to his roots to keep it grounded in his vision as a Director.

School Of Rock allowed Linklater to make the far smaller film, Before Sunset, the sequel to his wonderful romance Before Sunrise , and the template for his career seemed set. In the indie parlance, Linklater was going to make one for them and one for himself. That seems to be the case with his latest studio film Bad News Bears which will be followed quickly by the experimental animated film A Scanner Darkly.

Unfortunately something got lost along the way and Linklater's nod to studio execs turned out messy and compromised. Bad News Bears is simply bad news for it's rising star Director.

Billy Bob Thornton, coming off his tour de force comic turn in Bad Santa, stars in the lead role essayed by Walter Matthau in the 1976 original, Morris Buttermaker. A former major leaguer, Morris is now a pathetic drunk working for beer money as an exterminator. His only connection to the sport he once loved is picking up a paycheck coaching a group of little league misfits.

The Bears, as they are eventually called, are only allowed into the league after the mother of one of the players, Liz (Marcia Gay Harden), sued to get them in. Other little league coach's like hotshot sports dad Roy Bullock (Greg Kinnear) had wanted the kids out of the league, mostly because none of the kids are any good. But, it's little league and everyone gets to play and it's up to Buttermaker to field a team that includes a kid in a wheelchair and two kids who can't speak English.

Not much has been changed from the original film which operates from nearly the same screenplay by Bill Lancaster as the one Lancaster wrote himself in 1976. Just like the original their is little Tanner (Timmy Deters) all blonde mop and anger, their is Ahmad the meek black kid, and Lupus the one who would rather pick grass than play ball. Each player virtually untouched from the original. The minor updates include an Indian kid, Prem (Aman Johal) who takes over for the original films Ogilvie as the teams stat geek and the aforementioned wheel chair bound kid Hooper (Troy Gentile).

Also in place from the original are the girl pitcher, Amanda (Sammi Kraft) and the wrong side of the tracks bad boy with the big bat, Kelly Leak (Jeff Davies). Gone from their relationship is the subversive sexual undertones, replaced with a more PG-13 puppy love. In fact, of the few changes to the original film are touches to make the film PG-13 where the original was a PG film that today may have been R-rated today.

The lack of anything new in the script reflects an overall laziness that permeates the entire film. Remakes are lazy enough by nature but Richard Linklater brings little to nothing new to Bad News Bears. Linklater seems quite content to translate the script to the screen with only a minimal amount of work on his part. That is not to say the material is not funny, the original film was plenty funny and remains so. This remake resembles the original so much you can't help but find something funny in it.

Also recycled in Bad News Bears is Billy Bob Thornton's Bad Santa bad boy. Thornton's Buttermaker is not exactly as bad as his Santa, but in his hard drinking, thoughtless, careless way he is certainly a close cousin to that far funnier character. Thornton still manages a few laughs from this retread character, a sign of his strong talent and charisma.

The less said about the child actors in Bad News Bears the better. Where in School Of Rock Linklater coaxed wonderful performances from his young cast to counterpoint Jack Black's comic tour de force, in Bad News Bears Linklater makes his child actors more functionary place holders for Thornton's comic lead. Needless to say, there is no Tatum O'Neal in this Bad News cast.

Bad News Bears is a shockingly lazy and sloppy film for someone of Richard Linklater's talent. No director of his caliber can get away with such a slipshod effort. The direction is not merely lackluster, it's lazy. Richard Linklater should be ashamed that he wasted his time slapping together such a waste of talent and celluloid. Remakes are a big enough waste on their own, when combined with a complete lack of effort on the part of those doing the remaking, they are an all out disaster.

Movie Review: Destination Wedding

Destination Wedding (2018) 

Directed by Victor Levin 

Written by Victor Levin

Starring Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves 

Release Date August 31st, 2018 

Published August 31st, 2018 

Destination Wedding stars Keanu Reeves as Frank and Winona Ryder as Lindsey, a pair of mismatched wedding guests. Frank’s brother is getting married in San Luis Obispo, a piece of information the filmmakers feel is important for us to know for some reason. Frank hates his brother and based on the evidence of the movie, he hates pretty much everyone so Frank setting aside special hatred for someone is notable. 

Lindsey, meanwhile, is Frank’s brother’s ex-fiancee. She accepted an invitation to this wedding some six years after Frank’s brother dumped her on the eve of their wedding. She’s come to San Luis Obispo in search of closure and acceptance and the ability to move on with her emotional life. And, she might be insane. The movie doesn’t deal with this fact directly, but Winona Ryder plays the character with some sort of undefined mental deficiency that, perhaps, is meant to be comedy. 

Frank’s main trait beyond extreme misanthropy is his habit of hocking phlegm. Yeah, this is a fun trait to give a character. Our introduction to Frank is him repeatedly and loudly attempting to clear his sinuses. It’s apparent that the movie thinks this is either charming or funny as they keep having him do it, multiple times throughout the movie. Somehow though the funny part of the hocking didn’t translate to those of us in the audience, it remains solely in the imagination of Keaun Reeves and writer-director Victor Levin. 

Keanu gets off easier than poor Winona Ryder who is forced to play Lindsey as what I assume is the victim of an off-screen head injury. Our introduction to Lindsey is her breathing heavily onto a dying plant. She does this and chants ‘come on photosynthesis’ and we are supposed to laugh I suppose, rather than cringe which my body did in instinctive sympathy for an actress I have always very much liked being made to look silly in a very unfunny fashion. 

Once Frank and Lindsey meet and find themselves repeatedly thrust together as the only singletons at this destination wedding, they begin to talk and immediately hate one another. The first quarter of this blessedly short 80 minute feature is Ryder and Reeves insulting one another in the most hateful and obnoxiously unfunny fashion. Imagine being trapped in a small space with a pair of obnoxiously miserable people and you get a sense of what watching Reeves and Ryder interact in Destination Wedding is like. 

I’m trying hard to imagine what either of these talented people thought would come of this unfunny, genuinely mean way their characters interact in this movie. I assume they were aware they were making a romantic comedy and not the prequel to a violent revenge movie, but I can’t be sure. Dialogue that is meant to be savagely misanthropic comes off as merely faux miserable ranting from characters we can’t stand and are yet the only characters in this movie. There are no other characters, just Lindsey and Frank the whole time. It's like being trapped in an elevator with relatives you hate but are too polite to scream at. 

When the love story began to unfold in Destination Wedding, I was dumbfounded that anyone thought these characters were capable of such a turn. Ryder and Reeves have established both of these hateful, obnoxious, miscreants as people who are more likely to commit murder-suicide than fall in love and yet we have to suffer listening to them bond over how they hate other people more than they hate each other so they must be good together. 

As the 'romance' progresses the two have one of the worst, unfunny, funny love scenes I have ever seen. Some of the hilariously funny dialogue includes Ryder telling Reeves that he looks like he's about to vomit on her. This happens during the love scene. Eventually, the romance progresses to a genuine and earnest moment when our head injury victim, Lindsey says, without a hint of irony or sarcasm, "what if our real destination was each other?" Now, I'm the one who looks like he might vomit. 

When I saw that Destination Wedding starred Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder I was sure it couldn’t be that bad. Oh how wrong I was. This is truly one of the worst movies of 2018. Even at a barely feature length 80 minutes, Destination Wedding is an unbearable disaster of a movie. Bitter, spiteful, hateful, idiotic characters pretending toward being funny misanthropes, Frank and Lindsey aren’t romantic comedy characters, they are the half-hearted offspring of screenwriters who watch half of a Judd Apatow movie and think they get the gist.

Movie Review: Escape Plan 2 Hades

Escape Plan 2 Hades (2018) 

Directed by Steven C. Miller

Written by Miles Chapman 

Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jesse Metcalf, Dave Bautista, Curtis Jackson

Release Date June 29th, 2018

Published June 29th, 2018 

I have seen amateur movies on YouTube, shot on an IPhone, that have better special effects than the cheeseball fluff featured in the new movie Escape Plan 2: Hades. This Sylvester Stallone starring sequel to the not-so-great to begin with, 2013 feature, Escape Plan starring Sly and Arnold Schwarzenegger, is among the worst movies of 2018. Bad special effects, inept direction, and abysmal editing make Escape Plan 2: Hades, nearly impossible to endure.

Once again Stallone is playing the character of security expert Ray Breslin. Here Ray and his team, including Jesse Metcalf, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson and Jamie King, are hired to rescue hostages in a foreign country by developing an executing an ‘escape plan,’ get it? When the escape plan goes bad, Ray is forced to part ways with two members of his team, Jasper (Wes Chatham) and Shu (Xiaming Huong).

After firing Jasper, Ray let’s Shu take  a leave of absence and from there, Shu goes home to Thailand and reunites with his cousin, a tech millionaire. The cousin is wanted for his deus ex machina technology and when he’s kidnapped, Shu gets taken as well. The two end up in Hades, a state of the art prison, said to be inescapable. Naturally, when Ray finds out his buddy is missing he knows what he needs, as escape plan.

My plot description is intentionally snarky but the movie deserves it. Little care is taken by director Stephen C. Miller to make Escape Plan 2: Hades watchable so the film deserves my condescending descriptors. Miller’s direction is borderline haphazard, as if we’re lucky when he’s able to plant his camera in the direction of the actors. The editing is employed to try and hide the directorial and storytelling deficiencies, using quick cuts to try and distract from the bad production design and bored acting.

Sly Stallone looks as if he’s not getting enough sleep these days. His speech has always been a tad slow but here, words fall from his mouth as if pushed with great effort but little energy or life. He doesn’t appear to care much about what he’s saying and comes off as content to deliver the minimum effort needed for his check. Director Miller tries to cover for his star’s disinterest by giving newcomer Xiaming Huong most of the heavy lifting but his martial arts can’t overcome Miller’s inability to capture martial arts in a visually interesting fashion.

The fight scenes in Escape Plan 2: Hades are nearly as sloppy as the special effects are laughable. Huong appears to be a capable fighter but the slapdash camera work and quick cut editing do more to hide his abilities than to exploit them. There are times during major fight scenes where it was impossible to even locate the lead characters amid the chaos of the staging of these scenes.

The CGI of Escape Plan 2 is camp level bad. The effects rendering on something as routine as muzzle flair from a handgun are laughably inept with tiny fireballs that look like cotton candy popping out of a gun. A big explosion in the opening of the film looked like an effect from the legendary modern bad movie Birdemic: Shock and Terror. That film however, at the very least, was entertainingly terrible, Escape Plan 2: Hades is merely embarrassingly cringe inducing.

Just what the heck was Dave Bautista thinking when he accepted this role? Was he desperate to share the screen with Sly Stallone? Bautista is billed as the second star of Escape Plan, equal to Stallone and yet he’s barely in the movie. Bautista doesn’t even have a fight scene, content to just hold a gun in one scene and fire the gun while lightly jogging toward danger later in the movie. Bautista matches Stallone’s lack of energy with his own barely there performance.

Escape Plan 2: Hades was supposed to be released theatrically, nationwide this weekend but someone thought better of that idea. Instead, this abysmal effort will haunt the DVD and Blu Ray racks as of Friday, tempting Stallone completists and those who can be tricked into thinking Bautista is doing another Drax like character. Don’t be fooled, Bautista is barely there and Stallone, in a sense, is barely there as well in one of the worst movies of 2018.

Movie Review: Everything is Illuminated

Everything is Illuminated (2005) 

Directed by Liev Schreiber 

Written by Liev Schreiber

Starring Eugene Hutz, Elijah Wood, Boris Leskin. Laryssa Lauret

Release Date September 16th, 2005 

Published November 12th, 2005 

Everything is illuminated in the light of history. So says Alex the narrator of the delightful film Everything Is Illuminated, the directorial debut of actor Liev Schreiber. Undeniably, the sentence is over complicated. It is also, easily the cleanest, clearest English Alex speaks in the entire film.

Alex (Eugene Hutz) is a Ukrainian youth who works for his parents tour company as a translator. The company provides tours of the country to jewish visitors in search of their family history. The company's newest client is Jonathon (Elijah Wood), a goggle eyed American whose pasttime is collecting small artifacts of his family history in plastic bags and tacking the bags to the walls of his home.

Jonathon hopes the trip to Ukraine will lead him to the woman who helped his grandfather Safran escape the Nazis. Her name was Augustine and she was from a small village called Trachinbad. The little village has a great deal of meaning to Alex's grandfather, also named Alex, who is the tour company's driver despite the fact that he believes he is blind and will not travel without his crazed dog, or seeing eye bitch as he refers to her, Sammy Davis Jr Jr.

And the quirks they keep on coming in this often Fellini-esque configuration. Liev Schreiber is a little distinguished actor, he has a tendency to fade into the background as an actor. As a director however, Schreiber shows a vibrant imagination and attention to detail. His visuals, with the aid of cinematographer Matthew Libatique, are crisp and lovely in ways Eastern European locales are not often shown.

Schreiber adapted the screenplay himself from the especially quirky book by Jonathon Safron Foer and has managed to make a film of equal idiosyncrasy. And yet as odd as both the film and the book are there is an emotional undercurrent that rises at the end to really catch you off guard.

All along we are aware that the history being chased is part of the holocaust and World War 2 but we are distracted by the unending quirks of the characters until the end of the journey and the introduction of Lista (Laryssa Lauret). Lista is linked to both Jonathon's search and Alex's Sr's past but I will leave you to watch the film to see just how.

The film is not without problems. Most dire is the fact that it the story hinges on the rather large coincidence that Jonathon would hire Alex's family to be his guide and that Alex's grandfather's past would be so entwined with Jonathon's. That is a pretty big contrivance but one I was willing to forgive because so much of Everything Is Illuminated is delightful,

Liev Schreiber is a director to watch. His talent for eye catching visuals and his slightly askew take on normal character arcs are a refreshing change from the norm. No cookie cutter characters, no simple over coming the odds story, nothing you might see in a typical Hollywood creation. Schreiber's off kilter direction of Everything Is Illuminated is a breath of fresh air.

Movie Review: 500 Days of Summer

500 Days of Summer (2009) 

Directed by Marc Webb

Written by Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber

Starring Joseph Gordon Levitt, Zooey Deschanel 

Release Date August 7th, 2009 

Published August 6th, 2009 

500 Days of Summer is going to hit a little too close to home for some audience members. Myself included. Many of you, I'm sure, have experienced a break up. It hurts but in the best of break ups, you know why it happened. There is comfort in knowing. It allows you to correct mistakes and look forward to a time when you can use your newfound awareness of your flaws in a different relationship.

Some break ups however don't end in such a tidy fashion. That is where 500 Days of Summer begins. Tom doesn't know why Summer rejected him. Sure, she's flighty and odd and says that she doesn't believe in love but surely, after all that they do together, relationship stuff, intimate stuff, she must feel something for him.

We flash back to their first meeting. Shy Tommy notices his boss's new secretary, Summer. He says nothing to her. A week passes and he doesn't say anything, just glances at her from his cubicle where he is a successful greeting card writer. Then, one day in the elevator Tom is alone with Summer and she has noticed in his headphones is The Smiths, one of her favorites.

They bond briefly and then go to another level at an office gathering at a karaoke bar. They begin dating and Tom quickly begins to fall in love. Flash forward and miserable Tom vows to try to win her back. Flashback to the night, seemingly out of the blue, when Summer decides that whatever their relationship is, it's over.

Marc Webb is a successful music video director making his feature debut with 500 Days of Summer which begins with a non-dedication dedication to someone we can only assume is Webb's very own Summer. The subtitle is ended with the word bitch and the movie dives quickly into the world of Tom and Summer.

Webb uses music, color and mood to create for 500 Days of Summer a tone and universe that is unique but familiar. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays Tom with an innocence and wounded pride that will hit home with any deeply insecure man who has ever thought he met the girl of his dreams.

Zooey Deschanel plays Summer with the unknowing arrogance of real beauty. She knows she's attractive even if she plays it off and her awareness of it only makes her more strangely appealing. She is a trainwreck that Tom, and I'm sure many others, willingly stands in the midst of.

Whether Tom and Summer work out their issues I will leave you to discover. The nature of the film is not necessarily love but loss, heartbreak and the way even the worst of relationships can be romanticized into great tragedy in the eye of the beholder.

The sad truth about memories is that they are much more dramatic, romantic, tragic or humorous in memory than they were in reality. Moreover, we only remember the things we want to remember and remember them as we want to remember them. The scene where Summer dumps Tom is open ended for Tom because in his memory it has never ended.

The fact is, that the relationship we had that ended so painfully ambiguous in our memory was likely over in ways that were quite final. We just simply choose not to remember it the way it happened. 500 Days of Summer is Tom's painful memory of his most significant relationship. We experience it with him and are on his side the whole way as if the memories were our own.

The wondrous part of the movie however is that nagging feeling in the back of the mind that indeed it is all one sided. Tom knows that and in our own relationships we are aware of it too. It's easier to romanticise or demonize former lovers. It's a way of coping that requires less self examination.

500 Days of Summer is smart and sweet and in the performance of Joseph Gordon Levit it has a beautiful, battered, beating heart. Levitt and director Webb play out his memories as embellished facts. The highs are extremely high and the lows are a little more in tune because the sadness is new and easier to recall correctly.

500 Days of Summer is a remarkably intelligent examination of one man's most significant relationship. The exaggerated highs and lows and how one comes to terms with the pain and sadness of losing something that meant so much to them. What a fabulous, fabulous movie.

Movie Review: Aliens in the Attic

Aliens in the Attic (2009) 

Directed by John Schultz

Written by Mark Bunon, Adam F. Goldberg

Starring Ashley Tisdale, Carter Jenkins, Austin Butler, Kevin Nealon

Release Date July 31st, 2009 

Published August 2nd, 2009

Idiot movies like Aliens in the Attic are why I discourage parents from seeing live action kids flicks. The fact is that 99% of live action kid flicks rot out loud. Aliens in the Attic simply proves the point, only take your kids to animated movies. Even then, wait for it to be a Pixar animated movie.

Aliens in the Attic is the dopey story of ugly green midgets come to earth to take over. Why they begin with a summer house in the middle of nowhere is likely a joke I missed while attempting to retrieve my ever rolling eyes. Standing in the way of the invasion are a group of mean little brats and one not so horrible one.

The not so bad kid is merely boring. He is Tom (Carter Pearson) and from moment one he is picked on by all around him. He is joined by his brainless sister Bethany (Ashley Tisdale), her disturbingly older and creepily leering boyfriend Ricky (Robbie Hoffman) and a group of smaller cousins who, like us, also think Tom is boring.

They are on vacation with a group of the most annoyingly clueless parents ever put to screen. Kevin Nealon and Andy Richter lend unneeded and entirely untapped comic credentials to Aliens in the Attic as the befuddled dads.

Worst of the adults however is poor Doris Roberts. The Emmy nominated mother from Everybody Loves Raymond is called upon to perform karate in some of the most painfully unfunny comic fight scenes put to film. One can only assume that the awful effects used to place Ms. Roberts in these fight scenes are intentionally bad but it's hard to tell when everything in the film is so poorly crafted.

There is not a single laugh or note of originality in one minute of this slapdash mess. Aliens in the Attic was cynically crafted to remove money from people's wallets and nothing more. Call me elitist if you like but I believe movies, especially those made for kids, should enrich the culture.

I believe that when a movie is made for an audience of children that the filmmakers have a duty to make a film of high quality that does more than merely asphyxiate a child for 90 minutes while mom and dad play sudoku on their iPhones. A movie made for kids should have a point and purpose and short of that should at the very least intrigue and involve the imagination.

Kids will get nothing of the sort from Aliens in the Attic a mindless piece of dreck that shutters the imagination in favor of cheap and easy gags and bad special effects. Ugh.

Movie Review: Dark Crimes

Dark Crimes (2018)

Directed by Alexandros Avranas 

Written by Jeremy Brock

Starring Jim Carrey, Martin Csokas, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Release Date May 18th, 2018

Published May 18th, 2018

Dark Crimes is a whole lot of nonsense. While I appreciate that Jim Carrey is taking a risk and playing a role well outside our perception of him as a performer, Dark Crimes is a risk that should not have been taken. This Poland set mystery involving a murder among a violent sex cult is so poorly constructed and so nonsensically plotted that even if Jim Carrey had been brilliant in his offbeat, against the grain, performance, it wouldn’t have mattered against this awful piece of storytelling.

In Dark Crimes, Jim Carrey stars as Tadek, a veteran detective in a major city in Poland. At one point, we’re told that Tadek is the last good cop in Poland but the movie does little to demonstrate that. Tadek is investigating the murder of a man who was found bound in an S & M style and dropped in a river. Tadek’s top suspect is a writer named Kozlov (Martin Csokas) whose latest book, a thriller, describes a murder exactly like the one Tadek is investigating.

The details depicted in the book, which we hear as Tadek is listening to the audiobook of Kozlov’s bestseller, are uncannily like the murder and Tadek is certain that Kozlov is the killer. That is, until he continues down the rabbit hole of this sex cult which is made up of some of the most powerful men in Poland, including Tadek’s work rival, Greger (Robert Wieckiewicz). Thus, Tadek had better be right before he goes so far he can’t come back.

That’s an okay thumbnail of Dark Crimes but it contains a good deal of inference on my part. Dark Crimes is so nonsensically assembled that it is impossible to actually know what is happening. Nudity and an orgy and a murder give us a sense of what the plot is about, and it certainly makes for a jarring opening to the movie, but then the movie abandons the sex cult in favor of one on one staring contests between Carrey and Csokas that stagnate an already sluggish story.

The assemblage of Dark Crimes is almost painful to piece together. A number of scenes appear to have significant revelations but the movie is so clumsy that I am not sure what was being revealed in what appeared to be intended as revelatory scenes. One scene finds Carrey reacting to something for a good long while and when we finally see what he’s reacting to, it’s so tangential to the plot of Dark Crimes that his intense psychic pain barely registers.

Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose work with Lars Von Trier likely made her time on Dark Crimes feel like a cakewalk, co-stars here as a woman abused in the sex cult. She’s also the girlfriend of Kozlov though she tells Carrey that the relationship with Kozlov is over before the two sleep together in one of the least sexy sex scenes I’ve ever seen. Is Gainsbourg’s character a frightened victim seeking protection or a sexy scheming killer? I have no idea and the movie is too vague and poorly put together for me to even venture a guess as to the nature of Gainsbourg's character or any other character for that matter, including Carrey's Tadek. 

The ending is the most nonsensical of bit of all. I watched and then re-watched the end of Dark Crimes in the vain hope that I could figure out what happened and two viewings yielded no definitive answer. The final moment is captured so poorly, literally at a bizarre distance at a cantilevered angle, that the fate of Jim Carrey’s character is unknown as the credits began to roll.

I will say, aside from a desperately unneeded close-up of Carrey's twisted face during a love scene, ugh, Dark Crimes is great looking movie. The cinematography, especially on a high quality Blu-Ray, looks phenomenal. Poland looks beautiful and foreboding, a character in its own right that in a better movie would matter to the plot. But not here, not among the skill free nonsense on display in Dark Crimes.

Dark Crimes is undoubtedly among the worst movies of 2018. Jim Carrey’s bold decision to play a character wildly out of his comfort zone, all the way down to a silly sounding Polish accent, is almost laughably terrible. I admire the big swing Carrey takes here but perhaps he should reign in the ambition just a little. Maybe start with a clever little independent feature delivered by a promising young upstart director. Try going to film festivals and looking for young and hungry filmmakers who could use your star power to get a movie made. Most importantly Jim, stay the heck out of Poland.