Movie Review: Are We Done Yet?

Are We Done Yet? (2007) 

Directed by Steve Carr

Written by Hank Nelken 

Starring Ice Cube, Nia Long, Phillip Bolden, Aleisha Allen, John C. McGinley 

Release Date April 4th, 2007

Published April 3rd, 2007 

2005's Are We There Yet(?) was a meanspirited, ugly attempt at 'family comedy'. Featuring crotch shots aplenty, nasty physical humor and ugly characters, Are We There Yet(?) set new lows for an already shallow genre. Yet, despite the films massive and obvious flaws there is now a sequel and since it would nearly impossible for this film to be worse than the original, Are We Done Yet? is better than its predecessor.

Oh, don't get me wrong, Are We Done Yet(?) is not a good movie, even by comparison, it's merely an improvement. If you consider compost an improvement over yard waste.

In Are We There Yet? Nick Person (Ice Cube) wanted to do a favor for a beautiful woman, Suzanne (Nia Long). Offering to drive her two demon children, Lindsey (Aleisha Allen) and Kevin (Phillip Bolden), to there fathers for the weekend, Nick endures unending abuse and bad behavior. Then again, he was only offering to help so he could get with the hot girl so; his motives weren't just about being a good Samaritan.

Cut to two years later and apparently Nick's gesture was a winner because he and Suzanne are married and the demon children are now his loving step kids. Having given up his sports collectibles shop, Nick has gone into the publishing biz, starting his own sports magazine where he hopes an interview with Magic Johnson can get his magazine off to a splashy start. (No points for guessing Magic will figure in to the wackiness of the films ending.)

Living in Nick's cramped bachelor pad is clearly not working, no explanation is given about why they just didn't move into the beautiful home Suzanne owned in the previous film. Needing a new home, the family heads for the country where a gorgeous old fixer upper, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, home awaits. When I say fixer upper, I am understating quite a bit. Though the real estate agent, Chuck (John C. McGinley) calls it homey and rustic, the place is clearly a dump from moment one.

Nevertheless Nick and the family move and naturally, the house begins to fall apart around them. Luckily, the crook who sold them the house is also the only licensed contractor, electrician and housing inspector in the area. Soon Chuck is living with the family and sitcomic wackiness has ensued. I'll say this for Are We Done Yet(?), at least, it is far less mean spirited than its progenitor Are We There Yet(?). That film combined an awful plot with these awful characters to create an awful moviegoing experience. The children were reprehensible, even by the standards of behavior set for movie children, coming up just short of being horror film villains in this alleged family movie.  

Are We Done Yet(?) softens the child characters from potential murderers to irritating clichés. They remain only plot devices for tweaking the always on edge Nick character but; at the very least, I don't hate them as much. Yes, I said I hated them. I realize, that to hate children is pretty extreme but if you were forced to sit through Are We There Yet? as I was, you would have hated them to. Them, their parents, their parents parents and many others.

It would have been impossible for Are We Done Yet(?) not to improve upon Are We There Yet(?) but improvement is a relative term. If getting hit by a car is an improvement over getting hit by a Mack truck. Or if getting stabbed is an improvement on being shot, then yes, improvement is the right word here. Are We Done Yet? is still an exceedingly bad movie with a rote plot and mindless characters but I will take it over the toxic poison of the previous film.

Movie Review: Wisegirls

Wise Girls (2002 

Directed by David Anspaugh 

Written by John Meadows

Starring Mira Sorvino, Mariah Carey, Melora Waters

Release Date January 13th, 2002

Published February 12th, 2002

With all due respect to those of you with a marketing degree, there is no greater scourge in modern Hollywood than marketing. Say what you will about a film's marketing having nothing to do with the film's quality, the fact is that commercials, trailers and posters shape a viewer's point of view when seeing a film. The new-to-video Lions Gate release WiseGirls is a perfect case in point.

Everything in it's marketing would lead you to believe that Wisegirls is a comedy starring Mariah Carey, when in fact the film is a drama and Carey is merely a supporting character to Mira Sorvino's lead. I went in expecting a lame comedy and another chance to rip Mariah Carey's acting skills. Instead, I got a somewhat gripping mob drama from a female perspective that, because of it's marketing, will turn away many potential viewers.

Sorvino stars as Meg Kennedy, a former med school student who has moved to Long Island to live with her ailing grandmother and run away from her tragic past. With the help of her grandmother's caretaker. Meg finds work in an Italian restaurant that is run by the mob. At first Meg has no clue who she is working for, but her new friend Raychel (Carey) is quick to clue her in after one of their special clients accidentally shoots himself and needs Meg's medical training to save his life. 

Meg's first inclination is to quit but once she is clued into how much money she can make and how she would be able to care for her ailing grandmother, she puts aside her moral objections and keeps the job. In the meantime she and Raychel and another waitress named Kate (Melora Walters) bond and become close friends. That bond is tested after Meg witnesses her new boss murdering a man who attacked her. The authorities begin to close in on the restaurant, with particular interest in the things Meg witnessed, which include the murder and the drugs being funneled through the restaurant's kitchen.

WiseGirls is a rather surprising movie in it's first hour and twenty minutes. The film builds three very believable lead characters thanks to the strong performances of Sorvino, Waters and, I can't believe I'm saying this, Mariah Carey. Yes, its true, Mariah doesn't suck in WiseGirls. In fact, supporting character work seems to suit her. Her performance is relaxed and engaging, she makes Raychel a girl we all think we've met before.

It is Sorvino's performance that nearly pushes WiseGirls into being a good movie. Sorvino does a sensational job of earning the audiences sympathy. There's help from the script by John Meadows that allows her character to evolve in ways that are logical, if somewhat misguided. Sorvino's Meg shows the slippery slope that many of us could find ourselves on if we don't keep good company. Admit it, we all have that drug dealer friend that we only hang with in public for fear of being there when the cops bust him. The fact is that, much like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, we all have some connection to crime, organized or otherwise, and this film shows what happens when you allow those relationships to go to far.

Many reviews of this film have referred to the film's stereotypical mobster characters played by Arthur J. Nascarella and Christian Maelan amongst others. I honestly didn't think the stereotypes were as pronounced as most reviewers thought. The problem was the actors who seemed to be just going through the motions of their characters.

The biggest problem with WiseGirls is a serious one, it's ending. This film has possibly the worst ending of any film released in the last year. The ending is a total cop out and ruins any emotional crescendo that had risen into a strong cathartic moment. The ending ruined the movie for me.

That said, if you stop watching with maybe five or ten minutes left, you might walk away with a pleasant view of WiseGirls. But stay for those final moments, and you will be very disappointed.

Movie Review: Zombie

Zombie (1980) 

Directed by Lucio Fulci

Written by Dardano Sacchetti, Elisa Briganti

Starring Tisa Farrow, Ian McColluch, Al Cliver, Auretta Gay

Release Date August 25th, 1979

Published July 12th, 2003 

With the release of the much buzzed about 28 Days Later and the revival of the zombie movie, it's important to look back on zombie movies of the past. What better place to begin than with the goriest, most disgusting of all zombie movies, from Italian legend Lucio Fulci, 1979's Zombie (or Zombie 2, depending on who you ask). It’s often cited as the best or worst of the genre. With mind numbing gore and idiot dialogue, it's very easy to dismiss. However Fulci's artistry in shooting and especially in the film’s remastered soundtrack is undeniable.

We open on an eerily disheveled sailboat floating aimlessly in New York harbor. A pair of New York's finest are dispatched to investigate. At first they find nothing, until one officer checks the pantry and is attacked by a zombie. The other officer dumps the zombie over the side of the boat. His partner is dead, or he's supposed to be.

The boat belonged to the father of Anne Bowles (Tisa Farrow, yes Mia's sister). When Anne is called to the scene her father is considered the main suspect in the murder. However, she is certain that when she last heard from her father he was vacationing in the Antilles Islands. She sneaks aboard the boat after the cops leave to search for evidence and bumps into a journalist named Peter West (Ian Mccolluch). West has uncovered an important piece of evidence that states Anne's father was indeed in the Islands and not on the boat. From there the two head for the Antilles and the island known as Masul.

With the help of a pair of vacationers (Al Cliver and Auretta Gay), Anne and Peter make to the island where they meet Dr. David Menard. The doctor has been on the island for a number of years. Despite rumors of a voodoo curse that has the dead rising from the grave to eat the living, Dr. Menard is determined cure the disease that he thinks is the real cause.

Okay so logic isn't the film’s strong suit, hey it's about zombies, we’re going to have to suspend some disbelief here. Of course if the doctor had simply accepted what he had seen as supernatural and simply up and left, maybe hundreds lives may have been saved, but that my friends, is revisionist history. Director Lucio Fulci's strength is not in the storytelling but rather in window dressing of the story.

The makeup in Zombie is as spectacular as anything Oscar nominee Rick Baker has ever dreamed up. Especially fun are the rotting maggot-infested corpses of the Spanish Conquistadors who rise from the grave to interrupt Anne and Peter's first kiss. Also memorable is the sight of zombies snacking on what remains of the doctors wife, played by Olga Karlotos. And I don't ever again want to see the wife's death scene, which sees her impaled through ..... oh I can't even say it. Excuse me a moment.

Of course the thing that people will always remember about Zombie is the final scene of the film in which an army of zombies slowly cross the Brooklyn bridge into New York as a voiceover newsman informs us that the zombies have taken over. Zombie is classic, gory, blood-soaked Italian horror from a master of the genre. If 28 Days Later can be as good as this we can happily welcome back the zombie movie.

Movie Review: Wimbledon

Wimbledon (2004) 

Directed by Richard Loncraine

Written by Adam Brooks, Jennifer Flackett, Mark Levin

Starring Paul Bettany, Kirsten Dunst, Sam Neill, Jon Favreau

Release Date September 17th, 2004

Published September 16th, 2004

With what I have written in the past about my disdain for the clichés of sports movie and of the modern romantic comedy, you could sense that a movie like Wimbledon would be a special sort of torture. Simply take the worst of both genres and combine them and ugh. However Wimbledon is the creation of Working Title Films, a company that has discovered it's own unique formula for romantic comedies that really works.

Working Title is the company that made Hugh Grant a star in Four Weddings and A Funeral and Notting Hill and delivered last year’s wonderful romantic ensemble Love Actually. It must be a British thing. There is something about Working Title's approach to romantic comedy that usually works. It works in Wimbledon albeit not as well as it has in the past.

Paul Bettany stars as over-the-hill (32-years-old) tennis star Peter Colt. Peter is playing Wimbledon for the final time in his fifteen-year career. In fact, Wimbledon will be his final tournament period, Peter is retiring to be the club pro at a posh resort. He only hopes not to embarrass himself and just maybe win one last match before he quits.

Before he steps on the court he has the pleasure of meeting a beautiful young American tennis star named Lizzie Bradbury. The two meet in a cute way when Peter accidentally gets the key to her hotel room and walks in while she is in the shower. From there, the two start bumping into each other and soon its a little romance, under the radar of course, the British press can be murder.

Complicating things further is Lizzie's overbearing father (Sam Neill) who warns Peter not to interfere with Lizzie's concentration. That is a subtle way of saying stay away from my daughter, something Peter just can't do. Peter especially can't stay away from Lizzie because after meeting her, he begins to play well and wins and wins again. Soon people are talking about him again and he has a shot at going all the way.

Naturally, since this is a romantic comedy you know that there will be some artificial roadblock thrown in front of the lovebirds to separate them until the big finish. This contrivance is usually where the Working Title formula separates itself from other romantic comedies but this time they fail a little. The contrivance is less than believable this time. It's saved only by Bettany who comes through in the film’s final reel to save the movie from the typical pitfalls of the romantic comedy.

In a role that many will recognize as one Hugh Grant turned down, Paul Bettany becomes a star in his own right. Not quite as charismatic as his Chaucer from A Knight's Tale, his Peter Colt is charismatic but subdued. He is weary and sees only dreariness in the near future. That is until he meets Lizzie who opens his eyes to an entirely new and brighter future. At first, the relationship is ambiguous as to whether we have a love match or superstition. Are Peter and Lizzie in love or do they get together because they play well after being together. Bettany plays the ambiguity well but plays the love and devotion even better as the film progresses.

For her part Kirsten Dunst does well to put over Bettany's starring role. She seems to act as a way for Bettany's character to get to the next big scene. It's as if she is a supporting character rather than a lead and that works surprisingly well. Especially well because of how poorly written Lizzie's backstory is written. She's playing her first Wimbledon and is one of the top players in the world but how old is she? Most champions of her ilk are 18 or 19, Lizzie seems older. This maybe a sticking point for tennis fans only.

I happen to love watching tennis. I have vivid memories of Boris Becker's first Wimbledon victory, of Jimmy Connors at the U.S. Open and Pete Sampras failing to win the French Open for so many years. My love of tennis makes this film so much more pleasurable because Paul Bettany is a terrific tennis player. Much praise must be given to technical advisor and former player Pat Cash for developing Bettany into a competent enough player that his scenes look believable.

The film’s final tennis match is spectacularly well realized, aside from the unnecessary commentary by tennis legends John McEnroe and Chris Evert. Bettany's play is excellent and director Richard Loncraine embellishes it with terrific camerawork and a plot device that let's us inside Peter Colt's head, a weary stream of conscience that is funny and endearing.

I must say what a pleasant surprise it is to watch a romantic comedy and a sports movie that is not absolute torture. Wimbledon may not avoid the cliches of it's combined genres but at the very least it embellishes them enough to make it interesting. Paul Bettany is the film’s real find and the element that lifts Wimbledon above it's many cliches and contrivances. This could be a star making and Hugh Grant had best start looking in his rearview mirror for Paul Bettany who could be scooping up a few of those roles that used to go right to him.

Movie Review The Hills Have Eyes 2

The Hills Have Eyes 2 (2007) 

Directed by Martin Weisz 

Written by Wes Craven, Jonathan Craven 

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

Release Date March 27th, 2007 

Published March 27th, 2007 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Review: An American Crime

An American Crime (2007) 

Directed by Tommy O'Haver

Written by Tommy O'Haver, Irene Turner

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

Release Date January 19th, 2007

Published January 15th, 2007 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Movie Review Post Grad

Post-Grad (2009) 

Directed by Vicky Jenson

Written by Kelly Fremon

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

Release Date August 21st, 2009

Published August 20th, 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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