Archive for December, 2006
Worst Christmas movies EVAH
http://www.maximonline.com/slideshows/index.aspx?slideId=2730&imgCollectId=136
Some of these I can’t agree with. Okay, I liked Home Alone. I did, shut up! And I liked Scrooged, too. And, cmon… It’s a Wonderful Life? As the worst one ever? Someone’s getting coal.
But man, look at all the crappy recent ones. Surviving Christmas. Christmas with the Cranks. Santa Clause 3. Deck the Halls. Unsupervised Children. Home Alone 2. Santa Claus – the one with Dudley Moore as an elf! Did the man have no dignity? And this was after Arthur! Inexcusable.
Most Christmas movies are preachy, treacly, and insulting nowadays, and they all seem to use the same music. And somehow, Christmas must be saved. I don’t mean to seem grouchy; it’s not the holiday that sucks butt, it’s the rancid Christmas movies! Check out Jingle All the Way from the Maxim list. Who thought that a movie about two guys fighting over a hot-ticket toy (Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger) would be a GOOD idea? All it does is highlight the bad aspects of the holiday – greed, for one.
I do believe everyone should see National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Miracle on 34th Street, in any order. Those all manage to put on a happy, giving face while not seeming like a Great Lesson, a Holiday Wish to Grow on.
Top 10 sports movies
Haven’t done a whole heck of a lot of reviews, and more’s the pity (perhaps). Part of the reason is that I don’t have the time around this time o’ year. The other parts of the reason aren’t important.
But I do love lists, so here you go: Top 10 Sports Films.
I’ve seen most of them. Have to agree with the idea that you need such elements as beating all odds, a championship game, and an plucky underdog. I’ve always loved Slap Shot – no better reminder of hockey in the 1970s – and Bull Durham, which took a pretty average story and made it work, thanks to the chemistry among Sarandon, Costner (yes), and Robbins. And hey, it WAS the movie that brought Sarandon and Robbins together. And they’re still together! (Side note: Isn’t it interesting that Sarandon still has the name of her ex-husband?)
Title of new Harry Potter book revealed
Posted by frothy in News/Rumors on December 21, 2006
Ok, so perhaps strictly speaking this isn’t a movie post, but it will be some day. The title of the seventh (and, purportedly) final Harry Potter book will be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Questions abound. What the heck is a hallow, for one thing. Or is this one of those deals where the books in the UK and in the US will have different titles? (Remember, the first book was “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in the US and “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” in the UK.) This seems like a strange, gawky title, but what do I know?
I’m posting this here because, of course, at some point there WILL be a movie about it. And hey, did you know what the movie based on the fifth book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be released next July?
The books aside, the movies are really something to watch. As with the books, the movies have gotten darker and more sinister – more adult, in other words – as they’ve progressed. Harry Potter began them all as a callow ten-year-old boy, and now (on the cusp of book #7) he’s a more-confident sixteen-year-old. But here’s the thing – he’s not the Hardy Boys or Encylopedia Brown, he’s basically a Real Boy with Real, Everyday Problems, from insecurity to love, from awkwardness to responsibility. They’re all must reads, I think, and the movies, which keep gettting better, are must sees, too.
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294 – Ice Age: The Meltdown
Posted by frothy in Ice Age: The Meltdown on December 18, 2006
Even before Ice Age grossed a gabillion habillion dollars, it was inevitable that there would be a sequel, because duh, the Ice Age eventually spurned a new age, which I will call the Not Ice Age. Otherwise we’d all be frozen and speaking Inuit. But I digress.
Last time, the sudden appearance of a human infant brought an unlikely crew together: a woolly mammoth, a sabre-toothed tiger, and a sloth. This time, Manny, Diego, and Sid have a new mission – get the holy heck out of the way before the giant ice damn breaks and floods everything and drowns all of those who cannot swim, which would be just about everyone. On top of that, Manny (Ray Romano) is fearful that he’s the very last of his kind. And on top of THAT, Diego (Denis Leary) must face his fears. Only everyone knows tigers have no fears, so I’m sure he has nothing to worry about.
At first, the boys are sure that nothing’s melting, there’s nothing to see here, please move along, and they tell a gathered crowd to ignore the mad ravings of Fast Tony (Jay Leno!), who’s full of doom and gloom and anything else that’ll make him some money. (Although what use these animals would have for money is not explained.) But then, at the top of the dammed hill thingy, they notice that the water seems a bit higher and the ice seems a bit less… present. Whoops! Guess everything really is melting after all. So they change their minds (and everyone else’s) and head AWAY from the impending doom. Where to, you ask? Well, according to the vultures, there’s a boat way over yonder, and if everyone can get over there before the damn bursts, then they’ll be able to ride the deluge out.
Meanwhile, Manny’s his usual morose self. Glum, even. He mopes about, wondering if he truly is the last of his kind when BOOM something lands on him from a tree branch. It’s another mammoth! Only she thinks she’s am opossum. It’s a long story (well, about 80 minutes long), but basically Elly was raised by opossums Crash and Eddie and thinks she’s one of them, despite the painfully obvious fact that she’s about nine tons larger and can’t hide as well. But hey, she’s not quibbling.
So here’s Manny, the very picture of awkwardness, Mister Insensitivity his own darn self, and he has to convince Ellie, Miss I’m Not a Mammoth (Queen Latifah) not only that she is indeed a mammoth but that at some point she should totally fall for him so they can repopulate the species. Hey, whatever line works for you, Manfred ol’ bean. And Diego and Sid have to put up with the overly energetic antics of the ‘possom brothers (Seann William Scott and Josh Peck, the latter from Nickelodeon’s Drake and Josh), basically being pains in the butt. Oh, but don’t worry, they’ll always stick up for their “sister.”
The movie is mostly enjoyable. It’s lacking a little bit of the charm and heart of the original, but since this is a movie aimed at an audience a tad younger than me, it’s all good. I sort of found the opossums to be annoying, not clever, and even Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) got on my nerves from time to time. Ironically, although Manny seemed out of place in the first one, he looked much more at home here. Maybe Romano just needed a movie to grow into the role. But the one who sold me wholeheartedly was Leary, who steals about every scene he’s in, bringing real life and a sardonic edge to his character.
**1/2
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Live Flesh
Posted by frothy in Live Flesh (1997) on December 17, 2006
Despite the title, this is not a horror movie about a serial killer who flays his victim alive. Rather, it’s about five people who are more than just listlessly wandering through their existences and who wish, in different ways, to be treated as people and not things – live, feeling flesh, in other words.
Victor, the son of a prostitute, tries to hook up with Elena, a druggie with whom he’d had a previous tryst (his first). She resists, the cops are called, and there’s a standoff between Victor and policemen David and Sancho. There’s a struggle, and a gun is fired, leaving David paralyzed and sending Victor to jail.
When Victor gets out of jail, his mind is on bitter revenge, especially after he discovers that Elena, now clean and sober, has married the invalid David, who’s now a paralympic basketball star. Victor gets a job working at the orphanage funded and operated by Elena (but he’s not stalking her, no) and begins to romance Clara, the battered wife of Sancho.
Each of the five characters, unavoidably intertwined, is complex and morally ambiguous. What are Victor’s true intentions? What, even more importantly, are his capabilities? Is Sancho properly haunted by his treatment of Clara and of that fateful night that brought him, David, and Victor together? If Clara does leave Sancho, where will she turn – or is she simply another turn-the-cheek spouse? Does David have a sense of moral superiority because he no longer has use of his lower limbs and therefore has suffered more than most people? And which is stronger, Elena’s lust or her loyalty?
The quintet, whose lives were forever changed that one night, find themselves drawn back together in a web of intrigue of their own design. All of the actors are fantastic, particularly Francesca Neri, as Elena, and Liberto Rabal, as Victor. The onscreen chemistry among all five leads is palpable; no one feels they were just dropped into the movie indiscriminately. Pedro Almodovar’s complicated tale is never preachy, and none of the characters are stereotypical. Not all cops are noble, not all drug addicts are irredeemable, not all orphanage operators are perfect, and not all criminals are despicable. Pretty obvious stuff in the real world, but in the land of movies characters are typically painted with as broad a brush as possible in order to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. The movie is tense without veering toward melodrama, and although it begins rather slowly, the final twenty minutes or so are unsettling, nerve-wracking suspense. I defy you to sit complacently while Elena approaches Victor’s barrio apartment.
***
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293 – Cars
On his way to a big event in California, a conceited race car finds himself stuck in Radiator Springs, a tiny town in the middle of the desert. It’s a typical podunk burg, the very epicenter of Hicksville, and the clean n’ shiny supercharger doesn’t know how to cope. But cope he must, as during his grand entrance he wrecked a good portion of the town’s road.
Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) is a pretty sheltered car – he doesn’t even have headlights, since race cars don’t need them (the whole track’s lit, y’see). But he’s not happy with his life as it currently stands; he dreams of winning the famed Piston Cup – even better, of becoming the first rookie car to do so. But the final race of the season winds up a three-way tie, thanks in equal parts to Lightning’s refusal to stop for new tires midrace and his apparently long tongue. At any rate, a special race is scheduled in one week’s time. Naturally, along the way, Lightning is somehow separated from the truck transporting him, and he finds himself in the active, hoppin’ Radiator Springs.
At first the judge in town, Doc Hudson (Paul Newman), just wants Lightning to leave as soon as possible, but he’s quickly convinced otherwise by Sally Carrera (Bonnie Hunt), who thinks Lightning oughta fix the road he’s done tore up. Which is only fair, seeing also as he’s the only vehicle in town with enough horsepower to pull the big ol’ tarring contraption.
While he’s there, Lightning naturally makes the acquaintance of the other (few) citizens. Mater (Larry the Cable Guy), the town tow truck, immediately befriends Lightning; others include Ramone (Cheech Marin), Flo (Jenifer Lewis), Fillmore (George Carlin), Luigi (Tony Shalhoub), and Sarge (Paul Dooley).
By now, we’re all used to Pixar’s animation prowess, but they constantly top themselves. There are no humans in his film. It’s not that there aren’t any in the story, there aren’t any in the cars universe. For instance, the stands at the races are filled with vehicles of all kinds (the inner circle is filled with RV trailers). The motel in Radiator Springs is a series of – get this – traffic cones. The pit crews are made up of small, handy vehicles. There’s even a field populated not by cows but by tractors (Lightning and Mater go tractor tipping), watched over by a gigantic plow.
But even with all of the cars, trucks, and whatnot floating around, even more impressive is the absolute crystal-clear detail in the backgrounds, particularly the canyon and desert sequences. Even if you pause your DVD player and squint reaaaaally hard, you can’t really tell that these aren’t photographs. And, of course, when they’re moving a regular speed your subconscious can’t tell, either. Check out the splash when Sally and Lightning drive through a puddle, and tell me that’s not as realistic as a photo. Go on, do it.
As with the best Disney films, one has to care about the characters, I mean really care about what happens to them. It’s not enough to have someone with dreams of success if that character isn’t all that fascinating to begin with. But Lightning McQueen, bless his self-absorbed self, is appealing, even charming in a preening, egocentric kind of way. See, he’s never really experienced life outside of his racing existence, and he’s always seen his winning the Piston Cup as a way to better himself. Little does he know, of course, that his life will wind up being bettered by the denizens of Radiator Springs – and one certain Porsche in particular – whether he likes it or not!
The movie’s similar in theme to Michael J. Fox’s Doc Hollywood (1991), in which a hotshot doctor gets stuck in a tiny town and has to offer medical services to get his car fixed.The entire cast is a hoot, especially Carlin’s hippie, alternative-fuel Volkswagen minibus – a clear descendent of the comic’s late sixties’ Hippy Dippy Weather Man. Good times, good times.
The main themes are enjoying what one has and embracing different and new people (er, vehicles), but there’s also a side theme of innocent lost. Radiator Springs takes place on the famed Route 66, just a hair’s width away from Interstate 40. It seems that back in the day, Radiator Springs was THE place to stop if one were traveling along 66. But then the interstate was built just to the north, bypassing the town by just a few minutes’ drive. And now no one ever stops. It’s a wry commentary on the real-life Route 66, what parts of it still exist, a true monument to the American spirit.
A fantastic ride from start to checkered flag, Cars is the perfect animated feature – gaggles of giggles for the little tykes and a bevy of knowing jokes for the grownup kids.
****
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Primal Fear
Posted by frothy in Primal Fear (1996) on December 8, 2006
A beloved archbishop is brutally murdered, and an altar boy (Edward Norton) is seen fleeing the scene, covered in blood. All evidence seems to point to the boy as the culprit. A stereotypical Richard Gere/Tom Cruise character (played by Richard Gere), a hot-shot, high-powered, ruthless attorney, decides to go for even more fame and fortune and defend the boy.
Everyone in the city, nay, the universe believes Aaron Stampler is responsible for the slaying, which of course isn’t just a cold-blooded mow-down; no, it’s also mutilation, as numbers were carved into the archbishop’s chest and his eyes were gouged out. But Martin Vail (Gere) believes he can get his client cleared of all charges; his thoughts on Stampler’s actual guilt, he thinks, are largely irrelevant.
Opposing Vail as the prosecuting attorney is an ex-flame, Janet Venable, played by Laura Linney. (Side question: Has anyone seen Laura Linney and Joan Allen in the same room?) Oh sure, of course she’s an ex-flame, because otherwise it’d be tougher to build up sexual tension between the two lawyers, which you apparently must have in courtroom dramas nowadays. The character of Venable seems to exist basically as a foil to Vail; she stomps about angrily, trying to assert herself as a woman lawyer while under the constant threat of job endangerment while somehow avoiding the incredible, awesome charms of Vail himself. I’m sure it was tough.
Vail’s gotta find a way to give the jury a reasonable doubt. At his service he has trusty employees played by Andre Braugher and Maura Tierney, but there’s only so much they can do. Just when Vail thinks he’s succeeding, he’s smacked over the head with reality; in other words, like most any other courtroom drama you’ve ever seen. Will Vail prevail? Did Stampler do it?
Well, there IS a twist to the movie; two of them, actually. The first comes a little more than an hour into the movie, after an analysis by a shrink (Frances McDormand); the second, naturally, comes in the waning minutes of the film. Neither is Earth-shattering, and you might even be able to see the second one coming from a few miles away.
On the plus side, Gere seems to be having plenty of fun. I know, it’s such an unusual role for him, the know-everything Superman who’s just sooooo much better than anyone else and doesn’t mind letting people know. Quite a departure from his other roles as a know-it-all cadet (An Officer and a Gentleman), a know-it-all corporate raider (Pretty Woman), and a know-it-all reporter (Runaway Bride). Still and all, he turns in an engaging, appealing performance. It’s not like he’ll knock your socks off with his emoting; it’s more like he’s just kind of fun to watch. Linney, who’s very talented, does a good job as well, although she would get an eerily similar role in 2005′s The Exorcism of Emily Rose (reviewed on this site recently). In that film, she was the defense attorney who was trying to assert herself as a woman attorney while under the constant threat of job endangerment. Both movies had the theme of priests in peril; here, it’s a murdered archbishop who might not have been an innocent anyway, and in Emily Rose it’s a priest accused of murder by neglect. Well, at least Linney’s not being typecast.
Probably the best aspect of the movie, though, is the emergence of Norton as a powerful on-screen presence. This was his first movie, but you’d never know it by his work here. He’s not tentative, he’s shifty, perfectly essaying his character’s plight and innocence. A strong indication of things to come, as it turned out, as he’s become one of America’s finest thespians.
Overall, Primal Fear is a decent yarn carried by strong performances, but the plot twists are nothing to write home about.
***
The Red Badge of Courage
Posted by frothy in Red Badge of Courage (1951) on December 5, 2006
This 1951 version of the classic Stephen Crane novel is supposed to be a great, great film, a fantastic adaptation by director John Ford. But perhaps this is a case in which Everyone Says a movie rocks out loud, so it must; this happens more to older films that a lot of people nowadays haven’t seen but have heard of. Or maybe I’m full of beans, as my grandmother used to say.
The movie is about the lack of courage a young soldier displays in the field of battle during the Civil War, going so far as to desert his fellow soldiers when things get a little too hot. Then he feels much remorse and sadness, rejoins his boys, and leads a charge. Whee.
One prominent reviewer said that the battle scenes in particular were exciting and fantastic, or something, but for the most part they consist of close-in shots of the troops firing guns. There are a few wide shots of things flying about, cannons going off and such, but hardly the epic grandeur that we see on a regular basis in today’s films. This same reviewer highlighted a particular scene as wonderful, that of a general offering to share dinner with a dozen platoons. This made me think he was making this big speech in front of the entire Union army, which would be quite an awe-inspiring spectacle indeed. But nope, instead we have the horsed general ride to one group of soldiers, ask them what was for dinner and could he stay, and then ride to the next small group. Over and over. Not exciting. Not grand.
It’s a pretty short movie (just over one hour), and to my thinking it takes a hugely violent, grand war and relegates it to the background needlessly. Why not make the movie a little longer, a run time more befitting a war epic?
**1/2
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292 – Nacho Libre
Posted by frothy in Nacho Libre on December 5, 2006
Jack Black is a Mexican friar who secretly is a masked wrestler, or luchador. He has the hots for a cute, pious nun and wants to help all the little orphans at his church. It’s as awful as it sounds.
Ignacio (Black), caught as a child by the brothers stealing materials for a wrestling costume, has worked at the church his entire life as the cook, and he’s not terribly good – his specialty appears to be nachos – and he yearns to live free, to express himself, to discover wonderful things. No, wait… he doesn’t yearn to do those things. He just wants to wrestle.
But wait! The new nun, Sister Encarnacion (the beautiful Ana de la Reguera) doesn’t like wrestling. It is violent and bad and stuff, she claims. So Ignacio doesn’t mention to her that he has donned tights and a mask and wrestles on the weekends with a partner, Esqueleto (Hector Jimenez), a skeletal thief. The two make quite the pair, and they’re not very good at wrestling, much like Esqueleto and thieving or Ignacio and cooking.
Black probably should have been, pardon the pun, the saving grace of the film, but he’s poorly cast and completely unfunny. There’s hardly a laugh to be had; what chuckles one gets come from the antics of the seldom-seen orphans, chiefly Chancho. It’s not as if Black isn’t typically funny, that he’s some sort of Serious Actor who hardly ever does funny. He’s Jack Black! He’s pretty much nothing but funny. Except here, where’s he’s everything but; he’s painful to watch at times.
But he’s not helped by a meandering film, either. With no belly laughs, one would think the emphasis would be on sentimentality with a dash of light humor. Only you hardly ever get any of that, either, except at the very end with a predictable ending. It’s so wildly predictable that you could guess it RIGHT NOW. Without having seen the movie. If this were a parody of fighter films, like Hot Shots was of fighter-pilot movies, then the deadpan deliveries might make some sense – if, of course, they were accompanied by actual jokes, even throwaway lines.
Otherwise, one might make the mistake of thinking the movie was set in a more-melodramatic period, where people left their lovers by fog-dampened train and the star quarterback married his sweetheart right after scoring eleventy-five points against Big Mean Old Jerks U in the homecoming game. But it’s not that, either; everyone, save perhaps the radiant de la Reguera, seems listless, sleepwalking through a dull pseudocomedy that shouldn’t be mentioned again.
Heck, they don’t even get the wrestling part of things right, as Ignacio (wrestling as Nacho) and his various opponents do all sorts of things that would be forbidden in a true luchador match, such as a pinfall outside the ring, the removal of a mask, and so forth. I guess
the gang behind this one felt they needed to include more American wrestling features, you know, to sex it up a little.
About the only saving grace is de la Reguera, who, although she’s given nothing with which to work, does manage to come out of it looking fine; I’m sure she’ll be able to use her role as a springboard to better things, although if I were her I’d put “Was in Jack Black film” on my resume and hope no one asks questions.
*1/2
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