Archive for May, 2007
Summer Movie Preview, Part IV
Posted by frothy in 2007 Summer Preview, Previews on May 31, 2007
Oh, what the hey, here are some more previews of summer releases. Remember to grab snacks in the lobby, tip your ushers well, and don’t spit if anyone’s watching.
The Invasion (August 17): It’s sort of, but not quite, a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Nicole Kidman plays a shrink who finds out about an alien epidemic and that her son’s somehow connected. Spooky. The movie’s had its share of offscreen troubles, with major rewrites, including a new ending, and maybe that unsettled leadup will be detrimental. Still, it’s Nicole Kidman, whom I like in just about anything. (Am I the only one who liked The Interpreter?) Oh, and Daniel Craig is in it, too. Sounds like a hoot.
Mr. Bean’s Holiday (August 24): Eh, no. I remember watching Bean when it was in theaters ten years ago and openly hooting and booing at the screen. (I may even have thrown something.) I thought it was awful. Oddly enough, though, I’ve enjoyed the Bean shorts I’ve seen. So there you go. This time, Bean (Rowan Atkinson) wins a trip to France, having taken on the USA last time around, and naturally hilarity ensues. Expect a lot of slapstick, certainly, but I wouldn’t expect it to be funny.
The Last Legion (August 24): Did you like 300? That, too, was sort of a historical epic. In this one, a soldier galvanizes a band of legionnaires (watch out for their disease!) to save the Roman emperor. The movie stars Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley and features many manly men. I predict much grunting and sweating.
Wristcutters: A Love Story (August 31): Novel concept here (no, really). It’s set in a strange place where suicides go after they die. Sounds uplifting, right? It’s apparently not as gross or gruesome as the title might imply, focusing instead on relationships. Oh, and there’s a romance. So it’s more than a little offbeat, perhaps too offbeat for mainstream theaters.
Balls of Fury (August 31): Do you like balls in your face? The creators of Reno 911 hope you do. Oh, this one is about ping-pong, you perverts. Or table tennis, whatever. Men who whack little balls and the women who love them. Sounds like it wants to be this year’s Dodgeball. Jumprope: Hanging by a Thread is sure to come next summer.
Death Sentence (August 31): Okay, you can tell we’re long past the Epic Movies of the summer when we get to a loose remake of 1974′s Death Wish. Kevin Bacon plays a guy who systematically kills all the members of a gang that murdered his son. The director of Saw is behind this one, so perhaps we’ll see inventive means of slaughterin’ miscreants. Vigilantism never goes out of style. Still, I don’t believe this one will be all that powerful.
Shoot ‘Em Up (September 7): What the hell kind of title is this? Sounds more like a crappy 1960s spaghetti western to me. But look who’s in it – Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci, and Paul Giamatti. Ok, you had me at Clive Owen. He’s one of those nebulous-morals guys who is good with a gun; Bellucci plays a pregnant prostitute who has a breastfeeding fetish, and Giamatti is the bad guy. Sounds kind of turgid from here. Probably worth seeing for Owen.
Eastern Promises (September 14): Another strange title, but we have us a good director behind it – David Cronenberg. And he has Viggo Mortensen, as a mysterious stranger in London who crosses paths with a saintly midwife, played by Naomi Watts. So can we expect a surprise hit, like A History of Violence? Maybe, if only because Watts is a better actress than Maria Bello. Probably no sex on the stairs with Watts dressed as a cheerleader, though.
The Brave One (September 14): Oh, man, another revenge movie. Jodie Foster is a New York radio talker who seeks revenge for an attack that killed her fiance – and then isn’t sure she’s made the right choice after she’s gone all vigilante on the city. A little late for that, Ms. Foster. Well, for her sake I hope the movie is well received, although we might have reached our revenge quote by September. And it’s too early in the year for a typical Oscar hopeful.
100 Scariest Movie Moments
The good people at retroCRUSH have come up with the 100 Scariest Movie Moments of all time. Give ‘em a looksee.
Bear in mind that these aren’t merely the grossest scenes, or even the most horrific. These are suspenseful scenes, scenes that creep you out and stick with you for days afterward. Expect the ick factor, in all senses of the word, to be high.
317 – Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Posted by frothy in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End on May 29, 2007
The third Pirates movie is a bloated carcass that seems to consist solely of people running (or sailing) from Action Scene to Action Scene, with only a convoluted plot to keep them afloat. It doesn’t always work.
Clocking in at 165 minutes, “At World’s End” contains several endings too many. “Ah,” you think, “that’s the end!” and then more stuff happens, and you fall asleep. It’s as if the producer (Jerry Bruckheimer, of course) looked at the clock, noticed that a mere two hours had elapsed, and ordered his writing minions to crank out more implausibles to stretch the running time for no apparent reason.
So. Did I like the movie, you wonder? Well, I sat through nearly three hours of it, so I suppose I should find something positive to say. Things blew up, and that was awesome. Plus, I decided that Keira Knightley was far manlier than Orlando Bloom, who I’m told is actually a man. (No, seriously!) And that Johnny Depp wears mascara better than Knightley, who’s apparently not a little boy.
All kidding aside, the biggest problem with the movie is that it’s overplotted. We make fun of dumb action movies that have minimal plot and are basically excuses for explosions, but here’s the mirror image – there’s so much going on that the typical viewer will be confused and disoriented. Which is good, I suppose, in that it’ll distract him or her from the actual storyline problems.
When we last left the Good Guys, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) had been claimed by Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and imprisoned in (believe it or not) Davy Jones’ Locker. The resurrected Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), Will Turner (Bloom), and Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) must rescue him. To do so, they have to team up with or defeat or betray Singapore’s own legendary pirate, Sao Feng (the wonderful Chow Yun-Fat), as well as various Pirate Lords, the British navy, and so on.
The biggest problem facing Barbossa is that the one force that can help him and the other Pirate Lords against the likes of Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) is that of an ancient goddess, who has been bound to a human body for years and years. Barbossa wants to unleash the goddess in hopes that she’ll aid them all, but clear thinkers around him are more of the mind that she’ll instead beat the snot out of them for imprisoning her in the first place. Of course, this being a loud action movie, there’s no way in heck she’s going to stay bound in a human body, right? Hilarity ensues.
The cast is game, but typically wooden performances by Bloom and Knightley are countered by an equally typically nuanced and often hysterical one by Depp – not to mention a bombastic, scene-stealing turn by Rush. But plot oddities abound. Elizabeth seems awash in makeup that never, ever comes off or smudges in the teeniest, despite one protracted scene taking place in a torrential downpour. I also liked the time Elizabeth was ambushed by British soldiers, one of whom puts her in a headlock; when she recognizes one of the other soldiers, Elizabeth merely throws off her captor’s arm and escapes. Why she didn’t do this throughout the movie, when she was in constant peril or capture, is a mystery. Or how the entire British navy, upon seeing one of their own ships decimated by pirates, says, “the hell with this,” and sails away.
As I implied, though, the movie’s murky plot is its ultimate downfall. Who’s on whose side? You know going in that there will be treachery, but when a movie has every character essentially turning on every other character, the whole novelty of the doublecross is long since vanished. After a while, you come to expect someone doing someone else wrong, all the more so if those two characters sort of were on the same side at one point earlier in the series. Once you tune out important details like who’s on which side, the movie’s sort of lost its way.
And here’s more bad news. The conventional wisdom in Hollywood now is that franchise films should be three movies long, no more, that three’s about the limit for the typical moviegoer. But the ending very strongly hints that there will be a fourth Pirates movie. This might wind up being wishful thinking on the part of Bruckenheimer and director Gore Verbinski (who have done all three movies), rather than reality, as the second and third movies were filmed simultaneously.
All in all, this is a butt-numbing disappointment. If you gotta make it long, make it worth my while. If you’re gonna have crap blow up, make it interesting. If you’re gonna have double and triple crosses, make me care.
**
Aguirre: the Wrath of God (1972)
Posted by frothy in Aguirre: Wrath of God (1972) on May 25, 2007
Netflix has this new service that allows members to view movies online. Not all of their tens of thousands of movies, but a good chunk of them. The service is included in one’s membership. This is particularly useful for those who don’t want to wait for the movie to be delivered or those who want to see something other than what they have home but don’t want to send anything back yet.
Anyway, the first movie I’ve seen in this way is Aguirre, the Wrath of God, a German-language film from 1972, directed by the iconoclastic Werner Herzog. The fictional story is about a Central American crusade by Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish conquistador, to find the lost city of El Dorado in the sixteenth century. Trapped in the jungle, Pizarro sends some of his men, along with a bunch of Indian slaves, down a mighty river as a scouting party, in hopes that they’ll find a way out of their mess.
Heading the smaller band is Don Ursua (Ruy Guerra), and his second in command is Don Aguirre (Klaus Kinski). Almost immediately, a raft holding some of the men gets caught in an eddy and spins in circles. The rest of the men can offer no help; in the middle of the night, those in the raft are all dead. Ursua wants to return to Pizarro, who’d given them a deadline of two days, but Aguirre wants to continue, so he stages a mutiny, replacing Ursua with another nobleman, Don Guzman, as their leader – and emperor of El Dorado, whenever it may be found.
As the soldiers and slaves move on, they are reduced in number by a variety of things, including starvation, murder by fellow soldiers, attacks by Indians, and so on. Even with his numbers dwindling, Aguirre presses on, becoming more unhinged and divorced from reality with each passing moment.
The movie is spectacular to behold, especially the opening sequence in which scores of men move down a mountainside along a very treacherous pathway. Gorgeously filmed, the movie was shot by Herzog using a small 35-mm camera, but this is apparent only in the verite’ style of the movie. Each scene is sumptuously framed as if a huge crew with a bloated special-effects budget, instead of with eight men and a few dollars. (Okay, I exaggerate.)
It’s not a movie without some wild history, either. Herzog was known for being… well, larger than life. Still is, of course, but even at 30 years old he was arrogant, self-centered, and a bit maniacal. Klaus Kinski, a generation older than Herzog, was similarly driven and crazed, often reaching an intensity level in his performances that was matched only by that of his demeanor off the set. Together, the two worked on five films before their relationship finally combusted; Kinksi died in 1991.
Highly recommended. It’s subtitled, but for once that didn’t bother me much.
316 – The Pursuit of Happyness
Posted by frothy in Pursuit of Happyness on May 23, 2007
There are undoubtedly two camps of people who watched this film: those who start to tear up at the very hint of a Very Special Movie, and those who rely a little on logic and, I dunno, sense; those who, that is, want the movie to work a little to earn tears, not the other way around.
Guess which group I’m in.
Chis Gardner (Will Smith) is a salesman of sorts – he sells scanners to medical professionals that are supposed to be more detailed than x-ray machines, and much more expensive. He bought a whole bunch of them years ago and has been selling them to doctors and hospitals ever since, only sales have stagnated somewhat, and he’s struggling bigtime. Now, me, in this situation, might, perhaps, get another job, one that paid something, anything to keep food on the table for my wife (Thandie Newton) and son (Jaden Smith).
But Chris isn’t like me. Instead, after bumping into a rich-looking white dude, he decides he wants to be a stockbroker and applies (after many contrivances) for an internship at Dean Witter. Only, oops! It’s not a paying internship! But Chris doesn’t know that, and neither does wife Linda, who works double shifts at a hospital. Are you seeing the picture here? The mother works her hands to the bone, the dad is a shiftless loser who can’t sell crappy scanners that no one needs, and what’s the wise papa do? Why, chases a dream. Because if there’s any time that’s just made for chasing dreams, it’s when you have a wife and kids and are a couple months behind in your rent and haven’t paid your taxes yet for the year.
Naturally, after Chris makes this decision and when the scanner sales slow down even more, Linda has enough and bolts for some nebulous waitressing job on the other side of the country. Up until this point, she was eassily the stronger, more viable, and more responsible of the parents. But then we wouldn’t get this touching plot of a father bonding with his son, so out goes Linda. (Yes, I know this is based on a true story, but I imagine some of these plot devices are fictions from the screenwriter.)
Speaking of plot devices, as Chris blows off landlord after landlord, he and young Christopher are kicked out of their home, and then a motel, and they sleep on buses, in bathrooms, anywhere. This is supposed to show how Chris will suffer for his son, that he loves him so much and is trying so hard to make his life better. The trouble is, nearly all of Chris’s problems were caused by… you guessed it, Chris himself. We can all relate, I’m sure, to The Man keeping us down; we struggle and make a little progress, only to be pushed back down by creditors, Johnny Law, our bosses, and so on. Sometimes fate does conspire against us. But it didn’t feel like that was wholly the case here. Chris is outraged to get a notice from the IRS placing a lien on his bank account. Why is he outraged? Linda even reminded him to take care of the taxes, and Chris actively said he’d just keep filing extensions. This is no one’s fault but Chris Gardner’s.
The trouble is, you really want to feel for Chris. He knows that if he works hard and is fortunate, he can emerge from the unpaid internship with a paid job as a broker at Dean Witter. A great goal to have, of course. It just seems strange that he felt that the most viable option to him was to work as a stockbroker. He couldn’t take a menial job or two to scrape up enough money to pay taxes or, heck, rent a room? God forbid. In a telling scene, Chris explodes outside a mission that had just announced it had no more room. I’m paraphrasing, but as Chris argued with a man who’d cut in front of him in line (thus denying him entrance to the mission), he mentions that he had to run from his job to get to the line in time. Whoa, wait, hold up a sec there, Chris. You’re in a line of homeless people. You might not wanna mention that you have a JOB. Most of the rest of these folks, you see, don’t have a job. That is why they are homeless. You came off as a major jerk. Again, not someone worthy of our pity.
So who is? Christopher, the young’un, surely is. What’s he done to deserve this crappy parenting? His mom basically abandons him with no fight at all, and his dad chooses a tenuous unpaid job over a paycheck. Jaden Smith was critically lauded for his wonderful work here, and he was much more deserving of an Oscar nomination than his old man, who seemed to be praised merely for not playing Will Smith. At least we didn’t get yet another rendition of Smith’s “Oh, HELL no!” exclamations. But the kid was very good, and adorable to boot.
The rest of the cast isn’t onscreen enough to make much of an impression; they’re all just window dressing to the relationship between father and son. James Karen is unintentionally amusing as the Great White Father to Smith’s broker, needlessly upping the smarm factor. Because, you know, brokerage firms never seem to have enough smarm.
All in all, a disappointment unless you just treat it as a low-grade TV movie about someone persevering against long odds, cheerfully ignoring the fact that those odd were made long by that same person. Bear in mind, though, that the movie is merely based on a true story, that many liberties were taken to accentuate the supposed struggles of Chris and Christopher.
**
Summer Movie Preview, Part III
Posted by frothy in 2007 Summer Preview, Previews on May 22, 2007
Summer Movie Preview, Part III
I think this’ll be the last one. If I missed any important ones, you’ll let me know, right?
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (July 20): Adam Sandler and Kevin James star as NYC firefighters who pretend to be gay lovers so they can get domestic-partner benefits. Sounds enlightening, doesn’t it? Nothing like gaming the system through stereotypes, because you just know one of them will overact as the “female” – actually, it’s more likely they’ll spend the entire movie fighting over who has to be the female. Expect some gay-bashing. Director Dennis Dugan has worked with Sandler before (Big Daddy and Happy Gilmore), so at least you know what’s coming on that front. A deep and whimsical comedy, this ain’t. Why, there might even be protests, which would unfortunately give the movie more pub than it probably deserves.
Hairspray (July 20): Another Broadway musical comes to Hollywood, but don’t expect another Chicago. And in the role of actor-who-dresses-in-drag-to-boost-his-flagging-career, we have John Travolta, who plays Edna, mother to Tracy (Nikki Blonsky). Christopher Walken is the dad. I’m sure Walken’s deadpan delivery will help, unless he decides to mail it in, but I’m skeptical this will be a big hit. I bet it outgrosses I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, though.
The Bourne Ultimatum (August 3): Yet another third in a series. Somehow it’s become conventional Hollywood wisdom that so-called franchises, for the most part, run three movies long, like X-Men, the Star Wars prequels, The Matrix, Spider-Man, and so on. Anyway, Matt Damon’s back as the amnesiac spy, and I think he’s grown a bit in the role over two movies. His Jason Bourne is still trying to track down his past, and I hope he’s not successful. I sort of imagine he won’t be. Joan Allen, Brian Cox, and Julia Stiles return, and we also get David Strathairn and Paddy Considine. Paul Greengrass returns as director. Like I said, Damon seems to be growing into the role somewhat; in the first movie and part of the second, he seemed to be… well, more of a cipher, more wispy than substantive as a Tough Spy Guy. I mean, come on, he’s Matt Damon, not Jason Statham. Still, he has an excellent cast surrounding him, and the movies so far have been pretty well written. Could be a quiet hit.
Rush Hour 3 (August 10): Shameless mugging will take place for approximately two hours beginning August 10. Casual dress expected; watch out for kicking and punching. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker again play mismatched cops. First, they were in the US. Next, China. And now, throwing all logic out the window, they schlep to… Paris! Of course, why not. Well, specifically, California, but it’ll LOOK like Paris, which is almost as good. Makes you wonder why they didn’t shoot this in Quebec, Canada. At any rate, I’m sure hilarity will ensue as wacky coincidences team up with miscommunications both physical and linguical.
Daddy Day Camp (August 8): Double-you. Tee. Eff. Cuba Gooding, Jr. is like the Fernando Tatis of actors. Okay, maybe not. Tatis was famed in baseball for hitting two grand slams in one inning, and then he did nothing else in his career. Gooding, Jr. won an Oscar and has done a whole lotta squat since then. Does his agent own his soul, or something? I can’t imagine someone winning an Oscar and getting/accepting so many pathetic roles. Well, maybe Whoopi Goldberg, post-Color Purple, but still. Will Gooding ever get another decent role? Not only does this look like a terrible, punchless family “comedy,” it’s a sequel to Eddie Murphy’s own terrible, punchless family “comedy,” Daddy Day Care. What, was Major Payne the inspiration here? Yuck.
Ya know what? I bet I can do more of these, but it’s time to call it a day.
Summer Movie Preview, Part II
Posted by frothy in 2007 Summer Preview, Previews on May 21, 2007
Okay, are we all rested and ready for Part 2? The summer can go by fast, and before you know it these films will be out. And some of them will be gone just as quickly, judging from the previews and such…
Transformers (July 6): I never got into the changing robot craze of the 80s; it was a little after my time. But lots of kids have, and it’s easy to see why – the toys were very well marketed. You could take pretty much any kind of machine and have it transform into a robot of some sort. Who doesn’t love robots? Anyway, unlike myriad fanboys I wasn’t gleefully anticipating this particular Movie Event of the Summer, especially since it’s directed by Michael Bay, which means it’ll be loud, confusing, and chaotic. But then I saw the preview, prior to watching Shrek the Third, and it is So Good. I mean, it might well be loud and obnoxious, but it might still be very entertaining. The plot concerns two races of robots (races of robots??) that crash land on Earth and must fight over some power source. Apparently, if I understood the trailer correctly, they don’t speak Earth. (You know, English.) But somehow they explain their dilemma to a young man, played by Shia LeBeouf. I saw clips of robots turning into trucks and such, and it looked good, plus the iconic “transforming” sound effect is there.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (July 13): Now this is more my cup of butterbeer, if you will, the fifth Harry Potter movie. As the movies (and books) have progressed, the tone has darkened quite a bit. People die in these things, and it’s not always the bad guy. This time, Harry’s discovered (at the end of the fourth movie) that the evil Voldemort is back, but naturally no one, save his headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and his friends Hermione and Ron, believes him; they even blame him for the death of a student. Now there’s a lot of speculation in the wizarding world about whether You Know Who is back, if Harry is balmy, if dementors are coming to kill everyone when they sleep, and so on; the atmosphere is quite a bit like that in the United States following September 11, 2001. Soon Hogwarts must do battle with a new sadistic teacher, played by Imelda Staunton, and Harry and his fellow students find they must rely more on each other than on adults than they have in the past. If you’ve not seen any of the first four films, you’ll be a bit lost. My suggestion: Read the books. No, seriously, right now. I’ll wait until you come back. Or watch the first four movies, which kick greater amounts of ass as they progress.
The Simpsons Movie (July 27): Finally, the yellow people (ahem, they ARE) get a movie. This probably would have made more sense ten years ago, but still – more Homer! Woohoo! The plot isn’t really know, but the trailer I saw with Shrek 3 looked very funny indeed. Everyone’s in it, of course, thus spotlighting a huge problem with big casts on TV shows. (Not enough face time for ‘em all.) As with other franchise-type movies, I hope this one doesn’t suck. I mean, what’ll they do if it does? Oh, right, nothing, because the show will continue in perpetuity. Woohoo! Other than it not sucking, the one thing to hope for is some kind of envelope pushing; the movie’s not on TV (a-duh), so maybe there’s something we’ll see that’s too strong for TV but not strong enough for an R rating.
Underdog (August 3): I never watched the cartoon series. I probably won’t watch this one, either; it’s not even a cartoon, just a CGI movie. It looks awful. Underdog, voiced by Jason Lee, is a superhero who loves Polly Purebred (Amy Adams of Junebug) and must fight the evil Simon Barsinister. I can’t imagine this movie being any good – it’s a CGI movie based on a comic book that most haven’t read. Even if the special effects are wonderful, it still will lose a lot of money. Wake me when the Jabberjaw movie comes out.
Whew. Only three movies and I’m pooped. More to come.
315 – Shrek the Third
Posted by frothy in Shrek the Third on May 19, 2007
Perhaps the most impressive thing about the third Shrek movie is that it doesn’t stink. It is, after all, not only a sequel but also the third in a series that prides itself in its clever wit and relevance. I was hoping that Shrek the Third would be close to the first two, but I didn’t honestly think it would have enough juice to really slay me in my seat. Er, metaphorically speaking.
But Shrek 3 IS fun. It’s been three years since the second one, and Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz have lower Q ratings nowadays. Were kids going to swarm the theater for the further adventures of the giant green ogre, or was the series played out? You’d assume the latter, given kids’ attention spans and the fact that there’s other kid-oriented stuff coming out.
Had I disliked the movie, I could have called the movie “Dreck”; even better, if there’d been some romance between Shrek and his never-seen mom, I could call it “Oedipus Shrek.” But geez, I liked it. Now what the heck am I supposed to say about it? How about just “What the Shrek is going on here?” Why must they toy with me so?
Shrek (Myers) is tapped to become the new king of Far, Far Away when the king (John Cleese) falls ill. But the Shrek with that, says the green blob. There’s another heir, he learns, so he, Donkey (Murphy), and Puss (Antonio Banderas) set off to find Arthur, a mopey high school misfit voiced by Justin Timberlake. (Note: I knew Timberlake was in the movie, and I thought he was Arthur’s voice, but Artie sounded… well, like a high school kid, maybe even younger.) Meanwhile, Shrek’s absence gives good ol’ Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) the chance to take over Far, Far Away and RULE!
Also aiding Shrek are his pals from other fairy tales, such as the Gingerbread Man, Pinocchio, the Three Little Pigs, the Big Bad Wolf (perpetually in drag and possibly a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, only in reverse), and others. Princess Fiona (Diaz) mobilizes her own galpals (Snow White, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty) to help stave off Charming’s army, which is made up of villains from various tales, such as Captain Hook (Ian McShane), the Wicked Witch, Cyclops, and Rumplestiltskin. It sounds like an excuse to shoehorn as many familiar names into the movie as possible, but some of the characters do seem to justify their existences. Oh, and know who else shows up? Eric Idle, voicing Merlin, who here is a half-crazed former teacher at Artie’s school.
There’s excellent use of song, too; one screaming attack by Snow White (Amy Poehler) is accompanied by the opening yowl of Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin’s legendary “Immigrant Song”; this is followed by scorching vocals by Anne Wilson of Heart on “Barracuda.” Sure, this stuff won’t matter to the kidlets, but the adults will get a kick out of cleverly used music from their own childhood.
Here’s why the movie works. None of the leads overdoes things, which is pretty tough to resist when you’re doing a kids’ movie, I imagine. Myers can be awfully hammy, and so can Murphy. But they’re so used to their characters that they didn’t go over the top, instead letting the script provide the laughs. Shrek is obstinate and foolish, and Donkey is boisterous and sassy, but they play neatly off each other without making the movie all about them. The first movie was about Shrek meeting Donkey and then Fiona, and the second was about Not Fitting In with Fiona’s family. This time around, everyone’s saying, “Hey, we know you know us, so let’s concentrate on the story.” It’s a strange and ultimately refreshing approach, and it’s what keeps the franchise from going stale. (They better hope so, because the fourth movie will be out in a few years.)
All in all, the movie succeeds in every way it wanted to. Shrek had me tittering and guffawing at appropriate times, always a good thing. Nothing ruins a movie like laughing at inopportune times, unless the movie’s so bad it’s good. Shrek the Third easy reaches the level of comedy and hijinks as it had in the first two movies, not letting up with the funny. There’s just no real decline in quality here, folks; this is a movie your kids will heart if they enjoyed the first two.
***1/2
Summer Movie Preview, Part I
Posted by frothy in 2007 Summer Preview, Previews on May 18, 2007
Back when I worked video retail, the big question we got every day was “What’s in that’s new that’s good?” Kind of a vague, open-ended question; how do I know that what I think is good is what you think is good? I don’t. But customers always seem to believe that the doofus behind the counter somehow is an expert. This might make sense in doctor’s offices and auto shops, but the doofus behind the video-store counter doesn’t know any more than you do.
Plus, of course, movies are highly subjective. I didn’t like Gosford Park but maybe you, dear customer, would. And so on. Everyone has different tastes, right?
It’s time to take a look at some upcoming movies (theater division). Now, when I review movies, I really try to target the review to as many people as possible, so I don’t just take the attitude of, “Well, I hate costume dramas, so I’m gonna give this one a bad rating.” That’s not fair, is it? No, it is not. I try to think, “what would most people find appealing about this movie? What would they dislike?”
Anyway. Now you know the motivation and angle. Let’s see what’s coming up.
Shrek the Third (May 18): Finally, the green guy is back. I think they’ve been promising a third Shrek movie for… well, since before the second one, back in 2004. And there’s a rumor that a fourth one is on the way as well. See, I like Shrek. I like the potshots that the movies take at Disney. I like the gross humor. I think the three leads (Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz) are perfectly suited to their roles. So I’m looking forward to this one, even if it’s not as good as the first two.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (May 25): Okay, for this one I’m a little more skittish. Yes, I’m looking forward to it, and yes, I want to see it in the theater, but… is it played out? It’s going to be a bit longer (168 minutes). I wonder if it’ll fall into the trap of having its leads rush from Action Scene to Action Scene, which it kind of sort of did in the last movie in the series. But at least that one had the bonus of a good twist at the end that led to this inevitable third film. So color me skeptical – I hope it’s as good as one of the first two. Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, and the emaciated Keira Knightley return. (Knightley is a pretty face and a good actress, but boy does she look too skinny. She looks positively little-boyish.)
Bug (May 25): Ah, finally, a nonblockbuster. Michael Shannon plays a war vet, and Ashley Judd plays an agoraphobe. They’re holed up in a seedy motel, and they have insect issues. Is it all in their minds? Hells, no! Or maybe. Good to see Judd not playing some plucky damsel in distress for a change. William Friedkin is your director; maybe he has another hit here.
Mr. Brooks (June 1): Kevin Costner is a serial killer, and Demi Moore is the dick out to capture him! Why, it’s like they’re playing against type! Cmon, if Moore wasn’t gonna cut it as a stripper, what makes us think she’ll be a good detective? (Hint: only if she gets nekkid.) Costner, though… he might work in this role, because it’s one of those cold, emotionless, no-range-required roles that more or less define him. So yeah, it’s something new for him, but it’s not sea-change new. He’s a bad guy, not a good guy, so that’ll take some acting strength, but I think he’ll be okay. William Hurt’s in it, too. I bet he plays a guy who’s unhinged on the inside but normal on the outside.
Rise: Blood Hunter (June 1): What is it with Lucy Liu and stupid titles (Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever)? But this IS Lucy Liu, so I’m already inclined to watch. (Lucy, if you’re reading this, I’m available!) Liu plays a woman who wakes up in a morgue and finds out she’s undead. Man, I hate those kind of mornings. Anyway, she vows revenge on those who hath wronged her. Would most of us go after the people who killed us, or would we just be pissed that we weren’t, you know, actually dead? Liu doesn’t often get good scripts, but when she gets ‘em, she’s good. This one’s written by the guy who wrote Snakes on a Plane, though, so..
Surf’s Up (June 8): This looks bad, so it’ll probably make a lot of money. Why wouldn’t it? It’s animated, and it has penguins, and we all know how much people love the penguins. But cmon, surfing penguins? Plus the one guy on the box looks like the guru guy voiced by Robin Williams in Happy Feet. I mean, exactly the same. I don’t think I’ll catch this wave. (See what I did there? I made a bad pun.)
Ocean’s Thirteen (June 8): George Clooney is making this one, he says, to make up for the second one, which was mostly bad. Just about everyone returns, but there’s a lack of estrogen – no Julia Roberts, no Catherine Zeta-Jones. Wait, there’s Ellen Barkin. Like I said, a lack of estrogen, but I kid. Al Pacino’s in it; wonder if he’ll be hammy? There’s also apparently a rumor that Angelina Jolie will be in it. The rumor’s from April 2006. The movie will be released in a few weeks. So I dunno what that means, but if Jolie appears it can only be a good thing. As for the plot, someone doublecrosses Reuben (Elliot Gould), so the gang has to avenge him. The movie has to be better than the uneven second one, but I hope the added cast members aren’t a mere novelty.
Hostel: Part II (June 8): Death and dismemberment are back, baby, only this time it’s three chicks instead of three dudes. Okay, whatever. On the one hand, I’m glad one of them isn’t Paris Hilton (as rumored), but on the other hand it would have been sweet to see her killed. We do get Heather Matarazzo, Lauren German, and Bijou Phillips. (I’m resisting making a Matinee at the Bijou joke, because it’s too easy and younger people wouldn’t get it, anyway.) The three get lured to a hostel, and then bad things happen. With any luck, this will be on par with the first one; expect a lot of gore and torture and creative deaths.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (June 15): Did you see the first F4 movie? No? Did anyone? No, wait, someone must have. I wonder if it was all fanboys trying to see Jessica Alba’s ass. Anyway, the four leads return, which I’m ambivalent about, because really, this isn’t a movie that focuses on character development; it’s really just about blowing crap up. In this one, the Four face off against a new threat, the Silver Surfer, played by a hologram. I’m no comics dude, but I always thought the Surfer was a good guy, but apparently I’m wrong. The movie already feels desperate, as if the studio is just trying really really hard to get some kind of franchise. I mean, hey, other comics movies do well, so let’s flog the F4 horse. My bet is that there’ll be a third movie, but it’ll be about one of the villains, or the Silver Surfer, and perhaps the original cast won’t even be in it.
Nancy Drew (June 15): I’m not in the target audience for this movie, and I don’t intend to see it, but I kind of liked the concept. Nancy Drew is a girl detective, much on the order of the Hardy Boys, but even younger. This movie is set in the present day, but Nancy is a throwback, an anachronism; she dresses and behaves as if it’s 1940. (At least that’s what I gleaned from the trailer.) So there’s that little hook thrown in for flava. Apparently this Nancy is a bit younger than the one in the books, but since most girls of today probably haven’t yet read the books, I don’t think it’s a huge problem. This looks like a cute, quiet hit.
Evan Almighty (June 22): All right! Morgan Freeman as God. This time, he tells now-Congressman Evan Baxter (Steve Carrell) to build an ark. Oh, yeah, like THAT’LL happen. Now, though, we’ll see if a movie of this stripe can survive without the strong personality of a Jim Carrey; Carrell is more of a reactor than a actor at times. In 40 Year Old Virgin, he merely reacted to the chaos around him – which was funny, don’t get me wrong, but here he might find it a little tougher, with less comic support. And the movie apparently cost a lot to make, thus upping the pressure.
1408 (June 22): Another Stephen King adaptation, and it’s been a while since they’ve been any good. Come to think of it, they’re almost never any good, but the ones that are good are choice indeed. Here’s hoping this fits in the latter category, and it should, given that Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack, merely two of the awesomest actors ever, star. It’s about a paranormal investigator who enters the titular hotel room, which is supposed to be totally haunted. I love closed-room mystery horror freakouts, so I’m all for this one.
Live Free or Die Hard (June 27): Everyone loved Die Hard. Everyone loved Die Hard 2. Die Hard 3, not so much, so I dunno what to make of this fourth one, ten YEARS after the last one. John McClane’s way too old for this crap. Still, I like Bruce Willis in most about everything. I just hope it doesn’t really, really suck.
Ratatouille (June 29): Uh, yeah. A Pixar movie about rats. I didn’t see Flushed Away, but I have the same reaction – huh? Wha? Okay, sure, it has the pedigree of Brad Bird directing, and he’s the guy who did The Incredibles (I was one of a few who didn’t think it was awesome), but still… rats. Animated rats. Whoopdedoo.
Okay, this is getting long, and I have actual work to do. (I know!) Therefore I’ll do a part 2 later. Maybe today, maybe next week, maybe next month.
Mummy casting decisions
Posted by frothy in News/Rumors on May 16, 2007
Remember The Mummy and its sequel from a few years back? The movie starred Brenden Fraser as Rick O’Connell and Rachel Weisz as Evelyn Carnahan. The characters met in the first movie and were married when the second one began, with a lil’ tyke as well.
Word comes that the third movie in the series (Mummy 3? Can’t be; there was no Mummy 2) will be shot/cast/released in upcoming years, and this report from Rotten Tomatoes had a couple of interesting tidibts:
1. Rachel Weisz will be replaced by Maria Bello. Nothing was wrong with Weisz, of course, it’s just that she’s oodles more famous now than she was back then, having won an Oscar (perhaps undeserved) for The Constant Gardner. Maybe Weisz thought the producers couldn’t afford her, or maybe she thought the movie was beneath her, now that she’s basking in praise and such. Whatever the reasoning, Bello replaces her. Bello isn’t playing a new character, she’s playing Evvie. Weird, wild stuff.
2. In the third installment (directed by Rob Cohen of XXX and Daylight), it seems Rick and Evvie’s son is all grown up. Yes, fully grown. How is this even remotely possible? Do Bello and Fraser look old enough to have a full-grown son? As in an adult kid? Makes no sense. And the second movie was only six years ago, when the kid was in single digits. Sure, he might be 18 or so now in the movie, but since Fraser and Bello aren’t gonna look like a generation older, how is this plausible?
But it’s ok, because the movies weren’t known for being plausible, anyway.
Giving other movies the Grindhouse treatment
Back when WWII was in full swing, there were plenty of propaganda films, from all sides. The films basically demonized the enemy of the film’s country of origin while presenting their own guys as perfect and wonderful yummy goodness. (For example, Behind the Rising Sun, from 1943).
The posters for these movies were typically sensationalistic, depicting the bad guys as aliens or monsters of one stripe or another. The basic intent of the posters was to instigate and rile up the general populace.
In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the same visual style was used for cheapo films that were shown in theaters colloquially known as grindhouses. The grindhouse was so named because it would grind out cheap-ass movies all day long, movies that had almost nonexistent budgets and plot. The films were cheap in every sense of the world. It’s this kind of movie that the recent Grindhouse, by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, plays homage to.
Recently, the gang over at Something Awful had the task of creating these exploitation movie posters for otherwise-normal movies. You can check ‘em out here. Truly awesome stuff, hilarious and not a little disturbing.
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