In My Sleep (2008)

PG-13, 1 hr. 45 min.  Directed By:  Allen Wolf.  Release Date:  Apr 30, 2010.  DVD Release Date:  Oct 1, 2010.

If I’d seen the Flixster page for this movie, I totally would have skipped it.  I haven’t seen approval ratings THAT low since the last time I turned on CNN and they were discussing the latest Gallup polls about President Obama’s performance.  But, it was late and I was flipping through the new stuff on Netflix.  It didn’t look terrible, although admittedly, I wasn’t looking at reviews there, either.

My base impressions of this movie were few: (1) the lead spends way too much time clad only in skimpy boxer briefs or speedos for me not to wonder about the writer/director’s personal life. (2)  In My Sleep was clearly inspired, in very vague terms, by the classic suspense movies of the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  (3)  The movie takes WAY TOO LONG to get started.  If I’d had anything, and I mean even like laundry kind of anything, better to do, I would have turned it off.  (4)  Once the damned movie got started it wasn’t terrible, but it has a few faults.

If you read me regularly, you know that I’m in a war against “actors” who spend the majority of their on screen time in a state of undress (cough cough Channing Tatum cough).  Phillip Winchester, the lead in this movie, has most of the same problems:  pretty, but clearly struggling to maintain even this uncomplicated role, he’ll probably continue to haunt movies until his looks or muscle tone fades.  To make matters worse, the casting director saddlebagged the poor boy with Lacey Chabert, whose career clearly peaked at the age of 8, back when she was in Party of Five.  Her voice seriously makes me want to punch kittens, and she talks too much in this movie for me to ignore that.

The story has too much set up built in to it.  Before the action gets going there’s approximately an hour of this guy running around with his bits showing, for reasons that are less clear than why Tom Cruise is always running in his movies.   A lot of things happen early on that are important by the end, but at the time, they seem like the random terrible things that might happen to a guy who spends too much time involved in playing the field. 

But, it’s clear that Allen Wolfe is someone who has paid some attention to what suspense is supposed to be, although after reading the professional critics blast the writer/director for comparing his own “director’s statement” to Hitchcock, I understand the blasting he received.  Hubris is a wicked bitch.  He uses Hitchcock’s tools, but he focused on the later movies, where Hitchcock’s work gets a bit ham-fisted because of the rise of the slasher movie.  Where he should have been taking notes during movies like The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window, and The Lady Vanishes, he was writing fiendishly during Psycho. 

Other than his director’s statement needing a bit more revision before it was brought to public attention, I think this was an okay movie.  Take my advice and skim through the first thirty minutes.  You won’t miss much, especially since, even upon a review of the early scenes of the movie to determine if the Scooby Doo-esque reveal could be possible, I couldn't figure out how the story could have been explained by the actions witnessed.

Safe (2012)

R, 1 hr. 35 min.  Directed By:  Boaz Yakin.  Release Date:  Apr 27, 2012.

I wasn’t expecting a whole lot.  This is a Jason Statham movie, after all, so what I figured I’d see is based on my high level perspective of his career to date:  (1) he spends at least part of the movie fighting without a shirt, (2) he kills a horrific number of people (3) he’s involved in some nasty business, but is riding the moral high ground and (4) he takes at least one serious beating.  Basically, I was four for four. 

What I didn’t expect is how much fun this movie would be.  Catherine Chan, the little girl with the eidetic memory, was a riot.  Statham had a few really good one liners as well, so the movie was a nice balance of bloodshed and humor that held a nice dry (kind of Britishy edge).  The action sequences and fight scenes were awesome, without being ridiculous and without anything that might be considered overly gory.

I actually liked almost the entire cast (even Statham).  James Hong, who I kind of know as the generic Asian gangster (sometimes the generic Asian middle aged man) put on a really good show.  He’s good as a gangster, and leading the Triad rampaging its way through New York City to get to little Mei, he was really good. 

Do New York City cops and politicians ever get tired of being portrayed as corrupt, soulless bastards?  At this point, I have to wonder if the reputation is well-deserved, because if I were a cop in NYC or a politician or some other person serving a vital role in the city government, I’d be a little angry that it’s almost impossible to find a movie that shows a decent cop in the city.  I still think the attitude towards police stems from the British reaction to forming their police force a few hundred years ago.  The original colonists would have shared that distrust of police, and I have to wonder if we accuse them of the worst because it’s habit, not so much for modern behavior.  But then, I’m not a resident in NYC, so I don’t know anything that goes on there.  Could I be right, anyone who happens to read this from NYC?

Safe is a great prelude to the action films of the summer, and I hope the movies to come in the next four months will live up to at least this standard of fun.  If they happen to have better production value, well, that’s just gravy.

The Five-Year Engagement (2012)

R, 2 hr. 4 min.  Directed By:  Nicholas Stoller.  Release Date:  Apr 27, 2012.

I went to see this with someone I work with.  I had made plans to see Safe and The Raven and he texted me The Five-Year Engagement as a counterproposal.  I was amenable, despite the fact that he knows I think texting is a pox on our society, something I only don’t hate doing when I know there’s not going to be a response or I know someone cannot take a phone call.  We get to the theater and the two of us are the youngest people in there by like forty years and the only guys.

My first thought was, quite literally, !@#@*.  It’s never a good sign when I show up to a movie and I’m like the antithesis of the majority of the crowd.  You might remember when I wrote about My Sister’s Keeper I wrote about how when I figured out why the boy was going to downtown (to ogle the hookers) I busted out laughing and like 400 women with tear-stained faces gave me the stink eye.  The take away from this tale is if you are ever in an extreme minority in a theater, you probably won’t enjoy yourself.

And I kind of didn’t.  The Five-Year Engagement is so slow to begin I was contemplating suicide by the thirty minute mark.  It also kind of reaffirmed my decision to remain a life-long bachelor.  It’s just not worth it to me.  Although, the wedding in the park would be the wedding I’d chose if I ever decide to break my bachelorhood vow.  It was totally spontaneous, wasn’t designed to impress anyone, and gave the bride and groom exactly what they need:  a forum in which they could express their feelings for each other.

I don’t really like Jason Segel.  He has the occasional funny part, but if he retired, I wouldn’t really miss him.  He was funny here, but inconsistently, and without any real sophistication to his method.  I do like Emily Blunt, and I’ve never found her to be funny.  She wasn’t here, but for some reason, they filmmakers chose to really sex her up.  Think Giada De Laurentiis.  Suddenly, everything she wore created an extreme cleavage moment.  I’m not so much complaining as I think there’s kind of a time and place for that, and most of this was not the time or the place.

But, the parts of this that are funny are genuinely so, even if the humor is a little juvenile.  I liked Emily Blunt a whole lot more than I liked Jason Segel.  I’ve also kind of done what they did: move from California to the northern Midwest (Ohio in my case, Michigan in theirs).  It’s a struggle.  People are nice, and come off a little strange because all their phasers are set on super-friendly, and Californians are used to a world where they don’t speak to their neighbors, much less random strangers.  It still creeps me out when I’m in the small town where my family lives in Ohio and random strangers who know my mother, my grandmother, my uncle, or less frequently, my cousins, and start talking to me because they hear my name and made the connection.  It’s more proof that we need anti-stalking laws in Ohio, says I.  I laughed my ass off at the snow-windshield scraping scene (because I’ve done exactly that) and at most of their adjustment to Michigan. 

This movie is… pleasant.  It’s not great, and pretty much the whole cast has been better elsewhere. 

Blogging Flashback: Atonement (2007)

R, 2 hrs. 3 min. Directed by: Joe Wright. Release Date: Sep 07, 2007. DVD Release Date: Mar 18, 2008.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE, LATE SHOW WITH NEW EDITS/COMMENTS****

Atonement was, hands down, my first choice for 2007's Best Picture. I saw it originally in the theaters, where it was shown as the fourth of five films during AMC's Best Picture Showcase held annually around the country.  Of the five movies shown that year, only Atonement and Juno held any real appeal for me, and five years later, I'm still seriously bent out of shape that No Country For Old Men took home Oscar gold that night.  This movie is actually the reason that I took a step back from the Academy Awards, although I attend the Best Picture Showcase whenever I get a chance.

I  never expected to like this movie.  I actually expected that particular night to be filled with boredom except possibly for Juno and Michael Clayton.   But, I sort of fell in love here.  Just a little bit.  While seriously a "chick" flick, I found this to be a movie of depth and passion so generalized that everyone could get behind it. The film really runs the gamut of human emotion and experience so I have little doubt that anyone going to see this film could find something they enjoyed. The cast is outstanding across the board, and surprising performances come from quarters that aren't necessarily known for them. I'm not going to come out and say "Keira Knightley," who has a somewhat inconsistent filmography, but I'm thinking it really hard.  The story flows well, and the twist on the ending wasn't predictable from halfway through the film. The "dream sequences" for lack of a better term, may cause comprehension problems, and this is not a movie you want to let run while you're distracted by a phone call or the pizza guy or whatever. Pause it.

My only complaint is that we see the main character, Bryony Talis, from about the age of 12 until she's probably in her 80s. In every scene, and on three actresses, her hair is done the exact same way. What woman goes 70 years without making a single change to her hair?  Call it a stereotype, but I don't know many women who don't occasionally change their hairstyle, so that digs at me a little bit.

The Raven (2012)

R, 1 hr. 43 min.  Directed By:  James McTeigue.  Release Date:  Apr 27, 2012

I’ve been waffling about my reaction to this movie ever since I walked out of the theater.  In high school, I had a wonderful English teacher who loved Poe’s stories.  Because of that, I’m literate in more of them than The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart.  Even now, I think these tales have aged well, despite the desensitization of the average reader, because they’re written about themes that are themselves timeless:  guilt, loss, vengeance, rage.  There’s no statute of limitations, no expiration date on these kinds of things.  Until the last human breathes his or her last, these will be a part of us.  The movie, The Raven is going to be somewhat less timeless.   

There are details in this tale that sort of seamlessly blends the Victorian detective novel with Saw that I think are phenomenal.  The fact that there are a large number of truths about Poe in the movie is… intriguing, and may be what keeps me from reviling this effort (as so many of the professional critics have already done).    There are at least two very good chase scenes:  one through the sewers of Baltimore, and the other in a spooky wood, dense with fog.  Most of Poe’s mysteries have a single clue, and it is the same here; the bummer being that I spotted the clue and had the killer narrowed to two people from very, very early in the movie.  

I absolutely HATE John Cusack.  I very rarely like him in anything, and that generally taints the movies he’s in.  I did like this.  It isn’t a great movie, but it is fun.  John Cusack is great.  I find it creepy that he actually resembles Poe a little, which probably helps.  I liked a few members of the supporting cast as well:  Luke Evans, Brendan Gleeson, and Oliver Jackson-Cohen most notably, although at least one of them meets a sticky fate (mwahahahaha).  I thought Alice Eve was beautiful, but ABYSMAL in her performance.  She was so consistently bad that I can’t tell whether director James MacTeague lavished all his attention on his star, or whether Ms. Eve was selected for her looks.

While I think these guys had difficulty deciding whether they wanted this to be a gory horror film or a spooky comedy, I still thought this was okay.  I probably don’t need to see this again, but you might want to watch it once. 

Inevitable Summer Movie Post - September

I know that technically, September isn’t part of the summer, but with the movies there always seems to be a “Indian” summer, where films that weren’t high budget enough to compete with the actual blockbusters, but are still going to be fun make brief appearances in the theaters before the six-week lull until Thanksgiving.  I thought a few of these would be worth mentioning.

SEPTEMBER

Resident Evil: Retribution – Milla Jovovich

I actually tend to hate these movies, but the action sequences are pretty slick.  I’m hoping that, one day, the powers behind this series will throw in the towel in the same way that (I think) the creators of Saw have.  The first movie in both series I could get behind, now I’m just tired and ready for every zombie to wake up and find themselves in one of Jigsaw’s puzzles.  This is a maybe, but I’ll probably end up going out of boredom if nothing else.

Dredd –Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby

I’m going to come right out and say that I absolutely hated Judge Dredd back in the day.  I didn’t know anything about the comic series, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Stallone where I’m not crazy critical about his performance.  For me, this one is purely about the action sequences, so they’d better be worth the price of admission.

Ten Year –Channing Tatum, Rosario Dawson, Justin Long, Kata Mara

I am hoping Tatum takes a break for a year or so after this summer.  I know it won’t happen, but if things go well this summer, it’ll be the very first time I’ve ever really thought of him as someone that isn’t a complete lump on the camera, and releasing four or five movies in the space of as many months is going to be pushing what could some new-found affection.  I’m going to give this the benefit of the doubt, because I like the whole 10 year reunion theme.   It worked for American Reunion, didn’t it?

House at the End of the Street –Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue, Max Thieriot

This has been done before, lots of times, but I’m beginning to be fond of Jennifer Lawrence, and I’ve liked Elisabeth Shue since I first saw Adventures in Babysitting.  I don’t have high hopes for this, but I’m thinking it will be entertaining.

Looper –Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, Emily Blunt

It’s not likely I’m going to miss anything with Joe-Go in it, even though it feels a bit like he’s in ever third movie this summer, I don’t quite have that “so over him” feeling yet.  Looper’s trailers make me feel like anticipation is the way to handle it, although I’m not sure why people would think it was a good idea to send the future version of someone back in time for assassination by their younger self.  Is that like how Fry did the “nasty in the pasty” in Futurama and became his own grandfather?

Savages – Taylor Kitsch, Salma Hayek, Benicio Del Toro, Blake Lively

I wrote a paper in college about how the legalization of marijuana might impact crime in the United States; it went a little something like this.  For a few years, there’d be open war until the DEA/ATF/whatever other law enforcement body smacked the drug smugglers around, and then the violence and crime currently involved in the marijuana trade would disappear.  It might be a little naïve, but I still think it’s a possibility.  I’m not so sure about the working threesome depicted in this movie.

Won’t Back Down – Viola Davis, Maggie Gyllenhaal

I do loves me some Viola Davis, at least as much as I despise Maggie Gyllenhaal.  I’m hoping the former counterbalances the latter, and the story seems interesting enough for me to put some effort into seeing it. 

Blogging Flashback: The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2009)

PG-13, 1 hr. 42 min. Directed by: Jodie Markell. Release Date: Dec 30, 2009. DVD Release Date: Sep 07, 2010.


****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH NEW COMMENTS/EDITS****


Lackluster work by Tennessee Williams; outstanding performances by the cast.  This is a moderately unusual series of events, right?  I don't know much about Williams, but I know he was one hell of a playwright.  A Streetcar Named Desire is a movie I'll be watching before too longer, for my 100 Classic Movies project, and I've already seen snippets of the play, so I know it gets better than this from him.  What I think really saves this movie is an uncertain cast that finds its footing quickly and manages to shine against material that is very unlikely.



Despite plenty of commentary on various internet sites regarding the quality of this piece as an example of Tennesse Williams' work, I enjoyed this film very much. Are the critics right? Yes, this was not the world's best example of William' skill as a playwright, but I think (most of the time) that it's not fair to condemn a movie because of someone's affection, or lack thereof, for the creative piece the movie is based on.  Even bad books can make decent movies (cough cough Interview With A Vampire cough).  The book totally sucks, but the movie is 90s magic.  It's a rare year that I don't watch it a few times just to remind myself why I loved it so much back in... '94, I think.  Maybe '92.



I loved the period drama here, which won't come as much of a surprise to those folks who pay attention to me. I think they did a fairly outstanding job of describing the social hierarchy that existed in the south in what I'm presuming was the 20s. I think both Chris Evans and Bryce Dallas Howard gave great performances.  Evans cracks me up in his usual fare, but it was this movie that made me think that there might be some talent under the goofy comedies and action flicks.

That being said, the movie had a few slow parts. There were some twists and turns that didn't really go anywhere in the story, and I did struggle a bit with why anyone would think these two would be a good match romantically. I'm also not sure how Howard's character got away with so much rebellion.

Inevitable Summer Movie Post - August

August may just be the most action-packed part of the summer, although with The Amazing Spider Man and The Dark Knight Rises, July will certainly give it a run for its money.  August is fairly light (anyone else noticed how most of the “summer blockbusters” were in a race for an early start?  I’m thinking people were pretty freaked out about the competition for box office dollars in July.

AUGUST

360 – Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins

This is a maybe on my radar.  I’m not too sure what a man tempted to have an affair has to do with the financial crisis, the destabilization of the Euro, or global flu epidemics.  I’m thinking right now that a mediocre film writer might just have spent too much time on CNN headline news.  The cast looks strong, but it may not pull this out of a potential bore-hole.

                                           

The Bourne Legacy – Jeremy Renner, Edward Norton, Rachel Weisz

I wasn’t all that pumped up about the original trilogy, and I’ve never read one of the books, so that’s not what’s driving me to see this movie.  I like it’s approach to the change in focus, you know the whole “duh, there wouldn’t be only one Bourne,” but I’m a little unsure as to why this one goes all fun house mirror on them.  Is it just me, or is Jeremy Renner suddenly in everything?  He’s rapidly becoming a replacement for Shia LeBeouf on my “way too overexposed” list.

                                          

Total Recall – Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bill Nighy

Let’s face it.  The original Total Recall wasn’t a great movie.  It was filled with a cast that kind of sucked their way through the whole thing.  But it was a great concept and a solid overall effort.  With a  better cast, who knows?  This might be the cast.  I have high hopes for this movie and it is my “must-see” of August.

                                              

The Expendables 2 – Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, The Governator, Bruce Willis

If I have a head injury and can’t process anything but chronic gunfights, ninja moves, and explosions, I’m sure to go see this.  If I’m more like normal, this is a weak maybe.  I suspect this will end up being Netflixed in a year or so, but it would be hard to have a discussion of summer action movies without this being present on the list.  They clearly haven’t fired the makeup person from the original, since Stallone still looks like he’s playing Old French Whore on SNL (cough, cough, botched face lift cough), but I’m willing to overlook that.

                                             

The Apparition – Sebastian Stan, Ashley Greene

Okay, so the whole “haunted house” genre has been a bit played out in the last few years.  I’m the first person to say so, but I’ll still have this on my radar because of Ashley Greene and my one-man effort to keep her working after Twilight.   She might even be enough for me to forget how much I dislike Sebastian Stan.

                                             

Premium Rush – Joseph Gordon-Leavitt

I’m not entirely sure that Joe-Go, who I’ve learned to like over the last few years, is going to be enough to carry this movie off.  It’s ambitious in that it’s basically one big chase scene, but I wish that ambition had filtered out into the casting department after they grabbed their lead.