Blogging Flashback: A-Team (2010)

PG-13, 1 hr. 57 min.  Directed by: Joe Carnahan.  Release Date: Jun 11, 2010.  DVD Release Date:  Dec 14, 2010.

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


Picture it:  southern California, circa (mumble) 1984.  A group of boys in sleeping bags are watching the television.  It's Friday night, and the regular weekend sleepover was in full effect.  None of us went to school together, so the weekend was the only time we got to see each other even though we lived within a few houses of each other.  The A-Team was on.  Dukes of Hazard was coming.  Life was really good.

The A-Team on television was one of my favorite childhood memories (so imagine my shock that George Peppard was also in Breakfast At Tiffany's).  I had the lunchbox, the toys, and I could quote Mr. T at length.  When I heard they were making this into a movie, I nearly dropped a kidney.  I worried that my own expectations of this would be too high, that I'd force the movie to fail by sheer force of will (I do have that power). 

In many ways, this was, in my opinion the benchmark summer movie of 2010.  Do I kind of not like most of the cast?  I kind of don't like most of the cast, but even I can't deny that this was crazy, action-filled fun.  While this wasn't high drama, this movie didn't aim to be something it wasn't and didn't suffer from pretensions.  Hard for me not to respect an effort like this.

For a change, the casting director bordered on the genius and probably should be burned as a witch.  These four guys have SO much chemistry and comraderie together that I had a hard time thinking that they might not have been friends before the film started shooting.

For those of you, like me, who are old enough to remember The A-Team before it went in to syndication, and looked forward to new episodes on Friday nights, I think the story team did an outstanding job of keeping the spirit of the TV show alive while adapting the lives of BA, Face, Hannibal, and Murdock to the modern world.  Each member of the A-Team did at least a fair job of impersonating the original portrayal of his character, which in a remake can be dicey stuff.

Those folks working the dialogue get major props for some hysterical one liners delivered by people who all seemed to be working at the top of their game.  I don't normally give Jessica Biel much consideration beyond the surface, but the disgust she put into the words, "No, they're trying to fly... the tank" was priceless.

That being said, there were a couple of problems that I noticed.  The first was Liam Neeson's accent, which, even when it doesn't scream out a remembrance of the Queen, it doesn't exactly even whisper Uncle Sam, either.  Thanks goes to Family Guy for pointing out his horrific American impersonation in the same way Fight Club made it possible for me to actually notice those cigarette burn holes in a movie.  I never noticed one before I saw that darn movie, and now I spot EVERY single one.


The other problem was that there appeared to be way too many characters, even those who were only briefly introduced.  It allowed for a little too much unintentional foreshadowing on my part.

Shark Night (2011)

PG-13, 1 hr. 25 min.  Directed By:  David R. Ellis.  Release Date:  Sep 2, 2011.  DVD Release Date:  Jan 3, 2012.

I have this nearly psychotic fear of sharks.  I'm a great swimmer, but no where is a human less in his or her element than in the water, where everything's faster than we are, and most of the time we can't see danger coming.  This movie plays on my every fear, and combines that with some really good (at least internet-based) scientific fact.  They didn't make the sharks do things they wouldn't normally do, although I do believe that great whites only breach in the hunting process, not for no apparent reason.  They didn't have the sharks be sentient, or have frigging laser beams attached to their frigging heads, or anythign like that.  Someone involved in the making of this movie knew that sharks are scary enough by themselves.  They don't need adornment.

I have to be a little impressed when horror writers do research.  In this case, I was able to confirm (as much as you can confirm anything) everything this movie tells us about the specific species of shark on Wikipedia.  I’m the occasional viewer of Shark Week (the best "horror" available on film, in my mind), and there were at least one type of shark I’d never heard of, and had to do quite a bit of digging about before I realized what they had said more or less matched what I was seeing from the “scientific community” on the internet.  The one thing I didn’t have to research was what they tell us about bull sharks, since I’ve been to the estuary at the St. Lucia river and I know firsthand that you can find the damned things in fresh and salt water, and that the buggers manage to get just about everywhere. 

I did a little more research on salt lakes, because to my knowledge, there just aren’t all that many:  Salt Lake in Utah, the Salton Sea in California, and the Dead Sea between Jordan and Israel.  As it turns out, they're fairly common; they exist all over the world in places where certain geographic conditions are met, so that part of my complaint about the movie got silenced as well. 

I’ve said that good science makes for good science fiction, I think back when I watched Daybreakers.  Good science does not make for good horror, especially if that’s the only thing you’ve got going for you.  And really, that was the only thing Shark Night had going for it, no matter how many Ds are involved.

Really, Shark Night has all the problems you expect of horror:  weak story, bad acting, and effects that are questionable at best.  Without going too deep into spoilers, I can’t go into specifics, but the mechanics that make this story work are the ones that make me question the plausibility.  I’m also wondering how the perpetrator of these bloody antics expected to get away with it.  Once you hear the motive, you’ll probably ask that question, too.  It also could have been much scarier, especially conxidering how absolutely terrified I am of sharks. 

It’s a sad, sad day when my favorite character is the lead female character’s yellow lab.  It broke my heart when the puppy goes into the water (I won't tell you how his swim turns out), and it was the only time in this movie I wasn't rooting for the sharks.  You could watch this movie, but it would be a lot better if you just dodged that particular bullet.  Trust me.

Blogging Flashback: Paranormal Activity (2009)

R, 1 hr. 39 min. Directed by: Oren Peli. Release Date: Sep 25, 2009. DVD Release Date: Jan 05, 2010.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH ADDITIONAL EDITS AND COMMENTS.****


For the duration of the movie, and for about ten minutes afterwards, I thought this was totally chilling.  It had been a long time since a movie had unnerved me that badly.  I had hated the found footage, but since it led credibility to some of the claims I'd heard about the movie at the time

There's been a lot of hype about this. I've heard that this is a true story. I was terrified even if it wasn't, but if it's true, I'm investing in crucifixes, sage wands, and salt in copious quantities just in case. Since there are no ending or beginning credits, it lends some credence to the story that this is true, as does the complete lack of an entry on IMDB.com, which I use as a kind of movie Bible.

It's been a very, very long time since I was this scared in a movie. There's a fine line there for me. Good, fun scares, and "oh my god wtf are you watching?" scared, and this toed the line a lot. The common internet critique is that this isn't even a bit scary, and I think that happens because you need to be able to get involved in the rising action of the story AND have enough imagination to believe, even if for a short time, that these people were haunted by a demon.  You also need to believe that this was real, and I was having a stupid moment and believed exactly that.


The intro portion of the film is overly long in my opinion. I looked at my watch a few times waiting for something scarier than a small town haunted corn field to happen. When it finally did happen, my heart was beating so fast if I'd farted I probably would have dopplered my way through the rest of the movie. A transition scene or two might have been helpful.

Watching the thing get flung from the darkened hallway into the camera. I won't tell you what it was, and it was bad when I didn't know what it was, but it was oh so much worse when I learned what that thing was.

Oh, and I guested on the LAMBcast again.  This time we discussed Tom Cruise.  For more info, you can go here, or check out the LAMB (Large Association of Movie Blogs) on Facebook.

Representing Humanity Blog-A-Thon

The mission here is an interesting one:  aliens land on Earth and it is our mission to introduce humanity to them through five films.  Which films would I choose under those conditions?  The question was posed to us by Sam of Dukeand the Movies, and it’s a good question.

I’ve come a bit tardy to this party, so please forgive me in advance.  I haven’t been as active in the LAMB community in this last six weeks or so as I normally am, so this slipped completely under my radar.  Thinking about this question, rather than try and encapsulate the human heart, because I think even as a generalization, that’s nearly impossible to do effectively, but I think an explanation of who we’ve been and who we hope to be would be a great introduction.

The Human Experience (2008):  We’re going to be hard pressed to answer the question, “what does it mean to be human?” since we ourselves don’t really know.  Everywhere you go, the answer would change, as would the requisites for “being human.”  I think this look at the human experience would go a long way toward giving extraterrestrials a glimpse into the day-to-day existence of your average person.  

Spartacus (1960):  This movie speaks both about human history and the human heart.  It shows a relatively violent and unpleasant past.  It also shows that there is precedent for humanity, even just one representative of the species, to stand up against cruelty and tyranny.  Depending on our visitors’ intentions, that could be a lesson worth learning.

The Power of One (1992):  This is frequently a selection of mine, but I think it says so many wonderful things about people:  the ability to strive against prejudice, to make the choices necessary to do the right thing, and learning how to work with people who have a different way of life.  Provided they aren’t here to suck our brains into a machine that’s glowing blue, I think it’s a winning message.

The Boy In Striped Pajamas (2008):  The Holocaust is arguably (but not very arguably) the most shameful time in human history.  It manages to effectively convey the costs of hate, the price of innocence, the joy of friendship, and how we have learned the lesson that inaction speaks as loudly as action.  

Star Trek IV – The Voyage Home (1984):  I originally considered making my last film a “warning,” but instead I thought a movie that depicted humans cooperating with aliens would be better, and there are very, very few science fiction movies that don’t show us in some form of conflict with nonhumans.  Also, as an aside, it shows humans as capable of defending themselves from threats and learning from mistakes.  

I think the best message to send to visitors to this planet would be that we have a long way to go.  We haven't fixed ourselves yet, but we're working on it.  We've realized that there are problems within our species that could lead to our destruction.  That being said, if you're here to mess with us in any way, you will rue the day.  As long as we have hope and spirit, you won't pin us down, and you won't be able to kill either of those.  Welcome to Earth, Suckas! (Oh, and what's the deal with the crop circles and cattle mutilations... and please, please, please make the anal probing stop.  We don't like it.)

Basically (and with lots of room for translation), I think these movies sum up that message very well.

Men In Black 3 (2012)

PG-13, 1 hr. 45 min.  Directed By:  Barry Sonnenfeld.  Release Date:  May 25, 2012.

There are times when I can give a movie a decent review for a single positive facet:  a brand, spankin’ new director, an actor doing something that they’ve never done before, or a movie that shot for something lofty and failed, but still had some merit.

None of these apply to Men In Black 3, although it’s clear that they tried real, real hard to knock something out of the park.  What they delivered was barely up to the standards of just above mediocrity that they delivered with the original film of their franchise.  In the places you’d expect an MIB to be good, this movie has those strengths:  the alien effects and technology effects are pretty sweet, especially if you happen to dig the glowy lights and gross-out effects which kind of made this franchise famous. 

There was a single strength to this movie, and it was Josh Brolin.  That the man could pull of a reasonable impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones over such an extended period is a testament to his skill as an actor (something we haven’t seen much of in the last few years.  The man needs to do more movies).  If I ran the zoo, Brolin would get a nod come Oscar time under that same umbrella that Robert Downey Jr/Tropic Thunder kind of way.  The performance was stellar, it was the movie that sucked.  You don’t see that combination of circumstances so often. 

I get that time travel flicks are hard to do.  Star Trek movies have managed to do it reasonably well twice, and I have high hopes for Looper in September, but there is a remarkable dearth of really good time travel movies… and probably with reason.  At the very least they managed to dodge the whole “I’m you,” phenomenon, but only just.

Basically, this is a movie you go to because your kids are dragging you to it.  There’s a bit of extra swearing this time around, although it’s still not exactly profuse, so use your own best judgment there.  The bad guy might be a little scary for the very little guys.  Everyone else can take a pass on this, or at least wait until video.  There aren’t enough affects that make seeing this in IMAX or 3D worthwhile, although it’s clear that they gave 3D thought in at least two different scenes.  

100 Classic Movies #50: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

PG, 3 hr. 38 min.  Directed By:  David Lean.  Release Date:  Dec 16, 1962.  DVD Release Date:  Apr 3, 2001.

Given my love for historic epics, there was no way I was going to dislike this movie.  No.  Way.  At more than 3 hours in length, this was nearly broke my attention span, and I certainly could have done without the nearly thirty minutes of sweeping desert vistas, but hey, the final results were pretty bad ass.

Peter O’Toole pretty much carries this movie.  I say that because he’s in nearly every scene, and when he’s there, the camera focuses on him nearly to the point of exclusion of the other members of the cast, although they’re more than decent themselves.

This is another classic that brought out the language/culture geek in me.  Lawrence learns a lesson that I think would serve the nations of the West well:  at some point, compromise is necessary in order to progress.  Lawrence’s ability to learn the ways of the Arab helped unify that people, and helped the Allies defeat the Ottoman Empire in WWI.  Communication is best done when one side learns to communicate in the way that speaks to the other, and it shouldn’t always be the other side doing all that work.  Nawmean?

The movie is based on a horde of stereotypes that persist to this day.  I suspect in many ways “history” here has been rewritten to help the position of the colonial powers.  The Arabs are painted as greedy savages, fascinated by weapons and modern technology, but still reminiscing about their “cultural heyday” circa 1100 AD.  Well, the latter stereotype is arguably true (and can probably be applied just as fairly to the French and their heyday a few hundred years later).  The Turks are portrayed as effeminate and well, mincing, and there’s at least one scene where there’s a strong soap and water feeling as a Turkish officer seems aroused by Lawrence’s fish belly pale skin.  Creep-tastic.

But, the movie does manage to portray some of the more amusing bits of the Arab cultural mindset with accuracy:  the Arab Council scenes chief among them.  Arabic is a very logical, puzzle-like language.  Every word that isn't borrowed from another language comes from a verb root, like “diver” comes from “to dive” in English.  When I was taking Arabic classes, I used to joke that the verb jema’ (جمع), which is used to make the Arabic words for university, group, mosque, meeting, and league (like the Arab League), would have better served the Arabs if it meant “argue” instead of “gather” or “assemble” since in the Arab culture arguing and gathering seem to be one and the same.  It’s a joke many Arabs get, although they can’t avoid the love of a good argument.  I laughed my ass off through that scene and it made me miss my old Arabic instructors, who used to fight amongst themselves as we went through translation exams, each begging for points for favorites and quibbling over the smallest nuance.

But, I’m digressing and getting lost in memories that don’t mean much to anyone but me.  Check this movie out, but be prepared to spend a LOT of time on this.  Make an evening out of it, and remember that while there are (and always have been) troubles in the Middle East, there are more Arabs who try to lead a good life than there are the folks we tend to see in the news. 

Blogging Flashback: Frozen (2010)

R, 1 hr. 34 min. Directed by: Adam Green. Release Date: Feb 05, 2010. DVD Release Date: Sep 28, 2010.

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

Jaws and Open Water keep me out of the ocean, Frozen is keeping me off the slopes.  Seriously.  I already hate the damned ocean because of all the sharks lurking that you can't see.  I once read somewhere that the average beach swimmer has had a few hundred large sharks within 8 feet of them in their life time.  I get that they don't seem to particularly LIKE the taste of human.  We're too bony, and most of us don't have enough fat on us to be more than, well, a sushi appetizer, but still.  Forget that noise.  Now, I don't want to go skiing any time soon.

I've talked about the double-edge of movies that shoot entirely in a small location. If they're done well, or even adequately, you get something like Phone Booth, where it all vaguely seems to work and it really feels like you're a part of the crisis (no matter how silly the crisis is). If it's done poorly, like in Devil, you want the movie to end. Quickly.  I thought that the progression of events in this small space was well done, and the survival elements helped to keep me focused on the story, rather than on the setting.

Frozen starts a little slow. I was actually looking at my watch until I saw the actual set-up unfold. From there, I thought this might be a realistic portrayal of something that must have crossed the mind of every skier. What happens if I get stuck up here? There's been an increasing trend in thrillers and even in horror movies in the last few years to address certain fears that come across the mind of most rational people. I think it makes for something a little more interesting and creates a product that more easily engages the audience. 


I really enjoyed the cast here. I like Shawn Ashmore in almost everything he does, but I ready for him to stop playing teenagers. He's only two years younger than me. It's time he started taking on more serious roles, roles where he might actually acknowledge that he's older than 30, although that might require that he visits ye olde weight room at some point in time. I also tend to like Kevin Zegers, although admittedly, every time I see him he reminds me of someone, and I can't place who it is… so I spend at least a portion of the movie trying to figure it out. I could see myself buying this on DVD on a whim, but it probably wouldn't be for full price.


Wolves? Where are these guys supposed to be in the United States where they run across a frigging pack of wolves? Far as I know, the only place they exist in the wild is Yellowstone, and I got the strong impression that these guys were in California, although I can't remember what prompted that.

I picked this up on a recommendation from one of my MBA classmates, and it is definitely worth watching, a rarity among straight-to-vid features. 

100 Classic Movies #49: The Apartment (1960)

Unrated, 2 hr. 5 min.  Directed By:  Billy Wilder.  Release Date:  Jun 15, 1960.  DVD  Release Date:  Jun 19, 2001.

About fifteen minutes in to The Apartment I started digging for my Netflix envelope to see when it was made.  The black and white imagery immediately made me think 1950s, but the, erm, behavior of the businessmen and women made me think that either someone was having Peyton Place flashbacks, or that America had hit the sexual revolution at this was the 1960s.  I leaned more towards the 60s also because Marilyn Monroe wasn’t cast, and she was in ALL the inappropriate movies of the day.

I’m not sure what to think of Lemmon’s C.C. Baxter.  On the one hand, I hate him a little for his inherent weakness.  He won’t stand up to his bosses, despite some discourtesy that should have bordered on the criminal.  Baxter was helping five men commit adultery.  He held the winning hand and wouldn’t use it.  Pitiful.  Then, enter Maclaine (a frighteningly young Maclaine) as Ms. Kubelik, she’s beautiful, but approachable, and he falls for her, but refuses to engage.  It would be decades before the word “game” could be applied to this situation from a linguistic context, but ole Bax sorely needs some.  He gets pushed around by his landlady and his neighbors and seems to accept it with a chagrined smile.  On the other hand, Baxter IS a good guy, perhaps the archetype behind the concept that nice guys finish last. 

I liked this movie.  A lot.  It has an American culture that’s so far removed from our modern one that I hardly recognize it.  Casual wear for men includes hats and ties.  Women wear hats, furs, and tons of jewelry.  The approach to marriage is flippant, seen as a duty, rather than something… sacred.  No wait, that I recognized.  Address between people is formal, using Mr., Mrs., or Ms., or just last names.  But I found it endearing, even though those people were incredibly uptight, at least by my standards.

I really don’t have a single complaint about this movie, and I love, love LOVE the chance to see these folks that I know as actors in their sixties, if not older, back when they were so very young.  It was a bit strange, though, not seeing Shirley Maclaine with what I think of as dyed red tresses, although the hair is fairly similar.  It was the hair style that actually made me realize that I was looking at a much younger version of the Shirley Maclaine I was familiar with.

The Apartment is great and lighthearted, something that you can use to pass the time, but I bet you’ll start to get engrossed by the characters.  They’re too interesting to pass on.  If you haven’t seen this movie and are interested at all in this classics, this one should make your list.

Chernobyl Diaries (2012)

R, 1 hr. 30 min.  Directed By:  Bradley Parker.  Release Date:  May 25, 2012.

Ees goot idea to make scary movie at Chernobyl site, da?  Nyet.

I’m going to start this by saying that I actually thought there were a few VERY scary scenes in this movie.  The early scenes in Priviet once everyone knows that they’re in the very deepest of kim chi and we learn that something is not quite kosher are… tense.  After that, horror’s traditional cross to bear (bad acting) slips the whole movie a serious dose of roofies and we’re off on a dull ride where I occasionally laugh at other peoples’ grief.  Because the "grief" scenes were comedy gold.  If you're going to write this kind of horror, you need to make sure that you don't scrape your cast out of the gutter.  Just sayin'.  You need people who can actually emote.

 

But, here are my problems with this movie:

  

1. “Running up the stairs when your ass should be running out the door” syndrome in tandem with “hey, let’s go explore that spooky noise in this dark place where people have already been brutally killed”-itis.  Modern horror DEPENDS on people being okay with folks in odd situations making stupid, rather than rational, decisions.  There’s too much of that in Chernobyl Diaries, beginning with a Ukrainian special forces agent going out, alone, into the dark, which he knows isn’t safe, armed with only a handgun… and possibly Jesse McCarthy as some sort of blunt instrument.  Heading downstairs (and below ground) when you’re running for your life is also stupid, especially when the camera turns and we can see the frigging front door.  Even the Scooby gang could have figured out that their asses needed to stay in the car until dawn, then haul ass out.
2. If your target audience, is 15, why did you pick Chernobyl?  I’m (mumble) 35, and I’m only BARELY old enough to remember the nuclear catastrophe that sent most of the planet into a tail spin to find alternate energy solutions to nuclear fuel.  The idiot sitting in front of me had the Wikipedia Chernobyl page up on her phone for half the movie after her friend asked, and I quote, “where in the hell are all the places?  The Middle East?”  There are few times when I’m not proud to be an American, but that was one. 
3. Create monsters, but don’t give them a really solid origin (or back) story.  Come on.  I.  DARE.  YOU.  I’m still not sure how these “monsters” appeared.  My original impression that they were ghosts was clearly wrong, but other than that, I’m stumped.  Mutants, zombies, some combination therein?  Meh, I don't care.
4. Scotty’s dead, so let’s beam people up without him.  Admittedly, I got up to pee in the middle of the movie, but somehow, in a Quake kind of way, these kids managed to cross the several miles between Priviet and Cher-noh-biil Re-ahk-tohr Four without leaving a building, although the land between the two was a big ass meadow. 
5. I get it, humans aren’t the apex predator anywhere.  We’re weak, and kind of dumb, especially in groups.  There is no place where we’re (technically) speaking, the top of the food chain.  Stop reminding me I can be reincarnated as something else’s bowel movement.  Please.

They get a mid-range C for a few decent scares and an attempt to build suspense.  They failed at everything else.  Oh, yeah, and I’m docking points for making me think that Jesse McCarthy was one of the kids from Malcolm in the Middle… not sure why, but I spent half the movie thinking it.  I think it was the hair.  I'm thinking every Russian on the planet is saying Bozhe moi. 

100 Classic Movies #48: City Lights (1931)

G, 1 hr. 30 min.  Directed By:  Charles Chaplin.  Release Date:  Jan 1, 1931.  DVD Release Date:  Feb 8, 2000.

I’d never seen a Charlie Chaplin movie before, or at least, I don’t remember ever having seen one.  I was familiar with the Tramp, mostly because the character’s so iconic that I’d have to be totally blind to have missed it in my wandering through the world of movies.  I was expecting something quirky, with themes so classic that people could still rave about this movie more than 80 years after its initial release.

Think about that for a minute.  80 years later and people still fall in love with this movie.  I’m going to admit I wasn’t (exactly) one of them.  Some of what we see in this tale is straight out of Shakespeare, the themes are so classic.  The actors are top notch, and I absolutely love Virginia Cherrill’s face when she’s supposed to be giving us her “blue steel” of disbelief expression.  It’s what I started to call her “whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Willis?” face and it was awesome.  I was surprised that I thought this movie was as funny as it was, but for me, at the end of the day, the comedy was slapstick, which is one of the lower forms of comedy as far as I’m concerned.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still head and shoulders above the slapstick that appears these days, but I wish some of the comedy had come from the dialogue cards. 

So, I did like this movie, but I didn’t love it, and I wonder if the early scenes had something to do with it.  That scene where there’s a speech going on and rather than remain a silent film, Mr. Chaplin elected to do something not unlike Charlie Brown’s teacher every time someone spoke into a microphone, which was often and at length.  I was moderately annoyed by the time the scene was over, even though I laughed at the antics that followed.  

City Lights isn’t just funny, however.  It’s also a very sweet story of mistaken identity that reminds me of Shakespeare’s plays, but I’m not sure exactly why or which ones.   Thematically, it just seemed similar.  I can tell you that the sacrifices that the Tramp goes through in order to make life better for the blind girl reminded me (a little) of both Romeo and Juliet and O. Henry’s Gift of the Magi, especially considering what happens at the end. 

I’m glad I had this added to my list.  City Lights is an outstanding film, but for whatever reason, it didn’t speak to me like I thought it would.  I think it’s well above the average (particularly if you’re looking at modern movie releases), and has a story with themes that humans have loved for centuries.  It’s entry on any list of classic movies worth watching is a definite given. 

Blogging Flashback: Murder On the Orient Express (1974)

PG, 2 hr. 7 min. Directed by: Sidney Lumet . Release Date: Nov 22, 1974. DVD Release Date: Sep 07, 2004.


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

Like many of the works that sprang from the mind of the great Ms. Christie, this is dated, but still enjoyable.  I don't necessarily think that "dated" is a terrible thing, but I do think that with the right cast, this could be remade and still be enjoyable. 

A lot of the problems that are built in to this movie come from its inspiration, which is arguably one of the best examples of British mystery writing EVER. If I was watching this in 1974, I'd have fewer negative responses, but here's what I picked up that I found moderately disturbing: the treatment of non-white characters, even extras, is pretty abysmal. There's a whole discussion about "little brown babies" that is so filled with white man's burden-esque issues that I'm thinking it would have had to be edited when they redid this for TV in the early 00s. Agatha Christie has her own formula, and once you figure it out, you can ruin something unfamiliar for yourself (and others, if you happen to watching this with someone else). Numbers are a common thing in her works: Three, Three Blind Mice, Ten Little Indians (which was renamed at least once before its name was changed to And Then There Were None to avoid censure from PC militias with their usual 20/20 hindsight) and this is no exception. There also is some discussion of the "justifiable" homicide, which I think went out of the legal defense book in this country maybe 50 years ago. It was a bit uncomfortable to watch. My final complaint was why Wendy Miller's character (the princess) constantly looked like her milliner was raiding sets from The Birds in order to get her done up.

I did love this movie though, despite the occasionally awful things that people would say because of the wonderful time warp that movies can create around us. Watching some very familiar faces at the top of their game was great. At this point in time, for instance, Vanessa Redgrave looks eerily like her daughter, Joely Richardson. Jacqueline Bisset and Ingrid Bergman both give really great performances, and these are actors that we rarely hear about. But really, this ensemble cast would have been a tour de force back in the day.

The story is an amazing whodunit of the type we rarely see in the modern era. There are a number of red herrings, including some that turn out to be not red herrings, and truth be told, I missed a few. There is a large portion of this movie where I didn't have a clue. There's even a clue that when it was presented, I was griping about why someone would think they could suspend disbelief to that extent and had thrown it away as just a coincidence when it turned out to be vital. So, I guess you could say that when I finally got a clue, it turned out to be mostly wrong. This is the kind of film M. Night Shyamalan should be watching if he wants to produce anything of real quality after… Signs. I'll give him that.

100 Classic Movies #47: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

PG, 1 hr. 42 min.  Directed By:  Michael Curtiz, Alan Hale.  Release Date:  May 14, 1938.  DVD Release Date:  Sep 30, 2003.

I’m beginning to think that there isn’t anything Errol Flynn might have done in his life that I wouldn’t be a fan of.  I have to respect a man that brings a sort of pre-Jack Sparrow flair to swashbuckling that is both fun and totally unapologetic.  I said after I watched Captain Blood that I knew where Johnny Depp got his inspiration for Jack Sparrow, but I’m betting that there’s a little bit of ALL of Errol Flynn’s characters in ole Cap’n Jack. 

But it isn’t just Johnny Depp that borrowed from this movie.  Just about every Robin Hood movie I’ve ever seen borrowed heavily from this movie.  Prince of Thieves mirrors it about 80% of the time, and Disney’s version of Robin Hood was so closely influenced by this classic that I have no doubt why Prince John was drawn as a sniveling lion, and Robin Hood as a preening fox.  They even took Robin’s costume in the archery contest DIRECTLY from this movie.  When I saw Flynn appear in the costume, I immediately looked at his legs to see if he was walking on stilts like the “Spindle-Legged Stork” of Yorkshire or wherever. 

I am; however, beginning to think that no matter how ridiculous the role, that Flynn’s roles are always so beguiling charming that I’ll root for them regardless of the cause.  It might just be truth.  It’s certainly been the pattern to date.  I always like Flynn’s characters, even when I’m groaning a little inside at his wink wink, nudge nudge routine.  He’s funny without feeling like you’ve gotten strafed by a Jim Carrey routine, and the movies are so family friendly that the kids will love this stuff, although I’m betting you’ll hear comments about the weird clothes and people “talking funny.”  Even accounting for the “British” English the speech patterns are odd, but I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be.

I don’t have much to complain about.  I love seeing a movie like this, that’s a classic for a reason, and that is also vaguely familiar because it’s influenced and inspired so many other movies that I’ve liked over the years.  Granted the inspiration tale isn’t exactly foreign, but it’s very cool seeing a much older (and in many ways, better) version of movies I’m familiar with.  I also have to respect how comfortable these guys were with being this goofy.   Not for the first time, I wish more movies of this sword and swashbuckler type were not only being made, but were uncorrupted by The Matrix.   

Blogging Flashback: Teen Wolf (1985)

PG, 1 hr. 32 min. Directed By:  Rod Daniel.  Release Date:  Aug 23, 1985.


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

I saw this on Netflix Watch Instantly last night and had to watch it. I had never seen the movie before, although I'm pretty sure that I saw the sequel when it was released to video. I expected something iconic for the 80s as I remember them, and in that I was not disappointed. This is the prime example of the teenage underdog movie that seemed to thrive back in the day. It was a fun hour and a half, with wholesome teenaged antics and insanity with few of the pressures that taint the modern teen movie

One of the things I genuinely like (usually) about 80s movies is the music. Most of it manages to invoke a wave of nostalgia that few other things can even attempt. This was not the case in Teen Wolf. The music nearly from start to finish was abysmal, most of it was probably produced just for the movie, since they were able to find quite a few wolf-themed songs that did not include Hungry Like the Wolf.

The other thing that struck me in this movie is how tiny Michael J. Fox was/is. I suspect not much has changed in the intervening years, and with his illness, he may still be built the way he was then. They only managed one shorter cast member, and he was supposed to be several years younger than everyone else. That aside, this was a neat look back at a few familiar names and faces.

100 Classic Movies #46 - La Strada (1954)

PG, 1 hr. 55 min.  Directed By:  Federico Fellini.  Release Date:   Sep 6, 1954.  DVD Release Date:  Nov 18, 2003.

One of my favorite things about this exploration of the classics is that it’s making me rethink my preconceptions.  I think I’ve written before that my thoughts on classic foreign films was they were sort of high on drama and random imagery… and a little bit of nonsense, some cultural interplay that I generally regarded as folly.  There were a lot of foreign films suggested when I asked for help from my readers, and I’ve found that while there are occasional parts of these movies that match my misperception, many of these movies are well, brilliant.  It’s not just people pensively smoking, or scenes where balloons float lazily through city streets. 

La Strada, for instance, has none of that kind of stuff, although there was some of that in the other Fellini film I’ve watched for this project, 8 ½.  It has some truly terrible moments:  Gelsomina is a “girl” (although clearly Giuletta Masina has long since left girlhood behind) who is a free spirit, and who may have some sort of mild mental condition.  Not Down’s, but something’s going on in that head that isn’t quite normal.  She’s sold into servitude to Anthony Quinn, who immediately begins to train her to support his strongman act, and refers to her as his wife.  I’m not sure if he says that to make it more socially acceptable for them to be living, working and sleeping in the close conditions of his motorcycle-driven cart, or if something else was supposed to be going on, but their relationship was dysfunctionally tempestuous enough that I sort of doubt it… and Quinn’s Zampano was a bit of a skirt chaser, usually doing so with Gelsomina sitting right next to him.

The story is tragic, and I’m not sure how I feel about it.  It’s tragic, but it doesn’t seem to really go anywhere, and it’s possible that Gelsomina’s inherent strangeness is part of the problem.  She seems like a nice, simple girl who gets treated poorly for her entire on camera life.  When her journey on the strada ends, it doesn’t seem like anything has really changed.  In keeping with my preconception of foreign classics, there is no happy ending here, although I do think it’s interesting to note that several lessons are learned by the characters, and not in the ways you might expect.

This is worth watching, if for no other reason than it’s a very unique take on story telling for a movie.  It has some great characters, although I’m wondering how much of the dialogue was dubbed.  It always seems like several of the characters mouth movements don’t match what they’re actually saying, and for sure the girl singing toward the end of the film is dubbed, because you can hear the click of the recording start in.

Blogging Flashback: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009)

PG-13, 1 hr. 40 min.  Directed by: Mark Waters. Release Date: May 01, 2009.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH ADDITIONAL EDITS AND COMMENTS****


Containing nearly ZERO original content, this movie managed to be occasionally funny, and certainly showed some hope at what a healthy relationship between brothers should be like, but I don't know that I'd call this romantic.  Since I don't particularly love any of the cast members except for Emma Stone, I don't know that I've very objective, either.

Basically what we have here is the same cookie cutter romantic comedy formula that Matthew McConnaughey has been dishing out for at least a decade now. Throw in your random hot chick of the moment, although I'm not sure this Skeletor look that Jennifer Garner has going on right now makes her count, and you have instant crap soup. Merge that crap soup with a literary classic and you get... literary crap soup.  I was trying for something funnier and then I decided that I just didn't care enough.  Sorry.

But, even crap soup can make you laugh if someone falls into it. And, that happened pretty regularly thanks to an AMAZING supporting cast that included Michael Douglas, Emma Stone and Noureen DeWulf.  Sadly, they had to combat the marriage from hell between Breckin Meyer, who really, really should just stay on Robot Chicken, and Lacey Chabert. I get it. She has breasts now and isn't the little sister from Party of Five. It's not that interesting and she inevitably plays a freaking psycho. Not hot.  As an aside, its been a few years, and Lacey Chabert STILL plays only psychos.

From a male perspective, there was little romance here... either that, or the double X chromosome has a widely different perspective of romance than I do. In fact, this movie is the stuff that at least 90% of all male "game" is based on. But millions of people can't be wrong. Oh yeah, they can. Clinton got TWO terms in orifice... I mean office. 

100 Classic Movies #45 - Ace in the Hole (1951)

Unrated, 1 hr. 51 min.  Directed By:  Billy Wilder.  Release Date:  Oct 19, 1951.  DVD Release Date:  Jul 17, 2007.

This is one of a relatively few suggestions that appeared multiple times on recommendations from my readers.  Even fewer of the films suggested were like this one, where not only did it appear multiple times, but I’d never even heard whisper of this movie.  I knew nothing about it, and it wasn’t until I hit the play button on my PS3 controller that I learned Kirk Douglas was in this movie, too.   Perhaps, because of my age, I don’t have much of an opinion of Kirk Douglas.  Until April, I’d only seen him in one movies.  I think it was called Tough Guys, and he played a con who’d spent most of his life in jail and was being released into 1980s society.  I thought then that the character played by Douglas was kind of a tool, and at some point, someone told me most of Douglas’ characters were like that.

Basically, I’d written him off.  Even back when I wrote about Spartacus earlier this month, I hadn’t been expecting a whole lot.  But, with Ace in the Hole, I’m realizing that it takes a lot to play a character that people are going to hate because they’re supposed to hate him.  In fact, we’re supposed to LOVE to hate him, and this story makes it more than a little easy.  It takes a lot of talent to play a character like this, who would be so perfectly at home in the modern day that it’s almost startling.  I realized a little belatedly that I’ve been dodging Douglas movies for the better part of 30 years because of the parts he played, and those parts took more effort than I would ever have given him credit for, so I’ll be less likely to take a pass on him in the future, and I suspect I do the same thing to Clint Eastwood, so I need to take stock.

One of my complaints about the classics as a group is how few of them actually hold up well over the decades.  It’s sometimes hard to feel like the movies are realistic in situations that just wouldn’t occur in modern day.  Ace in the Hole doesn’t have that problem.  Douchebaggery, like hope, springs eternal in the human breast.  You could find another Charles Tatum (Douglas) probably within half a mile of your front door.  You might actually find more than one.  In that particular way, this movie was decades ahead of its time.  Most of the characters we see here fit in better today than they would have in the 50s.  What’s clear is that Billy Wilder, the director and one of the screenwriters of this movie, had a REAL good line on what people are really like.  He and Sartre had that in common.

This isn’t really a great movie.  It has a lot of flaws that seem to center around the lulls in action.  There are a lot of characters and dialogue that seems to exist merely to fill in the gaps between the juicier scenes, and that’s not a great filmmaking or storytelling.  But it’s enjoyable, and I’m really, really amazed by how easily I could see this being a modern film. 

Blogging Flashback: The Wrestler (2008)

R, 1 hr. 45 min. Directed by: Darren Aronofsky. Release Date: Sep 05, 2008. DVD Release Date: Apr 21, 2009.

****REPOSTED FROM THE LATE LATE SHOW WITH ADDITIONAL EDITS AND COMMENTS****

Johnny used to work on the docks. Union went on strike. He's down on his luck... it's tough, so tough. 

While I blatantly stole that from Bon Jovi's Prayer '94, it's really the best way to sum this up. The film is the depiction of the train wreck this guy's made of his own life. Actually, I suspect that there's some of Mickey Rourke's actual life mixed into this. It has too many of the same parallels not to be intentional. While it was interesting to watch these parallels, the story was a bit dull. 

Depressing and morose in the same way that Pursuit of Happyness was depressing and morose, we never qet the happy ending that Will Smith gives us, though. Despite this, or maybe because of this, you have to like Randy "The Ram." He's an anachronism, completely lost in the mid-80s, stuck in a world that would have despised political correctness or the concept that sexual harassment might be a bad thing. He's worked his whole life and has never managed to get ahead in any way: not his family, not financially, and not in his professional life. Much like Johnny, Randy is very down on his luck. Still he's likable, no matter what he does, and a lot of what he does is a little creepy. 

I will say that Mickey Rourke was incredible here. This has to be the best performance of his career, not that that's saying a whole lot. He really did deserve all the hype at the February 2009 awards season, and I'm not sure that I think Sean Penn was the best choice for his performance in Milk. The two women in his life: Evan Rachel Wood as his daughter Stephanie, and Marissa Tomei as his love interest slash stalking victim made for a great triad of performances.

Crooked Arrows (2012)

PG-13, 1 hr. 40 min.  Directed By:  Steve Rash.  Release Date:  May 18, 2012.

I walked in to this with a bad attitude.  I was hot, sweaty, and I have a burning hatred for Brandon Routh that should probably send me to therapy.  I know nothing about lacrosse… well, about the manner of play.  I knew that this was originally played by Native Americans and when I think of it now, I mostly think of upper-middle and middle class white kids in private or prep school leagues playing it.

So know that when I say that I loved this movie, it had a very long way to go.  The cast isn’t great, but I did manage not to hate Brandon Routh.  Not only wasn’t his character a total d-bag, when itself is a total feat, but I didn’t spend the whole movie painfully aware that he was acting.  It’s a career turning moment for a guy who’s spent most of his career as a joke, well, at least within the pages of this blog.  I know that I’ve actively gone looking for his work on Netflix when I’m in a bad mood and need to be mean to someone.

There’s not a single thing original about this with the possible exception of the fact that it’s about football, and not baseball, football or soccer.  More or less, if you’ve ever seen a sports underdog movie, you’ve seen this one.  But, and this is a big but, Broken Arrows throws a bunch of Native Indian (I hate the term Native American, since technically, they immigrated here, too, they just got the land bridge before the rest of us figured out how to get here by sea) culture at us, and it didn’t feel fluffed up.  If the culture was fiction, there’s a nugget of truth in there somewhere, and I for one totally dug it.  I actually plan on hitting up the lacrosse Wikipedia entry at some point in the future in order to get a better historical and cultural perspective.  It’s a very rare thing when a movie gets me in the research move.

This isn’t entirely family friendly.  Probably your tweens and up can handle it.  There’s no swearing, but there are a few situations which could be uncomfy with younger kids in tow.  If you like lacrosse, or played lacrosse once upon a time, you’ll probably love this (and if so, send me a line, I’d like to learn more about the game). 

This won’t win any awards, and it won’t be my favorite movie of the summer, but this is a movie you might not have heard of that you might want to take the time to see.

100 Classic Movies #44 - The Music Room (1958)

Unrated, 1 hr. 35 min.  Directed By:  Satyajit Ray.  Release Date:  Aug 1, 1958.  DVD  Release Date:  Jul 19, 2011.

During May, I’ll watch quite a few of the total foreign films that were suggested by my readers when I took on this exploration of classic films.  Truth, I’m a little tired of subtitles at this point, but I’m still ready to keep going.  Jalsaghar (The Music Room) is the first Indian made movie I’ve ever watched, unless you count Slumdog Millionaire or Monsoon Wedding, and I’m pretty sure I don’t.  It was not what I was expecting.  There wasn’t any dancing for one.  I had also forgotten that the social and economic changes that I see in modern Indian films were just really beginning at this point in history, which is kind of the point of the story.

It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a movie that made me hit the internet to learn more about something within the story.  In this case, I wanted to know about the zamindar and their relationship to the steadily decaying caste system in India.  What I think is that this tale outlines the beginning of the blurring lines of the castes within India.  We watch Roy, a noble who is no longer wealthy, have to bargain with someone FAR below him on the karmic scale, because that person has made wealth through savvy business dealings.  We watch how the reaction to his loss of place in the Indian society is to retract from it, rather than adapt, which I thought was an interesting approach.

So basically, after the movie was over, I spent about two hours reading about the zamindar and the caste system in India, making sure what I knew (or thought I knew) was current.   The good news is that my college education wasn’t a total waste and most of what I thought I knew seems to match up with what the internet thinks it knows.  I’m going to take that as a good thing, even though I know I shouldn’t be exactly quoting the internet.  I thought it was interesting watching the concept of “face” come under such scrutiny.  Roy is wealthy in property, but cash poor, and squanders what’s left of his money so that his appearance as a zamindar noble is intact.  It even costs him his family. 

While I enjoyed this movie, I wondered a little bit at the technical aspects of the film:  the movie is grainy and… “spotted,” making me think the movie was about twenty years older than it really was.  I also found the logo stamped onto the upper right corner of the screen to be distracting, although it is possible that THIS is where the networks got that stupid idea.  Like we need to be reminded of what we’re watching all the time.

Other than that, I thought this was a wonderfully interesting movie.  Not really fun, but a good watch.

Battleship (2012)

PG-13, 2 hr. 10 min.  Directed By:  Peter Berg.  Release Date:  May 18, 2012.,

This is going to be a long post.  Battleship created an internal debate the likes of which I haven’t seen in a very long while, and before the movie was over, I felt like those two old guys from the Muppets, which is not a look (or feel) I’d want to keep.  It was better than I’d thought it would be, but not as good as I would have liked, and I’m not entirely sure I “liked” the movie, although there were parts I thought were great.  I’m going to split this into two mini-reviews:  the first my head reaction, the second my gut, because my responses were wildly conflicting, and I feel the need to explain why. 

So, without further ado:

MAH HEAD 

If you are a “film snob,” a fan of fine acting, melodrama, well-crafted story lines or plots, have ever served in the United States Navy, or wanted this to actually have something to do with Hasbro game outside of a fifteen minutes of action, then you’ll want to avoid this like they’re giving away the herp free with your ticket purchase.

I’ve coined the term “fawful” using the same hybridization that birthed “fugly,” and fawful is the word to describe the entire cast.  Taylor Kitch, Kirshc, Kutcher, whatever his name is very obviously more comfortable with those roles where he can talk about his abs.  Rihanna spends the entire movie running and mugging the camera in the same way she does on her album covers.  We all know (except possibly for Chris Brown) that she thinks she’s a badass, and it’s already way played out.  Even Liam Neeson, who has only a few intermittent minutes of screen time is terrible, barely trying to have an “American” accent.  I kept flashing back to that Family Guy cut scene where he uses words like “fortnight” and “meter.”

If you’ve been in the Navy, even if you were (like me) a concrete Sailor, you’ll realize there’s a whole lot about the shipboard operations that was off.  You realize that someone like the younger Hopper brother doesn’t get arrested for B&E and end up an officer in a few weeks, no matter what else is in his background.  You also realize that he’s looking at something like three to five years of service before he picks up his train tracks.  The movie makes it seem like he just appeared as a full lieutenant, which was ultimate fail.

The special effects, both the pyrotechnics and the “alien” tech are pretty awesome.  The combat sequences are better than I would have hoped for given the inspiration.  The aliens themselves were terrible.  They were somehow too human, even though they were only humanoid.  I also have to wonder why a people who are photosensitive would be incapable of making technology that didn’t generate so much light.  A winning choice was also made to not take this movie so seriously.  The first 20 minutes or so are hysterical, and the dialogue helps the cast poke fun at the movie throughout.  There was even a "you sank my battleship reference" in addition to the one I shouted out about thirty minutes in.

MAH GUT

 It was nice to see both the military and the VA painted in a positive light.  It’s been a few years since we’ve seen either body portrayed with its successes in mind, rather than its failure.  I didn’t love my six years of service, but I do believe in the mission, and I think we get so caught up in bringing out the worst of our fighting men and women that we sometimes forget about the fact that they risk their lives for us when the need arises.

I’m a secret patriot, despite my country’s flaws, I love it.  I’ve said that before.  This movie shows us at our idealistic best.  I got all emotional a couple of times, the first one being when the vets show up.  I do LOVE those old guys who can talk about WWII and Korea.   I was also pretty happy to see that they didn’t make light of the… “VFW” style of veterans that we see around; the ones who still wear the wedge cap and their old uniforms.  I suddenly wish I had enjoyed my time in enough to keep a uniform (I always did like the working dress whites), and I also wish they hadn’t waited until the year after I separated to make cammies the new working uniforms.  D’OH!

OVERALL

 Battleship has some great moments, but it isn’t a great movie.  It might be fun for the kids, but note that there’s a LOT of violence, and a lot of aliens stalking up on humans, determining if they’re going to be killed or not.  Use your best judgment. 

What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

PG-13, 1 hr. 50 min.  Directed By:  Kirk Jones.  Release Date:  May 18, 2012.

****Image removed at request of owner.  So much for Fair Use.****

I remember when this book was new.  Well, maybe it wasn’t new, but I remember when it started becoming a big deal in the 90s.  I remember because, at the time, I worked at a Barnes and Noble in Cupertino, California and What to Expect When You’re Expecting  went from something I’d never heard of to being a book I saw in ever shopper’s arms and on every special request ticket for like a couple years.  I’m not a father (that I know of), so I’ve never had any reason to read through these pages, but I’m left wondering how that book inspired the movie I just saw.

I’m going to say that I had a “faintly positive” impression of What to Expect.  I absolutely LOVED “the dudes” when they appeared on screen, which was all too infrequently, and I think the J.Lo story line could have been its own (and better) movie.  There were occasional laughs, and I think that movie adequately covered the gamut of symptoms of pregnancy as well as… the range of events that can happen when you’ve got a bun in the oven, but again, I don’t have firsthand experience.  Most of what I know is anecdotal at best, so I’m kind of winging my thoughts on the subject.

I think the cast was… mildly amusing and selected with an eye at box office revenue rather than on the skill sets.  Some of the couples were clearly more suited for each other than others (watching a superbuff Cam Diaz with Matt Morrison was pretty funny, but I could actually see Elizabeth Banks and her husband as a real couple). 

This isn’t a well-made movie, but I think it’s entertaining enough.  The cast is enjoyable, but I would have been happier with fewer people to keep track of… I’m just not sure how they would have done that without tanking either the product or the story line.  But that’s probably why I don’t work in Hollywood.

So I’m not sure I’d recommend anyone run out and see this… but maybe a matinee.