Gone, Baby -- Gone

So, I know J-Man has already reviewed Gone, but I've decided I'm going to post a lot more reviews this year as well.  I mean, my posts can't be strictly rants all the time, can they?  Though don't be surprised if my reviews end up being rants, but hey...what are you going to do?


So, went and saw Gone this week, not a movie I was particularly dying to see.  However, it had Amanda Seyfried in it, who is easy on the eyes.  Well, she's more than easy on the eyes, now.  She actually carries the movie and I gotta say, this young lady deserves some credit for her movies.  Now, before I begin, let me say I did a little research of Amanda Seyfried on Rotten Tomatoes, where critics go to throw out their proverbial chests and prove over and over again that if there's a war, they should be the first ones thrown into the front of the line, without any weapons to defend themselves.  They should be given the flags like those guys you see in old movies, y'know, the ones who get shot first because they have A FLAG to defend themselves with and not a gun.  Anyhow Rotten Tomatoes has shown that over Amanda Seyfried's career, she has only been in 2, count'em 2 movies rated "fresh" -- Mean Girls and some movie called Nine Lives that made 10 cents at the box office.


Now...really?  I mean, I wasn't a big fan of Mamma Mia, Jennifer's Body looked kinda eh, Dear John looked like drivel, Letters to Juliet WAS drivel, and Red Riding Hood looked meh.  However, Chloe looked somewhat interesting and In Time was actually pretty damned good.  Oh, and the lowest rated movie of her career?


Gone. 


Wow.  Look, it didn't look like any hell in the trailers, but when I saw this movie the theatre and gave it a chance, you know what?  It's pretty good!  Yes, it's a genre flick and it's not going to be innovative, the concept is not new and it's not going to win any Oscars, probably.  However, not every film is meant to be best picture, which I think is a point everyone misses.  Gone may be a genre flick, but it's probably one of the best of its genre.  The reason is a) Amanda Seyfried has real screen presence and b) they're smart by playing on the character's strength instead of weakness.  Most movies like this, the main character flails from one situation to the other, reacting to events around her rather than being the driving force of the plot.  Amanda Seyfried's character in this is no victim, which you may think from the trailers...she is a tough-as-nails, take no prisoners girl who stays one step ahead of the police while following the trail of clues logically to the climax.


I also like that the bad guy in this movie was just a guy.  Not a main character in the movie, not someone close to her who is secretly behind it, it's just a guy.  I remember a movie called January Man, at the end, they find the serial killer and Harvey Keitel says "who is he" and Kevin Kline says "nobody. That's the problem.  He's just a guy."  I like that.  I like that "it's just a guy, just some normal everyday guy who kidnaps and kills girls because."  There's too many movies where you have to go into some deep psychological hole in order to understand the motives of the killer, because I guess we feel if we have a handle on the killer, we have some control over them.  It's better if it's just a guy killing and you don't know why -- that's true horror because you don't understand the motivations, it makes things a lot less predictable. 


So in the end, this was a pretty good movie, as J-Man said.  I will definitely be picking this one up on DVD and if you don't want to pay full price to see it, then fine, but check it out through home video, because if you don't, you'll be missing out. 


Rating: 3.5 out of 5.


- Stephenstein

Generic House

Look at that poster.  Isn't that pumped?  I mean, it's not on the grandeur of say, Star Wars or that Nicole Kidman poster from Batman Forever...yeah...that was great...she was in prime form for that...yeah...where was I?  Oh yeah, the poster.  So you have Denzel Washington looking relaxed.  Can you stand it?  Isn't it awesome?  If you say no, then I'm going to disappoint you because this is the only good thing in Safe House.  This poster.  At least Denzel is great.  The movie is not.


My problems with this movie are two-fold.  1 is the camerawork.  The other is the plot.  I will address them in order.


1: If I were thinking of a letter to describe the camerawork for the movie, I would give it an S.  S for Shakycam.  S for sucks.  S for shitty.  It's terrible.  The camera is never locked down.  Ever.  The camera floats around like a rubber ducky in a bathtub, when you've pulled the plug and its hit that swirl just before going down the drain.  Action scenes where you can't see who hit who.  Monologue scenes where I ended up with Denzel's right eye in the upper frame.  Quite frankly, I haven't seen many shakycam movies lately...well, I got my fill with this one.  It's shot "realistically"...meaning grainy and shaky.  Haywire was shot with realism and I didn't feel like I was on a rollercoaster.  I'm surprised it wasn't shot on video.  In any case, it blows with a capital S.


2: The plot.  Now, if you have never seen a thriller, especially an espionage thriller, than you may be enthralled with this movie.  That would pretty much be your only excuse for liking the plot.  The yahoos over on JoBlo gave this 7 out of 10.  Guess they proved how many of these movies they've seen.  Then again, the entire filmography those guys have seen are The Talented Mr. Ripley, Brazil and The Departed, so, don't worry, they're experts...if the meaning of expert has changed to IQ lower than shorts size.  I can't believe they gave this movie a seven.  It's that bad. 


To put in plainly, this is the most generic thriller I have ever seen.  I saw a character show up, I thought "this is the guy behind the whole thing."  I saw Denzel and I'm like "he's not really bad"  I saw Vera Farmiga and I thought "she's going to be the tough one, and you're going to think she's behind it all, but she's really not, and the real bad guy is going to take her out to a secluded area and kill her and we're supposed to be all shocked."  All of this literally happened, verbatim to how it happened.  Everything you think will happen, happened.  There is no surprises, no interesting plot developments, nothing to stand out.  This is Hollywood paint-by-the-numbers at its most obvious.  "Hey, I bet in this scene, Denzel gets away from Ryan Reynolds!"  "Hey, I bet they're going to team up in the next scene!"  "Hey, I bet in this scene, the bad guy becomes Mr. Exposition and reveals all!"  "Wow, the CIA is corrupt, who would have thought that?"  That was the entire movie.  It was literally, take a beginning screenplay course for 13 year-olds and it's this movie. 


I may come off like I'm pissed off at this movie.  I'm not.  It's too bland, too vanilla, too generic to be mad.  I just can't believe that JoBlo gave this movie 7 out of 10.  I can't believe Rotten Tomatoes rated this movie higher than a movie like Sucker Punch.  I can't.  It's too ludicrous.  Maybe they were excited that Ryan Reynolds got through a movie without one wisecrack?  I can't explain it, it's too unbelievable.  This movie has been done 1,000,000 times before.  If this was the first thriller ever made about spies and CIA agents, I could understand it.  That's not the case, though.  


So, do yourself a favour.  See any other thriller than this, unless you want a crash coarse on this particular genre.  For those who have a larger movie knowledge, let me just put it like this: Denzel couldn't even elevate it. 


Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars


- Stephenstein

Sam on a Ledge

Man on a ledge...let me first say that they stole this idea from me...though my story was named 'Man in a Fridge', or something like that.  Actually, it's all a stinking lie, I never thought up a story like this.  Though I do like the title...I think that the guy who made this should hook up with the guys who made 'Snakes on a Plane' and then keep making movies...'Lobster in a basket'...'Painting in a toilet'...'Nun in a bar'...

Anyhow, this movie is basically part Negotiator, part The Score.  It's a heist movie and hostage negotiation drama rolled up into one.  Was it ludicrous?  Yes, there were parts of made me say "uh-huh".  Such as Sam Worthington's car being rear-ended by a train and he escapes without a scratch (though that's a movie thing). Ed Harris' character framing Sam for stealing a diamond just so he could collect on the insurance money and keep himself out of bankruptcy (framing a man for theft and ruining his life or simply selling the diamond for the cash...hmmm...).  The insane lengths the burgulars had to go to break into Harris' vault and yet the ease in which they got into his personal office...(uh-huh). 

You may think I don't like this movie, but it isn't true.  I did like it.  I like heist movies in general, usually (with some exceptions...Oceans Eleven and The Italian Job come to mind) and I love cat-and-mouse negotiation movies, which this also had, but I have to say that instead of splitting their attention and giving us 2 decent parts to the movie instead of concentrating on one and giving us one great movie is a definite miss.  There was some nice suspense though and the acting was good, there's an all-star cast with a lot of familiar faces.

As for twists and turns, there was really only one thing I didn't call and it didn't really matter in the big scheme of things.  If you're someone who has seen a lot of these types of movies, there's nothing really new for you here, it's all been covered in better movies, but it's not bad for what it is and at least it was a 90 minute time-waster that didn't piss me off. 

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

- Stephenstein

Into the great Unknown...

Alright, now that I have all that bile out of my system, time to review a movie I saw with a bunch of jerks! People are drawing a lot of comparisons between this and Liam Neeson's other action movie, Taken, but it's not the same. Liam in Taken was walking around, "a man with a certain set of skills", that was trying to find his daughter's kidnappers. In this one, he has no special skills...in fact, he's not even really sure who he is. He thinks he knows, but who knows?
Well, his wife for one. She's not talking, though. In fact, she's acting like she doesn't even know him...

So, I liked this film. I actually liked it more than Taken. This one had a better mystery. Not a mystery so good that I couldn't figure out the answer to the mystery (or at least have a sneaking good suspicion), but that's me. I've seen a lot of movies, so it's hard to trick me. This one though, it had a lot going for it. Liam Neeson walking around, investigating, acting all confused and pensive is good. It had a lot of good suspense. Even though there wasn't a lot going on some of the time, it was still interesting. It was like part investigation movie, part cold war thriller. If you're into that sort of movie, then it's your cup of tea. Lots of intrigue and what not.

I don't have a lot of negatives. The first fight scene was filmed poorly, quick cuts and zoom-in's, but that's a standard complaint. Strangely enough, the second fight scene was easier to watch...but it was in the dark, and the combatants weren't as skilled? That was weird. This movie also involves some leaps of faith. Either you're willing to take them, or you aren't. They weren't ridiculous leaps of faith (we're not talking Armageddon, here), but leaps nevertheless. There was one thing bugging me for half the movie, but it made sense when all was revealed. That sort of thing. It's a movie, so you either buy it or you don't.

So all in all, if you like good intrigue movies, with investigations and a "what the hell is going on?" sort of feel, then this movie is for you. There's not a lot of action, it's all suspense and finding out what's going on. If you like that, then see this movie, or buy it on DVD when released. I will be, and since I don't have Taken, that looks like a pretty good little 2-pack.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

- Stephenstein

It Could Have Been Stopped!

Yeesh...

I hate movies "based on" or "inspired by" a true story. Most of the type, it's over-dramatized garbage. I'm also not a big fan of disaster movies, man-made disasters, or natural disasters. Usually, you're just waiting around for the disaster to hit, twiddling your thumbs...

So, why did I go see this movie again?

I like Denzel. That's basically it. Oh, and my Dad wanted to go, and my Mother wouldn't go with him, yadda, yadda, yadda. So, I went and saw this flick. Guess what? It's actually, really, really GOOD! I kid you not.

See, the guy behind this, Tony Scott, was smart. He didn't make us wait around for the action to start. Within 10 minutes, that train is barrelling down the track, unmanned, and with no one with any idea how to stop it. Denzel and Chris Pine do go after the train, but they find out about it when we were already about 60 percent into the movie, so you have a lot of the supporting characters trying to stop it.

So okay, the plot is simple, and we know how it's going to end. Why is it good? The editing is really good. It doesn't relent and keeps the focus on that train, and the efforts to stop it. That's all it's about, stop the train, stop the train, STOP THE TRAIN! I also liked the use of news footage style shooting, there was a lot of dynamic angles, and it just really kept you in the excitement of the moment. Then there's the soundtrack. It reminded me a bit of Bangkok Dangerous, it was very fast, very duh-duh-duh-duh duh-duh, it accented the action nicely. You would think that with the ending pretty obvious, and bound to one straight path, the action would not be that exciting, but trust me, the suspense and the action was pretty darned good.

Then there's the suits. In the movie, when the suits for the railway are contacted about the calamity unfolding, they worry about the potential cost of of de-railing it, and how much the stock would drop, not the people. Now, 10 years ago, I would have scoffed at this as being ridiculous. However, nowadays...it's not only possible, it's likely! I have worked for a major corporation for the last nine years, and trust me friends and folks, they DO NOT care one ounce about you. It is all cost, and stock depreciation, and all that garbage. I actually had something come up that could be harmful to customers, and had a manager say to me "well, it's only going to affect 10 percent of the people, so that's not bad." Only 10 percent. Yeah, only 10 percent of the population will get AIDS, that's not so bad, is it? When it gets to 25, call me. That's why these big telefons and charities tell you 10,000,000 are affected by this disease, or this social problem...if they told you the percentage, you wouldn't care! Also, like in real life, everything the suits try to stop the train doesn't work. Why? Because they know jack about the employees...just like real life. Oh, P.S...I hate suits, so anytime they look stupid, I'm happy.

This movie had a lot of jargon, which is sometimes bad. Bad because the average layman doesn't understand the terms, and the ones who do, call out the inaccuracies. It's also stupid to add too much jargon. This movie had too much jargon in my opinion...and didn't really need all the inside terms stuff. Really, did I need the term "riptrack" thrown at me? It didn't matter, did it? The train's out of the control, that's all that matters! So, half a star off for jargon for jargon's sake.

As for the actors, Denzel was Denzel. I didn't like Chris Pine for the first half of the movie, because he seemed to be channelling Captain Kirk, but after that, he was alright. I'll give him a pass in this one, but I don't think he's going to be nearly as good as they're making him out to be. Everyone else was fine.

All in all, this was one enjoyable ride. Yes it's predictable, and yes, it's nothing new, but it was a tight, well-paced, well-shot, well-scored action/thriller, that kept me engrossed throughout the entire film. At the end of the day, what more could I want?

Rating: 4 out of 5.

- Stephenstein

Ryan Reynolds in a box for 90 minutes

One of the taglines for this movie was "the movie Hitchcock would have made". You know, that sort of thing annoys me to no end. First of all, Hitchcock was probably, the best director of all-time, he made a ton of movies, and oops, he didn't make this one. So, he probably had the chance to make this film, and didn't. Secondly, how dare you cheapen the film by being tacky and try and draw comparisons that don't exist. Hitchcock was in his time, Buried is in its. It's like comparing Casablanca to Avatar. Avatar: the movie Humphrey Bogart would have starred in! What? What nonsense is this? So yeah, after watching the movie, maybe Hitchcock would have made a movie similar if he felt like it, maybe not. The bottom line is he didn't, so there's nothing more to talk about, in that regard.

Now, as for the movie: it was good. Not great, but good. Ryan Reynolds will probably be Oscar-nominated, his role is basically award-bait, and he runs the gamut of emotions from terror, to sadness, to acceptance, to panic. He does it all, and yes, he does it well.

The movie also has some interesting parts. I was really interested in Reynolds' conversation with the "terrorist" over the use of the term, and how quickly Americans are eager to label people who opose them terrorists, even though the foreign countries they're "helping" (i.e. invading) probably look at Americans in the same light (though the Americans don't see it like that). Also, the conversation Reynolds has with the Personnel Manager for the company he works for is simply chilling. The idea that large corporations don't care about their employees, really, and they will do anything to cheat their employees, isn't something new, but also isn't something I ever get tired of. The corporation is really portrayed as a bunch of bastards, and honestly, the actions they take in the movie to screw Reynolds out of his rightful insurance money, could actually happen in real life. If there's anything sadder that exemplifies the human condition today, I don't know what it is.

Anyhow, the real problem with this movie is that it's just Ryan Reynolds in a box for 90 minutes. In Evil Dead 2, we were alone with Bruce Campbell for a long time...but he's Bruce Campbell, and there's all sorts of weird stuff going on. In 1408, we're alone with John Cusack for most of the movie, but once again, the hotel room is pretty big, there's a lot of weird stuff happening, it keeps things interesting. There's only so much Reynolds can do in that box. He battles a snake, he talks on the phone, he cries, he makes his will, he makes a video...yes, he does stuff, but it loses steam when he realize that other than interacting with the phone, there's not much he can do.

The other thing is, even though they left it open-ended, it's pretty evident from the start Reynolds isn't going to make it. He's buried somewhere in the Iraqi desert, 6 feet under, with 90 minutes of oxygen. I don't care how good your GPS is, you're not going to make it. Since he's not going to make it, there's only so much you're going to invest in his character, because he's just going to die at the end, anyway. That's a major flaw with this sort of movie.

So, it was good, and if you're curious, you can check it out. For me personally, being locked in a box with Ryan Reynolds for 90 minutes was enough of a experience the first time without repeating it.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

- Stephenstein

Michael Jackson: Remembering the King of Pop

I was going to write my review of The Hangover, which I saw last night with the other Titans, but upon arrival at the movie theatre I received news that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop himself, passed away at the age of 50. Yes, I know you all know this by now. What can I say? Michael was and always will be a legend in the entertainment industry. And while I’m well aware and disappointed by the allegations of child molestation directed towards him, I think I speak for everyone when I say that his music and performances will certainly live on and elevate Michael Jackson to Elvis levels.

I’m 32, and I come from that generation that remembers Michael as, not just a pop superstar, but as a cultural phenomena. When I was about 5 or so, Michael could do no wrong. His Thriller album was played in virtually every household when I was a kid, and I think that’s where a lot of people will have a personal connection with him. I know those songs were played ad nausea in my house while I played with my Joes, Star Wars or He-Man figures. I knew every song by heart. Thriller was the album where I learned to operate the record player for the first time, pretending I was a big man at the age of 5. That album too, in many ways – and along with reruns of Hillarious House of Frightenstein -- was my first introduction to horror. The song Thriller itself featured a monologue by Vincent Price’s frightening voice and the song was capped by a pause followed by Price’s maniacal laugh! That laugh frightened the piss out of me at that age, especially if I was alone in the room. And that video! Hard to believe now, but there was a time when MTV in the U.S. refused to play Black artists. There was a public outcry over this, and Michael Jackson became so popular that MTV made him the first Black artist to appear on MTV (please, no snivelling comments about how he turned white, we'll get the truth about what happened about that now that he's gone). Billy Jean was wicked, with the tiles that glow when stepped on, but Thriller defined the modern music video with scads of imitators to this day that try weakly to wrap a “story” around their video. Thriller was and still is a tour de force of 80’s ingenuity, creativity and fun. Hell, it was even played in movie theatres!!

Michael’s contributions to film were few but welcome. Michael’s first foray was the song Ben, the title song for the movie Ben (1972) which was the sequel to Willard (1971). It was nominated for Best Original Song at the Academy awards, for which Michael famously performed the song. And yes, the song was lovingly remade with a performance by Crispin Glover in the 2003 Willard remake. Michael appeared in The Wiz, the jazzed up version of Wizard of Oz, and I think that was actually him in Men In Black II. He was also the star of a special effects laden movie ride at Disneyworld called Captain EO which ran for ages but is closed now. I always wanted to see it, but never got the chance.

What else can I really say? I remember kids in my early grades doing the moon walk, Alvin on Alvin and the Chipmunks briefly dancing with Michael on the show, people walking around with that Thriller red jacket, the Moonwalker video game (which was wicked!), the We Are The World song (back when celebrities cared about something other than themselves), all that good stuff. It’s sad that Michael should go now, since I feel there was a serious hunger for Michael Jackson in recent years, beginning with that infamous Thriller scene in 13 Going on 30, and a whole generation from Usher to Wyclef John citing Jackson as their inspiration for getting into the music business. There’s a whole generation that grew up on Michael Jackson the phenomenon that is all grown up and willing to let bygones be bygones and give the man another chance. I think he would have made a killing if he became a Vegas staple ala Celin Dion or Dean Martin (hell, I would go see that!). Rumors surfaced that he was planning just that, but there are uglier rumors that suggest that he was advised by an inner circle that fed him too many prescription drugs and pain killers and pushed him too hard for his “come back”, thus killing him. Uglier still are the allegations that he molested children, an eternal cloud over Michael’s career that he could never fully shake off. I think in the coming years, the people who accused him of such things will come out in full disclosure. Will that hurt his legacy? Well, given that most people believe that these allegations are true but still love his songs and performances anyway, I don’t think it will hurt. And I can just hear the Hollywood big wigs salivating as they hurriedly ready a hundred “Life of Michael Jackson” movie projects.

But for now, we reminisce on what was a phenomenal body of work that will never be duplicated and we also think about what might have been.





Deceptisean