Hakeem's Movies

Oscar 2006 Comments

2006-03-06T19:20:00.000-05:00

Well, there had to be a surprise as always, but I really didn't expect Crash to take Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain, a film that has really gotten into the audiences minds and into society's culture. But maybe it's not a surprise at all, we've gotten hints all the way, like Crash winning Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG Awards, or Brokeback not being nominated for Best Editing. It's fine though, I loved Crash and I think it deserved it too, it's just that society loses more by having Brokeback losing than if Crash had lost, because now it's like Hollywood didn't want to give the gay cowboy movie the Oscar.

The rest of the ceremony was very predictable, with John Williams indeed canceling himself for having 2 nominations leaving the road empty for Gustavo Santaolalla to win it for his amazing work with the Brokeback score. Too bad the Academy didn't give Brokeback and Rodrigo Prieto the award for Best Cinematography, which went to Geisha instead.
Another controversial pick by the Academy was to give Best Foreign Film to Tsotsi instead of to the amazing Palestinian film Paradise Now. And a very pleasant surprise came when Three 6 Mafia won Best Original Song for their song "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle & Flow.
The ceremony was great, the montages worked fine I thought and Jon Stewart was amazing. The opening scene with all the past hosts was excellent.

And here's the list of winners:

Best Picture
Crash

Best Director
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain

Best Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

Best Actress
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line

Best Supporting Actor
George Clooney, Syriana

Best Supporting Actress
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener

Best Adapted Screenplay
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain

Best Original Screenplay
Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco, Crash

Visual Effects
King Kong

Animated Feature
Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Costume Design
Memoirs of a Geisha

Make-Up
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Documentary Feature
March of the Penguins

Art Direction
Memoirs of a Geisha

Original Score
Gustavo Santaolalla, Brokeback Mountain

Sound Mixing
King Kong

Sound Editing
King Kong

Original Song
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," from Hustle & Flow

Foreign Language Film
Tsotsi (South Africa)

Film Editing
Crash

Cinematography
Memoirs of a Geisha

Short Film (Live Action)
Six Shooter

Short Film (Animated)
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation

Documentary Short Subject
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin

Oscar 2006 Predictions

2006-03-04T17:00:00.000-05:00

I know it’s kind of close, but I have no time to do this anymore so sorry to whoever has been out there waiting for this, if any. Anyway, tomorrow are the Oscars 2006 and while I expect maybe just 1 or 2 surprises and the rest is pretty much all locks, the night will still be exciting and great.

I will only fully predict the bigger categories since I have no idea between sound and sound editing and I don’t care to know either. I would like for Hustle & Flow’s “It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp” to win for Best Song, but I don’t see it happening. It’s the first rap song even being performance at the ceremony, but a rap song already won an Oscar (Eminem for 8 Mile) so I’m going with Dolly Parton’s “Travelin’ Thru” just because she’s the only name in the competition, and nobody has heard that Crash song.
I also expect King Kong and its WETA team to win all the Best Special Effects awards and even the Best Sound awards, though Memoirs of a Geisha could win this last few and also Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. The Chronicles of Narnia will take Best Make-up.
For the bigger names here but still technical awards, Gustavo Santaolalla will take Best Score for Brokeback Mountain over the superpowerful John Williams who I predict will cancel himself having 2 nominations here for Munich and Geisha. Best Editing will go to Crash and Brokeback Mountain should also take Best Cinematography in the name of Rodrigo Prieto.
Then Palestine’s Paradise Now and South Africa’s Tsotsi will fight for the Best Foreign Language film award, but I predict Paradise Now to take it. Best Animated Film will go to Wallace & Gromit (they’ve won 3 previous Best Animated Short Oscars before) and finally Best Documentary will go, sadly, to box office champion March of the Penguins instead of to the amazing Murderball.
And now the big awards:

Best Original Screenplay will be all about Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco’s work in Crash, a movie that despite being released early in the year, has had very strong legs and it’s pretty much a lock to win it now. Syriana’s screenplay by Stephen Gaghan had a hard time getting here since it was originally considered as adapted and they changed. Woody Allen is back and the nomination for Match Point is enough for now. The Squid and the Whale should have a chance, it’s amazing, but the lack of support in the other categories tells me it won’t happen for Noah Baumbach. And finally the only possible spoiler is Good Night, and Good Luck for two reasons. The film will probably not win anything else, and Clooney is not a lock for Best Supporting Actor for Syriana, so if he doesn’t win that one at the beginning of the night then he could end up taking this one for writing with Grant Heslov. Hakeem’s Prediction: Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco for Crash.

Best Adapted Screenplay is a lock for Brokeback Mountain and its writers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, unless for some reason the Academy decides to go with Crash for Best Picture, and so Dan Futterman could take this one for Capote. I don’t think so. The Constant Gardener’s Jeffrey Caine and A History of Violence’s Josh Olson don’t have a chance, while there’s a minimal chance for Munich to take awards, especially from some very respected (but totally wrong in this case) big name critics, and so Tony Kushner and Eric Roth could win this if that happens, but don’t expect it. Hakeem’s Prediction: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana for Brokeback Mountain.

Best Supporting Actress went from being an easy pick before the Golden Globes to being one of the toughest ones to predict. Frances McDormand for North Country and Catherine Keener for Capote have no chance. The former for having won before, and the latter for deserving one but not for this very small part that is not even important to the main story. So it’ll be all between Amy Adams for Junebug, a beloved performance in a great little movie nobody watched but me and a few others, Michelle Williams for her astonishing work in Brokeback Mountain, the early favorite, and the now most probable winner Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener who won the Golden Globe and the SAG. She’s the obvious pick right now, and she deserves one for her great career, but I don’t want her to win for this. Also, Adams and Williams are to young win it now, but the Academy loves to give these supporting Oscars not to the locks. Hakeem’s Prediction: Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain.

Best Supporting Actor should go to George Clooney, a great performance, but mostly because he’s not winning the other 2. I would love for Matt Dillon to win it, his was my favorite performance in Crash and it’s his strongest work in a very long and respected career. Jake Gyllenhaal will be happy with his nom for Brokeback Mountain, and William Hurt should too with a nom for 8 minutes of work. And then it comes Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man. He was overlooked twice already, and everybody loves him, but this role was not in the same caliber as his previous work, and he shouldn’t win for it, so Clooney has the best Chance. Hakeem’s Prediction: George Clooney for Syriana.

Best Actress will definitely go to Reese Witherspoon for her excellent portrayal of June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. She sings in the movie, and cries and she’s tough and she has an accent to do. It’s just perfect. There’s been some buzz for Felicity Huffman’s work in Transamerica, the only possible spoiler, but still, nobody has seen it, and giving to the beautiful and happy Reese will be just a delight for the Academy.
The other 3 have no chance. Charlize Theron won a few years ago so she’s out for her work in the not great North Country. Keira Knightley was excellent in Pride & Prejudice but the nom is all they are giving her hoping she stops doing crap like Domino. And Dame Judi Dench (for Mrs. Henderson Presents) should be happy with this out of respect nom. Hakeem’s Prediction: Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line.

Best Actor will go to Philip Seymour Hoffman for sure. His amazing performance in Capote plus the fact that everybody likes him and also that he deserves one for an excellent career of weirdly amazing characters make him a lock to win. Joaquin Phoenix was a favorite once for his work as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line but then it all faded. He won the Golden Globe and that will be all he gets this Awards Season. Then we have the other critics’ darling David Strathairn for Good Night, and Good Luck. Great performance, very monotone for me, but still great. He has little chance though, especially since he’s being considered 4th in line even behind the beloved and well respected, and in my opinion the actor of the year, Terrence Howard and his marvelous work as a pimp with a dream in Hustle & Flow. But the only one with a chance to beat Philip right now is Heath Ledger who I loved Brokeback Mountain and still maintain that did a better job with a more difficult job. But the Golden Globe went to Hoffman, the SAG went to Hoffman, and pretty much everything else went to Hoffman so the chances are slim. Hakeem’s Prediction: Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote.

Best Director will go to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain. He’s won all the critics’ awards, and he’s really loved and respected by everybody. Brokeback was a risky move, but he took it and made something wonderful with it. Newbie Bennett Miller can be happy he was nominated and then the other 2 up for the award have little chance. Steven Spielberg got the nod out of respect for a very political film and the risks he took with it, but he’s not getting away with this one. And George Clooney has more chances than him, just because he’s got to win at least one having 3 nominations, but this is the one where he has less chances to do so. Hakeem’s Prediction: Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain.

Best Picture will go indisputably to Brokeback Mountain. It’s the most awarded movie of the year and a movie that despite it’s controversial theme, has become one of the most talked about films ever. People who haven’t seen it love it and quote it like crazy. And all those who say that didn’t like it it’s because they are afraid to admit it or because they are pushing for a different film. Crash has had some buzz lately, with many big time critics saying it’ll win, but while it would be fine if it were to win, it’s not going to happen. Good Nigh, and Good Luck is a great little film, also loved and respected but it’s too small in comparison to the others, and it’s even worse for Capote, a film that didn’t even deserve to be nominated and whose spot should’ve gone instead to Walk the Line or A History of Violence. And finally Munich, which has currently very little chance. Just a few really loved it, but the general consensus is that it was a disappointment, especially since it was the frontrunner way back last year when it was announced. Hakeem’s Prediction: Brokeback Mountain.

Oscar Nominations 2006

2006-01-31T18:46:00.000-05:00

Well, I got 35 out of 40 correct in the big categories. And I got the 3 animated features right too though those were pretty obvious.
And about the nominations:
- Very weird that they nominated William Hurt for supporting actor and not Maria Bello for supporting actress.
- Awesome to see Amy Adams and Keira Knightley nominated as I predicted.
- And it's very weird, but Munich got best picture, director and screenplay, yet it seems like everybody is putting it in 5th place in their lists.
- Revenge of the Sith is the first Star Wars movie that didn't get a nomination, pretty much because World of the Worlds got the nod and both were done by ILM and the Academy always gives each of the big companies one nod. WETA got teh nod for King Kong while Narnia was a mix of all of them.
- Walk the Line didn't get a best picture nod, nor director or screenplay, which makes me think that the Academy might go with Felicity Huffman for the win instead of the favorite, Reese Witherspoon. And we already know Joaquin Phoenix doesn't have a chance.
- Memoirs of a Geisha got a lot of technical nominations and nothing else.
- Hustle & Flow getting a best song nomination is great, hope it wins. And where did that Crash song come from? Haven't heard it yet, but great to not see Alanis nominated for her Narcia closing credits song.
- Brokeback Mountain leads everybody with 8 nominations despite not getting a nod for editing.

Anyway, on to the actual nominations:

PICTURE
"Brokeback Mountain" - Focus Features
"Capote" - Sony Picture Classics
"Crash" - Lionsgate
"Good Night, and Good Luck" - Warner Independent Pictures
"Munich" - Universal Pictures and Dreamworks Pictures

ACTOR
Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Capote"
Terrence Howard, "Hustle & Flow"
Heath Ledger, "Brokeback Mountain"
Joaquin Phoenix, "Walk the Line"
David Strathairn, "Good Night, and Good Luck"

ACTRESS
Dame Judi Dench, "Mrs. Henderson Presents"
Felicity Huffman, "Transamerica"
Keira Knightley, "Pride & Prejudice"
Charlize Theron, "North Country"
Reese Witherspoon, "Walk the Line"

SUPPORTING ACTOR
George Clooney, "Syriana"
Matt Dillon, "Crash"
Paul Giamatti, "Cinderella Man"
Jake Gyllenhaal, "Brokeback Mountain"
William Hurt, "A History of Violence"

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, "Junebug"
Catherine Keener, "Capote"
Frances McDormand, "North Country"
Rachel Weisz, "The Constant Gardener"
Michelle Williams, "Brokeback Mountain"

DIRECTOR
George Clooney, "Good Night, and Good Luck"
Paul Haggis. "Crash"
Ang Lee, "Brokeback Mountain"
Bennet Miller, "Capote"
Steven Spielberg, "Munich"

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Crash," Bobby Moresco and Paul Haggis
"Good Night, and Good Luck," Grant Heslov and George Clooney
"Match Point," Woody Allen
"The Squid and the Whale," Noah Baumbach
"Syriana," Stephen Gaghan

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"Brokeback Mountain," Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
"Capote," Dan Futterman
"The Constant Gardener," Jeffrey Caine
"A History of Violence," Josh Olson
"Munich," Tony Kushner and Eric Roth

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year:
"Howl's Moving Castle" Hayao Miyazaki
"Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" Tim Burton and Mike Johnson
"Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit" Nick Park and Steve Box

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year:
"Don't Tell" Italy
"Joyeux Noël" France
"Paradise Now" Palestinian Authority
"Sophie Scholl - The Final Days" Germany
"Tsotsi" South Africa

Achievement in Art Direction
"Good Night, and Good Luck."
"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"
"King Kong"
"Memoirs of a Geisha"
"Pride & Prejudice"

Achievement in Cinematography
"Batman Begins" Wally Pfiste
"Brokeback Mountain" Rodrigo Prieto
"Good Night, and Good Luck." Robert Elswit
"Memoirs of a Geisha" Dion Beebe
"The New World" Emmanuel Lubezki

Achievement in Costume Design
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"
"Memoirs of a Geisha"
"Mrs. Henderson Presents"
"Pride & Prejudice"
"Walk the Line"

Best Documentary Feature
"Darwin's Nightmare"
"Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"
"March of the Penguins"
"Murderball"
"Street Fight"

Best Documentary Short Subject
"The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty Dan Krauss of the Bang Bang Club"
"God Sleeps in Rwanda"
"The Mushroom Club"
"A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age Corinne Marrinan and Eric Simonson of Norman Corwin"

Achievement in Film Editing
"Cinderella Man"
"The Constant Gardener"
"Crash"
"Munich"
"Walk the Line"

Achievement in Makeup
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"
"Cinderella Man"
"Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith"

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)
"Brokeback Mountain" Gustavo Santaolalla
"The Constant Gardener" Alberto Iglesias
"Memoirs of a Geisha" John Williams
"Munich" John Williams
"Pride & Prejudice" Dario Marianelli

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)
"In the Deep" from "Crash"
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from "Hustle & Flow"
"Travelin' Thru" from "Transamerica"

Best Animated Short Film
"Badgered"
"The Moon and the Son: An Imagined John Canemaker and Peggy Stern Conversation"
"The Mysterious Geographic Explorations Anthony Lucas of Jasper Morello"
"9"
"One Man Band"

Best Live Action Short Film
"Ausreisser (The Runaway)"
"Cashback"
"The Last Farm"
"Our Time Is Up"
"Six Shooter"

Achievement in Sound Editing
"King Kong"
"Memoirs of a Geisha"
"War of the Worlds"

Achievement in Sound Mixing
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"
"King Kong"
"Memoirs of a Geisha"
"Walk the Line"
"War of the Worlds"

Achievement in Visual Effects
"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe"
"King Kong"
"War of the Worlds"

Oscar Nominations 2006 Predictions

2006-01-31T08:34:00.000-05:00

Nominations in 5 minutes. These are my predictions:

Best Picture:
Brokeback Mountain
Good Night, and Good Luck
Crash
Capote
Walk the Line

Best Director:
Ang Lee
George Clooney
Paul Haggis
Steven Spielberg
David Cronenberg

Best Actor:
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Heath Ledger
Joaquin Phoenix
David Strathairn
Terrence Howard (or Russell Crowe, but I'm going with Terrence)

Best Actress:
Reese Witherspoon
Felicity Huffman
Charlize Theron
Dame Judy Dench
Keira Knightley (I'm going with her but It'll probably be Ziyi Zhang)

Supporting Actor:
Paul Giamatti
Jake Gyllenhaal
George Clooney
Matt Dillon
Bob Hoskins (or Howard if he doesnt get best actor, but Im going with Hoskins)

Supporting Actress:
Maria Bello
Michelle Williams
Amy Adams
Rachel Weisz
Catherine Keener

Original Screenplay:
Match Point
Good Night, and Good Luck
Crash
The Squid and the Whale
Cinderella Man (or Syriana but I think it won't get enough votes)

Adapted Screenplay:
Brokeback Mountain
Munich
Capote
The Constant Gardener
A History of Violence

Animated Feature:
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Howl's Moving Castle
Wallace and Gromit

Match Point

2006-01-23T23:40:00.000-05:00

If you thought Woody Allen was back after his early 2005's great tragicomedy Melinda & Melinda, you were so wrong. Now Match Point is a comeback to form, a work of art and just a tremendous film I didn't know Woody was able to give create. It's not amazingly original like to get an Award for it, but that because a few (and maybe just 2) other original scripts are better, but it's very nomination worthy.

Match Point is a thriller, a romantic thriller. It's very smart and leaves a couple questions unanswered and that are to tertiary you won't even notice them on your first viewing (at least it took me more than one).
Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris Wilton, a young retired tennis player who was a pro but left the tour not because of injuries, but because he knew he couldn't be on the same level as Agassi, he says. He also mentions Greg Rusedski but I didn't he meant it 'not even as Rusedski' who was obviously not in the same level as Andre. And way to go Woody, mentioning 2 players who are no longer playing, but hey, he made the movie last year and at least Agassi was still active so the whole thing is maybe 25% ok.
Anyway, sorry for the tennis talk (though tennis is part of the movie), but Chris is now a tennis instructor in a big name club and there is where he meets Matthew Goode's Tom Hewett, with he hits it off (not in a gay way though it kind of looks like it) right from the start due to their love for opera, and after meeting the family Chris gets invited to their country house where he starts a relationship with Tom's sister Chloe, played by the delightful Emily Mortimer, whose part in that disaster called Formula 51 is pretty much the only low point of her career (2005's Dear Frankie was excellent btw).
But that's not all, as in that same visit to the country house Chris meets Nola Rice, a young American with whom he immediately flirts, the tension is palpable, right there he learns that Nola is Tom's fiance, a failed actress with a very low self esteem when somebody talks about her career.

This whole thing with Nola is a problem, because Chris will eventually marry Chloe (who gets immediately crazy about having a baby right after getting married) but he has Nola always in mind. An affair in imminent, but before that we get one of the best scenes in the movie, and there are many, but in this one, Chris and Nola walk into each other on the street and go to a bar for a drink after one of Nola's blown auditions.
They are sitting at a table, drinking, she's smoking, and they are talking about the effect Nola has on men, and how sexy she is, and then they talk about their respective partners, how they met and if it was love at first sight. "He was handsome", she says about Tom. "She's sweet", he says about Chloe. And they stare at each other, and that leaves the door very open for what will happen later, which they will spend the entire movie trying to keep hidden from the other members of the family.

But this is a thriller, and that comes when it gets increasingly difficult for Chris to keep up with Nola on one side and the Hewett's on the other. After all, getting married to Chloe means that he's very well liked by mom Eleanor (Shaun's mom Penelope Wilton) and also by mighty rich dad Alec (a back to his normal shape Brian Cox). Chris gets an easy and high paid job, a car and chauffer, secretary, expense accounts, and of course the access to the country house, which has all the commodities he never had. Can he give all this up for Nola? Tough choice.

The tour de force performance everybody talks about (including the award givers) is that of the amazingly hot Scarlett Johansson as Nola. She's sexy and beautiful, and just perfect, but Nola gets difficult and clingy towards the end and so she loses likeability. And Rhys-Meyers' performance is more than great in the lead, especially in the gripping and highly tense scenes at the end when the movie reaches its higher levels of greatness.
But there's also the Woody Allen tough of course. He found a very nice spot in London that works just like his high class Manhattan neighborhoods he always used (remember that he got tired of it seems and decided to go across the Atlantic and make movies in England and at least one in Spain as of right now). It's London of course, but it's Woody's London.
And the music is also his touch, the beautiful opera sound every now and then even when it's not featured.
The acting, the writing and everything else, Match Point is what Woody is capable of these days, and it's magnificent.

Underworld: Evolution

2006-01-20T00:15:00.000-05:00

Kate Beckinsale is back in leather and fangs for Underworld: Evolution, the sequel to the Vampires versus Lycans action hit from a few years ago. This time around, without having to introduce anything new, director Len Wiseman is able to make an easier to follow story by just having the entire history of his universe plus the whole first movie, all in the first 15 minutes, via narration and showing some key shots, and so that sets us up for what's to come, which is non-stop action, gore, and almost naked Kate. The result is a better movie that expands what we knew and though it ends with everything pretty much explained and done, there is hope for this to be a trilogy and that third outing really can't get here any faster.

After the summary we start this one right where left off the last time, which Kate's Selene having just killed Viktor (Bill Nighy) and now on the run from those who are sure to want to get revenge for killing one of the powerful ancestors. Scott Speedman's Michael, who is now a hybrid (originally lycan now mixed with vampire) with unknown abilities and maybe unlimited power is with her, and they start kind of cold, mostly because of the shock of what they just did and running away, but then they get close again and the love is palpable. No real nudity, but Wiseman gives us a really erotic sex scene between the two of them, especially awesome because Beckinsale is his real life wife.
While that happens, vampire traitor and second in command Kraven (Shane Brolly), goes back to the mansion to destroy Marcus (Tony Curran), or his body actually which is in his tomb waiting to be waken up some day. But when he gets there and opens the tomb there's nothing there. If you remember, the first movie ended with the scientist lycan dying on the floor and his blood ran through the cracks and so now Marcus is alive again, more powerful than before, and wanting to get his sweet revenge. Not on Selene for killing Viktor though, it's more of a general revenge on his race for what happened in the past, which we learned at the beginning of the movie.

It turns out that, as we all know, at the top of the pyramid was Alexander Corvinus (Derek Jacobi) who had 2 sons. One them was Marcus and he was bit by a bat, and went on to be the royalty of the vampires under the command of Viktor who was the warrior and leader. The other son was William, and he was bit by a wolf, and went on to lead the lycans in battle, but they were different lycans back then. Once bitten, they couldn't go back to their human form.
At one point Viktor finally captured William, but since he was also royalty, even being a lycan, he didn't kill him but put him in a tomb in a cave with a lock he could only open, and Marcus always resented him for that, and has always wanted to set his brother free again. The lock consists of 2 parts, one is inside Viktor himself (easy to access now that he's dead), but the other part is a medallion Viktor gave his daughter, the one that fell in love with the lycan Lucious (Michael Sheen) and was sacrificed by Viktor because of it. But Lucious kept the medallion, which he ended up giving to Michael at the end of the first movie, and so that's what Marcus is looking for now. Plus the blood of Selene, so he can get her memories, and this is because she is the only living person who knows where the tomb is, since she was there when she was a kid with her father, who was the one that made it, and that's why Viktor killed him and all of Selene's family, because they knew, but since he didn't have a daughter no more, he took mercy on Selene and let her live, and that's how the whole circle ends is complete.

Yes, I know that was too long maybe but I absolutely love the story and everything Wiseman and his co-creators Danny McBride (who wrote the screenplay) and Kevin Grevioux have done with this movies. The action, the gadgets, the style, the pacing, the effects and the characters, everything is great in Underworld: Evolution, and hopefully what's best is yet to come.

Golden Globe 2006 Results

2006-01-17T12:31:00.000-05:00

Here are the Golden Globe 2006 winners and some comments:

Best Picture Drama - Brokeback Mountain
Best Picture Comedy/Musical - Walk the Line

Best Director - Ang Lee - Brokeback Mountain

Best Actor in a Drama - Philip Seymour Hoffman - Capote
Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical - Joaquin Phoenix - Walk the Line

Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical - Reese Witherspoon - Walk the Line
Best Actress in a Drama - Felicity Huffman - Transamerica

Best Supporting Actor - George Clooney - Syriana
Best Supporting Actress - Rachel Weisz - The Constant Gardener

Best Screenplay - Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana - Brokeback Mountain

Best Foreign Language Film - Paradise Now (Palestine)

Best Original Score - John Williams - Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Original Song - 'A Love That Will Never Grow Old' from Brokeback Mountain

I got 9 correct out of the 13 categories, with winning predictions for the best pictures, director, and the 4 lead performance awards.

With Brokeback Mountain winning screenplay, it's even more of a lock for the Oscar now. But I was really surprised it won though, and I actually thought it had no chance. That Crash didn't win anything at all is a bad sign for the Oscars, but it's still a lock for nominations in picture and original screenplay, and I'm going with it to win the last one, even with Syriana now being put in that category instead of adapted which is what everybody thought it was.

And Philip Seymour Hoffman won best actor drama as expected, but his speech kind of sucked, and that counts. And I'm still going with Ledger for the Oscar, though I may reconsider depending on the SAG results. Both of them will get Oscar noms of course, as will Joaquin, Felicity and Reese, and then Weisz and Clooney for supporters. And since we are in the subject, these supporting winners mean nothing because if you remember last year, Natalie Portman and Clive Owen won for Close and then they lost at the Oscars. Plus I’m hoping my number one pick Amy Adams gets a shot at the big one.

In the smaller categories, Paradise Now won as expected and will go to win it all on the big night. I hope buzz changes from John Williams and Gustavo Santaolalla gets stronger support for best score. Brokeback winning best original song at the Globes means nothing because the song is not eligible for the Oscars.

The Screen Actors Guild awards are on the 29th, and then the Oscar noms are on the 31st, my nomination predictions will come on the 30th. I pretty much have them all in my mind, but I want to be sure about the supporters, especially how much love the Crash guys get.

Golden Globe 2006 Predictions

2006-01-15T15:51:00.000-05:00

This Monday the 16th the Foreign Press will announce their Golden Globe winners in their annual gala, and here are my predictions. The Globes are the most important awards after the Oscars, and even though they sometimes go different ways, the Globes always end up helping someone's chances to get nominated or win later at the Oscars if it is a close race.

Best Original Song should go to A Love That Will Never Grow Old from Brokeback Mountain, though they will probably go with Alanis Morissette and her Narnia song Wunderkind. Mostly because of the big name she is. Remember last year when they gave it to Mick Jagger for the Alfie song and then he didn't get an Oscar nom. That sucked though, because the song ruled and deserved to win, but the point is that the Globes like to go with a big name (Bono was a winner too a few years ago and then lost the Oscar to Eminem).
Hakeem's Prediction: Alanis Morissette's Wunderkind from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Best Original Score should go to Gustavo Santaolalla's sublime work in Brokeback. The way he played just the right tunes when the lead characters interacted with each other gave their love even more resonance. John Williams has had the most buzz so far having scored three big movies this year, and his Memoirs of a Geisha one was probably the best of them (War of the Worlds and Munich were also his). The award will go to him this time, but expect Santaolalla to take the big one home next month.
Hakeem's Prediction: John Williams for Memoirs of a Geisha.

Best Foreign Film should go to Kung Fu Hustle, even though it was originally released years ago and it's not eligible for this year’s Oscar. But it got released here in the States this year so it qualifies for the Globes, and it's my favorite of the ones nominated. Not sure why OldBoy wasn't nominated, or The Edukators, Downfall or 2046. Very weird nominations. Anyway, the Globe will go to Paradise Now or Tsotsy, two very important movies. Of the two I've only seen Paradise Now and it's excellent, and I'm making it my pick for the fact that many other movies this year have included Palestinian suicide bombers (like Syriana and Munich), but none of them was as good as this one.
Hakeem's Prediction: Paradise Now from Palestine.

Best Screenplay will be all about Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco's work in Crash, a movie that despite being released early in the year, has had very strong legs and it's pretty much a lock for an Oscar nom. Nobody will probably go with Haggis as a director being that this is his first big job behind the camera, and they snubbed him last year for his Million Dollar Baby screenplay so this year they are giving it to him no matter what. Munich and Brokeback have no chance here, especially with Crash being an original work. Woody Allen's Match Point should have a chance. This is his best work in years it seems and the screenplay is always his strongest work, but there's no buzz. That he came back with something great and was nominated is award enough I think. The only one that could upset Crash is George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck, mostly because Clooney should end the night with at least one award, and this is his best chance, a politically charged script that he also directed. Still, I'm predicting he'll win none.
Hakeem's Prediction: Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco for Crash.

Best Supporting Actress is an easy category, especially since my favorite one, Amy Adams in Junebug, was criminally omitted, so they are most likely going with Michelle Williams' work in Brokeback. She's new to this, and she's young and her performance was excellent even if it was kind of smallish. I did not like Frances McDormand's work (North Country), nor Rachel Weisz's (The Constant Gardener), whose character I actually hated, but I did not like their movies so I guess that doesn't help. Shirley MacLaine was good in In Her Shoes, a movie I really liked, but I felt that both Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette gave better performances.
Hakeem's Prediction: Michelle Williams for Brokeback Mountain.

Best Supporting Actor should go to Matt Dillon. His was my favorite performance in Crash and it's his strongest work in a very long career where he's done pretty much everything. I was actually surprised that they nominated him though, but it makes total sense. This is a tough category since everybody is nominating very different people. Will Ferrell (The Producers) has no chance though, nor Bob Hoskins for Mrs. Henderson Presents, unless he wins and then he’s a front-runner for the Oscar. The other two spots are Clooney for Syriana and Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man. Again, Clooney should win something, though for this would be wrong, because his character was a lead in the movie. Giamatti lost best actor last year here and then was snubbed of an Oscar nom, so maybe the Globes will give it to him this time to cement his chances for an Oscar. I liked his performance, worthy of a nomination I mentioned in my review, but he needed a big scene that would make you give him the award. The again, I said the same thing about Morgan Freeman last year and he won the Oscar (though not the Globe).
Hakeem's Prediction: Matt Dillon for Crash.

Best Actress in a Drama I can't really call, because I haven't seen Felicity Huffman's work in TransAmerica, the front-runner so far. Of the rest, I absolutely loved Gwyneth Paltrow in Proof, and it's one of my top three female performances of the year, but the movie didn't make any money and has had no buzz, so we can probably count her out. Then we have Maria Bello for A History of Violence, where hers was a very strong but supporting performance; Ziyi Zhang for Memoirs of a Geisha, where she was overshadowed by Michelle Yeoh's fantastic work; and Charlize Theron for North Country, which was a great performance in a movie I didn't like. Plus none of them have had any buzz lately. Felicity Huffman's had all the buzz needed (though not as much as Witherspoon, thank God she's in the other category), and the role (that of a transsexual) looks and sounds like it works and it's very strong, so I'm going with her (plus she won't win for her TV role in Desperate Housewives so this one is for her).
Hakeem's Prediction: Felicity Huffman for TransAmerica.

Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical will definitely go to Reese Witherspoon for her excellent portrayal of June Carter in Walk the Line. She sings in the movie, and cries and she's tough and she has an accent to do. It's just perfect. The other big reason she'll win is because none of the other performances is even close enough to hers. Sarah Jessica Parker being here is just the Foreign Press showing her love (she's been nominated like 8 straight years now, tying Nicole Kidman I think who had the same support last year with that Birth nomination). Yes, she gives the best performance in The Family Stone, but it's not a lead role, they were all supporting there, so she's out here. Laura Linney the same, great performance, but supporting, and it's worst that Parker because Jeff Daniels and the kids were better than her. Then Judy Dench and Keira Knightley, the only ones that could upset Reese. I don't think the Dame will be able to pull it off, just because Mrs. Henderson Presents has received mediocre reviews at best (I haven't seen the movie so I can't give an opinion performance wise). Knightley on the other hand, I saw and was delighted. She's breathtaking in Pride & Prejudice, and the movie has received excellent reviews all stating that she's great. With so few great female performances this year, there's some talk of Keira upsetting Reese and then P&P taking the big award from Walk the Line, but I just don't see it.
Hakeem's Prediction: Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line.

Best Actor in a Comedy/Musical will go to Joaquin Phoenix. Now, I don't think at all that his performance is better Jamie Foxx's last year, but Joaquin does his own singing in Walk the Line, and that has to count for something. Still, Phoenix is just great in the movie, and he doesn't have much competition to tell you the truth. Johnny Depp is out, this was a weird nom for portraying a totally weird character, which is good, but there's no way they are giving him the award. His Michael Jackson's Willy Wonka is not in the same league as his Keith Richards' Captain Jack Sparrow. Then Cillian Murphy is nominated just because the role is difficult, another transsexual. But Breakfast on Pluto has received bad reviews, and there's no buzz for him so he's out. Nathan Lane being here is just like Kevin Spacey's nom last year. There's a musical, they need to nominate its people, but Lane's performance is not worthy of awards. Pierce Brosnan being nominated is just great, though again not worthy of an award. But I'm glad he's here because his work in The Matador is great, and totally against his usual James Bond, and Thomas Crow, and that After the Sunset guy. The only possible upset could be by Jeff Daniels for his excellent performance in The Squid and the Whale, a movie I loved (number 27 in my best of the year list) and thought it was better than Walk the Line. And Daniels has had a career where he's done everything (just to think that he was in Dumb and Dumber) and this would be a good tie to reward him and give him a much needed boost for the Oscars. I'm predicting that the Foreign Press will go with Walk the Line all the way but if they don't, then Daniels is winning this one.
Hakeem's Prediction: Joaquin Phoenix for Walk the Line.

Best Actor in a Drama is the toughest call of the night. Cinderella Man's Russell Crowe is out, as is Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow. I would love for him to win which would probably get him an Oscar nom, but I don't think so. Then one of the locks for an Oscar nom is David Strathairn for Good Night, and Good Luck. I don't really love his performance of Ed Murrow. It's very blank and monotonous. And critics have loved him so far, but they are all going with Philip Seymour Hoffman and his spot on, creepy wonderful performance of Truman Capote in Capote, another movie I didn't love. My personal pick is Heath Ledger and his mind-blowing work in Brokeback Mountain, where he's just perfect. The thing is that Hoffman deserves an award, there's no doubt about that, and the Foreign Press will give him the Globe, but I don't think he'll get the Oscar next month. The big one will go to Ledger who gives a better performance with a more difficult role, and is a character more likeable than Hoffman's. You leave Capote not liking him, and that's going to influence the voters towards Ledger's (without saying too much so I don't spoil it) heartbroken ending.
Hakeem's Prediction: Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote.

Best Director will go to Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain. He's won all the other critics' awards, and he's loved by the Foreign Press having nominated him for Sense and Sensibility and giving him the Globe for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (btw, all his great work gets awarded every 5 years it seems, 1996, 2001 and now in 2006). The other nominees are all out of the picture except for George Clooney who has a minimal chance, but again, because of the fact that he has 3 noms and should win one. But he won't be able to pull it off, Ang Lee is just too strong. Then Woody Allen could have a chance, he's nominated for directing and for the screenplay, and Match Point is nominated for best picture and Scarlett is nominated too, but there's no buzz for him, especially in the Best Screenplay category, so a directing award seems pretty impossible. Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are out just because King Kong and Munich didn't get a best picture nom (and pretty weird that David Cronenberg didn't get a nom since his A History of Violence is nominated). And then Fernando Meirelles for The Constant Gardener, another movie I didn't like. Politically charged and important, but Weisz's character I totally hated and that hurt my view of the movie. The movie did get a best picture nom, and Weisz did get nominated, but the screenplay and Ralph Fiennes were overlooked, so I'm counting Meirelles out.
Hakeem's Prediction: Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain.

Best Picture Musical/Comedy is a weak category. The Producers was bad I thought and it's here because it's a musical. The Squid and the Whale didn't get its screenplay nominated, the best thing it has, so it's here just because there's nothing else to nominate. The same goes to Mrs. Henderson Presents. Bad reviews, and no support for acclaimed director Stephen Frears, but it's European so that gave it the spot. Again, there's talk of a Pride & Prejudice upset, and even though I loved the movie and though it was better than Walk the Line, there's no way the Johnny Cash biopic is not winning. Ok, so no love for director James Mangold (who didn't impress me at all), but the movie will win the acting awards so this is pretty much a lock.
Hakeem's Prediction: Walk the Line.

Best Picture Drama will go indisputably to Brokeback Mountain. Is the most awarded movie of the year by the critics, and it's had all the buzz in the world. It's an important movie, revolutionary even, that everybody is respecting and giving it their praise. Plus it'll win awards for all its nominated performances and its director, so there's no way it's losing here. Good Night, and Good Luck is a distant second, especially with Munich not nominated. And btw, I'm not liking how some of the press is pushing for Munich lately. They didn't even like it judging by the mostly mediocre reviews and a rotten rating from the big name critics.
But whatever, it's not here, and so Clooney's movie is the only possible upset, but the movie is just so small that I think it's impossible. Then it's Match Point, which's gotten a ton of nominations but mostly because everybody is happy Woody Allen is back; then it's The Constant Gardener which did not get enough noms like to do any fighting here; and finally A History of Violence with pretty much the same problem, no Cronenberg, no screenplay, and no Viggo Mortensen.
Hakeem's Prediction: Brokeback Mountain.

Last Holiday

2006-01-14T12:52:00.000-05:00

Queen Latifah stars as Georgia Byrd in Last Holiday, a remake of the Alec Guinness 1950's movie, this time switching genders to make it about a woman who's done nothing in her life other than follow orders and always being in the background. She works at a chain story kitchen department selling cooking products and showing people how to cook them. She also dreams of being a chef one day, though that would probably never happen, until one day, when she finally decides to talk to the guy she likes. The whole thing ends up in a mess, with Georgia hitting her head against a counter, taken to the clinic and diagnosed with a fatal problem in her head. She has only 3 weeks to live, so she quits the job she hates, sells everything she has and flies to Prague and stays in the Grand Hotel Pupp, the place she's always dreamed of visiting, where she'll meet one her idols, and enjoy life, at least what's left of it.

Despite looking silly from the outside, the movie it's actually good, and very enjoyable. Director Wayne Wang (The Joy Luck Club, Maid in Manhattan) and writers Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman (both wrote How the Grinch Stole Christmas and are writing the upcoming Shrek 3) have a made a very nice holiday movie with sweet characters (like Gerard Depardieu's Chef Didier, a famous chef Georgia absolutely loves) and European locations that give the movie class.
It's got some slapstick comedy in it too, like Georgia snowboarding down a mountain or base-jumping, but other than that is just her enjoying herself and making very rich friends by just being herself. Timothy Hutton plays Matthew Kragen, the owner of the chain store company Georgia worked at, who just happens to be visiting the same hotel she's at with the New Orleans' Senator Dillings (played by Giancarlo Esposito). Kragen is accompanied by his secretary/secret lover Ms. Burns (played by Alicia Witt) who is very bitchy at first but then ends up being friends with Georgia. And LL Cool J reappears towards the end for the happy ending as Sean Matthews, Georgia's love interest back at the company.

A simple short story, very nicely done and sweet, the movie works just fine with good performances all around led by Queen Latifah's highly likeable personality. Last Holiday is different than the commercials and ads make you think, it's better, and it's a good movie.

Hostel

2006-01-08T12:32:00.000-05:00

Eli Roth has a sick mind, very sick. Hostel is his follow up to 2002's Cabin Fever, a movie I did not like, but it had some nice ideas and very nice gore. Now this one, this one is something else, this one will make young Americans totally avoid going backpacking to Eastern Europe for a while, as our heroes Jay Hernandez's Paxton and Derek Richardson's Josh meet with Oli (Eythor Gudjonsson), a crazy Icelander, and together travel through Europe in search for sex, booze and more sex. They find all that of course, because there's a saying that "if you ask 20 women in any European city to fuck you, at least one of them will", but they also find something they hope they had never found.

There's a torture house, but the people in there are nice. They are in Bratislava, Slovakia, and they put you in a nice hotel, let you stay in the same room with beautiful naked women (check out the gorgeous and amazingly hot Natalya, played by Barbara Nedeljakova), they let you fuck these wonderful young women the first night, but the next night prepare because they are going to kidnap you, strap you to a chair, and then they are going to fuck you in the ass. Not literally though, but what happens to you could be anything, literally. And the reason why it all happens it's great so I won't spoil it.

But the movie starts with the guys partying and trying to get laid, and we get nudity, lots of it. And once the torture begins the movie is a feast for any horror fan. The things put in there are homage to Takashi Miike's work (especially Audition), but it's also from Roth own rotten mind. For example, and the only thing I'll mention (it's much better to experience these things than to read them here), it's a scene involving an eyeball that almost kills you of how much disgusting it is. And it's amazing.

Quentin Tarantino produced the movie and "presents" it even though it's not his movie. He does it because the movie really deserves to be seen and his name there will probably attract lots of people. For those that get scared easily and want some laughs, the movie delivers too. There's the classic guys banter, and there's also a bunch of creepy kids that show up every now and then asking for money and they are hilarious.
The excellent make-up effects by Greg Nicotero (Land of the Dead, Kill Bill, Sin City) make for so much good, realistic gore, and the atmosphere and tension Roth creates once the characters get to the torture house is truly terrifying. Hostel is fucking sick, and that's a very good thing. My hat (if I'd wear one) is off to you, Eli Roth. Can't wait for what you have in store for us next.

Grandma's Boy

2006-01-04T22:48:00.000-05:00

A guy you've seen in every Adam Sandler movie but you don't know his name stars in Grandma's Boy, a movie that combines videogames and weed, David Spade, Rob Schneider and Kevin Nealon (though sadly no Sandler), and a fat guy sucking a hooker's tit for 13 straight hours. Directed by Nicholaus Goossen, and written by Barry Wernick, Nick Swardson and aforementioned unknown actor who's actually called Allen Covert, this is a very funny geek stoner comedy that with a simple story and many idiotic characters, makes for a movie that delivers exactly what it wants, and that is laughs. Some stupid, some disgusting, but still laughs, and many of them.

After Covert's titular character named Alex gets kicked out of his house, he ends up living with his grandma Lilly (played by Doris Roberts), and her two roommates Grace (Shelley Knight), an old lady who used to hand job Charlie Chaplin, and Bea (Shirley Jones), who is kind of Anchorman’s Brick but very old and female. Alex is 35 years old and works at a videogame company as a tester (it's what he loves, so no problem there), and he's the very best one there, and a master gamer. With him work his friend Jeff (played by stand up comic Swardson) and a bunch of other guys like Jonah Hill's Barry the aforementioned fat guy (also the fat guy trying to buy boots at the eBay store in The 40 Year Old Virgin), and Kelvin Yu's Kane, the token Asian guy with the pimped out car. There's a million funny lines, and there's hotness from Linda Cardellini's Samantha, the guys' new boss, but most of the laughs come from Joel Moore who plays J.P., the genius that develops the games there, a totally introverted guy who sounds like Napoleon Dynamite when he's not talking like a robot, all while wearing a long black coat pretending to be Neo and being in the matrix. The guy is pretty impossible to completely describe but he's really funny.
There's also Peter Dante, another Sandler regular who here plays Dante, the stoner who gets Alex the weed, many different kind of weed, and he's also into animals, as we see him getting first a lion from Africa, and then a monkey whom he teaches karate.

If you are wondering, the movie does have a plot that they put to work by the end of the movie about J.P. stealing a prototype videogame Alex had been working on for years. But before that is all jokes and videogames and weed, and it works, Grandma's Boy looks stupid, and don't get me wrong, it is, but is still funny, and it's probably even funnier if you know your videogames and watch it stoned.

Favorite Movies 2005

2005-12-27T18:11:00.000-05:00

I've seen 185 movies in theatres this year, and here are my awards...

***FAVORITE MOVIES - 2005***
1- King Kong
2- War of the Worlds
3- Sin City
4- Brokeback Mountain
5- Crash
6- Kingdom of Heaven
7- Serenity
8- Cinderella Man
9- Gus Van Sant's Last Days
10- Me and You and Everyone We Know
11- Nine Lives
12- Pride & Prejudice
13- Broken Flowers
14- Bee Season
15- Oliver Twist

16- Batman Begins
17- Jarhead
18- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
19- A History of Violence
20- Unleashed
21- Millions
22- The Devil's Rejects
23- Rent
24- Stay
25- Shopgirl
26- The Weather Man
27- The Squid and the Whale
28- The Exorcism of Emily Rose
29- Hustle & Flow
30- Proof

***BEST FOREIGN MOVIES***
1- OldBoy
2- The Edukators
3- Downfall
4- Kung-Fu Hustle
5- My Summer of Love

***BEST COMEDIES***
1- The 40 Year Old Virgin
2- Wedding Crashers
3- Fever Pitch
4- Waiting...
5- Fun with Dick and Jane

Special Mention: Grizzly Man

***BEST ANIMATED FILM***
1- Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

***BEST DOCUMENTARIES***
1- Murderball
2- My Date with Drew
3- Gunner Palace
4- Rize
5- First Descent

Worst Documentary: Grizzly Man
Hated and Not Seen: March of the Penguins

***BOTTOM 10 - 2005***
10- Son of the Mask
9- A Sound of Thunder
8- King's Ransom
7- Undiscovered
6- Just like Heaven
5- Flightplan
4- Dark Water
3- High Tension
2- Stealth
1- Elektra

Munich

2005-12-26T14:16:00.000-05:00

I am currently not caring much about Munich, Steven Spielberg's incredibly quickly done film about the events that followed the kidnap and murder on the Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympics by the Palestinians. The movie is about revenge, political revenge, and it's also about morality, once the characters we follow start questioning their actions. What the movie also does is to reflect the current political state of the world, and it's been also discussed the fact that Spielberg is Jewish, making a film about Jews against Palestinians. Once you see the movie you can see that he doesn't take sides, he's against both and he defends both. The screenplay, written by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) with some first drafts by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump, The Insider, Ali), based on George Jonas' book Vengeance, is very smart about that. The problem with all of that is I that I want to see a movie, and much like Good Night and Good Luck, The Constant Gardener or Syriana, I really don't care about the political messages the movie wants to give me, what I want is a movie, with good characters and a good story, it's even better if I really get into it emotionally. That happened to me with Munich, but the it lost me, especially at the 2 hour mark, when the movie should've ended instead of changing shifts for some uninteresting 45 more minutes.

After the aforementioned beginning at the Olympics, we jump to Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (played Lynn Cohen) who says, "Forget peace for now", and forms a group of revenge seeking assassins who must work like undercover terrorists and travel all through Europe searching and killing the 11 people (mostly by bombing their rooms, so that it makes noise, literally and non) who are being held responsible for Munich. Living everything behind, they sign a contract that tells them they do not exist anymore, and can't contact anybody because nobody knows who they are anymore. They will be contacted only by a man named Ephraim (Geoffrey Rush), who pays them and asks them for reports every now and then.
The group is led by Avner (Eric Bana), a former bodyguard of the Prime Minister, with a hero father he never lived up to. He's has a pregnant wife at the movie. Then we have getaway driver Steve (Daniel Craig), document forger Hans (Hanns Zischler), toy maker turned bomb maker Robert (Mathieu Kassovitz) and Carl (Ciaran Hinds), the cleanup man. None of them are actually killers by the way, but they will be. Once they start looking for their targets, Avner meets and kind of befriends (though never truly trusting) Louis (Mathieu Amalric), a French man who knows where to find everybody in exchange for some serious amounts of money. He's helps them because he thinks they are not working for the government which he has no intention to help, but he thinks that this is a personal vendetta, and family he does care about.

The whole second hour or so of the movie is about the killings, at times well perpetrated, and at other times with many problems, some even comical, because the bombs can't seem to work as well as they expect. Still, whenever they work, it makes for terrific scenes of realistic brutality. This also works amazingly well at the beginning of the movie when the athletes are killed. Spielberg uses actual footage of the TV stations transmitting live from Munich, and then he creates the inside happenings with brilliant and horrific results.
The acting in the movie is worth nothing, though not as good as a whole as I was expecting. Bana is good, especially in the scenes with his family, but I never got really connected to his feelings during the attacks, mostly the script's fault. Daniel Craig is ok, but his character is really underused, and they really didn't need a big name for the part. The best performance of the movie is that by Ciaran Hinds. Really strong work, eating every scene and line he has up.

The final act is what I really didn't like, as the team (or what's left of it) is dissolved after an attempt to kill the biggest name in their list. The movie then focuses on Avner (and forgets about the rest) and the state of paranoia he's set in after returning to his family. Every turn he makes he thinks someone is after him, maybe with reason, maybe not. And so he plays a lot against Ephraim in a morality battle discussing whether or not what they did was worth something, since even worse people soon replaced the people they killed. And these same discussions were held inside the team before, so I felt that this whole climax didn't work at all, and should've been cut, or even better, changed so that Bana would've had to go on a personal revenge, though that is not what's in the book so I guess that was not doable.

The movie is technically perfect, with an excellent 70s looking cinematography by Janusz Kaminski. The score by John Williams though, didn't quite work for me.
And so the movie works great during the beginning, and then falls flat at the end, not knowing what to do to be a great movie, and opting to try and be relevant in today's world. It succeeds in that, but the problem is that with so many important political movies out this year, why should I care for this one in particular? And so I don't, again (just like with Syriana) preferring Paradise Now, the Palestinian movie about suicide bombers questioning their methods since it’s going to keep happening over and over again and never stop. As a film, with good but not excellent acting, and an emotional attachment that was just not there, Munich, and Spielberg, did not impress me, and it would need some big parts of it getting cut to do it.

Aeon Flux

2005-12-22T14:01:00.000-05:00

In a mix of The Island and The Cell, and a little bit of Elektra, a very lesbian looking first scene opens up Aeon Flux, Charlize Theron's follow up to her Oscar winning performance in Monster a few years ago. Based on the beloved Peter Chung MTV cartoon that was part of Liquid TV back in the 90s, the series' style is well translated, as good as possible I would say, to the big screen by director Karyn Kusama and writers Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. They have a pretty good story, great visuals, but they fail completely in the dialogue department, which is awfully delivered by top notch, award winning actresses. If they can't do it, imagine how bad it is.

But that's the dialogue, because the story got me interested and it's actually smart. 400 Years in the future, what's left of us formed in an utopic civilization and live all together in Bregna, the only hospitable city on Earth thanks to the walls that protect us from whatever is outside, including the disease that wiped us out years ago. Bregna is ruled by scientist, led by the Goodchild family, and since there's a ruler in Marton Csokas' Trevor Goodchild and his younger brother Oren (played by Jonny Lee Miller), there's also a rebel group in the Monicans, who are led by Frances McDormand's Handler. The Monicans are an underground group of gadget equipped and martial arts trained killers that our heroine Aeon is part of. Charlize plays Aeon of course and she's cool. Great costumes and she always looks very sexy and beautiful. She was the most credible in the acting department (the rest were not good) but that dialogue was still troubling. McDormand is there's for maybe 3 short scenes total, and she's got a weird Carrot-Top like hairdo. She's pretty much wasted here but I guess we didn't need her that much. And then there's Sophie Okonedo who plays Aeon's sidekick Sithandra. Not much to say about her other than one of the coolest ideas ever put on a movie: she's got hands instead of feet. And it's awesome.

The story later incorporates some nice cloning ideas as Aeon discovers the truth about the government and about some people that have been kidnapped and disappeared lately, including her sister, and the movie is interesting or the most part. With cool costumes and gadgets, and a few pretty good backgrounds and futuristic ideas, Aeon Flux is weak compared to the great cartoon, but is not a bad movie at all.

The Ringer

2005-12-21T23:32:00.000-05:00

Johnny Knoxville's Steve pretends to be a retard named Jeffie so he can compete in the Special Olympics and win money in The Ringer. Directed by Barry W. Blaustein (who's written many Eddie Murphy movies like Coming to America, Boomerang and The Nutty Professor) and written by Ricky Blitt (Family Guy), the story is not stupid or tasteless as one would expect. It's silly but is also funny, and despite a very weak beginning, it gets very good once Knoxville gets to the pre-Olympic competitions and is joined by the other mentally challenged athletes. Sorry about the retard remark before, btw.

But why does he go to the Olympics? Because he needs to raise money to pay for surgery for a friend, who is not actually a friend but an old guy he should've fired at work but instead decided to hire as a lawn mower and after an accident the guy ended up with three fingers chopped off his hand. And it's a huge hospital bill because apparently in this movie's time there are none of those organizations that pay the bills for you if you can't. But oh well, I guess it's necessary for the story to work. There's another reason too, as Steve's uncle Gary (played by a what-the-hell-are-you-doing-taking-these-roles Brian Cox) needs money to pay the mobs for his gambling.
At the Olympics, Jeffie must compete against Jimmy (played by Leonard Flowers), the mentally challenged superstar who's won the games 6 times in a row. There's also Katherine Heigl's Lynn, an instructor at the Olympics who helps Jeffie along the way while he falls in love with her.

There's been some controversy lately about this movie, as South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker are saying the movie rips off an episode of their series they released in early 2004, but the movie's producers say the script was written before that. Lawsuits may be filed, but whatever the outcome, the South Park episode was funny, and movie is funny too. Supported (mostly) by a cast of real life mentally challenged actors, The Ringer shows its heart, and it's surprisingly respectful of the characters we all thought it would be making fun of.

Fun with Dick and Jane

2005-12-19T23:22:00.000-05:00

Sorry for being so unoriginal but yes, I had Fun with Dick and Jane, a lot of it. Written by Peter Tolan, Nicholas Stoller and the genius that is Judd Apatow (The Ben Stiller Show, Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared, The 40 Year Old Virgin), and directed by Dean Parisot of the amazing Galaxy Quest fame, this remake of the Jane Fonda/George Seagal 1977 comedy follows once again the monetary fall of Dick and Jane Harper and their subsequent run to get their lives back by stealing. Any way they can.

Right from the start the movie is one laugh after another, and not chuckles but real laughs. The entire first 45 minutes or so are some of the most funny sequences of the year as Dick is betrayed by the company he works at, Globodyne, which goes bankrupt in a matter of minutes on national television, loses everything he has, and even gets involved with Mexican immigrants. After deciding to join the life of crime, his wife Jane joins him and the laughs continue nonstop.
Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni play the titular characters and both of them are great. We all know Carrey is one of the most talented comedians there is, as well as a gifted actor overall (even though the Academy keeps to overlooking him time and time again), but Leoni joins in on the fun and she gives a very good performance too.
The rest of the cast is formed by Jacob Davich and Gloria Garayua, who play the young son of the Harpers and their Mexican maid. They are part of a very funny subplot as the kid, who has been mostly raised by the maid, speaks in Spanish almost all the time even though his parents have no idea what he's saying. And finally there are Richard Jenkins who plays Dick's boss Frank Bascom, and the always reliable and scene-stealer Alec Baldwin as the president of Globodyne. Great job by both of them.

I had mixed feelings towards the movie from the trailers, but once it started and I read Apatow's name there I knew the movie would be good, and it is. Favored by a running time of only 90 minutes, the movie made me laugh a lot, even towards the end when it got to the inevitable silly finale that clean our heroes of everything they've done and gives them a happy ending. Short and right to the point, which is to entertain us and make us laugh, Fun with Dick and Jane is fun, for real.

The Family Stone

2005-12-17T13:06:00.000-05:00

Filmmaker Thomas Bezucha follows up his little seen 2000 effort Big Eden with The Family Stone, a Christmas comedy about the titular family who reunite for the holidays as always but there's something different this time, eldest son Everett is bringing home his fiancée Meredith, whom they've never met before, but they are all going to hate, and the result is a funny and at times touching story of family love.

I should correct myself, because not all of them haven't met the outsider. Amy (played by Hollywood's It Girl Rachel McAdams), the youngest daughter did, and she hates her. She met her once, she tells the family before Everett and Meredith arrive, and then she goes on and on about all of Meredith's faults, and so there's no way the girl has a chance. Dermot Mulroney plays Everett and Sarah Jessica Parker, in her first released work after Sex and the City (she has a role in Strangers with Candy which was delayed to next year), plays the uptight, business driven, big talker and icy looking Meredith. When we first met her we know she's a bitch, but the minute she steps into the house we can't help but suffer for her. The way they treat her is horrendous, and there's a point when she even has to get out of there and move to the local inn to escape from then, and get her sister Julie (Claire Danes) to get there as soon as possible for support.
Two Stones so far, and there's more to go. The other big piece of the romantic part of puzzle is Everett and Amy's brother Ben (played by Luke Wilson), the easy going and free spirit member of the family. The other siblings are Susannah (Elizabeth Reaser) who has a young daughter and is currently pregnant, and Thad (Ty Giordano) who is deaf and gay, and has a partner in Patrick (Brian White), who happens to be African-American. And finally the parents, who headline the serious part of the movie, Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson), and they are keeping a secret from most of their kids.

There will be drama and comedy, laughing and crying, loving and hating, but at the end the will be happy together because after all, this is a family movie and set on Christmas, so you can't complain about that. Still, the movie works because of the very strong acting, led by Sarah Jessica Parker who gives a great performance and could get a supporting nod (if they go for that) at the Oscars, once everyone realizes that the one we all thought was going to steal the movie didn't. And that is Diane Keaton, who is pretty good too, but though it seemed like this was an Oscar grabber role for her, the part is surprisingly small and in the background of the others. Manipulative with our emotions, even. Luke Wilson and Rachel McAdams play their characters really great too.
With so many characters to work on (McAdams' Amy even gets a second subplot as All the Real Girls' Paul Schneider shows up late in the movie as a former boyfriend), Bezucha is not able to really develop them as they should, and so some of them, even the big names, get just really great scenes but overall you can tell there's something missing for the story to completely work. I do thank Bezucha though, for not getting all melodramatic towards the end when you can tell that is going to be a cry fest, but he does it in a different way and it works very well. Thanks to very good acting and a couple of great scenes, The Family Stone is not a great movie but is good enough, and definitely worth watching.

King Kong (2005)

2005-12-15T01:24:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while comes a movie that is so epic that it makes regular epics seem indies, a movie that is so perfectly done that we try to complain about something, and we can only think of complaining about it having too much of this or that, when in fact it's just enough, and less would've been better, but more too. And what a coincidence that a single filmmaker is able to create two of these in such a short period, as Peter Jackson follows up his Lord of the Rings trilogy with a remake of the movie that inspired him to be a filmmaker, King Kong. Jackson remakes and honors the Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack 1933 original, and he also betters it, adding everything the original could not put on screen not because of technology in the case of the visual effects, but because the times were simpler, and what makes this new version a perfect film are its developed characters and its refined story.

The overall story is the same, as filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black in a serious but still Jack Black role) finds a map to an inexistent island, and gets Captain Englehorn (played by Thomas Kretschmann), the captain of the S.S. Venture to take him there to film a movie. He also takes his film crew, which includes Colin Hanks as Carl's assistant Preston, hungry unemployed actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts with an award worthy performance), movie hero Bruce Baxter (played by Early Edition's Kyle Chandler) and famous writer Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody in a perfect not really hero performance). Also on board are Englehorn's crew of sailors including Evan Parke's Hayes and Jamie Bell's Jimmy, none of them aware of the real destination of the ship, Skull Island. There they will find a forgotten civilization, dinosaurs, huge insects and bats, and the titular ape, which happens to be big, very big.
Jackson uses his LotR collaborator Richard Taylor and his WETA team of visual effects once again to make magic with a million things to delight us with. There's the wonderful 30s New York they recreated, which serves as the beginning of the movie showing the depression era and the working class people our would be damsel in distress Ann Darrow comes from. And it also serves for the magnificent climax of the movie three hours later with the classic scene high up in the Empire State Building, as beauty and beast contemplate the sunset recreating their first encounter back at Skull Island. Both scenes are so remarkably beautiful, depicting their love story that goes beyond everything I could've expected.

And that is something Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens (both of them also shared credits for the LotR screenplays) really better from the original story, the relationship between Kong and Ann. Kong was in love with Fay Wray back in the day but that love was not reciprocal. Here the ape falls in love with Naomi Watts, and she falls right back, even putting her life on the line just as Kong defended her from more than one T-Rex and several other dangers before. The way they work together is fantastic, and it works better because of the magical by Andy Serkis who moves as Kong as perfect as he did Gollum (Serkis also gets a regular role as Lumpy the Cook, and he makes the part more than it could ever be, showing us that he is truly a great actor). The chemistry is special, and it's no problem that they are human and ape, especially after we see them dance in Central Park in one of the most graceful scenes in the movie. We know Kong dies at the end of the movie just as in the previous versions, but the way it happens here resembles Jack and Rose's emotionally epic finale in Titanic and it works so amazingly well here you'll cry again, and it won't be the first time in this movie alone.

But there's more than that. There's also Carl Denham's story, a man so obsessed with making his film he could die rescuing his camera from whatever danger it faces. While kidnapped Ann spends time with Kong in the island, Denham and Driscoll lead a team of sailors to rescue her, but it's not that easy. Their journey puts them against many dinosaurs, Kong himself in the famous giant log scene, and finally, in a scene that could've perfectly given the movie an R rating, they battle giant bugs of all kinds known and unknown. And the scene is so horrific I had to close my eyes at times. Black is marvelous once again after they bring Kong back to Manhattan, and he gets to savor fame as he gives the world its 8th Wonder.

Six times Academy Award nominee James Newton Howard scores the film (after LotR's scorer Howard Shored departed from the project) and his once again perfectly Award worthy, giving us hints to the original Max Steiner score. Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie and conceptual designer Alan Lee help Jackson once again achieve a flawless look for the movie giving those sunset and aerial scenes an enchanted complexion. Remaking a classic is tough, but when the people behind it put so much dedication to create something so big, gorgeous and majestic as King Kong, the result is more than good. The result is the best movie of the year and also one of the best movies ever made.

Brokeback Mountain

2005-12-12T23:00:00.000-05:00

I've been calling this the 'gay cowboys' movie ever since it was announced. The premise was not something I knew how I would react to and so it was funny to call it that and not actually think about it, but there was something in the idea and the movie could actually be worth something, it is. Based on Annie Proulx short story, Academy Award nominee Ang Lee directs Brokeback Mountain, the story of two young men in 1963 Wyoming who meet and fall in love during one summer spent at the titular mountain while herding sheep, and form a relation that will affect their entire lives.
Beautifully translated for the big screen by Larry McMurtry (The Last Picture Show) and Diana Ossana, the story is makes for powerful performances by its two leads Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. Far from dreaming about the current gay marriage craze of today's world, theirs is one of the greatest, most honest and genuine love stories ever put on film.

The story is not that of two flamboyant gay men living happy together throughout their lives, and not even their beginning is easy. It all starts after a drinking night, and their first sexual interaction can already put off some people. It's raw and violent, and quite unexpected if you don't already know what the movie is about. But after that it transforms into the story of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, who are not gay, but feel the attraction between each other, but there's nothing they can do about it, because the world they live in is not prepared for it, and they know for a fact what happens to those that even dare to live together. So what happened at Brokeback must stay at Brokeback, but is not that easy, and we receive the first hit after they separate for the first time, as Ennis breaks in tears at a nearby alley back in town, vomiting and internally bleeding from the situation. Heath Ledger's terrific performance of Ennis is breathtaking. He plays him quite but very emotionally wounded, understanding what happens and what must be done but knowing inside himself what he really wants. This is an Oscar worthy performance, and the best I've seen all year over Philip Seymour Hoffman's Capote and Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash.
And then Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack, the most outspoken of the two about their relationship. He loves Ennis more than anything in the world, even after he eventually marries and has a son. Gyllenhaal's is too an Oscar worthy performance, making his character truly hurt and hateful towards the world for the relationship he's not able to live the way he wants.
And so just as Ennis, he ends up married, and that takes us to the women.

Michelle Williams is outstanding as Alma Del Mar, and she also puts a very internal performance that kicks in the very moment Ennis and Jack reunite for the first time 4 years after Brokeback Mountain. It's a double punch scene as we are touched by the reunion in which the two men can't help but fall in love right back and fiercely kiss, but then Alma sees them, and we are loaded with an incredible guilt and at the painful sight of Michelle Williams reaction. That alone is an award worthy performance, and then she cements it with a scene many years later when she finally tells Ennis that she's known the truth all the time, and never said anything knowing that her husband and his friend did not go fishing during those two or three times a year they went back to Brokeback during the rest of their lives. Oscar might be a bit too much though, as she only appears every now and then during the twenty years the story takes us, but she has a chance and the performance is no short of mesmerizing.
And then we have the former Disney Princess Anne Hathaway as Lureen Twist, a woman so much into herself that she never knew about her husband's situation. I mentioned that the story spans through twenty years, and Hathaway’s Lureen was the only character I felt the aging did not work, and it was almost distracting to watch. Her acting is great, so there is not problem at all, and she gets naked (Michelle Williams as well, not together of course) which will help get male audiences in.
Finally there's Linda Cardellini who plays Cassie Cartwright on Ennis' life, and her role is way too small, just two or three scenes, but one of those is better than many supporting performances in most movies this year.

Ang Lee deserves much praise and awards for his work here, with the actors and with everything else like the team he assembled behind the camera. Usual Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores Perros, 21 Grams and the upcoming Babel) collaborator Rodrigo Prieto films the vast fields of Brokeback with a delicate hand, making for one of the most wonderful scenery put on film this year. And then the amazing score by Gustavo Santaolalla (The Motorcycle Diaries, and another Gonzalez Inarritu collaborator) whose acoustic guitar hits just at the right times when the men are together, silencing just as their hearts are empty when they are separated.
As I was watching the movie, I knew it was something different, I knew it was excellent, and then a final scene towards the end with Ennis and his daughter (a young woman about to get married) made me cry. Affecting, real and deeply haunting, Brokeback Mountain is everything you could wish for from a love story, gay or not, and it's one of the best movies of the year.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

2005-12-08T00:47:00.000-05:00

Other than it sucks to type its long title, I'm not sure how I really feel about The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe yet. Actually, I'm not sure how bad I think it is yet, or if maybe I'll end up thinking it's just an ok movie.
I think kids will love it, of course, because it has fantasy and it has cute animals and it has kids, but for adults, well, lets just say that I spent most of the time drawing parallels with Christianity and the Lord of the Rings movies, and there's a lot to compare about them here. The problem first is that the world of Narnia is disappointingly small, at least what we get to see in this part because future films will most probably expand it, but in a very different story because apparently all the books have different characters and only Aslan the lion is part of all of them. The second and bigger problem is that this is a Disney movie, and more important, a Walden Media movie, meaning that they are going to the little kids and of course they are getting a PG rating for the movie, making it feel like it's an epic story on a diet. It really sucks because with the huge battles with swords and animals biting other animals' necks, the action needs some kind of blood, at least a little, but there's none of it, not even wounds, and they even cut away from the money shots at the killing scenes, because those would've also given them a higher rating.

Based on the acclaimed and super famous (they say, because I'd never heard about Narnia before the movie started being promoted) books by C.S. Lewis (who I hear was a friend and rival of J.R.R. Tolkien), the story is adapted by Ann Peacock, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely and Shrek and Shrek 2 director Andrew Adamson who is also at the helm here. This is an epic story with an ancient prophecy, and it involves 4 human children going to Narnia to rescue from The White Witch, which has ruled for the past hundred years, a hundred years without Christmas. The children must be two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve, and they will are to be take the power from the White Witch and then go on to rule Narnia. Since they are children, they will be helped in battle by the savior/messiah Aslan. I put a lot of the religious stuff there but don't worry, is all handled very well and sporadic (there's also Santa, though but more on him later).

I really liked the beginning of the movie, very dark and scary set in England during a bombing of London in World War II. The our four heroes are sent to a house for refugee children and the magic begins. The scenes at the mansion are great and the kids show some good chemistry there. The first couple of visits to Narnia are very well staged and with some good magic in them which is then lost as the movie progresses. Even right at times during those first visits as Mr. Tumnus first scene with Lucy and the White Witch's first scene with Edmund are totally pedophelic.
But let me explain, the kids are siblings Peter (William Moseley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) Pevensie and they get to Narnia via a wardrobe they found in the aforementioned mansion while playing hide and seek. When they get there, they are told the prophecy by a talking beaver and his wife (voiced by Ray Winstone and Dawn French) who then take them to see Aslan with the help of an allied Fox voiced by Rupert Everett (and yes, all animals talk). On their way they also meet with Santa, who is there for just one scene and brings them gifts in a very Galadriel kind of way so the gifts are all either weapons or magic items they will eventually use when it's necessary for the story. They will end up fighting Tilda Swinton's White Witch and her battalion of animals (which are different from the good animals: Cheetas are good and White Tigers are bad, for example) and Ork-like beasts. The centaurs are good and very cool by the way. Besides freeing Narnia from the constant winter brought by the White Witch, beating her will bring back to life Mr. Tumnus (a faun, played by James McAvoy) and many other creatures that the White Witch has turned into stone, the penalty for those who don't report to the police that they've seen a human. The police are half bull-half humans by the way.

I liked the 4 kids, well written characters and good actors. They did a great job even though their characters get way cliched towards the end. The White Witch and Aslan are pretty good too, though there's not enough of them for us to really care about them, which pretty much sucks because Aslan is supposed to be kind of like Gandalf but it just doesn't work.
And then the rest is bad, most of the secondary characters need a lot of work as they have no backstory at all (specially the lead centaur and the professor back at the mansion who is played by a wasted Jim Broadbent), and that was my problem with the entire story and the prophecy, even though there are a lot of characters, it's all too simple.

On the technical aspects, the cinematography and the score are almost non-existent (and the 3 pop songs at the end by Alanis Morissette, Imogene Heap and Tim Finn, sucked). The costumes, though kind of generic, are pretty good, and the art direction is pretty good too.
The special effects, while great at times (specially with the animals, Aslan in particular rules), sucks at others like with the sledges. Very disappointing compared with the excellent work ILM did with War of the Worlds this year (there's a little WETA and KNB here too but I'm blaming ILM). The movie is really long at two and a half hours, but it is extremely well paced to me it felt like it was less than two hours.
Overall, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is for kids, little ones, and they will be entertained by it, but they'll be the only ones. Now that I've thought about it, Narnia is ok, but definitely no Middle Earth, no Oz, not even Fantasia.

Syriana

2005-12-06T00:08:00.000-05:00

I have the same feeling about Syriana as I had when I saw Traffic years ago. The movie has lots of stuff going on, very important stuff, very detailed, very well done, but it is just way too much. Syriana is exhausting. Written and directed by Traffic's Oscar winning screenwriter Stephen Gaghan, this is a fictitious movie based on Robert Baer's non-fiction book See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism.

The plot is very convoluted, with around a dozen characters playing in around five or six different stories, all with the same idea: global politics, oil business and the corrupt US government.
We have George Clooney as Bob Barnes, a CIA spy in the Middle East. This is the character that is supposedly based on Robert Baer. He sells some weapons to terrorists, kills terrorists, and then gets double crossed by the CIA and is brutally tortured by more terrorists. All while he tries to find out what it is that he's been doing for the government so he can learn why is he being attacked now. We know nothing about his personal life though, so there's nothing to care about him.

There's also Matt Damon as Bryan Woodman, an energy analyst in Geneva, Switzerland who gets power giving advise to an Iranian Prince about oil politics, thanks to a personal tragedy. Amanda Peet plays Bryan' suffering wife Julie. The Iranian Prince is Nasir Al-Subaai, played by Alexander Siddig. He's possibly going to be given the power by his father, so he's trying to figure out what to do with his politics. He wants to go with the Chinese, which would be better for his country, but that would mean to go against the oil companies and the US government. He's fighting for the throne with his brother Hamed Al-Subaai (played by Nadim Sawalha), who is all for continuing like they are now.

And then there's Jeffrey Wright (brilliant in Angels in America and also Broken Flowers earlier this year) as Bennett Holiday, a big time Washington, DC lawyer working on the merger of two big oil companies fighting for Middle Eastern territory. In this story we have Chris Cooper as Jimmy Pope, one of the companies' CEO and Christopher Plummer as Dean Whiting, the head of Bennett's law firm. There are also William Hurt, Mark Strong, and a couple more people somewhere in there. Bennett's got personal problems too, as his drunken father (played by William C. Mitchell) daily visits him which embarrasses him.

The acting is pretty good, but nobody is really excellent, meaning that I won't be nominating any of these people for any supporting Oscars. Is the movie smart? Of course it is, maybe too smart. You get all these data and information and we are supposed to feel angry about current world politics, but that's about it, because we truly don't care about any of these characters. Maybe a little bit about the young Pakistani men and the working father, but with a movie out there now like Paradise Now, the suicide bombers in this movie don't mean much. And so I couldn't get myself to like Syriana. Same happened to me with The Constant Gardener earlier this year, the movie is technically excellent, but it's just not enjoyable.

Just Friends

2005-11-25T12:58:00.000-05:00

Just Friends is the latest comedy from Ryan Reynolds, whose restaurant comedy Waiting... came out just 2 months ago, and got a very good review from me. This time around Reynolds is under the helm of Roger Kumble, who brought us the first two Cruel Intentions (first one great, second one has a lesbian scene, which means is also great), and they will team up again next year for the action comedy Ride Along (btw, Reynolds has 6 movies coming out next year). To complete the naming, the movie is written by Adam 'Tex' Davis is his feature debut and the cast is rounded by Reynolds’ Waiting... costar Anna Faris, American Pie's Chris Klein and Road Trip's Amy Smart (she's naked there, not here).

The story is simple: Reynolds plays Chris, a fat guy in high school who’s been Jamie's (Smart) best friend since forever. They spend all their time together, sleep in the same bed at times (as friends), talk about everything, etc. But Jamie is super hot, and she dates all these jocks, so when they graduate and are ready to go on with their lives, Chris sees it as the chance to confess his love for her. Problem is, he's doing it at the graduation party at Jamie's house, and with a letter, but someone else ends up reading the letter, showing it to everybody and Chris is even more embarrassed than he was before. Jamie reads the letter too, but kills him with an "I love too, as a friend right?" that makes him leave and swears to never come back to his home town in New Jersey. Reynolds’ fat suit is amazing, and you barely notice the face fat chin and cheeks. And he's really funny too, especially when lip-syncing a song he wrote Jamie called "I Swear".
We jump ten years and Chris is a successful young man in Los Angeles. He's working in the music industry, he plays hockey, dates girls hotter than Jamie and best of all, he's thin. But a problem arise when his boss (a cameo appearance by Stephen Root) orders him to accompany Hollywood's It girl Samantha Jones (Faris) to France to sign a record deal with their agency, but when they are on the air, problems with the plane make them land in New Jersey, where Chris is forced to stay for a few days with Samantha, so they end up going to his house. Samantha Jones is meant to be Paris Hilton of course (or Ashley Simpson, though both Ashley and Jessica are mentioned during the movie so I'm sticking with Paris), and Faris must've had some fun with the character. She played it like a total psycho. What's funnier is that Samantha Jones has only one awesome hit single called "Forgiveness" that is loved by every little girl in the world, but she thinks she's also got a seriousness to her that will appeal to adults too and so she wants Chris to take her to play at a local blues club, which doesn't end up very well. Here is also Chris Marquette (The Girl Next Door's Eli) who plays Chris' little brother. He's obsessed with Samantha Jones (he masturbates multiple times a day thinking about her, he tells her), and so Chris is always ditching Samantha and putting her in the car with his brother, so he can instead go and work on Jamie. Jamie is still living there, and still hot, working as a bartender in the local bar, she's also a substitute teacher. We also meet Chris Klein's Dusty again here. We'd seen him before 10 years ago when he was a nerdy and full of acne weirdo also in love with Jamie just like Chris. Now Dusty is a firefighter, helps at the local hospital, and is pretty much a town hero. And he's still in love with Jamie, so is natural that they will compete for her.
And here's where the movie could've been excellent instead of just good, as Dusty at one point says "The two former geeks are now going to make everyone pay" or something like that, and I think they should've gone with that idea and make it work throughout the entire movie. Instead, they only fight over Jamie, and we see how Chris thinks he's what Jamie always wanted now, a thin jock guy with money, but all she wants is her best friend back, who she may really love now.

The movie then gets very formulaic and predictable, but it's funny anyway. The movie would've benefited by going with the two former geeks getting revenge idea, which would've made Chris Klein's role bigger too, but is ok with what it ended up being. Just like Waiting..., Just Friends is not ground breaking and is not going to be a classic, but is a funny movie, easy to watch, with beautiful people, those two amazingly funny songs, and a crazy Anna Faris whose performance alone makes the movie worth watching.

Rent

2005-11-21T23:49:00.000-05:00

Based on Puccini's La Bohemia, Rent is the big screen adaptation of the Jonathan Larson hit Broadway musical of the same name, about 7 friends trying to survive life in East Village New York in the 80s. Half of them have AIDS, are taking drugs or used to take drugs, they don't have jobs or the ones that have a job are just making enough money to barely eat, and of course that they can't pay the rent. They don't care though, because they are bohemians and that's the life they want, focusing on their friendships and loves.

It's a musical, so for those who don't like musicals this is not for you. The story is dated too, I mean, AIDS is not that big these days as it was back then (still very important though), and the bohemian life is sadly kind of forgotten. Luckily for me that doesn't matter, I love the 80s and I also like musicals very much. I enjoy them. I'm also a lover of liberalism and the way of life portrayed in the movie. About Rent though, I've never seen the play, and I'm embarrassed to admit that before Team America last year I had no idea what this was about. I got a better picture earlier this year with the trailer, but my first impression that it looked gay and that the song was annoying. Upon repeated viewing though, the song got stuck in my head and I started liking it. After seeing the movie now, I still can't get Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes off my head, but is ok, because I truly love it.

The celebrated lives are those of Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), Collins (Jesse L. Martin), Maureen (Idina Menzel), Roger (Adam Pascal), Mark (Anthony Rapp), Joanne (Tracie Thoms) and Mimi (Rosario Dawson). And there's also Benny (Taye Diggs), who used to be their friend and roommate to Mark and Roger, but he married the building's landlord and failed his promise to not charge their friends living there. He's a suit now, and is trying to empty the buildings to build a cyberspace company. Mark and Roger still live there. Mark is a wannabe filmmaker who starts filming his and his friends' lives for a documentary. Roger is a musician still trying to write that one perfect song. He's emotionally down though, because he lost a girlfriend due to drugs and AIDS, so when Mimi, an exotic dancer, puts an interest in him, he pulls away because he knows she does drugs. They are both HIV positive. Mark was recently dumped by Maureen, a revolutionary performer who starts a protest against Benny, who Mimi used to go out with. Maureen’s new love is Joanne, a Harvard lawyer who gets easily jealous (rightly so) when Maureen flirts with other women and men, which happens a lot. And finally, and the hearts of the movie, Collins and Angel, who meet after Collins is beat up and robbed in an alley near the guys' apartment, and they quickly fall in love. Collins is an unemployed professor, and Angel is a street performer drag queen. They are also HIV positive.

The performances are amazing, with emphasis on Wilson Jermaine Heredia and Idina Menzel's. All of them put their hearts in these characters and you can feel it. The music is really amazing too. Many songs to love like the aforementioned Seasons of Love, and then Another Day and La Vie Boheme. The singing is great, and is all lip-syncing except for Over The Moon, which Idina Menzel sings live. But the lip-syncing works great here, especially if they actually filmed in the cold of New York. Either that or they did an amazing job simulating it, especially the breathing. Directed by Chris Columbus (Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter movies) and adapted for the screen by Steve Chbosky, Rent is affecting and engaging, and after you understand that is ok that these people are singing on the screen, it all becomes natural and like me, you'll find yourself singing with them every song until the credits are done.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2005-11-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

The wizard world gets real though losing some of the magic it had before in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, adapted once again (like all the previous movies) by Steven Kloves from the ultra popular J.K. Rowling's book. And this time around Donnie Brasco and Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell is at the helm (he reportedly turned down an offer to direct the first movie). The entire cast is back and with them the actors growing up, it fitted perfect as our young wizards are also growing up. Now is all about the kids' first dance, boys and girls liking each other for the first time, and really tough competitions that feature real danger, and even death. There's a lot I liked about the movie, and a couple scenes I really loved, but there's also a couple items that needed more work.

But lets start with the beginning of the movie which I love, as Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys travel to the I wish it was longer Quidditch World Cup. We only get to see the beginning of the tournament and it's big. It has a great feel of greatness and it makes the world of Harry feel much bigger with the addition of international characters. A comment about the match, it wasn't clear for me if the kids were all just rooting for Ireland or if it was because they were from there. I know Ron and his family are supposed to be Irish just by their looks, and I thought Harry and Hermione were English but there's no mention or explanation about it. We are introduced here to Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) who is the star of the Bulgarian team.

Then we learn about the Yule Ball and the TriWizard Tournament. I loved everything about the ball and the dance. It was a teen drama and it worked really well. Harry and Ron not getting dates. Harry getting rejected by Cho Chang (played by Katie Leung), whose role is surprisingly small and nothing like I was expecting). The girls giggling for the big boys and then Hermione going to the dance with the jock. Neville going with Ginny. Everything was great. Even the adults like Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane ) getting close to the very tall Madame Maxime (Frances de la Tour) from the French school, and Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) dancing with Minerva McGonagall (Maggie Smith). Excellent.

I mentioned the French school head mistress Madame Maxime and her school, Beauxbaton, is also part of the movie. The Beauxbaton girls and the Durmstrang students are visiting Hogwarts for the TriWizard Tournament in which one participant from each of the three schools must compete. The titular Goblet of Fire selects the contestants after the kids nominate themselves. Good guy Cedric Diggory (Robert Pattinson) is the choice for Hogwarts, Viktor Krum for Durmstrang and the beautiful Fleur Delacour (Clemence Poesy) for Beauxbaton. The Goblet also selects Harry even though he didn't nominate himself and he's not eligible to participate because he is only 14 and the tournament is for kids over 17 only. But since the Goblet allowed him, there's nothing Dumbledore can do about it.
The competitions are amazing. Especially the second one, which is underwater (the French girl is hot!), though what the hell with the kids being tied underwater? I mean, they were in actual danger there as far as we know and I don't think they volunteered for that. The first competition was a fight against a Dragon in which the kids had to take a golden egg from him and that egg would give them clues on the third competition, the very scary and dangerous maze. The entire maze sequence, which ends with Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, is brilliant. There's great tension, someone dies, and the transformation of Voldemort was an excellent effect. Voldemort looks very different from what they hinted at in the first movies. He's got a kind of blob like skin and his face is like Fiennes' but without a nose, he looks just great.

I loved all that, yes, but there are a few plot holes that I didn't like and I don't know if they were cut because of time for the movie or were not in the books either. But some for characters, especially the evil ones, I need some explanations because it's like they just let them be there in the movie and there's never a confrontation. We learn here that Snape (the brilliant Alan Rickman) was a Death Eater before and then became a spy for Dumbledore. He's always been both good and bad in the previous movies so it makes sense, but then here Harry sees him Igor Karkaroff (played by Pedja Bjelac) who is the head master of Durmstrang, and they are looking at Karkaroff's arm tattoo of the Voldemort symbol (the snake) which is the same one Barty Crouch Jr. (played by David Tennant, who looks a lot like Stuart Townsend) has. Harry had seen the tattoo before in his nightmares, which we see at the beginning of the movie and a couple more times later. In the nightmare Harry sees Voldemort (not visible though, he's sitting on a big chair and he's not transformed yet), Barty Crouch Jr. and Wormtail (Timothy Spall) as they killed an old muggle in an old mansion. The thing is that after Harry sees Snape, Karkaroff and the tattoo together, he doesn't say anything to anybody. And he knew that Barty Crouch Jr. was a bad guy. And then Lucius Malfoy (Jason Isaacs), who at the end is on Voldemort's side but Harry doesn't say anything either about him when he gets out of the maze (apparently something does happen in the book though). That those two characters are still untouched in the story (of the movies at least) is amazing to me.

As for the acting, I thought it was just fine. The Weasley twins (James and Oliver Phelps) are excellent throughout the entire movie and thankfully they get a lot more on screen time than they did in the 3 previous movies combined. The most fun characters of all. Daniel Radclife and Rupert Grint were good too as always and just perfect for their roles. Rupert is getting huge, giant arms. They should change the ages of the kids for the next movies and make it different from the books. There's no way they can make them look 14, as they should be according to the books. And then the only ones that I've never been sure about, Emma Watson as Hermione (sorry, she's cute and will be super hot in the future but her acting is not great) and Tom Felton who plays Drako (the kid can't act). Matthew Lewis who plays Neville was pretty good though.
Then the adults, who were pretty much all great. Glad to see more of Dumbledore who's had almost nothing to do in the first 3 movies. Then a little bit for everybody else though I would've liked to actually see Sirius Black (Gary Oldman). But Brendan Gleeson as Mad Eye Moody, the new professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, was excellent. I did not like Miranda Richardson's Rita Skeeter though. Robbie Coltrane ruled as in all the previous movies and as mentioned before, Ralph Fiennes was perfect in those 10 or so minutes he was there as Voldemort.

Overall this is a very good movie, great effects and creatures, and a bigger world to work with. In comparison, I think the first two movies were mediocre, and too much for kids. The third one was great. Dark, with a great gothic style and it showed the kids growing up a little bit and it's the best of the series so far. Goblet of Fire is the second best right now. There's a lot to like though there are a few plot holes (lots for those who haven't read the books, like me) that should've not been left unanswered, though for that it would've taken a lot of extra time so I guess I have to let it pass. Add to that an almost non existent score from John Williams (who was nominated for an Oscar for Azkaban) which was weird, and the loss of the great cinematography seen before also in the third movie, and should be more unhappy but despite all that, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a great movie, because the kids are growing, and we get to see that part of them that we've never seen before, and Mike Newell translated it perfect into the movie. As Hermione says, "Everything is going to change now, isn't it?", and the answer is yes, but with these great team of people making the next movies too, there's nothing to fear because the changes will be for better.

The Ice Harvest

2005-11-19T11:59:00.000-05:00

Harold Ramis, the man behind the camera of some of the great comedy classics from the past few decades like National Lampoon's Vacation, Caddyshack, Groundhog Day and Analyze This (he also wrote the GhostBusters movies, Animal House, Stripes and Bedazzled), is back after some years without a good movie with The Ice Harvest, another adult, dark comedy crossed with a film noir crime thriller, set around Christmas time in snowy Wichita Falls, Kansas.

John Cusack stars as mob lawyer Charlie Arglist, and Billy Bob Thornton is Vic Cavanaugh, it's Christmas Eve and the two of them have stolen 2 million dollars from the mob. The crime boss is Bill Guerrard (played by Randy Quaid) and he wont find out until after Christmas, so the boys plan to stay the night in town and leave in the morning, especially since there's a pretty bad ice storm currently hitting the city. They move around the strip clubs, Vic owns one, and Renata, played by Connie Nielsen, owns the other one called the Sweet Cage. Charlie has long tried for Renata's affection, and now that he's got the money and leaving, he hopes to take her with him. Problems arise when Guerrard finds out early, and sends a hitman to get them. Charlie also needs to take care of his best friend Pete who gets terribly drunk, and he also needs to take care of his drinking too since there are a few cops who seem to find him driving around every couple of hours. Pete is also married now to Charlie's ex-wife, and even raising Charlie's children with her. She is a cold manipulative bitch so Pete is suffering now just like Charlie suffered when he was married to her.

As much as the movie is being promoted as a buddy comedy, it's Cusack's movie, the classic Cusack mannerisms are there, and he pulls it off. Billy Bob's Vic is his now also classic sleazy persona he played so well in Bad Santa and the Bad News Bears remake. He's not much in the movie actually but he's got a couple of scenes towards the end that are great. Danish beauty Connie Nielsen plays it great and she has a great mature sexiness even if she's years away from her Devil's Advocate days. Randy Quaid, though a weird choice for a mob boss, works it just fine and his one scene is great. Oliver Platt plays the drunk Pete and he's the very best part of the movie. He makes jokes, new ones even, and they're actually funny, and he plays the drunkenness great.

Cinematographer Alar Kivilo gives us a great look of the icy lakes of Wichita Falls, and the movie also has a nice Christmassy/film noir score by David Kitay. Based on the novel by Scott Phillips, and adapted by Richard Russo and Robert Benton (who also wrote Kramer vs. Kramer and the original Superman), The Ice Harvest is a good movie, not very memorable and it's uneventful, but is violent, it has a nice language, and it's a good movie overall.

Walk the Line

2005-11-17T23:59:00.000-05:00

Boasting stellar performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line is a Johnny Cash biopic that is so much like last year's Ray Charles biopic that it will be tough for it to suffer the comparisons, especially since Ray is easily a much better movie overall. I do have to admit that I didn't know one single Johnny Cash (nor June Carter) song before going to see the movie, and I only recognized one of them, Ring of Fire but just because it's been promoted since the movie was announced. So fans of Johnny Cash and country music in general will probably like it better, and I quite liked it.

Poor and having to work during his childhood, with a brother that died when they were kids, a tough time to get into the business, and a drug abuse problem that came with that, all that was part of Ray, and also of Walk the Line now. And both had very strong, Oscar worthy performances. Joaquin Phoenix plays the Man in Black and what a performance he gives. Quite and very interior at times, or putting it all out because of the drug or the alcohol, he makes no mistake. Emotional when needed, funny too. Of course that this is the best performance of his career, and he was great in Gladiator, Quills and Buffalo Soldiers too. If I had to give someone the Oscar the right now, I'd go with Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote though, but Joaquin would be second in line.
A tougher role in the movie was that of Reese Witherspoon who plays June Carter, the love of Johnny Cash's life for a long time before she finally married him. Reese is amazing here, perfectly transforming into June from the beginning of the movie. She has a very thick accent, that must've been easy since being a southern belle herself, and luckily doesn't tiring or anything. Oscar talk again, she would be a lock to win if she were supporting. Still, she has great chances as a lead actress. I liked her better than Charlize Theron in North Country, but I'm not so sure if better than Gwyneth Paltrow in Proof, though both those movies tanked at the box office so it's going to be very tough for them to overpower Reese.

Johnny Cash's story starts with the death of his brother, which happened when they were young and left him with a grudge against his father who made him miserable after the accident (Jack Cash died while working cutting wood on a circular saw). The father, Ray Cash, is played by Robert Patrick who gives a pretty good performance too.
After Johnny got married for the first time he formed a country band with some friends from work (who were not good musicians at all) and then he found a recording company who let them record a song but not before they changed their music which was very mediocre at first, but once Cash found his right sound and style, he was a superstar.
June Carter had been a star since she was a child and around these days she was married and singing with her husband. She played it funny though, as her family of big musicians always told her that she wasn't the best of them, and so she thought of bringing comedy to her act.
She had a tough time having to put up with all those boys she toured with (during their Sun Records days, which gave life to many popular singers back then), which included Elvis Presley (pop-star Tyler Hilton), Jerry Lee Lewis (Waylon Malloy Payne) and Carl Perkins (blues singer Johnny Holiday). And after that she had to live with Johnny Cash's stalking (pretty much) and the people's disapproval of her getting divorced which happened twice before wedding Cash, and during all that she also got put down for forming a relationship with him (just friends though at first) while they were both married. Cash's first wife was Vivian Cash and she is played by Ginnifer Goodwin, who gives a passable performance though she gets very little respect in the story. She's complaining all the time (rightly so though as Johnny was touring and singing duets with June all the time, and he was popping pills like a maniac), crying and yelling, and the writers don't care to give her any dignity like Ray's did with Kerry Washington's Della Bea, Ray's wife who had to go through pretty much if not more (especially being black) than Vivian.

I love the fact that all of the actors portraying singers in the movie actually sang all their songs, including Joaquin and Reese who make the perfect singing voices and can really sing in tune and in the same style Johnny and June did. I'm guessing they also played the instruments themselves. The songs during the whole movie are excellent and very enjoyable. The sound department did a great job with the music for the movie. Sadly though, that's the only technical praise I can give the movie. Phedon Papamichael's cinematography is not impressive at all, and I really feel the movie needed some kind of style like Ray had which was that beautiful black and gray tone of smoking. Nothing like that here. Director James Mangold's camera work was also mediocre, poor even. Very disappointing coming from the man who gave us Cop Land and Girl, Interrupted, both great movies that had their own styles, even his Kate & Leopold did.

Co-written by Mangold and Gill Dennis, and based on a couple of Cash's autobiographies, this is a very good movie that does a great job in showing us who Johnny and June were and what they went through, but as a whole it fails because the supporting players are very underwritten, specially Ray, as Patrick could've use more time to develop the character, and Vivian, though if the role would've been bigger I don't know if Goodwin could've make it work. Still, the music and powerful lead performances make Walk the Line very worthy of a watch, and it's made me want to give Cash's discography a try. I'm sure I'll become a fan after a few listenings.

Bee Season

2005-11-16T00:10:00.000-05:00

Based on the best selling novel by Myla Goldberg, Bee Season is not the movie you think, not at all. The spelling bee is just the device this drama uses to introduce us to this family of religious intellectuals, who will suffer serious spiritual changes and awakenings before it's over. It is rated PG-13, breaking common MPAA rules, it has 2 'fucks', but should kids see it? I'm not so sure, as it could raise some tough questions about religion that are not for everybody. The main theme here is the study and practice of Kabbalah, which is not just something crazy Madonna does. I had actually no idea what it was before the movie, and now I do, at least some.

The movie centers on Eliza Naumann, an 11-year-old girl who start winning spelling bee competitions, first at her school and then the District tournament. Her family doesn't know about it. Her father is Saul, a Jewish college professor who teaches religion and the Kabbalah. He also practiced Kabbalah once but he could not accomplish it. He's very close to his son Aaron, a teenager who is a gifted violinist. They practice together all the time at night, neglecting Eliza and Miriam, the mom of the family. Miriam is a scientist.
That neglecting is what makes Eliza hide her triumphs from her father and mother, but after winning district, which is when Aaron learns about it as he has to give her a ride, the rest of the family founds out too, making Saul get close to her little girl and start neglecting Aaron now. Meanwhile, Miriam keeps being neglected and for some reason she starts going out at night, not to clubs or anything like that, but getting up in the middle of the night and leaving the house in her pajamas. She drives around, parks in the middle of streets and breaks into empty house taking little objects with her, we don't know why.
After Saul sees Eliza win again, he takes her into her office and starts helping her study for the competitions and then teaching her Kabbalah, a practice that lets those who achieve it (who is almost nobody says Saul) connect with God. A great student of it said that it could be done by working and playing with words, as words reflect reality, but they also create it. So Saul sees Eliza's spelling bee wins and ease with words and wants her to practice Kabbalah, and she eventually does. What Saul doesn't know is that Eliza doesn't need any of it. She hears the words, closes her eyes, and the words appear in front of her, they are there in all forms possible, usually according to the word they are spelling. She explains this to her mother and here's when we learn a bit more about her. Miriam's parents died in a car accident when she was young, and she's had emotional problems about it ever since, those little objects she steals, often shinny or with prismatic shapes, reflect her likeness for kaleidoscopes, which reminds her of the broken glasses from the crashed car. During the movie she gradually gets worse with her problem. Aaron goes into a spiritual journey too because of his father's disregardance and goes in different religious ways. First he attends a Catholic church, then reads a book about Hinduism, to finally get recruited by a beautiful young girl named Chali to the Hare Krishna.
As Eliza keeps winning and getting closer to God, the family falls apart in very different but all interest, educative and very thought-provoking ways.

The performances are top notch here. Eliza is played by French newcomer Flora Cross who is truly an amazing actress at her young age. She has an inner acting going on that is canalized just in the right way with perfect timing. This girl has bright future ahead of her. Max Minghella plays her Aaron and a great performance from him too. He's got an excellent scene with the father that is just a perfect expression of acted anger. Saul is played by Richard Gere, and even though the character is not a great father, nor person by any means, Gere does great here and plays him very well. Juliette Binoche plays Miriam and is a tough performance as she is by herself in most of her scenes she does it well too. There's one terribly good scene she has that will make people jump from their seats.

The movie also has great use of CGI when Eliza works her magic, as signs in the rooms get highlighted right on the correct letters to spell the words, or objects appear out of nowhere and shape themselves into different letters. There's great camera work too throughout the entire movie, with some great innovative shots and angles. Adapted for the screen by Naomi Foner and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, Bee Season is a family movie, mindblowing, haunting, and the most powerful movie I've seen all year.

Pride & Prejudice

2005-11-14T00:08:00.000-05:00

Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Pride & Prejudice. I've never been a Jane Austen fan, and as an adult in fact, I've never seen any of the TV or film adaptations (save for the P&P Bollywood musical last year) of any of her novels, but I might start now. They are showing the 1995/1996 miniseries tomorrow on TV, so I'm starting there, because I hear that Colin Firth is excellent there, and that the adaptation is the best ever made so far, reason why some people are rejecting the new Pride & Prejudice, directed by Joe Wright and adapted by Deborah Moggach. I'm happy though, because with no comparison possible, I fell in love with it, and I don't think that watching any other adaptation will change that.

The story I've known since forever of course, poor, strong and smart girl hates the rich tough boy to then fall in love at the end against the family and society's rules and traditions. But it's a lot more than that.
Keira Knightley stars as Elizabeth Bennet, the second in age of the Bennet sisters, who are five in total. Rosamund Pike plays Jane, the most beautiful and eldest sister, who is first in line to be married according to tradition. Jenna Malone is Lydia and Carey Mulligan is Kitty, the playful sisters who want love and be married even though they are too young. Talulah Riley is Mary, the youngest of the bunch, and the only one who doesn't care for marriage yet. She's kind of like the Goth girl if that existed back in the 18th century when the novel and movie take place. I know I mentioned marriage there a lot, and it's because that's what this is all about. The girls' mother and matriarch of the family, played by Brenda Blethyn, takes it as her job to get them wed to wealthy men. The first opportunity arises when young Mr. Bingley (played by Simon Woods) comes to town and moves next to the Bennet's house. Mrs. Bennet arranges for her daughters to meet Mr. Bingley at the dance, and puts Jane right in front of him, and even though their meeting is staged, they immediately fall truly in love. Elizabeth is next, and Mr. Bingley's best friend is Mr. Darcy who is played by Matthew MacFadyen (this is the character that Firth played in the miniseries). He is cold, rich and doesn't say good things about her after they first meet. She's very opinionated and dislikes the rich. But they fall in love too, even though they don't know it yet. Elizabeth will later have another love interest in Mr. Wickham (played by Rupert Friend), an officer who used to be Darcy's best friend in their childhood. She will also get a proposition to get married from Mr. Collins (Tom Hollander), an older man with some money her mother wants her to marry since Jane is already taken. He also talks a lot, and is a man of the clergy. Elizabeth declines with the help of her father (played by Donald Sutherland) after her mother goes crazy about it. Mr. Collins will then marry Elizabeth's best friend Betsy (Sinead Matthews). And Lydia will also get married, and Dame Judy Dench will appear in a villainy role before we get to the inevitable but well deserved and satisfactory conclusion of Elizabeth and Darcy's union.

I have to apologize to Mrs. Knightley first of all, I'm never been a fan, and I've even said before that I really don't like her. I've never said that about her performances though, she's always good to great. I've said that because I didn't think she was beautiful (of course, who am I to complain that about her), I'd never fell in love with her on screen, but that changed today. She was the most beautiful creature of the planet, and her performance is excellent. She smiled and I smiled, she was glowing, vibrant and radiating an amazing energy. Her Lizzy is also smart and funny. I loved everything about her. This is truly an Award worthy, perfect performance. The supporting actors are great too, with Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland giving very strong performances. Rosamund Pike is also a highlight and makes me forget that she was in Doom and didn't get naked there, or here. Nobody does here (not that is needed).

The movie is also technically perfect. Gorgeous cinematography from Roman Osin, who gives a great look to the foggy English countryside. The costumes, makeup, sets and decorations, everything is great. The entire art department and production team have made a perfect job here. I love period pieces, so getting into the movie was not a problem to me as it is for some people. I hope everybody can get past that and give Pride & Prejudice a chance. Excellent work like this, with these amazing performances deserve to be watched and must not be neglected, and the movie is really one of the best of the year.

The Matador

2005-11-13T16:17:00.000-05:00

Pierce Brosnan leaves James Bond behind in Richard Shepard's The Matador, where he plays Julian Noble, an international hitman who's been loosing it lately, and he finds a friend in Greg Kinnear's Danny Wright while in Mexico for a job. A buddy comedy about middle-age men bonding, but with a thriller sideplot, the movie is really fun.

I have to describe Julian better, because on paper it doesn't seem at all that this is a departure from the man that liked his martini shaken, not stirred, but it is. Julian is a sleazy, dirty man, going after teenage girls, delivering some crazy dialogue about nailing girls behind the Gap, he's amazing. And Brosnan plays him no holds barred, with the ugly mustache and the beer belly showing. Then Kinnear's Danny is a regular guy, a small time salesman in business in Mexico City. He meets Julian in the bar, and after the two of them form a friendship over their problems (Julian is having problems concentrating lately in his jobs, Danny is not sure he'll get the account he came to Mexico to get) and alcohol, he ends up helping Julian and Julian ends up helping him. Also in the story is Hope Davis (American Splendor, Proof) who plays Danny's wife Bean. She's funny, and when she first meets Julian all she wants is to see his gun. Hope Davis is excellent in the 20 or so minutes she gets here. Very funny and a radiant beauty, though still looking like a regular woman.
Great performances from all of them.

The movie has great dialogue and excellent direction courtesy of Shepard. And a great cinematography too from David Tattersall (the Star Wars prequels, The Green Mile), with great shots of Mexico City, especially the aerial ones of the Plaza de Toros and the actual bullfighting. Great colorful shots very well taken there. Funny, entertaining, and character driven, there's not much to say about The Matador other than recommend it.

Derailed

2005-11-11T00:23:00.000-05:00

Clive Owen and Jennifer Aniston star in Derailed as Charles Schine and Lucinda Harris, two executives who meet on a train while on their way to work, flirt a little bit with each other, and after a few encounters for lunch when they go over their lives (professional and personal) they decide to get a hotel and sleep together. They are both married and have families of their own though, but after a few maybe-we-shouldn'ts they decide to do it anyway. When they're about to do it though, Vincent Cassell's Philippe Laroche breaks into the hotel room, knocks Charles out and rapes Lucinda. They don't call the cops because they would have to say what were they doing there. Then a few days later, Philippe calls Charles and blackmails him for money or else he'll tell his wife about Lucinda.

Directed by Mikael Hafstrom and written by Stuart Beattie from a novel by James Siegel, the story is well written and keeps everything tight and well paced, and there aren't many wrong decisions taken by the characters so it works quite well. There's not much dialogue (the movie is very simple) but what is said is realistic and not goofy. It's serious movie, and the times that make for a laugh it's an actual scary laugh because of something Philippe says or does.
Clive is great here. A simple performance but very well done. Aniston is good too, though she doesn't have as much to do. Her few emotional scenes (she's the lady is distress), especially when she gets raped, are very well acted. Cassell is very good and entertaining as the classic crazy sleazy bad guy. The RZA and Xzibit are both in the movie too and they're actually pretty good. They play Charles' friend from work and Philippe's sidekick, respectively.
There's also Melissa George who plays Charles' wife Deanna. She has pretty much nothing to do and is there because Charles needs to be married in order for the story to work, and there's also a subplot about Charles and Deanna's daughter Amy who has diabetes and so they have been saving money for a long time to buy a new drug that could cure her. And that's the money Philippe wants.

The movie is good, I have to say that. There's some good suspense, pretty good acting, good R rated dialogue and the scenes when they fight (nothing big though, no action) are done very well. If I had to compare the movie with something else I'd say that is kind of like Red Eye which was also very simple and low key, but effective and suspenseful.
Oh yes, there's a twist at the end. I figured it out 5 minutes into the movie though, as there is a line one of the characters says that gives it away. In the case that you miss that line or don't get it, then you may end up really eating it all up and loving it.
Whatever happens, Derailed still works well because after the final twist there are still ten or so more minutes of movie when we get a regular and satisfactory ending.

Paradise Now

2005-11-09T12:13:00.000-05:00

Paradise Now tells the story of Said and Khaled, two Palestinian childhood friends who work together as mechanics, they smoke together, talk about life, and they spend time with their families. Said has a love interest in Suha, the daughter of an important man who is a leader for the Palestinians. She's is slowly falling in love with him too. You wouldn't know what the movie is about from its first 20 or so minutes, as we follow the two friends on their daily lives. But it all (rather quietly) changes when they are visited by old friends who tell them that they have finally been chosen to sacrifice themselves for their country's cause in a suicide bombing attempt in Tel-Aviv in a couple of days.

The movie is not completely religious. Of course that comes into play, especially when they start questioning, though still very sure they will do it, if it's worth it to die this way. And it's even worse for them when Suha finds out about it. She's against the suicide bombings, arguing that it only makes the Israelis strike back and the confrontation will never end. But what's great is to see the preparation the terrorist group takes with them. They give them new suits, cut their hair and shave them, they make their final videos when they explain why are they doing it and they also say a last goodbye to their families. This is a fantastic scene as Khaled makes his recording, but the camera wasn't working, so he has to repeat it again. It could be taken as funny, but is actually terrible that he has to say goodbye like that twice. They also have their final meal, a scene purposely made to look like The Last Supper, in which all the men in the group are seated on the same side of the table full of food, and Said and Khaled are in the center of it. I don't really want to spoil it but they finally end up crossing the border to Israel and there is a bombing at the end. But it's done so sublime and perfectly well done that is not the horror I was expecting.

Kais Nashef plays Said and Ali Suliman plays Khaled. Suha is played by Lubna Azabal. Amazing performances. The movie is directed by Hany Abu-Assad, and written by him, Bero Beyer and Pierre Hodgson. As for the movie itself, I think that what was done with the bombing scene was great, but everything else before it should've been played more dramatic. I would've want to see more of these characters' lives, and more about how the idea of going to kill themselves for their country and their religion affected their lives for during the time they learn about it until it's time to actually do it. I think that more of all that would've made this a terrific film. As it is, Paradise Now is a great experience that could and should have been better.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

2005-11-08T15:45:00.000-05:00

Showtime, Taxi, Hollywood Homicide, Bad Company, The Man? All horrible, and for children. The Bad Boys movies? People went to see them but they're crap in my book. Where are the buddy action comedies for adults these days? They are gone. No 48 Hrs, no The Last Boy Scout or The Long Kiss Goodnight, and most importantly, no more Lethal Weapons. Those masterpieces that defined the genre in the 80s and early 90s, and the man behind most of that was screenwriter Shane Black, who is back after years absent from Hollywood to bring us his directorial debut Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, an amazing homage to those film noir full of mysterious twist, explosive comedic action with a million lines to quote movies that we all used to love back in the day.

The story is all twisty, a mystery getting more and more ideas and possible killers and victims as our heroes try to solve it, or as they don't at times. They are Harry Lockhart and Gay Perry, classic names already. Harry (played by Robert Downey Jr.) is a small time thief who lands at a movie audition by accident when escaping from the police, gives the performance of his life, and ends up taken to Hollywood to try for a role in a big studio movie. He's going to play a detective in the movie, so they put him under the tutelage of Gay (Val Kilmer), a Los Angeles Private Detective that is actually gay. He takes Harry with him to follow someone for a case he's currently working on, but things start going wrong when the person they were following ends up dead, or killed someone, and then there's a body in a lake, and a body that ends up pissed in the shower, and a millionaire movie stars turned businessman (Corbin Bernsen) who's been fighting with his daughter over some money. There's also 2 hit men called Mr. Fire and Mr. Frying Pan, the latter didn't like to be called Mr. Ice so he changed it, and there's a pink hair girl beauty played by Shannyn Sossamon, and finally, a star making performance by the super amazing and delicious Michelle Monaghan who plays Harmony Lane, who may have a childhood connection with Harry.

I'm not going more into the story because a) It'd be a lot of spoilers and b) I'm not entirely sure I can get it right after what it took me to figure it out. But don't worry, you'll get it, and what's more important are the performances here. Robert Downey Jr. is possible at the height of his career with this performance, and yes, I'm counting Chaplin. He rules in this movie, exuding energy in each scene even when he has little idea what is going on or doing something wrong. He's Mel Gibson's Riggs, or tries to be, because when he tries to defend a girl that is about to be molested he gets his ass kicked, but at least he stops the guy. And there's lots of other stuff happening to him that I won't spoil either because this is seriously one of the funniest movies of the year.
The easy laughs could come from Kilmer's character just because he's gay, and many come but most in part because they are smart. Kilmer is so gay is crazy. And he's huge after all that weight he put for Alexander. He also gets some of the best lines of the year if not ever like his response when Harry asks him if he's really gay: "No, I'm knee deep in pussy, I just can't get rid of the name" or "This isn't good cop, bad cop. This is fag and New Yorker". He's also got a faggot gun, just wait to see it and what it does. And the way these 2 guys work together is great, perfect chemistry.
As I mentioned before, Michelle Monaghan is beautiful, but she can also act. I can't believe how well she managed to be a presence on screen having to share it with those two acting monsters. She's fearless and funny and serious, and her character is not the usual damsel in distress from these kind of movies which kind of helps.

All that stuff works because of the real star of the movie, Shane Black. He puts Robert Downey Jr. to narrate the movie from the star and this has to be the greatest narration of a movie ever. As Downey tells the story, at times he has to stop and go back a few scenes because he forgot to tell us something, he even talks to us and tells us how a scene was not necessary in the movie, or how the ending wont go to long ala Lord of the Rings. But what's better is that the movie is a satire of this kind of movies, and Downey comments on that too, how something should happen just because it always happens in this kind of movies, and then it happens, and it's the funniest thing ever. If I have to describe it, I'd say that it's like Not Another Teen Movie, where they were mocking teen movies but everything was happening in their movie too. This is the same, but seriously funny, and not stupid.

A great fast paced 80s feeling story, sharp, smart and funny dialogue made for today's world that only Black could make, and an excellent score by John Ottman. Add to that the remarkable performances, the funny comedy and the beautiful women in hot outfits and there's no other fact other than Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is brilliant. One of the best movies of the year, one that we, not knowingly, have been waiting for, and needed. Shane Black, please don't leave us again.

Jarhead

2005-11-04T13:12:00.000-05:00

The nickname the Marines get after the way their hair grows because of how it's cut when they enlist, Jarhead is Sam Mendes' follow up to the great crime drama Road to Perdition. Here, the story is about a rookie Marine going to fight in the First Gulf War, or going to not fight actually because that's what they did, and the movie is all about that. It's not anti-war like many are claiming, but is not a war movie either, and there's some political commentary but not much.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Anthony 'Swoff' Swofford, the real life soldier who wrote his memoirs from the war into the book the movie is based in, of the same title, adapted for the big screen by Apollo 13 and Cast Away's scribe William Broyles Jr. He's a young man who made a bad turn on his way to college, he says at one point, dumb enough to sign a contract, he says later, and ended up going to The Suck, Saudi Arabia 1990.
But before that Mendes lets us know what the movie will be about, and submerges us in these soldiers lives, not before they joined but during their training camp (purposely like Full Metal Jacket), and as they violently watch Apocalypse Now on the big screen, the helicopter raid scene with Ride of the Valkyries at maximum volume. It's like an orgy for them, they're imitating the movie, they're chanting, they're throwing popcorn and getting pumped up, and so are we. Suddenly the movie is cut, and they are notified that they are going to war, hoorah. Sadam has infiltrated Kuwait, and they must go there to help, and here's the political stuff because they don't go to fight, they go to the middle of nothing in the desert to protect the Saudi's oil refineries, because they're America's friends.

But that's what they are trained do, Swoff's platoon of Scout Snipers, they are trained to fight, and that's all they do, train, rest, and hydrate, all the time under the orders of their insatiable and war loving Staff Sgt. Sykes, who's got a little R. Lee Ermey's Sergeant Hartman going on (it is meant to be that way). The routine is really well narrated to us, taken literally from the book I'm told, but it's also reminiscent of Mendes' American Beauty scene when the lead character tells us what he does all day, both routines including the very important masturbation several times a day. But they also read letters and write home, and his one of the big ideas of the movie, how the war destroys your pre-war life, how the wives and girlfriends back home cheat on you and then send you a tape of her fucking your best friend on camera. It's not like that for everybody, but it is for many.
And so they don't fight, but they do scout, walking aimlessly through the emptiness of the Arab dessert during the day, and then again during the night between the black oil fires that darken the sky and make it rain oil. When the war finally starts, they become Operation Dessert Storm, but as we all know, the war only consisted of a handful of days and it was over. Many, including our heroes, never got the chance to even shot they're riffles once.

Gyllenhaal is excellent here, tremendous energy, charisma, and a pretty great voice over. And he's huge now the way he's bulked up. He's truly one of the best actors of his generation, not a bad performance to date. Peter Sarsgaard is Swoff's sniping spotter Troy, and I'm sad to report is criminally wasted here. He's the second actor in the movie but has nothing to do in it other than a kind of big scene at the end, but before that he's always in the background looking at the situations and bringing some reason to what happens. Everybody has been talking about this being his chance to get awarded by the Academy after being snubbed for Shattered Glass a few years ago and Kinsey last year, but this part is not going to do it. The rest of the jarheads are the usual cliched ones, a black, a Hispanic, a geeky and scared guy, a crazy one (Evan Jones), and the against the war soldier (Lucas Black), but they all play them very good too.
Chris Cooper is only in the movie for 2 scenes, around 5 minutes total, but he's great in it as Lt. Col. Kazinski. Same for Dennis Haysbert who plays another high ranked marine, and John Krasinski from theAmerican versionn of The Office. And then Jamie Foxx as Sykes, following up his Oscar winning performance in Ray last year (yes, I've erased Stealth from my mind already), he's amazing. He's credited "and Jamie Foxx" but he's got more to do and even more lines than many, even Sarsgaard. There are a couple speeches and badass situations where he really shines. If anybody is getting a supporting performance award here, it's him.

The soundtrack is great too. Kanye West, The Doors and Ride of the Valkyries as mentioned before. The movie is also brilliantly shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins, specially those oil fires scenes. The movie is pretty uneventful though, when we are finally going to see what we and the characters have been waiting for the entire time, they are stopped, and a big event occurs that we don't care to see, because it's not what Swoff and Troy wanted.
The uneventfulness caused that the movie didn't blew me away, it was excellent anyway. It's an A-, 9 out of 10, almost perfect. Don't expect FMJ, AN or Platoon, is not that type of movie, but Jarhead is a must see, and one of the best movies of the year.
Like Swoff says, "Every war is different, every war is the same", what's important is how it affects you, and this one changed his life forever, he'll be a marine forever, his rifle will be a part of him forever, and he didn't even get to shoot it.

Chicken Little

2005-11-02T23:40:00.000-05:00

Walt Disney Pictures made a terrible a mistake by letting Pixar go a few years ago, it was a really bad idea. Now they've made their first CGI solo project and the result is Chicken Little, based on the fable about a young chicken who claims a piece of the sky fell and hit him in the head. His town of Oakey Oaks goes into a big debacle, half the city gets destroyed, and it turns out that no piece of sky fell on anybody's head, and that the titular character just got hit in the head by an acorn that fell from a tree. He then becomes the joke of the town, a humiliation to his father, and Hollywood is even making a movie about him and craziness. A year later, he's determined to put behind what happened and show everybody what he can do, though he doesn't know how to do anything, but he'll try, especially with his friends at his side to help him. But he's in trouble again when a real piece of the sky falls on his head, and soon an Alien invasion comes to town, and is up to him to save the day.

Zach Braff, using that kiddy voice he uses in Scrubs sometimes, voices Chicken Little, and he's very good at it and has great comedic timing. Chicken Little himself is a good enough character though I'm not sure how many movies, if any, can be made out of him. His group of friends are the best characters in the movie. Abby Mallard aka Ugly Duckling is voiced by Joan Cusack who is a must have whenever you need to voice a lead female. The character is also pretty good, the voice of reason, always giving Chicken Little advice which she gets from magazines. Then Runt of the Litter, voiced by Steve Zahn, is the big pig always afraid of everything and eating whatever he can find when he gets nervous. And finally, the best character of the pack in my opinion, Fish out of Water. He doesn't talk (though someone called Dan Molina is credited as his voice on IMDB), but he's always there doing something funny in the background. And he always comes through when needed. He's awesome. To complete the kid characters we have Chicken Little's nemesis and the town's star athlete Foxy Loxy, voiced by Amy Sedaris, and Morkubine Porcupine, voiced by the movie's director Mark Dindal. None of these 2 characters worked for me, especially the Porcupine who was supposed to be super cool but ended up being a total waste with just a couple one-word lines every now and then.

Now the adult characters, and this is something that Disney picked up from Pixar and it always works really well (against the all-stars from the Shrek series). Kids won’t have any idea who they are but for us adults is a great and pretty impressive group of character actors and even legends. Garry Marshall voices Chicken Little's father Buck Cluck. The Andy Griffith Show regular Don Knotts (who I know little about and I even thought he had died this year but he actually didn't) is Turkey Lurkey, the town's Mayor, and Wallace Shawn plays Principal Fetchit. And then comes the coolest: it's geek's heaven as Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men) plays Mr. Woolensworth, one of the schoolteachers, and then there's parts for superheroes Patrick Warburton (The Tick) and Adam West (TV's Batman), and Christopher Guest's regulars Harry Shearer, Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara.

So that worked well, but what Disney didn't learn from Pixar is to balance the story's maturance (invented word I think) to make it for all types of audiences. Sure, kids loved those Pixar monsters, underwater creatures and superheroes, but their stories had so much more than that, they had stuff that kids did not really understand, but that worked for the adults, especially the ticket buying parents who are the ones that decide if their kids are going to watch the movie or not. And that's Chicken Little's biggest problem, despite a clever (though exhausting) promotional campaign in which the characters simulated classic scenes from other movies, the story ends up being just for kids. They also rip off several sci-fi classics (mostly Spielberg's) like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and even the new World of the Worlds which is totally insane since this movie was before, so it's like the writers decided to update their stolen ideas to make it look cooler. They also make a big reference to King Kong (twice) and there's some Indiana Jones in there too.
Some of that stuff bothered me a little bit, and some I didn't care about, but the thing is that there's already Shrek to do that kind of stuff, and then there's Pixar for original ideas and Hayao Miyazaki for the fantastic stories with his Japanese animation, so it's like there's no need for Disney to come do CGI movies (same goes for Fox). Maybe if they started bringing their classic characters to this new CGI era but I don't think we are ready to accept a computerized Mickey or Donald.

I'm being too hard on the movie actually, because despite all that, I enjoyed it, and it wasn't even close as bad as I was thinking it was going to be. The CGI is the usual perfection, and the big variety of characters, though all over the map with so many different animals, works just fine. Overall, thanks to an (though not original) ok story and a pretty great cast of actors, Chicken Little is a good enough start for Disney in this CGI world, and I wish them good luck in the future, just think a little bit more about us adults for your next entry.

Zathura

2005-11-01T14:20:00.000-05:00

Money Director Jon Favreau aims to please his Elf audience once again with the space adventure Zathura, a kind of Jumanji sequel, both based on books by Chris Van Allsburg who also wrote The Polar Express book. Does Favreau succeed? Yes, he does. Is it better than Jumanji? No, but is much cooler.

Once again the story is that of kids, two brothers (10 and 6) who spend their young lives fighting with each other over their father (Tim Robbins)'s attention, though all Danny (Jonah Bobo) really wants is to play games with his brother Walter (Josh Hutcherson) but him being the older, can't be seen playing with kids, or playing at all (I mean, he even has a girlfriend).
But they're left alone at the house one day, and after a fight that ends up with Danny getting locked in the creepy basement, they find a board game called Zathura. Danny immediately starts playing next to his brother and the adventure begins. A meteor shower hits the house, a old looking cool robot (kind of like the Sky Captain ones, and is voiced by Frank Oz!) attacks them, Alien lizards called Zorgons bomb the house from their spaceships, and yes, the house is floating in space too and there's no way to know where they are. During their are adventure, they are visited by a lost Astronaut (played by Dax Shepard) and later joined by their teenage sister Lisa, who's been upstairs in her room sleeping all day, and later cryogenized in the bathroom, thanks to the game. Lisa is played Kristen Stewart, the Panic Room kid now looking hot, though still young enough to put me in jail.

Comparing it with Jumanji, I have to say that there's a lot less comedy, but we can all agree that Shepard is no Robin Williams so that's ok. The kids were better before, especially in the acting department. You could see Kirsten Dust’s terror in her face and with her screams. There's not much of that here. I don't know what happened but with everything that was going on around them, it didn't look as if the kids knew that they could die any second. That would be the only negative point I could give the movie. Still, they did an awesome job at fighting like brothers really fight, to the point of getting annoying but that is totally credible, something that most movies with kids fail to accomplish.

There's great job by Favreau here. He used models instead of CGI and that shows, as everything looks incredibly realistic when they're in space. And besides all that cool stuff mentioned before, he adds some really nice touches like a Steve McQueen's Bullitt poster in Tim Robbins' studio. And the movie is sure to work great with kids and parents too, as it has some good hearted brotherly lessons to go along the amazing stuff they encounter in the adventure. Though I wish that Favreau would go back to make something more for adults (his next project is John Carter of Mars but that's geek stuff), I'm still happy with him doing this kind of movies, especially if they are as good as Zathura.

Prime

2005-10-30T12:41:00.000-05:00

There's a new trend in Hollywood these days, they're trying to be indie, even with big names attached to their movies, and they're leaving the fairy tale stories behind. There's less and less cute boy meets cute girl, hate each other, fall in love, get in a fight, break up and then reconcile at the end of the movie and live happily ever after. The characters these days are not perfect, the stories are more normal even if still kind of stupid overall, but most importantly, there's no falling in love at the end and living together in love forever. I mean, there's still some like that, those movies are necessary because they make more money, but these new ones, in which the characters learn from what happens to them and move on, are better, and that's the case of Ben Younger's Prime.

And the lead in this movie is not multiple Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, or Academy Award Nominee Uma Thurman, is Bryan Greenberg, whose last project was the Clooney-Soderbergh HBO series Unscripted, which has still not been renewed after its first season. Greenberg plays David Bloomberg, a 23 year old Jewish artist who falls in love with Thurman's 37 year old Rafi Gardet, recently divorced, and not Jewish. This is already a problem, as the relationship can't go anywhere, plus Rafi would like a baby and she would need that to happen soon but David is too young to be a father. So Rafi talks to her therapist Lisa Metzger (Streep) who tells her that if he's making her happy, she should stick with him and see where it goes, and so she does. This works perfectly for a while, until Lisa finds out the truth, that David is her son. This should not have been spoiled by the trailers like it did, because I was always trying to see if they could've find out earlier but it was very well done. Lisa and David's last names are different because she uses her maiden name as a professional, and Lisa could not realize before that they were talking about each other because none of them said the names and both of the lied to her about their age. Rafi said her new boyfriend was 27 and David said his new girlfriend was 27, and the age difference was still important enough for Lisa to worry about them. But anyway, she finds out, and what should be a deal breaker continues after Lisa goes to see her own therapist Rita (Madhur Jaffrey) who tells her that is her professional responsibility to keep working on Rafi, and so she does. This brings much comedy from Streep, specially when Rafi tells her about her love life with David. The story goes somewhere, and the ending is really good, though I think that they stretched it a little bit, even though the movie is only 105 minutes long.

As I mentioned before, Streep shines in her role. She has a million facial expressions to respond to every one of the Rafi and David erotic tales. I was not sure that Streep could pull this comedic role off but she did and she was great. Uma is looking hot as always and she's got a couple really good emotional moments with Greenberg, and this guy is going to be really big one day. He's charismatic, funny and good looking, and he's better than expected considering he's working with two big names like Uma and Streep.
The other supporting character with noting is Jon Abrahams who plays David's friend Morris, who has a thing about throwing pies to girls that wont go out with him a second time, a subplot that is funny at first, but ends up going nowhere.

Don't get thrown off by the title, which I have no idea what they meant by it in this case, because the acting is superb, with some really funny scenes to laugh at. Ben Younger's work is very good, script wise and behind the camera, and the great, touching ending is what makes Prime better than it should, worth watching and very good overall.

Saw II

2005-10-30T01:12:00.000-05:00

With James Wan working on a different project, Leigh Whannell, writer and star of last year's twisted horror hit Saw turned to Darren Lynn Bousman to direct and co-write the sequel with him. Saw II is the result, a more generic horror movie that is no better than the first one, but it does have some very nice ideas again, better gore and killer traps. I'm going to go kind of spoiler crazy on it, though I'm not going to reveal the big twist at the end so don't worry.

What I remember from Saw last year was that the acting sucked, specially towards the end, but I revisited the movie before watching the sequel and I have to say that it didn't bother me at all. Now in Saw II the acting is better, that's for sure, but there's a characters that's really stupid and almost ruined the movie for me, the Franky G character. He goes crazy on the others and nobody thinks of stopping him.
But other than that, Donnie Wahlberg is really good as Det. Eric Mason, who's leading the investigation after the Jigsaw asks for him, and then points him to monitors showing a big old house full of traps where 8 people are trapped at the mercy of his games.
Dina Meyer reprises her role as Det. Kerry (something) from the first one. She more to do here, though still not that important, but she is good too. And then the victims, Shawnee Smith is also back as Amanda, the only Jigsaw survivor, and she's ok in the acting department, as are the kids, Erik Knudsen as Mason's son Daniel, and 7th Heaven's Beverley Mitchell who plays another young victim. The aforementioned Franky G is also there in the house, and then there's Tim Burd as Obi, Emmanuelle Vaugier as Addison, and Glenn Plummer as Jonas the black guy, but none of them three have much to do.
The best performance is that of Tobin Bell who plays John the Jigsaw Killer just like in the first movie. He has great exchanges with Donnie Wahlberg for most of the movie and it's very atmospheric and it works great.

I mentioned the traps, the one used in the opening scene is amazingly cool, and there's another one later involving needles that is really sick. I also liked how they tied the story with the first one at the end, it was pretty good, though they did leave something unexplained but it worked anyway. It was great that one of the saws from the first movie finally appeared here at the end, and it seems that someone sharpened it because I don't think that after sitting there all that time it could cause a would like the one in the movie.

What I really didn't like was how the big twist ending left the door open for a third movie. I mean, it was pretty obvious that they had no intention to finish the franchise here, but the way they do it, while unexpected, was a terrible cheat.

And I also didn't like how stupid the movie is compared to the first one. Saw was perfectly calculated, every detail of it. The only way out they had was if the Adam character had found the key right at the beginning when he woke up in the bathtub, but that was very difficult to happen. Now in Saw II, right after they listen to the first recorded message I knew right away that they had to check the back of their heads, maybe there was something on the neck, maybe if they cut some hair, but no, they totally forget about until the end when only one of the remembers.

And what also happened in the first one is that all of Jigsaw's traps and devices were used. Here they never get to open the first safe, and he tells them to check the house for more antidotes and they don't do it. And there's most stuff that had potential but is not used. It's like they had all these ideas, and lots of characters to use them on, but then the movie would've been too long or complicated so they decided to not use that stuff.

It's crazy that I didn't like so much stuff, but I'm still recommending the movie. It even sounds like I hated it but I didn't, I quite liked it despite all its flaws. There's lots of gore, excellent traps, and the same idea than before, that the Jigsaw Killer is not actually a killer, but someone who wants to make these people value life, and that's what makes Saw II good and worth watching, and if they keep it insane like this, it'll be the same for the third one.

Nine Lives

2005-10-28T12:46:00.000-04:00

Writer-Director Rodrigo Garcia new movie gives us short stories that show a small part in the lives of these strong, broken down women. Garcia's last effort was a similar one, Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her was also a movie showing a slice of the lives of women, and I haven't seen that one yet, but I'll look for it now, because Nine Lives is powerful, tragic, and extremely well acted. We only get to see around twelve minutes of each story, but it is enough, at least for most of them, to let us know all we need to know about the characters' situations, and then, after their abrupt ending, is up to us to figure out what happened before and what will happen later. There's so much talent at work here, even from the lesser known actresses, and with the stories being so short, everybody is at the top of their game, and is just excellent to watch.

We start with Sandra (played by Elpidia Carrillo), an inmate doing some cleaning work waiting for a visit from her young daughter. Sandra is tough, but she's a troublemaker. She's been there for more than 4 months now, and this is not her first time in jail. Apparently there have been some problems between some inmates lately, and Sandra is probably involved, and so she's questioned about it by one of the guards (played by Miguel Sandoval). Then when she gets to see her daughter, through a glass window, she gets enraged when the phone doesn't work, and her daughter wont be able to come back for a month. The acting and the drama in this first story is so engaging, that it takes you right in and ready for what's to come.

Other story includes Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs as ex-lovers who were very much in love once, but something happened. They meet in a supermarket, haven't seen each other for 10 years maybe. They're both married, she's pregnant, but this encounter is troubling.
There's also Amy Brenneman as a woman going to her ex-husband's wife's funeral. She's shouldn't be there, and she knows it, but she wants to support him. He's played by William Fichtner, he's a deaf-mute, and they're both still in love with each other.
There's also Holly Hunter and Stephen Dillane as couple getting into a fight while visiting a friend couple. These friends happen to be the Jason Isaacs character from the Robin Wright-Penn short and his wife. Various characters that are central to a story appear as secondary ones in others.
In another story Kathy Baker plays Camille, a woman in a hospital bed about to get surgery to remove one of her breasts. Her very patient and loving husband (played by Joe Mantegna) is there, and she's being a total bitch towards him and the nurse, who is the central piece in one of the other stories. Camille's actions are understandable, she's nervous and frightened, and the nurse knows that.

As if there aren't enough big names already, Sissy Spacek is featured in two stories. In the first one Amanda Seyfried plays Samantha, a young girl who did not go to college to stay home and care for her father (played by Ian McShane) who is in a wheelchair. Spacek is Ruth, her mother and his wife. They have a very dysfunctional relationship, but Samantha understands and is there for them. And then Ruth's story with Aidan Quinn's Henry. They are checking into a motel. Is she cheating on her husband? Or does he know about and approves knowing that his condition doesn't allow him to give her what she needs? This could also be the first time this happens, maybe not.
Lisa Gay Hamilton is Holly, the nurse of the Kathy Baker story, and her short is one of the most troubling and moving. She's goes to the home she grew up in, where she was abused, she's infuriated, screaming and crying, her young sister is there, and Holly's waiting for her father to come to confront him. He's a character we've seen before.
In the final and most haunting story, Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning are Maggie and Maria, mother and daughter going to the cemetery to visit a family member's grave. They have a picnic in front of it, they play together, and they talk about Maggie's father. Glenn Close is amazing, and Dakota plays a regular little girl for once, and she's really good too.

I just found out Rodrigo Garcia is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's son, the Colombian Nobel Prize winning novelist, and that is just amazing. Rodrigo's work here is exceptional, in the screenplay and behind the camera. The stories are deeply touching and realistic, we care for these characters. And the way he filmed them is great, each one shot with a single camera filming non-stop around these women. The stories in Nine Lives continue, we don't know for sure how, but what happens during these sequences, for most of the characters, is life changing, and what we see is enough to affect us too.

The Weather Man

2005-10-26T16:00:00.000-04:00

Gore Verbinski's The Weather Man is a tough movie to talk about. Is very minimalist, with small performances, real situations but there's nothing super big happening. What does happen is the great acting, sharp writing courtesy of Steve Conrad, and many laugh out loud scenes perfectly contrasted by the down to Earth dramatic turns.

Nicolas Cage, one of my favorite actors since forever, stars as David Spritz, a Chicago TV weather man who is a marvel on camera but a disaster in his private life. He kind of knows it, and wants to do everything he can to make things better for him, but mostly for his family. He wants make things work with his ex wife, help his daughter with her image, but most importantly, make his father proud of him, so it's his chance when he gets a chance to go to New York to work for Bryant Gumbell's Good Morning, America. The problem is that he would have to leave his family behind, and his father too, who during the movie gets word that he's got only a few more months to live.
There's excellent work by Cage here, very good with the depressive tone, a very normal portrayal, and very different from the usual man with a million ticks like he usually plays. I haven't heard any buzz on this movie or his performance, and the movie was even moved from earlier this year and is just being released now with very little promotion but I believe that this is an Award worthy performance. At least a comedic nod at the Golden Globes since these kind of movies that are both a drama and a comedy tend to be taken as comedies. But really, there's one scene in particular between David, his father and Bob Seger's Like a Rock, that is truly great acting from Cage.
And I have to comment on the whole fast food throwing thing. It's funny, because he's recognized every once and a while, and people ask him for an autograph, but he doesn't want to sign anything and treats those people bad, and then he gets mad when other people throw food at him. This could look like product placement but it really isn't, as its part of the story, and pretty much all the fast food chains are involved. The parts when David has to explain his father, who doesn't know anything about fast food, what each item is are really good.

His father is Robert Spritzel (David changed his last name to make it more TV friendly) and is played by Sir Michael Caine. Robert is a Pulitzer winner, very respected, and he loves his son, though is very hard to tell. And he cares for the rest of the family too, as he is the one who makes David take a better look at his daughter. Caine is great as always. A lot of low key, simplistic acting, but very effective.
Hope Davis plays David's ex wife Noreen, who still would like to make things work with David, but at the same time she's pretty much done with him, and judging by what we can between them, and a few backflashes, you can understand why.
And then the kids, About a Boy's Nicholas Hoult is Mike and Gemmenne de la Pena is Shelly. Mike is a troubled teen, currently finishing rehab because he was caught with pot. He's friends with Don (played by Ally McBeal's Gil Bellows), his rehab counselor who may have one or two creepy ideas for Mike. The way this is handled towards the end is different and really well pulled off.
The story with Shelly is funnier but more tragic than Mike's, and even though she doesn't really know, she's miserable. Robert tells David that Shelly's classmates call her 'camel toe' and anything with that idea could've been handled as a very lowbrow comedy bit but David takes it seriously, and tries to help. This leads him to spend a lot of time with his daughter, buy her new clothes and even retaking archery lessons, which David will then really embrace.

Besides Cage's acting, what's best about the movie is the script by Conrad. Surprisingly, is an original one, but it really looks like an adaptation. The dialogue and happenings and the relationships are extremely well written. Gore Verbinski's work behind the camera with cinematographer Phedon Papamichael make for a great view of the cold and gray Chicago in the winter. The Weather Man is a movie doesn't look interesting, it happened to me when I first heard about it, but once you are watching it, and if you put at least a little bit of interest on these rich characters and storyline, you'll be more than satisfied, and if you are like me, maybe end up loving it.

Stay

2005-10-23T23:12:00.000-04:00

You know those movies that are impossible to understand, that you think is something but other people think is something totally different, and maybe it's both, or maybe none. Donnie Darko is like that, but overall you know what really happened there. Not with Stay, a mindfuck thriller from director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) and writer David Benioff (25th Hour, Troy) that is very confusing until the ending, when it becomes less confusing but you're still not sure what happened. If you can live with watching a story you won't understand, watch this movie, because everything else is excellent.

The movie stars Ewan McGregor as Sam Foster, a psychiatrist filling in for a colleague whose patient is Ryan Goslin who plays Henry Latham, a young man in crisis who after rejecting Sam when they first meet, comes back and tells him he will kill himself at midnight on Saturday, so Sam has 4 days to help him. The story is about Sam, but also about Henry, maybe because they are the same person, maybe not. They could also be Lila, played by Naomi Watts, who is Sam's artist girlfriend, and former patient. She tried to kill herself years ago but Sam saved her, and they've been together ever since, and they love each other, but Sam still doesn't trust her and feels she could do it again. Sam talks about them while playing chess with Bob Hoskins who plays Dr. Leon Patterson, a blind man who could be Henry's father, even though Henry's father is dead. Sam also looks for advice from his colleague Dr. Ren (B.D. Wong) and from Janeane Garofalo who plays Dr. Beth Levy, Henry's regular psychiatrist.
And just to throw more names in there, Kate Burton plays Henry's mother who Sam talks to one night before being attacked by a dog, even though both Henry's mom and the dog have been dead for a while, and then Amy Sedaris plays a secretary in a 10 seconds scene.

What happens between all of them is too much to explain, or maybe just unexplainable, but is fine, because what's great about the movie is the work by Forster behind the camera, and is postproduction. Forster, cinematographer Roberto Schaefer, and film editor Matt Chesse, make Stay a visual feast. There's crazy camera work, there are geometrical movements and repeated sequences. There's an amazing background work with the locations and is even better if you look at the extras, yes, those people on camera that are not the stars of the movie. And the transitions between scenes are insane. There's frequently used stuff like a character opening a door which transform into an elevator door, but then there's stuff like a window getting closed that morphs into a transparent water tank that turns out to be an aquarium.

There's nothing else I can say about the movie, because even if I were to spoil the ending, which I won't, I wouldn't be explaining the movie anyway. What I can do is recommend it, because the acting is great, and everything that is not the acting is even better. And I don't even want somebody to explain Stay to me, because it would lose its mystique, and I'm in love with what I know and tried to understand, even if I didn't.

Doom

2005-10-23T17:08:00.000-04:00

Adapted from the video game to the big screen, Doom is more video game than a movie, but is fun, gory, and full of game ideas to love, even if the movie is bad overall.
It also has Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in a crazy performance that makes this movie campy, the only way it could work, and that it does.

The story is a bit modified from the game, specially on the locations and the enemies. Here is the year 2046, and us Humans have discovered/created a portal to Mars 20 years ago that's been investigated by scientist since then. But something happens, they need help, and a group of US Marines, the Hell Fighters, are sent there to rescue the scientist and eliminate anything evil that could try to find its way to Earth.
The marines are like us video game players, and they are even introduced by their guns too. There's their leader Sarge (The Rock), second at command Reaper (Lord of the Rings' Eomer, Karl Urban), big black guy Destroyer (DeObia Oparei), Goat (Ben Daniels), black funny guy Duke (Raz Adoti), crazy Steve Buscemi-in-Armageddon wannabe Portman (Richard Brake), Asian guy Mac (Yao Chin) and the newbie The Kid (Al Weaver).
And for another cool video game reference, Rosamund Pike plays Samantha Grimm, the only female in the movie, who is not a potential love interest for any of the characters, but Reaper's sister.

After they go to Mars, it's more like the video game as they start shooting at everything that movies, while trying to figure out what caused the problem, which is a genetic experiment about the 24th chromosome (us Humans have only 23) which turned people in monsters, but it could also turn them in Super Humans.
The 24th chromosome is injected in one of the characters that is about to die at one point in the movie, and he gets a new life, and in a reference to the 'God Mode' from the video games he transforms into that Super Human, and we get the super cool First Person Camera just like the game. The whole sequence is between 5 and 10 minutes, enough to be amazing. Monsters coming from out of nowhere getting blown into pieces, and then we grab the chainsaw, excellent. There's also the awesome Big Fucking Gun which will give you an erection just like it does to The Rock when he first gets it, you can see it in his eyes. And then when he shoots it, amazing.

Yes, the plot is kind of stupid, but is secondary, the movie is mindless fun, just what it needed to be. The effects are pretty great, the monsters are cool, even though we don't see enough of them. And though some gratuitous nudity would have been much appreciated, Doom is still cool, very fun and it has lots of blood and cursing, just what its audience could want from it. One thing though, wasn't this supposed to be a The Rock movie?

Shopgirl

2005-10-20T16:09:00.000-04:00

Steve Martin wrote the best selling novella, adapted it for the big screen and now also stars in Shopgirl, the Anand Tucker directed love story about searching for that small connection that can mean love, little moments that cause a big impact in someone, and even though the look or the moment is not right, sometimes is just enough for it to be love. Even though it has some stuff that didn't work for me, it's pretty good, and I really liked it.

This is not the cliched Hollywood love story. The male characters here don't fight over the girl or anything like that. And there are no characters breaking up and then getting back together at the end in the usual big fashion.
Instead we have Claire Danes as Mirabelle, a lonely girl, depressed, with low self esteem and a weird, old looking wardrobe. She works at the gloves department in the Saks Fifth Avenue in Los Angeles, and even though she is not looking for love, she wants it.
She meets Jeremy (played by Jason Schwartzman) one day while doing laundry, and they go out. He's an "ok guy" he says, and he's right. But he's also clueless about relationships and love, but he's charming, and Mirabelle sees that in him. There could be something in him, they have stuff in common (they are both wannabe artists, very different ones though), but she knows he is not ready yet.
Jeremy works at an amps shop, but he has big ideas for them as they are very important for musicians he says, even though nobody gives them respect. But soon he is backstage at a concert, the band's machines fail, Jeremy saves the day his amps and soon he leaves with the band on a road trip around the country that will change his life, he'll learn about love and perhaps will be ready for Mirabelle one day.
So he leaves, but it must be Mirabelle's lucky week, as she meets Ray Porter (played by Steve Martin) one day at work. Ray is an older man, has money, is sophisticated, and he is charming too. They go out, and she falls in love quickly. He likes her and cares about her, and he tells her that, but he also leads her to believe that they have a future together, when inside (and to his therapist) he's thinks that he only wants to sleep with her and use her when he's in town (he's a logistics guy and is usually out of town).

The movie has a little bit of everything when it comes to the performances.
Steve Martin was fine, though he tried to do the kind of quite person that Bill Murray plays often these days (like in Lost in Translation) but I don't think it worked that well here.
And I loved his voice over in the Father of the Bride movies, but here it pretty much sucks. He is doing the voice over, but the one talking is not Ray Porter, the character he plays, is just a narrator. That was very distracting.
Claire Danes was all over the place, happy and sad, laughing and crying, but it was a very good, very realistic performance. Her Mirabelle is the usual pretty ugly girl at first glance, but once she starts acting is amazing.
And then Jason Schwartzman. He was truly brilliant. I don't know how much is he acting here, because I've seen him in interviews and he is kind of like that, but still, he was excellent. The situations his character has are hilarious. I was almost in tears in his scenes with Bridgette Wilson (who plays Lisa, a coworker of Mirabelle's) and I think that if he would've had a couple emotional scenes he could've ended up Oscar nominated. Is a performance a lot like Thomas Haden Church's last year in Sideways, minus the crying.

The soundtrack is pretty good, lots of indie rock, but the melody played in that excessive amount of slow motion scenes got annoying after the first few times. The way they made Los Angeles look, while not true, is pretty good, smoke free so you can see an apartment from one side of the city to the other.
I had mixed feelings about Shopgirl at first, but the more I think about it in my head, and the more I talk about it, the more I like it every time, and it's a movie I'm sure I'll watch again.

Capote

2005-10-18T14:07:00.000-04:00

Philip Seymour Hoffman transforms himself into the Breakfast at Tiffany's author Truman Capote, based on the book Gerald Clarke and adapted by Dan Futterman, Capote is director Bennett Miller's feature film debut and it follows the high pitch voiced novelist as he researched the violent murder of a family in Kansas, forming a relationship with the killer during their interviews, all which led him to write the best novel of the century, In Cold Blood, a novel that took him almost six years to write, and destroyed his life in the process, making him unable to finish another book for the rest of his life.

I'll start with the movie and leave PSH for the end because he is the only reason to watch the movie, even if is boring like in this case.
The movie follows Capote and novelist Harper Lee (around the time her To Kill a Mockingbird was published) as they travel to Kansas to investigate the killings. Capote is weird looking and it's worse when he speaks so Harper could help him interview the town people without freaking them out. Then the police catches the two killers, Harper leaves the picture, and Capote starts interviewing them, emphasizing in Perry Smith.
The movie is very slow paced, specially during the Capote-Perry interviews which happen again and again like 10 times, always showing us how Capote got from New York to Kansas, how he was searched by the guards, and then getting into the actual cell. And it's all also very uneventful, as Capote becomes fascinated by Perry, but he never asks him about the actual murders.

But I guess is all about the acting. Catherine Keener plays Harper Lee and I think the movie have been much better had she been more in it. After the killers are caught she disappears and that's when the movie loses the little bit of energy it had. She has an weird but great chemistry with Capote and it worked great.
Then there's Chris Cooper who plays Kansas Sheriff Alvin Dewey, who was the best friend of the man of the family that was murdered. His scenes too dramatic maybe, with him in a silent crying at various times just thinking about what happened, and everybody else around him just looking at him getting all emotional. I think it was a little too much, specially since the character is not important on the whole. Perry Smith is played by Clifton Collins Jr. and it's a great performance too. His countless with Hoffman are great and even though the process got repetitive, the acting was very solid.

And finally Philip Seymour Hoffman, one of the best actors working today. A man that completely morphs into his roles and you forget who he is, because the person you are seeing on the screen is not an actor playing a character, and it's real. Be it Lester Bangs or Scotty J., this guy can make any character real, and Truman Capote is no exception. He is perfect here. From the pitch perfect voice to all the mannerisms. It's an amazing performance with a few emotional scenes that are sure to give him at least an Oscar nomination and I wouldn't be surprised if he wins, though I think I'm yet to see the best performance of the year, probably coming from Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain or Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line.

The quiteness of the movie is exasperating, as the score is very low key and forgettable, and non present in many scenes with the characters just looking out a window or at each other without saying anything. And the colorless cinematography, while very well suited for the mood of the Kansas scenes, make the movie even more tiring.
I'm recommending Capote because of Hoffman, because he's a marvel to watch, but the movie bored me, made me sleepy, and it doesn't have anything else worthy in it.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

2005-10-17T14:33:00.000-04:00

I love George Clooney's filmmaking career, in theory, because the execution so far has left me with mixed feelings both times. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind had great style, excellent performances, some very cool stuff in it (Julia as a killer!) but overall, it wasn't memorable for some reason, and I always love those kind of movies. Now Good Night, and Good Luck., which I should love because of my adoration for journalism movies, is kind of the same, but disappointing, because I was really looking forward to it.

Set in the mid-fifties, Clooney puts us in an era not everybody knows about. On my part, I know who Senator McCarthy was and all his stuff regarding communism, but I've never heard about Edward R. Murrow before, the CBS Newsman whose send off line is the movie's title. Apparently Murrow and McCarthy had a big fight that went on for months. McCarthy from his press conferences and Murrow using his TV news show, which people watched religiously every day, more people than if you added together all of the current news shows numbers. The news were huge back in the day, and the way the movie works is very historical and journalistic, my problem with it was that we learn what happened during those months of the debate, but nothing else. Nothing about why it started and then nothing about what happened later, which really frustrated me because it was really necessary.

There's a very good performance by David Strathairn as Murrow. Very focused and I'm betting spot on. But is also very monotonous. There are no feelings expressed other than the guts he had to do what he did, but it's always with a blank face. It's not his fault though, because what he's giving to is excellent, but being that this a real person, he should've been developed a lot more but end up knowing nothing about him, and it's not like everybody in the world, these days, knows who Ed Murrow was.
There's also Clooney himself who plays Murrow's producer Fred Friendly, the man who backs him up and goes to war (figuratively) with him. Clooney gives a more vivid performance that is much vivid or else the movie with be a borefest.
The only other worth remembering performance is Frank Langella's who plays CBS President William Paley, who was not was not behind the idea of going against McCarthy. There's some great scenes between the 3 of them as they battle the way the news will be given and what each of them will give in exchange for what they want.
But other than that is all pretty much a waste. I can't even remember what was Jeff Daniels doing in the movie, and then you have the subplot concerning Joe and Shirley Wershba (Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson), a married couple working together in the same team as Murrow's, but their story is that about the fact that it was prohibited for married couples to work together, and so they kept it in the shadows for a long time. Or so they thought.

The movie is only 93 minutes, but it feels a lot longer. Not sure why though, because the fact that it is in black and white was not the reason I almost fell asleep around the 60 minute mark. The B&W actually worked really well honoring those times, and the way it looked, specially when everybody was smoking and there was smoke on most of the screen, it was excellent and it gave the movie a great visual style. There's also the music, as old jazz is sang and given focus doing the movie, performed on screen by Dianne Reeves.
And that Senator McCarthy is played by himself in film footage of the actual Senate sub-committee testimony, that was a great that worked really well and made the movie than it could've been if an actor played him.

Still, it's all about how it finished for me. Besides the movie not giving us a resolution to Murrow's and Friendly's happenings, the Joe and Shirley's subplot ends also without one, and that's why Good Night, and Good Luck. is so disappointing, because they engage us in these times, important and very interesting, but then they leave us without an ending.

Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story

2005-10-16T20:23:00.000-04:00

It was a few weeks ago that I reviewed a Disney in Sports movie and gave it high praise. These guys really know what they're doing when they get in the family and competition business, and now that I'm reviewing the latest from Dakota Fanning, Dreamer: Inspired by a True Story, I'm going to repeat the high praise.

Ah, Dakota Fanning, there's no enough I can say about her, and since I've said enough already in previous reviews, I'll just say here that she is a marvel, and will be the biggest star in the world one day. I mean, she kind of already is.
And that's why I was shocked to see Kurt Russell top billing the movie. The story is about both of them really, kind of like Seabiscuit being about Toby Maguire and Jeff Bridges.
And that's not the only similarity Dreamer has with Seabiscuit. Both of them are about a hurt racing horse who's healed and thanks to the love of her owners, gets better, starts racing again and goes to win the big championship.

But the similarities are just those, as the movie is more about the relationship between Cale (Dakota), her father Ben (Russell) and her grandfather, Ben's father Pop Crane (Kris Kristofferson). Cale adores her father and wants to emulate her father in everything, but he doesn't want her to grow up around horses, which explains why they don't have even one horse in their barn. Cale has a great relationship with her grandpa though, who teaches her about horses and the competitions. She knows it all, though Ben is not so happy about it. He hasn't spoken to his dad for months, still hurt for something that happened years ago that made Ben stop training horses for himself, and so now he just works training horses for David Morse's Palmer, a rich man managing the horses of an Arabic Prince.
The name of their star horse is Sonya (short for Sonador which in English means the movie's title), and she gets hurt before their big race. Ben wants to stop her from racing, but Palmer pushes it and she ends up racing, falling on the floor and breaking her leg.
She's to put down Palmer says but Ben rescues her for Cale, quitting his job and exchanging some money Palmer owed him for the very hurt Sonya.

She'll race again of course, but what's great is to see the family work together for it, helped by Luis Guzman and Freddy Rodriguez, who play Sonya's trainer and jockey respectively, and go to work with the Cranes when they also lose their jobs when Ben quits on Palmer. There's also Elizabeth Shue who plays Kurt's wife and Cale's mom Lily.
With a very good cinematography and a great score, writer John Gatins' directorial debut Dreamer is another winner for Disney, a story of love and hope, led by that magical human being that is Dakota Fanning. Disney & Dakota, keep them coming please.

Elizabethtown

2005-10-12T12:23:00.000-04:00

My love for Cameron Crowe and his Almost Famous is huge. I loved the theatrical cut that many people didn't, and then the Untitled cut is one of my top 2 favorite movies of all time. Now Cameron brings us Elizabethtown, and I can't believe how much I disliked this film. It has a few ideas I loved, but the execution is awful, the overall story seems like something I've seen before and loved (more on that later), and not even the soundtrack (a Cameron classic for greatness) did anything for me.

I'll start with the story, because this is was too much like Garden State. Parent dies, and a young man with a failed career goes to his father's childhood town to get the body, and there finds lots of weird people, and meets a young woman and falls in love with her.
Now when the movie started I had mixed feelings already. It starts with a voice over by Orlando Bloom who plays our hero Drew Baylor. The voice over is horrible, and it's used during the entire movie. A disaster really. Then he goes to the place he works, we meet his girlfriend who will later dump him, played by Jessica Biel, in a 2 scenes role, and she's an unlikeable character from the start, but then we meet Alec Baldwin and the movie is saved.
Baldwin plays Phil DeVoss, Drew's boss, he informs him that the shoe that Drew design will make the company lose a billion dollars, and that his career is over. Alec is way too little in the movie so he just saved it for that one scene he's in.

Drew goes back to his apartment, and feeling like a failure he tries to kill himself and right there he receives a call from his sister telling him that their father died and that he needs to take care of everything because their mother is going crazy. The sister is Heather, played by the wonderful Judy Greer, wasted again with just a handful of scenes and nothing to do. The mother is Hollie, played by Susan Sarandon, in a role that should've given her at least an Oscar nom but there's no way it will. It's a good performance wrongly handled, with a crazy funny scenes at the beginning and then a stand up show at the funeral that doesn't work at all. And the reason, which is the same for most of the characters, is the backstory, there's none.

And so Drew goes to Elizabethtown, KY, the place his father grew up. This is a great scene, the welcoming by the entire town. He doesn't know anybody, but everybody knows him. I know that feeling, it happens to me every time I go to my grandma's house where my mom grew up. Everybody knows me and I have no idea who they are, but they are always friendly happy to see me. Then he starts meeting the family he never knew and other people, and while some characters show promise, like Paul Schneider who plays his cousin Jessie or Bruce McGill's Bill Banyon, a friend of the family who did something to Drew's parents in the past but it's never clear what, they are not developed, and so I didn't connect with anybody there.

And finally there's Kirsten Dunst's Claire, my other huge problem with the movie. She's the muse, the new friend he falls in love with, she's Natalie Portman's Sam and she's Kate Hudson's Penny Lane at the same time, or tries to be, but fails. I love Kirsten, she's one of my favorite actresses but this was way too much of her. I got tired of her and her forced smile and the forced comedy bits from her never work. Natalie Portman was radiant and beautiful, the girl of dreams, but she has problems too and you felt for her. Kirsten's Claire is nothing like that. She has no backstory at all, and no problems at all either, other than faking having a boyfriend (another touch taken from Sam) which I saw coming from a mile away. I was also not happy with the "Hello Stranger" like that they show on the trailers, which is also a Natalie Portman line though not from Garden State but from Closer.
The other good idea of the movie comes from Drew's relationship with Claire, as the hotel he's staying in is currently taken by a couple who just got married. "Chuck & Cindy - The Wedding" is great, and even though is just a little bit, and it doesn't touch the overall story, is the only part of the movie I really liked.

Imagine of Garden State sucked bad, if you got tired of Sam, or if the rest of the supporting characters had no story or problems, that's Elizabethtown, a movie that manipulates your feelings with many slow motion scenes with characters having fun and falling in love, and we are supposed to care for them but we don't, because we don't have anything in common with them and because they have no problems, except Drew but he's different. I didn't like him because of Orlando Bloom, who I thought I would like without a sword and dressed in an armor but I didn't like. He's way too serious and I didn't buy him being a real person in today's world. I know it's impossible now, but I wish Cameron could back and make the movie with Ashton Kutcher as he originally planned. One of my biggest, if not the biggest disappointment for me this year, I was supposed to love this with all my heart but it didn't happen. And I hope I like Elizabethtown better with repeated viewings, I really do, but I'm not sure I will, because Orlando and his voice over will still be there.

Waiting...

2005-10-09T13:59:00.000-04:00

Imagine if Van Wilder, the super cool, 7 year college student from the National Lampoon's movie named after his name, had not gone to college after high school. Imagine that he went on to work to a chain of restaurants called Shenanigan's, and that he's been there for a long time too. That's writer/director's Rob McKittrick Waiting..., only this is a not a National Lampoon's movie, and the Ryan Reynolds character is not called Van Wilder but Monty.

The movie has no real plot, is just a juncture of characters, many characters, and though most of them have very little to do, there are 4 or 5 that work well and keep our attention.
As I mentioned before there's Monty, who been working at Shenanigan's for years, and has no intention to move on or grow up. He has no interest in going up the ladder in the company either. He's happy just by waiting tables, playing games with the staff, and getting drunk and laid with underage girls he meets during the day at the restaurant.
The movie takes all on one day, in which Monty is put in charge of Mitch (Freaks & Geeks' John Francis Daley), the shy new guy, and so he shows him how the restaurant works and introduces him to the entire staff.

Monty's best friend is Dean (played by Justin Long), a 22 year old who graduated from high school 4 years ago and has done a few classes at the community college but nothing else. His story is the closest we have to a plot. He goes to have lunch with his mom one day and she informs him that his old high school friend Chett has graduated from college and is now an electric engineer, getting lots of money and doing great in his life. Dean is devastated, and has second thoughts about working at Shenanigan's, but right after that his manager Dan (played by David Koechner, Anchorman's Champ Kind) offers him the Assistant Manager position, though Dean sees it less as a good opportunity and more as a way to be living this dead end life forever, like Dan.
Dan is of course older than all his staff, so he usually gets marginalized and he's never invited to the parties. But he shares one thing with Monty though, and that is his attraction for Natasha (played by Vanessa Lengies), the underage hostess.

Mitch meets head chef Raddimus (played by Luis Guzman), who teaches him the Penis-Showing Game, which was invented years ago when the restaurant had problems, specially between the employees and their morale, so the game got everybody happy competing with each other.
It works just like it sounds, you have to get other coworkers to look at your penis (it has to be a surprise) and if they do you get to kick them in the ass. There are many positions to choose from, The Goat being the best one, and as better the position is, you get to kick the other person more times in the ass. I thought I was going to get tired of it easily when they first introduced the game in the movie, but even though they talk and talk about it, and play it a lot, I found it funny, and I didn't get tired of it.

Of course then the MegaBush appeared and that was really disturbing. And there are a few more disturbing scenes, though if you have worked in a restaurant like that you already know about it. Don't mess with the waiting staff is a rule that must not be broken unless you want them to spit on your food. And that's the best thing you can wish, because they do worse. There's also the 5 second rule about food dropped on the floor, a classic, and a lot more stuff that probably happens in real life, but we really don't want to know about.

The rest of the staff are Serena (played by Anna Faris) who used to be Monty's girlfriend. She has little to do though. Then there's Chi McBride's Bishop, the dishwasher who gives advise about everything and to everybody. Kaitlin Doubleday plays Amy, Dean's girlfriend who always has trouble with her tables and gets no tips. Also Patrick Benedit's Calvin, who can't pee in the restaurant's restroom after a guy stared at his penis while he was peeing some time ago. He can't do it anymore now and has to wait to get home to do it. Weird enough, he's the Penis-Showing Game champion. His story is kind of funny, but I did get tired of it towards the end. Alanna Ubach plays Naomi, the super bitch waitress who's always mad and hates her clients, but she always shows them the pretty smile.
There's also Emmanuelle Chriqui's Tyla, the lesbian bartender; Dane Cook's Floyd, the violent cook; and finally the busboys T-Dog, played by Max Kasch, and Nick, played by
Andy Milonakis, he of the Andy Milonakis' Show from MTV. He has a few funny scenes and then the ending credits are all his and it's all pretty good.

The movie has a very adult language all over the place, but always in comedic situations.
There are a few really funny situations, specially when Monty visits his mom (played by Just Shoot Me's Wendie Malick) one night. She attacks his way of life, and hopes he doesn't get any underage girls pregnant and that he uses protection, to which Monty replies stuff like "that's way I stick to anal" or "don't worry, I pull out".
There's more at the restaurant, like a discussion between Monty and Serena that starts with "haven't I been inside you?". And there's lots of stuff like that. There is no nudity at all in the movie, which I found weird considering the huge amount of hot girls in the cast and the language that goes on during the movie, and it's Rated R so why don't through some nudity in there. Weird.

Overall, the movie feels like a long pilot for a HBO sitcom that could very good, though after a few episodes would be too repetitive unless they get some kind of story going on.
Still, Waiting... is funny, not groundbreaking like American Pie or funny like Van Wilder but very good anyway.

Thumbsucker

2005-10-05T22:54:00.000-04:00

Everybody is addicted to something, and for Justin Cobb, it's his thumb. He loves to suck it while sleeping or awake. He has to hide his addiction though (only a few people know about it, including family and doctors), as it would be embarrassing if everyone knew, so when he finally stops sucking his thumb, his life and that of everyone around him will change. This is the story of Mike Mills' weird but wonderful Thumbsucker.

Lou Pucci gives a starmaking performance as Justin. Quite, tormented, alienated from everybody because of his thumbsucking addiction. He's part of the debate team at school though, but I think only to be close to his friend Rebecca (Kelli Garner, much hotter than a few years ago when she played a drug addict in Larry Clark's Bully), the debate team captain, and the girl he secretly loves. They get together one day, but Justin's thumb problem prevents him to go further. Then something happens when he goes to the dentist.
In one of the best scenes of the movie, Justin's dentist Perry hypnotizes him to cure him, to free him from his thumb. Perry is played by Keanu Reeves, who gives the classic Keanu performance he always gives. But his voice is perfect for this role, and the dialogue during the hypnosis sounds like stuff Morpheus would say. It works though, and so Justin stops sucking his thumb, but right after that he starts going crazy. He starts losing control of himself and he can't concentrate, and going back to thumbsucking is not an option (I wont spoil the reason).

And so he's diagnosed for ADD and given Ritalin, and just like that he's good as new. Full of energy and confidence, Justin goes to lead the debate team, even winning awards. This makes for the second great scene in the movie, as Justin and the 3 girls in the debate team (Rebecca has left the team after Justin's rejection, for reasons not given) go with their debate teacher Mr. Geary to a debate in a different city. They stay in a hotel and Justin demands for him to stay in the same room as the girls since they are all of the same age and should stay up all night preparing for the debate. Mr. Geary, played by Vince Vaughn, accepts, and after that Justin convinces him to buy them beer. What follows is the dream of any guy, the girls are cute and they all get drunk, but they get too playful, and nothing ends up happening. It's a great scene though, specially all the first parts with Vince, and it's all backed with great music which I'll talk about later.

Justin changes once again after a debate rival informs him that Ritalin is only molecules away from cocaine, which is true I think, so he stops taking them, and just like that his energy goes down, he loses concentration, can't debate and leaves the team.
He goes back to Rebecca, who is now a stoner at school. Justin becomes a stoner too, and here's when the story loses it for me. I can't quite describe why but I love everything up until that point, and then it's just ok.
There's one more great scene though, as we are introduced to Matt Schramm (played by Benjamin Bratt), a big time actor whom Justin's mom Audrey (played by Tilda Swinton) loves. Audrey starts working in a rehab facility for celebrities, and Justin finds out that Matt goes there because of drug abuse. Justin thinks his mom is having an affair with the actor so he sneaks into the facility at night to spy on them, only to find Matt hiding in the bushes in the back smoking. Matt tells him the story of how Audrey (not knowing that Justin is her son) saved his life. The story is disturbing, and taking out of Trainspotting or something like that. It's amazing.
There's also Vincent D'Onofrio who plays Justin's father Mike. He hates the thumbsucking and even when Justin stops they have problems communicating. Mike used to be a football star, but an injury kept him from going pro. He's now very competitive, specially with Perry. They compete all the time in marathons and stuff like that but Perry always beats him.

The soundtrack is excellent, with original music from Elliott Smith and Tim DeLaughter. The songs by DeLaughter are performed by The Polyphonic Spree, and they work perfect in the movie if a little overused at times. And the dialogue is great, from Keanu's words of wisdom to the debate speeches, is all excellent. I loved the movie, despite that loss of energy towards the end. But on the whole, Thumbsucker has great performances, music, and writing, and it's one of the most original movies of the year. All thanks to Mike Mills' great work, can't wait for his next movie.

The Greatest Game Ever Played

2005-10-03T12:31:00.000-04:00

Golf is a boring game to watch. I've never played it, and I think I'd be good at it, but watching it is horrible. Movies about golf are not though, I liked most of the ones I've seen, including The Legend of Bagger Vance and Happy Gilmore of course.
Now Disney brings us The Greatest Game Ever Played, Bill Paxton's directorial follow up to Frailty, his little seen but great horror movie.
Starring Shia LaBeouf, the movie is the true story of Francis Ouimet, a young man who was a caddy, was given a chance to play as an amateur despite being poor, and went on to win the US Open in 1913 against the top players in the world in one of the major upsets in sports history.

While I find Shia LaBeouf annoying most of the time for the way he talks, he does a great job in the lead here, playing against more experienced actors, and British ones which adds more class to the whole deal.
The other players we have are Stephen Dillane who plays the legend and favorite to win Harry Vardon, Stephen Marcus as the monstrous Ted Ray, and Michael Weaver as John McDermott, the only American with a chance and the current champion.

Elias Koteas plays Francis' father Arthur, a hard working man who doesn't want Francis to play golf as that won't give him any money to support his family. He will later change his mind and support his son of course but before that Koteas gives a very good performance. He did make me remember Daniel Day-Lewis' Bill The Butcher from Gangs of New York, from the mustache to the Scottish accent.

What makes the movie great is Paxton's camera, using CGI at many times but still getting great shots and visuals for very imaginative angles, like when he uses the ball-camera and we follow see everything as the ball that just got hit would see it.
The Greatest Game Ever Played is not the best ever, but it's a very good movie that doesn't get boring despite being 2 hours long, a bit too much maybe for a kids movie, but the movie works just fine, and it makes a fine addition to the Disney in Sports collection that such greats like Remember the Titans, The Rookie and Miracle are part of.

Oliver Twist

2005-10-02T19:32:00.000-04:00

I have never seen any of the previous film adaptations of Oliver Twist (there are lots of them they tell me) and while I've always known the story, I've never read the book either, so the stuff director Roman Polanski and screenwriter Ronald Harwood, the Academy Award winning team of The Pianist put here is all I know for sure about the Charles Dickens story, and it was excellent.

Barney Clark plays the title character, a ten year old orphan who joins a house of pickpocketers in London led by Sir Ben Kingsley's Fagin, an old criminal mind who teaches the kids to steal on the streets. They steal jewerly at times, but it's mostly food and stuff they need to survive. Fagin is not a bad person though, he gives the kids food, clothes and a place to live, and he treats them well. Between the kids there's Artful Dodger (played by Harry Eden), the leader pickpocketer and the one who first meets a very hurt and hungry Oliver on the streets and brings him to Fagin's. And there's also Nancy (played by Leanne Rowe), one of the young prostitutes who would later risk it all for Oliver.
Bill Sykes (played by Jamie Foreman) is the evil man of the story. He hits the kids and hates Oliver, and he's the master thief who robs houses and uses guns.

Oliver is not unhappy with Fagin and the kids, but once he gets to taste a better life he doesn't want to come back. That comes from Mr. Brownlow (played by Edward Hardwicke), an old bookstore owner who takes Oliver to his house after he's mistakenly accused of robbery. Mr. Brownlow wants helps Oliver, but Bill finds out and comes for him.

The acting is amazing from young Barney Clark to Sir Ben Kingsley, who gives a great performance if kind of caricaturesc at times. But the technical aspects of the movie are even better. Polanski's direction is excellent, and the cinematography, costumes, sets, and also the score by Rachel Portman, all award worthy stuff.

Coming from Roman Polanski, it's no surprise to me that Oliver Twist is a very dark movie that could easily scare children. While there's no adult language or sex, there's violence towards animals and even more towards kids, but it's all essential to the story, and I think that if I were a kid I would have loved all of it.

A History of Violence

2005-09-28T22:42:00.000-04:00

Viggo Mortensen stars in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, he plays Tom Stall, a small town family man living in Indiana with his loving wife and 2 children. He has a secret past nobody knows about, but that changes after he single handedly kills 2 cold blooded killers who appear one night at his diner wanting to steal his money and kill everybody there. He becomes a hero, makes the news, his past finds him and comes to get him.

That past includes Carl Fogarty (Ed Harris), a one eyed mob boss from Philadelphia who comes to get revenge for something that happen to him because of Joey Cusack, the name he gives Tom. It involves that now dead eye. Tom denies it once and again, but Carl doesn't give up, and soon Tom's wife Edie (Maria Bello) and teenage son Jack (Ashton Holmes) are even doubting him. When Carl comes to Tom's house and threatens his family, Tom gets mad and all hell breaks loose.

Viggo is amazing. When his killer instinct kicks in he moves fast and with a blank face he brings down everyone in his way. But he's also a great father and husband. There are a few really great scenes between the family members, even if their first scene together is truly exaggerated. But he is really excellent here.
Same for Maria Bello. She is so strong and protective of her family, but when she finds out about Tom's truth Bello makes for some great acting. Maria and Viggo have great chemistry in their scenes together.
Ashton Holmes' Jack is strange. He's been being bullied at school for a while, but he reacts one day, and it's an awesome scene. But then he goes home and confronts his father and ends up crying like a baby.
Ed Harris is amazing as always. A great performance award worthy if it were a bit longer. Same goes for William Hurt who plays Richie Cusack, brother to the man Tom used to be. He appears towards the end of the movie for another violent showdown.

The violence is big here. It's very graphic but not exaggerated. And it's even hard to look at at times. The blood is just enough to make it all feel and look real. The score by Howard Shore is great too, giving some long silent sequences a great touch.
Josh Olson's screenplay is perfect. No wasted dialogue, the characters just talk when they need to talk and say just what's necessary. And Cronenberg's work behind the camera is excellent, award worthy, making A History of Violence his best movie to date, and Viggo's best performance to date too, which we'll be talking about come awards season.

Serenity

2005-09-27T23:50:00.000-04:00

Serenity is a sci-fi western from Buffy and Angel mastermind Joss Whedon, who got to continue his cancelled TV series Firefly on the big screen thanks to the devoted fans who bought the series on DVD and made it a huge success. This is really all because of them, thanks.

A little backstory for those who've never seen Firefly: the story is set 500 years in the future, Serenity is the name of Captain Mal Reynolds' (Nathan Fillion) ship, named like that after the Battle of Serenity Valley, which he fought along his second in command, the fierce Zoe (Gina Torres). They were rebels, and they fought the Alliance. They lost that fight, and became fugitive criminals. They got themselves the ship and a crew, including ace pilot Wash (Alan Tudyk), who later married Zoe; the always happy, delightful and sex hungry Kaylee (Jewel Staite), though she never has sex during the series except when we first met her; and tough guy though not always trustworthy Jayne (Adam Baldwin).
They also rent one of the ship's shuttles to Inara (Morena Baccarin), a companion (which translates into a high society prostitute); a Shepherd named Book (Ron Glass); and siblings Simon (Sean Maher) and River (Summer Glau), he's a doctor, she was kidnapped when she was young and Simon had just rescued her from the Alliance when they aboard Serenity. The Alliance is now looking for them.

And so during the series' 14 episodes we have the Serenity crew pulling jobs for money, escaping the Alliance and trying to find out what happened with River while she was captured since she's now kind of a zombie at times.
There's also romance, as Kaylee likes Simon, but he's too busy with his sister, and Inara likes Mal, and he likes her, but it never worked. They never tried either.
Oh yeah, apparently our world as we know it today is gone. The United States and China got to dominate everything and so everybody speaks English and Chinese (without subtitles).

I always tried to watch Firefly, but I didn't find the time so I never did while it was on TV, but I did get the DVD, and I loved it. Everything about it. I'm even in love with Kaylee, and I think it was really a shame that the series got cancelled, because the main ongoing story, River's, never got explained. But don't worry, Serenity got us fans covered, giving us a resolution to River's problems, as well as some other character's stories I was not expecting to know about. I loved it.

The movie starts with River's rescue by her brother Simon. This was never shown in the series, and it's an awesome sequence. Kind of weird though, because Serenity was never part of that originally since they hadn't met yet. But here it works fine, and it's a kickass way to start the movie. Simon is more macho than in the series, and he pulls it off great.
After the rescue we meet Chiwetel Ejiofor's character, who doesn't have a name so I'm calling him Chiwetel. He's in charge of finding River at any cost, and we don't know why, and I won't reveal it because I wasn't expecting it and it was excellent. Chiwetel (the actor) had played a villain the series' last episode, but the one he plays here is a different one. Still, he does a great job, really inspiring fear, specially when he uses his sword.
After that we jump 8 months in the future, and the crew is pulling a job robbing a bank. Mal, Zoe and Jayne take River too, because she has mind reading abilities. Now, we viewers knew this from Firefly, but this was never addressed in the series between the characters, and Joss doesn't bother telling us how they discovered it. I didn't mind.

Now in the movie Book is not on Serenity. He's living in one of the friendly planets the crew met during the series. We don't know why he left. Inara is not there either. She had tried to leave at the end of Firefly, and here she is in charge of some kind of companionship facility. Now, we fans know that she is a companion and what that is, but if you haven't seen Firefly and you watch this then you probably won't know. It's not that important for the big story, but at the same time it sucks because we never get to know her character in the movie. And that happens with the other's too. Like we see here that Kaylee probably likes Simon, but we don't know much. Still, she has a few great little scenes. Jayne, Zoe and Wash get nothing to do here other than their usual jobs, but almost nothing in the big story. I don't think it's even mentioned that Wash and Zoe are married.

Mal I think it's better here than in the series. He's tough, funny, heroic, a leader, and he also has a soft side. Fillion does a great job mixing the dramatic parts with all the comedy, and there's a lot of it. He also has one great fist fight at the end of the movie with Chiwetel that is awesome.
The secret weapon that is River gets the better transition from TV to movie. We get to know her truth, and she kicks a lot of ass in the process. She's super cool. There's a massive fights between her and everybody in a bar, and then again when she protects the Serenity crew against the Reavers. She also talks a lot more than in the series.
Now what are the Reavers? They were normal people, but something happened to them and they are now cannibals. They drive around the universe looking for unprotected ships and planets to attack. Everybody is afraid of them, as they will kill you, but first they take your skin off and rape you. Pretty nasty.

The icing in the cake in the movie is a huge spaceships battle towards the end. It may look out of Star Wars, but is better than anything happened in any of the prequels. An excellent space battle with ships of all shapes and sizes. That single scene is what makes the movie excellent, better than anything I was expecting and better than we probably deserve to get.

With the great score from the series behind it, Serenity maintains that feeling I loved in Firefly, with those great comedy pieces all throughout the movie, great scenes to cheer, and a few to cry.
I think the movie works a lot better if you see Firefly before, but my brother didn't and he loved the movie anyway.
Joss Whedon has created a science fiction masterpiece in Serenity. I don't know if sequels would work, they never got to explain the Hands of Blue and it's not mentioned here, so I guess they could go that way. But what I am sure of is that I want more of these characters, a lot more. And if you are a fan, stay until the very end of the credits for our beloved theme...

Take my love. Take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don't care, I'm still free.
You can't take the sky from me.

In Her Shoes

2005-09-25T00:27:00.000-04:00

Curtis Hanson is weird. He went from L.A. Confidential to Wonder Boys, then shocked everybody directing Eminem in 8 Mile, and now he's back for a chick flick. His choices doesn't make any sense to me, but it doesn't matter, because the results are excellent.
The chick flick is In Her Shoes, a serious comedy about two very different best friend sisters who learn to love each other, and themselves, finding a long lost grandmother in the process.

Cameron Diaz plays party girl Maggie, who can't keep a job and spends her time going out, getting drunk and sleeping with guys. She loves shoes, but not hers. She borrows her sister's, who has a huge collection he never wears. She just buys them because unlike clothes, shoes always look good. Toni Collette play sister Rose, a workaholic lawyer with no confidence at all in herself. She finds a guy, and he ends up sleeping with Maggie, who has been living for a few days with her sister after their stepmom kicked her out of their father's house because she came home drunk all the time. And so they fight and Rose kicks Maggie out too.

Maggie search her father's desk for money when she finds letters addressed to her from a grandmother she though was dead, and so since her sister kicked her out she goes to Florida to live with her new grandma in her retirement home. Shirley MacLaine (who's back with 3 movies this year after a 5 year break) plays Ella, and she's been away from the family after her daughter (Maggie and Rose's mom) died a long time ago. Their mom had mental problems, and so when she died their father told Ella to stay away from them. She wrote them, but their father never gave them the letters.

Toni Collette is always very good, but Cameron Diaz is a very underrated actress. She was great in Being John Malkovich, Vanilla Sky and Gangs of New York, but because of stuff like Charlie's Angels everybody loses respect for her. This is her best performance to date, award worthy even. Same for Collette.
Shirley MacLaine doesn't have much to do despite the top billing. Her work is really supporting, and it's weird because everybody could've played her part. She doesn't do much connecting with the girls, who share their strongest scenes with other supporting characters or with each other.
Those other supporting characters are great too. Francine Beers plays Mrs. Lefkowitz, one of the old ladies friend of Ella. Lots of great comedy bits coming from her. Then Mark Feuerstein plays Simon Stein, Rose's love interest, and Norman Lloyd plays Mr. Sofield, a blind patient in the home's hospital who helps Maggie.

Susannah Grant adapted the story from the novel by Jennifer Weiner. The story is great, with excellent dialogue, but what makes the movie are the performances by the two leads Diaz and Collette. Amazing work by both of them. And I'm sure it's all because of Curtis Hanson. In Her Shoes is so good because of him. He has something that makes his actors give the most of them for the movie, and just like the girls' shoes, it works just perfect.

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

2005-09-21T12:37:00.000-04:00

From the wonderful mind of Tim Burton comes the Corpse Bride, cousin to his classic marvel that was The Nightmare Before Christmas 12 years ago. I will not compare them, I will only say that I love them both and will forever be in my Best Of... lists.

Johnny Depp voices Victor Van Dort, a young man soon to be married to the beautiful Victoria Everglot (voiced by Emily Watson), a young woman he's never met, but it's an arranged wedding so they have no voice about it. Once they met for the first time though, sparks fly as the two of them share an emotional scene playing piano. It could work for them, but the night of the rehearsal (which is on the same day they met), Victor's troubles giving his wedding vows prompt the magnificent Pastor Galswells (powerfully voiced by Christopher Lee) to kick him out and ask him to come back when he's learned the proper vows. And so Victor leaves town and goes to the forest, where he recites his vows to the trees, but when he finally gets it right, he rings a branch sticking out of the ground which turns out to be the skeleton of a dead woman, the Corpse Bride (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter). She comes to life, and Victor passes out.

When he wakes up he's in the Land of the Dead, a place full of colorful, magical creatures, skeletons dancing and singing. It's a wonderful place, specially compared to the dark world of the living he used to be in. He sees his bride again. She's beautiful, and weirdly full of life considering she's actually dead. He's not dead though, and he wants to come back to Victoria, but he's married now.

Claymation has never looked better, made with digital still photography cameras instead of film cameras. Everything looks perfectly detailed, and there's lots of little stuff in the backgrounds and in every character.
And there are lots of those. Besides the three love birds, there's the parents. Victor's are Nell Van Dort (Tracey Ullman) and William Van Dort (Paul Whitehouse), and Victoria's are Maudeline Everglot (Joanna Lumley) and Finnis Everglot (Albert Finney). Then we have Mayhew (also Paul Whitehouse), the Van Dort's chauffeur who dies and while down there notifies Victor that Victoria is set to be married to Barkis Bittern (Richard E. Grant), an evil man who is only after her parents' money, which they don't have, and so are making Victoria marry him because they think he has money.
And finally there's the Maggot. A sure to be favorite of the audiences, he lives in the Corpse Bride's head and pops out every now and then to give his opinion and even advice. He's voiced by Enn Reitel.
There a lot more characters, and they all come together when the dead come to life, an excellent sequence towards the end in which the living meet the dead when Victor brings them all up.

If I had one complaint about the movie, it would be that Victoria gets criminally underdeveloped. We know almost nothing about her, but we know almost everything about the Corpse Bride. Victor is the classic Tim Burton lead character so what we know about him is enough to know him completely.

Danny Elfman is what made Nightmare so excellent for me. His score and songs were astounding, and he does it again here. He has 4 songs here, and while the opening one, 'According to Plan', sang by Victor's parents didn't do it for me, the rest were magical. 'Remains of the Day' and 'Tears to Shed' tell us about the land of the dead and the Corpse Bride, and those are really what stands out more of the movie.

Now we all know these are Tim Burton movies, and they are, but there's something weird with both of them. Burton wrote the story for Nightmare, but it was adapted by someone else. And he didn't direct it, Henry Selick did. Now Corpse Bride is codirected by Burton and Mike Johnson, but written by John August, Pamela Pettler and Caroline Thompson, who adapted it from the classic tale. I find this extremely weird, but whatever, because the characters and places have that classic Tim Burton style I love and Elfman's music is once again excellent despite being a lot less compared to Nightmare. But let's not compare them, all that matters now is that Tim Burton's Corpse Bride is brilliant, and an instant classic. And give it the Oscar for Best Animated Movie already please.

Flightplan

2005-09-20T11:52:00.000-04:00

Jodie Foster is back in Robert Schwentke's Flightplan, as a woman who gets crazy on a plane when her daughter disappears while on the air. The plane is huge, a new model she played a part in its engine design, and so she'll do everything to find her.

Jodie is Kyle Pratt, and she's traveling from Berlin to New York with her 6 year old daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) after her husband died a few weeks ago when he fell from their house's rooftop.
Kyle is traumatized, she's delusional, she imagines her husband is still with her, so when her little daughter disappears on the plane, and nobody saw her nor there is any records of her ever getting on the plane, she must fight the flight attendants, passengers, the Pilot and the Air Marshall who don't believe her daughter was ever there, and think Kyle is getting crazy.

The movie has 2 totally different parts. The first 70 minutes is all about a this crazy woman getting crazier on the plane imagining she lost a daughter that's actually dead, or so you'd think. And said woman is actually the villain of the movie, or should be. Besides getting crazy in the plane threatening the safety of the 400 plus passengers, she physically attacks people, and what people.
This is when I started to hate the movie. It's a movie about a plane so what better idea than to add some terrorism to the story in this post 9/11 world. "Lets put some Arab terrorist in it!", someone said Touchstone Pictures, and they did. I fucking hated that. It was so offensive. And even worse because after the final and horrible twist (the last 20 minutes or maybe less) which came out of nowhere, the poor Arabs didn't have anything to do with what happened. They were truly victims of this demented woman.

Jodie Foster's acting was good, but she's getting older, and I really couldn't buy her having a 6 year old daughter. Peter Sarsgaard looked bored as the Air Marshall Gene Carson. Like he didn't even care about the movie. Sean Bean was good too as the Pilot, but he had little to do. Then the flight attendants. Erika Christensen is ok, but her character is weird. It seemed like she was going to participate in the twist but then didn't, so lots of little things that happen earlier to her end up being a waste of time. Australian beauty Kate Beahan (who looks a lot like Cate Blanchett) plays another stewardess and she's good, and hot. The stewardess situations were pretty great and they all had good dialogue.

I won't spoil the ending, but it was really bad, and really hurt the movie which could've ended up just fine and emotional had they gone with a simple story about a woman who can't accept her daughter is dead. But no, that doesn't happen.
Flightplan adds explosions and chase scenes (just running though) and will get forgotten soon as a bad thriller in Jodie's resume. I guess we should just be happy just because she's working, but this is basically Panic Room in the sky, and it's a bad movie. Someone please give her a decent role.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

2005-09-18T23:05:00.000-04:00

Based on true events, The Exorcism of Emily Rose tells the story of a 19 year old girl (Anneliese Michel in real life) who died as a result of an exorcism at the hands of the family's priest. The marketing studios has made this look like a horror, but it's not, it is actually a courtroom drama headed by the priest's lawyer who defends her client. Not against Emily's family though, as they wanted to get Emily exorcised, but against the State, and the Devil himself.

Laura Linney stars as Erin Bruner, a high profile lawyer fighting for senior partnership at her firm if she gets her client to plead guilty and go to jail for a while. But Father Moore (played by Tom Wilkinson) doesn't want to. All he wants is to go to trial so he can have the chance to tell Emily's story, even if that means that his sentence could be longer.
Erin, while not believing that demons played a part in all this, agrees to the trial, getting in trouble with her bosses, and the demons too, who start playing with her too.

Linney gives a great performance here. She's so good as a lawyer, very believable at it. See the magnificent Primal Fear for more proof.
Tom Wilkinson is also great, specially in the exorcism scenes. And finally Emily who is played by Jennifer Carpenter. She is so freaky looking. All trashed down and possessed. And the scenes between her and Wilkinson exchanging words in Aramaic were excellent.

While the movie is not a horror movie, there are really great scares, and the fact that the source of fear is not tangible but spiritual made it even more frightening and unnerving.
Great work by writer and director Scott Derrickson creating a very creepy atmosphere, specially during the exorcism scenes which are just brilliant.
Add the wonderful performances and The Exorcism of Emily Rose is an excellent movie that really scares, and scares hard.

Cry_Wolf

2005-09-15T23:27:00.000-04:00

A combination of Urban Legends and Gossip, but with no known stars, gore or nudity, Cry_Wolf tells the story of rich high school kids who think they're the shit and so they make up a serial killer after a girl is murdered in the campus premises. Only one girl died, but the story they put in the mass email that gets sent to the entire school is that this is not the The Wolf's, as they named the killer, first hit. The rumor is that other kids have been killed before her, and they even describe the killings as if it happened to each one of them.
But soon The Wolf comes to life, and the friends start dying one by one just as they described it in the story, and they all think it's one of them that is dressing as The Wolf and killing them. They are all suspects, and the killer is probably Jon Bon Jovi, but you can never be sure.

Yes, Bon Jovi is in the movie, along with Jared Padalecki, who was in the very hated though I loved it Paris Hilton debut movie House of Wax remake earlier this year, and then a bunch of unknowns like Julian Morris as Owen, the very smart guy who's been recently expelled from various schools, and Lindy Booth as Dodger, the queen of the school who manipulates them all. Then of course we have the fat guy, the piercings guy, the black guy, the Latina girl, and the Asian girl, with Padalecki playing Owen's jock roommate Tom. And there's also the creepy old maintenance guy. He's not there much but at the end he brings a big laugh, a very lame big laugh. Btw, that the main guy Owen is British is very annoying. That was one exaggerated accent (even though the actor is British) and it felt weird, specially since his father (Gary Cole) didn't have that much of an accent.

I knew who the killer really was around the middle point of the movie, not bad considering you can usually spot him at the beginning. But after he's revealed the movie plays a big cheat on us and changes the rules. It's a good and smart idea, but I was already done with the movie after the killer was revealed so I kind of didn't care about it.

Writer/Director Jeff Wadley, responsible for the award winning short The Tower of Babble and the also award winning animation Catching Kringle made this movie, but all that turns into nothing when your first big time movie is a ripoff of other movies, and you don't have the balls to make it Rated R to scare us, disgust us even, or at least a tit. But no, this movie brings nothing new to the genre. And while not super original, the idea of the killer communicating via the highly popular instant messages could've worked just fine, but it's not used that well. Cry_Wolf is bad, but it could've been worse.

Lord of War

2005-09-15T00:24:00.000-04:00

After a brief introduction on gun statistics by Nicholas Cage, we have the coolest opening scene for a movie since Catch Me If You Can a few years ago. We are introduced to the bullet-cam, as we follow the entire life of a bullet since the moment it is created, cased, shipped and sold to an African country where seconds later it'll be shot blowing a kid's head in its way. This is Lord of War, Andrew Niccol's follow up to the underappreciated masterpiece that is Gattaca and the piece of shit that is S1m0ne. But hey, everybody makes mistakes, and Niccol redeems himself here.

This is the story of Yuri Orlov (Cage), an Ukranian born New Yorker who found his call in the business that is arms dealing after realizing that guns is something the world will never stop buying. He enlists his brother Vitaly (Jared Leto), and together travel the world selling arms to whoever wants them. They don't care what are those people to do with them, not even if it's to kill someone right next to them, or to fight America. It's not their problem, someone has to supply them guns and ammo, and if they don't do it someone else will. So make so much money they can't have enough of it, drinking vodka and snorting coke like crazy in the process, which gets Vitaly in a rehab center a couple times, but no big deal.
They have enemies though, Ian Holm plays Simeon Weisz, Yuri's rival in the business, and Ethan Hawke plays Jack Valentine, the Interpol agent trying to catch them. But they are no trouble for Yuri either, and he even finds time to deduce the girl of his dreams (Bridget Moynahan), marry her and have a child, keeping his business as good as ever while all that happens, without them knowing a thing. Well, she knows, but they don't talk about it.

Nicholas Cage carries the movie from start to finish, he's in almost every scene minus a couple, and he does an outstanding job at being neutral about the whole deal, and that shows perfectly in his character. The soundtrack is also a high point, and of course that it includes Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah which everybody is using these days. It's a great song and I love it, but I've heard it in like 5 movies these past couple of weeks.

Something eventually happens between all of the characters, but it's not that important. And that what really surprised me about the movie, that being all about guns, it's very uneventful. I mean, stuff happens, but just like Yuri, we don't care much because it doesn't concern us. Until it does, and that's when the movie could've gone for the happy ending or the violent and cool ending, but It doesn't go for any of them. What Lord of War goes for is the for idea it's been telling us all the time, that guns will never go away, and that someone will always sell them. It's a perfect ending for a great and very entertaining movie.

Proof

2005-09-13T23:39:00.000-04:00

In another case of a Miramax movie made in 2003 that is just getting released, Proof marks the second pairing of John Madden and Gwyneth Paltrow after the Academy Award winner Shakespeare in Love, and once again the result is wonderful. While not as good as A Beautiful Mind or Good Will Hunting, the only other movies about a similar subject, math, that come to mind right now, the movie has excellent performances from all its four main characters and at just 1 hour and 40 minutes, it never bores us, keeping the story flowing perfectly.

Gwyneth plays Catherine, the daughter of Anthony Hopkins' Robert, a brilliant mathematician, the best of his generation, who's been declared crazy and so Catherine as been taking care of him for the past 5 years, leaving school and having no social life at all in the process.
Catherine is also a great mathematician, so when his father dies, her sister Claire (Hope Davis) comes back home for his funeral and also to try and take care of her, as she thinks she's going crazy just like their father. And she kind of is.
Also in the picture is Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), one of Robert's students, who falls in love with Catherine, and at the same times wants to research Robert's more than a hundred notebooks hoping to find whatever it is the beautiful mind has supposedly been working on when he was out of his mind.

This is Gwyneth's best performance to date, and have in mind she won an Oscar already. She is so believable in the role, helped by David Auburn and Rebecca Miller's smart screenplay that gives her and all the characters great dialogue, specially when it comes to math.
Catherine never goes crazy, but she does show some signs, and while Gwyneth does not show it like Russell Crowe (who got robbed at those Oscars) did, her more quite performance is equally magnificent.
The one showing more Crowe-like signs is Hopkins, who is crazy and fatherly and sweet all at the same time. Davis and Gyllenhaal also give very good supporting performances with some great dialogue from both of them, specially whenever Hal talks about his fellow geeks.

Because of my love for math I knew I was going to like this movie, but the amazing performances and smart dialogue made me love it. Proof is intelligent but not confusing, funny when needed and then perfectly realistic in its drama, an overall excellent movie, with Gwyneth Paltrow giving a performance that puts her at the lead of the Oscar race.

The Constant Gardener

2005-09-11T18:28:00.000-04:00

Fernando Meirelles's follow up to the critically acclaimed and very powerful City of God, is The Constant Gardener, a political thriller about an activist and her fight against the pharmaceutical corporations illegally running drug tests in Africa. Based on John le Carre's novel of the same name (which sucks by the way, the title, as it tells you nothing about the story other than a character is probably a gardener, which is true), the movie shows a reality of Africa not many know about, but the character's personal dramas are boring, and some characters, specially Rachel Weisz's Tessa, are not likeable, at least not to me, despite the fact that she's pregnant and is fighting for a good cause.

The movie is kind of divided in 2 stories after the an introduction in which we learn how activist named Tessa gets attached to Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes), a British diplomat, and after a passionate day she pretty much gets herself married to him with the sole purpose of going to Africa, it seems. And right after that (in the movie, not in the story's timeline) we learn that she was killed in Kenya after an attack to her car. The driver, an African activist just like her, has not been found yet.

So now we have 45 minutes or so of flashbacks about Tessa's work in Kenya, fighting to bring down these corporations testing on the sick people in Africa. While everybody thinks they're actually helping by giving them medicine, they are giving them teh medicine, but they are also testing other medicine's on them, which they don't need and it ends up actually killing them in most cases. Tessa's methods include manipulating people, maybe even cheating on her husband with the aforementioned fellow activist named Arnold (Hubert Kounde) or with Justin's friendand coleague Sandy Woodrow (Danny Huston), a British high commissioner. Her enemies include Bill Nighy as Sir Bernard Pellegrin, the head of the Foreign Office (and Justin's superior) and Pete Postlethwaite as Marcus Lorbeer, one of the doctor's doing the deadly drug tests.

After we find out the dangerous stuff Tessa got herself into we jump into Justin's investigation of her wife's death. This includes the same character and places Tessa interacted with before she died. We find out lots of bad stuff about her here, and it brings up the question about their relationship. Justin didn't really love I thinl. He though he did, but he didn't know the real Tessa until she died and he found out all that stuff about her, then he was really in love, and found the peace in her death.

The performances are good, but not as great as everybody is saying they are. Maybe I didnt like them as much because I really didnt like some characters, specially Tessa which I hated. Fernando Meirelles' work behind the camera was better than the acting, and the cinematography by Cesar Charlone was really great.
The Constant Gardener is confusing at times with so many characters and the story going back and forth in time, and while interesting and important, is just boring.

The Edukators

2005-09-10T00:32:00.000-04:00

Hans Weingartner writes and directs The Edukators, a German drama about young idealists who rebel against the system in a very unusual way, they break into rich people's mansions while they're not home and move around all the furniture and everything they see, and then leave messages like "Your days of plenty are numbered" or "You have too much money". They never vandalize or steal anything, because they are not burglars, they just want to bring fear into these people's lives as they know that someone has been watching them and has been into their homes.

Daniel Bruhl from Goodbye Lenin! plays Jan and Stipe Erceg plays Peter, and they are The Edukators. But while Peter goes to Barcelona for a few days on vacation, his girlfriend Jule (played by Julia Jentsch), who recently moved in with them, finds out about what they do all night, and so after getting drunk she convinces Jan to go break into Hardenberg's villa. Hardenberg (Burghart Klaubner) is a rich guy she has a past with. She was in a car accident and hit his super expensive car, she didn't have insurance, and so she had to pay everything, and still is, or isn't actually, which is the reason why she got evicted of the apartment and had to go live with Peter.
While they're breaking into the house, Hardenberg comes back from his business trip and finds them there, and recognizes Jule, so they have no other choice than to kidnap him, and after Peter comes back, they all leave the city for to Jule's uncle's rural country house so they can think about what to do.

When they get there, they sort of befriend Hardenberg, who tells them how he used to be just like them when he was younger. He has this great speech about how he slowly changed from the liberal he was, but then his work paid off, he got married, children, a house, and so he needed security, and so one day he found himself voting conservative. The 4 of them debate during the entire movie about their ideas, and we are lectured about 10 year old children in Asia making our Nike shoes and stuff like that, which could bore some people, specially who knows all about that, but I feel it's necessary for the movie to work, since they had no way to show all that kind like The Motorcycle Diaries did for example. And these conversations make for around an hour of the movie, making for very smart and intelligent scenes which work excellent thanks to the great chemistry between the actors.

With a great soundtrack including Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah which is played 3 times near the end (with great results) and songs from several punk rock German bands, and a great cinematography by Daniela Knapp and Matthias Schellenberg who give us amazing visuals of Germany, Hans Weingartner's The Edukators educate us about the injustices people suffer in the world, making us want to be freed from the system, and it succeeds, at least with me. If money wasn't a problem, I'd love to be an Edukator.

Just Like Heaven

2005-09-07T00:22:00.000-04:00

Mark Waters who gave us the great Freaky Friday and Mean Girls in the past 2 years directs Just Like Heaven as his 2005 entry. With a Ghost like story but as a comedy, the movie fails completely despite a very good performance by Mark Ruffalo.

Reese Witherspoon plays Elizabeth Martinson, a young woman who devotes her life to her job, she a doctor. And when I say devotes I mean it, as when the movie starts she's finishing a 26 hours shift, not because she has to, but because she doesn't have anything better to do, plus she wants to work a lot to get a promotion which she ends up getting. So after the good news she's finally sent home, and then boom!, a car accident.
Now we meet David Abbott (Ruffalo), a former landscaping architect who moves in Elizabeth's apartment which has been without a tenant for months. Some family tragedy her realtor tells him. And so he moves in, and drinks beer and more beer, as we learn that he used to be married and is clearly depressed something that happened.
Soon Elizabeth shows up wanting to know what is he doing in her apartment, which is the same thing he wants to know. That's when we learn about Elizabeth's fate after the car accident. She's a ghost now and only David can see her for some reason. This prompts him to do all kind of crazy things like exorcisms, until he hires a psychic named Darryl who believes him, and though he can't see her, he feels she's there, and so he advises David to try and find out what's going on.

Now, something interesting and smart could be done with that setup, or they could've gone for the predictable but still funny and with heart which usually ends up with good results. But the filmmakers went with the predictable and lame instead, as they finally come to terms about her being dead, try to find out what's going on, eventually fall in love, but using the lamest lines and situations possible, ending with the classic Lame Line d'Or: "You saved my life" to which he replies, "No, you saved mine". And that's when I wanted to die.

As I mentioned before, Ruffalo is really good, in the comedic scenes as well as in the few dramatic scenes like when he tells Elizabeth what happened with his marriage.
Ruffalo's been getting some negative comments about his film choices lately, as she goes back and forth between romantic comedies and dramas, and apparently people didn't like the comedies but I really liked View from the Top and 13 Going on 30 so he's fine in my book. One of the best actors working today in my opinion. He's got Rumor Has It (with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner) and All the King's Men (with Sean Penn, Jude Law and a lot more big names) coming out this year.

Witherspoon is back after a bad couple of years (Legally Blonde 2 and Vanity Fair) and she is the disappointment here in the lead. She doesn't look as beautiful as she really is and she gets really bad lines of dialogue. The character is general is pretty bad written as she doesn't question many things, like when she enters David's body like they do in Ghost. It happens only once here, for nothing important, and then they just forgot about it seems. Like the filmmakers didn't want to look too much like Ghost. They shouldn't have used it in the first place.

Now I don't want to trash the genius that is his Napoleon Dynamite, but Jon Heder plays Darryl the psychic and he is not convincing at all. His lines all seem forced and like he doesn't want to sound like Napoleon but at the same time he wants to sound all laid back and cool. And his repeated use of the word 'righteous' got annoying very soon. For all those who wanted to see the movie just for him, he's there for maybe just 12 minutes but he's got 2 or 3 scenes in which he leads and then 2 more showings.

Witherspoon is playing June Carter in the Johnny Cash biopic next, which will fight for the Oscars, but she'll need to be really good there for me to forgive her for this movie. With no chemistry between the two leads, a nothing soundtrack (which usually helps this kind of movies), and a horrible ending, Just Like Heaven comes off very lame and it just plain sucks.

An Unfinished Life

2005-09-05T15:12:00.000-04:00

An Unfinished Life tells the story of Einar Gilkyson, an old Iowa cowboy taking care of her lifelong friend Mitch who was attacked by a bear a year old. At the same time we have his daughter in-law Jean, who leaves her home with her young daughter Griff and goes to Iowa to stay with Einar after her boyfriend beats her up once again. Einar does not welcome them, as he still blames Jean for the death of his son (Jean's husband), who died a decade ago in a car accident. Jean was driving.

Lasse Hallstrom (What's Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules, Chocolat) directs this drama about anger and forgiveness, and gets great performances for his actors, and the bear too. Einar is played by Robert Redford and the story focuses on him for the most part. He gives a great performance though having in mind that this movie is pretty much Oscar bait, I think he's missing that one great scene needed to get a nomination. He had a chance though, in one of many scenes in which he visits his son's grave, but there was none of those beloved tears the Academy loves. Great performance still, specially in all the scenes he has with Jennifer Lopez who plays Jean. You can see the anger in his face and how much hate he has towards her.

Lopez is really good too. Her part sounds a lot like her Enough role without the training and fighting but is not like that. She gets second billing in the movie so I'm thinking her screen time was a little bit reduced since the film was done 2 years ago (it was delayed because of the Weinstein's departure from Miramax and all that). Everything made it sound like it was more of an ensemble drama but Redford gets most of the story, and I'm pretty sure even Morgan Freeman, who plays Mitch, has more screen time that Lopez. Still, she's really good here.

Freeman is the usual excellence, and when I say usual I also mean that his part is a lot like all his previous performances in which he plays the old wise best friend or mentor, but there's nobody who can do it better than him so no problem there. I would expect an Oscar nomination but since he won last year I don't think he'll get it.
Besides the always great advises, he has one excellent scene in which he finally faces the bear that attacked him. Mitch is all wounded in the face and back, and needs help to walk, get clean, and specially get his daily medicine shots.

Then there's Becca Gardner who plays the young Griff. She started a little weak I thought but by the time she meets her grandfather and Mitch she gets really good and gives a fine performance with a couple of very great emotional scenes.
Rounding the cast are Damian Lewis who plays Gary, Jean's boyfriend; Josh Lucas who plays the local Sheriff Crane; and Camryn Manheim who plays Nina, the owner of the local diner who gives Jean a job waiting tables there. Manheim has one great scene with Lopez that could've give her an Oscar nom alone if her character wasn't so small.

Overall, I think for it to play big this awards season, it needs a lot more work in the emotional department though that didn't keep me from enjoying the movie a lot. An Unfinished Life is a great movie with a simple story, brilliant acting and a great bear.

Transporter 2

2005-09-03T23:34:00.000-04:00

Jason Statham is back as Frank Martin in the not as good or fun as the first one, but still good and fun, Transporter 2, with Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen also back in the writing department, and Louis Leterrier, who directed one of my favorite movies of the year, Unleashed, behind the camera instead of Corey Yuen who directed the first one.

This time around Frank lives in Florida instead of Europe, and he also drives an Audi A8 W12 instead of a BMW. The job is still the same, and the rules probably too though there's no mention of them this time around, as we get back with Frank when he's not doing one of his regular jobs, which usually include something illegal. Instead, he's helping out a friend by filling in as the driver of the kid of a rich couple. Soon the kid is attacked and kidnapped by Lola (Kate Nauta), a deadly skinny model looking assassin girlfriend of Gianni (Alessandro Gassman), the mastermind of a plan to infect the whole world with a deadly virus to which only he has the antidote, and so he would get rich by selling it when everybody is infected. They need to capture the kid because his father Jefferson Billings (Matthew Modine) is the head of US narcotics division and so he would get infected too and would infect all the other important people he's meeting with in a couple of days. They would get infected because the virus is passed just by breathing the air someone infected breathes, kind of like second hand smoke.
Amber Valletta plays Audrey, the mother of the kid, wife of Billings, and Frank's kind of love interest.

Some stunts are repeated from the first movie like the oily arms sequence, but the rest are, while over the top, lots of fun. Like a scene in which he flips over the car in the air to get rid of a bomb attached to its chassis, or a scene in which a plane crashes into the sea. About that one, it's weird that it doesn't explode, considering that even 2 cars crashing at low speed looked like an atomic bomb, though it was probably because our hero was in the plane. I also love the fact that Frank keeps new suits and shirts in the car in case something happens to the ones he's using.

While the first Transporter had a brilliant first 45 minutes, after that it lost its magic. This sequel is better in that aspect, as it keeps the action even throughout the entire movie, and is good at all times.
With a great score and Francois Berleand reprising his role as French Inspector Tarconi for comic relief, Transporter 2 succeeds in entertain us and makes for a good second part to a franchise I wouldn't mind if it gets 5 more of them.

2046

2005-09-02T14:35:00.000-04:00

A sequel to 2000's In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar Wai is back with 2046, a confusing story of a writer who falls in love with different women that are staying in the room 2046 in a hotel in Hong Kong in the mid 60s. He's in room 2047. He's writing a story about a futuristic train that takes you to 2046, a place where you can go to find lost memories, though nobody knows what exactly happens there because nobody has ever come back, except for one person.
The different stories are happening at all times during the movie, and all of them involve the same characters, Tony Leung's Chow as the writer and the 4 beautiful women he has meets are Ziyi Zhang's Bai Ling, Gong Li's Su Li Zhen, Faye Wong's Wang Jing Wen and Carina Lau's Lulu/Mimi. There's also Maggie Cheung as a robot named slz1960. Cheung was with Tony Leung in In The Mood for Love.

The acting is excellent, and I read somewhere that the characters speak all different languages: Chow speaks Cantonese, Bai Ling speaks Mandarin, and Tak (Takuya Kimura) speaks Japanese. Very interesting though it made no difference for me because I was just reading the subtitles. The cinematography and costumes are also a high point of the movie, even though the scenes of the future look out of a videogame, but it's supposed to be that way I think, so it worked fine. And I'm so glad Wong Kar Wai decided to use colors this time instead of the blue cinematography he used in The Hand, his segment of Eros.

The movie is super slow paced, though that didn't bother me much, what really bothered me and almost made me fall asleep, specially during the first 45 minutes or so, was the camera work. The director just points at an actor or a background and keeps showing the same nothingness (the no dialogue during lots of these scenes) for so many seconds that at times I'm sure it was minutes. This drove me crazy to the point where I actually wanted to scream at the screen to go on with the story.
2046, as its actresses, is beautiful and interesting while confusing at the same time, but the slow pacing and camera work make it fail to entertain, and so it ends up boring more than anything else.

A Sound of Thunder

2005-09-01T16:07:00.000-04:00

Based on a Ray Bradbury short story A Sound of Thunder is another case of a movie delayed in its release because of production problems, in this case over 2 years, as it was going to be originally released in 2003. But I know that the problems did not affect the writing of the movie by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer and Gregory Poirier, nor the direction by Peter Hyams or special effects (which deserve a whole paragraph just for them), all horrible.

Edward Burns stars as Travis Ryer as the leader of a hunting group sent to the prehistoric era where dinosaurs ruled the rule. It's all part of a Time Traveling Safari, which company owner Charles Hatton (Sir Ben Kingsley) offers to the most rich people in the world.
But there's Sonia Rand (Catherine McCormack), the woman who invented the technology, who warns them that what they do is wrong because just a little mistake (known as the Butterfly Effect) could be fatal as just by killing a butterfly in the distant past you could modify the evolution of the species, all the species. And so of course it happens, and the writers wouldn't think of anything original so they went with the laziest idea, they accidentally kill a butterfly while on a trip, and monstrous beasts suddenly appear out of nowhere in the world of today killing all humans. The world of today in the movie is in the future too, though it looks just like our time only that the cars are computerized.

The special effects are some of the worst I've ever seen. Starting with the aforementioned cars which look straight out of an old videogame. And the city is a disaster too. It's so obvious that you can clearly see the actors are walking on a machine in front of a camera. Then the Monkeysaurs and the huge bats (or at least they looked like bats) are the only 2 monsters the filmmakers could come up with. And they are horrible.
Same for the T-Rex they go to kill when they go back in time. It looks extremely fake and the effects of the ice-shots hitting him are horrible.

Other than Burns, the rest of the cast are pretty bad in the acting department (Kingsley is embarrassing), and for a time traveling movie, the story doesn't explain much of what's going on, including waves of energy that appear every couple of hours to change the evolution of things. It's explained all very quickly and it makes no sense.
The studio waited 2 years to dump this movie in not many theatres and on this time of year when all the bad movies that are sure to fail get released, and A Sound of Thunder won't be an exception to that.

Undiscovered

2005-08-31T23:21:00.000-04:00

It's really bad news when a studio decides to cancel advance screenings for a movie, and it even worse when it also cancels press screenings, as it means that they don't want anybody at all to watch their movie before it comes out because the bad word will kill it.
All that happened with Undiscovered, though there was no way this could be any good when you have Ashlee Simpson on the poster. It was meant to be bad from the beginning, and it is bad. The question though is how bad, and how's Ashlee's acting, the only reason to go see this movie.

Ashlee's Clea is not the star of the movie, instead she plays best friend to the two leads, and she's in a lot of scenes throughout all the movie, but she doesn't have much to do other than to deliver cheesy lines like everybody else, or sing. Her acting is not good, but she wasn't the worst in the movie (more on that later) and the singing is not bad, actually enjoyable, as it is Steven Strait's singing. He plays the male lead. And the singing overall is the only actually high point of the movie.

Strait's acting is good, the only good acting part in the movie. The guy can act as he showed in Sky High (he was Warren Peace) and he'll surely become a star for young girls soon. He plays Luke Falcon here, a singer/songwriter to moves to California to change scenes and try his luck there. He's later accompanied by his brother Euan played by Kip Pardue.
But before they go, Luke meets the love of his life in a train station, they just look at each other for a while through the train's window, but he's in love. He still goes to the West Coast and doesn't see her again.
Well, he eventually does, as Brier played by Pell James, the girl in question, is a model who wants to try acting in California after learning that her rock star boyfriend is cheating on her while on a tour in Japan.
And so she goes to Los Angeles too, and they meet thanks to Clea, a young girl who is also trying acting and so she meets Brier in an acting academy, and she also sings with Luke every now and then at the local clubs.

And so Luke and Brier connect, it's love at first sight again, but Brier says she's still with her rock star boyfriend and doesn't want to be with another rockstar so nothing happens between them at that point. Instead, knowing how much Luke wants to make it in the business, she and Clea create fake publicity about Luke, making him look like a huge rising star so an agent that frequents the club would sign him. And from there lots of stupid things happen as Luke is signed and changes, Brier thinks she loves him but doesn't anything about it, and they all say and do stupid stuff courtesy of John Galt's script.

So Ashlee is bad, Strait is ok, and the rest are all horrible, starting with Pell James. She's a disaster from start to finish. And she's not even that hot to be a model.
Then Kip Pardue, who I loved in The Rules of Attraction (and I hear he's great in Loggerheads), he's embarrassing here. At one point he's doing karaoke wearing a thong and in the next scene he's about to get in bed with two girls. And his lines are so cheesy.
Also horrible is Shannyn Sossamon (who was in The Rules of Attraction too) as Josie, a Brazilian model hired to pose as Luke's girlfriend. At first she tries to fake the accent but after a few scenes she just talks normal and every now and then she switches back to trying the accent which is really bad.
Carrie Fisher is also here as Brier's modeling agent Carrie (that's her real name too! Very clever) and she looks so bad and old that she should just retire. Finally Fisher Stevens (from the Short Circuit movies) plays the music agent mentioned before and he's a disaster too.

The movie is not as bad as Hillary Duff's Raise your Voice though, just because the music here is actually good. But the acting is terrible save for Strait, and the idea of the story while good, is very hurt by the dreadful dialogue.
John Galt should just stop making movies (this one was his debut) and the same goes for director Meiert Avis, who loves to film his actors talking while moving the camera around them non-stop for minutes, making Undiscovered more unwatchable than it should. For some reason, I have a thing for this young stars, and despite the debacles in her singing career, I still have hope for Ashlee, and I'm willing to give her one more chance. Probably just one though.

The Brothers Grimm

2005-08-31T22:10:00.000-04:00

The fantastic mind that is Terry Gilliam is back after 7 years (his last effort was the trippy and excellent Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) to direct The Brothers Grimm, the adventures of the legendary duo of folklore collectors who travel from little village to little village in a French occupied Germany performing fake exorcisms pretending to save the villagers from non-existent witches and other enchanted creatures.
After a very problematic preproduction (specially over the casting of the main actress, Gilliam and Damon wanted Samantha Morton but the Weinsteins went with Lena Headey), filming (Gilliam's right hand cinematographer Nicola Pecorini was fired by Miramax for being too slow) and final cut of the movie (the most expensive scene in the movie was cut), the final result is mixed, with a very big mess of a first hour, and a last hour that works once the story comes together and the FX get better.

Matt Damon and Heath Ledger play Will and Jake Grimm, full of wigs, big costumes and weird accents. Will is the womanizer and the one that makes Jake go on to these the villagers and scam them for all they have. Jake on the other hand is a believer, he loves his fairy tales and all the fantasy about them. A fantasy geek you could say.
Damon and Ledger are fine in their performances, with the former taking the lead during the first half of the movie in which they are shown traveling saving the villages. There's lots of special effects here but they are not great. Also, the story cuts every now and then to show a fairy tale (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, there's also Jack and the Magic Beans at the beginning of the movie) always about little girls who end up being captured. The problem is that those tales have nothing to do with the main story of the movie at point and so it's all very confusing.

The movie comes to life once our heroes get to the village of Marbaden to discover the mystery of 10 little girls that have disappeared in the enchanted forest. They are sent by General Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) and are accompanied by his right hand, the terrible Cavaldi (Peter Stormare), both delivering horrible accents and pretty bad performances all around. Here's where they meet Angelika (Lena Headey) and while investigating the forest they discover the tower of the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci) who may have something to do with the little girls.
Besides adding these new characters, and the story coming more together, this second part works because Ledger's Jake takes command (he was very weak during that first half) as he accepts in these fiery tales they're being part of, while Will still does not believe nor care much for what's going on, but eventually does.

The special effects are excellent in this second part too, specially during the sequences with the Mirror Queen. And the costumes are also great in the movie, though the one for the Mirror Queen does not showcase Bellucci's spectacular body.
With the support of a great score from Dario Marianelli, the movie is hurt by that first half when it doesn't work at all because of the mess of a script by Ehren Kruger (The Ring movies, The Skeleton Key). Overall though, The Brothers Grimm is not bad, but I'm sure is not even close to what Terry Gilliam had in mind.

My Date with Drew

2005-08-20T19:48:00.000-04:00

Brian Herzlinger brings us his story in this documentary, that of a broke and with no job 27 year old Jewish young man from New Jersey who after winning $1100 on a game show, saw it as a sign that the winning answer was Drew Barrymore, whom he's had a crush on ever since he saw her in E.T. back in the second grade, that he decided to get his friends Jon and Brett, get a videocamera from Circuit City, go to California to pursue his dream in less than 30 days, and document everything in My Date with Drew. Why 30 days? because that's when the return policy from Circuit City will end for the camera they bought, and so they'll get their money back. Note for all those out there thinking about doing the same as Brian though, you'll have to buy a camera this time because Circuit City changed their return policy ever since the movie got released.

Brian and his friends do everything they can to meet Drew Barrymore, a huge movie star unreachable for the common man, so they decide to use all of their contacts and using the six degrees of separations, get to her or someone who can get Brian to her so he can ask her out on a date. She's dating someone though, and during the movie we learn (through the tabloids of course) that she's also getting married, but Brian doesn't want a relationship with her, he just wants a date.
The six degrees of separation take the 3 friends to people who know people who know Drew, but also to people that have actually in contact with her like her stylist, and even bigger like John August who wrote the Charlie's Angels movies, and Corey Feldman who dated Drew a long time ago. And they all think Brian can do it and encourage him to continue his quest.

Brian is very enthusiastic and energetic, and just a normal good guy. He does make sure that he doesn't come out as a stalker though, so nothing like go driving around her house or go knocking on her family's door. He does meet one of Drew's first cousins who's met Drew in then past cause they're family, but she doesn't know her at all.

It's great because we really get compenetrated in the journey, and I found myself smiling happy whenever he was would get closer to meet Drew, and even when he hired a Drew look alike so he could see how would the date be in case it ever happened. And it does eventually, and I think is no spoiler to say so because the movie wouldn't have been released if they hadn't met.
But yes, emotions are high and I was almost crying when Brian finally meets her at the Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle after party, and what they do to get to that party is great.
And so Brian meets her, but just a 'nice to meet you' as if he were a nobody of course, because Drew doesn't know anything about Brian's documentary, and he doesn't have the camera at the party of course, so we just to the meeting on the cell phone. Brian can't mention anything about it either because that could freak her out.
So there's a lot more after the party, all ending with Brian and Drew finally having a date at which point I was so happy for him as if he were my best friend in the world.

Drew Barrymore once said "If you don't take risks, you'll have a wasted soul.", and those words inspired Brian to make this crazy attempt to fulfill his dream, it's great that he succeeded. My Date with Drew is very fun, engaging and full of good hearted people. And is inspiring too, so maybe I'll try it myself to make my dream come true of meeting Julia Roberts one day.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

2005-08-17T23:16:00.000-04:00

Judd Apatow and Steve Carell, we'll be seeing their names for a long time, but right now, after highly praised but little seen cult TV Series (Freaks and Geeks, Undeclared for Apatow) and supporting roles in big comedies (Brick in Anchorman, The Daily Show for Carell), they team up to write, and one directs and the other stars in The 40 Year Old Virgin, the Best Comedy of the Year. And yes, I loved Wedding Crashers too.

Like that Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson laugh fest, the movie is rated R and thank God they're making a comeback after way too many PG-13 stuff. Rob Schneider's Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo didn't make money but at least it made great use of its rating, and Apatow and Carell do too.

Carell stars in the as Andy, a middle age electronics store clerk who's never had sex. Ever. He tried when he was younger, but after some disastrous attempts he just gave up. It was less humiliating to just forget about it than to keep his hopes up that it may actually happen one day. So he now runs from women and spends his nights watching Survivor with his old neighbor, playing online video games or playing with his many, many toys. He also never learned how to drive a car so he drives a bicycle to work everyday.
Paul Rudd (Brian Fantana in Anchorman), Romany Malco and Seth Rogen (he's been in everything Apatow) costar as Andy's coworkers who find out about his situation. How they find out is great, during a night of poker they are telling each other's sex stories and when it's Andy's turn he gives one of the most pathetic tales ever told, and they quickly catch that he's a virgin. They love it though, and decide it's their new job to get him laid. Of course, they tell everybody they know about it.

I won't give out the rest of the story away because there are lots of hilarious situations including a kinky library worker from next door played by Elizabeth Banks, Katherine Keener is also there as Andy's potential love interest Trish (don't worry, the love story doesn't get cheesy) and there's also David Koechner (Anchorman's Champ) who shows up for a scene in which Andy takes Trish's daughter to a sex clinic of some kind for kids who have answers about sex, and it ends up with Andy asking more questions than her.

But one of the absolutely funniest scenes ever is the waxing scene shown briefly in the trailer. You could tell that it was all real pain because his screams were so authentic and you could see it in the other actors' faces that they were not in character, they were really laughing at the situation. And then the blood on his chest. It was really great.

Apatow is a genius and he knows how to write comedy. The situations in the movie are real and the dialogue is hard core, and at times it sounds like it's too much, but is not, that's what those characters would say in those situations. And lots of stuff besides the waxing scene was improvised and so everything looks very natural and so the laughs are truly non-stop.
Steve Carell almost stole the show in Anchorman, rules The Office and after this role, he's sure join the elite group of movie comics that Will Ferrell currently tops. Sadly, Ferrell doesn't make an appearance here so there's no Channel 4 News Team reunion but the movie doesn't need it, because again, The 40 Year Old Virgin is the Best Comedy of the Year.

Gus Van Sant's Last Days

2005-08-14T19:09:00.000-04:00

Kurt Cobain escaped from a rehab facility and disappeared for a month. He was found dead from a shotgun to his head in the green house of his stone walled mansion in the middle of the forest.
Gus Van Sant show us the Last Days of Blake, a Seattle rocker who's apparently escaped from a drug facility, and is now spending the days of his life in his stone walled mansion in the woods. Blake is not Kurt Cobain, and it is him at the same time.

Blake is a young man who spends his time, be it day or night, silently, contemplating nature, thinking, but at the same time he's walking aimlessly, mumbling every word, avoiding the few people that are around him, supposed friends that only want him because of what he has. What he has we don't know though, or we do, because we know who Kurt Cobain was. And if you don't know who he was then this is not a movie for you.

Michael Pitt plays Blake, and he channels Kurt perfectly. From the dirty blonde hair to the trademark voice that accompanied the grunge sound of Nirvana. The look is incredible and it's great because we don't get a close up to Blake's face up until the final scenes of the movie. Before that we always get his face covered by hair of filmed from an angle that doesn't let us see it.
And there's something worth noting that could decide if you go see this movie or not: as I mentioned Blake mumbles a lot in the movie, and it's not just a lot, is all of it. There are no fully understandable sentences coming out of his mouth during the entire movie.

There are two classic scenes featuring Nirvana's sound (not music though, there's none of that in the movie). First there's a scene in which Blake plays instruments, guitar, bass and drums, no lyrics though. Van Sant shows us this scene from outside the house through a big window, and you can just see Blake's mind functioning, creating music.
The second scene is excellent, in which one of the guys that's staying in Blake's house comes to him for help on a song. He talks to Blake, and even gives him a tape, but Blake just nods and watches, he's lethargic and has no energy it seems. The guy leaves, and Blake grabs a guitar and starts playing and singing. Pitt's (or whoever it was, though he plays in a band in real life so it could've been him) voice sounds just like Kurt's, and the music is the perfect underground grunge sound of Nirvana.

This is not a traditional movie, it doesn't follow any of the classic steps. It's literally a following of what happened to this rocker, and to Kurt (Van Sant even uses MTV's original broadcast of the news of Kurt's death) in his Last Days, filled with nothingness, probably just thinking who he is and what he means, though maybe not. And just like with Kurt, there's no explanation or reasons of his death, just Blake's last words put on paper: "I can't keep going. I can't be part of this machine. I'm sorry.". This is not the movie I was expecting to see about Kurt, it's better, and I salute Van Sant for his beautiful work with it.

Four Brothers

2005-08-12T23:09:00.000-04:00

John Singleton gave us Boyz n the Hood in the early 90s, and it was just so good and real that his career should've been gold, but it wasn't. Shaft, Baby Boy and 2 Fast 2 Furious sucked in very different levels, but overall they were not good. Now he brings us Marky Mark, Tyrese, Andre 3000 and a white kid that is sure to be the first character to die in Four Brothers, also featuring the raising star that is Terrence Howard.

The movie opens with a robbery of a grocery store in Detroit. The store clerk gets killed, and a sweet old lady that was there is killed too. The title characters are the sons of the old lady in question and so they come back to the city for her funeral, and soon find out that it wasn't an accident that their mom was killed. They also know that the cops won't be any help, so they take it into their own hands to avenge their mother's death.
In case you didn't realize yet, Mark Wahlberg and Garrett Hedlund are white, and Tyrese and Andre Benjamin are black, but yes they are brothers, as they were adopted by Evelyn Mercer (played by Fionnula Flanagan) when they were kids. She used to run a foster home, but these 4 kids were very problematic, and so nobody ever took them, so she did. Still, they grew up to be very tough and near criminals, but not as bad as they would've been without her.

When they start investigating their mom's death, they find out that one of them may have been involved in it, as well as the mob led by Chiwetel Ejiofor's super badass Victor Sweet. They don't care who they are facing though, they just want to kill them, and they do.
Eliofor is terrific in the role. A real motherfucker who everybody is afraid of, and the littlest mistake can get you eating food from the floor, and killed of course.
Bobby Mercer is the coolest and toughest guy and he's not afraid of anybody, and Wahlberg pulls it off perfectly with great charisma and leadership. He never gets any respect but he's a great actor and definitely the best here.
Tyrese is Angel, the joker of the group and also the ladies man. Sofia Vergara plays his love interest but she's very annoying most of the time, and thumbs down to her for not even showing her breasts.
Garrett Hedlund, who was previously seen last year in Troy and Friday Night Lights, the younger brother who they all protect. His Jack Mercer gets little to do compared with his brothers but he does his part very well.
Finally Andre Benjamin from Outkast plays Jeremiah, the older and wiser brother. He's the voice of reason in the group, mostly because he has a family of his own to protect and he can't be running around killing people like his siblings. After a small role in Be Cool early this year, this is Andre's first showings of an acting range, and he delivers.
Terrence Howard plays the good cop in the movie. The part is very small and he's good in it.

John Singleton gives us very great and real looking gunfights, with lots of bullets and blood and it's great. There's also a very cool chase scene in the middle of the night on a snowy road that is very well done. And the playful relationships between the brothers is played off great here. Singleton also pulled it off in 2 Fast 2 Furious between Tyrese and Paul Walker.
Four Brothers is not a big movie and is not a classic or anything like that, but is very cool and definitely a good movie.

Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

2005-08-11T23:15:00.000-04:00

Rob Schneider is not for everybody. You either love his movies or hate them, I think they're genius. Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo was his first big movie after SNL and funny cameos in various movies, and then came classics like The Animal and The Hot Chick. Yes, classics and I'm not joking. Deuce rocked. It was really funny, and it had heart. And that's the problem with Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, it's funny and gross, but the man-whore does not care for the women as much as in the original, and his solution to their problems is always a boob job.

The he-bitch is once again played by Schneider who's getting old (he's going to be 42 this year) and it shows. He doesn't have the same energy as before but he's still funny. Eddie Griffin is also back as TJ Hicks the pimp playing a bigger role now in the sequel. He's in Amsterdam this time, where prostitution is legal, and so he owns a floating pimp house where he conducts his business.
Deuce is in America, and he's a widow now after his wife was eaten by a shark, and so all he has left is her orthopedic leg. After some trouble though, he ends up going to Europe to visit TJ and that's when bigger problems start as the prostidudes of the old country as being killed one by one by a mysterious assassin known as The Man-Whore Killer. TJ is being accused of being the murderer (and of being gay too, which he's more concerned about) so it's up to Deuce to find out who the real killer is. The only way to do it is by using Diego Verga's (the last man-whore killed) journal, and visit the women he was seeing to try to find out if one of them is the killer. The clientele includes the Big Ear Girl, a huge woman, and Katrina, who was in a accident where her brother was killed in and she lost her nose. Her brother's only living organ was put in place of her nose and now it erects if she gets excited. Truly one of the funniest and grotesque jokes I've ever seen. It was awesome. There's also the Girl with a Hole in her Throat which is really a problem she smokes or drinks.
Besides all that there's the other he-hos, a whole secret society of them actually. They are all friends and don't like Deuce or TJ. They're also very scared of the Man-Whore Killer but that doesn't stop them from moving forward with the 73rd Annual Man-Whore Awards which serve as the climax for the movie.

Rob is funny, the women are crazy ugly with the very hot one of course too who ends up with Deuce. This time is Eva (played by Belgian beauty Hanna Verboom), a girl with around 130 obsessive compulsive problems. Griffin also brings some very funny moments, and the walking failure that is Norm Macdonald too playing one of the European gigolos.
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo is not as good as the first one, but is still funny, and with man-whore names like Heinz Hummer, Enzo Giarraputo and Mariolis Assapopoulos, and the so many offered services they provide like the Mongolian Sticky Bun, the Portuguese Breakfast and the Turkish Snow Cone, this comedy doesn't miss, unless you don't like Rob.

The Dukes of Hazzard

2005-08-07T13:45:00.000-04:00

Welcome to Hazzard County, GA, where hillbilly cousins Bo (Sean William Scott) and Luke (Johnny Knoxville) drive their '69 Dodge Charger as fast as they can always running from the law and getting women. Well, at least Luke because Bo seems more in love with the General Lee as they call the car than with anybody else. They also sell moonshine for their Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), and that's what mostly gives them trouble with the authorities led by Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane (M.C. Gainey) and the town's commissioner Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds).
There's also Daisy (Jessica Simpson), their beautiful long legged, short shorts wearing cousin, who must use her sex appeal to get them out of trouble all the time.
These are The Dukes of Hazzard, based on the '80s sitcom of the same name, a very entertaining movie that much like The Longest Yard remake earlier this year (which also featured Reynolds), succeeds in the fun department, but it'll be gone from our memories in no time. In fact, I watched this one a week ago and I've already forgotten some stuff.

What I do remember is Jessica Simpson's body, she's super hot of course, but her acting is not. It's a very small part, it even looks as if it's been shortened or something because she's really in just a handful of scenes. And while she does look good, her accent is way too exaggerated, and she's from the south, so I don't know why she 'acted' the accent instead of talking as she always does. And Daisy is supposed to be the girl next door, but Jessica wears so much make up that it hurts the part.
Knoxville is very good as Luke, though there's not much development for the character, as the movie puts more focus on Scott's Bo, who besides loving his car loves to race. He's been winning the town's rally for 4 years straight now, and winning the upcoming 5th would be a record. He's also star struck when local star and current NASCAR champion Billy Prickett (played by James Roday) comes back to town to compete in the rally too. It's a very good performance by Scott and he's the only one you can care for in the movie.
Another funny character is Cooter (played by Anchorman's David Koechner), the town's mechanic who fixes the General Lee and leaves him like new all the time.
There's also Kevin Heffernan who plays Sheev, the town's idiot who thinks someone is watching them and there's a conspiracy everywhere. Another funny performance there by the Broken Lizzard member.

Speaking of which, all Broken Lizzard members make an appearance in the movie, small roles though, with one of them, Jay Chandrasekhar directing the movie. The music is also good in the movie (except for Jessica's awful cover of Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walkin').
There's a could taken as offensive scene in which the boys go to Atlanta (though it's nothing like it cause the movie was filmed in Louisiana) and after a wrong turn face a gang of black men who attacks them after noting the Confederate Flag on top of the General Lee. The cops arrive but they're black too so they end up in jail.

Overall, The Dukes of Hazzard is a very dumb, but fun movie, good only to waste time watching cars jumping onto highways and crushing other cars, and to watch Jessica in a bikini. There's a scene in a college the boys visit that is fun, though as with the whole movie, it would've been much better if it were rated R. Oh well, there's hope for the DVD.

Red Eye

2005-08-06T21:19:00.000-04:00

Wes Craven leaves the horror genre behind to make Red Eye, a small thriller with a couple of sure to be big actors and just a few locations too. There are no boring parts in the 85 minutes of the movie and it sounds short, but is just enough to keep you entertained the whole time.

My favorite actress at the moment Rachel McAdams plays Lisa Reisert, a young hotel manager currently in Dallas, TX for her grandmother's funeral. She's going back home to Miami where her divorced father Joe (Brian Cox) lives. While in line to board the plane she meets Jackson Rippner played by Cillian Murphy, a young and charming man with whom she makes an instant connection. The plane gets delayed and they learn the airline has arranged for them to take the Red Eye a little bit later, so Jackson goes for a drink at the airport's bar and after some hesitation she follows. They talk and drink, some sparks fly, and then they're called to board the plane. Lisa finds her seat and it turns out that Jackson is seated right next to her.
It could've been the beginning of a beautiful relationship, only that a few minutes later Jackson reveals why he's really there. He's been following her for weeks as he's part of plot to kill the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security, who's that day going to stay at Lisa's hotel as always and so they need Lisa to make the arrangements to change his room (she's the only one who can do it) so they can have an easier target. If she refuses to help, there's a killer outside her father's house waiting for Jackson's call to kill him.

Nothing big happens that threatens the entire plane or anything like that, instead, we get a cat and mouse game as Lisa delays the plane call to make the arrangements and also tries to find a way to let somebody know what's going on without Jackson knowing, though he's very smart and always messes up her attempts.

Very good work by Wes Craven here keeping us on the edge at all times and great performances by Rachel who looks beautiful and it seems that she had very little makeup, and Cillian which is pronounced Killian, probably because he's British. The rest of the small cast is good too from Brian Cox to Jayma Mays who plays Cynthia the Assistant Manager at the hotel. There's also a very small part for Survivor's Colby Donaldson who plays a Secret Service Agent in charge of the Deputy Secretary and his family.

With likeable actors playing likeable characters (even though one of them is a killer) and a smart script where there are no classic stupid teens in danger hiding in the wrong places and always taking the worst decisions, Red Eye is a very good movie making the great comeback that Wes Craven should've had instead of that piece of shit he made earlier this year.

Broken Flowers

2005-08-04T15:12:00.000-04:00

Bill Murray stars in Jim Jarmusch's artistic and very quite Broken Flowers, about Don Johnston, a retired man who, right after his girlfriend Sherry (Julie Delpy) leaves him, receives a pink letter from a former flame telling him that he has a son she raised all by herself, but now he's 19 and he left home maybe in search of his father. The letter is anonymous though, and so Don, after getting convinced by his neighbor Winston (Jeffrey Wright), embarks in an adventure to his past to find the women he was with 20 years ago in search of the mother of his possible son.

Jarmusch's films are the love or hate type. Coffee & Cigarettes was good, though it was more interesting to see all those actors and singers interact than what they were actually talking about. I liked it, most of it. Now Broken Flowers is more of a normal movie, with a normal plot and just one central character. There's a lot to like, or hate, depending on your mood when you see the movie.
The pace of the movie is very slow, mostly because of the transitions between scenes. The movie is 2 hours long, but there are around 25 minutes of Bill Murray just driving his car, looking at the street from his hotel's porch or even just staring at nothing sitting in his house. Those 25 minutes are not all at the same time of course but still, they feel like they're just there to fill the 2 hours. Or is just a very artistic style that didn't work at its fullest for me, but might for other considering that the movie won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes this year.

The acting is very good though, excellent actually. Or it could be taking as just sitting in front of a camera, because that happens a lot. I loved it, starting with Bill Murray's numb performance as Don, not Johnson, a recurrent joke in the movie. Murray looks very old here, but he's still great. Even when stuff is happening (his non-stop talking neighbor, a naked teen walking around him, dinner with one a former ex and her husband) all he does is be still and quite, but you can see him 'mind-acting' if you like, just moving his eyes a little bit maybe and you know he's giving an excellent performance. Is it award worthy? I don't know. I think that any more normal acted performance would beat him though we haven't had many this year except Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man.

The award worthy performance of the movie goes to Jeffrey Wright (from HBO's Angels in America). He plays Winston, Don's neighbor and a man with 3 jobs and big family. Still, he finds time to play Sherlock Holmes with the help of his beloved internet which still amuses him. And I say still because is set in today's world, though it has an early 90s feeling. And that we have not idea where it takes place doesn't help, as the letter Don receives shows his address as somewhere in a state abbreviated 'NT'.
But anyway, Winston loves to investigate stuff, whatever it is, and so he grabs the pink letter, asks Don to give him a list of his girlfriends from 20 years ago, and thanks to the magic of the internet he finds where they all are, and how to get to their houses. He also books hotels and cars and plane tickets. All Don has to do is go and show up at their houses with pink flowers, and look for clues (pink stationary or a typewriter with red ink like the letter) Winston tells him.
Winston is not very much in the movie, maybe 15 minutes tops, but Jeffrey Wright rules all that time. It's a comedic performance but it feels so natural and real that is just perfect.

The women are all good though they are there just for a couple of minutes as the movie is all Murray really.
Sharon Stone plays Laura, Don's first stop. She's recent widow after her car racing husband died in a race some time ago. She lives with her daughter Lolita (Alexis Dziena), the aforementioned naked teen who flirts a lot with Don when they are waiting for her mom to get home. After Laura comes Frances Conroy as Dora, a real estate agent living happily married to her husband Ron (Christopher McDonald) who is also a real estate agent. Third is Jessica Lange as Carmen, an animal communicator who is also married now, but may be having a lesbian relation with her assistant (Chloe Sevigny). And finally comes Tilda Swinton as Penny, the only one who still hates him even though it was her that left him.
I shouldn't say finally though because Don makes one final stop to cemetery where his fifth girlfriend from that time is buried as she died a few years ago.

*SPOILERS*
Don never asks if she's the one that sent him the letter, he just looks for clues, mostly pink stuff, and they all have something that Winston would say it was her. Penny has a pink typewriter though, and she screams when he asks her if she ever had a son. But Dora has pink stationary in her business cards, it could've also been her. I don't think it was Laura or Carmen.
After Don comes back, he receives another pink letter, different envelope size notes Winston, though he would like to investigate the writing to see if it matches the original letter. This letter is not anonymous though, it's from Sherry, telling him that she still likes him if he wants to try again. And this opens a new possibility, as the first letter might have been an attempt from Sherry to shake him up, and there's no son at all.
But then there's an encounter with a traveling kid in search of something, it could be the son, but Don just scares him away when he acts fatherly without even knowing if its him or not. And just as the kid runs away from Don we see this other kid who passes by in a car and stares at Don. It could also be him only that we'll never know, because that's when the movie ends.
Broken Flowers makes us care for Don's quest but then it leaves us not knowing anything at all. It's not for everybody, and I was not sure how I felt about it at first. It's slow, mostly uneventful, and again, very quite. It's beautiful.

Stealth

2005-07-30T17:29:00.000-04:00

Have you ever watched a movie in pain? Not because you are sick or because the seats are uncomfortable, but because the movie is so horrible that your brain wants to explode? That was Stealth for me. The biggest piece of shit of the year. Or at least top 2 because I'll have to evaluate which one is worse between this and Elektra when I make my bottom list in December, a time when I'm not going to be so angry against Stealth and so it could end up in second place instead of being winner. Or loser actually. My hate is so much that I'm going to spoil this bitch so beware.

The movie is bad from the moment it starts and then it all goes even more downhill. We are introduced to these high-tech superfast anti-terrorism flying jets, who are bombing and shooting mountains full of terrorists as the opening credits tell us. Every pilot in the US applied to fly this jets, and only the top 3 got the job. And at that time we learn that it was all a test run, the jets land and we are introduced (in slo-mo of course) to the 3 pilots.

First up is the All-American white boy Lt. Ben Gannon played by Josh Lucas. He's the lead pilot and an ok guy. We know that he's secretly in love with the girl pilot (introduced in a little bit) and since he doesn't want to act on it, he likes to pick up girls right in front of her. Very smart. Oh yeah, he likes green apples.
Lucas is fine in the lead role and he gets the least bad dialogue in the movie though his is mostly about terrorism and it's really stupid.

Then we have Kara Wade played by Jessica Biel. From the commercials you know she's going to be in a bikini, and that's reason enough to go this movie I know but please fight it and just jerk off to the commercial, because the rest sucks.
Kara is also in love with Ben and she gives him hints, but since she's an All-American rich girl from the high society, he thinks him being a leading pilot in the NAVY is not good enough.
There's not to tell about her other that she looks extremely hot in that bikini, and she also hand washes he panties and hangs them to dry in her room.
Biel looks good but her character's few lines suck. She makes fun of one of Ben's girls for saying "I have to go pee pee" and then she says it later again. She's joking that second time but it still sucks. And she also finishes the movie with "Just tell me you love me, Pussy". It's painful to watch.

And finally we have the black pilot, Henry Purcell played by Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx. Scratch that, he made this movie before Ray and Collateral so please forgive him. There's nothing here from the Foxx we saw last year, this one sucks and is the same actor nobody knew or cared about from before.
His Henry is the Goose of this movie, and of course he dies. But what sucks so much is that they delayed this movie because it was bad, and because they wanted to cash in on Foxx's popularity, so the least they could do is give him some respect. He gets none. First there's some bad lines about prime numbers, which they mention again later in the movie and it sucks. Then there's the pick up lines that are really lame. And finally his death, which is cool but it's like an hour into the movie, and the movie is two hours long. He dies and then there's even a whole new plot added.

The plot centers about the 3 pilots and the new addition to their team, EDI, a jet that flies himself, or itself as Ben says, and it even thinks for itself and can decide stuff out. He's supposed to follow orders but then a lighting storm hits him and he goes crazy, setting a test target as a real target. And that target is in Russia, so to prevent World War III from happening the head of the US government in the NAVY Capt. George Cummings played by Sam Shepard orders the pilots to hunt down EDI and convince it, without hurting it, to go back to the base. Yes, convince a machine full of bombs and weapons to go back. It's just so stupid. And even after EDI causes Henry's death they still want to bring him EDI back instead of just destroying him. And they have to fight him because the brains behind all this didn't think of putting a device in EDI enabling them to destroy him from the base.

But then, after a series of spectacular explosions and anti-terrorist non-sense in which the guys are all over the world fighting in Russia, Thailand, Alaska (where there's a special American base that is in no map and so Cummings sends Ben there to secretly kill him during the end) and Tajikistan. And finally they go to North Korea, where after Henry dies, EDI destroys Kara's jet, and so she ejects herself from it and lands in. Of course we get crap about North Korea being the enemy and that they are not going to be able to rescue and all that shit.
But Ben is the leader, and he's in love with her, so after not destroying EDI, yes, he convinces it to go back, they go to the aforementioned Alaska base where Cummings have guys waiting to kill him, but he kills them instead, and since his jet doesn't work anymore, he rides his now best friend EDI to North Korea to rescue her.

It's all very lame, full of explosions and action so fast that you can't even understand what's going on, and the dialogue is a disaster. Rob Cohen directed this movie after The Fast and the Furious and XXX, which are way better movies that this, because besides the action they have good characters (at least The Fast and the Furious), unlike the just white guy, white girl, black guy and evil boss of Stealth, seriously a horrible movie. And please go see The Island, which is like The Godfather compared to this.

Bailey's Billion$

2005-07-30T12:43:00.000-04:00

Bailey's Billion$ is a kids movie that being released next week in very few theatres and it's a shame, because is one of the best movies for little kids out there right now that adults can also enjoy, unlike crap like Sky High, too Michael Jackson like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the foul mouthed (though great for adults) Bad News Bears.

Bailey is a dog (voiced by Jon Lovitz) who can talk, but not with everybody, only with his guardian, an animal behaviorist named Theodore Maxwell, played by former Man of Steel Dean Cain. Bailey's owner dies one day and leaves all her fortune to him, which makes nephew Caspar Pennington (Tim Curry) and his wife Dolores (Jennifer Tilly) go crazy. Specially because the now deceased lady also leaves money for her maid and her husband.
But the fortune is all Bailey's, and he's also the CEO of the dog shelter company the lady owned, though Caspar and Dolores are in charge of it, and they secretly use it as a puppy mill. They also plan to kidnap Bailey in order to ask for ransom, blame Theodore for being a bad guardian, and then take him to court to get Bailey (and the fortune) for themselves. But their plans are in danger when the shelter's administrator (and former animal rights activist) Marge Maggs (Laurie Holden) and her little daughter and friend get involved as Bailey falls for their dog Tessa, and Theodore has a crush for Marge too.

It's also pretty simple and silly, but it works. And it's Tim Curry's and Jennifer Tilly's performances that make even more watchable. Yes, it really sucks to see Tim Curry having to take these roles, but at least he's great at them. He and Jennifer are so over the top that it works great, and every time they're on screen you are entertained. The love story part is kind of lame like always in this type of movies but Dean Cain is very good as the shy and clumsy Theodore.

Nobody is going to see this movie, but I'm glad I did, because I'm sure I'll watch this one again in the future, and I'll still like it. It's one of those movies I can really see myself watching over and over when it's shown on cable just to waste time. That sounds like a bad thing but is not, Bailey's Billion$ is actually good.

Fantastic Four

2005-07-29T21:18:00.000-04:00

The biggest and most famous Marvel superheroes have finally gotten to the big screen. Fantastic Four has had a very troubled time, from preproduction problems, to weird casting (Ioan Gruffudd and Chris Evans? Who are they?) and then when the script came out and then the first teasers and everybody was hating everything they were seeing and reading.
Well, the movie is out now and I'm happy to announce that it's not bad at all, it's kind of really good actually, and I'm really excited about a sequel.

Despite being little known, I loved the casting of Chris Evans, who was previously seen only in Not Another Teen Movie (and then Cellular but that was after he was cast). Chris makes the perfect Johnny Storm aka The Human Torch, capturing the playfulness of the character with his powers and his winning attitude. I also love how he loves the public and be seen.
And this is a big difference between the Fantastic Four and most (if not all other) superheroes, they don't hide their identities, everybody knows who they are and where to find them, and Johnny loves to be on the spotlight.

Then we have Ben Grimm aka The Thing, played by Michael Chiklis from the TV series The Shield. Another great casting here, as Chiklis plays the sad Thing who can't get the love he wants because of his appearance. Ben was engaged, and so when he becomes The Thing her fiancee leaves him in the (pretty much) only really lame couple of scenes of the movie, as his bride to be first gets scared and disgusted by him, and then she appears out of nowhere to throw the engagement ring to the floor in front of him and hundreds of people right after he saved the day early in the movie. Really disastrous moments there featuring Laurie Holden as Ben's girl.
Then he receives the affection of the blind Alicia Masters, played by Kerry Washington, who is a black girl unlike the white Alicia from the comics and the animated series. Apparently (just like making the Kingpin black in DareDevil), the producers probably thought they had to get someone black in their movies so people wouldn't realize how racist creator Stan Lee is.
People are divided about The Thing and how he was made with Chiklis in a suit instead of CGI like The Hulk, and I'm glad he was done this way. It looks very real, and there's no problem of big special effects or anything like that. Plus you can really tell that is Chiklis in there and it makes The Thing more human. Great work by whoever stood up for costume and make up and decided to not use CGI on him.

Ioan Gruffudd is Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic, the big brain of the family. He can't stop thinking about creating stuff and discovering new things, reason why he's had trouble with the ladies before. If he'd only put more attention on them than in his inventions. I knew Gruffudd from the Horatio Hornblower TV series and from last year's King Arthur (where his Lancelot was one of the very few things I liked about that movie) but he was not in my radar for any movie. And I had always pictured George Clooney as the man with elastic powers so it was a disappointment for me when he was not cast (though it was a possibility at first). Still, Gruffudd delivered, and even though he doesn't have a big screen presence yet, he did get what Richards is all about and the little comedic bits when he totally forgets about Sue because of some scientific discovery are great.
If there's a weak point in the special effects then it's all here. Richards' elasticity is not used a lot, and while at times it works when they use camera angles and stuff like that, the times they use CGI you can really tell. And it looks very fake.

The four is complete with Jessica Alba who plays Sue Storm aka The Invisible Girl. If there's one weak casting is here. I'm sorry but like I've said before I fail to see how great Alba is. I mean, I know she's hot, and she's also funny and very likeable but I found myself liking her as the actress Jessica Alba when she's herself in series like Entourage or when she goes to Leno or Conan. I love her there, but on the big screen I'm not convinced she's that great. Her Sue Storm is played ok, but Alba is way too young to play her, and so I didn't buy her. And again, why cast a girl with Latin roots instead of an American white woman like the Sue from the comics? I mean, I know Alba has a huge following but someone a little bit more experienced looking at least would have been better I think.

And finally the villain, Victor Von Doom played by Julian McMahon also from a TV series, in his case Nip/Tuck where he also plays a doctor (a plastic surgeon though).
McMahon is very good here though his character, while being the bad guy he's supposed to be, it's all for the wrong reasons. Doom's hate towards Reed Richards comes from who has more knowledge. It's about him hating Richards because Richards is smarter, not because of Sue Storm. Here Sue and Reed used to date, but then their relationship ended (I guess Sue ended it) because Reed was more into science than into her. Now Sue works for Victor, who thinks she's into him, but in fact she's still in love with Reed. And this is what causes the whole big fight instead of the doctor's competition for scientific discovery.

Still, I forgive the story not being a hundred percent true to the comics, because everything else is really good. And there's also the future of the franchise.
I compare this Fantastic Four movie to the first Xmen movie, when they introduced everybody, but the big plot of the movie was not really important. Yes, Magneto wanted to destroy the leaders of the world but it wasn't managed in a big way, and those leaders barely knew they were in danger because it all happened between the mutants. The second movie added and added mutants, but it also put the world in real danger and the people of the world were even hurt. It's the same here, and that's why I'm awaiting the second Fantastic Four (which has already been announced). I think it will be great, specially if they keep the cast and bring in the Silver Surfer (who Chris Evans would be perfect to play if he wasn't playing Johnny already) and Galactus. Oh yes, I really can't believe director Tim Story made a good movie. I'm really surprised with him, good for him.

Must Love Dogs

2005-07-25T23:16:00.000-04:00

Must Love Dogs is a romantic comedy for adults, not because it's about adult themes but because it's about forty-somethings and not about a college kid played by Freddie Prinze Jr. (where is he now btw?). Anyway, the movie is lame, not funny, it doesn't offer anything new to the genre, and just like its title, it sucks. It's worth nothing (or bashing) that the title does make sense because of dogs is how the lead characters meet, but after that the main dog plays an almost nothing role and there's not even a subplot involving him.

Diane Lane plays Sarah, a recent divorcee who's family is trying to get her into the dating game again. I don't know how long has she been divorced because at first she says the last month has been tough but later in the movie she says her ex-husband got remarried 2 months ago so it's not very clear. Anyway, we see her go on dates for way too long while at the same time we get to know Jake (played by John Cusack), also a recent divorcee who makes wooden boats nobody buys but other than that he doesn't seem to have a job. She's a pre-school teacher.
They finally meet, and the horrible script tries to play smart by getting Sarah and Jake to not connect at first and even putting another guy after Sarah (Bob, played by Dermot Mulroney) even though when we first hear about him they tell us he's a bad guy. And besides, we already know she's going to end up with Jake because I don't see no Dermot in the poster.
Lame situation after lame situation happens (including the now classic though still embarrassing sing-a-long) and of course they end up together at last.

Diane Lane showed her range (and received a well deserved Oscar nom) in Unfaithful, but before that and since then there's nothing note-worthy in her career. She was so good in that movie that I don't understand why she takes these roles. I mean, she's ok, but there's nothing she could do to save this movie thanks to the bad writing by Gary David Goldberg who also directed.
The only way to save this movie would've been if John Cusack's character had more screen time. It really sucks cause we only see bits of his character's life while we get long scenes of Sarah and all her big family which includes Christopher Plummer as dad Bill who's now, just like his daughter, playing the field after her wife died years ago. It's an interesting character actually that could have his own movie and be like an old Alfie.

But anyway, Cusack is really wasted here, specially since his character's dialogue is so good, which I heard Cusack himself rewrote after the director asked him to. And he's not even a lead character, only Diane Lane's is if it were according to their screen time. They gave him top billing in the poster just to get his fans to see the movie, and it worked I guess, because he was the only reason I had to watch Must Love Dogs, and after seeing it, he still is.

The Island

2005-07-22T19:36:00.000-04:00

Critics and film fans hate Michael Bay with a passion. He makes the most mindless summer movies with huge plot holes and one action scene after another. Audiences love him though, I do too. Armageddon is one of my top 10 favorite movies and The Rock was pretty great too. I hate Bad Boys and its sequel though.
Now he brings us The Island, produced by Steven Spielberg (instead of Jerry Bruckheimer who's produced all of Bay's previous movies), a sci-fi adventure about clones who find out what they are and escape the fortress that keeps them captive without them nor the other millions of clones that live with them knowing.

Ewan McGregor plays Lincoln Six Echo, and he's been in this place for 2 years. He's been questioning everything for some time now, like why do they always wear the same white clothes, why aren't they allowed to touch other people and even more stupid stuff like where are the tubes he fills every day with something he doesn't know what it is going.
He also questions the titular Island, a paradise he and everybody knows exists but they can't go to. They all want to go there because it's supposed to be the only contamination free place in the whole world, which suffered something like a huge contamination a long time ago, everything is dead, and so that's why all the survivors (like them) are in this facility like they're in quarantine.
The only way to get to The Island is by winning the lottery, so they all gather in the hall and watch these huge screens where all their names and faces are shown and then it randomly stops and one person wins and goes to The Island. There's another way to go there and that's by getting having a baby in which case the mother gets to go too.

Scarlett Johansson plays Jordan Two Delta, she's a friend of Lincoln's (that he'd want to know better) and wins the lottery the same day he freaks out and decides to escape the place (taking her with him) after finding a bug (which are supposed to be all dead) in the ventilation system. He was not supposed to be there, but he has a friend in McCord (the marvelous Steve Buscemi), who works for the corporation that has all the clones in there. McCord and Lincoln talk every day without McCord saying anything about the outside world since that would get him probably killed.
The facility is run by Dr. Merrick, played by Sean Bean, a man who thinks he's god because he has developed the science that allows people to live forever he says. Rich people of course, because these clones are expensive, and so if they get sick or they can't have a baby and want one, they can just go to this place, get themselves cloned by Merrick's people, and whenever they need new organs (or when the baby is born), their clone will win the lottery, go to the non existent Island, and doctors will take the organs of the clones (killing them) and give them to the sponsors as the people who get a clone are called.
Michael Clarke Duncan plays Starkweather, one of the first clones we see who wins the lottery, to then wake up in the movie of a nightmare as doctors are cutting him up in the operating room to give his organs to the football superstar he's a clone of.

The idea is just fantastic, and the movie works really great. The first 45 minutes or so are used to show Lincoln's curiosity and how everything works, and it's very entertaining and even serious for a Michael Bay movie. Then the escape happens, in a very thrilling action sequence which was my favorite part of the movie. From there on Bay gives us an hour of chase scenes with very minimal dialogue. This gets a little repetitive, specially since one of them is a total rip-off of Bay's own Bad Boy 2's chase scene. Lincoln and Jordan are being chased by Albert Laurent (played by Djimon Hounsou), who's hired by Merrick to hunt them down without the authorities nor the public knowing because that would make the company lose money and its reputation would be destroyed.

What's really great are the special effects, you don't even notice them. I specially loved a scene that little bug like machines go into Lincoln's eye and we see a close up of them getting inside the eye and I was expecting to see those computer eyes you always notice but it didn't happen. The effects are also great in the chase scenes with stuff like flying motorcycles and trains.
Another high point is when Lincoln meets his sponsor, and we get 2 Ewan's on screen at the same time. Sure, there's lots of play with the camera angles but in some brief scenes both of them are together and you can't tell that Ewan doesn't have a twin brother. Excellent work by ILM here.

And that was something weird in the movie. I'm not exactly sure what year is the movie supposed to take place (I think there's a mention to "The Laws of 2050"), but the world portrayed there is pretty much the same we have now, plus the aforementioned flying vehicles. But all the other stuff looks like today's world. And little imagination with a few of the product placement used because they have an X-Box at some point in the movie and it's the same logo they have these days, but we all know next year the X-Box 360 (or something like that) will come out so they should've invented a new X-Box model for the movie or at least used the 360's logo.

And I need to comment more on the product placement because the story's kind of anti-corporation but it fails completely with so many products used. I read that Bay went over budget for the movie, and so he started calling his friends asking them for money in exchange for product placement. I think it was like a million dollars for it. And so we get massive advertising in the movie, for stuff like MSN Search and X-Box (both Microsoft products), Cadillac, Chevrolet, Mack Trucks, Budweiser and so much more. Even Scarlett's real life commercial for Calvin Klein makes into the movie, though it's used as part of the story and not just to get money for it (though I'm sure they got some).

Michael Bay knows what he's doing with these movies, and I love that he doesn't care about critics (though a couple early reviews by the big ones have been positive) and makes his movies for the huge audiences that go see them.
And this movie is smarter that his previous films, as the story contains some nice ideas about the cloning science and the character's reaction to what they are and their interaction with the real world is done really well. Still, the movie has pretty big plot holes, and the ending, though poetic, doesn't make sense because it wouldn't work at all. And one of the main characters changes sides in a split second and even though we get the reason, the turning point happens way too fast.
Still, The Island has great acting, amazing visual effects, big explosions and even bigger chases, making it a thrilling ride and another winner from Michael Bay, at least in my book.

Hustle & Flow

2005-07-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

"You know it's hard out there for a pimp!", well no, I didn't know. I didn't because there's never been a movie that truly shows what it's all about, rap and hip-hop nor pimps and hoes. Memphis' own Craig Brewer writes nd directs Hustle & Flow, about a pimp suffering a mid-life crisis who decides to try and change his life around by becoming a rapper. Ok, the change wouldn't be that big because as we all know, rappers are pimps too.

DJay (played by Terrence Howard) is our rapper wannabe here, and he doesn't know if he can do it. All he knows is that he used to love his little Casio keyboard when he was a kid. He also knows that Skinny Black (Ludacris), who's also from Memphis, made it big some time ago, and so he dreams of making it too.

DJay's a pimp, and not your average pimp from movies where the guy is always loaded with money, bodyguards and hot whores. The women here are cheap sweaty hoes, thanks to Memphis' weather, and not very hot either. Taryn Manning is the total surprise as Nola, the petit white prostitute who's not very smart. Or is she?. What she is for sure is DJay's only girl who makes some money, thanks to his other two whores.
Paula Jai Parker plays Lexus, the dirty slut who doesn't care about DJay and wants to work at a strip club. She's highly hateful and nasty. And then Taraji Henson who plays Shug, the pregnant prostitute.
I totally loved Taraji in this role. A really likeable character and she plays it perfectly. It's kind of a waste though because we don't get to know much about her. And like I said before Taryn Manning is awesome. She's very cute even though she's all trashed down here, and she has a very sweet voice.

And then the guys. Anthony Anderson plays Key, a friend of DJay's who has a good life now. He's married and has a good house and all, but he works recording stuff like church gospel, weddings and even court cases, and he hates it. It's not what he wants to do with his life, so when DJay asks him to help him producing music he's in and gets into it more and more every day against his wife's wishes. Then DJ Qualls as Shelby, a skinny white boy who loves weed who works with Key on the recorder and mixer for the gospel music at church. Shelby's the one who brings all the beats to make the music and he knows what he's doing.
Great work by both of them in this movie. I've always loved DJ Qualls so it was no surprise for me but Anthony Anderson really was giving a very strong performance unlike any of that silly comedy he always does.

But the true star is Terrence Howard in the lead as DJay. The guy is a natural and his strong performance here, together with his Crash work early this year, is really breathtaking. He has great charisma and his dramatic work is excellent, putting a highly award worthy performance. I really hope he gets recognized by the Academy come awards season.

Craig Brewer is a white man, so everybody wants to know why the hell he decided to make a movie about rappers. He wanted to make a movie about the real Memphis he responds, and I'm glad he did it because this movie is excellent, giving 8 Mile a run for best hip-hop movie ever. Eminem's film is excellent too and cooler, but this one feels more real, because pimp, ho or whatever, everybody has a dream as DJay says, and it's stuff like that that make it so special, Hustle & Flow has heart.

Bad News Bears

2005-07-19T23:38:00.000-04:00

After the not totally horrible Rebound and the Will Ferrell freak out Kicking and Screaming, which wasn't as great as it should've been, we now get the best kids in sports movie of the year so far, Bad News Bears. The team behind the remake of 1976's Walter Matthau movie of the same name (which I've never seen) is formed by Richard Linklater at the helm, Billy Bob Thornton in the Matthau role, and Bad Santa's scribes Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. The two of them wrote the remake with Bill Lancaster who also wrote the original.

Linklater loves the crossover between the indie and studio movies world. And he also loves to work no matter with who. He's done teen movies (Dazed and Confused), adult movies (Tape, Before Sunrise/Sunset), and kids movies like School of Rock. Now Bad News Bears is supposed to be a kids movie too, but believe me this is way on the border to a R Rating. There are no fucks, but shit, dick, asshole and their derivatives are used as often as possible.
The humor is sick too, like having a kid in a wheelchair in the baseball team, and making fun of him all the time. There's also some mild insults to blacks and Hispanics. But don't worry, it comes out funny.
Linklater also brings his A-game with the music as in all his movies, though some crappy band destroys Joan Jett's Bad Reputation during the end credits.

Billy Bob Thornton is back in Bad Santa mode but without the suit. He rocks as Morris Buttermaker, a former baseball player who only go to play 2/3 of an inning in the majors and has lived off of that ever since. He's got his strippers, his booze and his Cadillac and that's all he needs. For money he works as at pest control company spraying houses to kill rats, and he's horrible at it.
If there's one question I have about the movie is why the hell does he take the coaching job, cause I don't think it was ever explained. But he takes the job, to coach a team of (as always) pathetic loser kids at the South Valley Little League.

Thornton is great as usual, and the kids help a lot to the point where I think the movie wouldn't have worked without them. They're awesome. Troy Gentile is great as the aforementioned wheelchair-bound kid named Hooper as is Jeffrey Tedmori as Persian kid Garo. There's also good work by Timmy Deters as Tanner, the kid that wants to fight everybody even though he's not big at all; Brandon Craggs as Engelberg, the big fat kid always fighting with Tanner; K.C. Harris as Ahmad Abdul Rahim, the black kid; Jeff Davies as Kelly, the kid who can actually play very good; and Sammi Kraft as Amanda, Buttermaker's daughter whom he abandoned years before and is now trying to reconnect with even though he doesn't want to accept it. She's brought into the team to pitch and she's also a very good player.

Linklater is a genius, Billy Bob rocks and Greg Kinnear's puts a small but very funny performance as Buttermaker's rival coach Bullock. What's better is that the kids are real, except Kelly's first scenes, in which he starts as motorcycle riding badass even though he's supposed to be no more than 15 years old. But they yell, scream and insult each other and even adults all the time, throwing stuff at them, and is all really fun and entertaining. Still, one more thing's for sure, Bad News Bears is no little kids movie, so everybody should see it.

Happy Endings

2005-07-15T23:52:00.000-04:00

Movies with a big ensemble cast are usually ok to great. If it works on the whole, and all its parts are satisfying, it ends up great like I Heart Huckabees last year for example, or The Royal Tenenbaums a few years ago. Those two movies were written by excellent screenwriters though. Writer/Director Dan Roos' first movie was The Opposite of Sex, which was good, and then he made Bounce, which was really good. Now the filmmaker brings us Happy Endings, and it's just ok, and for an ensemble cast movie.

Various separated stories, all starting with Mamie (Lisa Kudrow) and Charley (Steve Coogan), teen stepsiblings who are moving in together after their parents got married. It seems to be the first day of the move, and maybe the first time they meet, but it's just a quick attraction and they sleep together. She's no longer a virgin, she gets pregnant, and after their parents find out, she gets an abortion.

We jump 19 years into the future and they don't see each other much. Mamie is now an abortion counselor who's dating a Mexican immigrant named Javier (Bobby Cannavale), who works at a massage parlor. Nikki (Jesse Bradford) is a young man who aspires to be a filmmaker. He knows Mamie didn't have that abortion, in fact, she gave birth to the child and gave it for adoption. He knows where the now teen is and so he blackmails Mamie by giving her the info on how find her son and in exchange he wants to film the reunion. That documentary will be his ticket to get into AFI he thinks.
Mamie doesn't want to, so Javier helps her by letting Nikki film him in the massage parlor, where he pretends to be a sex worker for depressed women. The documentary would also tell his story as an illegal immigrant.

On the other hand Charley is now gay, living with his boyfriend Gil (David Sutcliffe). Gil's long time best friend is a lesbian named Pam (Laura Dern), and she and her girlfriend Diane (Sarah Clarke) have a 2 year old. The kid was the result of artificial insemination, for which Gil donated the sperm once but it didn't work. But Charley suspects it did work, and Pam and Diane said it didn't so they wouldn't have to share the kid.
Charlie is the owner of a caraoke bar where a still on the closet young man named Otis (Jason Ritter) works. Otis is secretly in love with Charlie, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he steals the security tapes of the bar and masturbates to the images of Charlie cleaning the place. Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a free spirit homeless girl who seduces Otis and sleeps with him. And then she seduces his rich father Frank (Tom Arnold) and sleeps and gets engaged to him. She's just after his money, at first.

Lots of things happen and at the end of the movie the stories interconnect and we get the happy endings. At least at that point because as the director tells us during the movie, their lives will be different in the future. And this is an interest idea that Roos uses in the movie. Instead of having narrator in voice over, he splits the screen in two and gives us comments cards about what's going to happen to the character like "...will be a virgin for 10 more minutes" right before the teens' sex episode and even comments on what will the last words before he dies for one of the characters. It's very well used at first, but then it gets overused.

The acting ranges from ok to really great like Gyllenhaal, and Kudrow and Arnold give their best performances ever on a movie after their very successful TV careers. But it mostly works because their stories are more interesting than the other characters'. The others in Kudrow's group, Cannavale and Bradford, are also great, specially the latter who gives a very energetic performance.
The story I could live without was the one involving Charley and Gil and their lesbian friends. Though I can't think of it right now, I'm pretty sure I've seen that story developed somewhere else. And so I didn't care for them at all.

The movie as a whole is ok as I said before, thanks to the Kudrow and Bradford's and Arnold and Gyllenhaal's stories, which would really work as their own movie even. The music also helps, specially when Maggie Gyllenhaal herself sings on screen such classics as Billy Joel's "Honesty" and "Just The Way You Are", or any of the three other songs she performs.
Happy Endings' big problem is that its big plot is not very clear, parenting would my guess. Still, by the end the characters connect, and Gyllenhaal's voice closes the movie giving us that happy ending we are waiting for.

Wedding Crashers

2005-07-12T22:01:00.000-04:00

"Suck my left nut!". That's how this movie opens. This year so far has been tough for comedies, I loved Fever Pitch, but besides that there hasn't been one single broad comedy worth to be called Best Comedy of the Year. Well, fear no more, because Wedding Crashers is here, and it rocks.
Pairing of Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn is not original, after all, these guys have been doing movies with Ben Stiller, Luke Wilson, Will Ferrell and Jack Black non-stop for the past 3 years. But still, the idea is genius.

Divorce mediators by day, Wedding Crashers by night, Owen Wilson plays John Beckwith and Vince Vaughn plays Jeremy Klein, two party guys who work all year waiting for the Wedding Season, that time of year when everybody decides to get married at the same time. And so they crash every possible wedding they can, no matter race or religion, always following the Wedding Crashing Rules set by a legend only known as Chaz years ago, who then passed all his knowledge along to Jeremy. Simple rules really, like always using fake names and always be the life of the party nobody will suspect you were never invited to it.
The goal: free food and drinks, and of course, vulnerable women to have sex with.
The first 45 minutes of the show us the guys partying and having sex with the girls and they stuff they do is awesome and a real life guide really, it's all very useful.

And then the movie goes into romantic comedy mode and we get the beautiful Rachel McAdams as Claire and the crazy in love Isla Fisher as Gloria, daughters to Christopher Walken's Secretary of Treasure Cleary, whose other daughter gets married, and so John and Jeremy crash the wedding. It all ends up with John falling in love with Claire, even though she has a boyfriend and is probably getting married soon, and Jeremy totally freaked out by Gloria, who doesn't tell him she's a virgin until after they do it and then falls psychotically quickly in love with him.
Jane Seymour plays the mother of the girls and even though she only has a handful of scenes, they're all funny and work great. Chaz is revealed towards of the movie and is funny as hell, so I'm not going to spoil it by saying who plays him but the character is genius.

If I had to complain, I'd say that Walken is never let lose, and that the guys get too easy into the Cleary's wedding which is supposed to have all this mass security, but still, it doesn't really affect anything, mostly because Owen and Vince are so great here. Isla Fisher is a comedic revelation, and she's not afraid to show her body, though her nude scenes are cut in a way that it could've been body double, but it's still nudity, and I'm happy for that. Adult language is also used in abundance, making the R rating worthy.

Much better than most comedies, though not in the level of the perfect Old School (to which I compare all comedies btw), Wedding Crashers is the best comedy of the year right now, and thanks to the great characters and comedic acting talent, and the excellent situations and quotable lines, it has all the right ingredients to become a classic.