I Bring Nothing to the Table

I hope that those of you who read my blog could tell from the get go that Death Race would be a stinker. I mean, it’s a movie about a prison race to the death to earn your freedom, not to mention that Jason Statham, who never refuses a buck, is in it.

It’s hard to even justify writing a full-blown review on this movie. I only went because my friends asked me to and we hit up a bar to pregame before it. The movie is a stinker with brutal automotive violence being its only draw. If you REALLY like car movies and don’t mind stupid action movies, go see it, otherwise it’s a rental AT BEST, but should otherwise be avoided.

It’s the most random and hilarious plot I’ve ever heard of in recent history and I got to see it a couple of weeks ago. Tropic Thunder features a stellar comedic cast and absolutely no need to be serious at all with their subject matter.

Ben Stiller directed this movie and he also stars in it alongside big stars Jack Black and Robert Downey, Jr., each of them actors playing soldiers in this crazy movie. The plot happens to be about these actors who are starring in the movie Tropic Thunder, inspired by the war memoirs of a Vietnam veteran. They’re having a real problem finding proper motivation and so the director decides to take the advice of the veteran who wrote the book and put them in a “real” war situation to milk real performances out of them. They do actually end up in a real war situation and comedy ensues.

The show is absolutely stolen by Downey, Jr. in this movie, mainly due to his character. Downey’s character is an extreme method actor who doesn’t break character until a project has been fully completed, so in order to play this black man from the book, he has his skin dyed black and he spends most of the movie speaking in a stereotypical 60’s black man accent and style.

Other characters are moderately funny, but not as memorable nor interesting as Downey, Jr., especially Ben Stiller’s character who has really one key, classic moment involving a panda. I must take exception to the memorable comment though, since Tom Cruise has a character in the movie that will absolutely floor you with laughter, he’s so awesome.

Is Tropic Thunder worth seeing? It’s funny and the funny kind of grows the after you’ve seen the movie, but it’s ultimately pretty shallow (no kidding…it’s a comedy) and perhaps not worth paying full movie price to go see. Wait for the rental or go if someone else is offering to pay.

Back when I first got Superbad on Blu-ray, there was a short excerpt from Pineapple Express that I watched excitedly, assuming it would be as hilarious as Superbad. The clip seemed to suck pretty badly and I just didn’t get it. It was boring and just not funny at all! Then I saw a trailer for the movie before Forgetting Sarah Marshall and my interest was rekindled. Perhaps the clip just wasn’t funny in context (that’s actually the case, I found the same clip funnier when I was more familiar with the characters and context). So when Pineapple Express finally came out, I found myself really wanting to go fueled by enjoying Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Superbad and deciding that Judd Apatow-produced movies are just plain good.

I bought some tickets and watched on Wednesday and, despite the strength of the comedy, the movie just can’t quite match the humorous power of its predecessors. The story goes a little something like this: (SPOILER TIME!) Dale Denton (Seth Rogan) is one of those dudes who delivers subpoenas (can’t remember what they’re called) and a pretty heavy marijuana smoker. He spends all day alternating between putting on disguises to trick people into acknowledging who they are so he can serve then and smoking pot. His pot dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco) desperately wants to be friends with Denton who wants nothing to do with his pot dealer other than business. Saul receives a shipment of some very rare weed (THE Pineapple Express) and proceeds to sell this weed to Dale and Dale alone, while also revealing that he’s the only dealer in town who’s got any. While attempting to serve Ted Jones (Gary Cole), he witnesses him murdering a drug rival along with his policewoman co-conspirator. In his escape they realize he was smoking Pineapple Express and begin to chase him as hilarity ensues.

The story was more or less pretty good and funny and nothing beyond what you’d expect, with one minor exception. Denton has a girlfriend who is a high school student and whose life he puts in jeopardy inadvertently because of what he has witnessed. When he does visit her house and he attempts to convince her family to flee, I don’t think that I ever witnessed the moment where they came to believe him. Perhaps it was just strange editing, but one second they think he’s full of it and the next they’ve decided to flee to a hotel. They also kind of leave the relationship up in plot land once Dale and his compatriots have completely destroyed Ted’s operation. This is probably because it wouldn’t have been very funny at all, but I prefer not to have my plot points left dangling.

SPOILER END!

Should you go see Pineapple Express? If you like Judd Apatow-produced movies (and one that’s actually a bit tamer than his older ones, unless you find drug culture more offensive than sex), you will most likely enjoy this movie unless you have overhyped it. I’m torn in recommending seeing this movie in theaters just because it’s good compared to other comedies, but not great compared to the body of work that has preceded it. If you can catch a matinée or get someone to take you, go see it. Otherwise, just wait for the DVD: it’s the weakest of the Judd Apatow bunch, IMHO.

It’s time for a blast to the past today with a Hitchcock classic, North by Northwest (hereafter abbreviated as NNW). #40 on the AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movies top movie list, it’s held in high regard as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best and also is credited with being “the first James Bond film,” by some due to its spy plot, dashing leading man, and daring (at the time) action sequences. Now, I may be a bit more critical of this movie after having recently seen Casino Royale and the trailer for Quantum of Solace, but that’s mainly because I feel this movie would be much better served if it were created in the modern day instead of limited by the constraints of late 1950s film.

SPOILER TIME

The plot revolves around a advertising executive, Roger Thornhill, who is accidentally mistaken for another man, George Kaplan, in one of those classic Hitchcockian moments that always set these sorts of things up. Naturally, the bad guys kidnap Thornhill, intending to interrogate him and kill him, since this Kaplan bloke appears to be a spy. Since Thornhill doesn’t have the slightest idea what they’re talking about, they decide to kill him in one of the lamest movie assassinations ever: they make him drink a bottle of bourbon, put him in a car, and intend to drive it off a California escarpment to cover their tracks. What follows instead is one of the most interetsing things I’ve ever seen: a car chase where one of the drivers was drunk. Like I said before, this would be that much cooler if this were a modern movie, since the canned scrolling backgrounds really fail to capture the urgency and difficulty of this chase where modern movie effects could have made it seem a bit more dangerous.

Thornhill clearly survives, but is taken in by the police for driving while intoxicated. He tries to clear his name, but a return to the house where he was kidnapped to just makes him look even more stupid and a trip to Kaplan’s hotel room finds it sans Kaplan and, more suspiciously, none of the staff have ever seen this George Kaplan fellow. Desperate to clear his name, Thornhill heads to the U.N. to look for the man who force-fed him bourbon, but finds out that he was using a fake name. Worse, the man who shares his name is murdered with a knife to the back by Thornhill, who is caught in a picture holding the knife before he flees. So begins the NNW travel that is echoed in the title as Thornhill chases Kaplan to Chicago, meets a beautiful woman (pretty good looking by modern standards too), beds her (he’s just like James Bond), and arrives in Chicago hoping to find Kaplan.

What Thornhill doesn’t see is the scene after the murder in some government intelligence agency where the fact that George Kaplan does not exist is revealed. He is a fake man meant to confound targets into chasing him while the real agents and operatives do their work. Thornhill is on a wild goose chase. When one of the agents asks “Should we help him?” the rest of the agency says nope, he’ll either be shot by the police or the bad guys, but that’s not our problem, it will only help us.

So continues the movie, with the famous plane attack scene and more spy-like maneuvering until Thornhill is eventually recruited by the agency and eventually has to save the girl in a daring chase down Mt. Rushmore. It ends, as these movies typically do, with the guy getting the girl and, we suppose, him returning to his life as an ad executive exonerated of all charges.

SPOILERS END

NNW is actually a pretty strong movie in terms of its themes of mistaken identity which been duplicated in modern times with movies like Enemy of the State. It does, however, suffer from kind of slow pacing (not as bad as other old movies) and awkward dialogue (a relic of the past as well) that may turn you off to the movie if you aren’t really into older flicks. I’d say its definitely worth watching if you like Hitchcock or old movies, but should probably be avoided otherwise.

Two days ago I found myself at the Smithsonian museum checking out the NEW exhibit they created dedicated to Jim Henson. With exhibits showcasing every aspect of his work, from his early commercials to his work on Sam & Friends, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, and Sesame Street, it was actually a really neat showcase of the professional life of a very gifted entertainer.

The Smithsonian did have a Henson exhibit before, but it was just a corner in the American History museum and not wholly impressive. This new showcase is in another gallery (the American History museum is being renovated) and it spans about three rooms complete with drawings, projection screens showing Henson’s work, and display cases filled with felt muppets.

It’s definitely a cool piece that they have and, if I’m not mistaken, it is a limited engagement that will be ending next month. Go and check it out if you get a chance.

I leave you with Muppet Media:

These puppets are in the museum:

Bork bork bork…

I can still remember the buzz behind Casino Royale when it came out last year. It was supposedly a reboot of the James Bond universe, a revisit to his origins and a way to bring the movies closer to their source material, the Ian Fleming novels.

It wouldn’t have been the first franchise to do this in recent history, the biggest and most prominent example being the Batman Begins movie. The question is, could this series mimic the masterpiece that was the new Batman movie? If you put your money on a resounding yes, you’d be absolutely right.

Absolutely gone is all of the camp of Pierce Brosnan and company’s respective Bonds. I haven’t seen any of the original Bond movies, but my guess is that they were thematically similar to all of the other exaggerated James Bond movies. Not that I know what the novels are like at all, but given that Ian Fleming was, himself, an actual spy and that supposedly Casino Royale is similar to the book of the same name, my guess is that there were significant changes from the atmosphere of the James Bond novels to the silver screen.

How is the Daniel Craig Bond different? Think of it as a shift from the most absurd of all Bond gadgets I’ve ever witnessed, a car with a cloaking shield, to a movie whose most advanced gadgets are portable defibrillators and cell phones. Casino Royale is still an amazing action movie, but it feels a lot more grounded in real life espionage. Instead of being an over-the-top action movie like the days of old, it’s an actual cloak and dagger-type movie. Bond is still a charming, womanizing agent employed in Her Majesty’s service, but he lacks the “super-powers,” if you will, of the Bonds of old. He can be caught, he can be tortured, he can be hit. Someone recently described Daniel Craig’s Bond as a much more physical and brutal Bond and he had it right on the money.

Rather than delve into spoilers at all, let me just give a general overview of the plot: being a reset, of sorts, this is an origin story about James Bond. Luckily, he’s not a superhero, so we don’t have to spend all this time waiting for him to get his super powers or start being a badass. He starts the movie in employ of MI6 and raring to go, but this is, more or less, his first mission. Also worth noting is that this is the first James Bond that will have a direct sequel. Planned as a trilogy (I know…it’s very trite), the upcoming Quantum of Solace and whichever movie that succeeds it will be related in story to one another. This aspect does make Casino Royale’s ending a bit of a letdown, but also pumps you up to see the latest flick.

So now we arrive at the question I know all of you are asking: “Is this movie worth spending some of my valuable time watching?” The real question you should be asking is “When is the soonest I can get my hands on this movie to watch?” It’s that good. Casino Royale will restore your faith in the Bond universe and should be watched immediately. Lucky for you and I, the wait for some closure on the story will be a short one, since Quantum of Solace will be released this fall. Go rent it or something!

So I managed to get a hold of advanced screening tickets to Hancock and I think I’m gonna call it the first real blockbuster of this summer. That isn’t to say that it’s a bad movie, it’s just a typical action comedy with not much substance.

Like usual, there be SPOILERS ahead:

If you’ve watched TV recently, you’ve seen a Hancock trailer here or there and you know that he’s a superhero, a jerk, and more or less the only one of his kind. After saving Jason Bateman’s character’s life, this starts to change. Bateman is a publicist, so he decides that he is going to make Hancock a hero and fix his publicity problem. Once he starts visiting Bateman’s house, he is very suspiciously greeted and interacted with by Charlize Theron. I’d like to take offense with this right away. Yeah, this is a summer blockbuster not meant to make you have to think, but let’s make the plot twists a bit harder to spot, no? Anyway, Hancock goes to jail for his property damage crimes, gets called back out to the real world to fight crime, and finds out that Charlize is also a superhero like him (what a shocker!). The official spiel is that they’re immortal god-like beings who lose their powers whenever they are physically near each other. Who cares, really?

That’s the real problem with this movie. Nothing really happens. Hancock (Will Smith, btw) battles Charlize once, but she’s not the bad guy. The bad guy is some guy Hancock puts in jail who manages to escape and attack him when he’s weakened and without his power. This is why the movie stinks. The conflict is non-existent, the “final enemy” is lame, the explanation for his powers is also lame, and the acting is just too ham-fisted because they’re trying to make it non-complicated.

END SPOILERS

Final verdict on Hancock: worth a rental, at most. The movies are too expensive to pay for a ticket. Watch WALL-E instead, it’s awesome. Basically, the acting is too forced due to poor writing and directing and the “lowest common denominator” syndrome. At the end of the day, the story just isn’t that interesting either. You can add turn it into a “see in the theaters” movie if you think Charlize Theron is a hottie (which she is) and you don’t mind paying ~$10 to go see her on the silver screen (and you’re a chump).

Let’s start with three words: what the heck? Hopefully you can guess where this review is heading, so if you’re concerned about spoilers, just skip to the part after the spoiler tags where I tell you to save your money unless you absolutely love Indiana Jones or you thought that Temple of Doom was the pinnacle of the series. Everyone else is better off just waiting for the rental.

SPOILERS

So Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (henceforth known as IJATKOFCS) starts innocently enough. It’s the 1950s, the world’s a different place, it’s the ATOMIC AGE! We’ve advanced so far in the world that we even need to use CG prairie dogs! A military convoy shows up at a secret base in Nevada or New Mexico (who cares?) and then the first sign that this movie is headed in a bad direction becomes apparent. The military guys who are secretly bad guys break into the secret base and turn out to be NAZ–COMMIES? Are you serious? They’re Russian Communists…COMMUNISTS! Do you know who Indiana Jones fights, no matter what year it is? NAZIS! I’m immediately disappointed that the bad guys are not Nazis, but at this point I’m still willing to see where this can possibly go. Lucky for me, it goes precisely where I don’t want it to go, no matter how much I’m desperately pleading with the screen to not do it: aliens.

So in the first 15 minutes I already think this movie is shit. I mean, Russians and aliens? The Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, heck, even the goddamn Temple of Doom, while metaphysical, are definitely not sci-fi. Perhaps I’m being too picky, but Indiana Jones is not a sci-fi series at all and taking it in this direction is just a bad move. If this isn’t absolute evidence that someone needs to take any and all writing implements away from George Lucas, give him a severe knuckle-rapping, and forbid him from ever writing another word, I don’t know what is.

The plot plods along, introducing Shia LaBeouf, who everyone already knows is Indy’s son, but has to wait for the movie to introduce this fact, who does a barely passing job in a poorly written film (perhaps not his fault, plenty of more talented actors have faltered under George Lucas’ terrible writing. I’m not talking about Hayden. He’s just awful). The group ends up in South America, finds out clues, goes on the run, swings on vines (SO STUPID), and finally gets to this forbidden city. The alien skull is returned, the Russians all die, Indy escapes and gets married, happy ending.

/SPOILERS

The plot to this movie is just asinine and stupid, the acting is only passable most of the time, CG is way overused, and the whole thing just comes off as silly instead of cool or fun to watch. Seriously, like I said before, save your money and rent this one or you’ll want it back. To be fair, I know plenty of people who are huge Indy fans or who are immune to terrible movies who were able to enjoy this movie, but in general I’d recommend avoiding paying more than $5 or $6 to see this.

It was back in 2002 that Spider-Man paved the way for the new wave of comic book movies and, aside from a few Marvel mistakes (Hulk, Daredevil, Ghostrider), the genre has been continually evolving and, surprisingly, getting better. This past Friday saw the release of Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr., and I’m happy to say that it easily falls within the top five best comic book movies I’ve ever seen.

For those unfamiliar with the character, Iron Man is the superhero alter ego of military contractor billionaire Tony Stark. I say superhero, but really Iron Man is a guy in a suit, not a true superhero (as in a dude with superpowers). In the movie, Tony Stark is kidnapped by a terrorist group seeking to use his technical knowledge to create weapons for them. Instead of creating the missile they want, he creates a very rough version of the Iron Man suit and escapes, prompting him to start a life as Iron Man.

It’s almost a shame that these comic book movies have to spend time introducing the origins of the characters. While Tony Stark segments are all really awesome and funny, we’re treated to a lot less Iron Man action than one would expect. Instead we see plenty of the prototyping and creation process with only a little bit of fighting all the way at the end. I suppose this is the difference between a great comic book movie, like Iron Man, and a masterpiece of a comic book movie, like Batman Begins. If you’re honestly looking to watch Iron Man to see a balls-to-the-wall action movie, you will be disappointed. I think it works really well for the movie though, since Robert Downey Jr.’s performance is unparalleled as he plays that role he does oh so well (see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) and his chemistry with Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes steal the show from the hero itself. To give you an idea of how awesome he is, Downey Jr. even acts beautifully when onscreen with robots

Downsides: The enemies of the movie are pretty weak, but it’s an origin story, so I suppose I can forgive that. Tony Stark’s goatee also looks really stupid. Other than that, a great comic movie that will not disappoint anyone who even only kind of enjoys this sort of thing.

My recommendation: See it.

I’m a naturally skeptical guy when it comes to my entertainment. There is only so much time in a day and I don’t want to devote my time to watching crummy movies, playing bad games, or reading stupid books. So it takes someone whose tastes I trust to recommend a movie to me or a rock-solid trailer coupled with good scores on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes to really get me to see a movie. I initially resisted The 40-Year-Old Virgin based on trailers, but when I finally saw the movie based on The Office-related Steve Carell love, I found a rather funny and enjoyable movie.

Then Knocked Up began to be advertised as “From the people who brought you…” which is a giant red flag to me. I mean, how often have we all been burned by that ad trick? Producers are not directors, so who knows how this could turn out? I was dragged out to see it, kicking and screaming, but I found myself, again, pleasantly surprised. Perhaps these Judd Apatow-produced movies could continually be good. Maybe the same producer does have an influence on a film.

It all came to a head with Superbad. Fueled mostly by my desire to see Michael Cera in any project he’s ever a part of, and saw one of the best comedies I have ever seen. So nowadays I don’t ever doubt the Judd Apatow brand and I will blindly go and see any Apatow-produced movie, no matter whether or not the trailer is any good (strangely enough, maybe brilliantly? Judd Apatow movies never have good trailers and they are generally not that funny to me).

His most recently produced movie, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, was also written and directed by one of my favorite tv actors, Jason Segel, and also starred another of my favorites, Kristen Bell, so I wanted to go before I even saw the movie trailers. If you haven’t seen any trailers, here’s the general plot: Peter Bretter (Segel) is a moderately successful composer for the TV show his girlfriend, Sarah Marshall (Bell) stars in and they have a loving relationship. Except she breaks up with him to be with British rock star Aldous Snow (Russel Brand). To escape the pain, he heads out to Hawaii only to find that Sarah is also vacationing there…with Aldous. Hilarity ensues.

So let’s talk about the movie a bit: This is Segel’s debut as a writer and a director and he definitely does a great job on all counts with this movie. The scenes don’t go on for too long, the writing is on its game about 99% of the time, and the acting is all really well done. I’m not typically a fan of toilet humor or any sort of crude, idiotic humor, yet this movie still tickles the funny bone, even with its crude humor just because it has that balance that all Apatow movies seem to have with making me laugh at things that are truly not funny in any other movie. You couldn’t say that the humor was intellectual, but it’s still on a level beyond what you expect it to be. You will laugh hard if you see this movie. Forgetting Sarah Marshall also has some funny self-referential moments with Kristen Bell’s show being canceled after its third season (I think) and it being a detective show as well, mirroring the great Veronica Mars that was criminally (see what I did there?) canceled too soon.

Go and see this movie, seriously. It’s funny. I emphatically recommend it.