Category: Text Reviews

As our movie starts, the U.S. government and military are tracking who they believe to be a Mid-East terrorist mastermind and they have the opportunity to strike, but all intel points that there is only a 51% chance of certainty that this is their man, and worse, he appears to be attending a funeral. The word is given to strike by the President. We then flash to Jerry Shaw, working at a copy store, who just seems like you’re ordinary slacker youth. Jerry is going about his life when he gets a phone call from his mother that his twin brother has died, and on returning from his funeral, he gets home to mysteriously discover that he now has over a three quarters of a million dollars in his bank account and his apartment filled with all the supplies need to start a terrorist revolution. He then receives a mysterious phone call with a female voice urging him to leave his apartment now because the FBI is about to invade his home. Along the way, we’re also introduced to a young single mother, Rachel who has just sent her son off to appear at a major band recital, and Rachel also receives a mysterious phone call from the same voice instructing her on a path that crosses Jerry’s, eventually putting both into a major situation…

… and again, I’m just trying to be as vague as I can be in describing the premise to Eagle Eye the latest movie from director D.J. Caruso and star Shia LaBeouf, who gave us Disturbia before this. Eagle Eye is about the ultimate in Hollywood leftist paranoia as it gets, referencing many a film before it as varied as North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Parallax View, The Manchurian Candidate, The Conversation, WarGames, Enemy of the State, Colossus: The Forbin Project and one of the most blatant, and funny at the same time, 2001: A Space Odyssey and unfortunately, it’s all pretty damn convoluted, so much so that it’s pretty hard to take the whole thing to seriously.

At times it seems like it’s the kind of movie that Hollywood makes when they want to make an action movie within a movie, that is feeling like a parody and part of the problem with that is two-fold, at least for me… one, though LaBeouf does a fine enough job with the part, I just don’t care for the character as it is on paper and two, it’s too long and gives you time to think about what’s happening as it’s happening, and it’s just hard to think that anyone could be taking this all that seriously, and the filmmakers, Caruso and producer Steven Spielberg (where reportedly, the whole idea for this comes from him) play this like they want you to take it pretty seriously, in it’s popcorn movie way. Unfortunately, at least for me, I just couldn’t take it seriously for a moment.

The thing is, it’s technically proficient, with some nicely made set pieces, even though they’re highly preposterous. And it’s earnestly acted, not just from it’s lead, but also it’s support including Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, Rosario Dawson and Michael Chiklis (Thornton, Dawson and Chiklis, to me are the best things about the film).

I don’t think my time was wasted with this at all, but at the same time, I really find it hard to recommend this. Caruso is certainly a top-notch filmmaker as such things like The Salton Sea and Two For The Money has shown in the past, and it certainly shows here that he can make your literal big-ass Hollywood action film, it’s just a shame that he didn’t have another idea to work with, one that maybe was just a little more grounded, and with a character that I could’ve given a damn about.

Abel Turner is a police officer, and a single father trying to raise two kids in a world that he knows is tough as hell and on top of this, he’s a black man who’s a racist, but somewhat understandably so, but it’s controlled.. to a point. That point gets raised when in his neighborhood of Lakeview Terrace comes new neighbors into the house next door, a young interracial married couple named Chris and Lisa Mattson, Chris is white and Lisa is black, and slowly Abel starts to see things with the two that he sees as disruptive to his worldview… and vice-versa with the Mattson’s, especially Chris. And trouble between the households starts to erupt…

Lakeview Terrace is the latest movie from director Neil LaBute, a director who’s always out to get a rise from his audience, and he usually does it in each one of his movies. In the Company of Men is still one of my very favorite movies to watch and to talk with people about after they see it, and hell, I’ll go on the record as one of the few who actually does enjoy his version of The Wicker Man. LaBute will continue to get that rise with Lakeview Terrace, a movie with far more meat on it’s bones than it’s simplistic marketing will suggest, and that’s basically that Sam Jackson plays a sociopath cop who’s out to make life hell for two new neighbors, and really there’s just so much more to this than that.

There’s the neighbor respect aspect (and as a homeowner my own self, believe me, there’s things I can relate to here even if in small ways), there’s a heavily racial aspect (and it would be something to imagine this movie if all races were reversed and what sort of outrage that would cause), and even an aspect that raises questions about law enforcement and just what it takes to do the job on a street level- this movie is more “cop on the edge” than something like Rightous Kill could be on it’s best day… and unfortunately, there’s no easy answers and LaBute isn’ts looking to provide any.

Yes, I could certainly see how by the time this movie gets to it’s end, other viewers could look at as entirely ridiculous, but I just see it as using high melodrama theatrics to tell it’s story. If you’ve been with the characters throughout, and are at least trying to come to some understanding with them all as you go, by the time it makes it to it’s end, you should still be questioning if the right things happened to get to that end.

I think this is one of the more challenging major Hollywood theatrical releases of the year, and I give LaBute high marks for how he got there, But will it translate the same for others… that’s extremely hard to say.

As I said above, this movie is nowhere near as simplistic as it’s marketing would imply, and LaBute makes some great choices to make it so, maybe the best of them being opening with getting to know Abel Turner before you get to know anyone else. And on a technical and storytelling level, the music of Jeff and Mychael Danna is nowhere near typical for something that’s marketed as just a thriller, it’s very understated and helps add to the idea of having something to think about here.

Samuel L. Jackson is Abel Turner and he just delivers a brilliant performance here, with a lot of layers built into it, so much so that he’s just not a simplistic “villain” by any means. Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington play the Mattsons, and their performances are also extremely strong and with all three characters, there’s a lot to chew on here.

I think Lakeview Terrace is just brilliant and challenging filmmaking all around and certainly up there for me with some of the best that I’ve seen this year. But at the same time, I know I can honestly say that it won’t be the same thing for others and it’ll really depend on just how open you are to trying to understand all of these very complex characters.

Two top New York City police detectives, nicknamed Turk and Rooster, are continually frustrated at seeing collars of theirs go free by technicalities, and as the movie starts, one of them is seemingly revealing himself to be a killer, working outside the law to exact his own brand of vigilante justice. Two other detectives are also on the case, and find themselves continually thwarted at nailing who they think the murderer is. And though both Turk and Rooster have their hearts in the right place, all is not as it seems…

And yeah, I’m being as vague as I can possibly be in trying to explain the premise to Righteous Kill the new film from director Jon Avnet that teams two legendary actors together, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. This isn’t the first time that both actors have been in the same movie, they’ve both been in The Godfather Part II and Heat and unfortunately, Righteous Kill while enjoyable (to me anyway) isn’t anywhere as monumental as the other two movies.

The problem being that this is a movie with a “twist” and that “twist” is ultimately the downfall of the film. Both actors do their jobs well enough and it is fun to watch them play off of each other, but the “twist” itself seems like a cheat in the end and really just not worthy of the talents that these guys have exhibited in the past.

Personally, I wish they’d just not gone in with the idea of having a twist in the first place and just would’ve made this a straight-up cop film with both guys working the right side of the law and pursuing someone else in the end. I still had a good time with this, but it really could’ve been a lot better.

Pacino and DeNiro are backed up with some impressive supporting talent, including Carla Gugino, Donnie Wahlberg, John Leguizamo and Brian Dennehy and everybody does a fine job here, but it’s the material just really isn’t as worthy of their talents as it should be.

Avnet does a better job here than he did in his previous film (also with Al Pacino), 88 Minutes and does a nice job of moving things along, but again, I just wish they could’ve resisted the urge to have to make a movie with a “twist” in the first place.

If you’ve got time to kill, and want to see these guys together on-screen, Righteous Kill is an OK diversion, but at the same time, I wouldn’t necessarily urge anyone to run right out and see this in the theatre right this minute either. If you want to do something like that, then go see this week’s other big film, Burn After Reading instead…

Osborne Cox is a CIA analyst who’s now quit his job because of the threat of a downgrading, given the excuse of a “drinking problem,” but due to his own explosive nature, we see it’s more than that. His cold-hearted wife, Katie, reacts badly to the news, covertly planning a divorce while carrying on an affair with a U.S. Marshal, Harry Pfarrer. Harry, married and an overachiever in the worst way, in addition to his affair with Katie, is also having affairs with other women as well. Linda Litzke is an employee at a gym who’s starting to feel her age and wants to get several rounds of cosmetic surgery to find her perfect man. Osborne, now at home decides to write his memoirs as a book much to the consternation of his wife, who’s been advised to covertly get all of his financial information to help expedite the divorce process. A CD with Osborne’s information falls into the hand of Linda and her dimwit friend Chad and from there… the literal hijinks ensue.

Confused? Well, don’t be, all comes together in a highly entertaining way in this extremely black comedy from the Coen Brothers, Burn After Reading their sorbet follow-up to last year’s Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men. I say “sorbet” because essentially this is a palette cleanser compared to the grimness that was in their previous movie, but it’s not all happiness and light here either, but still an extremely welcome change of pace from the Coens.

There’s nothing at all out there like this today, basically being this extremely smart black comedy about a bunch of people who could best be described as functioning idiots. And while it’s not the type of movie that’s wall-to-wall laughs, it has it’s moments, and still comes together to just be an extremely good time.

The Coens of course know what they’re doing, and these characters are all very well drawn out. I have to give some special note to their longtime musical collaborator Carter Burwell as well, for delivering a very cool score that of course just runs extremely counter to anything you’d expect in a comedy.

The Coens have a great cast at work here- John Malkovich as Osborne, George Clooney as Harry, Frances McDormand as Linda, Tilda Swinton as Katie and Brad Pitt as Chad all do great work here and they’re all well backed up by folks like David Rasche, the always solid Richard Jenkins, and J.K. Simmons who literally steals the movie in both of the scenes that he’s in.

Burn After Reading is just an extremely good time at the movies, and as I said above, a very welcome change of pace film from the Coens that’s sort of a mix of movies like Hopscotch and A Fish Called Wanda but still comes out in the end to be something all it’s own. I cannot recommend this one enough, it’s just a really good time, and certainly up there with the best that I’ve seen for the year.

In 1978 in Yemen, young Samir Horn sees his father killed in a car-bombing terrorist incident. Flash forward to now, and Samir is trafficking explosives to a terrorist organization. Devout in his Muslim faith, Samir proves to be a valuable asset to the terrorist cell that he’s trying to sell to and is soon brought into it’s inner circle. All the while, he remains a central figure to an FBI terror investigation, though it also appears there’s more to this man than meets the eye.

Traitor is a brilliant and thrilling little film from director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who also wrote the film, from a story from himself and Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and it’s just a really cool film giving insight to the terrorist mind, and plays it fair all the way through. It’s extremely well paced with really good, if understated, performances all around.

Really the only thing I thought was wrong with the whole thing was just that the trailer for the film blows the major twist of the film- it’s still entertaining regardless and it’s a fun ride getting to where it’s going, but I can only imagine how much cooler this would’ve been if you’d not known the twist going in.

This movie has a real first rate cast- Don Cheadle again proves that he’s one of our very best actors working today with his role of Samir, he plays this in such a way that you’re never quite sure what he’ll do next. Guy Pearce plays the straight arrow FBI agent who’s on his tail, and it’s very sincere stuff that he’s dealing out here. They’re backed up with solid work from Neal McDonough (Pearce’s partner and one of my favorite character guys to watch today), Said Taghmaoui (as the terrorist who brings Samir into the organization) and Jeff Daniels, as another government official who has a man deep inside the organization.

I really give this one high marks for playing it fair, much like The Kingdom did an for not falling into the standard Hollywood cliche of “we’ve seen the enemy and the enemy is us” and also just for being a real top-notch spy/terrorist thriller. The fact that Steve Martin co-wrote the story just makes this even more impressive. Very cool movie, up there with the best I’ve seen this year, and of course highly recommended…

In the near future, a mercenary based in Russia, Toorop, is contracted to make sure that he gets a mysterious young woman named Aurora from the ravages of a post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe to New York City. He picks the girl up at a Mongolian monastery where she’s accompanied by her guardian, Sister Rebekah. Now the three begin a dangerous cross continental trek to find out what is the true secret of Aurora’s origin.

Babylon A.D. comes to us from director Matthieu Kassovitz, who’s really impressed me in the past with movies like La Haine and The Crimson Rivers and more recently behind a less impressive movie like Gothika. Unfortunately, Babylon A. D. falls into the less impressive category.

It’s hard to fault director Kassovitz entirely for this due to some problems behind his control, the movie fell behind production schedule and was running significantly over-budget and due to that, 20th Century Fox basically took over control of the final cut of the film.

There’s some good ideas at work here, and a nice sense of atmosphere built into the film. But scenes don’t necessarily flow as they should, and some characterizations seem to take a 180 degree turn right between scenes (mostly around Vin Diesel’s character of Toorov). There’s also a little too much asking of this question “What’s going on?” by the character of Aurora played by Melanie Thierry which just seems to stop any flow whatsoever, as if to be there just to make sure the audience is up to speed, making the whole thing come off more as a dumbed down version of Children of Men more than anything else.

I could certainly forgive some of this if it’s final revelation of the origin of Aurora was done in some more interesting and involving way than through fast dialogue in two separate scenes one from Lambert Wilson, who plays her “father” and the other from Charlotte Rampling who plays the leader of a religious sect called the Neolites looking for religious validity. This explanation is just boring especially in light of some of the things that they have Aurora do during the film.

The cast is pretty good executing what’s there on-screen, in addition to the above-mentioned, Michelle Yeoh plays Sister Rebekah and Gerard Depardieu plays Gorsky, the man who contracts Toorov for the job. It’s just that the way it’s all “seamed” together it just never comes through that well.

There’s probably a really good movie somewhere to be found, and maybe that would’ve come about if Kassovitz had entire control and maybe it wouldn’t. So far, much like the similarly-themed Ultraviolet from director Kurt Wimmer (which also had it’s control wrested from it’s director), there doesn’t seem to be any sort of “director’s cut” planned at present. Not awful by any means (there’s good ideas here and some good set pieces), but in no way really good either, and it’s a shame because there is some good talent at work here.

In the year 2012, the United States economy has collapsed and the crime rate is now at an all time high. Prison populations are growing and now large corporations have assumed the running of these prisons and have decided to use them for televised gladiatorial combat as an opiate for the masses, and yet the people want more, and they get it with the formation of the Death Race. The Death Race on Terminal Island prison is dominated by the masked personality Frankenstein, a public favorite, who’s just looked like he’s met his end. Meanwhile, factory worker and former race driver, Jensen Ames has just been laid off, and framed for the murder of his wife (leaving his baby daughter without really knowing her parents), and sent to Terminal where he’s forced to become the new Frankenstein…

And that’s the basic premise of Death Race a re-imagining of the Roger Corman/Paul Bartel classic sci-fi/cheesefest/satire of the 70s, this time coming from director Paul W.S. Anderson, himself no stranger to genre movies.

Anderson gives us something that lacks in the satire of the original (though it has it’s moments) but makes up for it in it’s high-octane action. Let’s make no mistake here, this ain’t high art and neither does it aspire to be, it’s simply adrenaline charged fun first and foremost with dosages of liberalism thrown in. It’s very much a B-movie, though in a different vein than the original.

Anderson’s film has a great look to it and a lot of cool action, especially around the race itself. It is rated R and it’s reflected in it’s violence and language mostly though it never goes quite as far as it could or should (Nick Marshall’s Doomsday from earlier in the year is a better example of going further with this sort of thing).

My other issue is in it’s liberal simplification of some things- in the opening lines of set-up, they say something like “Large Corporation” where they could’ve just as well as said “Evil Large Corporation” considering the tone of the film, and they play with the idea of “love conquering all” as somewhat of an absolute, especially when talking about the idea of what sort of father a man like Jensen Ames could be when presented with the possibility of finding his daughter (and it has one of the great movie cliches in it- with Jensen and his pre-murdered wife still so in love that he’s ready to just throw her up on the kitchen counter and have his way with her).

These moments weren’t deal-breakers by any means, I mean this is still a fun time, but it might’ve been elevated further had it not taken such a simplified approach.

Anderson’s got some good talent at work here- the always solid-as-a-rock Jason Statham taking on the Jensen Ames/Frankenstein role, Ian McShane as Coach, the lead in Ames driving crew, Tyrese Gibson taking on the part of Machine Gun Joe, and Joan Allen doing a great job of scenery chewing as Warden Hennessey. All concerned here know exactly what kind of movie they’re making and they deliver the goods appropriately. And for the fans of the original, you’ve even got David Carradine as the voice of the first Frankenstein seen in this film.

All in all, it’s solid fun and a good diversion more than anything else. This probably won’t change anyone’s mind in how they want to view the original film as really this one and that one are two entirely different things, just with a couple of things in common. The original movie is without a doubt one of the classics in B-movie/drive-in/grindhouse entertainment and a lot of fun in it’s own right (though really, if we were to apply today’s brand of criticism to it, well it would fail on all counts as a movie and probably be just as derided as something like Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales) and this new version, it’s own beast, is it’s own brand of fun. I enjoyed it my own self, though I can’t necessarily say if others in today’s less forgiving audience would…

In the midst of Episodes 2 and 3 of the Star Wars films and shown even further in Genndy Tartavoksy’s animated Clone Wars shorts from The Cartoon Network, there’s a period that allows for even further stories within the Clone Wars milieu itself, and that period is where the new CGI animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars takes place. In this theatrical release of the first five episodes, on Tatooine, Jabba The Hut’s son has been kidnapped as the Jedi Knights and the Republic are negotiating the use of trade routes owned by The Hut. Now the Jedi charge Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi with the task of finding Jabba’s son, while Anakin also has under his tutelage a new Padawan, a young 14-year old girl name Ahsoka Tano.

And right off the bat, I thought it was a lot of fun as well…

For myself, I like this look that it has, sort of a cross between Genndy Tartakovsy and Gerry Anderson, I think it has it’s own personality. The Star Wars franchise is strong enough that it can handle many different looks if need be, at least to me anyway.

The film is mostly wall-to-wall action, and there’s a lot of cool set pieces in the film, my own personal favorite being a fight handled vertically on a cliffside up to the local where Jabba’s son is being held captive.

And I like the interplay between both Anakin and his new brash Padawan, Ahsoka- almost seeming to me like she’s given to him as more of a test of his own skills more than anything else (and sort of almost setting a precedent of something that’s to come in the upcoming video game The Force Unleashed.

For the presentation of a side story apart from the six live action films, I think this style works and really wouldn’t mind seeing it done further, perhaps a side story involving the adventures of Luke, Han and Leia set between episodes 4 and 5 or even a prequel of sorts to episode 4, showing the early days of Han Solo could be pretty cool.

I figure if you’ve got the intense and irrational hate for the prequel films, you’ll probably have the same for Star Wars: The Clone Wars though honestly, and I’ve been on the record with this, I don’t get it, but then I’ve never looked at these as “religion” either. I’ve seen complaints going the way of this being a pointless exercise simply because we already know what’s going to happen with Anakin in Episode 6, and that’s just ridiculous- I mean why not see other stories with these characters that don’t necessarily involve the major things that happen in the live action films (one friend to me equated that idea with the notion that we shouldn’t see any more movies set in historical times, say World War II, then simply because we already know how that ends- I see it as why then read adventures of continuing comic characters if each one of those stories don’t represent a major life change for them.

I’ve seen complaints of the new character Ahsoka and how her brashness just turns them off, when again, I just don’t get it, as I even think Qui-Gon Jinn makes some reference of the same with Obi-Wan pre-The Phantom Menace and further, like I said above, this seems to me more a test of Anakin’s skills more than building a Jedi out of Ahsoka.

I’ve seen complaints about the animation and the look that just don’t make any sense, not really allowing for a different artistic interpretation that this series certainly can stand, but you listen to the complainers, and this look seems like it’s a complete slap in the face to them.

As it is with the prequel trilogy, there’s counters to every con argument for Star Wars: The Clone Wars. I saw this with two other friends, one who’s pretty much of my same temperament with the series and another who’s a little more into the whole thing, and we call came out of it having a really good time and ready for more. Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a good side story to the main films and just a whole lot of fun…

Police detective Ben Carson is on suspension due to the accidental shooting of another police officer. Ben is separated from his wife and children and now he’s starting to feel the strain of all of his pressures. In order to help keep himself going, he takes on the job of a night watchmen over the burned remains of a former posh New York department store, the Mayflower. While performing his duties there, strange things start to occur that Ben sees in the mirrors that affect things on the outside… and from there hijinks ensue…

Mirrors is the latest film from French director Alexandre Aja who really impressed me with his French film High Tension and did a great job with the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. So with Aja helming this, I had some pretty high hopes with Mirrors being a fairly intense little film. Unfortunately, such is not the case, and I just have to wonder, what the hell happened?

Well, after seeing this, I found out that it was a remake of a Korean horror movie, and that explains a lot there, as I’m not really that impressed with a lot of the Asian horror films, but still one might think that someone as talented as Aja might bring something more to the table, but unfortunately he doesn’t, instead he delivers a film that follows the beats and with a couple of exceptions doesn’t really bring a whole lot of creepiness to this.

On top of that, the origins of this mystery are just as convoluted as can be, going in directions that are just constant left turns that seem to want to give the illusion of complexity but instead just feels like an overall mess (I sort of equate this to what Joel Schumacher did with The Number 23). As I was watching this, and considering what happens later in the film, I was put in the mind of an older movie like Don Coscarelli’s Phantasm which didn’t strive to put a heavy explanation on everything that was happening but more letting the audience come to conclusions of their own and thus making it far more creepy. It’s just a shame that we really don’t see that sort of thing any more.

Keifer Sutherland plays Ben Carson, and I like Keifer, I’ve been a 24 fan from the start, but here he’s just wrong for the part, and primarily because there just isn’t anything here that’s really that different from Jack Bauer. You’ll see Ben’s reactions to things here and it’s almost identical to something that Jack would do and so it doesn’t really work out to well in making Ben any sort of distinctive character. This probably could’ve worked better if you would’ve had someone like a Jim Caviezel in the part.

And on top of that, this is just needlessly longer than what it should be, and a lot of that is due to it’s convoluted plot. Oh it has a pretty cool ending, but by the time you get there, you just don’t really give a damn. Mirrors certainly isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen of the year by any means, but it doesn’t really do a whole hell of a lot to make itself stand out either and considering how talented director Alexandre Aja has been with his other films, that’s just a big shame. Hopefully he can get back on track with his next movie…