Just.. So... Bad

Freedomland (1/5 stars)

This movie is just... so... very.... bad. It is so jumbled and poorly written, has so many out of place scenes, so many cases of absolutely horrible acting, plot lines that come out of nowhere or go nowhere, I can't even properly explain it because it doesn't make enough sense to explain.

Just skip it. Please. I have absolutely no idea what possessed me to see this in the first place.

Cannes Film Festival Results

Well this was another year with another group of "what the?" winners and the two most highly praised movies (Volver, Babel) get lesser awards

Results:

Golden Palm - The Wind That Shakes The Barley (Ken Loach)

Grand Prize of the Jury - Flandres (Bruno Dumont)

Jury Prize - Red Road (Andrea Arnold)

Best Director - Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu)

Best Screenplay - Volver (Pedro Almodóvar)

Best Actor - The Cast of Days of Glory/Indigènes

Best Actress - The Cast of Volver

I was hoping for Babel, or if not that, Volver, to win. They definitely looked the most exciting looking out of any of the competition. They at least got something here, though. Giving the entire cast awards is kind of a cop-out, in my opinion. Finally, Marie-Antionette is shut out, they could have given it a techniacl prize but none was awarded this year. All very bizarre but interesting.

A Different Kind of Western

The Proposition (5/5 stars)

The Proposition's premise doesn't make it seem very different from most westerns; it begins with a gunfight. Eventually two men who we learn are brothers are captured by a man who seems to be what is like the sheriff (Ray Winstone) of the area. The younger brother (Richard Wilson) is weak and frightened upon capture. He makes an offer and a threat to the older one (Guy Pearce): he will let him go free to find and kill the third remaining brother (Danny Huston), who is whom the sheriff appears to really want, or the younger brother will be hanged on Christmas in only seven days.

What is different here is that the campiness and glorifcations contained in most westerns are removed. The characters do not spend time staring at each other, do not have any honor, but are rather extremely vicious and cruel. There are some scenes of immense cruelty and violence; not merely showboat gun battles where you hear more than you see, but brutal acts where you see the depravity of the characters involved. Fates of the players are not determined by the strength of their morals; the innocent sometimes suffer, the guilty sometimes get off scot-free.

While slowly paced, the sheer intensity and suprising nature of some of the action, compounded by the minimal yet tense score, creates a constant state of tension that is extremely suffocating. The direction is excellent and the cinematography work here is absolutely brilliant, like something out of a Terrence Malick film were he to shoot a Western in the wastelands of Australia. The writing, surpringly enough as it is written by a rock musician, is good as well.

The characters are well defined and their complexities and motivations are not only clear but very interesting. The sheriff isn't simply a maniac who wants to go after the bad guys at all costs, but is troubled by holding an essentially innocent brother (by comparison) hostage and letting one go free in order to get the most misanthropic of the bunch. His wife (Emily Watson) mistrusts him for his tactics, and he has a superior who is perhaps just as sick and twisted as the murdering brothers. An interesting bounty hunter (a show stealer by John Hurt) at times both helps and hurts the quest. Finally, the middle brother who is given the Proposition isn't simple as you might think; while he wants to save his younger brother, he dislikes the sociopathic nature of the brother he is sent to kill and just might not stand for it.

This film is simply just good on several levels; it is simultaneously brutal and beautiful, dreary and intense. Definitely very interesting and perhaps the best movie of the year so far.

How To Beat Your Own Demons

Clean (4/5 stars)

Clean starts out with a fairly typical premise. Emily, played wonderfully by Maggie Cheung, is a unsuccessful rocker who used to be the host pre-cable music television show in France. She now lives in Canada with her boyfriend, and along with him, while trying vainly to get a recording contract, is addicted to heroin. One night after seeing a show and having an argument about their difficulties in achieving success, they have a fight; she leaves, shoots up, and passes out in the car for the night. When she comes home she finds that he is dead from an overdose. She is arrested for possesion and must spend six months in jail. After this is when the story really begins.

Emily has a child, and in order to be able to see him and someday have custody of him, she must get clean. She struggles with this and with finding any kind of work. She gets various odd jobs that she hates, while she still dreams of becoming a success with music. Nick Nolte is her boyfriend's father, who does not trust her yet has faith that she can eventually get where she needs to be despite the fact that everyone else blames her for his son's death.

The movie does not heavily (or much at all, really) go into the bleak details of addiction like you might expect, rather if focuses on her emotional struggle against her own loneliness and failure. Thus the movie is less jarring or more laid back then you might expect; to enjoy it you need to identify with her and what she is going through, because there really isn't a lot of events to be had here.

The most enjoyable aspects of the movie are the performances. Maggie Cheung and Nick Nolte both do excellent work here. If you can appreciate the choice, the intimacy of the directing and the focus of the writing on the emotional journey of Emily rather than on the actual quest to quit heroin is satisfying. It is a slow and moody picture, and one might need to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.

Better Than Average CGI Fare

Over the Hedge (3.5/5 stars)

I'm not going to go into intricate details on the plot for this one, it's an animated CGI family film. Basically animals wake up from hibernating to discover that their once big home has been completely surrounded by new suburbia and are forced to go on adventures to find food.

Better than almost all the CGI retread garbage that has come out recently. Not as good as anything by Pixar though. I could have used a little bit more stuff that flew over the kid's heads, there was a tiny little bit but not enough. They had the potential to put some seriously funny brutal satire into this movie and didn't, it could potentially have been a lot better.

On the voice acting, I liked Steve Carrell. Did NOT like William Shatner though. I wish that guy would just disappear already.

Probably a good one to rent.

Reality Check Your Expectations At The Door Please

The Da Vinci Code (3/5 stars)

First of all, let me say that this movie definitely is way better than the critical reception it has received. The current rating of 22% is one of the lowest ratings I can remember for a movie that isn't a completely idiotic comedy like Big Momma's House 2 or a direct to video horror movie. Is this really a worse movie than say, The Day After Tomorrow? Hardly. I think the main problems with the reviews were that expectations were too high, and the movie is so similar to the book that if you have already read it you don't get to enjoy the surprises as much. I *have* read the book, and while that is no masterpiece, and neither is this movie, I still found it entertaining. This is supposed to be a summer popcorn movie for crying out loud. What exactly were people expecting? I don't know.

I did not like several things about the movie. First of all, the miscasting of Tom Hanks is one of the worst. I would have liked to have seen maybe Liam Neeson or Ralph Fiennes as Langdon, the main character. Secondly, there isn't much chemistry between Hanks and Audrey Tatou (from the great Amelie, if you didn't know), partly because the romantic hints from the book are pretty much removed here, but secondly because they don't work exactly right together. Next, the Silas character was much more creepy and interesting in the book than in the movie and it didn't seem to come out right here. Also, one of the main points of the book is the novelty of the solving of the puzzles and the mystery involved. In the movie these points are basically handed to the audience on a silver platter and you don't get to really enjoy the sense of discovery like in the book. Finally, the ending was dragged out too much (ending multiple times) and was a little on the corny side at times.

What I liked most about the movie was Ian McKellan. He definitely stole the show away from everyone else in the movie, and all the most interesting parts of the film involve him. I also, contrary to the critics, actually liked the historical flashbacks contained in the film. To the uninformed these are pretty necessary to the story, and there really weren't nearly as many of them as I was led to believe from reading the reviews. The character flashbacks were also fine in my book as they add a little bit of depth to the two leads. Technically, the score was good and the pacing was well done, although the script could've used a bit of help. Some of the dialogue just didn't seem to fit.

But what is most important here? Was it a boring movie? Certainly not. Even at two and a half hours I found myself interested throughout. And while it is no masterpiece, take it for what it is. Expectations, expectations, expectations.

Note to Action Film Makers: Scripts are Still Important

X-Men: The Last Stand (3/5 stars)

First of all, I'll say that I didn't care for the first X-Men very much at all, but I actually liked the second quite a bit. I was hoping that this one would be as good as the second, and it had the potential, but it just didn't live up to it at all.

I blame the vast majority of the problems of the movie on really bad screenwriting. Less is more. There are too many characters who serve virtually no purpose, too many sideplots that distract from the main story and don't really go anywhere, and too many attempts to blow away the audience with action scenes rather than spending time on character development.

What made one comic book movie, Batman Begins, excellent was that the story was actually very compelling and the characters were well defined, their motivations made sense. It didn't have to rely completely on a massive special effects sequence ending and a gigantic battle to woo the audience, which is what this movie attempted to do. Or, in the second X-Men, we actually learned about the characters; their backstories, what makes them who they are, why they do what they do. This movie just goes for shock value; rather than spending time on people, instead we just get a lot of deaths or injuries to major characters and a massively jumbled ending battle sequence where I couldn't even count how many people were dying.

Finally, the main two story arcs were not developed well enough, most likely because too much time was spent on bland and boring subplots and the action sequences I've described already. One, where there is a "cure" developed for being a mutant in order to remove their powers. Another, the introduction of an all-powerful mutant who cannot be stopped by anything. Both of these could have been used very well but are kind of just dangled at the audience to create a slight bit of intrigue, and then thrown away at the end without coming to much of if any conclusion.

I wouldn't say it isn't an enjoyable movie to watch, but I was just disappointed. Having seen the second and knowing how much better it is, I expected a lot more than I got.

DVD: What Would You Wish For?

One Last Thing... (3/5 stars)

This is a movie you've seen before. Infact I think it was called Win A Date With Tad Hamilton, although this version is more serious and better for it. The story is about a terminally ill teenager who gets granted one last wish from an organization obviously meant to represent Make A Wish. While planning on wishing for a fishing trip with his favorite football player, he decides on the spot to wish for a weekend alone with his favorite supermodel instead.

The plot isn't too hard to predict. The supermodel is in somewhat of a downward spiral in both her personal and professional life, and at first uses the situation as a photo opportunity with the kid to bolster her sagging career. However, after being dismissed he does not give up, and resolves to travel to New York City to go after her again. She, fueled by well-done dream sequences, realizes what she is doing to herself and her life and develops a heart; you can imagine how this thing goes.

While the movie is predictable and you've seen this sort of thing before, the performances (especially Cynthia Nixon) are good, it is fairly funny at times, and and I thought it was actually fairly sweet. So while it is no masterpiece, it's not a bad choice to rent.

Babel Palm D'or Frontrunner, Oscar Talk

Babel premiered at the Cannes film festival today, and already people are going absolutely nuts over the movie and it is pegged as the frontrunner for the top prize at the festival as well as being in the running for several Oscars. I'm just glad to hear that it is probably good, as it was my number one anticipated film of the year when I wrote a post a while back.

Here's an article, if you're interested.

Films Critics Are Irrelevant

As proved by this weekends box office numbers. The Da Vinci Code, which has some of the worst critical reviews for any major movie I've ever seen, completely demolished the competition. Also it looks like United 93 is on its last gaps of air and won't even hit 35 million.

1. The Da Vinci Code (2006) $77M -- $77M
2. Over the Hedge (2006) $37.2M -- $37.2M
3. Mission: Impossible III (2006) $11M -- $103M
4. Poseidon (2006) $9.2M -- $36.8M
5. R.V. (2006) $5.1M -- $50.4M
6. See No Evil (2006) $4.35M -- $4.35M
7. Just My Luck (2006) $3.38M -- $10.5M
8. An American Haunting (2005) $1.66M -- $13.6M
9. United 93 (2006) $1.4M -- $28.3M
10. Akeelah and the Bee (2006) $1M -- $15.7M

I'm waiting for the week when there will be at least 6 (more than half) fresh movies in the top ten. Looks like 4 this week.

Cannes Film Festival Begins Tomorrow

The famous French film festival finally begins, and we'll get to hear the first reviews of some highly anticipated movies.

Here's the ones that I really want to hear about.

-- Babel (#1 on my anticipated film list of the year, by the writer and director of 21 Grams and Amorres Perros)
-- Marie-Antionette (directed by Sofia Coppola, responsible for my best picture of 2003)
-- Volver (directed by Pedro Almodovar, who made Talk to Her and All About My Mother, among others)
-- A Scanner Darkly (directed by Richard Linklater, a cartoon adaptation of sci-fi author Phillip K. Dick)
-- Fast Food Nation (adaptation of the famous book, also by Richard LinkLater)
-- Paris, Je T'aime (combination of short movies by several regarded directors and starring some very good actors)
-- An Inconvenient Truth (Al Gore documentary about the environment)

There are others I am not mentioning, but it should be interesting once the reviews start coming in. Also some films are shown "in competition" and "out of competition", so out of the above, only Babel, Marie-Antionette, Volver, and Fast Food Nation are eligible for prizes.

For the complete list of in-competition films, take a look here.

DVD: We'd Like to Bash You Over the Head With Our Themes

Something New (2/5 stars)

There was a time when I could rely on a movie released by Focus Features to be good on a 100% basis. Not anymore. The last two (The Ice Harvest and Brick) were weak, and slightly above average, respectively, but this one again falls into the weak category.

The movie is a romantic comedy about a very successful professional black female accoutant named Kenya, who like at the start of most bad romantic comedies, is not very successful in personal relationships. She eventually meets two different men; one a white gardener whom she is very attracted to, the other a very successful black tax attorney who seems like the perfect person for her but may be a little boring. Oh, who will she choose in the end?

The movie tries to deal with race issues, but like most movies that try to deal with them and fail miserably, it sets up the issues for you with about as much sublety as a sledgehammer to the face. She has trouble gaining trust in her professional position because she is a black woman. Her friends and family do not trust her new white boyfriend. This boyfriend is uncomfortable around her crowd of friends and she is uncomfortable having him around her circle of friends so it creates issues for them. The other man, however, as a successful professional black man, is seen to be perfect by everyone, except for maybe the main character.

This movie is not good for two main reasons. Number one is that the whole plot of the story is pretty recycled and boring, except for the race issue subtext. The next is that the parts of the movie that touch on that subtext are about as thin as a popsicle stick. This is definitely one to skip.

DVD: A Slightly Too Sentimental Family Drama

Winter Passing (3/5 stars)

This is the story of a young, drug-addicted actress who happens to be the daughter of two famous novelists. One day she is approached by a book editor and offered a large sum of money if she can retrieve for publication a group of letters written to her recently deceased mother by her father.

She goes to visit her father, whom she has not seen in years, even before her mother's death, in order to retrieve the letters so that she can receive her money. Her dad has problems of his own; he is failing as a writer, and has become an alchoholic. He lets quirky people who aren't even related to him live in his house while he decides to live in his own garage. After making the trip, she begins to know her father again, as well as his new compaions. Very predictably, she learns the value of family/loved ones, etc, etc, and you can probably guess what she ends up doing in the end.

While the plot is very recycled and fairly predictable, the mood is set well with the direction and the performances from the cast are good (Zooey Deschanel, Ed Harris, Will Ferrell playing drama, amongst others), so the movie is not a complete loss. It is just nothing particularly spectacular.

DVD: A More Personal Holocaust Film

Fateless (5/5 stars)

This is a different sort of holocaust movie than most I've seen. There's not very much graphic extreme violence, evil Nazis, or most of the other things you normally see in these kinds of movies. This isn't to say that it still isn't extremely disturbing, as we seen the concentration camp experience and suffering through the eyes of a young boy who is shuttled through various camps until his eventual release at the end of the war.

What's so sad about the story is that no matter how much worse things get for the main character, he seems to accept everything as perfectly normal. All the while people who surround him cling to false hope that things will get better; even though they seem to have a more realistic grasp on the horror of the situation than the boy, it is he who does not understand who holds no hope and expects nothing. We see desperate people resort to evil measures; in the camps, some become profiteers taking advantage of other inmates while selling food. This angers some, but he sees it as natural and even particpates while others are indignant. After the war, one person is discovered to have helped the SS and everyone present wants to commit acts of revenge, while he is more concerned about his injured leg. On the way home, he is caught on a train without a ticket and almost gets thrown off. He is perfectly willing to accept this but a generous and angry person intervenes on his behalf and buys him a ticket.

After getting out of the camps, he is given the choice by liberating troops to travel to Switzerland or Sweden instead of his home in Hungary. He will have a better life there, they say. But he is determined to get home and discover the fate of his family that was left behind when he was grabbed off of a bus that one fateful day. He refuses and goes home anyway, only to find that he is a reminder to his family about the horrors of the war. He refuses to even acknowledge his own experiences for what they are, but still he is a reminder of a period of time that people close to him want to forget; because of this they do not accept him when he returns, and he is essentially left on his own.

The interesting perspective of the main character and the different way his story is portrayed than in most movies is reason to see this alone, but the directing, cinematography, and score are all simply fantastic. This is simply a beautiful, yet horrifying film that one should not miss.

Who Is More Twisted?

Hard Candy (4/5 stars)

This is one sick, twisted movie. It's the story of a man who meets an underage girl on the internet and arranges a meeting. Eventually they end up at his place and you think that the girl is really naive and is going to get taken advantage of and then... wham! It turns out that the girl has been plotting a revenge plot on the pedophile from the start; she drugs him, ties him up, and basically phyiscally and mentally tortures him throughout the movie.

What is so unnerving about it all is that while you obviously want to root against the predator, the girl is so rampantly psychotic that you are almost rooting for him at the same time. The levels she goes through to mentally abuse the man are pretty sickening. It's an interesting movie in that way because it makes you choose, whose side are you on, morally?

The main strength is in the lead performances, and the writing and direction are for the most part good, the one flaw I think the movie has is that towards the end it almost goes too far over the top into the ridiculous zone. But still it is definitely an interesting watch.

To Stay, To Leave

Take My Eyes (4.5/5 stars)

This movie is a nice character study about a woman in an abusive relationship who alternates back and forth between deciding to leave or be with her husband. We see why she leaves; he seems to get angry at her for doing anything that provides her with happiness. Yet we also see why she stays; they have their happy moments, he attempts therapy for his anger, and she is obviously in love with him.

What's good about this movie is that it doesn't need to rely on an over-villification of the husband in order to prove the point. Very little physical abuse is shown. We do see his extreme emotional weakness and the way he takes it out on his wife in the form of anger and mental abuse that make you wonder why she hadn't left a long time ago despite the good things. This is enough, we can see how broken she is when she is around him yet how strong she can be when away (particiularly when shown at her work, as a guide at an art museum). The choice seems simple looking at it from the outside, but in real life it probably never really is.

Both lead performances are very well done, especially the wife. And the realism and less-is-more approach with the writing and directing serve the movie very well. This has a pretty small release so most people would probably need to catch it on DVD, but it is well worth it.

A New Reason To Make A Movie

I don't think I've ever seen this one before. I cannot think of a single reason anyone decided to make this movie except for the fact that its numerical release date is coming up.

I'm talking about The Omen 666, to be released, of course, on June 6th, 2006. Get it?

Someone off in a movie studio thought, "gee, we have this day coming up, wouldn't it be a great idea to sink several million dollars into an absolutely horrible horror movie that will probably make 80% of its money on opening day and bomb profusely?"

Of course, considering that the current number one movie in the country is RV, maybe I am wrong about people going to see it. I tend to be an extremely bad judge of what people are going to go see.

Class Action Settlement Against Netflix

From the article:

A judge has approved a class-action settlement requiring Netflix Inc. to offer a free month of DVDs to 5.5 million current and former subscribers, resolving a case that prompted the online rental service to acknowledge it gives preferential treatment to its most profitable customers.

You can read the whole thing here.

Can I get some money for constantly getting scratched DVDs when I get old movies? Probably not.