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Posts Tagged ‘Movie Reviews’Movie Review: Eagle EyeWednesday, September 24th, 2008
Harry at Ain’t it Cool News has this review of the upcoming thriller Eagle Eye (some profanity here, but that’s Harry): I tell you – I knew it when I first saw THE SALTON SEA that DJ Caruso was a filmmaker to watch, but then he went through a rough patch of just not being teamed up with the right material. Then we had that great DISTURBIA screening at SXSW – where the film that looked like a total ripoff of REAR WINDOW, from a Teen vantage point – turned out to be… well, pretty much a ripoff of REAR WINDOW from a Teen vantage point… only, it not only didn’t suck, but was incredibly entertaining. So much so that it reminded me that DJ existed and when that film succeeded beyond everyone’s wildest box office predictions – it kinda meant that DJ should get a promotion of sorts. That he was ready for the next stage budget and a higher grade of script. Enter EAGLE EYE. A project hatched from a notion and conceit that Spielberg had been percolating for a while – waiting for the right team to hand it off to. D.J. seemed to be the key ingredient. And boy was it. So what is EAGLE EYE… essentially it’s a NORTH BY NORTHWEST style film dripping with paranoia, conspiracies and a story that is always a few steps ahead of the audience. That’s due to a great device. The voice on the phone. The faceless female that is seemingly everywhere and all knowing is a great character. Essentially – she’s an RPG Game Master controlling the most dangerous ‘game’ of surprise LARPing ever concocted. You see, Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan are just your average nobodies. Folks just working to get by, the sort of folks you don’t really notice. THEN… extraordinary shit begins to happen – a voice directing them… rather insistently with perilous ramifications for those that do not cooperate… to do her bidding. Just like a Dungeon Master, the voice is the source for all information for the characters, and just like an asshole Dungeonmaster – if you piss them off, she’ll put you nostril deep in a bog of eternal fuckedupness. The voice controls everyone and knows seemingly everything in real time. Now – it isn’t announced what time period this is, but I’ve got the feeling it’s no further in the future than some time in the next 5-15 years. The world seems stuck in the same sort of paranoid-fed levels of personal rights infringements – and the question that is forced into the forefront of my mind through most of this film is… WHAT IF – the access that is developed to learn everything about everything is turned against us. Who is the puppetmaster? Frankly, to me the most important question on your mind through the film is, “What Next?” – and you think that often and quickly. The film has an aesthetic look that is everybit as “pretty” as something that comes out of Michael Bay’s Dear Penthouse, I never thought I would shoot a film this well developed… fantasies. It has that beauty, without ever being stupid. The characters are developed, the turns are not predictable, the casting and random PEOPLE IN HIGH PLACES are there to SERVE THE STORY, not to artificially give it a sense of some misplaced grandeur and importance. Click on the link below to read the entire review Things We Lost in the FireTuesday, October 23rd, 2007
Halle Berry lights up the screen Things We Lost in the Fire, while turning in her best performance since Monster’s Ball. Metaphorically speaking, we don’t see the fire — just the ashes — the formless dust left behind in the wake of a transformative event. It’s not the easiest way to tackle a story of family tragedy, but Danish director Susanne Bier (Brothers) pulls off a small movie miracle by turning the empty space of a lost loved one into the central character of her English-language debut, Things we Lost in the Fire. A non-linear examination of loss that stars Halle Berry as a grieving widow and Benicio Del Toro as a recovering heroin addict, the movie opens with a brief but ideal moment in the human experience: A father and son standing next to a pool, sharing a moment of palpable, mutual love. Before the scene even has a chance to reach its final beat, the opening credits float across the screen. When we rejoin the narrative a few seconds later, we’ve already crossed the invisible line separating one reality from the next. For the next two hours, we watch the characters struggle to make it to the other side as they wrestle with the death of the family patriarch. Brian (David Duchovny) was the perfect guy: Attentive, flattering, kind, good-looking and unconditionally loving, he was the backbone of the Burke family. To his wife, Audrey, (Berry), Brian was more than a great father and provider; he was the man who made everything all right, the man who could put his arms around her and make her feel safe and loved when the monsters loomed at night. Click on the link below to read the entire article: All Movie Replicas Related Porducts: StardustFriday, August 10th, 2007
Stardust might well be one of the best movie this summer. Read on: Watching Stardust, Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of the acclaimed fantasy novel by Neil Gaiman, it’s obvious that the filmmakers were trying for a sly if special-effects-heavy update of Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride — a film equal parts romance, fun and fantasy. But I was more immediately reminded of Ron Howard’s Willow, not just because I loved that film and all of its disjointed parts, but primarily because those same disparate elements are only occasionally combined in consistent measures here. That said, Vaughn’s film eventually proves to be a far more delightful and engaging adventure than Howard’s — although it may take a little patience enduring Stardust’s front-loaded fantasy before you get to the fun that follows. Charlie Cox (Casanova) plays Tristan, the son of a local shopkeep whose dreams of marrying Victoria (Sienna Miller) become a possible reality when she sends him on a quest: recover a falling star. Urged on by his father Dunstan (Nathaniel Parker), Tristan uses a magic candle to travel to the place where the star fell. But when he arrives, he discovers that the star is not merely some hunk of charred rock but rather a beautiful woman named Yvaine (Clare Danes), who is none too happy to be enslaved to this ambitious but awkward mortal after falling from the sky. Soon enough, the two begin to make their way back to Tristan’s village. But it turns out that Tristan is not the only person who wants to get his hands on Yvaine: A decrepit witch named Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer) and her two sisters want to eat her heart, which will provide them with decades of youth and beauty. Meanwhile, the King (Peter O’Toole) has died and his sons fight to recover a lost gem — which coincidentally Yvaine finds — that will declare one of them heir to the throne. Before long, Tristan and Yvaine are thrown into a whirlwind journey across the globe facing witches, pirates, and kings-to-be, all the while discovering that heroism, leadership and most of all love may appear in the last place one might expect. Click on the link below to read the entire article: In Theaters: August 10, 2007 Related All Movie Replicas Products GrindhouseWednesday, March 28th, 2007
Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriquez celebrates the low-budget, exploitation movies of the 1960’s and 70’s. Read on: Grindhouse is the latest film by Quentin Tarantino, a celebration if not culmination of his lifetime love for B-, C- and Z-grade exploitation movies. Yet strangely enough, this is not his best work. A groundbreaking co-production with longtime creative partner Robert Rodriguez, the anthology aims to recall the low budget double-feature format pioneered in the 1960s and ’70s, but update its formulas with modern-day money and technical know-how. While this appears to have liberated Rodriguez, a director who has toiled for more than a decade in otherwise overdressed genre pictures, it curiously has exposed Tarantino’s filmmaking Achilles’ heel — namely, his inability to distinguish when that celebration of movie magic interferes with a well-told tale. At the same time, there are so many amazing and innovative ideas in Tarantino’s pastiche-cum-homage that it’s hard to hold his section in too low regard, particularly given its wealth of breathtaking action sequences and one particularly powerful performance. So even if Rodriguez’ effort surpasses his headliner’s by an outright star or so (consider it a four-and-a-halfer to Tarantino’s three-and-a-half), this tribute to cinema’s exploitative dregs is some of the most dynamic and engaging filmmaking produced in years. At three-plus hours, Grindhouse is comprised of two short films, Planet Terror and Death Proof, which are connected by a series of fake trailers shot by industry colleagues like Eli Roth (Hostel) and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead). Rodriguez’ Planet Terror is presented first, presumably because he is the lesser-known of the two directors, but his proves to be the better movie and more faithful interpretation of the grindhouse “ethos.” In the film, Freddy Rodriguez (Lady in the Water) plays Wray, a traveler with a shady past who becomes the unlikely savior for a band of survivors when the rest of humanity succumbs to a mysterious disease that turns them into zombies. Predictably, there are several other characters acting out their own little melodramas against the backdrop of this larger event: William (Josh Brolin) and Dakota Block (Marley Shelton) are locked into a cycle of jealousy and revenge as their marriage slowly falls apart; Cherry Darling (Rose McGowan) tries to rebuild her life when she leaves her job as a go-go dancer, only to find her dreams of being a stand-up comic shattered when she loses her leg in a zombie attack; Sheriff Hague (Michael Biehn) must uncover the secrets of Wray’s background while uncovering the recipe for his brother J.T.’s (Jeff Fahey) tasty barbeque; and scientist Abby (Naveen Andrews) tries to find a cure for the zombie “infection,” while attempting to outrun a general hell-bent on controlling the disease for his own fiendish purposes. Click on the link below to read the entire article: Related All Movie Replicas Products Pursuit of HappynessTuesday, December 19th, 2006
Will Smith knocks one out of the park with Pursuit of Happyness. Read on: When I mentioned to a friend that I was covering Will Smith’s new movie, The Pursuit of Happyness, the only thing he said to me was “make sure you ask Will Smith why the hell they misspelled ‘happiness’.” Well, rest assured, Steve, the answer to that question (and many others) lies in the movie itself; besides, Will Smith stopped returning my calls months ago (if only I hadn’t pressed him so hard on that “Parents Just Don’t Understand” follow-up, “Parents Really Just Don’t Understand”). But at any rate, Smith gives the performance of his career in a movie for which phrases like “heart-warming” and “life-affirming” were made, or if not they would certainly have had to be invented. Smith plays Chris Gardner, a struggling salesman who spends his days trying to sell expensive, unnecessary medical equipment to doctors who don’t need it. When he randomly runs into a Wall Street trader who informs him all one needs to do his job is be good with people and numbers, Chris decides to pursue a coveted internship at a brokerage; unfortunately, the job is unpaid, which means that he will have to support himself and his son Christopher (Jaden Christopher Syre Smith) without any promise of a paying job in the future. There isn’t much more to tell about Happyness in terms of plot, but it’s not because nothing happens; rather, the obstacles that Chris faces are likely familiar to many or most people who watch, read about or follow underdog stories like this. The difference between this tale and others, however, is that it’s based upon a true story - naturally with some of the details changed. For example, the real Chris Gardner’s son was only about a year old, not five as in the film; whether this was changed because the real story seemed too outlandish or just because Smith’s son Jaden was available to play the role remains unknown, but rather than undermining the believability of the tale it adds a counterpoint - namely, the child’s perspective - that enriches Gardner’s struggles. Click on the link below to read the entire article: Pursuit of Happyness Movie Posters In theaters now Deja VuWednesday, November 29th, 2006
Deja Vu is thoughtful, moving and generally exciting. Read on: It’s hard not to like Tony Scott. Even though he may have single-handedly generated our fascination with filmmaking style over substance, he still created a memorable — nay, classic — body of work, and proved that even folks like Michael Bay can mature over time (albeit in admittedly microscopic measures). His latest film, Déjà Vu, is sort of a hybrid of the two impulses that have defined his career thus far: unrelenting visual excess and a tenuous relationship with actual human feeling. Starring Scott’s longtime leading man Denzel Washington, the film transcends the superficial appeal of its core concept — what if you could go back in time? — and actually offers a thoughtful, moving and genuinely exciting thriller that will likely serve as terrific counterprogramming for the Oscar bait and family fare releasing in the weeks to come. Washington plays Doug Carlin, an ATF agent who inadvertently finds himself drawn into a murder mystery while investigating the explosion of a New Orleans ferryboat. Recovering the body of one of the supposed victims, Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), Carlin takes not only professional but personal notice of the young woman’s… attributes. Before long, he determines that she may be the key to discovering the terrorist’s identity. Thankfully, a cadre of technology-wielding federal agents (including Val Kilmer and Adam Goldberg) offer the agent a unique opportunity to revisit Claire’s life. But Carlin is soon forced to decide whether cracking the case is more important than saving one woman’s life — especially if he has unexpectedly developed feelings for that woman, and knows what will eventually happen to her. While we’ve seen quite a cross-section of cops and authority figures from Washington over the course of his career, Carlin feels like the most comfortable of these he’s yet played — the actor no longer seems determined to prove or insist upon his leading-man status. In a film like this where the chemistry between the star and his leading lady is reliant on their ability to overcome the technological backdrop, the hairpin storytelling and most of all the fact they barely have any actual screen time together, Washington carries the growing attraction effortlessly. It’s a testament to his performance that the film hardly ever feels like a sci-fi odyssey or any sort of high-concept adventure. Click on the link below to read the entire article: View the trailer In theaters November 22, 2006 The Santa Clause 3: The Escape ClauseTuesday, November 7th, 2006
Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause is good clean fun, but not condescending. Read on: The Santa Clause franchise began, in 1994, as the ultimate collision of workaholic-Dad-snapped-into-line-by-fantastical-intervention cinema (see The Family Man, Liar Liar, Click, et al) and high concept piffle (ordinary guy becomes… Santa Claus). The movies have since served as one of the two twin pillars, alongside the Toy Story films, in star Tim Allen’s otherwise scant big screen career. Eight years passed between the original and its sequel, but the $172 million worldwide gross of The Santa Clause 2 (almost on par with its forebear) cemented plans for a trilogy. While the films have taken a turn for even more family-friendly terrain (the original was rated PG, the latter two flicks both G), the result — somewhat paradoxically, when stacked up against many other live action family franchises — is not a movie that feels tame or uncertain, but one emboldened by the clear purpose and vision of its mission. Yes, there are still, dishearteningly, reindeer flatulence jokes and a sound mix full of cartoon cacophonies, but for the most part The Escape Clause succeeds as a credible adventure flick for little tykes. Michael Lembeck returns as director from The Santa Clause 2, and guides the movie with a sure hand. He’s aided by a solid screenplay by Ed Decter and John Strauss — the original writers of There’s Something About Mary, who’ve generally refocused their efforts on younger audiences, going on to pen scripts for The Wild and The Lizzie McGuire Movie, among others — and an engagingly colorful villainous performance by Martin Short as the jealous Jack Frost. After having become Santa in the first movie, Scott Calvin (Allen) has tried to juggle the demands of the job with his personal life. The Escape Clause finds Santa taking on new challenges as his extended family continues to grow. At the risk of giving away its secret location, Scott invites his in-laws, Sylvia and Bud Newman (Ann-Margret and Alan Arkin, a rich pair) to the North Pole to share in the holiday festivities and be near their daughter, Carol (Elizabeth Mitchell), as she prepares for the eagerly anticipated birth of Baby Claus. The problem, of course, is that Carol’s parents don’t know about Scott’s secret identity (they just think he’s a north-of-the-border toymaker), so he disguises the North Pole as Canada, instructing all his elves to cover up their pointy ears and go about appending, “ehh?” to the end of every other sentence. Further complicating matters are Scott’s own blended brood — ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), her new husband Neil (Judge Reinhold), their daughter Lucy (a very effective Liliana Mumy) and Scott’s son Charlie (Eric Lloyd) — who beg on for a trip of their own, and have to be entertained as well as keep the secret from the Newmans. The main complication, though, is Jack Frost (Short), an icy-browed outcast on the Council of Legendary Figures, a group which includes the Easter Bunny, Father Time, Mother Nature, Cupid, et al. Jack wants his own holiday, and when rebuffed by the council he hatches a mischievous scheme to wreck Scott’s holiday and make him unwittingly invoke the titular “escape clause,” thus freeing the path for Jack to become the new Santa Claus. Click on the link below to read the entire article: Review: Open SeasonSaturday, September 30th, 2006
Among animated movies, Open Season manages to stand out; delivering substance as well as style. Read on: Recently, we expressed gratitude over the fact that computer-animated movies have become so ubiquitous and unspecial that they are no longer “event” movies, but rather generic family films that will soon disappear like the majority of their hand-drawn predecessors. This feeling disappeared, however, when we realized we would still have to see and review them in their increasingly lackluster glory. Open Season, featuring the voice talents of Ashton Kutcher and Martin Lawrence, is the most recent of these efforts. Thankfully, generic and unspecial have long since become de rigeur for studios in search of maximum profits at minimum risk; as such, those terms now more often represent a simple and resolutely “safe” adventure that will sustain preadolescent attention spans for 100 or so minutes at a time — which ultimately is a role that Open Season fills quite nicely. Lawrence and Kutcher play Boog and Elliot, a bear and a mule deer, respectively, who find themselves unlikely partners when Boog’s human owner Beth (Debra Messing) reluctantly agrees to return her charge to the wild. While attempting to return to civilization, the two soon encounter a cross-section of crazy animals, including an irascible squirrel named McSquizzy (Billy Connolly), a tough-talking beaver named Reilly (Jon Favreau) and Ian (Patrick Warburton), Elliot’s rival for doe Giselle (Jane Krakowski). But before they can make proper friends with this veritable wildlife preserve, they discover more profound danger in the form of human hunters — one of whom, named Shaw (Gary Sinise), has specific designs on seeing the dynamic duo stuffed and mounted on his wall. If there’s an immediate feeling of familiarity to this story, it’s because you’ve definitely seen it before; Madagascar and The Wild, to name but two recent examples, also followed this same fish-out-of-water formula. As such, the real question becomes not what story they are telling, but how they tell it, and directors Roger Allers, Jill Culton and Anthony Stacchi do their best to breathe new life into the material without going straight for the to-the-minute pop culture references or even the sappy, indulgent melodrama that lesser filmmakers turn to as a catch-all for imminent cheesiness. Click on the link below to read the entire article: Purchase Open Season movie posters at All Movie Replicas. View the trailer. |
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