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A look at this week's big release, Prince Caspian, and the future of Narnia on the big screen.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: 3 out of 4 stars
For the second installment of The Chronicles of Narnia, director Andrew Adamson has caught a severe case of Lord of the Rings-itis. While the 2005 adaptation of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe kept close to the tone of the book, Prince Caspian plays a little less like a fairy tale and a little more like an effort to expand the audience. That's not necessarily a bad thing and it makes Prince Caspian more accessible to older would-be movie-goers. Overall, while not as strong in terms of plotting or character development, Prince Caspian is nevertheless a better cinematic experience than its predecessor, if only because it feels more confident and polished.
This week's "Video Views" column looks at the new DVD releases of the Indiana Jones movies and whether George Lucas might be getting a little greedy here.
The way teenagers get into R-rated movies today is a lot different than what it was 25 years ago...
Weekly discussion of what's new in theaters. Can Speed Racer finish first, or is it too slow?
The Tracey Fragments: 1.5 out of 4 stars
The Tracey Fragments uses its non-standard visual style, a split-screen approach that can show from one to sixteen frames at any one time, in a vain attempt to camouflage the paucity of the story. Director Bruce McDonald, working from a script by Maureen Medved, seems to believe that because he's doing something most filmmakers avoid, it qualifies The Tracey Fragments as being interesting and cutting edge. It is neither. This unexceptional and uninteresting story of a self-pitying borderline-personality teenager verges on being unwatchable as a result of McDonald's decision to bombard the audience with extraneous images in lieu of telling the story.
Speed Racer: 2 out of 4 stars
There's no doubt that the Wachowskis' vision of Speed Racer is big, wild, and overripe with garish colors. It's what I'd imagine it might be like trapped inside a video game or a pinball machine. It's a kaleidoscope gone made. Yet this kind of visual overdrive has its limits, and with little else to recommend it, Speed Racer passes the barrier between 21st century innovation and psychedelic diarrhea long before the cars have come close to the finish line. What impresses with its "wow!" factor early on becomes repetitive and headache-inducing later in the proceedings. At an exceedingly long 135 minutes, the film needs more than what might result from the explosion of a Crayola factory, and Speed Racer has nothing extra to offer - no heart, no excitement, no moments to cherish.
Weekly discussion of all things video.
What Happens in Vegas: 2.5 out of 4 stars
What Happens in Vegas takes the "thin line between love and hate" approach to the romantic comedy. It's a time honored tradition: the characters begin as antagonists but end up madly in love. Along the way, sparks fly. In this case, director Tom Vaughan starts his protagonists out as if they're in The War of the Roses but concludes with them in the grip of emotions that make it impossible to live without one another. The film's misstep - and it is a significant one - is to take too long to tone down the broad, cartoonish portrayals of the leads into something resembling human beings. As a result, the first half of What Happens in Vegas plays like shrill sit-com material.
Consistency and critics: perfect together. But what happens if a critic changes his mind?
Iron Man, Iron Man, and more Iron Man. Oh, and a few other things hardly worth mentioning as well.
Made of Honor: 2 out of 4 stars
Romantic comedies sell fantasy. Ultimately, that's their reason for being - to make even the most cynical heart crave true love. Some romantic comedies, this one included, fail because of an inability to convince the audience that the protagonists deserve to live happily ever after. There's a simple romantic comedy litmus test. Ask this question: By the time the moment of decision arrives, are we rooting for these two to be together? Is their union, inevitable though it may be in a movie world where formula is valued over all else, the only path to a satisfying ending? Sadly, for Made of Honor, with its drawn-out, poorly developed love affair and paper thin characters, the answer is no. We expect the two leads to end up together - not because they inspire us to quote sonnets but because that's how we have been conditioned. I like it when a movie seduces me; this one doesn't.
Redbelt: 2.5 out of 4 stars
Most directors, upon entering a genre with which they lack familiarity, adhere strictly to "the book." David Mamet, however, throws "the book" out the window. The resulting movie, a mixed martial arts concoction called Redbelt, is different than what fans of Mamet, MMA, or anything else are likely to have seen before. The plot is borderline ridiculous and certainly doesn't stand up to close (or even not-so-close) scrutiny, but there's a level of entertainment to be had watching it unfold in all its strangeness. And, as always with Mamet, there's the question of whether his particular method of directing actors to speak his dialogue (a mannered, staccato delivery) is effective or distracting, or perhaps both.
Weekly discussion of the DVD and Blu-Ray world, including what's new in both formats.
Fugitive Pieces: 2 out of 4 stars
Fugitive Pieces was accorded the honor of opening the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, and it became the latest in a long line of Opening Night movies to have trouble securing a distributor. After an eight month interval after its World Premiere, the movie is being given a small U.S. Distribution by Samuel Goldwyn Films. What was worth missing in Toronto is worth missing at a local art house. In a word, Fugitive Pieces can be described as “forgettable.” The film has lofty goals, but comes across as leaden and pretentious. It’s a character study in which the lead participant is the least interesting person in the movie. There’s something inherently frustrating and unsatisfying about that. As a viewer, you want to become involved in this man’s life but the film never takes you to a point where that’s possible. This is a fatal flaw.
Iron Man: 3.5 out of 4 stars
Iron Man is a different breed of superhero movie - a film that remembers it's possible to be outside the target demographic and still enjoy a tale set in this genre. What makes Iron Man interesting isn't the storyline which, except for a few wrinkles, is pretty much a standard issue superhero origin plot, but the way in which filmmaker Jon Favreau presents the narrative. Iron Man is mature in its perspective and the way it views its lead character, while at the same time tapping into the inner kid during some expertly executed action sequences. It uses CGI to advance the story rather than to populate the screen with pretty images. And, perhaps most importantly, the humor is restrained enough to avoid pushing the film over the line into camp or self-parody. Over the years, there have been only a handful of exceptional superhero movies, and Iron Man is among them.
Weekly discussion of the DVD and Blu-Ray world, including what's new in both formats.
Son of Rambow: 2.5 out of 4 stars
It's said one never forget the first time - first love, first kiss, first movie. That's certainly the case in Son of Rambow, in which one character's first cinematic experience, First Blood, opens up a world of new possibilities he had never dreamt of in his previously sheltered existence. The resulting tale of friendship and family touches plenty of crowd-pleasing buttons but comes across as more than a little derivative. The filmmakers have taken the familiar "school outsider climbs to the top of the social heap" storyline and given it a few new wrinkles, but not so many that one can't glimpse John Hughes peeking through the chinks. Son of Rambow not only takes place in the '80s, it feels like it was made in the '80s.
Thoughts on the upcoming Iron Man movie and its place in the ever-growing comic book superhero movie genre.
Deception: 1.5 out of 4 stars
To succeed, Deception requires viewers to be both inattentive and stupid. There's not a twist in this flimsy and moth-eaten plot that isn't both contrived and transparent and not a character who hasn't been hopelessly manipulated by the needs of the narrative. Good thrillers hide their seams; Deception exaggerates and highlights their existence. Sitting through this movie, it's impossible to enter its world because we never believe in anyone or anything that first-time director Marcel Langenegger puts on the screen.
Discussion of what's new in theaters during the final week of April 2008.
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: 2.5 out of 4 stars
Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay exists because it was cheap to make and has a devoted core audience, not because its predecessor, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, was a blockbuster. The filmmakers, understanding what made the first movie successful with its adherents, avoided changing the formula this time around. The second H&K movie might just as easily be called Harold and Kumar: More of the Same. Escape from Guantanamo Bay picks up where White Castle ended and continues the comedic episodic story, stretching it out to epic length, albeit without epic content.
Baby Mama: 2.5 out of 4 stars
It has become a time-honored tradition that stars of Saturday Night Live, upon graduating from the no-longer-funny late night show, elect to spread their wings and strive for cinematic greatness. With a few notable exceptions, most have crashed and burned in forgettable fashion to never be heard from again or to become the punch lines of jokes that are generally as funny as the ones they told during their SNL tenure. Baby Mama is the first SNL-inspired movie to star two female members of the ensemble: Tina Fey, who has been doing nicely for herself since leaving, and her gal-pal Amy Poehler, who's still on. While Baby Mama manages to avoid the pit of awfulness into which many of its predecessors have sunk, it achieves nothing more impressive than mediocrity. It's genial but stale, and neither side-splittingly hilarious nor painfully unfunny. In short, it's like a great many cinematic comedies that recycle comfortable plots and don't try anything daring.
Then She Found Me: 1.5 out of 4 stars
This is the sort of movie that gives “chick flicks” a bad name. It’s a cross between inept melodrama and a bad sit-com. The “comedy” (for lack of a better word) is obvious, poorly timed, and not especially funny. The “drama” (again, for lack of a better word) is sloppy, sappy, and ineffective. I imagine we’re supposed to feel sympathy for these characters but, with one exception, they are self-absorbed whiners who pretty much deserve what they get. The big emotional catharses at the end are intended to make us smile with delight that everything has turned out okay. By this point, many viewers will be struggling to keep the gag reflex under control.
Deal: 2 out of 4 stars
Poker is one of those games that, unless you're a die-hard, is a lot more fun to play than to watch. Nevertheless, because on-line poker sites have become so popular in recent years, there has been a upsurge in TV poker shows. The unfortunate byproduct of this "poker revolution" is that Hollywood has decided to get into the mix and, in true big studio fashion, filmmakers have nailed down the formula (which is loosely based on the long-standing one for the sports movie) and don't deviate from the template. Deal is the kind of mess that results from this slavish lack of creativity. The film has more of a checklist of clichés than an actual script and, when it comes to the cast, director Gil Cates Jr. is scraping the bottom of the barrel. There's no compelling reason to see Deal. Everything it offers is familiar to the extent where even though it's not a remake, it feels like one.
Weekly discussion of the world of home video, including new titles on standard DVD and Blu-Ray.
Roman de Gare (Cross Tracks): 3.5 out of 4 stars
The term "Hitchcockian" has become overused in recent years, but here is a movie to which it deserves to be applied. Roman de Gare is the most recent motion picture from veteran French director Claude Lelouch, and it's easily his best work in over a decade. Since the release of 1995's Les Miserables, Lelouch's star has taken a mighty tumble; this could be the movie to re-invigorate the 70-year old filmmaker's reputation. As thrillers go, Roman de Gare is twisty, smartly written, and immensely satisfying. It's the kind of motion picture that understands the audience's expectations and delights in playing with them. The film dances and teases and turns, sometimes taking us where we expect to go but often enjoying our bafflement. Yet, as obtuse as the movie may seem 20 minutes into the proceedings, this is not designed to frustrate through a lack of resolution. By the time the end credits roll, all has been revealed and explained.
Why print critics are headed down the same path already trodden by Woolly Mammoths and dinosaurs.
Weekly discussion of what's new in movie theaters, including films not reviewed for this website.
The Forbidden Kingdom: 3 out of 4 stars
All fanboys have their dream teams. Forget Obama and Clinton. How about Superman and Spider-Man? (Comic book fans salivated when DC and Marvel combined in the '70s for this super-sized team-up.) Or Schwarzenegger and Stallone? (This was an often-rumored pairing in the late '80s and early '90s than never came to fruition.) Or Dumbledore and Gandalf? (It's advised to never say never, but in this case…) For kung fu fans, the coupling most yearned for (at least recently) has been Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The Forbidden Kingdom brings them together for the first time and, while both are a little past their respective "sell by" dates, there's enough physicality left to provide an approximation of what might have been ten or fifteen years ago. For martial arts action fans, The Forbidden Kingdom may be the best fantasy story since the genre was opened to a wider audience by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
The Life Before Her Eyes: 3 out of 4 stars
The Life Before Her Eyes is an examination of survivor guilt. It uses as its backdrop a Columbine-like school shooting and flashes back and forth between a girl as she is at the time of the incident and the woman she will be fifteen years later. Director Vadim Perelman is careful in the way he assembles the movie to create some uncertainty about whether the "present" represents the scenes with the girl (flashing forward to her future) or the scenes with the woman (flashing back to her past). However, although events occur in two separate time lines, the screenplay eventually connects them in a way that may not be entirely expected.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall: 3.5 out of 4 stars
With The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Judd Apatow succeeded in an endeavor that foiled many of the more accomplished directors to precede him: the merging of the romantic comedy, a quintessential "female genre," with the raunchy comedy, a quintessential "male genre." The result had broad appeal, especially among college-age adults. Apatow used the same basic formula to similar effect for his follow-up, Knocked Up. Now, at least temporarily, he has passed the baton to one of his buddies, former Freaks and Geeks cohort Jason Segel. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, written by and starring Segel and directed by first-timer Nicholas Stoller, is at least as good as the two Apatow-directed movies, with a script that might be both a little sharper and a little more romantic.
Weekly look at what's new on standard DVD and Blu-Ray.
88 Minutes: 1 out of 4 stars
It's always a shock when a movie turns out to be this bad. It's an even bigger shock when it features an actor of the caliber and reputation of Al Pacino. 88 Minutes is one of the dumbest thrillers to arrive it theaters in a long time, so it's no surprise that it has been lingering on Columbia's shelves for more than a year. (It came out on DVD in Germany early in 2007.) The screenplay is credited to Gary Scott Thompson, but could have been written by a trained chimpanzee employing a "dial-a-cliché" computer program. Director Jon Avent gets into the general sense of badness by mangling continuity and Pacino does his part by sleepwalking his way through the role. The rest of the actors follow suit.
An update of what's happening with the ReelViews site design and when it's expected to go "live."
The Maltese Falcon: 3.5 out of 4 stars
The Maltese Falcon is among the most important and influential movies to emerge from the Hollywood system - as significant in some ways as its contemporary, Citizen Kane. In addition to providing the cinema with a new kind of private investigator (move over, Nick and Nora Charles), The Maltese Falcon supplied an entirely new style by which to tell these kinds of stories: film noir. It was the directorial birthplace of John Huston, who would become one of the dozen-or-so most revered American-born filmmakers, as well as the picture that transformed Humphrey Bogart from a B-level supporting villain to an A-level leading man. At the same time, it tells a twisty, compelling story that holds up reasonably well more than 65 years after being committed to film.
Weekly preview of new movies in movie theaters.
Prom Night: 1 out of 4 stars
Sony is releasing Prom Night under their "Screen Gems" imprint. Gems? More like turds. By its nature, the slasher film is not a terribly deep or complicated effort. To be successful, all such a movie needs is a sympathetic victim/protagonist, an implacable killer, a suspenseful buildup, and (most importantly) a cornucopia of blood and gore. The 2008 version of Prom Night misses on all four counts, making it virtually worthless by any measure of the genre. Despite having the same title and a similar premise to a 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis flick (kids getting slaughtered on prom night), this is not a remake. In fact, it really doesn't have much of a plot. It's basically The O.C. with a body count.
Young @ Heart: 3 out of 4 stars
When I think of the musical associations of men and women in their golden years, the names that come to mind are Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, and maybe Herb Alpert or Neil Sedaka. I wouldn't connect a white-haired old lady with Sonic Youth, Coldplay, and the Talking Heads. Yet that's where Young @ Heart takes its audience - into the behind-the-scenes stories, rehearsals, and performances of a New England chorus that takes its rock 'n roll, punk, and blues seriously, even though the youngest performer is 72. Young @ Heart, a labor of love for British documentarian Stephen Walker, doesn't tackle any big issues or ask any life-changing questions. It's a simple chronicle of admirable people that's part humor, part sentimentality, and part inspiration. If the characters populating this movie don't get you, the music probably will.
A short story I wrote about 15 years ago...
