SAW 5 (2008)

“You won’t believe how it ends”, proclaim the posters for the latest ‘Saw’ movie. It’s a good strap-line, and for once it’s true. You won’t believe how pitifully anti-climactic the ending is; the film doesn’t so much end as come to an abrupt, bewildering halt. This underwhelming denouement aside, even the most die-hard of ‘Saw’ fans won’t credit how tedious, lame and pointless this fourth sequel manages to be. ‘Saw IV’ tried to jump-start the series’ failing heart by introducing a Jigsaw acolyte, Detective Mark Hoffman (Costas Mandylor).



Padded out with multiple flashbacks to the four previous instalments, ‘Saw V’ details Hoffman’s training at the hands of the now-dead deviser of gruesome games. But another survivor of the last bloodbath, FBI agent Peter Strahm (Scott Patterson), suspects the heroic Hoffman of having had a hand in the killings. After all, Hoffman investigated every one of the murders, and had a personal vested interest in one of them – that of his slain sister.

Because all this boring police procedural stuff happens outside the slaughterhouse, any potential tension or suspense is dissipated. Meanwhile, inside the house of pain, it’s déjà vu all over again, as five incarcerated victims try to figure out cryptic video-taped clues, and escape fiendishly booby-trapped rooms. Yet not even these cruel engines of pain are as ingenious or horrific as those in the previous films. Any film that opens with a scene stolen from Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’ has much to live up to. Suffice to say, this doesn’t.

My Best Friends Girl (2008)

My Best Friend's Girl follows Tank (Dane Cook), a self-proclaimed rebound specialist who is hired by recently dumped men to help get their ex-girlfriends back. The masterful Tank takes these women out on a date that guarantees it will be the worst, most offensive experience they've ever had -- and they promptly run back to their old boyfriends with newfound appreciation.



Then Tank gets hired by his devastated roommate and best friend Dustin (Jason Biggs) to help him win back Alexis (Kate Hudson). Dustin and Alexis had been dating -- chastely -- for only five weeks when Dustin pours his feelings out to her over dinner. Stunned, Alexis breaks up with Dustin instead because she feels that she needs to play the field. Alexis has only had longterm serious relationships so far so she wants to experiment with commitment-free casual dating (and sex) for awhile.

Desperate, Dustin turns to Tank for help in getting her back. Tank reluctantly agrees, but discovers that Alexis is immune to his charms (or lack thereof) and she actually enjoys their awful date. They soon have a sex buddy relationship, even as an oblivious Dustin tries to win Alexis back. Much to his surprise, commitment phobic Tank finds himself falling for his best friend's girl. What will happen when the truth comes out?

Iron Man (2008)

By the end of his film Jon Favreau’s Iron Man is a light and fluffy character, a superhero colored in with bright bits of crayon, but he doesn’t start out that way. Ironically it’s early on in the story when Tony Stark, the man inside the bright red suit, is still a carefree playboy and globe-trotting arms merchant that he has the most edge. It’s there that Favreau’s superhero movie works best, as Stark is captured by a group of terrorists known as the Ten Rings (nod to all you Mandarin fans), injured, and forced to work in a dank cave designing weapons.

Left with no choice Stark sets to work making killing machines as they demand, he just doesn’t make the killing machine his captors expect. Robert Downey Jr. is understated and complex as Stark, slaving away in the dust, working in secret for his own freedom under the threat of death, turning his grave injuries into triumph. Favreau seems to know that this early origin story is indeed the best part of his script, since he lingers on it, spending nearly half of his unexpectedly lengthy film on this well staged and acted setup.

If you’ve seen the trailers then you know that Stark eventually gets out of the cave and you know how he does it. It’s the kind of moment that’s bound to elicit cheers from the audience, and it doesn’t hurt that we know he’s kicking terrorist ass. Once he gets home, Stark sets about re-evaluating his role in selling weapons to the murderers of the world. Deciding he’s had enough of it, he puts his mind to the task of figuring out how to stop it. Tony Stark isn’t just a wealthy arms dealer, he’s beyond brilliant. We believe that this charismatic man, this wealthy inventor with an oversized ego, might really come up with this particular answer. His answer is Iron Man.

It’s there that the movie starts missing beats. We meet Tony Stark’s assistant, the plucky Pepper Potts, played by terribly miscast Gwyneth Paltrow. Their scenes together are agony, and often seem utterly misplaced, as if they belong in an entirely different movie. We meet Stark’s business partner and mentor, Obadiah Stone played by a bald and bearded Jeff Bridges. There’s nothing subtle about Stone, or any of the limply mysterious plot devices surrounding him. You know what he’s up to the minute you see his chrome dome. We meet Stark’s best friend Jim Rhodes, the best character in the film’s supporting cast. His role is limited, but Terrence Howard acquits himself well and leaves us wanting more of Rhodes.

And eventually we meet the movie’s obligatory villain, an uncreative, familiar riff on the notion that every superhero must face his exact opposite and equal. The Hulk must fight the Super Hulk. Superman must fight three Supermen. Iron Man must fight the Super Iron Man. It’s not very creative, and their final fight leaves something to be desired.

The problems are all in the second half of the movie, where Iron Man stops being different and settles for being ordinary and at times even silly. It becomes a well put together, well polished, but very standard, paint by numbers superhero origin story. There are no surprises, and even while it remains immensely entertaining that’s somewhat disappointing after the first half of the film where we sit down and get to know a man who describes himself as a merchant of death. I wanted to see how such an obvious villain becomes a hero, and the answer is apparently that someone simply flips a switch in the script.

Yet I don’t want to sound like I’m down on this movie. Iron Man is a lot of fun, especially for a superhero origin story, since they so often end up going awry. While I wasn’t blown away by the final battle between Iron Man and the film’s baddie, there are other great action sequences. Unlike most superheroes, Iron Man isn’t about stopping petty criminals or stalking city streets. His mission is global, and his big coming out party happens in a dusty Afghanistan village, saving villagers and farmers… where absolutely no one is looking. It’s the best action sequence in the entire film, and the place where you’ll want to cheer, even though there’s no over muscled robot for Iron Man to face off against.

It’s also refreshing to see a superhero flick in which the hero isn’t some angsty teenager or a borderline underwear model. Tony Stark is a mature man, with deep rooted flaws. Unfortunately, Favreau’s movie chooses to ignore most of them when things really get moving. My hope is that with this as a setup, we’ll get more of the screwed up egomaniac lurking inside Tony Stark’s helmet, and maybe even a more worthy, creative villain as well. The film is filled with all sorts of geeky references hinting at things to come. Iron Man is good enough that you’ll look forward to seeing them brought to fruition in whatever sequels drop from this tree.

Wanted (2008)

Wanted tells the story of Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) a corporate loser that is set free from his boring existence when a woman going by the alias of "Fox" (Angelina Jolie) informs him that he is the son of the world's greatest assassin. Wesley quickly gives up on his chosen profession of keyboard monkey and turns to the world of professional killing instead. Fox takes Wesley to "The Fraternity" an organization of assassins lead by Sloan (Morgan Freeman) who tells Wesley that he and his group of murderers only kill bad people that are picked by reading the binary code contained in the fabric spit out by a mystical loom. After an hour's worth of the most boring training montages ever put to celluloid, Wesley is suddenly able to control the arc of bullets, run across speeding trains and survive bone shattering injuries by bathing in a pool of magic candle wax. But Wesley soon learns that Sloan may not be the good guy he pretends to be and suddenly nothing makes sense to him anymore, but that's probably due to his attempt to make sense of "Wanted's" underdeveloped script.
Wanted is an annoying movie on many levels, first and foremost is the fact that everyone in the film goes out of their way to look cool at all times. By trying so hard to be "bad ass" the entire cast just ends up looking like your Uncle trying on a System of a Down sweatshirt at the local Hot Topic while giving you the "double thumbs up" to remind you that he's the cool Uncle. Every "cool" moment in the film feels forced, by the second time that somebody shoots another person's bullet out of the air, the effect is completely mundane. Yet it occurs another ten or twelve times… in the same goddamn scene!!! The second most annoying thing about "Wanted" is that at least half of the film is shown in slow motion, the first fucking shot of the film is of a guy getting out of a cab …in slow mo!?!? I'm a big fan of director Timur Bekmambetov's prior films (Nightwatch and Daywatch) that gleefully rooted themselves in the style over substance category, but Wanted is just way too stylish to stomach. Every single action scene feels like you're watching somebody else playing "Grand Theft Auto 4," there isn't an ounce of originality present in the film and the coolness factor of slow motion aka "bullet time" action scenes dissolved after the first time I heard somebody mutter "Know Kung-Fu" at a VHS copy of Johnny Mnemonic.
The final straw of annoyance that broke this camel's back was the nonexistent plot or even an attempt to craft a cohesive storyline by the screenwriters. I won't even bother to call the douche bags by name other than to refer to them as the assholes who wrote 2 Fast 2 Furious. An example of Wanted's need to not only suspend your disbelief, but to actually dangle it over a pit of alligators occurs near the film's climax. At the end of "Wanted" Wesley storms a factory filled with the world's greatest assassins and not a single one of them can defended the heavily guarded compound or even get a shot to hit a guy that's only been training for a week or two at this killing thing. Compound that problem with hilariously one dimensional characters whose names should have been "Gun Guy," "Knife Guy," "Rat Guy" and "Chick that looks like a guy" and you've got yourselves one mind numbingly boring flick. And speaking of the chick that looks like a guy, why the hell is Mangelina Jolie an international sex symbol? She has all the curves and sexuality of your average teenage boy combined with one of those freaky looking Bratz dolls. In one scene she gets out of one of the magic candle wax ponds naked and when shot from the back I thought that Shia LaBeouf was making an uncredited cameo.
Wanted is a vague, ambiguous action film filled with unexplained super powers, magic knitting machines and more slow motion scenes that Battlefield Earth. I had extremely low expectations for the film going into the viewing, but I was at least hoping for an entertaining flick. Instead I spent the majority of Wanted's 110 minute running time checking my watch, rolling my eyes and wishing that I had come to the screening alone. Not for the lack of good company, I had a great time with the people I attended it with, but in all honesty if I had been there by myself I would have walked out of "Wanted" less than halfway in and I wouldn’t have even bothered to write a review for it. Simply put the only enjoyable moment I had during the entire film was when Wesley finally learns how to curve the bullet around an obstacle to hit a hidden target. My enjoyment had nothing to do with McAvoy's character succeeding at something he had continually failed at; it just happened to be the exact time I finally squeezed out a fart that had been building up inside of me before we had even entered the theater.

Gomorra (2008)

Five stories set in and around Naples, where the residents' lives are dominated by organised crime outfit, the Camorra. Based on the best-selling non-fiction book by Roberto Saviano

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, Gomorrah is a compelling re-invention of the Italian mafia movie. Adapted from Roberto Saviano's book of the same name, which sold over 1.2 million copies in Italy alone, Matteo Garrone's film is the very antithesis of Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy. While the opening scene, a multiple hit in a tanning salon, may suggest otherwise, this is a film that does not set out to glamourise the lives of gangsters.

The film oscillates between five separate stories all touched by the shadowy world of the Camorra, the mafia-like crime organisation which originated in the Naples region. Totò (Abruzzese) is a 13 year-old boy who delivers groceries and becomes enticed by the world of crime after he finds a gun and stash and returns the illicit contraband to the rightful owner. Likewise, Marco (Macor) and Ciro (Petrone) are two foolish young lads with ambitions to take on a boozy local Camorra boss.

Meanwhile, a tailor named Pasquale (Cantalupo) in a mob-funded fashion business secretly goes to work for rival Chinese manufacturers, to give them "lessons" in his craft. A businessman, Franco (Servillo) arranges for toxic waste to be dumped on mob-owned land, while he offers university graduate Roberto (Paternoster) a chance to work for him. Finally ageing mob soldier Don Ciro (Imparato), who delivers money to the families of prisoners affiliated with his clan, finds himself in a wilderness as his bosses lose control.

Garrone, one of six writers on the project including Saviano himself, has no qualms about dropping audiences straight into this disorientating world - one that is also decidedly everyday. While the likes of Marco and Ciro begin the film, quoting from Scarface - Marco even wearing a replica of Tony Montana's infamous red Hawaiian shirt - there is little else movie-like about these wannabe gangsters. Even the scene where Marco and Ciro uncover a shipment of weapons, spraying bullets gleefully across a river, is almost laughable given that they're dressed in only their underwear.

Attempting to show how criminals live side-by-side with local law-abiding residents, Gomorrah does very little in attempting to mythologise the life of crime. The action takes place primarily in the decaying and decidedly unglamorous Naples suburb of Scampia where these criminals do their business in disused buildings, grim housing blocks and dingy bars.

In some ways Gomorrah recalls Ricky Tognazzi's 1993 film La Scorta (The Escort) a similarly downbeat take on the Sicilian mafia. Indeed, the only glamour on show is a world away, as we briefly glimpse a television news-clip showing Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet at the Venice Film Festival.

Garrone and his fellow writers have a knack of crafting memorable scenarios - such as when Totò and some other lads prove that they're "men" by wearing a (very ragged) piece of body armour and taking a bullet from a gun at close range. There's something very desperate about this, a feeling that pervades the film as a whole. Invariably some strands of the story, which don't overlap greatly, are more compelling than the others - in particular the Marco/Ciro and Pasquale narratives - but there's no doubt that Gomorrah knits together to create an impressive patchwork impression of the modern-day mafia.

Verdict

If you want to see a gangster film that isn't all about stylized violence, then Gomorrah is for you. More thoughtful than most gangland films, its attempt to show how organized crime has infiltrated every level of society is impressive.

Babylon A.D. (2008)

Hollywood hasn’t been kind to Vin Diesel. His last movies haven’t done too well at the box-office, so it wasn’t much of a surprise for him to want to return to the science fiction genre that spawned his career a decade or so ago (remember Pitch Black?). Good for him, as I’m sure on paper Babylon A.D. looked like a promising mixture of Blade Runner and Children of Men. Unfortunately, it’s delivered in a crude, unfinished way that is sure to add another notch onto Diesel’s “why did I star in this movie” belt.


The biggest failures of the film are the lack of character development and back story. Vin Diesel is mercenary named Toorop, living in what I suspect is a war-torn Russia. Why have the Asian and Eastern European countries gone to hell? If the movie going to give visions of an apocalyptic future, there had better be at least a 20-second blurb on how it got there. Off tangent, Toorop is hired to escort a young girl named Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) and her caretaker Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh) to New York City in six days. Again, why is Canada and the United States in perfect shape, if the rest of the world isn’t? Should I assume we blasted them back into the Dark Ages? And although director Mathieu Kassovitz at least tries to explain Aurora’s “gift” and why people are willing to kill for it, it’s done haphazardly and late in the game — so late in fact that by that time the payload is delivered I realized I really didn’t care anymore.

Then there is the action. For an action/adventure movie Babylon A.D. is a bit on the weak side too. There are the consummate explosions, car chases and fights, but they’re lackluster and very un-actiony. Everyone appears to be just going through the paces — even Michelle Yeoh, who is usually good for some impressive martial arts, barely breaks a sweat. To give you an idea as to how poorly everything is setup, there is a scenes when Toorop is thrust into a plexiglass cage with some mindless gladiator. I was looking forward to a gritty, bloody mixed martial arts fight but only got a menacing statement from Toorop of, “You wanna fight?”, one or two punches and a quick choke — how anti-expectational! The only standout scene that comes to mind is a snowmobile chase in which an impressive backflip is worked into the mix. Hell, even the final showdown with a power corrupted high priestess played by Charlotte Rampling is nonexistent. Are we to believe she just lets Toorop walk off into the sunset? Are we to believe he lets her go off of to live her villainous life unmolested too? Gimme a break.

It was said that the executives at Twentieth Century Fox meddled throughout the making of Babylon A.D. due to cost overruns and creative differences. I can’t for the life of me figure out what could have cost so much more than expected. As for creative differences, did they request all the rewrites and/or reshots that caused this film to play out so poorly? While that may be a possibility, I find that difficult to fathom too since the cyberpunk book that the film is based on, Babylon Babies by Maurice G. Dantec, isn’t exactly literary gold. The only thing I can definitively blame them for is the fact they wasted space on some 3400 screens across the nation. This was undoubtedly meant to be a straight-to-DVD feature.

Eureka (2006)

To outsiders and recent transplants, the Pacific Northwest remains a bit of an enigma. Not the cities, mind you -- the secret is out, way out, that Vancouver, B.C., is beyond cool, that Seattle is a place of unparalleled beauty and that Portland has a pristine public transportation system. And dirty, dirty strippers.

What fascinates people is the incredibly varied nature that surrounds these and other urban centers -- deserts, mountains, empires of pine and cedar thick enough to hide lots of strange, creepy things.

It probably was a foregone conclusion that when the producers of Sci Fi's "Eureka" were looking for a setting for their bizarre hamlet, the Pacific Northwest would win, hands down.

The nation may be full of little towns sequestered from the rest of the world where a U.S. marshal conceivably can get stranded after crashing his car, but let's face it: If "Eureka's" Jack Carter (Colin Ferguson) and his kid, Zoe (Jordan Hinson), spun off the road in bayou country, viewers would start humming the theme to "Deliverance."

Getting lost in the Northwest brings scenes from "Twin Peaks" and "Northern Exposure" to mind, translating to a friendlier kind of sinister.

Not to mention smarter. Eureka, Carter discovers in tonight's two-hour pilot, is a town in which mild-mannered guys build deadly contraptions in their basements, where children write lengthy equations on the sidewalks for fun, and where the police carry unusually complicated guns.
Following World War II, the story goes, President Truman enlisted the help of Albert Einstein to gather the world's finest minds in one place that no one would ever pinpoint. There they could invent and perfect a galaxy of contraptions to make our lives better, and make the military more intimidating.

As one would expect, something goes horribly wrong with one of those experiments, and Carter rolls up his sleeves, signs a few non-disclosure agreements, and saves the day.

It's all very quirky. Too quirky, maybe, for an audience that is used to spaceships, robots and explosions.

Though every episode promises an "aha!" moment based in quantum physics and obscure scientific laws, this world is relatively flat, conceptually speaking, in comparison to the complexity woven into series such as "Stargate SG-1" and "Battlestar Galactica."

This does not mean "Eureka" is a complete waste of time. Not at all. The characters are fun, Ferguson is believable and pleasant, the script is solidly constructed, and the visuals are slickly produced. All in all, it's a sweet series and probably not long for this world.

But that will depend on whether the darker forces at work in "Eureka's" community can take this story beyond its current mundane direction.

Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008)

If you thought the latest Indiana Jones adventure was implausible, wait till you see Journey to the Center of the Earth! It makes Kingdom of the Crystal Skull look like a documentary. It's fun, though, and a perfectly good way for a family to spend a Saturday afternoon, particularly if that family has a lot of 8-to-12-year-old boys. I have friends with kids in that demographic, and watching the movie I thought, "Those guys will LOVE this."

It was shot in digital 3D and is being exhibited that way in select theaters. By all means, if you see it, see it in 3D. The filmmakers indulge in some shameless gimmickry every now and then, making characters point things directly at the audience for no good reason, but for the most part the effects look fantastic. It's a smart way to bring the story to life, even if the story in question is all spectacle and very little brain.

Brendan Fraser, getting back into wholesome action-hero mode, plays Trevor Anderson, a scientist who specializes in tectonic physics. That was the life's work of his deceased brother, Max, whose 13-year-old son Sean (Josh Hutcherson) has now come to stay with Trevor for a few days. Trevor hasn't seen his nephew in years and barely knows the lad. Sean, sullen and heavily into his PSP (that's a portable video game system, old-timers), was only 2 or 3 when his dad disappeared.

Trevor finds his brother's old paperback copy of Jules Verne's A Journey to the Center of the Earth, in which Max made numerous elaborate notes detailing his theories on the potential reality of some of Verne's fanciful notions. Somehow this results in Trevor and Max dashing off to Iceland, where they seek to explore a particular mountain. Their guide is Hannah (Anita Briem), a fetching Icelandic woman whose late father also believed Verne's tales were more fact than fiction. She leads them up the mountain and into a cave, whereupon the three of them do indeed take a voyage, or "journey," if you will, to what you might call the "center" of the Earth.

The story has two immediate problems with plausibility. One is how they can possibly descend hundreds of miles into the Earth's belly, and do so quickly, without killing themselves in the process. They'd have to fall, really, and it's usually deadly to fall more than about 100 feet, let alone millions of feet. The other problem is getting back up again.

But never mind. It turns out that the center of the Earth, despite having no light source, is extremely well-lit, and apparently there's at least one cell phone tower (don't ask), and the place teems with exotic flora and fauna, some of which are potentially deadly. (Wouldn't it suck to survive a 100-mile fall, only to be eaten by a fish?) Special-effects veteran Eric Brevig, directing his first feature, keeps things moving quickly, essentially hopping from one action sequence to the next and leaving just enough time in between to catch your breath. The pacing is good. That's crucial in a film like this, which could otherwise become so action-packed that it grows wearisome.

What the film doesn't do (and its screenplay, attributed to three writers, is to blame) is bother to flesh out any of its characters. And it only has three of them! It's exceedingly rare for an action film to have such a small cast -- usually there are bad guys and enemies and allies and henchmen to deal with -- and you notice that smallness all the more when the three of them are so thinly drawn. And the obligatory romance between Trevor and Hannah? Come on, movie. Your heart's not in it. It's OK for a man and a woman to appear together in a film and NOT kiss at the end, you know.

Much of what happens is hard to swallow even for a viewer who has willingly suspended his disbelief, and moments of genuine suspense are rare. On the other hand, a few sequences do produce some giddy enjoyment, and the characters, generic though they may be, are appealing. I never disliked the film. It's an energetic, good-natured romp, and maybe that's enough.

Max Payne (2008)

Here's the one thing that makes "Max Payne" comparatively painless: Unlike most movies based on video games — the entire filmography of German director Uwe Boll, for example - it doesn't try to replicate the sensation of playing. It doesn't make you think you're controlling the characters, doesn't place you in the middle of their nausea-inducing world.
Instead, "Max Payne" is just a straight-up action picture, and a rather bombastic, familiar one at that.

Director John Moore ("Behind Enemy Lines") rips off John Woo with endless, hyperstylized shootouts, all in slow motion with shattered glass showering everything in a million little pieces. All that's missing are the strategically placed doves.

That's not all that's coming down, though: It seems to rain or snow constantly in the movie's darkly gothic vision of New York, an attempt at emulating classic noir style. Some of the lighting, shadows and camera angles at the beginning are sufficiently evocative of the genre, but after a while it all feels dreary and smothering. Then again, "Max Payne" the video game was inspired by film noir, and has now, in turn, inspired a movie of its own. It's so meta.

Mark Wahlberg looks like he's in perpetual agony as the title character, an NYPD detective still searching for the killers of his wife and infant son years later. The return to action isn't a horrible fit for Wahlberg, but after his Oscar-nominated performance in "The Departed" and his behind-the-scenes work with the hugely successful "Entourage," he doesn't need this kind of dopey gig anymore.

"I don't believe in heaven," Max says in the opening voiceover as he's about to drown in an icy river. "I believe in pain. I believe in fear. I believe in death." He doesn't exactly lighten up - or develop much as a character - from there.

Max teams up with Russian mob assassin Mona Sax (Mila Kunis), whose sister (new Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko) was killed in a way that may tie her to Max's family. Kunis is incredibly sexy with her luxurious, dark hair and knee-high black boots, but it's impossible to take her seriously as a machine gun-toting enforcer. When she screams at Max in a dark alleyway, "Kneel the (expletive) down!" it sounds like her "Family Guy" character, Meg, yelling at younger brother Chris for embarrassing her at the mall.

Among those who cross Max path's in his search for the truth are his former partner (Donal Logue), an internal affairs agent (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, woefully underused in just a few scenes) and a longtime family friend and former cop (Beau Bridges) who's now the head of security for the pharmaceutical firm where Max's wife worked.

Somewhere amid the noise and the homicidal valkyries - oh yes, "Max Payne" has those, too - there may be a just-say-no-to-drugs message. There may also be an anti-war message. The valkyries may be real, or they may be a hallucination, the result of taking too much of a highly addictive blue liquid substance. Hard to tell - or care - even once the game is over.

One and a half stars out of four.

Burn After Reading (2008)

Last year, Joel and Ethan Coen shocked and awed audiences all over with their gritty (by their standards at least) indie film “No Country for Old Men.” Now, they follow up that very dramatic film with one of the funnier films to grace the silver screens this year. “Burn After Reading” is a roller coaster of emotions that will have you laughing one moment and gasping in shock the next.


Ex-CIA agent Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) loses a CD containing his memoirs and is blackmailed by two dimwitted gym employees (Brad Pitt and Francis McDormand). Things get even crazier when Cox is divorced by his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) who is having an affair with a ladies man named Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney). And that is all I am going to mention about the plot. Because the farther I go, the more likely I am going to spoil the film for you.
While the film is excellently written, I was also sold on the well-done scenes of violence that are sprinkled in. Of course “No Country for Old Men” had some extremely violent moments in it, but I found moments in “Burn After Reading” that were just as comparable (to which I applaud the marketing behind this film since we are lead to believe that this film is just all laughs… not so).
Many skeptics out there are wondering whether or not this film is actually good. I will say that it is definitely not a “Big Lebowski” but it is definitely a much better film than “The Ladykillers.” I think it is easy to say that this is the most commercial the Coens have gone before, and it works, mainly due to both the direction and the amazing cast.
I say direction because this movie has so many twists and turns amongst all the different storylines, that they could’ve been lost in the hands of lesser filmmakers, but here they make sense. Never will you get confused in this movie, which is amazing for something with such a complex narrative and so many characters. Then, in terms of acting, the entire cast was brilliant; my favorite being John Malkovich. Of course, he tends to be good in just about anything but I felt like he really excelled in this film. I especially love the scene between Malkovich and Brad Pitt when they first meet face to face. See it, and you’ll understand.
The film does have a few flaws, however, and I did feel like something was missing to push it to the final plateau of greatness, and that is that the film is over before you even know it. The movie is about 97 minutes long, which is about the standard running time movie-goers can handle in this day and age, yet, I wanted to see so much more, especially more J.K. Simmons (he steals the show for the few scenes he was in).
If you are a fan of the Coen Brothers, you owe it to yourself to see this film. It’s not their greatest film, but it is so much fun to watch and in a time when Apatow is king of comedy, it is refreshing to see something different.

Tropic Thunder (2008)

I used to LOVE Ben Stiller. Zoolander, Dodgeball, Meet The Parents and several others. But over the last couple of years it seems he’s put out trash film after trash film and I’ve almost totally lost interest. I sort of feel the same way about Jack Black… used to love him, but he’s disappointed me too much over the last little while. So when the first couple of trailers came out for Tropic Thunder, the only thing that REALLY caught my attention was the presence of Robert Downey Jr. playing a black guy. It looked like it could be too funny for words. So my expectations were that the movie would be bad, but that Downey may be good enough to at least give me some laughs. I’m very happy to say the film greatly exceeded my expectations.

THE GENERAL IDEA
The basic idea behind Tropic Thunder looks something like this: A big budget war movie is being made by a first time director and a hard assed heartless producer staring 3 big name actors. The problem is the film isn’t going so well, the producer is furious, the actors are hindering the process and the director is at his wits end. In a desperate attempt to give the movie a gritty realism, the director drops the actors in the middle of the jungle, but unknowingly drops them in the wrong country… and although they think they’re secretly being filmed for the movie, they’re actually in the middle of a fight for their lives.

THE GOOD
I’ve said this many times before, but it’s worth repeating here. If you’re making a comedy movie, the single most important thing is to make people laugh. You can get away with a LOT of mistakes in your movie if you make the audience laugh… at the same time you can do everything right, but if you fail to make people laugh, then your movie sucks. Tropic Thunder makes you laugh. It’s just that simple. They aren’t the smartest laughs… they aren’t high brow laughs… but oh my goodness they are laughs nonetheless. This is a FUNNY flick.

We all expected Robert Downey Jr. would knock it out of the park, and he doesn’t disappoint (although someone else stole the show from him… but I’ll get to that in a moment). He’s always working the character so much that even the most mundane lines that come out of his mouth make you smile. When he switches from “black” to Australian it’s pure gold.

As the movie starts we’re treated to 4 fake trailers, each staring one of the 4 main actors in the movie. The trailers are designed to not only be funny, but also to introduce us to the characters. Sweet heavens THEY WERE HILARIOUS! But they weren’t just hilarious, they were also a very creative and effective way to get us to know the main players before the “story” of the movie got started.

The cameos in this film are some of the best executed use of cameos I’ve ever seen. Very well done.

Ok… this is the big one. TOM “Fucking Scientologist Freaky Nut Job” Cruise flat out steals this movie every single moment he’s on screen. No, I’m not being sarcastic. No, I’m not exaggerating. And no, I’m not kidding. Cruise doesn’t have a huge role in the movie (maybe about 10 minutes of screen time) but wow… each precious second he’s on screen I was laughing my ass off. This was EXACTLY the type of role he needed to do right now. I’m so glad they never used any of his footage in the trailers… it makes it more effective. Mark my words… people will be talking about Cruise’s performance in this movie for the rest of the year. It’s pure comedy gold.

THE BAD
Remember how I said if you make people laugh in a comedy, you can get away with a lot of other stuff? Yeah well, it’s a good thing for Tropic Thunder because making us laugh is about the only thing this movie does right. The story was horrible, it sometimes couldn’t decide if it was a slapstick comedy or just sort of a silly one, and a lot of things just didn’t make any sense whatsoever. I won’t bother listing all the individual items that were bad… just know that nothing else in the movie really worked. But hey… it’s a comedy and it makes you laugh, so it’s all forgivable.

OVERALL
Tropic Thunder is a damn funny movie that gave me about 10 HARD laugh out loud moments with about 20 good giggles to back them up with. As a result, I walked out of the theater having been thoroughly entertained. Yes it has a wide variety of weaknesses, but you can easily get past those as you try to catch your breath from laughing so hard. I can not emphasize this last point enough… TOM CRUISE RULES IN THIS MOVIE. Overall I’m giving Tropic Thunder an 8 out of 10.

Warbirds (2008)

In the midst of World War 2, an officer leads a group of female pilots on a mission to deliver a secret weapon, only to crash land on an island in the Pacific after an encounter with a deadly storm. On the island, they must not only contend with a small band of Japanese soldiers but the native inhabitants of the island as well - vicious prehistoric pterodacyls.

I admit I'm a sucker for these Sci-Fi Channel movies and I watch a ton of them. Usually they're just sort of campy fun if taken sort of tongue in cheek. The problem with this one is it seems to really try to be serious with itself, and it's just way too incredibly awful to do so. It was hard to even get a laugh out of the overall idiocy of the whole thing.

Where to start? I don't know... how about the bad (but expected to be at least) special effects. Or the simply dreadful acting, although with some of the terrible lines they had to say I'm not surprised. Or I could just mention how ridiculous so much of it was... from crash landing a plane on a small island, to fixing it up again and taking off without issue, to giant pterodactyls that can apparently fly as fast as planes, to a man and a woman repeatedly lifting 500 lb barrels into the back of a truck with ease, to the silly political correctness sprinkled throughout, to the most mind-bending stupid ending ever... the list could go on.

But at least the ladies never have a shortage of make-up. It's smeared on their faces the entire movie despite being trapped on a south Pacific island. I guess it was supposed to give it more of a period feel of the old USO type look, but it was closer to a porno look. That said, a porno would probably have better acting... and come to think of it a better plot.

Easily one of the worst Sci-Fi Channel stinkers ever.

Keith (2008)

A popular 17-year-old high school senior, Natalie, thinks she's got life figured out, until she meets and falls for Keith Zetterstrom, a new student. Natalie is dismayed when Keith has little interest in her, but she ultimately discovers the boy is hiding a dark secret, with tragic results

Eye for an Eye (2008)

A virulent throwback to the vigilante movies of the '70s. Field is a respectable middle-class wife and mother who turns into a gun toting suburban Rambette after her daughter's raped and murdered before her very ears (she's on the phone). The police have an airtight case, but a technicality allows the killer to walk free, and Sally takes to following him. What she sees confirms her already low opinion: not only is he bearded, tattooed and Sutherland, he's also rude and unrepentant, tortures animals, and pisses on the sidewalk. For this, he must die.

Vigilante thrillers are by nature contrived and manipulative, but Schlesinger's reactionary film knows no bounds when it comes to emotional blackmail. Does it make the crime more terrible that it's committed on the victim's birthday? Are such judicial miscarriages so prevalent that a victim support group could shield a summary execution agency? While assorted authority figures pay lip service to law and order, compassion and forgiveness, their words ring hollow: the film operates as propaganda for capital punishment. Mercifully, it's not very effective propaganda. The characterisation is so thin, and the plotting so crude, it's only the violence which sets this apart from the banalities of TV fare - that and the novelty of seeing Sally Field come on like Travis Bickle.

Californication (2007)

David Duchovny just played a miserable screenwriter in Jake Kasdan's indie feature "The TV Set," so his role as a miserable, semi-blocked novelist in "Californication" falls into the same, rather peculiar niche. Seeking the same jaunty, jaundiced tone as Showtime's "Weeds" -- while incorporating attention-grabbing helpings of nudity and sex -- the premiere is watchable but not fully arousing, often feeling as clenched, dour and indecisive as its brooding protagonist.
The aptly named Hank Moody (Duchovny) ostensibly seems to have it all, bedding beautiful women and having seen his book, with the pretentious title "God Hates Us All," adapted into a successful movie -- starring "Katie and Tom," no less.

Unfortunately, Hank hated the movie, and he's finding it difficult putting two sentences together on paper -- largely because his beguiling ex Karen (Natascha McElhone) has left him, found a new mate and taken their 12-year-old daughter (Madeleine Martin) with her.
So while Hanks pines for Karen, he finds solace, as she puts it, by "sticking your dick in anything that moves trying to get back at me." There are certainly worse ways to pass the time, and this form of revenge allows for liberal glimpses of bared breasts (at least a half-dozen in the pilot, which isn't a bad breast-per-minute ratio), but not much in the way of emotional connection, either with Hank or anybody else.

As written by Tom Kapinos and directed by Stephen Hopkins, "Californication" (a pretty stupid title, really) has trouble delineating where the viewer's sympathies are supposed to reside. Hank doesn't need to be likable any more than Tony Soprano did, but watching him stagger through the premiere -- drinking too much, rudely insulting a fix-up by his agent (Evan Handler) and bedding women who are all inappropriate in various ways -- makes it increasingly difficult to care about his fate.

Perhaps that's why the best scene -- in which Hank confronts a lout who answers his cell phone during a movie -- feels like a cathartic throwaway, serving the dual purpose of having the show's protagonist finally do something that's easy to applaud.

Duchovny has always possessed underrated comedy chops, as evidenced by his brilliant guest shots on "The Larry Sanders Show." Still, his detached, distant qualities as an actor -- and in particular, as this character -- have the effect of sapping the show's vitality.

As for the already much-discussed sexual content, it's hardly racy enough to make anyone forget Duchovny's earlier stint as the lovelorn narrator of Showtime's "Red Shoe Diaries." Trying to have it both ways, those sequences appear designed to simultaneously titillate and convey Hank's emptiness, though seeing how quickly his conquests stack up brings to mind Woody Allen's line about how even "the wrong kind" of orgasm is still A-OK.

Tonally, the series feels like a logical companion to "Weeds" -- a show that's also star-driven and equally sour. At first blush, anyway, "Californication" isn't necessarily a bad place to be, but unless the series finds viable avenues to pursue beyond wallowing in Hank's self-pity, it'll be Showtime subscribers before long who wind up feeling screwed.

The Kautokeino Rebellion (2008)

international title: The Kautokeino Rebellion
original title: Kautokeino-Opprøret
country: Norway, SE/DK
year: 2008
genre: fiction
directed by: Nils Gaup
film run: 96'
screenplay: Nils Isak Eira, Nils Gaup, Reidar Jönsson, Pelone Wahl
cast: Mikael Persbrandt, Anni-Kristiina Juuso, Mikkel Gaup, Michael Nyqvist, Bjørn Sundquist, Sverre Porsanger, Nils Utsi, Nicolaj Coster-Waldau
cinematography by: Philip Øgaard
film editing: Jan-Olof Svarvar
art director: Karl Júlíusson
music: Mari Boine
producer: Jørgen Storm Rosenberg
production: Rubicon Film AS, FilmLance International AB, Sandrew Metronome Danmark, Borealis Production (NO)



For centuries the windswept mountain plateau of northern Scandinavia has been inhabited by the native Sami population and their reindeers. But modernisation is about to enter the desolate village of Kautokeino where the authority is held by the prosperous and ruthless liquor dealer Ruth. One of the native tribes, led by the young woman Elen, refuses to pay their unjust debt to Ruth, leading to one of the most dramatic episodes in northern Scandinavian history.

Eight Below (2006)

You think penguins have it bad? At least they've adapted to survive in Antarctica. "Eight Below" tells the harrowing story of a dogsled team left chained outside a research station when the humans pull out in a hurry. The guide who used and loved them wants to return to rescue them but is voted down: Winter has set in and all flights are canceled until spring. Will the dogs survive? Or will the film end in the spring, with the guide uttering a prayer over their eight dead bodies?

Remarkable, how in a film where we know with an absolute certainty that all or most of the dogs must survive, "Eight Below" succeeds as an effective story. It works by focusing on the dogs. To be sure, the guide Jerry (Paul Walker) never stops thinking about them, but there's not much he can do. He visits Dr. Davis McClaren (Bruce Greenwood), the scientist whose research financed the dogsled expedition, and he hangs out at his mobile home on a scenic Oregon coast, and he pursues a reawakening love affair with Katie (Moon Bloodgood), the pilot who ferried them to and from the station. To give him credit, he's depressed, really depressed, by the thought of those dogs chained up in the frigid night, but what can he do? Meanwhile, the subtitles keep count of how long the dogs have been on their own: 50 days ... 133 days ... 155 days ...

If there is a slight logical problem with their fight for survival, it's that they have plenty of daylight to work with. Isn't there almost eternal darkness during the Antarctic winter, just as there's almost eternal daylight during the summer? I suppose we have to accept the unlikely daylight because otherwise the most dramatic scenes would take place in darkness.

The dog sequences reminded me of Jack London's dog novels, especially White Fang and The Call of the Wild. Do not make the mistake of thinking London's books are for children. They can be read by kids in grade school, yes, but they were written by an adult with serious things to say about the nature of dogs and the reality of arctic existence. There's a reason they're in the Library of America.

In "Eight Below," as in Jack London, the dogs are not turned into cute cartoon pets but are respected for their basic animal natures. To be sure, the sled dogs here do some mighty advanced thinking, as when one dog seems to explain a fairly complex plan to the other dogs by telepathy. I was also impressed by the selfless behavior of the dogs as they bring birds to feed a member of the pack who has been crippled. I was under the impression that if a dog died in such circumstances, the others would eat it to avoid starvation, but apparently not (you can't assume the idea didn't occur to Frank Marshall, the director, since he made "Alive," the story of the Andes survivors).

Could the dogs (six huskies and two malamutes) really have survived unsheltered for five months, scavenging for themselves through an Antarctic winter? I learn from Variety that "Eight Below" is inspired by a Japanese film, itself based on real events, but in the 1958 "true story," seven of nine dogs died. Still, the film doesn't claim to be a documentary, and the story, believable or not, is strong and involving. It's the stuff about the humans that gets thin: The film lacks a human villain because the decision not to return for the dogs is wise and prudent, and not made by a mean man who hates dogs. You might think, however, that when Jerry appeals to Dr. McClaren, the scientist would exert himself a little more to save the dogs, since they saved his life. (How he gets into trouble and what the dogs do to save him I will leave for you to experience; it provides the film's most compelling moments.)

Movies about animals always live with the temptation to give the animals human characteristics. Lassie, for example, could do everything but dial the telephone and drive the car. The brilliance of "March of the Penguins" involved dropping a French soundtrack in which the penguins expressed themselves in voiceover dialogue and simply trusting in the reality of their situation. "Eight Below" is restrained, for the most part, in how it presents its dogs. When there are closeups of a dog's face, absorbed in thought, anxiety or yearning, we aren't asked to believe anything we don't already believe about dogs: They do think, worry and yearn, and they love, too. Or if they don't, I don't want to know about it.

The Mist (2007)

With this, his third theatrical adaptation of a Stephen King story, Frank Darabont has proven two things: First, that magic happens whenever he and King get together and the two of them should consider moving into a duplex. Second, that Frank Darabont is a sadist. He gets his jollies by hurting his audience. Not physically, but emotionally. Where other filmmakers get a reaction by ratcheting up the tension or raising the stakes to deliver thrills, Darabont does it by stabbing his audience with an emotional knife, and then twisting and turning it until we’re utterly drained of feeling. He takes special pleasure in sticking his switchblade into men, and previous Darabont directorial efforts like The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption seem specifically geared to hit that soft, gooey spot that the hardened, manly man ego keeps hidden away deep inside. Frank Darabont earns a living making grown men cry, and there’s no one better at it.

With The Mist, he’s done it again. By the time the film’s credits rolled I was wrecked, a mass of roiling emotion and depression. The movie sticks with you long after the lights come on; it lingers in your soul like a recurring nightmare or the shadowy vision of an inevitable and terrible future.

It starts with a storm and a geeky, blink and you’ll miss it, nod to fans of Stephen King’s “Dark Tower” novels. David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his family retreat to their basement to ride out the bad weather. When they emerge in the morning a tree has crashed through their front window, and the power is out. David and his young son go into town for supplies, leaving his wife behind. It’s at the grocery store where David first realizes something is horribly wrong. A man, bloodied and panicked, races into the store screaming “there’s something in the mist!” Just as David and the other customers look out the window to see an unnatural mist rolling towards the store, the city’s air raid sirens sound.

They soon discover they’re trapped inside the store. To leave is to go into the mist, and inside the mist are unspeakable, unbelievable, life-ending horrors. David and the group of customers hidden inside the store go through all the things anyone would: Shock, confusion, disbelief. But the danger, no matter how bizarre and inconceivable, is real. Tensions mount as time passes. Soon David and a handful of other like-minded survivors begin to realize that it may be just as dangerous inside the store as it is outside it.

More terrifying than the horrifying creatures lurking outside the store are the two-legged beings lurking within it. The Mist is more than just some monster movie, instead it’s a careful examination of human nature. Darabont’s adapted script develops each character carefully, and the film’s real thrills come from following his group of terrified survivors as they fight, fear, and quite simply fall apart in different ways as hope drains away. Some turn to God and fatalism, others turn to logic, still others choose denial and pay for their refusal to face facts. David Drayton however, simply refuses to give up.

Thomas Jane carries the movie as Drayton, an artist turned temporary leader. But it’s not just Jane that turns in a genius performance here. Darabont has assembled an amazing ensemble cast of character actors and unknown, who embody not just their given characters but different aspects of the human spirit. The Mist’s uncanny ability to get us so invested in those character archetypes is what really makes the film so effective. Every death hurts bitterly, every failed attempt at escape gores you straight to the soul. Even the film’s villains are more than two-dimensional characters. You know where they’re coming from. You could be one of these people. You know these people. What would you do if real insanity was unleashed on the world? How would you face not just your death, but the death of everyone you’ve ever cared about?
If there’s any flaw in the film, it’s in some of the specifics of the Darabont’s script which at times, leans towards the predictable. But like everything Darabont does The Mist connects with its audience on such a deeply emotional level that those trifling problems are easily overcome. The film’s monster movie elements are there only to serve as a catalyst for a much deeper, brutally emotive, thought-provoking story. This is a brilliantly smart, character-driven horror film; and it’ll rock you to the core.

Death Race (2008)

Anyone familiar with the work of Paul W.S. Anderson (no, not P.T. Anderson, the man behind There Will Be Blood and Magnolia) won’t be surprised to hear that his latest project Death Race is little different from anything he’s done before. From Resident Evil to Alien vs. Predator and Mortal Kombat, Mr Anderson isn’t necessarily a man of much depth.
But while that has held most of his movies back (the only remotely deep film on his resume is the underrated Event Horizon), Death Race works in spite of it. For what it is — mindless entertainment — it works on the levels you’d hope for, even if depth is the furthest thing from its sights.

Based loosely on the 1975 cult film Death Race 2000, Death Race tells the story of newly imprisoned Jensen Ames (Jason Statham) who is forced by a ruthless, money hungry warden to compete in a televised competition called Death Race in which inmates compete by attempting to kill each other for the chance of freedom if they win.

I doubt anyone will be surprised to see action man of the minute Jason Statham star in a film like this. These types of films are his bread and butter, the audience having rarely, if ever, seen him in anything else. But in my books it doesn’t really matter; this is what the man is good at and I say stick to it if it works. It has yet to grow tiresome (for me, anyway... I can’t speak for anyone else) and until it does, I say more power to him.
Statham’s perfect for this role, playing his usual rough-looking, wise-cracking tough guy who’s only responsibility in this, and pretty much any of his films, is to kick ass and look cool. This is the type of film that doesn’t call for anything more than that and I don’t think you’ll hear complaints from people that the acting was bad (although a lot of the time it is) as that’s not what the film is supposed to offer. What it is supposed to offer is kick-ass race/action sequences and it does that in spades.

Out with the action, Death Race is a pretty terrible film. The story is weak and clichéd, with plot holes and calls for suspension of disbelief galore. The characters are two-dimensional and caricatures of those we’ve seen plenty of times in the past and the acting leaves something to be desired. There are plenty of eye-rolling moments throughout the film, in particular when we’re supposed to get on board with its overall storyline and how it’s pushed forward, but most of these are contained within the breaks between the races themselves. It’s lucky for us that when the pedal is to the metal this is hell of a lot of fun as we watch cars bash off of one another, machine gun fire being sprayed as if the ammo is unlimited, hot girls riding alongside the drivers, and body parts and blood being strewn about left, right, and centre. This is every young teenage boy’s dream of a movie; it’s mindless fun that just provides a couple of hours to escape from the outside world.

Death Race is aimed at the Fast and the Furious crowd, those who find joy in watching fast cars and strong violence. But unlike that franchise this is less interested in expensive, slick looking cars that look like they cost tens of thousands and more interested in the strong violence and, at times, gore. These cars are like tanks — armoured and ugly with machine guns mounted on every available space and angry, macho men behind the wheel. I can understand this not being everyone's cup of tea, particularly those who desire a bit of food for thought, but I am one such viewer who can go back and forth between meaningful filmmaking and senseless entertainment with little hesitation.

Amongst all of these macho men is the very reputable Joan Allen, who gives the film that little boost in the respect department that it would otherwise not have had. Death Race is the furthest thing from a meaningful experience but it’s one which engaged and enthralled me with its action sequences. And for what it claims to be I can’t say it didn’t fulfill its promise.

Welcome to Movie Resume!

My name is Cosby Junior and I shall provide you with some general info regarding my newest blog about movies - Movie Resume.

Movie Resume will be a HUGE collection of movie information - resumes and trailers of newest movies and upcoming movies. We shall try to catalog most important details about the movie: the most important will be the RESUME, then the actors list, the company who published/ made the movie, filming locations when available, IMDB link to find out in-depth details about the movie and even external links to related websites for that movie.

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