Talladega Nights

I’m about a million percent certain that at some point in your life you’ve met the guy I’m about to describe. You and your best friend decide to go out to a few bars for the night and have a good time. Your buddy says “HEY! let’s pick up this guy I know from work named (jon/deric/ted). He’s HILARIOUS”. You, of course, agree because you don’t want to offend your buddy and who knows, this guy might be cool. So you pick him up and he’s not bad at first. He likes the pacers. He hates myspace. He’s alright. He’s good people. Then you get to the bar and he starts doing shots. Pretty soon he’s trying to dip his balls in people’s drinks. He calls every female he passes the c-word. He’s hanging off of your neck telling you he loves you and as soon he says he loves you he finishes it off with “I’d love to teabag your mom!”.

Now, your buddy, the one you rode there with and the one who invited this clown, is falling off his barstool laughing at both you AND ol’ whatsisface. So are several people around you. Even a handful of the females that got called cunts by this guy are laughing. You, on the other hand, are mortified and embarrased. You have no clue why anyone is laughing at this immature dick. It’s not funny to you and you’d rather just run as far away as you can and pretend you don’t know either of them.

Talladega nights is that guy. And you’re either the guy who invited him or you’re the guy who wants to just run away from the whole silly mess.

Which one you are will depend on whether or not you like Will Ferrell when he’s completely turned loose. He has that whole manchild thing that he does in every movie, but in this one, like ‘Anchorman’, he doesn’t rein it in in anyway. Which at times can be utterly hilarious or painfully unfunny (depending on which one of those guys you are). I personally find the whole thing to be quite entertaining. I guess you could say I’m the guy who ended up running away, but I assure you I laughed my head off at first. You see, It’s not that I got a problem with a guy getting drunk and making an ass of himself. That can be VERY funny. But if that’s all the guy does and it’s the only reason anyone invites him anywhere, is he really worth having around? If he’s only interesting when he’s got a fifth of what the hell in him then he’s just an attention whore and that can get pretty old pretty quick. But I guess, even in the end, it’s worth hanging out with him a couple of times just because you know you’ll get some good stories out of him and before the joke has worn out it’s welcome, it’ll have in stitches.
If you’re one of those people that fell in love with the sweet and endearing Will in ‘Elf’ then run as far as you can as fast as you can. If you’re one of those that loved him because of ‘Anchorman’ or the more surrealist segments he did on SNL (like the one where he had a staring contest with a stuffed elk) then you’ll probably be glad you invited this guy to the party.

7/10

(if it seems like I only focused on Will Ferrell in this review it’s because he’s honestly the reason why 99% of people will choose to see or not see this movie)

Snakes on a Plane.

I want you to think back to your childhood. All of us at that time had one thing we would do just for the sake of having fun. Some of us would twirl around with our arms outstretched until we got sick. Others would jump up and down on our beds. I liked to ride my bike down this really steep hill near my house. Do you remember how you could do that thing and feel good afterwards? Do you recall how it was fun for the sake of fun and completely innocent?

Snakes on a Plane is the cinematic equivalent to jumping up and down on the bed when you were 7 years old.

No. It’s not “so bad. it’s good.” It’s just plain (plane?) good. The snakes are really cringe worthy. You’ll laugh with the jokes and not at them. There is real suspense in here and real fun.

If I have any particular gripes about this one is that it’s pretty obvious where they shot material to get the R rating that everyone wanted. It’s pretty obvious when a conversation goes along for a few seconds without any profanity and then someone drops an “f” bomb like nothing happened. oh and that line that we all know Samuel L. says? What the filmmakers have done with that is pretty genius. They know that that WE know it’s coming so what they do is lead up to it a couple of times and then they don’t do it. When he finally does tell us how he really feels about those damn snakes it makes you just want to stand up and cheer.

I won’t go into any discussion of plot or anything like that with this one. Mostly because it’s irrelevant. The title tells you what’s going to happen. It’s up to you be a big kid for an hour or so and enjoy it.

10/10

(and no I’m not being ironic. I’m being honest.)

Accepted

I don’t know if any of you guys did the paint by numbers thing when you were little, but I did. Oh sure, you say to yourself, anyone can do that. There’s no artistry in that. To which I reply, “yeah but the picture looks good when it’s done”. Then I’d hang the picture for a day or two on the bedroom wall and forget about it after a while and eventually the crappy paper they printed the things on would tear and the thing would fall off the wall and It would just get thrown away and nobody really cared.

Accepted is completely paint by numbers.

Let’s check the “fun teen comedy” checklist shall we?

1. sweet, nerdy and lovable main character? check.
2. token black guy? check.
3. Soundtrack of popular hip-hop and alt rock? check.
4. Crude but well within the acceptable limits of pg-13 humor? check.
5. Hot chick that is at first out of the main characters league but after a series of misadventures and funny coincidences she realizes that the nerd is the one for her and not the clean cut all american footbal jock? check.

Accepted suceeds mostly because it knows its limitations and never tries to be anything more than dumb fun with some light heart-string tugging. It tells the story of a few people who graduate from high school and are not accepted at any of the colleges they apply to. so one of them decides to fake being accepted at a fake college that he just completely makes up along with the help of friends. there’s more to the plot than that but it’s unimportant. You alredy know from the premise how it’s going to end don’t you? of course you do. you’re not an idiot. What you want to know is the damn thing funny along the way?

well yeah. it is. suprisingly funny. once you get past the retarded “no way in a million years would that ever happen” premise it actually becomes fairly charming and witty. Thanks, in large part, to a great cast of unknown actors.

Justin “I’m a mac” long plays the main character. The “I just want to buy these boots but you’re making it extremely difficult for me” fat kid from the 40 year old virgin plays his best friend. Anthony “Where have I seen him before?” Heald as the asshole and, in the most inspired bit of casting, Lewis black as the fake dean of the fake college.

The movie takes all the predictable turns as the characters buck the system and then learn their lessons and then manage to give the finger to the system in the end anyway. But for all it’s predictability I still managed to get a few good laughs out of this one and you probably will to. Just don’t expect to remember it more than a week later.

6/10

The Descent

Great horror works on one simple level. it takes death and puts it in the front of your consciousness. The hows and whys and wheres and whens can all vary, but for horror to truly hit it’s emotional peak of possibilities, it needs to peel back your blocked worries and thoughts regarding your own demise. And, if the horror film you’re watching is a true classic, it will confront you with the idea of imminent death. death without the possibility of parole so to speak. It will flood you with despair and depression as you feel what it’s like to KNOW that you ARE going to die and there is absolutely NOTHING you can do about it.

The descent is a great horror film.

It tells the story of a group of 6 women who come together to explore a cave in the appalachian mountains. One of these women, is there to confront her grief over the death of her husband and daughter in a horrific car crash. two are there to support her. The rest are there for thrill. After a brief beginning where we see the car crash that killed the one woman’s family, and the 6 of them meeting up the night before the expedition begins, the film heads underground and the claustrophobia begins. Now, I’ve never really been one to freak out about small spaces. But then again i’ve never been in the cave passages that these type of women are forced to go through in this movie. There are sections where they crawl on their stomachs through passages so tight that their lungs aren’t able to expand enough to take in decent size breaths. And the film does such an amazing job of putting you right in there with them when they go through this. There is one section where the women are going through just such a passage and the tunnel starts to creak and dust starts falling indicating an imminent collapse.

And while the movie could have simply been a series of these scenes, showing the horror of possibly being crushed or buried alive, It actually goes one step further. After enduring all manner of physically exhausting passages the women are almost on the verge of finding a way out. But then something happens, something shows up which completely changes the film and makes it even darker and bleaker. I won’t say what because when the film took this turn it was a complete surprise and ratcheted up the despair and terror to almost unberable levels. Suffice to say that these women, if they had only been able to set aside their own interests, might have had a happy ending.

The descent drags death to the front of your consciousness. It floods you with despair. It sucks any and all hope from your life for 2 hours and dares you to try and feel anything good about yourself or the world. The descent is a truly great horror film. and in my humble opinion, like all truly great horror, it transcends it’s genre to become great film in general.

10/10

Lady In the Water

They have woefully misadvertised this

If you want comparisons think more along the lines of movies like ‘E.T.” “Batteries Not Included” and “Cocoon”. Movies that dealt with the supernatural but not a menacing, threatening supernatural. No, this movie deals with the supernatural that is good and protective. The supernatural of guardian angels and benign aliens that wish to enlighten and enrich. So those of you expecting any attempts to care or horrify are going to be let down hard. God only knows why they chose to advertise the movie like they did.

So if the movie isn’t a “horror thriller’ then what is it? Well, early on they were kind of using the phrase “bedtime story” which isn’t innaccurate. But a more accurate way of putting it would be “a bedtime story for kids for adults that want to act like kids” The narrative of the movie is a mish-mash of plot points that seemingly pop-up at random and the logic of the universe of “lady in the water” seems to be very fluid and not really aware of it’s own purpose. But then again, what children’s story isn’t like that? Try to think of any children’s fantasy story that didn’t seem to arbitrarily change it’s direction according to what the author felt would get the kids most excited. got your hero in a tight spot? just make some shit up about him having powers he didn’t know! Gave him powers that were too powerful? just make the enemies suddenly immune to the powers you gave them!

most would call this sloppy storytelling. and indeed if you want to judge this story by more literary means, then, yes, it is a meandering mess that appears to have just been improvised as they were shooting. perhaps it was. but that assesment misses the point I think. This is a movie that tries to get to storytelling in it’s most basic form. where all the rules are off and you can just do what seems right at the moment. A movie that asks you to bring your inner-child to the forefront of your conciousness for an hour or so and just imagine all this crazy shit for the sake of trying to actually imagine something again.

the other thing night has done in this movie is take every major complaint critics and fans have had of his movies since “unbreakable” and amplify them tenfold. people thought it was egomaniacal that he gave himself small parts in his films, in this one he gives himself a MAJOR part. they said that his twists were stupid and seemed to be arbitrary. in this movie, every single scene is an arbitrary plot point that is not set-up. Perhaps the thing he did the most to piss-off movie critics is to make the villain of the film a MOVIE CRITIC! in fact this movie critic is sitting there facing one of the “scrunts” and having an inner dialog about how in horror movies he should be safe because typically the villain will turn and run and the monster will leap and just miss while the villain runs out the door. as soon as he finishes his little soliloquy the thing eats him alive.

All that said i still don’t know how i felt about the movie. parts of it had me smiling and laughing because i could just imagine a group of 4-5 year olds sitting around a campfire while grampa tells them this story and they gasp and oooh at each development. at other times i wanted the movie to get over it’s own self-awareness and just get on with it.

long story short (yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck off)
7/10

Miami Vice

I feel compelled to break this movie down into percentages. Miami Vice is thusly:

15% bad sound
15% boring setup
70% incredible action

you see, at it’s heart, Miami Vice is a Michael Mann action film. And as such, any and all previous grievances you have with the film are forgotten once the shit hits the fan and the bullets start flying. Mann is able to put you in the moment with his gunfights in ways that other action directors could only dream of. He has an ability to elicit such raw adrenaline that at moments when characters are scrambling for cover, you hold your breath in anticipation. He has the talent to take ages old action cliches and give them a raw visceral power that forces you to care about the outcome beyond a passing interest in see explosions and gore. He can take all the heart and humanity that many complain is missing from action movies, and put it in his films in such copious amounts that he leaves no doubt that head shots, blood, and death, can be and in fact, are, art of a high nature.

And then there’s the way the film looks. Fucking gorgeous. I’m a sucker for great night photography. and Mann delivers night shots of freeways, palm trees, dance clubs, runways and skylines. each frame of this film is filled with light struggling to escape the blackness around it. and Mann’s choice to shoot the film in HD and transfer to film (a technique he first used in “Collateral”) gives the movie a griminess, a grit, that belies the hell that Crockett and Tubbs have gotten themselves into.

Oh yeah, Crockett and Tubbs. Foxx and Farrell. I remember when the trailer for this film first appeared there was alot of grumbling that these guys looked like they just phoned in their performances. People complained that they looked and acted like they didn’t even wanna be there. What’s actually happening here is that Foxx and Farell are playing their roles right to fucking hilt. If they look and act like they don’t want to be there, it’s because Crockett and Tubbs don’t want to be there. These are guys who have been doing an incredibly stressful job for a long time. and they don’t like it anymore. They’ve been going to work for years and getting the hell beat out of them emotionally and physically. and when they have the plot of the movie forced upon them, they feel the full weight of their jobs on their shoulders at all times. they walk with slouched shoulders, they talk in hushed tones. they’ve had enough and they just want the shit to stop. and indeed their comes a point in the film where they are given the choice to stop the undercover operation, but they’ve realized what’s at stake and continue on even though everyone (including themselves) don’t want to.

Ok so all of the above was the 70%.

I said this movie was 15% bad sound. I don’t if i should blame the movie or the theater but for the first 40 minutes of the film everything is way to quiet. You really cannot hear anything without straining and you have to really perk your ears up to catch what’s being said. Which is a shame given how Mann’s films are usually shining examples of technical perfection.

the other 15% of the movie was boring setup. And boring it is. The problem with the first 40 minutes is that we all know where it’s going. We know exactly what’s gonna happen before it does that you just kind of sit there tapping your watch, going ” ok. ok. ok. get on with it”. and indeed until Crockett meets his love interest the film appears to be following, lockstep, with every other undercover cop movie ever made. But, like i said, the good guys and the bad guys start slapping cartridges into assault rifles, the snipers take up position and all is forgiven.

9/10

go see it.