Prometheus Review (Cue scary whirring sound)

Ridley Scott is an old man.  At the fragile age of 74, he's been enjoying the benefits of AARP for 24 years now, longer than I've been alive.  So I was a little skeptical of Prometheus to say the least.  The guy hasn't touched the Alien franchise since the original in 1979, and with his previous flick being the widely panned Robin Hood, things were starting to look a little grim.  We've all seen what can happen when a director returns to what made him famous after he ages and accrues a bigger budget (...The Phantom Menace...), but Prometheus turned out to be a spectacular film with breathtaking visuals, a good amount of suspense, frightening monsters, and cool ball things that map out a cave (trust me, they're cool).

Prometheus is a sort of spiritual prequel to the Alien series. While we get to see some of the stuff that was left unexplained in Alien, ultimately it doesn't have a whole lot to do with the other films.  In this movie, a crew of specialists is sent by Peter Weyland (played by Guy Pierce in god awful old man make up) to a distant moon named LV-223.  Led by archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, perhaps best known for playing Lisbeth Salander from the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and her partner Charlie Halloway (Logan Marshall-Green), the team is essentially trying to determine the answer to the heavy-handed question mankind has always asked itself, either while gazing at the stars or watching an episode of Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman: 'where did we come from?'

Right off the bat, this film just looks gorgeous.  I highly doubt we're going to see a better looking sci-fi film this year.  Especially after having an Alien movie marathon, with Alien: Resurrection being the freshest in my memory banks, this is everything you could hope for.  The production design of the actual ship, Prometheus, is just right, and all the stuff on the planet and inside the alien structure is very atmospheric and will knock your socks off.  Plus the creatures are original creations, which is great because you'll have no idea what to expect going in, heightening the probability of you shitting your pants in fear.

The cast is remarkable as well, with the stand-out performance being Michael Fassbender's scene-stealing role as David, the Lawrence of Arabia-watching android.  Despite being a robot, he brings the most humanity to the film. His character knows he is superior to the humans on board the ship, yet he still yearns for their respect - it's a very interesting performance much different than the androids of previous Alien movies.  Noomi Rapace, our "Ripley" this time around, also holds a strong presence, but isn't as sympathetic as Sigourney Weaver's character, if simply because Ripley was just a blue collar worker forced into her situation - a lot more sympathetic than a researcher who kind of already knew the risks involved.

This will likely be one of the most controversial movies of the summer. This journey to find the origin of man balances science and religion in a smart way, and tries to define exactly why humans are so hell-bent on finding the answers to the universe, even when attaining that knowledge may prove dangerous. Written by Damon Lindelof, the head writer of Lost, this script has his fingerprints all over it. Full of symbolism and seeming "dead ends" in the plot, it is sure to spark just as many arguments as the Lost finale. He dares to leave questions unanswered, with only hints and nods as to how the puzzle fits together by the end (here is a great blog post explaining some of the more cryptic parts of the film).  Whether or not there is one solid "plan" or not (or a will-be sequel to explain more), I think the after-movie conversations and the journey itself are rewarding enough that it doesn't matter.  Sure there were things in here that weren't perfect (such as Guy Pierce's terrible old man makeup, and some spoilerific details involving the aliens that I won't go into), but I was captivated by this movie from beginning to end; I hope that future sci-fi movies take notice and dare to be this challenging on their audience.

Rating: A-

Whirring sound.

Got a New Title

Hey all 2 readers, I've been wanting to change the name of my blog for a while now, and I think 'Talking the Talkies' sounds pretty snazzy (a lot better than simply 'Reviews of Movies').  So tell me what you think, should I stick with this or do I really need to reconsider my blog-titling responsibilities?

If this blog entry has proved to be too boring for you, here's a picture of Iron Batman:

MiB3 & Snow White and the Huntsman

The original Men in Black is one of my all-time favorite summer action flicks; I remember fondly rewatching my old, worn out VHS copy of the movie and the merchandise including Burger King toys, the video games, and the animated series being prevalent.  I was super-excited for Men in Black 2 and even remember having a poster for it on my wall before seeing the movie.  At that ripe age (fourth-ish grade), I still enjoyed the movie despite its flaws, which I would acquiesce later in life.  But at this point in time, the brief moment that Men in Black 3 was the first movie to dethrone The Avengers at the box office, I am more grown, more knowledgable, and ever-ready for the shitpile that would be this third installment nobody asked for.

I have to say, I was expecting this to be abysmally bad, but it turned out merely kind of crappy, superseding any and all expectations I had beforehand.  This film really puts Will Smith in the forefront, as it is J's job to travel back in time and stop an evil alien from killing his partner, K, in the past henceforth causing a chain reaction harbinging the end of the world (oh fuck).  The present-time bookends of the film star our favorite jagged-faced old guy, Tommy Lee Jones, but the majority of the film takes place in the 60's, where the part of Young K is played by Josh Brolin, who does a pretty spot-on impression of Mr. Jones.  I really wish this movie had gone farther with the 60's thing (besides just putting in goofy clothes and Andy Warhol).  Imagine if this was Mad Men with aliens.  And while the "primitive" past technology idea was a good idea, it was not even used properly.  At one point there will be say an ancient version of the neuralizer, but the next second they're driving around motorbikes that look like they exist in our future.  There are so many holes and illogicalities it could take me all day.

The shining star of this film is special effects LEGEND Rick Baker, who designed all the creatures in this movie.  The main baddie, named Boris the Animal, is played surprisingly well by Jermaine Clement (of The Flight of the Conchords); I thought he was pretty cool, he had some kind of spider thing that came out of his hand and shot poisonous spikes at people - can't go wrong with that.  But besides the effects, the charm our lead actors bring into their roles (save for Tommy Lee Jones who looks like he wants to kill himself), and the ending scene that actually somehow becomes touching despite all logic being thrown out the window, this is yet another not-even-close sequel to one of my favorite flicks.

Rating: C

Snow White is possibly one of the most famous fairy tales around, and it is what catapulted Disney into what it is today.  Nearly 80 years later and Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is still a beloved classic, so how could a modern-day gritty revamp of the tale possibly go wrong?  Kristen Stewart.  That's how.  Yes, the expressionless actress from the Twilight movies was picked as a character responsible for leading men into battle and being a strong film presence to carry a summer action blockbuster.  It's too bad this obvious money-grab by studios was implemented, because this film looks like it had the potential to be amazing.

I loved many aspects of this film; the effects were as dazzling as the trailer quotes would have you believe, and I loved the overall grittiness of it - reminded me a lot of Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.  I also thought the camerawork was very well handled, and for the most part nothing "felt" like a green-screen (although it's obvious it was used because of the nature of the movie, it still felt very grounded in "reality").

But that's about where the compliments end.  Besides Chris Hemsworth (aka Thor) playing the Huntsman, and the dwarfs, strangely unseen from the trailer, the two main characters both seemed dreadfully out of place.  One of the main reasons I wanted to see this movie was to see Charlize Theron's portrayal of the Evil Queen (if you saw her in Monster you know she can bring a lot of layers to despicable characters), but here she seemed too over-the-top.  Her eyes are bulging out and when she is screaming to her underlings to bring her Snow White, it's almost comical when I doubt it should be.  And then there's Stewart.  Good god.  I've never seen the Twilight films, but between this and Water for Elephants, I think anything that those young foolish vampires touch turns to crap.  Do I even need to explain?  She has that one, stupid face the whole movie.  It's so distracting; the film reaches its climax, the music is sweeping, and an epic battle is happening all around, and she still has that dumb look.

Snow White and the Huntsman has style and flair, and general audiences who enjoy mediocre fare that feels like other films (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter), will probably enjoy it.  I can't say that Stewart's bad acting comes as any surprise, but because she is prevalent throughout most of the movie, it ruined the fun for me.

Rating: C+

The Dictator and God Bless America: Two overly preachy disappointments

Sacha Baron Cohen created one of the all-time best comedic characters ever to grace movie screens with 2006's Borat, and made me laugh uncomfortably loud during 2009's Bruno.  Since then, Cohen has remained busy with supporting roles (including a part in the Academy-award winning film Hugo), but The Dictator marks not only his return to the spotlight, alongside his fellow writer and director Larry Charles (Seinfeld, Religulous), but also a whole slew of often unfunny in-character talk show appearances (am I wrong in thinking 'poor Ryan Seacrest'?).  When this project was first announced I was hoping that it would follow suit with the last two outings and place Cohen in real situations, in a "prank" styled mockumentary - but with a watch of the trailer it's obvious that that concept would be abandoned for a straightforward narrative film. Cohen states in interviews that it's because people are now too keen on his shenanigans for him to pull it off again.  I still had high hopes for this movie though, hoping perhaps that Cohen might again be able to provide big laughs while providing some social commentary.  Unfortunately, it all just ends up falling flat, like a soda that's been sitting in a car too long.

The Dictator is filled with raunchy jokes, and even though they follow that "shock the audience" formula that made the other outings so hilarious, the whole thing still almost feels "safe."  And the social commentary that Cohen is known for feels really forced and inorganic to the movie.  Part of this might be attributed to the fact that you aren't getting "real" people in this movie.  Whereas in Borat or Bruno, the social commentary came straight from Cohen's brilliant social experiments, The Dictator force-feeds us the "lessons" and it comes off really preachy.  Although there are moments in this movie that really shine (such as the helicopter scene seen in the trailer), it just felt muddled and lacking.  Many of the jokes were already shown in the trailer, and I was constantly thinking in my head that it might get better...but it never did.

Rating: C-

One of my favorite movies of 2009 was the very under-the-radar flick World's Greatest Dad.  Directed by Police Academy star Bobcat Goldthwait, the film gave Robin Williams one of his best roles in a long, long time, and I just clicked with its dark and twisted, yet comical tone.  So when I heard of God Bless America, Goldthwait's follow up to World's Greatest Dad, I was stoked, especially upon hearing that it was about a guy going on a killing spree, only killing the biggest jerks in America, like reality TV stars and unappreciative spoiled rich kids.  It was a great concept, but much like The Dictator, it ended up becoming too preachy and there was not enough story to latch on to.

Again, similarly to The Dictator, God Bless America was not without its moments.  I enjoyed the fake TV shows that obviously resemble certain reality shows, and there are some moments of violence (especially one towards the very beginning) that are quite shocking.  I do have to say though, some of the blood effects feature really bad CGI, which there's no real excuse for; I don't care how "indie" this is, I think you can afford some fake blood.  I also liked the two main actors (although their dialogue left a LOT to be desired), who I thought kept a strange, yet believable chemistry.  If you want to watch the cinematic equivalent of a 50 year old ranting on and on about how reality TV is terrible with some awkward dialogue and somewhat enjoyable sequences of shooting sprinkled in, have a blast.  I just wished that it had more of what made World's Greatest Dad so great: a story.

Rating: C-

That little indie film called The Avengers

For those who stuck it out until after the credits of Iron Man, many of us shat a brick when a one-eyed Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury presented himself to Tony Stark to talk about a little program called the Avengers Initiative.  Four years and four movies later (Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Captain America), every comic book fanboy's wet dream has come and it's time for the heroes to unite in the most epically-scaled movie possibly ever.  Really, just the fact that this movie exists is an accomplishment. As far as I know, no other movie series has done this - taking a bunch of characters from their own universes and bringing them together for one superhero supergroup.  The fact that Joss Whedon (Firefly, Buffy) was at the helm really made me less weary about this; if anyone would be able to pull of this ridiculously difficult balancing act of integrating all of these heroes together it would be him.

So how did it turn out?  The consensus from everybody on the planet seems to be that it "kicked ass."  Now, I would agree with that in some aspects, but I truly felt a little disappointed in the film.  I know I'm in the extreme minority on this one.  First off what I liked: the action and how it was handled.  With maybe 7 characters that needed their moments (including Iron Man, Hulk, Cap', Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the villain Loki) I think all of them have at least one great scene.  Some are given more time than others, but what do you expect?  Considering what he had to do, I don't think Whedon could have done much better.  I loved the fact that these wildly different characters are interacting, and in interesting ways.  The action is extremely well handled, and the way the camera moves from hero to hero in the 20-30 minute battle scene at the end (spoiled endlessly in the trailer) is top notch.

Of all the heroes in the movie, and I was not expecting this, the Hulk is probably the best.  Mark Ruffalo plays it really well and in a subdued performance as Bruce Banner.  The Hulk actually resembles Ruffalo as well, and is by far the most fun to watch during the final New York battle scene.  As opposed to her non-character in Iron Man 2, Black Widow is also given a lot of cool moments in the film, and really is more fleshed out.  I thought Tom Hiddleston as Thor's brother Loki was a great villain, and he should given an honorary award at the Oscars for Best Evil Grin.  The only two major parts lacking I thought were Jeremy Renner as the bow-and-arrow wielding Hawkeye and Sam Jackson as the aforementioned Nick Fury.  Although he is smushed into the main team of the Avengers, Hawkeye was the only character that didn't have much personality other than being BA (that's "bad ass" in hip teen lingo).  And even though Samuel L. Jackson is an amazing actor (Pulp Fiction is one of my all-time favorite films), as soon as he enters a "big" role like Nick Fury or Mace Windu from Star Wars, for whatever reason he's just not the Sam Jackson.

For all it had going for it though, I just couldn't dig it, sorry.  The characters all work and their interactions are awesome, but what they are fighting for I couldn't give a rat's ass about.  Much like a lot of recent summer blockbusters, the plot is almost an excuse for the action.  The beginning of the film is a real slog.  It takes a while for things to pick up.  Basically Loki steals a glowing blue cube of destruction known as the Terreract and there is a brief escape scene involving Loki.  When he manages to skirt away, Sam Jackson says some line and THE AVENGERS plays on the screen.  That opening title moment should have given me goosebumps, but I just felt let down - I just thought 'This is the beginning of the movie?' The entire plot boils down to the heroes trying to stop Loki and get back the cube.  I love movies like Spider-Man and Batman because I genuinely care about what happens and feel a personal connection to the story, but chasing after a cosmic cube is so disinteresting to me I kind of got bored at parts of this.

Everyone keeps toting on about how great Whedon's dialogue is and how funny the film is.  I don't know what it is, but I just didn't find this as funny as everyone else (maybe I'm just a stickler or something).  I honestly thought the almost universally-hated Iron Man 2 was much funnier than this.  I found the same problem with The Cabin in the Woods, maybe me and Whedon just have different sensibilities.  Everyone seemed to laugh at this one line Thor makes about his brother being adopted...I for the life of me can't see how that deserves anything more than a chuckle, but when people hear it's Whedon, all hands on deck, we've got a genius here.

I hope I'm not sounding contradictory here, but my feelings about The Avengers are pulling at me both ways.  On one hand it was a logical culmination of four radically different-toned films and it pretty much covered all bases in terms of incorporating big action set pieces, individual character moments and interactions, but when it comes down to it, I couldn't care.  I think The Avengers would have worked better as a TV series; that way all of the interconnections could be given a proper amount of time and more interesting themes could pop up.  As it stands, it's solid enough popcorn entertainment that's sure to entertain nearly everyone in the theater, and given the challenges this movie faced before it even started, that's a minor miracle compared to the clusterfuck that could have been (DC, take note if a Justice League movie ever arises).  It still suffers from the genre, the mythology, and the previous films that laid the groundwork, but for superhero/Whedon/action fans I think this is a must-see anyway.

Rating: B-

I was originally going to give this a C+, but after having some time to let the movie simmer in my head (and after thinking about me being massacred for giving it such a low grade), I actually really want to see it again and have since had a sudden surge in interest in comic books and want to get into them more.

Also, come on Dark Knight Rises...I know this Avengers thing has made a lot of money, but we can beat it.

What I've Been Watching (4/28/12)

Hey guys, instead of writing full reviews I'm just going to post a short blog on the last few movies I've seen.

A couple weeks ago I saw the documentary Bully, which follows a handful of bully victims and their families.  The movie was pretty well handled, but with very little relief from the hard emotional subject matter it was tough to sit through and without any interviews with the bullies themselves it felt unbalanced at times; it would've been interesting to hear their perspective.  It's a solid doc though, and I felt my hands clenching when I had to listen to some of the school officials on the matter.  Next I saw the latest from Aardman Animation (the team behind Wallace and Gromit and Chicken Run), The Pirates! Band of Misfits.  The film was witty at times and the animation was remarkably detailed, but the story was pretty slight and there was far less swashbuckling than I would have anticipated.  Lastly I caught a screening of Sound of My Voice, from first-time director Zal Batmanglij and starring Another Earth's Brit Marling as a cult leader supposedly from the future.  It's one of those vague movies where the answers are never given to you, sometimes infuriatingly so.  Specific scenes can be full of suspense, and multiple genres are balanced throughout the film (...or are they?  We never really know what the genre is) which is a feat considering its micro-budget.

Sorry for the slight review(s), if you can even call them that. I'll probably write a bigger one for The Avengers since I know a lot of people are psyched for that.  Thanks for reading, bye bye.

  Bully                                     The Pirates!                          Sound of My Voice

Rating: B

Rating: B-                              Rating: B

Three Stooges and Cabin in the Woods

The Three Stooges:

Sigh... and I was so pumped for a truly great Three Stooges comeback.  Originally, the Farrelly Brothers' Stooge pic was, in a too-good-to-be-true fashion, set to star Jim Carrey, Benicio Del Toro, and Sean Penn as Curly, Moe, and Larry, respectively.  But nope, instead we have Will Sasso as Curly and two other guys I've never heard of playing Moe and Larry.  If you just look up the development of this movie you can see how bonkers it's been just to get this on the screen.  For nearly a decade the Farrellys have been trying to get this made - you'd think this comedy tribute that has been festering in their minds for so long would've aged like a fine wine.  Instead it aged like a malignant tumor.

This movie felt like a complete rushed mess.  Even the basic structure of the film makes no sense.  It's separated into 3 chapters in an effort to recreate the Three Stooges shorts of the 40's.  The problem with this is that it's all one continuous story line, so really I don't know why they even included that; there wasn't 3 distinctly different shorts.  It's that kind of odd gotta-shoehorn-this-in mentality that makes this a painful experience.  First of all, it takes about 15 minutes just to get to the actual stooges; in that 15 minutes we have to watch their "younger years," portrayed by three child actors who might be charming to show off at a cocktail party, but come off as pretty annoying here.

The story follows the three boys as they grow up in an orphanage together, with Larry David, Jane Lynch, and Jennifer Hudson all playing nuns.  None of these people add any humor to the movie (even though I am a huge fan of Larry David and Jane Lynch). Larry David needs to stick with Curb Your Enthusiasm - he pulls off one of the most annoying cross-gender performances I've ever seen (then again I haven't seen Jack and Jill).  The actual adult three stooges (once we get to them) were OK, but I never felt that their characters were anything beyond mimicry of the original stooges - in other words, I didn't feel the soul of the original characters.  It's as good a stooge portrayal as say, Frank Caliendo's impression of John Madden; while it's a good impression but I wouldn't hire him to play in his biopic.

Sure the movie has some laughs in it, but most of them were lifted out of the old shorts; the "original" ideas in this film are basically a series of progressively terrible puns and annoyingly outdated slapstick.  If you want to update a classic style of comedy to a new generation, don't go the lazy route and force in iPhone and Jersey Shore jokes.  With Dumb and Dumber being my favorite comedy of all time, this really makes me concerned for the recently announced D&D2.  The Three Stooges didn't even feel like a movie, it felt like a rushed SNL skit or something; the budget was clearly low and the script was likely a disaster.  Maybe some day we'll see that magical Stooge revival with Carrey and Co, but for now we have a steaming pile of cow dung, figuratively speaking.

Rating: D

The Cabin in the Woods:

(The Cabin in the Woods is a little difficult to talk about without spoilers, so sorry if the review is too vague).

It would be an understatement for me to say I'm a fan of horror movies.  I love the genre oh-so very much, but nowadays there's really not much happening with it.  There are endless remakes, sequels, prequels, pre-makes, you name it, it exists.  While watching The Cabin in the Woods, it's clear that director Drew Goddard and co-writer Joss Whedon are fans of the genre and know all of the pitfalls.  In a very Scream fashion, this really picks apart the "cabin in the woods" flick and gives it a twist.  I don't know how spoilery this is, but essentially this is The Hunger Games in a way, where the horror movie "variables" are semi-controlled by overseers, but it's ultimately up to the victims to play out their own story.  Things start to ramp up and get crazy though, and by the end let's just say that the horror nerd in me was getting a lot of what I like to see.

I'm not the biggest Scream fan in the world, and as interesting and different a concept this movie puts forward, I found it a little too...wink-at-the-camera.  The meta aspects make the movie what it is, but also make the film lose a little impact, I think.  Tonally this movie is all over the map, but it does work somehow.  It's dark and moody one second, funny the next, and horrifically brutal the next.  It also didn't spell things out for the audience without losing their interest which is refreshing.  I liked the slow and steady explanation for the workings of this "game," although some of the answers weren't exactly what I was hoping for (kind of like how Lost towards the end featured a certain urine-cave...Lost fans will know what I'm talking about).  I'll probably have to watch this one again just to get my bearings on it, but I thought it was a solid examination and twist on a genre near and dear to my heart.  Personally these meta-movies can get a little tiresome, so excuse the somewhat low rating, but for what it is, it's a sometimes clever, unique flick and the last twenty minutes or so is bat-shit awesome.

Rating: B-