Category Archives: Film Review

Quick Review: John Carter (dir. by Andrew Stanton)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

John CarterThe First Impression:

John Carter is a cute Disney film that you may enjoy more than you’d thought you would. It’s lively like The Rocketeer was and really has some great moments and interesting characters. Both the leads carry their roles well, and are eye candy for the audience. It’s worthy of all of the love it should get, but obvious comparisons to movies that came before it (even though the story predates those films), along with a shockingly forgettable score by Michael Giacchino may actually hurt it. If you’re expecting blood and guts, not so much. It’s a Disney film. The kids should love it, though the pace of the film in the beginning may seem a little slow for younger audiences. Skip the 3D version and go for the 2D instead.

The Longer Version:

It’s really sad when you see a movie that deserves all the love in the world, but for some reason just doesn’t quite hit the mark. Part of that is due to the way this was marketed. It really didn’t feel to me that Disney was putting their all behind this. When you look at how heavily marketed Tron: Legacy was, this seemed like a “Hey, we made it, just give us money.” kind of push.

As far as John Carter is concerned, maybe it’s better to look at it like this. We tend to compare things to make sense of them:

This object reminds me of that object.

All of James Cameron’s Avatar reminds me of Ferngully.

Remember, Short Controlled Bursts. What movie comes to mind when I say that?

This is ultimately the problem with Andrew Stanton’s John Carter. In watching it, you’ll end up making comparisons to so many other films that came before it. However, knowing that it was based on the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, it’s a lot like seeing Lord of the Rings for the first time when all you know of Elves and Dwarves comes from Dungeons & Dragons, The Elder Scrolls games or World or Warcraft. Burroughs’ material predates just about everything it showcases, from a pop culture standpoint. Hell, for all I know, John Carter was probably the original inspiration for the Kwisatz Haderach in Frank Herbert’s Dune (though that’s just my speculation). The problem is, with comparisons being what they are, audiences may view John Carter as a copycat of all the movies that were probably influenced by it.

I didn’t walk into John Carter with a lot of expectations. Andrew Stanton, for me, has the track record of being Pixar’s Dark Horse. This is the same guy that killed off a mother and a hundred of her babies in the opening moments of Finding Nemo. A man who gave a bleak, dirty and desolate future in Wall-E. Yet, both of those films had a theme of love and of heroes that rose to the occasion, so seeing the previews for John Carter told me enough.

John Carter is the story of a man in search of a cave full of gold. He wants no part of anyone’s battles and when he’s asked to join a faction, he does his best to avoid it. This leads him to a situation where he’s transported to another world. Just as it was with Earth, he encounters a number of different factions (all of which seem to feel he could aid them), but he simply wishes to return home. When he meets a fierce female fighter (who also happens to be a scientist), they work on figuring out how he arrived on Barsoom and how to get back.

The beautiful thing about John Carter is that it really feels like one of those old serials, or to make a more modern comparison, like an adventure film on the Indiana Jones level of things. There are a number of scenes where I found myself genuinely laughing at what was on screen. The visuals could be better in some places, but it’s nothing that’s groundbreaking. I look at John Carter as a pop culture lesson. You can see where other stories have used elements in the Burroughs tale. In that, it worked for me. The action scenes were really enjoyable for me, but some of the scenes between that could have been tighter. When you find out the reasoning behind Carters arrival, you may end up wondering why more wasn’t done with it with that story arc (on a technical level, anyway). As I’m unfamiliar with the original John Carter stories, I watched a few interviews of the cast and Taylor Kitsch noted that in the books themselves, Carter was pretty much the same person through every one. Stanton added a bit of character depth to him, with a little help from Spider-Man 2 scribe Michael Chabon. Chabon’s also responsible for the great Wonder Boys and The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I still haven’t finished as of this writing. Carter is a conflicted individual for Disney purposes, but you shouldn’t expect Oscar performances here. It’s far better then Immortals was, in that sense.

Both Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins do well with their roles. Having worked together for about a hiccup in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they have a good chemistry together. Kitsch is gruff with his mannerisms, and I can almost forgive him for playing Gambit. Collins is beautiful, statuesque even, and her character really does a lot of damage, fight wise. She’s very strong in some areas, though later on in the film, it felt like they may have eased that down a bit. Willem Dafoe has an inspired role in the leader of one of the alien groups that find Carter first when he arrives in Barsoom. Of course, no film would be complete without a villain and John Carter features two in Dominic West (Zack Snyder’s “300”) and Mark Strong (who’s almost always a go to bad guy). West’s character is more of the take action baddie, while Strong’s character is more of a calculating, behind the scenes one. Of note are Samantha Morton (“Minority Report”) as Sola and a little creature called Woola, that really reminded me a lot of Dug from Disney / Pixar’s Up. I wouldn’t mind having a few of those around the house.

The music for this film worked when the scenes were slow. However, when it called for action, I really didn’t feel anything special about it. I stayed to watch the credits only to find that it was Michael Giacchino’s work, who’s normally really good. I don’t know, this one seemed like it was phoned in for the action scenes. It’s okay, but I didn’t have that urge to buy the soundtrack afterward (which I have done for more memorable scores after leaving the theatre).

Overall, John Carter was a fun film in the vein of Disney’s earlier movies, but it’s not anything you absolutely have to run out to the theatre for. I’d love to see it do well and hope that there’s a sequel on the way, but when you’re paying a good $15 dollars for a 3D movie ticket ($20 for an IMAX 3D showing), the visual return on investment isn’t all that great. The story was enjoyable and didn’t slow down too much, but you may find yourself thinking that you’ve seen this film before in the way that so many other movies reference Burrough’s tale.

As a bonus, Disney released 10 minutes of the film. Enjoy:

The Return of the 6 Trailers

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, it took a nice, long weekend up at Lake Texoma (I actually got in the water and practiced swimming which is a big deal for a drowningphobe like me but then I ended up cutting my foot on a rock on the lakefloor — agck!) and another few nights of a little bit more sleep than usual but I am happy to say that I am back and I’ve brought the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers with me!  So, without further ado, let’s get started…

1) Killer Fish (1979)

In honor of my weekend at the lake, let’s start out with this trailer for a little film called Killer Fish…

2) Dogs (1976)

Now, I may have conquered my fear of swimming for like 10 minutes at the lake but I have yet to conquer my fear of dogs and this trailer shows why.  Seriously, dogs are freaking scary!

3) The Doberman Gang (1972)

Dogs don’t just kill people.  They rob banks too.

4) King Frat (1980)

Wow!  Those dogs are scary, aren’t they?  Let’s take a break from scary dogs with another breed of dog — the American frat boy.

5) Chain Gang Women (1971)

I love trailers that brag about how the characters in the movie live by only “one rule.”  (Speaking of chain gangs, I recently saw an excellent film from 1932 that was called I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang.  But that’s something I’ll save for a future post…)

6) The Stranger and the Gunfighter (1974)

Yes, between the chain gangs, the killer fish, the dogs, and the frat boys, it’s a scary world out there.  Luckily, protection is right around the corner because here comes “(a) savage…a saint…a stranger…”

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Silent House (dir. by Chris Kentis and Laura Lau)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the new horror film Silent House, Elizabeth Olsen plays Sarah, an emotionally unstable young woman who goes to her family’s old lakefront vacation home with her father.  After years of neglect, the cottage is on the verge of collapse and Sarah has been recruited to help her dad and her uncle prepare the house for collapse.  It’s obvious from the first minute that Sarah appears on-screen that she’s emotionally unstable.   Whether she’s staring out at the desolate lake or (in the first genuinely disturbing scene in a film that’s full of them) awkwardly dealing with her uncle’s blatant attempt to flirt with her, Sarah is a bundle of nerves.  When, at one point, Sarah hears something wandering around the house, her father replies that he’ll check it out because “I know how you are.” 

Unfortunately for Sarah, things are about to get a lot worst.

Shortly after Sarah is visited by a mysterious girl who claims to be a childhood friend (“I do remember you,” Sarah says at one point though she doesn’t sound too convinced herself), her father disappears and Sarah finds herself being chased through the house by a pursuer who only seems to exist in the shadows.  As she struggles to escape the house, she continually sees a silent girl watching her, just to disappear whenever Sarah tries to approach her.  Even when Sarah does manage to get out of the house, she quickly finds herself brought back against her will until finally, she discovers the dark secrets that are hidden within the house and she’s forced to confront an evil far more disturbing than she had originally suspected.

Silent House is a film with a gimmick — director Chris Kentis and Laura Lau have filmed and edited it to give the impression that the movie was shot in a single take and, therefore, all of the horror takes place in real time.  Usually, I’m not a big fan of movies that rely on gimmicks but, in this case, it actually works pretty well at giving the impression of a truly relentless thrill ride.  Fortunately, Kentis and Lau don’t just rely on the film’s gimmick to make the movie effective.  From this film, it’s obvious that they understand that taking the time to create the right atmosphere is just an important to a succesful horror film as having proverbial monster suddenly jump out of the shadows.

It helps that Elizabeth Olsen (who really should have received an Oscar nomination for Martha Marcy May Marlene) is totally believable and sympathetic as Sarah.  It takes a while to realize that Olsen is giving a great performance.  For most of the film, I just thought she was doing a good job at playing scared.  (For most actresses, being chased in a horror movie is a rite of passage.)  It was only during the final 15 minutes that it become apparent that, more than just playing frightened, Olsen was instead laying down the foundation for the film’s finale.  I’ve read some criticism claiming that the film’s final twist came out of nowhere but I actually found it to be effective and disturbingly plausible.  That is almost totally due to commitment that Olsen shows in creating the character of Sarah.

I saw Silent House earlier today with Jeff and seriously, I was so happy he was there because I spent almost the entire movie with my face buried in his shoulder.  Admittedly, I’m usually pretty jaded when it comes to gore and horror.  (For example, I saw Dale get his guts ripped out on The Walking Dead last Sunday and I may have arched an eyebrow but otherwise, it was nothing I hadn’t seen before.)  But seriously, Silent House is an intense film that, wisely, doesn’t allow logic to get in the way of being scary.  The critics can nitpick all they want on this film.  What matters is that Silent House works. 

(As a sidenote, I really hope that after this movie and Martha Marcy May Marlene, Elizaebeth Olsen takes break from running for her life and makes a nice, happy romantic comedy.  She deserves a break!)

Lisa’s Thoughts On 10 Best Picture Nominees That She’s Recently Seen: The Alamo, Becket, Elmer Gantry, Gaslight, Gladiator, Kramer Vs. Kramer,Marty, Of Mice and Men, Out of Africa, and Wilson

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Since it’s Oscar weekend, I’ve been watching past and present Best Picture nominees like crazy.  Here are my thoughts on ten of them.

The Alamo (1960, directed by John Wayne, lost to The Apartment) — I’m a Texan which means that I’m legally required to watch both this film and the 2004 remake whenever they show up on television.  Both films are way too long and feature way too many characters speaking speeches as opposed to dialogue but, if I had to choose, I would have to go with the 1960 version of the story.  The original Alamo might be heavy-handed, poorly paced, and awkwardly acted but at least it’s sincere in its convictions.  I always cry when Richard Widmark dies.

Becket (1964, directed by Peter Glenville, lost to My Fair Lady) — This one is a personal favorite of mine.  The film is about the friendship and the eventual rivalry of King Henry II (Peter O’Toole) and Thomas Becket (Richard Burton).  Becket and Henry II start out the film drinking and whoring but eventually, Henry makes Becket Archbishop of Canterbury.  Becket, however, rediscovers his conscience and soon, Henry is famously asking, “Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?”  Becket is an exciting historical drama and Peter O’Toole is at his absolute best as the flamboyantly decadent Henry.

Elmer Gantry (1960, directed by Richard Brooks, lost to The Apartment) — Burt Lancaster plays Elmer Gantry, a traveling salesman and con artist who ends up falling in love with a saintly evangelist (played by Jean Simmons).  Gantry soon starts preaching himself and soon has an army of loyal followers.  However, Gantry’s new career is threatened when an ex-girlfriend-turned-prostitute (Shirley Jones) pops up and starts telling people how Gantry “rammed the fear of God into” her.  With its unapologetically corrupt lead character and its looks at how commerce and religion are often intertwined, Elmer Gantry makes a perfect companion piece to Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.  Lancaster won an Oscar for his powerful and intense performance in the title role.

Gaslight (1944, directed by George Cukor, lost to Going My Way) — Evil Charles Boyer marries Ingrid Bergman and then attempts to drive her crazy.  Luckily, Inspector Joseph Cotten is on the case.  Gaslight is, in many ways, an old-fashioned melodrama but it’s still a lot of fun to watch.  Boyer is a suave devil and Joseph Cotten (one of my favorite of the old film actors) is a dashing hero.

Gladiator (2ooo, directed by Ridley Scott, won best picture) — One thing that I’ve recently discovered is that men love Gladiator.  Seriously, they obsess over this film and hold Russell Crowe’s surly gladiator up as some sort of mystical ideal and if you dare to say a word against it in their presence, be ready for big and long argument.  So, I won’t criticize Gladiator too much other than to say that the film has always struck me as being kinda overlong, that the CGI is occasionally cartoonish, and that, despite his fearsome reputation, Russell Crowe is a lot more interesting as an actor when he plays a thinker as opposed to a fighter.  Joaquin Phoenix, playing the Emperor Commodus, is a lot of fun to watch.

Kramer Vs. Kramer (1979, directed by Robert Benton, won best picture) — Dustin Hoffman plays a workaholic New York advertising executive who, after his wife Meryl Streep leaves him, ends up as a single father.  Kramer Vs. Kramer won best picture in 1979 but I have to admit that I didn’t care much for it.  Then again, I don’t think that I was the intended audience.  Instead, Kramer vs. Kramer appears to have been made to appeal to men frustrated with women wanting to have a life outside of being a domestic servant.  The film is well-acted though Hoffman’s character becomes insufferably smug once he gets comfortable with being a single father.

Marty (1955, directd by Delbert Mann, won best picture) — Lonely butcher Marty (Ernest Borgnine) romantically pursues a shy school teacher named Clara (Betsy Blair).  However, Marty’s friends and his family don’t like Clara and Marty soon finds himself having to choose between them.  Marty is a bit of an anomaly when it comes to best picture winners.  It’s not an epic, it doesn’t claim to solve any of the world’s problems, and it’s based on a tv show.  However, it’s also a sincerely sweet and heartfelt  film and also features excellent performances from Borgnine and Blair.

Of Mice and Men (1939, directed by Lewis Milestone, lost to Gone With The Wind) — “Tell me about the rabbits, George.”  Yes, it’s that film.  Smart and little George (Burgess Meredith) and big but simple Lenny (Lon Chaney, Jr.) are migrant farm workers who get a job working at ranch where Lenny ends up accidentally killing the rancher’s daughter-in-law.  Despite the fact that we all now tend to naturally smirk when we hear anyone say “Tell me about the rabbits, George,” Of Mice and Men remains an effective tear-jerker and both Meredith and Chaney give strong performances.

Out of Africa (1985, directed by Sydney Pollack, won best picture) — I recently sat down to watch this film because 1) my aunts love this film and get excited whenever they see that it’s going to be on TV and 2) Out of Africa was named the best film of the year I was born.  So, I sat down and watched it and then three or five hours later, I realized that the film was nearly over.  Anyway, the film is about a Danish baroness (Meryl Streep) who moves to a plantation in Africa and ends up having an affair with a British big game hunter.  The hunter is played by Robert Redford, who refuses to even try to sound British. (USA! USA! USA!)  Anyway, the film is pretty in that generic way that most best picture winners are but the film ultimately suffers because its difficult to care about any of the characters.  Streep acts the Hell out of her Danish accent but she and Redford (who seems to be bored with her) have absolutely no chemistry. I saw one review online that dismissed Out of Africa as a “big budget Lifetime movie” but Lifetime movies are a lot more fun.

Wilson (1944, directed by Henry King, lost to Going My Way) — Wilson is a two-and-a-half biopic about Woodrow Wilson and his presidential administration.  Wilson is well-played by Alexander Knox, who later showed up in countless exploitation films.  Wilson shows up on cable occasionally and every time I’ve seen it, I’ve had mixed feelings about it.  The critical part of me tends to be dismissive of this film because it’s way too long, extremely stagey, and it glosses over the fact that Wilson was a virulent racist who idolized the Ku Klux Klan.  However, as a secret history nerd, I can’t help but enjoy seeing a film where Vincent Price plays the Secretary of the Treasury.

Review: Act of Valor

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

A lot of film critics are giving Act of Valor a negative review but I think they’re missing the point.  Featuring an actual Navy SEAL squad and real-life military tactics (and weapons), Act of Valor feels like a documentary and serves as a much-needed tribute to these brave men.  The action scenes are intense and exciting and the movie makes great use of the “helmet cam” vantage point to truly make you feel as if you’re actually there in the middle of the action.

Yes, the Seals aren’t actors but they are the men who are putting their lives on the line for this country and seeing them recreating their missions is exciting in a way that watching Matt Damon or (sorry, Lisa) James Franco going through the motions wouldn’t be.   Act of Valor is a movie that makes you want to stand up and salute.  You might not start cheering at the end of it but you will appreciate the willingness to sacrifice and the sense of duty that epitomizes the best of our armed forces.  It’s a tribute to the men and women who truly deserve the honor.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Conversation (dir. by Francis Ford Coppola)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a result of my continuing effort to see every single film ever nominated for best picture, I’ve been lucky enough to both discover and rediscover a handful of excellent films that, for whatever reason, have ended up forgotten and neglected in the years since they scored their nominations.  One of the more recent of these films was Francis Ford Coppola’s masterpiece of a paranoia, the 1974 Best Picture nominee The Conversation.*

The Conversation tells the story of Harry Caul (played by Gene Hackman), a surveillance expert who, along with his colleague Stan (played by the great John Cazale), is hired by a businessman (Robert Duvall) to bug a conversation between Duvall’s much younger wife (played by Cindy Williams) and a man who might be her lover (played by Fredric Forrest).  Harry, we quickly discover, is a man who values his privacy and who manages to find a balance between his unsavory job and his devout religious faith by maintaining an impenetrable shield of detachment from the rest of humanity.  He is a man who hides from the world inside of his apartment, only allowing himself to show the slightest hint of emotion when playing his saxophone.  In one of the film’s best scenes, Harry finds himself awkwardly socializing with a far more sleazy acquaintance (played by Alan Garfield, one of the great character actors of the 70s) and it becomes apparent that Harry may be the best in the business but he’s still the ultimate outsider.

However, Harry is forced to confront the contradictions of his own lifestyle when he listens to the conversation between Forrest and Williams and believes that he might have found evidence that both Forrest and Williams are in fear for their lives.  With Duvall’s operatives demanding the surveillance tapes, Harry Caul soon finds himself becoming more and more paranoid and unstable as he finds it more and more difficult to justify his detachment.  Harry finds himself obsessively listening to the conversation over and over again, going over every possible nuance and emphasis to try to figure out what’s actually being said.  Of course, by the end of the film, it’s obvious to both Harry and the audience that nothing is as simple as it sounds. 

Compared to the Godfather films and Apocalypse Now, the Conversation is a surprisingly low-key and rather muted film.  A lot of this is because, as opposed to the Corleones and Martin Sheen’s Captain Willard, Gene Hackman’s Harry Caul is a complete and total introvert, a man who makes his living by observing a world that he refuses to be a part of.  Though the film works quite well as a thriller, it works best when viewed as a sympathetic character study of a paranoid and anti-social human being.  Hackman full inhabits the role, bringing Harry — with all of his frustrating contradictions and conflicted actions — to oddly vibrant life.  The film ultimately serves as a sad-eyed look at how a good person can justify doing bad things and how the inevitable consequences of those bad things can only be delayed for so long.

On a final note, an impossibly young Harrison Ford shows up here as Duvall’s sinister assistant.  He plays the role with just the right amount of prissy arrogance and he has a great scene where he asks Harry is he wants to try a homemade cookie.  “They’re good,” Ford assures him.

So is The Conversation.

—–

* Of course, another Coppola film — The Godfather, Part II — beat the Conversation for best picture.  However, The Conversation did win the Palme D’Or at Cannes that year.  It was a good year to be Francis Ford Coppola.

Two Post Presidents Day Reviews: Frost/Nixon (dir. by Ron Howard) and All The President’s Men (dir. by Alan J. Pakula)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Now Watergate doesn’t bother me/does your conscience bother you?” — Lynard Skynard, Sweet Home Alabama

As part of my continuing quest to see and review every film ever nominated for best picture, I want to devote my first post Presidents Day post to two films: 2008’s Frost/Nixon and 1976’s All The President’s Men.

During my sophomore year of college, I had a political science professor who, every day of class, would sit on his desk and ramble on and on and on about his past as a political activist.  He protested Viet Nam, he hung out with revolutionaries, he loved Hugo Chavez, and I assume he probably had a Che Guevara poster hanging in his office.  Whenever he wanted to criticize George W. Bush, he would compare him to Richard Nixon and then pause as if he was waiting for the class to all start hissing in unison.  He always seemed to be so bitterly disappointed that we didn’t.  What he, and a whole lot of other people his age, didn’t seem to understand was that Richard Nixon was his boogeyman.  The rest of us could hardly care less.

That was the same problem that faced the 2008 best picture nominee Frost/Nixon. 

Directed rather flatly by Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon tells the true story about how a light-weight English journalist named David Frost (played by Michael Sheen) managed to score the first televised interview with former President Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).  Both Frost and Nixon see the interviews as a chance to score their own individual redemptions while Frost’s assistants (played by Oliver Platt and Sam Rockwell) see the interview as a chance to put Richard Nixon on trial for Watergate, the Viet Nam War, and every thing else under the sun.  That may not sound like a very exciting movie but it does sound like a sure Oscar contender, doesn’t it?

I’ve always secretly been a big history nerd so I was really looking forward to seeing Frost/Nixon when it was first released in 2008.  When I first saw it, I was vaguely disappointed but I told myself that maybe I just didn’t know enough about Richard Nixon or Watergate to really “get” the film.  So, when the film later showed up on cable, I gave it another chance.  And then I gave it a chance after that because I really wanted to like this film.  Afterall, it was a best picture nominee.  It was critically acclaimed.  The word appeared to be insisting that this was a great film.  And the more I watched it, the more I realized that the world was wrong.  (If nothing else, my reaction to Frost/Nixon made it easier for me to reject the similarly acclaimed Avatar a year later.)  Frost/Nixon is well-acted and slickly produced but it’s not a great film.  In fact, Frost/Nixon is epitome of the type of best picture nominee that inspires people to be cynical about the Academy Awards.

Before I get into why Frost/Nixon didn’t work for me, I want to acknowledge that this was a very well-acted film.  By that, I mean that the cast (Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell, and Oliver Platt) all gave very watchable and entertaining performances.  At the same time, none of them brought much depth to their characters.  Much like the film itself, nobody seems to have much going on underneath the surface.  Frank Langella may be playing a historic figure but, ultimately, his Oscar-nominated performance feels like just a typically grouchy Frank Langella performance.  Michael Sheen actually gives a far more interesting performance as David Frost but, at the same time, the character might as well have just been identified as “the English guy.”  In fact, a better title for this film would have been The Grouchy, the English, and the Superfluous.

For all the time that the film devotes to Rockwell and Platt blathering on about how they’re going to be giving Richard Nixon “the trial he never had,” this film is ultimately less about politics and more about show business.  Ron Howard devotes almost as much time to the rather boring details of how the interviews were set up and sold into syndication as he does to the issues that the interview brings up.  Unfortunately, for a movie about show business to succeed, the audience has to believe that the show is one that they would actually enjoy watching,  This, ultimately, is why Frost/Nixon fails.  While the filmmakers continually tell us that the Frost/Nixon interviews were an important moment in American history, they never show us.  Yes, everyone has hideous hair and wide lapels but, otherwise, the film never recreates the period or the atmosphere of the film’s setting and, as a result, its hard not to feel detached from the action happening on-screen.  For all the self-congratulatory claims made at the end of the film, it never convinces us that the Frost/Nixon interviews were really worth all the trouble.  Much like my old poli sci professor, Frost/Nixon never gives us a reason to care. 

For a far more interesting and entertaining look at the Watergate scandal, I would recommend the 1976 best picture nominee All The President’s Men.  Recreating the story of how two Washington Post reporters (played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman) exposed the Watergate scandal that eventually led to Nixon’s resignation, All The President’s Men is the movie that Frost/Nixon wishes it could be.  Despite being made only two years after Watergate, All The President’s Men doesn’t take the audience’s interest for granted.  Instead, director Pakula earns our interest by crafting his story as an exciting thriller.  Pakula directs the film like an old school film noir, filling the screen with menacing shadows and always keeping the camera slightly off-center.   Like Frost/Nixon, All The President’s Men is a well-acted film with a bunch of wonderful 70s character actors — performers like Ned Beatty, Jason Robards, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, and Robert Walden, and Jane Alexander — all giving effectively low-key and realistic performances.   The end result is a film that manages to be exciting and fascinating to those of us who really don’t have any reason to care about Richard Nixon or Watergate.

Both of these two films were nominated for best picture.  Frost/Nixon quite rightly lost to Slumdog Millionaire.  All The President’s Men, on the other hand, lost to Rocky.

Quick Review: Star Wars – Episode I: The Phantom Menace 3D

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

 

This isn’t so much a review of The Phantom Menace, as it’s one about the 3D aspect of it. I can’t imagine there isn’t a single person who doesn’t know what The Phantom Menace was about.

Historically, Unless it happens to be a cartoon, I really don’t do very well when it comes to 3D films. The effect for me tends to wear off really quick. The only real movie exception for me lately was last year’s Drive Angry 3D and Hugo (which to talk about in full requires it’s own review). The tail end of 2011 saw some of cinema’s Old Schoolers jump into the 3D scene, with Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of Tintin adding to the lot. So really, it was just a matter of time before George Lucas would blow the dust off his legacy and take all six of the Star Wars films into the 3-Dimensional arena.

I grew up on Star Wars, like many kids born early enough to have seen the Originals. I remember the lines, the scenes, all of that. With the release of the Prequels, I took my little brother on Midnight premieres for all three of them. Those are by far the biggest and best memories of the series, the sharing of those “wow” moments either with my family or with friends growing up. Of all of the films, The Empire Strikes Back remains my favorite (as it is for a number of people).

So, here I was, back for The Phantom Menace on 3D. You’d think that Lucasfilm and ILM would go to some great lengths to make sure that the effects were great, and I have to admit that there were really only a few key scenes in the movie where the 3D really shined – The Opening Credits, the Podrace and one of the fight sequences. Still, for me the ability to see the 3D faded within 15 minutes, so I was pretty much left with watching a film I wasn’t particularly fond of, save for the key scenes.

That isn’t to say that The Phantom Menace is a dreadful film, Jar Jar and all. The movie was made with kids in mind, and watching it from that position, the story does make some kind of sense. Ideally, 3D really isn’t a compelling reason to have the Star Wars films return to the cinema, yet at the same time, that they’re there may actually warrant a theatre visit if you like watching them. If any film is going to use the 3D well, it’ll probably be one of the Originals. What the film does excel at is it’s use of sound. Ben Burtt is always great when it comes to sound cues and The Phantom Menace is easily a good example of this. Lightsabers hum, sparks are loud and it flows well.

Back in 1999, George Lucas it was necessary to give us a reason why Darth Vader became the man he was, and decided to create the first installment of Star Wars films that would focus on Anakin Skywalker’s rise and eventual fall. Sitting in the theatre and hearing the Fox fanfare go up, one can’t help but smile as the “A Long Time Ago…” phrase appears. Of course, that quickly fades as the cast actually starts talking. Man, the Phantom Menace was a hot mess, but a beautiful mess at that.

The Podracing scene was just as fun as it always was, and the Darth Maul Double Bladed Lightsaber reveal is just as hair raising, but watching it, I had moments where (just as I did on the first run), I wondered how much better it could be if Lucas didn’t hold on so tightly to his creation. Star Wars overall is an awesome concept, but there are just so many better writers and filmmakers out there. The material feels a little wasted, just a little.

If anything, The Phantom Menace does work as something to bring the kids to see, but if you already have the movie on video, it’s not completely required.

 

Movies I Want To See: The Oscar

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Well, it’s almost here!  One more week and then, it’s Oscar time.  This is the time of year that I always end up remembering an infamous little film from 1966 that I’ve always wanted to see.  The film in question was meant to be an expose of all the sordid side of show business but instead, it has since become legendary for the number of critics who have declared it to be one of the worst films ever made.  The film is called “The Oscar” and it even scored nominations for both its sets and its costumes.  Each year, around this time, I swear that I’m going to track down and finally watch this movie.  Will this be the year that it finally happens?

Probably not.  To be honest, this is going to be a pretty busy week for me and, once this year’s ceremony is over with, I’ll probably be burned out on Oscar talk. 

It happens.

However, even if I don’t see the film anytime soon, I can still share this YouTube video of highlights from 1966’s The Oscar.

Enjoy!

Quickie Review: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (dir. by Neveldine/Taylor)

Posted on by Arleigh

Ghost Rider has always been a niche character for Marvel Comics. The character was born out of an earlier Marvel character named Night Rider. After Marvel writers Roy Thomas and Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog had rein-visioned the character into Ghost Rider during the early 70’s it has always remained on the extreme fringes of the Marvel Comics universe. This wouldn’t stop Sony (which owned the film rights to the character) to go ahead and adapt it for the big-screen. 2007’s Ghost Rider by Mark Johnson was the first and failed attempt to turn the character into a film franchise. It still made enough money despite a near-universal panning of the film by critics and audiences alike. This turn of profit is why Sony once again dipped into the Ghost Rider well and come up with 2012’s Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.

This “sort of” sequel ditches Mark Johnson and brings in the dynamic (and I’d say somewhat insane) directing duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor to helm the film. It brings back Nicolas Cage for the role of Johnny Blaze/Ghost Rider. Working from a script by Scott Gimple, Seth Hoffman and David S. Goyer one would think the film had nowhere else to go but up especially with the wacky and frenetic filming style by Neveldine/Taylor. To say that this sequel failed to do anything but finally give this film franchise a final nail in it coffin would be an understatement.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance ditches pretty much most of what transpired with the first film and tries to retcon things for the sequel. I’d say this would’ve been a good idea seeing the first film was truly awful, but what the sequel ended up doing was confuse things even more. The film tries to turn the Ghost Rider persona from just a spirit of vengeance but an angelic being called the spirit of justice which had become corrupted. We get the Devil in the form of Roarke (played by Irish actor Ciaran Hinds) searching for the young boy Danny who is to be his perfect vessel.  Johnny Blaze comes into the picture after being recruited by a drunk French warrior-monk by the name of Moreau (Idris Elba whose performance was one of the lone highlights of the film) who promises to exorcise the demon from Blaze in exchange for finding and saving Danny.

This would’ve been a good premise if it had several more drafts of it worked on. Though there’s still a chance the film would’ve still sucked in the end. Even the direction from Neveldine/Taylor (Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Gamer) failed to add any heat to the proceedings. They come up with some unique camera angles and action sequences, but gone was the hyper-realistic and frenetic style they’ve become known for. Their previous films were not stuff to write to one’s film critic circles about but they at least had a sense of fun built into them even if their stories defied any sort of logic.

Even the performances by the cast seemed to be something that barely reached the level of one-dimensional. Nicolas Cage tries to channel his inner crazy by way of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, but it’s too little too late to save the film which never found any sort of footing on the side of competent. Really, the only good thing worth of note was my previous mention of Idris Elba as Moreau who chews the scenery every time he shows up on the screen like it was his last meal. This performance alone wasn’t enough to save the film or even make it somewhat entertaining.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance was not worth seeing in the theater (especially in 3D though that part of the film was actually quite well done despite being a post conversion) and I’d be willing to admit that it’s still not worth seeing on video unless it was for free. What could’ve been a restart to the series with the inclusion of Neveldine/Taylor instead gives this franchise it’s death-knell and most likely help Marvel get the rights back from Sony. Here’s to hoping that the flaming skull rider stays on the fringes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for decades to come.