Tag Archives: Johnny Depp

Back to School #73: 21 Jump Street (dir by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

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Though the TV series that its based is a bit before my time, the 2012 comedy 21 Jump Street is a personal favorite of mine.  The film tells the story of how nerdy Morton Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and popular but none-too-intelligent jock Greg Jenko (Channing Tatum) first met in high school, went to the police academy together, both turned out to really bad cops together, and then returned to high school together.

Why did they return to high school?  Because they’re both working undercover now!  As part of a recently revived program from the 80s (and that would apparently be the original television series), young cops are being sent undercover into high school.  As all the other cops involved with the program appear to be super cops, Capt. Dickson (Ice Cube) has every reason to believe that Schmidt and Jenko will be able to discover who is responsible for dealing a dangerous new synthetic drug known as HFS.

One of the things that makes 21 Jump Street work is that, at no point, does the film pretend that either Channing Tatum or Jonah Hill could still pass for a high school student.  One of the film’s best moments comes when a drug dealing environmentalist/student named Eric Molson (Dave Franco, brother of my beloved James) tells Jenko that he suspects that Jenko may be a cop.  “Why?” Jenko asks.  “You’re taste in music. The fact that you look like a fucking forty-year old man,” Eric replies.

Not surprisingly, Jenko and Schmidt prove themselves to be fairly clueless about how high school has changed.  One thing that I’ve always found interesting about high school films is that often times, regardless of when a particularly film might be set, it still feels like it’s taking place ten to twenty years in the past.  That’s largely because most high school films are made by directors who are trying to relive their youth and, as a result, they end up making a film about a high school in 2014 where all of the students look and act as if they’re living in the 90s.  The truth of the matter is that things change pretty quickly.

That’s one reason why I haven’t set foot back in my high school since I graduated.  As much fun as I did have in high school and even though I’ve been told that I can still pass for high school age (and I still constantly get asked for ID), the fact of the matter is that it’s no longer 2004.

When Jenko and Schmidt return to high school, they do so expecting to have to return to their previous teenager personas.  That’s good news for Jenko and not so good news for Schmidt.  However, once they arrive (and after their class schedules accidentally get switched), they discover that high school has changed.  Jocks like Jenko no longer rule the school and Schmidt is now one of the popular kids…

Before I saw 21 Jump Street, I knew that Jonah Hill was funny.  But the film’s big surprise was that Channing Tatum is just as funny.  Throughout the film, Tatum shows a willingness to poke fun at his own image and proves that he can deliver an absurd one-liner as masterfully as just about anyone else working today.  There’s a lot of reasons why 21 Jump Street is a funny film.  It’s full of funny lines and the movie features a lot of very sharp satire of both the action and the teen genres.  But the true pleasure of the film comes from the comedic chemistry between Tatum and Hill.

It’s just a lot of fun to watch.

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Trailer: Into The Woods

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Watching the first trailer for the upcoming musical film adaptation of Into The Woods, I’m struck by the fact the first half of the trailer looks intriguing and wonderful while the second half of the trailer, which features an almost stereotypically epic score and Chris Pine looking like a model-turned-prince, is far less interesting.  A lot of online Oscar watchers have been predicting that Into The Woods, Meryl Streep, and Johnny Depp are all going to be award-contenders.  Then again, a lot of those people also thought that Rob Marshall’s previous film, Nine, would be a contender as well.

Myself, I have a feeling that Meryl might get a nomination, largely because she’s Meryl and she always gets a nomination.  As for the rest of the film, it’s too early to say.  The trailer below gives reason to be both optimistic and pessimistic.

So, in other words, I have no idea.

Trash Film Guru Vs. The Summer Blockbusters : “The Lone Ranger”

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

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It all seemed like such a no-brainer, didn’t it?

Disney snaps up the cinematic rights to the most famous Western hero of them all — one that hasn’t been “rebooted” since 1981’s disastrous Legend Of The Lone Ranger — and turns it over, naturally enough, to Jerry Bruckheimer, who “gets the band back together,” so to speak, by hiring Gore Verbinski to direct and Johnny Depp to star as Tonto. Pirates Of The Caribbean Goes West, anyone?

It goes without saying that budget wouldn’t be a concern here — special effects, production values, sets and costumes — all would be state-of-the-state-of-the-art. Turn it loose on the public over the extended July 4th holiday weekend, sit back, and collect all that cold, hard cash. What could possibly go wrong? This was fool-proof.

Except for the fact that, well, it hasn’t been. The Lone Ranger has landed at the box office with a thud — not as big a thud as it did back in ’81, but a thud nonetheless. The critics seem to despise it, and while audiences have been considerably kinder in their appraisal of the film, they haven’t been large enough for Disney to come anywhere close to recouping their considerable investment in this rapidly-unfurling boondoggle.

All of which is kind of a shame because, as with last year’s panned (but considerably more successful at the box office) Men In Black 3, I honestly can’t figure out where all the hate is coming from. Simply put, The Lone Ranger is a damn fun movie, full of exactly the kind of kick-ass, jaw-dropping CGI, solid “out for justice” storytelling, tight, pacy plotting, and charismatic acting that makes for a sure-fire crowd-pleaser. Even if the crowds aren’t proving to be all that big.

Not exactly a “revisionist” take on the legend of John Reid (confidently played by Armie Hammer), a Texas Ranger who, when his life is turned tragically upside-down, dons a mask and adopts a new persona. this flick nevertheless provides a different spin on things by telling the tale from the point of view of an older, wiser, and maybe even somewhat broken-down Tonto (Johnny Depp in, quite honestly, one of the finest performances of his career), who earlier in life threw his lot in with Reid to bring to justice the source of all our hero’s troubles, renegade quasi-militia leader Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner, who makes for a terrific bad guy) and ,more generally, to put a stop to all the various shenanigans this good-for-nothing had a hand in.

If this sounds like your idea of a simple-minded, non-stop thrill ride full of all the excitement, adventure, humor, and yes, even human drama that you want in summertime popcorn fare, rest assured — it is. Good supporting turns from the likes of Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, and Ruth Wilson don’t hurt matters any, either.

Yeah, there are some gaping plot holes large enough for an entire herd of cattle to stampede through, but has that stopped folks from liking, say, World War Z or Man Of Steel, both of which are at least as guilty of counting on you to put your suspension of disbelief completely on hold for a couple of hours? If you can do it for them, surely you can do it for this, right?

Look, I won’t kid you — some small, petty, vengeful little corner of my dark and twisted soul is always happy to see a mega-budget Disney project end up costing the studio untold millions in losses. They’re bastards and they deserve it. But truth be told, if you join the legions of people who have already evidently decided to take a pass on The Lone Ranger, you’re not hurting the evil empire much — they’ve already got Monsters University to more than compensate for any bite this takes from their corporate balance sheet. The only thing you’re really doing by skipping it, then,  is robbing yourself of a good time.

It’s summer! Get out there and have some fun — by sitting on your ass in a cool, air-conditioned mega-plex and catching what’s most likely the best action-adventure film of the year so far.

Trash Film Guru Vs. The Summer Blockbusters – “Dark Shadows”

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

First off, a qualification : if you’re a lifelong (or thereabouts) fan of Dan Curtis’ classic Dark Shadows TV series, I can understand why you would hate Tim Burton’s new film of the same name. It’s many things, but old-school Dark Shadows isn’t one of them. Feel free, with my full blessing (whatever that’s worth), to absolutely despise this flick right down to a molecular level if you fit into this category of viewer. But if you don’t —

— then seriously, where is all this vitriol coming from? I’m not saying it’s a tremendous or important movie by any means, but it’s brainless, entertaining, heavy-on-the-camp fun that’s pretty solidly constructed Burton-by-the-numbers.

And maybe that’s the problem. Tim Burton’s work has, indeed, become almost relentlessly formulaic by this point : de-fang horror/gothic/50s-era sci-fi concepts to make them palatable to mainstream family audiences, concentrate heavily on the visuals, strenuously avoid even the hint of any political subtext, add in a dash of blatantly-obvious-but-ultimately-respectful-to-its-source self-satire, have your admittedly talented cast skew their performances toward the knowingly pantomime, and voila! You’ve got yourself morbidity for the masses.

Apparently this is now some sort of crime. Granted, Dark Shadows is no Ed Wood or Big Fish, but it doesn’t wallow in Burtonian excess the way that the more successful (as far as the box office goes) Charlie And The Chocolate Factory or the mega-successful Alice In Wonderland did. But judging by the reaction out there on Twitter and other “social media” sites, you’d think this was somehow the nadir or Burton’s career (how quickly we seem to forget Mars Attacks!) — in fact, it seems to be generating as much overly-malignant hatred as The Avengers is generating overly-effusive praise. But hell, at least this movie is recognizably the work of a singular creative vision (albeit not one operating at its peak) rather than pure CGI assembly-line product that could have been directed by any of dozens of different self-styled “action auteurs” (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — if The Avengers had been helmed by Jon Favreau, it would essentially be no different) who are ultimately as interchangeable as the material they produce.

The cast is the usual mix of Burton way-more-than-regulars (Johnny Depp in the title role of Barnabas Collins, Helena Bonham Carter as family doctor/lush Julia Hoffman, Christopher Lee in a terrific cameo — as opposed to his pointless quick turn in The Wicker Tree — as an “old man of the sea”-type), talented, well-cast veterans (Michelle Pfeiffer as tired family matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, Jackie Earle Haley as the hapless Willie Loomis) and up-and-coming talents (Eva Green as Barnabas’ principal object of love/hate, Angelique Bouchard, Bella Heathcote as his principal object of love only, Victoria Winters, Jonny Lee Miller as weak-willed family weasel  Roger Collins, Chloe Grace Moretz  doing her teen-with-a-‘tude thing as Carolyn Soddard), and while none are giving what could in any way be called inspired turns, all are solid and dependable.

As is the story, an uncomplicated affair about Barnabas emerging from the grave, vamped to the hilt, in the early 70s to help his fallen-on-hard-times clan rebuild their fishing and canning empire in the face of rival competition that’s equally supernatural in origin, with a little bit of reincarnation-themed romance thrown in for good measure. It’s hardly demanding stuff, of course, but it’s perfectly suited to function as precisely what it is — a distracted afternoon’s or evening’s summer lightweight entertainment. Joss Whedon does this with a team of super-heroes and we call him a genius. Tim Burton does it with harmless comic vampires and we say he’s jumped the shark. Go figure.

All of which goes to show nothing so much as the herd mentality so prevalent amongst today’s film-buff “community.” In truth, both Dark Shadows and The Avengers are cut from remarkably similar cloth — throwaway big-budget diversionary fare that demands nothing of its audience and gives you pretty much exactly what you figure to be in for when you buy your ticket. One is being praised for it because, hey, other people immediately started talking about how good it is, and one is reviled because, hey, other people immediately started talking about how stupid it was. But you know what? At least Dark Shadows has no pretense of being anything other than precisely what it is, and no army of zombies (or vampires) doing its studios’ dirty work for it and publicizing it like mad for free.

I freely admit that might be a big reason why I actually enjoyed this a little more than Marvel’s billion-dollar-bonanza, and I also freely admit that actions taking place off-screen should , by all rights, play absolutely no part in how I react to what’s taking place on-screen. But it’s not a perfect world. And Dark Shadows is far from a perfect film. But I ended up liking it it a lot more than I was honestly expecting to — and if you go into it with an open mind, who knows? Maybe you will, too.

 

6 Trailers To Keep Things Cheerful

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

After spending two weeks researching the career of Jason Voorhees, I am in the mood for some movies that feature absolutely no one getting brutally murdered. That’s why this edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers is dedicated to some of the most light-weight comedies ever made. 

(Yes, I realize that these films aren’t exactly grindhouse films but they’re close enough.)

1) Making the Grade (1984)

This trailer almost feels like a parody, doesn’t it?  In fact, it very well could be.  Has anyone ever actually seen this Making the Grade movie?

2) White Water Summer (1987)

This is a weird movie that, for some reason, tends to pop up on TV every few months or so.  Kevin Bacon is a nature guide who appears to be sociopath and Sean Astin is the kid that he bullies nonstop.  Eventually, Bacon breaks his leg and Astin saves his life or something like that.  The whole movie just has a really weird feel to it.

3) Private Lessons (1981)

These next three trailers form a trilogy of sorts.  We start off with Private Lessons, which — let’s be honest — is a pretty creepy trailer.

4) Private School (1983)

The 2nd part of the private trilogy was directed by Noel Black who also directed one of the best films of the 60s, Pretty Poison.

5) Private Resort (1985)

And then we come to this…Private Resort.  Much like White Water Summer, Private Resort used to always show up on Sunday afternoon TV and I’ve never really understood why.  That said, I watched it a few times because I’ll watch Johnny Depp in anything.

6) Fraternity Vacation (1985)

And finally, let’s wrap things up with Fraternity Vacation, starring future Oscar winner Tim Robbins.

Trailer: 21 Jump Street (Red Band)

Posted on by Arleigh

Ok, I have to admit that I was a huge fan of the Fox Network early 90’s cop show 21 Jump Street. What can I say other than it was a show about cops who looked like teenagers so using TV logic they go undercover in high school as students to catch bad guys. I mean the show gave birth to Depp and Grieco, nuff said.

It’s been twenty years since that show first first premiered and now we have the long-awaited, much-anticipated film adaptation of said show set for spring of 2012. It’s going to be an action-comedy but still using the same premise as the show, but instead of taking the original characters from the show and just having new actors play them the film just returns to the 21 Jump Street program with a new batch of recruits. So, instead of Johnny Depp and Richard Grieco we get Channing Tataum and Jonah Hill instead. I did read that Depp will appear in this film in a major cameo. Now, here’s to hoping they’re keeping Grieco’s appearance as a major secret.

The first trailer has been released and it’s in glorious red band. So, as I look at the trailer I will assume that this film will either be a very hard PG-13 or a soft R rating.

21 Jump Street has a release date of March 16, 2012.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Rum Diary (dir. by Bruce Robinson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

My sister Erin and I went and saw The Rum Diary on Tuesday and wow, was it ever a disappointment.  The commercials make it look like a wild comedy featuring Johnny Depp looking all sexy and decadent but, in reality, the film is kind of a mess that is almost schizophrenic in its attempts to be more than the sum of its parts.

Johnny Depp plays Paul Kemp, an alcoholic writer who goes to Puerto Rico in the early 60s and takes a job writing horoscopes for the local newspaper.  The job leads to him drinking a lot and hanging out with characters who are sweaty and so generally grimy that it’s borderline revolting to even see them on-screen.  (Giovanni Ribisi, giving a distressingly bad performance, is the main offender.)  Paul also ends up kinda befriending (but not really) a businessman named Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), who you know is a bad guy because he’s the only character who dresses in pastels.  Anyway, Sanderson has a girlfriend named Chenault (Amber Heard) and Chenault really has no purpose for existing other than for Paul to fall in love with her and save her from a terrible future of being married to a rich, handsome man.  The film starts out as a comedy and then, after about an hour, it suddenly turns all serious and preachy.  It’s as if the film can’t decide whether it wants to be an unfunny comedy or a laughable drama.

Luckily, Johnny Depp is on screen for nearly the entire film and, as we watched, Erin and I quickly learned that the best way to enjoy The Rum Diary is just to allow yourself to be carried away by the Deppness of it all.  Don’t think about how the film’s kind of a mess and how Aaron Eckhart is more of a designated villain than a real villain and ignore the fact that Chenault is a sexist fantasy and tune out the preachy dialogue and try not to think about how everyone appears to have had more fun making the film than you’re having watching it, and just concentrate on Johnny Depp being all kinds of sexy.  

If you do that, The Rum Diary is a tolerable 2 hours.

Trailers For Halloween, Part 3

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy October 31st!  In honor of one of the greatest months ever, here’s part three of my special Halloween edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Trailers.  Enjoy!

1) House of Dark Shadows (1970)

Apparently, this film is being remade by Johnny Depp and Tim Burton.

2) Night of Dark Shadows (1971)

And then, of course, there was a sequel. 

3) Children Shouldn’t Pay With Dead Things (1972)

I agree!

4) Don’t Look In The Basement (1972)

In the best grindhouse tradition, the first part of this trailer is made up of scenes from Last House On The Left.  On another note, one of the benefits of living in north Texas is that we don’t have to deal with basements and all the icky little things that tend to live in basements.

5) The Crater Lake Monster (1977)

Wow, this looks bad.  But I just love the way the guy narrating the trailer tries to convince us otherwise.

6) Phantasm (1979)

Everyone always seems to freak out when I admit that I haven’t seen this movie yet.  I do own it on DVD, however and someday, I will watch it.  Promise!

Happy Halloween!

Film Review: Pirates of the Caribbean – On Stranger Tides

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

This post is going to end with some spoilers, which will have warnings behind it. Just so you know.

Confession: I fell asleep during Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides. It was only for a few minutes during the jungle sequences, but nothing special was happening, so I figured I could get away with it. I can see, though why Gore Verbinski saddled up with Rango instead of this one. As Lisa Marie mentioned via Twitter, she zoned out about 10 minutes in and really only followed it for the awesomeness that is Johnny Depp. He, Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane are the only real reasons to see this, but know that the film is muddled with a bit of lazy writing covered in explosions and chases. This is one Jack Sparrow story you can really wait for on DVD. It’s literally the Pirates of the Caribbean Edition of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.

Every writer goes though a bad time now and then. Even though Paul Haggis won an Oscar for Crash, he was also responsible for Quantum of Solace, which could have been a tighter story than what it was. I have to remind myself that even though Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot gave us a cool character in Captain Jack Sparrow (which was made more concrete through Johnny Depp’s performance), they were also responsible for Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla some years back. It happens. Of course, they could both write me under the table while blindfolded, this I get, and they have my respect.

That said, I didn’t outright hate Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. It was a fun popcorn ride in some areas, with as much flair as the Disney / Bruckheimer collaborations can offer, but it also felt like it was a production just made for the money, like The Wolfman. The only ones who seemed to really enjoy themselves here were Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane, and to both their credits they carried the film for me. Johnny Depp was great as always (he has moment where he clearly shines), but I get the feeling like he’s almost tired of the character. Again, that’s just my viewpoint here.

What about the Kids?

Well, being a film under the Disney banner, the easiest rule of thumb to use here is this: If you’ve taken your kids to any of the other Pirates movies, this is pretty much more of the same. Granted, people die and there may be a nearly naked mermaid, but it’s done well.  It should be okay for teens and pre-teens, but that’s up to families to decide.

Previously on Pirates, we found Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp, great as always) in the possession of the map from At World’s End, who is in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth. Jack finds that there is someone impersonating him who also happens to be looking for the same thing, and seeks out the imposter. This eventually leads him to the dreaded pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane) who also seeks the Fountain to block a prophecy that will lead to his death. So, it’s something of a race to see who will get there first. Even his old friend/enemy Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) is part of the adventure, but doesn’t quite have the same presence here as he did the other films.

Depp on his own does justice to Sparrow and he still manages to bring some fun to the character.  That’s really not a surprise, but after 3 of these films, I had the feeling that part of his performance was just repetition of what he did before. I imagine him wishing for Verbinski or sighing after every take. Well, every take that didn’t involve Penelope Cruz, I guess.

I felt Penelope’s Angelica really matched well against Depp’s Sparrow, and it opened up a lot of doors for characterization between the two. Depp and Cruz’s scenes together really worked for me and were definitely a highlight as their chemistry is amazing. Between she and McShane – who quite frankly hasn’t had a bad role since Deadwood – really help to carry the movie. Blackbeard’s ruthlessness is clearly conveyed through McShane’s acting and  if there’s one thing he knows how to do, it’s to play the villain well. There are also some notable cameos near the start of the film, which was nice to see.

One other major plus is the music. Even though Hans Zimmer uses some of the themes from the other films, he’s had some great help in guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela. If you’ve never heard these two before, open up another tab on your browser and look them up online. This post will be waiting for you when you get back.

Done? Good. Didn’t I say they were cool? The duo adds a lot of flavor to the music of the movie, which really does help things (as much as they can).

Rob Marshall’s direction of the film isn’t terrible as some might say. It actually feels a lot like Gore Verbinski’s (to me, anyway), and if you weren’t told who was making the film, there’s a slight possibility you wouldn’t recognize it wasn’t Verbinski. He does capture the action scenes well and truthfully, there was something cool with the lighting in the Sparrow sword fights that occurs early on. I’m under the impression that this is due to the Bruckheimer touch on things.

The writing on this film felt lazy. Here’s what I mean, and the following might be spoilers:

*** Here lie Spoilers, Ladies and Gents, be warned! ***

*** Here lie Spoilers, Ladies and Gents, be warned! ***

*** Here lie Spoilers, Ladies and Gents, be warned! ***

There is a part in the film where Barbossa explains his stake in the chase for the Fountain of Youth. In a few lines, Geoffrey Rush nails it like an old man telling stories by a campfire. The only problem is that you’ve been told what happened in a visual medium. One of the first rules of writing is to show, and not tell. With a budget of over $400 million, I find it shocking that they couldn’t have just taken a few minutes to visually give us that explanation. It’s possible that Rossio and Elliot wanted to avoid reusing some of the same Pirates elements from the earlier films, but sometimes Pirate life does have a few struggles on the water. Why not show how he lost the Black Pearl?

Another example of the writing problem is the quasi-love story between the ship’s cleric (who’s name I can’t even recall) and the mermaid they encounter. It felt forced to me, and I’m convinced that when the Cleric finally tells the Mermaid he wants her to save his life, she pulled him down into deep waters only to feed upon him like those other poor pirate souls. And you know why? Because Marshall and the writers never bothered to show the audience a hint of what became of them. I doubt they cared about them any more than the audience could have. I even stayed after the credits, figuring that the final shot would maybe show me something of their fate, but no. Nothing of the sort.

*** Spoilers are done, you can keep reading now. ***

*** Spoilers are done, you can keep reading now. ***

*** Spoilers are done, you can keep reading now. ***

Oh, and there’s nothing to read after this, because I’m writing like Rossio and Elliot. Feel that sense of emptiness? That gap, like there should be something here? That’s what this Pirates may do to you.