Tag Archives: review

2011: The Year In Film So Far

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Greetings from the former home of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Crossville, Tennessee!  Yes, Jeff and I are on our way back to Texas.  It’s been a wonderful vacation but I have to admit, I’m looking forward to seeing a movie at the Plano (or Dallas) Angelika on Sunday.  I’m not sure which movie but, as long as it’s a movie, I’ll be a happy girl.

That’s because I love movies.  Movies are what I schedule my life around.  My birth certificate says I was born in 1985 but I know that I was born in the year of Brazil, Prizzi’s Honor, Blood Simple, and After Hours.  If each year can be judged by the quality of the films then how is 2011 looking now that we’ve reached (and passed) the halfway mark?

Right now, as I sit here in this hotel room in my panties and my beloved Pirates shirt, I’d say 2011 is shaping up to be an average year.  There’s been a few films that I loved and there’s been a few that I’ve absolutely despised but for the most part, this year is shaping up to be comfortable and rather bland. 

Much as I did last year at this time, I’m going to take a few minutes to mention a few high points (and low points) of 2011 so far.  Agree?  Disagree?  Make your opinion known.

Best Film (So Far): Hanna, without a doubt.  Joe Wright’s stylish thriller hasn’t gotten half the acclaim that it deserves.  Runners-ups: The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Incendies, Jane Eyre, Kill The Irishman, Of Gods and Men, Red Riding Hood, Sucker Punch, The Source Code, Super, 13 Assassins, The Tree of Life, Win Win, X-Men: First Class

Best Male Performance of the Year (so far): Paul Giamatti in Win Win.  Runners up: Bobby Cannavale in Win Win, Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Hesher, Matthew McConaughey in The Lincoln Lawyer, and Rainn Wilson in Super.

Best Female Performance Of The Year (so far): Sairose Ronan in Hanna. Runners up: Lubna Azabal for Incendies, Ellen Page for Super, Amy Ryan for Win Win, and Mia Wasikowska for Jane Eyre.

Best Ending (so far): The charmingly low budget zombie film that runs over the end credits of Super 8.

Best Horror Film (so far): Insidious.

Most Underrated Film Of The Year (so far): A tie, between Sucker Punch and Red Riding Hood.  Red Riding Hood, as a matter of fact, was so underrated that I had to see it a second time before I really appreciated it.

Best Bad Film: Beastly.  Silly but kinda fun in a really, really odd sort of way.

Worst Film of The Year (so far): The Conspirator, a bore of a movie that was apparently filmed through a filter of grime.  Runners up: Priest, The Beaver, Battle L.A. (sorry Arleigh, Leonard, and Erin), Season of the Witch, Your Highness, and The Green Lantern.

Biggest Example of A Missed Opportunity This Year (So Far): The Adjustment Bureau, which could have been a great Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind-type of film but instead, turned out to be just another predictable and shallow example of new age triteness.

The Get-Over-It Award For The First Half Of 2011: The Conspirator, a film that attempts to be relavent by using the 19th Century to comment on political issues from 2006.

My Prediction For Which Film Will Be The Most Overrated Of 2011: Last year, I predicted The Social Network and, surprise surprise, I was right.  In fact, the folks at AwardsDaily.com are still bitching about how The Social Network lost best picture to The King’s Speech.  (By the way, a few other choice pieces of wisdom from Awards Daily: The Beaver is Jodie Foster’s best film ever and only elitists should be allowed to comment on film.)  This year, I’m going to predict that the most overrated film of 2011 will be the unnecessary remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

My Prediction For What Will Be The Worst Film Of 2011: The winner here is another remake — Rod Lurie is remaking Straw Dogs and this time, he’s setting it in the South.  You know what?  Go back to Vermont and fuck yourself ragged, you dumbass, blue state elitist.  

So, that’s 2011 so far.  There’s still quite a few films that I’m looking forward to seeing: Another Earth, The Debt, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Hugo, and most of all, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2.

Lisa Marie Does It To Larry Crowne (dir. by Tom Hanks)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Jeff and I have been in Baltimore since last Friday and I’ve been having a great time seeing the sights (I thought I’d found the rowhouse where they hid all those bodies on The Wire but Jeff says all condemned buildings look the same) and just getting to meet and hang out with my boyfriend’s family.  We went shopping on Saturday, bonding on Sunday, and on  Monday night, they took me to see the fireworks at Baltimore Harbor.  And, on Tuesday, we went to the movies and saw the new Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts romcom Larry Crowne at the wonderful Harbor East Cinema.  Now, I have to admit that I wanted Larry Crowne to be a really sweet, funny movie because we were seeing it not only with Jeff’s younger sister but with his mom as well. 

So, imagine my horror as Larry Crowne flickered across the screen for 90 minutes and it quickly became apparent that we weren’t watching a cinematic classic.  Far from it.  With each flat punchline and uninspired piece of on-screen business, the feeling of despair at the pit of my stomach grew and grew.  Oh my God, I thought, they’re going to think about this movie now whenever they think about me.  In their heads, I will forever be equated with a bad, boring movie.  In their heads, in their heads…zombie…zombie…zombie…

Suddenly, I had another terrifying thought.  What if they, like a handful of other people in the audience, actually enjoyed the film?  What if, during the end credits, they looked over at me and said, “Wasn’t that wonderful?  That Tom Hanks really delivers.”  What would I do?  In my mind, I replayed all of the fun that I’d had in Baltimore up to that moment.  Damn you, Larry Crowne, I thought, things were going so well!

By the time the end credits had finished, I literally felt like I was aboutto  be ill.

And that’s when Jeff’s mom looked over at me and said, “Well, Tom Hanks sure did drop the ball on that one.”

Glory!  Glory!  Hallelujah! I wanted to shout.  Not only did we agree on the overall quality of the film but she also specifically went out of her way to blame Tom Hanks and not me!  Seriously, I can’t begin to tell you how happy this made me.

As for Larry Crowne, it’s the story a guy named Larry (played by Tom Hanks, who also directs) who loses his retail job because he doesn’t have a college education.  So, he enrolls at the local community college where, for some odd reason, he quickly captures the attention of a girl named Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who is several years younger and makes it her mission to make Larry into a cool guy.  Why does Talia take such an interest in this guy?  The movie never really says.  It’s not for any sort of romantic reason as Talia has a boyfriend (played by Wilmer Valderamma).   The only thing that she has in common with Larry is that they both drive motor scooters.  In fact, Talia’s in a gang of scooter riders.  And by that, I mean that there’s like 20 to 30 people in this group.  We never learn any of their names or why they’re all hanging out together.  Seriously, it all seems so false and cutesy that, after a good start, the entire film falls apart once Larry and Talia meet.  In the end, it just seems like another case of a Hollywood film in which a down-on-his-luck caucasian is validated by the fact that a member of a minority group has developed an inexplicable interest in his life. 

Anyway, one of Larry’s classes is taught by Julia Roberts and oh my God, can we just be honest here?  I know all you boys love her and stuff but seriously, Julia Roberts is aging terribly and she looks just awful here.  It doesn’t help that the character she’s playing here comes across as a brittle, self-centered psychotic with a drinking problem.  Whenever you see Larry starting to get near her, you just want to yell out, “No, Larry — she’s crazy!”  Julia’s performance gets better as the film goes on but it’s still hard to warm up to her character.  Not only does she appear to have been born with a scowl on her face but she’s also not much of a teacher.  Seriously, what type of public speaking professor interrupts her students while they’re giving a speech?  Anyway, Tom and Julia eventually end up pursuing each other, though not because it makes any sense for their characters to feel any sort of attraction towards each other.  This is the type of romantic comedy where the romance feels like an afterthought.  It’s as if someone said, “Wait — both Tom and Julia are in this movie?  Well, make sure they fall in love.”

Now, the frustrating thing with Larry Crowne is that it’s never actually bad enough to be a “so bad that’s it’s good” type of film.  Instead, the film settles very early for a very complacent, almost lazy sort of mediocrity.  As a result, the film is ultimately not terrible but instead, just very forgettable.  It’s heart it is in the right place.  Tom Hanks has said that this film is meant to be an “antidote to cynicism” and, if that’s the case, he can take pride that there’s not a cynical bone in the film’s body.  It’s all very earnest, very well-intentioned, and finally just very, very bland.

Sometimes, a little cynicism is just what the doctor ordered.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Battle for the Planet of the Apes (dir. by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

And so, we reach the end of the original series of Planet of the Apes films.  Battle for the Planet of the Apes was the cheapest of the Apes films and most critics agree that it’s also the worst.  Sad to say, I happen to agree with them.  If nothing else, Battle For The Planet of the Apes is the only one of the original Apes films that fails to even reach the meager level of quality of Tim Burton’s remake.

The film begins a decade after the end of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.  A nuclear war has destroyed what was left of human society.  It’s never made clear if that war was between apes and human or between humans and humans.  All that is clear is that the Apes are now firmly in charge of the world.  Caesar (Roddy McDowall) leads the Apes civilization.  Humans, while clearly second class citizens, are treated relatively well by the Apes.  Early on in the film, Caesar views archival footage of his parents and learns of what the future holds.  He immediately makes move to try to prevent that future from occurring.

However, all is not well.  Gorilla general Aldo (Claude Akins) hates humans and is secretly plotting a military coup to overthrow Caesar.  Meanwhile, over in the Forbidden City (a.k.a. New York), there’s a tribe of radiation-scarred humans who are being led by Kolp (Severn Darden), the sadistic torturer from Conquest of The Planet of the Apes.  Driven mad by the ravages of war, Kolp and his followers are plotting to launch their own last-ditch attack on Caesar and the apes.

So much of this film can be legitimately criticized, from the cheap look (the apes are no longer characters but instead just actors in rubber masks) to the predictable storyline.  So, instead of focusing on what’s wrong with this film, I’m going to highlight the handful things that actually did work.  While few of the performers make any effort to invest their characters with any sort of life, both McDowall and Darden give strong performances.  Darden, in particular, makes a great villain and it’s a shame that he didn’t get a better film in which to show off.  Predictable as the film is, there’s a few memorable touches, my favorite being Kolp and his followers converting a bunch of school busses into armored attack vehicules.

As well, Battle for the Planet of the Apes may ultimately feel like an unnecessary chapter in the whole Planet of the Apes saga but the film, at the very least, makes the effort to provide some sort of continuity with the other films in the series.  Kolp and his followers are obviously meant to be the ancestors of the bomb-worshipping mutants from Beneath the Planet of the Apes and, in one of my favorite little touches, Kolp’s assistant is named Mendez.  If you’ll remember, the leader of the mutants in Beneath was named Mendez the Tenth. 

It’s those little touches that show that the filmmakers, at the very least, respected their viewers enough to maintain the continuity of the series.  As bad a film as Battle is (and it’s definitely not very good), it can still teach a valuable lesson to today’s filmmakers.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (dir. by J. Lee Thompson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW)

Released in 1972, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes was the fourth film in the original Planet of the Apes saga.  Taking place two decades after the end of Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest details how Caesar, the son of Cornelius and Zira, eventually rallies his fellow apes to overthrow humanity.   Caesar, in this film, is played by Roddy McDowall and Conquest features what is probably his best performance of the series.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is definitely the most radical film of the series and it’s probably one of the most radical films of the 1970s.  Once you peel away the sci-fi/fantasy wrapping, you’re left with one of the few “mainstream” studio films to ever promote the idea of overthrowing society with a violent revolution.  Even when viewed today, it’s odd to consider that this violent and rather dark film was actually given the same G rating that was otherwise exclusively given to children’s films.  Obviously, the poor critical reputation of the Planet of the Apes series kept the Hollywood censors from really paying attention to what they were watching.

Director J. Lee Thompson goes for a far different direction from the previous more television-orientated directors involved with the series.  Thompson emphasizes that savage, totalitarian aspect of future human civilization.  This is a film in which the most sympathetic human character (the circus owner played by Ricardo Montalban) is graphically tortured and murdered within the first few minutes of the film.  This is followed by Caesar being given electro-shocked treatment by the cheerful torturer Kolp (Severn Darden, who is a chilling villain) and finally, Caesar and his fellow apes violently overthrowing society while the futuristic city burns in the background. 

Director Thompson reportedly based the ape uprising on contemporary news reports about the Black Panthers and it brings a real sense of urgency to the film.  What sets this film apart is that director Thompson is clearly on the side of the Apes and by the end of the film, so is the audience.  McDowall’s passionate performance is neatly contrasted with an equally impassioned performance from Don Murray (who plays Breck, the racist leader of the humans) and the audience is firmly on McDowall’s side by the end of the film, cheering as their own civilization is destroyed.

Originally, Thompson wanted to end the film with McDowall giving a fiery speech announcing that the time of man was finished.  However, this finally proved to be too much for the film’s producers and, at the last minute, the scene was clumsily redubbed to allow Caesar to suddenly — out of nowhere — have a change of heart and call for a peaceful co-existence.  This revised ending — though it did leave things open for yet another sequel — is an undeniable weakness.  It just doesn’t feel right.

With that in mind, here’s Thompson’s original, unseen ending, in which Caesar watches as his apes followers murder Don Murray.  It gives you a feeling of the type of film that Thompson was going for:

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Escape From The Planet of the Apes (dir. by Don Taylor)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Warning: Potential Spoilers, especially if you’re good at reading between the lines of my attempts to be all mysterious-like)

Continuing with our look at the original Planet of the Apes films, we come to 1971’s Escape from The Planet of the Apes.

Escape From The Planet of the Apes starts out with a huge problem — how do you make a sequel to a film that literally ended with the entire planet being destroyed?  Escape handles this problem by reversing the plotline of the original film.  Instead of a group of humans going into the future and landing on a planet dominated by apes, this film features three apes going into the past and landing on a planet dominated by the past.  It’s a premise that the film handles with a surprising amount of cleverness and the end result is probably the best of the various Planet of the Apes sequel.  Certainly, it is the only one that can stand alone as a film separate from the rest of the series.

Using Taylor’s old space capsule, Zira (Kim Hunter), Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), and Milo (Sal Mineo, who you know is doomed because he’s the only one of the three who hasn’t appeared in either of the two previous films) escape Earth shortly before Charlton Heston blows the planet up at the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes.  Slipping through the same vortex as Heston did in the first film, they end up crash landing on Earth in the year 1974. 

At first, Cornelius and the outspoken Zira become media celebrities.  They do interviews with the press, appear on the covers of magazines, and are generally celebrated like simian Kardashians.  However, one scientist — played by a very handsome Eric Braeden (seriously, he has gorgeous hair in this film) — isn’t as charmed by Zira and Cornelius.  Instead, he views them as threats to the future of the human race, especially after he discovers that Zira is pregnant.

The character that Braeden plays, by the way, is named Dr. Otto Hasslien and attentive viewers will recognize the name from a throw-away reference made by Taylor (Charlton Heston) in the original Planet of the Apes.  One of the more interesting subtexts in this film is that, much as chimpanzees Zira and Cornelius are this film’s equivalent to the human Taylor, Braeden’s Hasslien is this film’s version of Dr. Zaius.  Much as Maurice Evans did for Dr. Zaius, Braeden brings a certain ambiguity to his villianous character.  Though Braeden’s actions are ultimately hateful, it’s also made clear that they’re more motivated by fear than by evil.  Indeed, when Braeden first appears in this film, he’s almost likable.  It’s only at the film’s conclusion that we become fully aware of the irony that the human, “civilized” Dr. Hasslien ultimately shows less mercy and empathy to Zira and Cornelius than the ape Dr. Zaius showed to Taylor.  The moral ambiguity of Braeden’s performance makes this a far more resonant film than most mainstream critics are willing to admit.

 As for, Zira and Cornelius, the once-fawing public eventually turns against them as it becomes apparent that for the two of them to exist, humanity has to be wiped out.  Zira and Cornelius find themselves hunted fugitives, fleeing for their lives while the whole planet — with the exception of a zoo keeper played by Ricardo Montalban and another scientist (played by Bradford Dillman — what a great name for an actor) — seems to be determined to destroy them.

Escape From The Planet of the Apes starts out as a likable, rather breezy social satire (much like Pierre Boulle’s Monkey Planet, the novel that Planet of the Apes was loosely adapted from) and that makes it even more surprising when, about halfway through, the movie shifts gears and becomes a rather dark and bleak action film.  It all ends, like many films from the early 70s, in a brutal act of violence that carries a surprising punch to it.  It’s after the end of the film that we truly become aware just how involved we had become with Zira and Cornelius.  A lot of that has to do with the strong performances of McDowall and Hunter who both created characters that came across as real and worthy, regardless of how many layers of makeup they were acting under.  Their chemistry as a couple makes this underrated film one of the surprising gems of the early 70s.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Bad Teacher (dir. by Jake Kasdan)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, last Friday night, I went and saw the new Cameron Diaz comedy, Bad Teacher.  Right now, all sorts of mainstream critics are running out of ways to trash this film but, for the most part, they seem to overlooking one important fact.  Flawed and unfocused as this film may be, it’s funny.  It made me laugh, it made Jeff laugh, it made my sister laugh, and it made my friend Evelyn laugh.  (Of course, according to Evelyn, I laugh at everything, even if it means I’m the only person laughing, but that’s another story.  Hi, Evelyn!)  It also made almost the entire audience laugh.  Admittedly, it was a small audience.  I guess everyone else was busy crying at Cars 2.  (It’s a Pixar film after all.)  As for Bad Teacher, it may not be a great film but it works.

Anyway, Bad Teacher tells the story of a very bad teacher, played by Cameron Diaz.  She doesn’t care about her students, goes out of her way to antagonize her fellow students, and shows up to work everyday either hungover or stoned.  She’s also snobbish, petty, shallow, and you’d totally hate her except for the fact that 1) you can’t help but admire the way that Diaz throws herself into being as crass and as shallow as possible (she may be playing a vain character but there’s no vanity in her performance) and 2) every other teacher in the school is so annoyingly perky and movie perfect that you can’t help but share Diaz’s disgust with them. 

Anyway, Diaz is teaching because her rich fiancée has dumped her.  (One of the better jokes in the film is the number of lies that Diaz comes up with to explain why her engagement ended.)  She is content to spend the school day asleep while her class watches movies featuring other, better teachers.  However, then she meets the new substitute teacher who is really kinda creepy with his constant “up with humanity” perkiness but is also 1) rich and 2) played Justin Timberlake so he’s like totally hot.  However, Timberlake is dating Diaz’s sworn enemy, the incredibly upbeat Amy Squirrel (played by Lucy Pond).  Diaz realizes that the only way she’ll ever capture Timberlake’s attention is if she can raise the money necessary to get bigger boobs.  The rest of the film basically deals with Diaz’s efforts to raise the money for her boob job (among other things, she accepts bribes from parents and embezzles from the school car wash) while continuing to pursue Timberlake and be pursued by the gym teacher (Jason Segal).

That’s actually a lot of plot for an 89 minute film and, as a result, Bad Teacher does feel overly episodic and ultimately disjointed.  But so what?  I laughed consistently for 89 minutes and that’s the important thing.  It’s not that the film itself is filled with witty lines as much as it’s the fact that the entire cast so totally throws themselves into playing these genuinely odd characters.  Pond steals every scene she’s in and Timberlake especially seems to be having fun spoofing his own image.  If you think that watching people dry hump while fully clothed can’t be hilarious, than you haven’t seen Justin Timberlake in Bad Teacher.

For me, there were two other things that made Bad Teacher a success. 

1) It confirms what we all always suspected and knew in middle school and high school — that our teachers were a bunch of horny, pot-smoking degenerates.  Admittedly, I used to actually get high with my drama teacher — shhhhh!  Don’t tell anyone! — but I’ve always figured that same was probably true of every high school drama student.  This film confirms that the history and math teachers were just as stoned.

2) It features this scene, which got laughs and applause from the Dallas audience that I saw it with:

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Planet of the Apes (dir. by Franklin J. Schaffner)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(BEWARE!  SPOILERS!)

With Rise of the Planet of the Apes coming out in August, I figured why not go ahead and review the original Planet of the Apes films.   No, I don’t mean the terrible Tim Burton film.  I’m talking about the old school sci-fi series from the early 70s.  For the next five days, I’ll be reviewing each installment of this landmark series of monkey-centric  Let’s start at the beginning with 1968’s Planet of the Apes.

The plot of Planet of the Apes is pretty well-known.  Arrogant earthman takes off from Earth, goes through some sort of time portal, and crash lands at some point in the far future.  Our “hero” finds himself on a planet where all the humans are mute savages and society is dominated by equally arrogant, talking apes.  (“A planet where apes evolved from man!?”)  Eventually, the Earthman reveals that he can speak, he escapes captivity, and — accompanied by his mute concubine — he enters what the Apes call the forbidden zone.  And, once in the forbidden zone, he discovers “his destiny” as old Dr. Zaius puts it.

It’s difficult to review a film like the original Planet of the Apes because the film itself has become a part of American culture.  Even if you’ve never seen the film, you feel as if you have.  Whether you’ve seen the famous ending or not, you know that it features Taylor (Charlton Heston) on his knees in front of the ruins of the Statue of Liberty, raving and cursing while the mute and confused Nova (Linda Harrison) watches.  Everyone understands the significance of such famous lines as: “Take your stinking paws off of me, you damn, dirty ape!” and “Goddamn you all to Hell!” regardless of whether they’ve actually seen them delivered.

Of course, it can be argued that the fact that the film has become such a part of our culture is proof of the film’s quality.  However, I would argue that the proof of the film’s quality comes from the fact that it remains a watchable and entertaining film despite having become such a part of the culture.  It says a lot that a film can stay enjoyable despite being respectable.

Why does the film still work despite  the film’s main selling point — the surprise ending — being neautralized by the passage of tinme?  A lot of the credit, I think, has to go to the apes themselves.  Even under all that makeup, Roddy McDowall as Cornelius, Kim Hunter as Zira, and especially Maurice Evans as the iconic Dr. Zaius all manage to create interesting and intriguing characters who just happen to be apes.  Before long, you forget about the makeup and instead, you’re more interested in seeing how Zaius is going to handle this latest challenge to his society.

That challenge, of course, comes from Charlton Heston.  Everyone is always quick to make fun of Heston as an actor and it’s true that his range was limited.  Frequently, the men he played came across as the type of chauvinistic, pompous heroes that were never quite aware of the fact that everyone was secretly laughing at him.  And it is true that Heston has several of those moments here in Planet of the Apes.  Even his famous final scene is, to be honest, almost painfully over the top. 

And you know what?

In this film, it works perfectly.  I don’t know if an actor has ever been more perfectly cast than Charlton Heston was in Planet of the Apes.  In the role of Taylor, Heston basically spends the entire movie acting like a complete and total pompous ass.  Whether he’s recording a “fuck you” message for Earth at the beginning of the film or if he’s arrogantly dismissing Zaius before entering the Forbidden Zone, Heston comes to epitomize every single thing that we tend to dislike in our fellow human beings.  As played by Heston, Taylor is the perfect clueless hero and a lot of the film’s perverse pleasure comes from watching this paragon of masculinity and superiority repeatedly humbled.

And that, ultimately, is why Planet of the Apes remains a watchable film so many decades after it was made.  Good satire never goes out of style.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Sanctum (dir. by Alistir Grierson)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Earlier this year, I said that — based on the trailer alone — Sanctum appeared to be a terrible film.  At the time, a few people disagreed with me.  “Yes,” they said, “the trailer is a collection of clichés and the plot looks incredibly predictable and the selected dialogue is so tin-plated that it probably attracts radio waves but this is just an adventure film.  STOP BEING SO GODDAMN JUDGMENTAL, LISA MARIE!”

Well, needless to say, that made me shut my little ol’ mouth all nice and quick.

Anyway, Sanctum opened in theaters on Super Bowl weekend and, if I remember correctly, it didn’t even play for a full week.  It was such a box office bomb that it was yanked out and replaced by a Miley Cyrus film on Tuesday.  Again, that’s if my memory serves correctly.  As a result, I didn’t get a chance to see this film in the theaters.  Instead, I had to wait to see it OnDemand.  Was it as bad as I expected?  Well, it wasn’t quite the disaster I was expecting but, at the same time, I still find myself resenting having to admit that I actually “demanded” to see Sanctum.

There are two misconceptions that need to be cleared up about Sanctum.  One is that it’s a James Cameron film.  Cameron is credited as being executive producer because his 3-D cameras were used to film the movie.  (Also, I’ve read that he is a friend of Andrew Wright, who co-wrote the script.)  However, the film itself was directed by Alister Grierson who tries to give everything a Cameronesque feel.  In Grierson’s defense, he succeeds in that all of the characters are forgettable and that you’re never actually surprised by anything that happens on-screen. 

The other is that the film is, as we’re told during the opening credits, based on a true story.  Actually, it’s based on the fact that Andrew Wright apparently likes to swim around in caves and he once got trapped with a party he was leading and nearly drowned.  However, nobody in his party died and I’m guessing that, at some point, someone may have actually said something half-way witty.  As a result, that incident doesn’t really seem to have much to do with anything seen during Sanctum.  As a lover of grindhouse and exploitation films, the blatant falsehood of the “Based on a true story” credit doesn’t bug me.  In fact, it was my favorite part of the film.

Anyway, Sanctum is about a bunch of cave divers who get stuck in a flood and have to swim and dive their way to safety.  It actually starts out pretty well, with a lot of aerial footage of Papua New Guinea and the initial cave diving scenes are genuinely exciting.  But then, eventually, the story has to start up and everyone start to talk and the actors have to breathe some life into the cardboard characters and the whole film becomes so determined to be nothing special that it starts to get genuinely annoying. 

Eventually, the cave ends up flooding and I guess you’re supposed to wonder — who will survive?  Will it be model Victoria (Alison Parkinson), who keeps panicking because she’s a woman?  Or how about Victoria’s boyfriend (played by Ioan Gruffod), who is rich and unlikable?  How about George (Dan Wylde), who is getting older and serves as a mentor/sidekick to the group?  Or maybe it’ll be Luko (Cramer Crain), who is a native who specifically decides to stick around to save all the white foreigners.  Or how about the crusty, veteran diver (Richard Roxburgh, who has apparently never met a line he couldn’t shout into pointlessness) who has a strained relationship with his headstrong song (Rhys Wakefield) who just happens to be trapped down there with them all?

Seriously, who’s going to survive!?

Anyway, if it seems like I’m being really hard on this film, it’s because there’s enough hints of what the film could have been that it makes you resent, all the more, what the film eventually turned out to be.  As I said before, even at its worst, the film is beautiful to look at.  Admittedly, I’m both scared of water and intensely claustrophobic but, even taking that into account, the early scenes of the cave flooding and the characters fighting for survival are well-directed and genuinely frightening.  This is a film that is at it’s best when characters are drowning because it means they can’t speak and we don’t have to listen to anymore of that terrible dialogue.

In the end, Sanctum goes to show that sometimes, you should trust the trailer…

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Green Lantern (dir. by Martin Campbell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, earlier tonight, I was sitting in a dark theater watching the latest super hero film, Green Lantern.  Now, Green Lantern is getting some terrible reviews right now and having seen it, I can understand why.  That said, Green Lantern is not an offensively terrible movie in the way that Priest, The Beaver, or The Conspirator were terrible films.  Instead, Green Lantern’s main problem is that it’s just so freaking forgettable.  To be honest, I found myself forgetting about it while I was watching it.  So, this isn’t going to be an easy review to write.

(This is also why this is a quickie review.  I mean, I’ll make some noise for a few minutes and I’ll try to come up with something halfway neat for the end of it but don’t ask me if I really felt anything.)

Since I realized I was forgetting about the movie even as I was watching it, I decided to use social media to help me out.  Blatantly ignoring the rules (but that’s why you love me, baby), I spent most of the film texting and tweeting.  I’m pretty sure I heard the people sitting behind me whining about it but who cares?  I did what I had to do.

Anyway, checking my texts, I find the following conversation:

Text from LMB (that’s me) to ENB (that’s my sister, Erin): Hey bitch where you at?

ENB to LMB: WTF, bitch?  I’m sitting next to you in the theater.

LMB to ENB: Hi, Erin!  lol. : )

Okay, so that’s not much help but it does tell you just how engaging this film is.  I had the choice of either watching Green Lantern or sending text messages to my sister who was sitting right next to me and I chose to send text messages.

I also resorted to posting a few cryptic messages to twitter, with the hope that they would serve to remind  me of what I was watching.  Here they are:

Tweet #1: About to see Green Lantern. : ) — See, I didn’t start this film out with a bad attitude.  I was looking forward to it.

Tweet #2: Old ppl always take forever buying tickets — What’s up with that?  I would think they would be in a hurry seeing as how they’ve got less time to see a movie than I do.  Just saying.

Tweet #3: We need a super hero named Red Herring — I sent this tweet just 15 minutes into the film but it shows that I had already picked up on the main problem with this film.  There’s a lot going on but it all feels like it’s just been spit out by some script-o-matic sitting hidden behind the Hollywood sign.  It just doesn’t ever really add up to anything beyond a sinking feeling of been there, done that. 

Ryan Reynolds is haunted by flashbacks of his father dying.  Why?  Because Scriptwriting 101 says that the hero has to have some sort of self-doubt to overcome. 

When we first see Ryan Reynolds, he’s lying in bed with a naked blonde.  Who is she?  What happens to her?  Why does Reynolds, at no other point in the film, seem to be the type who would have a one night stand with some anonymous blonde?

Reynolds joins the Green Lantern Corp. when he gets a glowing green ring.  All the other members of the Corp. doubt him because he’s human but then they say that the ring never makes a mistake.  Okay, so if the ring is incapable of making a mistake and the ring chose Reynolds than why is everyone so convinced that Reynolds can’t cut it as the Green Lantern?

Seriously, it’s as if someone just wrote out a list of plot points and some anonymous script doctor just went down the list, checking off everything as he tossed it into the mix.

Plus, I think Red Herring would be a cool super hero.  He could have the power of creating mass distraction and he could be the sidekick of my super heroine alter ego, Lady Verbose.

Tweet #4: Lol, cockpit is a funny word — I believe the exact line that inspired this tweet was something like: “And I still get into a cockpit occasionally.”  It just made me laugh because cockpit is a funny word, largely because it’s a combination of cock and pit.  Anyway, that is honestly the only line of dialogue that I actually remember from the film.  As action and comic book movies tend to live and die on the basis of the quotable one-liner, that’s not a good sign.

Tweet #5: Green Lantern kinda bleh but Ryan Reynolds is mancandy — And you know what?  He is.  Green Lantern may have been forgettable but Ryan Reynolds made a likable hero and he brought some much-needed humor to the role.  To be honest, as I look back at the various Green super hero movies, I can’t help but wonder how much better Green Hornet would have been if it had starred Ryan Reynolds as opposed to Seth Rogen.  (I love you, Seth, but the super hero thing just isn’t for you.)

Also, Peter Sarsgaard did a pretty good job playing a surprisingly sympathetic villain.  Both he and Reynolds deserved a better film. 

Other than Sarsgaard and Reynolds, the cast was pretty forgettable but then again, it’s not like they really had much to work with.  I have to be honest, though, that I am now officially bored with Tim Robbins.  He shows up here playing yet another insensitive rich white guy.  As usual, you don’t really buy him as the character because he’s just too obviously Tim Robbins.

Tweet 6: Lets not go to Camelot. Its a silly place. — I think this was inspired by all the scenes that were set on the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps.  (That’s the group that Reynolds becomes a member of.)  These scenes were obviously meant to inspire awe but they just felt silly.  In the film’s defense, some of the special effects — particularly the evil entity known as Parallax — are impressive but, for almost every impressive special effect, there was another that just fell flat (which is never a good thing for a 3-D film).

Tweet #7: Sinestro is a silly name. — Sinestro, played by Mark Strong, is the leader of the Green Lantern Corp.  And Sinestro is a really silly name.

Tweet #8: Why not just call him Eviltro? — Well, why not?

Film Review: Midnight in Paris (dir. by Woody Allen)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Woody Allen’s latest film, Midnight in Paris, has an appealing premise behind it. 

Gil (Owen Wilson) is a Hollywood screenwriter who has come to Paris with his shallow fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her stuffy Republican parents (played by Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy).  Disillusioned with American culture, Gil idealizes the Paris of the 1920s, the Paris that was home to Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and James Joyce.  However, Inez and her parents are far less impressed with Paris and, as quickly become clear, with Gil himself.  While Inez spends her time with self-important “intellectual” Paul (a bearded Michael Sheen), Gil takes to wandering the streets of Paris at night.

One night, as Gil wanders around Paris, a vintage car approaches out of the shadows and the two well-dressed passengers in the back seat invite Gil to join them.  Gil does so and discovers that he’s been transported back to 1920s Paris.  He meets everyone from Hemingway (Corey Stoll) to Salvador Dali (Adrien Brody) to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston and Alison Pill).  At the end of the night, Gil finds himself transported back to modern-day Paris.  Soon, Gil finds himself sneaking out at midnight every night so he can escape to the past, where he eventually meets and starts to romance an idealistic model named Adrianna (Marion Cotillard).  While Gil finds himself torn between his modern life and the past that he loves, he also begins to discover that the inhabitants of the 20s feel the same way about their present as he does about his.

The premise of the film itself is likable and one that I think anyone can relate to.  Who doesn’t wish that they could go back in the past and live with all the amazing people who they’ve only read about?  Myself, there are many eras that I often fantasize about finding myself in.  1920s Paris is definitely one of them but I’ve also occasionally dreamed of being in 1950s New York, having a threesome with Kerouac and Cassady or maybe being in Paris during the early days of the French new wave, appearing in movies directed by Rollin, Truffaut and Godard.  Ever since I read Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders and Raging Bulls, there’s been a part of me that wishes so much I could have been out in Hollywood or New York in the 1970s, hanging out on the beach with directors like Martin Scorsese, William Freidkin, Jon Milius, and even Peter Bogdonavich.  (But especially Freidkin, his terrible charisma just radiates from the page.) 

Still, Allen is smart enough as a screenwriter to know that everyone tends to idealizes the past, even those who we now idealize in the present.  Perhaps my favorite part of the film came when Wilson, while in the 1920s, sees a character getting into a horse-drawn carriage so that she can go back to the time that she idealizes as fiercely as he idealizes the 20s.

Midnight in Paris has a lot to recommend it.  Cotillard, despite the fact that she’s played the same idealized French mystery woman about a thousand times, gives a likeable performance and Rachel McAdams is hilariously shallow.  Michael Sheen, as well, makes a perfect stand-in for every pompous, self-important jerk who has ever talked down to you.  On the basis of his cameo appearance here as Dali, Adrien Brody really needs to consider doing more comedy.  He’s a lot more appealing when he’s being funny than when he’s trying to be a leading man.

At the same time, I have to admit that I wanted to like Midnight in Paris more than I actually did.  I like Owen Wilson as both an actor and a writer but he’s a little bit miscast here and the end result is that he occasionally seems like he’s trying too hard.  You just never buy him and McAdams as a couple and, as such, there’s really not much at stake as far as his romance with Cotillard is concerned. 

As well, I found it hard not to be a little bit disappointed with the way Allen presented 1920s Paris.  Though they were all well-cast and acted, Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), and all the rest just fell flat as actual characters.  Gil gets a chance to go into the past and essentially, he discovers that Hemingway was macho, the Fitzgeralds were neurotic and self-destructive, and that Dali didn’t make much sense.  Personally, I would be a bit let down if I got a chance to meet these icons and I discovered that essentially they just acted the exact same way that they acted in various PBS educational programs.

Despite this, Midnight in Paris is still a likable, frequently engaging comedy that works best as a tribute to a legendary and beautiful city that Allen (not to mention myself) obviously loves.  Flaws and all, this movie made me want to visit Paris once again (though Florence and Venice remains my favorite cities of all time) and, for that reason alone, it makes Midnight in Paris a film worth seeing.