Well it's Oscar season, or near enough, and hence I'm at the movies a number of times a week.

I've had the joy of seeing Michael Clayton, The Assassination of Jesse James, Gone Baby Gone, Eastern Promises etc all relatively recently, and it's been great seeing good movies, since they were few and far between for the majority of the year.

I'm not gonna say much about Michael Clayton here, just that it's one of the best movies I've seen this year, and I highly recommend it.

This review will mainly be on Gone Baby Gone with a bit of Jesse James thrown in for good measure.

I was lucky enough to see AJJ on Wednesday and GBG tonight, both starring Casey Affleck, who I am digging more and more with every role I see him in. The similarities between the characters he portrays is evident, in their being small, young, and this being used against them. He's much more cocksure in GBG, which maybe doesn't make him as interesting, but it's still fun to watch.

Gone Baby Gone is a mystery directed by Ben Affleck and based off of a Dennis Lehane (Mystic River) book. This story is based in a poor area of Boston, much like Mystic River, though this urban Boston is portrayed much more real and gritty, which is a credit to the crew.

The story follows the younger Affleck as a PI hired to augment the investigation of a small girl, since some people will talk to PIs and not cops. Morgan Freeman is a captain of police, and Ed Harris is a detective. One of the unique things about this movie is the narrative structure. You're only about an hour into the movie when suddenly the mystery is solved, but there's still another hour to go. It's very offsetting and I was surprised by it, though it all comes together eventually.

Now as time goes on, and the plot comes around full circle, and you learn of everything, well I wasn't sold. I'm having a hard time explaining what I mean, but basically as Affleck starts investigating what happened, everything is just coming so easily. I have begun watching The Wire on HBO On Demand. The Wire, for those that haven't seen it, is a cop drama that blows all previous cop dramas out of the water. It's ultra-realistic, and thus it's warped my mind on this mysteries. I watched 13 hour-long episodes of the first season of the Wire to see them wrap up a case on some drug dealers, so it's hard to see people chase down some bad guys in the space of 30 minutes.

Basically, my problem with the mystery part of the movie was that it seemed somewhat humdrum. I love mysteries, but this one didn't particularly rock my socks, while Mystic River blew me away. However, the dilemma at the end is what sets this film apart from most mysteries you will see. I won't give anything away, but it'll get you thinking and possibly arguing. It was really the big thing that saved this film from being a run of the mill mystery.

The film is aided by the aforementioned gritty urban Boston and the denizens withing. Ben Affleck apparently got non-actors from the area to play parts, and it works to wonderful effect.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, also starring Casey Affleck as Robert Ford and with Brad Pitt as Jesse James was much more adored by me.

This is a western about the infamous outlaw. I'm not very familiar with Jesse James, I just know he's one of the villains of the Wild West, though this film painted him in a much more morose light. This film covers his gangs' final big time robbery and the months that would follow. Robert Ford is a sad creeeeeeeepy sap that is a hanger-on with the group, and has a sick sort of admiration for James.

Sam Rockwell, Jeremy Renner, and Paul Schneider play other members of the gang, and they're all superb. I love that they casted these guys for these roles, using actual actors over nobodies or pretty faces, as it adds something.

People have likened this movie to something that Terrence Malick might make. I've seen The Thin Red Line and The New World, and Malick loves to use poetic voiceover narration and beautiful shots of landscape and such. While that is present in AJJ, the narration is more straightforward and actually relevant to the story. This movie is definitely slow and long, coming in at 160 minutes, and I guess you could say it's Malickese, but there is also something of the violence that the director, Andrew Dominik, displayed in his prison drama, Chopper.

So the film covers the lives of James, Ford, and the others in the time following their last train robbery as James becomes paranoid of his friends turning him in for the crimes he's committed, and Ford getting more and more angry with the constant teasing for his oddness.

Casey Affleck is absolutely amazing in this movie. Brad Pitt is good, but Affleck steals the show. From his first scene when he asked Jesse James' brother if he can become a member of the gang, to when he kills someone in the middle of the movie, to his conversation at dinner with Jesse James one night about what they have in common... one thing that makes this movie so interesting and great is how I feel that it would only work this well in this genre during this era. It's so interesting seeing a movie about celebrity and fame, with a creepy character like Robert Ford in a Western based in 1882.

There was a review on AICN by the webmaster, Harry Knowles about how films like this killed the Western, and how a movie like 3:10 to Yuma was what a classical Western was like. He commends both movies for being great. I can absolutely see what he means with the former. You can truly feel that the age of the cowboy and outlaw is coming to an end with this movie. James, Ford, and the others are portrayed a bit pathetically, with none of the bluster you would expect. Even their one robbery at the beginning is done unprofessionally and messily. A masterful job is done humanizing these characters that would so often be represented as superheroes in a previous era.

So that's that. Go see Michael Clayton and AJJ if you possibly could, and also Eastern Promises, 3:10 to Yuma and In the Valley of Elah are all great movies. Gone Baby Gone is maybe a step down, but still worth seeing.

DVD rentals

I rented a couple of horror movies recently, so I'll give them some quick mini-reviews.

First and foremost, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. The premise is that there's a new serial killer in town, in the vein of Freddy, Jason and Michael, and he is hiring a documentary team to film him preparing for the slaughter of some hapless teens. What it ends up being for at least the first two thirds of the film, is a rather hysterical satire on the slasher horror movie. Any cliche you can think of is broken down in this movie, to why the serial killers never get hurt and can always catch up with their prey, to how come so many of the victims die (because the killer has already prepared every inch of the site).

It's a rather brilliant look at the genre. However, for the final third, the movie becomes a typical slasher film, made only slightly more interesting by the fact that the victims know the killer's plan of action, and need to find a way out of it.

Still, this movie is a lot of fun, and if you like your Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween, then you will like this one.

Unfortunately, I also rented this movie called Perfect Creature. Humorously enough, the box proclaims it to be Children of Men meets Underworld. I can envision something like that I guess, but this movie was nothing like it.

Basically, in an alternate Earth, before Gregor Mendel, some guy created vampires through genetic manipulation. These vampires are smarter than us regular humans, and thus become our protectors and scientists and such. Flu is a major problem, and they are the main workers trying to find a vaccine for it. So as a result, it creates an interesting hierarchy, where vampires agree to protect and serve the humans so long as the humans donate their blood to feed the vampires. However, a vampire named Edgar is eventually infected with a new vampire disease that basically makes them go insane and turn into the more violent vampires we are familiar with from other movies.

Edgar goes on a rampage, infects humans to make them bloodthirsty crazy vampires, and kidnaps a woman, and the movie deteriorates into convention and boredom. The movie is left open to a sequel, but hopefully that won't happen.

The acting is laughably serious, with everyone whispering for the most part. The budget was small obviously, but above average camera work does a pretty good job of hiding the limitations that low budget brings.

Still, it was a rather pointless movie. It started out well enough and I liked the idea of the vampires being the humans' protectors and helpers, but it all had to break down and be lame.


What else... Black Sheep was another horror movie I've seen recently. It's basically a zombie movie if you replaced the zombies with sheep. But because they ARE sheep, and it's a well done funny horror movie, I have to recommend it.

Basically, some scientists are working with gene therapy to create amazing sheep breeds, but they end up creating flesh eating sheep instead and all hell breaks loose.

Summer Blockbuster Wrap-up

So another summer blockbuster season is over for me. I'm not going to consider Simpsons and Bourne Ultimatum to be blockbuster caliber, though both will hopefully be good.

My blockbusters were Spiderman 3, POTC3, Harry Potter 5, Transformers, and Die Hard 4. I've already done reviews for Spiderman 3 and POTC3. To summarize, Spider-Man I didn't find to be awful. I enjoyed it mildly... very mildly. Pirates I found to be very bad, about as bad as 2.

So what happened with the remaining three?

Well the next that I saw was Transformers. After seeing it, I thought, ok it was better than Spiderman, but just barely. Since, I've thought about it, and it's fallen from grace. I really can't stand it. People are saying "oh come on, it was fun, it was about big robots fighting each other, what did you expect?" Well for one, I expected Michael Bay to become a good director since The Island. I don't know why, I did, that's my fault. Really, it was Michael Bay that killed this movie for me. He's terrible. He doesn't get a free pass because every single one of his other movies was a mindless action film. I just thought Transformers was bad.

Harry Potter on the other hand improved greatly from the fourth installment, which I didn't like. OOTP could have suffered from the same things Goblet suffered from. That is, I thought Goblet was emotionless and vapid. I felt that they were just going over the major events in the book, and that was it. Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson were awful to watch "act".

In Order of the Phoenix, which was even longer, I felt that it was much sleeker, and a better job was done injecting feeling into the movie. It wasn's great, but it was based off of a 900 page book or something like that. Things were left out I thought might not have been. But for a shallower movie version of an already shallow book series, it wasn't as terrible as I might have feared.

Finally, Die Hard 4. While it wasn't really a Die Hard per se, it was still a well done action film, that could have done without the terrible John McClane standing on a flying F35 fighter jet scene. Unlike Transformers, which had awful out of place humor at all the wrong moments, the humor in this movie is wellplaced and actually funny. The action scenes were scattershot, some good, some ridiculous, but worked for the most part pretty well. Again, not great, but worthwhile.

So as the summer ends, at least for tentpole films, how did this summer do? Better than last year, thank heavens. Last year was disgusting. This year was alright. Nothing brilliant, and while Pirates really stunk it up, Die Hard and Harry Potter made up for it.

What else have I seen?

Well nothing really amazing, some good stuff though. Still a weak year for movies that I hope improves. I'll be back as soon as something blows me away, good or bad.

On The Lot and Top Chef

This is not movie related, but rather reality tv related.

I don't much like reality TV. E! and VH1 have destroyed the genre, as has MTV. Not that it was anything great to begin with.

In any case, I watch two reality shows, those being On the Lot (for directors) and Top Chef (guess). In my life, I watched early seasons of Real World, when they casted the show with unique people named Genesis and Montana, as well as the first season of Survivor. But really, that's been about it. So, moving on.

On the Lot began with about 50 contestants, which they knocked down to 18 in about 90 minutes or so of tv time. right now, we're at 13. basically a group of them air their short films, and America votes.

To begin, this show began as poorly edited and put together as shows get. From 50 down to 18, it was sloppy, they totally skipped the 24 to 18 elimination round, it was just shoddy. Eventually, if you stuck around, you got to the live movie premiere part, where we now stand.

The first round, wherein we went from 18 to 15, was one minute comedy shorts. I voted for maybe half, granting a lot of leeway. There is one guy named Zach is ridiculous, but otherwise nothing spectacular, nothing that said "this person deserves a 1 mil dollar deal with Dreamworks."

Now we're in round two, which was do whatever you want in three minutes. It's been rough. Most of the directors stuck with comedy, and did it poorly. I mean, the short films have been crap all around. That Zach guy did another good one, and others have done ones that have been alright, but I mean come on now folks.

The judges are Carrie Fisher (the woman that played Tom Hanks' wife in the Burbs)

sidenote- I know she's Princess Leia, it was just that when I saw the first episode of this show, a contestant says "so I walk in and there she is, Princess Leia herself) and I thought ' it would have been funny if he would've substituted Princess Leia with Tom Hanks' wife from the Burbs).

also included are Gary Marshall (did Pretty Woman and some other stuff) and then they get a guest judge, which have been DJ Caruso, Michael Bay, and Wes Craven in previous eps.

The guest and Gary Marshall typically give good interesting advice, but Carrie Fisher is stuck in this whole opinionated quagmire of crap advice. If i were on that show, I'd be a much better Carrie Fisher.

I hope the quality of the shorts picks up, because it's just rough. Everyone loves one contestant Will Bigham, who makes "sweet" little live action cartoons. He sucks.



On the other hand, Top Chef is awesome.... I just lost the desire to type anymore. I might finish this later, goodnight.

Pirates and Others

So it's been another long while between posts unfortunately.

I saw Pirates, and was not a fan at all. It started out well enough, slowly, was building nicely. And then the plot lost all cohesion. Things were happening that were not making sense. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention you might say. But I had the same problem with Pirates 2, so going into 3, I said to myself "The only thing you are concentrating on is the incredibly intricate plot of Pirates 3." And that's what I did. And STILL, characters are doing shit that makes no sense, there are a ridiculous number of plot twists and turns that don't really add up. If I had written this review right after seeing the movie, I might be able to go more in depth, but as it is, i have thankfully forgotten most of the ridiculous plot.

What is too bad is that the characters were a lot of fun in this one. I loved Geoffrey Rush' Captain Barbossa, Chow Yun Fat's short role was pretty good.

And then the ending fight scene. Well for one, the whole thing with Calypso was pointless. They built that whole thing up forever, and all she does is create a storm/maelstrom that did nothing. They might as well have not done it. And while Gore Verbinski (director) might not understand how cannonballs work, I believe I do. See, when they hit a ship, they create a hole, and in this hole, water might flow in. When this happens repeatedly, the ship begins to fill with water and sink. When it happens for a long period of time, as was happening between The Black Pearl and ... damn I can't remember it's name... ANyways, Davy Jones' ship, then the ships are going to be destroyed. I am nitpicking, I know, but I just wanted to see a movie, not a cartoon.

And also, there were maybe a hundred or so British ships, and ten or so pirate ships. The Black Pearl and Davy Jones' ship destroy the flagship, and that signals the end of the battle? It's still 99 on 10. I guess they really loved that commander.

In any case, I'm getting off track.

Knocked Up was great. I hope you have seen it by this point.

Saw Oceans 13. It was fun, much better than 12. Still, I had a major problem with this one also. This heist required an unbelievably complex setup. So complex, it's already pretty much in progress by the time the movie begins. The casino they're trying to take down is so well defended, it may seem impossible. And it would be, if Danny Ocean and his gang weren't involved. The movie builds up all these seemingly impossible to overcome conflicts and obstacles, but Danny Ocean et al constantly overcome them. And it's not really because of intelligence or finesse like in 11, but rather because of A.)The unexplained way in which they can get any of their guys a job anywhere doing whatever it is they need them to do
or B.)The fact that they apparently have hundreds of millions of dollars stored away somewhere.

And I Know, they're professional robbers, they would have a ton of money. But that is no excuse why everything that is defeated by our protagonists in this movie eventually can come back to the amount of money they can spend.

It just seems cheap. I gave up on logic maybe 20 minutes in, when they somehow got licensed a drill to shake the foundation of the casino as an exit strategy. They can also pimp out girls, which was a surprise. I guess you'll have to watch it to see what I mean. It just seemed that if you have the resources these guys apparently have, you could rob anything.

I just wasn't expecting this to basically be the least realistic heist film ever made. But that doesn't mean it's bad. It's really very funny, and the powerhouse cast doesn't nothing but help it. Of course, Pitt and Clooney don't really act so much as just be cool, but it's still fun to watch.

I have such a hard time commending a movie if I nothing to gripe about, and that's the case with Paris Je T'aime. This movie was a collection of short films by 18 famous directors, all based in Paris. Of course there were some meh shorts, but most were good, and a couple were amazing.

As we reach the midpoint of 2007, I'm still hoping it takes off in terms of quality. As of right now, I have maybe 5 or 6 movies I really liked, and of those, only three are actually 2007 releases (Zodiac, Grindhouse, Paris Je T'aime). I haven't really hated too much, only Ghost Rider, Breach, and Pirates 3. It's just been real middle of the road. Nothing has stood out yet, but hopefully that'll change.

Spider-Man 3, and some other tidbits

Alright, so Neuromancer is supposedly getting made into a movie finally. This is one of the pieces of source material Matrix took from. It is amazing, and was one of the first cyberpunk novels. It's a quick story, but is a lot of fun and I recommend it. Hopefully the movie will be as amazing.

Spider-Man 3... now I loved the first, but unlike many a person, I did not adore the second. I don't really like Doctor Octopus, and I just didn't dig it. Batman Begins and the first two X-Men movies are the pinnacle of superhero movies for me, along with Spider-Man 1. I read a bunch of reviews for the third Spider-Man, and it got shellacked in a number of them. So, whereas earlier in the year, this was my most anticipated summer blockbuster (which isn't saying much), I quickly lowered my expectations. And it worked accordingly.

Overall, I enjoyed it as much as I had hoped to. At first, I didn't think this was going to be so. The movie opens with Peter Parker talking about how great his life is, and Tobey Maguire is giving the narrative in this ridiculously fake happy voice. Not very long after this, the first action scene of the movie commences between Spider-Man and The New Goblin (James Franco). The special effects in this scene were pretty bad. It just looked incredibly computer generated. Eventually though, I felt the movie picked up.

James Franco is just weird in this movie. He gets amnesia for no real reason, because an hour later in the movie, he's the same spoiled Spider-Man hater he was at the beginning of the movie. I think they just did it so they could "realistically" leave that plot thread hanging for a bit while the other 40 plot threads get some time.

Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) was done well, but Venom needed MORE face time, and LESS Topher Grace.

"Evil-emo" Peter Parker was fun, and while I know some probably thought he was cheesy and lame, I enjoyed it.

I guess the bottom line is, Spider Man 3 was not a great movie. However, I found it to be fun. Being that I don't like the Spider-Man franchise as much as others, it didn't bother me that this movie was far less than stellar. Still, it was no X-Men 3 or Batman and Robin... woo wee.

So I wanted to talk about the remaining blockbusters, at least the ones I'm seeing. I am NOT seeing Shrek 3 or Fantastic Four 2. But lets see about the rest.

Next up will be Pirates 3. Pirates 1 was amazing, a genuine surprise that I did expect, with great acting and a fun story. Pirates 2 was the exact opposite. It was a boring retread on the second and suffered from "second movie in a trilogy-itis" worse than Matrix Revolutions, which is bad. It was just a pointless side quest, meant to introduce a villain and "kill off" Jack Sparrow. There were some bad action scenes mixed in also.

Now with the third, I am hoping they get back to the basics. The trailer looks fun, what with the various pirate groups meeting up. Chow Yun Fat is sweet. I DO NOT want another fight on some rolling wheel, vertical, horizontal or otherwise, which has appeared in the last two films. The special effects have been very good for the previous two, so I don't expect that to let up.

Die Hard 4... or Live Free or Die Hard. The studio is going for a PG-13 rating with this, but Bruce Willis claims it's even better than the first one. I don't know if this is necessary, but they're doing it anyhow. I just want it to be a good action movie. When was the last good big budget straight up, good guys vs bad guys action movie?

Transformers... I'm reading good things about it. It looks like fun, and Michael Bay, who is hit and miss on my chart, is the man to go to for fun summer blockbuster action fests. I of course enjoyed the cartoon as a child and even now. The robots in the trailer look astounding. I have a good feeling for this one.

Harry Potter... I'm counting this because they tend to make big money. The only harry potter movie I've liked was Prisoner of Azkaban. The first two were made for pre-teenagers, and the fourth felt jumbled and messy. And Daniel Radcliffe (who plays harry potter) and the girl that plays hermione truly showed there is no hope for their acting skills. They are just terrible. With Order of the Phoenix enters Dolores Umbridge, played by Imelda Staunton. Umbridge is probably one of my most hated villains in a book ever, and that's a good thing, so hopefully this will make the film fun. It's a pretty good book, hope it translates well.

So that's it for the bigguns. We also have movies like The Bourne Ultimatum, The Simpsons Movie, Oceans Thirteen, 1408, and Knocked Up which look poised to be pretty big earners. I think all five of these could be great movies. There are probably others that'll be good, but I don't want to be here all night typing.

I hope this summer as a whole is better than last, which was pretty bad. Mission Impossible 3 and Da Vinci Code were watchable, but Superman was boring, X3 was awful, and POTC2 was, as mentioned earlier, a mix of boring and awful.

Next summer is where it's at, even though Avatar, the revolutionary scifi film by James Cameron, got pushed back to '09. Next year we have The Incredible Hulk, with Edward Norton and Tim Roth. You can hate the Eric Bana one all you want, I know I do, but this is a restart with Ed Norton! There is Iron Man, with Robert Downey Jr and Terrence Howard. And The Dark Knight!! I mean, it's the summer of superheroes played by Jeff's favorite actors. I can't ask for much more. But there is.

The next Narnia movie is supposed to be released, Prince Caspian. The first wasn't anything amazing, but it was worth seeing. Speed Racer will be released, directed by the Wachowski Bros. Who knows how this'll be. They're able filmmakers, so maybe this will be good.

On the unnecessary remake front, we have The Day The Earth Stood Still. I don't know why.

Hopefully, Indiana Jones 4 will be released.

Hellboy 2... Get Smart with Steve Carell... and the new probably going to be laughably terrible M Night Shyamalan movie.

Alrighty I'm done. Later.

UPdate

Man, I haven't posted since the Scifi Marathon, but I have not stopped seeing movies.

Lets see...

most recently I saw Vacancy, with Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson. This was a short 80 minutes long, but for the most part, it was enjoyable and intense. It becomes more vanilla as it continues, but to begin, it's a truly great scary movie. I absolutely loved when they first got to the hotel, there was something so REAL about it. Basically, they've just gotten into their room, and someones pounding on their door from the room next door. It's before the two heroes know they're meant to be part of a snuff film, and it's a lot of fun to watch, but also scary because you don't know just what is going on. It's still a quick fun movie, but I'd say wait for the rental.

Hot Fuzz was amazing, no Shaun of the Dead, but still just as brilliant at dissecting and making fun of a genre.

I still haven't seen Spider-Man 3, though I hope to within a few days.

I saw Fracture, which, for all it's great acting, turned to absolute crap. It was interesting and involving, and then suddenly the film treats the audience like a 12 year old, spelling out all the mystery of the movie with laughably obvious scenes. Definitely should be skipped.