Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
September 21, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Kim Hollis: Which movies have you seen lately? What did you think about them?
Brett Beach: OK, as usual, I am all over the place. But I am willing to be honest.
The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland: Finn is going through an Elmo phase, so I figured I would take the plunge in case it would become a regular in the future. At 73 minutes it is too long, but I give props to the makers for realizing that even that much of Elmo is too much, He barely appears in half the film.
Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour: Last week's Bucky Larson and Creature are two of the worst openers ever, but this 2008 family film (written, produced, directed and starring various members of the Comrie clan) that somehow got out to 1200 screens isn't far behind. It grossed half a million its first weekend and still didn't hit the $1 million mark. It is amateur hour all around, but it has its convictions and since I was expecting a Scooby Doo type answer to the mystery (and not a climax featuring a sweet grandma possessed by an evil spirit sending off shotgun rounds), it kept me watching.
Still of the Night & Summer Lovers: A pair of On-Demand available flicks both from 1982. The former has Roy Scheider and Meryl Streep in a would-be Hitchcockian thriller. It's terrible and not scary except for a very disturbing dream sequence. Streep is mannered and not convincing but she still manages to take a climactic expository monologue that runs about five minutes in length and sell it for everything it is worth. The latter is a menage a trois romp in Greece from writer/director Randall Kleiser (his followup to Grease and The Blue Lagoon). It is surprisingly sexy, good-natured and as about as intelligent as a sex comedy can get. There's no Daryl Hannah nudity but full frontal Peter Gallagher (!) and I must say 30 years ago the man was ripped. It all leads up to a feel-good climax set to the tune of Chicago's then brand-new hit Hard To Say I'm Sorry.
I re-watched American Graffiti and Purple Rain in prep for my next column on their respective sequels. I would have paid to see both of them multiple times in their respective days. I finally caught up with Oscar nominees/winners Crazy Heart and The Town. I admired the way the former shamelessly flirted with every cliche in the washed-up singer songbook and then zagged at the last minute (in most cases) to find something new to say. Jeff Bridges was incredible, but in his small supporting role, Colin Farrell was revelatory. The Town was tense and not a bad example in the heist genre, but I didn't feel Affleck injected fresh insight into the genre as he had with the similar milieu-ed Gone Baby Gone.
And though I am sure there is much more I am forgetting (my wife watched Your Highness the other day and from what little I heard and saw, I don't think I need to see it), I did want to mention watching Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog for the first time. Loved the first musical number in particular, Fillion's uttering of the word penis, and I did not see that ending coming.
Bruce Hall: A brief but not necessarily complete collection...
Apollo 18 - If you hate someone, and you're not sure how to tell them, recommend this film to them. They'll get the point.
Conan the Barbarian - If you hate yourself, see this movie. You'll get the point.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Better than I expected. As long as most of the cast was CGI anyway, they should have considered having Andy Serkis play James Franco, too.
Captain America - Marvel is just pushing these off an assembly line now. I also feel cheated by my education. According to this movie, America was a sepia toned paradise field with racial harmony and equal opportunity for both sexes. I have no idea what Eleanor Roosevelt and Martin Luther King were so upset about.
Horrible Bosses - The fact that Jason Bateman is not more famous is proof that the terrorists have already won.
X-Men First Class - Better than X-3, but somehow anticlimactic.
I could go back further but my opinion on Pirates of the Caribbean is unprintable, and if you want to know what I thought about Thor, Google the word "Meh".
Edwin Davies: I spent the last two weeks visiting my parents in Florida, which apart from being all full of lovely family times and all that, provided me with ample opportunity to take advantage of their Netflix account. I watched a lot, and also caught a few films in the theater, but here are the high (and low) lights.
Hud (1963) and The Verdict (1982) - Two very different sides of the much missed Paul Newman. In the former he's a beautifully played antihero who engages in a game of wits with his elderly ranch owning father, and in the other he is an old, drunk lawyer who decides to defend a client in a medical malpractice case even though no one - including the family of his client - want the case to go to trial. Both are excellent in very different ways; Hud is a great examination of different ideas of masculinity and the appeal and hollowness of callow youth, whilst The Verdict is an exquisitely constructed court drama that is hugely satisfying and entertaining.
Shadows and Fog (1991) - I'm a huge Woody Allen fan but I almost without fail hate his weird stylistic experiments. I hated this one less than Celebrity (his worst film), Everyone Says I Love You and Everything You Wanted To Know About Sex (But Were Afraid To Ask), but it still wasn't good, so much as interesting. If you want to see a murder mystery/tribute to German Expressionism and Franz Kafka starring Woody Allen, go nuts, but it's only really interesting for the first half an hour or so, at which point it has used up all of its tricks and you're left wondering why you're still watching it.
Mary and Max (2009) - An Australian stop-motion animation film about a young girl who becomes pen pals with a 44 year old New Yorker with Asperger's Syndrome? I know, you're probably thinking that you've seen it all before, but give it a chance! Shot through with a very deadpan and dark sense of humor, Mary and Max is not a film that everyone will get on board with - I would describe it as equal parts whimsical and harrowing - but if you're willing to take a chance on it, you'll find one of the funniest, saddest and most distinct visions of recent years. Genuinely beautiful and relentlessly odd.
Contagion (2011) - I appreciated it more than I actually liked it. Soderbergh's ambition and his desire to create a realistic depiction of a killer pandemic is admirable, and I found it intellectually very intriguing, but it's also very cold and, well, clinical. Not that that's a bad thing, but I found myself feeling so bereft of hope by the end I wasn't really scared of the virus anymore. That bleakness can be refreshing, but here I found it pretty numbing without any basic humanity to balance it out.
Samuel Hoelker: It's been a busy week at the theater for me.
Crazy, Stupid Love: I went in with absolutely no expectations, considering how terrible its trailers were and my dislike for both Julianne Moore (really, Steve Carell? You're mad that you're now able to marry attractive women??) and Ryan Gosling. And it's not bad overall. It's fun, it's almost all completely believable, and Gosling wasn't bad. I didn't like how the storylines tied together multiple times throughout the movie though; it seems almost pointless. But at least there's Kevin Bacon!
Bellflower: Oh jeez, Bellflower. Bellflower's an apocalyptic-ish film about two strange slackers who drink and prepare to be, um, prepared for the end of the world and lead those remaining. And they drink a lot. I've never seen any movie where people drink this much, and I've seen Barney's Version twice. Bellflower's got a unique style - LA looks like a wasteland already - but is incredibly heavy. Its themes include violence solving anything. Halfway though, I thought to myself, "Well, I like this movie a lot but it has nowhere to go," (I thought the same during The Future) but then it went in exciting new directions (which did not happen during The Future). For a first feature, it's pretty amazing. My #3 of the year so far.
Contagion: I agree with Edwin on this one; I think on paper it's amazing, but actually seeing the film is almost tiresome. No one really makes decisions - it's very "a to b to c" - and while it's definitely the most realistic of any film in its subgenre, it's still a film, and in the end films have characters. And really, did we need the "revelatory" last scene?
Drive: Seeing this and CSL in the same week has really made me appreciate Ryan Gosling. Any ill feelings I had towards him from Blue Valentine have gone away. Drive's unique, it's interesting, it's exciting, it's thought-provoking, and it's not what you expect (based on the audience reaction - the guy behind me during the character-building first half kept on saying "what the hell is this movie about" while once the violence kicks in, he suddenly switched his tone to "YEAH THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT." It's way more than a revenge thriller, but I guess that's what people are expecting. And it's always good to see A. Brooks. My #2 of the year so far.
Edwin Davies: My experience of watching Drive was pretty much exactly the same. There was a clear change in the atmosphere once things started to go wrong; it was almost like someone had turned the temperature down in the room and everyone started getting goosebumps. Even though I was painfully aware of how much some of the other patrons didn't enjoy the first half, it was worth it for the moments when they all seemed to get on board with it.
Max Braden:
Drive - I liked this though I heard a bunch of complaints from the rest of the audience. There could have been more action, but I got into the slow burn.
Ironclad - This was a direct to video historical epic costarring Paul Giamatti as King John after the signing of the Magna Carta. (I always find it interesting when movies starring Oscar nominees don't make it into theaters). As a fan of history, I found it watchable and informative but I could see complaints that it's a little too First Knight.
Contagion - This could have been a great movie but there's too much Soderbergh in it. It falls into a weird zone of part drama, part documentary, part music video without the music. That Jude Law's villain was a blogosphere hero was almost laughable, and the movie really doesn't address the global and domestic economic chaos that would affect people like Matt Damon's character. How did he keep eating that entire time?
Something Borrowed - I caught this on DVD after dismissing it as just another romance when it was in theaters. I was really pleasantly surprised and at this point it's competing with Super 8 as my favorite movie of the year. Krasinski is really funny, and I thought the characters and relationships were far closer to real than most romantic comedies. I think people who liked Definitely, Maybe would like this movie.
The Debt/Jolene - I lump these together because of Jessica Chastain. Jolene is available on DVD and stars Chastain in a multi-decade role as a woman moves from place to place and husband to husband. She's very good in both movies and I expect she'll be the next big thing. The Debt was decent but the casting was so reversed in physical appearance that it was distracting.
Your Highness - I gather a lot of people thought this was stupid and didn't like it. I tend to dismiss a lot of crap for the same reason, but somehow this one caught my funny bone. The endless juvenile dialogue was right up my alley. Plus Danny McBride does a pretty good English accent.
My full list of movie commentary is available on my Big Board.
Kim Hollis: I've been unbelievably busy, so I haven't seen as many movies as I normally might. But here's a brief rundown.
Phineas and Ferb Across the Second Dimension - I am an unabashed P&F fan, and the made-for-TV movie was just a blast. Don't dismiss this show because it's a cartoon on the Disney Channel. It is super smart and amazingly fun. For those who remember Rocko's Modern Life, the two shows share creators and it's very clear that Jeff "Swampy" Marsh and Dan Povenmire are guys I would be friends with in real life.
Paul - I have loved Simon Pegg and Nick Frost going all the way back to their Spaced days, and I thought that Paul was a sweet and occasionally crude comedy that proved a perfectly nice diversion during a very hectic couple of weeks. It's not on the same level as Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz, but then again it didn't have Edgar Wright at the helm.
Fright Night - I am one of those people who watched the original film over and over again back in the days when it was dominating the pay movie channels, and to this day I think that Chris Sarandon has provided one of the best vampire portrayals I've ever seen. I was intrigued to see how they would update Fright Night for a new century/generation, not to mention how Colin Farrell would work as the new "vampire named Jerry." I was thrilled to see that the new movie is distinctly different from the movie that inspired it - and in a good way. While Fright Night 2011 still has comedic moments, it played the vampire story a lot more menacingly and disturbingly than the original movie did. Farrell is simultaneously charming, amusing and terrifying. And David Tennant proves to me that my total crush on him is justified.
X-Men: First Class - This is a pretty terrific little superhero movie, with some really fine performances from Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy. It's just too bad that January Jones kills every scene she's in with her inability to use inflection or facial expressions. I actually think that X-Men and Captain America make for nice bookend movies more so than Cap and Thor. Both feel like throwback movies, and I very much like the atmosphere they create.
David Mumpower:
Fright Night was a pleasant surprise for me in that I had not expected the re-make to pay tribute to the original while exceeding it across the board. This is a silly film premise and yet there is some genuine fear provided throughout the proceedings. David Tennant and Colin Farrell are clearly having the time of their lives and that translates to me as the viewer. I was dragged to the film, but I found myself walking out of the theater thinking that I would buy it when Fright Night is released on Blu-Ray. And the cameo is a great touch.
Bobby Fischer Against the World is a captivating documentary that engrossed me due to its enigmatic subject. Bobby Fischer was one of the symbolic embodiments of the Cold War, someone whose showdown with a Russian champion superseded the Olympics in many ways. To this day, the idea of a chess tournament being a media sensation is laughable and yet that is exactly what occurred. The interviews with the people who trained Fischer for the competition particularly fascinated me in that Fischer was somewhat ahead of his time in terms of physical conditioning, a weird statement to make regarding a chess player. Of course, the crux of the story is that Fischer's self-loathing was singularly unique, an anti-Semitic Jew. I don't even understand how such a thing is possible, but I guess the lies his mother told about the identity of his father caused him to experience a psychotic break that in no way impacted his mastery of a chess board. Watching this documentary makes me appreciate all the more that Josh Waitzkin, the subject of Searching for Bobby Fischer, has grown into a well adjusted adult. Chess savants go crazy as often as not.
X-Men: First Class offers a star turn by Michael Fassbender, who gets everything right as Magneto. Similarly, James McAvoy's lively interpretation of Professor Xavier as something of a cad, at least when it comes to chasing skirts, also breathes fresh life into a character the comics industry as a whole seems to find boring these days. BOP's Pete Kilmer has sold me a lot of X-Men comics over the past few years and Xavier is in shockingly few of them. Save for January Jones, who wouldn't know inflection if it knocked her up on the set, the X-Men prequel is a triumph. I love the way that Nightcrawler was developed as an unstoppable badass in the second movie then the same skill set (that of his father) was used for the purposes of villainy in this one. That's a tremendous implementation of established assets.
Source Code is my favorite film of 2011 to date. This is a title for which I had few expectations in spite of its director, Duncan Jones (who helmed Moon). Jake Gyllenhaal is someone I haven't enjoyed since Bubble Boy and I found his most recent project, Price of Persia: The Sands of Time absolutely excruciating...and I LIKE those videogames. I struggled to envision a way that I would enjoy a project where he was onscreen almost the entire film and yet I was immediately captivated by a very clever science fiction story premise. Yes, I guessed the ending within 10 minutes but that in no way prevented me from thinking along with Jones every step of the way. This is exactly the sort of cerebral action flick that I wish Hollywood could release every other weekend. Instead, it will probably be another 18 months before I watch a sci-fi title that is anywhere near the level of this. Source Code is my sort of logic puzzle. It actually reminded me of Cube, which is high praise from me.