THE END IS NEAR!!!!

 

 

 

Thats right boys and girls, Alan’s reign of this kingdom is coming to an end! I know my voice has been quiet on this site for a while but that’s because my wife popped out another distraction and I haven’t had the time to write…..but I have still been watching those movies! I think it has been a great year for movies and I am sure it will be a better Oscar night for me this time.

Because I was hosed last year by ‘you know who’, there is one simple rule change this year:

No more first and second guesses – we just call em’ as we see em’ and tally up. I got Ledgered last year and my pride can’t let that happen again!

So, with a little less than a month till the big night I gotta get my priorities straight and watch some more TV – wish me luck!

The Lovely Bones

Poor Suzie. Trapped in a movie with Mark Wahlberg…

It took me a long time to read “The Lovely Bones.” The original book is initially not the easiest read. It starts off with the rape & murder of Suzie Salmon. The first time I picked the book up and read the opening pages, I quickly put it down, not getting back to it for a while. But then, after being prompted by my wife, I decided to try again. And I managed to finish it many weeks after getting started. It’s not that it’s a slow story, it’s just that there really isn’t anywhere for it to go. And even though I enjoyed reading the book, I knew going into the film that there probably was gonna be issues even though Peter Jackson was the director. And I was right.

“The Lovely Bones” is not a great movie. I know I wanted it to be. And with all the Oscar buzz for Stanley Tucci, I was hoping that he could save what I knew was going to be an average film. But he doesn’t. Not that his performance isn’t good, because it is. But overall, this film suffers from a few factors. One being the story itself. The second being the fact that Jackson had to come up with his version of the afterlife where Suzie is stuck for most of the film. And the third problem is the casting.

Problem #1: the story. Jackson and his writers took way to many liberties with this movie and without going into major plot points, they left a bunch out. So if you’ve read the book, trust me that you are going to be disappointed with what they have done to a few of the character’s roles and some of the most interesting parts of the novel.

Problem #2: the afterlife. It all LOOKS very pretty on film. Peter Jackson does manage to come up with some interesting visuals and on the big screen, they are very pretty and all. But what’s the point? FLowers blooming in ice. Trees morphing into birds. Giant ships in bottles crashing along the ocean shoreline. It’s all neat to look at. But seriously? Where’s it going? Because in the end, all of it is meaningless. And it never really helps hide the fact that Suzie is dead and now she can’t go to heaven until her “soul” has found peace. And that’s really what the movie & the book are about.

The third problem is the casting. And on paper you might be led to believe that it’s a stellar cast. You have Tucci, Susan Sarandon and Rachel Weisz, who are all spectacular actors and who do their roles justice in a limited way (due to the writing). But then you have Mark Wahlberg as the father and Michael Imperioli completely miscast as an investigator and the movie falls apart. I’ve written about my dislike of Wahlberg as a lead in a movie and this film is justifiable evidence that he just doesn’t have the chops. He doesn’t hold this film together and he looks simply ridiculous with his 70’s hair and clothing, trying to portray a father who has lost one of his children. It’s a tough character to play and he fails miserably. And with him, so does the film.

“The Lovely Bones” is not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It has it’s moments (usually involving the creepy Stanley Tucci). But it sinks when it strays from the book and, unfortunately, it does that quite often.

Overall Rating: C-

Legion

Here’s the thing to know whenever you go to a movie that is released in January…don’t expect too much. January & February are the wasteland of movieland. If your movie gets put out there in that time period, it ain’t that good. Apparently, distributor “Screen Gems” knew this and dropped this film off this past weekend without screening it for critics and with little or no prerelease hype. So as you can imagine, despite a cool looking trailer and a bunch of actors who are ALL qualified, this movie is a bit of a stinker. But not so much in that I couldn’t sit through the whole thing. Which, after sitting through “The Book Of Eli”, is a good thing, I suppose.

In a nutshell, the angel Michael defies God and instead of finding & destroying a little unborn baby on Earth to start the apocalypse (yet ANOTHER one of THOSE movies?), he decides he’s gonna rescue the baby instead. And the baby is in the body of an 8-month pregnant beauty (Adrienne Palicki) somewhere in the Arizona desert working for Dennis Quaid in a rundown shack of a restaurant. Okay…so there’s the setup. From there you add the redheaded doctor from “The Practice” (Kate Walsh), a serious Tyrese Gibson and the guy from Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (Lucas Black), and you got yourself a movie! But not a very good one. The angel Michael is played well enough by very serious Paul Bettany from “The Da Vinci Code”. He spouts off words of wisdom and organizes the group to defend themselves against the masses of humans who have been taken over by angels who are zombies and swarms of bugs and crazy grannies who want to eat people’s faces and all kinds of stuff. It’s all very preachy and there are lots of messages lost in the shuffle (abortion rights, Bible thumpers anonymous, parenthood, etc) and sometimes it is slow when it should be running at full throttle, but I didn’t hate this movie. As a matter of fact, it kind of brightened my day on a crappy Monday and, although I’ll never watch it again unless it’s on HBO or something, I won’t complete shred it.

Overall, I thought the acting was fine. The effects were fine. The script was average. And the directing was not as good as it should have been. This movie could have stood to be maybe 45 minutes longer in order to develop the characters a little better and to allow the audience to identify with Michael and the heroes of the movie. But I guess developing the characters wasn’t in the plan. Instead, “Bold Films” (which produced the movie) seemed to be happy with releasing an average product to get me through a blustery January day. And on that note…they did their job.

Overall Rating: C-

Tony’s Take: The Book Of Eli

So my brother’s best friend Tony decided to weigh in on HIS opinion of the dreaded “Book Of Eli”. I twittered that I thought it sucked. He twittered back…in the form of a review. Since my brother has given up on reviewing movies (wuss), I figure I’d print Tony’s take on the film. See if you agree or disagree…

It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve seen by far, but it was lacking. It had way too much time filled with slow motion scenes, that needn’t exist. It did have a cool story that was bearable as a 200 page novel… NOT a 1 hour and 58 minute movie, however! I would have been satisfied with 1 hour and 18 minutes (that’s minus 40 minutes of slo-mo walking and scenes that nobody says anything for 4 minutes!).

This story had potential and the acting was great by Denzel… but I think the directing was bad along with post, which should have left a LOT on the “cutting-room floor”.

I think the way the forced the ending with the girl taking over was bunk, if I may. That alone could have filled the other wasted 40 minutes of slo-mo and no talking. It felt insincere, as though it were forced to close the movie and leave you open for a follow-up.

Anyways, Frank, Monica and I all noticed that the audience response was dismal at best… moans and sighs as the credits rolled and the place cleared out quick! Again… cool story, but they also hinged on the apex being the “blind angle” way too much… that should have happened 26 minutes earlier so they could establish the girl discovering and learning his ways al a mister Miagi style… but no, they really shit the bed, with good talent in hand.

Overall : C+
2.9/5 stars

The Book Of Eli Is NOT A Good Movie

At the end of the world, ALL women look like THIS?!?!

The plot, as described by IMDB is…”a post-apocalyptic tale in which a lone man fights his way across America in order to protect a sacred book that holds the secrets to saving humankind.”

MY opinion is…the plot is terrible. The acting is terrible. The dialogue is laughable. And the whole idea of this movie is utterly ridiculous.

Have I made myself clear enough on this? Because anyone who knows me knows I love apocalyptic movies. I’ve seen everything from “The Last Man On Earth” to “The Road” and now THIS comes along and pretty much makes a mockery of the entire genre.

And I’ve heard some different opinions, people saying they liked it or thought it was decent and to them I say…you haven’t SEEN a good apocalyptical movie then because THIS film was utter crap.

Let’s start at the top. Denzel Washington. What a fantastic actor and with his credentials, he could star is a comedy musical and I’d probably go see it. From “Glory” to “Training Day” to “Man On Fire”, the guy has intensity. He’s a fantastic actor who deserves a much better vehicle than this. Throughout this film, he mutters and acts all bad-ass and then half-way through the movie, he adopts a pretty young girl to tote around with him (a TOO pretty Mila Kunis, who should stick to ensemble comedies like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”) even though he originally locks her in a cave only to have her POOF…magically reappear. Then he begins acting all nice and soft and cuddly. That is…until big, bad Gary Oldman, hobbling around with a team of ugly rowdies, tracks him down and tries to take his book…the book of Eli…which is actually the King James Bible.

Oh…there is a bunch of scenes dedicated to why he is protecting the book and why he is heading west through the devastation of our world. There are some action sequences where Eli uses a machete and a gun and a shotgun and everybody has tons of ammunition in this barren world but not a copy of the Bible, apparently. So all this is going down and there are more action sequences and then…Eli gets shot. And he dies.

Or does he?

It’s all very curious what happens next but the movie goes on and I won’t play spoiler even if I do think the movie is a piece of crap. Because it is. But if you MUST watch it, then I won’t spoil it. But I gotta tell you…if I hadn’t been there with a friend, I woulda walked out. It’s that bad. And except for the locations and set designs (which are very much like “The Road”, which is an EXCELLENT post-apocalyptical film by MY standards), this movie isn’t worth the matinee price that I paid to get in.

Overall Rating: D-

(500) Days Of Summer

I had been hearing what a great little flick this was so the wife & I huddled together on our couch and fired it up and, much to my surprise…it IS a good little romance. In my opinion, it’s not an Oscar-worthy romance, but it IS a quirky little independent film that will probably get a lot of attention the closer the Oscars get.

Tom is a hopeless romantic. He believes that love at first sight still exists and is dead set on finding “the one”. Summer is his exact opposite. She has relationship issues and isn’t ready to be in a committed situation. Of course, they get together, have a great time together and eventually have sex. And then they have more good times. And then things start to go bad and then they get worst. And then they break up. But the fun thing about this movie is how it presents this all-to-familiar movie cliche in a different way. Instead of telling the tale in order (a la “When Harry Met Sally”), it’s told in scattered events, bouncing from Day 1 to Day 144 then back to Day 23 and so on, throughout the 500 days of their relationship. It’s a formula that works surprisingly well for (500) and it is truly the most unique quality about it. But that is enough.

Romantic movies have really become a dime a dozen lately and they tend to get really boring quickly. But in this case, much like another classic film, “Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind”, this movie has enough unique qualities and the lead characters are interesting enough that it carries itself pretty well. Joseph Gorden-Levitt shows surprising range in a somewhat one-dimensional character and Zoey Deschanel, who I have never really thought too highly of as an actress, brings a certain likeability to a character who could have very easily gotten on my nerves. It’s not really a unique story, but the way it’s told make it instantly interesting…and it certainly held MY in interest through the entire film.

So if you are in need of a good date movie and need something that can appeal to men AND women, then (500) is definitely a good rental. But Oscar quality? Hmmmmm…I don’t think so.

Overall Rating: B

“The Princess And The Frog” Is Exactly What I Thought It Would Be

Even wishing on a star won’t make this movie any better…

Last summer, after seeing a trailer for the upcoming Disney release, The Princess & The Frog, I wrote that it was my opinion that the Mouse House was milking it’s princess line by releasing a sub-par film in order to boost sales. After seeing this movie, I can honestly say that I was correct.

No one wants to love Disney more than I. I have grown up enjoying the movies and the parks of Disney my entire life, so to see this marketing ploy come to the big screen is a disappointment. There are so many things wrong with this movie that I don’t even know where to begin. But let’s start off by saying that “The Princess & The Frog” could have very easily been a straight to DVD release. Except for a couple of musical numbers, there is nothing original about it and the animation is average at best.

Tiana is a tough-minded girl from New Orleans. She grew up in the slums of the city where her father preached that someday, if she worked hard enough, she could own her own restaurant. Cut to the future where her father has passed on and she is holding down 2 jobs as she works to get enough money to buy a vacated factory building in order to start her own business. Of course things go awry and somewhere along the way she meets a prince who has been turned into a frog by the evil “Shadowman”. She kisses him and, instead of this turning him back into a prince, she herself turns into a frog. From there they run into a cast of characters (including an overweight alligator, a backwoods lightning bug with 3 teeth, a group of bayou hillbillies and a  voodoo witchlady) as they try to get themselves back to being human before the stroke of midnight.

Look…I understand that there needs to be the hook. The whole “you can have your dreams if you work hard” and “you can have the prince of your dreams even if he is a toad” themes have been done before and that’s not even my problem with this movie. My problem with it is that it’s BORING. And the animation is choppy and uninteresting. The characters are stereotyped and bland. This film is set in New Orleans and even then the producers of this movie found a way to make it uninteresting. I almost fell asleep 30 minutes into it and my daughter was moving around through the entire 2nd half. At one point I thought SHE was gonna fall asleep! And it’s a movie for little girls!

I guess I will probably get slammed for saying this, but “The Princess And The Frog” was definitely made to generate more money for Disney. It was made to sell dolls and to add another character to it’s princess merchandise line. Which is unfortunate. Disney DOES need to add an African American princess to its popular band of beauties, but it’s unfortunate that it had to be done so second rate by a company that should have known how to make a better film.

Overall Rating: D

Avatar

How often do you get to see an “event” movie? Maybe once every 10 years or so, right? Star Wars, Titanic, Gone With The Wind, ET, the Rings trilogy. There have been many through the years and they are considered “event” movies because they set a new bar in a particular genre. And in the case of James Cameron’s “Avatar”, the bar has been set pretty high.

Let’s just get the standard stuff out of the way. The plot is good, not great. The movie DOES steal plotpoints, characters and elements from other movies. And it is a long movie. But for all of this, it never once feels stale or muddled. The actors are fantastic (except for Sigourney Weaver, there are no superstars in the mix) and the plot, which is a call for protecting our environment, doesn’t get too heavy-handed. There is also a love story (it’s a James Cameron flick…how could there NOT be?) and lots of action. And then…there’s the CGI.

What you have probably heard about more than anything about this film is the sheer amount of work that it took to create the planet of Pandora. Depending on what you read, Cameron has been working on this project for over 20 years. He had the idea for “Avatar” before he filmed “Titanic” and has been tweaking it ever since. Then he went into preproduction sometime in 2006 and over 3 years later…VOILA! Instant movie magic! And if only it were that easy.

Quite honestly, I have never seen anything like this movie. The sheer amount of detail that has gone into every scene is unbelievable. I saw “Avatar” on an IMAX screen in 3D (seriously…pay the extra few dollars. It’s worth every penny) and I was wanting the screen to be bigger! The world of Pandora is a magical place, alive with light & danger, and the aliens that inhabit it are 9 feet tall and cat-like.

A brief synopsis: Earth is dying and needs an element that has been found on Pandora. So, much like we do, the military and a science team are sent in to extract it. Initially they try to befriend the natives (known as the Na’vi) and play nice. Scientists have discovered a way to transfer allow a  human mind to control an alien body (known as an avatar). Their plan is to send the avatar’s in to try to get to know tha Na’vi and to peacefully extract the mineral. Eventually  it becomes clear the aliens will not leave and so the military plan a strike on the Na’vi home. The scientists (led by Sigourney Weaver) try to stop them at first, and then try to aid the Na’vi in the fight for their planet.

It’s all very “Dances With Wolves”-like, but it’s not the script you need to concern yourself with. It’s the effects…or the feeling that there are no effects and that Cameron actually moved to another planet to film this movie. It is THAT good. You can’t tell that ANY of this movie is CGI! It’s unbelievable! And you have to see it just to understand the scope of it’s production.

James Cameron has made an event movie for this decade and it has raised the bar for movie-making in general. With the computer generated planets and the muscle movements of the aliens that make them so lifelike, there is no way Hollywood can now produce a movie that is sub-par in it’s CGI. No more creatures from “I Am Legend”, no more distant planet city shots like the “Star Wars” series. It’s all gonna change now and this film is leading the charge.

Unbelievable job, Mr. Cameron. And I hope that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of you (there have been rumors of his retirement after “Avatar” was released). Maybe you can come up with just one more film that will inspire filmmakers to be the best they can be. Trust me…you’ve set the bar high this time…and Hollywood will be an empty place if you do decide you’ve had enough. “Avatar” is pure genius. An epic production for our time. And a showcase for what can happen when you have the time and the willpower to produce top-notch entertainment.

Overall Rating: A+

Adventureland

I had heard that this movie was one of the best this year, so I wanted to see it before the end of 2009. I had very high hopes for it, considering it is about the late 1980’s (1987 to be exact, the year I graduate from high school), has an awesome soundtrack and some actors who I think highly of (Ryan Reynolds & Jesse Eisenberg). But the problem with “Adventureland” is that is suffers from an identity crisis and it never really gets off the ground. It meanders…and then becomes a standard love story.

When the movie starts, we meet James, a recent college grad who is now stuck looking for a job before heading to New York for grad school. He ends up working at the local Pittsburgh amusement park called Adventureland. There he becomes friends with a cast of characters who are dweebs, nerds and slackers. This includes Kristen Stewart, taking some time between “Twiglight” movies to hone her dramatic skills. And trust me…she IS very dramatic. Anyway, James ends up falling for Em (Stewart) and the entire film is really their love story. How her life is complicated. How his life is complicated. How they are gonna be complicated together. It’s all very complicated. But really…it isn’t.

Not to say this film didn’t have some fun moments. Kristen Wiig & Bill Hader make an appearance as the park owners in hilarious fashion and a few of the nerds are quite good (especially Martin Starr, who is the nerdiest of the bunch and somehow the star of the show). But Reynolds gets lost in the shuffle as a park mechanic who has a way with the ladies and Eisenberg, who was so great in “Zombieland”, is limited to looking dumbfounded most of the time and it’s not until the end of the movie when he finally grows a pair and becomes the man that he needs to be. Which is what the movie is all about, I guess.

“Adventureland” is not one of the best movies of 2009. Instead, it’s a nice evening rental which had potential. Not to say it’s not good…it’s just not great. And it could have been. But instead, it’s more of an homage to the John Hughes films of the 80’s…and not a very good one at that.

Overall Rating: C