Actors: Heather Graham, Joseph Fiennes, Natascha
McElhone, Ullrich Thomsen
Rating: 4 out of 10, This came as part of a double
feature DVD with another movie I wanted and I can see why it was relegated to
B-Side anonymity. It’s terrible. The unintentional comedy level is through the
roof though and that (along with Ms Graham’s not inconsiderable charms on full
display) made it watchable. It aimed for
lofty erotic thriller status but the two leads fail miserably, burdened by that
laughably bad script referenced above.
Graham spends the entire movie looking confused and Fiennes tries to get
by with just being intense. I can see
why Graham never made the transition out of supporting roles, she’s just not up
to carrying a whole movie. A spectacular chest will only get you so far.
MVP: Ms Graham’s shirt which spends most of the
movie discarded on the floor
Actors: Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer
Connelly, William Sadler, Charles Martin Smith
Rating: 7 out of 10, It’s easy to see Dennis Hopper’s
stamp on this as the director. It’s a
lot like many of his film roles – crusty, evil characters screwing each over. There’s some real texture here though and you
can almost sense the Texas
heat broiling off the screen. This was
Don Johnson fifty pounds ago when he was still relevant as an actor and Madsen
and Connelly twenty years ago when they were absolute visions. Even the supposedly nice people in this are
guilty of some crime and that leaves you with no one to really root for,
especially not Johnson who’s famous arrogance emanates along with the heat. It’s still a cool little film noir piece with
generous amounts of Connelly and Madsen exposed which is never a bad thing.
MVP: Madsen as the coolly evil femme fatale
Actors: Antonio Banderas, Sienna Guillory, Thomas
Kretschmann, Autumn Reeser, James Van Der Beek, Snoop Dogg, Bill Duke, Delroy
Lindo, William Fichtner, Sam Elliott, Rebecca Mader, Robert Maillet
Rating: 6 out of 10, Sometimes a director gets so
carried away with really cool camera shots and lighting that he forgets the most
important job is telling the story. This
movie was so memorable that I forgot I saw it less than a year ago and ordered
it on Netflix. You’d think any movie
that starts out with a flaming albino midget skyrocketing out of an A-List
Hollywood star’s mansion, Snoop Dog as a porn impresario, and a love smitten seven
foot boxer would be memorable, but, not so much. The story is told in convoluted fashion in a
definite, almost desperate attempt at film noir territory. The director should have had the balls to go
back to Banderas and tell him they needed some serious voice over work because there
were large parts of the movie where he was almost incomprehensible, which is a
problem when we’re talking about the film’s narrator. I appreciate the effort at something new but quantum
physics and hard boiled detective stories are a difficult marriage, at
best. At least Sam Elliott, one of the
real “dudes” of cinema, looked to be having fun. This is texture over content which saps the
will of the viewer to continue.
MVP: Autumn Reeser as Fay Neman, sowing a whole
new side of herself as a perky physics geek waitress
Actors: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Nick Nolte, Anthony Mackie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Patrick, Michael Pena
Rating: 7 out of 10, Sean Penn once again transforms himself although he did go way over the top a few times. The biggest surprise was that Ryan Gosling actually speaks in most of his scenes!!! I do now understand why he doesn’t speak a lot in his roles though because he is not blessed with a very strong voice but the kid does have screen presence and held his own in the very strong cast. The story revolves around the LAPD’s efforts to rid post-WW2 Los Angeles of organized crime. The movie does a fabulous job of recreating that bygone era although the history buff in me groaned at times with the liberal interpretation of actual events. The movie does a very good job of insinuating the immense factor WW2 and its aftermath played in the lives of people of this time period. My favorite guy from Strike Back – Sgt Damien Scott - even had a small role and acquitted himself well.
MVP: Brolin as the driven SGT O'Mara brings some real intensity
Actors: Gemma Arterton, Daniel Mays, Saoirse Ronan,
Caleb Landry Jones, Sam Riley, Jonny Lee Miller.
Rating:
7 out of 10, A really interesting take on vampire mythology with a
mother daughter pair teaming up to survive the all boys club mentality of their
fellow blood suckers. The director
Jordan goes for some real texture here which at times robs the movie of any
kind of momentum but the two lead actresses, especially Hannah alum Ronan are
excellent. I liked the incremental
exposition of the 200 year old back story which provided some rationalization
for the ladies’ present day actions.
Good flick.
MVP: Saoirse
Ronan as the young seeming daughter Eleanor
Actors: James Franco, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis,
Rachel Weisz
Rating: 7 out of 10, This
movie has grown on me a lot and the visuals remain absolutely stunning. I thought Sam Raimi would do something really
special with a talented cast and Disney money. The movie is visually spectacular
and the lead actresses, Michelle Williams, Mila Kunis, and Rachel Weisz are
splendid. The lead actor, James Franco, is an absolute disaster though and the
movie rests on his shoulders. He showed no range and remained dislikable
throughout. It was almost as if he didn’t care. I left the theater thinking
this movie could have been something really special if the lead actor had a
clue.
MVP: Williams is radiant as the good witch Glenda
Actors: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Roswe Byrne, Asif
Mandavi, Max Minghella, Tiya Sircar, Josh Brener
Rating:
7 out of 10, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have the same chemistry they
exhibited in the much funnier Wedding Crashers and portray the same kind of
lovable losers, which is kind of sneakily endearing. A middle ager such as
myself could certainly identify with the effort these two older characters had
as summer interns at Google struggling to survive in a crowd of tech savvy
young ’uns. Really light stuff, and kind of stupid but exactly what I needed at
the time.
MVP: Vaughn
finally wakes up and is likable again
Actors: Voices of Emma Stone, Nicholas Cage, Cloris
Leachman, Ryan Reynolds, Catherine Keener
Rating:
7 out of 10, I’m not sure how I ended up watching this but it kind of
snuck up on me and I liked it. It’s
pretty formulaic but it’s a tried and true formula. The animation is otherworldly as you would
expect from Dreamworks. Cage as a
caveman where his slurring actually works.
Nothing fancy but some funny stuff, perfect for a complete immersion in
escapism.
MVP: Stone
as the daughter
