Stale Popcorn

While most folks were eagerly anticipating one of the worst movies I’ve ever had to sit through as the biggie of the summer, I have had my eyes on Public Enemies ever since I heard that Depp and Bale were going to work together.  I like Bale’s work, and dammit I’m a red-blooded heterosexual woman, so Johnny Depp is a sex god in my eyes.  My my my, that is a cute, talented guy!  I’ve been a fan of his before it suddenly became “in” to be a Depp fan.  I was looking through my DVD collection a while ago and noticed that I have more Depp flicks than any other actor’s.  So, you can imagine my giddy glee when a friend of mine called me up and said, “Hey, you wanna see Public Enemies early?  I have a pass for you.”  So, off I went to check out Public Enemies last week at an advanced screening.  My expectations were not absurdly high, but with Michael Mann behind the camera and my favorite actor in front of it, how could I not expect a great flick?  Well, this is going to be one of those reviews that I hate to write, because while this movie is good, it is still a letdown.  A movie that has the likes of Mann, Bale, and Depp involved needs to be and deserves to be more than merely good.  This movie is just that: merely good.  Truth be told, there is some great stuff here, but it’s being suffocated by a painfully flat storyline and the fact that out of the main three actors (Depp, Bale, and Cotillard), one is great, one is merely serviceable save for one standout scene, and the other is painfully flat with one single facial expression through the entire friggin’ movie.  Three guesses who that was…

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We’re fast becoming accustomed to stars of the WWE branching out into movies. In fact, their over the top performances in the ring kind of lead directly into action movie roles so it’s understandable. But how about a movie starring a load of UFC stars?

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Academy Award(r) winner Cuba Gooding Jr. stars in The Way of War, a gripping action thriller, available on DVD for the first time from 6 July.
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** Please note, there are spoilers within this review/comments section. If you haven’t seen the movie yet and don’t want to know some fairly major plot points then this isn’t the review for you.

Gareth **

I happen to be a big believer in karma.  What goes around always has a way of coming around, as that catchy Justin Timberlake song says.  People get what they deserve, so be good for goodness’ sake!  I’ll also admit that I’m pretty big on schadenfreude, which basically means that I enjoy the misery of others.  We’ve all had our moments of schadenfreude: someone that you don’t like gets bad news, a celebrity gets arrested and we all make jokes about it, your douche ex gets cheated on, you get the point.  Well right now, karma has come around to bite the entire movie-going populace square on our butts.  We had this one coming, people.  All of us who make excuses for big summer movies by claiming that we should just “check our brains at the door” or “I just wanna see stuff blow up” or “oh look, hot chicks! This movie must be AWESOME, yo!”  WE HAD THIS COMING, and now Michael Bay is experiencing the biggest schadenfreude in human history.  I can just see him on some island surrounded by strippers and guns, laughing his head off at the misery that I endured watching this wretched movie. Read the rest of this entry »

Let’s get somethings out the way right now. First off, when I was younger I used to read a lot of comics (certainly more than I do now!) and I used to read The Punisher comics quite regularly. I’ve seen the awful Dolph Lundgren take on the character in the awful 1989 The Punisher directed by Mark Goldblatt (who went on to direct….er…an episode of Eerie, Indiana) and written by Boaz Yakin (who went on to write movies like The Rookie, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money and the forthcoming Prince of Persia: Sands of Time). It really didn’t do the character justice.

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Vicky Christina Barcelona tells the story of two American girlfriends, the titular Vicky & Christina, as they head off to Barcelona for a couple of months in the summer, staying with a distant relation of Vicky’s. For the begining of their stay they are both overjoyed with the city. Vicky (Rebecca Hall), who is described by the ever present narrator as “practical and traditional in her approach to love and commitment”, is researching for her masters in Catalan Identity and is moved by Spanish guitarists and is engaged to be married to the sensible and reliable Doug , while Christina (Scarlet Johansson) is more spontaneous and unsure of what she wants in life and is just getting over a bad relationship.

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This is one of those stories that you normally hear about on the Oprah show or a Lifetime TV movie.  A ten-year-old girl by the name of Colby Curtin saw the trailer for Up when watching Monsters vs Aliens and was instantly excited to see it, like a lot of little kids.  Problem is, little Colby had a rare form of cancer, and it was quickly becoming apparent that Colby was fighting a losing battle.  She desperately wanted to see Up, but she was too sick and weak to be moved into any theater for a screening.  A family friend frantically called Pixar and Disney, explaining the situation and begging for help.  Most folks wouldn’t have answered.  Pixar isn’t most folks.   Not only did they fly a Pixar employee to this girl’s house with Up on DVD, they brought toys and a replica of Carl and Ellie’s scrapbook for Colby.  She was too weak to even open her eyes to watch it, so her mom did a play-by-play for her while it played on the TV.  Sadly, Colby died just seven hours later, but that is a beautiful story, and good on Pixar for doing this, as well as that person who kept calling them and wouldn’t give up.  You all went out of your way to do something truly noble for a dying little girl who, according to her mom, was literally staying alive just to watch this movie.  You really need to read this whole story here because my brief summary does not begin to do it justice.  If that doesn’t move you, I don’t know what will.

Some almost decent posters for the upcoming turd G.I. Joe have been released.  I’ve done you all a lovely favor by posting the requisite “hot chick with guns” poster here for you to get a nice long look at, but I’ll direct you here to see the rest of them nice and large.  Now, is it me or is Channing Tatum’s face airbrushed to the point of being mannequin-like in his poster?  and why does Baroness look just like Selene from Underworld?  It’s almost eerie.  I have to say, I have a morbid curiosity to see how well this film does.  Do we as a people really become so brain-dead during the summer that when we see tits, guns, and mayhem, we plunk down our money to see a film even though it looks absolutely horrible?  Can this film be a hit even with all of the negative buzz surrounding it, or will people say “who cares about reviews, buzz, or common sense?” and check this thing out anyway?  I’m gonna have to see it somehow to furnish a review for this site, but I’m gonna do everything in my power not to lay down a penny of my own money to lay eyes on this thing.

Add this one to the list of sequels being announced these days that I have absolutely zero interest in.  Tom Cruise and JJ Abrams have signed on co-produce MI4 for Paramount.  They’re aiming for a 2011 release date, and I could not care less.  You could put Hugh Jackman naked in this and I would only be mildly interested.  This was just one of those franchises that I could never get into, try as I might.  The first one was a dull roar, with one of the most irritatingly over-parodied sequences in film history.  The second was an exercise in absurdity, with idiotic motorcycle-fu, a repugnant performance by Thandie Newton, Sir Hopkins classing the joint up for five all too brief minutes, and doves flying in at the most laughably dramatic moment.  The third one felt incredibly confined with a few bright spots here and there (Pegg!).  JJ is hot now thanks to star Trek, but I saw that movie for reasons other than him.  As for Cruise, I was never a huge fan of his to begin with, so I can’t say that his general wackiness has prevented me from watching his latest work.  Problem is, I just don’t care about him anymore, and I suspect a lot of people will greet this news with the same level of enthusiasm as my four-legged friend in this post.

Wanted was an okay waste of time, but still a waste of time nonetheless.  The action was intentionally over-the-top, but this technique backfired with me, to the point that I clocked out of the movie about twenty minutes in and never came back.  I didn’t care about any of the people onscreen, and Jolie looked so sickly thin that I wanted to throw my popcorn through the screen for her to eat.  This crap worked in The Matrix because we were clearly in a world that was not our own.  You throw a bunch of curving bullets, flipping cars, and magic looms into my reality, and I laugh in your face and check my watch.  Now comes news that we are being treated to Wanted 2.  Oh joy.  Even better (and dumber) news?  Guess who’s coming back?  Angelina Jolie!  Uh.  Wait.  Hang on a sec.  I don’t know if you saw the same movie I did but…how are they going to explain her presence in the sequel?  Of all the laughable things sure to be in Wanted 2, that shoots (hehe) right to the top of the list.  Are they that desperate to secure a bankable star for this film (since God knows McAvoy can’t open crap on his own) that they are going to take a dump all over the finale of the first film in the process?

I have a lot of mixed feelings about Natalie Portman.  She’s a beautiful, classy young woman.  I loved her in The Other Boleyn Girl, but for the most part, she is a very bland actress.  I find her hype to be more spectacular than her.  She has yet to live up to this constant buzz that I hear about her.  I mean, come on.  Where The Heart Is?  Anywhere But Here?  Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, one of the worst films I’ve ever seen in my life?  It’s been downhill for her ever since The Professional, but she keeps getting hired for some strange reason.  Now, Darren Aronofsky has snagged her for his upcoming thriller Black Swan, which has a premise that sounds beyond stupid: a ballerina competing with a girl who might be real or a figment of imagination.  I presume Portman will be the ballerina.  This sounds like a big ol’ bomb to me, but maybe the sight of Portman in a tight leotard will bring in enough drooling fanboys.  Hope springs eternal!

This story was huge news not too long ago, but the furor around the Wolverine leak–and the FBI-assisted manhunt aimed at finding the party responsible–has fallen silent…until now.  We could very well know the evil, mischievous deviant who dared to leak this weak sauce online, saving countless fanboys $10 and unleashing a torrent of venom aimed at 20th Century Fox for the treatment of their beloved Deadpool.  To unravel this tale, we gotta go back a few months. Do you remember a fellow by the name of Roger Friedman, a guy who got canned from Fox for not only downloading/streaming a copy of the pirated film, but also being brain-dead enough to review a leaked Fox film on a Fox website?  Well, he’s lawyered up since then and is looking to sue his former employer for wrongful termination, and it looks like his lawyer has discovered the source of the leak.  Drumroll please!  The culprit is…

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You have got to be kidding me.  I mean, REALLY guys?  REALLY?!  You want to subject us to more fridges being nuked, more CGI monkeys, more aliens that kill with their magical eyes that are filled with KNOWLEDGE?!  Well, if TheBeef is to be believed, Spielberg is at work developing Indy 5, though there’s no word on who is or isn’t coming back to further make a laughingstock of this once venerated series.  God help us all.  Indy 4 was such a waste of my time and a real piece of crap, no matter how much apologists try to make excuses for it.  Are ANY of you interested in Indy 5, and if so, may I recommend a good shrink for you?

At the very least, Sir Ian McKellan, Hugo Weaving, and Andy Serkis, straight from director Guillermo Del Toro’s mouth.  It’s a little unclear from the interview as to who Weaving will be playing, but you have to assume that he’ll be Elrond again.  I have to say that I am shockingly underwhelmed by all of the online Hobbit hype.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of the LOTR film trilogy.  I adore those movies.  Having said that, I’m just not that excited for this film.  I can’t explain why.  Maybe it’s my bitterness over the fact that I really, really want to see Hellboy III get made and I wish Guillermo was working on that instead of this.  Maybe I’m just burnt out in regards to LOTR.  I’m sure I’ll see this movie when it’s released, but I’m really not too pumped for this news.

Ah, there’s nothing like a slasher horror movie. There are loads of examples of the genre, from the great (like the original Halloween) to the terrible (most of the recent entries!). And there are also loads of old slasher movies that are being remade. In fact, it seems to be one of the more popular genres of movies to be given the remake treatment in recent years! So how do you make your remake of a movie stand out from all of the others? How about jumping on the resurgence of 3D and making it into a 3D version? Great idea! So that’s what Lionsgate did with their remake of the 1981 Canadian movie of the same name.

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Pixar has the best track record in the business, bar none.  The quality of their output of work is something truly awe-inspiring.  Even the worst of their films is still light-years ahead of their competition.  However, as good as they are, I was highly concerned about Up.  The trailer did absolutely nothing for me.  It looked very odd to me, and I was worried that I wouldn’t like this one.  It’s happened before.  I did not like Ratatouille.  Cars sucked.  So, off I went with my friend to see Up in 3D, hopeful that Pixar would not let me down.  I knew ten minutes in that I was watching the best movie of the damn year, and arguably Pixar’s magnum opus.

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Up front, I must say that I have never seen the original version of The Taking of Pelham 123 or the 1998 TV movie based on the book that the movie is based on (sheesh), so this review will pertain exclusively to this film.  I wasn’t exactly looking forward to seeing this film, but my sister took one look at the trailer for this and declared that we had to see it opening weekend.  I like Denzel, and Travolta’s okay as long as he reigns in his constant need to go over the top in terms of his acting, so I thought that it would be a decent enough time at the theater.  Well, I am sadly here to inform you that not only is this one of the most middling, flat, “why isn’t this better considering the talent involved” movies I’ve seen lately, it also holds the dubious honor of being the single worst theater experience of my entire life, and that includes the time that a guy got stabbed by a gang member during my screening of Troy*.

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So I’ve been waiting on this stinkin’ Harry Potter film to just come out already after the release date was delayed.  Now, it looks like there’s yet another delay in Potter’s release, at least on the IMAX front.  According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story goes like this: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was supposed to drop in November 2008, and the IMAX version was to be released simultaneously with the regular release.  Now that the film has been rescheduled to open July 15th, this puts Potter in conflict with Transformers 2, which is scheduled to still be on IMAX screens during Potter’s run.  So, who do you think IMAX sided with?  Optimus Prime, of course.  Personally, I think they backed the right horse, financially speaking.  Transformers 2 is going to be a beast, so Harry Potter fans who wanted to see it in IMAX will have to wait two weeks after the theatrical release date, unless you’re in NY/LA, who will each get the film on exactly one IMAX screen.  I think this is going to negatively impact HP’s IMAX take.  I’m willing to bet that most folks who wanted to see it in IMAX aren’t going to wait two weeks to see the film on the big screen.  By the time it is released in IMAX, most of the fanbase will have already seen it once, maybe even twice.  Are all of these people going to shell out the money that they would have if the film had been released in IMAX on schedule?  I don’t think so.  This new date has certainly affected my choice of whether to see it in IMAX.  My IMAX is an hour away, and in a recession summer with gas prices going through the roof, I’m only going to make the IMAX pilgrimage once, and that’ll be for Transformers 2.  I like Harry Potter a lot, but it’s not worth having to gas up my car to get there and paying extra for a ticket to see it on a giant screen.

The first Pirates movie was a lot of unexpected fun.  The second Piratesmovie was a lazy, inept, overblown, idiotic money grab by the Mouse House, and I was furious walking out of that thing.  I felt like I’d been mugged in the street and robbed of $7.50.  I didn’t pay to watch the third one, and thank God for it.  I literally do not have enough room in this post to describe how much hatred I have for that movie (so many double-crosses that a flow chart is required to keep track, Jack sparrow transformed from a lovable SOB to a flat-out SOB, the HORRIBLE Calypso storyline, Orlando Bloom’s mere presence, Keira Knightley trying to be all girl-power in that TERRIBLE scene where she rallies the pirate troops, the big battle at the end with a ton of pirate ships just sitting and watching as only two ships go at it in a stupid, stupid, STUPID finale, etc.).  Now comes word straight from Jerry Bruckheimer himself  that Pirates 4 is on the way.  I’m over this franchise, but I know that some of you aren’t, so yippee for you, I guess.

Well, if this rumor spreading quickly online is true, then yup, G.I. Joe is pretty damn bad.  A person on producer Don Murphy’s message board by the name of EndTimes has posted a report on the status of G.I. Joe, and believe me when I tell you that it ain’t pretty.  Look, let’s be honest with each other, shall we?  We all knew from the trailer alone that this movie was going to be a complete and utter turd (and knowing is half the battle), but I never thought that it could be as bad as this Endtimes gal or guy makes it out to be.  If Endtimes is to be believed, not only has the film’s godawful director, Stephen Sommers, been fired from the film and banished from the editing room, but also the film received the worst test score in the entire history of Paramount Pictures.  Lemme say that again.  G.I. Joe received the LOWEST TEST SCORE IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF PARAMOUNT PICTURES, A STUDIO THAT HAS BEEN IN EXISTENCE SINCE 1912.  Holy mother of God!

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