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Home - Film
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Happy Monster Fun-Time - |
Hellboy 2 is double the demonic pleasure
by Ryan Syrek
Superhero flicks often feel like your first make-out session. Sure, it’s exciting and feels important, but it’s really just awkward fumbling with one or two good glimpses of locker-room fodder. Using this analogy, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army is a backseat romp with the town trollop, full of so many titillating moments your memory and Myspace page can’t hold them all.
Spanish-horror-director-turned-Oscar-nominated-auteur Guillermo del Toro had great faith in his on-screen demon, choosing a return to comic book–writer Mike Mignola’s character as his post–Pan’s Labyrinth endeavor. Grossing less than $100 million worldwide likely earned Hellboy derision from the other super-folk at their weekly wine-tasting parties, but the sweetly crafted monster movie had Jackie Joyner- Kersee–like legs on DVD, allowing the studios to justify a somewhat-safe $85 million budget for a second demon-laced dance. Boy howdy did that decision pay off.
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Cutting Room - |
I have no idea how this happened, but I am cheesed off. I’m honking mad. Sorry for the strong language, but when Spike Jonze agreed to direct a live-action version of Where the Wild Things Are from a script co-written by Dave Eggers, I figured the only success more guaranteed was the growth of my Fannie Mae stock. Bumped from 2008 to 2009, the film has now been bumped to “some point before the end of life as we know it.” Alan Horn, chief of Warner Brothers, says Jonze has all the time and money he needs ... so long as he delivers a film that is both artistic and can make a billion dollars worldwide. No pressure. I remain hopeful that Jonze can deliver, then again, I’m also a Cubs fan, so take my optimism for what it’s worth.
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Steppe Child - |
Genghis gets beaten down before rising to power in Mongol
by Ben Coffman
Some of history’s greatest success stories have been preceded by early failures. Think Oprah Winfrey’s former crack habit, Michael Jordan getting cut from his high school basketball team or the unlikely George W. Bush becoming the leader of the free world.
As it turns out, things weren’t always so good for Genghis Khan, the guy who, thanks to a prodigious murder/hump spree in the 13th century, is related to about a billion living people in Asia and beyond. Although Genghis’ name is often mentioned alongside other historical villains like Hitler and Stalin, Russian director Sergei Bodrov (Prisoner of the Mountains) sought to bring a more nuanced version of this important figure to the big screen.
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Report Card - |
Film Reader Rating
Get Smart D
Steve Carell’s latest should have followed its title.
Hancock C
Smith’s soused superhero soars, then slips, then sucks.
The Incredible Hulk D+
Ed Norton turns green, not the kind of green that gets
Al Gore hot.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull A-
Harrison Ford returns with a full dose of nostalgia Viagra.
Kung Fu Panda B-
Animals teach young kids the value of violence.
READER RECOMMENDS
The Visitor B+
Feel-good illegal immigrant story, sorry Fox News!
Wall-E A
If you don’t love this near-silent robomantic comedy,
you have no soul.
Wanted C-
Fight Club + The Matrix - Good Writing = Horrifically
Awesome
You Don’t Mess With the Zohan D-
An Israeli commando-turned-hairdresser creates a
comedy-killing vortex of suck.
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Stormy Weather - |
Looking forward to April Showers
by Benjamin J. Hankey
Don’t expect senseless gore or tepid dialogue in Andrew Robinson’s films … which isn’t to say you’ll be bored. Robinson’s current film-in-production is April Showers, a project that he wrote and finished shooting five weeks ago after a 24-day filming marathon in Plattsmouth, Neb.
The screenplay is partially based on his experiences at Columbine High School during the horrific shootings in 1999. However, this is not exploitation filmmaking. The tragedy is a kind of backdrop, Robinson explained.
“The emotions, the sequence, the tensions, are very close to how Columbine went down, but I didn’t shoot for re-creating the event. I tried to re-create the emotional experience of it,” he said.
The film stars Tom Arnold, as well as up-and-coming young stars Kelly Blatz, Daryl Sabara, Janel Parrish and Ellen Woglom. Blatz is under contract with Disney and is touted as the “next big thing” in the teen scene.
Robinson compares April Showers’ concept to that of the blockbuster Titanic. Instead of making a film that leads the viewer straight to the inevitable conclusion, we see how characters cope with tragedy, and how the community changes. |
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Cutting Room - |
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Among the many reasons to love Christian Bale’s take on everyone’s favorite (at least, I hope you don’t have another favorite) black-latex wearing masked man, add the fact that he totally freaking hates Robin. According to New York Magazine, Bale said, “If Robin crops up in one of the new Batman films, I’ll be chaining myself up somewhere and refusing to go to work.” After his alarmingly obvious sadomasochistic implications, Bale went on to explain, “No, seriously, I will literally murder whoever is cast in the role of Robin with my bare hands and then disembowel the writer” before adding “unless they pay me, like, a lot.” Sadly, my fictional murderous quotations may be more accurate than any quotations found in New York Magazine. |
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Half Hancock-ed - |
Having, eating cake still impossible
by Ryan Syrek
Will Smith is a eunuch.
Before his lawyer fires up the defamation suit, this is to say that Smith’s Hancock is a once-potent character that has been rendered so infertile that his metaphorical berries have been separated from his titular twig. The original script, titled “Tonight, He Comes,” was kicked around Hollywood for some 10 years before being neutered, reduced to a bane-of-all-creativity PG-13 rating and presented like a Hollywood collection plate for middle-class donations. There is no hell hotter than the inferno of a film that burns on the fuel of “what could have been.”
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Art Attack - |
The Rape of Europa explores Hitler’s thefts
by Jonathan Tvrdik
The effects of Hitler’s march through Europe on various peoples are as diverse as the populations involved in the war itself. Every year it seems a new documentary or fictionalized film is released, investigating another often-overlooked victimized group. The Rape of Europa, a documentary based on Lynn H. Nicholas’ book of the same name, is the latest in that long but important line of cinematic analysis.
Sprawling in scope and ambition, directors Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen and Nicole Newnham’s documentary showcases a handful of the millions of art pieces pilfered or destroyed by the Nazis. Joan Allen narrates this eerie tale of obsessive pirating by a vile, murderous dictator who was denied enrollment to art school in his youth. Hitler’s love of art created an entire subset of the Nazi machine, a systematic and organized capturing of the art he loved and the annihilation of that which he despised. |
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Report Card - |
Film Reader Rating
Get Smart D
Steve Carell’s latest should have followed its title.
The Happening F-
M Night Shyamalan’s latest is a grade-A comedy, grade
F- thriller.
The Incredible Hulk D+
Ed Norton turns green, not the kind of green that gets
Al Gore hot.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the
Crystal Skull A-
Harrison Ford returns with a full dose of nostalgia Viagra.
Kung Fu Panda B-
Animals teach young kids the value of violence.
The Visitor B+
Feel-good illegal immigrant story, sorry Fox News!
READER RECOMMENDS
Wall-E A
If you don’t love this near-silent robomantic comedy,
you have no soul.
Wanted C-
Fight Club + The Matrix - Good Writing = Horrifically
Awesome
You Don’t Mess With the Zoha D-
An Israeli commando-turned-hairdresser creates a
comedy-killing vortex of suck.
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Beep-Bop Buster Keaton - |
by Ryan Syrek
Much has been written about WALL-E’s eco-conscious moralizing. Perhaps this is because Pixar’s latest doesn’t follow the tragedy-laced route of The Lorax’s “save the trees” message so much as it suggests that, if you don’t care for the planet, you’ll become a boneless blob of blubber, filled with ennui, aimlessly drifting through space while the Earth devolves into an expanded version of the talking trash heap from “Fraggle Rock.”
Although “don’t litter or you’ll die fat in space” is a message worth writing about, the true genius of WALL-E is Pixar’s continued commitment to celebrating the oldest art of filmmaking using the newest toys.
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Cutting Room - |
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* Marcus Theatres just purchased La Vista! Nevermind, there’s no need for La Vista to catch “Elkhorn annexation fever.” The press release says the theatre company bought 11 acres in Southport West and not the whole area ... my bad. Although the group hasn’t announced plans for their purchase, unless their mission statement radically changes and they’re planning on building a Bedazzler museum, chances are a new multiplex is on its way. Depressing news for those of us looking for a place to store some truly bitchin’ blinged-out jean jackets. |
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Bullet Ballet - |
by Ben Coffman
Slight improvements in CGI and effects technology are great, but are rendered irrelevant without a good story and interesting characters — and no, bullets don’t count as characters. This summer’s Wanted is a perfect example of state-of-the-art effects meeting wafer-thin writing.
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Report Card - |
Get Smart D
Steve Carell’s latest should have followed its title.
The Happening F-
M Night Shyamalan’s latest is a grade-A comedy, grade
F- thriller.
The Incredible Hulk D+
Ed Norton turns green, not the kind of green that gets
Al Gore hot.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull A-
Harrison Ford returns with a full dose of nostalgia Viagra.
Iron Man A
This superhero in a suit of armor makes Lancelot look
like a Sally.
READER RECOMMENDS
Kung Fu Panda B-
Animals teach young kids the value of violence.
Sex and the City C+
The gals are back. Rejoice or cry, your choice.
The Visitor B+
Feel-good illegal immigrant story, sorry Fox News!
You Don’t Mess With the Zoha D-
An Israeli commando-turned-hairdresser creates a
comedy-killing vortex of suck.
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Lowbrow Low Blow - |
Have American audiences passed their sophomoric years?
by Ryan Syrek
Although Adam Sandler, Mike Myers, Chris Rock, Will Ferrell and Eddie Murphy may not care, some people have no choice but to watch their shit.
These once-hungry, almost-universally formerly praised has-beens have forced critics to sit through You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, The Love Guru, I Think I Love My Wife, Semi-Pro and Norbit, respectively. It seems the only people attending these oxymoronic (and outright moronic) tragic comedies are those paid to do so.
Although The Love Guru was just released (thus, its failure is not yet calculated) and Zohan will ooze past $100 million, the combined domestic revenue from the other films according to BoxOfficeMojo.com is a paltry $143 million, a wholly unfunny total.
Moreover, according to RottenTomatoes.com, a site that turns the collective opinion of critics into an easily digestible percentage (or “Tomatometer Score”), none of these movies has cleared a 35% positive rating … and those totals include movie poster–quotation-whoring compliment piñatas like Wired Magazine.
Considered alone, these factors don’t warrant analysis; however, when combined with the surprising success of comedies like Knocked Up (box office, $148 million; Tomatometer Score, 91%), Superbad ($122 million; 87%) and Wedding Crashers ($209 million; 75%), it’s obvious that audiences have graduated from sophomoric character-actor spoofs to comedies with some measure of filmmaking prowess. Could the same consumers indicted for facilitating a culture capable of birthing television shows like G4’s upcoming vomit-centric “Hurl,” be demanding intelligent big-screen comedies?
Well, sort of. |
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Grocer Misconduct - |
Reilly and Scott vy for laughs in The Promotion
by Ben Coffman
Seann William Scott has starred in plenty of sophomoric (some flat-out bad) comedies. Conversely, for years, John C. Reilly has quietly enjoyed being “that guy” — the great character actor buried in the supporting role. However, Reilly’s comedic stock is rising, especially after the underappreciated Walk Hard. Scott, on the other hand, is a wild card, and it’s his surprisingly subtle performance as Doug Stauber, assistant manager at Donaldson’s supermarket, that has turned The Promotion into this year’s Office Space.
The movie begins with Stauber’s voiceover narration. He is the Rodney Dangerfield of groceries. And he’s broke. Worse yet, nice-guy Stauber is occasionally relegated to “lot duty,” where he has to don a DayGlo vest and deal with loitering young toughs.
When Stauber finds out a new store is opening, his boss Scott (Fred Armisen) informs him that he’s a “shoo-in” for the job. That night, Stauber and his wife Jen (Jenna Fischer) decide that, with Stauber’s promotion, they can finally afford to move out of their tiny, cramped apartment with its paper-thin walls and banjo-playing next-door neighbor.
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Get Smarter, Please! - |
1960s TV adaptation a vampire of a movie
by Justin Senkbile
The fact that “Get Smart,” a rare example of great television, has been remade as a summer blockbuster is enough to make one nervous. Steve Carell in the leading role is enough to make one cross their fingers; it’s a nice trick to get bodies in seats for a movie that doesn’t really deserve them. Get Smart manages to suck all the intelligence and most of the humor out of the series and, instead, delivers an awkward secret agent movie with good actors and predictable jokes. I think I laughed more during the trailer for Step Brothers than I did during the entirety of Get Smart.
Carell plays Maxwell Smart, a newly minted agent with the government’s top-secret CONTROL department. Along with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway), Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson) and The Chief (Alan Arkin), Max must infiltrate the notorious Russian KAOS organization, who apparently haven’t been told that the Cold War is over. A week in Moscow and several unfunny gags later, Max falls in love with 99 and is suspected of being a double-crossing double agent. When KAOS plants nuclear weapons all over the world, starting with Los Angeles, Max must clear his name, save the day and get the girl, obviously. Along the way we get too many CGI effects, a bizarre cameo from Bill Murray and James Caan as the president.
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Report Card - |
Chop Shop — A-
Surprisingly, life in the New York ghetto isn’t as cool as
most rap songs say. (Mary Riepma Ross Theatre in Lincoln)
The Happening — F-
M Night Shyamalan’s latest is a grade-A comedy, grade
F- thriller.
The Incredible Hulk — D+
Ed Norton turns green, not the kind of green that gets
Al Gore hot.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull — A-
Harrison Ford returns with a full dose of nostalgia Viagra.
Iron Man — A
This superhero in a suit of armor makes Lancelot look
like a Sally.
Kung Fu Panda — B-
Animals teach young kids the value of violence.
Sex and the City — C+
The gals are back. Rejoice or cry, your choice.
Shotgun Stories — B-
Half-brothers feuding in Arkansas. What? There’s
feuding in Arkansas?! (Mary Riepma Ross Theatre in Lincoln)
You Don’t Mess With the Zohan — D-
An Israeli commando-turned-hairdresser creates a
comedy-killing vortex of suck.
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Hulk: 1, Norton: 0 - |
Actor battles his way through mediocre flick
by Jonathan Tvrdik
As The Incredible Hulk drags its knuckles through two-dimensional characterizations and CGI befitting a Playstation 2 video game, the allegorical battle of man versus monster reaches unintended irony. This may be the only recent comic-book adaptation in which the highly touted celebrity filling the protagonist’s role never gets a shot at actually becoming the hero.
Just as Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) goes green with rage, we jump to a cheaply rendered behemoth who shares none of the frustration and awkwardness Norton unintentionally exudes. It seems as if Norton is fighting the powers-that-be to make a dull character somewhat interesting, trying to prevent the film from devolving into “Hulk, smash” territory. Although he fails miserably, at least the filmmakers got to break a lot of sets. |
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Surprise, It’s Awful! - |
You won’t believe The Happening
by Ryan Syrek
Either writer/director M Night Shyamalan has perpetrated a $60 million hoax or he has made the single worst film ever. There is no third option.
What follows is an investigation; think “CSI: Film Critic.” The dead body is Shyamalan’s career, the murder weapon is The Happening and the mystery is, did the self-appointed genius attempt a genre-flipping twist or has he passed cinematic gas so potent it will stink up theaters for years? |
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Blonde Ambition - |
Reprise highlights Norwegian literary types
by Ben Coffman
All I’ve ever wanted was a present-day, punk rock/literary version of Dazed and Confused set in Norway. Well, Christmas came early this year, thanks to the movie Reprise.
The film begins with two young writers, Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman-Høiner), preparing to drop their brand-new manuscripts into a mailbox in Oslo. As the manila-enveloped packages fall, an overdubbed, unnamed narrator hurriedly details a few possible “what if?” scenarios involving their personal successes and failures.
After this unsettling montage of possible outcomes, the audience finds out that, in reality, Phillip’s manuscript is accepted while Erik’s is rejected. However, for Phillip, the pressures of promoting his book, coupled with an intense romance with his lover/muse Kari (Viktoria Winge), cause him to freak out and nearly become the Sid Vicious to her Nancy Spungen. If the rise and fall of Phillip’s literary career and the loss of his sanity feel like a lot of ground to cover in the first 10 minutes of the movie, you’re right. But hang on to your lutefisk, folks, we’re just getting started! |
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