Category: Film

After Earth, aka 2 Hours You Can Never Get Back

Let me start this off by saying how I am not a Will Smith fan. I think he’s mediocre at best and his best is when he’s playing a character that’s basically himself. He is lacking depth – totally evident in his performance in Six Degrees of Separation. But of course, I’m biased. I saw the 1990 play on Broadway with James McDaniel in the part Will Smith brought to screen. Or I should say, failed to bring to screen.

But this post is not about Six Degrees, it’s about a terrible movie, with terrible actors (including Will’s son, Jaden), and particularly terrible directing by the once great M. Night Shyamalan. You thought The Last Airbender was bad? Not even close to this one. And what makes it worse is that the actors are so lacking in skill that they think the bad dialogue will be better if they just stand there with I guess they think is a very pensive look. They look pensive. See picture.They talk pensive. And the audience is bored out of their minds.

After Earth Poster.jpg

It’s a colossal failure. And I hope that the Smiths will take it as a sign that they should stop producing movies for their children to star in. I know. I know. But they were so good in The Pursuit of Happyness. And what about the remake of The Karate Kid?

The former I felt is better because Jaden hadn’t become affected. But by the time his folks came around to producing The Karate Kid as a vehicle for him he has turned into a self-obsessed, narcissistic, egocentric teen. Unable to evoke any emotion other than the pensive face he copies from his dad.  And that is not entertaining.

But the real question is M. Night Shyamalan who for whatever reason hasn’t been able to make a good movie since The Sixth Sense. His surprise endings used to be entertaining and fun. And while watching, I kept hoping I would get that with After Earth. That the whole terrible experience would somehow be redeemed by a sudden unexpected, yet expected twist.

It just wasn’t meant to be.

Oscar Nom – Beasts of the Southern Wild

It’s award season people! And that means catching up on all the movies you wanted to see when they were first released and didn’t. BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD is one of these movies for me. I had heard from friends and colleagues that it was lyrical and moving and the young lead, Oscar nominated Ouvenzhane Wallis (who was six when she filmed the movie now 9 and has set a new record of being the youngest actress to be nominated, beating out the 12-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes from WHALE RIDER) is a wonder.

Wallis is good – like a lot of child actors. For her first try at acting she is natural and believable. I think it is due to the close to the last scene in the movie (I won’t include any spoilers so I won’t ruin it for the three people that read this blog, including my mother) that cinched her the nomination, forcing out other actresses such as Marion Cotillard for RUST AND BONE and Helen Mirren for HITCHCOCK.

It’s the story of this movie that doesn’t bode well. Even the script is also Oscar nominated for best adaptation, it was convoluted and the expectation for the audience to fall into the category of suspended disbelief was over estimated. There is some fable-like visuals that are supposed to propel the story forward but stop short leave the viewer wondering whose story is this movie telling?

I will fully admit, when you wait to see a movie as long as I did this one, one’s expectations are likely to grow rigid. I thought this film would be much more whimsical and have more of a fantasy-like built world (like PAN’S LABYRINTH – a beautiful film by Guillermo del Toro – Netflix it today!), but instead it is chocked full of a lot of themes that didn’t have the opportunity to be fully developed, making the story unsatisfying on a lot of levels. This leads to the audience being introduced to a fantasy/fable story line, but with no guide to determine the correct course. I lose my geography in the story more than once, which results in me being totally pulled out and super reluctant to get back in.  The camera work is also a hodge podge of techniques and angles that didn’t add to the storytelling – particularly the hand-held shaky shots.

The first-time Oscar nominated director, Benh Zeitlin, shows great promise, and I think we will see more of him in the future as he hones his talent and decides what kind of director he wants to be. But this movie could have used a more seasoned director who has a healthier grasp on how to lead an audience through a rather shaky script.

What did you think of this movie?

Breaking Dawn Part 2 – Okay…I Saw It

So, like the rest of the country I have been fighting through this weird flu that seems to NEVER go away. My nose has been stuffed up, my voice has dropped in register making me sound scratchy and little bit like Demi Moore (I know…not such a bad thing), and my head has ached. I also have been housebound.

Needless to say, I got myself out of the house and went to…the mall. Walking around I got tired and found myself near the movie theaters. The only one playing that I could see beginning to end was BREAKING DAWN PART 2. My vow of never paying for a movie ticket to see any film in the TWILIGHT franchise quickly faded in place of a deep desire to sit down.

What can I say? BREAKING DAWN PART 2, aka, the creepy CGI baby movie, is a terrible waste of film. But again, the books – loved by tween girls around the world – are terribly written (I have said this before) and therefore it is difficult to adapt a shitty book into an enjoyable film. But the problem with this movie is way beyond the source material.  Like I stated, it is the creepy CGI baby movie. For some reason the director (Bill Condon –  DREAMGIRLS) applies a weird treatment to the famous half-human, half-vampire child Renesme. It’s just…creepy. And worse it’s badly executed. In the time of AVATAR, to have a special effect so poorly applied makes the movie even more laughable.  Plus, the original story was so lacking in conflict (the author Stephanie Meyers refuses to have anything bad happen to her characters to elicit growth or true crisis) that the ending is be majorly tweaked by the screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (who is now developing her own show for TV – look what adapting shitty books can do for you) in order for a film audience to sit the 90 or so minutes and not be bored out their minds.

I’m still sorry I spent the money for a theater ticket for this movie. I should have waited until I could Netflix it like I’ve done with all the others, but like in the movie CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE ( a fabulous script written by Dan Fogelman, Netflix it today) “I went and saw the latest Twilight movie – and it was sooooo bad.” That about sums it up.

Spielberg’s Lincoln – A Solid Movie

We all know the work of Steven Spielberg. Jaws, “We’re going to need a bigger boat.” The Color Purple, “You sure is ugly!” And all the Indiana Jones movies, “Snakes? I hate snakes!” They are flamboyant, vividly driven stories that take the audience on a journey to sometimes familiar and most often unknown places. Spielberg relies on fancy linkage between scenes, and very true to life reenactments, particularly when it comes to battle scenes.

The battle scenes are present in Lincoln, but this time I think Spielberg reins it in – and it works. With a lovely script written by the enormously talented Tony Kushner (a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright for Angels in America), the film feels like a play and it is really refreshing for Spielberg to rely on the written words and the talents of the fabulous actors he has on board instead of his fancy camera work.

Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln is spectacular – an Oscar nomination is definitely in his future. Sally Field plays the long suffering Mary Todd Lincoln and has a great moment where she gives Tommy Lee Jones (playing the abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens) a piece of her (sane at the moment) mind.

It all works and in this trying time of the U.S. government, it is very timely to take a look back at history and see what men in power were once capable of accomplishing.

Women Are Funny – But Hollywood Still Doesn’t Realize It

Women are funny, people! Get over it. Yet the entertainment industry is still so surprised that BRIDEMAIDS is funny and successful? What a crock! Now Hollywood seems bound and determined to ride this new wave of “Raunchy Female” comedies.  Anna Farris (THE HOUSE BUNNY) comes out tomorrow with a new flick WHAT’S YOUR NUMBER addressing the number of notches on her non-existence chastity belt, and how the high amount of bedfellows diminishes her chances of finding a lasting, meaningful relationship. Women talking about the consecutive number of sexual partners? This is a new comedic twist, and in a lot of women’s minds, pretty raunchy. Only sluts and skanks would talk about the total number of men they’ve slept with. Oh, wait a minute…maybe Anna Farris’ character is a slut…in her own sweet and charming way. Kind of like when Julia Roberts portrayed a hooker with a heart of gold.

Women are funny, damn it! But somehow Hollywood still will not allow them to express humor in a way that doesn’t center around what happens in or around their Who Ha – even with the success of BRIDEMAIDS. There have been attempts. The sad crash and burn of Sarah Jessica Parker in I JUST DON’T KNOW HOW SHE DOES IT.  The film is a classic failure with a story concerning the same cliches of working women that have been depicted in the highly successful 1987 BABY BOOM with Diane Keaton (Netflix it today. Keaton is absolutely delightful…and funny!). But where Keaton succeeds in depicting an entertaining story about a women who needs to reprioritize her life, SJP fails…completely.

It appears it’s still going to be a long road before Hollywood recognizes that female comedies can be enjoyable without ever mentioning the amount of visitors to her naughty place, or recycling successful storylines for jumbled, confusing, and I’ll say it…stupid, insipid yarns that just make me want to poke my eyes out with a hot fork out of sheer boredom. But I can be patient. How about BRIDEMAIDS II? Hey, it worked for the HANGOVER!