Cloverfield

A few days before Transformers came out, there was a report on AICN about a set visit that was to see Pre-Production of Star Trek to J.J. Abram's studio on Cloverfield Street. In this report there was a little bit about an untitled movie that they were calling Cloverfield as a coverup. They said there would be a trailer for it before Transformers and boy... was there a trailer. In the time between that first amazing trailer to now, I lost interest the more and more but I heard some great things from a few people in the 3 days it had been out.  So maybe it had a chance of living up to that first trailer.

There isn't much of a story here: Rob loves Beth. On the day that Rob is to leave to Japan, Beth and him get in a fight. That and a giant monster starts fucking up Manhattan. So Rob, his brother Jason, Jason's girlfriend, a random girl and our camera man Hud set out to find her.

This is a good movie with some extremely excellent parts to it. There are points where it is extremely taut and full of tension. Two sequences are extremely good: The tunnel sequence and the last 20 minutes. These moments are great. What the movie promised with the first trailer. The shock, the awe and the sheer terror. 

Then there is everything before the tunnel which is rather boring because we've seen almost all of it before in all the trailers. It is the party and the statue of liberty, that is pretty much it. Then there is the time between the tunnel sequence and the last 20 minutes.  The problem here is that these are the parts of the story that focus on the characters and the characters aren't interesting. We've seen them in every teen movie ever and their acting is flat in the those sequences, but in the tunnel sequence and the last sequence is great.

Oh, for anyone wanting to know any clarification on the monster: you don't get it unless you pay attention extremely hard. That doesn't matter though. This monster defies explanation. It is almost as if somebody brought a Lovecraft creature to life and it is a spectacle when you finally get the ultimate shot of it.

This movie, while it had its excellent moments, is just a good movie that will keep you entertained for an hour and a half.  The problem lies in the characters and how you don't really care about them and for 2 long sequences it lost me.

New Script

Just so people don't think I've been sitting on my ass not doing anything movie-wise since Joe Britz, I just finished writing a short film. It is the first thing writing wise that I've finished since "Joe Britz" back in July.

It isn't a comedy.

It is a crime film. Only 10 pages, but better than nothing.

Got the idea while watching The Godfather (really inspired by Pacinos great performance).

I'll try to film it soon.

It is also much more visually oriented.

Walk Hard (Possible Spoilers)

Apatow. That name now means hilarious comedy. When I heard that he was doing a parody film of the musician biopic option, I was excited. Then the trailers came out, and I wasn't excited anymore. It looked average and fairly obvious. One day I was browin' around on youtube and stumbled upon r-rated clips/songs and I really wanted to see it.

Walk Hard is the "real life" story of Dewey Cox. A musician who has done everything from Blues to Disco. His ups and downs and all the drugs and wives and musical cameo's inbetween.

This film, while offering some very good laughs, ends up falling short. There are jokes that it repeats over and over and it uses some fairly obvious jokes throughout (you see a clearly not 12 year old John C. Riley say "Ma. I'm just a 12 year old."). This movie really shines though when there are songs though. If this was just a soundtrack, it would be hilarlious. With several legitamately good songs and some very funny ones, it really does save this movie.

Another inspired about this movie is the casting. John C. Riley has done musical befores, but he has never really carried a movie on his shoulders like this, but he really does a great job. He plays every scene as if it was a real biopic. Riley understands that for this movie to work, it had to mimic the movies it is trying to as closely as possible and being the very good serious actor he is, he does nail it. Hell, he pulls out tears for when he regains his sense of smell in one of the more funny parts of the movies. Jenna Fischer has always been cute from The Office, but in this she is downright hot and does the same as Riley. Though they maybe delivering some rediculous dialouge, they deliver it with a sence of seriousness. In fact, everybody, except the "real musicians" are cast as if it were a real movie.

The direction is also spot on. The cinematography and direction are exactly like a real biopic. You know that look? The deep gold/red that seems to punctuate both Walk the Line and Ray (which is this mostly aimed at, even though there is a segment that takes down Bob Dylan). It is replicated perfectly.

In fact, this could be the films biggest downfall: it is too real. It feels as if it is biopic trying to be comedy instead of a comedy trying to be a biopic. While there are admittedly enough comical parts to keep one going on (their jabs at actual musicians is hilarious), there are no really big laughs. In fact, the parts that are supposed to be rediculous are the funniest moments other than the song. These rediculous moments you ask? They are whenever we see a famous musician being played by somebody who totally shouldn't (even though, if they ever did a Buddy Holly movie, Frankie Munez could be a good choice) play them. The best is The Beatles moment where they begin fighting. Of course, these moments rely on you knowing each different musician and how they were supposed to be.

In all, this was a disappointing film, but it does have its moments. You could do worse than this (like any other parody movie that seems to come out nowadays. CAN'T WAIT FOR "MEET THE SPARTANS!") but with these people behind the movie, you would expect more.

Enchanted

In film, it hasn't been cool be to happy for happiness' sake for a very long time. A fairy tale? No way can that be done. Not after Shrek. Well, Disney has retaliated back with a semi-parody/loving tribute to their own princess films.

Enchanted is about Giselle (Amy Adams) who is a princess who only wants to be married and share true love's first kiss. She sings songs with her animals and dances and lives in a tree and is a cartoon. One day she meets Prince Edward (James Marsden) and within that day they are to be married. Edward has an evil stepmother (Susan Saradon) who knows that when Edward gets married, she will no longer have power. Thus, she along with her cronie (Timothy Spall) send Giselle to New York. There she meets Robert Phillip (Patrick Dempsey) and her love with Edward is tested as she opens up his eyes and he opens up hers.

Every actor is clearly having the time of their life in this movie. I've never been a Patrick Dempsey fan, and I still feel he is the weakest link in this film. It isn't that he is bad, in fact he is very good. We see him go from an asshole to somebody we really do like and care about: I just hate his voice and think it is almost comically high pitched. Everyone else is reveling in playing their archetype of the princess genre. Susan Saradon has always been great at playing a bad girl and now she gets to play the ultimate evil woman. Timothy Spall should only play cowardly side kicks because he does very good everytime he does it. James Marsden plays Prince Edward with charm and a sence of idiocy that is exactly how a cartoon prince would appear in real life. Then their is Amy Adams as Giselle. From the moment you see her as a cartoon, you know you are going to love her. She is pretty, sweet and just adorable. From the first moment you see her you want to see her win and you never want to see her sad. She also has a pretty good singing voice.

Which is a great thing about this movie: the music. This is something that Shrek hasn't been able to properly parody yet, maybe their pop-music compliation soundtracks have been their way of trying to do that, but it hasn't worked. Disney has recruited Alan Menken again to do the music and he adds even more classics to Disney's repertoir. I will garuntee you that "True Love's First Kiss," "Happy Little Cleaning Song" (hilarious) and "How Does She Know You Love Her?" (once more, hilarious and parodies how musicals break out in movies while being an extremely charming song) will all be remembered for a long time after and will be playing in Fantasyland when you go to Disneyland.

This is a truly wonderful movie. Unlike the Shrek movies which have made their money on smashing this type of movie, Enchanted uses the cliches of the genre to generate their comedy and characters. It works great as we don't just like our main characters because they aren't anything like what we are used to, but we are reminded why princess movies from Disney are classics: it is because they are downright charming.

Sweeney Todd

I'm into theater. Most people(if not everyone) who read this know that. I first got a taste of Sweeney back when they did the concert version which I still love to this day. It was around that time when Burton was first attached to this project. Even then I thought that it would be a wonderful matchup between director and material. Then Burton left and returned to the project with post-Pirates of the Carribean Johnny Depp attached. I have lost a lot of respect for Depp after the last 2 Pirate movies, but this would be his next project and I was hoping that he would live up to when he was once great.

The story is about Sweeney Todd (Depp) who once went by the name Benjamin Barker. He used to have a beautiful wife and baby daughter, until a jealous judge (Alan Rickman) send Barker away and took on Barker's daughter as his own. Todd returns with one thing on his mind: revenege. He uses his old profession of a Barber to exact his revenge. He rents a room from Mrs. Lovitz (Helen Bonaman Carter). She loves Todd and will do anything for him, like bake his victims into pies.

Some people feel that Burton hasn't made a good movie for a very long time, I happen to disagree and really liked his "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Corpse Bride" but I believe he still hadn't reached the level of genious as Ed Wood all those years ago. For all those doubters, Burton has made his best film and it is a wonderful film. He uses every trick he has in his hat in this one. Great opening titles, witty dark humor, crazy blood, symbolism and a very dreary almost black and white look. It has his fingerprint all over it, but it has something that most of his movies don't: real emotion. The characters are not quirky for quirky's sake. In fact, there are really no quirky characters.

In fact, every actor has nailed down their character. Now, none of the adults are very good singers and being an actor and not singer, this doesn't bother me. Mainly because everybody is either good to great except Anthony. While, the kid playing Anthony has a great voice when they cut the song "Kiss Me" where he an Johana meet (Sweeney's daughter who gets almost no screen time in this), his eyebrows make the great love songs he sings somewhat creepy. That and he looks like a girl. Carter is very good as Mrs. Lovitz she plays up the fact that she is in love with Todd much more than any of the performances and it works very well. She isn't too funny and her british accent is impecible. Depp's performance is not the angry Todd that most poeple are used to on stage but it is a great performance. The sorrow that lies in his eyes is so powerful that you know why he is insane and you feel greatly for him. The way he does each song, how he bites each words. One moment that is so tiny that always fills me with his sorrow is the end of "No Place Like London" at the beginning of the movie. His voice cracks off and it is so sad and great. I would say that this is his best performance other than Gilbert Grape (Ed Wood might be better, I still haven't decided). The real stand out performance of this is Alan Rickman. He is creepy and very unsettling as Judge Turpin. He is a sexual beast and his duet with Todd, "Pretty Women" is probably the vocal highlight of the movie. Rickman better get an Oscar nom for this.

Now, be forewarned as I have seen people walk out of the movie for this reason: it is very bloody. When I say very bloody, I mean that there are only 3 or 4 parts that are bloody but when the blood flows it rushes like a river. The blood isn't very realistic though, so it never gets too crazy. Another thing is that when the blood flows, it flows differently depending on the person and is a character in itself. While it is very bloody, it is tastefully bloodsoaked because it serves as another character...sort of.

Other than my one problem of "Kiss Me" being cut, I loved this movie. In fact, I'm writing this after my second viewing. It is a excellent musical that has been worked into a very excellent movie that holds its ranking above the best of a very distinctive filmmaker (love him or hate him, everyone knows Burton). Definately one of my favorite films of the year.

I Am Legend

This movie has been done twice before: The Last Man on Earth (starring one of my favorites, Vincent Price) and The Omega Man (starring another of my favorites, Charelton Heston). Both of them were able to pull off the role in completely different ways. Vincent Price was able to pull it off in a creepy way and Heston in a badass way. So when I heard that this was being made by Will Smith, I automatically thought of the movie "I, Robot" which I really hated. Of course, I'm not familiar with the source material as I was with "I, Robot" so I decided to give this a shot.

The last man on earth is not alone. Robert Neville (Will Smith) was a scientist and a soldier before a vaccination to cure cancer was given out and ended up turning people into strange vampire... things. Now, Smith is just walking around Manhattan with his dog (who was adorable as a puppy by the way) going "crazy", trying to cure the virus, and live as normal a life as possible.

I love character driven films, I really do. I mean, I really liked "The Assassination of Jesse James" which was a 3 and a half hour movie with about 15 minutes of action and all and the rest was all character development. It was a brilliant film, and films about isolation and decents into maddness, I love. This movie though, this movie somehow made 1 hour and 45 minutes feel like 6 hours. The first 15 minutes hold promise, but the next 15 minutes are exactly the same, as are the following 15 minutes up until the final 15 minutes. Nothing ever freaking happens and, unlike Heston or Price, Smith is not able to hold this film from being boring.

Smith has become the biggest box office draw of the time. Stick this man in a movie and it is garunteed to get a giant box office, even if the movie isn't that good (Hitch). I do have a large like of Will Smith. I think we was great in Ali and does have a great charm and is very funny in the "Men in Black" films. As of late, I have been growing tired of him. He plays the same exact role in every single film. He is always the charming guy who cries at some point in this movie. In this movie, he cries a lot and is "charmingly funny" a lot. The schitck has gotten old for me and I want something new.

Oh, and for the director: YOU'RE NOT PAUL GREENGRASS! Shaking the camera does not make it "scary" nor does it build any tension. In fact, it just gives us a headache. Lucky for us, we don't have to put up with it since there are only three action scenes in the entire film, all of them poorly executed.

The man reason they don't click is because of all the crappy cgi that is in this film. Why do you need the main vampires CGI'd? It isn't even like what they look like is that un-human. They could have easily been done with makeup, and very cheaply also. You just need some white makeup that looks translucent. BAM! Damn, how hard is that? Even if they only had the main vampires. They had two different main vampires. That would have added some credibility to it instead of taking the audience out of it all with CGI flying this way and that way.

Honestly, I really disliked this movie. It is the first movie that I've ever walked out of to go to the bathroom halfway through. It took me about 5 minutes and guessed how much I had missed? 0. Nothing that contributed to the film. The second half of the film, I couldn't control my yawning. Don't get me started on the blatant 9/11 references OR the product placement (which was the exact same as "I, Robot": EVERYWHERE! Good thing I have a MAC, that way I can cure the world of vampires too!). If I was marketing this sucker the tagline would have been more informative: "The Last Man on Earth Is Boring As Hell."

No Country for Old Men

I actually heard about this movie about a year and a half ago. At the time I was going through a phase almost all modern film fans should go through - hunt down every single movie the Coen Brother's have made. So I checked IMDb, the idea was interesting, but I had just finished my viewing of most of their films (except Crimewave and Blood Simple, so sue me) and with The Ladykiller's being their most recent film, I wasn't expecting much. Then the reviews from the Toronto film festival came out. Then the trailer came out, and I didn't just want to see this movie I NEEDED to see it.

If it wouldn't piss some people off this could be my entire review:

Best Movie of the Decade Thus Far.

Thank god for the Coen's. They have made another classic and a simply great film all around. Even with a fairly basic plot: A man, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong. He takes the two million dollars and goes off to live a good life. Of course, he realizes that one person must have lived through it and not have gotten the money. Moss knows he is in for a difficult time, but he doesn't know how difficult. We then meet the one who got away: Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem). Chigurh is a storm, a force of nature, wanting the money and only one can make it out of it all. Throughout the film we get updates on Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) as he follows their blood-ladden trail.

The Coen Brother's have constructed the next classic film. Their direction here is the best they have ever done. The cinematograhy here is incredibly beautiful, as you would expect from the Coen's. In fact, this is the only film where I have been so scared where I got chills. Chills literally ran up my spine and I jumped about a foot - even though I knew what was coming. That is the genius of the of the Coen's. At the beginning they tell you how Moss works and how Chigurh works, from there you can figure out everything that is going to happen and even when you see it coming, they build up the suspence to where it is almost intolerable which is then followed by violence that is almost as intolerable. This is all aided by the brilliant choice on their half to have no soundtrack playing. It is never a hinderance: it only helps, in a big bad way. Instead of the music building higher and higher cuing you how much time you have left until it happens, the Coen's put you right in the middle: you know what is going to happen, but you don't know when. The end is never clear who will win either: Moss or Chigurh.

Josh Brolin kicks some ass Llewelyn Moss. This has really been a break through year for Brolin with Grindhouse, In The Valley of Elah (didn't see it), American Gangster and now this. All of them he is incredibly bad ass. Here is very silent and calculating. He knows what he is facing, and he is trying to out do him. This would probably be a role that Brolin could get nominated for a Oscar for if he wasn't totally overshadowed by Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh.

You know those clip shows where they always show Hannibal Lector and Darth Vader? Add one more to that list. Anton Chigurh is the next film legend. He is a force of nature and Bardem adds so much power and danger to this role that everytime he is on screen you are scared for everybody else. Very few people see him without dying. You can notice that Bardem is shorter than some of the people he is playing opposite of, but you are never worried for him. One look into his eyes is to look into the eyes of someone who views human life as something useless, something that can be just tossed aside. He won't stop until he gets exactly what he wants. Even just hearing his footsteps inspires a sence of fear. Bardem has the Best Supporting Actor award locked up.

There has been some controversy surrounding the end of the film. I would not have had it any other way. If I made it, I could have done it differently, but I'm not a genious as the Coen's are. In fact, I felt the movie was even better for the choice that they made with the end. Yes, they messed with some big structure things in film, but they did it in a way that is brilliant and makes perfect sence and adds to the feeling it is trying to communicate.

Nothing has touched this film in quality so far. In fact, nothing has even seen its dust. Usually, I think less of a movie after a few days of seeing it (I'm writing this 4 days after I saw the movie for the first time) but this movie has not lost its impact.

The Coen's are back and thank God for them.