Film Review: MAMA

Well... it looks like we are starting 2013 with a rather fun ride. Mama, the new presentation by Guillermo del Toro, might not be breaking any new ground in the genre he helped define, but it follows the tradition of the twisted fairytale with full satisfaction. It provides a couple of nightmarish sequences, a handful  of good shock scares, and a chilling feeling running down your spine for most of the film, and a few good laughs - most of them nervous laughs. Could you ask of anything more from a film like this? 

Review: RED LIGHTS

Red Lights provides us with an interesting thriller about the debunking of paranormal activities by a team of university physicists. And then the debunking of physics, and rational thinking, by that irksome thought in the back of everyone’s head that maybe, there just might be something unexplainable out there. All good horror movies depend on the exploitation of this feeling. Red Lights is the first movie, I’ve seen, that explores it through its characters. For the most part it is effective; the movie will keep you on its grip until everything falls apart in the last few scenes.

Review: RUBY SPARKS

Recently there’s been a literary trend in film and TV to portray quirky and somewhat broken women as the ideal partner in a relationship. I partially blame (500) Days of Summer for it. Like that movie, Ruby Sparks has something interesting to say about this cultural ideal and the men who write it in their minds. The ideal is only ideal in theory and never in practice. Calvin (Paul Dano) a young novelist from Los Angeles stumbles upon this truth by writing his ideal quirky girlfriend and having her appear in flesh and blood, and living in his apartment.

Review: THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN

            I will confess; I was not a fan of Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy. The first movie was all right; the second movie – despite the critical acclaim – felt too much like a telenovela that I couldn't properly enjoy; and the third movie… well, we can all agree that movie was an incomprehensible mess of CGI and not much more. Comparisons between the old and the new are inevitable - it has only been five years since the Spiderman 3 fiasco - but I will try to avoid them and speak for The Amazing Spiderman as a stand-alone film.

           With that in mind, The Amazing Spiderman is a highly enjoyable film. You feel a sense of déjà-vu through out it, not necessarily because it is a rebooted Spiderman, but because since then, we have grown accustomed to the origin story of superheros. In effect, "been-there-seen-that" is the best way to describe The Amazing Spiderman. But think about all the things you've done and seen and enjoyed more the second time; I bet there are quite a few instances. The Amazing Spiderman is like that. You have seen it but are thankful that enough has changed that you can still enjoy. More attention has placed to detail, and the back-story is extended and made deeper, and best of all, Peter Parker is actually interesting even before he becomes Spiderman. Against all odds there are still some refreshing moments in the film.

Review: BRAVE

Can Pixar beat Disney, its parent company and corporate partner, at its own game? That is, could Pixar create en emotional fairy tale with a moral core that will survive beyond its current generation? That was probably the question in every creative and executive working for Pixar during the production of Brave. The answer is not simple; Brave is a lovely film, with endearing characters. And like most of Pixar’s it is at its core strength is being a well-told story, but it is also missing a certain oomph for a Pixar film.

Review: ROCK OF AGES

Well, this is one silly movie. I never quite understood if I was laughing with the movie, at the movie, or if the movie was some sort of joke being pulled on me. Was I supposed to sing along? 

At the opening, Sherrie (Julianne Hough) rides a bus with her headphones on listening to Sister Christian; she starts singing out loud and soon enough the entire bus joins in. Once again, was I supposed to sing along? Most of the audience laughed but didn’t join. It is understandable; in real life singing along is only acceptable if said song happened to be Bohemian Rhapsody. But in a musical film like this it could be any song. And it could have been any song for that matter; the number is not really memorable. Actually, none of the numbers are particularly memorable. But, at the very least, they do happen to zesty and entertaining while they last. With an extra punch they might have gotten someone in the audience to sing along.

Review: JOHN CARTER

By now we all aware that John Carter will be known as the largest flop in history (for now), but this is unfortunately undeserved. John Carter might have not been the best movie of all time but it was a sincere attempt to recreate the wonder upon which early science fiction writers looked upon the sky, and to breathe life into a retro-futurism world. Unfortunately for Disney, and any fan of late-Victorian pulp fiction, the result is somewhat clumsy and despite 21^st century special effects, it still feels antiquated. 

Review: MIRROR MIRROR

There is something delightful about a movie in which the handsome Prince insists that it must be him who saves the lovely damsel, and not vice-versa, because “it does well with carefully studied focus groups”. This comes right after the damsel, Snow White (Lily Collins, daughter of Phil Collins) exclaims that “it’s time to change that ending”. Mirror Mirror is the type of self-reflexive, sly in-joke fairytale within the tradition of the original - just the original and not the sequels - Shrek, and it carries a freshness we haven’t seen since. 

Review: SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN

Who doesn't know of Snow White, the girl with skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony? Specially this year, after the Brothers Grimm princess has made no less than three appearances in film and television. First in the series "Once Upon A Time", where a curse falls upon Fairy Tale Land and Snow ends up in present day Maine. Then she reappears in "Mirror Mirror", a cute yet absurdly childish film starring Julia Roberts as the Evil Queen? Really? And now, after months of watching the awesome trailer, comes "Snow White and the Huntsman", the darkest account of the princess to date.

Review: DARK SHADOWS

The Tim Burton / Johnny Depp collaboration has, by now, become a genre of its own. Originally it was a fresh new take at the gothic horror story as a comedy of manners. But what was once fresh has now become so conventional that Burton-esque is indeed an adjective. Usually filmmakers strive for their name to become an adjective  but when you can apply it to their own work, it means their work is becoming repetitive and uninspired. Dark Shadows is very Burton-esque; it is exactly what you expect from a Burton/Depp summer blockbuster- nothing less than, but sadly, not much more either.

Review: MEN IN BLACK 3

I’ve put forth a theory before that the "Hollywood alien movie" is the most reflective genre of America’s military-industrial complex. In short terms: when the federal government nears a zenith of trust and efficiency (1960s, 1990s) alien movies are routinely about government employees saving the day. And when people are feeling rather low on their government (1970s, 2000s), alien movies are more personal, civilian and disaster-prone. This is the difference between “Independence Day” and “Men in Black” verses the post-9/11 counterparts, “War of the Worlds” and “Signs.” While the third “Men in Black”—in a rather inconsistent trilogy—offers nothing new cinematically, it at least hypothesizes that the nation has turned a corner in the last eight years.

Review: WE BOUGHT A ZOO

 

           We Bought A Zoo claims to have been based on a true story; I double-checked the facts on Wikipedia (now that it is back online) and it seems to be true. Now that I think about it, it has to be true. Had this film not been “based on a true story”, it would have remained in development hell. The premise is so preposterously naïve that no Hollywood screenwriter could have come up with it, and no Hollywood producer would have backed it had it been an original idea. After all what type of character would ever buy a zoo on a whim?

Review: SHERLOCK HOLMES: GAME OF SHADOWS

           The first installment of these Victorian-super-secret-agent Sherlock Holmes re-imaging had a plot impossible to understand. This second installment fixes that problem by having a plot you don’t really need to understand; there is a clear villain whom Sherlock needs to confront. Everything else is frivolous set dressing, and action sequences done in slow motion. It is fun, but it isn’t the inquisitive thriller you would expect from a movie based of the adventures of an inquisitive detective. Like its predecessor this is simply a modern action movie, not very different from Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol, done in costume; in MI: 4 we saw Tom Cruise dangling off the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building today; in Holmes 2 we get to see Robert Downey Jr, dangling off a train over what is an impossibly tall bridge.

Review: EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE

I knew a guy with much more intense Asperger's Syndrome than the hero of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, and he was nowhere near as mean-spirited and horrible as this kid. The guy I knew was one of the most genuine people I ever met. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close uses this character in a failing experiment for the two hours that it runs. This is a movie that wants us to feel much more than we are given.

Review: MARGIN CALL

The film “Margin Call” is marketed as “based on a true story” though the film adamantly, even awkwardly, refuses to be about specific people in a specific place at a specific time. Even terms like “Wall Street,” “New York,” “politicians,” “crash” “2008” and “recession” are erased from the characters’ dialogue even though such distinctions are as clear in the audience’s mind as the filmmakers intended. The movie is not so much based on a true “story,” but rather based on true ideologies and motivations. Yes, people like these character existed—and still exist—but I’d say most movies contain such realistic characters, though other movies have the theatrics to put said characters in extraordinary circumstances. Fortunately, all the dads in America can breathe easily knowing “Margin Call” is not a 109-minute rant on the immorality and un-sustainability of unchecked, rampant capitalism. Nor is this even an Occupy Wall Street-geared movie. This is a re-enactment for those who don’t read books of how and why America’s, and thus the world’s, economic system seems to collapse every ten years. Granted, “Margin Call” may be based on a true story, but at what cost?

Review: THE RUM DIARY

Paul Kemp (Johnny Depp) describes his drinking as being on “the upper end of social”, but in full honestly he could rival Captain Jack Sparrow for the rum drinking gold medal. But, despite this film’s misguiding marketing campaign, this is not Pirates of the Caribbean 1960s edition. It still involves, rum, mermaids, partying, and sailing in the Caribbean. But this is also the story of a man with no morals who saw much of the world through the bottom of an empty bottle of rum, and realized there was something very wrong with it. Afterwards, he learned a hangover is not the best state of mind in which to solve them. Will he sober up? Perhaps. But rum is too good to give up.

Review: CONTAGION

Contagion is one lazy piece of fiction that banks on the names of numerous stars, pretentious direction, and the general audience’s fear of anything swine flu related. Ironically, several of the characters do point out, how the exaggerated fear over the swine flu made things worse. Would I be spoiling anything if I said the same thing happens in Contagion? Probably not because Contagion is trying to be a realistic film that speculates how a global epidemic could affect our lives.

Review: FRIGHT NIGHT

Fright Night is a classic horror B-movie done well that restores some much-deprived dignity to the vampire mythos. It might flight under the radar for most but any true horror fan will certainly appreciated.

Set in the outskirts of Vegas in a suburban development, which common sense would tell you shouldn’t live there. It is several square blocks of homes and streets entirely surrounded by desert. Cell phone signal is shoddy at best, and most of its residents work at night. Vegas and its suburbs are as unnatural as the vampires who live there. And because of this it is an ideal location.

Review: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

What a stupid title. Why be in-line with other stupid 1970s sci-fi titles such as "Beneath the... Conquest of... Escape from the Planet of the Apes?" Better titles would have included "Rise of Ape Planet" and "Those Wacky Monkeys." My love for the original is self-documented, so that might be a consideration to bare while reading this review. Then again, few people would challenge my displeasure with the Tim Burton remake in 2001; so maybe I'm in the best position to say the latest re-imagining of the franchise is bland, annoying and yet viscerally rewarding.

I mean we are talking about almost two movies in one--and a rather brisk one at that.

The Conspirator: Ideas Defended

The Conspirator is the first film released by The American Film Company, a production company that has staked its entire existence on the notion that real drama is more compelling than fictional drama. And with their maiden feature, the company has completely washed away any criticism about their film being historically inaccurate. This academic ambition will likely stay on the borderlands of Mainstream Country, as boasting historical accuracy just makes people look harder into the details, missing the story. More confounding to the creative team, historically accurate elements of the story are still brushed aside in lieu of budgetary restraints and the simple mathematics of forcing 4 months of American life into a 2-hour run time.