You know you watch way too many movies when you begin to see patterns emerging in the closing credits. First you have the unit production manager and the first and second assistant directors. I’ve learned that they get their own separate section above everyone else. Then comes the camera operators and the costume and set designers. About one minute down the scroll comes all the various gaffers and grips followed by a small army of drivers. I also like to see who is big and powerful enough to warrant an assistant and quite possibly a stand-in. I especially enjoy finding out who the foley artist was and am always quite relieved to know that no animals were harmed during the making of this movie. Sometimes I prefer the credits to the actual film.
Now, on with the shows.
Festival Express: If you are a fan of the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Band, and Buddy Guy, then you need to add this awesome documentary to your queue. Follow the groups as they travel by train across Canada (eh) playing various festivals along the way. The concert footage is spectacular but the real magic happens when the musical icons get together for several impromptu jam sessions as they ride the rails of the Great White North. Grade: A-
Chloe: This is not your typical wife hires a hot prostitute in order to tempt her possibly-cheating-on-her husband only to get involved with Little Miss Hottie herself kind of movie. It is so much more than that. Actually, no, that’s not true, that’s pretty much all it is. If you laugh like a hyena and have a propensity to say stuffins every chance you get (like someone I know whose name rhymes with kickball), go to the nearest Red Box, spend that hard-earned dollar and take Chloe home for the night. Grade: B-
Extraordinary Measures: Back in the seventies, this film would have been a network movie of the week. Unluckily for this decade’s movie-going population, we have to pay for the privilege of viewing movies that were based on actual events. The cheesiness factor of this film jumped the shark when the doctor knew that his magic elixir was working because the sick kids were giggling from the effects of a sugar high about a minute after they had received their injections. Velveeta to the max. Grade: D+
The Crazies: I am usually very enamored by pandemic zombie movies but two weeks after viewing it, I can only remember the crazy-ass drive-thru car wash sequence. Other than that one awesome scene, I can’t recall a single thing. Not a good quality in a movie. Grade: high D
Amelie: Watching Amelie is a lot like reading a really well written book by a masterful storyteller. Maybe that’s a natural byproduct of watching a French film with the subtitles on but it doesn’t really matter because this movie is a work of art. Whimsical and relevant, silly and serious, Amelie is a story about love and how it’s never too late to fall in. Grade: A-
Turistas: I learned a little bit about my cinematic tastes the moment this unknown-to-me-at-the-time-of-viewing movie appeared on my screen following an episode of Freaks and Geeks on IFC. Mix an exotic locale with a few naive ingenues and their male counterparts and add in several dastardly folks with seriously murderous intentions and sit me in front of the screen for upwards of 105 minutes. In this particular edition of my newly diagnosed go-to movie genre, the ladies and gentlemen were backpackers in Brazil and the bad guys were organ harvesters. All in all, not a terrible combination, for the viewer, not the backpackers. Grade: B-
The Runaways: I can typically judge a movie about a real or fictitious band/singer by the burning necessity on my part to rush out and purchase the soundtrack and/or original source material. Rock Star, Crazy Heart, La Bamba, and even Almost Famous are all prime examples of excellent films whose accompanying soundtracks currently maintain residence amongst my mythical (in my mind) cd collection. Sadly, The Runaways made it as far as my looking the music up on Amazon. The film focused way too much on lead singer Cherie Curry at the expense of the band. Grade: C+
Colma The Musical: By my count there were perhaps two decent songs and a couple of creative moments in an otherwise completely amateur production where a bunch of people listlessly wandered around the screen singing monotonously how crappy their lives are. Please wake me up when they get to the scene that takes place at the famous Colma watering hole Malloys. Wait, there is no such scene? Maybe they were saving it for the sequel. Sorry to be so harsh but thank goodness they didn’t try to make San Bruno the Musical. Grade: D-
Do you have a different take on any of these films? Perhaps a recommendation?
Zombieland – What do you get when you combine a pitch-perfect cast with a visually stunning opening credits sequence with an unexpected cameo by actor B.M. and more creative zombie kills than should be legal? You get the feel-good film of the Fall movie season. Grade: A-
My Life in Ruins – Since Fehmeen wears the remote in our family (and subsequently chose this movie for us to watch), maybe she could review it and grade it in the comments section. Thanks, Babe.
The Jerk – Do yourself a favor and watch this movie again for the first time. It’s worth it for the phone book scene alone. Grade: B+
Vicky Cristina Barcelona Because of it’s exotic European locale, I found myself constantly (and unfairly) comparing the cinematography to The Talented Mr Ripley. This Woody Allen film is a decent enough rental though despite the fact that some of the characters are not necessarily believable in their given roles. Grade: B
The Soloist It was nice to see Robert Downey Jr in a role where he makes it his mission in life to save one man, as opposed to saving the entire world. Then again, I am kind of a sucker for human interest redemption stories revolving around music and the arts. Grade: B
Last Chance Harvey I imagine that Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson were given free reign to imbue their respective characters with whatever level of whimsy and vulnerability they felt was apropos and the results were quite charming. Plus, when your wife really enjoys the movie, score one for the husband. Grade: B+
X-Men Origins: Wolverine Did the world really need another X-Men movie where the filmmakers took major liberties and creative license with Logan’s already convoluted origin story? The answer is no but at least the stunts were cool. Grade: C+
Kung Fu Panda Even though I found myself predicting every single plot twist and revelation from beginning to end, I still enjoyed the film immensely. Emma liked the kitty. Grade: B+
Drag Me to Hell Obviously intended to be overtly far-fetched and outrageously over-the-top, Sam Raimi has perfected the craft he began with the three Evil Dead movies with this hillarious tongue-in-cheek horror film. The only bummer was that I didn’t see a Bruce Campbell cameo. Grade: B+
Sunshine Cleaning. While it was great to see two of my favorite actresses (Amy Adams and Emily Blunt) score lead roles in a movie of this pedigree (a small budget “indie” picture), I couldn’t help but feel slightly underwhelmed by the end of the film. Sure, it was entertaining and all, but to me, the final fates of the characters seemed a bit too convenient for my liking. That being said, I would happily rent it at Blockbuster just to see if my opinion would change at all during a second viewing. Maybe my lukewarm feeling about this film is the by-product of the unwarranted stigma of being dubbed this year’s Little Miss Sunshine: I felt equally under-impressed by Juno, which was last year’s version of LMS. Grade: B-
Enchanted. I remember making the decision to go and see Enchanted the first time I saw an ad for it on tv. After waiting weeks for the film to hit the theaters, Fehmeen and I finally found some time to go to the movies during the Friday after Thanksgiving 2007. The only problem was that Fehmeen had absolutely zero interest in seeing “a cartoon”. So rather than getting into a fight about which movie to see, we decided to go our separate ways for two hours: I saw Enchanted and Fehmeen saw This Christmas. Sure, I eventually got over feeling self-conscious at being the only solo thirty-something male in an audience comprised of mothers and children, and by the time the film began, I found myself being whisked away to the animated land of Andalasia while humming the cheerful chorus of “True Love’s Kiss”. I loved the movie then and I’ve loved it every other time I’ve watched it (including the two times I saw it recently on HBO in less than a 24 hour period). And for the record, Fehmeen loves it now, too: We even own the DVD. Grade: A-
Adventureland. I went into the film expecting a broad, dumbed-down, lowest common denominator teen comedy but what I got instead was something infinitely more satisfying. Adventureland is a smart and funny late-eighties period piece that deftly encapsulates the look and more importantly, the attitude, of the era. The story is written such that the characters are given ample room to breathe and grow in a natural and believable way thus allowing the relationships forged between them to unspool at a slower than genre-typical fashion which, in turn, affords the audience the opportunity to savor the intricacies of the actors’ performances, which ultimately results in a truly enjoyable movie experience. Whew. The only bummer, for me, is the lack of a commercially available soundtrack CD. iTunes, here I come. Grade: A-
Knowing. The warnings signs were there. First, previews for Knowing began to appear in theaters a good six weeks before the release date. Then came the onslaught of television spots soon after. Third, when was the last time Nicolas Cage starred in a good movie? (By my calculations it’s been seven years since Adaptation came out in 2002. Perhaps your number is less than mine if you enjoyed such classics as The Weather Man, Ghost Rider, or Bangkok Dangerous). Anyway, regardless of the plethora of available information out there telling me that this movie would suck, I still went to see it with Ameer and J2. And guess what? It did suck. In fact, it sucked so much that my friend J2 was able to sum the Knowing experience up in one sentence: “We would have been better off not Knowing.” I agree. Grade: D
Gran Torino
The Spirit
The Adventures of ALS Boy 