"MARRIED LIFE" Pierce Brosnan, Chris Cooper, Rachel McAdams. 7/10
This film is one that has me confused about how to rate it exactly. My emotions get in the way of how I rate the technical stuff. The basic premise of the film is a Harry (Chris Cooper) is unhappy with his marriage, because all his wife enjoys in it is sex, strange guy right? Well he wants more. He finds a mistress in Rachel McAdam's character. He makes the unfortunate mistake of telling his best friend/ playboy Richard (Pierce Brosnan) about his mistress. Chris wants out of the marriage but he can't stand to see his wife suffer. Each have their secrets from one another, each has their own goals, no one is entirely innocent and no one is entirely bad. You get why they are the way they are, but you learn a lot about yourself by who you side with. One word to describe the overall film: depressing. It's not as depressing as say films like "Requiem for a Dream" or "Happiness" but it's depression is found in the dramatic irony of the film. After the first ten minutes of the film, you can basically guess how the film unfolds but the drama is found in seeing it happen regardless of how hard the characters try to stop it, with and without knowledge of their downfall.
It's hard to pick just one theme out of this film, there are numerous, intended or not intended, mostly depressing. It deals with morales, ethics, right and wrong, fate, and personal gain. But it's hugest theme, which I don't agree with, is that in reality things will always happen that suck, so you need to give up on trying for happiness and force yourself to move on.
In the technical stand point everything is great, the acting is great. Chris Cooper is a tremendous actor, bringing into the film great vulnerability which in turns leads to believability in the plan that he concocts.
The direction and production design is very simple, letting the story and the characters be the center focus of everything.
If I had to pick one thing that stands out above all else it would be the theme of the film. Usually in a film a theme is found interlaced, in different keys or speeds to note the different colors of each scene in the film but connecting them together with that melody. This film has one song, the same key, over and over again in the film. Usually this is the sign of a amateur composer or one who was poorly paid, in this case, it plays perfectly to everything in the film, and within the music you can find the different colors of each character, the pace of each beat necessary, and it isn't until the ending credits begin that you get the percussion, which to me was a masterful way of ending the movie. The music it self seemed to be a movie that reached it's climax at the end, leaving me with a sense of coldness. It kind of cuts you off but reminds you of what you just went through.
I wouldn't recommend this film on a rainy day.
"THE KINGDOM" 8/10 Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Chris Cooper,
This film was recommended to me by someone who has done a couple tours in Iraq. He said it was a good movie but that it made him almost not go back. This film is intense, and everything that blows up, is not shiny or awe-inspiring. It's gritty and it serves as a slap in the face to waken up those who think of war as romantic. It's an unnerving reminder as to how cowardly some men act. It's an unending circle of violence and revenge.
"IN THE NAME OF THE KING: A DUNGEON SEIGE TALE" 4/10 Jason Statham, Ron Pearlman, Claire Forlani, Ray Liota, John Rhys-Davies, Burt Reynolds!!!!!
There's a reason why it's 4 and not 0 but I'll get to that in a bit. When i rented this, I didn't know it was directed by one of the biggest hack-job directors in the biz: Uwe Boll. I picked it up because one of my favorite action stars was in it: Jason Statham.
But even he was unable to save the ship wreck that is another Uwe Boll film. How would I describe the film? Awful, painful, fragmented. There was no character development at all, the fight choreography was passable, the acting was laughable, and the music frequently distracting and inappropriate for what was happening on screen, not to mention the bad editing of the music into the film. But now we get to the good part, which is not so good. The reason why the film was a 4 and not a 0 was that the production quality was not bad but like the plot itself most of it was taken from "Lord of the Rings." I was actually surprised at how close they got the establishing shots to look like it was something rendered by WETA. And unfortunately the players involved are kind of similar to LOTR as well. We got our Aragorn in Statham's character named "Farmer" we got our Legolas character in Farmer's brother-in-law, we got our Gandalf in (get this--) John-Rhys Davies who played Gimli in the lord of the rings films.... the list goes on.... it's painful, oh wait! I have to mention his version of the elves in this movie, instead of wood elves he has... get this.... cirque du soliel forest women who swing around and ensnare people with their vines that swing in all directions forever without ever having to change vines. I laughed so loud when I saw the wannabe Orc creatures snatch one of them off of the vine during the big battle at the end.
This film... was a waste of money, time, and a useable production team. God why do companies still produce and distribute Uwe Boll films?
"ALI" 5/10 Will Smith, Jada Pinket Smith,
Really I'm a backer on Will Smith, in most films he's in I usually like what he does, I think he has tons of charisma on screen and off, even if he boarders on annoying sometimes, but he never really stinks up the film. That being said, I think Ali was Will's first real dive into serious dramatic work, or work where he's not the punch-line. And as such he's a little rocky... Ali is a film based on the life of 3-time professional boxing champion Muhammad Ali a.k.a. Cassius Clay. One thing that really gets your attention right away is how Will speaks. I understand he's trying to mimic Ali's speech patterns and tones but damn it all if it isn't almost the same every time he's not talking to a woman. The music wasn't bad but it did nothing for the film and at times was kind of pushing the drama that wasn't there. All the players around him are pretty solid, especially who plays Malcom X. Now all that aside the one thing a film about Muhammad Ali should have is good fighting right? Don't expect that from this film. There are some inspired shots by the DP to try and invoke a ferocious exchange of fists, but when they zoom out, the punching is so slow and there's no power behind it at all, I don't expect real punches because I know it's fake anyway but where's the acting of the weight of the punches the power behind the fists, at the crack of an elbow? It's no where. I know they may have tonned it down to try and get the feel of the style of boxing back then... but come on! I've seen clips of Muhammad boxing and no way are the fights that boring and passionless, if anything they should be full of passion. Each punch. Because that's who Ali was. He talked the talk and walked the walk. He coined the phrase 'Move like a butterfly Sting like a bee.' And here the fighting is almost as lame as Rocky Balboa's final match. Now that that's aside, the film itself, actually barely goes to the ring, it's mostly about his life, the struggles between his love life and his religion, the struggles between himself and the US courts. But here in lies the problem the film never really focuses, it kind of is just a muddied, long, convoluted film about his entire life... there was no focus they jump from his major struggles to his major struggles to his major struggles at clips so fast sometimes you don't care. And it's much much too long. I zoned out about half way after his first marriage ended. All in all, I just can't recommend this to anyone.
"SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO" 6/10
Warning 1: This film is marketed as a breed between samurai and spaghetti western films. It is not. Thematically maybe, but there's only one person who has a sword and he only uses it for the final battle. It is all in all a western.
The director of the film is very well known in cult classic circles. Takeshi Miike. He's responsible for such films as "Audition" "Gozu" and other supposedly disturbing or crazy films. I've not seen one of them so to me this was my first exposure to him. It's a pretty fun ride the only problem you have at first is the language barrier. All the characters in the film with the exception of Quinten Tarentino have english as a second language, some far better than most, and some even try western accents only to fall into Australian accents then dropping it all together. Once you get past that the film itself is very fun. So it begs the question: why go with english voices when it's far more distracting than having japanese speaking cowboys? Since Quinten's the only gai-jin in the film they could have easily dubbed over him, in the opening scene I thought they did dub over his english voice with another's. Plus if someone does watch this, answer me this: how does the opening work with the rest of the film? Anyways moving onto the film-- The premise of the film itself is nothing too new or exciting. Basically what would happen after Romeo and Juliet except no one cares because they think they were both bad. A man of exceptional skill comes to town to offer his killing ability to which ever group pays the most. Now of course with any good western he's got more to him that just wanting to kill.
Stylistically I don't understand the color saturation and dulling in some of the scenes, some of it just looks like poorly done work, but giving him the benefit of the doubt, it was a strange 'stylistic-choice'. The music is standard western it works very well in some scenes. All together the pieces look ... to me not top quality, the sets were beautiful but at the same time, everything looked newly built, like someone had just built a town and the wood was still fresh, there was no weather ware.
Overall the film itself is as with absurd japanese style films, a good fun watch, there are technical problems and errors but once you get past the language and seemingly low budget first scene, it rides a little smoother. I just wish they had more swords and sword vs gun fighting or sword and gun vs sword and gun. I'd recommend watching the new Korean Leon inspired "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" instead.
"TRANSSIBERIAN" 8/10 Emily Mortimer, Sir Ben Kingsley, Woody Harrelson,
This is a good thriller in the vein of 'Break Down Palace" where a foreigner gets trapped within illegal issues in a foreign land. Emily Mortimer, one of my new favorite actresses plays the wife to Woody Harrelson's character. They're both in Russia traveling through after their time helping local charities through their church. Emily's character is someone with a darker past while Woody's character is her opposite, the light, a boy scout, but not an annoying one, just someone who gets along with everyone. While there they meet another couple. The other couple are carrying a secret with them that could cause great trouble for Emily and Woody. There's more but it's part of the suspense of the film so I won't go any further. The acting is solid, like I said i really like Emily's work in anything she's in. She was also the voice actress for the english version of "Howl's Moving Castle". There's barely any music. The music really is the silences and the noises around everyone in the biting cold of northern Russia. The ending result is a claustrophobic world with seemingly no way out in a foreign land.
"MOSCOW ZERO" 7/10
I was pleasantly surprised by this one, because I didn't know too much about it going in. Go into this one with no knowledge of what's going on. Warning 1: Val Kilmer barely does anything in this film. He represents nothing, especially not a demon/devil, and he's in it for 5 minutes tops. Only reason why he's listed before other actors is because he used to be a name-actor.
"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" 8/10
This film is painful for personal reasons, so I could've been really biased against it but just like 'Knocked Up' I think they do a good job of mixing in real pain and Farcical comedy together. when you achieve that balance I think you're creating good comedy. There's a real sensitive and giving side to Mila Kunis that I never saw in 'that 70s show' because she had to play the self-centered overbearing airhead girlfriend. This film is confusing though, in that it tries to make a villain out of Sarah Marshall. I never once saw her as being a villain. She moved onto another guy... how is that villainous? She didn't do anything deceitful or hurtful, she just broke up with him. Then they explain her actions later in the film and you feel even less like she's a villain. Everyone has their own beliefs and agree with them or not, it's not malicious and they've got their views on relationships. The story itself clips along well and the comedy is a really great opposite the drama. I enjoyed this film, just don't watch it after breaking up, because it's not one of those move on movies, they actually dwell on the pain for some time.
"GONZO" 7/10
Really this is a documentary about one of America's most poetic, most notorious, most loved/hated at the same time, and craziest writers, Hunter S. Thompson. If you saw the film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" you were introduced to one of the more popular works of and saw through the eyes of the main focus of this documentary. This film is narrated by Johnny Depp who played the autobiographical character in "Fear." This film doesn't spend too much time covering the beginning of Hunter's life, if it did this film would have been many more hours, Hunter just did so much stuff in his short life. Just like Hunter himself, and how one feels after watching "Fear" it's pretty exhausting just hearing about the passion of and the ups and downs of Mr. Thompson's life. This film brings the craziness of Hunter's character in "Fear" and presents a Method to it all.... and you really get a sense of why he ticked the way he did, and that he wasn't just some strange druggie who happened upon magical words -- although the drugs probably helped. I'd recommend it to any "Fear" fans. to those who don't know of or care to, it may be a bit extensive and long for you to fully enjoy or watch in one sitting.
