Almost Famous

The Gist: A teenage boy into rock ‘n roll and writing gets the chance of a lifetime from Rolling Stones Magazine: write a piece on an up-and-coming rock band while he follows them around on their concert tour.

Here’s a movie I had been wanting to watch for a long time and doesn’t disappoint.  The Oscar winning script is well written and thoroughly develops the many different characters.  Both direction and editing are well done and the cinematography perfectly conjures up the feel of the 70s.

The acting however is what stands out.  From the dreamy Billy Crudup to the steely Frances McDormand, from the whimsical Kate Hudson (whom I really liked) to the purely innocent Patrick Fugit, from the bouncy Zooey Deschanel to the over masculine Jason Lee, everyone is perfectly cast and does an outstanding job.

The Bottom Line: This movie is fun to watch, is well acted, directed, written, and edited, is funny and sad in equal parts, and is a very well told story overall.  An instant classic.

Grade: 8

Bambi

The Gist: A baby deer is born in the forest.  He now has to grow up and discover all the wonders of the woods.  One day, his mother is killed by hunters, leaving him alone with his friends.

I had never seen this Disney classic even though obviously I knew all about it.  It stands the test of time thanks to the simplicity of the story and the delicacy of its telling.

Naturally, it is technically passé, but considering it was made in 1942, it must have looked like a real wonder to the audiences of its time.

The Bottom Line: A movie for the whole family, even the littlest ones, since the death of Bambi’s mother is handled with a lot of tact and the animal is never shown dead.  It does have some scary parts in the second half, but overall it’s pretty safe.  Enjoyable.

Grade: 7

J. Edgar

The Gist: J. Edgar Hoover created the FBI and led it for almost 50 years.  During his powerful tenure, Presidents and their administrations came and went, but he always survived.  He was a loner with a very strict moral code that shackled him and prevented him from living a full life outside of his office.

The subject is very interesting, the cast impressive, the director (usually) has the magic touch, and yet the movie never really soars.  Leonardo DiCaprio is very good in the role, but the makeup and prosthetics he and the other cast members have to wear to credibly present characters through so many years of their lives are a let down.  I actually found them so poorly executed that they turned into a distraction.

Another, even bigger problem I had with the movie was the editing, which was very confusing and jagged.  Sometimes it wasn’t even clear which era we were currently in, which forced me to rewind a lot, something one wouldn’t be able to do in the theater, so I have to assume it would have frustrated me even more had I seen it in one.

The Bottom Line: While I can appreciate the incredible technical effort that went into crafting this film, and while I can’t deny the great talent of all those involved, the final product is in the end unsatisfactory.  It gets a passing grade mostly because it doesn’t deserve a failing one, but it’s of little consequence.

Grade: 6

The Thing

The Gist: A group of scientists in Antarctica stumble upon a mysterious spaceship and an alien life frozen under millennia old ice.  They retrieve it to study it but will come to regret the decision.

I was under the impression that this 2011 movie was a remake of the classic John Carpenter horror from 1982.  Instead, this is a prequel to that movie and I was very impressed by how well they made it dovetail with its predecessor.

The visual effects are obviously impressive, and better than the 82’s movie, but that’s to be expected.  What I really liked was the meticulous reconstruction of the sets to make them match with what the scientists in the original movie find when they visit this camp.

The Bottom Line: If you’ve watched the original The Thing, you might think this one is unoriginal, but I actually enjoyed the thrills and admired the careful attempt not to tamper with a classic but to simply try to stand up next to it.  Personally, I believe the filmmakers succeeded.

Grade: 7

Valhalla Rising

The Gist: A captive warrior attacks his captors and flees.  He then goes on a journey of discovery with the boy who helped him escape.  He’ll join up with a group of crusaders but what they will find won’t be exactly what they expected.

As anyone who follows my blog knows, I hate trailers because they are full of spoilers.  I usually just glance over critics’ reviews and check out ratings from aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb.  The system works for me.  The movies I pick turn out to be what I expected the vast majority of the time.  This time, it didn’t work.

This movie was, at best, an incomprehensible amalgam of images with a haunting soundtrack and some good acting.  How was the script?  I can’t really speak to that because there are maybe 100 words uttered in the whole movie.  Does it make sense?  Hardly.

When the movie was over, as I often do, I checked out the trailer.  I was aghast to see that in those 3 minutes or so they had condensed every spoken scene and the most alluring images.  I can’t imagine the countless other viewers who were duped like me into viewing a movie that looks like it came out of the mind of a man who had evidently dropped acid.

The Bottom Line: I saw some impressive reviews of this film too and don’t understand where they’re coming from.  Did we see the same film?  I’m tempted to say I just didn’t get its message, but at some point I have to draw the line.  The movie is incredibly slow, it has almost no spoken dialogue to clear things up (and I loved The Artist, so it’s not like I need dialogue, I just need clarity!!), it’s built in sections that almost start over with each segment, and it just plainly doesn’t make sense.  Skip it!

Grade: 2

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

The Gist: In the first (of three) of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit adaptation Bilbo Baggins meets the band of dwarves that will become his companions in a trip to a lonely mountain where a vast treasure lies hidden, guarded by a ferocious dragon.  Many dangerous and terrible foes, however, stand between them and their destination.

I am a huge Tolkien fan and absolutely loved all three Lord of the Rings movies.  Peter Jackson masterfully brought to life the characters of a story that I had loved reading many years ago.  I was therefore elated when news broke that he would adapt The Hobbit, a novel that came out long before the Rings trilogy and shares many themes with it.

The two are, however, decidedly different.  The Hobbit is much shorter, plays out more like a children’s tale, and is written with less care than Rings.  A lot happens in The Hobbit and sometimes things are mentioned but never really explained or elaborated further.  I often found myself wondering what was happening that we couldn’t “see.”

Jackson had decided to adapt The Hobbit in two movies by padding the somewhat slim tale with extra material found in the appendixes of the Rings trilogy or other Tolkien’s works.  Eventually, the two movies became three and, unlike many, I welcomed the news.  Not only because that would allow me to go back to Middle Earth a third (and final) time, but also because I felt like two movies were not going to be enough to flesh out all that could and should be fleshed out.

At the same time, I also understand, having read the novel, that The Hobbit is not as compelling a story as Rings.  A lot happens, and some events are fundamental to Rings, but it has a lighter tone and is much less fascinating and engrossing.  It should be judged in the perspective of this light and viewed for what it is, not submitted to the litmus test of “is this a worthy successor to Rings?”  It simply cannot compete on that level.

And yet, I was pleasantly surprised.  Jackson & Co. did a wonderful job adapting the novel.  The screenplay is very faithful to the book and all the added material is integrated so well, one would never know it wasn’t in the original story.

The acting is great, the score (by Howard Shore, the master who composed the Rings ones) fantastic, and the visual effects are the best I’ve ever seen.  Gollum, the Trolls, and the Great Goblin are simply wondrous.

I watched the movie in the new HFR (High Frame Rate – 42 fps) 3D format and had no issues with it, except that I’ve now firmly come to dislike 3D in any variation.  If anything, it was thoroughly distracting me from the story unfolding before my eyes.

I see 3D simply as a gimmick now, used to lure moviegoers back to the theater by giving them “more” (and charging them more for it).  I don’t need that.  Really.  Rather, give me cheaper tickets, less previews and ads before a movie, and a stricter silence and behavior code during the show and I’ll come back, but until then, I’m better off at home with my surround sound, my large screen plasma TV, and a blu-ray disk of the movie of my choosing.

The Bottom Line: If you’re a Tolkien or Jackson fan you will not be disappointed.  The first in the Hobbit trilogy is a feast for the eyes and a tale rich of adventures that sets the stage for an even bigger payback in the next two installments.  The final frames’ glimpse of the dragon are one of the best hooks I’ve ever seen.

Grade: 8

Homeland

This amazing Showtime show recently wrapped its second season and if you thought it couldn’t sustain the greatness of season one you are mistaken.

The game of cat and mouse between Carrie and Brody continues in spite of her ousting from the CIA.  Intrigue, betrayal, and double play are relentless and overlaid with a veneer of political gamesmanship.

If you liked the first season, don’t miss the second.  You’ll be longing for the third before it’s even over.

Grade – Season 2: 9

Resident Evil: Retribution

The Gist: Captured by the Umbrella Corporation, Alice wakes up in yet another underground complex from which she must try to escape, this time aided by the same Umbrella official who was trying to kill her in the past.  The Red Queen, Umbrella’s artificial intelligence, is back in the baddie seat.

Milla Jovovich still entertains as Alice, but the gig is getting more and more tired as time goes by.  To keep the stakes high, more unlikely characters, monsters, and mutants are brought on board, but they can do little to improve upon the final product.

The last episode (to date I’m sure) in the franchise plays out like the closest videogame adaptation I’ve ever seen, and not in a good way.  It is one thing to try to keep close to the original material for the sake of the fan base, and it’s a totally different thing to make a movie that looks exactly like one of the cutout scenes that are embedded in key spots on the actual videogame.  For instance, people in Retribution sound and talk like animated characters, the plot is played out just like videogame characters would in the game and so on.  It’s like watching someone play the actual game, not like watching a movie at all.  It doesn’t look nor sound pretty.

Another thing that always bothered me about the whole Resident Evil franchise is that the zombies move more like Olympians than dead bodies.  Their speed and precision of movement is unbelievable!!  C’mon… and this only got worse (meaning they only got faster) with each incarnation.  Pathetic.

The Bottom Line: If you’ve made it this far like I did, congratulations, you’ve seen the “good” and the bad (and the terrible) of this franchise.  You’ve witnessed what it takes to ruin the name of a franchise that could have been better but that now might only be saved by a complete reboot with or without Milla Jovovich (still the only character I’d salvage from this train wreck).  Do yourself a favor and watch something else.  Anything else.  Even traffic.

Grade: 2

Resident Evil: Afterlife

The Gist: Alice, with the help of an army of her clones, takes the fight to the Umbrella Corporation, but only half succeeds.  Deprived of her superpowers, she tries to find Arcadia, allegedly the last safe place to live on Earth.

Our heroine starts out super kick-ass but is still fierce even after she loses her abilities.  Unfortunately, Milla Jovovich is the only character who doesn’t look two dimensional.  Or better yet, she’s the only actress who’s able (or cares) to give her character an edge in spite of the screenplay’s glaring limitations.

The ridiculous and gratuitous events multiply, like an army of zombies keeping an enormous prison under permanent siege in spite of the handful of people left inside.  All we’ve ever been told about zombies is that they are dead people who can still ambulate and are driven to feed on the still living.  That they would not move on after days of not being able to breach the complex defies all expectations.

Alice’s landing on the complex’s roof is absurd, the giant hammer-wielding mutant mountain comes from nowhere, the zombies with protruding octopus like arms from their mouths are ridiculous, and so on.

The Bottom Line: Sure the visual effects are fantastic and it’s great to see Alice kick everyone’s ass in spite of not being superhuman any longer, but the fourth episode in the series has shed every last bit of pride and simply caters to the undying fan of the franchise who will watch and enjoy every trashy frame of film that’s put out there.  Skip it.

Grade: 3

Resident Evil: Extinction

The Gist: Alice is now roaming the desert-like desolation that has spread to the whole world trying to stay under the radar and away from the Umbrella Corporation's prying eyes.  One day, she is tracked down and soon after she stumbles upon a group of survivors trying to find a safe place to settle in.

This episode of the franchise introduces the character of Claire and shows us what the T Virus has done to Alice (spoiler, it has made her very powerful, beyond any human abilities).

The movie is actually very lopsided.  It’s quite good in the first half and quite bad in the second half.  Between the army of look-alike zombies and the grim mutation of the scientist who had infected Alice at the end of the first movie, all the logic goes out the window, even that of a movie adapted from a videogame.

The Bottom Line: Disappointed after the second episode, I decided to give the third a try and decide whether to complete the series from there.  Luckily, in spite of the shortcomings of the second half of the movie, this one is still enjoyable.  Certainly more than the second…

Grade: 5