Red

*** - Bruce Willis and a gaggle of aging film stars swing for the fences in this 2010 action-comedy film based on a Warren Ellis graphic novel but end up hitting a high lazy fly just short of the warning track in left that would be easily shagged by even the most lackadaisical of dreadlock-wearing Hispanic outfielders. Willis plays a lonely retired CIA operative who is perpetrating pension fraud by tearing up his checks when he receives them and calling the main pension service office in Kansas City in order to have bizarre rambling conversations with Mary-Louise Parker (from the acclaimed HBO show “Weeds” which I have never seen and have no real interest in because it seems like kind of a chick thing) and ends up on the lam after a home invasion by a highly trained and motivated, albeit somewhat inept, assassination squad. He heads over to KC and kidnaps Parker (who he claims is also in danger) and then meets up with and recruits to his cause a number of oldsters he has worked with or against in the past, including Brian Cox, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Ernest Borgnine (who I am shocked is still alive) and Morgan Freemandle. Light action, lots of gunplay, a fairly large number of romantic subplots, and quite a bit of jokey dialogue ensue, along with a storyline involving the Vice President, the FBI, Guatamala, and a badly aging Richard Dreyfuss. It’s a fairly entertaining film, but nothing to write home about.

[REC]

*** - I will have to start out by acknowledging that my decision to watch this 2005 Spanish-made horror/thriller at 2:00 in the afternoon on a sunny Monday afternoon in January was probably not the best I’ve made. When watching something that relies so much on darkness and atmosphere it is probably best to attempt to match that in some respect in the viewing environment. I did not do this, largely because I have difficulty staying up past about 8:00. However, this unfortunate misstep on my part did not ruin this movie, which was actually surprisingly competently-made and had some genuine thrills and creepiness. The film follows a TV reporter and her cameraman as they are doing a story on a night in the lives of local Barcelona firefighters. After about fifteen minutes or so of set-up, two firemen and the TV crew end up going on a call to an old apartment building in order to rescue an old lady locked in her flat. That’s about when things take a rather nasty turn. It is shot with a single camera (ostensibly, the TV cameraman’s) a la “Blair Witch” and “Cloverfield” and works on a level somewhere in between those two flicks. One excellent aspect of this movie is that it dispenses with the interminable introductory portion that seems to occur in so many movies of this genre. Within ten or fifteen minutes of popping in the DVD there were people screaming and bodies flying down stairwells and blood spurting, instead of having to wait upwards of an hour for any action as is so often the case.

Spartacus - Blood and Sand: The Complete 1st Season

***1/2 – Having the word ‘sand’ in the title of this Starz network series seems arbitrary. I can see why they tossed ‘blood’ in there – as this is extraordinarily bloody – but I don’t quite see why the sand got such high billing. They might as well have called this “Spartacus: Blood and Sand and Metal and Titties and More Blood and Water and Trees and Cocks and a Whole Shitload of Blood”. Anyway, what I’m getting at here is that this is a highly sensationalized sort of show, with every aspect that one could find some offense with being taken to an absolute TV extreme, from blood to sex to language and more. Not an episode goes by that doesn’t feature people having limbs or heads chopped off and blood flying everywhere, or the words ‘fuck’ and ‘cunt’ being yelled several times, or loads of bouncing boobies and naked women licking each other. I’m not saying that any or all of these things are bad, just that having them so much and so often is sort of overload. It does make for a very visually compelling spectacle, though, kind of like the gladiatorial games that are portrayed. It has a pretty decent storyline to it, and a lot of the characters are interesting – not to mention played well by the actors – which makes this sort of like a bloodier “Deadwood” with more nudity that doesn’t have quite the same quality of dialogue. It’s worth watching, though.

The Invisible

** - Apparently a remake of a Swedish film, this slow-moving 2007 sci-fi drama (only ‘sci-fi’ in that it has some light ghost/afterlife-related themes) is one that ends up being pretty difficult to enjoy. I can’t complain about the direction or the production values, but the story is kind of dumb, the acting is average at best, and many of the actions and decisions made by the characters are not easy to understand or justify. After shamefully being beaten to near-death by a rather small woman, a wormy high school-aged poetry geek is left for dead down a sewer but winds up as a quasi-ghost who sort of haunts the frail girl who almost killed him in an effort to get her to hone up to her actions and save his life. The whole idea that someone who is near death becomes a spirit who can wander around and attempt to change things is very hard to accept. Not only that, but the physics behind this type of haunting does not remain consistent from start to finish. Sometimes he can affect real objects and sometimes he can’t and then he can again, and none of these changes back and forth are really explained very well. There is a crummy ending involving self-sacrifice and honesty that is so blatantly obvious from the outset and also very maudlin that it ruins any enjoyment that one may get from any other aspect of the movie. This is not a film that I can recommend, despite its decent soundtrack.

The Descent: Part 2

*1/2 – I’m am going to allow you, gentle reader, to be placed in the role of one of the lead characters in this sequel to 2005’s fairly watchable “The Descent”. You are the pot-bellied hillbilly sheriff of a podunk backwater somewhere in Appalachia who is searching for six young women who had the misfortune to go missing during a spelunking trip in your jurisdiction. You happen to be an idiot, but somehow you manage to stumble across one of the survivors as she crawls around the woods covered in blood and filth, seemingly mute, and semi-catatonic. You then decide that the best course of action is to take the visibly traumatized nearly comatose woman along with your deputy and a group of three argumentative expert cavers down into the depths to find out what happened. As I mentioned before, you are an idiot, so you bring a gun and start shooting wildly into the ancient, fragile, collapse-prone caverns, which separates the group into easy to pick off groups of between one and three. Unsurprisingly, the weird subterranean inhabitants of the cave have a field day with you and your “rescue party” leaving no survivors. Now, in hindsight, would you have actually made any of the above decisions? Of course you wouldn’t. And that is why this movie was pretty dumb, not to mention far less entertaining than the first in the series. It relied heavily on gore and filth (including a scene of two people wandering around in the area the monsters’ have designated as their poop spot) and went for cheap frights instead of going for being unsettling or thrilling.

The Descent

*** - A group of six extreme-sporting gal pals go on a spelunking adventure in an unmapped cave somewhere deep in Appalachia only to discover fear and tragedy in this 2005 British-made horror/thriller. Hey, that’s a pretty catchy synopsis. I should write this shit for a living. Anyway, the clutch of chicks (four of whom are pretty hot, while one is rather frumpy and the sixth is one of the more frightening-looking lesbians you are likely to encounter) are hunted and picked off one-by-one by blind, pasty, slobbering, screeching, Nosferatu-looking cave-dwellers whose main means of attack appear to be biting, flailing wildly and sissy slapping. As goofy as it seems, the film is actually pretty entertaining although it starts out extremely slowly and has quite a bit of mundane horror clichés. I think one valuable lesson to be learned from “The Descent” is to never go caving with a group of women, no matter how hot they are. The constant catty infighting and melodramatic jealous rages will annoy you and the inevitable betrayals will probably leave you with an ice axe sticking out of you and weird creatures gnawing at your intestines. That may not seem all that likely on its surface, but that is the fate of at least three of the six main characters in this film, so those are actually some pretty good odds.

The Ricky Gervais Show: The Complete First Season

***** - In 2006, Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington began a series of comedy podcasts that have consistently been some of the funniest stuff ever recorded. This animated version of the first series of those podcasts is a must view for fans of animated television and comedy. The animation itself has a very Hanna-Barbara feel and takes many cues from shows like “The Flintstones” with the Ricky character even being almost an exact replica of Fred Flintstone. This turned me off a little bit at first, but as I saw more of the imagination of the animators shown as the series moved along it won me over. I still don’t particularly like the depictions of the three main characters, and while the weird blotchy blue background in the scenes featuring them remains pretty off-putting, I have become quite fond of the scenario dramatization scenes. The danger, of course, with something like this that I have heard countless times over headphones and have imagined pictorially in my mind is that the pictures presented on film won’t be as good as what I imagined. Luckily, the team of animators on this project are able to meet or exceed my expectations in all respects with the possible exception of the scenes of Ricky, Steve and Karl sitting in the studio. Otherwise, it’s great. The material is fantastic, and Ricky’s theory that Karl is one of the funniest people on the planet is quite clearly shown to be a fact that I am overjoyed HBO viewers have been able to discover like so many people did five years ago on the internet.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

*** - This family-oriented 2010 film starring Nicholas Cage and the skinny guy who has made a name for himself as the funny nerd-type guy in various TV shows and films (often also starring Seth Rogen) ended up being a little bit more entertaining than I had anticipated. While it has the same basic feel and premise as the ‘Harry Potter’ films and others of that ilk, it is probably a step up from them as it has a fair amount of humor that is delivered surprisingly well by Cage and the other leads. The magic effects are quite well done and integrate solidly into the real elements of the movie, unlike some others in the genre, such as those ridiculous broom flying game sequences from ‘Harry Potter’ which are some of the fakest looking deals you’ll find in modern cinema. The main story line is about as unoriginal as they get, and the whole trapped-in-an-urn-for-ten-years idea that is prevalent here is both clichéd and silly. However, that is counterbalanced by the fairly frequent skewering of some of the more rote and hackneyed standards of the genre, which not only evens things out but also provides some genuine laughs. I can’t say that I’d have any interest in watching this again, but I’ve certainly spent two hours watching much worse than “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog

***1/2 - Clocking in at 43 minutes (about the length of a one-hour TV show minus commercials) this three-part series originally broadcast via the internet and subsequently released on Blu-ray is a strange amalgam of comedy movie and comedy musical. I am not generally fond of humor being placed in a musical form (for example, I think Adam Sandler is the spawn of Satan), but the fact that this was written, created and directed by Joss Whedon and his brothers, Jed and Zack, at least offers the promise of it being less annoying then “The Hanukkah Song”. The premise is that Neil Patrick Harris (aka Doogie Howser, M.D.) plays a rather incompetent super villain named Dr. Horrible who is trying to gain membership in the Evil League of Evil (great name) while simultaneously attempting to impress a girl he likes at the Laundromat. He is repeatedly foiled in both schemes by his arch nemesis - and the city’s favorite local superhero - Captain Hammer (played by the always funny Nathan Fillion). The format is roughly half regular movie-style dialogue with the other half being some marginally entertaining musical numbers. The musical aspect of this, while certainly funnier than most musical humor attempts, drags this down a little as such a great cast and writing team could probably have nailed a real winner with just a regular short film or TV show.

The A-Team

**1/2 – As far as loud and dumb action yarns go, this retelling of the classic 80s TV series that starred Mr. T, George Pappard and the guy who was Barclay in “Star Trek The Next Generation” is pretty entertaining. I can’t really argue with the casting or the script or the story. What I can argue with is the rah-rah Army machismo crap that is omnipresent in the film. The biggest affront to decency in this vein occurs after B.A. Barracus (the character made famous by Mr. T) converts to a non-violent pacifist lifestyle while in prison and allows his trademark Mohawk to be replaced by a more traditional hairstyle. That’s not the bad part, bear with me. He then goes on one final mission with the rest of the gang and shows the renunciation of his pacifist ways by slamming a guy to the ground and shattering his upper vertebral column (killing him instantly) and removing his wool cap to reveal the return of the Mohawk, signifying his return to the ‘way of the warrior’. Then there’s a little triumphant musical flourish like we’re supposed to cheer at the point that he just murdered someone. That is very much in character with the rest of the movie, as it is a highly violent, macho, Army Ranger-worshipping, military brotherhood-honoring sort of deal. I really hate that sort of thing, especially the obsession with being a Ranger this movie has. Rangers are insane, brainwashed (albeit highly trained and competent) killers. That is not something to be revered. It’s an OK movie, though.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

*** - This 2002 directorial debut for George Clooney stars Sam Rockwell as iconic 60s/70s game show producer and host Chuck Barris in a film that is a loose biopic based on his memoirs. Overall I guess this is a pretty good movie, with a fair amount of humor stemming largely from the over-the-top persona of Barris himself which is played up even more by Rockwell. Strangely, though, the film concentrates rather heavily on the (presumably fictional) employment of Barris by the CIA as a hired assassin from before his TV career took off all the way through the 80s. That aspect is played up for laughs to a large degree, while Barris’ odd personal life and relationship with a long-time hippie girlfriend (played by Drew Barrymore) have a more serious tone. I felt that was an odd choice by the filmmakers. While the movie had a pretty lighthearted tone throughout – even when dealing with things of a more serious nature – the end of the film landed like an anvil on Wyle E. Coyote, with a preachy message about not wasting one’s life and the ravages of time and so forth. Frankly, I don’t need George Clooney telling me what to do with my life. I’ll waste it however the hell I feel like, thank you very much.

Passengers

** - A crappily executed plot twist can ruin even the best of films. Luckily for 2008’s “Passengers” starring Anne Hathaway, a crappily executed plot twist that occurs around 10 or 15 minutes from the conclusion didn’t really ruin it because it was never a very good movie in the first place. The very beginning of the picture shows promise when a plane crashes and the few survivors mysteriously recall different series’ of events while in group therapy sessions. However, the next hour of the movie is dominated by a goofy romance involving one of the survivors and Hathaway – whose turn here as a psychiatric counselor once again shows that she should really probably stick to acting in lightweight garbage like “The Princess Diaries” and “The Devil Wears Prada”. During the final act it seems as though the filmmakers realized that they just tortured their audience with an hour of boredom and tried to make up for it by attempting some action and tossing in a rather obvious plot turn. I’ll give this movie two stars largely for its intriguing premise which, unfortunately, is flushed straight down the crapper after the first 20 minutes or so and doesn’t resurface for a period longer than a few minutes at any point thereafter.

Immortal

** - The French aren’t really known for their sci-fi media. Easily surrendering, copious amounts of body hair, poor hygiene, and a predilection for oral sex? Yes. Science fiction films or books? No. After watching this 2004 French-made CGI-heavy futuristic political drama, it is not hard to see why. It wasn’t very good. Like most things that are French, it made little to no sense and tried to be all artsy without presenting much of a story or anything of any substance. The basic premise is that it is the year 2095, and in a somewhat unreasonably technologically advanced New York City the Gods of Ancient Egypt descend to try to put some sort of vague plan into action. This plan apparently involves the bird-faced god Horus taking over the body of a German guy and attempting to impregnate a blue-lipped woman with weird matted hair that looks like paper after you accidentally run it through both the washer and dryer. There is a really bizarre mix of CG and live action humans, and almost entirely rendered backgrounds that lend this film a rather unrealistic flavor. The backgrounds looked nice, and would be neat to have hanging in a frame in one’s apartment, but it just doesn’t feel right in a movie. It was also dubbed, and I couldn’t really tell what the hell was going on, so that didn’t help either.

The I Inside

**1/2 – Time travel, memory loss, murder, mystery, fighting, torture, revenge, blackmail, intrigue and massive conspiracies; this movie has it all. Unfortunately for this 2004 film – that I suppose is most accurately called a psychological thriller with light sci-fi elements – while it does indeed have all those things listed above, none of them are done particularly well. The time travel seems pretty mundane and even more so when it is revealed that it may not actually be time travel, but rather some sort of psychosis. The mystery – thanks at least partly to the time travel – is disjointed and kind of hard to follow. The murder and blackmail and intrigue are kind of interesting at first, but as the film moves along it seems to lose steam. Whether that is due to the writing, acting or a combination of the two is not entirely evident. Starring Ryan Philippe (who is not exactly in De Niro’s league even on his best days) and featuring such film luminaries as the guy who was Turkish’s sidekick in “Snatch” and Piper Perabo, most famous for her starring role in the obnoxious, highly offensive “Coyote Ugly”, the lackluster story is not exactly made up for with stellar casting. Be that as it may, it was fairly watchable, but I can’t see anyone ever seeing this and having better than a lukewarm reaction.

The Eye

** - I had considered at one point getting LASIK corrective eye surgery for my very poor vision, but after learning from this movie that the potential ramifications of this are seeing and occasionally being attacked by spirits and demons and such, I must admit that I have somewhat soured on the idea. In this 2008 horror/thriller, the Invisible Bitch from the “Fantastic Four” movies plays a blind violinist who has surgery to replace her corneas and immediately begins to see weird stuff from the life of the dead person from whom she received her new eye parts. Frankly, this sort of ridiculous plot is one of many that I have seen since starting my Netflix subscription that seem to be taken straight from the mind of Karl Pilkington. Relying on the specious and completely unsubstantiated concept of ‘cellular memory’ is one of the many failings of this film, the others including a poor script, crummy acting, and Alba not taking off her clothes off a single time. On a side note, I find it interesting that this flick is called “The Eye” and not “The Eyes”. I’m fairly certain that the lead character’s affliction was caused by both of her new ocular implants, so the reasoning behind using the singular in the title is just one more thing to not like about this film.

W.

***1/2 – This somewhat satirized portrayal of George W. Bush pretty much falls into line with the way I view him: as a not overtly evil, but completely incompetent, short-tempered, petulant and immature dope. His appeal has always been to the Joe Six-Pack type who works a blue collar job, comes home and yells at his wife, beats his half dozen or so kids, and combines a potent combination of Jack Daniels and Old Milwaukee with some sort of cheese and pretzeled bread product while watching a sporting event that involves driving a car or punching people. Or to the kind of guy who picked on the fat or skinny kids in gym class, giving them wedgies, wet willies, etc. Or to the kind of guy who thinks that Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy are the absolute height of humor. And the interesting thing about this movie, is that if you are the above-mentioned type of person, you will probably still like “W.” because it shows him as just that sort of person, and if that appeals to you, you will probably not comprehend the fact that he comes off as a complete moron to anyone with a brain. Anyway, whether you like him or hate him, this movie is well done, juxtaposing scenes of his past with those around the 2003 Iraq invasion. It is a little bit liberal with some of Bush’s famous quotes (placing them out of context, etc.) but maintains a fairly truthful overall feel.

Fringe: The Complete 2nd Season

***1/2 – I am really trying very hard to like this show. The premise is intriguing, and it’s “X-Files” meets “LOST” presentation should make it something that is right up my alley. And while I do enjoy most of the episodes to a certain extent, I think the show’s reliance on a relatively weak cast keeps this from being as great as it probably could be. Also, much like “X-Files” this show has the tendency to have an episode or two that concern the show’s main story arc followed by three or four episodes that don’t mention it at all, instead being sort of one-off shows that concentrate on the lead characters investigating unrelated weird events. I would have to say that I probably liked this season a little better than the first, as it really picked up steam toward the end when the alternate universe became a much more prominent setting. However, I’ve always felt that the ‘infinite alternate universes’ theory is kind of an unfairly easy way for writers to introduce nonsense and still be able to justify it. I just find the concept hard to fathom, especially when – as is done on this show – the alternate universe is shown to have differences from the main universe that are random and don’t completely make sense, while keeping the basis features and timelines of both identical. I could mention examples, but that would turn this review into an essay. In any event, this 2nd season was pretty good, but I still find myself a bit disappointed in the overall package.