Last year, between the two of us, we watched an average of 317 movies.
This year our goal is to top that by watching at least one a day.
And as an extra special torture, we've decided to write about all of them.

29 February 2008

The Bet, dir. Mark Lee (2006)

NIKKI says:
I was in he mood for something different -- no horror, no comedy, no serious documentaries. So, I chose The Bet, an Aussie film set in the world of high-flying bankers and stockbrokers. It stars Matthew Newton and is directed by Mark Lee -- two definite selling points. And it wasn't too bad.

It was awesome, though. A few things bothered me -- I felt like I didn't know the true reasons behind both the bet and Aden Young's character's Machiavellian shenanigans. I felt like I should have been let in a little bit more to just what Young's character wanted and why he went to these specific lengths to get it. At the end, when Young's deception is revealed, it felt like a let down because of the major event preceding it. A major event I didn't think needed to happen.

It was an interesting watch. I enjoyed Mark Lee's direction -- the solitude and steeliness of the broker offices contrasted with the colour and magnificence of the Sydney skyline. I thought Matt Newton was really good, and the twists and turns in the story kept me watching. I don't think it came together in the end, though.

2.5/5

28 February 2008

Dan in Real Life, dir. Peter Hedges (2007)

NIKKI says:
Damn, I wanted so much more from this. I thought, from the trailer, that I was getting a clever, possibly subversive, romantic movie, perhaps something like Eternal Sunshine or even Once. I thought more focus would be placed on the main character and his tribulations. Instead, this came dangerously close to becoming a male version of The Family Stone.

While Steve Carell was genius as always, and rather heartbreaking in scenes, I was still forced to watch the big, happy, quirky family, who just never listened until it was vital to the story. In fact, many annoying things just suddenly happen when they absolutely must to keep us on Dan's side. For instance, Dan's in love with his brother's girl -- never a good thing, but worse when the movie does that thing where it has us love the brother in the beginning, then slightly loathe him in the end when it's time for the true lovers to come together.

That was this movie's failure -- too many irons in the fire. Dan was getting over the death of his wife, he was in love with Marie, his brother had Marie, All well and good. But there was that huge family that did very little to propel the story. Brothers and sisters popped in only to make Dan uncomfortable, or to show how little he was understood by those closest to him. I don't know if we needed 17 family members, seemingly without problems of their own, to do that.

The juice of the story, between Dan, his brother, Marie, and Dan's three kids, was good, for the most part. Dan and Marie felt like they should be together, although I wasn't convinced when suddenly she got all jealous when Dan met another woman for drinks. Marie had made really no attempt to let us or Dan know she liked him, so her outward jealousy didn't fit with the film's other subtleties. She climbs all over the brother one minute and then wants to be jealous when Dan has a date? Sorry, but that just did not make sense to me.

I don't know, stuff like that just bugged me in this. It was romantic and well-written only in parts. Otherwise, it was stock-standard and a bit dumb. When the parents were standing there at the end telling Dan to "go for it" with Marie, I'm thinking -- where did that come from? Weren't we all just horrified that Dan would betray his brother so harshly?

Anyway... Steve Carell made the movie. I enjoy him a lot. But I'm going to have to drop this a point for some terrible situations here. Including an horrendously misguided wedding sequence at the end (sugar attack and ... blurgh).

2.5/5

STEVE says:

Dan in Real Life
was light, unoffensive, dysfunctional family fare - pretty much everything I hate in movies today.

Why do movie families have to be so fake? Who actually has a crossword puzzle competition on a family holiday? And a family talent show? It reeks of The Brady Bunch in the worst possibly way. I half-expected Steve Carell and Dane Cook to build a house of cards in the end to see who goes home with the girl.

And then there's the shower scene. Can someone explain to me how this was anything other that just plain fucking creepy? I know it was supposed to be cute and uncomfortable, but Jeez-Louise!

Steve Carell was good as the widowed Dan, but we've seen him play this sort of introverted nice-guy before in The 40 Year Old Virgin, so he wasn't exactly exploring new territory here. And neither, it seems, were the writers, Pierce Gardner and Peter Hedges. (Gardner and Hedges, heh-heh.) Dan in Real Life was as predictable as light, unoffensive, dysfunctional family fare can be - down to the happy, everybody wins ending.

2/5

27 February 2008

Groundhog Day, dir. Harold Ramis (1993)

STEVE says:
So I run this film class in Echuca on Wednesday nights, where a group of us get together once every two weeks, watch a film and discuss it afterwards. I set this up largely because, apart from Nikki, I can't find anyone around here who actually likes to think about a movie as they're watching it. The first movie we watched was Blade Runner: The Final Cut (which I didn't blog about because Nikki and I had watched it only a few weeks previous), and that went over pretty well, so I thought I'd do a complete 180 and give them a comedy - albeit a deeper comedy than they were probably expecting.

This movie works on two levels: You can enjoy it just as a silly Bill Murray comedy, or you can look at it philosophically and see that it holds a deeper spiritual meaning than, for example, The Passion of the Christ. Either way, you know.

Groundhog Day uses the Kübler-Ross model as a template, taking Bill Murray's Phil Connors through the five stages of grief and tragedy - Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance - as he relives the same day over and over again for what director Harold Ramis tells us on the commentary is ten years (but what screenwriter Danny Rubin, a Zen-Buddhist, originally conceived as 10,000 years). During the discussion afterwards, we found that Phil was indeed in denial at first, questioning whether someone was playing a large-scale practical joke on him, or whether he was, in fact, insane; then he became angry, which manifest itself in more of a playful, devilish Phil than a truly angry Phil, where we figured he'd be lashing out at people; when depression set in, he began killing himself over and over and over again - and this is when he started to get really mean to people, displaying some of the anger we'd expected before; and finally into acceptance of his fate, which is what broke the spell - he started doing good things for others, solely because it was the right thing to do, rather than thinking about how it might benefit him.

The one stage we couldn't identify in the movie, thought, was Bargaining. Arguments were made that each time he attempted to change something from a previous "day", it could be construed as bargaining, but I felt that it was more of a gamble, as Phil wasn't giving anything up in order to make things right. But even so, what a fascinating model for a film that, on the surface, seems to be a light romantic comedy!

I was struck by the fact Phil is pretty much the same guy Murray played in Scrooged - the jerk who's reformed in the end by realizing that humanity on the whole is greater than himself. It's part of the "Cinderella" archetype (goodness triumphant after being initially despised). Makes me wonder if Murray isn't drawn to this sort of story.

3.5/5

Nikki did not view.

26 February 2008

Catacombs, dir. Tomm Coker and David Elliot (2007)

NIKKI says:
What was I just saying about terrible films? I'm so over this shit. I hope.

So, Pink invites her sister to Paris to party, really. The sister is there for other, deeper reasons, but never really gets a chance to explore them, because Pin takes her to an underground party onto of a huge grave and she ends up getting the freak scared out of her, poor thing.

That was the one interesting element of this movie -- Shannyn Sossamon's character and her fear. But it really ended up meaning very little. I felt like I watched an 80 minute build up to a trick ending. Not good enough.

Was nice to see Pink acting. I could stand to watch that again. And I think Shannyn Sossamon is good, too. So, there was eye-candy.

Some scary moments (I was frightened most by what turned out to be a fuse box with a red light on it, oops), but basically ultra-standard and kind of annoying.

1.5/5

STEVE says:
This is a classic example of Predictable vs. Inevitable.

After setting up the urban legend of a goat-head-wearing fella who lives in the catacombs beneath Paris, Pink is killed by said goat-head guy at the 30 minute mark. Then it's another 80 minutes or so of run, run, run, chase, chase, chase, only to find out that Pink wasn't killed, and the goat-head guy was one of her friends in a mask.

We called this pretty early on, based solely on the goat-head guy. He was just too ridiculous to be real. A killer skulking around the catacombs, that's fine. Even a masked killer skulking around the catacombs, I'll buy. But is the skinned goat head really necessary? Not unless you're just looking to freak someone out.

If it was inevitable that it was a joke (and it could have been, as Pink's friends were set up as pranksters), we wouldn't have been able to call it. But the movie overplayed its hand and fell over the line into predictable. It still would have been boring, mind you, but at least we wouldn't have been sitting there waiting for the movie to catch up to us.

So it was pretty much April Fool's Day all over again. And we didn't enjoy that one the first time.

1.5/5

Numb, dir. Harris Goldberg (2007)

NIKKI says:
I was interested in this because the blurb had me thinking it was about a writer experiencing a blurred reality. Instead, it was about a man (who, quite incidentally, was a writer) experiencing "depersonalisation", a condition that sees the sufferer feeling separated from everything around him, as though he is viewing his life from outside it. This film chronicles the man's attempt to overcome the condition, and while much of it was interesting, a deal of it was not.

The problems started when the man, Hudson, falls in love with Quirky Girl. She's just so impossibly cute and strange and even though she's not quite as understanding of his quirks as he os of hers, he falls head over heels, and we're meant to, too. I didn't buy it. I wanted the film to focus on Hudson dealing with his problem, rather than trying to fit romance into his attempts to deal with his problem. If that makes sense.

The film began to fill up with subplots and sideviews and I lost interest in Hudson. I was especially disappointed in the Mary Steenburgen subplot that really went nowhere, and was kinda creepy.

Anyway... Matthew Perry is always great to watch. And I wondered throughout much of this just how many drugs I might be prescribed should I reveal my weirdnesses to a shrink. I think I checked off at least half Hudson's issues as my own. Oops.

2.5/5

25 February 2008

Skinwalkers, dir. James Issac (2006)

NIKKI says:
If there are worse movies out there, I'd like to see 'em.

Wait ... you know what I mean.

I've discovered a pattern: Nikki is tired, so wants to pick a short movie so she doesn't fall asleep. Steve is almost always open for anything, so Nikki picks the shortest movies available, which are usually crappy horror films. Nikki goes to bed annoyed that she can't just take speed, stay awake, and not watch crap.

Ugh. So, there's this gang of werewolves who need this kid to keep them alive or something. And so they go looking for the kid, who has a pretty mum who, of course, wants him to live. And there's another gang of werewolves that want the boy, too. So, werewolves fight with people and other werewolves, and lots of blood is shed, and there is a creepy red moon, and everything is sort of pointless and lame.

There was no skin walking. The make-up was awful. But I liked Jason Behr's tattoos.

1/5

STEVE says:
I don't even know what to say about this one.

Okay, so you've got your good werewolves and your bad werewolves. The bad werewolves want to kill some kid so they can remain werewolves, or something. The good werewolves are protecting the kid. Fine. We learn that one of the bad werewolves is the kid's dad and we're meant to be as shocked as the rest of the bad werewolves. We're not. We've come to expect this kind of thing.

But in the end, when the blood moon passes, and the time for killing the kid has passed, the dad werewolf just hooks up with the kid's mom as if he hasn't been trying to kill them for the past three days! 'Cos that makes sense, right?

About the only thing interesting about this movie was the fact that the werewolves were a throwback to the Lon Chaney, Jr. kind of werewolf from The Wolf Man - bipedal, vaguely wolfy, still clothed. Bad make-up, indeed, but interesting choice. Still, if I wanted to see that sort of thing, I'd just watch The Wolf Man.

1/5

24 February 2008

You Kill Me, dir. John Dahl (2007)

NIKKI says:
If this movie finally solidified something for me, it's that I really don't enjoy Ben Kingsley's acting. I remember when Sexy Beast was all the rage. I didn't really care, and I didn't go out of my way to see it, because something, somewhere along the line, has turned me off Ben Kingsley. I can't put my finger on what, exactly.

I can hazard a guess, however. Watching this movie, I felt an overwhelming arrogance from the main character that I don't believe I was supposed to feel. This is what happens when I watch this actor. I'm sure it's just me... I can't shake this feeling -- maybe I saw him in an interview or something and some sort of arrogant comment has stayed with me. I don't know, but this wasn't the best film anyway, so no big loss.

I enjoyed it's quirkiness, but I didn't find it all that memorable. I didn't really care about Frank's plight, I didn't care about the mob loyalties, and I didn't really care that he and the girl ended up perfect for each other. I only really liked Tom, Luke Wilson's character, and only because how can you not like Luke Wilson.

So ... meh.

2/5

STEVE says:
I'm not sure what I think of John Dahl. His films run from "just okay" (Red Rock West, The Last Seduction) to "not that good" (Rounders, Unforgettable), so when he brings out something that rises above the norm, it tends to stand out and make me think he's someone to watch.

You Kill Me is one of those movies. It had its quirks - the good kind, not the Juno kind - and kept my interest to the end. I came away thinking it was quite good... but nothing special. And maybe that's my problem with Dahl: he's a competent filmmaker and nothing more. I just have to remember that next time we pick up one of his movies.

2.5/5

22 February 2008

Hot Rod, dir. Akiva Schaffer (2007)

NIKKI says:
In this age of 120-minutes of sketch comedy disguised as film and improbable occurrences concerning menstrual blood passing for comedy (see: Superbad and Knocked Up), how refreshing it was to see Hot Rod. It might be from many of the same people involved in those other abominations, but this time they tone down the tastelessness in order to pull together a genuinely funny story. There's a lot of random humour, but somehow it works here. I'm guessing we cared more about Rod and his stunt-making because his dopiness came out of real naivete rather than utter stupidity or grossness. He wasn't a Solomon brother, let's say. He was more a Derek Zoolander, a model idiot with his heart in the right place. At any rate, he was someone worth cheering for.

I was concerned, though, that I wouldn't like Andy Samberg. He's one of those comedians you hear about, but unless you've got SNL, never actually see. His rubber face and screaming line delivery made me think he was being groomed as the next Will Ferrell or Adam Sandler, and though there is much of that in his performance here, it's not so bad that it overwhelms his other talents, such as his earnestness, on display, for instance, when he explains to Denise about his lack of Hammer-style legitimacy. I liked him here, and would watch him again.

As much as I liked Samberg, I also liked all the other SNL alums here that I've hated in so many other films -- Bill Hader, Chris Parnell, etc. This movie proved that these people can use their particular style of humour for good and not evil. I even liked the ridiculous '80s movie riffing which has just become so boring and obvious lately.

My Top Five Moments in Hot Rod
5. Rod chooses a "safety word" to help him if he gets in trouble while performing a downhill slalom.
4. The grilled cheese / taco fight.
3. The "You're the Voice" moment that becomes a riot -- "what the hell!?"
2. "Don't let you dads eat pie!"
1. Punch-dance.
The punch-dance beefs it up a whole extra point for me.

3.5/5

STEVE says:
Oh, Hot Rod.

You were indeed better and funnier than I was expecting. But that's not saying a hell of a lot. I'm comparing you to Will Ferrell comedies, and most anything from the Judd Apatow camp. Not fair, perhaps, but I've become jaded after years of stupid sketch comedy masquerading as feature films.

And in the end, you were really nothing more than that. But you were not as bad as most. And for that, you have my respect.

3/5

21 February 2008

In the Valley of Elah, dir. Paul Haggis (2007)

NIKKI says:
Thanks God for Paul Haggis. Without him, we might not know racism is bad, or that war severely fucks with people. In his latest opus, Haggis blinds the viewer with stellar photography, rich performances, and the odd prophetic statement so that you just might not see that what he says with In the Valley of Elah is not as elegant and grand as you might first think.

It's the day after our viewing, and I'm finding myself offended by this film more than simply disappointed in it. It makes me think of Courage Under Fire and Platoon and other films that try hard to genuinely let us see the destruction of the psyche caused by wartime experiences. Instead, Haggis gives us posturing. Tommy Lee Jones has experienced war, you see, and so he's an authority, and a super detective. Everyone else is just lame or corrupt. But it takes the horrible death of his horrible son to make Tommy Lee see that perhaps America is in a time of crisis and so he turns that flag upside down, but, man, if he's served his country enough to chastise others in a "what do you know, you've never been to war"-type fashion, then surely atrocity has stared him in the face before? Why only now is he worried for his country?

This same stuff ruined Crash. Sandra Bullock has a go about the Hispanic man changing her locks, she freaks out when she passes a couple of black guys in the street, like people of different races are aliens or something. And boy will they get their comeuppance and be forced to see the light. Would you save a black girl from a burning car? What?!

Haggis just overstates his points so much. War is bad, war is deadly, was is evil, mistakes happen in war, kids get corrupted by war, people die in war, people are mean when put in evil situations. Shut up already and tell me something I don't know.

I think this movie went down hill for me when Charlize was getting taunted mid-interview by her fellow officers. That just wouldn't happen, and you just knew it was there to set up the horrors that happen later on to the interviewee at the hands of a war vet. Ready? Write this down: War fucks with people. I already saw Lawrence blow himself away in Full Metal Jacket -- again, tell me something new.

What's next for Paul Haggis? One for the ladies? Let me guess? It'll be called Rape, or In the Garden with a Naked Eve, and it'll be about slutty chicks with high IQs, that get raped and tortured just to show us that women can be sexual creatures without being called sluts. One will work at McDonalds, the other at Price Waterhouse, and the McDonalds chick will be raped by a minister or something equally ham-fisted.

Anyway...

2/5

20 February 2008

We Own the Night, dir. James Gray (2007)

NIKKI says:
What the hell happened? It was like I started out watching a movie about brothers and loyalties and drugs in 1980s New York and then suddenly I found myself in the middle of some strange testimonial to the goodness of cops.

I just don't know what to think of this. The first third of the film was interesting and reasonably engrossing, and then suddenly Joaquin becomes a cop, and it's all -- yes, you can help us with this case and just join the academy later. What? Is that really how it happens, that the son of a decorated officer can simply take and exam and join the force in the middle of a case he is peripherally related to? Far-fetched? Then again, it was the '80s.

In the end, I really felt very little for these characters. I understand what I was supposed to feel -- brothers trapped by family loyalty and their chosen directions in life. Still, I find it very hard to believe that the Russian mafia men hadn't researched Joaquin's character enough to find out who his family was -- he didn't appear to be outwardly hiding anything. Convoluted, maybe? That might be the pervading feeling here.

I did enjoy, however, the relationship between Joaquin and Eva Mendes -- I thought they were developed well, and were quite believable. Still, that wasn't enough to keep me interested. Cardboard characters, typical plot turns (the mafioso father figure turns on Joaquin just as his actual father takes a hit), a horribly flawed ending. It's been compared to The Departed, but it comes nowhere close.

2/5

There Will Be Blood, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (2007)

NIKKI says:
I know there was a good movie in there somewhere, something stunning and grand, but -- similar to my first viewing of Magnoila -- I didn'y wholly see it.

What I did see, though, was an engrossing story of a man driven by his deepest personal flaws -- the need to be the best, the richest, to outdo everyone and everything. The challenges that wear down his bravado are interesting, compelling, and sometimes devastating to witness (the revelation that Henry is not who he says he is, for instance). The conflict between Plainview and the young preacher, Eli Sunday, is equally compelling. The scenes here that features just the two of them are great. There are so many great moments here, but I don't know that they piece together as well as I wanted them to.

I thought the time shifts were often too abrupt, and much, as far as character motivations and repercussions of certain events, were overlooked or sidestepped. Still, it was a fascinating watch, especially Daniel Day-Lewis, psychotically brilliant as always. It was interesting, too, to see the continued evolution of Paul Thomas Anderson. The direction and cinematography here were both good.

I might need to watch this a few more times, headphones on, face to the TV screen -- I might come to idolize it as with Magnolia.

3/5

19 February 2008

Rambo, dir. Sylvester Stallone (2008)

NIKKI says:
"I didn't kill for my country. I killed for myself. And for that, I don't believe God can forgive me."

That Rocky Balboa worked so well, left me with few doubts Stallone would make something effective out of the John Rambo character 20 years on.

The new film is harsh and uncompromising. It's also filled with strong political views aimed at Christian missionaries, gung-ho mercenaries, devastated Myanmar, and, of course, the US government.

It works because it's so uncompromising, because it refuses to be an air-headed action movie. There's no room for popcorn here, and finally Rambo can be viewed as more than just a mulleted '80s action hero. It's clear how much respect Stallone has for the character and his predicament. He knows Rambo, or his version of Rambo, well, and it shows. Rambo is smart and dedicated and he tells it like it is, but Stallone lets him be damaged and bull-headed and not always right. The effects of his training have lasted in terms of his physical capabilities, but also his emotional stress.

Stallone lets all of this out in what is really a simple story. The missionaries wish to get food and medical help to the terrorized Burmese. Rambo warns them against entering such a hostile area, but they feel they know best. Rambo takes them where they wish to go, and the missionaries wind up killed or kidnapped. Now, Rambo must go in and find them. He guides the mercenaries in and becomes a part of their group, intent on saving the missionaries, not because he feels he has to but because Sarah, the wife of one of the missionaries, challenges him early on that he talks a big game, but what does he have to live for? And that while he might know the ravages of Burma enough to warn her away, she knows something about the good in the world, and that true good does exist -- you just can't see it hidden in the jungle beside a war-torn country.

So Rambo has something to prove, in the end. That he's not emotionally dead. And where he ends up at the end of the film is absolutely spot-on where he needed to go. It's a great ending.

If I had one gripe, it would be the lack of detail about the Burmese soldiers and the reasons behind their destruction.

After two new films, I'm wanting Stallone to keep writing. He clearly has something to say. He's a smart, competent writer, and a fearless filmmaker (stories on the set of Rambo with the elephants moving equipment and the bugs and the snakes are reminiscent of Werner Herzog or Coppola on Apocalypse Now). I want him to leave the old characters alone and come up with some new ones.

4/5

STEVE says:
Never been a huge Rambo fan. In fact, 80s Stallone turned me off completely - Over the Top, Cobra, Lock-Up - all that testosterone flying around, someone could get hurt. Not to mention what he did to Rocky, taking a street-tough-made-good and (quite literally) wrapping him in the American flag, turning him into a political icon instead of a symbol of the common man. The Rambo movies just seemed an extension of that philosophy. Where First Blood had a point to make, Rambo II and III were just more of the same flag-waving, might-is-right bullshit that came out of the Reagan era.

Last year's Rocky Balboa marked a comeback for Stallone, as an actor, writer, and director. It brought Rocky full-circle, making it a fitting end to the series. With Rambo, Stallone does the same for his haunted Viet Nam vet, bringing him back to the country that rejected him and - if not outright giving it to him - at least implying a sense of peace. It was really much better than I'd expected.

Although he could have left that red headband at home.

3.5/5

18 February 2008

Underdog, dir. Frederick Du Chau (2007)

NIKKI says:
How could it not be cute? I went into this wit a vague recollection of the cartoon, so I wasn't concerned about it living up to anything. It turned out to be one of those movies you can just relax and enjoy because it's sole purpose is to entertain and be way cute.

I found out during the film that it represented the cartoon very well. Underdog's real name was Shoeshine in the movie, and he was a shoeshine boy in the cartoon, that kind of thing. Tossing real humans into the mix only made it better I reckon, as the dogs had people to play off and react to which added to their cuteness and helped shape their humanoid personalities.

The best thing, I reckon, was Jason Lee as the voice of Underdog. He's so funny anyway that throwing his voice into a super cute dog can only work. Underdog, then, had this cheeky charm and a bone-dry humour that really suited him.

I loved it. It's definitely a keeper.

3/5

STEVE says:
I'll admit it, I was not thrilled about watching this one. It seemed to me just another example of something I thoroughly enjoyed in my youth being pillaged for profit. And from Disney, no less. But Underdog surprised me. Sure, the anthropomorphic animals from the cartoon were nixed and replaced by talking dogs with human familiars. But what did it matter that Polly Purebred wasn't a reporter, when her master was? Okay, so it wasn't the original, but the filmmakers definitely took care to preserve the spirit of the original - unlike some other films I could mention.

Lee definitely didn't hurt. His amiable personality shone through and helped make the live action premise easier to swallow. But worth mentioning also - indeed, probably worth the price of the rental - are Peter Dinklage as Simon Barsinister and Patrick Warburton as his sidekick, Cad. Dinklage once again shows that he's one of the best actors around today, even in a silly mad scientist role, and Warburton... well, he's Puddy all over again. And how bad can that be?

3/5

17 February 2008

Hitman, dir. Xavier Gens (2007)

NIKKI says:
I was prepared for schlock, and that's what I got. Which isn't to say the movie was entirely intolerable. I kind of liked the whole hitman-becomes-the-hunted thing, and I thought Tim and the girl had some interesting scenes. But it really just was not a good film. It wasn't in the league of an Alone in the Dark, though.

Hmm, it's hard. Knowing nothing of the source material, I went in expecting a big action film possibly in the style of a Bourne Identity or Casino Royale. And, in a way, it reminded me of those films, with its attempt at an espionage-y ploy and a suave leading man who can just beat up everyone and walk away unscathed. But it was hindered, too, possibly in its desire to replicate the game it's based on because while there's some good action, there's very little humour, almost no personality. Tim's character felt more like a robot than a real person, and I don't think that was the point. There were too many stupid moments (seems Tim's hitman is the only one who can shoot straight; he gets around with his barcode on display) to really make this enjoyable.

I read somewhere that sequels are planned. I really hope Tim cuts his losses and escapes now.

1/5

STEVE says:
There has never been a good video game-to-movie adaptation. Ever.

Hitman is no exception.

1/5

16 February 2008

Atonement, dir. Joe Wright (2007)

NIKKI says:
I wasn't sure what to expect with this movie as I had such a terrible time with the book a few years ago. My problem, from memory, had much to do with Ian McEwan's style, which I found quite dry and emotionless. I was also disappointed by the sort-of twist ending, something I feel has been done to death -- this happened, no wait, it was really this! -- and, therefore, felt more like an easy way out than an authentic conclusion, no matter how unquestionably sad the "real" ending is.

The movie was better. I was less bored, by any rate. Still, something didn't quite pull together for me. The story is compelling, and critics are right when they talk about how well it unfolds. But, we know the truth from the ery beginning, so it's not suspenseful, it's not a mystery, it's simply a waiting game to see the extent of the pain inflicted on these characters by one's misunderstanding of young romance between opposing classes.

That Briony takes so many years to realise her error and confront it is slightly unrealistic to me. She might be fanciful, but she's still human, and I would think she'd take steps to right her wrongs long before she eventually does. I also think, as with the book, the ending could have been different. I think the conclusion could have taken place in "real" time, with Briony at 18, rather than 70-odd. It could have been done.

Still, a good film, with some issues.

3/5

STEVE says:
Ricky Gervais is doing one of those "lateral thinking" puzzles with his friend Karl Pilkington. He says (and I'm paraphrasing, here), "A man walks into a pool of sharks, hungry, man-eating sharks, and comes out the other side, untouched. How?" Karl wracks his brain: "He's wearing armour?" "No." "He's crossing a bridge?" "No, in the pool with the sharks, soaking wet, comes out the other side." When Karl finally gives up, and asks Ricky what the answer is, Ricky's reply is, "I lied, there were no sharks."

That's how I felt about the end of this movie. If you're going to show me your story, and then tell me you just made that last bit up, but all the rest of it was true, couldn't you just leave the last bit out, maybe?

I was with this movie for the first 48 minutes. Intriguing, suspenseful, well-written and directed. But then we move onto the war scene that goes on and on for something like 25 minutes, only to find that the first 20 or so didn't matter so much. Great cinematography aside, when I have time to notice a Steadicam shot that runs for close to five minutes, my mind is clearly not being held by whatever the scene is meant to convey.

I'm giving it a 3/5, but that's mostly for the first 48 minutes and the promise of what could have been.

15 February 2008

Day of the Dead, dir. Steve Miner (2008)

NIKKI says: In George A. Romero's new Diary of the Dead, a student shows his zombie movie to a friend, who chides him: "How many times have I told you? Dead things don’t move that fast."

Good one. I wonder how pissed George was at Steve Miner for using super-fast zombies in a remake of George's own Day of the Dead. He might have been okay with it, actually. Because there's too much other stuff to hate to really worry about that little point.

Why did they do this? Why did Steve Miner do this? And is Mena Suvari really that hard up? This felt like a companion piece to Dead and Deader -- low budget, bad acting, half a script. I couldn't believe I was watching actual actors in some scenes. They felt out of place in such a shlocky piece of work. The make-up was awful, the jump-cuts and swooshy camera moves were derivative and un-scary. None of the major themes ever came to a satisfying conclusion (zombies with memories, the army's use of human guinea pigs).

The whole thing started out crappily but with a tiny bit of promise. Not all the characters were insufferable, and we felt like perhaps we might care about Mena and her family. She was also doing real well in the Kick-Ass-Horror-Chicks stakes, a la Sarah Polley in the Dawn of the Dead remake. But the story, the direction (sorry Steve), and a complete lack of purpose from the entire creative team here, let her down. Way down.

Another shitty remake that does more to kill the genre than keep it alive. And now that we have George himself making socially relevant zombie flicks, why do we need the imitators and copycats at all?

1/5

STEVE says:
Okay, so Zombies can run now. Fine, I'm over it. But when the fuck did they gain the ability to crawl on the ceiling?

The original Day of the Dead worked as both an extension of Romero's original idea, and a stand-alone film. This new one works as neither. It's just embarrassing.

1/5

14 February 2008

Conversations with Other Women, dir. Hans Canosa (2005)

NIKKI says:
This was a pleasant surprise. We had two movies ready and waiting for tonight, Hitman and the recent Day of the Dead remake. Both would have been good, crappy fun. But both scared us a bit, as good crappy fun the last few nights has turned into SHITTY HORRIBLE LAMENESS.

Instead, we decided to go with something potentially more romantic (being Valentine's Day and all), and the blurb for Conversations made it sound both romantic and a little bit supernatural.

Turns out, I'd misinterpreted the supernatural thing. It's not that the main characters have shared a past life or anything, they've simply shared time together, in their pasts. Makes much more sense now. As much as the film was romantic, too, it was also quite tragic. It revealed some great truths about people and the connections we make when we spend not just time together, but important developmental time together.

The couple here were together as young adults, were married, and spent a lot of time as the centre of each others' world, genuinely in love. Then it went bad, and they stopped seeing each other. Years later, and they are thrown together as part of a wedding ceremony. She's back in the country for one night, and he spends that night trying very hard to get her back. Even though he is seeing someone else, and she's married with kids to another man.

The film is basically one long conversation, and it works very well. It's tense at times, romantic at others. It's quite realistic, never overly sentimental. It was really great to watch a couple on screen that felt like a real couple, that said things you have said, felt things you have felt, without some kind of Hollywood sheen over the top of it all.

And, weirdly, Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart shared believable chemistry -- something I wouldn't have thought possible as she's usually so icy, and he's usually kinda cocky and manly. She really broke him down, and though she was aloof at times, she was never really bitchy. Their connection felt authentic.

I enjoyed this a lot.

3.5/5

13 February 2008

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, dir. The Brothers Strause (2007)

STEVE says:
I don't know what depresses me more: a shitty low-budget Indie flick like Pumpkin Karver, or a shitty big-budget studio flick like AvP:R (oh, how trendy). And to think, I said to Nikki only last month, "Surely it can't be worse than the first one."

I don't know what the hell I was thinking. With the exception of Fincher's Alien 3, which I thought was way-cool, the Alien movies have been getting progressively worse with each installment, and Predator 2 was so bad that it strangled the whole franchise to death, sparing us Robert Rodriguez' Predator 3 (a western, if you can buy that). Why should the AvP series be any better?

No question, AvP:R was bad. But it wasn't even So-Bad-It's-Good bad; It was Uwe Bolle bad. There was no material there to have fun with on any level. It picks up where the last one left off, then it's just carnage, carnage, character we don't care much about, more carnage, more cookie-cutter characters, carnage, explosion, end. Fuck me, man - 83 minutes of this shit.

I will never again underestimate Hollywood's contempt for the movie-going public.

0.5/5

NIKKI says:
About three quarters of the way through this movie, Steve quizzed me: "I'll give you a dollar for every character you can name." I thought I'd win quite a bit -- remembering names is my thing. Turns out I could remember only one, and that was because I thought it was stupid. I can't remember any of the other characters at all. Not then, not now.

This was probably the most insipid film I've seen this year. Pumpkin Karver was bad, but you can tell someone tried. This movie just doesn't even care. It serves absolutely no purpose beyond the quick buck. But, it is possible to make that buck with an okay script. I don't get this at all.

Just beyond bad. The worst of the worst.

0.5/5

[Steve also watched Blade Runner again.]

12 February 2008

Once, dir. John Carney (2006)

NIKKI says:
They kept telling me this was the movie to see. I'd heard from all over the place -- reviews, ads, friends, best-of lists -- that I would regret passing this by. I wasn't racing out to find it, only because the words "greatest musical film of this generation", or whatever the poster says, immediately made me think PRETENTIOUS, but when I got a preview tape, I couldn't wait to have a look.

And I wasn't disappointed. By no means the best movie ever made, it was still a beautiful thing. Just two people finding each other and bonding over music. Both are living stagnant lives, and through a series of events over a short period, they end up freeing each other. It's just gorgeous to watch how it all comes together -- quietly, poetically, and utterly without pretension.

It's greatest features are its music and its stars. Outspan from The Commitments is in it, and sings all the songs! Price of admission right there!

I loved this one. I got wrapped fully up in it.

4/5

11 February 2008

Pumpkin Karver, dir. Robert Mann (2006)

STEVE says:
With a "k". That should have been our first clue that what started out as a promising low-budget slasher flick would soon turn into yet another shitty movie with annoying teens who you can't wait to see killed off.

We called this one early on - turns out it's just another take on the Fight Club gag of the the protagonist being the antagonist - so we spent pretty much 70% of the movie with a "get on with it" attitude, which didn't help.

And I'm sorry but this is a slasher flick, not The Bells of St. Mary's - is it too much to ask for a little nudity anymore? Especially in a movie with actresses named, no kidding, Minka, Mistie, Rachelle, Briana, Amber and Charity? I mean come on!

1/5

NIKKI says:
They become harder and harder to resist, these krazy slasher flicks that some folks make with no money and no talent. I think it's time we stop telling ourselves "never again" and start saying "bring them on!" It's our own form of self-torture, and it's time we embraced it!

Oh god, this was the height of LAME. As soon as the guy with horns started feeling up the pink-bra-ed sister, I knew we were in for something beyond crappy. Good movies just don't start like that. And then the guy sprays beer on the main kid and burps in his face. Well, you just know he'll die, and you have a sneaking suspicion the kid will do it.

We then head to a party a year later complete with sluts, slags, a creepy old man, stoners, and a shitty band. People get wasted, no-one noticing they're missing until too late, the killer never gets so much as a drop of blood on himself, no one sees him ever setting up his elaborate kills, or going mildly insane, talking and screaming to himself.

It's all so convenient, so thrown together in a day or two. And, as Steve lamented, not a single boob. Failure at every level. Here's hoping there's a sequel.

1/5

10 February 2008

Running, dir. Steven Hilliard Stern (1979)

NIKKI says:
If nothing else, this movie will go down in history because it inspired Steve and I to finally collaborate on a full-length script. We're nearly 20 pages in, and so far, it's hilarious. I won't go into detail, it's just too good an idea to share!

Running was okay. One of those '70s family drama deals that I simply cannot resist. In this one, running is a metaphor for freedom and Michael Douglas is the runner, who can't seem to control his life -- he is unemployed, signing divorce papers, laughed at by his oldest kid -- but running keeps him contented. So, he decides to enter the Olympics. He figures winning the Olympic marathon will give bring back that lost control.

So, you see, there are more metaphors there than you can poke numerous sticks at. And, in the end, just like Rocky, Michael Douglas learns that perhaps winning isn't everything.

A decent afternoon flick.

3/5

09 February 2008

Christine, dir. John Carpenter (1983)

STEVE says:
There's so much wrong with this movie, and it all starts in the opening scene.

Detroit, 1957. Plymouth Furies are rolling off the assembly line to "Bad to the Bone" - a song that wouldn't be recorded for another 22 years by George Thorogood, who - at this time during the movie - was three months shy of his fifth birthday. Surely there was a song from the 50s that could have been used here to imply Christine's inherent evil, no?

During this, one of the workers steps up to Christine, opens her hood and leans down to inspect the work. The hood slams down on his hand, showing us that Christine isn't just alive, but a mean-spirited bitch as well. Okay, she's established. We can move on. But, no! We're then treated to the sight of another worker climbing inside Christine, flicking the radio on and ashing his cigar on her front seat, where he is later found dead. I'm not sure what the point of this second bit was, apart from setting her up as mean and spiteful as well, but that seems silly in light of the hood-chomping bit. We could have used one or the other here, we didn't need both. So five minutes in and Carpenter has already wasted half that time.

Then there are the "teens". They're meant to be about 17 or 18, and most of them were born in '61 or '62, making them only 20 or 21 when the movie was filmed. Still probably got carded at that stage, so Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Kelly Preston and Alexandra Paul don't stick out. But William Ostrander, who played Buddy Repperton, was closing in on 24 at the time, and not a young-looking 24, either. He could have passed for Stockwell's dad in this. But it's Stuart Charno who tips the scales - born in 1956, he was closing in on 30. There is no excuse - unless they've got the eternal youth of an Emmanuel Lewis or Ellen Page - for casting someone this old to play a high schooler.

It's also rather unclear as to when Arnie became aware that his car was spontaneously regenerating. He's seen fitting her with hubcaps that he'd scavanged from Darnell's junk yard, but Darnell himself points out that Arnie's work is backwards, as he'd fitted the car with new wiper blades, but had yet to repair the windshield. How much of this work was Arnie doing, and how much was due to Christine's regeneration? Halfway through, after she's trashed by Repperton and his pals - why she didn't repair herself before anyone showed up that morning, either, is never explained - she starts to regenerate right before Arnie's eyes. He says, "Show me," and she goes to town, implying that he's just learning of her abilities. But the paint - autumn red - that he apparently used on her hasn't been available for years, implying that she regenerated even that from the beginning. Now he had to know about that, yeah?

There were some good things about it. The performances by Gordon, Stockwell and co. fit perfectly to their stereotype (although Arnie was maybe just too much of a geek for me to believe he's taking shop courses), and Ostrander made a great bully - but might have been better suited to a prison movie or something at the time. The soundtrack that comprised Christine's "voice" was classic, as was Carpenter's score, specifically the "love theme" that sounded just a wee bit like the wedding march. And the lens flares that accompanied Christine's rampages were effective as well.

I want to see it remade. I want to see age-appropriate teens. I want to see the plot-holes filled in, sanded down and painted over.

And I want to see Keith Gordon direct it.

2/5

NIKKI says:
Oh Lord. I admit I was a bit shocked when Steve said he wanted to continue our mini-Stephen King marathon with Christine. First, I felt like I'd just seen it, though we last watched it five years ago. And, second, I was fairly sure we picked out its numerous faults back then, too. But, we went ahead anyway, and were (not surprisingly) disappointed.

This is one of those movies I know all too well. I first watched it as a kid, maybe about 10 or 11, and bits of it are seared into my memory...

Top 3 Things From Christine That Haunted 10-Year-Old Me

1. The excessive use of the word, "cunt": This was the first time I'd ever heard the 'c' word in a movie. I remember just being freaked out by it. I've never, ever heard (or read) the name 'Cunningham' without inserting the 't' in my mind.

2. Roberts Blossom: For the longest time, I thought he was wearing a torn-up straight-jacket. He's just so damn creepy in this, even though he's very much the seer, the voice of reason. Still, he sells Arnie the car, so he's actually too blame for pretty much everything here.

3. The lights turning on down the alley!: What's more scary than that? The car just chasing these punks. She stares and she waits. It's so fucking scary. It's such a pity much of the film isn't great, because some of Carpenter's scares are impressive, even all these years later.
...and those things remain scary and weird to me. But I was less discerning then, and had yet to really understand what an ego-maniac John Carpenter could be, and how bad a director he could be, and just how poorly King translates when key elements of his stories are withdrawn from screenplays. Steve's main pet-peeve here is Arnie's lack of real development from nerdy wiener to Jim Stark-like mini-bohunk who gets the girls and snaps at everyone around him. That's a major oversight here. His affair with Christine lacks punch. She needed him as much as he needed her, and apart from a few tiny moments, we never really get that sense. That deep sense that they belong together for their own reasons.

This is more an easy scare-'em-up picture than a true examination of the effects of nerddom on the weak. Or whatever. The movie is more pick-the-plotholes now, though. Why didn't Christine kill the vandals when they started wrecking her up? Exactly when and how did Arnie learn of her powers? And on.

I like this movie for its cheesy goodness, but hate it for so many other things, too. Still, a bad Keith Gordon movie is still a good night in.

2/5

American Psycho, dir. Mary Harron (2000)

STEVE says:
When I saw American Psycho upon its initial release, I hadn't read the book and knew nothing of the twist ending. I wasn't actually looking forward to seeing it, now that I think about it, because the trailer left me with the impression that Christian Bale was overacting to the point of absurdity, and I didn't know if I could sit through an hour and a half of that.

Of course he was overacting, that was the whole point of the Patrick Bateman character, and I realized it immediately in his interactions with his co-workers. And the twist ending was such a stunner to me that I don't think I fully accepted it until I was walking to my car, long after the credits had rolled.

So it came as a great shock that my friend Claudius (with whom I watched American Psycho tonight) said he picked it four minutes in, when Bateman is telling the barmaid, behind her back, that he's going to kill her.

I see it as inevitable - he's totally insane, never killed anyone, so the threats he makes to people, and the murders we see him perpetrate are all interior monologue and fantasy, something you can only pick up in retrospect. Claude saw it as predictable - that one scene in the very beginning gave it away, and all the murder scenes only served to back it up.

Either way, the movie still holds up to subsequent viewings. The indictment of 80s greed and mass consumption is handled better here than in Wall Street, for example, because it's a subtext and not the driving force. It would be a stretch to call the movie subtle, but I think "predictable" is just as wrong. I don't know if Claude will be watching it again any time in the near future, but I could stand to watch it again. If only for Bale's performance, which I now see not as his overacting, but Bateman's overcompensating.

4/5

Nikki did not view.

08 February 2008

Children of the Corn, dir. Fritz Kiersch (1984)

NIKKI says:
After watching The Mist, we thought we might have another look at some other Stephen King adaptations in our collection. I think I have already blocked the conversation that led to our selection here. You see, I'm systematically attempting to block the entire experience from my mind. Hopefully, Isaac screaming "They want you, too, Malachai!!!" will be the next thing to go.

What the fuck? I remember watching this movie as kid and thinking it was too cool. I know I've seen it more than once in my life, but I'm shocked at how little of it I actually held on to. Perhaps my brain knew how bad it was and started to erase the film by itself? I'd forgotten about "he who walks behind the rows" actually being real, which is, like, the main part of the movie. I remember bits of it -- the Monopoly game, a few random stabbings, Malachai and his scythe. I'd also forgotten, I guess, about the rampant plot holes, the narration to no-one that abruptly ceases once the story kicks in, and the heinous overacting by everyone involved.

The poster says "the original that started it all". I'm wondering now if that means the Corn series, which is up to about 13 by now. Or the long, growing run of horrible King adaptations?

1/5

STEVE says:
So incredibly bad. Where does one start?

King's short story opened with Burt and Vicky arguing as they drive toward Gatlin, Nebraska, and running down a child when Burt's attention was somewhere other than on the road. As the story progresses, they learn that the kid had been killed before they hit him with the car, and that the town of Gatlin is now a ghost town. Except for the children. They further learn that the children killed their parents, and subsequently offer themselves to He Who Walks Behind The Rows on the last night of their 18th year. Pretty creepy.

This shitefest of a movie opens with the slaying of the parents, removing any mystery or suspense from the story at about the three-minute mark. When Vicky and Burt are introduced, it's in an "aren't they cute together" scene in a motel room, which makes their arguing in the car a bit confounding. During all this, the film is narrated by Jobe, an 8 year old Child of said Corn, but his narration disappears half-way through the movie, and as he and his sister, Sarah, leave town with Burt and Vicky in the end, one is left to wonder just who the hell he's telling this story to in the first place.

Listen, I know it was only a 20 page short story, and that it's bound to take a lot of padding to flesh it out to a feature length movie, but one hopes that such padding would amount to more than just Peter Horton slinking around a barn for 20 minutes, and a prolonged scene at a creepy gas station that does nothing whatsoever to further the plot.

There was no excuse for this, let alone the seven sequels.

1/5

07 February 2008

The Mist, dir. Frank Darabont (2008)

NIKKI says:
Our first time in the cinema together for far too long. So, the fact that we were way down the front, metres from the big read curtain was enough to make this experience fun. The fact that the movie was actually pretty good made it even better. I wasn't expecting to dislike the film, but I didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did. I was worried Thomas Jane might suck, but he was actually very good. Why I thought he'd suck, I don't quite know. Possibly the amount of times I've had to return Stander into the system at work. That just makes him look like a Van Damme wannabe.

So, the movie was good. I got scared heaps. It was really tense in some places. I was disappointed that the creatures all looked way fake, even though Steve tried to explain his view of the bad CG effects, I still don't know if they really meant them to be that bad? The whole movie was so serious, and would they really spend that much money to intentionally be so NOT scary-looking? I don't know -- perhaps he can explain that better. The big ant thing at the end, though, looked good. Why that one? Ugh -- anyway. I let the effects, good or bad, go early on. After I Am Legend, I think I've finally realised that no amount my complaining will make Hollywood see just how HORRIBLE its new technology is. Besides all that, it was a good movie.

I had major issues when it finished regarding the end. I did not think such cruelty was at all necessary. But then Steve and I discussed it a bit and we realised Frank Darabont altered the ending in the only way he could. His desire was to un-Hollywoodise the ending, and he did that. I think my reaction at the end was kind of me wanting the Hollywood ending and when I thought about Darabont's reasons for taking that away from me, I couldn't help but respect him.

So, yeah. Good monster movie that proves King can be done well.

3/5

STEVE says:
What bothered me about The Mist wasn't the much-talked-about ending, but the lack of detail that King paid such attention to in the original story. The build-up to the storm; Drayton's last look at his wife as he and Norton went into town; the old couple slamming into the automatic doors; or the way the creature tore the young kid's red apron off him - "you need that like a hen needs a flag", Drayton thought. These things, though incidental to the plot, helped build the story, and they were sorely missed in Frank Darabont's movie. This is a shame because Darabont has been a stickler for such detail, where possible, in his previous King adaptations.

I understand that a lot of this was probably done in a desire to get right to the action, get us into the supermarket and have the titular mist arrive right on time at the 20 minute mark. Dawdling with Drayton's wife or starting the story much before the storm would have thrown this off. But it didn't make me miss it any less.

I wasn't as bothered as Nikki by the CGI monstrosities. It was damn good CGI, compared to some we've seen recently, and not even Lucas has been able to give us CGI that is 100% convincing. CGI monsters in a movie like this are de riguer - like seeing a zipper run up the monster's back in pre-CG times. Hell, a fake monster is going to look like a fake monster, no matter what is used to bring it to life.

And I have to say, I didn't mind the changed ending, either. In fact, I think it was exactly the ending necessary for the film. The original ending - Drayton writing his story down on Howard Johnson's stationery as he and his group of survivors head to Hartford, CT - would have translated poorly to film, leaving the audience with something of an anti-climax. And, though I don't generally like the idea of bringing the end of the world under control, it worked here in relation to what Drayton felt was the only way out for his son and the rest of the group.

Even with these arguable flaws, this is one of the best, most literal King translations to date, and that bumps it up an extra half-star for me.

3.5/5

06 February 2008

Apollo 13, dir. Ron Howard (1995)

The Stepford Wives, dir. Bryan Forbes (1975)

NIKKI says:
This one of those movies I've always been meaning to see. I don't exactly know why I've never gotten around to it. Possibly because I was waiting to read the book, yet never found a copy of the book anywhere to just randomly pick up. Steve mentioned an interest in seeing this one recently, so I decided to just go for it, book or no book.

What an amazing film. This is the exact reason I love this project. Because these little classics are just waiting for us. And there's so many we've overlooked, even with the amount of films we've both seen in our lives. This one hit every note perfectly: its comedy, its satire, its drama, and, you might say, its horror. The writing was stellar (thanks, of course, to William Goldman), as was the acting. We were captivated right from the start. We had characters we cared about, and the creepiest of situations that just kept us fascinated by what was coming next.

Katharine Ross was so good. Her slow realisation that something is wrong in Stepford is thrilling to watch. How can she not look mental when screaming: "When you come back, there will be a woman with my name and my face, she'll cook and clean like crazy, but she won't take pictures and she won't be me!" But her resistance to the townsfolk and their way of life and her dedication to discovering the truth of the Men's Club is so brilliant. Goldman (probably from the book) gives her some great humour, too, so she really does seem like a progressive woman before her time even as a New York artist prior to her move to Crazy Town.

I'm shocked this film didn't win more awards. I've just learned it didn't receive Oscar nominations or anything. That's mental. Underrated and underappreciated, for sure. I'll definitely go back and read the book when I find it. Levin is so great when it comes to cultural and societal satire. This is just all-around great.

4/5

STEVE says:
In the opening scene of The Stepford Wives, Joanne Eberhart and her family are moving out of their Manhattan apartment. Scuttling the children into a waiting taxi, Joanne sees someone crossing the street, carrying a naked female mannequin. She steps out and snaps some pictures of the spectacle, only to be berated by her husband for forgetting to pack something.

This is why William Goldman is a great screenwriter.

Once they've moved into their cozy Stepford home, Joanne's husband asks "Have you ever made it in front of a fireplace?" Joanne's flippant response is, "Not with you."

This is why William Goldman is the greatest screenwriter ever.

After her husband joins the local men's club, Joanne meets some of the other prominent Stepford husbands, among them, Dale "Dis" Coba. He's watching her make coffee for the other husbands, and she catches him staring at her. "I like watching women do menial tasks." Joanne doesn't take kindly to this. She asks him why they call him Dis. "I used to work at Disneyland." Joanne doesn't buy this. "You don't seem like the kind of person who's interested in making people happy." Later, after all the Stepford madness starts happening, Joanne is talking to a therapist, telling her what's been happening to all the women in Stepford, how they're turning into automatons, robots, "like one of those robots in Disneyland".

And this is why William Goldman is a God among men.

4/5

05 February 2008

Year of the Dog, dir. Mike White (2007)

NIKKI says:
I was excited to see this movie. The trailer made it look sweet, and, being a dog lover, I figured it held extra promise on a personal level. The Cat Stevens song thrown in was enough for me not even to question that this was the film for me. That it was written by Mike White was no real detraction -- I did love School of Rock after all.

How deceiving trailers can be, right? The movie started out reasonably well, even though a cute puppy died. Still, I figured such heartbreak would lead to something beautiful -- it didn't. Our heroine just became insane and unstable, with no real explanation why. So she was lonely, so she missed her dog -- how, again, did we end up at a chicken slaughterhouse?

About halfway through I was desperate for it all to be over. Suddenly, everything that made it quaint and intriguing in the beginning just became grating and horrible. Peter Sarsgaard's lowly dog-trainer was suddenly an insufferable bore, Laura Dern's over-protective mum was a fucking shrew, Thomas McCarthy as her husband was all but pointless, and Regina King's feisty best friend was stupid and annoying. The worst offender, though, was the main character. Her love of dogs was admirable early on, with her trying to get her little niece to understand why eating meat is bad and such. But then she ends up taking it to levels far too ridiculous when she rescues something like 15 dogs from an animal shelter. Does she realise, as we do, that the dogs couped up and living in their own filth in her apartment is not the best option for them?

But then, she's supposed to be losing her mind. But that's not really something I found all that enjoyable to witness. Especially when it had so little purpose. For instance, she's mental and stealing money from her workplace to send to animal rescue funds, and she gets fired. Oh, wait a minute, she's crazy, so all is forgiven, and she gets her job back. So, what was the point?

I just hated this movie. I hate it more and more. I thought it exploited my own love of animals to wrench emotion from me (the scene in the dog pound, for instance), but without anything nearing a satisfying pay off.

I'm told there is subtle, specific humour to this movie that makes it close to genius filmmaking. I saw no such humour, just stupid moments that might pass for comedy in the minds of people who find Molly Shanon funny in the first place. The scene where she's looking for the poison that killed her dog in John C. Reilly's garage as soon as they return from a date -- oh my god. That was my first instinct that something was wrong here. He was saying, "are you looking for something?" when it's blatantly obvious she is, as is what she's looking for. Then she leans over and White closes in on her butt, and then Reilly goes in for the hug, even though ice-queen Molly Shannon is giving off no vibes whatsoever, and then, ooh, it's awkward! Subtle comedy? Stupid comedy.

I read a review that said Mike White has an "ear for character". I don't think that's quite true. Shrewish wives, whipped husbands, rude neighbours, man-obsessed best friends, uptight bosses? Which one of those is not stock-standard and boring as batshit?

Next time, Mike White...

1/5

04 February 2008

Straightheads (aka. Closure), dir. Dan Reed (2007)

NIKKI says:
Yet another revenge-fantasy film -- it's almost an epidemic. We've had the Death Wish films and spin-offs, last year we had The Brave One and the Sean Bean Outlaw movie, and now this. What is it about taking the law into our own hands that thrills us just so much?

This one really wasn't up to par for me. I think in a genre so overdone, much within it quickly become cliched, as it sure did here. Unless there's a twist, which this one attempts then quickly drops.

Gillian Anderson and Danny Dyer are attacked (he's near-blinded, she's raped), and when they learn one of the perpetrators lives near Anderson's dead father's shack, they plot their revenge. This far in and Anderson is a changed woman, once carefree and a bit tarty, she's now glare-eyed and intense, not wanting to report her rape, but unable to let the horrors of it go. Her solution, of course, is to torture her attacker as she was tortured. She gets herself a war rifle, and waits to take her best shot.

But it's never that easy, is it? That twist and a few turns later, and Anderson and Dyer are carrying out their torture as plotted. So why the twist at all? For a second, Anderson's character had the chance to really do something interesting, but she didn't, and we were left wanting. These were two main characters delivered to us with a variety of flaws, yet none of these wound up impacting the characters or their decisions at all. The opening could have featured any two people. Why were these guys set up the way they were, which was odd to say the least, especially when the film wants us to root for them? They weren't bad people, they just weren't your stock standard couple-that-gets-attacked. Ultimately, whoever they were pre-attack just didn't matter.

Not a great film, but not awful, and there were some genuinely tense moments. I'm really starting to enjoy this Danny Dyer guy, too.
2.5/5

03 February 2008

Scream 3, dir. Wes Craven (2000)

STEVE says:
And we end our Scream-athon with a resounding thud.

Scream 3 is not good; it knows this, and doesn't try to hide it. What it does, instead, is try to distract you from that fact with ridiculous cameos by Carrie Fisher and Jay and Silent Bob, more pop culture references than the first two movies combined, and a general comedic feeling that doesn't balance well with the tenser moments. Fortunately for them, unfortunately for us, the tense moments are few and far between, and tend not to throw off the comedy. The problem is, the comedy isn't that funny in the first place.

I lay this all at the feet of Ehren Kruger, one of the worst screenwriters since Edward D. Wood, Jr. Thanks, Ehren, for ruining a perfectly good trilogy.

1.5/5

NIKKI says:
I'd forgotten just how terrible this movie was. Something made me remember it as silly but good fun. Turns out, it's really just silly. And a disappointing wrap-up for the trilogy.

I think the badness here has much to do with Kevin Williamson stepping aside as writer. As much as I found myself not enjoying Part 2, at least it felt like Scream film. This one feel so unlike a Scream film that sometimes I found myself shocked to see the stars of the original film even in it. It feels like a rip-off, like an attempt to replicate the original films. And perhaps that's what the third-in-series movies do, but this one goes to great lengths to let us know it's not a "third" movie, but the end of a trilogy -- something with rules all its own.

Again, the eventual killer/s are revealed and its all just so standard. "Your mother was my mother, too!" How ridiculous. The killer should have been Randy, or something. We needed to be jolted in this movie -- really have the tables turn on us, as Randy suggests should happen in a movie like this one. Instead, we retread the end of the first film, only with new characters as the boring culprits. BORING.

And the voice-alterer was just the stupidest thing ever.

1.5/5

Scream 2, dir. Wes Craven (1997)

STEVE says:
There are things about Scream 2 that I liked, and there are things that just didn't work at all.

The good bits are the returning characters, Sidney, Dewey, Randy and Gale Weathers. They're not unlikable, and we care about their fate - unlike the characters in most other slasher movies these days.

The pop culture references are still there, but not in the same in-your-face kind of way they were in the first film. We've done that already, Scream 2 seems to say, we don't need to push it.

And even the bits that didn't work out didn't detract from the film. The opening scene, for example, doesn't work. I've never been to a premiere where the point of the evening is not to watch the movie, but to run up and down the aisles screaming like idiots. But I have limited life experience, so I'll let that one pass. The idea that the killer is somehow trying to replay the murders from the first film by killing off characters with similar names in the same order is pointed out, then dropped. There's no point to this, but it's also insane. What are the odds that the killer would find a Maureen and a corresponding Stephen (or in this case a surname, Stephens) who happen to be dating, and who happen to have gone to the premiere of Stab, the movie about the events from the first film? Slim to fucking none, is what. And that his third victim, Casey, happens to be the "sober sister" on the night of a sorority party, hence the only one home alone to be killed is equally as ludicrous.

But I say again, these things don't necessarily detract from the film. Okay, the killer thing doesn't quite work. In Scream we were told pretty much from the word Go that Billy Loomis was the killer, and this point is reiterated several times throughout the film, no matter how much evidence is presented against. When he turns out to be the killer, we're surprised, but we're also kicking ourselves for not seeing it sooner. Watching Scream with the knowledge that Billy and his pal Stu are in on it together, you can see that they don't really ever try to hide it. The scene in the video store where they're both intimidating Randy gives it away - if you know what you're looking for.

But in Scream 2, the killers are just kind of thrown at you in the end. Olyphant's Mickey is introduced early on, listed as a suspect, then dismissed because his being a suspect also makes Randy a suspect. So we just move on, and only see Mickey maybe two or three more times for probably as many minutes before the big reveal. There's no development at all. The same is true of his partner, Mrs. Loomis. She's seen as a reporter throughout the movie, then - Surprise! She's not who we told you she was.

Unlike the first movie, there was no chance of piecing this one together, and that's kind of cheating so it loses points on that score. But I still think it's fun, and that's it's a logical extension of the events from the first, so for me it balances out.

3/5


NIKKI says:
Wow, I thought I liked this movie way more than I apparently do. Watching this time, the first time in quite a few years, I found myself, more and more, picking out just what I dislike about it, from the stupid opening bit in movie theatre with Jada Pinkett, to the unsatisfying ending.

Between viewings, it just all went to crap, I guess.

Basically, where the first film riffed on horror films, this one has a go at their sequels. I now find the sequel-humour really quite twee. In a sequel, Randy tells us, there's more blood, a higher body count, and everyone is, once again, a suspect. Only that's not how I read most sequels. Usually, the cast is all different, the blood and body counts are similar, because sequels are usually replicas just with slightly altered settings and personalities. Wasn't the second Friday still set at the Lake? Wasn't the second Nightmare still about the knife-guy invading people's dreams? I don't know, but the po-mo hilarity of the first movie just does not translate because you just know it wasn't the filmmakers' intent to make a sub-par movie, which, this being a sequel, it has no choice but to be. It was like, let's riff on sequels and then... not.

Sadly, this one is just poorly written all together. The eventual killer is barely in the thing, and his partner sticks out as a suspect from way early on simply because, at the time, she (like everyone else here) was a famous TV star, only NOT a TV star likely to show up in a film like this for nothing. So, the conclusions led to here are all very ho-hum. The stand-out feature in this one is Jerry O'Connell as the boyfriend. I almost wish he was the killer in the end, instead his niceness and humour add up to nothing as he's laid to waste like some other characters we actually liked (Randy, for instance).

So, no. Does not live up either to it's predecessor, or to my original feelings. It did give the world Timothy Olyphant, and for that we are grateful.

2.5/5

Scream, dir. Wes Craven (1995)

STEVE says:
After the abysmal effort last night, we decided to just go back and watch Scream. While you could argue that there's nothing particularly original about Scream itself, as far as the material goes, the originality of the presentation cannot be faulted.

It's an example of pop culture catching up with itself, but it's as much of a slasher movie in its own right as it is an homage to those that came before it. (Specifically Halloween, which is referenced everywhere in this movie.) What bothers me about it is the way many of those pop culture references are handled.

A conversation between Drew Barrymore's Casey and the killer (though she doesn't yet know it) goes like this:
Killer: What's your favorite scary movie.
Casey: Um... Halloween. You know, the one with the guy in the white mask who walks around and stalks babysitters?
Killer: Yeah.
Casey: What's yours?
Killer: Guess.
Casey: Um... Nightmare on Elm Street.
Killer: Is that the one where the guy had knives for fingers?
Casey: Yeah, Freddy Krueger.
Killer: Freddy, that's right.
So you're already making a movie for fans of horror movies - I think it's safe to assume that your target audience doesn't need an explanation as to who two of the biggest horror heroes are, especially if your whole movie is predicated on the horror movie as pop culture. A bit sloppy, that.

I still find Scream extremely enjoyable - even nearly 13 years on. And, Kevin Williamson's sometimes-too-clever dialog aside, it proves that these things are better left to professionals.

4/5

NIKKI says:
Somehow, we wound up spending the day watching the Scream movies. It was good for us, I think, to be reminded that there are good teen-horror flicks out there, and that at one point in time, someone cared to get things right. Weird that that person was Kevin Williamson, but all praise to him for his insight and intelligence regarding the horror genre. Now, the poor guy gets blamed for the lame ducks that followed him, self-referencing all over the place, and basically trying to copy good horror movies and failing miserably. I don't blame him, though. He wasn't to know. But then, he did have something to do with I Know What You Did Last Summer, so maybe he is to blame? And maybe that's why we don't see him much anymore. He's hiding his shame.

I still like Scream a lot, all these years later. Can you believe 13 years have passed? That's 13 years of horrible copycats. It's still fresh, it's characters are still cool and likable in the right way. It's scares are still scary, and it's horror still effective. It doesn't take the self-referencing too far (even with Fonzie's combing of the hair), and when it does self-reference, it does it to good effect.

I also really like the style of this one. It has a real individual mood to it, with its big crane shots, and the "Red Right Hand" musical motif. Craven has come along way himself, since Shocker and the like. It's like he went to technique school prior to shooting this. So, that adds to the fun.

All round, a good experience.

4/5