Movie review - The Brave One

Following in the footsteps of the Death Wish movies and this year's earlier Death Sentence, Neil Jordan's The Brave One tries with every bit of skill and talent it's got to bring more complexity to the themes of vigilance and revenge. Instead of merely attempting to make the viewers complicit in the enjoyment of watching the wronged protagonists stepping outside the legal system and taking matters into their own hands, it uses a great actress like Jodie Foster to see the conflicted emotions such actions can yield. Ultimately, however, even this story loses its worth as it cowers from examining the real social consequences involved.

Like the first Death Wish, the movie sets itself in New York City where we meet radio personality Erica Bain (Jodie Foster) who happily lives with her fianc

Author is a computer programmer at Dartmouth Medical School by day and a movie critic by hobby. Upon insistent suggestion from people around him, he finally decided to start critiquing movies and Sci-Fi in writing instead of just verbal form among his friends. His writings can be found at moviejohn.blogspot.com

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Movie review - Cereal as a Metaphor for Capitalism

A business course on cutthroat capitalism disguised as a slacker comedy: That's the kindest way to describe Michael Lehmann's "Flakes," a movie that shares the smug, hipper-than-thou sensibility of its sour protagonist, Neal Downs (Aaron Stanford).

An aspiring rock musician who manages a New Orleans eatery where the only bill of fare is breakfast cereal, Neal is a reflexively sarcastic deadbeat whose equally sour girlfriend, Pussy Katz (Zooey Deschanel), shares his bohemian dream of traveling the country in an Airstream trailer, making music and art.

The walls of the restaurant, called Flakes, are lined with cereal boxes, including rare discontinued brands. As customers slop up exotic combinations, the movie suggests a deadpan spoof of gourmet fetishism. One house specialty - chocolate-flavored grains steeped in chocolate milk - sounds particularly nauseating.

Owned by Willie (Christopher Lloyd), a decrepit hippie geezer with mad-scientist hair, Flakes limps along as a hangout for deadbeats until a bright-eyed yuppie visitor, Stuart (Keir O'Donnell), proposes turning it into a lucrative franchise. When Willie and Neal express no interest, Stuart establishes a rival Flakes across the street, and the New Orleans cereal wars begin.

Hoping to put Stuart out of business, Neal begins playing dirty tricks, the nastiest of which is the distribution of fliers to the homeless promising 10 free bowls per customer at his rival's establishment. The prank sets off a near-riot that Stuart skillfully turns to his advantage.

Neal's new live-in relationship with Pussy begins to curdle when she turns traitor and goes to work for the competition, hoping that the demise of the original Flakes will leave Neal with time to finish his CD. If the name of his band, Cereal Killers, is perfectly chosen, its music is a joke.

Once lawyers become involved in the dispute, the movie's anti-establishment attitude evaporates, as does the teeny bit of levity "Flakes" has generated.

FLAKES
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan; also on Video on Demand.
Directed by Michael Lehmann; written by Chris Poche and Karey Kirkpatrick; director of photography, Nancy Schreiber; edited by Nicholas C. Smith; music by Jason Derlatka and Jon Ehrlich; produced by Gary Winick and Jake Abraham; released by IFC First Take. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Aaron Stanford (Neal Downs), Zooey Deschanel (Miss Pussy Katz), Christopher Lloyd (Willie), Frank Wood (Bruce), Ryan Donowho (Skinny Larry), Izabella Miko (Strawberry) and Keir O'Donnell (Stuart).

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The Golden Compass

Well even after seeing the film, I am still left to wonder what the big controversy is all about.

I had never read the book series that New Line Cinema is hoping to be the next Harry Potter and if the film is an indication of what is to come. I am not even sure that i want to see part 2 nor 3, if they ever get made.

I could somewhat see why the Catholic League is protesting this film, but in the end its a lot to do about not a really good film.

For those who have no ideal about the film or anything about it please click on to this link for a better understanding, but please be wary this is a heavy spoiler preview also.

Now what I liked about the film, The casting of Sam Elliott as Lee Scoresby was exactly what the role required. When you see him in the film, you soon realize that he is a lot more that what he seems at first.

The casting of Ian McKellen as the voice of Iorek Byrnison, as an armored bear. Now I had no idea what a bear would do with some serious armor protection, but with the voice of Sir Ian, you believe that he will protect the hero of the film.

Now I realize that this film is part 1 of a 3 part film, but the first one should have been so much better that what we were given. I had said earlier that I had not read any of the books yet but even I could tell that something just was not right nor was it making sense in the way that it was told in the movie, it just seemed like way too many holes were in this film. It looks about 40-60 minutes too short.

From what I could tell if you are a huge fan of the book then do not see the film at all, you will leave the movie palace, very angry. If you have young children (10 years old and up) then this looks like it would be a good film for them to see.

For the parents, it will leave you frustrated. I can see a good film in this film, but all we get in another mess by the end of the day.

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PS I Love You Movie Review

While nobody can predict when death will pay them a visit and cut their life short, according to the movie P.S. I Love You, with some applied imagination and strategic planning in advance, you might be able to cheat the Grim Reaper just a little. Or in this case at least, from beyond the grave.

Not that this morbid premise sounds like ideal material for a fanciful romantic comedy. But filmmaker Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King, The Bridges Of Madison County) takes up the challenge of juggling this life and the next for laughs, and awkwardly negotiates an often less than plausible common ground between the best of both worlds, such as they may be.

Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler are Holly and Gerry in P.S. I Love You, a stressed out young Manhattan couple into marriage meltdown at the moment, as they brawl verbally about Holly's tendency towards too much shopping, not enough 'hot, nasty sex' on their weekly to-do list, Gerry's unsexy slacker attitude toward vocational ambition, whether or not they forgot to have children along the way, and might this be very well all that there is out of life. In the midst of Holly's nightly nagging and lingering doubts about their relationship, happy-go-lucky Irish rocker import Gerry suddenly kicks the bucket. Which leaves Holly in a deep funk of guilt-ridden regret and inconsolable misery.



While concerned mom Patricia (Kathy Bates) and caring best girlfriends Denise (Lisa Kudrow) and Sharon (Gina Gershon) have no success getting Holly to dispel those full-time blues, the sudden, mysterious delivery of a series of letters from late hubby Gerry, slowly work their magic in snapping their glum gal pal out of her depressed state. The letters function like a 12-step program presumably mailed from the afterlife, nudging the stricken widow back to normalcy and even a little potential new romance. The tragicomic healing process culminates in no less than two trips back to Ireland where the couple first met, where Mom and Holly embark on a weird adventure together, to go pick up men.

P.S. I Love You and its dead letter collection plot device is far too overdone, and feels dramatically energy-inefficient and contrived to begin with. Much more effective is LaGravenese's sensitive physical and emotional layering of the complex unraveling of grief as a state of mind. And Swank gets it just right with a fine-tuned subtle expression of confusion, despondency and rage, though Holly's overly extended cranky self-pity party eventually wears out its welcome, for the characters and audience alike.

And it never quite makes sense why Holly isn't turned on by the persistent advances of the infatuated hunk played by Harry Connick Jr., even if the guy's on the eccentric side, as when he invades her private space in the local pub's john to present her with the heart he wears a little too prominently on his sleeve. In any case, P.S. I Love You could have done with a lot less of a sense of being on rewind as each posthumous letter arrives, and every time a romantic urge or mental mood swing gets reshuffled.

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MOVIE REVIEW: Southland Tales

Southland Tales. As in Tales from Southern California, but a different California, where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is an action star turned prophet, Justin Timberlake is a veteran of Iraq, Sean-William Scott is actually a pair of twins, and Sarah Michelle-Gellar is a porn star named Krysta Now. "No-one rocks the cock like Krysta Now." Or so we're told. You never actually see her rocking the cock, and she is more than welcome.

But the film doesn't try and pander to the type of audience who want to see a flash of tits. Actually, it doesn't pander to anyone. It is by far and away the most experimental film to come out of Hollywood recently, if you discount David Lynch.

First of all, the film version of Southland Tales is actually chapters four, five and six. Hey if Star Wars did it... The first three chapters are found in the Southland Tales graphic novel, which actually makes more sense in itself and of the film as a whole, explaining the various theories behind the film, whereas the film itself drops the audience in the middle of a world that is far removed from the one we live in.

There is wi-fi energy known as Fluid Karma, a screenplay written while under the influence of drugs that foretells the End Of Days, and some freaky time travelling. So, everything you would expect from the brains behind Donnie Darko.

The film is a mess, but an interesting one. Part of the disconnected plot is concerned with the enigma that is the Book Of Revelations found in the Bible, and you could view this as its modern cinematic counterpart. Some view Revelations as a puzzle to be solved, containing a code to be dissected. Richard Kelly's film is trying to push this, using the graphic novel and the film's website to further the story and the puzzling plotlines within, quite literally forcing the audience to actively seek it out, or, as most people did, walk out of the cinema.

While this cross-media, story/puzzle thing is a bold move, the film should stand on its own legs, which, sadly, it does not. It's weird and wonderful, annoying and infuriating, littered with great performances and godawful ones. It will no doubt follow Darko in becoming a cult film, especially on DVD.

We do not recommend seeing this film, but you need to see it. It is the road less travelled.

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Black Christmas movie review

This festive fright-fest was a nice surprise from what I was originally expecting. This is another horror remake (from the people behind 'Final Destination' - great film), but un-like so many others; it did manage to come up trumps; such as 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' This is a remake of Bob Clarke's 1974 classic slasher movie, 'Black Christmas'; which actually came four years before John Carpenter's 'Halloween'. Some fans lay claim that it was the original slasher flick.

From the outside, this looks like just another of your basic 'there's a psycho hacking up a bunch of pretty girls, who are running up the stairs instead of out of the door,' and to a certain extent that's correct, it's the way this is conveyed which is interesting and enticing to watch.

The story: crazed killer, Billy Lenz, escapes his psychiatric ward and is determined to make it to his childhood home, where he was abused, by Christmas. Problem is, it's years later and the home is now a Sorority house. It's Christmas Eve and a who's who of teen/horror girl stars are there to welcome him, including Melissa (Michelle Trachtenberg , 'Buffy the vampire slayer' fame), Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 'Final Destination 3'), Dana (Lacey Chabert, 'Mean Girls') and Kelli (Katie Cassidy, 'When a stranger calls' remake.)

This movie is actually pretty good, it has a constant feeling of being watched that runs right through it and adds a sparkle to the scares, and the tension is kept high. The actresses, although spouting some awful lines at times, also say some good ones. The acting is good, and because most of the leading ladies are stars, and most of them horror stars, the audience doesn't guess which one is going to make it to the rolling credits. The story-line builds well, and there is a mounting tension, as the killer first phones the girls, and then starts to do away with them.

A similar storyline to the original 'Halloween', with a killer coming home for the holidays, there are also many similar P.O.V shots of the killer, watching the girls throughout the house. The Christmas theme bleeds in nicely with the plot, and it comes across in places (especially, the flash-backs to Billy Lenz's childhood) like something, director, Tim Burton, would dream up. The film gets darker and darker as we move through it, with some very violent scenes, and the music by Shirley Walker is great; capturing horror and Christmas all in one twisted melody. Also, the use of red and green lighting throughout (owed to Christmas) is very cool, and creates a great atmosphere.

Due to it being set in a Sorority house, and this no longer being 1974, some of the dialogue just doesn't cut it. I can't imagine many of these girls' staying in the house with a crazed serial killer, just because they can't find their 'sorority sister,' believable in 2007 - sad, but true. There is, unfortunately, the obligatory shower scene, but it's used for scares, not thrills, and so works.

Right from the start you can tell, this isn't your usual run of the mill slasher, it actually has a back story, and we do find ourselves caring for some of the characters, for example, Kelli, played by Katie Cassidy is great; plus if you hated 'Dawn' in 'Buffy the vampire slayer' - you are gonna love this movie.

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Movie review: Perfect Holiday not so perfect

The Perfect Holiday is seasonably pablum partially redeemed by a smart (if wasted) cast and at least one unusual holiday bit. Directed by co-written by Lance (The Cookout) Rivera, the film mostly flounders through contrived meet-cute scenes and some "what were they thinking" scenes (such as one involving a 300-pound "elf" trying to put on a fat suit). The romantic/family comedy also demands a major suspension of disbelief in having the lovely Gabrielle Union portraying a woman (Nancy) who wishes a nice man would pay her a compliment.

Union plays the ex-wife of an obnoxious rapper, J. Jizzy (Charlie Murphy-Eddie's older brother-who gets the most laughs in the film). The divorcee's kid helps steer her to a handsome department-store Santa named Benjamin (Morris Chestnut) who also happens to be a songwriter. What's more, he's pitching his tunes to J. Jizzy. Much of the film involves Benjamin trying to keep Nancy and Jizzy from finding out about his romantic and business (respectively) arrangements with each of them. The problem is that there's no logical reason why he should care-or lie to Nancy about his "true" vocation.

Much of the movie involves Nancy discussing life with her gals pals (Jill Marie Jones and Rachel True), Benjamin chumming around with his best bud, Jamal (Faizon Love); and J-Jizzy interacting with his spacey manager, Delicious (Katt Williams). This offers scenes of soul searching, self revelations and some strained comedy-but little of it is interesting.
There's also little reason for Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard (who seems to have appeared in 95 percent of the films released in 2007) playing competing angels (or perhaps that's angel vs. devil). Latifah breezes through her role, but Howard just seems embarrassed to be here (and who can blame him?).

One of the brightest parts of The Perfect Holiday is one of its most understated: a department store hires a black Santa and black elf helper, kids of all colors line up to visit Ol' Saint Nick and no one questions it. It's a sweet, hopeful set-up that offers a counterpoint to the otherwise pedestrian, plodding antics of The Perfect Holiday.
The Perfect Holiday is rated PG for brief language and some suggestive humor. Running time: 96 minutes. Macsimum rating: 4 out of 10. You can check out the film's trailers on the QuickTime movie trailer site.

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