Found some old reviews...

I found some old reviews in a place with lots of dust and cobwebs. I am going to be copying them here with the original date of entry.

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"Thank You for Smoking"

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Movie Review

V for Vendetta

I thought after attending the stinkfest “Date Movie” and the painful “Ultraviolet” in consecutive weeks I would finally enjoy a movie in V for Vendetta. How cruel the gods of entertainment truly are. If I were to watch this film again, I would sneak a sleeping pill about a half an hour beforehand, enjoy the first explosion in the opening scene, sleep through the middle then have someone wake me up for the final explosion. Explosion, nap, explosion; maybe then I wouldn’t have objected so much to having put forth money to see this film. That wasn’t a spoiler either, as we know from the trailers what the ending of the film shall be.

Natalie Portman plays Evey Hammond, a Londoner who works for the state sanctioned television network. It’s a London with obvious Orwellian rules regarding behavior, and Evey is caught after curfew by some non-uniformed enforcement officers who are preparing to rape her. V, played by Hugo Weaving, intervenes and incapacitates the men before they can harm Evey. He’s wearing the mask of Guy Fawkes, an anti-Protestant terrorist from seventeenth century who tried to kill off the protestant government of England by blowing up the Parliamentary building in London.

Soon enough, Evey Hammond is knee deep with V and is forced into hiding after helping V take over a television network. I guess there’s some plot in the movie, since we need to understand how we get from the beginning explosion to the ending explosion. Fascists are involved, evil pharmaceutical corporations are involved, hypocritical priests and I think they even kill off a Rush Limbaugh type character in the mix. The message the film sends about the evils of conservatism (of which I personally am one) is heavy throughout the film. It’s an unfair caricature for sure.

The obvious political message of the movie could be forgiven if it were simply a better film. Natalie Portman’s performance is unbearable. It’s hard to believe you’re in London when the main protagonist can’t maintain a British accent. Portman feels almost lifeless in her role. I guess that can be understood when you realize the other protagonist is a guy trying to act through a mask. Hugo Weaving does his best, however it only takes a while to be completed frustrated by the mask. Not only do we never see any facial expression, Weaving’s voice is muffled and difficult to listen to behind the mask. Eventually it’s simply easier to give up trying to pay attention to the dialogue.

Not that the dialogue is bad. There are some wonderful soliloquies and exchanges in the film. Some. V is put forth as an extremely witty and verbose former actor who delivers theatric performances as he’s starting the revolution. Those exchanges disappear about 20 minutes into the film.

There are some action sequences to the movie. V carries around long daggers with which he fights. The expectation of these sequences is very high considering the magnificent history the Wachowski brothers have had in special effects and cinematography with their Matrix trilogy. However, all the action sequences (excepting the explosions at the beginning and ending of the film) come off flat and uninteresting. The special effects are lackluster. Huge disappointment.

V for Vendetta is an over hyped movie with occasional brilliance in dialogue combined with lazy special effects, tired action sequences, fatigued performances, plot holes, slow pace and a weak script. Take a pass and save yourself the time and money.

Walk the Line, then walk away from the theatre

Walk the Line

Great idea with great performances poorly executed

Hollywood has been making biopic (biographical) films since the beginning of films. At first, the biographies were overly positive. “The Pride of the Yankees”, “The Charles Lindberg Story,” even the post WWII movie “The Desert Fox” focused more on the positive aspects of Erwin Rommel, a German Field Marshal. Eventually the genre changed to try to provide a deeper understanding of the person. “Lawrence of Arabia” is the classic example; in that movie the viewer was exposed not to just what T.E. Lawrence did, but who he was.

Eventually these biopic films became much more honest, incorporating both the positive and the negative aspects of individuals. This is fine; I don’t want propaganda in biopic films. It’s fascinating to see the darker side of important figures. It makes them much more real, and yet makes their accomplishments all the more spectacular. The movie “Ray” epitomizes this balance.

“Ray” was one of the best movies of the decade. The story of Ray Charles put to the silver screen. Audiences got a healthy dose of music, an incredible performance by Jamie Foxx, and a fair picture of the life of Ray Charles, including the low points and the high points.

“Walk the Line” should be the same thing as “Ray.” It’s a biography of a musical figure who had low points in his life. But in execution, “Walk the Line” comes no where near the quality of “Ray.” Even in the genre of biographies this movie fails to live up to any standard. Even if it were decided that Walk the Line should not be compared to “Ray,” it’s still my conclusion that this film isn’t worth the price of any admission.

Joaquin Phoenix does a good job portraying the enigmatic singer Johnny Cash; Reese Witherspoon shows her abilities playing the part of June Carter. The movie looks good, each scene has good direction. But this movie lacks any kind of spirit. It has an almost flat reception. In fact, a major part of the story, the romance between June Carter and Johnny Cash, is absent. There is no chemistry. It’s not a love story at all. Carter and Cash appear only as close friends.

The film focuses on ten years of Cash’s life. Ten dark years where Cash was ruled by an addiction to amphetamines and other drugs. Ten years of strife with his first wife. Ten years of adultery. The movie hardly does justice to the life of Johnny Cash, it focuses more on the faults of Johnny Cash. The goal of this movie was to destroy the memory of Johnny Cash. It did not present a balanced view of the man’s life. It did not tell us of his origins. There are few epiphanies. The characters don’t grow as people. Cash is not presented as a deep character. He’s more or less portrayed as an antagonist.

The man who was Johnny Cash is not present in this film. The film does not portray his recovery from drugs. In an act of pure “Christo-phobia” the movie fails to show Johnny Cash answering an alter-call. The movie was designed to destroy the man. Cash’s humanly faults become the movie, and the movie exaggerates those faults. After watching “Ray” I had a better understanding, respect and empathy for Ray Charles. This movie leaves me no such feelings for Johnny Cash. It fails as a biography, and it fails as a film. It belongs to the “Made for TV” movie genre, not the silver screen. Save your Cash and go elsewhere.

Four Brothers worth the late August go

I didn’t expect a lot from this movie, it was one of those that someone else dragged me to. Upon leaving the movie I reflected on that fact, and thanked the person for getting me to see the movie. Four Brothers may not have Oscar potential, and it won’t be a blockbuster, but it’s one of the better films I’ve seen this year, and the subjects brought to face by the movie are eternal. Morality, family, vengeance and justice are all themes that this movie forces us to confront.

The movie opens in Detroit at a local convenience store. An old woman is murdered when the store is robbed. At the funeral there is a reunion of the woman’s four adopted children.

The adopted children are a collection of misfits and criminals. Bobby Mercer played by Mark Wahlberg is the oldest. These men are all tough, hardened men. However, they have a large soft spot for their adopted mother and each other. They are religious, they pray before meals. They are good brothers, and it shows that family love is not about blood. They are of different races, but race is no matter to them. It’s an important message.

However, they are still violent people, and they decide to seek out vengeance for their mother’s death. This is the first moral theme, vengeance. They want to make whoever killed their mother pay for the crime, and they go outside the law to do it. It’s vigilantism. Our protagonists, while we in the audience know them to be good people, force us to dissent in their ways. But the question lingers, was their vigilantism right?

The characters are moral, they are throwbacks to the cowboy era of America, and their John Wayne attitudes are juxtaposed with the cruel modernity of Detroit. In America we love justice more than we love the law, and for the most part we know that law doesn’t exist for its own sake. This movie takes us across the gray and forces to question how far we’ll take our beliefs in justice.

This movie is violent but has good messages about race. It has good messages about family. It’s also a wonderful story and every performance is done well. It’s worth the cost of admission. John Singleton directed this film.

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Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Johnny Depp normally turns me away from movies. However, Depp’s performance in “Pirates of the Caribbean” was enough to give me reason to cut the guy some slack. This movie almost takes up all that slack. But upon reflection, it wasn’t Depp’s performance that kept me from enjoying this film; it was the slow moving pace of the film itself.

I can tell you that this is a fair remake of the classic. I can tell you second hand that this is a fair version of the original stories by Roald Dahl. Unfortunately, I can’t suggest that you see this film, at least not in theatres.

Among it’s many problems is how nothing interesting happens in the film. There are some interesting special effects, and there are some interesting twists and spin-offs from the original film. But the only thing I got from this film was fatigue. I remember at one point wanting to walk out of the theatre due to boredom.

However, I must admit that I was in the minority on this film. When the film was over, it received applause in that Midwestern theatre. I suggest waiting to rent or own. This movie’s above average special effects will work well on a small screen as they do on a large one.