Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Knight and Day

The hard part about reviewing movies is that it gets a little difficult to reveal certain parts about the movie without spoiling it. I don’t mind spoiling movies I wouldn’t want anyone else to see, but for some movies, I’ll have to talk about some things in such generic terms that it might get a little bland. And since Knight and Day is a movie I think everyone should see, and one of its plot points is that we’re not really sure whose side Tom Cruise is on, I’ll try to avoid the major spoilers.

The plot mainly revolves around a Macguffin (I’d like to thank Roger Ebert for introducing me to that word. It’s so useful in movies) that everyone wants. There’s also the guy that invents the macguffin, who’s barely out of high school. Evan and I had a discussion about whether he’s eccentric (Evan’s side) or if he’s autistic (my side). Let me put it this way: If you’re 20 years old and invent a device that defies the current laws of physics, you’re either a huge nerd (with appropriate comic book collection) or autistic. And since there weren’t really any nerdiness signs, and a few autistic ones, I settled on autistic. Keep in mind, though, that this is Hollywood Autism. Actual autism can range from normal enough to Rain Man to farther down the scale, but the only ones in movies and TV shows are the ones that look good on camera.

The movie bucks the trend of two hours of buildup (which they could have done by filling it with romantic comedy, and I’m sure glad they didn’t) and a climax. Instead, they have action set throughout. It slows down a few times, most notably right before the climax, but that’s probably both to make the climax seem more exciting, and also to tell the audience to ‘Pay Attention: Climax Incoming.’ And BAM!*

There’s a bit of romance in it (although judging by the amount of young adolescent females in the audience, they were either expecting a lot more, or seriously confused about the opening date of Eclipse). Most of it’s used for comedy, so that was acceptable. Both Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz have the comedic chops to pull it off. Cruise can also do action, so everything in the movie’s covered.

One particular action sequence near the beginning of the movie springs to mind. There’s a fairly inventive shot of the outside of the plane (while it’s in the air), with Cruise and a minor henchman fighting down an aisle. We can see the action clearly because the windows are close enough together that the combat isn’t really obscured. It stood out for me because it’s also used in lesser movies (Gabriel comes to mind … terrible movie, by the way. So bad I’m not even going to provide an IMDB link) that space out the windows (some movies also use corridors) and use judicious editing to cover up their actors not being able to fight worth a darn. In bad movies, it looks awful. Here, they’re proving their actors are competent at combat, which is something I always applaud.

The movie tends to use a lot of callbacks, or Chekhov’s Guns. Basically, a piece of information will seem unimportant at first, but used later. It’s almost predictable. For instance, Roy (Cruise) is showing June (Diaz) how to get out of a particular arm-hold. As soon as it’s explained, you can bet significant amounts of money that she’s going to be put into that hold by a bad guy and escape from it by the end of the movie. Sure enough, not ten minutes later … I mean, they could have the decency to wait until we’ve forgotten that scene to use it. Anyway, the movie does this a lot. Sometimes by acting out things that were said previously, or by having a one character saying or doing something that a different character said or did previously.

The movie also makes great use of off-screen action. At one point, June is drugged while they’re both captured. We get shots from her point of view as she drifts in and out of consciousness. The shots (which only last a second or two) are all of Roy executing amazing escape escapades while dragging June out of a torture chamber, skyding, speed-boating, etc … Evan wanted to actually see what was going on, but I thought it was hilarious. Very good way of leaving it up to the imagination.

So all in all, definitely two thumbs up. The only thing I didn’t get was the title. By the end of the movie, Knight has two meanings. Does day have a meaning that I missed, or is it only for wordplay? If someone else sees this movie (seriously, everyone should go see it) and figures it out, please share it with me, because I’m day-ing to know (snigger).


*There it is!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Site News

Just a few things. Firstly, go ahead and comment – we don’t mind, honest! But all comments are fully moderated, which means that I approve every comment before it shows up on the site (so you don’t need to post twice if your first one doesn’t show up). This is so that the only immature or stupid content is posted by me.

Secondly, if you want to watch one of the upcoming movies with Evan and I, just get a hold of one of us, and we’ll make sure to stick you with the bill. No, no, no, I mean, we’ll try to make it work.

Thirdly, you might be asking yourself what’ll happen to this site when the blockbuster season has finished and Hollywood stops making mindless movies (until next summer; Hollywood will – thankfully – never stop making mindless movies). Well, two things might happen. One, this site goes un-updated for a while (possibly forever, if we get tired of it). Or two, we sit down and review mindless movies on DVD that we couldn’t get to this summer, either due to release date (The Losers) or release year (Bad Boys I/II). Or neither of those thing, I don’t know. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Normally I can’t plan my own meals for the day, so knowing which movie I’m going to see in two months is a major accomplishment. Whatever we decide to do, we'll keep you informed.*

*or not

Jonah Hex

“Megan Fox … have fun” – Amy, upon hearing of our desire to see Jonah Hex and its cast. Well, we had a bit of fun, to go along with the bit of movie we saw. Evan timed it from start to the beginning of the credits, and it clocked in at 73 minutes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the last movie I saw that was that short was animated … and edited for TV.

Anyway, Jonah Hex followed the annoying formula of two hours of build-up and then action-payoff at the end. Except it was only an hour of build-up, so it wasn’t too hard to bear. And the build-up wasn’t too boring. You know how Avatar was two hours of beautiful before the payoff, and Ironman 2 was two hours of screwball comedy before the payoff? Jonah Hex was an hour of Western before the payoff, which isn’t so bad (but maybe that’s just my affection for Firefly leaking through). They also mixed it in with some nifty gadgets (it didn’t take long for him to bust out the dual chainguns on his horse, and there were hand-sized crossbows that shot sticks of dynamite. It sounds a lot sillier on paper) and a bit of the super/unnatural (there was a minor character that appeared to have snake venom as saliva and could dislocate his jaw on demand). And of course, they also had his gimmick – he could talk to dead people. It was used well (both as a source of information, and an innovative means of revenge). His other gimmick is a facial scar that starts of interesting but gets more and more distracting as the movie goes on. It makes drinking hard, but whiskey doesn't come with straws.

The whole thing seemed a bit standard, though. Standard villains (“Hey look, a Complete Monster. That’s new. Wow, a psychotic lunatic. I’ve never seen one of those before.” You can tell he’s a psycho because he likes playing with lit dynamite), even a standard plot about anarchy, disguised as revenge, and called something else (“The Mexicans have a nickname for him – Terrorista” – paraphrased from the President. Evan said it sounded like a female terrorist. “Evil Sexy Mexicans – they’ll blow you … up”).

And then there were the modern movie requirements. Leading lady? Cue Megan Fox (“It’s a western. I can drawl my lines.” “No, Megan, No! Just … read your lines, and try and get the words right.”). Racial Diversity? Cue requisite African American (it’s set after the civil war, so he’s free, a shop owner, and takes his kids to hear the president speak for the Fourth of July). Not really a confederate soldier? Cue the conversation about not believing in secession or slavery – only being a Johnny Reb because (mumble mumble mumble drawl). Unfortunately, there were some important lines I didn’t hear either because of the drawl, the mumbling, or the funny comments from Evan.

The climax contained a flashback and the second half of a vision brought on by a mid-movie near death experience (That’s okay – Jonah Hex is used to those by now), so it was a bit hard to follow. Which is a bit of a problem when it’s the main (almost only) action scene. There’s just a bit too much going, and a few too many quick cuts in between locations.

So all in all, not a bad movie, just not a good one. Not as bad as Robin Hood, but not as good or fun as the other ones (although there were some funny lines … just not as much as the others). One thumb up. I’m still deciding about the other one. It varies between sideways and down. I can’t in all good conscience encourage you to see this in theatres, but it’ll probably be in the $6.99 bargain bin at Wal-Mart by Christmas. Even then, it might be best to pass it around between friends. It’s a good movie if you want to kill an hour and a half, and it still leaves 15 minutes to blog about how short it is.

Jonah Hex...Evan's Take

I like mindless movies...It's always fun to go and switch your brain off for a couple of hours and just enjoy some senseless violence and crude jokes. It certainly beats coming out of a movie and having to ask questions like: "Do you know why they did this?" "Can you explain the plot to me again?" "What was the significance of birds to the character development?" (Ok...the last one never gets asked...that would make it the most boring car ride home). Thankfully Benjy also likes mindless movies so we have decided to make a weekly pilgrimage to the movie theater to enjoy some unadulterated mindlessness. I wont get in to the first four movies that we have watched...Benjy has covered them very well. For me, it begins with the movie that we watched last night...Jonah Hex.

To be quite honest I had very low expectations going in. I usually have a quick peek at Rotten Tomatoes to see what the critics think. Not because I actually care what they have to say, but because you can usually get a pretty good indication of how watchable a movie is based on the Tomatometer score. Anything above 70 is considered "fresh" and most of the critics like it (For instance...Toy Story 3 is sitting at a VERY impressive 98%). Essentially they are saying that you should feel confident spending the $15 as you will probably enjoy the movie. I also find that anything between 30-70% is likely watchable. In particular, "mindless movies" that fall into this range are usually pretty entertaining (The A-Team 49%...Prince of Persia 38%) and the lower score comes from some "critics" who feel the movie lacks in unimportant things like "plot" and "character development". They probably needed to be hugged more as children. Jonah Hex at the time of writing was at 13% on the Tomatometer...enough said.

We got to the theater late and had no problems finding seats (a bad omen to be sure). The only other people there were Toy Story 3 castoffs who didn't get there early enough to buy tickets and a couple of guys who clearly were there because they enjoyed the Jonah Hex comic books (I nerd profiled them...nerdfiled???...and I do understand the irony there). At least I had my free popcorn and Coke.

At this point I should say that Jonah Hex did have some aspects that were fun. For those who don't know, Jonah Hex is based on a comic book about a bounty hunter who has a crazy scar on his face and can talk to dead people. At the start of the movie they give you a quick history about how he got his scar and why he hates John Malkovich (Who doesn't???). The talking to corpses was actually really cool and it was great how they used this "super power" in the movie instead of making it a gimmicky thing. The gatling guns mounted on the side of a horse were also a nice mindless touch that was very appreciated. Megan Fox is also a nice touch...until she tries to start acting. I can only imagine what the set looked like on days when she was there:

Director: Ok. Megan...This time lets try and do it with a midwestern accent...ACTION!!!
Megan Fox: (stabs a guy) I ain't much for being owned!
Director: CUT! Sorry Megan...we are looking for a midwestern accent.
Megan Fox: Yeah...that's what I gave you.
Director buries his face in his hands and begins to weep.

The real terrible part of this movie is that it's running time from opening scene to credits is a whopping 73 minutes!!! That's not enough time to do anything in a movie! We don't get to see Jonah tear up enough stuff in that amount of time...We don't get to know how bad ass face tatoo guy is in that amount of time (He must be bad...he has a face tattoo!!!)...We don't get to see any more than 5 lines out of Will Arnett in his first "dramatic" role in that amount time...We don't understand why there was the scene with a crow crawling out of Jonah's mouth (Seriously movie!!! Don't go getting all metaphorical on me...I demand mindless entertainment!!!)

Heck...I didn't even finish my popcorn in that amount of time! I guess I will save it for next week. Hopefully by then I will have some great random rating system in place too. As for this one...wait until it comes out on video...or on TV because then it will at least get stretched to an hour and a half with commercial breaks.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

The Preview Game

I like going to see movies with friends for a few reasons. I can occasionally mock the movie (while in the theatre) and not get shushed, I can catch up with the people I came with before the movie, I can discuss it afterwards. And we can play the Preview Game. The preview game is fairly simple. Whoever says the name of the preview first, wins. It doesn't have to be exact, except in the case of ties. For instance, if you saw a preview for the next Harry Potter, you could just say "Harry Potter" and win, unless someone else said it at the same time (or was just being a jerk). So this past week was a tie (very embarrassing for me - I'm usually much better) because Evan got Predators by a half-second and one other one. I forget which. But that's alright, because I pitched a shutout the week before, including an epic call after one second of preview (the studio logo hadn't faded yet). Of course, by the end of the summer it'll probably be a dead heat, since we'll have seen most of them three or four times. Sometimes it's not very fair (I only got Resident Evil because I had read about them making another one the day before). But that's alright. It's all good fun. so next time you go to a movie, play the preview game. But not against me. I'll win. Seriously. Don't even try it.

The A-Team

You know how sometimes I say that something is "Made of Win", or "Made of Awesome"? This movie is Made of Ridiculous. There is one semi-plausible use of physics (when they aim a falling tank), but most of the time, I was sitting there thinking "Physics does not work like that. Planes do not work like that. Cars do not work like that. Helicopters do not work like that. Displacement might work like that, but I doubt it". Of course, it didn't stop me from having a ludicrously fun time. The first half-hour was packed with more laughs than most comedies. Really.

Most critics said it lurched from action scene to action scene with no plot or character development, mixed in with a few jokes. But I counted at least 20 minutes (before the climax), where there wasn't any action. They were planning a lot, but no action. Of course, they made up for that in the first half. First a beat down, then a rescue, then a hospital escape, then a bit of talking, then a hijacking, then a prison sentence, then a few prison escapes, then a bit more talking, then more action ... you get the picture.

The basic gist is this: Stuff blows up, Liam Neeson is really smart, stuff blows up, Bradley Cooper gets laid, stuff blows up, Sharlto Copley is INSANE, stuff blows up, Quinton 'Rampage'
Jackson pities the fool, and stuff blows up. Also, Jessica Biel shows up, so that was just a cherry on top (a very good looking cherry, to be sure).

It's one of those movies that critics are incapable of liking, and women wonder why anyone watches such nonsense. But that's okay because I pity those foos.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Movie makers love colons. Both the punctuation marks, and the piece of anatomy from which they can pull new ideas ("There's this game my nephew loves. Let's destroy it forever" - see: Doom). Yes, it's based on a video game. That should tell you a lot right there. What's it's telling you, though, is wrong. This is actually a good movie. Before I start though, let me address the people who're fans of the game: THIS IS NOT THE GAME. The game has a number of hours to explore the plot, character development, humor, intricacies, and what-not. Also, it doesn't have female companion.

The movie, however, has about two hours to get across the point of the video game, which is this: Parkour is really, really old. No, wait, it's that nifty daggers are pretty cool. Um, alright, I haven't played the game, so I don't actually know what the point of it is, but the movie is pretty good.

From what I read beforehand, though, it sounded pretty bad. Critics had said that the action was generic, so I was a little wary. The first action sequence has a 12-year old versus some soldiers, and it was pretty generic ("Hey look. He jumped from one roof to another. Parkour!" No, just ... no) so I was getting worried. But then the movie jumped forwards 10 years, and suddenly Jake Gyllenhaal is scaling the wall of a holy city using ... innovative ... means. The invasion of the city is actually pretty well done. It focuses on a few characters, so we don't get a thousand tiny people in the frame waving swords at each other. Jake's stuntman does some impressive acrobatics, and he winds up with a glass-handled dagger. It has a button and it's filled with sand. Gee, I wonder if that will come up later?

After getting framed for the king's death, he and the princess of the now-conquered city go on the lam, and separate, and rejoin, and argue, and bicker. It's all very well done from each person's perspective. I didn't have to ask why they were doing something, because nothing they did was out of character (My biggest complaint from the Star Wars prequels was this. They never really answered the 'why' of it. Why did Anakin turn to the dark side? Why is he such a whiny emo kid? Why don't Sith just cause brain aneurisms or strokes in their enemies? Oh wait, now I've ruined Star Wars for everyone).

Also, they broke with the "Two hours of build-up" model, and added acrobatic action scenes throughout the movie (Kudos to the makers for using that aspect of the game instead of generic stabbity-stab moves they could've used). I thought the action was anything but bland, so now I'm kind of wondering what movie the critics saw.

Anyway, everything is finally resolved by a Deus Ex Machina that's actually explained (does that even make sense?), so everyone goes home happy. Well, not everyone, but you'll find out who if you watch the movie.

There's also a lot of humor in it (probably more than the game), most of it provided by Alfred Molina, whom I did not recognize until 10 minutes of his screen time had passed. There's also another scene with some vipers that may leave you thinking "With sharp, pointy teeth" and other such Monty Python lines running through your head. Yes, there are a few snakes, starting about halfway through. If you share that phobia with Indiana Jones, you may want to skip it. You'll just be missing out on a really fun movie. Two thumbs way up.

Robin Hood

Evan and I didn't see this together (I saw it with Amy and Eyk), but he says we need to count it, if only to have something to bring up the rear. And bring up the rear it does. I didn't hate it. Almost, but not quite. Evan described is two hours of setup for a sequel. I wouldn't mind so much, except the movie didn't make enough money for a sequel to be feasible. Which means I want Ridley Scott to give me two hours of my life back.

It's basically two hours of nothing, and then some generic action. And I mean that in the worst way. Sure, there are some cool things. Near the beginning, they storm a castle by running up the portcullis and hanging bags of oil on it, then shooting flaming arrows at it. An inventive way of opening the door. But that's about it. After that, it gets into riding around a lot, while showing off some bland scenery, and a bit of historical inaccuracy (Robin Hood invented the Magna Carta? Really?) before finally settling on fending off the French in a doubly-poorly executed strategy (I say doubly because the French invasion was poorly done, and the English defence was poorly done. It's like none of the sides had planned a battle before. Just awful). There's also a small skirmish where Robin and his men rescue the
village of Nottingham from bad people, before they ride out to defend their shores, using shots blatantly ripped off ("It's an homage, really") from Lord of the Rings. I kept expecting them to encounter Frodo along the English Countryside and offer to ride with him into Mordor (after all, "One does not simply walk into Mordor" ... Sorry, Boromir, but one can and one does. You got served - by Hobbits, no less). The climax has wide shots of extras swinging their swords at each other, interspersed with Russell Crowe swinging his sword at someone paid a lot less than him.

All in all, disappointing. Don't see it. Guys, the action is bland and Galadriel - sorry, Maid Marion - just isn't that hot. Girls, Russell Crowe is dirty and fat. Get over it.

Ironman 2

Two thumbs up. Way up. Like, hanging from ceiling from my thumbs to make them longer thumbs up. There is one problem though, and it's a worrying trend I've been seeing. It goes something like this: 2 hours of build-up, 20 minutes of action. So Ironman 2 had about an hour and a half of comedy (and some actually touching moments of mortality) and then 20 minutes of action. There's only a few other actions scenes, which I'll list if you don't mind the spoilers:

- The Monaco racing scene (3-5 minutes. Fun fact: The Monaco track is so dangerous that if it were proposed today, it wouldn't be accepted. The only reason people race there is it's been grandfathered into the circuit. Some things need to be grandfathered out, before people get hurt or killed)
- The fight between Ironman and War Machine (5 minutes).

Really? You couldn't have an awesome opening action scene? Don't get me wrong, you can have a great action movie without an opening action scene (Die Hard takes a good 30 minutes to fire a gun. If someone watched the first 25 minutes, they'd think it was a drama about John McClean trying to sort out his marital problems). But if you have less than 10 minutes of action before the climax starts, you may want to rethink things.

Of course, they fix it by adding a lot of comedy, so that was good. And the climax was pretty awesome, and we get to see Scarlett Johansson in black leather ("Yowsa" I might say if I were from the 50's) so all in all, two thumbs up.

The Summer of Mindless Movies

Evan and I have been going to movies. These are not ordinary movies. These are the movies that require you to turn your brain off, or it will start leaking out your ear after an hour. These are mindless movies. I should probably qualify that a little bit (from here on out, there might be a bit of difference between what I think are facts and what's actually true, so you should probably check this on Wikipedia and other sources after you finish reading. Unless, of course, you don't mind spreading almost-facts at the expense of truth. You know, like Christianity ... oh wait). These are not so much mindless movies as summer blockbusters. Designed to make a lot of money and not win awards (sure, Oscars and Golden Globes look great, and can fit in with a lot of marketing campaigns, but most movie executives are worried about the bottom line, and that's it). So the Summer Blockbuster was invented (probably by accident). It most likely started with Jaws, a scary-at-the-time movie that a lot of people went to. The blockbuster was solidified in the summer of 1977 when Star Wars was released, stuck around a long time, and became the highest grossing movie ever (it was overtaken later, by lesser movies ... *cough* James Cameron *cough*).

So studios found that releasing movies during the summer with good marketing campaigns could really boost sales. Which brings us to this year. By now, the blockbuster is carefully calculated, but very much a gamble. Studios play a game of chicken with their tentpole movies. Release two at the same time, and you could split the moviegoers money instead of taking it all. Release one right after another, and the second movie might not get much revenue from people who've already had their movie experience. Release it the week before, however, and you risk having your second weekend significantly clipped by the following week's movie (a good barometer of movie success is how well the movie does in the
second weekend, after critics' reviews and word of mouth get out. A significant drop, and your movie's dead in the water. A good second weekend, and you have a potential Dark Knight or Avatar on your hands. Seriously, check it out. Avatar didn't even break $100 million its first weekend (the new millennium sign of a blockbuster), but stayed so consistent that it's the highest grossing movie of all time).

The upshot of all this is that studios carefully plan when they release movies, and then get down on their knees and pray to the altar of the almighty dollar (they don't really believe in much else) that their plan pays off. Unfortunately for Evan and I, it means that blockbusters don't come along once every week. So we plan to see about one a month, and fill the rest with mindless action movies. These could also be called Mindless Guy Movies, because they've all received a healthy (unhealthy?) injection of testosterone.