Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Dogma
****½ Dogma. Comedy.
Directed by: Kevin Smith.
Starring: Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Chris Rock, Alan Rickman, Jason Lee, Salma Hayek, Janeane Garofalo, George Carlin, Alanis Morissette
This was going to be the third movie Camden and I watched while Carl was gone, but Carl got home earlier than he'd expected, when we were about a half hour into the movie, so we started it over again from the beginning and he watched it with us.
As it says in the trailer above, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck play two fallen angels who are trying to exploit a loophole in Catholic dogma to get back to heaven. Unfortunately for the rest of us, if they succeed, it would mean the end of all existence. So an angel (Alan Rickman) is sent to enlist a seemingly ordinary woman (Linda Fiorentino) to stop them. She gets help from Jay and Silent Bob; Rufus, the 13th apostle (Chris Rock); and the muse Serendipity (Salma Hayek). George Carlin plays a cardinal, which is hilarious if you've ever heard any of his stand-up bits about religion. And Janeane Garofalo has too small a part as Linda Fiorentino's friend and co-worker.
There's a big disclaimer at the beginning of the movie saying it's fiction and a comedy, but even so, it's definitely not for anyone who doesn't see room for humor in religion. Interestingly, I think this point is made best in an early scene in which Loki (Matt Damon) is convincing a nun that she's wasted her life and there really isn't a God, and then Bartleby (Ben Affleck) calls him on it and points out that Loki knows there is a God. In a similar way, the movie only challenges the faith of those whose faith is shaky to begin with--the movie takes God's existence as more than a matter of faith--it takes it as a matter of fact.
My only complaint was the portrayal of God by Alanis Morissette. And it was probably just me, because I was trying to explain what felt wrong about it to Carl and Camden, and neither of them understood. But I'll see if writing it down clarifies things. I'm perfectly fine with the female portrayal, particularly as they point out in the movie that God isn't male OR female. And I can appreciate the carefree, happy portrayal as well--it would make sense that God would take joy in his/her creation. But... she was just a little off. Just a little more toward the goofy side of carefree and happy, where I'd have preferred and/or expected the portrayal to be more toward the joyous side. Actually, I think it was the clumsiness that most put me off. It just didn't seem to fit with the character as previously depicted in the movie.
Ah. I've got it now. Yes, it was the clumsiness. Clumsy implies fallible. And the entire premise of the movie hinges on the fact that God is infallible (if God isn't infallible, it's the end of existence). *Whew* I feel better now.
Anyway, it's a wonderful movie with an all-star cast, and we all loved it. One of these days we'll have to watch the second disc and the special features.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 4.5 stars, comedy, Movies
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest
***½ Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest. Comedy spoof.
Directed by: Dominic Polcino.
Starring: Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Seth Green, Mila Kunis, Mike Henry
Since Carl's in Switzerland, Camden and I watched this last night, along with The Blair Thumb. This must be my week for Star Wars spoofs. If it's not clear from the cover or the YouTube preview above, this is Family Guy's version of Star Wars.
It's very cute. Stewie is just right as Darth Vader, and there are some really amusing bits. My favorites were the ones where the orchestra showed up and then at the very end where they were discussing the Robot Chicken version of the Star Wars spoof. Perhaps we'll watch that one tonight just to compare and contrast.
Still, fun as it was, it was more homage than spoof. Other than occasional asides, it stuck closely to the original Star Wars story. The jokes were more added-on than poking fun at the original. I'm not complaining--it's nothing I didn't expect--just explaining why for me it was worth 3.5 stars.
Categories: Movies, 3.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 3.5 stars, comedy, Movies
The Blair Thumb
**½ The Blair Thumb. Comedy spoof.
Directed by: Todd Portugal.
Starring: Megan Cavanagh, Jim Jackman, Paul Greenberg, Steve Oedekerk
Last night, it was Camden's turn to choose the movie, and he picked this, the only one of the Thumb movies we hadn't seen yet. I've seen all the rest, but the only one reviewed here is Thumbtanic, which was hilarious. Since it's so short, we also watched the Family Guy Star Wars spoof.
The Blair Thumb, obviously, spoofs The Blair Witch Project, so I was at a disadvantage since I hadn't seen the original. Neither had Camden, but he liked this a lot better than I did.
The dressed-up thumbs are always cute, but I didn't get several of the references, which made a lot of the jokes less than funny, and though I understand that the main character, "Stressy," addressing the camera directly is an integral part of the spoof, it got really irritating.
I suspect that I'd have liked this much more if I'd seen The Blair Witch Project, but I also suspect that if I found the style this annoying in a 28-minute spoof, I'd hate it in the full-length movie. Eh. I didn't intend to watch the original anyway. I'm not a fan of horror movies at all.
Categories: Movies, 2.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 2.5 stars, comedy, Movies
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Now You See Him, Now You Don't
**** Now You See Him, Now You Don't. Comedy.
Directed by: Robert Butler.
Starring: Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero, Joe Flynn, Michael McGreevy, Ed Begley, Jr.
No trailer, or even clips for this one on YouTube, sad to say. You'll just have to take my word for it that this is a fun, fun movie.
Carl's in Geneva for the week, so Camden and I continued our tradition of watching something we normally wouldn't watch. We got this from Netflix.
I'd first seen this back when it first came out, in 1972, and loved it. Of course, I was only 11 then, so what did I know? Quite a bit, apparently. At least in this case.
Now You See Him, Now You Don't is the second movie starring Kurt Russell is Dexter Reilly (the spelling of whose name changes on the IMDB across the three movies in the series), a student at Medford College. The first was The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. (click to read my review)
In this one, he's working on an invisibility project in the science lab, and with the help of a lightning storm, it works. As in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, Medford College's mortgage is due--$50,000--and "businessman" A. J. Arno (Cesar Romero) has plans to turn the situation to his own profit, this time by foreclosing and turning the college campus into a gambling mecca. Their only hope is the Forsythe Science Award, which just happens to be $50,000.
Dean Higgins (Joe Flynn) has his hopes set on Druffle's (Ed Begley, Jr.) bee experiments, but Druffle turns out to be allergic to bees and out of commission. Dexter Reilly swears his research is a shoe-in to win, but Dexter's a bit of a trouble maker and Dean Higgins really doesn't trust him.
There are lots of hijinks, though not nearly as many as you might expect, given the possibilities inherent in the subject of invisibility. The golf game when Dean Higgins has to impress Forsythe enough on the course to get Forsythe to allow tiny Medford College to enter the science contest is a definite highlight. And when the crooks get hold of the formula and use it to rob a bank, the resulting car chase--with the crooks and their car invisible--is a riot.
Since this was made in 1972, and furthermore, was originally made for TV, the special effects are not particularly impressive. But that doesn't seem to matter. While Now You See Him, Now You Don't is just as unrealistic as its predecessor, it doesn't suffer from the same degree of ridiculousness. That is, if there could be a liquid that would turn things invisible by spraying them, and that could simply be rinsed off with water, then the rest of the movie makes sense.
Camden was originally very resistant to the idea of watching an oldie. But even he enjoyed it, and I laughed aloud several times. Part of that was due, no doubt, to being really tired, but it was genuinely funny. I've noticed that the humor in movies of that era is less... frantic, maybe, than similar comedies today, and that's true for this movie as well.
It's always risky to revisit something you loved as a child--if it's not as good as you remember, then not only have you had a less-than-entertaining time, but you've spoiled those good memories. That didn't happen this time.
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Comedy
Labels: 4 stars, comedy, Movies
Monday, December 15, 2008
Kindergarten Cop
****½ Kindergarten Cop. Comedy.
Directed by: Ivan Reitman.
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Penelope Ann Miller, Pamela Reed, Linda Hunt
I watched this on VHS while exercising.
This is such a fun movie. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Pamela Reed play a pair of cops (John Kimble and Phoebe O'Hara, respectively) on the trail of drug dealer Cullen Crisp. When they get a tip that Crisp is in turn on the trail of his ex-wife who, he says, stole a fortune from him, they look for the ex-wife.
Her whereabouts are narrowed down to a small town, so O'Hara arranges to go undercover as a kindergarten teacher. But when they get there, O'Hara is horribly ill, and Kimble has to take over.
Hijinks abound, of course, but Kimble's unease and ineptness with the children, the source of most of the movie's humor, isn't overdone and is balanced nicely with the suspense and romance subplots just as Kimble is balancing his investigation with learning to handle energetic 5-year-olds and falling in love with the fellow teacher (Penelope Ann Miller) who helps him out.
Even though Schwarzenegger is the star, Linda Hunt as the school's principal and Pamela Reed also shine. My favorite scene is when Principal Schlowski calls Kimble in to the office after he punches a man who's been abusing his wife. And the principal asks how it felt. You could really enjoy the violent vicarious justice along with her.
I've watched this one many, many times, and I'm sure I'll watch it many more.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 4.5 stars, comedy, Movies
Monday, November 17, 2008
Bandits
****½ Bandits. Comedy.
Directed by: Barry Levinson.
Starring: Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett
We rented this from the Shoppette. I'm not sure why we didn't see this when it came out back in 2001. Oh. That's when I first got CFS and it was really bad--some days I could barely make it out of bed. So there were about nine months when we didn't go see a lot of movies. Glad I figured that out.
Anyway, I absolutely love caper movies. And I love Bruce Willis. Even though his hair was horrible in this movie. I always wonder about that--is it the stars themselves who are responsible for it, or is it the director or make-up person or whatever? So many older male movie stars have horrible hair. Though I guess it did fit the character.
Joe Blake (Bruce Willis) and Terry Collins (Billy Bob Thornton) are mismatched bank robbers. Joe's the charming tough guy and Terry is the smart hypochondriac. Because they kidnap the bank managers the night before the robbery, they've become known as the "sleepover bandits," and the subject of an America's Most Wanted-type show. Cate Blanchett is Kate, a frustrated housewife who falls in love with them both. Joining their crew is Harvey (Troy Garrity), an aspiring stuntman who drives the getaway car... when he's not distracted by the girl in pink boots (January Jones), that is.
Willis and Thornton were fabulously funny together. They needled each other, but underneath, their friendship was rock-solid. Even falling in love with the same woman couldn't split them apart. After all, as Kate said, the two of them together make one perfect man.
Bruce Willis was pretty much Bruce Willis. Billy Bob Thornton's Terry was, on the other hand, not your usual character. He's a hypochondriac, but he's also highly intelligent, and he's not a wimp. And unlike a lot of fiction, he's realistically intelligent--he knows he's neurotic, he just accepts that about himself. Granted, a lot of it was over-the-top, particularly when he'd convinced himself he had a brain tumor, but he just made it so much fun, and the humor never degenerated into silliness.
Cate Blanchett was a surprise to me. I don't believe I'd seen her in a comedy before, and she proved to be an excellent comedienne. Comedy takes more--or at least a different kind of--acting ability than drama, so sometimes it doesn't work. But she held her own. I was also surprised that I could find a married woman running off with two men sympathetic, but once we'd seen her husband, it wasn't a big stretch to root for her.
Bandits is full of great lines. Check out the quotes on the IMDB--it's a good way to tell if you'll enjoy the humor in Bandits. The soundtrack was great, too.
We all loved the movie and will probably buy a copy for our library. Camden even put it on his Christmas list (and complained because I only gave it 4.5 stars).
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 4.5 stars, comedy, Movies
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Disaster Movie
*½ Disaster Movie.
Directed by: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer.
Starring: Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, Nicole Parker, Crista Flannagan, Kimberly Kardashian, Carmen Electra, Tony Cox
We just got back from watching this at the theater on post. I really wish I could get that hour and a half back.
Billed as a spoof of disaster movies, it's mostly just a collection of references to current movies, TV shows, commercials, and popstars. Off the top of my head, I recognized Batman, Iron Man, Hancock, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Juno, a Dr. Who episode, Enchanted, Sex and the City, Kung Fu Panda, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, Amy Winehouse, High School Musical, Hannah Montana, Beowulf, Get Smart, American Gladiators, Prince Caspian, Hellboy, Jessica Simpson, Dr. Phil, Justin Timberlake, The Incredible Hulk, Night at the Museum... I'm sure there are more, but you get the idea.
Unfortunately, that's all it was. I had the impression that it was a contest, to see how many pop culture references they could squeeze into 90 minutes. I'm pretty sure they won.
There's no plot, and less humor. A couple of minutes into the movie, there's an extremely long belch from "Amy Winehouse" that goes on long after anyone who was remotely amused would be tired of it. We took a fourteen-year-old boy with us. He wasn't amused.* That set the tone for the entire movie: unfunny "jokes" that go on for far too long.
I gave it the extra half star because I did... well, not laugh exactly, more like going "heh," on three separate occasions. One was during the Hancock scene, one from one of the Enchanted scenes, and one from Beowulf (he keeps saying "I am Beowulf"--which, in retrospect, probably isn't all that funny, but it was later in the movie and I was desperate to find something entertaining about it at that point).
Also, Nicole Parker, who played the enchanted princess, was a bright spot in an otherwise abysmal film.
Lest you haven't been around here before, let me assure you that I'm not comedy-challenged. Check here, here, here, here, here, and, most pointedly, here. I like comedy. Even, or maybe especially, silly comedy. This was not it.
I really, really wish I'd checked the reviews before deciding to go see this one. But hey--at least it's rounding out my ratings average.
*Note: in other words, the apparent target audience--a teenage boy--didn't like it either.
Categories: Movies, 1.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 1.5 stars, comedy, Movies
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Airplane!
****½ Airplane! Comedy.
Directed by: Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, Jerry Zucker.
Starring: Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Julie Hagerty, Robert Hays, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Barbara Billingsley, Maureen McGovern, Ethel Merman...
We rented this from Netflix. I'm thinking we should probably just buy it--it's definitely worth a place in our movie library.
Airplane! is, if I'm not mistaken, the first--and the best--of the spoof movies. It spoofs all those disaster movies from the 70s, and a lot of other things besides.
The plot--the pilot (Peter Graves), co-pilot (Kareem Abdul-Jabar), navigator(Frank Ashmore), and several of the passengers of an airliner are stricken with food poisoning, and it's up to ex-fighter-pilot Ted Striker (Robert Hays) to land the plane safely, despite his war-related trauma. He's also recently been dumped by his girlfriend, stewardess Elaine (Julie Hagerty).
Nearly every single line is a joke or a pun or a reference to another movie--sometimes all three. You can watch this over and over and still miss some of them. Although quite a few of the cameos aren't obvious to the under-40 crowd (we had to explain to Camden that Kareem Abdul-Jabar really was the famous basketball player the little boy passenger was saying he was, and that the older lady who "spoke jive" played the mom on Leave It To Beaver.), and I didn't even realize some of them until I was looking up the details for this review (the singing nun was singer Maureen McGovern, and the guy checking the oil was Jimmy Walker), there were still more that were funny and recognizable even now.
What sets this apart from its lame imitators is that it's not just a string of jokes--it's all within the framework of an actual plot, and there's continuity between the scenes, helped along by some running gags, like "looks like it's a bad week to stop smoking/drinking/doing amphetamines/sniffing glue" and "but that's not important right now."
Some of the most classic scenes are in the preview--like the auto-pilot, the woman who speaks jive, and everybody lining up to slap the hysterical woman.
Airplane! is a heck of a lot of fun, whether you ever watched any of those 70s disaster movies or not. I highly recommend it.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 4.5 stars, comedy, Movies
Monday, October 27, 2008
Tropic Thunder
***** Tropic Thunder. Action, comedy.
Directed by: Ben Stiller.
Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr., Jack Black, Brandon T. Jackson, Nick Nolte, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise, Steve Coogan, Danny McBride
We watched this Friday night at the theater on post. Camden's been looking forward to it ever since he first heard about it--he's a huge Ben Stiller fan. He wasn't disappointed--it's now his favorite movie ever.
If you've seen the trailers (there's one here, if you haven't), you know that Tropic Thunder is about making a war movie that turns out not to be a movie after all. Well, sort of. Rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) is having trouble with his cast, and when an expensive explosion scene goes off without the cameras rolling, his movie is doomed. Until author Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte) convinces him to take his 5 actors into the jungle to film realistically.
I'd expected the movie to mostly be about figuring out that what was happening to them wasn't actually a movie, but it was a lot more than that. "It's not a movie" is just the background. It's about movie making, acting, stereotypes, commercialism, and the relative importance of things. (TiVo turns out to be more important than you think!)
There's so much to love here. From the very beginning, with Alpa Chino's (Brandon T. Jackson) Booty Sweat commercial, and "trailers" for Tugg Speedman's (Ben Stiller), Kirk Lazarus's (Robert Downey Jr.), and Jeff Portnoy's (Jack Black) latest films (here's the trailer for Satan's Alley--I couldn't find good ones for the others), it's a movie within a movie, with actors playing actors playing roles. Click on all those links--they're hilarious. All the "actors" have websites.... well, except for the kid, Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel)--he just has a MySpace page.
All right--that's more to do with the promotion than the movie, but Camden and I just spent a while playing around with the links, so I thought I should share them.
Matthew McConaughey is Rick Peck, Tugg Speedman's agent, and he spends nearly the entire film trying to get TiVo for Speedman--basically, to show how indispensible he is.
The big surprise was Tom Cruise as producer Les Grossman. Ruthless, obnoxious, cares about nothing but money, and prone to dancing.
My absolute favorite part of the movie was the cosmetically-black Kirk Lazarus, who's Australian, trading stereotypes with Alpa Chino, all while staying in character ("Man, I don't drop character 'till I done the DVD commentary."), but there were too many good parts to mention them all.
Another fabulous part was Lazarus and Speedman discussing Acting (with a capital "A"), and action actor Speedman trying to hold his own with serious actor Lazarus. And.... Argh. I'm so tempted to describe scene after scene and copy and paste a whole bunch of quotes from the IMDB. I won't. You can go read them yourself if you want.
All the "actors" had insecurities, faults, or quirks that affected them, particularly while trying to escape from the drug lord. They were all unique individuals, and their differences made sense with the way the characters were described--Lazarus gets caught up in roles, Portnoy has a drug problem, Speedman wants to be taken seriously as an actor, etc.
We'll be getting the DVD as soon as it's released. And watching over and over again until we can quote it verbatim, no doubt.
Categories: Movies, 5stars, Comedy, ActionAdventure
Labels: 5 stars, action, comedy, Movies
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes
*** The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. Comedy.
Directed by: Robert Butler.
Starring: Kurt Russell, Cesar Romero, Joe Flynn, William Schallert
We got this from Netflix, a bit of nostalgia for me. It's from 1969. Disney used to make a lot of teen movies--quite a few of them with Kurt Russell.
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes is the first of three movies about Medfield College, all starring Kurt Russell as Dexter Riley, Joe Flynn as Dean Higgins, and Cesar Romero as unscrupulous businessman A. J. Arno. The other two are Now You See Him, Now You Don't and The Strongest Man in the World. Those are in my Netflix queue, too.
Progressive Professor Quigley (William Schallert) is trying to get a computer for the financially strapped Medfield College, but Dean Higgins says they absolutely cannot afford one. So the students, led by Dexter Riley, approach A. J. Arno, who has a computer he's selling for $10,000, to ask him if he'd donate it to the college.
Then a part shorts out, Dexter volunteers to go get the new part and replace it, which he does during a storm. He gets shocked, and suddenly he literally has the brain of a computer. (Really! an X-ray and an ophthalmoscope both show the flashing lights and buttons of the computer. *rolling my eyes just a little*)
Suddenly the student who was on probation is now sought after by everyone, including rival colleges and Arno, who wants to use his deductive power for gambling. Turns out, though, that not only can he think like a computer--his brain also contains the computer's memory banks, with the statistics from Arno's gambling ring, and things get dangerous.
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes was a cute movie. I enjoyed wacky, conservative Dean Higgins, who always thought the kids were up to something; and kindly progressive Professor Quigley was the perfect balance. The computer stuff was far-fetched even for the 60s (I seriously doubt anyone actually thought being zapped by a computer would put little flashing lights and colorful buttons inside someone's eyes, for example), but then so's the entire plot, so that's fun.
There's a nice little message about fame and recognizing who your true friends are, and some very funny chase scenes, particularly one involving red paint, a dune buggy, and a haystack. And it's an ordinary friend who saves the day in the end, which was nice.
Little caveat about the DVD: the movie was originally filmed for television, but then released in theaters when it turned out better than Disney had expected. So it's full screen, not wide screen. So you're not missing anything with the full screen DVD. (quite a few of the Amazon reviews cited this, so I thought I'd mention it)
Anyway, cute movie--nothing exceptional, but worth getting from Netflix and watching with the family, if only to marvel at the difference 40 years makes in both computers and Kurt Russell.
Categories: Movies, 3stars, Comedy
Labels: 3 stars, comedy, Movies
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Step Brothers
*** Step Brothers. Comedy.
Directed by: Adam McKay.
Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Mary Steenburgen, Richard Jenkins
We saw this last night at the theater on post. Camden went with us--it's the first R-rated movie he's seen at a theater. Interesting: the theater requires that you sign in if you're bringing an underage kid to an R-rated movie. I'm often disturbed by people bringing young children to ultra-violent movies (I really don't think any 4-year-old needs to see Rambo), but this seemed like CYA overkill to me.
By the way, Step Brothers was rated R for language and fake testicles, which we knew about because Dagny had seen the movie already. She didn't think Camden should see it, but she tends to think of Camden as younger than we do. (In case you didn't see my TT post last week, Camden's 14.) And Camden had wanted to see this while we were still in the States, but we didn't get a chance to go.
Anyway, you've seen the previews, right? That's what the movie's about. 39-year-old Brennan (Will Ferrell) and 40-year-old Dale (John C. Reilly) both still live at home. The trouble starts when Brennan's mom (Mary Steenburgen) marries Dale's dad (Richard Jenkins) and they all move in together.
Brennan and Dale basically act the way they would if they were 10-year-olds in the same situation. Which is possibly a good reason for allowing your kids to see it--or waiting until they have a network TV version that strips out all the F-bombs and those aforementioned fake testicles.
Most of the big gags are in the previews, but not all of them. Like the parts with Brennan's obnoxious overachieving brother Derek (Adam Scott) and Derek's desperate wife Alice (Kathryn Hahn).
Given the premise and the previews, you have to expect crude humor, and that's mostly what you get. The thing is, I bought it. Take 40-year-old single men with no responsibilities, and they're going to be pretty darn crude. Two things I didn't buy, though: the job interviews (like the one in the preview) just seemed fairly pointless, though I did enjoy the one with Seth Rogan's cameo; and the sleepwalking, which was nonsensical. Yeah, yeah, the whole movie was nonsensical, but given the premise, I could buy most of it. The sleepwalking, I couldn't buy.
So I looked up sleepwalking, and maybe their actions were feasible--or at least not any less feasible than the rest of the movie--but it still somehow didn't seem to fit. I'm not sure why.
I also got irritated at the parents, particularly the mom, for making excuses for them and treating them like children. I had to keep reminding myself that the parents' behavior was what enabled these two to act like children.
Step Brothers seemed to have two messages: 1) don't give up your dreams--and that's a good message, and 2) you can either be a stuffed shirt or an idiotic spoiled child: there's no middle ground--which irritated the heck out of me.
Will Ferrell was at his most annoying in this movie. I tend to like his movies, but he got on my nerves here, and I could see what some people find unlikeable about him. John C. Reilly, on the other hand, was great. Dale was just as childish as Brennan, but Reilly underplayed him, while Ferrell overplayed Brennan. But maybe that contrast was necessary. It might not have worked as well if they'd both had more understated performances.
And it did work. Not spectacularly, and this isn't a movie we'll be getting on DVD (we did buy Talladega Nights, which should give you an idea of the relative merit), but it was an entertaining couple of hours, and at $4.50 for first-run tickets, not a bad deal.
Categories: Movies, 3stars, Comedy
Labels: 3 stars, comedy, Movies
Monday, October 06, 2008
Jumpin' Jack Flash
***** Jumpin' Jack Flash. Comedy, action/adventure.
Directed by: Penny Marshall.
Starring: Whoopi Goldberg, Stephen Collins, Carol Kane, Annie Potts, John Lovitz, Jonathan Pryce
I watched this on VHS while exercising, and let me tell you--it's not easy doing crunches while you're laughing.
Whoopi Goldberg plays Terry Doolittle, a computer operator for a large New York bank. This is the 80s, by the way, which explains some of the computers' idiosyncrasies. For example, she periodically picks up the broadcast of a Russian exercise program on her monitor. Terry does the international bank transfers, and she's constantly getting in trouble for chatting with her counterparts around the world.
So when she gets a "knock knock" on her monitor, she thinks it's one of her pals, and though she tries to resist to stay out of trouble, she responds... and gets a call for help from a British spy who needs her help to "come in from the cold" as they say.
What follows is a hilarious, exciting, and suspenseful caper, starting with Terry trying to figure out the "code key" from the song "Jumpin' Jack Flash": , and continuing on through breaking into Jack's apartment, fighting off KGB agents, and crashing a party at the British embassy.
I could--and have--watched this movie over and over again. It's got everything: humor, drama, suspense, action, even romance. One of these days I'll have to replace my VHS tape with a DVD.
Categories: Movies, 5stars, Comedy, ActionAdventure
Labels: 5 stars, action, comedy, Movies
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Kung Fu Panda
*** Kung Fu Panda. Animated comedy.
Directed by: Mark Osborne, John Stevenson.
Starring: Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu
I watched this on the plane on the way to the States this summer.
Jack Black is the voice of Po, a panda who works in his father's noodle restaurant while dreaming of being a kung fu master. By a series of misadventures, he ends up in the arena where Master Oogway is choosing the Dragon Warrior from among the five trained by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), and to everyone's shock, not least his own, Po is the chosen one.
Unfortunately, the Dragon Warrior is the only hope to defeat the evil snow leopard warrior Tai Lung, and Po isn't remotely capable. But despite resistance from the five experts, and even from Master Shifu himself, Po proves himself and I'm sure it's not a spoiler to say he saves the day.
It's a cute movie, but I'm finding it hard to understand all the raves. It's a story we've all seen before--the underdog saving the day--and the "wonderful fight scenes"?? Um--it's animated. Maybe whoever it is who designs what the CG artists produce did a nice job figuring out who should do what and how. I really didn't notice.
The message is a little heavy-handed, which is par for a kids' movie: believe in yourself, and just because you're fat doesn't mean you're not a hero.
It's an all-star cast, but the only ones who made an impression were Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman. All the rest had very small parts. The Furious Five (played by Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, and David Cross) were barely distinguishable from each other--if they hadn't all been different animals, there would have been no difference between them. By which I mean there was no character development for them at all.
Kung Fu Panda also suffers from the usual cute-itis--things added to the movie whether they make sense or not just because it's cute. Like Po's father being a goose. Why a panda would have geese for parents isn't really explained--it's just supposed to be funny, like bulls with udders.
My biggest problem with the movie, though, was the character of Po. I've seen this exact same character a dozen times at least, and it's really getting on my nerves. Not Jack Black--I like Jack Black: Shallow Hal, School of Rock, Nacho Libre, The Holiday... and he does almost always play an underdog, but not like this. I'm not exactly sure why I'm sick of it, but I think it's because the character is self-consciously heartwarming--it's pounded into the audience's head with a sledgehammer.
It is a very nice children's movie. It's just not one that goes beyond that. And that's fine.
Categories: Movies, 3stars, Comedy
Labels: 3 stars, comedy, Movies
Monday, September 29, 2008
WALL-E
****½ WALL-E. Animated science fiction comedy.
Directed by: Andrew Stanton.
Starring: Ben Burtt, Elissa Knight, Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, John Ratzenberger, Kathy Najimy, Sigourney Weaver
We saw this at the Embassy theater during our month in San Antonio this summer. I didn't know anything about it, but Dagny, who works in a child care center, had been hearing buzz for a while, and convinced us we had to see it.
I assume you're not as out-of-touch as I was, but here's a quick summary anyway. WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, and voiced by Ben Burtt) is the last functioning robot left on an Earth abandoned by humans after they literally covered it with trash. 700 years later, WALL-E is still industriously compacting the trash and occasionally collecting souvenirs of human habitation, accompanied by his cockroach friend.
Then another robot arrives: Eve, whose mission is to search for evidence that Earth can again sustain human life. WALL-E saves her from a dust storm, then shows her his collection, including a seedling, which Eve promptly secures inside her torso and goes dormant to wait for her spaceship to return. When the ship arrives, WALL-E tags along.
It takes them to the space cruise ship containing the human refugees, and an adventure ensues when the ship's computer (Sigourney Weaver) tries to prevent them from returning to Earth.
In true science fiction fashion, the story takes certain current trends and follows them to a logical, if extreme, future: the humans on the cruise ship lie around all day on floating chairs, watching their screens, drinking their meals through straws. They interact with each other only through their screens, if at all, and from the inactivity, they're kind of like Weebles. And the ship and everything in it is run by Buy N Large Corporation--the spiritual descendant of Wall-Mart.
The message--a bit of a cautionary tale about over-consumerism--is somewhat simplistic and heavy-handed, but hey--it's a kids' movie. I've seen much worse. It helps that it's a good message, and that the main story: a love story between WALL-E and Eve, is just so darn adorable.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Comedy, ScienceFiction
Labels: comedy, Movies, ScienceFiction
Thursday, August 21, 2008
You Don't Mess With the Zohan
I'm back, sort of! Since I haven't posted anything in a month (I did set up automatic posts so it wouldn't be completely dead here), I decided to just jump in and post about the movie we saw this evening. I don't think there'll be a Thursday Thirteen this week--I'm still in the middle of boxes and we have a ton of things to do--but I'm hoping to be posting regularly by next week.
**** You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Comedy.
Directed by: Dennis Dugan.
Starring: Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui
Carl, Camden, and I saw this tonight. Nice thing about our new digs: we can walk to the movie theater!
Zohan (Adam Sandler) is an exceptionally skilled Israeli Mossad agent (lots of hilariously unrealistic stunts), but what he really wants is to move to America and become a hairdresser. Unfortunately, he's too good at what he does, and nobody wants him to quit.
When his Palestinian arch-nemesis, the Phantom (John Turturro) is released as part of a prisoner exchange, a disillusioned Zohan takes the opportunity to use their next showdown to fake his own death and escape to his dream life.
The only place he can find a job is a beauty shop run by a Palestinian woman (Emmanuelle Chriqui), where he attracts scores of older women customers.
There's a LOT of sexual innuendo--it definitely earns its PG-13 rating. I'd have been uncomfortable if Camden had been any younger. But I at least found it funny rather than crude--probably because it was all so over-the-top. And maybe it's my age, but I kind of liked Zohan's appreciation for older (and rounder!) women, even though it made Carl and Camden cringe.
There's also a love story (you can see the twist coming a mile off, but that's okay--I didn't expect any earth-shattering surprises), and a mild message of tolerance that seems to echo last year's I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Also similar are the criticisms of stereotyping--obviously from those who don't understand the power of humor to expose and dispel stereotypes.
One of my favorite scenes was the hacky-sack tournament, with it's pause for a "disco break". Too funny.
And it was a lot of fun noticing all the cameos: Henry Winkler, Kevin James, and John McEnroe, to name a few. There were more--I'm not even sure the IMDB lists them all--or maybe I'm just having trouble matching unfamiliar names to familiar faces.
It's not Great Cinema, but then if you were expecting Great Cinema, you wouldn't be going to an Adam Sandler movie. I laughed aloud throughout the movie. The pacing was great--the non-funny parts never lasted long enough to get dull, and the funny parts didn't get tedious. The accents did get a little difficult to understand on occasion, but even that added to the overall experience. Bottom line: It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours.
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Comedy
**** You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Comedy.
Directed by: Dennis Dugan.
Starring: Adam Sandler, John Turturro, Emmanuelle Chriqui
Carl, Camden, and I saw this tonight. Nice thing about our new digs: we can walk to the movie theater!
Zohan (Adam Sandler) is an exceptionally skilled Israeli Mossad agent (lots of hilariously unrealistic stunts), but what he really wants is to move to America and become a hairdresser. Unfortunately, he's too good at what he does, and nobody wants him to quit.
When his Palestinian arch-nemesis, the Phantom (John Turturro) is released as part of a prisoner exchange, a disillusioned Zohan takes the opportunity to use their next showdown to fake his own death and escape to his dream life.
The only place he can find a job is a beauty shop run by a Palestinian woman (Emmanuelle Chriqui), where he attracts scores of older women customers.
There's a LOT of sexual innuendo--it definitely earns its PG-13 rating. I'd have been uncomfortable if Camden had been any younger. But I at least found it funny rather than crude--probably because it was all so over-the-top. And maybe it's my age, but I kind of liked Zohan's appreciation for older (and rounder!) women, even though it made Carl and Camden cringe.
There's also a love story (you can see the twist coming a mile off, but that's okay--I didn't expect any earth-shattering surprises), and a mild message of tolerance that seems to echo last year's I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
Also similar are the criticisms of stereotyping--obviously from those who don't understand the power of humor to expose and dispel stereotypes.
One of my favorite scenes was the hacky-sack tournament, with it's pause for a "disco break". Too funny.
And it was a lot of fun noticing all the cameos: Henry Winkler, Kevin James, and John McEnroe, to name a few. There were more--I'm not even sure the IMDB lists them all--or maybe I'm just having trouble matching unfamiliar names to familiar faces.
It's not Great Cinema, but then if you were expecting Great Cinema, you wouldn't be going to an Adam Sandler movie. I laughed aloud throughout the movie. The pacing was great--the non-funny parts never lasted long enough to get dull, and the funny parts didn't get tedious. The accents did get a little difficult to understand on occasion, but even that added to the overall experience. Bottom line: It was a fun way to spend a couple of hours.
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Comedy
Labels: 4 stars, comedy, Movies
Monday, June 09, 2008
The Legend of Drunken Master
****½ The Legend of Drunken Master. Comedy, action/adventure. Directed by: Liu Chia-Liang (Lau Kar-Leung). Starring: Jackie Chan, Lung Ti, Anita Mui, Felix Wong, Lau Kar-Leung
I watched this on VHS while exercising.
Jackie Chan is Wong Fei Hung, the son of a healer and a martial arts instructor. Returning with his father from an herb-buying trip, he tries to save some customs tax and hides their box of ginseng in a diplomat's luggage. When he retrieves it on the train (which involves a complex fight sequence on, in, and under the train), he ends up with a smuggled jade artifact instead.
So Wong Fei Hung has to hide the loss of the ginseng from his father, as well as the fact that he's been fighting, and fighting using the Drunken Master style. He ends up stumbling upon a plot to smuggle artifacts out of the country, and gets involved in trying to stop them.
The fight scenes are Jackie Chan's trademark blend of martial arts and humor, and the Drunken Master style is just what it sounds like.
But you expect all that from a Jackie Chan movie. What you don't expect, and what makes me enjoy watching this movie over and over again, is Anita Mui, who plays Mrs. Wong, his stepmother. She aids and abets her stepson's mischief, and engages in some of her own, always sneaking in a Mah-jongg game when she can get away with it. She goes from tough and able to weeping inconsolably in the blink of an eye, and has amazing comic timing, as well as her own martial arts skills. You know she's good if she outshines Jackie Chan in his own movie.
So I looked her up on the IMDB, only to find she'd died in 2003. She'd made a lot of movies, though, and quite a few of them are available on Netflix. I just updated my queue.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Comedy, ActionAdventure
Labels: 4.5 stars, action, comedy, Movies
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Longshot
**** The Longshot. Comedy.
Directed by: Paul Bartel
Starring: Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Jack Weston, Ted Wass
Watched the second half of this DVD with the boys--we'd watched They Went That-a-Way & That-a-Way several months ago.
A group of four buddies (Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Jack Weston, and Ted Wass), losers, but not bad guys, get a tip on a sure thing at the track--a longshot that's guaranteed to pay off big. The only problem is that they don't have the money to bet big enough to make it worth the while of the guy who's promised to fix the race for them. So they go to the local mob boss for a loan.
Which succeeds about as well as Tim Conway's character trying to seduce the money out of a rich dame. That is to say, not at all.
It's a comedy of errors, and boy, do these guys make a lot of them. This is a low-key sort of comedy, but the four are such genial losers you can't help but like them even while you know they're going to screw up.
The boys enjoyed it, too--in fact, Camden came in while I was looking at the YouTube video and said "oh, The Longshot! That was a good movie." Proof that it doesn't have to be all about slick special effects and frantic action.
...more
Categories: Movies, 4stars, Comedy
Labels: 4 stars, comedy, Movies
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
La Cage Aux Folles
***** La Cage Aux Folles. Comedy.
Directed by: Edouard Molinaro
Starring: Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Serrault, Claire Maurier, Remi Laurent, Benny Luke, Luisa Maneri, Michel Galabru
I'd originally seen this years ago, and loved it, so I bought the DVD recently after being reminded of it by one of Moondancer Drake's posts. It's such a classic, I felt it needed to be in our library.
The story is about a gay couple, Renato (Ugo Tognazzi) and Albin (Michel Serrault) living in St. Tropez. Renato's son Laurent (Remi Laurent) is getting married, but he's worried about how his fiancee's father will react to their lifestyle, so Laurent talks them into pretending to be straight when Andrea (Luisa Maneri) and her parents (Michel Galabru & Carmen Scarpitta) visit.
Which isn't as easy as it sounds. Renato owns a cabaret, and Albin, in drag as "Zaza", is the star attraction. They live above the club.
On the other side, the fiancee's father is head of the conservative party which is in the middle of a moral scandal, and so it's extra-important for him that his daughter's wedding be the epitome of conservative family values.
Complicating matters further are the barefoot French maid Jacob (Benny Luke) and Laurent's biological mother (Claire Maurier).
The DVD offers the choice of watching it dubbed or in the original French with subtitles. The original is vastly better, even though I don't speak French. The emotion comes through in the voice--you can get the meaning from the words in the subtitles.
And even in French with subtitles, I laughed myself silly. La Cage Aux Folles is a comedy, full of sight gags and hilarious situations, but like all very good comedies, it has an underlying seriousness that gives is meaning. Unsurprisingly, there's a theme of prejudice and acceptance, and being yourself.
The contrast between Laurent's and Andrea's families is pertinent but subtle: Laurent's home is brighter, more cheerful, and there's more affection between Renato and Albin than between Andrea's parents.
It's a shorter movie than I remembered, but every scene counts. The actors are all perfect in their roles, and even the flamboyant Albin/Zaza doesn't come off as a caricature.
I saw the remake Birdcage when it came out years ago, and it really doesn't compare. I did, though, put it in our Netflix queue so we can compare.
Categories: Movies, 5stars, Comedy
Labels: 5 stars, comedy, Movies
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Haunted Honeymoon
***½ Haunted Honeymoon. Comedy.
Directed by: Gene Wilder.
Starring: Gene Wilder, Gilda Radner, Dom DeLuise, Jonathan Pryce
We rented this from Netflix.
Larry Abbot (Gene Wilder) and Vickie Pearle (Gilda Radner) are stars of the Manhattan Mystery Theater radio program and are engaged to be married. Unfortunately, once they were engaged, Larry developed a speech impediment. Vickie thinks it's just pre-wedding jitters, so they continue with their plans and travel to the mansion where Larry grew up and meet Larry's eccentric family, headed by great-aunt Kate (Dom DeLuise).
Larry's uncle decides that the best way to cure Larry's speech impediment is to scare it out of him, so he and other family members set about trying various innovative and ever-funnier ways to scare him. Meanwhile, however, something spooky really is going on, and Larry finds a dead body in his bed, which later disappears.
Haunted Honeymoon is just total silliness. There are lots of sight gags and puns and pratfalls, and not a minute goes by without someone sounding, acting, or looking goofy. Gene Wilder was delightful, as was Gilda Radner, though it was a little sad watching her and knowing it was her last movie. Dom DeLuise in drag is always hilarious. And there's a classic scene with Gene Wilder and the butler's legs that's a must-see.
The problem, though, with movies that set out to be funny is that often they try too hard, and some of the jokes fall flat. That's the case with this one. The plot doesn't hang together well, and it ultimately feels more like a series of loosely-connected comedy skits, possibly from Gilda's days on SNL (which was the best of that show, btw).
Still, it was a fun movie, and an entertaining evening with the family.
Categories: Movies, 3.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 3.5 stars, comedy, Movies
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Definite Article
****½ Definite Article. Comedy.
Directed by: Ed Bye.
Starring: Eddie Izzard.
We rented this DVD from Netflix.
What can I say? It's Eddie Izzard, the executive transvestite (though that's not explained on this DVD) comedian. It's a DVD of a live concert, and is hilariously funny--I love his skewed point of view. And too cool--the DVD starts off with scenes from The Italian Job.
I'd only recently been introduced to Eddie Izzard's comedy, and watched (and loved!) Dress to Kill apparently just before I started posting about movies here.
Hints to my family: I'd love his DVDs for, say, Mother's Day.
Categories: Movies, 4.5stars, Comedy
Labels: 4.5 stars, comedy, Movies
