There Will Be Blood (Theatre) - Ashleigh

I had high hopes for this film. I have enjoyed Daniel Day-Lewis’ performances in the past and he is one of the few actors I actually follow. This movie is on the top of many lists this year, and is up for eight Oscars. But to be blunt, I was not fond of the movie. Daniel Plainview played by Daniel Day-Lewis is a riveting character. The performance is as powerful as Day-Lewis’ Bill the Butcher with just a little bit of compassion thrown in. He commands the screen with the power of a father and a shrewd businessman. His antagonist, Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano was equally well constructed. I would posit that Dano may have gotten the better of Day-Lewis but for Day-Lewis’ subtle work when he is not at the height of emotion. This movie portrays two actors at the pinnacle of their craft. Yet, I was not fond of the movie. The soundtrack was beautifully constructed with careful attention to the nuanced performances and the bleak setting. The largely stringed arrangement ebbed through the starkly captured American west holding the viewer on edge in anticipation of God-only-knows. However, I was not fond of the movie. The two most powerful scenes, a mirror of each other, where to two protagonists battle each other in a desperate attempt to destroy the other left me drained. They defy each other to denounce their religions, one who’s devotion to himself is selfish at best and megalomaniacal at worst, and the other whose devotion to God is frighteningly posed. Each one falls to the other's demands and in the end are destroyed by the other. These scenes alone are some of the most powerful put to film this year. Though, I was not fond of the film.
My largest complaint is the misstep in introducing Paul, Eli’s brother. The confusion this character represents deflates Dano’s character’s motives. Is he Eli? Many critics think so, despite P.T. Anderson’s denial. If he is not and is the twin of Eli, where was he the rest of the film? I know Daniel gave a synopsis of his life to Eli in their final battle - this actually was a barb Daniel pushed into Eli to draw blood, but that fact makes the character even more confusing. P.T. Anderson’s refusal to construct a plot also hinders my admiration for this film. This is common practice for Anderson, and one of the cardinal reason why I haven’t enjoyed most of his work. I’m not saying all movies need a plot, but Anderson pretends he has constructed one, and I hate this lie.

6 out of 10: I wouldn’t recommend this film, but the acting is beyond anything I’ve seen in the last year.

27 Dresses (Theatre) - Jennie

I’m no longer into Romcoms. I feel in the early days of the genre there was substance to these movies. I could be wrong, but here we go. Think about films like When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Splash (1984). These movies were directed by the likes of Ron Howard and written by Nora Ephron. This wasn’t a throw away genre. True, young actors who were barely in their prime were staring in these projects, much like 27 Dresses’ Katherine Heigl. And yes, the plots were formulaic. Harry did literally run after Sally. But Hollywood recognized that these films were well made. Nora Ephron got nominated for an Oscar for writing When Harry Met Sally, even though there was a stale chase scene at the end of the movie.
These days this genre is as much, if not more, of a subgenre as Sci-Fi, which brings me back to the name, Romcom. Much like the Sci-Fi genre these movies are slowly becoming written for a very small subgroup of moviegoers. Women made up 75% of the population that went to see this movie. 75% (I have stats if you wish)! And let me tell you, it was made for them. The male characters were two-dimensional props stood up next to the female leads as eye candy for the female viewership. This mirrors nicely with the Sci-fi genre were the females seem to be eye candy for the largely male viewers (just watch any Sci-Fi channel original movie. I swear those ladies were plucked from the nearest porn set in the exact costumes they were in).
This movie made me cringe at multiple times. The movie opens with Jane Nichols (Katherine Heigl) attending two weddings at once where, we are to understand, she is the glue that holds the ceremony together. At the end of each wedding Jane is thanked in front of the whole crowd by the bride. I do not remember seeing the groom once in either ceremony. We are then introduced to Jane’s life where she is under appreciated and takes care of everyone, ahhhh. The venerable bridesmaid of Romcoms, Judy Greer, plays the same role she always plays as Jane’s best friend/coworker at Urban Everest where Jane is an assistant to George (Edward Burns). George is a wealthy philanthropic dogooder who is the object of Jane’s affection. He obviously hasn’t noticed this yet. This is about all we will ever know of George's character, though he is one of the leads. The second male lead, and the winner of Jane’s affections by the end of the movie is Kevin (James Marsden). He is the commitments writer for the New York Journal, but hates weddings and marriage in general. Kevin did have some pretty nice oneliners about how horribly capitalistic the wedding industry is but the writers quickly doused that fire before it could turn any of the audience members off of his character. They explain that he is cynical about weddings because, gasp, he had the perfect wedding before and his wife left him for his college roommate (when this was reveled I heard sighs from the theatre, literal sighs.) Kevin dates Jane, Jane almost falls for Kevin, Kevin betrays Jane, Jane returns to George, George realizes the truth about Jane, they kiss, nothing is felt, Jane realizes Kevin is right for her, perfect wedding, end!
I can't portray the kind of loathing that I have for poorly made movies like these. Why waste the time, the money, the film? I know these movies aren’t made for me. But, it corrupts the delusional minds of the viewers into thinking that weddings are magical egotistical days where the man is an afterthought and the perfect dress can and should cost more than 10,000 dollars. Come to think of it, much like the sci-fi genre corrupts the delusional minds of its viewers into thinking that with the right construction of rings they can travel to different dimensions. Romcoms nerds are the new Sci-Fi nerds. But I fear that while the Sci-Fi nerds know that that is fiction, the Romcom nerds do not. Here’s to hoping.

4 out of 10: watchable, but contains more cliches than you can shake a stick at.

P.S. Jennie told me to say that women could enjoy it.

Cloverfield (Theatre) - Both

The marketing for this film was, in my opinion, sheer genius. If you watched Transformers this summer you were treated to a preview that portrayed a going away party. This party seemed pretty normal till all hell broke loose and screaming, running, and general mayhem took over. The last shot saw the head of the statue of liberty fly by and land in the street, ripped from its body. The last sound was someone yelling, "I saw it, it's alive, it's huge!" Then no name, no nothing, just 1-18-08 (the release date).
Now, most people have come to know that this is a monster movie. Simple. Monster comes - attacks city - people panic, but Cloverfield has its niche. Not only does it succeed as a solid monster film, it also adds a chaotic first person view. This allows Cloverfield to succeed beyond the other alumni. The sometimes nausea inducing camera work plays to the fear accompanying the characters as they make there way through the hoops the writers make them transverse. The drawback of this device is that there always had to be a reason someone was taping everything, which in a run for your life situation, seems pretty ludicrous. The writers didn’t necessarily succeed in coming up with reasons for this, but I can forgive them this in most instances.
I have seen Cloverfield likened to The Blair Witch Project (July 1999) which I can see, but I believe that is a shallow reference. Yes, the first person view lends itself to the reference, but that is about it. Ultimately this reference simply states that this is the only other movie to have used this device so successfully. However, I would liken it to The Host (July 2006) a South Korean monster movie that, if you watch, seems to be Cloverfield's long-lost brother. I can picture J.J. Abrams sitting with his buddies watching it and saying, “We should totally make a monster flick!” The similarities are many, but the most glaring would have to be its devotion not to the monster, but to the characters. Abram’s film focused on the humans in the situation and not the monster. The monster was an afterthought, a catalyst, but defiantly not the focus. This is why both of these movies succeed and movies like Godzilla (1998 film) fail so miserably. This is not to say the writers did this that well, the dialog was vapid, the characters were thin, and their motivations were confusing, but it is always interesting to see humans react, even unsuccessfully, to sheer terror.
Spoiler Alert:
The way this movie ranks so high to me though, is that it does the one thing you expect to happen when and if a monster were to attack an island. Everyone dies. I love that. It makes everything seem that much more realistic (I know, I know). But, they die too late. The movie would have been a complete success if the Manhattan scenes ended about five minutes earlier than they did: when the helicopter crashes. End it. *Crackle* It’s still alive *Crackle* then Coney Island scene. But no, they had to have a soliloquy by the last two characters before they die. Ho Hum. The second ending, the Coney Island scene was great. And did you see the monster’s origin in that scene? Or did you miss it?

8 out of 10: Succeeded on all levels that it wanted to, at times the melodrama was too much.

Transformers Trailer:

Joshua (Dvd) - Both

Joshua is a suspenseful sparse drama in the vein of The Good Son (1993) and to a lesser extent The Omen (1976, 2006). The star, Jacob Kogan, plays a child whose conscience and emotions are void and whose family has just welcomed a new baby sister. He seems indifferent to this addition and in the first scene where the new sister is brought home by the couple his character, Joshua, plays a stark dirge on a piano while the family gathers around the newborn. He plays the piano and acts far above his age, and is always in formal attire, even when in his pajamas he seems to be a grown up. Jacob Korgan is incredibly well cast, and his cold stare makes his character seem completely devoid of all emotions. The movie plods through its plot sometimes aimlessly wondering around this child’s creepy actions. In one scene Joshua sits emotionless almost intrigued, inches from his television watching old home movies of his years as a baby, his mother screams and cries constantly in the throws of postpartum depression yelling at the camera that she does not want to be taped. In another scene his father, Sam Rockwell, visits his son’s room and sees him cutting his teddy bears nose and then pulling stuffing from the bear. When asked what he was doing Joshua describes a fascination with Egyptians and their burial processes in rather precise detail. These actions are accompanied by a beautifully crafted soundtrack that pulls you into the world as you watch Joshua’s parents slowly go crazy. Joshua is never fully blamed for any action, and the film does not allow you to conclude any accusations that may be leveled against him. This is how the film succeeds. In one scene his mother drops a glass on the floor and Joshua, standing between the broken shards of glass and his mother, simply steps back. His mother then steps forward to touch him and pierces her foot. You can never fully blame the child, but it is easy to be fearful of him. The film seems to never truly reach any conclusions as to the child’s behavior, and that is a positive thing. The negative thing is that the film seems like a series of vignettes. Scene after uneasy scene roles by, each its own five minute story slowly, rolling to a stop by the end.

6 out of 10: well crafted suspense, a little too empty to be riveting

American Pyscho (OnDemand) - Both

This movie isn't bad. It is superbly well written for the screen. The frank depiction of Patrick Bateman that Christian Bale gave was crisp and clean. It's New York's high fiance as I imagine it to be, all blank white business cards with a hint of cream etched with Payne's gray script. The juxtaposition of manic serial killing and disposable pop music make for brilliant satire. And the open ended discussion that it sparks is a nice after-dinner mint that the writer leaves the audience. Was Bateman a sadistic serial killer? Or was he simply a psychopath in his mind and truly held to societies bosom in real life? All good things. But the history I have with this movie makes it frightening to me.
When I was a senior in college I took an acting class to fill the time. We were given the assignment to memorize a monologue and then act it out in front of the class. We could choose our own monologues but the professor had to approve it. Several of my classmates immediately decided that they wanted to do a scene from this movie. I hadn't watched the movie then so I thought nothing of it. But the scenes they suggested were all turned down due to their content. I now understand why. These freshmen wanted to recite line like:
"Harold, it's Bateman, Patrick Bateman. You're my lawyer so I think you should know: I've killed a lot of people. Some girls in the apartment uptown uh, some homeless people maybe 5 or 10 um an NYU girl I met in Central Park. I left her in a parking lot behind some donut shop. I killed Bethany, my old girlfriend, with a nail gun, and some man uh some old faggot with a dog last week. I killed another girl with a chainsaw, I had to, she almost got away and uh someone else there I can't remember maybe a model, but she's dead too. And Paul Allen. I killed Paul Allen with an axe in the face, his body is dissolving in a bathtub in Hell's Kitchen. I don't want to leave anything out here. I guess I've killed maybe 20 people, maybe 40. I have tapes of a lot of it, uh some of the girls have seen the tapes. I even, um... I ate some of their brains, and I tried to cook a little. Tonight I, uh, I just had to kill a LOT of people. And I'm not sure I'm gonna get away with it this time. I guess I'll uh, I mean, ah, I guess I'm a pretty uh, I mean I guess I'm a pretty sick guy. So, if you get back tomorrow, meet me at Harry's Bar, so you know, keep your eyes open."
Not only that, but they seemed to look up to Patrick Bateman as if he were what they wanted to become! This is a character made to be wholly unlikable (he kills a dog, the worse thing a character can do). Disturbing if you ask me.

6 out of 10: Well made film, watch it if you have the stomach, though don't say I didn't warn you.

Meet the Robinsons (Dvd) - Family Ski Trip

The wasteland of children’s cinema these days is immense. Strewn about this vast dessert are great production companies whose animation heyday seems ions ago. Children’s movies now consist of four or five trite staples that can be seen a mile away. To list a few: The spunky, dare I say gay (though a children’s movie would never admit such a thing!) sidekick, a villain whose motives seems questionable at best, a second spunky, dare I day black, sidekick (usually voiced by Wanda Sykes), toss in some funky fresh references to pop culture and you got yourself a hit. Maybe I’m nostalgic in thinking children’s movies when I was a child were inventive, thought provoking, and unique. Honey I Shrunk the Kids (1989)? All Dogs go to Heaven(1989)? Not to mention all of the now classic Disney musicals! I’ve read that when I was a child it was Disney’s golden age. Beauty and the Beast (1991), Little Mermaid (1989), Lion King (1994), Aladdin (1992), need I go on? Have you seen a recent children’s movie? Barnyard (2006), Chicken Little (2005), Happy Feet (2006) They are train wrecks. I hardly waste my time.

[This diatribe disregards Pixar. I have no beef with them and think nothing but great things about all their movies, save Cars (2006).]

Meet the Robinsons certainly isn’t perfect, but it has a lot more going on than Everyone’s Hero (2006) or Flushed Away (2006). The story is a well crafted, for children, mystery. They drop hints that any adult could figure out, but I can picture children having a blast trying to connect all the pieces. The dialog is truly funny. I laughed out loud several times, and was repeating lines after the movie. The characters were well constructed and humorous, especially the villain, though I thought the protagonist was never a fully realized character, just a camera for us to view the events that transpired. This isn’t to say the movie didn’t have its faults. The chase sequence seemed to be an excuse thrown in at the last second for the video game. The crazy family was a bit much; they could have toned it down a bit. But largely this movie was great fun to watch. I didn’t mind the moral ending; adopted kids can be well rounded successes! And the soundtrack wasn’t even that bad. It certainly aint no Flight of the Navigator (1986), but it has its moments.

6 out of 10: Won’t bring you your childhood back, but you will be laughing. Oh, and watch for the villain’s reveal.

Sunshine (Dvd) - Ashleigh

Fantastic Sci-Fi thriller. I enjoyed the visuals thoroughly. They made the vastness of space a character to be reckoned with. The first half of the movie was a psychological bender that could hold its own against any previous sci-fi-emptyness-of-space-gets-us-frightened-of-our-own-shadow movie, but it does nothing new from these movies. I'm not entirely sure it ever does anything new, which isn't a bad thing, but it does stumble a bit at the end. As the movie jogs to its climactic tipping point it turns into a Michael Bay fight to save humanity against a blurry melting villain. There were so many directions you could have gone to have avoided this poor ending, but alas this is not the case. Boyle again chooses a score that compliments his style and the film's mood. Overall, another fantastic film in Danny Boyle's arsenal, making me think this man can do no wrong.

7 out of 10: Sci-Fi at its peak, but missing a satisfying ending

Eagle vs. Shark (Dvd) - Ashleigh

I had high expectations for this movie. They fell short. Not too short, but short. It was a little slow, a little too awkward, a little too kiwi, a little too Napoleon Dynamite, a little too depressing, but just a little. Jemaine was a dick (from Flight of the Concords), it was hard to root for such a character's happiness, which we were forced to do through Lily, the female lead. Lily was a character who you couldn't help but feel bad for, but her misguided attempts at happiness through Jemaine's character were confusing and frustrating to watch. You wanted Lily to get something, somewhere, somebody, but she wanted Jemaine's character and I just can't get behind that. Not a bad watch, but I wouldn't ever want to see it again.

6 out of 10: funny at parts, but lacking the push to make it great.

Juno (Theatre) - Both

Started slow… a little too much hipster-myspace talk, all perfectly understandable, but it sounded like a marketing director for Phire-Blazin' Cheetos wrote the dialog. Then a dramatic turn, and the movie came around into a blossoming adult! The scene where Jennifer Garner touches Juno's stomach is beautiful; watch Garner's face in a pitch perfect strain of awe, respect, and longing, acting at its best. The remaining cast turned out good performances, from which Juno got its footing, and slightly stumbled as it crossed the finish line with a little too saccharin sweet ending. I must mention the soundtrack because it is blowing the iTunes sales charts up: I did not like it. The music sounded like fifteen different artists took on the sad-mellow-chick indie rock thing, and it got old.
There were a ton of people at the theatre and that made for a bad movie experience but they shut up when it got dramatic.

Overall a 7 out 10: weakness: the dialog and the sweetness.

The Kingdom (Dvd) - Jennie

This was basically CSI: Middle East. Great Movie, the ending two lines blew me away. The ending made the movie. It was kind of slow at some parts, but largely it was well acted and directed, I would highly recommend it. I never really wanted to watch the "middle east" movies, Jennie forced me to watch this one. A little hackney in the everything is "happy" ending, meaning all American's stay alive. All in all it was as if Michael Bay directed a CSI episode in Saudi Arabiah.

6 out of 10: a little too action movie for my tastes, though I applaud the topical locations

Sweeny Todd (Theatre) - Ashleigh

Good, almost great. The musical part of it didn't succeed as well as the movie part of it, though that is not to say I didn't love the music as I do most musicals. Depp was solid. There was something missing, almost a haphazard quality. Meaning the story felt splintered.

6 out of 10: Great cast, a well constructed mood, lacking... well... something.

Hotrod (Dvd) - Ashleigh

Horrible, horrible movie. There were scenes in it that made no since being in any movie. Example one: a 2 minute back and forth of "cool beans", literally they said "cool beans" different ways for about two minutes. Example two: (this one almost made me turn the movie off in the middle of viewing it) a 2 minute punch dancing sequence. I never have turned off a movie, well, except for Date Movie, and that was because Jennie wanted me to (though in its own rights, it was horrible).

2 out of 10: Burn the disc.

For your viewing pleasure, the "cool beans" scene.
No it is not at all edited, that is how it appears in the movie:

The Heartbreak Kid (Dvd) - Both

Not good, way too long, reminded me why I hate the Farrelly brothers, wasn't as bad as the worst Farrelly brothers movie, wasn't as good as the best. Ben Stiller just really needs to focus on something else. He hasn't been funny since... um... Has he ever been funny? Jennie and I were flipping the channels the other day and Zoolander came on, I don't see how anyone thought Ben Stiller was remotely good in that, and that is one of his big movies. Anyway, back to the review, there was graphic nudity that just didn't need to be there. I'm no prude, but come on, it was just there to ensure the R rating, am I right? Also, the movie was an hour too long. An hour. Can you make a good 2:30 comedy? Maybe, but the Farrelly brother certainly aren't up to the task in any way.

3 out of 10: Don't waste your time. If you do Jerry Stiller might reward you... a little.