The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Directed by Jon Turteltaub Starring Jay Baruchel, Nicolas Cage, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Toby Kebbell Release date: July 14, 2010 I’ll save you the suspense. Despite the fact that I don’t find it a particularly good movie, I liked The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Don’t mistake that for indecision. I think people’s ability to [...]

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Directed by David Slade
Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
Rated PG-13
Release date: June 30, 2010

Hailing The Twilight Saga: Eclipse the best of the series isn’t the ringing endorsement it sounds. Hearing that won’t change the minds of any non-believers and if you are already among the following, you aren’t one that needs converting. It most certainly is, but it’s a pretty relative statement.

I have always taken the stance of non-participation in the popular recreation of Twilight bashing. Attacking the mob mentality of these zealots is a bandwagon that would be easy to jump on, but Lord knows I liked some awful movies when I was younger, so I’ve always given the series a fair shake. They haven’t been great, in fact they have been downright ugly at times, but I can see why so many fans like them. A little.

Eclipse starts off pretty promising. Dark and raining in Seattle, a young man is being chased and hunted by something. This is the first time in this series I got the sense that vampires are dangerous and anything but sparkly and cuddly. It turns out to be Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is still hellbent on exacting revenge on Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) for killing her boyfriend James in the first film. Her plan is to find and kill Bella (Kristen Stewart), presumably so Edward can feel what she felt when her boyfriend died. The young man ends up being a college student from Forks, Riley Biers (Xavier Samuel), who is turned and tricked by Victoria into helping her assemble an army of newborn vampires to help take down Bella and the Cullen vampire clan [...]

The Karate Kid (2010)
Directed by Harald Zwart
Starring Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson
Rated PG
Release date: June 11, 2010

The number one stupid complaint people give in the midst of this sequel/remake craze, besides the fact that they shouldn’t do them, is that too many movies from our childhood are being ruined. I never understood that logic. You like the movies you like, for whatever reason it may be. No matter how bad it is, nothing that comes after it is enough to take away whatever it was that made you like it in the first place. The franchise may be tainted, but the movies within that canon that you loved aren’t impacted. For example, if this Ghostbusters 3 movie ever gets off the ground and sucks, the first one will still be a classic.

I’ve reexamined a lot of my favorite movies from my youth lately and realized that a lot of them really aren’t that good. I liked them at the time and that has carried over to me still liking them, but usually for nostalgic reasons. I am unapologetic about it, but truth be told, they are what they are. That said, comparing a current remake to one we hold dear from back in the day doesn’t usually have a fighting chance for that very reason.

Then there’s the new The Karate Kid [...]

Get Him to the Greek
Directed by Nicholas Stoller
Starring Russell Brand, Sean Combs, Jonah Hill, Elisabeth Moss
Release date: June 4, 2010

Having been burned by spin-off’s and sequels in the past, I am not surprised that Get Him to the Greek wasn’t as good as it wanted to be. Or as good as I would have liked for it to be. It is another in a long list of movies that proves watching people have fun isn’t nearly as cool as having the fun yourself.

Aldous Snow (Russell Brand, in a reprise of his role in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) has fallen on hard times. The once successful front man for Infant Sorrow, one of the biggest bands in the world, is in the backlash stage of his career. His last album bombed, his wife left him, and as a result, he is back on drugs and alcohol. His record company, also in desperate need of a hit, decides to resurrect the band by putting on an anniversary concert to celebrate the band’s infamous show at the Greek Theatre ten years ago. Studio executive Sergio Roma (Sean “Diddy” Combs) puts intern Aaron Greenberg (Jonah Hill) in charge of going to London to bring Aldous back to L.A. for the show [...]

Shrek The Final Chapter
Directed by Mike Mitchell
Starring Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas
Rated PG
Release date: May 21, 2010

I was watching TV the other night with a friend of mine and a trailer for Shrek The Final Chapter came on. He’s not what you call attentive, so when he looked at me and said, “There’s a new Shrek movie coming out?” I wasn’t surprised. But his response when I confirmed it was oddly insightful — he simply asked, “Why?” It might be a good question since the series was wrapped up nicely with the last three movies, but if you think the answer is anything but money, you’re crazy.

So how do you advance a series that has nowhere else to go because the characters have everything they have wanted for three movies? Why, an alternate universe, of course.

After a quick scene to catch everyone we see Shrek and friends just living life. Everything is going as it should, or at least how they wanted it. Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, and Dragon are tending to their respective clans. Everything is good until Shrek starts feeling like every day is the same and remembers a time when his level of self-worth was much higher. People used to be scared of ogres. His life used to have purpose. Ah, the good old days [...]

The Crazies
Directed by Breck Eisner
Starring Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson
Rated R
Release date: February 26, 2010

A military plane carrying a biological weapon crashes near an Iowa farm town, the people start becoming infected due to the effects of the weapon, the military gets involved and everyone has to run for their lives. If this sounds like a movie you have seen before, and not just because it is a remake of the 1973 film by George A. Romero, you are probably right. But I doubt it’s ever been as much fun.

Speaking of, let’s get something out in the open before we even get started. I know The Crazies isn’t movie about zombies in the truest sense, but purists be damned, it really is a zombie movie. It is not a faceless killer running amok; these are your friends and people you know infected by something unknown causing them to act… we’ll say “out of sorts.” I’ve always liked that level of emotion built into the zombie (and zombie-like) movie. If it were a typical horror movie there would be definitive bad guys. They threaten you, you kill them, end of story. No love lost. When the zombie apocalypse finally happens, the infected could very well be your wife, your friends, or your children. The survival aspect is compounded by potentially having to kill someone you know to stop them from killing you, eating your brains, lighting you on fire, chewing your face off doing you harm [...]

Alice in Wonderland 3D
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter
Rated PG
Release date: March 5, 2010

Tim Burton has spent the bulk of his career adding films to his resume that should have made us all rejoice in the idea of seeing his version of Alice in Wonderland. His imaginative style had the potential to lend itself to a classic version of the Lewis Carroll books. Technology and animation has caught up to Carroll’s imagination which should have provided an open canvas to bring the cherished story to life. Even in the able hands of someone who should be able to pull it off, it turns out that isn’t such a good thing.

Somewhere in the last few years filmmakers have become clouded with this notion that 3D is some kind of art form and it seems like every other movie is being converted to 3D, even ones that have no business being in the discussion. For the life of me I cannot figure out why they have yet to realize it is just a gimmick. There is no doubt Avatar changed our perception of what is possible but everybody else is light years behind the curve and until they figure it out, 3D will remain a joke that brings nothing to the table. Just because the glasses are a little cooler than they were 20 years ago doesn’t mean we should all hop back on the bandwagon. It went away before for a reason and it was brought back without really fixing the problem [...]

I was excited at the prospect of Kevin Smith directing a buddy cop movie. The original title, A Couple of Dicks, hinted at some of the irreverence that made Smith famous. Warner Bros. changed the title to Cop Out for marketing purposes then proceeded to market it to death, oddly leaving mention of Smith out of the campaign. Even though he didn’t write it, I had hopes that Smith’s presence would have at least helped fill in the cracks or stretch the funny if needed.

Well it was sorely needed and sadly, it didn’t work. It was almost like Kevin Smith directing a movie written by someone not as talented trying to write a Kevin Smith movie. Wait, that’s actually exactly what it was. It was supposed to pay homage to this type of movie but it was just a lazy, uninspired copy. Of a copy. For what it’s worth, everyone else in the theatre where I saw it was at least 20 years older than me and they couldn’t stop laughing. I guess that’s something.

Time for a little SPOILER TALK. Below are some of my random, non-sequential spoiler-filled thoughts and rants about the movie. Leave your comments about the movie [...]

Shutter Island
Directed by Martin Scorsese
Starring Ben Kingsley, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams
Rated R
Release date: February 19, 2010

What makes a movie great? Is it meeting the expectation of greatness? Can a movie be viewed solely on its own merit anymore without comparing it to something else you saw that you liked better or worse, or is that what watching and understanding movies is all about? I thought about that a lot after seeing Shutter Island.

It is in our nature to view a movie not only on its own merit but comparatively against like sources. Martin Scorsese has made a lot of brilliant movies but is it fair to always compare each new one to the classics he has already made? His latest film will make you rethink that process. It is the type of film that will make you forget his stable of gangster movies that most people would try to define him by. If you have ever wondered what a Scorsese horror film would look like, Shutter Island is the answer.

The movie opens as two U.S. Marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), arrive on Shutter Island. They have been invited to Ashecliffe Hospital to investigate the disappearance of Rachel Solando (Emily Mortimer), a patient at the facility. Their arrival doesn’t seem to be met with much enthusiasm. The staff is less than cooperative, the hospital’s chief psychiatrist Dr. John Crawley (Sir Ben Kingsley) offers feigned assistance and right away the case seems steeped in impossibility. She was locked in her room, no one saw her leave, and there are no signs of exit. Not to mention they are on an island in the middle of a hurricane [...]

Fantastic Mr. Fox
Directed by Wes Anderson
Voiced by George Clooney, Bill Murray, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Willem Dafoe, Wallace Wolodarsky, Eric Anderson, Michael Gambon, Owen Wilson, Jarvis Cocker
Release date: November 25, 2009

My relationship with the movies of Wes Anderson can best be described as strained, to say the least. I have a sympathetic ear for the dysfunction he makes his characters wallow in each movie, but aren’t they all really just singing the same song?; that a family, no matter how damaged and quirky, can get through anything as long as they stick together? He has a definitive style, but more and more I get the impression that he is really telling a variation of the same story and trying to hide it by out-weirding the last one. Considering it to be my loudest objection to his movies, I find it curious that one of the biggest compliments I can give Fantastic Mr. Fox is that it feels like a Wes Anderson movie.

The children’s novel by Roald Dahl that the movie is based on is pretty straightforward. Mr. Fox steals chickens, turkeys, and cider from three wealthy nearby farmers. The farmers band together to try to ambush and kill him. He escapes with his family but ends up trapped and starving. After a spell he hatches a plan to create an underground safe haven and steal from them again out from under their noses while they wait for him to emerge [...]

A Christmas Carol
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Starring Jim Carrey, Gary Oldman
Rated PG
Release date: November 6, 2009

It happens every year, almost without fail. Christmas day comes around and as I am tearing through my presents there is always that one gift. You know the one where the person giving it to you is so excited they hold it back so you have to open it last so they can make a big spectacle of it. Usually the bigger deal they make, the more I dread it. Not because I am ungrateful, but my appreciation hardly ever matches their excitement. Then there’s that whole awkward exchange where they think you don’t like it and you tell them you do but they don’t buy it because they were super excited but you weren’t as excited and… ugh. Robert Zemeckis’ adaptation of the Charles Dickens story, A Christmas Carol is that present. So impatient is he to show off his gift to us that he’s overlooked the fact that it’s little more than a big turd in fancy wrapping.

The story is the same as it’s been for the past 165 years. On Christmas Eve night, Ebenezer Scrooge (Jim Carrey) is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future during which time he experiences a moment of clarity and eventual redemption. As a story Zemeckis plays it by the book (literally), but as a movie, this thing is all over the place [...]

The Box
Director Richard Kelly
Starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella
Rated PG-13
Release date: November 6, 2009 (wide)

Richard Kelly’s third film, The Box, is based on the short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson which later became a segment on an episode of The Twilight Zone. If you know nothing about the movies that Kelly has written and directed then you watched The Box because it has Cameron Diaz in it and you thought it looked interesting you will have the same reaction to it even if you’re already familiar with his movies and knew what you were getting in to. If you are part of the latter group, you know that reaction because you’ve been here before.

Living in fairly affluent Virginia suburb in 1976, Arthur (James Marsden) and Norma Lewis (Diaz) appear to be living the American dream. They have a nice house, good jobs, their son seems well behaved, and they even have a pre-midlife crisis Corvette. All is well in the house of Lewis, but things are starting to unravel behind the scenes. Norma finds out the discount program her job offers for their son’s private school tuition will be discontinued. The same day, Arthur finds out that he has been rejected from the astronaut program; something we get the impression everyone thought was a foregone conclusion [...]

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Season 5, EP 1-4
Starring Rob McElhenney, Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olson, Danny DeVito
FX Network

On the eve of the fifth season of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I am sitting here wondering how this show can still be on the air. I am not talking about the blatant irreverence. The question comes more from the curiosity behind how a show like this can survive as long as it has without becoming monotonous and boring. At its heart it is the very definition of a one-trick pony.

If you tried to tell someone who hasn’t seen the show what it was about, it wouldn’t sound like much. It’s a group of underachievers who run a dive bar in south Philly who try to scheme their way into their vision of success. What they are trying to succeed at differs with each episode but it usually comes from a part of their brain that is poorly lit and with little thought of consequence. The truth is they are unsuccessful at just about everything they are involved in, business, relationships, sobriety; pretty much life in general. The only people that seem oblivious to their limitations are each other. You can gussy it up all you want, but at its core that is pretty much what you have. They don’t tell jokes, they don’t have extravagant thematic elements or running storylines, it just is what it is. We are four years into the sport of watching these characters flail around their little fishbowl and there is only one reason anyone in their right mind would still watch it — it’s still funny [...]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Directed by David Yates
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter
Rated PG
Release Date: July 15, 2009

With each new Harry Potter movie, one must prepare themselves to be deafened by the cries of the divide. People either want the movies to follow the books page for bloody page or they want a standalone movie that they can enjoy outright. At this stage in the game I’m afraid neither one is fully possible.

Before you walk into Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, you have to decide what it is you want out of it before you will be allowed to enjoy it for whatever it is you are looking for. The movie lover in me wants to be able to look at this or any film in the series as a singular unit and enjoy it for what it is and for what it accomplishes — as a film — but I am also a realist. The problem with this approach is that you are dealing with a canon of material that, to me, makes this an unattainable request. If you were dealing with a series of movies that simply involved central characters with a new story each time you might have a better shot at it, but the complete story of Harry Potter was told by way of seven books; each adding more layers and revealing more of the story as it goes along. You are almost forced to enjoy the arc rather than the individual pieces [...]

Brüno
Directed by Larry Charles
Starring Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten, Josh Meyers, Robert Huerta, Gilbert Rosales
Rated R
Release Date: July 10, 2009

You can say what you want about him, but Sasha Baron Cohen has a knack for pissing people off. In his new movie Brüno, he does just that — but not for the reasons you would think. At its core, Brüno is nothing more than an indirect sequel of sorts to its wildly successful and superior predecessor, Borat. The character is slightly different, but the structure is the same. Both feature Baron Cohen playing a foreign character on some fish-out-of-water quest that allows him to interact with unsuspecting people while he pushes the boundaries of taste in the hope of yielding something funny. This time around we have Bruno: a gay Austrian fashion reporter who gets fired from his television program. He decides to come to America to become the most famous person in the world.

It has enough in common with Baron Cohen’s previous work, so it has to be good, right? I mean, all I’ve been hearing for weeks is that it is more outrageous and over the top than the movie that made Baron Cohen famous. It seems that outrageous and funny aren’t hand in hand after all [...]

Year One
Directed by Harold Ramis
Starring Jack Black, Michael Cera
Rated PG-13
Release date: June 19, 2009

There are a lot of stock catchphrases that are widely used by people to describe movies that I have grown tired of hearing. Reading a review of a film that is described as a “rollercoaster thrill ride” or a performance is hailed as being a “tour de force” stinks of laziness and unoriginality by the critic. Specifically there are two descriptions that apply to Year One that I am deathly sick of hearing across the board: “Check your brain at the door” and “the actors looked like they had fun making the movie.”

A movie like Year One wasn’t made to be dissected into deeper meaning. Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) are hunter-gatherers who are kicked out of their village for being worthless and forced into the world on their own. They have a variety of encounters that are loosely based on stories from the Bible. Dumb cavemen weaving in and out of biblical stories. That’s pretty much it. I’d like to be able to go into detail but the movie simply doesn’t provide that opportunity.

All told, Year One is Harold Ramis directing Jack Black and Michael Cera in a Judd Apatow-produced comedy. Based on the credits you would have expected that even if the whole thing didn’t work, it would have at least had its moments. It did not. Why? Because it was Harold Ramis directing Jack Black and Michael Cera in a Judd Apatow comedy. None of those names is strong enough to carry a film on its own anymore because they all rode the waves of their respective success into the ground [...]

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Directed by Tony Scott
Starring Denzel Washington, John Travolta, James Gandolfini, John Turturro
Rated R
Release Date: June 12, 2009

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is a remake of the 1974 film of the same name, which also spawned a made for TV remake in 1998; all of which were based on a novel. So there’s a book, two movie versions, and a TV version. The most obvious question beyond why it was even made in the first place is what was being brought to the table to make it worth my time? Let’s try and forget for a minute that this is yet another cog in the wheel of the Hollywood remake machine (an argument for another day) and focus on the specifics of this current incarnation.

The problem with a movie like The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 is that it is not the type of movie you can just like on its own merit. It’s a heist movie — and a fairly boring one at that — so you have to find something else to like about it. Because the film isn’t strong enough on its own to let this happen, your level of appreciation will be strongly dictated by any comparisons you are able to draw from the pieces of its construct.

There is potential to be found in that this is the fourth time director Tony Scott has teamed up with Denzel Washington (Déjà Vu, Man on Fire, and Crimson Tide). With the exception of Déjà Vu, this pairing has been pretty good. Washington is usually as reliable as it gets. Even in an inferior film he has the ability to rise above a mess and stand out. And while one could argue that substance isn’t a spice Scott often takes out of the pantry, when he’s on his game and the project warrants his spastic style, he can turn out a decent movie [...]

Adventureland
Directed by Greg Mottola
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Martin Starr, Kristen Wiig, Bill Hader
Rated R
Release date: April 3, 2009

We’ve always been told not to judge a book by its cover. That practice is a lot easier in theory than in execution, especially with movies. Before its release, the level of expectation of a movie lives and dies by its trailers and advertising. But all the hype in the world doesn’t replace actually sitting through the movie and forming your own conclusion.

Set in a summer in the late 1980s, Adventureland is the story of James Brennen (Jesse Eisenberg), a recent college graduate who, in lieu of his family’s financial difficulties, is forced to forgo his planned summer in Europe to move home and get a job to pay for college. After being turned down for everything else he reluctantly takes a job at a local amusement park where he begins an awkward relationship of sorts with one of his co-workers, Emily (Kristen Stewart).

There is enough material in that description for some really good comedy; the kind of comedy you would expect from writer/director Greg Mottola given that his name and resume is plastered across every advertisement, trailer, and sandwich board trying to sell you this movie [...]

My Best Friend’s Girl
Unrated Edition
Directed by Howard Deutch
Starring Dane Cook, Kate Hudson, Jason Biggs, Alec Baldwin, Diora Baird
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release Date: January 13, 2009

I’m going to get something off my chest that I’ve been holding onto for quite awhile: I don’t hate Dane Cook. Not totally, anyway. In the past I have found the humor in his not so subtle brand of comedy. It’s stupid, juvenile, and gets old after awhile (especially when every idiot in the country tries to quote him incessantly), but I’ve had a laugh. That being said, his movies are garbage. Mr. Brooks and Dan in Real Life were good in their own right even with his inclusion, but they worked because he was left on the sideline — which is a nice way of saying he didn’t ruin them. The problem with the movies he has headlined is that his stand up doesn’t translate to the screen at all. So even if you like his routine, the movies suck. And if you don’t, they really suck. There is an argument in that thought about him being one dimensional and unfunny and his movies being proof of that, but I don’t have the strength to discuss it. Partly because I’m not trying to defend him and partly because it doesn’t matter. The point is, as easy a target as it would be to jump on the I-wouldn’t-piss-on-Dane-Cook-if-he-were-on-fire bandwagon, any problems My Best Friend’s Girl has actually aren’t his fault. Not totally, anyway.

Tank Turner (Cook) provides a service. When guys have somehow screwed up their relationships, he is the guy they hire to date their exes. His service is that he takes these unsuspecting girls on dates and is purposely such an asshole that they are left with no choice than to run back into the arms of their former boyfriends. Call it making them look good by default. It’s a pretty good little racket and the dates make for some of the funnier moments in the movie.

So let me get this straight, Dane Cook trying to be funny ends up being annoying but Dane Cook trying to be annoying ends up being funny? Go figure [...]

Every movie made employs the use of some sort of gimmick. Some are smaller than others and they don’t always work but whether it is the cast, the special effects, or something else, every filmmaker uses some device that they hope will allow their movie to rise above their contemporaries. In The Curious Case of Benjamin Button the gimmick is the story. A baby is born with the appearance and all of the physical limitations of an old man who ages backwards through life. It’s really a fascinating premise that, beyond its initial intrigue, stirs a lot of questions. How would one operate under the construction of backwards aging? How would you let it shape your everyday life? On a deeper level, how would you deal with the inevitability of loss in your life that would be compounded by that very construction? It is in the film’s attempt to answer these questions that you will find its true appeal.

At first glance, this film seems like a fairly odd film choice for director David Fincher. The styles of his previous films were consistently dark and stylish, in story and design. So why would a director who made his name with films like Fight Club, Se7en, and Zodiac opt for a character-driven fairy tale? For starters, he is one of probably a handful of directors with the ability to handle the special effects needed to properly translate the required images to the screen while being able to balance them against the story. If the main device of the movie is the setup, then right behind it would be how the effects were handled. Technologically, the film is a masterpiece. Throughout the film we see Benjamin (Brad Pitt) at every point in his life, from grave to cradle [...]