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Posts from the ‘2008’ Category

Jun 9

meet the brown

Meet the Browns

Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns is a traditional melodrama that is sprinkled with touches of comedy. It’s the usual fare from this filmmaker, complete with an overcrowded plot and an inherent lack of focus. Yet with these clear flaws, I still found myself entertained. Something in me likes the world that Perry creates, as fantastical and stereotypical as it is, and there’s something warm about the way he generates characters and scoots his stories to their inevitable happy endings.

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May 23

tokyo gore police

Tokyo Gore Police

This is an insane film. Directed by Yoshihiro Nishimura, Tokyo Gore Police is a Japanese “gore film.” Nishimura is mostly known in Japan for his contributions to the horror and gore genres, so this one is right up his alley. He worked on Noboru Iguchi’s The Machine Girl and Media Blasters asked him if he wanted to do a feature. Tokyo Gore Police was born. It’s actually a remake of Anatomia Extinction, an indie film Nishimura made years ago.

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May 18

the burrowers

The Burrowers

There are some genre crossovers that don’t really get done all that often. There aren’t many romantic movies about the Holocaust, for instance, unless Topless Kate Winslet’s involved. And there aren’t many western horror films. The Burrowers attempts to do the latter, adding some dirt to an otherwise untouched genre combo, but it’s so insufferably boring that it’s hard to give a hoot about what ends up happening.

The Burrowers comes from North Carolina director, author and video game writer J. T. Petty. He wrote Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and a rare 2006 pseudo-doc called S&Man. For this 2008 western horror, Petty calls on his horror background and delves into just about every known western cliché there is. On the surface (get it?), The Burrowers isn’t a bad movie. The acting is okay and the scenery is decent.

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May 5

Max Payne

Max Payne is another video game movie that takes itself far, far too seriously. I’m not sure where I stand on the issue of video games as art and I’m not sure about video game movies being art, but I do know that Max Payne is, well, terrible. The 2008 film is based on the video game of the same name from 2001. Now, I enjoyed the video game. I liked being able to slow down and twist around like a moron while I shot baddies. Cool.

But Max Payne in movie form is just no good, largely because it’s so damn directionless. The story would normally owe itself to a pretty decent revenge fantasy, but director John Moore has no idea how to piece things together. The film is convoluted and doesn’t really even begin to crystallize into about halfway through. By that time, so many other characters and angles have been thrown in that it’s moved beyond all comprehension.

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Dec 11

Horton Hears a Who!

Beautiful, clever and hilarious, Horton Hears a Who! is a wonderful animated feature based on the Dr. Seuss tale of the same name. It assembles a rich cast of voice actors and employs good-hearted glee as it coasts lightly through its simple story. Unlike many other animated features around these days, Horton Hears a Who! steers mostly clear of pop culture references and other traps to create a timeless tale that stays remarkably true to the spirit of the Seuss work.

Seeing Whoville and the various creatures come to life with such creative animation is certainly special. While the other Dr. Seuss-based films have been utter trash, Horton succeeds because it focuses on the joy and wonder with a passion rarely seen. I admit to being skeptical of the project initially, but Jimmy Hayward and Steve Martino’s film won me over within seconds.

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