2008

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July 4, 2009

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, comedy, entertainment, movies, romance, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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Kevin Smith’s second film to leave the View Askewniverse is 2008’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, a bland and stupid romantic comedy with little going for it. The movie, allegedly greenlit by The Weinstein Company on the basis of its title alone, features much of what Smith fans find entertaining. There’s plenty of profanity, sex discussion, and “witty” pop culture references to pepper the dialogue ad nauseam.

For the most part, however, it simply seems like Smith is trying too hard. The writing never comes across as natural and the characters, for all of their supposed working-class charm, never seem believable or the least bit likeable. The title characters had overstayed their welcome by about the ten-minute mark, while the supporting characters offer little beyond Smith’s normal menagerie of stereotypes and cardboard cut-outs.

Seth Rogen stars as Zack and Elizabeth Banks is Miri. The two are roommates, having been friends since first grade, and they’re facing stacks of unpaid bills and rough times. With a high school reunion upcoming, the pair agrees to go on the basis of getting drunk and/or getting laid. While at the reunion, Miri meets a former schoolmate named Bobby Long (Brandon Routh) while Zack subsequently meets Bobby’s boyfriend, gay porn star Brandon St. Randy (Justin Long).

After a pair of interesting conversations, Zack and Miri head home to find out that the power has been cut. Frustrated, they go to a bar where they come up with an idea to make an adult film to generate some cash to pay their bills. They gather a group of acquaintances, including Zack’s co-worker Delaney (Craig Robinson), Deacon (Jeff Anderson), and a few actors and actresses game for making a porno. The film outlines the ups and downs of putting together the movie until a romantic plot is woven in and further complicates matters between Zack and Miri. Jason Mewes, Traci Lords, and Katie Morgan co-star.

Smith’s movie attempts to be a working-class comedy, using filth as a sort of rationale to prop up the loose, rushed love story towards the conclusion of the picture. Unfortunately the build is cheesy and Smith’s use of one particular song by the band Live comes across as one of the most ridiculous and lame moments on film in 2008. The entire structure of the picture and the supposed romance feels off for a number of reasons.

For starters, it’s tough to care about the characters. They are foul-mouthed, rude, obnoxious jerks. There is no reason to feel bad about their economic situation, as we’re made well aware that they blow all of their available funds on sex toys. They consistently whine and mumble haphazardly about how lame they are, only to come back with this veiled sense of superiority that becomes really annoying to take. Smith’s dialogue sounds pretentious and ultimately hollow, leaving room only for a slew of F-words and raunchy sex jokes that seem designed exclusively for offense and have nothing to do with character, plot, or anything else.

The performances are average, too. I’ve yet to become a fan of Rogen and haven’t found him all that great as a lead actor. He’s perfectly acceptable in a supporting role, as he was funny in Superbad, but I don’t feel he can carry a picture. Banks is only slightly better and her ability to go toe-to-toe in raunch with Rogen is admirable, but she simply fails to make her character believable or likeable in any fashion. As such, it’s hard to care much about the pair when they’re forced together by Smith’s heavy-handed writing.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a disappointing romantic comedy that relies far too much on the same repetitious “adult” humour and raunch. It sneaks the love story in the back door (ha!) and attempts to pull a fast one in elongating the plot by developing a “problem” for the “couple” to go through at the last minute that could have been easily solved with another two seconds of conversation. If Smith isn’t willing to put in the effort to make his filmic relationship work, why should anyone else?

2.1/10

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July 3, 2009

Valkyrie

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, drama, entertainment, historical, movies, thrillers, trailers, war | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie is an intriguing production, but it ultimately fails in generating much genuine emotion or tension. The film, based on the plot by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944, is couched in solid subject matter and looks sleek, but the performances and overall pacing of the story leaves a lot to be desired. As such, it remains a very middling project and doesn’t stand out as a notable work in the Nazi film genre.

Tom Cruise generated a considerable amount of buzz for his part in Valkyrie, yet his performance is so stiff and uninteresting that one wonders if it was worth it. Cruise, together with Paula Wagner and United Artists, intended this picture to be the one that would help boost his studio over the top and back into contention. There was a lot riding on it, to say the least, and the stress around the movie was compounded with German complaints regarding the casting of the Scientologist in the role. It was difficult to get access to key landmarks as a result.

Cruise, leading an impressive cast, stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. Stauffenberg is serving in Tunisia in World War II when he is wounded and later evacuated back home to Nazi Germany. Major General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) is attempting to assassinate Hitler as part of a resistance movement, but his plan is thwarted. Through a series of events, Stauffenberg is connected with the resistance movement and meets with their secret committee.

General Ludwig Beck (Terrence Stamp), Dr. Carl Goerdeler (Kevin McNally), and Erwin von Witzleben (David Schofield) are among the plotters, but Stauffenberg soon discovers that any plan held by the group is in need of serious tweaking. Along with General Friedrich Olbricht (Bill Nighy), Stauffenberg and the plotters begin to develop a plan that includes using Operation Valkyrie, a deployment of the army reserves in case of emergency, to help overthrow the SS and get in position to assassinate Hitler. The remainder of the film concerns how the plan plays out and the mistakes that were made.

At its core, Valkyrie is a cold procedural. The plot is labyrinthine in complexity, with all sorts of secret documents, phone calls, and meticulous conversations taking place. In that respect, it is fascinating to watch. It runs like a sleek technical thriller at moments, with the majority of the adventure and excitement coming from exchanges of information or attempts to win people over to the side of the plotters. Singer does well to direct and frame these sorts of sequences.

In terms of accuracy, many reports suggest that the filmmakers got most of it right for a change. While the movie suggests that the events came closer to impacting Hitler’s Germany than they perhaps actually did, most experts on the matter state that Valkyrie sticks with a relatively genuine accounting of the historical record with few expected cinematic liberties.

With all of this in mind, Valkyrie still somehow fails to make an emotional connection. Singer’s direction is capable, albeit a touch too “Hollywood” for the subject matter, and his interaction with regular collaborator John Ottman’s score adds excitement to scenes that would otherwise be quite drab. The effects are also quite good, providing solid, accurate historical imagery to go with the general feel of the picture.

The performers, however, fail to make any sort of emotional connection. This is especially problematic given the context and subject matter. Cruise is the leading culprit here, with his stiff portrayal coming across as disturbingly wooden and drab given the poignancy of his character’s reality. It’s hard to fault the other actors, with Nighy, Stamp, Branagh, and Tom Wilkinson all coming through with good but not great performances.

Overall, Valkyrie is a concise technical thriller with little emotional impact. It is an instantly forgettable but enjoyable rendering of a bold true story. Singer’s picture, through no fault of the movie’s look or style, simply fails to make a connection on any deeper level and, as such, remains a glossy take on history instead of a bold new vision taken from past events.

5.4/10

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June 12, 2009

Passengers

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, drama, entertainment, movies, mystery, thrillers, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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To say that Anne Hathaway has had an interesting couple of years would be an understatement. She may be on record for being one of the modern era’s most perplexing actresses, as she shows flashes of brilliance in films like Rachel Getting Married and Brokeback Mountain but then descends into utterly awful choices like 2009’s Bride Wars and this 2008 suspense offering, Passengers.

Directed by Rodrigo García, Passengers is a film dedicated entirely to its twist ending. It poaches many elements from M. Night Shyamalan’s structure of surprising the audience in the final moments, but the storytelling is weak and the pace is incredibly sluggish. García’s end product winds up being something that probably should have gone straight to video as opposed to seeing a small, incredibly limited theatrical release in October of 2008.

Now released on DVD where it belongs, Passengers stars Hathaway as psychotherapist Claire Summers. We meet her as she’s dispatched to treat a group of survivors from a plane crash. It isn’t long before Claire winds up in an “interesting” relationship with one of the survivors, a flirtatious young man named Eric (Patrick Wilson). Eric is, according to Claire, pushing down his true feelings about the plane crash and really needs to open up a bit.

Meanwhile, all manner of strange events are taking place. Claire is noticing that some of her patients are disappearing and a creepy guy (David Morse) that works with the airline appears to have something to do with it. Claire also has a neighbour (Dianne Wiest) and an aloof boss (Andre Braugher) to contend with on her quest for the truth. When that truth eventually does arrive, everything else feels like a colossal, insignificant waste of time.

García is a veteran of the HBO scene, having directed episodes of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Carnivale, and In Treatment. When it comes to conducting things on the big screen, however, he has a lot to learn. With García’s HBO work, he reveals warmth to the human experience. With Passengers, that warmth is discarded in favour of clichéd sentimentalism and bland characterizations.

Of course, the director is far from the only individual deserving of blame for this soulless clunker. Writer Ronnie Christensen’s screenplay is intellectually lazy, boring, and needlessly gimmicky. The entire structure of the movie serves as a sort of movie-of-the-week build-up to an inevitable twist ending. Christensen’s twist, however, undoes any progression we’ve made with the characters and renders everything instantly and utterly worthless.

Hathaway is nice to look at in the role, but she’s given so little to go on and so little to do of interest that she barely seems to put forth much effort. At least in a big cash vehicle like Get Smart she was able to deliver some of her trademark charisma. With Passengers, Hathaway blends with the dreary scenery and manages to have her most effective “scare” wrestling with a blown newspaper. Freaky stuff.

The remainder of the cast looks good on paper, too, with Morse, Wiest, and Wilson all formidable talents. Unfortunately, this humourless and meaningless plot gives them nothing to do and they all wind up waiting around for the conclusion and, presumably, the paycheque.

On a personal note, it was slightly entertaining to notice that Passengers was filmed in Vancouver. Scenes are set against my fair city’s bleak backdrop, with the cloudiness and insistent rainy weather providing as dreary a setting as this picture deserved. In the end, though, even the blank skies and UBC’s lush environs couldn’t save it from ultimate despair.

1.0/10

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June 1, 2009

Marley & Me

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, comedy, drama, entertainment, family, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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Setting a record for the largest Christmas Day opening ever, 2008’s Marley & Me milks every ounce of sentimentality from the predictable formula and turns out a bland, largely uninteresting effort. The film, directed by David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada), is based on the memoir of the same name by John Grogan. The book became a bestseller due to its portrayal of Marley, the mischievous but lovable dog.

Frankel’s picture takes the book and folds it into a basic dramedy for the whole family, although there really isn’t a lot here that will be of interest for younger children. I was surprised at just how much Marley & Me resembled a drama procedural, much like Terms of Endearment, and focused more on scenes of conversation and figuring things out and less on scenes of action and comic situations. It is difficult to establish a purpose to the narrative after a while.

Owen Wilson stars as Grogan and Jennifer Aniston stars as his wife Jenny. We are introduced to the young couple as they move from Michigan to Florida. They’re journalists and Jenny possesses more talent, so she gets the plum job right out of the gate. John has to slog away writing obits and mundane two-paragraph articles. Jenny wants to be a mother, so John suggests the next best thing and they get a dog. They pick out a yellow lab and name it Marley.

The dog is, of course, incorrigible. We know that it is incorrigible because it, well, acts like a dog without much training. There is an attempt to train the dog c/o Katherine Hepburn’s embarrassing dog trainer, but Marley is expelled from class and is subsequently dubbed the World’s Worst Dog. John is dissatisfied at work but is soon offered a twice-weekly column by his boss (Alan Arkin). He takes it and begins to write about his adventures with Marley and about life.

We join the Grogans as they go through everything with Marley. They eventually have kids, too, and the family moves to a larger home where Marley can swim in the pool. There is nothing particularly unique about the Grogans, other than their propensity to lead a particularly good life with swimming pools, big houses, and lots of space for their dog to run around. John and Jenny have spats over the kids and career moves, adding even more normalcy to what could essentially have carried out on the small screen without much of a fuss.

Much has been made of the final frames of Marley & Me. It is true that most stories about dogs and people end in similar ways, but Frankel tacks on an ending so ripe with manipulative drivel and extended weepiness that it becomes hard to watch with a straight face. The film’s misdirection prevents any actual real emotion from pouring out in the end, save from those who’ve been there before with a family pet.

For a movie based on the concept of a rambunctious and lovable dog, Marley & Me lacks both rambunctiousness and heart. There is simply no energy to this project and the formulaic approach sucks any potential for life right out of it. The musical manipulation is in full gear, with light pitter-patter telling us when we should laugh and long string intakes telling us when something sad/bad is going to happen. It’s all very heavy-handed.

The actors do nothing to lend interest to the story. There’s little here beyond a sort of dramatic sitcom, with Aniston and Wilson carrying out featherweight confrontations with over-rehearsed flaccidity. The movie just hangs there, waiting to be snipped, and there’s nothing of consequence to provide any remembrance of the whole procedure after the end credits roll. It is overlong, dreary, and dry.

1.6/10

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May 29, 2009

Sex and the City

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, comedy, drama, entertainment, movies, romance, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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The feature film version of HBO’s Sex and the City certainly knows its target audience. Those obsessed with designer labels, catty conversations about sex and relationships, and musically cued “romantic” sequences will probably enjoy most of this 145 minute comedy. The rest of us, however, are better served watching something else entirely.

The HBO show ran for six seasons, concluding in 2004. Based on Candice Bushnell’s book, Sex and the City followed four women around New York City and examined their relationships with one another and with men. Interestingly, the show was created by Beverly Hills, 90210 creator Darren Star. Sex and the City served as a sort of examination of how the big city impacted the lives of aging professional women, presenting their lives as couched in obsession with fashion and sexuality.

The show largely contributed to the basic trend on television today: representing affluent main characters dealing with life’s issues while enjoying the finer things. The movie picks up with similar themes and often feels like one enormous commercial, with countless designer product shots tucked between the constant whining and moping.

Sarah Jessica Parker stars as Carrie Bradshaw. She’s generally considered the leader of the pack and she’s also the narrator of the film. She writes a column for the newspaper and is also selling books about relationships, all the while as a member of New York’s elite crowd due to her fashion sense. I’m not exactly a fashion conscious guy, but I found it hard to believe that Carrie’s outfits were at all intended to be taken seriously.

We meet Carrie three years after the show’s finale. She’s with Big (Chris Noth) and they’re moving in together. They decide to get married, too, and Carrie rushes off to tell her friends. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is trying to balance her life with a family like most normal women do day after day, but she’s finding it difficult because it’s hard to schedule lunches in top-notch restaurants and see the kid or have sex with the husband (David Eigenberg). Life is hard, dudes and dudettes.

Samantha (Kim Cattrall) lives in Los Angeles with an actor (Jason Lewis), visiting her friends in New York every chance she gets. She is discovering that she is not having her needs met and realizes that there is no greater love in life than to love one’s self. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) lives with her husband (Evan Handler) and generally has a good life until she must come to Carrie’s rescue after Big has second thoughts just before the wedding. The remainder of the movie finds the four women coming to terms with what has happened and with their unsatisfying lives.

Sex and the City effectively and efficiently strips all humanity out of who women are supposed to be, replacing them instead with clichéd emotions and strange, selfish obsessions. It is compelling to have characters with flaws because they make life interesting, but SATC delivers characters with such precision that even the attempts at darker moments are entrenched in this blatant materialism. It’s hard to find a single relatable character, save for Jennifer Hudson as a completely unnecessary “assistant.”

These are simple caricatures and this is a simple film. There is no substance, no feeling, no sensitivity, no darkness, no depth. The Sex and the City quartet exists not to empower women or embolden a frank discussion of sex amongst females; these women exist to be stereotypes. They are abrasive, monotonous, and ultimately dreadful. The movie, however, makes no attempts at doing anything beyond celebrating the insipid archetypes created by an overrated, indulgent HBO trend.

1.1/10

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May 9, 2009

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, documentaries, entertainment, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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Marina Zenovich accomplishes an interesting thing with her 2008 documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired when she unearths the fact that Douglas Dalton, Roger Gunson, and Samantha Gailey Geimer all agree that justice was not served. The documentary is talking about Polanski’s arrest and trial for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl, of course. The piece assembles the case, driving right down the middle with no slant one way or the other, to enlighten the viewer as to the abuses of the justice system during the whole Polanski circus.

In Roman Polanski we have the ultimate tragic figure. Here is a man who lost his parents in the Holocaust and lost his wife and unborn child to the Manson Family. He was able to escape the war-torn streets of his native Poland only to land in the surreal world of Hollywood. Polanski got swept up in the fame, gave the world films like Rosemary’s Baby, married Sharon Tate, and so forth. He lived the high life and he liked his women young.

As Zenovich explains, Polanski’s tragic tale has many twists and turns. The incident with Samantha Gailey Geimer is explained, with the use of clippings and typed courtroom questions serving as backup. Polanski did indeed break the law and did indeed need to be punished for his crime, but what Zenovich compiles in her documentary is astounding rationale as to why the director might have fled in the first place and why that might have been the smartest move he could have made.

Gunson, straight-laced Mormon that he is, stands as the starkest witness against the judge of Polanski’s case, Laurence J. Rittenband. Rittenband was a judge so corrupt that he sought out fame at every angle he possibly could. We learn that he broke promises to both Gunson and Dalton, we learn that he staged fake courtroom sessions with Gunson and Dalton only to pass out the “real hearing” behind closed doors, we learn that he discussed cases with outsiders and even consulted a courtroom reporter in regards of sentencing Polanski.

Enter Gunson and his one incredibly telling remark: “I’m not surprised he left the country under those circumstances.” Zenovich audibly replies “really?” and Gunson affirms it. Gunson, the assistant D.A. constructing the case against Polanski, actually says that he understands why the defendant fled the country and the justice system. The presentation of this is staggering, but Zenovich does a nice job in the documentary with not letting it run away from itself. Instead, it’s just another piece in this massive case of justice left in the background by a lecherous judge.

Zenovich’s work with producing staggering admissions and constructing a summary of the Polanski case is good stuff. Those unfamiliar with the case would do well to see this documentary. While it is capable, it is also not overly interesting. Those with no interest in Polanski or the case will find little here beyond a sort of Law and Order style corruption case. The evidence unearthed is compelling and some of the file footage of Polanski and others is interesting, but this is certainly not edge-of-your-seat stuff.

Sadly there are no current interviews with Polanski himself and I couldn’t help but hope for a final moment of revelation where the director stepped foot in front of the cameras and spoke to Zenovich. No such luck. Regardless, this little documentary does its job and then some in its exposure of a corrupt judge and the way the justice system failed all parties involved, including Samantha Gailey Geimer.

7.6/10

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March 13, 2009

Quantum of Solace

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, action, adventure, drama, entertainment, thrillers, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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The James Bond franchise continues its makeover with the 22nd film in the series, 2008’s Quantum of Solace. It seems that every hero is getting a reboot these days, with Batman going darker still in the Christopher Nolan instalments and other superheroes becoming more adult and more mature. It is very likely a reflection of the times, as the once colourful ideas of childhood become grittier and more realistic. The Bond franchise was in need of a reboot, badly, and Casino Royale was a tremendous step in the right direction.

Daniel Craig’s version of James Bond maintains the basic traits of the superspy, but there are emotional layers now and this Bond has other ideas beyond what we might have been used to. While some might long for the days of goofball villains and a bed-hopping 007, I for one am pleased to see an agent operating in the context in which he lives. With Quantum of Solace, Monster’s Ball director Marc Forster takes the helm and his project is an interesting one.

The movie picks up right where Casino Royale left off and we are thrust into the middle of a car chase. Bond evades his pursuers, of course, in impressive fashion and meets with M (Judi Dench) to interrogate Mr. White (Jesper Christensen). Mr. White is, of course, a Quantum agent and fans will remember him from his role in Casino Royale. He is a middleman of the Quantum organization, however, and we quickly learn that the group is much larger and more threatening than we first imagined.

A traitor is revealed inside the organization and M is attacked, leaving Bond to chase down the bad guy and search for how deeply the corruption runs. The journey takes him to Haiti, where he meets Camille Montes (Olga Kurylenko). She is attached to the film’s villain, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), and a plot is soon revealed involving oil, the Bolivian government, and a larger plot from Quantum using a front organization known as Greene Planet.

The story is complex and the movie feels like the middle part to a trilogy. Viewers not familiar with Casino Royale will probably be lost throughout the majority of Quantum of Solace, as there is a considerable amount of setup in the 2006 Bond film. Nevertheless, the flick moves at an incredibly fast pace and splashes the viewer right in the middle of the action. The move towards more of a “Bourne-style” action sequence is evident, as Forster uses lots of close shots and different angles during the fight and chase scenes. And believe me, there are a LOT of fight and chase scenes. Fans of high adrenaline action will get their fill.

On top of the action sequences, Quantum of Solace is a fairly complex motion picture. James Bond is dealing with different motivations and is under the almost maternal watchful eye of M. Their relationship comes a little more into focus, with Bond almost obsessively chasing down her attacker and proving his dedication to finding out the truth. He also carries a considerable amount of resentment due to events covered in Casino Royale. This is explored quite nicely and Craig does a good job bringing the emotions to the surface without creating obvious, over-the-top sequences.

With Quantum of Solace, we witness a James Bond who is human. Yes, he still sleeps with a woman (hell, she’s called Strawberry Fields, for crying out loud) he met only moments earlier and he most certainly still drinks the classic martini. But there’s something refreshing and unique about 007 in this continuation of the reboot and I found the emotional layering and complexities enthralling. The plot is germane and serves as a sensibly self-contained outline on which to place the larger truth about James Bond. As such, I enjoyed Quantum of Solace and can’t wait to see where Bond heads next.

8.2/10

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March 10, 2009

Twilight

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, drama, entertainment, fantasy, movies, romance, thrillers, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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The Mormon allegory about resisting sexual impulses finally reaches the big screen with Twilight. This is, of course, the film adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s teen sensation novel and should be the first of about four in the series. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, this bit of cornball vampire-romance schlock is the buzz of the preteen-to-teen set and the talk of everyone who hasn’t seen another vampire movie or read another vampire book, like, ever.

Kristen Stewart stars as Bella, perhaps one of the most annoying protagonists put to film in 2008. She’s a dreary, gawky, breathy teen with no personality and nothing to latch on to from a cinematic perspective. Bella moves to Forks, which according to Meyer’s book is an incredible rainy locale, and lives with her father on the rugged Washington coast. She heads to a new school, where apparently every student has read her bio before her arrival, and makes friends easily despite having no discernable social skills and no actual likeable qualities.

Eventually Bella discovers the one and only Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) in biology class. She is drawn to him instantly, as he is to her. Their breathless exchanges, their constant blinking and biting of lips, and their mumbled phrases abruptly blossom into a romance for the ages. One catch, of course, is that Edward is a vampire desperately trying to resist his “thirst” for Bella. Bella, on the other hand, seems to have no problem putting Edward through absolute hell if it means she can be with him.

We meet Edward’s family, a strange crew of pale-faced nobodies, and a plot develops in which another vampire thirsts after Bella. Edward and his family only consume animal blood, thus making them vegetarians. Go figure. With Edward and Co. resisting the blood of Bella, they find time to play baseball and hang out with her. They take to her right away, just like Edward did, and soon enough they’re risking it all to protect her from vampires who in reality do nosh on human blood.

Twilight carries on a basic idea of denial in that the “good” vampires manage to rebuff their instinctive longing for blood and apparently never take human blood no matter how burly the impulses are. No matter how much heavy breathing Bella does, no matter how much she bites her lip, and no matter how much she mumbles over her words in that mouth-watering adolescent way, Edward doesn’t dare move from his staunch position of abstemiousness.

As a film, Twilight is terrible. The performances are awful from top to bottom, with negligible flashes of actual personality and life from the characters. Performers mumble, stumble, and stagger around the screen in an attempt to introduce us to these characters, but nothing really takes hold and the end results are colourless and ripe for Airplane!-style satire. Stewart inhabits Bella with such breathiness, such irritation, and such idiocy that one has trouble feeling any concern for her character at all. After all, why would we?

Pattinson might look the part, I suppose, as Edward, but he sure as hell does little to act the part. His is the most unexciting vampire of all time, I daresay. Part of this is Meyer’s fault, sure, as Pattinson can’t help the ridiculousness of “getting all shiny” when the sun comes out or the daft logistics of sucking the blood out of a deer. Pattinson’s leering, gloomy, mind-numbing performance does little to drum up interest in the character beyond the phony morons of the eighth grade.

But enough is enough. Let’s set aside the pitiable constitution of the motion picture for a moment. Let’s ignore the fact that the movie manages to leave its established first person set-up to explore a pair of scenes that we really don’t need to see. Let’s pretend we never saw Bella shake a squeezable ketchup bottle. Let’s imagine that the soundtrack wasn’t a sweltering turd of tacky music set at the worst conceivable times. Let’s imagine the movie had even one segment with some humour or wit. And let’s pretend that the closing credits weren’t among the most ostentatious and garish of all time.

What we’re left with are the bones of a piss-poor vampire movie that attempts to teach us a lesson about self-abnegation. It’s about negating desires, about resisting life, about abstaining from impulses. This may or may not be a laudable message, depending on where your morality lies. But one thing Twilight and Stephanie Meyer’s complete bleak, cowardly, decomposing empire is is a spineless and brainless excuse for literature. And it’s a howling shame that this preposterous excuse for literature became a boring and dire excuse for a film.

1.2/10

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March 9, 2009

Role Models

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Using a simple premise and a pair of average comedic talents, David Wain’s Role Models is a so-so boys-to-men comedy. Wain doesn’t do much in the director’s chair and pretty much sets his performers loose to do their worst. It’s the younger actors, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Bobb’e J. Thompson, who really steal the show and try to turn this run of the mill effort into something worth seeing. Sadly, we’ve seen formulaic comedies like this a thousand times before.

Paul Rudd stars as Danny and Seann William Scott is Wheeler. They are salesmen, traveling to schools peddling a bizarre energy drink. Danny has a generally negative attitude towards life, which causes his relationship with his girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks) to hit the bricks. Wheeler, meanwhile, is a womanizer with a positive approach and he attempts to get his friend to share in his glass-half-full view.

Danny doesn’t share Wheeler’s sunlit worldview, however, and trashes the company truck. Upon their arrest, Wheeler and Danny are given the option to do hard time or spend 150 hours of community service in a mentorship program. The pair chooses the latter and are paired with Augie (Mintz-Plasse) and Ronnie (Thompson). Augie is a 16-year-old obsessed with medieval role playing and Ronnie is a fifth grader obsessed with boobies. The remainder of the film uses musical montages and feel-good moments to demonstrate how Danny and Wheeler learn their lessons and relate to these kids.

Rudd and Scott do okay in the leading roles. Rudd’s Danny is certainly the more interesting character and his story arc with Augie is the film’s most entertaining. Mintz-Plasse steals the show with his awkwardness and charisma. It helps that the live action role playing sequences are really fun. Scott, on the other hand, is more of a supporting character and his work with Ronnie lingers in the backseat. Thompson is lively as the crude kid, but he isn’t given as much to do here as you’d expect.

A highlight is Jane Lynch, who plays the ex-addict head of the mentorship program. She’s a strange bird and Lynch revels in creating a wacky character, owning every scene she’s in with her cutting humour. The rest of the cast rounds out well enough, but there are no surefire standouts a la Lynch or Mintz-Plasse.

Role Models does little to separate itself from the blueprint, invoking a sort of Two and a Half Men style and melting it with the humdrum lesson-learning of analogous fare like Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy or the recent Owen Wilson vehicle Drillbit Taylor. Hollywood has frequently used kids to renovate the behaviour of adults, but Role Models attempts to separate itself from the norm by having the kids swear a lot. Regrettably, this flick feels about 10 years past its prime.

At the end of the day, Role Models is a decent distraction. There are some truly funny segments and some good lines, such as the “whispering eye” or the cute relationship between Augie and Queen Esplen (Alexandra Stamler), but overall this movie lacks originality and gets a bit dull (was it just me or was each scene involving Wheeler and Ronnie essentially the same?). Fans of cyclical bawdy humour will get their fill, but the rest of us will probably crave something more significant.

4.1/10

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February 19, 2009

Religulous

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2008, comedy, documentaries, entertainment, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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Bill Maher tells us that the only rational position when it comes to what happens when we die is one of doubt. Religion, therefore, must die in order for humanity to live. We cannot afford to have one if we expect to have the other. Of course, Maher doesn’t get into how seriously he takes religion and how ominous he believes it all to be until his closing remarks in 2008’s Religulous, a documentary that spends the majority of its time ducking honest discussion and playing to the cameras.

It is ironic that Maher closes off Religulous with an expressive supplication filled with the vehemence of the most fervent of religious folk. We are bombarded with visuals of brutality, devastation, intolerance, and environmental calamity as Maher tells us over a broad and insistent score that religion has to get the old heave-ho or we’re all going to die. The irony is rich, as the social critic/comic gives us the choice between ditching religion or dying in a blistering mess.

Much of Larry Charles’ Religulous is humorous, but much of it appears to fly in the face of its own purpose and undermine its own alleged seriousness. As serious as Maher claims to take the topic, he spends the majority of the documentary rolling his eyes or showing off how clever he is with nods to the camera, subtitles a la Stephen Colbert’s “The Word” segment, and cutaways to oft-hilarious clips. In fact, any time Maher has a halfway insightful subject to talk to, the segment is cut short and Maher winds up asking the most gutless questions ever conceived.

If you’ve read the latest pile of tomes from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens, there will be nothing remotely unique here. Maher’s argument, especially the argument presented at the end of the picture, is nearly taken verbatim from books like The End of Faith. Yet our travel guide does little to actually cobble together a revelation that matters, instead choosing to pester worshippers at a truck-stop chapel.

When Maher does match up with a subject worth talking to, such as Francis Collins or a compelling Muslim rapper, he does such a wretched job at managing the interview that one almost wonders why he bothered. The rapper, Propa-Gandhi, is interrupted so habitually by Maher that the exchange feels manipulated and deliberately impaired. Maher employs these tactics so frequently throughout the film that he moves from “The Seeker” presented during the opening sequence to “The Evangelist” within minutes.

The main focus of Religulous appears to be Christianity. In the beginning, Maher assembles his mother and sister for a “tête-à-tête” that gives background as to why the family left the Catholic faith. Apparently, Maher’s father and mother were using birth control and that was against the Catholic doctrine. The only rational thing to do for his family was to leave the faith outright. Sounds reasonable enough, right?

Maher’s whole institution is built on such involuntary philosophies. He bases Religulous on the concept that the weirdest and wildest religious adherents speak for the entire flock. A trip to talk to Ken Ham, the wacky character behind Answers in Genesis, yields an inevitably odd outcome that Maher assumes mirrors the entire Christian understanding of creation. Luckily, there’s George Coyne, former director of the Vatican Observatory, to offer an epigrammatic balancing stance that is discarded moments later when Maher heads to a preposterous Bible theme park.

With Maher’s concerns about religion being the death of us all, you’d think he’d pay more attention to his subjects or care more about the material. Instead, we’re given an undeveloped glance at the fringes of America’s Christians, a brief pop in with a few bizarre Jews, and a detestable inspection of Islam that uses footage of explosions to “counter” arguments that Muslims can be peaceful people. Maher even employs the use of clips from Scarface to equalize an outlandish dialogue with the Puerto Rican Jesucristo Hombre, José Luis de Jesús Miranda.

Religulous satisfied me to a point as a respectable work of religious satire. But once Maher began pontificating in the last few minutes of the picture, he lost me and his derisive itinerary was emptied of all import. Religulous turns out to be a shell of a movie. It is an emotionally-charged, scheming documentary with fetid intentions laced with alarm and trickery (Maher didn’t even tell his subjects what his film was about and most didn’t even know who was coming to interview them until the second he arrived). If Maher is truthfully serious in his charges against religion, he ought to take his subject much more sincerely.

3.1/10

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