A Nerd Reviews

I vaguely remember this movie coming to the theaters and I didn’t see anything in the trailers that interested me enough to fork out $7.50.

Last week I walked past our video store’s discounted movie rack and The Brothers Solomon was on there and I saw enough redeeming qualities on the cover of the DVD to go ahead and make the purchase.

Written by Will Forte, directed by Bob Odenkirk, and staring Will Forte AND Will Arnett! I assumed it was full of socially inept people with far too much self-confidence, and it was, and it was silly, but it was also very funny.

So the plot is ridiculous, don’t worry about it. Two socially inept brothers desperately try to impregnate a woman in order to give their father a reason to keep living. I guess that isn’t so bad, in brief summary, but loads of ridiculousness happens in there. I’ve heard people refer to this as a Dumb and Dumber rehash – WRONG.

The Brothers Solomon was much better than Dumb and Dumber (whose title pretty much sums up the quality of the movie). The Brothers Solomon takes advantage of awkward set-ups and deliveries making for a much smarter movie.

I think if you like The Office, Mr. Show, or Arrested Development, you’ll understand and enjoy The Brothers Solomon.

Too long, too long, too long.

 Oh, and it was too long.

In the movie theater, watching it for the first time, Dark Knight was really entertaining. I do remember my bladder begging to differ sometime around the Gordon v. Dent scene, but that sort of added to the tension at the time.

But watching it a second time, with out the glitzy big screen, I was very disappointed. I was more forgiving the first time. But, after raving about the movie to my parents, I was awfully embarrassed to have to sit through the movie a second time and beg their forgiveness.

What happened to the Joker after Batman jumps out of the Harvey Dent fundraiser to save Rachael? Did he just hang about and schmooze? Or did he torture and humiliate a bunch of people while looking for Harvey? Or did he just give up and call it a night?

I guess the audience was supposed to assume the later, but, come on!

And all those scenes with the cell phone sonar-unnecessary. It felt like an obvious set-up for a video game.

And didn’t it feel preachy? Like a bunch of bumper stickers and just-say-no ads strung together with explosions in between?

Outside of the please-suspend-your-disbelief moments (everything involving the police and the Joker, the dogs v. batman-the-martial-arts-trained-unarmed-combat-specialist, the chase scene where Dent’s in custody and the Joker apparently PLANS on being captured) there were also those we’re-just-not-going-to-explain-ourselves moments-like the fundraiser where Bruce takes out Dent just as Gordon’s learning about the DNA on the card…and then leaving the Joker in a room full of Gotham’s most powerful while lounging with Rachael, the fingerprint constructed with bullet fragments-REALLY?-and disappearing reappearing Dent coin-did Batman pull it from Rachael’s body and put it next to Dent to GENTLY let him know Rachael was dead?

After much speculation, the 2009 Golden Globes seemed to reaffirm peoples’ belief that Heath Ledger will go on to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.The late Australian actor, died on January 22, 2008. The Oscar nominations will be announced on January 22, 2009.Heath Ledger was up against Tom Cruise and Robert Downey Jr for their roles in Tropic Thunder, Ralph Fiennes for his role in The Duchess, and Philip Seymour Hoffman for his part in Doubt.I have so far only seen Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder, and can say I-so far-agree with Heath Ledger’s win. Once I watch Doubt and The Duchess, I will comment further.

Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan accepted Ledger’s award with ”a mixture of sadness and incredible pride.” And rather than dwell on Heath Ledger’s death, Nolan said he’d prefer to concentrate on “the incredible place in the history of world cinema [Ledger] built for himself.”

Nolan’s acceptance brought the audience to a standing ovation: “On behalf of all of us who worked with Heath on Dark Knight, I accept this with mix of sadness and incredible pride. He will be eternally missed but he will never be forgotten.”

I wonder about the other supporting actor performances that may be nominated for an Academy Award along with Ledger. Who else had a marvelous performance in 2008?

Probably Robert Downey Jr, he was hilarious in Tropic Thunder (was he channeling Russell Crowe?).

Definitely Philip Seymour Hoffman (the man’s brilliant). But I doubt Tom Cruise will make the cut…I also don’t think Ralph Fiennes will get a nomination-The Duchess was somewhat of a disappointment, if I remember correctly. What else came out last year that I didn’t get to see…hm…Oh, Milk.  I hope someone from Milk gets nominated. Did Frost/Nixon come out in time to be considered?

Wonderful movie. Very fun…but, is it too close to Forrest Gump?

I understand that the audience is supposed to suspend their disbelief in order to enjoy what amounts to a folktale. And with that understanding, I can say that I really enjoyed Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, but, I also understand everyone’s gripes with the movie.

The audience is presented with a sequence of over-the-top events that amounts to the main character’s victory. And, although a case can be made that all of the events in the life of Jamal-the main character played by Dev Patel-are based on actual horrors experienced by some residents of the slums of India, the fact that Jamal has experienced so many of the extremes and that all of those horrific experiences eventually lead to his “happy ending,” is mildly irritating.

Like I said, I like a good folktale; they’re fun and usually very creative. But, when you display so many atrocities in one film and then deux ex machina, abracadabra, viola, happy ending, it pisses me off.

The ending is happy, because it was written to be happy. That’s okay. I can accept that and enjoy the movie. The story has you believe that it’s fate that allows Slumdog’s hero to overcome, that fate wrote the ending, but it was screenwriters, directors, and studio producers that ultimately have a say in how the movie should end. And face it; most people don’t want to pay the money to see a movie without a happy ending.

Still, that’s fine. But, I say this is like Forrest Gump for several reasons, but the most irritating one is this:

The main character doesn’t grow. He was born innocent and unselfish and he’s consistently placed in unfair situations that he continues to fight against because he doesn’t know any other way to be, and in the end he’s earned his happy ending by virtue of having been tortured in the pursuit of making someone else happy.

And it’s a disservice to the people who have actually lived through violent discrimination, the Vietnam War, poverty, and prostitution.

Of course, Jenny dies in Forrest Gump, and Latika is “disfigured” (she’s still gorgeous, so the quotations were meant as a mark of bitter sarcasm) so, I guess not everyone gets their happy ending, but there always needs to be a gruesome sacrifice by a side character-the horse’s head, a mother’s blood, a sister’s body part, etc. But that main character has to remain intact in order for the audience to leave the theater contented.

It is the future, and, of course, human-kind left Earth an uninhabitable mess and somebody else’s problem. And while the children of earthlings eat and shop themselves into a stupor, one small, sentient robot continues to stack garbage on Earth. But Pixar’s WALL-E does not just stack garbage; he collects garbage, plays with garbage, and dreams about the love and companionship he watches in old movies and is unable to experience himself, that is, until EVE arrives.

At a little over an hour and a half in length, Pixar’s latest computer-animated movie, WALL-E, requires the patience and attention span of a slightly older audience and an equally forgiving nature from that older audience.

People are getting fat and lazy, the world is being polluted beyond repair, and no one, especially the government and big business, wants to take responsibility. This has been said before, and WALL-E does not just preach, it bashes you over the head. And just when you thought you could not take anymore, it makes you smile.

There is not much dialogue in the film and there is, in fact, no dialogue in the first half hour. Oh, there is plenty of entertainment, with all the emotive nuances of a great Buster Keaton performance, but the subject matter and the dialogue-scarce execution is not going to register with the average eight and under age group.

With that said, it is beautiful and sweet and lives up to we have come to expect from Pixar: An intelligent, caring movie for almost all ages.

Pineapple Express

My expectations were too high and I was disappointed.

But, for what it was–a stoner action movie–it was fun.

The action sequences were filmed very well–in fact, almost as well as Hot Fuzz. But where James Franco is nearly as fun and bumbling as Nick Frost, Seth Rogen’s lacks Simon Pegg’s charm. And part of the reason is because writers Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, and Director David Green, haven’t written a character the audience and sympathize with.

Sure, we can laugh at him and pot smokers will giggle at familiar scenarios, but ultimately the character is so generic, it’s hard to care what happens to him.

The same goes for Rosie Perez. A generic villain is a villain not worth worrying about. I’d understand if the character was used as a device for comedic set-up, but the scenes shown weren’t worth the one-dimensional character and the character seems more likely to have been written in to validate Rogen and Franco’s decision not to go to the police. Lame.

Fun…but definitely not worth paying to see at the IMAX or even full-price.

Danny McBride, of Foot Fist Way fame, was hilarious.

Who watches the Watchmen? 

So, I watched the Watchmen trailer and it’s promising.

The characters and the clips shown in the trailer are almost identical to some of the pages in the comic…so, again, promising. 

But Zach Snyder, the director of Watchmen, was a professional director of commercials before he ventured to film.  I expect a good trailer from someone who’s learned to film the best parts of the product in order to get optimum interest.  Remember how good the trailer for 300 was?

What I can’t predict is how Zach Snyder’s interpretation of an Alan Moore comic will turn out…Hollywood has a pretty poor history of translating Alan Moore’s stories to film (with the exception of V for Vendetta, which was filmed as more of an Alan Moore idea, than an Alan Moore story). 

I know Alan Moore always has his name taken off the a project once it goes to Hollywood, and I don’t know if it’s before or after he’s seen a script.  But after seeing what the film industry’s done to his works, it’s probably wiser to preemtively run from any association.  Look at The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  That was an amazing graphic novel and an amazingly awful movie.  Swamp Thing was Alan Moore’s, but the movie wasn’t anything like the books.  From Hell, actually, may have all been Heather Graham’s fault.

I guess I can’t blame everything on the directors and studios.  As much as I usually love Frank Miller’s stuff (The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City, etc…) I read bits of his 300 comic, and the dialogue and story is just as dumbed down as it was in the movie.  The comic was just as much about the visuals as the movie was, so, for what Zach Snyder was given to work with for 300, I guess he did a pretty good job.

I’m curious to see what Zach Snyder can do with a story from an extraordinarily intelligent author.  Will he make the cut in the time consuming visuals in order to allow the time consuming dialogue and plot?

There are a lot of layers to Watchmen and I’m afraid of what will be sacrificed.  I doubt they’ll trim some of the gratuitous action for story…not when a director and cinematographer have a chance to show off and get paid for it.

But, I have hopes.

The Dark Knight 

Christopher Nolan has finally given comic book fans the Batman movie we’ve been waiting for.  This isn’t just an excellent comic book to movie, like Iron Man, it’s an excellent movie in it’s own right and it’s the first batman movie to thoughtfully and sucessfully incorperate several different writers’ interpretations of Batman: Frank Miller, Alex Ross, Alan Moore, etc.

In the first twenty minutes of the movie, there was even a reference to one of my favorite Alex Ross works:

Will Heath Ledger be nominated for an Oscar?  Probably.

Does his performance deserve a nomination?  Definitely.

I was on the edge of my seat the entire movie and Ledger’s performance had a lot to do that. 

But I think the media’s obsession with Ledger’s death has distracted from the movie’s other great performances.

Aaron Eckhart’s portrayal of Harvey Dent/Two Face, was also wonderful.  You watch him rise, you watch him fall, and it’s done so well, that it felt like a character study in a Shakespearean tragedy.

I honestly wondered if the movie would end like a Shakespearean tragedy; with everyone dead, and only a few the wiser for it.  But the story was so tightly put together, and the characters so well portrayed, I didn’t care how it ended.  I was fascinated and entertained, and I hope everyone else will be too.

I will see The Dark Knight, and I will see it today.

And if I see The Dark Knight, I will also see the trailer for Watchmen.  Up until today, I avoided watching the Watchmen trailer up.  Because I love the books and the stills from the movie looked promising (shot frame for frame like the comic) and I don’t want to get my expectations too high.  Like with 300.  It looked so cool in the trailers, but the director was a professional commercial director, so I should have expected a great trailer and have stayed appropriately impartial.  But, for all the historical information available, the dialogue was lame, and the so was the movie-for me, anyway.  I know plenty of people will disagree.  

Oh, and then poor Alan Moore’s books have such a shitty history of being massacred by Hollywood, so, I have little hope for Watchmen.

Hellboy wasn’t a great movie and neither is Hellboy II.  That’s not saying you can’t enjoy either movie.

I just have high expectations for Guillermo del Toro and perhaps it’s unfair that I expect more than I’m offered in the trailers, because if Hellboy and Hellboy II came from, say, Uwe Boll, I’d have stood up in my seat and applauded.

These are the movies Mr. Boll has continually tried and failed to make.  Big action, big budget, over-the-top movies with stylized dialogue.  And sometimes that’s all I want, which is, unfortunately, why I’ve seen some of Uwe Boll’s movies.  But, where Guillermo de Toro succeeds, and Uwe Boll’s consistently fails, is in the establishing and sustaining of a consistent style of dialogue.  Mr. Boll sets up silly worlds, with silly characters, and silly dialogue, and then throws a scene filmed to look serious in the middle of all the silliness.  And you just don’t care.  Not only do you not care, but it pulls you out of the film and draws attention to how bad the thing is as a whole.

And this is where Guillermo del Toro does things right…most of the time.  He leaves the audience with the over-the-top world, the big action and silly dialogue, and doesn’t stop the entertainment to expect you to care about the unrealistic characters.  Well, unless his intention was that the audience care about the forced, awkward-to-watch love story between Hellboy and Liz-which may have been the worst part of the movie.

 But, at least he didn’t force a boob shot into the awkward mess…Uwe.