<dl dt_class="field"> Contraband (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1524137/">5/10</a> Mark Wahlberg does his level-best to save this flick, but it drags on and only the last half-hour or so is anything like exciting or worth watching. The attempt to make it look like Kate Beckinsale shared any genes whatsoever with Caleb Landry Jones was a lost cause from the very start. As the screwup/plot-driver brother, Jones's face seems perfectly designed to express an utterly self-centered vacuity and "douche-bagginess". With all of his Macgyver-like cleverness, Wahlberg essentially reprised his role from <i>Shooter</i>, which was the only good thing about this movie. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1229238/">7/10</a> Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg and Paula Patton form the MI team for this film. It was overall pretty entertaining, making good use of the cast and with a pretty strong story (as these things go). It was nice to see that the lengthy Russian-prison scene was conducted entirely in Russian, with subtitles. Patton was the weakest link and I vacillated between thinking that she ruined her scenes because she's a wooden actress---actress is an exaggeration, she's probably officially cast as "eye-candy" although for me she doesn't even fill that role particularly well---or because her role as a bad-ass ass-kicking womyn was written poorly. It's a shame, because it was nice to see that the team tried to include a competent woman---but not like this. Cruise was decent, as usual---the Burj Khalifa scene was great fun---and Pegg and Renner were also good. Spoiler alert: what's up with the super-IQ physicist who also happens to be a Terminator-like unstoppable fighting machine capable of going toe-to-toe with the great and formidable Ethan Hunt and almost winning? Is Maggie Q from Die Hard 4 his sister? Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1515091/">7/10</a> Since I watched this film back-to-back with MI: Ghost Protocol, I noticed that it has almost exactly the same plot: an evil super-high-IQ genius tries to provoke a world war between two great powers. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are great fun. As a Guy Ritchie film, it included his trademark of interspersed slo-mo action sequences and attention to internal mechanical detail. Holmes's fighting style was an especially interesting mix of boxing and Kung Fu. Spoiler alert: the final showdown with Moriarty was really nicely done. I guess that's not much of a spoiler. Recommended. The Planet of the Apes (2001) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133152/">5/10</a> Tim Burton directed this remake of the 1960s original, starring Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter as well as many other famous faces, all hidden under really quite convincing ape makeup. Despite the capable cast, it's overall quite cheesy and the story was only interesting near the end, where the millenia of intervening history were revealed. Otherwise, the parallels drawn between the Antebellum South and the condition of all humans under the reign of the apes was a bit heavy-handed (with phrases like "human lover" for apes that didn't perceive humans as wholly beneath them landing particularly heavily). The Avengers (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0848228/">8/10</a> A thoroughly enjoyable comic-book action/adventure film with an apocalyptic save-the-world theme. Some of the characters are better than others---I'm looking at you, Robert Downey Junior, just living the role of billionaire/playboy/genius/philanthropist (his words) Tony Stark/Iron Man, but I'm also keeping an eye on Mark Ruffalo as the Incredible Hulk---but overall the cast was good. Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye were surprisingly good additions as "only" human Avengers. Tom Hiddleston played an over-the-top Loki (spoiler alert) who got his ass righteously kicked by the Hulk (a great scene). Lots of cool high-tech gadgets and gizmos. Some of the scenes were a bit too long without building any real suspense (Captain America pulling the lever, the interminable chase around the city by the big hell-dragons, etc.) and were more reminiscent of video-game sequences than film scenes, but they don't detract or distract too much. Recommended for anyone and highly recommended for fans of the genre. Young Adult (2011) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1625346/">6/10</a> Charlize Theron stars as a just-over-thirty woman whose best years are behind her---probably way behind her---in high school. She escaped her dreary town to become an authoress but ended up reasonably successful, but as a ghost-writer for a young-adult book series for girls. She's an alcoholic who returns to he old hometown to try to win back her high-school beau with her still-not-waning good looks. Patton Oswalt plays a whiskey-making nerd from her class that she befriends on returning, but who is wholly against her plan of conquest---because he knows that the guy is happily married and just had a baby. It's dark and stumbling and not very good. Intouchables (2011) (fr) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675434/">8/10</a> An entertaining movie starring François Cluzet as a newly-quadriplegic Parisian plutocrat of unknown but clearly near-infinite wealth and an African immigrant---Omar Sy, playing the wise-cracking child of the streets---who he hires to take care of him. Sy has no prior experience but has a lot more moxie than the other milquetoast candidates and he's a quick learner and knows how to care for the man's soul, which arguably needs more help than his body. It's a familiar tale given additional spice by being in French and being mostly based on a true story. Der Verdingbub (2011) (ch-de) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2057931/">8/10</a> A Swiss-German movie about a terrible part of Switzerland's past---and not all that far in the past---where orphaned children---and children of parents that could (or would) no longer care for them---were essentially sold as chattel to work for farms around the country. The farm family in the movie is awful, with the severely alcoholic father easily outshining the unscrupulous---nigh-amoral---mother who's unbelievably coarse and low. Or the older son who regularly rapes the (semi-adopted/semi-hired) young girl while making the boy's life a living hell. The boy eventually runs away to seek his fortune in Argentina but that's the only highlight and it seems kind of thrown in there to give viewers <i>some</i> reason to hope for mankind. The Quest (1996) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117420/">6/10</a> A Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle with a plot reminiscent of the one from Blood Sport: a young, unknown fighter must prove his mettle to the world in a no-holds-barred fight-to-the-finish with fighters in various disciplines from all over the world. Oh, and there's an evil Asian who looks like he's made of stone and has no scruples (the Chong Li from Blood Sport). Oh, and Van Damme takes a majestic beating from a fighter nearly twice his size, then comes back and finishes the guy with a few swift strokes. So, it's Blood Sport with a Rocky-style ending, with Roger Moore as a sleazy (there's a stretch) fortune-hunter. Avatar (2009) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499549/">8/10</a> The 3D blockbuster, but in 2D, on a 19-inch screen and in German. It's really not that bad, but so many of the characters are two-dimensional: Sigourney Weaver (as scientist Grace), Michelle Rodriguez (as a pilot/grunt) and Stephen Lang (as Colonel Quaritch) are just a couple of examples. The plot is pretty simplistic, the battle scenes are much too long (without adding suspense or additional pathos) but the graphics are stunning, even if some of the stuff is just too colorful and cutesy-looking for my taste. The Number 23 (2007) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481369/">6/10</a> Jim Carrey does quite a good job in a film about madness---and Carrey's madness centers around the number 23. He sees more and more connections with the number and predestination and a malicious guiding hand everywhere. His paranoia spreads to his family, who try to help him in his pursuit of his pursuers, only to find out that he is somehow the cause of his own troubles, having forgotten that he'd written the book that he's using as a guide to find out what's going on and why it seems that, the more he finds out, the more he thinks he may have killed someone. The film is a bit surreal and may have been better treated in David Lynch's hands than in Joel Schumacher's. The Big Bang Theory (TV series, 2007-2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898266/">7/10</a> An all-around addictive show about a quartet of scientists---three physicists and one engineer---and their adventures. The most captivating is Sheldon, the utterly OCD and most socially maladapt of them. Penny is a breath of fresh air and her role is handled quite well in juxtaposition to the others. Louie (2010-2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1492966/">10/10</a> Louie C.K. stars as himself in a series on FX. The show is about half stand-up comedy and half bizarre situations in Louie's purported real life. He's a funny, philosophical guy---if you can ignore the superficial dirtiness of some of his humor, he makes excellent points about our society and people, in general. I loved almost every uncomfortable and deeply funny minute of it---enjoying the philosophical twists and hypothetical situations that seem based, as so much of his material is, on brief and fully formed flashes of insight that Louie turns into sketches (e.g. the date with the uptight PTA mom who wants to be spanked? The violinist in a tux in a subway playing achingly beautiful music while a homeless man disrobes and bathes with a liter bottle of water behind him? The long subway ride in silence while fantasy after fantasy of minor heroism is played out? Hard to pick a favorite.) Paranormal Activity 2 (2009) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1536044/">3/10</a> A so-so film telling the back-story of the first film. It's basically like watching a reality show without a lot of the fighting. The people aren't particularly intriguing and the plot takes a long time to get going. The first half is filled with interminable security-camera footage that doesn't really move the story along at all. Neither does it really build suspense. Hard to recommend. The Dark Knight Rises (2012) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1345836/">7/10</a> A good finale to the trilogy of films about the Batman by Christopher Nolan. The new nemesis Bane is decent---if a bit hard to understand---but can't hold a candle to the unbridled mayhem of Ledger's Joker. Bane's philosophy is horribly muddled but he purports to have a method to his madness. Christian Bale is good and does the most with his role that he can, but the unnecessarily expository style makes so many parts of the film feel dumbed-down and simplistic. Show, don't tell---or so they say. Nolan clearly didn't get the memo, as evidenced by an extremely long storytelling moment about 80% of the way through the movie---especially when the story was narrated over film sequences that told the story perfectly adequately without any words. Perhaps it didn't test well? Spoiler alerts: It seems the original ending---or what I take to be the original ending---didn't test well with the audiences either, as a more suitably Hollywood one was tacked on at the end (or I assume it was at audience behest; perhaps it was the studio executives that wanted to keep their options a little more open). There were the usual handful of action-pacing oddities (his gunship can't blow up a tank but the minigun on a skeletal motorbike can? Bullets bounce off of his armor, but a knife slips effortlessly through? The river is fozen over but people walk around outside with short-sleeves, no hats and gloves, clutching metal guns? Bane's mask/medical device can be repaired by a layperson with their bare hands? Anne Hathaway and Joseph Gordon Levitt were also a lot of fun---although the allusions to his next role were pretty heavy-handed (calling him a hothead was clever, but then, at the end of the film, they just came out and <i>said</i> it, fer Christ's sake). I saw interesting parallels to The Avengers in that both (almost) ended with a major hero (Batman and Iron Man, respectively) flying a nuclear incendiary device away from a population center, (nearly) sacrificing themselves in the bargain. Casino Royale (1967) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381061/">8/10</a> A spoof of James Bond movies starring David Niven in the main role with Woody Allen as his nephew, Ursala Andress as one of the Bond girls, Barbara Bouchet as Ms. Moneypenny and Peter Sellers rounding out the case as the evil Evelyn Tremble. Jacqueline Bisset, John Huston, William Holden and Orson Wellles also have smaller roles. The plot is horrid, but it was hard to look away. The film includes some utterly madcap sequences that make the end of Blazing Saddles or the Magic Christian look positively tame: there are sea lions, horses, dogs, brawling, Indians, ladies painted all gold and wacky, wacky music. In the Valley of Elah (2007) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478134/">7/10</a> Tommy Lee Jones and Susan Sarandon as a middle-aged couple in Texas seeking their missing son, recently returned from a tour in Iraq. He'd been out of control and hanging with other service members before he disappeared and many of the other soldiers they talk to seem shell-shocked and less than empathetic. Charlize Theron is a cop willing to help unravel the mystery and find out what happened. Spoiler alert: they find the son's body, mutilated and burned and suspicion slowly turns to the group of friends. But the question is: Why? The answer turns out to be: Because, um, minor scuffle and disagreement led to butchering the body and burning it to hide evidence; you know, like they learned to do with the natives in Iraq. Saw it in German. Pitch Black (2000) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0134847/">7/10</a> A science-fiction film starring Vin Diesel as Riddick, a humanoid but seemingly super-powered and possibly extraterrestrial criminal who has escaped from a crashed spaceship on a lifeless planet. From that, the rest of the remaining crew tries to come to grips with the planet's strangeness---it has three suns---and, of course, slowly realizes that the only way that they will survive the inevitable coming darkness of the triple eclipse is to put their trust in Riddick. What's the problem with darkness? The darkness calls forth the native denizens, who consider anything that moves to be a food source. The plan is to get to the spaceship and escape with as many of the original crew intact as possible. It's entertaining enough and Vin Diesel is good (if you're a fan); amazing to say that the sequel was much, much better. Saw it in German. Semi-Pro (2008) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0839980/">5/10</a> A Will Ferrell vehicle if there ever was one. Also starring Woody Harrelson and André Benjamin, it's about a basketball team in 1970s Flint, Michigan (with the always adorable Maura Tierney as Harrelson's girlfriend). The plot was pretty predictable but it's always fun to watch Harrelson and Ferrell at work. Hard to recommend, but it passed the time. Saw it in German. Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) --- <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085959/">10/10</a> <div>An utterly brilliant, irreverent, philosophical, hilarious, silly, surreal film for fans of the form. There are lots of musical numbers---some, like the famous <i>Sperm Song</i>, are huge, while others, like <i>The Galaxy Song</i> and <i>The Penis Song</i>, are shorter but lovingly rendered by Eric Idle. Gilliam's work is clearly evident in the prologue, called the <i>Crimson Permanent Assurance Company</i> about a firm that's run like a slave galley...until the workers take over the building, weigh anchor and sail off to take over other companies. The promised meaning of life is delivered nearly at the end: <iq>Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.</iq> <fn> And finally, the movie ends with the <i>Galaxy Song</i> playing over the credits, which starts with <iq>Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour</iq>, citing fact after fact about the <iq>amazing and expanding universe</iq> and then ends the film abruptly after the final stanza: <bq quote-style="single">So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.</bq></div> </dl> <hr> <ft><a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Monty_Python's_The_Meaning_of_Life#The_End_of_the_Film" source="Wikiquote">She goes on, of course, to say</a>: <bq>And, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which it seems is the only way these days to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment? Bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats. Where's the fun in pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight.</bq></ft>