Sunday 28 November 2010

Movie Review: Blue Thunder (1983)


A movie that exists for the primary purpose of showcasing helicopter acrobatics, Blue Thunder provides only a bit of fun as it plunders through the usual macho-cliches and government conspiracy puddles.

In the skies of Los Angeles, a police unit uses helicopters to support ground officers and help keep the peace. Veteran pilot Frank Murphy (Roy Scheider) is the local maverick, capable of exceptional flying tricks but haunted by his combat experiences flying in Vietnam. A sinister new chopper is brought in for testing: unlike the regular police helicopters, Blue Thunder is tricked out with a massive amount of weapons, technology and armor.

Murphy's old adversary, the slimy Colonel Cochrane (Malcolm McDowell), seems keen to bring the military-style Blue Thunder into police service, and soon there are hints at a conspiracy to manufacture civil strife in order to justify pushing the heavy-handed chopper into service. After his partner (Daniel Stern) is killed, Murphy gets help from his girlfriend (Candy Clark) and takes matters into his own hands, stealing Blue Thunder to expose the evil plot. 

The storyline of Blue Thunder is crass and conspiratorial, with basic performances to match from cast members who are capable of better, including Warren Oates in one of his last roles as Murphy's long suffering Captain. Director John Badham chooses efficiency over style, and is a lot more interested in the machinery than the people. The agitation by technology is enabled by high-tech and futuristic gizmos packed into Blue Thunder, in a triumph of impressive hardware over good storytelling. 





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Sunday 21 November 2010

Movie Review: The Wild Bunch (1969)


The opening scene is a botched bank robbery that results in a prolonged shoot-out between the Wild Bunch and bounty-hunters, with civilians including women and children caught in the cross-fire.

In the middle of the movie is a smooth, old-fashioned train heist to seize weapons and ammunition.

And the movie ends with a long, gory, final battle, more of a meat-grinder, as the Wild Bunch, all four of them, take on an entire Mexican army battalion gone rogue.

Sam Peckinpah's epic western The Wild Bunch does not have the wit, sly artistic stylings, or operatic grandeur of Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly or Once Upon A Time In The West. But Peckinpah does satisfyingly saturate The Wild Bunch with a desperate mood of gloom for an entire class of men, as the time of living the outlaw life comes to an end with a bloody exclamation mark. He also introduces a poetic and lyrical style of portraying violence, aided by magnificent editing (Lou Lombardo) and cinematography (Lucien Ballard), blurring the line between condemning and enjoying violence.

The story follows Pike Bishop (William Holden) and his gang of ruthless bandits, including Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), brothers Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector (Ben Johnson), and the Mexican Angel (Jaime Sanchez), who make a living robbing rail company payrolls. The corporations start fighting back just as ruthlessly: a company baron hires Pike's former partner Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan) to lead a group of bounty hunters to halt, once and for all, Pike's rampage.


Deke and his men botch the ambush that opens the movie but still manage to decimate the gang down to five men. Deke chases the Wild Bunch remnants across the border from Texas to Mexico. South of the border Pike and his men encounter the slimy General Mapache and his army terrorizing local villages while entertaining some seedy-looking German army types. Pike and his men fend off Deke and attempt a double-cross game of helping Mapache and the villagers to secure guns and ammunition. With Deke closing in, Mapache reveals himself to be as despicable as any gangster, and Pike plans a blaze of bloody glory.

Between the film's three main action set-pieces, there is plenty of time for Peckinpah to elaborate on the end of a way of life. He does so through conversations between Pike and Dutch, flashbacks, and expanding on Deke's internal conflict as he chases down his former partner. The movie is set in 1913, and the startling appearance of a motor vehicle, being used by Mapache's men, is a stark reminder that the outlaw cowboy days are well and truly coming to an end.

The film is populated by Western movie stalwarts and character actors, all of them grimy, dirty, desperate, none of them good, just shades of conflicted. The absence of an outright 1960s movie star helps to focus attention on the impact of the changing times on men in general, rather than any individual. The Wild Bunch chronicles a glorified era's demise, drenched in red.






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Saturday 20 November 2010

Movie Review: Duplicity (2009)


A movie that is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is, Duplicity attempts to dazzle with a high dose of faux glitz but falls apart when the most cursory of plot elements fail to hold together.

Ray Koval (Clive Owen) and Claire Stenwich (Julia Roberts) are spies, formerly rivals in government service but now working for corporations who have a lot of trade secrets to hide or steal. Ray and Claire have a fling, and may be falling for each other or just using each other as they decide to covertly team-up to profit from a trade war between two rival companies, Equikrom and Burkett & Randle.

The CEO of Burkett & Randle (Tom Wilkinson) is about to unveil to great new product that will change the industry; his rival the CEO of Equikrom (Paul Giamatti) is desperate to get his hands on this breakthrough. Ray and Claire position themselves to control the trade secret ahead of anyone else, in an attempt to sell it for a huge profit.

Despite the interesting premise, too many basic building blocks in Duplicity are cracked beyond salvation. The attraction and chemistry between the main characters Ray and Claire? The only thing we know they have in common is a deep, mutual and prolonged distrust of each other. Not a good basis for the movie to establish and maintain any romantic angle.

The great corporate trade secret everyone is chasing? It's a one page - yes, hard copy - hand-drawn chemical diagram that looks like it was torn from a grade six textbook. Apparently, the digital revolution has not penetrated too far in some of America's most advanced corporations.

And the corporate spies who have the ability and technology to insert agents deep undercover? They apparently are only capable of copying and transmitting documents using photocopy machines operating at one page per minute. Digital cameras and e-mail, anyone?

For a film trying to be romantic thriller set in the high tech world of corporate espionage, such rudimentary gaps in flow and logic are unforgivably distracting.

We are left with the appeal of the two stars, and neither is convincing. Julia Roberts works hard to try and persuade us that she is a shrewd and ruthless operator, but she can't hide a persona that seems to just want to travel to exotic places and wear the priciest clothes. As her foil, Clive Owen does not appear to be trying too hard to convince us of anything. He generally sleep walks through the movie relying solely on a charisma that unfortunately for him decided to sit this one out.

Director Tony Gilroy tries to entertain the easily impressed with various locales including Dubai, Italy, Cleveland, Florida, New York City and Switzerland, and tells the tale of the relationship between Ray and Claire through flashbacks. But the film lacks any artistic touches or true directorial flare that would have provided an edge.

Pretending to be ready to deliver clever action when you're serving mainly limp entertainment? Duplicity indeed.








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Movie Review: 21 (2008)


Based on true events, 21 is an entertaining drama examining what happens when the glitter and seductiveness of the Las Vegas gambling world are used as ill-conceived shortcuts on the road of real life.

21 is based on the events described in the book Bringing Down The House, by Ben Mezrich. The movie was accused of white-washing what in reality was a predominantly Asian-American Blackjack Team. While the decision to cast white actors in all the leading roles is understandable from the perspective of increasing the film's marketability, it is a sad statement on society that actor ethnicity remains a major factor in determining commercial success.

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a student at MIT, a math wizard, and looking to get into Harvard Medical School. He is recruited by one of his professors, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), to join the Blackjack Team: a group of students organized by Rosa to use a card-counting system and win big at Blackjack during weekend trips to Las Vegas casinos.

At first reluctant but seduced by the idea of making enough money to pay for medical school, Campbell joins the team, falls in love with team-member Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), and over 17 glitzy Vegas weekends makes more money than he ever imagined possible. He enjoys the fast and loose life style of the big-time winning gambler, but things start to fall apart when he loses his friends at MIT; tensions erupt between the Blackjack Team members; and Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), a burly Vegas security chief with a mean streak, smells something wrong with Campbell's unlikely winning streak.

Director Robert Luketic ensures that 21 looks great, whether in luxury-drenched Vegas or the more staid and academic Boston environment. Kevin Spacey keeps his balance walking the fine line between smiling math professor and conniving blackjack strategist, alternating between charming and badgering his students to win him money. Laurence Fishburne does not need to bother with the charming part, he just bulldozes his way to uncovering those who try to win at Blackjack by counting. Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth are an appealing mix of student naivete and young adults forced to deal with the challenges of an alternate world.

Slick, engaging and thought-provoking, 21 doesn't bring down the house, but it does shake it up.



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Sunday 14 November 2010

Movie Review: The Fast And The Furious (2001)


In a demonstration of the potential for style to triumph over substance, The Fast And The Furious is a sleek, shiny film that entertains thanks to its vibe and cool factor. Not much else about this movie actually matters.

Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) is an undercover cop, infiltrating the Los Angeles illegal street racing community to crack an audacious theft ring that hijacks container trucks at formidable speeds. Brian befriends Dominic (Dom) Toretto (Vin Diesel), the fulcrum around whom the street racing scene rotates; Brian also falls for Dom's sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). Dom has shady friends and dangerous enemies; Brian is soon under pressure and has to risk his relationships to sort out the bad guys from the ugly guys before the truck drivers start resolving matters with shotguns.

The Fast And The Furious derives its pleasure and appeal from the glimmering overpowered machines that fuel the street racing scene, and the film matches the insane kinetic energy of the cars that are as important to the movie as the actors. Credit to director Rob Cohen for avoiding the temptation of moving mindlessly from one stunt race scene to the next; there is actually surprisingly little racing action in the movie, more a glorification of the cars, the people, and the culture, as time is spent colouring, with vivid intensity, the details of the characters who inhabit this underground world.

As a result, when the racing and stunt set-pieces do kick-in, they are treats to be enjoyed, helped by exceptional execution, editing and directing.

Vin Diesel cruises through the movie oozing coolness that is appropriately unreal. Paul Walker is almost equally impossibly on top of the out of control action, but as the force of good in the movie he manages to be less outrightly dismissive. The grease-stained group surrounding Dom Toretto's character appear to be drawn from the guys that always seem to be hanging around the local car repair shops, doing nothing much that appears to be legal.

The rap music score thumps along adding to the high and edgy level of energy that throbs through the movie.

The Fast And The Furious is like speeding on an empty freeway. Absolutely nothing good will come of it, but it could be ever so enjoyable.






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Movie Review: The Deep (1977)


There are two main objectives behind The Deep: the first is to showcase the dramatic advancements in underwater filming that were occurring in the second half of the 1970's. The second is to showcase Jacqueline Bisset in a variety of revealing poses.

Author Peter Benchley had enjoyed huge success with his 1974 debut book Jaws, which was turned into the most successful (at that time) movie ever made by a young Steven Spielberg in 1975. Benchley's next book was going to be a success no matter what, and he released The Deep in 1976. The book is a muddled, unconvincing sunken-treasure adventure, and Benchley co-wrote the script for this muddled, unconvincing movie adaptation released in 1977.

The story follows David Sanders (Nick Nolte) and Gail Berke (Bisset) two amateur divers vacationing in Bermuda where they stumble onto a lost shipwreck with some precious cargo. They seek the help of local shipwreck expert Romer Treece (Robert Shaw), and soon enough they are pursued by spooky local henchmen from Haiti led by Henri Cloche (Louis Gossett Jr.). And emerging into the sunlight in a seemingly drunken stupor is Adam Coffin (Eli Wallach), an easily manipulated shipwreck survivor.

It turns out that David and Gail have uncovered not one but two shipwrecks on top of each other, one carrying enormous amounts of morphine that Cloche wants to get his hands on, and the other carrying an even more precious treasure of ancient jewelry.

The underwater scenes consume more than half the film, and have little to no dialogue as David, Gail and Romer explore the wrecks and irritate a particularly ugly large eel. The underwater cinematography is impressive, and director Peter Yates is able to maintain both tension and comprehension with few spoken words.

The scenes above the water are mostly tiresome discussions as the trio try to research and understand the shipwrecks, their cargo and their history, occasionally interrupted by Cloche and his men seeking to do harm.

Bisset finds reasons to remove her wet T-shirt, remove her bikini top, unbutton her shirt to her navel, and wrap herself in a towel, but always turns her back discreetly to the camera when needed, as Yates and his star focus on the tried and true titillation school of film-making. Nolte plays the angry-young-man with the clever shadings of an angry young man, and Shaw appears unsure whether or not his role as the grizzled expert that everyone turns to for help is actually a reincarnation of Quint from Jaws.

John Barry, of James Bond music fame, and disco queen Donna Summer collaborated on the hypnotic, synth-driven main theme music for the film, appropriately titled Down Deep Inside (Theme From The Deep). It turned into a major chart hit and helped drive the success of the film.

Benchley's next book was The Island, published in 1979, about modern-day pirates, and its failure along with the hideous 1980 movie adaptation starring Michael Caine, officially ended his winning streak. The Deep provided some strong hints that it would turn out all wet.







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Saturday 13 November 2010

Movie Review: Morning Glory (2010)


Morning Glory is an adequately entertaining but relatively shallow comedy set in the ruthless world of broadcast television.

Becky Fuller (Rachel McAdams), a young, enthusiastic television producer, is hired by network executive Jerry Barnes (Jeff Goldblum) to revive Daybreak, a desperately under-performing morning show. Becky brings in veteran newscaster Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford) to co-host the show with resident anchor Colleen Peck (Diane Keaton). The grizzled Pomeroy looks down on any and all segments not related to hard news; Becky needs him to buy into the morning show's varied format to rescue the program.

Director Roger Michell's previous credits include the human-centred Changing Lanes (2002) and Notting Hill (1999), and here he again maintains focus on the characters, although despite the efforts of a good cast, none of the key roles reveal too much nuance. Once the personalities are revealed in broad brushes, they dry quickly. The Aline Brosh McKenna script enjoys some funny moments mostly at the expense of the resident weatherman, but generally lacks the sharpness and wit of her work on the juicier The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

McAdams almost overplays the perky, hyperactive, and passionate Becky, whose only future, at this pace, appears to be marrying her work and eating non-stop take-out Chinese dinners. Ford enjoys himself as the dour Mike Pomeroy, a man living off the legend of a formerly distinguished career. Diane Keaton and Jeff Goldblum add good depth to the cast. Patrick Wilson, as Becky's love interest Adam Bennett is bland to the point of transparency.

Morning Glory does not warrant waking up early; but it is engaging enough not to demand that the channel be changed.






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Friday 12 November 2010

Movie Review: Fame (1980)


The experiences, from auditions to graduation, of students at the New York High School for Performing Arts, Fame is one of Hollywood's best musical dramas.

Doris (Maureen Teefy) is studying to be an actress, but she sees herself as exceedingly plain and not anywhere near glamorous enough to become a successful star. Ralph (Barry Miller) and Montgomery (Paul McCrane) are also studying drama: Ralph is obsessed with the life and death of stand-up comic Freddie Prinze; Montgomery is discovering his sexuality.

Coco (Irene Cara) is an ambitious singer, eagerly looking for her big break. She teams up with keyboardist Bruno (Lee Curreri), who has the talent but not the people skills to promote his electronic music. Leroy (Gene Anthony Ray) is a terrific dancer but cannot succeed at school because he's illiterate; Lisa (Laura Dean) wants to be a dancer but has neither the natural talent nor the work ethic to succeed.

Director Alan Parker invites us into the lives of these students using a documentary, gritty approach. With the absence of any stars in front of the camera, and making full use of a Manhattan yet to be scrubbed by corporate dollars, the result feels exceedingly real, as if Parker and his cameras were genuinely intruding into the lives of the students.

The script, by Christopher Gore, effectively creates a multitude of well-rounded characters, who evolve from the nerves of auditions to the confidence of their senior year within two hours. Making each scene count, every student gets a back-story that enhances their personality without detracting from the focus on their high school years.

Fame succeeds in avoiding cliches and most importantly, Parker stays true to his emphasis on reality by eschewing any and all nicely wrapped-up happy endings. We leave the students certainly four years wiser that when we first meet them, but they all have significant unresolved conflicts and challenges still to be overcome.

Within all this emphasis on genuineness, Fame also has a lot of fun. In particular, two musical song and dance numbers are outstanding: the Hot Lunch Jam in the school cafeteria and the celebratory song Fame shutting down a Manhattan street are both spine-tingling classics.

Of the cast members, Irene Cara was catapulted into immediate super-stardom by the success of the songs Fame and Out Here On My Own. The other actors, surprisingly and ironically, achieved little subsequent success. They did, however, leave a terrific legacy in their one shot at fame.






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Movie Review: GoldenEye (1995)


A full six years after the previous Bond film, GoldenEye represented a significant franchise re-boot. A new Bond (Pierce Brosnan), and new M (Judi Dench), and the first ever Bond movie set and released after the end of the Cold War.

It's a new world, and M does not think highly of Bond -- she calls him "a sexist, misogynist dinosaur", and "a relic of the Cold War." Still, when control of a Soviet-era military satellite system capable of destroying cities with an electromagnetic pulse falls into the wrong hands, M sends Bond after the mysterious Janus Crime Syndicate.

Janus turns out to be Alec Trevelyan, previously known as Agent 006 (Sean Bean), and formerly believed to have been killed while on a joint mission with Bond. Helping Trevelyan on his quest to destroy London is Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), who get orgasmic delight while killing people, particularly when she is suffocating her victims between her thighs during sex. Also among the bad guys is Soviet-era General Ourumov (Gottfried John) and techno-geek Boris Grishenko (Alan Cumming).

Meanwhile, Bond is getting help in and out of bed from Natalya Simonova (Izabella Scorupco), a Russian computer programmer. Natalya repeatedly complains that Bond destroys every piece of machinery that he get close to, but that does not prevent her from falling into his arms at every opportunity.

The pursuit of the bad guys takes Bond from Monte Carlo to St. Petersburg, where he commandeers a tank to chase Ourumov through the city streets while being chased by countless army jeeps and police Ladas in one of the most fun chase sequences that the franchise has offered. The story reaches a climax at a hidden satellite control facility in Cuba, with the typical frequency and intensity of loud explosions.

Pierce Brosnan was born to be Bond, and he does not disappoint with his naturally suave persona easily slipping into the Bond world. Judi Dench gives M a new world spin, balancing the incompetence of analysts and accountants with the real threats to global stability. The rest of the cast has limited star power and the characters remain well within the thick lines of typical Bond villains and babes. As has become common, neither Scorupco nor Janssen were able to translate their Bond experience into significant international career success.

GoldenEye may not be a masterpiece, but it probably saved Bond from extinction -- and for that, secret agents and movie fans world-wide are grateful.







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Thursday 11 November 2010

Movie Review: Cool Hand Luke (1967)


A study of confinement, Cool Hand Luke examines the impact of one free spirit on his suffocating environment. A charismatic star, clever directing, outstanding cinematography, and haunting music create exhilaration.

Luke (Paul Newman), a decorated war veteran, is arrested for destroying municipal property: while drunk, he deliberately cuts the heads off parking meters. He is sentenced to two years in a Florida prison camp, where the daily routine involves exhausting labour whacking weeds or paving roads on endless rural highways supervised by shotgun wielding guards. With his lack of respect for any conventions, Luke quickly agitates Dragline (George Kennedy), the most senior prisoner.

But gradually, Luke earns the respect and then the adulation of all the prisoners with his laid-back but fearless attitude. He does not back down when pummeled in a fight; nonchalantly wins a poker game with a useless hand; accepts a spur-of-the-moment bet to eat 50 eggs in one hour; and leads the men to finish a paving job quicker than anyone expected. When he receives news his mother has died and the prison guards start to abuse him with solitary confinement, Luke becomes obsessed with escaping.
 
A soulful exploration of a yearning for individuality within oppression, Cool Hand Luke is a textured drama. In his major film debut, director Stuart Rosenberg paces events and allows time for the characters and events to unfold. As one man makes a difference to the collective, Rosenberg contrasts the open spaces on the highways of Florida with the prisoners' quarters, with the irony that the men have more freedom when left alone in their cramped quarters. Cinematographer Conrad Hall creates a scorching and unrelenting yellowish orange aesthetic, outdoors from the unforgiving sun and indoors from the men's mostly topless bronzed bodies.

In a dominating and unforgettable star performance, Paul Newman conveys emotion with sly smiles and an economy of words, creating a throbbing heart in the midst of a prison system overcome by sweaty despair. George Kennedy is the perfect foil, using an excess of physicality and presence to maintain his position as top prison dog. The cast of prisoners includes Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, and Joe Don Baker struggling against weeds and boredom.

Writers Donn Pearce and Frank Pierson summarize the sparsity of options in the clash between the incarcerated and their guards. Strother Martin, as the prison's captain, distills reality into short sentence fragments:

"What we've got here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week. Which is the way he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don't like it any more than you men."

Lalo Schifrin's music score is a mixture of playful, downbeat, menacing, and emotional, all hinting at sadness and a sense of doomed destiny. Cool Hand Luke is a challenge to the system, victory measured in brief moments of symbolic triumph.




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Movie Review: Changing Lanes (2002)


In New York, young lawyer Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) gets involved in a minor car crash with recovering alcoholic Doyle Gipson (Samuel L. Jackson). Both are on their way to court for very different reasons: Banek to help his law firm take control of a large account; Gipson to argue for joint child custody.

The confusion caused by the crash costs both men dearly: Banek loses an essential file that threatens to derail his career. Gipson is late for his court date and loses custody rights, with his ex-wife planning on relocating herself and their kids across the country to Oregon.

With both men desperate, they take out their frustration on each other over the course of a single day, while gradually coming to the realization that they both need to re-examine the trajectories of their lives.

Changing Lanes is an interesting premise, helped by two good performances from Affleck and Jackson, but undermined somewhat by the increasingly over-the-top actions forced on the two men by an uncompromising script. Banek is quick to illegally destroy Gipson's credit rating, thereby ruining his frail hold on a normal life. He also gets him arrested by framing him for child abduction. In revenge, Gipson seems to have little hesitation in putting Banek's life in real danger on the freeway.

These are not the actions of most normal men, and the exaggerated battle distances the characters from the real world that the movie is otherwise desperate to inhabit.

A rich supporting cast adds interest and helps to paper over some of the cracks. Sydney Pollack, in a purely acting role, is Banek's father-in-law and one of the senior partners in his law firm. William Hurt is Gipson's mentor at Alcoholics Anonymous. And Amanda Peet is Banek's wife, as cold and ruthless as her Dad. Toni Collette as Banek's fellow-lawyer and former lover, and Richard Jenkins as another senior partner at the firm, ensure terrific depth.

Changing Lanes ends with some welcome vagueness about the future of both men. Some restraint in the lead-up to the denouement would have been equally welcome.







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Sunday 7 November 2010

Movie Review: Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)


Bigger budget, more actors, more rooms, more cameras, but alas, also more predictable.

This prequel to Paranormal Activity covers events 60 days prior to the original film. Kristi (Sprague Graydon) and her husband Dan (Brian Boland) have a new baby boy named Hunter. Also living with them is Ali (Molly Ephraim), Dan's teen-aged daughter from a previous marriage. Kristi and Dan are occasionally visited by Kristi's sister Katie (Katie Featherstone), whom we got to know in the first film.

Soon after Hunter's birth, an unusual break-in results in the house of Kristi and Dan being trashed, but nothing is stolen. As a precaution they install surveillance cameras throughout the house. The rest of the movie is mostly shown from the perspective of these cameras, as things starts going bump in the night, strange unexplained events gradually become more dangerous as a demon appears intent on terrorizing the family. A crescendo of horror results in Kristi, Dan and Ali confronting the evil spirit, and a background story that somewhat explains the events of both films is revealed.

Since the formula was well established in the first movie, Paranormal Activity 2 is quickly victimized by a sense of deja-vu. Despite a relatively short running time of just 90 minutes, director Tod Williams is unable to prevent the film from dragging with endless and repetitive shots of static surveillance cameras punctuated by predictable sudden loud noises or doors opening slowly or slamming abruptly.

While the original film was able to happily focus on just Katie and her boyfriend Micah, the prequel needs to deal with Kristi, Dan, their kids Hunter and Ali, their housekeeper Martine, their dog Abby, and the occasional visits from Katie and Micah. Putting a young child (Hunter) at significant risk of bodily harm is an interesting and unhinging challenge to horror movie conventions, but the scattered focus among the adults, and particularly the relatively clumsy transition of the movie's core from Kristi to Ali, reduces the film's impact. And a pivotal scene towards the end with Kristi, Dan, Ali and Hunter in the dark basement is botched to the point of incomprehension.

And not to nit-pick, but a demon capable of the carnage on display as a result of the early house break-in could have achieved its objectives in 5 additional minutes of film time, rather than the 90 minutes that we are asked to endure.

Sprague Graydon as Kristi and Molly Ephraim as Ali are watchable and maintain a reasonable level of interest, but otherwise, as horror movies go, the activity has unfortunately and quickly transitioned from paranormal to quite normal.








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Saturday 6 November 2010

Movie Review: Fatal Attraction (1987)


The movie that made men dread having affairs, and forever added a new dimension to rabbit stew.

Hot shot up-and-coming New York lawyer Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) is happily married to Beth (Anne Archer) and devoted to his young daughter. At a book-launch cocktail party, he meets editor Alexandra (Alex) Forrest (Glenn Close). Over a weekend when his wife and daughter are away, Dan is seduced by Alex and they have a torrid sex-saturated affair.

Dan believes the encounter to be nothing but a one-off, but Alex has other ideas: she is quickly obsessed to the point of violence, and when Dan makes it clear that he has no further interest, she initiates a campaign of terror on him and his family. Alex progresses from psychotic to criminal in leaps and bounds, and makes use of stalking, self-mutilation, acid, kidnapping, and finally home invasions to get Dan's attention, while claiming that she is carrying his child.

Fatal Attraction may or may not be intended as a parable about AIDS: casual sexual encounters resulting in near-fatal long-term consequences. Regardless of the intent, it is a gripping film that works thanks to the sharply drawn contrast between Dan's near-idyllic home life on one side and the near-mad Alex on the other. In the middle is Dan's oh-so-stupid act of infidelity, an earthquake of lust with an aftershock that rips through his entire life.

Douglas is believable as the bright man with only enough blood to nourish one of his two strong heads, and Close gets the showy role as the wronged vamp with enough missing mental pieces to blow past all boundaries of reason to get her man. But Archer, in likely the best performance of her career, surprisingly emerges as the core of the film: her appealing portrayal of Beth generates the overwhelming flood of sympathy for the family unit under threat from Alex, and it ultimately falls to Beth to confront both her husband's betrayal and its consequences.

Adrian Lyne directs with an emphasis on a lot of flashiness, as befits a story where all emotions are cranked up and maintained at a heightened state. Fatal Attraction is a potent mix of lust, suspense, love and psychosis. It is attractive, but fatal only if its lessons are ignored.







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Movie Review: JFK (1991)


A brilliant movie, and a dangerous one.

After watching JFK, it is difficult to believe that anything other than an elaborate conspiracy was responsible for the 1963 assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Director Oliver Stone weaves together a narrative that is fictional yet so compelling, incriminating the military-industrial complex, the mafia, the Cubans, the Dallas police and Mayor's office, all the way up to Vice President Lyndon Johnson, with alleged trigger man Lee Harvey Oswald (Gary Oldman) playing nothing but the patsy, as he always claimed. Only the President himself, it seems, was unaware that the President was about to be assassinated.

And this is where Stone's case really crumbles like an elaborate castle built on air. His conspiracy theory ends up pointing the finger at hundreds of people, in a classic throw-all-the-mud-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach. Not only would such a plot be much more incredible than the lone gunman story, on closer examination, most of the case that Stone builds is based on half-truths that are stretched several degrees past reality.

It takes some time, but it is worthwhile to go through the patient debunking of most of Stone's thesis, for example as presented on the website One Hundred Errors of Fact and Judgment in Oliver Stone's JFK. Only then does it become clear how dangerous a movie can be in influencing opinion by just slightly twisting or expanding every factoid.

Setting that aside, JFK is marvelous entertainment. More than three hours zip by as Stone uses dazzling cinematic techniques, combining menacing documentary style back and white scenes with a vivid recreation of the entire assassination in Dealey Plaza, interspersed with the re-imagining of Oswald's story and that of the myriad of shady yet colourful characters implicated in the mind of the conspiracy theorists.

The focus of Stone's narrative is New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner). Three years after the assassination, Garrison opens an investigation into Oswald's activities in New Orleans. Garrison is quickly engrossed in the assassination case to the point of obsession, and gathers a team of investigators to track down all leads related to Oswald. As Garrison's family life starts to suffer and his wife (Sissy Spacek) is ignored, Oswald's acquaintances in and around New Orleans come to life through the investigation, including mysterious characters like bushy-eyebrowed David Ferrie (Joe Pesci), gay and rich Clay Shaw (Tommy Lee Jones), g-man Guy Banister (Edward Asner), sleazy lawyer Dean Andrews Jr. (John Candy) and the criminal Willie O'Keefe (Kevin Bacon). They are all presented as somehow related and working either openly or secretly for various government departments not happy with Kennedy's policies.

Garrison is helped by a deep-throat type source presented only as X (Donald Sutherland), a Washington DC-based colonel in the US Air Force with his own strong doubts about the lone gunman theory.

The performances from the star-sprinkled cast are excellent, with Costner doggedly determined as Garrison. The recognizable faces in every role add to the quality and entertainment value, and even the odd couple of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon have small roles, although never on-screen together.

Garrison eventually hauls Shaw into court on charges of participating in the conspiracy to assassinate the President. Although there is very little evidence tying Shaw to anything, Garrison uses the courtroom as a megaphone to present an elaborate, grand conspiracy theory. Shaw is acquitted, and Garrison is humiliated, other than in the eyes of those who see conspiracy where incompetence is much more evident. The real conspiracy that needs to be investigated is how Stone managed to turn myths and half-truths into such a captivatingly terrific film.






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Thursday 4 November 2010

Movie Review: Couples Retreat (2009)


Four couples head for a vacation resort specializing in relationship therapy and mending; they discover more about themselves than they cared to know. Couples Retreat is a generally enjoyable modern couplehood comedy, sabotaged by an ending that is in equal measures lame and rushed.

Dave (Vince Vaughn) and his wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman) seem to have a steady marriage, but they discover that they are living almost separate lives. Joey (Jon Favreau) and Lucy (Kristin Davis) have long since stopped being intimate, and generally cannot stand being with each other. Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are ready to get a divorce, their marriage strained to the breaking point by their inability to conceive. And Shane (Faizon Love) recently did divorce after a long marriage, and is in a new relationship with a 20 year old from an entirely different generation.

Monsieur Marcel is the self-appointed relationship guru at the Eden resort, and Jean Reno has a lot of fun taking the role way over the top. He is helped by Peter Serafinowicz as the uppity British resort manager whose main function is to irritate the men, and Carlos Ponce as the drippy yoga instructor with the beefcake pin-up body whose main function is to tantalize the women.

After a patient build-up to flesh out the characters and a meaty middle to highlight the difficulties in each relationship, the film falls apart in its final few minutes, with a poorly planned and badly executed scramble to provide happy endings for everyone. Any accumulated good-will towards meaningful relationship examination is squandered in an overdose of sugar to satisfy Hollywood's obese relationship with cheerful wrap-ups, no matter how grotesque.

Nevertheless, Couples Retreat, filmed mostly in Bora Bora, benefits from some terrific postcard-quality resort locations, and looks as lush as any dream or imagined vacation. The four couples and the actors portraying them are close enough to real, with believable eccentricities to maintain touch with authenticity. There are good comic moments, some witty dialogue, and a refreshing avoidance of the worst cliches, until the very end.






All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.