The Book of Eli/Max Payne

Before I get into my big problem with The Book of Eli let me say why I liked it (and overall I did). The film has a nice visual aesthetic, and the plot exhibited more intelligence than you would expect in a post-apocalyptic western (though as has been pointed out in other outlets post-apocalyptic is a misnomer, you should really just call it apocalyptic). Denzel Washington convincingly plays a 'man with no name' (actually his name Eli, but the character description fits) who is carrying the last copy of the bible across a decimated America. Gary Oldman is a man trying to establish a new society and he believes that if he has the Bible he can use it's words to reach his goal (and if you get past the fact that he's a psychopath, the motivation actually makes sense). The film also has some well shot action scenes (which means the camera doesn't cut away every three seconds) and even though the end gets a bit silly its fairly entertaining and worth checking out.

That said, as alluded to earlier, it does have one serious flaw. Mila Kunis plays a girl who ends up joining Denzel on his quest and her character is shown as being a serious badass. While she is alot of things, one thing Mila kunis is not is an intimidating presence. I have no problem with strong female characters but I require that they at least appear to be physically capable of beating up a second grader. Really its not just that she's terribly miscast, the entire character is unnecessary, and her presence feels like a studio note that got shoehorned in to give the audience someone more' sympathetic' to identify with. She doesn't kill the film, but the character is incredibly distracting.

Now onto May Payne. This is what you watch when you're at a conference, and too tired to focus on anything else because Southwest canceled all flights into SAN DIEGO because of weather and as a result you're bumped nine hours and running on four hours of sleep. I actually feel a little bad about the criticism I'm about to level on the film because I've met it's director John Moore and he's a super cool guy. Whatever, nobody reads this anyway.

So this film is kind of a mess and, like the book of Eli, makes the mistake of casting Mila Kunis as a heavy (it doesn't work here either). Every time you see her trying to be intimidating you just want to pat her on the head and give her a bunny which I'm guessing is not the effect they were going for. She's not even the biggest problem though. The film starts out as a fairly standard 'bitter cop trying to find his wife's killer but plays by his own rules and in the process alientates the force procedural' (or as I like to call it a - BCTFHWKBPBHORAINTPATFP), and while this is fairly uninteresting at least it was inoffensive. The last half an hour is where it abandons any logic that had been established up to that point (which admittedly wasn't much) and gets so stupid and nonsensical that I though for sure I had blacked out and missed some large chunk of it (I hadn't). I don't want to get too in to the details but here's a brief rundown:

-May fights some super soldier
-Just before said super soldier chops him to death with a Machete, Max's friend B.B (played by Beau bridges who probably just got the job because the character could use his monogrammed handkerchiefs) shoots the soldier and saves Max's life.
-As Max is asking B.B. what happened he's coldcocked and we learn that B.B. actually Killed Max's wife and now is going to kill Max (keep in mind he could have just let Max get macheted to death a minute earlier). BB's associate asks why they don't just shoot MAx and be done with it (reasonably so) but BB wants to monolougue and proceeds to give one of the most rambling incoherant speeches I've ever heard not given by Sarah Palin (rimshot). This allows Max to escape by jumping into a frozen river where he spends about fifteen minutes drowning, but decides not to when a vision of his dead wife tells him 'Not Yet'
-Max follows BB to his evil headquarters, where he's shot point blank with a shotgun. He's about to die but Mila tells him 'Not yet' so he's sufficiently motivated to get killing again.
-BB fills max with about fifty rounds from an automatic rifle, Max still kills him but starts to finally die when his dead wife again tells him 'Not Yet' so he decides to live. Fin.

You get this idea. I haven't even mentioned the angels/valkyries that are always flying around for no apparent reason (don't ask). So yeah, I don't recommend Max Payne (though I did learn that if an attractive woman whispers 'Not Yet' to you when you're about to die you'll actually live).

One Tree Hill: Some Roads Lead Nowhere

I have to be honest, I'm considering giving up this show. The insanity level hasn't been to its previous heights and its becoming more conventional WB boring than interesting. We'll see. Anyway back to the fun.

-Oooh, super serious opening with Clay sitting by the pool no doubt wondering how he got here (here's a hint - you suck as an agent), with then a cut to a montage of all the hurting people on the show, climaxing with Julian finding Alex having slashed her wrists in her bathtub. They then try to equate this with Skillz having to move to LA away from her girlfriend, and Millie realizing she's been a douche. I think Alex wins the my life sucks department.
- I'm watching Cal's basketball team get annihilated by Washington while doing this so if any random bursts of profanity appear you know why.
-How much do you want to bet that Brooke blames Julian for ignoring Alex, even after she spent the last several episodes saying that Alex was a lying manipulator.
-Nathan is still going to spain. Apparently every NBA team is still 'capped out.'
-Skillz elementary school teacher girlfriend gets mad that he didn't ask her to go with him to LA. He then asks her and she says no, but it would have been nice to be asked.
-Alex (while drugged out in a hospital bed): You Came
Julian: Of course I came
Alex: That's what she said

Is that clever? Or completely inappropriate? I'm unsure. Also Julian tells her they got financing for the movie. So your potential star attempts suicide and all of a sudden the project is fast tracked? Actually that makes sense.

-Really down 21 points with 16 minutes left? That's how we roll Cal? In a weak Pac-10 year you roll over like this.
-Clay goes to a hospital to try and snake an NBA player (kings Center) whose mom just got diagnosed with cancer from his old firm. The show tries to play this as a compassionate move on his part.

-Mouth: I remember looking at that mirror and telling you how beautiful and special you are. How can you not see it?
Millie: Marvin, when I look at that mirror all I want to do is cut a line on it and snort it. That's what I see.

Ooooh, dark. I love that Millie has become Keith Richards in approximately a week of doing blow. Lightweight.

-Oh its compassionate because Clay is going to figure a way to have the bobcats trade their recently signed point guard for the Kings Center, conveniently opening up a way for them to resign nathan. I guess this means we won't get One Tree Hill Barcelona edition, too bad. Oh the way he gets in to meet the bobcats GM is to have Quinn try out for a cheerleader position (which the GM is of course judging - another reason to be a GM), and she performs like a retarded stripper (set to Momma going to knock you out). I think this was intentional?
-Washington is going to drop a 100 on Cal, of course they are.
-Dan says on his TV show that he's sorry and is going to give away all his money. Classy.
-Millie goes to rehab, hopefully for good.
-down 29 points, 8 minutes left. Looks like another third place league finish. Now switching to the AZ-NO game
-Clay has his Jerry McGuire moment in Nathan's living room. Everything is right in the NBA universe.
-Skills and his girlfriend go all sad and weepy because he's leaving for LA. Another relationship where the participants don't understand trans-continental travel.
-Millie busts out of rehab. Tremendous.
-Clay and Quinn decide to be together - I guess her rational husband she ran out on is out of the picture

And we're done. Still not sure how long I'm going to stick this out, especially since the sports stuff looks to be going on the back burner.

Youth In Revolt

This film is kind of a fiasco but it had enough, I hesitate to say interesting, different and odd elements that keep me from completely dismissing it. Still even the sight of Fred Willard tripping on shrooms (which is always great) wasn't enough to distract me from the fact that that the film doesn't really appear to have any point. The main character Nick Twisp (played by Michael Cera in a manner that probably now best be described as Michael Cera-esque) falls in love with a girl while on vacation and she convinces him to basically become an arsonist to get kicked out of his house so they can be closer together. Her parents do not take kindly to this development, a fact she leverages into a trip to a french boarding school she's always dreamed of attending. Cera, not one to be kept away from his love, proceeds to have a classmate feed his lady love sleeping pills so she'll fail all her classes and get sent home to be with him. Somehow she is able to get over this and the film ends with them professing undying love for one another, and sort of riding off into the sunset (after Cera does his time in Juvenille hall of course). Since the film plays this ending pretty straight I'm assuming that they meant to justify the love of what are essentially two psychopaths (which I guess is interesting)? And if it was meant to be satirical then the execution was so bad I didn't see it.

As mentioned earlier the film also has a lot of weird elements (the kids will suddenly brake into highly formalized dialogue a-la the superior Brick, or a three octave organ in a mobile home) which serve to differentiate it from the typical teen sex romp, and did make me laugh a few times. It also seemed to think that Michael Cera being forced to run around in his boxers on multiple occasions is the height of hilarity - it isn't. Another interesting element is that about two-thirds of the dialogue in the trailer wasn't present in the theatrical version which indicates there was massive last minute editing and probably explains the disjointed feel of the narrative. So I can't really recommend seeing Youth in Revolt, but if you end up coming across is one day on cable there are worse ways to burn ninety minutes.

Crazy Heart

This film does a lot right but has one major flaw that keeps it form being a truly satisfying experience. Jeff Bridges is great as an aging country star named Bad Blake who's stuck playing crappy gigs at local bars (and in one case a bowling alley) while slowly drinking himself to death. Eventually he stumbles across two possible forms of redemption. One, in the form of a former sideman named Tommy Sweet (played by Colin Farrell), who has become a Tim McGraw-esque country star and offers Bad a chance to open and write songs for him. The other is a single mother (Maggie Gyllenhal, another of the Zooey Daschenal all-stars - a woman people always try to convince me is attractive but I'm still undecided about) who he sees as a way to make up for all his past life mistakes. These two stories drive the film, and represent its good and bad aspects.

On the positive side the film really captures the drudgery of the road for a musician. It gets a lot of little details right (i.e. too small bandstands, shoddy accommodations, and eternal drives every day from gig to gig) and more importantly nails the music. All of Bad's songs sound authentic, and the portrayal of Tommy's pop-country sound is right on. Unfortunately all of the subtlety and nuance the films exhibits in its portrayal of a musicians life is lost in the other subplot.

Bad's entire relationship with Gyllenhal's character feels unnecessary at best and cliched at worst. In fact there is one scene (in her bedroom after he composes a song) where I was actually cringing at how badly it was mis-played. The climactic moment of their relationship also felt more mechanistic than real and rather than giving me any kind of emotional charge, it just reminded of how stupid little kids actually are (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it). Much like the daughter subplot in The Wrestler (the film Crazy Heart will probably most compared to, and with reason), I wish the filmmakers had completely excised this storyline (or at least scaled it back) and just let the audience enjoy their realistic and moving portrayal of a complex character. The film is still worth seeing (Bridges is probably a lock for an academy award nomination, and at least one of the songs should as well), and its problems don't kill it by any means. Just go in with tempered expectations.

Sherlock Holmes

Overall this was an entertaining, if slight, film that featured some enjoyable performances and, thankfully, did not include a wacky minority sidekick. Robert Downey Jr. (Holmes) spends the film doing a riff on his Iron Man persona (which is not a bad thing) and the film places him and Jude Law (Watson) in a entertaining 'guy love' (I refuse to use the term bro-mance) relationship a-la Turk and J.D. from Scrubs (shut up I like that show). The actual mystery isn't all that original or clever (especially the big twist that will not surprise anyone who saw the classic A-Team episode where the team is captured by the military and sentenced to death) but its good enough to keep the story rolling and director Guy Ritchie does a nice job using slow motion to document Holmes' thought processes which is ultimately what differentiates these stories from the typical crime drama.

I have two other tangential points to make. First, I respect that the writers have everyone refer to the main character as 'Holmes' (because lets be honest, it would be difficult to take the supposed genius seriously if he was constantly called by his first name) but would it really have been too much to throw in one 'No Shit Sherlock'? Really? I mean this sort of film practically begs for it.

Second, I liked that they cast a 'normal' looking woman as Watson's fiancee, and not the typical maxim model. Or maybe I just say that because they cast a British maxim model.

Oh yeah, one more thing, this made me laugh:

Watson: And wear a jacket
Holmes (in the manner of a petulant child): You wear a jacket

Top 10 of 2009

Since everybody else is writing a list I've felt left out and want to get in on the action. Any film I watched in 2009 is eligible for inclusion (regardless of actual release year). This works to my advantage in several ways:

1) Even though I've picked up my viewing as of late there are still a significant number of 'prestige' films I haven't seen yet, and I may not get to in a reasonable amount of time
2) I started this blog in January (and have been averaging literally ones of readers since then) so I feel like a calendar year has a nice symmetry to it (yes I am captain obvious, but I needed a second reason)
3) While going over everything I watched this year I realized I'm way off my pace from when I was an undergrad and saw everything even though I had no money, meaning this list is in no ways definitive. I'm getting old. (I realize this isn't really a reason for linking the list to my year of viewing rather than release date, I just wanted to say it)


Anyway here it is, in no particular order (actually its approximately chronological, but who's counting), and as always I'm too lazy to link to the original reviews:

The Wrestler - cut out the daughter character and this suddenly becomes one of the great sports films of all time

Coroline - nice sense of humor, with some enjoyably dark elements

Adventureland - A nice low key coming of age film that manages to avoid most of the cliches that similar films engage in

Crank 2: High Voltage - Arguably the best comedy of the year. I really considered putting something like Moon, or even Star Trek, here (both of which I really enjoyed), but I'm more likely to rewatch this one in the near future which has to count for something. Yes the plot was non existent, but since this was essentially a live action looney toon it didn't matter.

The Hurt Locker - Its definitely good, but its getting so much critical love that its beginning to approach over-rated status. Check it out, but keep expectations in check

Inglorious Basterds - A bit too long, but the opening scene alone gets it on the list

District 9 - Besides all the other praise you've heard, the film's sense of humor really puts it over the top

An Education - Like I said before - all you twilight fans who love stories about old men hitting on high school girls, why don't you watch one that's actually well made and has something interesting to say?

Avatar - Simplistic plot, clunky dialogue, and not very interesting characters - but the fact that the visuals kept me from caring much about any of that means that it belongs here

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans: I enjoyed this so much that its fitting that its the only film on the list I paid to see twice (closing out the year on New Years eve no less). I was really afraid that it's demented sensibility wouldn't hold up on a second viewing, but thankfully that was assuredly not the case. It may not be the best made film, but its the one I had to most fun with and look forward to revisiting again. 'To The Break of Dawn' indeed.