John’s Movie Musings

Wow.  Summer already.  And it starts next week!

Let’s get crackin’…

May 1

• Battle for Terra – I think this is a small 3D movie.  Other than that, I know nothing.
• Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – Matthew McConaughey stars in yet another romatic comedy.  I bet he takes his shirt off.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine – I honestly don’t understand the need for this.  It’s called X-Men, not X-Man.  And didn’t we already get Wolverine’s origin story in the first X-Men?

May 8

• Star Trek – JJ Abrams fills the Enterprise with kids twentysomethings douchebags.

May 15

• Angels & Demons – Dan Brown’s prequel book is now a sequel movie to The DaVinci Code.  Fortunately all the fake history is preserved.

May 21

• Terminator: Salvation – Christian Bale takes over for Arnie.  I heard he’ll be back for two more after this.  (groan.  Yeah, I know).
• Night at the Museum 2 – Looks to be the same as the first.  The first one was funny, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
• Dance Flick – Hey look!  A Wayans movie no one cares about.

May 29

• Drag Me to Hell – Hey look!  Dance Flick gets a new title.
• Up – Pixar goes 3D.  Yay!

June 5

• Hangover – No idea on this one.
• Land of the Lost – On its own, this would be awful.  But Will Farrell is starring and now it’s an awful Will Farrell movie.

June 12

• Imagine That – Eddie Murphy is still making movies.  Imagine that!
• Taking of Pelham 123 – Lot of big names in this.  Looks like a good caper movie.

June 19

• The Proposal – Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds rom-com.
• Year One – Fortunately, there’s a Jack Black comedy about cavemen.  Men rejoice.

June 24

• Transformers 2 – Michael Bay and Shia LaBeouf continue to rape my childhood.
• My Sister’s Keeper – No idea, but it’s a Cameron Diaz movie.  I’d rather watch Transformers.

July 1

• Ice Age 3 - I’ve always enjoyed these movies.  And this one’s in 3D.
• Public Enemies – Johnny Depp continues his reign of awesome as John Dillinger.

July 10

• Bruno - It’s Borat, but with a NC-17 rating.  It’s like that movie Ass from Idiocracy.
• I Love You, Beth Cooper – Who doesn’t?!

July 15

• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – The Penultimate Harry Potter.  Sort of.  Book 7 gets two movies.

July 24

• G-Force – Gerbils…in…Spaaaaaace!!
• The Ugly Truth – Gerard Butler in a Romantic Comedy?  Say it ain’t so Leonidas!

July 31

• Bandslam - We’re goin hoppin.  We’re goin hoppin today where things are poppin.  The Philadelphia way.  We’re gonna drop in, on all the music they play, on the Bandslam.  Bandslam.
• Funny People – Adam Sandler and Seth Rogan.  I bet there’s a fart joke or twenty.
• They Came from Upstairs – Ooh!  A teen movie about aliens.  Squeeeee!!!!

August 7

• G.I. Joe – I just want to know now if this is gonna suck.  ‘Cause knowing is half the battle.
• Shorts – Bets the sequel will be called Pants?

August 14

• A Perfect Getaway – You know a movie will suck when they give away the plot in the title.
• District 9 - A super-secret Peter Jackson sci-fi movie.  OK, I’m sold.

August 21

• Goose on the Loose – A title that makes me want to drop a deuce.
• Inglorious Basterds – Tarantino’s latest.  It has Nazis and Brad Pitt.  What more do you need?

August 28

• Final Destination 3D – Oh man.  One of my guilty pleasures.  And now I get to watch death in 3D!!
• H2 - Oh…

And that’s it.  Let’s see…. The Terminator, Land of the Lost, Transformers, Star Trek, and G.I. Joe.  Proof Hollywood ran out of ideas twenty years ago, right?  Ah well, at least the explosions are better this time around.

There is a small cult in Hollywood that hates technology.  Or just doesn’t understand it.  Probably both.  No, I’m not thinking of scientologists.  In fact, I’m not sure who to blame, but I imagine crotchety old screenwriters who stildon’t understan email.

I’m sure you’re familiar with some of the works of this cult.  This season of 24 is a prime example as an evil sorcerer (terrorist) uses his magic (the internets)  to control the world.  Eagle Eye, the latest Shia LaBeouf vehicle without Transformers, follows this same formula.  For many of you, this is a warning that you need to turn off your brain prior to watching.  For those of you who believe a hacker can overload a power line at precisely the right time for it to fall and electrocute someone running away from it, then you’re good to go.

Now all this doesn’t mean Eagle Eye is a bad movie.  In fact, for a B-grade thriller, it’s pretty good.  Sure, Shia makes me want to punch the screen every time he’s says something stupid.  But he’s like that crazy uncle who just isn’t worth getting upset over anymore.

Give this one a rental.  For all its flaws, it’s still pretty fun.  Just like that annoying girlfriend you could never dump.

Grade: B-

As humans, we don’t like doubt.  We don’t know what to do with it so we treat it like a stranger we’ve known our whole life.  Our minds seem wired for facts or proof.  At least, those are easily digestible.   But proof doesn’t build trust.  That only comes from faith – which just happens to be joined at the hip of doubt.

So I was intrigued at how Hollywood would try and unpack this tangled mess of emotions.  Doubt centers on the relationship between a Catholic priest and the chief nun at a school.  The priest is soon suspected of abusing one of the alter boys and the nun, armed with her “certainty,” begins a campaign to get him punished.  You’ve got Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep as these two characters and you can be assured that they are portrayed brilliantly.

At first, I was a little concerned about setting this story within the Catholic Church.  Hollywood and the Church don’t exactly see eye to eye on things and I was worried that the movie would just be a hack job.  Fortunately, my fears were unwarranted.  The Church in Doubt just exists.  It’s not good.  It’s not bad.  There are no judgments about it at all.  In fact, what’s so brilliant is that any judgments you bring into the movie will color your suspicions of the priest’s guilt or innocence.  Even the characters are designed (and portrayed) with enough flaws and redeeming qualities that picking a side before the end will only happen if you bring something to the story – not from the events on-screen.

I won’t spoil the ending, but Doubt is one of those movies you talk about with a bunch of your close friends around beer or coffee.  And that is certainly not a bad thing.

Grade: A

Remember the Jim Carrey movies of your youth? The Mask, Ace Ventura, Liar Liar. All good times. But those days are now simple memories in your quickly fading mind. And Jim Carrey has hit an age where talking out your ass isn’t all that funny anymore.

Yes Man tries to bring back the glory days of Mr. Carrey.  That alone should give you a clue about your interest here.  If the old Carrey movies made you spoon out your eyes instead of your ice cream, then you’ll want to stay away.  Unfortunately, everyone should stay away from Yes Man.

From the trailers, you know this movie is about a man who finally decides to say yes to everything.  OK, fine, there’s a shallow message in there, but I can handle that.  What I can’t handle is a director hammering home that message to the exclusion of everyday common sense.  In the trailer, it appeared as if Jim was hypnotized into saying yes to everything.  Sort of like that Office Space moment.  But Yes Man is nothing like Office Space (one of them is funny).  There is no hypnotism.  Jim just convinces himself to say yes to everything, even to things that no sane person would ever agree to.  All to drive home a lame message.  Makes me grumpy.

Say No to this one.  Even better, do your best Shia LaBeouf impression and say N-N-No!!

Grade: D

There’s a Facebook app going around titled, “What Font are You?”  Hopefully none of you got helvetica because according to Helvetica (the movie), that’s the font equivalent of gray.  It’s famous for its blandness.  It emotes nothing.  And that’s why it’s found just about everywhere.

Why watch a movie about a font?  Sounds like a complete waste of a few hours, right?  Wrong!  You may not be aware of this, but there are people out there who love fonts.  And I mean LOVE fonts.  And those are people worth watching.  Remember that movie about the Superheroes in Hollywood?  Imagine one of those guys as Helvetica Man.  Or maybe Hel-boy.  (Groan.  Yeah, I know.)  Anyway, it all proves one point: obsession makes good cinema.

The best parts of this movie are the interviews with all the Font Nuts and they fall into two camps.  There are those who marvel at its perfection and challenge anyone to come up with something better.  I know this is impossible because they told me they’ve tried.  And then there are those who fart in its general direction.  These are the most entertaining, of course.  To them, helvetica is used only by styless hacks who respect art as much as toilet paper.  I found it interesting that all the people in this camp used MacBooks.

Helvetica contains a pretty good history of the font (It came out of Post-War Europe after a need for legible street signs).  If it were just a short TV documentary with that information, it would still be a decent watch.  But the interviews and the crazy cast of characters really push this into the “must watch” category.  It’s on Netflix “Watch it Now” so go do so.

Oh and yes, this review is posted in helvetica.

Grade: A

Romantic Comedies (or RomComs as someone unfortunately called them) are a lot like cute pictures of kittens.  The right one can melt even the coldest heart of stone, while too many will turn you into a pansy.

Ghost Town follows the same formula as you’d expect but that’s not why you watch these kinds of movies.  They work the same way as motivational posters. You expect that picture of an eagle soaring high into the air to always remind you of “Achievement.”  And you watch romantic comedies to always make you laugh and feel good at the end.  It’s how things work and we should all be ok with that.  If you don’t like my theory, may I suggest The Breakup.

This all boils down to the fact that Ghost Town is a funny, sweet story.  Ricky Gervais (the single reason we have The Office) plays a bitter old dentist who sees dead people.   Greg Kinnear comes along and acts like a whiner who won’t just stay completely dead.   You can work out the rest of the plot on your own, but imagine Ghost Whisperer with the dude from The Office and not the girl from Party of Five.  Fortunately, Gervais is a hilarious comedian and Tea Leoni is adorable in everything she does.  All perfect ingredients for a Friday Night dinner and a movie.

Grade: B+

As I settle in to write this review, Iron Chef America is on in the background.  I can’t think of anything more appropriate.  In Iron Chef, you’ve got two people, surrounded by expensive hardware, racing to make culinary art.  And Fast and Furious is a crap-ass movie about cars.

Let me set the bar for me going into this.  Of the first three, Tokyo Drift was pretty good and The Fast and The Furious was certainly watchable.  Number 2 should never have been made.

Since the original crew all came back for this one, I was expecting nothing more than a good ride.  It ended up like a road trip with a flatulent friend.

On the good side, the car crashes were pretty spectacular.  There were also a couple scenes through a mountain that I’d never seen done before.  So props to originality in a series four movies deep.

Fast and Furious shattered records this weekend.  So if you are one of the few who didn’t catch it, go in with only one expectation:  that you’ll rev your engine a few extra times in the parking lot.

Grade: C-