John’s Movie Musings

What’s your view of Liam Neeson?  For me, he’s always the mentor character – wise and soft-spoken.  You know, the guy that always dies halfway through the movie.  Having already voiced Aslan, he’s scheduled to play Zeus in the upcoming Clash of the Titans remake.

But did you know Liam can be a badass?  I’m not talking about the Marky Mark, angsty kind.  Think more Clint Eastwood.  Got your attention now, don’t I?  Liam is playing Lincoln in a 2011 biopic and I’m all kinds of hoping he plays this kind of Abe.

Taken is your basic, paint-by-numbers thriller.  But don’t let that sway you.  The film’s fantastic.  Liam plays ex-CIA Dad whose daughter gets kidnapped in Paris.  He then goes on a Dirty Harry-like rampage through the city to get her back.  It’s very satisfying to watch a man dispense justice with no concern for little things like the law.  This is not a film that explores the complex emotions of kidnappers, or some other sissy crap.  The bad guys are bad and need to die.  Period.

The plot, while simple, carries a heavy emotional element.  I’m not a father, but I got swept up in that raw emotion that comes from a dad attempting to rescue his daughter.  Woe to anyone who gets in the way.

If I watched it a second time, I may not enjoy it as much, but I highly recommend the first ride.

Grade: A-

Do you like sad movies?  Do you kindly offer your middle finger to any film that ends Happily Ever After?  Do you yearn for an existential hero who, already without any tangible value, proceeds to remove all perceived value as well?  Let me introduce you to The Wrestler.

For a lot of people, The Wrestler was the best movie last year.  These same people need a hug.  Slumdog Millionaire got all the awards, but both Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei were nominated for best actor/actress.  Despite the depressing story, all the kudos are well deserved.

Tragedies aren’t always bad movies.  Shakespeare, anyone?  The Wrestler certainly isn’t of that caliber (duh), but still very enjoyable.  I think the most fascinating piece of this is the bizarre life of a wrestler.  I used to work with a guy who was once a Pro Wrestler.  He would say that everything was fake, except for the injuries.  The Wrestler brilliantly captures this in disturbing ways you can’t look away from.  Imagine Bob Ross painting a train wreck.

There was one scene towards the end involving a cheese slicer that took me out of the moment, but for the rest of the movie, the acting is superb.  You care about every single one of the characters, from Marisa Tomei’s stripper every guy wants to rescue to Evan Rachel Wood’s daughter with serious father wounds.

The Wrestler won’t be for everyone and you definitely should prepare yourself beforehand.  But if you want to risk it, it’s a powerful film that’ll hit you emotionally.

Grade: A-

I can’t really call the Underworld movies great cinema.  But unlike some other vampire movies, the Underworlds have a healthy respect for the blood-suckers and a surprisingly deep backstory that remains consistent across the series.  I wonder if someone is working on a book series in the universe.  There’s enough material for some really great stories.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans takes place within that backstory and explores one of the major twists of the first movie.  I had forgotten the plot of Underworld but there were enough characters that looked familiar, I stopped partway through and Wiki’d what I had forgotten.  I’m not sure that was a good idea since I went from not knowing what was gonna happen, to watching to see how events played out.  Then again, isn’t that how you’re supposed to watch a prequel?

The story isn’t any worse than the other Underworlds.  You just have an innocent girl looking for love while vampires and werewolves wage war around her.  Yeah, sounds like Twilight, but this story was written for men, so you get lots of women in tight leather (No Kate Beckinsale this time, but Hollywood found her twin) and absolutely no sparkling.  That’s a win in my book.

If you have seen the others, there’s absolutely no reason to skip this one.  If not, there’s plenty of worse crap out there.  Besides, with that much care put into the lore, it deserves a little of your interest.

Grade: B-

It’s a sad reality that comic and/or fantasy stories rarely get treated with respect.  It’s unfortunate because most of those stories are filled with deep, engaging themes that connect on multiple levels.  When a director makes it a point to respoect the source material, we get movies like The Lord of the Rings and the latest Batman flicks.  On the other side of that coin, we get movies that make Michael Bay happy.

Because Brian Singer wanted to make great, character-driven comic movies, the first two X-Men stand as some of the best ever.  Then he left to go make a crappy Superman movie that everyone is still trying to forget.  X3 tried to be good, but came off mostly like a celebrity look-alike.  X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the fourth in the series, redefines crap.  It’s so bad, Uwe Boll would have made a better movie.

If you recall, the first X-Men focused on Wolvy’s backstory.  Wolverine is not a reboot of the franchise and still stars Hugh “All the Ladies Want Me” Jackman, so logic would say that the two backstories should fit together.  But they don’t.  This backstory has Wolverine and Sabertooth as brothers.  And no, it doesn’t make any sense, nor do they try to explain it.  And there are a host of other canonical errors that would cause any X-Men fan to rend his box of Raisinettes in two.

Then there’s the CGI effects.  This being the fourth X-Men movie, all of which have starred Wolverine, I would expect the claw effects to be the routine job you give the interns.  Here, they look like they were done with MS Paint.

And lastly, there’s a special scene at the end of the credits.  Usually, these are gifts to the audience for reading a bunch of names.  Wolverine’s parting gift is like one last fart to the face after being defecated on for two hours.

Grade: F

Yes, I watched Twilight.  I also read the book.  The Estrogen Phenom has taken up a considerable amount of my time these past few months and I’m so tired of talking about it.  But because it ended on such a high note, I’m compelled to give it a few- hundred word sendoff.

The visually gifted of you probably noticed the RiffTrax notation in the title.  I’ll get to that in a second, but first I should say something about Twilight, the movie.  I don’t think there’s a man on this planet qualified to give a proper review, but in my non-scientific polling, fans of the book are not fans of the movie.  Add those numbers to the total number of men alive and there’s a pretty good indication this is a complete waste of celluloid.

But oh how blessed we are to have men who dedicate their lives to polishing turds.  I’m talking about the RiffTrax crew, not Mythbusters - though those guys are equally as awesome.  If you don’t know, RiffTrax is the same crew that did Mystery Science Theater 3000 back in the day.  But back then, they only did B-movie scifi/horror flicks.  Today, they are ripping on new releases.

Setup can be a little challenging.  You have to have the original DVD along with RiffTrax’s special MP3 Soundtrack.  You play the DVD normally, but need a PC with extra speakers for their soundtrack.  There are then audio cues to synch everything up.  Once you’ve got the technical parts down, you can just sit back and enjoy.

I’ve seen a few MST3K movies in my time, and they’re generally pretty funny.  Twilight is by far the funniest thing I’ve heard them do.  I laughed for two solid hours at something, in its original form, would have caused me to cut myself.  Anyone who can turn depression and nausea into fun and hilarity deserves our attention and accoldaes.

Check out these links for samples:

www.rifftrax.com

www.rifftrax.com/rifftrax/twilight

Grade: A+

8 Oscar wins, including Best Picture of the Year.  4 Golden Globes, also including Best Picture.  87 total awards world-wide with another 27 nominations.  Obviously someone thinks Slumdog Millionaire is pretty ok.

If you haven’t seen it, well, I’m not gonna tell you a damn thing about it.  With hype and expectations the way they are, it’s best you go into this knowing as little as possible.  After the Oscars, there were some news stories about how the actors’ lives have changed.  Avoid those, too, but make it point to read them later.  They help cement the sad reality of a world outside of your comfort zone.

What makes a movie so great?  Characters? Plot? Action? Romance?  All of the above?  For me, great movies must elicit an emotional connection.  That, of course, makes everything subjective which is why we all argue about the best movies of all time.

Slumdog Millionaire is not one of my best movies of all time.  But it is a great movie.  It’s very possible that it is (or soon will be) one of your top five.  But one thing that’s not subjective:  you must see this movie. There are so few good ones every year, it’s criminal to waste your time on National Treasure sequels, or their ilk.

Grade: A+

Everyone knows the rules about Star Trek movies.  Even numbered movies are the best, except for Star Trek 10 – it sucked.  Officially, this is Star Trek 11.  But it’s with Kirk and Spock and Co. and takes place before Star Trek 1, so maybe this should be Star Trek 0.  But it’s also a reboot, so you should forget everything you know about Star Trek and start over.  Except, you should keep your knowledge of Kirk, Spock, The Enterprise, Klingons, and Romulans…and pretty much everything else you remember.

Still with me?  Star Trek 0/11 takes place with Kirk just out of Star Fleet Academy.  You can think of the movie as a reboot, but this is the first reboot that stays within the canon of the original series.  It was only after I thought about how awesome that was that I realized this is Star Trek where they can do anything and stay in canon.  Bare with me, I’m slow.

JJ Abrams is quickly becoming a great director.  He has a gift of  exploring relationship problems, specifically parental relationships, that you can see all the time in LOST.  Star Trek explores some of those issues, but they are more of a groundwork that I hope come into play in the sequels. What’s presented in this outing is good enough, for now.

Star Trek is definitely worth your time.  Things have changed from what you know – some drastic – but they keep it all familiar enough to elicit some laughs.  And they didn’t change the theme song to Star Trekkin.  That’s worth a few points.

Grade: A