John’s Movie Musings

We all have our guilty pleasures. By definition, these are the things that cause us to… well, have you ever seen the face of a man caught singing Lady Gaga in his car? Yeah, that.

In film, the Final Destination movies sit at the top of my list.  If you’re unfamiliar with the series, the premise is simple:  A bunch of teens escape death in the first scene, then are picked off one by one by an invisible, perturbed Grim Reaper.  What makes these movies great is the casting of Rube Goldberg as Death.  Everyone bites it in ways that shift the series from horror to accidental comedy.  You laugh more than you scream.

For The Final Destination, the series goes 3D.  You’ll get poked in the eye from everything you expect, but little things like camera zooms through a fence also show up.  Sure, most of these are a gimmick, but hopefully that’s why you bought your ticket.  When you catch this in the theater, count how many people you see waving their hands in front of them.

Technologically, the effects show how much Hollywood still has to learn about the third dimension.  Whereas the previous movies all used fake blood, here it’s all CG.  I’m assuming it’s so they could accurately toss it in your face.  It’s not a big problem considering all the hand waving you’ll be doing, but it’ll be very annoying in 2D.

The Final Destination is for 3D viewing only.  If that’s simply not possible for you, rent the others.  They’re all the same – served on a plate of pleasure with a side of guilt.

Grade: B-

The casting here is brilliant.  This might be worth seeing just for that.

Paul W.S. Anderson gets a lot of internet hate.  Not quite as much as Michael Bay, but it’s up there.  If you’ve not heard of him, he’s the guy responsible for the Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, and AVP movies.  If you’ve seen any of those, I’m sure you just opened up another tab to sign up for the Hate Club.

This time around, Anderson gives us a remake (or maybe just a revision) of Death Race 2000.  The original stared David Carradine and Sly Stallone, but here we get Jason Statham and Tyrese Gibson.  Obviously a step in the wrong direction, but this is a crappy action flick.  Let’s get our expectations in line, shall we?

For those unfamiliar with Death Race, the plot goes like this:  In the near future, America’s economy collapses.  Civil unrest run rampant, filling up the for-profit prisons.  So, in order to make a quick buck, the prisons set up car races with guns and broadcast it for ratings.

In the modernization, the races get power-ups placed on the track.  Really, they are just manhole covers with symbols on them, but if you’ve ever seen a video game, you know them as power-ups.  For example, drive over a sword and the guns get activated.  A shield will activate the smoke and oil defensive weapons.  The final, most powerful power-up spawns a red turtle shell in front.  Truly devastating.

A few rounds of Mario Kart would provide more enjoyment, but sometimes you’re just in the mood for a crappy action flick.  You know there’s better stuff out there, but it doesn’t matter.  No amount of logic or reason will keep you away.  Just like those 2AM Chalupa runs.

Grade: D+

I can’t talk about Inglorious Basterds without spoiling everything for you.  Fortunately, this is a Tarantino flick, so you already know if you want to see it.  Quentin has carved out a genre all to himself and certain things are to be expected.  Either you like those things, or you don’t.  Inglorious Basterds will delightfully complete your checklist, but won’t change your opinion of him.

Tarantino likes to rant.  He’s like Andy Rooney with a sugar high…and tourettes.  Inevitably, his rants end up in his movies.  Or at least a portion of them do.  I shudder at what doesn’t make film.  All I’m sayin’ is keep the man away from Twitter.  Here, there’s an inglorious rant, but it’s not quite as good as the others.  It is delivered to perfection, however.

Which brings me to Tarantino’s casting choices.  I don’t know how he does it, but every single movie of his is brilliantly cast.  Basterds is no exception.  Brad Pitt leads the charge with director Eli Roth as his number two.  Roth does an adequate job, but the real highlight is German actor Christoph Waltz.  He plays the villain (well, the villain that’s not Hitler) and puts on a fantastic performance.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we see more of him in American movies. At least I hope to see him again.

Inglorious Basterds fits perfectly in your Tarantino collection.  It’s not as good as Pulp Fiction (what is?), but it’s about on par with Kill Bill.  Dialog is great and funny when it needs to be.  The violence is sudden and surprising.  And the plot is satisfactorily random.  What more can you ask for?

Grade: B+

Back in 2001, Microsoft released Halo for their brand new Xbox.  The game was an enormous hit and the sequel, Halo 2, pulled in millions, rivaling box office numbers (unheard of for a video game).  In the months prior to Halo 3’s release on the Xbox 360, Microsoft wanted to go all out in the marketing campaign, so they hired indie director Neill Blomkamp to make a live action Halo short.  The film was released for download and got quite a bit of attention because it was far better than it should have been. (Watch it here)

Around this time, the Halo franchise was making waves in Hollywood.  The studios smelled money and got Peter Jackson on board to make a Halo summer blockbuster.  Jackson checked out Neill Blomkamp’s little marketing movie and hired him as director.

Unfortunately, this happy story has an unhappy ending.  Hollywood got greedy and everyone wanted the largest piece of Halo pie.  Fingers were pointed, mothers were insulted, and eventually the entire project died.

Tired of all things Hollywood, Jackson and Blomkamp were determined to do a project together.  Literally, the day after the death of the Halo movie, District 9 was born with a smaller budget, a more focused original story, and a streamlined production schedule.  The movie is so good I imagine Jackson and Blomkamp do drive-by studio moonings.  They’ve certainly earned them.

District 9 is one of those movies where you don’t want to read any reviews prior to going in.  It’s gotten a lot of positive press and probably will get even more in the coming weeks, but avoid the plot spoilers as much as you can.  If you only know there are aliens and you hate Sci-Fi movies, let me say that this isn’t your standard alien flick.  It uses the imaginary to speak of the human condition.  I’ve heard from several people who have been affected by the story.  At a minimum, it’ll leave you thinking.

Easily my best of the year…so far.

Grade: A+

The contest for the worst movie of the summer is finally over.  Transformers 2 had a commanding lead but from all the early reports, GI Joe looked to take the crown…of crap.

Rumors surrounded GI Joe for months.  Supposedly, Hasbro was so worried about irreputable damage to the brand they sent in a “fixer” hot-shot editor to try and salvage the film.  However, the trailers seemed to show a movie beyond help.  Right up to the release, the studio released no pre-screenings for reviewers.  It all looked bad…real bad.

Going in with those kind of expectations, I guess it’s hard for any movie to actually be worse.  Thankfully (and surprisingly), GI Joe was far better than that.  Stephen Sommers directed and you may remember him from The Mummy movies.  I didn’t realize that until later, but if you’ve seen that trilogy, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect here.  Brendan Fraiser even makes a (very out of place) cameo.

The plot’s simple and cheesy.  The dialog is awful.  The characters are one dimensional.  And the science is laughable (remember kids, ice floats).  They hit every “knowing is half the battle” and “kung fu grip” joke so make a chart before you go in and shout BINGO! when you get five in a row.  Unfortunately, they completely missed comedy gold by not throwing a Public Service Announcement after the credits.  This had better be remedied in the inevitable sequel.

GI Joe also suffers from the “Hey! You’re too famous to be an extra” plot spoiler.  They try and throw a twist at the end, but since you are a person who watches movies, you’ll know about it fifty scenes early.

So yeah, GI Joe is not worth seeing in the theater.  It might be worth a rental, tho.  Afterall, it’s far better than Transformers 2 and you are gonna rent that.

Grade: C-

We’re approaching the end of the big summer blockbuster season where most people spend lots more time inside a theater.  Hollywood expects this.  In fact, they force it by delaying any big summer DVD releases until fall.  If you’ve been paying any attention to your Netflix queue, you’ll notice the pickings are getting slim.  Fortunately, this makes it a perfect time to discover some hidden foreign gems.

Tell No One is a thriller out of France.  The french title is Ne le dis à personne which roughly translates into This Movie is Too Smart For You Stupid Americans. And that’s pretty much why this movie is so great.  There is no spoonfeeding.  Even Subtlety makes frequent cameos.  It’s nice to see him getting work after his banishment from Hollywood twenty years ago.

You will have to turn on your brain before settling in with Tell No One. Being French, the subtitles help focus your short attention, and that’s good because there’s a lot to take in.  The story weaves several disconnected storylines into a solid, beautiful thread by the end.  I was able to roughly figure out where things were going before then, but that didn’t spoil the ending at all.  In fact, the ending far exceeded my expectations.  So simple, yet so moving.

Definitely check out Ne le dis à personne if you like foreign films, good thrillers, or if your DVD queue is starting to insult your intelligence.

Grade: A-