Yearly Archives: 2008

Movie Review: Pineapple Express

1 Reply

Well, it’s the movie event I’ve been waiting for all year. Were my expectations too high? No. Was it amazing (just like every other Judd Apatow film)? Yes.

Pineapple Express is a stoner film yet it’s something more. Yes, it’s also an action movie but it’s something more than that. It’s a buddy comedy. A buddy comedy where the friendship that arises feels so strange and unexpected that in the end it feels so real and natural. Well, don’t rely on a Judd Apatow movie to succumb to stereotype.
First we meet Dale Denton (Seth Rogen). He’s a process server who drives around in his car all day and hands out subpoenas to unsuspecting citizens in between joint hits. To pick up a new stash he goes to his dealer Saul (James Franco, perfectly cast), who sits around his apartment all day and watches TV while waiting for customers. Saul gives Dale this new type of weed called Pineapple Express. The stuff is so powerful, even Saul has a coughing fit over it.
Later that night, Dale is about to hand out a subpoena to a man named Ted Jones (Office Space’s Gary Cole) who happens to be Saul’s dealer. Before going in Dale decides to try out his new weed. Suddenly, he’s become a murder witness after watching Ted and “female cop” (Rosie Perez) shoot someone. In a rush, Dale drops his roach and speeds away. Well, it turns out Saul is the only one with Pineapple Express in the entire city, and the roach gets traced right back to him. Now, Dale and Saul find themselves on the run from corrupt cops and a gigantic drug war about to begin.
Perhaps the funniest joke of Pineapple Express is the fact that everything Dale and Saul fear is about to happen is not weed-filled paranoia; these two are actually being traced and chased in every way imaginable (well, minus the foxes, bloodhounds, and barracudas). It also helps the characters break away from stoner movie stereotype and seem more like a bunch of stoned guys who are well…actually in a lot of trouble. 
Everything that makes this movie so great can be attributed to the writing team of best friends who met at Bar Mitzvah class of Rogen and Evan Goldberg. They previously wrote last year’s brilliant team comedy Superbad. This film is a lot like Superbad for many reasons. There’s that witty pop culture dialogue infused throughout the story (less so in this movie though) and the moving inner-story about friendship amidst the humor. 
Overall, it is the dialogue that’s the best part of the movie. Rather than just being there to explain the story it shows simple human conversation. People interacting with each other like they normally would because, well, life isn’t a movie. The dialogue is so very free flowing that many scenes seem like they’re improvised (such as the hilarious scene where Dale and another character, Red, look for guns) even though many probably aren’t. This helps move the story along through character development rather than lame plot devices and cliches. 
With the exception of a few herpes jokes, Pineapple Express is much less raunchy than other Apatow films. It trades in raunch for violence. And even though it’s a comedy, the violence isn’t cartoony but extremely graphic and realistic. The action doesn’t way down the film and turn it serious. A perfect balance of serious action sequences and comedy is instilled in every scene so the movie never turns into a serious drama.
The film is directed by David Gordon Green. He seems like an odd choice for a film like this, as he is the directors of such critically lauded indie films as Undertow and George Washington. I still have yet to see any of his other movies (which I will try to now) but you can see he puts in an artistic sort of style into the directing with freeze frames, fast motion scenes and such. Green’s directing helps give the story a good balance of mainstream appeal and good old fashioned story telling.
Pineapple Express shows why the Apatow gang is truly the funniest in Hollywood right now. They can make a comedy just right, and Pineapple Express is just that. They’ve made a plot about stoners that isn’t too over-the-top or stereotypical. And some of the situations the characters get into would make us hate them in any other film but here it is done just right. Take for example, 25-year-old Dale’s relationship with a high school girl (Amber Heard). Any other movie would make it seem just plain creepy and atrocious but this movie portrays it in a way so that it may be slightly creepy but there’s something about it that’s also kind of sweet, for the fact that Dale doesn’t seem to care about age yet it also shows his need to grow up already.
Before I forget, the funniest performance in the movie is by James Franco. He nails Saul’s character perfectly from his weird laugh to the way he dresses. Every time he opens his mouth you can’t help but laugh yet you manage to take him seriously as you see all he wants is a friend. He helps make the unexpected friendship between him and Dale seem extremely convincing. Well Saul, I guess it’s okay to dip that pen in company ink sometimes.
The Apatow gang has thus far reinvented the romantic comedy, the buddy comedy, the high school comedy, and now the stoner comedy. It’s a genre with great potential. Pineapple Express shows that a stoner movie doesn’t just have to be a bunch of guys passing a bong around and giggling at their own jokes for two hours. It can work if you make it original and add a human story to the mix. Pineapple Express has set ground for maybe the final comedy frontier to be explored: the action comedy. Until I see Tropic Thunder next week, Pineapple Express is far and away the funniest movie of the year.

This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse

Leave a reply

Justin Timberlake might host the Oscars this year. Yep, no joke. He’s in the running to host the Academy Awards. Are the Oscars really that desperate for ratings. In my opinion, Jon Stewart was a fantastic host and is probably even more popular with the American public than Justin Timberlake. This just shows how out of touch the Academy is. Anyway, I thought the Oscars wouldn’t even have difficulties finding an audience after they nominate The Dark Knight for best picture (yes, they better). And if they really want a popular comedian how about Stephen Colbert? Tina Fey? Conan O’Brien? Seth Rogen? Judd Apatow? The list goes on.

Yes, the Oscars are very out of touch. And I hope High School Musical 3 destroys the world before Justin Timberlake has the chance to show off his (non-existent) “talent”. Please, Academy…do the right thing.
If you don’t believe me, look at this site: http://dlisted.com/node/27541

Movie Review: The Dark Knight

1 Reply

When Spiderman first premiered in 2001, a revolution was beginning. The era of the comic book film had begun. As comic book films progressed, the great ones became not just moving imitations of the comics but real, 3-Dimensional people and conflicts. For now, the comic book film has reached it’s pinnacle with a masterpiece known as The Dark Knight.

Yes, The Dark Knight is a masterpiece. It’s more than just a movie based off of a comic book (although that’s not necessarily an insult) but a real action film. A real drama. A movie with characters we care about. It’s seething with wit, thrills, and suspense that no movie this year to this date has come close to providing. I didn’t think this movie could get any better than it’s predecessor, Batman Begins, but The Dark Knight proved me wrong.
The Dark Knight’s story is based off the cliffhanger of Batman Begins, and much more. Things have changed around Gotham City. The biggest mob boss in the city is no longer ruling the streets. A new person has taken over Wayne Enterprises. But, there sits Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) still dawning that costume every night and fighting crime as Batman. Batman has improved quite a bit. He’s quicker, sharper, and packed with much deadlier weapons. Something else has changed majorly in Gotham though, and not for the better. The city is getting worse; even more dangerous. There seems to be hope on the horizon as new DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart, who makes the character seem like he’s hiding something) promises to clean up the crime ridden streets of Gotham for good. However, a new villain is about to rule the streets, one more dangerous than both Batman and Dent combined could ever imagine.
This new bad guy is The Joker (the late Heath Ledger). He’s a psycho that not even your worst nightmare could handle. Some might take sympathy in his claims that his father’s terrible abuse of him is the reason he wants to put his pain on the entire world. That however is not enough of an excuse for what he does but only a tiny fraction of the reason. He’s the kind of man with no soul; who takes absolute pleasure in watching everything burn and knowing he caused it.
What makes the Joker stand out from any other psychopath in the world of movies is the actor who plays him: Heath Ledger. He went to unimaginable lengths just so he could play the Joker perfectly. This ranged from keeping a diary to staying in a hotel room alone for a month. It’s this that drove him mad, and so unfortunately killed him. It was a death too young for an actor who was just beginning a bright and beautiful future. His maddening method performance is one on the level of Robert De Niro, Marlon Brando, and Daniel Day Lewis for like these three actors Ledger commands the screen in every scene he is in and becomes all the scarier. No other actor could’ve played the Joker as Ledger did. And it may be early but I think Ledger is a definite shoo-in for a posthumous best supporting actor nomination.
Ledger’s performance isn’t the only great one in The Dark Knight. Everyone puts something to the table, especially the always great Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine. Bale as Batman is great as always. Two newcomers contribute something to the cast as well. Eckhart’s Dent is a man filled with so many emotions it’s impossible to tell whether we should love him, feel for him, or totally loathe in. Giving the role of Rachel Dawes to Maggie Gyllenhaal over Batman Begins Katie Holmes was a wise choice especially with the fact that Holmes suck. Gyllenhaal brings life and emotion to an extremely important character.
So much more than just the cast makes The Dark Knight a great movie. There’s the daring decisions made by writer/director Christopher Nolan (Memento) that helped make Dark Knight different from most comic book films. The effects are stunning without relying too much on loud and unnecessary explosions and CGI. 
Nolan has improved from the first movie in shooting action sequences and fights. Each one is done so well with so much stealth and heart racing suspense that you don’t want them to end but you want so badly to see how one side will get out of it.
The Dark Knight is the kind of movie that shows its audience what makes movies so great. The story grasps the audience from its first shot and begs them to keep guessing and learn more and wait until the film ends to see how it will all turn out, because you’ll never see it coming. The final cliffhanger leaves us with even more unanswered questions and even more of a reason to tune into the next movie in the series. It is one that shows a city that has become so dark and evil that it is literally impossible to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. Then you look around and realize, there may be no good guys out there and that beacon of hope and that knight in shining armor aren’t going to be arriving for a while. Even Batman, the distinguished hero, may not be as good as we thought.
The Dark Knight creates a vision of the world that’s so dark and disturbing that may be even more realistic than the hellish society in Se7en and Blade Runner and more towards the wholly realistic hell holes seen in Taxi Driver, Chinatown, and The Wire.
It may be based off a comic book but I take no shame in saying that The Dark Knight is far and away the best film so far this year and may even remain so come the end of December.
R.I.P Heath

Movie Review: Blood Simple

Leave a reply

The first shot of Blood Simple, the first Coen Brothers’ movie ever, begins the same way as their latest film, No Country for Old Men. It starts off with stills of vast, empty Texas landscapes. You might think that nothing lives here, with only slight hints of man’s corruption of the land and the world. Over the images is the voice of a mysterious, unseen narrator. He sounds like an old man, sharing his thoughts about what the world has become and the dark road it’s heading in.

Blood Simple is no simple film. It is a masterwork of twists, turns, shocks, and bloodshed. It changes direction so suddenly and only hopes the audience is following. There is no Anton Chigurh type super-villain in this movie but each of the ordinary characters fall into madness is scary enough.
It starts off with bar owner Ray (John Getz) whose fed up with his cheating wife (Frances McDormand, in a star-making role). So he hires Private Eye Loren Visser (brilliant M. Emmet Walsh) to track down his wife and her lover (Dan Hedaya) and kill them both. Nothing goes down as quick and easy as Ray hopes, and before he knows it he gets double-crossed and nothing gets better from there. A long trail of blood ensues.
This is the first film from auteurs Joel & Ethan Coen but it feels more like a master director at work rather than a debut feature. Each scene is handled so well and so unpredictably that viewers will be tantalized with suspense. Each turn of events is as surprising to the audience as it is to each character. Also, the Coens show their trademark care for character details. Even the smaller stuff, from how someone ties their shoes to how another one gets rid of a dead body is handled with meticulous detail and care. And so much depth is put into each character it’s impossible to know who to root for and who to root against. This could be why the Coen Brothers are still one of the best in the business today.
In Blood Simple the Coen Brothers ponder some of the same themes and ideas about life as they do in all of their films; what is the value of a life? Can you alter fate? In a situation of murder, betrayal, and thievery, whose the bad guy? And for that matter, whose the good guy? Well, this is a world where no one is truly good and no one is truly evil. It’s up to you to decide what path you want to go on. And as Loren explains in the film’s first few minutes of narration, “…but what I know about is Texas, an’ down here… you’re on your own.”
An extraordinary film that’s greatly violent and devastating with a touch of humor, Blood Simple is a movie that must be seen by anyone with a love for the art of film.

Movie Review: The Blair Witch Project

Leave a reply

In 1999 when The Blair Witch Project came out I was just six years old and knew barely anything about movies besides the fact that The Spy Who Shagged Me was the greatest movie I’d ever seen (things have changed since then). Titles like American Beauty and Fight Club were tossed around my brain every once in a while. But it was always The Blair Witch Project that seemed to interest me. And now, I have finally gotten to see it.

After finishing The Blair Witch Project I wondered what seriously made people so interested in this movie? Maybe it was the fact that it was made for under $100 thousand and ended grossing way north of $100 million, a truly rare feat. Or the groundbreaking style in which it was shot. Or maybe it’s the mystery of whether the story is myth or fact. A dream of the two filmmakers of something that really happened. In the end, it’s all style over substance.
The story is shot all with what looks like one shaky handheld camera. It focuses around a film crew who go deep into the woods of Burkittsville, MD in order to film their documentary on the legend of the Blair Witch. The Blair Witch was some sort of monster who supposedly killed a group of teenagers but was yet to be discovered. Apparently the whole crew disappeared and the footage is all that remains. Did the Witch get them? Or did they just loose their way?
One of the main things that makes Blair Witch stand out is the way it is shot. The shaky camerawork makes it seem like it’s true first person footage from the film crew. This style has inspired works of pop culture today ranging from Cloverfield to the documentary style of The Office and Arrested Development. This style is used effectively in those three, but it doesn’t work to full extent in Blair Witch.
What made the shaky camera style in Cloverfield work so brilliantly was the fact that we got to view everything through the man’s camera. And I mean everything. From the huge spiders to the giant monster himself. And we saw it as he did, and felt just as surprised as the main characters were. However in Blair Witch, we see nothing. The only hints that there is something is weird growly noises that might as well be a dog and lots of screaming and running.
The worst part though? Actress Heather Donahue. All she does is scream for 87 minutes and in what could have disturbing turns out to be campy. Yes, her performance elicits quite an amount of laughs. And she may have been trying to make it seem realistic, but it just becomes so over the top that you could never picture any real person behaving this way.
The Blair Witch Project should be admired for how much new ground it broke; it made mockumentaries popular and showed the huge potential that indie films would hold in the future. And while it changed so much it just isn’t a great movie. It takes over an hour for something to happen and once it does it’s barely anything. All that character development throughout the movie results in nothing and in the end you feel no sadness, fear, or sympathy for the characters.
One thing however that fascinates me about the movie is whether or not it’s real. The way it’s shot makes you believe in the possibility that this wasn’t even meant to be a real movie. Could this have been real footage of people who actually went missing looking for the Blair Witch. The biggest mystery however, is where did directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez go to after this huge success? Did their own film perhaps trick them in believing the Blair Witch was real and they’re out there, searching for it right now?

Movie Review: Amelie

1 Reply

When I first read Fahrenheit 451, there was one part that struck me. A man is persecuted simply for slowing down and enjoying the scenery. He became a victim of today’s fast paced culture. Why is it though that it is so wrong every once in a while to stop, look around, and smell the flowers. Amelie is a film about a woman who realizes the small wonders around her and it is itself a small wonder one must slow down and look at closely to truly enjoy it’s beauty.

The title character Amelie (Audrey Tautou) lives alone and works in a cafe in Paris. She’s no stranger to solitude. Growing up without a mother and with a father who’d barely hug her, Amelie’s only friend became her vivid imagination. While in her apartment one night, she discovers a box of toys from a boy who lived there long ago. She decides to return to it’s rightful owner. Soon, she makes it her goal to help everyone around her have a better life. In the long run the woman who’d rather watch the bug crawling across the wall than the man talking on the movie screen seems to forget the most important thing: herself. 
Amelie is the kind of movie that involves patience (much of what it’s message is about). If you get too weirded out after the first 10 minutes than you’re truly missing the finer things in life. This is a movie for the patient, and the patient are truly rewarded. 
If you’re not big into foreign films, think of Amelie as a French version of a Wes Anderson film. Like an Anderson movie, we are given a comedy that shows a new perspective on life. It also introduces a cast of quirky characters through their smallest subtleties. Their likes and dislikes are focused on highest. And like any great Anderson movie, it contains spectacular set pieces. Objects are made humans. Colors intensified. Like a friend of mine said, each shot is truly like looking at a beautiful painting. And even if it is like a painting, it doesn’t make anyone less human.
The true greatness of the film is the character Amelie herself. Her humor and outlook on life just might change your’s. 
That Amelie evoked in me the ideas of Fahrenheit 451 to The Royal Tenenbaums shows how truly strange, inspired, and imaginative it is. And I’ll throw in a third, one I actually didn’t like too much, Fellini’s 8 1/2. Like 8 1/2 it was almost a search for what life means and where to find it an to find it, you must first evaluate your own existence. Amelie teaches that every once in awhile you can slow down and enjoy the beauty of life in the most unexpected places. And beyond those small wonders surrounding there’s one wonder that’s surely overlooked…yourself. Yes sweet Amelie, you truly appreciate the subtelties of life but why not find a way to make yourself happy?

Is It Happening?

Leave a reply

Well, a few days ago it seemed confirmed that an Arrested Development movie would be hitting the big screen. Is this just some big talk? Is the cast just a little too overexcited of the possibility of a movie? I know I am too. But for now, I am extremely happy to say that the Arrested Development movie is going to happen! Just about a week ago I was beginning to loose my faith in humanity with the upcoming Disaster Movie. Now that I know that AD is coming to the big screen, I can now say that my faith in humanity is slightly restored. And to whatever God that allowed this to happen, I say thank you very much and I will one day repay you.

Haven’t watched Arrested Development yet? Well, after all the times I’ve begged you why the hell haven’t you yet? It’s never too late. But in the meantime, enjoy this classic AD clip:

Movie Review: Good Will Hunting

Leave a reply

Before I saw Good Will Hunting, I pondered the meaning of the title. Was it for the search of someone of good will in this rotten world? Well, it is actually based on the name of the character, Will Hunting. But is he really that good? Well, that’s for you to figure out.

The story, set to the backdrop of Boston, is centered on Will Hunting (Matt Damon) a janitor at MIT from Boston’s southside. He spends his spare time drinking and causing trouble with his best friends (Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, and Cole Hasuer, a career high for all three actors). One day, a professor stumbles upon some of Will’s mathwork and realizes that he is a genius.  To save Will from jail for a crime, he decides to have him work for him and see a therapist (Robin Williams, in his best performance). Through this, Will finds himself, and what he really wants out of life.
Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Drugstore Cowboy) directed this film. Despite the fact that he didn’t write it, Hunting carries all of the trademarks of a Van Sant film. Starting with his usual camerawork of beautiful high up and wide shots. This works from the emptiness of Idaho to the crowdedness of a big city like Boston to show an emptiness existing in the world and the emptiness of the characters. The landscapes become the characters themselves. Mike Waters’ soul is as empty as Idaho itself while Will is as confused and discombobulated as the Boston streets he’s raised on. It is where he lives that defines him and eventually, holds him down. 
In this way, like Van Sant’s other films, Hunting questions the existence of freewill and fate. Does someone have the freedom to set out and do what they want, or is some force around them stopping them and forcing them to a certain, unwanted path in life? Good Will Hunting is slightly more optimistic than Van Sant’s other films and poses that it is possible to choose your future.
One thing that struck me about Good Will Hunting besides the excellent writing was the great performances, many from actors I don’t even admire (Ben Affleck in Gigli, anyone?). Looking at the performances, I was reminded of a part of Team America. The actor, Gary, is supposedly the world’s greatest. What makes him cry: thinking about the saddest moment in his life (when his brother was eaten by gorillas). I realized that this was supposed to be making fun of actors and finding a phoniness in them that their emotions in their performances aren’t real. 
I felt that in Good Will Hunting something about the performances made me think that these people weren’t phonies but were truly emotionally invested in their performances. Maybe because Damon and the Affleck brothers are Boston born and raised or maybe they just care so deeply about their roles in this films. In Williams’ therapist, I was able to believe that he truly cared about Hunting when most others just gave up on him. He could balance his usual sense of humor with just pure seriousness. That Oscar was well deserved. Moreover, they become real people, not characters. And that, is great acting.
What makes Good Will Hunting so great is the balance between the director, writers, and the actors. All contribute equally to a great product. Good Will Hunting is one of those rare films that reaffirms the goodness inside every human and is optimistic rather than pessimistic. Ben and Matt, you’re work behind the camera is great. Why can’t you do it more often?

This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse

Leave a reply

According to Perez Hilton, a sequel AND prequel have been planned for 2007′s mega hit 300. Being one of the only (well, maybe the only) people on the planet who realized this movie sucked am totally against the idea. As cool as some of the action/battles in 300 were I wouldn’t necessarily call it groundbreaking. Not to mention the grotesque historical inaccuracies (yeah yeah sure, it’s for entertainment value) and extremely laughable story. So Hollywood, continue to make sequels to good graphic novels/comic books like Batman and Sin City and leave crap like 300 alone. One was enough. And if you’re still a little angry over my negative review, I’m right over here, come and get me.

P.S. After 300 came out, many seemed to believe that Gerard Butler was something like “the ultimate badass” (that title however, belongs to Anton Chigurh). I disagree for just a few months later he decided to take a starring role in romantic comedy P.S. I Love You. Real badass.