September 14, 2012

• Movie Review Update – 9/14/12

  previous reviews here.

  
  The Yellow Sea (2012) – from the same guy who made the amazing Korean movie The Chaser, Na Hong Jin.  This also has some epic chase scenes and the same two actors who anchored The Chaser except in kind of reversed roles.  The bad guy in The Chaser is now a poor Korean taxi driver living China with a missing wife and a mountain of debt.  The good guy from The Chaser is another Korean living in China, but also happens to be something of a crime boss who needs the taxi driver to smuggle himself into Korea to assassinate someone in exchange for his debt to be cleared.  It’s a little long, but still has several amazing scenes of tension, violence and car crashes.  Na Hong Jin is a pretty amazing talent I’m going to keep my eye on.  3.5 stars

  Prometheus (2012) – I saw it in faux IMAX 3D.  Amazing sci-fi visuals, and at least four scenes that were just flat out awesome for either visuals’ sake or for some amazing fucking tension and hysteria.  The characters and their motivations and how they’re drawn though are a complete failure.  There are simply too many instances of me wondering “well now why the hell did he…”  Reading about the mythology and the story they might have been going after reveals some pretty impressive and ambitious stuff, but reading about it after is not the same as being presented with that IN THE MOVIE.  A movie should be more than four amazing scenes and nice visuals, but still… give credit for those scenes.  3 stars.

  The Front Line (2011) – Korean war film.  The morality of war is different for those on the front lines.  That’s pretty much it in a nutshell.  Korean sappy melodrama, with a few scenes of such awful acting and unintended buffoonery that makes me not take the rest of the film seriously.  It really had good intentions though, I think, trying to weave this emotionally complex story about moral relativism in times of war.   It just fell into that Korean trap of over-doing just about everything.  2.5 stars.

  Your Sister’s Sister (2012) – Great indie film.  Mark Duplass is a depressive who is still not over his brother’s death when his best friend, who also happens to be his brother’s ex-gf, offers him her family’s cabin in the woods to go get his shit together.  There he meets her sister who is also getting over her own issues.  Co-stars Emily Blunt and the queen of indie drama Rosemarie Dewitt.  Just great actor chemistry and dialogue, in this film about … what?  Getting along?  Needing friends?  Sounds typical, but it’s done really well, mainly because the actors are so natural and make you interested about everything that comes out of their mouths.  4 stars.

  Moonrise Kingdom (2012) – typical Wes Anderson, which is a pretty good thing.  a young boy and girl run away together, and behave kind of adult-ish while the adults get worried and act kind of childish.  3 stars.

  Coriolanus (2011) – Ralph Fiennes directed this modern day adaptation of the Shakespeare play about a legendary but proud Roman general who is given honors for his battlefield prowess, but is then banished from Rome because of his open contempt for the common people.  As with all Shakespeare I had to work hard to understand the language, even though I think it was probably already dumbed down.  Also, I had some problem with Coriolanus himself as a sympathetic character, but in the end it’s friggin Shakespeare.  That guy could write drama about a kitchen towel.  3 stars. 

  The Troll Hunter (2010) – “found footage” Norwegian film about a small film crew hunting some mysterious bear sightings in the wild, when they start to follow one particular hunter who is hunting giant trolls.  meh.  2.5 stars.

  Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) – Aubrey Plaza is a newspaper intern tracking the story about a guy who took out a mysteriously goofy ad in the paper seeking a partner for time travel.  She poses as a candidate for time travel and witnesses his wackiness first-hand.  But is there more to this guy than just goofy dreams and a kick ass denim jacket?  I really like the way this movie unfolds their relationship revealing a little bit at a time.  I also think the pair of them are just adorable.  3.5 stars.

  Cedar Rapids (2011) – Ed Helms, John C Reilly, Anne Heche and Clay Davis from The Wire.  Ed Helms is a boy scout type insurance salesman who goes to an insurance conference and meets new friends who expose him to the real world.  It’s a cute movie, mainly because Ed Helms is so good at that straight-laced, stiff-backed delivery, and also because John C Reilly is a hilariously dorky corruptor.  The movie doesn’t reach too far but doesn’t stumble either.  3 stars. 

  War of the Arrows (2011) – Korean period action piece.  Orphaned brother and sister live with a Korean noble who is attacked by their Qing Manchu rulers taking the sister prisoner.  The brother, an expert archer, must rescue her.  Some minor plot and character elements feebly introduced, but, after some painful and scattered first half set-up, are quickly pushed out of the way for the entertaining, action-oriented second half.  Great villains.  For a mainstream Korean action drama, it’s pretty good, but that’s not setting the bar very high.  3 stars.

  Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) – indie darling.  probable Best Picture contender.  a young girl lives a hard scrabble life with her father in a small village outside civilization down on the bayou.  a fantastic opening and compelling characters in this unfamiliar situation of living completely outside the presence of other people or comforts of civilized society.  4 stars.

  Tyrannosaur (2011) – a violent lonely drunk befriends a meek shop owner who has her own problems.  not bad.  3 stars.

  Ruby Sparks (2012) – a new Pygmalion story about a gifted young author with writers block who conjures up the perfect girlfriend.  Paul Dano co-stars with Zoe Kazan, his real life girlfriend and the writer of this film.  Can’t remember much about it other than Zoe Kazan was good.  not bad overall.  3 stars.

  The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – I initially rated this 3.5 stars, but have since demoted it to 3 stars.  Who knows what the score will be next week.  As a giant tent pole movie, it’s effective enough.  There’s enough ominous music and things blowing up (or threatening to blow up) to distract most people, but some others might have a problem with the many many many plot holes, and the fact that it’s all very unimaginative.  Basically it’s a stupid movie, but worth the watch I guess.  3 stars.

  21 Jump Street (2012) – nice surprise.  Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill comedically revive this old 80s favorite show about an undercover police unit comprised of young looking officers who infiltrate high schools.  Channing Tatum isn’t the usleess meathead I thought he might be.  Great comic timing and… a little heart?  Totally silly movie.  3.5 stars.

  The Bourne Legacy (2012) – Jeremy Renner is not Jason Bourne.  But he’s like him, except for one big difference.  He’s hooked on ability-enhancing drugs supplied by the government, the same government that now wants him dead to cover all track related to Jason Bourne.  Seemed less action-y than the Bourne films, though there’s still plenty of action.  It’s directed by Tony Gilroy though who wrote the first few Bourne scripts and excels at spamming insider jargon, giving the viewer  a sense that we’re looking in on something secret.  I’m not sold on Jeremy Renner as an actor yet, but this film is serviceable for the mood and tempo.  3 stars.

  Margaret (2011) – Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) is a privileged, snotty NYC high schooler who witnesses a fatal accident that makes her confront her own … everything.  Mortality, lack of control, conflicting emotions, guilt, etc.  It’s the most accurate portrayal I might have ever seen of a true teenager, with all its ugliness and tenderness.  Some will hate this movie, but I thought it was fairly awesome.  4 stars.

  Quantum of Solace (2008) – meh.  2.5 stars.

  Bullhead (2011) – Belgian film about a thug in the shady business of… cow hormones!  Not terrible, but I’ll probably forget every shred of this movie in another month or so.  2 stars.

  Sherlock – BBC Sherlock Holmes series starring Benedict Cumberbatch (what an awesome name) and Martin Freeman from the British The Office.  Fun to watch mainly for Cumberbatch, but they kept rushing through the cases, which annoyed me.  3.5 stars.

  The Newsroom – HBO’s new show by Aaron Sorkin superficially about running an evening news program, but really an attack against the political hard right and Fox News, which should be right up my alley, but I never really got into here.  The character development wasn’t very strong, possibly because the show is 75% characters YELLING at each other from two feet away.  It’s also very ham-handed.  Sorkin clearly had an axe to grind and this narrative show was is vehicle that he tried to jam a Michael Moore film into.  It’s not all terrible.  There were some moments of actual back room news sausage-making that was really interesting, but in the end, there’s no escaping that liked this much better the first time I saw it when it was called The West Wing.  (There’s just no way anyone who has seen both shows can’t make a comparison.  The goals so far seem to be identical, except The West Wing had many compelling characters and actual plot lines, and this one has zero-ish.)  2.5 stars.

  And Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad, of course, which are both continuing to blow my mind. 

  • 3:49 pm
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