Scribblerchick's Movie Dish

I Hate Quentin Tarantino

The kids and I were watching Inglorious Basterds last night and I was reminded why I don't like Quentin Tarantino's movies. They are all talk and flash and no substance.

I only ordered Basterds from Netflix last week because I thought it might amuse my older brother to watch it while he was here. I had taken the kids to the movie one Saturday last year when I had nothing better to do and there were no decent movies out. I figured Bro hadn't seen it but I was wrong. 

So when my brother got here I simply said "Have you seen Inglorious Basterds?" and I was unprepared for the resulting tirade. "Yes. Well, I went to the theater, and I walked out after half an hour, it was so bad. It had NOTHING to do with reality. What a bunch of crap. That is the WORST movie ever." [He actually said a lot more than that but my eyes glazed over after a minute]

I thought OK, well, I'm not going to suggest we watch it then...

I remember seeing Pulp Fiction years ago and hating it. I walked out of the theater thinking "I hope NOBODY else ever goes to that film. It's horrible. I think Tarantino had to have been using drugs when he wrote it because it's so inane and stupid."

I was in the family room one day a few years ago while Alesia watched Kill Bill on TV. There was such a complete lack of humanity in that, I remember thinking a good comic book would be more insightful. I can sum it up like this: a beautiful woman who looks sexy and is very violent. That's it.

Tarantino's movies are filled with meandering, meaningless dialogue.

His films are also filled with graphic violence. You almost wish for the violence after a while because it's at least something happening, as opposed to the idiotic dialogue which sounds like it was written by a stoned 12 year old.

His films are all about posing. In Basterds, there is a lot of dialogue about what one character thinks of another character. Reputation is everything.

The only good thing I can think of to say about Tarantino is that Pulp Fiction revived the career of John Travolta, and I like Travolta, despite the idiotic Scientology obsession.

Oh wait - there's one more good thing - he has no children. Let's hope that never happens because we don't need any little Tarantinos in the world.

I think the reason Basterds did so well at the box office is partly because there's a wonderful sense of psychic justice in seeing Jewish hit squads brutally killing Nazis. What a great marketing gimmick. What the movie fails to address is that by doing that, the Basterds are putting themselves on the same level as the Nazis, or maybe even lower - killing just for the sake of killing, not because of any particular philosophy or belief system, however warped.

I Googled Tarantino and spent some time reading about him. Apparently I am not the only one who cannot stand him. He is accused of ripping off other movies, and being racist. He publicly told Spike Lee to kiss his ass. Nice. What a role model.

If you look at the biographical information about Tarantino on imdb.com, which is a great movie resource site, you find a billion words describing him - it's the longest one I've ever read on there. It's like his press agent wrote it. What an egomaniac. What a poseur.

I am going to make a point to NEVER go see his movies again, and I will urge my kids not to watch them either.

The Sublime and the Ridiculous

I took my 14 year old son and his best friend to seethe new Harry Potter film about a week ago, and I was stupified by one of the trailers. I seriously thought it was a spoof, some crazy Will Ferrell nuttiness, or perhaps even a little film about turning off your cell phones in the theater.

The trailer featured Daniel Craig in the old west wearing a high tech wrist thingy.

[Harrison Ford played a mean old guy. After seeing Morning Glory I have come to the realization that he went from Hunk to Cantankerous Old Man very quickly. I missed the in-between movie.]

So the trailer for this space cowboy was for a new movie called Cowboys and Aliens. I can hear the pitch meeting now: "It's The Quick and the Dead meets Independence Day!"

When the trailer was over everyone in the theater laughed.

What really amazes me is that Steven Spielberg executive produced this thing, and it stars Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig. It also features some great character actors like Clancy Brown, Keith Carradine and Sam Rockwell. Did everyone involved with this drink the Kool-aid?!?

If you're an old fogey like me you remember Dustin Hoffman and Warren Beatty in Ishtar. That one had people walking out of the theaters in droves.

It looks that ridiculous. Craig and Ford are going to be cursing the day their agents talked them into that disaster, trust me on that.

THE SUBLIME

OTOH, I am afraid not enough folks will go see Morning Glory, a truly funny film. I loved it. It was comedy built around characters, and it was filled with whip-smart funny dialogue.

I do NOT like Rachel McAdams. I've never liked her. Despite that, I like Morning Glory.The situations were not formulaic. The story seemed plausible even though it was farcical. [I know that sounds contradictory but just go see the movie and judge for yourself.]

And yes, even though I griped about Harrison Ford, the character he played in Morning Glory was a Cantankerous Old Man with some depth of character. He seemed plausible. The bad guy in Cowboys and Aliens looks like a cartoon. [I hope they paid him a lot of money for that nonsense!]

Another film I saw recently was Red. Loved it. It's very smart and funny, and Bruce Willis takes his standard action guy hero and makes him seem fresh and interesting.

John Malkovitch plays crazy in a fresh new way.

Helen Mirren plays a sexy older woman who loves "wet work" - a/k/a killing folks for money.

Morgan Freeman plays a new character, Not God, clearly - a retired CIA guy.

Red doesn't try to tell us any great truths, but it's a fun ride. Even my brother [retired Army major] thought most of the weapons stuff was reasonably plausible, and he's usually highly critical.

So go see Red and Morning Glory, and if the Cowboys and Aliens trailer comes up, enjoy a good laugh and shake your head at the idiocy that is Hollyweird.

 

Holiday Movie Recap

I grew up in a weird family situation. Holidays were never filled with relatives. My dad's parents died before I was born. My mother had 2 brothers and Dad had 2 brothers. All 4 of my uncles spent every holiday with their wives' families. There were a few Thanksgivings with Mom's brothers, but that was it. I didn't realize quiet Christmas days were abnormal until I got old enough to watch Hallmark commercials.  

Sometime during my teen years, after Mother's parents were gone, we started seeing movies on Christmas day. It's a tradition I love. This year, being unemployed has meant I had more time to watch movies, and we have seen some good ones.

Sometime recently my son and I saw a movie called Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis. He played a cop who lived his life in a chair and operated a lifelike robot self who went out and did everything fun and/or dangerous. The robot had hair and looked like a soap opera actor. It was a creepy little film. Interesting, but not great. A definite wait for the rental disc. However, it amuses me that James Cameron's new film Avatar takes the exact same concept - a person with an imperfect body operating a new and improved body robot. In Avatar it's a wheelchair-bound marine who chooses to be a 10 foot tall blue guy. I don't know why Surrogates did so poorly at the box office, while Avatar is setting new records, but I suspect the answer includes the word "hype."

Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr. was the Christmas day flick. I liked it a lot. It was like a thrill ride at Six Flags. I had two issues. One, why is all the action slow-mo? Two, I couldn't always understand the English accents. Next time I see it I will watch it close-captioned for the hearing impaired and Americans.

Invictus stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela. I admired the film on a lot of levels. I only wished I could pause it and run Google "rugby football" because I had no clue what on earth those guys were doing. It's very much a political film, but it's also a sports film. It has a lot of interesting messages about race, but it doesn't hit you over the head with them. Good film to discuss with kids, like my 13 year old.

Did You Hear About the Morgans? I didn't want to see this film, I'll be honest. Love Hugh Grant but Sarah Jessica Parker was looking scary in the previews. There were some funny moments. It was a pretty intelligent film. I liked it at first, but the more I think about it the more I realize that Sarah and Hugh have absolutely no chemistry as a couple, ever. Hugh played a whining, sniveling git. Jessica played a work-obsessed yuppie. [Warning - next sentences contain a spoiler!] What really incensed me, at the end, was the shot of them with an adorable Chinese baby they'd been able to adopt in less than 6 months. Oh puh-leeze!! It takes YEARS to adopt from China, unless you accept a special needs child which the baby clearly wasn't. It also showed Sarah's character pregnant, like hey, the perfect scenario, a cute little Chinese baby and a baby of their own. I italicized that last phrase because that's how most people view a bio baby. It infuriates me. Why couldn't the Chinese baby be good enough?! Grr....

Blindside is by far my favorite of all these holiday movies. I am an adoptive mother of two "older" children and this remarkable true story is wonderful. I wrote about it on my personal blog The Crab Chronicles here. I hope a lot of folks see it and it raises awareness of the many children in foster care who need homes and deserve loving parents. It's also just a great story, told honestly and simply.

Here's hoping early 2010 will bring some more good movies! 

Avatar [the funny review]

A few days ago, I took my son Mike and a couple of his friends to see the movie Avatar, the new film from director James Cameron. I had no preconceived ideas about it, except I've always like Cameron's films. I liked Titanic so much I bought it. [If you're a film snob and you just shuddered, screw you. Read something else.]

And, OK, I saw the lead actor on the Today show the other day and he is pretty hot.

I was impressed by the special effects. The 3-D experience was quite something. I am not a huge fan of 3-D movies, but I have to admit they have gotten really intense lately. I can't wait until I can take my grandchildren to 4-D movies - like Wii, plus a plot. Hmm...

However, there were a lot of political overtones to the film which made me uncomfortable. There is nothing overt, mind you. Mostly it's archetypal - the innocent natives against the evil invaders. Same plot as Disney's Pocahontas, Dances With Wolves, and countless other famous stories. However, Avatar shows military guys painted as arch villains which made me really uncomfortable, seeing as how my brother just got back from Iraq 6 months ago. I have a lot of respect for the military, especially for the sacrifices military families make.

Giovanni Ribisi, an actor I admire very much, was such a searingly villanous jerk that I wanted to repeatedly slam his face into the floor. That's fine acting there. I bet there's an executive at Halliburton who won't be seeing Avatar any time soon.

The "noble savages" in the movie are 10 foot tall, incredibly skinny people, who look rather "ethnic" in the loosest sense of the word. Why did they have to be so dang tall and skinny??! Do we really need to glorify tall and skinny people some more?! Why couldn't they be short and fat?! I imagine they will be on the cover of Vanity Fair soon, the mecca for all tall skinny people...

Movie technology is a funny thing.

I remember when Star Wars came out in 1977, and how it was hailed as something totally new and exciting. Ditto for Tron in 1981. Avatar breaks new ground in CGI entertainment, no question of that. It's fun to watch. I predict in 10 years it will be largely viewed as a film oddity, though, a relic, with primitive technology. I've lived long enough to see technology advance exponentially.

Year One - Run, Hide, Avoid It At All Costs!

I usually try to write mostly about movies I really like. I like to tell people about hidden gems of movies I find, that I want everyone to see, like Local Hero, or Truly Madly Deeply. Year One is the opposite - a horrifying stinker of a movie.

Today, I have to warn you about a stinker of a movie, Year One. Jack Black and Michael Cera play ancient hunters running around in the forest, who run into Cain and Abel and every biblical cliche ever concocted by Cecil B. DeMille.

It's not a historic epic. It's not even a slapstick comedy, although that's its aim. It's more like two actors in silly costumes improving every scene in the most ludicrous, far-fetched way imaginable.

What really pisses me off about Year One is that it SHOULD be a terrific movie. It's written and directed by Harold Ramis, who was responsible for Stripes, Caddyshack, Groundhog Day, Analyze This, and on and on.

Year One stars Jack Black, an actor I love. I want to kidnap him and spend an evening feeding him lasagna and beer and urging him to tell me funny stories.

It also stars Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria, very gifted and funny character actors.   

The kids and I started watching this movie last night, and within 5 minutes I wanted to turn it OFF. Within 10 minutes I wanted to break the DVD, curse the heavens, let Coco chew the disc, and perform a ritual wherein all our memories of the horrible movie had been wiped clean.

Michael Cera was funny in Superbad, I admit. In Year One, he was awful. He wore a long blonde wig and looked and talked like a girl throughout the movie. He also spoke in a monotone 90% of the time. He has the same bone structure as a young Barbra Streisand and in the right wig and makeup he would be her twin. If he could get a personality surgically grafted on, he might have a decent career as a female impersonator.

I urge you, I beg you, if you see Year One at Blockbuster, or in the $5 movie bin at Walmart, pass it by. Do NOT waste nearly two hours of your life on it!!

 
 

17 Again

I was not enthusiastic about seeing this movie, but my 18 year old daughter was asking me to order it from Netflix for months. To my surprise, however, I really enjoyed it.

The premise of 17 Again is that Mike O'Donnell, a man in his 30's, who is on the verge of divorce, gets a chance to go back and be 17 again, figure out how he screwed up his life, and re-connect with his teenaged children. He had been forced to get married right after high school to his pregnant girlfriend, Scarlet.

There are a lot of echoes of It's a Wonderful Life, Peggy Sue Got Married, even Freaky Friday. The plot os really derivative, and tired. I knew that before I ordered it. I was not expecting much, as a result.

Casting Matthew Perry as the older version of Zac's character was not a great idea. They look nothing alike. Perry just seemed like a way more neurotic, unhappy version of Chandler Bing. To be fair, I'm not sure if he could've done much with the character as written. The older Mike was simply not much but a whiner.

Lesley Mann as the older Scarlet was terrific. She really inhabited her character, in a geniune, subtle performance.

I was pleasantly surprised, though, overall. I enjoyed the movie. It moved along briskly and had a lot of funny moments. Zac Efron did a very credible job.

I am not a big fan of Zac Efron. He looks like a girl, at least in the posters in my daughter's bedroom. However, in all fairness, I used to have a crush on David Cassidy, and he looked kinda girly, too. I'm sure there's some strange psychological reason teen girls are attracted to soft feminine looking boys but I don't really want to delve into that.

The writer Jason Filardi got a lot of things right. The scene where young Mike is sitting in his friend Ned's kitchen eating all the food in the house, made me and the kids howl with laughter. I have two teens. They are walking eating machines.

My favorite character in the film, by far, was the best friend character, Ned, played by Thomas Lennon. He is a multi-millionaire inventor who is a glassic geek, with obsessions over Lord of the Rings and Star Trek. He was a crackhead, slicker version of the 40 year old virgin. Without him, the movie would have had much less energy.

If you have kids, especially teenagers, you will enjoy this movie.

Young Mike and his friend Ned. Zac would look better in a dress...

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

I was not so thrilled with this movie. It seemed too dark and complicated, to me. Hogwarts looked more dreary and scary. Everything was more gothic.

My son, 13, liked it. He didn't like the ending, however. "It just cut off."

There's a lot of raging teenaged hormones. Harry doesn't see any action, but his friend Ron is besieged with females including Hermione and another couple of girls. Now, I don't want to sound mean, but the bloke who plays Ron isn't exactly gorgeous, although I am sure he has a nice personality. For females to be throwing themselves at him, well, it's just far-fetched. Harry is much cuter.

Dumbledore is in here a lot, working with Harry. He loses some of his status as a mythic and powerful figure, to me. That bothers me.

My son and I are reading through the entire series of Harry Potter books. We are in the middle of the second book. I am enjoying reading them to him. I was resistant to the books until a cousin gave them to my son. It's easy to see why they are so popular, though. The rich details, vivid characters, and brisk plots are really interesting. I also like reading each character in his or her unique voice. Brings out my long dormant acting talents.

We watched the first Harry Potter movie the night before seeing the Half Blood Prince movie, which was jarring. One day the kids are tiny, the next day they are teens. Shouldn't have done it that way, but it couldn't be helped.

I am a big fan of Harry Potter, now, but as I said, the newest movie just didn't do it for me. This sentiment is echoed by a lot of folks. I am not saying don't see it, just be forewarned it's different than the other films.

The International and Rachel Getting Married

OK, so neither of these films are out in the theater, we got them from Netflix, but I wanted to write about them because I hate them A LOT.

I rarely write about movies I don't like. Truth be told, I rarely feel great love or great hatred for movies nowadays. [Must increase the dosage on my medication....] However, once in a while, a movie comes along that I think will be good and then I am severely disappointed.

The International

Clive Owens is one of the sexiest men around. He never smiles, and he looks like he wants to hit somebody most of the time, so why is he so damn sexy?! I don't know. It's a mystery, like calculus, only more fun than that. I find it lovely that he is the same age as me, and he is still HOT HOT HOT. [There's hope yet for the rest of us!]

I thought I was ordering a different movie. Yes, I am a total ditz at times, but I really thought I was ordering Duplicity - it looks like a totally fun movie. It has Julia Roberts, and she is usually in pretty decent movies. Not always, but usually. Clive and Julia? What fun. Seems like it already came out in the theatre and I missed it. Oh well. I can order it on Netflix, since I have now been burned.

The International, OTOH, is just not my cup of tea. It's about banking, for heavens' sake. My father was a banker. It is never interesting, even with mob money. There are some cool looking buildings. Armin Muller-Stahl is, as always, interesting, even though he's looking like death warmed over these days. Naomi Watts is usually good but she shows emotions only running from A-C.

Clive never smiles in the entire movie. Never. He doesn't even get from A-B emotionally. He spends the whole movie singing one note, lalalala I'm-extremely-angry-and-I-want-to-shoot-everyone! Never saw any normal humanity. Never saw him with his shirt off. [Which is worse? Hmmm. food for thought...] 

Finally, and I am almost hesitant to mention this, it's a complicated film. Complex. Lots of intrigue. Conspiracy. I am thinking if I made myself watch it 2 more times I would understand it. Now, not so much. Not that Evil Banks Who Rule the World isn't a valid premise, but it's not as much fun as Transformers.

[I hated the new Transformers movie, too, because it's too complicated, but it at least has snappy dialogue and lots of cool explosions.]

Rachel Getting Married

Anne Hathaway is terrific. I always enjoy her movies, even the silly Princess movies. She looks like someone it would be fun to hang out with. However, Rachel Getting Married was so awful it took me several days to finish watching it, and we fast-forwarded through some of it, and I don't mean icky sex scenes. Joseph, the guy who reviewed it on IMDB [see link] is obviously from another planet. He liked RGM. I hated it, passionately.

Kym [can't even spell it normally, ick] is a recent drug rehab attender, and gets liberated briefly to attend her sister's wedding. Most of the movie takes place in the huge Connecticut home of her father, who is played very well by Bill Irwin. I like the house. I like Bill. I hate everything else. Just want to be clear on that.

There were so many things I hated about the movie I couldn't list them all, but here are some highlights.

Kym is a Drama Queen. Everything must revolve around her and if it doesn't, she grabs the spotlight. Her speech at the rehearsal dinner made me want to stuff a sock in her mouth.

Kym got into a fight with her mother and her mother never talked to her about it afterwards. The whole family still needs therapy to deal with a traumatic past event {I won't spoil it by saying what].

Why did Rachel have everyone dress like Indian women instead of normal bridesmaid dresses??! I have seen some weird wedding getups, but the saris were just inexplicable.

Jon Demme obviously likes weddings, or parties, I don't know which. I had to fast forward through the interminable rehearsal dinner speeches, and the dancing at the wedding itself. Why does he think the audience wants to see 10 minutes of people dancing, with no dialogue?! If I don't know anyone and I'm not drinking champagne, I don't need to see all that. Unlike Joseph [the other reviewer], I didn't want to be a guest at Rachel's wedding. I wanted her to elope.

There were hints about Kym and the best man starting a relationship, but nothing came to fruition. He probably had better sense than to get involved with her. I liked him, though. I wanted to know more about him.

Here's the only other thing I liked about the movie besides Bill Irwin. It has Debra Winger in it, playing Rachel and Kym's mother. Debra, please make more movies. Just don't make movies like this one again.

Angels and Demons

I read the DaVinci Code right after it was released, and I was on vacation. I'll never forget it. I was mesmerized. I read it in less than a day. Of course, I had a lot of time to lie around the pool.

Sometime later that year, I read Angels and Demons, which was actually written before DaVinci Code. It was not as fast-paced, but it was still a great read.

When Davinci Code was made into a movie I was dismayed to see Tom Hanks in the lead. I love Tom Hanks; I just couldn't picture him as Robert Langdon. By the second time I watched the movie, Tom's casting didn't bother me. I was OK with him. In Angels and Demons [henceforth, A&D] Tom is more believable. I don't know why. Maybe I'm just used to him in that role.

I was really intrigued with A&D. I had forgotten a lot of the book. I was fascinated by the premise and the complexity of it. I loved the images of Rome, whether real or CGI, I didn't care. I loved hearing Italian, a language I studied for two years and never mastered. I never got bored. That's saying a lot. Most movies bore me, at some point.

My daughter, who is sharp in a way that defies definition, spotted the "bad guy" right away, and told me so. I informed her she was wrong. In the book there was a different "bad guy." I had to apologize to her after the movie.

I asked my daughter how she knew who the bad guy was: "It's usually when they're fidgety, they're nervous around other people, that's how I know."

I think one day she will make a brilliant police detective.

My son, who is 12 and loves all computer games, was not as intrigued, but he didn't fall asleep either. I think a lot of the ideas were over his head, is all. He may like it a lot better when he's a little older.

I liked A& D a lot. The only negative thing I must say is there was a lot of very graphic violence. The kids took it in stride, but I was cringing and uncomfortable, at times.

If you want to have a few beers and a laugh, go see something else. If you want to engage your brain and see an intellectual thrill ride of a movie, see A&D. 

Bottle Shock

Every once in a great while, I stumble on a delightful little movie and want to share it with everyone I know who likes movies. Bottle Shock - despite it's really unfortunate title - is just such a little gem. We watched it on DVD last night. I wish I had seen it in the theater.

I feel compelled to put in a little summary of the movie, so I am going to blatantly quote the synopsis on imdb.com:

"In 1976, Steven Spurrier, a sommelier in Paris, comes to the Napa Valley to take the best he can find to Paris for a blind taste test against French wine. He meets Jim Barrett, whose Chateau Montelena is mortgaged to the hilt as Jim perfects his chardonnay. There's strain in Jim's relations with his hippie son Bo and his foreman Gustavo, a Mexican farmworker's son secretly making his own wine. Plus, there's Sam, a UC Davis graduate student and free spirit, mutually attracted to both Gustavo and Bo. As Spurrier organizes the "Judgment of Paris," Jim doesn't want to participate while Bo knows it's their only chance."

Bottle Shock stars Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman. Alan Rickman has been a favorite actor ever since I saw him in Robin Hood - Kevin Costner's version - many years ago. (Another terrific little Rickman film is Truly Madly Deeply - rent it if you've never seen it.) Alan RIckman always brings such originality and watchability to everything he plays. He's never boring. His voice, oily and phlegmy though it is, is a unique instrument and he wields it as deftly as a great artist wields a paintbrush. Bill Pullman is just downright sexy, and I don't care if he is looking a bit old and paunchy, he's HOT. Plus, oh yeah, he's a good actor.

I remember 1976 quite well, even though I was only 14. I remember the Bicentennial celebrations. I was, for once, pleased to have been born on July 4th, because there were so many cool things to watch on TV, even though we were at the beach. The music was great. The Doobie Brothers ruled. I LOVE the Doobies. Always have, always will.

The California wine country is presented almost as another character here. You can tell that Director Randall Miller loves the area. He presents the rows of grape vines in loving detail, and I defy anyone to see this movie and not want to go there. I have always wanted to tour the wine country, and this strengthens my resolve to one day make that daydream come true.

The actor Freddy Rodriguez, who played Gustavo, is someone to watch. He really brought an amazing depth of character and nuance to his role. He almost stole all his scenes, he was so good. I want to see him in other things.

The only seriously annoying thing in the film was Bo Barrett's hair. It was dreadful. I mean, really nasty looking. I kept yelling at the screen "Get a HAIRCUT!" until the kids got really annoyed with me.

The silly hair doesn't ruin the movie, though. The movie is touching, funny, and delightful.