Featured Review: DISASTER MOVIE

To read last week's mini review on Star Wars: The Clone Wars, or any other of the 94 movies from 2008 I've seen, CLICK HERE.


Disaster Movie



Starring- Matt Lanter, Vanessa Minnillo, Nicole Parker, Crista Flanagan, Calvin 'G Thang' Johnson, Ike Barinholtz, Kim Kardashian



Directed by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer



Grade: F


"That sounds kind of gay, dude."

WRITER'S NOTE: I did not pay to see this film. I have a reputation to uphold.

I try to be a consummate professional when critiquing movies; I don't want to be like the filmmakers of Disaster Movie and delve into the lowest forms of trepidation by mocking something so mercilessly and pointlessly infantile like Disaster Movie, and make an entire article one long ode to terrible filmmaking. It may certainly seem futile on such a wispy and unnecessary movie, but I'll give this short review my best academic reasoning behind why I and many, many, many others will hate this film, many without even seeing it.

By calling their film Disaster Movie, directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer purposefully and openly set themselves up for a barrage of reviews that use a pun along the lines of "a complete disaster of a movie". They don't need the critics. Instead they have a built-in audience of ADHD-riddled pre-teens and their parents who read the glossy supermarket magazines about Brangelina's latest adoption news. Friedberg, Seltzer and Lionsgate can laugh all the way to the bank while their "fans" hopelessly sit through 90 minutes of laughless celluloid. But gaging the audience that showed up for the screening, perhaps once and for all the last laugh will be on them.

If you've actually sat through one of these films, you know the title is misleading. While each film has a threadbare plot throughout that coincide with the name, every film is just weak satire on the minute pop culture of our society. The most sensible way to describe the plot goes like this: Will (Matt Lanter) and Amy (MTV's Vanessa Minnillo) break up because of his commitment issues. Will's friend Calvin (Gary 'G Thang' Johnson) then throws him a birthday party. When the city is under attack by some hurricane or what have you and Amy is trapped in a museum where she works, Will, Calvin, and other characters face strange encounters, most not involving any sort of actual 'disaster'. It's best left not to describe it.

The plot, or whatever you make of it, is more or less a patchwork of Cloverfield and The Day After Tomorrow. But they won't reference the latter by name because the core audience of Disaster Movie were but mere babies when that film was released in 2004. A real satire on disaster movies (which in effect was already done by David Zucker's Airplane! spoof on the Airport series) would have highlighted the Irwin Allen years, the random star power of those films (no Carmen Electra is not a 'star') or at least thrown in some sly winks to the 1990's revival of the genre. No Charleston Heston tributes? No dice.

Instead it's the kind of film that references one of the most quotable lines in the Rocky franchise, forever over-saturated on t-shirts and pop culture shows, by saying "Like Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV, 'I must break you'". You know, in case the kids younger than 11 don't get the reference in between the 'jokes' of a film of which the oldest parody reference is December 2006's Night At The Museum.

It's the kind of film that sings TWO musical numbers that are so annoyingly bad and random that it actually makes you think "Prom Tonight" from 2001's Not Another Teen Movie deserved a Grammy. Or at least a Juno award.

It's the kind of film that drags on for 5 minutes "making fun" of Hannah Montana's self-promotion. But really, it sounded like they were giving Miley Cyrus a pitch more than actually making fun of her. Maybe when Cyrus' show ends and she's about 2 months away from defying daddy in a Playboy or Maxim spread, she'll star in Oscar Movie or Animated Movie (or isn't she already doing that in Bolt?).

It's the kind of film that doesn't even bother hiring lookalike actors anymore. The guy who did Dr. Phil looked, talked and acted nothing like the real subject, and the way they wrote his character can't even be considered a 'parody' since it wasn't even making fun of things he's known for.

It's the kind of film that has a guy named 'G Thang' as one of its stars.

Sadly I have to admit that Disaster Movie edges out Friedberg/Seltzer's previous installment Meet The Spartans just an infinite fraction of an iota. While Spartans was devoid of a single laugh, Disaster did throw me for a couple of "I cannot believe they are doing this" chuckles. Perhaps the only genuinely funny moment, and an awkward one at that, was Nicole Parker's take of Amy Adams' Enchanted princess, describing her drug tolerance. But considering she did cheap impersonations of Jessica Simpson and Amy Winehouse as well, she deserves just as much ire as the rest of the prorated MadTV cast.

I refuse to end this article with a cheap titular pun. Friedberg and Seltzer know they want it, but they don't deserve it.

DVD Review: RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

Raising Arizona

Released: March 13, 1987

Box Office: $22.8 million
(ranked approx 51st of 1987)

Starring- Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, John Goodman, William Forsythe, Trey Wilson, Sam McMurray, Frances McDormand, Randall 'Tex' Cobb

Directed by Joel Coen

DVD Issue: 1999

Grade: B+


Before he became the action guy of The Rock and Con-Air, and later the terrible star of vehicular catastrophes like The Wicker Man and Next, Nicolas Cage was a normal actor of varying star power. Once he had a footing in the Hollywood script machine, he struggled between serious projects like The Boy In Blue, Moonstruck, and Leaving Las Vegas and curious misfires like Vampire's Kiss, Amos & Andrew and Deadfall. Sometimes lost in the shuffle of his spotty early career before 1996 is the 1987 Coen Brothers gem, Raising Arizona.

Raising Arizona is only the 2nd feature the Coen Brothers- Ethan and Joel- ever wrote and directed, the first comedy, but viewing it more than 20 years and 11 films later reveals many similarities in context and style that they would revisit later. Despite a flair of 1980's family comedy absurdity that runs throughout, Raising Arizona is very much a smartly written comedy for the time, one that would set a template for such Coen classics as Fargo, The Big Lebowski, and the tentatively released Burn After Reading.

Cage stars as Herbert "H.I." McDunnough (a perfect Coen name), a petty convenience store robber in Tempe, Arizona who falls in love with Edwina, nicknamed "Ed" (Holly Hunter), a police station photographer, while going through the justice system time and again. They get married, and H.I. is determined to settle down and raise a family. However, Ed is discovered to be barren, and H.I. gets the itch to fall back into his criminal life. When the television news stations cover the birth of quintuplets to a wealthy local furniture magnate, the pair get the idea to steal one of the babies. Getting their hands on one proves to be easy. Keeping it is an entirely different matter.

As a native to the great state of Arizona, I could have taken offense to the hillbilly existence the state is portrayed as (as Cage's H.I. declares, maybe happiness is just Utah). Even 20 years ago the suburban city of Tempe was not made of poor white trash trailers in wide-open desert. Contrary to belief, not everybody wore printed leisure shirts, bola ties, and drove around in wood-paneled sedans.

But anyone familiar with the Coens' regular style of characters, especially in their comedies- primary examples being in Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou, and The Ladykillers- will know that at least one character in these films possess the Coen rhetoric. They may talk like country bumpkins, but also possess the verbal abilities of uniquely American folklore and speak. Some fans took the stereotypes of Minnesota and the north to heart in Fargo, but like Raising Arizona, it's not so much the product of the environment as it is the product of the Coens' world.

Also like many other Ethan and Joel films, the imagery in Raising Arizona stands out in particular. While some shots, such as Cage's legs swinging in the air while fighting with Goodman or Cobb's Leonard Smalls getting knocked off his motorcycle, scream of the slapstick antics that were popular in the decade of comedy, there are thought invoking scenery. The film is littered with allusions to hope and despair, partially influenced by the Cold War, including the burning car behind Edwina.

Because this is in essence a self-conscious comedy film of the 1980s, the acting will undoubtedly get a little tiresome. Sam McMurray and Frances McDormand (wife of Joel, hence why she stars in almost all Coen works and has been made a certifiably noted actress) screech their way through their big scene as suburban yuppies. There's a lot of hollering involved with Goodman and William Forsythe's characters, much crying from Hunter (who became a legitimate leading actress after this and Broadcast News later in the year), and many a stupid quip by Cage.

Granted, for this kind of slapstick humor mixed with folklore pathos, Raising Arizona is funny if not outright ribald, and actually quite sweet. Some of Cage's dumbfounded looks are genuinely hilarious, and the way almost each character speaks real dialogue in eloquent fashion compared with the poor diction that they have, is funny

Raising Arizona is one of just many, many cult classics from the decade that brought the art of a family comedy to the Hollywood conscience. But unlike quite a few that hinges on its stupid premise or all-star cast, Arizona is graced with a good script and direction by its up-and-coming sibling duo, which foretells of many of the Coens' projects to come.

Featured Review: HOUSE BUNNY

The House Bunny

Starring- Anna Faris, Emma Stone, Kat Dennings, Katherine McPhee, Rumer Willis, Colin Hanks, Christopher McDonald, Beverly D'Angelo

Directed by Fred Wolf

Grade: D

"I gotta meet this frickin' bird!"

If while watching The House Bunny, you start to feel deja vu, you're not alone. Written by the co-writers of Legally Blonde, this film plays like a tired mixture of 50% Blonde, 30% Revenge Of The Nerds, and 20% Sydney White. Lots of ditsy blondes, lots of pink, lots of stereotypes about college make the film so vapid that it refuses to listen to the genial goodwill message it tacks on at the end.

While Anna Faris is no Reese Witherspoon in the acting pantheon, she deviates away from Witherspoon's Elle Woods enough to find a character on her own. Faris at times is really annoying, playing up the Marilyn Monroe-voiced, clueless but means well bimbo, but her comic timing and natural likability is one of the few saving graces for a pretty cliche and tumescent film.

The House Bunny has an undeniable mark left by Happy Madison, the Adam Sandler-owned production company in charge of it. It is at times just as raunchy as some of Sandler and his crew's dirtiest films, and if there is anything positive to say about the movie besides Faris' comic timing, it would be the equal way that the girls can perform gross-out gags alongside the boys. But then, is that really a good thing when it results in The House Bunny?

Shelley (Faris) is a former orphan, now a staple in Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion. But unbeknown to her, some of her fellow Playmates want her gone. Therefore, a day after turning 27, she is forced to move out. Where can an unschooled, unintelligent, poor, former Playboy bunny go to? Naturally, after a night in jail, she finds a sorority house further down the block. This leads Shelley to an unlikely facade as House Mother to the worst and most ragtag house on campus. These girls need pledges to keep their chapter, but who wants to pledge at a place that doesn't feature rockin' parties and kickass social events?. Shelley has ideas.

Pretty much every cliche about college and female outcasts are presented here. The girls range from being nerds to feminist rebels to pregnant hippies to exceedingly tomboyish. They are purposely and exagerratedly ugly, their house is ugly, and naturally, in the case of Emma Stone and Katherine McPhee, and mostly, in the case of Kat Dennings and Rumer Willis (eerily similar looking to father Bruce) become beautiful with a quick She's All That montage makeover that exceeds no cost.

The movie throws in a quick feel-good ending about the dangers of over-hyping the value of looks, but after spending the bulk center of the film glorifying the girls' new wealth in popularity and outer gravitas, the final moments feels as contrite and hollow as the jokes that reside in those moments.

The humor here is a bit overlapping at times. There's a dearth of dumb blonde jokes as expected, but once in awhile the screenwriters slip in a genuinely witty little tidbit that almost goes unnoticed. Instead the movie focuses on the dimwit musings that a 'typical blonde' from Playboy like Shelley might conceive in her head.

Anna Faris has come a long way from being the slightly-built, raven-haired Cindy Campbell of the Scary Movie franchise. One could say that when Reese Witherspoon left the vapid blonde role for bigger and artsier pictures like Walk The Line and, uh, Just Like Heaven, Faris ably filled in on her own terms. But how many films do we need, in which a ditsy woman learns how to deal with her life and the people that surround her in cutesy fashion and fabulous, FABULOUS clothes?

Overall, The House Bunny feels like just another comedy that curbs its ideas from the wacky hi-jinks movies from the 1980s, without as much family-friendly camp. Perhaps in 25 years our generation and the next will look at movies like The House Bunny with the same kind of cult reverence that we do for Revenge Of The Nerds; never as a particularly good film, but enjoying the somewhat dated 'product of the times' and humor with genial affection. Shelley may have hoped to be a Playboy Centerfold, but that's the best The House Bunny can hope for.

Featured Review: MIRRORS

Mirrors



Starring- Kiefer Sutherland, Paula Patton, Amy Smart, Cameron Boyce, Erica Gluck, John Shrapnel



Directed by Alexandre Aja



Grade: F




"Don't make me threaten you!"

Remember that lost season of 24 when Jack Bauer, between thwarting Russian terrorists and a secret government conspiracy unit, saved the world from demonic spirits that use mirrors to kill innocents? The one where he runs around screaming at people to save his family, shooting at the mirrors, and then fights the secret bad guy that almost comes out of nowhere towards the end? And we thought the writer's strike would save us from such a wild scenario.

As ludicrious as the plot sounds, movies like Mirrors can at times be unabashedly good. Films like The Shining and Poltergeist knew how to effectively deal with troublesome and killer ghosts in a story that didn't hinder the excitement or terror. But while director Alexandre Aja (Haute Tension, The Hills Have Eyes) earns a few points for cinematic style, he couldn't maintain a cohesive script, a shred of plausible acting, or any proper special effects. The rest of Mirrors is a jagged mess of broken shrapnel painstakingly piercing our auditory and visual senses.

Kiefer Sutherland stars as Ben Carson, a disgraced ex-cop who is rebounding from a bout with the bottle. His relationships are tenuous; he's unresponsive to his sister Angela (Amy Smart), seperated from his wife Amy (Paula Patton), and rarely sees his kids. That all is put to the test when Ben gets a job as a security guard, patrolling a burnt out department store that is left standing due to legal tie-ups. See, the mirrors in the place, enough to basically cover the entire store, are haunted with demon spirits. They want something, someone, Kiefer's blood be damned.

Never mind that the department store Kiefer oversees is larger than most malls, and that despite being gutted by a fire five years before, still retains all the charred mannequins, counters, and racks of burnt clothes. Never mind that Kiefer's job is so fresh that he's able to find the wallet of the guy he replaced in a locker, or that he can waltz in and check the guy's body because his wife just HAPPENS to be a forensic analyst at the morgue where the body was taken. No, Mirrors is much worse than that.

The plot holes are mind-numbingly rampant for a plot that sounds so ridiculous to begin with. Most of the damage the demon spirits inflict on the cast happen outside of the department store, as a means of revenge or notice. How can these random mirrors be haunted if the story's big reveal is primarily focused on the history of the department store mirrors? If they can travel to other mirrors in people's houses that easily, why don't they do much more widespread damage?

It's just another in a long line of films that only uses enough logic to drive its story, especially coming from a director who made one of the ultimate cop-out endings in recent film history in Haute Tension. They paint over the mirrors in the family house (and there's dozens of them. What, the Carsons don't appreciate any art?), instead of throwing them away, and apparently if that doesn't work, the spirits can supposedly control the water faucets, so they can reflect themselves in the flood.

The ending is somewhat unique, but the stupidity and fallacies of the first 108 minutes that preceded it completely desensitizes the viewer past the point of caring. It was like Aja came up with this last idea first, and attempted to build a shoddy story that leads to it.

Sutherland's status as Jack Bauer is supposed to lend an air of credence to the film, but Kiefer is overtly terrible. He starts off somewhat of a pussycat in his faux cashmere sweater and collared shirt, but by the end becomes as pushy and loud as Bauer is during an interrogation. Except instead of questioning terrorists, he's threatening elderly nuns about ghosts inside mirrors. Sutherland gets one-liner gold such as "What do you want from me?!" and "The mirrors... they're so clean!", and has an asinine penchant for screaming a singular profanity after every conversation. It's really quite humorous.

The effects were mostly cut-rate as well. The computer animation is so cartoonish in its gore factor that it illicited more laughter from the audience than gasps. Simple prosthetics, like in the mirror scene from Poltergeist, might have been scarier. Natch, just about anything inserted into the film would have been scarier than Mirrors as it is, aside from say, Prom Night.

Maybe I'm just being overly critical about a film that is not supposed to be as smart and sensible as Hamlet or even Hamlet 2. But you'd like to think that Kiefer and Patton are brighter than this. Even Amy Smart, she of Road Trip and Crank, doesn't deserve the miserable fate of being in Mirrors. When a horror film can't sustain a scare or even a modicum of reason for us to believe and invest in the story, the empathy for its mistakes doesn't exist. If only the wretched memory of Mirrors that now haunt my head didn't exist...

DVD Review: THE WIZ (1978)

The Wiz

Released: October 24, 1978


Box Office: $13.6 million
(ranked approx. 20th of 1978)

Starring- Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell, Ted Ross, Mabel King, Theresa Merritt, Lena Horne, Richard Pryor

Directed by Sidney Lumet


DVD Issue: 1999

Grade: D+

The Wiz is as fascinating to watch as it is terrible. With such a strong roster of pop and jazz singers such as Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Lena Horne, Nipsey Russell, Thelma Carpenter, and Mabel King, along with one of the funniest comedians of his time, Richard Pryor, The Wiz should have succeeded on its acting and singing alone. Alas, because of some dreadful directing and writing, and let's face it, the entire project, The Wiz becomes a sour, almost blackface minstrel-like offshoot of L. Frank Baum's 'The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz'.

That being said, unlike modern African-American re-imaginings of seminal "white" classics, including recent bombs such as Cedric The Entertainer's The Honeymooners, The Wiz is done with all seriousness and a sense of pride in its production. Based on the popular titular Broadway play of the time, The Wiz therefore plays like a failed prototype of what Dreamgirls would realize 28 years later rather than something that truly offends. This was a film that was suppose to change the market for urban audiences. Instead The Wiz's box office failure singlehandedly set back the financing on black films for several years.

Diana Ross, somewhere in between her Janet Jackson-like diva makeover of the late seventies, plays Dorothy, remade as a shy, 24-year-old kindergarten teacher in Harlem. Like her original character's counterpart, Dorothy gets transported to the magical land of Oz, which is a sort of fantasy version of New York City. She must travel to Emerald City to see 'The Wiz', a metallic head with a metallic afro voiced by comedian Richard Pryor. Along the way she meets and befriends The Scarecrow (Jackson), Tinman (Russell) and the Cowardly Lion (Ted Ross), and faces all sorts of strange baroque versions of real-life city dangers such as homelessness, drugs, and shiny gold disco dancers.

I've never been a fan of Ross' musical career after she left the Supremes, and The Wiz doesn't really change my opinion of her here. She's fairly less of a megalomaniac diva as Dorothy, but also plays the character as a near infantile nitwit. She's 34, playing a 24-year-old with a 4-year-old's emotional capacity. Luckily, there are far more baffling things in the film to truly pinpoint her as the film's ultimate flaw.

Michael Jackson provides key selections to the soundtrack just fine, but with his youthful, pre-vitiligo/lupus looks hidden behind a Raggedy Andy style costume of The Scarecrow, Jackson looks and sounds more like Anna Faris in drag than he does a teen heartthrob. His and Ross' dough-soft acting, especially in comparison to the overly Shakespearean theatrical Ted Ross, recreating his Broadway role of the Cowardly Lion, and the weird vaudevillian antics of Russell as the Tinman, bring an odd combination to the bulk of the film.

Then there's the storyline. The Wiz starts off fairly innocuous, mostly with painted sets and jazz stylings. But about halfway through the film seems to only get stranger and stranger. The foursome run into a cavalcade of nightmares in a yellow brick train station led by a creepy character called the Subway Peddler. They finally reach the World Trade Center-inspired building of gold disco convention, led by the 'phony' silver head of Richard Pryor's Wiz, but not before Dorothy and the gang visit worlds involving opium dens, sweatshops, and flying monkey motorcycle gangs.

Even more troubling is the Caucasian hierarchy in control behind the scenes. Outside of the musical score and actors, almost everyone else involved is white, which might have led to some friction between what makes a truly successful film. Obviously people of all race and creed can make the best films ever made, but when an all-white production crew is trying to make an all-black musical, there are racial tolerances that are obviously going to be stepped on and mixed up. It's like The Wiz was made with the utmost stress on being hip and fresh to black audiences, an African-American Tommy if you will, and instead comes off like a big-budget blaxploitation film.

Sidney Lumet is a famous director, known mostly for classics such as 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Pawnbroker and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead. These type of films are gritty, and often are shot like photoplays; movies that don't require many external sets. Lumet's treatment of The Wiz at times seems both terribly expensive and cheaply bare. It is also remarkably poorly lit for a musical with so much color. Helmed by a legitimate musical director of the time like Bob Fosse or Alan Parker, The Wiz might have worked under camp brilliance like Grease did the same year.

Then you have a younger Joel Schumacher adapting the screenplay. Schumacher, known mostly for directing films such as The Lost Boys, Batman & Robin, Phone Booth and The Number 23, doesn't seem like the type of person that would service a black musical script, and his almost comically "darkie" dialogue is definitely a part of the film's failure. Rob Cohen, director of such modern action fare as The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, The Fast & The Furious, xXx, Stealth, Dragonheart, and The Skulls, was a producer on the film as well, and was a crucial factor in getting Diana Ross the lead part.

The Wiz is almost surreal to see. With sets and songs planted firmly in the late seventies, it's almost as enjoyable in its dreadfulness as it would be watching a legitimately good version of the Broadway musical. It's easy to see why Ross and Jackson never really became actors, nor why Lumet ever helmed another musical or principally black cast again. Somewhere along the yellow brick production road, The Wiz succumbed to a terrible fate of being without much of a brain. At least the music was fly.

Featured Review: THE ROCKER

This review was originally written from an advanced screening on July 25th.


The Rocker



Starring- Rainn Wilson, Christina Applegate, Teddy Geiger, Emma Stone, Josh Gad, Jason Sudeikis, Jane Lynch, Jeff Garlin, Will Arnett



Directed by Peter Cattaneo



Grade: C-



"A lot of elevators play Celine Dion... that doesn't make it right."

Actors who get defined to one television role often have a blessing and a curse. They experience popularity and job security for the duration of their career-making character, but then they also struggle to develop a successful transition away from it. Michael Richards often superseded his titular co-star as Kramer in Seinfeld, but couldn't etch out anything of substance on his own. Bob Denver was known as Gilligan for the rest of his life. Same goes more or less for people like George Wendt, Megan Mullally, James Van Der Beek, Neil Patrick Harris, etc. They just can't escape the shadow of what made them a household name in the first place.

So is the case of Rainn Wilson and his first fully-engaged star-making turn, The Rocker. Stuck somewhere between a vehicle for Wilson, a vehicle for stalwart teen rocker Teddy Geiger, and an earnest if lukewarm attempt to appease every demographic with a slightly risque but never truly offensive PG-13 family message film, The Rocker never reaches that pantheon of hard metal licks. Instead it plays like weak radio-friendly pop rock.

The Rainn man plays Robert 'Fish' Fishman, once the highly touted drummer of 1980's hair metal band Vesuvius (with cheeky cameos by Will Arnett, Fred Armisen and Bradley Cooper), now a loser living in his sister's attic over 20 years later. His nebbish nephew Matt (Josh Gad, of FOX's short-lived Back To You) is playing the prom with his band A.D.D, and when their drummer gets expelled from school, Matt is forced to call upon his uncle for help. Igniting new passion into his life, Fish wheels and deals the local garage band into scoring gigs and going on tour, often in ways he didn't plan for. Along the way, he and his younger bandmates finds lessons in life and begins to grow up.

Everybody who has seen at least 50 mainstream movies know how these kinds of films end up. Each of the band members have ups, they have downs, they face their biggest challenge, the big bad villain (in this case being Fish's old band Vesuvius) gets its long-awaited comeuppance, and Fish gets the girl. All of this at the mere price of logical fallacy and enough pratfalls to make Chevy Chase want to sue.

Whereas Wilson's supporting role in My Super Ex-Girlfriend basically placed him as a jerk with glasses much in the vein as his character Dwight in The Office, Wilson's The Rocker persona almost strives with the singular goal of making him the exact opposite. He wears longer hair (a relic of the 1980's glam he's refused to move on with), doesn't wear glasses, and has a 'wild' personality. The movie itself is centered around a dozen or so gags that cause Fish bodily harm, a broad tactic that is rarely used in The Office.

But the trouble with this of course is, without the Dwight persona, Wilson isn't really all that much interesting. He hasn't had much of a chance to shine elsewhere, but does anybody remember his bit roles in Almost Famous, Sahara or Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal? For the few people that sat through House Of 1000 Corpses and watched him get killed and turned into some kind of mermaid creature, did they really look at his performance and say "Wow, he's going to be a star someday"?

Similarly unimpressive is Teddy Geiger, the 'real' brains behind the fictional band as the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist. He has genuine talent, but his character is so depressing and one-note for much of the movie it's hard to see him as a legitimate actor. I can imagine that after his short-lived success with his album Underage Thinking in 2006 went nowhere, he's looking jealously towards the increasingly manic fandom of The Jonas Brothers, wondering where it all went wrong.

The music in The Rocker is manufactured almost as much as a Disney multimedia franchise, only much less successful. Geiger and the modern A.D.D. band are obviously going for that 'tween rock sound somewhere between The All-American Rejects, Boys Like Girls and any number of the Fueled By Ramen label cohorts. They're all catchy enough, but nothing inspires. Worse that, not a single song is played in its entirety. Seems the writers concocted a verse and a chorus and settled at that. Had they made full-length songs and released them before the film comes out, income-flushed ten-year-olds might be almost as excited to see this as they were for Camp Rock and High School Musical 3.

If Rainn Wilson is ever going to come out of the shadow of Dwight Schrute, he needs a better outing than this. The Rocker seemed like a limp idea that Wilson was able to jump on in an effort to give himself some public face time. Unfortunately, plain and simple, this isn't the kind of movie that will take him to the top of the charts.

Indie Review: AMERICAN TEEN

A mini-review for College Road Trip, 2008's shrillest and loudest film of the year, can be read HERE.



American Teen



Starring- Hannah Bailey, Colin Clemens, Jake Tusing, Megan Krizmanich, Mitch Reinholt, Geoff Haase



Directed by Nanette Burstein


Grade: D+

"You could've gotten an A."

Sometimes documentaries are used to convince viewers to think a certain way. Others merely offer a glimpse of its' subject, and leave the audience to interpret what actions should follow. Being the latter, American Teen has an intimate take on the lives of these high school students that many times parallel the lives that we've all had as students. But while that unity and common bond through moments of joy and suffrage may be the ultimate goal of the film, American Teen doesn't really offer anything new, nor at times does it particularly convincingly.

The film follows five teens during their senior year of high school in Warsaw, Indiana. On the outside looking in, you can stereotype each student; Megan is the affluent snob in the popular cliques. Jake is the acne-scarred nerd with no friends. Hannah is the independent free spirit that roams the social circles. Colin is the golden boy athlete. Mitch is Colin's teammate, but has a streak of independence as well.

But as the film unfolds, each student has deeper emotional scarring, some from the high school experience itself, some from their home life. Colin has pressure to get a basketball scholarship, and isn't as solid in popularity as one might think. Hannah continually breaks her strong will for boys and the pursuit of happiness. Jake breaks out of his anti-social , but burns his bridges really quickly. Megan deals with the death of a sister, and going to Notre Dame isn't just a priority for her, but almost an ultimatum from her family.

The common thread that gets noticed throughout is the parenting. All five kids have parents together except for maybe Jake's, who aren't even featured. Megan's father calls her an idiot when she helps toilet paper and spray-paint a rival's house. Hannah's parents try to bring sense to her, but their words are choosy. Colin's father (an Elvis impersonator) is backhandedly supportive, giving advice while telling his son he is never quite good enough. The questionable logic behind the parenting these adults do is often more interesting and telling than anything the teenagers do.

Unfortunately, while director Nanette Burstein (On The Ropes, The Kid Stays In The Picture) gives a simple, straightforward approach to the direction, it also feels pretty fake. There's an understanding that the editing process is heavily manipulated sometimes in the effort to make a conceivable and hard-hitting film, but as American Teen goes on, we notice parts of the same day, people wearing the same shirts and sitting in the same restaurants throughout the film. I'm sure they covered an entire year, but this realization took me personally, out of the honesty of the film.

I'm not saying anything in the film was scripted, but the way the film unfolds seems based more on an episode of The Hills than Hoop Dreams. The drama the subjects face isn't anything much more than stuff anyone of that age group would face, but American Teen revels in its potboiler drama. Like Burstein sat for eight hours filming one kid, and got excited when they slipped up and said something stupid. The poster above that parodies The Breakfast Club says it all; American Teen vies to create a seminal movement in film, than to create an actual merit.

Also distracting from the major element of the film are the animation vignettes. One of the teenagers could be telling a real, heartfelt story, and Burstein breaks the talking head interview up with animated representatives. These little scenes only further distances the entire project from reality, especially Jake's scenes involving a World Of Warcraft-like fantasy world.

American Teen offers a glimpse of the typical life of a teenager in America, if only a prorated portion aimed at sensationalizing the high drama that normal teenagers get themselves into. There are some genuine moments, but overall the film doesn't truly strike a nerve into the class system in high school, nor does it offer anything exciting or different from any other documentary or insightful biopic of the American way of life.

Featured Review: VICKY CRISTINA

Vicky Cristina Barcelona



Starring- Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, Penelope Cruz, Chris Messina, Patrica Clarkson, Kevin Dunn



Directed by Woody Allen



Grade: C+




"Life is short, life is dull, life is full of pain."

Woody Allen's fanbase is desperate for a hit. His films have more or less faltered from the nearly universally acclaimed works he submitted decades ago, but when one decent piece of work such as Vicky Cristina Barcelona hits the pipeline after so many other flukes and failures, people are desperate to find much more substance and eloquence than Woody, I think, is capable of anymore. A time-filling, pleasing little film that rights the ship set by Scoop and Anything Else? Yes, but Vicky Cristina never truly shakes up the world in which its characters are so desperately trying to live in.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is an interesting little piece of cinema. It obviously draws on European ideas and influences, particularly of the sexual revolution of the French New Wave. How do I know? Because the narrator explains it to us, in case we didn't get that was Allen's intentions here. There's many instances of bed-sharing, bed-hopping, three-ways, and other sexual and philosophical ideas, so it must be European. At least that's the freewheeling theme that speaks loudest.

We meet Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) on their voyage to a summer trip in Barcelona, Spain. Vicky has studying to do, and Cristina goes along for the adventure. They both have different directions they are heading in their lives, with different ideals, but when a curiously handsome and winsome stranger, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) interjects some romance between them, both Vicky and Cristina begin to question themselves. They work it out, and all seems to be fine and good, until Juan Antonio's suicidal, moody, yet talented ex-wife Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz) forces herself back into the picture.

Like Wes Anderson, Allen as of late has been fascinated with the trials and tribulations of the wealthy. Without good money, neither of the women would be able to jet set for the summer to Spain, one being able to whisk off to France when she feels like it. The couple they stay with own a fabulous mansion, Juan Antonio lives in a sprawling estate despite a carefree artist's life, and even his father seems to have a great big place to stay without much effort to show. Obviously it's a fantasy tale, but it seems Allen forgets that not everybody can name drop and travel to New York, Paris, Barcelona and the rest of the world at the tip of a hat.

Almost all of his characters, narrator included, spout off pretentious, haughty, over-enunciated diction for simple conversation. While that can be refreshing in a world of mainstream film that relies on swear words and slang, Allen's conversation lacks the wit his best-loved films are known for, and thus ultimately rings hollow. When Vicky says something like, "Let's not get into one of those turgid, categorical, imperative arguments" when just conversing with her husband and Cristina down a charming boutique alleyway, it would stop the flow of the moment in any conversation in real life. But because this is classic Woody Allen, the line passes right through.

The narration is served to function as a storytelling device, to make the film unfold like a short story you'd read on a relaxing day in a southern Europe villa. But in the end it does nothing but distract the viewer away from what the picture can tell us. So we understand Vicky has repressed feelings. Cristina doesn't know what she wants in her life. But these ladies are both very capable actresses, I'd prefer to have their emotions tell me what they're feeling rather than some nameless narrator completely unconnected to the story.

What keeps the movie above the waters of tedious arrogance is the acting. Every member of the principle cast is engaging and spirited, if only forced to embody characters that speak words that sound better on paper. Hall is particularly intriguing, with a face and charm of a possible star. Johansson holds up well, as does Bardem, who does a great job masking his Anton Chigurh-ness. But the most widely noticed and accessible role is Penelope Cruz's.

Cruz is the firecracker that sets the table for the second half of the film. Her performance is quite impressive, with a mix of fierce intensity, wild-eyed curiosity, but yet with enough nuance to control her aspect of the story. She's been given much praise as a possible award candidate, but for now she's on the fringe. If Cruz was given more to do than just be the crazy tigress that drives the stake through Juan Antonio and Cristina's existence, maybe the performance would've stood out more.

While overall Vicky Cristina Barcelona can be kind of unsatisfying and not as stirring as Woody's only other "good" film of the decade, Match Point, it is a step up from his terribly uneven resume of late.

Still, it's quite amazing that a man who can write witty screenplays such as Love & Death, Sleeper, Bananas, Annie Hall, Manhattan and et cetera, can lose his touch for the joy he found in his own neurosis. It doesn't necessarily take an East Coast ivory tower intellectual to understand his humor, but Allen needs to embrace that as his niche like he used to, rather than pretend he's something he's not. Because without his classic, compulsive wit, you get a 'turgid, categorical, imperative' kind of film like Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Indie Review: HENRY POOLE

PLEASE NOTE: Writing this review got out of hand a little bit, so I'm pretty sure at least half of the review interjects my own opinions that had nothing to do with the film. So, be forewarned.


Henry Poole Is Here



Starring- Luke Wilson, Radha Mitchell, Adriana Barraza, Morgan Lily, Rachel Seiferth, Cheryl Hines, Richard Benjamin, George Lopez



Directed by Mark Pellington



Grade: A



"All I see is a water stain from a lousy stucco job."

Religion is probably the touchiest subject that two strangers can talk about. More than politics, than sports, than relationships, religious beliefs are something that everybody has a pretty strong opinion about, whether they are firm believers in God, or think its an age-old facade. Having been on both sides of the intermittent fence over the course of my life, I can say with an open heart that its hard to discuss religion with strangers. There's nothing satisfying about someone persecuting my beliefs, nor is there anything redeeming when someone attempts to goad me into believing something I'm not comfortable accepting.

These two divided factions can easily persuade someone to love or hate Henry Poole Is Here. At times it tips its hand into being pro-Faith, but it never lets go of the wider message it tries to convey; the worst thing in the world is to not have faith and hope in something. If you believe in the healing power of God and Jesus Christ, great, but if you don't, that's certainly your prerogative. But for those who don't have anything or anyone to believe in, it's a long road ahead of you until you're able to lift the burden off of yourself and place it on something stronger, whether its God, Buddha or a positive affirmation that nothing exists beyond our existential world. And that's where Henry Poole scores its knockout.

Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) moves into in a non-descript Los Angeles neighborhood, pretty much ready to die. He has received a quite literal death sentence, and therefore has abandoned everything else in his life, intent on being alone. Not for very long, as Henry's meddlesome next door neighbor Esperanza (Babel's Adriana Barraza) finds a water stain on the outer stucco wall of his house, her devout faith declaring it to be the face of Jesus Christ. Soon the stain starts 'crying' blood, and the entire neighborhood starts to flock to Henry's house, much to his chagrin. Even more bothersome for Henry is the fact that they are supposedly being healed by touching the stain, including the traumatized daughter of his other neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell).

The story at first kind of sounds like a satire of the ultra-religious, the ones who stare into grilled cheese sandwiches and lima beans hoping to find their affirmation of Christ. But soon it becomes apparent that the stain isn't the focus of the story, but of the people and how each of them deals with what they believe in and how they feel they can help each other and themselves.

While God and the Catholic church are major thematic elements here, director Mark Pellington (Arlington Road, The Mothman Prophecies) attempts to transcend just a black and white story about the healing powers of God and the faithful. One can easily interpret that the stain doesn't necessarily heal its touchers because its a second coming of Jesus, but because they wanted something to affirm that they can overcome their obstacles. Same goes for Henry. He spent the entire movie running away from things he couldn't change, and while the ending may seem happy and set and cliche, we simply do not know if its the truth or just hope. What we do know is that faith and hope and love gets us through the day.

It's the little details that score big. The stain in the beginning appears ambiguous. Shots are purposely panned away from the stain itself, until as the film goes on and more people start to take notice, the shape gets darker and clearer. It might be a ploy, but it also symbolizes Henry's urgency unto himself to pay attention to the wall and find the missing piece within himself that everyone else has. With character names like Patience, Dawn, and Esperanza (Hope in Spanish), it's a subtle and unobtrusive nod that maybe everything in Henry's little world will be okay, which is the feeling that religious beliefs are supposed to invoke in the first place.

Luke Wilson definitely gives his best performance since The Royal Tenanbaums. When doing comedy roles, Wilson tends to err on the side of blandness, but he can really nail down the scruffy, depressed, cynic role. Just looking at him tells you so much about how many years of pain is built up inside of him. George Lopez is also a standout in a small role as a local priest, without being funny at all.

It is kind of disappointing the way Henry Poole is being marketed for the type of film it is. Billed as a comedy in some sources, with a quirky poster of the film's characters with quirky smiles, people may be led in to Henry Poole to expect a cute comedy and come out not expecting its heavier messages. Cheryl Hines' small role in the first act as Henry's real estate agent, and Barraza's highly religious and 'wacky' neighbor, at least in the beginning, do not gel quite right with the rest of film, and yet Hines gets a big headshot on the poster. I didn't know Cheryl Hines' name and face attracted moviegoers.

Whether or not you believe in God, Henry Poole's best selling point is making a finely crafted parable about people in different stages of grief, belief, and sweet relief. It leaves enough things open to interpretation without being pretentiously ambiguous. It shouldn't force you to change your mind about what you believe in, or how you should go about expressing that belief, but rather understand that not everybody can be persuaded into believing or disbelieving what they in their hearts understand to be true. Henry Poole has some odd music choices and little montage clips, but the idea behind it is much more heartfelt that most things you'll find in a cineplex.

Featured Review: TROPIC THUNDER

Tropic Thunder



Starring- Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey Jr, Nick Nolte, Jay Baruchel, Brandon T. Jackson, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise



Directed by Ben Stiller



Grade: A-



"I know who I am! I'm the dude playing the dude disguised as another dude!"

Everybody likes Hollywood, but films about Hollywood often do not fare well. Most viewers have never worked inside a studio, so the art of satirizing something everyone on the set can side with, but the audience can't, often results in a mixed, awkward film. At times, especially in the beginning, Tropic Thunder crosses that line, threatening never to come back. But with a little moxie by its stars and a pretty cohesive and well-rounded script, Thunder rolls back.

While his starring comedies have been lackluster of late, Jack Black scored a major hit with Kung Fu Panda. Robert Downey Jr. has Iron Man and a serious career. The real test for the film was for Ben Stiller, who not only stars, but co-wrote and directed Thunder. Outside of the holiday hits A Night At The Museum and Madagascar, his legitimate comedies haven't risen to the challenge of his peers the past few years. So it's fitting that while Stiller makes himself the de facto number one star, he also makes a winning film because of his reliance on sharing the wealth with his co-stars.

Tropic Thunder starts with a trailer for each of the main characters. We meet Tugg Speedman (Stiller), the faltering action star trying to branch out without much success, Jeff "Fats" Portnoy (Black), the drug-addicted, Eddie Murphy-esque comic, and Kirk Lazarus (Downey), the insecure 5-time Oscar winning Australian who gets a skin procedure to play a black soldier. Their egos and other mistakes by rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) and his crew throw the film production into a tailspin.

With patience and money running thin, Cockburn is goaded by Four Leaf Tayback (Nick Nolte), the deranged former soldier and writer of the book the film is based on, to drop the actors off in the real jungle and film guerrilla-style. So off go the three stars and two supporting actors, the energy drink spokesrapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and the only character without an ego or exposition, Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel) into the wilds of Vietnam without a clue what's happening.

After the initial trailers, Tropic Thunder starts off quite poorly. Coogan whines. Tom Cruise yells and curses. The likes of Bill Hader and Danny McBride run around spouting things, and the other stars get their introductions and story lines through television appearances. There's too much going on at one time to really focus on the humor at hand. The film doesn't really pick up until the five actors get booted off to the jungle, and get an unexpected and gross surprise almost immediately.

As the main cast get deeper and deeper into the jungle, the action picks up, but so does the laughter. The actors have discussions about their often shallow personal lives, about role techniques, about who they're supposed to be to other people. All five of them have a chance to really shine at some point without resorting to, at least in Stiller and Black's case, what type of humor they're familiar with.

If you can't tell from the trailer alone, Downey Jr's portrayal of Kirk Lazarus is downright amazing in itself. Humor wise, there have been better roles, and his is probably not even the funniest of the movie (Cruise and Matthew McConaughey are arguably the funniest when they share screen time). But the fact that the normally sarcastic-toned, dark-haired, beady eyed Downey can switch back and forth between a blond, blue eyed Australian and his stereotypically gruff black persona shows how much depth Downey can eke out of himself even in a summer comedy. He brings a touch of true class to his absurdness, whereas Stiller is forced to parody his own ridiculous Zoolander type goofiness.

Meanwhile, though his character is still close to being the straight man of the group, it's good to see Jay Baruchel in a bigger chunk of movie action. Since his lead role in the cult Judd Apatow series Undeclared, Baruchel has quietly popped up in bit parts over the years, including Almost Famous, The Rules Of Attraction, Million Dollar Baby (playing his own retarded character), and Knocked Up. If any of Apatow's proteges could use his own star-making vehicle, after Tropic Thunder Baruchel attests that he can do it, being both funny and often times the sensible leader of the egotistical group.

The cameos number in the dozens, perhaps the largest since Robert Altman's The Player. We see them in the fake trailers, television talk shows, and the award ceremonies (often out of irony), and yet unlike most films that shill for the acknowledgments, Thunder's star power feels legit. Strangest of all is the fact we expect Cruise and McConaughey to be cameos, but they are in the film just as much as any other actor. Cruise has great fun in his first comedy appearance since Austin Powers in Goldmember, and McConaughey, replacing Owen Wilson, works better in his role than Wilson would have because we don't expect it from a "romantic comedy" star like McConaughey.

Tropic Thunder loses itself in the middle of lampooning the Hollywood system at times, and the potential for an even better film was there. But while it was slightly disappointing to the funny bone, Thunder survived among its comedic peers by being comprehensible and enjoyable all the way through, which is a much better compliment than most of 2008's comedies have been given. Perhaps if it does well at the box office, we will see a Tugg Speedman reprise in Tropic Thunder VI: Arctic Lightning. I'm sure Stiller would light up with that thought.

DVD Review: LOGAN'S RUN (1976)

Logan's Run

Released: June 23, 1976


Box Office: $25 million
(Ranked approx. 13th of 1976)

Starring- Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Peter Ustinov, Farrah Fawcett, Roscoe Lee Browne

Directed by Michael Anderson


DVD Issue: 2004

Grade: D


Logan's Run is the kind of film that is passed on from the past few generations more in memory than actual devotion. Almost all the television shows that parody pop culture have made at least one mention of the film, usually referencing the palm crystals or the Carrousel ritual. But released in the dawn of the sci-fi film that changed the genre forever, Star Wars, and in the time that many dystopian thrillers were being made, can Logan's Run stand above and beyond a cult film 32 years later and stand on it's own legs?

I've always been interested in the dystopian idea of the future, ever since I read Lois Lowry's The Giver in 5th grade. From 1984 to Blade Runner to Fahrenheit 451 to A Clockwork Orange, it gives writers and directors a chance to conceive an endless imagination of our world gone wrong, whether they believe it to be corporate and inventive madness, or because of our increasing lack of religious beliefs.

But while Logan's Run has some valid moments, offering glimpses of Adam & Eve-like elements and man's intended nature to live and conduct his own free will, it is ruined by some terrible subplots and a lack of chemistry (even if there's supposed to be a lack of chemistry). It can be considered somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that of a camp ideology, but Logan's Run at times takes itself too seriously to downplay its harsher criticisms.

In the Year Of The City 2274, a large self-sustaining dome city, people are hedonists. They play and whet their sexual appetites day and night, and rely on machines to feed and provide them with amenities. However, to control the population in the city, the people must die at age 30. Logan 5 (Michael York) is a Sandman- a government agent who must kill people who run from Carrousel, the ritual that offers 'renewal' from their death. Thanks to Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter), he gets wind of 'Sanctuary', a place where people supposedly can live past 30, and the reason people run from Carrousel. Soon enough, Logan is forced to find 'Sanctuary', but will he go to destroy it or go to save his own life?

The acting was as stiff as the braless lead females in the film. York, known mostly in today's times as British spy controller Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers series, is pretty uncharismatic aside from his Charleston Heston rip-off scene screaming "NO! YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO IN THERE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DIE!". Agutter is okay, but when director Michael Anderson uses a deliberate part inside an ice cave just to get her naked, you know she wasn't cast for her acting. Same can be said for Farrah Fawcett (Majors), playing a ditzy blonde nurse in a sequined silver dress. Perhaps worst of all was 2-time Oscar winner Peter Ustinov as a singular old man Logan and Jessica find outside; did he have Parkinson's disease? Was he supposed to sound like Jim Backus' Mr. Magoo?

The editing and explanation of Logan's Run is muddled at best. At times Logan will just finish talking and instantly we're taken to another scene. Once Logan says something serious and the camera pans about 2 inches to another take and Logan begins laughing at something. They disregard children, as at the end of the film when everybody escapes to the outside and we see the large crowd gather at the top, there are no children or babies despite the whole beginning of the film taking care to point out the 1:1 ratio of births to deaths. Perhaps the biggest plot confusion of all was the computer's reasoning for making Logan the sole Sandman to wipe out 'Sanctuary'.

What was the whole point of Carrousel? Couldn't they have picked a cooler or more explainable way for them to die? If it was meant to be a spectator sport, they couldn't devise something more akin to Rollerball or Death Race, both of which were made into terrible remakes because of the message of violence that quenches the thirst in our society today? If not, then why did they wear weird masks and float around? If it was a sacred ritual, why did everybody cheer and treat it like a game? Carrousel seemed like a grisly version of the bubble factory in Willy Wonka.

Many of the subplots only seem to get in the way of the central story, and play like poor mini skits thrown in to bolster the running time. They run through a 'Love Shop', mostly so director Anderson can insert T&A (into a PG film no less) and strange vibrato music. They travel to 'Cathedral' to fight a pack of young kids called 'Cubs', who for some inexplicable reason are feral and supposedly drugged up on something called 'Muscle', and worst of all run into Box on the way to 'Sanctuary'. Box, a giant shiny tinfoil robot played by Roscoe Lee Browne, has gone insane and must've seen Soylent Green one too many times on his Betamax.

The sets bother me as well. It comes with a certain understanding that 'futuristic' movies, especially ones made in the 1960's and 1970's, will have a now retro flair 30+ years later. Many films at the time designed modern amenities, but kept the brown, orange, beige or yellow wood paneling color scheme of the era. Logan's Run is no different. However, it is quite obvious that the entire city is made up of thinly-veiled malls and hotels of the time. The outside water turbine, used at the end of the film, is quite obviously the Forth Worth Water Gardens. Were they too busy to build real sets? Only the recreations of the National Mall in Washington D.C. was worth any redeeming value.

While the special effects did not sway me for voting either way, they are extremely outdated. The shots may have won an Oscar, but considering the magic George Lucas' crew came out with the next year, the effects pale in comparison. Here we see debris superimposed over the reels for an explosion, stop motion to show the effects of disintegration, sparklers going off when a person combusted during Carrousel, a giant scale city for overhead shots, the list goes on and on.

It's hard not to compare certain sci-fi efforts to other ones. Logan's Run has many thematic elements to other films that preceded it in the mid-70s, most notably Soylent Green, Rollerball, and Planet Of The Apes, and obviously played a factor in modern films such as The Island and Gattaca. But while many of the films from the same era endure based on some truly remarkable writing, acting or at least one memorable scene, Logan's Run fares pretty poorly as a run-of-the-mill exercise in the genre. Good idea, weak execution.

Featured Review: SWING VOTE

For the mini-review of the long-forgotten Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day, and 81 others, click here.


Swing Vote



Starring- Kevin Costner, Paula Patton, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Madeline Carroll, Stanley Tucci, Nathan Lane, George Lopez



Directed by Joshua Michael Stern



Grade: B+


"What are we about?"
"Winning. Because if you don't win, you can't do what you set out to do."

In the wake of perhaps the most important Presidential election of our time, and surely the most engaging Democratic election ever, it's kind of amazing that Swing Vote fared so poorly at the box office. Surely it was the lack of marketing, mostly centering around the film being just another Kevin Costner vehicle, and bad timing, being released square in the middle of the summer movie bonanza and well before the fervor of a Presidential election reaches the public who are not political aficionados. Even so, one would get the sense there could be some kind of market for a film like Swing Vote.

Strange, because while Touchstone may not have had faith in the initially unrealistic plot and turn of events, Swing Vote comes away with much less cheese and sap than its trailer or synopsis would lead you to believe. Instead it's an inarguably easygoing story that doesn't stray from the center line of politics, and surprisingly for such a toothless jab at pundits and the media, it's somewhat effective. If a film like The Manchurian Candidate or Dr. Strangelove is an intellectual thinking man's political satire, Swing Vote is a poor man's Capra-esque tale. Heartwarming and earnest, if decidedly overreaching in its humble message.

Ernest "Bud" Johnson (Costner) is a newly unemployed everyman from Texico, New Mexico (real town!), who rather drink, sleep, and carouse around than to own up to any responsibilities in his life. His daughter Molly (Madeline Carroll) does most of the things around the house and keeps him out of trouble. When he fails to show up for the polls on Election Day, thereby disappointing his daughter, she attempts to cast a ballot for him, but the machine gets shut off. When they find out New Mexico is the state that decides the entire election, it ends up coming down to one county, and to one man, Bud.

Costner as Bud is quite frankly a real jerk. He seems to at times have no respect for anyone but himself, and even himself he thinks very lowly of. Bud constantly lets down his daughter, and seemingly has no real moral compass outside of the basic rules of abuse and murder. Costner is actually quite good in the role, making one almost believe he isn't the actor who's face and name is supposed to sell the film on the poster. The fact that his character never truly breaks away from his sardonic, redneck ways even after his realization of what kind of life he's led, goes a long way into selling the character and plot implications.

Same goes for his daughter Molly and his supposed "love interest" Kate Madison, played by Madeline Carroll and Paula Patton respectively. Molly has a terrible case of Lisa Simpson syndrome, being way too smart and insightful for her age, being able to point out the flaws of every character and America in general just when the scene needs it. Patton often has the same "too perfect to be real" persona, but the fact that neither she nor Molly end up being a deciding factor in Bud's decision (Kate and Bud, despite all roads leading towards it, never actually start a relationship), again thwarts the pigeon-holing Swing Vote was destined to follow.

Kelsey Grammer and Dennis Hopper, the incumbent Republican and the opposing Democrat, make believable politicians. Though both are Republicans in real life, both Grammer and Hopper carry an air about themselves that speak of the basic principles of the parties they represent. Though the fact that their waffling on tried and true conservative and liberal stances in the effort to obtain Bud's vote can be seen as more unrealistic than the one-vote-wins plot, it often finds its most satirical moments there. It's a shame that Hopper's role was supposedly cut dramatically, because he's pretty interesting, especially in the film's funniest scene about an anti-abortion commercial.

Also lending some credence is the clean direction by Joshua Michael Stern. The film is a finely paced parable that never seems to sag much, nor get too frantic in places. Many scenes are aesthetically aware, going for centering shots and crisp backgrounds. The fact that Swing Vote merely looks like it was taken under careful consideration by Stern, sells the film more than any of the performances.

Let's face it, the fact that America comes down to one singular vote is pretty preposterous. There have been elections that came down to one vote many times in the history of the world, but never on such a scale as Swing Vote fantasizes. Especially in this day and age, when the candidates have so many campaign workers and strategists (in this case, realistically seedy Nathan Lane and Stanley Tucci), a recount and further controversy would happen long before such a situation would arise.

But to Swing Vote's credit, it's quite self-aware in the fact that it's not supposed to be a hard-nosed satire that strives for absolute realism. At least it acknowledged that the popular vote wasn't tied, as Bud's tiny county was merely the deciding vote of a state that would tip a neck and neck election. While everyone is waiting for Bud's decision, Hopper's Greenleaf has a one electoral vote lead. Adding mixed opinions from real-life pundits such as Chris Mathews, Bill Maher, Larry King, Ariana Huffington, and James Carville further the fact that this is a fantasy movie that merely offers a few good-natured questions, not out to shake up the entire political world.

Swing Vote is a nifty little film if it isn't expected to completely deride the facade of American politics. It makes some earnest points about the sensationalism in the media, and the corporate underbelly behind the electoral process and government positioning, but it's for a more mainstream audience. Not to say it's dumbed down, but just with softer edges. If you're someone who is a staunch supporter of a particular affiliation, the viewpoints you carry will definitely cloud your mind of a movie that isn't trying to swing viewers into a set party. But if like Bud, you're not very political or have an open mind to everybody's ideas, Swing Vote may be for you.

Awards Talk: August Coverage

The Prezzies covered 10 sure-to-be award contenders (scratch that, 9 plus the splendid camp of Oliver Stone's W.) and rattled off 10 more to watch two months ago, which can be read here. With the release dates drawing closer as we reach the end of the summer of blockbusters, here are two more films covered in-depth, and the prognosis of the summer fare on awards season. Obviously, the films from the previous installment will get more coverage as they are released, reviewed, and the countdown to the major award ceremonies draw near.

The Road
(tentative release date: November 11th limited; November 26 wide)

Based on Cormac McCarthy's (No Country For Old Men, All The Pretty Horses) 2006 book of the same name, The Road is a bleak, post-apocalyptic parable that consists of a science fiction background, with a very much human dramatic element. The story of a father and son (Viggo Mortensen and American newcomer from Australia, Kodi Smit-McPhee) who escape the violence of society for the coast, and the trouble and people they meet along the way. The film also co-stars Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall and Guy Pearce, and directed by John Hillcoat (The Proposition).

The Road is very similar in makeup to other recent and forthcoming doom and gloom fiction with real world sensibilities such as Children Of Men and Blindness. While Men had been received tremendously with critics and fans alike, it didn't win much but a few minor cinematography awards. Blindness, with prestigious director and heralded cast fared rather poorly at Cannes. So with Blindness still yet to be released, a second film in several months that deal with death and destruction on a wide environmental sci-fi scale (The Happening is another kind of fiction entirely) might not win over voters.

Also going against the film is the bland title, despite its faithfulness to the book. The Road can easily be confused with the major Leonardo DiCaprio-Kate Winslet award-seeking film Revolutionary Road later this year, not to mention other recent titles such as Reservation Road and Glory Road. There's even the famous Italian classic, La Strada, currently #233 on IMDB's Top 250 list, which in English context is also simply called The Road.

Seven Pounds
(tentative release: December 12, wide)

Not to be confused with 21 Grams, Seven Pounds is Will Smith's latest and greatest vehicle to snag the long coveted Oscar the former Fresh Prince has been seeking since Ali. Smith plays an IRS agent who kills seven people in an accident, and after facing suicidal tendencies begin to help out seven other people with their lives. From there he falls in love with a woman with a heart condition (Rosario Dawson) and begins to move on with his own life.

Many see Seven Pounds as a natural continuation for Will Smith's depth as an actor after his nominating role in the 2006 holiday movie The Pursuit Of Happyness. While Seven Pounds doesn't have the box office aspirations of the usual Smith fare of recent times like Hancock and I Am Legend, it shouldn't have a problem being one of the most widely seen award-contending movies thanks to Smith's built-in audience.

Despite it's subject matter, much like the Pursuit Of Happyness, Smith can't inexplicably star in something dangerously serious to ward off his fanbase. He's strong for an acting nomination, but it's hard to see much more of a well-rounded nomination count thanks to co-starring cast (Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Barry Pepper) not strong in voters' minds, and a story that seems destined to have an automatic happy ending, however small.

Current Prognosis:

As it stands now, the two most important films over the summer ended up being The Dark Knight and Wall-E. That's not to take away from the other films that succeed both at the box office or with the fans and critics, or the smaller independent films that might find a way to hang on to a piece of the awards. But these two films have come away with a lasting impression that will mostly likely hold on to a couple of nominations.

The Dark Knight is almost universally guaranteed to give Heath Ledger a posthumous Best Supporting Actor nomination in every ceremony that gives out the distinction. Depending on the strength of the category as the year ends, Aaron Eckhart may pick up a few nominations as well. The overall chances of a Best Picture or Best Director nomination looks slim because of Hollywood politics, but time will tell.

Wall-E also has a dark horse chance to steal a Best Picture nomination, although it's pretty much a shoo-in already to win Best Animated Feature. I'm not sure if an animated film can be eligible for Cinematography, but if it can, Wall-E should be included in that as well. Screenplay (despite the lack of actual dialogue) could be a real possibility as well.

Actor Spotlight: AARON ECKHART

Aaron Eckart is the fourth actor covered in The Prezzies' Actor Spotlight series. Click the link to read about previous subjects Sam Rockwell, John C. Reilly, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

With the release of the summer's biggest box office hit, The Dark Knight, critics and fans alike have given infinite praise to Aaron Eckhart for his Harvey Dent/Two-Face portrayal. While his performance is somewhat overshadowed by the immediacy for Heath Ledger's posthumous career, both critics and fans have seem to open their eyes towards the blond, chisel-jawed Mormon actor. He's been around the scene for over 15 years, but outside of a few juicier roles, Eckhart had been the underrated actor of terrible films.

Before The Dark Knight, and even possibly after it, Eckhart has been a vaguely familiar face (occasionally he'll get confused with actor Thomas Jane) that hasn't been noted for any particular role. Critically praised in 2005's Thank You For Smoking and Julia Robert's award-winning vehicle Erin Brockovich, in mainstream film Eckhart's biggest performances were in box office duds such as The Core and The Black Dahlia. Nobody blames him for his performances, nor for the projects he chooses. At least The Black Dahlia was supposed to be good on paper.

Born Aaron Edward Eckhart on March 12, 1968 in Cupertino, California (in the area of San Jose), Eckhart and his two older brothers grew up in a devout Mormon household. The family traveled around, and during his high school years Eckhart at times lived in both England and Australia. He took several years off after graduating to chase waves in Hawaii and serve the LDS (Latter Day Saints) Church in a mission to France, though he still found time to go skiing there.

After coming back stateside, Eckhart enrolled at Brigham Young University, the most prestigious Mormon-affiliated college, as a film major. There he struck up a friendship with writer/director Neil LaBute, who several years later would go on to cast Eckhart in his first starring role. The two would form a nice pairing at BYU, earning several awards for their plays.

Like many actors looking for his big break, Eckhart began appearing in small-budget television movies and schlock films during his time at BYU. First was a bit role in 1992's Double Jeopardy, a Sela Ward/Bruce Boxleitner CBS movie. He followed that with the role of Samson in Ancient Secrets Of The Bible, Part II, and a tiny part in Scott Glenn's Slaughter Of The Innocents in 1994. Eckhart also participated as an extra in Beverly Hills 90210.

Eckhart's career stalled for several years in the mid-1990's, but was kick-started by fate. LaBute got his hands on $25,000 financing, and decided to cast Eckhart in the lead role of his debut film, In The Company Of Men, which was adapted from one of his BYU plays. Eckhart starred as Chad, a seedy junior executive who decides to exact revenge on the female race by corrupting a sweet, deaf secretary. Company Of Men, despite its budget, became an independent hit thanks to its controversial subject, and this performance got the attention of producers for both Eckhart and LaBute. Eckhart won the Satellite and Independent Spirit awards for Best Debut.

LaBute picked up a $5 million dollar budget, 400 times higher than his previous film, to make the ensemble drama Your Friends and Neighbors in 1998. Eckhart appeared with the likes of Ben Stiller, Amy Brenneman, Catherine Keener, Natassja Kinski and Jason Patric. Out of the six stars, Eckhart was the least well known at the time, but was lauded as an integral part of the group.

After a couple more good roles in 1998 indies Thursday and Molly, Oliver Stone noticed Eckhart's potential and cast him as offensive coordinator Nick Crozier in Stone's ill-fated film about the injustices of football, Any Given Sunday. Unfortunately, Oliver Stone is to football what a midget is to basketball, and the movie was a disaster. Despite the star-studded cast, many missteps were given flak, including Cameron Diaz's role as an owner. Like much of his future career, despite the bad reviews for the film, Eckhart, in a bland role, wasn't at fault.

But for what Any Given Sunday was worth, Eckhart got his biggest and most important role the next year. Co-starring with Julia Roberts in her Academy Award-making turn as the titular Erin Brockovich, Eckhart turned away from his clean-faced, smarmy stereotype and played the sensitive, ponytail wearing, white trash biker who helps take care of her kids. His role was pretty thankless, but it was Eckhart's first time in the exposure of an award-heavy film.

Also that year was Neil LaBute's sell-out third project, Nurse Betty. Again, because of the principal cast (Renee Zellweger, Chris Rock, Morgan Freeman, Greg Kinnear), Eckhart got deflected of the critics ire, but LaBute wasn't so lucky. While Eckhart has found salvation with a couple of stellar roles, LaBute has gone backwards.

After Director Sean Penn's The Pledge saw him paired up as Jack Nicholson's young detective partner trying to find a girl's killer, Eckhart saw a string of quasi-starring roles in underachieving films that tried to make him a bonafide household name. The fourth pairing with LaBute came Possession, an underwhelming British drama featuring Gwyneth Paltrow. The Core featured an Eckhart/Hilary Swank pairing to save the world in weak Armageddon fashion, while Paycheck returned him to sleazy corporate territory opposite Ben Affleck, Paul Giamatti and Uma Thurman.

Suspect Zero was a promising but ultimately flat serial killer thriller with Ben Kingsley, while a supporting role in Ron Howard's misguided The Missing, his attempt at a serious western, went nowhere. Eckhart's career as a leading man seemed in jeopardy. So back he went to starring in a trio of independent films, one of which became his third universally acclaimed part.

Conversations With Other Women and Neverwas were good little films in their own right, but it was the role of Nick Naylor in Jason Reitman's (Juno) directorial feature debut Thank You For Smoking that put Eckart back on the map all over again. This time, despite the cast of faces (Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe, Katie Holmes, William H. Macy, Sam Elliott, Adam Brody, Maria Bello) in the ensemble, it was all Eckhart's picture. His performance, combining the smug arrogance he was previously known for and the soft realization of a man in a crisis, Eckhart earned acting nominations from the Golden Globes, Independent Spirit, Prism, and Satellite Awards.

The Black Dahlia was originally intended to be the widely released crime noir drama that would earn Eckhart further kudos, ala L.A. Confidential did for Russell Crowe. But Brian De Palma's film fell hard thanks to some clunky storytelling and not-up-task acting by Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, and even Eckhart himself. Like fellow actors James Franco and Jason Ritter, popping up in a cameo for LaBute's widely despised The Wicker Man remake didn't exactly bolster his resume. Around this time he also began dating Kristyn Osborn from the country group SHeDAISY, and appeared in one of their music videos.

2007 gave Eckhart more genial everyman characters to play, with a DOA turn in the quickly forgotten romantic comedy No Reservations, co-starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. His role as a chef with romantic interests to a woman with a put-upon child situation recalls a sanitized comedy version of Erin Brockovich. Then, with the meekly accepted Bill, which finally got around to being dumped in theatres in early 2008, Eckhart was the titular character who finds himself stuck in unappreciated average guy role.

But these were just small potatoes for his masterpiece performance, the one that once and for all made him a household name after 16 years of ups and downs as featured star. For The Dark Knight, visionary director Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Prestige) cast Eckhart as Harvey Dent, the white knight district attorney of Gotham City. Yes, his character becomes an evil, disfigured bad guy, but it was Nolan and Eckhart's prerogative to focus on the character of Dent himself. Mixing what Eckhart has shown to be so good at- a self-effacing cockiness with deep emotional insecurities- The Dark Knight was commended for its performances from not just Ledger and Bale, but for Eckhart as well.

For newer fans and critics, this may have come as a surprise, but for people who have followed Eckhart's career, it was expected. Talk has Ledger receiving a posthumous Best Supporting Actor nomination from all the major award ceremonies, but truth is, Eckhart is just as much deserving. Ledger had the darker, flashier role, but Eckhart held up just as well.

Later this year he appears in the film festival raved but Fox News-hated Towelhead (formerly Nothing Is Private), a drama about the growing pains of an Arab-American teenager, featuring Toni Collette and his Thank You For Smoking co-star Maria Bello. Eckhart plays a bigoted Army reservist neighbor who gets into some deep trouble with the girl. Further in the pipeline is Traveling by first-time director Brandon Camp. The romantic drama co-stars Jennifer Aniston and Martin Sheen.

Aaron Eckhart will never be the unquestionable and only star of a major summer blockbuster or nearly-guaranteed Oscar contender, but his career has been more than satisfactory. He gets a steady stream of work in both mainstream and independent films, gets a chance to try new things, and has made fans in the process, without succumbing to the pressures of evangelical media. For a Mormon boy who has stayed out of the public spotlight, his career is very good indeed.

The Prezzies' Top 5 Aaron Eckhart Performances
1. The Dark Knight
2. Thank You For Smoking
3. In The Company Of Men
4. Erin Brockovich
5. Your Friends & Neighbors