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The tagline for this film is "New Model. Original Parts." First of all I don't know why anyone would want a new car with old parts, but good try with the cleverness (it's about all the wit you'll see in regards to this film). Second of all, the problem with all the "original parts" coming back (this fourth installment which a friend of mine has dubbed 4 Fast 4 Serious brings back original cast members Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster) and that's where the money went, because it's certainly not in the action sequences. But let's begin at the beginning...
So The Fast and the Furious was a fun little, adrenaline rushed, popcorn flick. No doubt. Aside from the mediocre writing and consistently terrible acting, there's some great races, chases and action, and I even enjoyed the slightly innovative techniques of using footage shot from outside of the car, then in one full move sweeping into the driver's seat of the car, swirling around, and then back out the other side of the car. It's a combination of real footage, CG and green screen work, but it was fast-paced and made for a good edit. All that goes out the window with this one.
Here's the story (and there's a spoiler here, but it has to be said because the spoiler is the inciting incident for the rest of the film): Dominic Torretto (Diesel) and Letty (Rodriguez) are teamed up with some people south of the border and are stealing gas for street races as they work to get closer to some hotshot drug dealer. Long story short, Letty is killed, and Dom is off to find out just who's responsible. Meanwhile, in pursuit of the same drug dealer we find Brian O'Conner (Walker) working for the FBI trailing this same drug dealer, and as we come to find out, Letty had been working undercover for him while in Mexico with Dom. Now in order to actually get face to face with this drug dealer, Dom and Brian, driven by revenge and duty respectively have to enter a street race to try and get a job running drugs back in Mexico. Everything stems from their previous relationship to each other, and the loyalty and strange friendship they have with each other.
The problem with this flick is it's just not as fun as the first one (which is the pinnacle of these films). The races are bland and unexciting. They couldn't even give Brandon T. Jackson (Alpa Chino from Tropic Thunder) any good one-liners during a street race. One of the "action sequences" takes place in a series of tunnels through a small mountain range on the border. It's just simple swerving and no suspense or tense moments at all. And then they revert back to these tunnels for the "climax." It's neither fast (especially in the pacing of the film) or furious.
And while dialogue was never a strong suit in these movies, it's like they're not even trying. It's the most contrived, amateur writing I've heard in a long time. And it doesn't help that Paul Walker is back (who is basically a poor version of Hayden Christensen) or that Vin Diesel still looks and talks like an ape.
There are two midly interesting tidbits about this film. Vin Diesel is working along with some Asian guy in Mexico, and apparently this guy is from Tokyo Drift, BUT when he makes reference to it, it's like he hasn't been there yet (something like "I hear there's some crazy shit going on in Tokyo"). So it looks like this film happens between the second and third movies. But my favorite tidbit is something that I created myself. There's a green Gran Torino, similar to the one in the film Gran Torino, but it's just tricked out. I'd like to think that Thao (the kid who bonds with Clint Eastwood) got caught up in the gang life and tricked out this car, and somehow or another he got killed or lost it in a race. What I'm saying is, the most fun I had in this flick was wishing other things would happen in it. Save your life and save your money, and just put this in your Netflix Queue if you really have to watch it.
Friday the 13th isn't exactly a complete re-imagination of the original and now staple horror franchise. The story of this 2009 update begins where the first left off, and while it's not necessary, I wholly recommend that you see the original before you check this one out. If you haven't seen the original Friday the 13th by now, then it's completely your fault for not knowing that the killer in the first film is not the hockey-mask clad killer we all know today, but rather his mother. Jason is simply the now grown-up young boy who died at Camp Crystal Lake due to the now expected irresponsible behavior of the camp counselors who allowed Jason to drown. His killing spree begins after he sees his murderous mother killed by the Final Girl at the conclusion of the original film.
Fortunately this information is giving to us in the form of a re-creation of this final scene. The action is cross cut with the opening credits, and either the woman playing Mrs. Vorhees (Nana Visitor) is a great impressionist, or the audio from Betsy Palmer's 1980 performance was used for her voice. Jason sees the Final Girl cut off Mrs. Vorhees head, leaving Jason only with a picture necklace of his mother, and a rage to take out on unsuspecting teenage campers.
Flash forward 20 years, and some fresh teen blood is looking for some prime marijuana for these five campers to sell back home. Unfortunately this heavenly stash of herb is within Jason's territory at Camp Crystal Lake. No time is wasted in the drinking and sex romps with female nudity abound, and it's just as little time it takes for Jason to make his first kill. The next 20 minutes are very intense.
Jason moves right on to take out the couple sexing it up in the tent. Jason moves on with more terror as he targets a couple exploring the abandoned cabin that Jason occupied as a young boy. He succeeds in taking out the guy, as the female half of this couple, Whitney (Amanda Righetti) runs away from the cabin and back to the campsite where she finds her struggling friend with his leg stuck in a bear trap. Sure enough Jason shows up out of nowhere, dispenses with the guy. And at this point, we have our Final Girl and this movie seems like it's only going to be 30 minutes long. As Whitney tries to escape, Jason runs up on her, raising his machete and swinging down and then - cut to black, fade in title: Friday the 13th. I love it.
And here is where the movie begins just as every other slasher movie does. There's a group of good looking kids heading off on a camping trip/vacation full of bad decisions. We're introduced to the mostly unfamiliar cast Danielle Panabaker (Sky High), Travis Van Winkle (Megan Fox's boy-toy from Transformers), Aaron Yoo (Shia LeBeouf's sidekick from Disturbia) Julianna Guill (slutty girl), Arlen Escarpeta (token black guy, but with a self-aware twist), Ryan Hansen, and former almost-one-hit-wonder Willa Ford, singer of the song "I Wanna Be Bad." All of the cast does their job as eye candy and douche bag teens that you just want to see get massacred. This is perfectly fine because I don't want character development, I just want them to die.
The characters that we're really supposed to care about become Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) as he's looking for his sister Whitney who has been missing for a month and a half, and the only character out of the hormone crazed vacationing teens who takes an interest: Jenna (Danielle Panabaker). It's not surprise with this story, that Whitney is still alive (the excuse being that she looks like the picture of Jason's mother in the aforementioned picture locket). This is an interesting plot device, and makes the other characters all the more disposable (though there are a couple surprises as to who lives and dies). These surprises combined with the expected orchestral rises in deceptively not scary scenes, and inexplicable sudden appearances of Jason behind the victims make for some good times.
This movie isn't going to win any awards obviously (with lines like "Where are you, gun?!") but the film delivers exactly what people wanted to see (surely the film's release actually on Friday the 13th of February helped, but over $40 million is still a hefty take). The establishment of Jason's character is quick, and maybe even a little sloppy, but a couple cool elements like the introduction of the hockey mask and a couple tongue in cheek moments (mostly involving the token black guy) really give this film a fun flare. This is a movie to watch late at night with a group of friends and just leave your brain at the door. My personal fun was all the more highlighted by a decorated theater complete with bloody tent, and costumed Jason Vorhees who walked through the theater during the beginning of the movie. I won't see movies like The Uninvited or The Unborn, but I'll take another Friday the 13th anyday.
Having said that, I really hope people learn the name Henry Selick (the guy who actually directed The Nightmare Before Christmas) because he's truly a filmmaker with a unique vision, and has a very secure niche in the increasingly impressive realm of stop-motion animation. It's his creativity and dedication to stop-motion that shines in the mesmerizing adaptation of Neil Gaiman's best selling children's book Coraline.
From the opening credit sequence, the intricacy of the animation and tone of the film is easily seen. This is a twisted world where even the simple stitching of a small doll, and the placement of black button eyes has a creepy and ominous feel to it. Our story follows Coraline, a slightly misunderstood and ignored girl who is just looking for some social interaction. Her parents aren't neglectful, they're just not entirely interested in Coraline's endeavors (for that matter they aren't that interesting themselves). Coraline and her family share a large house (like a tri-plex) with two fat old stage performing women, and a crazy rat circus trainer and live down the road from an adventurous boy named Wybie and his grandmother.
These characters don't exactly entertain or occupy Coraline more than a fleeting instant and she's bored beyond belief until she finds the door; a small door, barely big enough for a person to fit through. The door is bricked shut during the day, but then at night, it leads to a house not entirely different from her own...at least at first. She finds her family in the house but much more loving and caring, (even exciting and at times wacky) almost like a dream. Even the characters who live in the tri-plex are better versions of themselves. Oh, and they all have buttons for eyes. There's good food, gifts, and magical wonder, all for Coraline. But then things get weird when her "other parents" in this world ask her to stay, on the condition that she replace her eyes with buttons.
From then on, the dream isn't what it once was. Coraline quickly begins to learn the lesson of being be careful what you wish for. Her once sweet "other mother" becomes a twisted, sullen version of herself, and is nothing more than a witch-like (or maybe spider-like) woman. Coraline soon finds herself in peril and realizing the horrifying thought that she may not see her real parents again.
Similar in style to The Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick crafts this amazing world for the story to exist in with gothic imagery and dingy colors contrasted to the saturated and bright "other world". In this world, it's normal for Coraline to have blue hair, and her friend Wybie to drive around with some sort of skull painted camera-helmet. The animation is flawless. I can't even count how many times I was taken aback by the action on screen and just filled with awe and respect for the amount of time that goes into crafting each scene. These animators workdays usually consist of getting about 3 or 4 seconds of the film shot in a day. That's unbelievable. Dakota Fanning provides a perfect mature and wise-for-her-age voice for Coraline, and Teri Hatcher is great transforming from Coraline's bland real mother to the threatening "other mother." Their voices bring these characters to life right along with the smooth stop-motion animation.
And what really immersed me in this film is seeing it in Real D (the new 3-D). It adds so much depth to the picture like you're watching it happen in front of you. 3D has lost it's gimmick of just having things come flying at the screen (though that's all the more cool with the great progress 3D technology has made). But I had the most childlike wonder and feelings when the door to the "other world" opened and the passage literally stretches backwards into the screen. Coraline shines and can blow many computer animated movies out of the water with it's attention to detail and well crafted story. Just like Coraline, you will find yourself enamored by this new world. However, you won't have to take your eyes out and replace them with buttons. But you might want to do that if you see The Pink Panther 2.
When I'm watching a true story put to film, I always find it intriguing what is real, what's been pumped up a little bit for the purposes of attempting to making a good film, and what's complete crap.
That thought kept running through my mind during Frost/Nixon, the Ron Howard film that chronicles the struggle that David Frost (Michael Sheen) and his team went through to interview Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) after his presidency had ended in the ashes of the Watergate scandal.
The flick is nominated for four Oscars, including Langella for Best Actor, Howard for Best Director, Peter Morgan for adapting his original Broadway play for the screen, and Best Picture. Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt join Sheen as the team that tries to put Nixon away with words and debate and, in the words of Rockwell's character, "give Richard Nixon the trial he never had." On the opposite side, they have the foreboding Nixon, played pitch-perfectly by Langella and Kevin Bacon as Nixon's right hand man and protector, both physically and emotionally.
The film approaches the events in a talking heads/flashback form, something that lends itself better to the stage, but still works on screen. It starts about a month before the interview and spends the rest of the film giving a blow-by-blow of the out-of-his-league British journalist and the disgraced, evil politician.
This film is, without a doubt, right in my wheelhouse. I think, when they wrote the script, under the title was a little dedication, "For Phil" because it was meant for me: A political plot, mixed with journalism, an underdog story and several deep discussions on the way words can be used to get a point across...all partially/mostly true. Frost/Nixon takes what might be a boring concept to some and turns it into the ultimate competition, with everything on the line for both people involved.
Langella has gotten the most attention for his portrayal of Nixon, which isn't an impersonation but more of an amalgamation of parts of Nixon: his mannerisms, parts of his looks, and, for the most part, his larger-than-life personality. It's easy to say, and probably true, that without Langella, Frost/Nixon isn't the exciting/inspiring piece of film it turns out to be.
But, really the shining light of this film for me was Sam Rockwell. How does this guy NOT get more work?! He's a chameleon. He can take any role he's given and knock it out of the park, which is exactly what he does here. Every scene he's in, including talking head moments where he's talking about the past, is completely engrossing and exciting.
Frost/Nixon isn't an essential to see in the theater, but it's definitely a must-see, if not for the amazing performances and quick moving, inspiring script.
