"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" PG-13
Stephen Chbosky's novel is turned into a film of the same name, by him, and somehow he got Emma Watson to star, along with several relative unknowns. This isn't a bad thing actually. The story is a coming of age narrative set in an age just prior to the cell phone and the internet, maybe 1995, such that references to songs from the early 1980s could be considered old. Charlie is a troubled 14-year-old boy who becomes the titular Gary Stu of the author, (make Mary Sue), and somehow this too works. He is interesting enough as the title wallflower that it isn't pretentious or boring, and certainly is not a 'boy version of Twilight', although it is the same production company. Seven years earlier, Charlie's favorite aunt died and he blames himself for it. Also a year or so before, his best friend committed suicide. One might think, this sounds pretty dark and depressing for a movie, and at times it can be, but actually it's like Amy Heckerling meets John Hughes most of the time, a nod to what would happen if they did a nod to the 'emo' kids. Posers everywhere may have their movie. The boy Charlie befriends a group of seniors self identified as misfits, who get stoned and hang out at parties, a bit like the classic teen comedies, but the characters make the story, not the partying. At one point one of them even quips that 'it's like living in an after school special', but it's far cooler than that. Charlie is far more complex than just your average wallflower, as he is genuinely demented, and yet his friends are in other ways, longing to be the lead in a Rocky Horror live cast, or to have clandestine lovers, or even finding the name of the perfect tunnel song. (It was Heroes by David Bowie. I knew immediately). This is the first great drama of 2012 and hopefully now that it's in wider release will get some Oscar attention. Emma deserves best actress, and has since Harry Potter 6, but now she really deserves it, and the movie should get best picture, if something else doesn't best it. It already has teen drama.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Review: "Seven Psychopaths" tries to Tarantono territory and almost works
"Seven Psychopaths" R
Martin McDonagh;s mob movie spoof seems to riff liberally from Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, old pulp westerns, movies about authors with writer's block, and of all things, A Fish Called Wanda. The story opens with a starving writer and his friend who want to make a story about psychopaths and will stop at nothing to do it. They enlist the help of a crazy old man who with his friend is running a dog kidnapping scam. The younger guy steals the fancy dogs and then the old guy gets the reward and returns the dogs, like a ransom. When their hairball plan goes wrong as they accidentally dog nap a mobster's favorite shiatsu, a little poodle like dog, they become targeted by other psychopaths who want to off them. It helps that Colin Farrell plays it fairly straight, or it just wouldn't work. Woody Harrelson spoofs many of his late persona, as it has been decades since he was that nice guy on Cheers, and he's the mobster. The old guy is Christopher Walken, who for the past decade and a half is playing a younger Marlon Brando complete with accent, but it works because he's so completely nuts in this role. At one point a bad guy is aiming a gun at him, and tells him, 'I have a gun' and he replies 'so what?', and there is another clever scene in the desert when one of them clearly channels a Rodriquez style gunfight. Mostly they have fun with the wordy talk back of Tarantino movies, with some clearly offish lines. It's more of a farce than a comedy, and more of a spoof than a mob drama. No idea why there is a subplot about a Vietnamese crazy dude, but even the writers in the movie act like they didn't need him.
Review by Adam Browne
Martin McDonagh;s mob movie spoof seems to riff liberally from Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, old pulp westerns, movies about authors with writer's block, and of all things, A Fish Called Wanda. The story opens with a starving writer and his friend who want to make a story about psychopaths and will stop at nothing to do it. They enlist the help of a crazy old man who with his friend is running a dog kidnapping scam. The younger guy steals the fancy dogs and then the old guy gets the reward and returns the dogs, like a ransom. When their hairball plan goes wrong as they accidentally dog nap a mobster's favorite shiatsu, a little poodle like dog, they become targeted by other psychopaths who want to off them. It helps that Colin Farrell plays it fairly straight, or it just wouldn't work. Woody Harrelson spoofs many of his late persona, as it has been decades since he was that nice guy on Cheers, and he's the mobster. The old guy is Christopher Walken, who for the past decade and a half is playing a younger Marlon Brando complete with accent, but it works because he's so completely nuts in this role. At one point a bad guy is aiming a gun at him, and tells him, 'I have a gun' and he replies 'so what?', and there is another clever scene in the desert when one of them clearly channels a Rodriquez style gunfight. Mostly they have fun with the wordy talk back of Tarantino movies, with some clearly offish lines. It's more of a farce than a comedy, and more of a spoof than a mob drama. No idea why there is a subplot about a Vietnamese crazy dude, but even the writers in the movie act like they didn't need him.
Review by Adam Browne
Review: "Iron Sky" is send up to bad B movies and great fun
"Iron Sky" R
The team behind 'Star Wreck: In the Pickening', the oddball mash up between The Next Generation and Babylon 5, is given 10 Million dollars Finnish, and given actual B movie actors, like Odo Keur,to make the most outlandish Nazi movie spoof ever, the relatively ignored Iron Sky, which is probably the most brilliant B movie of 2012. The premise, in 1945, Nazi Germany, feeling the end was near in the Great War, launched a top secret space program to the dark side of the moon, where they might as well have found Transformers, but didn't. Instead they found something called Helium 3, and let their society evolve for over 70 years in seclusion until the day when they would return to the Earth, in peace, ha, and conquer it. Although their tech was considerably less advanced than other Earth tech, they managed to construct a fleet of saucer warships, Zeppelin space carriers carrying space rocks, and a giant Leviathan war machine thing that shoots everything in sight, a literal plot device as a giant super weapon.
It is 2018 when the invasion begins and all hilarity is unusual given New York is clearly somewhere in Eastern Europe, (Frankfiurt on the commentary), and the field scene was one in Australia (not Austria). The goofy UFO invasion is a clear spoof of classics such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, Elsa She Wolf of the SS, and Independence Day. And how can you not root for the Dr. Strangelove riff in Odo Keur as the 'Moon Fuurer', complete with twitching arm and coughing spats! They even pay homage to The Great Dictator, the Charlie Chapin film.
The mockery of the United States is handled with goofy neo-con results in that the president is clearly a riff on Sarah Palin, ha, and her aide is some kind of vamp parody of Michelle Bachmann (as a female Dick Cheney, which is just weird). The President spends much of the movie claiming she will arm for war to win an election, and her space battleship is the George Bush, commanded by the vamp chick.
It is R rated and at timesd extremely unsettling and offensive, but that's half the fun, especially when the offenses are immedately followed by albino humor, off color schitck, and crazy overacting. It never takes itself too seriously, right on out to the hilarious 'everybody's armed their ships' space war, because evidently they watched Star Wars a lot.
The Blu-ray version includes plenty of extras, casting stuff, behind the scenes stuff and commentary. Get that version.
Review by Adam Browne
The team behind 'Star Wreck: In the Pickening', the oddball mash up between The Next Generation and Babylon 5, is given 10 Million dollars Finnish, and given actual B movie actors, like Odo Keur,to make the most outlandish Nazi movie spoof ever, the relatively ignored Iron Sky, which is probably the most brilliant B movie of 2012. The premise, in 1945, Nazi Germany, feeling the end was near in the Great War, launched a top secret space program to the dark side of the moon, where they might as well have found Transformers, but didn't. Instead they found something called Helium 3, and let their society evolve for over 70 years in seclusion until the day when they would return to the Earth, in peace, ha, and conquer it. Although their tech was considerably less advanced than other Earth tech, they managed to construct a fleet of saucer warships, Zeppelin space carriers carrying space rocks, and a giant Leviathan war machine thing that shoots everything in sight, a literal plot device as a giant super weapon.
It is 2018 when the invasion begins and all hilarity is unusual given New York is clearly somewhere in Eastern Europe, (Frankfiurt on the commentary), and the field scene was one in Australia (not Austria). The goofy UFO invasion is a clear spoof of classics such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, Elsa She Wolf of the SS, and Independence Day. And how can you not root for the Dr. Strangelove riff in Odo Keur as the 'Moon Fuurer', complete with twitching arm and coughing spats! They even pay homage to The Great Dictator, the Charlie Chapin film.
The mockery of the United States is handled with goofy neo-con results in that the president is clearly a riff on Sarah Palin, ha, and her aide is some kind of vamp parody of Michelle Bachmann (as a female Dick Cheney, which is just weird). The President spends much of the movie claiming she will arm for war to win an election, and her space battleship is the George Bush, commanded by the vamp chick.
It is R rated and at timesd extremely unsettling and offensive, but that's half the fun, especially when the offenses are immedately followed by albino humor, off color schitck, and crazy overacting. It never takes itself too seriously, right on out to the hilarious 'everybody's armed their ships' space war, because evidently they watched Star Wars a lot.
The Blu-ray version includes plenty of extras, casting stuff, behind the scenes stuff and commentary. Get that version.
Review by Adam Browne
Monday, October 1, 2012
Review: "Looper" is confounded time travel western
Review "Looper" R
In the year 2044, time travel had been outlawed, and folks from 2074 come through all the time back into time, where men called Loopers are armed with blunderbus guns waiting to blast them out of existence. One day, one of the loopers fails to make his mark and tries to hide out with a looper played by Gordon Levitt, but both are caught and one escapes, that is Levitt's character, and must go about his business like nothing happened, before the mob boss calls him in to question him for escaping and trying to help his friend. The problem is his next mark is a bald man, played by Bruce Willis, who instantly kicks his butt and leaves. Later on, he awakens and is found out by the boss, who orders him to hand himself over, but he refuses and flees. Thirty years later, the mob leader, called the Rain Maker, catches up with him in Asia and kills his wife, but he goes back into time, as Willis, and cold conks his earlier self. The two meet back in 2044 with Levitt playing the good one and his older self playing the evil, jaded one, although shooting marks is also bad. Then the younger looper goes to hide out on a ranch where there is a lover of his, who has an unrelated ESP rated son, who may be the key to the whole thing. The time travel angle is confousing, so much so Bruce's character explains it as a mess that makes his head hurt, which could also describe a night on the town for some. The story is interesting popcorn fun if it weren't for the violent disregard for human life, from men to women to children, but it doesn't pull any punches with action and there is plenty to see. It's definitely R rated.
Review by Adam Browne
In the year 2044, time travel had been outlawed, and folks from 2074 come through all the time back into time, where men called Loopers are armed with blunderbus guns waiting to blast them out of existence. One day, one of the loopers fails to make his mark and tries to hide out with a looper played by Gordon Levitt, but both are caught and one escapes, that is Levitt's character, and must go about his business like nothing happened, before the mob boss calls him in to question him for escaping and trying to help his friend. The problem is his next mark is a bald man, played by Bruce Willis, who instantly kicks his butt and leaves. Later on, he awakens and is found out by the boss, who orders him to hand himself over, but he refuses and flees. Thirty years later, the mob leader, called the Rain Maker, catches up with him in Asia and kills his wife, but he goes back into time, as Willis, and cold conks his earlier self. The two meet back in 2044 with Levitt playing the good one and his older self playing the evil, jaded one, although shooting marks is also bad. Then the younger looper goes to hide out on a ranch where there is a lover of his, who has an unrelated ESP rated son, who may be the key to the whole thing. The time travel angle is confousing, so much so Bruce's character explains it as a mess that makes his head hurt, which could also describe a night on the town for some. The story is interesting popcorn fun if it weren't for the violent disregard for human life, from men to women to children, but it doesn't pull any punches with action and there is plenty to see. It's definitely R rated.
Review by Adam Browne
Review: "Hotel Transylvania" is quirky fun at times
"Hotel Transylvania" PG
A Disney starlet (Selina Gomez) princess plays Dracula's (Adam Sandler's) daughter in this oddball children's movie that borrows from all of the great monster movies of yore, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and more and puts them in a hotel for monsters where in their reality they fear humans. 'Monster's Inc.; without the originality, maybe, or possibly a knock off of 'ParaNorman' and a number of other similar concepts, 'Coraline', 'Nightmare Before Christmas', 'Corpse Bride', etc. Immediately into the story there are fart jokes, because oozing zombies and men that fart are funny, which kind of kills it. Then the human shows up and is immediately disguised ast one of the Frankenstein monster's cousins, but he meets the girl and they hit it off, so then Dracula is annoyed and wants to be rid of him.It's not a bad movie and has more kinetic motion and hyper joking than ParaNorman, but ultimately it suffers from trying too had to appeal to everyone.
Review by Adam Browne
I liked it because it was a kid's movie with lots of jokes about old movies and monsters, although really I don't like to go to anything scary really or rated R. This was okay since it was a kid's movie, and Fran Drescher has a cameo. Be warned.
Guest critique by Amanda Rumsey
A Disney starlet (Selina Gomez) princess plays Dracula's (Adam Sandler's) daughter in this oddball children's movie that borrows from all of the great monster movies of yore, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, the Mummy, and more and puts them in a hotel for monsters where in their reality they fear humans. 'Monster's Inc.; without the originality, maybe, or possibly a knock off of 'ParaNorman' and a number of other similar concepts, 'Coraline', 'Nightmare Before Christmas', 'Corpse Bride', etc. Immediately into the story there are fart jokes, because oozing zombies and men that fart are funny, which kind of kills it. Then the human shows up and is immediately disguised ast one of the Frankenstein monster's cousins, but he meets the girl and they hit it off, so then Dracula is annoyed and wants to be rid of him.It's not a bad movie and has more kinetic motion and hyper joking than ParaNorman, but ultimately it suffers from trying too had to appeal to everyone.
Review by Adam Browne
I liked it because it was a kid's movie with lots of jokes about old movies and monsters, although really I don't like to go to anything scary really or rated R. This was okay since it was a kid's movie, and Fran Drescher has a cameo. Be warned.
Guest critique by Amanda Rumsey
Review: "Dredd" is not dreadful but is action packed
"Dredd" R
The 2012 remake of the awful Judge Dredd comic book movie from the 1980s is actually a vast improvement over the original, and comes off as a nod to various city, or structure, under hostile control scenarios, including 'Escape from New York' and 'Die Hard'. The weird hybrid of police state drama opens about 60 years in the future, after the old world is in ruin, and only the mega cities protect the 800 million survivors. It is not clear if each city houses 800 million or whether it's all of them total. The gritty and dingy underworld overrun city has only one law, the justice team, which sounds like it could be Justice League, only it's not. This Hall of Justice is kind of evil, doling out judgment and sentencing immediately upon capture, with armed and helmeted judges, like Dredd and his rookie, Henderson the girl with ESP powers. The drug on the street is SloMo, which if it only slows time for the user and doesn't make their reflexes faster, is kind of stupid, but okay. In the city complex amusingly called Peach Tree, there is an evil drug lord name Mama who controls things, but Dredd and the rookie get trapped inside, and muse make their way to her lair to stop her, but she fights ball with an arsenal of criminals. Funny that Karl Urban replaces Stallone in the role of Dredd. Decent escapist entertainment. Don't take it too seriously.
Review by Adam Browne
The 2012 remake of the awful Judge Dredd comic book movie from the 1980s is actually a vast improvement over the original, and comes off as a nod to various city, or structure, under hostile control scenarios, including 'Escape from New York' and 'Die Hard'. The weird hybrid of police state drama opens about 60 years in the future, after the old world is in ruin, and only the mega cities protect the 800 million survivors. It is not clear if each city houses 800 million or whether it's all of them total. The gritty and dingy underworld overrun city has only one law, the justice team, which sounds like it could be Justice League, only it's not. This Hall of Justice is kind of evil, doling out judgment and sentencing immediately upon capture, with armed and helmeted judges, like Dredd and his rookie, Henderson the girl with ESP powers. The drug on the street is SloMo, which if it only slows time for the user and doesn't make their reflexes faster, is kind of stupid, but okay. In the city complex amusingly called Peach Tree, there is an evil drug lord name Mama who controls things, but Dredd and the rookie get trapped inside, and muse make their way to her lair to stop her, but she fights ball with an arsenal of criminals. Funny that Karl Urban replaces Stallone in the role of Dredd. Decent escapist entertainment. Don't take it too seriously.
Review by Adam Browne
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