Red Dawn (1984)

Starring: Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton, Ron O'Neal, William Smith, Powers Boothe

Director: John Milius

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, War

Rating: C

This is not a good movie.  I'm just going to stick that out there: Red Dawn is not good.  At best it's a very conservative, rather violent movie about a situation that is really hard to buy into.  When the premise of your movie is that the United States is caught unaware by a Soviet invasion and the only people who fight back (at least for a good chunk of it) are a group of teenagers in Colorado, I kind of have a hard time buying into it.

So, yeah.  At some point in the 1980s the USA becomes increasingly isolated when several European nations, all of them except for the UK, withdraw from NATO, at a time when the Warsaw Pact is being aggressively expanded.  In addition to this, there's a wheat harvest failure in the Ukraine and a communist coup in Mexico.  In order to cope, the Soviets and Cubans invade the United States.  Specifically, they invade the small town of Calumet, Colorado and quickly completely take over the town - and many other parts of the USA.  Enter our heroes, a small group of teenagers lead by Jed and Matt Eckert (Swayze and Sheen), who manage to escape the occupation and begin to form a resistance.

Okay, so 1. I do not buy that a group of teenagers who have no military experience and really are just kids who grew up hunting would be able to effectively fight the KGB.  2. I do not buy that the Soviets would be able to invade Colorado without being noticed well before getting to Colorado.  3. NATO consists of more than just the USA and European countries.  4. By the time of the movie, the Cold War was kind of dying down and it was beginning to be pretty clear that the Soviets? Weren't going to win it.

Actually, let's go back to number 2 here.  There are a few ways that the Soviets/Communists could have invaded the USA based on the premise of this movie.  They could have come up through Mexico, in which case they would have hit California, Arizona, Texas, etc, first.  They could have come via the Pacific, in which case they would have hit Alaska, Canada, and Washington state first.  They could have come up through Cuba, in which they would have probably hit Florida first. Finally, they could have flown over the Arctic Sea, in which case thy would have hit Canada first.  There is no way that they randomly hit fucking Colorado first - which thus brings to question just how the hell this was a surprise attack.  Dear movie makers: please consider geography.

This overall problem comes into play with issue number 3 here.  Canada is a part of NATO. Canada has always been a part of NATO.  In the premise of this movie, Canada is still a part of NATO.  In all likelyhood, Canada also had to be invaded in order to get to the USA here.  Thus, two nations would have been invaded.  Furthermore, the whole "the UK is still a part of NATO" thing comes into play.  Even without NATO, Canada has a very delicate relationship with the UK and it's a bit hard to buy that the UK does nothing to come to the aid of two allies, both which they're entered into military alliances with and one which is a part of the Commonwealth.  Just saying.

Then there's the whole issue of 1.  I'm not even sure I want to go there.  Yes, Americans are known for their gun loving ways - yes, it's somewhat of a stereotype.  Yes, Guerrilla warfare can completely screw over traditional armies, and in a lot of ways that's what the Communists are here.  No, a handful of teenagers are not going to successfully fight the KGB for long, nor are they going to be the only resistance.  That's just ridiculous, sorry.

Project X (2012)

Starring: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Alexis Knapp

Director: Nima Nourizadeh

Genre: Comedy

Rating: C

High school students Costa (Cooper) and J.B. (Brown) have decided to throw a party for friend Thomas (Mann)'s birthday.   Despite their status as, basically losers, they're determined that this is going to be the most epic party of all, and in a tradition of high school movies, they're all determined that they're going to get laid - which is why they invite Alexis (Knapp), the hottest girl in school, and Kirby (Blanton), Thomas' best (female) friend.  Then the party happens, and thanks to an add on Craigslist, it all goes to shit.

It should probably go without saying that this movie is horribly sexist and ridiculously immature.  While I enjoyed some of the stuff that happened - and I thought the friendship between Thomas and Kirby was cute, albeit rather predictable - a lot of the time I was watching it going "are you fucking serious?"  The sad thing is, that while the movie is completely over the top I could see at least some of if happening in real life.  A party that gets way too big and out of hand because some idiot posted it in a public announcement on Facebook or Craigslist? Yeah, I can see that happening - and in fact, since this movie's release, there have been attempts to recreate the film, which just goes to prove that high school students are idiots.

The one thing that I did actually really like about the film was the casting of complete unknowns.  Most of the core cast have had minimal acting experience before - of the four main guys, only one had ever been in a movie before, Thomas Mann, and that experience actually made it harder for him to get a role in this movie.  That being said, I was kind of surprised to hear that they're making a sequel out of this - although, I guess they'll make a sequel out of anything these days.

The Ledge

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Terrence Howard, Liv Tyler, Christopher Gorham, Patrick Wilson

Director: Matthew Chapman

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: C

Athiest Gavin Nichols (Hunnam) is about to commit suicide by jumping off a ledge.  Detective Hollis Lucetti (Howard), who is having a particularly bad day to begin with, is responsible for negotiating with Gavin and attempting to get him to come down.  Over the course of the film the story goes back and forth between the present and the past, following the events that lead to these two men being there - for Hollis, it's what happened after he discovered that he's sterile and his kids aren't his kids, and for Gavin it's the development of a relationship with his neighbour, Shana (Tyler), who is married to the Christian fundamentalist Joe (Wilson).

Okay, so to start, I loved the ending of this film.  It wasn't what I expected at all, and I love how they decided to just go with it.  I really liked it.

The ending was probably the only thing that I liked about the film, though.  I found the characters portrayed by both Hunnam and Wilson to be unlikable - I thought that both of them were trying to go to great lengths to offend the other, which in turn just offended me.  It bothered me that the whole thing was based on the idea that the two of them were going to be trying to force their religious beliefs (or lack-thereof) on the other, and then that Hunnam's character decided to sleep with Shana in an attempt to get back at Wilson's character for being religious.  In the end, I think I really understood Wilson's character's motivation the most.  Even though I didn't support him, or even like him, at all, I could at least see his reasoning.

As for Terrence Howard's character... I really didn't see how his back story was relevant to the rest of the film.  It was unnecessary and kind of stupid.  That being said, I did really like the way that they handled the actual negotiation.  I liked the relationship that was built between Howard and Hunnam.  Asides from the conclusion, that was possibly the best part of the film.  There was this potential here, and they just kind of wasted it.

Titanic: Blood and Steel

Starring: Kevin Zegers, Liam Cunningham, Alessandra Mastronardi, Derek Jacobi, Neve Campbell, Chris Noth, Billy Carter, Ophelia Lovibond, Branwell Donaghey, Martin McCann

Creator: Ciaran Donnelly

Genre: Drama, Historical, Miniseries

Rating: C

I have really mixed feelings about this show.  On the one hand, it wasn't poorly acted and a lot of elements of the plot were actually really interesting.  I enjoyed the ongoing labour and religious disputes between the different levels of people building the Titanic.  The struggles of protagonist Mark Muir (Zegers) are really interesting too, both in terms of his personal and work life.  That having been said, however, Titanic: Blood and Steel has very little to do with the Titanic, despite being about the boat.  It misrepresents history in such a way that I can't help but feel it's rather an insult to the real history here.  To the real people who built the Titanic.

Titanic: Blood and Steel is not your traditional Titanic show.  Rather than focus on the events of the sailing and its disastrous ending, Blood and Steel looks at the building of the ship and the people who invested in it before its maiden voyage.  Here we see some of the classic figures in a Titanic story, the big names that we've come to know - Thomas Andrews (Carter), J.P. Morgan (Noth), and Lord Pirrie (Jacobi).  What takes more of a focus, however, than these actual people, is the account of the very fictional Dr. Mark Muir, an Irish immigrant and American engineer who specializes in studying steel.  We also see struggles of the Irish steelworkers, lead by the McCann brothers, Michael (Donaghey) and Conor (McCann), and the Italian artisans, who worked on the boat.

Once again, the thing that really got me here was how much the focus was on highly fictionalized events.  Blood and Steel was at its best when it was looking at the very real problems that Titanic had to overcome in her making, and at its worst when it was focused on Mark complaining about the impurities in the steel.  If this series is to be taken seriously, then it's to be believed that it was these impurities that caused the Titanic to sink and 1,502 people to die, and not the whole hitting an iceberg.  In my opinion there are a lot of really interesting stories that can be told about the Titanic, both during its building and its sailing, that look a lot more at the actual history of the boat.

That being said, I don't think you need to use real people when constructing a work of historical fiction.  There is that "fiction" element to it, and it can be a lot easier to use fictional characters to depict real events.  James Cameron's Titanic is a great example of how this can happen, and I think the other miniseries out this year from the minds of Nigel Strafford-Clark and Julian Fellowes is another good example.  Both works use a basic story that we already know in order to tell us a new story.  They interweave characterizations of real people, that are largely based on documentation about them, and fictional characters, and base it around one very real event.  Jack and Rose were not in themselves real, but the way their story is told gives us an idea of the real Titanic.  Neither Jack nor Rose are elevated in their importance, they are very much the everyman type character (although, in the case of Rose, with a highly elevated class).  The 2012 Titanic is even better in this regards because it spends a lot more time looking at people who actually were real.  Blood and Steel, however, takes the name of the Titanic and a few events that occurred during its making then weaves together this very fictional story, degrading the historical figures in order to elevate the fictional ones.  In the end it just kind of struck a nerve with me.

Speaking of endings, there is also the problem of Blood and Steel's actual ending.  The miniseries ends where most Titanic works begin, with the boat embarking on its doomed voyage, leaving the viewer to wonder just which of the cast members who happen to be on the boat survive.  While I liked the idea of some of the cast being on it, the way they did this was, in a lot of ways, really contrived and a bit forced.  The speculation itself is also rather fun, in a way, but it also leaves the question open as to whether or not there was supposed to be some sort of follow up to this series - Titanic: Blood and Steel part 2.  Because of the way that they did it, it really felt like they weren't ending the series.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Bryce Dallas Howard, Billy Burke, Dakota Fanning, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene

Director: David Slade

Genre: Fantasy, Romance

Rating: C

As weird as it is to say this, I think this is actually my favourite of the Twilight movies.  The plot is still meh, and the acting is still meh, and the special effects and the makeup are still meh,  but the humour has transitioned from being unintentional to... well, I'm not sure how intentional it is and how unintentional it is.  The point is, there is humour in this one.  And action.  And no lame suicide plots.

People are being killed in Seattle, but our friendly neighbourhood vampires are only concerned about how it might affect them.  Likewise with our friendly neighbourhood werewolves.  Alice (Greene) is monitoring the decisions being made by the villainous Victoria (Howard),  as we all know it's only a matter of time before she makes yet another attempt on Bella (Stewart).  Meanwhile, Bella and Edward (Pattinson) are discussing marriage - although both Bella's best friend and would-be-lover Jacob (Lautner) and her father Charlie (Burke) are dead set against the relationship between the two, although for different reasons.  Oh, and once shit does start to go down the friendly neighbourhood vampires and friendly neighbourhood werewolves try to work together.

So, yeah.  The thing that works about this movie is the humour.  My favourite scene in this entire movie - possibly the entire series - is when Bella and Charlie have what is the most awkward sex talk ever.  That alone made this movie worth watching.  There are other moments like this one that really make me think that the actors are far better than we give them credit for just because they're able to keep a straight face throughout it all.  That's not to say that the acting itself is in any way all that good, but that it's not as bad as we claim it is.  I also do like how the plot moves forward here.  The first two movies were really all about setting things up and introducing us to characters and concepts - vampires, werewolves, the Volturi, etc.  This time round things actually go forward and stuff happens.  There's even a whole epic battle!  It's not all bad!

Not all bad, but still not all that good.  The plot still has gigantic holes, ones that I think if I really tried to wrap my head around and explain I would just end up either confused or pissed off - or both.  I still want to spend most of my time yelling at the characters, or at least the main ones.  The thing about Twilight in general is that the more sympathetic and loveable characters are the ones that don't get as much of a focus.  I love Bella's friends from high school, and Charlie, and even the vampires and werewolves who are not Edward or Jacob.  We get to see a bit more of these characters here, although I know it's not a trend that's going to continue.  The triangle is resolved here, and the next two movies are going to be all about the lovefest and its consequences.  Yay?

Angel: After the Fall (Continuing Series)

Creator: Brian Lynch, Joss Whedon
Publisher: IDW Publishing
Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Horror, Comic
Rating: C

The problem with the second half of Angel: After the Fall is that it retains all of the problems of the first half, while losing much of the strengths.  Here, Angel: After the Fall ceases to really retain the tone of the earlier series, but becomes increasingly confusing.  One of the things that I love most about Joss Whedon in general is the humour, even if it’s something that makes you stop and scratch your head for a moment or feel bad because what you’re laughing at shouldn’t be funny.

Here After the Fall embarks on life-post Hell.  Everyone is trying to regroup and reconcile post the trauma that they’ve been through, without having actually lived through due to the tricky nature of time travel, and the world of magic and demons has been fully revealed to the people of L.A.  Throughout this arch the issue of humanity is approached repeatedly, as is the issue of how to make amends and overcome past deeds – which I have to admit relates really well to the overall theme of Angel the series.

The big problem that I had with the first half of After the Fall was that the art isn’t consistent, a problem that pops up once again in this half.  I actually really liked the art at the start of this half, but then that arch finished and things changed and once again I was left questioning who was who and what the hell was going on.  Making things worse is that there is a lot less overall continuity here, and many of the storylines of different arches are pretty much dropped at the end.  There seems to be less continuity among the characters, making the big reveals to be just all that much more confusing.  Another big issue that I had was that characters are introduced or reintroduced, then forgotten about.  I really did like how Nina and Kate returned to the series, but they seemed to be forgotten about midway through – similarly Gwen returns, then disappears.  This happens as well with main characters, and while this is sometimes covered by little miniseries that occur alongside the greater arch of After the Fall, the whole thing gets rather confusing.  Perhaps I was just missing the cues within the individual comics that a miniseries was coming up, but at times it really appeared as though I was reading a series that had crossover episodes with another show that I hadn’t watched yet.

The other problem is that a lot of the humour is really gone. The show worked really well as the opposition of two forces; usually Angel against someone else, and most notably in the final season Angel against Spike. The dynamic of the two souled vampires was one that in my opinion really saved the show (even if it didn’t go so far as to actually save the show), and is one that was really lacking in the comics. A lot of the time either Angel is gone, Spike is gone, or they’re both gone, and we’re left questioning where they are, what’s going on, and why is this so dark and bleak. I can do dark and bleak, but I like Joss because it integrates both the dark and bleak with the light and humourous really nicely. This is lacking here.

Another note; I really did like how this arch made reference to the many people that Angel has lost, both in terms of character deaths and actor deaths. I missed Lorne in the second half of the series, although I really respect the decision to not use him following the death of Andy Hallett I don’t think they did enough to explain his absence. There’s a shot later on in the series that shows all the Angel dead, with Wesley, Cordelia, Fred, and Lorne each being pictured (I can’t remember if Doyle was also shown), although Lorne’s death is never explained or even stated – it isn’t clear in this continuation if Lorne is still alive and just elsewhere – continuing his estrangement from the Angel crew following the demands Angel made of him in the finale – or if he’s died off screen.  Through the use of Wikipedia I was able to discover that there was a special Lorne tribute comic, which I love, but this wasn't explained in this comic, which I dislike.

Die Another Day (2002)

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Judi Dench, John Cleese, Halle Berry, Toby Stephens, Rick Yune, Rosamund Pike, Will Yun Lee, Michael Madsen, Rachel Grant

Director: Lee Tamahori

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this movie.  While it does escape from the evil Soviets plot, the twist did surprise me, and I really liked a lot of the references and allusions to previous Bonds, it was also overly complicated, cheesy, and a bit too much.  Roger Moore said of the film "I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space! Invisible cars and dodgy CGI footage? Please!"  That's actually pretty much exactly how I feel.  I like Brosnan overall as a Bond, but this movie in general felt like it should have been a Roger Moore one - and in my opinion, that's not a good thing.

The background to this is that Bond (Brosnan) was captured by the North Koreans while on a mission related to illegally traded African conflict diamonds.  After 14 months of captivity Bond is released in exchange for the release of North Korean agent Zao (Yune), whose face had been disfigured by diamond fragments during the struggle with Bond.  Once released, Bond is suspended from active duty because M (Dench) doesn't believe that he hasn't leaked information, so Bond escapes to complete his mission.  In Havana (because that where you go when your mission involves North Korea) Bond meets NSA agent Giacinti 'Jinx' Johnson (Berry), who he follows (along with Zao) to a gene therapy treatment, where more conflict diamonds are discovered, this time with the company crest of British billionaire Gustav Graves (Stephens).  Bond returns to England to continue the investigation, where he meets fellow MI6 agent Miranda Frost (Pike), who is undercover as Graves' assistant.  Points if you guess who's sleeping with who!

There's a lot about this movie that is really classic Bond and in a way, I admire Tamahori for trying to recreate that feel of the series.  The problem is, however, that you really can't go back.  What made movies like Dr. No work only worked because of the time in which they were created.  Outside of the sixties and seventies, classic Bond doesn't work as well; that was one of the problems of the Roger Moore films.  Die Another Day fails even more because in addition to trying to grasp that classic feel it also tries to incorporate new technology, namely CGI.  The result is rather disastrous.  No, the result is horrendous.  Actually, there's more to it than that.  Another part of the problem is that while trying to envoke a lot of the old classic feel Die fails to intentionally invoke the humour and the cheese.  As such, it's a lame and cheesy movie that fails to realize it's as much.  It's okay to be ridiculous, when you know that's what you're doing - that's why Dr. Strangelove is so awesome.  If you take yourself seriously but fail to be serious, you just don't work out in the end.

Octopussy (1983)

Starring: Roger Moore, Geoffrey Keen, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Steven Berkoff, Desmond Llewelyn, Kristina Wayborn, Kabir Bedi, Robert Brown, Douglas Wilmer

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

I went into this movie with a lot of doubt and hesitation.  One of my biggest complaints about this series as a whole has been the depiction of women and I was rather concerned when I saw the title.  I mean... Octopussy?  Really?  It's not the worst name for a woman that the Bond films have used, but it's pretty much up there.  The fact that this is one of the more recent films - it's from the eighties! - makes this a more bothersome fact.  I would hope that these movies would be getting less misogynistic as they go on, but alas.

Octopussy sees Bond (Moore) investigating the murder of another MI6 agent, 009 (Andy Bradford), and the replacement of a Fabergé egg with a fake.  Bond travels the world in order to find 009's killer and... along the way meets a woman named Octopussy (Adams) and uncovers a plot to detonate a nuclear warhead on an American army base.  Along the way there's also a ridiculous bit at the circus, because everyone wants to see Bond dressed up as a clown.

Honestly, I'm really not sure just what the hell happened in this movie.  It was just.... so very, very weird.  I'm not sure if I would say that I disliked it so much as it confused me and left me uninterested.  It tries to be serious but at the same time fails to be so in a way that just doesn't really work.  When it was on I wasn't really annoyed by it, but when it was over I wasn't really disappointed that it was over.  Actually, I was more relieved, which is never really a good sign for a movie.  James Bond, you can do better.

For Your Eyes Only (1981)

Starring: Roger Moore, Julian Glover, Carole Bouquet, Chaim Topol, Lynn-Holly Johnson

Director: John Glen

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

James Bond (Moore) is back, this time in an attempt to retrieve the Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (ATAC) from a British spy boat that has sunk in the Ionian Sea.  While there, Bond must also investigate the deaths of marine archaeologist Sir Timothy Havelock (Jack Hedley), who had been trying to locate the sunk boat for the British prior to his death.  If you suspect that Sir Timothy had a daughter who Bond ends up sleeping with, you'd be right. Her name is Melina (Bouquet), and she covers both For Your Eyes Only's racist and misogynist components.  Honestly, a part of me is starting to wonder if I'll miss the misogamy and racism once we start to get to the really contemporary films.  Rounding out the film is Greek intelligence informant Aristotle Kristatos (Glover), who guides Bond in Greece, Kristatos' protegee, figure skater Bibi Dahl (Johnson), smuggler Milos Columbo (Topol), and Columbo's mistress Countess Lisl von Schlaf (Cassandra Harris).  Surprisingly, only one of the two women in that list sleep with Bond, although not for lack of trying, but I'm not going to tell you which one fails to succeed.

A review of For Your Eyes Only by Derek Malcolm in The Guardian states that the movie is "too long...and pretty boring between the stunts."  This is pretty much exactly how I felt about For Your Eyes.  The stunts themselves were cool, but the movie overall was just long, dull, boring, and forgettable.  Having watched it all I can say is that I don't really care about it enough to comment much on it. It was unremarkable, and to comment further would be to pay too much attention to such a movie.  I will say, though, that I'm looking forward to being done with the Roger Moore Bonds.  I'm not a big fan of his.

So You Think You Can Dance (Season 9)

Starring: Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy, Cat Deeley

Creator: Nigel Lythgoe and Simon Fuller

Genre: Reality, Dance, Competition

Rating: C

I was rather disappointed by this season of So You Think You Can Dance.  I haven't been a fan of the show for long - this is only the third season that I've watched as it airs - but I've always previously enjoyed it.  I had my favourites in season 7 (the first season I watched), and loved the dances in season 8 even if I knew who was going to win for a long time.  This time round... the judging and eliminations in general seemed so at random that I really didn't know who to root for.  It seemed like I would pick new favourites each week only to have them eliminated the next week.

The biggest problem with the season, which related rather nicely to the above critique, is the airing.  Things moved really fast but at the same time really slow; the season seemed to go on forever (especially in the try-out period, which lasted for four weeks because of the elimination of the second weekly episode) and was repeatedly delayed in airing - the Olympics and the Fourth of July both did the show a disservice.  Rather than just have the show go on longer, things were changed by doing double eliminations, to the great disservice to the dancers.

Because of the removal of the results episode the eliminations took place at the end of each episode. I'm not really sure how I feel about this; for one it made the episode feel even more cramped, especially as they also tried to add in performances by various dance companies.  I enjoy the showcase and understand why the show does it, but I felt like this really did a lot to prevent us from getting to know the dancers.  It wasn't until near the end of the season that I really felt like the show began to invest in showcasing the dancer's personalities - which is sad, because it does a lot for helping them get votes.  In years past I've always known the names of everyone that makes it onto the show, this time round I didn't really know everyone until the top 10.

There were some amazing moments in the show and some amazing dancers in it.  Even the ones who weren't as diverse were still amazing at what they did and I really did enjoy watching the dance.  I just rather felt that throughout the whole season it was this poorly guided last hurrah for the series.  Between the way it was treated while it aired and the fact that Fox eliminated the Results show I wouldn't be surprised if this was the last season of So You Think You Can Dance.  Which is sad, it'll be a part of my summer TV that I'll miss.  I won't, however, miss Nigel Lythgoe being a creepy perv when judging the young, attractive dancers.

The Expendables (2010)

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Stratham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steve Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke

Director: Sylvester Stallone

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller

Rating: C

This was not a good movie.  The plot was lame, the acting was mediocre, the…. Really, the everything was not good.  The thing that I liked about The Expendables, however, is that it is exactly what it presents itself as.  This movie is little more than a mindless action flick filled with a bunch of old action stars.  It’s not trying to be anything more than that, it’s not pretending to be anything more than that.  Consequently, while the movie itself is definitely bad it’s also fun.

Because the plot technically is important, I’ll summarize the premise.  The Expendables are a group of bikers and elite mercenaries, lead by Barney Ross (Stallone), and composed of a ragtag group of fighters, many of whom look like they’re dangerously close to overdosing on steroids.      Ross is given a contract to overthrow a dictator in an island in the Gulf of Mexico, where things all go to shit.

This movie is unbelievably predictable and ridiculous and tried and tested and true.  And it’s awesome because despite all that it’s fun.  It’s totally the movie that you watch after a long day when you just want to see stuff blow up.  To be fair, though, that’s what most of Stallone’s movies are like, along with most of the rest of the cast.  This isn’t good, but it’s fun.

 

Hit and Run (2012)

Starring: Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Kristin Chenoweth, Tom Arnold, Bradley Cooper

Director: Dax Shepard and David Palmer

Genre: Action, Comedy, Romance

Rating: C

A few weeks ago I saw the trailer for Hit and Run for the first time and found myself laughing at it.  I very promptly chastised myself for laughing at a movie trailer that had Tom Arnold in it.  But the movie looked funny and the premise interesting, so despite the fact that it featured Tom Arnold I decided to go see Hit and Run.  My God, do I wish I hadn’t.

Hit and Run is the story about a guy, in the Witness Protection.  Charlie Bronson (Shepard) has lived in the middle of nowhere, California (I believe) for a number of years now because after a bank robbery, for which he was the getaway driver, went sour he sold out his friends.  His life is good, until he finds out that his girlfriend of a year, Annie (Bell) has the opportunity for an amazing job in LA.  Despite the fact that his former friends all live in LA Charlie decides that it’s totally smart for him to go to LA – without the aid of his assigned US Marshal, Randy (Arnold).  It all goes to shit, however, when Annie’s ex, Gil (Michael Rosenbaum) figures out Charlie’s real name and contacts Alex Dimitri (Cooper), the guy Charlie sold out.

I’ve been on a bit of a ‘start with the good stuff’ kick lately, so let’s break it.  The problem with Hit and Run is that it really isn’t funny.  There are funny moments, and I absolutely loved a lot of the scenes between Shepard and Bell, but for the most part it’s really just kind of lame.  Tom Arnold stopped being funny about the time he divorced Roseanne Barr, and I would even go so far as to question if he was funny before then.  I’m really hit or miss with Bradley Cooper - sometimes he’s funny, sometimes he pushes the joke too far – but I think when paired with Dax Shepard, who can be of a similar nature, disasterous results ensue.  Oddly enough, though, the real disappointment of the movie was Kristen Bell herself.  While I love Bell’s work in previous films, I found myself really bothered by her appearance in Hit and Run.  The entire time it was just a case of “why are you in this movie?” – with the answer being “because you’re sleeping with the director.”  It’s a joke that’s often made of bad performances, and while Kristen Bell’s performance was far from bad, the knowledge that she’s engaged to the director makes me think that the only reason she sunk so low as to do this movie was because she’s engaged to the director.  That or because Dax Shepard gave her a sloth.

In the good, though, there is the chemistry between Shepard and Bell.  Their off screen relationship transitioned really nicely onto the screen, with my favourite moments of this movie being the tenderness between the two of them.  The film’s opening scene was really beautiful and I liked the way that they kind of bookended it at the ending.  In many ways I kind of felt that the two of them were playing charicatures of themselves and the relationship that they had was based on their real life relationship.  A lot of the little things that happen between the two are things that you’ll see in reality but not in movies, which was nice.  The movie made me feel like the way that Charlie and Annie were must be a reflection of the way that Dax and Kristen are – while I acknowledge that there’s no real basis for such an opinion, they are acting, I do think it’s a sign of good acting, no matter how bad the movie itself turned out.

Diamonds Are Forever (1971)

Starring: Sean Connery, Bernard Lee, Jill St. John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood, Jimmy Dean, Bruce Glover, Bruce Cabot, Putter Smith

Director: Guy Hamilton
Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller
Rating: C

Okay, so this movie literally features a scene when Bond is being attacked – in a violent sense of the word – by two underwear clad women named Bambi (Lola Larson) and Thumper (Trina Parks). In a couple of the reviews so far I’ve said that while the plot devices were cheesy at least they didn’t reach the level seen in Austin Powers. I now have to take that back – this officially hits a point lamer than in Austin Powers. I was definitely disappointed.

Diamonds Are Forever is - surprise, surprise - about diamonds.  After seemingly killing Blofeld and a Blofeld (Gray) look-alike, Bond (Connery) is given the task of uncovering a diamond smuggling ring.  Here he poses as smuggler Peter Franks (Joe Robinson), while killing the real Franks, whose body is then passed off as Bond - Bond faking his own death seems to be a common theme in these movies.  While investigating the whole thing, Bond also sleeps with women, notably diamond smuggler Tiffany Case (St. John).

This movie is ridiculously campy.  While many of the other movies (so far) have had huge elements of camp Diamonds Are Forever takes this to a whole new level - from villains Bambi and Thumper to the dull Bond girl, the portrayal of Blofeld, and the overall plot.  Bond movies are supposed to be sophisticated, classy, and dangerous... this one's just kind of lame.  It's really a rather sad note for Connery to have gone out on, although he will be back for the non-Eon Bond film Never Say Never Again.

Lawless (2012)

Starring: Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Guy Pearce

Director: John Hillcoat

Genre: Crime, Drama, Western

Rating: C

I was really disappointed by this movie.  There was a lot about it that should have been good - that could have been good - but ended up sadly failing.  I don't think I've ever actually watched a Gary Oldman movie that I didn't like before, and perhaps that's where this could have gone right.  Movie makers of the world, take note: more Gary Oldman is always a good thing.

Based on the book The Wettest County in the World by Matt Bondurant (grandson and great-nephew of the Bondurant brothers featured in both book and film) Lawless takes us to Franklin County, Virginia during the Prohibition.  The film follows three brothers, Forrest (Hardy), Howard (Clarke), and Jack (LaBeouf) as they come up against the law, primarily in the form of Special Agent Charlie Rakes (Pearce).  The Bondurants are moonshine bootleggers who refuse to give a cut of their profits to the law, causing the law to begin to try to find ways to get rid of them - typical violent ways - pushing them towards a relationship with mobster Floyd Banner (Oldman).  Along the way both Forrest and Jack find love; Forrest in former Chicago dancer Maggie Beauford (Chastain) and Jack in the form of Bertha Minnix (Wasikowska), the daughter of a preacher (who I think might've been Amish or some similar religion).

To start, Lawless has an amazing cast.  With the exception of LaBeouf, who's movies tend to get mixed reviews, and Clarke, who I really don't know from anything else, there is an amazing cast here.  I mean, Jessica Chastain alone has won or been nominated in awards for almost every movie she's been in so far - and not awards like MTV Movie Awards, I mean BAFTAs and Oscars.  And that's without taking into consideration the fact that Gary Oldman is in this movie - Gary Oldman, who was described as "one of the best actors on the planet" by film critic Peter Travers.  When you see a cast like this, you should be able to expect greatness from a movie.  Something more than just the typical shoot 'em up type film.

In many ways, this is where Lawless fails.  It's trying to be more than your typical shoot 'em up type film but fails because it doesn't properly utilize its cast.  The best parts of the movie were the scenes with Chastain and Hardy or anything with Oldman, but Lawless wanted to focus more on LaBeouf and his adventures.  I haven't read the book, so I can't say what the source material does, but the story of the quiet and rough Forrest and his relationship with the far more sophisticated Maggie is a lot more interesting than anything Jack does.

What Lawless does with Jack is nothing short of predictable.  It's not really a shoot 'em up type film, but it's stereotyped of a lot of western and crime type movies.  Watching it you know what's going to happen long before it happens - at least when it comes to Jack.  There's a bit of unpredictability with Forrester, and a lot with Howard (who really, should be described as a drunk lunatic and thus by nature of his character is unpredictable), but the other stories... I know what's going to happen. It's obvious.  I usually try to avoid going into spoilers and talking about the endings (or at least not being graphic when I do so), but I feel like with Lawless I could detail the entire movie, right down to the end, and no one would be surprised about it - well, no one who watches movies at least.  Oh, and Oldman?  Completely under utilized.  He only had a handful of scenes, maybe two of which were actual speaking parts.  I loved his performance, but there definitely wasn't enough of it.  Once again: movie makers of the world please remember you can always use more Gary Oldman.

One good thing did potentially come out of my seeing this movie.  I now have a desire to read the book that it's based on.  If it's anything like your typical book-to-movie conversion - in which a great book becomes a rather shittastic movie - I think The Wettest County in the World could be a really interesting read.  It at least appears to have gotten better reviews on Goodreads than Lawless has anywhere.