Recommendations: December 21

This Is 40 - The sort-of sequel to Knocked Up, This is 40 follows Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) a few years after the events of Knocked Up, presumably without going into them as neither Katherine Heigl nor Seth Rogen are appearing.  Pete and Debbie were by far the best parts of Knocked Up and this looks pretty funny, so I'd say check it out.

Zero Dark Thirty - The movie about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, this one's being given a limited release right now, presumably so that it's out in time for the awards season.  Director Kathryn Bigelow definitely knows how to play the controversial card while still being good and her last war film, The Hurt Locker, made her the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director - despite being up against James Cameron's Avatar.

Jack Reacher - Another book-to-movie adaptation, Jack Reacher follows homicide investigator Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) as he goes after a trained military sniper.  Cruise's character here appears to be a bit mentally unstable, but at the same time is also returning Cruise to the action roots that we came to really love him for.  It could be good, it could be bad, but I'm willing to give him a chance.

The Guilt Trip - Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen pair up as a mother-son duo on a road trip.  This is another one that could be really good or really bad, I'm going to go with good.

The Impossible - I suspect I already know how this one's going to end, having watched just the trailer.  The Impossible follows a family torn apart during the mayham of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.  I expect that this will be good and I will cry.

On the Road - The latest book-to-movie adaptation of a Jack Kerouac novel, this one takes to the road and has a cast that makes me really want to see it.  It's not gotten the best of reviews so far, though, so I don't think I would hold your breath expecting greatness.

Pitch Perfect - This movie is absolutely awesome.  Pitch Perfect knew exactly what it was trying to be and completely went with it.  It was a full out comedy without attempts at being a serious drama as well.  The one liners just don't stop, and the music is actually pretty good too.

Total Recall - The remake of the original, this movie wasn't really well received but I enjoyed it.  Don't try to make sense out of it, but just enjoy the sci-fi action.

Trouble with the Curve - This is another one of those ones that could have been more than it was.  It was okay, but definitely didn't live up to the expectations.

Arbitrage - I haven't seen this one yet, but I really want to.  At one point it had awards buzz around it, but the reviews it's gotten have since silenced them - I suspect that this is going to be like Trouble with the Curve in that it'll be enjoyable but not nearly as good as it should have been.

Liberal Arts - Okay, so I want to see this because Zac Efron's in it.  It's one of the artsy movies that he ends up in that no one actually ever hears about.

Premium Rush - This was a fun movie.  Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and about bike messengers, it somehow still has the suspense of an intense thriller and at least some of the action of a good action flick.  Check it out if you haven't already.

10 Years - Another one of those probably not really good indie flicks starring a cast that I enjoy watching.  10 Years seems like it's really one of those flicks you just watch for fun.

A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens' Christmas classic, A Christmas Carol is the story of one Ebenezer Scrooge, who is visited by Jacob Marely and the three Ghosts of Christmas (Past, Present, and Yet to Come), one Christmas Eve.  A classic in the purest sense of the word, A Christmas Carol has been adapted by roughly everything and has always been one of my favourite books to read in the week leading up to Christmas.

Total Recall (1990)

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Rating: B+

This is what a classic science fiction, action movie looks like.  The special effects and the futuristic world are totally ridiculous and the acting isn't the best (hey, it's stars Arnold), but the script is great, the movie is smart, and the characters envoke emotion.

For some time, Earth construction worker Douglas Quaid (Shwarzenegger) has been having a reoccurring dream about Mars and a mysterious woman there (Ticotin).  He expresses a desire to go there despite it's political problems, which his wife Lori (Stone) and everyone around him discourages.  Finally he decides to visit Rekall, a place where memories are implanted into your brain - he selects the spy mission to Mars.  Except, while he's under something begins to go wrong and suddenly it appears that Quaid is in fact a spy from Mars whose memory was wiped and everyone, from the governor of the colony of Mars, Vilos Cohaagn (Cox), and his chief lieutenant, Richter (Ironside), to Quaid's wife are trying to kill him.  Quaid must fight to survive and figure out just who he is, and maybe get back the woman of his dreams, before being killed himself - or, is it all a dream, implanted into his mind by Rekall?

Total Recall was all about screwing with our minds and making us doubt the entire premise of a movie years before Christopher Nolan had even thought about Inception.  Even at the end of the film you're not really sure whether or not Quaid's adventure was real and if he is in fact just having some paranoid delusion while strapped into a chair in Rekall.  It's the ultimate spinning top.  But paranoid delusion or not, the film has you on the edge of your seat hoping that Quaid's going to survive and get the girl and the whole shebang.  You hope that this is really happening and isn't just the delusions of some Average Joe - because, really, Arnold Schwarzenegger could totally pass as an Average Joe.

Really, actually I think that's the biggest flaw in this movie, the idea of Arnold being some construction worker nobody.  It's the one improvement that the remake made - sure, Colin Farrell's hot and that'll make him stand out in a crowd, but in the land of a Hollywood movie where everyone's beautiful, at least he isn't built like Schwarzenegger.  I mean, the guy doesn't really blend into a crowd, which is kind of essential to the plot of Total Recall.  But if that's my biggest complaint, that Schwarzenegger doesn't blend into a crowd and look like he could pass as Average Joe, then it just goes to show how good this movie is.  It's not my only complaint - I do hate how lame all the technology is - but it's the only one that's really founded.  The technology may be big and bulky and look like it belongs on the set of Star Trek: The Original Series instead of a movie from the early nineties, but at the same time technology then really did look like that.  Total Recall's technology in itself isn't really trying to look like what future technology should look like, but rather be 'futuristic' in style - Mars Rover or not, Man has not colonized another planet, nor can they stick electronic tracking devices up people's noses, or implant memories in their brains.  It might not look futuristic to us, but it still is futuristic.

Total Recall (2012)

Starring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Jon Cho, Bill Nighy

Director: Len Wiseman

Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Rating: B-

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I actually really enjoyed this movie.  The acting isn't superb, the plot is weak at points, it's not really moving on an emotional level or funny or anything.  At its core, Total Recall is a mindless action flick set in a dystopian future.  It isn't meant to have a great plot or great acting or connect on an emotional level (the lack of funny, however, is a bit of a disappointment).  It's supposed to have awesome chase scenes, mind blowing special effects, and cool gun fights.  Total Recall has all of this and more - in addition to it all, it also has this awesome futuristic world.  Sure the science is sketchy, but damnit, it's science fiction.  The science doesn't have to be right, it's fiction.

Total Recall follows factory worker Douglas Quaid (Farrell) as he begins to realize that his life is not exactly what it seems.  After a series of nightmares in which he is a spy of some sorts running from the police, Quaid decides to visit Rekall, a company that implants memories into its clients.  You can go anywhere, do anything, be anything.  While he's at Rekall, however, things go horribly wrong and before he's even put under it's revealed that Quaid is in fact a spy, who worked for a resistance movement.  From here his life goes to shit as his wife, Lori (Beckinsale), reveals that she isn't really his wife but rather a cop who's been assigned to watch him.  Quaid must flee from her, and by extension the entire paramilitary police force of both the United Federation of Britain (UFB) and the Colony (otherwise known as Australia), the only two habitual land masses on the planet.  Oh, and in it all, the girl from his dreams, Melina (Biel), appears.

The plot and characters in Total Recall are somewhat weak.  There isn't really the emotional connection between them and the viewer that the original film had.  I will give the film a lot of credit, however, in that it doesn't just totally rip off the original movie; while it follows the same basic plot and much of the general storyline, it also goes on a number of different directions.  This Total Recall is a lot more political than its predecessor, although never in a really original way.  It's very much anti-militaristic totalitarian and rather pro-workers, which is pretty much what you expect of a movie like this.  There's a lot of development towards this aspect of the plot, just not the characters themselves - I actually don't think I would have known the name of Biel's character if not for Wikipedia (and the fact that it's the same name as used in the 1990 version).

That being said, though, the movie's fun.  The special effects are cool, the chase scenes are hot. Every action movie is pretty much required to have a chase scene at one point or another, and in Total Recall it does so with hover cars.  Hover car chase scenes are the best.  The science is a bit wonky, but who cares - they go through the center of the earth.  Going through the center of the earth is always awesome.  The thing with the original Total Recall is that, while it's got a good plot and is emotionally charged the futuristic elements are rather lame and dated.  It's something that's a bit characteristic of older science fiction movies, which makes them a bit annoying to watch in the present day.  In this Total Recall, however, everything is slick and smooth and very much along the lines of what the future would look like if current trends continue.  I'm sure in another twenty years I'll be saying that the futuristic technology used in this Total Recall is rather old, dated, and lame when they remake the movie again, but for now it looked damn awesome.

I think, though, that my favourite part of this movie was the way that it differed from the original film while also paying tribute to it.  There's no Mars, but they mention it.  There's no huge brothel, but there's still a three breasted prostitute (no midget prostitute, however, sorry).  There's a fat woman who's travelling to the UFB for two weeks.  There are more moments like this, and to be honest every time they happened I smiled.  I enjoyed them.  Total Recall knew it was a remake of an older classic and assumes that you've seen the original.  It doesn't try to be some grand, fantastic movie.  It's a mindless action flick, and it does mindless action damn well.

Recommendations: August 3

Total Recall - Did you know that Elizabeth Taylor once called Colin Farrell the reincarnation of Richard Burton?  His movies might not always be good, but I do have to say I always find them to be pretty enjoyable, so I'm looking forward to this remake of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger film.

That's kind of it, actually.  Sorry.

Total Recall - the Mind-Bending Edition has been released on Blu-Ray this week, presumably to try to cash in on the remake's release.  How can you really go wrong with a classic Arnold film?

The Seven Year Itch - There's a kick to put classic films on Blu-Ray lately, and this week the focus seems to be on Marilyn Monroe movies.  There are five being re-released this week, with Seven Year Itch being my favourite of the bunch.

Pete Smalls Is Dead - Okay, so I've never actually heard of this movie before and it's rating on IMDb isn't exactly the best (it's scored exactly 5.0).  But, it stars Lena Headey and Peter Dinklage.  Just Dinklage alone is enough to get me to see a movie, but the combination of his Game of Thrones counterpart makes this something that I need to see, 5.0 rating or not.

Tara Road - In commemoration of the passing of author Maeve Binchy I'm recommending Tara Road, the only work of hers that I've ever actually read.  The novel is about two women, one Irish the other American, who decide to escape their problems by trading houses, despite never having actually met.  It's kind of like The Holiday, but better.