[Trailer] Edge of Tomorrow

The new trailer for Doug Liman’s Tom Cruise led sci-fi epic looks visually impressive with a derivative plot, much like Cruise’s recent Oblivion. The idea doesn’t seem original because it feels like a hodgepodge of the Starship Troopers (book), The Forever War (book) and Groundhog Day. The oddest thing is that I found it all rather intriguing, check out the trailer below…

Cindy Prascik's Review of Out of The Furnace

Dearest Blog, yesterday I used my trip "recovery day" to catch up on the weekend's cinema. On my agenda: the locally-filmed drama Out of the Furnace.

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't have learned from the trailers.

After four tours of Iraq, a soldier (Casey Affleck) returns home and gets himself in trouble with a brutal criminal (Woody Harrelson), leaving his hard-luck brother (Christian Bale) to try and sort things out.

Trailers for Out of the Furnace were promising, and--with this group of actors--how bad could it be, right? Well...

The cast is, to a person, very very good, but unfortunately a full third of the dialogue is unintelligible. It's like a whole movie full of Ennis Del Mars! I can't say the accent/diction would have been the actors' call. I can say I live near where this movie is set and was filmed, and nobody around here talks that way. It was a very poor choice and almost lost me before the film even hit its halfway point. Christian Bale gets plenty of "I never learned to read!!" Oscar-clip moments, and his co-stars don't come up short in that regard, either. Affleck has some solid moments as the veteran coming off the rails, and Harrelson is especially effective as the film's baddie. The lovely Zoe Saldana holds her own with her decorated co-stars, in a more limited role.

Out of the Furnace conveys hopelessness and despair with every frame. From the dying mill to the family's claustrophobic home to their ugly neighborhood, all of it looks like someplace you'd never want to be, which is exactly where the main characters are...not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. Bale's character might well have been called "Job" for the bad luck he endures, and that seemed very contrived after a point. Much like Gravity before it, the number of things that had to go wrong to get Out of the Furnace where it's going were too unbelievable. The movie also shows its hand pretty early on, leaving little in the way of twists or surprises. The first act is painfully slow and, while the finale picks up a bit, I still lost count of how often I checked the time. In my sparsely-attended weekday screening, a couple people left and didn't come back.

Out of the Furnace clocks in at 116 minutes, which feels like about eight hours. It is rated R for "strong violence, language, and drug content."

Out of the Furnace is a hard film to rate, weighing the huge discrepancy between top-notch performances and the lack of anything else to recommend it. It definitely gets a full point deducted for making me listen to Pearl Jam, a band I despise with the fire of a thousand suns, not just once, but twice!! I suppose we'll say, of a possible nine Weasleys, Out of the Furnace gets four and a half.

Until next time...



I liked you better when you were Batman!

[Trailer] Godzilla 2014

The first teaser trailer for Gareth Edwards redux of Godzilla is out and it does its job perfectly, setting up tone and atmosphere.

We don’t get a clear view of Godzilla but it sure looks like it’ll actually be Godzilla and not some unrecognizable beast like the 1998 film, which also had an excellent teaser trailer I might add. For now, I’ll give Gareth Edward the benefit of the doubt…..

MOVIE REVIEW: RED 2

Frank (Bruce Willis), Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), and Marvin (John Malkovich) fight an unrelenting onslaught of hired killers, heavily armed terrorists, and powerful government officials in their desperate race to prevent a missing portable nuclear device from falling into the wrong hands. Sir Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Lee Byung-hun, and Catherine Zeta Jones co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Dean Parisot

Cast: Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Mary-Louise Parker, Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren

Release Date: Jul 19, 2013

Rated PG-13 for pervasive action and violence including frenetic gunplay, and for some language and drug material.

Runtime: 1 hr. 56 min.

Review:

I’ll be upfront and say that I enjoyed Red 2 much more than I probably should have. It’s overlong somewhat predictable and incredibly stupid but it delivers the kind of mindless fun I look for occasionally. Dean Parisot direction is far from perfect but he excels with the outlandish action set pieces which are lots of fun. Unfortunately there are plenty of dead spots throughout, the film could have easily been trimmed by a good half hour. By the end of the film even the action pieces start to drag on because the film just seems to go on forever. Still, the cast is clearly enjoying themselves with expanded roles for Mary-Louise Parker and Helen Mirren which I consider a positive. Anthony Hopkins and Lee Byung-hun inject some good energy while Catherine Zeta Jones isn’t nearly as effective as you’d expect. Bruce Willis is on cruise control letting the supporting players do the heavy lifting. Red 2 is a film that’s easy to watch and just as easy to forget.

C+

MOVIE REVIEW WE’RE THE MILLERS

A low-level pot dealer poses as a family man in order to pay back a debt to his supplier in this comedy starring Saturday Night Live alumni Jason Sudeikis. When David attempts to perform a good deed and gets robbed in the process, however, his supplier Brad (Ed Helms) is none too happy. Now, in order to pay Brad back before the hammer drops, David must retrieve a big drug shipment from Mexico and sneak back across the border undetected. It's a risky job for sure, but with the help of a few neighbors David might just pull it off. With sardonic stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston) assuming the role of housewife, teenage misfit Kenny (Will Poulter) posing as the awkward son, and rebellious Casey (Emma Roberts) filling in as his sister, David slips on some khakis, and starts heading south. Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, and Ken Marino co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Director: Rawson Marshall Thurber

Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Will Poulter, Emma Roberts, Ed Helms

Release Date: Aug 07, 2013

Rated R for crude sexual content, pervasive language, drug material and brief graphic nudity.

Runtime: 1 hr. 50 min.

Genres: Action/Adventure, Comedy

Review:

We’re the Millers is fun raunchy little romp of movie with cartoonish characters in cartoonish situations. It’s well aware of the type of film it is but for some reason it wants to tack on a redemptive ending for some generally bad characters. Personally I’ve never understood why raunchy comedies feel the need to teach its characters a lesson especially when it doesn’t make sense. Jason Sudeikis’s character is more or less jerk, albeit a funny one, throughout until he has his A-HA moment in an eye rolling moment. I know I’ve probably belabored the point about the ending but it does kind of leave a WTF taste in your mouth. Regardless, the better portion of the film is consistently funny while remaining fairly harmless for an R rated film. Aniston, who I can’t stand for some reason, is solid throughout even though her chemistry with Sudeikis is extremely forced. Will Poulter is lots of fun while Emma Roberts comes across as nondescript in an underwritten role. We’re The Millers isn’t going to be considered a classic but it’s the perfect kind of comedy for a lazy afternoon.

B-

Cindy Prascik's Reviews of Homefront & Enough Said

Dearest Blog, over the long weekend I was fortunate to make two trips to two different cinemas. Thanks to the busy weekend, I'm only just posting my reviews. Apologies for the delay.

Spoiler level here will be mild-ish, I guess.

Thanks to my benevolent employer dismissing at noon on Wednesday, I spent my afternoon enjoying Jason Statham's latest flick, Homefront.

A former DEA agent moves with his daughter to a small town, which proves less peaceful than expected when he has to face off with the local meth dealer.

Statham Disclaimer (yes, he has his own disclaimer): Jason Statham is one of my favorite people who makes movies, and he almost unerringly makes movies I like. Opening weekend isn't good enough for Statham movies; I'm willing to burn vacation time to see them opening day. I am perfectly capable of loving a terrible movie just because Jason Statham in it (though that's not always the case).

I think Homefront would have been a good enough movie with or without Statham, but for Statham fans there's no denying it's a happy return to form after the drudgery of Redemption (a.k.a. Hummingbird).

Homefront does a nice job of maintaining tension throughout, and really kept me on the edge of my seat. There's not only the obvious good guy versus bad guy plot, but also the more relatable theme of trying to fit in...an idea that probably terrifies me more than the prospect of a firefight with the local drug lord! As you would expect in any movie that involves drug dealers, there's a fair bit of gun violence and things blowing up, but, for the most part we get to see Statham in hand-to-hand combat, which is definitely where he shines. It's all the more entertaining for knowing he insists on doing as much of his own stunt-work as the insurance will allow!

James Franco serves as an oddly-perfect foil to Statham's tough guy, and (to me, anyway) the character was enjoyable despite being a generally horrible person. Kate Bosworth is freakishly accurate as Franco's druggie sister, and Winona Ryder looks born to play the role of a meth-head prostitute. It was nice to see Omar Benson Miller again, too, reminding me how much I actually miss the idiotic glory of CSI: Miami.

Homefront runs 100 minutes and is rated R for "strong violence, pervasive language, drug content, and brief sexuality."

Come awards season, Homefront won't make anyone's lists, but, for my money, it was one of the more enjoyable afternoons I've passed at the cinema this year. Of a possible nine Weasleys, Homefront gets seven.

On Saturday, my Mother, who normally wouldn't sit through a movie if someone demanded it at gunpoint, got in her head that she wanted to see the flick playing at our tiny local theatre, which shows some smaller and indie releases when it isn't hosting live performances from our local theatre troupe. As my luck would have it, the film they were showing last weekend was the Julia Louis-Dreyfuss/James Gandolfini rom-com, Enough Said. (I must have crossed paths with a black cat or broken a mirror or something.)

Eva (Louis-Dreyfuss) and Albert (Gandolfini) meet at a party and get romantically involved...but another party guest may ruin the relationship.

I don't think I need to tell anyone that, of all the genres in all of cinema, the romantic comedy is my least favorite by a mile. The only way I'll consider a rom-com is if it stars someone I absolutely can't miss, or if I get pressganged into it. (Read: Mother wants to go to the local movie house on Small Business Saturday.) That's not to say I can't be won over by such a film if it's cute or the characters are likable enough, but unfortunately Enough Said embodies absolutely everything I hate about romantic comedies and then some.

Enough Said is a criminal waste of its two stellar leads, who manage to turn in nice performances while reciting some of the dopiest dialogue I've ever heard outside a Twilight movie. I understand that, to some degree, it's meant to convey the discomfort of getting used to someone new, but too much of it is just bad. Both characters are divorced with daughters about to head off to college, and the kids are so vile I wanted to bang their heads together. (As my sister says, "I don't understand how anyone decides to have kids once they've met a teenager.") The rancid icing on this putrid cake was having to look at my least-favorite actress, Toni Collette, who had more screen time than anyone other than the two main characters. That woman makes me want to throw a shoe at the screen! (If you were wondering, I didn't.)

Enough Said sells those tired, old rom-com principles: there's someone for everyone, nice people should give even the most awful people a second chance, and everyone deserves a happy ending, all of which are less believable to me than anything I've ever seen in a Marvel film or Claymation Christmas special. With the exception of Albert, I found every single character so unlikable that the movie's brief runtime felt like about six hours, and I left thinking they all deserved to die alone and miserable.

Enough Said clocks in at 93 minutes. It is rated PG13 for "crude and sexual content, comic violence, language, and partial nudity." Its impressive IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes ratings tell me I'm in the minority, but I hated nearly every minute. Of a possible nine Weasleys, Enough Said gets three.

Finally, though it relates to neither of this week's films, I want to acknowledge the unexpected passing of Paul Walker over the weekend. When I first I saw the news, I spent the next hour refreshing the screen and hoping someone would prove it a hoax, until his reps officially confirmed via his official Facebook and Twitter. Walker seemed like a genuinely decent guy who was universally well-loved, particularly by his Fast & Furious family and fans, and I am having a hard time shaking off the blues over this one. So, rest peacefully, Paul Walker, and thanks for all the fun times at the movies.

Until next time...