Here’s what’s been keeping my eyeballs stimulated lately:
The Last King of Scotland. Decent. To be honest, outside of
Pan’s Labyrinth, I wasn’t too impressed with any of the Oscar-nominated movies I saw this year, and this was no exception. Forest Whitaker was
pretty good as Idi Amin, but I think it’s criminal that James McAvoy gets no play on the DVD cover. He probably had more screen time than Whitaker, and in my opinion, was just as strong in terms of acting.
Spider-Man 3. Boo. As a comic reader and life-long Spidey fan, it hurts me to say that. But this movie was guilty of trying way too hard. One too many villains and two too many plotlines, at the expense of character development. Instead of throwing Sandman in there solely to have 3 scenes to show off the neat tricks CGI can do these days, how about spending a little more time developing the tension between Peter and Mary Jane so that I might actually care whether they stay together or not? And that dance scene? Please. The Venom suit is supposed to turn Peter into a badass, not a gay man stuck in the disco age. What is this, Spider-Man or A Chorus Line? This movie’s lack of quality is sad, but not entirely unexpected. One need look only as far as the X-Men trilogy and the Batman movies of the 90’s to know that the 3rd movie of a comic book franchise is where it all goes wrong. Unfortunately, Spidey 3 is hauling in wagons full of money, so Hollywood will take that as validation to make more crap.
Smokin’ Aces. Speaking of lack of character development... I couldn’t believe so many decent actors (Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Andy Garcia, and even my old pal Affleck) ended up in this glorified music video until I saw that it was directed by Joe Carnahan, who also directed the fantastic
Narc. Based on the strength of that film, I’m not surprised so many actors wanted to work with him. But now I can’t understand how Carnahan went from Narc to this mindless muddled shoot-’em-up. A bunch of hired killers are trying to kill Jeremy Piven, who’s holed up in a Lake Tahoe penthouse with a bunch of coke and hookers. (Based on what I’ve heard of the life of Piven, doesn’t sound like much of a stretch.) Something about testifying against the Mob, yada yada, now shoot things up. Obviously, the writers didn’t care much beyond that, so neither did I.
Shaun of the Dead. Lest you think I’m going to trash everything I’ve watched lately, here’s a movie I really liked. It had a bit of everything—comedy, romance, zombies, and British accents. What else do you need? I know this was intended to be a send-up of zombie movies, but it works on so many levels, it goes well beyond simple satire. Like all good movies, it’s built around a solid story. Beyond that, everything else is gravy. Oh, and in between all that other stuff I mentioned, they still managed to get me to care about Shaun and his friends. How about that? Maybe Hollywood can take a lesson from the Brits in the lost art of character development. Now I really want to see
Hot Fuzz.
The Wire: The Complete Second Season. I know this doesn’t really fit with the title of my post, but The Wire has been more entertaining to me lately than 90% of the movies I’ve watched in the past 6 months. I was warned that season 2 starts off a little slowly, but I’m still fascinated by the way the show’s writers manage to tie so many disparate threads together into one cohesive whole. I haven’t been this absorbed by a show since the first two seasons of Lost.
The Last King of Scotland. Decent. To be honest, outside of Pan’s Labyrinth, I wasn’t too impressed with any of the Oscar-nominated movies I saw this year, and this was no exception. Forest Whitaker was pretty good as Idi Amin, but I think it’s criminal that James McAvoy gets no play on the DVD cover. He probably had more screen time than Whitaker, and in my opinion, was just as strong in terms of acting.
Spider-Man 3. Boo. As a comic reader and life-long Spidey fan, it hurts me to say that. But this movie was guilty of trying way too hard. One too many villains and two too many plotlines, at the expense of character development. Instead of throwing Sandman in there solely to have 3 scenes to show off the neat tricks CGI can do these days, how about spending a little more time developing the tension between Peter and Mary Jane so that I might actually care whether they stay together or not? And that dance scene? Please. The Venom suit is supposed to turn Peter into a badass, not a gay man stuck in the disco age. What is this, Spider-Man or A Chorus Line? This movie’s lack of quality is sad, but not entirely unexpected. One need look only as far as the X-Men trilogy and the Batman movies of the 90’s to know that the 3rd movie of a comic book franchise is where it all goes wrong. Unfortunately, Spidey 3 is hauling in wagons full of money, so Hollywood will take that as validation to make more crap.
Smokin’ Aces. Speaking of lack of character development... I couldn’t believe so many decent actors (Ray Liotta, Jeremy Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Andy Garcia, and even my old pal Affleck) ended up in this glorified music video until I saw that it was directed by Joe Carnahan, who also directed the fantastic Narc. Based on the strength of that film, I’m not surprised so many actors wanted to work with him. But now I can’t understand how Carnahan went from Narc to this mindless muddled shoot-’em-up. A bunch of hired killers are trying to kill Jeremy Piven, who’s holed up in a Lake Tahoe penthouse with a bunch of coke and hookers. (Based on what I’ve heard of the life of Piven, doesn’t sound like much of a stretch.) Something about testifying against the Mob, yada yada, now shoot things up. Obviously, the writers didn’t care much beyond that, so neither did I.
Shaun of the Dead. Lest you think I’m going to trash everything I’ve watched lately, here’s a movie I really liked. It had a bit of everything—comedy, romance, zombies, and British accents. What else do you need? I know this was intended to be a send-up of zombie movies, but it works on so many levels, it goes well beyond simple satire. Like all good movies, it’s built around a solid story. Beyond that, everything else is gravy. Oh, and in between all that other stuff I mentioned, they still managed to get me to care about Shaun and his friends. How about that? Maybe Hollywood can take a lesson from the Brits in the lost art of character development. Now I really want to see Hot Fuzz.
The Wire: The Complete Second Season. I know this doesn’t really fit with the title of my post, but The Wire has been more entertaining to me lately than 90% of the movies I’ve watched in the past 6 months. I was warned that season 2 starts off a little slowly, but I’m still fascinated by the way the show’s writers manage to tie so many disparate threads together into one cohesive whole. I haven’t been this absorbed by a show since the first two seasons of Lost.
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