The Incredibles (2004)

It's hard to imagine a more conservative film than the Incredibles. "Why do we find new ways to celebrate mediocrity?" lambasts the head of the family. It's curious that a cartoon takes the themes Spiderman and Batman (and probably Superman) give a nod to and take them further, and in a far more unapologetic fashion.

All in all though, a great entertainment for the family. Great retro-type visuals. 90 or so minutes fly by.

9/10

I would say that the superhero genre in general tends to be conservative, at least in the classical sense of conservatism. Even the original tales of Superman, in the Depression-era working class socialist depiction of the character, tended to emphasize self-betterment and the instinctive understanding of good versus evil.

Having said that, I don't think superheroes have much to do with the Bush/Romney/Santorum understanding of conservatism.

No they don't. I agree.

Never Back Down (2008)

It doesn't surprise me that Rotten Tomatoes gave this classic a sub-25% score. The RT consensus is actually bang on the money when it says that there isn't a cliche this film doesn't shamelessly exploit. It's true - this movie exploits the f*ck out of all the low-brow cliches you could shoehorn into this type of movie.

But I like it! It's a classic middle-class window into the vain brutality of youth. It's an adrenalin fantasy ride of sexy girls and surprisingly hard-hitting violence. It's demographic is young men who haven't grown up past teenage fantasies of sex and violence and how in our still not yet fully evolved minds the latter somehow rewards the former. I first watched it on a plane to Australia in 2008 because I was looking for something that required near-zero concentration and I was not only indulged in this modest wish, but actually pleasantly surprised.

F*ck it. It's a modern genre classic. Now bring on the insults .

8/10

I once found a list of the most conservative movies and The Incredibles showed up on it. I'm still not sure I buy it.

To Live And Die In LA-People comment on De Palma's output being hit and miss. But William Friedkin is even more so in my opinion. Aside from the Exorcist, The French Connection and this one, his output ranges from good to merely okay to mediocre to a couple flat out abominations.

Anyway, this is one of the great three of his. William Petersen (who until CSI I would erefer to as "a great character actor who survived some bad choices and roles in junk") is fantastic as Richard Chance, a Secret Service agent on the trail of counterfeiter Rick Masters (Willem Dafoe). Dafoe, who's playes his share of villains and maniacs, is great as Masters. Yet he's not totally over the top in his villainy. In fact I sensed the spiritual side that Oliver Stone referred to when he cast him a year later as Sgt Elias in Platoon.

The story itself works even if certain parts are predictable (when Chance's partner is announced to be three days away from retirement towards the beginning, I knew he wouldn't make it) and there's also a fantastic chase scene. So yes, To Live And Die In La is in the upper echelon of Friedkin films. 9/10.

I'd like to see a character make that announcement and immediately shoot himself. All the other characters would understand.

I watched both Bridesmaids and Rare Exports. The first was an okay modern comedy with every scene working as a loop, the joke repeating until the next relevant plot point had to be hit. Like The 40 Year Old Virgin in that the first hour felt unscripted and the second was so tightly scripted that about 80% of the characters had to be written out. Rare Exports was better, a comic fairy tale that believes in its mythology of an evil Santa. The movie was very slow though it looked wonderful, all the details looking as if they had been pulled from a storybook. I especially liked that I never got to see Santa and that the movie really wanted me to believe.

The Guard (2011)
Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is a garda - an Irish policeman - in rural County Galway. While not exactly a dirty cop, he is certainly an unorthodox one and he has a prejudiced and confrontational attitude, particularly towards big city folks from Dublin - such as his new partner - and towards African Americans - such as FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), who is in Ireland in order to investigate an international narcotics smuggling operation.
‘The Guard’ is the most successful Irish film at the Irish box office, trumping, inter alia, the much better ‘In Bruges’, which has been made by director John McDonagh’s brother Martin. In addition, critics have praised ‘The Guard’ as a brilliant comedy pretty much across the board. While I concede that some Irish in-jokes may have passed me by and that the acting, direction and cinematography are good, I fail to see anything special in ‘The Guard’. It is an Irish-themed biracial buddy cop movie, nothing more. It’s ’48 Hours’ in Connemara, Ireland. The quirkier aspects of the movie - tough guys discussing Goncharov and Dostoyevsky etc. - are reminiscent of British geezer flicks à la Guy Ritchie. The score is informed by Ennio Morricone’s Spaghetti Western soundtracks. But this doesn’t make the guard particularly original or funny. Not a bad movie, but a pretty mediocre one - 5/10

The Dark Corner (1946)
Bradford Galt (Mark Stevens) is a hardass private eye and former convict who is framed for a murder. His attempts to find out who framed him are hampered by his fear of having to go back to prison and self-pity (“I’m easier to frame than Whistler’s Mother”), but his loyal and smart secretary Kate (Lucille Ball) provides capable support.
‘The Dark Corner’ by director Henry Hathaway, best known for his competent Westerns, is a textbook example of a film noir, although it is less pessimistic than most noirs. The black and white visuals are great and ‘The Dark Corner’ features a brilliant and a well-done scene of murder, brutal fistfights and a decent car chase. Unfortunately, it takes ages to get going and Mark Stevens isn’t the most convincing actor, but this is even sort of adequate in the light of the fact that the private detective is trying to look and sound tougher than he really is. ‘The Dark Corner’ isn’t a classic film noir or a notable one, but still a rather good an d entertaining detective mystery - 7/10

Twilight: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011)
First part of the fourth part (god, how I hate these) of the super successful Twilight movie franchise based on Stephanie Meyer’s bestselling series of novels about teenage girl Bella who falls in love with a morose looking vampire (of sorts) called Edward. In this instalment, the poster children for sexual abstinence Bella and Edward get married, finally make the beast with two backs and, immediately, Bella is left with a bun in the oven, which is threatening to kill her.
‘Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1’ is extremely geared towards its target audience of teenage girls and fans of the book to the extent that it doesn’t really tell a story but merely strings together scenes (presumably from the book) with very little connection. Consequently, there is no arc of suspense and characters are hardly developed beyond the protagonist of the story Bella (well-played by Kristen Stewart), who is actually a bit dislikeable. Vampire beau Edward’s characteristics are looking good, being in love with Bella and being worried about hurting her, although Robert Pattinson is inadequate in portraying the supposed inner conflict of the character. Also, I am surprised that “RPatz” as Edward is considered to be very attractive by legions of fans - I think he looks somewhat putrescent, as if he has bad halitosis (if you can look like that). Then there’s the rival love interest Jacob, whose job is, well, to provide a rival love interest, warn Bella about the dangers of being in love with a vampire and taking of his shirt off a lot. He also regularly turns into a really bad CGI wolf. The dialogue is laughably bad at times, as are some of the clunky ideas, which must originate from the source novel. For instance, when Bella thinks about a name for her baby girl, she inventively combines the names of Edward’s and of her mother, René and Esme, and ends up with Renesmee. The child should be grateful that the mothers’ names weren’t Harriet and Charlotte or she’d been called Harlot. Or she might have ended up as a tongue-twisting Amandamantha.
But this is where I’ll have to admit that I had a bit of fun watching ‘Twilight #4’, too, even if it was just by laughing at the movie and making up silly compound names. The numerous scenes of teenagers gazing dreamily into the distance, accompanied by mournful pop tunes, got quite annoying after a while, but there were also some scenes which worked rather well, such as Bella’s nightmare before her wedding. In fact, the vampirism metaphor worked rather well for a movie about teenage angst regarding sexuality, marriage and childbirth, although there is a distinct lack of horror elements and although the ideology of the ‘Twilight’ movies is questionable. Are they saying that rumpy pumpy isn’t good for you, because you will either get hurt and/or get pregnant, which is really, really bad for you? Anyway, part 4 is better than the badly made part 1, but still worse than average. 4/10

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)
The title sums up the movie - a genre mash-up of a generic Western and a generic Alien invasion story.
Unsurprisingly, it ends up as a generic movie, which is a shame. ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ plays is straight despite of the ludicrous premise and might have been better as a comedy - or as an alien-less Western indeed, because, until the awfully unimaginative alien monsters attack, ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ is at least decent. Actually, from what I’ve seen here, I think Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford could be very good in a real Western. But they are in a genre mash-up movie, which is neither as terrible as Cowboys & Steampunk (aka ‘Wild Wild West’) nor as hilariously cheesy as Cowboys & Dinosaurs (Harryhausen’s ‘In the Valley of Somethingsomething’). Actually, ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ is a bit bland and forgettable without being truly bad. Mediocre - 5/10

The Hunger Games (2012)

Once you put aside the rather preposterous setting (a requirement for films like this), this is a fairly dark film about both mortal and spiritual survival. There's not a weak performance amongst the primary actors but only Jennifer Lawrence's character is called to do any real heavy lifting and she handles it well. The North Carolina wilderness is more effective than any of the special effects wizardy, which ranges from from good to spotty. A pretty good job of getting the viewer to connect with Lawrence's Katniss character as she largely remains aloof through most of the film.

Overall I'd concur with James' 3.0/4.0. Interested enough to check out the sequels and maybe the books.

Real Steel

I only was drawn to this movie after reading JB's review of it. There's no way I'd have seen it otherwise. I'm glad I did. Robots are simply the vehicle for the human-element story that emerges between a washed-up father (Hugh Jackman) and the son (Dakota Goyo) he'd never met until there was an opportunity to make a quick buck in robot boxing. Some could argue this story and the bonding that occurs may be a bit ham-handed, but I enjoyed it.
At minimum I recommend viewing the trailer.

8/10

The ending doesn't bother you?

so 3 different posters viewed To Live And Die In LA around the same time? its like there's a mini movie club here.




you're the last person here I would expect to view any Twilight movie. and you've seen all of them? wow.

Scarface was way worse. didn't really have a problem with the Wang Chung soundtrack.



a title design actually affects the way you judge a movie? that seems like a pretty trivial criticism.
have you seen Drive? if the title design dates LA in a bad way, what does it do for Drive, which has no excuse for using it?

I take that as a compliment. Actually, to clear up any misunderstandings, I haven't seen any other Twilight movies apart from #1 and #4. I don't plan to watch any more Twilight movies either. And if my wife hadn't rented the two Twilight movies that I have seen, I would have stayed happily ignorant about the whole "saga".



It really is a strange coincidence, particularly because 'To Live and Die in L.A.' appears to be half-forgotten (unfairly).

Of course, you are right: Criticising the title design is a bit petty-minded. But in the case of 'To Live and Die in L.A.', the badly dated title design (as well as the also mentioned fashion, haircuts, music and attitudes) exemplifies that the movie hasn't aged well overall. To avoid any misunderstandings, I should add that I don't mind it if a movie is discernably from a certain period and often think that outdated but then-contemporary music, fashion, etc. can be positive additions, such as, for instance, in most Blaxploitation movies, which wouldn't work outside of an early 70ies setting. Another good example is De Palma’s Scarface’, which you have mentioned as well. In my opinion, ‘Scarface’ is a deliberately over the top, operatic movie about 80ies attitudes towards greed and power and the American Dream, which makes it fitting that it should use a garish 80ies disco soundtrack (which I still don’t like, to be honest), just as the flashy tiger fur seat covers in Tony Montana’s convertible are appropriate for the movie and the character. In contrast, ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ doesn’t aspire to be more than a cop thriller without any specific need or reason to be set in the 80ies (other than having been filmed in the 80ies, obviously).

Anyway, the fact that ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ hasn’t aged well isn’t a big problem for me. I generally liked the movie, but thought that it adheres to the genre conventions of the cop thriller too much to be truly remarkable.

Oh, and I haven’t seen ‘Drive’ yet. I’m eagerly awaiting the movie’s DVD release at the end of May.

I could never dislike a movie that uses the line "It's true, Chad: you're half hillbilly!" to explain the psychopathic tendencies of a frat boy. Tucker & Dale vs. Evil uses that line. It also runs through every horror movie cliche known to man while rising above the increasingly dreaded 'satire' label. A lot of fun and very funny, like a mix of The Red Green Show, Hostel and Sixteen Candles.

More people need to see this movie. I've been singing its praises for over a year.

You have...and I did. It's really good. I was kind of surprised at how hard I laughed at parts.

My Week With Marilyn

As the movie began, I was ready to dislike it. The main character isn't presented in a believable way. It feels like his back story is shoe-horned in for no reason; we already know that the movie isn't really about him. Everyone he interacts with before the entrance of Marilyn seems British caricature-esque. And the voice over was terrible.

Once Marilyn arrives, things change. This was one of those casting decisions that you just can't argue with. She plays the part perfectly. You are presented with a carefree yet vulnerable Marilyn who fits the bill for bipolar disorder.

No one else in the film except for Judi Dench played a character that was worth believing in or liking. I didn't like Kenneth Branagh as Olivier. I didn't realize who he was supposed to be until 30 minutes in. There were so many small interactions involving the background characters that had so much potential, but nothing ever happened. Emma Watson's character was irrelevant, but she was at least believable. Amid all of this superfluity was Judi Dench playing a weathered actress who knows exactly how to boost someone's spirits. So much more could have been done with her character, and yet she is cut for the majority of the movie.

In the end, I really want to like this movie, but I just can't. Am I allowed to rate half of the movie? Williams gets 4/4, but My Week With Marilyn gets 2.5/4.

The Dark Crystal

Some fantastic set design and character animation are the best things about this flick that I watched recently on Netflix streaming. I had vague memories of watching it as a child, so I decided to check it out when the Muppets TV series DVD arrived broken. Unfortunatly, the writing is horrible. There are some interesting ideas here such as
but they are overshadowed by the over-abundance of cliches and stilted dialogue. Then there is the opening voiceover which goes on forever and tells us too little information to be of much interest.

The pacing for the most part is glacial, with most of the plot points being way too obvious. The problem is there was obviously too little story here, we have the set up and the climax, but there is no middle act to help create tension and conflict. And the main characters just sort of find their way through the story almost entirely by accident. Never a good thing. A few more drafts or two and this could have been a rather amazing production given the work that obviously went into the character and set work, but the script feels like it was still in "rough draft" form when they started filming.

I also wondered why the gelflings were also muppets, rather than human actors. Given that they weren't that different, it seems all you would have needed was a human with the right look, some fake ears and a wig and you'd be done. As it is, they're too stiff to be convincing. Somehow the stiffness doesn't seem so unnatural when the character looks nothing like a human but with the gelflings, they appear to be going well beyond doing Keanu Reeves impressions.
-Jeremy

Bridesmaids

I think the reason I never ended up seeing this movie last year was because of James' score (2/4), which is a pretty dumb reason, especially since I saw basically everything else that ended up at the Oscars (including Albert Nobbs). But it was on TV and I was bored.

In the beginning, the movie really had good potential to be really funny. I really liked the dynamics of the early scenes. They were generally pretty funny and felt natural in a 40-Year-Old Virgin kind of way. I found Kristen Wiig to be likeable and funny without being broken goods, sort of like Liz Lemon from 30 Rock.

By the end of the movie, however, things definitely changed. It ended up being more tragic than I expected. Overall, it was more of a rom-com than anything else. I really don't like it when movies have a female lead who has no self-confidence and is incapable of helping herself. It's annoying. Whats worse is when they make her hot. It's just not a believable character. I understand that it is designed for women to associate with (which is problematic in itself), but that alienates half of the audience. The movie ends without any likeable characters, except for Melissa McCarthy. She could have gone the whole movie just being the female Zach Galifianakis, but the scene where she tries to help Kristen Wiig's character towards the end gave her some depth. I wouldn't say that it was Oscar-worthy depth, but depth nonetheless.

Overall, 2.5/4. I thought it was funnier than James did, but it was a disappointment overall.