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Burn This Hostel To The Ground

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Hostel Part II (2007)

I knew I shouldn't have seen this movie. The first Hostel was nothing more than torture porn elevated just a little higher by Eli Roth's amusing camera work. But I would think that with a guardian angel like Quentin Tarrentino that he might be able to elevate the material into something more interesting, putting an arch into an evil genre. I was mistaken and Hostel Part II was my punishment.

The movie takes place only weeks or months after the first with three American women who are lured into the Hostel by a beautiful European babe who seems to live to seduce. And like the first, these girls get tortured to death in very violent means that are everything BUT scary.

I am not going to turn this into a long review primarily because this flick doesn't warrent one. It's just sadistic and cruel. Eli Roth is capable of scaring people without pandering to torture. But after reading his remarks about wanting to torture Kate Hudson, I feel that this is all he wants to do. He's reminding me of that kid in the neighborhood that feeds the family dog firecrackers.

But my real disgust comes with the so-called horror fans. These are the people responsible for the horror genre tail-spinning into apathy. Earlier this year, we've had three great horror films; The Host, 28 Weeks Later, and Bug. These three films are what Horror is all about. But the horror crowd seemed to scoff at all three because they didn't relish in pain and extreme violence. In fact, all three films worked on the cerebrial level of fears. Hostel works on your aversion to pain. And yet even the set ups aren't worth the payoff. At no point was I ever scared of anything that happened. But I did feel sick watching these girls get cut up like dog meat.

All in all, I can't tell you to stay away from both Hostel ficks enough times unless you're just aching for pain. Because that's what Eli Roth wants to put you through along with Kate Hudson.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:21 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Down Went Rami to Wash the Spider Out

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Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Spiderman 3 was really hard for me. I have never been so disappointed, so heart-broken, so confused by a film's complete self-destruction. You would think that after the near-perfect Spiderman 2 that Sam Rami could do no wrong going into the third movie. Not only did he prove me wrong but he also destroyed the franchise's credibility when the next director is put in the position of sifting through the ashes.

Spiderman 3 even starts off on the wrong foot; the whole city loves Spiderman (which to me feels so un-New York and goes against the entire point of the hero) even to the point of throwing him a celebration. For Peter/Spidey (Tobey Maguire), things couldn't be better. He's doing well at work and at school. He's got the love of his life, Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst), and seems to find time to do everything. But for MJ, things are not so good. She feels that she has to compete against Spiderman for the attention of her man (not to mention that his new lab partner has her a little jeolous). Her role on Broadway is eighty-sixed when they find out she can't sing.

But two events propell the movie into conflict. Peter's now-distant friend Harry (James Franco) takes up his father's crazed mantle as The Green Goblin in an outfit that looks like it's meant more for skiing the slopes. After his first duel with Spidey leaves him in an amnesic state, Spidey finds his suit infected by an alien substance that makes him leaner, meaner, and more aggressive. This comes to a test when an escaped convicted linked to the murder of Peter's uncle escapes prison. A radiation accident fuses his molecules with sand and turns him into The Sandman (Thomas Hayden Church). What happens afterward turns Peter from the sweet and loveable to your basic pathetic anti-social whiner after he loses the love of MJ. He also has to deal with another whiner in rival photographer Eddie Brock (Topher Grace), whom he quickly disspells as a fraud, and unknowingly makes him into a nasty enemy in the last 20 minutes of an overlong movie.

Now I'm well aware of the Spiderman universe and could talk in detail about the events going on, but it would require more energy than it's worth. The movie has taken on more than it can chew. The characters make stupid decisions that feel contrived. And when we get to the final enemy in Venom, there's no weight in reality. Say what you want, but the series' former villains both felt real, both had physical and psychological substance that went beyond being an obsticle in Spiderman's path.

Spiderman 3 should have been about arrogance and redemption. Unfortunately, Rami likes Peter Parker too much to make him truly vicious. Instead, he makes Peter merely childish. MJ when from being an undominated spirit to a whining nag. Why didn't Rami remember the last shot in Spiderman 2, MJ watching the man she loves going off to the rescue, not really knowing if he'll come back. Why couldn't he build on that element? The story felt tired even before it begins, going by the numbers without breathing new life into it.

It didn't help matters when your leading actors are phoning in their performances. I could tell that Maguire and Dunst are bored with their performances. Franco's character has been butchered so badly that the actor feels confused as to what he's supposed to be doing with his performance. And then the newcomers are vastly misused. Church tries his hardest to make sense of a character intended to NOT make sense. Bryce Dallas Howard is put in a role that wasn't even really needed for the movie as the possible romantic rival for Dunst. If I could personally re-edit the film, I would cut out all her and Church's parts, they only drag the story out which should focus on Harry and Venom. Topher Grace, a wildly imaginative comedian, doesn't seem allowed to contribute anything to his own role. Why bring in all this great talent and shuffle them off into the broom closet? That's just another maddening question tallied into this quixotic production.

Alvin Seargent's screenplay (with help of Sam and Ivan Rami) doesn't deliver any of the same kinetic energy that engulfed the first two movies. All the action seems staged without meaning or consequence. Considering that Spiderman's motto is "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility", this compromises the integrity of the franchice. The dialogue feels worn thin. And let's not even talk about the story itself, which is completely self-congradulatory and trite.

Sam Rami's direction is the worst in his career. It's flat, without soul and style. Even when the action peaks, I didn't feel engaged. I could tell that he lost his touch with the material this time and when someone else takes over, that person will be put at a disadvantage to regain the trust of us weary filmgoers.

All in all, most fans of the web-head will like the movie no matter what I say. But the question is whether they like the movie on it's own merits or only because it has Spiderman in it. I'm a Spiderman fan and I feel betrayed personally. And for those who have yet to see the movie, I urge caution. This Spider's bite is poisonous.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:17 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Waitress Serves Sugar with a Side of Sugar

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Waitress (2007)

I cannot write a review of Waitress without noting the senseless loss of actress/filmmaker Adrienne Shelly. Her contribution to cinema might have been small, but I wonder what she could have been capable of with time and expirience. After seeing this sweet little movie, I think you'll agree.

When I say that Waitress is sweet, I really do mean it in the the most literal terms possible. This movie is the cinematic equivilant of Kook Aid with a pound of sugar. The movie is a cross between a fairy tale and a Lifetime Movie of the Week. Just with great acting and a sense of joy in the making that is infectious. Jenna (Keri Russell) is a young, kind, and spirited young woman. And to top it all off, she's a pie genius who is capable of making new pie recipies off the top of her head, helped by the emotional condition she's in a the time. She has two friends (Adrienne Shelly and Cheryl Hines) who both admire her skill but wouldn't take their small-town existances for her hell of a marriage. Her husband (Jeremy Sisto) is a controling and sadistic man-child that keeps his wife on a very short leash and requires her non-divided love and attention. She wants to leave but needs to build funds to escape. And then she finds out that she's pregnant and her hope of escape starts looking more distant.

She goes to the new gynochologist (Nathan Fillion) with a pessimistic attitude. "I'm not so happy about it like everybody else might be. I'm having the baby and that's that" He listens to her and seems completely amazed by her strength and sheltered kindness. She appreciates that he listens to her and doesn't pass judgement. And soon they're having an affair more as a means of battling a lonliness that each feels with their respected spouses.

When her escape plan fails, she finally tells her husband of the pregnancy. He's very upset about this, if only because a baby would require his wife to take some of her affection from him to someone else. He makes her promise to not the child more than him in the film's most pathetic scene. At the pie shop that she works, she gets more advise from the pie shop's owner and her most faithful (and crankiest) customer, Joe (Andy Griffith). He's quick to know that she hates her husband and is having an affair. He doesn't have any stake in the matter as long as she brings him his breakfast and pie just how he likes it.

The movie is not interested in plot, doesn't follow the pregnancy as much as the characters surrounding a pregnant woman. When Jenna is given a baby book which she can write a letter to her baby, the letter itself starts off with her saying how much she didn't want it and goes on to be a letter from a sad and scared woman going out to a hopefully happy adult in the future. By the time we get to the birth, all the characters put their cards on the table and Jenna makes her most important decisions.

The movie almost doesn't work primarily because it pushes my ability to believe in the surrounding of the story. Set in a small town in the South, it has characters that feel like it came straight out of Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. And yet it's a little too clean, a little too contrived. It's only when you remind yourself that this is partially a fairy tale that you can get around the minor details that keep from plausibility. And yetI belive in the fundamental emotions and situations of the characters. I can relate to Jenna's prison existance created by her husband. I can understand a woman's want for freedom and dignity upon the bringing of a child into this world. While the technical details are spotty, the emotional ones ring true.

Waitress rises and falls on Keri Russell's performance, which she gives with thoughtful and frenetic intensity. She allows this character to be both funny and angry with a sense of irony. Jeremy Sisto gives an amazing performance of the most impossible of characters. He's both menacing and childish. We believe him to be dangerous because he could destroy the one weapon she has; her spirit. Adrienne Shelly and Cheryl Hines bring most of the comedy in the movie. They have a great rapport that make us comfortable. I do wish that the movie would have fleshed out Shelley's character's relationship with a geek-poet (Ocean's Eleven's Eddie Jemison). But my favorite performance comes from Nathan Fillion who makes his doctor both incredibly authorative and yet a complete blunder. He plays this character straight and gets his laughs earnestly.

Adrienne Shelly as both a writer and director has done some work before Waitress but still feels somewhat uneven. But I can say that the movie works by the pure will of the movie's good vibe and great performances. Since seeing the movie, I have wrestled with the notion that I might rate the movie too high because of Ms. Shelly's death. But when I think back on it, I can say that I had a good time. Yes, the movie is not perfect, but it does what it came to do, to entertain. And sometimes, that's just enough.

All in all, if you are looking for something lighthearted to make you smile, I'd say try Knocked Up first. But if you want a second option, Waitress fits the bill. But I'd stay away from the soda and candy at the concession stands, the movie already comes with it's own sugar rush.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:15 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Who Said That There's No God In Politics?

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Evan Almighty (2007)

If there are two types of movies that really annoy me, they are cute family movies where parents are witless and the kids seem to rule the roost. The other type of movie is the condescending religious film that might get the story right, but loose the message altogether. I am on record for saying that there are not enough “good” family movies out there, not to mention religious movies that prefer to embrace rather than preach. I didn’t expect much going into Evan Almighty, considering that I was on the fence with Bruce Almighty (which I thought was a little too raunchy to be insightful, but well-meaning all the same). But I can honestly say that this is one sequel that outdoes to original big-time by merely finding its niche in family comedy. While it teeters VERY close to both types of movies I hate, it adjusts itself into a rather satisfactory third act.

The movie revolved around Evan Baxter (Steve Carell), who if you don’t remember was Bruce’s rival in the original. Well, things have been good to Evan since we last seen him. He’s got a wife (Lauren Graham) and three boys. He’s just been elected to the United States Congress. He’s got a new car and a new near-mansion of a house in a plush new development. His new job comes with a wise-gal assistant (Wanda Sykes) and a whole staff of cronies including his every own Wikipedia-boy (Knocked Up’s Jonah Hill). He’s come to “change the world”, but even from the start, he’s being primed to be a yes-man for powerful senior Congressman Long (John Goodman). But Evan also has some strange things happening to him. First come some ancient tools, then a load of lumber. And then a visit from an old black man wearing white clothes that talks in riddles. For those of us who have seen the first (or any advertisement of this movie), we know that this is God (played with gusto by Morgan Freeman). He wants Evan to build an ark, but won’t tell him much more. “If anyone asks, just tell them a flood’s coming.” He tells the confused congressman.

We know he’s going to shrug it off, but that’s when things really get crazy. Animals start following him around (including some birds that must have worked with Hitchcock). His hair starts growing out at an alarming rate (“I’m going through adult puberty”). And all the while, his wife, kids, colleagues and staff thinks he’s going crazy. And that’s when the movie starts to shine.

The real shining light of the movie is how Steve Carell alone controls this movie by focusing on the comedy AROUND him instead of ON him. We’re not laughing at the guy that’s doing weird things; we’re laughing at the weird things happening to the guy. This is what makes Carell a better comedian than Jim Carrey, whose comedy always seem to revolve around what he’s doing. And this makes for a better movie. Steve Oedekerk’s script really does interweave the inspirational with the over-the-top funny, a very tricky juggling act since the last thing you want to do is make fun of religion or politics, which this movie is tackling both. And it even finds a new twist on an old joke. We’ve seen the joke about facial hair growing back just after a clean shave (most notably The Santa Clause). But this movie actually answers just how can a man with excessive facial hair enter a televised session of congress with a tiny (if only miniscule) shred of dignity.

The third act is where the movie really the payoff. If you’re keen to movies like I am, you can tell within ten minutes where the flood is going to come from, but the movie doesn’t care if you know or not. It’s not about surprising you but amusing you. It’s not trying to be groundbreaking (though you would think so considering it’s massive budget), but joyful. It wants you to laugh and feel good coming out and it does just that. And for those who are wondering about any possible casualties of a flood through Washington DC, well, we do have a Deus in this ex-machina, people.

Besides Carell, the real spotlight needs to be put on Wanda Sykes and Morgan Freeman. First, I need to say that if there is a trilogy, I want the third to be about Sykes. She is an amazing comedian who needs to break out with her rapid-fire wit and machine gun delivery. She’s the comic relief in a comedy that has a lot of comic relief. But what can I say about Morgan Freeman that probably hasn’t been said already. If God had a face, I would think it would resemble Freeman. It’s amazing how Freeman seems to embody those things we hope a creator would be; patient, commanding, contemplative, stern if need be, but most of all, confident that in the end, things will turn out the way they should be. And we all know that God would have a goofy sense of humor. And I would certainly think that his eleventh commandment would be mandatory in Heaven.

Tom Shadyac has made many terrible movies in his time (Patch Adams being the worst of the lot), but he’s also made a few good ones. This is one of his finest, though that’s far from being a superb movie, but it’s definitely a sincere movie. But with this movie, especially at the beginning, he’s trying too hard to be stylized, not trusting Carell and his cast to be able to bring the audience in. And to be completely honest, he needs to prioritize on his budgets. This movie didn’t need to be so expensive. To be honest, the extra money didn’t make the movie any better.

All in all, this is not the best family film this year (for that, go see Ratatouille). But if you already have or if you’re just in the mood for a good family movie with a nice Christian undertone to it, I can certainly recommend this without feeling washed out.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:11 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments

Ratatouille is a Dish Best Served Fun

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Ratatouille (2007)

It amazes me just how ingenious the men and women of Pixar can be with the trickiest of material. Every film made is both a technical marvel and a festival of fun, the perfect marriage of art and entertainment. And just when you think they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, they introduce Ratatouille (pronounced Rat-a-too-ee), their most ambitions and most delicious film yet. Directed by Brad Bird (The Incredibles), the film not only exceeds expectations, but also raises the ante for all animated films period.

The film’s hero is a rat named Remy (voiced by comedian Patton Oswalt). He has a gift and curse. The gift is a strong sense of smell that can detect fresh foods, not to mention rat poisons (which does come in handy for his family). The curse is that with such a gift, he’s also a picky eater, only wanting to eat the finest foods. This is very annoying to his brother and father, since the fine foods come from inside houses, which can be a pretty deadly place for a rat. But Remy doesn’t care. While inside, he discovers the legendary French chef Gusteau (Brad Garret) on TV. He realizes the potential in food. It’s not too long before the elderly lady discovers the rat and has the lot of them running for their lives. Remy gets split up from the others and finds himself underneath Paris. More remarkably, he’s also not too far away from Gusteau’s restaurant. He decides to overlook the kitchen via sunroof.

The kitchen is run like a well-oiled machine of chefs, cooking delicious foods (and for computer animation, the food looks tasty). It is overseen by Chef Skinner (Ian Holm), who seems interested in profiting off the late chef’s name by putting it on frozen food dinners. And there’s Colette (Janeane Garofalo), the only female in the room who is tough but sharp. When a clumsy new garbage boy Linguini (Lou Ramano) accidentally turns the house soup into a disaster, Remy takes matters into his own paws and fixes it. The soup is an instant hit, making Skinner very angry. But not before discovering the rat in his kitchen. Linguini is told to kill it. But instead, he makes Remy his silent partner in crime by giving him the reigns by using Linguini’s hair like marionette strings. Colette also helps the helpless boy (and the rat) by showing him the ropes how to cook both fast and smart. The two find themselves facing all types of challenges ranging from thwarting Skinner’s plot to take over the restaurant to impressing Paris’ harshest food critic, Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole). And in the process, Remy tries to get his father’s acceptance and his peer’s respect (which needless to say is going to be a very hard battle). The bottom line on this film is this; Ratatouille is a masterpiece. It perfectly maintains both the fairy tale and the reality of the situation all the way its satisfactory ending. Yes, Remy can walk upright, use his front paws to cook (and he does wash up before touching the food), but he also has to maneuver around the health inspector who wouldn’t appreciate a rat chef, no matter how clean he his. The characters are multi-dimensional, exciting, and intriguing. The film is fearless to do thing that other animated films are afraid to do, such as putting such complex themes into what most people would consider to be a kid’s movie. On the technical side, this has to be one of the most beautiful animated features made, ranking beside Finding Nemo. The colors are warm and alive. The digital sets are scaled very well. This is important since size plays a major factor. We will have to see the same things in the kitchen from both a rat and human perspective. And for the first time, water effects look natural, especially with characters that are covered in fur. Normally voice acting is usually noticed because of the huge celebrities involved. After the lazy voice acting in the latest Shrek movie, I was hesitant. But the voice talents here are not well-known people, but they were the perfect choices. Patton Oswalt is amazing as Remy, making him both funny and vulnerable. Peter O’Toole oozes with evil delight as Anton Ego, but is also shows the soft side of a hard critic. Ian Holm rarely gets attention for his range in voice acting, but with Skinner he does wonders. But when it comes to great voice acting, I have to talk about Janeane Garofalo, whom I didn’t even recognize her voice at any time. And yet she gives Colette a razor-sharp wit and resiliency that is very much a part of her own personality. Brad Bird’s direction is by far the best I’ve seen this year, even in comparison to live action. He captures so much energy in what is placed on frame, even down to the subtle things going on in the background. He would most likely give credit to his production team, which I would also applaud for their skill and their diligence. All in all, this is one of the best films of 2007, if not the best. I can’t think of a better summer movie for the whole family. But go hungry, you might find yourself wanting something French afterwards, and I hardly think it will be fries.

Posted Tuesday, June 26, 2007 1:09 PM by erico_77375 | with 0 comments