End of Summer Mini Updates!

Quick updates on movies I've seen lately...

The Beaver - Listen, I don't like Mel Gibson - as a person, as an actor, whatever. So, his involvement may have tarnished this movie a bit for me. It's kind of a weirdly clever idea: a man gets kicked out by his wife, tries to kill himself, finds a beaver hand puppet and decides to speak through the puppet only in an attempt to make good with his family. Too bad, it just falls short. I could care less about Gibson. Foster, as his wife, is perfectly fine, if not slightly boring. Instead, it's too young stars who steal the show: Anton Yelchin as Gibson and Foster's angsty son and Jennifer Lawrence as his troubled love interest are delightful. They have fantastic chemistry and energy. If you must watch it, watch it for Yelchin and Lawrence.
Grade: C

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark - I was excited to see this movie because it was supposedly rated R for being so damn scary. There was no nudity, no gore, no bad language, none of the stuff that warrants a typical R rating. It was just supposed to be too scary for kids. I disagree. That's not to say the story isn't interesting. It's a great haunted house tale that mixes intensity and folk lore into a decent little film. However, still not scary. Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce are just fine as the couple living in an old gorgeous house with his young daughter. Then monsters begin to terrorize the daughter. And not just any monsters, tiny little monsters that are maybe a foot high and are more annoying than scary. Decent flick, but doesn't succeed at what it sets out to do.
Grade: C-

Skateland - Skateland was a welcome relief after watching two such mediocre movies. Shiloh Fernandez stars as a man in his early 20s who is living in Texas and working at the local skating rink in the early 80s. He enjoys flirting with his best friends sister (Ashley Green) and getting drunk with his friends (Taylor Handley). Then, his world begins to fall apart - Skateland decides to close, his parents get a divorce. Skateland is a great coming of age movie about coming to terms with your mortality and making huge changes in your life even if you are terrified of doing so. Everyone can relate because everyone has had that moment. Plus, Skateland has a hot, young cast and a great soundtrack. Definitely worth checking out!
Grade: B

I Am Number Four - Okay. I know. This is typical of me, sure. I sure do love movies aimed at 14 year old girls. But, look, I Am Number Four was just fine! I was expecting it to be TERRIBLE but it was actually pretty compelling, if not stupid. Alex Pettyfer (who is really too pretty to be a real person) stars as an alien on the run from a bunch of other creepier, and uglier, aliens. He and his guardian (Timothy Olyphant) move to Ohio where he is supposed to blend in so he can hide, but he instead falls for the ex girlfriend (Glee's Dianna Agron) of the troublemaker quarterback of the football team. Needless to say, his scary alien foes find him. As does Number Six, a totally bad ass Theresa Palmer. Really, I promise. It's not as bad as you think!
Grade: C

The Help - Emma Stone stars as Skeeter, a woman who just graduated from Ole Miss in the 1960s and returns home aching to be a novelist. She decides to write a book about The Help, the maids who raise white children but are eventually treated like crap by the very children they raised when they become adults. It's a great story, riveting, heartwarming and interesting. Plus, the actors are simply phenomenal. From lead performances by the ever-charming Stone and the incendiary Viola Davis to all the amazing supporting actresses: the bubbly and adorable Jessica Chastain, the cruel and vicious Bryce Dallas Howard, the quiet scene stealer Allison Janney, and the sassy lightning rod Octavia Spencer. All around, a great movie that shouldn't be missed!
Grade: B+

The Scream Trilogy

A week from tomorrow is a very glorious day indeed: the release of Scream 4! I know I'm probably more excited than I should be about it, but the fact of the matter is, I grew up with the original Scream trilogy. So, in order to prepare myself for the fourth installation, I rewatched the first three and will now talk about how awesome they are. Is a SPOILER WARNING relevant if something is more than a decade old???

Scream (1996)
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber
So, this is where it all began. A movie-loving masked murderer begins targeting teenagers (and an ill-fated principal) as a sort of psychotic craze. But is it? Nope, turns out there is a back story involving heroine Sydney (Campbell) and her mother Maureen who has been dead for - oh, what? - just about exactly one year. Scream's plot isn't revolutionary but this smart as hell, quick plotted, witty film revitalized the slasher genre. With it's tongue in cheek humor and it's rules for survival, it mocked the films that came before, while also paying homage to them, while also breathing life back into a genre that was long dead. And, man, was it brilliant, thanks in part to director Craven's knowledge of directing horror films, and writer Williamson's super smart, talky, pop culture laden script. Scream pays homage in the most subtle ways: Billy's last name is Loomis much like characters in A Nightmare on Elm Street and Psycho, Barrymore (a HUGE star who got top billing) bites the dust before the credits a la Janet Leigh in Psycho. It also rewrites the rules: One of the rules Randy mentions is that virgins are the only ones who can outsmart the killer. However, later in the film Sydney loses her v-card and still manages to survive the big third act bloodbath. The best tongue in cheek moment comes courtesy of Sydney who is on the phone with the killer talking about why she hates horror movies, saying the victims are "always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door," and then moments later does just that. Fifteen years later, the movie is only slightly dated. I mean, they sure make a big fuss about a teenage boy having a "cellular telephone" but other than that it still seems as hip as it did back then. All in all, the first scream was just fantastic in every way, shape and form.
Grade: A

Scream 2 (1997)
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Liev Schreiber, Jada Pinkett Smith, Omar Epps, Elise Neal, Jerry O'Connell, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Timothy Olyphant, Laurie Metcalf, Rebecca Gayheart, Portia de Rossi
One year later in real life but two years later in movie life, Scream 2 picks up with Sydney (Campbell) and Randy (Kennedy) both attending Windsor College. A movie called STAB, based on the story of their life, has just hit theaters. In the pre-credits death scene, Pinkett Smith and Epps bite the dust while watching a preview in a theater. Of course, Gale Weathers (Cox) smells a story and shows up and it seems the deaths are happening all over again. And, of course, there are rules to sequels as well. The death scenes are bigger and more elaborate, for one and that is definitely the case here. There is also a healthy debate during the film about the fact that sequels are never, ever better than the original. And that's the case here as well, but not by much. Scream 2 is truly a great follow up to the first. It's still got the tongue in cheek wit while also managing to be genuinely frightening and intense. And it's also got a surprising amount of heart: try not to get a little misty eyed when our poor, sweet, dorky Randy gets murdered.
Grade: A-

Scream 3 (2000)
Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Ehren Kruger
Starring: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Liev Schreiber, Kelly Rutherford, Patrick Dempsey, Scott Foley, Lance Henriksen, Deon Richmond, Jenny McCarthy, Emily Mortimer, Parker Posey, and a special appearance by Jamie Kennedy just to appease those of us who were completely tramuatized by his death in Scream 2
So, it's a few years later. Sydney is living the life of a hermit, shacked up in an extravagent secluded house, working from home as a crisis counselor, seemingly only having contact with her father and her dog. In Hollywood, Sunrise Studios is making Stab 3. Liev Schreiber's love-to-hate-him character Cotton Weary has bitten the dust, pre-opening credits style. But the plot thickens: the killer left a picture at the death scene and that picture just happens to be of Sydney's long dead mom back when she was young and fresh-faced. Gale smells a juicy story and shows up to poke around in Hollywood. I remember loving all the Scream movies equally, but upon rewatching them, I will quickly admit that Scream 3 doesn't live up to the other two, not one bit. For starters, gone is Kevin Williamson's witty, smart script which is replaced by dialogue that is just trying way too damn hard. The only character who gets good lines is Parker Posey's hilarious actress Jennifer who is playing Gale Weathers. Posey is so much better than her material and she makes every scene a little bit better. She has some particularly hilarious scenes with Cox near the middle of the film that almost make everything that's wrong with this movie a little bit better. And what's wrong with it, per se? Besides sloppy, lazy writing, it calls in question everything that had happened in the first two (which is apparently a rule of the trilogy) but in the most stupid way possible. Also, there are ongoing scenes with Sydney's dead mother appearing to her and talking to her that are just plain dumb. So, I will admit it, the Scream trilogy is not perfect. Scream 3 is not nearly as good as the first two, but I still love it. It's sort of like the Halloween series for me. Everyone knows Halloween 4 and 5 are crap but I love them anyway. In fact, Halloween 4 is probably my second favorite of the series even though it's just plain bad.
Grade: C+

Evening, Catch and Release (DVD)

Evening - There's one problem that most movies with flashback plots suffer from: one portion of the film is usually far more interesting than the other. Evening suffers from that same problem. Evening tells the story of a woman named Ann (Vanessa Redgrave) on her deathbed in present time. She is being tended to by her constantly fighting daughters Nina (Toni Collette) and Connie (Natasha Richardson). Connie has it all: the husband, the kids, the big fancy house. Nina is trying to get her life together. Every few years she finds herself with a new job and a new man. The two sisters struggle to rebuild their relationship while they watch their mother die. While on her death bed, Ann starts going on and on about people her daughters never met or heard of. She also starts remembering a certain weekend in her life where she learned a lot about friendship and love. The flashbacks are the more interesting story line here. It follows Young Ann (Claire Danes) who attends the fancy wedding of her best friend Lila (Mamie Gummer... Meryl Streep's daughter). While at the wedding, she finds herself in a sort of love triangle with her best friends little brother Buddy (Hugh Dancy) and the good-looking doctor Harris (Patrick Wilson) who also happens to be the love of Lila's life... although she's marrying someone else. Glenn Close shows up as Lila's uppity mother and Meryl Streep makes an appearance near the end as the elder Lila (how appropriate!). The performances, of course, are wonderful. How could they not be with a cast like this? Still, for all of these amazing women, guess who gives the best performance in the entire film? Hugh Dancy! He's a revelation. Where did this guy come from and how can he play a drunk with such charm and vulnerability? If I had any weight at all with Oscar voters, I would start putting it all behind Dancy right now. I really hope they remember him come December. The film itself is a little uneven. It goes from being utterly interesting to a tad boring. Of course, Toni Collette keeps things interesting in the present tense storyline. The flashbacks are the superior part of the film. Yet, eventhough it's a tad uneven, the writing and performances and script are strong enough to not mind all that much. Plus, the movie is an emotional ride. It's a chick flick of the greatest kind. It may not be the best movie of the year... or the summer for that matter... but's definitely worth your time.
Grade: B


Catch and Release - I had a friend warn me to stay away from this movie because it was surely one of the worst movies of the year. Maybe it's because my expectations were so utterly low (I was expecting something as bad as Evan Almighty here) but I didn't think the movie was really all that bad. I mean, it could have been worse. It could have suffered from not starring two charismatic and charming actors: Jennifer Garner and Timothy Olyphant. Sure, the script was absolutely far fetched but aren't most romantic comedies far fetched? Anyway, the story line follows Grey (Garner) whose fiancee dies just before her wedding. Instead of a reception, she has to go through a funeral instead. Soon after, she realizes she can't pay her rent without him so she moves in with his friends (one of whom is Kevin Smith... playing Kevin Smith... this is either a good or bad thing depending on how much you like Kevin Smith). Soon, she finds herself reluctantly falling in love with her dead fiancee's best friend (Olyphant) eventhough she hated him in the beginning. Juliette Lewis turns up as a woman the dead fiancee slept with and she has a violent son who may or may not be his illigitmate child. The scripts not perfect, the dialogue is lacking, it's not as funny as it thinks it is and all of the romantic comedy cliches are there. Still, it's not a terrible movie. There are times when it's entertaining and it's actually enjoyable enough to not bore you to tears.
Grade: C-

Live Free or Die Hard, Music and Lyrics (DVD)

Live Free or Die Hard - John McClane is back... and better than ever! It seems that summer movies are a bit disappointing so far. Pirates, Spiderman, Evan Almighty... all huge disappointments. But Die Hard does not disappoint. As a matter of fact, so far, it's definitely the most fun you'll have at the movies this summer. This time around McClane (Bruce Willis - who may be 52 in real life but runs around like a 25 year old... plus he's really sexy) has to go pick up and escort a hacker Matthew Ferrell (Justin Long) to FBI headquarters after their computers are hacked. McClane thinks this is a lame job... until he's almost masaquered at the kids apartment. In the meantime, the United States begins to crumble under a nationwide cyberspace attack known as a fire sale engineered by menacing bad guy Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant). Much like the other Die Hard flicks, logic isn't exactly the strong suit here. But it doesn't matter because it's sheer adrenaline packed excitement. McClane isn't just as tough and resourceful as ever, he is a wise ass at the top of his game. The action scenes are just amazing. There is a particular fight scene with Maggie Q that starts with a few punches and ends with a car chase into an elevator shaft that just blew my mind. And let's not even mention the scene where McClane is driving the 18-wheeler truck while being shot at and chased by a jet trying to bomb him. Long adds a lot of comedy although he doesn't really need to be there just for that... Willis is hilarious. They make a great team. Throw in Mary Elizabeth Winstead as McClane's tough daughter Lucy and Kevin Smith playing an uber hacker named The Warlock and this movie is just plain fun. Even with the PG-13 rating, McClane gets to utter his famous line (in a very, very, very clever way). In a summer filled with disappointments, its nice to see John McClane back. Live Free or Die Hard takes my spot as the best summer mover thus far.

Grade: B+

Music and Lyrics - We all know that romantic comedies are not my thing. Not at all. But, I will give this movie a little credit and say that it is, in the very least, cute. And to give it even more credit, the beginning of the movie is actually almost enjoyable. I actually really enjoyed the first 20 minutes or so which follow Hugh Grant's 80s has-been pop star meeting eccentric plant water lady Drew Barrymore. While Hugh's Alex is trying to write a pop song for a current chart topping sensation, Drew's Sophie randomly spouts a few inspiring lyrics and the two begin to write the song together. That part of the film I actually enjoyed. But once the song is actually written, the movie becomes boring. It becomes a cliche ridden romantic comedy again and loses some of its charm. I'm not saying it's a bad movie, but it's just like every other romantic comedy. None of them are really great and none of them are really bad. They are all the same. I couldn't even remember the main character's names (I had to look them up) because they are like every other main character in a romantic comedy. The film isn't really funny enough to recommend on a pure comedic level and it's not really romantic enough to reccommend on a pure romance level. It's predictable, it's forgettable, and after the first 20 minutes, it's mostly bland and boring. Although, the Pop Up Video at the end of the movie is quite enjoyable. But, basically, it's just your average romantic comedy. If it's your thing then you'll probably like it.

Grade: C