It happens all the time.
An actor transforms himself from an unknown whatever into a juggernaut, with every possible movie yearning for his skills. The new hot name on the comedy block is Zach Galifianakis.
The bearded wonder has been appearing in film after film since the immense success of the amazingly raucous The Hangover, and in 2010’s Due Date, Galifianakis is reunited with director Todd Phillips in what would appear to be another R-rated romp with the male species. Continue reading
David Fincher has a real penchant for telling thoroughly engrossing stories. His filmography reads like a Dean’s List of phenomenal films, stuff ranging from the dark and moody Seven, to the super-charged and testosterone-filled Fight Club, and the cerebral and tension-filled Zodiac, Fincher has repeatedly told stories that feel like events.
The Social Network is no different. In fact, it could perhaps be Fincher’s greatest overall work, as it both captures and transcends the creation of popular megasite Facebook.com (speaking of which, be a fan of our page).
The film is the true story revolving around the creation of the incredibly popular website, and the main character of the film is the infamous Mark Zuckerberg, creator and founder of the famed social networking website. Zuckerberg is played by Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale, Zombieland), and we are immediately thrust into a conversation that on the surface could be just like any other disagreement a guy and a girl have had at a bar. Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg comes off as condescending, if not creepily confident in himself and his skills.
The film is a fascinating, at times tremendously engrossing, portrait of a brief period of time in recent history that has made a surprising impact in pop culture worldwide. Fincher lets the tension build and build throughout the movie, and the structure of the film was somewhat surprising to me.
The Town is Ben Affleck’s directorial follow-up to his impressive debut Gone Baby Gone. Where his previous film was perhaps a bit grimier and grittier, The Town boasts all the obvious step-ups in production value. The chases are slicker, and explosions are more grand, and it’s yet another Bostonian Crime film that holds your emotions in the palm of its hand for the entire two hours.
Ben Affleck gets a pretty bad rep from a lot of people who claim that his acting is hollow or wooden. Those folks made the mistake of thinking movies like The Sum of All Fears or Paycheck were going to be anything more than big-budget, special effects-laden popcorn flicks. Affleck never proved to be the weak link in his weaker films, and since turning his focus behind the camera he has shown a real great sense of telling a compelling and engaging story. In all honesty, Ben Affleck directs the movies Clint Eastwood would direct with an extra shot of adrenaline, a pair of testicles, and minimal sentimentality. With The Town, we are presented with an area (The Charlestown area of Boston) where it immediately becomes obvious that crime is the only real career choice for work.
She’s Out of My League stars Jay Baruchel as Kirk, a nerdy guy who works in an airport who works with all of his best friends. He finds a lost iPhone that happens to belong to a hot “perfect 10” named Molly. When he returns it to her they hit it off and begin a relationship, despite the obvious difference in their public statuses.
The movie fails to highlight the genuine attraction that Molly would have for Kirk at first, and only later begins to explain that she’s looking for a guy who isn’t going to hurt her in a long term relationship. Of course, Kirk is more than happy to reap the benefits by dating a girl obviously out of his league.
The chemistry between Baruchel and Molly (Alice Eve) is decent, but the problem lies with Baruchel’s inability to carry a movie by himself. I’m not a huge fan of his usually, and he provides little here to believe he can ever be anything more than a peripheral character in a comedy. He doesn’t play the awkward guy as well as some might think, and it’s somewhat annoying at points here. Still, Kirk is a decently honest guy who realizes his great luck, and he’s not terrible.
One of my first reviews for this site was a book review on Tucker Max’s autobiographical recounting of several stories of varying debauchery. The first time through, the book is a raucous, sleazy, often hilarious journey through this guy’s life as basically a championship asshole. The book doesn’t hold up as well as I’d anticipated on subsequent readings once the initial shock and hilarity wears off, but that first go around is fantastic.
And then I heard they were optioning it into a film, and I got worried. Were my fears justified? Unfortunately, they were.
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell isn’t a completely terrible movie by any means, it’s just a majorly frustrating one. The book works on the strength of the series of stories Max has to tell, and the differences between them. They’re short, they flow well, and are entertaining as hell. The film decides to structure itself into one long narrative focusing on Tucker’s friend Dan’s Bachelor Party and subsequent wedding, while throwing in pieces of stories from the book that I didn’t recognize as being connected, mainly because they aren’t. Everything in the film is based on a true Max story, but the overall narrative of the movie is tailored to connect the dots of stories that aren’t exactly connected. I hate that approach, and it seems lazy and blatantly disrespectful of its intended audience (i.e., people who read the book).
Musical collaborations can be a pretty hit or miss proposition. For every awesome Santana and Michelle Branch song (there happen to be two of them), there is an entire album of misery with Chris Cornell and Timbaland. Some genres tend to overdo the concept (looking at you, Rap/Hip-Hop), but a really solid collaboration takes a known entity and blends that artist’s style with the signature of another artist for a unique tune.
These are ten pairings I thought of that I think could produce an awesome song. Just because I’m pathetic and lead a very streamlined social life (see: Girlfriend), I’m even going to title the song I imagine the artists putting out.
I’ll admit before hand that the titles are going to be terrible and generic, but oh well.
This is the movie Kick-Ass wanted to be.
While that film occasionally sought too hard at times to blend action and comedy in a stylistically violent environment, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World does it so effortlessly that the entire film ends up playing like an erratic sugar high of pure, raw adrenaline.
Scott Pilgrim is played by Michael Cera, who once again shows little range but does his schtick better than anyone else. Scott’s in a band, has a young girlfriend, but becomes infatuated with a girl he keeps seeing in his dreams. When she happens to drop by to deliver him a package, Scott can no longer contain himself. The two end up having quite the spark, but there is one catch: Scott must square off with her seven evil exes.
Arcade Fire did it. Amidst unreal expectations and an absolute cavalcade of hype, the Montreal based alternative rock band managed to deliver an album that embodies a genuine sense of suburban frustration while coupling it with a slight embracing attitude of the situation.
The album contains sixteen tracks, and it’s the variety that keeps the album fresh even after several listens. This isn’t a fast food album, where you whisk through the drive-thru, pick up your food and go and it’s over too quick. This is a fine dining experience at a five-star restaurant, where each course blends together with the previous and subsequent selections.
The Other Guys is the proverbial mixed bag. The movie is never tremendously funny, but it is at the very least an enjoyable action comedy. The crime subplot is extremely convoluted, almost garishly reexplained over and over to little result, but the performances of the two leads carry the film to moderate success overall.
Ferrell plays Allen, a straight laced desk cop. Wahlberg is Terry, the rogue bad ass. Together they form the mismatched NYPD detective team at the heart of our story. Ferrell and Wahlberg have an unmistakeable chemistry that, at times, provides some laughs. Their characters are well developed, engaging, and they have some pretty fun interaction that carries most of the movie.
Even movie aficionados (or douchey guys who review movies gratis on a moderate traffic website) can have movies slip through the cracks. It’s simply too difficult to see every movie, not only because you have to pay, but because it’s incredibly time consuming. Some people have to have what’s known as a day job to pay the bills.
Seven Pounds is just such a movie. It has just the look of a film I would expect to at the very least not hate, but it’s bad. It’s really, really bad. Released in the holiday season of 2008, the film centers around the life of Ben Thomas, an IRS agent that holds within him a deep secret. He seems to be going around the random folks with a desire to help them. His exact motives aren’t exactly known until the end of the film, and the journey is pretty morose and mundane. There are going to be spoilers in this review, because it’s been out 18 months and I really want to discuss the flaws which may involve discussing the plot semi in-depth. And if you haven’t seen it by now, your interest is probably fleeting, and I’m going to save you two disappointing hours.