SEMI-PRO/DEATH SENTENCE

I am fully aware that at the end of my last blog I was going to review Death Sentence. But recently, I was offered a chance to prescreen Will Ferrell’s new film, Semi Pro and I decided that this would be a better choice for a review seeing that it is more timely.

For those of you who were looking forward to my review for Death Sentence I’ll give you the abbreviated version. Death Sentence is about a father who goes after a gang after his son is brutally murder by them. It is the basic revenge flick – Think The Punisher, The Crow and Boondock Saints. I’ve always enjoyed Kevin Bacon and I thought he did a wonderful job at playing a tortured, vengeful father and John Goodman plays a decent bad guy but I wanted to see him more . The foreshadowing and symbolism in this film was at an all time high, it worked really, really well but seemed a little over the top. The directing was done really well and had great atmosphere, and there is a pseudo-twist at the end that is very James Wan-ish (he directed and co-wrote the first Saw film). There is one very memorable scene that is the required chase scene for any action movie and it is done damn near in one single shot. It was beautifully done and might have been my favorite part of the movie. The first two thirds is really intense and and great, the last third, however, felt rushed and lacked the intensity that the rest of the movie provided. It is jam packed with action, (some) intensity and gore. If you are into this type of thing it is definitely worth checking out if you have nothing else to do with your evening. I give it 3 out of 5 ridiculously bloody, bullet-riddled, vengeful deaths.

 

Now for Will Ferrell’s new flick, drum roll please…, Semi-Pro. In this film Ferrell plays the owner, coach and star power-forward of a down and out semi-professional basketball team that is trying to make the cut for the big league before their program is discontinued.

This film provided plenty of laughs and a few memorable moments. The thing that ruined it for me was that I saw a R-rated version of the trailer on the Internet and that spoiled a lot of the BIG laughs of the film. Take that into account while reading this because that makes me sort of biased towards this film.

I absolutely loved Anchorman and I really disliked Talladega Nights and didn’t much care for Blades of Glory. Semi-Pro lands somewhere in between all of those films. It is nowhere near the quality of Anchorman but it made Talladega Nights look like Gigli in my opinion.

The direction on this film was very standard and typical, which I didn’t expect Citizen Kane going into it, so it’s all good. There are a few shots that make things seem really intense and powerful which makes it even more laughable. So kudos to you Mr. Director Man!

The story line is a very typical underdog sports movie. It has reminiscent elements of Anchorman with Will Ferrell being extremely cocky and phenomenally dumb. There is a cool part toward the end of the movie that I thought was really cool, I won’t go into detail so I don’t spoil it, but I have faith that if you catch this film you’ll see it an think “that is awesome.” The downside is that there are a few really, serious moments followed by some ridiculously, outlandish moments and I thought that it didn’t mesh very well. It really should have picked one or the other.

All in all, Semi-Pro is fun and entertaining with some refreshing R-rated, vulgar humor, but it really isn’t anything to write home about – I’m happy that I got to see it for free! I give Semi-Pro 3 out of 5 Jive Turkeys.

 

Stay Young, You’ll Live Longer  –
          CODYmcfly                                                                                                NEXT REVIEW: VANTAGE POINT???

 

Cloverfield

“Some Thing Has Found Us.”

 

First and foremost I would like to apologize for the absence of movie reviews I have posted lately. Things have been getting a little ridiculous around these parts for me. I have a full schedule of classes, work, relationships, an internship and partying to work with right now. I’ve also just started a new month long calorie counting experiment with Steve. I’ve had my plate rather full and often don’t feel like eating much. I realize that these aren’t very good excuses for not delivering something that I have promised to the site, but I will try to work harder at bringing more reviews in a timely manner. Now that that is taken care of, let’s turn our attention to this new issue of At The Drive in.

I first watched Cloverfield a few weeks ago, it’s not completely fresh in my memory but I still remember exactly how I felt about the film. It was simply AMAZING. I would argue that it might be my favorite Sci-Fi movie of all time. It is definitely up there and would have to compete with Stephen King’s The Mist for the number one spot. The realm of Sci-Fi is looking pretty good as of late. In the last six months or so 30 Days of Night drained my blood, I Am Legend was more than decent (not to mention a serious acting buffet from Will Smith), The Mist was an incredibly powerful masterpiece and now Cloverfield, which was stunning. Usually Sci-Fi movies don’t turn out this well in this quantity.

Simply put, Cloverfield is about a group of friends who are having a going away party for one of their other friends. Everything seems like another hazy night in New York until a monster begins to attack the city. Their night becomes a quest for survival and finding a way out of New York before the city is reduced to rubble.

I am fully aware of how ridiculous, lame and Godzilla sounding this movie is, but I assure you, dear reader, this movie is anything but. Cloverfield is by far, let me repeat that so that I am not misread, Cloverfield is BY FAR the most intense film I have seen in a very, very long time. The action that is packs, the emotions it throws and the thrills it damn near chokes you with are of a breed that I have never seen the likes of in a film before.

The entire film is shot from a first person point of view on a hand-held camera that anyone with about $500 could purchase at Best Buy. This, of course, gives it an incredible shaking and as far from a polished and produced look as you can get. In fact, it gets so shaky at times that a few audience members of the screening I was at left in the middle of it ( I would assume to motion sickness, but maybe they just didn’t like the movie ). The camera work and the lack of a lot of studio lighting gave the film a really great, and what I would assume to be realistic, atmosphere for when a monster is attack a major city. It really adds to the intensity, even though there were times when I just wanted the camera to move two inches in one way or another.

I can definitely see what a lot of people disliked Cloverfield. It is something totally new, that as far as I know has only been seen in The Blair Witch Project before. It is not a smooth film by any means, it is very gritty and raw and let’s face it…it’s about a monster attacking New York. It is nowhere near a typical Hollywood blockbuster and it is not by any stretch of imagination a happy, feel-good movie. I don’t mean to give anything away for those of you that haven’t seen it yet – so don’t read into this too much, but the ending is fairly ambiguous. This is something that I know drives people bonkers and I absolutely love it. Hitchcock would be proud!

I only have two grievances with Cloverfield. One is that the battery life of the hand-held camera was absolutely ridiculous. My camera dies after like forty-five minutes if it isn’t plugged in and they were running around for most of the twilight hours. My other problem was that I’m entirely convinced that If a monster was attacking my city if I would have the fortitude to keep a hold of a camcorder, especially for that long and after a few things happen. My own rebuttal to that would be, how can we know what anyone would do if a giant monster was laying waste to our city?

A few people have mentioned how they didn’t think that people would act the way that they did in the film. Again, I would tell them to refer to the end of the above paragraph. I would also say that different people have different ways of coping with stress and extreme situations. Some people will try to take control of everything that is in their control to compensate for what the can’t control and others might crack jokes – the list could go on for a very long time.

I thought Cloverfield was very realistic. If they would have shot it like any other normal Hollywood blockbuster, it would not have worked out and I would probably be telling everyone to riot, burn buildings down, punch babies and curse the film makers instead of making sweet passionate, cinematic love to it. I cannot recommend this film enough, especially if you like great movies. I hope that this film sets the bar for future Sci-Fi films and that they continue to meet this bar. I give Cloverfield 5 out of 5 really awesome party nights turned into really awful nights filled with monsters and fighting for survival!

Until Next Time – Stay Young, You’ll Live Longer.

NEXT REVIEW: Death Sentence

Mr. Brooks

“Why do you fight it so hard, Earl?”

Mr. Earl Brooks has an addiction. This is not your run of the mill, “I have a drinking problem” addiction though. His addiction is to killing. He loves murdering people at random in clean, artistic fashions and so does Marshall, his intelligently diabolical alter ego. After his urges were suppressed for two years, the love for cold blooded killing rises to the surface once more – but someone is watching this time. Someone that wants in on the next kill. This proves to be difficult when a detective that has been chasing the “Thumb Print” killer for years is now grasping at their coat tails.

Mr. Brooks is by far one of the most intelligent, original thriller I have seen in years. Kevin Costner is the lead in this film and plays Mr. Brooks very convincingly (outside of a few lines at the very beginning that didn’t sound natural or believable, but I think they could be chalked up to his character being nervous). If this film truly is the first of three films, like Costner claims it to be, he is looking to be the Hannibal Lecter of this decade.

William Hurt plays the role of the murderous alter ego, Marshall (don’t worry, this isn’t a big twist, it is presented within the first five minutes of the film), and does an absolutely phenomenal job. I would venture to say that he almost overshadows Costner’s performance. They really did amazing work together. A lot of the physical action that Mr. Brook and Marshall do are the same and at the same time ( I picked up on this during the second viewing) and even their laugh is almost identical. It is really disturbing and really incredible. I think it adds another level to film even though it is a real subtle thing.

Dane Cook is also in this film, and believe it or not he does an excellent job as well. He provides his own dark comedic dialog that brings a sense of relief in times of the intense drama. If you have seen his stand up shows, you probably know that he is really over the top with his movements and voice but none of this shows up in his role. He plays a normal, everyday guy with a morbidly curious dark side. Dane Cook’s character is Mr. Smith and without him, the story wouldn’t be as creative and original as it is.

The film has an overall glossy, yet dark look and feel to it and is highly stylized. Almost every shot in the movie was done with a tripod base or some form of steadi-cam unit, giving it an extremely smooth, flowing look. There are a few hand held shots, mostly when someone is in a car or during some of the more action filled scenes. It was nothing that was extremely new (I mean not every movie can look like 300 can it?) but it was fitting with the genre the film is in and it complemented the story very well.

There is a scene in Mr. Brooks when Mr. Brooks and Mr. Smith are driving around and scouting out a victim. This is a particularly disturbing scene. It kind of gave me a real sense of paranoia that anyone at any given time could be looking at me and waiting for the perfect chance to spill my guts onto the floor and turn me into a lamp shade that would go nicely with their recently purchased, and ironically leather, wrap around couch. I think that is part of what the makers of them film wanted to do with it. It’s scary not because it’s jumping out at you and extremely gory (though it does have its moments), it’s scary because it seems real and it seems like it could happen to you. I loved that aspect of the film

There really isn’t much I can say that was bad about this film. I enjoyed it a lot and it is a movie I am going to have to add to my collection sometime in the near future. My only real grievance with Mr. Brooks is that the ending felt rushed. The movie is already two hours long, so I don’t know that it needed to be any longer, but possibly some editing could have been done to trim it down a bit and that way there could have been more time to space the ending out a bit.

This is definitely a movie to see for fans of psychological thrillers. It has to be one of the best ones I’ve seen in recent memory. I can only hope that Costner wasn’t lying when he said there might be two more films to this story on the way. I give this movie 4 out of 5 perfectly crafted murders.

Until Next Time – Stay Young, You’ll Live Longer.

NEXT REVIEW: Cloverfield

Juno

“THE CHEESE TO [THIS YEARS OSCAR'S] MACARONI.”

 

GO SEE IT.

 

I guess I could probably elaborate on that a bit – even though you’re wasting your time with reading this instead of getting tickets and popcorn right now. Juno is an indie film that kind of snuck up on me. I hadn’t heard any news of this film until a good friend of mine said that she wanted to see it. Being a movie buff I tend to fell insecure when someone speaks of a movie that I haven’t even heard of. So, I immediately started researching it and found out that it was supposed to be a possible Oscar (among various other awards) contender. All I have to say is that they couldn’t have been more right.

 

I’m going to go ahead and present a quick synopsis of the film for those of you who haven’t heard of it yet while I think of ways to justly speak about it. Juno is about a sixteen year old girl named, well, Juno MacGruff. One night, out of boredom or curiosity, she decides to try having sex with her friend Paulie Bleeker (played by Superbad/Arrested Development’s Michael Cera). By dumb luck she finds herself pregnant and faced with the decision to have the baby or have an abortion. Juno, being the quirky kid she is, decides to do things her way and give the baby to adopting parents of her choice. She looks through a newspaper and finds the “perfect” parents to give her baby to, Mark and Vanessa (played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner). Everything seems legit until emotions start to fly and people start figuring out each other and themselves.

 

Juno is played by the marvelous Ellen Page – you may have seen her in the movie Hard Candy or as Shadowcat in X-Men 3: The Last Stand. She plays a quirky, misunderstood, supremely sarcastic, intelligent teenager so well that I’m not entirely convinced she was acting at all. Her witty, one-liners come out faster than crap through a goose (which for those of you who haven’t been around geese, they poop frequently) which deserves mad props for her delivery and mad props to the writer, Diablo Cody, for being awesome. Here are a few examples of her dialog: “I’m just gonna go ahead and nip this thing in the butt. ‘Cause you know they say pregnancy often leads to, you know…infants”, “Yeah, if I could just have the thing and give it to you now, I totally would. But I’m guessing it probably looks like a sea monkey right now and we should let it get a little cuter” and “You should’ve gone to China, you know, ’cause I hear they give away babies like free iPods. You know, they pretty much just put them in those t-shirt guns and shoot them out at sporting events.” It’s really great stuff and if you don’t think so I would argue that you are a statue (and not a cool one either).

 

Michael Cera once again plays the kid that is so incredibly awkward that it is hilarious. He is very good at this but I hope he doesn’t get pigeon holed into playing that part in every movie he is in. A good, serious, tear-jerking drama would be cool to see him in next. However, Cera’s character is golden and is the perfect “cheese” to Juno’s “macaroni.”

 

The other supporting actors do tremendous things for the film. J.K. Simmons (you may have seen him in The Ladykillers or Spider-Man 1,2 and 3) and Allison Janney (she was in American Beauty and 10 Things I Hate About You) play Juno’s father and step-mother that both have quite curious relationships with her and themselves. They really add to the depth of the story and even bring out the theme a little more. Their acting is excellent and does absolute wonders for the all around viewing enjoyment.

 

The writing for this movie was absolutely top notch, as I mentioned above. Another thing that makes it awesome is that the writers name is Diablo Cody. How cool is that? She obviously put a lot of thought and a lot of heart into her script and without her talent this movie wouldn’t have flown. It will be hard to find a movie this season that has more intelligent, humorous wit than Juno does. The script is absolutely wonderful in every way and I would argue that it is one of the best in recent history. Not bad for a stripper from Minnesota, eh?

 

I only have a couple of complaints about this movie and they really aren’t even that big of deal. One thing I thought was that the direction of the film wasn’t anything special. It was all pretty standard stuff. But there were few really cool wide-long shots here and there and the very last shot was particularly brilliant. It’s an awesome sequence. Another thing was that I wanted more Paulie Bleeker. He’s in it a fair amount, but Michael Cera is hilarious and he could have added even more comic relief, more character development and maybe even some more drama. My last grievance with Juno is that I just simply wanted more. The movie clocked in at about 90 minutes. It could have easily been two full hours. I’m not entirely sure that it would have been necessary, the movie and story was complete and amazing the way it was, but I’m selfish and didn’t want the movie to end – yeah, I liked it that much.

 

Juno is offbeat, intelligent, hilarious, moving, lighthearted and simply amazing. It is without a doubt one of the best films of 2007 and I will be pulling for it come Oscar time – provided that they actually have the ceremony. It is most definitely a character study film, mostly on Juno herself, but also on everyone around her as well. Don’t let that turn you off though, this film has more laughs and heart than Barq’s has bite! Juno gets five out of five giant, blue slushies from me. Fo shiz.

 

Until next time – Stay young, you’ll live longer.

 

NEXT REVIEW: Mr. Brooks

 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

 

“GOD, THAT’S GOOD!”

If there is one movie from 2007 that should not be missed, I would venture to say that Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is it. This marks the sixth film that director Tim Burton has made with actor Johnny Depp (others include Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow and Corpse Bride) and they are both at the top of their game. The film also stars Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman and Sacha Baron Cohen (you know, the guy that played Borat) who also light up the screen in this adaptation of the Broadway hit.

 

Sweeney Todd is an exceptionally dark, comedic, dramatic musical (musical…I know, right?) set in London back in the day. Depp plays Sweeney Todd, a disgruntled, bitter barber who has been wrongfully imprisoned by Judge Turpin (played by Alan Rickman). After Todd is released from prison, he returns to London to find that his wife has committed suicide and his daughter is being held in seclusion by the very man who imprisoned him. He vows revenge and teams up with Helena Bonham Carter’s character, Mrs. Lovett – the owner of a meat pie restaurant that is known for the “worst pies in London”, to create a sinister, diabolic plan to carry out his vengeance.

 

I first heard of the musical Sweeney Todd in the vastly underrated Kevin Smith film Jersey Girl. Ben Affleck’s character’s daughter performs a scene from the play at her elementary talent show. The scene she happens to pick is one where Sweeney Todd starts slitting throats with his razor and the customers in the restaurant downstairs are singing a song with the line “God, that’s good.” I’m not entirely sure why many people didn’t enjoy that film.

 

This last summer I heard that Sweeney Todd was in production and being helmed by Tim Burton and starring Johhny Depp. I immediately got excited and couldn’t wait for December to roll around. I am a big fan of both of those guys and an even bigger fan of them working together. The wait was definitely worth it. Sweeney Todd is truly a movie like I’ve never seen before.

 

Tim Burton did superb work with every aspect of this film. From the lighting to the set to the camera angles, everything is extraordinary. While watching this film, it felt like I was watching the theatrical musical with a few extra shots that are like treats that you wouldn’t get out of the stage performance. Whoever the lighting director was – perhaps it was Burton himself, his movies have similar looks to them – deserves some form of award for the work done in Sweeney Todd. Everything was dark and gloomy but still bright and visible at the same time. The shadows that are cast on Depp’s face are menacing and evil and makes Depp’s character even more incredible. The set to the film is very theatrical as well, but at the same time has a sense of realness to it. It jumps out and really adds to the experience as a whole. Even the properties manager and special effects crew did amazing work.. Everything is sharp and macabre and the gore level isn’t over the top, but it’s definitely there. It’s not for the squeamish. However, the amount of blood that flies through the air is genuinely comical. What I’m getting at here is that Burton and his team did tremendous amount of pre-production work and took immaculate care of a superb script. Ergo, creating a force powerful, entertaining film that should be a force to be reckoned with when the Oscar’s come around.

 

There is one thing I did not like about the film but it doesn’t have to do with any of the production or acting or the film as a whole. It’s simply that in this version of Sweeney Todd, the “God, that’s good” song from Jersey Girl was edited from the final cut of this film. That is my only disappointment. Everything else about the film is absolutely phenomenal and the final shot is grotesquely, morbidly romantic.

 

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street totally gets my thumbs up, my five stars, my five buckets of popcorn or what have yous. If it is still in a theater near you, go see it. It’s a definite masterpiece and one of the best films of 2007.

 

Until next time – Stay young, you’ll live longer.

NEXT REVIEW: Juno