2012

Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars

"It's the end of the world as we know it... and I feel bored." Nothing like a quick paraphrase of a classic R.E.M. song to sum up my feelings toward the latest end of the world CGI spectacular from Roland Emmerich.

Unlike the 1970's disaster genre, which tended to focus on one particular mishap, like a boat sinking or an office tower bursting into flames, "2012" is an all-purpose disaster movie. Emmerich lays it on thick, utilizing earthquakes, tsunamis and every other natural catastrophe in the Master of Disaster Handbook, to bring life as we know it to a screeching halt.

The film centers around a global doomsday event coinciding with the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar's current cycle on December 21, 2012. In other words, four days before Christmas, 2012, the world goes boom. California falls into the sea, the South Pole ends up somewhere in Wisconsin and the Himalayas are submerged underwater. Staying one step ahead of the devastation is divorcee Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), who pulls out all the stops to get his ex-wife, kids and a handful of stragglers to a lifesaving Noah's Arc in China called Genesis.

The fifteen year old boy in me enjoyed watching the world blow up real good; the adult in me, however, wanted characters I could believe in. Or at least care about a little bit. It's not exactly the actor's fault that I didn't warm to / care about anyone on screen, they were simply doing their best with a script that had been run through the Clich�-O-Matic before filming began.

Occasionally the cheesy dialogue raises a smile. During a lover's spat one character says to another, "I feel like something is pulling us apart," as an earthquake splits the floor between them but more often than not each and every character is saddled with dialogue that would make Ed Wood Jr beam with pride. As all hell is breaking loose the president says to his daughter, "you look just like your mother when you get mad," and everything is the "most important (insert event here) in the history of mankind!" A thousand monkeys banging away on a thousand typewriters for a week could probably write this script.

But clever wordplay is not why we go see movies like this. We go to revel in a make believe orgy of destruction. Nothing much happens in the first forty minutes however--we meet the large cast, but by the time George Segal shows up the cameo quotient begins to resemble an episode of  "The Love Boat"--but when the earth's crust begins to destabilize at the forty minute mark many spectacular scenes of world demolition follow. Hope you have a huge appetite for destruction because for the next two hours that's pretty much all there is. "2012" becomes an end of the world spectacle to end all end of the world spectacles, which, works if a doom boom is all you're interested in, but after a while the elaborate special effects becomes visual white noise.

Emmerich could have kept up interest by adding some real drama beyond timers counting down to zero or placing the hero in life or death situations that he is most certainly going to survive, or by shortening the running time--at a butt numbing 2 hours and 40 minutes "2012" feels like the end of the world is playing out in real time--but instead was content to fill the screen with flashy CGI and little else.

"Boondock Saints: All Saints Day"

Richard's Review: 1 star

Quentin Tarantino what have you wrought? Every now and again a movie comes around by one of Tarantino's acolytes that tries to emulate the master, but, instead, slips into parody. "Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" is such a movie. The only thing that prevents director Troy Duffy's follow up to the original cult film from being an out-and-out send-up of Tarantino's tough guy revenge genre pictures is the absence of Leslie Nielsen.

Ten years after the first installment the pious but deadly MacManus brothers, Connor and Murphy (Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus) are back on American soil after a long exile in rural Ireland. They had been living a quiet life, tending sheep (I'm not kidding) and letting their hair grow to unruly lengths, but when their favorite Boston priest is killed they leave the sheep behind and return to their former lives as vigilante Mafioso killers. Joining them are new recruit Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr.), Southern belle and FBI special agent, Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz) and Poppa M (Billy Connolly). Bullets, bad accents and religious iconography abound as they bring their own brand of justice to the mean streets of Boston.

Duffy hasn't made a movie since 1999 and it shows. "Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" plays like a bloated 1990's M�tley Cr�e music video, complete with slow motion sequences and Julie Benz in FBI issue dominatrix heels. The only things missing are dry ice and a drum solo, and I'm pretty sure those will be in the director's cut.

Story wise it has all the depth of a UFC match and is just about as well acted. Everyone from the above the title credits does their worst work here, and Peter Fonda actually hands in a career ending performance as The Roman, an enigmatic figure who appears at the end of the film. And when, exactly, did Billy Connolly become a Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins impersonator? Even Clifton Collins Jr, a gifted actor who shone very brightly recently in "Sunshine Cleaning" doesn't fare very well, although, to be fair, it's hard to shine when you have to recite lines like, "This isn't rocket surgery, you know." Ouch. That line would make Ed Wood Jr. proud.

Maybe I have it wrong. Maybe Duffy meant to make a tough guy parody, but it doesn't feel that way. It feels more like fourth rate Tarantino. All the trademarks are here. There's the movie references--QT cites an exotic blend of kung fu movies, Goddard and 70s exploitation; Duffy references "Panic Room," a middling 2002 Jody Foster thriller. Then there's the "hip" soundtrack--Tarantino mines a deep well of soundtrack and pop music, Duffy doesn't. It just all feels like warmed over leftovers.

In what may be the defining scene of "Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day" Judd Nelson, as mafia boss Concezio Yakavetta, reenacts the famous Al Capone baseball bat scene from "The Untouchables," only this time, instead of a Louisville slugger he uses a salami to make his point. And that choice pretty much sums up the entire movie--ham-fisted and meat headed.

"Pirate Radio"

Richard's Review: 2 stars

"Pirate Radio" is about the indomitable never-say-die spirit of rock 'n' roll. It's about a group of DJs on a ship in the North Atlantic who spent the late 60s bringing the music to millions of British kids. It's a good story, but maybe the fictitious story of Radio Rock would mean more today if the music meant more today. Popular music doesn't have the same rebel spirit it once did, and as such it's hard to imagine that once, many years ago people were willing to die for the music they loved.

The action begins when Carl (Tom Sturridge), a rebellious teenager recently expelled from school, arrives on the pirate radio ship. He's been sent by his mother to stay with Quentin (Bill Nighy) his flamboyant godfather, in the hopes of straightening out his life. Fat chance. He's surrounded by a group of rogue DJs--The Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Simon (Chris O'Dowd), Angus (Rhys Darby), Midnight Mark (Tom Wisdom), DJ Smooth Bob (Ralph Brown) and the decadent "king of the airwaves", Gavin (Rhys Ifans)--a less-than-wholesome group who are the collective voices of rebel rock. Life on the boat is a nonstop party until the creation of the Marine Offences Act, which aims to silence the rowdy DJs and their "rock 'n' roll pornography," a failed marriage drives a wedge between the DJs and a blown engine threatens not only the existence of Radio Rock, but the lives of the DJs as well.

The tone of "Pirate Radio" is pitched somewhere just slightly above reality, just below parody. Its version of the freewheelin' Sixties feels unreal, as if people back then were all colorfully dressed wild men and women without a care in the world. It's obviously a highly idealized vision of the time that will appeal to boomers with rose colored memories of the time, but for the rest of us it will likely seem a bit na�ve. The characters, as presented here by some very good actors, are caricatures from the Swinging Sixties and not fully developed people.

Philip Seymour Hoffman comes closest to creating a real character as a man who becomes racked with melancholy when he realizes he is likely "living the best years of his life" and his trip back to dry land will be downhill, but by and large reality gets lost in the feel-goodness of it all.

It's a story about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll with little of the former and lots of the latter. In fact, "Pirate Radio" may be the first movie in some time that is actually more fun to listen to than actually watch. It has a blazing soundtrack, rich with great Brit rock like The Easybeats's "Friday on My Mind" and Arthur Brown's "Fire" but the film itself plays like a series of events rather than a movie. There's just not enough story and a few too many dance numbers here to justify a two hour running time.

"Pirate Radio" has its heart in the right place and is an enjoyable piece of 60's fluff, but I would have been happy to simply have the soundtrack and leave the movie behind.

"I Hope The Serve Beer in Hell"

Richard's Review: minus infinity X 10

Leaving the theatre after seeing "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" I felt as though I was leaving behind a crime scene--a crime against entertainment. This low budget adaptation of a best selling book of the same name by Tucker Max has all the appeal of watching an autopsy. And I don't mean the safe and sanitary kind of autopsy seen on "CSI", but the real deal where the medical examiner is covered in gore and noxious fumes fill the air.

As the opening credits say this story is "based on a true story... unfortunately." The unfortunately is meant to a self-knowing jab at the title character Tucker Max, a narcissistic young man who allows his self interest to affect the lives of everyone around him. It suggests that the screenwriter (whose life inspired the book and the movie) is acknowledging his bullish behavior and saying he has atoned for the events in the story that are about to unfold. If he really wanted to express regret for this story he'd apologize to the audience upfront, and perhaps do them the favor of suggesting they run to get their money back before sitting through anymore of this cheap rip off of The Hangover.

The story begins when Tucker Max (The Gilmour Girls' Matt Czuchry) uses his "charm" to convince his soon-to-be married friend Dan (Geoff Stults) to lie to his fianc�e (Traci Lords) and drive three hours to celebrate his bachelor party at a wild strip club that allows groping and down-and-dirty lap dances.

Tagging along for the ride is their depressed friend Drew (Jesse Bradford), a Colin Farrell look-a-like who does little more than whine in a monotonous voice and alienate everyone unfortunate enough to come within a one mile radius. Dropping his friends to pursue a stripper, Tucker sets into motion a series of events that will see Dan thrown in jail on the eve of his wedding. His reckless behavior throws a wedge in their friendship and Tucker must find a way to think about someone other than himself and make amends.

To say that there is a distinct lack of charm to "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" would be an understatement along the lines of suggesting that Jay Leno stopped being funny as soon as he moved to 10 pm. For every line like "we're gonna fail worse than a "Friends" spinoff" that may raise a smile there are a dozen other gags (literally) about rape, fetal alcohol syndrome and abortion. I know it's supposed to be an edgy morality tale about the effects of egotism, but even Tucker's big apology scene, his mea culpa for his self absorbed behavior, is all about him, proving once and for all that he is still a selfish man-child who does whatever he wants. It also means that the movie has no resolution and that the audience has spent ninety minutes in the company of these pathetic excuses for characters for no reason.

It's all rather unconvincing, unrealistic and given its low production value, unwatchable. That's to say nothing of the film's unforgivable misogyny, sexism and a climax that rates among the most unpleasant ever filmed. Finish your popcorn before the bathroom scene... trust me. "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" isn't just a bad movie; it's a slap in the face to anyone who pays money to see it.

"UP" on Blu Ray

Richard's Review: 4 1/2 stars

The phrase "golden age of animation" conjures up images of Mickey Mouse in a sorcerer's costume, Snow White and Bugs Bunny. The words remind us of a long ago time before jaggedly illustrated television cartoons like Rocket Robin Hood or The Flintstones replaced elegant hand drawn art. As fuzzy and nostalgic as my memories of those cartoons are, though, I'd argue that we're in a new golden age right now, a gilded era of fantastic animation spearheaded by a group of picture wizards based not in Hollywood, but the out-of-the-way city of Emeryville, California. In each of their ten feature films Pixar has raised the bar so high few--live action or animated--have been able to match their skill with imagery or story. Their latest, "Up," is a crowning achievement and the first animated film chosen to open the Cannes Film Festival.

The movie is a touching comedy adventure involving 78-year-old retired balloon salesman Carl Fredricksen (voice of Ed Asner). After the passing of his wife Ellie and the impending destruction of the home he shared with her, Carl decides to belatedly make their dream of exploring South America a reality. He ties 10,000 balloons to the house in an attempt to float to Paradise Falls, a place he's only ever seen on a map. Once in flight Carl discovers he has a stow-a-way, an eight-year-old Wilderness Explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai). Reluctantly Carl brings Russell along for the ride and together they share adventures in the Venezuelan jungle.

"Finding Nemo" screenwriter Bob Peterson has crafted an epic but personal story about rediscovering humanity, dealing with the loss of a loved one and finding a sense of purpose. It's a subtly complicated story that gently introduces adult themes into an art form generally aimed at kids. Binding together elements of everything from "A Christmas Carol" to "The Wizard of Oz" and "Fitzccarraldo", "Up" manages to be somewhat familiar and yet startlingly original all at the same time.

By mixing high tech state of the art computer generated images with the most old fashioned form of communication--superior storytelling--Pixar has created a film filled with that certain something generally missing from lesser animated efforts like "Aliens vs. Monsters" -- a sense of wonder. The screen is filled with imagination, something that should appeal to all members of the family.

It's also by turns hilariously funny and achingly tender.

"Up" is probably the most emotionally manipulative movie Pixar has ever made. Near the beginning Carl and Ellie's life together is played out in a tour de force sequence that will bring a tear or two to your eye. When was the last time a cartoon made you cry?

Add to all that great voice work from old pros Ed Asner and Christopher Plummer and some good, deep genuine laughs and you've got the best movie of the year so far.