John’s Movie Musings

You know what gets in the way of a good movie?  Physics.  After four attempts, the Fast and the Furious franchise finally figured that out.  F’n A.

Now I have several friends who scoff at the idea of spending real money to see these.  In fact, I was once squarely in that camp (emphasis on square), until my friend Jason showed me the light.  I’m not a car guy.  I know more about how the GPS works than the carburetor.  But after a marathon of the first three movies, I was hooked.

Everyone likes fast cars, I finally realized.  It’s just buried under “responsibility” or some other pusillanimous excuse ($5 word of the day).  Don’t believe me?  Try and watch just a single episode of Top Gear (U.K.).  It’s impossible.  Also, I bet the meekest of you has raced someone off the line at a red light.  And every time you won, you thought, “Yep… still a bad ass.”

The Fast and the Furious movies are best experienced on the opening weekend.  After the show, every engine in the parking lot revs a bit more than normal.  Most cars shine from the new wax job.  Tires squeal with delight around corners.  Exhaust approaches your nose like the Old Spice Guy – “Hello nostrils.”  Accelerator pedals start screaming, “Give it to me!  Give it to me hard!”  It’s all very magical.

Go see Fast Five.  It’s good for your soul.  And for those that haven’t missed one, stay for the credits.

Grade: A-

Holy crap!  Where did the year go?  Summer is upon us, so here’s our annual look at what Hollywood is serving.

 

May 6

• Something Borrowed – Chick Flick about some girl who sleeps with her best friend’s fiance.  I’m guessing the best friend ends up thanking her for saving her from marrying the wrong guy.
• Thor – Proof Hollywood has run out of comic books to make movies about.

 

May 13

• Bridesmaids – It’s like the girl version of The Hangover, but without the humor.
• Priest – No, no.  Sorry.  THIS is proof Hollywood has run out of comics.

 

May 20

• Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides – Finally, we discover if Orlando Bloom and Kiera Knightly were the reasons number 3 was so awful.

 

May 26

• The Hangover: Part 2 – More hilarious debauchery.  This time in Bangkok.  Yes!
• Kung Fu Panda 2 – Loved the first one.  I’ll see this, too.

 

June 3

• X-Men: First Class – It’s like Tiny Tunes with X-Men.  My pick for worst movie of the summer.

 

June 10

• Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer – HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  What?
• Super 8 – Another JJ Abrams super secret project (But not his 8th).  I hope it’s better than Cloverfield.

 

June 17

• Green Lantern – Ugh.  Can 2012 get here so we can have another Batman movie?
• Mr. Popper’s Penguins – Mr. Popper’s Penguins present a bummer summer?

 

June 24

• Bad Teacher - Cameron Diaz in a teacher comedy.  That’s probably the film’s only joke.
• Cars 2 – Pixar sells out.  Their worst franchise gets a sequel because they sell a crapload of crap to kids.  But hey, more money for them means more Pixar movies for us.  That’s not a bad thing, right?

 

July 1

• Larry Crowne – A Tom Hanks/Julia Roberts movie I have never heard of.  Anyone?
• Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon – Worst.Title.Ever.
• Monte Carlo – This is what the girls will see while the boys are at Transformers.

 

July 8

• Horrible Bosses – Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman murder their bosses.  A romantic comedy?
• One Day – A look at two people as they randomly run into each other over the years.  Sadly, these two people are not ninjas.
• The Zookeeper - A Kevin James… “comedy.”  You know, like that mall cop movie.

 

July 15

• Harry Potter 7: Part 2 – Wanna feel old?  The first one came out 10 years ago.
• Winnie the Pooh – Did you hear about his cookbook?  Cooking with Pooh.

 

July 22

• Captain America: The First Avenger – AMERICA!  F*&^ YEAH!
• Friends with Benefits – Another movie with an appropriate use of an F-bomb.

 

July 29

• Cowboys & Aliens – Daniel Craig AND Harrison Ford as cowboys? And there’s aliens? Oh hell yes.
• Crazy, Stupid, Love – Causes Cramps, Vomiting, Diarrhea.
• The Smurfs – Who was asking for this?  Seriously.  You need a punch in the face.

 

August 5

• The Change-Up – Here’s something unique.  Two people magically swap lives for a short time.  How wonderful.  *gag
• Rise of the Planet of the Apes – James Franco channels Charlton Heston smoking weed.

 

August 12

• 30 Minutes or Less – Hahahaha.  A pizza delivery driver has to rob a bank within 30 minutes.  Genius.
• Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark – Children’s comedy?  Probably not.
• The Help – 1960s drama about race relations in Mississippi.  Well that should be a happy story.

 

August 19

• Conan the Barbarian – This rebooted Conan better have an Austrian accent.
• Fright Night – They’ve done a few of these, right?
• Spy Kids 4 – Hipster Spy Kids were doing 3D before it was cool.

 

August 26th

• Final Destination 5 – Number 4 was gonna be the last.  But then it made more money than the rest of the series.  Suprise! We get another one.

 

And that’ll do it.  I count twelve sequels or reboots in four months.  Some things just never change…

 

The novelization of The A-Team, if written one hundred years ago, would be considered classic literature by today’s standards.  Never before has an action movie explored those themes that affect the deepest core of our being. And not just for men.

The opening scene has the Alpha-Unit, or A-Team, fleeing Mexico in an old medical helicopter.  To escape a pursuing Mexican chopper, our A-Team pilot, Murdoch, executes a series of barrel rolls and stall dives to avoid heat-seeking missiles.  But you say that’s impossible.  Exactly.  Much like our lives, things seem impossible until we try.  The A-Team teaches us that we will succeed.

In another scene, the A-Team is gathered in a tank that has parachuted from an exploding cargo plane.  Going from bad to worse, a few parachutes get shot up, accelerating their decent.  They spot a lake far in the distance and recognize that’s the best place for a safe landing.  But how to get there.  They are in a tank.  Refusing to acknowledge the man-made inadequacies of a tank, they fire the cannon to the side, using physics to propel them towards the lake.  Still descending much too rapidly, they fire the cannon towards the ground to slow them to a safe splash landing.

This is obviously an analogy of our lives.  Too often we feel like a tank, unable to move, barreling head first into certain destruction.  But the lesson is that small choices can lead us to safety.  We just need the courage to act on them.

And finally, and perhaps the most important lesson of The A-Team; the new Mr. T struggles to accept who he is.  He feels maybe he shouldn’t be Mr. T.  Instead, maybe he should be Ghandi.  How many of you have thought, “Ya know, I just can’t be Mr. T today”?  I know I have.  It’s tragic, but still a very real fact of life.  Thankfully, I have lots of friends – my personal A-Team, who can come around me and say, “No John, you can be Mr. T.  We see it.  And we’ll be here until you do to.”

Powerful stuff.  It’s all onions up in here.  Go see The A-Team.  Bring tissues.

Grade: A

Picture the scene.  Some lazy Saturday afternoon, a writer is recovering from a rough night in Hollywood.  He’s on his fourth rerun of Quantum Leap when he changes the channel to Groundhog Day.  Despite the haze in his mind, a neuron manages to fire a single spark.  Our writer calls up his buddy and says, “Dude.  I got an idea for a movie.”

And so we have Source Code.  Thankfully, Quantum Leap and Groundhog Day are both awesome, so their combination isn’t crappy.  Here, we get a dude (Jake Gyllenhaal) jumping leaping into the mind of a dead guy.  Or soon-to-be dead guy.  He’s got eight minutes to find a bomb before it goes off.  When he gets blown into Chunky Beef Stew, he restarts the level and tries again.

Now repeatedly showing people the same eight minutes is a dangerous formula.  Thankfully, things are handled well and every jump leap seems new and interesting.  It tries to take the serious Sci-Fi road, but Jake manages to squeeze some humor out of his situation.  It all works great for a fun, Summer Movie kinda ride.

If you miss Quantum Leap, check out Source Code.  And yes, that stupid title is stupid.  Check it out anyway.

Grade: B

There comes a time in all of us when our mouth will say something our brain cannot comprehend. Things like, “No thanks, I have had enough bacon.” Or, “Ya know, that Nickleback song isn’t too bad.” For me it was, “I think Ben Affleck is pretty talented.”

Years ago, Mr. Affleck had an epiphany; he would get behind the camera instead of in front of it. That stroke of genius gave us Gone Baby Gone, a fantastic kidnapping thriller you should have seen by now. For The Town, Affleck directs again but mixes things up by casting himself in the lead role. I should have maybe held that info until the end because you now know this movie isn’t as good.

The Town is your basic heist flick. A group of cons need “one last job” before walking away to paradise. Lucky for us, things go bad and there’s a story worth seeing. Well, some of it. The problem with this formula is that all of the lead-up is filler. I know one of the gang is gonna be angry and want to stay. I don’t care about the love interest’s nonsensical choices, nor the last three heist movies I saw them in. Just give me some dudes gunning their way through a botched robbery.

I’ve been much harsher on The Town here than just after seeing it. It’s well produced, well acted, and had some good tension. I had no idea who was gonna survive to the end, so that’s a plus.  I’d say it’s worth checking out, but only if you’re in the mood for the formula.

Grade: B-

Despite Charlie Sheen’s efforts to make every other actor appear normal, we all know Mel Gibson’s gravy leaves a few biscuits uncovered. But as an actor, I still like the guy. When he’s angry, he can get this crazy look in his eyes that says, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do to you, but I’m gonna like it.” Basically a foreshadow that something awesome is about to happen.

America loves a good redemption story. Those take time, however. During the seasons before that happy ending, actors who act like idiots do time in smaller films. Those that don’t take this path must wait on Tarantino. Edge of Darkness is film #1 (of many, I’m sure) in Mel’s recovery. Sometimes, these small-budget thrillers can produce real gems. I can’t think of an example just now, so obviously most are crap. Or at least forgettable. But I like the genre, so I make room for them in my cinematic diet.

Now a good thriller requires a certain amount of intelligence to write. Capable writers will be snatched up by the bigger films and those left can create exciting scenes for Crazy-Eyes Mel. Great. But villains tend to be stupid with the entire story hinging on that fact. When I finished Edge of Darkness, I liked it. There are some great scenes (maybe even memorable, *gasp), but given some thought, the less it holds up. There were too many moments when characters should not have made the decisions they did. Had they been smarter, there wouldn’t have been a movie.

Edge of Darkness will survive a single rental.

Grade: C+

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost make movies for movie lovers.  Shaun of the Dead began a trilogy of sorts, honoring mocking specific genres.  First with zombie horror, then Hot Fuzz slow-motion side-jumped into action films.  Paul beams us up into science fiction.

None of these films ever do well at the Box Office because they are made for a specific individual.  Someone who has seen a ton of movies and gets all of the inside jokes.  Someone like me.

For example, if you don’t laugh when Jason Bateman says, “Boring conversation, anyway” after putting a bullet into a CB radio, then Paul is not for you.  If, on the other hand, you just spat your Mountain Dew all over the keyboard after reading that, then pony yourself over to the cineplex, my friend.  You have a date with Paul.

Seth Rogan voices the little green man, and does a great job at giving some personality to the CGI.  Kristen Wiig is also in this.  I’ve never been a big fan of her and she does nothing to win me over here, but some of you may think she’s funny.  There are a couple of other cameos I’ll not mention, but they all play well into the “inside joke” point of the movie.

Paul is a tough movie to review.  I laughed at all the jokes, so as the cinematic equivalent of a stand-up comedian, it gets high praise.  As a film, hopefully you know if this is for you.  If you’ve enjoyed their other two outings, then definitely put this on your list.  It’s not as good as Shaun of the Dead, but still on par with Hot Fuzz.

Grade: B+