Archive
Review: “Foodfight!”
Directed by: Lawrence Kasanoff
Produced by: Lawrence Kasanoff, Joshua Wexler, George Johnson
Written by: Brent Friedman, Rebecca Swanson, Sean Catherine Derek (screenplay) Lawrence Kasanoff (screenplay & story), Joshua Wexler (story)
Edited by: Ray Mupas, Craig Paulsen, Ann Hoyt, Sean Rourke
Production Design by: Jonathan A. Carlson
Music by: Walter Murphy
Starring: Charlie Sheen, Wayne Brady, Eva Longoria, Hilary Duff, Larry Miller, Chris Kattan, Harvey Fierstein, Jerry Stiller, Cloris Leachman, Christopher Lloyd, James Arnold Taylor, Edie McClurg
Year: 2012
Starting production all the way back in 2001, it’d be tempting to call Foodfight! the Duke Nukem Forever of animated movies – with that game’s developer-hopping, financially constrained, 14-year-long development cycle from c. 1997 all the way to its miraculous resurrection and yet disastrous release in 2011 already something of a legend worthy of its own film adaptation – but that would imply that anybody who doesn’t work in marketing actually anticipated this corporate mascot-infested Toy Story rip-off’s release. Read more…
Review: “Oscar” (1991)
Directed by: John Landis
Produced by: Leslie Belzberg
Written by: Michael Barrie, Jim Mulholland, Claude Magnier (original play)
Edited by: Dale Beldin
Cinematography by: Mac Ahlberg
Music by: Elmer Bernstein
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Marisa Tomei, Vincent Spano, Ornella Muti, Tim Curry, Chazz Palminteri, Peter Riegert, Elizabeth Barondes, Linda Gray, Joycelyn O’Brien, Martin Ferrero, Harry Shearer, Kurtwood Smith, Eddie Bracken, Richard Romanus, Kirk Douglas, Don Ameche, Jim Mulholland, Yvonne De Carlo
Based on the play by Claude Magnier
Year: 1991
Sometimes it’s nice to rely on friends to make suggestions for you when you’re in the mood for something different that you might have overlooked previously. The last time I did a review at the suggestion of a friend, his out of left field suggestion (after Macross, which, he had forgotten, wasn’t just a single movie but a whole series) was K-PAX, a movie I had always been somewhat curious about but never really interested enough to ever actually pursue – or even remember, for that matter. I ultimately didn’t end up liking it that much, but I enjoyed the suggestion, nonetheless. So, as Guy Movie Month was coming to a close, I asked another friend of mine what movie I should review next that I hadn’t seen. He came up with the answer pretty quickly: Oscar. Read more…
Review: “Hot Fuzz”
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Produced by: Nira Park, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner
Written by: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg
Edited by: Chris Dickens
Cinematography by: Jess Hall
Music by: David Arnold
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Timothy Dalton, Paddy Considine, Rafe Spall, Kevin Eldon, Olivia Colman, Karl Johnson, Bill Bailey, Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, Bill Nighy
Year: 2007
(Review is very mildly spoilery, though you’d have to be a dolt not to catch on quickly or guess what’s going to happen. You’ve been warned, regardless!)
“Funny, but took a while to build up to the comedy. Honestly, it could’ve been a lot more ridiculous in its humor, but it wasn’t bad. Shaun still rocks, though.”
That’s the entirety of my 3-star Flixster/Rotten Tomatoes review, which I wrote years ago and recently rediscovered while preparing for this review. I remember the mindset that was informing this review. I had watched a few sneak peak clips back when IGN.com used to be my primary source for movie news, and those brief, minutes-long clips had set my expectations for the entirety of the film as being something more akin to Reno 911 in an English countryside than what the film actually turned out to be: a loving tribute to ridiculous buddy cop/crime films – as filtered through the English countryside. Read more…
Review: “Point Break”
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Produced by: Peter Abrams, Robert L. Levy
Written by: W. Peter Iliff (screenplay), Rick King, W. Peter Iliff (story)
Edited by: Howard L. Smith
Cinematography by: Donald Peterman
Music by: Mark Isham
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Lori Petty, John C. McGinley, James LeGros
Year: 1991
I watched this film at the suggestion of Hot Fuzz. Until that movie came out, this movie was never even really on my radar beyond maybe seeing it on rental shelves when I was little kid. Based on that movie, a tribute to ridiculous buddy cop movies and such, I pretty much had my expectations in check when I suddenly realized that this would be perfect for Guy Movie Month. Read more…
Dual Review: “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”
Home Alone
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Produced by: John Hughes
Written by: John Hughes
Edited by: Raja Gosnell
Cinematography by: Julio Macat
Music by: John Williams
Starring: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Catherine O’Hara, John Heard, John Candy, Roberts Blossom, Gerry Bamman
Year: 1990
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Produced by: John Hughes
Written by: John Hughes
Edited by: Raja Gosnell
Cinematography by: Julio Macat
Music by: John Williams
Starring: Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, Tim Curry, Rob Schneider, Dana Ivey, Brenda Fricker, Catherine O’Hara, Eddie Bracken, John Heard, Gerry Bamman
Year: 1992
It had been a long time since I had seen any of the Home Alone films when I bought the Blu-Ray set of the first two films that went on sale earlier this month for the lovely price of about $12. Being in a spend-y mood, I bought it happily, having wanted but never owned the first two films since I was a little kid. (Oddly, I did own a VHS of the third film.) And, I gotta say, while I still mostly enjoyed the films, even at age 26, I didn’t find myself laughing at them nearly as much as I had as a little kid. It’s not that I’m above the whole slapstick thing — I just watched Ted for the first time tonight, and one of the funniest parts of that movie was the ridiculously violent beat down the teddy bear gives Mark Wahlberg — but I certainly felt a lot more cynical about it than I had expected.
Perhaps it was the fact that I watched them back-to-back in one night. Perhaps it was because I watched them while cooking a turkey that inadvertently filled my apartment with large plumes of smoke (the turkey turned out fine, but I’m still unsure what caused all that). Or perhaps it’s because I realized that 2 is basically just a remake of 1 with extra ridiculous and a hefty dollop of moralizing. Maybe it was a combination of those factors.
So, rather than review these films separately, as I would with any other franchise, I decided to review them at the same time. Unlike with last year’s Grudge Match Review of adaptations of A Christmas Carol, however, this isn’t really a competition, but rather an efficient way of killing two birds with one stone. After all, take a look at those credits up there. The films are identical in cast and crew, with the second one doing the typical sequel thing by throwing in a few new faces for good measure, and, for the most part, they are the same in story structure, too. Read more…
Theatrical Review: “Looper”
Directed by: Rian Johnson
Produced by: Ram Bergman, James D. Stern
Written by: Rian Johnson
Cinematography by: Steve Yedlin
Music by: Nathan Johnson
Starring: Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt, Jeff Daniels, Noah Segan, Piper Perabo, Pierce Gagnon, Paul Dano, Garret Dillahunt, Summer Qing
Year: 2012
If there’s any one element to appreciate in Looper, it’s the fact that writer/director Rian Johnson has committed to this sort of matter of fact tone with the film. Sure, there’s a bit of exhibition in the form of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s noir-ish narration, but, for the most part, this is a universe that we’re thrown into, given a bit of explanation for, and are asked to just accept. Though the world of the future as portrayed in the film from the years 2044 – 2074 is one that is relatively plausible in appearance (you’re not going to be seeing any androids, aliens, or regular use of spaceflight), it’s important that we accept this world for what it is despite its more fantastical elements, such as the mutation of telekinetic abilities in some members of the future population, as well as the film’s portrayal of the discovery of backwards time travel. The reason for this is because, though these elements play a great deal of a role in the story, the story itself is not necessarily about these elements. You’re not, for example, going to be getting an explanation as to how time travel was uncovered, just that it exists and is being used for nefarious purposes.
It’s almost impossible to sum up the narrative of Looper without delving into too many specifics and spoiling the plot for you, but I’ll try my best to summarize the premise without giving too much away. Read more…
Review: “Battle Royale” (バトル・ロワイアル)
Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku
Produced by: Masao Sato, Masumi Okada, Teruo Kamaya, Tetsu Kayama
Written by: Kenta Fukasaku (screenplay)
Cinematography by: Katsumi Yanagishima
Music by: Masamichi Amano
Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Taro Yamamoto, Masanobu Ando, Kou Shibasaki, Chiaki Kuriyama, Takeshi Kitano
Based on the novel Battle Royale (バトル・ロワイアル) by Koushun Takami
Year: 2000
Director Kinji Fukasaku once said that he took on the duties of directing this adaptation of Koushun Takami’s novel thanks in large part to his experiences as a 15-year-old, working in one of Japan’s munitions factories during World War II. When he realized that the government had been lying to them about war, he grew to distrust adults, a resentment that apparently had carried on well into his own adulthood. Though I haven’t read the original novel, it’s easy to see why he was so drawn into the project, given his history. Battle Royale seems to take the stance that teenagers need not necessarily always listen to their elders and should always question their reasons for putting them through the systems that they set in the way as they head into adulthood. In this case, the system is represented through the titular 3-day, all out battle to the death between teenagers selected at random by the government in a post-millennial attempt to curtail the rise in youth crimes and once again regain the respect the younger generation no longer holds toward their elders. Read more…
Review: “Attack the Block”
Directed by: Joe Cornish
Produced by: Nira Park & James Wilson; Jenny Borgars, Will Clarke, Olivier Courson, Matthew Justice, Tessa Ross, and Edgar Wright (exec. producers)
Written by: Joe Cornish
Starring: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail, Franz Drameh, Leeon Jones, Simon Howard, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, Nick Frost
Music By: Steven Price
Year: 2011
I’ve read several of the major publication reviews of this film on Rotten Tomatoes (not all of them, but several), and it seems as though the general consensus regarding Attack the Block among many of the reviewers is that the film is ultimately a B-film that they happened to have enjoyed. Many, including some of the more favorable reviews, are quick to point out the film is a “satire” of genre tropes and a film more concerned about pacing than plotting. Read more…
Review: “The Departed”
Director: Martin Scorsese
Produced by: Brad Pitt, Brad Grey, Graham King
Written by: William Monahan (screenplay), Felix Chong & Alan Mak (story)
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin, Anthony Anderson
Music by: Howard Shore
Remake of: 無間道 (Infernal Affairs, 2002)
Year: 2006
Can a film that tries to be a serious drama simultaneously be a popcorn film? I believe it can. The Departed certainly is. In fact, I was actually inspired to throw a bag in the microwave and toss in some Parmesan cheese for good measure while watching this remake of the Chinese gangster film, Infernal Affairs. Martin Scorsese, winning with this film what was somehow his first Oscar for Best Director, has crafted what is essentially an action film where all the action takes place in the flurry of words rather than bullets. Read more…
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