Wanted

Wanted (2008)


Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Writer: Michael Brandt (screenplay & story)
             Derek Haas (screenplay & story)
             Chris Morgan(screenplay)
             Mark Millar (comic book)
             J.G. Jones (comic book)
Starring: James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie, Morgan Freeman,  and Terence Stamp has like two scenes

Synopsis
Sad-sack motherfucker learns he's genetically inclined to be a super-assassin who can speed up his heart to percieve the world as extremely slow, trains, kills people.  Twists ensue, and he upsets the status quo.


The Woman
this was not great, but not the piece of crap movie i thought this would be. moster was surprised it was from a comic, but it reeks of comic through the whole movie, the characters, the stupid assassin group they belong to, the plot of revenge, and so on and so forth. textbook comic book. it was sometimes a little over the top even for me, but i was surprised at how much it didn't suck. i put this on the queue as a joke. it was no masterpiece by far, but i think my expectations were so low, and it entertained me. SPOILER ALERT! i can also get behind any movie where angelina gets her brains strewn on the wall and floor.

there were bits where the plot pushed past character's personality, like the whole training part. the main character goes from average joe to super assassin in like 2 montages. but eh, it could have been worse.

MOster

This movie was much more different than I expected.  Parts of it felt like "Fight Club," but not really.  The premise is pretty ridiculous, but that's OK.

The story is a monorail, with absolutely no side plotting or character development outside of the dude.  However, it's not a monorail on a tour around Action Movieville.  While the twist is not terribly surprising, the denoument is... even though the ending is pretty weak.  I was actually interested in seeing how most of this played out.

Acting was not a strong point here.  Angelina is stonier than usual, and McAvoy has exactly two emotions.  Freeman is slumming it, but not really making the most of that state of affairs. Direction was exactly mediocre, even though there were some differences in the plot and production.

Production was interesting.  There were some bits here that I haven't seen in quite the ways they were employed.  Specifically, the use of cars rotating around their lateral axes and this idiotic concept of curving bullets were nifty in their execution.  The effect surrounding the slowdown was also a little different in its execution.  Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) they were overused.  The original score was actually pretty good and I thought I heard some Trent Reznor, who's almost always welcome in my book.  

This movie suffered greatly in the editing.  The entire story was supposed to take place over the course of six weeks, but the training period (which must have been most of the six weeks) took up close to a third of the runtime and consisted of too much dialog sandwiched by two montages.  I really didn't get the urgency at all.

This movie is above average on first viewing; but I don't think I'd seek a repeat performance.

Tropic Thunder

Tropic Thunder (2008)


Director: Ben Stiller
Writer: Ben Stiller
             Justin Theroux
Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert Downey Jr, Jack Black, Brandon T. Jackson, Jay Baruchal, and a whole bunch of                                                                other people, like you don't know. we're probably the last people on the planet who hadn't seen this movie

Synopsis
douchy ego maniacal hollywood stars come together to make a high budget blockbuster about a mission in vietnam. they are terrible. the director and writer vet guy, come up with a scheme to drop the cast in the jungle. hi jinx ensues.


MOster
Oftentimes, if I'm understimulated I'll begin to doze off at about 10:30.  This decidedly did not happen when we watched "Thirst" on Sunday.  It definitely did happen when we watched "Tropic Thunder," and part of why I woke up was because the replacement BD started skipping.

This was not a bad movie.  It wasn't even a journeyman's approach to direction or production; but it was a journeyman's approach to screenwriting.  With three credited writers, it's my opinion that most of the funny came from Ethan Cohen while most of the unfunny came from Ben Stiller, and I don't care where the rest of it came from.  There's a scene early on where Jack Black's character is shown as a send-up of Eddie Murphy in his multiple farting character movies.  It's just a shame that the film didn't heed its own advice.  I really felt like we were having less fun watching the move than was had by those who made it.

There were plenty of funny little bits and long-term setups with OK payoffs, but this is supposed to be a lighthearted satire of war action movies; and I didn't find the fact that EVERY character had some stupid secret which lead to some other stupid reveal and some third stupid growth to be satirical.  I found it (wait for it...) retarded.  They didn't all need to grow.  The movie could have ended earlier and been funnier, or it could have ended at the same point with(e.g.)out Lance Bass.  Tom Cruise was quite funny, especially when you realized it was him, but I could have done with a LOT less of that deal, again especially at the end.

Acting was probably in the B- range.  Robert Downey was pretty funny as an Aussie in surgical blackface to play a black man, and I was happy to see a Jack Black role with less of the standard Jack Black schtick.  The dude from Hot Rod was good, but he was playing the dude from Hot  Rod; and everybody else was just fine.  Steve Coogan (whose demise was actually funny) was alright.

I won't dwell on the technical here, but I will say that it could have been much worse.  In fact, I might prefer to watch a comedy directed by Stiller, but neither written, produced, nor acted by him.  Production value was high enough and creative enough where it had to be.  Music was mostly unmemorable, except for the rap star's reasonably funny songs.

Because that's what this movie really was:  reasonably funny.  I don't recommend renting it or demanding it, but if it comes up on pay cable and there's nothing on you could do worse.

The Woman
i think my expectations for this movie were too high. lots of people i know liked this movie a lot. it's not that i didn't not like it, i just thought it was you stereotypical stiller flick. i don't see much of a difference between this and dodgeball. i don't know why i thought this would be better, funnier. i guess because zoolander was so awesome it has kept the dream alive.

we did miss the climax in it's entirety because netflix sent us another dud. moster probably mentioned this so i won't. it just wasn't good enough to stop, turn it off, and wait two more days for another replacement. we did get the gist by watching it in blips of frozen screen and fast forward. i guess that says a lot right there. the funniest part, in my opinion, happens about twenty minutes in with an unexpected explosion. i won't give it away for the two of you who haven't seen it. it would ruin the joke. also, i would like to know how the whole "retard" thing was edited out. it was kind of an integral part to the plot trudging along at an expected pace.

all in all i was disappointed. so much potential. so much of the same jokes.

Thirst

Thirst (2009)
Director Park Chan-Wook
Writers Park Chan-Wook, Seo-Gyeong Jeong
Starring Song Kang-ho,  Kim Ok-bin, Park In-hwan

Synopsis (by MOster)
In an effort to do more good than he's already doing providing comfort to the dying, Friar Sang-Hyeon volunteers for a vacciene experiment in an African facility which is not entirely sanctioned by the church. As an inadvertent result of his participation Sang-Hyeon is transfused with vampire blood which causes his apparent resurrection on the operating table and results in him becoming known as something of a miracle man, with people constantly asking him to pray for their children, etc.  In one such encounter he runs into some people from his childhood, and he continues to interact with them at various levels.

Succumbing to his vampiric tendencies is the only thing that keeps the virus against which he was vaccinated at bay (I'm not clear if this is the vaccine), and this begins the erosion of his vows and his humanity.

Woman
this was good. i think everything park chan- wook does is pretty brilliant. it was a good twist on a vampire story. for once, the desired chick wasn't in high school, the guy wasn't a bizillion years old, and there was no set mythology in place. the vampire was not bad or invincible, just surviving like a "beast". the priest was still guilt ridden and doing good, in his opinion. and the girl who had been treated like a dog all her life started treating everyone else like a dog, because to her, they were a lower species. this was shot beautifully and intentionally, which is so rare these days. and the emotion that was conveyed by the characters without any dialogue was also pretty awesome. i don't think there is any dialog for the last ten or fifteen minutes. not many directors or actors can do that in jolly ol' hollywood. and last, but not least, EVERYBODY got their comeuppance in the end. like every park chan-wook film

MOster
I was really looking forward to this, and I'm glad we got to watch it on demand rather than waiting for it to show up in the regular rotation.

This doesn't bear much resemblance to Park's other works (most notably, the Vengeance Trilogy which includes "Oldboy") except for the pacing. Other than a couple of really interesting action pieces and a few interludes of (spoiler alert?) much-hotter-than-average sex there's no sense of urgency to the proceedings.  As things draw to their conclusion (which doesn't become inevitable nearly as early as it could have) they're still playing out in a day-to-day kind of fashion.

The mechanics of the vampirism are so easily accepted by the people involved that disbelief is quite easy to suspend; and once I did that I found each of the characters to be true.  There are no broad strokes here, and no easy answers.  It's really interesting to watch how Sang-Hyeon's guilt plays against what he's forced to do by his nature as well as what he chooses to do--one element felt a lot like Poe to me--and it's also easy to see how that guilt doesn't transfer to his love interest, Tae-ju.  Even the secondary and tertiary characters (down to a man who shares one scene in a conscious state) are palpable as people.

Acting was excellent.  Song Kang-ho  is excellent as Sang-Hyeon.  It was great to watch his face as he thought through actions that were impossible to avoid even though he could foresee the consequences, and also to see his resignation as choices become less difficult.  Kim Ok-bin is also top-notch, approaching her role as differently as the characters are.  And as Sang-Hyeon's mentor and superior, priest Noh, Park In-hwan (no relation?) plays an entirely different form of desperation with another form of beauty altogether.

There was also a lot to like on the technical side.  Park's direction is palpable but not overbearing, with minimal use of Steadicam and lots of tight shots (skillfully edited together, as well) in addition to some really cool one-offs.  The final shot is beautiful. For obvious reasons this is a dark movie, but it's never a muddy one.  Music and sound effects are also used quite well.

I highly recommend this film.  People talk about how Korean cinema has "arrived" (or similar platitudes), but I find that to be condescending.  I don't know much about the timeline, but I think it's just as likely that we've arrived in Korea.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants2

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008)

Director: Sanaa Hamri
Writer: Elizabeth Chandler (screenplay)
           Ann Brashares (novel)
Starring: the chick from "gossip girl", the chick from "ugly betty", the chick who used to play emily quartermane on "general hospital" then got her own show on cbs i think it is/was called "joan of arcadia", and the chick from "gilmore girls"


Synopsis
the girls are back for their wacky adventures in teen drama, and mailing pants back and forth to one another. this time the pants are even uglier, and the girls have moved on to their own respective collegiate years. relationship drama and greece remains the same.


The Woman (only, unfortunately)
ok. imagine, if you will, the "sex and the city" movie as barbie. now imagine this as skipper. barbie has all the cool clothes, jobs, men, friends, and body. skipper is essentially the same plastic toy, but without ANY of the coolness, and small substance that makes barbie, barbie. two hours of whiny boy troubles, a pregnancy scare, jealousy over an acting part?, and an archeology chance of a lifetime squandered to reconnect with a long lost grandmother.  poor sad ivy league girls so self involved that they blow tiny little things way out of proportion to make themselves feel alive. man, i know if i attended brown, or yale, or risdi, or nyu, you bet during my education there i would totally obsess over my discovery as a talented actress (which we'll get to in a second), or the fact that i'm too dumb to go on the pill and let my boyfriend use a 2 year old condom the first time we had sex, or my ex foreign boyfriend entering into a marriage because he knocked another girl up, or my for some reason exiled grandmother. whatever. aren't people who get into these institutions supposed to be totally focused on their academic and post graduate years? also who likes a movie where all the girls are so friggin' perfect at everything they do? that's not a plot. and the thin, forced drama is totally a joke.


the whole discovery as a talented actress thing.....if whatever her name is gets so distracted by her fight with a friend that she performs like garbage, wouldn't that mean a lack of acting talent? she's only good at acting like she's in love with her co- star when she IS in love with him? ummmm...kay. then we have to suffer through lines like this: 
[BRIDGET SOBBING]
bridget: Mom!
grandma:Honey.Bee. What, honey? What is it? What is it?
bridget: I remember it now. There was a storm, just like this one,and she left me.
Even then she didn't care about me.


this is about this chick's mother leaving her with her grandmother when she's 6 for the summer. she was traumatized enough by this to completely block all the memories of it. aren't you traumatized for reading it? it was by far my favorite part of the movie, and yet i had to look up the exact quote....... also there was some bullshit about the risdi girl never having done nude life drawings before her second summer of college and she was all nervous-like dropping her supplies and fidgeting, and talking non-stop. as an art school graduate i will tell you this is completely ridiculous. my school was not as prestigious  as risdi and yet i think i did my first life drawing in the first week of my freshman year. if anyone acted the way she did in my class, they would have been shunned by the "serious" artists and giggled about by the rest of us for a long time afterward.


final thoughts about this movie ......................totally awesome. it's a shame the pants committed suicide at the end of the movie so they can't make another one. they should have gone out in a fiery explosion though. that would have given the deformed survivors something to dramatize about.

Up

Up (2009)
Written / Directed by Pete Doctor, Bob Peterson
Starring Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer, Jordan Nagai

Synopsis (By Leila)
kid named carl fredrickson meets a fellow charles munts (super dirigible explorer) fan, ellie. they grow up together fall in love get married, find they can have no children, have a glorious life together, but never get to go on their adventure to south america. ellie dies, and life becomes crappier, and crappier for carl, until one day he decides to go on that adventure for ellie. after hijinx, he ends up with a little kid, a bird named kevin, and a dog named dug.

MOster
Unsurprisingly, I liked this movie.  I'm gay enough to have cried a few times.

By now, everybody probably knows the plot.  I enjoyed the plot.  I found Mr. Fredrickson's (Asner's) development to actually be a story of growing up.  Losing his wife in a truly beautiful montage, his listlessness is palpable and his curmudgeonly behavior is almost understandable.  While the speed with which the system kicks him out of his house is frankly ridiculous, I don't know if there would have been a more-subtle / eimilarly expeditious way to get him up in the air.  Similarly, I think the broad strokes of his plan really work out to a death wish.  Before the kid became a factor, did he really think he would make it to South America with helium balloons holding him up?  Where was the map?  Etc. etc. etc.

But disbelief was pretty easy to suspend, and those doubts are coming up now rather than when I watched the movie.  There was enough novelty mixed with almost-believability when they got to where they were going.  The human characters were true, the kid probably the most realistic.  Christopher Plummer totally sold it as a Livingstone-type explorer looking for something to bring himself back to the fore, and the subtlety of the comedy involved in the (admittedly ridiculous in premise) talking dogs is a lesson that could be learned by Mr. Lucas.  The ending came well, and the tension really paid off.  Asner stepping in as the father figure at the end was another really nice moment.

From a technical perspective, there's not too much to say.  It's a Pixar movie.  It's beautiful and the CG is totally immersive.  Also, the scene where they showed the passage of time by the neckties she fixes on him was really great.

The Woman
this was a very sad story, and pixar always seems to have wierd sad,and sentimental movies. why do i fall for it everytime? why do kids like these movies? they're kind of depressing. i guess other than that it was good.the dogs were really funny and true to form for dogs. i usually don't cry during movies (i leave that up to my woman of a husband), but jeebus, i was tearing up through the whole friggin' movie.

The Slanted Screen

The Slanted Screen (2006)
Director: Jeff Adachi
Contributers include: Mako, Phillip Rhee, Jason Scott Lee

Synopsis (by MOster):
Basic documentary about the hard time which Asian men (specifically men) have in getting mainstream acting roles.  Talking heads and archival footage are used in the regular way, and a narrator (which IMDB says is Daniel Dae Kim, but who is actually someone named Rowena) bridges the gaps.

Woman
i was expecting a history of asians in film and the impact of asian cinema on the american mainstream. instead i got respected asian actors telling their stories of discrimination in the mainstream. they had some good points, but they also failed to show the positive aspects some asians had in american cinema. yes, there is a lot of terrible stereotyping of asians in the film industry, and yes, there are very few if any asian romantic leads in contemporary movies. however, in my opinion, there is an incredible amount of asian influence in american movies. they strive for the awesomeness that asian movies contain. there was no mention of any asian american women of any sort, and there was also no mention of successful asian actors people like chow yun- fat, or jet li, or jackie chan, or even michelle yeoh. correct these actors do martial arts movies, but there are also dramatic roles as well. is it because these asians are "real" asians and not asian americans? and what about ang lee? he's like the man. it was just too over the top whiny for me. what about noriyuki "pat" morita? was mr. miagi too stereotypical? he wasn't mentioned either. and he IS an asian american.....and totally awesome!!!!!


MOster
This was pretty weak.  Brought to you by (essentially) the NAAYFA, it conveyed a point which most people probably already know: There aren't a lot of (enough) Asian men in leading or romantic roles in major Hollywood pictures.

Starting much more strongly than it ended, the movie talked about an Asian man who had all sorts of big roles in the early days of film.  And then things went to shit, and people were stereotyped and marginalized and charicatured.

While a few of the interviewees buck the message by saying how they take stereotyped roles and make them more than the sum of their parts (and like to eat), most of the others focus on how they should be rejecting those sorts of things in favor of only the major parts.  We also get a few socioligists and historians to tell us about how it's important for children to see "people like them" on TV and in movies.

This is all mostly irrefutable and I don't mean to minimize the plight. But it's *mostly* irrefutable.
They show a photo of Jackie Chan; but they neither discuss nor interview him.  They have a clip of an early George Takei film but they don't talk about how Sulu was a positive Japanese character.  They don't mention Ang Lee or John Woo at all.  

It seems like the point of the movie was to push Asians into striving for bigger things in the movie industry; and that's certainly a noble goal.  But wouldn't it do more to forward the cause if we saw the successes too?

Grace

Grace (2009)


Director: Paul Solet
Writer: Paul Solet
Starring: Jordan Ladd, Samantha Ferris, Gabrielle Rose

Synopsis
a crunchy granola, vegan, pregnant woman with the most horrible mother in- law i've ever seen ( and i know of some doozies) is in an accident where her husband and unborn baby both die. she chooses to wait until labor begins naturally, which apparently is a couple weeks, to give birth to her stillborn, which turns out is not stillborn.......ZOMBIE VAMPIRE FETUS.

The Woman (only)
i think i put this on the queue shortly after giving birth myself. it was ok. it was no dark castle, same horror movie spit out over and over again, which, as martha stewart says, is a good thing. i appreciated the subtlety of the horror. like the fact the kid was decomposing and smelly, and very attractive to the fly population, but it was never really stated outright. i thought perhaps the baby had never come back to "life" and she was just taking care of a dead baby. there was a lot of attempt at shock value, but i've totally been destroyed in that department, becoming immune to that sort of tactic. instead of breast feeding, the baby gnaws off a nipple and just starts drinking momma's blood through her boob. there's some sort of allusion to a mother's bonding and commitment to her child and there is also a fair amount of the whole mid-wife vs. hospital war that is currently going on in this country. i was expecting more horroriness to it. something was missing for me. of course, i watched "ju-on 2" when i was in my second trimester of pregnancy and it TOTALLY fucked me up. i think i was expecting more of that. once again, the netflix rating system has a case where i gave two out of five stars, when really, it was more of a two and three quarters.