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‘Capitalism’ is a true example of a movie in two parts. For the first hour, Moore jumps between topics never holding a theme longer than it takes to watch a family cry. Here we learn about the seedy side of pay disputes, life insurance, and re-mortgaging your house. The second hour of the movie, however, tells a great story of the cause, effect, and implications of the financial crisis and the US bailout. Like any Moore film, there are times that you need to look behind the stunts for the facts; but when you do, they’re relatively informed and interesting.
Much like ‘Transformers II’, ‘G.I. Joe’ is a movie that is much more entertaining than critics would lead you to believe. Sure it makes little to no sense to a rational viewer, with sinking icebergs, spontaneous underwater fires, and nanobots that previously only destroyed cancer cells but have been specifically engineered to destroy everything instead. But that’s not the point – there are also ninja fight scenes, experimental fighter planes, and some nice eye-candy for both the boys (with Rachel Nichols and Sienna Millar) and Channing Tatum for the girls. As far as popcorn entertainment goes, this is a solid player.
With a killer indie rock backing track, ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ tells the story of awkward teenage sexual attraction on a New York City night. Michael Cera and Kat Dennings play their roles well, and the main issue with the movie seems to be how they’ve cut and re-arranged the sub-stories within Rachel Cohn and David Levithan’s novel of the same name. As a result, the film suffers from jolted pacing and a couple of scenes that leave you thinking, “Wait, what just happened then?” Aside from this, however, the film is quite a light and enjoyable theatrical romp.
Here’s a case in point for managing expectations before you see a movie. I’d been told over and over again that ‘The Hangover’ was amazing, and one of the funniest movies for the past few years. Honestly, I actually did think it was reasonably funny – the characters are good, there were some memorable moments and quotes, and I like the idea of a bachelor party movie that doesn’t actually show the party. Despite this, I didn’t think it lived up to all the hype. For a similar class of humour, I’d watch something like ‘Super Troopers’ over this, any day.
I’d wondered why I hadn’t heard too much about this film, given that Seth Rogen and Anna Faris are such hot commodities right now. The answer is; it’s terrible. I never stop a movie half way through, but I almost made an exception for this. That being said, don’t blame Faris and Rogen for this, they’re just doing their job. The real failings with this movie are the writing and directing. The subject matter is poor and badly handled, the dialogue seems cheap and hastily written; and you could feel the lack of attention that had gone into the direction.
I have a feeling that as this film centres around relationships and a wedding, then it has to come under the banner of ‘chick-flick’. But don’t let that put you off. ‘I Love You, Man’ is quite a good movie. It’s the interactions between characters that makes this film so funny. Paul Rudd and Jason Segal have great timing, and their work with the supporting characters like J.K. Simmons’ unappreciative father, and Jon Favreau’s school-yard bully persona make for some stunning awkwardness. It’s a wholly likeable film, and worth suggesting when you’re girlfriend wants one of her types of movies.
Not being American makes this a hard movie to appreciate. While you can enjoy clips of Owen Wilson running in slow motion through the Bosnian countryside, you have to ignore the plot based around the Navy’s horror at a single Marine killed in enemy territory, and their plans to shoot an entire battalion of Serbian soldiers in retribution. I’d expect this from Wilson – only a couple of years into a big screen career you take the roles you can get. But I’m disappointed in Hackman. With ‘The French Connection’ and ‘Unforgiven’ under his belt, there was no need for this.
For all the highschool, college, and 30-somthings movies, it’s good to see a film about an age bracket that doesn’t get that much air-time. The performances here are fantastic, especially Jessie Eisenberg as James, the post-grad student unsure how to fit his literary life into the humdrum of a boring job. Greg Mottola’s writing and directing here is fantastic, and he’s managed to perfectly capture some of the uncertainty of relationships that fall somewhere between adolescent and adult. Also listen out for a great 80s classic rock soundtrack: there’s Whitesnake, The Cure, and Judas Priest, just to name a few.
I don’t know what was worst about seeing this movie: the writing, the characters, the dialogue, or the fact that I could have been watching the footy instead. Having not read the book, I’m not sure whether to blame most of the failings on Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo, the authors of the book, of Abby Kohn and Marc Silverstein who adapted it into a movie. Either way, there’s very little to enjoy about this, from the negative themes to the dragging plot, to the characters that are simply too difficult to care about. It’s really not worth the time.
Brilliantly mindless and wonderfully crude, ‘BASEketball’ tells the story of two childhood friends inventing a new sport and then resisting the temptations that come with the associated fame. Directed by David Zucker (creator of ‘The Naked Gun’), based on a game that he used to play with friends, you can tell that it’s also been heavily influenced (apparently as soon as they were cast, they added a new character) by stars Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators of ‘South Park’. With bad taste jokes abounding and sharp comic timing from all, you’ll want to watch this fantastic movie again.
