Critical Film Condition

When you review a movie directed by Rob Reiner starring Jack Nicholson opposite Morgan Freeman it is really a no brainer. You can make a movie about a serial-killer tofu cheese killing people in a village in Cambodia and somehow, these guys would make it worth watching.

But, thankfully, "The Bucket List" isn’t about that. The movie tells the story about two old men (yes, Nicholson is now an old man) who have lost themselves in life in their own ways. Both of them are in a hospital treating cancer and, when the news comes that they don’t have long to live, they decide to make a list of things to do before they "kick the bucket" (get it?). Oh… And they decide to DO THESE THINGS.

The movie isn’t perfect, of course… Mark Shaiman’s score is almost non-existent throughout the movie (and knowing Shaiman’s works, it’s a shame… no pun intended). Some of story seems a little out of whack, but this being an obviously fictitious movie, it doesn’t pose much of a problem. On a first viewing, these where the only things that bothered me, leaving room for what made me enjoy this movie altogether:

Now, Freeman and Nicholson are, obviously, responsible for a great part of the movie’s success (at least in my opinion). But keep in mind that, although the subject leaves great room for exploration (something that the screenwriter does, partially), this could have become a depressive tear-fest that the "death" thematic usually brings along. Especially when it comes to treating cancer. This is where Rob Reiner comes in:

You will remember Reiner from "When Harry Met Sally" and "A Few Good Men". Reiner shows that, although being a usually discreet director, he doesn’t get intimidated by any subject, and this is no exception. What could be a movie driven by cheap dramatic moments is turned into a dramatic comedy about two guys who just want to make up for lost time, while at the same criticizing all of us young people who keep LOSING time. They don’t cry on each others shoulders and they don’t mention death too much… Because it is inevitable for them. So instead of leaving the public with no choice but to feel sorry for these poor, old men, the movie drives us to laugh at the situations these two old crazy guys get themselves into, while perfectly balancing the story with the necessary dramatic moments. But, most importantly, this movie made me think about life and wonder if, when I get to be 80 years old, I’m gonna look back and like what I did with my life.

And this is where "The Bucket List" shines. The movie gets a 9 in Brain Factor not because it makes you think about philosophy and Greek mythology, the movie gets you to think about YOURSELF!

Of course, I can’t finish this review without talking about it’s stars. It just looks like Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are having a ball making this movie. Both actors are 71 years old right now and you can see that they not only get the point of the movie, but feel the need to spread the word. It’s clear that most of the movie was ad-libbed (improvised), which is not new to the actors, and that just makes it all the more fun.

All in all, "The Bucket List" is a must-see for many reasons, being the lesson of not throwing life away definitely one of the bigger ones. Besides, watching Freeman and Nicholson having a feature-length drama-comic duel has to be seen to be believed.

Popularity: 2%

Yes, yes, yes!!! "Serenity" so much fun it’s freaky. What came as a surprise to me on the first viewing stuck with me the second time around because the movie is just GOOD.

"Serenity" is based on the canceled show "Firefly", created by Joss Whedon ("Buffy" and "Angel", neither of which I watched). Now, understand this: "Firefly" was canceled before the end of the first season and Whedon just made miracles happen when managing to transform the series into a major motion picture. This miracle worked well in theatres and very well in DVD (There’s even a sequel in the works), and here’s why:

"Serenity" starts of where the series ended (I didn’t watch the series). The story is as follows: in 500 years, we’ll have used all of Earth’s resources and must leave the planet, colonizing and "terraforming" other worlds. Then, naturally, China and the US form an Alliance that runs everything and pisses everybody off, starting a war against the independents. The independents lose the war and now we follow one of it’s heroes, Captain Mal Reynolds, as he’s become some sort of barely legal space pirate. His crew is composed of others and, of course, they are like a big, poor, smart, skilled, family. In their ship, they carry two fugitives, a doctor named Simon Tam and his sister, River, who the Alliance wants to capture, BADLY. The movie starts there, and River is starting to behave strangely (more would ruin the plot).

Now, character development is something that I always look at in movies, and "Serenity" excels brilliantly at it. Trust me when I say that ten minutes in you’ll start carrying about everyone in Mal’s crew. All the elements are there: Jayne, the brute soldier who’s got some issues with the captain; Wash, the crazy but talented pilot; Zoe, pilot’s wife and Mal’s right arm and Kaylee, the immature mechanic who can turn a pile of scrap metal into a jet engine. Mal isn’t your ideal hero… He’s a traumatized, experienced natural leader who must always choose between covering his own ass or the rest of the universe. Every character plays an important part, especially when it comes to delivering smart, and sometimes purposefully over the top one-liners like:

Wash: "This landing is going to get very interesting."

Mal: "Define interesting."

Wash: "Oh God, oh God, we’re all gonna die."

By not taking itself seriously, the movie succeeds in being an enjoyable experience from beginning to end, even if it does get a little more serious towards the end (hey, not everything is a joke, you know).

Visual FX and Photography make a smart combo because of the decision that Whedon makes in portraying flight scenes as if they’re being shot from a handheld camera, which adds A LOT of realism to those shots and makes for a very satisfying visual experience (even though the CG isn’t on par, financially, with the latest "Star Wars" films… WHO CARES?).

It’s obvious that the movie takes a lot from "Star Wars", even more than other space sci-fi movies. Mal is an adult version of Han Solo, River is a teenage girl Luke Skywalker and the Alliance is a softcore version of the Galactic Empire… But if you’re a "Star Wars" fan, this is the movie you’ve been expecting ever since "Episode 1" sucked. If you’re not, you’ll be in for a whole new experience.

"Serenity" isn’t perfect… It comes close. Whedon’s series roots become apparent when you see that some of the dialogues are a little cheesy and the acting is a little too loose (not necessarily a bad thing, but might throw some people off). It isn’t, of course, for sci-fi haters, but if you want an enjoyable experience without too much compromise, "Serenity" is your movie.

Popularity: 2%

Sue me, but M. Night Shyamalan is a gorram (saw "Serenity" last night) genius. "The Sixth Sense" was brilliant, "Unbreakable" was even better, "Signs" was kinda fun… Sue me again, but I liked the ending of "The Village"… Nobody is going to sue me, ’cause I thought "Lady in the Water" was utter CRAP.

But still, anything that Shyamalan does catches my eye, since there’s always some big mystery involved… Gotta love those.

His latest, "The Happening" , deals with a family and how they relate to the fact that SOMETHING is happening to the world. Eco-Apocalypse, Bio-Terrorism… SOMETHING. And that’s what I just love about Shyamalan’s trailers: He gives us just enough information to make us very, very anxious to find out what he has planned for the end. More information would ruin the trailer, so check it out for yourselves:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/thehappening/

Popularity: 2%

Understand when I say this: I seriously don’t know if Matt Damon is a good actor or not… I can’t make up my mind.

Anyhoo. “Rounders” is a fun little movie that has the problem of being a little too much in love with it’s own premise. Fear not, though: I liked this one, regardless of all that.

You see: this is the kind of movie where the screenwriter either A) did a shitload of research and didn’t want to let it all go to waste (thus the thousands of poker quotes and references) or B) is a poker fanatic and lifelong gambler who didn’t want to let his experience go to waste (there are really a lot of poker quotes). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing… If the movie manages to give you that feeling of wanting to pick up a card deck and get some friends together for a poker night (or strip-poker night… Whatever makes you happy). And THAT it achieves beautifully.

The story goes that Mike (Damon) is a talented Rounder (poker as a lifestyle) who decides to go all in and make big dough one night playing against Teddy KGB (John Malkovic, having LOADS of fun and stealing the movie in the process). Naturally, Mike loses all his cash and quits the poker world to go to law school. After living like a respectable human being (and not following his dream of becoming champion in the World Series), Mike’s live turns upside down when his childhood friend Worm (Edward Norton, good as always) gets out of jail. Dragged back into his former world, Mike has a hard time living up to the expectations of his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol, still looking like she’s 16) and his teacher (Martin Landau, the nicest guy on the PLANET), while Worm keeps pushing him deeper and deeper into the troubles of his past life.

The movie succeeds in displaying how the underground poker world works (or at least I THINK that’s how it works) and gives some new ideas to the whole “fight the system” thing that’s always present in these movies. Does Mike keep fooling himself that he can become a respectable lawyer or does he follow his dream and God-given-gift to become a professional poker player? The problem is that the movie gets a little stuck in that, since, I repeat, it falls in love too much with the depiction of the subculture of the card gambling world. The story gets stuck some times and if you’re not a card player (I know I’m not, but I know a little) you don’t get emotionally involved when they’re playing. I mean, how the hell are you supposed to get excited when you see Mike holding a Straight Flush when you have no idea how that compares to the Full House his opponent has. Get my point?

That is, thankfully, a minor problem, since the movie tries, in mundane ways, to explain things (And yes, there’s a lot of exciting card playing in the movie). But where, unfortunately, I can say the movie failed, MISERABLY, is in displaying Mike’s and Worm’s relationship. Worm is such an asshole through the whole movie that you really can’t believe that he and Mike were ever friends… Don’t get me wrong, though. I love the Worm character. He’s funny, charming and Edward Norton does a brilliant job to display that… But he just keeps backstabbing Mike so much in the story that the fact that they were inseparable childhood friends is just a little hard to believe.

All in all, this is a very satisfying movie that deserves its points due to the acting and passion (though a little over the top) for its subject. I still don’t know if I like Matt Damon’s acting style, but everybody else seems to be enjoying themselves in the experience of making this movie and the acting talent present (specially Malkovic and Norton, who unfortunately don’t share a scene) make for a very dynamic display of dialogue and card playing.

This movie, naturally, served as an inspiration for another fun little flick, though not as rich in context, called “Pool Hall Junkies”, which I will review soon, since now I have to see it again after this viewing of “Rounders”.

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Popularity: 2%

Yay!!! This was probably the most expected movie trailer this year and boy… What a disappointment.

Seriously, it’s not a bad movie trailer, but this is the first project George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have worked together on since Jurassic Park and I, at least, was expecting something so awesome that it would change my life for ever. Didn’t happen.

The clip shows some flashbacks of the previous movies, then some new “kicking nazis in the butt” stuff, ancient civilizations, finishing with John Williams’ eternal score… All the elements are there, but that’s about it. So… Check it out, but don’t expect something that will inspire you to go treasure hunting or anything like the older Jones.

Be warned, though: this is a TEASER clip, so there’s probably an official theatrical trailer in the works that could (and probably will) blow our minds.

Popularity: 3%

It’s hard to start a review like this and seem unbiased, but “Cloverfield” kicks ass. Every single expectation that I had has been fulfilled and my fears of this being an overhyped “am doing something new” flick are now far and away.

If you’ve been living under a rock over the past few months (OK, OK… Not EVERYBODY is a movie geek) and you don’t know what “Cloverfield” is, here’s the short version:

On July 2007, JJ Abrams (creator of “Alias” and “Lost”, director of “Mission: Impossible 3″) presented, right before “Transformers”, a short camcorder video of a going away party for Rob Hawkins. Then, suddenly, there’s big noise, tremors and everybody goes to the roof. THEN, we see a HUGE explosion in the distance, everybody running down the stairs to the streets, where we see the final shot: the FRIGGIN’ head of the Statue of Liberty flying to the ground. Nobody (NOBODY!) had any idea of what the hell was going on! Aliens, monster, terrorist, government experiment, Celine Dion concert? The only thing that WAS revealed was the release date: 1-18-08 (also the name of the movie at the time).

So the idea of the movie is as follows: some THING (best kept secret in Hollywood, by the way) is turning New York City to a pile of dust and there’s a guy recording everything on his handycam because he thinks that someone will want to watch it someday (according to the box office, many people did). That is why the script score is a little on the short side… Because, well, that’s it for the story. Rob Hawkins is trying to find his girlfriend Beth in the city while this THING (it deserves CAPS) is destroying everything (EVERYTHING!) and his rather annoying friend Hub is recording. The similarities with “The Blair Witch Project”, however, end there. Unlike “Blair Witch”, this movie is a big budget experiment that Abrams decided to produce and two things clarify that: first, the special effects are SPECTACULAR. People involved in movies know how hard it is to track camera movement for Special FX, and in this case, it’s a friggin’ hand held camera, with shaking, unexpected movement and all. So this is REALLY tough… The effects are right on. The scene with Lady Liberty’s head flying to the ground gave me SHIVERS! Second, and more importantly, the camera shaking is not annoying like in “Blair Witch”. It takes a little away from the whole thing about the shots being real and all, but it’s still claustrophobic as shit. We do have, of course, sudden cuts to the action, awkward angles, shots to the ground, but on most of the scenes, however, the camera is right where it should be, giving us as much as we deserve to see at the present. The first time I caught a glimpse of the THING, I wanted to give it a standing ovation.

But what really makes this movie stand out is its pace. “Cloverfield” is relatively short on running time (74mins.), but it is a massively entertaining thrill ride that doesn’t seem one minute too long or too short for that matter. It’s just that much FUN. Every time you think that our guys are safe from the THING, it takes awhile, but it shows up, every time, to make you jump from your seat. You see, one of the coolest things about this movie is that it doesn’t look like the THING is going after our guys. It’s going after the whole city, and Rob and his friend are just a bunch of random people (who happen to have a camcorder) caught in the middle. The THING is just pissed-off at something and it just WON’T STOP randomly destroying stuff.

The fact that the central characters are so random adds to the fact that we feel like them through the whole experience. Naturally, it doesn’t take too long for the military to get to Manhattan, but we haven’t got a clue of what they’re doing. We don’t know what the government is doing, we don’t know anything about the THING, and it’s creepier that way. It makes it more real.

The bottom line is: many people were a little thrown off by “The Blair Witch Project” because, even though it brought something new to the plate, it was just terribly written and executed. “Cloverfield”, on the other hand, takes the best of high-production values and experimentation and mixes it up in what is probably the coolest movie so far this year

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Popularity: 2%

“I Am Legend” is a remake of “The Last Man on Earth” with dunno who and “The Omega Man”, with Charlton Heston (“Guns don’t kill people… Apes with guns kill people”). It is also based on the book “I Am Legend”, but according to what I’ve read, it’s very loosely based.

The story begins in 2009 when a virus outbreak wipes out all of humanity, except for Will Smith and a dog named Samantha. Smith is Robert Neville (not a name for a black man), a military scientist who is the perfect guy for the job, since he’s got some kick-ass training in his sleeve and a PhD to boot. Neville spends his days gathering food, getting crazy in loneliness and looking for other survivors, something that has yielded no results in the last three years. At night he hides out from the Dark Seekers, other survivors of the outbreak who are now mutated into crappy CG vampire-like monsters, and tries to find a cure for these mutations by researching with his own blood (he IS immune).

What starts out as the coolest story EVER soon turns into rubbish when you clearly see how hard it is to maintain this story interesting. 80% of the script is awesome, with Neville trying to keep it cool in his shitty situation and finding something interesting every ten minutes or so to do. The problem is when the director likes this story too much and starts extending it to the point where there just isn’t anything interesting to show anymore. How many times do we have to see the guy waking up and listening to Bob Marley over, and over, and over, and over again before they realize that WE JUST DON’T CARE, GIVE US SOME FUCKING MONSTERS! And when they do, it gets worse, because the monsters just plain suck. What probably brought this film down for me (aside from Alice Braga’s acting in it) was the fact that the CGI monsters are so clearly fake that they don’t scare a 12 year old girl. Not only that, they try to make you identify an Alpha Male monster, but they all look alike, so you don’t care.

The depiction of a post-apocalyptic New York, completely empty, is just amazing, which then makes me wonder: By demonstrating such high production values and completely cleaning up the Big Apple’s streets, couldn’t they have worked on cooler, scarier, more disgusting monsters? What happened to make-up? George Romero’s monsters creep me out more that those things.

Now, try to understand this: “I Am Legend” isn’t all bad. For one thing, the WHAT IF factor of our fooling around with genetic science made me scratch my head after the movie for awhile. The coolness of New York being wiped out by a plague ups the COOL FACTOR by a few marks. The photography is brilliant, allowing for us to check out every detail of the city, now being taken back by nature. The problem (and this is something that just pisses me off) is when a guy like Francis Lawrence (he made “Constantine”, for God’s sakes… THAT was cool) is left with such an awesome premise to deal with and turns it into something less than satisfactory. This movie had potential, and it just didn’t deliver. THAT’S why it deserves a 5.

If someone disagrees, stop being a bitch and COMMENT.

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Popularity: 3%