Ebert Eats Shyamalan Alive.

His review of The Last Airbender.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100630/REVIEWS/100639999

June 2010 Reviews 3 (Toy Story 3)

Toy Story 3 4 stars. I forgot how much the Toy Story movies are action movies. They are filled with action. The toys are always trying to get somewhere or escape from somewhere in long sustained sequences of suspense. They're some of the best action set pieces around. Part 2 had that 10 minute chase through the airport baggage area and the hilarious scene where the toys try to cross the street under orange cones. 3 is packed with more great action sequences which I won't give away.

Toy Story 3 begins with Andy about to head off to college. A lot of the old toys are gone and the few that are left haven't been played with for years. They're stuffed together in a forgotten toy chest. Some may go to the attic, some may go with Andy, some may be donated to Sunnyside Day Care. Even after 11 years, the characters are familiar and lovable and so the setup almost immediately puts the movie in strong emotional territory. My favorite character is of course Jessie the Cowgirl. I love her design, and Joan Cusack is absolutely perfect as the voice of Jessie. That backstory flashback sequence in 2 is heartbreaking. I'll be your owner Jessie, as gay as that may sound. As the trailer clearly shows, the toys do end up at Sunnyside Day Care and we're introduced to tons of new toys, the best being the super effeminate Ken. I don't know who thought of choosing Michael Keaton to voice this megametrosexual but that character is hysterical. Especially his movements since he has limited joints.

However, the best toys are introduced at a young girl named Bonnie's home. Buttercup the male unicorn, Mr. Pricklepants the actor, Dolly, 3 Peas in a Pod, and amazingly Totoro shows up as a stuffed animal. Totoro! I won't give away why the movie goes to Bonnie's home, but I wish we could've stayed there even longer. Animated Bonnie is the cutest.

For all of my lack of enthusiasm at seeing part 3, the movie is too good to ignore. The animation isn't as eye popping as Wall-E but what could be. It's those characters. Woody, Buzz, Slinky, Bullseye, Ham, the Potato Heads, the list goes on. There's a period where Mr. Potato Head leaves his potato and replaces it with something else. I was dying the entire time. Not the cucumber in the trailer, something else. It was embarrassing how much I was laughing. And although it's not as good as Toy Story 2(which is my favorite Pixar film), the emotional punch it lands at the end will get to even the hardest heart. I admittedly have issues with some of the Pixar films. Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Up. I think they're overrated. In the case of Up, downright bad. But the Toy Story movies are very special. They started the company and they have the best characters of any of their movies. What are you waiting for? Go see it.

*I saw it in glorious 2D. I guarantee it will look better than out of focus 3D.




Hot Tub Time Machine 2 ½ stars. It's the Diet Hangover. 4 guys, where are their lives going, gross things happen. I am realizing more and more how good The Hangover actually is. It's one of the best looking comedies I've ever seen with a great storyline. Hot Tub Time Machine feels low rent, and if it wasn't for John Cusack, I doubt it would've even been noticed. There is funny stuff for sure. That giant bear partying in the hot tub is pretty awesome. But the 80s material falls flat. Big hair and leg warmers aren't funny anymore. Maybe if it was Z.Cavaricci and Vanilla Ice it would've been funnier. There is also a real creepy vibe to 40 year-old John Cusack making out with a girl that is supposed to be in high school. I know she sees him as his 16 year-old self but I just see old faced John Cusack breaking the law. A subplot with Crispin Glover and his one arm is mildly funny and Rob Corddry is hit or miss with his angry man diatribes. Still, there is somehow a nice innocent tone throughout the movie that makes it mildly enjoyable. Something about hot tub time travel played completely for laughs seems fresh. Still, the best thing about the movie is the title and when Craig Robinson says it directly to camera. That was the only time I laughed out loud.


She's Out of My League ½ star. Women should be pissed the freak off. This is a 30 year-old ex-frat boy's sad and pathetic fantasy. You work at airport security, you have no future, your friends are idiots, and this gorgeous blonde stranger will somehow want to be with you. In fact, she will chase you. The whole thing is a guy's bad wet dream. She happily goes with you to a Penguin's game and apparently knows all about hockey, she takes the initiative and asks you out, and I'm sorry to give away anything, but she's the one that declares her love to you after running through the airport. A running through the airport scene! Are you kidding me! Even British actress Alice Eve is a deer caught in the headlights during most scenes. Another character, the brother Dylan played by Kyle Bornheimer, may be the most annoying movie character I've ever experienced. Kyle Bornheimer, that's the actor's name. He should be f--king blacklisted for his garbage can performance. I think he thought his character was from Mars instead of Earth. It's an absolutely awful romantic comedy, beating out The Wedding Planner and Bridget Jones 2.



Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief 1 star. I like Chris Columbus. The first Harry Potter, Home Alone, Rent. But he's on a real bad streak with I Love You Beth Cooper and now this. The movie looks so cheap. Fantasy movies are supposed to impress, but this is one you make fun of. Greek gods and centaurs. Gimme a break. It's all very lame. Lame is the word to describe everything about this movie. Uma Thurman and Pierce Brosnan should be mortified. How was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone made in 2001 so much better than this thing that came out last year? Terrible. You should yell at your parents for naming you Percy.








The Greatest 2 stars. I like Carey Mulligan, Pierce Brosnan, and Susan Sarandon, but what a sappy piece of crap. Carey Mulligan's character is in love with Bennett Brewer(could your name be more white?), they sleep together, he dies in a car accident, and we have to spend the next two hours as the family grieves and Carey turns out to be pregnant and the younger brother goes to counseling but falls in love with Lenny Kravitz's daughter and everyone yells and cries and overcomes tragedy. This should be on Lifetime at 2am on a Saturday night. The only bright spot is Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) who is a trucker who killed Bennett in the car accident. He awakes from his coma and has a confrontation with Susan Sarandon that crackles with real intensity. The rest of the movie is postcard sentimentality with evidently the same lighting crew as The View. The Greatest it the wrong title for this movie.





The Illusionist 3 ½ stars. I always think of The Illusionist as one of the best DVDs I've rented. You know those movies that you weren't expecting anything, and then you get a whole lot of something. A turn of the century period film about magic set in Hungary didn't seem all that appealing. I rented it, and I was so wrong. The Illusionist is a great movie-movie. It's not deep or insightful but it is thoroughly entertaining in an old fashioned way. It has a great central subject matter and it has a strong classical romance at the center of it. It is one of my favorite cinema romances. It's so simple, so unfettered by contemporary neurosis and insecurity. Circumstances and class keep Edward Eisenheim and Sophie apart. Norton is good as always, but the real revelation was Jessica Biel who replaced Liv Tyler at the last second before filming began. I believe The Illusionist saved her movie career. It's a serious role without being pretentious, and it's a quiet role where so much is brimming inside. A restrained, layered performance from the star of Stealth. Sometimes it just takes one movie to change everyone's opinion of you. The story itself is compelling all the way through, with magic and con games, and Paul Giamatti as the Inspector trying to figure it all out. A wonderful movie. I give you, Eisenheim!





Also out on DVD and Blu-Ray:

Green Zone 2 ½ stars. http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2010/03/march-reviews-2-green-zone.html

The Book of Eli 3 ½ stars. http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2010/01/book-of-eli.html

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo 4 stars. All I knew about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was that it was the first in a trilogy of massively successful Swedish novels and that the American remake is set to be directed by David Fincher. That's more than enough to peak my interest and yesterday at my DVD rental place, there it was.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is about a 40 year-old murder and about two people. Mikael, a famous journalist who goes after corporate corruption and has recently been convicted of libel. He is set to go to prison in six months. And Lisbeth who is the girl with the dragon tattoo. Mikael is hired by Henrik Vanger to investigate the disappearance/possible murder of his niece Harriet who vanished 40 years ago. The Vanger family is a mega family in Sweden. They are rich, once powerful, and their reputation is of greedy members who all tried to claim power at one time or another. Lisbeth works for a security company as a researcher and does a background check on Mikael before he begins his work for the Vanger family. Even after her job is finished, she hacks into his personal computer and begins to follow his investigation for her own interests.

Those are the basics and it may sound like some standard thriller but it is far from it. It's going to be hard to describe things without giving things away but I'm gonna try. The murder investigation itself is consistently fascinating and it reminds me how rare good movie mysteries are. They need to be complex without being confusing and they need to keep us emotionally invested without being sappy or melodramatic. And they have to be smarter than we are. The plot of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hits all the right beats and it's satisfying from start to finish. On a side note, an inordinate amount Apple products are used prominently in the search. Lisbeth swears by her Macbook. Photoshop has never been so critical to tracking a killer.

But on a whole other level, there are these two characters Mikael and Lisbeth. Mikael is a smart reporter, savvy and capable, but he's also a bit past his prime and he knows it. Swedish actor Michael Nyvquist is good in the role although perhaps a little too old for my taste. He's 48 but he looks 58. The real character, the one that is very, very special is of course Lisbeth who is played with absolute dialed-in hypnotic electricity by actress Noomi Rapace. It could've all been such a put on with the piercings and that short haircut and the large tattoos, but Rapace accomplishes some scary great film acting. Great film acting to me isn't about screaming and yelling. It's about stillness and the inner complexity of a character's life. Drawing us in rather than showing off. Every second she's on screen is either tension or intrigue and it locked me into her more and more as the movie went on. Lisbeth Salander is one of the most intense female characters I've seen in a long while. Who is this girl? Really, who the hell is she? It is a phenomenal performance. Author Stieg Larsson(who sadly died before the books were released) created a complete original in Lisbeth. She's the movie queen of punk goth girls.

I sometimes have issues with European thrillers or action movies as they seem to pale in comparison with the American ones. They try their darndest but they always feel a bit cheap and without much style. Or maybe they don't try their darndest. Nothing like that here. Director Niels Arden Oplev(it's hard typing these Swedish names) has taken a couple of good pages out of Fincher's directing book. The film is contemporary and slyly high-tech. The lighting is subtle and well done, the camerawork is on the money, and the editing (though possibly slow for some) does set the right tone. This isn't a fast paced film and it shouldn't be. It's too smart, and we need the time to discover everything that is going on. I do however recommend taking a break about midway through to get your bearings. On another side note, I've seen a couple Swedish films before and honestly, Swedish is an ugly ass language. It sounds like English played backwards on a cassette player. I also find German ugly as well. What is it about that region? Blondes and languages that are hard on the ears. Never mind that though, the movie's still great.

One definite thing to note are the two extreme acts of sexual violence in the film. The movie would've gotten a NC-17 over here. During one scene I actually had to turn away. They are essential to the proceedings but they're pretty tough to take. They happen fairly early on but it might be too much for some people, particularly young women.

I wonder about the sequel out in theaters in a couple of weeks - The Girl who Played with Fire. Different director, different screenwriters, so I'm a little hesitant to rush to the theater. I'm just so satisfied with this first film on DVD. As for the remake, I think Fincher is too perfect for the material and Daniel Craig would be a strong pick for Mikael. For Lisbeth, I gotta go with Ellen Page or Keira Knightley. They both have the intelligence and inner anger essential to the character. And as actresses, they still are mysteries to me. Their personal lives are never in US Weekly. Please let it not be Kristen Stewart or Scarlett Johansson.

You may want to start with the books which are apparently great reads but I'm going to stick to the movies as I'm already in. Out on DVD and Blu-Ray Tues 7/6. I promise you, it'll definitely be one of the more memorable movies you'll see this year. Don't even think about watching the dubbed in English version.

The Girl Who Played with Fire

Favorite Characters of the Last 20 Years

Entertainment Weekly did a great issue about the 100 Greatest Characters of the last 20 years. I thought I'd do my own list. I don't know if they're the greatest, but they are some favorites. There are way many more so there might be a second post.


Wang Jing-Wen from 2046. I'm sure you have no idea who I'm talking about. Jing-Wen is the daughter of a hotel owner in Hong Kong and she's desperately in love with a Japanese man. Her father forbids them being together, the man moves back to Japan, and she aimlessly repeats their last words together over and over again. As if replaying their last conversation will somehow change the outcome. She passes the time by writing martial arts novels and smoking in beautiful slow motion so we can appreciate the smoke coiling up to the ceiling. Faye Wong has been in maybe 3 films and it's a sad thing that there are so few. Jing-Wen is a beautiful glass doll.


Mr. Fox. A master thief in a corduroy suit. And he knows the value of a good bandit hat. I love Mr. Fox and wish he could be my pet. But he would just say cuss and steal my apple cider.

Hit Girl. The greatest little foul mouthed killer girl ever. Off her ass tremendous. That night vision rescue sequence cannot be beat.

Trent. I am Mike, but I love Trent. Vince Vaughn's best character and a complete original.






Hermione Granger. Harry Potter may be the star but Harry and Ron wouldn't accomplish anything without Hermione. Too smart and she knows it, loyal to no end to her two best friends. Ron is the comic relief, but Hermione is the brains and the heart. The books and the movies wouldn't be what they are without her.

B.O.B. the Blob. Every word he says makes me laugh. I don't know what party you guys went to, because that's not how I interpreted it at all. I don't think your parents like me, and I think that Jello gave me a fake phone number.

Mickey the Pikey. Every word he says makes me laugh. Even though no one understands anything he is saying.







Col. Hans Landa. The Jew Hunter. The greatest movie villain of the last 20 years. A linguistic genius and not too bad at strangling actresses. A monster performance from Christoph Waltz, but Tarantino was the one who gave birth to the Nazi to end all Nazis.

Leon. An Italian assassin who really is a 12 year-old boy. He drinks milk, sleeps in a chair with one eye open, and has a very strange relationship with Natalie Portman. I love Leon(pronounced Lay-own). Luc Besson really pulled a rabbit out of his hat with this character. A deadly naive large French man. Bravo Jean Reno!





Alice. I don't know why I relate to her so much. I have never lied about my identity, I have never dyed my hair red, I have never nor will ever strip. But Alice from Closer hits home deep especially when things start to go bad between her Dan(Jude Law). Despite her underlying lie, she is the most truthful of the four characters. She is truthful about the love and pain she feels at any moment. She can't hide them. I wish I was articulate about my feelings as she is. There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it", and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one.

Oh Dae-Su. I keep thinking of that haircut. It's the Asian Fro. The only one in movie history? Certainly the most memorable. Locked up for 15 years without reason, let out one day without reason, he has to know why. Detective work following pot stickers and an absolutely amazing one vs. many fight with Dae-Su wielding nothing but his fists and a hammer. His final act of self-mutilation is astounding.




Bliss Cavendar. Forget Juno. Bliss is the one I would be best friends with. Babe Ruthless on the rink, a whole and complex, fully dimensional female teen character (very rare). 1-2-3 Kick Ass!

Mr. Pink. He's a professional, he always acts like one, and he doesn't tip waitresses. The highlight of Reservoir Dogs is Buscemi as Mr. Pink. Every scene he's in is great and he's constantly talking a mile a minute. And he's the only one that lives. You know what this is? (he rubs his thumb and forefinger together). This is the world's tiniest violin playing just for the waitresses.



Bang Bang. The coolest. No one comes close. There are hitmen and killers and blah, blah, blah. No one comes close to mute demolitions expert Bang Bang from The Brothers Bloom. The movie is okay, Rinko Kikuchi is amazing. Every nuance, every gesture, every expression is priceless. And unbelievably great movie character. I'm so jealous of writer Rian Johnson (Brick).

Gromit. He can build you a rocket ship in a day. He makes you breakfast every morning. He tolerates your insane obsession with cheese. He is the best dog in the world.






Jesse and Celine. If not for Celine Dion, I would name my daughter Celine. These two Gen Xers are two of my absolute favorites in all of cinema, novels, plays, whatever. They aren't necessarily unique, but they are two of the most articulate and intelligent people you'll ever get to spend time with. That's what we get to do during Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. We get to spend time with two of my favorite people. And I try to do that as frequently as I can.

I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times. -Celine

The Social Network Teaser

Written by Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing)
Directed by David Fincher

Weekly Recap 6/25/10

(from Fincher's new movie The Social Network about the creation of Facebook)

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: The Illusionist, The Book of Eli, Slumdog Millionaire, Wallace and Gromit: A Grand Day Out, First Blood, Men of Honor, The Last Samurai, Curb Seasons 1 and 4
The Bad: Lewis Black: Stark Raving Black
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: The A-Team

Actors of the Week: Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Paul Giamatti
Directors of the Week: Neil Burger, Joe Carnahan


TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
The Extra Man.

The A-Team

3 stars. The A-Team is a good, solid summer action movie. And with summer action movies, you can't compare them to normal movies. Normal movies need to click on all levels. Story, character, plot. If a standard dramatic film lacks in one of those areas, it's a real slog to sit through. But with summer action movies, they get different rules because they offer things like explosions, and giant set pieces, and go for broke action sequences. They are the roller coasters of cinema and you can't really compare a ride on The Viper to a day at the park. It's not as rich or satisfying but it's a hell of a lot of fun. More fun than four extremely selfish white women buying clothes and drinking cosmos.

Then again, they can be notoriously stupid. Pearl Harbor, Transformers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Mummy movies, The Fast and the Furious movies... you know the list could be its own post.

The A-Team feels exactly like the trailer. Exactly. And I like the trailer. In case you weren't alive during the 80s, an elite commando group is wrongfully accused and sentenced to prison. They promptly escape from a maximum security facility and they work as soldiers of fortune. I'm paraphrasing, but those opening lines from the TV show are very memorable. What I forgot and was very pleased by is that these guys do go on crazy missions where they put together nutso weapons and tools. There are always pleasing montages of guys building things. That was a such a big part of the show. What's the plan, and let's MacGyver some insane device that the bad guys won't see coming.

Any enjoyment of the movie must come from the team and director Joe Carnahan put together a very good cast. I was skeptical of Irish born Liam Neeson playing Col. Hannibal Smith. He's a great actor but I don't really think of him as charming or funny. Can you name a Liam Neeson comedy? However, his more serious qualities work really well for the movie as it needs a strong anchor who can help sell all of the ridiculousness. Neeson plays things with such conviction and authority that you want to believe him. It also doesn't hurt that the guy is 6'4 and built like a brickhouse. Bradley Cooper is becoming a real movie star and is great as Faceman Templeton Peck. That's gotta be one of the best handles to have, Face. He's got tons of charisma and his Soloflex commercial body makes him surprisingly plausible in all of the action sequences. His introduction trapped in a few car tires could've been silly and lame. The way he plays it still makes me smile. "Good morning!" Quinton Rampage Jackson is fine as BA and it was probably a good choice to go with someone who has never been in a movie before. He's maybe the most serious character in the movie? He has some character arc about non-violence that you really should ignore. Lastly, District 9's Sharlto Copley is pretty wonderful as Murdock, the self-proclaimed best helicopter pilot in the world. He's a gifted actor that slips in and out of accents and although I will forever think of Dwight Schultz as Howling Mad Murdock, Copley goes all out and has a lot of fun. He steals most of the scenes he's in. "You can't park there that's a handicap zone!"

What about the story? What about it. Something about engraving plates and private security in Baghdad and the CIA. It's simple enough to keep the movie going and simple enough that we don't really have to think about it. This is not The Dark Knight and it doesn't want to be. Director Carnahan (Narc, Smokin' Aces) does a great job injecting most if not all of the scenes with seriously great energy and fun. That's a hard thing to do, and the energy is infectious. The 4 guys shooting things and joking around and laughing a whole lot are really enjoying it. Most of the time you see people on screen laughing, it seems so fake. Everyone's genuinely having a great time and I did too.

Jessica Biel pops up as a Federal agent whose only purpose is to look fantastic in aviator sunglasses. I like her as an actress, she was great in The Illusionist, but she takes the role a bit too seriously. Thankfully she does not have an unnecessary fight scene and she actually has very good chemistry with Bradley Cooper. Patrick Wilson(Watchmen, Little Children) really tries to break out of his bland white man roles and plays CIA Agent Lynch with a nice bit of irreverence. However I can't help think though that if they got a real hitter like Don Cheadle to play the antagonist, the movie could've been a bigger money maker. If you think about it, who is the movie star of the movie?

For all of this analysis, I wanted to see a fun summer movie, and I saw one. Impress me with some clever action(it's all understandable and well edited), give me characters I like spending time with, shoot the movie in a slick way (DP Mauro Fiore did The Island and Avatar), and don't overstay your welcome. The movie's a brisk 1 hour and 50 minutes. Apparently I should've stayed for the end credits for some cameos. Damn it. Some TV shows should never have been made into movies. The Honeymooners, Bewitched. The A-Team has good source material for a fun action movie. I kind of want to see it again.

The Green Hornet Trailer

From director Michel Gondry. Looks very impressive.

Weekly Recap 6/18/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Mulholland Dr., I Love You Man, Whatever Works, James Dean, Shanghai Knights, Curb Your Enthusiasm Seasons 1-6
The Bad: None
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: Karate Kid (2010)

Actors of the Week: Naomi Watts
Directors of the Week: The directors of Curb





TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Somewhere. From Sofia Coppola.

June 2010 Reviews 2 (From Paris with Love)

From Paris with Love 2 ½ stars. It almost gets there. From Paris with Love was directed by Pierre Morel who directed the surprisingly good Taken with Liam Neeson last year. This is not that movie and doesn't want to be. It's an action/comedy instead of an action/drama and to a certain extent it succeeds. There is a ton of action, although not all that memorable, Jonathan Rhys Meyers is good as the straight arrow federal agent and he plays nicely off of Travolta who is a little bit channeling his hostage taker from the Taking of Pelham 123. Like him or not, Travolta is one of the biggest movie stars ever and the camera does love him. His charm and charisma always come through, even if his latest movies have been dogs. I've not seen Old Dogs and Lord willing, I never will. It's hard to remember, but he was bigger than Will Smith or Tom Cruise. Grease, Saturday Night Fever, he was HUGE. But then the 80s came and a lot of bad choices. A comeback in the 90s pretty much solidified him from now on. He's still a very good actor and somehow pulls off being this nutso solo special ops agent with a bald head and a dangling earring. At 56 the guy still looks good.

That being said, the script itself is too light, bordering on Van Damme/Seagal. Terrorists are planning to set off a bomb somewhere and these two guys have to stop them. I don't want to give too much away but the plot goes into preposterous territory when one of the characters is revealed to be the real villain. I'd usually not care since this is a silly action movie but given the state of terrorism the world today, it's in really bad taste. In the end it is a popcorn movie. Light, occasionally fun, and you forget it the moment it's over.

Shutter Island 2 ½ stars. The second time around and I like it even less. Knowing the ending, the second viewing takes on a whole new dimension and it's a bad one. I have this theory that period horror movies are not scary. It's the idea that all of this happened a long time ago and that doesn't scare me now. This one takes place in the 50s and all of the clothes and the cigarettes and the fedoras sure look nice but they make me much more aware that I'm watching a movie and that the actors are just playing dress up. Scorsese does what he can, but the script doesn't hold water. There have been too many movies with dark corridors, too many movies with crazy people with big scars on their face, and way too many movies trying to blur the lines between reality and fiction. It's all so tired. Someone who is the master of this sort of material is David Lynch(Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet). He can produce strange, frightening imagery better than anyone. Scorsese is just not playing the right sport and normally I wouldn't be so disappointed, but we're talking about the greatest living director today. Do not rent this one. Do not. I hardly found anything that great about it the second time around. My original review. http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2010/02/shutter-island.html



Shinjuku Incident 2 stars. I wanted to mention this one because it's Jackie Chan in an all out drama. Zero comedy, almost no fighting. I think he hits someone with a stick but that's about it. It's a Hong Kong drama though, and although there are amazing directors out there like Wong Kar-Wai and Zhang Yimou, I've found a lot of Hong Kong dramas are B-grade next to American ones. There are a few exceptions like the Infernal Affairs series, but a lot of them fall short of really having impact. Jackie Chan is one of a boat load of illegal immigrants who come to Japan. It's hard for them to get honest work, immigration authorities are after them, and somehow they stumble into the crime world dealing drugs. I think they think this is some hard hitting story about the struggles of immigrants but it's all melodramatic and just isn't serious enough. There is a good deal of violence and tragedy but there's no real weight to anything. Jackie is fine but honestly I don't want to see him in a movie like this. He's such a sunny person and yes he can cry and scream in pain, but he doesn't have that much range. Jim Carrey can do Eternal Sunshine, but Jackie Chan shouldn't be doing this.

Cop Land 3 ½ stars. About once a year I pop in Cop Land and I watch it for about a week. Cop Land came out in '97 and all everyone remembers is that Stallone put on 40 pounds to play Sheriff Freddy Heflin. That was all that anyone was concerned about which is a shame because Cop Land is a very good movie. A group of NYC cops lead by Harvey Keitel set up this town in Garrison, New Jersey so they don't have to live in the city anymore. The town is theirs, all blue, and Stallone is the token Sheriff of it. Of course things aren't all squeaky clean and De Niro is an Internal Affairs Officer who investigates what's going on with all of these cops living there. Stallone's Sheriff is deaf in one ear, he can't be a real cop because of it and he starts to see that these cops he thinks are his friends really aren't very good men. I know that's not a great description but the movie is a rich character drama with a great cast that includes Robert Patrick(T2), Michael Rapaport, Annabella Sciorra and apparently the entire cast of The Sopranos. The movie came out 2 years before the series. Particularly good is Ray Liotta as a cop who was once in with Keitel and his crew but is now on the outs. James Mangold is a fine director (Walk the Line) and he wrote an intelligent, meaty script that anyone would be envious of. And other than Rocky, it's probably Stallone's best performance. Layered, subtle, and fat. haha. He is a punching bag with eye balls in this movie but he really is better at playing a softer character than a chest first one. Make sure you rent the Director's Cut which is much better than the 90 minute theatrical version. Damn Weinsteins making directors rip apart their films.

The Karate Kid (2010)

3 ½ stars. It's that basic story. Kid moves to a new town, bullies hound him, he needs someone to teach him to fight back. It's so strong, so solid, they would've had to have tried hard to mess it up. Thankfully they haven't and The Karate Kid (2010) is surprisingly a good movie. The original writer of the 1984 version Robert Mark Kamen put together that utterly universal storyline and it works just as well 26 years later.

Some things have changed. Instead of LA, Dre Parker(Jaden Smith) moves to China because his mom(Taraji P. Henson from Benjamin Button) has found a new job. There is a strange relevancy in those opening shots of dying Detroit as it's a very real thing happening today. And moving to China, I kept thinking how much that would freak me out. It's not like it's just another state or something. That great setup drills us right into Dre's point of view and we immediately identify with him and what he's going through and what we want him to get out of. I gotta say it again, this is an almost foolproof story for a good movie.

Instead of Mr. Miyagi we get Mr. Han, and although he's not half as eccentric or funny as Pat Morita, the idea of Jackie Chan playing a maintenance man who is really a Kung Fu master is almost too perfect. His movie baggage works so well for the character and despite his hunched little walk, we know this guy could take on anyone. His very presence is a big reason the movie works and like I said, his movie star quality comes through in every movie whether he wants it to or not. It's just instinct. We like Jackie Chan. He has a big dramatic scene in this movie, and it's maybe the best acting I've ever seen him do.

Another great casting choice is Zhenwei Wang who plays Dre's nemesis Cheng. He's not blonde Johnny but what a little a-hole. I loved hating him. Seriously, if he was outside the theater after the screening, the crowd would've tore him to pieces. Also good is Wenwen Han who is ultra sweet as Meiying, a violin player who Dre has a little romance with. For a couple of 11 year-olds, they have a nice chemistry. Speaking of that, no one seems to have commented on that fact that the first one took place in high school and this one is in junior high. It's a big difference, 17 year-olds vs. 11 year-olds. Thinking about it, it's a good choice since I don't want to see Zac Efron get trained by Jackie Chan. It makes it more plausible that this old guy would have a mentor relationship with a younger kid. The gang of Kung Fu bullies isn't that threatening as a result but that's alright.

There are more than a few differences between the original and the remake. The first one had mostly pop songs(good ones at that), this one has more of a conventional score. Jaden Smith is a likable guy but Ralph Macchio was something special and different. Think about how odd Daniel LaRusso was. He talked to himself a lot, and he wasn't a pushover. He was a 130 lb gangly Italian guy with a chip on his shoulder. Dre is mostly just a kid who is picked on. Jaden Smith does act a whole like like his father Will Smith more than few times. I guess it's up to you if you think it works or not. I think it's okay, not great. Other things, the fighting is maybe I don't know, 100x better in this movie. I forgive the first one since it was the 80s, but this one has some serious teen Kung Fu. These aren't white boys from the Valley. I'm sure they cast Chinese kids who knew what they were doing and the tournament is a lot more exciting to watch. Although I truly miss that song "You're the Best Around" which I play on my iPod frequently. Jaden Smith seems like he knows what he is doing and his fighting ain't bad. Then again, I don't think Pat Morita ever threw a punch in his entire life and he came off okay. There are though tons of similarities between the two movies. Even one of the bad kids sticks up for Dre at one point and says he's had enough. However I think knowing the first one made me enjoy this one more. It was fun to spot the references. I wonder if I would've liked it as much if there was no original Karate Kid.

What I really bottom line like is how genuine the movie is. It's not trying to be some sort of cool modern take (something I was worried about). Dre isn't from the ghetto, he isn't some hip hop brat who tries to teach Jackie Chan street slang. It even goes the opposite way and an AC/DC song is played during one of the scenes. Freaking out of place if you ask me. But all of the bad places the movie could've gone, it avoids. It just wants to be wholesome and heartwarming and I respect that it doesn't try to hide its intentions. It is what it is. I'm not sure if you want to see this PG friendly film for all ages but I think it's a good one. It runs a bit over 2 hours, but I didn't feel it. I wanted to spend more time with Dre and Mr. Han. Good movies always seem a bit short and I was honestly a little sad when it ended. The actors and their characters are just so likable.

The director is Harald Zwart who directed such classics as The Pink Panther 2 and Agent Cody Banks. I don't know why the hell they picked him to direct this but producer Will Smith must've known that he had at least one good movie in him. The movie looks great, it's nicely paced, it's emotional without being too sentimental, and it hits all the right beats. Maybe one of the best non-animated family films I've seen in a minor very long time.

*Btw, my audience of 20-30 year-olds seemed a little subdued during the screening, but they must have been just been quiet and as engaged in it as I was since they burst into applause at the climax. Something I snobbishly never do. Haha.

Weekly Recap 6/11/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Cop Land, From Paris with Love, Super Size Me, Tropic Thunder, Videodrome, Airplane II:The Sequel, Twin Peaks Seasons 1-2, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 7
The Bad: Shutter Island, Demolition Man
The Ugly: None

Trips to the Theater: The Karate Kid (2010)

Actors of the Week: Kyle MacLachlan, Sheryl Lee, Larry David
Directors of the Week: James Mangold, David Lynch




TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. Nothing like the TV show, but Lynch packs a punch.

The Unbearable Saga of Buying a HDTV: Part II

I really didn't want to write a Part II, but here it is.

• After a month with the Samsung LCD B750(the higher end 2009 model) I started noticing some flashlighting. Flashlighting is a problem with some HDTVs. When the TV is dark or black, a bit of light seems to seep through the edges of the screen. I equate it to a little mouse with a nightlight tormenting me while I'm watching The Godfather. If it happens, it happens in the corners for most, but for me it was happening dead center at the bottom of the screen. Try as I did, and I tried, I could not ignore it. It was especially apparent with movies in 2:35, the very widescreen with the black bars on the top and bottom. The bottom wasn't black anymore. I could not believe I had yet another problem with a HDTV.
  

• I opted not to return it to Fry's and instead called Samsung Technical Support. Let me say that front to back they were wonderful with the process. Courteous, sympathetic, prompt. A technician came out in 2 days. Oddly enough he was a 40ish Korean FOB who took off his shoes when he came into my home and despite being a repair guy, he was wearing black slacks with his polo tucked in. He was a bit cranky and initially tried to say that nothing was wrong(it's harder to see the issue in broad daylight) but eventually he saw the problem. He actually unscrewed the TV and replaced the entire panel but even then, same problem. It must've been something wrong with the frame fit.

• Samsung deemed the TV unrepairable and actually offered me a LED as a replacement since there is no high end 2010 LCD model in 40 inches. I was excited, but Samsung LEDs are notoriously glitchy. They suffer from even worse flashlighting and overall I feel the technology is just too new. No matter what they may say, it doesn't look as good as LCDs which they have been developing for years. Screen uniformity, black levels, all sub-par. I instead opted for the mid range 2010 C650 LCD.
  

• The thing is, when I bought that 2009 model, I somehow knew in my gut it was a bad decision. Despite it being the high end model, despite the great reviews, despite it being almost half off, God was telling me not to buy it and instead buy the mid range 2010 C650. I should've listened because the C650 is so far great. No flashlighting, the picture quality is just about the same, the sound quality is a whole lot better, and even the remote control is sleeker. And of course I could've avoided all of this if I had just bought it in the store a month ago.
  
  
• One thing to note about that 2009 B750 model. Some Samsung TVs have this feature called Auto Dimming. Basically when the image is dark, say there's a scene at night, the screen dims as if you unplugged your laptop and it went into some energy saving mode. I got used to it, but it's a pretty lame idea. Thankfully this 2010 model does not have that feature and I don't have to deal with irritating auto-dimming every time I watch a dark movie.

• Exhale. I hope this is it, I really do. It feels like the end of the saga. Five TVs in two months. Please let there not be a Part III.
  

Part I http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2010/04/unbearable-saga-of-buying-hdtv.html

Stallone

For some reason, I like Sylvester Stallone. There's something about him. He is a bona fide movie star and I doubt you could find another 65 year-old man as ripped as he is. And of course there's Rocky. Stallone wrote and created that character and it goes to show how amazing that was since in all honesty, nearly all of his movies are bad. Haha. Seriously, I was doing a little trip down Stallone memory lane and looked at a lot of his old movies and man, they are terrible.


Rambo II-III. First Blood is a good movie. An ex-Special Forces Commando drifts into this small town in the Northwest and takes on that town. It's still a solid movie even if Rambo's final speech is a bit hokey. "I can't even keep a job parking cars!" First Blood is at least trying to say something about Vietnam Vets, but the sequels forget any smidge of that and go for all out revenge action. Let's go back and kill 'em all! They are very bad, and a little morally repugnant. I usually don't care about morality in film, but something seems really wrong about the idea that the way to fight injustice around the world is to send one man to blow them all away. Stallone shifted more into a body than an actor with these films as he really trimmed down with veins popping everywhere. Oh but that last speech in Rambo II. "I want what they want, and every other guy who came over here and spilled his guts and gave everything he had wants! For our country to love us as much as we love it! That's what I want!"

I want to have never heard those lines. That's what I want!



The Specialist. Whoo what POS. I remember being bombarded with commercials and trailers at the time it came out. Stallone, Stone, The Specialist. Mad bomber movies were really popular in '94 with Speed, Blown Away, and True Lies. Stallone is this loner bomb master who goes to work for Sharon Stone because these mobsters killed her parents. Doesn't that synopsis alone indicate how bad this movie is. Stallone is a lot of things, but he isn't good at romance and despite getting down to their birthday suits, the two actors have zero chemistry. None. I don't want to waste more energy explaining the plot other than to say that there is a strong flavor of stupidity injected into every scene. And Stallone decided to talk in this low unending monotone that is really an annoying choice. Eric Roberts shows up as some sleaze bad guy and someone gets killed by an explosive placed in a little espresso cup. This is all so stupid.





Judge Dredd. There was a time when no one was making comic book movies. There was Batman but not much else. I remember Judge Dredd coming out in high school and there was some potential. The trailer actually is very good and there is this cool gigantic war robot that looks incredible. But then there are the uniforms with big gold shoulder pads and the football helmets with those sun visors. What purpose does that serve in an urban environment? It makes people want to shoot you. Stallone once again goes monotone with zero sense of humor and little if any charisma. I think it should be noted that Arnold is very funny in his movies. His innate cockiness makes it work. Stallone is rarely funny and yet he tries to do the same one-liners and they all fall flat. Poor Diane Lane is a love interest for some reason(I feel so bad for you) and Rob Schneider screams a lot as this was a big time for loser comic sidekicks. "I didn't break the law, I am the law!" Judge Dreadful.



Assassins. I bet Julianne Moore wishes this could be erased off her resume. Stallone is an assassin with a conscience and Antonio Banderas says 50 times in the movie how he wants to be #1. It's a promising concept of two assassins going head to head, but I doubt it could be executed more poorly. Surprisingly The Wachowski Brothers are credited with the screenplay but apparently their script was tore up and overhauled into a more standard thriller. Let me explain the last 20-30 minutes. Banderas is in a building with a sniper rifle, waiting for Stallone to exit a bank. He waits for hours as Stallone waits in the bank, aware he is going to kill him. Antonio gets frustrated, he walks down, goes to the bank, he has a threatening conversation with Stallone, leaves, and then goes right back to the same spot waiting for Stallone to exit the bank. Just trying to explain the dumb logic in those last couple of sentences gives me a headache. And poor Julianne Moore is the girl caught in the middle of all of this. She must've been thinking why the F am I working in this movie.


Daylight. This is in my Top 10 worst movies of all time. Daylight is a torturous experience, one of several inflicted on the world by director Rob Cohen who also brought us such classics as Stealth, The Mummy 3, and The Skulls. A group of people are trapped in an underground tunnel because of a major accident and Stallone goes down to save them. Why bother since all of them are supremely irritating and spend all of their time complaining and whining. He should've just left them down there. There are so many scenes of rescue attempts and acts of heroism and it's all so lousy. For some reason Viggo Mortensen is in this. Things must've been pretty bad pre-LOTR. The effects are bad, the dialogue is horrendous, and I think it's safe to say a movie's bad if you hate every character in it. Some movies are so bad you get angry at them. I hate you!

However, there are some good ones. Cop Land I'll save for another time as that movie is actually very good. Cliffhanger is okay mostly because of the great locations and that crazy tense opening sequence. Demolition Man has its moments. But then there's Lock Up, Tango & Cash, Get Carter, Rocky V and Driven. And don't forget the "comedies" Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Oscar. Never seen the former but by all accounts it is the stinker of stinkers. With all of these bad movies, how was he so popular all over the world? And how did he do it with a name like Sylvester?

I think it was solely because of Rambo and Rocky. Rambo had 4 movies Rocky had 6 and they were all money makers. It's strange how Cop Land is his only normal drama. Everything was action. He's sadly pretty limited as an actor and as a director he loves these endless 80s MTV montages. Look at the movies he's directed. Rocky IV is all montages. I tried to watch Staying Alive(the sequel to Saturday Night Fever he directed) and again, all bad montages. I still for some reason like him, but if you're ever thinking of having a Stallone marathon, get ready for some pain.

My review of Over the Top. http://rolandchang.blogspot.com/2009/03/review-from-2004-rocky-rambo-cobra-and.html

Weekly Recap 6/4/10

DVDs Watched this Week:
The Good: Mulan, Footloose, Lost Seasons 4-6
The Bad: The Wolfman, Shrek 1-3, Hellboy II, The Road to Wellville, Mulan II, Assassins
The Ugly: The Specialist

Trips to the Theater: None. It's June and I've been to the theater only 9 times. What the what.

Actors of the Week: Ron Perlman, Chris Penn, Kevin Bacon
Directors of the Week: Guillermo Del Toro




TRAILERS/CLIPS of the Week:
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World


Gulliver's Travels

The Blah Summer of 2010

Is it me, or has this summer movie season been a letdown already? Iron Man 2 I liked but most didn't, Robin Hood is a bust, Prince of Persia bombs, and who the f cares about Sex and the City 2. I don't think there is anything I am excited about. Nothing I would go to a midnight show for. '09 had Harry Potter, Star Trek, and Inglourious Basterds. What the heck happened this year?


JUNE
Get Him to the Greek (6/4). Could be good. Same director as Forgetting Sarah Marshall with Jonah Hill and Russell Brand returning. Though the trailers have been pretty unfunny and the idea of a rock star acting like a rock star has been done. Even that poster is not funny. Then again, Sarah Marshall didn't seem like much until I saw it. And I loved that one.

The A-Team (6/11). Should be fun. It's strange that Joe Carnahan's first movie was the very gritty Narc, then Smokin' Aces, now The A-Team. I think he's heading in the wrong direction. Trailers have been good, I like the cast, especially District 9's Sharlto Copley(is that your real name?) as Murdock. I wonder if this genre of action movie is dying or dead. It seems like everything that is successful must have some sort of fantasy element and a lot of CGI. The geeks really have taken over. I wish Mel Gibson had been Hannibal.

Toy Story 3 (6/18). Why am I not more excited by this? Maybe because Toy Story 2 was 11 years ago? Maybe because the first one came out in 1995? It should be alright but considering my love for Toy Story 2 I should really be more excited. There are big posters all over LA but Buzz Lightyear seems dated. I will not watch this in 3-D.

Other June Releases: Killers(please please don't), The Karate Kid remake, Jonah Hex(I think it's going to bomb as no one cares about Westerns even comic book Westerns), Grown Ups(I hate Adam Sandler movies produced by Adam Sandler), Knight and Day(Cruise and Diaz, don't they seem too old too be trying to be quippy and charming?), Twilight: Eclipse(no matter what I might say, it's going to be HUGE)


JULY
The Last Airbender (7/2). Shyamalan desperately reaching for a hit. I've heard no buzz on this movie. I don't think anyone even knows what it's about. A young bald child fighting with air and water supposedly in the dead of winter(something everyone wants to watch when it's sunny outside). It's over, he's toast.

Inception (7/16). A friend of mine could not possibly be more excited. He claims it might be one of the best movies ever. Haha. The trailers have been stunning. Christopher Nolan, the stellar cast, all could turn out very good. Dicaprio trying to reunite with his dead wife? That could be bad. I also have problem with a lot of Nolan's films though as they seem to fall apart in the third act (The Prestige, Insomnia, even The Dark Knight). The last 1/3 is never as strong as the first 2. We'll see. If anything else, they spent the money. Look at those effects.

Salt (7/23) I'm betting already that she's innocent. Sorry, but what else could it be? Either she is or she isn't and the middle will just be waiting to figure that out. I like director Philip Noyce, but this seems like a Frankenstein monster of previous Angelina Jolie films. Taking Lives+Mr. and Mrs. Smith+Wanted=Salt. It's going to be a lot of federal agents in dark suits chasing after her. She'll fight them in her high heels, then she'll earn the sympathy of one of them and uncover the conspiracy against blah, blah, blah.

Other July Releases: Despicable Me(maybe), Predators(why did they pick Adrien Brody to be the lead? Where's Arnold?), The Sorcerer's Apprentice(Jay Baruchel is drifting into annoying Michael Cera/Jesse Eisenberg territory), Dinner for Schmucks(directed by Jay Roach who did Meet the Parents and Austin Powers. I think comedy directors have a short lifespan and he might be done)


AUGUST
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (8/6). Could genuinely be great. Could be nothing. Another Michael Cera loser who stutters while chasing after a girl. Is he going to play this guy forever? But the spirit and style of the thing looks promising. Director Edgar Wright did both Shaun of the Dead(a movie I wasn't crazy about) and Hot Fuzz(a movie no one was crazy about). The cast is kind of made up of B-level young actors including Brandon Routh, Chris Evans, and Kieran Culkin, and I don't know if lightsaber colors and large letters saying "WHAM" across the screen will be enough for an entire movie. Then again, it could genuinely be great.

The Other Guys (8/6). I don't like Adam McKay as a director. I think he has no sense of tone and certainly no visual sense. Didn't like Talladega Nights, Step Brothers was one of the most heinous movies I've ever seen, and now look, a spoof on the cop buddy genre. How freaking original! Can Mark Wahlberg be funny? Errrrr. And Will Ferrell is better when he's playing a character who lives on planet earth. This doesn't seem like one of them.

The Expendables (8/13). All I really want to see is the scene between Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Those are the guys I am excited about. The rest: Jason Statham, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture. I think there are 2 good movies among all of their careers. I really did not like Rambo and I think Stallone(who directed this one too) is going to head more toward hand held R rated action that is more gore than exciting. I'm infinitely more interested in his workout regiment than his movie.

Other August Releases: Step Up 3-D(gimme a break), Eat Pray Love(watch bad pain), The Switch(Jennifer Aniston does another romantic comedy, wow!), Piranha 3-D(yikes)

June 2010 Reviews (The Wolfman)

The Wolfman 2 stars. I don’t think werewolves are scary anymore. Vampires aren’t scary anymore, I don’t think Frankenstein was ever scary, and werewolves aren’t scary anymore. It’s enough already. These classic movie monsters are antiques, relics from a time period where a man in a mask and a furry body suit meant something. With all of the horror movies that have come since, I’m just not afraid of a guy who turns into a wolf when the moon is full. I’m especially not afraid since the movie is set in the 1800s which turns this into a stuffy chamber piece. The dark corridors and black coats take away any visceral quality and leave us watching an oil painting. Even the beautiful Emily Blunt is stuck in a chin high black corset dress for the majority of the movie.

Benicio Del Toro is all wrong as the Wolfman who should be British, having Anthony Hopkins as a father? There is some small explanation to why he speaks with an American accent but the Puerto Rican actor does not at all seem like he came from the UK nor that he even belongs in this time period. What were they thinking? This is terrible casting. He hasn’t been in a movie I’ve liked since Sin City in ’05. The rest of the movie is a slog. I kept thinking about Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez’s great From Dusk Till Dawn which took a familiar genre of vampires and made it a whole lot of fun. The Wolfman is tedious, unexciting, and ultimately a who cares. Anthony Hopkins tries his best but even he can’t make this thing interesting. Benicio and Emily Blunt have zero chemistry and Hugo Weaving isn’t half as compelling as he is as Agent Smith.

The movie was originally supposed to be directed by Mark Romanek(One Hour Photo) but he was replaced due to budget concerns. They instead hired Joe Johnston whose previous credits included Jurassic Park 3, Jumanji, and Honey I Shrunk the Kids. He isn’t a bad director, not at all, but he is uninspired. Mark Romanek would've made something twisted. This is 2010 and I can’t forgive the movie for being so painfully old fashioned. I’d rather watch Michael J. Fox dunk basketballs in a wolf costume.



Shrek 1-3 2 stars. I have never liked any of the Shrek movies. That second one in particular is terrible. I like Shrek himself, and it’s strange how much those characters have entered pop culture consciousness, but the movies have always been a letdown. I remember going to see the first Shrek back in 2001 after reading Ebert’s four star review and I wondered what the big deal was. The animation was pretty impressive at the time, but now 9 years later it’s old hat. Spoofing fairy tales, okay, but what else is there? I don’t think Eddie Murphy is very funny in the movies, Mike Myers is alright, but the stories never hold interest, and the movies are 90 minutes at most. The best and brightest part of the series is Antonio Banderas as Puss N Boots. That character is hilarious and a joy to look at. Whoever designed that too cute to be true cat deserves some sort of award. Thankfully he will be getting his own spinoff movie and I look forward to that. There’s a reason why Pixar is number one if Shrek is supposedly the king of Dreamworks Animation. Shrek might have a balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but I’d take Wall-E any day.



Mulan 3 ½ stars. On the other hand, one of the more underrated animated movies is Mulan. It was one of the last of the 2D Disney animated films before Pixar took over the world. Watching it again, I forgot how good of a movie it was. The story is so emotionally solid with Mulan going to fight in a war so her father doesn’t have to. Of course she has to pretend to be a man and is having a hard time at that. Along to help is Mushu the family’s dragon who is more of a jive talking sidekick than any sort of supernatural being. Eddie Murphy is really, really funny in the movie. His lines are good, but his delivery is fantastic. Mushu should’ve got his own movie he’s so funny. I think Mulan was also one of the last animated movies to have original songs, at least until The Princess and the Frog. I’m not 100% sure of that but I was definitely surprised when Mulan started singing. It’s hard to believe that all the animated movies in the 90s were pretty much musicals. Characters broke into songs all of the time. The Little Mermaid probably had the best group of songs. Although nothing beats Homer Simpson’s rendition of Under the Sea with him eating all of the fish including Sebastian the lobster. Mulan is a great movie with surprisingly good action sequences and a nice simple color palette. Rent this one again.


Fantastic Four/4:Rise of the Silver Surfer 2 stars. These are the PG comic book movies that no one wanted. Even little kids knew better. How forgettable are the Fantastic Four. Other than that one money shot of The Thing busting open that mack truck, there’s nothing much to remember. It doesn’t help that the two lead actors, Jessica Alba and Ioan Gruffudd are completely and utterly bland. They’re the vanilla duo. Even their powers seem lame. I can stretch? I can become invisible? Boo! The Human Torch should be the star. If I could fly while engulfed in fire, I think I should be the lead. Director Tim Story(Barbershop) has no visual flare and no sense of spectacle. I’m not a comic book guy but the Fantastic Four are supposed to be a big deal right? Then why are these movies so mediocre? Why is the Silver Surfer voiced by Laurence Fishburne like he’s doing voice-over for a movie trailer? Why is that guy from Nip/Tuck Dr. Doom? Why did I watch these movies again? Why!