Rambling Film

Retired, extremely dangerous. We've seen this far too many times when a film has a stellar cast and doesn't fully deliver. Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is retired CIA. He lives a pretty lonely life and spends a great deal of his time calling and hitting on Sarah. (Mary-Louise Parker) Frank knows he's being followed and targeted for what he knows, so he kidnaps Sarah (he's protecting her) and resembles his old team, Marvin, (John Malkovich) Susan, (Helen Mirren), and Joe (Morgan Freeman) to get to the bottom of this. I never got around to reading the graphic novels that this film was based on, so I really can't offer a comparison for that. The cast is fantastic, it also includes Karl Urban and Brian Cox. The standout performance is very much Malkovich's, he's hilarious. The film felt really lackluster in comparison to the wonderful cast. I was expecting a bit more. The editing in the film is very different and choppy and actually made the film look a lit...

Sometimes leaving questions unanswered is a good thing. 'Hard Candy' is a film that comes to mind. That movie asked more questions than answered them, and it worked for the tone. 'Never Let Me Go' feels the same way. Hours after seeing it, I found myself still thinking about it. Still asking myself "why this?" or "why that?" It didn't matter. This film is so powerful even without the added curiosity. This is the story of Kathy, (Carey Mulligan) Tommy, (Andrew Garfield) and Ruth. (Keira Knightley) We first meet them as children at a very peculiar boarding school. Kathy is narrating, she's now 28 years old. She tells us how she always loved Tommy, and how Ruth got in the way. We also learn the ominous fate these children await. They are born for the sole purpose of donating their vital organs. The school they went to keeps them healthy, then sends them off to cottages when they turn 18. There, they wait for their first notice to donate, or ...

"We took the most expensive cameras they make and shot the dumbest sh*t with them." Anyone who reads this blog (or my twitter account) knows how much I hate 3D movies. I think it works great for animated films. Coraline was the best movie I've ever seen in 3D, it worked for that film wonderfully. I don't think 3D is the future of film. I don't think it adds anything to movies like say 'Clash of the Titans' or 'Alice in Wonderland.' I think that studios just want to jump on the bandwagon that Avatar created and jack up their ticket prices. I don't think 3D will be around for regular films much longer. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was originally going to be shot in 3D, they've abandoned that idea (thank you) due to time restraints. I'm willing to bet the new Chronicles of Narnia movie doesn't gross nearly as much as they are expecting because of 3D. So why did I go see Jackass in 3D? Because it's mocking it, and that...

Did Dreamworks finally one-up Pixar? It's no secret that Dreamworks always seems to fall short compared to Pixar. I think one of College Humor's "Honest Oscar Posters" summed it up best last year: How To Train Your Dragon is a refreshing change. It follows a young Viking, Hiccup (voiced by Jay Baruchel) who is supposed to be training to fight dragons. Instead he finds himself caring for one that is injured, and realizes everything the Vikings ever knew about dragons was wrong. It's a very predictable plot, but most kids movies are. Dragons manages to be very endearing and teach a valuable lesson throughout.  There's actually lots of lessons piled into this film. Learning to except who you are, and not be who someone else wants you to be. Not judging a book by it's cover. Seeing something from another's point of view, etc. The animation is good, though not as ground breaking as say, WALL-E for instance. It was a very enjoyable film nonetheless, and...

All hail Robert Duvall's awesome beard. Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) wants to "Get Low." Meaning he's soon expecting to be underground, but until then he wants to plan his own funeral and attend it. With the help of an Undertaker, Frank Quinn (Bill Murray) and his assistant Buddy. (Lucas Black) Felix wants to invite everyone he knows to tell a story about him. This isn't easy since Felix is a hermit who's best known for keeping his rifle handy at all times. One of the people that turns up is Mattie, (Sissy Spacek) a woman he used to adore. She's also one of the few people to say something nice about him. When we get to the funeral "party", we hear stories of secrets that are told and defended. Feelings that get hurt, or redeemed. Probably the most influential of all these speeches is the one that Felix gives himself. Get Low had every chance to be a boring drama that dragged it's feet through the dust. Yet, it's sprinkled with plenty of...

When the supporting cast steals the star's thunder. To be honest, I wasn't a huge fan of the original Wall Street film. It was well made and well acted, but just not the type of thing that would interest me. Which is why I was a little surprised to find myself anticipating it's long awaited sequel. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is released from prison is 2001 and is welcomed by nobody. 7 years later he's an author and catches the eye of Jake (Shia LaBeouf) a top broker at Zabel Investments and a protege of the owner; Lewis Zabel. (Frank Langella) Jake is also dating Gekko's estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) With Zabel's firm going under, and business man Bretton James (Josh Brolin) getting in the way. Jake, trying to "avenge" Zabel if you will, enlists the help of Gekko to bring down James. Not without some interesting trades of course. When Winnie eventually finds out about all of this, she's not a fan to say the least. After watch...

"Insert Facebook pun here." Before I saw 'The Social Network' I hadn't given a lot of thought into how websites like MySpace, Live Journal, and Facebook came about. Now I wonder if anyone else's story was as interesting as Mark Zuckerberg's Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) gets dumped by his girlfriend for basically being an asshole. He copes with this by simultaneously dishing out insults on his blog and creating a site called Facemash, where users can rate the appearances of their fellow classmates. He crashes Harvord's system and gets noticed. After an interesting proposal from the Winklevoss ( Armie Hammer ) aka Winklevii to help them run a social networking site strictly for Harvard students. He enlists the help of his wealthy best friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield) to start a social networking experience called The Facebook. We watch these students create the phenom that is now known simply as "Facebook", and subsequently, Zuckerb...

Who wants to move to Charlestown? With 'Gone Baby Gone', Ben Affleck proved that he could handle being in the director's chair. His latest flick, 'The Town' proves that he belongs in it. Doug (Been Affleck) is a long time thief who wants to turn his life around after meeting Claire, (Rebecca Hall) a bank manager that was an impromptu hostage in his last job. His best friend James (Jeremy Renner) doesn't approve of him being so close to someone that could possibly identify them. I thought this film would be more about the relationship between Doug and Claire, but it's really about the relationship between Doug and James. They've been best friends their whole lives. James did time at one point, James's family took Doug in after his dad (Chris Cooper) is thrown in jail. It's all a test of loyalty. I'm normally not one that enjoys heist movies, but the flow to this one was perfect. It was intense and had some almost claustrophobic car chas...