Review: The Mechanic

Urban: Jason Statham takes this film in a contemplative direction in the style of the recent film The American. The result is a film full of action, that nevertheless hits some strong and subtle notes.

Simon West (Con Air) directs this remake of the 1972 Charles Bronson film about an elite assassin (Jason Statham) working for a high class cabal as he teaches his trade to an apprentice (Ben Foster) who has a connection to one of his previous victims.

The Mechanic rises above the typical fare, and the typical Jason Statham film, by taking a little extra time to fill out the story and show us the details.

It's that simple.

Without a steady hand to guide it this film could have easily entered the realm of The Transporter, the only difference being the subject matter glossed over before Statham started crushing skulls and the addition of a buddy storyline. Instead, Statham's character, Arthur Bishop, really steps onto the screen and channels some inner Charles Bronson as he deals with one of the most common employment issues when working for an assassin cabal - that they always feel the need to terminate their employees? (Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the Bourne Trilogy, Wanted). This happens in two ways:

First, the buddy story that is depicted on the screen actually plays out. By that, I simply mean to say that it has a trajectory. The last buddy film that I can remember was The Other Guys with Will Ferrell and Marky Mark, but that one simply served as a vehicle for both of those actors to act silly. Here, we get to see a fully developed bond, complete with the weaknesses and areas of mistrust you might expect from a relationship thrown together like this.

Second, the details of the film are really allowed to show through. I guess, this is probably my way of saying that I noticed the details here, and I liked them. The Schubert playing on vinyl, the classic porsche, the house on the bayou - most importantly, the detailed planning of the assassinations - this is not Cranked, or Death Race, but a story about the kind of characters that I want to know about. It's also probably why the film didn't produce at the box office the way Statham's recent films have, despite the fact that this one has plenty of action.

The primary thing that I want to say about this movie is that I really enjoyed it, but that I also had very low standards for what to expect from it. This happened because I couldn't help but compare this film with the last 8 years of Jason Statham films and find a whole lot more in this one than in all of the others. Slate television critic Troy Patterson says that "Statham isn't pretentious enough to try to elevate any movie, but rather that he celebrates the 'B-Movieness' of the roles that he choose", but I happen to agree more with Julia Turner on the same cultural gabfest when she mentions Statham's ability to bring humor to a role that would other wise not seem very funny. I think that in this film, that humor fits in with the rest of the storyline and along with the details and pacing (think of this one as a poor man's The American) combine to create a pleasant film.



Urban: Recommended

Read on...

Review: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Urban: Another Oliver Stone piece about the recent past, the acting is good, the directing misses the mark, and the story is good, but simply too long.



Oliver Stone returns to his seminal character, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), in order to trace the events involved in the recession of 2008. As Gekko emerges from prison he attempts to re-unite with his daughter and rebuild his financial empire in a land where many of the old rules don't apply.

Urban: This is a pretty good film. Whatever else I may say, this is something that you should watch, and should enjoy/think about. The events and themes that tell the story behind the 2008 recession are fully on display in all their tawdry glory.

At the same time, this film really misses the mark by attempting to make the story fuller. While this may seem odd, most Stone films tend to be preachy. In this one, Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is the same character as Bud Fox in the original Wall Street, in the same way that he is also Chris Taylor from Platoon. In Stone's moral universe, everyone has two father figures as options. In this film, Gordon Gekko competes with Bretton James (Josh Brolin) as the right to guide Moore (and by metaphorical extension the American public) out of the recession. Taking time to develop both of these options moves the viewer to highs and lows, but mostly includes lows (just like the economy) because both options are pretty lousy.

Instead of developing the downward spiral to its fullest extent, Stone attempts to build a story of hope (Obama?) into this film. However, from the vantage point of the viewer, this story isn't finished and to many, the hope that may have reached it's epoch when things were still at their darkest during the 2008 presidential election hasn't delivered relief for very many. Stone went too far with this story considering the recent history of this event. Having Gekko reform, return the money to the green power initiative, and letting Moore reunite with his fiance; as well as allowing justice to have it's way with James just wraps things up way too neatly for anyone to feel good about this happy ending.

Artistically, this film has some good moments. The shots that occur organically within the storyline - the busy trading floor, Miss Moore showing a gaudy (empty) mini-mansion, the deathly seriousness of the major banks around the table negotiating for their lives, and Gekko lording over his empire sitting behind his massive desk with hands folded. These shots are well-put together and effectively communicate the mood of the film and please us by meeting our expectations. The film does a decent job of maintaining continuity by showing the peaks and valleys of the market imposed upon the New York City skyline. It also comes close to achieving symmetry by including two different instances of voice-over from LaBouef that do a tremendous job of explaining the larger consequences of entire groups playing out the morality play by our characters.

In another way though, Stone tries to go beyond our expectations by adding a number of stylish shots that all disappoint. Of these overreaches, very few compare to the miss-step in the opening credits when the look at the New York City streets attempts to climb a building and enter a board-room meeting. The CGI is apparent and looks very amateurish. Throughout the film, small attempts to do things like this really mar the finish of what would have been a pretty decent looking movie. The most unforgivable offense though, is extending the movie beyond the final voiceover from LaBeouf. This second instance occurs right after Gekko has turned back to the dark side, betraying his friends and family, and perfectly hits the tone of our nation at the time. Instead, Stone fits poor form onto poor content when he tries to give this sad story a happy ending.

Read on...

Review: The Social Network

Urban: The Zeitgeist that everyone remembers, told in a smart way and directed with all of the momentousness that it deserves.

Urban: He's not a bad guy. Even though this film literally has to tell us this, it's still hard to walk away from this movie feeling this way. It's probably because it is largely based upon The Accidental Billionaires, a book told from the perspective of Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook founder who was pushed out of the business by Mark Zukcerberg. Despite this, writer Aaron Sorkin and Director David Fincher do an excellent job of creating the most realized film of recent memory. By this I simply mean to say that the film manages to avoid any reference to any other film/cultural epoch/war story. It doesn't stand for anything but itself, which (and I liked these films): W., The Hurt Locker, Avatar, all were unable to do, as they were somehow all pulled into larger stories within political/social groups.

In order to do so, the film focuses on it's self referential qualities. In many ways, the term "friend", with all of the connotations that it carries within Facebook, is the prism through which any, and especially this, social network must be viewed. The beauty of the term on the website and within this film is that it carries no distinction; between frenemy and best friend or being used as a verb or an adjective.

A friend is a person that you know, that you don't necessarily keep in touch with regularly due to the presiding social strata (Winklevoss Twins). A friend could also be someone you have a crush on, no matter how destructive of an influence that they are (Sean Parker, Christy Lee) A friend, as the movie also shows us, can be a person with whom you have serious disagreements (Eduardo Saverin). Nowhere is this rendered more artfully than in the courtroom deposition sequences, when Saverin and Zuckerberg speak to each other through their lawyers even though they are sitting across the table from one another - their lawyers are functioning as their facebook wall - they are communicating, but not on the level that they are capable of attaining.

Even further, the film's attention to detail with regard to these issues can also be seen in the amount of parallels that the story contains. This is apparent not only in some of the symmetrical life experiences that Saverin and Zuckerberg face, but also within the way that each storyline that is produced is completed within the course of the film. I know that some reviews noted that the crew racing scene in England seemed to be 'extra', but I contend that this scene functioned beautifully to construct the logical completion of the Sean Parker upward arc within the film, while also tying up the plot-line regarding the Winklevi.

As a sort of an aside, the Trent Reznor score really punctuates the film without ever taking away from it. He might have a future in the music business.

When viewed in total, the film was a complete success at telling a momentous story in a beautiful way. For doing so, the film will become a future classic.

Urban: Strongly Recommended

Read on...

Review: Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D

Urban: For zombie movies, you're better off with Zombieland. For video game movies, better off with Prince of Persia.

Urban: This is the fourth in the series of Resident Evil films and the first that I have seen from beginning to end since the original. I did see parts of the third film, and thought that it handled the desert wasteland of a zombie apocalypse at least as well as any other zombie/apocalypse film (I think that Book of Eli and Terminator: Salvation both used the same gas station set).

This film does everything that it can to take advantage of the 3D stylings, which don't look bad at all, but which definitely are featured at the expense of the story, which is unintelligible. Having not seen the other films, I felt as lost as I did watching the original. All that I could deduce was that although earth was barren except for zombies and precious few holdouts, a gigantic corporation continued to house thousands of employees and test products underground. Why do they continue to test chemical weapons? There is no one to fight anymore! To add to this mistery, after apparently being injected with a serum that neutralizes the deadly "T virus" Milla Jovovich should lose her ability to be an outstanding zombie killer. Nonetheless, she is able to survive a deadly helicopter crash immediately after. Even though it occurs in the first 15 minutes of the film, this incident is not mentioned again for the rest of the film.

Once you get past these inexcusable story elements, what remains is your basic zombie movie, filmed in 3D, and Ali Larter. It's amazing how far those elements go with viewers these days when they are done well.

Urban: Not recommended.

Read on...

My Oscars

Best Picture: Up In The Air

It's been called snarky and is apologetic about the way it is feasting on the zeitgeist. At the same time, maybe even because of these reasons, it causes people to feel. This emotion, which comes from plain profile shots, wide shots of people walking through airport corridors, and secret looks into private lives and affairs (of the heart?). It's much simpler than Avatar and The Hurt Locker, but in doing so, it lacks the flaws that the scope that those films entail.

Best Director: Todd Phillips-The Hangover

This man took simple fare, and turned it into THE COMEDY of the summer, and probably the year. Multiple catchphrases, numerous laugh out loud moments, and even the smallest details, like the song played while waiting for the tiger to fall asleep.

Best Actor: Christopher Waltz-Inglorious Basterds

Simply and darkly amazing.

Best Actress: Kristen Stewart-Adventureland

She's one of the most gorgeous women I have ever seen, and she acts disaffected effortlessly.

Read on...

Movies I have recently that I didn't like

Avatar- most generic storyline ever. the line "I know I started as an undercover badguy, but then everything changed" is so overused I wanted to quit watching.

Bottle Shock- no spite, just not great

Book of Eli- garbage of the worst variety, wrapped in a pseudo-intellectual armor

Legion- to be fair, I saw these last two films at a theater in Joint Base Balad in Iraq, so I was still happy to get to go to the movies. Just disappointed in these pieces of garbage.

Read on...

Recent Films I liked

Some Films that I have seen recently that I liked

Up In The Air

In The Loop

Frost/Nixon

Read on...

back

Took some time off.

New Position, new focus

Read on...

Time Off

I have been taking time off, and will continue to take time off from this blog. Expect more content on the 1st of December.

Read on...

Scarface-Abbreviated

URBAN: Brian De Palma presents a film with more cultural currency than real scinematic excellence. An important film for understanding the times.

This film is the definition of eneven to me. It contains some of the most intense scenes (despite not having any particularly outstanding shots) while also containing some long stretches of downtime. The scene where Tony meets the first drug dealers that culminates in the chainsaw killing is completely breathtaking. The part where the guy gets thrown out of the chopper is the same way. The end is another example of this. However, the rest is kind of spacey. The scenes of them talking at the beach and the odd stuff with his sister are barely memorable. Unfortunately, this film has become intertwined with the first big GTA game, Vice City.

Very memorable. Better than a lot of people give it credit for. It's just not quite the achievement that the game was.

URBAN: Recommended

Read on...

Notorious

URBAN: If you want to know the man, you would be better off watching his VH1 special.

Notorious tells the story of Notorious B.I.G., Chris Wallace from childhood to his untimely death at the age of 25.

URBAN: The thing that was interesting to me about this film really had nothing to with what was caught on camera. The real story was simply: considering that both Biggie Smalls and Tupac have both had VH1 Behind The Music specials based upon their death, that this one made it to the big screen first. Seriously, I don't mean to recreate the East Coast-West Coast, Bad Boy-Death Row feud, but I think that it is pretty much universally accepted that Tupac was the better artist, and certainly possessed a more interesting story.

This film does not compare favorably to the other music biographies that have appeared recently-Ray, Walk The Line, etc. It's not necessarily that the subject matter has anything less to offer, but the method of telling the story here is lacking. Early on, the voice-over narrative does a decent job of explaining Biggie's motivations which allow the viewer to understand the action that he/she sees. Biggie wants to make money, but he also has enough respect for his mother that he wants to keep his extracurricular activity from her. As the film draws on, the motivations often lack explanation, and the viewer gets bogged down in the contradictions that the filmmaker depicts, but have no cause or relation to the major events of the story.

For example, the film depicts a young Chris writing rhymes and dealing drugs, the drugs are explained by the voice-over, but the rhyming,,,, just a throwaway line about how it made him feel better to write rhymes while he was in jail. While I would assume that rhymes would go on to become a big part of his life, the film really doesn't help me out here. Despite the fact that it is a biography, the film basically holds the audience at arms length.

In the second half of the film, this tactic really insults the intelligence of the viewer. This film would have us believe that the feud that laid Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I,G in their graves began over a perceived jumping outside an apartment in Brooklyn. While undoubtedly, this would be a big deal, but it is never understood why, Tupac believed that Biggie was behind this incident. It goes even further after an affront by Tupac to Biggie in front of a music awards show, the voice-over confides, “ We should have gotten together somewhere and sorted this shit out, but it was too late for that.”

Why?

You see, everyone who has watched Tupac's Behind The Music knows that there was more going on than that.

In closing, this film fails because it refuses to deliver the depth of details. The voice-over is confusing, as it would have the viewer believe that this is Biggie telling us his story. But it depicts a lot of bad behavior he never apologizes for, and tells the story of a great lyricist without every getting close to the subject matter that inspired his greatest work—mortality.

URBAN: Not Recommended

Read on...

Difficulty

It's harder to write a review of a good film than a bad film.

Read on...

Power Issues

The power is working intermittently.

I really am only a step away from regular posts again. Be patient.

Read on...

The Hangover

URBAN: I thought it was going to be stupid and sophomoric, but like Zach Galifianakis's character in the film, it's so sincere in doing these things that I couldn't help but like it.

The one and only destination for bachelor parties is put on display in this comedy that is equal parts Dude, Where's My Car, and American Wedding, but easily ten times better than both put together.

URBAN: The Hangover, one of the funniest movies of 2009, grabs the attention of moviegoers for no other reason than its setting. The premise is so simple, yet funny, that it can't help but strike the imagination of viewers. It holds that attention with outrageous details and excellent comedic performance by newcomer Zach Galifianakis.

Besides being one of the funniest movies of the year, for my money, it is also one of the hardest working. By this I mean that it stretches everything it has for maximum effect. Take the cast for example. With the exception of the guy who used to be the nerdy co-worker of Jennifer Garner or Alias (Bradley Cooper), none of three leads have much experience. Of the other two, one is a guy who used to do reporting on the Daily Show (Ed Helms) and the other is relatively unknown (Galifianakis). The mix works though because the star is really the story that unfolds in reverse. That, and it's loaded with impressive cameos that are worked for a lot of great, comedic scenes. Heather Graham, Mike Tyson, the doctor from Knocked Up (Ken Jeong), they all make the most of their chances to shine and also have the added benefit of moving the story along nicely.

One of the most underrated things about this film is the little piano song that Ed Helm's character plays while the guys wait for the tiger to go to sleep. It perfectly fits the surreal feeling of the film.

The main issue that I had with the film is rather silly: they really didn't mine all of the humorous material from that night. At the end of the film, when the men involved look at the pictures on the camera, it is clear that many other shenanigans occurred that would have made great comedy. I know it is a weak argument, but after seeing that reel of film over the credits, I really wanted to see a fight between the dentist and Wayne Newton.

URBAN: Recommended

Read on...

Flashback Fridays: Tropic Thunder

URBAN: Consistently very funny throughout.

A comedy dream-team makes this the funniest movie of 2008.

URBAN:
I was worried that this would be another Stiller-esque type of comedy, which, like Will Ferrel's films, all start to look the same after a while. This film does contain the typical amount of Stiller posing, but for the first time, it seems like it makes sense.

The story revolves around a group of prima donna actors taken to Southeast Asia to shoot a film about the Vietnam Conflict. They soon realize that their situation is simultaneously both more fake; The writer of the war memoir is a faker, and also more real; Real drug lords are attempting to kill them.

Along the way all of the actors have a chance to exercise the inner demons that are mainly results of the actors trying to internalize the psyches of the characters they play.

With the exception of Matthew McConaughey, all of the lead actors have their chance to give the audience some laughs. As it turns out, the real star of the film, and the only real hero, is Jay Baruchel. Stepping out of his roles as a nerd/slacker in Apatow comedies, it becomes apparent early on that he is the only functional person in the cast of the original Vietnam story. Tom Cruise, stepping away from the serious stuff, is heavily made-up, attempting to portray a Jewish studio exec. the result is highly entertaining. His dancing, while not exactly what we saw in Risky Business, is one of the highlights.

The film is unbelievably crass and politically incorrect. These facts all work to add to the humor, which is extremely sophomoric. Despite, this, it seems to be a real winner.

I can't tell you that this is a great movie. It doesn't have any deeper meaning, there is no message, it isn't as smart as the Apatow comedies,,,, its just really funny. If you want to laugh, give this film a look

URBAN: recommended

Read on...

Flashback Fridays: Step Brothers

URBAN:The laughter falls flat and the story adds nothing to the humor.

Another will Ferrel movie

URBAN:
This film had highs and lows in both laughs and the thought department. As for laughs, it is hard to beat the straightforward hilarity of "Do you want to go do karate in the garage?". There were several lows also where the jokes went completely flat. I thought we got enough of kids swearing at their parents at the dinner table from Ricky Bobby's two boys in Talladega Nights. This film carried on that theme even farther, except that this time both the parents and the children were a lot older.

Most of the film was intended to be a laugher, which, as I described above, was hit and miss. For about 15 minutes near the end, the film turned into an intelligent discussion about what being a grown up really means, pawning off your night vision goggles to pay for car insurance. In the end, this film wasn't that good, it would have been outstanding if it had attempted to lay off on the humor and instead focused on telling a story.

URBAN: Not Recommended

Read on...

Still Watching Movies

I've still been watching movies, viewed The Ghost In The Shell and Terminator on my PSP.

After this weekend will move out of the bunker and have a lot more room to write.

Look forward to some good stuff then.

Read on...

Iraq

Currently in Iraq. The facilities are pretty good, so hopefully I will be able to add content regularly. Hope everyone is enjoying the reviews.

Read on...

Flashback Fridays- X-Files: I Want To Believe

URBAN:As a huge fan of the X-Files television series, I highly anticipated the release of this film and hoped that it would at least attempt to tie up the loose ends of the show's mytharc. Instead of this, was something that I clearly recognized, and in the end will appreciate more.

The film doesn't deal with aliens. It doesn't deal with freaks. What it sacrificed in curb appeal is more than made up for with an outstanding story with tons of characters that the viewer will instantly recognize. The result, is a very engaging story about belief and the consequences thereof.

URBAN:
The primary plot revolves around Mulder and Scully as they try move on with their lives after their FBI careers are over. Scully is a doctor at a Catholic Hospital and Mulder is a,,,, I don't really know. After an FBI agent shows up missing and a former priest/pedophile claims that he has psychic premonitions regarding the event, the FBI calls in a subject matter expert to help them out. The case and the gruesome oddities that accompany it have little to do with the central themes of the story.

The central theme of the story is the issue of belief. As I described in an earlier post about the X-Files, while the show is full of oddities, the central theme has to do with matters inherently important to Pragmatism, experience and how we can know.

This film is no different. Without ever being explicit, the film focuses upon Scully's Catholic Faith. Her story has two focuses. On one hand she has to deal with the treatment of one of her patients, a young boy with an incurable disease. On the other hand, she feels incorrigible about the former priest, betrayed by his acts, and unwilling to accept the validity of his visions.

The result is familiar in one sense. As in the television series, Mulder is the believer, and Scully is the pessimist. In this case the situation shifts on a deeper level. Scully's faith does not allow her to believe that a pedophile who has done so much wrong to her faith can be forgiven and used by God in a meaningful way. Mulder doubts that he and Scully can have a romantic relationship and that the FBI can be trusted after his previous working relationship fades.

X-Files has always forced us to ask ourselves whether or not our experience can be trusted when it violates our inclinations. This film goes even farther in calling into question the experiences that support our inclinations.

Visually, it looked like a Chris Carter effort. I primarily recognized the masterful suspense built with the camera work and the falling effects. Rather than show a dummy fall off a building Carter has always preferred to show a closeup of the victim against a computer generated background. In the dark, no one makes a quick pan look spookier.

The film wasn't perfect. I am certain that many fans wanted a mytharc completion/addition. I don't think that the timing was right for these efforts. I am also aware of many other iconic stories that have tried to do the same thing recently that failed miserably (Star Wars is the first that comes to mind). I was pleased that the film chose to deliver on a philosophical level before it attempts an easy answer and swift and neat completion.

URBAN: Recommended

Read on...

District 9

URBAN: District 9 is one of those films that comes along once and a while that has no star power, no stunning effects, but still manages to catch the imagination of viewers.

Directed by Neil Blomkamp and famously, produced by Peter Jackson, this film may be advertised as a contemporary sci-fi discussion of race politics in South Africa, but becomes much more in the time allotted.

URBAN: This film was very much unlike what I was expecting. Shot almost entirely in documentary format, it manages to entertain, disgust, and enlighten at once. It does so by focusing its story, bit-by-bit, until the discomforting end is tightly in focus.

The story begins with the given, an alien race has made contact above the city of Johannesburg in South Africa. The aliens must be cut out of their spaceship, and are given a home in a type of slum within the city. The race that remains is clearly not the leadership of the species. They lack direction, and quickly become a pax upon the city, and the focus of angry villagers who reject their crime and lifestyle. The aliens are officially managed by a large development corporation, but in reality, are run by a human gang-lord who meets out discipline and food with the same iron grip. His true aim, is to control the weaponry that the aliens have brought with them, which can only be fired by alien DNA.

The story is turned upside down, when the aliens are evicted from their home and given another slum, further from the city (to appease the citizens). It is during this sequence that two key events happen. First, one of the multinational corporation workers is infected by alien technology. As a result of this the viewers become aware that large multinational-corporations are not unlike ruthless gang-lords in their quest to control the alien weaponry.

These events continue to build, as Blomkamp does his best attempt at combining Kafka's Metamorphosis and the meta-arch from the X-files.

There were only two issues that I had with this film. The first was that the aliens were virtually indistinguishable. This wasn't so much of an issue once the film had found its focus, but it was impossible to realize that the characters from the junkyard scene were the same ones that were to become important later by sight alone. It seemed like another documentary style focus on a particular.

The second issue was that the battle scene that lasted for the last 20 minutes was a little too over the top for me. The fight scenes take advantage of the character disputes that are built upon at the beginning of the film, but they last too long and focus too much on the characters that the viewer can't necessarily relate to. These scenes are ultimately only redeemed by faux-news footage of the battles that contextualizes the violence in a modern and relevant setting for the audience.

It's a shame that the battle becomes the center-piece though. The compelling story here is that through all of this the viewer is made to feel empathy towards aliens that do not speak English and are often quite disgusting. The tale also incorporates many interesting and moving social motives that are integrated well by playing up the advertising and public service element that documentary and faux-news coverage often entail. By matching this form to the content Neil Blomkamp delivers a winner, and one of the most unlooked-for money-makers of the summer.

URBAN: Recommended

Read on...