In Theaters: "Fast and Furious" good for fans

Prequel to Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, in theaters now is Fast and Furious, the fourth film in the series. With Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, and a few other original cast members, this latest installment certainly gets immediate points for not going cheap.

The most important question to ask is: How did this one stack up against the others, since it should be assumed that - if you didn't like the first three - you're likely not going to like this one.

The answer is that it compares very well as an action movie, though it is a little darker than the first three both literally and figuratively and so ends up showing off a little less: fewer custom cars and outrageous mods. It fits with the plot, however, which requires "sleeper" cars without much flare.

The acting and circumstances are about as believable as elsewhere in the series, meaning that over-analyzing plot devices is mutually exclusive to enjoying the film. While several of the actors in it have proven their merit elsewhere, Furious is all about well-crafted action, fast cars, and danger around ever corner. In that, it excels, if only in that.

So if you liked the previous films, you'll enjoy Fast and Furious. If you've never seen any of them, this one's not a bad place to start, as you really won't get lost by seeing it first.

It's tough to say whether this is one of those films you really need to see on the big screen. I could see it looking just as good on a nice home theater, since most of the visuals are fairly obvious. Either way, it's good fun and carries on the Fast and Furious torch quite well.

In Theaters: "Adventureland" a quality flick

I think I would have seen new-in-theaters Adventureland regardless of what others thought of it, since I am a huge fan of Superbad. But admittedly, it didn't hurt when I heard from my favorite movie blogs that it's pretty exceptional.

So despite the student tickets creeping up to $8, my wife and I checked it out last night. Unlike most comedies, this is one that I actually would suggest watching in the theater because of the excellent use of filters and light to convey tacitly everything from era to time of day with great care.

While there aren't many belly-roll laughs in Adventureland, it's carried along smoothly by a pretty amazing cast - each of which is completely believable in their roles. This speaks to solid direction as well as acting, of course.

The theme - a post-bac and still inexperienced young man finds that the only job he qualifies for is working at a lower-echelon amusement park - is far more realistic than the typical drivel, where college inevitably leads to everyone getting his dream job (after graduating from his dream college, of course).

The pace can be a little slow, but you get the feeling that it's very much meant to move at that pace, not that it isn't tightly edited or forcing too many of those Brown Bunny moments of silent contemplation.

Since the genre is certainly not new, Adventureland has been compared to many films: Dazed and Confused, Say Anything. But the angle is really unique enough that you won't likely find yourself making comparisons, but just enjoying what was a well-crafted, well-acted film that has something for any adult aged viewer.

Watchmen a twisted treat

After finally seeing Watchmen in theaters, I have to say that I was a little surprised in general, though pleasantly. I was expecting X-Men, but got a cross between Sin City and Mystery Men. While many moments contained the raw, edgy action of City, there were other moments of unintentional comedy.

While the film is crazy long, the pace is such that it feels like it's right, or else something would have been left out. It progresses much like a comic book or graphic novel, with disjointed sections and sometimes rough transitions, but nothing that you can't put together as time progresses, despite the Nancy Drews thinking that talking in the theater is alright so long as they're revealing some wholly obvious plot twist in case the brain-dead among us missed it.

The look and feel of the film is top shelf: great use of color, effects, and sound. The inevitable CGI doesn't ruin your immersion like in many lower-budget flicks. The role of Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach is amazing, and worth the price of admission alone.

That said, Watchmen is not for everyone. If you're expecting Sin City or Batman then you may leave disappointed, as there is as much time spent on story and character development as there is on setting up the next action sequence.

But if you're patient and can suspend your disbelief a little at some less-than-likely loose ends, Watchmen is sure to entertain and warrants a couple of views to fully soak in its message and the depth of its story and characters, assuming you can check your impatience and your political leanings at the door.

Theater: "Taken" steals the show

I'll open with the obvious: Taken's plot has been done before. Man of Fire (the original and the remake), The Limey, Get Carter - even Hardcore borders on the same premise: someone goes missing and a bad-ass breaks medieval on all who stand in his way to finding her.

But recycled plots do not mean the film is poorer for it; look how many times the whole wayward tourists has been done, the vampire love story, or the penitent assassin. The question is whether it's done well, and in Taken's case, the answer is an emphatic Yes.

Liam Neeson is an ex-007 type who's trying to reconnect with his daughter, but when she's kidnapped while on vacation in Europe, Neeson has to conjure all his past experience to track her down and make those behind it pay.

Neeson's character, Bryan, is not warm and fuzzy, nor is he the tragic hero a la Washington's character in the aforementioned Man of Fire remake, but your heart and mind are invariably with him from the very beginning as he's the only one who can see the forest for the trees. The film does this well - where the viewer can see things coming much like Neeson sees them, but like other characters cannot. That's not to say there aren't twists: any film with as many Mexican stand-offs is bound to surprise you at some point.

Mostly, I think Taken appeals because we would all like to believe that there is someone out there who cares about us enough to make the kinds of life and death sacrifices and decisions that Neeson makes, or that we ourselves would be willing to make those decisions and take those actions if the ones we love were in the same grave danger.

Either way, it's easy to identify with the passion and desperation in the film, making the non-stop action that much more compelling. While not so full of visuals to mandate a viewing in the theater, this is one you're not going to miss.

Theatrical Review: "Coraline" 3D

I should come out and admit something right away: I don't like The Nightmare Before Christmas. And watching Spirited Away is akin to taking the GRE for me - my brain working so hard to reconcile oddities that I grow mentally exhausted. While I have a writer's imagination (for good or ill) there's something about a nonsensical universe where a dog becomes a flower becomes a friggin' balloon that's just a little too odd for me.

So, just know that I'm seeing Coraline - a film very much in Nightmare's tradition - through a filter of precarious tastes for the genre before you get into it.

I went to Coraline for two reasons:

1. I love Neil Gaiman's writing - American Gods is an amazing novel, and I'm working on The Graveyard Book now.

2. It is in 3D, and I haven't seen a 3D film since Jason Voorhees popped some guys eyes out in Friday the 13th: Part 3.

In this way - as a 3D film both well-written and well acted - Coraline is certainly worth a watch. The dimensions are very well used and not overdone. There are very few really "in your face" moments: most of the 3D is to add perspective and depth, complimenting the story and the visual affect of many scenes.

Again, this may be my rational side talking, but since Coraline really isn't a "kids movie" maybe some fantastic elements (like the creepy upstairs neighbor with more anatomical anomalies than a Bratz doll) should have been normalized and the fantasy left to the "other" realm.

When the illustration builds a reality we're used to - one of computers and bookshelves and leaky windows - something that smacks of Pixar, not Nightmare - then the introduction of something completely unreal (dancing mice for instance) just confuses.

Back to the 3D element: it seems that the movie was $3 extra, but that's for the film itself, not the glasses. The glasses are supposed to be recycled for later use. So - alas - having your own pair won't bring down 3D ticket prices anytime soon. I didn't recycle mine, but tucked them away ready to plead ignorance if stopped on the way out.

I'm perfectly fine with them claiming that the additional $3 doesn't pay for the 50-cent glasses, just so they are okay with me taking them if I want. I actually have Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D at home and wanted to see if the glasses worked. They didn't. I'll still keep them, of course, in case they work with, say, movies that I could rent which use the same 3D technology.

In the end, I think Coraline is a good film choice for 3D and the technology is worth the extra $3, even if Coraline isn't really my kind of movie; my ambivalence is a product of disliking the genre, not an indictment of Coraline as a film within that type.

I invite anyone who really does enjoy this sort of film to offer some commentary on how Coraline stacks up. Use the comment feature or just email me and I'll be happy to post it.

"Gran Torino" a solid Eastwood addition

At the first racial slur, the theater full of white people didn’t know whether to laugh or offer up one of those "ohhh" noises that says: "My God, what nerve; I would never use racial slurs like that...out loud." In time, Clint Eastwood's latest film Gran Torino leveled the racial playing field, laying out a deluge of harsh monikers akin to a '90s Andrew Dice Clay stand-up routine.

In a society where we can blaspheme on public television but must euphemize racial slurs by speaking only the first letter, it becomes clear that we aren't really sure what our values are anymore - just that we don't want to offend anyone. Now, don't misunderstand, the absence of staunch values is not the same as being valueless or immoral: I can't speak much to my own values, but I'm a good person who contributes to society and works everyday toward developing my character.

But, in Torino, the dialogue's potential to offend is quickly mollified by Walt's (Eastwood's) indiscriminate use of it, and the fact that his affection for his neighborhood does little to rectify his preference for the seemingly vulgar vernacular.

What speaks far louder are Walt's values and ethics, which is a wonderful picture of his era. I'm not going all Brokaw on you - I believe each generation has its strengths - but Korean War vet Walt's values include many finer things that he imbues in his atrophying neighborhood, letting the not-so-fine things such as stubbornness and distaste fall away.

While I have no beef with the long-winded nature of Eastwood's films (I rather like it, actually), some have found them a little too lengthy, but in Torino, the majority of the scenes are purposeful and add to the film; there is little I'd whack were it my job to make the film tighter.

It was also refreshing to see the total absence of the whole, trite "I'm gettin' too old for this" line from Eastwood. To be frank, it's what turned me off of the Lethal Weapon series and Space Cowboys. You can speak to the generation without speaking to the inabilities of it over and over: such facts are tacit and obvious.

Now for the downside: the acting is pretty bad - all but Eastwood, of course. This is likely due to under-directing on Eastwood's part, as it is random throughout the film who's going to act poorly next. To me, this smacks not of poor casting but too few takes, leaving some scenes stiff and hurried. While I don't have the eye of someone trained in continuity, it would not surprise me to learn that there are several continuity errors, as well, and for the same reason.

I'll not speak to the end of the movie or spoil any plot devices, but it is a work typical of Eastwood both in pace and content, but with a very human element that keeps your emotions tied to the film's development. I would say that any of Eastwood's contemporaries would greatly appreciate the film, and that there are plenty of nuggets for younger generations to glean from it, not the least of which is enjoyment.

Nine Hollywood Tropes Moviegoers Loathe: Part One

This is part one of a nine-part series. The tone is a little sarcastic, but don't let the cynicism detract from the humor.

When moviegoers see that films like Gigli were ever made, it’s a wonder people go to the theater at all. I mean, nowadays the trade-off is shafting your unborn son of his college education just to check out a movie a month and wash it down with some over-iced soda.
Despite that and the inevitable whining of every MPAA mouthpiece claiming the industry’s in fiscal turmoil, people still love the movies. Hell, I’ve turned my nose at every gas station that dares charge me a 30 cent convenience fee - never to return - and yet I’m so sell-out at the movie theater that George Foreman hangs his head in shame.
However, this perpetual dedication comes at a small price: the right to tell Hollywood producers how moronic some movie tropes have become and how they do little more than tick off the regulars by messing with our immersion worse than that jerk who actually answers his cell phone mid-climax. (May he suffer a face-plant sometime soon).

1. Killing off the predecessor hero in the first two seconds of the sequel

You know the feeling: you spend an entire movie slipping into the mind of the hero. You feel his pain, you crouch right beside him as he escapes death time and again. You hold you breathe as the killer stalks our hero, but you cry in victory when the hero beats the odds and walks into the sunset a bloody, victorious icon of tenacity.
And what does Hollywood do? They kill the guy in the first scene of some crappy sequel ‘cause they couldn’t scrape up the budget to pay the old star to come back.
I didn’t think I’d even like Hostel only to get fully engrossed as the protagonist narrowly escapes and even gets a little payback a la a bathroom stall shankfest. He was scared; he was maimed and in pain and he suffered, and yet he survived…until Hostel II that is, where he ate it 3 minutes in and ended up a trophy on some schmuck’s wall who wasn’t even in the first one.
Same with filmmakers sidestepping neuvo James Bond-esque Xander Cage in lame sequel XXX: State of the Union by having someone just pop up and say Xander was killed in some far-off country. We’d just seen him in XXX surviving every one-in-a-million shot scenario in the book, but yeah, sure, he was offed like a tired dog with nothing more said about him than you would an extra falling off of a wall to his death.
And there wasn’t an ‘80s kid alive who didn’t love it when Jean-Claude Van Damme’s character in Kickboxer started whopping some Tong Po ass, only to see some scab playing him take a bullet to the head in the abortion that was Kickboxer II.
Do us a favor, have your crummy sequels all you want, but leave the original guys out of it if you can’t spring for the bucks to bring them back.

Check out Nine Hollywood Tropes Moviegoers Loathe: Part Two

"Valkyrie" swoops down on conventional wisdom

Watching Valkyrie immediately makes me realize that my "survey" understanding of WWII is woefully inadequate. We have a sort of blimp's eye view of wars sometimes, where we assume that it was purely manicheistic: the bad guys wore black and the good guys wore white, and the good guys won. With real life never quite panning out like that, Valkyrie does an excellent job of showing one of the many insurrection attempts on Hitler's Germany, with politics and paranoia that smacks of V for Vendetta. Director Bryan Singer was on his A game, which means I can finally forgive him for not directing X-Men III.
What I appreciated was the amount of minutia surrounding the actual attempted coup. In some movies, such as The Perfect Storm, you have a level of circumstantial detail that builds the tension you feel and the connection you have to the characters. Yet at the end of Storm, we find out that no one lived to tell the tale. I felt completely jipped, especially when the movie touted itself as "based on a true story." Story, indeed. Now, I can't stomach the melodramatic moment in Storm, knowing they are all hearsay and guesswork.
In Valkyrie, however, those very details are true; the product of meticulous research, historical record, and even reenactments. This makes the film much more enjoyable, especially since it is surrounding such an important time in our recent history.
If you are going to Valkyrie for Mission Impossible you will be sorely disappointed. If you are going in order to see a facet of history that has almost entirely slipped through the cracks of the modern historical canon, then you will enjoy it. It is well-paced, well-acted, and has an excellent cast. That said, the only drawback I see will be felt by the producers, and that is that - given the way that the story unfolds - I don't see a huge market for repeat views, so I predict mediocre DVD sales. I would watch it twice, but I could understand how a single viewing would suffice for most.
Too, there seemed to be a slew of accents: some trying for German, some more British, and Tom Cruise sticking with, well, Tom Cruise. While it would have been nice to enforce a bit of consistency here, it was only a minute detail that goes largely unnoticed.
Any evidence to the contrary is welcome in the comments section, as are all other observations, opinions, etc.

That's "The Spirit"...oh, wait, no it's not.

Forsaking my unborn daughter's college fund, my wife and I went to the movies last night because I just had to see "The Spirit." It wasn't the preview that hooked me or the ambiguous posters long haunting the halls of Roanoke's Regal Cinemas. No, it was the fact that the same man - Frank Miller - was responsible for films 300 and Sin City, both of which I rather enjoyed.
As usual, we had the time wrong, so we were 45 minutes early and snuck into The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for a while. It was a pleasant, interesting tale when we left it, if not slightly scarred by the jerk who answered and spoke on his cell phone for a good minute.
Well, after 5 minutes of "The Spirit" I was so tempted to return to catch Benjamin Button somewhere in his 50s that I nearly asked my wife if she was equally game. A slight chuckle at one of the movie's lamer jokes dissuaded me, however, thinking that perhaps she liked it.
Let's get to the meat of it: why did it suck and how badly?
It sucked because - despite the "innovative" camera work making me think I was looking through a keyhole, it wasn't into the ladies' washroom but at an insipid and endless quarrel between two over-actors (Jackson and Macht) that was so slopped in water and tar that I thought I was watching "Double Dare" on Nickelodeon.
The script was weak, which is occasionally forgivable despite good writers growing on trees nowadays, but unless the comic explains why the whole concept unfolds more like "Pee-wee's Playhouse" than a film, I think Miller missed the mark by a mile or so.
I could almost understand what he was trying for: old-style detective story meets the sharp contrasts and sexiness of Sin City, but The Spirit encapsulates comic book on film about as well as Schumacer did in Batman and Robin, which I can't even say out loud lest I trigger my gag reflex.
So, do yourself a favor and skip this joke of a film - even when it's in the discount bin at Wal-Mart. Even then.