Transformers: Dark of the Moon

TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON (2011) - June 30, 2011
Oh, Jesus Christ.  An indescribably bad movie about more stupid robot shenanigans that nobody cares less about.  I really didn't think that there was anywhere to go but up from the abysmal last outing, but this actually manages to be just as bad, and just as boring.  I haven't been this bored in a movie theatre since... well, since Transformers 2.  The special effects were pretty spectacular, and the action sequences were coherently staged, but it's all in service of a movie that's so stunningly bad that it's hard to care about any of it.  Yet again, Michael Bay gives us broad "characters" who each have around one defining character trait, and who are worthless people to spend any time with.  He also crams the movie with his usual over-the-top "comedy" that just makes you want to bury your face in your hands and weep for the future of humanity.  The movie is insanely long at around two-and-a-half hours.  I saw some people walking out towards the end of the insanely tedious non-stop action final hour, and I desperately wanted to join them -- but then I might have been tempted to watch this movie again at some point down the road, and I absolutely never, ever want to have to do that.  There is nothing good here.  I would literally rather be punched in the stomach than have to sit through this movie one more time.  1/2*

The Great Buck Howard

THE GREAT BUCK HOWARD (2008) - June 28, 2011
A very enjoyable film about a young man, recently dropped out of law school to pursue his dream of becoming a writer, who winds up becoming an assistant to an aging magician whose glory days are far behind him.  Featuring some strong performances, including a very likable Colin Hanks and a typically good John Malkovich as the hot-tempered magician.  The film ultimately feels a little slight, but its 90 minute running time breezes by, and it's very well made. ***

Cars

CARS (2006) - June 26, 2011 (Second Viewing)
Though not quite on the level of pretty much every other Pixar film, this still definitely had that Pixar touch, and was very enjoyable all the way through.  About a flashy race car who finds himself stuck in a small town, and who slowly finds himself changed by the slower-paced small-town lifestyle.  No, it's not exactly the freshest premise ever, but the whole thing has an endearing earnestness that's kind of delightful.  ***

True Legend

TRUE LEGEND (2010) - June 24, 2011
A well made martial arts film about a man who is betrayed by his adoptive brother, and who must train in order to rescue his son from his evil brother's clutches.  Oh, then there's some extra stuff about the same man, now a drunken hobo, fighting Russians in a tournament.  Basically, the movie ends (or so you would think) and then about half an hour of extra stuff is crammed onto the film.  It's extremely clunky, and easily the most blatant case of a false ending that I've ever seen.  Yes, this film has problems -- aside fromt he aforementioned third act issues (or fourth act, more accurately), it opens with a CGI-heavy action sequence that feels slightly incongruous with the rest of the film, and it drags in the fairly uneventful mid-section.  But it's skillfully directed by legendary action director/choreographer Yuen Woo-ping, who does an expectedly fantastic job with the action sequences.  The fighting here is well-choreographed and exciting; Woo-ping allows it to unfold in satisfyingly long takes, never muddling it with excessive close-ups or quick-cuts.  It's pretty great.  ***

Green Lantern

GREEN LANTERN (2011) - June 23, 2011
Meh.  A mediocre superhero origin story about Hal Jordan and his transformation into a Green Lantern.  The film is decently directed by Martin Campbell, and it starts and ends fairly well.  But the whole midsection (essentially all of Hal Jordan's transformation into a Green Lantern) was just kind of dull.  It doesn't help that the character, despite the best efforts of a typically charismatic Ryan Reynolds, is pretty bland, and his whole arc (he starts out cocky and irresponsible and ends up... do I seriously need to finish that sentence?) is super generic.  The movie also introduces some father issues for Jordan (a superhero with father issues?  Never!) but doesn't really go anywhere with it.  The villains -- a too-subdued Peter Sarsgaard and a giant, angry cloud of pure fear -- don't fare much better.  Another problem with the midsection is that all the stuff on the homeworld of the lanterns falls a bit flat -- this stuff should have been infused with a sense of awe and wonder, and instead just feels like generic CGI overload.  I don't know.  The movie wasn't all bad, I guess -- I liked Reynolds, and the action was mostly pretty solid -- it was just aggressively mediocre.  **

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WEIRD (2008) - June 22, 2011
A really fun action/western about a few groups of outlaws who are all in pursuit of a buried treasure.  Director Kim Jee-woon does a really good job of making the three main characters (the titular good, bad and weird) distinctive and compelling.  The film is fairly light on plot (it's really just race from point A to point B), making it especially important that we care about these people.  But more importantly, Jee-woon does an absolutely spectacular job with the action, which is, in a word, awesome.  It's easily some of the most thrilling and well-choreographed action I've seen in a long, long time.  It's pretty clear that Jee-woon is a natural action director, with action that is kickass and exciting without resorting to the usual directorial trickery (close-ups and quick-cuts).  There are a lot of impressively long takes here, and a lot of really impressive camerawork that manages to be awesome without calling attention to itself.  This is a very, very well directed movie.  At over two hours it is perhaps a tad on the long side, but that is a very minor complaint.  ***1/2

Swimming with Sharks

SWIMMING WITH SHARKS (1994) - June 21, 2011
Featuring a couple of really solid performances from Frank Whaley and Kevin Spacey, this was a decent film about an assistant to a jerk Hollywood producer who eventually snaps.  Though the movie was quite dated, it was decently made and enjoyable throughout.  **1/2

Days of Thunder

DAYS OF THUNDER (1990) - June 20, 2011
A basically entertaining but kind of disappointing film about a talented rookie Nascar driver who has his eyes on the championship.  Featuring thinly-drawn characters and a very badly dated '80s aesthetic, I was never particularly bored, nor was I all that involved in the movie.  Even the racing scenes, presumably the reason to watch this film in the first place, were nothing particularly special.  I think I had some other issues with the movie, but it hasn't even been a week and I'm already forgetting it.  **

Red

RED (2010) - June 18, 2011
A basically entertaining movie about a group of ex-CIA agents (and a call centre employee) who find themselves on the run from CIA assassins over a decades-old incident involving the vice president. Featuring overly-slick direction from Robert Schwentke and action that ranged from mediocre to competent, the film also kind of drags in parts (it probably doesn't help that it's almost two hours, an overlong runtime that the frothy film never justifies).  It's well acted, though, with people like Helen Mirren and John Malkovich obviously having a good time with the material, and it's generally entertaining enough.  **1/2

Coming to America

COMING TO AMERICA (1988) - June 16, 2011 (Umpteenth Viewing)
Having seen this a bunch of times as a kid (and loving it) I was afraid that this movie wouldn't hold up.  It totally holds up -- this is a kind of delightful film about the prince of a small but thriving African country who, unhappy with his arranged bride, decides to go to America to find a wife.  Eddie Murphy is pretty great here; his naive but intelligent Prince Akeem always feels like a real person, and not just like a charicature or an excuse to get to the jokes.  The rest of the performances are equally solid, and John Landis' very unflashy direction is pretty much perfect.  My only real complaint is that the many side characters played by Murphy and Arsenio Hall feel a little superfluous; the film essentially stops for their wacky antics (I'm thinking especially of the scene in which Murphy plays an over-the-top R&B singer, and Hall plays an over-the-top reverend), but that's a fairly minor complaint.  ***1/2

Black Belt Jones

BLACK BELT JONES (1974) - June 15, 2011
A sporadically entertaining but mostly kind of mediocre blaxploitation film about a group of people who try to save their karate school from an evil mobster.  Features what has to be one of the greatest opening credit sequences of all time.  Sadly, the rest of the movie isn't even close to being that good.  It's kind of fun in parts, including the presence of Scatman Crothers as a Karate master (!), but mostly I was just bored.  **

The Tree of Life

THE TREE OF LIFE (2011) - June 14, 2011
There is absolutely no mistaking this for anything but a Terrence Malick movie -- almost to the point of parody.  This is a movie in which every frame is a thing of beauty; certainly, when it comes to cinematography and pure mastery of the camera, Malick is one of the greats.  The film is somehow both epic and intimate, showing us the creation of the entire universe, and then settling down to focus on one American family in the 1950s.  It's completely non-narrative, with Malick's camera simply observing this family over the course of what seems to be approximately one summer.  There's something fascinatingly hypnotic about it; it almost reminds me of a much less dark variation on Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void.  Like that movie, there's something about it that keeps it oddly compelling all the way through despite the fact that, most of the time, very little is happening.  It's pretty enchanting.  ***1/2

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES (2011) - June 13, 2011
Oh, the humanity.  About the quest to find the fountain of youth, embarked upon by Jack Sparrow as well as a few other groups of pirates, this was... well, it was less convoluted than the first two sequels, I will give it that.  Other than that?  Not so good.  It actually started out decently enough, with some decent action revolving around Johnny Depp escaping from the British, but it was all downhill from there.  One of the main problems here is that Jack Sparrow just doesn't work as the main character of a movie.  He just wants to traipse around and have a good time, which is well and good but it makes for a pretty much worthless protagonist.  None of the other characters fare much better; I don't know who thought it was a good idea to have a film in which the protagonists are all a bunch of pirates with foggy motivations, but it really doesn't work, at least not in this movie.  There is an effort to introduce a new straight-man character, who has a love interest (albiet a thinly-drawn one) and who is obviously supposed to recall Orlando Bloom from the first few films -- but he's given so little to do that his stuff just feels like a pointless diversion.  Rob Marshall's stylelessly workmanlike direction is basically fine, but what this movie really needed was someone to infuse it with some life and energy, which Marshall completely fails to do.  It's pretty boring.  *1/2

The Ninth Gate

THE NINTH GATE (1999) - June 12, 2011
An almost absurdly tedious movie about a rare book dealer who is hired by a sinister occult obsessive to try to authenticate a very rare book, supposedly co-written by the devil.  This involves Johnny Depp carefully scrutinizing the illustrations in multiple versions of the same book to see how they compare, which is just as exciting as it sounds.  The film actually starts out decently enough.  There's a fairly effective scene establishing Johnny Depp's character in which he swindles the owners of a large collection of books out of an exceptionally valuable copy of Don Quixote.  This scene sets him up as a fairly interesting character; yet as soon as he starts his investigation, anything interesting about his character dissolves completely.  He becomes a completely bland cipher with no discernable personality.  The rest of the movie pretty much consists of Johnny Depp traveling around and asking people about the book, and then cross-checking illustrations.  Director Roman Polanski seemingly attempted to inject the whole thing with an ominous vibe, something which fails pretty much completely.  There's pretty much no suspense or tension here; only tedium.  It all builds up to a conclusion that is as baffling as it is anticlimactic.  Boo-urns.  *

Super 8

SUPER 8 (2011) - June 11, 2011
A kind of great movie about a group of kids who, while making a zombie movie on Super 8, find themselves embroiled in some sinister shenanigans revolving around a mysterious creature.  Featuring some really effective direction from J.J. Abrams, the film is in no hurry to get to the action or to show you the alien creature, and it's all the better for it.  The main group of kids are all really likable and feel like real people, rather than the wacky, wisecrack-spouting teens that you might expect from a Hollywood film.  The performances are all top-shelf, particularly Joel Courtney (in his first movie role) and Elle Fanning, whose sweet romance gives the film much of its emotional heft (along with a subplot involving the main character getting over the death of his mother, a subplot which packs a surprising amount of depth for a summer film, and which never feels treacly or manipulative).  But yes, this is still a summer movie, and on that level it suceeds spectacularly -- an early set-piece involving a crashing train is absolutely thrilling, and the action-heavy third act fares just as well.  A lot has been made about the debt that this film owes to something like E.T., but aside from the general setting and the last moments (it's pretty much the exact same ending as E.T.), it's definitely its own movie.  ****

Them!

THEM! (1954) - June 10, 2011
A disappointing film about the discovery of a bunch of giant, mutated ants around a small desert town.  Not nearly as interesting or exciting as you'd think it would be.  The main problem here is that the bulk of the film consists of a rather tedious investigation into the ants; I think it takes at least 20 minutes before the word "ant" is even mentioned -- up to that point the characters are all trying to figure out what's causing all the damage around town.  Most of the film after that concerns the investigation into the location of the ants' new nest.  This wouldn't necessarily be a big problem, but all of the characters are super bland, and the investigation isn't particularly interesting on its own.  The scenes where we actually see the giant ants are pretty good, and fairly well done (the big ants are actually reasonably convincing, especially given when this film was made), but there's probably five minutes total of actual ant shenanigans.  **

Centurion

CENTURION (2010) - June 9, 2011
About a group of Roman soldiers who find themselves pursued by a deadly tracker and her group of soldiers, this was another winner from Neil Marshall (I think it's pretty clear at this point that the man is a master of genre filmmaking).  Featuring an expectedly great lead performance from Michael Fassbender, and a surprisingly good performance from Olga Kurylenko, who manages to be appropriately sinister in her dialogue-free role without ever veering into over-the-top, mustache-twirling territory.  The characters surrounding Fassbender could have been a bit stronger (they were mostly interchangable), and the obviously-CGI blood was distracting, but those are minor complaints for an otherwise very well-crafted, enjoyable film.  ***1/2

E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial

E.T.: THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982) - June 8, 2011
What can I say about this movie? It’s a classic, obviously. Many consider it to be Spielberg’s best film, and obviously the man does not have a shortage of great films to choose from. To me, Raiders of the Lost Ark is — and will always be — Spielberg’s best movie, but E.T. is definitely a strong contender. It’s funny, exciting, touching, and downright entertaining; it’s pretty much everything you want out of a movie like this. It also features top-notch direction from Spielberg, and some really great cinematography from Allen Daviau. ***1/2

Midnight in Paris

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011) - June 7, 2011
A delightful film about a man, on vacation in Paris, who finds himself traveling back to the '20s and hobnobbing with some literary and artistic greats.  Certainly, it's not one of the Woodster's best films, but it's charming and quite entertaining all the way through.  ***

Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981) - June 6, 2011
A step up from the original (but still not all that great) this was a well made movie about Max wandering into a small outpost and helping to defend them from a group of vicious bandits.  Featuring much more of the aesthetic we've come to expect from Mad Max (crazy cars, outlandish costumes, etc.), the film had some pretty solid action but was otherwise kind of unremarkable.  **1/2

X-Men: First Class

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011) - June 3, 2011
An above-average summer blockbuster about the beginnings of the X-Men, focusing mostly on the relationship between Professor X and Magneto, and their disparate views on how mutants should interact with society at large.  Featuring a really good balance between the action and the character stuff, the film is requisitely exciting without ever feeling overstuffed.  James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender both give very strong performances, and the way their characters interact and ultimately choose their sides feels quite organic (Magneto's turn to the dark side feels a lot more natural than, say, Anakin's in the prequels).  It's also very well directed by Matthew Vaughn, who has a sure hand with both the action and the drama.  There are some great scenes here, with a scene where Fassbender confronts a couple of Nazis in Argentina being a clear highlight.  And indeed, Fassbender's intense, magnetic performance (no pun intended) is definitely a confirmation that the man has what it takes to carry a film.  ***1/2

Mesrine: Part 1 - Killer Instinct

MESRINE: PART 1 - KILLER INSTINCT (2008) - June 2, 2011
A solid period crime movie (it's set in the 1960s) about the rise of Jacques Mesrine, an infamous French gangster who got into some serious shenanigans in France, then moved to Montreal and got into more shenanigans there.  Well directed by Jean-François Richet and featuring an expectedly good performance from Vincent Cassel, this was quite enjoyable throughout.  It probably helps that a lot of stuff is crammed into the 113 minute run-time of the film, and it's therefore very fast-paced.  There's also some pretty memorable moments here, including a jailbreak scene that's pretty much riveting.  ***

Resident Evil: Afterlife

RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE (2010) - June 1, 2011
Easily the best of the Resident Evil sequels, though that's really not saying much, this was about a group of survivors trying to make their way to a supposedly zombie-free cargo ship.  Features some gleefully stupid, wildly over-the-top but kind of fun action set-pieces, many of which barely make narrative sense (hey, here's a giant mutant zombie with an enormous hammer for some inexplicable reason).  Even the non-action stuff is passable, with a group of characters who are pretty generic, but actually have some personality and aren't completely bland.  It's nothing particularly great, but if the Resident Evil series can maintain this level of quality, I wouldn't be opposed to a few more sequels (or at least one more, since this one ends on a pretty blatant cliffhanger).  **1/2

Priest

PRIEST (2011) - June 1, 2011
A interesting but flawed film about a future society in which vampires and humans have been at war for years, and in which vampires have been (supposedly) wiped out.  Though the film is a little on the dark/murky side (the stupid 3D glasses probably didn't help), it actually pretty interesting, visually speaking -- the Metropolis/Blade Runner-inspired city, the western-inspired small towns, and the stylish action are highlights.  Paul Bettany was good, if a little one-note, and the dynamic between him and fellow Priest Maggie Q was fairly well done.  But the movie dragged despite a svelte running time of under 90 minutes, and there were fairly long stretches in the film's mid-section in which I had pretty much lost interest.  I'm between two and two and a half for this one, but I think there was more here that I liked than that I did not.  **1/2