Waitress

WAITRESS (2007) - May 23, 2007
A cute romantic comedy about a small-town waitress stuck in a loveless marriage (whose husband seems like a jerk even compared to the usual jerk husband/fiancee seen in these types of romantic comedies) who finds out she's pregnant and begins to fall in love with her doctor. Keri Russell is very good in the lead role, but it's Nathan Fillion who really steals the movie (in a role that's way too small) as the doctor she falls in love with. How is he not a big movie star yet? I don't get it. He's the second coming of Tom Hanks, as far as I'm concerned. The movie was also well directed and quite entertaining, though I do have some qualms with the ending. ***

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END (2007) - May 23, 2007
That was long. Very, very long. It started out pretty well, with the main characters trying to recruit a band of Singaporean pirates to assist them in rescuing Jack Sparrow. But then not a whole lot happens, and the movie spends the next hour or two setting up the many plot threads leading up to the action-packed finale. There are double crosses, and triple crosses, and probably quadruple crosses -- I was basically able to follow it but it certainly seemed unnecessarily convoluted. Much of what I liked so much about the first one (the fact that it was just a relatively simple, fun swashbuckling adventure) is completely absent from this film, replaced in favour of a much more epic feel. And then there's the whole ending sequence, which is LONG and seems to be compensating for the relative lack of action in the mid-section. Couldn't some of this action have been spread out a bit? The film is well made and looks very good, but I just had a hard time maintaining my level of interest for the entire three hours. **

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST (2006) - May 21, 2007 (Second Viewing)
Well, I think I liked this better the second time around. It probably helped that I knew how long it was and where it was going. It also helped that my expectations were somewhat lower. Anyway, I enjoyed it. I still think it's too long and not nearly as good as the original, but it's well made and fun. ***

Summer '04

SUMMER '04 (2006) - May 20, 2007
A slow-paced and typically European "art-house" type of film, about... not much of anything, really. There's a couple, and their kid, and his girlfriend (and it took me at least ten minutes to even figure out those relationships) and another random guy, and some stuff happens. The direction was quite good, and it was well acted, but man was it slow. **1/2

Shrek the Third

SHREK THE THIRD (2007) - May 19, 2007
Well, that could have been better. After the first one, which was quite enjoyable, and the second one, which wasn't quite as good but still okay, the series has finally worn out its welcome. I can't quite put my finger on what went wrong with this one, other than to say that the whole thing is a bit stale at this point. **

Total Recall

TOTAL RECALL (1990) - May 14, 2007 (Umpteenth Viewing)
Ah, now THIS is an action movie. They don't make them even remotely like this anymore. Arnold Schwarzenegger is at his wisecracking best in this film about a man who discovers that he's been living a double life, and that he's really a secret agent on Mars. Gleefully violent, the film earns its R rating in a way contemporary action movies don't even dream to do. There are few people who can direct action as well as Paul Verhoeven (and it certainly isn't by shaking the camera and cutting a million times a second). Good stuff. ****

28 Weeks Later

28 WEEKS LATER (2007) - May 12, 2007
If I had telekinetic powers, I think Jaun Carlos Fresnadillo's head would have exploded by now, because I've been sending him some pretty bad vibes. He is a horrendously bad director. By all accounts, this should have been a pretty good movie -- the performances were good, the screenplay was okay and it had a solid enough premise, but man... the direction. It feels like, at film school, his teacher said "Here are the different types of shots: there are extreme close-ups, close-ups..." at which point he immediately stood up, "Alright! I've heard enough! Time to go make me a movie!" I swear, I think 90 percent of this film consisted of close-ups. As for the action, it was probably more like 100 percent. Sweet Jesus, don't even get me started on the action scenes, all of which were unrelentingly terrible. I don't think I've ever seen such badly directed action scenes; they were a complete and utter mess, a chaotic mishmash of images and sounds without even a hint of coherency. Each shot can't be more than a few frames, and it's just an unpleasant, confusing visual assault. And so shaky... Jesus. And I don't mean "we shot this handheld" shaky, I mean "let's shake this damn camera as hard as we can without breaking it" shaky. Even Paul Greengrass looks restrained in comparison. I can imagine someone might defend the film by saying something like "it's a chaotic situation, and the direction/editing-style puts you in the heads of the characters." Well, unless the character is an ADD-afflicted, crack-addled seven-year-old in the midst of a seizure, that simply isn't the case. And even if that were the case, why would I WANT to be in the head of that character? What's pleasant about that? What's enjoyable about watching a barrage of sounds and images and having to struggle to figure out what's even going on? I need to go find Fresnadillo so I can spit on him. *

Reeker

REEKER (2005) - May 10, 2007 (S)
Hmmm... That wasn't so good. It started out well enough -- it had a pretty generic setup (a bunch of teens get stuck in the middle of nowhere when their car breaks down) but did a reasonably good job of building tension. The tension builds, but then... nothing happens for a while. And then when stuff does start to happen, the director makes the odd choice of not showing the villain at all, and making it look like people are getting killed my a menacing cloud of gas. Finally, more than an hour in, we get to actually see the bad guy, but it's sort of too late by then. And then there's the twist ending, which sort of made sense but seemed more like a twist for the sake of having a twist. The film was essentially well made, but was undone by the absence of a compelling villain, and a lengthy mid-section in which not much happens. **

Away from Her

AWAY FROM HER (2006) - May 9, 2007
About a woman who gets Alzheimer's, goes to live in a retirement home, and winds up falling in love after basically forgetting about her husband, this was a well made film. It was very slow-paced and exceptionally depressing, but it was a good film (Sarah Polley does well in her debut as a writer/director, though it does occasionally seem like she's trying a bit too hard to be profound with her dialogue). If nothing else, the movie would be worthwhile if only for the performances, which are uniformly excellent; Gordon Pinsent, in particular, gives a really phenomenal performance as the husband who has to watch as his wife falls in love with another man. ***

Weekend at Bernie's

WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S (1989) - May 7, 2007 (Umpteenth Viewing)
Ah, Weekend at Bernie's... From a decade that brought us some pretty wacky comedies, this is certainly one of the wackiest. About a couple of guys who decide to pretend that their dead boss is still alive, I still really enjoyed this movie despite having seen it about a million times. It helps that Jonathan Silverman and Andrew McCarthy have very good chemistry together. Where's Weekend at Bernie's 3? ***

The Desperate Hours

THE DESPERATE HOURS (1955) - May 6, 2007
Humphrey Bogart (in one of his last roles) is very good, as usual, in this film about a group of three escaped convicts who terrorize a suburban family. Though perhaps not quite the crackerjack thriller I was hoping it would be (it actually moves at a fairly deliberate pace) this was still a well-made and enjoyable film. **1/2

Spider-Man 3

SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007) - May 5, 2007 (Second Viewing)
Well, I enjoyed this just as much the second time as I did the first, so I have to say that I'm a bit puzzled about the lukewarm reception this movie has been receiving from the critics. No, it's definitely not as good as the second one, and maybe not even the first, but it's still a smart, well-made, better-than-average summer blockbuster. It's long and there's a lot of plot crammed in there, but it never feels muddled. People also seem to be complaining that it's too dramatic ("everybody cries"). But what? Would they rather have another bland, explosion-filled snooze-fest? Well, whatever. I liked it. ***1/2

Lucky You

LUCKY YOU (2007) - May 2, 2007
About a professional poker player dealing with his estranged father and his new girlfriend while trying to raise funds to enter the world series of poker, this was a decent film. It was well made and very well acted (Eric Bana in particular was really good) but it was a bit on the long side and somewhat cheesy in parts (the romance with Drew Barrymore wasn't very well done). But the stuff with Eric Bana and Robert Duvall was quite good, and even though I only know the basics about poker, I still found the poker scenes to be pretty interesting. **1/2

Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3 (2007) - April 26, 2007
Sam Raimi needs to direct all superhero movies. A few other directors could also be allowed (Bryan Singer is good too), but really, Raimi has proven to be the perfect comic book director. He just gets it. He's great at action, and just as good at drama; he also knows how to blend the two without one ever overwhelming the other. And while this film probably isn't quite as good as Spider-Man 2, that's a pretty hard movie to top. ***1/2

Next

NEXT (2007) - April 25, 2007
What's the deal with Nicolas Cage? 2007 isn't even half-way over, and he's already been in two really bad movies. I'm not sure which was worse, this or Ghost Rider. About a guy who has the power to see two minutes into the future, who falls in love and gets caught up in a plot to destroy L.A. by a bunch of generic Eurotrash villains. Where do you even start with this cheesy movie? There was the dialogue, which was pretty much atrocious. The special effects were shoddy (putting it kindly). Nicolas Cage's power is completely illogical (how does he decide which moments to replay? Is it like time travel? It doesn't make sense). Much of the mid-section of the film is dedicated to Cage's romance with Jessica Biel, which is just gross (the fact that he's sporting the old pedophile hairdo doesn't help). Well, it wasn't all bad I guess. The performances were okay, with the exception of Julianne Moore (playing a tough-as-nails cop who apparently spends her free time pushing target dummies and then shooting them in the chest), who gave a surprisingly bad performance and who was clearly phoning it in. There were a couple of reasonably enjoyable sequences with Cage utilizing his power, and the film was competently directed by Lee Tamahori (though I will never understand how he went from the excellent drama Once Were Warriors to stuff like this). But, just... Blech. **

Vacancy

VACANCY (2007) - April. 21, 2007
A really effective, suspenseful thriller about a couple who check into a seedy motel only to find themselves unwitting participants in a snuff film. I really liked this movie; it spends just enough time setting up the characters so that we're rooting for them, and then proceeds to progressively notch up the tension, barely letting up until the credits roll. Nimrod Antal's direction and the cinematography were really good; this was a really nice looking film. Antal is up there with Fincher as far as making a dark scene look really good. The film features a perfect running-time (just under an hour and a half) and is really entertaining throughout. This was just a tight little thriller; it may not be all that original, but it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, and it does so stylishly and effectively. ****

Grindhouse

GRINDHOUSE (2007) - April 13, 2007
This was a bit disappointing. Featuring two full-length films, one by Robert Rodriguez and one by Quentin Tarantino, neither of which were all that great. Rodriguez's film - Planet Terror - about some kind of zombie infestation, was pretty mediocre, but then it's Robert Rodriguez so I wasn't expecting much. It was Tarantino's film, Death Proof, which was truly disappointing, as it was easily the weakest of all his films. Its main problem was that it felt disjointed, with two unrelated groups of girls being victimized by Kurt Russell's Stuntman Mike (who was easily the best thing about the whole film). The first batch of girls talk a lot and then get killed, and then the second (completely unrelated) batch of girls talk a lot and then almost get killed, and then get revenge. That's about it. It was decent enough I guess (especially compared to Rodriguez's film) but certainly not up to Tarantino's high standards. As for Planet Terror, it started off enjoyable enough, but quickly grew tedious with its unending action and explosions. Towards the end it started to feel less like a film, and more like being forced to watch someone else play a bad videogame. ** for Planet Terror, **1/2 for Death Proof, and overall: **1/2

Hot Fuzz

HOT FUZZ (2007) - April 12, 2007
Though not quite the instant classic that Shaun of the Dead was, this was a really fun, sporadically hilarious and always entertaining send-up of buddy-cop action films. It actually was a pretty good parody of the overblown, Michael Bay style action film, particularly towards the end. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have really good chemistry together and are both quite funny, and the film contains a number of genuine laughs. Where else are you going to see an old lady get jump-kicked in the head? ***1/2

Knocked Up

KNOCKED UP (2007) - April 11, 2007
An enjoyable but way overlong romantic comedy about a one-night-stand that leads to a pregnancy, and the wackiness that ensues. Seth Rogen and Ketherine Heigl were both good in the main roles, and the film was pretty funny in parts, but man was it long -- well over two hours, which is just overkill for a movie like this. The parts were Rogen hangs out with his friends were the funniest parts of the film (with a bizarre Total Recal reference being the clear highlight); I wish there had been more of that stuff and a lot less of the stuff with Heigl's romantically dissatisfied sister. **1/2

Cabin Fever

CABIN FEVER (2002) - April 8, 2007
Though not as good as Eli Roth's follow-up, Hostel, this was still an entertaining and reasonably effective horror film. About a group of teenagers who head out into an isolated cabin in the woods only to get infected by some kind of flesh-eating virus. The main problem is that the characters never really become people we care about, despite a reasonably lengthy portion at the beginning in which not much happens. It probably doesn't help that the performances, for the most part, aren't the best. The film looked good though; it was well directed by Eli Roth, and did feature some fairly effective sequences, particularly towards the end. ***