WALL-E

WALL-E (2008) - June 30, 2008 (Second Viewing)
It's official -- I love this movie. Many times when I watch a film for the second time, particularly in such close succession with the first viewing, I hone in on the flaws much more, and generally enjoy the film much less. Then there are the truly great films, the ones which seem to get better and better on each subsequent viewing. This appears to be one of those films. Despite having just watched this a couple of days ago, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and found myself getting just as sucked into the story. WALL-E is just such a great character, and the film is so well-crafted; it really is a joy to watch. I can't wait to see it again. ****

WALL-E

WALL-E (2008) - June 27, 2008
I didn't think it was possible, but Pixar have topped themselves -- this is an amazing film, and almost certainly Pixar's best. A rousing triumph from start to finish, this was an awe-inspiringly good film. About a lovable but lonely robot, tasked with cleaning up a barren, abandoned Earth, whose life is turned upsidedown when a female robot named Eve comes to scan the Earth for any signs of life. The film does an impressive job of developing WALL-E and Eve; even without any dialogue, both characters are more likable and fully realized than most humans in the average Hollywood film. There is so much to love in this movie -- from the direction (this is a visually stunning film) to the characters to... well, everthing, I really can't think of much to complain about in this film. It takes a premise which sounds iffy on paper (a whole film revolving around an essentially mute, R2D2-esque robot) and turns it into something magical, something which so perfectly utilizes all of the strengths of the animated medium (telling a story through visuals and imagery) and none of the weaknesses (excessively chatty, wisecracking characters and a tendency to cater to the lowest-common-denominator). It is the rare film that you watch and you realize -- right away -- that you are watching a classic, a film that will be talked about and remembered for years to come. This is one of them. I loved it. ****

The Love Guru

THE LOVE GURU (2008) - June 18, 2008
Oh, the humanity. This was an awful film -- about a guru who is recruited by the Maple Leafs to help their star player get back together with his wife, this was a bad, terminally unfunny film. The humour isn't even hit and miss -- it's all miss, no hit. I don't think I've sat this stone-faced in front of a movie since Schindler's List. Some comedies aren't necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, but manage to get by on charm and the likability of the characters. This film is essentially just series of gags (most revolving around balls or similarly scatological humour), so the complete absence of laughs means it's essentially worthless as a piece of entertainment. *

The Happening

THE HAPPENING (2008) - June 18, 2008
A seriously flawed, but still entertaining and mostly well-made film. About a strange disease that makes people immediately commit suicide, the main problem is the off-kilter, sometimes unintentionally campy tone. It seems like Shyamalan is going for a sort of '50s vibe, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but it doesn't entirely work. It doesn't help that Mark Wahlberg -- who is a good actor -- is clearly miscast, and seems to strike many of the wrong notes in his performance. Shyamalan's direction is mostly quite good (it's definitely a nice looking film), and there are a few sequences here that are just as good as anything he's done; this is definitely not the disaster that many are making it out to be, but it's not exactly in the same league as something like Unbreakable or Signs. ***

Be Kind Rewind

BE KIND REWIND (2008) - June 17, 2008
A silly but basically entertaining film about a couple of guys who accidentally erase all the tapes in their store, and decide to remake the films themselves and rent them out -- a scheme which proves to be surprisingly popular. The film meanders a bit more than it needs to, and it's never quite as delightful as it's clearly trying to be, but it's affable enough for the most part. I should mention, though, that the cinematography is surprisingly bad, giving the whole film an unpleasantly muddy look. **1/2

Jumper

JUMPER (2008) - June 16, 2008
A generally entertaining if somewhat mediocre action film about a guy who has the power to teleport (or "jump") anywhere he wants, and the shenanigans he gets into once a group called the Paladins starts chasing him down. The film feels more like a string of loosely connected set-pieces than a cohesive whole, and the characters are woefully underdeveloped -- we never learn a thing about Samuel L. Jackson's villain beyond "Jumpers, I hate these guys!" and his motivation remains baffling throughout. The film was competently directed by Doug Liman (and I did like the scene where Hayden Christensen and the other jumper fought throughout the world), and it wasn't boring, it was just... meh. **1/2

Cause for Alarm!

CAUSE FOR ALARM! (1951) - June 15, 2008
About a housewife whose paranoid husband accuses her of trying to murder him and then promptly dies, leaving her to frantically try to recover the letter to the DA that he just mailed. It's a simple premise, but it's well executed and briskly paced, running at a snappy 74 minutes. The film was well directed, and Loretta Young was quite good in the main role. This film is a great example of how to take something fairly simple and make it far better than you'd expect. ***

Magnolia

MAGNOLIA (1999) - June 13, 2008 (Sixth Viewing? Seventh?)
Man, PT Anderson. This movie is so amazingly good on every level: the performances, the direction, the script, the cinematography, the score... this was an incredibly powerful film, which doesn't feel overlong at all even at three hours. I love everything about this film. I particularly like PT's use of the score, which I think is downright revolutionary, or at least I've never seen anything quite like it -- it's pretty much brilliant, but then everything about this film is pretty much brilliant. ****

Boogie Nights

BOOGIE NIGHTS (1997) - June 12, 2008 (Fifth Viewing? Sixth?)
Pure, unadulterated awesomeness. Watching this film, and basking in its seemingly non-stop greatness, it's hard to deny that Paul Thomas Anderson is quite possibly the best director of all time; certainly, he's the best living director. There are so many great moments in this film, including a couple of sequences which are about as good as anything I've ever seen -- there's the part in which Rollergirl and Jack film "On the Lookout", while Dirk takes a beating in the truck; then there's awesomely bizarre drug-deal sequence with Alfred Molina. Most directors are lucky enough to have one or two moments like this in their entire career; moments when everything just comes together so perfectly. PT Anderson has had a few in every film he's made. Honestly, from the performances to the direction to the perfect use of music, I don't have a single complaint about this film. ****

The Incredible Hulk

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008) - June 9, 2008
A sort of mediocre but basically enjoyable superhero film about the Incredible Hulk getting angry and smashing things. It accomplishes its unstated goal of essentially erasing the memory of Ang Lee's more character-oriented film, and unlike that one delivers pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Hulk movie (the Hulk getting angry and causing mayhem). The movie is at its best during the action scenes -- particularly the final one in which the Hulk takes on Abomination in the streets of "New York" (a very poorly disguised Toronto) -- but the film is oddly lifeless during the non-action parts, as if all involved knew that the destruction is what people came for and went on autopilot for everything else. It wasn't bad, per se (I was never bored), but it wasn't that great either. **1/2

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN (2008) - June 7, 2008
Another summer, another terrible Adam Sandler film. This was a slight step above his last film, I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, but really, that's not saying much. The film, about an elite member of the Israeli military who fakes his death and comes to America to be a hairdresser, suffers from the same dearth of laughs that has plagued the last few Sandler films. It's just not funny. At all. It's not particularly entertaining, either. It is remarkably even-handed, given the subject matter, which is impressive. But it just wasn't very good. **

Shaun of the Dead

SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004) - June 6, 2008 (Second Viewing)
Man, what a great movie. What I really love about this film is that it's a great parody of zombie movies, but the parody elements are always secondary to the characters and plot -- this is not a mere "spoof" movie. You could go into this without having seen a single zombie film and still enjoy it heartily; if you happen to catch the references, then that's just the icing on the cake. It's also a really great zombie movie on its own, never skimping on the gore and stylishly directed by Edgar Wright. It's really well acted, particularly Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who obviously have really good chemistry together. Oh, and it's frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious. So yeah... good stuff. ****

Kung Fu Panda

KUNG FU PANDA (2008) - June 4, 2008
Though it's not quite the way-above-average animated film I was lead to believe (mostly from Jerry Beck), this was an enjoyable animated film, refreshingly devoid of the type of embarrassingly juvenile gags that tend to ruin movies of this ilk. Jack Black was good as the titular panda, as were all the other performances (the film was expectedly packed with recognizable voices, though they didn't seem like they were crammed in solely for their star appeal, as is generally the case with Dreamworks animated films). This may not have been anything too special, but it was well-animated and quite entertaining. ***

Running Scared

RUNNING SCARED (2006) - June 2, 2008
A silly but enjoyable and very over-the-top film about a man on a desperate search to find a gun used during a shootout over the course of a very long night. The film was briskly paced, and featured a better-than-average performance from Paul Walker. It was kind of like Shoot 'Em Up, but much much better. ***