A Life Spent Reading

I liked this movie. Everyone seems to be wanting all the subsequent Terminator sequels to be T2 all over again, and, well, it ain’t gonna happen. But this is a good movie in its own right, and if you don’t try to compare it to an all-time classic, you’ll like it too.

The story takes place after Judgment Day but before the events of the first Terminator movie. As such, we get to see a young Kyle Reese and an older John Conner. I thought Christian Bale did an okay job with the Connor role (a little too much pathos for my reading of the character), but Anton Yelchin was superb as Reese. I also liked Sam Worthington in his role as the prototype for the T-800 series terminators. (As I was watching the movie I kept thinking that they’d picked someone who, at times and from certain angles, reminded me a heck of a lot of Arnold…)

There are lots of homages to the original two movies, so the cognoscenti will be happy. The geek-tech factor is also satisfyingly high. Recommended for anyone who likes the series and wants to see how it will fare without Arnold Himself.

I don’t know why Owen Wilson is famous. Or successful. He plays the same sort of character in every movie, reads his lines the same way, and has the same no-energy delivery no matter what the situation. If he were a stock I’d short him, because I can’t believe that people are still going to be watching him five years from now.

Drillbit Taylor is a formula “comedy” about a couple of nerds who are just starting high school. They get picked on by upperclassmen and hire Drillbit — who’s actually a homeless guy — to be their bodyguard. I guess there might be something in the premise that wasn’t mined by My Bodyguard twenty or thirty years ago, but this movie doesn’t utilize it. When the best joke in the movie comes from mangling German, well, you know you’re just about out of ideas.

The only redeeming part of this film is the girl who plays one of the nerd’s love interest. She’ll be hot in a few years, and seems like she might be able to act as well. But she’s not enough to justify the price of the rental. Give this one a miss.

Okay, this was a bad movie. I mean, I was prepared for it to be bad, but not bad. Gorgeously shot and heavy on atmosphere, pretty much everything else disappoints (and that’s not easy to do when you have Michael Mann directing and Gong Li in the cast). I don’t make a point of trying to figure things out in advance, but this flick is so by-the-numbers that when there is a more or less gratuitous love scene thrown in after about fifteen minutes, you know that the only reason it’s there is to set up how pissed off one of the characters is going to be when his girlfriend gets taken hostage by the bad guys. The dialog is clichéd, the plot is old moth-eaten hat (with holes the size of the hand grenade that Crockett somehow pulls out… after he’s been searched by bodyguards), and sorry, but Colin Farrell ain’t no Don Johnson. (And I have to say that it’s amazing just how little passion there seems to be in his love scenes with Gong Li. Really makes me wonder about the guy.) I did prefer Jamie Foxx to Philip Michael Thomas as Tubbs, but that’s about it.

Unbelievable when you think about the original series, but this movie is actually boring. Don’t bother with it.

I’ll admit it: I’ve got a soft spot for Rocky. Maybe it’s because I was sitting in the audience with a girl I really wanted to date when the first one came out way back when in 1976; maybe it’s because Sylvester Stallone always seemed like such an unlikely movie star, what with the thick voice and droopy eyes. But I’ve almost always liked Rocky.

Almost. Rockies I-IV were fine, even full as they were of unlikely spectacle, Mohawks, jingoistic Cold War rhetoric and so on. Rocky V was another matter, a movie that was unwatchable on almost every level. It was what killed the series all those years ago.

But now Rocky is back, if only briefly, and I have to say that VI is a return to the Stallone’s very best form, equal to any of the previous movies, even maybe Rocky I.

I won’t ruin the plot, but I will say that Stallone, at 60 or so, is still physically very impressive, and that he seems to have learned a sort of mature restraint in his movie making. It seems odd to say about a movie that revolves around boxing, but this installment was, well, almost understated.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the achievement here; Stallone has pulled off something almost impossible: a fifth sequel that stands on a level with the original. What other series can you say that about? It’s taken 40 years for the Bond franchise to come up with something as good as the best of the original Connery movies. Godfather II was as good as I, and Terminator 2 was better than the original. But something-or-other six? This has got to be some sort of a record.

Watch this movie. You won’t be disappointed. And finally, there is The Line:

“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.” – Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa

For all that the plot revolves around murder and corruption, this 1984 adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s novel brings to mind a more innocent age. It’s a story about baseball, set sorta-kinda in the 1930s, and has a lot of baseball’s lore and best moments woven into the story. Robert Redford heads up a truly all-star cast (Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Kim Basinger, Richard Farnsworth, Wilford Brimley…even some of the bit parts have furture A-listers playing the roles) to create a genuinely enduring sports movie.

Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a farmboy from the heartland who has maybe more talent than anyone ever did for baseball. He heads for the majors, only to be derailed by temptation and one very very bad choice. Sixteen years later, an aging Hobbs gets his shot. He has one season left in him, one season to prove himself. The bulk of the movie deals with this season, Hobbs’ ups and downs, and along the way weaves several different themes together into a cohesive whole. The lessons Hobbs learns are timeless, and director Barry Levinson walks a very fine line indeed between reality and mythology. But the balancing act works, Randy Newman’s score is superb, and I’m not afraid to admit that I enjoyed having my emotional reactions tugged this way and that. Rocky has nothing on this movie.

I also enjoyed the bonus feature, in which Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripkin, Jr. talks about the game, about keeping a level head when you’ve got talent, and what the movie meant to him. Ripkin is one of the few modern players who seems to have kept some of the old-time values, and it’s refreshing to see a true superstar who isn’t some sort of anti-social primadonna. He’s also articulate, insightful and humble, which brought to mind a hero of the era that the movie depicts…a fellow named Gehrig.

Go ahead and buy this one. The setting, the lack of CGI (or virtually any special effects, for that matter) make this a movie that will view as well years from now as it does today. Certainly, the twenty-plus years that it’s been since I first saw it haven’t hurt it at all.

Yup, watched the second one. More car chases, more elegant Gallic violence, more really unlikely stunts. The supporting cast here was good again. (I was surprised to see Matthew Modine in what amounts to almost a bit part.)

Basically, if you liked the first one you’ll like the second and vice versa. The main draws here are the over-the-top car chase sequences and the fight scenes, which look like a cross between the usual Hollywood fisticuffs and something Jackie Chan would put together. The fire hose sequence was especially good this time around. This installment is fractionally less good than the original because of some really terrible over-acting on the part of some of the bad guys, but what the hell – if you want to see acting go rent Glengarry, Glen Ross. If you’re thinking of buying either Transporter 1 or 2, save yourself some time and just order the collection.

This French-made film (mostly spoken in English) was good for a lazy Friday night with nothing better to do. The plot was paper-thin and some of the acting downright silly, but overall if you want some mindless action and violence it isn’t a bad movie.

The idea is: an ex-military special forces type now is retired and working as a “transporter”, i.e., someone who will drive any package anywhere for the right price. The fellow is more than a little anal-retentive, spending lots of time polishing his high-end Beemer and insisting on following his “rules” (of which there are three) down to the letter. Of course, the one time he breaks one of the rules it lands him in a whole lot of trouble, but then that trouble is what drives (so to speak) the movie.

French action is different from Hollywood action, and watching this flick you come away with a slightly different taste in your mouth. Japan Times film critic Kaori Shoji once said that Hollywood simply does some things much better than anyplace else, and she was talking about car chase sequences when she said it. But I don’t necessarily agree; the ones in this movie were plenty fast and furious, with a little Gallic cheekiness thrown in for good measure. The martial arts scenes – of which there were many – also owe a debt to French savate, which gives them something of an accent as well.

Jason Statham as the lead is appropriately brawny and seems to have a brain lurking around somewhere as well. Qi Shu plays her character with an exotic prettiness that works well in contrast. All in all, Transporter is not something that’s going to stay with you for years and years, but well worth the price of a rental.

V for Vendetta is based on DC Comic book / graphic novel of the same title. Mysterious V is a masked man trying to start a revolution to overthrow a totalitarian government. He helps Evey and they engage in a very complex relationship.

Although the movie is a bit overdramatic at times, it raises an interesting question: What will you give up for “safety”?

This is particularly pertinent to us Americans because of what’s going on in the name of securing our nation and fighting the terrorists. Although the movie scenario seems far-fetched, it’s reasonable to think that perhaps we’ve given up too much, yielded so much of our rights and liberty to the government.

At the same time, V uses terrorism to make his point. After all, the movie kicks off with a spectacular blow-up of the Old Bailey courtrooms. But I don’t think the movie condoned terrorism. After all V pays for everything he’d done at the end of the film.

Although V wears his mask for the entire time, I must praise Hugo Weaving’s exceptional acting that brought V to life without us seeing his facial expression. Natalie Portman also did an excellent job of portraying a confused and scared girl who grows stronger as the movie progresses. The clashing idealogies and characters made for a very thought-provoking yet very fast-paced movie that should keep the viewers entertained.

This prequel to the more heavily publicized (but not as good) Chronicles of Riddick was the first movie that really showcased Vin Diesel to good advantage. He plays a captured murderer, one who escapes when his transport spacecraft has to make an emergency landing on an unknown planet. A few of the passengers survive, then must battle both the planet’s heat and the indigenous life-forms that seem to have a taste for human blood. One-line summary? Alien meets Nightfall.

This basic run-from-the-monsters plot is embellished and fortified with better than average acting and a storyline that incorporates more character depth and arc than most sci-fi horror flicks. Along the way, Diesel’s muscular physicality is used to good effect and he definitely holds his own in a cast composed of some really excellent character actors; Keith David and Radha Mitchell are particularly good.

This movie wasn’t given a lot of publicity, but if you want something fun and somewhat scary this one won’t disappoint. Also, I personally happen to love the throwaway one-liners that tough-guy flicks all seem to have inherited from Clint Eastwood, and this one has one of the best.

Quite enjoyable, if not quite as good as the previous installment in the series. I don’t think that this was due to any particular lack in the story per se, but more because of the much larger cast that had to be slotted into the movie and a certain lack of attention to detail. For die-hard fans of the comic book, little things like Colossus not throwing Logan the right way stand out. The other installments got all such minutia right; let’s hope that in X-Men IV they go back to the same sort of rigor.

Also — I have to say this — Halle Berry is so mis-cast it’s painful. She looks only slightly more African than David Bowie, and has a southern US accent that occasionally slips through as well. Iman would have been the perfect choice to play Storm; given that she’s a bit too old now, the producers really should have searched for a newcomer who had talent and the right look. The rest of the casting, though, is spot-on. (I have to admit that I was unhappy with Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine at first, but he’s turned out to be perfect.)

Overall, a very fun movie. The whole mutant vs human thing can be used for endless commentary on any number of social issues (racism and terrorism being only the most obvious two), and the X-Men have a huge canvas on which to paint; they’ve been around for a long time in comic form, and there are so many storylines and mutants to choose from the series could go on forever. So long as the producers get the details right, I’ll keep watching.

This movie was pretty much what you’d expect it to be: a large amount of macho posturing combined with lotsa violence. In other words, highly enjoyable.

I was never really a fan of the game DOOM, but wanted to see this movie just because I knew it’d be a couple of hours of mindless fun. It delivered quite well, and there was even (a) a bit of a plot and (b) a surprise twist at the end. All in all, not something that’s going to stay with you forever, but worth the rental price.

As an aside, I have yet to see The Rock make a really bad movie. I like the guy.