This is the 50th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

“Tick-tick-tick” time was running out ………I had planned on seeing quite a few movies over the Christmas holiday, on my days off, but —- well, for reasons too complicated to get into now… I didn’t. And as the last few days of the year approached I’d have to do some scrambling to see a final few, if I wanted to see at least 52 movies in a calendar year (making an average of one trip to the theater a week).

On Tuesday, December 30th I was still three films away from that number of 52. Could I squeeze in a trio of movies before the ball dropped in Times Square Wednesday night?

Well, first I had to decide what to see this evening. What to see, what to see …..

There was still plenty of Christmas releases out there. Big budget comedies, big budget action films, but on this night I chose to see a film a knew very little about. A film that’s gotten little if no publicity and stars no big names.

Yes, it has had a lot of critical acclaim and was hailed at screenings at Telluride and the Toronto Film Festival. But was all of that praise worth taking a chance on an unknown movie?

Hmmm…. well, I see that it’s directed by Danny Boyle. Boyle directed one of my all-time favorite films, Trainspotting!

OK, that’s good enough for me!!

* * * * * Synopsis * * * * *

The film opens with Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), a former child from the slums of Mumbai, a “slumdog” as they’re called, getting violently interrogated.

Is he a would-be terrorist?

Did he commit some vile crime?

Nope. He’s accused of cheating on the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?!

The bulk of the movie is told in flashbacks as Jamal answers his interrogators. The game show producers simply can’t understand how this poor, lower class man could not only get on the show, but be on the precipice of winning the ultimate prize, without cheating.

We soon see that every question Jamal is given is some how tied in with his life. From his very early childhood when he witnessed the death of his mother thru his travels across India with his brother Salim and perhaps most importantly, the memory of Latika, an orphaned girl he befriended when just a little boy. Every aspect of Jamal’s life is brought out through each answer he gives on the game show.

* * * * *

I really liked this movie. From the very beginning you’re sucked into this riveting story. I especially loved trying to figure out how each question will relate to Jamal.

The Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is fun to watch too, especially the swarmy Prem Kumar, the host of the show.

The cast, as you can probably tell, is an all Indian group (though don’t worry, they speak English). Each of the three main characters, Jamal, Salim and Latika have three different actors portray the different ages of their lives. All are quite good but I give major kudos to the youngest of the actors. The early lives of the “slumdogs” are pretty harrowing (there’s this scene that involves young Jamal getting locked in an outhouse….)

I’m doing my best not to say anything about the ending, because one of the best things about this film is the gradual build to the climax. I’ll say only that from the script to Boyle’s direction you may feel that you’re watching an independent film, but at it’s heart Slumdog Millionaire is really an old fashioned Hollywood romantic film.

But don’t just take my word for it, if you follow online movie rating sites, the last I saw on Rotten Tomatoes they had a 94% positive rating.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Slumdog Millionaire earns a few Oscar nominations next month, if not for Best Director I could easily see this getting a Best Picture nom.

So naturally, I give Slumdog Millionaire a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?…

This is the 44th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

(Because I wasn’t blogging for a month or so, I neglected to post about some of the movies I saw, so I’ll reaching back to the one’s I missed and writing about them in the next few days. Even though they may have long since left your local theaters’ they are coming out on DVD, so I guess these opinions are still valid.)

Another trip to the movie theater and another bio-pic to see.

As I’ve stated before, I’m a fan of historical biography films and it sure doesn’t hurt when this film in question is directed by Clint Eastwood, who’s racked up quite an impressive film resume while working behind the camera. Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River, Letters From Iwo Jima and of course Unforgiven are all excellent films, but how is his latest directorial effort, the missing person story, Changeling?

* * * * * Synopsis * * * * *

It’s 1928 in Los Angeles and Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) is a working, single mom who returns home one day to discover that her 9 year old son, Walter is missing!

What follows for Christine is every parent’s nightmare. She not only has to deal with her emotional pain at the disappearance of her son but also with little or no help by the highly incompetent and corrupted Los Angeles police department. Several months later, when told that her son has been found alive you would think that this “horror” story would have a happy ending. (but obviously not, since if that was so, this movie wouldn’t have been made) From the moment Christine greets her once lost child (in a very public meeting at the train station for the benefit of the positive publicity starved police department) something about Walter just doesn’t seem right to her. When she explains to Captain Jones (Burn Notice’s Jeffrey Donovan) that this boy isn’t Walter he pressures her to take him home.

This doesn’t sit well with Christine especially when she notices obvious differences in this Walter. Not only is he shorter but now he’s circumcised! When she goes public with all the discrepancies about the boy, the police, along with the press, paint her as an unfit mother and eventually have her committed to the County Hospital’s Psychopathic Ward.

Frustration after frustration follows Christine. She’s locked away, forced to take mood-regulating medication and is threatened that the only way she’ll get released is if she admits that she was wrong about this Walter not being her son.

* * * * *

I won’t go into any more detail because I don’t want to give away the ending. Normally when writing about a movie based on actual events, giving away the ending isn’t a problem. I’m sure a review written about the movie Titanic didn’t ignore the fact that the ship eventually sinks, since just about 99% of the audience knows that going in. But if you’re like me, you’ve probably never heard about this story and had no idea of how the actual case ended.

Was she wrong about this new boy being phony?
And if he is, is the real Walter alive?
Does Christine eventually find her son?

There are a lot of really good things about this film, aside the fact that you don’t know where the story is going. It also paints a historical bleak picture, not only about the corruption that surrounded powerful groups like the Los Angeles police but also of the knee-jerk reaction that many of the medical profession had with automatically sending people to insane asylums.

Really top notch here is also Eastwood’s direction and the look of the film is just … amazing. To see how much the film makers are able to reproduce and reconstructed the city of Los Angeles in the late 20’s early 30’s for the big screen blew me away. Especially a pan back full city shot at the end. I wonder just how much was real location shooting and just how much CGI was used here.

Another thing that kind of surprised me is how much I liked the screenplay. Considering that it was written by J. Michael Straczynski. I know that he’s written a lot for television, but since I never watched Babylon 5 or his other small screen work I was only aware of his writing for what he did in comics for Marvel. And boy, did his work at Marvel REALLY suck!

About my only complaints with the film might be with Angelina Jolie’s Christine. She comes across as extremely one-dimensional, crying and looking pained in every shot. Though that makes sense considering what all her character has to go through in this story. Maybe if we were shown a little more of her life with Walter, during their good times, then it wouldn’t be all emoting and weeping. But really, I’m just nit picking here.

I’m not sure how this did with the movie going audiences on it’s theater release. My guess is trying to sell a story like this, especially one set in the early part of the century to the masses didn’t help. I saw it on a fall sunday afternoon (the Steelers weren’t playing at the time) and noticed while the theater was pretty full, it was mostly all older women. Not the group that the audience starved Hollywood is ever looking to attract.

Changeling may not have been in the class of Eastwoods’ Unforgiven or Million Dollar Baby but it still earns a missing person …

This is the 49th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

Choosing which movie to see around the Christmas holidays can be a harrowing situation. Especially, if like me, you tend to see more movies in the theater than you do on TV.

It might sound like a no-brainer and just choose the film that you’re looking forward the most to see, but what if said film is very popular with the public?

A film that may have big name stars or be overly hyped will more than likely be playing at the cinema for several weeks to come. You can easily still see it well in to January. But those small films, the ones not based on a popular book or looks not to be a big money blockbuster, might be in-and-out at the local screens in as short as just one week.

Taking all that in to account, is why on this particular December Saturday night I chose to see the biographical movie, Milk .

* * * * * Synopsis * * * * *

After opening with actual footage taken in the 1950’s and 1960’s of police raiding gay bars and then the 1978 assassination announcement to the press, the movie settles onto Harvey Milk (Sean Penn) talking into a small tape recorder.From here on in we’ll learn his story, the story about California’s first openly gay elected official, all told in flashbacks.

A gay man with not much direction in life, moves (with his lover, Scott Smith played by James Franco) to San Francisco in the early 1970’s and opens up a small camera shop called Castro Camera. After encountering much oppression by the dwindling straight shop owners of the neighborhood known as The Castro, Harvey decides to become involved with politics. He hopes to change things for the gay population legally, through the proper channels. His first attempts seeking office are unsuccessful, until 1977 when he finally wins a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Despite succeeding with his political life though, his personal life suffers.

Tired of the now politically consumed Harvey, Scott leaves him and is replaced by Jack (Diego Luna) an overly emotionally needy and tragic man.

Harvey’s working relationships unfortunately don’t fare any better. Most complicated are that of his dealings with fellow Board member, Dan White (Josh Brolin) a former police officer and firefighter. White, a married man with a family, begins to resent Milk because of the attention the press gives him and possibly because he’s openly gay.

As we near November, 27th 1978 a nationwide anti-gay movement (led by Anita Bryant) along with an increasingly unstable White gives Milk both reason to rejoice (thanks to the defeat of Proposition 6) and his stunning inevitable end.

* * * * *

The film is filed with some very good performances. The obvious being Penn’s Harvey Milk and Brolin’s Dan White (Another great Brolin role, by the way.). The supporting cast also features some nice work by Franco as Milk’s boyfriend and a nearly unrecognizable (well to me at least) Emile Hirsch as activist Cleve Jones. It’s hard to believe that this is the same guy who was also Speed Racer earlier this year!

A nice touch that Director Gus Van Sant (who I still don’t forgive for that needless remake of Psycho he made several years ago) uses throughout the picture is the inclusion of actual film footage that often fits seamlessly with new footage. If you see this film make sure to stick around during the end credits. The film makers show photos of the actual people alongside with that of the actors who portray them. Most of the cast are dead ringers of that of the people they play!

I’m a fan with historical and biographic pictures, and Milk doesn’t disappoint. I vaguely remember much of what occurred here, though as a teenager in the 1970’s I wasn’t following political events like this but I do remember that Dan White is the guy who used the infamous “Twinkie Defense” during his murder trial.

I’m also not entirely surprised that this film came and went in the theaters. After all it covers a little known person and concerns itself with local (San Francisco) politics and of course it’s cast of characters are almost entirely all homosexuals. And if there’s one thing that scares American movie audience shitless, are films about homosexuals (Brokeback Mountain anyone?)

I give the film Milk a biographical…

This is the 38th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

(Because I wasn’t blogging for a month or so, I neglected to post about some of the movies I saw, so I’ll reaching back to the one’s I missed and writing about them in the next few days. Even though they may have long since left your local theaters’ they are coming out on DVD, so I guess these opinions are still valid.)

There aren’t too many sure things when it comes to the movies. Hot directors can produce a flop while popular actors can star in a dog but there’s one thing that I believe you can take to the bank. The Coen brothers ALWAYS produce a movie worth seeing.

* * * * * Synopsis * * * * *

OK, hang in here, this can be a bit confusing …

Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is a very angry, drunk, CIA agent who quits his job and decides to write his memoirs. His wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton) is having an affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) and wants a divorce from Osbourne. Her lawyer advises her that before she serves the papers, she should first cover herself by making copies of Osbourne’s personal and financial files and burning them onto a disc. Unfortunately, the attorney’s receptionist accidentally leaves the disc at her health club, Hardbodies.

Working at Hardbodies is a dim workout nut named Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) who acquires the disc from the gym’s janitor. Chad convinces his fellow employee, Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) that the disc contains highly sensitive information that could make them a lot of money through blackmail. But Chad and Linda aren’t quite adept at this and run into problems first with an irate Osborne and later at the Russian embassy.

To further entangle things, Linda meets Harry via an online dating service and the two begin an affair. Their love trysts take place at the Osbourne home, where Harry is still having an affair with Katie, and when Chad (who’s staking out the house) spots Linda leaving the home with Harry he sneaks into the house hoping to confront Cox about the blackmail and disc.

And from there, things REALLY get complicated!

* * * * *

Burn After Reading is filled with quirky, offbeat characters that you often find in the Coen films and the excellent cast (which also includes Richard Jenkins as Ted Treffon as the love sick manager of Hardbodies and J.K. Simmons as an exasperated CIA Director) do a great job bringing across a chaotic strangeness to their roles. From the broad goofiness of Pitt’s Chad, to Clooney’s paranoid Harry, the cast is obviously having a blast with their parts. Also, if you’d recently seen Clooney and Swinton in Michael Clayton, it’s kind of fun seeing them play such diverse characters here.

The Coen brothers have a unique talent for placing savage comic situations alongside sudden deadly situations.

Earlier this year I had the misfortune to pay for and sit through Forgetting Sarah Marshall, one of the worst comedies I’ve ever seen! Five minutes of Burn After Reading has more laughs, funnier performances and clever plot twists than that schlock agonizingly bad “comedy” had in it’s entirety.

I would rate Burn After Reading perhaps not nearly as great, but almost as good as previous Coen black comedies like Raising Arizona and Fargo (and that’s high praise indeed).

I give Burn After Reading a burned disc…

This is the 47th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

(Because I wasn’t blogging for a month or so, I neglected to post about some of the movies I saw, so I’ll reaching back to the one’s I missed and writing about them in the next few days. Even though they may have long since left your local theaters’ they are coming out on DVD, so I guess these opinions are still valid.)

Unlike most of America when it comes to Black Friday (the shopping day after Thanksgiving for the few of you who have no idea what I’m talking about) I DON’T go shopping. I guess I’m not as obsessed as most with trying to scarf up deals or getting that elusive “hot” Christmas gift. Nah, when it comes to the Friday after Thanksgiving I usually just bum around the house and eventually go out and see a movie.

One advantage on seeing a movie on a Friday afternoon is getting in with the cheaper ticket price. The disadvantage is that since this is generally a day off for most, if I decide to see an animated film or one aimed towards a general audience, I’d have to put up with hordes of families riddled with obnoxious kids. So how do I avoid that possibility? Why, go and see the big screen spectacle Australia, where I’m probably the youngest person in the crowd!

**** Synopsis (somewhat) ****

At the beginning of World War II a British aristocrat, Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) inherits a large cattle station from her murdered late husband. Many believe that she’ll simply sell it, but once arriving and seeing Faraway Downs (the station name) in person, she decides to not only keep this huge spread of northern Australian land, but to stay and try to make it profitable.

This includes driving a 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of unforgiving land aided by the rough & tough independent stock-man, Drover (Hugh Jackman) and dealing with the murderous henchmen who are working for Lesley ‘King’ Carney (Bryan Brown). Carney’s intentions are to complete the cattle monopoly that provides food for the Australian army.

Along with a romance that sparks between Ashley and Drover, Lady Sarah also becomes a surrogate mother for an orphan Aboriginal boy named Nullah.

*****

Included in this epic saga is a cliff hanging (literally) cattle drove, an against all odds journey through bad lands and a cataclysmic bombing of the northern harbor town, Darwin, by the Japanese. There’s a lot going on in this film.

A whole hell of a lot!

Director Baz Luhrmann (who also wrote the screenplay) is known for his visually arresting work (Moulin Rouge! for example) and if you see this on the big screen you wont be disappointed. There are plenty of incredible vista scenes that help show off the Australian landscape. Some stunning stuff here!

But beyond the film’s look is a traditional Hollywood-esque film. This is the kind of film that would fit very nicely with anything that came out in the 1940’s or 1950’s. You know, boy meets girl, good guy versus bad guy and the triumph of spirit and will over those who would subvert it.

Now I expected all that going in, so I wasn’t surprised by it’s “Old fashioned” feel (and thereby wasn’t surprised by the majority older crowd in the audience), but what I didn’t expect was the context behind a simple big screen saga. A huge part of Luhrmann’s Australia deals with the subjection and persecution of the Aborigines. In fact, this film could easily be an American Western film.

Replace the Australians with Americans and the Aborigines with American Indians and this could easily fit alongside the Hollywood westerns of yesteryear.

That all being said there are some “pot holes” in this film. A large plot point has to deal with the film The Wizard of Oz and most specifically the song “Over the Rainbow” and I soon grew tired of all that. And dramatic climaxes.

Yeesh!!!!

There are just TOO many dramatic climaxes peppered around in this film!

Luhrmann seems to want so badly to make such a huge, dramatic saga, that he includes just too many soul searing dramatic climaxes in the film. Yeah Baz, I get it. This is some serious stuff here, but you don’t have to “hit me over the head” with it!

An audience member can just take so much!

In fact, at one point during the film I thought, “oh, this must be near the end—but wait a minute, the Japanese attack hasn’t happened yet”! Just how much strife can these characters go through???

So, is the film worth seeing?

I think that if you would like to see Australia you should definitely see it on the big screen, or at least, a very big screen TV. It’s really nice to look at. But if you can’t sit through long films or are like most of modern movie audiences these days and can’t make it through films that try to cover grand spanning sagas like this, you should probably give it a pass.

I give Australia a “cattle driving”…

This is the 37th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

(Because I wasn’t blogging for a month or so, I neglected to post about some of the movies I saw, so I’ll reaching back to the one’s I missed and writing about them in the next few days. Even though they may have long since left your local theaters’ they are coming out on DVD, so I guess these opinions are still valid.)

I’ve never understood the obsession that studios have with promoting films with the tags; “From the director of _____” or “From the writer of _______”. I mean, I understand why they use them, since it seems your average consumer can’t make a decision to see something unless the film makers involves someone who was responsible for making something that (usually) made a lot of money. But to make your decision solely based on what’s come before doesn’t make sense to me. By sticking to that mode you’re apt to miss many undiscovered gems.

It’s with that, that I decided to head to the theater one Thursday evening in September and see a film I knew very little about, Hamlet 2 (and hey, I had a free movie pass so it wouldn’t be like I’d be gambling any money, just two hours of my time.)

Steve Coogan (who previously played the put upon director in the stinker, Tropic Thunder) plays Dana Marschz a failed bad actor who’s now an even worse drama teacher at a Tuscon high school.

It’s bad enough that Dana’s acting career never took off or that his marriage with Brie (the always good Catherine Keener) is nearly on the fritz, but as the film opens he’s just been informed that the high school is getting rid of the drama department.

No career, soon no job and no marriage. What’s a man to do?

Go out with a bang!

He conceives, writes and stages a high school play to end all high school plays. A sequel to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet called, simply enough, Hamlet 2.

Much of the film deals with Dana’s obstacles to put on this play. Dealing with the school’s disapproval, convincing his students to play their parts and getting their parents to allow them to do so (especially after word of how politically and religiously incorrect this play/musical is).

Well, the show must go on. Along with his students playing most of the cast Dana also stars in the play as…. Jesus. Yes, Hamlet 2 includes Jesus Christ, along with a time machine and some catchy musical numbers. One song involves, well, a sexual act that involves thrusting and a person’s face (!) but my personal favorite tune is “Rock Me Sexy Jesus”.

The film’s eventual ending is a bit too pat for me which would usually be a deal breaker for me, BUT, I forgive them for it. There are enough laughs, funny scenes and good character bits that make this a fun film to see, despite it’s ending.

And hey, how can you not like a film that features Elisabeth Shue playing … Elisabeth Shue! So, even though this film wasn’t directed by a money big money making director and doesn’t star some overpriced big named actor, it’s definitely worth checking out.

I give Hamlet 2 a “Rock Me Sexy Baboon”…

This is the 46th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

(Because I wasn’t blogging for a month or so, I neglected to post about some of the movies I saw, so I’ll reaching back to the one’s I missed and writing about them in the next few days. Even though they may have long since left your local theaters’ they are coming out on DVD, so I guess these opinions are still valid.)

Because I couldn’t make it to the theater the weekend this film opened, I didn’t think that I’d have too much of a problem with large theater crowds at a weekend night showing by going to see this a week later.

So, I headed over to my closest Regal Cinema to catch the 6:30 Friday night show. Much to my surprise as I pulled into the lot, sure there were a ton of cars parked but no lights were on at the building. The doors were open and a stream of people were walking out towards their cars. (I later found out that they had a massive power outage)

No problem, I’d head over to my “back-up” theater, the King of Prussia Regal Cinema. I usually like to avoid this theater on the weekends since they get a lot of the mall crowd. But like I said earlier, Quantum of Solace had been out for a week already, so I wasn’t concerned about any difficulty in getting a ticket.

As I entered the lobby … THIS PLACE WAS FRICKING PACKED!!!!!! I’d never seen this many people at a movie theater since, well, … I don’t know when. There were lines everywhere! As I neared the box office window I saw hand made signs announcing several films showings had been sold out for the rest of the night. (um, aren’t we supposed to be in a recession?)

Thankfully, the 7:00 showing of Quantum of Solace wasn’t sold out, so after I bought my ticket I headed to the last screen on the far right of the building. Thank goodness for that, because just then the reason for all of this opening night “movie madness” became clear to me.

A huge throng of hormonally charged teenage girls came stampeding past me heading towards screens on the left side of the building. Their destination? The teen/emo/romance flick, Twilight. Fortunately, having never read the books and with zero interest in a teenage vampire angst filled film, I wouldn’t be dealing with those salivating teen (and pre-teen) female crowds.

Nope, tonight I would be sitting in an audience ready for chase scenes, espionage, sexy women, action, explosions and the world’s most famous spy.

Yes, I like James Bond films.

I’ve seen them all (including the David Niven version of Casino Royale and the remake of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again) and for the most part enjoyed them all. Bond films are kind of like a comfort food. You go into the theater with certain expectations (action, nasty villains, hot women, exotic locales and of course the James Bond theme) but hope they include just enough new twists to keep it fresh.

After that disastrous final Pierce Brosnan film (Die Another Day which IMO is the worst Bond film since the all time crapfest, A View To A Kill) the remake of Casino Royale in 2006 that featured the debut of Daniel Craig as Bond, was a great way to restart the franchise. I had a high expectation that his second go, Quantum of Solace, would build upon the success of his first.

Quantum of Solace opens up right after Casino Royale. (I mean RIGHT after, like a couple hours after the end of that film) After a long chase scene and interrogation Bond finds out that his betrayal by Vesper (in Casino Royale) is more complicated than he’d first realized.

Information soon leads Bond to Haiti where after a run in with a beautiful (and scarred) woman named Camille he meets the villainous Dominic Greene. A ruthless business man involved with a criminal organization known as “Quantum”.

The rest of the film finds Bond jumping from Austria to Italy and South America. He discovers that Greene is forging a deal with an exiled general (General Medrano). Medrano would acquire control of Bolivia while Green would own a (supposedly worthless) piece of land.

Not only does Bond have to stop all of this, but he also must deal with betrayal within his own organization and must keep one step ahead of the CIA (featuring the return of Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter) who have their own interests in this scheme.

OK, first off, thankfully the days of horribly “cute” scenes that infiltrated much of the later Moore Bond films and popped up in a few Connery, Dalton and Brosnan movies are no where to be found here. And that’s good. BUT- the producers have, I believe, gone too far in the other direction. I like Craig’s Bond, but he gives the character NO humor whatsoever.

I also thought the chase scenes were very good. Though with two amazing foot chases in this film and also in Casino Royale, I believe we’ve seen enough of those for awhile.

Overall, the villain was just OK and the plot… well….

You see, I saw Casino Royale just once. The weekend it opened in 2006. Since then I haven’t seen it on cable, DVD or anywhere else for that matter. Now, it’s not that I didn’t like the film, I did. I just haven’t seen it again as yet. And because of that, there were many times during this film that I had NO IDEA WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON!

The characters kept referring back to people and situations from the first film and sure, that makes sense since everything had just happened to them. But to me, a guy in the audience, am I supposed to remember every little scene and character from a movie I saw two years ago?

I wonder, are movie makers now assuming that the audience of a film franchise will have seen the previous film dozens of times? Shouldn’t a film, ANY film, stand on it’s own? Even if it’s a part of “a trilogy” or something like that.

Besides that, what really bothered me about this film is the main character, “James Bourne”. Yes, I said James Bourne. Because if you change the lead character to an American, what with the way the fight and action scenes are shot, I swear this could easily be a Bourne film. Hey directors, ENOUGH WITH THE DAMN CLOSE-UP SHOTS DURING ACTION SCENES!!!!!! God I hate that! The characters begin a conflict and ZOOM! In goes the camera shot and the audience gets nothing but blurs, jumps and quick cuts. I’ll be damned if I can tell what’s going on.

Another thing that made me think many times during this film that it wasn’t Bond, but a Bourne film was the music. Where’s the James Bond theme? And for that matter, why place the gun barrel shot of Bond at the end of the film? I’m beginning to wonder, are the producers of these new Bond films ashamed of them? Do they think that by adding anything that could tie them in with the older films of the franchise that they’re going to lose the new audience? The audience who enjoy, for example, the Bourne films?

Though, I did notice two things, oddities compared to the films of today. First, like all the previous Bond films that have come before, the opening credits aren’t short and sweet. They still list everything and everyone who worked on the film and still have those Bond “half-naked women dancing around to strains of an opening song” that we’ve come to expect.

Also, if you watch many of the earlier Bond films, like the first ten for example, at the end of the closing credits they used to say:

James Bond will return in “__________” and list the title of the next film.

Well, they no longer list a specific title, but they still do say “James Bond will return”.

So, despite what I felt about Quantum of Solace I still hope that he’ll return. And when he does I hope he’s a little more Bond and a lot less Bourne.

I give Quantum of Solace a shaken (but not stirred):

This is the 48th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

I won’t go as far and say it’s the worst, but this years’ Thanksgiving/Christmas movie releases are overall, pretty damn lame.

How bad of a season is it? Of the two big Thanksgiving releases, one was Transporter 3 and three weeks before Christmas we get (essentially) Punisher 3!

No more Pixar films for the holiday, no Harry Potter or other franchise films out this year and even the latest James Bond entry was mediocre, at best.

But, it was a Friday and I felt like seeing a movie, so what the hell, let’s see what was playing by the time I got to the cinema. I probably would have seen Cadillac Records (another film that opened this day) but it wasn’t playing here. I could have seen Madagascar 2, but considering I thought Madagascar to be nearly unwatchable, I passed.
Transporter 3? I’ve never seen the first two, so, no thanks.
Four Christmases? Are you kidding? Do you actually expect me to PAY and sit through a Vince Vaughn film???????

See, I told you that this year’s holiday film offerings were lousy.

So, if I’m going to pay and see a lousy film, might as well choose Punisher: War Zone.

Before the film even began, methinks that the folks at Lionsgate Films should be very worried. As I entered the theater, five minutes before showtime there were only four other people inside! At 7:30 on an opening Friday night! Oooh, this film won’t have legs.

Though really, what should the producers expect? A third film (with a third different actor playing the lead) based on a somewhat obscure ultra-violent comic book character (who himself is a rip-off of a paperback book series character) during the holiday season? And coming out a week after the aforementioned Transporter 3, a film series about an ultra-violent comic book-like character. Why didn’t they just wait to “dump” this film in February?

All that being said, what is Punisher: War Zone about?

When the movie opens, Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson), the skull logo wearing Punisher, is wiping out a ton of stereotype gangsters. A lot of Italian-accent speaking bad guys are gunned down by Frank in a 7-10 minute blood bath.

Later, the Punisher follows up on some more of the gang and guns one of them down. When he goes to check the body he finds that he actually killed an FBI agent who’d been working undercover!

What is Frank to do now? A man who saw his innocent wife and children killed by the mob has now, by accident, left an innocent woman a widow and her daughter without a father.

Further complicating matters, the gangster he was hunting down Billy Russoti (Dominic West last seen on the TV series The Wire) had fallen into a vat of broken glass, horribly scarring his face. Turning him into the bad guy known as Jigsaw!

The rest of the film follows the Punisher wiping out more gangsters, dealing with the widow and her daughter and ultimately a climax battle with Jigsaw and his crazy brother Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison, who played the annoying Percy in The Green Mile).

You know, there’s a moment, about a five minute window, when I thought, “Hey, this movie could actually be something more than I was expecting” When Frank realizes he has killed the FBI Agent and in turn has destroyed a family, not unlike his own, the story grabbed me. Frank decides that he must quit his crime eradicating obsession, that the collateral damage like this agent and his family, doesn’t make his war against the mob worth it.

It’s at this point that a film with a strong director, with a strong script, a strong actor and smart producer could tell a story that will challenge and stick with an audience.

But what am I thinking? This is a fricking Punisher movie!

The Punisher’s “retirement” lasts all of maybe a minute, and he’s easily talked back into his war on crime by his arms supplier Micro (Wayne Knight). Any hopes that this film may take a serious look on this tragic man and his vigilantism are quickly wiped out by West’s performance as Jigsaw. The scenes when Jigsaw and Loony Bin Jim get ready to take on the Punisher reminded me of some of the worst villain scenes from both of Schumacher’s Batman films!!

And believe me, I can’t think of a worst critique then to compare an actor’s performance to that of one from a Schumacher Batman movie!

It’s been a long time since I read a Punisher comic (probably back when Ennis and Dillon were on the title) and I didn’t really hate the Thomas Jane 2004 Punisher film so I’m not some Punisher hater. But this film, I believe, suffers from the same thing that hurt that previous film. The idea of this gun welding one-man-army on crime may have been shocking, oh, say 30-40 years ago, but in this day and age it doesn’t have much of an edge to it. It seems very tame to me, especially compared to many recent films and especially most violent video games.

So I give Punisher: War Zone a bullet ridden:

Oh, I almost forgot. Just before the film began, an elderly couple came in and sat a few rows ahead of me. I thought I heard one of them say, “we’re in screen #20″. Well, that was wrong, this was screen #19, so considering this type of movie and their age, I immediately though “uh-oh, they’re in the wrong theater”. My guess was that they were probably looking to see the film Australia.

Well, the film began and through the first hour or so I looked over and they were still there, watching this onscreen blood bath. So, maybe I was wrong. Perhaps they had intended to see Punisher: War Zone after all.
But- with about 10 minutes left in the film, just as the climax began, THEY GOT UP AND LEFT!

Why in the world would they leave now, just before the end of the film? Why stick it out through all the gun play, blood spurts, beheadings and bullets through the head and leave NOW?

To conclude this story, as I left the screen I glanced over at the sign on screen #20, thinking that that was probably where this older couple had intended to go in the first place, and saw that playing on that screen was - Transporter 3!

I’m the type who, while watching TV, avoids commercials at all costs. I mean, that’s why we have a remote, right? As a rule once an program goes to an ad I’m outta there to another channel.

BUT-

Occasionally I do happen to see an ad or two (when I’m not watching TV at home or away from the remote) and have noticed that AT&T is running this ad again (I think they first ran it last year) for the holiday season.

Along with the voices of Steve Buscemi and Norm McDonald I really enjoy the morbid / angry humor in this ad. Makes me laugh every time I see it.

(as a bonus, this version shows the ending that always gets cut off when it airs on TV)

This is the 39th movie I’ve seen in 2008. Here are the others.

(Because I wasn’t blogging for a month or so, I neglected to post about some of the movies I saw, so I’ll reaching back to the one’s I missed and writing about them in the next few days. Even though they may have long since left your local theaters’ they are coming out on DVD, so I guess these opinions are still valid.)

As I mentioned back when discussing the movie The Rocker , I’m a big fan of the BBC series The Office. I remember reading nothing but praise about the series back in 2002, so since I’ve always been a fan of many British comedy TV shows in the past, I bought the DVD set of Season One (sight unseen) and watched it over one weekend.

Wow! I’d never seen anything like it before! A raw and unsympathetic look at a pathetic group of characters who toiled daily for a miserable small paper company. Filmed in a (then new) documentary style, their work days would often be broken up with one-on-one interviews that really got into what made these people who they were. Of course the breakout character was that of the insufferable office manager, David Brent played by series co-creator, Ricky Gervais. I immediately became a fan of this portly comedic actor.

I’ve since followed his work, first on the brilliant series Extras then as a guest voice on an episode of The Simpsons. So it’s no mystery why, despite the trailer that made it look like nothing more than your typical standard Hollywood unfunny comedy, one early October Thursday evening I went over to my local cinema and saw the film Ghost Town.

Ricky Gervais plays New York City dentist Bertram Pincus, a boorish, standoffish and misanthropic jerk (which makes his scenes very funny- well, I thought they were funny anyway). One day during what’s supposed to be a routine colonoscopy Bertram dies on the table for seven minutes. Thanks to this near death experience the antisocial Pincus now finds himself constantly surrounded and bothered by ghosts who want him to help bring closure aide to their living loved ones.

Out of all these ghosts, the recently deceased, Frank Herlihy (Greg Kinnear) continually hounds Bertram to break up the impending marriage of his widow Gwen (Téa Leoni). To help complicate matters not only does her fiancée turn out to be a really great guy but Pincus has been particularly rude towards Gwen since the day she moved into his apartment building.

Eventually Pincus does get to know Gwen, thanks in part of his knowledge from information that only she would know that’s been given to him by Frank’s ghost. All of his interfering does pay off and break up the wedding but unfortunately it also leads Pincus into falling in love with Gwen. And this revelation causes Pincus to reevaluate his life.

Ghost Town’s plot is kind of similar to that of a 1986 Robert Downey Jr. film called Heart and Souls, but aside from a man seeing ghosts and helping them finishing up earth unfinished business, there the coincidence ends. Or more to the point, it’s the bastard lead character of Bertram Pincus that sets this film apart.

Many times during the film it seems as if the writers wish to suddenly turn Bertram into a “man with a heart of gold”, but fortunately they don’t. Because seriously, if Gervais wasn’t in this film and his Pincus wasn’t such a lout, Ghost Town would be nothing more than your typical romantic comedy.

Ricky’s scenes and lines are very funny and Kinnear plays the typical Greg Kinnear character (which isn’t a particularly bad thing). It’s also nice to see Leoni again. Haven’t seen her in the movies since that lame remake of Fun With Dick And Jane with Jim Carey.

I’m not a part of that audience that makers of romantic comedies look for, I find them extremely predictable and usually boring. So giving a positive response to Ghost Town might seem out of character for me, but as I’ve mention throughout this review, it’s Gervais and his despicable dentist that sold this movie for me.

So I give Ghost Town a life after death: