Archive for October, 2010

Sony Pictures Classics, Likely Story, Feelin’ Guilty

Rebecca Hall, Elizabeth Keener, Elise Ivy, Catherine Keener, Josh Pais, Sarah Stelle, Ann Guilbert, Amanda Peet, Oliver Platt

OMG!  This is one of those films where they just go out into a room and turn on the camera and come back the next day to see what they got.  Well, maybe not quite that bad, but there is no story here.   Just a LOT of character development for no real purpose.

Two orphan girls are taking care of their elderly grandmother.  One is a bitch, and the other a wimp.   The grandmother lives on the same floor from two ratty characters who make a living out of buying dead people’s stuff and reselling it at a HUGE profit.  The husband doesn’t care, but the wife is feeling guilty so she tries to make it up, sort of, by doing dumb stuff like handing out $20.00 bills.   Then the have a daughter who is a pain in the butt.

The grandmother is also a pill, so there are plenty of people to dislike here.   The couple is waiting for the old lady to die so they can buy her apartment, knock down the wall, and make their apartment bigger.

Big deal.  The whole movie is watching these people parade around and not care in the least what happens to them.  This is surely one of those “artsy” films that you’re supposed to watch and mutter “brilliant” at every scene.  But instead you yawn and wonder why you’re still watching.

There are some good actors in this film, and it could have been a decent story, but I just found it incredibly boring.  I have seen “a day in the life of” movies and enjoyed them, but this one was awful.  They call it a comedy, but there was almost nothing to even make you smile.  I don’t think I’d like to meet the folks that rated this film 5 stars and call it “the funniest movie I’ve seen in years”.   They must have watched a different movie altogether!

I don’t know whether to call this a comedy or a drama, so I suspect I’ll call it both, but neither.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Fox Searchlight Pictures, Flavor Unit Entertainment

Queen Latifah, Common, Paula Patton, James Pickens Jr., Phylicia Rashad, Pam Grier, Laz Alonso

There is nothing wrong with Just Wright.  It’s a sweet romantic comedy with a basketball background, so it ought to be fun.  But it didn’t work for me simply because every single step of the movie was so absolutely predictable that there was nothing at all to surprise you in the least.  Each step is crafted and follow the formula in every aspect.  Therefore I couldn’t even enjoy it, and was really bored.   I just thought it was completely ho-hum!

Queen Latifa plays Leslie Wright, as a physical therapist/New Jersey Nets fanatical fan who lives with her cousin who is a major gold digger.  Her goal in life is to marry an NBA star, and she’s set out a plan to snatch one.

Naturally Scott McKnight (Common), N.J. nets aging star gets injured, and Leslie is the just right (Just Wright) person to nurse him back to health.  But to her chagrin, McKnight is smitten with her beautiful cousin and soon is engaged.  Naturally you could write the rest of the story.

The good news is that there’s nothing wrong with the story, other than it’s predictability.  It has heart, and a little bit of humor, and for a mindless romantic comedy, it meets the goal.  The acting is passable, and it’s a good time if you don’t expect too much.

Bad news is that besides the predictability, it appears the Nets have a rather bizzare schedule where they only play the Orlando Magic.  I think there are only two teams now in the NBA East.  Apparently these are the only two that survived.  Strange! 

I don’t want to bash the movie too much, cause if you’re a romantic comedy junkie, you would probably enjoy it, but for me, it just doesn’t make it, and I was very disappointed.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Movie Rentals Releasing Today Tuesday October 26th , 2010

  • Sex and the City 2
  • Winter’s Bone
  • The Girl Who Played With Fire
  • South of the Border

Author: EdG

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Paramount Pictures,  Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Studios

Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell, Mickey Rourke, Samuel L Jackson, Gary Shandling

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m not a big fan of superhero movies.  I yawned at all the Spiderman movies.   Batman, Transformers,  Incredible Hulk, Green Lantern, Hellboy, and on and on.   They are just not my cup of tea.  But I will admit up front that the Iron Man movies are really pretty good.  The first one reminded me a lot of an Independence Day type of film, and it was not on some forgotten planet in some fantasy city, but real live, current times, and addressed current problems.   Well, I’m not sure that Iron Man 2 is actually better than the first in the series, but I think it’s at least as good.   Iron Man (himself, not the film) has some issues.  For one thing, the very thing that keeps him alive is killing him.  So the clock is ticking and he’s trying to get his house (and company) in order in case he’s not going to be around much longer.

And of course he’s got competition now.  Like all superheroes,  people are going to get used to him, and start to doubt and take him for granted.  Especially with his declining health and dropping spirits.  But Mickey Rourke comes along with a long held grudge looking for revenge and turns into a swell villain amongst a slew of villains in this film.

The ending is very exciting and fast paced, but if there is any problem, it’s that it may have ended up being a little underwhelming a finish.  It’s like playing weeks on the latest video game working your way down the dungeon to finally face the “Dark Lord” and he ends up being pretty much of a wimp.  Fifteen minutes after the movie is over, you may want to think back and try to remember exactly how he was brought down.  If you’re like me, you don’t even remember.  It should have been a fitting climax, but I don’t think it was that memorable.

But the entire story is a grand adventure, very exciting, and the look of the movie is stunning!  All in all it was a great film, and I rate it pretty highly despite the little bit of fizzle in the ending.  At least the story wraps up pretty well beside the ending of the bad guy.   Very enjoyable couple hours, and a decent sequel.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Rogue, Relativity Media, Corvus Corax Productions

Max Thieriot, John Magaro, Denzel Whitaker, Zena Grey, Nick Lashaway, Paulina Olszynski, Jeremy Chu, Emily Meade, Jessica Hecht

My Soul to Take is the latest October horror film from Wes Craven.   That probably says more about the film than anything else in the review.  Wes is known for his horror films,  A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, The Last House on the Left, The People Under the Stairs, Red Eye, to name a few.  This is a classic Wes Craven film.   First of all, I saw this in 3D.  3D did absolutely nothing for this film, and after the opening credits I totally forgot about it being in 3D.  There is nothing in the film that I feel makes the extra cost of 3D valuable, and I think it’s mostly just an extra expense.

I didn’t feel My Soul to Take was a great film.  It’s a lot like all the other teen horror films, but it’s really an interesting concept that makes it a bit more worthy than the 15th film in one of the old tired series.   Adam Heller was a serial killer.  Now maybe it wasn’t his fault, but he was caught and killed several times, but managed to keep coming back.  🙂   Finally immobilized on a gurney there is a horrible crash, and suddenly “The Ripper” is missing.  On the night he died,  7 premature babies were born in the little town of Riverton.   The ambulance is left as an eerie reminder of the night “The Ripper” died, but no body was ever found, and the rumor is that he is living beneath the river.

Flash forward 16 years, and the Riverton 7, as the babies born on Ripper day are by the river honoring a yearly tradition of pushing The Ripper back into the river.

This is how the movie starts, and eventually bodies start to pile up and we’re left to figure out who the killer is, and whether there really is a “Ripper” or not.

The drama is mostly underlined by loud noises and scary music at the right times, and blood spattered on the walls.  Yes, it’s violent, but not extremely gory.   It’s somewhere in the middle.  The jumps and jolts are mostly sound effects and music, but it is creepy and it does scare you when you least expect it.

A lot of people are baffled by the ending, but it makes perfect sense if you listen to the dialog.  It’s going to get mixed reviews, and some will hate it and some will love it.

I really think that other films out presently are a much better choice, especially if you have to pay the extra fee for the Real3D which is wasted on this film.   But if you love teen horror a la Scream or  I Know What You Did Last Summer, then this is in the same vein.   It might be good for a rental if you’re a horror buff.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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