Archive for August, 2011

Egoli Tossell Film, HanWay Films, Zephyr Films

Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, David Warner, Carice van Houten, Kimberley Nixon, Andy Nyman, Tim McInnerny, John Lynch, Johnny Harris, Tygo Gernandt

Sean Bean stars as Ulric in this horror-thriller. Ulric is a church-appointed knight in the age of the Bubonic Plague’s first wave who’s sent out to investigate rumors of a woman, Langiva(Carice van Houten), who can bring the dead back to life. They head out to find the village that has been untouched by the plague. A young monk, Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), is aiding Ulric on his quest to root out the necromancer — and to determine whether or not she has ties to Satan. (Note: Below is the Red Band (R-Rated) version of the trailer.)

Black Death is a dark horror/suspense movie wrapped up in a crusades era time period. Knights were devoted to the church and would follow orders to the death. This is a gory film, with some scenes that may be shocking for some. It shows the level of commitment of each of the team, including a young priest who is in way over his head. This is a nice period piece. The cinematography is good. The mist over the marsh gives it all a really creepy feeling. The lead, Sean Bean, is very good. His co-actors are also pretty good. All in all there’s a lot of gory action and suspense as we find out who is actually behind all this wickedness. This film is available for Netflix “Watch Instantly” and is a good time filler while waiting for next weeks DVD’s.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Warner Bros. Pictures, Morra, Brezner, Steinberg and Tenenbaum Entertainment (MBST), BenderSpink

Russell Brand, Jennifer Garner, Helen Mirren, Nick Nolte, Greta Gerwig, Luis Guzmán, Geraldine James, Leslie Hendrix, Anna Kuchma

Updating and remaking the 1981 comedy classic starring Dudley Moore, this romantic comedy shows us the problems faced by Arthur Bach (Russell Brand). Arthur is a lovable lush, and rich beyond wildest dreams and enjoys a life of alcohol and women, and childish games with his Nanny (Helen Mirren). He is faced with an ultimatum whether to give up an inheritance of millions for the sake of romance or to marry the golddigger Susan Johnson, (Jennifer Garner) a gorgeous socialite that Arthur’s mother has chosen for him to make him respectable. Arthur is OK with that until he meets Naomi (Greta Gerwig), the girl who steals Arthur’s heart in the meantime.

Russell Brand did an excellent job of bringing Dudley Moore’s Arthur into the 21st Century. I must admit, I didn’t think this could hold a candle to the original film, but it was rather good. It made me forget the original and stop comparing it, and just enjoying the antics and foolishness that Brand was able to pull off so well. He’s been groomed for this role by his other airhead druggie roles that he’s mastered, and gave Arthur 100%. It’s hard to hate Jennifer Garner, but she plays the spoiled brat who is only after Arthur’s company and couldn’t care less about him. And Greta plays a charming Naomi who must teach Arthur respectability for the right reasons. It hit all the right notes and was a totally charming film, well worth the effort to bring Arthur to a whole new generation. I think the did a splendid job, and one of the finest characters in the film is New York City in itself. The city was beautiful and charming, and truly was another part of the cast. I don’t think this film could be shot anywhere else.

This is a really good update to the original and I highly recommend it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Columbia Pictures, Media Rights Capital, Red Hour Films

Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, Nick Swardson, Dilshad Vadsaria, Michael Peña, Bianca Kajlich, Fred Ward, Elizabeth Wright Shapiro


A spoiled, not yet grown up, rich kid decides to kill off his father to get his inheritance. To do this, he needs to hire a hit man, but to hire the hit man, he needs money, so he hatched a plan to strap a bomb on a pizza delivery guy and make him get the money. Of course everyone wants the money, and everyone wants to double cross everyone else. When you let amateur’s run the robberies, you’re bound to end up with a mess. With the likes of Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride, Aziz Ansari, and Fred Ward, we’re at least dealing with people who know how to do slapstick comedy and we get plenty of that!

I heard that they were coming out with a new Harold and Kumar movie later this year, but I didn’t realize they were going to slip in a “Harold and Kumar Rob a Bank”. That’s what it is, for sure.

Nick (Jesse Eisenberg) is in love with Chet (Nick Ansari)’s twin sister Kate (Dilshad Vadsaria). No this is not The Big Bang Theory. (I know it’s the same story so far.) In fact, nothing much in this movie is original, so why the heck is it so much fun? I mean the mean Dad and the kid who wants to hurry up his inheritance is nothing new, either. Nor is the mad Hispanic hit man and his double crossing stripper girlfriend. But still we get to bombs explode, watermelons blow up, flame throwers, guns, and fast cars in a totally stress free laugh riot. It’s just funny. Danny McBride plays the dumb kid that he played in Your Higness, and certainly Hick Ansari plays the same character as he plays in “Parks and Recreation” but still it’s fun. I can’t give this a really bad rating, because I simply enjoyed it too much.

It might be worth waiting for video, as I’m sure it’ll be out soon, and paying theater prices may not be the best use of limited “in theater” bucks these days, especially with all the summer blockbusters out this year, but if you want a hokey stress free chuckle movie, this one fits the bill. It’s kind of like watching Jerry Springer. You know you’re better than any of these people, but it’s fun watching them screw up time after time.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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Jellystone Films, New Line Cinema, Practical Pictures

Nicholas D’Agosto, Emma Bell, Miles Fisher, Ellen Wroe, Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, P.J. Byrne, Arlen Escarpeta, David Koechner, Courtney B. Vance, Tony Todd


A group of sales people are off on a retreat “team-building” weekend. The are led by an ass of a boss, Dennis (David Koechner) and are sitting in line on a high suspension bridge which is under construction. Suddenly employee Sam Lawton (Nicholas D’Agosto) has a premonition that the bridge is going to collapse killing everyone on the bridge. Sam insists everyone get off the bus and off the bridge, but his co-workers think he’s lost his mind. A group of them are saved and have cheated death. This, of course, since this is a Final Destination franchise movie, means that the lucky group is going to be killed in a freak accident one at a time, in the order they would have died on the bridge.

Ok, this is the 5th in the franchise, and the 2nd in 3D. I did watch this film in 3D and I have to say they really did do a great job using the 3D, and the opening credits were extremely impressive. Now, I really enjoyed this film because I am a fan of the concept. But for those who aren’t, don’t waste your time, as this is the same old “figure out a way to kill somebody in a way that’s never been done before”. They use this throughout the whole movie. In addition, they use the suspenseful “whole list of things that might be what kills the guy, but something happens at the last second to throw you off” gag. Still, it’s a well done film, and very ingenious in the ways they come up with to even the “death count”. There is even a sudden twist in the end that makes it different from all the other films in the series.

If you like the freakizoid death genre, and enjoyed 1,2,3, and 4, then be sure not to miss FD5 as it’s definitely up to the standards of the rest of the films. They certainly have no shortage of interesting deaths. Be sure to stay for the ending too, where all the freaky deaths from the first movies is repeated in a montage of disaster.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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ImageMovers, Walt Disney Productions

Seth Green, Dan Fogler, Joan Cusack, Elisabeth Harnois, Mindy Sterling, Kevin Cahoon, Tom Everett Scott, Jacquie Barnbrook

Milo (Seth Green) is a typical boy. He’s adept at getting in trouble, and after tormenting his sister, then refusing to eat Broccoli (even feeding it to the dog) his mom has had it with him. In the middle of a tantrum Milo says his life would be much better without his Mom. Little does he know the Martians are watching and they believe him and kidnap his mom to take her to Mars to extract her “momness” from her to program their robots which care for the martian babies. Milo has to head for Mars to try to save his mother.

This film uses the motion capture system that Disney used for A Christmas Carol a while back. The actors act the entire movie wearing a bunch of wires and straps to get all the movements (even subtle things like eyebrow and mouth movements) and feed it to the computer. It’s a very expensive process, and drives up the cost of the film. The problem is that this is based on a book, but it must not be a very good book. The film has about as much heart as a Saturday morning cartoon. It was quite a bomb in the box office and had a chilling effect on the Disney Animation Department. Several major projects were cancelled after this one tanked. It’s too bad because I was really looking forward to this film. I was anxious to watch it in 3D in the theater as I was pretty high on the 3D effects. Fortunately I wasn’t able to fit this one into my schedule and didn’t blow $18.00 on this in a 3D theater. I was really disappointed. Even after it tanked it the theater, I figured I’d probably still like it, but I didn’t.

The story is extremely predictable and really overused. Milo is really annoying and is a bit of a brat. The other characters are also not much fun. Ki (Elisabeth Harnois) is a Martian girl who is probably the most interesting of the lot. She’s a pretty good character, but Gribble (Dan Fogler) who is supposed to be the “Han Solo” here is a big baby loser much like the Captain on “Wall-E” There wasn’t much to keep my interest, and the motion capture technology is kind of creepy, to say the least. I would much rather have a flat hand drawn film with a great story (Like Lilo and Stitch or the new Winnie the Pooh) than a big budget 3D CGI film like this with no story. It just didn’t have anything to keep my interest. Truly one of the old Marvin the Martian cartoons with Bugs Bunny would have been much more interesting than this movie.

Instead of killing off the Animation Department and just giving everything to Pixar, Disney needs to go back to looking for really good stories and keep trying. There must be some good ones out there. Surely they haven’t scraped the bottom of the barrel yet. Surely there’s something original out there crying to be made. I hope so.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

 

 

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