Ed's Review Dot Com

Paramount Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, Dylan Sellers Productions,

Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Ziah Colon, Ray McKinnon, Miles Teller, Ser’Darius William Blain, Patrick Flueger, Andie MacDowell, Maggie Jones

Young rebel (?) Ren MacCormack (Kenny Wormald) comes into a small town run with an iron fist by the town elders led by conservative preacher Rev. Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid). Rev Shaw’s Daughter, Ariel (Julianne Hough) is a sexy blonde on the edge of her sexuality and attracted to bad boy Ren from the start much to her father’s dismay. The town has outlawed dancing as it leads kids into trouble, but Ren makes it his goal to win Ariel, change her father’s mind, and hold a dance for the poor underprivileged youth of the town.

This remake of of the 1984 version with Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer as the teens, and John Lithgow as the uptight preacher is another remake that didn’t need to be made. I never thought the original was such a wonderful film, but it wasn’t too bad, and somehow it really resonated with a lot of the children of the 80’s. I didn’t think the original was nearly as good as Dirty Dancing was, even though there were some similarities. But this remake just didn’t need to be made.

The down sides are that they twisted and turned the story on it’s side, to try to make it hip for 2011. But they lost a lot of the drama and redeeming qualities of the original trying to make it today!!! Secondly the soundtrack was rather weird too. The mix of songs in the soundtrack seemed like they were trying to find something for everyone from Slim Whitman to Fifty Cent. It didn’t cut it. Julianne Hough has finished her run as a dancing instructor on DWTS, and is ready to move on to acting, and she’s as cute as a button, and maybe someday will turn out to be a decent actress, but she’s not ready yet, especially for this role. But she’s cute. Dennis Quaid did a decent job as the preacher man, but they watered down his role to make it more relevant to the hip hop fans I guess they thought would flock to this film. They didn’t. Trying to compete with John Lithgow’s performance is a tough challenge.

So I have an idea for them to try in the future. Remember how in the “old days” Walt Disney used to re-release his movies every 7 years, because he thought that every 7 years a new generation of kids came along that had never seen the film? Well that doesn’t work so well today, because of DVD’s and Cable TV, and instant downloads, but, when the meeting starts up about “Let’s do a remake of Footloose, because a lot of people loved it in the 80’s. But if you remake it, you have to pay the crew, and all the actors, and everyone, so simply release the original to the theaters. (Maybe you can spend a few bucks to spruce it up and convert it to digital and all that). Then those that never saw it, can go to the theater and enjoy it again. But I think the only ones who loved this remake version were those involved in making the dang thing. What a disappointment that never needed to be done. What a waste.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Tiny Ponies,

Lena Dunham, Laurie Simmons, Grace Dunham, Jemima Kirke, Alex Karpovsky, David Call, Merritt Wever, Amy Seimetz, Garland Hunter, Isen Ritchie

Aura (Lena Dunham) is a hoity-toity rich girl who has just completed college and returns home to live with her rarely home artist Mother in TriBeCa. Aura is having a self described early mid life crisis as she tries to figure out what a failure she’s been and what she’s going to do with the rest of her life.

A lot of people hated this film. You can add me to the list. Lena Dunham wrote this junk, starred in it, and directed herself. So what we have is a self indulgent bit of film. Now anyway has the right to film whatever they want. If you want to make a film about a refrigerator, setting up a camera to document the food that comes in and goes out, and how lunch meat molds, you have the right to make it. But certainly we have the right not to watch it as well. And we certainly have the right not to like it. The cover of one version of this DVD has the bold letters that says “Aura would like you to know that she’s having a very hard time”. This seems to be the point of the movie. Aura whines and complains, fights with her mother, feels ignored and left out of life, and thinks she’s really abused. You would like to smack her and say, would you like to see some people who really have problems. It seems that the “artistic” community feel that it’s fine to graduate film school, then make a film about yourself, and think it’s art.

Aura has a friend Charlotte (Jemima Kirke), who is just as self centered as Aura, and certainly is part of her problem. Then she has this live in boyfriend who lives in the house for free, sleeps all day, and doesn’t do much of anything. He’s a lump on the couch.

At one point mom is complaining about them laying around the house, eating all the food. This is my house, and it’s not a boarding house, not a bed and breakfast. She turns to Aura’s friend Charlotte and asks her. “Do you have the same sense of entitlement that my daughter has?” To which Nadine responds, “Believe me, Mine is much worse.” That, at least, is true. She is a real pain in the ass as well. Basically this is a few weeks of Lena’s life, made into a movie, for no real good purpose. I have heard people claim this is a satire on people who are like this. I can’t give them credit for that bit of brilliance, as it doesn’t come over to me in the least that it was meant as satire. If it was, then I’d give it a bit more credence, but I’m afraid it’s just a narcissistic view of her own life, and for me it doesn’t really have much meaning. I don’t feel sorry for her. I don’t get her, and she’s just annoying. She really needs to grow up, but it seems the college just doesn’t do that for kids these days. Maybe this is why we have 40 year old who still live home with their Mom.

I just think this is one of those awful self indulgent films that doesn’t go anywhere. It certainly doesn’t resonate with someone like me. 🙂

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Millennium Films, Swingin’ Productions,

Kevin Bacon, Djimon Hounsou, Jirantanin Pitakporntrakul, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Ron Smoorenburg, Abhijati “Meuk” Jusakul, Byron Gibson, Weeraprawat Wongpuapan, Creighton Mark Johnson

Curtie Church (Djimon Hounsou) is a hired assassin, hired by a businessman to kill six men. His next job is to kill the lord of the human traffickers who killed his daughter. As Curtie seeks out the bad guys, he enlists the aid of Englishman Jimmy (Kevin Bacon) who supplies him with the special weapons needed to start a gang war helping him to kill the traffickers. While doing his job, he meets Mae (Jirantanin Pitakporntrakul), a young prostitute who guides him, torments him, and keeps vanishing when he needs her around. Through lots of intense battles, fast chases, and tough scrapes, Curtie, little by little, is able to free the girls and figure out what it’s all about.

This is a movie that took on a serious subject and tried to present the horrors of it. But it falls short on a number of levels. Kevin Bacon’s accent is atrocious, and every moment that he’s on screen is pure torture. Djimon Hounsou seems a nice enough guy, but I don’t believe his character. We need a Vin Diesel kind of guy for this role, although he isn’t horrible. The bright spot, perhaps, is Mae, as her character is very interesting, and it’s hard to figure out who she is and what she’s really up to. You’re going to figure it out 3 or 4 times only to be wrong. Good news is that it’s available on The Movie Channel, or other cable channels, a “Watch Instantly” film on Netflix, so it’s readily available for very low cost, but this is probably not good enough to warrant a slot in your DVD queue. Nice try, but it just didn’t cut it. This is not a very good movie in my opinion.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Dan Garcia Productions, DMG Holdings, Most Wanted Films,

Michael Madsen, David James Elliott, Jeff Fahey, Heather Marie Marsden, Andrew Sensenig, Lacey Minchew, Matt Triplett

Don (David James Elliott) and Nancy (Heather Marsden) are driving along a lonely road way out in the middle of nowhere. They obviously are not getting along very well, when suddenly they are hit by a car, twice! Stranded out along the road, they’re lucky that sheriff Cleveland comes along, but that suddenly turns to disappointment as the sheriff has a really bad attitude and obvious has some issues. He drives them to the low budget Motel Royal vista to wait for the morning to get back their car. Suddenly they are disturbed by screams coming from the room next door, and as Don tries to find out what is going on, they soon find they are in the middle of a very sick game, and they may not live through the night. Of course, that may be the plan.

This is a horror film that is built on a familiar premise that is taken to another level. But unfortunately the movie, which starts up with a good premise to scare the heck out of us, is plagued by really awful editing. The movie jumps around like a Lady Gaga video, and you can hardly follow the story. The acting is really wooden, and the bad guys are so ridiculous that nobody is going to believe this. It’s so hard to follow, that you may think they mixed up the clips when splicing this thing together. There are other Motel Hell type movies (including Motel Hell) which are better done than this, and even those are pretty bad, but this one is really bad.

Skip it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Ruby Films

Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard, Hannah Murray, Daniel Kaluuya, Megan Dodds, Michelle Fairley, Nicholas Gleaves, Jacob Anderson, Ophelia Lovibond

=

Five teenagers meet and play a game of hide and seek in an on-line chat room, where William (Aaron Johnson) is a bit of a predator. He’s set his sights on his next victim, Jim (Matthew Beard), while Jim’s friends Eva (Imogen Poots), Emily (Hannah Murray) and Mo (Daniel Kaluuya) try to free him from the manipulation of William who has shown himself to be an evil friend. The on-line world blends into the real world.

This is a film that starts out with a clever premise. People who hide out in chatrooms are not always what they seem. Their lives tend to revolve around the chatroom almost as if that’s real and their actual life is fantasy. Also, people who hand out in chatrooms are not always who they seem to be. They did a very clever way of separating what it in the chatroom from what is real. Real life is dull and dreary, and the colors are bright and vibrant in the chat room. The technique in showing the cross-over between the two worlds is clever. In one instance a teenage girl is talking in the voice of an older man. Then suddenly the vision flashes between the the girl and the old guy repeatedly so we get the message that it’s an old creepy guy pretending to be a young girl.

The problem is the rest of the story let me down. It just wasn’t that interesting. Yeah, William is a jerk, and there’s a little bit of drama in the others trying to stop him, but mostly it’s pretty boring stuff. I didn’t get into the film one bit, and it just did not grab me. The acting was very weak, and the suspense was not very grabbing. All in all, it was a mild drama that just didn’t keep my attention. I don’t recommend this film. I’m sure there are those who loved it, and so if you’re one of those, please comment and explain what I’m missing, cause I just didn’t get it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog