Ed's Review Dot Com

Medusa Film, Gravier Productions, Perdido Productions,

Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Roberto Benigni, Penélope Cruz, Judy Davis, Jesse Eisenberg, Greta Gerwig, Ellen Page, Fabio Armiliata, Alessandra Mastronardi, Alison Pill, Carol Alt

American tourist in Rome Haley (Alison Pill), meets Michelangelo (Flavio Parenti), a local lawyer. and falls in love. Her parents, the psychiatrist Phyllis (Judy Davis) and the retired music producer Jerry (Woody Allen), arrive to meet Michelangelo, only to hear his father singing in the shower, he jump at the chance to get out of retirement and put him to work singing. Only problem is that he can only sing in the shower. This romp through Rome features some great actors such as Roberto Benigni, Ellen Page, Penelope Cruz, and Alec Baldwin, and is an ensemble story of many stories crossing each other at every turn.

This is classic Woody Allen stuff! There are so many very colorful characters and back stories galore. Everything is very convoluted and it’s hard to follow. This is exactly what makes an Allen film so much fun to watch. Everything that happens is pretty much unexpected, and surprising, and we are gleefully surprised at every turn. The is so much going on that it’s a bit confusing, but that’s not bad. It’s delightfully funny, and really enjoyable. I think this is one is one of Woody’s best of the recent films, and he’s still got the touch.

The pace is fast and furious, and the jokes hit the mark most of the time. If you’re a fan of this style of film making, you’re sure to be pleased with Woody’s latest.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

This Is That Productions, Ambush Entertainment, Crimson Bolt

Rainn Wilson, Ellen Page, Liv Tyler, Kevin Bacon, Gregg Henry, Michael Rooker, Andre Royo, Sean Gunn, Stephen Blackehart, Linda Cardellini, Nathan Fillion

Frank D’Arbo (Rainn Wilson) loses his wife Sarah (Liv Tyler) to a drug kingpin Jacques (Kevin Bacon). While in the throes of depression at the loss of his wife, he thinks he hears the voice of God who tells him to don a costume and turn into The Crimson Bolt! Frank has a desire to set the world right, and takes his bumbling superhero character to heart, but his weapon of choice is a pipe wrench. In the beginning this is just silly, but he actually wields a pretty mean pipe wrench. Soon he meets Libby (Ellen Page) who is a clerk in a comic book store but who figures out that Frank is The Crimson Bolt. Tagging along after him, and taking upon herself the title “Boltie” she becomes his sidekick much to Frank’s chagrin. What follows is a raucous, yet heart felt romp through the realms of crime and punishment.

This is another regular man, loser, wanna be superhero. This genre has been done before. But Rainn Wilson in his most cynical “Dwight Schroot” mood, and is really funny while he’s being introspective. This guy plays sarcasm like a Stradivarius! Ellen Page is also good as the wanna be sidekick, and she’s got her sarcastic self going as well. This is not totally original, but still is a pretty funny film, and they do some serious introspection that makes the whole thing worthwhile. I enjoyed it. If you are bored with the depressed loser guy trying his hand at super hero-dom, then stay away, but if you can handle another one, this one, I think, put last year’s “Kick-ass” to shame. Rainn and Ellen did an excellent job together.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Read the rest of this entry »

Warner Brothers

Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page

This movie starts with a 1 minute flashback.  Uh oh.  This movie has held #1 in the box office for 2 weeks in a row, and shows no sign of letting up.  When I went to see it, the theater was full.  I was expecting to be blown away.  Well, I wasn’t.  What’s Leonardo doing these days?  He’s been in one weird movie after another.

Now, I certainly did not HATE this movie.  I just wasn’t blown away as I expected to be.  Maybe I expected too much.

The concept is original….oh wait, no it isn’t.  Didn’t I see Sandra Bullock, Kevin Bacon,  and Natalie Wood  doing this some time ago?   Ok, so you can go into someone’s dreams and control what they see, and fake them out.  You can “extract” their most well guarded secrets.  (Didn’t Robert Jordan write this in the Wheel of  Time series?   Until he died, that is without finishing the story, I might add.  (Bummer).   So what would happen if you were to give a person an idea in the dream, but make them think they thought it up, and it wasn’t given to them.   Very difficult and to do this you must think up the most convoluted, werid, strange, far fetched, out of the question, impossible scenario known to modern cinema.  How many dreams inside dreams inside dreams can we create?  Then the “phsyics” of this.  Hey, did you know that every level of dream within a dream is faster?   What poppycock.

However, the views were exceptional!   I sat in the first row, surrounded by the beauty.  There were colors, and sounds, and scenery.  There is a James Bondesque chase scene on a snowy mountain.

So did they succeed, or fail?  Did you really care?  Do you know what’s real and what isn’t?  I think this film is like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Two thirds of the people in the theater had no idea what just happened, but everyone wanted to say how great it was because they didn’t want anyone to know they didn’t know what was going on.

So the word of mouth grows.  You must see this, it’s so cerebral.

Well, don’t expect a great flick storywise.  Be prepared to set your common sense (dare I say intelligence) aside, and enjoy the cinematography.  You’ll definitely want to know what it’s about, so you can share the conversation around the water cooler.  Just don’t tell anyone the Emperor has no clothes.  🙂