Just a quick announcement that we are doing another ‘theme’ month here at MovieZeal during August. Last time we tackled the work of the Coen brothers, which I think was a modest success, but this time we’re aiming a bit higher. Instead of profiling a single director’s filmography, we’re featuring an entire movement: Film Noir. The festivities kick off a week from today on the 1st and we’ll be reviewing a different noir masterpiece each day of the month until the 31st. For those of you with mad trigonometry skillz, that equals 31 different films.

Rather than slowly go insane attempting to take on all of that work ourselves, we’ve invited numerous denizens of the film blogosphere to contribute pieces, so expect a lot of extremely talented guest writers. I’ll write more on this next week as we head into the month, but I wanted to formally announce it here.

Also, Josephe Demme of Cinexcellence is hosting an Unseen DVD Blog-a-Thon at his site. You are cordially invited to plunge head first into the $1 bargain bin at your local Walmart, retrieve the shiniest turd possible, and then write about it (masochism is your friend). He’s running the blog-a-thon until August 17th.

One of the charges often leveled against film critics is that they are “out of touch” with American audiences. The proof that is generally cited comes from placing each year’s average critical top 10 list and its top 10 grossing films side by side and seeing how closely they match. For example, 2007’s critical darlings, No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, respectively placed 36th and 66th at the box office. There are reasons for this discrepancy, primarily bad movie burnout amongst critics and the ever-present tension of art vs. entertainment, but I’ve always prided myself on being an unpretentious critic who loves his trash as much as his mise-en-scène (I did say I was unpretentious, right?). However, sitting in the theater watching Step Brothers, I wondered if I had finally crossed over to the other side. The audience was eating up every second of it like a lottery-winning coke fiend and I was just sitting there, wondering where that piece of food stuck behind my back molar was from, how long it had been there, and gosh it’s really about time I made a dentist appointment.
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Introduction goes here. [To my editor: Please just pull something random out of the New Yorker and put it here, or something. I want to look intelligent, but writing an introduction to these two movies is a lot of work and a waste of my time.]

The X-files: I Want to Believe
Okay…so I never got around to watching the show, or even the first movie, but I was repeatedly told that it’s the sort of thing I “might like.” Unfortunately, in the 90’s, I was busy doing important things that would change the world, so I never found time to waste hours in front of the TV, warping my brain with crackpot conspiracy theories. At this stage of  life, though, that sounds pretty good. So I might check this one out…if THEY don’t get to me first.

Recommended if this is the sort of thing you “might like”

Step Brothers
I haven’t done any research on this one, but I think it’s about a pair of brothers who live on the steppe, or something (geez, way to spell, Hollywood). And one of them is, like, Will Something, and the other is John C. Whatever. And yeah, that’s pretty much it. (Question: does anyone care about this movie? If you do, please let me know…I really want to know who you are.)

Recommended if you have a choice between watching this and committing a felony. Nah, on second thought, go with the felony.

So, this is a bit tardy. But since there was only one significant new release this week, and since I was on a business trip, I wasn’t too worried. You people will take what I give you and you will like it. You will LIKE it, I say. But… wow. This week is dead, dead, dead.

21 -
I remember reading “Bringing Down the House,” the book that 21 is based on, nearly four years ago and thinking, “This would make an awesome movie.” Well they got one half of that right, but it wasn’t the ‘awesome’ half. What bugs me the most about this is that the original MIT Blackjack team was entirely Asian. As in not white. Or Caucasian. Or in desperate need of sunblock. And last time I checked, the closest Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth could come to ‘Asian’ was being called ‘off white,’ but then that’s not saying much, is it? Perhaps an enjoyable enough pop fantasy, but not a winner in the “Reasonably Accurate Adaptation” department.

This review was originally published March 29th, 2008.

21 is essentially a film that wants to be a combination of A Beautiful Mind and Catch Me if You Can for the teenybopper set, and it comes relatively close to making it over the bar. It’s not as smart as either one of those two, but it’s got a modicum of substance—plus it’s got style coming out the wazoo. There’s not an explosion to be had here, but there’s so much visual flourish that you really have to see it on the big screen (unless, of course, you’re one of those people with one of those 1,000-inch plasma screens and Dolby 500.3 Surround Sound—in which case, give some money to the poor, dude).
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I sat through all 81 minutes of Space Chimps, but all I could think about the whole time was WALL-E. It had never occurred to me before that hour and a half (which I’ll never get back, by the way), but Pixar managed to make an entire movie set in space, without ever once resorting to extraterrestrials as a plot point. This may not seem remarkable, until you consider how infrequently that sort of storyline actually makes it into production. It’s not hard to imagine the studio board meeting that birthed this film…
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A landmark film like The Dark Knight (supposedly … I’m waiting two more days to see it) deserves to have some big-money trailers preceding it. There’s one I especially have in mind: Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore and David Gibbon’s Watchmen. Just in case you don’t know, Watchmen is, as the trailer suggests, “the most celebrated graphic novel of all time.” Its true: Moore and Gibbon’s superhero fantasy is one of the most sweeping, complex, pieces of literature to be written this century. If you haven’t read it, well, consider this an order. You’ll probably find it in a used book store for a good price. Hit the jump for further comments.
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Along Came a Spider is a film that draws you in immediately, but spends the next two hours throwing your interest away. Die-hard whodunit fans may enjoy the fact that the movie keeps them guessing, but those looking for a great film will ultimately be put off by bland characterizations, poor acting, and a plot that only occasionally makes sense.
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Yeah, yeah…go, Batman. We all love Batman.

The Dark Knight

I fear the fanboys, so I can’t say anything bad about this movie. So…let’s see…This movie is guaranteed to be the best thing ever. Batman is not getting old as a character at all, even after 70-odd years of doing the same thing over and over. Assuredly, this latest flavor of Batman will be better than all previous attempts to make him relevant, and I certainly can’t think of anything that I’d rather take seriously than a guy who dresses up in a rubber bat costume to fight a sociopath in a clown outfit. A remake of Tim Burton’s 1989 film was way overdue (it’s been almost 20 years! get your head in the game, Hollywood!). And finally, Heath Ledger died tragically after filming this one, which is proof-positive that this is his best performance ever. Enjoy your opiate, masses. (All joking aside, the trailer does make this one look pretty cool. I’ll probably go. Just not on opening night…the thought of rabid Batman fans scares the guano out of me.)

Recommended if…yeah, I’m not even gonna bother. You’re all lined up at the box office already.

Space Chimps

If you were wondering why Dark Knight was still my top choice, despite my sarcasm (what sarcasm?), here’s your answer (well, this movie and the next one). CG animals with celebrity voices are, of course, all the rage right now, because just like Batman, they’re not getting old at all. Every studio in Hollywood knows that kids aren’t particularly discerning, and their parents just want them to shut up for an hour and a half, so the studio suits just play this little Mad Lib game: “(type of talking animal) in (mildly surprising location).” Now fill in the blanks with “zoo animals in Madagascar,” “forest animals in suburbia,” “penguins in the tropics,” or “chimpanzees in space” and you’ve already made yourself a cool $100 million. Who even needs a clever script or the latest animation software? Plus, the sequels to these things practically write themselves!

Recommended if you just can’t get enough mediocrity.

Mamma Mia!

…And if you’re looking for a movie trend even more nauseating than CG animals, how about a nice musical? Like nearly every bad film musical, this was based on a bad stage musical. And like nearly every bad stage musical, that one was based on the aging works of a washed-up pop band (in this case, ABBA). If the trailer is any indication, this one looks to be two hours of Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, and Colin Firth, among others, all standing on piers and lip-synching to songs you were hoping you’d never hear again. There’s an outside chance that this could be watchable, but if you’ve really got that musical itch, you’re probably better off renting The Music Man for the umpteenth time and waiting for High School Musical 3 in October.

Recommended if you still haven’t gotten over that 1980s nostalgia that the rest of us have been sick of since, like, 1991.

Note: This is part of an ongoing series. One of us goes to a Redbox DVD rental, picks a movie, and writes about it. The movie has to be one we’ve never heard of.

This NOT clip art. These were the ACTUAL RINGS!!! (Just in case you thought I was lazy.)

It all started when my brother got married. My lovely wife and I drove up from Tulsa, OK to Kansas City in order to take part in the festivities. And festivities there were. Most of them involved me standing at the front of a church in a moderately ugly tuxedo. Man, were my feet sore. But alas, this is the price we pay to get rid of our loved ones. (Note to my bro: I keed! I keed!)

Anyway, the whole thing went off without a hitch. Or, with a hitch, as it were. Vows were exchanged, pretty dresses were worn, unnecessary photographs were taken, dances that were popular ten years ago were danced, and an enormous cake was cut and duly shoved into the couple’s faces. The whole nine yards. And also there was a chocolate fountain. Those things are awesome.

Hey, where are you going? I promise, I’ll say something about a movie soon. Real soon. Keep reading, you’re just getting to the good part.
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So there’s this movie called The Beach Party at the Threshold of Hell that stars Daniel Baldwin (is that B or C grade Baldwin? Or is it D? I can never remember.) coming out today. It also has, oddly enough, the ‘National Lampoon Presents’ qualifier attached to the beginning, although we all know how much that counts for these days. Suffice to say, I will not be mentioning this film below, but I thought I would share with you the kinds of freakshow anomalies I come across while trudging through the back alleys of Amazon’s release lists. See the service I provide for you? See?

The Bank Job -
I noticed something while looking over my review for The Bank Job (ok, this will be totally tangential to the film itself…it’s a good enough heist flick, definitely worth a rent. Now, with that out of the way…). The wordcount for it is 530. Now, take a look at my recent reviews-Hellboy 2, for instance. It has a wordcount of 1350. Ouch. I’ve obviously gotten a bit more windy in the last 5 months. The question is, is that a good thing or bad? My review for The Bank Job is written well enough, I guess, but it essentially is nothing more than what I like to call an “eloquent recap.” I’m telling you what happened, eloquently enough, but it’s simply a blow-by-blow of the plot and actors, yada yada yada. Pretty dull, in fact. In my piece for Hellboy 2 I actually make a few decent observations about the nature of the film as muse for del Toro rather than a simple comic book adaptation (well, at least I think so). It’s not just a decently written breakdown of the various elements - I’m trying to make broader points that tie into the visual genius of del Toro as a filmmaker.

And no, I’m not having a blogging crisis in which I desperately seek validation from you, my semi-frequent readership. I’m just wondering: which do you prefer? Short and sweet yet slightly monotonous? Or longer, more detailed, and with more (I hope) expansive observations? Or, more simply, have I become a windbag in desperate need of an editor? Sound off in the comments, and remember: be honest.

Recommended if you liked Ocean’s Eleven, The Italian Job, or Ronin

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation
I missed this one when it hit the Circle (our local arthouse) earlier in the year. A incisive look at the waning years of Brazil’s last military dictatorship as seen through the eyes of a child abandoned by his parents searching for a better life, this one looks like it could hit the sweet spot emotionally. It also revolves around football (why do we Americans have to re-brand things -i.e., soccer - with idiotic names all the time?) and the World Cup. Critical reception has been good. Probably worth a look.

Recommended if you liked Cinema Paradisio or Life is Beautiful

Meet Bill
I’m a sucker for Aaron Eckhart, ever since I saw him in the absolutely fabulous Thank You For Smoking (if you haven’t seen it, rent it immediately - it’s the film that Jason Reitman debuted with before directing Juno). I’ve heard little about this one. It appears to be a mid-life crisis comedy of some sort (perhaps a more lighthearted version of About Schmidt?), and has a thrilling supporting cast, which includes Elizabeth Banks, Timothy Olyphant, Jessica Alba, and Kristen Wiig. In lolcat speak, “I haz an intrest.”

Recommended if you liked About Schmidt or wished American Beauty had been, you know, less depressing.

Hit the jump for the stragglers, but you’ve been warned: it’s not pretty.
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This review was originally published March 21, 2008.

Since the success of 2002’s The Ring, Hollywood has been unstoppable in its determination to remake every Asian horror film of the last ten years or so. From a business standpoint, I suppose this makes sense—Asia’s been extremely prolific in churning out decent thrillers as of late, and remaking them is sure a lot easier than coming up with your own ideas (something Hollywood’s been notoriously bad at from the very start—that Maltese Falcon movie starring Humphrey Bogart? it was the second remake of the original, which was, of course, based on the book by Dashiell Hammett to begin with). But there’s something disturbingly xenophobic about most of the resulting films. On the one hand, they give Americans yet another excuse to pretend that Hollywood cinema is the only cinema that matters; on the other, they usually end up transporting the heroes to Asia, anyway—making the heroes Americans and the ghouls Asians (and also making the remake seem even more unnecessary). I’m not sure what to read into this—economic anxiety, maybe? (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, ask anyone from Detroit.)
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This review was originally published March 8th, 2008.

A heist film starring Jason Statham with the words ‘The’ and ‘Job’ in the title? The British actor certainly has a type, and while this film shares a lot of superficial similarities with 2003’s The Italian Job, it differs in nearly every other respect. Where Italian was a remake and a light popcorn diversion (essentially serving as a $60 million Mini Cooper commercial), Bank is based on a true story and has a surprisingly dark undercurrent to it.
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It may be because I just haven’t seen a good refugee movie in a long time, but I couldn’t resist the charms of The Children of Huang Shi. It’s not a film that breaks any new ground by any means, but it is well-made, entertaining, and moving. I’m breaking with other critics a bit by giving it four stars, but what can I say? In a summer clogged with nothing but superheroes, it’s nice to see a real hero grace the screen.
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Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth has been used and abused by filmmakers for years. Who could forget the phony Scottish accent of standard crooner Pat Boone in the 1959 adaptation? Or last year’s 188-minute Hallmark Channel event? Even Wishbone got his paws on Jules Verne once or twice. Walden Media’s new take on on the story is less a conventional movie than a chance to show off what Real-D 3D projection can do. In fact, it functions best when computer graphics are exploded onto the screen and little firefly-birds are flapping their luminous blue wings in your face. There’s novelty to it for sure, but in the end it smells a bit like second-rate amusement park sideshow.
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I’m getting tired of the marketing hook adorning trailers and television spots that reads “From Visionary Filmmaker [insert latest flavor of the week here].” While Wanted was a giddy testosterone fest that proudly flipped Physics the bird, director Timur Bekmambetov did not warrant the ‘Visionary’ label that Universal seemed determined to bestow him with.

Enter Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Universal’s 3rd foray into comic book adaptations this summer (following Wanted and The Incredible Hulk), and once again the big wigs with the purse strings are slapping ‘Visionary Filmmaker’ over every piece of marketing fluff they can generate – posters, trailers, websites, everything. They all conspicuously display that moniker which is essentially PC speak for ‘Cinematic God.’ The only difference this time is that director Guillermo del Toro utterly deserves it.
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Hey friends…and welcome to new readers. For the unitiated, we do this twice a week: One of us goes through the new releases and makes fun of them, and then the fanboys post angry comments. Again, the movies are listed in order of my own interest…not the order that the various Hollywood cartels would have us put them in. Enjoy.

Journey to the Center of the Earth
I think it’s safe to say that no one is rooting for Walden Media more than myself. I just can’t say anything terribly bad about a company dedicated to turning great children’s books into great movies, and Because of Winn-Dixie and the latest Narnia movie were both brilliant. Heck, they even had a hand in distributing Michael Apted’s Amazing Grace, which I thank them for. Unfortunately, they just don’t have a very good track record, particularly when it comes to Jules Verne (Around the World in 80 Days, anyone?). On the bright side, this very loose adaptation of his novel of the same name looks fairly easy to sit through — it’s in 3D, which promises eye candy; and after Dudley Do-Right, it can’t possibly be Brendan Frasier’s worst film (although it remains to be seen whether The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor will usurp that particular title). The verdict? This probably isn’t terrible, but if you’re looking for famblee entertainment, WALL-E is likely a better choice.

Recommended if you didn’t learn your lesson from Beowulf

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Ladies and gentlemen, I present “Exhibit A” in the category of “Second Installment of a Comic Book Franchise That I Don’t Particularly Care About From a Director I Otherwise Admire” (see next week’s The Dark Knight for Exhibit B). I guess the first Hellboy had its admirers (…cue the crickets), but I thought that it was one of the most unrelentingly stupid things I’d ever had to sit through, and had all of one good scene (that one where Hellboy talks to that kid on that roof — why couldn’t the whole movie have been like that?). But “visionary director” (thanks to the Hellboy II trailer for that not-at-all-desperate-sounding phrase) Guilermo del Toro proved with Pan’s Labrynth that he can, in fact, direct a real movie…and the trailer for this one looks kind of cool. So it might be worth a shot. Oh, and for those of you who don’t know the premise: Hellboy is some sort of reformed demon who battles some sort of bad guys and some sort of saves the day. Y’know — not at all like Ghost Rider or Spawn. Or Blade. Or…um…Little Nicky.

Recommended if you liked V for Vendetta or 300

Meet Dave
Ugh…watch me not care. Yet another halfway-decent high concept, ruined by the presence of Eddie Murphy. Hey, producers: Just because Eddie implied that he might sorta-kinda be able to act in Dreamgirls doesn’t mean that you need to keep giving him work, especially in movies that would still be forgettable garbage even if they starred Alec Guinness. Anyway, Eddie is a human-shaped spaceship piloted by bite-sized aliens, and…yeah, sorry, but an Eddie Murphy vehicle just isn’t worth any more effort.

Recommended if your girl wants to party all the time, party all the time, party all the time…

“You live in a dream. Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know if you ripped the fronts off houses you’d find swine? The world’s a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?”

—Charlie Oakley, Shadow of a Doubt

Shadow of a Doubt has occasionally been described as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most nihilistic films, and this is a point I won’t argue with. In a sense, its lead antagonist, Charlie Oakley, embodies the very essence of film noir: hatred of self, a total lack of faith in societal establishments, hopelessly repressed sexuality. At the same time, however, the most interesting aspect of the film is speculating how different it would have been, were it made at a different time or in another place. One can’t help but shake the feeling that Hitchcock would have different things to show you—and different things to say—were his hands not tied by the Hays Production Code.
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Here come the latest cinematic offerings on DVD. Speaking of DVD, have you ever heard of the “6 Degrees of Jesus” game on Wikipedia (Luke introduced it to me)? It’s where you attempt to get to the article on Jesus from another article in six or less clicks. Starting with the entry for DVD, I went to Star Trek: The Original Series –> Star Trek V: The Final Frontier –> God –> Bible –> Jesus. 5 clicks, however, is not that impressive. Major props in the comments section to anyone who can do it in 4 or less. The gauntlet has been thrown down!

Also, if you’re new to the MovieZeal, I rank these in order of interest, with ‘interest’ being defined as whatever my fickle little brain is into at the moment.

Batman - Gotham Knight
Ok, so I’m cheating a bit with this one. Not only is it not a theatrical release, it’s direct-to-video and animated to boot. However, seeing as I’m in full-on OCD Dark Knight mode and being forced to wait 2 weeks until it actually hits theaters (oh please oh please let there be a press screening I can go to), and seeing as this 6-part anime inspired tale of Bruce Wayne’s rise to the cowl was written by David Goyer (Batman Begins) and Josh Olson (A History of Violence) among others, I think I can be forgiven my lapse in propriety. This looks wicked cool and will provide a nice diversion until July 18th.

Recommended if you, like me, have been carving little Batman symbols in your arm to pass the time.

The Tracy Fragments
A fractured tale of a young girl finding herself, this Canadian film stars Ellen Page, who you might have seen in a little independent film last year called Juno. It employs a how-many-frames-can-we-get-on-the-screen-at-once aesthetic, revealing multiple angles of the same scene at the same time. It could be a revelation or it could be gimmick-overload. Regardless, I’m there for anything and everything that contains Ellen Page (except X-Men 3…shame on you, Ellen, shame on you).

Recommended if Juno meets 24 sounds interesting to you, and while that may be an accurate description (at least superficially), I’m also sure it’s completely misleading.

Chop Shop -
I profess a detached, clinical admiration for this film. A cinéma vérité exploration of two orphaned siblings struggling to make ends meet amidst the grungy body shops of back alley Queens, the film is beautiful in its own, minimalist way. Although I was moved at times, and although director Ramin Bahrani is unquestionably talented, I have little to no desire ever to visit it again. An impressive work, but one that failed to leave a distinct impression.

Recommended if you liked Man Push Cart or 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days

The Ruins -
Even though Luke nailed this one to the wall with all the extreme prejudice of Dogg the Bounty Hunter on crack, I would still rather watch it than Stop-Loss. I’m not sure if that says more about me or…yeah, I’ll just be honest, it says more about me. So, there’s this ancient primordial evil that these kids find in a South American jungle and…get this, it hunts them down! Pretty original, no? Apparently there are some pretty nasty bits and also some unintentionally humorous ones. Hopefully for the movie’s sake the two don’t overlap too often.

Recommended if you liked Anaconda, Primeval, or Touristas.

Hit the jump for the rest of this weeks selection.
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This review was originally published April 8th, 2008.

If the cynics in Hollywood can market Shutter using its executive producers (“From the executive producers of The Ring and The Grudge!” as the poster so eagerly tells us), then it only seems fair that I should be allowed to tell you that The Ruins was executive produced by Ben Stiller. Yes, that Ben Stiller. I’m kind of spoiling the ending here, since you don’t find this out until the final credits roll, but don’t worry—this isn’t quite the funniest part of the film. Thanks to pedestrian script writing, inept directing and some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen, it’s actually quite a challenge to pick the funniest part of The Ruins. But I should at least try.
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