Seven Pounds is about a man (Will Smith) who goes around helping various people with various needs for some unknown reason. Eventually he meets Emily (Rosario Dawson) who has a degenerative heart condition. One thing leads to another and the two fall in love, leading to the possibility that their budding relationship could jeopardize everything he is doing for people.
Will Smith and Rosario Dawson are fine in their respective roles. The problem is that's about it. The script is predictable as hell. You see what's going to happen, how it's going to happen and the shirt everyone's going to wear. Seven Pounds is so predictable it's ridiculous. The film is filled with plot holes and is basically a film that tries to be a tear jerker but fails at telling a believable story.
Pretty much this film banks on the fact that Will Smith stars in it. A drama, released at Christmas that banks on this fact, never mind that the script sucks. It'll make money just because of the name on the poster, not the contents of the product.
When I sat there watching Slumdog Millionaire I kept thinking about Charles Dickens. The story is so wrapped into Dicken's lore that it's hard not to fall into that trap. The film follows Jamal (Dev Patel), a slumdog in Mubai, as he becomes orphaned and goes through the hell of trying to stay alive in India with his brother Salim and a girl they stumble on named Latika (Frieda Pinto). As time goes by Jamal sees the slums ground into the earth by the new hotel developments and continues to carry the love he has for Latika, even though he is never in a position to do anything about it. He resorts to becoming a contestant on her favorite television show, the Indian version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, going further than anyone has gone before on the show and causing the producers to think that he's cheating somehow.
There are many things that jump out at you in Slumdog. The first is the amazing cinematography director Danny Boyle utilizes to show the scale of the slums and India as a whole. It's almost like a travel video from hell. There's also the performances of the two leads, Patel and Pinto. I've already heard about the numerous offers these two great young actors are getting. In Slumdog you know that Jamal loves her, but you can never really gauge her feelings toward him. Does she love him or not? That's the answer that you die to find out as he film progresses and Pinto plays it up, never letting her hand be seen until the time is just right. Going beyond the two leads there are a pair of performances that are even more amazing. The two children that play the young Jamael and Salim (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) were outstanding. I was blown away by the performance they give us in this picture. I'm still in awe over these two kids that atced rings around most of todays adult Hollywood talent.
Slumdog Millionaire seems to have developed an either love it or hate it audience out there. People I talk to seem to be split 50/50 on whether this was as good a film as the Academy would have you believe. It's one of the gems of 2008, a real standout in a year that had its good and had its bad. Did it deserve the Oscar? You can't really answer that because does nay film ever deserve the Oscar. It does earn a place as one of the best films of last year.
The reluctant ghost is a tried and true tale in Hollywood and it repeated itself in 1978's Heaven Can Wait, a film that was a remake of 1941's Here Comes Mr. Jordan and had a backbone made of its star Warren Beatty. The film is about the quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams Joe Pendleton (Beatty) who appears to get into a fatal accident causing an angel (Buck Henry) to pull Joe from his body and take him to a weigh station for heaven. The problem is that it isn't Joe's time, so a higher authority (James Mason) options Joe into take over the body of millionaire Leo Farnsworth after he has been "killed" by his scretary (Charles Grodin) and his wife (Dyan Cannon). As Farnsworth Joe takes on a new love (Julie Christie) who is trying to stop one of his companies environmental blunders. But Joes main goal is to get back into football with the help of the Rams trainer Max (Jack Warden).
Beatty and Buck Henry directed this nice, little romantic comedy that's been done before and since, yet this version seems to hold its own. It's one of those movies that you stumble on when flipping channels and once you start watching you can't turn the damn thing off. Beatty is a proficent director his first time out and doesn't indulge in those things that actors turned directors tend to do- over direct. He simply tells the story. It isn't a pretentious piece like you would expect from Beatty. It's a good, straightforward chick flick that gets past being for chicks.
I loved the premise for this film when I first heard about it- a town that's almost to the roof of the world and doesn't see the sun for 30 days is attacked by vampires. I loved this concept. I thought it was going to be a monumental film in the horror genre without sparkling vampires. Sadly, I was wrong.
The casting was alright. John Hartnett becomes more of a lead playing the sheriff who is leading the remaining inhabitants in survival against the blood thirsty creatures. Melissa George plays his estranged wife, so you know where that relationship is leading. The rest of the cast is filled in nicely. The problem is really in the execution of the idea.
Now I know that this was based on a comic book. I understand that. The problem I come up with is mainly the vampires. I went in expecting suave, elegant, Lugosi like vamps but am treated to a cross between Dawn of the Dead and I Am Legend. They just seemed so much like those creatures that my mind kept screaming "rip off". As a film this is a mildly acceptable piece that hinges more on horror than any actual tension. It's a film where you sit there wondering who's going to get sucked on (or devoured) next. An idea with so much promise that doesn't have any fuel in the tank.
Given the choice between the Addams Family and the Munsters I always chose the Addams Family. I guess it was because the Addams' were darker than Herman and the crew down the road. Now I'm not old enough for the direct competition of the 1960's but I do remember these two shows being back to back on TBS in the '80's.
In the early '90's the first burst of TV shows adapted to film began with stuff like Coneheads and the Beverly Hillbillies. The Addams Family came out of that batch and is probably the best of the bunch, though it sticks more toward the Charles Addams comic strip than the TV show.
The film stars Raul Julia as Gomez and Angelica Huston as Morticia, living with their macabre brood that is much off kilter to present day society. The film follows and unscrupulous plot by Gomez's lawyer (Dan Hedya) and a woman he owes money to (Elizabeth Wilson) in which her son Gordon (Christopher Lloyd) poses as Gomez's long lost brother Fester to gain access to the Addams Family vault.
A pretty straight forward story that is given great detail in the dark, dank cinematography throughout the film. You can't really underact in a film like this because all of the characters are larger than life, including the morose Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci in a role she was born to play). It's a fun little romp that you can't take too seriously but doesn't dumb itself down like other family oriented comedies out there.
Jon Heder could win an Academy Award and the presenter would say that the winner is Napoleon Dynamite. Yes, he's back saying the same mundane character in Mama's Boy, a totally unfunny piece of crap. You know the basic premise from the title before going in. Napoleon's mom (Diane Keaton, who is quickly challenging Kathy Bates for most dysfunctional mother roles in a career) wants to get out and meets a motivational speaker (Jeff Daniels). They go to war. He meets a hippie girl (Anna Faris) who he has feelings for and everyone knows it except himself. Yes, this film is that recycled.
I'm going to be perfectly honest. The only reason this film got a full star is because Eli Wallach is in this piece of shit. Eli Wallach kicks ass. I suggest fast forwarding through Napoleon's schtick and checking out Eli. He's awesome. But not even Eli Wallach can make this turd float. If I actually laughed at anything in this film I might reconsider, but it is just so damn unfunny it's pathetic. How the hell did this blight on cinemea get released? What cash and sexual favors were exchanged? Who had fun with animals pictures? There has to be some reason for this to get made because it sure as hell wasn't because it was worth a damn.
Flush it.
What a ballsy film to do! Honestly, this is a James Bond film that doesn't have Monty Newman's theme, the gun barrel sequence, or Desmond Llewelyn. What it does have, back for one last go, is Sean Connery. Never Say Never Again is essentially a remake of 1966's Thunderball, which finds Bond stumbling onto a conspiracy to hijack two nuclear warheads and ransom the world to avoid detonation. Along the way he runs into the femme fatale Fatima Blush (Barbara Carerra) and the innocent victim Domino (Kim Basinger) while trying to stop SPECTRE agent #1 Maximillan Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer).
This film is really a novelty. It had been 12 years since Connery bowed out in Diamonds Are Forever and he is the main draw of this film. It's played as an older Bond, which is an interesting concept even though we've seen the same story before. This film was Irvin Kershner's follow up the the magnificent Empire Strikes back and even though this film doesn't come close to the perfection of that movie it is still a solid action adventure with a few surprises. It's hokey at times, but Connery proves even at that age he is still James Bond.
Eddie Murphy continues his rich tradition of great films with Meet Dave. Yes, that means it sucks. It really sucks. I can't believe I watched this garbage, but I figured someone had to take one for the team.
The film revolves around an alien spaceship that looks like Alex Foley. Inside are people about an inch and a half high with their captain also looking like Axel Foley. It starts as your typical rube in New York City story with Murphy's ship getting hit by a single mom (why Elizabeth Banks, why!?!?) and her son who also happens to be the kid that found the water sucking orb that will save their planet. The film is basically the rube story as Murphy's Captain character realizes that he can't destroy this world to save his own.
Meet Dave is ridiculous as hell. I'm not talking about the little people alien aspects of the film, I'm talking about the piss poor writing from Rob Greenberg and Bill Corbett. I'm checking to see if they're in the 2nd grade- no, but Corbett worked on Mystery Science Theater 3000. What the hell did they run out of movies and needed another piece of garbage to trash? Two examples that stick out for me are the stereotypes. A black crewmember on the S.S. Murphy hears hip hop and suddenly transforms into a jive talking gangster. The second crew member sees thirty seconds of A Chorus Line and suddenly becomes a homosexual. Hopefully none of them saw this film because they would be suddenly transformed into bad film makers and actors.
Eddie Murphy plays the schtick that he's played in countless crappy family films over the last fifteen years. I heard that he was going to retire from acting and go back to stand up. I would be hilarious to see this kids growing up with Father Knows Best Eddie Murphy watching a sequel to Eddie Murphy Raw- including the jump suit! The rest of the cast are typical over actors because it's supposed to be funny. It's not funny. It's overacting you goofs.
Director Brian Robbins' career is filled with tons of mindless crap that Hollywood loves to shove down our throats. He must work cheap, especially after last years masterpiece Norbit (I'm not willing to take that one for the team).
If given a choice between Meet Dave and a colonoscopy, I would have to think about it. At least you get drugged during the colonoscopy. Or I would just watch a superior film with the same sort of story called Innerspace.
