Play the Game is about two playas. The first one is David (Paul Campbell), a sleazy car salesman who is your stereotypical man whore who knows all the moves, their counters and counters to said counters. So he will get shown up by a girl before the end of the film. The second player is Andy Griffith. Yeah, Sheriff Taylor. He starts out as your stereotypical old man, but by the end is the Ron Jeremy of the old folks home. It's role reversal, see? Get it?
Let's be honest. The only audience for this film are people who are interested in seeing Andy Griffith talking about erections and having oral sex. No, it's not Thelma Lou, it's Seinfeld's mom. If you take that away this film is a badly written, acted, and directed film that is such a cliche it's putrid. But Andy Griffith dresses like P Diddy. Pure crap.
Of course the use of Clint Howard as Andy's estranged son is of some importance.
Set in 1960, the year of Psycho and Kennedy, A Single Man follows the planned last day on earth for George (Colin Firth), a Londoner who teaches English at a Southern California college. We follow George through his day as he meticulously plans his own death. He has nothing left to live for. His partner Jim (Matthew Goode) was killed in a car accident, leaving a void in his life that not only can't be filled, but can't be fully expressed to anyone besides himself and his best friend Charley (Julianne Moore).
This is a very simple film. We basically follow George as he wakes up, takes, a shit, goes to work, buys bullets, lays his papers out for the poor person who finds him, and figures out where to blow his head off. As the day goes by, however, George has interactions with people. No one special, just people. An odd, almost stalker of a student, a little girl, a guy hanging out at a liquor store, and that voice of reason Charley. Director Tom Ford makes sure you realizes that George's life is bleak, but human companionship lightens up his life like a when a cloud gets past the sun and the lights come back on to scorch the grass and vinyl seats. It's a move that could be a major risk, but it works great.
This is Colin Firth's film, deservedly getting an Oscar nomination that he would have never won because this film is a little too small and there was no way to beat the Jeff Bridges juggernaut. He plays off of the cynicism that George has developed, delivering a character that doesn't believe in man or life anymore.His life has turned to shit right along with the rest of the world.
A Single Man is no tear jerker. It's goal isn't to squeeze tears from your eyes and to wrench your heart until you get that lump in your throat. It's more of a character piece with George as the front and center star, dealing with grief that he has to swallow and choke on every day since he got that phone call.
Chloe (Amanda Seyfried) is a hooker. A busy hooker apparently. In a strange twist of fate that involves a toilet stall minus toilet paper she meets Catherine (Julianne Moore). It's just a chance meeting, but later Catherine sees Chloe and realizes that she needs her for something. You see, her husband David (Liam Neeson) has been out of town and little things have led Catherine to believe that he's been playing like Tiger Woods. So Catherine pays Chloe to tempt David. They meet and Catherine gets report. Then something strange happens- these sordid tales of dirty passion turn her on and that's not the only thing that's developing from the relationship between Chloe and Catherine.
For a film bragging a cast such as this, Chloe is a let down as a whole film. Neeson lost his wife during production of the film so his role is lessened and it shows. Moore and Seyfried are good in their roles, but as the film develops further and further and the time ticks away it becomes more and more hokey to and ending that seems to just plop there on the floor, no feeling and no real resolution other than "this is the end of the movie". It's like a jigsaw puzzle that you get all the edges done and it's going great, but then to fill in the middle- you slow down.
But Chloe will be remembered by websites that bask in bare Hollywood flesh. I'm sure somewhere in this city right now there is some guy with "the scene" on a loop as he pumps gas. Someday this film will be a punchline. It will be mentioned in a teen sex comedy and I would just like to say that you heard it here first.
Three Brooklyn cops, vastly different in every way. The old patrolman (Richard Gere) who doesn't give a shit because he's put his time in and that's all he's doing now- killing time. The underpaid cop (Ethan Hawke) a Catholic with the Catholic stereotype of too many kids and not enough money or space. The cop undercover (Don Cheadle) who is getting too wrapped up in his new world and finds it hard to figure out where to lay his loyalties- his boss or his gangster buddy (Wesley Snipes). All three go through the trials and tribulations of a life as a Brooklyn cop, going down a road to nowhere.
Brooklyn's Finest is a well meaning film, but it uses numerous cop film stereotypes, becoming almost like a parody. One cop frequents a good hearted hooker. One cop wants out of undercover, but all his boss will say is that he's "working on it". One cop finds the system flawed in monetary respects. All these cliches come whizzing at you to the point of hilarity. The thing about Brooklyn's Finest is that the actors are too good to be in this. They are the reason my interest was held in the film. Otherwise this is a lukewarm film that doesn't really go anywhere because it's spinning its wheels. There's better cop films out there.
In 1973 George Romero released The Crazies upon the world, a maniacal tale not of crazed citizenry but a look at the tyranny of a big brother that is covering its screw up by any means necessary. Jump to almost forty years later and The Crazies takes a more cynical turn after the lies and bullshit that the government has piled upon us like kindling.
The film is about the small town of Ogden Marsh. The two past times in this town are going to see high school sports and talking about high school sports. It's at one of these sporting events that a local is gunned down by Sheriff Dutten (Timothy Olyphant) after walking into center field with a shotgun and a willingness to kill. The next day a farmer seen as ill by Dutten's wife Judy (Radha Mitchell) winds up burning his family alive in their home. Then the men in the suits arrive and all hell breaks loose. It becomes a matter of survival for the Sheriff and his wife.
There are two antagonists in The Crazies. The first is obviously the infected townspeople, obsessed like zombies only their main goal is to kill not to eat. Simple slaughter. They are lurking in the dark and behind doors and around corners like every good movie monster. They are the primitive enemy. The modern enemy are the men in the suits, a fearful government that doesn't care about the town, only containing an embarrassing blunder. Someone will have their ass handed to them over this one. This lurking beast is wired to the brink with helicopters, satellites, snipers, and all the little goodies paid for by these same tax payers that are now being led to their deaths.
Typically, this film isn't as good as Romero's original, but it reminds us of Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead six years earlier. The premise is the same, tweaked for a new generation. It's not particularly scary, but it does deliver thrills that are lacking in today's horror genre. In an era of remakes The Crazies stands out as a superior film that doesn't underestimate its audience by giving you what you expect (I'm looking at you Nightmare on Elm Street). It's a thrill ride in the heartland.
A distant relative of His Girl Friday, True Crime is about a reporter (Clint Eastwood) at the bottom of his career writing for a small news paper after botching a story. That's not his only problem, though. Steve (Eastwood) is a bit of an asshole. He lives for himself and his work, stopping to think about the consequences only after the deed is done. A set of circumstances leads to Steve being assigned a human interest story abut an inmate (Isaiah Washington) sentenced to death at midnight. While doing research for the piece it comes to light that the condemned man may be put to death for a crime he did not commit.
This is a well made film that runs at a nice pace. The beginning and the middle run smoothly as Steve goes through his day. It's intriguing at how a story materializes for the reporter. Even the prison interview scene, the obvious cheese in a film like this, is actually well written and acted. The problem with the film is that the ending, though giving the audience the obvious tension, seems a little bit of a cheat and plays out a bit to cliched. Not on the part of the actual execution, but in the way the case is broken open. It soils a film that runs at a great pace through its first and second acts.
It's not a typical Eastwood masterpiece, but it is an above average film that Eastwood tends to make when taking a break from his truly great works. It's a nice little thriller if you don't expect too much in the end.
Alfred Hitchcock considered this film his first movie, ignoring his two previous attempts at direction as he considered them not very well made. The Lodger would represent his true introduction to the film world and the genre that he would define for close to fifty years.
London is in a state of panic as a murderer is killing golden, curly haired women. There is constant agitation and an introduction to the now famed concept of media hysteria. Extra! Extra! Daisy (June) is one of those golden haired females roaming around London. She lives with her parents (Marie Ault and Arthur Chesney) who rent out a room to would be lodgers that are canvassing London. One such lodger (Ivor Novello) moves into the room, acting oddly much to the suspicion of Daisy's would be boy friend Joe (Malcolm Keen), who happens to be the detective investigating the murder case.
Being a silent film, The Lodger uses faces to convey more of the plot than dialogue. This was typical before talkies. What Hitchcock does with The Lodger goes beyond what was typical for films in the later 1920's. He creates an atmosphere that is almost a character itself. Light and shadow dictate what's playing out on screen. He opens the film with the flash of a marquee sign (though we don't know that) saying "To-nite: Golden Curls" almost like an omen on what the killer has a blood lust for.
The Lodger is the first of a long line of masterpieces created by Alfred Hitchcock. This is really where it all began on the silent studios of London, developing into a career rivaled by only a few others. The formula is here in its infant form and even though generations would pass in his career, Hitchcock continued to deliver with the concept over and over again. A silent era gem.
Invictus opens with a motorcade driving down the roads of South Africa carrying Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) from his prison for close to three decades. A short time later he would become President of South Africa. The problem for the new president is that he leads a nation that is torn apart on racial lines. There is a deep divide even on his staff, many of whom were kept from the past regime.Mandela needs something that can bring his country together in a way that no speeches and gestures could achieve. No, he decided to use the national rugby team and the upcoming world cup. The basic premise is the underdog story where the nation falls behind this one team and their quest for victory.
I knew absolutely nothing about rugby going into this movie. I still don't know much more than when I started watching the film, but director Clint Eastwood uses rugby as the MacGuffin in this film. Sure, the basic premise involves a rugby team, but that's like saying that North By Northwest is about the microfilm. It's about the journey getting from point A to point B. Even though the film follows team captain Francois Pinaar (Matt Damon), it's really the story of how the team was the tool to begin the reconciliation of the nation.
We all know how great a director Clint Eastwood is, but what's surprising about his projects is the way we never know what he's going to do next. Doing a movie about the end of apartheid from the standpoint of a rugby team is a gutsy move and would be a daunting challenge, especially in the eyes of todays movie viewer. Eastwood takes the ball and runs with, deliver yet another gem to his growing collection. It's not as great as Unforgiven or Mystic River, but it is worthy of the praise it gets.
