One Paragraph Review: Miami Vice

In the hands of another director, this exact script and cast turn into a film that I spend 1.75 paragraphs hating on with a thesaurus in my hand. Why then, am I not already piling on the vitriol and over the top comparisons to Satan? Style. It's really that simple. Michael Mann infuses every scene of this film with such a distinct sense of style that his work amidst a sea of Hollywood half-assed efforts is as identifiable as a Stone Pale Ale among a pile of cheap massbrews. Mann makes his usual cinematographic love with the cities he films in, he fuses intimate camera work with killer music choice to create sublime and intimate club scenes, and, frankly, just films the violence of firearms like nobody else does. To top it all off, the climactic shootout scene is filmed from a awesome first person long-shot perspective that evokes the first time you fired a real firearm or played Rainbow Six. Simply put, theres so much directorial flare here that the often lame script and reserved acting performances are just along for the ride.

One Paragraph Review: The Sum of All Fears

I realize this isn't a new movie, but spending the last two hours of my day watching this film has left me desperate for methods of excising this rage and anger from my body. So here goes. Is this one of my least favorite movies ever? It might be. I hate every aspect of this script. I hate Bridget Moynahan and her superfluous character, I hate how the plot makes unreasonable jumps and bounds, I hate how Ben Affleck's Jack Ryan spends time driving through a burning city or beating up random people for no reason, I hate how this movie was ~50% of the volume of the commercials that dotted it, I hate how Morgan Freeman dies, I hate how only SOME of the Russian was subtitled, I hate how theres a Canadian Football League game going on in Baltimore, I hate how Jack Ryan talks to his co-worker's cell phone via a crashed helicopter's radio headset while the presidents of the United States and Russia have to communicate by short text messages via some kind of 1980s DOS terminal, I hate that James Cromwell doesn't get to say or do anything interesting, I hate that the President's cabinet is your typical room of old crusty white guys who make bad decisions, and MOST OF ALL, I hate that this film is a reboot of the wonderful Harrison Ford series. Fuck, all I want to do right now is go watch the excellent Clear and Present Danger. Fuck this film and the shithouse of compromises and mediocrity that spawned it.

One Paragraph Review: Sunshine Cleaning

There are so many things to like about this movie that I don't really know where to start. I think what I liked most about the movie is that I felt like its true core is not obviously and directly shouted at or pointed to in scene after scene. The real core of the movie is somewhat elusive from the major plot points. The film shows its main characters (wonderfully executed by the trio of Amy Adams, Emily Blunt and Alan Arkin) going through their lives and various subplots at an amusing and engaging pace, but slowly the movie reveals that the whole shebang is really about a much deeper emotional struggle that they all share. The allusion to, and revelation of, this central emotional connection that drives everything that everybody does is quite beautifully executed. At times some of the scenes are a bit too unoriginally sappy, but for the most part the whole film strikes exactly the right tone for what it's conveying.