One Paragraph Review: Taken

I don't have much insight about this movie. If you enjoy a good action movie or if you enjoy watching someone kick bad guys' behinds for two hours, then this is pretty much the ideal film. Liam Neeson rocks the screen for two hours, totally keeping you on the edge of your seat and your body temperature up by about 2 degrees. What more can you ask for from a movie watching experience? I loved it!

One Paragraph Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still

This has got to be one of the most cliche packed, unoriginal, stupid movies ever put together. Nothing about this movie suggests any writing effort whatsoever, its totally uninspired bleh. After 20 minutes, I nearly gave up completely and abandoned the film all together. Everything you see and hear is just thrown into the film for whatever reason, sensical or not, with no explanation of anything. Its like a river of recycled movie scenes and soulless throw-away characters that meanders in random directions without going anywhere. It's rancid collection the worst parts of Transformers and Armageddon, punctuated by idiotic bullshit dialogue between meaningless skeletons of characters. I could write entire pages recounting my horrified laughing at absurd scene after absurd scene, but frankly, id rather focus on trying to forget that this ever crossed my life.

One Paragraph Review: The Wrestler

I've come to accept The Wrestler like I eventually come accept other things which I struggle with at first, like lifeless, flat surf on my day off or a girlfriend's late-night-drunken rage. Though I was immediately taken by Rourke's "Randy the Ram," I had a few issues with the film and really felt that some elements of the plot were too weak to support the awesome emotion in certain scenes. A month has gone by, my thoughts have coalesced, and though my qualms with the film still exist, the movie's overwhelming weight has sort of drown them out in my head. The Wrestler is like a dramatic biopic. It is not a film about doing somebody or something justice, or making an argument for a cause; it's about The Ram. It doesn't care whether it leaves you happy or sad, and it doesn't care if you understood why anybody besides The Ram said what they said, or did what they did. All that matters in this entire film is The Ram; you see him and you can't help but feel him.

One Paragraph Review: Bottle Shock

Bottle Shock — which Wikipedia informs me is a "dramedy" — tells the story of a Northern California winery that overcame nearly two hours of cinematic mediocrity to produce good wine and allegedly good times. Apart from Bill Pullman and the Freddy Rodriguez character, I had a hard time figuring out how any of the characters were connected to the wine industry. It felt like the producers (or the financial backers) of Bottle Shock just really liked the story, and didn't really care if anyone else did. Alan Rickman is a great actor. His performance in this movie is no exception to his norm, but it's not enough to make this movie worth your time.

One Paragraph Review: Rescue Dawn

I hope you haven't read Karly's review of this movie because I'm just going to copy what she said. The pace of this movie is very slow and leaves you wanting more development of the characters. There is really no explanation of anything. I get that this (true) story is an amazing one, but I just didn't feel it. If the movie doesn't care to invest in its own characters, why should I? I will admit, I did find the jungle scenes strangely beautiful. The nicest thing I can say about this movie is that it made me want to watch other, better Vietnam-era movies.

One Paragraph review: Deja Vu

I'm no physicist but even I found Deja Vu to be lame. The frustrating part is that it starts off promising, with Denzel doing a good jof leading the story in a compelling direction. However, the writers made a seriously bad choice, which I feel is at the heart of my displeasure with this movie. They chose the happy hollywood ending instead of the ending that would make a better, more sane film. I couldn't help but think of 13 Monkeys, which does time travel so brilliantly. Maybe I'm being biased here, but I prefer my time-travel movies to reinforce the idea that no matter what you go back in time and do, what's happened has already happened, and you can't change history. Any other angle falls into the traditional time travel paradoxes. 13 Monkeys beautifully and consistently lays that out. Unfortunately for Deja Vu's writers, if you're Denzel Washington and the life of a beautiful woman who you want to bone is at stake, it turns out that you can, in fact, go back in time and alter history. BOOOOOO!

One Paragraph Review: Troy

I watched Troy over the weekend, my second time seeing it, and was reminded how adapting the story of the Trojan War is high on my list of things I would never want to attempt.The Iliad and the numerous other poems and texts that tell of The Trojan War relate a complex, high-fantasy story that the vast majority of the world would quickly lose interest in. You know, the same reasons you DIDN'T read it would make a truthful adaptation a tedious film. Jamming the parts that make a good movie into just ~2 hours is a ridiculous task, so it's not surprising that Troy doesn't bother with a lot of the fantasy and flavor in the original text. What Troy does do is brilliantly cast several key roles, give a sufficient overall view of the story, essentially leave out the role of the Gods all together, serve up some great action, be totally ambivalent about which side is "the good guys," provide small moments of brilliance and then go absolutely batshit Hollywood with the ending of the film. Despite it's flaws and taken liberties, Troy is enjoyable and entertaining. Sure, I'd have done several things differently, but I'd also probably have killed myself before this rubix-cube-from-hell of a film was actually finished, so I really can't complain.

One Paragraph Review: The Departed

I saw The Departed for the second time this weekend and re-affirmed what I thought after seeing it the first time in the theaters: The Departed is one of the best crime/mob movies in a very long time. I love everything about this film, with the lone exception being the ending, which strikes me as overly conclusive (not everybody has to die in the end of the movie to provide some closure). This movie is wonderfully written, masterfully directed and perfectly acted. The plot device of an undercover agent and a mole in a police office trying to find each other is perfectly directed. It's the center of the film, but there are so many other characters interacting in other plot elements that it never feels forced or jammed down our throats. To top it all off, a well selected soundtrack including Pink Floyd & the Dropkick Murphys contributes nicely to the film. This film is a must for anybody who appreciates a good crime drama (or just a great film).

One Paragraph Review: Rescue Dawn

I have one complaint about this film, in which Christian Bale portrays the true story of a fighter pilot shot down and captured in Laos during the Vietnam War, and it is a big one. This film had awful pacing and plot development. They only spend about three minutes developing the character, which is not really enough time to get you sucked in or even to get you to like the guy. Then there are two grueling and slow-moving hours detailing his time in prison camp. Then there is about fifteen minutes set aside for his escape and eventual rescue. In sum, I wasn't drawn into the character, I sat through two boring hours, and then I didn't even get to fully appreciate or enjoy his eventual rescue. As much as I love Christian Bale, and appreciate his performance in this movie, I just cannot recommend it.

One Paragraph Review: Milk

Forgive me now, but this is going to be a long paragraph. 2008 was not a great movie-going year for me. I rarely got myself to a theater to view a new film. But choosing to spend time during my precious few days in San Francisco seeing "Milk" at the Castro Theater was an amazing movie-going experience. I was expecting the experience to be cool--after all I'm seeing the movie in the freaking neighborhood where it all took place. But I was not expecting to enjoy the film as much as I did. This movie has it all: stellar acting, incredible writing, wonderful pacing. It was one of the best memoir-type films I have ever seen, and was a great tribute to Harvey Milk and to the LGBT community that has fought so hard for equality. Speaking of that fight...I of course expected I'd be in tears at the end of the movie due to the inevitable tragic ending, but I was not expecting to be quite so sad and disheartened after viewing this. A good chunk of the plot line centers around Milk and his colleagues fighting CA Proposition 6 which would have banned gays and lesbians, and even their supporters, from working in public schools. Given the recent and very disappointing victory of CA Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, for me the takeaway point from the movie was that 30 years after Milk's time, the LGBT community and its allies still have a lot of fight to go.