Naked Hobo

When Toorop (Vin Diesel) agrees to escort a young woman from Russia to new York he doesn’t realize what he is getting himself into.  The girl, Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) is actually host to an organism that a cult seeks to harvest in order to create a new Messiah.  Toorop must keep the girl, along with the help of her guardian Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh).  The hard hearted mercenary sees the world through different eyes thanks to Aurora.

I think one reviewer summed things up perfectly, “An incredibly disappointing film.”  It was that.  Sure, there is a lot of action, but the bad guys seem to pop up a little too often, and then everything is resolved a little too neatly.  Also, there are so many different parties interested in this girl that it is a little difficult to keep things straight.  One gets the feeling that parts of the story are missing……and they are.  Apparently the film we get to see is not the film that  director Mathieu Kassovitz made.  The film is almost cut in half from what he original intended, thanks to the lovely handiwork of the studio.  But, what I did see left such a bitter taste in my mouth that I don’t think I would be able to watch the full version without having an immediate and crippling bias.

There are so many poorly made sci-fi films out there.  A large part of the blame falls on the studios, the rest on a dimwitted, accepting public.  When action and flashy effects can completely replace a good story we no longer get good movies.  This one had some good effects, and the feel it gave for the future was quite believable, with a crumbling Eastern Europe and a New York that is nothing but neon and glitter, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the flaws in the story.  The film can’t even decide what its own climax is, and the ending is just a lame duck.  Poorly done and kinda sorry I watched it, 1 1/2 Axes.

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is just your average unemployed bass player.  He finds his simple life turned upside down when he meets the girl of his dreams. Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).  Scott must now get the courage to break up with his adoring seventeen year old girlfriend Knives Chau (Ellen Wong).  He also has to get ready for a battle of the bands which may lead to a recording contract.  As if all that wasn’t enough, in order to date Ramona, Scott must defeat her seven evil exes.  Love is never easy, is it?

From the second I saw the Universal logo pop up in 8 bit glory, along with midi music to match, I knew I was going to enjoy this.  There are video game references around every corner, and the entire film does a great job to capture a comic book feel.  The way everyone seems to nonchalantly react to these epic battles that Scott has is simply perfect.

While the role of Scott Pilgrim is slightly different from his normal style, Michael Cera stills fills the role quite well.  The standouts though are the evil exes.  They are just perfect in giving a great video game bad-guy vibe.  Jason Schwartzman is great as the boss bad-guy, Gideon Graves.

But, the best thing about this already great movie are the battles themselves.  They are choreographed so well, and they beautifully capture the old school fighting games, right down to the power-ups.  Everything, right down to the final fight are brilliant.

I haven’t read all of the comic series yet, and I picked up a few things that were left out, much of the background to Scott and Ramona.  I have heard the typical fan-boy whining about these horrendous omissions.  I think what was cut, or at least what I know was cut, was chosen wisely.  The film captures the essence of the comic, and with a limited time frame, I think Edgar Wright did a great job.  This was the most fun I have had a film for a while, and I hope it really opens the door for more truly original work like this, 4 1/2 Axes.

In an effort to save humanity from the end of the world, an elite group of scientists construct a marvelous underground city.  For 200 years the residents of Ember have lived, unaware of the world that was lost.  The first mayor was entrusted with a lock box which contained instructions to return to the surface world.  After being passed from mayor to mayor, the box was eventually lost.  Now the great generator of Ember is beginning to fail, and with no knowledge of the outside, the people are beginning to fear the end of life as they know it.  The fate of mankind is now in the hands of two teenagers, Doon Harrow (Harry Treadaway) and Lina Mayfleet (Saoirse Ronan).

This movie was visually stunning.  Filmed in the same building where the Titanic was built, the crane shots of the city are simply amazing.  I think the effects capture the city of Ember brilliantly, and you truly get a feel for what it is like to live under the twinkling lights of this great underground city.  Unfortunately it seems much more care was given to the setting than it was to the script.  The characters are dull and one dimensional, you never really get a feel for the relationship between Lina and Doon.  Are they simply classmates stuck together through fate?  Is there more to it?  Are they actually friends?  So little is done to develop any of the characters, and in a film like this it is needed so we can actually care about what happens to them.  You have a fantastic waste of acting talent like Tim Robbins and Bill Murray too, shame that none of the characters amount to much.

I have heard great things about the book, and it is sad that the cinematic adaptation falls so fall short.  I suppose I can see the appeal in this to an audience of American children.  It is flashy and corny at the same time.  Pretty to look at, but little beneath the surface, 2 Axes.

If there is one thing the Brits really kick our American asses at, it is sketch comedy.  Of course much of British humor is lost on a lot of your typical “Home Improvement” loving Americans. *  It is a different type of comedy, it is a bit more witty, and what one would call dry.  I am not saying that they are above your typical physical comedy and gross out gags, but those are only parts of the overall comedy routine.

I found this particular sketch comedy show by accident.  It popped up as, “you liked this, so maybe you’ll like this too” on Netflix.  Normally, Netflix thinks I am a brain damaged orangutan, and a teenage girl too, “Oh, you liked “Deathproof“, you’ll also enjoy “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants“.

There is quite a bit that I think will make a lot of Americans scratch their heads.  Some of the bits, well, it helps if you are British, there really aren’t a lot of Americans that watch snooker.  The two leads in the series, David Mitchell and Robert Webb, play well with each other.  Also, like a lot of good sketch comedy, there are few supporting characters, the primary duo doing most of the work.  There are also Nazi jokes, what British sketch comedy is good without at least on Nazi sketch.

While it isn’t quite the level of side-splitting laughs that I got from “Little Britain“, it was still fun.  There wasn’t a single clip that didn’t get at least a chuckle from me, and none of that “clips that don’t seem to ever end and would have been fine as a 1 minute gag but now you are going on 10 minutes and I was bored 8 1/2 minutes ago so please end this now so we can get back to the funny.”  Whew!  A solid outing, and I look forward to the next season when it becomes available, 3 1/2 Axes.

*Please, no, but I love “Home Improvement”.  I don’t care, I have no beef with it, just using it as an example of typical mainstream American comedy.

When God loses faith in mankind he sends angels to wipe them out.  Man’s only hope lies with a group of strangers at a diner in the middle of nowhere, run by Bob Hansen (Dennis Quaid), his son Jeep (Lucas Black), the cook (Charles S. Dutton), and a pregnant waitress, Charlie (Adrianne Palicki).  Joining them is the Anderson family, Audrey (Willa Holland), Howard (Jon Tenney), and Sandra (Kate Walsh).  Rounding out the group is Kyle Williams (Tyrese Gibson).  Yep, two black guys that you already know won’t survive to the end of the film.  The attacking angels are particularly interested in Charlie’s unborn child.  Archangel Michael (Paul Bettany) has defied his orders and has chosen to protect the humans against his angelic brothers.

While the idea of a machine gun toting Archangel Michael sounds beyond the scope of awesome to me, I was a little leery about the notion of angels as bad guys.  I got over it.  It isn’t so much that the angels are the bad guys, they are doing what they were told to do, doing what they were made to do.  Mankind has grown corrupt and foul, squandering the gifts they have been given, the angels are here more as a form of justice, a bit of divine retribution.   The one part that did get me was the angels possessing humans.  It wasn’t so much that they did it, it was portrayed much more like a demonic possession.  These angels in human form seemed to enjoy killing people.  They are rather sadistic.  I guess this is that lingering bit of stodgy German Lutheran in me, but I can’t accept angels killing for the mere joy of killing.

Moving on.  There was a lot of guns and many angel possessed people were killed.  I did find it amazing at how good everyone was at using high powered weaponry.  I didn’t realize how easy it was to pick up a machine gun and have amazing accuracy with it.  For some reason I thought it took some form of training to be a skilled marksman.  Apparently I was wrong.  This is good to know for when the zombies come, I was worried I would be a bad shot.  No fear of that now.

While some of the pathetic humans may perish, with Michael on their side they really don’t have much to fear.  I mean, it’s not like God would send his angels to be slaughtered if he didn’t have another choice.  You know, like maybe some other Archangel that would be a match for Michael.  Oh, yeah, that’s right, there’s still Gabriel (Kevin Durand).  Now we get to see two powerhouses go at it.  And, that was rather anti-climactic.

So this wasn’t an awful film, but it still fell way short of being good.  This type of story has been done before, and done better.  I suppose if you are a really big fan of “The Prophecy” like I am, then maybe you will get something out of this film.  If you expect this to be as good, well, you will be disappointed.  I did enjoy the very end though, so that redeemed it a bit for me, 2 1/2 Axes.

Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) leads a band of mercenaries.  He and long time friend Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) scout out a mission in South America to overthrow a dictator.  There they encounter Sandra (Giselle Itie), the dictator’s daughter, who wants their help.  The mission seems like suicide , but Barney has a tender moment where he cares about other people and takes the mission anyways.  The rest of his crew, Ying Yang (Jet Li), Toll Road (Randy Couture), and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews) are right there with him.  Many people are gonna die.

Never before has such a collection of Hollywood bad asses been assembled in one film.  True, Bruce Willis and Arnold only have mere cameos, but you still get the highest ass kicking potential ever on celluloid.  One does not go into a theater where this is playing and expect high art.  You go into a theater where this is playing and expect to grow an extra set of balls.  This is balls to the wall, over the top ridiculous, body parts flying, blood splattering, action.  Oh, you do get a touching scene where Mickey Rourke gets to be an actor too.

I think a lot of my enjoyment of this movie was purely from a nostalgia point of view.  Guys like Jet Li and Stallone, these are the guys I watched when I was younger.  Then you throw in people like Statham, the next generation of action heroes, and you have got me hooked.  Was this the best action movie ever?  I don’t know, I can think of other films that may be classified as action that are superior, “A Better Tomorrow” comes to mind.  But, at least for me, this was the most fun I have had watching an action flick in a long, long time.  Every explosion, every decapitated body made me feel like that kid that first saw Stallone in “First Blood“.  This was the 80’s all over again, but in a good way.  You also throw in Eric Roberts and Steve Austin as some of the bad guys, and a sprinkle of Dolph Lundgren, what more could you ask for?

Surprisingly, the only scenes I didn’t like is when they tried to add a little more depth to some of the characters.  There really is no point to the scenes between Statham and Charisma Carpenter.  All scenes like that did was slow down the pacing of the movie.  Normally, I love a little depth to my characters, but here it was unnecessary and burdensome.

The body count piles up quickly in this one, and the bullets spent probably number in the billions.  This movie exceeded the expectations I had for it, which to be honest, was a mix of jubilant hope and overwhelming dread.  I got a lot of fun and a lot of memories of the old days.  Stallone can still kick ass with the best of them, even at 64.  Action at is near best, 4 Axes.

Three different stories are connected through a Memphis hotel and apparently Elivs as well.

I’m guessing I missed something.  This film got great critical reviews, but I apprently missed something.  The opening story with Jun (Masatoshi Nagase) and Mitsuko (Youki Kudoh) was interesting.  However, from there it just seemed to go downhill.  They say this is a bit of a dark comedy, but the humor is so dry and so deadpan that you have to actively search it out.  I found myself pausing the video and thinking, “Was that supposed to be funny?”  If I need to ask that, then it didn’t work.  I also don’t get the whole connection bit either.  Wow, three stories that all take place at the same time and the same location.  And the end, the little tie that ends each story, how anti-climatic can you get.  I had high hopes for this, I tend to like stuff by Jim Jarmusch.

I just couldn’t get into this one.  I was fighting to keep myself interested.  Fine, I get the whole lost Americana thing, but it just bored me, 2 Axes.

Gru (Steve Carell) is a villain.  He hopes to be the greatest villain ever, but a new rival, Vector (Jason Segal), is thwarting his plans.  Gru hopes to steal the moon by using a new shrink ray, however Vector is constantly one step ahead of him.  In an effort to break into Vector’s lair, gru employs three orphans, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove) Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher).  Things don’t go quite according to plan as Gru begins to find that he truly cares for the three young girls.

This was a very fun movie.  Steve Carell rocks as Gru, and his miniosn are a hoot.  You get a great mix of humor too.  There is darker stuff, mostly Gru and his deliciously  evil doings, the adorable stuff with the girls, and just funny, wacky, off the wall slapstick with the minions. I also got a big kick out of Dr. Nefario, the geriatric techno-whiz, voiced by Russel Brand.

While the ideas behind the film are not original, rival villains, the evil man that has his heart warmed by children, the story told is done wonderfully.  The comedic twist they take with the rivalry, the obvious pokes at supervillains and their secret lairs of evil, it is priceless.  I also believe that the way Gru warms to the young girls, and sorry, who wouldn’t, is done with a sense of believability.

We have been blessed with so many good animated films the last few years.  This may not be the best of the bunch, but it was still fun, heart-warming, and enjoyable.  And, in an effort to avoid his freeze ray, I give it a healthy 4 Axes.