Naked Hobo

Twenty years ago the mother ship of an alien race, nicknamed Prawns because of their appearance, appeared over Johannesberg, South Africa.  Unable to return home the Prawn are forced into slum like conditions in an area known as District 9.  A government agent, Wikus Van Der Merwe is exposed to alien biotechnology which is slowly transforming him into a Prawn.  The weapons manufacturer Multi-National United has plans for Wikus, plans that involve alien technology, and plans that call for Wikus to be cut up into many tiny pieces.

It is nice to see that they can still make good sci-fi films that have a different approach to aliens making contact.  It was also nice to see a big screen film that doesn’t have a single face I recognize, a lead actor that hasn’t done anything before.  I have read some comments about his poor acting performance, many citing his poor or improper accent.  I guess they have never heard a South African accent before.  I think for a cast of virtual nobodies they did a stellar job.

I have also heard complaints about the alien CGI.  If CGI is the one thing that is ruining a movie for you then you are spoiled.  Do you just not watch anything older than “Transformers 2″?  Yeah, I like good CGI, and the stuff in this movie was pretty good, maybe not the best I have seen, but it was still good.  Besides, CGI is only part of the film as whole.  I could list dozens of movies that have good or great CGI that are complete shit, I already mentioned one.  This film had a unique story idea and was set somewhere different, not New York or London or Tokyo or some other big city that appears to be the only places that things happen.  It wasn’t just another alien invasion flick or a typical first contact type of movie.  I liked that the aliens were kind of a hive mind type, the drones that were left weren’t all that smart and for all the technology they had they were living in slums because without leadership they are aimless.

I wasn’t sure what I was gonna get from this movie when I saw the first trailer.  I was very happy with what I did get.  I got a gritty story with a dirty and interesting setting.  I got to see plenty of action and the final firefight is really amazing.  I got a really good sci-fi film that wasn’t just all flash and Megan Fox running around.  This is the best sci-fi, barring comic book films like “Iron Man”, that I have seen in a while, 4 Axes.

In 1969, down on his luck interior designer Elliot Tiber (Demetri Martin) is helping his parents try to save their motel in the Catskills.  He learns that a neighboring town has pulled the plug on a hippie concert and, Elliot inadvertently sets into motion the biggest musical and cultural event in history.  Elliot, and even his parents, find their lives changed forever as they are swept up in the massive phenomenon that was Woodstock.

There have been criticisms about this film, many of which decry the fact that the actual concert isn’t really shown in the movie.  I think that was kind of the point.  It showed what a vast number of people that went to Woodstock actually experienced, which didn’t really involve the musicians on stage.  It was really more about the coming together of thousands and thousands of people, three days of peace and music.  Of course there was also a fair amount of capitalism too, which the film shows as well.

Martin does a good job as the main character in what is really a coming of age story.  He shines even though his character is rather unspectacular and incredibly ordinary.  There are some incredibly goofy scenes, some of which I am not entirely sure about as of yet.  Some of it fits quite well, as there were definitely some oddballs during the 60’s.  The theater group seems to have been just kind of tossed in as a sort of comic relief which really wasn’t needed all that much.  I felt that it was one of the weaker things in the film that maybe should have been left out.

There were some good laughs in the film, and it was nice to see Eugene Levy in a role that didn’t paint him as a completely out of touch idiot.  Some things could have been done a bit different, it wasn’t a perfect film, but it succeeded overall, it was nice to see some good work out of Ang Lee again, 3 1/2 Axes.

In Nazi occupied France a group of Jewish American soldiers known as the Basterds spread fear to the Third Reich with a gruesome war of terror.  Led by Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) the Basterds tear through France leaving the disfigured bodies of Nazi soldiers in their wake.  At the same time a young Jewish woman, Shoshana Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) poses as the owner of a theater several years after her family was killed by the Nazis.  The stories of Shoshana and the Basterds cross as the theater is chosen as host for the premiere of a new film “Nations Pride”.  In attendance will be all the high ranking members of the Nazi party, including Adolf Hitler himself.

I was both excited and leary about seeing this film.  Tarantino hasn’t done anything much lately, aside from “Kill Bill Vol. 1″.  He really is just so in love with being Quentin Tarantino that his work has suffered.  Thankfully he pulls together a pretty darn good movie here.  I have heard some complaints that he has disrespected a very serious topic and all those people that perished in the war.  People need to relax.  It’s a movie.

Brad Pitt did a good job as Aldo Raine, but he wasn’t the show stealer.  That honor would go to Chritopher Waltz as Col. hans Landa.  All the acting was good, but he shone brighter than anyone else.  They way the film slides easily between languages, French, English, German, and even some Italian, is remarkable.  The script is well written and it has that spark that has been missing from a lot of Tarantino’s later work.

The opening scene is spectacular.  It is a perfect homage to “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.”  That is fitting as this film is really a spaghetti western set during World War II.  The film seems to blend so many things together beautifully, part “Dirty Dozen”, part “Yojimbo”, and so much more.  This is the kind of work that I had hopes I would see after seeing “Reservoir Dogs” the first time.  This is what Tarantino’s career needed.  I also think it is the exact treatment that Wolrd War II needed.  Tarantino’s best work in a long time, 4 1/2 Axes.

Odd Horton is a train engineer, and his life is about to change on the eve of his retirement.  Unsure of what to do without his job Odd meanders about trying to find his new place in life.

This was a fun and charming, albeit dry comedy.  Some folks will find it slow, but the snail pace tempo seems to fit with the story beig told.  Odd is not an exciting man and exciting things do not happen to him.  The humor is soft and light and there are more than a few chuckles to be had while watching the film.  The name of the main character is also fitting, as Odd is a bit of an eccentric loner and he is often finding himself in odd situations and meeting some rather odd people.  I won’t recommend this to everyone, but if you like a good change of life story, and don’t mind the subtitles (something many people need to get over), I say check it out as a rental, 4 Axes.

When Bryan  Mills’ (Liam Neeson) daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) takes a trip to Paris with a friend she is abducted.  Unknown to her kidnappers is that her father is a retired government agent.  Bryan worked as a preventer, as in, he prevented bad things from happening.  Bryan immediately travels to Paris and weaves a path of death and destruction as he tries to find his daughter.

If you are looking for great cinema, a sure fire Oscar nominee, well, this isn’t the film for you.  If you want to see Liam Neeson beat the shit out of people and kill even more, then this is your film.  Simple concept that has been done before, but Neeson lends a sort of cool and calm demeanor to it.  He is perfect as this methodical agent.  He is also brutal when he needs to be, which is fairly often.  The bad guys are not long for this world and Neeson doesn’t let annything stad in his way, even wounding the wife of an old friend to find out where hs daughter is.

Sure, things like this don’t really happen, well, yes, people are kidnapped, but fathers don’t tear through Paris and kill dozens of gangsters.  I wish they did.  But I didn’t put this in my DVD player for realism, I watched it because I wanted to see Liam Neeson kill people.  I got what I wanted, 3 1/2 Axes.

Charlyne Yi goes cross country to talk to people about the one thing that she doesnn’t understand, Love.  She talks to couples, judges, ministers, and even kids on a playground trying to find out what love is.  Things take a turn when Charlyne meets Michael Cera and they start a new relationship.  The movie gives a great look into the many different aspects of love and what it means to different people.  No one defines love the same way, no one feels it the same way.

This movie is film as if it were a documentary.  One never knows how much of this film has basis in the real life three year relationship that Yi and Cera had.  Since filming this they have broken up.  Cera and Yi play well together, not just because they were really involved, but because of they way they simply act.  Both have a kind of loose, awkward, style, and it plays well with a fake documentary.  The interviews were nice, not sure if they were real or not, but they seemed genuine.

At times the movie does seem to move a bit slowly.  It is short at only 89 minutes, but it feels longer.  Things could have been tightened up a bit without really affecting the story.  Still, the movie is cute and quirky.  The parts with the makeshift puppets are funny and the ending is hilarious.  I wouldn’t say rush out and see this one, but maybe a matinee or definitely a rental, 3 Axes.

Astronaut Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is coming to the end of his three year stint on the Lunar Industries mining colony on the moon.  His only companion is GERTY (Kevin Spacey), a congenial robot that shows his emotional state by a series of smiley faces on a console.  With just two weeks left on his contract Sam begins to experience things that unravel what he thought was the truth about his life, especially when he is confronted with a younger, and angrier version of himself.

This movie really needed a strong lead, essentially the movie is a one man show.  Rockwell does a great job playing Sam Bell and Sam Bell.  It shows how far the technology has come to by blending the twin characters so beautifully.  Spacey as the voice of GERTY is an excellent choice too.  Spacey’s calm sounding voice is perfect for an AI.

I got a definite sense of old school sci-fi, along the lines of “2001″.  Feeling the vast emptiness of space, the loneliness, the deep, deep, black that surrounds you.  I think the film is an homage to older sci-fi films where action wasn’t the main attraction, but more of the wonder of man being out amongst the stars, the pure grandeur of being able to leave the shackles of earth behind.  What also made the film so good is that space is merely a backdrop.  This is about a man, a man and how he reacts to his own loneliness and his reactions to a greater truth.

While the truth of what Lunar Industries has been doing to Sam Bell doesn’t really come as a huge surprise, it works because of Rockwell’s reactions as the story unfolds.  He sells it so that even though you already know what is happening, you still believe it, believe that Sam never knew the truth, and you believe the shock he feels when what he thought he knew crumbles around him.

This was a movie that when I first heard about it I was very, meh.  But, I figured I’d give it a shot, reviews seemed good, and the concept did interest me a little bit.  I am glad I did, while nothing really surprised me as far as the story goes, I was still enveloped by the story, 4 Axes.