Dell's Good, Bad & Ugly Movie Reviews

[dell71]

Ip Man
Directed by Wilson Yip.
2008. Rated R, 106 minutes.
Cast:
Donnie Yen
Simon Yam
Siu-Wong Fan
Ka Tung Lam
Yu Xing
You-Nam Wong
Chen Zhi Hui

The Chinese city of Fo-Shan is famous for its martial arts. No one in town is more famous than Master Ip (Yen) AKA Ip Man. Though he doesn’t teach formally, young hopefuls are constantly seeking his counsel. When other masters want to test their mettle, they challenge him to a duel. It’s only natural that when some tough guys from out of town want to prove themselves worthy of opening up their own school in Fo-Shan they wind up on the doorstep of Ip’s palatial estate. All of this is in the days just before the Japanese invading China and pretty much taking over Fo-Shan. They even set up shop in Ip’s house, leaving the master, his wife and young son to find shelter in parts of town destroyed by bombings. Ip is forced to take hard labor jobs to get just barely enough food for his family avoid starving to death. What good is all his knowledge and skill in the art of hand-to-hand combat in a world where he and his fellow countrymen have been relegated to second class citizenship in their own land?

Ip Man is loosely based on the life of Bruce Lee’s mentor. It combines the larger themes of survival, cultural preservation and national pride and combines them with the more traditional kung-fu motifs of revenge and honor to create a rather concise epic that neither overstays its welcome nor rushes us along from fight to fight. It works both narratively and viscerally. It’s story-telling isn’t groundbreaking, but it is effective. The fighting is wonderfully brutal. Even as our tale develops and twists, the next action scene is never too far away nor too near. Let’s face it, we watch martial arts movies for the martial arts. This film understands this, gives us plenty of it but doesn’t sacrifice narration.

To make those fight scenes work, we need a star who can pull them off. In the title role, Donnie Yen is a delightful blur of flying fists punctuated by his long gown-like shirt flapping in his self-created wind. Appropriately placed close-ups reveal the landing of many bone-crushing blows. I was moved to say “ouch” on a number of occasions. For fans of martial arts flicks Ip Man is a must-see. It is the best such movie of the last several years by a good margin. Of course, if you’re not into martial arts flicks then skip it. Shame on you.

MY SCORE: 8/10

[dell71]

Love & Other Drugs
Directed by Edward Zwick.
2010. Rated R, 112 minutes.
Cast:
Jake Gyllenhaal
Anne Hathaway
Oliver Platt
Hank Azaria
Josh Gad
Gabriel Macht
Judy Greer
Jill Clayburgh
George Segal

After losing his job as a stereo equipment saleman, Jamie (Gyllenhaal) decides to give the pharmaceudical industry a try. He takes a job as a sales rep for Pfizer. Basically, he hangs around private practices hocking Zoloft to the doctors. We most often see him at Dr. Knight’s (Azaria) office. While there, he manages to talk the doc into letting him be present during a visit from a patient. That patient is 26 year old Maggie (Hathaway) who has already been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. Of course, Jamie is immediately head-over-heels in love with her, but she wants nothing to do with him. Ever the smooth talking ladies man, he navigates that little hurdle and talks her into a date. Right away, the two start a relationship they both agree is only about sex. Well, if things were that easy we wouldn’t have a movie, would we? Anyhoo, this is all set in the days leading up to the initial public release of Viagra. This becomes prominent in several ways I won’t reveal.

Things start off in an amusing manner. Jamie’s rich younger brother Josh (Gad) has been kicked out by his wife and taken up residence on big bro’s couch. Sales manager Bruce (Platt) is constantly prodding his young protégé to sell more. Prozac salesman Trey (Macht) has the upperhand and is constantly in their way. Dr. Knight is openly selling his loyalty to whichever rep can get him laid the most. Through all of this Jamie and Maggie actually do get laid, a lot…by each other. If you want to see Anne Hathaway in (almost) all her glory this is the movie for you.

It’s our favorite couple’s interactions between lovemaking sessions that try to attach us emotionally to the movie, but fail. The problem is pretty much as soon as he rolls off of her she starts with an unstoppable wave of self-pity, questioning his motives for sleeping with “the sick girl”, as she refers to herself and imploring him to stay away from her. He stubbornly refuses and back and forth they go. We’re supposed to be sympathetic towards their plight because of her disease. However, it’s much more tiresome than endearing. I have to remind you that the peripheral events all seem to work pretty well. They’re entertaining and light. When juxtaposed with them, the heavy relationship at the film’s core is jarring and transparently manipulative, ineffectively tugging on our heartstrings.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10

[Houston]

Dell's Classics Presents: A Film Noir Double Feature



Double Indemnity
1944. Not Rated, 108 minutes.
Director: Billy Wilder.
Starring Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Jean Heather.
An insurance agent (MacMurray) falls in love with the wife of a client (Stanwyck). The two then hatch a plan to kill her husband so they can collect the insurance money and be together. This is Film Noir 101. All of the elements of the genre: the narration, dame that gets ultra-cool guy in hot water, murder and slick slang are not only present but have seldom, if ever, been done better. The dialogue is insanely sharp, filled with sexual innuendo, humor and thoughtfulness at appropriate times. The story keeps you on your toes, introducing elements that subtly change your idea of what you think will happen up until right before the climax. At that point, our hero tells you what's going to happen, or at least what he plans on, and instead of it being a let down it intrigues us even more because we've seen how his plans have worked out so far. MacMurray and Stanwyck are both marvelous in the lead roles and have great chemistry with one another. Robinson, not getting top billing for the first time in a career which was starting to wane by this point, conveys a fierce determination the couple in question must fear. He does so with one of more subdued, but no less excellent performances. Any fans of film noir, or film buffs in general, must see this movie. This is the movie most recent efforts of the genre take their cues from, even something so over the top as Sin City or as experimental as the underappreciated Brick.
MY SCORE: 10/10

Not possible to say it any better.



*Spoilers*


Barbara Stanwyck(Phyllis) did one hell of a job acting in that movie. The chemistry between her character and Neff was amazing. From the first time they met and exchange the "flirtatious" innuendo's, to their final scene together inside of the house.


I fully expected the movie to end with Neff's confession, I was surprised when Keye's walked in and interrupted him in the middle of it. Then he ends up lighting his cigarette for him as he's dying. If this isn't Film Noir 101, I don't know what is.

[dell71]

Big Fish
Directed by Tim Burton.
2003. Rated PG-13, 125 minutes.
Cast:
Ewan McGregor
Albert Finney
Billy Crudup
Jessica lange
Helena Bonham Carter
Steve Buscemi
Robert Guillaume
Alison Lohman
Marion Cotillard
Ada Tai
Arlene Tai

As long as anyone can remember Ed Bloom (McGregor and Finney playing the younger and older versions, respectively) spent his days telling one tall tale after another. He’s told so many, so often that his adult son Will (Crudup) resents him. Will doesn’t feel he knows anything about his dad. Now that Ed is dying, Will is determined to separate the facts from fiction in all those stories.

Like all of director Tim Burton’s work Big Fish is visually arresting. It’s technicolor backdrops contrasted with goth-inspired characters. From time to time there are amazing occurrences within this dynamic. When necessary, that dynamic changes. The scenery becomes darker and foreboding. It even does some crazy things on its own. If there’s one thing Burton is a master of its making the settings in his films not only places, but living, breathing characters. Such is the case, here. It interacts with the others. Some of these others are gleefully odd human beings. The question that lingers throughout is: is any of this real, or is it all a figment of Ed’s imagination?

The screenplay is expertly written, keeping us off-balance and just as desperate as Will to get to the bottom of things. Within our quest for the truth, we witness a father and son dealing with their issues. The women in their lives largely offer support to their men from the sidelines. In other movies, this might seem sexist, or at least neglectful. Here they, and we, realize any resolution to Ed and Will’s problems with each other has to come from them with as little interference as possible. What we also find are little morsels of humor. They’re subtle, often light and occasionally morbid in true Burton fashion.

The one knock I have on BF is that our ending is too easy. However, this is also in keeping with what Burton usually does. His visuals contains lots of oddities and things more than slightly askew. Still, he maintains mainstream appeal with easily digestable tales that strive to be heartwarming. This is, but it seems to do so by abandoning the idea of doing what it seems to set out to: challenging our beliefs about reality and fantasy. This is still an excellent film, it just feels like it could be much more.

MY SCORE: 8/10

[dell71]

Sucker Punch
Directed by Zack Snyder.
2011. Rated PG-13, 110 minutes.
Cast:
Emily Browning
Abbie Cornish
Jena Malone
Vanessa Hudgens
Jamie Chung
Carla Gugino
Oscar Isaac
Scott Glenn
Gerard Plunkett

After her mother dies, Baby Doll (Browning) is attacked by her stepdad. Obviously, it was a struggle for him to wait until his wife kicked because he goes on the prowl moments after the funeral. Apparently finding Baby Doll a bit more of a struggle than he wants just then, or perhaps saving her for later, he manages to lock her in her room and then starts in on her younger, much smaller sister. Since our heroine can’t let stepdad get his satisfaction she gets out of the room and gets a loaded gun and confronts this clown. Just to show she’s serious, Baby Doll fires off a warning shot. Oops. Little sis winds up all dead and stuff over in a corner. Daddy Dearest then has BD hauled off to an insane asylum run by some shady characters. He even slips the guy in charge a few extra bucks to make sure she gets lobotomized in five days. I hate when that happens.

All of this takes place before and right after the opening credits. Truthfully, only the end result is relevant. The elaborate set up is interesting, but unnecessary. She could’ve simply been perceived as crazy and arrived at exactly the same place. However, elaborately is the only way this movie does anything. Not surprising since it has the same director, it has a look reminiscent of 300 with nearly as much slo-mo, super slo-mo and bullet-time effects. The heavy metal soundtrack blares brazenly while things onscreen hiss, boom, shatter and pop. All the while, the camera follows a team of girls draped in fetishistic and/or militaristic garb and kicking all sorts of robot tail. If you let it, it can be big fun. That is, until you get to the end wonder what you just watched.

Speaking wondering what you just watched, where do the robots come from? Well, shortly and suddenly our insane asylum transforms into a brothel. I’ll let you figure out the how and why of that one on your own. Anyoo, BD is made to dance. In a total shock for this movie, there’s no pole involved. Still, when she dances everyone in her onscreen audience is so mesmerized they cease all bodily function except for watching her. Unfortunately, or fortunately, we never see BD dance. Along with her, we enter the dreamworld in the trance she falls into. Here, she receives orders from Wise Man (Glenn) about the next object she tries to obtain by fighting her and the team’s way through hordes of robots. By the way, if you couldn’t figure it out the team is made up of other girls in the looney bin. Each object gets the whole crew closer to escape from the real asylum. Get it? The actual connection is made a little better than that, but it’s still convoluted.

Overall, Sucker Punch is a fun looking mess. The visuals are a treat, but the pieces to the story don’t quite fit in a cohesive manner. First off, there are too many of them. A surplus of things that could’ve been discarded are kept. Conversely, we get the feeling plenty of things that should’ve been kept are thrown out. Second, none of the characters are written well enough for us to really care what happens to them. They’re just mannequins in the window striking poses appropriate for the gear they’re wearing. Worst of all, the movie is horribly inconsistent about what happens to people in the room when BD dances. Who is and isn’t effected changes based on what’s convenient for the plot at any given moment. Finally, I have a question. Why on God’s green earth did Zack Snyder allow Carla Gugino to keep going with her ridiculously bad Russian accent after the first day of shooting? For that alone, he should be sucker punched.

MY SCORE: 4/10

[dell71]

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
Directed by David Bowers.
2011. Rated PG, 99 minutes.
Cast:
Zachary Gordon
Devon Bostick
Rachael Harris
Robert Capron
Steve Zahn
Connor Fielding
Owen Fielding
Peyton List
Karan Brar
Laine MacNeil

Greg (Gordon) is back for a second middle-school adventure. Most of the angst he experienced in sixth grade is gone. His biggest social hurdle nowadays is trying to figure out how to approach the school’s very pretty new girl. His real problems are at home where big brother Rodrick (Bostick) tortures him on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Mom (Harris) is completely bent on making her boys get along so that her real life is as perfect as she portrays it in her newspaper column. Sibling rivalry hijinks and shenanigans ensue.

Often, sequels attempt to do everything bigger than their predecessors. The larger scale tends to translate into a loss of focus on the things we liked about the previous movie. A curious thing happens in Rodrick Rules. It actually has a smaller scope than the original. A number of characters are either eliminated or relegated to lesser roles. Greg’s interaction with the sizable school community is replaced with what goes on at home between at home between the brothers and/or mom. Even Dad (Zahn) is just kinda there for long stretches. Despite all this it still feels less focused than the first film. It’s certainly less ambitious, feeling more like a long episode of a Disney Channel sitcom than a movie. This means the target audience will probably still like it. Us parents, not so much this time around.

RR does have its moments. There are pockets of goodness scattered here and there as reminders of what once was. Not surprisingly, most of these moments happen in school. The movie shines when depicting the often Darwinist society of pre-teens. It falls flat when away from this setting because Greg’s family is made up of the same caricatures we’ve seen rehashed for decades. Their worst offense is they’re not funny, making this a bit of a chore to sit through for adults. Kids will likely enjoy it while it’s on, but forget about it five minutes after its over.

MY SCORE: 4.5/10

[dell71]

I Saw the Devil
Directed by Jee-woon Kim.
2010. Not Rated, 141 minutes.
Cast:
Byung-hun Lee
Min-sik Choi
Gook-hwan Jeon
Ho-jin Jeon
San-ha Oh
Yoon-seo Kim

Joo-yeon (Oh) is stranded on the side of the road on a snowy night with a flat tire. She is on the phone with her husband Kim Soo-hyeon (Lee) who is also a secret agent of some sort. In fact, he’s at work at this precise moment. A stranger approaches Joo-Yeon’s door, offering to help. Wisely, and with the agreement of her hubby, she only cracks the window enough to tell him she going to wait on the tow truck she’s already called. Obviously, they’ve seen a horror movie or two. Pretty soon, duty calls and hubby has to hang up the phone and get back to work. Just in case you can’t figure out where all this is going the creepy dude bashes in Joo-yeon’s window, knocks her out in a most untidy manner and drags her, quite literally at some points, back to his place. That’s when he really has his fun. Suffice it to say when the police find her, it’s not all at once. Trust me, this is only the beginning of a very bumpy ride.

Not one to sit idly by, Kim decides he’s going after the bad guy himself. Don’t you worry. This movie won’t bore you with detective work. He quickly learns the police have four main susupects who have been accused of similar crimes in the past. He immediately takes bereavement leave and starts tracking them down where they live and does some not so nice things to them.

Eventually, Kim not only gets to the right guy, but there is no doubt about it. That guy is Kyung-chul played by Min-sik Choi. Fans of Park Chan-wook’s “Trilogy of Vengeance” will remember him from the two best movies in that series, Lady Vengeance and most notably as our hero in Oldboy. Here, he the other side of the coin and barely recognizable (that’s him in the pic). He’s a completely amoral merciless homicidal maniac. Much like Javier Bardem’s performance in No Country for Old Men, he goes about his business in an awfully calm manner making him far more menacing than he would’ve been had he been a screaming, raging lunatic. It’s a remarkable performance.

The two men meet rather early in the movie. Because they do, a question presents itself and weaves itself into the fabric of the movie: To truly get revenge on a monster, do you have to become one yourself. It seems Kim does. Whenever our two combatants square off there are considerable fireworks. Kim is not content with merely killing Kyung-chul. He wants to make him suffer as much as possible which involves tracking him down beating him half to death and maiming him in some way then letting him go so he can do it all over again.

Between their meetings there is great tension and, thanks to our villain’s excursions plenty more very nasty happenings. This movie is not for the squeamish. It may be one of the more brutally violent films you’ll ever see. Still, despite the seemingly gallons of blood spilled and dozens of blows to various heads with heavy blunt objects (pipe, fire extinguisher, etc), this is no simple gore-fest. It blends the genres horror, thriller and action to create an unflinching and slyly complex revenge flick. It’s one downfall, aside from the violence if that’s too much for you, is that the end is a bit predictable. However, even then the manner in which it’s handled is brilliantly grotesque. Then we have to decide whether this ordeal was really worth it for the one left standing. As the credits roll bringing our thrilling and disturbing journey to a close we still have one more important question to ponder: Who really won?

MY SCORE: 9/10

[Buzzman]

I've had that on my list forever, but keep passing on it for some damn reason. Going to watch it tomorrow. Damn Good review.

[Houston]

Speaking of 2010 Korean films have you heard of this one? The reviews and accolades have been great.





I tried to watch it today but it wasn't on the site I always go to

[dell71]

Speaking of 2010 Korean films have you heard of this one? The reviews and accolades have been great.





I tried to watch it today but it wasn't on the site I always go to

I've heard of it, but not anything in particular about it. I'll have to check it out. Thanks.

[dell71]

Black Swan
Directed by Darren Aronofsky.
2010. Rated R, 108 minutes.
Cast:
Natalie Portman
Mila Kunis
Vincent Cassel
Barbara Hershey
Winona Ryder
Benjamin Millepied
Ksenia Solo
Kristina Anapau

The dance company is going to open its new season with a fresh version of Swan Lake. Out of what looks to be a couple dozen young ladies who dance there, only a handful are even deemed worthy enough to audition for the lead role of “Swan Queen.” Nina (Portman) is one of the lucky few. For those unfamiliar, “Swan Queen” is a dual role. One has to play both the pure and good “White Swan” and the evil “Black Swan.” Dancing the “White Swan” is no problem for Nina. Her innocence shines through her technical proficiency as a dancer. Dancing the “Black Swan” is another issue, entirely. She seems to lack the passion and the will to let herself go needed to be a convincing villain. She’s just too nice. Her director Thomas Leroy sees potential in Nina and awards her the role. From then on, he starts trying to get her to tap into her wild side and bring out the beast he wants to see onstage. Combine this with the over-protective mother she lives with (Hershey), the company’s new dancer Lily (Kunis) who keeps shoving herself into Nina’s life and the ungodly amount of pressure Nina puts on herself and she appears to be coming apart at the seams. Ironically, all of this insanity may just be helping her transform into precisely what she needs to be to pull off her new role. She’s not sure whether this transformation is literal, or not. Frankly, neither are we.

Our deciphering of this information, or more accurately, not being able to decipher it is key to the movie’s success. We’re given enough to see things more than one way. Yet, in the back of our minds one of those ways doesn’t make any sense. To this end, we’re told repeatedly how the plot to Swan Lake plays out. Could Nina actually be experiencing that plot in her own life? Could we really be watching Swan Lake and not even know it?

Keeping us off guard requires a strong lead. Natalie Portman is this and more. It’s truly a phenomenal performance. Her descent into madness, or her ascent into artistry if you prefer, is superbly captured. In a thankless role, Barbara Hershey is just as good. She hits the right notes at the right time. Even Mila Kunis proves to be more than just a pretty face., turning in excellent work. Ever the jaded puppeteer, Darren Aronofsky pulls it all together. He again proves adept at making real life situations as horrific as possible.

Does art imitate life? Or, is it the other way around? That’s the question hovering just above the surface of Black Swan. Below it, the question is: what happens to us when we push ourselves beyond our breaking point? There are no easy answers to either and along the way you might come up with more questions. Because of this, our journey is always fascinating despite it also being occasionally confusing. The true beauty of this film is that even though we get a definitive ending in the physical sense, we still have to deal with those questions.

MY SCORE: 9/10

[dell71]

The Cove
Directed by Louie Psihoyos.
2009. Rated PG-13, 92 minutes.
Cast:
Richard O’Barry
Louie Psihoyos
Hardy Jones
Michael Illif
Paul Watson
Doug DeMaster
Ian Campbell
Joji Morishita
Charles Hambleton

Tahji, Japan has a dark secret. What’s known is that this small town is the world’s leading supplier of dolphins to aquariums and theme parks. Large schools of them are herded into a small area just off the shore where dolphin trainers from all over the globe pick out the ones they want. Dolphins sell for up to $150,000 each. Another part of the process has been kept under wraps. The dolphins not lucky enough to be purchased are moved to a secluded area and blatantly slaughtered for their meat. That meat is then packaged, often purposely mislabeled and sold. The problem with selling it is that it is highly toxic and should not be consumed by humans. It is estimated that 23,000 dolphins lose their lives each year in “the cove”.

The man who has tasked himself with bringing these horrors to an end is Ric O’Barry. A lifetime ago, he actually helped capture and train the dolphins that performed on the TV series “Flipper”. The success of that show created an international market for dolphins. It’s a market he’s now dedicated his life to shutting down. He has enlisted the help of a team of like-minded, but younger activist to expose Tahji’s secret to the world.

Simply put, The Cove is one of the more powerful documentaries you’ll ever see. It does a magnificient job of transferring its own sense of responsibility onto the viewer. Therefore, even though it is one-sided, we applaud. That’s because the other side is an affront to our humanity and feels cruel merely for the sake of being cruel. It also injects some spy-movie goodness into the proceedings. These moments bring us to the edge of our seats the same way our favorite action flicks might. When the movie is over we feel both good and bad. We’ve found triumph in a tragedy, but also tragedy in a triumph.

MY SCORE: 10/10

[BrntO4Life]

The thing that really hits hard about Big Fish is the whole father-son relationship and the realization that, one day, I hope to have these sorts of moments with my father.

In my opinion, there are very few films that capture the father-son dynamic with as much honest emotion as Big Fish.

For those of us who grew up with a father, or at least me personally, I always viewed by dad through this heroic lens. He was everything I ever wanted to be: strong, committed and supportive. He could do anything. To have the opportunity to hear these kinds of stories, no matter how real they would be, is an incredible thing to me (if you remove all cynicism).

It isn't the exact same, but as I've aged, all I want to hear are stories from my grandparents from the mid-1900s. I want to be able to paint a vivid picture in my head of the kind of lives they lived long before me. And whether or not that portrayal is realistic isn't important, but the ability to use my imagination to create that beautiful world for myself.

I think it's why writing has become so important to me.

[dell71]

The Next Three Days
Directed by Paul Haggis.
2010. Rated PG-13, 122 minutes.
Cast:
Russell Crowe
Elizabeth Banks
Ty Simpkins
Jason Beghe
Aisha Hinds
Olivia Wilde
Michael Buie
Moran Atias
Liam Neeson

Life is good until your wife’s boss turns up dead in a parking lot. Life is especially bad when the cops think your wife is responsible. This is precisely what happens to John Brennan (Crowe). His wife Lara (Banks) is not only accused of murder, but convicted. Just like that, she’s snatched away from her husband and very young son. Like any reasonable adult with a small child to raise on his own he decides he’s going to break his wife out of prison. Hmm…okayyy. That’s not the decision I would’ve made, but I’m not in the movie. Just how does one goe about a prison break in the 21st century? This is the question John tries to answer over the course of The Next Three Days.

As you can imagine, the task at hand is not easy. Our hero has to make some serious plans and do all sorts of things to get prepared. This involves dealing with some shady people in shady places. John is not in his natural habitat. Meanwhile, he keeps visiting his wife. For a time, he tries getting her out the legal way. He reaches his decision to bust her out after this looks to be impossible.

Things move along at a nice pace as our hero plans his work and works his plan. This plus Russell Crowe’s sheer magnetism keeps us intrigued. It’s not one of his best performances, but this would’ve been a far lesser movie without him. Opposite him, Elizabeth Banks turns in some of her better work, albeit in a limited role. She proves she can be more than the good looking girl in a comedy.

The secondary stories serve the main plot well. The one involving Nicole (Wilde), a potential “other woman” could’ve been fleshed out a bit more. She could’ve added an interesting dynamic to our hero’s thought process. Clearly, the movie doesn’t want to go that route. It wants to stick to its guns and be a thriller focused on John’s attempt to get his wife out of jail. It is exactly this, and it is fascinating.

MY SCORE: 6.5/10

[Len B]

Good review of Big Fish, and Brnt is dead on.

I actually saw that movie for the first time with my father, who moved to another state when I was six, and saw him part time weekends for the next 12 years until I was 18. The movie got to me big time, and easily brought tears to my eye.