Dell's Good, Bad & Ugly Movie Reviews

[dell71]

Tower Heist
Directed by Brett Ratner.
2011. Rated PG-13, 105 minutes.
Cast:
Ben Stiller
Eddie Murphy
Alan Alda
Tea Leoni
Matthew Broderick
Casey Affleck
Michael Pena
Gabourey Sidibe
Judd Hirsch
Stephen Henderson

Every once in a while a movie does the impossible. Somehow, it simultaneously surpasses and fails to meet expectations. Such is the case with Tower Heist. It stars Ben Stiller as Ben Stiller. Well, not really, but you know his schtick. His character’s actual name is Josh Kovacs. He’s the building manager in swanky New York high-rise. It’s the type of place where people buy apartments for millions of dollars. TH also stars Eddie Murphy as his own real-life brother Charlie Murphy. Okay, not quite, but you get the idea. His character is name Slide. As the only criminal Josh knows, Slide gets recruited to help him rob one of the building’s tenants. Why? Arthur Shaw (Alda), one of the tower’s most prominent residents has been busted for running a Ponzi scheme. Wouldn’t ya know it? Josh trusted Mr. Shaw enough to have him invest all of his staff’s pensions with the promise of tripling their portfolios. With all that money down the drain, Josh is desperate to get it back. Why not organize a robbery of Shaw’s penthouse? Where else could the guy be hiding his stash? Of course, Josh and Slide can’t pull this off by themselves. This job requires a cast of zany accomplices. Broderick, Affleck, Pena and Sidibe fit the bill.

TH fails to meet our expectations mostly because of poor marketing. From the movie’s trailers, we’re to believe this to be a non-stop madcap comedy. Sure, there’s humor, but this isn’t saturated with jokes. Many of the jokes that are present are in those trailers. There are stretches where it’s downright serious. Financial problems are brought up and attacked, never made light of. In fact, on several occasions they drag the mood down. There’s just nothing funny about some poor sap deciding to end it all. Not only does TH not give us wall-to-wall laughter, it doesn’t even try.

Expectations are exceeded because it handles enough of the stuff besides the jokes fairly well. We begin to feel for these people and their quest. We hope they pull it off. Doing so becomes even more of an adventure than they bargained for. More importantly, we really hope someone gets to punch Alan Alda in the face. Due to all of this, our own feelings about crime are pushed aside. We’re squarely on the side of our rag-tag bunch of burglars. The ends justifies the means.

There are some issues with TH. Parts of it fel incredibly rushed. At various times we find ourselves wondering how someone knew, or did something or when a certain person started helping out. Making sense of these things may have required only a few more minutes of runtime. True, everything need not be spelled out for an audience, but things coming in from deep left field warrant explanation. There’s also a couple of blatant missed opportunities. Josh’s sister is married to one of the gang and nearing the end of a complicated pregnancy yet, we only meet for about ten seconds. In the movie’s first few minutes Odessa (Sidibe), a Jamaican immigrant with a soon expiring Visa, brings up her need for a man to marry so she can stay in the country. Nothing more of it is ever mentioned, even as the possibility of romance between she and Slide is dangled before us. Other plotholes abound.

Despite its shortcomings, the things TH does well, it well does really well. They keep us engaged. The crew and their plight gives us a vested interest. Stiller and Murphy are fine, but we’re more entertained by the supporting cast. Each has their time to shine and they take advantage. It’s a decent heist flick that gets some things right, some wrong and is miraculously both better and worse than we imagine.

MY SCORE: 6/10

[Buzzman]

Michael Pena is one of the better unappreciated supporting actors.

[dell71]

Michael Pena is one of the better unappreciated supporting actors.

True. He's been pretty good in a couple things I've seen him in.

[dell71]

Strike of the Tortured Angels
Directed by Roy Rosenburg.
1982. Not Rated, 80 minutes.
Cast:
Susan Lee
Stella Jone
Laura Sode-Matteson
George Bill
Larry Moore
Jim Man

From time to time I go trolling for movies that I think might be so bad, they’re awesome. As you might imagine, I’m also up late a couple times a week watching movies. Sometimes this leads me to scour my own DVD collection for titles that I either haven’t seen in a long time, or never at all and looking for the shortest runtime. These are the reasons I found myself on the couch watching Strike of the Tortured Angels. I happened to pick up one of those DVD sets of grindhouse type movies (20 of them!) and there it was, listed at 80 minutes. With no idea what I was getting into I popped it in and pressed play. Oops.

Of course, it’s true I could’ve turned it off and went to bed at any time. However, once I’ve decided on a movie I’m watching it all the way through. Occasionally, this means I’ll discover that I really like a movie that didn’t start so hot. Often enough, I’ll find it to be at least a decent watch. Every now and again, this will happen.

Things start off promisingly enough. By promising, I mean SotTA seems well on its way to so bad its awesome status. Everything about the first five minutes screams unintentional humor. We open with a bunch of girls on a prison bus. Yes! We’re going to a get a Women in Prison (WIP) flick! In the world of god-awful films that people love, these are a gold mine. The next sign this should be wonderfully terrible is we’re hearing English despite the fact we’re seeing a scene obviously not in America and featuring only Asians. I know that’s not impossible but definitely unexpected. Sure enough, the movements of their mouths don’t quite match the words I hear. And sure enough, this was made in Hong Kong. The most surreal part of this whole experience is that the whole time there are Swedish, or perhaps German, subtitles going that you can’t turn off. The fun here is seeing how close some of the words are to English.

Let’s get back to the prison bus. Susan (Lee, I think – credits don’t tell who is who), one of our soon-to-be heroines tries a daring escape while the guards are tending to a flat tire. Cutting to the chase, her and one of the guards wind up wrestling in the mud lake right off to the side of the road. They actually do more sloshing around than wrestling. Hey, I told you we get off to a good start.

Things get even better when the absolute bizarre is thrown into the mix. It turns out our other heroine, Julie, is black. What’s so strange about that, you ask? I’ll tell you. Our black heroine is played by an Asian woman in blackface and wearing a nappy Afro wig. OMG, as my kids would say. Yes, I literally said this as soon as I saw her. Who thought this was a good idea? Is there any reason we have to have a black character in movie set on the outskirts of Hong Kong? Why of course, there is. A few minutes after the girls arrive at the prison, actually a reform school we find out, she gets into it with one of the veteran inmates that picks a fight with her. After beating the girl senseless, she spouts off this little gem: “My skin may be black, but I’m a human being!” Who says China has human rights issues? By the way, it should be noted that we soon discover she’s dying of tuberculosis and has special “medicine” for it. Okay, whatever.

Despite such an auspicious start, things fall apart quickly. The first sign we’re circling the drain comes right after the ladies get to prison. At this point in most WIP flicks we the the gratuitous mass disrobing and/or showering scene as the inmates are introduced into the prison population. That happens here, as well. The major difference between this and most others of its ilk is in SotTA we only get a succession of bare shoulders or naked calves. See, there was a reason I chose that pic at the top. Before you blast me for lamenting the lack of nudity, hear me out. WIP flicks in general are lazily written b-moves about rebellion and/or revenge. By the way, this chooses the latter. Let me pause here, for a sec to give you a little more plot info. Susan vows revenge on the doctor responsible for her sister’s suicide after getting the girl pregnant and telling her to have an abortion. Now, he’s banging her mom because she’s one of the head honchos at the hospital where he works and can help him get ahead. What guy! Oh, wait…what a mom!

Anyhoo, WIP flicks aren’t going to be big special fx extravaganzas to draw in big crowds, either. Their only value is in the entertainment they provide for their target audience by being exploitive and tasteless. The botched shower scene lets me know this will offer up very tame versions of both, not nearly enough of either to justify the fifty bucks or so it probably cost to make. Indeed, nearly everything that follows is a meeker version of other WIP movies. There are a few unintentional laughs to be had, but it’s mostly a dull 80 minutes.

MY SCORE: 2/10

[Houston]

The Killing
Directed by Stanley Kubrick.
1956. Not Rated, 89 minutes.
Cast:
Sterling Hayden
Elisha Cook Jr.
Marie Windsor
Vince Edwards
Ted de Corsia
Jay C. Flippen
Joe Sawyer
Colleen Gray

Its flaws are the reason this is a movie I could actually like to see remade. The story is already excellent, yet there is much room for growth. The characters could be given more room to flourish and/or fail. As it is, it works fine. It’s even better than fine and hailed by some as a classic. I’m greedy. I want more.

MY SCORE: 7.5/10

I always thought of Reservoir Dogs as basically being a remake of this. Ok, that's a stretch....but heavily influenced by it no doubt. I didn't enjoy The Killing too much, but it was very easy to watch.

[dell71]

Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Directed by Mark Waters.
2011. Rated PG, 94 minutes.
Cast:
Jim Carrey
Carla Gugino
Angela Lansbury
Clark Gregg
Ophelia Lovibond
Madeline Carroll
Maxwell Perry Cotton
Jeffrey Tambor
David Krumholtz
Philip Baker Hall
William Charles Mitchell
Dominic Chianese

Mr. Popper (Carrey) grew up mostly without his father. His dad was a globetrotting scientist who spent far more time abroad than with his little boy. Unsurprisingly, Popper isn’t too broken up when he learns his old man has died while off in Antarctica. However, Poppa Popper did leave his son something: a pack of penguins. There are six of them, to be exact. Junior fitting them into his life is a bit tricky. He has an ex-wife (Gugino) he still has a thing for, and two kids he gets every other weekend. He is also a high-octane, very successful real estate buyer. It’s a job that demands lots of time. So do the penguins. Popper trying to juggle the birds, his job, and his family ensues. Oh, he also tries to win back his ex and buy legendary restaurant Tavern on the Green from Ms. Van Gundy (Lansbury), its very grumpy owner.

If you guessed this is all pretty innocuous stuff, you guessed right. The nearly endless stream of poop jokes is as risqué as it gets. Other than that, we get the normal stuff about a dad not quite understanding his kids and Popper bonding with both, the children and the penguins. Yes, there are lessons to be learned. In addition, Carrey gives us a bit of the physical humor he’s known for. Splice in some cgi of the penguins performing some amazing feats and we get one big ball of cuteness.

Of course, there has to be a villain. In this case, one is manufactured out of the guy who wants to take the penguins to the zoo (Gregg). The three old guys Popper works for aren’t quite evil, but are certainly on the negative side of the ledger. In none of their cases do we really hate them, therefore the movie doesn’t generate sufficient tension. It moseys along sweetly, but doesn’t thrill us no matter what stunts the birds pull off. Cruella De Ville would’ve been a welcome addition to the cast of characters, a marked improvement over the ultra-bland zoo guy.

As family friendly time passers go, you could do worse than Mr. Popper’s Penguins. It gives us enough laughs not to be a drag. It also moves quickly enough, careful not to overstay its welcome. It clocks in a little over 90 minutes. On the other hand, it doesn’t do anything unexpected. MPP is content to fit snugly within the mold of the many kiddie comedies we’ve seen before. It gives us no more or less than we expect.

MY SCORE: 5/10

[dell71]

I always thought of Reservoir Dogs as basically being a remake of this. Ok, that's a stretch....but heavily influenced by it no doubt. I didn't enjoy The Killing too much, but it was very easy to watch.

Interesting thought. Though it's not officially a remake of anything, a lot of the movie is closely modeled on the very good "City on Fire" starring Chow Yun Fat. I did a review of it on MM, I'll see if I can dig it up.

Other parts were stolen...borrowed from other movies, such as the gang using colors for codenames comes from the original "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three".

[Houston]

Interesting thought. Though it's not officially a remake of anything, a lot of the movie is closely modeled on the very good "City on Fire" starring Chow Yun Fat. I did a review of it on MM, I'll see if I can dig it up.

Other parts were stolen...borrowed from other movies, such as the gang using colors for codenames comes from the original "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three".

The main elements from The Killing was that it was a heist movie that really took the time to show the point of view from all characters. Characters who of course start to die off after the event. Also another Kubrick film(A Clockwork Orange) is why he used Stuck in the Middle with You for the "cop in a chair torture" scene that came from yet another movie.

Never even heard of City of Fire until now, thanks. With that and the color codenames added, my Reservoir Dogs influence puzzle may be complete

[dell71]

The main elements from The Killing was that it was a heist movie that really took the time to show the point of view from all characters. Characters who of course start to die off after the event. Also another Kubrick film(A Clockwork Orange) is why he used Stuck in the Middle with You for the "cop in a chair torture" scene that came from yet another movie.

Never even heard of City of Fire until now, thanks. With that and the color codenames added, my Reservoir Dogs influence puzzle may be complete

Cool. City on Fire is one of John Woo's earlier flicks before he started making American movies.

[dell71]

Horrible Bosses
Directed by Seth Gordon.
2011. Rated R, 98 minutes.
Cast:
Jason Bateman
Jason Sudeikis
Charlie Day
Kevin Spacey
Jennifer Aniston
Colin Farrell
Jamie Foxx
P. J. Byrne
Donald Sutherland

Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Sudeikis), and Dale (Day) are three working stiffs and bestest buddies. Even though they work three separate jobs, each of them hates their boss. After a drunken night of hypotheticals they hatch the idea to kill their overbearing employers. They decide against it when sobriety kicks in. Of course, each then has the one experience that pushes them over the edge. Understandably, the plan is on. Now they just have to figure out how to pull off three murders without getting caught.

Our would-be killers are all solid characters. They take turns bringing the funny. Kurt is the most consistent of the three. He strikes a nice balance between the hyperactive Dale and the somewhat bland Nick. Each actor performs solidly in their roles. Because of them, we like these guys despite watching them in the midst of plotting some heinous acts. It helps that they’re not so savvy criminals. We know when they’re getting scammed. We see them make dumb mistakes.

However, the real strength of this film is in the casting of the bosses. Colin Farrell’s sweaty, balding, kung fu obsessed cokehead is priceless. Kevin Spacey gives us a smug, arrogant jerk like only he can. Yes, they’re both over the top but that’s what is needed to ensure our hatred of them. It also makes us laugh at them. They represent a case of the ridiculous actually working.

As good as Farrell and Spacey are, neither holds a candle to the Hitchcock inspired choice for the movie’s lone female boss. Let me explain. For most of Jimmy Stewart’s career he was as clean cut and wholesome as they come. His everyman looks and “gee willikers” demeanor made him feel like a slice of apple pie brought to life. He was the walking embodiment of Americana. Then came Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Vertigo. Stewart is decidedly against type in both, a sexual deviant. Essentially, he’s a peeping tom in the former and a stalker in the latter. In HB, the corrupted All-American is Jennifer Aniston, the ultimate girl next door. Although she’s been oft criticized for being vanilla, there have been scenes in other movie’s where she’s acted provocatively. Here, that’s her entire role. More than provocative, she’s downright trashy. She says lots of things you might only hear in videos on those websites you’re not supposed to visit at work. She nails every nasty line. For my money, it’s 2011’s best female comedic performance (yes, I saw Bridesmaids). The legion of men who already drool over her will either be thrown into overdrive or completely turned off by her walk on the dark side.

Aniston’s new-found sluttiness aside, the movie sinks or swims with its premise. It’s a solid one. The plot surrounding it unfolds well enough with a nice twist, here and there. When the bosses aren’t on the screen, the jokes are hit-and-miss, so it’s not a comic masterpiece. It is fun, has some real laugh-out-loud moments and some terrific work by its cast.

MY SCORE: 7/10

[dell71]

I had the director wrong - not John Woo, lol...

City on Fire
Directed by Ringo Lam.
1987. Rated R, 101 minutes.
Cast:
Chow Yun Fat
Danny Lee
Yueh Sun
Jessica Chau

After an undercover officer is killed, Ko Chow (Yun Fat) reluctantly goes back undercover at the encouraging of his uncle/superior officer Lau (Sun) & infiltrates a gang of jewel thieves. Yun Fat gives the loosest performance that I’ve seen of his. Admittedly, I’’ve only seen most of his stuff since The Replacement Killers (much of it American made) & he always plays nearly emotionless characters. Here, he was having lots of fun with the role.

Mostly realistic action scenes highlight an intriguing story. It's lots of fun. This is the movie that inspired Quentin Tarantino to create Reservoir Dogs. Watching this what you find is that QT took the last third of this movie expanded it into a full-length feature & changed the focus from good guys to the bad guys (well, at least till we find out who the good guy is in …Dogs). I still think Tarantino’s movie is the better of the two but I highly suggest watching this to see where he got the idea.

MY SCORE: 8/10

[dell71]

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Directed by Eric Radomski and Bruce W. Timm.
1993. Rated PG, 76 minutes.
Cast:
Kevin Conroy
Dana Delaney
Mark Hamill
Efram Zimbalist Jr.
Abe Vigoda
Stacy Keach
Bob Hastings
Dick Miller
Hart Bochner
Robert Costanzo

By now, anyone at all familiar with Batman (Conroy) knows that Bruce Wayne is a troubled billionaire loner who’s parents were shot and killed right in front of him during a robbery attempt when he was very young boy. As the legend goes, he would eventually start dressing up like a bat and take to the streets at night, fighting crime throughout Gotham City. Mask of the Phantasm finds our hero reminiscing about those early days of vigilantism now that his old flame Andrea Beaumont (Delaney) is back in town. Of course, that’s not the only thing on the Caped Crusader’s plate. Another shadowy figure has been murdering Gotham’s mobsters and everyone except Commissioner Gordon (Hastings) and Bruce’s trusty butler Alfred (Zimbalist) seems to think the Dark Knight is responsible. Despite the commish’s objections, the police go on a manhunt for Batman. Not content to let the law handle things, the gangsters hire none other than the Joker to kill his arch nemesis.

As is often the case, Bruce’s love life is the topic of the day. This time around, he pines for the one that got away and what might’ve been. He and Andrea are kindred spirits, of sorts. They both spend an inordinate amount of time at the local cemetery. At least she’s cheery about it, carrying on gleeful conversations with her deceased mother. Bruce, of course, generally carries on as if suicide is his next move. Believe it, or not, of all of his whirlwind romances this might be the most fully realized entry into the canon, live-action movies included. Though it eventually follows a familiar path, it holds up pretty well.

Yes, there is plenty of crime fighting. Batman has a few near misses with Gotham’s mysterious new player and, as mentioned, he himself comes under suspicion. A number of Batfans consider this the finest movie in the franchise. After all, it does pack a lot into barely more than an hour. I won’t go that far, but I’ll certainly put it in the upper echelon.

MY SCORE: 8/10

[Buzzman]

Thats my favorite animated Batman flick.

[dell71]

War Goddess
Directed by Terence Young.
1973. Rated R, 105 minutes.
Cast:
Alena Johnston
Sabine Sun
Angelo Infante
Rosanna Yanni
Fausto Tozzi
Ángel del Pozo
Lucianna Paluzzi
Rebecca Potok

Every now and then, the search for the terrifically terrible bears fruit. Mind you, it’s rotten fruit but that’s the point. Terence Young’s War Goddess is one such piece of deliciously digusting cinema. Who the hell is Terence Young? I dunno, but he directed and splattered his name across the title. Okay, any of you geniuses that actually know who he is, just play along. Anyhoo, War Goddess is a sword and sandal less-than-epic of the female persuasion. It is about the mythical Amazons, a race of almost entirely self-sufficient warrior women. The way the story shapes up, they’re barely more than a stone’s throw from Ancient Greece. During battle, they dress up like Romans, for some odd reason, and kill a lot of men. In fact, we open on one such battle.

First we see some not-so-gritty battle featuring the ladies slaying random enemy dudes. This culminates in Antiope (Johnston) killing some poor schlub with a sword through the gut. Not content with merely ending the man’s life, she then beheads him. By the way, this is not 300 styled one swipe decapitation. She must hack at this guy’s throat a couple dozen times while conversating with a fellow Amazon. Nice.

Next, we’re treated to a lengthy athletic competition the warrior babes are holding. There’s a little archery, some obstacle course and soon we realize that the winner of this whole thing will get to be queen for the next four years. After eliminating competitors all along the way, the final and deciding event is held. What is it? Wrestling, of course. Our final two ladies, Antiope and her arch-rival Oreitheia (Sun), strip down to just their shoddily made bikini bottoms, oil themselves up and get to grappling. I’m not making this up. Anyhoo, Antiope wins, gets the crown from her predecessor like she just won the Miss America pageant and immediately starts changing rules. She wants to go back to the days of strict discipline and conditioning. She says they’ve gotten soft and fat. Soft? Doesn’t look that way, but okay. Fat? Definitely not. Every one of them that I could see probably went back to their modeling careers after shooting this movie. Just saying.

Earlier, I stated the Amazons are “almost” entirely self-sufficient. Turns out they do need men for one reason, and one reason only: procreation. To that end, they pay the Greek army to come over for a few nights of baby-making. Any male infants are immediately discarded into the wild. Lovely. As part of the new Queen’s strict anti-male policy, the girls recite a chant about how disgusting men are while performing the act. Lo and behold, Queen Antiope goes against her own rules and falls in love with her sperm donor, Theseus (Infante). He’s being all incognito, posing as a captain in the army but he’s really the King of Greece. He wants to integrate men into their society and also falls for her in the process. Almost forgot: he’s married, but his wife is oddly cool with the idea of her hubby going off to use his sword on the Amazons.

Naturally, there’s some betrayal, war games between the Amazons and Greeks and some actual war, too. And just in case the semi-nude wrestling scene at the beginning wasn’t enough, we get a fully buck-nekkid wrasslin’ scene near the end between the same two women. Even better, or worse, depending on your point of view, this fight ends as one has the other pinned and they stare into each other’s eyes, then…BAM, we cut to a scene of the higher up ‘Zons holding a meeting. Our two combatants are holding each other and acting like they’re a little more than friendly all of a sudden. Hmm, something tells me we’re missing some footage here. That’s entirely possible. I neglected to mention that before the movie even starts, an apology flashes across the screen for the poor quality of the print because it was cobbled together from several sources.

If you can’t already tell, WG is bonkers from start to finish. Made during the grindhouse glory days of the 1970s, it has all the tenets of the exploitation genre: unintentional humor, bad dialogue, worse acting, laughable action and never more than a few minutes pass without the appearance of a naked body. Oh, it also has a decidedly anti-feminist ending which is actually a direct contrast with many of the most popular explotation flicks. I don’t know who this Terence Young guy is, but he’s served up a doozy with this one. The name sounds familiar, though. Let’s see what the trusty imdb.com has to say about him. The first thing I notice is that our flick actually has an Italian name: Le guerriere dal seno nudo which literally translates to “The Bare Breasted Warriors”. Makes sense. Woah, woah, woah! Really? In the decade or so prior to this movie, our boy Terence directed three of the most beloved Bond flicks of all time: Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965). Wha-wha-what happened? How did he end up doing this schlock? Wow, that’s just icing on a cake that’s so bad it’s awesome!

MY SCORE: -10/10

[Blade]

Got Bridesmaids from Redbox last night, at the end of that I was like "Shoulda read Dell's movie review, this movie was a waste of my time" And pretty much your review was right on the money as my thoughts on the movie.

#LessonLearned.