Movie Review: Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Quentin Tarantino movies are often an enigma, a collection of hyper-violent images and self-indulgent homages to movies that most of the viewing public have never even heard of, much less seen. They are also, in the opinion of this reviewer, some of the greatest movies of the past twenty years.

Inglourious Basterds is neither as good as Pulp Fiction nor as overbloated as the Kill Bill duology (which was still a damn good set of movies). The most surprising thing about it is, outside of three or four scenes, it is much less about gratuitous violence and more about how people act and feel, playing out more like a European art film than an American action movie.

The best performance of the movie is easily Christoph Waltz's, and without his tour de force, Inglourious Basterds would most likely be the weakest film in the Tarantino canon. Waltz moves easily among English, French, German, and even a little Italian, and does so in a way that it seems effortless (and indeed it may be), and he infuses all of his scenes with a sense of black humor that slides in easily with Tarantino's writing.

In fact, Waltz's performance is so nuanced and well done that it's difficult to judge the other acting performances, as they all pale in comparison. Melanie Laurent does a good job as Shosanna, and she shows why she's one of the up-and-comers in the French movie scene. Brad Pitt does a serviceable as Southern redneck Aldo Raine, but it's not going to win him any awards.

The main complaints that can be leveled against Inglourious Basterds is that it A) is a little too long, with some scenes dragging on for a good 15 or 20 minutes, making the total length of the movie stand at over two-and-a-half hours and B) has a very poor marketing scheme, with many of the trailers focusing on the Brad Pitt storyline, which is NOT the main story arc, and doesn't prepare viewers for the long periods of quiet talking and tension building that makes up the bulk of the movie's time on the screen. This doesn't really effect how good the movie is, but has probably led to some of the more negative reviews of the film, as most people were expecting Pulp Fiction in a War Zone, which this movie most definitely is not.

We haven't reached Oscar-bait season yet, but as it stands, Inglourious Basterds is the best movie of 2009 so far (narrowly edging out Up), and stands a good chance of being one of the ten best movies at year's end.

Rating: 9/10

Sorry for the delay

Well, it's been a while since I've submitted any new reviews, mainly due to personal laziness/not having the time after moving to Syracuse. I'm going to try and submit reviews of a few films I've seen recently in the next few days, with the new philosophy of just focusing on a movie's pros and cons, and not including any plot rehashing that most reviews have (and that I've tried to include sometimes), mainly because these details are readily available on a lot of websites/TV trailers, and thus you probably don't need my rendition (unless, of course, it's something I either like/dislike about said movie.

Again, sorry for the wait, hope you all enjoy the new reviews!

Movie Review: Two Lovers (2008)

Since being nominated for an Oscar for Walk the Line, Joaquin Phoenix has done a great job of baffling the public with increasingly odd behavior. His movie choices since his nomination have all been mediocre fare at best, and his attempt to become a bearded rapper have brought on speculation that he's gone certifiably insane. It's a shame that his (possibly) last movie role is Two Lovers, a bland indie drama that doesn't even come close to living up to the hype that it has garnered.

Phoenix plays Leonard Kraditor, a man who has just moved back in with his parents after becoming suicidal when his fiancee leaves him. He could be anywhere from his late twenties to his mid-thirties, but acts like he's fifteen. He's impulse, he mumbles almost all of his dialogue, and he has no real concern for the overarching effects of the decisions he makes.

Shortly after moving in, he meets both Sandra (Vanessa Shaw), the daughter of a family friend who likes Leonard from the first time she sees him, and Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), the new neighbor who's erratic behavior makes her character almost completely unlikeable...except, of course, to Leonard.

The story unfolds uncommonly slowly, and the characters are surprisingly one-dimensional for a drama of this magnitude. The characters' motivations are almost all completely selfish, and it's easy to wonder why Leonard continues to fall in love with Michelle when all she does is use him and play with his emotions. This is made even worse by almost insufferable performances from two of the leads (Phoenix and Paltrow).

Phoenix's performance is grating because of his constant mumbling. Every time he spoke, I wished there were subtitles on the screen to let me know what he said. Luckily, the dialogue is fairly sparse, and the long moments where very little happens allowed me to piece together what he said, and in the end I had a fairly good idea what was going on through most of the movie.

Paltrow's performance, however, was inexcusably bad. She seems bored, and her character comes off more annoying and manipulative than confused. Her voice rarely wavers from a dreary monotone, and she brings absolutely no life to the character. Leonard Kraditor might as well have fallen in love with a cardboard cutout. At least then it wouldn't have had any dialogue, and would've been just as believable as the situation we are actually presented with.

Two Lovers isn't all bad. Vanessa Shaw manages to deliver a good performance in her (very) limited screen time, and the story itself has some merits and good ideas, they're just drowned out by the utter stupidity of the two main characters, shattering the ability to actually connect with the characters directly, and unfortunately that is what lingers more than the few good moments that are found sprinkled throughout.

Rating: 5/10

Movie Review: Death Sentence (2007)

When a movie boasts Kevin Bacon in a leading role as a middle-aged office worker-turned-killer and John Goodman going off the rails in a supporting role as a psychotic gun dealer, there are two possible outcomes. The first is that it will be an off-the-wall, crazy adrenaline rush that surprises no-one by having plot roles but surprises everyone by actually holding the viewers' interest. The second outcome is that it will turn into a godawful mess that is barely watchable. Unfortunately, Death Sentence very firmly falls into the latter category.

The blame mainly falls in the lap of director James Wan (Saw), who muddles every action sequence by washing things in dull colors and poor lighting and using enough random cuts to almost rival music videos in their franticness. There was not one major action scene that did not at least once confuse the hell out of me, and thus the rest of the sequence was spent wondering who was where and trying to keep up with what the hell was actually going on.

This is made even more difficult by the utter stupidity of the plot. We're supposed to believe there are cartoonish street gangs who just go around and kill people for sport (and never with any real motivation). We're supposed to believe a somewhat wimpy office worker can not only be transformed by the brutal murder of his son, but actually be a very effective killer even though he looks like someone who has never even held a gun before in his life. We're supposed to believe that the police are so inept that this newly transformed killing machine can, without much effort, evade the police's grasp until his mission for revenge is complete.

Both Kevin Bacon, as the aforementioned office lackey-turned-Dirty Harry, and John Goodman, as a wildly eccentric gun runner who seems more likely to shoot someone rather than sell them guns, put more into their roles than was necessary. Both are, in the midst of continually building plot holes, somewhat believeable, which is a testament to the acting chops of both actors. The supporting cast, however, falls in line with the material, offering portrayals that are either excrutiatingly over the top or so bland that they might as well have not even been in the movie.

If you want an action movie with frantic editing and a disposable plot with John Goodman, Speed Racer was a hundred times more entertaining than Death Sentence. If you want a thriller with Kevin Bacon, he's done quite a few over the years, most of which are probably more thrilling and engaging than Death Sentence. If you want a creepy movie directed by James Wan (not exactly sure why you would), just check out Saw. Whatever you do, don't watch Death Sentence unless you're either a masochist or are easily entertained by horrible movies.

Rating: 2/10

Movie Review: The Lookout (2007)

Image via Wikipedia

Young TV actors have a tough time breaking out after their TV series ends. For every success story (Michael J. Fox, for example), there are countless others who toil in low-budget films or even ditch acting altogether (The entire cast of Saved by the Bell, for example). In the past few years, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is starting to show that he may be more Michael J. Fox than Saved By the Bell.

In The Lookout, Gordon-Levitt plays Chris Pratt, a once promising high school hockey player who now can only hold work as a janitor after a horrific car accident robs him of his ability to sequence events correctly and makes him blurt out inappropriate comments (such as telling someone he just met that he wants to see her naked). Pratt's inability to sequence events or remember the placement of objects is so bad that he can't even make his own dinner, and instead has to rely on his blind roommate, Lewis (Jeff Daniels).

Pratt's life is changed, however, when he meets Gary Spargo (Matthew Goode), who claims to have gone to the same high school as Pratt. Preying on Pratt's inability to perceive events correctly and his anger towards his father's view of Pratt as a lost cause, Spargo enlists Pratt as the lookout man for an upcoming bank robbery that he's planning.

The Lookout relies heavily on the performance of its actors, and in that aspect it does not disappoint. Gordon-Levitt plays Pratt well, generating genuine affection for the character and pulling off the consequences of his brain injury admirably. Daniels and Goode both play their characters to the best of their abilities, although the script doesn't allow for too many multi-dimensional characters besides Chris Pratt.

The story, however, is fairly straightforward and littered with obvious holes, something atypical of writer Scott Frank (Get Shorty, Out of Sight), who makes his directorial debut with The Lookout. Nothing comes as a surprise throughout the story's run, and the ending is disappointing at best. In addition, the female characters (including the main love interest, played by Isla Fisher) are almost completely inessential to the plot, and some characters seem to come and go without any real rhyme or reason. One character even disappears with about half an hour left in the movie and never returns. Their absence is not adequately explained, and constitutes possibly the largest plot gaff that I saw.

The Lookout performed somewhat poorly in the box office, which is a shame, for despite the plot holes it was a moderately engaging movie with a lot of promise. Perhaps it could have been marketed better (the bank robbery that is implied to be the film's catalyst doesn't happen until near the end of the movie), or perhaps just a little bit more needed to be added to the movie, a few extra minutes to tie some loose ends together. As it is, The Lookout is a very good movie that missed out on the potential to be great.

Rating: 7/10

Movie Review: Passengers (2008)

Although it is arguable what exactly is needed to have a successful thriller, there is one thing that seems pretty obvious: Thrills. A thriller can be a lot of things, but if the words "suspenseful" and "thrilling" are not used, chances are good the movie failed as a thriller. Passengers, starring Anne Hathaway and Patrick Wilson, falls into the trap of not living up to it's genre namesake. Passengers is contrived, easy to figure out, and worst of all, boring.

Claire Summers (Hathaway) is a counselor who has been in school her whole life, but has never had the chance to practice what she's been taught. After a horrific plane crash, however, Claire's boss (Andre Baugher) decides it's time that she get some real world experience and provide group counseling to the survivors of the crash.

Things get off to a rocky start almost immediately. Most of the survivors spend their time in therapy arguing about the events of the crash, while Eric (Wilson) refuses to go to group meetings and instead suggests that Claire make a "house call." It becomes apparent very quickly that Eric much more interest in Claire than he has in getting therapy.

Unfortunately, Passengers goes nowhere with the premise, and instead settles into contrived situations and fails to build any realistic tension. The characters are almost universally unbelievable (Claire will go along with anything as long as you ask twice) and the ending twists are pretty easy to see coming a mere 10 minutes into the movie.

I'm not completely sure the director knew what direction to go with the script. He implements false scare tactics (Hathaway had to do her best to appear scared as a newspaper blowing in the wind accidentally hits her) and an ending that feels like it's from a completely different movie. In fact, the last five minutes of the movie have more tension and emotion in them than the ninety minutes combined.

It's pretty easy to see why Passengers didn't generate much buzz in limited theater release. Of all the things it did wrong, the absolute worst was that it was flat-out boring. Thrillers can get by with a mediocre script and an implausible premise if it manages to keep the suspense level up. When they don't, however, they end up failing miserably.

Rating: 4/10

Movie Review: Charlie Bartlett (2008)

Image via Wikipedia

Cliche, stereotypical comedies come to major theaters around two dozen times a year, so what distinguishes Charlie Bartlett from the rest? Absolutely nothing.

Charlie Bartlett is a story about Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin), a prep-school rich kid who so desperately wants to be popular that he'll do anything, regardless of legality, to achieve this popularity. After getting kicked out of the last in a long string of private schools, Charlie's mother (Hope Davis) decides to try Charlie out in public school.

At this new school, Charlie goes through a series of misadventures involving the principal (Robert Downey, Jr.), the principal's daughter (Kat Dennings), and the resident bully (Tyler Hilton). Everything that happens in the movie is unsurprising and follows the most basic "teen comedy" template. The story is derivative, the dialogue is derivative, and Charlie Bartlett has more random, inessential montages this side of an 80's sport flick.

Now, I've seen some bad comedies in the past that've been redeemed by the charisma/acting ability of the principal cast. In Charlie Bartlett, the only one who even approaches believable/entertaining acting is Downey, and even he is not able to muster even half of what he is capable of. Yelchin and Dennings seem to be in a battle through most of the movie to see who can sound more out of place, and in the end I think Dennings wins slightly, but maybe that's because Yelchin is on screen so much that I just got used to his awkwardness and never got used to Dennings'.

However, none of this marks the worst aspect of Charlie Bartlett, which is the inexcusable cover of Cat Stevens' "If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out." First off, Charlie Bartlett is not even on the same planet as the terrific Harold and Maude. Secondly, Kat Dennings' voice is so ill-equipped for singing that she single-handedly turns a pleasant song into an excruciating three-minutes of warbling.

Although not the absolute worst comedy I have ever seen, Charlie Bartlett is nonetheless a film that leaves me grasping at straws to find positive things to say and is one of the worst comedies to come out in the past few years.

Rating: 2/10