Movie Review: Thank You For Smoking

I expected Thank You For Smoking to an anti-smoking comedy at the expense of the tobacco industry (which I would have been fine with, smoking being one of the few conflicts for which I am willing to resort to fascism).

Well, it certainly was at their expense (and that of Hollywood and politicians for good measure), but the movie was quite a bit deeper than "smoking is stupid". I suppose I shouldn't have expected less from a child of William F Buckley.

And very very funny! Worth the time just to see Nick Naylor convince a class of grade-schoolers that they should give smoking a chance.

Nick Naylor: My point is that you have to think for yourself. If your parents told you that chocolate was dangerous would you take their word for it?
[Children say no]
Nick Naylor: Exactly! So perhaps instead of acting like sheep when it comes to cigarettes you should find out for yourself.

Movie Review: Get Smart

I haven't seen even a single episode of the old TV series by the same name, but I still enjoyed Get Smart.

Steve Carell is joined by The Rock, Terence Stamp, and the guy who plays Hiro on Heroes for this silly movie, which is punctuated by moments of side-splitting brilliance. There is the occasional parallel to real-live current events, but not much beyond some good-natured mocking of President Bush.

I recommend it if you're looking for a chuckle.

Movie Review: Mr. Brooks

It's always fun to see a fairly wholesome actor do a dark and nasty role; Costner's performance in Mr. Brooks is no exception. It is a testament to the creators' talents that they managed to make such a sympathetic serial killer that I found myself rooting for him before too long.

William Hurt is genius as Mr. Brooks' alter ego (he's not necessarily more evil, just weird in a different way). Their offside conversations - blended nicely with the things other people present are saying - are very entertaining.

It all ends on a pretty bizarre note as well, which seemed fitting given the rest of the movie. Very satisfying.

American Gladiators, Season 2

I'm not as down on the re-make of American Gladiators as Sacha, but he is dead right on one point: The trash-talking and intros and backstories are worthless. The show would be completely unwatchable without the aid of a timeshifting device. But with one of those you can skip right past every stupid word that comes out of the Hulkster's mouth, and knock off an hour episode in about 20 minutes!

So what's new in season 2?

There are some new events, and many of the old ones have been revised to be a bit more balanced.

Some new Gladiators, including the winning contestants from last season. Seeing the old winners back is pretty interesting - both are way more muscular now. Not steroids big, but clearly they've been working out a lot in preparation. I thought that their relative smallness might be a hindrance, but both are doing fine. It's pretty funny watching Evan (aka Rocket) tear people off the wall - he was untouchable in the first season in that event, and now he's doing smartass things like climbing above the contestants and attacking them from above.

One oddity in the first episode was an amputee competitor - he had a couple different prosthetic legs he used for different events. I'm not saying I could have done better than him, but his treatment was pretty patronizing; everyone kept congratulating him on a good effort when he clearly wasn't keeping up, and by the end the Gladiators were going out of their way to give him a fighting chance. Not that it did him any good.

The Simpsons Movie

Finally, a comedy that didn't put all the funniest stuff in the trailer! The Simpsons Movie was pretty hilarious and actually felt like a movie (rather than a long episode).

Definitely shocking to see some of the crasser stuff, and somehow it felt like the already loose laws of Simpsons physics were broken at times...

I also couldn't understand why they had Schwarzenegger as President, but with the body and voice of Rainier Wolfcastle... why not stick with the guy they've been using for years? Everyone knows who he was modeled after.

"I was elected to lead, not to read!"

Movie Review: Juno

What are you doing here surfing the internet when you could be out watching Juno?!

Seriously. Awesome.

I don't know that I really buy the whole "interesting teenagers" concept that this movie and so many others are based on, but whatever. This is the closest I've come to tearing up at a movie since Man on Fire (OK, yes, I have some crossed wires).

See this movie.

Partial Book Review: Shut Up & Sing

It turns out that conservatives whining about liberals who whine about conservatives is just as tedious as original liberal whining about conservatives.

I assumed Laura Ingraham's book Shut Up & Sing would be mostly hilarious anecdotes about Hollywood types making asses of themselves (Sean Penn pretending to be a journalist in Iran, "rescuing" people in New Orleans with his leaky boat full of photographers, etc.). But no, it is actually an incredibly long diatribe on how liberals/lefties/Democrats are bad in every way, without supporting facts for any of the claims.

Now I happen to agree with many of Ingraham's premises; that a university education does not make you smarter or a better person, that "high" art forms are usually a combination of stupid and deadly booooring, etc. But I can't handle the self-pitying tone of her book, nor the fact that she seems to be trying to defend people who don't put any effort into learning things or improving their lot in life. This can't be the target audience of talk radio, can it?

Anyhow, this is a partial book review because after skimming the first 50 of 300+ pages I can't take any more. Blech.

Movie Review: I Am Legend

Nothing like a heart-warming post-apocalyptic story for Christmas!

Actually, that was the main problem with I Am Legend: the deviation from the book to make a somewhat happier ending was not a great choice. On the other hand, the changes made in order to keep things making sense given the new ending sound like they were improvements on the book (I haven't read it, but have talked to lots of people that have).

The movie is dark and manages to be creepy without going for cheap scares. I liked it overall.

Shrek Christmas Special

Shrek the Third was bad. So bad that I couldn't even bear to finish watching it.

So it was a pleasant surprise that the Shrek Christmas special was really funny.

If ABC re-airs it this year I highly recommend it. Watch for the dragon doing the Snoopy dance!

Movie Review: Pan's Labyrinth

Pan's Labyrinth is amazing. Kept me absolutely entranced till the end.

The Spanish Civil War portion of the story was a perfect way of grounding what would otherwise have felt like a dark, yet somewhat inconsistent and ultimately pointless fairy tale. It was slightly odd hearing the Communist rebels getting all excited about the Americans and Canadians coming, but probably only because my knowledge of history is so spotty.

Well worth a rental from the video store.

Movie Review: Stranger Than Fiction

Even though I'm not convinced it made any more sense than your average time travel movie, Stranger Than Fiction was extremely entertaining.

Rent it today.

Movie Review: Blood Diamond

Initially dismayed by Leonardo DiCaprio's ridiculous sounding accent, my resolve to not see Blood Diamond was only broken when a friend who hangs out with ex-Afrikaner mercenaries told me that a) the accent was dead on, and b) the portrayal of the Afrikaner soldiers in the film was dead on.

And I'm glad I changed my mind because it really is good, even if hard to stomach at some points. Jennifer Connelly plays a pretty one dimensional character and DiCaprio's character evolution is fairly predictable, but that didn't hurt the film too much.

It did an excellent job of associating gruesome murder and mutilation with the diamond trade; by the end of the movie my wife was twisting her engagement and wedding bands around pretty compulsively. I do however take issue with the whole "make sure your diamonds are conflict free" message that was heavily promoted. The idea that any end consumer could have any idea whether they are getting conflict diamonds or not is ridiculous. Most diamond retailers wouldn't even be able to say with confidence whether or not their diamonds come from war torn regions. Stupid polar bear engravings could be counterfeited just as easily as they are legitimately added.

And in the end, regardless of whether you buy blood diamonds or not, the global price increases with your purchase. This creates more incentive for bad bad people to get the things into the legitimate markets. Much like with oil, the only way to hurt a specific producer is to stop buying from all producers (and not buy any equivalent products either).

Movie Review: V for Vendetta

I had completely dismissed V after seeing trailers for it; stupid looking masks, and what I presumed would be moronic criticism of the Bushitler.

Turns out that the masks, while stupid looking, have their place and don't ruin anything. And there really isn't any effort made to draw parallels between the real world and the one the movie takes place in.

Instead you get a tight story that takes place in a "what if" universe, specifically, what if the UK became a fascist state that mirrored the communist nations that were still prevalent during the '80s. Luckily for these Brits, they have a super-human crazy guy to fight the good fight, and fight he does.

Perhaps the Wachowski brothers aren't the no-talent hacks that I have always assumed...

Movie Review: The Fountain

Contrary to what you might have expected based on the trailer, The Fountain is not about a dude who drinks from the tree of life/fountain of youth and lives for hundreds of years (which would have been cool). It is about a chick writing a bad and boring story.

If I had known that it was by the guy who created Requiem For A Dream, I might have passed on this one. If you have to see it, at least get really high first.

Transformers: Robots In Disguise (As Stupid Crap)

I only get to see about one movie in a theater every 6 months, and I'm pretty bitter that I wasted my big chance on this one. Spoilers follow, but that shouldn't matter since you won't see this movie if you have any sense at all.

The only good thing about Transformers is the lead actor; he is pretty funny up until things get "serious". Unfortunately his love interest is a total ho - she dresses like a tramp, hangs out with the biggest dicks at school, and she looks like she's all oily from being groped by every dude with a nice car that drives by (who all have greasy hands for some reason... this made more sense in my head). But somehow it's her criminal record for stealing cars that almost ruins their perfect love.

Many classic Transformer names were awkwardly inserted into the dialog, only to have that robot never seen in the foreground again. Half the time you couldn't tell what was going on, who was fighting who, and certainly not why the robots (who's guns were completely incapable of destroying one another) were always doing somersaults between shots. Many of the scenes felt like there had been no plan for what the robots were going to be doing, and they were just added in as an afterthought. This was in stark contrast to the human military scenes which looked really good.

So the world is about to end, like, right now. And yet the Autobots act like children, screwing around, and basically saying things for no reason other than cheap laughs (and no, no one in the theater was laughing). And the lead character demands that his sleazy girlfriend's record be erased before he considers helping out with stopping all humans from being destroyed. And the military units don't bother to actually do their job - they just do whatever they want and assume that someone else will accomplish the only task that could save the planet. Go team!

It's pretty sad when giant transforming talking robots aren't the least realistic part of a movie.

Movie Review: Apocalypto

I'm glad that Mel Gibson managed to hold off his descent into full-fledged insanity until after finishing Apocalypto.

The setting of the movie was almost irrelevant; the same story could have easily been told as a Western or in the here-and-now. The exposure to Mayan culture is interesting though. Not that I have any knowledge of the Mayans, but it felt like Gibson portrayed them in a pretty balanced manner. There were good Mayans and bad Mayans, and the opening scenes that demonstrated "hey, they're just like us" actually dragged on a little too long. I suspect viewers will have little trouble identifying with the protaganists' struggles.

It was super-gory, however, and needlessly so. Not enough to phase a Gen-X-er like myself, but even I found it distracting. And it looked like it was filmed with a handy-cam! What's up with that, Mel? All the running through the jungle scenes have a very odd looking motion blur thing happening, and the fantastic settings simply aren't shot in a way that makes them look very impressive.

Awesome for all of its shortcomings though.

Movie Review: The Last King of Scotland

Forest Whitaker deserved that Oscar. His portrayal of Idi Amin jumping back and forth between charming and paranoid lunacy was fantastic.

The Last Kind of Scotland chronicles the (unpleasant) adventures of a young doctor who gets caught up in the chaotic life of the Ugandan dictator. Excellent performances all around, and it's an interesting period of time, even fictionalized.

And Gillian Anderson is in it! Haven't seen her in a long time.

Book Review: Einstein In Berlin

I just finished reading Einstein In Berlin by Thomas Levenson. Kind of dry, but interesting enough to finish.

I expected the book to be more focused on Einstein - as it turns out, Einstein's place of residence was a good enough excuse to fill many pages with descriptions of Berlin in the early 20th century. These descriptions, along with details on the progression of the first World War and the build-up to the second (including Hitler's rise) were what really caught my attention. Reading about the populist appeal that those suicidal war efforts had gave me a much better understanding of why some people are so worried about Nationalism. I also had no idea how instrumental Germany was in the rise of the Soviet empire.

While some nice descriptions of his work are present, Einstein himself is only really interesting in how flawed he was. Constantly womanizing, socially inept, irrational in his inability to come to terms with quantum mechanics (trying to disprove his own work in the field!)... these are the details that make him approachable.

Although a lifelong pacifist, the looming threat of Hitler eventually caused him to urge the United States to build an atomic bomb. Definitely not very Gandhi-like in that regard! He did regret that atomic bombs were dropped on Japan though.

I'm coming to realize that I have a bit of a fascination with "flawed heroes" - might have to expand on that a bit later.

Movie Review: Casino Royale

I was led to believe that this was a different kind of Bond movie, the best Bond movie ever made even.

LIES!

In exchange for less irritating suaveness and general stupidity, we get booooooooooring.

While we're talking about general stupidity, do they really use floats to prop up buildings in Venice? And even if that is the case, surely the canals aren't deep enough to swallow one of these floating buildings...

Movie Review: 300

If 300 doesn't win Oscars, there is no justice in the world.

Minor spoiler ahead...

First off, it is absolutely amazing looking. While the entire thing is extremely stylistic, it is still hard to believe that pretty well every background is computer generated. The fighting choreography is brilliant as well, with details that make it very easy to imagine that all of the Spartans received the same extremely effective training.

The mythology of both the Spartans and Persians is taken at face value in the movie. The result is fearless, nearly indestructible Spartan soldiers facing off against the monsters under the command of the 10 foot tall god-king Xerxes.

There are no great moral questions raised - this is simple tale of destiny, duty, and betrayal. It was very refreshing to not have even a single character agonizing over past decisions. The only remotely subtle moment comes near the end, when King Leonidas tells the hunchback "may you live forever". The look of crushing defeat on the hunchback's face is perfect, but I am guessing that many movie-goers will not understand why he reacts in this way.

300 has been banned in Iran, which is a good sign, I think. Kind of bizarre that the mullahs would be worried about the slandering of a pre-Islam religious figure though.

My only regret is that I saw the trailers before the film. In a number of places I found myself impatiently awaiting the next big line from the trailer.

This is Sparta!