I’ve never had the pleasure of describing a film as “delightful” and yet that is the only word I can think of to describe The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  The film has charmed me in a way that I didn’t expect from a film whose trailer boasts a cast of famous actors and a seemingly Dreamworks shallow storyline.  I’m happy to report that this film is instead genuinely funny and charming with a cast of memorable characters who are all surprisingly well balanced in a film that would surely make Dahl proud.  The pacing in this film is also snappy and fast paced, but in a good way.  It takes some adaptation on the viewer’s part to keep up with the pace of the humour, but this is all seemingly done to keep up with the fast paced wittiness expected of a Fantastic Fox, in addition to being able to do everything possible with the source material, leaving nothing more to be desired at the end of this very complete film.

In summary, the film is about a Fox with both an addiction problem to his nature in addition to a giant ego.  The addiction?  GTP: Grand Theft Produce.  Stealing everything from chickens to cider, Mr. Fox can’t seem to shake the rush that he feels when in the heat of a chicken hunt. Nobody in the audience can really blame him though, it’s what foxes do.  However, when Mr. Fox finds out that a cub is on the way, he makes a shortly kept promise to his wife that his thieving days are over.  Well, flash forward to the cub’s maturity and it’s time for plot to arrive.  Yes, Mr. Fox goes through a mid life crisis when he decides that he simply must rob from the top three richest and meanest farmers in the land.  At first he gets away with it, but then the Farmers decide to do what farmers do best.  No, no…not farming.  Shooting stuff. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a new name for this movie: The Bland Side.  It always amazes me how painstakingly boring Hollywood can make reality and diminish it to a sugar-coated story about how fantastic white people are.  This film is so incredibly boring with such cardboard cutout characters it’s like watching the worst possible episode of Full House with what little personality remains in the characters ripped out with a pair of rusty scissors.  In short: it’s seriously more fun to watch paint dry than see this movie.  Take it from me, I’ve done both.

The Story: Poor and undereducated black man [Michael Oher/Big Mike] gets adopted by rich white family.  Rich white family looks after poor and undereducated black man.  Undereducated black man finds out he’s good at football, goes on to be a professional football player.  Awwwww.  Aren’t rich white families nice?  Did I mention they go to church every day? Awww.  Did I mention they have 2.5 kids (the .5 being Big Mike)?  Awwww. Did I mention that they’re republican?  Oh yeah, did I also mention this movie goes on for over two hours of this sappy and preachy tripe?

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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans is a smart and witty  drug-filled romp through an apocalyptic reflection of a post-Katrina New Orleans.  With the omnipotent guidance of master Werner Herzog driving powerful acting of Nicholas Cage, this film is sure to rock you.  What this film has that gives it that extra edge in direction that only Herzog can provide in a genre which has basically run its course, is something called momentum.  The film starts off almost painfully slow but the setting that Herzog paints initially is what keeps you interested, not so much Cage himself. Slowly but surely, the events of the film pile themselves on top of each other one at a time, until it snowballs into a properly woven tale of a modern day man’s decent from good to bad.

Post-Katrina New Orleans has been shown in the news a lot, usually in helicopter shots or in the background of a report, but never as a landscape.  The way Herzog paints Katrina makes the setting seem like the state didn’t just get hit by a hurricane, but by a nuclear bomb and is recovering from the fallout…so it’s understandable that the crime rate is up in this new fringe territory.  The character of Terence McDonagh is quite a stand-up cop and a pretty decent guy. Not the sort of guy that one would expect to become easily corrupt and by no means a Bad Lieutenant. That is until he gets hooked on this millennium’s addictive drug de jour: Vicodin!  Yes the plot-filled drug brought to you by House M.D returns to plunge yet another actor into a long stretch of both genius and decline as we see Terence’s addiction slowly grow stronger and stronger for more complicated drugs until he goes out of control using both law and chaos to get what he wants.

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Dirty.  Raunchy.  Sleazy.  Filthy.  Vulgar.  Immoral.  Indecent. Vile.  Lewd.  Obscene.  Nasty.  These are some of the words to describe I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.  The movie reaches a new low in humor, completely derived from the offensive, sexist and down-right despicable behavior of the three lead characters trying to have a bachelor party before one of them is married.

Somewhere, deep down, there is a good movie, maybe like another version of The Hangover, maybe different, but a good movie nonetheless.  That good movie, however, gets thrown out of the window with the character Tucker Max (Matt Czuchry), based on the writer Tucker Max, who used his real life experience to create a book which was then turned into this movie.  The character is fully depraved of any integrity and dignity that he treats women as novelty items, going to great lengths to sleep with them so he can say “I did that.” This, indeed, is the basis of the movie.  Why anyone would want to hang out with him, sleep with him, or even remotely know him is beyond me.  He is such a one-dimensional character, completely fueled by a horrid ideal of what someone his age should do, that there isn’t even a level in hell for that type of behaviour.  Unlike some men, who use sexual conquests to keep their ideal vision of youth, this man just does it to make himself appear cool, probably thinking that this is the standard that all men should live by (I feel truly sorry for any therapist forced to go through psychoanalysis with him).

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