Monthly Archives: July 2010

Summer Movies ’10: Ranked and Reviewed

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It is certainly not the most memorable summer for well received movies, as we have all come to know, grumble about and lose sleep over. Maybe we were spoiled with 2008’s dark knights, robots and iron clad heroes and 2009’s alien invasion and balloon flying escapades.  So far there have been a few highlights, even if there have been even more dim ones plaguing our expectations and hopes for the summer movie culture. Check out how CyniCritics rated and reviewed some of the top movies released this summer and how our score compares with the consensus on Rotten Tomatoes.

Toy Story 3: A-

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

Inception: B

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85% Continue reading →

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Julia

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Julia
Directed by: Erick Zonca
Written by: Roger Bohbot & Michael Collins
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Aidan Gould, Saul Rubinek, and Kate de Castillo

Make no ifs, ands, or buts about it: Tilda Swinton is one of the finest actresses of her generation.  So sublime and brilliant is her technique, that even in a dud like The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe she manages to give you something to watch.  And then there is Julia, a movie that is actually good, where she inhabits the heart and soul of her character, leaving you stunned, disgusted, and many other things by the time the credits roll.

As the title character, Swinton plays an alcoholic nothing hired by a neurotic Mexican neighbor (Kate de Castillo) to kidnap her son and reunite them across the border.  This plot seems like something you’d see in a glitzy Hollywood caper, and the characters in Roger Bohbot and Michael Collins’ screenplay seem conscious of it.  When Julia tries to explain the scheme to some of her confidants, they look at her like she’s a fool, which she is.

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REVIEW: Inception

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Inception
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Marion Cotillard

Waves crashing to shore, then a body; these are both one of the first things we see in Inception, and one of the last.  Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated dream-thriller may wow you with its visual prowess, dazzle you with its high-ended concepts, and intrigue you with its heist-style head invading, but it has a typical Hollywood-style circular structure.

If it sounds like I’m already being hard on Nolan and his predetermined masterpiece, it’s only because you need to know right off the bat that it does not reinvent cinema the way it’s publicity campaign suggested.

Many reviews have pointed out all of Nolan’s influences (2001: A Space Odyssey, The Matrix) and for good reason: Inception is chock full of moments where anyone who’s seen a sci-fi movie will chuckle to themselves.

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If they were in television… Christopher Nolan

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Notable films: Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige and The Dark Knight

Famous for: Stories grounded in realism, alterations to linear narrative structure, psychological themes, usage of symbolism, old school special effects with minimal CGI, excellent casting of prominent actors and dressing pretty classy, even on set.

Hypothetical title: Nostalgia

Hypothetical premise: Two young brothers are the only children of their parents. One is a charming, fair haired child and often the favorite of the parents because of his cleverness and personality. The other, a dark haired deviant child who often loses the affection of his parents due to his shortcomings when compared to his brother. The parents die when the boys are in their early adulthood, forcing the favorite and older to take over the family estate and the other treated as a child. Although the story does not mainly take place in this past, the flashbacks do.

In modern times, the dark haired brother is an unaccomplished writer and the blonde is a well-noted novelist, mostly for poaching the ideas of his brother while they were young. Following their career successes, failures and rivalries, the show digs into where the stories come from during their childhood, the death of their parents and how they can learn to travel back into those memories with their writing, meaning memories may not exist at all. Continue reading →

Our 100th Post!

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Hello friends,

A few days shy of our 5 month anniversary, CyniCritics celebrates our 100th post on WordPress! We are proud to say that month by month our viewership keeps steadily increasing and the past few weeks have been record breakers, putting us on track to have one huge July. Thank you to everybody who has stopped by, read our stuff, engaged in the discussions and taken part in the fun. We would especially like to thank our other movie friends and the folks at L.A.M.B. for helping us out and providing a great blogging community to be a part of. We are happy for your support and friendship.

Looking forward to the future,

Luke and Matt

REVIEW: Despicable Me

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Despicable Me
Directed by: Pierre Coffin, Chris Renaud
Written by: Ken Daurio, Sergio Pablos, Cinco Paul
Starring: Steve Carrel, Russel Brand, Jason Segel, Will Arnett, Kristen Wigg

Maybe our generation is spoiled. Given Pixar just eleven-peated at the box office and in reviews with the latest Toy Story installment, it seems like audiences can’t stomach any other brand of animation. It’s nearly impossible to read a review of an animated movie (Pixar or not) that doesn’t bring up the success the company has with blending sentiment, humor and cinematic beauty into its layers of computer generated imagination. So when any other work outside of Pixar comes out with one-note characters, cheesy karaoke or dance scenes, celebrity voice actors and the promise of a heightened 3D experience, it’s hard not to find it… despicable.

With Despicable Me, it seems no different. There’s the corny villain, the cute non-talking sidekick character(s) and the ‘everybody dances’ scene in the end because filmmakers couldn’t think any other clever, satisfying or touching way to end the story they just told for two hours. But luckily it is mildly saved in mild sentiment, mild story and mild humor of Steve Carrel. Continue reading →

REVIEW: Predators

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Predators
Directed by: Nimród Antal
Written by: Alex Litvak & Michael Finch (screenplay)
Starring: Adrian Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, and Laurence Fishburne

If someone had told me at the beginning of the year that Adrian Brody would be the sci-fi star of 2010, I would’ve either chuckled or responded with “Yeah, so?”  With his performance in Splice as a genetic engineer he gave us an emotional core, and with Predators he returns to the King Kong action hero he surprised us with in 2005.

Predators is another franchise reboot, and it’s not too bad.  For the action-junkies out there looking to avoid Despicable Me or any of the other 3D cash-ins of the week, here is a semi-intelligent, well-made thriller.  It borrows from The Most Dangerous Game, which in its original form is a demented guy who brings people to his island so he can hunt them.  Here, it’s high-tech aliens.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Elephant

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Elephant
Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Written by: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Alex Frost, Eric Deulen, John Robinson, and Kristen Hicks

Had the tracking shot never been invented, Gus Van Sant’s searing humanization of the Columbine shootings wouldn’t have made it.  As we literally wonder the halls of a fictional suburban high school,  the camera follows several students in a semi-warped time frame.  We often see the same event from different perspectives, much like the end of Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.  The time before and after these intersections shows us the same setting in very different lights.

Van Sant is one of the leading auteurs of the gay film movement, and though not all of his films have those themes, his best films often do.  Elephant contains a controversial shower kiss between the two shooters, Eric (Eric Deulen) and Alex (Alex Frost), before they embark on their killing spree.  It’s not a romantic moment, or even a passionate one, it’s just there.

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REVIEW: Knight and Day

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Knight and Day
Directed by: James Mangold
Written by: Patrick O’Neil
Starring: Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, and Viola Davis

When Knight and Day began, the most interesting thing I could think about with it was what the title could possibly mean.  Sure, it’s typical Hollywood word play, but it was intriguing nonetheless.  Tom Cruise could be the Knight in shining armor to Cameron Diaz’s sunny smile.  Once it’s revealed what the title is actually referring to (some solar battery hidden in a knight figurine), there’s no mystery left.

Marketed as a summer movie for adults, Knight and Day is filled to the brim with plot cliches and one-dimensional characters almost any child would recognize.  If this is the kind of stuff targeted at a mature audience, I’ll stick with movies for kids.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Superbad

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Superbad
Directed by: Greg Mottola
Written by: Evan Goldberg
Starring: Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Emma Stone, Seth Rogen

For the sake of our generation and the half-baked high school sex comedies that work (or won’t) to define it, there is an artist who is making sure that our comedies won’t be remembered by sex with pie, hangovers, ogres or those Sex and the City girls.

In Superbad he is only credited as a producer, but the film is loaded with a posse of writing partners, actors and talent who’ve all hitched their wagons to his success. It also resonates the style of the writer/director/producer in terms of narrative aesthetics, vulgar content, sentiment, male ego and penis jokes which he has vowed in every one his projects.

Judd Apatow, soon after finding endless success as a producer for Will Ferrell filth and once-roommate Adam Sandler, began rewriting Hollywood’s biggest scripts and becoming a critically adored creator of The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, started a brand for himself in comedy which now rivals John Hughes or Ben Stiller. Up until Superbad it’s all been for grown-ups (thankfully not with that latest Sandler hit, Grown Ups).

With Superbad, the Apatow market finally starting serving minors. Continue reading →