Author Archives: matterspamer

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Gomarrah

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Gomarrah
Directed by: Matteo Garrone
Written by: Maurizio Braucci (screenplay),Roberto Saviano (book)
Starring: Toni Servillo, Marco Macor, Ciro Petrone, and Salvatore Abruzzese

I try not let the reputation of a movie influence me before I watch it, but in the case of Gomarrah, it’s hard not to.  Hailed by many critics as a new masterpiece in the gangster genre and presented by Martin Scorsese, Matteo Garrone’s film had a lot to live up to.  For many it seems to have done that, but as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t live up to the tremendous hype garnered by those accolades.  To be fair, though, it’s still an enjoyable film that deserves a viewing.

The explosive novel of the same name by Roberto Saviano tore open the modern world of organized crime in Naples, forcing the author to go into exile to escape the wrath of the Camorra crime syndicate.  In a book that was unafraid to name names even in the face of death, a Hollywood adaptation just wouldn’t seem right.

Mr. Garrone has given the film a perfect visual look, visceral and gritty with moments of cinematic eloquence.  We see a young boy (Salvatore Abruzzese) watch a man be hauled off by the authorities in almost documentary-realism.  Then the boy spots what the man claimed to not have, a gun and some narcotics.  He journeys to it, the camera giving a striking long shot that tracks him to the vices.  The shot makes the boy’s world look eloquent, like the gangster worlds created in movies like The Godfather and Scarface. We see the corruption of a soul, in two blending styles.

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REVIEW: Kick-Ass

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Kick-Ass
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn (screenplay), Mark Millar & John Romita Jr. (comic book)
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Aaron Johnson, and Chloe Moretz

The way Kick-Ass was marketed, you’d never know what it was about.  It could be the next raunchy teen comedy, a Scary Movie iteration with super heroes, or a campy exploitation flick.  After seeing this movie, I now know why they could not market it efficiently.  Kick-Ass is all of the aforementioned things, struggling much like a super-hero to find an identity.  At it’s best, it is a rocking reinvention and exploitation of the super hero mythos.  At it’s worst, it is a formulaic teen comedy with shock value language dueling with shock value violence.

The premise of the film is interesting enough.  With caped crusaders invading our pulp culture like cockroaches, why has no one in the real world donned a mask and set out to fight crime?  Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) plays the nerdy philosopher who comes up with this idea, and decides to take action.  He becomes Kick-Ass, a scuba-suit wearing crime fighter who is stabbed and beaten to a pulp his first night on the job.  The answer to his earlier question is answered early on.

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A Few Movie Facts: Matt

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1.  I hated Pulp Fiction the first time I saw it, but for some reason watched it again a week later and loved it.  Now I watch movies I think are bad twice on occasion just to see if I’m missing out.  (Exception: Michael Bay movies or ones that are really bad.)

2. I saw The Dark Knight 7 times in the theater.  I’ve only watched it twice on DVD.

3. Like Luke, my favorite director is also Martin Scorsese.  The Coen Brothers and Francis Ford Coppola are close behind, though.

4. One movie that’s super acclaimed that I will never, ever watch is Bridge on the River Kwai. It just looks like something I could never sit through.

5.  Out of all the movies I’ve seen, I probably think about There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men more than any of them.  This is mostly because they are from the same year and thinking about one leads to the other, but also because they are two of the greatest movies made in the past 30 years.

6.  Brad Pitt is a good actor, but I really don’t like that many of his movies even though I’m a guy and I’m “supposed to.”

7. My two favorite actors are Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis.  If they ever did a movie together, the script wouldn’t even matter.

8. TV Shows like Mad Men and The Sopranos are better than 90% of the movies that come out these days.

9. I consider myself a huge movie buff, but I don’t want to sit around for hours and discuss the French New Wave or German Expressionism.  I’d rather watch the movies.

10.  My guilty pleasure movie is The Devil Wears Prada.  I know it doesn’t utilize anything revolutionary or tell a new kind of story, but come on.  Meryl Streep’s power to carry a movie has never been more prevalent.

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Battle Royale

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Battle Royale
Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku
Written by: Kenta Fukasaku (screenplay), Koushun Takami (novel)
Starring: Tatsuya Fujiwara, Aki Maeda, Chiaki Kuriyama, and Reiko Kataoka

The age old question “What would you do to stay alive?”  has been explored to death.  A unique take on an old adage is always welcome, and Kinji Fukasaku’s Battle Royale hoped to deliver that.  Does it succeed?  Kind of.

In a futuristic vision of Japan, the children are too unruly.  So, a classroom of 40 children is selected at random each year to partake in a brutal three day free-for-all on an island until only one remains.  If more than one remains, the collars placed around their necks will detonate.  Then the survivor returns to the country, striking fear into the others with their stories of the horror.

This is a film that could be analyzed to death by philosophers and historians as to what exactly it means in the context of Japanese history.  Is it an allegory to Japan’s involvement in World War II?  Is it a statement about individualism in a country that is notoriously solidified and stubborn in combat?  It’s both, and they kind of mesh, which is why the film could be looked at so deeply.

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TRAILER: Toy Story 3

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Toy Story 3
Directed by: Lee Unkrich
Written by: Michael Arndt (screenplay)
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, and Don Rickles

Pixar’s only franchise thus far gets a new installment this summer, and it looks to carry the tradition of animation excellence that they remain unrivaled for.  Though the Toy Story movies are by no means their best work, without their existance Pixar wouldn’t exist.  Plus, they probably need a break from lonely robots and cranky old man.  An established storyline and characters would be much easier to work with after creating their masterpieces of the last two years.

The trailer only sets up the basic plot, hopefully not giving away all of the funny moments like so many trailers are prone to do.  I have faith that what we see on the surface is really just the surface and not the whole picture.

What a surface it is, too.  They take the aging toy motif to the next level, moving Woody, Buzz and the gang to a preschool hell while their owner Andy moves on to college.  The moment when the young children enter and begin thrashing the toys around  and the aftermath where the toys recover is the high-point.  This looks to be a cartoon prison breakout movie, something Pixar will surely be able to put a creative take on.

The company has long been the only thing keeping Disney afloat in the quality department.  Sure they put out a crappy Hannah Montana cash-in every once and awhile, but the films coming out of Pixar will be examined years down the road.  Toy Story 3 looks to add to that legacy, if not raise the bar of it.

Highs: The preschoolers beseeching the playroom and tearing the toys apart and the idea of a big pink teddy bear as a villain

Lows: Why do these toys insist on returning to an owner who gives them up?

Trailer Grade: A-

If they were in television… The Coen Brothers

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Directors: Joel and Ethan Coen

Notable Films: Fargo, No Country for Old Men, Miller’s Crossing, The Big Lebowski, Raising Arizona, O Brother! Where Art Thou?, and A Serious Man

Famous For: Dark humor with a lot of irony, incorporating elements of film noir into everything, and messing with people’s expectations of certain genres.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: Doubt

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Doubt
Directed by: John Patrick Shanley
Written by: John Patrick Shanley (screenplay & play)
Starring: Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Viola Davis

Power resonates through every frame of this film.  The themes, the characters, and the film making are all powerful gusts of wind sent forth from the mind of John Patrick Shanley to shake you to your core.  However, it is not without one of the finest ensembles of the past several years that he achieves this.

What’s so great about this movie is that it speaks to something in everyone.  Looking at Doubt as an allegory for our times, when unsubstantiated certainty lands us in an unwinnable war in the Middle East, you see something totally different than if you look at it as a critique on Catholicism’s unwillingness to change.  You have to respect the material’s power to mean so much to so many different perspectives.

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ARCHIVE REVIEW: The Ladykillers

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Image courtesy of IMDB

The Ladykillers
Directed by: Joel Coen
Written by: Joel & Ethan Coen (screenplay), William Rose (the original screenplay)
Starring: Tom Hanks, Irma P. Hall, Marlon Wayans, and J.K. Simmons

Adapting one of the most British films of all time for an American audience is no easy task.  Film makers Joel and Ethan Coen attempt the feat here, succeeding sometimes and falling short the rest of it.

The original film was based in post WW II Britain and centered on a group of criminals from different walks of life robbing a bank and hiding out in the home of a suspicious and nosy old woman.  The caper ultimately fails, ending with the fatalistic death of all of the criminals.

In this new 21st century version, there are still a group of different criminals planning a heist, but it’s now in hurricane-devastated Mississippi.  The American melting pot also applies to the criminals, as they all are extremely different.

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TRAILER: Salt

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Salt
Directed by: Phillip Noice
Written by: Kurt Wimmer & Brian Helgeland (screenplay)
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Zoe Lister Jones

Angelina Jolie typically has two types of roles.  The bad-ass action chick, a la Wanted, or the heavy dramatic roles, a la Changeling.  This summer, she will be playing more of the former, with a little of the heavy stuff mixed in.

Salt, from director Phillip Noice, seems from the trailer to be a summer action flick filled with acting talent and perhaps a plot that doesn’t suck.  The thrills in the trailer seem to be grounded in some kind of distorted realism.  Jolie appears to be playing kind of a girl Superman, hiding in broad daylight and not wearing a mask when she becomes the ass-kicker.

Liev Schreiber also stars in the movie, so it’s nice to see that Mr. Noice appears to be favoring talent over names that will just sell, though Jolie will do just that.  The trailer hits all of the normal bells and whistles when it comes to this kind of intrigue-based action/thriller.

It sets up the kidnapped boyfriend premise while interspersing some well choreographed action sequences featuring Angelina tasing some meddling policemen.  In all, it appears to be a typical summer flick, though it may end up being more or less than either of those by its July 23rd release date.

Highs: The casting, especially that of Angelina Jolie.  It’s always nice to see her throttling cronies.

Lows: No real complaints with the trailer other than it’s mundane, over-used structure.  Would it kill people to have a trailer like the one for A Serious Man?

Trailer Grade: B+

Five movies with great tricks and twists

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In honor of April Fools Day, I decided to list five famous and not so famous movies that can confound, twist, and trick you while still being well made and entertaining.  Don’t worry, I won’t give anything away.

Image courtesy of The Pioneer Woman

1.  The Sixth Sense– How could you not include this one?  The most famous thing about this movie is its ending, but the rest was still a great revitalization of the scary thriller when it was released.  Haley Joel Osment, Bruce Willis, and Toni Collette all give outstanding performances, but it’s the ending of this movie that earns its place in cinema history.

Image courtesy of Oregon Live

2. Tell No One– This excellent French thriller has twists at every turn, leading to one of the most satisfying conclusions in a movie.  This tale of a man who’s thought to be dead wife starts emailing him is a first-class thriller of the highest order.  Writer/director Guillaume Canet knows how to structure a film around an already great screenplay.

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