I just got back from the movie theater and saw this waste of $9.00 movie.  Don’t get me wrong, it was God awful, but it definitely lacked in original scripting and creativity, and had some pretty horendous acting.  It also tried to hard in some of the scenes to be cool and failed miserably. 

Case in point, one of the more main characters, who’s not even a strong main character, has a death scene where he is driving to his certain death to save all the others and allow Milla Jovovich, who plays the heroine Alice, to get into a building where they are running experiments, and which holds the secret antibody to the sickness that turns ordinary people into blood thirsty, vicious zombies. 

While in a flipped tanker, the camera angles in so we see him out of the side window, and he’s lighting up a doobie that he just found in the visor moments after he’s lit the fuse to the dynamite that will kill him and the throngs of zombies surrounding his tanker.  He’s smiling.  yeah, no one in their right mind would be smiling in that situation, and it just comes off as stupid. 

Then there’s the other annoying character, who’s supposed to be a tough woman, much like her character in the “Heroes” TV show, played by Ali Larter.  She plays the exact same “bad ass” character and it just doesn’t come off right.  She’s trying to be Ripley from Aliens, and she’s just not strong enough an actress to carry it off.  Milla herself is ok, but she really doesn’t talk much, and the truth is, it’s mostly her physicality that makes her fit the role of the now supernaturally powered heroin Alice, and not her acting chops. 

This movie is only an hour and half long, and it opens with filler, is filled with zombie cliches and old zombie movie references, and steals from numerous other movies in its concepts, including the Alien movies.  If you must see it, I’d wait for the DVD.  That’s my opinion! 

The double feature Grindhouse by buddy directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino came and went in the theaters without much ado, and I really didn’t think too much about it until the first one came out on DVD (of course they can’t be released together, that’d be craziness) a couple days ago, and my boyfriend, the Tarantino fanatic he is, ran out and bought a copy.

I also happen to love Quentin Tarantino films, but I knew that the duo movies were supposed to be pretty campy, so my expectations weren’t too high for “Death Proof” the one that’s about a guy (Kurt Russell) named Stuntman Mike, who stalks and then kills young women with his car that he calls “Death Proof”.

Boy, my expectations were wrong.  Sure, there was camp, but this movie was AWESOME.  As usual, Tarantino creates quirky characters that are interesting, has an awesome soundtrack which I already downloaded to my ipod, and this movie also happens to keep you riveted, alternating between horror at one or two grotesque scenes, laughter, and on the edge of your seat for a particular car chase scene. 

Add to that the novelty of Tarantino having a real stuntwoman in the film acting as a character, on top of that, doing her own stunts.  Zoe Bell, who Tarantino has used in Kill Bill as a double for Uma Thurman’s action scenes, plays one of the characters in the latter half of the film  She’s not a half bad actress and a hell of a stuntwoman, so that just adds to the appeal of the last scenes.  You’ll have to trust me.  If you’re a Tarantino fan, and you like the styles of his past films, you will totally dig this new movie.  It’s pure entertainment, and you’ll think about it for days after you’ve seen it. 

We recently got new lounging furniture in our media room, which is where we watch all of our movies since it has a custom pieced stereo system and a very nice picture on a 60 inch screen, and we pulled out a box set of movies that we have, the Kill Bill set, the last movie, well except for “Grind House” directed by Quentin Tarantino, who is my boyfriend’s favorite director by far. 

I had forgotten how the film visually pulls you in, alternating between somewhat gross out methods and cool shots of black and white alternative with color, with interesting camera angles to boot.  Quentin hasn’t earned a name for himself for doing movies that are always interesting for nothing.  I especially like Darryl Hannah’s turn as one of the ruthless trained killers that are under “Bill” whom Uma Thurman, as we see, is trying to kill after he came into her shotgun wedding and killed her entire wedding party, leaving her for dead, and she was even pregnant. 

Before he shoots her ruthlessly in the head, she says “wait bill, the baby, it’s yours”, and we see what kind of a foe Uma is against.  Although Uma herself seems to kill mercilessly when she goes about her revenge on Bill’s gang of muderous women.  Lucy Liu plays one, and she’s also so much fun to watch you can barely take your eyes off the screen when she occupies it.  Liu has had a way of playing that kookie, ruthless temptress to a T, and she pulls it off in this movie, making her scenes some of the most fun to watch. 

If you like Quentin’s slightly offbeat style and penchant for “coolness”, then you’ll like Kill Bill.  I remember seeing the movie in the theater when it first came out, and many people were complaining because of the cartoon intermingled into some of the movie, but that’s part of what makes the experience of the Kill Bill films so interesting and different to watch.  It’s not for everyone, but I for one, really liked it. 

When we popped the movie “300″, which is a stylized version of Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name, ala Sin City, at first i have to admit, I thought this movie was a bit full of itself.  The scenes seemed overly dramatized, and the stylized, slow motion capturing of images and somewhat melodramatic acting caught me off guard a bit.  But if you can suspend reality enough, and learn to appreciate the obviously different modicum of movie making, you can appreciate the movie “300″ and really enjoy it for what it is : unadulterated entertainment.

The movie features relative unknowns who are decent actors, and the  movie is shot like Sin City, with a partially black and white screen with bits of color interjected, alternated with scenes in pretty much full color.  The movie follows the Spartans, notoriously fierce fighters and the best soldiers in all of the Mediterranean.  When their freedom is threatened, their king, a fierce fighter and impassioned man himself, they take 300 of their best men, without the consent of their equivalent of the senate, and they march off to defeat their enemy, the Persians and their king who thinks he’s a god, Xerxes. 

The sets are pretty amazing and the visual effects at times are stunning, but it’s not over the top with the effects, especially since this movie had not planned to be the blockbuster it ended up being.  Their is some graphic violence, but they get away with it because of the way the movie is shot.  The actors in this film will no doubt get some good follow up work out of being in the movie, as it was well acted for the most part, and the premise of warriors fighting for their freedom with nothing more than passion and sheer willpower, will no doubt appeal to the American masses. 

All in all, if you’re in the mood for pure entertainment, rent “300″ but keep an open mind, and remember that this is a whole different style of film making.  If you can appreciate it for what it is, you just may really enjoy it! 

The little watched but, in my opinion, riveting, movie called “Children of Men” was one of the most original and watchable movies this year.  It was depressing, true, in it’s overall message and tone, but nonetheless, the move was superbly acted by a talented cast, including one of my new favorites Clive Owen and Julianne Moore (who doesn’t have as much screen time as I thought she would) as well as a fair newcomer who plays a pregnant women.  Oh, and who can forget the excellent presence of a classic himself, Michael Cane? 

Here’s the premise.  Clive Owen is a corporate sellout.  He seems drained, a mere shadow of himself, when we first start watching the movie.  The movie takes place in the not so distant future, and the premise is that the world somehow has been shattered by war and disorganization, with the only decent place to live (which isn’t all that decent either - it’s pretty much a military zone) is Britain.  The rest of the world, including Britain, has been paralyzed by the fact that women for some reason can no longer give birth or become impregnated.

We see the world mourning the death of the youngest child in the word, who is a mere eighteen years old, at the beginning, and we see a tired, weary world, with little hope and even littler humanity left in them.  If this sounds the least bit interesting, you should rent this movie.  Beware you may need to turn the subtitles on at some points, the British accents can be a little hard to understand at times. 

We see a transition of Clive Owen into a hero, albeit a clumsy hero, and it really is interesting and uplifting to see this transition, even with all the disaster around the world, and with the constant upheaval of humanity, including a scene where, for the first time, soldiers see a tiny baby, and war is stopped, just so they can stare in awe at this amazing creature.  Moments like this make this movie worthy of watching, and I was truly riveted to the last moment of the movie, although it was somewhat depressing to watch, it also left you with a sense of thankfullness and hope.   

Well, I’m a huge fan of Ralph Fiennes, and also of Rachel Weisz, and the movie “The Constant Gardener” is definitely well acted, but the story just lacks, well, oomph.  It seems to really lag for the first half, and Ralph Fiennes character does not become a sympathetic hero until the very last part of the movie. 

I like the fact that the movie has us guessing as to Rachel Weisz’ character’s truenss to her husband, played by Ralph Fiennes, who plays a british diplomat that seems a bit of a pansy and happens to be thrown into an intriguing situation after his activist and do-gooder wife, Weisz, is found dead in Africa after a mysterious trip. 

Fiennes goes through several periods of doubting his wife’s faithfullness to him, and with good reason.  It seems she has been very close - too close for comfort with several of his colleauges, and his paranoia grows as time passes.  After her character is killed though, we see a series of flashbacks that would lead us to believe that she may not be “pure of heart”, yes in her quest for righteousness and humanitarianism, but no in her marital status and faithfullness as a wife. 

The movie does take a turn, and we see that some cues have been misread, both by the watcher (me) and by Fiennes, and we then begin to actually care about the characters involved.  My question is, is it too late in the show for us to start caring?  Because I for one, stopped caring about halfway in to the movie when Fienne’s character played a pansie and Weisz’ played a possible hussie with a hidden agenda. 

I think the film is definitely worthy of some critical acclaim, but most definitely is not “exciting” or a movie that will be remembered forever.  Maybe I’m just too jaded, but this movie just left me a little unimpassioned for some reason, even though it was about a very passionate subject - AIDS and human suffering and disease.  Yeah, who’da thunk it by the title?  Or by the first half of the movie!