Category: movie review

I watched Napoleon Dynamite, director Jared Hess’ second movie and the movie used to promote Nacho Libre, and I loved it.

The thing is, it’s one of those movies which you’d probably feel you shouldn’t have liked. I’ve always been big on movies with good stories, and Napoleon Dynamite is the opposite. It’s a hodgepodge of almost unrelated skits and situations, like those Tito, Vic and Joey movies of yore, where the chief character(s) just bounce around from scene to scene and something funny happens.

The saving grace is Napoleon himself, played by Jon Heder, who exudes dorkability to the extreme. He’s not a geek. He’s not a misunderstood nice guy. He’s a complete dweeb at the ultimate level, the kind of guy you couldn’t get far away enough from in school. So who cared about the disjointed skits? Napoleon Dynamite is such an insufferable dork you’re replaying his scenes, buying his t-shirts and voting for Pedro months after the movie (incidentally you’d have to have watched it to understand what that meant).

Continue reading Nacho Libre

I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t expect much. I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t think I’d title this review “I Wanna Get Out Of Here!”. I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t approach this movie without bias, that, inspite of myself, I’d approach local films on an even perspective, where I would discuss their merits or lack thereof, instead of having negative expectations by default, so as to be surprised (oh alright, “happy” then), if it achieves any semblance of a coherent story, or some measure of believability, or, frankly, anything worthile whatsoever.

But then, what can I say? At the end of the movie, we were recalling scenes from it, laughing, smiling, and feeling good, which incidentally, is reason to smile even more, since that is exactly what the movie was supposed to do – make us feel good.

I Wanna Be Happy is a story of three generations of a typical Filipino family, trying to adjust to the earth-shaking news that their eldest members, played wonderfully by The Great Eddie Garcia and Gloria Romero, have decided to call it quits, months away from a 50 year anniversary. Throughout, the three siblings Jun, Rory and Tish, played by Joey Marquez, Cherry Pie Picache and Diana Zubiri, deal with personal issues of their own.

Continue reading I Wanna Be Happy

I read somewhere months ago that Keira Knightley, at the very first premiere of the first Pirates of the Carribean: Legend of Jack Sparrow, held hands with co-stars Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, as I understand now, in an act of support, both giving and receiving, as they sat down along with, I assume, their friends, family, the rest of the cast the Hollywood Press to watch it for the first time.

After several minutes into the movie, Orlando Bloom blurted out, as Ms. Knightley relates, the words “hey, this isn’t so bad!”, or something to that effect.

Above story I remember well for three things, primarily the poignancy of great and famous movie stars such as they seeking and finding solace in one another’s company heading into the release of a film they found reason to doubt. Secondly, suddenly realizing it wasn’t so bad after all, and finally, her honesty in admitting as much, somewhat I imagine, an indication of her youth (she would have been 18 at the time), or just plain good old honesty, with no intention to delude anyone into believing she, or any of them it appears, were any at all confident.

It is sad therefore, that after watching the second of apparently two additional installments of the film no doubt inspired by the success of the first, I am fairly sure that Ms. Knightley will have no tales similar to the above to tell, her honesty and forthcoming character notwithstanding.

Simply because, unlike the first, this movie will likely not elicit the same reaction from Orlando Bloom. Unlike the first, which was surprising, and therefore, entertaining, this second is boring, and ergo, dissapointing.

Continue reading Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Coming out of the theatre, you will realize the most important thing about this film as I have, which is: Not To Take It Seriously.

In fact, I propose we put that right beside the PG13 rating. For example: The Fast And The Furious: TOKYO DRIFT. PG 13. Do Not Take It Seriously.

Yes that would work. Either that or, ‘If you’re looking for a good story, or an in depth look at the human soul, then look elsewhere’, but I guess the first one would do just as well, and besides it’s shorter.

The premise speaks for itself. Miscreant white boy (with a Texan drawl to boot) who drives too fast gets kicked out to his Dad in Tokyo, the worst actor they can find this side of the Pacific. You know the rest. He meets up with some bad elements, challenges chief bad guy to a race (even if he doesn’t have a car. Beat that.), and gets his butt kicked at first. He is then taught by a master, and triumphantly returns said butt-kicking to initial butt kicker.

He also gets the bad guy’s very hot girlfriend, who like most eye-candy, actually has a heart of gold, and always hooks up with the fastest guy. I mean, what if white boy didn’t show up? She’d still be with bad guy, right? Where have I seen this before? Mr. Miyagi, is that you?

Having said that, why would I still recommend it?

Continue reading The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift

I remember September 11, 2001 as a normal day like any, when I was inside my room and my mother started calling me to turn on CNN. Knowing her preference for drama, I took my time, even as I had a growing sense of foreboding. I remember regretting this, because as soon as I switched on, I caught the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center, throwing a heap of debris across the opposite side.

Approaching this movie, I understood fully America’s hesitation to show such a sensitive period in their recent history. It is not only considered as a turning point in shaping world foreign policy, but as a story of how quickly the lives of many of their countrymen were so easily snuffed out by the wayward opinions and goals of a misinformed few.

So easily was this achieved, as this movie will so dramatically display.

The ‘protagonists’ as it were, are the US FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), NORAD (North American Air Defense), any of several air traffic control centers involved and finally, the flightcrew and passengers of United Airlines Flight 93.

Much of the 1.5 hour movie deals with the first three, as the FAA struggled mightily to get a handle of what was going on, constantly barraged by information (and misinformation) about hijacked planes, its flights, direction and the occasional plane reported to be hijacked, but was not. Information re these were coursed via traffic control centers across the US, many of which were utterly confused again from planes not responsive to their requests for information, and deciding whether to consider them hijacked or otherwise.

Continue reading United 93

I believe that every good looking Hollywood actor eventually has a ‘suit movie’. In a ‘suit movie’, he gets to look great in a expensive looking suit. Robert Redford did his in ‘Indecent Proposal‘. Richard Gere did his in ‘Pretty Woman‘. George Clooney had his in Ocean’s Eleven and Intolerable Cruelty. Andy Garcia has the Godfather III. I can name countless more.

For me, Antonio Banderas ‘suit movie’ is ‘Take The Lead’, where he gets to wear nice talian threads in this movie adaptation of the true experiences of Ballroom great Pierre Dulaine, as he takes his love for dancing from the studios to the streets, via a ‘Dancing Classroom’ outreach program which had since been implemented in almost 7,500 elementary schools in New York.

The key word of course being ‘adaptation’, the most obvious sign of which, is that the students in the film are in high school, while the outreach program dealt with elementary school kids. To me, this meant that once the producers bought the license for the story, and the rights to do whatever they wished with it, pretty much every need to remain true to the story goes out the window.

So while Banderas and high school crew go through the ups and downs of their relationships with each other, dealing with such things as drugs, prostitution and such, Mr. Dulaine’s most difficult experiences may well have just been the need to occasionally keep his elementary kids’ from putting bubblegum into each other’s hair, or chasing around each other on a big wooden dancefloor. The variations of what may had truly transpired and what the studio writers produced are unlimited, and this bothered me somewhat.

Having said that, all is of course not lost, as the writers can still come up with a good movie. At this, however, they failed.

Continue reading Take The Lead

Obviously, animated films are all the rage these days. I read somewhere on the ‘net (too lazy to find it right now) that a majority of the money makers in previous years have been animated films, and so it’s not a surprise we’ve one or two every month for the year, along with Marvel or DC superhero movies and other surefire formulas.

So what would a Hollywood Investor in movies do? Why, look for a Hollywood company that can spit one out as quickly and as efficiently as possible, of course. And who better to do that than Pixar, the current animated film spit-outer of choice, with many a hit (and occasional miss), notched on it’s much talented crew’s belt.

So, if we think like a financial advisor instead of a ‘artiste‘, and consider Cars as a financial investment, would we have a winner? Definitely, much definitely so.

Continue reading Tipping Tracters is Fern!! (A review of Cars)

As Jill and I were waiting for the moviehouse to empty, we happened onto a wonderful scene. Guys, as we all know, wait outside restrooms for their girlfriends to come out since, even if they both go at the same time, girls take longer. That’s the way it is the world over, and we’re prepared to live a whole lifetime of that. And so as we sat there, we saw a young woman come out, look quickly around the area, and smile as she found her young man standing in said fashion outside. They smiled to each other, and started to walk away. A flower in her hands, the respectable distance, and shy smiles belying the truth – that was a date, and probably early on in the game as well.

All of which, brought me to thinking about the main reason why there are date movies to begin with. Will a movie, say Failure to Launch, get you anywhere with your date?

Continue reading Will Failure To Launch get you some action?

To date, director Wolfgang Petersen has sunk and shot at boats in Das Boot, and turned turtle a smaller boat in The Perfect Storm.

Not content with this, he turns another one on top of its head again in Poseidon. I figure that, as long as there are such things as “rogue waves” (without reference to an X-men character), we’re probably gonna see him flip an oil rig, or how about a whole island next? Wouldn’t that be a great idea for Lost fans?

Continue reading Review of Poseidon (aka They Killed Fergie! )