May 29th, 2009 admin
Without a Paddle
2004
Starring: Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard, Seth Green, Ray Baker, Burt Reynolds, Abraham Benrubi, Ethan Suplee
Director: Steven Brill
Runtime: 98 Minutes
Distributor: Paramount
Rating: PG-13
A God-awful cinematic experience that could just as easily be re-titled Homophobia in a Canoe, Without a Paddle is an ugly, badly conceived Frankenstein’s monster of an film that hacks large chunks out of such beloved classics as Stand By Me, The Goonies, and (of all things!) Deliverance and misguidedly sews them together. John Boorman’s iconic white-water nightmare, depicting a group of cocksure Atlanta businessmen emasculated and nigh on swallowed whole by the unforgiving wilderness, is unparalleled in the annals of man versus nature. But – who could have imagined – its an idea loses something when played for potty humor and frat-boy giggles.
Incorporating the real-life legend of D.B. Cooper, the infamous highjacker who parachuted out of a plane over the Pacific North West with a bag full of money and was never seen again, the film opens with four young boys in a tree-house swearing they will someday track down Cooper’s treasure. Flash-forward twenty odd years and one of their number is sadly dead, leaving underachiever Tom (Shepard), underachiever Jerry (Lillard), and successful young doctor Matt (Green) to embark on said expedition in honor of their late friend, Billy. Matt it seems is straight-laced and rendered guilty of the unforgivable frat-boy comedy crime of wanting to be really good at his job. Valuing such ridiculous things as his personal safety, Matt’s duty is seemingly to be poked, patronized, and pissed-on as the butt of every lazy gag the film has going.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Comedy/Romance, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »
May 28th, 2009 admin
Starring: Ben McKenzie, Michael Kudlitz, Regina King, Shawn Hatosy, Michael McGrady, Kevin Alejandro
Created By: Ann Biderman
Network: NBC
Original Air Date: 09/04/2009 –
The end of E.R brings with it the end of an era for NBC and the days of prime time dominance now seem a distant memory as the network stares down the barrel of a ratings war they are still struggling to secure a foothold in. First off the assembly line of potentially worthy successors is this gritty LA police procedural from Ann Biderman, who cut her teeth as an Emmy Award winning writer on pioneering cop drama NYPD Blue.
Much like Blue this is a show less interested in neatly wrapped episodic who-dunnits than it is in exploring the dark underbelly of Los Angeles and the men and women that do their best to maintain order within it. Biderman is quick to point out at the beginning of the pilot that there are 9,500 officers patrolling the city, which is home to an estimated 3.9 million people. Perhaps unsurprisingly their patience quickly wears thin.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in American Television, Reviews | No Comments »
May 27th, 2009 admin
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
1962
Starring: Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Lee Marvin, Vera Miles Edmond O’Brian
Director: John Ford
Runtime: 123 Minutes
Distributor: Paramount
Rating: PG
When at the tender age of just twenty-six Orsen Welles delivered Citizen Kane, a groundbreaking piece of cinema both technically and thematically that has served as a benchmark ever since, people were understandably curious as to how he’d managed to accomplish it? His reply was his strikingly simple: “I studied the greats; John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.”
Prolific, innovative, and famed for his commanding yet eccentric directorial style, John Ford is widely regarded as one of the great masters of American cinema. But it is within the genre of the western (where his best work genuinely does reside) that he is best remembered and will always remain as a true icon. Famed for his now legendary vistas and location shooting where he displayed an eye for landscape that would rival the greatest canvas artists, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance represents something of a departure from the mold for Ford and the result is, according to Sergio Leone, “the only film where Ford learned about something called pessimism.”
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in Feature Films, Reviews, Western | No Comments »
May 26th, 2009 admin
2009
Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Moon Bloodgood, Helena Bonham Carter
Director: McG
Runtime: 130 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros
Rating: PG-13
It’s actually somewhat interesting the way this latest in the once glorious Terminator franchise very loudly and very brightly snuck up on everyone, and there are a few contributing factors. Firstly, a really good cast was cobbled together. Christian Bale is a star and Sam Worthington is a star on the rise. Secondly, to their credit they cut a really good trailer filled with the tease of possibility and some slick, pulsating action. Then as the release date began to loom large on the horizon the entire project was overshadowed by that now infamous rant that saw Bale relentlessly berate DP Shane Hurlbut in a wide variety of different accents for walking through a shot. A rant laced with such mean-spirited overkill it will likely define Bale for sometime.
Finally, in the weeks leading up to opening weekend, anyone who truly gave a shit about the franchise was busily sweating the will-they-won’t-they cancellation of the sorely underrated television series (It’s FOX – guess how that one turned out). The cumulative effect of all this, judging by fanboy ire and mass critical pacifier spitting, was a shield of noise, buzz and distractions that somehow made everyone forget that this thing was being directed by the guy who brought us Charlie’s bloody Angels. How could we have all been so blind?!
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Feature Films, Reviews, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
May 25th, 2009 admin
Check out what’s new in theaters with my weekly column at IFC.com.
Click here to listen to the podcast version.
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May 25th, 2009 admin
On the back of the wildly successful J.J. Abram’s reboot, which seems to have been met with almost universal acclaim from audiences and critics alike, Paramount are releasing “Best of” DVD’s for all five franchises, attempting to reap a fresh crop of youngsters who view Trek as something their dad likes. While this single disk comprising four episodes confidently declares itself to be “The Best of The Next Generation” it would be more aptly titled “A Broad Cross-Section of The Next Generation.
For as any avid series viewer would know there were really only three kinds of Next Generation episodes; Ones that informed the overall story arc, which typically arrived once per season in the form of a two-parter. Science fiction oriented episodes, whereby a technological or astrological phenomenon would throw up a problem to be solves. Finally there was the ethical/metaphysical dilemma of the week episode. These were probably the most common and typically featured a member or members of the crew would undergo a test of character that serves as an allegory for some geo-political issue at hand.
Click here to read the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in American Television, Reviews | No Comments »
May 22nd, 2009 admin
The Unusuals
Starring: Amber Tamlyn, Jeremy Renner, Harold Perrineau, Kai Lennox, Terry Kinney, Adam Goldberg, Joshua Close, Monique Gabriela Curnen
Created By: Noah Hawley
Original Air Date: 08/04/2009 –
Considering the plethora of cop shows that come and go over the many various networks, these days there is something oddly ironic in the way that Jeremy Renner’s Detective Walsh holds aloft his dead partner’s badge at the conclusion of The Unusual’s pilot and details its significance. As each cop retires the badge is handed down to a graduating recruit until someone dies, explains Walsh, “And then they hang it on a wall.” With that in mind ABC’s latest rookie hoping to make the force is the oddly monikered The Unusuals. A quirkily offbeat procedural that’s character driven and much in the vain of iconic dramady M*A*S*H employs a high-tension backdrop against which it looks to explore the absurdity and humanity of people constantly exposed to extreme situations. And damn if it isn’t a breath of fresh air.
As a fledgling series with designs of retooling a genre that’s beyond played out at this point it opens almost playful nodding to convention as events kick off with Terry Kinney’s grizzled homicide sergeant glumly hollering the news: “Walsh, somebody killed Kawolski!” Breaking in new partner Casey Schrager (Amber Tamblyn), transferred in from Vice by Kinney to secretly pursue the suspicions he has about his homicide team, Walsh sets about solving his partner’s murder with the rest of the precinct lock step behind.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in American Television, Reviews | No Comments »
May 20th, 2009 admin
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin
Starring: Leonard Rossiter, Pauline Yates, Sue Nicholls, John Barron,
Created By: David Nobbs
Original Air Date: 09/08/1976 – 01/24/1979
Like much of the very best of classic British comedy, the likes of Steptoe and Son (remade for the US as Sanford and Son) and `Till Death Us Do Part (remade as All In The Family), The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin was a zeitgeist television program that effectively captured the idiosyncrasies of a cultural and political climate on the verve on a minor revolution.
Adapted by writer David Hobbs from his own series of darkly comic series of novels, the short, sharp shock of The Fall and Rise…comprised three series, and effectively a beginning, middle and end that encompassed one perfectly ordinary man’s complete mental breakdown brought about by the suffocating monotony of the everyday.
A comedy of manners that slighted both the middle class and the rise of consumerism, each episode began with the now iconic title sequence that showed our despairing hero shedding his clothes on the beach before swimming naked out to sea towards the vast, expansive horizon.
Click here to rerad the full review at JustPressPlay.net.
Posted in British Television, Reviews | No Comments »
May 19th, 2009 admin
Check Out What’s new in theaters with my weekly column at IFC.com.
Click here to listen to the podcast version.
Posted in Opening This Week | No Comments »
May 19th, 2009 admin
State of Play
2009
Starring: Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Jeff Daniels, Helen Mirren, Robin Wright Penn, Jason Bateman
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Runtime: 127 Minutes
Distributor: Universal
Rating: PG-13
Originally a BBC mini-series first broadcast in 2003, State of Play was widely regarded as a benchmark for post-9/11 television. A sprawling six-hour mystery sparked by the death of a politician’s aide, the series charted the symbiotic relationship between journalism, politics and big business. No stranger to the dark side of human nature himself, The Last King of Scotland director Kevin Macdonald duly delivers this Americanized remake, cutting down the six hours to just over two, and adding a megawatt injection of star-studded charisma.
Russell Crowe stars as Cal McAffrey, a veteran reporter on a declining D.C. paper tasked to investigate his former college roommate and now Congressmen, Stephen Collins (Affleck), after his aide, who was also his mistress, turns up dead under mysterious circumstances. In an effort to clear his friend, and as a bi-product mend some fences with his old girlfriend, Collin’s wife Anne (Wright Penn), Cal goes to work on the story hoping to put the scandal to bed by uncovering the facts. Assigned to work the juicy, more sordid side of the story is the paper’s online blogger, Della Fry (McAdams), someone Cal looks down his nose at as a professional gossip and faux journalist. Instantly at odds Cal and Fry reluctantly pool their talents and uncover a link to a series of seemingly unrelated killings that lead back to a Private Military Contractor Collins has been working to dismantle through Congressional hearings.
Click here to read the full review at Uinterview.com.
Posted in Drama, Feature Films, Reviews | No Comments »