Archive for the 'Drama' Category

W

Published
by
Chalupa
on October 26, 2008
in Biography, Comedy, Drama, Family, Politics and War
. 0 Comments

Last night Liz and I saw Oliver Stone’s latest film, W.  This is probably the most neutral of Stone’s American president flicks.  This also came out not only while George W. Bush is still alive, but he’s also still in office.  While watching, we noticed several couples get up, put their coats on, and walk out during the film.  I guess they were offended?  One woman was even talking to me, in the lobby, before the movie started.  She asked what movie I was seeing and after I said, “W,” she replied with, “I don’t like him!” and that was the end of that conversation.

I think the greatest attribute of this movie is people with different opinions concerning the current president’s performace can watch this movie and come out thinking it backs up their viewpoints.  I was trying to explain this yesterday and wasn’t doing a very good job of it.  I’d be interested to see if anybody agrees with me.

The second greatest attribute would have to be the acting.  I don’t think this film has what they call an “ensemble cast,” but there were definitely a lot of noticeable faces.  We have Josh Brolin playing George W. Bush, Elizabeth Banks playing Laura Bush, James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn playing George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld, Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Bruce McGill playing George Tenet, Thandie Newton playing Condoleeza Rice, Jeffrey Wright as Gen. Colin Powell, and Stacy Keach as Rev. Earle Hudd to name a few.  The only performance I was disappointed with was Condoleeza Rice.  I was able to pick out most cabinet members and key players in this film before their names were ever mentioned.  They played their parts that well.  Newton as Rice just came off as an SNL performance to me.  It seemed as if she was playing the caricature, and not owning the role.  It’s kind of like when a musician plays someone else’s music.  They can play it like a cover band or put their own spin on it.

I was in the 4th grade when Desert Storm happened and watching this movie brought back a lot of memories from then.  I also remembered hearing things like President Bush’s son owned the Texas Rangers.  I’m sure other scenes would be much more meaningful for those who weren’t quite so young at the time.  It’s weird watching movies about “historical” things that have happened during my lifetime.

I wouldn’t say President Bush was painted in a bad light, but I also wouldn’t say he was painted in the best of lights either.  I don’t know for sure, but I assumed any of the public speeches he gave were probably word-for-word.  I’m sure some think the president is a bit of an idiot and I can’t say I wholly agree with them.  He is college educated.  I think he probably surrounded himself with not the best of people.  One thing I was left wondering about was Barbara and George H. W.  I never would have guessed George W. called his father “poppy.”  There was also one scene where H.W. explained the difference in two pronunciations of Saddam.  I thought that really showed an understanding of language and culture.  I also loved the scenes were George W was eating.  I’m pretty sure it showed him eating bologna sandwiches on more than one occasion.  He also seemed to be a fan of Cheetos, the crunchy variety, and he also had an affinity for Dr. Pepper.

To those of you who think this movie is making fun of Bush, I disagree because I wasn’t sitting in the theater laughing throughout the film.  To those of you who think this movie glorifies Bush, I also disagree because he was in no way made out to be the best President ever.  I say you should probably give this movie a chance and see what you think of it for yourself.

Rating: ★★★½☆

Shane

Published
by
Chalupa
on September 6, 2008
in Based on a novel, Civil War, Drama and Western
. 2 Comments

Released in 1953, Shane is one of the “classic” Westerns that a lot of people know about.  The first time I was aware was in 1998 when The Negotiator came out.  If you haven’t seen it, Spacey and Jackson reference this in the film.  I’ve always wondered what the film was about and I finally saw it.

This isn’t the kind of Western you’d see when thinking about a classic Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson film.  It’s also not one of the Western musicals that I can’t stand.  It’s just one of those wholesome stories that’s common of that era.

Checking out IMDB, I saw that Shane is played by Alan Ladd who also starred in the show Branded.  That’ll mean something to all of you Lebowski fans.  Van Heflin was in the original 3:10 to Yuma and Jack Palance, the fitness guru, is also in this film.

I have to admit I wasn’t super impressed , but I didn’t dislike it either.  A guy named Shane comes to town and starts helping out the Starrett family.  Shane then stands up for them when some “bullies” start pushing them around.  Eventually everything comes to fruition and there’s a gun battle at the end.  Pretty much your standard Western flick.

I’d say definitely watch this if you want to know what people are talking about if the film is ever mentioned.  If you’re not really into Westerns, older films, or just don’t care, you might not get into this one.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

The Dark Knight

Published
by
Chalupa
on August 4, 2008
in Action, Based on a comic, Black Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Sequel and Thriller
. 0 Comments

Liz and I were able to catch the latest installment in the Batman series over the weekend.  We’re both glad we were able to catch it on the big screen.  After all the buildup, hype, and raving reviews, we finally got to see what everyone was talking about.


I was very impressed with Batman Begins and I wasn’t in any way disappointed with The Dark Knight.  I’m already looking forward to the next one.  Heath Ledger did an amazing job with The Joker.  I was reading someone’s comments somewhere and they were talking about how they’ve never been a Ledger fan until now.  They also never realized how menacing and diabolical the Joker could actually be, and after thinking about Jack Nicholson’s portrayal from 1989, they realized that Nicholson was just delivering the same role he had been for the previous 20 years or so.  You may or may not agree with that, but it was a little mind blowing to me.  Maybe I haven’t seen enough of Nicholson’s films, but I’ve never quite understood why people are so enamored by him.  Yeah, he has some good films out there with great performances, but I’ve never been that impressed.  It’s really too bad Ledger isn’t with us anymore for any follow-up films.

Often times in sequels, it’s hard to make something that lives up to the original.  I think Christopher Nolan did a good job in raising the bar by bringing in the Joker, but there’s always room for some improvements.  I don’t think Christian Bale had to really act that much this time around.  The gutteral “batman voice” got a little annoying and old, but it makes sense he was talking differently to try and hide his identity.  Aaron Eckhart did a decent job.  I’ll always remember him as Nick Naylor from Thank You for Smoking.  It’ll be interesting to see if he makes a comeback in the future.

I think Gary Oldman had a much more active role this time around.  He’s such a great actor and it’s nice to see him able to spread his wings a bit.  I liked Maggie Gyllenhaal more than Katie Holmes in the role of Rachel Dawes.  She also fit in pretty well.  It wasn’t like some films where actors change for a particular character and the whole time you’re confused as to who exactly that person is.  Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman were wonderful as usual.  Some friends of mine complained after the first film that they were grossly underutilized.  I kind of agreed, however, it was nice to actually have a “real” actor play the role of Alfred for a change.  I was just happy to have a live body in the role.

Some of the scenes with the Joker are a bit disturbing, but this is rated PG-13, so there’s not a whole lot to worry about.  They cut away at just the right moments in certain scenes.  Liz and I both said we got a little bored in the middle, but overall we thoroughly enjoyed it.  I would highly suggest getting out and seeing this one before it leaves the theaters.  You won’t be sorry.

Rating: ★★★★½

Raising Victor Vargas

Published
by
Chalupa
on August 4, 2008
in Comedy, Coming of age, Drama, New York and Romance
. 0 Comments

I’m not really sure why I added this one to my Netflix queue.  I think it was suggested to me as something I might like.  Writen, directed and produced by Peter Sollett - you might recognize his name in conjunction with a new film coming out, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist starring the ever-funny Michael Cera.  I wasn’t really sure what to think of this film.  I think part of the confusion was with the title.  Raising Victor Vargas would imply it might be about Victor growing up or his parents raising him or something.  The story starts off with Victor being ashamed everyone in the neighborhood knows he’s dating a “fat chick.”  So he heads to the pool with his sidekick to try and change his reputation.  We eventually get clued in to his interesting homelife and his grandmother who is raising him.  So I thought maybe the story would be centered on the grandmother, but it wasn’t.  I want to say I didn’t understand the point of the story, but that just sounds bad…even though I still feel that way.

If you check out the cast list on IMDB, you’ll notice that most of the characters real names are also their character names.  I’ve always though that must make the acting a little bit easier.  The two people I recognized were Melonie Diaz from Be Kind, Rewind, and Victor Rasuk from Lords of Dogtown and I’m Reed Fish.  I appreciated the effort put into accents and vernacular.  It seemed to fit the time and place, or maybe it’s just what I’m used to from watching TV.

Overall I wasn’t really thrilled with this one.  I know movies can just be entertainment; they dont’ have to always teach you a lesson.  This one didn’t seem to have a lesson, there wasn’t any major closure, there didn’t even seem to be much of a character change in anyone.

Rating: ★★½☆☆

Spun

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 27, 2008
in Comedy, Crime, Drama and Drugs
. 0 Comments

For some reason I’m always intrigued by drug movies.  Maybe it’s because it’s something I know nothing about.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on what they were going for in Spun though.  It almost had an MTV, jazzed-up feel to it.  At times I think the film was trying to accurately portray what it’s like to be on crystal meth, but all the while being hip and cool about it.  Everything was shot with a lot of close-up lenses.  I know some would argue this really gets you in there, but I really prefer the wide-angle any day.  It gives you a feel for the scene and its surroundings.  There was also a lot of camera movement and jiggling along with some varying camera speeds with time lapse photography.  I think this is what may have confused me on the level of seriousness.

At times things were from almost a first person view.  Not like a first person video game, but from the viewpoint that you were in the group.  At other times the camera was pulled back a bit and I felt much like an outside observer.  This combined with some of the camera tricks are what made me feel like the film was “jazzed-up” to seem more hip and cool.  The main pair of cops trying to catch everyone also seemed like they might have been more at home as the two detectives from Hot Fuzz.  While most drug-centered films I’ve seen are trying to show how drugs are bad (Blow, Trainspotting, etc), this one almost made it seem maybe a little cool.  I felt the comedy aspects were counteracting the seriousness of the drugs.

One other aspect I really didn’t understand was the bleeping of some dialog and the blurring out of some nudity.  The reason this seemed weird is because they sometimes allowed you to hear the same word in an earlier scene.  Now not all nudity was blurred out, just some.  I could kind of see some consistency in the blurring, but it still didn’t make sense.  Maybe they were trying to avoid an NC-17 rating?

Even though I wasn’t completely on board with everything, this film did bring out an reaction and that is a sign of good art.  Who can say no to a movie starring Jason Schwartzman, Mickey Rourke, Brittany Murphy, John Leguizamo, Patrick Fugit, Mena Suvari, Deborah Harry?  Who’s Deborah Harry you ask?  Well you might also recognize her as the front woman for a band called Blondie.  Jason Schwartzman never ceases to amaze me and Rourke has been awesome in everything I’ve seen him in.  It was also cool watching Blondie kick the crap out of a punk in a convenient store.

I’m not really sure how to recommend this.  Some will be offended by the content and others will just get bored with the feel of it.  I’m glad I stuck through and watched it all.  Something to check out if you have Netflix.  It’s on the Watch Instantly list.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

11:14

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 21, 2008
in Comedy, Crime, Drama, Multiple story line, Murder and Thriller
. 0 Comments

The title 11:14 refers to a time.  On one fateful night, a lot of lives are drastically changed at exactly 11:14.  People die, people are hit by cars, a convenient store is robbed, one girl is playing several people for money, and one guy even losing some very important bits in a bit of a car accident.

I wish I had heard of this one when it came out.  I was really impressed with it.  Some of the cast includes Hilary Swank, Colin Hanks, Rachael Leigh Cook, Jason Segel, Patrick Swayze, and Ben Foster.  I’m not completely sure if this would be considered a neo-noir or not, but it definitely has a lot of those elements in it.  This is another one of those films with multiple time lines and everyone being connected in the end.  It might be good to watch this one without the movie talkers and question-askers.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Happy Endings

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 21, 2008
in Comedy, Drama, Ensemble Cast and Thriller
. 0 Comments

I didn’t really know what to think of the cover, but the plot looked good so I decided to check this out.  Happy Endings is a story about several groups of people all being connected without knowing it.  Kind of like Pulp Fiction.

Mamie, Lisa Kudrow, is a middle aged woman working as a counselor and dating Javier, Bobby Cannavale.  She’s being blackmailed by Nicky, Jesse Bradford - the kid from Hackers, to help him make a movie about her life and her child she has never met.  Meanwhile, Otis, Jason Ritter, has a band and just hired on Jude, Maggie Gyllenhaal, to be their new vocals.  Things get weird though when Otis’ father, Tom Arnold, takes an interest in Otis’ new girlfriend, Jude.  There are a few more characters I’m not going to go into, but I’m not going to spell it all out for you.

One thing I took from this movie was how incredibly messed up some of the characters are.  Mamie is being blackmailed over her son she gave away years ago by a somewhat crazy kid.  All kinds of interesting things happen there.  Otis is also going through hell watching his father being used by his ex-girlfriend while dealing with his own insecurities and issues.  Like I said earlier, everything ends up being connected in the end.

I wasn’t really sure where this movie was going, but ending up really liking it by the end.  There were a lot of strong performances by many of the characters and actors.  I’d recommend checking this one out.

Rating: ★★★★☆

In the Valley of Elah

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 9, 2008
in Based on a true story, Crime, Drama, Iraq, Mystery, Thriller and War
. 0 Comments

I’ve been finding it intersting that more and more movies are coming out about the war in Iraq.  The other day it just dawned on me that in 20 years, this war will be just like Vietnam in that there will be plenty of books, movies, etc out there for people to learn from.

In the same way that Lions for Lambs seemed so lame compared to Charlie Wilson’s War, I think Robert Redford’s film once again pales in comparison to In the Valley of Elah.  The first pair goes together because they both deal with war in Afghanistan.  The second pair also makes sense because they both deal with the current “War on Terror” or “War of Terror” as Borat puts it.

This film deals with a soldier that has just returned from home, but turns up missing.  Tommy Lee Jones, plays the boy’s father, is trying to figure out what happened to his son.  Being a veteran, and a bit of an investigator himself, Hank Deerfield isn’t satisfied with the lackluster efforts and figuring out just what happened to his son.  Through trial and tribulation, Hank finally gets Detective Sanders, Charlize Theron, to take a real look at the case and try to piece all the parts together.  In the meantime, Hank is trying to make sense of some of the videos his son had been sending home to him from the battlefield.

This is truly a sad and tragic story, but I feel that it gave me a little peak into what some of these people are going through.  Every once in a while I catch a blip on the news about what’s going on in that region of the world.  The only real thing that’s actually affecting me are gas prices and the economy tanking.  I’m not in the armed forces though, and there’s very little chance of a draft happening again so I’d be really surprised if I ever experienced anything like this first hand.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Across the Universe

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 6, 2008
in Drama, Musical, Romance, Vietnam and War
. 2 Comments

I thought this film looked really cool when I started reading about it and saw the previews and trailers. The concept seemed cool. It was a heavily Beetles influenced love story. I missed it in the theaters and heard some not so great reviews of it. I think I now know why people didn’t like it. This film really seemed like it was trying to copy the success Baz Luhrmann’s success with Moulin Rouge!. The only problem was the movie just didn’t seem to have much direction. Now I know this sounds crazy because how could a movie have no direction when there obviously was a guy called a “director” directing it? I don’t really know the answer to that question, but it just seemed to lack an over-arching vision.

Starring Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess (21) and set during the Vietnam War, this movie follows the romance of an upper class girl and a poor artist. Sounds a little bit like Moulin Rouge, right? The tagline also happens to be, “All you need is love.” I’m not sure why Luhrmann did it so well and Julie Traymor didn’t. This turned out to be one of those movies I had to force myself to watch - and that doesn’t happen very often. Maybe it’s because I’m not a huge fan of musicals. If any of you have seen it and have some thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

The Host

Published
by
Chalupa
on July 5, 2008
in Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Foreign, Horror, Korea, Sci-fi and Thriller
. 0 Comments

I can’t say I’ve seen too many Korean films, but this one is top-notch in my book. When I saw the previews for this a couple years ago I was looking forward to seeing it. I don’t think it ever came my way though. In classic Japanese-Godzilla-style, a strange mutated fish thing is created in a river due to toxic waste being poured down the drain. Eventually this creature gets big enough to start terrorizing the local population and eating people.

The film centers around the Park family. The grandfather runs a food stand in a park next to the river. Mr. Park is helped by one son, his daughter is an Olympic archer, and his other son is a bit of a drunk. His granddaughter is currently in the 7th grade and is one of the many victims on the day of the attack. That fateful day, and the death of the granddaughter, brings the whole family back together as they try to deal with the tragedy.

While The Host is definitely science fiction and suspenseful, there’s also some witty humor thrown into the mix amongst some of the more tense scenes. I found it quite hilarious when these sarcastic remarks were thrown in during the scenes when you shouldn’t be laughing.

I would highly suggest this for anyone who even thought of maybe seeing it. While this movie is about a monster, it’s not a scary horror movie that will leave you jumping out of your seats. It’s also not cheesy and boring like many of these can be.

Rating: ★★★★½