Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a Woody Allen movie about relationships.  Vicky and Cristina are visiting Barcelona for the summer where their opposite views on love and dating come to the forefront.

This movie really did not do anything for me.  The American characters are ridiculously flat and uninteresting.  The Spanish duo at least has passion, but is also flat.  The dialogue was unentertaining and bored.  I agreed with the viewpoint of love projected through Juan Antonio but that was all I had out of this one.  The characters were all so stereotypical and it was very aggravating.  Their were some interesting points of dialogue, but the film was too cliché-ridden.  Riding classic bikes in Europe, what a novel idea!  Type A’s are stiff as a board and uncomfortable with their own sexuality.  Type B’s are well, sluts.  Luckily, there were tiny bits of good acting and writing to save this thing from completely bottoming out.

“She put a knife into me.”

4/10

San Quentin (1937)

Captain Stephen’ Jameson (Pat O’Brien) regular army is sent to  San Quentin to become the top prison guard. He so good at handling men the warden feels he can turn the prison around. He falls for May (Ann Sheridan) a singer in a night club. Her brother, Red (Humphrey Bogart) is no good and gets sent to San Quentin.  The three of them form a triangle filled with strife, mostly started by bad boy Red.

Formulaic prison movie, with Bogart (not one of best) moving the plot.

“It’s dynamite”

Life in the big house——03/10

Lost Continent (1951)

Major Joe Nolan (CesarRomero) leads a search in the South Pacific for a lost atomic rocket that went off course. As they fly over an island a strange force causes their plane to crash. Native girl points then to a plateau that she saw the rocket/ fire bird fly into. The plateau is the dwelling place of their gods and none that go on it returns. So off the party goes up the plateau to find the rocket.

50′s comic book like story with several good actors, but a fair/corny script. The special effects are bad even for this time. On the plus side I didn’t fall asleep and I got just what I expected in watching it.

“We are under orders not to break radio silence until we find the rocket. ”

Weak 50′s sci-fi movie, but if you like them, you like then—-03/10

Foolproof (2003)

Kevin (Ryan Reynolds), Sam (Kristin Booth) and Rob (Joris Jarsky) for fun do theoretical heists. One of their plans is taken and used by a gangster. After the real heist, the gangster blackmails them into pulling off a real heist.

Not top notch action adventure, but passable.  The three stars kept making me think of “Two Guy’s and a Girl”, they have many of the same interactions between each other.

Access Denied! Access Denied!

Tight B movie, but nothing to make it really stand out–03

The Killer Inside Me stars Casey Affleck alongside Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson.  A serial killing mastermind unleashes himself on a small Texas town.

This movie was a bit of a disappointment.  I thought the story and setting seemed intriguing, but the way in which the movie unraveled itself was pretty lousy.  The killer seemed so exacting as we are always seeing him do higher math  and playing his piano, but he has no plan and never shows his “brilliance”.  The brutality scenes were unbridled and disturbing, but just ended up adding to the frustration of the movie not holding its own.  And then we have our brilliant conclusion: gather all the remaining characters in the known killer‘s house, except the omniscient guy who obviously knows what is to happen, and just blow it up.  What the hell?  Poor movie tried so hard to be hard, yet when the plot unfolded it was just soft and silly.

“All I can do is wait ‘til I split right down the middle.”

4/10

The Invention of Lying is a Ricky Gervais film set in a world where everyone tells the truth every time.  One guy comes up with the idea of lying to try and better his life, but it ends up snowballing ridiculously as these things often do.

Not really that great of a movie.  I appreciated the dig on religion, but that was about the only thing I enjoyed from the movie as it was one cliché after another wrapped in a silly and repetitive formula.  I really can’t believe this movie was as popular as it was given its viewpoint on religion.  The premise was somewhat original but everything else was as old as dirt including, maybe the most tired movie cliché ever, a wedding halted at the altar.  Ricky Gervais is really hit or miss with me.  I think the British Office gives him the perfect stage for his comedic style, but outside of that, I tend to not like him.  The bad movie joke count was just too damn high for the movie to have a good impact.

“The world is going to end unless we have sex right now.”
“Do we have time to get to a motel?”

4/10

The Cure is a 1995 film starring Brad Renfro and Joseph Mazzello.  It is about a boy’s struggle with AIDS as he and his only friend take an adventurous trip down the Mississippi River to find a cure.

This movie should have been done more as a children’s movie.  Maybe death warrants it being PG-13, but it was just to hokey to be enjoyed by adults in my opinion.  The characters were all too rigid and the movie in general, was not very well done.  I did not care for either of the performances from the two young protagonists, but that distaste could have been the residue of the poor writing staining the acting.  The film had moving pieces towards the end, but the journey to that point was not worth it.

“Dexter was happy to have you as a friend.”

4/10

Happy-Go-Lucky is a British film about the relationships of care free teacher who wants desperately for everyone to be as happy as she is.

I wasn’t really amused with this.  There were certainly funny parts, but I just felt the movie to be quite empty.  It made matters worse that the main character rubbed me the wrong way.  I liked her at the start but was glad to be done with her at the finish.  The other people in the film were just odd caricatures and had no depth at all.  Her relationship with the driving instructor was completely awkward and useless.  I think the movie was trying too hard to be cute and could have done with more realness or grit.

“Enraha” I still sometimes think of that when I drive.

4/10

I’m Still Here stars Joaquin Phoenix and is directed by Casey Affleck.  It is a film about a self-centered movie star that wants to pursue a hip-hop career.

This film was experimental to say the least.  Joaquin Phoenix was pretty damn fearless.  All the shots were set up around himself even though he is playing a character when he makes public appearances.  He basically dragged his own name around by as he became a really stupid character. I did not enjoy the movie despite chuckling several times and finding the awkwardness of several scenes intriguing.  The Diddy scene where he thinks JP is joking was pretty solid and I also liked the contrast at the end of the film where it shows us how far from nature we have strayed concluding with a Joaquin Phoenix baptism of sorts.  The movie as a whole, made me feel like Zach Galifianakis was being ripped off. .  It was beyond my understanding why the movie was done the way it was.  I just could not get a grasp for the main character.  It is obviously a middle finger to celebrity, but why did it have to be so low brow?  Because that sucked all of the pleasure out for me and I was left asking “Is it over yet?”.  That question ran through my head about a million times.

“Compli-fucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-motherfucking-cation, compli-fucking-cation, compli-motherfucking-cation, compli-motherfucking-cation, compli-fucking-cated.  It’s so fucking complicated that my mind can’t even say it.”

3/10

Instinct stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and Anthony Hopkins.  It is the story of an anthropologist who lives with gorillas.

Overall, the film had a very hokey feel to it and was simply not done very well.  Hopkins and Gooding Jr. give mediocre performances.  The only redeeming quality in my opinion was that I felt very strongly connected with the anthropologist’s way of life which, in my eyes, is the natural way of life for humans and the film seemed to be echoing that sentiment.  I also agree with the inherent flaws and detrimental nature of our societies.  The movie comes undone with its constant melodramatic lines and bad one-liners.  It is too damn overacted at every turn.  I wanted to like it more, but couldn’t.

“I don’t believe I can come back to this world the way I am.”

4/10