Shrek’s Mid-life Crisis

 The Final Voyage Needs a Bigger Forever
By
Morgan P Salvo


I was introduced to Shrek in two ways. First was the commercials hype on the TV screen, along with the toys and images affiliated with whatever fast food chain that has the market on them. Secondly and more importantly was when I was painting a kid’s bedroom way back when. I heard a lot of cartoony chatter coming from through the muffled wall along with tons of laughter from the kids. But I also heard some cool music from the likes of The Eels, Joan Jett and shockingly John Cale. I thought that someone must’ve had some cool alternative radio show going at the same time in a different room so I peered in and lo and behold there it was. Really cool music attached to the childlike phenomenon called Shrek. I decided to check it out. The first one was sharp and witty with enough humor for adults in a Rocky and Bullwinkle fashion, and way fun for kids. I checked the second installment for about five minutes, lost interest and shut it off and by-passed the 3rd Shrek entirely. Now along comes Shrek Forever After and so does my curiosity as to what they’ve come up with for the grand finale.

The plot is simplistic fairy tale wherein Shrek, stuck in a rut of domesticity, is on the brink of running amok. Gone are his days of being a mean ogre with the ability to scare people with his mighty roar and greenish bad looks. Diminished to a dedicated family man, Shrek now changes diapers, has play dates with Donkey’s kids and tries to relax poolside with an eye-ball-tini. Nowadays he lives on the trail of a guided tour and autographs pitchforks for fans. Longing for the days when he felt like a "real ogre," Shrek is duped into signing a pact with an evil magician, the smooth-talking dealmaker Rumpelstiltskin. Shrek suddenly finds himself in an alternate universe, where ogres are hunted, Rumpelstiltskin is king and Shrek and wife Fiona have never met. Now, it's up to Shrek to save his friends, restore his world and reclaime his one “True Love.” Hokey for sure, but hey it’s a kid’s movie.
Back are all the originals. Mike Myers as Shrek seems to be just barely going through the motions. Cameron Diaz as Fiona delivers her lines like she’s aware it’s going to be a cartoon translation. I never get the connection. When she was a princess it made sense but Diaz’s voice just never gels with the plump ogre chick with cleavage on screen. Eddie Murphy reprises Donkey the wisecracking jackass keeping up the momentum once again with bad puns, one-liners and wretched songs. But the scene stealer is Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots, this time without boots because he’s gotten fat. Cat lovers will have a field day enjoying his tidbits of humor. Then there’s Rumplestiltskin (Walt Dohr) who basically dominates the entire movie. Dohr has co-written some of the Shreks, a SpongeBob Square Pants and is head story writer here. He does a great job for an unknown because I spent the whole movie trying to figure out what actor he was. And I could have never called the voices for the army of wicked witches who hunt and capture ogres for slave labor - Kathy Griffin, Regis Philbin and Larry King. I shit ye not.
There are some funny parodies of other movies like Deliverance, and for the most part everything hits its mark. The few noticeable misfires seemed to be the use of the Pied Piper to make people disco dance and the choice of music this time around has really taken a dive. Gone were the alternative choices to spice things up. In their place were generic sounding songs and the use of the Carpenters “Sitting on Top of the World” which felt awkward and off kilter.
Technology has come along way. The computer animation is so disturbingly realistic that even though I opted against 3-D it still felt like the characters were sitting in my lap. One thing that I thought I’d never see though was five o’ clock shadow and chest hairs on a big green ogre. That’s borderline wrong.
As far as grand finales goes this Shrek is pretty tame but entertaining for sure. Makes me wish I was a kid again and all that. But I would’ve gone with way more bells and whistles if this was my swan song. A mighty bottle of champagne was needed to bust open this bon voyage. As it is I guess simple says it best, but I would’ve liked to seen it pull out all stops and pack more of a wallop. Even though kid’s movies aren’t my thing, Shrek Forever After was not as bad as I thought it would be.

Shrek Forever After
Starring Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, Antonio Banderas
Directed by Mike Mitchell
2 ½ stars

Gladiator in Tights… well sort of...

Not the Stuff of Legends
by Morgan P Salvo

How many versions does it take to botch the saga of Robin Hood? Among all the songs movies, cartoons and TV shows add one more with this boring one-note treatment of the band of not-so-merry men. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood is so hard pressed to be serious that it squishes the life out of itself. I guess the fact that no one wears tights is the first dead give away.
This flick is essentially the longest intro in cinematic history – one long drawn out prologue to set up how Robin Hood came to be. The plot drags on like a slow moving history lesson instead of an exciting, action-filled adventure. The mediocre opening battle sequence sets the tone for the remainder of this long uninspired movie.
Beginning with a printed outlaw legend in old English calligraphy, we are drawn into instant battle and heroism by Robin Longstride (a grimacing Russell Crowe).As an archer fighting for King Richard the Lionheart (a gratuitous Danny Huston), Longstride is accused of disloyalty but escapes after Richard is killed. Upon retrieving the dead king's crown from bandits, Robin sets out for London, where Richard's weaker brother John (Oscar Isaac) will now reign. King John’s evil henchman Godfrey (Mark Strong) is in cahoots with the opposing French enemy. Taking a fallen soldier's title, Robin goes to Nottingham and meets the soldier's widow, Lady Marion (Cate Blanchett) and her father Sir Walter (Max Von Sydow) who asks Robin to pretend to be his son and discover his true origin. The over bloated plot just gets in the way of itself. Basically Robin goes from archer to nobleman and finally to enemy of King John and the movie ends where usually the folk-hero adventures begin.
The actors must’ve had fun dressing up in robes and leather, riding horses, hollering once in while, while carrying swords, daggers and shooting arrows but their performances are consistently bland .Crowe brings no life to his character and is way too solemn for a merry man. Blanchet is a saucy wench indeed but wears too much make up for a farm-woman. Sydow bubbles with delight but you just know he’s gonna croak before the credits. Isaac plays the same fey conqueror as Joaquin Phoenix did in Gladiator with unforgivable bouts of over acting. William Hurt shows up to screw up his lines, and once again Strong is plucked from the "best-villain-ever" deck of cards to sneer and growl like a good scoundrel.
The script is R-Hood’s weakest link. Instead of robbing from the rich to give to the poor, this Robin Hood babbles old English dialogue with contemporary slang and preaches about liberty and the rights of the individual. I am pretty sure they didn’t use the phrase “this is a whole different animal” back in those days.
Inevitable comparisons will be made to Gladiator, the other Scott/Crowe collaboration, but Robin Hood is so much more watered down and monotonous that they are light years apart. Director Scott has a visionary film style with a checklist of fine movies (Alien, Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise), but what looks good cinematically makes it all the more obvious and disturbing when it isn’t working. Robin Hood has arrows and slashing swordplay but no blood, no surprises, and no trickery and deceit unless you thought you were going to see a good movie. Ah me poor unfortunates, ye have been duped! Mainstream formulaic and boring, all you didn’t want to know about Robin Hood is crammed into this monotonous prequel for what must be some sort of vapid trilogy. This is not the of stuff myths and legends. As it darts hither and yon Robin Hood is a grandiose exercise in spare-no-expense tedium.

Robin Hood
Starring Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchet, Max Von Sydow, Marc Strong
Directed by Ridley Scott
1 star

Goo Goo Dolls

The cute factor reigns supreme with those darn Babies
By
Morgan P Salvo


What’s the big deal about babies? I ‘m not especially fond of other people’s babies and there’s nothing more torturous than baby home movies. I know they’re cute when they’re little and everyone thinks theirs is the most wonderful of all, but what’s so special about babies? They don’t last long, pretty soon after making a mess of things they grow up and progressively make bigger/different messes until they get to adulthood, Seriously, what’s so special about babies? Who gives a rat’s ass unless they’re your own? I don’t get it.
The new documentary Babies cashes in on the cute and, hopefully, shared fact that we are all enchanted by life’s beginning and how awesome it is to be born while surrounded by a bunch of shit we can’t comprehend. Clearly I was assigned this movie as a cruel joke, but nothing prepared me for how truly bad this flick would be.
Director Thomas Balmès might have had a good idea originally, capturing the captivating moments of early life from around the world. However, it quickly morphs into nonsensical juxtapositions of baby footage. Done in a non-traditional style, there’s no narration, just images with more gurgling and cooing than dialogue. If it came with commentary like a History Channel or a decent National Geographic doc with some educational info, there might have been something here. But as it stands, Babies feels like all the favorite snapshots of four different babies with no real links to the similarities or vast cultural differences between them.
Going to four corners of the world, Babies follows the early stages of life. We are introduced to Hattie (San Francisco), Mari (Japan), Bayarjargal (Mongolia), and Ponijao, (Namibia). Babies feels unbearably long even at 79 minutes. I kept saying to myself “hey is that Mongolia in the background? I can’t tell---there’s a big freakin’ BABY in the way!” Mainly we see all four babies getting washed, crying, peeing, grinning, crawling, but mostly we see them just staring blankly into space sometimes accompanied by some peppy, incoherent music. By far the star was the African child. Ponijao’s eyes had an intelligence of awareness far superior to most adults.
Even beyond the subject matter, this was a poorly made documentary. When a scene got somewhat close to interesting (which was close to never) it abruptly cut to another scene of over-the-top boring cuteness. The handpicked, random cute stuff included, but was not limited to, belly sucking, tit squirting, fountain-like peeing and baby yoga. Babies didn’t resemble a celebration of life, but rather a home movie that I felt the need to excuse myself from. If I weren’t on assignment, I would’ve gotten up and kept running.
One of the best parts was watching some of the disgusting food some cultures eat, from pans of goat guts to something that resembled an ice-cream meat cone dipped in water.
The most engaging scenes were the ones with pets and babies, but were way too reminiscent of YouTube videos. All the babies seem to have pets. Three of them play with kitties while Ponijao plays with his pet flies. I kept expecting Bob Saget to narrate with baby-talk cartoon-voice. Babies really went downhill when they learned how to make noise. The mass crying provided ample time to for me to squirm and wish I were on another planet.
The crawling times passed quickly and then the babies stood, giving me hope that the torment was over, but nope, it keeps going filling in the black holes with more goo-goo speak and home movie footage. The credits even has an epilogue that shows them “today”, which looks like five minutes later.
French composer Bruno Coulais' ( Coraline, Winged Migration) score uses woodwinds, strings, pans, pots, rattles and anything else he could get his hands on to make this bubbling ethnic pop that is supposed to be jubilant. I guess one might find it uplifting, but to me it sounded like South American pan-flute street music fused with sound effects records.
If you're expecting a baby, once had a baby, or if you have a baby right now you might like Babies. But for other side of the coin if you can't stand, are afraid of, don't get, or are immune to the charms of babies, you will not like Babies. I’m not sure a movie called “tweens” or god forbid “grown-ups” would capture hearts as much as this movie will, but there’s only so much “AWWWWS” a guy can take in one movie. This was beyond torturous. It was by far the most boring movie I have ever seen and the longest 79 minutes spent in my life. One big diaper-less pampers commercial or perhaps one huge ad to adopt an African baby. Babies was just that wrong on so many levels.
With the combination of a concept so poorly delivered, the subject matter so redundant, and the movie so tediously crafted, Babies was my version of a horror movie. Considering after viewing the likes of Dawn of the Dead and Saw, I slept like a baby, but Babies was designed to give me nightmares.




Babies
Starring Babies
Directed by Thomas Balmès
 ½ star

 
  just in case.....

Dream On

Michael Bay continues to murder the classics
By
Morgan P Salvo


Producer Michael Bay is on a murder spree. He is systematically slaughtering remakes of classic horror/slasher movies from the 70s-80s in a churned out torture-porn-slam-bang fashion. He has destroyed what was good about Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left, and Friday the Thirteenth and now, true to form, has revised A Nightmare on Elm Street to new slice and dice levels of schlock and mediocrity.
Elm Street was created by Wes Craven (Hills Have Eyes, Scream) in 1984, franchising into nine slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. In case you’re from Mars, here’s the plot: a group of teens suddenly seem to share the same nightmare involving a scary guy in a red-and-green-striped tattered sweater and fedora. Serial killer/monster Freddy Kruger wielding a glove with knives as fingers is stalking and killing people in their dreams, resulting in their real death. Freddy’s seeking revenge on his victim’s parents, who had burned him alive years before for being a child molester.
Incorporating Bay’s brazen tactics, music video director Samuel Bayer (Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit) helms his first feature, with a colorful pulsating panache. But there are no surprises. Bayer tamely duplicates many visual cues and effects sequences from the original: bathtub claw, morphing wall, flying bodies, swarms of blood, finger-blade sparks and the irritating fingernails on a blackboard sound effects. Keeping at an eerie drive-in pace, Nightmare builds some nice suspense here and there but all the scare scenes are done in by a relentless and ultimately predictable amount of shocks-from-nowhere; the equivalent of hiding and at the last moment yelling BOO!
New screenwriter Eric Heisserer and veteran Wesley Strick (responsible for new-aging Scorsese’s Cape Fear) show considerable restraint, following the formulaic horror film genre. However they skip from one idea to the next sending mixed messages and metaphors. The idiotic sub-plot gives us no rationale behind the kids’ multiple memory loss about abuse, allowing for Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew investigating that goes nowhere fast. Not to mention a lamely depicted back story of the demise of pedophile Kruger.
The acting throughout looks misdirected, but most of the teens are believable at angst-ridden, frightened and spewing blood. Clancy Brown shows up as an unrealistically concerned parent, high-schoolers Kyle Gallner (the permanently sad faced kid from Haunting in Connecticut) sports a Joy Division T-shirt to let us know he’s hip, and heroine Rooney Mara looks like she’s already graduated from college.
Jack Earle Haley follows in the footsteps of Robert Englund’s Freddy, who got campier with each sequel, finally becoming a mere caricature. Here Nightmare doesn’t allow Hailey much more than to grunt like a burn-victim ghoul. He just seems like a dripping-faced runt in a striped sweater with an ax to grind, and the fedora has never been explained.
The blurred line between dreams and reality has always been fascinating. But that concept is merely just tapped into here and not unleashed. The notion that a boogeyman can go from nightmare to nightmare, appearing anywhere at any time wreaking havoc with every rip of his razor hand, should be a never ending creative field day for filmmakers. Luis Buñuel, the great surrealist filmmaker who worked with Salvador Dali, once said of his films “when in doubt… put in a dream sequence.” Wes Craven knew this. The concept of people being killed in their dreams corresponding with their real life death and the impossibility of staying awake as the only way to avoid their own gruesome murder is true genius.
Still genuinely creepy this somber gory remake might hold its own as a new feature if we weren’t so inundated with the Kruger saga or if it brought something new, rather than following Bay’s predictable formula. As dormant as Nightmare was, I wasn’t afraid to fall asleep or wake up dead. Let's just say this Elm Street won't cause any nightmares.

A Nightmare on Elm Street
Starring Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Clancy Brown
Directed by Samuel Bayer
2 ½ stars