Pain in the Gulliver

Throw Away the Brochure as The newest take on a classic novel is a no-thrill ride
by
Morgan P Salvo

This crazy trend to make 3-D movies these days only pays off if… let me think…it has really cool freakin’ 3-D-looking things popping out at you. The only thing popping out during Jack Black’s insipid new movie Gulliver’s Travels were my eyes in astonishment at how bland, generic and totally sluggish the entire flick on every level.
Sticking only vaguely close to the original novel Lemuel Gulliver (Black) is a lowly mailroom clerk who lies about being a travel writer to impress a woman in the office (Amanda Peet), who then sends him on an assignment in the Bermuda Triangle. After a Perfect Storm-type hurricane, he suddenly finds himself a beached whale and giant among men on the hidden island of Lilliput. The tiny people there are in the midst of a war and have a miniature kingdom to protect. Gulliver is their immediate giant and savior. Then it’s all about Jack Black antics and everyone staying on cruise control. Gulliver’s has the requisite fairy tale scenario: queen, king, princess with suitor-below-her-station, and the evil general vying for the princess’ hand. All the actors playing these roles (Catherine Tate, Billy Connolly, Emily Blunt, Jason Segal, Chris O’Dowd) are usually capable of some entertaining stuff but here in Lilliput they are stuck, meandering in the crosshairs of a dull and lifeless paycheck movie.
In Jonathan Swift's 18th-century classic novel which parodies human nature the Lilliputian theme’s adaptation if handled right is a good moral and just tale, not to mention the religious ramifications of worshipping false idols. The most creative film adaptation was the Preston Sturges directed film Sullivan’s Travels starring Joel McCrea. This flick touched on the subject through a writer’s journey into poverty and seeing that people are all decent and the same no matter what class they are--- rich, poor, white, black, big, small. Here that message is only hinted at by stupid little references --- “it takes a big person to accomplish that”, “there are no small people” etc.
Black’s best role was in Tim Robbins’ Bob Roberts wherein he was actually acting and not playing some sort of extended version of his smarmy self. Here he embarrasses himself every scene he gets. We get the snippet version of Black playing Guitar Hero, urinating on a burning castle, dressing up in a little girl’s doll dress, smirking, dancing like a dolt, using the word “Dude” a lot and easing into essentially doing nothing. Basically we have a severe case of posing here. We get Jack Black lite – I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the movie would have benefitted from his usual over-the-top performance. I know he has kids but does he have to join the rank of actors with children (we’re talking Eddie Murphy here) who play it safe with lousy movies?
Shark Tale's Rob Letterman apparently directs from another room using a script by Nick Stoller (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and Joe Stillman (Shrek). You’d think with this kind of talent we’d get something more visually substantial and at the very least a few chuckles here and there. Instead we are pummeled by lame pop culture references, a Steam Punk look, a nonsensical Iron Man rip-off, a tiny person’s Kiss concert and a tired and over worked Titanic’s “top of the world” parody. Really this has no place in any movie, adult, kids or otherwise. But the most painful to watch was the horrendously choreographed dance number to Edwin Starr's anti-Vietnam anthem, “War (what is it good for?).”
This entire flick is a disappointment. Kid movies have been upgraded—didn’t the filmmakers get the memo? Missing were the in-jokes for adults (as in Shrek) who get dragged by their kids to see these flicks. Gulliver’s wasn’t so bad to be totally evil, it was just plain innocuous. Devoid of any real humor, the dreary Gulliver’s Travels is stale on every account, a pathetic attempt at entertainment while lacking any 3-D pizzazz. Even kids will notice the vacuum created here as it just feels lazy. To quote Edwin Starr—Gulliver’s Travels –what is it good for? absolutely nothing…say it again. GT might’ve been a big production to make but it as kid’s flick it stands small in stature.
.Gulliver’s Travels
Starring Jack Black, Jason Segel, Emily Blunt, Amanda Peet, Billy Connolly, Chris O'Dowd
Director: Rob Letterman
Rated PG
1/2 star

The Worst of 2010

The list can go on and on. Considering the onslaught of duds there really wasn’t a lot of flicks vying for best movie category this year, which is why I compiled a list of the ten films I just absolutely hated this year.

1. Babies

Goo-goo dada. This is just a garbled batch of poorly made home movies in which only cuteness is documented. One can only take so much crying, peeing, grinning and crawling no matter what country they’re from. For those of you smitten by babies, cuddle onward. But if you are one who is immune to the charms of, or perhaps even afraid of, babies – avoid this at all costs.

2. Legion

Prophecy in a diner. The acting is atrocious, it’s the worst script imaginable, the demonic angels are ridiculous, it’s predictable beyond redemption and every stereotypical thing that could happen, happens. PLUS Dennis Quaid is worse than ever...in other words I took a bullet for the team when I sat through this one.

3. Knight and Day

Cruise and Diaz’s star power dwindles as they flash their pearly whites, giggle and act supremely stupid in this lame action-less dud.

 
 4.. Prince of Persia

Focused on a “magical” dagger, this flick is the true weapon of mass deception.

 
 5. My Soul to Take

More horror schlock from Wes Craven. No reason for the script. No reason to film it. No reason for 3D. No reason for me to voluntarily devote two hours to this, and I’d really like those two hours back.

6.The Karate Kid

Overly cute remake, plus there’s no damn karate— it’s all kung fu!





 7. The Last Airbender

M. Night Shyamalan shouldn’t be allowed to borrow against his Sixth Sense success ever again. The director has cashed in the few remaining chips he had left with this pile of crap.


8. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans.

Anyone praising Nick Cage’s “frenetically charged comeback” is either wishfully thinking or delusional. This is one of the most irritating flicks thanks to Cage’s eye-bugging “watch-what-I-came-up-with-for-this-character” acting. Abel Ferrara had every right to slam Herzog for this thoughtless hunk of shit.
 

9. Inception

Why anyone would think this movie is smart, intriguing or, in some cases, brilliant is beyond me. Listen, if I have a dream infiltrated it’s gonna have a lot more cool surreal things like zombies, strippers, scary monsters, nonsensical dialogue with witty repartee, colorful lizard demons and morphing weapons. The only intrigue in this movie was how long it took for that damn van to drop off that bridge. This one put me to sleep. Gimme a break.
10. Salt

This Angelina Jolie vehicle incorporated all things espionage and lame. Generic to the hilt, bullets flew, people got shot, shit blew up. Meanwhile, Jolie jumped off overpasses and bounced off semi trucks. I figure I have seen this movie either seven or 750 times, I can’t remember and am way past caring.

True West

Jeff Bridges shoots, drinks and snarls as The Coens stay reverent to the novel’s sparked up lingo

by Morgan P Salvo

Opening with a dead body, drizzling snow and a quote from the Old Testament ("The wicked flee when none pursueth"), it is clear that this True Grit is more than just a remake of the ingrained Western icon John Wayne vehicle. The Coen Brothers were more interested in staying reverent to the Charles Portis' original novel, telling the story from the young girl's perspective, and re-teaming with their No Country for Old Men producer Scott Rudin. This is the story of young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who enlists the services of "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) a man with “true grit” to help her capture her father’s killer. Accompanied by Texas Ranger Le Beouf (Matt Damon) they all journey onward to bring her father's murderer (Josh Brolin) to justice or kill him, whichever comes first.

Although True Grit will not leave the lasting impression Fargo did, it does deliver on a grand scale. The Coen’s undeniable gift for words shines throughout. The Elizabethan theater chatter set forth here is totally reminiscent of HBO’S series Deadwood. The absolutely excellent dialogue evokes the same kind of weird speak that rings hilarious when deadpanned as in Raising Arizona and The Man Who Wasn’t There.
Casting Bridges in the Rooster Cogburn role was another stroke of the Coens’ ongoing genius. Move over Duke, the Dude is taking over. Bridges is an amazing treat to watch as the cantankerous drunken old one-eyed windbag. Dropping octaves and basically growling the whole movie, Bridges tops every performance of his to date. Brolin is hilarious as a kind of blundering murderous/mutant/retarded/outlaw. Damon’s LaBoeuf (humorously pronounced “luh-beef”) is probably the most unconvincing but that might be the directors’ take on the stiff semi-good guy/hero role or the curse of Glen Campbell (who stammered through the original role). Steinfeld is a force to be reckoned with; rattling off her dialogue proficiently (you can see why she was picked from 15,000 audition tapes).
There was a glaring error onscreen that I was not familiar with in Coen Country.
Mattie swims across a river on her horse totally drenched and arrives on the other side bone dry. Was this a conscious effort from these perfectionists to make a mistake as in older flicks to see if someone catches it? Are they messing with us in a new way here?
True Grit might rank somewhere with films like Assassination of Jesse James, Dead Man and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but what I left thinking was that this would make a great double bill paired with an early Bridges film called Bad Company as Cogburn could be easily his character Jake Rumsey “all growed up”.
With exec producer Spielberg onboard and a safe bet for X-mas family audiences, Grit plays out happy and nice, overall merely adequate, falling short of the high standards the brothers have set for themselves. Still Joel and Ethan deliver some of their iconic weirdness (like the guy in the skinned–bear suit) and for a PG-13 rating, actually manage to include some decent blood splattering. Everything looks great: the cinematography is deep-toned, the landscape beautiful, the characters colorful, but in the end it lacks the spunk it started with--- maybe that’s the essence of the novel. Straightforward yet disconcerting the Coens have made a Western, nothing more nothing less.
.
True Grit
Starring Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Hailee Steinfeld
Written & Directed By Joel and Ethan Coen
Rated PG-13
3 ½ stars

Move Aside Rocky there’s a New Kid in Town

Palookaville definitely has a contender
By Morgan P Salvo
What’s that you say? David O. Russell, the guy who directed Spanking the Monkey, Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees made a boxing movie? Yes it’s true the king of quirky has made a straight forward boxing pic based on a true story, fueled by performances of compelling grit and layered intensities, simply entitled The Fighter.
It’s a drama about boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg), an up-and-coming welterweight who is being groomed to become the next ''pride of Lowell Mass” by his older half brother, Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale), a local boxing legend-turned-crack-addict and his overly imposing manager/mother, Alice (Melissa Leo).
Though it’s virtually impossible to make a boxing movie without drawing comparisons to Rocky, Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby and The Wrestler, this film more resembles On the Waterfront, as it focuses more on the psychological pain and connection to family than the actual boxing scenes.
Once again we have a tough and somber version of Massachusetts’ mean streets, this time centered in Lowell, the birthplace of America’s industrial revolution and Jack Kerouac. Showcasing the toxic interaction between families that are usually more dramatized by Eugene O'Neill, the filmmaking alone holds it own in originality
Russell’s cinematic style is the real star of this film. Following the characters with a moving camera/wandering eye and using different film stock for scenes, he creates the feel of an intriguing documentary. Shooting with straight video to depict the boxing scenes with all its inherent lines and fuzziness, the camera visuals never let you down. Ironically the sub plot is the making of a documentary on Dicky’s life that he touts as his comeback film for HBO, but is in actuality a documentary on crack addiction, allowing us see the seedier side of life and all its deadly ramifications.
As we follow the career of Micky and the downfall of Dicky, we also get to see all the raging dysfunctions of their family reminiscent of a reality show, their domestic drama played out in full view of innocent bystanders. There are seven sisters who never seem to leave the house, mean and nasty hags all bitchy and hairdos. Across town lies the den of drug addicts that seem to just wallow in crack smoke. Russell’s use of non-actors in these roles proves to be a stroke of genius as their scenes have that uncomfortable reality of people who mean well but get directly under your skin. Plus you wonder where the hell did they come from?
There’s something inherently authentic about the story and performances. Bale overdoes it from the get-go but after you get over his thespian showboating you lock into his character. Wahlberg plays it solid and laidback only to explode when necessary. In their defense, real footage of Dicky and Micky at the ending credits makes it clear they were on the mark. Leo rules as the chain-smoking self-absorbed queen of manipulation, right down to the lacquered platinum blond hair, hovering like a vulture over her one son's boxing career while pampering and enabling her other son’s wasted life. Amy Adams as Micky’s girlfriend Charlene sheds her nice girl image (Leap Year, Doubt) in a finely hewn performance of a feisty college dropout/ bartender with high hopes. Alice’s husband George (Jack Magee) is a puffy Irish drunk who gets to shoulder the burden of a wacked out family gone turbo and he looks it. Mickey O'Keefe (in a surprisingly astonishing performance) plays himself, a sergeant for the Lowell Police Department in Massachusetts (as of 2010). In real life, he was Micky’s mentor during his prolific boxing career.
Fighter quickly moves past the corny formulaic mush. The requisite tension is achieved leading up to the championship bout and the Rocky-esque training montages are kept short. The rivalries between promoters and trainers that could’ve been handled as good vs. evil instead played out as almost pure dysfunction. Shot with intimacy all the little intricacies of human emotion resonate as the drunken aspirations from Looserville rise and fall like the tide.
Good music is used throughout (Breeders, Rolling Stones, Whitesnake to name a few) and there’s even an a cappella version of the Bee Gees’ “I Started A Joke” that is sure to make you wince.
Overall The Fighter is yet another slug-fest drama but rings true establishing heartfelt sentiment that real life goes on and even drugged out hopes and dreams can come true.

The Fighter
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
Directed by David O. Russell
Rated R
 3 stars

Far From the Extolling Crowd

Intellectuals, infidelity and teen infatuation run amok
by
Morgan P Salvo

Tamara Drewe, the newest installment from director Stephen Frears, has both great moments and glaring faults. A black comedy, TD is adapted from a comic-strip-turned-graphic novel by Posy Simmonds, which itself is based on Thomas Hardy's novel Far From the Maddening Crowd. In the countryside of a writer’s retreat, the once the ugly duckling Tamara Drewe, now a glamorous-yet-confused journalist with a life-changing nose job returns to sell her house. This Tamara is not to be confused with Tamara, the ax-wielding cheerleader-killing-machine, although that might have been the gimmick this flick needed.

Director Frears has delivered on romantic sappiness before with The Snapper and The Van that play out like catchy tunes without all the sweetness.He even makes movies I liked (Prick up Your Ears and The Grifters) but most recognizable are Dangerous Liaisons, High Fidelity and The Queen. But here his stylish filmmaking is all slick substance, the timing of the humor hitting the mark only occasionally. By the time we get to the heavy stuff it’s way too late. Tamara could’ve used a dose of dark interposed with humor instead of light until the bitter end.The performances were great to mediocre. Questionable were the American dweeb (Bill Camp), name dropping Thomas Hardy or the drummer from the band Swipe (Dominic Cooper), who couldn’t make up his mind if he was Robert Smith from The Cure or Prince. Gemma Arterton (Clash of Titans/Prince of Persia) takes some getting used to but at least she’s not playing a princess this time. Roger Allan (Speed Racer/V for Vendetta) and Tamsin Greig (Shaun of the Dead) kick it up a notch, flawlessly handling messy infidelity and all its emotional intricacies. The bored, fanatical, band-worshipping girls (Jessica Barden, Charlotte Christie) steal the show, their immature meddling being the impetus behind the farce that ensues. Swipe’s song “Corporate Domestic Dispute” could be right out of Spinal Tap.

The use of superimposing flashbacks in the background or split-screen adds a nice touch but what is really boiling under the surface here never seems to explode.There are snippets of very funny dialogue but the quirkiness is dissociated with the seriousness of it all. The seductive mind games aren’t really all intact here. For all the time spent developing each character the scenarios fall through the cracks. Some liaisons aren’t explained believably. Even with all the jealousy, unrequited love, sex, vandalism, intellectual posturing, small town gossip and full circle revelations, in the end all the little ironies get ironed out. From the previews it seemed Tamara would come back and wreak havoc on those who abused her when she was ugly through seduction and a sea of witty banter, but she turns out to be just as clueless as everyone else.
Tamara Drewe may be too clever for its own good. The bull’s-eye was right there but the arrow just took too many detours. At least Mo Tucker, drummer from The Velvet Underground, is mentioned.
Tamara Drewe

Starring Gemma Arterton, Roger Allan, Luke Evans, Tamsin Greig
Directed by Stephen Frears
Rated R
2 ½ stars

Cowboys and Ninjas

Town of the flying bullets is too cute for cult classic status
By Morgan P Salvo

Maybe it’s sign of the time, but I remember when the holiday season rolled around it was movie city . Oddly, the only movie opening last week was The Warrior’s Way…and what a disappointment.Now sneaking in with just a few weeks to go, this baby just might make my top ten worst of 2010.
Way is a wannabe visually-stunning modern martial arts Western, starring South Korean actor Dong-gun Jang as Yang, a Samurai warrior assassin who refuses to kill the last child of the enemy clan adopting the baby instead. He then hides in the untamed west near a stationary and very stagnant traveling circus.
With a great beginning as warriors fight in snow-covered ground with all that House of Flying Daggers cart-wheeling-samurais backward-motion floating-in-space stuff and computer-generated blood mist spraying from countless sliced necks, Way subsequently takes a dive and splats hard.
This flick strives to please just about every kind of audience, and is sure to repel them all. Overly cute and then sadistically brutal, Way has the sensibilities of Shrek meets A Fistful of Dollars. Knee-deep in stereotypes, the dialogue is ridiculously predictable, the acting awful and the special effects (with the exception of one cool grainy sepia toned killing spree) just so-so.
Despite all the A-list expensive production values, you would think none of these actors had been in front of the camera before. Geoffrey Rush’s cartoonish Southern drawl consists of hard r’s and Kate Bosworth’s accent was absolutely deplorable when she remembered to use it. Jang starred in one of the highest grossing Korean films (Friend) but here his blank stare and staged fight scenes reveal no acting chops. Attempting the American crossover, he’s no Chow Yun Fat. You know you’re in trouble when Danny Houston as the villain gets the juiciest role and hams it up so much that you want to throw in the towel and yell ‘I give!’ Then there’s Tony Cox (Bad Santa) decked out in a ringmaster getup playing it so darn cute you want to hug him and go ‘awww”!
The slew of kooky carnival characters could’ve been better developed, although it is hilarious to see clowns shoot guns and get knives chucked at them.

 Writer/director Sngmoo Lee strives hard to make this movie look good but has no idea how to put it all together. Even the Sergio Leone clone music was contrived. There are also a slew of disturbingly adorable cutaways of the baby, popping up like Pampers commercials, but don’t get me started on babies.

Warrior’s Way can’t decide if it’s a Disney film, Sanjuro, or a Spaghetti Western. Mainly it’s an over-drawn love story interspersed with blood drenched bodies. The synopsis sounds cool and that’s why this movie is so bad--- it has all the possibilities of a cult classic right up there with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo but it wimps out every chance it gets.
While Lynn (Bosworth) and Yang tend a garden one says, “It’s better to watch things grow than cutting them down.” Still, this movie sucked.

The Warrior’s Way
Starring Dong-gun Jang, Kate Bosworth, Geoffrey Rush
Directed/written by Sngmoo Lee
Rated R
1 ½ stars