The Movie New Year’s Eve – Review

There’s something magical about New Year’s Eve that makes the holiday something many people look forward to. It’s a day to forget about the past 364 days and forge a new path for the next year, to right what was wrong and move forward. Unfortunately New Year’s Eve will make you regret every single moment of the film’s running time and forge many resolutions to never see a film like this again.
Much like Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve is a multi-layer film revolving around a handful of storylines involving people getting ready to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of another. And in the midst of all the chaos of Times Square on the holiday two dozen actors come together to push through a remarkably convoluted storyline that manages to give everyone a happy ending by the end of the film’s two hour running time.
The problem is that the film follows such a remarkably boring and pedestrian plot to get to all of them. We’ve seen all of these plots before, from Jon Bon Jovi and Katherine Heigl as a couple formerly together and now seeing if they can try again to Robert De Niro as a dying cancer patient wanting to see the ball drop one more time, it’s the summation of every bad sitcom plot about the holiday from the past 20 years rolled into one. And one thought keeps popping up that’s hard to shake.
What did everyone in this film do to deserve to be in such a poor film?
When you think about the sheer talent involved in making the film, and the sheer amount of prestige award nominations and wins in film and the theatre as well as on television, a film like this with virtually no redeeming action becomes that much sadder to watch. It’s as if everyone opted to combine their talents into one film, knowing it would be a hit because of the subject and not the material, in order to do other projects.
The film’s redeeming quality is that Garry Marshall has pulled together a strong visual presence for the film. He captures the feel of Times Square in terms of the sheer mass of people and excitement in the air. If this was part of a documentary then he would have the beginnings of a strong visual presence to it. As it is he’s just crafted a perfectly acceptable film in terms of being a striking production but has absolutely nothing redeeming to it beyond it.

Blu-Ray Review: Ice Age

After three successful outings at the box office, our favorite prehistoric friends have finally come home to television with Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special. The special premiered on Thanksgiving night on Fox but now you can add it to the Ice Age collection on Blu-ray.
Manny (Ray Romano), Ellie (Queen Latifah), and Peaches (Ciara Bravo) are decorating their home for the holidays when Sid (John Leguizamo) comes along and crashes their party. In a fit of frustration, Manny tells Sid that he’s going to be on Santa’s Naughty List, leaving Sid in tears. Ellie scolds Manny for his outburst and Manny doesn’t realize Peaches is listening in when he says Santa is just for kids anyway. In order to prove the existence of Santa, Peaches, Sid, and Crash (Sean William Scott) and Eddie (Josh Peck) set off to find the North Pole.
Manny, Ellie, and Diego (Denis Leary) frantically chase after them, and they arrive at the North Pole at almost the same time Peaches does. But due to another mishap at the North Pole, Santa is left stranded on Christmas Eve. Will the wise-cracking flying reindeer Prancer be able to help? Will Sid get on Santa’s nice list? Will Scrat ever catch that elusive acorn?
Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas Special is everything that we love about Ice Age, and everything that has helped transform it into such a successful franchise. The special is witty and clever, and has a unique spin on typical Christmas traditions with keeping the spirit of family. With a bite sized run time, this Blu-ray edition of the Christmas special is sure to become a tradition in every Ice Age loving household.There was something really beautiful about this Blu-ray. Maybe it’s the colors, maybe it’s just a beautiful transfer, but this is a great looking Blu-ray. The sound is fantastic too. I wasn’t expecting that from a made for TV Christmas special. The only extras on the disc are a preview of the new Ice Age movie being released in summer 2012 called Ice Age: Continental Drift and a Jingle Bells music video featuring all the characters.

The Skin I Live In – Review

Pedro Almodóvar’s The Skin I Live In is many things. It’s a dark, twisted tale that pays homage to several works. It is also a beautiful nightmare, as colorful as it is perverse. The film contains what his audience expects: flashbacks and conflicted souls. It also contains objects and acts one associates with a B-grade feature: mad scientists, strange costumes, rape, kidnapping, and murder.
With his beautifully crafted nightmare Almodóvar is a confectionary chef making bloody popcorn, taking a dash of Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Eyes Without a Face, and Frankenstein, with Antonio Banderas in a role that would have undoubtedly have been played by Vincent Price a half century ago.
Banderas plays Dr. Robert Ledgard, a brilliant facial transplant surgeon who is as proficient with a scalpel as a tailor is with needle and thread. Much like Almodóvar’s muse Penelope Cruz, who is at her best when working with the Spanish director, Banderas shows more here than he has in his many years working in Hollywood. Outside of playing a mariachi with a killer guitar case (Desperado), and more recently providing the voice behind the feisty feline Puss in Boots (which is his Mask of Zorro character turned up nine lives), Banderas has been undervalued as a leading man, relegating his talents for lame suspense thrillers and senseless action movies.
Audiences outside of Banderas’ native Spain, at first, may look at him and think Zorro, and thus be easily distracted as to what he really is: a mad scientist. With conviction he gives a lecture to a group of contemporaries that he has perfected a synthetic skin to be used in the treatment of burn victims. However, the skin isn’t completely synthetic nor is it entirely human.
Even the doctor’s living quarters hints that he is a mad scientist. His mansion in Toldeo is opulently furnished, and with walls adorned with elegant painting of beautiful nudes. He has a surgical suite adjacent to the house that’s nowhere near as elegant, keeping the cold and sterile illusion in tact. And he has a basement that is the perfect holding cell for victims he looks to cut into.
As the film begins, the beautiful Vera (Elena Anaya) is in one of the mansion’s many rooms. She looks comfortable, carefully performing yoga in a flesh-colored body suit. The visual is quite unexpected and could be viewed as disturbing, but could be easily explained as being a compression suit she uses to reduce muscle fatigue from various yoga movements. Receiving breakfast through a dumbwaiter by the servants would make her appear spoiled, which she is not. For Vera is not a guest of Dr. Ledgard. She is his prisoner. He watches her on closed-circuit TV, able to zoom the camera in to get a closer look at her beautiful face.
The question regarding the doctor’s sanity is not just speculated; it’s answered as a descriptor from the residing housekeeper (Marisa Paredes) – because every mad scientist needs an assistant. She tells us that Robert has made alterations to Vera’s face, making her have a strong resemblance to his deceased wife, who suffered severe burns from a car accident. When she later takes her own life the doctor is stunned. The trauma of dealing with his wife’s passing transfers to rage when his daughter is later raped. But rather than be a simple tale of revenge, where the doctor tracks down the rapist and kills him, Almodóvar has something more sinister in store.
A subplot involving the housekeeper’s criminal son, Zeca (Roberto Álamo), who eludes authorities dressed as a tiger during Carnival, returning to the mansion to lay low triggers a series of violent events that I hinted as B-grade feature truisms. More importantly, the actions allow us to see into the past to events leading up to Robert Ledgrad’s fanatical obsession with his current project.
Who Vera is and why she’s being held against captive will be revealed in due course. But any more hints will have to wait. For this is a psychological horror feature that’s better to be recommended than it is to fully explain. Because to go too far with the explanation would undercut the film’s emotional impact when that last reveal finally occurs. Calling it a whopper would be an understatement.
With The Skin I Live In being the first Almodóvar I’ve watched in full, I can only base my conclusions from other critical writings of his work, and that’s to say that this isn’t a typical Almodóvar film. Much like Martin Scorsese sampled with psychological pulp fiction with last year’s Shutter Island, Almodóvar takes the skeleton of Thierry Jonquet’s novel Tarantula and expertly applies his cinematic stamp. This is a cleverly plotted thriller of a simple horror story with strong complexion. It doesn’t need a single nip or tuck.

Immortals – Review (2)

One of the beauties of a film by Tarsem Singh is that you’re guaranteed to get some impressive visuals in a film. Alongside Zack Snyder, Singh’s one of the best in the business at maximizing a film’s look. You can’t help but watch the man at work in his films as he never ceases to impress in his composition of shots, his use of scoring and how he designs a scene. And in terms of visually impressive films, Immortals is an even better put together film than either The Fall or The Cell.
The problem with it is that there’s nothing behind it.
Immortals is a grand epic set in ancient Greece following Theseus (Henry Cavill), caught up in the middle of a power struggle between man and gods. Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) is a king hell-bent on releasing ancient evils onto the world using the power of a magical bow of legend. Zeus (Luke Evans) has chosen him to prevent this but prevented the Gods from helping out; armed with a thief sidekick (Stephen Dorff) and a virginal prophet (Freida Pinto), it’s up to Theseus to lead humanity against Hyperion and thereby save the world from its destruction by a king gone mad.
And as a visually arresting spectacle, it’s hard to undersell Singh’s latest. This is a brilliantly put together film if you look at solely from an audio/visual perspective. There’s always something interesting happening and the film’s battle scenes are amongst some of the best of the year. Singh has outdone himself with this film but he also has a significantly larger budget, too, than he’s ever had so it’s easy to say he’s put it all on the screen. Considering he had slightly more than 1/3 of the budget Michael Bay did for the third Transformers film, to boot, he’s put together the year’s best film on a pure spectacle basis.
The problem is that he didn’t bring a good story alongside it.
This is a generic period action piece, a homeless man’s version of 300 at best. It makes sure to hit all the signature type moments and bring out some strong slow-motion piece but it’s odd to think that Tarsem Singh would make a similar film that Brett Ratner would in this situation. And that’s exactly what he’s done; he’s taken a 300 level type swords and sandals film, complete with the sort of cheesy lines of dialogue that could elevate themselves into excellence with the right tone, and just focused on the visual and not the emotional.
There’s no reason to care about any of the proceedings because none of the characters have anything besides quick archetypes used to necessarily move the story forward. The film, presented in 3D as well, has little emotional depth to it. The film’s big finale falls flat because we have no vested interest in any of the characters. It looks pretty but there’s nothing behind it to make it memorable after the moment has passed.

We Bought a Zoo – Review

Released a month a part this fall are two new films from celebrated writer-directors who haven’t made narrative films in more than five years. Alexander Payne’s The Descendants arrives seven years after his Oscar-winning Sideways and stars George Clooney. Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo arrives six years after the much-maligned Elizabethtown and stars Matt Damon. Other than the fact that both are headlined by Ocean’s Eleven co-stars, both films deal with losing matriarchs and the husbands who must come to terms while also trying to raise kids. Each handles the subject matter in distinct ways, but Crowe’s effort is likely to be more embraced this holiday season, as it is presented as a family film with a good message.
Good messages shouldn’t surprise those familiar with Crowe’s films. He knows the right heartstrings to pull and not be blatantly obvious about it. While he may have tipped his hand too far with Elizabethtown and the hard-churned emotional butter contained therein, when your resume includes Say Anything, Jerry Maguire, and Almost Famous, you’re allowed some leeway.
What’s interesting about We Bought a Zoo is that Crowe’s participation came after the initial screenplay was written by Aline Brosh McKenna (of The Devil Wears Prada fame). With the exception of Vanilla Sky, Crowe’s films have been original works. Yet, the characterization of Matt Damon’s Benjamin Mee seems sewn by the same cloth that went into creating aspiring journalist William Miller in his semi-autobiographical Almost Famous.
Benjamin Mee is a seasoned journalist – some might call him an adventure seeker – traveling the world to cover intriguing stories (flying into a hurricane; interacting with killer bees) at a time when getting smudged fingerprints from reading the newspaper was still the norm. Mee loves telling stories, whether in print or verbally to his precocious little 7-year-old daughter, Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones warming every parent’s heart), but the recent passing of his wife leaves him to reassess his life and what’s best for the children. The other kid in the picture is 13-year-old Dylan (Colin Ford), an aspiring artist and wordsmith like his father, but someone who stares at others like he’s been playing “Mad World” on his iPod for hours on end.
Dylan’s recent expulsion from school gives father Ben the needed motivation to uproot the family out of Los Angeles to a new home. During a house-hunting expedition, Benjamin and Rosie drive past numerous two-storeys which are nice to look at but don’t give off a “homey aura.” And in perfect Hollywood fashion, the Goldilocks fit doesn’t occur until they view the last house: an 18-acre estate in the country that doubles as a zoo. Rosie is jumping-for-joy excited and Benjamin, though hesitant at first, gives in to the idea of owning a zoo and living a new kind of adventure.
Such a decision doesn’t sit well with Benjamin’s older brother, Duncan (Thomas Haden Church), who wanted Benjamin to get back to living, shaking it up even, but not as far as him blowing his share of their father’s inheritance in restoring a ramshackle zoo that houses 200 animals, including lions and tigers and a bear. Oh my.
The idea of a family coming to possess a zoo sounds purely fictitious, until you learn that the story is indeed true. There really is a Benjamin Mee and his family did purchase a zoo. Helping Benjamin get the zoo back into working order is a crew of eclectic employees, including a head zookeeper, Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson doing her best to appear homely), Mr. MacReady (Angus Macfayden), the big and burly designer of zoo enclosures, and Robin (Almost Famous’ Patrick Fugit trading in a pad and pen for a capuchin monkey on his shoulder).
Almost from the start Benjamin is in over his head blowing through his inheritance. As responsibilities grow and he sinks further into debt, Benjamin comes to a crossroads in his life where he must either continue on with the future or allow himself to live in the past. Those familiar with Crowe’s earlier works know to expect at least one moment or scene that tips the balance allowing the protagonist reach his cathartic moment. For Say Anything you could point to John Cusack hoisting his boom box above his head with Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” blaring loudly. In Jerry Maguire, you have Tom Cruise exposing himself emotionally to Renee Zellweger in front of her and her girlfriends, when all it took was for him to say hello. In We Bought a Zoo the cathartic moment doesn’t come with a long speech or a dialogue-heavy exchange. It involves Matt Damon sitting alone on the kitchen floor, laptop resting on his lap. He’s trying to muster the strength needed to click through a collection of photos of his wife. The moment is teased scenes earlier but is not fulfilled until he sorts out the other big problem in his life, his relationship with son Dylan.
The narrative is not just about Benjamin’s emotional journey; there’s also a subplot about first love involving Lily (Elle Fanning), Kelly’s niece, who falls for Dylan, the mysterious boy from the big city. Their relationship is awkward, involving little verbal exchanges but not much interaction. It isn’t until Dylan has one of those “duh” moments where he decides to be brave and embrace the Green Acres relationship.
Cameron Crowe is at his best when telling stories that are emotional journeys for its characters. We Bought a Zoo is no different. Here Crowe is in vintage form. Having not read Mee’s memoir it’s difficult to gauge how faithful the screenplay is to the source material. The film depends less on its narrative structure and more on characters, specifically Matt Damon who is in just about every scene. Crowe does his best to keep the film from being maudlin or sitcomish (John Michael Higgins in a supporting role as an inspector doesn’t help matters), but is able to retain a charming quality throughout, even during its long second act.
We Bought a Zoo is another stellar family film in a year that’s had more than its fair share. Matt Damon excels in the role of a single dad dealing with loss and his co-stars are more than willing to take the journey with him. And you should to this holiday season.