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I just got back from watching Rush Hour 3. It’s an okay movie. The only way to truly describe it is to say…it’s Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. What else do you expect?

There’s no real plot to speak of in the movie. It’s basically just there as a prop for Tucker and Chan to crack jokes and do martial arts with. That said, it’s moderately funny with enough stunts to make it worth watching, although a few scenes do get a little stale (the scenes where they try to introduce some kind of plot to the film–they should have just given up and not even tried to make a rational movie out of it).

In terms of movie quality, this film gets a weak C-. But in terms of entertainment value, it gets a B+. Not enough for me to buy it once it comes out on DVD, but when it drops to the sub $10 bin at Target, I’ll probably pick it up.

Friday night, I watched The Simpsons Movie. Personally, I think the movie should have been billed as the latest Tom Hanks movie, since he provides the voice for…Tom Hanks.

In any case, those who have seen the TV show and hate it will hate the movie as well. If you like the TV show, you’ll like the movie: it’s basically just an hour and a half long TV episode (which, when you count the time for commercials, means it’s roughly four episodes in one).

The movie tended to be a bit more anti-religious than the TV show is, although in typical Simpsons fashion the Christian side still wins. Homer, who represents the pagans (at one point during a crisis, he flips through a Bible and says, “This book doesn’t have any answers!”) is the cause of all the troubles that happen. Meanwhile, Flanders (the Christian) ends up being the man others (in the movie, specifically Bart) turn toward. So while there is much to offend Christians, there is much to offend atheists as well. And indeed the movie ends up offending just about everyone at some point (especially if you work for the EPA).

In any case, the movie is a bit more risque at points since the animators could do things that they couldn’t show on TV, but on the whole it’s a typical PG-13 comedy.

To sum it up, as Homer says at the beginning of the film (paraphrased): “I can’t believe you people are paying money to watch what you can see every week on TV for free! You’re all suckers, and the biggest one of all is YOU!” If you find this to be just a truth statement, don’t watch the movie; if you find it to be funny, the movie is for you.

Today I went to a baby shower for my friend Travis. As is usual, Travis and I talked about lots of different movies and various aspects of the movies. One of the things that we spoke about was the music of James Horner, which morphed into my recommending Travis watch The Four Feathers.

All this means that by the time I got home from the baby shower, I was ready to watch The Four Feathers again :-) This is one of my favorite movies simply because watching it is like watching a novel instead of a movie. It has depth to the characters, and the story is one that is relevant not only to the original time period it was written in (the 1920s) but today as well.

The movie works well on lots of philosphical levels too. The only bad part about that is that it becomes difficult to talk about these philosophical things without ruining the plot of the story for those who haven’t seen it. However, speaking broadly, the movie is perfect at showing the differences between East and West. This is due in large part to the fact that Shekhar Kapur, an Indian, directed the movie with a screenplay written by an American and a British/Persian based on a book written by an Englishman. As a result, there are many different perspectives presented between the East and the West (this includes the music, which is why this was relevant to the discussion Travis and I were having).

Likewise, the story is essentially one that is inherent to mankind: a story of redemption. When the main character resigns the army after his regiment is shipped off to war, he is naturally branded a coward. As such, Harry (the main character) must find a way to redeem himself in the eyes of his friends as well as his own mind. The reason that this theme works so well is, ironically enough, a subconscious recognition that we are all sinners in need of repentance.

This concept of redemption is so intrinsically deep within the human psyche that this story echoes through various perspectives. It’s based off a universal human state.

In the end, The Four Feathers is the kind of story that I would love to write. And it’s certainly the kind of movie I’d recommend :-)

I’d seen the previews for Zodiac some time ago and thought they looked fairly lame. As a result, I almost didn’t watch this movie. Then, Friday I spoke with Travis and he mentioned he might watch it this weekend. That’s when we got to talking about David Fincher films.

See, it used to be that I never paid attention to things like the director or the screenplay writer. None of that stuff mattered because, like almost everyone, I only focused on the “stars” involved. And it remained that way for a long time…until the day I discovered that my two favorite (at the time) films were done by the same director.

The films were Fight Club and SE7EN. Both films were directed by David Fincher. So, despite how horrible the previews seemed to me, I figured Travis’s words of wisdom would suffice: “It’s David Fincher.”

So I watched Zodiac today. And to begin with, I have to say: It’s David Fincher.

The film started off with some great tension and followed up with a terrific mystery. Even though I knew a bit about the Zodiac Killer (since I did a little research on him while writing The Outlaw), the movie drew out the mystery wonderfully. Fincher did a good job of moving between various suspects, making them seem guilty beyond all doubt, but then showing they didn’t fit some aspect of the evidence; moving on to another potential suspect, then going back to a previous one, etc. As a result, it had a very realistic feel to the movie.

In the end, it was way better than the preview lead me to believe it would be. The only drawback, which really isn’t much of a drawback, is the length. The film is 158 minutes long, which translates into 2h 38m. Which wasn’t so bad except the theater played roughly two hours of previews before the film began too…(okay, end sarcasm mode: it was really only about half an hour of previews, but that pushed the total time up well over three hours).

So on to the grades. Obviously, I give Fincher high marks as a director, so I’m somewhat biased–but then, so is everyone. I still give him an A+ for the film. It was a long movie that has good replay potential (unlike The Number 23); even when you know “whodunnit” in the eyes of the film–the real case is still officially open–the characters and the story are written well enough to make another viewing worthwhile.

Acting wasn’t stellar, but definitely got the job done. While Gyllenhaal isn’t going to win an Oscar here, his performance was still a B+. Maybe even an A-. The same can be said of Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey, Jr. No definite A acting there, but solid Bs.

As a whole, I’d rate the movie as a A-. When it comes out on DVD, I’ll most certainly pick up a copy. Other Fincher fans will probably want to pick it up too. Those who aren’t fans…well, you ought to be.

This weekend, I watched The Number 23. Over all, it was an enjoyable movie; but it left me with the impression that if I saw it again, I wouldn’t like it. Unlike other great movies that have creatives twists (such as The Sixth Sense, for instance), the story behind the movie is not strong enough to carry it apart from the twist. In other words, the plot itself is not fully formulated; it relies on a gimmick to keep you interested in the characters.

There are some strengths to the film. For one thing, Jim Carrey is a far better actor than many people give him credit for. When he plays serious roles, such as he does here, he demonstrates his true talent. Naturally, the script’s flaws prevent him from being outstanding, but he does everything the scripts asks of him–and then some.

Likewise, Joel Schumacher does a good job of directing the film. Shot selection, mood, etc. are all great. The only failing is the fault of the writing.

And that, unfortunately, is a big problem for the film. The characters are not developed enough to make you care about what happens to Carrey’s character, Walter Sparrow. Nor do you care much about his wife, Agatha (played by Virginia Madsen). But the real clincher is the son, Robin Sparrow, played by Logan Lerman. In the film, he acts completely without motivation, without any defining purpose, and with no great addition to the story. Everything that the son delivered in the film could have been delivered by Carrey himself and you would have lost nothing. As such, he is a completely extraneous character.

Finally, there are enough plot holes in the film to make politics look substantial. I’ll avoid spoilers for now, but suffice it to say that there is a great deal of rubbish that the audience is required to swallow that the suspense of disbelief is nearly impossible. That the screenwriter tries to pass this off as “fate” makes it even worse. Rather than making a compelling story, it simply makes it contrived. And again, while entertaining the first time, the replayablity of this film is sorely lacking. Once you know how contrived the story is, it’s not compelling anymore.

So, for the grading of the film. Carrey and Madsen were well–I give them a solid A. The rest of the cast was dismal, however. Combined, I can only give them a C. The directing was likewise good: B+. The script was dismal: D.

Overall, the film gets a C. It is worth watching once–but you might want to wait and just rent it rather than spending money in the theater for it.

A couple of years ago, when Metallica released their St. Anger album, they did a documentary of the making of the album.  Except it ended up being far more than that.  The resulting movie, Some Kind of Monster, documented not only the making of St. Anger but also the near break-up of the band as Jason Newstead left the band, and then frontman James Hetfield entered rehab in the middle of recording the album.

This weekend, I finally got to watch the video.  After it was over, I had only one overriding thought, which I shared with SpideyGeek in #pros already.  I said: “Kirk Hammett is the only member of Metallica who doesn’t have an ego the size of Texas.”  To be fair, it’s also possible Rob Trujillo is similarly ego-less, but since he’s the “new guy” we don’t know much about him from the video.

In any case, it was quite ironic that I watched that movie this weekend and then when my alarm went off this morning and the radio came on it was to the sounds of Sanitarium.  (Even though the real name of the song is Welcome Home (Sanitarium), no one calls it that.)  Even more ironic is that as soon as the song ended, the DJ came on and said that one of his friends told him not watch Some Kind of Monster because it would make you lose all respect for the band.  Then he said he did watch the video and it did make him lose respect.  Except he also added, “I felt really sorry for Kirk Hammett, being stuck in the most dysfunctional family on Earth.”

So my views weren’t merely my views.  If you want to watch a video that makes you really appreciate Kirk Hammett, watch Some Kind of Monster.  If you want to see what an angry, bitter, drunken frontman and a hyper Danish drummer are like when they yell the F-word at each other (while Kirk is hitting his own forehead, pleading, “Don’t we have better things to do than this?”)–then watch Some Kind of Monster.

This isn’t to say the movie is a bad.  It’s actually quite well done.  And it’s also very informative on how some of the lyrics of Metallica come about.  For instance, their lyric, “Wash your back so you won’t stab mine” in Sweet Amber came about because a radio station wanted Metallica to do a lame promo ad, and their agents told Metallica it was the kind of thing that they better do if they expected significant air time.  They took a dim view to that; the lyric was the result.

Metallica fans will probably find much to like and much to hate about the video.  It’s wonderful if you want to know what happens behind the scenes; if you want to be a loyal idealistic fan, it will trash your dream of the superstars.  In either case, it’s a reality check that’s a mixture between watching Ozzy Osborne on TV and listening to the punks on their skateboards blasting their boomboxes.  I’ll give an A+ to the documentary producers for making middle-aged ego maniacs seem far more entertaining than…well, nothing.  Unfortunately, since those middle-aged ego maniacs were in the film, the film as a whole gets a B-.

C’est la vie.

This weekend, I gave myself a Christmas present.  I went and watched a couple of movies.  The first was The Good Shepherd, and the second was Rocky Balboa.

For The Good Shepherd, I was left wishing I could return my present.  Or at least exchange it for something else.  Actually, I was reminded of something I wrote about Apocalypto, which I will repeat here:

This movie proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that “Hollywood talent” is vastly over-rated.

Yes, The Good Shepherd has something in common with Apocalypto!  They both prove that Hollywood sucks.

The Good Shepherd started off slow, but then it bogged down.  Which is sad because the plot actually had some potential.  But Matt Damon was wooden through the whole movie.

This wasn’t his fault; the character was supposed to be wooden.  But for a hero, you sure hated the guy–especially if you had any morals about you.  He showed absolutly no warmth at all toward anyone ever.  The bad guy–the Russian spy known as Ulysses–had frostbitten hands that were warmer…  And perhaps that was the point.  Ulysses’ weakness was cold; Damon was cold.  But Ulysses’ still had the ace in the sleeve (I’d tell you what it is, but why ruin a horrible movie even more?).

The movie also suffers from the fact that it’s way too long.  When I left the theater and saw the time, I thought, “Wow, three hours have passed since I went in there!”  It felt like 20. 

But despite that, when you leave the theater it still feels like you’ve only seen half a movie.  That’s right, the three hours they stole from your life still left you empty.

When I left, I had two thoughts about the movie.  1) What’s the point?  and 2) It’s a good thing I spent more on popcorn and the drink then I did on the movie itself.

The one redeeming factor of the movie is that the mystery plot was well done.  That is, when the CIA agent finds a packet in his home contaning a photograph and an audiotape, the stuff where they track down and figure out where it came from and what it referred to–all that was well done.  If they kept that while chopping out all the unnecessary flashbacks, it would have been a good movie.

As it is…I rank it as a C-.  The mystery aspect is the only thing keeping it above a D.

On to Rocky Balboa.  In many ways this movie was similar to The Good Shepherd.  Rocky is a fairly one-dimensional character.  The greatest philosophy of the movie is:

“It don’t matter how hard you get hit.  What matters is how hard a hit you can take and still get back up and keep movin’ forward.”

Pretty simple, basic stuff.  But it fits perfectly in the Rocky genre.

When I left after watching this movie, I had one great thought on my mind: Sly, you rawk!

Rocky doesn’t pretend to be pretentious (I’ll let that sink in).  It is what it is.  It’s a feel-good movie about the underdog.  You know how the story’s gonna end before it even begins, but it doesn’t matter because Rocky (the character) is just so cool.  He’s a good ol’ fashioned American hero.

Rocky Balboa is all about American exceptionalism.  The Good Shepherd is all about how America shafts everyone, including Americans.  Rocky is about doing your best; TGS is about giving up because you’re trapped and there’s no way out.

The difference between the two couldn’t be clearer.  Give me Rocky any day of the week.  Sadly, TGS is going to win the Academy Awards, because it caters to the idiocy that is Hollywood.  Rocky Balboa, on the other hand, is just plain real.

Rocky scores a solid A in my book.  Then again, it could just be backlash against The Good Shepherd.  It is most certainly possible that a horrible movie can make a mediocre movie look great.

Then again, this is Rocky.  So I’ll revise my grade: A+.