Bdub's Film Reviews

[BWilli]

I watched the 1976 version of “Assault on Precinct 13”.  The film is directed by John Carpenter and stars Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Tony Burton, Charles Cyphers and Laurie Zimmer.

Lt. Ethan Bishop (Stoker) has been assigned to watch over Precinct 9 Division 13 (that kind of conflicts with the title of the movie), on it’s last night of operation.  The precinct has moved, and this location will be shut down the next day.  On this particular night though, the precinct ends up seeing a lot of action.   A bus carrying three prisoners shows up, and Starker (Cyphers), the man in charge of transporting the prisoners, request to hold the prisoners here until a doctor could be found to treat one who is sick.  Bishop aggress and locks the three up.  Meanwhile, on the streets of L.A., the Street Thunder gang is out to raise hell.  When they kill a young girl, her father reacts but killing one of the gang members.  The rest of the gang chases the man, who ends up at the soon-to-be-closed police station.  As Bishop tries to get answers from the man, outside, all of the members of Street Thunder gather around and start shooting up the station.  Bishop has no choice but to let the prisoners out of the cells in order to help fend off the assault.

For only his second feature film, and on a relatively low budget, Carpenter gives us one hell of a tense ride in this film.  The gang is huge, but we only see four members up close.  The scenes where the gang is attacking was shot mostly from within the police station with the gang far off in the distance, hiding in the shadows and trees across the street.  This gives kind of a creepy feel to the film.  Later on, when the gang is climbing through doors and windows, we still don’t get a good look at any faces.  Carpenters directing was excellent.  He also wrote the screenplay, which for the most part had great dialog setting up really good interaction between the cast.  The “Potato” scene between prisoners Wilson (Joston) and Wells (Burton) adds humor to the film.  It was a very weird scene, but then again, Wells was unlucky at coin flipping.

Austin Stoker was great as the hero cop.  The only other film of his I’ve seen is “Roots”, but I can’t say I remember his performance.  He was excellent in “Assault…” though.  Darwin Joston was also good.  It took awhile to get used to him, but his character of Napoleon Wilson turned out to be the best one in the film.  Tony Burton was good too and Laurie Zimmer acted tougher than she looked, but she wasn’t too bad at it.

This is definitely one of Carpenters better films (maybe my third favorite behind No.1 “Halloween” and No. 2 “The Thing”).  Carpenter has said that this is his “Rio Bravo” (the 1959 western starring John Wayne), which I’m planning on seeing soon.  “Assault on Precinct 13” is a really good film, although I’m still baffled at why the film is titled that way when it’s Precinct 9 that is under attack.  :wink:

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:  9/10

[BWilli]

After watching the original, I check out the 2005 version of “Assault on Precinct 13”.  The film stars Ethan Hawke, Laurence Fishburne, Gabriel Byrne, Maria Bello, Drea De Matteo, Brian Dennehy, Ja Rule, John Leguizamo, and Aisha Hinds.

Precinct 13 is scheduled to close forever at midnight. Burnt-out desk sergeant Jake Roenick (Hawke), still traumatized by the death of two partners, is on the graveyard shift with secretary Iris (de Matteo), and old-timer Jasper O'Shea (Dennehy), who in a revelation fraught with omens, announces he will soon retire.  It’s New Years Eve, and the three expect it to be a quiet night where they can celebrate.  Then everything changes. An mobster named Bishop (Fishburne) has been arrested and is being transported by police bus with some other detainees, including the motor mouth Beck (Leguizamo), a crew-cut girl crook (Hinds) and a counterfeiter named Smiley (Ja Rule). It's stormy night, the highway is blocked by an accident, and so the officers on the bus decide to dump the prisoners at Precinct 13.  Once the prisoners are in the cells, things outside get a whole lot worse when a band of people begin their assault on Precinct 13.  Jake and Jasper think its Bishops men who are there to break him out, but the forces turn out to be the exact opposite.  Under manned and under-armed, Jake releases the prisoners in order to aid the cops against the assault.

The basic premise of this film is the same as the 1976 version; however there are some noticeable changes; the story, the setting, the bad guys and even a little twist near the end that I didn’t see coming.  None of these changes hurt the film.  The original was great and this one was equally as great, if not a tad bit better.

Hawke gives a solid performance as the burnt out cop, who over comes his own demands to take charge of the situation.  Fishburne is as cool as ever as mobster Bishop.  He does a great job in this film.  Byrne seemed a little flat to me.  He didn’t really do much but order his men around. Dennehy was pretty good in his role. De Matteo was all right, but nothing spectacular, and the same goes for Bello. Leguizamo’s character annoyed the hell out of me, and both Ja Rule and Hinds did nothing to show they’re acting skills.

Hawke and Fishburne’s acting, cool action sequences, along with great directing by Jean-François Richet make this film just as good as the original.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:  9/10

[BWilli]

Renny Harlin brings us the psychological thriller “Mindhunters” starring Val Kilmer, Christian Slater, LL Cool J, Eion Bailey, Johnny Lee Miller, Clifton Collins Jr., Kathryn Morris, Will Kemp and Patricia Velasquez.

Seven FBI profiler trainees are sent to a remote island by their oddball superior (Kilmer) to complete their training. Once there, they learn that a mock case has been engineered for them and that they have to catch a simulated wacko named “The Puppeteer”. Things go way batty when it turns out that there’s a bona fide serial killer in their midst and that he/she is getting off on messing with their melons and taking them out in inventive ways.

I love psychological thrillers.   Maybe that’s the psycho killer lurking deep down inside of me (relax, I’m really kind of a nice guy), but I’ve always been a fan of these types of films.  “Mindhunters” is a film I had been waiting to see since I first heard about it over a year ago.  It kept getting delayed for some reason, eventually premiered at some festivals in 2004, and finally hit theaters in 2005.

The film was well worth the wait.  I had a lot of fun, trying to figure the movie out, figure out who was mindfucking who.  Writer Wayne Kramer did a good job with the screenplay as I couldn’t figure out who was the killer.  Every time I thought it was one person, another one seemed kind of suspicious.  Excellent writing, for the most part, by Kramer.  He had me guessing until the very end.

There are some pretty sweet kills in the movie as well.  We get a headshot, arrows in the neck, nasty acid burns, a dude mounted on hooks, a decapitated head, a mangled arm and face, hung cats, and a really cool death by nitrogen.

Out of the 10 main cast members, I’ve heard of most of them, but, with the exception of Kilmer, Slater, and LL, the cast is relatively unknown.  It is those unknowns, though, who carry this film all the way to the end.  Kilmer is barely in the film, almost making more of a cameo appearance, but he plays his small part well.  Slater is a decent actor, having some great films in the past, and does a good job in his appearance in the film.

LL Cool J is Gabe, not one of the FBI trainees, but is a Philadelphia cop who is along as an observer.  He is, and his nickname states, a cool guy and a good actor as well.  He’s really good in this film, however he’s fed the two most cheesiest lines in the film.  "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe...who’s the next motherfucker to go?" and “Now we know his weakness…bullets.”  Although if anyone could pull off Eenie, meenie, minie, moe…it’s LL.

Englishman Johnny Lee Miller, as trainee Lucas Harper, seemed to struggle with a southern accent, however the dude is a pretty good actor and I like him in this role.  Kathryn Morris plays Sara Moore, the nervous one of the bunch.  She pulls it off really well, but I had to get used to her.  As the film went on, I think she got stronger in her role.  She started off slow, but ended up doing a fine job.  Clifton Collins Jr. is Vince Sherman, the crippled profiler in training.  Yep, that’s right, he’s in a wheelchair the entire movie.  How long could he last…pretty long actually.  Collins’ character was probably one of my favorites in the film and he did a wonderful job at it.  

The only character I liked more was that of Bobby Whitman, played by Eion Bailey.  Bailey, who I only recognize from his small role in “Fight Club”, was excellently cast in this film.  Will Kemp as Rafe Perry and Patricia Velasquez as Nicole Willis, were both all right in their parts.  Kemp added some humorous lines to the film, but the both of them were kind of below average in their acting, in particular Velasquez.

Harlin’s directing was very good and I don’t have many complaints about anything he did with movie.  The one thing that got to me, and this is probably more of Kramer’s doing since he wrote the film, is that one of the characters near the end acts extremely suspicious, and for no apparent reason.  I wont tell you who, but I personally was disappointed because I was actually rooting for him to be the bad guy.  Oh well.  The movie is still great, and had me thinking the whole way through it.

:thumbsup:  :thumbsup: 9/10

[BWilli]

“Mystery Men” stars Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria, William H. Macy, Janeane Garofalo, Geoffrey Rush, Greg Kinnear, Kel Mitchell, Paul Reubens and Wes Studi.

When Captain Amazing (Kinnear), Champion City’s legendary superhero, falls into the hands of the evil madman, Casanova Frankenstein (Rush) and his disco-dancing henchmen, there’s suddenly a chance for the aspiring superheroes to show what they can do.  A ragtag team of wannabes featuring, Mr. Furious (Stiller), whose power comes from his boundless rage; The Shoveler (Macy), a father who shovels “better than anyone”; The Blue Raja (Azaria), a fork-flinging mama’s boy; The Bowler (Garofalo), who fights crime with the help of her fathers skull; The Spleen (Rubens), whose power is pure flatulence; Invisible Boy (Mitchell), who’s only invisible when nobody is looking; and The Sphinx (Studi), a cliché spewing philosopher, join together to bring down Casanova and save Captain Amazing.

I was a little disappointed with this film.  I was expecting something a bit funnier, although Macy, Studi and Garofalo delivered a lot of laughs.  The movie is based on the Dark Horse comic book series by Bob Burden, and is basically a spoof on all other comic books.  The film offers originality and some pretty cool f/x.

Stiller could have been a lot funnier.  Very disappointing.  Azaria is normally a funny guy, but lacked in that department for the most part.  Oscar winner Rush was out of place in this film.  He’s a great actor but he should have never been cast in this film.  Totally the wrong actor for the part.  Macy was great.  He’s an excellent actor and he worked well with the comedy.  Garofalo was also great in this film, and perfectly cast.  One of the oddest choices I though for the film was Wes Studi, however he was great, delivering some of the funniest clichéd lines in the movie.

This was just an okay film, with lack of humor.  It could have been better, but it also could have been worse.

:thumbsup: :thumbsdown: 6/10

[BWilli]

So I’m gearing up to go see “Revenge of the Sith”, so I started with “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace”.

The “first” in the series stars Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd, Ian McDiarmid, Samuel L. Jackson and Ray Park.

As imminent conflict brews between the powerful Trade Federation and the peaceful planet of Naboo, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) travel to Naboo to warn Queen Amidala (Portman) of the galactic fallout which is to follow. Eventually, Naboo is invaded forcing the Jedis to evacuate the planet with the Queen and her court. They travel to the desert planet of Tatooine where they meet a slave boy, Anakin Skywalker (Lloyd), who is evidently one with the Force.  Anakin eventually joins with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan, and in the process attracts the attention of one of Queen Amidala's handmaidens with a dramatic secret.  They reach Coruscant, but endless and pointless debate within the Republic's Senate leave them no choice but to strike out on their own to liberate Naboo, a task made all the more difficult because a traitor within Coruscant has at his command a dissident Dark Jedi warrior, Darth Maul (Park), who seeks the death of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

This is probably only the second, maybe the third, time I’ve seen this film.  I remember the fist time I saw it though, comparing it to the “original” three and thinking that it wasn’t nearly as good as those one.  After viewing “The Phantom Menace” again, it still isn’t as good as the originals, however it is a decent film with a lot of great action, cool scenes and sets and really good acting.  The film is full of very cool CGI cities, in particular the underwater city, Otoh Gunga, along with a lot of cool CGI characters, like Sebulba and Watto.  The majority of the characters in the film are likeable, except for the Gungans, specifically Jar-Jar Binks.  Jar-Jar and the other Gungans were extremely annoying throughout the film mainly because you can’t understand 90% of the stuff they’re saying.  The mostly CGI pod race was pretty cool to see as well.

The best, but not-so-used, character in the film was that of Darth Maul.  He is one evil son-of-a-bitch, who should have been used a lot more in the film.  Park was just creepy and cool in the film.

Liam Neeson has become one of my favorite actors over the last year or so.  He was excellent as Qui-Gon Jin.  McGregor played Obi-Wan very well.  He was a good choice for the part.  Portman was great as well.  She has been one of my favorite actresses over the last few years, and although this isn’t her best film ever, she was flawless.  Lloyd is a young kid and has a lot of time to grow as an actor.  He was good, but he also kind of annoyed me from once in awhile throughout the film.

Overall, the story was decent, but not as good as any of the previous three films and most of the acting was pretty good.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: 8/10

[BWilli]

“Star Wars Episode II:  Attack of the Clones” stars Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Lee and Temuera Morrison.

It’s ten years after the events of “The Phantom Menace” and Anakin Skywalker (Christensen) has grown into an accomplished Jedi apprentice of Obi-Wan (McGregor).  Together they must protect Senator Amidala (Portman) from a militant group of political activists, led by former Jedi, Count Dooku (Lee), that is trying to assassinate her.  Among other troubles, Anakin faces some hard choices as he begins to fall for Padme, knowing this love is forbidden by the Jedi knights' creed. In addition, Anakin begins to show his rebellious attraction to the dark side.

This is the first time I’ve watched this film from start to finish, as where I had only caught parts of it on HBO once in awhile.  The overall look of the film was as good as “The Phantom Menace”, mainly because the brought back some of the same settings (Coruscant, Naboo and Tatooine), but also took us to new worlds like Kamino and Geonosis.  

The f/x filled chase scene in the beginning of the film was very cool.  In fact, all of the action sequences were pretty cool.  The battle scene in the coliseum-type arena was excellently done, and the fight scene between Obi-Wan and Jango Fett (Morrison).  Jango Fett (father of Boba Fett from the original Star Wars films) is the cool kick-ass bad guy in this film (as Darth Mail was in Episode I).

C3PO has a bigger part in the film than in “Menace” and adds a lot of great humor to it.  I liked the bringing back of Watto briefly.  He was a great CGI character in the first film.  I could’ve done without Jar-Jar Binks, however his role was, thank the Lord, a hell of a lot smaller this time around.

The whole love angle between Anakin and Amidala was kind of boring and too drawn out at first.  The dialogue that the two spit out at each other was very cliché for the most part, and I didn’t like it.  The film is nearly 2 hours 20 minutes long; it probably would’ve come in just under two hours if Lucas had shortened some of these segments.  The two rolling around in the field was stupid, in my opinion.  

Oh, and what is Amidala’s secret?  She didn’t age a bit.  It’s 10 years later; Anakin grew up, and yet she stayed the same.  Even Obi-Wan grew a friggen beard atleast to show some aging.  Not a big deal I guess, just an observation.  Portman is still hot.

McGregor was excellent in the film, and showed a lot of growth in the Obi-Wan character.  I wasn’t big on Christensen’s performance at first.   He eventually played the part well, in particular when he begins to show his minor turns toward the dark side.  Portman did just as good a job here as she did in “Menace”, only have showing more action skills, and showing more skin as well.  Jackson is an all around “Bad Motherfucker”.  He’s got a bigger role in this film than the last, and does a good job, but it’s weird seeing him in this type of film.  Good job nonetheless.  Morrison does a great job as Jango Fett, and Lee, who is great at playing villains, is exceptional as well.

All right.  So my overall take on the film is this; excellent action sequences, boring love story (probably due to the clichéd dialogue), very good acting and great directing.  Until now, I couldn’t decided if I liked it more than “The Phantom Menace” or not.  The answer to that is yes, but by a small margin.  

I have a feeling that once I got see “Revenge of the Sith” this weekend that “Menace” and “Clones” will be my least favorite out of all six films.  But hell, they both still got eights.

:thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  8/10

[BWilli]

“Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” stars Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, Natalie Portman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Ian McDiarmid.

After three, the Clone Wars are nearly at an end. The Jedi Council dispatches Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) to bring General Grievous, the deadly leader of the Separatist droid army, to justice. Meanwhile, back on Coruscant, Chancellor Palpatine (McDiarmid) has grown in power. His sweeping political changes transform the war-weary Republic into the mighty Galactic Empire.  Anakin (Christensen) has grown a lot closer to Palpatine, who reveals a huge secret to him.  Anakin, who has been having nightmares about his pregnant wife Amidala (Portman), has a decision to make based on what Palpatine has told him.  He has been leaning closer and closer to the dark side since before the Clone Wars began, and Palpatine encourages him to embrace it.

Lucas kicks this film into high gear right away with an awesome galactic space battle, in which Obi-Wan and Anakin are piloting fighter crafts, staging a daring two-man raid to rescue Chancellor Palpatine from Count Dooku and General Grievous.  This was a very cool way to open the film.

The special f/x in “Sith” are just as good as they were in “Menace” and “Clones”, however, this film has the best and coolest new planet; volcanic Mustafar.  Excellent CGI make this lava filled planet awesome, and the final battle scene which takes place here is probably the best since Luke vs. Vader.

McGregor does another excellent job in this one.  He delivers some very emotional dialogue near the end and does it well.

I felt the Christensen was stronger in this film than in “Clones”.  He acted the evil part very well.

Sammy Jackson is the man, and was great once again this film.  Perfect performance.

And now…the disappointment.  Ms. Portman.  What the hell happened?  This was definitely her worst performance in all three recent Star Wars films.  I almost felt bad for her as she delivered her lines.  And maybe the dialogue is to blame, but I just didn’t like her performance in this one.  

All of the dialogue between Portman and Christensen just didn’t work for me.  I didn’t get any chemistry between the two.  Lucas had this same writing problem, I feel, in “Clones”.  Maybe he just can’t write romance.  But hey, that’s just my feelings.  A lot of people thought that it wasn’t all that bad.  Aside from these scenes, the majority of the writing was just fine.

I was hoping for more Chewbacca in the film as well.  We didn’t get enough of him.  However, the lack of Jar-Jar Binks was great.  No dialogue in this one for him.  Kudos to Lucas for that.

So the best part of the film for me?  Sure, the action sequences were some of the best of the recent three films, but the best part was the overall transformation of Anakin into Vader.  The six films are finally all tied in, and it was amazing to see this come together.

:thumbsup:  :thumbsup: 9/10

[BWilli]

“Seven” (Se7en) stars Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman and Gwyneth Paltrow and is directed by David Fincher.

Detective Somerset (Freeman) is set to retire in one week.  Detective Mills (Pitt) has just requested to be transferred into the same district, which puzzles Somerset, as he can’t wait to get out of there.  The two are called to a scene where an obese man lays dead, his face in a bowl of spaghetti.  The detectives soon notice that the large man’s hands and feet have been bound together, and that there are bruises on the back of his head.  The two have a homicide on their hands, and not just any homicide.  When another body is found, with the word “Greed” written in blood on the floor, Somerset goes back to where they found the fat man and discovers the word “Gluttony” written in grease behind the refrigerator.   The killer is using the Seven Deadly Sins to carry out these murders, and they are some of the most gruesome murders these detectives have ever dealt with.  As the case builds to a startling conclusion, both Somerset and Mills become more involved than they ever could have imagined.

Writer Andrew Kevin Walker wrote one hell of a screenplay and David Fincher does a great job with it.  Fincher has been one of my favorite directors since this film came out back in 1995.  He’s a phenomenal director.  

The story is different; pretty damn original I’d say.  The way the film was shot was brilliant.  Very dark sets help set the tone of it.  We don’t meet “John Doe” on screen until ¾ of the way through the film.  There’s a chase scene in which Mills is running after him, but we don’t get a clear view of who the killer is.  We also never see him committing the murders, a very good technique because we get to see how vicious the killer is, without actually seeing him in action.

Morgan Freeman is an excellent actor and is awesome as Det. Somerset.  His character is very wise, informed and poetic.  Freeman is awesome in this movie.

Pitt also gives a solid performance as Det. Mills.  Mills is kind of naive, and Pitt portrays that perfectly.

Paltrow has a small role, but is very good in her part as Tracy, Mills’ wife.

“John Doe” (since the person playing the part was not top billed in the film, I wont spoil it for those who haven’t seen the movie), but an excellent performance by this person.  

The directing, the story, and the acting are all flawless.  I’d say that this is Fincher’s best film, but then he went and made “Fight Club”.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: 10/10

[BWilli]

NOTE:  While writing this review, I found it very hard not to reveal too much, but I think I did a good job.

“Crash” has an all-star cast consisting of Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe, Shaun Toub, Michael Pena, Jennifer Esposito, Terrence Dashon Howard, Thandie Newton, Sandra Bullock, Brendan Fraser, Bahar Soomekh, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Larenz Tate, and rounding out the cast were appearances by Tony Danza, Keith David, Loretta Devine, and William Fichtner.  The film is written and directed by Paul Haggis.

Detective Graham Waters (Cheadle) and his partner Ria (Esposito) get into a car accident en route to investigate a murder scene in a canyon overlooking Los Angeles.  As Ria gets out and gets into a pretty racial argument with the Asian women who hit her car, Cheadle goes to inspect the murder scene.  When Waters notices something, we’re taken back 24 hours to the previous day.  We are introduced to many different people.  There’s Peter (Tate) and Anthony (Ludacris), two young African-American young men.  Anthony does not hide the fact that he feels he’s surrounded by a slew of racists.  They then proceed to carjack the SUV of District Attorney Rick (Fraser) and his uptight wife Jean (Bullock).  At home, Jean voices her suspicions regarding the honesty of the Hispanic locksmith, Daniel (Pena) who returns home to his young daughter upset and frustrated.  He finds his daughter hiding under the bed, so to calm her fears; he creates an invisible cloak that will forever protect her from harm.  Meanwhile, back on the streets, a veteran cop, Sgt. Ryan (Dillon) and his young partner Officer Hanson (Phillippe), pull over an SUV, although it turns out not to be the stolen one.  It belongs to African-American TV director Cameron (Howard) and his wife Christine (Newton).  Although Hanson notices that this is not the right SUV, Ryan pulls his authority and ends up physically harassing Christine, as Cameron is basically helpless.  Farhad (Toub), an Iranian store owner, and his daughter Dorri (Soomekh) visit a gun shop for a purchase.  The owner of the gun shop becomes restless when Dorri speaks Iranian to her father to explain about the gun.  Farhad leaves the store angry, Dorri pays for the gun and a box of bullets and leaves.  Later, Daniel is called to Farhad’s store to fix a broken lock to the back door.  When Daniel tells him that the lock was replaced but it’s the door that’s causing the problem, Farhad accuses him of lying.  After another heated racial argument, Daniel tears up the bill and leaves.  When the store is broken into over night and terribly vandalized, Farhad automatically thinks it was Daniel who did it.   We also learn that Graham and Ria are romantically involved, but Graham has issues with his junkie mother and his missing brother.

Aside from all this racial tension, we later learn there is a lot more to these people then all this pent up aggression.  Sgt. Ryan has his own personal issues as he tries to take care of his elderly, ailing father.  Jean feels alone, and neglected by her work-a-holic husband.  Daniel is quite the family man, trying to keep his daughter feeling happy and safe.

In some of the most jaw-dropping scenes I have ever seen in a film, we watch as each character learns a little bit more about life in general and about the people they meet.

Wonderfully written and directed by Haggis, this is the best film of 2005 so far.  It’s a very powerful story, and will probably make most people think.  Sure, it won’t make everyone in this world a better person, but it is likely to move those who do see it.  And I suggest you do.

The cast is beyond amazing.  Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Shaun Toub, Michael Pena and Terrence Dashon Howard own this film.  Dillon gives his greatest performance ever.  Cheadle once again proves why he was nominated for an Oscar earlier this year.  Magnificent.  Toub was phenomenal in what could be his star-making role.  His on screen presence was only made better in the scenes in which he was with Pena.  Pena was excellent in his role as the two share the most jaw-dropping scene of the film.  Howard was amazing as well in his part, and he too, has one of the more nerve-racking scenes in the film.

Esposito was great in her role, as well as Newton, who at one point I felt was a little over the top in a scene, but turned around and blew me away in her next scene.   Ludacris was surprising in his first film role.  He had most of the humorous lines/scenes in the film and handled it well.  Tate did a fine job as well.  Phillippe had one of his better parts in a film ever too.  Very good performance.  Bullock and Fraser took sort of the back seat in this film.  In what few scenes he had, Fraser was good.  It would have been nice to see his role a little more.  Bullock, as well, was good in what is a different type of role than she’s used to.  Good job, but again, it would have been nice to see her have some more screen time.

This is just an all around brilliant film.  Excellently written, top-notch performances by all, especially Matt Dillon.  

I’d love to see a lot of nominations for this film at next years Oscars.

:thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  10/10

[BWilli]

“Mr. and Mrs. Smith” stars Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn, and Adam Brody.  Doug Liman directs the film.

John Smith (Pitt) and his wife Jane have been married for 5 (or is it 6?) years, but the flame has burnt out and now the two attend counseling.  Their problems though are about to get a lot worse than either ever expected.  They’re both hiding something from each other…they’re both highly paid, incredibly efficient assassins, and they work for competing organizations.  When the two are sent to kill the same target, they cross paths and are now assigned to kill each other.

This is what the summer movie season is all about.  Fun...fun…fun popcorn flicks.  The screenplay was written by Simon Kinberg for as his master's thesis at Columbia University.  Gee…I wonder if he passed.  The script and story were very good with very little flaws to them.   Kinberg also wrote the crap XXX: State of the Union screenplay, but he definitely redeemed himself with this one.  The script was full of well written action sequences, along with great dialogue, a lot of which being very funny stuff.  

Doug Liman knows how to direct great action.  He gave us the very good “Bourne Identity” a few years ago.  Very good direction by Liman.  I hope he continues to make great action flicks like this one.

Pitt nearly seems like an expert when it comes to wittiness (he’s proven this in the past with his roles in “Ocean’s 11” and “Ocean’s 12”).  He was perfect for this role and played it excellently.  Jolie as well.  Great casting…I’m glad Nicole Kidman couldn’t do it (Kidman is highly overrated, I think, and wouldn’t have looked as good doing these action sequences).  Jolie worked perfectly.  The two had a lot of fun with this film and shared excellent chemistry.  Chemistry can make or break a film, and in this case, it helped make this film as good as it is.  Vince Vaughn, as Eddie, another assassin who works with John, was hilarious as he always is.  I read somewhere regarding Vaughn, that “he’s money and he knows it.”  Well put, in my opinion.  Adam Brody, as Ben Diaz, adds some humor to the film.  His role is rather small, but he pulls it off.

The writing, directing, the acting…all great.  I’ll admit that I was a tad dissatisfied how the film ended, but it is left open for a sequel I guess.  If that sequel happens I’ll be in the theater opening night as I was with this one.   I reiterate…This is what the summer movie season is all about.  Fun...fun…FUN popcorn flicks.  

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:  9/10

[BWilli]

“Batman Begins” stars Christian Bale, Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Morgan Freeman, and Ken Watanabe.

As a child, Bruce Wayne watched his parents get murdered.  As a young adult, Wayne (Bale), misses a long awaited opportunity to get revenge on his parent’s killer.  Years later, we find that Wayne has been imprisoned in Asia.  There he is visited by Henri Ducard (Neeson), who then takes him to meet and train with Ra’s Al-Ghul (Watanabe), a dangerous, but honorable ninja cult leader.  What Wayne wants to learn it the means to fight injustice, but what he finds is that this cult takes justice into their own hands, something he can not agree with.  Wayne fights his way out, and returns to his now decaying Gotham City, which is overrun by organized crime and other dangerous individuals manipulating the system. He goes back to Wayne Industries, now run by Earle (Hauer), and meets Lucius Fox (Freeman), once a board member but now assigned to the technical gadgets Wayne Industries created.   The discovery of a cave under his mansion, along with a prototype armored suit, leads him to assume a new persona, one which will strike fear into the hearts of men who corrupted Gotham City.  He becomes Batman.  In the new guise, and with the help of rising cop Jim Gordon (Oldman) and childhood friend turned Assistant DA Rachel Dawes (Holmes), Batman sets out to take down the various nefarious schemes in motion by individuals such as mob boss Falcone (Wilkinson), the twisted Dr. Jonathan Crane (Murphy), and a mysterious third party that is quite familiar with Wayne.

“Batman Begins” stands alone from the previous four Batman films.  The story of who killed Wayne’s parents is completely different than that of 1989s Batman.  You don’t need to have seen any of those to see “Begins”.  This film shows us more in depth as to how and why Bruce Wayne becomes Batman.  It’s always cool to see the “birth” of a character (for example, the birth of Darth Vader in SW Ep. 3 was awesome).

Chris Nolan does a kick-ass directing job on this film and he also wrote one hell of a screenplay along with David S. Goyer.  This was an amazing story.

Christian Bale is the best Batman since Michael Keaton.  He was the perfect choice to play the role.  Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth was an excellent choice as well.  Caine is a great actor and added a lot of humor and logic with his delivery of lines.  Holmes surprised me as she did a decent job as the love interest.  Gary Oldman rules.  He was very good as Gordon.  Murphy was creepy as Dr. Crane/The Scarecrow.  I though he looked a tad young when wearing the glasses, however the guy can act and he can act well.  Very good job.  Wilkinson as mob boss Falcone was great as well.    This guy should get more villainous roles.  Freeman is a great actor, and continued his greatness here.  Sure it’s not an Oscar winning performance, but the man knows how to act.  Hauer is a cool actor as well, playing the asshole part very well.  Watanabe wasn’t on screen long enough to actually show is acting ability (although he’s done that already with The Last Samurai).  Good enough though I guess.
Minor issues:  The voice change when Wayne is Batman.  Kind of annoying and distracting (although I guess it helps to hide his true identity).  Murphy looked extremely young with glasses.  It looked weird at first.  Not enough screen time for Watanabe.  The fight sequences, although really cool, could have been shot from further away.  Couldn’t tell who was hitting who.

Those notes aside, the film was a lot better than the last two Batman films, but pretty much as good as the first two (Batman and Batman returns were the two best of the previous four).

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: 9/10

[BWilli]

Director Tony Scott’s “Man on Fire” stars Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Marc Anthony, Radha Mitchell, Mickey Rourke and Giancarlo Giannini.

In Mexico City, former CIA assassin and present alcoholic John Creasy (Washington) is hired by the industrialist Samuel Ramos (Anthony) and wife Lisa (Mitchell), with the recommendation of Creasy’s old friend Rayburn (Walken), to be the bodyguard of their young daughter Pita (Fanning). Pita changes the behavior of the cold Creasy, making him live and smile again, and he feels a great affection for her. When the criminals kidnap Pita and Creasy is nearly killed, he swears to get back at each person responsible for the abduction.

Revenge movies are great, and this is one of the best ones I’ve seen in a while.  For some reason or another, I missed this when it was in theaters a year ago.  I wish I hadn’t.

Tony Scott’s style of filmmaking is visually amazing.   Scott brings a unique visual style, complete with quick cuts, freeze frames, grainy shots, and just an overall stylistic assault on your senses. He makes the images almost dreamlike, and uses this throughout the film, usually at moments of high intensity.  I think each technique works very well.  (Looks like he used these techniques again for his next film, “Domino”.)

The film is based on the novel by A.J. Quinnell and was written by Brian Helgeland.  I’ve never read the book (not much of a reader), but Helgeland wrote one hell of a screenplay.  If the film stays true to the book, than I’d say Quinnell is a very good writer.  The story was great.  I loved every piece of it; from the building of a relationship between Creasy and Pita, to her eventual kidnapping and especially to whoop-ass the Creasy deals out to all the bad guys.  

I’d say that this is Washington’s finest piece of acting work.  Even more so than his Oscar winning performance in “Training Day.”  Excellent job in this film.

I predict that Dakota Fanning will win an Oscar sometime in the not-so-distant future.  This kid can act.  She’s been put in films with some of the best actors around, and she handles herself well working with them.  She could possibly be the best actress under the age 20.  

Christopher Walken toned it down for this role.  He’s not at all as eccentric as he’s used to being in most films, which is good because he’s character, Rayburn, doesn’t need to be.  This guy is brilliant in all of his films (except for one).

Mitchell has been good in most films I’ve seen her in, but I think this may have been her best performance yet.

Rourke is a cool actor, would have been better to see him have more screen time.  He did his small role justice though.  Anthony was just okay.  I haven’t been a fan of his acting abilities, or lack-there-of.

Personally, I saw no flaws in this film.  It came out around the same time as two other “revenge” films, “The Punisher” and “Kill Bill Volume 2”, both of which I liked.  However, “Man on Fire” was the better of the three, and easily one of the best movies from 2004.

“Revenge is a meal best served cold.” – John Creasy

:thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  10/10

[BWilli]

“War of the Worlds” (2005) stars Tom Cruise, Dakota Fanning, Justin Chatwin, and Tim Robbins, while Steven Spielberg directed.

Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a working class man living in New Jersey.  He’s not exactly winning any Father-of-the-Year awards, but he’s got his son Robbie (Chatwin) and daughter Rachel (Fanning) for the weekend wile his ex-wife heads to Boston with her new man toy.   Not too long after they arrive, a strange lightning storm touches down.  Moments later, at an intersection near his house, Ray witnesses an extraordinary event that will change all their lives forever. A towering three-legged war machine emerges from deep beneath the earth and, before anyone can react, incinerates everything in sight. An ordinary day has suddenly become the most extraordinary event of their lifetimes - a catastrophic alien attack on Earth.  Ray scrambles to get his children away from this merciless new enemy, embarking on a journey that will take them across the ravaged countryside, where they become caught in the desperate tide of refugees fleeing from an extraterrestrial army of Tripods.

Spielberg never ceases to amaze me.  He’s been a huge inspiration for me and was a big part of my choice to study film in college.  He does another excellent directing job with this film.  The man has created some of the best science fiction movies (E.T., Close Encounters, A.I., Minority Report), and continues his sci-fi greatness with “War of the Worlds.”

On to Tom Cruise.  This guy needs to shut the hell up and just do his job.  He does his job well most of the time, this being one of them.  He was in top form in this film.  I said it in my last review, and I’ll said it again, Dakota Fanning will win an Oscar sometime soon.  Very good actress, excellent here.  Chatwin seemed a little to whiny at first, but fell into the role fine.  Tim Robbins plays Ogilvy, a survivor hiding out in his basement, ready to fight off the aliens.  Ogilvy is kind of nuts, and seems like he feels invincible.  Robbins plays the role perfectly.

With a film like this, you need to suspend your reality…open your mind.  If you do, you’ll enjoy it.  

Is this Spielberg’s best film?  No, but it is very good and very entertaining.  It’s a darker alien film that both E.T and Close Encounters were.  Those were friendly aliens…these one are not.  This is also not the best film of the year, but it’s just what summer movies should be made of.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:  8/10

[BWilli]

“The Machinist” stars Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Michael Ironside and is directed by Brad Anderson.

Trevor Reznik (Bale) hasn’t slept in a year.  The shocking deterioration of his physical and mental health has made his every day life an unrelenting state of confusion, paranoia, guilt, anxiety, and terror.  His only solace from this living nightmare comes from an affectionate prostitute, Stevie (Leigh).  When cryptic notes turn up mysteriously in his apartment and when hallucinations of a co-worker that no one else sees causes a gruesome machine shop injury, he embarks on a journey to find out whether there is an elaborate plot to drive him mad or hit fatigue has simply robbed him of reason.  The more he learns the less he wants to know.

Holy crap!  Talk about dedication to the art of acting.  Bale supposedly lost 60 pounds to play this role, dropping down to 120lbs.  The fact the he looks so frail is actually kind of disturbing and nearly distracting while watching the film.  Don’t let it distract you though because this is one hell of a great film, and you won’t want to miss a second of it.  The script is well written by Scott Kosar and brilliantly directed by Anderson.  

Reznik is by far one of Bale’s greatest roles in his career.  The fact that he lost all this weight isn’t the reason why.  Sure, it’s got a bit to do with his dedication, but Bale is a terrific actor.  The dude could have probably tripled his weight and still give an amazing performance.  Anyway, excellent performance.

Jennifer Jason Leigh does a good job in her role as well and Michael Ironside showed that he could do more as an actor than just playing tough, mean son-of-a-bitch roles.  Kudos to Mr. Ironside.

So with an excellent scrip, great directing and pretty flawless acting all around, this film is just an amazing piece of work and another one of the better films to come out of 2004.

:thumbsup:  :thumbsup:  9/10

[BWilli]

Wes Anderson directs Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Kate Blanchett, Angelica Huston, Willem Dafoe, and Jeff Goldblum in “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.”

Internationally famous oceanographer Steve Zissou (Murray) and his crew--Team Zissou--set sail on an expedition to hunt down the mysterious, elusive, possibly non-existent Jaguar Shark that killed Zissou's partner during the documentary filming of their latest adventure. They are joined on their voyage by a young airline co-pilot who may or may not be Zissou's son, Ned Plimpton (Wilson), a beautiful journalist, Jane Winslett-Richardson (Blanchett) assigned to write a profile of Zissou, and Zissou's estranged wife and co-producer, Eleanor (Houston). They face overwhelming complications including pirates, kidnapping, and bankruptcy.

I’m a little behind on Wes Anderson’s films.  So far he’s directed four feature films, and I’ve seen just this one.  I will be catching up on his films now and as long as they’re as good as this one, I’m sure I’ll enjoy them.

“Life Aquatic” wasn’t as funny as I had thought it was going to be, but it’s very quirky…in a good way.  It’s also pretty dramatic, more so than I was expecting; there is one scene in particular that I did not see coming.  I was pretty amused by Seu Jorge, who played shipmate Pelé dos Santos, who basically sat around the entire movie singing David Bowie songs in Portuguese.  I love to see random, weird shit like that in movies.  

The animated sea creatures throughout the film were kind of distracting mainly because of how fake they looked.  The animated shark I didn’t mind all that much though because that specific scene was just emotionally great.

Murray played the part of Zissou well.  There were moments were he seemed too emotionless, but there were certain scenes that he was just great in.  Murray worked well with Wilson, who also does a pretty good job in the film.  Blanchett continues to prove how great of an actress she is.  Very good job.  I was surprised with Dafoe as he was so funny.  I’ve always thought he was a good actor, usually played the bad dude, but he was absolutely hilarious in this one.  It would have been nicer to see Goldblum get more screen time.  He, too, was very funny and played his part nearly flawless.   Huston was just okay, but any middle aged actress could’ve played the role.

So all-in-all, the film was not as funny as I thought it would be, but I really liked the dramatic spots of it.  It seemed to have started off kind of slow, but it picked up along the way.  There’s a scene near the end that I felt didn’t really need to be there.  The events that took place during this scene didn’t necessarily have to actually take place. I thought the very end of the film was great, though.

:thumbsup:  7/10