Parker. You 'been parked enough?

"Parker", as an adaptation of a classic book, is a regular action movie with lots of gunplay, even more blood, mafia-like encounters and a little bit of socialism. Oh yes, and a long, wonderful advertising campaign for Palm Beach's sightseeings, especially if you're a millionaire looking for a house.

 

Parker (Jason Statham) is an honest thief (!) but who gets himself within a bad crown to make a living. One lovely day then they manage to steal one million dollars from a fair in Ohio. Parker's kindness manifests early when he firmly calms down a young security guy, who's having a panic crisis while Parker's clown dressed pals empty the fair's vaults. Who would believe that a thief looking like a priest comforted the security guy ^^? Big speciousness here.

 

Parker's partners though are not as caring. Their "leader" is Melander, a son of a b***h, and the uncle of one of them, even more of a son of a b***h. Thus, they leave him half alive in a pond next to a road in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately though he's picked up by some peasants (this matters for the end) and later he pulls himself together. Naturally, he wants his money back. And some vengeance.

 

After beating some nice people, Parker finds himself in exotic Palm Beach, Florida, where Melander and his stooges plan to steal the $75m worth jewelery of a late former first lady of the community. In order to find out when, how and where they're gonna hit, Parker has to use Leslie's help, an almost miserable emploee of a real-estate company (Jennifer Lopez).

Leslie is a woman of the working class and has a hard time to make ends meet, she's almost 40, got no boyfriend and lives by her mother - who never misses to remind her daughter of what she pays for. On top of all this there is her obnoxious ex-husband trolling her regularly while she goes to work. So given the situation it's no surprise that when she discovers Parker behind the future client Mr. Permit, not only she's not scared but she begs for a spot in his plan, whatever that is.

 

Obviously I don't have to spoil it for you; you can easily figure out whether Parker - Statham that is - succeeds to get what he wants. What though is not predictable is that him and Leslie don't get to be a couple! He's got a wife...

 

As always, Statham plays nicely the masculine type that offers an impressive beating. Nevertheless, he can be a bit sluggish compared to his other films.  JLO passes well for a silly pretty woman, daring to make her life more interesting. I don't know why, but I'd rather see whether Jennifer Aniston would do better in Leslie's role. Then again, Lopez's more experienced in hanging around with thugs.
 

 

An awesome scene is where wounded Parker seeks shelter in half awake Leslie's house. It's so realistic to have a violent thief covered in blood holding a happy puppy and asking from Leslie's weirdo mother for a soup.

 

In the beginning I did like the Robin-Hood concept; stealing only from the rich and eventually giving to some poor. But then I changed my mind because I suspect that director Taylor Hackford unwillingly might produce a wrong message. That, if you're poor, it's not very bad to rob rich people, as long as you don't hurt the innocent. If you ask a socialist that knows his lesson well, he'd argue that such ideas are simply delusions and that if the working class wishes to improve its living standard then this should be done through social struggle. 

 

In any way, let's not ask too much from a crime thriller film, shall we?

 

Forgot to mention: oh my god, Nick Nolte's so old!

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Hansel & Gretel : Witch Hunters, or the Fantastic Two?

When the Brothers Grimm wrote "Hansel and Gretel" probably thought normal that some, in the future, would remake their fairytale in variations. As it indeed happened. What they never imagined was that the two poor siblings would sometime become Marvel Comics heroes. They also never thought that they would tour the world wiping it out of witches, likewise a medieval "Men in Black" duo.

"Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hungers" would have been a moderate dark comedy along with noteworthy photography, well designed costumes and well made special effects, if it didn't ruin the respectable fairytale, if it had a bit wider plot, if the director was less bored, if, if, if...

 

In a regular German village the residents are about to lynch a pretty girl because they take her for a witch that kidnapped a bunch of kids. As they're smart as well, they feel no need to ask her where she hid them before they kill her. Fortunately, Hawkeye - Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and his sister Gretel (Gemma Arterton) the witch bounty hunters come in and save the girl, and the day.

 

In their leather, Matrix-wise costumes and the futuristic retro weapons, the two Witch Hunters are unleashed into the Germanic woods, where they decapitate, blow up or burn in a Tarantino-style whatever witch they bump on. Blood scenes can be funny, feebly grotesque and look like daily Xena chores. Heat rises a bit when the star villain appears, who's no other than Jean Grey in the role of the grand evil witch Muriel (Famke Janssen). Far from annihilating them as the Phoenix would do, she manages merely to intimidate them with her super-ugly zombie witch face.

 



Gretel then, the smart of the two siblings, discovers Muriel's plan to slaughter 12 children during the upcoming Sabbath - the era's international witch ritual conference - in order to create a magic potion that will grant the witches immunity to fire. Even though this is presented as a disaster, historically it's rather inaccurate; medieval history tells us that people used to kill alleged witches in the... traditional way before they burn them. So Muriel's potion will be actually pissing against the wind here.

 

To our surprise, the story takes us to the house Hansel and Gretel lived when they were little, only to conveniently tell us that their parents left them in the woods because peasants were about to kill their father and witch-mother Adrianna. The fact Adrianna was a grand white witch allows us to happily moralize their past.

 

Even for a b-movie I think that to divide witches into good and bad, white and not white, is a convenient but simplistic choice that shows the film-makers were too damn bored to think a little more on it.

 

Despite the original staging in Europe and the music with Hans Zimmer's touch, the film exploits the legendary title of the fairy-tale to attract attention and use its ready base for a plot. Which it rapes quite relentlessly later. Tradition wants this tale to associate with social issues of the times it was written, such as the Great Famine, poverty and deprivation. That's why Hansel's mom was in fact a bitch, or a bitch stepmom, wishing to kick the kids out, not to save them but to get rid of them! The past doesn't always pair with heroism, as we have got used to in the modern American culture.

 

I wouldn't slam this film for the inaccuracies or the alterations of the fairy-tale, but for the total changing of its meaning. Director Tommy Wirkola made his own "Hansel & Gretel" wasting in 2 hours a) the respective title by Grimm Brothers, b) the hero-type Hawkeye & Jean have built, and c) the mystical theme of witches and sorcery, on which he could have created a much more powerful movie.

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Side Effects, of being both depressed and a criminal

To my surprise, Side Effects gave something more than a dull, predictable narration of how destructing people with mental issues are for others and themselves. In fact it's a story about deception, acting and the rotten nature of today's financial and stock market system.

 

Emily (Rooney Mara), hardly a femme-fatale but an admitted pretty girl, accepts her long-sentenced husband back at home. One would expect this would make her happy; at last they can be a couple again and leave the past behind. But no, Martin's (Channing Tatum) not found the secret to make a woman happy.

 

Her having a nice job working on a Mac as a designer is not enough (jobless designers you can now facepalm). Having a f*cking awesome cool woman boss is not enough. Having a nice car and a home as the minimum American Dream suggets is not enough. Having a non-bitch mother-in-law is not enough. Having a husband who's willing to make her happy and finding soon a Houston based business opportunity, is not enough.

 

No, she has to get depressed, sleepwalking, crying out of the blue for no reason, scaring an underground security emploee to death by attempting to fall on the tracks, and finally smashing in her shiny car directly on a garage. Wearing the seatbelt... Even so, her innocent cute eyes manage to convinve Dr. Banks (Jude Law) to let her avoid hospitalization and go home, leading to his eventual doom.

 

We have to admit, Emily's a super successful depressed person. She ruins her future, herself and her beloved ones just as most people with mental issues do. She even ruins her doctor's life! And while far so this girl has caused us the ultimate rage-face with her doings, she remains the victim! In fact, in order to tell us how miserable Emily is - as most depressed people - the director Steven Soderbergh shows us the stock-market style negotiations among doctors and pharmaceutical companies' representatives. There's big money here in drug promotion, a game in which everyone has a role: patients are the guinea-pigs, doctors are simple contractors and the state thrives through its absence.

Anyway, the film wishes not to focus on this, or it won't have time to proceed to a more spicy development. Besides, the first 40 mins find you yawning, since the view of a zombie-girl staring at the air can't be very exciting.

 

The all-mighty doctor 'n' gloating Jude Law has a really hard time when carefree Emily slaughters her husband like a chicken; she's technically nuts, so the authorities are tempted to blame Dr. Banks for not predicting the side-effects caused by that new drug Ablixa - suspiciously recommended by the cunning Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones). Banks was supposed to lock Emily up in an institution in the first place when she decided to crash her car.

 

The case turns into a national-wide scandal and the media lust for the "body" of Banks, who in the meanwhile is dumped by his wife. Of course, he's not an idiot. Quickly, he discovers Emily's fake depression and that behind all this is a lesbian plot devised by Emily and her girlfriend, ex-doc Victoria. It seems the two sluts set Banks up to cause a financial meltdown of Ablixa's producer's stocks. Right after, a rival-pharma company's stocks would soar making the lesbian stockholder couple rich, very rich. I wonder if the SEC would ever see to something like that.

 

+1 to a film showing exactly how unjust a financial and stockmarket system is, that allows greedy minds to make lots of money out of thin air, or worse, out of an acting that looks legal.

The truth is the two womens' plan was brilliant, while the lesbian affection scenes adds quite a nice touch of .. interest. Well-acting Jude Law is worth to watch, especially how he outsmarts the two females proving once more how bitchy they can be to each other.

 

Sorry to say this, but, Catherine stays attractive but looks like a mess. It's ironical to play the psychiatries while it is said she had psychological issues herself. A remarkable woman and actress, nevertheless.

 

As for Emily, well. A girl who decides to wait years for her husband's release from jail in order to murder him and get herself on a trial; and all this to avenge the money and luxury taken away from her, well, surely is not 100% sane.

 

If you're sane, you break up like a normal person and you go live the passion with the woman or the boy you love. Perhaps Emily did need the medication after all.

 

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Killing them softly, or perhaps too softly

Surely a film beginning with pre-election statements by Obama promises a lot of problems. These problems are directed for 2 hours by Andrew Dominik in this story called “Killing them Softly”. This guy must be constantly living a conflict of values and a philosophical quest, which he decides to share with us through the film.

The plot refers to the efforts of a strangely good-hearted henchman, Jackie Cogan (that’s Brad), to sort some issues with the local community and restore the mafia law, for the last straw being a a robbery at the mafia-controlled local casino.

You see, everything in our world has rules, even mafia. Or, mainly mafia! Nevertheless, Cogan’s got this thing to be somehow sensitive. He can’t kill face to face because it makes him sad. He does it remotely and sweetly to make it easier for his conscience....


Apart from Brad, there is Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russel (Ben Mendelsohn). The two are a couple of poor petty criminals and junkies, who performed with immense artistic failure the casino robbery. One wonders who’s worse.

Basically the film is a socio-political critique on America; apt I’d say, but rather boring, as it swings between political speeches and financial analyses or the raw view of the American underworld. And it does it using the method of hackneyed preach.

At the same time, it addresses the drugs issue, which I must admit is presented in a realistic manner. Still it could be done more artistically and in a cinema-oriented way without jading us.

Within the first 10 or 20 minutes it gives all it has and the rest of the scenes elaborate on conversations about sex with goats. I guess they can teach something, but I had to stop eating my pop corn..
The actors look tired, they really can’t pass as drunk, either stoned, not even evil! Murders also look slower than death itself. Brad proves himself nicely as Jolie’s husband and can be even interesting.

Someone has to explain to the director one thing. A movie must certainly be preceptive, if it can, but it also has to entertain a bit, you know? Anyone?

 

 

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Blockbusting theory #2

Once again I found another example of wise-paper rolling on the market floor.

 

This super long titled paper ("The Differential Effects of Online Word-of-Mouth and Critics' Reviews on Pre-release Movie Evaluation" by Chakravarty, Liu and Mazumdar) explains how people's comments affect other people's willingness to go watch a new film.

 

Even though in the beginning I found it interesting, it turns out to be another exploitation of mental effort and resources. Here's what these people found:

 

we find that the persuasive effect of online word-of-mouth is stronger on infrequent than on frequent moviegoers, especially when it is negative (Study 1). The effect of negative word-of-mouth on infrequent moviegoers is enduring even in the presence of positive reviews by movie critics (Study 2).

In plain English, people who don't go often to the movies DON'T pay attention to favorable reviews by critics; instead they listen to other people's comments on a film, especially if they slam it!

 

The relative influence of word-of-mouth and critical reviews are asymmetric with infrequent moviegoers more influenced by word-of-mouth, while frequent moviegoers more influenced by the reviews (Study 3).

Aaaaand people who go often to the movies DO care about critics' views. Ok well, you had to spend your academic salary here, resources and intellect and make complicated tables and figures in order to prove something easily grasped by common sense.

 

It's absolutely natural for people who go movie-watching from time to time to trust others' comments instead of restlessly searching for reviews. Why would they bother? They just want to watch a film that their friends like and to feel a bit safe it's not crap. And of course real movie-fans follow critics' reviews regularly! It's more than a hobby and they naturally feel the need to find an "expert" to identify with... 

 

Surely these researchers are not idiots and probably they knew what they'd find in the first place. But as many others, they just seem to prefer producing usable data for a movie company rather explaining how movie making affects us.

 

Pfff, marketing.

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No, no, no. No Maggie here.

A rather short, poor old lady narrates us the awesome life of Margaret Thatcher. Oh yes, this version of Meryl Streep is supposed to be Maggie in 2012, or at least the Maggie shaped by Phyllida Lloyd’s imagination. Quite a commercial success and a personal achievement of Oscar winner Meryl.

The objective is to describe Thatcher not as much as a political figure but rather as a working woman, former grocer’s daughter, mother, ambitious youngling and stubborn wife. An “Iron Lady” that is, parallel to the politician but not exactly the politician; obviously this is not incompatible with reality. Thatcher was nothing but a politician.

The director uses the flashback technique rather too often; this bouncing from present to past and vice-versa does little to contribute to the storyline, nor it gives a flow to the narration. Some stops at Thatcher’s life moments seem a bit dull.

And while you’re yawning carefree and lay your lazy hand searching for more pop-corn, you violently get jarred by Maggie Streep’s screech in a moment of in-House hysteria directed to the opposition leader. 

Ok, well, I get it; it’s not a political film. Then why “Iron Lady”? How’s the film justifying the title? How can you detach a politician from her good or bad deeds but you can show bits of IRA, Thatcherism, the war on the unions? Why did this woman feel guilt, if so, anyway?

There’s that young, ambitious, almost sexy girl starring early in the film striving to prove herself in a manly world. How sad; admirable; I feel sympathetic, but, hey, this is NOT Maggie. Dunno how you call her, but it’s not Maggie.

 

Excellent, chic, up-to the date costumes. And of course, was there any real actor in this film, other than Meryl Streep? Surely Thatcher is the central figure, but this would all be stronger if others would actually play.

This is an indifferent piece, deceitful, charming and not suitable for a nice slam! In the end, one does not see how cool - or not - Thatcher was as a leader, but more like how awesome Streep would make of a prime minister.

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Stand down grandpa!

Certainly a film starring Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin can be considered as “vintage”. Three decadent gangsters catch up with each other and recall old times. One is still fresh from jail, the other left adventure to be a sunset painter and the third is wired up on an elderly care center bed.

This epic story starts with Pacino getting out of jail and Walken picking him up, as having nothing better to do. However there’s this mystery in the air while they meet again. Walken has taken up to assassinate Pacino within a day and totters between professionalism and friendship. But by the time they start hanging around again they decide to enjoy life like buddies. They even go brothel-hopping, making the film surpass the boundaries of aesthetics...

So for the most part we are shown the adventures of the two grandpa’s. Later Arkin joins the drill as well. On top of all this we are asked to sympathize with Walken’s dramatic dilemma; to kill or not to kill Pacino?? Even though it’s something the film would naturally focus on, it doesn’t! Instead, there’s an attempt to surprise us by reminding the “mission”. But believe me, nobody is surprised.

Right before a totally weird ending we get the honor to watch Pacino’s confession to a priest (like it would ever be to a judge...). Arkin’s already dead and I tried to decipher the unfathomable fact that his daughter hasn’t shed a single tear. Omg, Cry you bitch! He was your damn father!

Stand Up Guys is a movie that fulfills all conditions - interesting plot, powerful stars, nice music etc. - to present a fast, funny and lively adventure; nevertheless it winds up to an often boring experience with a few exceptions of real action and cute humor.

Admittedly the script and direction won’t easily let the actors’ talent unfold, as their personalities outweigh their roles. I would note though their costumes design goes back to the 60s. You can almost smell the staleness that emerges from the vivid view of them.

To be honest such reunions and come-backs by old celebrities make me a bit nervous. It feels like it’s a eulogy for all their movie portfolio. While they play it’s like they tell you “There’ll be no more!”.

Well, I’ll live for more! Cheers

 

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