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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Blockbusting theory #1

My first post on theory crafting snatches on a weird paper I found a few months ago while net-surfing. Before showing it to you I'll just introduce my gagged rationale.


Now let's all admit movie reviewing is something almost everybody can do. Reviews and critiques pop out in every portal, vortal, newspaper, online bulletin and wherever, like wild flowers during spring.

But the truth is not everyone can do it well. Why? Because there is no natural law or academic axiom saying in a plain way what makes a good movie or a bad one. There are thousands of viewpoints and angles to "read" a film from, inasmuch as many parameters there are.

 

Normally there would be some contemporary theory crafting on how we can judge a film. Like, say, from the nice good old experts: academics, cultural scientists and performing arts researchers. But it's stunning that today most academic literature on movie reviews pays no attention to the reviewing process itself. In fact it elaborates on the effect reviews and critics have on the film industry, instead of ever giving a tip on how it's done.

 

It's sad to know most researchers, professors and film/media students just drain their talent and thinking capacity in order to see how much more or less money a film will make because of the reviews. People in the film industry want to make money - which is very reasonable to a very great extent, as it's their business; but I expect more from the wise guys.

 

This is what I talked about in the beginning of this post then:

 

We conclude that text features from pre-release reviews can substitute for and improve over a strong metadata-based first-weekend movie revenue prediction.

In simple English this means that "we can say how much $$ a film can make the premiere weekend by reading what critics say". Taken from the paper "Movie Reviews and Revenues: An Experiment in Text Regression", this is the conclusion of four US based Carnegie Mellon University authors (Mahesh Joshi, Dipanjan Das, Kevin Gimpel, Noah A. Smith). Oh really...you don't say.

Certainly I don't doubt these people's work, neither their dedicated methods; but really this is all about money and gives a nice business tool to the industry but nothing to me as a subject of cinematography art.

There are many other examples of scientific resources spent for this kind of business purposes. I have to keep looking for a more suitable start for my Movie Gag theory...

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Welcome, but no punch

Even for me it’s hard to jabber much about “Welcome to the punch”. Its plot is a clutter and it struggles to attract my interest.

Jacob Sternwood (Mark Strong) is an ex-criminal enjoying his inactive retired years in icy Iceland. However when he’s son is arrested in Heathrow airport he’s got to return to London, where old friend detective Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy) follows him everywhere hoping to arrest him by mistake and finally have some self-esteem.

Max’s figure is deeply hang-up and constantly eager to be the smart-ass. He plays the defender of the weak and generally resembles that school goody-goody nerd we all knew. All attempts to restore or justify Max’s weird attitude shall fail. Personally I tried hard and many times to like him during the film.

On the other hand, Sternwood drives you bonkers with his affluent even temper. He’s almost indifferent, for his age, and for some reason manages to earn our sympathy.

The film apparently wishes not to be remembered for its bold characters and their appealing to the viewer, since everything happens in tiresome calmness.

On top of that the two heroes start to respect each other and fight for the restoration of justice in which both happen to believe.

Scriptwriter and director Eran Creevy had a good idea to make a film with 2 men starring, no women and no sex. Well the effort could be better. You can only see faces and dubious “action”, while the first complete sentence is heard later than 10 minutes. Resolution comes in 2 minutes and suspense forgot to come.

I’m gonna avoid saying anything more for the music apart from the fact it sounded like it was coming from an electrocardiogram machine.

Perhaps “Welcome to the punch” had ambitions to suggest something original, different to the mainstream Hollywood action/adventure genre. Well, they were too high.

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Broken City: vote for the wig!

Mark Wahlberg plays former police officer Billy Taggart, now a private detective in the new action movie by Allen Hughes “Broken City”. The title refers to no other city than New York during the pre-election period for local governors.

There are two candidates: Nicholas Hostetler and Jack Valliant. One is bad, the other is good, as in such films there is no other option, you gotta accept it. This battle between good and evil has become so trivial! Like we couldn’t see vegetarians vs meat lovers, or Lady Gaga fans vs Rihanna fans... Please!

Naturally, no case, no crime, no punishment, no pre-election campaign can take place without a couple of sexy women legs. The law of Hollywood here is impenetrable and clear, no exceptions. So the leg-role is given to Catherine Zeta Jones, playing the insatiably charming and mysterious wife of Russel, who for some reason I strongly believe wears a wig. Ah, old age doesn’t come alone... How one can fall from being a sexy gladiator to running for office... Following Arnold’s steps, even though the latter become a governor, which is more impressive I’d say.

Billy Taggart commits a murder then due to excessive enthusiasm. As a result, his badge, gun and macho attitude are taken away from him and he ends up as a private detective dealing with lover cheats, squabbles, petty larcenies and such. Obviously this transformation from a criminal hunter to a family fortune teller has broken his spirit, it’s not exactly an alternative... Mayor Hostetler however hires him to find his wife’s lover and Billy begins to remember old times. Things like financial scandals make it complicated though.

Action comes in place basically when Catherine appears. I have to admit she’s really, really impressive. Now the scriptwriter messes up what was unfolding as a quite interesting plot by choosing to collate many different stories and events to keep suspense up. In the end we watch a bunch of irrelevant scenes. For instance, I don’t really think it was necessary to learn about how the sister of Billy’s wife died. Generally Billy’s love life is as boring as a cartoon and, despite so, the film talks about it for just too long!

One more thing. Billy breaks up with his wife because he was too jealous seeing her starring in a porn film. Here Hollywood needs to pay some attention; you can’t have two inapt people fuck each other like there’s no tomorrow and then call this “art”. Ok, this was my thought.

Anyway, later in the film we follow Billy’s endeavour to resolve the Hostetler case that now includes murder, weird alliances, manhunting, debates and of course scandals. A pre-election cycle has never been so much fascinating!

Good and evil intertwines perfectly. Yes! In this film the bad guy is Russel!! He’s finally not wretched, not the victim, not the sexy guy!I won’t comment on the ending, as it’s the top moment when justice is done! For all. For everything. It’s at least surrealistic...
I can say Wahlberg sells as a good decayed detective, even though he turns a little rough sometimes that make him look like a football fan after his team lost the cup. Or, worse, like a doorkeeper who just got his door poohed by a Juck Russel puppy. Dear Mark, you ain’t got rough mate!

Russel gives a well performed sleazy ‘n’ smarmy guy. The wig helps a lot!Catherine is just... gorgeous!

On the other hand, Barry Pepper is a fail-choice. His face radiates permanent misery, which climaxes while he grieves the death of his friend. He’s like an ancient Greek woman mourning during a tragedy for the loss of Thebes city!
To be honest action scenes keep low and are too predictable. Even so, the screenplay flows nicely with enough well given humour and the title "Broken City" was a successful pick to describe badass corruption within politics and finance.

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I thought they'd switch bodies :o

No gagging can be enough for this one! Α silly, indifferent parody of a comedy with very few actual comic means and endless baloney floating on screen for about one and a half hour.

 

Identity Thief. For starters. A random fat woman with many names steals the identity of Sandy Paterson to live better by overindulging spending that even a super-consumerist fashion victim would find too much. Let’s call her Diana since she kept this name and we can’t argue with 473 pounds of human mass...

Sandy is an accounting director in a big company, married with two daughters. He’s looking forward to a promotion but he ends up with his thumb up his butt.

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Diana, who’s psychologically mental, tries to fill in all her psychotic vacuums with various tricks. Using Sandy’s money then she revels and has a good time out, even when threatening to hang herself from a chandelier.

 

Sandy starts to grasp what’s going on and searches for the identity thief. After 25 mins and another 25 yawns, we see him playing policeman to hunt down Diana. He finds her place in Colorado, which looks like a telemarketing store with chinese stuff, and from now on we got Action!

 

The film tries so hard to be a good adventure comedy, I can’t comment on how much suspense it made to bring. It can’t find anything more original than car crashes, while the amount of funniness in Sandy’s helpless effort to convince everyone his name is unisex runs out very fast. The same applies for the “broken-dick” card, Diana’s clumsiness, boring scenes like that sumo sex-fight, throw-up scenes and saliva.

As for those drama situations, where the director tries to make us sympathize a fat person bearing a bunch of complexes, and the causality system he uses, are just not good enough. Maybe for a Golden Berry award...

After 100 mins of movie here comes a namby-pamby, boring, almost predictable ending. Melissa McCarthy uses her natural appearance to play her role, which she does well. Jason Bateman probably realizes the plot can’t compete and therefore he doesn’t bother to act with less fatigue. All in all, it's them who hold the story from fading.

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Addicted to magic

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit. You don’t say? One can easily see that by his badly done hair, his peppy little look and splay furry feet. Other than that he’s quite a nice, clean and well-mannered hobbit living in Shire, the hobbits’ hometown in Middle Earth. It really looks like the Smurfs’ village.

 

One day while Bilbo’s gazing carefree, Gandalf the Gray wizard pays him an ostensibly feckless visit. Later however a bunch of ruffie dwarves occupy almost invade his house for no apparent reason. Thorin, their leader, is determined to take back his homeland that was destroyed by a greedy dragon obsessed with gold. Honestly, I don’t need to comment on the vanity of a dragon’s avaricious nature..

Anyway, the dwarves abuse Bilbo’s home perks and devoured all his stock of meat snacks (at least they washed the dishes). They arrogantly ask him to follow them to their quest, as if they do him a favour. Even so the kind hobbit accepts for the sake of old times - he used to be an adventurer despite his looks - and joins them.

Of course, evil is surprisingly active these days and the fellowship almost asks for it. They fall on some fat Trolls, bearing the flu virus and eating anything gross. Not the best scene to watch while having pop-corn... How nice; Gandalf saved the day again like the canary in a coal mine. Mister leader Thorin only knows to play grumpy far so. Not much of a warrior huh?

 

Later they are jumped on by orcs on wargs, but they manage to escape thanks to the looney brown wizard Radagast, old pal of Gandalf. Thorin’s been dawdling again... In fact during almost the whole campaign he merely gives meaningless orders and then refuses to ask the Elves for help because suddenly recalls that they’ve been away some time 600 years ago. Hey snooty, you’re not exactly the king of everything!

Eventually Gandalf leads Thorin to Rivendell, as a nice tricky old bastard wizzy he is. They look too dirty and messed up to appear before the eternally glamorous elves. There Gandalf meets Lord Elrond, Lady Galadriel and the not so pleasant Saruman the White wizard. My strong guess is that if Gandalf wasn’t Gandalf he’d really fancy the blond sorceress.

Meanwhile the dwarves slip away as the council expectedly does not approve their roundabouts. Many beautiful beings stand in their way like stone giants and filthy orcs. Bilbo realizes he’s got to do the daily home cleaning and decides to leave, but he’s lost. Like this wasn’t enough, he encounters the renowned slimy creature called Gollum. The Gollum’s split personality manifests while it attempts to beat Bilbo in a game of riddles. I won’t comment on what happened here because it was interesting to watch. What is important is that Bilbo changed his mind and came back to the dwarves. Hobbits are not quite stable characters, don’t ever marry one! You’ll suffer.

Once things have escalated to a weird manhunt and as we’ve met all semi-sane creature of the planet, there we got the final encounter. Dwarves and orcs are to fight. Of course the first are hopeless and Gandalf saves the day again. Ok, it’s become trivial. Bilbo saves Thorin from being butchered by the big Orc’s axe and in the end Gandalf recovers his life. Now you tell me this dwarf is a leader? I mean, I wouldn’t bet on him in an MTV reality!

While waiting for the next part of the trilogy: it’s a plot with some noticeable vacuums and it doesn’t let you sympathize any of the dwarves. They live, they die, we don’t give a damn; we know nothing about their personality. As always, screenplay a la Peter Jackson is a job well done.

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Age doesn't come alone

There’s no need for introductions. He’s been introducing himself for over 50 years. In all countries and places, to friends and foes, women and men. His name is Bond, James Bond.

 


007’s 23rd film, through the slightly cyan-colored direction of Sam Mendes, starts with raw action. Bond is in Istanbul with Eve, a pretty girl of course who’s none other than Miss Moneypenny, chasing an evil agent called Patrice. Why is he evil? Well, he’s stolen some files with all NATO’s agents in terrorist organizations all over the world. These secrets could harm secret agencies globally, including MI6, Bond’s employer. After all, he’s a worker as well...

 

The first encounter then takes place in a bazaar, somehow like this: Bond hunts down the bad guy by all possible vehicles. Eve is following them while being on an open line with dear M, the British secret services’ chief. The mess is as good as you can guess. They smash fruits and vegetables, they tear apart beautiful Persian carpets, they run over some extremely resilient rooftops, they ruin three car dealer shows, they compete in train-wagon stand-up kick-boxing and finally fail Eve shoots at Bond and loses him at the bottom of a waterfall.

 

If you thought for a moment that Bond might be dead, sorry, you need to have your brain tested. Hellooo! It’s freaking Bond and the star of a blockbuster; can’t die like this for starters! After the fiasco, the plot gets interesting. MI6 headquarters are quite compromised, M’s leadership even more and everyone thinks Bond is dead. And useless. So there are more than enough reasons for him to come back, clean up the mess and make himself a hero. Again.

 

The thing is, Bond - let alone Daniel Craig - is not exactly a cradle to be robbed any more. The hunk’s got old; he’s tired, he’s got symptoms of early Parkinson, some dark crinkles having a party around his eyes. His stamina is collapsing! Nevertheless, the new great MI6 quest in upon him.

 

First he’s going to Shanghai after Patrice again. This time he does it in a civilized manner confronting him inside a modern futuristic building. Patrice dies nicely and a desperate woman called Sévérine promises Bond to lead him to the boss of all evils in the story. He ends up on an island much like a Lucky Luke scenery - where’s the saloon and the Daltons? - and finally the devil reveals himself.

 

Javier Bardem plays old foe Raoul Silva in a quite unique way and with a certain surplus of talent in comparison with Craig. Well Silva is even farther away from handsomeness, having a weirdly dyed blond hair and eyebrows, not to mention the horse - though clean - denture. I’d say his look is heading straight to to a John Galiano version! Sorry Javier!

 

After a series of events Bond and M find themselves at MI6’s basement trying to explore Silva’s hundreds of mental issues and troubled past. The session continues as a manhunt at the London Tube, as it’s a common nerve-breaking habit of secret agents to absolutely ignore other people’s presence. Can’t you at least yell something like “Move!” or “Sorry, I’m after the bad guy”. No, they really have to step on poor fellas returning home after a hard-worked day.

Bond’s failure transfers action to Skyfall, a site in the middle of nowhere. While waiting for Silva’s hit and cursing her bad luck for not being given Thatcher’s role, M flirts with the caretaker despite the cultural shock; she makes explosives using her French-ly manicured fingers.

 

I can’t but note here Silva’s self referring existence during his invasion to the wretched manor. Yes, it was kitsch!

 

Also, though I’m not usually generous, I should acknowledge Adele’s music here deserved the Oscar.

 

All in all, a pretty much interesting Bond sequel with suspense and subversiveness. Craig starred excellently as a tired agent. He really plays “tired” better than “gorgeous”. Naomi Harris is colorless and hardly sexy, while Berenice Marlohe did a noteworthy attempt to  play femme-fatale.

 

My love for M, Judi Dench that is, cannot be objective. She’s such a bitch that I see myself.

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Chanel. Coco Chanel.

I never really understood why people insist separating a celebrity’s name and last name. What is “Coco before Chanel” supposed to mean? The woman is a person! If we start partitioning peoples’ names we cause mental conflict to everyone. Except for Ms. Chanel of course, she’s already dead...

Anne Fontaine had this astonishing and super original idea - never happened before - to present us the life and times of an important modern personality before the personality becomes important. So she director fulfills her duty towards all those girls that are complete ignorants of Chanel’s legend, that is to tell them about Coco.

The plot is set in 1893, when the little young Coco lives in an orphanage central France waiting her father with her sister Andrienne. Later, we see them in 1908 Moulin, singing in a decadent cabaret and building their “public relations”.

Just upon the nip before Coco hits a great career as a singer in a duet, her sister decides to marry Baron Balsan - power is sweet - and she’s left high and dry with her dreams. Coco’s ambitious nature however drives her to the luxurious headquarters of super rich Etienne Balsan.

She starts dressing like a man and consciously  acts against every social convention. She’s always serious holding a look as if her pants feel too tight. She’s generally a streak of negation. Well, ok, she’s been poor, downtrodden, miserable but we really don’t need to have the same.

In Balsan’s house, Coco learns about great love. His name is Arthur Capel, or simply Boy. She falls in deep love with him, he falls too, and they address each other in courtesy plural... I’d be very curious to see what kind of love this is. I mean, during the time they relentlessly fuck would he say “Oh, I can undress you so effortlessly”...  Ye, get her some tea and then dance a waltz as well you spazzing geek!

Coco’s affair with Boy disturbs Balsan, who eventually remembers his love-like feelings for Gabrielle Coco Chanel and wants desperately to keep her in his tower forever and ever. Dear Balsan, a lady Chanel can get over the fact you’re old, loser in bed, have badly dyed hair and a silly obsession with horse racing, but she’s never gonna forgive that unsightly awful floral robe in which you hang around at home. Show some mercy!

And finally at the end we naturally realize we haven’t seen not even once Audrey’s teeth. Laugh a bit woman! You’re about to be fabulously rich; get rid of your misery!

Without the slightest narrative climax, somewhere in Paris, Coco becomes Chanel.

A piece of advice to those girls who’d want to play Chanel’s style, either as Coco or as Gabrielle. You can only be a small fish in a small pond!

PS.: Miss perfume did something really useful by having her hair cut somewhen in the end of the movie.

 

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Fancy a magic music box?

His name is Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs, but people call him Oz. Despite this intimidating twisted name, Oz is a total fail of a wizard. He’s so desperate that he can barely hide his incompetence in defining his professional orientation.

Even though magic doesn’t like him, it doesn’t mean pretty girls don’t either. In fact they fall for him quite easily after a bunch of whimsy and romantic babbling. Not a very good way for boys to learn how to hit on girls through modern Disney movies. Music boxes don’t exactly seduce women today so well.
Anyway. Something extraordinary happens in Oz’s life. During one of his fail tours, some macho man, boyfriend of a whining clown woman decides out of jealousy to smash Oz’s face for giving her a music box. Just when that bald jock was within a hair of beating the hell out of Oz, our wizard manages to escape on a balloon and reach the Land of Oz... oh yes, apart from his nickname it’s also a place somewhere on the planet or elsewhere.




In Oz-land then, people have a hard time coping with life. Good witches are at war with the bad witches and the population lives in torment and disarray. Oz’s visit looked like Obama’s coming to the US for many Americans!

Naturally, Oz’s daily stuff remains the same. He lies that he’s a wizard to become a king, he gives away music boxes that allegedly belonged to his grandma and generally peddling his charm. Ah, men... They don’t change, do they. The worst is every girl believes him! Witches my ass!

Theodora and Evanora are sisters, queens and witches simultaneously. Too much, no? Anyway - for starters they show up to Oz as the “good guys” (or girls) and assign him to defeat the bad queen of the dark creepy woods. But as soon as he and his butler head towards there, they reach a wretched village that’s got teapots for houses and porcelain dolls for residents... So that’s what folklore means! In a teapot they find a crying doll with a broken leg. Oz fixes it with glue - don’t do this at home! - and she explains to him that the freaks raided their pottery the night before. In order to convince him to take her with him she starts screaming, flopping and grabbing his legs.. Women!

After Oz and his monkey companion get deep in the woods they discover that the supposedly “bad queen” is actually the good one and that the witch sisters are the evil ones. Oscar level plot... Meanwhile, the ex-villain now good witch Glenda, used to be Oz’s girlfriend before he arrives in Oz and she doesn’t know it. This is the supernatural background of the film...

Oz and Glinda fall in love, to the witches’ bitterness. So the latter decide to take revenge by devouring some weird apples that make them even more evil. I eat apples for many years but I haven’t seen any change in behaviour or appearance.. What’s wrong with them? In fact Theodora, who is supposed to be half-evil, gets a facelift looking like a post-office clerk just before work knock-off.

And now we have the expected battle between good and evil. The good guys have no army - that’s why they are good.. They are dwarves, musicians, porcelain peeps, artists generally and all expect the wizard to do the job. In the end, every nation deserves its choices....

And the battle begins. I mean, this battle couldn’t be more gay - no offense to gays. The witches fight flying and wearing their dresses. Oz pretends to be a wizard with the help of visual effects made by dwarves. The sisters also think that he is actually a wizard and are somehow afraid; beneath them the people staring right and left, once hailing and once whining. Of course, the good guys win, so boring. Could for once a director to spare the villains and let them win? Some realism please. It’s to be done since the last session of Rocky Balboa...

And they lived happily ever after...


Dear Glinda, I tell you. He’s gonna cheat on you some day!


Other than that, a good film for kids, despite Disney can do and has done better.

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Mommy, you rock!

A father and husband murders his wife and takes away his two little daughters, Victoria and Lilly. In a very brilliant state of mind, he drives his Mercedes as fast as there's no tomorrow on a road full of snow along a cliff.

Naturally he walks out of the overturned car with a few bruises, as the accident is just an early directional trick to trigger suspense and drama. Deep in the woods the loving father finds shelter in an abandoned house, with ghostly feng-shui. Something spooky there and apparently more caring for the kids decides to get rid of the Boogey-Daddy before he gets rid of his daughters. 

Five years later Victoria and Lilly are found exactly where they were left, how convenient!, by their uncle. Lukas is to take custody of the girls, along with his girlfriend Annabel. Notably, Annabel is a rock fan, has a tattoo, probably worships Mick Jagger and close people call her "dude".

Both girls seem to go mental as they live with Lukas and Annabel (who wouldn't?!), acting like stars in a documentary on lion breeding. They walk at four, rarely speak, like to have dilated pupils and are manipulated by a black shadow they call "Mama", who feeds them big juicy blackish moths.


Lukas, being an original dumb ruffie, didn't get a wind of any part of this creepy show. And pays the price by finding himself laying on a bed in the hospital. Annabel however grasps the idea and is left alone to deal with madness. Mama lives in the walls, is extremely jealous of Annabel ( women...) and feels herself at home, entering any time she likes.

The psychologist watching Victoria eventually realizes the voices she hears might not be the product of her imagination. So he begins an investigation that reveals all the airs and graces of this decrepit and vengeful spirit, which was once a sinful but insane mother.

As another Helmut Newton, the psychologist wants to take live photos of Mama, having no hint at all that she is not Marylin and might not "cooperate" in posing for his ambitious pic picking. Like all "giant" scientists, he finds it very clever to go search for the hundreds year old spirit all alone...

The film ends with a teaching on compromise, rather unorthodox though, in which the man (Lukas) is a walk-on and a rock girl (Annabel) who never thought of being a mother, argues with the spirit of a crazy woman over mothering two troubled kids. All this mess, and we never got hold of how exactly the damn ghost thinks. No parenting pattern, no good rock music, no sex. Just Jaimie Lannister in another stupid fling.

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Hemingway & Gellhorn: make love, no(matter the) war

 

 

Having pretty Nicole on the foreground - not as she'd be if she hadn't met her best pal, who's of course her plastic surgeon, "Hemingway & Gellhorn" attempts to narrate writer Ernest Hemingway's life and his wife Martha, also a writer and a war correspondent.

You immediately grasp in the air you're going to watch good sex by the time these two meet in a filthy bar. Hemingway is married to a wretched catholic female human being, probably wet blanket, but always a fine mother and wife. She looks like a cleaning lady - with all respect to the job - she's got bad hair and is no way comparable with the unique beauty of Nicole (call me Gellhorn). Besides, she's not the star here.

Both Hemingway and Gellhorn make their first journey as writers in Spain to observe the civil war and make a movie out of it. Naturally she's attracted by his unshaved manliness and gets so thrilled that starts to break things and stare at butts like they're Picasso paintings (oh my, how pervert!). There they have sex for the first time while tanks pass nearby and some walk-ons get bombed on.

Wow, war is awesome in Spain! They fight in the morning and they dance and f*ck in the night. And there's the folklore; Gellhorn gets excited by scars and Hemingway has lots of them.

You realize that Hemingway is a man by those punkish quotes. "A man knows his friends". "I'm gonna take you like a horse, in your fucking fur coat". And of course by his shaggy chest that he incessantly shows off to chicks and gays.


You'd think he'd perfectly dump the bad-haired catholic to marry Gellhorn. No! How much of good sex can a man withstand? The man needs his woman to wash the dishes. Gellhorn is a fancy magazine cover with ambitions to travel to Russia, Finland, China, wherever people die.

 Hemingway's pissed off with this so he goes all the way with a silly blonde that's bad in bed but gets his slippers to him. Gellhorn thrives with her career around the world covering military stories - even her eyeliner remains intact despite her cry bursts.

So, Hemingway is a step from madness just before catching a swordfish and finding himself bedridden to be fed soups by the blonde. Gelhorn on the other side, gets wrinkles to be scorned by every ex-magazine cover's bestfriends; cats.

As in life, man dies first and the woman works till deep senescence. What's the meaning of all this? Don't ever break up with a catholic wife and mother for good oral sex. Lips, as well as dicks, eventually sag...





 

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