Aaron

Where is My Mind?

To say that the twists and turns of Mindhunter’s plot are contrived would be akin to describing a river of lava as mildly tepid, and the film’s ending isn’t so much a twist as it is a final twist of the cinematic shiv Harlin has assaulted your brain with.  Even a sub-par mystery can be redeemed by a good premise and inventive staging, but Mindhunters carries all the mystique and suspense of a circled Where’s Waldo? Comic.  The experience of watching this movie could be no more horrendous had the zombie corpse of Ed Wood risen from the grave to deliver a series of groin kicks directly to your soul.

Mindhunters
Negative Stars

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that a film reviewer’s job is primarily to serve as a cinematic meat shield, taking an endless barrage of Hollywood bullets to protect you, the discerning moviegoer from the theatrical equivalent of a drive by shooting. Needless to say, no amount of Kevlar could protect me from the soul-crushing assault of Renny Harlin’s Mindhunters.

Hate life? This one’s for you!

Posing as the nth variation of locked-room mystery classic 10 Little Indians, Mindhunters attempts to make its mark on the serial killer genre by having the characters/victims be forensic pathologists, those specialized investigators who deal with predicting the behavior of killers. While this might have made for an interesting pitch, the combined cast and crew have delivered yet another unmemorable crime thriller that wouldn’t look out of place in the Clearance DVD bin. If the FBI’s investigators mental prowess were on par with the characters in this clumsy thriller, America would soon be over-run by an army of mass murderers and Rube Goldberg-obsessed maniacs. 

Christian Slater and Val Kilmer ‘headline’ a cast so diverse that it might have been conceived by some C-List Benetton Ad generator as a group of wannabe FBI investigators who must pass a final test of their deductive skills by solving a staged serial killing on a training island. As inevitable as the sun rising in the East, the young Turks of Forensic Science soon find themselves up against a real serial killer, who is systematically thinning their ranks like a needlessly complex Darwin through a series of elaborate timed traps and misdirection. Suspicion and tensions run high, as these supposed bright stars of police work pull their guns more than a heroin-crazed Travis Bickle, on both empty hallways and each other. 

Who among the cookie-cutter stereotypes will live or die, and who is the killer? Who cares? As any movie-goer can tell you, modern thrillers aren’t about logic and suspense, Hollywood having lazily deciding that imaginative death scenes, vomit inducing editing, and crushing rock fuelled montages must surely be decent substitutes for the genre’s basis in airtight logic and intellectual derring-do. 

Slater and Kilmer wisely make early exits from the film, leaving the remaining cast to flounder about among the bloody wreckage of a mystery, of which they do an universally awful job. When LL Cool J is the most convincing member of an elite task force of criminal investigators, one is forced to realize that the remaining film may well be some form of cruel experiment on gullibility and pain tolerance. 

Director Renny Harlin’s handling of this film feels like he’s trying to punish those critics who have lambasted his long career of delivering overblown crap to American cinemas. The editing is haphazard as scenes jump around with no sense of location or reason, and the cinematography relies on film-school level flash and bang, with all the flair of a drunken wedding videographer with delusions of grandeur. In one prolonged sequence, you’ll find yourself wondering if perhaps Mindhunters was meant to be shown in 3-D, only the theater forgot to hand out those nifty glasses. Locked room mysteries rely on a claustrophobic knowledge of the surroundings, yet other than a couple of Michael Bay like helicopter shots, we’re never given any sense of scope or locality, and what could have made for an interesting variation on the hunters being hunted is hopelessly forgotten in lieu of cheap shocks and logic-shattering revelations. 

To say that the twists and turns of Mindhunter’s plot are contrived would be akin to describing a river of lava as mildly tepid, and the film’s ending isn’t so much a twist as it is a final twist of the cinematic shiv Harlin has assaulted your brain with. Even a sub-par mystery can be redeemed by a good premise and inventive staging, but Mindhunters carries all the mystique and suspense of a circled Where’s Waldo? Comic. The experience of watching this movie could be no more horrendous had the zombie corpse of Ed Wood risen from the grave to deliver a series of groin kicks directly to your soul.

Bring a date.

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Monster-In-Law

The truth be told, I had a great time watching this film against all expectations. Enough so that it made me wonder how many great performances we’ve missed from Jane Fonda due to her 15 year acting hiatus. If Monster-In-Law is any indication, she’s got more than a handful left in her and I for one hope she’s given the chance to prove it.

Monster-In-Law
3 Stars

Let’s be honest here: Putting Jennifer Lopez’s name on a poster is almost a sure-fire way to kill my interest. I haven’t enjoyed a single thing she’s done since Out of Sight, and I can assure you that my love of that film has nothing to do with J-Lo. That being said, I was fairly uneasy about seeing Monster-In-Law, the new comedy starring the aforementioned Lopez. Obviously I survived the viewing, but how much damage was done?

In Theaters May 13th

Monster-In-Law must have been a perfect pitch to studio execs, coming as it did on the heels of Meet the Fockers (one of the highest grossing comedies of all time). “Hey, what about a ‘Meet The Parents’, but just for the ladies!” Great heaping bags of cash were soon doled out, I can assure you. The paper-thin premise is that Jennifer Lopez plays a struggling fashion designer (subtle plug or casting serendipity, you decide!) who gets by with a series of temp jobs. She soon meets the man of her dreams (Michael Vartan), but her life of bliss is soon interrupted upon meeting her man’s mom Viola (Jane Fonda), a former TV journalist who’s recovering from a recent nervous breakdown. Sparks fly and tensions flare, and before you know it it’s an all out war of attrition between the two possessive ladies.

Going off of the premise and the trailers I expected the very worst, but I failed to take into account one thing: Jane Fonda. It’s been 15 years since Fonda has appeared on screen (her last film was the 1990 DeNiro sap-fest Stanley & Iris), and a good 25 years since she’s done an all-out comedy (Nine To Five), but seeing her on the screen in Monster-In-Law, you’d swear she hasn’t missed a day since. Quite frankly, she is perfect as the domineering power-mom out to drive her soon-to-be-daughter in law out of her mind, and out of her son’s life. One moment she’s cool sophistication and the next she’s a barely contained train-wreck of neurosis, but every second she’s on-screen is just great. Fonda’s sass-filled exchanges with Wanda Sykes (playing the sassy assistant of course) deliver most of the solid laughs, and indeed lift the movie up from the pitfalls of it’s premise.

Not to say that Jennifer Lopez disappears in this film, as she does manage to stand her ground (if not actually hold her own) against Fonda, but her giggling free-spirit character is a mite hard to swallow from such a notorious glamour queen as herself. Lopez gets into the rhythm of the film as her character escalates her personal war, and outside of the obligatory sap (and slap) fest of the finale, I actually warmed up to her performance.

A stellar supporting cast is mostly wasted as Will Arnett (from Arrested Development) and Adam Scott deliver some great lines, but make infrequent and all too brief appearances in the film. Though in the end, Monster-In-Law is firmly about two divas going head to head, and there’s no room for the rest of the world. Outside of Michael Vartan, who is given absolutely nothing to do here but look dreamy and desirable, it’s a top-notch casting job, with the right amount of choice lines given to the auxiliary characters.

It’s not as if I can weigh Monster-In-Law to some high standard of film-making, but I will say that I was impressed with the lack of scatological or low-brow jokes that seem so ubiquitous in modern comedies. There’s no need to go for the gross-out when you’ve got a leading lady like Jane Fonda, and the humor is fitting for an actress of her caliber. To be sure, the courtship of Lopez and Vartan’s characters might require some viewers to reach for their insulin, but the sap factor is quickly demolished as Lopez and Fonda continually escalate the hostility and passive-aggressive battles to a level just shy of The War of the Roses mean-spirited bleakness. This is a battle that could only have sprung from the mind of two vengeful women, as each calculated maneuver so perfectly chips away at each other’s confidence while steeling their respective reserves.

The truth be told, I had a great time watching this film against all expectations. Enough so that it made me wonder how many great performances we’ve missed from Jane Fonda due to her 15 year acting hiatus. If Monster-In-Law is any indication, she’s got more than a handful left in her and I for one hope she’s given the chance to prove it

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Okay, you can panic a little

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is not without it’s charms and moments of inspired absurdity, but ultimately it fails to come together enough to feel like a complete film, and instead settles for rewarding the long-time fans with in-jokes, references, and nods to the original source material, as well as it’s various incarnations.  Part of that incompleteness is due to the film’s obvious aspirations to being a multi-part series, but mostly it lies in the source material itself.  Viewed as one long novelized comedy skit, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy works as a brilliant piece of absurdist satire, but as a film it might leave you feeling cheerful and amused, but still a little bit let down.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
3 Stars

In the over 25 years of being a bestselling cult classic Douglas Adams’ book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has been adapted for every medium except film.  After languishing in Development Hell, and having been passed from director to direction, Adams’ classic is finally on the big screen.  With a script from the author himself (which had been completed before his untimely death in 2001), former music video director Garth Jennings has crafted an adaptation that fans will recognize as utterly Adams, but with entirely new characters, sub-plots, and relationships that may leave long time readers feeling a bit confused. 

The Cult Classic finally arrives

The convoluted history of Hitchhiker’s is one filled with almost never-ending revisions, additions, and complete re-writes of what came before, most of which required of the reader to hold an almost blind faith towards its creator’s intention and vision.  Originally created for a BBC radio comedy show, Adams continually tweaked and altered his creation so many times that even the Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide collection requires a substantial introduction to explain the various changes and permutations the cult classic has endured throughout it’s lifespan.  So it’s no surprise that the new film version features a good 35 minutes of material that was created specifically for the film by Adams himself. 

In what the filmmakers almost surely intend to be the first of a series of films, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy tells the story of the ultimate everyman, Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman).  A man continually befuddled and confused by the world around him, Arthur wakes up one day to find bulldozers ready to demolish his home in order to make way for a new bypass.  His day only gets worse from there as his best friend Ford Prefect (Mos Def) arrives to tell Arthur that, not only is Ford actually an alien from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse, but that the Earth itself is set to be demolished in 12 minutes by a race out to create a new hyperspace lane.  Soon they’re bouncing across the galaxy with an on-the-run rock star styled President Zaphod Beeblebrox (Sam Rockwell), fellow human Trillian (Zooey Deschanel), and a manically depressed android (Alan Rickman) as they attempt to escape the ire of a race of ultimate bureaucrats while searching for the ultimate question of Life, The Universe, and Everything. 

With its absurdist Marx Brothers dialogue, distinctly British sensibility, and wild sense of high adventure, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would seem like an easy transition to film, but there’s a reason it’s taken so long to actually get made.  Namely, there’s no real plot to the series, only breakneck paced episodes and (in what surely constitutes the majority of the text), the actual entries of the titular Guide itself.  So the idea that Adams and the filmmakers would create a wholly new plot, while strengthening the relationships of the characters should come as no surprise to those familiar with Adams’ less than reverential approach to his own work. 

So how does it work?  Only partially.  The Monty Python flavored opening sequence sets a standard that the film never really manages to reach.  In order to preserve the tone of the book, Jennings chose to make the Guide itself a sort of character, with various entries being read to the audience by the voice of the Guide (Stephen Fry), and displayed as a series of short animations.  These explanations are almost completely necessary to convey the mind-bending concepts of the Hitchhiker Universe, but only a few of the entries really connect, and the rest just stop the film in its tracks.  The character of Arthur Dent has been significantly beefed up from the novels (where he serves as sort of a dumbfounded substitute for the reader, only capable of reacting in stuttering gasps and complete befuddlement).  In the film, Dent is more of an active participant, out to find his place in the Universe and win the affections of Trillian, the adventurous girl he almost had, but lost to party crashing Beeblebrox.  And while Freeman’s portray of the constantly put upon everyman is absolutely spot on, the romantic comedy aspect of the film feels more like filler material than an essential element of the story, as do the newly created sub-plots and characters. 

Mos Def obviously had a lot of fun playing the Hunter S. Thompson-esque Guide writer Ford Prefect, and it’s almost impossible not to be infected by his madcap persona.  Sam Rockwell is perfectly cast as the completely deranged Beeblebrox, though flamboyant and egocentric madmen seem to be his stock in trade these days.  As the level headed Trillian, Zooey Deschanel makes it easy to understand why Arthur would be so hung up on her, but overall the film is completely stolen by Alan Rickman and Bill Nighy, whose Marvin the Paranoid Android and the world-designing Slartibartfast just ooze with easy brilliance perfectly suited to their roles and the spirit of Adams work. 

The design of the film is a clever mix of high-tech CGI and goofy costuming which works to give the movie a comfortable feel that should be easily recognizable and familiar to fans of British Sci-Fi.  The sets run from showroom floor clean (as befitting the newly christened ship Heart of Gold with which the main characters jet across the galaxy) to the lived in and grungy realism that George Lucas made work so well in the first Star Wars.  Jim Henson’s Creature Shop was responsible for the alien creations that pepper the film, which seems like an unlikely choice in an age where CGI characters are so readily available, but the design and execution of the various creatures lends the film a wonderful throwback quality that works in its favor.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is not without it’s charms and moments of inspired absurdity, but ultimately it fails to come together enough to feel like a complete film, and instead settles for rewarding the long-time fans with in-jokes, references, and nods to the original source material, as well as it’s various incarnations.  Part of that incompleteness is due to the film’s obvious aspirations to being a multi-part series, but mostly it lies in the source material itself.  Viewed as one long novelized comedy skit, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy works as a brilliant piece of absurdist satire, but as a film it might leave you feeling cheerful and amused, but still a little bit let down.

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xXx is for exXxtremely bad.

Since audiences have shown Hollywood that even the most ridiculously inept drivel can pass as quality action fare, there’s no doubt that this cinematic train wreck will probably spawn yet another sequel of equally diminished return. Fans of incessantly awful cinema might find a timeless gem here, but only after a copious amount of heavy, heavy drinking and several swift punches to the skull.

xXx: State of the Union
Negative Stars

Lest it be thought that the following review is the work of some unabashedly elitist movie snob, let me say this: I absolutely adore action flicks. Bullets, grim heroes, and very large explosions tickle my fancy in ways even the greatest of dramatic works can’t achieve. Give me a beer, some popcorn, and some needlessly violent gunplay and I am one very happy monkey indeed. Hell, I even enjoyed The Rundown, and that starred Seann William Scott, an actor I would happily see brought before the International Court for crimes against humanity.

Oh, there but for the Grace of Vin Diesel go thee

The original xXx was made in a fairly callous attempt to kick the spy genre firmly away from its tuxedo-clad and upscale roots. Trading upper class education and high society for eXtreme sports and Hollywood envisioned street smarts, Vin Diesel’s growly charisma managed to give the film enough charm to keep it from being just a moronic 2 hour exercise in blowing stuff up.

Since the original film was a fairly successful endeavor, it is safe to say that the only thing that would have prevented this sequel from being made would have been the utter destruction of our universe, and even then it’d have a 50/50 chance of release. Hollywood proved long ago that it’s capable of existing in an airless vacuum.

Sadly, trading in Vin Diesel’s diminishing star power for the long-past faded Ice Cube is akin to trading your RC Cola for a Shasta, but in a move that should surprise only the most mind-bogglingly naïve moviegoer, that’s exactly what the makers of xXx: State of the Union have done for this incomprehensibly stupid action sequel.

This time around Ice Cube plays a former Navy Seal who is tapped to take the coveted title of xXx when a NSA facility in Virginia is attacked by unknown assailants. A returning Samuel L. Jackson, who must have some serious investments in the telecom industry, phones in his trademark performance as the gruff and wise intelligence operative who taps the incarcerated Cube to save the current slate of old, white men. Nona Gaye and Xzibit play the shady characters from Ice Cube’s mean streets past, while Michael Roof plays the tragically unhip Q to Cube’s Bond. Rounding out this sorry lot is a partially effective Scott Speedman and Willem “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this” Defoe.

Though the film is supposed to be a race-against-time action film about stopping a political coup (and settling an old score), the film takes so many ridiculous turns that it’s akin to reading Mad Libs submitted by local sanitarium patients. Plot and logic holes large enough to drive a jacked up and armored Ford Truck through take a film that could be dumb to a level of medical retardation. Remove the budget and big special effects, and replace Ice Cube with Lorenzo Lamas and xXx: State of the Union would be completely at home alongside the slew of arrestingly stupid action films that peppered cable movie channels throughout the late 80s and early 90s.  Rest asssured, those of you unwilling to pay 9 bucks to see it on the big screen will inevitably find it sandwiched between Coors and Axe ads on Spike TV.

If nothing else, perhaps film historians will one day look back and recognize State of the Union as the film that single-handedly set back race relations in America a good 15 years, as its characters are uniformly do-gooder thugs and back stabbing blue-bloods (An important lesson learned in the film is “don’t trust rich white chicks”). The filmmakers attempt a couple of clumsy stabs at showcasing the economic and social gap of Washington elites and the lower-class citizens who provide their basic services, but such moments are played for easy laughs rather than insightful commentary. Although on the surface a pro-American film, this mindless action film treads a pretty uneven political line. Chock full of class-warfare and sniping, what starts out as a PCP addled liberal conspiracy freak’s cautionary tale feels more like a Reagan era shoot-‘em-up with it’s main character’s motivation rooted more in vengeance than any sense of civic duty. Though conservative filmgoers will probably be a bit put off by the U.S. Army being portrayed as about an effective military force as Darth Vader’s Imperial Stormtroopers (who by all rights must surely be the Washington Generals of the cinematic military canon.)

Since audiences have shown Hollywood that even the most ridiculously inept drivel can pass as quality action fare, there’s no doubt that this cinematic train wreck will probably spawn yet another sequel of equally diminished return. Fans of incessantly awful cinema might find a timeless gem here, but only after a copious amount of heavy, heavy drinking and several swift punches to the skull.

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Dogtown & Z-Boys: Deluxe Edition

I didn’t pick this up at it’s initial release, having seen it in the theaters, but I’m glad I’ve got the Deluxe Edition now. It’s a simply fascinating look at the origins of skateboarding, as well as being just a top-notch documentary. Even non-fans of the sport should find something worthwhile to find in Dogtown.

Dogtown & Z-Boys: Deluxe Edition
4 Stars

In 2001 it was easy to take skateboarding for granted. Tony Hawk Pro Skater was one of the most successful video games of it’s time, the X games were a bar & grille tv staple, and most people didn’t give a second to thought to considering skateboarding a ‘sport’. So long-time skateboard icon Stacy Peralta’s incredible documentary Dogtown & Z-Boys detailing the birth of modern skateboarding takes us back a time when skating was a long-abandoned fad just waiting to be revitalized by a group of incredibly gifted surfers and skaters from wrong side of Santa Monica, serves as a powerful reminder of just how far skateboarding has come.

Far from being the multi-million dollar industry it is today, skateboarding was the realm of only the most die-hard enthusiasts, whose style was heavily influenced by the popular surfers of the day. When surfboard maker Jeff Ho, artist Craig Stecyk, and surfer Skip Engblom got together to form a surf shop, and in the process taking in the neighborhood kids, their anti-mainstream attitude and street tough style opened the horizon of what skating could be. Future superstars Tony Alva and Stacy Peralta were just two of the incredibly gifted kids just out to kill time between waves, and their accomplishments make for one hell of a documentary.

The birth of pool skating? That was them. The first verts? Ditto. The Zephyr skate team redefined what could be done on 4 wheels, some trucks, and a hunk of wood. Dogtown & Z-Boys tells their story by interviewing the members and founders of the Zephyr team, as well as those who were there to document their growth. Dirt poor beginnings, hard scrabble times, the first big tournament, fame, fortune, and downfall are all here. Director Peralta made his name on the pavement and behind the camera (for the infamous Bones Brigade videos), so rather than an outsider coming in to document history it’s the story being told by those who lived it with the easy comraderie that can only be forged by a group who has been through it all together. Former surf-rat Sean Penn lends his voice for the narration, and such punk culture notables as Henry Rollins and Ian McKaye, as well as skate icons Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero, lend their thoughts on the influence and impact of those sun-bleached stars of Dogtown.

I didn’t pick this up at it’s initial release, having seen it in the theaters, but I’m glad I’ve got the Deluxe Edition now. It’s a simply fascinating look at the origins of skateboarding, as well as being just a top-notch documentary. Even non-fans of the sport should find something worthwhile to find in Dogtown.

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