Ian T. McFarland

Talladega Nights, when it all comes down to it, is nothing more than one big, 105 minute long joke.  Really all it is is Will Ferrell sending up the Red-Neck and running around like an crazy person who thinks he’s on fire.  It’s just a good thing that with Ferrell and his Anchorman helmer, Adam McKay behind him, they stretch out the joke without mercy and make it laughable the entire time with surprising ease.

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
4 Stars

Will Ferrell is the head honcho comedian in Hollywood today.  Sure, Jim Carrey is as zany as ever, but it’s been years since he’s put out a comedy that wasn’t brought down by a boring script or director.  And Adam Sandler regularly puts out a $100 million dollar picture, but they sort of blow hard.  Ferrell, on the other hand, has captured and even helped to create today’s humor, pushing pompous and outrageous jerks to the foreground, while busting many a gut in teenagers across the country.  Whether they’re watching DVDs of Anchorman or watching reruns of SNL, Ferrell’s leading the industry.

And Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby only helps to cement his position in Hollywood.  It may be dumb, it might not have dilemmas that force you to question everything about your life; but it’s funny.  It’s damn funny.  Ferrell, co-stars Gary Cole and John C. Reilly, and Adam McKay nail the sense of humor found in Anchorman to a disturbing degree.

Ferrell is the film’s namesake, a man who grew up shouting “I wanna go fast!” about as often as he breathed.  But with some words of wisdom from his dead-beat dad (Cole), Bobby gets the determination to drive faster than anyone else, eventually breaching the top ranks of NASCAR.  Once there, he gladly takes his self-appointed title as the best person ever.  He brags and assumes greatness, but at the same time is kind and well-meaning enough to be lovable and able to sympathize with.  He really does believe he’s the best and the brightest of his kind, until the king of the French Racing circuit (Sacha Baron Cohen) comes along and tries to steal his glory.

Ferrell and Cohen exaggerate their characters to colossal degrees, but do so with success.  Ferrell, on one hand, thinks America is the best country in the world, loves Jesus and names his kids Walker and Texas Ranger.  If George W. Bush were a NASCAR racer, he might be Ricky Bobby.  Cohen takes his Euro trash character and exploits every stereotype ever made, not only giving him a French accent that sounds like his tongue has swelled to twice its size, but also making him flamboyantly, outrageously and literally gay.  Some may mistake this for homophobia, but plain simple all it is is taking every preconception we’ve had about the French and saying, “What if all of that was real?”

The clashing characters combine to give Talladega Nights a satirical take on U.S. relations with Europe in this era of a Struggle Against Extremism.  It takes our idea of the French and their idea of us; and if we’re really this stupid, who can blame them for hating us?  And if the French are really that gay, how can we not laugh at them?  It’s a pleasant undertone that emerges, likely by accident, that helps to add intelligence to a movie centers on idiots.  But in the end, it’s the humor that makes Talladega Nights what it is, not antics a la Dr. Strangelove.

Talladega Nights isn’t anything if it isn’t funny, pushing jokes that work every minute and more.  It’s not just laugh-out-loud funny, it’s I-hope-I-don’t- accidentally-spit-on-everyone-else-in-the-theater funny.  It might not be touching like Little Miss Sunshine, but it’s not that kind of movie: it’s a stupid comedy.  And if stupid comedies work can work this well, than it must be good to be stupid.

Style in a film is a very fine issue.  On one hand, it always helps to throw in some sparkle to keep the viewer’s attention, plus there’s the whole trying to add artistic merit issue.  But on the other hand, too much of a different feel in a film can alienate a viewer.  Unfortunately, Miami Vice isn’t just the latter, but the director takes it so far that it’s like a spit in the face of storytelling.

Miami Vice
1 & 1/2 Stars

I really wanted to like Miami Vice.  I was the only person in the realm of film critics that I knew who didn’t think it looked like a stinker.  I like Writer/Director Michael Mann, and I like that he took an approach with Miami Vice that few other directors would have the balls to, let alone the creativity.  But after both of the films hours (with change), it’ll wash over you how boring and ungripping the movie is.

The New Don Johnson?

Miami Vice‘s story is easy enough to understand on paper: Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are detectives narcing it up in Central America hoping to catch a Drug Lord that killed some co-workers.  But on the case Farrell’s character falls for the enemy’s assistant (Gong Li.) 

Only it doesn’t come out that easily in the film.  The actors linger uneasily in the shots as they spew dialogue without any real verbalization, just dropping the lines.  It’s not a sign of bad acting, the characters are just too point-blank to carry any emotion in what few words they say; and because of that it’s difficult to tell what those words falling out of their mouths mean 90% of the time.

Another problem with this innate lack of feeling in the dialogue is the extreme difficulty it presents of relating to any of the characters.  I’m no man of publications such as US Weekly or OK!, But I can honestly say I care more about what the tabloids write-up on Farrell and Foxx than these characters.  Mann’s script just never decides to take a chunk out of character development, or even character creation.

Instead of delivering a fully-developed script, Mann decides instead to go for a visual flair that easily makes more of an impact on the final product than the any of the actors or the story.  But for what it’s worth, it’s damn cool. 

Mann used simplistic, hand-held digital cameras that give off more grain than Farrell’s unshaven face in the movie.  That, in addition to the shaky camera movement, make the film seem more authentic and believable, like just maybe that isn’t actually Jamie Foxx, it’s a real-life cop doing his real-life job on the real-life streets.  I don’t normally like the now-popular technique of shaky camera movement (enough of it on a big screen can upset by stomach,) but it’s used about as well as possible by Mann in Miami Vice.

The only problem is, the cinematography is too cool.  It’s like those iPod commercials: watching a black silhouette groove to the beat over a cornucopia of colors is a great way to spend 30 seconds, but if you had to watch it for over two hours it would become daunting.  The same goes for Miami Vice, the look is just too much and too different to allow the viewers to appreciate anything else in the film.

There are a couple of intense action sequences, and Mann should be commended for trying to do something different; but in the end Miami Vice is just grade-A style vomitted beyond appreciation over a few reels of film.  Too much of a good thing isn’t good.

There’s not another genre out there that’s as tailor-made by Studio Execs than the teenage comedy.  This might explain why they’re all the same: teenager sets out on a journey for sex, gets screwed a few times along the way (although not in the way that they hoping for) and finally realize that they should just had sex with their best friend.  In this respect of plot, John Tucker Must Die is a nothing more than a really, and I mean really does attempt to break the mold; but everything else in the movie from its clichéd and stereotyped characters and an ending that you won’t care about exposes its true nature: John Tucker Must Die is just another teenage comedy.

John Tucker Must Die
2 Stars

It just came to me when I was sitting in the theatre.  Our main character was having a heart-to-heart with her mother about boys, and I was enlightened as if it were a fact taught to me in U.S. History.  John Tucker Must Die is a nothing more than a really, and I mean really mediocre movie.  It’s not bad—in fact it can be down-right charming half the time.  But the rest of the running time lacks anything that wants to make you stake out your seat until it all fades to black.

Nobody likes being cheated on; not even when the cutest boy, like, ever is the one cheating on you.  So the obvious way to get back is to try to embarrass him in front of, like, the entire school.

John Tucker Must Die chronicles this exact story, where the cutest boy in the 12th grade is film namesake John Tucker (Jesse Metcalfe,) and his victims are the first ladies of their High School cliques- the lead Cheerleader, the new-age vegan and the smarty-pants that’s in every extra-curricular activity.  John, God bless him, somehow managed to date all three of them at the same time; but after the girls find out and get the ol’ heave-ho from their newly-appointed Ex, they decide that he needs a dose of his own medicine.

So they hatch a plot to make John fall head over heels for social nobody Kate (Brittany Snow,) who has a fair share of doubt in the concept of love.  Nothing else happens down the road that you can’t see happening—life lessons are learned and BFFs are made around every corner.

The film’s title promised what could have been an entertaining, black teenage comedy.  Think about it, had the girls taken no mercy as the movie’s name suggests, it would have boosted the film’s value to anyone who doesn’t think the best movies ever are Mean Girls or The Notebook.  They could have gone a lot further, and the idea of extreme revenge in a High School setting has potential, but the script just doesn’t take it there.

The film’s weakest spot is the character of John Tucker himself.  Metcalfe does as decent of a job as is required for the genre, but we never get a very solid idea of who he is—a hotshot asshole in it for the ass or a sensitive boy that hides in his perfect physique and charm.  He keeps switching masks depending on who’s opposite him in the scene, and we never get a final idea of what he is.  This writer would have prefered it if he were a jerk-extroardinaire that was easier to hate than a guy who drowns puppies, but we can’t all get what we want.

But John Tucker Must Die is a movie about young love, and the filmmakers don’t botch the charm of Snow’s character or the sometimes successful humor.  The genre is a weak spot, it makes sub-par stories fun just because everyone in the movie is having it.

John Tucker Must Die is just another teenage comedy.  It won’t knock the pants off of you, and you really shouldn’t go see it.  But if you somehow surf onto a channel showing it in the next few years on TV, it’d probably hold your attention.  Like, I guess.

Clerks II is not the indie revolution that the original Clerks was, but it is something that it’s predecessor wasn’t: an all-around well put together movie.  Sure, Clerks was refreshing and often funny, but the message it was trying to send was a bit to literal and at the same time not entirely established.  Clerks II, on the other hand, shows a clear progression of Kevin Smith—it’s funnier, more touching and most important of all, tops necrophilia with bestiality.  What’s not to love?

Clerks II
Custom Rating

Raunchy comedies are a curse upon this house of mankind.  Sometimes we’ll get a The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but more often than not we’ll get efforts such as Happy Madison’s Grandma’s Boy.  Fortunately for us, Clerks II is one of the former, a comedy with just as many jabs at sex and dorks as there are serious moments that give us more detailed characters.

Clerks II takes up the story where it ended twelve years ago: Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) are best friends stuck together in dead-end jobs neither wants, trying their half-assed best to do what they can with life.  The only changes are their employer (a fast food chain called “Mooby’s” that View Askew fans will remember from Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) and a couple of supporting characters played by Rosario Dawson and Trevor Fehrman.

But matters soon get dramatic as we find that Dante’s not only engaged, he’s moving away to Florida and unintentionally abandoning his best friend Randal.  And it doesn’t help that Dante’s getting a case of the jitters involving his soon-to-be-betrothed.

It’s easy to expect a Kevin Smith movie to make the inner 12-year-old laugh, and in that respect Clerks II makes the grade.  The film brings back racial slurs, furthers pee pee jokes and does something with a donkey that . . . well it does something with a donkey.

But what makes Clerks II such an accomplishment is Smith’s ability to weave this fondness for toilet humor and serious character development into one film.  Smith gives Anderson’s character a serious chunk of a problem to have to face, a problem not only that Anderson tackles with ease, but it’s also something you don’t see too often in films.  We see plenty of tween girl movies about BFFs getting into hard places, but what happens when a grown man has to cut the jokes and tell a friend what he means to the other?

Smith’s Chasing Amy was able to take a look at relationships with insight and intelligence, and probably had more to say that does Clerks II.  But then again, Chasing Amy doesn’t have an epic face-off between Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fanboys that ends in an involuntary bodily function; it’s not half so entertaining as this sixth entry into the View Askwniverse.

If there were a few explosions thrown into the mix, Clerks II might have been the perfect guy movie.  It’ll make you laugh and at the same time make you think about the rarely exploited best friend relationship dynamic.  Just don’t take anyone who doesn’t appreciate a good ol’ fashioned offensive joke, or two, or 47; it might end with an involuntary bodily function.

The world loves the idea of hating M. Night Shyamalan.  After not being able to cater to the impossibly high expectations of The Village, movie-goers pounced on him, eager to sound sophisticated enough to say that the guy who revolutionized the twist ending was a talentless has-been.  Truth be told, The Village wasn’t great but wasn’t awful either; and anyone who gets the point Lady in the Water will have to jump off the bandwagon.

Lady in the Water
4 Stars

Twist endings, who doesn’t love them?  The only time we like to be deceived is in a movie theater, and hands down nobody does it better today than M. Night Shyamalan.  He so skillfully buries the true endings into the first two acts of his films that it can fully justify the price of admission.  Hell, Signs could have been nothing but Mel Gibson dancing around in a pink fluffy tutu while reciting “The Communist Manifesto” in a Greek accent for the first 100 minutes, and the ending would have still made it a great movie.

But Shyamalan has been the master of the surprise ending for four films now, and it’s become so expected of him that it’s not much of a surprise anymore.  The time came for good ol’ M. to retire the twist ending, to stop making films with more 180s than Tony Hawk gets in a half-pipe.  And he did – Lady in the Water is twistless, but the writer/director/producer/actor/whatever else you can think of proves with the film that he’s no one-trick pony; he can make a good no matter the ending

Paul Giamatti stars as the Super at an apartment complex haunted by smokers, sisters, film critics and a bleached skin Bryce Dallas Howard from some other dimension.  Howard’s character, Story, is from the ‘Blue World’ and has come to Philadelphia to muse a writer.  Everything’s fine, dandy and sort of magical until a wolf tries to eat her.

And that’s pretty much all there is to the story.  No, Shyamalan didn’t waste too much time investing development (and what development he does instill feels somewhat superfluous,) but the point isn’t a thick script—it’s the concept.  Shyamalan didn’t take on this Lady in hopes of giving us characters to fall in love with.  He wasn’t trying to dazzle us with story elements and he wasn’t trying to pull a twist on us in the final five minutes.

No, Shyamalan was going for the exact opposite effect.  Lady is nothing but a simple story, or to use the now defunct subtitle of the movie, it’s “A Bedtime Story.”  It’s a modern day fairy tale, not meant to thrill us but instead to celebrate the simple story. 

He even throws in a film critic some will claim to be Shyamalan’s way of poking back for all of The Village‘s negative reviews, but is really just a device to put it in bold writing for the viewer that this is nothing more than a simple, point A to point B story that has been installed into stories for as long as they’ve existed.  Hell, he goes so far as to name a character ‘Story,’ how much more obvious do you have to get?

It’s a refreshing take after Shyamalan’s previous four films.  Instead of trying to wow us, he uses his ability as an above-the-cut director to tell the same story a grade-schooler could tell.  Shyamalan may be too reserved of a director to truly wow his audience, but he still creates visuals and moods that set the story clear as stone.

He silps a bit in the final minutes by adding a bit too much humor than is appropriate, but the overall tone of the film is a gorgeous one, one that makes this critic anxious to see what different stories he’ll pursue in the future.

Don’t expect Lady in the Water to live up to the Shyamalan pedigree of a thriller that’s been so widely connected to this film in its commercials and posters, but if you go in looking for a nothing but a good movie, you’ll find an elegant summer treat.