3 Razors

Meet Charlie Bartlett

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Charlie Bartlett
  • IMDB: link

“My family has a psychiatrist on call, how normal can I be?”
 

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Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) has gotten kicked out of his last private school for making fake drivers licenses for the entire student population.  Now it’s off to public school and an attempt to fit in.

The problem is the uptight Charlie, complete with tie and blazer, doesn’t exactly fit in.  He’s largely ignored and picked on by the resident bully (Tyler Hilton), before finding his niche as the school’s unofficial conselor and drug dealer.  Charlie’s motives are pure, most of the time, and he tries his best to help the student body by using the army of psychiatrists his family has on call to get the medication for them.  Charlie also raises the ire of the principal (Robert Downey Jr.) by dating his daughter (Kat Dennings), and is forced to face the music when some of his schemes are discovered.

There’s something hopefull about this film.  It doesn’t paint a single character as black and white, each has the capacity for change and the yearning for something more.  In a teenage comedy that’s quite rare.

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Diary of the Dead

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Diary of the Dead
  • IMDB: link

“Jason always wanted to be a documentary filmmaker.  That’s what he was shooting on that first night.  The night when everything changed.”
 

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George A. Romero returns to the beginning of his Dead Series with this tale of young filmmakers making a horror movie in the woods as the outbreak occurs and the world finds itself infested with zombies.  Much like his early works the film is equal parts horror flick and social commentary.  Here the roles and actions of news channels, broadcasting, reality television, the government, and other institutions and individuals all become fuel to the filmmaker to set ablaze in satire.

Although the film doesn’t really add much to the series it does, in the tone of the previous films, present a decidedly somber and fatalistic view of the world absent in most Hollywood films.  Much like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield the film uses the handheld shaky cam for most of the action; although unlike these other films it doesn’t rely on the shaky cam solely and spends time on both character and plot as well.

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The Spiderwick Chronicles

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Spiderwick Chronicles
  • IMDb: link

The Spiderwick Chronicles

The story begins when a mother (Mary-Louise Parker), now separted from her husband (Andrew McCarthy), takes her children Jared (Freddie Highmore), Not-Jared (also Freddie Highmore) and Mallory (Sarah Bolger) to live in the abandoned house of their great-uncle Arthur Spiderwick (David Strathairn).

The house comes complete with cobwebs, hidden rooms, a brownie named Thimbletack (Martin Short), and a book of mystical secrets made by Arthur Spiderwick before his disappearance decades ago.

After Jared discovers the book, and learns the secrets within, his family comes under attack from goblins led by a shape-shifting ogre named Mulgarath (Nick Nolte) who wants to use the knowledge in the book to take over the world.

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Man in the Chair

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Man in the Chair
  • IMDb: link

Man in the Chair

Cameron Kincaid (Michael Angarano) is a troubled kid, in trouble at school, with the law, and at odds with his overbearing step-father (Mitch Pileggi); his only escape is through film.

One day after school he meets Flash Madden (Christopher Plummer), a drunken loudmouth who seems to know more about films than anyone Cameron has met.  Flash worked for years as a gaffer in the movie biz and was given his nickname from Orson Wells (Jodi Ashworth) on the set of Citizen Kane.  Cameron strikes up an uneasy friendship with Flash and convinces him to help make a student film.  Flash persuades his friends at the nursing home, all of whom worked in the movie business, to help and Cameron finds himself with the most experienced crew any student has used to shoot his first film.

There are many things which work in the film.  First off the performances are good across the board especially those of the leads, Plummer and Angarano.  Although Plummer’s performance smells a little of Oscar Bait there’s enough to enjoy.

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The Walker

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Walker
  • IMDb: link

The WalkerI’m not big on gossip, the tawdry dalliances of people with too much money and time on their hands leaves me tired, and writer/director Paul Schrader‘s latest flick is full of such nonsense.  There are many who will no doubt like this film more than me, but although the film included some interesting characters it mars them in the middle of one of the most boring murder mysteries in recent memory.  Is it worth seeing?  Yes.  Is it worth gossiping about?  Hardly.

Paul Schrader has penned some great scripts (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ), he also wrote Light of Day (and directed Cat People).  The Walker, which Schrader wrote and directed, falls somewhere in between.

Carter “Carr” Page III (Woody Harrelson) is an escort to the wealthy and influential woman of Washington D.C.  He’s what is known as a “walker,” he walks ladies from place to place providing company, juicy gossip, and companionship.  Although he delights in telling his clients about the hot topics in our nation’s capitol, he speaks very little of his own life or of his long time relationship to a struggling artist (Moritz Bleibtreu).  To some he’s an acquaintance, to others an embarrassment of his name and the legacy of his father.  Harrelson does well in balancing the different facets of the character who will turn the other cheek and offer a smile even in the most dangerous circumstances.

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