Life With Cats

More films: Be Kind, Rewind & Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

nobody@vox.com(Life With Cats) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:58:24 -0700

Be Kind, Rewind is a funny little film about friends who make 20-minute versions of Hollywood films. Why, you ask? Because the videos in the video store one of them works in (Mos Def) are accidentally erased by his friend (Jack Black) after he becomes magnetized after trying to sabotage a power station. Logical, right?

It's actually a wonderful premise, but it never works as well in the movie as it does in one's own imagination. With the help of a girl from a dry cleaner's (Melonie Diaz), they badly act out such films as Ghostbusters and Rush Hour 2 for a hand-held video camera. This all happens while the owner of the store (Danny Glover) is on a fact-finding trip, staking out DVD stores to find out what customers want. Oh yeah, his store is slated for demolition and the city wants to move him into "the projects." It kind of has a Goonies feel, like time is running out, we have to save our neighbourhood from the wrecking ball!

Had the film stayed focused on the efforts of the amateur filmmakers trying to restock Glover's store with their own knockoffs I think it would have worked; however, we're supposed to believe that in the 21st century, a VIDEO STORE OWNER has no idea what a DVD is or how to stock a store. Uh-huh. It simply becomes too feel-good toward the end, when the entire neighbourhood helps make a film about some made-up local jazz legend to try to raise enough money to save the store. And I don't think they curse once through the entire film. This could have been a good film, but it loses focus and I lost interest.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End was even worse. It wanders all over creation, killing off well-known characters as it goes and making absolutely no sense. I can't tell you what the plot is. As an example of its waywardness, William Turner and Elizabeth Swan are married by Barbossa ... during a sword fight and a maelstrom. Uh-huh. I got a lot of knitting done during this film.

The one bright spot is, as always, Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. There are a couple of engrossing sequences where he is apparently losing his mind and having conversations with many clones of himself. Depp can truly make gold from straw.

To not give the ending away, I will only say that even though they "marry," Elizabeth and William will be apart for ten years, perhaps longer. Something to do with Davy Jones' locker and the Flying Dutchman always needing a captain. The special effects weren't even that exceptional, especially after watching Hellboy II. Fortunately it was a renter.

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Double Feature Film Review: Get Smart & Hellboy II

nobody@vox.com(Life With Cats) — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 10:31:59 -0700

So Mike and I decided to break the bank and watch two new films on a Friday night at the local theatre. Originally we were only going to see Get Smart, but one of the previews was for Hellboy II and, since I love Guillermo del Toro and Mike loves action films with comic book characters in them, we thought we’d check out this film as well.

First, Get Smart. It was funnier that expected, but you really can’t go wrong with Steve Carell. Well, perhaps with really bad writing you can, but Carell is nothing short of a comic genius. I guess you don’t need to hear the plot – I’m not even sure what it was. There’s KAOS and Control and one wants to blow up the President and the other is trying to stop it. (So what else is new?) Carell is the great bungler, and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 is forgettable. Then again the female characters in these male-driven films usually are. But Carell is very funny as usual, so I did enjoy it.

Hellboy II was great fun. First, however, I should state that I can’t stand Hellboy the character. He is physically repulsive (even moreso than his fishy friend Abraham Sapien) with an annoying voice and grating personality. But for Hellboy, Hellboy would be an amazing film. Fortunately they have Guillermo del Toro back as writer and director, so all is well despite the protagonist. Pan’s Labyrinth is one of my absolute favourite films, so I was very excited to see the creatures in this film. I was not disappointed. Del Toro creates “monsters” from air, rocks, the most innocuous things. His imagination continues to provide visionary delights that even non-fantasy fans like myself can appreciate. Oh yeah, the world of mythical creatures has a truce with mankind about one sticking to the cities and the other to the forests. One side chooses to break the truce and go to war with the other. Awesome-looking beings fighting ensues. Definitely worth seeing in theatres.

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Film Review: Lust, Caution

nobody@vox.com(Life With Cats) — Sun, 25 May 2008 04:57:22 -0700

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Lust, Caution is difficult to watch in parts, depending on your taste. The cartoonish violence in most films doesn’t affect me; someone is shot and they die. [SPOILER AHEAD] In Lust, Caution a man is stabbed again and again, falls down a flight of stairs, and doesn’t finally die until someone breaks his neck. I occasionally glanced at the TV through this scene; I don’t have a stomach for “real” violence.

Fortunately, there is little more violence, as this film is more about an affair between a woman who is a member of a resistance group and a minister working for the Japanese. It is the Second World War and Japan has invaded China. Student Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei) plays the part of “Mrs. Mak,” a wealthy woman whose husband is always away on business, to infiltrate the home and heart of Mr. Yee, who works for the government and tortures his countrymen in the name of the occupiers. It works; the pair begin sleeping together and “Mrs. Mak” reports everything back to her group of assassins. It is a matter of waiting for the right moment to murder Mr. Yee, but in the meantime the affair intensifies.

This definitely deserves an NC-17 rating; the sex scenes are so explicit you may as well be watching a porn flick. Fortunately it is much more tasteful. However, their lovemaking portrays much of what they cannot say or show in public and is not gratuitous. In fact, it is during these scenes we learn the most about Mr. Yee and the kind of person he truly is. The cast is extremely talented and director Ang Lee handles them with a deft, light hand. My only issue is with the last few minutes of the film; after so much intensity, passion and a final act of loyalty, I felt very disappointed with the ending. Fortunately it is only five minutes out of 2.5-hour film that is otherwise fully enjoyable.

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Film Review: Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay

nobody@vox.com(Life With Cats) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 05:34:53 -0700

Having not seen their first one, I really wasn't sure what to expect from this film, other than an Asian guy and an East Indian guy doing drugs and acting funny. The 18A rating should have tipped me off.

So Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) are mistaken for terrorists on a plane to Amsterdam and sent to Guantanamo Bay. They escape and have some crazy adventures trying to get their lives back. There is mucho full-frontal female nudity, fake full-frontal male nudity (of course), a very bigoted Home Security-type official hunting the boys down, Neil Patrick Harris as himself and ... George W. Bush. I don't think there's an American film being made today that does not have a version of the President in it.

The trailers I saw of this film are really quite funny. Unfortunately all the funny parts are in the trailers. There are only so many getting-stoned jokes one can make. The Home Security guy insults many different races with the most offensive "jokes" you can imagine, but the writers (whose only experience is with the Harold and Kumar films) just sound desperate to wring a laugh out of their wanting script. Apparently black people really love grape pop. Didn't know that.

Of course they meet the President, who coincidentally loves his pot too. Oh yeah, each boy has a love interest they get in the end, because that's something else no film dares go without. And that's hardly a spoiler since hey, of course they get the girls. Otherwise it would be Harold and Kumar Do Away With Paint-By-Numbers Scripts.

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Film Review: Vantage Point

nobody@vox.com(Life With Cats) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 13:59:27 -0700

So Mike and I are probably the last people to see this film, since it's been out for quite awhile. It was much better than I was expecting, since some reviewers didn't care for the repetitiveness. I think generally they pulled it off.

In a nutshell, the US president is the target of an assassination by terrorists. Uh-huh, so what else is new? He's shot, a hotel lobby is blown up, then the grandstand explodes. This takes place in Salamanca, Spain, where world leaders have gathered for some kind of kick-terrorist-ass summit. We watch the chain of events from the perspectives of several different people: a news exec (Sigourney Weaver), a tourist (Forest Whitaker), a Secret Service agent (Dennis Quaid), the terrorists themselves and the president (William Hurt). While it does get a bit tiresome to keep returning to 12:00 p.m., with each telling we at least learn something new.

Neither director Pete Travis nor screenwriter Barry Levy has worked on anything of note (no-name films and mini-series), so I'm not sure who is responsible for the hokey aspects of this film. Whitaker's tourist acts like he's never seen people or buildings before, and he befriends a kid with an ice cream cone. Unfortunately this kid plays a pivotal role much later in the film, so she keeps popping up in all her wholesome goodness. There is a lengthy, exciting car chase on the narrow streets of Salamanca in the tiniest subcompacts I've ever seen.

Despite the replaying of the assassination and the unbeliveable things Whitaker the tourist does (how many other tourists in an unfamiliar country chase Secret Service agents around town?), Vantage Point is an emotionally intense, generally satisfying action/drama that kept me guessing until the end. As long as I can't predict the "bad guy" within the first 15 minutes of a film, I'm happy.

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