Trailer Reviews, Week 11

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Arthur

This is a remake of the classic (at least in some circles) 80s comedy starring Dudley Moore. I haven’t seen the first one, so I can’t comment on the folly of a remake, outside of the fact I have a hard time believing there was all that much cry for it.

If I have to see that preview one more time, I’m punching the next British person I see square in the eye. This is probably because the theater I frequent has been showing it before every movie for a month straight, but it’s far from a good sign that these jokes are already annoying me.

Verdict

I think all the Batman stuff could provoke some laughs, especially Luis Guzman in a Robin getup. Talented fresh face Greta Gerwig could easily carry this one. Still, I have a hard time shaking the suspicion that this will be where I tire of the Russell Brand act.

Your Highness

A project conceived sometime in the 80s between bong rips on Danny McBride’s mother’s couch, it’s finally becoming reality. I also have to love the career 180 that director David Gordon Green’s pulling, from indy auteur to stoner comedy director.

Same guy!

This is a basement-dwelling fanboy dream, with everything from probable D & D references to a Yoda-style creature and Natalie Portman sporting skimpy clothes and medieval weapons. Hopefully they remember to be funny, because that’s the one thing that seems to be missing from the trailer.

Verdict

I can’t help but think this would be hilarious after a doober or two, but since our substance of choice is beer I’ll tack on a few more of those.

Soul Surfer

It has all the trappings of a family-friendly inspirational drama, and AnnaSophia Robb is going to do great things someday, but the operative fact here is the director, Sean McNamara.

The guy that brought us this gem

I can’t find much evidence of the atrocities McNamara is capable of in the trailer (if you need more evidence, he also directed 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain), but I’m sure they’re there. As far as the trailer alone goes, it’s solid, although Dennis Quaid’s recent ability to sniff out shit scripts and Carrie Underwood’s dead eyes are other reasons for worry.

Verdict

This could easily have a high corn factor and when you couple that with the director’s resume it’s hard to expect too much.

Hanna

Here we go now; the guy who brought us Atonement is making a hard-edged fairy tale about a teenage assassin on the run, scored by the Chemical Brothers.

The trailer looks sweet, although that humvee-riding shot is a bit on the ridiculous side. And damn, that song at the end of it is hot.

Verdict

Every time I watch the trailer my expectations grow that much more. This movie has the potential to be special.

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The Last Godfather (2011)

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By: Oberst von Berauscht (Four Beers)

Aging gangster Don Carini (Harvey Keitel) is stepping down from power. He has called a meeting of underbosses in order to announce his replacement. After careful consideration, he decides that his successor will be his illegitimate son. This is a cause of some consternation among Don Carini’s men, especially Tony V, the Don’s adopted son and closest advisor. Their concern is not that they have never met his son, nor even his lack of experience, but that the Don’s son is…

A retarded 50 year old Korean man?

A Toast

You heard right, and that is the appeal of the movie. If you find this concept inherently funny, you’ll probably get a kick out of the movie. It is full of cheap fart gags, archaic slapstick comedy, and taken for what it is, you could do worse.

I do however have praise for actor-comedian-director Hyung-Rae Shim, who is certainly talented in the art of physical comedy. Indeed, at times I found myself thinking that The Last Godfather felt like watching a Jerry Lewis comedy, but with Mr. Bean in the title role.

Not high art by any means, but it has a certain appeal…

Beer Two

Paraphrasing Major Payne, this movie is still a shit sandwich… just not a soggy one.

The comedy, and overall feel of this film, as I stated earlier is that of a much older movie. The problem is that its jokes have been played out many times before. I grew up on The Three Stooges and other classic comedy troupes, and though it is sort of nice to see the spirit of vaudevillian slapstick in a modern movie, it feels like a step down when compared to modern physical comedy.

Beer Three

The greatest flaw of the movie is that the comedy often wavers for long periods. Director Hyung-Rae Shim should have found more jokes to fill in these gaps, but instead wrote in a completely uninteresting romantic subplot, complete with a tedious “falling in love” montage that drags the movie down. A film such as this should make no pretense at being artistic, and just pile on the laughs. And when the quality of laughs are as weak as this, the quantity has to be amped up.

Beer Four

Another problem faced with the movie is that Young-Gu feels like the kind of racist stereotype that would appear and be mocked by characters in 50’s-60’s movies. And because the film was created by a Korean filmmaker, it is clearly not meant to be this way. The character Young-Gu is the butt of most of the film’s humor though, and as the rest of the cast is Caucasian, one wonders if the film isn’t setting back race relations.

I mean… seriously?

Verdict

Push a button on this one…

Drinking Game:

Take a drink: for every Derp moment

Take a drink: whenever Jason Mewes makes an appearance

Down a Shot: anytime you have no clue what Young-Gu is saying

White Material (2010)

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By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers)

One of the most critically loved but otherwise obscure movies of 2010 was this one, by French director Claire Denis, who grew up in various locales in Africa. This clearly influenced her directing career, as the majority of her films deal with Africa or African immigrants.

White Material tells the story of a French coffee plantation owner whose world is coming apart around her. She’s caught between a rebel force and a corrupt government, but she refuses to leave the plantation, insisting on harvesting the crop as normal. She delusionally clings to this idea even as things continue to worsen and her ex-husband, grown good for nothing son, and aging father-in-law also stay, affected by the same denial of reality.

Did I mention her ex is The Highlander?

A Toast

Few people can establish atmosphere like Claire Denis, and the way she builds tension is absolutely virtuoso. Silent menace hangs over every scene, no matter how little appears to actually be going on. It almost feels like the muggy calm before a summer lightning storm, and the fact that the first 90 minutes of 104 are devoted to this and the movie is still fascinating is one hell of an accomplishment.

The acting is excellent, especially the much-acclaimed Isabelle Huppert as the protagonist, although in a very unique way. We don’t really get to see inside her character (or the majority of them) via normal avenues like personal conversations or melodramatic acting. Character is instead established by close observation of her actions, which are not always chronologically presented. This makes us deduce her motivations from the effect rather than the cause.

Some decisions are causeless

The more you think about this movie the more it gets under your skin. Everything is so subtle, and taken piece by piece relatively unengaging, but taken as a whole very powerful.

Beer Two

There is one part of the film that I need to call out, and a bit of beer should help drown out the “what the fuck just happened?” thoughts. I won’t say what exactly, but at the end of the movie Huppert’s character does something that is completely unforeshadowed and a mite bit ridiculous. I’ve checked out a few theories, but none of them are satisfying.

If I were a chick, this would probably be a penis joke

Verdict

If you want to see a real filmmaker flex her muscles and accomplish something not quite like anything you’ve seen before, this is the ticket.

Bonus Drinking Game

Take a Drink: whenever you see a shirtless man

Take a Drink: whenever you hear/read the words “coffee” or “rebel”

Take a Shot: for gratuitous, lingering male full-frontal nudity

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Source Code (2011)

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By: Henry J. Fromage (Two Beers)

When I first saw the previews for Source Code I was a bit less than impressed. They didn’t promise a whole lot outside of the basic premise, which was good enough for a rental. However, it didn’t appear to have a whole lot more upside than that. I found out David Bowie-spawn Duncan Jones was the director a bit after that, and my expectations rose because Moon was pretty sweet. Still, the trailer made it hard to get your hopes up.

Well, thankfully I didn’t make my decision completely based on the blah marketing. Source Code is far more than the one-trick pony I thought it’d be. It starts off with the premise we’re introduced to in the preview, a man wakes up in the body of a strange man on a Chicago transit train and is pretty much just confused until the train blows up 8 minutes later.

Goddam Mondays…

He wakes up after this in a strange chamber, with military personnel telling him he is reliving the last eight minutes of another man’s life in order to find out who blew up the train, and that he will be sent back to relive those same eight minutes until he does.

A Toast

With that setup, obviously the stakes are high from the start, but to fill a feature-length running time after that you’ll need to get creative. Turns out the filmmakers have plenty more tricks up their sleeve, as the twists and revelations come at a blistering pace. I’d be doing you a disservice to tell you much more than that.

The strength of this film is precisely where Sucker Punch recently failed. Source Code also created a highly imaginative world with plenty of technical flair, but this time it got the important stuff right. Namely, introducing some rules for your alternate reality so that the audience knows where it stands and then establishing consequences that tie together what happens in it to the “real world”. This is what builds tension and gets you rooting for the characters, instead of just watching them stab and shoot stuff.

Miniskirts are nice, but they don’t exactly carry a movie

Also, the performances are all legit and believable, with special kudos to the chemistry between Gylenhaal and Michelle Monaghan, who plays the woman he keeps butting into whenever he relives those eight minutes. They don’t have a lot of time to build a convincing romance, and the fact that they were able to was particularly impressive.

The camerawork is excellent, showing a side of Chicago that doesn’t usually get the cinema treatment. A final tip of the glass should go to the surprising amount of humor, although I guess the possibilities for that had already been established by another movie…

Beer Two

The one complaint I heard about the movie before watching it was the plot holes. Well, on the plus side, there really aren’t any, but I can see how people would think there were. If you’re paying attention, you’ll figure it out, but what’s aggravating is how long it takes our main character to. He (and we) get all the clues we need short of enlisting Blue to help explain it, but it still takes way too long for him to figure out why he can’t do what he wants to so badly.

And just like Blue, it’s fucking annoying

The ending’s also been getting a lot of heat from certain circles, but I don’t really have a problem with it, either. It’s foreshadowed throughout the flick and makes perfect sense within the confines of the rules the movie establishes. If you disagree, I’m down for some stimulating debates on the message board…

Verdict

Don’t expect a mind-blowing mass of stimulating confusion like Inception, but perhaps that’s not always a bad thing. You will get a good flick that’ll keep you guessing and provide plenty of thrills (and a little post-movie dinner debate), and if you’re not ready for that by now in 2011 you’ve been watching different movies than me.

Bonus Drinking Game

Take a drink: every time he is sent back to try again

Take a drink: every time you see a Dunkin Donuts logo

Drink a shot: when you get confused. That ought to help.