Review by Rob Zeitz

6/2/08

Rating: 12/20

The greatest trick performed by The Illusionist is to make the viewer think they’ve seen a great movie, when in fact they’ve seen something slightly above average. An ambitious screenplay structure of twists and turns, as well as an able performance by Paul Giamatti is overshadowed by a general sense of apathy regarding the fate of the main characters.

Ed Norton plays Eisenheim, a magician whose tricks go beyond sleight of hand and into the realm of the paranormal. Eisenheim falls for Sophie (Jessica Biel), a girl of noble birth, when the two are young children. Through flashbacks, we witness their star-crossed love dashed by the rigid class structure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire circa 1900. But the two are reunited when Eisenheim returns to Vienna from the Far East. But by then, Sophie is engaged to Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell), the ambitious and stern son of the Emperor. The story of Eisenheim and Sophie’s struggle to be together is framed by Chief Inspector Uhl (Giamatti).

One extremely distracting facet of this film were the accents. In an attempt to sound both noble and Austrian, Jessica Biel’s German accent phased in between German and British. Ed Norton also struggled to remain consistent with his accent, and Paul Giamatti pronouncing the letter W with a V sound was borderline comical.

The Illusionist did a good job of establishing that anything is possible in the world within the film. This is a product of the script as well as the setting. Turn of the century Austria was a real place, but is also unreal since most people (myself included) know little about it. The endless possibilities allow for the big twist at the end to not only be
believable, but to almost be expected (in a good way).

But Norton, Biel, and the story all come short of making the audience care about what happens to them. One is more concerned with the fate of the Inspector than of the illusionist himself. So the twists and turns of the story are interesting, but failed to invoke their desired emotional responses, at least from me.

I’d recommend The Illusionist to anyone who is a fan of Giamatti or Norton. And people who enjoy a dab of whimsy in their movies without being transported to another dimension. If you like The Twilight Zone, you should check out The Illusionist.

Review by Johnny Mic
1/6/08
Rating: 1/20

Employs Academy Award Winner (and really funny actress?) Sissy Spacek, whose medicated performance eerily resembles the deflated sadness of Mia Farrow in 2007’s biggest comedy miss, The Ex. Hot Rod fails from the get-go as it does not star Kutcher, who would have been much better cast as a Stuntman Mike wannabe doofus. Consequently, the movie tallied a dismal $15 million at the U.S box office.

First time film star Andy Samberg conned the studio into letting his slightly-ahead-of-its-time production company co-op credit (watch them bomb on Fox). Even more unfortunate for the viewing public, Hot Rod’s screenwriter has signed on to write two more big budget comedies that will undoubtedly suck.

Who do you think were the real brains behind Lazy Sunday or Dick-In-A-Box anyway? I’ve heard that the Satanic Robert Evans used to deride Francis Ford Coppola on a daily basis, telling him his actors were terrible, that his music sucked. You don’t need to be a big shot movie producer to know that in Hot Rod, the woodland Footloose dance montage sequence goes on waayyy too long.

Review by Johnny Mic
12/26/07
Rating: 9/20

Quietly subversive, visually inspired, and wicked expensive. Julie Taymor, reknowned for her stage adaptation of Disney’s The Lion King and in the interest of excessive coddling, has created another layer to be peeled later between The Beatles and People-Who-Don’t-Know-About-The Beatles, like these morons (not one person who professes to hate the Beatles can spell Led Zeppelin).

The quasi-pubescent cast, maintained by Evan Rachel Wood, is forgettable enough to make the Broadway call easy for Rent II: Return of The Failed Multimedia Collective. Notable cameos include Eddie Izzard’s play on Frank-N-Furter, a Kesey-esque Bono bonofying “I Am The Walrus” and Joe Cocker (the best singer in this Universe) parading in the trip sequences. The stage adaptation of this movie will no doubt be safe harbor for underemployed and out-of-work rockstars.

These new interpretations of Beatles songs that already draw breath in our lives obviously suck. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, get out your counterculture decoder ring and go ask your local high school music teacher. If they don’t know, Taymor’s movie tries to fill that gap, but maybe you should become a high school music teacher.

For us it’s a batch of watered down Kool-Aid for future Pranksters, Hippies and Heads. If your kids are under the impression that The White Album was originally released on compact disc, why not rent this movie on February 3rd? Because the tykes are still too young to get the Richard Lester directed “A Hard Days Night”. It’s just too darn cheeky. Universe is for Ages 9 and Under. To quote Marty McFly, “Your kids are gonna love it.”

Review by Sammy Hollywood

11/19/07

Rating: 15/20

Brosnan makes a dashing Bond, Sophie Marceau slinks through the movie as the sensual corporate tyrant, and Denise Richards vamps it up as short-shorts-wearing nuclear scientist Dr. Christmas Jones (”It’s time to unwrap your present, Mr. Bond”).

Beyond hitting all the right notes in terms of girls, guns, and gadgetry, The World Is Not Enough leaps off to a wham-bam start, maybe the best of any Bond movie (though Roger Moore snowboarding to “Surfin’ Safari” at the start of View To A Kill finishes a close second). Before we get to the credits, Bond kills a roomful of turncoat Swiss bankers, jumps out a window, chases a hot female assassin in a boat that turns into a sub that turns into a car (that drives through the middle of a restaurant) then turns back into a boat, and then Bond jumps the boat into the air so he can grab on to the rope dangling from a hot-air balloon the assassin is trying to use for her escape.

Fuck all that bouncing around construction sites parkour nonsense from Casino Royale. Four words (or really one long hyphenate): car-sub-boat-car. The hyper-realistic violence in Royale left me shaken, but the elegant, inventive set pieces in The World Is Not Enough left me stirred.

Review by Sammy Hollywood

11/3/07

Rating: 3/20

Much like Michael Dudikoff, the cinema’s original “American Ninja”, Steve Guttenberg really only had one role in him, and that, of course, was Carey Mahoney, be he cadet, officer or sergeant. That’s all he had, and to be fair, that’s a lot. But in every other movie in which he appears, he is intolerable, with his casually curly ‘do and his wide open smile of innocent discovery. It makes me want to gouge out his eyes. Watch him in “Three Men and a Baby”. Watch him in “Short Circuit”. Watch him even in “The Boys From Brazil.” Go on. I fucking dare you.

I tried watching him in “Cocoon” the other night. I had never seen it before. The best thing about it is the theme song, “Gravity” by Michael Sembello, who you might know as the performer of a little number called “Maniac” on the “Flashdance” soundtrack. Check out the music video inspired by events in “Cocoon”:

Yeah, Sembello rocks, and Wilford Brimley, Hume Cronyn and Don Ameche give good old-timer, but Guttenberg is like a shit storm raining down all over this movie. I was doing laundry at my friend’s place while we watched it. My laundry was done about an hour into it. So I left. Oh, and before I left I killed my friend – because my friend was Steve Guttenberg.

Review by Sammy Hollywood

10/25/07

Rating: 7/20

Or, as I said upon rising at the end of the film “Lars and the Long, Plodding, Predictable Emotionally Bankrupt Fake Indie Movie.” Plotline eerily similar to that of “Mannequin II: On The Move”. I knew Meshach Taylor. I worked with Meshach Taylor.  Meshach Taylor is a friend of mine. You, Ryan Gosling, are no Meshach Taylor.

Review by Johnny Mic

8/31/07

Rating: 13/20

Death Sentence is a robust film. Robust and sweaty, like John Goodman’s jowls. Kevin Bacon sizzles as anti-hero Nick Hume, acting out moments of epiphany, despair and violence with aplomb, despite being the worst risk-assessment analyst of all time. After telegraphing to the world-at-large his war on a tribe of young criminals, why he didn’t hightail his family out of town only the studio could say. We gloss over similar jumps in story logic in exchange for out of breath steadicam work (watch for that masterful long take during a daytime ambush), KB doing his best impression of NE, and superb stunts that elevate Death Sentence above the standard fare.

ROUND 2: To our supp;lies, Death Sentence takes itself seriously. Back at home from his first vengeful act, Bacon explores the edges Nick’s sanity, and conveys the delayed catharsis of a father who has taken an irrevocable step (forward?) into the abyss. However, lacking the same methodical surehandedness that benefited James Wan’s Saw series, Sentence overreaches for “moments” at key points, accompanied by too frequent theming of Charlie Clouser’s capable original score.  Groans, guffaws and sighs from the elderly couple in front of us buoyed these melodramatic scenes, allowing us to get back to the gutsy follow through of the film’s second act. These retired seniors knew the score — they had smuggled in their own microwave popcorn.

Fun as usual were the siphoned-down elements of  Taxi Driver, the schlock scammed from Martin Scorcese’s masterpiece. However, lacking the languid swelter, delusional poetry, and operatic craziness of Taxi Driver, Death Sentence hums along in to its natural conclusion like a one-person shooter with a lame ending, as the decision to omit the coup de grace fails a film predicated on the notion of an “eye for an eye.”

Death Sentence, go figure, is about the grieving process – if you don’t know what that means than you’re still in the Stage 1. For those who have prematurely lost a close family member should be affected by Nick’s crisis of faith in the face of tragedy, if not the visceral need for retribution and his sense of moral indignation. More compelling is that for every aging Gen X’er that harbors disdain toward the younger set, Death Sentence cultivates the fantasy that beneath every thirty-something’s mild-mannered Dadness lurks an animal that can still run with the wolves, and with wily experience, best them. Heck, they didn’t even see it coming.

Additional Recommend: Bernard Herrmann’s Grammy Award Winning Original Score for Taxi Driver, It’s ominous, plodding, and downright scary.