I celebrated Independence "week" by watching a crap load of movies. I caught
Tranformers on the day of the 4th and was satisfied with what I got. I wasn't expecting much because I am, unfortunately, not a true
Tranformers fan. My brother had Optimus Prime when we were little and I transformed him until the paint chipped off. But I wasn't as gun-ho as some people may have been. I, admittedly, was more interested in riding the
Shia Labeouf wave to see if he'd scored himself another hit. While the action was nothing you could've ever imagined and the dialogue was as best as could be expected from an action film, I'd have to say that--besides
Shia's innate ability to charm his way into people's hearts--the movement of the robots in mid-air, swerving and nose-diving while tranforming was the real eye candy. I practically got a sugar rush.
My beef with the film circles around three issues: One, I get that these are robots and they have to sound rigid, but it seemed so outdated. Two, the cube that they searched for may have been pretty awesomely designed, but they really couldn't have thought of a cooler name than the Energon cube. Really? Lastly, I literally could not see any facial features on the Decepticons for the first half of the entire film. They just looked like bulldozers that could speak. A grimace is essential to a villain's rep. Even Darth Vader--sans face--had a grimace. Despite the fact that I would recommend
Live Free or Die Hard over
Transformers, I wouldn't recommend ignoring it completely. Transformer fan or not, you will worship the Autobots in the end.
Then I saw
Shooter with
Mark Wahlberg, who I--without shame--lust after whole heartedly. The film is about a plot to kill the president that
Mark's character is hired to prevent, but in actuality is framed for constructing. It was--what they call in Hollywood--easy money. Spout a view self-righteous lines, hunt down a couple of immoral sons of bitches, and go home with a fat check. I have to say that the lumberjack look does
Mark's body good. However, the people that stood out the most were
Michael Pena (
Crash),
Lane Garrison ("
Prison Break") and
Danny Glover (
Lethal Weapon).
Pena continues to amaze me, going from a hard working vato in
Paul Haggis' amazing drama to several stints in critically acclaimed films like
Million Dollar Baby, Babel, and
World Trade Center. In this film he masters the art of the bumbling idiot who gets by on pure luck. He is
Mark's "sidekick"--never confident, poorly trained, and underprepared. However, he did make up for
Mark's inability to investigate. Unlike
Justin Long in
Live Free or Die Hard, he had a pair and he pulled them out when necessary.
Garrison was only in the first few minutes of the film, but in them he convincingly faked an accent and made you forget about the deluded and misguided "gangsta" Tweener that he played on Fox.
Glover was very good at being bad and, I dare say, he should do it more often. So if you want an easy popcorn flick with not much dialogue, but plenty of fury-filled fight scenes, then plant this sucker on your netflix queue.
I wasn't planning on seeing
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer in theaters, because the first film didn't wow me enough to pry the eight bucks out of my hand again. So, I was overjoyed when my dad woke me up at 10am to go watch it on his dime. What can I say? It's funny that
critics believe no one will watch
A Mighty Heart because
Angelina Jolie is practically putting on black face to portray a minority, but no one seems to care that Mexican
Jessica Alba is rocking blond hair and blue eyes to play a white girl. Maybe that's because everyone actually went to see the Silver Surfer. I've seen the comics and I was pretty impressed with the sleek and shiny bad ass. They not only improved the action--Johnny switching powers with all of them was the best part--but they improved the story line.
Of course, there were still moments that were sort of juvenile, like Johnny's sudden interest in settling down. They started off nicely, giving him a girl who wouldn't really give him the time of day. But then she succumbed so easily that it was sort of ingenuine. And the fact that Thing gets to be human--not once but twice--and doesn't use that opportunity to make love to his girlfriend is just plain ridiculous. The relationship between Mr. Fantastic and Sue Storm progressed appropriately, but there should've been way more tension between him and Dr. Doom, who was infatuated with Sue in the last film. I think, ultimately, they leave it open for a sequel once again. But if they return, they better bring a bigger bad ass than Dr. Doom. He was less kitschy than last time, but there's only so many instances where I'll buy the idea that a guy who shoots electricity from his arms is completely unbeatable by a woman who can create a force field inside your body and blow you up, a guy who can crush your bones, or a guy who's body turns as hot as the sun. Please.
Driving Lessons, with
Rupert Grint, came out this Tuesday--a convenient week right before
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is released in theaters. This was
Jeremy Brock's directorial debut. He wrote this story about a kid who grows up in a household where his so called religious mother pretends to take him on driving lessons and actually makes him park outside her lover's house while she has an affair, and his priest father just takes all of her crap. She forces him to get a job so they can support an old man she's graciously adopted and he ends up escorting an ex-actress around the country--most of the time unwillingly. I, like many other people, rented it to see if
Grint had more range than playing a perpetually terrified sidekick to good old
Harry Potter. First off, you have to consider that most British coming of age films involve the lead male character being very silent and pensive, as though the world was on his shoulders. That put aside, with what dialogue he was given,
Grint didn't do half bad--especially during his brief bursts of rage towards anyone who pushed him to the limit.
Laura Linney played his mother in the
Desperate Housewives-
Brie fashion--completely insane, but with such devout self-righteousness it's hard to not do what she says.
Julie Walters plays the older woman who, in one summer, manages to awaken the man within him--not like that. She also plays his mother in
Harry Potter, so it was interesting to see her have much more lines and possessing such irresponsible determination. Most of the story line is predictable. But
Grint still manages to surprise you in the end. That's right. You actually get to hear
Ron Weasley curse some one out.
Then I saw
Flyboys with
James Franco. The only film that I've ever seen
James Franco prominently featured in was
Spiderman. So after watching the trailer to this WWI patriotic drama about the country's first fighter pilots and seeing the amazing aerial combat, I knew I was at least going to rent it. It's your basic brotherly love, casualties of war, fall in love on the battlefield kind of war drama. What really makes it worth watching--as it is usually with these films--is the comradery that you begin to join in on as they continuously try to shoot the Germans out of the sky for every one of theirs that gets killed. The vendettas that are forged, however, aren't as strong as the love between pilots. However, I have to say my jaw dropped once all scores were settled.
