Beautiful Creatures (2013)

  This wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  It's not great, but it didn't make me want to gouge out my eyes with a grapefruit spoon either.  

Ethan Wate (Alden Ehrenreich) has lived in the tiny South Carolina town of Gatlin his entire life.  A life that has been exceptionally boring until the arrival of Lena Duchannes (Alice Englert).  Lena is no ordinary girl, you see, as she comes from a family of magic users.  Every female of the family is chosen by either the Light or the Dark on their sixteenth birthday, without much in the way of say in the matter.  Lena's cousin Ridley (Emmy Rossum), for example, was chosen by the Dark and is now a man-eating, couture-wearing, Grade-A bitch on wheels.  Her family doesn't want Lena to go down the same path and they don't want her distracted by a cute boy just before the choice is made.

A lot of this movie made absolutely no sense and raised more questions than it answered.  I could probably look up answers, (I'm sure they're based on the book) but I don't care.  It's not worth that much interest.  The only thing that elevates this from Twilight is the charisma of its stars and much better dialogue.  Ehrenreich in particular manages to hold his own on screen with powerhouses like Emma Thompson, Viola Davis, and Jeremy Irons.  That's no mean feat.  Englert is a bit more generic as a leading lady but she's pretty and I'm sure she'll get work.

Copenhagen (2002)

  This is one of the most boring movies I have ever watched.  Honestly, unless you are just a huge fan of character dramas, there is nothing for you here.

In 1941, Werner Heisenberg made a journey into occupied Denmark to visit his friend Niels Bohr.  Much speculation has been made of the nature of their conversation, which ended with Heisenberg abruptly leaving Copenhagen to return to Germany.

This is a movie based on a stage play by Michael Frayn that sees Heisenberg (Daniel Craig) meeting with Bohr (Stephen Rea) and his wife Margarethe (Francesca Annis) at their home both in 1941 and again in 1947.  There is some very basic discussion of physics, about what you would cover in a high school class, but mostly its about philosophy, nationalism, and humanism. 

Snoozefest.

This was so not my cuppa tea.  I like both the actors featured here but I found this movie to be stultifying.  Rob said his dad had recommended it so clearly there are people who liked it, I'm just not one of them.

Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

  I didn't really like the first Austin Powers movie.  I didn't think it was as funny as other people did and the replay value wasn't there for me.  For whatever reason, I like the second one much better. 

Picking up immediately after the first movie, Austin Powers (Mike Meyers) is on his honeymoon with Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley) when he realizes that she is, in fact, a fembot intent on killing him.  After her destruction, Austin gets back on the swinging bachelor scene, but not for long.  Dr. Evil (Mike Meyers) has used a time machine to send an agent named Fat Bastard (Mike Meyers) to steal Powers' mojo while he was cryogenically frozen.  Robbed of his libido, Austin travels back into the 60's to stop Dr. Evil with the help of American spy Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham). 

Everything about this movie is patently ridiculous but it's also brightly-colored and fun.  You could easily pick apart how obvious the jokes are, how thin the plot is, and how overdone the characters are, but why bother?  This isn't grand cinema.  It's cotton candy with a 60's soundtrack.  Sometimes that's all you need.

Contagion (2011)

  If you are a germaphobe, stay far away from this movie.  It will skeeve you right out.  Fortunately, I eat food off the floor, so I was okay.  

An executive (Gwyneth Paltrow) comes home from a business trip with a little something extra:  a virus that spreads incredibly quickly.  Soon, people are dropping dead all around the world and doctors from the World Health Organization (Marion Cotillard) and the Center for Disease Control (Lawrence Fishburne) are struggling to get ahead of the curve and find a vaccine. 

Less of a structured narrative, and more of a worst case scenario, this is a pretty decent movie if you're interested in how people would behave in the event of a global pandemic.  It's chock-full of stars from Matt Damon to Kate Winslet and directed by Steven Soderbergh.  This is probably the last good movie he made before he started with crap like Haywire and Magic Mike.  I haven't seen the upcoming Behind the Candelabra but I have high hopes.

This was supposed to have gone up yesterday, but I totally forgot it.  My bad.

Assault on Precinct 13 (2005)

  It's New Year's Eve in Detroit and Precinct 13 is being decommissioned.  The skeleton crew, led by Sergeant Jake Roenick (Ethan Hawke) are bedded down, ready to party the night away when they receive a last-minute bus full of prisoners thanks to a snowstorm.  Among the handcuffed is crime boss and cop killer Marion Bishop (Lawrence Fishburne).  Before the ball can drop, a group of masked men surrounds the precinct and demands that Bishop be turned over to them.  Initially fearing the crime boss' goons, Jake soon realizes that the assailants are cops, aiming to silence Bishop before he can testify against them.  Jake has to rally his little band of survivors to defend the building until help can arrive at dawn.

This is a remake of a John Carpenter film from the 70's.  I haven't seen the original but I remember seeing this one in theaters.  I will forever remember it because it was the same day I watched Schindler's List and I started to get a little twitchy about people getting shot in the head.  Not run-screaming-from-the-theater twitchy, but I flinched more than I normally would. 

This movie is hyper-violent pretty much from start to finish.  It's kind of awesome.  Some of the insider paranoia gets a bit wearying but then someone gets shot or something blows up and it's fine.  I'm not sure why Gabriel Byrne and Brian Dennehy got left off the cover but they're both in this, as well as a bunch of people you'd know by sight if not by name.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

  This is another one that I saw before I started this blog.  I've owned the DVD for a while now and I'm not sure how I missed it when I passed through the I's.  Oh well. 

Dr. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is hiding out in the favelas of Brazil after a lab accident involving gamma radiation.  He takes breathing lessons from a aikido master (Rickson Gracie) in an effort to control his emotions.  Because when he gets angry, bad things happen.  He knows that there are people like General Ross (William Hurt) who will do anything to get control of the monster inside of him and he can't allow that to happen.  Unfortunately, a factory accident draws the government's eye right towards him.  A team, led by professional badass Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) tracks him all the way back to Virginia.  Banner is looking for his original research in an effort to find a cure but also finds his old flame, Dr. Elizabeth Ross (Liv Tyler), the General's daughter.  Together, they travel to New York City to consult with a professor (Tim Blake Nelson) who has supposedly been working on a cure.  Blonsky, meanwhile, has been doping himself with some leftover super-soldier serum but it's not enough.  Like any junkie, he wants more, turning himself into an Abomination.  Then, New York City gets the shit kicked out of it.  Again.

I was a big fan of this movie when it came out.  It was lightyears away better than Ang Lee's 2005 disaster.  Edward Norton does a great job of playing Banner-on-the-run, and I loved all the little homages to the original TV series:  Lou Ferrigno as the college guard, an episode of The Courtship of Eddie's Father on the TV starring Bill Bixby, and even the name David that he uses as an alias. 

This time around, I noticed a lot more references to the other Marvel films.  They mention S.H.I.E.L.D a bunch and there are logos for Stark Industries.  This is also where they first starting hinting at Captain America by mentioning the super-soldier projects from the 40's.  It's all right there, but it's integrated so well that it doesn't feel like a shameless plug. 

Iron Man 2 (2010)

 Again, I'm working my way through the Marvel box set.  I enjoyed this one a lot more this time around.  I think I was expecting something different when I saw it in the theater and was vaguely disappointed.  Overall, it fits very well into the storyline. 

Also, I am much less opposed to Black Widow showing up here since I know what a great part she gets later. 

Mickey Rourke is still a weirdo but I was focused more on Sam Rockwell's secondary villain this time around.  He's a smarmy weasel and Rockwell plays that to the hilt.    Took the new beau to the midnight premiere of Iron Man 2 on Thursday. I don't think he was prepared for the sheer amount of comic book nerdom present in the theater. He was slightly disappointed that there were no costumes, unless you count T-shirts with a superhero's emblem as a costume.

I have bitched about the people who surround me in movie theaters before but the crowd that night were my favorite kind of people: the ones who get all the jokes, who know the backstory without Cliff's Notes and, most importantly, fall silent immediately following the previews. They are there to see the movie, dammit, not pay $21 for the privilege of chatting or texting in a large dark room. (It also gladdened my heart to hear hisses and boos of derision during the Twilight: Eclipse trailer. Truly, they are my people.)

No JJ Abrams super-secret not-Cloverfield trailer, though. Maybe the little time-lock sealed canister he supposedly sent them out in was like one of those puzzle boxes from The Da Vinci Code. (Man, Da Vinci just can not catch a break.)

On to the actual movie-- my date was disappointed in the villains of the series because he felt they were not enough of a threat to Tony Stark's empire. This is a valid point. (You see why I keep him?) Mickey Rourke is not quite the foil for Stark's intellect that the Joker is/was for Batman. Don't get me wrong, now, his Russian physicist is surprisingly decent.

Come on, it's like if Mohammad Ali started speaking Dutch all of a sudden. You'd be fucking impressed.

I guess my one complaint would be Scarlett Johansson. Not in a I-want-to-cut-her-because-she's-prettier-than-me way, but I expected so much more based on all the hype around her character. I don't know if it counts as a spoiler, but the trailers and sites I've followed seemed to imply that she would be a corollary villain; some sort of industrial spy for the Russians. Not so, my friends. She is, in fact, in the employ of one Nick Fury. I found that obscurely disappointing. It could be that they are setting her up as a double agent for a further sequel. I will cling to that hope.

It's not quite as awesome as the original but you should have expected that. Still, quite worthy on its own merits.

Constantine (2005)

  God, I can't wait until they reboot this piece of shit movie to something actually resembling the character.  Come on, Marvel.  Do it right.

John Constantine (Keanu Reeves) is a magician destined to go to Hell when he dies because technically he committed suicide as a teen.  Yep, turns out the Catholics were right, everyone.  Until then, he acts as a one-man supernatural police force in order to maybe get enough brownie points to buy his way back to the big house.  Meanwhile, Angela Dodson (Rachel Weisz) is coming to terms with her twin sister's suicide, except that Isabel was a devout Catholic who could incidentally see the uncanny forces around her.  She convinces Constantine to stop being an asshole for five minutes and look into her sister's case.

I haven't watched this movie in at least four years.  I didn't like it then, but I thought I'd give it another chance.  Now that I've actually read the Hellblazer series, it makes me hate this film even more.  Absolutely everyone was woefully miscast, with the exceptions of Tilda Swinton and Gavin Rossdale.  Peter Stormare gets a special shout-out for being possibly my least favorite interpretation of the Devil ever.  That may have been bias on my part, though, since I've seen him play too many goofy, easily-foiled villains to be able to take him seriously. 

My three favorite Satans, in order, are:  Viggo Mortensen in The Prophecy, Al Pacino in Devil's Advocate, and Elizabeth Hurley in Bedazzled. 

At best, treat this movie as a guilty pleasure you'd never let your friends or family know you enjoy.

Quest for Camelot (1998)

  As I've previously stated, I missed a number of animated movies from the late 90's because I was too old to have a reason to watch them.  Christy has a brother ten years younger than us, which means she got to see a lot of these with him, while I missed out because my brother was only five years younger than me. 

Initially, I was concerned while watching Quest for Camelot for two reasons:  1) I had never even heard of this movie when it came out or since and 2) the very first song "On My Father's Wings" is terrible.  Treacly sweet, repetitive, and just boring, it is not a good representation of the movie.  Happily, once you get passed that, the rest is quite enjoyable.

Kayley (Jessalyn Gilsig) is the daughter of Sir Lionel of the Round Table (Gabriel Byrne).  All she wants is to grow up and follow in his footsteps to knighthood, but when evil Ruber (Gary Oldman) kills him, it seems her dreams will be lost.  Ruber's pet griffin (Bronson Pinchot) manages to steal Excalibur but loses it in the Forbidden Forest.  Kayley races into the forest to try and beat Ruber to the sword, running into blind woodsman Garrett (Cary Elwes) and rejected dragons Devon (Eric Idle) and Cornwall (Don Rickles).  Together, they must survive the perils of the woods and defeat Ruber, restoring Excalibur to King Arthur (Pierce Brosnan).

Like I said, this is much cuter than I originally thought it would be.  With Cary Elwes in the cast, it's hard not to draw some comparisons with The Princess Bride, especially during the early part of the forest scenes but the comic relief really elevates it from just a rip-off.  Mostly I recognized the music, seeing as a lot of the soundtrack was either directly released onto the radio or had a pop cover.  In particular, "The Prayer" was sung in the film by Celine Dion, although I prefer the Charlotte Church version myself.  I'm not sure why this movie is so obscure but if you can find it, it's worth a rental for your kids.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

  I remember when this movie first came out.  I had gone to see it in the theaters because I love seeing children in mortal danger.  By the end, I was ready to feed some brats to the Lachrymose Leeches.  It wouldn't have been so bad if the baby in the movie, wasn't subtitled.  I hadn't been expecting that and clearly neither had the dad sitting behind me with a child unable to read.  Every five minutes I heard "WHAT DOES THAT SAY DADDY?!"

Left a bad taste in my mouth.

Years went by, things like Sucker Punch and The Uninvited happened to Emily Browning's career, and everyone kind of forgot about this movie.  Ok, I forgot about this movie.  Then, out of the blue, Christy wanted to watch it. 

Three newly orphaned children:  Violet (Emily Browning), Klaus (Liam Aiken), and Sunny (Kara and Shelby Hoffman) must try to discover their parents' secrets while trying to avoid their villainous uncle, Count Olaf (Jim Carrey) who is after their inheritance.  The executor, Mr. Poe (Timothy Spall), carts them to one weird relative after another from the guy who's really into snakes (Billy Connolly) to the grammar Nazi afraid of everything (Meryl Streep) in the hopes of finding them a permanent home. 

This is one of the most depressing movies featuring orphans that's still billed as a comedy.  It's based on a 13-book series. I hesitate to call them children's books but they're not quite young adult.  I would say if you were a slightly cruel parent or just wanted to remind your kids that everything they have is ephemeral, you might enjoy reading these to them at bedtime.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

  So, can we all agree that this was an embarrassment for all concerned and just let it go?  I'm sure Jason Momoa's large, craggy heart was in the right place but there's just no reason to remake a classic.  Maybe if they had gone with a different title, just made it a Conan movie, instead of a reboot, it might have been simply forgettable instead of an affront to good taste. 

But, then again, Conan movies have never really been a bastion of refinement.  So why does this one suck so hard?  The plot seems pretty standard:

After his entire village is slaughtered, young Conan (Jason Momoa) searches the world for the utter bastard (Stephen Lang) who killed his father (Ron Perlman).  After finally tracking the bastard to a hidden monastery, Conan realizes that he is after a young girl (Rachel Nichols) in order to sacrifice her to his dark gods.  Possibly to beseech them to give his daughter (Rose McGowan) some eyebrows.  Anyway, Conan takes the girl, keeps her just long enough to foster an attachment, and then loses her to the bad guys.  This, of course, gives him license to storm their castle in order to rescue her.

It's gratuitously bloody, has lots of topless chicks, and the writing is crap.  If it had been made in the early 80's on an Italian set with a bunch of extras who didn't speak English, I'd probably be raving about it.  But it's not nearly funny or self-aware enough to be camp and not dark enough to be grittily realistic.  And that, my friends, makes it utterly worthless to watch. 

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

  I kept coming across this film on a bunch of top 10 lists so I thought I'd give it a shot.  I've never been a big fan of the "realism" trend in 70's movies, since it usually translates into slow pacing and minimal dialogue, but I'm happy to report that this was an incredibly entertaining film.

Turner (Robert Redford), codenamed Condor, is an analyst working for the CIA.  He's not a spy, not a field agent, just a guy who reads books all day looking for hidden messages.  One rainy day, he goes out to get lunch and comes back to find his entire office has been murdered.  He immediately calls it in to the area chief (Cliff Robertson), who sends out an SOS to Washington, D.C.  But Turner is not out of the woods yet, as it seems that it's the CIA who put the hit out.  He barely escapes and kidnaps Kathy (Faye Dunaway), who is just trying to go skiing, forcing her to be a hostage in her own home. 

My mother also highly recommended this movie, seeing as she originally saw it in theaters.  Apparently, it really captures the mood of the 70's, what with the suspicion of government, the paranoia, and the lofty idealism.  She left out the part where Max von Sydow plays a badass contract killer, but that's what you have me for.  Seriously, though, he is awesome in this.  I might have to buy this one.

Commando (1985)

  How do you not love something as cheesy as that?!  This is yet another of the great 80's movies that I missed from my childhood.  His character's name is John Matrix.  John Matrix!  Typing that is so 80's that it just caused me to spontaneously breakout into wearing Hammer pants. 

John Matrix is a retired super-badass living in the middle of nowhere with his little girl, Jenny (Alyssa Milano).  No one thinks that's weird.  Presumably, John's wife died of over-badass exposure since she is never mentioned even in passing.  Anyway, a South American crime lord (Dan Hedaya) kidnaps Jenny in order to force Matrix to assassinate the president of whatever country they're supposed to be from.  John decides to say Fuck That in the most awesome and violent way possible, turning into a one-man army in order to get his kid back.  Along the way, he picks up Cindy (Rae Dawn Chong), as the wise-cracking comic relief/pilot. 

This was deep into Arnold's pun phase and some of them (*impale someone on a coolant pipe*  "I think you need to let off some steam!") are cringeworthy.  Overall, this is a great popcorn flick and I could probably watch it a dozen time in a row.