Jonah Hex (2010)

  Everything you heard about this movie is true.  It sucks.  I don't know how they managed to con John Malkovich and Josh Brolin into appearing in this.  Michael Fassbender is clearly just having a grand old time and Megan Fox...well, bless her heart.

After his family was burned to death by his mortal enemy, Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) was left for dead but saved by a local American Indian tribe.  He gained the ability to speak to the dead, which he uses to pursue criminals as a bounty hunter.  His only real human interaction is with a surly prostitute named Lilah (Megan Fox).  But when President Grant (Aidan Quinn) informs Jonah his enemy, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), is alive and planning to build a "nation-killer" weapon, Jonah springs into action.

This was based on a DC Comics property but just couldn't garner the same kind of interest as more well-known characters.  It probably sounded great on paper.  It's essentially The Crow:  Civil War edition with two Oscar nominees on board, a director team known for crowd-pleasing action, T&A courtesy of Megan Fox, and a family-friendly PG-13 rating.  Add all of that together and you get a wannabe supernatural Western, a bunch of bloodless deaths, and a collection of stock-paper characters.  A for effort, D for execution.

Into the Woods (1989)

  When I first heard that Into the Woods was getting remade with an all-star cast, I thought "oh, good" because I had never watched the original all the way through and I had zero ties to it.  I tried watching it a long time ago when I lived in California.  My roommate at the time was huge into theater and dance so she sat me down and forced me to watch it on her laptop.  That was not a great viewing medium and I wasn't terribly interested to begin with.  I didn't even make it through Act I.  But I'm an open-minded gal so I thought I'd give it another shot.  

You know by now how my Netflix queue runs, so I don't have to justify why I didn't actually see the musical until four months after the remake came out.  These things happen.  Let's move on.

Filmed on Broadway after winning ten Tony awards, this production starred the original cast and follows the exact same plot.

A baker (Chip Zien) and his wife (Joanna Gleason) venture into the woods in order to lift a curse placed on them by the witch next door (Bernadette Peters).  Along the way, they meet Red Riding Hood (Danielle Ferland), Jack (Ben Wright), and Cinderella (Kim Crosby), each of whom has an item the couple needs to lift the curse.  Various complications ensue and are overcome, only to lead to further complications when life continues past "happily ever after".  

Familiarity was definitely a boon in this case, as I was able to last the entire 2 hr 33 min running time.  It's funny, this was about half an hour longer than the theatrical release, but the pacing was so much better it actually felt shorter.  Plus, it added a reprise of the Princes' duet "Agony" and that was totally worth it.

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013)

  You know what I hate?  False advertising.  This isn't an awful movie (although the CGI is kind of dreadful), but it did terribly domestically.  I think it's because the trailers for this movie made it seem like way more of a comedy than it actually is.  If they had either advertised it as an adventure/action movie or filmed it as a comedy, they would have been better off and the public would have been more informed.  There are only very rare instances where it is better for people to be left in the dark about a movie and those will usually tell you up front that you should go in blind.

As a boy, Jack (Nicholas Hoult) had been told stories about a magical land of giants with a taste for human flesh living in the clouds.  The land was accessed by way of magical beans and the only way the kingdom of men was spared was by the monks crafting a crown from the heart of a giant and dark magic.  Jack was inspired by the stories but figured that's all they were, until a monk (Simon Lowe) passes him a handful of beans in the market with the admonishment that Jack is to take them to the abbey and under no circumstances get them wet.  That night, one of the beans slips through the floorboards of Jack's house.  Meanwhile, Princess Isabelle (Eleanor Tomlinson) runs away from the palace rather than marry the king's advisor, Roderick (Stanley Tucci), and ends up at Jack's house to get out of the rain.  The subsequent beanstalk traps her in the house, quickly carrying it up to the giants' realm.  Jack and a party of the king's men, led by Sir Elmont (Ewan McGregor), travel up the beanstalk to rescue her.

It's an interesting take on the fairy tale that is only slightly ruined by the ending, which tries too hard to wrap the story up in a neat little bow.  Stanley Tucci and Ewan McGregor are always delightful to watch and Nicholas Hoult is growing into a damn fine actor.   The CGI giants are really terrible, though, and significantly push the suspension of disbelief required of the audience.  It's no good to have beautiful landscapes and fanciful worlds if the creatures in them look like they were drawn in crayon.  If you can go in with zero expectations, you'd probably find it's not as bad as you thought it was going to be but I can't in good conscience recommend it.

Notorious (1946)

  It took me five days to watch this movie.  For whatever reason, the blu-ray did not bookmark where I stopped so I would have to find my place again every time, which was very annoying.  It also started automatically and re-started from the beginning when I finally did finish it.  I guess there are people who would want an automatic loop of a film but I am not one of them.

Alicia Hubelman (Ingrid Bergman) is contacted by U.S. intelligence agencies after her Nazi-sympathizer father is found guilty of treason.  They want her to ingratiate herself with one of her father's old friends in Brazil, Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains), and see what he is planning.  Her handler, Devlin (Cary Grant), is supposed to keep her on track.  Alex is very jealous of anyone spending too much time with his beloved, making it all the more difficult to get around him, even if Alicia and Devlin weren't also falling for each other.

This is not my favorite Hitchcock film, not by a long shot.  I was expecting a good deal more suspense, more comedy, more everything.  It's still a great movie, if only for the chance to see Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman together, and Claude Rains lifts every picture he's ever been in.  The plot holds up even to this day, with themes of trust and suspicion.  I'm not sure why it was titled "Notorious" since it has nothing to do with notoriety or infamy, but Hitch was big on one-word titles for his films.

Ip Man: The Legend Begins (2010)

  Let's clear this up right now.  This movie is not affiliated with the Donnie Yen films about Ip Man.  Yes, it has the exact same subject (Ip Man, general badass) and yes, it has several of the same people in it, but it is not a prequel, sequel or reboot.  I have seen a lot of people label this Ip Man 3 and that is wrong.  Ip Man 3 is in production right now, starring Donnie Yen, Mike Tyson, and the CGI ghost of Bruce Lee.  Seriously.

Misuses of technology aside, this film focuses on Ip Man's (Yu-Hang To) youth to young adulthood.  As a boy, he is given over to Master Chan Wah Shun (Sammo Hung) to learn the authentic ways of Wing Chun.  He is then sent to Hong Kong to attend university and studies under another Wing Chun master, Leung Bik (Ip Chun), while his brother, Tin Chi (Siu-Wong Fan), stays behind to be the second-in-command.  When Ip returns, he finds that Japanese business interests are pressing closer and closer, disrupting the lives of the martial arts masters professionally and personally.  Then, a government official (Heman Leung) is murdered and Ip Man is implicated.

The action sequences are still top-notch but several of the plot points seemed misguided to me.  In particular, there is a whole sub-plot about learning English and Ip Man defending the honor of the Chinese against some British students.  I get that the filmmakers were trying to provide some historical context but it felt like too much of a nod to Jet Li's Fearless.  It was also really odd to read the subtitles while my brain was telling me that I could understand the words.  It's not a bad addition to the hagiography of Ip Man but it's definitely a tier lower than the Donnie Yen pair.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)

In revenge for Idiocracy, I forced my friend to watch Behind the Mask.  I never got my sequel to it and that makes me sad but this is such a great movie, I'm okay with it being the only one.  Fortunately, my friend and her husband had both seen enough classic horror films to really appreciate the spirit of the mockumentary.    Originally posted 2/28/11.    So this is one of my favorite horror movies.  I was able to share it with a soon-to-be paramour (yes, a new one) on Saturday night. 

Sunday I was busy and I didn't get a chance to post before the Oscars so you get a bonus post today.  I know, I know, I spoil you.

For those who have never seen it, this is a mockumentary about a college film crew that follows a man poised to become the next great slasher.  His name is (maybe) Leslie Vernon.  The film follows him as he does all the prep work for his debut, setting up the house and filling it with appropriate victims. 

It is extremely tongue-in-cheek, referencing classic films of the genre from Halloween to Man Bites Dog.  Honestly, I've seen this film probably four times now and this last time was the first I've put that reference together.  What shines through for me is the obvious love the writers and director have for these types of films, much like the original Scream. 

And, according to the IMDB page, it looks like a sequel is in the works projected for 2012.  Fingers crossed on that one.

Idiocracy (2006)

  One of the girls I work with was flabbergasted that I had never seen this movie.  She subsequently lured me to her house with spaghetti, chocolate cake, and booze, then sprang it on me while I was recovering from my euphoria.  She seemed to think it was a comedy, instead of a chilling forecast of our future as a nation.

Average Army peon Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) is chosen to participate in an experiment that will cryogenically preserve the Army's best and brightest in order to be thawed when they are needed.  The Army knows better than to deep-freeze one of their good soldiers right off the bat, however, and selected Joe for his amazing averageness.  For equality, a female civilian named Rita (Maya Rudolph) was also chosen.  The pair are put into hibernation pods and told that when they wake up a year will have passed.  Due to an unfortunate amount of circumstances, the project is scrapped and the pods are forgotten until five thousand years later.  Joe awakens to find that, thanks to social Darwinism, he is now the smartest man in the country and also a fugitive.  Corporations have taken over all forms of infrastructure, there is only reality television, and convenience has taken the place of responsibility.  Joe is tasked by the President (Terry Crews) to reverse the damage done to the environment and make crops grow once more, despite his complete lack of knowledge of agriculture.

This was Mike Judge's feature follow-up to Office Space and while it is more ambitious in terms of message, it lacks the ring of sincerity provided by the former.  I'm not sad that I watched it, but I think once was enough.