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Capsule Movie Reviews Vol.2011.6

Published by marco on

Updated by marco on

My Life in Ruins (2008) — 6/10
A cute comedy about tour guides in Greece. Almost totally formulaic but still somehow entertaining.
Crimson Tide (1995) — 8/10
An excellent submarine thriller with Denzel Washington as Captain Gene Hackman’s executive officer as their sub heads toward a showdown with Russian rebels with their fingers on the nuclear trigger. Viggo Mortenson is excellent as well, and James Gandolfini plays a small-minded kowtower so well that one wonders whether he’s acting at all. A lot of the supporting cast is really good and the plot is quite tight—up to the point where Hackman’s character exhibits a startlingly racist side that doesn’t gel with any of the rest of the plot.
Grown Ups (2010) — 2/10
Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Steve Buscemi, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Tim Meadows, Colin Quinn: what could go wrong? Well, they could all be enjoying the hell out of making the movie so much that no one noticed how bad and awkward the script and dialogue are. There are moments that are funny, but far more moments that make you cringe. Maybe they meant the film ironically: instead of making a movie about what it would be like if these five hilarious guys got together again after 20 years, they made the movie showing how awkward and lame any five guys are whose lives diverged 20 years ago. Instead of a comedy showcasing the best of the best in humor, it’s a drama piece showing the mundanity of most people’s lives.
United 93 (2006) — 4/10
A film about the possible sequence of events on the ill-fated flight 93 of United Airlines that crashed in Pennsylvania on 9–11, 2001. The theory is that it was forced down by the passengers when they tried to retake the cockpit from the terrorists who’d hijacked the plane. It was more even than expected, but still not very good. The ending was a wild mishmash of camera angles, shaky-cam work and quick cuts which was probably supposed to convey the sense of confusion but really just gave me a headache.
True Crime (1999) — 8/10
A Clint Eastwood film about a reporter (Eastwood) playing a reporter who smokes, drinks and sleeps around trying to clear the name of a man unjustly sentenced to death row. Good story; great acting. With James Woods and Denis Leary as Eastwood’s less-than-impressed coworkers. Definitely worth it. Saw it in German.
A Few Good Men (1992) — 8/10
Watched this one again after a long time and it was still riveting. Tom Cruise and Kevin Pollack are great (as usual, actually), Nicholson does his star turn as does a very young Kiefer Sutherland. Watched it in German, but it lost nothing in translation—it was perhaps even better because German is such an awesome military language.
Do The Right Thing (1989) — 9/10
Saw this for the first time and it was everything I’d heard. Excellent from start to finish with fine acting all around as well as a nuanced script and dialogue. Well worth watching—nothing has changed except we don’t have big boom-boxes anymore.
Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) — 4/10
A predictable movie about a woman who shops too much. Though it does make an attempt to seriously portray just how damaging shopping too much can be, it’s also a movie about a problem only the rich and wanna-be rich have. Sure, the woman can’t afford the stuff she buys, but she’s still wealthy enough to be up to debt to her eyeballs buying clothes that she doesn’t need, instead of deep in debt buying food or paying rent. Watched with only one eye though; the other was doing a crossword puzzle.
Deep Impact (1998) — 2/10
Spoiler alert: Copycat of Armageddon, but the good guys don’t win. Mostly predictable and lacking nuance. Didn’t watch the second half, to be honest. I got fed up when the movie showed people taking martial law lying down—as if they had anything to lose with a comet about to plow into the Earth. President: you have a couple of days left, so go home and don’t cause a disturbance and don’t go outside and don’t enjoy yourselves. Yeah, ok. I’d actually like to see a sequel showing the people who buried themselves in Missouri trying to get back out after two years when the people who had to stay outside and rebuild society from scratch are waiting for them.
Dogma (1999) — 7/10
A dark comedy about heaven, hell, angels and demons written by and starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Also stars Salma Hayek as a pole dancer named Serendipity (if that’s your thing), Chris Rock as the 13th Apostle and Linda Fiorentino as an unwilling tool of destiny. Includes a lot of discussions about Christianity from an undergraduate philosophical level and the plot is very entertaining. Saw it in German.
Plastic Planet (2009) — 7/10
A long but informative and entertaining documentary about a German/Austrian with a plastics business/fortune in his family who travels the world to learn more about plastic. His journey of discovery leads him to discover that we won’t end up just strangling sea turtles and fish with plastic, but ourselves as well.
The Tourist (2010) — 5/10
Angelina Jolie plays a mysterious woman (no spoiler there) who (spoiler alert) turns out to be a spy, a traitor and a whore (although haggling the price up to £744 million is quite an achievement—that’s about £10 million per pound). Johnny Depp is unconvincing and seems to be phoning it in. Paul Bettany is wasted as well. The movie moves very slowly and its surprises are unsurprising (shades of Angles and Demons there). For what purports to be a thriller, it wasn’t very thrilling, unless you consider watching Jolie glide around like a porcelain doll thrilling; she looks so frail, you may be on the edge of your seat wondering whether she will shatter at each step.
Monsters vs. Aliens (2009) — 3/10
A crazy pastiche of different stories and plots group up into a single, long CGI cartoon. Standout voice talent that went to waste on utterly forgettable lines delivered during interminable battle scenes. Made for kids with no clear angle for adults. Can’t even remember whether it was in English or German.
Ghost Busters (1984) — 8/10

The old classic stands up quite well, with Bill Murray – as Dr. Peter Venkman – providing a lot of the reason why. Reason #1:

Dr Ray Stantz: Everything was fine with our system until the power grid was shut off by dickless here.
Walter Peck: They caused an explosion!
Mayor: Is this true?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Yes it’s true.
[pause]
Dr. Peter Venkman: This man has no dick.

Saw it in German.

Blazing Saddles (1974) — 10/10

A classic from Mel Brooks—and possibly his best. Gene Wilder plays sidekick to Cleavon Little’s amazing turn as a black sheriff in the wild west. Madeline Kahn plays a wonderful German burlesque dancer/ingenue with a lisp named Lili Von Shtupp (“A wed wose. How womantic.”) and Harvey Korman plays a hilarious asshole with an easily mispronounced name, as usual. The initial arrival of the sheriff is worth the price of admission. Enjoyed the hell out of this film (and can still quote a bunch of it from multiple viewings out of the deep past). And then there’s Gene Wilder’s deadpan delivery (quoting from a scene where he consoles Little):

“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.”
The Fifth Element (1997) — 10/10
Bruce Willis plays a futuristic, alternate-reality version of John Mclane from the “Die Hard” movies. Mila Jovovich is great as an alien/living weapon with a penchant for skimpy outfits. Chris Tucker is also very good as an over-the-top (redundant, I know) television moderator. Gary Oldman rounds out the cast as the bad guy (redundant, I know). Luc Besson is rightly fêted for the excellent cinematography, sets, costumes and overall mood of the film. Saw it in German.
Tears of the Sun (2003) — 6/10
Bruce Willis takes stony-faced to a new level as the leader of an elite cadre of Marines charged with extracting a Westerner from somewhere in Africa (I’m not even going to bother looking up which country it purported to be or whether the film claims any historical veracity or derivative thereof). The Westerner refuses to leave without also rescuing the village in which she lived and worked. Willis at first refuses—following his orders only—but is eventually overwhelmed by moral considerations. Luckily for us, the Westerner is portrayed by Monica Belluci, which was enough for me. Saw it in German.
Dinner for Schmucks (2010) — 7/10
A surprisingly good and touching little film about a bunch of rich traders/brokers who amuse themselves by inviting what they consider to be useless members of society to dinner and holding a contest to find the one who demonstrates his idiocy with the most extravagance. The film is saved not by its plot—though it does make an attempt to illustrate that the more generally accepted notion of which group of people in the film is actually more useless may be wrong—but by Steve Carell’s sweet performance as Barry, a naif who builds dioramas using dead mice that portray the life he may have had with a wife who left him. It is part of Carell’s immense talent that he makes this seem far more normal than the normal lives of the two ostensible protagonists (Paul Rudd as a financial analyst and his girlfriend, an art gallery curator, both on their way up in the real world).
Spider-Man 2 (2004) — 8/10
The last good Spidey movie, even though too much time is dominated by Kirsten Dunst’s simper and other attempts at expressing emotion. This is likely less her fault than a unwitting misogyny present in so many comic-book movies. The star is really Doc Ock or, to be more precise, his four articulated, metal arms. They’re flat-out awesome and utterly believable. Spidey himself is decent, but a bid maudlin. Still and all, much better than Spider-Man 3, which was an abomination. Saw it in German.
Transporter 3 (2008) — 6/10
Lovely choreography and balletic martial artistry from Mr. Statham (as usual) and lovely direction by Luc Besson (as usual) but a shockingly irritating package to deliver this time around, in the form of a Russian party girl role that hit every ugly stereotype and went over the line of good taste. Every time she opened her mouth, something stupid and annoying came out, delivered with an insipidity that tore you out of the context every time. The story? Window dressing for car chases and martial arts against hordes of inexplicably unarmed goons.