Be Kind Rewind

Starring: Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Melanie Diaz, and Mia Farrow

Written & Directed by: Michael Gondry

It is difficult upon first review to describe my feelings about this film. I saw the trailer a few months back and thought the premise, while somewhat unoriginal, could be a riot if done correctly and with Jack Black and Mos Def doing the Sweding (film term for making their own versions of popular movies, then claiming they came from Sweden so they were more expensive and had much longer wait times) I thought it couldn’t lose.

Well, it didn’t lose per se, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be either. I think the main problem of the film is that it doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be. It was marketed as a slapstick, absurd comedy, much like a young Adam Sandler flick…the kind of film that doesn’t really need any degree of realism because the audience will buy just about anything for the laughs. Be Kind Rewind is partially that, although the humor isn’t nearly as over the top as a film like that needs. The “Sweded” movies are pretty funny but they are overall tame.

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Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Starring: Ioan Gruffud, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, and the voice of Laurence Fishburne

Written by: Mark Frost and Don Payne (based on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s comic book)

Directed by: Tim Story

I have to admit I was underwhelmed by the first Fantastic Four film. It wasn’t horrible, it just didn’t grab me like many other superhero films did. So I came into this movie, not expecting much. I honestly think that’s the best way to go into most movies these days. When the credits rolled afterwards I didn’t hate it. I just didn’t love it.

Again this isn’t the be all and end all of comic book flicks, but it is competently done. The effects are decent, the storyline is pretty consistent, and the action is cool. What I liked most about this flick is it seemed the actors felt more comfortable in their roles this time around. The first film seemed like a warm up and now they were ready to don the spandex (or in Michael Chiklis’ case rock). With the comfort, came the sense that they had fun on this set, and fun in this story. It was a refreshing take on comic book movies which usually takes themselves very seriously.

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Vacancy

Starring: Luke Wilson, Kate Beckinsale, Frank Whaley, and Ethan Embry

Written by: Mark L. Smith

Directed by (and I kid you not): Nimrod Antal

I picked up Vacancy on DVD because I have to admit to being a horror/suspense junkie. Even bad horror usually ends up entertaining me and unlike some genres, I’ll almost always give a film in this genre a chance.

That being said, I can’t remember the last time I was so bored by a horror film. There is absolutely nothing new in this movie. It is as tired as Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale’s performances. At least Beckinsale’s character is on a zoloft cocktail so I can forgive her for acting spacey.

It starts out promising enough. Wilson and Beckinsale are a married couple heading for divorce. Their young child, Charlie died in an accident sometime back and it seems it all went downhill from there. If the filmmaker was being purposefully vague throughout the movie on both the relationship and about Charlie, than he certainly succeeded. It would be an interesting choice but it seemed more like sloppy writing than anything else. It didn’t let us fully connect with the characters and left us wanting more. This could have worked if he also chose to commit fully to another choice I’ll get into in a moment.

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“The Demon Hand”

As you can tell from the previous episode and more currently, the title of the episode, the central theme revolves around getting the severed hand of the Terminator back so it can be destroyed. There are three main plots that are weaved together but for simplicity I’ll take them apart and go through storyline by storyline.

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Just a quick note to say, I have been watching this series and I will go back to review 1.01 – 1.05 but I started taking notes during this episode so I’ll begin her for now. My quick and dirty overview on episodes 1-5 was that the show started off as a bad weekly rehash of Terminator 2 but that by the end of the third episode it had made enough strides to show potential. It’s not there yet, but it sparkled enough to keep me from eliminating it from the DVR.

1.06

“Dungeons and Dragons”

The main problem with time travel stories is that they need to be quick. In and out. Trying to maintain a series that’s major focus is about an apocalyptic future that keeps sending back robots to change or preserve the past inevitably will leave holes the size of Jupiter in the form of paradoxes that will make your head spin. It is the rare occasion that a show can hurt itself by revealing things the audience wants to know.

Case in point, one thing the movies were pretty careful about was depicting the future…or for the most part not depicting the future. We saw very little in that timeline. It left us wanting more, and able to fill in the blanks in our mind. It also didn’t give us any questions we’d want answered.
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