Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights is inspired by, loosely based on or whatever you want to call it, the life of porn star John Holmes (at times, it even directly lifts dialogue from interviews with Holmes that appeared in a later documentary in which featured Anderson) . While the two are similar, it is more so a fictitious depiction of the lives of some folks in the porn industry during the 70s and 80s. It does have some true elements to it, such as the movement to get porn to convert from film to videotape. Ultimately, it is an examination of several people’s lives as they move in and out of the adult film world.

The main story of this film revolves around Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg), a 17 year old who works at a car wash by day and a nightclub at…well, night. Eddie believes that everyone has one special thing that they are blessed with. His special thing happens to be a penis that hangs around 13 inches or so. The particular nightclub that he works for, happens to be frequented by a porn director, Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds). Jack convinces Eddie to come to his home and ultimately audition for him by having sex with Rollergirl (Heather Graham). He changes his name to Dirk Diggler and as he becomes a star in the adult film world, much like a rock star, the more money he makes, the more ego, drugs and recklessness consume him. We witness an engrossing journey of a young man as he tries to handle the pressure of  fame and people’s fascination with large appendages.

In addition to this main story, the film is comprised of many vignettes that focus on the lives of other characters (porn actors/crew). Reed Rothchild (John C. Reilly) is a magician, Buck Swope (Don Cheadle)  wants to open an electronics store and struggles to find his identity, Little Bill (William H. Macy) is constantly walking in on his wife fucking someone else, and many other stories. While vignettes are naturally isolated, P.T.A. does quite an excellent job of wandering between the straightforward narrative in to a vignette and then back.

Every single person in this film is excellent. Everyone has a very natural, and at times almost improvisational delivery of their dialogue that is quite pleasing. John C. Reilly gives his best performance in this film. At his first appearance he does his “ham and cheese” routine but as the film progresses, he demonstrates that he is actually quite gifted beyond being a staple in an Adam McKay  project (although I am fine with that). In particular, there is a scene in which Dirk, Reed and their fellow drug addict Todd (Thomas Jane)  attempt to rob a drug dealer. All three of them are quite brilliant in this scene as they react to multiple nerve wracking occurrences.  There is a moment in which Wahlberg is staring off and the camera lingers on him for what seems like an eternity and there is absolutely no indication of what he is thinking about (although you can infer many things). It is just as hypnotic for the viewer as it seems to be for Diggler.

Anderson’s direction is very satisfying. He goes for the handheld camera and it works quite well, especially as we follow people from behind as they walk. His script is also filled with delightful subtleties that couples with the camera work, make it seem like a documentary rather than a scripted film.

I can’t really say a negative thing about this film. Puck would delight in that Julianne Moore is also in it, and her performance is just as great as everyone else’s. A truly brilliant film indeed.

I was going to write an opening paragraph along the lines that many women I know have proclaimed that The Adjustment Bureau is good movie. I figured I would just allude to it and move right along but only after making an off-hand statement that women have different tastes than I and this did not seem the type of film (Matt Damon and his alleged “hunkiness” notwithstanding) that the female subsect of society would be interested in. But that would make me seem like a mid-twentieth century pig. And I would be completely wrong as you can possibly surmise from the categories listed above.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with “romance” movies. They just are not designed with my sensibilities in mind. I can still objectively review them from a critical standpoint to determine if they are completely bland and unsurprisingly (not unlike Love and Other Drugs) or a remarkably decent story merely concocted around a lovey-dovey tale like this film. Written and directed by George Nolfi, the film is based on a Philip K. Dick short story called Adjustment Team. I have not read the story (this comes as a surprise?) thus I am not sure if the wishy-washy sentimentality was present in the original, or just filled in by the filmmakers to avoid the wrath of thousands of moviegoers conditioned to accept the lowest common denominator in stories, especially those regarding the L word.

At its core, The Adjustment Bureau is a fine film. Matt Damon is quite charismatic as David Norris, the young hotshot would-be senator from New York. As he works out his concession speech in despair over the crushing defeat, David meets Elise (Blunt) who turns his frown upside-down with an encouraging talk and a passionate kiss. She soon is chased out of the hotel by security but David cannot shake her from his thoughts. After a “chance” reunion a few weeks later, David gets her number but quickly loses it as he discovers that a secretive team of … something not human, apparently has fumbled and David was not supposed to see her ever again.

David is sat down by the bland-looking gentlemen of the titular organization for a bit of exposition. The men act as real-life choreographers, putting people in certain places with certain events set to occur to shape their subjects’ path through life. David responds by declaring that he has free will. One of the inconspicuously dressed men informs him that he is free to his choice of toothpaste or beverage but the real heavy lifting is left up to this group. They tell him to never reveal their identity to anyone else for fear of a “reboot,” essentially erasing his memories and personality. Well, that’s actually a pretty good definition of a reboot.

Expectedly, there is a lot of talk about free will and destiny. David is determined to prove he can shape his own life even with a bureaucracy attempting to prevent that. These are the same guys in suits who declare that their period of intervention brought the Renaissance and the Enlightenment while mankind flying solo crafted the Dark Ages and WWI. Really, all it stands to illustrate is that David is madly in love with Elise and will stop at nothing to be with her. So, essentially it boils down to just about every other damn love story I’ve seen, except this time with sci-fi elements! Damon and Blunt are great in their roles and fortunately exert a lot of chemistry in their scenes together. There is a lot of heartache for both characters during the film and their interactions sell that quite well. The suits in the Bureau are not necessarily menacing, only in a “man following orders” sort of way.

Without going into spoiler-y specifics, the film closes with a not-quite “happily ever after” sort of ending, but it is pretty darn close. It feels very cheesy and directed at the romantic-seeking audience base that the movie caters to (not the marketing though as I recall). It’s all well and good but the end almost negates all of the drama and conflict from the preceding 100 minutes or so in a syrupy-sweet way that struck me as odd. For his directorial debut, Nolfi does an admirable job crafting sympathetic characters in a movie that normally I would be less inclined to watch. He touched on some deep meanings about life and humanity but wasted those on a story not worthy of such depth.

What can I say? I am a glutton for courtroom dramas even though they seem to all end the same. Matthew McConaughey plays the titular lawyer who spends his time defending the less-than-innocent. If you took an episode of The Practice and bred it with an episode of Law & Order, I suspect this is pretty close to the outcome. Some of the twists in the story are okay, even if they are given away by the previews, but this ultimately seems like a by the book legal thriller. It doesn’t help that McConaughey’s presence invokes A Time to Kill, a much more effective drama. There is a lot of talent that goes untapped from William H. Macy to the still smokin’ Marisa Tomei but the story featuring the possibly guilty rich boy Ryan Phillippe is short on surprises, even though Phillippe seems to be trying to prove he is a real actor.

Strangers Online is excruciating. Watching it is like watching one of those Cinemax movies that come on at 2am, but actually trying to care for and follow the plot. Yes, this film should be nestled right between Sex Games: Vegas and The Bare Wench Project.

Much like my relationship with this film, Hollis Parker (Noel Palomaria) is trying to forget the memory and stop the nightmares of when his wife was murdered 4 years ago. Currently, he hosts a web show called Strangers Online. Guests call via their web cams for sexual and relationship advice, to show their bodies, or sometimes just to be plain weird. Hollis’s show is quite popular, as is he. Hollis is in therapy, as he is guilt ridden over not being able to protect his wife from being murdered. This is what leads to his nightmares. He lives in seclusion with his girlfriend, Laura (Eva Frajko). A new intern, Karen (Tara Killian) has quite a crush on Hollis, which develops into an unhealthy obsession. Laura also appears to have someone obsessing over her as well, and things just get completely boring from there.

This is just terrible. It is so incredibly boring. The funny thing is, it so boring that when a sex scene occurs, you are kind of jarred. If this were a porno, then the alternating scenes of uselessness and sex would make sense. But since this a terribly lifeless “erotic thriller,” it’s kind of like driving down a long highway staring at miles of trees, then seeing a field of cows. You get all excited at first because it’s not trees, but then you are like, “Ah who cares, it’s just cows.”

The audio was quite inconsistent. A lot of times you  can’t hear the actors, sometimes you can hear them very well. You can always hear the terrible music, however.

This film is also a liar by way of its categorization. It is nether erotic nor thrilling.  It just kind of sits there and presents random scenes of little to no interest, much like a screen saver that is a slideshow of someone else’s photo album.

There really is not much to say about this film. It’s not funny, not suspenseful, not erotic, not thought provoking and it does not contribute anything to American Cinema. So, there you go. It’s crap.

Well, this was not the movie I expected. Admittedly, I knew very little about this film prior to watching it other than it won a good amount of Australian Film Institute awards and even an Academy Award nomination for Jacki Weaver. I was thinking it to be a zoo-based comedy that also featured Guy Pearce but instead, writer and director David Michôd provides a thoughtful and powerful look at family, crime, and why mixing the two is bad business.

Seventeen-year-old Josh (James Frecheville) calls his grandmother to inform her of his mother’s untimely death after a heroin overdose. At least, once he can pull himself away from the Down Under equivalent of Deal or No Deal. Grandma Smurf (Weaver) takes Josh in and soon he is reunited with the uncles he has not seen for some time as Josh’s mother disapproved of the family. She had a point. Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), the oldest, is a has-been armed robber looking for a new trade. Craig (Sullivan Stapleton) is a manic and paranoid drug-dealer while the youngest Darren (Luke Ford) is a yes-man to the older two. Barry Brown (Joel Edgerton) manages the family’s “affairs” and Grandma Smurf mostly stays out of it but is certainly aware of the shenanigans and what-not going on.

In retaliation for the death of family friend, the brothers gun down two Melbourne cops and in turn have the full force of the law brought upon them. Detective Leckie (Pearce) takes a liking to Josh and attempts to extract him from a life of crime which causes strife in the family. Where some stories show the upside to a life of crime with women, drugs, and respect, Animal Kingdom shows this family entrenched in crime, but more in a blue-collar sense. There are no swanky condos or drawers full of money, only constant panic and worry about what is to come next.

If you go into this movie expecting Goodfellas on the Barbie, you will be disappointed. Instead of relying on gunfights or brutal beatings, the film almost skirts around the Hollywood-esque elements and sinks you into the minutiae of a life in crime. Since the bulk of the film then is in heated conversations or quiet musings, it is a good thing there is a strong cast to back it up. Weaver rightly received the most acclaim since her performance is quite exhausting to watch as she effortlessly bounces from bubbly, to mournful, to downright mean when called for. The rest of the lead actors are great as well with my favorites being the psychotic Mendelsohn or the suave demeanor of Edgerton.

The best thing about this movie is also, to some extent, it’s downfall. Given that this is primarily a drama with just a pinch of action now and again, there is a real possibility of a guy like me (though I’ve gotten better) becoming bored. Most of the time, this was not a problem since the way the story unfolded was quite unconventional, providing a lot of surprises even before the first half of the film had passed. But, a large amount of scenes in the final third of the movie feel unnecessary considering that any other movie would have ended long before. Again, the superb acting works wonders to distract you from this but even that cannot smooth out the very rocky pace of this movie.

Considering though that this was the debut for Michôd, he deserves much applause for the mostly engaging story and the wonderful performances he elicits from the actors.

When the 2010 Oscars were held, I had seen only two of the ten movies nominated. I did significantly better this year seeing nine before the ceremony. The one I didn’t get to: this year’s Titanic Effect victim, The King’s Speech. Early on it became abundantly clear that this film would sweep the award shows, potentially even in categories it wasn’t nominated for or ones that don’t exist yet. I figured I would let the dust settle and wait for DVD to see if I was watching The World’s Bestest Picture Ever!

The King’s Speech is the type of movie that I would normally never watch. I don’t understand the fascination with monarchy and period settings always tend to add another layer of dullness to an already suffering movie. I figured though, I should probably shoot for all ten movies this year since Precious and An Education are still unchecked from last year’s nominees. Not surprisingly, I found the movie good and certainly “uplifting” as many others have said countless times before. But best picture? No way.

Based on a true story, The King’s Speech focuses on Prince Albert (Colin Firth), the Duke of York, whose debilitating stutter causes much grief for himself and his father, King George V. After a number of failed treatments, his wife Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter) turns to Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), an Australian with an unconventional but effective method of treatment. Along the way, King George V dies and due to a scandal with his older brother, the Duke assumes the moniker of King George VI just as the rise of Hitler begins to give the world pause. That’s a skimpy summary but you can read the rest in a history book … or on Wikipedia.

Vanity Fair pointed out that The King’s Speech is not a very original movie, although the comparison to Karate Kid actually makes it a bit more tolerable. At the core, this type of film should be a slam-dunk: it’s a underdog story with Bertie (I like this better than the Duke of York) having to overcome great obstacles while trying to live up to his father’s expectations yet stuck in the shadows of his older brother. Actually, that reminds me a bit of another movie that year. Yet, it is hard to feel sympathy for a character who is born into royalty and ultimately is kind of a dick. His interactions with Lionel see-saw between cordial to asshole-ish as he pulls rank on the common man or yells about treason.

Sure, the acting is good. Firth plays Bertie with a good combination of meek and regal and has some wonderful exchanges, especially when heated about something (that happens quite frequently). Bonham Carter is background for a lot of the film but she typifies the caring and understanding wife who just so happens to be next in line for the title of Queen. I loved Geoffrey Rush though. Lionel was smart, sarcastic, witty, and just came off really well as grounded in reality. Of course, he was the main cast member without a throne but that is beside the point. The production was well done and effectively conveyed a sense of grandeur in the early twentieth century.

Overall, director Tom Hooper did an admirable job of getting me involved in a story that does not interest me in the least. While some of his choices of shot composition were questionable, the film looks and feels and sounds just like an Oscar winning picture should. Above all though, I would have been highly upset if the score by Alexandre Desplat had won an award as it was okay, yet totally generic like it was plucked from a $3 CD from the classical section of Barnes & Noble.

It might seem like I have a bias against this movie. The truth is I do. This is not a bad film in the slightest and one that is an important tale, not only for historical drama, but as a testament to anyone who has overcome a deficiency. But this was tailor-made for the Oscar gold and almost comes off as a paint-by-numbers pretentious WWII-ish film. Next time, get Geoffrey Rush in Inception Part 2: Ariande’s Revenge and I’ll be more willing.

Road Games bares a strong resemblance  to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, only this one is on the road. This makes sense as the film’s writer/director Richard Franklin was a Hitchcock fan, and even directed Psycho II. While not nearly as good as Rear Window, at least it was better than the “update” Disturbia that was vomited onto movie screens years later.

Patrick Quid (Stacey Keach) drives a truck (“Just because I drive a truck, doesn’t mean I’m a truck driver”) and wants nothing more than to check into a motel and get some rest. He receives a call over the radio that he is needed to make an emergency delivery of meat to Perth. He reluctantly agrees when offered double time. At a gas station he notices a female hitchhiker the he passed on the road, who was picked up by a man driving a green van. They apparently take the last room at the motel while Quid was talking on his radio and he is forced to sleep in the truck with his dingo. In the morning, Quid notices the driver of the van watching the garbage men picking up the motel trash from his window. He finds this mildly suspicious but starts the long drive to make his shipment. Quid passes his time talking to his dingo and commenting on the other people on the road. He passes a different hitchhiker and is eventually passed by the green van on the road. Quid notices a cooler in the front seat. Quid is “tricked” into picking up a hitchhiker, Madeleine who says her husband left her on the side of the road. As they are playing a game to pass the time, they come across a man digging on the side of the road. It is the driver of the green van, who flees when he sees that he is being watched. Quid begins to put together that he must have killed the hitchhiker, threw some of her body away and was just burying the rest. This scares Madeleine, who runs from Quid, almost falling off of a cliff. Quid has another encounter with the green van before picking up another hitchhiker, Pamela (Jamie Lee Curtis), whom he calls Hitch. The two of them discuss the killer in the area, which Quid now obviously thinks is the other driver. Quid and the driver have several other encounters with the driver and while he is incredibly suspicious, the signs begin to point to Quid as having something to do with the disappearances and killings. For example, he is pulled over by the police and told that his name was on the register at the hotel, and they know he checked in with the now missing hitchhiker. He is let go and the encounters continue until the exciting (?) conclusion of the film.

Much like the road (and possibly this review), the film drags for a long time. We get decent character development and plot exposition, but it’s presented in a fairly uninteresting way. Perhaps a better script could have made it a little more interesting, as the dialogue is pretty boring. Keach and Curtis turn in decent performances (especially Keach), but the lack of suspense or interesting conversation is distracting.  This is no spoiler, but we know right away that Quid is not the killer and clearly the driver of the green van is, so that saps the suspense right out of the film. I suppose we are supposed to be pulled in by the fact that Quid could clearly be mistaken for the killer, and this is handled in quite a clever fashion, but it still was not enough. It’s odd that such a fan of Hitchcock would fail at suspense.

I hate films like this. It’s directed fairly well for what it is, solid performances, but just plain boring. It’s kind of like winning a free lunch at a restaurant that requires you to sit through an hour long business presentation. The food is free and good, but you really aren’t interested in the presentation.

The (new!) Karate Kid stars Jackie Chan teaching Jaden Smith what is arguably not karate. Smith takes over for Ralph Macchio in the sunny vistas of China instead of SoCal with almost everything from the original present including the cute girlfriend, the mean thugs, and a slightly aloof teacher. It is a bit troublesome to see young boys punching and kicking like they are in Fight Club but this is a well-done movie with decent performances and a feel-good ending. It would have been better though with something other than the same feel-good ending from over twenty years ago.

Ben Affleck‘s first directing gig turned out pretty well, shocking many critics who had otherwise determined that his fame was fading. When The Town was coming out the question then became “can Affleck do it again or was Gone Baby Gone just a fluke?”

Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, the leader of a gang of professional bank robbers in the Boston suburb of Charlestown. Under the charge of Fergie the florist (Pete Postlethwaite), MacRay and his team take down banks, armored cars, and anything else with a large sum of money to be had. When friend Jim (Jeremy Renner) loses control during a job, beats a man, and takes bank manager Claire (Rebecca Hall) hostage, MacRay befriends Claire to see if she knows enough to turn them in. Now having started a relationship with Claire and under constant surveillance and pressure from FBI agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm), MacRay begins to consider leaving his life of crime behind.

The most interesting aspect of most heist movies can also be its biggest obstacle: the guys you want to root for are thieving, non-productive members of society. It is no different here as MacRay, Jim, and the other guys are not robbing banks to fight back against evil capitalists or to destroy a corrupt business but for plain ol’ greed. It can be difficult to root for a bunch of rapscallions that you normally are against. Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, Affleck also as co-screenwriter is able to balance the good and bad of the group off of the leads. Neither MacRay, Jim, or Frawley is shown in absolutes, but in shades of grey.

MacRay is set up closer to a tragic hero than a typical bank robber. He does what he does begrudgingly as a way of honoring his incarcerated father but also as a means to escape the stranglehold he sees on his life. He is a far more sympathetic character than even Frawley, who is honorable but is portrayed in less than admirable light. The conflict exists with the excitable Jim, played excellently by Renner who even earned an Academy Award nomination here, who takes personal offense to the notion that MacRay is looking to go legit. Jim takes on a lot of the unsavory deeds which means that as an audience, we are more apt to dislike him making MacRay look better in comparison.

This movie was my first viewing of anything with Hamm in it and all of the good things I’ve heard about him were manifested here. He certainly is not only a fine actor but has a commanding presence, even if his character is unjustly vilified. Affleck is no slouch either which proves the man can act as long as someone competent is directing a half decent story. The bit performances by Blake Lively, Chris Cooper, and Titus Welliver are similarly well-rounded even though I did not understand the point of Lively’s character. A large chunk of the movie rests on Hall when heists are not being planned or executed. While the gestation of MacRay and Claire’s relationship felt a bit rushed, it also felt genuine to inspire MacRay to clean up his act.

As for the heists, this movie has drawn favorable comparisons to Heat, only set in Boston. The jobs themselves are quick, well-planned and well-thought out. Affleck composes these sequences with a lot of energy and a lot of tension and in their midst, you forget that you are watching the bad guys steal other people’s money and get sucked in by the proceedings. This is altogether a different type of movie than Gone Baby Gone but it is masterfully created and tightly edited to make the over two hour runtime feel shortened. If this is the type of output we can expect from Affleck in the director’s chair, I would strongly advocate that he stick with that as opposed to the next Gigli or Daredevil.

The problem with basing a movie on something that actually happened is that most people are going to know how it ends. While most movies based on historical wars or other large scale events can get around this by focusing on unknown facets or personal stories of people who played minor roles in the grand scheme of things, how do you put any surprises in the story about one guy who had to amputate his own arm? Interestingly enough, director Danny Boyle found a way. Literally all I knew going in to 127 Hours is that a climber gets trapped by a rock and has to cut off an appendage to escape his eventual death. Strangely, this foreknowledge actually made the anticipation and the emotion of the film’s imminent climax all the more intense, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The film follows the novel ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ written by Aron Ralston, the mountaineer who survived the film’s central event in 2003. So that would make this the third time Ralston has experienced it, each time from a slightly different perspective. The film opens with a strange triptych of cycling images, most of which feature crowds of people moving through time-lapse photography. Soon, we focus in on Aron, played by James Franco, preparing for his weekend excursion in the darkness of night. The cinematography meticulously shows us just about everything Aron is taking with him, as well as a few items he leaves behind. After packing, and ignoring a phone call from his mother, Ralston drives out into the desert to Utah’s isolated Canyonlands National Park. Saturday begins with some mountain biking across the arid and rocky landscape as Ralston videotapes himself with a small digital camcorder. After a few hours, Aron leaves his bike behind and heads down a series of large rocks on foot, and runs into a pair of amateur hikers, who also happen to be cute girls and lost. Aron approaches Kristi (Kate Mara) and Megan (Amber Tamblyn) and offers to guide them through the canyon. He takes them through a narrow pass, informs them of the name of the canyon (Blue John Canyon) as well as it’s history as a hiding place for Butch Cassidy, and eventually leads them to a a large, underground pool. The group spends some time swimming and goofing off before parting ways. The girls invite Aron to a party later and give him some vague directions and tell him to look for a giant inflatable Scooby Doo to find the party.

After responding that he might go to the party, Aron heads off on his own, climbing through the canyon. While trying to lower himself down from the opening of the canyon, he puts his weight on a round rock that is a little larger than a beach ball and seems securely wedged into the surrounding formation. The rock gives way and tumbles down, along with Aron, to almost the bottom of the small canyon. Aron manages to catch himself, but the rock he accidentally pulled loose wedges itself between the narrow canyon walls and traps his right hand in the process. From this point on, we get to see an amazing series of events, all in one place and with a single actor holding up the entire story. One of the images from this film that will always stick with me is right after Aron is trapped and the initial freak out where he is smashing his shoulder into the boulder to try and shimmy it loose. Once he realizes that he is stuck, Aron begins to scream for help, calling for the two women with whom he had just been hiking. The camera looks down on Aron from above, and he throws his head back to yell. When he does, the view begins to lift out of the canyon, getting farther and farther away from him until the audience could no longer hear his cries, and all we could see was the vast and empty Utah landscape. This really hammered home a sense of isolation and hopelessness in a way that only a movie can. The real meat of the film consists of Aron’s efforts to free himself, keep track of his supplies and resources, wade through his thoughts memories that fade in and out between hallucinations, and even accept his inevitable fate, going so far as to carve his name, birth date, and death date into the canyon wall beside him and leave a far well message to his family via his digital camcorder. After the compressed six days, Aron does eventually find a way to liberate himself (and it is a traumatic series of images and sounds to absorb) but the best part of this film is Aron’s emotional journey between getting trapped and freeing himself, and Danny Boyle and James Franco do a brilliant job of bringing that struggle to life.