Review: The Grandmaster

Here's how little I knew about Ip Man going into The Grandmaster, the latest of many biopics about him: when I saw the Netflix Instant cover art for the film Ip Man, with the title in all caps, I guessed that it was a wry mockumentary about a superhero charged with enforcing copyrights by going after internet pirates around the world.

Of course, Ip Man was in fact a legendary Chinese martial artist (and Bruce Lee's teacher). And as The Grandmaster unfolded, I began to feel that it may be precisely the worst way to start learning about Ip Man. Partly, this is because the movie really should have been called The Grandmaster's Girlfriend.

Review: Deep Cover

A would-be West Coast Goodfellas, Deep Cover is a '90s crime drama informed by the Reagan/Bush years (specifically their darker side, and you'll note I didn't just say "dark" side, because then it's like "which one?"). Its political undertones don't really emerge until about an hour-plus in, and the degree to which they are unsuccessful is debatable. Whatever the case, they don't fully succeed, and the other plot points contribute to the sense that Deep Cover, whatever strengths it has, mostly misses the mark.

As the title implies, the protagonist cop (Laurence Fishburne) goes deep undercover to try and bring down a chain of coke dealers. Along the way he partners up with a lawyer (Jeff Goldblum) working for one of his targets, and the lines between crime and justice begin to blur, as they are oft wont to do. Before long he's facing down Latin American druglords and corrupt senators, though sadly without any McBain-esque one-liners or defenestrations.

Review: Hansel and Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft

Meet Fivel and Booboo Stewart, lead protagonists of Hansel and Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft. Fivel wants to be a screechy pop star, and performs the closing credits song. Booboo was born with an unfortunate condition that makes him look like every sullen '90s teen ever. (Yes, Fivel's the girl and Booboo's the boy. Don't ask me.) Wikipedia suggests one or both of them are actors, though judging by their commitment on-screen, the twins themselves could take it or leave it.

And David DeCoteau has a plan for them.

Review: Riddick

The new third Riddick movie (titled Riddick, as if it's an album or something) is in my view a step backward for the franchise, despite its effectiveness at pitting scary monsters against rough space thugs. I'm a real fan of the Riddick character and both of the previous films, but this new one is problematic, and the essence of its problems is that, in trying to be more like the first film and less like the second, the character's growth is stunted, and the stakes of the story with it.

Review: The Lives of Others

There must be some cosmic significance to the fact that Netflix sent me The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) just in time for me to watch it late yesterday, around the time that the latest, and gobsmackingest, NSA revelations came to light. It's just as well that I wasn't aware of the latter until this morning, otherwise I would've been curled up and sobbing midway through the movie.

The Lives of Others is an absolutely stellar drama and a good bit of evidence for fancy-pants cinema aesthetes to employ when making the argument (as they must at least want to from time to time) that foreign films are mostly better than American films. It's about the Stasi—so we're not exactly talking about light viewing. (Oh man am I glad I didn't put off watching it. Never coulda got through it tonight.)

Review: Goon

I don't care about sports—in some respects I actively dislike the entire concept, though I've been known to enjoy live baseball and hockey. Still, the thinking behind serious sports fandom eludes me. Perhaps the greatest compliment I can pay to the fun hockey comedy Goon is that it's one of those sports movies (alongside the similarly skillful Miracle) that makes the non-sports-fan really understand, if only for a moment.

Based on a real-life career, Goon stars Seann William Scott as Doug, a soft-spoken, good-natured lunkhead with modest aspirations—sort of a less imaginative Andy Dwyer. Except he sort of has a superpower.

Doug, as it turns out, can withstand—and dish out—superhuman amounts of physical punishment. He's therefore recruited by the Halifax Highlanders, a fictitious minor-league hockey team. This basic premise is an effective foundation for Goon to construct a comic sports tale that's surprisingly sweet considering its subject matter.

Review: Dredd

In Dredd, a futuristic cop/jury/executioner/JUDGE with the improbable name of Dredd takes a psychic rookie under his wing—and into a deadly fortress controlled by vicious killers who are somewhat reluctant to allow the judges to escape alive. Surrounded on all sides by death, they're about to discover that the only thing they can count on…is each other. And bullets. Thousands and thousands of bullets.

I'm by no means a comic book nerd, or even dilettante. This means that, though I've long been aware of Judge Dredd's graphic-novel origins, my personal understanding of the character is limited to the Stallone version and a few glimpses of the scowling comic version of Dredd. Casting-wise, Karl Urban's definitely an improvement; his scowl is more consistent and believable than Stallone's…pout? grimace? Let's just say "Stallone-face."

Review: A Talking Cat!?!

I…

That w…

Why d…

I don't know where to begin.

A Talking Cat!?! (presumably available on Netflix Instant only because Netflix has a demonstrated sense of humor) is a kid's movie about a cat whose unexplained ability to talk "brings two families together" and somehow solves the problems of its entire six-person cast, headed by the over-the-hill neighbor duo of Phil and Susan. Its budget is only exceeded in thinness by its screenwriting, directing, "99 Discount Movie Background Music Tracks" score, and entire concept. It's not hyperbole to say this may be the worst film I've ever seen. And, as you should know by now, I've seen some doozies.

Days of Future Past

I just watched the Deep Space Nine two-parter "Past Tense" again recently. Though it's not DS9 at its very best, and it's preachy even for Star Trek, it's always affecting—and it seems like every time I watch it, it becomes more plausible.

I'm not referring, of course, to the "chroniton envelope isolating the Defiant from the changes to the timeline" business, or even the idea of "changes to the timeline" making sense. If time travel is possible, nobody but the time travelers would ever perceive "changes to the timeline," because the act of traveling into the past would spawn divergent timelines that cannot be re-merged, but instead only be made to seem identical…but that's a discussion for another time. (Maybe when I finally get around to watching Primer, that can be part of my review.)

No, the plausible part is all the 2024 Sanctuary District stuff. The last time I watched "Past Tense" was probably four or five years ago, and what felt plausible then is no less so now:

"It's not that they don't give a damn, Doctor. It's that they've given up. The social problems facing them seem too enormous to deal with." - Sisko

"We had to cancel our trip to the Alps this year because of the student protests in France." - the female party guest

"Jobs. You guys want jobs? When are you going to figure it out? There are no jobs! Not for us, anyway." - B.C.

Review: Oz: The Great and Powerful

It seems, based on passing mentions of him here and there, that the James Franco backlash is well underway. I thought he was likable and pleasant in the few things I've seen him in (obviously I haven't seen Spring Breakers), and I'd include Oz: The Great and Powerful on that list too; he's essentially the one consistently above-average factor in this mostly mediocre Huge Disney Event. So whatever the backlash is due to, I'd be mildly surprised if it was his acting.

That's not to say Franco is perfect for the role of the Wizard. He's charming and invested, and though the CG sidekicks' voice acting was solid, none of the other human cast did nearly as well as Franco at reacting plausibly to the fantastical goings-on. That said, Franco's "carnival showman" persona feels forced—which may have been intentional, but an actor with a little more genuine power and menace would have suited the character better, especially near the end. Franco also speaks and behaves in too modern a fashion, which I wouldn't mind if it wasn't so obvious that Oz is trying to directly act as both prequel and homage to The Wizard of Oz. Surely some young actors somewhere are capable of '30s-style speech and acting—but perhaps not the most marketable young actors.

Review: Miami Connection

I have a standard operating procedure when confronted with a film so astoundingly, unforgettably inept that it is destined for a special place in my heart. I refer to the likes of Birdemic, The Room, Teen-Age Strangler, or The Beast of Yucca Flats—a film I adore so much I've created a second Twitter account in its honor. That procedure is to ask myself, not in sarcastic bafflement (though there's that, too), "How/why did this get made?" I often feel that I can't fully evaluate a cinematic turd until I've been able to come up with at least a plausible answer to this question.

In the case of the preceding examples, the answers are (in order) "somebody thought he was both Hitchcock and Al Gore"; "somebody wanted to get aspiring naked actress flesh all over him"; "a small town thought they could come together and make a swell picture just as well as Hollywood"; and, well, "I'm Coleman Francis; I don't need a reason."

Which brings us to the glory and the power that is 1987's musical-action spectacular, Miami Connection.

Imagine a Miami where rival synth-pop bands, vying for the choice gig at a particular club, enlist cocaine-funded motorcycle ninjas and gangs full of Mad Max extras to assault one another seemingly at random.

(Did I have you at "motorcycle ninjas"? Maybe skip to the end, then. Otherwise, stay with me.)

Review: The Whistleblower

The roughest of the many rough scenes in The Whistleblower takes place in the dungeon-like back room of a Bosnian sex traffickers' bar, where trafficked women are forced to watch as one of their number, who took the chance of talking to UN authorities and wound up recaptured, is viciously assaulted as an example to the others.

I mention this off the top because The Whistleblower is based on a true story, and that, combined with how rough it gets, may challenge some viewers' capacity to handle the movie. Those who can, and who are patient with a slow build, will find it a gripping and harsh look at a terrifying world, not unlike a particularly uncompromising episode of Law & Order: SVU.

Like other fictionalized versions of true stories, I have to guess that The Whistleblower would seem less striking to viewers who know the ins and outs of the true story. I'd never even heard of Kathryn Bolkovac, though, which meant I was soon absorbed—wondering exactly how the titular whistle would be blown (and by the way, um, spoiler alert, movie?) and at what cost. Throughout, the plot points remain realistic enough that you come away from this movie feeling like Taken just never should have even been made. (Though Taken is, admittedly, more fun.)