WHIP IT

At the first time at bat, some people strike out and others knock it out of the park. In her directorial debut, Drew Barrymore's WHIP IT is a solid home run.

Juno's Ellen Page stars in this story of a 17 year old girl lost in the world of beauty pageants, high school, and small town life. A bohemian struggling to fit into her parents (specifically her mother's) expectations of her. She waits tables at a BBQ joint where the popular kids stiff her on tips. Whilst on a shopping trip to Austin she hears about a roller derby exhibation match between the worst team, lead by Saturday Night Live's Kristen Wiig, and the 2 time undefeated defending champions, lead by Juliette Lewis. Page's Bliss is intrigued b the sport and when she hears about open try outs, she breaks out the Barbie skates and goes. The rest is well your standard "losers" sports story. But one that deals with things with a light touch and a sweet message.

Supporting Page is a bevy of beauties and character actors. Stunt woman and Death Proof star Zoe Bell, director Barrymore, and rapper Eve are teammates and Owen Wilson's big brother Andrew is her coach. Daniel Stern and Marcia Gay Harding are her parents. Jimmy Fallon shows up almost unrecognizable.

Barrymore directs with a sure hand, balancing the action Roller Derby scenes and the light comedy and romance. The standard third act emotional scenes are also handled well. This is territory she knows well, 10 years ago she would have starred in this movie.

This is a good, solid, heartwarming film about finding you niche in life and following through, and believing that your friends and family will follow you.

WHIP IT hits DVD and BLU-RAY on January 26, 2010.

AVATAR

When you've been following and hearing about a movie for 12 years (like many of us have) you tend to go in with expectations. I remember seeing the first images of the Na'vi, I remember the casting decisions, I remember reading about people reading and their reactions to the scriptment. and I remember thinking, "this is either going to be amazing or a huge dissapointment" I don't think there would be any middle ground with Avatar.

I was not dissapointed.

On the hour long drive home while discussing this with friends, I made the following point "James Cameron is a storyteller as opposed to a filmmaker. Storytellers often take a familiar story and add their own twist to it." That is what I think Cameron has done here. He pulls a little bit from lots of different stories to create a tapestry. You can lean forward and pull out a magnifying glass and look and examine a tapestry and see all the little threads OR you can take a few steps back and look at the amazing story unfolding before you that is beautiful and amazing. Yes one can see the basic outline of the "aggressor goes native" story here (see movies such as Dances with Wolves or A Man Called Horse. If you look closer you can see elements drawn from other science fiction ,from Poul Anderson (his short story Call Me Joe shares some striking resemblances, he also wrote a novel called The Avatar) and Robert Heinlein, or from Star Wars or various animes. Added to the mix is a healthy dose of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness,The Bible and Jewish history (personally I was reminded of the Jewish stand against the Romans at Masada), and Native American and African ceremonies, mythologies, and beliefs. All togather they compile a story that is engaging. I cared about the characters and wanted to know what happened to them. I cheered when they fought back with massive bows and arrows and massive flying dragon beasts.

The acting at times was wooden but at other times amazing. I honestly forgot I was watching Zoe Saldena, CCH Pounder, and Wes Studi as the Na'vi. Sam Worthington was alot better then I expected after his performance in Terminator Salvation. Sigounary Weaver was really good. And as broadly drawn as Stephen Lang and Giovanni Ribisi were, they sold it.

The Visuals are a thing to behold. Much like Kenneth Branagh used 70mm to give his Hamlet scope and an epic feel, Cameron uses the 3D technology like few have before. Yes there are a few "pop out" moments but mostly it's used to give depth and scope and scale to a world that came out of his imagination and a computer (or 2 or 3...thousand). Pandora really is unlike any movie I've seen before. Star Wars you look at Tatoonie and you see desert or you look at Endor and you see forest. Pandora is unlike any of that. A Gas Giant hangs almost omnipresent in the sky, plants illuminate or revert into the ground upon touch, animals soar or run or crash. And it's all, well this seems to be my theme for this review, amazing.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I'm a big fan of musicals, have been ever since doing my first one (Tom Sawyer) in the 8th grade. I love watching them, I love being in them. That said, I was only mildly familiar with Stephen Sondheim's take on the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street". All I really knew was he was a barber who killed people and a lady made the flesh into meat pies.

And that is the basic story, butt here is much, much more to this story and this may have easily propelled itself to the top of my list of favorite musicals, surely at the top of my favorite film adaptions of musicals.

Yes it's gruesome but it's also tragic with a great heartbreaking ending.

Tim Burton is back in great form directing this macabre tale. From the opening animation of blood to the final fiery conclusion.

And the acting, across the board from Johnny Depp to Helena Bonham Carter to Alan Rickman, are suburb. And the supporting roles are great too. In addition to the two Slythirans from the Harry Potter movies (Carter and Rickman), Timothy Spall (Peter Petigrew in the Potter films) is a pleasant surprise. Sasha Baron Cohen has a small supporting role that he relishes in. And as in any musical adaption, you have to critique the musical performances, which are great. Depp, who has a musical background in rock, really surprised me. I knew he could sing, but I didn't know if he'd be able to pull off Sondheim's complicated music, he did. Alan Rickman is a force of nature, and his few musical numbers are very well done. Carter is also really good, able to sing and bake pies and kills bugs all at the same time. It's a complicated role and she pulls it off.

I said it before and I'll say it again, this film is bloody. The blood flows freely and often. From the opening credit sequence to the closing scene.

Overall a great and enjoyable movie.

Scarlet Diva

I should have have seen the warning flag when director Asia Argento appeared before the film started and said that "you may have heard bad things about this film, but don't believe it, this movie is about redemption"

wow, this movie wasn't bad because of the sexuality or the drug use or the utter despicable lead character. No this movie was bad because it was an incoherent mess. She cut many scenes too short or held on too long on others. The photography was beautiful though.

The story, supposedly semi-autobiographical, I couldn't get into. I didn't care for the lead character, she gave me no reason to sympathize with her, nor did she draw me into her story. To me she was a spoiled rotten little kid who was given lots of chances and lucked out on many things yet continued to spiral into destruction. I also couldn't tell you how many times she was raped or almost raped. After awhile it was almost desensitizing. Really what it seemed like were incomplete snapshots of this persons life without any real connecting thread or a plot. This past weekend I saw a short horror film from some High School students that did the same thing, it was nothing really but scenes without a connecting thread of a plot.

With the acting most of it was over the top, but I did enjoy Schooly D's extended cameo/small role as the "Hash Man". The actor playing the sleazeball Hollywood producer looked like a rejected UFC fighter turned porn star.

I see what Asia was trying to do, but ultimately couldn't do. Either that or I'm so uneducated in Italian cinema that I just didn't "get" it.

Zack and Miri make a Porno

I've been a Kevin Smith since first seeing Clerks in the mid 90s. I've introduced his world to many friends, who have in turn introduced them to friends of their own. I was nervous going into this. Few of his stock company were going to be in it. he was working with a new actors, and getting away from his usual New Jersey location.

And it was a good thing he did. This may be his most adult film to date and certainly his most adult since Chasing Amy and by that I don't mean the use of frontal male and female nudity, the simulated porn style sex, etc. Those elements are certainly there for sure, but that's not what makes it adult, what makes it adult is the themes he is dealing with.

Lifelong friends Zack (Seth Rogan) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are lazy adults. They live in a run down apartment, they live paycheck to paycheck, chosing to spend their money on things like ice skates (for hockey playing Zack) or sex toys (for Miri). After their power and water are shut off and no money, they feel they must resort to the drastic measure of making a porn (inspired by their, now gay, HS quaterback (Brandon Routh) and his porn star companion (Justin Long) ).

So they get some financing from a co-worker (The Office's Craig Robinson), find a cameraman (Smith regular Jeff Anderson), and stars (Smith regular Jason Mewes, former porn star and Jon Waters regular Traci Lords, and porn star Katie Morgan). And they make a porno. But things don't go as planned.

This movie is filthy, filthy filthy. But also sweet and heartwarming and touching. It's not for everyone, and there will be people who hate it, but I loved it.

THE ROAD TO PERDITION

I saw this when it first came out but decided, after Newman's passing away, that I wanted to watch it again. I had forgotten how good this movie really is, I mean I knew it was good but I'm just taken back how good it is.

I'm not going to go much into the story but I will say that Paul Newman plays a mob under boss (under Capone--Anthony Paglia in an cut scene found on the DVD) and Tom Hanks and Daniel Craig as his adopted son and birth son respectively.

Everything is going good until Tom Hanks kid sees them kill someone, then everything goes bad. Lots of people get killed, banks get robbed. Jude Law and Daniel Craig try to kill Hanks, Hanks goes after them.

The acting is great across the board, I had forgotten it was Craig in this role as Newman's kinda weak son and he's really good, but the movie really belongs to Newman, who beats on Craig in one scene that's oddly disturbing and moving at the same time, and to Hanks.

The kid playing Hanks kid isn't annoying, but isn't some outstanding kid actor. The rest of the supporting cast is good too. Stanley Tucci, as always, is good. Dylan Baker was good too, but I wasn't sure if he was supposed to come across as a homosexual or not. Jennifer Jason Leigh was good in her small role.

Conrad Hall did a marvelous job with how he shot this. Mendes did a nice job with the direction.

This may be my 2nd favorite MODERN gangster film

THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL

This is a classic, Robert Wise directed film about the dangers of atomic weapons, war, and violence.

We start off with various reports (from the commentary track, real announcers) from around the world talking about a spaceship approaching earth. They assure the world that this is very real, not a hoax, to be patient and see what happens. I loved that they used real broadcasters as it gave it a nice air of authenticity.

So this spacecraft lands in DC and the military and tourists surround it. The door opens and a man steps out and tries to assure those there that he is peaceful but ends up getting shot. He is taken to the hospital, treated and using stuff from his own home planet, recovers. He tells the government that he needs to meet with ALL the leaders of the world, by calling a special session of the UN, but no one will agree to the location. They try and trap him, but he gets out and assumes the name "Mr. Carpenter" and takes in at a boarding house in DC. There he befriends a young boy and his mother and gets in touch with a professor. The professor arranges a meeting with various leaders but the government finds Klatuu (aka Mr. Carpenter) through the mom's asshole boyfriend. The alien gets shot, is brought back to life thanks to his giant tank killing robot, Gort. He warns the people that they need to settle themselves or they will be punished.

Great freaking movie and still timely in our times.

The acting was great especially from British actor Micheal Rennie. He brings a real subtle humanity to the role, but also a great alien quality. His scene in Arlington Cemetery is fantastic.

This is a timeless movie that must be seen.