Med City Movie Guy

Oskar Schindler as an action hero? It works: Liam Neeson is fetching in ‘Taken’

Liam Neeson’s latest thriller takes the Oscar-nominee to the dark side of the European underworld, where we learn that what goes on behind closed doors is rarely as innocuous as a meeting between the Department of Justice and Rochester city leaders to discuss “verbal abuse.”

     Covert government operative Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) has just retired to move closer to his teenage daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and his timing couldn’t be worse: Kim’s just told him that she wants to move to Paris with a friend. Mills’ experience, and his gut, tell him that it’s a bad idea, but he reluctantly agrees with a few conditions, one of which is a daily phone call. On arrival, though, the teen, oblivious to the consequences of her naivety, doesn’t call. Kim’s been abducted by an international organization and Mills must use all of his Black Op prowess (and unfortunately none of Jedi Master Qui-Gon’s) to track his daughter’s captors and rescue her.
     Taken is a ninety-one minute thrill ride. It’s fast and intense, but it’s not for everyone. For example, one of the “spotters” who engages vulnerable girls at the airport has a rather unfortunate meeting with the front grille of a speeding truck – an incredible “gasp” moment that is as shocking as it is satisfying ... for those that appreciate that sort of “comeuppance,” anyway.
     Neeson is exquisite as the even-keeled father whose job has made him “not paranoid, but aware” and though he’s about as far from Oskar Schindler as may be humanly possible, he emotes a protective hero aura that is paradoxically similar as he navigates the dark and gritty side of Europe necessarily racking-up a high body count along the way.
     Taken "took" the number one spot this week grossing almost four times as much as co-release New in Town. Perhaps that’s because the Renee Zellweger / Harry Connick Jr. film was advertised as Minnesota-faire but actually shot in Winnipeg (New Ulm, indeed!). But more likely it’s because audiences enjoy a good thriller where the bad guys get theirs in the end (or in the back, as the case may be).
     Neeson’s is one of the best of the kidnap-genre which apparently permits only one release per decade (e.g., Mel Gibson’s Ransom in 1996 and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Commando in 1985). View the trailer and you’ll be Taken, too.

3 Honks

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, disturbing thematic material, sexual content, some drug references and language.

View the trailer here: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809834197/trailer.

And see what else the Med City Movie Guy is up to here:
http://postbulletin.typepad.com/med_city_movie_guy/2008/08/shameless-self.html..

.

 

‘Inkheart’ goes to the well once too often

In the new fantasy/adventure film, Inkheart, Brendan Fraser plays a man with the unique ability to bring to life the characters from books that he reads aloud. Now it all makes sense ... the guy at Barnes & Noble ... with the dozen red roses and the bottle of Chianti ... reading that Marilyn Monroe biography...

     Mortimer Folchart (Fraser) did a bad thing a long time ago. He read to his young daughter, Meggie. What he didn’t know at the time was that he is a Silvertongue who can bring to life a character from any book read aloud while sending another in their place. That night, Folchart’s wife Resa (Sienna Guillory) disappeared into the pages of 'Inkheart' and the book’s antagonist, Capricorn (Lord of the Rings Gollum Andy Serkis), came to life. Now Folchart must scour the world’s secondhand bookshops for a copy of the rare tome so that he may bring back his wife. Unfortunately, Capricorn rather likes modern life and will do what he can to stop Folchart. To keep this status quo, Capricorn reunites his band of ne'er-do-wells thanks to the oration of another Silvertongue named Darius (John Thomson) whose speech-impediment brings the miscreants out something less than whole. And the adventure begins.
     The story is based on German author Cornelia Funke’s successful ‘Inkworld’ trilogy but is ill-timed in its release. After a disappointing suite of foreboding fantasy films like City of Ember and Delgo, Inkheart comes off as just another entry in a played-out genre. Brendan Fraser, who peaked a decade ago with the 1999 films The Mummy and Blast from the Past has grown stale, as well, playing, essentially, the same character he gave us in his 2008 films The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Journey to the Center of the Earth. With the exception of Andy Serkis as the deliciously evil Capricorn, the rest of the supporting case is equally uninspiring: Eliza Bennett as Folchart’s daughter, Helen Mirren as his aunt, and Paul Bettany as ‘Dustfinger’ the fire juggler.
     Some underplayed characters (for instance, the stable of cast-aside creatures including the flying monkeys from ‘The Wizard of Oz’) and some of whom we get too much (like Farid from ‘Tales of the Arabian Nights’) help bolster Folchart’s mantra that “the written word is a powerful thing.”
     Yes, we get that, but what does it say when that power is squandered and the high point of a writer’s adaptation is the villain’s articulation of “duct tape.”

1 1/2 Honks
MPAA Rating: PG for fantasy adventure action, some scary moments and brief language

see what else the Med City Movie Guy is up to here:
http://postbulletin.typepad.com/med_city_movie_guy/2008/08/shameless-self.html..

.

“Mall Cop” is an arresting comedy

In the new comedy from TV’s “King of Queens,” Kevin James plays a portly guard at a shopping center who answers the question: exactly what does the Apache Mall security detail do besides rousting teenagers out of those massage chairs in front of Things Remembered?

     Though Paul Blart’s hypoglycemia, and his girth, consistently prevent graduation from the New Jersey State Police Academy, his resolve is never shaken. Between attempts, he patrols the corridors of the local mall on a zippy little Segway scooter that he maneuvers with Baryshnikov-like grace and skill, taking his constabulary duties perhaps a little too seriously. Or so one might have said before “Black Friday” at the West Orange Pavilion which we learn is not only the busiest day for shoppers, but also for thieves.
     While briefly covering for a video arcade owner, Blart is caught-up in a game of “Guitar Hero,” oblivious to the fact that the mall is being overrun by a gang who are bent on acquiring the merchant credit card codes necessary to abscond with the day’s receipts. Armed with a borrowed cell phone and everything he has been trained to do (which is absolutely “nothing,” he laments) Blart becomes the “man inside” complementing, or more accurately, compensating for, the SWAT team idled outside. Of course, he saves the day and gets the girl (Jayma Mays), but there are still some surprises, for instance, how good he looks with a hair extension.
     Paul Blart: Mall Cop opened in the #1 spot, besting the gross of even the more heavily-hyped Hotel for Dogs, and it’s easy to see why. Mall Cop is that rare PG movie that everyone can see, and everyone can enjoy ... together. And most importantly, it works.
     Kevin James is brilliant as Paul Blart and seems to actually channel John Candy’s pathos (think Del Griffith of Planes, Trains and Automobiles); but with the exception of Adhir Kalyan, whose hysterical character “Pahud” has Blart’s cell on speed dial and thinks he’s phoning his ex-girlfriend, the rest of the cast is unremarkable. James’ real co-star is the smart parody of films like Die Hard (“Yippee-Ki-Yay, Mr. Bulky!”) and First Blood. The latter send-up is particularly entertaining as Blart hides in the “jungle” of the mall’s Rainforest Café picking-off the bad guys one by one -- at one point field-dressing a wound by carefully applying a Hello Kitty bandage. OK, it may not be as dramatic as John Rambo suturing himself, but it’s funny.
     And so is the rest of the film.

 

3 Honks

MPAA Rating: PG for some violence, mild crude and suggestive humor, and language.

... see what else Chris Miksanek (a/k/a The Med City Movie Guy) is up to here: http://postbulletin.typepad.com/med_city_movie_guy/2008/08/shameless-self.html.

.

Eastwood is Gran'd in "Torino"

Quite possibly the best film ever made; will leave you speechless.

 
  
4 Honks
MPAA Rating: R for language throughout and some violence.

     What did you think?

 

The force is not with “Bride Wars”

In the new girls-night-out comedy Bride Wars, Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway are childhood friends who dream of a traditional storybook wedding. Memo to guys who think they know what that means:  bumming a few bucks from your Best Man to buy a pastel tux at Savers does not constitute “something borrowed, something blue.”

     For Liv and Emma, the only thing better than finding the perfect mate is finding the perfect venue -- and the perfect shoes, and the perfect flowers, and the perfect music and the perfect gown – because a wedding at the Plaza has been a dream of theirs since they were little girls practicing nuptials in their attic. But when famed wedding planner Marion St. Claire (Candice Bergen) inadvertently double-books them and neither bride is willing to compromise, their friendship is tossed like a bouquet with each setting-out to sabotage the other’s event. Emma, for instance, contaminates Liv’s hair dye and subscribes her to the irresistible “International Butter Club” to size her out of her Vera Wang. Liv responds in-kind by tweaking Emma’s spray-on tan color and surreptitiously swapping her waltz instructor with an eccentric who shows her all the wrong moves.
     Things eventually come to a head, but not before moviegoers realize this film has little to offer them in the way of genuine entertainment. Mideast instability and the looming economic meltdown notwithstanding, marriage ought to be one of the highest priorities in your life, but Bride Wars takes it to the absurd by substituting simple gags for a decent story and the character development found, for example, in the more charming Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore classic date film The Wedding Singer.
     Kate Hudson (Almost Famous, Fool’s Gold) and Anne Hathaway (The Princess Diaries, Ella Enchanted and the Med City Movie Guy’s 2008 favorite Get Smart) do an adequate job with this story by Greg de Paul who also penned the magnitudes-more-entertaining 2001 film, Saving Silverman, which starred Jason Biggs and Steve Zahn. Candice Bergen, long past her prime, is no joy whatsoever and grooms Chris Pratt and Steve Howey (Fletcher and Daniel) are little more than props. Only Kristen Johnston, from TV’s “3rd Rock From the Sun,” stands out as Emma’s boozing Maid of Honor, Deb..

2 Honks
MPAA Rating: PG for suggestive content, language and some rude behavior.

... see what else the Med City Movie Guy is up to here:
http://postbulletin.typepad.com/med_city_movie_guy/2008/08/shameless-self.html..

.

.

Hoffman get’s the benefit of “Doubt”

In Meryl Streep’s latest film, Doubt, the Academy Award-winning actress plays a nun who, with no evidence whatsoever, casts aspersions on the credibility of a local priest. The film was originally titled “What Norm Coleman’s campaign is doing to Al Franken’s victory” until dozens of heavily-Democratic precincts reported more votes than there were actual voters.

     In what many local moviegoers agree is one of the most authentic depictions of the 1960’s Catholic school experience, Streep is Sister Aloysius Beauvier, the principal of St. Nicholas school in the Bronx. With abject suspicion and a quick ruler, justice is never delayed among the flock she tends, though she is as protective of the children as she is outraged by them — chiding their use of ballpoint pens as “lazy” and their Smith Brothers cough drops as “candy by another name.”
     After a curious sermon by charismatic parish priest Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), Sister Aloysius instructs her staff to be on the watch for inappropriate activity. To be sure, in a time when the church is transitioning from a hierarchical model to one that is more interpersonal, it’s easy to construe impropriety from the compassion Fr. Flynn shows to an outcast student named Donald Miller (Joseph Foster). Young Sister James (Amy Adams), the sole witness, adds to the confusion by waffling between concern and admiration. But for Sister Aloysius, pessimism is a hard habit to break and armed with only her “moral certainty” she’s fixed on having the prelate removed.
     Doubt is based on an off-Broadway play by John Patrick Shanley who also wrote and directed the film. Philip Seymour Hoffman, who took home an Oscar for his 2005 portrayal of Truman Capote, is a brilliant choice for the engaging priest who also serves as a coach and spiritual advisor to the boys. Amy Adams, best known to some as Giselle in Disney’s Enchanted and to others as Katy, the purse saleswoman in NBC’s “The Office”, is believable as the “dangerously naïve” Sister James. Streep, however, as a frumpish Catholic school principal, doesn’t hold a sacramental candle to Rosalind Russell in The Trouble With Angels but does an adequate job none-the-less.
     This is a magnificently intense drama, thankfully absent of salaciousness, that will leave you with doubts about Flynn’s guilt but won’t leave you wondering about the underlying paradox that it’s easier to ruin a man with gossip than to convict him with evidence.

3 Honks

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic material..

... see what else Chris Miksanek (a/k/a The Med City Movie Guy) is up to here: http://postbulletin.typepad.com/med_city_movie_guy/2008/08/shameless-self.html.

.

.