[Film Review] Greenberg (2010)

Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg is a low key, intimate character study centering around Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller). Greenberg, as we quickly find out, was recently released from a mental health facility and is taking up to living in his brother’s house while he travels to Vietnam with his family. Greenberg soon sparks a relationship with his brother’s assistant Florence, and their relationship is pretty touch and go to say the least.

The relationship between Roger and Florence is actually quite palpable almost immediately. There is an awkward tension between them, but they’re both in the right frame of mind for a quick hook up it seems. Except while Roger wants to do nothing and be connected to no one, Florence seems to yearn for a constant connection with anyone and to fill her life doing task after task for Roger’s brother. Their lives overlap in a very unique and very true way.

Ben Stiller gives one of the finest performances of his career. It’s nothing like he’s done before, and is very subdued. Stiller’s main asset is great timing, and Greenberg himself has a good deal of fantastic lines. He’s a very moody guy who seems to focus on the minutia of life, and almost everything seems to bother him. It’s a very, very realistic character. He’s narcissistic and always in his own head. He rarely lets things go. But there is an air of humanity embedded in him that makes him a sympathetic character. He’s not tremendously “likable,” if that were a legitimate argument for disliking the film as whole, but he’s human. He’s obviously sorting through things in his life, and trying to embrace a new Roger Greenberg.

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[Movie Review] Deadgirl (2008)

Zombie movies are for many, myself included, their very own genre of film. You’ve got horror films, thrillers, suspense, and many different variations of the scary movie. Separated from all of them by category is the Zombie movie. It’s something that’s had many different takes by many different writers and directors, lead in quality and execution by the legendary George A. Romero, director and screenwriter of the “of the Dead” series of films — Night, Dawn, Day, Land, Diary and Survival — all of which serve as the basic building blocks for any Zombie movie that hopes to reach anything higher than garbage.

And still, despite being around since the premier of White Zombie in 1932 and popularized to peak heights with the release of Night of the Living Dead in 1968, some directors are finding new and unique takes on the zombie movie genre. Case in point – Deadgirl. It is certainly a zombie film, but unlike any I’ve ever seen. No hoards of living dead, very little flesh consumption, no head shots, and no apocalypse. What does Deadgirl offer instead? Zombie sex. And lots of it.

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[Film Review] The Bounty Hunter

Quite simply, The Bounty Hunter sucks. Everyone knows why I make myself watch this crap, but it doesn’t make it any easier.

Like most failed chick flicks, The Bounty Hunter is trying to juggle way more than it’s capable of. Amidst the central relationship between Nicole and Milo, there are peripheral goings-on that really doom the movie right from the start. Nicole (Jennifer Aniston) is a reporter investigating a suspicious murder within the New York City Police Department. She herself was recently arrested, but we don’t find out exactly why until the last fifteen minutes of the movie. The “big reveal” isn’t worth it at all. It’s just like the rest of the movie. Lame, lame, lame.

Milo (Gerard Butler) is a former detective who was fired from the department and turned to bounty hunting. So he has a stake in uncovering that one of his best friends and ex-partner is innocent. He’s given the opportunity to track down his ex-wife and bring her in for a $5,000 reward, and jumps at the chance. A flimsy plot, yes, but it could have possibly worked on at least a mediocre level. But it never does. This is almost entirely because every single character (except for one) is severely unlikeable.

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[Film Review] Inception *NO MAJOR SPOILERS*

“Are you watching closely?”

I might be borrowing a line from Christopher Nolan’s last non-Batman film The Prestige, but that dialogue applies to this film as well. You will watch closely for about two and a half hours, and if you give your imagination up, Nolan and Company will whisk you away on one of the finest cinematic journeys ever brought to the screen.

Every two or three years, Christopher Nolan graces our local cinemas with his latest movie. And every two or three years, Christopher Nolan crafts the best movie of that particular year. He is, without question, the most reliable director working today, and not because he just makes good movies. Plenty of directors make good movies. Some of them even flirt with greatness. But Nolan elevates himself above words like “great” and “amazing”, and instead deserves praise like “Film God” and “Movie Genius”.

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[TV News] Is Beavis and Butt-Head set to return to MTV?

Courtesy: NY Post

In news that excites me beyond belief, it’s being reported that Mike Judge is scheduled to bring his beloved buffoons back to MTV for a multiple episode run. Reports indicate that Beavis and Butt-Head will stay much the same as they already are, except the videos they comment on will be new.

This could be epic, since Mike Judge is set to oversee the entire thing. That guy has one of the most underrated comedic minds of the last decade-plus.

Anyone else excited about this?

[Movie Review] Toy Story 3

Fifteen years between the first  film of a trilogy and the culminating final installment is quite a long piece of time within the Hollywood machine. But somehow, Toy Story, not only manages to succeed in the face of a sure demise, they actually manage to craft a film that elevates the entire franchise from “Much Loved” to “Greatest of All-Time”.

Go ahead and try to come up with a true film franchise with at least two movies that matches the overall success and originality of Toy Story. Seriously, go ahead and try. I’ll wait.

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Come up with anything?

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[Film Review] Grown Ups

Sometimes I like to check out a movie that I’m not particularly interested in, or one that I assume will be very popular with the general movie going public to gauge what current tastes are trending toward. I have seen Grown Ups, and I’m scared what it means for comedy movies in the U.S. if THIS is what makes people laugh.

Grown Ups looks to have an all-star cast, but you’d really be mistaken. There is but ONE bankable star in the film, and that’s Adam Sandler. But, oh how the mighty have fallen in his regard. His more dramatic turns (Punch Drunk Love, Funny People) have been enjoyable, but his comedies have been increasingly dreadful for the better part of a decade now. And I know it sounds like stock “Old Sander is awesome Sandler” stuff that you hear everyone say, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t the truth. Here, you have Sandler co-writing and producing a movie if for nothing else to get some of his struggling friends a tally under the “Career Win” column, a column none of them have visited recently. Guys like Rob Schneider, David Spade, and Chris Rock. Continue reading

[Movie Review] Splice (2010)

Splice is a tricky, tricky film. While some advertisements would lead you to believe it’s a horror movie that focuses on the simple scares of stuff popping out from the darkness accompanied by loud, almost verbose music, those advertisements are deceptive, as Splice is actually a very well crafted film that is thought provoking and even somewhat topical.

I would imagine most people who are very interested in this film are because of the way it was marketed. It’s not a slasher movie, it’s not a monster movie. It’s a science fiction horror film, and it wears those hats very blatantly once the movie begins. The tone of the film is never to scare you by simply startling you, it’s one that requires a bit of thinking to go along with its ride.

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[TV Review] Breaking Bad: Season Three Finale

Overview:

I’ve grown tired of reviewing Breaking Bad because doing so brings in no traffic and ultimately proves to be a waste of my time. With that in mind, I vowed I would only review Sunday’s season finale if I found the episode to be so engaging, my overwhelming sense of self-importance wouldn’t allow me to keep my opinions to myself.

Oh, well. It’s not as if I have anything better to do

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[Doubleshot Movie Review] Macgruber

As the only two people who saw the new Saturday Night Live sketch turned feature-length movie Macgruber over the weekend, contributors Andrew Majors and Daniel Gauer both felt compelled to share their contrasting views on the Will Forte spoof in the latest entry in our mostly unused and arguably unneeded Double Shot Feature

Review by Andrew Majors:

Judging by the weekend’s measly Box Office estimates, I was one of very few people to head to the theater and check out the debuting film Macgruber.

A lot of people made a big mistake.

Macgruber is one of the most belly laugh packed films to hit the theaters in a very, very long time. It’s much more than an SNL film, or a spoof film, or many of the other preconceived tags the film has garnered. It’s a well-put together, blisteringly funny film that takes advantage of every lavish Hollywood cliche at its disposal and then implements it in the funniest way possible. Continue reading