2055 - Total Recall (remake)

Meh.  Why the hell remake this film?  (then again, why the hell did I watch it?  and what was I expecting?).  The original was one of my favorite films from childhood - I remember rewatching it over and over.  This just feels so disposable.  Though now I'm going to rewatch the original.... maybe it doesn't hold up as well as I remembered.  This one however just feels kind of empty and pointless.  Meh.

2044 - Oldboy

It’s always dangerous territory to remake a much celebrated film - especially one that has such a twist ending as Oldboy - and then to do nothing new with the twist… it’s a bizarre choice given that the only real audience for this film is fans of Spike Lee and people who have seen the original - and that is likely the same audience, I imagine.  So I guess my first question is - what the hell was the point of this?  Stylistically this film doesn’t even touch the original - there’s nothing super special or unique happening here outside of Lee’s own version of the “hammer fight” sequence.  It might have looked a bit flasher, but the original still takes the cake by a long shot, as does the entire film.  Who knows, maybe if I’d seen this without the original I’d have a different opinion - but it’s just a bit too much of a rehash.  Shame.

2040 - Wish I Was Here

I was a Kickstarter backer on this project.  I was a fan of Garden State, and as a crowd-funder myself I wanted to follow the campaign.  One of my perks was to get an advanced screening of the film, so that’s how you’re hearing from me early.

I have to be honest.  I didn’t love it.  Some other reviews have said “it was good enough to make you wish that it was better” and I think that’s fair.  Another review that said it’s “Phony, shallow, and completely disconnected from reality. To make matters worse, it thinks it’s sincere, deep, and realistic.” and while that’s pretty harsh - I can’t disagree.  There’s so many lines in this that feel like it’s really clever, but no one would ever talk like that let alone consistently always have the perfect thing to say at the exact perfect moment.  At times it feels like we’re watching a marathon of clever ideas that Zach Braff had and how he wedged them all together.  And wedging isn’t far off - there’s so many things going on here that look like they’re there for the sake of the visuals than anything else.  

I read somewhere that Braff spent years trying to get this film made within the system and couldn’t get it done - which seeing the end product, it doesn’t surprise me.  The last thing I wanted to do was crap on this film, but I can’t honestly endorse it. I like what he’s trying to accomplish - it’s a film about the difficulty of being a parent, so there’s things here that I dig, but as a whole - it’s messy.  And it’s hard to care about a hero who puts himself ahead of his family and tries to use his dream as a defense.  A lot of us find a way to do both.  

The highlights are Mandy Patinkin and the soundtrack - which is worth buying for sure - though it feels clumsy with how it’s used in the film, especially compared to how well the music was used in Garden State.

So if you were obsessed with Garden State than you’re going to see this anyway.  If you don’t dig Zach Braff to begin with, this likely won’t help.  Please do check it out for yourself though - I’d be happy to be in the minority when it comes to disliking something.

2024 - Tower Heist

I don't have a heck of a lot to say about this film - it boasts a hell of a cast, sadly they've very under-used in a film that promises a lot of fun and it just kind of.... bland.  As far as heist films go this is pretty underwhelming - even the heist itself is kind of boring - and the scale we'd expect to see on a television show these days, hardly worthy of a big blockbuster action comedy.  I don't mean to crap on this film, I didn't hate it by any means - I was just hoping for something a little more entertaining.  Alas.

Richard Stark's Parker - Vol 4: Slayground

I have to say that this is two in a row in terms of Cooke's adaptations of Parker that failed to impress me.  It's a bit saddening given that it was because of Cooke that I really took notice of the character and world.  In this edition especially the book is far superior to the graphic novel.  The novel was taught with fantastic suspense, where this one just feels like we're waiting around to see how well he get out of this scrape.  It's underwhelming, sadly.  If anyone out there reads this and loves it - please do me a favor and suss out the source material - likely available at a public library near you!

1983 - Olympus Has Fallen

Wanted to watch something mindless in the back ground as I got some work done, and this fit the bill quite nicely.  It wasn’t exactly commanding my full attention - but there seemed to be a whole lot of flash and not a whole lot of substance in terms of the who, what, why, etc… Although is that really what this kind of film is about?  The action sequences move along nicely - but it’s all just set pieces for the sake of it - lots of big explosions with little meaning - so all well and good if you’re into that sort of thing.  Bring me a character story amidst an action film.  This was good old fashioned cowboys and indians.  Didn’t love, nor hate it.  

1978 - Call the Midwife: season one

My wife is a sucker for babies, and we’re a fan of midwives, so it was a no brainer that we’d check this out.  It’s a bit too cute for my general liking, I don’t dislike it.  It’s sweet and tells some interesting stories.  I don’t think I’d continue to watch if it weren’t for the enjoyment of my wife, but I definitely think there’s an audience for this series - it’s the kind of thing that I think is best viewed on a rainy afternoon - it’s got that comfort food feel to it.

1969 - The Birder

I saw this film play at the Canadian Film Fest, and I was mostly interested in it because my dear friend Tommie Amber Pirie is in it, and also I dig Tom Cavanagh.  The Birder is a light comedy about a man who discovers that his life long dream has slipped out of his grasp.  There is an audience or this film, but sadly it’s not me.  It’s a very sweet film, and I think that the people that would respond to this film would like it a lot - for me it’s a bit too sugary sweet and tame.  Absolutely nothing wrong with that, just didn’t jive with my personal sensibilities.  I believe it’s getting a wider release shortly - so if you dig light comedies, this might just be up your alley.

1965 - True Detective: season one

I have to be honest in that I struggled with this series.  I kept up with it more for reasons of pop culture than of any real interest.  It felt a bit like homework for the most part, like the vegetables on the side of the plate that you eat just to get it over with.  I was wow’d by the performances, and it’s visual panache, but I just never really got out of it what a lot of others did, or felt like it was special in any way.  So this will be short and sweet ‘cause you don’t need to read me going on and on about not digging something.  Bottom line - lots of people loved this - I thought it was merely okay.  I’d check out a second season based on what the new story was potentially.  

1946 - One Day

I really loved the book this film was based on.  It was a gimmick, the idea of revisiting two friends on the same day every year, but the book made it work - because even though we just saw the one day the medium allowed commentary on the 364 days we'd missed inbetween - something that the film can't allow without massive exposition - which it avoids.  It's a faithful adaptation in regards to the story and scenes, but not emotionally.  I adore Anne Hathaway - I can give or take Jim Sturges and perhaps that's part of the problem - I had a hard time buying into their love story because I didn't think he deserved her in this version.  I didn't get a sense of his tortured self the way it comes across in the book.  Here it just feels sterile, like we're bouncing from one year to another without much to keep us emotionally grounded.  That said, I'm not sure what you would have done with this adaptation to avoid such pratfalls.  If you liked the book it might be worth checking out just to see it come to life (it's on Netflix). For those that don't know the book, I don't know... your call!

1941 - Devil

I've wanted to check this out mostly 'cause my pal Zoie is in it, and she's actually got a fun little part.  It's based on a story from M. Night, but don't let that dissuade it for you.  It's not a great film, it's not bad.  It's helped a lot by good actors like Chris Messina, but it doesn't deliver on it's awesome premise - which is essentially that the devil is among us, and when the opportunity arises he traps himself within a group of people and tortures them before bringing them to hell.  The film largely relies on cheap tricks rather than real scares.  Like I said, not amazing, not terrible. 

1939 - Thor: The Dark World

I have to be deadly honest here.  This is the first of the Marvel films that I've been 'meh' on.  And it was especially disappointing because the first Thor was so goddamn good, and I expected very little from it (maybe why I liked it so much).  In some ways I think that they just attempted to do too much, be too big.  We don't need every single Marvel film to be about saving the entire world - do the stakes really need to be THAT high every single time?  The more sci-fi the films get the less interesting they are.  And I'm not down on sci-fi films, I think the problem is that they found a way to really ground the early films in this series, but now that all the fantasy elements are in place it just muddles it a bit.  I liked that Iron Man had to deal with that to some extent though.  I don't know, I guess, for me, I just think they can do so much more with simplicity and don't give themselves enough credit for that.  It's the small moments in these kinds of films that really speak volumes - and this one had no small moments.  Shame, really.  It was nice to have Portman integrated into the plot in a much stronger way though.  I should end with saying that I didn't hate the film - I just didn't really enjoy it all that much, and it's one that I likely won't find myself revisiting.

1919 - Bindlestiffs

I heard about this through one of Kevin Smith's podcasts so I thought I'd throw it on in the background as I did some work - and as background material, it's absolutely adequate.  It's about three high-school friends who go on a bender living vicariously through Catcher in the Rye.
I can see how Smith probably felt a kinship to this team of filmmakers given his own beginnings.  As a feature made by a bunch of highs school students - it's rather impressive - as a film in general.... well - it feels like it was made by a bunch of high school students.  The performances are pretty bad, albeit amusing - the stand out is the young actress that plays Caramel - she is easily the most enjoyable thing about the film.
It'll be interesting to see if anything comes out of this team's brush with fame, or if they're never heard from again.  Neither would surprise me.  Truth is, we all made embarrassing films when we were practising and learning our craft - the difference being that we didn't realize ours into the general public.  So kudos to them for at least being naked in front of us.  That said -  it's hard to give a reason to check this out outside of pure curiosity.

1918 - The Guilt Trip

This film came and went pretty quickly from the populus, and the fact that it's on Netflix this soon says something, sadly... Seth Rogen plays Barbara Streisand's son, they go on a road trip together.  Great title and set-up for a movie that's, well... just okay.

Rule #1 of comedy - if you're going to do a scene that's been done before, do it bigger and better.  Here we have a bit where someone has to eat a giant steak dinner to get it for free.  The Great Outdoors has the best version of this that I've seen - and yes, making Barbara Streisand do it is a very funny idea - but that's about the end of that joke, and it doesn't go anywhere from there.  The whole movie is kind of like that when it comes to the comedy.  Great potential, but not followed up on and grown further.  It's the kind of film that lays very obvious bread crumbs early on and then things go pretty much as you'd expect them.  There's a nice little twist at the very end, but other than that there's not a lot of surprises going on here and for a comedy, that's a problem.

I didn't love it, I didn't hate it.  I think the Streisand audience will enjoy it a lot more than the Rogen one.

1911 - Dexter: season eight

Somewhere in the second season of this series I remember being so amazed at where they were going with it that I had to keep asking "Where are they going to go with this show?  How are they going to keep up how solid this is?"  And now we have the answer.  They didn't.  Or maybe they just couldn't.  The third season of this show was it's first valley after a series of peaks.  The fourth season (Trinity) was a return to form with what ended up being Dexter's best adversary that culminated in the series strongest moment.  After that it was a lot of waiting around to see if it would get back to greatness, and it never really did.  The 6th season was terrible, and the beginning of the 7th showed a lot of promise - in general I liked the 7th season, but this last season… geez.

Now - if you haven't finished watching this series - stop now.  Spoiler heavy shit coming below.

First off, let's start at the end.  What a terrible ending for this show.  Although, to be fair, there was no good ending for this show.  It was almost an impossible task.  But watching the finale was like watching a bad fan-boy script.  Having the final thought of the show being that all the work Dexter had done to become a rounded human was pointless?  That he couldn't changed, despite evidence that he was changing?  It all felt a little random.  It made me feel like I'd wasted my time watching this show all together.  And the fact that the show never put Dexter's feet to the coals in the end and exposed him to his world… what a missed opportunity.  We got to see Miami Metro be bumbling idiots for years, it would have been amazing to watch them go toe to toe with Dexter and Debra caught in the middle… but alas… instead we get Oliver Saxon - as boring as they come.

The writing on this season was terrible.  Just little things like the idea that Hannah has come back, and is a wanted woman.  You'd think the first thing they'd do is cut and dye her hair.  Something, ANYTHING to change her goddamn appearance.  But no.  Whatever cleverness was in the writing early in the series has long since evaporated.  The stuff with Masuka and his daughter was such a last ditch effort to give that character some depth - and the fact that it resulted in… nothing.. what a waste.  

And Debrah… fuck it… at that point it just felt like the whole thing was being written by a fan who didn't really understand the show.  I like that it was Dexter that took her out and was protecting her, that he put her in the water, and that he "died" there as well.  

I could go on and on, but I'm not entirely sure the point.  This last season was such a wasted opportunity given how strong this series started.  But… well at least it's over… 

1889 - iSteve

I watched this film in the background while getting some work done and, sadly, that's about all the attention that it deserves, really.  I'm not sure who the audience is for this film outside of hardcore apple geeks, and then it's just going to offend them to some degree.  What a bizarre little film - it's almost intended to be a piss-up or a roast to Apple.  Maybe the whole point was to just take a piss on the whole thing, and that's kind of what it feels like.  I don't mean to talk shit about this film - Justin Long (as always) was a lot of fun, and had fun within the world - I'm just not sure what the point of the film was for the filmmakers, especially since they were playing pretty hard and fast with the actual facts behind the story.
It's on Netflix, so check it out - I'd be curious to know what other Apple nerds thought of it...

The Merchant of Venice

I was fortunate to get to go see this on it's opening night in Stratford.  I read this play in high school but had never seen it performed.  I remembered the general storyline, but what I hadn't recalled was just how anti-Semitic it is.  I am not a person who is easily offended, but man oh man… First I want to say the the performances were fantastic - the play, in parts, is hysterical.  A solid cast all around.  So now that that's out of the way I have to say - I am not a fan of this play - and that's not a criticism on the production.  For the life of me, I cannot understand why this play is still performed.  I understand the mentality of "we remember so that we never forget the terrible things".  I don't know how much I buy that idea.  This production was set in the 1930's with the war looming, which makes sense since the Jewish popular was not in favour then.  Here we have a story with a bunch of lovers trying to hook up - these are supposed to be our heroes - but they torture a poor money lender, Shylock The Jew, mostly just because he charges interest on his loans.  God forbid he makes money at his job.  He's spat upon, name called, beaten, his daughter is taken from him, his money is taken, his land - and also his religion, all because he's just doing this job.  He's the villain.  What the fuck.  And this production ends with (SPOILER ALERT)….

…

… A holocaust siren.  That's right, because our "heroes" have taken everything Shylock holds dear, including being a Jew, he's now spared from the holocaust.  WTF.  

If you're a fan of this play please explain to me why - but if you are, then this production is likely worth your time and money.  If you're new to Shakespeare maybe give one of the comedies a go :)

1865 - All American Orgy

Okay.  I don't say this lightly, or easily.  This is not a good film.  Three couples, unhappy with their current relationships, decide that an orgy will fix all of their problems.  Originally this film had a more indie-friendly-title and that fits it a lot more, than the romp that they're trying to sell otherwise.  The film isn't particularly funny - the characters are all a little one-note.  All that I can take.  The biggest problem is that when the film gets around to the 'orgy' portion of the film it's a lot less fun sexy times, and a lot more… rapey…. yes.  That's what I said.  The most this film gets into an orgy is when one man, essentially, has another rape his wife while everyone watches.  Talk about a hilarious moment! (I'm kidding, obviously). 
Look.  I'm no prude, I like my comedy dark and edgy, but this was just awkward and weird and uncomfortable.  Even outside of this the film had a creepy feeling to it.  The characters aren't exactly the kind that you root for, to are about to change, and so you have to ask yourself - why do I care about them - why am I watching this?!  I watched this as a reference film, and I have to say it made me feel a lot better about what I'm working on.  I can't even casually recommend this as an off-shoot.  There is no good reason to watch this film, sadly.  It's just… ugly.  If that's your thing, then maybe you'll be into it. 

1846 - Smash: season two

I have to be quite honest - I can't really explain why I watch this series, or better yet, while it's kind of a guilty pleasure of mine.  But I do.  I'm a musical fan and so that's largely why.  On the whole this show does more wrong than it does right.   I don't have a favorite characters - in fact they're all, largely, unlikeable.  A lot of people who review this series slag on Katherine McPhee - I don't mind her so much outside of her being seemingly "pure" yadda, yadda - but I really can't stand Angelica Huston.  I think she's fine in something like.... The Witches, but I really just find that she kind of plays one-note characters a lot - the characters are often different, but she doesn't seem to know how to shade them with variance - it's puzzling.  I want to like her, I just have difficulty. 
I can't really recommend nor not recommend this.  I'll say this - if you're a music theatre geek, watch it - you'll get a kick of the melodramatic behind the scenes stuff - any one else is probably best to just steer clear.  It's hard to say if I'd have come back for a third season, but I think the show was best to get out now - I think it would be hard to sustain this  much longer.  Get out while the getting's... well... not terrible :)

1800 - Caesar Must Die

Another film I caught at the Santa Barbara Film Festival was this unique adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.  The backdrop is this - a high-security is putting on a production of Julius Caesar with it's inmates acting as the actors.  Through the course of the film we watch them rehearse, all leading up to the performance, and through all of that we get the actual play alongside the commentary of the prisoners as they find ways to relate to the material. 
It's a pretty unique idea, right?  Sadly it was too much in the middle for me.  I would have preferred if it was just Julius Caesar set in a men's prison, or if it was more about the prisoners putting on the play, but with some more personal b-story.  It met the ideas in the middle and I think, suffered for it.  I believe this film has actually been around for a few years at this point, and not sure how else one could see it.  If you're a big Shakespear nerd then you'll probably want to check this out just because.  Not sure I can highly recommend it to anyone outside of that circle.