Quick Review: Contagion

Because of circumstances (both beyond and within my control, to be honest) it took me a while to get around to seeing "Contagion." It wasn't really worth the wait. It's competent enough, the acting is mostly good, and for some reason I laughed at Gwyneth Paltrow getting sick, dying, and being cut open and autopsied...well, her character did, anyway. But it's rather boring and cluttered with too many characters. Paltrow's character, married to Matt Damon's character, is probably in the film the least. She picked up a new, deadly disease while on a business trip in Hong Kong, stopped in Chicago to cheat on her husband (thus passing on the virus there) and then returned home to Minneapolis, dying days later. As the virus spreads both in the United States and worldwide, scientists race to try and contain it while society starts falling apart. We're supposed to follow various plots and characters in Minneapolis, Hong Kong, the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and probably some other places as well. After a while I just sort of stopped caring. That's a little scary since the events come off as rather plausible. My grade: C.

Where The Oscar Show Went Wrong

It's simple: if you want to be young and hip, it takes more than just hiring young stars to host. I adore James Franco and Anne Hathaway, and I think they had decent chemistry at times, but they were given just awful material to work with, as were the Oscar presenters.

A lot of people on my Twitter feed seemed to think Franco was high. I think they were confusing him with his "Pineapple Express" character. And he spent plenty of time posting videos to Twitter, which I think would be a problem if one is both trying to use a smartphone and host an awards show at the same time. Maybe he was too distracted by Twitter. I just think it was the terrible jokes and banter from the writers. (If Bruce Vilanch had a hand in this, as he often has had in past Oscar shows, perhaps it's time to consider retirement.)

One of the few jokes that worked, and I don't know if it was part of the script or an ad lib, came after Hathaway's little song-and-dance number. Because, he said, "you got to wear a tuxedo," Franco came onstage in drag. He followed that with: "The weird thing is I just got a text message from Charlie Sheen."

The whole reason for Oscar's being is for Hollywood to, metaphorically speaking, fellate itself. They're all there to congratulate each other and kiss each other's ass. There's no room for out there, edgy humor unless they're directing it at themselves (or close friends/coworkers, such as Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law). That's why the Sheen joke went over well:

Quick Reviews: Iron Man 2, Shrek 4

It seems right to combine these two into one post because they're both sequels, and neither lives up to previous installments. And, oddly enough, the title characters in both movies have something in common.

In "Iron Man 2" Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), with his identity of Iron Man now known to the world, seems to be enjoying himself. He charms the crowds at the Stark Expo, and in a Senate committee room where a senator played by Garry Shandling(!) is demanding Stark turn over the Iron Man tech to the government for military usage. However, the substance that powers the "arc reactor" in his chest is slowly killing him, and as a result he's acting out -- getting drunk at his birthday party (while in the Iron Man armor), turning over control of his company to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), replacing the driver of his car at a Grand Prix race in Monaco. It's at that race that Stark is attacked by Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who wants revenge for what Stark's father did to Vanko's father. And it gets more complicated from there. The fight scenes aren't as interesting as the rest of the movie, to be honest. The whole thing kind of drags a bit. My grade: C-plus.

In "Shrek Forever After," fourth in the series, again things seem to be fine and dandy. Shrek (voice of Mike Myers), his wife Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz), their kids, Donkey (Eddie Murphy), Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas), everyone in Far Far Away is happy. Except Shrek really isn't happy. He misses the days when he was a "real" ogre, when the villagers were scared of him instead of asking for autographs, when he could take a mud bath in peace instead of attending to his family duties, and so on. After an argument with Fiona at the kids' birthday party Shrek storms off. He meets the sneaky Rumpelstiltskin, who offers a deal: Shrek can have a day where he's a "real" ogre again, in exchange for another day from his past. Shrek signs the deal and soon realizes he's been tricked, and has to learn the old lesson that you don't know what you have until it's gone. There are a few laughs, but more often than not the jokes fall flat. It's being touted as the "final chapter," and based on this one, it better be. My grade: C.