Quick Review: Rise Of The Guardians

I saw this animated film a couple of weeks ago, and it's still around. I suppose that's because one of the characters is Santa Claus, so it qualifies as a "Christmas" movie and they can keep it in the theaters until we get into 2013. But it isn't entirely focused on the Christmas holiday.  When I first heard about this movie being made I was very much excited -- a group consisting of Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, etc. are action heroes teaming up to stop a threat to the world's children, but they need the help of Jack Frost, who in this story is a teen prankster and far from interested in helping. Then I saw the trailers and it was...actually discouraging. The end result was somewhere in between. The plot was kind of dull at times and the villain doesn't particularly seem like a terrible threat, and Santa's elves in this movie are a very poor imitation of the "Despicable Me" minions. And, for some reason, Santa (as voiced by Alec Baldwin) is Russian. It had a few bits that were okay, though. Very much a mixed bag. My grade: C-plus.

Quick Reviews: June 2012 (So Far)

With this I'll be caught up in my movie posts! Woot!

Snow White and the Huntsman: I liked this more than I thought I would, although it was a bit ponderous at times. Charlize Theron seems to be specializing in extremely icy characters right now. She pulled off the evil queen bit without overacting the way Julia Roberts did in "Mirror Mirror," the first of the Snow White movies. To be fair, though, the two films are very, very different. My grade: B-minus.

Prometheus: Charlize Theron icy performance number two. But this thing...oh, dear. A mess of a plot about a space exploration to find and make contact with the apparent creators of humanity on Earth, ridiculous characterization, and what strikes me as a deliberate shoehorning of enough details to allow people to think of this as the prequel to "Alien" just to make money. My grade: D-plus.

Rock of Ages: I can see how this became a Broadway hit, a love story combined with 80s hair-band rock.  But this movie is absolutely terrible. I never was a big fan of that music, and although some of the original songs admittedly are great, as performed here by the likes of Tom Cruise (as seriously messed-up rock god Stacee Jaxx) even the good songs lose a lot. Let's put aside how the ostensible stars, and subjects of the love story, Julianne Hough and Diego Boneta, might as well be invisible for all their impact. I ask you this: how can Hough's character, a wannabe singer first seen on a bus from Oklahoma to Hollywood, be named Sherrie Christian, leading to her (and her fellow bus passengers) singing Night Ranger's "Sister Christian," and NOT have her boyfriend sing Steve Perry's "Oh Sherrie" to her? I waited for it in vain the whole damn film. I nearly walked out a couple of times. In retrospect, after seeing the duet of "Can't Fight This Feeling" towards the end by Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand (I'm saying nothing more), I wish I had. My grade: F.

Go To Hell, New Era

Is the New Era cap company owned by NBC (which is now owned by Philadelphia-based Comcast)? I saw this ad a little earlier while watching the Yankees and Red Sox on MLB Network. It features two NBC sitcom stars, Alec Baldwin of "30 Rock" and John Krasinski of "The Office." trash-talking via phone about their teams. Baldwin is a Yankees fan, while Krasinski is a Red Sox fan. I don't know if these two are actually fans of those teams or are merely spouting lines because they were paid, but they're talking trash in the ad. But Baldwin's reply to Krasinski's opening jab (about Cliff Lee) is a shot at Philadelphia...



Time for another Public Service Announcement. Here's something to remember when you're buying baseball caps: if it says "New Era" it's most likely a cheaply-made, poorly-fitting piece of crap.

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: The End-Of-Year Clearance

Last week I went to movies on four consecutive days. I'm pretty sure I've never done that before. I certainly haven't done it during the post-Christmas week, when theaters do major business thanks to people being off work and school.

I started off Monday with It's Complicated. Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin have great chemistry as a divorced couple who, on the occasion of their son's college graduation, find themselves in bed together and begin an affair. Problem: he remarried and she has another man (Steve Martin) who's into her. Particularly charming is "The Office" star John Krasinski as the future husband of Streep and Baldwin's oldest daughter. Much has been made of Baldwin's nude scene. It's not that horrendous, and it's not even him at any rate -- it's a stunt butt. Yes, he's older and gained weight, but Alec Baldwin is still rather irresistible. But let's remember him as he was (at left). My grade: A-minus.

Tuesday, in part because I got to the theater so early I didn't want to wait for what I planned to see, found me at Did You Hear About The Morgans? For a while I was wishing I hadn't heard about them. Unlike Streep and Baldwin, Sarah Jessica Parker and Hugh Grant are not a good match as the titular couple, successful New Yorkers who are separated because he cheated on her. Trying to win her back, he takes her to dinner. They witness a murder, are taken into protective custody and are whisked away to a small town in Wyoming. Oddly enough, I went to the restroom mid-way through and when I returned, for some reason I disliked it less. My grade: C-minus.

On Wednesday it was A Single Man, starring Colin Firth as a college professor, an older gay man mourning the recent death of his longtime lover (Matthew Goode, seen in flashbacks). It's 1962, well before the Stonewall riots set off a major push for gay rights, so things are much more difficult for him. Firth is excellent, as is Julianne Moore as his best friend who wants to be more than just friends. It's directed by fashion designer Tom Ford and, especially at the beginning, it looked too much like a fashion show or a perfume commercial with a lot of slick editing. Ultimately, the film as a whole was a little lacking, and the ending was hinted at much earlier. My grade: B-minus.

Which brings us, finally, to Sherlock Holmes. Guy Ritchie reimagines the legendary creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as an action hero in a buddy comedy starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. The flaws in this movie aren't in the acting but in the plot (about a villain who is executed but manages to come back to life and takes over a secret society with plans to overthrow the British government and eventually restore America to the British Empire) and especially the characterization. Holmes is still a brilliant detective, but he's also often boorish. Holmes and Watson spend most of the film bickering. Rachel McAdams is wasted as Irene Adler, the only person to ever outwit Holmes, here merely a plot device to set up the inevitable sequel. I can understand trying to make Sherlock Holmes more palatable to a modern audience, but Guy Ritchie botches the job. My grade: D-plus.