The Barenaked Archives: Aquamarine

From 2003 up until 2007, I was lucky enough to have “movie reviewer” as my job description. As such, I’ve built up a *lot* of reviews for just about every movie that came out during those years, as well as reviews of classic movies.

So, I give you my very first regular feature: The Barenaked Archives. These are reviews that I did for SIN or Hollywood Elsewhere (or both). Sadly, SIN and my column on HE are both gone, so this is now the only place online you can see these old columns.

Just for the record, this one was written as a joke.

Aquamarine review

Hi!!!!! I’m Chrystle Camylle Kane (Cece to my friends but not to you losers!) and I’m thirteen years old and this is my first movie review EVER!! Bet you can’t tell! I got to go see Aquamarine and now I get to tell you all about it!!

So, I like totally loved this movie. I mean, hot guys, a mermaid, and omigod JoJo in her first movie ever? It’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

It’s about JoJo and her best friend, Claire, who live in Florida, but JoJo’s mom is about to move them to Australia or New Zealand or something, which is totally not cool. She won’t let JoJo stay with Claire till she’s 18. Completely unfair! My mom’s the same way.

Anyway, JoJo is spending the night at Claire’s house and there’s a huge storm that washes a tidal wave into the pool, and it turns out it washed a mermaid in there too! Her name is Aquamarine and she does weird things like eat salt and her fingernails change color with her moods. At first JoJo and Claire are really scared of her, but then they make friends with her.

It turns out that mermaids, like, don’t believe love exists, but Aquamarine does, but if she can’t prove it to her father in three days then she’ll have to marry this totally horrible guy. So JoJo and Claire have to help her! Because if you help a mermaid, you get a wish, and they can wish for JoJo to not move away! Personally, I’d wish for my parents to let me date and for that cute guy in third hour history to finally notice me. I’ve only been flirting with him for, like, five months! Guys are sooooo dense.

Anyway, Aquamarine decides that she loves this guy Raymond, who works as a lifeguard at the beach. He is totally hot. He’s got wavy blond hair and he’s soooo buff. And because he’s a lifeguard, he spends so much time without a shirt! OMG!! He’s got the most beautiful body I’ve seen in my entire life. Plus, he’s not a jerk like the other guys he hangs around.

So, to help Aquamarine get Raymond to fall in love with her, JoJo and Claire have her read all these magazines like Seventeen and Cosmo. Which is totally what I would’ve done. Those things are, like, foolproof in how to get a guy.

But there’s this other girl, Cecelia, who’s a complete witch, and she wants Ray. She’s one of those snobby rich popular girls, and she and her friends are so horrible to JoJo and Claire! They’re completely evil. I wish more bad things had happened to her.

But anyway, everything turns out good in the end, even though it’s totally not what you’d expect. It’s all about friendship and stuff and it’s really, really happy! It’s, like, the best movie I’ve seen since When a Stranger Calls (omg SO SCARY!). Everybody should watch it.

Cece Kane is an eighth-grader at Cleveland-Garfield-Polk Middle School. She’d like to give a shout-out to her friends Kayley, Kymbirley, and Clowey, and says “Go Meerkats!”

The Barenaked Archives: Bewitched

From 2003 up until 2007, I was lucky enough to have “movie reviewer” as my job description. As such, I’ve built up a *lot* of reviews for just about every movie that came out during those years, as well as reviews of classic movies.

So, I give you my very first regular feature: The Barenaked Archives. These are reviews that I did for SIN or Hollywood Elsewhere (or both). Sadly, SIN and my column on HE are both gone, so this is now the only place online you can see these old columns.

Bewitched Be Sucking

Candy is a wonderful confection. It’s sweet, it’s tasty, and the sugar high will keep you running for hours (well, maybe that’s just me). However, if you have too much of it, candy will make you sick and leave you hanging over the toilet, ruing that last bite. Such is the case with Bewitched, a movie that starts out as a sweet little comedy that quickly overstays its welcome.

In an attempt to sum up the very convoluted plot, Jack Wyatt (Will Ferrell) is an actor who’s dropped off the A-list after an atrocious performance by his last movie. He’s cast as Darrin in a remake of the TV show Bewitched in the hopes of rebuilding his career.

To ensure the show’s focus stays on him, Jack casts an unknown in the role of Samantha: Isabel Bigelow (Nicole Kidman), who, unbeknownst to Jack, is an actual witch who’s given up her powers and moved to Los Angeles in hopes of finding real love. (Why on earth she thinks she can do that in L.A. is beyond me.) So, we’re dealing with a movie that’s a remake of a TV show about the remaking of said TV show. Got that?

It’s probably a testament to how well Nicole Kidman can act that she did so well with what could have been an annoying role. Isabel is girly and light and sweetness and innocence, like living cotton candy. Kidman instills in her likeability despite being a relative child to the modern world. Not to say she does it perfect all the time, but Isabel is considerably less irritating than she could’ve been.

Will Ferrell, on the other hand, cranks it up to 11 to play the self-centered, arrogant Jack, and does so very unevenly. At some points his over-the-top acting is bust-a-gut funny, while at other points you just want to hit him with a tranquilizer gun so that he’ll SHUT UP.

Sadly, woefully, tragically, miserably underused are Michael Caine as Isabel’s skirt-chasing father Nigel and Shirley MacLaine as Iris Smythson, the actress who plays Samantha’s mother Endora on the TV show. Both are bright spots in some otherwise-dull sequences, and they even get their own little romance, but their plot line is dropped by the end of the movie, leaving us wondering what happened. In fact, forget the rest of the movie, I would’ve rather watched a film about these two.

Steve Carell, a Will Ferrell movie regular, makes a manic and hilarious cameo at the very end as Uncle Arthur. It’s a pity, because Arthur’s only purpose is to be the deus ex machina dropped in to clean up the mess the characters have gotten themselves into. Let’s say it together: “lazy writing.”

Speaking of lazy writing, this movie has the some of the worst “dream” sequences I’ve ever seen. You see, because Isabel is a witch, she can rewind time and start over when things don’t work out quite right. Now, this is cool, and could probably be very effective if used correctly.

However, when you spend thirty minutes following a storyline, and then rewind those entire thirty minutes to start over, that’s not cool, that’s stupid. You have wasted the viewer’s time and this gimmick should be dragged outside, doused in lighter fluid, and ignited so that we can hear it scream in agony as it dies a slow, flaming death.

Bewitched is a hardly bewitching, and if anything should be avoided. There are other better comedies around. If you must see it, wait and catch it at the dollar theater on 50-cent Tuesdays. At least then you won’t be wasting your money.

The Barenaked Archives: Capote

From 2003 up until 2007, I was lucky enough to have “movie reviewer” as my job description. As such, I’ve built up a *lot* of reviews for just about every movie that came out during those years, as well as reviews of classic movies.

So, I give you my very first regular feature: The Barenaked Archives. These are reviews that I did for SIN or Hollywood Elsewhere (or both). Sadly, SIN and my column on HE are both gone, so this is now the only place online you can see these old columns.

In Cold Blood

Truman Capote seems to be one of those authors that everybody’s heard of but nobody’s read, at least among people my age. Not many are keen on reading nonfiction, and Capote’s most famous work, In Cold Blood, is just that. However, that work also defined a new genre of nonfiction and immortalized Capote in the process. That’s a very rare thing in and of itself, and as a writer I also find it fascinating.

The movie Capote takes us back to those years in the early ’60s when Truman Capote set about researching and writing In Cold Blood, about the grisly murder of a Kansas family in November 1959. During that time, he befriended Perry Smith, one of the two men responsible for the murders.

Capote is not so much about the research or the writing. It does start out that way, but by the middle of the movie it’s as much a character study of Truman Capote and the lengths he’ll go to in order to get the interviews and information he needs for his book. Even though he’s manipulating others in the process, he’s also putting more and more of himself on the line, no matter how emotionally detached he acts. Ultimately, the film seems to question what sacrifices genius demands, and if it’s worth it.

Capote himself is portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’s arguably one of the best actors working today. Chances are good that, even if you don’t recognize his name, you’ve seen him in something, be it Along Came Polly, Almost Famous, Magnolia, or Red Dragon, just to name a few.

Hoffman’s not just good here. He’s creepily brilliant. I was convinced the effeminate accent of the trailer would drive me insane in the movie, but it doesn’t. This is one of those wonderful times when you’re not watching a face; you’re actually seeing the actor become his character.

Capote really isn’t that sympathetic. He’s pretentious, arrogant, and self-involved. He drinks and smokes like the vices are going out of style. He has to be the center of attention, and he’s determined to get his story no matter what he has to do. He makes friends with the killers in the hopes of getting them to tell him about the night of the murders, but lies to and manipulates them as he’s trying to get the story. Capote gets them a new lawyer in hopes of keeping them alive long enough to get their story, but when appeals and stays of execution keep the killers alive for years, he starts to get frustrated that he can’t finish his book.

His best friend, Harper Lee (Catherine Keener, perhaps best known now for deflowering Steve Carell in The 40-Year-Old Virgin), is really the only person who will not only help and put up with him, but also call him on his hypocrisy. Keener is fantastic as the bluntly honest Lee, and we see her star rise with the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird during Capote’s struggle to write his book.

At the end of the movie, they explain that In Cold Blood was the last book Truman Capote ever finished, and there’s a quote that goes something like, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.”

Here we have a film about a talented man determined to make a mark in the literary world, and there’s no doubt that he does so. But by the end you have to wonder what it cost him psychologically, emotionally, and otherwise, and whether the cost of achieving his goal was more than he wanted to pay.

Review: Babylon A.D.

Spoilers ahead. Fairly be ye warned.

I love bad movies. Let’s get that out of the way right now. Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of my favorite TV shows. Movies like Ultraviolet, which is so over-the-top bad but still takes itself seriously, or like Shoot ‘Em Up, which knows that it is a terrible movie about shooting guns at people and so focuses entirely on being a movie about shooting guns at people. It’s awesome.

I love bad movies because I love to laugh at them. But a movie has to really hit it perfectly to be truly horrible. In a way, being so-bad-it’s-good is almost as hard as being genuinely good.

Babylon A.D., sadly doesn’t quite hit the mark, partly because the first part of the movie is actually decent. Not necessarily great, mind you, but decent. Mostly for the setting rather than any true goodness by way of characters or story, but I bought it.

Unfortunately, when it devolved into a load of senseless drivel, nobody alerted the crew. So even though the audience is sitting out there going, “Oh, God, this is shit,” the movie doesn’t realize it. Thus, we end up with a movie that is just plain bad.

In Babylon A.D., Toorop (why on earth do people in futuristic sci-fi movies never have normal names?) is a mercenary living in eastern Europe. Or maybe Russia. He’s hired to deliver a package to New York City in six days. The “package” turns out to be a woman named Aurora (where have I heard this one before?) and blah blah blah I’m sure you can figure out where it’s going from there. She’s more than she seems, they run into lots of danger on the way, and a big shadowy baddie is looking for her.

Yeah. I’ve never heard this one before.

First off, the cast. Michelle Yeoh is completely underutilized. You have a great actress who’s known for martial arts, and what do you do? Shoot action sequences like your cameraman and film editor both had the world’s worst case of ADHD and were addicted to crystal meth. You can’t see a damn thing that’s going on in any of them.

It also doesn’t help that the main villain is completely non-threatening. She’s a cold, ruthless bitch, but cold, ruthless bitches are not inherently threatening. At least, not when they can only spare two trucks of men to go after Toorop and Aurora. “Oops, that was it; guess I’ll just have to let them go.” Come on! You’re the villain! Let’s have a little dedication to the cause!

As you’ve probably guessed, the plot isn’t exactly gold star material either. The first part of story, when it’s just Toorop trying to do the job he was hired to do, is pretty good. It’s when we get to the last half to third of the movie that things just go flying off the track, and it quits making a damn lick of sense.

Just me and my gun…

Why does our lead trio go from “reluctant alliance” to “happy drinking buddies” in less time than it takes you to say “massive tonal shift”?
Why did they nuke the convent?
Why did the main villain SHOOT the ONLY person who could’ve told her where Aurora was, and then proceed to send only two trucks of men after her? (Yes, this one bothered me.)
Who the hell thought “AI in babies” and “pregnancy by pill” were good plot points?

I’m not thinking about it anymore. It makes my brain hurt.

When you stop making sense, that’s when you need to go completely over the top and just acknowledge that people will probably laugh at you, but at least they’ll be entertained. Hell, just have the main character suddenly start riding velociraptors through Times Square while shooting a gun that resembles the BFG from Doom.

As my brother would say, “It’s shit, but it’s entertaining shit.”

The worst sin a movie can commit is to be boring. Babylon A.D. hits this mark right at the end, because we don’t know what’s going on, why, or why we should care. Be good, be bad, be silly, be funny, be bold, be loud, be dumb. Just don’t. be. boring.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go watch some Ghost in the Shell to remind myself of what good science fiction is.

The Barenaked Archives: An Unfinished Life

From 2003 up until 2007, I was lucky enough to have “movie reviewer” as my job description. As such, I’ve built up a *lot* of reviews for just about every movie that came out during those years, as well as reviews of classic movies.

So, I give you my very first regular feature: The Barenaked Archives. These are reviews that I did for SIN or Hollywood Elsewhere (or both). Sadly, SIN and my column on HE are both gone, so this is now the only place online you can see these old columns.

An Unfinished Life

An Unfinished Life really wants to be an Oscar-worthy character drama. It’s put together all the trappings: an abused woman escaping her abuser with her daughter, a hostile parental figure with whom she hasn’t spoken in ten years, a wise yet crippled friend, and a quaint, secluded small town where the hustle and bustle of big-city life has never stepped foot.

But something’s missing. Maybe it’s that we get the sense we’ve seen these characters before. Maybe it’s the fact that as soon as they’re together, we can tell where they’re going to end up. Maybe it’s the fact that some subplots feel tacked on. Whatever the reason, that “something” is what holds An Unfinished Life back and makes it feel…well, unfinished.

Einar Gilkyson (Robert Redford) is a Wyoming rancher still haunted by the death of his son ten years earlier. He lives a solitary life on his ranch, with the only company being his best friend Mitch (Morgan Freeman), who was mauled about a year before by a grizzly bear. Einar’s less than thrilled when his daughter-in-law Jean (Jennifer Lopez), the woman he blames for his son’s death, shows up on his doorstep, but he’s shocked to see her daughter Griff, a granddaughter Einar never knew he had. Will he be able to mend the relationship with his remaining family members?

One thing you can’t criticize about this film is the acting. For pity’s sake, it’s Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman. You know they’re going to do a great job going in. Redford nails the bitter, grizzled old rancher, and Freeman’s role is quite similar to his Oscar-winning one in Million Dollar Baby. (Not saying that’s a bad thing, just saying it means Freeman knows what he’s doing.) Jennifer Lopez does well enough in her role, and newcomer Becca Gardner holds her own as Griff, and that’s saying something.

The setting, also, is beautiful. It’s a raw, natural beauty that comes from out-of-the-way places and small towns nestled in the crook of a mountain. Even though the ranch is old and in some ways falling apart, there’s something comforting about seeing a place that’s so close to nature and weathered so much still standing there year after year.

However, there’s something about An Unfinished Life that just doesn’t click. It leaves a sense of confusion, like you know you should’ve liked the movie better, but you didn’t and you just can’t figure out why.

Part of it is the subplot with Jean’s abusive boyfriend, Gary. I hate to say it, but after they get out of town the first time, he just doesn’t strike a very threatening chord. He tries to be, but he’s a city boy and you know as soon as he sets foot in the small Wyoming town that it’s only a matter of time before somebody kicks his ass. It feels like it was either hacked to death in the editing room or tacked on at the last second.

It also doesn’t help that the whole movie has a vague feeling of déjà vu, like it’s been seen and done before, and better. It’s as though the director took the ingredients for what he thought would make a good movie and threw them in the pot without regard for how much and in what order they should be added.

Even though An Unfinished Life has some strong points, as a whole it seems something’s been left out, something that could’ve pushed it past the “Well, it was good, but…” sentiment.

The Barenaked Archives: American Dreamz

From 2003 up until 2007, I was lucky enough to have “movie reviewer” as my job description. As such, I’ve built up a *lot* of reviews for just about every movie that came out during those years, as well as reviews of classic movies.

So, I give you my very first regular feature: The Barenaked Archives. These are reviews that I did for SIN or Hollywood Elsewhere (or both). Sadly, SIN and my column on HE are both gone, so this is now the only place online you can see these old columns.

Dreamz with a Zzzzz…

It’s rare that we here in Oklahoma get to see a movie more than a month early. So when the student union offered a free screening of American Dreamz back in March, I was second in line, getting there early enough to ensure a good seat.

For the reasons why that action has now been filed under “Michelle’s worst idea of 2006,” see below.

There are many things about American life and culture that are ripe for satire. The Bush administration, although it’s been getting that treatment for awhile. Terrorists, because laughing at them helps negate the “terror” in the name. And, of course, reality television, although that practically makes fun of itself.

So, if just making fun of one of these things is good, making fun of all three is better, right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong.

American Dreamz (with a “z,” becauze God forbid we zpell anything right in America) is the ambitious movie that attempts to pull reality television, instant fame, terrorists, and the President into one film and satirize these issues within an inch of their lives. The problem with this tactic is that they wind up shoving too much into the film, and thus it commits the worst sin a movie can: it becomes boring.

And yes, they sing the phrase “dreamz with a ‘z’” in a song. The temptation to stab out my eardrums was overwhelming.

We have Hugh Grant, who plays Martin Tweed, the narcissistic host/judge of the American Idol-esque show American Dreamz. We have Mandy Moore as a small-town contestant on the show who would sell her soul to Satan to win, and then figure out a way to wiggle out of the contract. We have Dennis Quaid as the President of the United States, who is self-admittedly not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, and is currently undergoing an identity crisis. And relative newcomer Sam Golzari is Omer, a mostly inept wannabe terrorist who has the slight problem that he actually likes American culture, especially show tunes.

Supporting cast includes Willem Dafoe as the vice president running the administration, Marcia Gay Harden as the supportive First Lady, and Chris Klein as Mandy Moore’s head-over-heels boyfriend. With all these people, and coming from writer/director Paul Weitz, you’d expect something that would at least be moderately entertaining, if not actually funny, for two hours.

What you get is a movie that is so mind-numbingly dull that it took the mantra “you can’t review a movie you haven’t seen all of” to keep me in the theater.

This movie has all the subtlety of a tanker truck smashing into a moving train. They will never let you forget that Dennis Quaid is supposed to be President Bush and Willem Dafoe is supposed to be Vice President Cheney. Quaid’s terrible Texas twang, the references to his father being president before, and the fact that Dafoe could pass for Cheney’s twin make it painfully obvious for the entire two hours.

I’m all for political satire, but this went over the top so fast it lost any amusement factor that it may have had.

And that was just the political satire part, which would’ve been more than enough for one movie. But no, they had to add in reality television. Because otherwise we would’ve never figured out that most people who get on those shows aren’t necessarily chosen for talent, but for the conflict they can create, or that they’re cutthroat in their desire to win. Saying that you grow to dislike these characters is an understatement. You grow to loathe them.

It doesn’t help that the beginning of the movie has a rambling feeling, as they’re trying to introduce all these characters and get them into their spots. It takes so long to get going that I was checking my watch less than thirty minutes into the film. By the time it reached the end, I was hoping — no, praying — that half the cast would get blown up, because that would be the only way this could have anything resembling a satisfactory conclusion.

Unfortunately, that is not the case, and though there was death, it wasn’t enough to make the previous two hours worthwhile. The only reason I didn’t fall asleep was because the chairs in the theater were too uncomfortable.

American Dreamz isn’t like Ultraviolet, which is so bad it’s funny. This is just bad. The idea probably seemed funny, but the execution is terrible and the parts don’t make a cohesive whole. I beg you, do not waste your hard-earned money on this. Start studying for finals early instead. It’ll cost less and be considerably more entertaining.

Summer 2008 Movie Reviews: Part 2

And now, the rest of the movies that I caught this summer…

WALL-E: I love Pixar. Even their worst movies are better than 99 percent of the crap Hollywood turns out. WALL-E is a movie where the main characters don’t even talk for most of the movie, and it’s still FANTASTIC. Visually, it’s absolutely phenomenal. It’s amazing how they use visual cues to set up a backstory without telling us anything. There’s no needless voiceover (which can be very hit-or-miss). The most narration we get is from old commercials.

Do you like metaphors with your movies? Then check out the humans on the spaceship that have their lives so dictated by technology that they don’t stop to see the world around them. Unlike the “all you need is love” theme in Sex and the City, the message here fits seamlessly into the story and never gets clunky. Pixar hit yet another home run with this film.

So shiny…

Hellboy II: The Golden Army: I really enjoyed Hellboy, so while I wasn’t wild with anticipation for the sequel (I’m rarely wild with anticipation for sequels), it looked pretty cool. My favorite part of this movie was the visuals, especially the animated beginning sequence, telling the story of the Golden Army. It was also great to see John Hurt again, if only for a few minutes.

However, the rest of the movie alternated between being pretty good and being just sort of “meh.” I did like that you could sympathize with the villain’s reasoning, if not his methods, and the tooth fairies were creepy as hell. However, they seemed to have trouble establishing the same character dynamic that they had in the first movie, and that hurt this one.

Although I liked the climactic fight scene in this one better than the first movie, overall this one wasn’t quite as good as its predecessor. It was still a fun afternoon diversion, and if you liked Hellboy, you should catch it when it hits DVD.

Big, red, and badass.

Mamma Mia!: This is what I like to call a WYSIWYG movie: what you see is what you get. It looks like a fun, lighthearted, happily-ever-after movie, and it is. You watch it and come out feeling all bright and bubbly, like the whole world is just a little bit shinier. The music is great and the location is gorgeous (then again, I love Greece). You just want to get up and sing and dance right along with the characters. It’s just a whole lot of fun. If you just want a movie that’ll make you smile, this is it.

My, what IS that stain on the ceiling?

The Dark Knight: This was the biggest movie of the summer, hands-down, and is one of the few sequels that I was on pins and needles waiting for from the moment the credits rolled on Batman Begins. Most of the cast and crew returns, along with new additions Maggie Gyllenhaal, Aaron Eckhart, and Heath Ledger. The result? The second absolutely fan-freaking-tastic superhero movie of the summer.

The Dark Knight kept perfectly with the tone from the first movie, and even gave us something more: a dip into the psychology of not just Batman, but the people of Gotham in general. I loved the scene with the ferries and the hospital’s hostages, and Gordon’s amazing ending monologue, explaining why they must chase Batman although he did nothing.

As I’m sure you’ve already heard (or seen), Ledger’s Joker is one dark, twisted puppy. The disappearing pencil trick was perhaps the best entrance ever. We don’t know where he came from. We don’t know why he is the way that he is. But damn, he’s a great adversary for Batman. I don’t know if it’s Oscar-worthy, but it is certainly one of the best villain performances ever.

Aaron Eckhart (whom I love from Thank You For Smoking) also stands out as Harvey Dent/Two-Face. And holy crap, he made a scary-looking Two-Face. His fall is very tragic, although it could’ve been handled a little bit better. It happened just a little too quickly for my taste. Rachel, unfortunately, is the weak link once again. She doesn’t seem to be a character so much as simply motivation for Batman and Dent.

The returning cast? Stellar. The surprising depth of the movie? Stellar. The surprising darkness? Well, don’t take the kiddies to see this one. Truly, a worthy sequel to Batman Begins. See it.

Why so serious?

And…that’s a wrap. I managed to catch one of the blatantly abominable action movies currently in theaters (Babylon A.D., if you really wanted to know), so I’ll have an update with my thoughts on that later.

Summer 2008 Movie Reviews: Part 1

I’m almost ashamed. I didn’t get a chance to catch nearly as many movies this summer as I normally do. (I missed Speed Racer, The Incredible Hulk, and The Happening, to name a few…although from word of mouth, I imagine missing the latter was a good thing.)

However, I did catch most of the ones I really wanted to see, and for the most part, I have to say this summer was well-spent. There was only one movie that I really disliked, while the others ranged from “liked but had problems with” to “loved unconditionally and want to bear celluloid children with them.”

Without further ado, my summer 2008 movie reviews:

Get Smart: I’d never seen the old TV show that spawned this movie, so maybe I have a bit of a different perspective. Personally, I love Steve Carell and think he’s a comedic genius, so Get Smart already had that going for it. Alan Arkin, who was fantastic in Little Miss Sunshine, was great as the Chief in this. Dwayne Johnson was surprisingly funny as superstar Agent 23.

The plot itself was nothing to write home about (but then again, what spy spoofs really are?), but it was consistently funny and the actors rocked their roles. And really, what more do you want out of a comedy? Definitely catch it when you get the chance. Oh, and a major bonus? A random Bill Murray cameo.

Run, Forrest, run!

Iron Man: There is but one word to describe this movie, and that is: AWESOME. Admittedly, I was initially skeptical about Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark, but he absolutely NAILED this role. There is no other who could be Tony Stark. Jeff Bridges? He was a fantastic villain. I didn’t recognize him when he first came on the screen. I loved Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Tony’s robots, and the various suit-testing sequences. I loved the awesome ending line. I loved that they had a solid story, the post-credits scene, and S.H.I.E.L.D. In fact, there was very little that I didn’t love about this movie.

The only part I wasn’t absolutely crazy about was the fight between Iron Man and Iron Monger, and that was mostly because I couldn’t figure out why Stane died and Stark survived. But the rest of the movie was so damn amazing that I really don’t care. This is easily on par with Batman Begins and X2 for sheer superhero movie badassness.

Hail to the king, baby.

Sex and the City: Sue me; I was a fan of the TV show. Thus, I was pretty excited when they managed to get everybody together and finally make the movie. And the movie was one of those rare beasts: a beloved TV show that actually translated into a decent movie. These were the same characters we’d grown to love over the show’s run. I liked that they stayed true to that, and that the friendships between the four women still stayed strong.

I wasn’t as crazy that Charlotte had very little by way of a story arc. Also, the “love” theme was handled a bit heavily. People who didn’t like the show won’t be converted, but it was good for what it was. And I like it when a movie can do that: embrace what it is.

Did somebody just fart?

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Welcome to the only movie of the summer that I truly disliked. I had pretty high expectations, but I knew we were in trouble from the moment the CG prairie dog hit the screen.

Now, I love Indiana Jones. The Last Crusade is my favorite. This just didn’t feel like an Indiana Jones movie to me. It felt like they took beloved characters and put them in a crappy 1950s sci-fi movie. Indy is at his best when he’s hunting classical Christian mythological treasures.

The transition to the South American mythology was pretty cool, and I would’ve been okay with that. And the actors themselves did a really good job. But come on. Aliens? A flying saucer? Surviving a nuclear blast in a refrigerator that got blown four miles? This, my friends, is not Indiana Jones. This is a story that more closely resembled horse poop than a decent plot. So help me God, I hope they leave it at this one and let us recall the originals with fond nostalgia.

At least it’s not snakes.

That’s it for now. Check in tomorrow for part 2, wherein I discuss Wall-E, Hellboy II, Mamma Mia!, and everybody’s most anticipated movie of the summer, The Dark Knight.

The Funniest Damn Video Game Reviews Ever

Yes, I love movies, but I also truly enjoy video games, and since we often have video games based on movies and vice versa, I figure it’s appropriate to point you to my absolute favorite video game review site:

Zero Punctuation at the Escapist Magazine

Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, a British gamer currently residing in Australia, brings us cleverly animated video reviews narrated at 90 miles per hour. They’re hilarious. There is no other word to describe them. When I first discovered them, I spent two HOURS watching every video in the archive. (This is me, who is hard-pressed to watch any video online because I hate how damn long they take to load.)

Anyway, yeah. Watch it. Laugh. Love it.

I’m going back to Project Runway now.

The Barenaked Archives: Batman Begins

From 2003 up until 2007, I was lucky enough to have “movie reviewer” as my job description. As such, I’ve built up a *lot* of reviews for just about every movie that came out during those years, as well as reviews of classic movies.

So, I give you my very first regular feature: The Barenaked Archives. These are reviews that I did for SIN or Hollywood Elsewhere (or both). Sadly, SIN and my column on HE are both gone, so this is now the only place online you can see these old columns.

Batman Begins

Buzz has been building for the fifth Batman installment since Warner Bros. first announced they’d selected Christopher Nolan as director. It continued to build with each bit of casting news: Michael Caine as the butler Alfred, Liam Neeson as the mentor Ducard, Morgan Freeman as the Q-like Lucius Fox, and Christian Bale as the Dark Knight himself.

It really sounded like Warner was trying desperately to erase the vile aftertaste of the much-maligned Batman and Robin after seeing that, when done right, comic books movies can be both good and lucrative (see: Spider-man 2, X2). Now, the movie is here, and the inevitable “does it suck?” question can be answered.

Batman Begins not only doesn’t suck, but is easily the best Bat-flick of the bunch and arguably the best comic book movie to date.

Unlike the previous installments, where Batman was already a fixture in Gotham, this movie starts out with Bruce Wayne (Bale) in prison halfway across the world, having been traveling for years in search of a way to assuage his guilt and rage over his parents’ murder. He’s recruited by Ducard (Neeson) and taken in by the League of Shadows, a mysterious vigilante organization led by the equally mysterious Ra’s Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe), where he learns to fight. It’s only after he discovers his values and the League’s conflict that he returns to Gotham to take back his company and his city.

The first third of the movie is Bruce Wayne honing his fighting skills with the League of Shadows, interspersed with flashbacks that detail his parents’ murder and Bruce’s hatred for Joe Chill, their killer. When he leaves the League and returns to Gotham, he has to reenter a society he’s been away from for seven years, and learn about the company that his father left.

Some might think this part is “slow,” because the movie is about Batman, but Nolan and writer David Goyer really put the emphasis on the “begins” part of the title. We know that Batman is an ass-kicking vigilante badass, but this is about how he becomes an ass-kicking vigilante badass. They show us where he learned to fight, how he learned to be stealthy, how he learned to strike fear in the hearts of villains everywhere, how he got his cave, and how he came into his famous gadgets and gizmos.

Christian Bale is the best Batman, hands-down (sorry to all you guys who love Michael Keaton). He has a handle on the dual personality, both the billionaire playboy and the ass-kicking crimefighter. You can practically see the anger that fuels him in his quest to save Gotham, as it moves from the uncontrolled rage of a boy searching for vengeance to the righteous wrath of a man determined to bring justice to a city. With Bale, it seems that Bruce Wayne is the mask, and Batman is his true persona.

Although it seems that Gotham is overrun with crime and corruption, there are still a few idealists, people who would also like to see Gotham restored, just like Batman. There is police sergeant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), one of the few good cops in the department. He’s seen a lot, and it wears on him that nothing he does seems to make any difference because of the opposition he faces, but he’s still a good cop.

Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) is the assistant district attorney and Bruce’s childhood friend, who’s the only person with the guts to prosecute the heavy-hitting criminals that overrun the city. (And surprisingly, she did not annoy me.) Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) is a scientist/inventor within Wayne Enterprises, and it is he who provides prototypes (originally developed for soldiers) of the tools that Batman uses. And, of course, there is Alfred (Caine) the butler, both a servant and a worried father figure to Bruce who will not let him give up, ever.

Mention must be made of the villains, because every superhero is only as good as those he fights. Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson) had a bigger part than expected as the mob boss who owns half of Gotham. He’s arrogant and completely assured of his own power, as we see when a pre-Batman Bruce angrily confronts him in a restaurant on the seedy side of town.

However, Falcone is small potatoes compared to the man who seems to be one of his flunkies, the head psychologist of Arkham Asylum, Dr. Johnathan Crane, a.k.a. the Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy). At first, Dr. Crane looks like a milquetoast pawn, paid by Falcone to declare his thugs legally insane so they don’t go to jail. Then, it becomes clear that Crane is smart, dangerously smart, and it’s more likely that Falcone is his pawn rather than vice versa. Although some might miss the fun and flamboyant villains of Bat-films past, this one deserves to be Bruce Wayne’s show. And what a damn good show it is.

Another thing to point out is this is not a kid-friendly PG-13. The trailers promised dark and scary, and the movie delivers. With a villain whose main weapon is a hallucinogenic gas that makes people see what they fear, how could it not?

When Batman makes his first true appearance, it’s like watching a short horror movie, except the bad guys are the ones being stalked by an unseen menace. We catch glimpses of Batman, hear the fluttering of his cape, but we don’t see him.

Under the influence of the fear gas, Scarecrow’s mask drips with maggots and his voice sounds like a demon’s. Batman’s eyes glow red and his mouth oozes black goo. This is one scary comic film, and probably not for younger kids the way previous incarnations were.

Batman Begins is an example of a film where everything clicks: from the casting, to the directing, to the setting, to the story. We’ve moved from a neon-cartoony Gotham and a Batsuit with nipples to a believable metropolitan area and a hero whose barely-checked rage makes him almost as dangerous as the criminals he fights. Realistic? Yes. Dark? Yes. Good? Fantastic.

Batman begins, indeed.