I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

Start with Will and Grace, and just go down from there. It’s a relentless barrage of gay jokes. Most of them aren’t even funny, and reminded me of the old Police Academy shtick. Moreover, I could see the potential; the possibility of creating a sophisticated farce, and the failure to even try. The filmmaker’s lack of vision makes this all the more paltry. Yes, there’s Jessica Biel in her underwear. Yes, it’s spectacular. But to watch Sandler grab her boobs to carry out some lame joke and fulfill some on-set fantasy is depressing. Biel and her beautiful boobs deserve better.

The Simpsons Movie

It pains me to say it, but this was unremarkable. Not that it’s bad, it’s just a longer stock episode. There are some funny bits, but the dramatic stakes are not raised enough. It’s not impressive if the animation is far superior when the plot is so cookie-cutter. The uninspired plot is actually SUB-par to the great Simpson’s episodes. This doesn’t hold a candle to Who Shot Mr. Burns. Ho-hum. So-so. Comme ci, comme ça.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

After my second viewing, I have to restate the tragedy of Imelda Staunton, who gives a perfect, creepy, wicked performance, but because of the weak Rowling plot, her motives remain unclear. It is a performance worthy of a better script. Odd, too, that so many of the ostensibly key gadgets from earlier books, the marauders map, the invisibility cloak, etc. might have come in handy here. But they, like so many plot threads, are ignored and left hanging. The 3-D finale was cool, though.

Sunshine

Sunshine takes liberally from the sci-fi vault: 2001, 2010, The Abyss… The Core. It’s never boring, but it lacks skillful foreshadowing and certain revelations seem to come out of nowhere. If you force yourself, you can help Danny Boyle et al justify these cheesy twists, but that also makes you start poking holes in the logic, which should not be the point. Ultimately, the theme, a worthwhile one about avoiding space travel with religious nut-jobs, gets pushed aside by the thankfully relentless plot, which, if given room to breathe for a nanosecond, would implode into antimatter. Worth a look, if for no other reason than at least it’s not a sequel.

Talk To Me

The richness of this docudrama comes when the characters react to the historical events with such genuine emotion. Don Cheadle does a great job of transforming from the cocky and brash exterior of Petey Greene to the hidden side impeded by stage fright. Chiwetel Ejiofor, currently the poor man’s Denzel, is great too, and both actors will receive gold-ish kudos. Lackluster ending barely detracts from overall meaty drama and funk-filled history lesson.

Black Sheep

Clever and perverse. A good combination of gross and funny. Not very suspenseful, though, and one gruesome sheep murder after another starts to get a little tedious. So it could’ve been a tad shorter. Nevertheless, the gross-outs are gross and the laughs are plentiful. Kudos to kiwi actress Danielle Mason for her deft debut.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

The filmmakers of the Order of the Phoenix bear the brunt of an incredible responsibility – to take an excruciatingly long novel with a muddled, disjointed plot and try and make a suspenseful movie out of it. In this case they were about 90% successful. David Yates et al did an excellent job of trying to strip and streamline the story to its bare essentials to attempt to create some genuine suspense. Unfortunately, doing so reveals how weakly Rowling plots in the first place and there’s little to do to fix that. The hope is to move fast enough so there’s no time to stop and ask what the hell’s going on. As for complaints that the “magic is gone,” I’m fine with that. You can only look at so many magical creatures. Eventually, shit needs to happen.

Rescue Dawn

Minimalist, straightforward, and objective, Werner Herzog’s episodes of the crash, capture, and torture of his protagonist seem like non sequiturs. At first, there appears to be no plot or thread. No rising action. There is little to no manipulation of suspense – music, quick cuts, etc. But slowly and almost unnoticeably my emotional involvement spiked when I found myself on the edge of my seat chowing-down on my nails praying that Dieter Dengler makes it out alive. But that’s only one of several escapes in the movie, each more harrowing. Christian Bale’s hero feels slightly too optimistic and freakishly positive, but it’s clear it would take a man with a certain mindset to survive what Dengler did.

Live Free or Die Hard

(2nd Viewing)

Transformers

Easily one of the best “cars-that-turn-into-robots-and-then-fight” movies this year.

Ratatouille

The animation is gorgeous and the story is delightful. The people who believe that because “Ratatouille” is a “cartoon” it’s a lesser art form and it’s for kids are horribly mistaken. They’re missing out on one of the best movies of the year. The amount of technical skill and loving care that goes into making Pixar movies far exceeds even the biggest Hollywood movies or arthouse labors of love. Disliking a type of medium is shallow. It’s like saying, “I like all paintings but watercolors.” The movie’s SO clever in fact, that its story condemns those who might criticize it. Furthermore there’s a reveal near the end, a culmination of many jokes, that made me laugh harder than I have in years. Tears streamed down my face. I think I might’ve even peed a little. I loved this.