Rate That Movie 2!: Electric Boogaloo

[Geezer]

Moneyball: 10/10

Fantastic, but there was really no way I wasn't going to love this. I've been anticipating this forever, and it didn't disappoint. Brad Pitt is excellent, Jonah Hill is excellent, and the story is brilliant. As much of a stat geek as I am, this movie was perfect for me. Loved it, loved it, loved it!

[numbersix]

Drive 5/10

Honestly, I don't see what everyone else liked about this. Sure, it was stylish and cool, but it only style, and so cool is came across as frosty. It's nearly impossible to associate with Ryan Gosling's character. He's a cross between someone suffering from autism and a Ken doll. We have no sense of who he is, merely that he likes to drive, and that's it. His relationship with Carey Mulligan thus doesn't work, and no amount of music-heavy driving sequences and doe-y eyes will compensate for that.

And did I mention the style? At times the film emphasises style so much that common sense seems thrown out the window. Several sequences are so unnatural it may as well have been set on another planet. I'm thinking particularly of the scene in the elevator (when he kisses Mulligan, and the goon just stands there, even though surely that would be the best time to pounce. And when Gosling stomps his head into mush, Mulligan just stands at the doors staring at him, not reacting to the fact that someone's head has been stomped in). And there's plenty of other scenes in which there's a lot of counter-intuitive posturing, making it feel like a music video from some 80's dark wave band. Admittedly, the music is kinda cool, but it seems like a deliberate attempt to reference other films (The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, The Driver, Bulitt, Thief, etc) which makes the film feel unreal and distant.

Bryan Cranston plays a cliche, but at least Albert Brooks is interesting. Worth a watch if you dig early Mann, or wondered what GTA:Vice City would look like as a movie, but it's a cold, heartless exercise in stylistic mimickry.

[undeadmonkey]

Moneyball 9/10
I'm someone who doesn't love sports, have a brother who is all into the statistics of all sports and my eyes glaze over whenever he or anybody starts talking sports. I've seen sports movies that i liked but only liked and i doubt i've ever seen one more than once. I loved this movie and yes, this movie is about sports, but it's not a sports movie. you don't have the team focus and the obligatory win or loss at the end of the movie. It's about a man and what he loves. My one complaint is Jonah Hill's character, he was fantastic and i wanted to know more about him, but we get very little, i had never enjoyed Jonah Hill before now, but he was really good here. Also, I don't see the oscar nom for pitt, not that he wasn't great, he was, but nothing really stood out. This is one of my favorite films of the year.

[Chienfantome]

This weekend I've seen Friends with Benefits. The trailer made it look funny, so I was expecting a better film than No strings attached, but it was just as bad and unfunny. A couple of laughs, a few smiles. And nothing new on the horizon. Fortunately, there were good actors (Harrelson, Jenkins) and a few cameos to make it watchable. 3/10

I've also seen a forgettable french drama entitled Mineurs 27. There isn't much to say about it, a stylized exercice that doesnt really go anywhere. The best thing about it is the beauty of Laetitia Casta's little sister making her film debut. She is absolutely gorgeous. That's not much for a film.

THe best film I've seen this weekend, by far, is Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam, telling the nomination of a new Pope who doesn't want to assume his new role, hide, and escape the Vatican before his name is announced, leaving the world in the expectation, and the cardinals waiting for him, not knowing what to do. It's rather brilliant, light, poetic, funny, very conscious and yet totally absurd. 7.5/10

[Buscemi]

Looks like we are in agreement on Will Gluck being one of the most overrated directors in Hollywood. He gets lucky with making a different type of sex comedy and now he's treated like he's a new comedy god.

Anyway...

Dolphin Tale 3-D ***/****

An entertaining family film (based on a true story) about the rescue of Winter the dolphin from a crab trap and her fight for survival after losing her tail from getting caught, eventually leading to the creation of a prosthetic tail to help her spine. Winter plays herself and shows enthusiasm and energy in telling her story. The rest of the cast (with familiar names such as Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd and Kris Kristofferson) also does well and the newcomers playing the children have a nice screen presence with Winter. The film runs nearly two hours (a good half-hour longer than most family films) but doesn't feel long at all. Also, the film doesn't resort to cheap gags or dumb characters to pander to the audience (the one thing that comes close, a scene with a remote-control helicopter, ends up making sense in context and saves itself from being a dumb scene). A good, old-fashioned family film like they used to make them.

As for the 3-D: it is used well and looked nice on the big, bright screen that I saw it on. The photography (done by Karl Walter Lindenlaub, who also lensed Stargate, Independence Day, Prince Caspian and Last of the Dogmen, among others) was also well-done and didn't have any of the problems usually seen by digital productions. But it isn't really needed so a 2-D version would suffice if that's your only option.

Killer Elite **.5/****

Actually not a remake of the 1975 film but instead an adaptation of the Ranulph Fiennes (the adventurer and cousin of Ralph) novel The Feather Men, this is really more of an espionage thriller than the action film that is promoted in the trailers. The film is a little flat at times (and at the showing I was at, really darkly lit so it was hard to see what was happening) but it is an interesting movie with a 1980's retro feel (the story is set in 1981) and features some not-too-bad acting. Robert De Niro is entertaining as Statham's mentor, Clive Owen makes for a good villain, Dominic Purcell impressed me as an associate of Statham's character (who looks a lot like Lemmy from Motorhead) and Jason Statham is his usual self. The film also makes nice use of its sets (very much showing off its $70 million budget with its scenes in Australia, London, Paris, Oman and Mexico) and Yvonne Strahovski is also very easy on the eyes. A good movie to watch on a rainy day.

And a funny thing about seeing this: there were a lot of people who brought their kids to see this (many of them elementary age and a couple even brought their baby). Sure, I can expect some strange behavior at a cheap night (the theatre I went to does half-off Tuesdays) but didn't they realize this was an adult-aimed R-rated movie with a number of gruesome deaths?

[NSpan]

This weekend I've seen Friends with Benefits. The trailer made it look funny, so I was expecting a better film than No strings attached, but it was just as bad and unfunny. A couple of laughs, a few smiles. And nothing new on the horizon. Fortunately, there were good actors (Harrelson, Jenkins) and a few cameos to make it watchable. 3/10

Kate sees slightly more movies in the theater than I do, and (on that rare occasion where she sees a movie without me) she tries to pick movies that we feel confident I will not ever have any interest in seeing. When she saw Friends With Benefits, I felt pretty darn okay about working instead that night.

[Chienfantome]

That was indeed a damn good choice of your NSpan

[NSpan]

[BanksIsDaFuture]

I guess I'm the designated romantic comedy guy here, cause I enjoyed Friends With Benefits a lot..

[Geezer]

I don't see how watching Mila Kunis hump can ever be that bad

[numbersix]

I don't see how watching Mila Kunis hump can ever be that bad

I was thinking the very same thing....

[Chienfantome]

As mas as it sounds, you get tired of seeing Mila Kunis hump Timberlake in the film. It seems like they spend a third of the film doing it, but keeping it chast enough so we don't see too much. But I guess watching Kunis in her underwear during half of the film is one of the few enjoyable aspects of it, yes

[undeadmonkey]

I don't see how watching Mila Kunis hump can ever be that bad

I was thinking the very same thing....

yes yes

[becs]

Eh. FWB certainly wasn't good, but it also wasn't torturous to sit through either. Like you said, a couple laughs/smiles. Personally I couldn't get over how scrawny and pale JT is.

[Buscemi]

Despite the hype over The Social Network, Justin Timberlake simply isn't a good actor.