Real Movie Review-Movie Reviews, Movie Quotes, Movie Trivia

Director: Jonas Pate

Starring: Kevin Spacey, Mark Webber, Robin Williams, Keke Palmer, Saffron Burrows, Jack Huston, Pell James, Robert Loggia, Dallas Roberts, Jesse Plemons

Jonas Pate steps out of TV land, where he has spent the last decade in various behind the camera positions to try his hand at the big screen and despite the help from a talented cast that includes the award-laden duo of Kevin Spacey and Robin Williams, as well as the promising young actress Keke Palmer (Akeelah and The Bee), Pate is unable to lift the film above the ponderous overfilled script. There are way too many characters here, and the result is a lack of real character interaction and depth that would allow the stars to work their magic.

Kevin Spacey is Henry Carter, a prominent psychiatrist to the stars with a best selling self help book. Life should be great, but the recent suicide of his wife has led him to a drug problem and serious self-doubt. This ties in with the stories of an aging star fighting philandering tendencies (Williams), a Hollywood power agent along with his pathological germ fear and his sweet pregnant assistant. There is also a teen struggling with loss (Keke Palmer), an aspiring screenwriter, a beautiful aging actress. Robert Loggia plays Carter’s father, and Jesse Plemons plays his drug dealer who also serves as a shoulder to lean on. I guess writer Thomas Moffett didn’t think he had quite enough characters yet. I would like to tell you more about the seemingly endless sub-plots here, but I have used all my space just giving most of the characters. I might have missed a couple, but you get the idea.

If you imagine taking Ordinary People and mashing it up with American Beauty and Crash you will have some idea of what to expect here. The offspring here though, is not a best picture winner but rather a muddled mass of wasted potential and missed opportunity. In the end, there is a mediocre drama that will suffice for Friday night viewing for genre fans, but no more than that.

Righteous Kill Trailer

Director: Jon Avnet

Starring: Robert Deniro, Al Pacino, Carla Gugino, 50 Cent

Every decade or so, a director/producer gets the bright idea to team up iconic actors in a movie and create the next Godfather. Sometimes this idea works splendidly (Glen Gary, Glen Ross / The Departed / Analyze This), other times it is about as good an idea as Rosanne Barr singing the national anthem (Heat / Ishtar / Wag the Dog). Sometimes, when there is an absolute absence of an original idea and no real meat in the script, great actors are left looking very mediocre…..enter Righteous Kill.

Righteous Kill is the story of career long partners in the police force Tom “Turk” Cowan (played adequately by Robert Deniro) and David Fisk (played by Al Pacino). Fisk and Cowan are a couple of rough around the edges, old school New York detectives who have spent their career trying to do the right thing by keeping the scum off the street and making the world a safer place. Since no good deed ever goes unpunished, they have become increasingly dissatisfied with the effectiveness of the judicial system watching many of their good busts get thrown out of court for many different reasons. This growing resentment leads them to take justice into their own hands on a couple of occasions which has left them with a less than clear conscience. When a serial killer starts killing off defendants that had skated on major charges like murder and rape, the investigators become increasingly suspicious that it may be one of New York’s finest behind the death list. The question is who?

Righteous Kill has an interesting although not very original premise and decent but not transcendent script. The performances although palatable could easily have been turned in by Mark and Donnie Wahlberg. Although I have nothing against the brothers Wahlberg, I expect more from a combined 6 Oscar acting Nominations and a combined 3 Oscar acting wins. Fifty Cent is entertaining as a Gangster/Drug Dealer/Club Owner, I am sure he has plenty of people in his entourage that he could have researched for that role. Righteous kill is a very typical, formula who dunnit cop movie that is entertaining enough if you happen to catch it on starz while doing laundry but definitely not worth expending any energy to see.

Director: Thomas McCarthy

Starring: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleiman, Danai Jekesai Gurira, Hiam Abbass

Hollywood likes to make films that I call issue pieces from time to time. An issue piece has a story and characters and they can be quite a good film, but there is always a central social issue that the filmmakers seem to want to sway your opinion on. The Visitor is an issue piece, with the issue here being the plight of illegal aliens in the United States. The story is grim and slow-paced, but the message is clear and poignant without being overpowering. The performances are very good and both relative newcomers Haaz Sleiman and Danai Jekesai Gurira, show both ability and charisma

Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins) is a widower and university professor who is living life through the motions, finding some relief in music, though he is frustrated in his attempts to learn an instrument himself. When an unavoidable NYC conference leads him to return to his long-kept but rarely used apartment, he finds a young couple, Tarek and Zainab (Sleiman and Gurira) are living there. Things are tense at first but soon Vail’s loneliness and a mutual interest in music gives rise to a friendship between Vail and Tarek, which leads to complications.

The Visitor is a semi-satisfying, but unremarkable drama, designed to tug at our heartstrings, but is not wholly successful. Still, with a decent story and a fresh cast of talented and mostly unknown faces, it does mange to draw out a couple hours worth of entertainment.

Director: Morgan Spurlock

Starring: Morgan Spurlock

The documentary genius of Morgan Spurlock returns! In his first effort since the brilliant look at fast food, Super Size Me, Spurlock is about to become a dad, and decides he has to make the world safe for his offspring. The best way to do this, he determines, is to track down western public enemy #1, Osama Bin Laden. This premise is handled quite lightly, though this feature has less appeal than Spurlock eating MacDonald’s ninety times. Still it is another wonderful film that eases us into an uncomfortable subject and then offers an engaging introspective view of it. The film clocks in at less than 90 minutes and offers enough animation and cheesy CGI, that the whole thing looks just a little cheap, but is still entertaining and compelling.

Finding the most wanted man in the world, seems like it could be a tricky goal, but undaunted, Mr. Spurlock sets out on his task. His plan is simple. Just visit countries where he may be and ask people if they’ve seen him. Hmmm, why hasn’t western intelligence thought of that? Anyway, Morgan visits several Muslim and middle-eastern countries, and talks to people. Some are people of power and influence, while most are average citizens. Besides the inquiry into Bin Laden’s whereabouts, he asks them what they think of the terrorist leader, the United States and of their own circumstances. The results are interesting and range from chilling to amusing.

“Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden?” plays like ‘political science light’ and will should make the rounds of grade twelve classrooms for the next few years. It is light enough to be fun and serious enough to offer a little insight, but with a feature like this, its best to keep in mind that its not difficult to give the viewer any message that the filmmaker wants to give.

Director: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

Starring: Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra, Kevin Sorbo, Ken Davitian, Diedrich Bado

Meet The Spartans (2008) *1/2

Director: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer

Starring: Sean Maguire, Carmen Electra, Kevin Sorbo, Ken Davitian, Diedrich Bado

The lords of the overdone spoof, writer/directors Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer are back at it. After such comedy classics as the Scary Movie series and all its offshoots (Epic Movie, Date Movie, etc.) these guys turned the action epic, 300 into a one-gag film with modern pop culture references appearing over and over again in the setting of ancient Sparta. Its’ funny once in awhile, but mostly it’s just wearisome

TV star Sean Maguire is Leonidas, the mucho leader of the Spartans who loves nothing more than kicking people into the Pit of Death, but unfortunately stopped before the makers of this mess stepped onscreen. The story follows 300 pretty closely, just tweaking it into the same joke over and over again, as it references Casino Royale (the groin torture scene of course), Happy Feet, Britney Spears (naturally), and Paris Hilton (another surprise). An overabundance of body fluid scenes do nothing to add to the appeal here, nor do the preponderance of gay jokes. I’d tell you how it ends, but I’ve already forgotten.

Meet the Spartans is poor, even by spoof standards, but juvenile-minded fans of Friedberg and Seltzer’s previous efforts will probably enjoy it, though the humor is weaker and replaced by more pop culture references and corporate product placement. It does offer one gift to movie reviewers such as myself, in that its ridiculously short 70 minute run time limited my suffering, though real fans may feel like they should get some of their money back. As for movie viewers who have missed these guys’ previous attempts at cinematic excellence, skip it and be glad you did, but I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that.

Director: Renny Harlin

Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Ed Harris, Eva Mendes, Keke Palmer, Luis Guzman

Director Renny Harlin takes a shot at a cop conspiracy mystery, with mediocre results. The story is engaging but too familiar, and is filled with Hollywood stereotypes. Harlin shows some style with a dark film that could have used a distinctive setting, or more original characters to lift it out of a dusty, obscure spot on the video store shelf.

Samuel L. Jackson is Tom, an ex-cop struggling with past tragedy who now runs a death scene cleaning business, while raising his teenage daughter, played by Keke Palmer (Akeelah and the Bee). Soon, Tom finds himself embroiled in mysterious conspiracy of crooked cops.

The story of The Cleaner plays out like a weaker version of Mystic River or Gone Baby Gone, so fans of those films may find this acceptable as a rental choice, as long as their expectations are not too high.

The Cleaner – movie quotes:
“Most people don’t know this, but when someone dies in your house, and leaves a mess, it’s up to the family to clean it up.”
Movie lines from The Cleaner

Director: James C. Strouse

Starring: John Cusack, Shelan O’Keefe, Gracie Bednarczyk, Alessandro Nivola

Someone answer me this. Is there a shortage of misery in the world? Do things not occur in our own lives often enough to make us sad? Do we really have to entertain ourselves by watching the saddest possible stories? Writer/director James C. Strouse must think not. Otherwise he wouldn’t sit down to write and make a film this bloody sad. The dialog is very natural and the story is too simple, seems full of dead subplots and will probably have you at least sniffling a little by the end (no surprise there, if you have seen the trailer). The performances are magnificently authentic with the young performers shining as brightly as the veteran, Cusack.

John Cusack is Stanley Philipps, whose career army wife is sent to Iraq, while he is left home to care for their daughters. Heidi (Shelan O’Keefe) is 12 and her sister, Dawn (Gracie Bednarczyk) is 8, and caring for them promises to get alot tougher when Stanley receives word that his wife has died in combat. Unable to deal with telling the girls, Stanley instead takes them on an impromptu road trip to an amusement park called Enchanted Garden, while he figures out how to break it to them.

Cusack is great, and he showcases his talent in a role that is very rare for him, here, but the story is too depressing and not interesting enough to offer much more than a dull, empty, heavy feeling by the end. Melodrama lovers might find it suitable for a nice Wednesday night cry, but I’d rather have more jokes, or more story if a movie is going to make me sad in the end.

Director: Eric Valette

Starring: Shannyn Sossamon, Edward Burns, Ana Claudia Talancon, Azura Skye

One Missed Call is French director Eric Valette’s first English language feature, and if he doesn’t find better projects than this, there won’t be many more. The performers here are a mixed bag of Hollywood beauties, who, for a feature of this type, have too many clothes and not enough acting skill, which ranges from poor to acceptable. Edward Burns, who has become a prince of the B movie circuit since Saving Private Ryan, does a decent job, but doesn’t stand out enough to earn better roles. The story is a cheesy celebration of 21st century consumer technology. The dialog is uninspired, while the story is unapologetic horror formula, which doesn’t even manage to generate any appreciable amount of sustained tension and suspense.

Shannyn Sossamon is Beth, a twenty something student, whose circle of friends is shrinking due to a string of bizarre deaths which seem to be linked somehow to their cell phone contacts. Gasp! What could inspire more fear in the young target audience than danger linked to using their wireless lifeline? Edward Burns is a cop named Jack, whose sister is an early victim, and now he is determined to figure what happened to her, no matter how ridiculous the answer seems to be. Surprisingly, the premise of the film is the strongest point of the story. As the plot unfolds, it only gets worse and worse.

One Missed Call should have disclaimer saying “For non-discriminating horror fans only. May induce nausea and drowsiness in others.” I have seen worse movies, but the fact that this was a theatrical feature and a noted video release makes this one well deserving of a stern warning. I saw this one and I’m telling you, now you don’t have to!

Director: Paul Schrader

Starring: Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lauren Bacall, Ned Beatty, Mary Beth Hurt, Lily Tomlin

Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader wrote and direct this slow, dreary blueblood mystery. It sounds like it will be similar to Schrader’s 80’s Richard Gere hit, American Gigolo, but there aren’t that many similarities left by the end. The story here is mildly compelling and is helped along by wonderful performances by the veteran cast, but the end result just isn’t engaging enough to recommend it over other entertaining choices.

Woody Harrelson is Carter Page III, a member of the upper crust Washington society who seems to specialize in being the gay friend of middle-aged rich women. Life is a comfortable blend of parties, cards and gossip until he helps a friend avoid involvement with the police following the death of her secret married lover, and soon Carter finds himself getting in deeper and deeper.

Mystery fans may consider The Walker to be a worthy waste of a couple of hours, but most will be checking their watch half way through. No real flaws, except a story that moves too slowly and characters that are not interesting enough to make us care about the conclusion.

Director: Uwe Boll

Starring: Jason Statham, Leelee Sobieski, John Rhys-Davies, Ron Perlman, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, Claire Forlani, Brian White,

Uwe Boll is becoming the video game industry’s go-to guy when they want a popular video game turned into a movie that leaves viewers looking like they just swallowed a bug. After turning Bloodrayne and Alone In The Dark into celluloid junkers, Uwe Boll has done the same with Dungeon Seige. The story is video game level, but without a bunch of buttn mashing to take your mind off it. I’ve seen better dialog written for a commercial for dishwashing detergent, and, even with a stunningly strong cast, Boll and his boys even managed squeeze in some really poor performances, too. All of this has become all too common in the fantasy genre, but this entry doesn’t even have any impressive visual effects to take your mind off its weaknesses.

Jason Statham, who is in peril of becoming a Lorenzo Lamas-like B movie king, stars as a farmer, imaginatively named ‘Farmer’, with a mysterious background and some mighty fancy sword skills. I guess a lot of farmers pick up those skills since Orlando Bloom’s character in Kingdom of Heaven had them too. Anyway, Farmer soon needs these skills since an evil wizard played by Ray Liotta complete with his New York dialect, has set a bunch of pig-like creatures upon the local populace, which the King (Burt Reynolds) and his witless heir nephew are unable to control. There is a bunch of fighting, a double cross, and a surprise ending that surprised no one.

The Name of The King is as bad as Eragon for amateur acting, cardboard characters and cocktail napkin dialog, but doesn’t even a cool dragon to look at. If you liked Eragon alot, or are in love with the video game that this one is based on, then there is a slim chance that you might enjoy this, otherwise you should try not to even see a movie in the theater next to it. The stink will probably reach that far.

title – movie quotes:
Movie lines from title