Hidden Gem: Timecrimes

A man is accidentally sent back a short time into the past and finds himself needing to continue traveling in order to fix the mistakes he was making.

Timecrimes is easily one of the more well-planned and well-written time travel movies ever made. The subtleties within the movie had me rewinding to see if that had happened in the first place. It most certainly had.

What at first looked like a scary thriller turned out to be an exciting, thought-provoking drama. It is interesting to see the mania infect the protagonist and take over, a short-lived but intense obsession.

The acting is pretty good, but it is in Spanish. I find it hard to truly gauge the performance without knowing the language and understanding where the emphasis should go.

Review- Franklyn

Franklyn is the story of four individuals who feel incomplete and their explosive collision in a futuristic London setting......

.......at least from what I thought. Franklyn is easily the most miss-marketed movie of all time. In fact, 3 quarters of the film do not actually take place in the future. The quarter that was futuristic was easily the most intriguing. The aesthetic of Meanwhile City was gorgeous; it reminded me of Dark City except industrialized. The strange psuedo-theocratic government put into place was fascinating, and would have been a fantastic new element in science fiction, a genre that has been missing originality for some time at least in the cinema. And even though there are obvious similarities to Watchmen's Rorschach, Preest was still an entertaining and interesting protagonist.

Usually, Ryan Phillipe, who plays Preest, does nothing for me with the exception of Way of the Gun. These blunt, edgy, tough guy roles suit him better than most I think. The other 3 stories were also individually interesting, but together had little to do with each other until the end. This bouncing back and forth between the 4 did not feel organic.

Many of the fans of this film note the effectiveness of the filmmaker to portray mental illness unlike any other film has. I wish I could say something concrete about this but I have zero experience with mental illness, and to my knowledge I am not suffering from it (except the dellusions that people are in fact reading this blog).

The film does end up tying things together quite nicely in the end, except so much of it felt spoonfed to me. Before the ending revelation, we have already came to the conclusion that some things we were seeing were mostly dellusions by the characters, and the ending loses weight because of it. Of course, the line "It's not about who you leave behind, but the people you haven't met." It was a fantastic line and solidfied the ending perfectly, at least for 2 of the characters. The other two characters become more "weapons of fate" to bring the first 2 characters together, which justifies the minimal screentime of one and the seemingly irrelevent nature of the other.

I would have rather seen the entire movie take place in the future. The thematic elements of mental illness, a creator's resonsibility to their creation, and the how our own fate are intertwined with those around us are easily transferable and reinvigorate a genre that has been too "popcorn"-oriented in recent years.

Grade: 5/10

Bottom line: This movie was well-made technically, but the movie did little for me, yet I could see how this film will find fans.

Top 10 Actors I'd Like to See More Of

I have always had a soft spot for underrated and underused actors and actresses. They always give in the more niche and great performances. The real memorable kind. They are the talent that come out of no where and surprise everyone with their abilities, but not me, because I have enjoyed them for so long.



10. Luke Wilson; the better half but less seen Wilson brother (not counting Andrew)
See Him In: Old School
Upcoming: Middle Men
What Should He Do Next: Quirky but heavy indie dramedy, something by Michel Gondry or Spike Jonze


9. Craig Robinson; best new thing in comedy
See Him In: "The Office", Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Upcoming: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
What Should He Do Next: Try writing his own flick against the grain of the usual "Barbershop" comedy


8. Thomas Haden Church, underrated dramedy actor
See Him In: "Wings", Sideways
Upcoming: Don McKay
What Should He Do Next: Another dramedy or perhaps a more sinister villain role


7. Rashida Jones; cutest thing to happen to comedy
See Her In: I Love You, Man
Upcoming: more "Parks and Recreation"
What Should She Do Next: An Apatow directed female lead


6. Luke Goss; English tough guy
See Him In: Charlie, Hellboy 2: the Golden Army
Upcoming: El Dorado, Tekken
What Should He Do Next: Namor the Submariner


5. Ben Foster; probably the youngest chameleon performer out there
See Him In: Alpha Dog, 3:10 to Yuma
Upcoming: Pandorum
What Should He Do Next: Bullseye in a Daredevil reboot, followed by a more heroic role


4. Nathan Fillion; underrated hero actor
See Him In: "Firefly", Serenity, Slither
Upcoming: more "Castle"
What Should He Do Next: Something heroic, an Indiana Jones/Dirk Pitt type adventurer


3. Kenny Johnson; cop show verteran
See Him In: "The Shield"
Upcoming: more "Saving Grace"'
What Should He Do Next: Steve Trevor in Wonder Woman movie if it ever happens


2. Olivia Thirlby; young up and comer
See Her In: Snow Angels, Wackness, Juno
Upcoming: New York, I Love You, Safety Glass
What Should She Do Next: Anything that is not a teen sex comedy or child-being-creepy thriller


1. Sam Rockwell, most underrated Hollywood resource
See Him In: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Upcoming: Moon, Iron Man
What Should He Do Next: Indie dramas and comedies, show off his talent, nab an Oscar nom and eventually a win

Review: Crank High Voltage

Crank High Voltage finds the badass to end all badasses, Chev Chelios, played by Jason Statham, in a further fight for his life, where his unstoppable heart is stolen and he has to constantly shock his artificial heart until he can find the creep who has it.

I absolutely loved the first Crank, and if you thought creators, Neveldine and Taylor, couldn't push the boundaries of absurdity, you were wrong. unfortunately, it's just not that good. The perfect way to describe it is "tries to hard." Or maybe "felt terribly forced." Any one of the stock dissapointment phrases works best here.

It falls into a seriously poor trend that some sequels get into. They take the most memorable parts, increase them exponentially, and forget why the whole package was good in the first place. I loved the absurdism of the first one, but without the more serious (more like less tongue in cheek) moments, its hard to accept the out of the box shocks when they are continusously roped together in a terribly uninteresting plotline. Also, everyone noting the "badass Englishman" changed Chelios' dialog from nationality-neutral slang to overly cockney slang, which sometimes can be cool, but hearing Chelios call people "gents" and use cockney rhyming just seemed out of place.

There was a frantic pace and epileptic editing. There was also silly sound effects and cheap site gags, including a number of groin shots. It was like a gorey, violent version of The Three Stooges. Not even Statham's eternal badass cred or Amy Smart's adorable but kinda-slutty-in-a-fun-way delivery could save this movie.

Not to mention, it was full of horrible friggin' cameos. Some where fun like Ginger Spice and Maynard James Keenan showing up, but Corey Haim and Bai Ling were hard to watch. As were most of the Asian and Latino gangsters who were even further stereotypical caricatures than in the first one.

SPOILER
And the head in a vat was pretty much the last straw. What the fuck was that? Stupidest thing I have ever seen in a flick. This was like Ford Fairline bad. And the fact that everyone from the first flick's brother showed up made this movie almost cross over from tongue-in-cheek to downright parody.
END SPOILER

Obviously, in voicing my opinion of this flick, I have already heard the stock answers. "What did you expect? It's supposed to be like that." True, the movie is supposed to be absurd, that is what I expected. But I also expected it to be good and fun. "Supposed to be absurd" does not give it a free pass to just be as crappy as it wants or can.

When you are trying to up the ante from the first one, I think Crank High Voltage is the perfect example of how not to do it. I still want to see them make a Crank 3, Chev is a cool character, and Statham is a cool actor, and I hope they could do something much better than this incredibly dissapointing flick.

3/10

Review: Beer Wars

A one night only event featuring the emerging American craft brewery industry and their fight against the monster corporations like Anheuser-Busch.

Being quite the fan of American craft brewery, I was immediately interested. They especially spotlighted Sam Calagione, founder and owner of Dogfish Head Brewery. Sam's one of my favorite people. His brewery is in the top 50 in America, out of over 1500. The size and growth of his business is directly proportional to his customer's demand rather than misdirected capitalist know-how. The American craft brewery industry is full of companies like Sam's which are big as they want to be, not big as they can be. It seems based on their examples that it has allowed them to keep creative and quality integrity while still being finanically successful. It is the kind of breweries I am most interested in purchasing from.

In the preceding live panel featuring Sam, the director, Anat Baron, and a historian/author, Maureen Ogle among others, Ogle was kind of a pain. She was not a beer enthusiast, yet wrote about their history. She opposed breweries like Sam's because she believed that businesses will always expand and get more bottom-line focuses and become another giant like Budweiser. But Sam and co. were happy where they were. Isn't that not the American way? I truly believe that capitalist notions of "big as you want to be" has been completely misrepresented as "big as you can be," a philosophy that not only led to some of the most successful business on the market, but also for the biggest failures that were either bought out or stepped all over while the corporate giants get bigger.

It is a catch-22 of a great system that allows people to succeed, unfortunately. Thankfully, businesses like Sam's can etch out their own little sections of their respective market. Because frankly, beyond the obvious lack in taste and quality that the giants have from the crafts, they deserve to be where they are. I do not disregard that they have worked hard and used legititmate business tools to get their. But the documentary skewed on the side of crafts, depicting the giants as money-grubbing, evil villains. Far too cynical for my liking.

The documentary did uncover a huge flaw in the beer industry: The Three Tier System. It is legal, but I question its ethics. Basically the beer industry is made up of 3 seperate bodies, retail, distributors, and breweries. Working like the US government, it is three branches that work together to keep the industry going, but are completely independent from each other theoretically. What happens is Anheuser-Busch buys their own distributor, and only allows beers that they own or are in partnership with to be distributor from their. This fills the others with independent craft beers and makes it almost impossible for budding businesses to get into them. Thus this creates a fight for shelf space in local retailers. A system put into place after prohibition to prevent monopolies, but it helped continue the monopolies.

If you are a big beer drinker, especially craft beer, I suggest finding this. It was damn informative, if not a little biased, but so are most documentaries from my experience. If you can properly wade through the opinions, there are some damn interesting facts involved.

10/10.

Hottie of the Week

Anne Hathaway

Casting Call: The Dark Tower series

Roland Deschain- Hugh Jackman
The Dark Tower series is a 7 part epic book series written by Stephen King, it needs a strong bankable leading man. It needs someone who can play a tough, grizzled outlaw but also a semi-regal and graceful icon reimagined in a fantasy world. I think Hugh Jackman is that


Eddie Dean- Chris Evans
Eddie Dean always had a comedic element to it. More light-hearted. A subtle sarcastic wit used as a defense mechanism against the extraordinary circumstances. He is also a reluctant and unassuming hero, kind of like Evans. Evans excels in comedic roles, but can more than handle the drama in my opinion. He'd be a perfect fit for Eddie.

Susannah Dean- Zoe Saldana
Susannah is a very complex character. I am picking Zoe mostly because I think she's pretty damn good and damn sexy. After Star Trek, not sure about her availability, but I think she could handle the role and be ready for a high profile role.

Director- Frank Darabont
In a perfect world, Darabont would be the only one allowed to adapt Stephen King. Based on Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, Frank obviously understands and can handle the thematic weight of a Stephen King movie, especially one of this magnitude. Visually, it would be quite a leap from what he has done, but this is the director who also longs to create Farenheit 451 and made The Mist, so he is obviously ambituous.

Favorite Bands

10. Rolling Stones


9. Eve 6


8. Queen


7. Dropkick Murphy's


6. Reel Big Fish


5. Alkaline Trio


4. Less Than Jake


3. Foo Fighters


2. Green Day


1. The Living End

Hottie of the Week

Olivia Munn

Review: Observe and Report

Observe and Report is a dark comedy about a delusional mall security guard on the quest for love, a thief, and a pervert flasher sexually assaulting women in the parking lot.

The movie proves to be humorous, but entirely unmemorable. The movie's comedy is based almost entirely on site gags and swear words. The fuck-o-meter scaled pretty fucking high on this movie.

The leading ladies really shined though. No, not Anna Farris, who probably served her most annoying performance yet. Rogen's mother, played by Celia Weston, and Nell, the coffee shop clerk, played by Collete Wolfe. Weston plays an endearing alcoholic mother who was equal parts slapstick and heart-warming. A truly nice written speech given by her to Rogen as inspiration was surprisingly effective. Wolfe is a super adorable new comer, playing the quintessential ugly duckling character, who by the end is a very attractive women, with an infectious smile and an actual ability to act beyond goofy quirk.

There are obvious similarities between Rogen's Ronnie and Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver fame. They both see themselves as some kind of moral boundary, and they see the world as black and white. But the similarities are fairly spoonfed. The only way it could become more clear is if Ronnie actually talked about how awesome Bickle is or if somebody said, "Dude, you're just like Taxi Driver."

Nevertheless, I was mildly entertained. The site gags are semi-effective. The two action scenes were much more impressive than such a movie warranted really. But the film lacked substance and any longstanding, original jokes. Much of it relied on shock value, including the new trend of spotlighting male genitalia, this one upping the ante of both Walk Hard and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, with an ending chase sequence with a naked man running and slow motion.

And by the way, Ray Liotta needs a damn comeback.

5/10. I laughed but I wouldn't recommend it.

Casting Call: Vintage Pulp Fiction

I saw The Spirit last night, and I cannot help but think about all the wasted potential. The Sin City esque coloring could have actually been good if it wasn't for the horrible acting. But it also got me thinking that I miss the vintage noir/adventure type movies. I would love to see a reemergence. I really love the first The Phantom movie, and the Indiana Jones movies are always good fun, even the fourth one. Here are some casting ideas for the more well known ones.


The Phantom- Matthew Fox
His time on Lost has granted him a certain level of star status. He certainly shows an ability to hold a movie and be a good hero. His slender build and face immediately remind me of The Phantom's silhouette. And his get-up in Speed Racer certainly leaves little to the imagination of how he'd look in the costume.


The Shadow- Jon Hamm
Jon Hamm has had a similar star status jump as Matthew Fox. Mad Men certainly put him on a few people's radar, and his good looks easily make for Bruce Wayne's muse.


Doc Savage- Eric Dane
Broad shouldered, wide jaw, and actually shows a little age with his salt and pepper hair color. It would be refreshing to see an adventure who didn't look like he just came off the playground.

Possible TV cancellations

TV.com is reporting on some possible TV cancellations. Among them missing is Scrubs which I thought was going to be a shoe in considering all that has happened with the creative team, writer's guild, and network switch. The whole purpose afterall was too give it a proper send off, but than again I guess that makes it not a proper cancellation.

Of the shows listed are three I ACTUALLY care about. Not so uncommon since I watch a embarrassing amount of television in the first place:

1) Castle- Nathan Fillion just cannot catch a break. He has the looks, talent, and charisma to rival Brad Pitt and George Clooney yet he stars in mostly failed tv shows. Fox infamously fucked up Firefly from the get-go, but Castle had some great potential. Good cast, great gimmick, decent storyline. It could have taken off if given a proper chance, not questioning renewal mid-season.

2) Chuck- I am surprised to see this here considering how consistently good and critically accepted it has been. With Jay Leno getting an hour spot during each weeknight primetime schedule, each day is going to lose a show no matter what. I'm betting Chuck stays though.

3) Reaper- Son of the Devil tries to make good is a very promising storyline. The cast is delightfully quriky and too loveable for their own damn good. Ray Wise does an excellent Devil, Bret Harrison is a very relateable guy, and Missy Peregrym, a past Hottie of the Week on this blog, is hot as hell.

Castle barely got out of the starting gate, Chuck seems to be going strong, and Reaper has already avoided cancellation once. Is just a damn shame that these shows could possibly join The Black Donnellys, Firefly, and Carnivale in the ranks of the cancelled-too-soon.

Top 10 Best Comic Movie Castings

Casting a comic movie tends to be the most essential element. Not only is their the performance/personality portion, but also a physical resemblance from years of illustration. Although in my opinion, fanboys hold the resemblance part in higher importance (Triple H for Thor? Really?).
10. Heath Ledger as The Joker
The most inspired casting on the list. No one thought the pretty-boy-cowboy-lover would make an impressive Joker. I, frankly, was excited to see what was going to happen, but was having a hard time visualizing it. I am still surprised at what we got, and it is a role that is a testament to his chameleon like performances in other not so well-known movies, a la Brothers Grim and Lords of Dogtown.
9. Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool
Surprise! I haven't even seen the movie yet, but no casting as had me more excited about a part. Deadpool is my favorite character, and I think Reynolds is far superior an actor than most give him credit for. I am not too worried about the obvious changes to the character since they have some kind of parallel. But those damn lazer eyes piss me off to no end.

8. Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier
From the beginning, this was probably the easiest character to cast. Who's bald and a strong leader. Patrick Stewart. It almost seems unfair at how obvious it is, but he captured the character with grace.

7. Kelsey Grammar as Beast
I didn't think at his age that Kelsey could pull off an action role. The role of Beast has always made me a little uneasy considering that while strong and agile, he had a very old soul, and an older actor would need to be cast. Grammar was damn near perfect. As perfect as I could guess.

6. Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent
Probably the greatest performance in The Dark Knight and a far more deserving supporting performance than Heath's. Eckhart held the entire story on his shoulders, but he was overshadowed by Joker's theatrical nature.

5. Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man
Who better to play a savvy, charismatic substance abuser than an actual savvy, charismatic substance abuser. I never believed Downey was having a comeback since all he always had a string of solid if not relatively unknown performances coupled with a run in with the law and a random Oscar nom. In the end, this put him on the map, or back on the map, or whatever.

4. Sir Ian McKellan as Magneto
The idea behind the X-Men was to be a metaphor for minority's civil rights laced with science fiction action. Sir McKellan being both gay and Jewish knew full well the extent of being a popularly discriminated minority (far to weird of a phrase but you get what I am saying). Ian has a certain distinguished screen presence that helped depict Magneto as the classic dictator-esque world-takeover-type of villain.

3. Mickey Rourke as Marv
Mickey Rourke oozes cool and as Tarantino noted, Marv is like what would happen if Rourke and Frank Miller, the creator of Sin City, had a baby and I have to agree. No one is better for the Cro-Magnum trenchcoat wearing bar brawler than Mickey Rourke, a movie tough guy turned boxer turned movie tough guy. I think I speak for everyone else when I say welcome back Mr. Rourke.

2. Hugh Jackman as Wolverine
Who thought a 6 foot something Aussie would perfect as the 5 nothing Canuck, Wolvie? Turns out he'd be damn good. He captured the intensity of Wolvie that grasped the fanboys interest, but added a certain level of heart and likability that many thought Wolvie was lacking.

1. Ron Perlman as Hellboy
Perlman is one of those actors who never got his just dessert. He is one of the finest actors today. Charismatic. Screen presence a plenty. Theres no beating the guy in innate ability. And despite having plenty of roles before and after Hellboy that proves his mettle, I think old HB will be remembered as his most likable and memorable.

Review: Adventureland

Adventureland

Adventureland tells a story of a recent college graduate witty beyond his years who misses out on a tour of Europe because of money troubles and gets a shitty summer job working at Adventureland, where he just happens to fall in love.

This movie is the newest in a long line of mis-marketed movies. The promos made it look like just another light-hearted teen sex comedy in Apatow fashion, but it is actually much more dramatic and heavy than it appears. It is incredibly well-paced effectively balancing both quirk and sadness. Greg Mottola succeeds in a lot of places Superbad failed adding much more heart and depth of character to this than Superbad had (not that Superbad wasn't good). The story has a lot of conventional elements but uses it in a much different way that one would think.

For instance, Ryan Reynold's rockstar wannabe having an affair with the protagonists crush would be a villain in most other movies, but here Reynold's continues his streak of lovable jackasses. Both Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart both take roles that they are very familiar with, the geeky nice guy and the rebelious chick respectively, but carry much more weight than usual and perform graciously.

Bill Hader also continues a streak of being incredibly funny in everything he does. The quality of the any of his movies aside, Hader proves he is the next big thing when it comes to comedy.

Overall, the film was a well-made teen dramedy that hits all the right notes but fails to be memorable. It is a solid flick, but doesn't dare to be great. It was missing that extra oomph, but a good watch nonetheless. Highly reccomend at least a look-see.

6/10

Hottie of the Week

Sarah Chalke