Rated PG – 1h48 -

It looks like Alice, but it’ missing some of the heart and some of the wonder. The film tries to make up for a lesser story with great visuals. This didn’t feel like Alice In Wonderland should have felt.

In Tim Burton’s version, Alice is a teenager. Faced with the prospect of grown up decisions, she follows the White Rabbit into the forest and falls down the rabbit hole. Believing she is having her recurring dream, Alice begins to realize she has returned to the familiar Underland, and reunited with some familiar friends. She is then charged with the quest of ending the Red Queen’s reign.

As I recall, original story is filled with characters taunting and misdirecting Alice on her way home. The imagery is dark and the ideas are a little scary. This story is seemingly happier, even with the Red Queen and her constant requests for beheadings.

What is fun about his is the cartoon-esque hallucinogenic world that Burton creates. He had help from one of the visual designers from Avatar, and Wonderland is fantastic looking.

The characters, some old, some new, seem to be there more out of a convenience. They are clever and interesting to look at, but it felt as if Alice could have made her way through without the advice of the hooka-smoking caterpillar. Isn’t he supposed to be a key player?  Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter was a treat.

Another problem is Alice’s journey, which resolves in a gigantic climactic battle. Isn’t Alice on a journey of finding herself, while finding her way home? Why does she need a dragon to slay? I guess it helps pack the film with some more action.

This movie leaves you feeling like you saw something impressive, just not a better version of the story. Something is missing. By the way, the 3D format did nothing to improve on the story, and serves more as a distraction.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Rated R – 2h3 -

At the beginning of Brooklyn’s Finest, we have a snitch talking to a dirty undercover cop about truth and justice. He talks about how even the law recognizes that in some cases, committing a crime can be forgiven if it’s done for a greater good. Think of the man who steals bread to feed his starving family. That’s the idea that Brooklyn’s Finest tries to convey.

The film features three unconnected New York Police officers, who paths unknowingly cross. Tango (Don Cheadle), a deep undercover drug agent with heavy underworld connections. Eddie (Richard Gere) is just a few days from retirement and Sal (Ethan Hawke) is the drug raid cop in need of money in order to support his family.

All three are on the edge, seemingly facing situations that are more than they can handle. You don’t get the feeling that things are going to work out well for them either.

This is a solid trio of actors. They all make their case that life fighting crime can be gritty, unrewarding and takes a serious personal strain on the officer. Corruption is a slippery slope.

The thing is, we’ve seen this all before and the story gets lost in the cliché of it all.

Ethan Hawke was the notable one here. His character Sal busts up drug houses for a living. He sees untold amounts of drug money piled up like laundry, tempting him on a daily basis. Sal is also a father of several kids, has twins on the way and a wife that is ill from mold in their decrepit house. He’s the most justified for thinking about stealing the bread, and he’s the most conflicted about his strife.

Outside of Sal’s story, the film falls short of the thrilling expectations you desire from this level of acting skill.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Scene From The Hurt Locker

Really, other than one category this year, the picks are pretty clear to me.

I think it’s a toss up in the Best Actress category between Sandra Bullock for “The Blind Side” and Meryl Streep in “Julie and Julia.“

Here’s the link to the Oscar ballot if you wanna play at home and below are my picks in the major categories. I’ve also included with the nominees, who will win and who I think should win. They’re not always the same.

Best Picture
Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker - WILL WIN/SHOULD WIN
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Notes: There is no denying the strength, power and intensity of The Hurt Locker.  It may not be the most well known of the nominations, but it stands above them all.

Best Actor
Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart – WILL WIN/SHOULD WIN
George Clooney for Up in the Air
Colin Firth for A Single Man
Morgan Freeman for Invictus
Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker

Notes: It was a tough call to rule out George Clooney’s performance of Up In The Air.  The story hit home, but Jeff Bridges wins.  He literally transformed into his character.   Colin Firth went to the bottom of the well, showing how one’s sexual orientation had to be masked in the 1950s.

Best Actress
Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side WILL WIN
Helen Mirren for The Last Station
Carey Mulligan for An Education
Gabourey Sidibe for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Meryl Streep for Julie & Julia  SHOULD WIN

Note: This is a hard call.  I didn’t really like The Blind Side, but it’s turned out to be a fan favorite.  I would have watched a whole movie of Meryl Streep portraying Julia Childs.

Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon for Invictus
Woody Harrelson for The Messenger
Christopher Plummer for The Last Station
Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds WILL WIN/SHOULD WIN

Notes: If not for Christoph Waltz as the bad guy in Inglorious, this would have been a lesser movie.  Stanley Tucci also deserves credit in this category, but not for his work in The Lovely Bones.  He should have been nominated for playing Julia Childs’ husband in Julie & Julia.

Best Supporting Actress
Penélope Cruz for Nine
Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air
Mo’Nique for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire  WILL WIN/SHOULD WIN

Notes: Admission of guilt.  As of press time, I still haven’t seen Precious.  I am solely going on my fellow critics review of her work and the fan outpouring of support she’s received.

Best Director
Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker WILL WIN/SHOULD WIN
James Cameron for Avatar
Lee Daniels for Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Jason Reitman for Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds

Notes: I giggle that James Cameron will be beat out by his ex-wife.  This is a good lesson for Jason (Son of funny movie god – Ivan) Reitman.  Get a couple movies under your belt and you’ll have your Oscar soon.

Best Original Screenplay
The Hurt Locker: Mark Boal WILL WIN/SHOULD WIN
Inglourious Basterds: Quentin Tarantino
The Messenger: Alessandro Camon, Oren Moverman
A Serious Man: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Up: Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Thomas McCarthy

Notes: All of these movies deserve credit for their originality.  They all have their own charm and special touch.  All are worthy, but I would like to see Quentin Tarantino win sometime soon.

Best Animated Feature
Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells
Up – WILL WIN/ SHOULD WIN

Notes: Fantastic and The Princess and the Frog are both great examples of creative animation.  Up was simply a better example.

Happy Oscaring!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Adam reviews the new scary movie remake: The Crazies.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Rated R – 1h41 -

The Crazies is capable horror film. It’s tense, and a little smarter than the average scary movie. It needed a little more dread and fewer predictable things jumping out from the dark at you.

The film is a remake of Horror God George Romero’s 1973 “The Crazies,” and manages to achieve the task of doing a good job with it.

Small town Iowa Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) finds himself at the center of town gone crazy after a military jet carrying secrets crashes nearby. One by one, the town’s residents turn into murderous psychotics and no one can explain why.

I wouldn’t say the town folk are turning into zombies, but rather the do not kill instinct in their brain gets turned off.

The film is set in Iowa, but a rather generic looking military force is sent into clean up the mess. It seems like it would be the U.S. military that’s sent on a contain-and-eradicate mission, but it’s not clear.

What is clear, is the idea of who’s crazier? Is it the infected locals, or the government that’s bringing down a big hurt on its own citizens? Who are the hero’s to run from? The infected or the military? Is this a horror story, or a man without a country whose on the run?

In my head, those ideas muddied what seemed to be a pretty good idea for a scary story. Adding in the tension where the viewer and the characters in the film can’t quite tell whether a person is infected, or just way stressed out is a nice touch.

It’s not bad, but Romero always adds a far superior gloom to his work. It was a little lost on this one.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Rated R – 2h18 -

Sure Martin Scorsese has done better, but you get his full “mental health treatment” this time. The best thing about it is, you’re guessing about what’s going on, right up till the end.

It would be wrong to label Shutter Island a horror film, rather a sometimes intense and very dark thriller. Set in 1954 on a Boston harbor island, US Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) is on his way to investigate the disappearance of a patient in a mental institute for the criminally insane.

It seems pretty routine that Teddy and his partner would be in search of a missing person at a federal prison, but from the second they step on the island, we begin to get the sense that something just isn’t quite right.
In case you weren’t getting the full Scorsese “dread vibe” from realizing you’re watching one of his works…the rusted gates, overgrown brush and the old time civil war fortress turned into a mental institute does the job.

I think the appeal to Shutter Island is the motivations of the characters. Are they working for or against the hero? Why are they doing what they’re doing? Why do the institute guards seem to be a little overprotective? Is there a Nazi secret hidden deep in the institute’s innards? So many questions, and this conspiracy lover only has so much time. Resident therapist Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) appears to have the interest of his patients in mind, but you also think on the sly, he might very well be into the old time mental health treatments that he protests.

A lot of questions are thrown around, but you rest assure knowing that they are being guided by the steady had of a filmmaker we expect good things of.

On the downside, the setup to the resolution takes time. I found myself lost in some of the mood of the film, wishing to the story would progress. There are parts that don’t seem to fit, until you realize the movie as a whole. I think that sometimes throws movie goers for a loop, but don’t be disheartened. The exposition and rising action are worth while.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Rated PG-13 – 2h5 -

Even Ozzy Osbourne would bark at the moon for this howling remake of the original wolfman.

Benecio Del Toro leads the cast of  The Wolfman, is a close remake of the 1941 Lon Chaney classic The Wolf Man. They even look like the same wolves.

Lawrence Talbot (Del Toro) returns to his native England to investigate the mysterious death of his brother. He stays with his estranged father (Anthony Hopkins,) until one night Lawrence is bitten by the Wolfman and soon becomes the creature he is hunting.

Director Joe Johnston managed to capture the classic gothic horror story feel to this one, working on the curse of the werewolf, and weaving in mythology and folklore into the story. Add in the villagers with pitchforks and torches to round out the theme.

The difference is the wolfman is honestly brutal on his moonlit marauds. While he looks like a man, he attacks with the veracity and bloodlust of a hungry animal. The heads to roll, literally, with the help of a little computer animation.

The film has an eerily gloomy and dark setting, which add to the enjoyment. You get a sense from the start that things will not bode well for Lawrence upon his return. At his father’s mansion, the cleaning staff has apparently taken the last 100 years off. Its creepy to see wind swept piles of leaves in the den and hallway. You almost get the feeling that only animals are living there.

The big question is how scary is the wolfman? Lets just say I wouldn’t want to run into the guy in the woods. He’s a brute-force, killing machine, but it’s a little off to see him move. You’d think a creature that has the power to decapitate a man with a single swipe, would also have the girth of a grizzy bear. Not so much here. This wolfman can effortlessly jump from building top to building top like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Ninja wolfman? I don’t buy it.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Adam reviews the new love story Valentine’s Day.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Rated PG-13 – 2h5 -

Valentine’s Day is to Romeo & Juliet, as my 1st grade finger paintings are to a Picasso. That’s not to say there isn’t something to enjoy on a basic level of my attempt at artwork, it just no masterpiece.

If that sounds a little formulaic, that’s because it’s meant to be. Valentine’s Day has the feel that there is some secret Hollywood equation that calculates how many celebrities can you jam into one movie and make it profitable.

By my count, there are 21 recognizable celebrities in the film that interweaves a dozen or so love stories on Valentine’s Day. It seems odd that so much could happen on one day, but it’s necessary in order to make the plot work.

I can say this film could have been a lot worse. The stores are at least connected in a somewhat logical way, and at least some of the characters have believable backstories. Most of the characters seem to be made up of corporate committee group thinking. (The old couple, the newly dating couple, the teen romance, the “will he be” retiring NFL quarterback who looks surprisingly like Brett Favre.)

It may seem like I’m being overly critical of a film that is clearly targeted at a certain demographic, and only serves to hand out warm fuzzies. On that simplistic level, sure it works, but movie goes should demand more for their money instead of just a romantic version of People Magazine.

Then again, I would consider going back and watching it again just to hear Anne Hathaway “purrrrrrrrrrrrrr” again.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Rated R – 1h32 -

John Travolta serves up a lot of fromage in this (sort of) action spy thriller. Some of its tasty…but a good part of this is smelly cheese.
From Paris With Love stars Charlie Wax (Travolta) a buffed out, bad ass cheseeball American spy, sent to Paris to take out the bad guys who are involved in drugs and terrorism. He is met by the Assistant to the American Ambassador to France, James Reese (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), who is unknowingly wrapped up in a terror plot.

Charlie provides James with some high intensity on the job training as they lay waste to Chinese drug dealers and other brown skinned men of an unclear origin, who believe blowing up Americans is the just thing to do.

Wax is another redundant action hero, who’s bulletproof, can disarm ten thugs by himself and has an endless clip of ammunition. He’s further exaggerated by having a hefty desire for Royale’s with Cheese, a clear reference to Travolta’s far superior character in Pulp Fiction. Bad call referencing a better movie the audience could be watching at home.

Then again, if not for Charlie Wax, this movie would have been a complete waste of time. Sure, his action sequences are set up, and I couldn’t imagine wanting to spend more than five minutes with him, but he’s there for a reason. It’s for us to vicariously live through him. Who wouldn’t want the skills of a ninja, combined with the bravado of a rock star?

If you do choose to see this one, prepare yourself for a pretty transparent plot and action sequences that would make any 13 year old boy smile.

As far as the title goes, Tina Turner would say…”what’s love got to do with it?”

Popularity: 5% [?]