Screenhead

Okay, I know I should be up to volume 4 of Ghost Stories by now, but I really had to break in with one of the big new releases fresh and opening today.

Today we’re talking Whiteout--figured most everyone else would be handling Sorority Row today–and I’ve got good news!  It doesn’t completely suck!

Join us as we go on a tour of the wilds of Antarctica as Carrie Stetko, played more than ably by Kate Beckinsale, a U.S. Marshal with a painful past, finds herself neck-deep in a murder mystery that’ll go a lot deeper than she ever thought possible, in just about every sense.  Murder, conspiracy and betrayal are the order of the day on the underside of the world, but can Carrie stop a killer before she’s left stranded in Antarctica for the rest of the winter?

See, I liked this movie.  Apparently most of the critical community is breaking its back to decry it but I’m not seeing the problems they had.  Of course, I admit to a note of personal bias–I used to watch John Carpenter’s The Thing every Christmas Eve back when I was a kid, and movies about Antarctica are so few and so far between that I enjoy them whenever they show up, because they’re so rare.

If the originality factor didn’t do it for you, then maybe you’ll enjoy the surprises going on here, the twist ending, or the incredible stark beauty of the surroundings in which the movie was shot.  I don’t know how they got a fake Antarctica to look THAT COLD.

Okay, granted, this is no walk in the park.  It had some fairly dull stretches in which not very much was happening. I actually yawned and stretched a couple times–not exactly bellringers for success.   Some things were unnecessarily drawn out and even I got a little bored by the killer’s chase scenes taking place on tethered lines, but I tell you this much–it was almost eighty degrees outside when I caught this one, but by the time the first ten minutes kicked in, I was shivering.  Watching the wind whip across the snowpack, that takes me back to my childhood days in Michigan.  When they were explaining what exactly a “whiteout” is, I sat nodding.  I’ve seen those.  I’ve DRIVEN in those.  It’s really not as bad as they say, though–sure, visibility’s a joke but if you keep your speed down you can blow right through it.

In the end, though, the Screenhead Ten Scale gives Whiteout a respectable six out of ten for being a fairly engaging thriller with more than a few flaws and for being original and realistic enough to actually cool off a late summer Friday.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Today we’re talking Chaos, released to Blu-ray thanks to the folks at Lions Gate, and are you ever going to be surprised by this out of nowhere cop thriller.

Chaos brings us a gang leader, played by Wesley Snipes, who takes a whole host of hostages in a bank and is faced with the recently suspended Detective Connors.  Connors is joined by Ryan Phillippe to take down the gang before they can pull off an even bigger heist…but is everyone playing on the same side?  It’s just going to be pure chaos by the end of things.

Chaos is just loads of fun.  Wesley Snipes still makes a terrific villain, and Jason Statham is almost as good a good guy as he is a bad guy.  It’s a little bit confusing in some parts, and will take a lot of concentration in some places to follow completely.  There’s plenty of action and people chasing other people around with guns, and plenty of good old fashioned plotting.  Not to mention a nice little twist ending.

Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale rewards Chaos by handing out a seven out of ten, a solid score for a solid movie.

Popularity: 1% [?]

If you really, REALLY, just couldn’t get enough of the movie Seven, then I’m somewhat happy to announce that you’ll get to enjoy a low-rent knockoff in the form of Horsemen, new from Lions Gate.

When a recently widowed detective finds himself forced to make ends meet between his detective work and his family, he ends up on the bad end of a murder spree focused around the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  And as his family situation steadily deteriorates around him, the case only gets stranger and more horrifying.

Okay, okay–so it watches like a low-budget version of Seven, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Just because we don’t have Brad Pitt screaming about what’s in the box doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with Dennis Quaid being a mostly absentee father!

But it’s true–Horsemen is a fairly involving crime drama, but it does leave a lot of unpleasant plot holes.  Frankly, I wondered why they even bothered with the whole family thing at all–it’s not like it made much difference on the plot.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, hands this ambivalent crime thriller a four out of ten for not being too bad, but not being anything special, either.  Plus, being derivative is never helpful in these situations; if you’re going to rip someone else off, at least do it right.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Now here’s a chunk of surprising news, folks…the long-debated rumor of a Sopranos movie has been brought back full force by some of the former cast.  While much of the cast has already moved on, a recent interview with Lorraine Bracco cast a bit of dubious light on the affair.

Point of light one: every member of the cast, according to Bracco, has talked to series creator David Chase about getting the screenplay fully operational.

Point of light two: Bracco further says that the reason for the delay has nothing to do with James Gandolfini’s reluctance to return to Tony Soprano.

A Sopranos movie would likely do well at the box office, or even as direct to video, especially if it clarifies the infamous “diner ending” of the series.  So will it manage to come back?  Only time will truly tell but either way I won’t be terribly surprised.

Popularity: unranked [?]

When I first saw ads for Johnny Depp’s Public Enemies, I was intrigued.  The last time I’d seen a good gangster movie was back around The Untouchables.  Bringing the notoriously suicidal Melvin Purvis into things was an interesting stroke, and as we’re all well aware, Johnny Depp is a fine actor who brings class and a compelling performance to whatever he touches.

So why, when I actually saw Public Enemies, was I so spectacularly bored by it?

First, the plot–Johnny Depp plays John Dillenger, one of the most successful and most famous bank robbers of the early twentieth century.  During the height of the Great Depression, Dillenger and his cohorts tackled hundreds of banks.  Of course, when Dillenger wasn’t robbing banks, he was off eating dinner with friends and enjoying his passions in life: baseball, movies, fast cars, good clothes, and recent addition Billie Forchette, a coat check girl from Indiana who’s part Indian.

As the movie continues, Dillenger and Forchette will grow closer together, the world will steadily change around them, and bank robbers will actually become a liability to the mob as new laws threaten their operations in turn. So what will happen, in the end?  Well, you all know exactly what will happen because John Dillenger didn’t live to a ripe old age with his girlfriend in tow in real life.  No sir or ma’am as the case may be–he died, shot to death by police.  And no, that’s not a spoiler, because it actually happened.  If you didn’t already know it going in you can’t accuse people of spoilering for interjecting discussion about real life.

Anyway, the biggest problem with Public Enemies can be summed up by the use of one common gaming term:

LESS QQ, MOAR PEW PEW!

This is the perfect explanation of both what’s wrong with Public Enemies and also how to fix it. For those of you not already familiar with the term, some explanation is in order.  QQ is, essentially, a reference to crying eyes.  Also used to describe things like relationship drama and other similar phenomenon, it’s a derogatory term.  Its converse is “pew pew”, or the sound sci-fi laser weapons make when fired.  It’s essentially an exhortation to action via shaming the target into stopping behavior that’s seen as overemotional and getting their head back in the game.

The biggest problem with Public Enemies is that it focuses so much on the relationship between Dillenger and Forchette that it seems to forget that it’s supposed to be a movie about bank robbers.  Occasionally, Public Enemies will remember its roots, and in these moments makes a downright entertaining movie.  But meanwhile, the movie is so wildly overcommitted to exploring this relationship between two characters that it A. has several other characters available for use and B. was supposed to be an action crime drama, not a romantic drama with occasional bank robbery.

The movie is CALLED Public Enemies, not Two Schmucks Who Fall In Love.

Even worse is that this nightmare of a movie has a run time well in excess of two hours, meaning that the sheer amount of time they’ll spend on the romance aspects will weigh on what little action there is like an anchor around the movie’s neck.

Essentially, this movie is profoundly boring.  Stay away from it unless you’re desperate for a good romantic drama.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The International, despite what you may think, is not the kind of movie that comes along every day.  One part cerebral crime drama, one part insane shoot-em-up action film, and one part corporate drama, it’s a grand and sweeping epic that’ll cover a couple different continents.

This time around, an Interpol agent, working along with the Assistant District Attorney of Manhattan, thinks he’s finally caught onto who’s behind a massive arms dealing ring, a ring so massive that it’s actually keeping terrorist cells on the payroll. But the closer our sleuthing duo gets to the bottom of the vast mystery that separates one of the world’s largest banks from a terrorist conspiracy that includes greed, death and corruption, the more twists and turns they run across.

It’s hard to talk very specifically about a movie like The International, which is basically a whole lot of movies wrapped up into one.  On a plotline level, it’s actually fairly unique—seriously, when’s the last time you heard about a bank being a villain?  And no, the nightly news about the mortgage crisis doesn’t count.  After all, this is a lot more villainy than even foreclosing on the elderly.  This is gunrunning and bombmaking and assorted similar whatnot.

Even more interesting, The International will do some really amazing things with landscaping and whatnot—you’ll get to see just about every kind of land and terrain and everything else, and it will almost frame the whole thing.  It’s actually a real surprise how they make the surroundings work alongside the plot—there’s this one absolutely priceless sequence involving a gun battle in the Guggenheim that needs to be seen to be believed.

And I’ll tell you THIS much, I definitely liked the pacing on this one.  It felt like watching that recent Russell Crowe thriller, State of Play, but with more gunplay.  There were plenty of new pieces of the grand puzzle being revealed at regular intervals, just rapidly enough to keep it from getting boring.

However, The International’s not without its down sides.  While it does resemble State of Play but with more gunplay, it’s clearly hoping to be more like the whole Bourne trilogy, and frankly, it doesn’t have the snowball’s chance.    The “network of twists and turns” I described earlier, pretty much all of them are twists and turns that you’ll see coming from a mile away.  After most every one of these twists and turns that happen, you’ll shake your head in bemusement, wondering how they could’ve trotted out more of the same old same old.

The International isn’t really a bad movie.  There’s plenty to like about it, frankly—with some really solid suspense movie elements to it and more than a little crime drama with an unconventional villain.  It’s not a bad guy here, no SPECTRE head stroking his cat, but rather a system gone horribly awry.  It can’t quite muster a whole lot of originality, but give it credit for trying—it did manage to bring something new to the table, and these days, that’s at least worth a rental.

Popularity: unranked [?]

For those of you who happen to be limited Keanu Reeves fans, you’re going to be pretty surprised by the knowledge that he was in a whole lot more than Bill And Ted back in the eighties.  One of the “whole lot more” is a movie featured in Lions Gate’s recent The Lost Collection called The Night Before, a movie that’ll show you what can happen when you start at the end and work your way backward.

Basically,  Winston, vice-president of the Astronomy club and all-around doofus extraordinaire,  wakes up late one night—or possibly very, very early one morning—in an alley with a semi truck about to run him over, and a series of unpleasant events both behind him already and about to happen.  His father’s red convertible Mustang has been stolen, he’s sold his prom date (a cheerleader / teen model who’s lost a bet)  for fifteen hundred dollars…and after a hilarious turn at a microphone in a sleazy night club / bar, a guy named Tito wants him dead at sunrise.  Worse yet, the girl’s father is a police detective with a whole cabinet full of guns back at the house.  Thus, it’s left to Winston to get the girl and get out alive before sunrise comes and either Tito or his prom date’s father comes to get him.

The thing that really makes The Night Before work, aside from an excellently written script, is the work of Keanu Reeves.  I hadn’t expected Keanu to do much of anything after watching him “dude” his way through Bill And Ted, and snarl his way through The Matrix.  But in The Night Before, Keanu manages to bring multiple levels to his character Winston, driving him alternately between a callow, scared little boy and a drug-addled wild man.  Even better, Winston even manages to grow as a character during his tenure, becoming steadily more self-reliant from his prom night spent on the streets of what I’m guessing is Los Angeles from the sheer amount of time they spend talking about “Marina Del Rey” and the Pacific Coast Highway.

And, as if actual character development in a movie—a downright rarity any more—weren’t good enough for you, maybe you’ll be enthused by the bit of action and crime drama they slipped into the proceedings besides.  That’s reason enough to get even the most skeptical parties interested.  Sure got ME interested.

Oh, and here’s an extra special note for you—if you happen to be fond of car chases there will be a fairly extensive one toward the end that’s just a hoot.  In fact, the entirety of the ending will be an absolute hoot in its own right and in many ways, right out of left field.  You’ll get to see the end result of all that character development I talked about, and it’s downright welcome.  Seriously, this one was a HOOT.   And on further note, those who enjoy George Clinton funk will find some on the soundtrack.

I actually had quite the time watching The Night Before, and there’s no reason that any comedy fans out there, eighties movie aficionados, and Keanu Reeves buffs will come away from this without having a similarly good time.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I was discussing 12 Rounds with a buddy of mine from Chicago—old friend; we’ve been through plenty together—and he told me something that changed my entire view of 12 Rounds in retrospect.  He told me that movies involving wrestlers generally just wind up with them being a kind of insane superhero sort, so what was the point in watching them?

And after he said that, I took a look at 12 Rounds in a whole new light.

12 Rounds, you see, is all about a lucky break and what it generates.  Patrolman Danny Fisher stumbles onto the bust of a lifetime when he manages to nab an FBI-wanted Irish terrorist.  As a result of this phenomenal bust, that also manages to kill said terrorist’s girlfriend, Danny and his partner are promoted to detective.  They’ve been living it up ever since, but the one year anniversary of the terrorist’s arrest brings bad news—the terrorist has broken out of jail and is looking to take revenge.  Not just looking, either—he DOES take revenge, and take it in a grandiose and thoroughly unlikely style.  He’s got a whole slew of obstacles set up, and when he kidnaps Danny’s girlfriend, he runs Danny through the obstacle course he’s set up all across New Orleans.  But is there something more to the picture than Danny realizes?

Short answer: yes.  Long answer: to tell you would be spoilering.

If this movie feels as familiar to you as it felt to me, don’t be surprised.  Variations on this theme have cropped up in literally dozens of action / thriller / crime dramas for decades.  There are shades of Lethal Weapon and Die Hard and a whole host of other, similar action titles stuck into this thing.

And indeed, the whole wrestler-as-super hero theme that most of these wrestler movies seem to propagate, as my old buddy suggested, is in full effect on this one.  John Cena, playing here as Danny Fisher, will manage to outrun a car and use a BOAT as a temporary blockade.  Granted, the boat was on a trailer and he outran the car by cutting through houses, but still—these are not the kind of moves that anything less than an action movie superhero cop can pull off.  So it’s not surprising to see that wrestler Cena is given these kinds of irrational moves.

This does distract somewhat, because irrational moves hurt the plausibility factor, but as a whole the movie remains fairly solid.  If you don’t go in with unusually high expectations, but rather expecting unlikely action movie stunts and abilities with plenty of car chases and tire screeches (seriously, you’ve never heard so many tire screeches in a movie—I can’t remember the last time I heard anything even remotely on par with this), then you’re not terribly likely to be disappointed by this.

12 Rounds is so much like other action movies before it that, if you see it, you’ll find little new here.  If you liked what you already saw, then chances are you won’t be too let down by what you’re about to see.  On the other hand, if you’re not in the mood for a movie, you can relax, confident in the knowledge that you really haven’t missed anything.

Popularity: 1% [?]