Screenhead

I found the movie for the perfect date on Valentine’s Day.  Dear John, it’s a tear jerker from Nicolas Sparks novel of the same title and directed by Oscar nominated Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallström, My Life as a Dog, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, The Cider House Rules and Chocolat.

Channing Tatum stars with Amanda Seyfried about a couple who fall in love.  Yet, Tatum’s character is in the Army and is consistently deployed away from the woman he loves. For seven years they are constantly apart only to stay in touch through a stream of love letters — typical Sparks romance.

I like Tatumin this trailer and Seyfried is brilliant as ever.  The movie opens in February 2010, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

First off, yes, Kristen Stewart DOES in fact have an action figure, based on her character Bella from the truly godawful Twilight series that everyone seems to love despite all logic and good common sense.

But anyway, she’s not terribly happy with that action figure, and you won’t believe why.

It turns out it has…ahem…larger attributes than she does.  I’ll let her be more specific:

“I think she has a much bigger rack than I have,” Kristen said. “I also think she looks much older than me.  I guess I can live with that. In fact, I’m getting used to the bigger rack.”

There are a great many things that could be said at this point but most of them would likely get me sued by somebody for some reason or another.  I’ll just suffice it to say that Hollywood’s weirdness truly knows no bounds.

So you would think that writing the script for the romance superhit Ghost would pretty much qualify you to write any romance movie ever known to mankind.  Seriously, if you wanted to write a romance about two garden slugs who find each other in the middle of the Great Salt Flats, all you’d have to do is say “And I wrote Ghost”, and then every single studio on the face of the earth would be rushing to throw money at you just so they could scream breathlessly in all their PR material “From the writer of Ghost“.

Forklifts might be involved.

So what’s next for Bruce Joel Rubin?  Well, he’s just come off The Time Traveler’s Wife, so what does he follow that up with?  Man and woman find love?  High school kids find love?  Two men find love?  That garden slug thing?  What?

If you’re Bruce Joel Rubin, your next stop is Japanese Zombie-town.

I’ll give you a minute to digest that one.  I’m serious, you see–he’s handling the remake of Resurrection, a Japanese film in which the dead are returning to life and digging their way out of their graves.  But rather than lunching up the living, they’re just out to get their old jobs back and move back home.

I’m quite baffled.  This is the kind of thing that romance fodder runs on, I suppose–picture Cast Away type stuff going on literally all over some town, except corpses are involved.

The new movie will be called Rainbow Bridge, but there’s no word on release dates, probably because this sucker’s still in the “being-written” stage.  More when we’ve got it!

Yeah, I knew that’d get your attention.

Thing is, though, I’m not really cheating you. Kristen Bell is going to show up at least mostly naked in her upcoming movie When In Rome.  And she’ll be fifty feet tall.

Okay, so it’s a MURAL…criminy, people, what do you want from me? Blood?

Anyway, it’s When In Rome, and features a young single from New York disillusioned with love.  Like so many singles, she finds herself wishing she could change her circumstances.  Unlike so many singles, however, she finds herself stealing coins out of an Italian landmark known as the Fontana de Amore (shouldn’t that be “del”?  Or “della”, depending?), a fountain that’s supposed to help those who toss in a coin find love.  But when you, like our young single, steal coins from the Fontana, something much different happens.  You also steal the passion of whoever tossed in that coin…for yourself.  Whoever’s coin you take falls in love with you.

I’ve got to admit, this looks a little too half-baked and eighties for my tastes, but you can’t deny the appeal of a gigantic naked Kristen Bell.  And we’ll get to see how it all comes out January 29, 2010.

If you haven’t asked this question of yourself at one point or another, then chances are you haven’t yet turned twenty five: what would you do if you had it to do again?  I’ve wondered that more than once, believe me–you wouldn’t think so, me living the dream of film criticism and all…but it’s true.  And in 17 Again, we’ll get to see just what happens when someone gets the chance.

Mike O’Donnell is a family man with regrets.  He could have, you see, gone on to college on a basketball scholarship, possibly even gone pro, but instead he married his pregnant high school sweetheart.  Doing the right thing by the young lady has left him disenchanted with life and constantly wondering about what might have been.  And when he gets the chance to be, well, 17 Again, he discovers that maybe he’s right where he should be.

Let’s be honest: this will ONLY be good if you can stand this sort of thing.  There are some good jokes in here, and Thomas Lennon is always a hoot in anything he shows up in.  It’s funny, sure–but it also tries really, REALLY, hard to be heartwarming.  Almost too hard, really.  But despite this, there’s actually a lot to like here.

The Screenhead Ten Scale is actually somewhat puzzled by this one, and in its puzzlement, hands 17 Again a six out of ten for being a fine example of a movie that only a certain kind of person will ever really enjoy.  If you’re looking for a comedy with a note of romance and and drama, and you can stand a huge load of Zac Efron, well, you should be in the right place.

Normally, I hate vampire movies.  Why do I hate them?  Well, it’s not too hard to say why–most of them look exactly the same except for a handful of exceptions.  Blood Wars, meanwhile, proves why I hate this sort of thing.

Blood Wars puts a mild-mannered college student in the midst of a war between a group of vampires and a group of vampire-hunting warlocks.  The vampires have their own problems as members of the group vie for supremacy, but the hunters don’t seem to have these problems.

You can pretty much imagine where this goes–the vampires will act like pompous jackasses, their hunters will act like self-righteous jackasses and the random college kids that occasionally get involved will act like, well, jackasses.  Everyone in this movie is a complete jackass, and that makes me wonder why I’m even bothering to watch it.  It’s a horror movie that’s not scary, a thriller movie that has no thrills and a romance movie that falls flat.  And don’t even get me started on the waste of Tony Todd.  Seriously, don’t–you won’t like it.

The Screenhead Ten Scale takes this vampire movie that truly sucks to task and gives it a one out of ten.  Unless you’re up for wasting ninety minutes with the results of a vampire LARP so godawful that even college kids wouldn’t cop to it, there’s just no reason to even bother.

All right, folks–you’re going to want to brace yourselves for this one because, better than a MONTH ahead of schedule, we’ve got a copy of Ghost Image, set to be released to DVD August 25th by MTI.

With a name like Ghost Image, you know it’s going to be a horror flick, plain and simple.  When a video editor loses her boyfriend to a tragic accident, she soon discovers that her boyfriend isn’t as far away as she once thought.  But the problem is, plenty of other things that she thought were far away–like her dead sister–are also closer to hand than she thought.  Now, she’s got to figure out if her boyfriend’s trying to get a hold of her from beyond the grave…or if she’s just slowly going crazy.

I know, I know…just a little bit done to death.  But I have to admit, as far as ghost-driven mystery / thrillers go, this one is actually pretty compelling.  The cast, which actually has a lot of solid history, coming off such stuff as Law and Order, The Sopranos, and even Walk The Line, does a nice job of keeping us involved in the action.

I was afraid, going in, that this was going to be some kind of second-rate Lifetime-esque sort of thriller.  You know, one of those really cheesy ones where the women are all heroic and the men are all rapists who secretly want to hurt all the women around them?  But no, this was actually fairly more highbrow than that.  In fact, there were plenty of creepy moments here (whoever did the effects on the bloody little girl that kept popping up either deserves some kind of award or a sock in the gut for providing some serious nightmare fuel), and plenty of good solid twists and turns.  As a horror movie, it’s definitely got the scare chops.  As a thriller, it’s got the necessary twists.  As a romantic drama, it delivers the goods there too.

I’m abundantly surprised in how many directions Ghost Image will go in, and how effectively it will go in those directions.  Seriously, this is some pretty sweet stuff right here, and I’m really very pleased with what I saw.  There wasn’t anything too predictable in this one, and there were a lot of nifty surprises that were pretty hard to even suspect coming.  Seriously, I’m very, VERY happy with this.  The last twenty minutes of Ghost Image are going to prove to be laden with a whole host of twists and surprises that’ll just amaze you.  I was stunned.

Now, like I said up above, you’ve got a bit over a full-on month to wait until you can lay hands on this little beauty yourself.  But I assure you, that when the time finally does come that you can see it, you should.

I’ve said this more than once so far, but it bears repeating.  Ghost Image is the kind of movie you definitely want to see, and on the Screenhead ten-scale, ranks a very solid eight out of ten.

Even independent, direct to video filmmaking often stays away from certain types of movie.  For instance, you don’t see a whole lot of indie action fare.  Indie sci-fi is also slim in the market.  And indie heist movies?  Now THESE are rare.  How rare, you ask?  Well, to borrow from Scott Adams, imagine Rush Limbaugh milking Elizabeth Hasselbeck to get milk for his pet sea monster.  Indie heist movies are even more rare than good analogies.

And this particular indie heist movie, dubbed The Code, brings together Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman as a couple of thieves out for the score of a lifetime–Faberge eggs.  The downside, of course, is that these priceless treasures are currently hidden in the spectacularly well-secured vault of a New York diamond wholesaler.  And now, the dynamic duo of Gabriel and Ripley is about to tackle that massive score together, through a series of ingenious methods, spectacular double-crosses, and just a little pinch of romance and humor.

Let me be clear up front–this movie is awesome.

That having been made perfectly clear, I’ll elaborate.  It’s a wonder no one’s ever thought to try and pair actors Banderas and Freeman together in one movie, at least not one that I can recall. They work spectacularly well together.  They’re handling their roles with the same kind of aplomb and talent that George Clooney and Matt Damon brought to similar heist roles.  And just because I said that the humor’s been ratcheted down a bit, that doesn’t mean it’s non-existent.  There will be funny here, just not quite in the concentration that, say, Ocean’s Eleven brought it in. I’m comparing this to Ocean’s Eleven for a lot of good reasons, and frankly, I say this says nothing but good for The Code.

Plus, the script is excellent.  They’ve set this up beautifully, and will steadily work through the various conflicts and issues that pop up with smooth regularity.  The stunning inventiveness that The Code offers is spectacular.  By the time you get to the end, you will find a number of twists easily on par with Ocean’s Eleven, or even, dare I say it, on par with The Usual Suspects.

And I said there’d be romance involved?  Yes, that’s here too—if you wanted to use this as a date movie, I don’t think anyone’s going to walk away disappointed.  No matter which side of the date you’re on, go ahead and suggest this one, because no one will be dissatisfied.  I’m actually rather surprised at the sheer number of fronts this movie covers—comedy, action, romance…it’s all here and it’s all well-represented.

It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you’re on; there are plenty of reasons—GOOD reasons—to like The Code.  The performances are all universally excellent, the storyline is coherent and rich with twists, and the sheer versatility of the movie makes it well worth laying your hands on.  It’s safe to say that, if you like movies in general, you’re going to get SOMETHING out of The Code.  It’s a really rare kind of movie that can say that, and The Code is one of those movies.

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.

Momma always told me my sinful ways would catch up with me one day.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is that day.  Because this is the day I subject myself to the massive cloud of vapid misery known as He’s Just Not That Into You.

This movie really doesn’t have a plot, at least not a plot that I can tell.  In fact, it’s almost like it’s speaking some other language that I only understand one word in three of.  It’s all about relationships, essentially.  Relationships, and the various “rules” that are attached to them that are apparently only attached by the most tenuous of threads.  And these threads only occasionally exist.

Seriously—a conversation between three girlfriends will suddenly escalate into them going home and breaking up with their boyfriends for little or no clear reason.  I’m watching this, and all I see is a bunch of vapid, empty-headed twenty- and thirty-somethings who are trying desperately to get their lives together but seem to be inured to some kind of metaphysical sludge that forbids them from making honest connections with other people.

I will admit that, for the most part, I wound up agreeing with virtually everything the guys said about themselves and the way they operate.  Your phone number is our top prize.  We’ll settle for an email address.  The only thing we’re concerned about is contacting you too soon and looking desperate.  We don’t care about giving you our number because we’ll screen your call.

And while this actually represents a pretty solid primer about the interactions of men and women, the biggest question is, how does this work as a movie?  The biggest question is also the biggest problem, because frankly, it doesn’t.  It’s a complete failure as a movie.  There’s no narrative, there’s no real conflict or rising action–it’s basically just a series of short films about an assortment of vacuous halfwits and their relationships to each other.  I couldn’t care less about any of these people, and after spending TWO SOLID HOURS with them, I barely know then, almost don’t want to know them.  They’re all empty suits, null ciphers, preprogrammed automatons that have all the emotional connectivity of rocks.  I found myself caring more about characters that had maybe five, ten lines than any of the mains.

Maybe this just isn’t my cup of tea, but I’ve seen romantic comedies before that had actual storylines.  And they’re vastly better than this drivel.

It’s hard to determine a recommendation on this one…it’s hard to watch.  It’s downright PAINFUL to watch, frankly.  It’s boring and it’s poorly realized.  The characters are empty suits and there’s nothing even resembling a reason to care about any of them.  There are nearly no laughs, almost no thrills, nothing.  But what there is, is a lot of information.  I can see the appeal here for some folks, indeed, for a lot of folks.

If you’re deeply, DEEPLY, into drama and romantic comedy, then you’ll definitely be into He’s Just Not That Into You.  But if you don’t fit into one of those slots, well, then you’re not that into this.  You may actually want to consider giving it one rental anyway just for the sake of the information involved.  As a movie, this is a wreck.  As a library, this may be helpful.