December 17, 2010, - 4:01 pm
Wknd Box Office: Tron Legacy, The Fighter, How Do You Know, Tiny Furniture, White Material
The best two new movies, this weekend are “Tron: Legacy” and “The Fighter.” I did not see “Yogi Bear,” because it was screened at the same time as the “Tron” flick.
* “Tron: Legacy“: This is THE MOST VISUALLY STUNNING MOVIE I’ve ever seen in my life. I braved the worst Michigan storm weather and driving (and spent an hour getting to the theater) to see this. That’s because I pride myself on delivering you the big-screen goods . . . and I’m a Tron-o-phile.
In this 3D sequel/reboot of the first “Tron” movie from 1982, the story is lackluster and slightly confusing, but the visuals, costuming, and soundtrack are phenomenal. The movie went on a little long, at just over 2 hours. But, oh, the eye candy. It’s kind of like “Bladerunner” for kids. So cool. Lots of fighting, lots of action, and lots of high-tech cyber-motorcycle and fighter plane stuff. I saw it on IMAX. And, as I always say, once you go IMAX, you never go bax. (In IMAX, it was very loud, and I wore industrial-strength air plugs for a good deal of the movie.) Plus, the movie features a few scenes with my childhood crush, Bruce Boxleitner–the original Tron, who, even now at age 60, still has those movie star looks.
Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund) is the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) from the original Tron movie. He’s 27, and his father disappeared years ago. He owns the majority of the stock in his father’s computer game software corporation, but spends his time goofing off and playing an annual break-in/prank on the company. Soon, he’s beckoned from the cyberworld through a page sent to Boxleitner (Alan Bradley, Tron’s real world alter ego). Sam Flynn believes it’s from his dad, but it’s really from his dad’s cyber alter-ego, CLU (a CGI version of the younger Bridges from the ’80s), who is seeking for all the programs in the cyber-netherworld to dial into the real world and take over. Sam goes to the basement of the old video arcade his father owned and enters the cyber-world, encountering his father, his father’s nemesis CLU, and a host of other cyber-characters, with whom he either fights or allies in order to get back to the real world with his father’s program Quorra (Olivia Wilde, niece of the anti-Israel dhimmiJew writer, Alexander Cockburn).
It’s fine for kids and you can take your whole family. And, I’ll say it again, this was the most visually stunning movie I’ve ever seen. I laughed at the people who gushed over the “Avatar” visuals. They were exaggerating. Not the case here. Sooo COOL.
THREE REAGANS
Watch the trailer . . .
* “The Fighter“: When I was temporarily banned from the Paramount Pictures screening list, the studio had the private critics screening for this movie, and I was banned. Thereafter, all the local critics told me what a great movie this was, how I’d love it, how it was “the new Rocky,” and so on. I think that set my expectations too high, and I was let down when Paramount put me back on the list and I saw this. To paraphrase the late Lloyd Bentsen, I loved “Rocky,” “Rocky” was like an old friend of mine, and “The Fighter,” you’re no “Rocky.” I like boxing, and I like boxing movies. But this just wasn’t one of my faves. It missed that spark, that something. There’s nothing special about it, and it seems old hat. Christian Bale is the best actor in it (as he always is), but his character is so depressing, even the happy ending isn’t too happy in my view. It’s just, blah.
Not only wasn’t this “the next Rocky” (not even close), I didn’t like the people in this movie, not even the hero. They’re just not that likeable. Real-life convicted criminal thug Mark Wahlberg plays real-life boxer Irish Micky Ward. And Christian Bale–always the master actor–plays his half-brother, boxer Dicky Eklund, a once-promising boxer who knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard in the ring, but then became a low-life crack addict. Eklund trains his brother, Ward, while their mother, played by Melissa Leo, is the parasite who lives off of him and his boxing career. But Ward doesn’t get good fights. He’s street-meat, the stepping stone for other boxers to beat on their way up. And he wants better. All of this takes place on the working class streets of Lowell, Massachusetts, with Ward’s and Eklund’s annoying, mostly unattractive seven sisters and half-sisters, all of whom also live off of Ward’s boxing. Ward meets Amy Adams, who becomes his girlfriend and tries to help him turn things around, so he can become a champ.
Like I said, it wasn’t an endearing movie because I just didn’t like any of the characters much . . . not even the “hero” for whom you’re supposed to be rooting like you rooted for Rocky. I just don’t buy shorter, squat Mark Wahlberg beating up the taller, bigger boxers in the movie, either. But it did make me look up Saoul Mamby, a Jewish Black boxer Ward was supposed to fight in Vegas (but who got sick and couldn’t fight).
I wouldn’t take your kids to see this. It has frequent graphic language, sad, and has explicit crack pipe use scenes. And it’s violent in parts (and I’m not talking the boxing in the ring). And it just wasn’t all that. It’s mildly entertaining. But I’m just not excited about it . . . not like everybody else on the conventional critics soapbox.
ONE REAGAN
Watch the trailer . . .
* “How Do You Know“: Question: How do you know when a movie is completely annoying? Answer: When you’re sitting through this one. This movie–starring Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, and Jack Nicholson–was waaaaay. too. long. And way too slow, too. But it’s worth seeing if only for the hilarious Wilson, playing every single spoiled scumbag pro athlete I’ve ever known and represented in my former life as a sports agent. He’s got that role down pat. So down pat. Very funny. But the rest was mostly not funny (and it was supposed to be).
Witherspoon plays an Olympic athlete who is cut from the team. She’s set up on a disastrous blind date with Paul Rudd, but is ultimately town between Rudd, who is a nice but down-on-his-luck guy who likes her, and Wilson, the wealthy pro baseball player who is a user and has commitment issues. And, as for being down on his luck, Rudd is the son of the corrupt Jack Nicholson, whose company is under investigation and who lets his son, Rudd, take the fall for him in a federal indictment.
Mid-way through this bore, the filmmakers thrust us into a largely irrelevant marriage scene in which Rudd’s former secretary is proposed to by the father of the baby she just had in the hospital. We’re forced to listen to this new character’s annoying, sappy proposal speech not just once, but twice. Please, make the Gitmo detainees listen to it instead of me.
Like I said, this movie was far too slow, too self-contemplative, and very boring. But the funny parts with Owen Wilson made it bearable. Not worthwhile, but bearable.
ONE-HALF MARX
Watch the trailer . . .
* “Tiny Furniture“: Man, the crap I sit through for you. A young newcomer, Lena Dunham, made this arthouse movie starring herself and her real-life pretentious mother and sister as her big screen pretentious mother and sister. While all the critics seem to love this steaming piece of dung (sorry, dung), I absolutely hated it. I’ve been lectured about how this is such a funny commentary and parody of upper-class stuck up life in New York’s Soho. But mostly it wasn’t funny and was more of a pretense to parody than the real thing. It was just sad and like the world’s worst reality show. Boring, slow, and disgusting. I’ll never eat an omelet again (or, rather, I’ll have to struggle not thinking of this garbage when I eat an omelet).
Dunham plays a recent college grad who majored in women’s studies and has returned home to her mother’s ritzy Soho apartment, which doubles as her mother’s studio. Her mother makes big money by shooting photos of human shoes next to tiny furniture. Now that would be funny, but in real life Dunham’s mother (who plays her mother) does something just like that for a living. Like, why do I care about these stuck up, annoying, ugly people? Who wants to pay ten bucks and spend to hours to see that, when you can just websurf to the People of Walmart website? (With apologies to the People of Walmart.)
The recent college grad gets a job as a hostess at a New York restaurant, then has sex with the chef in a pipe in the middle of a parking lot. In the meantime, a loser guy she met who makes YouTube videos of commentary while riding a toy horse (or donkey, I can’t remember and don’t care) is staying for free at her mother’s apartment and sleeping in her room. (These are the people who elected Obama.)
Like I said, who cares? Not me. If this is parody, please Hollywood artsy fartsy types, get outta the biz. Epic fail. So sorry if I’m not (pseudo-)intellectual enough to enjoy rotten trash.
FOUR MARXES PLUS AN OBAMA PLUS A BIN LADEN
Watch the trailer . . .
* “White Material“: Another slow and boring arthouse movie I hated. A woman defies the rest of her family and friends by refusing to leave her coffee farm in the midst of a Black takeover of her African country. Everyone who is White is being killed off by the Black militants. But, in the end, her crazy White son is the one who kills everyone in her family and all the Black people living and/or working on the coffee farm. Another White guilt flick. No thanks. In French with English subtitles.
FOUR MARXES PLUS AN OBAMA PLUS A BIN LADEN
Watch the trailer . . .
Tags: Alexander Cockburn, Amy Adams, Bruce Boxleitner, Christian Bale, CLU, Dicky Eklund, Garrett Hedlund, How Do You Know, Irish Micky Ward, Jack Nicholson, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Flynn, Lena Dunham, Mark Wahlberg, Melissa Leo, Micky Ward, Movie Reviews, Olivia Wilde, Owen Wilson, Paul Rudd, Quorra, Reese Witherspoon, Sam Flynn, Saoul Mamby, The Fighter, Tiny Furniture, Tron, Tron-o-phile, Tron: Legacy, White Material
Debbie, mark whalberg has already repented what he’d done in his past to Jesus and god through his Christian faith. God has forgiven him so why can’t you.
Nak on December 17, 2010 at 5:16 pm