I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight†right HERE for free.
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Couples Retreat – DVD Giveaway
I did not have the chance to see this film while it was playing in the theaters but it made a decent amount of coin at the box office and I now have a few copies to give away for a few people who would like a chance to win one.
For a chance to win, just e-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and let me know what you got for your valentine this year. I do realize I am making some of you work a little harder for free stuff and, for that, I am not sorry at all.
Good luck…
A film description:
Dave (Vince Vaughn) and wife Ronnie (Malin Akerman) are happily married with two young sons as is Joey (Jon Favreau) and wife Lucy (Kristin Davis). Shane (Faizon Love) has recently divorced from Jennifer (Tasha Smith) and has taken up with 20 year old Trudy (Kali Hawk). But Jason (Jason Bateman) and wife Cynthia (Kristen Bell) are crumbling under the pressure of trying to conceive and in a bid to save their marriage, come up with the idea for all of them to spend a luxurious week together at the Eden tropical island resort. It’s cheaper that way. Besides, think of the fun they can have while working on their relationships.
Valentine’s Day – Review
I deeply regret having to drag Robert Altman into this.
Short Cuts, for those who need a quick lesson, is a movie that revolves around some Los Angelinos dealing with life as it comes. A series of loosely intertwined narratives, the strength of this modern masterpiece from Robert Altman juggles over two dozen actors who are each important, in their own way, in helping to move a massive story along. The action is minimal, the exposition is endlessly fascinating, the characters are actually fleshed out and human,but the net effect is a movie that rewards multiple viewings and can be interpreted from various angles every single time you watch it. The movie is rooted firmly in the terra firma of human relationships that just happen to all meld together at once.
In contrast, Valentine’s Day, which is similarly a movie about random folks living in Los Angeles, with intertwining stories to tell, is a waste of everyone’s time, and talent. It’s a film that proves that if you want a toothless, uninspired, pedantic, made for television yet it’s still a movie, kind of film then this is for you. It’s the kind of collaboration where there is so much possibility inherent in the idea but the execution of that idea is predicated on dumbing everything down so even a fourteen year girl, who is ostensibly there to see the pairing of Taylor Swift/Taylor Lautner, could follow its plot at any waypoint along this movie’s timeline.
Garry Marshall, bless his Happy Days heart, disappoints as the directorial leader for a movie where every scene has his anachronistic sensibilities smeared all over it. The stories he is trying to capture seem to be informed by a time that has long since past, and probably never were, as they all feel false and blatantly cooked up in a writer’s room with people who have never lived a real life behind the safe, lilywhite confines of Beverly Hills, a place where life is manicured, sanitized.
The stories here are numerous, no question about that. Ashton Kutcher plays Reed Bennett, a flower store owner who starts off the film asking his girlfriend, Jessica Alba, to marry him. She says yes, he’s happy, and starts his day. He meets up with his friend Alphonso (George Lopez) who works at the flower shop Kutcher owns. We meet a football player (Eric Dane) who is conflicted about his future as an NFL quarterback. His PR flunkie Kara Monahan (Jessica Biel) has some extreme emotional issues with regard to the Valentine’s holiday, and his agent, Paula Thomas (Queen Latifah), plays the part of the big bad boss in a way that is neither fresh, original, or interesting. There is the doctor (Patrick Dempsey) who sleeps with his girlfriend (Jennifer Garner) but who also has a wife and is trying to keep it all under wraps. You’ve got Topher Grace who plays Jason, a guy smitten by his new girlfriend Liz (Anne Hathaway) but who does not know anything about the dark secret that could threaten the relationship which Liz flaunts before us throughout the film. There’s Bradley Cooper who plays Holden, a businessman on a long plane ride sitting next to Julia Roberts who plays Captain Kate Hazeltine, a soldier who is looking to spend just one day in Los Angeles with her man before going back where she came from. And then, among a couple of other relationships, there’s Taylor Lautner who plays Willy, a guy who loves his energetic girlfriend Felicia (Taylor Swift). It’s this latter pair that perfectly encapsulates what is so terribly wrong about this movie.
I realize I’m just Monday morning quarterbacking here, and there are people who get paid more money every year than I will in my lifetime to make these decisions, but if one of your teenage draws is Taylor Swift shouldn’t the axiom of “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link†apply? From my vantage point, Taylor Swift is not only this movie’s weakest link but she is a frightening aberration on the screen and has the mannerisms and presence of a female Napoleon Dynamite in a way that doesn’t feel ironic. She carries herself horribly, I assure you, and is more like a woman trying to overcompensate for her overacting in every scene she’s in with the end result being horrific.
The other stories play out beyond the acceptable norms of predictably for a movie like this and the acting prowess of those who’ve been awarded for their ability to memorize lines well is non-existent from pretty much everyone. You just have to wonder what was the point of making this film. Ah, but that’s the point, isn’t it? There is no need to address such poetic attitudes such as William Carlos Williams’ idea that there are no ideas but in things because there isn’t a thing or an idea here. It’s a pure business, economic transaction that’s in play because how else do you explain a movie where the ultimate resolution of all the narratives is happy and pleasant. I am at a loss to logically explain how we can go from adultery, to cheating, to lying, to heartbreak, to brake-ups, to people withholding from one another, with a final sprint to the finish that rewards the good and punishes the bad. This isn’t escapism; this is a movie of lies better suited for an after school special on how we’re all worth something as people.
The sanitized suburban, and urban, lives of those in this movie feel false because they are. I am positive, however, the movie will do fiscally well with audiences who will see things differently. Even broken clocks are right at least twice a day but the mixing of so many celebrities and so many personalities are, by default, going to bring the audiences in regardless of how well or, in this case, how bad a movie is. I am powerless to stop it but I can state without equivocation that Valentine’s Day had so much potential and it’s just squandered in favor for a celebration of mediocrity.
A movie with so many titans of current pop culture should have been handled with material that could have meant something more than what this is: a pop culture flash in-the-pan money grab that will become irrelevant just as quickly as this movie has come and gone. These aren’t superstars, they’re super actors who earned far more than a single ticket is worth.
The Wolfman – Review
There’s no denying that this movie has had its setbacks. From delays to reshoots to the replacement of the editor, and original director, this film ought to have been a multi-million dollar, direct-to-DVD dud. Instead, what we have been given by director Joe Johnson is a movie that is paced quickly, has more than a few quality kills, has a story that isn’t completely insulting to the viewer, and is pure fun.
This movie was a simple charmer that had genuinely good performances across the board and possessed a pace that did not relent. About the former, Benicio Del Toro imbues his character, Lawrence Talbot, with a subtle, muted powerfulness. Anthony Hopkins, starring as Del Toro’s father, Sir John Talbot, shines as an emotionally detached father to not only Del Toro but to his dead son Ben, a death that brings Lawrence back home to investigate. To watch Hopkins is to witness an actor who knows exactly who this character is and pulls back on any impulse to get gregarious with a role that sincerely rewards a steady hand. Emily Blunt actually puts in a convincing turn as the recently widowed wife of Ben, the actress a convincingly grief stricken woman who never strays into the maudlin or melancholy. The three of them represent the emotional core of this film and they all contribute something unique to the overall vision of what this movie ended up being. Hugo Weaving (Abberline) adds a little to the overall narrative flow but it’s the three leads that make you believe that we are in a place that actually exists and I think that’s what makes this a fun film.
The movie essentially relies on the old retread of a man who gets bit by a werewolf and then becomes one himself. Essentially, most of the plot is taken care of by this idea but the way this movie takes the next step beyond the 1941 Lon Chaney Jr. classic is by how the character is interpreted. Del Toro excels in this regard by making the man a real man, someone beset by psychological/emotional pain in returning to a home he long since tried to forget and a man who genuinely wants to know what happened to his dead brother. The ways in which Del Toro carefully and slowly navigates his physical and emotional space in this film is curious if only because he doesn’t stray into bombast or hyperactive. He is more threatening as a pensive thinker, I would assert, and this also makes him more dangerous as the film goes on.
Never once does the movie stray into the silly nor ever does it wink knowingly to the audience. The film is a darkly fun trip that feels like a Haunted Mansion ride meshed with a modern slasher. To note, there are some quality, solid kills in this movie with enough viscera to satisfy anyone looking to get a more violent Wolfman up on the screen as he moves through the fog laden forest where a lot of the killing takes place. And much of this movie’s atmospheric charm should be credited to cinematographer Shelly Johnson and set decorator John Bush who both made conscious choices in ensconcing the events of this movie in a brooding, wet environment, to say nothing of the asylum where everything has the pall of disease and desperation. Someone else who deserves attention, and part of what makes this film such a delight, is an unseen member of this film’s crew: Rick Baker.
When last we caught up with Baker, the make-up extraordinaire, he was helping to turn Robert Downey Jr. into Kirk Lazarus, extreme method actor. Most of what people should remember of that movie was Downey Jr.’s stark visage and it absolutely is relevant here as the comments about what people see on the faces of those turned by the beast is nothing short of impressive. The make-up applied to Benicio Del Toro feels like a homecoming for the man who advanced the medium in An American Werewolf in London and it, again, should be something people take notice of and be impressed by. The level of care that’s taken with the transformations from man to wolf are striking when you consider how fast this could have happened with the aid of computers in a field now ruled by microchips. Baker is an unsung element that makes this movie feel like an old-fashioned throwback to the movies that depended on creative directing to induce a level of tension in the audience and it works. While it did not get to the heights of Drag Me To Hell, another movie that depended on practicality, not 1s and 0s, the movie stands on its feet with effects that don’t feel manufactured in a non-natural way. The hair is there, the make-up is there, there is a very real wolf man running around. Sure, there are some elements that have been digitally assisted but the movie’s editing pushes everything along at such a quick clip that you don’t have time to linger on any one moment. It’s that latter fact, however, that also lays bare this movie’s shortfall.
The Wolfman doesn’t spend the time to reflect on anything and it’s that superficiality that prevents the story from being anything more than a man who’s bitten by a feral creature. We never get a chance to get to know Lawrence beyond some backstory of what brought him to his current state of mind. A handful of flashbacks do not a character make and the remains of this quickness is a brevity in spirit that prevents any lasting connection to the movie’s titular characters.
The Wolfman is a movie that delivers on being a first rate classical horror film that pulls in some modern need for blood and guts (literally) while also gussying everything up with prim and proper affectations. The net result of which is a movie going experience that thrills, delights, but leaves you less than sated.
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