What was the last movie you saw at the theaters?

Drag Me to Hell

That movie went there and back, too.

Terminator: Salvation

garbage movie, but my brothers pick

Edit - last movie now was The Hangover. HEAPS of fun.

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Star Trek--I am I the only one on the planet who hated it? They turned Spock into a hen-pecked wimp.

I just saw Transformers 2 last night. OMG it was a 14 year old boys wet dream. Even I want to do Megan Fox now. In the words of my fella "Don't you want to just grab Michael Bay, shake him, and in your best Peter Griffiths voice, point your finger at him and say "No...No.. Stop. No Michael No.""

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It was awhile back. I took my mom to see Australia, and we thought it was horrid. Basically a harlequin romance cover brought to life without the raunch. Script people! Write a good one ffs! Just big budget mediocrity at its best.

Transfomers Revenge of the Fallen
17 Again

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - +

There were things I liked and things I didn't like, but mostly, as it may seem, the latter. Still, though, I enjoyed it. Head over to my review thread for a full review, a link to which is located in my signature.

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My Movie Review Thread | My Top 100

Wow. I don't know. What was the last movie I saw in a theatre?
Hmmmm.
Indie and the Crystal Skull? I think so.

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R.I.P.

ANGELS AND DEMONS..and i thought it was better than the book in more ways than one!

Public Enemies
2009, Michael Mann

Michael Mann's 21st Century crack at the rise and fall of John Dillinger and other infamous outlaws of the early 1930s as Hoover's new F.B.I. pursued and killed them is a good looking but hollow exercise. Depp as Dillinger has a surface magnetic screen presence, but the character is given almost no insight and the film doesn't even have much to say about the myth, cinematic or otherwise, of the notorious and deadly Depression era bank robber. The other criminal cohorts get even less development, and among them Stephen Graham really goes over-the-top as "Baby Face" Nelson, which given Depp and the others underplaying their baddies just comes off as a cartoon portrayal left over from maybe Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy. On the law enforcement side Christian Bale is fine and steady as Melvin Purvis, the Agent assigned to Chicago to bring down the rampant chaos. But as with Depp's Dillinger there is precious little for him to work with. Marion Cotillard, who won the Oscar earlier this year for La vie en Rose, gets the only real emotional highs and lows to play in the flick, and while her whirlwind romantic relationship with Dillinger is underwritten she manages to bring layers to the character that don't seem to be on the page.

Of course Michael Mann can stage a shoot out with the best of them, and given the opportunity to replace his usual modern assault rifles with period Tommy Guns must have had him drooling since the idea of redoing the Dillinger story was first presented to him. Those action sequences don't disappoint in and of themselves, although there isn't a gunplay scene here that rivals the magnificence of the L.A. bank heist in the middle of Heat. Given how strong a film Mann's Heat is it would seem a natural fit that he could do a similar parallel track of both sides of the law sparring with each other in the 1930s equally well. But there aren't enough strong characters, no interesting point of view, and it is remarkably tension-free. I don't think it's just that the whole thing is leading to the well-known outcome outside of Chicago's Biograph movie theatre that left Public Enemies so tensionless; it just never seems to matter which agent or criminal goes down bloody, since we know there will inevitably be another shoot out coming soon enough and both the "good" and "bad" guys outside of Depp and Bale are pretty interchangeable.

The cinematographer Dante Spinotti (L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys) has now worked with Mann five times (Manhunter, The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider), and he along with production designer Nathan Crowley and the rest of the crew have a blast with the period detail, but there's simply no there there, as the phrase goes. The nonfiction book on which the screenplay was based did a really excellent job at chronicling the entire period and the complexities and specifics of the wide-ranging net the Feds threw at the problem, but Mann's film barely scratches the surface of that rich material opting instead for terrific looking trenchcoats and loud machine gun fire while a couple of the day's top stars look stoically at the carnage.

To me the Roger Corman A.I.P. produced version from the early 1970s directed by John Milius (on less than the craft services budget Mann had to play with) starring the great Warren Oates as Dillinger and Ben Johnson as Purvis pursuing him remains the best cinematic version of the tale to date. There's more wit and chemistry and intensity in any three scenes of Milius' low budget affair than there is in all two hours and twenty minutes of this latest attempt. There's still enough well-crafted cinema on display in Public Enemies to mildly recommend it, but it's a dead thing with no vitality or insight and in the end is a wasted opportunity.

GRADE: C+

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Last movie I saw in the movie theater was "Bedtime Stories" with Adam Sandler. I pretty much figured before I even set foot in the theater that the movie was going to be a flop. But hey, I didn't pay anything.

The Proposal

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Great minds...

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MOON
2009, Duncan Jones

Very good flick that treats both its characters and the audience with respect. The still somehow not a moviestar Sam Rockwell is Sam Bell, the lone employee at a mining operation on the surface of the moon. We learn in the opening that a new compound has been discovered in the moon rocks, a valuable element that can be turned into a new and plentiful energy source back on Earth. Sam has been up there for quite a while, almost three years. But his contract is finally expiring. Adding to his isolation is a faulty communications system that doesn't allow for live video messages, only recordings back and forth. His one companion is a friendly and helpful cousin of the HAL-9000 from Kubrick's 2001, a computer system he interacts with (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Sam is getting excited about his long-awaited return to terra firma below...but in the final days before his scheduled trip home to his wife and young daughter some strange and troubling things start happening.

That basic set-up could have led to any number of stories for the last two thirds of the narrative, anything from aliens to schizophrenia to robot doubles or an elaborate dream or any combination thereof. The script seems very aware of the many possibilities. Happily we don't get a build to a lame would-be M. Night big twist revelation or a transplanted Western or Monster Movie in space. What follows in Moon is something terribly refreshing: instead of a drawn-out mystery, the answer to the strange goings on unfolds about forty-five minutes in, with the character and the audience both in on it. Rather than drain the suspense from the flick, it allows for a different and deeper kind of exploration, not a 'what in the Hell is going on here?' puzzle but a 'how would I deal with these issues if I woke up with the same realization?', with first person audience participation. It's more akin to Cast Away by way of Silent Runnings than a more standard action-oriented genre piece or thriller full of jump scares.

Without giving away more details, Sam Rockwell gives yet another grade-A performance, and his empathetic portrayal in the convoluted premise makes it very compelling. Its also a movie that follows its own internal logic instead of cheating in major or minor ways to make plot points work. It's a wonderful surprise feature debut from director and co-writer Duncan Jones, the name-shifting oldest child and only son of icon David Bowie (originally named Zowie Bowie, later changed to Joey Bowie, and now reverting back to his Dad's birth surname). It definitely signals the thirty-eight-year-old Jones as a talent to watch. And if people still don't know how talented Rockwell is...well, shame on them. Whether or not a character-driven low-key emotional human drama with Sci-Fi window dressing will play in a summer of exploding robot battles remains to be seen, but it's the most satisfying and interesting movie I've seen in months.


GRADE: A-

The part about "dressing" made me want a salad...

I saw My Sister's Keeper, which my bff wanted to see and I was not looking forward to. But it wasn't half bad. I sniffed a little but it did not lean on the old heart strings to hard. It was more matter of fact even despite its theme.

Thanks for the heads up about Moon. I hadn't heard of this one.

I am looking forward to the Peter Jackson sci fi movie with the forgettable name. Area 22 or Location 13 whatever it is.

The rest of the summer blockbusters I will probably give a miss.

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Public Enemies

I thought it was really taut and well acted, if a little overly long. I didn't quite buy the romance between John and Billie though which brought it down a bit.

Grade: B

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Public Enemies - Decent enough, but not half as good as I was hoping for. First of all I dont think Johnny Depp can pull off a straight performance he just doesnt shine and I think the main reason is that he doesnt really have much to play with here, it's a very singular character and Johnny Depp playing such a person doesnt work for me. He needs some quirk, some sense of cookyness to enamour the audience, of course that wouldnt have worked here and I'm sure the money he'll bring in for the studio will erase all criticisms of his performance, but I think another person in that role could have done a much better job, maybe even Bale could have done something more with it. It didnt work. The other actors are fine, some shine brighter than others. The two stand outs in my opinion are Bale's intense but slightly broken Purvis and Crudups's Hoover (I'll be the first to call for a new J. Edgar Hoover biopic with Mr Crudup in the lead). Other than that, it seemed to me like most of the other actors were generally - whether unintentional or not - sleepwalking through the entire movie.

This was generally to do with Michael Mann's strange choice of direction. Yes we all know he can direct and shoot a "shootout" almost perfectly, they are a hallmark of his recent work (EDIT: as it has been said above I have just noticed I'm not plagiarizing, honest). And as expected he does a fine job here as always and the bank jobs - whilst quite samey - are all well done. The thing that let's the movie down is that the way it's shot, and in so doing Mann loses some of the nuance in the performances and in the overall story. The high def camera's that worked so well in Collateral are just out of place here, you dont get the feel of 1930's depression era America. The movie feels sterile.

It's not as bad as Miami Vice, but it should have been a much better movie. 3/5.

Public Enemies
Michael Mann



Well, I must confess, after being very excited about this film, I haven't quite known what to say for the last few days.

I will agree with what I've read here; I'll concur with Holden's analysis about the lack of character development. There is nothing here to give us any insight into Dillinger at all. Nothing. I'm actually shocked that I could spend 2 and 1/2 hours with a character I ended up knowing nothing about.

The only real emotional connection I felt was in one scene -- Dillinger inside his car after his girlfriend has been arrested. It was a fine moment in a movie with nearly no moments.

The film also strikes me as such an opportunity lost -- the final 1/2 hour is rather tense and is one more reason to admire Mann as a filmmaker. Such incredible tension was built where there was nothing actually "happening," merely the set up to the end. It didn't matter we knew the end: Mann staged it well. Why the rest of the film was so weak, I don't understand.

The one success I'll give Mann was an interesting look at how police work was changing in Dillinger's time and reminded me of the same conflict so beautifully conceived in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Yet, in that film we were connected to the characters, here, we weren't.

And the use of camera work took me out of the film so many times. Mann had the camera in my face and I was incredibly uncomfortable the entire time.

On the other hand, it was an amazing film to look at. Some shots were simply breathtaking. Wow, this movie could have been amazing.