Finally got around to seeing Bee Movie today. Not much to say about it, other than that it’s a very cute, very colorful, but otherwise pretty average animated flick. It’s certainly no Pixar film. Still, it tries hard to be likable and the animation is good. I say if you haven’t already, then take the kids. Otherwise, no big deal. I’m giving this one a bee-minus — ahem, a B–.
It’s hard to believe it’s been only one month since the Red Sox won the World Series. In some ways it feels like much longer, and in others it’s like only yesterday. So of course, in an effort to hold on to those good ole days, I made sure to go right out and pick up my copy of the World Series Highlights DVD on Tuesday (on sale for just $11.88 at Newbury Comics), and I watched it soon after I got home.
The film starts out with a great montage of Sox clips, showing the boys having fun — all while the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” plays, of course. It’s an opening that makes you smile and sets the scene for what should be an equally great film. If only the rest was as good. While the 2004 Highlights DVD was a fantastic recap of the year — from Spring Training on — told entirely from the Sox perspective, this one is exactly as marketed: a recap of the World Series, and it’s told from both sides. It takes just 10 minutes to get through the entire Red Sox season, from Opening Day to the end of the ALCS, and in moving so quickly, there’s very little flavor and very little of what was so memorable about the season. There’s no mention at all of Clay Buchholz or his no-hitter, nothing about Schilling’s one-hitter, no recap of the hype that greeted Dice-K, very little about the back-to-back-to-back-to-back homer game against the Yankees, nothing about the Mother’s Day Miracle, no Ellsbury, no Wakefield … nothing. And then there’s an equally quick summary of the Rockies’ road to the Series. And then we’re at Game One, after only 24 minutes. (In the 2004 film, it took a half hour just to recap the Sox season, with almost nothing on St. Louis.)
Major League Baseball would have you believe that this was a closer series than it was, because it’s presented as such. Never mind that the Sox swept the Rockies and won comfortably in two of the four games. It’s all very businesslike and by-the-book. While there are talking head interviews and soundbites from Pap and Mikey Lowell and Jacoby Ellsbury and Curt Schilling and Theo and others, they’re all pretty staid and without character, simply recapping the games and not sharing much emotion or personality. Sure, this season didn’t have the same drama that 2004 did, but it was definitely more exciting than this. Even Matt Damon, who narrates the film, seems bored by the whole thing. Clearly, MLB Productions, in an effort to make the film appealing to Rockies fans, neutered a lot of the pro-Sox slant and tried to make this as fair a film as possible. Rockies players and personnel are as plentiful as Sox folks. And in making it all so balanced, they’ve produced an ultimately disappointing one-hour-and-10-minute highlights reel that, for a Sox fan, doesn’t really recapture the glory of being World Series Champions. What a bummer.
Perhaps the best parts of the DVD are the extra features, including my favorite one, a recap of the night the Sox won the AL East. You get the last two outs at Fenway courtesy of NESN, then the last out in Baltimore (plus Millar’s strikeout) from the actual broadcast in Baltimore, and a bit of Papelbon et al dancing on the field. I wish there was more of that kind of stuff, the dancing and all, on the actual film. After all, this DVD should be a celebration of and a tribute to the World Series Champs, right? But it’s good to have at least some of the coverage in the bonus section. And I’ll always have my memories of the actual games, and the actual season. Those are things this DVD could never document as well anyway.
“I’m just a songwriter,” one of the six — count ’em, six — Bob Dylan stand-ins says during I’m Not There. Well, forgive me for calling this character a liar, but as the film makes clear, Bob Dylan isn’t just anything. Todd Haynes’ portrait of the man born Robert Zimmerman paints him as a poet, an actor, a troubador, a misunderstood genius, an ahead-of-his-time songwriter, a lost man, etc.
Bob Dylan is many things to many people, and to say that I’m Not There doesn’t give a definitive answer about the man isn’t to say it misses the boat. Rather, in celebrating many aspects of Dylan, it reaches near-great status. Continue reading
Longtime readers of this blog know how much I loved the movie Once when I saw it this past summer.
So when my friend Nina tipped me off that the film’s stars, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, were coming to Boston to do a concert to promote their album, The Swell Season, I didn’t hesitate to get tickets.
And I’m happy to report that while the concert on Wednesday night didn’t recreate the same sense of euphoria that the movie did, it was still a damn good night of music that only makes me love the movie more. Continue reading
One thing people may not realize is that I know, at least generally, who is reading my blog. So to the two 14-year-old girls in Shrewsbury, PA, who this morning read through my movie reviews and felt the need to, ahem, “burn me bad” by posting anonymous comments after five of the reviews, I say right back at you: Oh, you think you’re so tough, do you? Next time you want to start a flame war with me, try to do it without such bad grammar and so many spelling mistakes. Yeah, that’s right. I’m busting your chops now. (And yes, it’s all in good fun, if I really need to say that.) But if you girls want to comment on anything you read here — and I do encourage you to comment — try being man (or woman) enough to sign your actual name next time instead of doing it anonymously. Then I’ll be impressed.
For everyone else, want to see their comments? They’re hysterical. Here are links to the reviews:
Across the Universe
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
Brokeback Mountain (my second review)
You’ve been warned: Disney’s new movie Enchanted is just about the sugariest, sweetest movie I’ve ever seen. It’s strictly for those with a high tolerance for corn. The film begins in the most cliched Disney animated film ever, where Giselle (Amy Adams), friend to nearly every animal in the forest, is waiting for her true love’s kiss. Along rides Prince Edward (James Marsden), whose stepmother is the evil Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon), and the two instantly fall in love. Narissa hates Giselle, of course, and before Giselle and Edward can be married, Narissa throws Giselle down a well, where she lands in … Times Square, in non-animated reality. There she meets Rob (Patrick Dempsey), a divorce lawyer, and wouldn’t you know it, Giselle melts his cold, cynical heart. It’s all just so romantic and bright and cheery and colorful and happy. And New York (especially Central Park) has never looked better.
Not that this is actually a great movie (I figured now was a good time to say that). Dempsey gives a rather wooden performance, and even though this is a fairy tale, the story is a little too contrived and the scene at the King and Queen Ball (yes, really) is a little too hokey. But it’s just damned near impossible not to smile whenever Adams is on the screen. She and Marsden both give such enthusiastic performances that you can’t help but have fun watching the film. Also cool is seeing Idina Menzel in something other than Rent or Wicked (even though hers is a pretty thankless role). But yeah, don’t go see this movie unless you’re a sucker for Disney — or you’re a seven-year-old girl with a princess fetish. I’m giving Enchanted a B–.
In the Coen brothers’ new film, No Country for Old Men, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) comes across a drug deal gone bad and takes a bag with $2 million from the scene.
Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), one of the baddest bad guys I’ve ever seen, is hired by some businessmen to track down the money.
And no matter where Moss goes, Chigurh finds him. That bad guy, he’s good.
And so is the film itself.
Also featuring a top-notch performance by Tommy Lee Jones — as Ed Tom Bell, the sheriff on Chigurh’s trail — No Country is one of the best movies of the year. Continue reading
Plain and simple, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is one of the best movies of the year. Or maybe it would be were it not 5 or 10 minutes too long, and didn’t have as much time-shifting. But that’s minor quibbling when you have such a fantastic acting ensemble and a crackling plot. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke play down-on-their-luck brothers who decide to rob a jewelry store to get themselves out of dire straits. Of course, nothing goes as planned, and complications arise involving their parents (Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris) and Hoffman’s character’s wife (Marisa Tomei), and soon the boys are in more trouble than before the heist. Director Sidney Lumet keeps the action moving, employing the aforementioned time-shifting device to further shade the characters and reveal their varied motivations, and that works quite well for the first half. But after the first few flashbacks, the device gets tired and it made me roll my eyes. Hoffman and, most surprisingly, Hawke are both excellent, giving performances of intensity and turmoil. Things don’t all go as you expect them to, and when the film reaches its eventual conclusion, not everything is resolved and you’re left wondering what will happen to the characters next. Sometimes that’s frustrating. Here, with all kinds of questionable moral activity going on, it feels appropriate. I’m going to give BtDKYD a strong B+.
Ho ho holy crap, is this a bad movie. Fred Claus makes me feel like the Grinch and it’s only November 9. I’m not even sure what to mention here to illustrate why this movie isn’t enjoyable — Vince Vaughn’s tired schtick? bad writing? awful special effects? — so I’ll stick with my initial thought, which is that the biggest waste of all is a jolly soundtrack that includes such gems as the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping” and the Jackson 5’s “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” You know a holiday movie is bad when even tunes like that can’t lift your spirits. I’m giving Fred a D, for don’t bother.
If you’re going to go see Lions for Lambs, you’d better bring a shovel, or a first aid kit, because when it’s over you’re either going to need to do a lot of digging to get out of the heavy handed speechifying and verbosity, or you’ll be on the mend from being hit over the head with so much righteousness.
No, Lions isn’t a subtle film, and I guess when you’ve got Robert Redford, Tom Cruise, and Meryl Streep headlining, how can it be?
Continue reading
Martin's Musings 