The American: Review

Okay. Seriously. Is the film industry just purposely releasing all their shitty movies this year?

Clooney! What did you do? Why dude why? You had such a great year last year. You know I was really looking forward to see George Clooney do another heavy drama like Syriana again. And I wasn't the only one, this film has been lauded as one of the front runners for the Oscars next year and boy, all that just turn out to be shit.

The American is about Jack played by George Clooney who is an assassin building a gun for another assassin, while he is hiding out in Italy after he was nearly executed in Sweden. And as the film progresses he meets and develops a relationship with a hooker but paranoia soon engulfs him when he realizes the assassins from Sweden have found him.

This movie is an international spy film along the same veins as James Bond and the Bourne series only that it isn't directed by an action director, it is directed by an ambiguous, arthouse type of director. This movie is 2 hours long and it is completely and utterly boring.

In this film, we have 5 pages of dialogue stretched across 2 hours of screen time. Everything else that happens between that is George Clooney building a gun, George Clooney drinking coffee, George Clooney walking, George Clooney jogging, George Clooney running, George Clooney sitting, George Clooney starring off into space and George Clooney looking sad. The American's paper thin plot gets lost in this whirl of boring nothingness.

And that wouldn't bother me so much if this was a character study. It wasn't. This film is boring, long and has a whole lot of talk but it is still not what you would call an acting movie. George Clooney isn't acting in this. He is on auto-pilot, he's just saying the lines with emotion not character. Why? Because he had no character to work with. At the end of the film, we know nothing about Jack, we aren't even interested in him. He's kinda boring. All he does is sit around, looking sad, and building a gun. We learn nothing about him, we aren't given anything to connect with him, I was just sitting there looking at the watch throughout the film.

He is kinda like James Bond who is suffering from depression and is taking a shot load of painkillers. He barely talks in this movie. And while I appreciate this silent intense side of Clooney, I'd rather see his witty, charming persona like in Up In The Air. Just watching this movie and watching him really really depresses you.

The one thing this movie does have going for it is Violente Placido who plays Clooney's love interest. She is one hella fine piece of hot but she took her one dimensional role and made it the brightest parts of this dull, depressing movie. I don't know how she stayed so sunny with George Clooney acting all depressed around her all the time.

Ultimately, you really need to avoid this movie. The ending is predictable, the writing is so-so and the acting is emotionless. The American was just one long, boring, lifeless film that was really really really painful to watch. And this is coming from a guy who sat through Gone With The Wind without so much as a yawn.

RATING: 3/10

Charlie St. Cloud: Review

My man crush deepens....

Zac Efron man. Who would have thought a dude from Disney would eventually become an independent, self-respecting leading actor only 2 years after High School Musical. Say what you want about him, this guy knows how to pick his projects.

So this movie is about Charlie St. Cloud, a sailing dude who wins a scholarship to Stanford and before he leaves, he promises to practice baseball with his little brother, Sam everyday before sunset before he leaves. So one night, he's babysitting his brother but he decides he wants to go for a ride and brings his brother along with him but they get hit by a truck and little brother dies. Charlie dies to but is revived in the ambulance and begins to feel massive guilt for his brothers death. But Charlie does a Sixth Sense and manages to see his brother's ghost and promises to play baseball with him everyday like they planned 13 years later, he's given up on his scholarship and is still playing baseball with Casper.

 

Before I go into anything else, Imma just say that the base of Charlie St. Cloud is completely dumb. The movie has terrible writing with too many plot conveniences that are neither realistic, plausible nor believable even in a fantasy story. The ending is really predictable, sappy and almost Nicholas Sparks like. Basically, the whole story = piece of shit.

But what I won't say is shit was Zac Efron in this. As stupid as the movie is, he puts the material to reallyy good use here. I think as far as acting goes, Efron demonstrated his range as a performer the most in this movie than any other film he has been in. He managed to play a tortured man, racked with guilt and instability without coming across as a total psycho. The man is well on his way to become the next Leonardo de Caprio is he keeps doing what he's doing. Just choose a better script next time.

Oh and just a minor complaint about him. See, he's suppose to be a sailor dude right. So Zac Efron is shirtless in some parts of the film which I felt were just stupid. I was going,"Oh crap he's on the boat again. He's gonna take- oh maybe he won't that grea- oh no no no, don't... don't- dammit he took it off." And all them ladies go, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH."

Oh and Amanda Crew of Sex Drive is in this and I thought she did a fantastic job playing Zac's love interest. You know, she doesn't have much scenes with him but the romance they build still managed to be slow and organic. But I did feel she was a little one note, not giving us any more than what she was supposed to be, which was Zac Efron's squeeze. But she's one good looking girl.

Charlie St. Cloud does present a nice subtext of life and death. Of loving, losing, mourning and letting go which I thought was great. The only problem is this was in the hands of a retard director. I think Charlie St. Cloud needed to be at least 20 minutes longer to let the plot and themes play out more because the whole movie was trying to be serious but rushed at the same time.

Go see this if you are a Zac Efron or a Nicholas Sparks friend. Basically if your gay or have a vagina you'll enjoy this. What? Whaddya looking at me like that? Wait- wha- NO! No I ain't gay. No wait- why you laughing? I didn't like the movie alrigh- Oh c'mon!!!

RATING: 4/10

Eat Pray Love: Review

Hey readers. Yeah haven't been updating in awhile, had lots of rehearsals and shoots and assignments to do but I'm back and I've seen shit loads of movies to fill your review quota to your hearts content. And Imma start with the new Julia Roberts movie, Eat Pray Love.

Now I've heard a lot about this movie. I think Eat Pray Love is based on a book that was like the best seller in the New York Times for like 5 billion months or something. It's about Liz Gilbert, a woman who has just gone through a divorce with her husband and tries to overcome her depression by taking a solo soul searching journey through Italy, Bali and India to eat, pray and love.

I love what Julia Roberts has been doing lately, she has finally gotten to that stage of her career where people aren't recognizing her as America's sweetheart anymore and has gone on to perform in lesser known, more important films. If you haven't seen Duplicity, you should check it out because she was amazing in that and she was one heck of a force in Eat Pray Love.

Julia carries this movie. After the 15 minute mark, we hop from country to country in series of montages with Julia and the only reason why all this doesn't seem like a travel show is because we have Julia Robert's character that anchors us down with her character study. We feel the pain of her past, her hopeless attempt to resolve that pain by going on this journey but are still treated to her lighthearted charm.

And though Julia was a sight in the film, it's too bad she didn't have much good material to work with. The film is directed by Ryan Murphy who produced Glee, and he has certainly proven that he needs to stay in television because even with Julia Robert's performance and a great story already present in the book material, Eat Pray Love is generally a travel show movie you would see on Travel & Living.

For 1 hour 30 minutes, we go from place to place with Julia Roberts trying different food, wearing different clothes, touching exotic animals, trying spiritual stuff and amidst all that, Ryan Murphy failed to connect all these plot elements with the overall story of Eat Pray Love. I get why lots of the fans of the book disliked this movie because there was ultimately no soul to the film. Sure, it did have it's moments of charm but Eat Pray Love failed to find a balance between vacation shots and actual story development.

That being said, if anything else, Eat Pray Love is one of the most gorgeous non-CGI movies I have seen this year. The cinematographer is one heck of a guy. The empty travel show shots that take up 70% of the movie are absolutely gorgeous. It's full of colour & vibrant energy, that is pleasing to the eyes but like I said before, pretty pictures don't make a good movie.

You know, I think that Eat Pray Love would work much better as a TV series. Yeah. Make a miniseries of Julia Roberts doing all that she's doing in the film, but at least on television you have the luxury of time to accommodate all the beautiful sweeping shots of her travels and still maintain the integrity of the story peppered through the episodes.

Ultimately, Eat Pray Love is just an average movie when it could have been a true Oscar contender. If wnything, the film is only going to make an appearance in the cinematography category.

RATING: 4.5/10

RIP Tony Curtis 1925 to 2010

WORST YEAR EVER!

Hardly 2 days after the sad passing of Gloria Stewart; Tony Curtis, legendary star of Some Like It Hot!, Sierra, The Boston Strangler and The Defiant Ones has died, he was 85.

Most might know him for being the infamous co-star of Marilyn Monroe who got to kiss her and surprisingly said it was like, "kissing Hitler." Or maybe that he is the father of actress Jame Lee Curtis.

But to those who loved him and admired him over the years... he will always be remembered as Joe. That gender confused, erectile impotent, Marilyn Monroe hating cellist.

Farewell.