Eye Candy #517 - "My Soul to Take"

My Soul To Take:  An unsatisfying horror entry both written and directed by Wes Craven, this film is a jumbled mess from the first shot.  16 years ago, the town of Riverton, Connecticut was plagued by a serial killer, The Ripper, who is a man with dissociative identity disorder.  He has seven distinct identities inhabiting one body, one of which is murderous.   After the police capture him, he escapes in dramatic fashion.  At the same moment, seven children are born simultaneously, each rumored to contain one of the Ripper’s seven “souls”, with the expectation that one of them is the murderous one.  The children grow up to be various Hollywood teen stereotypes, including Token Asian, and Amusing Minority with Disability, and on their sixteenth birthday, The Ripper returns to Riverton, knocking them off one-by-one in gory fashion.  It’s up to “Bug”, one of the seven and the son of the original Ripper, to find out what’s going on and save the day…unless of course he’s the killer.  Convoluted, chock full of unsympathetic, undeveloped characters, it commits the double crime of being boring and implausible, with a lame ending that doesn’t really resolve anything.  Wes Craven has directed some of my favorite movies, like “Scream” and “Scream 2”, but this one was nothing but disappointing.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #516 - "Faster"

Faster:  Overblown quasi-noir script that just screams to be rewritten by Richard Stark, this is an old-fashioned revenge picture with contemporary trappings (which isn’t surprising, seeing as the two screenwriters also gave us the muddled, crappy quasi-noir “The Salton Sea“; this film is also set in that same dusty, Joshua-tree laden waste of eastern California).  ‘Driver’ (The Rock) gets out of prison after serving 8 years.  Immediately after leaving prison, he picks up his Chevelle SS and begins to hunt down and kill the men responsible for the murder of his brother years earlier after a bank heist gone wrong.    ‘Cop’ (played by Billy Bob Thornton; yes that is his character’s name) is a washed-up cop with substance abuse problems who finds himself on the Driver’s case.  ‘Killer’ (also his character’s name), a millionaire playboy who moonlights as a hitman,  is hired to kill the Driver.  Carla Gugino, Tom Berenger,  Maggie Grace, amongst others, are here in support.    Not close to what has become standard Dwayne Johnson fare - gone are the feel good message and kiddie appeal.   And in their place, we get graphic violence and The Rock barely speaks for the duration of the picture.  You don’t root for him as we know next to nothing about him.  The subtitle of the film should have been, “Unlikable People Doing Bad Things to One Another”.  But unfortunately, just being against his standard type isn’t enough to make this movie any good.   Another dull film from director George Tillman.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”.

Eye Candy #515 - "Never Let Me Go"

Never Let Me Go:  Based on the book of the same name, this is another bleak dystopian view of the future, though not as pronounced as most (I.e. none of the usual sci-fi trappings).  And while the premise is “science fiction”, it doesn’t feel like a “sci-fi picture”.  Very similar plot-wise as 2005‘s “The Island” (which came across mostly as a retread of “Logan‘s Run“), this film is a better constructed and acted film, about a present era where human beings have been grown since the 1950’s for the sole purpose of harvesting organs to sustain the health of the rest of humanity.  Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightly, and Carey Mulligan are Tommy, Ruth, and Kathy, three products of the system, trying to live life when it has been proscribed fatally for them by a society that considers them “things“ rather than beings, regardless of any proof to the contrary.  And rather than devolve into some simplistic chase picture as they try to avoid their fate, “Never Let Me Go” takes great pains to establish the humanity of the trio, as they love, lose, and hope, with a palpable emotional punch for the viewer.  So if you were expecting an edge-of-your-seat thriller, you will be disappointed.  Only the second feature film of director Mark Romanek (who gave us the equally good “One Hour Photo”).  Woodchuck sez, “Me likey.”

Eye Candy #514 - "Jackass 3-D"

Jackass 3-D:  If I have one guilty, shameful pleasure in life, it’s that I enjoy watching the various creations of the guys from “Jackass“.  I can’t help myself.  I see someone get unexpectedly hit in the groin, I laugh.  This time around, the gang has ratcheted up the human effluence factor (lots of poo, lots of vomit, and various other gross fluids), but still manages to stage some very funny gags that, while I know they come with a disclaimer, I’d like to give a whirl.  The usual gang of idiots is here - Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O, Wee Man, et al., as they play tetherball with bees, put a full portajohn on bungee cranes, shoot each other with paintball guns, disastrously fail at various ramp jumps, and attacked by various animals, all in the name of good fun,   As with the previous movies, the guys go international, though it’s not quite as pronounced as dressing up as panda bears and running around the streets of Tokyo as they did in a previous film.  Got some full frontal male nudity here, as well (and as expected), so not for children, not for people who relish good taste, and not for those with weak stomachs.  For the rest you, there is bound to be something that they do that you’ll laugh at, even if you feel a little dirty while you do it.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out…with reservations.”

Eye Candy #513 - "Psych 9"

Psych 9:  A low-budget horror movie from Ghost House Underground, about a young woman named Roslyn (Sara Foster), who takes a job working evenings collating records at a closed hospital.  The hospital, in addition to the usual treatment areas, also included a psych ward.   With only the company of a lone security guard and a doctor on the fifth floor arranging the psych ward records, she is all by her lonesome.  And faster than you can “Jack Nicholson snowbound in Colorado!”, Roslyn begins to see and hear things she can’t explain, like ghostly images on the security cameras and vivid hallucinations involving people who aren’t there.  And all of it may be connected to the Night Hawk serial killer that is targeting women near and around the closed hospital.  Or all of it may have something to do with Roslyn‘s own history of mental illness.   Or all of it could just be crap.   Cary Elwes plays a psychiatrist that Roslyn encounters in the hospital.  Michael Biehn plays a cop tracking down the Night Hawk killer.  Chock full of all kinds of self-indulgent editing and quick-cuts, this film is easily less than the sum of its parts.  The plot is really a mess, trying to be psychological and supernatural at the same time.  The “reveal”, when it comes, doesn’t really resolve anything (like the Night Hawk killer: we find out who it is, and why, but not how).  Foster’s acting leaves a lot to be desire - she places Roslyn firmly in sad-sack mode from the first scene, making her neither sympathetic or likable.   Here’s a thought - if you’re going to have a heroine, make people want to root for the heroine.  Elwes is fine in his role, but he can’t carry the picture.  This is not the first film to mine this territory (“Session 9” amongst others) and therei s nothing remarkable here.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.“

Eye Candy #512 - "Let Me In"

Let Me In:  What we have here is a well-made little reduction of vampire mythology, stripping away the hyper-sexuality, beauty, and hedonism, to reveal the lonely life of someone dependent on the blood of others to survive who also happens to explode in direct sunlight.  Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee, from “The Road”) is a young, lonely boy who lives in a single parent home and is the object of violence for a sadistic local bully.  Then one day, two drifters, a vampire named Abby (Chloe “Hit Girl” Moretz) and her “father” (Richard Jenkins) move in next door, and suddenly the town of Los Alamos, New Mexico isn’t going to be the same.  Owen and Abby strike up a tentative friendship despite Abby’s wishes, as the bodies start to pile up around town.  Elias Koteas plays a detective investigating the murders.  Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) says that he is using the horror genre as a metaphor for adolescence and he certainly wouldn’t be the first.  Look at movies like “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”, “Teeth” and even “Teen Wolf”.   But  I think it’s even simpler than that: it’s about love and friendship.  It’s about what happens when two desperately lonely people find comfort with one another, even if one is a 12-year-old boy and the other a much older vampire.  McPhee and Moretz are just great together - their scenes seem so effortless and natural.  Jenkins and Koteas are also well-cast.  The film isn’t played for gore, though there are some violent, bloody scenes.  But Reeves juxtaposes those scenes against ones of tenderness between the two leads.  It seems perfectly reasonable for Owen to ask Abby if she wants ‘to go steady” as the blood dries on her chin.  In any other film, that would be comedic moment.  Very little in the way of special effects, and the climactic fight at the swimming pool is particularly well-staged.  This is not your standard vampire picture, but it’s a very good flick.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #511 - "10 to Midnight"

10 to Midnight:   One of the more explicit of the Bronson 1980’s thrillers, it’s very much in the same vein as the “Death Wish” films and their ilk - man on the edge plays by his own rules and often shoots people in the pursuit of good/revenge/justice, etc.  It’s also directed by the venerable Bronson regular, J. Lee Thompson, who started his career directing movies like “The Guns of Navarone” and ended his career directing Charlie in picture after unmemorable picture.  Here Charlie is a grizzled veteran cop Leo Kessler tracking down a slick murderer (Gene Davis) patterned after Ted Bundy, who kills girls while in the nude.  So as you can imagine, there is some nudity in the picture.  Soon Kessler’s own daughter falls into the crosshairs of the murderer, and it’s up to Kessler and his by-the-book partner (played by Andrew Stevens) to get him before he gets her.  Wilford Brimley is here in support in a small role.  The title of the movie has NOTHING to do with the plot of the film (it was arbitrarily chosen by the producers).  Silly, credulity-stretching, with Davis more an irritating villain than a menacing one (he’s got such an odd speech pattern, he sounds like he fell out of community theater; he also has the worst Spanish accent of all time), this film is better than the average Bronson movie (it’s not hard to be better than “Assassination”), but it’s nowhere near good.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #510 - "Waiting for Superman"

Waiting for Superman:  This documentary focuses on the failures of the American public education system since the 1970‘s, from declining success and graduation rates to various economic inequities and union inertia, all preventing widespread systemic change that is likely decades overdue, while sharing plenty of the visible government hype about “no child left behind“ and so forth that aren‘t ever realized beyond the campaign promise stage as it‘s derailed by  a lack of will, special interests meddling, and bureaucracy.  Splitting time between focusing on several “maverick” educators including the highly-visible Geoffrey Canada (he appeared in an American Express commercial detailing his school program) that have been able to generate results above the norm by functioning outside the accepted system, as well as several students from different locations and socioeconomic levels around the country and their efforts to get into private and charter schools and out of the public system.  A lot of blame is laid at the feet of the powerful teachers unions.   One of the journalists in the film describes the Democratic Party as the paid federal arm of the union.  Some of their most egregious practices are outlined, included NYC’s infamous “rubber room” (which has since been discontinued, though the backlog of teachers there hasn’t been cleared), its general unwillingness to institute merit pay or do away with tenure for underperforming teachers.  And it’s not a criticism without merit.   It breaks your heart to watch students fall through the cracks, as the system that , as former DC chancellor Michelle Rhee states, “ all becomes about the adults”.  One can only hope that this film outrages and moves just as many people as Guggenheim’s Oscar-winning “An Inconvenient Truth”.   Woodchuck sez, “Must see.”

Eye Candy #509 - "The Eagle"

The Eagle:  Covering much the same territory as the recent “Centurion”, “The Eagle” is about the alleged disappearance of the Roman IX Legion in northern Britain in 2nd century AD, providing a what-if scenario to fill in some of the many conflicting holes in historical record.  Here, the eagle standard of the IX is lost at the time the legion disappears (this would be the eagle of the title).  Channing Tatum is Marcus Flavius Aquila, son of the commander of the IX at the time of its disappearance, and a newly-minted centurion posted to Britain.  He has returned to reclaim his family’s tarnished honor and soon finds himself in battle against the native Britons.  However, fate does not smile on Aquila, and he is discharged from the Roman legion short of his goal.  Aquila and his body-slave Eska (Jamie Bell) head north of Hadrian‘s Wall, into the untamed wilds of Britain in search of the Eagle standard, beset by hostile tribes, and at odds with the terrain and weather.   A miscast Donald Sutherland and a barely-there Mark Strong are here in support.  Director Kevin McDonald is usually solid as a rock, and while this film is watchable, it is not a great movie.  Like the VERY similar “Centurion”, it degenerates into a chase picture.  The choice of accents is odd - the default accent is American (even Mark Strong‘s accent is American), with the Britons speaking Scottish Gaelic.   I guess I’ve just become too inured to hearing British accents for Romans in film.  Some of the dialogue is just bad - everything that comes out of Donald Sutherland’s mouth should have been rewritten.  Also, for being a film about violent war, it’s not that explicit, except when it comes to the treatment of children, one of whom vividly catches a thrown sword in the back while another gets his throat cut (it still only comes in at PG-13).   If you’re not a stickler for historical detail (the crew did as well as they could; nobody has a dictionary for Pictish lying around), it is a watchable time-waster.  Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”

Eye Candy #508 - "Paranormal Activity 2"

Paranormal Activity 2:  A bit of a different sequel, where the plot runs concurrently with the goings-on from the first film, as it endeavors to explain what happened to Katie and Micah from part one.  Katie’s sister Kristi, her husband Daniel, stepdaughter Ali, and newborn son Hunter move into a nice house in the ‘burbs near her sister.  After what they think is a break-in, they install security cameras in the house and begin to capture various phenomenon on film, including inanimate objects moving themselves and a possible demonic possession.  Shot in the same sort of faux-amateur style as the original (minus most of the shaky handi-cam, given that all the security cams are mounted), and still very low-tech, there are some spooky bits here as the family comes to terms with something that wants the baby boy for its own reasons.   Surprisingly, indie director Tod Williams is helming this (and its announced sequel) and he does a good job not recycling most of the tricks from the first one.  And while the back story introduced is a little on the hokey side and needs more fleshing out, this is still an entertaining flick.  A much larger budget this time around (the first was shot for something like $15k and grossed over $100 million; this time it's $2.5 million), I’m sure the studios were happy with the performance of this one, as well.  Cast is still mostly unknowns (Sprague Grayden as Kristi, being the exception), but does well.  I liked it.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #507 - "Cruising"

Cruising:  It’s a rare thing when the first words that come to mind to describe a movie are “exploitative trash”.  Directed by William Friedkin (who hasn’t made a great movie since the 1970’s) and based on the 1970 book of the same name, the plot involves a homosexual slasher stalking members of the gay S&M community in New York City. A police officer, Steve Burns (played by Al Pacino), is tasked with going undercover to flush the killer out.  Burns immerses in their culture, exploring his own sexuality and eventually having gay sex, all in order to get his man, so to speak.  Watching this film, you would believe that every homosexual in New York City has a handlebar mustache, a leather jacket and obligatory peaked hat, and lives only to dance, make out, and have sex.  Apparently, in 1980, you could throw a rock and hit a group of denim clad gay men loitering about the city, looking for tail.  Somehow…I doubt that.   Even the Village People had greater depth of character. And the only aberration to the stereotype (i.e. the guy who is actually closer to reality than the others), oh yeah, he gets murdered by one of the ‘deviants‘.  Crude, homophobic, and chock full of egregious stereotypes, this is about as an even-handed a portrayal of homosexuality as The Blue Oyster Bar from the “Police Academy” movies.  And even if you were able to stomach the misleading salaciousness, you’re still left with a not-very-good thriller full of generally unlikable characters, some just plain weird scenes (there is one in particular involving a big black guy wearing nothing but a jockstrap and a cowboy hat during an interrogation that is just ODD), with a plot that asks more questions than it answers.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #506 - "The Oxford Murders"

The Oxford Murders:   A very stilted, overly theatrical film, about an eccentric professor (John Hurt) and doctoral candidate student (Elijah Wood) solving a string of mathematically-based murders in and around Oxford University.  Based on the book of the same name,  this not a thrilling thriller and comes across as a poor man‘s Umberto Ecco.  The dialogue here is equal parts pretentious and crap.  The people in the film don’t talk and act like human beings, they talk like characters in a bad stage play, nor are 99% of them likable in any way.  The reveal is telegraphed out an hour in advance if you’re paying attention and delivered with a complete lack of profundity.  Disappointing all the way around.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #505 - "Ong Bak 3"

Ong Bak 3:  I liked the original “Ong Bak” movie.  I loved “Ong Bak 2”.  And I’m disappointed in “Ong Bak 3”.  A direct sequel to Part 2, this film continues the story of Tien (star Tony Jaa) and his fight against the traitor Lord Rasajena, as well as the evil, crow-themed Bhuti Sangkha.  Captured by Rasajena, every bone in Tien’s body is broken by staves and the film spends most of the time charting his recovery through meditation, Buddhism, and dance, while Bhuti Sangkha consolidates his power in the region.   A worthless subplot about a curse is thrown into to give the otherwise idle Rasajena something to do. Fewer fights than in the previous film, with long stretches in between devoted to rejuvenating Tien‘s spirit (I understand the Buddhism aspects may appeal to some viewers, but I personally don’t watch Asian chop-socky flicks for personal enlightenment) and at 95 minutes, this film drags.  I don’t know about you, but I find endless shots of a guy sitting in the lotus position to be the antithesis of the words 'action' and 'film'.   We get several actors back from “Ong Bak 2”, with Petchtai Wongkamlao (a familiar face from various other Jaa films) stealing the show as village idiot Mhen.  If you’re looking for action equal to part 2,  you’re going to be disappointed here.  What there is…is good, it just leaves you wanting more.  It’s obvious that in creating this film, Jaa got lost somewhere along the way (and given his brief conversion to Buddhist monk after its completion, this is not surprising).   Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”

Eye Candy #504 - "Showdown in Little Tokyo"

Showdown in Little Tokyo:  Brandon Lee’s auspicious American debut is a sloppy, dumb buddy-cop picture with two LA cops (Lee and that other action movie stalwart Dolph Lundgren) of the “shoot first-ask questions later” school facing off against the Yakuza, led by Yoshida (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).  Seems the Yakuza are moving into the methamphetamine trade, moving drugs around the city in “Red Dragon” beer bottles and wiping out any competitors to their plans, which usually involves them showing up and spraying machine guns like they have no idea how to operate them.   Our two cops, Kenner and Murata, must also protect a chanteuse Minako (Tia Carrere), who has information about Yoshida’s crimes and is marked for death.  This film couldn’t be more earlier 90’s if it tried - all the Yakuza wear ridiculous loud suits (we‘re talking burgundy suit, black shirt, turquoise tie combos), only cursory time is spent anywhere near authentic Japanese culture (you’d think that all Japanese people ate sushi off naked white chicks as a matter of course), and the score is synth-pop nightmare of the worst kind.  Throw in a little incidental nudity here and there, and voila!  Plus we are treated to some of the crappiest dialogue in the history of cinema.  Literally every line that comes out of Lee’s mouth, his lackluster delivery notwithstanding, is crapola.  It‘s so bad at times, you wince.  Sure, director Mark L. Lester gave us “Commando”, but he was consigned to direct-to-DVD at the end of the last century and rightfully so.   Thankfully, the screenwriting duo responsible for this abysmal production haven’t worked much since.  Just bad, bad, bad.  Woodchuck sez, “If I said there was anything redeeming here, I’d be lying.”

Eye Candy #503 - "Monsters"

Monsters:  Some would classify this as a “horror” movie, I feel it’s straight sci-fi.  Six years in the future, alien life piggy-backed down on a NASA deep-space probe and has been slowly taking over more and more of Central America (mostly a big chunk of Mexico).   An American photographer, Andrew, is tasked by his boss with escorting his daughter Samantha out of Mexico before the aliens enter their ‘migration season” at which point, they will be trapped for an additional six months.  Mexico, which hasn’t been a great place to bushwhack through since…EVER, is made even more dangerous by giant octopus-like aliens on land and in the water, as Andrew and Samantha try to get to the border of the United States and relative safety, where a giant wall is supposed to contain the aliens.  All does not go as planned.  It’s not an alien invasion flick - by the time the film starts, the aliens have been here for years and humanity is adapting in various ways.  It’s “Still Life with Aliens“, with enough recognizable elements to be the day after tomorrow, but still also a little off-kilter, a little skewed with what is now “normal“.  With a budget of under $500,000 and only two lead actors (both relative unknowns), first-time feature director Gareth Edwards has managed to create a solid little film here.  Sure, the budget was limiting, but it still looks better than dozens of movies I’ve seen with bigger budgets (Edwards did the effects shots himself).  This film has more in common with alien sci-fi films like “District 9”, about grappling with who we are and what we don’t understand, and avoids being a cartoony mess like “Independence Day”  or “Mars Attack” where it‘s all about body count.  At right around 90 minutes, it’s not a seat-of-the-pants thriller, but I don’t see that as a negative.  Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”   

Eye Candy #502 - "Red Sonja"

Red Sonja:  Conan-derivative sword-and-sorcery flick (think more “the Destroyer” than “The Barbarian”, which is apt given that director Richard Fleischer directed the poo-fest that is “Conan the Destroyer“), with Brigitte Nielsen as Red Sonja, limited actress and swordswoman extraordinaire, on a quest for revenge and a mystical talisman that was stolen by an evil queen (played by Conan alum, Sandahl Bergman), all while wearing a really fake wig.  Tagging along is Lord Kalidor, played by another Conan alum, Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, who serves mainly as "plot device to move the goofy story along” and "thinly-veiled Conan homage".  Really anemic action set pieces and swordfights ensue.  But hey!  We get some sweet, sweet Sven-Ole Thoreson (another Conan alum, though he had a much bigger part in “Barbarian” than here) as well as Paul Smith and Ernie Reyes in support because what fantasy story doesn’t need a really irritating child actor?  Even one who can ninja-kick you in the face.  Character actor Ronald Lacey is also here, proving yet again that he was completely incapable of capitalizing on his success from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (see also “Sword of the Valiant“).  Ennio Morricone is slumming around to provide the score.  Really quite terrible, though not as bad as “Gor” and “Hawk the Slayer“.  Arnold Schwarzenegger says he shows this movie to his children as punishment.  I agree with his assessment.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #501 - "True Grit" (2010)

True Grit (2010):  The breadth of the Coen Bros’ genre-hopping is truly unique in film today.  Picaresque musical, romantic comedy, stoner slapstick, gritty crime thriller, film noir, Capraesque fantasy, mobster picture, and now, with “True Grit”, the western.  This is a remake of the John Wayne original, with Jeff Bridges cast as debauched U.S. marshal Rooster Cogburn, who is hired by a precocious teenage girl to hunt down the murderer of her father who fled into Indian territory in the latter half of the 19th century.   Matt Damon is here in support as Texas Ranger LeBeouf, who is in pursuit of the same man.  Josh Brolin is the wanted man, Tom Chaney, and Barry Pepper, under some truly terrible teeth, is outlaw “Lucky” Ned Pepper.  The real standout of the cast, though, is Hailee Stanfield, a relative unknown who does just a great job as the heroine Mattie Ross, weaving her way around the fairly dense, wordy script with aplomb and holding her own on screen.  This film is alternately funny, bleak, riveting, and violent (jarringly so).  Bridges, sporting the least intelligible accent in film since Brad Pitt in “Snatch”, is perfect as the older lawman who is slowly drawn back from dissolution to fight the good fight, at the behest of Mattie.  Damon is fun as LeBeouf.  Other various oddball characters appear as well (this is a Coen Bros.’ movie after all; it‘s expected).   Not a weak link in the bunch.  A beautiful movie to look at, a script that shines, it’s really well done all the way around.  Woodchuck sez, “Another winner from the Coens”.

Eye Candy #500 - "The American"

The American:  George Clooney is Jack, an emotionally distant assassin and armorer who goes to ground in the Abruzzo region of Italy.  While laying low, he takes a job building a custom sniper rifle for a mysterious woman, while romancing a local prostitute. Carla, and befriending the local priest.  Soon, however, Jack’s healthy paranoia isn’t just paranoia, and there are indeed men on the ground in Abruzzo out to kill Jack, all while Jack is finding things to believe in again, as Carla gives him love and a way out of his lifestyle.  Clooney here is very much against type and pretty much the whole show (there are only six speaking parts in the entire movie).  His standard glib jokester is gone, as Jack is a haunted, quiet man, a stone-cold killer that is willing to make the hard decisions like executing those that have gotten close to him and may compromise him without a moment‘s hesitation.  That emotional detachment makes it awful hard to care about him,  like Jack’s own dramatic arc, to the point that Jack’s own realization at the tail-end of the movie comes too late to redeem him dramatically or in the eyes of the audience: he is aloof from start to finish.  Technically fine, with no outstanding flourishes.  The beautiful setting does most of the work for the director.  All he has to do is point and shoot.  This is only the second dramatic film from director Anton Corbijn.  Worth a look, but not any great shakes.  Woodchuck sez, “Might be up your alley.”

Eye Candy #499 - "Takers"

Takers:  This film is certainly slick as all get-out, but it’s also highly derivative of every heist movie you‘ve ever seen, lifting some plot elements directly from other films (the most obvious would be “The Italian Job” remake), while not bringing anything new to the table.  A team of five bank robbers (led by Idris Elba) successfully robs a bank in Los Angeles and find themselves in the crosshairs of a brash police officer (Matt Dillon) who is trying to piece it altogether.  Into the mix enters a former member of the criminal team with a score that is too good to be true involving armored trucks.  Betrayal abounds.  Now does that sound anything like any other movie you’ve seen in the last 20 years?  You can stop nodding your heads.  Paul Walker, Hayden Christiansen, rapper T.I., singer Chris Brown, and Michael Ealy are here in support.   There is not a single remarkable thing about this film.  You never feel like you are watching a new creation, just a series of homages to other more memorable films, like “Heat” or “True Romance”.  It took me a few days to get through this one because it just didn’t hold my interest.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #498 - "Red Hill"

Red Hill:  A modern day western set in Australia, complete with spears and horses.  Ryan Kwanten is a young police office, Shane Cooper, who has just taken a position in the small town of Red Hill, population 150 and change located in the a$$ end of nowhere where there are more horses than cars.  His young wife is pregnant with their first child.  On his first day, an aborigine convicted of murdering his wife escapes from prison and heads straight for Red Hill to seek some awfully bloody revenge after 15 long years, with Cooper caught in the middle and out of his depth in the town’s dirty laundry.   Claire van der Boom is here (barely) in support as Cooper’s wife with nothing to do but look pregnant.  Most of the screen time is given over to Tommy Lewis as murderer Jimmy Conway, silently and methodically racking up an impressive body count, with a  little incidental Rose Tattoo thrown in for flavor.  A bleak, dark little film, with good performances from actors largely unknown in the US.  Kwanten is good, but Lewis is the star of the show, the almost mute killer waging war against a small town for reasons that become clearer as they go along.  This isn’t exceptional filmmaking here, but it’s fine for what it is.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #497 - "Wild Wild West"

Wild, West West:  I’ve somehow managed to dodge for years watching this gigantic misfire of a film based on the TV show of the same name.  Will Smith, in what may be the worst miscasting of all time, is Jim West, the hero of the original played by Robert Conrad.  He is an Army captain in pursuit of Confederate General “Bloodbath” McGrath (Ted Levine), seeking revenge.  In the course of his pursuit, he runs across US marshal and inventor Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline) and soon both men are assigned by Ulysses Grant to look into the disappearance of several prominent scientists, all while traveling in a special train loaded with gadgetry.  The villain and McGrath’s boss is revealed to be Dr.  Arliss Loveless (played by Kenneth Branagh, slumming here for reasons unknown), an amputee in a steam powered, gizmo-laden wheelchair.  West and Gordon swing into action to stop Loveless and his steam punk weaponry, including a giant mechanical spider, from killing Grant at Promontory Summit, during the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.   Salma Hayek is here in support, though her character is as under-developed as her acting is bad.  Thankfully, she’s given very little to do.  Smith and Kline have less chemistry than a six-year-old’s science kit.  The script is bland and lacks any of the wit or charm of the TV show, as “Men in Black” director Barry Sonnenfeld tries to recapture lightning in a bottle and give Will Smith another excuse to neuter rap one more time.  Sonnenfeld apparently forgot how to make a good movie along the way.  This film is worthless.   Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.” 

Eye Candy #496 - "The Social Network"

The Social Network: The brief life and times (to-date) of Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of Facebook with his three Harvard roommates, and their rise from Harvard-bound hackers to hundred-millionaires (now billionaires), running the largest social interaction tool in the history of the planet.  Jesse Eisenberg is Zuckerberg.  Usually his schtick comes across as a poor man’s Michael Cera, but here he in his element, playing Zuckerberg with an Aspergers-like intensity, driven to succeed despite the consequences and who he might hurt in the process.  Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of FB, with whom Zuckerberg has a rancorous parting that frames the entire film.  Garfield is equally as good as Eisenberg, like a battle of brain versus soul.  Justin Timberlake is here in support, as Sean Parker, rock-star-programmer slash entrepreneur who was the first President of Facebook, in addition to helping launch Napster.  The dialogue in Aaron Sorkins’ script is SHARP.  There are scripts that dream of using words as deftly as Sorkin has here.  I was also pleasantly surprised by Trent Reznor’s soundtrack.  A very watchable movie, built more for drama than reality (it has to be that way; there is nothing inherently film-sexy about watching people right code).  I kept meaning to turn it off, to finish it the next day, but I stayed through its entirety.  I’ve always liked director David Fincher, but he got me to sit through a two-hour film about the creation of a website.  Fairly certain this film will be lost on anyone without a Facebook profile.   Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #495 - "Piranha 3-D"

Piranha 3-D:  Equal parts gory and goofy, this film is not for the squeamish, not for children, and not very good.  An earthquake at the Havasu-like Lake Victoria unleashes a horde of flesh-eating prehistoric piranhas that run wild on the vacationing hedonist college kids there.  Pornstar cameos and female nudity abound.  Once things go pear-shaped, it’s up to the local sheriff, played by Elizabeth Shue, and several sidekicks, including Ving Rhames, to save the hedonists and the day.  Jerry O’Connell is here in support as a “Girls Gone Wild” type director.   The plot here is so shallow, I couldn’t go into detail if I tried as there is no detail to go into - the film exists solely to showcase the obviously CGI’d fish, but they lack any creativity in terms of the death scenes, as the piranhas just nom-nom-nom everyone to death, which is fine the first time, but loses its luster after the 15th or 16th iteration.  The only redeeming feature is several minutes of better than average softcore porn, as two of them female leads swim naked together…before they both die horribly at the hands of the fish.  This is a horror comedy with all of one laugh.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #494 - "Knight and Day"

Knight and Day:  Unjustly maligned upon its release, more for Tom Cruise’s weird slide into mid-life than the quality of the film, much the same way that Mel Gibson movies now carry the same stigma of him being a racist misogynist antisemite, this film is actually a fun little mishmash of action thriller and rom-com that doesn‘t take itself too seriously.   On the way back to her sister’s wedding in Boston, June Havens (Cameron Diaz) accidentally runs into Roy Miller (Tom Cruise) at the Wichita airport and soon finds herself, through no fault of her own, well over her head in espionage derring-do as Miller drags her along on his mission to save the inventor of a new revolutionary power source from those who would take it, including traitors within his own organization and various and sundry undesirable third parties like arms dealers.  We get bullets flying, things blowing up, chop-socky hijinks, and a fight in an airplane cabin that uses seems to use every part of the cabin as a weapon.   And in between there is enough glib dialogue to carry it along, not that there is much downtime between action set pieces.  Paul Dano and Peter Sarsgaard are here in support.  Cruise and Diaz are good together, though their romantic relationship doesn’t ring true, but really how can it when the films requires a huge suspension of disbelief just to keep the plot rolling along.  It feels like watching a spy-themed comic book of the more ridiculous variety, with every salient plot point telegraphed from way, way out.  Great filmmaking this is not (an over-reliance on various characters getting “drugged” to help speed along the plot by showing you just snippets of what is happening gets old when it’s used over and over again), but it’s certainly slick as all get out and a fairly pleasant time-waster.  Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look“.

Eye Candy #493 - "Black Swan"

Black Swan:  Director Darren Aronofsky is nothing if not thought-provoking.  This time around we get the story of a repressed young ballet dancer who wins the lead role in a revisionist production of “Swan Lake” and crumbles under pressures both real and imagined.  And while the movie is ostensibly about ballet, it is *not* a “ballet movie”, but rather comes across as a more gyno-centric version of “Jacob’s Ladder”, as the main character grapples with what is real and what isn’t.  Natalie Portman is Nina, the one of the most repressed female characters committed to film since “Carrie”, both sexually and psychological, who lives in a small apartment with her smothering mother (portrayed by Barbara Hershey, who you almost expect to hear rail about “dirty pillows!”) who strives to keep Nina from growing up (Nina‘s bedroom is a pink nightmare filled with stuffed animals, even though Nina is over 21).  When a new dancer arrives in the company, Lily (portrayed by Mila Kunis), Nina‘s fragile psyche begins to warp, with Aronofsky’s disturbing images abounding as reality and fantasy blend together.  Vincent Cassel is here in support.  Good performances all the way around, particularly Portman and Kunis (glad to see Kunis getting to stretch her dramatic chops more and more).  The cinematography successfully conveys a feeling of claustrophobia, portraying the small world of Nina (her apartment, the ballet studio, with outside shots done very closely).  Not for all tastes, sure, but another winner from Aronofsky.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”