Grumpy Movie Review: True Grit

I must admit that when I first read that the Coen Brothers were remaking the 1969 John Wayne western True Grit, I was less than thrilled. My main concern was that on the artistic ladder, remakes often fall somewhere between America's Funniest Home Videos and watching a dog eat its own crap. So when the Coen Brothers decided to dabble in remake territory, I felt a little bit let down. But I couldn't help but get at least a little excited when I saw this TV spot.

"I mean to kill ya!" That's just grizzled badassery right there. And that seems to pretty much be the theme of the movie. When Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) hires drunken Federal Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to find Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin) for killing her father, they cross paths with LaBeouf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger who has been tracking Chaney for a murder he committed in the Lonestar State.

From this point on the movie turns into an extended pissing contest between Cogburn, LaBeouf, and even Ross. Both men believe they are the ones to catch Chaney for their own reasons, and Ross believes her need for revenge means that things should be handled according to her direction. So they're constantly bickering and posturing while trailing Chaney, and it makes for some entertaining dialog. More importantly, all three characters are forced to stop talking a good game and actually follow through in some great gunfights that crescendo in a four-on-one shootout between Cogburn and a gang of ne'er-do-wells.

In fact, of all the characters in the movie, the one who proves to be the least tough is the murderer they are after, Tom Chaney. I went into the movie thinking that Chaney was going to be a Lee Marvin-type killer, both cold and threatening. But Chaney wound up being closer to a scrawny version of Mongo from Blazing Saddles. He stupidly mopes his way through most of his ten minutes of screen time. Kind of a let down considering the build up.

Other than Brolin's impression of the Looney Tunes abominable snowman, True Grit is a worthy addition to the Coen Brothers' catalog. As always, the cinematography is dark yet beautiful, as Joel and Ethan get some great shots in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Texas. And even though the movie pulled off a PG-13 rating, there is still the blunt violence you come to expect from a self-respecting Coen Brothers' movie.

But again, the real reason you go to watch this movie is for some great performances, especially by Jeff Bridges. I haven't seen the original version, but I'm still going to go ahead and say that Bridges is a better Rooster Cogburn than John Wayne. Acting for John Wayne, after all, tends to involve little more than putting on a costume and then continuing to act like John Wayne. Overrated, I say! Jeff Bridges, meanwhile, is probably most famous for playing a shiftless hippie several decades after it was culturally acceptable to be a shiftless hippie. Yet even though he's just a shade under 60, I would not want to fuck with him as Rooster Cogburn. That's called "range," children.

So I must officially retract my stance on remakes as being automatically awful. When done right, they can add something to cinema canon. And the Coen Brothers did just that with True Grit. It's a fine western, and made for a good way to cap off 2010 at the movies.

Grade: B+

Grumpy Movie Review: The Warrior's Way

That was just fantastic. I literally got through the door about 5 minutes ago after seeing The Warrior's Way and I feel obligated to proclaim it's glory. This movie just stamped a smile on my face that may not go away until 2011.

Now, I have to make a confession. I love movies. But they don't have to be great movies. In some cases, I'd prefer they weren't great movies. There Will Be Blood, for example, is supposed to be a great movie. I could barely get through it. Yes, yes, I get it. A man's greed and ambition will leave him empty and joyless. And then he'll kill a skinny preacher with a bowling pin. I still don't get why I had to waste two hours of my day watching it.

If I'm going to waste two hours, I'd much rather it be by watching The Warrior's Way. Subtlety? Who needs it. Character development? Kiss my ass. Plot? Ha. Let me sum up the plot for you. An assassin (played by Korean star Dong-jun Jang) refuses to kill the last remaining member of his enemy clan because she is only an infant. His clan then starts to hunt him down, and he escapes to a small town in the U.S.'s Old West where he befriends a girl (Kate Bosworth) who's looking for revenge against an evil colonel (Danny Huston). The assassin and the girl fall in love, and then a whole bunch of people get shot/cut to ribbons with swords.

If you think I've spoiled the ending for you, then you're an idiot and I'd like for you to be on your way. Of course a lot of people are going to die. This is exploitative trash, and that's why I love it. Everyone knows exactly what's going to happen, but that doesn't make it any less awesome when a faceless ninja dives through machine gun fire to slice off the arms of its user, causing said machine gun to fall on the ground and spray fire at random asshole cowboys.

And by the way, when I mentioned the love story between Dong-jun and Bosworth, I basically mean sword training montages interspersed with lingering looks and I think maybe one kiss. Just enough to show the audience that this guy has something to fight for now. We wouldn't want him to just go around cutting off heads for no reason. We're not mindless animals here, folks.

Plus, I'd be remiss if I forgot about the appearance of one Mr. Stephen "Captain Barbosa" Fry. This has got to be the absolute ugliest man I've ever laid eyes on. But he's still more man that I could ever hope to be, and this movie is no exception. In fact, if I have one complaint about the movie, it's that there wasn't enough Stephen Fry. That, and through the whole movie he never said "Damn! Ninjas." Come on, guys. When you basically center your previews on a phrase like that, it should pay off in the actual movie.

Other than that, however, there isn't anything bad in this movie for me to complain about. That's because it's all supposed to be bad. And it is. It's a terrible movie. But like I said, it put a big smile on my face. And in the end that's all I ask. Bravo to Rogue Pictures for being willing to distribute such delightful schlock. I look forward to their upcoming opus, Season of the Witch. It's got Nicolas Cage in it. I don't think I really need to explain myself any further.

Grade: A

Grumpy Review: Breathers, A Zombie's Lament

I recently found a website from up in Canada called CinemaObsessed.com (actually this isn't the first Canadian site that's caught my eye...I'm fascinated by our neighbors from the north). I guess it's a bit ironic that the first recommendation I've taken from a website devoted to cinema is actually for a book. It's called Breathers: A Zombie's Lament, written by S.G. Browne. Granted, the recommendation is kind of roundabout, as I found out about it through their post about a movie being made based on the book, but without their post on the movie I never would have known about the book. That could have been more clear. Whatever, I'm not getting paid for this.

Anyway, I picked up Breathers on my last trip to the library because I really dug the premise. The story centers on Andy, a recently reanimated zombie who has to deal with the ramifications of being undead in a society that treats the undead in a similar fashion as women in the late 1800s, black people in the 1950s-60s, or gay people at around 10 this morning. He spends his days trying to deal with the emotional strain of losing his old life and the physical strain of having a decomposing body that's been mutilated by the car wreck that killed him. The latter he finds can be helped by eating the venison given to him by another zombie (spoiler alert: it's not venison), and the former is dulled by a budding relationship with fellow zombie support group attendee, Rita.

There is a lot going on in this book, and that winds up being a bit of a setback. Browne can't seem to make up his mind on whether he's shooting for a black comedy, a quirky zom-rom-com, or an allegory about societal intolerance. He may very well have been going for all of the above, but it makes the story a bit too schizophrenic. Plus, the allegory is a little too forced. Browne actually references the history that he alludes to, which is kind of insulting to me as the reader since he wasn't exactly being subtle about it in the first place. The zombies have no rights, no possessions, and are often lynched by fraternity members (aka upper-middle class white guys). I think we can all guess where he's going with this.

Now, while the book isn't perfect, it does have some good things going for it, both for horror fans and rom-com fans. I love a story that puts some time and effort into creating its own mythology, and even working with the familiar territory of zombies, Browne does a really good job adding to the physiological workings of being a member of the living dead. This is interesting both because it adds depth to the story, and it provides for some really disgusting imagery.

And I'm going to be honest, I dug the love story between Andy and Rita. I liked the way he played with Andy's guilt over moving on from his dead wife Rachel, who died in the same car accident that killed him (but obviously was not reanimated), while coming to terms with the new feelings he's having for Rita. Unfortunately, this seemed to be rushed through in the last act, where the allegorical theme kicks into high gear and kind of ruins things, but until then it's a neat little romance.

I think the best news about this book that it seems to lend itself well to film. Some of the areas that dragged in the book, such as the repetitive descriptions of Andy being pelted with food and insulted by passers by, would actually work better as quick segue shots in a movie. Plus, as a gorehound, I'd like to see how some of these visuals pan out on the big screen. And, as I said before, the whole reason I found out about Breathers is that they're making a movie out of it, so it looks like I won't be waiting too long to find out if it does make for a good watch out of a book with some unrealized potential.

Grade: B-

Grumpy Movie Review: The Expendables

Holy shit. I really don't even know where to start with this movie. It's been two days since I've seen it and I keep winding up back at the thing I said when the credits first rolled: That was a fucking train wreck.

I honestly don't know whether that was the worst movie of the year or the best movie of the decade. At this point I'm sure everyone knows the premise: Sylvester Stallone gets hired by Bruce Willis (after a brief encounter with Arnold Schwarzenegger) to take his band of mercenaries played by Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, and Terry Crews and fight a corrupt general whose being controlled by drug lord Eric Roberts and henchman Steve Austin. If the plot seems to have gotten lost in a list of current and former action stars, well that's pretty much the point. The plot is basically "Hey, if you're a guy you know all these actors, so come watch them kick ass." So of course I was pretty much obligated by my male chromosomes to see this movie ASAP.

I wasn't going into this movie looking for Shakespeare. I can only assume that when writer/director Sylvester Stallone started accumulating every major action star from the past two decades, he wasn't intending to write a potential contender for Cannes. So plot structure and character development probably high on my list of necessary parts of the script.

But judging by the pacing and scene structure, I'm 99% sure that Sylvester Stallone drank a half-gallon of tequila and edited this movie over the course of 48 hours in Tiajuana. For one thing, with a cast of half a dozen leading men, each guy gets about 2 lines worth of back story. And Stallone must have written characters into the movie as he hired each actor, because it's obvious they have no natural place in the script. Jet Li, for example, gets 3rd billing in the credits, only below Stallone and Statham. But at gunpoint I couldn't tell you his character's name and he has about 4 or 5 more lines of dialogue than the key grip.

But again, fully-developed dialogue is not why anyone went to see this movie. They went to see muscle-bound dudes spout one-liners while blowing shit up. And here The Expendables paid off big time in this department. Within two minutes of the title credits the audience is washed in a tidal wave of all the essential B's: blood, bullets, bombs, and bad acting. The thing is that Stallone actually gets a little greedy, and by trying to jam 3 hours of violence into a 2 hour movie, I found at times my brain couldn't keep up. Scenes eventually just turned into a jumble of fists and blood on the screen.

The only advice that I can give you if you're pondering whether this movie for you is to trust your instincts. If, when you saw the trailer, you instantly knew that you pretty much had to see it, then you are in for a treat. You will love the shitty plot and will have a blast watching people die in creative ways. If your first thought when you saw the trailer was that it looked stupid, then it will be far worse than you could imagine. Ms. Grump, for example, would probably try and push her head through the seat in front of her within the first act of the movie (that is if the movie even had coherent acts). I, however, will definitely be there if and when The Expendables 2 ever becomes a reality. If nothing else, I can't wait for the chance to again witness the funniest thing I've seen at the movies in months: Sylvester Stallone trying to run.

Grade: Either F- or A+

Grumpy Movie Review: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

UPDATE: Check out another favorable review by my Canuck buddy at badkidsgoodgrammar. Be sure to make fun of the way she adds the letter "u" to words that don't need it. Silly Canadians.

I should not have like this movie at all. The basic premise is that Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) has to fight the 7 evil ex-boyfriends of new girlfriend Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), which is a good set up. But the trailer mainly featured a bunch of eccentric kids having eccentric conversations about their eccentric lives....all to the soundtrack of eccentric music. I probably wouldn't have even bothered seeing it if not for hearing a pretty funny radio interview with stars Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman. But I didn't have my hopes set too high, lest I get stuck watching a movie bogged down with actors trying to out-quirk each other.

I actually like Michael Cera. He was awesome in Superbad, and although he plays the same semi-emo character in pretty much every movie he's in, he still manages to be funny in the movies I've seen him in, and Scott Pilgrim was no exception to either rule. Plus, in the aforementioned radio interview he talked about the training he had to go through to pull off the fight scenes in the movie, and I defy anyone not to laugh at the thought of combat training for what looks like the lovechild of a 70 year old woman and a frog.

Jason Schwartzman, however, is one of those indie rock dudes that I usually can't stand. For some reason, though, I can't help but like the guy. He's definitely the epitome of the hipster culture, but he's one of the few hipsters I've seen that doesn't have to kill himself trying to be the coolest guys in the room. And he wasn't afraid to completely douche it up as Gideon, the leader of the ex-boyfriends. I can appreciate over-the-top douchiness (ask pretty much anyone who knows me), and Schwartzman nails it. In fact, all of the exes were pretty much spot on, from Chris Evans' lunkhead actor to Brandon's Routh vegan-superpowered musician.

The guy who steals the show, however, would have to be Kieran "The More Talented" Culkin as Cera's gay roomate, Wallace. His basic purpose is to provide wise-ass commentary with a string of one-liners and to patiently converse with Scott about his new predicament with Ramona in bed, as Scott cannot afford one of his own. And I'll be damned if I didn't get a kick out of every second of it. My only disappointment is that Wallace becomes rather under-utilized in the second half of the movie.

I would complain more about the lack of background of most of the other characters, especially the other ex-boyfriends, except that's kind of the point of the movie's plot structure. The whole story breaks down like a video game, with the exes serving as bosses. And when you think about it, when you played video games did you ever really give a rat's ass about character development? Hell no, you just wanted badass villains that looked cool and that you could eventually beat the crap out of. And that's exactly what you get here. In fact, the movie is loaded with nods to video games fans, especially the Street Fighter-esque fighting games of the nineties.

So needless to say, my fears about Scott Pilgrim being a hipster mess were unfounded, and I really dug this movie. I guess I should have guessed it would be good when I found out it was directed by Edgar Wright, of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz fame. It's a shame that the movie doesn't seem to be doing well at the box office so far, because it's a blast to watch. And it actually managed to portray the lives of low- to mid-twentysomethings with enough realism to resonate with me an remind me that I'm not as far removed from them as I'd like to think I am. Hopefully, word of mouth will give it a second life when it comes out on DVD because deserves to do well.

Grade: A-

The Grumpy Movie Review: The Other Guys

I'd been waiting all summer for this movie to come out. It all started when I first went online and saw the new "motion poster" that was going to be featured in London subways. I'm pretty sure I watched that thing 5 or 6 six times and I couldn't stop laughing. The previews were also promising, featuring Mark Wahlberg's overzealous police detective trying to drag partner Will Ferrell from their roles as "B Squad" cops into the limelight.

Unfortunately, the movie wasn't quite able to live up to the expectations I'd set by the poster and previews. The main problem comes from today's trend of comedies where the script tends to give way to endless improvisation. Now, I'm all for improvisation, if for nothing else than getting to watch the endless variations on a scene when the DVD comes out. The problem, however, is that when you make a movie based on doing take after take of various improvisations and then pick the funniest one, the movie starts to lose its rhythm.

Plus, there are so many different jokes being thrown at you that attempts to return to recurring jokes don't have the same resonance. One bit, for example, features a couple of minutes about Mark Wahlberg explaining how he learned ballet in order to make fun of feminine guys in his neighborhood. Towards the end of the movie, after another hour or so of filling all empty space with jokes, some of which worked and others that didn't, they came back to the theme of Wahlberg learning something feminine in order to make fun of feminine guys. And honestly, I can't even remember what the hell the actual joke was.

Now, even though I was let down a bit doesn't mean the movie wasn't funny. I had quite a few laughs from Wahlberg and Ferrell, although you could tell Wahlberg was trying just a little too hard to be funny. Michael Keaton has some great lines as the put upon captain, and hopefully this is another step towards the comeback that I was pushing for back in my review for Toy Story 3. Samuel Jackson and The Rock were great in their 5-10 minutes onscreen as the hotshot cops that Wahlberg aspires to, and without giving too much away their exit was a great take on the stupid risks that most action heroes take without giving a second's thought to the consequences.

So the movie wasn't quite what I was hoping for, but I think part of the problem is for some reason that motion poster had me expecting more than I should have. The movie was good, although nothing about it requires you see it in the theaters so I'd say feel free to wait for it to come out on DVD. That way you'll get to watch what I'm sure will amount to another movie's worth of outtakes.

Grade: B-

Grumpy Movie Review: The Last Airbender

God this movie was lame. As a fan of the show on Nickelodeon I was excited at the idea of a movie adaptation, but as soon as I found out M. Night Shyamalan was directing I had reservations. And then when I read that pretty much every reviewer was basically calling the movie a steaming pile of dogshit, I didn't even want to bother seeing it. But Mrs. Grump-to-be, as the one who got me into the show in the first place, was still hopeful that it could be good, so we gave it a shot. Our hope was that the reviewers who hated the movie either didn't really watch the show, or were just continuing the tradition of bashing any M. Night Shyamalan movie that isn't The Sixth Sense (which, I must say, I disagree about when it comes to Unbreakable and The Village, which I thought were really good). After seeing the movie, I must say that Shyamalan lived up to the expectations....The Last Airbender was pretty much a steaming pile of dogshit.

I could get into what all the other reviewers said and point out the awful dialogue, the stiff acting, and the overuse of exposition, but I think what it comes down to is that Shyamalan seems to have missed what made the TV show so good in the first place: the balance of an interesting plot with the silly tone of a story that doesn't take itself too seriously. The TV show never forgot that it was a kid's show, and while the movie stays true to the events of the plot, it winds up getting lost up its own ass trying to be an epic masterpiece. These delusions of grandeur lead to some pretty cool special effects, but they basically had the same effect as putting sugar on top of a steaming pile of dogshit.

The one saving grace for the movie was the performance by Dev Patel as Prince Zuko. Personally, when the movie was first announced I was hoping they would cast the guy who did the voice for the TV show, Dante Basco, who you might know better as Rufio! Rufio! Ru! Fi! OOOOOOOOOOO! Granted he's in his 30s at this point, but if you look at his picture on IMDB you'll see that he could easily still play a teenager. But, since they didn't go with him, I must say I was glad to see Patel get the job. He was so damn earnest in Slumdog Millionaire, and that carries over into his portrayal of Zuko.

Unfortunately, M. Night Shyamalan's (perhaps misplaced) confidence in his ability to make movies lead him to only address the first season of the show, with a lot of the plot left open for him to make a couple of sequels. If the movie makes enough money where he does have the opportunity to continue the franchise, I can at least take solace in the fact that Dev Patel will continue to get work.

Grade: D

Take the Edge Off with Toy Story 3, or Grumpy Movie Review: Toy Story 3

Yet again I post a late version of Take the Edge Off, this time due to a big graduation party for Mrs. Grump-to-be's cousins, of which I believe she has about 30 or 40. After getting back we didn't really want to do anything in the 95 degree heat, so we went to catch Toy Story 3. This is a slight shift from my posts about Nightmare on Elm Street and Phantasm, and yes I usually tend towards the violent/gory/dark/adult/raunchy/more violent movie genres, but Mrs. Grump-to-be has been a good influence on me in terms of expanding my theatrical palette. Our first date was a drive-in that was playing Madagascar, and in the 5 years since I've seen pretty much every major animated release (except Wall-E for some reason), and I have to admit they are a lot of fun and make for a good balance to my usual fare.

I was a bit concerned about Toy Story 3, however, but only because it's rare that the third installment of any movie is ever good. Shrek 3 was pretty sub par, and while I haven't seen it I have yet to meet anyone who said Spider-Man 3 was anything more than a crime against the first two movies. So, I was a bit tentative about how entertaining it could be to watch Woody, Buzz, and the rest of Andy's toys deal with the conflicts that arise from being toys yet again. Plus, I'd only seen bits and pieces of Toy Story 2, and there is a large part of me that views watching movies out of sequence as sacrilegious. But Mrs. Grump-to-be had been itching to see it for a while and the reviews were all really good so I gave it a try, and was rewarded by a great movie.

While the overall production value of all animated movies has increased at an amazing rate, I think what I like the most about Pixar movies is that, no matter what the topic, I am in for a display of epic grandeur. In the case of Toy Story 3, the whole film takes place in a small portion of a small town, yet as Woody and Co. find themselves accidentally donated to the local daycare center as Andy prepares for college, the movie takes on the characteristics of great escape movies like... well, The Great Escape, I suppose. All you have to do is replace asshole fascist nazis with asshole fascist toys. Suddenly, a thrown-away toy is a casualty of war, and to be honest it actually made me feel bad for all of the toys that I've thrown away over the years. But then I remember it's a goddamn toy and it doesn't have feelings or Tom Hanks' voice. But still...what if they did?

Returning to the topic of trilogies, I think the best thing that Toy Story 3 has going for it is that it was comfortable with ending the series on a satisfying note without forcing an overblown finale or deliberately leaving the door open for another movie. I'm guessing that since Pixar usually seems to have a handful of irons in the fire (I hear that Cars 2 is on the way) they don't need to milk a franchise until it becomes stale. Again, I need to mention about how Shrek 3 screwed the pooch. So the writers for Toy Story 3 had the luxury of making sure they did this thing right, which they very much did. When the end credits started to roll, none of the characters fates are left hanging, and no questions are left unanswered. And, better yet, they were all answered well.

Whether part of a trilogy or not, few animated films do well if they don't include a lot of great laughs, and Toy Story 3 did not disappoint. The main characters all hit of their notes, including a fantastic scene with a "Mr. Tortilla Head," but the stand-out for me was a metrosexual Ken doll voiced by Michael Keaton. This may just be a personal thing for me, however, as I just like the idea of Michael Keaton getting more good work. He's one of those underrated actors who has a lot of great roles under his belt like Johnny Dangerously (why, hello there, future Take the Edge Off post), Batman, and, of course:

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Unfortunately, Keaton seems to have fallen off the radar a bit lately, but with his turn as Ken and an upcoming role in the Mark Wahlberg/Will Ferrell buddy comedy movie The Other Guys, maybe Keaton is building towards a comeback.

At this point it shouldn't be too much of a surprise when Pixar releases a good movie, but this was the first time they'd gone back to the same story for a second time, which is a task that has proven to be too much for many other good writers/directors. However, with Toy Story 3, Pixar avoided the pitfalls of a trilogy-ender and gave Andy's toys a great send off. Hopefully Cars 2 does well so that, finally, we can see the Incredibles sequels that Mrs. Grump-to-be and I have been waiting for since the last one ended.

Grade: A-

Grumpy Movie Review: Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

I tried something a little new this weekend with Mrs. Grumpy-to-be. Normally, we have movie tastes that are close enough that we can agree on something to watch together. However, this usually means that, as a horror fan, I have to forgo most of the new genre films that come out because that's the one thing that my lady just doesn't have the stomach for. This time, though, we decided to go on a movie date where we watch different movies. And I gotta say, I think we're on to something here. That's why I'm excited to bring you a movie review for the first horror movie I've seen in the theaters in three or four years, Michael Bay's remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.

First, let me address the elephant in the room when it comes to today's trend in horror movies: the remake. I grew up watching the staples of the horror genre: A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Hellraiser, and of course the gaggle of sequels churned out by each franchise. So to have to sit and watch Michael "Make Things Go Boom" Bay gobble up all of the rights to these movies just so he can profit off of the name is pretty heart-wrenching. You know damn well the movies won't be as good as the original, but the name has the power to make us buy a ticket even though we will probably walk away disappointed. And here is where I think Michael Bay has horror fans of my generation by the balls. Being born in 1984, I wasn't even alive for the premiere of most of these movies, and I was way too young to go have my parents take me to the theater to see any of the sequels. So, I had to make do either waiting for them to come out on TV or by renting them on video. I never really got to experience the event of going out, cheerily buying overpriced popcorn, and seeing these icons on the big screen. The remakes coming out today give us a chance to do so.

Now when it comes specifically to remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street, there were a couple of other factors that intrigued me. Firstly, modern special effects would allow for more creativity when playing with the dream sequences in the movie. Even though the effects in the original movie were pretty damn creative for their day, I could see a case for improved visuals with updated technology and I wanted to see if director Samuel Bayer could utilize them well. After watching the movie, I can say that in some ways he did, and in some ways he really, reeeeeeally didn't. When it came to developing a frightening atmosphere, the effects were right on the mark. We see a classroom full of students disintegrate into ash as one of the teens (I really don't feel like remembering who was who) falls asleep during school. We watch blood burst in a torrent from the ceiling (a nod to the blood volcano from the original, perhaps?). And the line between reality and dream is constantly blurring in a way that just wasn't possible when the original movie was produced. However, as often happens in horror movies nowadays, computer-generated imagery (CGI) was very overused. The drawback to CGI is that 9 times out of 10, I can tell that it's CGI. Freddy's make up is the prime example for this movie. I read that they were going for a look that more closely resembled the effects of being badly burned which I supposed they needed to do through CGI, but if you know that's what you're looking at then it's that much harder to pretend it's real and get lost in the movie.

This shit is seamless...as long as I don't move or speak.

Speaking of Freddy, the other thing that interested me about the new Nightmare was the choice of Jackie Earle Haley as the new Freddy Krueger. Now, for most fans of the original movies, casting someone other than Robert Englund as Freddy automatically counts for strikes one, two, and three. But if they were going to recast the role, I really can't think of anyone better than Jackie Earle Haley. I was as surprised as anyone when they cast Kelly Leak from the Bad News Bears as Rorshach for the recent film adaptation of The Watchmen, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone else who could turn a small, skinny redhead into such a believable badass. So why couldn't he do the same for Freddy? Unfortunately, his role was usually just a Robert Englund impression of hammy one-liners. Haley does alright with this but it seems a bit forced. He really shines through, however, when Freddy's rage boils over. Just as with Rorshach, a pissed off Jackie Earle Haley is a terrifying Jackie Earle Haley. But Freddy rarely reaches that point, so Haley's abilities were squandered.

***Spoiler Alert*** The writers also waste what appears to be a good opportunity to make their own unique vision of Freddy Krueger. In the original films, Freddy was a evil child killer before and after he was killed by the parents of Springwood. In the updated version, more emphasis is put on Freddy as a pedophile rather than a murderer, and throughout the movie they toy with the idea that maybe Kruger was innocent and wrongly accused and murdered by overanxious parents. This idea is dropped, however, when we learn that Freddy was indeed guilty and deserved whatever he got. But I can't help wonder if it wouldn't have been more interesting had they made the movie their own by making the human incarnation of Freddy be innocent. Now, the Freddy that haunts our dreams should not be a sympathetic character. We all know and love Freddy as a sadistic demon who will psychologically and physically torture his victims. But what of this demon was created not by the inherent evil of a man, but by the actions of those who thought he was evil. I don't know, it's just a thought. ***End Spoiler***

Now, as remakes go, this one wasn't terrible. The obligatory twenty-something actors playing teenagers were all passable, I had a good time with the various surprise scares, the gore left me satisfied, and honestly I just enjoyed the nostalgic value of bringing back something fun from my childhood (screw you normal people and your Sesame Street). If you can put aside the fact that Michael Bay probably had no business making the movie in the first place, you can probably get some entertainment out of it. If you don't need to make an event out if it like I did, however, you might just want to wait for it to come out on DVD. Grade: C+

The Grumpy Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

As part of my general theme of having no clue of what to do with this blog, I'm establishing yet another segment on top of the Quick Complaint of the Week. I figured this would be a good way of showing whoever reads this blog that I do indeed provide more for the world than just bitching and moaning. That is, of course, unless the movie is bad enough to require me to bitch and moan about it.



To kick off this new segment, I figured what better movie to review than the one voted the top movie of the year by those fine folks at the Academy (pff, right), Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. I recently Netflix'd the dvd (God I love Netflix) and it made for a pretty damn entertaining watch. By the way, before we get started with the actual review, let me give you fair warning that I'm still new to the idea of writing about something while not giving too much away, so here's your blanket spoiler alert to cover pretty much the whole review. I'll do my best to mark the point of a spoiler, but honestly, if I ruin anything for you I'm not going to lose a whole lot of sleep about it.

The movie's opening sequence introduces us to an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team in Iraq on the scene of a potential roadside bomb. Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) provide support for team leader Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce...who knew he was in this?). As they set about their work, two things are established. First, Kathryn Bigelow is a master at creating suspense. Second, if you are a famous British actor in this film **Spoiler Alert** you're going to die very quickly **End Spoiler**

Each event in the opening sequence tells us that Sergeant Thompson is pretty much screwed. The wheel of the team's remote-controlled wagon falls off, which means he'll have to go and personally rig the explosives to blow safely. Sergeant Sanborn makes a note of when he is within the kill zone of the bomb so we know that we're even closer to a big kaboom. On top of all of this we have several people intently observing the scene, and each of them seems to be doing his own interpretation of the stock villain in a top hat evilly twirling his mustache, so who knows which one is the real bad guy. Now, Bigelow could have just gone for the easy shock, throwing in an explosion out of no where and giving the audience a sudden jolt and a need for a change of underwear. But by tipping the audience off little by little as the scene progresses, Bigelow can toy with us, making us go nuts waiting for that inevitable explosion.

Later in the movie, we get another dose of equal parts suspense/famous English actors taking a dirt nap when the team meets a group of British mercenaries led by Lord Voldemort himself, Ralph Fiennes (no one really cares what his character's name is in the movie do they?). When a sniper begins picking off members of the mercenary squad, the shots come from so far away that the bullets hit their targets before we even hear them. So while Voldemort starts to take aim to return fire, we know it's only a matter of time before he eats a shit sandwich, but not knowing exactly when is a racks your nerves in the best possible way.

The other great thing that this movie has going for it is some great casting choices. Besides the Brits who serve as the Iraq war equivalent of "red shirt" ensigns from Star Trek, we get a main cast that most people probably never heard of before this movie, but probably will quite a bit in the future. Jeremy Renner plays Staff Sergeant William James, replacement for the very dead Sergeant Thompson. As the typical plays-by-his-own rules-and-apparently-has-a-deathwish Sergeant James, Renner essentially channels Mel Gibson's Martin Riggs. He casually puts himself and others in harms way while shooting a few good one-liners and slowly fraying around the edges, which really isn't all that original. But hey, it works. Renner is very likeable and adds just enough depth to the character that he doesn't quite fall into cliche. Two relative unknowns in Mackie and Gergarghty provide support for Renner, and they were both very serviceable acting as the two straight men. The scene where the three soldiers get drunk after a day on the job gets a bit more wild and violent than your average happy hour gathering, but as someone who has friends who've served in the military I can attest that the representation of such steam-venting is pretty realistic.

Which brings me to a point of debate over The Hurt Locker: does the movie accurately portray the life of an EOD squad in Iraq? I listened to a story on the radio recently that featured actual bomb disposal soldiers complain that James' cavalier attitude towards bomb disposal is not indicative of a real soldier's concern for safety and protocol, and that it's aggravating to watch a character portrayed that way. My take on this point is fairly simple: I really don't give a shit how accurate the movie is or isn't. I've never been to Iraq and I've never even seen a bomb up close, much less disarmed one, so accuracy really isn't on my radar for a movie like this. Plus, even if I normally would be inclined to pick up inaccuracies, I'm not going to walk into a movie from the director of Point Break and expect to gain encyclopedic knowledge of the military culture.

Pictured above: a typical day for an FBI agent

I would say my only real complaint with The Hurt Locker is that it never really goes anywhere. I realize that's kind of the point in that we aren't meant to take away any kind of commentary on the war in Iraq, but rather just view the day-to-day lives of the soldiers who serve there. But when I was done watching the movie, I found it left me wanting. To be honest I'm not even quite sure what it is that left me unsatisfied. Maybe I had my expectations set too high since I saw it after it won the Oscar for best picture, which I'll admit is a pretty stupid reason to have really high hopes for a movie. I went into the movie expecting something that no one has ever done before with a movie about Iraq, and while it delivered in that aspect insofar as no movie about Iraq has taken the straight action movie approach, it's still something we've seen time and time again in other straight action movies. But again, that doesn't mean it was entertaining. Grade: B+.