Trailer Trash: "Godzilla"

I was reading that the new Godzilla movie will be a helluva lot better than one produced in the late nineties with Matthew Broderick and some other assholes no one cares about. Judging by this trailer, I would see it when it comes out in May.

Argo

Argo (2012)

Directed by Ben Affleck

Screenplay by Chris Terrio

Based on the article, "Escape from Tehran" by Joshuah Bearman

Stars: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Victor Garber, Scoot McNairy, Kerry Bishé, Tate Donovan, Clea DuVall, Christopher Denham, Rory Cochrane, Kyle Chandler, Chris Messina, Zeljko Ivanek and Richard Kind

Seeing a trailer for this movie, I was not looking forward to it. I was lukewarm with The Town and Gone Baby Gone was unwatchable. After I was disappointed with numerous movies that were supposed to be great, I was hearing a lot of buzz with the film. Having an 86 Metacritic drives me to the theater and I'm glad I did.

Taking place during Iranian Revolution in 1979, the U.S. Embassy was taken over by angry protesters. Just as the protesters burst in six people: Bob Anders, Lee Schatz, Mark and Cora Lijek, Joe and Kathy Stafford (Donovan, Cochrane, Denham, DuVall, McNairy, Bishé) escape the back way. The six seek refuge at the Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor's (Garber) house.

CIA Director Jack O'Donnell (Cranston) asks Tony Mendez (Affleck) to find a way to extract the six from public execution. Tony comes up with the bad idea of having the six be part of a fake Canadian movie production team scouting locations for a film called "Argo." Tony employs the talents of Oscar winning make-up artist John Chambers (Goodman) and washed up producer Lester Siegel (Arkin) to make the fake movie into a sorta reality.

Even though the movie is based on true events, I was on the edge of my seat. I was happy with the juxtaposition of the compelling heart stopping moments with the comedy relief of Goodman and Siegel. Affleck has grown as director. He made the creative direction of shooting the movie on film and making the movie grainy. It was a very nice touch on his part.

People would probably nitpick certain aspects of the movie that was changed. They need to know that the movie has to take dramatic licenses to make it cinematic.

My Rating

Total Recall

Total Recall (2012)

Directed by Len Wiseman

Screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback

Story by Ronald Shusett & Dan O'Bannon and Jon Povill and Kurt Wimmer

Inspired by the short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick

Stars: Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston, Bokeem Woodbine, John Cho and Bill Nighy

As you know like everyone on the planet, remakes are usually a cash grab for studios to cater to a younger audience. Seeing that Total Recall was being remade was not a shock. It is Hollywood. They would remake anything to get butts in seats. I have seen the original Total Recall  and I enjoyed it way better. It was a bit dated like the "futuristic" cars that looked like DeLoreans. The ambiguity of the first film was completely lost in the remake.

The film takes place at the end of the 21st century where a chemical world war has decimated the planet into to inhabitable places, the United Federation of Britain and the Colony. Douglas Quaid (Farrell) is waking up to a similar dream about him rescuing a young woman and being captured. His wife, Lori (Beckinsale) is trying to get Douglas to tell her about the dream.

Douglas travels to his job at a factory through a big elevator ship called The Fall that goes through the center of the Earth. (Don't bring logic into it.) He puts together robots to be cops for the UFB and the Colony. A co-worker tells him about Rekall, which is a company that implants memories. Douglas goes to the company where McClane (John Cho) straps him into the machine, but McClane wants to abort the transplantation. A SWAT teams tries to apprehended Douglas but kills them. At home, he tries to tell his wife what happened, but she tries to kill him.

As I stated before, I thought the ambiguity of the original was completely lost here. It was blown in the first minutes of the film. It makes your wonder why did the events happen in the first place. I'm not saying that I hated the film. I thought that the film treated the material poorly. The movie tried so hard to deliver fan service for the original movie that doesn't make sense in the context of this version.

The actors were fine in their roles, but I did not feel anything sense of danger with them. Douglas Quaid was made an everyman with Colin Farrell in the role as opposed to Arnold Schwarzenegger with his hulking presence. Jessica Biel as Douglas' companion, Melina faded into the background. She was very flat. Kate Beckinsale proved her badassery in Lori, the agent trying to kill Douglas. The supporting characters had nothing to do. Bill Nighy was wasted in this movie.

The action sequences were a bit of a mixed bag to me. I thought the hand to hand combat bits were quite good. I think some of the other set pieces were head scratching like the scene with the hovercars and the elevator chase scene. It was fine, but it didn't excite me.

I have to say one thing. Does every single movie have to have fucking lens flares? Well, this happen in the future, where lens flares are happening in darkened rooms or enclosed spaces where lights come into your eyes from nowhere. Enough already.

My Rating

Drive

Drive (2011)

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

Written by Hossein Amini

Based on the book by James Sallis

Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, James Biberi, Kaden Leos, Oscar Isaac and Christina Hendricks

To rinse the taste of Spider-Man out of my mouth, I wanted to see an actual good movie. Here is a prime example of a good movie that had some bad marketing and came out between the summer blockbuster season and the award show season. It was lost in the mix. It's a shame. I heard great things about this movie. It was on a lot of top ten lists. I have to say that it is a good movie that didn't get a chance.

This is not just a revenge movie. This is a movie about Driver (Gosling), a part time movie stunt driver who also moonlights as a getaway driver for the highest bidder. He only gives five minutes of his time. A second over that the client is on their own. Awesome. Things get complicated when Driver integrated with the lives of his next door neighbor, Irene (Mulligan) and her son, Benicio (Leos). A wrench gets thrown in when Irene's husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) comes back early from jail. Standard has dealings with bad people that Driver has to get in the mix.

Gosling's Driver character reminded me of classic Eastwood character, The Man with No Name with Driver chews on a toothpick having that fucking kick ass satin scorpion jacket. Driver barely utters a page worth of dialogue in the movie and he could convey lots with his eyes, his mannerisms. I think the biggest stars of the movie is the sound and the score by Cliff Martinez. The ticking of the wrist watch getting louder, the haunting music sucks you in. This movie demonstrated the right amount of tension, suspense with beautiful visuals that hearkens back movies of the late 70s, early 80s.The movie can go from being romantic and sweet with the scenes with Irene and Benicio to horribly violent with a hitman's face caving in or an interesting use of a curtain rod. I'm glad a movie like this exists.

Albert Brooks was getting a lot of Oscar buzz for his role as mobster Bernie Rose in this film. I thought he was very good in the film. The way that he delivered the lines oozed seediness and hate. Brooks won an Omie Award for not being included in the nominees. The rest of the cast was solid with Ron Perlman as Bernie's partner, Nino and Bryan Cranston as the Driver's boss.

My Rating