Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012)

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

Screenplay by Seth Grahame-Smith

Based on the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith

Stars: Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Rufus Sewell, Anthony Mackie, Marton Csokas, Jimmi Simpson and Mary Elizabeth Winstead

This is one of the rare times that I would read the book before seeing the obvious butchered, er -- altered adaptation of said book. I reviewed the book on the other site. The book was enjoyable because it took a boring biography and jazzed it up. Hearing the awful word about this movie, I stayed away. Seeing the movie now, my prediction did not make this movie better.

Everyone knows about the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (Walker) or do you? Well, obviously not or there wouldn't be a movie about it, except for that Steven Spielberg movie.All of his life, Abe has been the victim of vampires. They took his mother and he wants to avenge her death. He meets strange fellow named Henry Sturges (Cooper) that takes him as his protégé to slay vampires. There is one vampire that is taking advantage of the turmoil of the country and wants to keep it that way, Adam (Sewell).

 Going into this flick, I knew that the storyline was going to be changed from page to screen. I get it. The same person adapted his own book to the big screen. It seems the director wanted to make the movie bigger than it should have been. Knowing the book gives you more ways to trash the adaptation of it. Characters were jettisoned and plot points were scraped. Fine. Where the idea come up of Lincoln having a black friend named Will Johnson (Mackie)? Really? Putting a generic "villain" in the movie is all right, but the movie should have focused on the slavery issue than a 5000-year-old vampire named Adam.

The biggest problem with the movie that Grahame-Smith tried to make an action flick out of a silly fantasy historical drama. The movie was a hodgepodge of biopic, romantic comedy, brainless action flick and Twilight. Making the vampires scary was a good choices, but they were utilized correctly. You had the vampires out in the daytime and they are supposed to wear sunglasses to protect their eyes to the sun. But, the vampires take their glasses off where sunlight floods in through window or through it doesn't kill them. What?

It seemed the "action" sequences were laughably bad. Why would you have a chase sequence happening during an obvious CGI horse sequence. It looked muddled and ridiculous. This film's failure at the box office should give us any indication that the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies movie will not see the light of day. Let it stay dead and buried. Pun intended.

My Rating

Fright Night

Fright Night (2011)

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Story by Tom Holland

Screenplay by Marti Noxon

Based on the film, "Fright Night" by Tom Holland

Stars: Anton Yelchin, Colin Farrell, David Tennant, Imogen Poots, Toni Collette, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Dave Franco and Reid Ewing

Pretty much everybody knows that horror films are not my forte. When Halloween rolls around, I want to see something different the million slasher films, torture porn or ghost films with freaky children in it. The original Fright Night was one of a handful of films that I saw when I was a kid, including Once Bitten and Creepshow 2. The remake would not on my radar or anybody else's when it was released. The movie is not great, but it's watchable.

Picture it, Las Vegas 2011. Charley (Yelchin) is gangly boy that has the perfect life with douchebag friends,  Mark and Ben (Franco, Ewing) and his hot girlfriend, Amy (Poots). Strange things has been happening with classmates disappearing. Charley's estranged friend, Ed (Mintz-Plasse) tries to tell him that Charley's new next door neighbor, Jerry (Farrell). Ed disappears and Charley takes the torch to see if Ed was correct.

The movie tries to be very now, but it a couple of years the pop culture references would be out of date. I understand that people want to have these youth centric films with characters that supposedly would speak very hipster and with it. It doesn't work here.It seemed like the movie was supposed to be in 3D because the CG blood is flying weirdly at the screen.

Even though I remember bits and pieces of the original movie, it was nice to see Chris Sarandon make a cameo in the movie. I know they have to make dramatic changes with the original story to make it work today. It's understandable, but silly. Would Charley really seek out a David Blaine wannabe named Peter Vincent (Tennant) for vampire advice?

I had some problems with the movie from a logical and physical standpoint. Why would Jerry would exert all this energy on Charley that lives next door? I did not get the layout concept of Jerry's house. I cannot talk too much to spoil that plot point for those that have not seen it.

I enjoyed Anton Yelchin in the film. He is not the likeliest of heroes, but looked like a badass. David Tennant was hilarious in the movie. Colin Farrell was a big problem for me. I did not believe that he was this bloodthirsty 400-year-old vampire. He would be a lot smarter with his tactics towards Charley. His intentions and actions seemed dumb.

My Rating

50/50

50/50 (2011)

Directed by Jonathan Levine

Written by Will Reiser

Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Matt Frewer, Philip Baker Hall, Andrew Airlie, Serge Houde and Anjelica Huston

I was very bored and I wanted to see a movie that is not the typical Hollywood fare. Scrolling through the On Demand choices, I settled on 50/50. I have heard of the movie when it was called "I'm with Cancer", It was based on Seth Rogen's friend, the screenwriter Will Reiser's story about how he had cancer and recovered from it. The movie is a heartfelt look at how cancer can affect everyone around you.

Complaining of chronic back pains, Adam (Gordon-Levitt) has a routine physical to see what is going on with him. His doctor, Dr.Ross (Airlie) tells him blunt that he has a rare form of spinal cancer. Adam is in a daze, as he should be. The difficult part is that he has to tell all of the people in his life. His best friend, Kyle (Rogen) tries to get Adam's spirits up as he gone through the cancer treatments.

Let me get this out of the way. In the first couple of scenes, I thought it was going to be a grown up Superbad or something. Seth Rogen's character got under my skin. It feels in every movie, Rogen has to play the foul mouthed, pot smoking jerkoff. It's getting tired. In what universe where these two friends, except that work at an NPR knockoff radio station. Kyle was basically using Adam's condition to get chicks. I found that appalling. Bryce Dallas Howard's character (Adam's girlfriend, Rachael) was transparent. I knew what her true intentions were before Adam got his diagnosis. Anna Kendrick plays a doctor-in-training that is assigned to counsel Adam in his time of crisis. I wish that there wasn't something between them.

I enjoyed the subplot of Adam's mother Diane (Huston) caring for her husband Richard (Houde) that has Alzheimer's. Also, there was bonding Adam was following cancer patients, Alan (Hall) and Mitch (Frewer) when getting chemo that I loved. I thought that JoGo was very good in the lead performance here. I cannot imagine seeing James McAvoy in this movie at all.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but the Kyle character brought the film down. There was also some scenes that would seem out of character for a person going through chemo would actually do.

My Rating

The Grey

The Grey (2012)

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Screenplay by Joe Carnahan & Ian Mackenzie Jeffers

Based on the short story, "Ghost Walkers" by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers

Stars: Liam Neeson, Dallas Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Joe Anderson, Nonso Anozie, James Badge Dale and Ben Bray

I have never heard of this movie until I heard the praise of it on the Film Junk podcast. Another podcast mentioned a scene in The Bourne Legacy took something out of this movie. The comparison is stretching it a little bit. Seeing the movie, I was underwhelmed by it.

A group of oil men are out in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. They depart in a plane that crash lands and only seven survivors came out of the charred wreckage. Ottway (Neeson) is a sharpshooter that keeps the wolves from attacking anyone on the oil rig. He leads the other survivors out of the crash site to find semblance of civilization. It comes to the survivors attention that they were in the middle of wolf territory. They need find some to get out of the area before being wolf food.

I understand that a movie would have themes of life and death, spirituality and all that junk. It was repeated endlessly in this movie. The wolves represent the cruel savagery of life and those flashbacks the men make represents the sweet release of death. We get it. I know what was going to happen thirty minutes into the movie.

There was no surprise here. It was duh moment at the end. I liked Neeson here as the distant Ottway. Dallas Roberts played Hendrick. I thought that he was good. The one person that got on my damn nerves was Diaz, played by Frank Grillo. I am faulting his performance. The character of Diaz is annoying. I was praying for him to get his comeuppance sooner rather than later.

The movie overall was fine. Nothing to write home about.

My Rating

Jodaeiye Nader az Simin

A Separation (2011)

Written and directed by Asghar Farhadi

Currently #100 of the Top 250 Films of All Time on IMDb (as of this posting)

Stars:  Peyman Moaadi, Leila Hatami, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat, Sarina Farhadi, Ali-Asghar Shahbazi, Shirin Yazdanbakhsh, Kimia Hosseini and Merila Zarei

I heard nothing but great things about this movie. Sometimes when a movie gets overly hyped, I tend to have hesitation about the movie when I watch it. It was on top ten lists across the board. The movie won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at last year's Oscars. I enjoyed the movie, but I don't think it's a masterpiece.

Nader and Simin (Moaddi, Hatami) are the separating couple. Simin wants to move to another country to more opportunities for their daughter, Termeh (Farhadi), but Nader doesn't want that. Simin leaves the house to stay with her mother for the time being. Nader has to take care of his ailing father (Shahbazi) that has Alzheimer's. Nader needs a caregiver to help out with his father while he goes to work. He enlists the help of Razieh (Bayat) who is pregnant with her second child had to take her daughter, Somayeh (Hosseini) with her. The arrangement falls through as the tensions rise in the household that comes to a head.

Maybe this is my Westernized mind at work, but I was very confused at some moments of the film. I am not familiar with the culture of Iran or anything Muslim. I couldn't understand why the Razieh couldn't clean the father. I didn't understand the reason why Nader and Simin were separating. It seems frivolous to me. Those were my main complaints about the movie.

When the movie got going, I thought it was very poignant look at how a family dissolves when unforeseen circumstances come into their lives. I can't really say anything else about the movie. I don't want to spoil it for those that have not seen it yet.

My Rating

Seven Psychopaths

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

Written and directed by Martin McDonagh

Stars: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Tom Waits, Zeljko Ivanek, Kevin Corrigan, Abbie Cornish and Olga Kurylenko

I cannot say enough that I loved Martin McDonagh's feature film debut, In Bruges. It was on my top ten list of 2008. It was eagerly anticipating his follow up. The trailer gave an impression that the movie was going to be a slapstick gangster comedy. It's not like that at all. I don't know if I like it or not.

Life imitating art of sorts. Colin Farrell plays a struggling screenwriter named Marty who having writer's block. What screenwriter doesn't? The only thing that he has is the title, 'Seven Psychopaths'. He tries to pull anything to make the creative juices flowing.

His best friend, Billy (Rockwell) relays tales that he has heard over the years about possible inspirations for characters in his screenplay. You should know that Billy is a "professional" dognapper/actor that is employed by the zen boss, Hans (Walen) to collect the reward for their victims. Things get complicated when Billy takes the cherished shih tzu of crime boss, Charlie Costello (Harrelson). Marty and company have to deal with a notorious coming after them and Billy trying to cast other psychopaths in a nonexistent movie.

My expectations were that it was going to be an over the top gangster comedy. Sneaky, sneaky trailer. The movie hearkens to themes of In Bruges about life and death, questioning of religion, the existence of God or heaven and hell. I think that message was better conveyed in this movie than In Bruges.

I would say that the movie is self aware that it is one of those typical gangster movies with over the top violence and the nonexistent presence of the women. Very meta.

The beginning of the movie did not start off on a good feet, because you have people in the movie that were killed off in two seconds flat that had me scratching my head. It chaotic the beginning, but when Tom Waits came in as Zachariah Rigby I was strapped in. The male cast was great in their roles. Colin Farrell was better in In Bruges in my opinion. Walken was deep and hilarious. Harrelson was great as usual. Rockwell is playing a dicey character that could be polarizing for some people.

My Rating

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