Archive
BALLS OF FURY – Randy Edelman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A somewhat peculiar movie which combines, of all things, kung-fu with ping-pong, Balls of Fury was a vehicle for up-and-coming comedy actor Dan Fogler. Fogler plays down-and-out former professional ping-pong champion Randy Daytona, whose life is changed when FBI Agent Ernie Rodriguez (George Lopez) recruits him for a secret mission: to travel to the far east and compete in a legendary “extreme ping pong” tournament organized by the nefarious Feng (Christopher Walken) – who is on the FBI’s most wanted list, and also happens to be the man who murdered Fogler’s father. Read more…
DEATH SENTENCE – Charlie Clouser
Original Review by Clark Douglas
There are few things I enjoy more than discovering that a movie I expected to be dumb and poorly made is actually smart and well-crafted. In addition, there are few things that disappoint me as much as discovering that a movie that seems smart and fresh is actually dumb and routine. Watching “Death Sentence”, I unusually experienced both the former and the latter.
The film begins by introducing us to a very happy family of four. The father is played by Kevin Bacon, the mother is played by Kelly Preston, both sporting cheerful grins. Their two teenage boys are generally upstanding, well-behaved kids, and things are just hunky-dory. As you might expect from a movie with such a cheerful opening, tragedy soon occurs. The oldest son is killed by a young gang member. After the legal system fails to bring this young man to justice, Bacon hunts the kid down and kills him in a rage of anger Read more…
HALLOWEEN – Tyler Bates
Original Review by Clark Douglas
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. – Samuel L. Jackson, “Pulp Fiction”
Oh, how I loathed this movie. “Halloween” is one of the worst remakes you will see this year, or any year. It takes a fascinating premise and removes it of all it’s fascination. It takes memorable characters and makes them boring. It takes subtlety and turns it into overbearing obviousness. It takes what was previously unspoken and spells it out. It takes a movie that was creative and breathtaking and makes it dull and uninvolving. In addition to all of this, it is just plain mean and ugly. Read more…
FLOOD – Debbie Wiseman
Original Review by Clark Douglas
“Flood” is a British thriller that might hit a little too close to home for many American audiences. Memories of Hurricane Katrina are probably still too fresh for many audiences (particularly in the southeast part of the states) for the film to really be very exciting. It sounds a bit like your standard disaster movie… a huge tidal wave is coming, millions of lives are at stake, it’s up to one man to save everybody, etc. and so on. I don’t know whether the film is aiming at being a tragic drama or an adrenaline-pumping action flick, but from the sound of Debbie Wiseman’s score it seems to be both. Read more…
RESURRECTING THE CHAMP – Larry Groupé
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A powerful sports drama directed by Rod Lurie, Resurrecting the Champ stars Josh Hartnett as up-and-coming sports writer Erik Kernan. One day, Erik steps in to saves a homeless man from being beaten up by a group of rowdy college kids, and unexpectedly discovered that the intended victim is not some random bum, but former boxing great Bob Satterfield (Samuel L. Jackson), once believed to have passed away but who had actually fallen on hard times. Intent on writing Satterfield’s story, and ‘rescuing’ the ex-champion from what he sees to be an ignominious fate, Erik and Bob strike up an unlikely friendship, the knock-on effect from which is an opportunity for Erik to reexamine his own life, and especially his relationship with his young son (Dakota Goyo) and his ex-wife (Kathryn Morris). Read more…
SEPTEMBER DAWN – William Ross
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Based on a true story, the controversial “September Dawn” has raised a fair amount of buzz. It tells the tale of over 100 people who were massacred by a group of Mormons on September 11th (gasp!), 1857. Apparently the film makes attempts to tie major Mormon figures like Brigham Young to the massacre, offering a message that organized religion and Mitt Romney are dangerous. Much of the film is spent with a young couple who are falling in love, and the knowledge that they will be killed must make “September Dawn” a very unhappy viewing experience for many who go see it. Read more…
WAR – Brian Tyler
Original Review by Clark Douglas
I didn’t see the Jason Statham/Jet Li action flick “War”, so I can’t really tell you whether or not it was any good. I saw plenty of trailers for it, and they did their best to make it look as generic and typical as possible. The score by Brian Tyler seems to be attempting to do the exact same thing. It sounds like every other gritty action score you’ve ever heard, and while I’m sure that might delight the crowd of people who fell in love with the ultra-derivative Steve Jablonsky score for “Transformers”, it doesn’t particularly please me.
You see, Tyler is a talented composer who I’ve admired for quite some time. His scores for “Darkness Falls”, “Timeline”, “Partition”, “Children of Dune”, and others are really excellent albums, and Tyler is a stickler for trying to make his music as organic and authentic as possible Read more…
THE INVASION – John Ottman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The umpteenth remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers to reach big screens since Don Siegel’s 1956 original, the latest version – The Invasion – was directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (the acclaimed German director of Der Untergang) and stars Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig and Jeremy Northam, and again tells the tale of an alien organism which comes to earth and begins to systematically overtake humanity by creating emotionless clones of people, which then murder their human counterpart and assume their identity.
John Ottman’s score is one of his better recent efforts, a creepy orchestral and choral score which also uses a healthy dose of electronics to impressive effect. The opening cue, “Life Goes On/Dance of the Cells”, is actually slightly reminiscent of the way Denny Zeitlin opened his score for the 1978 version of the story Read more…
THE LAST LEGION – Patrick Doyle
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
A historical action-drama set in the final, crumbling days of the western Roman Empire, The Last Legion stars young Thomas Sangster as 12-year-old Romulus Augustus, whose previously privileged life takes a terrible turn when, on the day he is crowned emperor of Rome, the empire falls into terrible anarchy. Banished to the island of Capri to live for the rest of his life, Romulus learns of the legend of a mystical sword which was once owned by Julius Caesar, and which he believes may help him return to power. With the help of his teacher Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley) and the last loyal legionnaire Aurelius (Colin Firth), Romulus escapes the island, and goes to the distant province of Britannia, to search for the sword and gather together a legion of soldiers who will fight for the final glory of the Roman Empire. Read more…
SUPERBAD – Lyle Workman
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
The unexpected comedy success of 2007, Superbad follows the fortunes of Seth and Evan (Jonah Hill and Michael Cera), inseparable best friends who are destined to be parted when they enroll at different colleges. During their last weeks of high school, and realizing that they only have a short time left together, the intrepid duo hatch a plan to finally fulfill their lifelong ambition: losing their virginity. With the help of their nerdy friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), the guys embark on adventure to score enough alcohol to take to a party where they can inebriate the girls of their dreams, Jules and Becca, and engage in full-on regret sex. Hilarity, as they say, ensues. Read more…
AS YOU LIKE IT – Patrick Doyle
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
I’ve always felt that Kenneth Branagh is the only modern director who ‘gets’ Shakespeare. Whether he’s playing it comparatively straight, as he did with Henry V and Hamlet, or whether he puts a little spin on the proceedings, as he did by turning Love’s Labour’s Lost into a Cole Porter musical, Branagh seems to have a deep love of the Bard’s work, and an uncanny knack of turning his usually somewhat impenetrable language into something clearly understandable, and which conveys common human emotions and timeless themes.
As You Like It, Branagh’s sixth adaptation of a Shakespeare play, is one of the ‘spun’ ones, transplanting it from its original setting in rural France, and re-imagining it in 19th century Japan Read more…
RUSH HOUR 3 – Lalo Schifrin
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Perhaps the least necessary sequel of the summer, “Rush Hour 3” still managed to scrape up a decent amount of money, proving… um… some terribly depressing point, I would imagine. The film stars Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker as a couple of cops who have to find terribly contrived and exotic ways to solve various crimes. The talented supporting cast includes Philip Baker Hall, Max Von Sydow, and Roman Polanski, and not one of them has a single interesting thing to do. It’s a pretty mediocre movie, and as with the previous two “Rush Hour” efforts, the highlights are Jackie Chan’s stunts (much more limited in this installment) and Lalo Schifrin’s score. Read more…
STARDUST – Ilan Eshkeri
Original Review by Clark Douglas
With the enormous success of the “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” films, we have seen endless fantasy productions popping up left and right. In the past few weeks, I’ve seen trailer after trailer for upcoming fantasy films that all look roughly the same. “The Golden Compass”. “The Spiderwick Chronicles”. “The Seeker: The Dark is Rising”. “The Dragon Wars”. “Beowulf”. “The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep”. It goes on and on. Some of these will undoubtedly be better than others, but they all basically look alike, portentous journeys into tired lands of “mystery” and “wonder”. Ho-hum. Read more…
BECOMING JANE – Adrian Johnston
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
With the likes of Pride & Prejudice and Sense & Sensibility being such popular works of both the written and visual media, it was only a matter of time before someone made a screen biography of their author, the erstwhile Jane Austen. Julian Jarrold’s film Becoming Jane is just such a film; American star Anne Hathaway adopts an English actress to play the pre-fame author, growing up in 18th century Hampshire, and falling in love with a handsome Irishman named Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy); Jane’s encounters with him, and her dalliances with the societal niceties of the day seek to shape her literary style and her outlook on life. Read more…
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM – John Powell
Original Review by Clark Douglas
Though I’m no fan of “MTV-style” action movies, where things whiz and pop so quickly that everything becomes incomprehensible, Paul Greengrass impressed me a great deal with his fast, jerky, shaky stylings on “The Bourne Ultimatum”. There was a method to the madness, a certain precision and caution taken to insure that the chaos was more than merely chaos. Soundbites and quick images of actors like Matt Damon, Joan Allen, and David Strathairn were edited into what looked like impressive performances, and the story proved to be a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. Read more…
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