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Gavin Grades The Movies

Posts from February 2011

Best Movies of 2010
by Gavin , posted Feb 25 2011 8:21AM
10.  The Kids Are Alright - I was late to the party on this one and only watched it a few weeks ago.  In a year when most of the Oscar-nominated films were dark and gritty, it's nice to see a bright and colorful family dramedy.  It's funny and touching and successfully shows the 21st Century family in all its timeless ways. 9.  The Town - This was the shock of the year.  Ben Affleck is a mediocre actor but is shaping up to be a superb director.  This crime drama was a wet dream for the Boston native and deserves to stand among the great crime thrillers of all time. 8.  Paranormal Activity 2 - To Hell with anyone who says this movie wasn't scary.  It was not only scarier than the first one but more original too.  It was successful in keeping the same formula we loved from the first one without feeling forced or raped by Hollywood.  The fact that it was a prequel and sequel at the same time was brilliant.  Simply for being a horror sequel that was better than the first makes it worthy of the list. 7.  True Grit - The Coen Brothers almost never disapoint and this remake of the John Wayne movie was not acception.  It was one of the best scripts of the year and was performed by some of the best ensemble work too.  But the attention to detail is what widened my eyes. 6.  127 Hours - I saw this film twice and enjoyed it even more the second time.  People came to see this for the infamous arm-cutting scene but they stayed for the amazing soul it had.  The climax of this movie was enough to bring tears to my eyes and is a perfect send-up to the human spirit.  5.  Inception - Director Christopher Nolan will get his respect one day but in the meantime it's only his movies that do.  It's rare that a movie astounds me with its special FX and this was one of them.  The originality of not only the story but the 45 minute long action sequence was flooring.  4.  Black Swan - Sure the story isn't all that creative, but boy was this movie intense. By the end of the film I felt like I was mentally assaulted by director Darren Aronofsky.  Natalie Portman's performance is the stuff awards are made for and it's overall a film that commands multiple viewings. 3.  The Fighter - The fact that I brought my wife to see this movie against her will and she ended up loving it so much that she saw it twice speaks to the level of achievement this movie has.  Christian Bale has finally given the performance that award-givers simply can't ignore but the fact that he's surrounded by top shelf talent helps.  One of the best sports movies that's not about sports ever! 2.  The Social Network - A movie about the creation of Facebook shouldn't be interesting but director David Fincher and writer Aaron Sorkin flexed their cinematic muscles and made this an opus.  Creating an almost flawless film about the cruption of power and doing it despite doubts from everyone is a feat. 1.  Toy Story 3 - Pixar is the only group that can take a final installment of a franchise for children and create a parable for so many adult themes.  They over-performed their stellar record with this and made grown men cry (I do with every viewing).  It's also one of the most impressive scripts of the year that was funny, tear-jerking and successful in taking a children franchise and morphing it into a prison break movie.
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Worst Movies of 2010
by Gavin , posted Feb 25 2011 7:10AM
10. The Tooth Fairy - I understand that this movie is for children but that doesn't give a film the right to be this bad.  The fact that Billy Crystal and Stephen Merchant (BBC's The Office) were suckered into doing this and put their best foot forward but their talent didn't rub off on The Rock, proved that this movie was lost. 9. Clash of the Titans - If there was ever a movie that was in need of a big-budgeted remake, it's Clash of the Titans.  But this was a mess.  According to director Louis Leterrier, it was the studio's fault.  But for being the first example of how 3D can be so bad it ruins a movie, it deserves to be on the list. 8. Dinner for Schmucks - When you're a remake of an already funny movie, the hard part is done for you.  So how to do you screw it up?  I guess you have to really try at it.  It's even worse when you have comedic pedigree like Steven Carrell, Paul Rudd and Zach Galifinakis.  But if the first funny scene in your movie is 80 minutes in...you're a failure. 7. Cop Out - Holy God!  Director Kevin Smith even said this movie was feces.  Tracy Morgan did a subpar job performing with the corpse of Bruce Willis but Willis managed to infect his apathy virus into everything in the movie. 6. The Tourist - It's always a bad sign when the trailer for a film doesn't talk about what the movie is about but instead just focuses on who is in it.  Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie should have higher standards than this, but I have a feeling they just wanted a free vacation. 5. Jonah Hex - This film deserves to be considered one of the worst simply for potentially destroying the momentum the comic book genre has built up.  Megan Fox is awful and we can't blame her for being her, but Josh Brolin and John Malkovic have both been nominated for Oscars!  Come on, guys!  Good thing no one cared about Jonah Hex before this. 4. Nightmare on Elm Street - I'm not such a movie snob that I roll my eyes at every remake that comes down the pike.  In fact, I was very excited for this since the original one is great but a little outdated.  This was a disaster though.  A complete unscary, uninspired mess from beginning to end. 3. Valentine's Day - It's a disgrace when there are so many stars in your movie that their combined net worth is more than 80% of Americans.  This was a movie that was a disaster from the first scene to the last.  It wasn't funny.  It wasn't romantic.  It wasn't anything but a tawdry attempt to make a cheap buck off a bad script by packing it with actors that were promised a few days of work and never have to leave L.A.  Shame on you...everyone who made this! 2. Sex and the City 2 - Good try at making the worst movie of the year, girls.  Sadly you fell short, but that's not due to lack of trying.  This movie came so close to destroying the entire SATC legacy in one 130 minute swoop.  When you take the main character (New York City) out of the story...you're off to a really bad start. 1. The Book of Eli - If this was an exciting action movie that was directed well I might be able to overlook the awful script.  It wasn't.  The fact that this movie was about Denzel Washington transporting The Bible across a post-apacalyptic wasteland by slashing and shooting and killing his way to safety is one of the most hypocritical plots of all time.  And the fact that the directors threw in a twist at the end that they thought was just so clever, made it the worst movie of the year.  Self importance that fails but doesn't recognize that failure is one of the saddest thing in the world.
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Hall Pass
by Gavin , posted Feb 23 2011 9:09PM
Way before The Hangover, the desire to make movies about grown men who desperately cling to their youth in midlife crisis movies has been around.  It's a genre of comedy that never seems to get boring, but it's also very easy to screw up and end up as a roulette wheel of d*ck and poop jokes.  Is it possible to be the latter but still manage to be very funny and almost smart?  Sure is, and it's called Hall Pass.  The Farrelly Brothers had a huge hit with There's Something About Mary that revitalized Hollywood comedies in proving that R-rated comedies can be great and lucrative.  But that was in 1998 and ever since then they've had failure after failure after failure.  Hall Pass might be their first success since.  It lacks the quirkiness that There's Something About Mary created and it's not as funny as Kingpin or Dumb and Dumber.  But it's worthy of standing on its own as a great adult comedy of theirs.  Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis (SNL, Going the Distance) are married buddies who's wives, played by Christina Applegate (Anchorman, Going the Distance) and Jenna Fisher (The Office, Walk Hard), give them a hall pass which is a week off of marriage.  Sounds like every man's dream but it turns out to be harder than they think.  The film gets off to a soggy start but quickly picks up the pace.  What is shocking is the level of edginess it goes too.  Much like There's Something About Mary or Me, Myself & Irene, the humor gets very adult and graphic but at a surprise.  The initial shock of seeing Ben Stiller get his "frank and beans" stuck in his zipper was awesomely hilarious and certain scenes of Hall Pass carry the same shocking gross-out humor.  Another victory is that it remains moderately funny throughout and doesn't fall victim to the awful final act that most of these comedies suffer, such as The Hangover.  The biggest disappointment of the movie comes from a vastly underutilized supporting cast.  The Farralleys have JB Smoove (Curb Your Enthusiasm), Stephen Merchant (The Office), and Oscar-nominated Richard Jenkins (Let Me In, Eat Pray Love) and they give them nothing funny to do.  The three of them are capable of carrying the movie themselves, as far as I'm concerned, but have nothing to work with in this.  The only supporting character that rises to the level of Scene Stealer is comedian Derek Waters (Funnyordie.com's Drunk History, The Sarah Silverman Program).  Although his character is the one that takes the movie into nonsense, it's still damn funny to watch.  Be warned that Hall Pass is very adult and still not for everyone.  If you like your humor to not involve senseless nudity, spraying feces or graphic profanity, then you might want to pass on Hall Pass.  But if There's Something About Mary made  you laugh as the limits of good taste were pushed, this will almost satisfy. Hall Pass (Rated R) Gavin Grade: B
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Just Go With It
by Gavin , posted Feb 10 2011 10:00PM
It's a hard question to answer and one that I've wondered for many years but how can an Adam Sandler movie possibly get any worse than they already are?  Well, my answer has finally come - you add Jennifer Aniston.  Now that's not to negate both of their entire careers.  I think Aniston was great in Rock Star and even Sandler has done impressive acting in Reign Over Me and Punch Drunk Love.  But their overall repertoire is terrible to the core.  I think the last time Sandler made me laugh was when he did Billy Madison and I was 13-years-old and Aniston, well, she's never made me laugh.  So, I gotta be honest that I expected nothing out of this movie before it even began, but I wasn't prepared for how awful it really was.  Sandler is a successful plastic surgeon who pretends to be married to pick up hot women, assuming you are still buying him playing roles where a guy who looks like Sandler would ever get hot women.  When he finally meets one (played by TV's Brooklyn Decker who adds nothing but hottness to the movie), a simple lie turns into a lot of them and he begs his assistant, who's played by Aniston, to play along with her kids and pretend to be his ex-wife.  Trust me when I say that I don't need to give you a "Spoiler Alert" notice because every single aspect about the film is foreseeable by even the dimmest of audience members by at least a few miles away.  Looking past the predictable, cliche plot, the rest of the film is like a check list for what you'd expect in a bad comedy.  Is there a montage of a shopping spree over pop music?  Check.  Are there over-exaggerated prosthetic body parts and fake animals?  Yup.  How about a scene where Adam Sandler gets hit in the balls and sticks either his tongue out or crosses his eyes?  How about he does both.  I could go on like this for a very long time.  However, there are two things that came out of this movie that can be put in a "Well at least that was good" column.  The first is that Sandler traded his talentless muse of Rob Schneider (Waterboy, Deuce Bigalow) for the much funnier Nick Swardson (Blades of Steel, Grandma's Boy).  He's not really that funny in this, but his presence alone gives certain scenes the potential to be so.  The other is little 10-year-old Bailee Madison (Bridge to Terabithia, Brothers) who is probably the best thing about the movie.  She's very funny and a talented little girl; I just feel bad for her that she had to be in this.  I gotta be honest, I'm not the target audience for this film.  The people around me were laughing throughout, while I sat like stone and stared at the screen like a puppy watching you shower.  However, those same people couldn't have laughed harder during a trailer before the movie that showed Kevin James as a zoo keeper screaming at talking animals.  Am I a comedy elitist?  I hope not.  But when it comes to movies like Just Go With It, where I can tell you exactly how it ends before the opening credits finish rolling, I guess I am.  Because to me nothing is sadder than a movie that isn't funny but is so self assured that it is.  Good thing for Adam Sandler there aren't many people like me in America because I'd say that sums him up as well. Just Go With It  (Rated PG-13) Gavin Grade: F
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Sanctum
by Gavin , posted Feb 3 2011 10:10PM
It's no secret that James Cameron (Avatar, Terminator 2) pisses me off.  I think he's technically proficient but a lousy filmmaker when it comes to heart, soul and well...story and dialogue.  He didn't direct this though; he was the Executive Producer.  You can still tell that he got his tentacles on Sanctum though.  The first act of this movie is so bad that it made me think I was watching Sharktopus vs. Giant Cave Squid or something on the Syfy Channel.  The dialogue was just as bad as the acting.  Shocking when you consider that one of the stars of Sanctum is Ioan Gruffudd (Fantastic Four, W.) who is a somewhat respected actor in Hollywood and has produced decent performances before.  He shares the spotlight...or lack-there-of in this movie about a cave...with Richard Roxburgh who is WAY different than his most famous role as the pompous Duke in Moulin Rogue and his son, played by unknown Australian Rhys Wakefield.  These three, as well as others, are trapped in a giant cave that has been flooded by a hurricane.  This is essentially my worst nightmare shown to me in 3D...claustrophobia and drowning.  Once the characters are awkwardly introduced to us, awful cliche backstories are laid out, and lines are embarrassingly recited; the rain finally starts to fall.  Once this happens and the cave floods, the rest of the film is pretty good.  It's suspenseful and full of palpable tension.  It's possible that I'm more susceptible to it because it preys on my two biggest anxieties for death.  But what really impressed me about the film is that Australian director Alister Grierson shot the whole thing in 3D and the end result is utterly spectacular.  It might be one of the best films to utilize 3D I've ever seen.  Plus it's refreshing to see a 3D film come out that's made for adults.  Make no mistake that Sanctum is a tad brutal at times.  One scene in particular was so graphic that it caused shrieking in the theater from some of the more faint-hearted viewers.  However, just like it began, Sanctum ends with a thud.  The finale of the film has "James Cameron" written all over it.  The same cheeseball that came up with "I'm the king of the world" and the Avatar mineral "Unobtanium," probably also ruined an ending that could have been less Hollywood and more satisfying just to squelch any feelings of bleakness in an audience.  Sanctum as a whole is a decent film that won't disappoint.  It's a throwback to the natural disaster movies that show man vs. wild but it still feels like a James Cameron sandwich - the middle is good but the ends are boring and they stink.  What makes the middle of the film good is the absence of what makes the beginning and end bad...dialogue. Sanctum (Rated R) Gavin Grade: C-
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The Company Men
by Gavin , posted Feb 2 2011 4:35PM
To say that The Company Men is a movie that doesn't have a blatant agenda and message behind it is the same thing as saying a Michael Moore movie is fair and balanced.  The drama with an all-star cast of Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper (American Beauty, The Muppets) and Kevin Costner is a clever disguise for a scathing expose on the downsizing of corporate America.  I know, that sounds dry and boring.  Why should we care about a bunch of overpaid, privileged white collar guys that get thrown out on their asses by a corporation while the CEO continues to swim in money?  Because everyone in America knows someone like this.  This movie pumps in the same veins as 2009's Up in the Air with George Clooney.  It holds a magnifying glass on a few characters to show what it's like to be laid off in your forties and fifties with a mortgage and family to support.  Sure it's not the life-or-death problems that they face in third world countries or the epic drama depicted in war films; but for our times, this is as bad as it can get for some.  It's the middle class nightmare that weighs on all of our minds.  But no matter how important and real the plot for The Company Men is, the emotion that comes out of it is just scratching the surface.  A cast was put together for this that has enough Oscar and Oscar nominations between them to choke a donkey, but director/writer John Wells (E.R., The West Wing) failed to get an Oscar-worthy performance out of any of them.  The film felt clunky at times and was in need of a good oiling.  That's an issue with a movie that features lots of characters with lots of story arcs that intersect.  It's hard to keep them all straight and it's even harder to go into enough depth for each one to make us care.  The closest we get to attachment is with Affleck's family man character who struggles putting his ego aside when he has trouble landing another white collar job and may have to take a blue collar one from his brother-in-law, who's played by Costner.  Although it's hard to feel like you're walking through this mid-life disaster with these people that still doesn't make it boring.  The movie moves very well and draws you in just enough.  It could be that it's something most of us can relate to on one level or another that makes it, at the very least, a good film.  Tommy Lee Jones plays his usual melancholy character that feels empathy for those around him and does a good job of showing it through his droopy eyes and limited but pertinent lines.  The Company Men rises above most so far this year and stands among one of the better dramas of 2011 but failed to meet my expectations.  The film might have been improved, ironically since it's about downsizing, by eliminating a few of the characters and focused on the ones that remained more; concentrating the drama and not spreading it out.  But I guess that would be against what the film stands for, huh? The Company Men (Rated R) Gavin Grade: B
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