After Earth Review

Can M. Night Shyamalan redeem himself with the help of Will and Jaden Smith in After Earth?

It seems well known that Shyamalan has lost some credibility after two major missteps with the widely panned Last Airbender and the unintentionally comedic The Happening. So it seems only the likes of superstar Will Smith (who also supplied the story as well helped produce the film) could guarantee  a safeguard against another major misstep in an already troubled directorial career.

Smith's presence on the project definitely keeps things focused. Indeed, maybe too focused. After setting up the sci-fi universe where humans have abandoned earth for some reason we get pretty brief character set ups before the film thrusts us into a simplistic survival story. The film really wears its sci-fi setting on its sleeve and chooses an almost Cast Away route where the main narrative strings involve survival and survival only.

Which seems fine, many films get caught up in convoluted plots and Shyamalan could have easily let things slip into such non-sense. However, in order to make the survival aspect really engaging we need to become heavily invested in the characters. While the performances serve as effective emotional hooks, the script and dialog feel a little stale and ultimately seem to hold the performances back.

The other thing that the film really needed to nail, the sense of wonder and terror of an alien environment. I think a film like Jurassic Park conveys perfectly the kind of feeling that After Earth needed to emulated and possibly surpass to become a really good film. While it has its moments of terror, it only rarely achieved moments of awe and wonder. Much of the time the film kind of just goes along leaving me feeling passively engaged. Every now asking myself questions like, why wouldn't they have guns or gloves in the future?

 The movie actually does have some almost great set pieces and Shyamalan displays from time to time a Hitchcock like ability to create tension and shock value. Although the more gruesome  make me wonder if the film will prove too intense for younger viewers.

At the end of the day, After Earth has good performances and competent direction as well as a pleasing look combating against a simplistic story and an average script. For my money I'd say skip it unless you really like Will and Jaden Smith and or survival tales.

6/10 - slightly above average.

Now You See Me Review

The director of The Incredible Hulk, Transporter, and Clash of the Titans … the remake, tries his hand at more cerebral material with Now You See Me, a twisty turning thriller along the lines of Brothers Bloom meets The Illusionist meets … Zombieland? How does it fair? Well, let’s just say all the movies mentioned surpass Now You See Me. Things start out well enough however, with the introduction of four quirky magicians (headed up by Zombieland duo Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg) who all get called together by someone or a group of someones issuing them mysterious Tarot cards telling all four to go to a hotel where they will receive further instructions.

 Fast forward a little bit and the groups has a highly successful Vegas magic act wherein they rob a bank using magic. Suffice to say the FBI doesn’t take too kindly to bank robbing magic or not. Enter Mark Ruffalo, a FBI agent charged with figuring out the hows and whys and generally playing the cat to our magician’s mouse, he also has a french partner who serves as a love interest and someone to explain plot threads and drop hints to the audience. Oh wait, Morgan Freeman takes that role-- not the love interest, (although that would prove an interesting twist) the plot explainer.

You see, after the big bank robbing trick our FBI agent goes to good old Morgan Freeman who offers up some lovely exposition explaining how they did it. Speaking of exposition, the movie has tons of it. The movie has a habit of characters rarely talking to each other. Most of the time we get exposition after exposition explaining the convoluted plot. But the biggest fault I found with the picture came in its use of screen time, namely its refusal to focus on the magician characters who prove the most interesting aspect of the film. Woody Harrelson feels like a joy to watch and has great chemistry with Jesse Eisenberg, their two characters represent the film's biggest strength which makes it all the more maddening that most of the film we follow Ruffalo’s character doing his tired FBI agent procedural schtick.

Wait a second, quirky characters and dialog between Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg? Haven’t we seen that before? Anyway, as things start heating up the film shows more and more Ruffalo and less and less of the magicians, which means more and more oh so redundant police procedural. Now to the film's credit it did have me fooled when it came to the twist at the end. However, when these big reveals that the film has flaunted over us throughout the picture do come along it feels: cheap, unearned, ultimately sloppy, and blows swiss cheese holes throughout the entire plot.

 Because of the twist whole sequences make little to no sense in retrospect. All that aside, I would not call Now You See Me a total waste, it kept me mildly engaged throughout and it moves along at a fast enough pace that I could only pick it apart after it ended. It never aimed very high but it never sank to abysmal lows. Interesting ideas that needed a tighter, leaner, and smarter script to let them flourish.


 6/10 - Interesting ideas and solid performances make for a decent ride.

Billy Wilder

The audience is fickle.
Grab ‘em by the throat and never let ‘em go.
Develop a clean line of action for your leading character.
Know where you’re going.
The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
A tip from Lubitsch: Let the audience add up two plus two. They’ll love you forever.
In doing voice-overs, be careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Add to what they’re seeing.
The event that occurs at the second act curtain triggers the end of the movie.
The third act must build, build, build in tempo and action until the last event, and then -
- that’s it. Don’t hang around.

the audience is fickle, fuck em.

grab em by their privates and never let go

figure what your main fucker is gonna do

know where you're going

hide the plot points

if the ending sucks the beginning sucks

don't tell people what's going on

Voice Overs should tell people things they don't see

end of the second act triggers end of third

third has to build to a climax

end it quick.

30 Minutes or Less written review

30 minutes or Less is Ruben Fleischer, the director of Zombieland's followup to Zombieland. Now Zombieland was a dark comedy starring Jessie Eisenberg and it's pretty obvious from 30 Minutes or Less that Mr. Fleischer likes variety in his picatures because 30 minutes or Less is a dark comedy starring Jessie Eisenberg.  Luckily (or unluckily) the similarities between the two pictures stops there-- that's right no existential meanderings about the nature of existence between Bill Muarry and Woody Harrleson. That was Zombieland right?

 In fact, Bill Muarry isn't even in 30 Minutes or Less, instead we have  semi-popular comedians Danny Mcbride and Nick Swardson setting up a bank heist to get 100 grand to pay a hitman to kill Mcbride's dad Fred Ward, either for money or because he was such a girl in The Right Stuff. 

Of course you may be asking why not just go all Greek tragedy and kill your own father Mr. Mcbride?  Because that's not how a millionaire thinks.  To complicate matters the bumbling duo employ Jesse Eisenberg via strapping a bomb to him and telling him he's got 10 hours to get the 100 grand or ... well, boom! A scenario ripped literally out of the headlines (see Brian Welles) which is kind of disturbing but hey, entertainment right?
Suffice to say 30 Minutes or less gets better as it goes from being a quirky raunch com to being a quirky raunch com crimedy ... oh man, starting to make up words, painkillers must be kicking in. One thing to note about the plot is that it could have more or less the exact same scenario done in a different style (replace Eisenberg with Kiefer Sutherland) and it would make for a legitimate  crime drama. Hell, it could be Oscar worthy tear jerking if they actually did the story of the pizza dude that this is at least inspired by. Now as far as the ending goes-- Not gonna say anything.
Lets just say that It's like a one night stand: you enjoy it while it's happening but once it’s done you just wanna get out and forget about it.
There's a spider on the ceiling and it has a weird cocky sort of look-- well, at least it would if it had a face-- or a nose.  And umm ... 30 minutes or less-- if you're looking to spend 80 minutes sitting in a dark room you could do a lot worse than 30 Minutes or Less.  Or, alternatively, put Micheal Mann’s Heat on double speed and listen to the audio from Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life.  You might get a similar experience. Or not. Probably not. 

50/50 review

Trailer for 50/50

My reaction/review

The Borrower Arrietty Review

Was talking in that accent all week, I literally could not stop. 

Buitiful Review

Quick and dirty-- the other reviews seemed too quite, this one's audio is kind of all over the place.