Date Night

Meet the Fosters (Steve Carell and Tina Fey), a successful suburban couple comfortably going through the motions, taking care of their two children, and heading out for date night every Friday. Apart from the facts that they're rather busy, and their friends the Sullivans (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig) are getting a divorce, everything seems tranquil enough if not mundane and uneventful.

Until they decide to steal the Tripplehorn's reservation at a posh restaurant in the centre of a big city one surprising and uncharacteristic night. As it turns out, the Tripplehorn's (James Franco and Mila Kunis) are blackmailing a gangster (Ray Liotta) whose taken pictures of a politician's (William Fichtner) lusty nightlife in order to secure some much needed scratch. The gangster's henchmen, who are also policepersons (Jimmi Simpson and Common), corner the Fosters while they're finishing dinner and demand the return of their boss's philandering flash drive. After a narrow escape, and several spur-of-the-moment relationship related outbursts, it's up to Mark Wahlberg (Holbrooke) and the power of love to unconditionally save the day.

Or night, as it were.

The film's well done and I enjoyed the intelligent ways in which it intermingled the high and low. A lot of its script is concerned with a traditional, stereotypical, steady-as-she-goes marriage, but, if push comes to shove, that traditional couple is still ready to perform a live sex act. The situations in which they find themselves are plausible yet ridiculous, identifiable yet obscure, sordid while remaining wholesome, and fortunate if not predictable. It was still a little to straight and narrow for my tastes; however, since said tastes are so used to not encountering sprightly representatives of the straight and narrow, this straight and narrow film stood on its head.

With Leon (J. B. Smoove) from Curb Your Enthusiasm's sixth and seventh seasons.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans

Never thought I'd see Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant reworked and revitalized but that is what Werner Herzog has done in The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans. Opening on an heroic note, Lieutenant Terence McDonagh (Nicolas Cage) quickly proves that he is on par with Harvey Keitel's degenerate masterpiece, as he travels the streets of New Orleans using his badge to procure as much prurient activity as he possibly can. Things are complicated: a camera has been placed in the police department's evidence room, making it more difficult for him to obtain free narcotics; when a costumer assaults McDonagh's prostitute partner (Eva Mendes), he threatens him even though his political contacts are severe; he is suffering from chronic back pain, the result of his aforementioned heroic act; his gambling debts mount as he can't catch a break and his bookie (Brad Dourif) comes calling; a protected witness escapes under his watch and after ruthlessly interrogating his politically connected grandmother to discover his whereabouts, he is temporarily removed from duty; his relationship with his recovering alcoholic father (Tom Bower) remains estranged; and he can't find the means to put the cocaine dealing murderer Big Fate (Xzibit) behind bars. Certainly not the most family friendly film, The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans offers a pristinely nocturnal portrait of a successful substance abusing professional scumbag, shot through the discarded lens of an alcoholic looking glass. Deconstructing the traditional hard-working-by-the-book-master-narrative, it brazenly points out that corruption often finds its own rewards, while highlighting the nefarious steps that must occasionally be taken in order for justice to be virtuously upheld.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Was looking forward to taking a dip in Steve Pink's Hot Tub Time Machine but found it's waters far to tepid. It's fun watching three old friends reinvestigating their youth back in time at their favourite ski resort, but I never developed a bond with any of the characters, felt its crude emphasis was often nasty, couldn't get into most of the "reliving their youth with a 21st century twist" bits, and patiently waited for a montage that never came. At the same time, watching John Cusack (Adam) get ridiculously wasted on multiple substances while pining for a lost love was funny, the humour's dry yet over the top like a well mixed self-aware chocolate martini (so self-aware it's aware that being self-aware is becoming cliché unless you conceal your self-awareness), going back to the 80s for a romp including John Elway's famous Drive caught my attention, and it was nice to see Crispin Glover (Phil) heroically stealing scenes. My "make-it-or-break-it" Hot Tub Time Machine factors came down to Chevy Chase and the dynamics of time travel. I often like integral non-sequiturs and the ways in which they complicate things, but I couldn't help being annoyed by the repair man's babble and the fact that he didn't simply lay things out like Back to the Future's Doctor Emmett Brown. The answers were probably there, cleverly encoded with idioms and innuendo, but I found them as confusing as Adam's accidentally-along-for-the-ride-nephew, Jacob (Clark Duke), and potentially will never see their mysteries revealed (something deeper than the forbidden substance found in the Russian red bull). Unless in twenty years I travel back in time and have to see Hot Tub Time Machine again in order to maintain the integrity of the space/time continuum. If that happens, I'll search for the hidden meaning while making sure to hit the gym and eat solidified carbohydrates.

Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands

Alberta's tar sands are definitely a controversial issue. It is claimed that they represent the world's second largest oil reserve and are essential for the maintenance of the United States's oil supply. The profit potential for the companies involved in extracting their bitumen is enormous and they also produce lucrative revenues for Alberta's economy. Tough to sincerely criticize an industry that supplies your citizens with job opportunities and disposable incomes but the pollution generated from the tar sands megaproject is a phenomenon worthy of such criticisms. In Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands, Peter Mettler films the tar sands's impact on the Albertan environment from a helicopter, providing shots of open pit mines, tailings ponds, and industrial complexes, while juxtaposing them with surrounding untouched forests. The images speak for themselves and the environment has been devastated on a massive scale, the landscape resembling a bleak, stark, uninhabitable lunar catastrophe. Information presented: the tar sands operation burns enough natural gas to heat 4 million homes daily; the project could industrialize an area the size of England; per day, routine business releases as much carbon dioxide as every car in Canada; to date, no comprehensive assessment of the project's social, economic, and environmental impact has been undertaken; the Athabasca River, part of the world's third largest watershed, flows through. Mettler's accompanying narration near the film's conclusion suggests that there are alternatives to developments such as these which should be considered considering their environmental impact (solar energy for instance). In order to stop these operations and adopt alternative sources as our principle cultural fuel, it will take a massive social movement with local and international groups uniformly focused on transforming global economies from those that are founded on non-renewable resources to those that are nurtured by sustainable growth.

Crude

An oil company moves into your jungle home, sets up shop for 26 years, leaves, and your environment's polluted to hell. You dig beneath the ground and instead of soil you find toxic sludge. Your iridescent drinking water stinks like petrol and tastes rancid. Cancer rates in your village are through the roof and you can't afford medical treatment. Your culture and associated way of life has been drastically destabilized by industrial runoff and you've been seeking financial retribution from a dismissive multinational for a seemingly endless period of time. Joe Berlinger's well-rounded documentary Crude provides an intricate examination of the infamous Amazon Chernobyl case, wherein 30,000 Indigenous inhabitants of Ecuador have taken Chevron to court. Berlinger presents viewpoints from both sides, the Chevron reps claiming they cleaned up their mess (to the tune of 40 million) and that PetroEcuador (the company who took over production in the 90s) is to blame. The Indigenous plaintiffs recognize PetroEcuador's crimes and have a separate lawsuit on the back burner quietly steeping. But for now it's Chevron on the hook, sued for 27 billion, trying to justify their position by blaming the sharp increase in cancer rates on poor sewage treatment, claiming there are acceptable levels of hydrocarbons in the water, and boasting that their environmental record is spic and span. If you ask me, based upon Berlinger's filmic evidence as well as the testimony of Steve Donziger, Pablo Fajardo, and several local residents, Chevron must think we're drinking volcanic glasses of idiot juice if we're to believe their side of the story. They definitely cleaned up something, and drawing the line where Chevron's guilt ends and PetroEcuador's begins is complicated to say the least. But these people are suffering, they weren't suffering before Chevron (or Texaco) showed up, and they're living and breathing the effects of Chevron's environmental degradation day in and day out, period. Hopefully the international attention surrounding the case will help speed up the legal process so that these people can be justly compensated for the scurrilous and foul way they've been treated.

Surrogates

Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates reminds me of James Cameron's The Terminator insofar as they are both science-fiction films which express a paranoid attitude regarding post-modern technological developments. In The Terminator, we're exposed to a world where machines rule and the natural path has been thoroughly eroded (note that as it has become increasingly obvious that we are necessarily linked to technological advancements, the Terminator series has adjusted and in Terminator Salvation we meet a humanistic machine/human hybrid). In Surrogates, we're exposed to a world where the majority of people have purchased beautiful remotely-controlled androids (surrogates) to live out their lives for them; or, a world where people live out their lives on the internet after creating multiple ideal identities. Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) has a surrogate but longs to have person to person conversations with his wife (Rosamund Pike as Maggie Greer) who criticizes him consequently. Eventually, Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell) (creator of the surrogates) seeks revenge after his son is murdered by a weapon which destroys surrogates but also bypasses their safety mechanisms and kills their operators. He's also rather upset after having been pushed out of VSI, the company he founded to market, develop, and promote the surrogate lifestyle. He finds a way to use the weapon to destroy every surrogate and their operators, and, after the worst antagonist/protagonist encounter I've ever seen, attempts to do so. Fortunately, Tom Greer is there to prevent the weapon from annihilating humanity, but, eager for a conversation with his wife, he still uses it to destroy all the surrogates, taking us back to a simpler time (i.e., before the internet) (the John Carpenter ending). Thus, the distraught individual makes a personal choice that collectively disrupts the foundations of his culture, a culture that had practically eliminated violence, crime, racism, and so on. I find it hard to believe that anyone could be nostalgic for that way of life and had a tough time digesting the ending. The internet presents a lot of opportunities and an abundance of information and I'd rather partake in its virtual reality than any of its preceding fantasies. I suppose Surrogates is saying that things are moving to quickly and we should slow down and reevaluate the ways in which the internet is permeating every social/cultural/political/economic/ . . . sphere, and the ways in which it is changing traditional methods of human interaction. This makes sense: I don't want to go camping with a laptop. But socializing on the internet isn't some grand disruption of the traditional order of things that threatens the ways in which we interact with one another. In fact, it broadens the social domain and provides us with another means through which we can communicate on a progressive social scale, while still continuing to have face to face conversations.

Clash of the Titans

Perseus is back in Louis Leterrier's Clash of the Titans and he must once again come to terms with his demigod status. Cast off at birth by his earthly step-father Acrisius (Jason Flemyng), Perseus (Sam Worthington) is raised by the humble fisherperson Spyros (Pete Postlethwaite) until he is killed by the vengeful Hades (Ralph Fiennes). Humankind has had enough of worshiping capricious gods and seeks to place themselves at the forefront of their culture, much to father Zeus's (Liam Neeson) dismay. King Cepheus (Vincent Regan) and Queen Cassiopeia (Polly Walker) grievously insult the gods for which Hades demands the sacrifice of their daughter Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) as punishment. But before the monstrous Kraken can devour Andromeda, Perseus has the chance to travel to the underworld with a group of soldiers in order to cut off the head of the vile Medusa (Natalia Vodianova) (which can turn the Kraken to stone). Meanwhile, Hades has grown sick of living beneath the earth and seeks to overthrow Zeus and rule Olympus above. Will his devious plan to use humanity as a means to obtain his revolutionary ends succeed?, or will he remain stuck in his subterranean domain for all eternity?

The film's not the greatest but has a quick pace and an adventurous character that makes it entertaining if not progressive. It's also very similar to Desmond Davis's 1981 version which calls into question why they made it in the first place (couldn't they have done something with Cadmus or Orpheus? [I suppose they're making a fortune]). I liked the inclusion of the Djinn, the ways in which Perseus prefers his humanistic to his divine nature, the two hunters who accompany the soldiers on their quest, and the idea that the titular clash is between titanic humanists and gods. But the humanists pay to steep a price for their free-thinking ideas for me to believe that this isn't just another calling card for the 21st century's military industrial complex. It also contains banal generalized terse dialogue, consistently harsh consequences, and one-dimensional character development.

Queen of the Damned

It's surprising how subdued Michael Rymer's Queen of the Damned is, considering that it showcases the reawakening of Anne Rice's famous vampire, Lestat (Stuart Townsend), and his subsequent rise to rock and roll superstardom. To its credit, Queen of the Damned doesn't provide formulaic crests and valleys as it unreels its dark and sombre narrative. Instead, it proceeds by introducing shocking scenes in a sedate manner that melancholically mediates the sensational subject matter. Lestat is awake after sleeping for a hundred years and ready to embrace the twentieth century. As his popularity grows and he continues to openly claim to be a vampire, his fellow creatures of the night grow increasingly irate and seek to ensure that he delivers a final performance. Unfortunately for them, Lestat's music awakens another slumbering vampire, the ancient Queen Akasha (Aaliyah), who admires Lestat's unabashed openness and seeks his assistance in subjugating humanity. Observing the events is Jesse Reeves (Marguerite Moreau) of the paranormal activity monitoring group Talamasca. Her burgeoning humanistic interference is all that stands in the way of either a resumption of the habitual vampiric code, or the unleashing of a monstrous new world order.

I'm not sure if Rymer meant for the film to be so laid back or if he simply failed to dramatically execute the traditional climactic build up (either choice explains why his film was panned), but Queen of the Damned's absent cataclysmic content supports its subterranean form. You would think Queen Akasha would have had a more prominent role but Marius (Vincent Perez) almost receives as much screen time (if not more). I liked how the film's primary focus was relegated to a secondary role for it formally highlights the ways in which supporting players often have a more prominent effect than their political object of desire. But all of these reversals and sedatives aren't surrounded by an inspiring entourage of symbolic pillars (although the musical accompaniment worked well [original music by Jonathan Davis and Richard Gibbs]), which, unfortunately, causes the film to fall flat.

Zombieland

Keep to the path and follow the rules, unless, of course, you're in search of a twinkie. Ruben Fleischer's Zombieland hilariously and absurdly chronicles the death-defying feats of four post-zombie take over survivors in the United States of America. When a hopeless situation arises there's always a serendipitous solution. If your neighbour suddenly turns into a flesh craving representative of the undead, remember the double tap. While fleeing the legions of zombies seeking to devour your post-pestilanic consciousness, make sure to pursue a little romance. And if in doubt, thoroughly express your rage but don't forget to fasten your seatbelt.

Legions of the undead is perhaps to strong a phrase insofar as Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) and Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) find themselves ditched and weaponless in a town whose resident zombies are curiously abstaining from their cannibalistic pursuits; but this is an absurd campy comedy whose internal chemistry supports such logical inconsistencies. Give 'em the finger, when a weapon's been used once, discard it; beware of clever fast-talking survivalists (Emma Stone as Wichita and Abigail Breslin as Little Rock); and it's never to late to check out Pacific Playland. If you're going to function as an individual, things are bound to be tough; and uniting your interests in order to obtain common objectives requires a cultivated degree of expedient trust (your chances of succeeding being ridiculously sublime) (in the beginning you have plenty of opportunity to proceed unnoticed). The showdown will eventually come and your success is dependent upon the reception of your cultural/musical/political/commercial/ . . . aesthetic. Just follow the lead of these four reluctant heroes and you're bound to receive critical acclaim.

She's Out of My League

Can't say I understand much about the dating world besides the fact that people often go out on dates and get to fool around afterwards. Yup, that's about all I know, but my lack of knowledge regarding this subject helped me to understand Jay Baruchel's hapless Kirk in the new romantic comedy She's Out of My League, and I was glad to see that he had a couple of moves to show off. Kirk's life is stuck in a predictable routine wherein he goes to work, hangs out with his friends, is derided by his sibling, condescended to by his family, and bored with his job as a Transportation Security Administrator at the Pittsburgh International Airport. Not much has changed over the last ten years and he can't get over the one girl he ever dated, Marnie (Lindsay Sloane), who has managed to maintain a social relationship with his parents. Then, out of the blue, like a wild, blond, voluptuous, productive, maelstrom, Molly (Alice Eve) enters his life, fully equipped with a well paying job and a vivacious personality. She's into Kirk but Kirk can't figure out why and the two engage in a complicated dialogue concerning the compatibility of their divergent lifestyles.

If you like raunchy masculine jock humour tempered by contemplative productive principles you'll probably enjoy She's Out of My League. Jim Field Smith layers his film with a thorough contingent of adolescent humour, considerate compromises, and elated evaluations. The subject matter (should a well endowed successful female date a gaunt mundane male) receives serious reflection and writers Sean Anders and John Morris don't simply pepper their dialogue with one-dimensional catch phrases (Kirk's friends each represent a character type however: Stainer the jock extreme, Jack, the thoughtful mechanic, Kirk, the comic unconfident shy individual, Devon, the sensitive helpful married man [T. J. Miller, Mike Vogel, and Nate Torrence]). A couple of scenes could have been left out to shorten it up a bit, and the feminine point of view receives a lot less screen time, but its final message is something I have to applaud for it firmly suggests that hope still exists.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice (Mia Wasikowska) is back in Alice in Wonderland, another trip down the rabbit hole into the blue collar realm of the working class. Having run away from her aristocratic engagement party, Alice is ready to hide out among the people before choosing whether or not to marry the ungodly Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill). But unbeknownst to her, her underground world has been ravaged by the wicked Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) and her nouveau-riche Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee). The Mad-Hatter (Johnny Depp), Blue Caterpillar (Alan Rickman), and Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry) are still doing their best to go about their daily business, but Underland's playful, picturesque, phantasmagorical playground has been seriously destabilized (the majestic White Queen [Anne Hathaway] powerless and distraught). Will Alice passively accept these changes and quietly look on as her friends and acquaintances are scurrilously downtrodden? Not on her watch. After the blue collar workers remind her who she is, it's payback time, and the Red Queen had better be ready for a full on aristocratic onslaught of revolutionary fury. Dramatics aside, the film's made for kids and Linda Woolverton's script is tame and family friendly. A lot of scenes are cut short and could have used a bit more dialogue to strengthen their characterizations (when the Mad-Hatter first encounters Stayne, the Knave of Hearts [Crispin Glover], for instance). The relatively sane Mad-Hatter's character is built-up at the expense of the surrounding cast and it would have been nice to see some of the supporting characters receive more screen time. And Alice's unfortunate return to her nascent social realm is far to cutesy and perfect. Predictable and saccharine yet jocular and entertaining, Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland packs a solid kitsch punch with an extra couple of jujubes. And one more thing, Mia Wasikowska's performance is outstanding and whomever decided to keep her off the promotional poster made a serious mistake (like the film made more money because Johnny Depp's highlighted on the poster).

New Moon

I've seen better films than Chris Weitz's New Moon. In fact, I've seen much much better films that Chris Weitz's New Moon. I enjoyed Twilight because I wasn't familiar with the story or any of the characters, generally like vampire films, and was entertained by its down home country charm. But in Twilight's sequel these characters are supposed to dynamically grow and change and develop and evolve, which, I'm afraid, they don't, in fact, most of the film just follows around heartbroken Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) as she pines for lost love Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) while taking unfair advantage of the feelings of Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) whose too ingenuous to know any better. And when it comes to choosing between them does she pick bucolic Jacob, with his intricate knowledge of blue collar affairs and humble well-meaning disposition? No, no she does not, she chooses aristocratic Edward so that she can fly high with the elite and enjoy a fast-paced urbanized existence even though Jacob is better for her which can't help but tear ya up inside. Perhaps she should go for both of them and give birth to Aristotle's golden mean, a werewolf-vampire; not sure if that's what Aristotle was after but who knows! Apart from that, unless you want to watch a teenaged girl lament her failed relationship while engaging in reckless acts and crying for 90 minutes, I suggest you steer clear of New Moon and wait for Eclipse to be released this June.

It's bound to be better.