Archive for the ‘Marina’s Reviews’ Category

  • 06 Jun

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    Review: The Internship

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    The Internship

    Director: Shawn Levy (Real Steel, Date Night, Night at the Museum, The Pink Panther)
    Screenplay: Vince Vaughn, Jared Stern
    Producers: Shawn Levy, Vince Vaughn
    Starring: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Rose Byrne, Aasif Mandvi, Max Minghella, Josh Brener, Dylan O’Brien, Tiya Sircar, Tobit Raphael
    MPAA Rating: PG-13
    Running time: 119 min.

    It was only a matter of time before Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson ended up together again. The duo haven’t exactly been churning out the comedy hits over the last few years and though Wilson’s career has been far more sustainable than Vaughn’s, there’s been a lot of hit and miss from both actors and nothing either has done has brought them as much success as Wedding Crashers. It looks like that benchmark will remain unmatched for at least a while longer.

    Vaughn and Jared Stern (of Mr. Popper’s Penguins and The Watch fame) team up to write The Internship, a fish out of water story about a pair of out of work friends who try to get a job at Google. It’s a great concept, not only are Billy and Nick (Vaughn and Wilson respectively) older than any other applicant (not to mention nearly every other Google employee), they’re also completely out of touch with technology guiding the way for potential hilarity. The friends are thrown together with a ragtag group of outcasts and after failing miserably to provide any sort of support to their team, they earn the group’s trust the only way they know how: by selling them dreams.

    There are no new ideas in The Internship, from the central conceit that two clueless guys rally their team to possible victory, to the worn side plots which include various characters coming into their own, a romance and a rivalry with a group led by a pretentious asshole. Even the jokes are mostly old hat but somewhere along the line both Vaughn and Wilson mange to do something unexpected: they become real people rather than just caricatures and though they both occasionally relapse into man-child syndrome, they’re relatable as two guys who are completely out of their element but for whom this is the last real shot at success. It’s either this or selling scooters to the retired and moving in with your parents to stay afloat.

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  • 29 May

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    Review: Fast & Furious 6

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    Fast & Furious 6 Still

    Director: Justin Lin (Fast 5, Fast & Furious, Tokyo Drift, Annapolis)
    Screenplay: Chris Morgan
    Producers: Vin Diesel, Neal H. Moritz, Clayton Townsend
    Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Sung Kang, Gal Gadot, Luke Evans, Gina Carano
    MPAA Rating: PG-13
    Running time: 130 min.

    I feel like I’ve been championing the awesomeness of the Fast & Furious franchise from the first entry in 2001 and in a moment of retrospect, I went back and looked at some reviews from earlier in the franchise only to discover, to my surprise considering how much I enjoy it now, I disliked Fast and Furious (review), the movie that re-united “the team” with director Justin Lin who first came on board for Tokyo Drift. I still stand by my complaints, though I’ve come to see the story heavy movie a trial run for the rest of the movies to come and by the time we got to Fast 5 (review), writer Chris Morgan and Lin had found a great balance between cheesy emotional moments and over the top, exhilarating car action. With Fast & Furious 6, the formula is down to a science and boy does it ever work.

    As was hinted in the stinger of Fast 5 Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), Dom’s presumed dead lover, is alive and well and in cahoots with an evil version of Dom’s crew, led by Owen Shaw, who are one component away from putting together a weapon worth billions to the right buyer. In need of expert help, Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson), the hard ass cop from the last instalment, enlists the help of Dom and his crew to take down Shaw, get Letty back and in the process also get themselves clear of the law so they can return stateside.

    It’s actually a pretty great story idea and one that the crew has slowly been working towards since the first movie. They’re criminals but they’re likable criminals with their own “code” and a, somewhat twisted, sense of right and wrong but when it comes to family, there’s no stopping them and they sign on to this crazy plan for Dom who is determined to get Letty back at any cost. ANY cost.

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  • 13 May

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    DVD Review: Of Two Minds

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    Of Two Minds Still

    Director: Douglas Blush, Lisa J. Klein (What A Ball, Cult Culture: The Poseidon Adventure)
    Producers: Kristin Chambers, Lisa Klein
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 89 min.

    Illness is never easy to deal with but mental illness is particularly difficult. Here’s an illness that has no easy fix. It doesn’t manifest as a rash you can treat and there’s no little pill that will make a sufferer feel better but often it can manifest in very physical ways. Douglas Blush and Lisa J. Klein’s Of Two Minds sets off to explore the tricky rollercoaster world of bipolar disorder.

    Focusing on a handful of individuals, Klein and Bush delve into the manic highs and suicidal lows of the disorder one that, for many of the individuals interviewed, was not diagnosed until later in their adult lives. Cheri Keating explains how she was diagnosed at a free clinic in LA and her experience living her youth as a sufferer and not knowing what she was suffering from. Journalist Liz Spikol and architect and artist Michael Peterson share similar stories of rollercoaster emotional highs and lows that often brought them to the brink of death.

    Of Two Minds follows these individuals as they share their stories. They recount their lowest moments and also the highs, the manic energy that makes you feel invincible and alive and capable of doing anything and how those moments of high energy can also be the most dangerous. While in this state the mind loses reservations and people will do things that they generally wouldn’t, causing them to end up in compromising situations that they sometimes don’t remember or would rather not remember when they finally come down. It’s interesting and heartbreaking that the sufferers, all of whom hail from different walks of life, share such similar experiences.

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  • 13 May

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    DVD Review: 7 Days In Havana

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    7 Days In Havana Still

    Directors: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Médem, Elia Suleiman, Gaspar Noé, Juan Carlos Tabío, Laurent Cantet
    Screenplay: Leonardo Padura
    Producers: Laurent Baudens, Didar Domehri, Álvaro Longoria, Gaël Nouaille, Fabien Pisani
    Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Daniel Brühl, Emir Kusturica, Elia Suleiman, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, Jorge Perugorria
    MPAA Rating: PG-13
    Running time: 129 min.

    The anthology love letter to a city lives on this time in Havana.

    7 Days in Havana follows in the footsteps of the much loved Paris, J’Taime and its predecessors, bringing together seven filmmakers to tell seven individual stories all of which take place in Havana. What’s particularly interesting about these anthologies is the diverse group of filmmakers that are involved and 7 Days is no exception gathering together French luminaries Laurent Cantet and Gaspar Noé with Israeli actor/director Elia Suleiman, Cuban master Juan Carlos Tabío and Benicio Del Toro making his debut behind the camera.

    As is typical with shorts compilations, the results are varied. Del Toro’s Monday adventure has a young American actor (Josh Hutcherson) in town for a few days at the local acting school. Wanting a more authentic experience, he convinces his driver to take him around after hours to the driver’s favourite hangouts which results in an interesting finish to the actor’s day. Del Toro’s mix of tourist Havana and day-to-day life Havana is one that comes up often throughout 7 Days and always through the eyes of an outsider. Though Del Toro’s is quite good, the best of the bunch is Suleiman’s in which the director stars as a wonderer/observer of the city. Though it’s almost completely dialog free, Suleiman’s short is also one of the more interesting ones, featuring long steady shots and out of sequence editing which gorgeously captures the various moods of the city.

    Unsurprisingly, Noé’s wordless tale of forbidden romance is both the darkest and most adventurous of the entries. It also happens to be only one of two stories which focus on religious practice. Noé’s exorcism of demons is beautiful and haunting but it’s also dripping in sexuality. It’s dark and beautiful and lush and sweaty and exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from Noé.

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  • 29 Apr

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    DVD Review: Silver Linings Playbook

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    Silver Linings Playbook Still

    Director: David O. Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, The Fighter)
    Screenplay: David O. Russell, Matthew Quick (book)
    Producers: Bruce Cohen, Donna Gigliotti, Jonathan Gordon,
    Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, Lisa Henni
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 122 min.

    I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment I saw Three Kings. It didn’t sound like much, another war movie this one with a comedic angle, but David O. Russell delivered an interesting and uncompromising look at the “business” of war with all its ugliness and occasional hilarity. I haven’t cared much for Russell’s movie’s since then but I’ve kept watching, hoping for another little gem. I never imagined a romantic comedy would be the movie to deliver it.

    Silver Linings Playbook emerged as a bit of a surprise. Sure, it had calibre (director, well loved book, fantastic cast) but it feels like the swell was slow building. World of mouth screenings followed by praise for nearly everyone involved and then an Oscar win. I saw it pre-awards and it was busy but the busy screening was nothing compared to the sold out Monday night outing after Jennifer Lawrence’s award win. Apparently the Oscars do count for something – in some instances at least.

    The premise is pretty standard stuff. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall for each other. Boy and girl pretend they don’t like each other but end up working together towards something bigger than both of them before finally coming together in a happily ever after. In this case a medicated happily ever after since both Pat and Tiffany are suffering from their own personal demons. But as sweet as this romance is and regardless of what anyone tells you this is indeed very sweet, it’s the kind of quirky sweetness that works. Mostly it works because of the performances – both Lawrence and Bradley Cooper (who’s been having a fantastic couple of years) are fantastic – but also because it’s the story of two damaged people who find love in an unlikely place and both of whom take some pretty big risks to eventually end up together.

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  • 03 Apr

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    DVD Review: Easy Money

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    Easy Money Still

    Also be sure to check out Kurt’s review from TIFF!

    Director: Daniel Espinosa (Safe House)
    Screenplay: Daniel Espinosa, Jens Lapidus (book)
    Producer: Fredrik Wikström
    Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, Lisa Henni
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 124 min.

    It’s ridiculous to me that it’s taken three years for it to finally arrive but here we are, in 2013, long after we first posted the trailers for Daniel Espinosa’s Easy Money and we finally have a DVD release. Crying won’t help matters any, neither does the thought that the third movie in the franchise is nearly ready for release while most of the world is only now being introduced to the goodness that is Espinosa’s adaptation of Jens Lapidus’ novels but as they say, better late than never.

    Though it’s not new, few things are anymore, I love the concept behind Easy Money, a crime thriller that is more focused on the people involved with the crimes than in the crimes themselves, exactly what separates crime dramas from great crime dramas.

    Joel Kinnaman, in a star making role that brought him to the attention of international producers, stars as JW, a young, handsome smart guy looking to elevate himself far beyond his economic means. He comes from a middle class family but you’d never tell by looking at him. He’s sharply dressed, he has expensive tastes and friends with money to burn and it’s his inability to keep up financially that sets him on the wrong path. He finances his parties and sharp looking closet by writing papers for others and driving a cab for some shady characters. He’s been pitching a money making scheme to his boss, who seems completely uninterested and who instead offers JW an opportunity to make some quick cash by simply following a guy. Of course, when you’re mixed up with a mob, just following a guy could get you into serious trouble.

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  • 11 Mar

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    DVD Review: Foreverland

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    Director: Max McGuire (Crossing the Wake)
    Screenplay: Max McGuire, Shawn Riopelle
    Producer: Trish Dolman, Aaron L. Gilbert, Christine Haebler
    Starring: Max Thieriot, Laurence Leboeuf, Sarah Wayne Callies, Juliette Lewis, Thomas Dekker, Matt Frewer
    MPAA Rating: PG
    Running time: 93 min.

    Will Rankin is young, handsome and dying. He suffers from cystic fibrosis, a debilitating genetic disease that makes it difficult for him to breathe nevermind have any sort of active life. He spends his days taking the pills and doing the executrices necessary to keep his lungs working with the occasional stop in at the hospital to talk to interns. In his spare time Will visits the local mortuary to shop for the perfect casket. He’s been there so much he’s made friends with the salesman Mr. Steadman.

    Then Bobby dies.

    A friend from days spent at the hospital, Bobby leaves behind a final request for Will: drive his ashes to a little church in Mexico and there, with the help of a priest, spread them over the land. At first sceptical, Will eventually finds himself giving into the road trip and along with Bobby’s sister Fran, the two take on the long road from Vancouver to Mexico.

    Max McGuire’s Foreverland is the kind of story of hope and redemption that plays so well on Sunday afternoons. It’s a sweet story about a young man who has been living his life in preparation for death only to discover that there’s more to living that dying. There’s nothing particularly ground breaking or earth shattering about the story and McGuire’s direction isn’t exactly memorable but the movie succeeds solely on the performances of the two leads.

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  • 07 Mar

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    DVD Review: The Yellow Brick Road and Beyond

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    The Yellow Brick Road and Beyond

    Director: Troy Szebin
    Screenplay: Troy Szebin
    Producer: Jeanette Pugliese
    Starring: Margaret Pellegrini, Rob Marshall, Donald Saddler, John Badham
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 50 min.

    It will probably come as no surprise that the magic of Oz hasn’t always equalled greatness and if the trailer for Sam Raimi’s prequel Oz The Great and Powerful wasn’t enough of an indication that the movie was going to be a disaster of $300 million dollar proportions, perhaps this scathing review from Film Freak Central will guide you in the right direction. But let’s assume for a moment that in your infinite wisdom you’ve prepared for Raimi’s spectacle by watching The Wizard of Oz and now you want more. You could do far worse than catching up with The Yellow Brick Road and Beyond.

    First released in 2008 and now making a re-appearance, this short documentary, it clocks in at just 50 minutes, provides a great backgrounder to the history of Oz, beginning with an introduction of author Frank L. Baum and ending with The Wiz. With the help of Oz historian Carlos Larkin and interviews with everyone from cast members to Saturday Night Fever director John Badham (if you don’t already know his connection to the world of Oz you’ll have to watch to find out what he’s doing here), director Troy Szebin has created a great documentary for the uninitiated.

    There are tales of Baum’s early attempts to transfer the successful series to other mediums including radio plays, unsuccessful ventures that led to his filing for bankruptcy, and his later creation of the Oz Film Manufacturing Co. which was responsible for a few early adaptations of Baum’s books.

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  • 04 Mar

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    DVD Review: Collaborator

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    Collaborator Still

    Director: Martin Donovan
    Screenplay: Martin Donovan
    Producer: Luca Matrundola
    Starring: Martin Donovan, David Morse, Olivia Williams
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 87 min.

    One room dramas are tricky things. If the story isn’t compelling the movie is boring and if one of the performances isn’t up to snuff, the entire thing goes to the dogs. In the case of Martin Donovan’s debut behind the camera, it’s not the acting that’s the problem but the story.

    Donovan plays triple duty on Collaborator, also starring as Robert Longfellow a once celebrated playwright whose career has stalled. His last few plays have been poorly received and his most recent was massacred by critics before closing after only a two week run. Needing to recharge he returns home to visit his mother and there he sees Gus, an old high school acquaintance whose life doesn’t seem to be in any better shape than Longfellow’s though Gus never did get famous. When Longfellow finds himself cornered into a reunion with a man who appears to be the exact opposite of himself things get… interesting.

    The reunion begins well enough with the two sharing memories of their youth and catching up on the years they’ve been apart. Longfellow has found great success and acclaim in his career but Gus is an ex-con whose life never really took off. The two are completely at odds with each other but over a few drinks they find a common interest: Longfellow’s life. The good times end almost as quickly as they start when Gus pulls a gun and shortly after, the police arrive on their door. What started off as an awkward reunion very quickly turns into an equally bizarre hostage taking. It’s never clear what Gus wants from Longfellow though from the flow of the conversation it seems he just wants to know what it’s like to be successful and appreciated and perhaps to share in a little of the playwrights spotlight.

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  • 25 Feb

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    Review: Detropia

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    Director: Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady (Freakanomics, Jesus Camp, The Boys of Baraka)
    Producers: Craig Atkinson, Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 90 min.

    Detroit is dying.

    It has been a slow death, one that started decades ago but has become progressively worse and over the last few years, the city has experienced a mass exodus; first the jobs and then the people who no longer had those jobs, all of which has left Detroit on life support. The once thriving metropolis, Car Capital of the world, a city which had grown to accommodate the growing middle class employed by the auto industry, is partly deserted. The big business in the city now: demolition. The city is tearing down entire blocks of houses which have been abandoned, the owners unable to pay taxes and the banks unable to sell, and so they sit empty, fodder for vagrants and kids looking for a few cheap thrills by setting a house on fire. No one to move to Detroit any more. Everyone wants out.

    This is how Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady’s documentary Detropia begins, with a snapshot of a city on the verge of collapse. Detroit is broke, unable to provide essential services, like transportation and street lights, to some neighbourhoods. City official propose a mass relocation, create new urban centers that can be maintained but the residents aren’t happy. This sounds a lot like Germany in WWII, before things got really ugly and the walls and barbed wire went up. It’s easy to see their side, the people who have spent their entire lives here, making a life for themselves, but it’s also easy to see where the City is coming from. If there is to be a Detroit left on the map, the city needs a lifeline and they’re willing to take risks after all, what’s left to lose when things already look so bleak?

    Industry is slowly returning but not quickly enough and those who manage to work often do so with the hopes of finding their way out of the dying city. It’s a sad state of affairs, one that shines a microcosm on the harsh realities of the global economy. It may have started in Detroit but the problem is spreading like cancer. It’s slow but it threatens to invade and wreak havoc from within. The cure? There’s no easy way to fix it but I’m sure there’s a solution.

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  • 14 Feb

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    Review: A Good Day to Die Hard

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    Director: John Moore (Behind Enemy Lines, Flight of the Phoenix, The Omen, Max Payne)
    Screenplay: Skip Woods
    Producer: Alex Young
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 97 min.

    The Die Hard franchise jumped the shark with the last instalment; a villain who wasn’t particularly villainous, a neutered John McClane precariously making his way along the wing of a jet… yeah, fair to say that the old school action hero was gone and replaced by a superhuman detective. So where do you go from here? McClane suddently becomes Superman and saves the universe from an impending alien invasion (oh god. I hope I haven’t given the studio any dumb ideas)? Nope. You go back. You do it old school.

    It was amusing standing around post-screening and listening to the relatively young crowd talk about how stupid the movie was. “How could a franchise have gone so wrong?” “I want 1988 Die Hard!” I’m sorry – did you see Live Free or Die Hard? Not that was a franchise gone wrong and if you’re looking for old Die Hard here’s a hint: it’s avialable on blu-ray.

    For once, the studio seems to have gotten something right and though it’s not realistic, it’s exactly what I’d hoped to get from A Good Day to Die Hard: a good old fashioned, explosion ridden action fest that is constantly, both figuratively and literally, screaming “fuck you” at the bad guys.

    Old guy McClane is worried about the son he hasn’t seen in a few years. He employs the help of his police buddies who track down Jack in a Russian jail where he’s being held for some nasty mob business. What JOhn doesn’t know is that his troubled son has cleaned up his act and is now playing 007. Jack’s been on the ground in Russia for three years with little trouble but, of course, the moment his father arrives on the scene all hell breaks loose and the next think you know Jack, John and a Russian dude named Komarov are on the run from a military force tied to a Russian politician who wants them all eliminated.

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  • 01 Feb

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    Review: Sound City

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    Director: David Grohl
    Screenplay: Mark Monroe
    Producers: David Grohl, John Ramsay, James A. Rota
    MPAA Rating: PG
    Running time: 108 min.

    Neil Young, Charles Manson, Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Nirvana, Metallica, Rick Springfield, Ratt, Foreigner, Johnny Cash, Rage Against the Machine, Barry Manilow, Nine Inch Nails. The list is long and star studded but all of these artists, as diverse as they are, all share something in common: Sound City Studios.

    The old Vox showroom and recording studio was purchased in 1969 by Tom Skeeter and his business partner Joe Gottfried. The pair had rock and roll dreams of finding and culturing great new acts. Unfortunately their only success story was Rick Springfield but the studio owners found success with the studio itself; the combination of specially ordered Neve mixing board and the acoustics of Studio A made for a musical sweet spot. There’s a bit of magic at Sound City and you need look no further than the platinum records that once lined the walls of the studio before it closed its doors in 2011. Even better, take a listen to some of those albums if you’re in need of supporting documentation.

    Foo Fighters front man Dave Grohl, whose career essentially started at Sound City with the recording of “Nevermind,” took it upon himself to document the legendary studio, interviewing Skeeter, former employees, music producers and a ridiculous roster of performers all of whom spent some time at the studio. Sound City is the result of Grohl’s efforts and it is exactly what it sounds like: a power ballad to a bygone thing, in this case a music studio which held on for as long as it could. Cause of death: technology, more specifically computers and ProTools.

    Partway through, Sound City develops beyond love song to an exploration of the shift from analog to digital and like Side by Side, last year’s documentary about the shift from film to digital filmmaking, it captures some interesting ideas about what the changing technology means for the industry at large and not surprisingly, there are some similarities between film and music. The most prominent is the idea that now anyone, with the readily available technology and a bit of know how, can create (be it movies, music, whatever) but the question is: should they all be creating? It’s an interesting conundrum, one that can be well argued from both sides but what it ultimately leads to is the fact that the very act of creation is changing and, at least as Grohl and many of his musical counterparts feel, not for the better.

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