Movie Review...Unstoppable

Two crisis situations are ready to crash and burn in Pennsylvania.  Denzel has the right stuff, and his character shows through.  He's a role model.  On the door step of failure is his understudy, and at risk are hundreds of hapless citizens.

It's triple 7 and the 1206.  If you're a railroader, you'll identify with the jargon.  If you're not, you'll still identify with the human interest sidebars.  If you like Denzel (I do), you'll be entertained by your hero in a part designed for his take charge no bull style.  He's cool.

This film is a frenzy of excitement, and it's not going to disappoint you. 7.0

Movie Review...Beyond a Reasonable Doubt

I’m renaming this film “Six Ahas and Seven Gotchas”.

This film is the drama school lesson on the “aha” moment. It might be possible to become famous by taking down a hot shot district attorney. Let’s take a little old plain Jane murder and set up an air tight piece of tom foolery. We’ll rub egg all over Mr. DA’s face.

Is there another layer of aha evidence? Did the first aha get immolated in a gasoline fueled fireball? Yes, but don’t give Mr. DA another chance. He’s good.

Wait…Aha! Let’s look at the photo evidence. Oh, those photo nerds. Aha. Gotcha. Aha. Another aha?

I tend to shy away from those movies that seem to be sterile and made perfectly in a studio. I don’t like studio sound set audio. Don’t use that cheese factory music. And for goodness sake, let’s work on the last line. As I think about motives for making this film, I’d say an arrogant producer hired a cheap director and then told him what to do. Like a two dollar paperback. No brainer. This movie is a 3/10.

Movie Review...Red

Take Bruce Willis and an old Jason Bourne script. Have Bruce go recruit some killer buds from the old days at CIA. Choose a bad bad politician whose bad past tempts him to use the FBI, Secret Service, and the new CIA to kill off Willis and his crew so they won't get in the way of a presidential run.

Well, that was a dumb idea. Nobody can kill off Bruce Willis.

Here are the actors who made this action-explosion film worth 6 bucks for a matinee senior ticket: Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Willis, Karl Urban, and the innocent gal Mary-Louise Parker. This movie wouldn't have deserved the 7.0 I'm giving it without those top notch actors.

Richard Dreyfuss and Morgan Freeman played characters who I believe to be dead ringers for people they really are in real life. No points for those guys. Why is John Malkovich always crazy? Why do I pay money to go see Bourne Supremacy re-done in a glittery wrap? It's a good thing bodyguards Kevin Costner and Clint Eastwood weren't in this film, because they'd have eaten lead.

Movie Review...Inception

Inception is a film fashioned like a purple onion. The author of this hard-to-digest multi-layer fruit substitute packed dream stories one on top of another. Leonardo DiCaprio hopped from layer to layer to plant ideas and harvest ingeniously improvised results from unwitting vics. Leo was assisted by other interested parties who designed situations, jumped into scenes, and shot up numerous props. There were other interesting characters, including some who only existed in memories.

I liked the idea that dreams can have levels, and that they can be accessed through a process. Injecting yourself into someone's dream is difficult to understand, but the concept is intriguing. Characters were chosen well, and effects were realistic. for the philosophy lessons and the unique twists, I'll award an 8. For the unlikely science process for peeling the onion, I'm stretching for a 5 rating. Overall, 6.5. I'd say "go see it", and enjoy the gun battles. Don't hurt yourself trying to understand the levels. It'll develop over a period of time. Sleep well tonight.

Movie Review... 2012 Second time around.

Geology. Neutrinos. Panic. The world as we know it is about to come to an end. But, there's an ingenious way out. Just call John Cusack, and let science go to work. Keep your eye on some key people with key stories. Now, how about believability?

This is my second shot at watching this thrilling fantasy. Now that I have had some time to let it ferment, I’d have to say the chaos was unnerving. The twin engine airplane di-dos were jaw dropping because they were impossibly unbelievable.

I never felt entertained by Woody Harrelson, and now I know why…he comes on too strong and tries to fake you with his “too much” style. That’s a phony way to play. Come on, Wood. On the other hand, John Cusack is patented platinum. He’s the runaway jurist. He’s the FBI guy in Con Air. He’s the granite rock that stabilizes Midnight in the Garden. He probes. He sticks with the program. He’s got Evanston, Illinois written all over him.

In 2012, you discover that a graphic animation studio can destroy the world and…well, gotta see it to catch the idea. Tonight, 2012 is 7 for fictional creativity and 5 for over-the-line exaggeration. Overall, it’s a keep you awake studio experiment. Go see this film and try to be like Cusack.

Movie Review... The Sum of All Fears

I may have been hasty in judging this movie a few years ago. If I thought it was less than a 9.5 then, I was wrong. If I said Ben Affleck was a lightweight, I was looking only at his shallow films. If I thought this was just another Morgan Freeman cool cameo, I wasn't watching closely enough.

Now, I think the genius is Tom Clancy. He wrote it, he produced it. He probably did the casting and wrote the music. I'm really impressed with the way everything seemed to click. These guys, those guys, this concept, the back stories, the vulnerabilities, they fit strategically like jigsaw corners.

The Sum of All Fears is a tale for believers. It's for realists who understand that there are rebels and rogues, opportunities and dead ends, and that there are heroes. Imagine a real faction bent on terror and vengeance. Imagine imperfect men. Be the one man who could stop the impending holocaust. Imagine you are there. How would you choose an ending?

I read the book, and now, I've seen the film three times. Good work, Clancy. 9.5. Go for the action, intrigue, and for the...ending.

Movie Review... the Mexican

Open the movie with a great song. Mariachis. Sublime. Opening scene is cool...a traffic light. Green. Jerry, this is your last job.

Scene 2. Forgive me for insulting the acting talent in scene 2. Julia and Brad...let's do this one over. Then, go ahead and hustle down to San Something south of the border. You're gettin' an El Camino. Green light.

The Mexican. In hopes that the nobleman's son would take his daughter for his bride. Flawless craftsmanship. How many things could go wrong? It's Meh-hee-ko.

The motif was darker, my son. The gunsmith's assistant learned the daughter was for the nobleman's son. Hence, the gun's unworkmanlike personality.

Plan B is now in effect. Whatever you've been through, multiply it by a thousand. When is it over? When is enough enough? It's a good one. Why is there so much dust in Mexico? Is it lack of water? My goodness...they ought to irrigate or something.

The night before the nobleman arrived, the assistant could not sleep. The son took the mighty weapon into his hands. The curse had rendered it useless. The assistant smiled. Standoff. The fate. The inordinate fate.

For the embedded humor, for the honor, I award an 8. For the sub-culture dirt and dust, I charitably send a 5.

Movie Review... Crazy Heart

Jeff Bridges is Bad Blake. He was Dude Lebowsky before that, and he carried lots of his same character flaws into Crazy Heart. Jeff is able to crawl into characters and make them sweaty and pathetic from the inside. He's kind of a Hank Jr. in an old pickup truck. Here's a guy who sang these "ain't got no woman" bar room songs in his own voice. He deserved the Oscar he won... and, he got my vote.

There are other shining stars in Crazy Heart. You'll have to go see them for yourself. Bridges is the huge attraction.

Crazy Heart's story is an old one, but there's a message that deserves to be told again and again until all the drunken washed up entertainers get cleaned up. For Bad Blake, there's a seminal moment. Go see it.

I hate hopelessness, and it's a good feeling when hope pops up out of a chaotic puked out gig in Nowhere, New Mexico. There are times when you have to make your own way. Talent helps, but support and motivation from your angels makes the difference. 7.0 for Crazy Heart. 10.0 for Bridges.

Movie Review... The Rock

For a guy cooped up in prison 30 years, John (Sean Connery) Mason is surprisingly fit and current. How'd he accomplish that? The bad guys are bad in a really twisted way... protesting a bad mannered and thoughtless government by threatening to gas a million San Franciscans. But, in the end, FBI gas expert Nicholas Cage takes the campaign seriously, and Connery saves the day about five times.

This is a film with a high bullet budget that whacks about two dozen innocent guys for no sensible reason at all. You see the guts of Alcatraz through the eyes of a real dreamer... where there are fifty miles of underground water sloshing tunnels. Looks like the hardened criminals could have slipped down there for a swim any old time.

This film makes for an exciting fiction. In the end, it's a pretty good showcase for Connery, Cage, and Ed Harris. 6.0 for action, 3.0 for believability.

Movie Review... The Box

As a film, The Box is empty. It's devoid of normal human values, and the actors couldn't save it from collapsing in a chaotic podge of freshman directorship. Were those quirky aberrations included for allegoric texture? Couldn't tell. Was this a story snipped and pasted from 5 other box office whack jobs? If so, the best snips are still on the cutting room floor.

Was Cameron Diaz just for box office draw? I'm pretty sure of that.

Think of what this movie could have been. With a story that made sense, it could have been called "The Aha Box with Random Pangs of Psychopathic Film Making". If there had been story continuity, the movie could have passed as "Frankenstein Hosts Let's Make a Deal On A Steek".

But, there is no continuity, and there is abundant lack of sense. Also, this whacker comes with a no money back guarantee. I hesitate to rate this movie, but if pushed to do so, I'd award a 1 on the customary ten scale. Save your money.

Movie Review...Edge of Darkness

Mel is the go-to guy when it comes to angry men with weapons. Don't mess with him or his family. Didn't you learn that in Ransom? "Edge of Darkness" is a film with green flavor and red blood. There's a complicated web of nuclear weapons, environmental activists, complicity, and secrecy. There's murder and cover up.

And, there's action. So much action that the drama is sometimes upstaged. A little too much is left to assumption, and there's a big dose of CSI poverty. Crime scenes just fold up and get tucked away. There are some nice family moments, and they're worth a tear or two.

Edge of Darkness is a "done that" story wrapped up in patented Mel Gibson, and I liked it. I guess it's the fact that Mel tries so hard and works so diligently. Mel is tops. The movie is a 6.5.

Movie Review... Cannery Row

Nick and Debra, you're great actors. John Steinbeck, you're a great author. If the director and sound man did a remake, there could be a 100% improvement in this very good film. Modern techniques and effects could have been used in today's fim making process. Nevertheless, I'm giving a solid 7 for this movie with at least three levels of meaning. Every man should be like Doc (Nolte).

Cannery Row centers on Doc, a self-employed marine biologist who lives by the ocean and interacts with the neighborhood citizens, trying to conceal a troubled past. He is well liked by the locals in this colorful but poor area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannery_Row_(film)

Movie Review... Absence of Malice

Doc and I were pretty happy with the little surprise in Absence of Malice. Paul Newman and Sally Field dominated the action in this satisfying account of arrogance retributed. Oh, yeah, Newman and Field are pretty and resolute, but the cool hero of this kind of gotcha film is Wilford Brimley. We want to see more characters like the one Brimley portrayed, and we want you to see them, too. I'm giving this entertaining film a 6.5. If you find a copy of this movie in your "forgotten" pile, pop it in on a rainy day.

Movie Review... 2012

Excitement. Couldn't blink. Couldn't think. This movie is a 9.0 for anyone who wonders about the frenzy we'd be immersed in during a worldwide rush for survival. The special effects crew worked overtime. The screenplay is written to focus a dozen subsidiary personal stories into one solid lesson. I'd say it's powerful, but the fact is, you'll remember crisis, chaos, and... well, I'd better not let the cat out..

The story is an Ace. I could believe the science. I bought the characters. I'll buy the DVD someday.

Go see this excellent film. You'll remember it.

Movie Review... Law Abiding Citizen

Moments of intensity. Moments of graphic murder. Twists of unpredictable law-centric curiosity. What was that? Oh, my goodness... are there two of those mad guys? Who's taking the easy way out of responsibility? Is that just the way it works? Doesn't seem fair. The main character couldn't forget the slap in the face.

After all, the poor guy's wife and daughter were murdered. He was hung out to dry by a fraidy cat legal system. He knew how to take action, because it's what the CIA trained him to do in his earlier life. Holy cats!

Then, the author took this mad Op out into left field. Viewers didn't get a good vibe from this tirade of vengeance. I sure didn't. Man, don't let impressionable kids see this R movie. There's some glorification of extreme vengeance. See this movie if you can handle it. Otherwise, go to dinner and be thankful for the rule of law. 7 for excitement. 3 for story. 6 for acting.

Movie Review... State of Play

Doc and I are watching "State of Play" tonight. My job is going to be to judge honesty and authenticity. Doc's job is to attack my review. Interestingly, this is a perfect plan, because it'll make me work as hard as possible to give him some easy targets. Will this film measure up to equal Russel Crowe's self control in "Proof of Life" or possibly his incredible strength in Gladiator"? Will Ben Afleck manage to scratch below his usual shallow tissue of ham salad fakery? Here we go...

"One dead and one in the hospital... confirmed." And, Sonya Baker is dead. Was she romantically involved with Ben? It seems so. The Hardball guy gets a three second cameo. That'll do it for him.

I know what it is... Ben Afleck sounds to me like he's fresh off "Happy Days". It's his octave. Too hertzy. Too nineteen years old. Think it through.

Three seconds for Lou Dobbs. What'll you do with the five hundred bucks, Lou? Jump to the PointCorps matter. We're talking big money here. Plenty of motivation. Forty billion big green motivators.

Here's what matters to me... Believability. It it believable? Crowe gets an A. I'd like to have dinner and a movie with Della Frye. Good job, everybody. Thanks for the intrigue, thanks for the excitement. 7.5. Go get it at Blockbuster. Invite a friend.

Movie Review... Snow Buddies

This is a dog. Wake me up when it's over. Talking dogs. No semblance of a dramatic story or a creative script. Gimme a break. No numerical rating is possible. Not worth writing complete sentences.

Movie Review... Cold Souls

This "thinker" movie is a prime case study for Drama 301. In this film, Paul Giamatti plays himself as an introvert stuck in a mud hole of neurosis. His wife tolerates his seemingly random behavior, but, hey! aren't actors supposed to be endowed with with psycho pedigrees?

Does Giamatti's role in an upcoming Chekov play push him off a cliff? Is he so ignorant of science (and a dupe for huckster hype) that he can't see the truth? Chekov looks for truth, and Giamatti flushes it down the septic tank.

David Strathairn puts a clown face on his carnivalesque role. He's the salesman/businessman/scientist who swaps souls for paying customers. "Pick a new soul from this catalog", Strathairn offers. Giamatti falls for the con, but the film goer doesn't get clarity in the end. In fact, the film ends about two days before the story comes back around.

After you come out of a nice restaurant and find eight bucks, go see this movie because of the great Russian winter scenery. That's the part I enjoyed. Scenery-8.5, Paul Giamatti's craftsmanship-8.5, story 4.0.

Movie Review: Decryption

Gersham Whelock is on his way. As a prodigy MIT graduate recruited by the top software companies in the world, he lands his dream job with prIsm software (a secret arm of the government) and develops an encryption system (called Hidden) that is so sophisticated, CIA, FBI and the worlds best hackers find it unbreakable.
Watching prIsm's profits soar, making several executives multi-millionaires, Gersham's cubicle seems hardly the thanks he feels he deserves.
The day the software is officially released and activated at worldwide security firms, banks and government agencies, Gersham is found dead. And to the surprise of prIsm, the DE-cryption segment of the software is found to be incomplete, preventing all the information encrypted with Hidden to be locked and never accessed again.
For the next 3 months, prIsm executives watch their company (and governments) scramble to find anyone who can crack the code and allow the software to release the locks. Giant rewards, now reaching three to five hundred million dollars are offered to anyone who can crack it.
Enter Cyrus Fayrbanke, a first year CIA operative awaiting his first assignment. While researching the internet news feeds for the major case division, he follows the story of Hidden and maintains a notebook of the attempts, clues and progress of the drive to crack it.
Sitting by himself, on a cool Virginia morning, as he does each lunch hour, he watches the sunlight filter through the art installation in the CIA campus courtyard as it creates strange shapes and figures on his notebook page. The sunlight is pouring through sculptures thousands of cutout letters and symbols and as he walks around with the notebook, and the angle of the sun changes, sentences are formed. The instructions for decrypting "Hidden"
One year later while moving into his newly built Hawiian beach house, he browses through a box of MIT textbooks and finds a first year Greek workbook.
The first exercise on the page..."What is the Greek for 'Hidden'?" the answer? "Kryptos"
Gersham slowly falls asleep in his hammock.

Review of Decryption by Reviewer #2 (Scarpacci)
Decryption is an amazingly vibrant story of complexity in the hands of a simple cyber-forensic treasure hunter. Is there a twist? How many secrets are hidden in the code? Do we know the characters through their lives, their dreams, or their minds? This is a spellbinder for conspiracy theorists, hackers, and cryptography zealots. I can't wait to read more.

Movie Review: Defiance

Review of Defiance

I was generally surprised with this movie. We all know what happened to the Jews during the war, and the horrors that they faced. But this movie takes a different path and is the story about a band of them that escape the German's and the horrible roundups that were occurring in their villages.

Death is all around them, within their ranks and among their relatives from other villages and towns. They go through hell trying to maintain order within the group and keep everyone fed through 3 winters.

Eventually the war ends and although many were lost, many others were saved from the heroic brothers that helped the escaping masses.

Additionally, being a true story is always a BIG influence on this reviewer who ranks this one pretty high with a 8.75

Reviewer #2: I could be a cynic, and say Daniel Craig's presence in this movie was a box office milking scheme, but there's some genius in the story of a band of victims defying the Nazis. For over three years, Craig's character did what needed to be done to save the lives of a community of Jewish escapees. They made the astute conclusion that diplomacy and pacifism were suicidal options. The Jews hid out in the woods, and they moved when moving was the way to survive. .............Where was this movie in 1935 when it could have inspired more.....defiance. Nicely done. 7.0 from me. TB Scarpacci