Waitress in Review

I just saw "Waitress". I'm still smiling. This is one of the most delightful movies I have seen in a long, long time. So far, this is the best film of the year by a mile. Keri Russell, Cheryl Hines, Adrienne Shelly (eek...what a sad story! She was excellent in this--both as a writer, director and actress) and Andy Griffith (even though it is a very small part) all deserve Oscar nods for their incredible performances, and the script is simply unbeatable. I can guarantee that I will be pushing for this at the end of the year. A

Spider-Man 3 in Review

At 7:00 tonight, I entered an incredibly crowded theater to see Spider-Man 3. I have to say, I was excited. The first Spider-Man is easily the best superhero movie ever made, save the 1978 Superman, and the second was good but overrated. I was quite disappointed. Other than the action sequences (which were AMAZING), the film is generally boring and self-aware. By the end, you wonder what it is you just saw. Spider-Man 3 is worth seeing, but only for the action and to stay pop culturally aware. C-

Movie Review : Grindhouse

Well, for all of you who didn't understand the context of the new Rodriguez-Tarantino project, it can be said in very few words : you get ''2'' awesome movies for the price of one, so don't leave after the end of Planet Terror.

Planet Terror, the first segment of the film directed by Robert Rodriguez, takes us to a small town in Texas where an experiment gone haywire transforms its citizens into zombies and it's up to a small group of uninfected people to fight off the zombies and to get to safety in order to find a cure.

In the performance of her career, Rose McGowan leads the way as a go-go dancer whose tough personality gets challenged by a former lover played by Freddy Rodriguez, a truck driver with a knack for killing people (He never misses!!). Probably wouldn't have been my first choice to play the character, but we can live with it. But the character who is the most fun to watch is Rapist no.2, played by none other than QT himself. He offers so many funny lines, and we watch him suffer one of the most disgusting transformations into a zombie ever put on film.

This film is rather gory, with lots of shooting and over the top gunfights, but it is fun to watch and offers a nice rendition to the grindhouse films, although the second segment offers a much better result.

Planet Terror :
Written and Directed by Robert Rodriguez
Produced by Elizabeth Avellan, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
Starring Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Marley Shelton, Josh Brolin, Michael Biehn and Jeff Fahey
Grade : ***/****

After the film, we are offered a wonderful treat with a segment of faux trailers directed by Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright (Hot Fuzz, Shaun Of the Dead) among others. These alone are worth the price of admission because they reflect the grindhouse era with great success. (After all, where else would you see Nicolas Cage as a Chinese dictator?) Keep your eye on Don't, for in my mind is the best of them all.

Then, we come to Death Proof, the QT segment. The great idea of the film, going back to the grindhouse films, is that sometimes you can cheer for the villain. In this case, the reason is so obvious : girls can talk, talk and talk to the point that they bore you out of your mind. Indeed, we are first introduced to a group of women led by a radio talk-show host who love to party and to talk about guys. They know they're hot, so they like to play around with guys to the point where one of them has to perform a lap dance to the first guy who recites her a poem. Well, into the night, they're partying at a local bar where we happen to meet our villain, Stuntman Mike, which marks the grand return of Kurt Russell (man, I miss Snake Plissken). Here, we have a fun villain to watch as he kills young women with his Death Proof car, a black Chevy Nova with a skull painted on the hood.

After he 'deals' with this group, we then find another group of women, working out of Hollywood and among the group, the great stuntwoman Zoe Bell playing herself in the film (she played Uma Thurman's stunt double in the Kill Bill films). Only, these girls don't mess around. They wanna find a 1970 white Dodge Challenger (Vanishing Point, yes?) to take a test drive, only they're into a wild ride when Stuntman Mike wants to play along. I won't reveal the rest of the plot, suffice to say that Kurt Russell gives us a wonderful performance as the villain we cheer for.

To sum up, Grindhouse is long, indeed, but it is so awesome you cannot permit yourself to leave your seat during the course of the film, so make sure you buy a small beverage and you go the bathroom beforehand, because this film offers one wild ride you'll cheer for.

Death Proof :
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Produced by Erica Steinberg, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
Starring Kurt Russell, Vanessa Ferlito, Sydney Poitier, Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan, Tracie Thoms and Zoe Bell
Grade : ***½/****

A Weekend Double Feature

It is very, very rare for me to go to the cinema twice over the weekend (unless it's during the summer). But, it happened this weekend. There were two movies...

Hot Fuzz is the first one. Like "Shaun of the Dead", this is a very funny, very British treat. An extremely smart spoof where the actors were clearly having fun. Although it was a little too long, by the end, I was glued to the screen. B+

Kickin' it Old Skool-If "Hot Fuzz" was too long, then "Kickin' it Old Skool" was an eternity. The film is simply a mess, filled to the very top with bad performances and writing that would make a kid repeat second grade English. It's movies like this that make me ashamed to be a movie nut. D-

Friday Rental: Children of Men

My dad got sick, so unfortunately I couldn't see "Namesake" today (and none of my friends want to see it. Grr), so I decided to go rent "Network." Blockbuster, being the classless store that it is, didn't have a copy. So I had a choice between "Bobby" and "Children of Men". Naturally, I chose "Children of Men." I have to say, i was a little disappointed. Yes, Clive Owen gives a great performance, along with the incredibly impressive newcomer Claire-Hope Ashitey. And the idea and themes are compelling. But I can't say I really enjoyed watching it. It isn't "one of the year's best" as many have dubbed it. That said, it's certainly not bad movie. It had the potential to be great, but it didn't acheive it by steering towards the wrong direction and by limiting the truly outstanding Julianne Moore's role. B-

Today I Saw Blades of Glory...

And I have to say, I enjoyed myself. It was exactly what I wanted to see. Jon Heder and Will Ferrell were quite funny. It's gotten generally positive reviews, but some have deemed it "homophobic." It's really not. It actually condemns homophobia in a way because the people that are so afraid of looking gay are total idiots, like in Blazing Saddles (with racism in that situation). So, the movies of 2007 I've seen so far are...

1. Norbit-C-

2. The Messengers-D+

3. Epic Movie-F

4. Music and Lyrics-B

5. Blades of Glory-B

The First Simpsons Movie Review...

My least favorite movie site, movies.com, has proven to be useful in providing this early look at "The Simpsons Movie", which, in case you haven't read any of my posts, is my most anticipated movie ever. Yes, I really am that geeky.

"So, is the The Simpsons Movie just another TV episode that goes on for too long? An early Ain't It Cool News reviewer, Biker-Boy, reports that, in its current state, it runs a very short 75 minutes, with the first half being "hysterical genius." His rave continues: "It's classic. It's old school. It's violent. It's slapstick. It's clever. It's everything you could ever want it to be … I haven't laughed so hard in ages." The second half hour? Not so much. It just drags on, Biker Boy reports — though, he adds, "It definitely ends well … It all wraps up pretty neatly, and the animation here is superb, mixing high quality 2-D and 3-D to outstanding effect." He also praises an "inspired" Bart Simpson sequence in the otherwise slow middle half hour. Final verdict? It has, he says, "the potential to become 'an all-time classic … which, sadly, the version I saw falls ever so slightly short of.'"

Well, there's still time to fix most of that. And that's positive, right? Right. Very reasurring.