Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two

I am a biased fan of this series but this trailer looks like an amazing end to a very good series based on a great series of books. It was the best book easily and this looks like it may be the best film.

Movies that Make You Feel Old

Funny infographic from XKCD:

I Love You Phillip Morris

 I really really wanted to like this movie more than I did. I had followed its production for a while and had lots of good things about it. It was presented as a Catch Me If You Can with Jim Carrey playing a crazy gay southern con man.

The good: I Love You Phillip Morris contains many funny moments and a very good performance from Jim Carrey. Carrey is good when he takes risk, (The Truman Show, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Man on the Moon are all good examples) and pretty annoyingly bad when he sticks to his shtick (Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Yes Man, Me Myself and Irene and many others). So when I heard he was playing the main character in this comedy based on a true story about a gay conman who falls in love with a fellow prisoner and does whatever he can to be with him I was intrigued.

Jim Carrey is very funny (even if he doesn’t have the best southern accent) and Ewan Mcgregor is equally entertaining as the object of Carrey’s affection.

The bad: This movie could have been much shorter. It felt like the filmmakers were to in love with their material and did not know when to make tough cuts. I found myself multiple times looking at the timer on the Bluray player wondering how it had only been on 30 minutes, 35 minutes, 45 minutes, etc… If the movie was a little more focused and not as intent on including every step of this guys journey it would have been much more enjoyable.

It's Kind of a Funny Story

 It’s Kind of a Funny Story is a very entertaining film that suffers from a bad name. The marketing campaign did not help either. Fresh off of the mammoth success of The Hangover this movie’s advertising relied heavily on the fact that it featured Zack Galifinakis. While he is funny in this film and there are many very humorous scenes it is not mainly a comedy.

The story follows a young suicidal man who checks himself into a mental hospital thinking he can get helped or medicated quickly and be back in school on Monday. Unfortunately he finds out that he is being admitted for observation and will not be able to leave for at least five days. There he meets a variety of other patients and learns a lot about himself. The main patient he bonds with is a middle aged man who has attempted suicide multiple times and acts as a glimpse of what our young protagonist could become. The man is portrayed by Zach Galifinakis who turns in a very fleshed out and subtle performance. The main thing I walked away thinking was, “Wow, Zach Galifinakis is very good actor, it’s a shame people only want him to play the same weirdo over and over again.”

I recommend this movie for its heart, humor and interesting characters. It plays out like a lighter, younger version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with a dash of a Garden State type romance thrown in.

The Hangover Part Two Trailer

I am not sure if it is going to be any good. It is pretty hard to match the quality and number of laughs as the orignal when making a comedy sequal. This trailer however is pretty funny. Some of the moments reminded me too much of the original as I was hoping they would go in a more original directions but I am still looking forward to this as of now. What do you think?

Red State

A lot has  been spoken about the way Kevin Smith is releasing his new film Red State. I want to step away from that aspect of the film and just focus on the movie itself. Does it work as a movie, not as a new way of releasing films. If I was to answer that question simply, the answer would be a resounding "Yes". The movie works amazingly well on its own.

However at the same time I would also respond to the question, "Is this a movie for most people?" with a tentative, "no". There are a lot of people who would be offended by the opening of the film where a group of teenagers discuss sexual matters that are perverse, but funny. This same audience would probably be offended as the film progressed at the portrayal of fundamentalist Christians being just as dangerous as religious fanatics of other faiths.

The movie is a very original film, it is different (very very far from anything Smith has ever done) and it is also a bit schizophrenic. It changes moods and styles frequently. The movie begins as a comedy. A comedy much like Smith’s earlier works only with a grittier more realistic feel. A trio of loser friends (Nicholas Braun, Michael Angarano, Kyle Gallner)  in a small town high school set out on a Friday night to meet a women from the internet who has promised a night of sexual exploration. Once they arrive they are drugged and the movie takes a swift turn into a very dark very, very intense horror film. If the intensity of this mid sequence had been maintained for the rest of the film I have to say it may have been too much for me to handle. It is during this section that we get to see the religious cult at the center of this film worshipping and going into action in their battle against homosexuals. It is painful yet incredibly well done.

However, keeping with the schizophrenic feel, the film switches moods again and turns into a scathing attack on the way the American government deals with religious groups. John Goodman steps into the spotlight portraying a conflicted ATF that has been tracking the “Church” and is forced into a very violent standoff due to the mistake of an inept sheriff portrayed by Stephen Root.

Feeling a lot like a mix of Tarentino and Coen Brothers, the film closes up in a denouement that is surprisingly funny. It felt to me like Smith bookended the film with two more comic sequences to let the audience ease into the beginning and relax in the end.

At the heart of the film is Michael Parks. He portrays the leader of the religious group Abin Cooper. He is loosely based on the real life preacher and spreader of hate Fred Phelps. Although watching this film Cooper (while killing many innocents) seems much more charismatic than the real life Phelps. His performance is funny, haunting and powerful. I had been impressed seeing him in multiple Tarentino and Robert Rodriguez films. Here he is given center stage and he knocks it out of the park. Besides Parks the cast is strong across the board. The three young men all go from being unsympathetic losers to realistic and flawed victims. Goodman is very strong as the weathered broken agent who wants to do good and is not sure how. Fresh off her Oscar win Melissa Leo is once again convincing as a horrible controlling mother (like she was in The Fighter) and loyal daughter to The cult leader.

I really hope that when this movie comes out in October it gets the audience and the respect it deserves. It is experimental and divisive in the best way. As a very big fan of Smith I have to say this is hands down his biggest risk, his most techinically proficient film and maybe his best film altogether.