Ticket Stubs #15: A Critical Quickie Updated
1) Surviving Christmas--James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Ben Affleck, and Christina Applegate. Basically a Dickie Roberts Christmas Carol: Rich, eccentric guy with no family rents one for the holidays, ruins Christmas and family ties, then brings them back together in the end. Recycled concept and humor, but no less funny.
B+
2) Collateral--Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise. Hitman hires cabby to drive him to his assignments. Cabby gets arrested, saves girl, and thwarts hitman's evil plan. There's more to it, but that's the basics. Good music and mood, buddy-action-comedy humor, the right amount of character development, well-placed twists and good dialogue. Almost a new idea.
A- (Most Wanted)
And now for something completely different (not!). It's just a Ticket Stubs Update of my short review collection to temporarily return to August 30, 2012.
3) Salmon Fishing in the Yemen--Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt. Uptight fisheries expert has a typical rom-com affair with his plucky secretary amidst a typical inspirational "do the impossible" story involving a Yemeni philanthropist who loves God and sport fishing. The title is a turn-off, but the inspirational rom-com angle is an effectively baited hook.
B+
4) Cat Run--Paz Vega (Spanglish), Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs), Alphonso McAuley (Breaking In), and Christopher McDonald (Harry's Law). Two immature amateur PI's must save a resourceful callgirl from a hired assassin and her politician bosses in this multi-threaded conspiracy yarn. Tons of sex, gratuitously gory violence, and comedy make for the perfect guy movie...as long as you can get him to pay attention for two and a half hours.
B
5) Get the Gringo--Mel Gibson and Peter Stormare. Everyone's least favorite anti-semitic actor/director wears his role like a glove (banish all images of The Beaver from your mind) as a sarcastic con man working the system in a Mexican prison. The subtitles, as always, are too small, too fast, and the wrong color. But like an ignorant Gringo south of the border, all you need to do to get the message is watch what happens and nod when you don't understand. Not a great movie, but this marks the first time since Lethal Weapon 4 that Gibson has done anything funny, so it's good enough.
C+
6) Breathless--Val Kilmer with bad hair, Ray Liotta with a stupid mustache, and Gina Gershon in too much make-up. This bloody comedy that explores the aftermath of an uber-redneck bank robbery may be both the best and the worst movie I've ever seen.
A+
7) The Hunger Games--Speaking of bad hair: Woody Bad Hairrelson, Stanley "Blue Wig" Tucci, and Elisabeth Banks the Sociopathic Clown From Hell support Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, and Wes Bentley in this film adaptation about teenagers forced to kill each other in a kind of Glee meets Spartacus with less singing and more death. I guess you have to read the books to learn why it's all happening, but in the meantime, just sit back (or lean forward, if you're on the edge of your seat) and root for Katniss.
A-
8) Bernie--And speaking of death: Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey star in this mock-Dateline account of the real-life murder of a possessive, controlling widow by her gay-ish funeral director boy-toy. The title role is so anti-Jack that he's a joy to watch, even when the acting and singing are hard to take.
B+
9) Brake--Stephen Dorff. He once Carjacked Maria Bello, and now he's the one trapped in a car by a psycho. This one-note terrorism disaster is so ridiculously improbable that real terrorists may actually try to put the plot into action, but only if they're as stupid as I am for watching this movie.
F
10) The Three Stooges--Sean Hayes, Chris Diamantopolous (try writing that name without looking at it a hundred times), and Will Sasso. Between their haircuts, their Goodwill reject wardrobe, their "Golly gee, Sister! Ya rilly mean it?" line delivery, and their predictable slapstick, the three leading men (and the boys who play the young Stooges) pull off a dated but authentic and well-choreographed dance of Looney Tunes violence, and watching every member of the Jersey Shore get poked in the eyes brought a sadistic smile to my face. Thanks, Farrelly Brothers, for proving you've still got it.
A-
11) Lockout--Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace, Peter Stormare. Welcomm too thee onli prizzin were nuthing kan possiblee goe rong. Have these dumbasses even seen Jurassic Park? Or that spoof episode of The Simpsons? Stormare runs yet another prison (this one in space, not Mexico). Guy Pearce replaces Gibson as the fast-talking crook, this time with a damsel to rescue from the escaped prisoners (I told you so) before the prison crashes into Earth. Ironically, this is similar to how the dinosaurs were wiped out. Great action, but...originality, anyone?
D+
12) Rescue Dawn--Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, and Jeremy Davies, with documentarian Werner Herzog behind the camera. This is an old one, but it's on Entertainment Weekly's list of The Best Movies You've Never Seen. Where else will you get to see Batman, Charles Manson, and the dad from Wimpy Kid escape a Vietnamese prison camp?
A+
Thanks for staying tuned for this collection of Critical Quickies. Next time, Ticket Stubs hits Sweet Sixteen (Blocks, That Is) with Bruce Willis and Mos (who dropped the "Def" part for his brief story arc in Season Six of Dexter).
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