Playing in the official “Harry Potter” fingers-crossed family film franchise sweepstakes, “Inkheart” comes armed with fantastical visual heights, a strong literary theme, and the inexplicable box office appeal of Brendan Fraser. What “Inkheart” lacks is a cracking pace and a reasonable deconstruction of an intricate plot for the uninitiated, leaving a feature film of determined scope plagued by dismal execution.
Yes, a movie titled “Donkey Punch” actually exists. What should’ve been a rowdy suspense piece that basks in the smirking idiocy of sexual myths and playground bedroom boasting is actually a toothless horror throwaway made on the cheap and elongated far beyond its expiration date.
Last time, Cinematic Titanic confronted their Mystery Science Theater 3000 heritage with the classic Christmas catastrophe, “Santa Claus Conquered the Martians.” Now the group is trying their luck with…nudity. Pushing their content experimentation even further, Titanic’s take on “Frankenstein’s Castle of Freaks” presents a whole new challenge for the riff masters, tackling a film that’s as awful as any they’ve roasted before, only this presentation inches toward uncharted waters of adult entertainment.
While a boisterous member of the facepalm school of needless horror remakes, I’m sure “My Bloody Valentine 3-D” won’t raise the blood pressure of the average horror nut. After all, the original 1981 film wasn’t, ya know…any good. Atmospheric, perhaps, but not a breathtaking, hallowed genre creation. This 2009 update isn’t interested in manufacturing a severe facelift, instead holding tight to the dog-eared slasher playbook, adding the gimmick of 3-D to provide audiences with a front row seat to terror, and, for the most part, atrocious acting.
If someone would’ve told me a year ago that the top box office draws over the last few months would be dogs and Clint Eastwood, I would’ve laughed the laugh of kings (and then cried). Now, “Hotel for Dogs” doesn’t feature Dirty Harry in any type of supporting role, but it certainly has plenty of dogs, making it unquestionably irresistible to young audiences everywhere.
During his reign on the hit television show “King of Queens,” comedian Kevin James managed to combine the expected serving of fat jokes and pratfalls with a vigorous wit and nuanced domestic observation. “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” is his first solo starring endeavor, and there’s a flagrant absence of cleverness to gnaw on, replaced with a broader tone of family film hijinks. The end product won’t win any Oscars, but the edges of this slapstick action film retain James’s blitzkrieg sense of humor, making for a light comic adventure I’m positive kids will flip for.
The Christopher “Biggie” Wallace depicted in “Notorious” is a lying, drug dealing, adulterous high school dropout who held little regard for anyone other than himself. If not for the saving grace of rhyme, Wallace would’ve been just another statistic; a tired thug plagued by self-inflicted emotional wounds and stunningly selfish behavior. Of course, Wallace did find his way to a superstar rap career, leaving the bio-pic “Notorious” with no choice but to celebrate this questionable life, made legendary by its brevity and golden pop culture timing.
A Bollywood confection making a rare appearance on American shores, “Chandni Chowk to China” is an excellent reason why many of these productions fail to breakout beyond India. A deafening, slapstick-drenched, exaggerated bit of hokum, “Chandni” is an endurance test for the Bollywood uninitiated: a curry-flavored Three Stooges comedy via The Shaw Brothers playbook, with a healthy serving of Stephen Chow thrown in for taste. It’s an attractive bundle, but ultimately a punishing mess of a movie.
Cult films are best when they sneak up on the fringe audience, battling failure and disgrace to become something special, appreciated by a select few willing to cherish imperfection. “Repo! The Genetic Opera” is a motion picture that thirsts for alternative acceptance, positioning itself as a juicy piece of unlovable gothic muck that’s guaranteed to turn off mainstream audiences, thus assuring it life beyond the normal distribution timetable. “Repo!” is horrifically calculated to appeal to outsider mentality, but it clicks together rather marvelously, riding an offbeat sense of the macabre to peculiar, yet quite interesting results.
I respect that David S. Goyer desires to pen eccentric genre pieces that both conform to traditions and enjoy a few unique perspectives on scares. I just wish he would stop directing these movies. After three feature films of discouraging quality, Goyer suits up in a beret and jodhpurs again for “The Unborn,” which holds the miserable distinction of being the most dreadful film he’s fashioned to date. With past achievements such as “Blade: Trinity” and “The Invisible” to his name, it’s clear Goyer’s work is getting worse, and his imagination slowing to a crawl.
Nearly one full year after the sleeper success of the loathsome “27 Dresses” comes “Bride Wars,” another wedding-themed comedy that offers candy-coated marital madness to female audiences begging for estrogen escapism. It’s all labels, BFFs, and handsome, frighteningly interchangeable male co-stars. “Bride Wars” is also a missed opportunity for a crackerjack comedy, dropping any hint of mean-spirited delight to kitten play with mundane nuptial wish-fulfillment and half-realized romantic nonsense.
Steven Soderbergh’s “Che” isn’t some stiff, imperial historical bio-pic to be worked over like an all-day, mocha-flavored lollipop. It’s a film that’s lived in, preferring to experience the life of Ernesto “Che” Guevara through procedural busy work above simplified idol worship. A 4 ½ hour excursion into the mind of the revolution leader, “Che” takes an obscene amount of patience to endure, but the reward is a gorgeous expression of a life lived in constant pursuit of political and social ideals, and how that yearn manipulated a visionary into a man of action, eager, for better and worse, to change the world.
“Not Easily Broken” arrives in theaters fresh from the mind of T.D. Jakes, the controversial preacher who last made a dent at the multiplex with 2004’s “Woman Thou Art Loosed” (also known as the film that beat Tyler Perry to the punch, but didn’t have the correct venom to succeed). Jakes dishes up drama in massive helpings, and while “Broken” is oddly well intentioned, it takes head-to-toe protective padding to survive all the hysteria and tragedy, making the viewing experience more about wincing than Jesus-approved enlightenment.
An adaptation of the Will Eisner comic book series that launched over 60 years ago, “The Spirit” has been groomed for big screen dominance by writer/director Frank Miller, himself a legend in the field of graphic novels as well as the co-director of the influential hit “Sin City.” A blissfully coked-out-of-its-mind spit-take on Eisner and the modern world of superhero cinema, “The Spirit” is a wet bag of hot breath slowly released through a monochromatic lens, spending much of its running time reminding the viewer that not every hero needs his own film and perhaps Miller should never be allowed to direct on his own again.
Whatever director David Fincher has been drinking lately, I hope he maintains the habit for the rest of his career. Once the go-to guy for sinister stories dissecting the downfall of humanity, Fincher has found a new path for himself in recent years and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” is perhaps his finest achievement as a filmmaker. The picture doesn’t lacerate or gnash its teeth. Instead, it conveys a soul-rattling ache of life that floods the moviegoing veins with storytelling electricity and piercing thematic resonance. I adore Fincher 2.0.
Taking time out of his hectic PG-13 schedule to make a flick for the kiddies, Adam Sandler tones down his act a smidge for the Disney film experience, “Bedtime Stories.” Only six months ago Sandler was try to ease Middle East tensions and enjoy sex with Lanie Kazan in “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan,” and now it’s all bug-eye guinea pigs, gumball storms, and Buzz Lightyear cameos. Even if you hold distaste for Sandler’s juvenile antics, I think some credit has to be given for his recent interest in versatility.
Try as he might, director Sam Mendes can’t manage to find his way out of suburbia. The “American Beauty” filmmaker returns to the cultural cancer in “Revolutionary Road,” an extraordinary motion picture that harnesses spellbinding emotional discharge and enthralling disgust, using two of the most talented and captivating stars of today to bring to the screen a masterwork of domestic isolation. It’s the best film Mendes has made to date.
A WWII thriller without the benefit of bullets and cigar-chomping bravery? How dare director Bryan Singer offer such alien delights. “Valkyrie” is a film that perfectly assumes the description of Hitchcockian, for this strange historical piece doesn’t proffer much gung-ho action, instead using an exquisite architecture of suspense as legal tender to persuade audiences to follow what is a rather obscure offering of war-torn German history.
“Marley & Me” isn’t so much an amiable motion picture as it is a series of manipulations kissed by Floridian sun and scored to a 45-year-old accountant’s idea of a “wicked cool” mix CD. With a legion of readers already devoted to John Grogan’s best-selling autobiography, the film has a built in audience ready to weep uncontrollably all over again. However, pull back the intense tear-jerking and layers of sitcom filmmaking, and you’re left with a movie with amazingly little in the way of dramatic nutrition or organic sentiment.
Jews kicking ass. The boys of “Knocked Up” would adore this movie. Actually, “Defiance” has a little more on its plate than simple heroics, but the violence, the sheer aggression, is one of the lone qualities that separate this Edward Zwick film from the average television movie. A respectable shot at a Holocaust story with uplifting qualities and plump moral questioning, “Defiance” is a handsome production, just not an especially inspiring one.
BRIAN ORNDORF 