I’m going to win this Dreidel game if it’s the last thing I ever do.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Everyone fears the sophomore curse, when you break out of the gate in any type of popular media with something so unique, so gripping and so monumentally accepted by the ravenous public that you set the bar high into the stratosphere, making it impossible for your second creative effort to even bask in the reflection of that initial glory. It frightens each and every person stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight, but there is a misconception lingering making people feel safe after they are past their second credit. The cold, hard fact is each and every time you release something out to the public it is another audition to the world. If your newest effort becomes known as the best of your career, congratulations my friend, welcome back to the curse. It’s been right here waiting for you. Christopher Nolan felt the sting of the curse after his breakout indie darling, Memento, which he followed with a poorly timed remake of the chilly psychological thriller, Insomnia. Yet Nolan fought onward and grabbed hold of the frayed cape of the Batman franchise and resurfaced with a much more dark and gritty take on the legendary crusader in Batman Begins. This inevitably led to his crowning achievement in the comic book sequel, The Dark Knight, where the world witnessed the true beauty of a director and actor, in Heath Ledger, creating something that will be remembered and talked about for generations. As the accolades for The Dark Knight poured in, Nolan found himself right back in the lap of the curse, plotting his escape, scanning the horizons for a safe way out. Turns out, he found his escape not by looking outside, but by turning in.
Inception is the name given to a procedure where a person with incredibly specific skills and equipment can enter someone else’s dreams and gently plant the seed of an idea, which would then flourish and grow in that person naturally, culminating in the subject doing exactly what you wanted them to. Most believe it can’t be done, but one man, Cobb, says it is not just possible, but he’s done it before. Hired for one last job, Cobb builds a team of people to help him complete his mission and try to win his ticket home to his children.
The out and out winner here is the writing. While the directing and acting, which will be mentioned later, are both up to par, the writing of such an intricate, delicate and verbose script is an achievement worth high recognition. People are already talking Oscar race for this film, and while I might be on the fence right now in the Best Picture category (we still have quite a few months to go people), in the arena of Best Original Screenplay, this should be a shoe-in. Nolan is truly at his best when dealing with fragmented and fractured realities, achieving a tender balance between intrigue and confusion that makes the audience think, but not feel stupid if they all come up with different answers at the end. As for the ending, I’ll leave that for later, loudly hidden behind the spoiler warnings.
Moving onto the acting, Leonardo DiCaprio, who played our anti-hero Cobb, once again brims with sheer determination and builds layer upon layer into the role. The only fraction of a flaw in his performance in my eyes is it bordered on being too controlled. At times there felt perfect opportunities to let him fly off the handle or just peel back one more layer, showing his humanity, but the importance of the job and the need for sharp and complete focus kept him tightly wrapped up. Tom Hardy, playing Eames, the wise-cracking master thief of the group, steals many of the scenes not only due to his skill as an actor, but because he provides the only comic relief in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as Aurthur, brings back a little bit of his steam-train determination and tunnel-vision drive that he perfected in Brick. Overall all the performances were on point, but in the minority there were two people that I felt were under used and under developed, Michael Caine and Ellen Page. Caine is a tremendous actor that felt totally wasted in a partially unexplained cameo part (he’s mentioned as the grandfather to Cobb’s children, but it is never illustrated whether he is Cobb’s father or his stepfather.) As for Page, while they try with one line of dialogue to cover over her rapid acceptance of the world of dreams and being able to control them, she still ends up feeling rushed into the story more as a person to move the plot than a full fledged character.
***SPOLIER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM***
Now let’s talk about that ending. While I really do enjoy a nice ‘leave ‘em hanging’ closer, I think people are reading way too much into it. Yes, the top was still spinning, and yes the idea was to make you wonder if Cobb is still in a dream at the end of the film, but the theory that the entire movie was all a dream inside Cobb’s mind, showing his own journey to release himself of the guilt of pushing his wife to suicide, well, that just doesn’t sit right with me. The ‘whole dream’ theory robs the movie of all its importance and power and steals all the thunder from the other characters. I prefer to believe the top would have fallen in time; it was just really well balanced.
The End of the Page Recommendation: Nolan is on a hot streak that could see him crowned as one of the greatest directors in our generation, but let’s not pressure him too much, right? Inception is clever, intriguing and everything you want in a psychological drama, even if it draws a little long at the end. Worth seeing, if only for the ensuing discussion you will have immediately after.
What did you think of the ending? Does this top ‘Dark Knight’ for you?
One of these guys already saw wardrobe that morning, the other just showed up to set. Guess which is which.
Rating: 7 out of 10
Summertime is a wonderful season for hiding from the baking, burning heat inside a cool, dark theater and being transported to endless imaginative worlds. Sometimes these worlds can be overwhelmingly complex and force you to think deeply about everything going on, and those create a very particular kind of enjoyment, but the season of the sun seems to lean more towards movies that allow you to put your brain on cruise control, sit back, sip your Coke and try not to smile. This recent cinematic offering is definitely one of those.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice follows the story of a young man, Dave, who finds out at too young an age that he is chosen by destiny to become an all-powerful sorcerer for the side of good in a millennia-long battle for the safety of the world. His mentor, Balthazar, does his best to prepare him for the upcoming battles, while also keeping Dave’s focus off the one thing impossible to resist, love.
This popcorn presentation is brought to us from the minds at Disney who seem hell-bent on plunging the depths of the Mouse House catalog for anything and everything that could be transformed into a full-length feature film. The title of the film is taken from the famous scene in Fantasia where Mickey Mouse enchants all the mops, brooms and assorted cleaning products to do his chores for him. That moment is directly lifted up and dropped into this live-action semi-adaptation, and actually fits surprisingly well, but the rest of the story is completely fresh, at least where previous Disney stories are concerned. I can’t blame Disney for their addiction to recycling, it certainly worked well with their multi-million dollar Pirates franchise, but I don’t see this one landing as well with audiences and certainly very little in terms of continuing sequels.
Now, before I get into where the movie takes its many missteps, let me engage you on why I still gave it a fairly high ranking. Jay Baruchel is truly riding the roller-coaster of success right now and while some may complain that he is typecast and plays virtually the same person in each film, the same can be said of Steve Carell and many others. If they play the part well, let them play on. Baruchel epitomizes the adorably awkward geek who never sees himself as cool as the people around him do. The rest of the story notwithstanding, it is always enjoyable for me to watch characters like these grow and step into their confidence and full potential. It’s a classic and well-used storyline for sure, but that’s because people respond to it consistently. He holds the heart of the film tenderly in his charmingly goofy expressions and timing. On the other hand, Nicholas Cage delivers what we’ve come to expect from him, a quirky, oddity of a person, yet performed with the commitment and dedication that can almost only come from someone equally quirky and odd in real life. Cage has made a long and prolific career from taking roles almost no one saw as playable and inserting a real person where only a caricature was found before. That being said, if you weren’t a fan of him before, he doesn’t add anything here that will sweep you to the other side.
With the good stuff resting comfortably above, here are some of the downsides to this spellbound selection. Numerous plot holes are completely ignored as the movie races to keep up with a fairly energetic pace. This actually pales in comparison to the story points and moments of character development that could’ve been easily achieved if the writing was just that much tighter. In scene after scene I felt there were set-ups that were not paid off and you just feel the air slip out of scenes that had real potential. The ending makes painfully little sense when weighed against all the information given throughout the film and you once again feel things really needed to play out a different way to achieve full redemption. I’m not going to say the version playing out in my head would’ve worked better, you never really know, but it certainly made more sense to me.
The End of the Page Recommendation: If you are a real fan of either of the two main cast members, this should give you a smile somewhere along the way, but keep some change in your pocket and catch the matinee (or even wait until DVD).
What did you think? Feel any comparison’s to National Treasure? Where does it rank on you Cage scale?
Posted 1 week, 3 days ago at 10:28 am. Add a comment
Of course the milk is fresh. The entire cow is in this can.
Rating: 10 out of 10
Pixar has been wearing the sash of “Best in Show” for animation lovers out there since their inception, but Universal, considered by many to be the long-standing underdog in nearly every market, has proven they are on the rebound from earlier disappointments. Sometimes that’s the nice thing about being the dark horse, no one sees you riding up in everyone else’s shadows.
Despicable Me is the tale of a once super-villain named Gru (voiced by NBC Universal go-to-guy, Steve Carell), who has slid down in the ranks of evil over the past few years and is looked upon as a novelty by other villains, his evil banking investors and even his own mother. But that was before he rounded up his assets: a hearing-endangered mad scientist, an army of painfully adorable yellow creatures known as ‘minions’ and three young girls swept out of the local orphanage, all in a dastardly attempt to pull off the greatest heist in history, stealing the moon! Pitfalls and successes abound as Gru struggles against his decision to be the world’s greatest villain or to strive for something he never saw coming.
If there is one key to a successful animated film, it is making one or more of the side characters the most adorable, hilarious, or possibly both, creature or person you could possibly imagine. Aladdin had Genie, Finding Nemo had Dory, Wall-E had Eve (or basically any character in that movie), and here Universal has learned that formula well and created the minions. These yellow oddly pill-shaped creatures that speak in a language uniquely their own provide laughter pretty much every time they grace the screen. I have little doubt that the merchandising for them will be a great bonus for the company and I would be on the look-out for straight-to-DVD spin-offs or short films based solely around these mini-misfits. Although you could only assume what they were talking about most of the time, this once again proved that real well written comedy has a language all its own.
Beyond the hilarious ovals of sunshine, Despicable Me stands up tall with a really tight script that is well paced and well balanced. Supremely funny moments are shared with more heartwarming beats and consistent plot and story. The main character of Gru was almost assuredly tailored for Steve Carell after he signed onto the project because in certain moments you could feel his TV alter-ego Michael Scott from The Office poking through. Normally that might be a tad unsettling and distracting, but the humor worked and Carell delivered, reminding us why he is one of the most sought after comedians on the market right now. The rest of the voice cast, including more big names familiar to the NBC Universal line-up like Russell Brand, Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig, Mindy Kaling and Jack McBrayer also lent their incredible timing and humorous natures to help make this movie the surprise hit of the year.
I also should mention I did pay the extra few bucks to see this in 3D since I had a feeling that was intended from the beginning and not retrofit into it after the fact, and I was correct. This is the only film I have seen since Avatar that actually had a real use for and benefited from the new 3D fad. I know we are due for more and more 3D films in the coming years, but hopefully they will learn that the decision to add another dimension to the film only works when you make it up front for creative reasons and not after the movie is finished for purely financial ones.
The End of the Page Recommendation: It’s a 10 out of 10 people. See it!
Already seen it? What did you think? How does it rank in your list of favorite animated films?
Each font you see here can be yours! Sold separately, of course, per letter.
Rating: 7 out of 10
There are a few authors in the world that cause me to make a goal of reading everything they put to paper, or whatever medium they choose. Stephen King, Mark Danielewski and Dave Eggers are some of the top of my list, but included with them is a man who seemingly strives to be known as one of the most twisted and demented minds in the contemporary literary canon, Chuck Palahniuk. His written success was already on the path to fame and infamy, but the spotlight firmly became implanted on his typewriter after the release of the film version of one of his most famous stories, Fight Club. People began diving head first into his sordid tales of depravity, violence and regression of human tendencies to their most primal and animalistic. Palahniuk has mastered a way of detailing believably the worst choices people make every day and their sometimes grotesque ramifications. So, with a slightly nervous and queasy stomach, I took his newest tome off the shelf at my local bookstore and came home to test my nerves on Tell-All.
Tell-All is the story of a classic beauty from the golden age of Hollywood named Katherine Kenton and her relationships with her fans, her lovers and most importantly with her personal assistant, Hazie Coogan. Katherine and Hazie have been together since nearly the beginning of Katherine’s lunar career and Hazie has been the glue that held it all together, the captain that steered the glittering jewel in the tumultuous seas of Hollywood and the artist who used Katherine to not only create a star, but a mold a living legend. Now, a new young buck has slithered into Katherine’s life and Hazie must once again pick up the invisible shield and defend her creation from anyone or anything that would seek to tear her down off her pedestal.
The first thing I should warn returning Palahniuk readers of is this: this is not Fight Club, nor is this Haunted (which personally I don’t think will ever be topped for sheer shock and awe value), this new fable is more along the lines of Rant and Invisible Monsters (another highly underrated book). The violence is quiet here, a slow boil, and things aren’t always what they seem. Yet the twist of the story does reveal itself a tad too early for my tastes. In some cases, like many Hitchcock films, the twist was known to the audience from the beginning and the fun was watching the players stumble around it unknowingly, but here it happens to act more as a weight dragging down the tempo of the story.
What doesn’t falter is Palahniuk’s deviant ability to reach inside the characters and bring out their most wicked and base needs. Even though many, if not all, of the inhabitants of Tell-All and his other stories are deeply flawed people, he peels them down layer by layer with an almost meditative quality rendering each and every one recognizably human in the end. Hazie reflects that person in us all, the one who always stood by while their friend or family member soaked up the spotlight, in some cases, even the sun itself. Being forever relegated to the sidelines can darken a person, gray out their normally bright demeanor and inevitably tip their moral compass due south. Yet the choice is always there, as it is with Hazie, whether to protect the prize by keeping it away from all personal harm or protecting the image of the prize by destroying it before it is tarnished by time and heartfelt folly.
Palahniuk also continues to perfect his personal style of over-detailing brand names and creating a nearly encyclopedic rhythm to his prose with his incredibly verbose and seemingly heavily-sponsored descriptions. No one just wears earrings in this book, they wear Cartier chandelier earrings. He improves on this literary fingerprint in Tell-All by adding an excessive amount on name dropping, rolling out star after star of the silver screen (mainly from the time when the screens were still made of actual silver). For people who don’t know classic Hollywood legends, it can feel a touch redundant and meaningless, but there is a reason behind the madness and you can always rely on the fact that his research of whatever topic has brought him the very tidbit of information you just glossed over.
The End of the Page Recommendation: While this is not close to my favorite of his career, Tell-All certainly fills a stomach momentarily void of sordid stories. Yet, as always with writers like him, I found myself thinking on the last page, “What could he possibly come up with next to shock me?” I have no doubt he will find a way to answer that question, post haste.
Did you read ‘Tell-All’ yet? What did you think? Better or Worse for Palahniuk?
Posted 2 weeks, 2 days ago at 8:00 am. Add a comment
I make so much money now, I bought myself this invisible throne. Dope, right?
Cheers and tears dominated sports bars all over the country last night as the self-proclaimed ‘king’ of basketball made known his long awaited decision of where he would be playing next year. If the NBA was a calm and still pond, LeBron James and his free agent move this summer is the softball-sized rock thrown gloriously into the middle. In fact, maybe it wasn’t thrown, it was shot out of a cannon with fireworks and a five-piece trumpet band.
The fanfare and attention given to this one player and his choice of new uniform is unlike anything we have seen in modern sports history, possibly of all time. Some will argue it was too much, while some might argue it is well deserved, but for me, I honestly don’t care if he needed to take out an hour on ESPN live to announce his decision. What I liked was all the money that came in for advertising during that hour went straight to the Boys & Girls Club where he held the intimate press conference. Love him or hate him, that was a stand up move.
Speaking of those who hate him, none seem to be more vocal about it right now than the depressed and dejected owner of the Cavaliers team, Dan Gilbert. I get it, really I do, your superstar franchise player just walked away from his hometown and home team, where he built his NBA career over the last seven years. He walked away to a team in South Beach, Miami where he will join with two of the other modern day basketball legends and form a dominant trio that many seem to think will automatically destroy the Eastern Conference, if not the NBA as a whole (I’m sure Kobe and Pau have a few things to say about that). James leaving knocks the Cavaliers down quite a few pegs in the predictions and will drain the already economically depressed area of much-needed tourism and marketing dollars, but all I can really say there is, “Cleveland, you had your chance.” Dan Gilbert doesn’t really see it that way.
The despondent owner unleashed a verbal tirade in an open letter to Cleveland and their fans, which detailed a literary temper tantrum the likes of which John McEnroe would be proud. I won’t write out the whole letter here, but for those who have not witnessed its furious glory, you can find it here. Yet, here are a couple of my favorite choice moments:
- “I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE” [all caps was actually his choice, not added by me]
- Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there. Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.
I predict Mr. Gilbert will be eating these words in short time, but the first chosen quote will take at least a whole year to come back to haunt him. David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, went on a tyrannical bend a few years back trying to clean up the sport and wipe out the violence and aggression from the players, but he clearly didn’t think to check into the attitudes and expletives of the owners. Mr. Gilbert should have taken the high road, thanked James for giving so much to his team and to his town. He should also have understood that after seven years and not one single championship ring, James had every right as a player to seek that illustrious fortune somewhere else.
Will Miami follow on the heels of the Celtics methodology, building a powerhouse trio and hoping some of the young blood pulled in at base salary can fill in the gaps? It certainly worked for Boston. Or could James have stayed in Cleveland and let the team continue to try and build around him until the perfect fit came to fruition? That certainly worked for the Los Angeles Lakers when Kobe was threatening to bail. No one really knows until we see the logos emblazoned on the jerseys next year as the confetti rains down from the rafters. Yet, whichever way it works out, the only thing truly lost here is the dignity of Mr. Gilbert and the Cavaliers organization.
What did you think of the letter? Was Gilbert justified in his reaction? Was James justified in his hype?
Posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago at 8:00 am. Add a comment
Documentaries are at their best when you feel absolutely compelled to jump out of your seat and help before the ending credits roll. Few of them can make such claims, but recently I was enthralled by The Cove and the images I saw made my eyes water and my stomach turn.
This post is not meant to be a review of the movie, but let me be as straight as I can when I say everyone should see this. There is no excuse at all for the massacre of dolphins still taking place in those waters. Even if you mock those who rally under the title ‘animal lover’, you would have a hard time defending those being exposed in this film.
Yet, as I mentioned before, the goal is not to just bring this terrible tragedy to light, but to also motivate you to help in whatever way you can. Take Part is a group that is not only managing the information about the current status in the cove and where all the help is going, but also a number of other charities and causes are listed there.
If you have any time, money or even free space in your brain, please take a look at their website and see if you can find a way to lend them a hand. I know there is an overwhelming number of issues and causes in this world, but if everyone just picked one and actually donated just a little time, money or effort, the results would not only change the world in the present, but it would help make sure places like ‘the cove’ never appear again.
One man, one canoe, one country’s terrible mistake.
Rating: 10 out of 10
When people begin their journey to earn the title of ‘writer’ or ‘author’ the phrase they hear most is, “Write what you know.” So when Dave Eggers broke onto the literary scene he seemed to personify that motto with his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Surely that title sounds a touch egotistical, but Eggers holds his own and backs it up with a tale of such candor, wit and humility that you can’t help agree with the given moniker.
Since then, Eggers has gone on to expand his wordy sphere and he now has his own publishing house, McSweeney’s, and been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. Yet the most interesting turn in his career seems to be his switch from talking about his own life story to detailing the lives of others, with the same skill and grace as before. His fictional works are also quite good, but Eggers is really at his finest when describing the trials and tribulations others have gone through, and that is what he tackles in his newest book, Zeitoun.
Zeitoun is the story of a middle-aged Syrian-born man who stays behind to watch his house and business while his family retreats to safety in the face of the oncoming Hurricane Katrina. When he awakens to the true devastation being caused, Abdulrahman Zeitoun does what many people would not, he jumps in his canoe and begins rowing around his neighborhood helping people out of their homes, locating supplies for some, even feeding the local dogs trapped in their homes with no food or escape. While efforts like these should be commended with medals and keys to various cities, Zeitoun is awarded with an arrest by Federal officers, humiliation, degradation and unwarranted terrorist accusations based on nothing more than his race and the overwhelming chaos of the moment. Zeitoun becomes an unwilling disciple to the doctrine of fear and the corruption of unregulated power.
The first half of the story lulls the reader into a comfortable state of being, where we celebrate the fact our country is a place where an immigrant like Zeitoun, a practicing Muslim, could arrive here, find love and build a successful business in one of our greatest cities, New Orleans. His early tales of the building of his family and work force can only be described as a true American triumph due to his sheer hard work and determination. Yet what follows is a horror story filled with not only the worst traits inside everyday people, but the nearly fatal flaws in our system of government and emergency response. The violations of Zeitoun’s civil rights, among many others, are painted with harsh strokes, dripping with the blood of a city washed backwards in time, to a wild west of roving gangs of looters and trigger-happy deputies, their fingers twitching as much from fear as excitement over their next capture.
The scenes that come alive in this book are ones we believed lost to the annals of history and the atrocities committed on our soil in WWII. Yet the phrase we all know so well, but try so very hard to ignore, rears its head once more: “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” [George Santayana, The Life of Reason Vol.1 1905]
What we repeated here as a country was the unleashing of unbridled fear. After 9/11 we let fear of another terrorist attack rule every decision we made and we began a systematic shielding of each and every part of our society against these ghosts. We didn’t look at how far back that fear was pushing our country, how many of our own prized rights and privileges were being stripped away in order to ensure something that could never be proven or guaranteed. Eggers truly breaks it down as he says:
This country was not unique. This country was fallible. Mistakes were being made. He was a mistake. In the grand scheme of the country’s blind, grasping fight against threats seen and unseen, there would be mistakes made. Innocents would be suspected. Innocents would be imprisoned.
We chose to turn a blind eye to the rights of those innocents and many still do to this day. The combination of a nationwide catastrophe, like Katrina, and the well-touted doctrine of fear created the ultimate breeding ground for the travesty that Zeitoun was dragged through. We need to hear these stories and we need to remember these stories so we can protect our children and our fellow citizens from ever becoming one of these stories.
The End of the Page Recommendation: There is a reason why this book is a national bestseller and named one of the best books of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Huffington Post and many others. If you feel you can stomach the bitter and harsh truth of some of the things that happened outside the reach of the news cameras during Katrina, pick this up.
To those who have read this already, what did you think? Any other favorites from Dave Eggers?
Trilogy? No one said anything to me about a trilogy?
Rating: 5 out of 10
There is a certain extra effort that has to be put in when adapting video games to the screen. You can’t just grab the plot from the original video game, because a large part of your audience will be completely bored. On top of that, you run the risk of them beating the game in a much more efficient way than the movie plays out. Yet, you have to keep certain elements, mainly the origin story of your main character, which then creates particular boundaries on where the story can unravel. As I mentioned recently, this can go very bad (ala Super Mario Brothers), but the original Mortal Kombat proved delightfully entertaining, even with the odd novelty of Christopher Lambert as Raiden (Really? Who cast that?). The adaptations have been getting increasingly high concept and high budget as the games themselves break new ground for imagination and technology, which leads us to this weekend’s entrant into the genre, straight from the gates of the fabled Mouse House, Disney.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time grabs the main character from the original game and sets him on a quest to not only clear his name for a murder he did not commit, but also uncover the magic behind a mystical dagger which can reverse time for those lucky enough to possess it. Enemies surround our hero, some lusting for the power of the dagger, while others are more honed to collect the large ransom on his head and he finds himself with the most unlikely of allies, a beautiful princess of the kingdom he just helped overthrow.
Prince of Persia is entering a void left open by the downfall of the Mummy franchise, the critically abysmal last chapter of Indiana Jones and the mostly forgotten (or consciously blocked out) attempt to begin the Dirk Pitt domination of summertime adventure with Sahara. A good desert-filled action movie always has a dollar to be earned in the blockbuster summertime season. Maybe it’s the abundance of bright, hot sunshine in the locations, or possibly the presence of sweaty, well-toned actors and actresses in every other shot. Whatever the reasons may be, historical or present day action films set in the outlands of the desert have a genre all to themselves and Prince of Persia is looking to take control of it. There is rumor another Indiana Jones could be in the works (and why not since it made a ridiculous amount of money, who cares that it was terribly painful to watch), but Disney could most likely churn out one, maybe even two more chapters in this series before Indy crawls back to the screens. This summer there is nothing else being offered in this particular arena of actioneers, so the timing is quite well done.
Another big move inside this sand-blown story is the introduction of Jake Gyllenhaal as a viable action hero. While he has shown the ability to buff up his physical presence, in films like Jarhead and Brothers, and handle leading a film with major studio money behind it, like The Day After Tomorrow, all of those had him more focused on his intelligence and humanity than his stuntwork or bravado. Prince of Persia shows off a new side to Gyllenhaal, one audiences once had a chance of seeing years back when rumors floated around about him being cast over Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man (looking back at Spider-Man 3, maybe it was a good thing Gyllenhaal missed being caught up in that web). He very much holds his own here and continues to display his boyish charms, which won him such approval all the way back in October Sky, but now adds this new element of mischievous muscle. When not declaring his purity of character on screen, he spends his time flirting, either with danger or with his coquettish co-star, Gemma Arterton. That combination makes him interesting enough to hold audience attention in between the various action scenes.
But that is where things end in the positive realm of Prince of Persia. While slow motion can be used to exciting effect in some films, this one was wildly addicted to stopping time, not only in the fictional world, but also on screen, mostly whenever Gyllenhaal’s feet left the ground in any type of flip or diving motion. There were also areas where the CGI was incredibly poor and stuck out painfully from the rest of the physical set. This in particular was a disappointment coming from Disney, which knows all too well how to mix CGI and reality (just go back and watch the original Pirates of the Caribbean). Yet, beyond all those things, the one thing which left me more saddened than all the others while I walked back to my car was the weak and unimaginative writing. I will always give credit to any writer for getting something through the system and onto the screen and there is always the possibility that the finished product relates very little to their original script, but Prince of Persia felt older than the desert temples they were filming. There is a fine line between using a previous piece of work as a structure or even in terms of an homage, but this film was a blatant rip-off in my mind of Shakespeare’s King Lear and Hamlet, with a touch of Disney’s own Aladdin thrown in (the opening sequence in Prince of Persia is a near live action remake of the beginning of the animated Aladdin, which means Disney ripped themselves off.) Everything here was too obvious from scene one and that dragged down much of the excitement brought about by the action sequences.
The End of the Page Recommendation: In worldwide gross, Prince of Persia is currently just squeaking by its production budget, so in the end this will be a success, so you can expect another one down the road, but you might see a slightly smaller one, and if that means no Gyllenhaal, it will probably mean direct to DVD. As for this one, a decent summertime afternoon show, but save it for the couch instead of the theater.
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago at 12:13 pm. Add a comment
I have been blessed in my life with an amazing family and amazing friends and those two things combined have helped me through many dark times, but not everyone has such a solid network to lean upon and when they look for that support only to find empty stares and muted voices, they sometimes turn towards desperate ends. I’ve met and been introduced to a growing number of people who have attempted suicide, many in completely different manners, but the one thing which connects them all is they are still here to talk about it and for that I am extremely grateful.
Too many people in this world look down on people with suicidal tendencies as weak and think they need to buck up and learn to deal like the rest of us, but what those people never choose to learn is what would drive someone to make such a terrible and final decision. The sceptics might be surprised how strong these so-called ‘weak people’ are for just enduring what they have up to that point and many times there are factors which were never in their control, like chemical imbalances and hereditary conditions.
So, for those people in need, the ones I have met and the ones I hope to meet someday in their hopefully happy futures, I am thrilled there are groups out there like this one. To Write Love on Her Arms is a suicide prevention group which states their mission as:
To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery.
Even if you have never known anyone who has attempted or succeeded at suicide, trust that there are many out there and they could all use a helping hand, or sometimes just a working ear and an open heart. Please click through, find out more about them and support them if you can.
p.s. Also, it doesn’t hurt that their online store has some really cool shirts. I rock mine whenever it’s clean.
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago at 5:09 pm. Add a comment
Let’s see their rabid bunny defense system handle this little snack… filled with C4!!!
Rating: 8 out of 10
It seems to be the hidden goal of every idea in the universe to end up in movie form. Whether it started as a TV show, comic book, video game or an action figure (possibly featuring kung-fu grip); everything strives to be blown up and projected to a captive audience. Many of them fail, in extraordinary fashion (ahem… McHale’s Navy, Steel, Double Dragon and Masters of the Universe, respectively), but some break through the barrier of novelty and succeed as memorable theatrical experiences (the recent J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek deserves mention, along with the gothic wonderment of The Dark Knight). In the particular world of translating comedy skits, Saturday Night Live takes center stage as the longest running live comedy show with a continually growing treasure trove of material, but they are equally challenged with bringing about quality movies. While many will celebrate the original Wayne’s World and The Blues Brothers, we also hope beyond hope to block out train wrecks like It’s Pat. The newest effort to come out of the SNL think-tank, after a decade-long hiatus, seems primed to ride the wave of 80′s nostalgia, but will it catch hold? Read on…
MacGruber is an absurdist parody of the 80′s adventure show starring the jack-of-all-trades namesake, MacGuyver. In the original SNL skits, each one only ran thirty seconds while MacGruber would ask for random knick-knacks in order to build a bomb-defusing device and save everyone trapped inside a repeatedly locked room. He never fails to distract himself past the point of detonation, killing everyone. The feature length version finds MacGruber yanked out of seclusion into the armed forces as the only one who can track down his arch-enemy, Dieter Von Cunth, who gains possession of a nuclear warhead and plans to reduce Washington D.C. to tiny piles of radioactive dust.
I’ll fully admit the first time I heard they were pushing forward with the idea of a MacGruber feature film, I thought it would be a waste of time, space and celluloid. Yet, months later when that first trailer rolled out I found myself shocked to actually be chuckling and thinking it actually had a shot at being something worth watching. Many people believed it couldn’t be done, that an absurdist parody born from a 30-second skit could never last for over 80 minutes, but writers John Solomon, Jorma Taccone and co-writer/star Will Forte succeeded at just that. As numerous film business outlets have reported by now, the opening weekend box numbers were dismal and some are already calling it the ‘bomb of the year’, a moniker I strongly feel is undeserved, at least not in terms of quality. One of the keys to triumph was pushing each and every joke just a handful of beats past the point of normal, ‘safer’ comedies. Both of the main SNL alums, Will Forte and Kristen Wiig held on doggedly to drain each moment of the last possible chuckle, which for some audience members actually makes it even funnier. I felt Ryan Phillipe was an odd choice for the straight man because I didn’t think he could hold the screen against Forte, but he grew on me during the film and in the end proved that he was indeed willing to ‘go there’ to get the laughs. As for the villainous Val Kilmer and his portrayal of Von Cunth, he’s at his best when his characters are smarter than the rest of the people on screen, and the crowd, and the writers (see Real Genius or Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang). While Kilmer doesn’t come near that level of comedic ownership, he does balance out nicely with the rest of the cast and digs into the second-grade humor when it’s called for.
The End of the Page Recommendation: While it may play out to be one of the year’s biggest box office disasters, MacGruber will ride on and gain a solid life on DVD as a cult comedy, not unlike Hot Rod, starring Andy Samberg, another SNL superstar. No matter what happens, they can always rest easy knowing it’s still better than It’s Pat.
I’m going to win this Dreidel game if it’s the last thing I ever do.
DandyID
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