TERRI (a review) *** indy rental ***

TERRI (2011) (a review)

This is an indy comedy, one of those teen angst sort of things. Features John C Reilly (Step Brothers), Creed Bratton (The Office) and a bunch of teens.

The story: Terri is an overweight loser/outcast in his school who has so stopped trying that he now comes to school in his pajamas. He starts to meet with the school councelor (Reilly). When he sees the hot girl he has a crush on getting fooling around with a guy during class he accidentally gets them in trouble. However, it is when he helps stop her from getting expelled and then acts nice toward her while everyone else is trying her like an outcast that they develop something that might be a friendship or might be something else.

Was it good?

Almost. Which isn't to say there aren't good parts. There are some fantastic parts that really cut into the dynamics of teen life, especially the life of an outsider teen. However, there also is a lot that is boring or cliched, and the ending especially is unsatisfying, making you feel like the writer/director had one or two key scenes in mind for the story but didn't really know what to do beyond that. Still, for those good scenes alone the film is worth a rental. It's just a shame because with more work to the script, making it dig deeper, this could have been a great film.

The start with Terri as an outcast is fine, but nothing special. I actually thought him going to school in him pajamas was pretty cool -- I know people that did that in college! Also a lot of time is spent on his relationship with his uncle (Bratton). Now this isn't horrible, but it's not that interesting and it isn't really the thing that drives the movie forward, which is him being an outcast. This also is the problem with his relationship with the councellor. It just doesn't feel central to what is going on in his life. Almost all of it could have been cut and the movie would have been better and more focused without it.

Where the movie works is the teen dynamics, especially the character of the girl Terri has a crush on, . Terri who likes the pretty girl and is shocked/dissappointed when he sees her letting a boy feel her up during class is a classic scene. And later as the girl loses her spot in the social status and starts to hang out with Terri as the one guy who is nice to her has something both honest and dream fullfilling. All this builds to her coming over to his house, which is friends want to crash so they can be around the hot girl too. It's another great scene and the centerpiece of the movie.

However, the filmmaker doesn't seem to know what to do with it. While the scene builds and builds well, the ending feels more like the filmmaker trying to avoid cliches (like the boy gets the girl or the girl crushes the boy and goes back to the popular kids) than in actually having something to say. So while the movie has a couple great scenes, the ending feel hollow. It's a shame because when the movie really is willing to deal with the kids it gets into some interesting spaces. The character of the girl, who Terri seems to idolize, but really is just a normal girl with all the normal girl desires for fun and excitement, is one of the best drawn characters. Maybe if the w/d had thought more about BREAKFAST CLUB and less about indy character study this movie would have been really special.

Still for those scenes the movie is worth checking out, especially if you are up for an indy teen angst movie.

*** RENTAL ***

I.C.U. (2009) (a review)

I.C.U. (2009) (a review)

A low budget horror movie from Austrailia. Well, not so much a horror movie as a direct rip off of DISTURBIA with all the good stuff taken out and replaced by bad dialog, bad acting and poor story construction.

The story: three teen visit their dad to bond except he gets called out (he's a cop). They sit around and begin spying on the neighbors. The girl goes for a swim. They sit around some more. There are clips of the city and of someone who is committing murders. Then, finally, the teens witness a man attacking a woman and now try to convince their father to help.

Was it good?

No. And even my description doesn't reveal how bad it was. LAME, LAME, LAME.

Look, I understand seeing a cool movie like DISTURBIA and wanting to do something like it. I can even understand seeing it and thinking you could do it better. But either way, you'd think you would either (a) copy all the cool stuff to make sure your movie is cool and/or (b) find cool things the other movie didn't do that would make your movie better.

Fail and fail.

There is one nice moment when the teens try to explain to the father what has happened and it becomes an argument about their relationship -- he has never been there for them and he doesn't believe them now (from the kids pov) vs he is trying to make up for it and so he will go investigate (father's pov). Unfortunately, those ideas come too little, too late and nothing is ever done with them later on. There are a couple lame plot twists and that's it.

I could go on -- there is the whole voyeur thing and they make a big deal of the apartment the kids are in having cameras, but except for allowing them to show PG shots of the girl changing into her swim suit, I don't see what they had to do with the story at all.

Just lame all around.

*** AVOID ***

ARENA (2011) (a review)

ARENA (2011) (a review)

Yikes. Just...yikes. Stars: Kellan Lutz (Twilight: Breaking Dawn, 90210, Immortals), Samuel Jackson, Nina Dobrev (Vampire Diaries) and Daniel Day Kim (Lost). Written by Robert Martinez and Michael Hultquist. Directed by Jonah Loop.

The story: a man's wife and unbron child are killed and he goes on a drinking spree where he gets kidnapped and forced to fight in various to-the-death matches that are being shown over the internet. At first he refuses, but then a man he befriends is killed and he agrees to fight to win his freedom and get the chance to kill the executioner who killed his friend. Additionally, the fights are all different with various computer generated settings.

Was it good?

No. No, no, no, no, no. It wasn't even so-bad-it's-good bad. It was just bad. First, the fight scenes. This is an action movie and the fight scenes need to be cool as hell. And they weren't. They were worse than in the tv show Spartacus. They're not as good as you'd see on Buffy or Alias either.

The rest of the movie isn't any better. If you've ever sat through bad action movies you know they all have a lot in common -- over-the-top acting, bad stories that don't really make sense, 1-dimensional characters, plot twists that don't really make sense but are supposed to be cool. This movie has all of them. It's just that bad.

*** AVOID ***

MESKADA (2010) (a review)

MESKADA (2010) (a review)

An indy crime movie that focuses on more than just the crime and the cops. Stars" Nick Stahl (T3), Kellan Lutz (Twilight, Immortals, 90210), Rachel Nichols (GI Joe, Conan the Barbarian), Jonathan Tucker. Written and directed by Josh Sternfeld.

The story: A boy in an affluent town is murdered during a robbery. The detective suspects the murderer came from an adjascent town where people are struggling to find work. Complicating matters, the town (Caswell) is also trying to get a large corporation to move in which would mean hundreds of jubs and save the town.

Was it good?

Sort of. There is a lot of good and a lot of bad. Overall the acting is okay. What works best is the approach -- the focus on these two towns, one affluent and one struggling. Unfortunately, we don't get enough of that. All of it needed to be developed in a more powerful way. For instance, there is a scene (a very good one) where two people from Caswell are presenting their plan to the commissioner's office. However, the meeting doesn't go well. You see, the mother of the dead boy was a County Commissioner. It's a great scene that works because there are so many threads tangled together -- the town wants the jobs but it's a small town that doesn't like the police coming in and is stilling to protect its own, but then the mother of the murdered child is on the commission and it is clear they are not happy with the town and are ready to punish them by denying them the money for infrastructure they need to bring the corporation to their town. Because of this it spins everything with the town -- they want to protect themselves, but they need to find the killer, but they also lash out at the police blaming them for bringing the town under suspicion. It's great stuff. Unfortunately, it isn't set up nearly as strongly as it should have been. We don't know enough about the town, we don't have a good enough feel for the characters yet. They say the town will die without the company jobs, but that feeling just isn't there yet.

It's a problem that is grounded in the first act, where they show the murder of the boy and then focus on the two men responsible going back to their town and the detective who will try to track them down. Nothing is particularly bad about it, but it doesn't lay the ground work that is needed for later on -- namely the town's need for those jobs. What the movie needed was to move away from the structural of a procedural and focus more on the conflict between these two towns -- one affluent, one struggling.

As it is, the movie is okay, but it could have been something special. There's just too much that we have seen before, too much that isn't gripping. And as a detective story, the actual detective work is pretty boring. It needs more conflict within the small town -- the characters should each embody a philosophy that put them at odds with each other (one person is for the jobs, one person against an outside company coming into their town, one person wants to help the police find the people that murdered those boys, one person doesn't care about someone from that town getting killed, etc). This is important because you need to be able to explore the small town mindset in a clear way with as few people as possible and having the people each embody a different attitude will do that. Unfortunately, while interesting it never really reaches the dramatic heights that it could.

It's still a movie worth watching. It's a movie that tries to do much more than most crime stories and definitely has some interesting moments. It just also has stretches where you can safely go make a snack without missing anything. I wouldn't recommend it for theatrical, but if you are in the mood for something a little different, something that tries to do a little more, it's worth a rent.

*** RENTAL ***

DRIVE (2011) (review)

DRIVE (2011) (a review)

This is the hot new movie among cinephiles at the moment. Directed with a lot of style by Nicolas Refn and starring well respected actors Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, with a supporting role by Albert Brooks that has people predicting Oscars. Also stars Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad), Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men).

The story: Drive (never named but that's what I'll call him, aka Gosling) is a mechanic/stunt driver for the movies who is in love with the woman in the apartment next door (Mulligan). Her husband gets out of jail, but owes people money so to protect the wife and son, Drive agrees to be his wheel man while he robs a pawn shop. However the heist goes bad and the husband is shot and how Drive has to figure out who is behind it while protecting the woman that he loves.

Was it good?

Sort of. I can understand why some people seem to love it even though I didn't.

The first half I thought was very effective. It starts off with a cool cat-and-mouse car chase with Drive avoiding cops and then we get into his regular life as a mechanic and stunt driver. And, of course, his relationship with his neighbor Irene (Mulligan) and her son. It isn't much of a relationship -- they barely speak, but there clearly is an attraction and a bond. While this is happening his boss borrows money to buy a car so they (he and Drive) can compete on the race circuit and make big money and at the same time, Irene's husband gets out of jail, throwing a wrench into their relationship. While some people have called this part slow, there actually is a lot going on and I liked the focus on character. This, I think, was the strongest part of the film. It isn't done in a gritty fashion -- there is something lyrical and romantic about Refn's approach that makes this work.

Then the plot kicks in. The husband owes people money. Driver agrees to help with the heist. The husband is killed and Drive realizes that they had been double crossed. While he is trying to find there people and find a way out of it, the people of course are looking for him and looking for Irene.

Now some of this is good and some is bad. A lot doesn't make sense. Drive goes from not knowing who is behind it to walking right up to the guy. They present some mystery (who is behind it), but then skip over all the detective work. And it turns out Drive is not only a good looking guy and a brilliant mechanic and brilliant stunt driver, but he is also a killing machine as he tears his way through the bad guys.

All of which was kind of interesting, but the longer it went on the further the movie got from the things in the first act that really pulled me in. The relationship between Drive and Irene never develops or changes. The movie felt less like a story in the second half than a wind up toy -- they wound it up for the first half and then it just winds down until it is empty.

Part of the problem is that while the first half is effective, it is also pretty empty. The relationship between Drive and Irene works at first, because you can see why there two nice good looking people would like each other. However, as the movie descends into violence (and it does get really violent) you realize there really isn't anything to their relationship. A couple looks. Is he really doing this because she is pretty? I felt like we were supposed to feel that these were two lonely people who found each other and now Drive would do anything to save her...and yet that really isn't in the movie. She's a cute girl next door who he hangs out with twice. Is Drive supposed to be this lonely figure? We don't see him with other people, but we don't see him getting rejected by other people either.

So that emotion that is supposed to be pushing him through the second half just wasn't there for me. It felt like they were trying to do something like MAN ON FIRE or THE CROW, almost a revenge film where instead of revenge he is trying to save the girl, but the emotional core just wasn't there.

The first half I thought was really interesting. By the end, I felt like it had been an empty experience, one that had lots of cool stuff but didn't deliver on the emotion or depth that the director seemed to want by making a slow, character focused first half.

I think if you like more European art films, you might like it. Heck, you might even love it. But I think for most other people the movie is going to be a real let down. Still, the first half was strong enough that I think it's work seeing for a lot of people...

*** RENTAL ***