Funny quote

"Duke's point guard, Kyrie Irving, plans to play in the 2010 summer 'U18 Championship' -- a basketball competition between the U.S. and Australia. Because Irving was born in Australia, he's eligible to play for either team.For the purpose of preparedness and experience, I would encourage Irving to play for Australia -- playing basketball at Duke is the equivalent of playing against 90% of the United States." -- message on the Rivals.com board

DATE NIGHT (a review)

DATE NIGHT (a review)

A comedy starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey.

The story: Phil and Claire Foster (Carell and Fey) are a married couple with no spark, no romance, no passion. Just kids and routine and exhaustion. Then, when they hear two friends are getting divorced, they decide to go out on a real date to try to reignite the spark. On the date they are mistaken for another couple who have a flash drive that some unsovory people want back and now they are on the run from crooks and crooked cops as they try to get this mysterious flash drive and save their lives.

This movie kind of reminded me of ADVENTURES IN BABY SITTING, that unsung classic 80's film with Elizabeth Shue. It has the normal-turns-zany-adventure with a fun, comedy tone. It's just a fun movie. And I should admit I have a huge crush on Tina Fey, so that made it that much more enjoyable. However, there were a few things that definitely detracted. One is the co-stars. A lot of the smaller parts are filled with bigger name actors like James Franco and Milas Kunis and Mark Wahlberg and eventually these people became a distraction. I shouldn't be sitting there saying -- Hey, I recognise that guy! -- every five minutes. And it's not like these actors especially fit their parts either. It's like they all wanted to suck up to Fey so they could get on SNL or something. Weird. The second is the simple fact that it just isn't a smart movie, which is disappointing for me especially because I think Tina Fey is a very smart writer/comedianne. I want her to be in projects as smart as her best work and while this movie is nice and fun, it doesn't have that sharp insight/edge that her best work, whether from SNL or 30 Rock or Mean Girls, has. The final problem was I didn't think the movie did well in terms of set-up and emotional pay-off. That's because in the second half Phil (Carell) starts talking about having a plan and how Claire doesn't trust him and so she does everything herself and she knows how it makes her sound, etc, except I hadn't really felt like that was what the movie (emotionally) was about. Their relationship problem is presented as more of a rut with the kids, not about Claire being controlling or not trusting Phil or Phil not coming through when he gets an idea or anything like that. So in terms of emotional pay-off, they hadn't really set up what they needed to set up. Because of that the movie never really packs an emotional punch. It's nice, it's fun...but the best movies always give you something more -- yes, even the comedies -- and this just doesn't have it in it.

Still, there's plenty of fun in here.

** RECOMMEND (a nice, silly comedy) ***

PEACOCK (a review)

PEACOCK (a review)

*** SPOILERS ****

A movie starring Cillian Murphy as a man living two lives -- one as a man and the other as a woman. co-starring Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon, Bill Pullman, Keith Caradine and Josh Lucas.

The story: John Skillpa (Cillian Murphy) is a bank clerk in the small town of Peacock, Nebraska. He is a nice quiet man who has a secret personality, Emma, that no one in town knows about. Then a train crashes into his back yard. His neighbors discover Emma and assume she is his wife. Now, the two sides of John's persona -- John and Emma -- struggle for dominance as Emma begins exerting herself outside the home and John tries to keep his secret from the rest of the town. All this begins to revolve around a single mother, Maggie (Ellen Page) and a speech at the train in his backyard and...um, other stuff.

Um...what? What a weird ef-ing story. I put the spiller warning because I'm not even sure if we're supposed to know that John/Emma as two different people or the same person. I mean, you can tell right away -- it's not like Cillian Murphy looks like a woman at all -- but the rest of the town doesn't seem to bat an eye at the fact that there is this person in a dress and a wig that looks exactly like Cillian Murphy in a wig saying that "she" is his wife or whatever. Except there are times that some people seem to act like they know (Sarandon's character especially with the way she looks at him/her and his boss at the bank), but it never really is made clear. Still, it seems to eff-ing obvious!!! In a weird way it made the whole thing work as a comedy, and it was kind of fun watching the two sides of John battle for control. There is a speech someone wants to give at the train and one side is for it and the other against it, so everything goes back and forth. Similarly, there is a single mother that they both try to help in different ways.

But was it supposed to be a comedy? I don't know. It didn't really feel like it completely. It deffinitely has a darker, indy feel. Overall I kind of liked it, but I'm not sure I was liking it the way it was supposed to be liked. D'oh!

*** SLIGHT RECOMMEND (if you want a weird indy comedy) ****

Kyle Singler to return to Duke for his senoir year!!!

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/news?slug=ap-duke-singler

The title says it all. After years of Duke getting competitive teams only to lose key players to early entry into the draft or transfer (like losing Henderson and Elliot Williams last year), now Duke will return two of it's top players from it's national championship season!

Still, there will be big questions and the team next year will be very different. Gone will be Jon Scheyer's steady hand at point and his part of the effective 3-prong offense. Also gone will be Zubeck and Thomas, the big muscel down low that often proved to be the difference in games, especially against Baylor.

But...there's a heck of a group coming back. The perimeter will be loaded with Singler and Smith, and with them Dawkins, Ireland and Curry. Down low it will be the Plumlee brothers shouldering the load. Will they be able to play the level of defense we will need? How will the offense run without Scheyer? Where this year they favored a slower, half court game next year I expect they will be an up-and-down, run and gun offense.

Can they win back to back???? I can't wait for next season to find out!

BAD MOON (a review)

BAD MOON (a review)

This is a Michael Pare movie not named EDDIE AND THE CRUSERS. And you either know what that means or you don't. See, Pare was like this B-movie action star in the 80's and 90's. I'm not sure almost any movies got play outside of cable tv (except the horrible but wonderful STREETS OF FIRE) but they were all good natured-B-movie-bad but sort of fun movies. They weren't movies you'd really recommend, but they were movies you always watched. This is one of those movies.

Before I get into this movie, I'd like to recommend two other Pare films first. One is EDDIE AND THE CRUISERS -- the story of a journalist trying to track down the lost music of a famed New Jersey musician. Great 80's movie. Not the sequel. That sucked. But the original is absolutely worth seeing. And STREETS OF FIRE. Now my opinion of that movie is alittle biased as I was at the exact right age when it came out and watching Diane Lane dance around in a backless red dress on stage was...well, I better not finish that sentence. Still this is another movie-was-music featuring Michael Pare as the tough ex-boyfriend who must help get Lane back after she is kidnapped by a rival gang. In parts a cheesy. In parts wonderful. Just a great, fugly mess of a movie. It should be watched by everyone. It should be shown every Christmas. It should be memorized by school children instead of the Pledge of Allegence. And I bet Diane Lane would still rock that little red dress!

The story (BAD MOON): while in Nepal, a photojournalist (Michael Pale) and his girlfriend are attacked by a werewolf. The girlfriend is killed. Pare's character isn't, but becomes a werewolf himself. Unable to find a cure elsewhere he moves in with his sister thinking that family and love might be the cure. It isn't. As he changes he becomes a bigger dangers to the family and it is up to the family dog to protect them.

Now this movie is based on a book, Thor by Wayne Smith where the story is told from the dog's point of view and I can see why that would have been more interesting and more compelling. It isn't that the idea is bad (in fact I had a similar one...now maybe I'll have to scrap it...D'oh!) but that the story would have been more compelling from the dog's point of view. The dog loves the family. The brother moves in but there's something wrong with him except only the dog knows this, and as the dog tries to protect the family things get worse and worse. However, in the movie they change it from the POV of the dog to the POV of the brother and it just doesn't hold up -- NOT because the idea couldn't work, but because they didn't change the story enough to really make the brother at the center of things. So the story ends up feeling very blah.

Still...this is a Michael Pare film. And I like almost all Michael pare films, so

*** RECOMMEND (as are all Michael Pare films) ****

Jack Ketchum's GIRL NEXT DOOR (a review)

Jack Ketchum's GIRL NEXT DOOR (a review)

Stephen King: "If you are easily disturbed, you should not watch this movie. If, on the other hand, you are prepared for a long look into hell, suburban style, The Girl Next Door will not disappoint. This is the dark-side-of-the-moon version of Stand By Me."

He ain't lying. Twisted, disturbing and about the scariest thing I've seen in a long time because it's so believable. Movies with monsters are easy to dismiss because we always know they are fake. But this...this is the real kind of scary, this is the kind of thing we catch glimpses of on the news -- that story of abuse, that story of kids tormenting another kid -- that the papers give enough to tantalize or horrify, but then pull back from. This movie doesn't pull back. It's about as intense as any movie out there.

The story: Inspired by true events in 1958. David is a young teen in a small town. He meets Meg while looking for crawdaddy's. Meg and her younger sister have moved into the house next door with her aunt and her aunt's three sons after her parents were killed in a car accident. But her aunt doesn't like Meg and begins firs tto verbally harrass her, then physically abuse her, then tie her up in the basement and begin to torture her, all in front of other kids in the neighborhood who do not report anything until it is far, far too late.

Okay, so obviously this isn't the jump-at-monsters sort of horror movie ala FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH or some vampire flick. Those are kind of fun-scary, like going on roller coaster rides where you want to be a little scared but you know you are safe. This is the kind of real scary because it is so real. The way the aunt is depicted -- first she's almost the cool parent who let's the kids play or have a beer or whatever, but then we see her turn on Meg and the escalation with the boys. The point of view of the movie is from the young neighbor, David, who likes Meg but becomes trapped within their sadistic "games." The problem with these sorts of movies is why tell this story? I mean, on one hand we all know that there are these sadists who do these things. Wanting to shove it in people's faces to wake them up is fine, but that doesn't feel like what this movie is doing. I mean, it's a case from the 50's. Why make the movie now? And without that -- without that understanding of why we are watching this, why this is a story that needs to be told -- the story begins to falter. LORD OF THE FLIES is a story of boys who begin to commit horrific acts of violence, but that has the point that children aren't these nice, innocent creatures, but in fact can be quite monsterous (a shocking notion at the time). This movie...I don't know. In the end, David does try to save Meg, but it doesn't really feel like it's about a boy finally standing up to other kids who are doing something horrible. It has this group of kids and the aunt who have this strange group dynamic that leads them down this path of torture, but it doesn't really feel like he's trying to examine the nature of violence and how people are led down that path (or how others can lead them there). He makes a point of having other kids from the neighborhood watching the torture, but again it doesn't seem to be about the way kids will accept or even participate in these horrific acts.

I don't know. The movie is intense and shocking in a way few movies ever even try to be. But without that feeling of what was being said, it boils down to simply watching a young girl be tortured by her aunt and nephews. It's a shame, because if the filmmakers had dug a little deeper and found something to say, then the movie could have been a difficult but powerful movie, along the lines of BREAKING THE WAVES. Without it...

*** CAN'T QUITE RECOMMEND (and would only recommend for those willing to deal with a very shocking and brutal movie anyway) ***

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (a review)

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (a review)

Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to PUNCH DRUNK LOVE (that odd Adam Sandler film where he wasn't acting like Adam Sandler at all. No, not SPANGLISH, the other one..right.) The movie got Daniel Day Lewis an Oscar nom and that's the biggest reason to see it. The movie is loosely based on the Upton Sinclair novel, Oil!

The story: Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day Lewis) is an oil man. He is told about a large oil deposit in Little Boston, California. He ventures out and buys up all the land. He deals with people who want to be treated fairly, but he is tough and bargains tough, seemingly more intent on winning at the bargaining table then actually doing good business. The story follows his success even as he destroys or drives away all the people around him.

Okay, maybe that's not the best synopsis, but that's the feel of the film. Plainview is kind of an anti-hero -- tough and driven, uncompromising, seemingly filled with disdain for all his fellow men. If you find that kind of anti-hero fascinating then this might be a good movie for you. If you just think those guys are a-holes, then this will be a waste of time, except for the one saving fact that Daniel Day Lewis's acting is brilliant -- intense, passionate, and fascinating. In fact, when he character is at his worst, Lewis is at his most fascinating.

Still, if you don't want to watch an actor act, or if you don't like that kind of anti-hero, then the film will be a total waste.

*** SLIGHT RECOMMEND ***