It tells the story of a group of seven people, Evelyn (Judi Dench), Graham (Tom Wilkinson), Douglas (Bill Nighy), Jean (Penelope Wilton), Muriel (Maggie Smith), Norman (Ronald Pickup), and Madge (Celia Imrie), who, for various reasons, travel to India to stay at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a resort for the elderly and beautiful, as their sign says. The film follows each of them as they explore the bustling city, learning not only about it, but also about each other as they spend more time together.

What makes this a rather interesting film to watch is the interesting group of eclectic characters. Evelyn has recently lost her husband so she decides to do a bit of traveling, even ending up with a job at a call center in the process. Graham, a judge, has gotten fed up with the constant retirement parties he must attend and decides to return to India after 40 years to find a man he once knew there.

Douglas and Jean, a married couple, are having a few issues at home with trying to find new housing, as well as having given their daughter his retirement money for an internet business. Their marriage is clearly not going well, something that only seems to get worse as they spend time in India. Muriel, a racist, is in need of a hip replacement and has been told that the process can be done cheaply if she is outsourced to a hospital in India. Finally, there’s Norman and Madge, who are both on the hunt for a partner.

Director John Madden and screenwriter Ol Parker do a good job of incorporating these multiple storylines into a film where each and every character ends up getting plenty of screentime to have their tale told. While Parker doesn’t have anything particularly noteworthy in his filmography, most will remember Madden as the director of the great “Shakespeare in Love,” another ensemble film that required a balance of storylines.

As mentioned before, this is an ensemble film, and the cast that was assembled is quite extraordinary. Dench, who won an Oscar for her performance in “Shakespeare,” brings her usual, delightful personality to the screen as a woman trying to figure out what to do with herself now that she’s alone. Maggie Smith has had a long and distinguished career of her own, taking home two Oscars in the process. Interestingly enough, the younger generation will know her quite well simply because of her appearances in all eight “Harry Potter” films. Her character in “Marigold” has some of the best dialogue and delivers a lot of the humor that lightens the mood.

There are also those who some might not be particularly familiar with, such as Bill Nighy, whom some may know from Edgar Wright’s comedies “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” while others will know the name from his work in two of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films as the tentacle-faced Davy Jones, and Tom Wilkinson, another actor many would recognize even without knowing the name. Nighy also helps delivers a lot of the film’s comedy while Wilkinson injects it with a lot of heart as he searches for the man who had a big affect on him all those years ago when he was last in India. Rounding out the cast is Dev Patel, of “Slumdog Millionaire” fame, as the operator of the hotel. His character has a lot on his plate which includes trying to run a hotel while attempting to restore it to glory and dealing with a relationship with his girlfriend that his mother does not approve of.

It’s all these performances that help give the film a good mix of comedy and drama in equal measure. To top it off, it was filmed on location in India, giving the film a beautiful look with multiple exotic landscapes. It may not be a particularly memorable film, but it’s a joy to watch so much talent on the screen, for if there’s one thing you’ll remember besides the gorgeous scenery, it’ll be these actors showing that they still have what it takes to pull in an audience and engage them for two hours.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

It follows Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), a young man who isn’t doing much with his life until his brother (Alexander Skarsgard) forces him to join him in the Navy. Meanwhile, Alex has fallen in love with Samantha (Brooklyn Decker), the daughter of Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson). The problem is, Alex is too nervous to ask him for his daughter’s hand in marriage, especially since his performance has not exactly been stellar with a dishonorable discharge being a real possibility.

At the same time, a group of scientists have constructed a powerful communications array that will allow them to send a message to a planet thought to contain life. Not long after the signal is sent, a mysterious group of objects hurtles towards Earth and crash-lands into the Pacific Ocean near the array. It turns out that these are aliens, and surprise, surprise, they’re not friendly. They construct a barrier around Hawaii where the array is located with the intention of using it to call for reinforcements. With Alex’s ship being caught inside the barrier, he must step up and show how good a naval officer he can be.

The funny thing about “Battleship” is that it just might have made for an interesting movie if they had pursued better uses of the theme. Strangely though, what we end up with is a romantic story about a troubled officer that gets interrupted by an alien invasion plot that feels completely out of place. Why did the writers (Erich and Jon Hoeber) feel the need to throw in a plot that’s already been done to death?

The obvious answer seems to lead back to the films I mentioned at the top of this review in that they needed some kind of template to support endless explosions, gunfire, and destruction. That’s really all this film comes down to after those first semi-interesting 30 minutes. It takes a really special film to become so monotonous as to bore the audience this much while everything on screen is bursting into fireballs. Even the aliens themselves are dull. It seems as though the filmmakers didn’t want to spend too much time designing them, so they merely had them wearing protective suits most of the time, and even when we do see them, they look like lazily-designed monkeys.

Then there are the endless clichés you have to put up with throughout. Aside from the entire alien plot, you have an officer about to washout of the Navy, who just happens to get his big chance to shine after he becomes the senior officer aboard his ship. You also get a hefty dose of cringe-worthy dialogue such as when a fellow officer tells Alex that his crew needs him, to which Alex replies that he can’t take command. The officer’s response is simply “If you can’t, then who can?,” a line that ended up being more humorous than serious.

There is a little bit of humor to be had with the film, even in the monotonous sections. One of its best moments comes when Alex and his crew actually begin playing a real game of Battleship as they attempt to hunt down the alien ships using water displacement. Their grid, lined with buoys, looks like a game board while they attempt to “hit” their targets. This is about as close as the film gets to having anything to do with the game.

The Hoebers have been semi-successful writers, but now they tip their filmography to the negative side. They also gave us the terrible film “Whiteout” and the decent action flick “Red.” The film was directed by Peter Berg, who gave us a pair of decent films in “The Kingdom” and “Hancock.” It’s unfortunate to find him working on so obvious a mess as this.

It really should have been obvious to everyone involved that it was going to turn out like this. Trying to make a Battleship film with aliens makes about as much sense as combining them with Monopoly or Ouija (two films that are supposedly in the works). They just don’t go together. It becomes really sad when the most exciting part of the entire film is near the beginning where Alex attempts to obtain a chicken burrito for Samantha. You know it’s bad when 90 minutes of explosions can’t top that. In the end, to put it simply, the film is a big “miss.”

1.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Based upon the popular soap opera that ran from 1966 to 1971, it tells the story of the Collins family, who thrived in the fishing market in the 18th century. As a young boy, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) comes to America and eventually begins a relationship with Angelique (Eva Green). However, he admittedly feels nothing for her, which leads him to a relationship with Josette (Bella Heathcote), a woman he is madly in love with. What Barnabas doesn’t know is that Angelique is a witch, and in her jealousy, she decides to force Josette to kill herself and curse Barnabas by making him a vampire. After Angelique turns the townspeople against him, Barnabas is forced into a coffin and left buried in the ground.

200 years later, he is dug up by a construction crew, and after killing them all, he returns to his family’s enormous mansion known as Collinwood. There he finds the last remaining members of his once-powerful family including Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer), Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), Carolyn (Chloe Grace Moretz), and David (Gulliver McGrath). Also staying in the house are the caretaker, Willie (Jackie Earle Haley), David’s new nanny, Victoria (Bella Heathcote), and David’s doctor, Dr. Hoffman (Helena Bonham Carter), who has been with the family for a few years due to David not being able to get over the death of his mother. Barnabas, seeing the state of his family, decides to help make things like they were before, but this isn’t easy with Angelique still alive and running a rival fishing company.

The original soap opera was well-known for being a mixture of fantasy and horror, which the new version does in part, but aside from that, it also throws in some awkwardly-placed humor and romance. In short, the writer, Seth Grahame-Smith, just didn’t know what he wanted the film to be, leading to him throwing in a little bit of all of these genres in hopes of coming up with something. Unfortunately, all he ends up doing is causing the film to feel like it’s merely meandering for about two hours without coming up with much of a story.

The humor is actually the strangest thing about it. It doesn’t blend very well with what would have been better off as a dark, gothic tale. It’s not even particularly funny, giving us jokes that amount to such attempts as having Barnabas tell us that the Collins always had the biggest balls, as in parties. Had they actually stuck to the original tone of the show, there would have been a bigger chance of success. Instead, we get far too many attempts to milk humor out of Barnabas being 200 years out of date.

For those familiar with Burton’s other work, you know you can usually expect a kind of gothic touch in his films, which made “Dark Shadows” seem like the perfect fit for his talents. The look of the film is exquisite from the old, creepy rooms of Collinwood to the characters themselves. It’s unfortunate that the writing couldn’t stand up to the film’s production design. Perhaps they felt like if they nailed the visual aspects of the show then the rest would just fall into place. Sadly this did not happen as these characters just aren’t given much to do.

Depp, who is usually a delight to see on screen, suffers from this perhaps most of all. His character is very one-note, talking in the same tone as he goes about trying to get accustomed to the 70s while having to deal with Angelique and a romantic interest as well. It’s not really a bad performance, certainly not as off-the-mark as his interpretation of Willy Wonka back in 2005, it’s just that the character, as well as the film itself, becomes rather dull to watch what with the meandering nature of the story.

Burton and Depp have been working together for awhile now. It’s always interesting to see what the two of them will deliver next whether it’s a great film like “Sweeney Todd” or something that doesn’t quite work like this or “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” The thing is, a “Dark Shadows” remake should have worked quite well. The attempt to turn it into a comedy should have been spotted as a folly from very early on as that’s not what the material lends itself to being. If they truly wanted to make an homage to the original show, then the best course to take would have been to do a more straightforward adaptation instead of turning it into a directionless mess of tones. It had so much potential, but given the result, it should have stayed in the shadows.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The man is named Frank (Joel Murray). He is divorced, has a young daughter who doesn’t want to see him, and also suffers from migraines and insomnia. He constantly spends his nights listening to his loud neighbors and their always-crying baby and routinely falls asleep in front of a television set spewing out terrible reality shows. One day at work, after listening to his coworkers going on and on about an awful contestant on one of these shows, his frustration comes out in the form of a long rant about how terrible people can be and how unoriginal conversations are nowadays. Shortly afterward, his boss calls him into his office to let him go due to trying to cheer up a coworker by sending her flowers.

This, coupled with his doctor diagnosing him with a brain tumor, causes his anger against the people he was ranting about to come to a head when he decides to kill a star on another reality show. This murder is witnessed by another young girl, Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who is extremely pleased with what Frank did, causing her to want to go with him and help him on his “quest.” Together they hit the road, determined to kill those who they deem to deserve it.

One of the most interesting parts of “God Bless America” is how Frank’s and Roxy’s criteria for who deserves to die differ. Frank mainly wants to kill people who are rude, like those making fun of the person who can’t sing on “American Superstarz” (an obvious jab at “American Idol”), people who talk in a movie theater, or a really mean political talk show host. Roxy appears to want to do it for far more general reasons such as not liking someone’s movies or wanting to kill people who give high-fives or even just people who use certain words, something Frank jokes about as she has a rant of her own.

There’s also a continual theme of mistaken intent running through the film. From the very start, after Frank kills the mean reality show star, he plans to kill himself, but Roxy tells him that all he’ll be remembered for is killing a girl that he had a mad crush on, which was obviously not his intent. After killing several people in a movie theater playing a war documentary, reporters automatically assume that it was the violent content of the documentary that caused Frank and Roxy to commit the murders when it was actually the simple problem of their victims talking and being rude.

Then there’s the controversial talk show host who tells them that if they kill him, he will become a martyr for his fans, which does indeed happen, but Frank doesn’t care at this point as his reason for killing him was simply that he was rude to his guests. All of these things lend themselves to the black comedy that the film is, whether it’s trivial reasons for wanting to kill someone or the way in which media mistakenly portrays what murderers are trying to do.

Like with several black comedies, it’s not really a laugh out loud kind of film, but more so an attempt to be shocking, or to use a word that Roxy dislikes, “extreme.” There are also numerous pop culture jabs being made aside from mocking “American Idol” and how that’s the only kind of thing people talk about anymore. As part of Roxy’s rant, she goes into how much she hates Diablo Cody (Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Juno”), and, in one of the film’s sicker jokes, disses Green Day while praising Alice Cooper and the Goth movement.

“God Bless America” was written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, whom you may know as the squeaky-voiced comedian who has lent his familiar voice to several animated shows. He also brought us the bizarre, but well-done film “World’s Greatest Dad” back in 2009, which told the story of a father exploiting the death of his terrible son. Back then, I was surprised that he was the one to deliver such an interesting film, and now he’s delivered another one. He’s shown he has a knack for writing films with strange lead characters whose morals you will question, but whose exploits you will want to follow to the end. It also shows that, in order to find strange and interesting alternatives to mainstream films, sometimes you have to turn to the most unlikely of people.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

J.C. had the chance to chat with Brian Koppelman last year at the 13th Annual Nashville Screenwriters Conference, and Brian (lucky for us!) reluctantly agreed to be harassed via e-mail for this interview. Brian and his writing partner, David Levien, started their screenwriting career with the 1998 Matt Damon/Ed Norton film Rounders, and have been working steadily in the industry ever since, including a half dozen currently in development properties. Their next star-studded film, the drama-thriller Runner, Runner starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake is in pre-production now.

Q: First off, tell us a little about yourself. Who is Brian Koppelman?

A: Some guy who should be writing a screenplay right now but is procrastinating by answering these questions instead.

Q: When did you first become aware that films were actually made and that there was an entire machine and process behind what you were seeing on the screen?

A: My favorite TV show at one point in my childhood was S.W.A.T. My dad knew someone involved in the show. Our family took a vacation to L.A. and my dad was able to swing a set visit. I remember being amazed (and a little disappointed) to see that the police station had no roof. And that the walls moved away for camera positions. In that moment, at like 7 years old, I understood that it was a crafted, put together thing.

Never watched another episode of S.W.A.T. It was totally ruined for me.

And don’t even get me started on the movie.

This seems like an appropriate place to make this point: almost all of it is instinctive for me. I loved to write. Needed to write. Was happier writing than doing anything else.

Q: What was it, specifically, that drew you to the writing aspect of filmmaking?

A: Well, writing was the point of entry for my filmmaking partner David Levien and me. We didn’t go to film school. Didn’t study camera. But always loved films and the way language was used in films. We were both also committed readers of fiction from our early teen years forward. Writing was just always the starting point for us. This seems like an appropriate place to make this point: almost all of it is instinctive for me. I loved to write. Needed to write. Was happier writing than doing anything else. That lead to getting movies made. Which lead to a desire to direct, to tell the whole story… None of it has ever been planned out in advance. I am, however, a big believer in the power of decisions. I walked into a poker club, realized, ‘Hey, this is a movie.” Told David, he agreed, and then we made a decision together: We agreed to meet every day for two hours until the screenplay was finished. And we did.

Q: What was the first screenplay you ever read and how did it change or alter your approach or perspective on filmmaking?

A: I had read a bunch of plays (and was in a bunch of plays) from junior high school straight through college. But I think the first screenplay I read was House of Games. The movie came out my junior year of college and a buddy gave me the screenplay as a gift (because I had already memorized the movie). The script was a revelation as was Mamet’s introduction to it, wherein he discussed the making of the film and what it meant to become a director.

Q: When you first started to learn the craft, did you read/study any how-to books on screenwriting, and, if so, which ones did you find to be the most beneficial?

A: I didn’t read any books on the craft of screenwriting until after David and I sold our first script. I had read William Goldman’s books on the business, which had tangential commentary on what made a screenplay proper, but nothing directly instructional. David had gone through Writer’s Bootcamp and he walked me through the approach to outlining and story-building that he learned at that program, which did give us a helpful roadmap.

I walked into a poker club, realized, ‘Hey, this is a movie.” Told David, he agreed, and then we made a decision together: We agreed to meet every day for two hours until the screenplay was finished. And we did.

Q: As a writer, how and where do you seek out inspiration? Alternatively, what really inspires you to write?

A: I don’t ‘seek out inspiration’ as some sort of technique. My whole life is geared around doing those things that are inspiring. And it has been ever since I got out of high school. I have always sought out music, books, movies, artwork and, mostly, people who inspire, engage, fascinate me. And then I spend as much time with those people, ideas, works of art as I possibly can. Because that’s what makes me feel alive. And it also has the benefit of making me feel creative.

Q: What is your writing process like (i.e. schedule, outline, notecards, treatments, etc.)?

A: Almost never use notecards. We do outline. And we still show up every morning. But the days last longer than the two hours they did when we were writing Rounders before going to our jobs.

Q: What software do you use and why?

A: Final Draft.

Q: Once you’ve finished the first draft of a project, how many people, and who specifically, do you let read it?

A: My wife, Amy (who is a hell of a writer and published novelist), and my son, Sam (who is a terrific writer at 16–you can read him at Huffington Post), read and comment on everything. And depending on the script and where David and I think it is, we may also show it to some professional writer friends, too. With Solitary Man, which I wrote alone, Amy read it first, then David read it. And then I sent it to two directors I admired, just in case Dave and Amy were being nice. And then, once the directors gave me thoughts, I sent it to our agents.

Q: As the old adage goes: writing is rewriting. How do you approach and what is your process in regard to rewriting?

A: I don’t separate the writing from the rewriting. It is all one thing. I rewrite as I go, by reading up to the starting place as often as I can. And then, at the end of a draft, I wait a day, print and read with a pen, do those changes right away. And then put the script down for a week, read again on paper with a pen. And when we get notes, we absorb them, decipher, to the best of our ability, their true meaning, and then dive in.

Q: What was your first produced screenplay and how did the project come into existence?

A: Rounders. Have told the story too many times to re-hash it here.

Q: How long did it take you to write it; from the first word to the final draft?

A: Once we finished researching/outlining, we wrote the screenplay in four months. That’s the draft Miramax bought. After that, we worked with the director to refine it for production.

Q: How did you sell it?

A: David had met a manager, named Seth Jaret, who agreed to represent us/it. He sold it.

Q: What was the process like once it was sold (i.e. any rewrites during production)?

A: It was a great process. John Dahl, the director, taught us how to tighten and focus a script into a shootable screenplay.

Q: What was it like to sit in a darkened theater with an audience and watch your words come to life for the first time on the big screen?

A: It’s both horrible and great. And then, later, it’s only great.

Q: What was life like for you immediately after the film was made?

A: The biggest change for me was the one that happened once I committed to actually becoming a writer. Meaning, once I finally got past whatever had blocked me for the first 29 years of my life. All the other changes are a direct result of that change. From the moment we started writing Rounders, I have felt a kind of freedom I never felt before.

From the moment we started writing Rounders, I have felt a kind of freedom I never felt before.

Q: What lessons did you learn from that first film that informed or altered your approach to writing your later features?

A: I don’t remember anymore. But I do keep learning each day at the computer writing or on set or in the editing room. And it’s mostly about being willing to cut and tighten and sharpen. And to not be charmed by anything I write.

Q: Has watching actors act out and speak your written words changed your process in any way?

A: It’s inspired me. And given me a deeper sense of responsibility to them.

Q: Are you currently working on any projects and can we expect to see anything from you soon?

A: Runner, Runner starring Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck and directed by Brad Furman begins shooting this summer. David Levien and I wrote it and are producers on the film. And we are writing the Rockford Files for Universal and Vince Vaughn.

Q: Untouchables 2 was listed on the 2005 Black List. Did making the list change your career?

A: Not one bit. But I am always interested in reading the Black List scripts.

People want to know the secret to ‘success’ or ‘breaking in.’ I never thought about any of that.

Q: Do you think it’s beneficial for amateur writers to attend these screenwriting conferences in Nashville?

A: I think the Nashville Screenwriters Conference is a terrific event. They always get A-list screenwriters to come do panels, not supposed ‘experts’ who have never even sold a script. If you’re looking to go and talk to/learn from established professionals, Nashville Screenwriters Conference is a great way to do it.

Q: Finally, this is where I usually ask the interviewee for inspiring words for aspiring writers, but I think I’ll just give you the floor and let you speak your mind about what’s really in store for anyone crazy enough to venture into screenwriting with the thoughts of making it a career.

A: The only thing of real value I have to convey about this is: everything changed for me when I decided to commit a couple of hours each morning to writing. People want to know the secret to ‘success’ or ‘breaking in.’ I never thought about any of that. Or if I did, it was secondary or tertiary to just figuring out how to tell the story I wanted to tell. That’s it. Find a story you have to tell and tell it as well as you know how. And then do it again.

Check out more:
Brian Koppelman @ IMDb
Solitary Man @ IMDb
- Download the Script
- Purchase the Blu-ray
- Purchase the DVD
Rounders @ IMDb

The film starts off with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), director of S.H.I.E.L.D., checking on Dr. Selvig’s (Stellan Skarsgard) progress with the Tesseract, a cube containing unlimited energy that they are trying to harness. However, the cube also acts as a gateway, through which Loki (Tom Hiddleston) unexpectedly arrives. Loki escapes with the cube with the intention of using it to bring forth an army to conquer the Earth, which he would then rule over.

In order to recover the Tesseract, Fury enlists the help of Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson), a special agent, to help him assemble “The Avengers,” a group of people who have special skills and powers. This includes Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Dr. Bruce Banner, aka The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), and Thor (Chris Hemsworth). Together, they must use their skills to find the cube and stop Loki before he is able to carry out his plan.

If you’ve never read up on these Marvel characters or didn’t see any of the previous films, then the synopsis here might seem rather strange. Most of these characters are well-known, but even the studio realized that there would be a portion of people who didn’t know much about them, which was one of the reasons for the previous individual films. However, that being said, knowing their backstories is not really a prerequisite to being able to enjoy the film.

As mentioned earlier, this is an action-packed film, but unlike most similar films nowadays, this one actually has an interesting story and developed characters to go along with it. Therefore, when there’s a lot of action occurring on screen, you actually care about what’s going on instead of just rolling your eyes or looking at your watch. As you could probably guess, it all eventually comes down to a major battle to decide who is to be victorious and they’ve really spared no expense in making this an epic-sized battle for Earth.

Then again, if you’ve seen the other films, you’ll already expect that anyway. These films have been good overall and rather entertaining. I wouldn’t go so far as to call them great, but I have enjoyed watching them. “The Avengers” continues this trend of being enjoyable to watch, and certainly recommendable, but not really lifting these superheroes up into the realm of greatness.

The only real problems with the film are in its pacing. The middle of the film lagged a bit, particularly in the section where you’re still waiting for The Avengers to finish assembling. The other pacing problem comes in that final battle where it felt like it just went on a little too long while our heroes smash and destroy countless generic robot/alien invaders. Luckily this doesn’t put too much of a damper on the excitement that the film is able to generate.

As far as the filmmakers are concerned, the studio couldn’t have made a better choice than to put Joss Whedon behind the camera. Whedon is, of course, the creator of several popular television shows like “Firefly” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and just recently helped give us the great film “The Cabin in the Woods.” His keen eye for action and story help make this a much more enjoyable film than it otherwise might have been.

On top of all that, Whedon also wrote the screenplay. It really is quite something that he was able to take so many characters and put them into a movie where nobody gets left behind. With almost everyone’s backstory being told already, he didn’t need to spend much time telling us where anybody came from, allowing for more time to deal with the present crisis. Even so, the film runs for well over two hours, with an extra scene setting up the next film of course, and even though it could have stood to lose a few minutes in a couple spots, there’s little to complain about otherwise. The inevitable sequel will be most welcome.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Mei (Catherine Chan) is a young Chinese girl with a very special gift. She has an amazing memory that allows her to remember things very well such as really long numbers, a talent that has Chinese and Russian gangs, as well as corrupt policemen chasing after her. While they are in the process of trying to find her, Mei just happens to come across Luke Wright (Jason Statham), an ex-cop turned cage fighter, who decides to protect her from those trying to kidnap her.

As Luke finds out, Mei has information in her head that the gangs want, particularly a long sequence of numbers that is the combination to a safe containing $30 million dollars, but as to what the money is for is a mystery involving all those trying to get at it. With people trying to kill him left and right, Luke must do his best to make sure that Mei doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.

For starters, the story here is very skimpy. I say part of it is a “mystery,” but it doesn’t remain a mystery for very long because the necessity of the plot requires that a character reveals that information very easily or else the story wouldn’t be able to move forward. What we end up with is another film that feels like the story was merely an excuse for the action sequences, which seem to pop up every few minutes, only slowing down long enough for the plot to move forward another inch.

This in turn makes the film feel like it’s stuck in a rut of endless fights and gunfire. There is a little entertainment to be had out of Statham stylishly and systematically taking out several people at once, but after awhile, you begin to realize that this is pretty much all the film is since the story is rather minimal and predictable as well.

The film comes to us from director/writer Boaz Yakin, whose previous credits include co-writing the screenplay for the disappointing “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” and directing “Remember the Titans,” a great sports film. “Safe” is adequately directed, though not particularly noteworthy for it, with the actions scenes coming off as well-done for the most part, something that many directors still have trouble doing nowadays.

The screenplay, as you could have probably guessed by now, could have used a lot of work, especially to flesh out the characters better, perhaps building on the relationship between Luke and Mei a little more so that the audience could form an attachment to them. The story here obviously needed a little more attention what with it being inundated with repetitive action scenes and little plot development. Action scenes can be good, but not when you let them rule over the story.

Perhaps one of these days Statham will stop making the same movie over and over and try something new. He’s done some good films like “Snatch” and “The Bank Job,” but mostly films that are interchangeable. It seems like “Safe,” “The Mechanic,” “The Expendables,” “Killer Elite,” “War” and the three “Transporter” films have got him stuck in a rut of his own. Unfortunately, with another “Expendables” on the way, it looks like a change isn’t about to happen anytime soon. I guess when you think about it, he’s simply playing it “safe.”

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) is living the good life. He lives in a large house with his beautiful wife Diana (Synnove Macody Lund) and has a decent job as a headhunter for a large corporation. The problem is, he can’t afford the lifestyle he has chosen, causing him to be an art thief on the side. However, his latest acquisition hasn’t even provided him with enough funds to make a payment on his expensive house.

At his wife’s gallery opening, he meets Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a former consultant for a nanotechnology company. Roger is currently looking to fill a position at his company, so he offers Clas a meeting to discuss it. However, Roger becomes even more interested in him when he hears through his wife that Clas has a work by Munch sitting in his apartment that is worth millions. He immediately plans to steal it, and is successful, but shortly after, he finds himself the victim of the relentless hunting skills of Clas, an ex-soldier and expert tracker.

As mentioned earlier, you may think this is a heist film by the way it’s set up. It’s interesting that they seemed to take a lot of time with this section too, thoroughly arranging how the heists were to be carried out. The film even opens with Roger’s list of rules that include a time limit and making sure not to leave any DNA behind. His friend at a security company disables the alarms, deletes the logs, and takes a percentage of the score. In a way, it’s all just to tease you before things get really crazy.

The mystery and thrills are what end up driving “Headhunters.” While Roger is taking the expensive Munch work from Clas’s apartment, he also finds his wife’s cell phone, leading him to believe that the two are having an affair. For us, it only adds onto the question of why Clas is hunting him.

We know that Clas is having an affair with his wife, which causes Roger to reject him for the position at his company, but this is also after he has stolen Clas’s property, so which of these things is the reason behind the hunt, or is there the possibility that all three are the reason? The answer ends up being a little simplified, but it doesn’t stop the excitement of the film as we watch Roger try to escape.

The black comedy also helps move things along rather well. These aren’t particularly laugh out loud moments, but they are moments that may shock you or just have you staring in disbelief. One of these moments is reminiscent of “Slumdog Millionaire” while another moment featuring Roger driving a tractor down a road will leave your jaw hanging open at the absurdity of the situation.

The film also has an interesting sense of paranoia about it. As we learn early on in the film, Clas used to work with nanotechnology and helped develop micro-transmitters that can’t be removed. Roger remembers this and tries his best to get rid of them by getting rid of his clothes and taking other extreme steps, not knowing if he was successful or not. Then there’s also the problem of who he can trust. His mistress really wants to stay with him, but she could be in on it. He doesn’t even know if he can trust his wife, who is having an affair with the man trying to hunt him down.

This all comes down to a conclusion that feels like a puzzle being put together. Everything has to be just right, or at least appear to be, to make the plan work flawlessly. As to whether it does or not, you’ll have to discover for yourself. “Headhunters” is a rather strange film, but it’s also a rather entertaining one. Its tonal shifts may have your head spinning, but in the end, this is one that is very much worth seeing.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film tells the tale of a group of pirates lead by the Pirate Captain (Voice of Hugh Grant). These pirates are not exactly great at what they do (pillage, plunder, etc.), and yet the Pirate Captain wants to enter the Pirate of the Year awards, something he’s done for at least the last twenty years, but has failed to win every time. The award is one that goes to the pirate with the most booty, so after being laughed at by all of his rivals, who have vast amounts of it, he decides to step things up by plundering every ship he can find.

This doesn’t turn out too well as every ship he finds ends up not having any gold. One particular ship he finds is occupied by Charles Darwin (Voice of David Tennant), who is on a scientific expedition. Darwin notices that the Pirate Captain’s “parrot” Polly is actual a dodo, a bird thought to have been extinct for over 100 years. He tries to convince the Captain to let him have Polly to present at a science show in order to win a big prize, but the Captain decides to present Polly himself so that he can use the prize to win the Pirate of the Year award. However, this means that he and his crew must sail to London, home of Queen Victoria (Voice of Imelda Staunton), the biggest pirate-hater of them all.

The stories for kids’ films tend to be a little simpler than in most films, but this one seemed even simpler than usual. While the film itself is pleasant enough, it’s the story that ends up making it not particularly memorable. Again, this isn’t saying that the film is bad, just that it’s not particularly interesting, which will cause many people’s attention to wander during what should be an exciting film about pirates.

While most kids’ films nowadays attempt to accommodate both kids and adults, this one just seems to go about it the wrong way, causing what felt like a strange disconnect between the story and several adult references made throughout the film. For starters, one of the main characters is Charles Darwin, famed scientist and author of “The Origin of Species,” one of the most important scientific texts ever written. It’s doubtful that most young kids are going to know who he is or what he is famous for.

There are also a couple of references to Jane Austen and Joseph Merrick, also known as “The Elephant Man,” people that kids are even less likely to know about than Darwin. This ends up making it feel as though the simple story was meant for the kids while the rest of it was meant for adults, whereas the best films that attempt split-level entertainment usually find a way to make the story and references work for both groups.

As for the interesting things about the film, it features a first-rate vocal cast that I found almost entirely unidentifiable. One of the fun things about animated films is not knowing who’s doing the voices and trying to figure it out throughout the film. By the end of “Pirates,” I had identified only one voice, that of Brian Blessed, whose voice is unmistakable. Aside from him there’s Hugh Grant, David Tennant, Brendan Gleeson, Jeremy Piven, Salma Hayek, Martin Freeman, and Imelda Staunton all doing great work on their respective characters.

The other interesting feature is the animation. The style used here is claymation like that seen in “Chicken Run” and the “Wallace and Gromit” films. It’s a painstaking technique where the filmmakers have to move the characters and sets around themselves to get the shots they require, and while it’s not exactly in the realistic realm of Pixar or something like the recent “The Adventures of Tintin,” it still yields an interesting look for the film.

In the end, it was mainly the story that needed a bit more work in order to make it a little more exciting. With pirates as the main characters you would think that the film would be rather thrilling with all the interesting things that could happen, but instead the writer, Gideon Defoe, opted for a lighter story with a silly third act. It’s got great vocal talent and well-done animation, but it proves once again that the story is the key ingredient.

2.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film opens with Rebecca (Sarah Bolger) returning to an all-girls boarding school where she is reunited with her best friend Lucie (Sarah Gadon). When a new girl, Ernessa (Lily Cole), arrives and begins to spend a lot of time with Lucie, Rebecca not only becomes a bit jealous, but from the girl’s creepy behavior, she also begins to suspect that Ernessa may have a dark secret. However, all she has are suspicions, that is, until the night she witnesses Ernessa walk right through a closed window.

That’s as far as the plot gets, spending copious amounts of time with Rebecca trying to figure out what Ernessa’s secret is as her best friend slowly has the life sapped out of her. At the same time, Klein, who adapted her own book, feels the need to spell it out for the audience by having Rebecca studying vampires in her literature class. Then when she does figure out that something bad is happening between Ernessa and Lucie, we get the obligatory section of no one believing her and instead just thinking that she’s jealous.

All of this makes for a film that feels like it’s far too stretched out, which, even for a film that runs less than 80 minutes, makes for a very tedious sit. With the plot not moving forward very far, the pacing becomes completely shot. It was in desperate need of something to shake it up throughout as it felt as though it was at a standstill for pretty much the entire film. Perhaps Klein felt that suspicion of a vampire would be enough to replace plot development. Sadly, she was mistaken.

What makes “The Moth Diaries” an even bigger disappointment was that it was directed by Mary Harron, who directed the great “American Psycho.” Since then, she unfortunately hasn’t really done anything of note, a streak which continues with the latest entry in her filmography. Apparently she wanted to return to her dark roots, but this certainly wasn’t the way to do it. If the book is as bland as the film, then it should have been painfully obvious that this was a bad choice.

As far as vampires go, this film doesn’t even take advantage of the lore. It’s almost entirely bloodless aside from a nosebleed and a dream/vision where blood is pouring from the ceiling. Nor does it take the opportunity to create any suspense using the vampire, something that the film needed in order to get itself out of its sluggish pace. This is basically another vampire film that has no bite.

The film leads up to one of the most anticlimactic endings I’ve seen in quite some time. This was the filmmakers’ chance to go out with a bang and make it at least partly worth having sat through the slow, bland story up to that point. However, in another bad decision, they decided not to go that direction. There’s no struggle, no attempt to put any kind of excitement into the film, just an overly-simplified conclusion that will leave you shaking your head at the lack of thought and creativity that went into it.

“The Moth Diaries” just ends up feeling like a desperate attempt to cash in on the vampire craze created by “Twilight,” and taking a cue from how bad those films have been, they figured that the film wouldn’t even have to be good to make a decent amount of money. Apparently the studio knows they have a dud on their hands as, according to IMDb, it’s only going to be released in three countries total, two of which will be a limited run. Not surprising for a film that’s this dead.

1.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

First, let’s tackle what happened with MediaFire and all the scripts. In short, it’s all my fault. Yes, I’m owning up to my own mistake here. I fucked up. The short version is when the Twentieth Century Fox DMCA notice hit my inbox, I decided that rather than change the text of each script entry on the site to read something like “Script removed at the request of Twentieth Century Fox,” that I would instead just delete the entire script page. Some people were getting a little frustrated when loading a page in hopes of finding a script only to find a “removed” message instead. Understandable. It would piss me off, too, so I just deleted all of the offending script pages and their respective download links. Meaning, I changed my usual routine for removing scripts, so what I didn’t do because of that was delete them from the MediaFire account as well. At least, not all of them, I think. You can already see the problem here, I’m sure…

So, one morning last month, MediaFire sent me a DMCA notice regarding one script. I didn’t react immediately because that wasn’t out of the ordinary. I routinely received notices from them. Most of the time, their DMCA notices were from the RIAA thinking our PDF files were actually mp3 files masquerading with alternate file extensions. I’ve had to contest the removal of files like “Freebird.pdf” and “Fury.pdf” more than once, especially considering those are Amateur Scripts and I’ve been given explicit permission by their authors to post them. Annoying? Yes. Anyway, a little later that day, I received another DMCA notice from MediaFire. Then another. Then a list. At that point I realized what I had done, but it was too late. I tried to login to my account only to be greeted by this wonderful screen:

Part of me wanted to contest it with MediaFire, to get them to allow me to log in to my account, so I could prove that no one had downloaded those scripts since I had removed them from the site, but then another part (the really pissed off part that knew I would inevitably make a mistake like this) decided to hell with it. Contesting wouldn’t have mattered anyway, the scripts were there in my MediaFire account among all of the other scripts and, in the end, that was all that did matter. So, I’m an idiot, and it was my fault and mine alone.

I will now pause briefly and allow you to curse my name and hurl vile obscenities in my general direction. It’s okay, I deserve it, I can take it…

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You good?

No?

Okay, keep ‘em coming…

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So, how am I choosing to move forward with scripts on the site? Excellent question.

With all of the DMCA notices from the studios and their e-mails and the legal brouhaha surrounding screenplays and scripts at the moment and my increasingly busy schedule, I think it’s time for a change of pace, a different approach, a new direction. I’ve done some serious soul-searching and I’ve come to a conclusion. But before I tell you that conclusion, let me explain how it is that I came to it.

You see, I love this site. I created it for a reason, because I love screenplays. I love writing and reading scripts. I love helping people find screenplays that they’ve desperately been searching for. I love to talk about the process of screenwriting with other writers. Simply, I love all things screenwriting. I do. I spent two-and-a-half years working really, really hard to post all of the scripts that were here and molding this site into what it has become today. Well… what it was a couple months ago… So, what I don’t like is spending hours upon hours upon hours posting screenplays only to be told to remove them days, weeks, or months later. I don’t like receiving DMCA notices. I don’t like receiving e-mails from individual writers who ask to have their scripts removed. I don’t like feeling like a “bad guy.” I don’t like silly producers who call me a “clown” and threaten legal action. I don’t like the ring-around-the-rosie that I get from studio legal departments and their lawyers. Most importantly, I don’t like to be bullied, so why would I choose to continue to do something that ultimately leads down a path that intersects with all of those things that I don’t like? Doesn’t make much sense does it?

Every week I spend my hard-earned money on some film-related media, whether it’s going to a theater or purchasing a DVD, Blu-ray, screenplay, book, what have you. But I’ve realized something: why should I support a studio that’s more concerned about the online availability of a forty-three-year-old script than they are about releasing a good movie today? Does it matter if the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid screenplay is freely available online? I mean, does it really, really matter in the greater scheme of things? The movie is sitting here on the shelf next to me, and it’s my third copy. I owned it on VHS, then I bought the very first version of the DVD, before upgrading to the latest DVD release. Twentieth Century Fox has gotten money out of me for that single film not once, but three times! I would buy the Blu-ray to make it a fourth, but you know what, I’m not going to. I wanted to, and had planned to, but dealing with Fox has left such a sour taste in my mouth that I don’t want to buy it. F**k them. There’s protecting copyright and then there’s just being ridiculous. Currently in production scripts are understandable, I get it, that makes sense. What I don’t get, and what doesn’t even remotely make an ounce of sense, is being asked to remove How Green Was My Valley. I mean, c’mon, really? And guess what, I’m not stopping with Fox or Butch Cassidy. No, sir. There’s a whole list of movies here on The myPDFscripts No-Post Script Index that won’t see a single red cent from me ever, or ever again.

That said, I’d much rather support writers and artists who “get it.” Sometimes I’ve spent my hard-earned cash because of people I’ve interviewed or made contact with in some form, either through or because of this site. These purchases I do not regret in the least (except The Thing, which Fox made me remove):

Why did I purchase Faintheart? Because David Lemon is a cool guy. Why did I purchase Brick and The Brothers Bloom? Because Rian Johnson is a cool guy. Why did I purchase Harry Brown and Madam Samurai? Because Gary Young is a cool guy. Why did I purchase The Losers? Because Andy Diggle is a cool guy. Why did I purchase 3:10 To Yuma? Because Derek Haas is a cool guy. Why did I purchase The Thing? Because Eric Heisserer is a cool guy. Why did I purchase X Films? Because Alex Cox is an amazing guy (for reasons I will soon illustrate). They all took time out of their day to share their thoughts and their work, and I don’t mind repaying that gratitude by purchasing their products. I’m happy to support writers and artists who “get it.” And you can bet for damn sure that I’ll be purchasing Grabbers the moment it hits DVD/Blu-ray. Why? Because Kevin Lehane is a cool guy! Add to that list the film Deviation because writer/director J.K. Amalou and producer Lara Greenway personally sent me their script for inclusion on this site. They get it!

And that’s the conclusion that I’ve come to: I want to support the people — and only the people — who get it.

Thing is, it may not work in every instance, which brings me back to Alex Cox. After the Universal DMCA notice and subsequent removal of scripts, Mr. Cox contacted me and had this to say:

I am the author of the screenplay REPO MAN. I believe you have received a ‘takedown’ notice from Universal to remove the script. I do not agree with this. I’m very pleased you have my script on your site and would like to see it remain. If you would like to add any other of my scripts, get in touch. You are welcome to post them.

Did I want to immediately repost the script? You bet I did, but what kind of legal ramifications would that cause? I decided to check with Universal. Their response?

Mr. Cox is the author of the Repo Man screenplay; however, his rights to and interests in the screenplay for the film were granted to Universal Pictures, which is the exclusive owner of Repo Man throughout the world in perpetuity, including, without limitation, all copyrights in the film and in the underlying screenplay. Accordingly, Universal stands by its request that you take-down the Repo Man screenplay from your website.

Fair enough, I suppose. The more adept of you might point out that the script is actually available on Alex’s personal website, which is where I’d actually gotten it to begin with. I decided to mention this to Universal and ask if it would be okay to link to the script on Alex’s site, knowing full well what their response would be, but wanting to actually see it in print.

Sure enough, they responded.

Ready for this?

You sure?

It’s disgusting…

Please don’t post the links. I don’t believe Mr. Cox is authorized to post the script on his personal website either.

It’s a sad, sad state of affairs when a screenwriter asks me, nay gives me FULL PERMISSION, to post their script and I can’t because if I did I would get sued by a studio. It’s an even worse state of affairs when you’re told a screenwriter can’t even post their own script on their own website because some legal “expert” somewhere thinks that the screenwriter doesn’t own it.

Why is it again that we want to be a part of this industry?

This correspondence with Universal absolutely disgusted me. It made me physically ill. The only — with a very strong emphasis on the word “only” — thing that gave me any hope afterward was Alex’s response to it:

Sheridan,
Your site is extremely valuable – yesterday I downloaded several scripts including BONNIE AND CLYDE which I’ll use next semester in my screenwriting class (unable to make a living as an independent filmmaker I’m also teaching film at Boulder, CO). You are welcome to download any and all my scripts at

http://alexcox.com/writing.htm

and re-post them. Since you’re doing this for no money as far as I’m concerned it’s obviously FAIR USE and very beneficial to film enthusiasts, students and academics.

The studios, including Universal, are pretty clearly a criminal enterprise, operating an illegal blacklist and functioning as a price-fixing cartel. They actually have legislation which permits them to operate as a cartel abroad (the law is called Webb-Pomerene) but absolutely no right to operate as a cartel domestically. They do so because they’re powerful and have politicians in their pockets. If the cops ever went after them using the RICO statutes the whole studio cartel would collapse like a pack of cards, and individuals like their “litigation counsel” would have to look for honest work.

It’s unlikely that this will happen, but we can dream.

See what I mean about Alex being an amazing guy? After that e-mail I’m an Alex Cox fan for life… and I’m seriously considering moving to Boulder for some film classes.

A couple e-mails later and Alex had this to add:

Univesal are both right and wrong. Right because in many cases writers do cede all their rights to a purchaser, and lose them. Wrong because REPO MAN wasn’t a work for hire, and in three years time all rights to the script will revert to me under an obscure provision of US copyright law. This may be why they haven’t sent me a takedown notice: but it’s disgraceful that your site has been kneecapped in this way. Have you thought about transferring all the material to a server outside the US — in Brazil, perhaps? I know of others who have done this to keep valuable sites alive.

Good luck, and think about a server south of the border. As an academic (!) I found your site very useful and have shared several of those scripts with my students — fair use!

Many thanks,
Alex

See, Alex gets it.

The only reason you’re reading this right now is because of Alex and those few other writers that get it. Otherwise, I would have already pulled the plug on this site, but because of those writers out there that are willing to share their work and their time with us, the aspiring lot, I’m choosing to continue on and persevere and only support the writers/artists/companies that truly deserve my support, and in a way that won’t absolutely disgust or disappoint me any further.

Again, there will be scripts on this site soon, but they will only be scripts that I’ve been given explicit permission to post by the writers themselves.

Yes, that means that there’s going to be far less scripts, but it also means far less headaches for me and, most importantly, no more DMCA notices or lawyers or e-mails or studio cartel stupidity.

If this decision disappoints you, then I apologize. I’m not saying it without a certain degree of disappointment myself. There are still other script sites out there where you might be able to find the script you’re looking for. They’re quickly dwindling, but they’re out there.

On the other hand, if you approve of this decision, then maybe you can help me and this site. Maybe you could show a fellow writer this post. Maybe they’ll want to share their scripts. Then maybe other writers will want to share their scripts, too. And maybe before long, this site will be populated with scripts like it once was, but with legitimate scripts, shared by writers, for writers, without any studio interference. That’s my new dream for this site. Will it happen? I really can’t say. It seems like the writers that “get it” are few and far between these days, but that won’t stop me from hoping for the best.

If it doesn’t happen, then I’m still proud to share the scripts of Alex Cox, Rian Johnson, David Lemon, Matthew Grainger, Craig Mazin, Jeff Lowell, Andy Diggle, Bob DeRosa, Derek Haas, Brian Bird, Gary Young, Kevin Lehane, Matt Manfredi, Dan Fogelman, Brian Koppelman, and J.K. Amalou.

You know… the guys that get it.

It tells the story of several male friends, including Jeremy (Jerry Ferrara), Dominic (Michael Ealy), Michael (Terrence Jenkins), and Zeke (Romany Malco), who are attempting to start relationships with women, including Mya (Meagan Good), Candace (Regina Hall), and Lauren (Taraji P. Henson). However, the women have come across a recent book by Steve Harvey that tells all about relationships from a man’s perspective and begin to use it as a kind of guide. This merely makes it harder for the men to win them over. Things begin to change when the men discover the book for themselves and attempt to use it as a means to their own ends.

Just from that synopsis, you can probably tell that the film is overloaded with too many characters, and indeed the film begins to suffer for it. It tries to focus on all of these people as they go through their relationships, but unfortunately it never develops any of them to the point where we actually start to feel anything for them. For a movie like this to work, we have to be rooting for their relationships to succeed, but with characters as flat as these, indifference is all they receive.

What makes the lack of development even more surprising is that the film runs for two whole hours, giving the characters plenty of time to expand, but apparently it wasn’t a priority. What we end up with for those two hours is a film with an agonizingly slow pace that makes the runtime feel more like three or four hours.

Dragging it down even further is the screenplay by Keith Merryman and David A. Newman, who both helped writer “Friends with Benefits,” a comedy from last year that didn’t work very well. “Think Like a Man” is also supposed to be a comedy, but while it does have a few funny moments, none of it is of the “laugh out loud” variety, making for a film where the writers seem to think the material is funnier than it actually is.

The humor is not particularly offensive in any way, nor do I recall it sinking to the lowbrow or Sandler level. It’s just that the jokes they were trying to tell weren’t particularly funny. It’s not a good sign when I try to think back over a two hour comedy and can only come up with one instance where I smirked, in this case, a quick and amusing exchange of dialogue near the end of the film that was delivered with well-done comic timing.

Going back to the story, it all ends up falling apart in the end as it settles into a lazy predictability. Merryman and Newman basically decided to follow the old romantic-comedy formula where they make you think that things won’t work out for everyone. This is done through a couple of lazy plot twists that you instantly realize are not going to stand in the way for very long before things end as you knew they would from the start.

The film comes to us from director Tim Story, whose track record has been rather disastrous, having given us such films as “Fantastic Four,” “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” and “Taxi.” Turns out he has a pretty ironic name, given that all of these films lacked a good story. Now he has another one to toss on the heap. The only thing he’s successfully done with this film is publicize Steve Harvey’s book, which seems to have been the main goal all along. 1.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

“Monsieur Lazhar” begins with the sudden suicide of a teacher at a Canadian elementary school. Her co-workers knew she hadn’t been feeling particularly well, but it still comes as a shock to everyone. The news comes to the attention of Bachir Lazhar (Mohamed Fellag), who comes to the school to apply for her position. He is hired almost immediately and begins teaching his new students about the French language.

Meanwhile, we are slowly filled in on Lazhar’s backstory. He has come from Algeria to escape threats on his family due to a controversial book his wife had written. He came to Canada first to prepare the way for the rest of his family, but before they could come over, someone set fire to their apartment building, leading to their deaths. Now Lazhar not only has to deal with this tragedy and trying to gain political asylum in a foreign country, but also with a classroom full of students who have tragically lost their former teacher.

This is a rather simple, but interesting story. Lazhar already has so much going on in his life, and yet he continues to persevere when another difficult situation is added to his troubles. On top of replacing a teacher, he is also starting a job in a country that he’s not particularly familiar with and at a school where he doesn’t know all of the rules. His adjustment comes at the same time that his students have to adjust to him.

The teacher whose suicide rocked the school was liked by her students for the most part and was good friends with the staff. In order to help the children deal with the situation, the school brings in a psychologist for them to talk to. Lazhar goes along with this, but also feels that the children should be talking about it openly, whereas the school feels that it’s something that’s best hushed up and forgotten.

The school’s method does end up having some negative side effects. The lack of open communication leads to a lot of pent up emotions about the incident among the students. One of them, a student with a camera who still has a picture of the teacher, seems particularly hard-hit by the incident, something we find out a little more about as the film progresses.

As for Lezhar’s situation, he makes the best of his new life while trying to deal with his personal problems. He becomes close with the students, who, as expected, don’t become taken with him right away after having just lost their previous teacher. His first lesson doesn’t go particularly well, but it’s understandable since he tries to have them take dictation while reading to them from a work written by Balzac. His method does improve however as he eventually begins to teach them about fables, something far more suited to their level.

Lazhar is brought to life by the touching performance of Mohamed Fellag. He brings a sweet innocence to the character while mixing that with the worry of his political troubles. All of this comes together to create a very realistic character. It seems I’ve been seeing a lot of films lately where the main character has a load to carry on their shoulders and Lazhar is no exception as he tries to juggle his job at school and his personal situation.

While “Monsieur Lazhar” is a decent film, I wish it would have done more to stand out from other similar films. His personal crisis was a nice touch, but it didn’t get much attention in the film. In a sense, I was reminded of the French film “The Class,” which took home the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2008. It too was a decent film, but rather forgettable in that it just didn’t stand out very much from other school films. In the end, “Lazhar” does get a recommendation. Just don’t expect to be blown away by it.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Scott Murphy (Brian Presley) has such an event in his life that has altered it drastically. Back in high school, he was one of the greatest football players in the state, ready to go to college on a full scholarship. In 1991, he helped lead his small-town team to the championship game where his leg was twisted on the final play. His team won the championship, but Scott has been unable to play football ever since.

In present day, he’s a farmer who lives with his wife Macy (Melanie Lynskey) and two daughters in a trailer. He’s currently growing beans, but is having a lot of trouble paying the bills. He’s even taken out a loan that he can’t pay back until his crops are harvested. However, the bank has called in his loan and he finds himself without any means of harvesting his crops. This leads him to believe that suicide is his only way out, so he clogs the tailpipe of his car, hops inside, and lets it run.

He awakens to find himself back in high school before the big game in which he was injured. He is understandably shocked, but thrilled that he is able to play football again. This leads him to start questioning the choices he made back then in that final game. He hopes that things can be different if he changes a few plays, still leading the team to a victory, but avoiding his crippling injury. Meanwhile, he has to win over Macy all over again since at this time he was with another girl, but he finds that it’s not quite so easy.

“Touchback” is a film that’s peppered with sweet moments such as when Scott finally gets to play football again after 15 years. He gets so into it that he wants to keep going after the coach calls it a day and the other players are exhausted. Others include him chasing after Macy, who seems to think of him only as a big, dumb jock until he shows her that there’s more to him than that.

However, the film begins to wear a little thin once those moments of “wow, I’ve gone back in time” wear off. Strangely enough, I found myself more interested in the plight of Scott the farmer than Scott the football player since the farmer was having more of a crisis. The football player merely has to play his game and perhaps change a play or two, but by the time the game rolls around, it’s rather predictable what he’s going to do.

This lead to a rather strange ending that leaves a pretty big question unanswered. It makes it feel as though there’s a plothole that the writer, Don Handfield, just didn’t want to explain, leaving the audience to just accept that everything is fine, despite what had happened earlier. This is Handfield’s first theatrical film as a writer and as a director and it’s certainly not bad. He just needs to learn to follow through on his ideas more. Also, the film could have used another trip through the editing room as it felt far too long at nearly two hours.

Another strange instance occurs in the game itself when the moment of truth comes and Scott has to decide what final play he wants to use. His choice ends up being a rather peculiar one, even more so as he seems to think that it’s the one that will win him Macy. As I mentioned earlier, it’s rather predictable, but it still doesn’t explain why he doesn’t simply use another play to achieve the same result. The best reason seems to be so that the tail ending of the film makes sense, allowing for another sweet moment to be added before the credits.

Again, it’s not a bad film. It just needed a little trimming and a little work on the ending. The choice Scott makes is a big one. There needed to be a little more of an understanding as to why he went with the choice he did. That way we could feel for the character all the way through the end of the film, instead of just being left with a contrived ending that leaves us in the dark.

2.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film follows five friends, Dana (Kristen Connolly), Curt (Chris Hemsworth), Jules (Anna Hutchison), Marty (Fran Kranz), and Holden (Jesse Williams), who are taking a vacation at a remote cabin. They’re there to do the things teenagers usually do when they party, mainly drink and get high. However, things don’t remain upbeat for long as they soon find themselves being attacked by creatures from the surrounding woods. Meanwhile, this story is intertwined with the mysterious Sitterson (Richard Jenkins) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford), two “controllers” who are keeping a close eye on the kids, but as to for what purpose is something that is slowly revealed.

I’ve opted to end the synopsis there and use a little discretion, something that others have decided against. This is a horror film of surprises, and not just of the “boo with a sharp musical chord” variety. I mean that in the sense that it takes you in directions that you won’t expect. If you think you know what’s coming, you’re most likely wrong. Writers Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard have taken the story you think you know and turned it on its head.

The best way to describe it without giving too much away is as a cross between “The Evil Dead” and “The Truman Show.” “The Evil Dead” is, of course, the original “cabin in the woods” story that most people are familiar with, and just from this film’s trailer, you can tell that things get a little crazy, but there are other elements that Whedon and Goddard have thrown in that make this a uniquely original and amazing tale.

One of the best features of “The Cabin in the Woods” is the storytelling technique. We are immediately introduced to the characters of Sitterson and Hadley in the first scene, but their dialogue is rather cryptic and non-revealing about what their purpose is as we’re given bits about how “Stockholm went south” and “There’s just Japan and us.” This is a technique that carries through to their next several scenes. This mystery element is what draws the audience in and keeps up engaged as we slowly learn the horrifying truth about what’s really happening.

Another great feature is Whedon’s and Goddard’s ability to throw in some well-placed humor in such a terrifying situation. Those already familiar with “The Evil Dead” trilogy will recall how Sam Raimi brilliantly changed the tone of his films from horror to comedy, striking a really good balance in the middle. Here, the writers have struck such a balance, allowing for bits of humor to come through while still maintaining the seriousness of the horror plot.

Of course, these writers aren’t unfamiliar with strange and unusual plots. Whedon is well-known for being the creator of such shows as “Firefly,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and “Angel,” while Goddard wrote several episodes of “Lost” and gave us the screenplay to “Cloverfield,” another film with an interesting mystery element that slowly unravels itself, but which is known more so for its style. These guys have fashioned an excellent screenplay that shows us something that we haven’t seen before, something that’s a treat to us horror fans as it’s hard to come up with something nowadays that is not already clichéd.

As with most horror films, “The Cabin in the Woods” is not for the squeamish. However, if you can stand the gore, you’ll be treated to a fascinating and well-told story. A horror film like this only comes along once every several years, the last time being back in 1996 when Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson brought us a great dissection of horror films called “Scream,” a film that revitalized the genre. 16 years later, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard have gone all out to revitalize it once more with their brilliant take on an old tale that proves there’s still some life in the genre yet.

3.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

It tells the story of a SWAT team, which includes Rama (Iko Uwais) and Jaka (Joe Taslim), who are tasked with raiding a building known to house criminals looking to lay low. Their key objective is to arrest the leader, Tama (Ray Sahetapy), but doing so will not be easy as almost immediately upon their arrival, residents notify the rest of the building of their presence. With the team vastly outnumbered, they must use any means necessary to accomplish their mission.

It’s really quite amazing how little plot this film had. In fact, that has to be one of the shortest, if not the shortest, synopsis I’ve ever had to write for a film. This is a film that was obviously made for fans of action, but it also becomes a kind of test to see how quickly you become bored when you realize that there’s not going to be anything else in the film, i.e., anything of substance that might give you a reason to care.

The characters here are completely flat and are merely present as fodder for the various fight scenes. They die left and right, eventually coming down to just a few, which I suppose we’re supposed to call the “main characters,” but the complete lack of development prevents us from creating any attachment to them or from caring about whether they will be the next to get killed in one gruesome fashion or another.

The film is indeed violent, but again that’s not a problem. The problem is that there’s nothing here to get the audience engaged in any way. It was only about 30 minutes in when I started checking my watch to see when this tedious film would end. It got to the point where I would just roll my eyes when yet another fight scene started, usually less than a minute after the previous one had just finished.

It even makes a rather sad attempt to throw in a bit of drama when one of the characters randomly discovers that his brother is living in the building. This came off as nothing but a desperate attempt by writer/director Gareth Evans to get the audience to feel something for them while continuing to inundate us with more and more fights. If they had tried to develop it earlier and more throughout, it might have helped, but they apparently didn’t want to take up to much time with it.

The critical reception of the film has been quite baffling and hypocritical. Like with the recent “Wrath of the Titans,” I was again reminded of the second and third Transformers films, which were critically bashed for having very little in the way of plot and containing a numbing amount of action, among other things. Yet, “The Raid: Redemption” suffers from the same problems and has been praised by a good majority of critics. Granted the action is done better, but it’s not nearly enough to cover up the complete lack of substance.

In the end, “The Raid: Redemption” will be most successful for people with A.D.D. or just generally short attention spans. Others will be able to look right through it and see it for what it really is: a film about one group of people trying to kill another group of people with a thread of a plot as an excuse for it to happen, but then again, that seems to be why certain people are enjoying it. Anyone looking for a film where the filmmakers actually took time to put together a story will just have to look elsewhere.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film opens with the precession of the current pope’s funeral. The College of Cardinals gathers to elect the next pope with certain candidates standing out as favorites, but many of them seem unsure as to how to vote. The first round of voting doesn’t produce the two-thirds majority needed to declare a winner, so a second round of voting is performed, resulting in a large majority of votes for Cardinal Melville (Michel Piccoli).

He is understandably overwhelmed as he was not one of the favorites who was thought to have a chance at election. It turns out his feelings of being overwhelmed are much worse than originally thought as right before he is to address the crowd gathered in St. Peter’s Square, he proclaims that he can’t do it and rushes away to be alone. This leaves the other cardinals in a bind as to what to do, so they decide to bring in a psychoanalyst (Nanni Moretti) to try and help out. However, things become even worse when the newly-elected Pope decides to run away.

The first act of “We Have a Pope” is rather interesting in that we get to witness the process of the papal election. It can’t be an easy thing for a relatively small group of men to elect the next supreme head of the church and it shows in their difficulty in writing down their choice. Then it moves on to the fascinating scenario of the elected pope feeling that he can’t do what is required of him. This kind of scenario is one that could make for a very interesting and engaging film.

However, something very peculiar happens as the film progresses. As it proceeds into its second act where the pope runs away from the Vatican, it feels as though the film shuts down. You could even say that it goes on hold, much like the cardinals who wait for the new pope to address the crowd. During this time, Cardinal Melville roams through Rome as he tries to come to terms with having been elected, a weight he obviously finds very heavy to bear.

This is where the film began to feel rather empty. It’s trying to show us that he’s having difficulty bearing this weight, but it’s never able to portray that very well. I don’t fault Piccoli for this as his expression is the biggest hint we have during this time of wandering, but rather the writing that doesn’t give him much to say or do to express his inner turmoil.

The peculiarity continues back at the Vatican as the therapist, forced to stay within its walls due to knowing the identity of the new pope, attempts to find things to do along with the cardinals, none of whom are aware that the pope has run away. This eventually leads to the therapist organizing a volleyball tournament. It was a rather strange decision to concentrate on this bizarre event so much while the real struggle of the film is occurring with Cardinal Melville himself. Perhaps Moretti was just looking for an excuse to get himself into the film more.

The film does get around to showing us the decision that the new pope has made, but with the struggle not being shown all that well, we are still left with the sense that a lot of time was wasted between the first act and the conclusion. This is certainly a great idea for a film, it just needs better execution, less stalling for and wasting of time, and a better means of showing the difficult period that Cardinal Melville is going through, none of which can be accomplished with a cardinal volleyball tournament.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The story involves David (Brian Geraghty), Corey (Josh Peck), and Emily (Alice Eve), who are all coworkers attending their office’s Christmas party. David finally gets the nerve to ask Emily out for lunch, but for the time being, he manages to talk her into letting him drive her home. However, he has also told Corey that he would drive him home as well. On the way, Corey convinces David to stop at an ATM so that he can take out some money to get some food, despite it being after midnight at this point.

On their way out of the ATM, they notice a man shrouded in a parka standing several feet away from the door. Unsure of what he wants, they stand in the ATM building guessing as to why he’s there. When a man walking his dog comes near, the stranger in the parka walks over and violently kills him, causing David, Corey, and Emily to freak out. With their only protection being that you need a bank card to get into the ATM building, these three must figure out a way to escape before the man in the parka does the same to them.

The premise here is flawed for two major reasons. First off, there’s no tension. These three are not trapped for almost the whole film and could conceivably leave whenever they want during this time. It’s not like “Phone Booth” where the victim was truly trapped because he had no idea where the killer was, but he did know that he had his sights set right on him and could finish him at any time. In “ATM,” there are several chances for the victims to get away when the killer is occupied and not watching what they’re doing.

Secondly, related to the first flaw is the second: the fact that there is an easy way out and the main characters are too dumb to take it. In this sense, it reminded me a lot of another film from just two years ago called “Frozen,” where the solution to the plight of three friends stuck on a ski lift was so painfully obvious, and yet, none of them are able to figure it out, leading to some needless deaths.

Likewise, the solution to the problem in “ATM” is painfully obvious, but the film wants us to believe that these three can’t figure it out. What makes matters worse is that one of the characters points out that there’s three of them and only one of him, and yet, this is never acted on. This would be understandable if the killer was some kind of bodybuilder or something, but no, he’s a regular sized person wearing a parka. Their inability to realize that the three of them could take one person also ends up leading to some unfortunate and needless events.

This complete lack of brainpower does exactly what it did for “Frozen” in that all the audience can do is sit back and shake their heads at the victims for not being able to see the easy solution. Because of this, there is no connection to the characters and no sympathy to be had for them. The same could be said for the first flaw. Since none of them think of trying to get away while the killer is occupied and not watching them, there’s no reason to pity them since they don’t take the chance to escape when they can.

The ending also has a pretty big flaw to it in that the screenwriter chose to add in an extremely large coincidence to allow the plot to go in the direction that he wanted. The coincidence was not believable in the least, nor did it make any sense given the circumstances. Sparling also wrote the film “Buried,” where he had a lot of trouble building any tension or suspense as well, and where he also had trouble with the ending, except in that case, it was just far too predictable to be a surprise.

Even if the ending had been fixed, it still wouldn’t have been interesting, and if the biggest flaws of the film had been dealt with, there wouldn’t have been much of a film to watch, just like if the victims of “Frozen” had figured out that they could simply form a human chain to get themselves down, the film would have wrapped up rather quickly. Some premises may seem interesting on paper, but even at the script stage, someone ought to have noticed how many holes were present in this story.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Martin David (Willem Dafoe) has been hired by a company to travel to the outback of Tasmania, Australia in order to hunt the last known Tasmanian Tiger from which he’s supposed to collect samples and then destroy the rest. While there, he stays with Lucy (Frances O’Connor) and her two kids. Lucy’s husband mysteriously disappeared in the wilderness not long before Martin’s arrival, giving him suspicions that he may have been attempting the same task.

Martin searches all throughout the outback looking for any clues of the animal’s existence, something that slowly begins to manifest itself in small ways such as the leftover carcass of an animal and a cave that Martin believes to have been used as a den. Meanwhile, as he spends more time with Lucy and her kids, he finds himself growing closer to them, which he tries not to allow to distract him from his mission.

What’s interesting about “The Hunter” is how the two stories that it’s comprised of could quite possibly make a good movie on their own, yet there’s something about this attempt to merge the two that gives the film a feeling of trying to be two movies in one. The film randomly jumps back and forth between Martin’s time with Lucy and the kids and his work in the wilderness, giving it a feeling of awkward juxtaposition as the two stories remain separated throughout almost the entire movie.

They do eventually come together near the end of the film, and pretty well too, which merely makes one wonder why they didn’t try to incorporate them into each other much earlier to allow a smoother transition and pacing from scene to scene instead of completely dropping one story and picking up the other over and over. There’s also the question of why there is a random subplot about the forest being torn down by loggers thrown in there when it ends up going nowhere and is never developed.

The hunting scenes are done quite well with Robert Humphreys’s cinematography showing off the amazing beauty of the Tasmanian outback. These scenes also hold particular interest because we get to watch as Martin forms complex traps using simple things like trees, twigs, and twine, though he also uses standard bear traps as well. Some may find these scenes slow, but for others, they will hold attention out of wonder at what Martin will find during the hunt.

On the flip side, the human elements are also done nicely. Dafoe gives a well-controlled performance that slowly shows how he is becoming affected by his time with Lucy. As the film goes on, you can see the decisions regarding his mission becoming harder and harder as he wants to spend more time with her while coming to a troubling conclusion about what the company who hired him is willing to do to get what they want.

“The Hunter” is mostly well-done, but where I would normally say “it never comes together,” I actually have to say it comes together too late. There’s a good movie in here, and I’m certainly not going to tell you to avoid it, but if the screenplay by Alice Addison and Wain Fimeri had been able to integrate these stories better, then this could have been a great film instead of just an ok film.

2.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film starts off by introducing us to Kate (Halle Berry), an expert on sharks who also swims with them, her husband Jeff (Olivier Martinez), and the rest of their crew. They are in the middle of making a shark documentary when things go terribly wrong. The sharks viciously attack the crew while they are getting underwater footage, leaving at least one crewmember dead.

A year goes by and Kate is struggling to pay her bills by giving tours to Seal Island, an island covered in, you guessed it, baby seals, though there are also sharks around. One day, her husband, whom she hasn’t seen for quite awhile, shows up to try and convince her to meet with a man about a job offer. After some initial reluctance, she agrees. The man, Brady (Ralph Brown), wants to hire her to take him and his son, Luke (Luke Tyler), out to sea to swim with sharks outside of the cage, something that only she has done. She has several objections, but the 100,000 Euros he’s offering ends up being too much for her to pass up.

This is another film that I have to question as to why it was even made. There’s barely any story here to begin with, and that certainly doesn’t help a film that runs nearly two hours. The plot never begins to develop beyond trying to swim with sharks, turning this into a really long sit. So flimsy is the plot that you could go off and take a good 10-20 minute break at any time during the film, come back and find that still nothing has happened that affects the story in anyway.

Then there’s the big problem of the one-dimensional characters. It really tells you something about their effectiveness when you find yourself rooting for the sharks. Like the plot, they never develop either, and on top of that, they’re all dumber than rocks. Kate, although desperate for money, agrees all too easily to go on this little trip, apparently forgetting the incident at the beginning of the film, nor does she bother mentioning it to Brady and his son. Speaking of the opening sequence, it’s clear that none of the diving crew knew what they were doing. Last I checked, taunting sharks by smacking them on the head was a bad idea, a really bad idea, so why are they surprised when the sharks attack?

The idiocy of the characters continues right up through the anticlimactic final diving sequence. Kate finally decides to take Brady to a place where he can dive with big sharks, and despite obvious signs of a storm that will start any second, she proceeds with the dive, another sign of the amateurish rank of the crew, except even amateurs would probably have been able to recognize an obvious storm like this one.

Big surprise, it starts storming like crazy right after they start the dive, which leads to yet another problem for the film. With it being nighttime during this sequence, it becomes almost impossible to tell what’s going on what with water splashing around everywhere and several people in scuba gear. One character even pops up out of nowhere after it’s assumed he drowned or was dragged away by the storm. It reminded me of another awful film from a few years ago called “Whiteout” that likewise featured action scenes where it was almost impossible to tell what was happening, except in that case, it was lots and lots of snow blocking our view as well as characters covered in parkas.

What’s amazing is that it took two people, Ronnie Christensen and Amy Sorlie, to write this screenplay. Story credit goes to Sorlie, but that’s rather hard to fathom seeing as how there’s not really any story here. Director John Stockwell has no notable films in his filmography, a streak he continues with “Dark Tide.” It’ll have to remain a mystery as to why he chose this project, the same of which could be said for Academy Award winner Halle Berry. Surely she had something better to do than sign on to an obvious mess of a film, though standing around on the beach and a boat and doing a bit of swimming, while not doing much in the way of work, all while collecting what was probably a decent paycheck isn’t exactly the worst way to spend one’s time. Come to think of it, that was probably everyone’s excuse.

1/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

After the events of the first film, Perseus (Sam Worthington), a demigod and the son of Zeus (Liam Neeson), has decided to live the life of a normal man with his son, Helius (John Bell). One night, Zeus comes to visit him to warn him of a calamity that is about to occur. The people have stopped praying to the gods, which is what gives them their power. Because of this, the gods are growing weaker, which in turn means that the walls of the underworld prison containing Zeus’s evil father are deteriorating.

When Zeus visits the underworld to plead for Hades’s (Ralph Fiennes) help, Hades captures him instead. It turns out that he, along with Ares (Edgar Ramirez), plans to release Zeus’s and his father from the underworld prison. Meanwhile, Perseus, accompanied by Andromeda (Rosamund Pike) and the demigod Agenor (Toby Kebbell), sets off to seek the help of Hephaestus (Bill Nighy), the one who fashioned the weapons of the gods. With his help, they hope to break into the underworld prison, free Zeus, and stop the coming calamity.

Like the first film, three are many, many special effects, even more so than before, but instead of being exciting and entertaining, this time around they end up being dull because they make up about 90% of the film. Because of this, what little story there is feels like it was merely a minimal foundation for the effects crew to go overboard with explosions, creatures, and fights.

In a sense, I was reminded of the two most recent “Transformers” films, which did something very similar, and yet, the little bit of story here still managed to be a little more interesting, plus the film only runs around 90 minutes, though even that began to feel a little long at a certain point. The fact that it took three people to write the story and then two of them to write the screenplay is quite peculiar given that it’s a barebones plot.

“Clash” had had some interesting scenes in the way of special effects such as the battle with a giant scorpion or the battle with Medusa in her lair. The best scenes that “Wrath” has to offer are those of Perseus and his crew breaking into the underworld prison, which is a labyrinth of shifting tunnels. The climactic battle never becomes exciting because the main villain they are fighting is a giant lava creature that does nothing but wave its arms around. At the very least there are some interesting multi-armed, sword-wielding creatures that attack as well.

The film comes from director Jonathan Liebesman, whose name you may recall from the film that topped my worst of the year list for last year, “Battle: Los Angeles.” That was another film where he tried to use effects to compensate for story, but it obviously didn’t work. However, that was a film that had much more wrong with it than simply its story. “Wrath” is actually a step up in comparison.

I should point out that the film is being offered in 3-D and 2-D. As usual, I went with a 2-D showing, which presented a picture that was quite acceptable. This is another film that seems like it would be a terrible idea to present it in 3-D as much of it is incredibly dark. Even the scenes that take place outside seemed to occur in very drab settings, so if you are planning on seeing it, do yourself a favor and stick with good old fashioned 2-D. However, if you want to do yourself a bigger favor, you should just skip it altogether.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The story revolves around two families. The first is a young boy, Juan (Izan Corchero), and his mother. Juan has been writing a horror story involving a creature known as Hollowface, who is attempting to steal a face for himself. Juan begins having nightmares about the character, but his mother is concerned that they may not be simple nightmares. This causes her to enlist the help of a priest, Father Antonio (Daniel Bruhl), to help purge Juan of this mysterious thing that’s troubling him.

The other story involves John Farrow (Clive Owen), his wife, Susanna (Carice van Houten), and their daughter, Mia (Ella Purnell). One day, Mia finds a small box in a tree containing a story about Hollowface. Shortly afterwards, she begins seeing him in her room at night. At first, it’s thought that these are merely nightmares, until the night her father sees him in her room as well.

The main reason “Intruders” never comes together is because of its story. It is one of the blandest stories I’ve seen in a long time, particularly for a horror film. Neither story develops very far, giving it a very stretched out feeling as it slowly makes its way towards the inevitable merging of the two. The title itself isn’t even accurate as it’s only about one creature trying to attack these two kids.

Then there’s the creature itself. This must have taken the writers all of 30 seconds to come up with: a creature that has no face that’s trying to take one from a child. This thing is always wearing a hood, making it reminiscent of the fisherman from “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” so you never get to see very much of it, but at least the fisherman had a hook to threaten with. All Hollowface has are claws that he never uses.

Hollowface just never becomes a threatening character, which is why the film is lacking any thrills. To make matters worse, several shots of him are done in laughably-bad CGI, showing that there wasn’t much room in the budget to make a more realistic and terrifying creature. If the filmmakers thought they were putting together something thrilling with this character then they were sadly mistaken.

Then there’s the completely nonsensical ending. We know early on that the stories have to eventually merge, which they do to no one’s surprise. However, what becomes of the film after that is so random that you can tell that the inexperienced writers, Nicolas Casariego and Jaime Marques, just gave up, leaving large parts of the plot unexplained.

The film comes from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose previous and most widely-known project was the decent “28 Weeks Later.” With “Intruders,” he’s taken a big step down, giving us a dull film that never gets on its feet. It would be interesting to know what he originally saw in the project that attracted him to it in the first place. Perhaps he was counting on a better design for Hollowface, something that would have helped the film at least a little bit.

However, it’s doubtful that even that would have helped overcome the shortcomings of the story. The whole thing just ends up feeling like more of a straight-to-dvd release instead of a theatrical film. Perhaps that would have been the best route to take for “Intruders” as it’s doubtful that many people are going to take the time to go see the film in theaters, especially in a limited release. Its best hope is that a few people will wander into one of the few theaters where it is playing and, not knowing anything about it, randomly pick it.

1.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Doug Glatt (Seann William Scott) is a bouncer at a bar. He comes from a family that has all made something of themselves by becoming doctors. One night, while at a hockey game, one of the players attempts to attack his best friend Ryan (Jay Baruchel) because of his taunts, but Doug stops the player in his tracks and beats him unconscious. This captures the attention of the head coach of the Orangetown Assassins. He eventually turns Doug over to the head coach of the Halifax Highlanders, who wants to put him on the team to guard a player, Xavier Laflamme (Marc-Andre Grondin), who has lost his confidence after being hit really hard in a previous game. Doug quickly earns a reputation as a strong fighter and eventually gives his team something they’ve been dreaming of: a shot at the playoffs.

Now you’re probably asking yourself: Why would a movie like this get made? Even after the movie was over, I found myself asking that very question. What was the point of it all? Not that it has to have a message of some kind, but if the filmmakers couldn’t accomplish the basic goals they set for themselves, why bother with it?

They obviously wanted to make a film that was entertaining, but this film is about as entertaining as watching two people beat each other up, which is ironically as far as the plot ever gets. Why did the writers, Jay Burachel and Evan Goldberg, ever think that this would make for an entertaining film? If they had at least made it about the sport, perhaps it would have been more interesting, but by focusing the story on a man who just beats the snot out of people on the ice rink, they remove any entertainment and purpose from the film.

Something else the writers obviously wanted to make was a comedy. The film does have sporadically humorous moments, but nothing that was laugh out loud funny. There’s certainly not enough funny material to fill even its short runtime of about 85 minutes. Unfortunately, most of the humor they try to get away with is on the Sandler level, pertaining of references to genitals and such. Luckily, they begin to lay off the humor almost entirely throughout the second half of the film, but it’s unclear if that was their intention or not. It could have been due to the fact that most of the film simply isn’t funny.

The film leads up to a very anticlimactic ending. As mentioned before, the story concentrates on Doug as he beats up player after player in various games, so the writers decided to make the climax a big showdown between Doug and another fighter of his caliber, Ross Rhea (Liev Schreiber). This also just happens to be the game that determines whether or not the team will advance to the playoffs. So the fight and the match play out (you can probably guess what happens in each) and the film ends, leaving us to ponder what happens afterward. My guess is that most people just won’t care.

The most interesting thing about the film is Seann William Scott’s blank performance in the lead. Known mostly for the “American Pie” films, all he has to do here is play dumb and go along with what his coach tells him to do. There’s also a romance thrown in between his character and Eva (Alison Pill) that never develops and ends up being completely superfluous to the story. It was a nice try to develop the character further, but in order for that to happen, the plotline would actually have to develop too.

What we end up with is a film that just isn’t interesting, entertaining, or funny. If the writers wanted to concentrate on Doug’s story, they desperately needed to add something more to it to make it work, like they tried to do with his undeveloped relationship with Eva. Perhaps they could have tried to concentrate on the team as a whole so as to incorporate Doug’s story into theirs. At least that way the plot wouldn’t seem like it was put together by drunken hockey fans.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Starting off with a prologue, we are told that a king fell in love with and married a beautiful queen (Julia Roberts). Not long after, the king had to leave on a quest to defend his kingdom, but was never seen again, leaving the queen to rule in his stead and to look after his daughter, Snow White (Lily Collins). It is only after the king leaves that the queen shows her true cruelty. She is jealous of Snow White’s beauty and doesn’t allow her to go out. She also taxes the already destitute citizens, using the money to throw lavish parties.

Meanwhile, a prince (Armie Hammer) and his squire are on a quest to find adventure, but end up getting robbed by seven dwarves in the woods near the queen’s kingdom. When Snow White sneaks out of the castle, she happens to come across them, but they part ways soon after. However, as chance would have it, Snow White and the prince meet again at the castle and start to fall in love, something the queen finds unpleasant as she wants to marry the prince herself to obtain riches. This causes the queen to order her servant, Brighton (Nathan Lane), to take Snow White out into the woods to be killed by a monster that supposedly lives there, but Brighton, not having the heart to see it through, lets her go instead. This is where she meets the seven dwarves, but they’re not exactly the dwarves we’re familiar with from this story.

As mentioned, this take on the tale does put a bit of a twist on it, and that’s exactly what ends up making it refreshing. For instance, the seven dwarves that we remember from the old Disney film are completely different, not only in name, but in character. Here they are thieves who live in the woods after having been cast out of the village as undesirables. These characters are also the centerpiece of some fascinating fight sequences that feature the dwarves on accordion stilts.

Helping to bring this twist on the tale to life is the well-chosen cast. Roberts plays up her evil side, something we don’t ever get to see, rather well, while Collins roles along with her character’s changes quite nicely. It was good to see Collins back in a good film after having made two rather poor choices with her last two projects “Priest” and “Abduction.” Armie Hammer, of “The Social Network” fame, gives an interesting performance as the prince, who finds himself in a bizarre situation and likewise has to adapt to it as it proceeds. Nathan Lane even has a small role that helps bring out the comedic elements of the screenplay.

The film itself has pretty good pacing, thanks in part to the screenplay by newcomer Melissa Wallack and slightly-experienced Jason Keller. They’ve infused it with a good mixture of humor, action, and romance, making for a pleasant experience. However, the ending, while understandably predictable, could have benefitted from the removal of a completely pointless song and dance sequence that only served to stretch out the conclusion.

“Mirror Mirror” comes to us from director Tarsem Singh, who has only directed four films, but has already established quite a name for himself. All of his films have quite an amazing look to them. In “The Cell,” he dazzled audiences with his interpretation of what exploring dreams might look like. “In “The Fall,” his sense of style showed us how incredible the realm of the imagination is. Even in a film as bad as “Immortals,” the visual style stood out as being stunning.

In his latest film, the style is not as extraordinary as his others have been, but it is still beautiful to look at. Everything from the production design to the costumes and even the creature design are really well done, adding energy and style to a fresh take on an old story. Singh and his crew have quite a talent for capturing an audience’s attention with elegant detail in all of these elements.

While it may not be as memorable as his other good projects, Singh has delivered a film that should delight audiences of all ages because of the timelessness of the story and the spin the writers have put on it. Now to sit back and wait for the other “Snow White” film, “Snow White and the Huntsman,” to drop into theaters in a couple of months. It has a mostly-impressive cast lined up, so hopefully the next new take on this classic will be just as successful.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film begins with a prologue explaining that the 13 districts of Panem once rose up against the capital in rebellion. The rebellion was put down, but as an everlasting punishment, it was decreed that every year the 12 remaining districts must put up two tributes each, one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18, to participate in The Hunger Games, a battle in which the 24 players will have to fight each other in an arena until there is only one survivor.

In district 12, we meet Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), her sister Primrose (Willow Shields), and Katniss’s close friend Gale (Liam Hemsworth). District 12 is a poor mining town where supplies are scarce, so Katniss goes hunting a lot in order to have something to trade, which has given her some skill with a bow and arrows. The next Hunger Games is just around the corner, so everyone in the district gathers to hear the announcement of who will be chosen. The first name announced is Primrose’s, causing a shocked Katniss to volunteer in her place. The second name is a young man by the name of Peeta (Josh Hutcherson).

The two are allowed a few quick goodbyes before being shuffled off to the Capitol where they meet with their trainer, Cinna (Lenny Kravitz), and their mentor, Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson), whose job it is to give them advice on how to win. Katniss and Peeta also get a chance to meet the 22 other players that they will be going up against, as well as a chance to assess their own strengths during the training process. Cinna and Haymitch do everything they can to prepare the two for what awaits them in the arena, but once they’re out of their hands, it’s up to Katniss and Peeta to fight for their own survival in a battle to be the one winner.

One of the questions that immediately pops up, about both films actually, is what kind of society would condone such an event? In “BR,” the battle is held because adults feared the youth who were boycotting school. Here, it’s a rebellion that occurred over 70 years ago, but the government is still making the districts pay the price. What’s more is that the whole thing is televised to the masses, most of whom are tuning in to see how their tributes are doing while some are watching for the fun of it, even making bets on the outcome. Why would this be allowed to continue when most of the people responsible for the rebellion would be dead by now?

The most prominent change is indeed that it is being televised, turning it into a kind of extreme reality TV show. One of the points that Collins seems to be making with her story is that reality TV has gotten way out of hand, which is something that pretty much anyone could tell you from flipping through the cable channels, except here, it’s also being used to send a message to the masses, a reminder that treason will not be tolerated. Apparently this is something that the government still feels the need to tell them even though over 70 years have passed. If anything, you would think this would cause another uprising, but apparently not.

The film is made up of two distinct halves. The first gives us a quick introduction to the main characters that we’ll be following, along with their time in training and other preparations for the battle. This half feels like it runs a little too long. After awhile you’ll probably get the feeling that the film needs to be moving on to the game itself. That’s not to say that this section has bad pacing, just that after the intros and a bit of training, there’s not much else for them to do before entering the arena.

The second half is the game itself, which immediately starts in a chaotic manner. Now, for those thinking that this must be a particularly violent film, let me tell you now that it’s not. There are some brief flashes of fights and a small amount of blood here and there, but it’s very minimal in the amount of violence that you actually see, unlike “BR” where the madness and the horror of the violence is seen everywhere.

This is the section that begins to get thrilling. It’s not as thrilling as I was hoping for, but you still get a fair amount. We mainly follow Katniss as she attempts to survive. At first, she just tries to get away from everyone, but the powers that be can’t allow that, so they draw her back with a forest fire. This forces her to deal with a small group that has formed an alliance. How she tries to deal with them I’ll leave you to discover.

This section does begin to drag on a bit, particularly near the end when it gets down to just a few players. This is where I was hoping that they would throw in a few more thrills to liven things up a bit, but as I mentioned earlier, this is a much tamer version of the story, so we don’t really get all that much in the way of excitement, particularly because we’re following two people who don’t want to fight unless they’re forced to. However, Katniss’s and Peeta’s attempts to survive do make for an interesting time because there are other tributes who are completely willing to fight to be the last one standing.

One thing that made “BR” a masterpiece was its fascinating view of violence and the different ways that kids might react to it, particularly when they’re not prepared for it. It used violence to show those different reactions and the lengths we go to survive. “The Hunger Games,” while an entertaining tale, doesn’t get to delve into that very much because of the restricted view of following one or two people, but this at least allows us to see a couple of reactions to this scenario.

The casting here makes a big difference in helping make this a believable story. Jennifer Lawrence, recent Oscar nominee for “Winter’s Bone,” brings a great emotional quality to Katniss, a fearless character who wants to survive for her sister’s sake. There’s also some notable supporting performances strewn throughout the film including Josh Hutcherson as Peeta, Katniss’s fellow tribute, Woody Harrelson as Haymitch, Katniss’s and Peeta’s mentor, Wes Bentley as Seneca Crane, controller of the game, and Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, host of a talk show and commentator on the game.

“The Hunger Games” is an intriguing tale and a good start to what is sure to be a continuing franchise. There are two more books in the series which will hopefully take the series in a more original direction that will allow us to get to know the characters even better. Sure this entry is a ripoff of “Battle Royale,” but it’s still an entertaining ride with great casting that will more than likely please fans of the book and those who’ve never even heard of it.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Jeremy Reins (Stephen Dorff) awakens to find himself enclosed in a glass box in an unknown location. All he can see in front of him is a clock counting down over and over. The only item in the box is an old CB radio that he uses to talk to another man in the same situation as he is. We soon learn that Jeremy is a member of the secret service and that the box he is being held in is in the trunk of a car being driven by a member of a terrorist group who are attacking Washington D.C. They have taken Jeremy hostage in order to learn the location of “Roulette,” a bunker that the President is taken to when in danger. With only the radio and his sense of duty, he must resist everything that the terrorist threatens him with, including doing harm to his captured wife.

Once again we have a film shot (almost) entirely in one location that hinges upon there being plenty of suspense and a compelling performance from the lead. “Brake” does contain quite a bit of suspense with all of its twists and turns. It leaves us in the dark, quite literally, for quite a while, not letting us know what’s going on, which puts us right there with Jeremy as he tries to figure out just what the terrorists are doing.

Also upping the suspense is the mystery surrounding the characters we don’t see. Jeremy uses the CB radio to keep in touch with Henry (JR Bourne), who claims to work for the government and who’s being held captive, as is his family, until Jeremy tells the terrorists what they want to know. But how can Jeremy trust someone he’s only ever talked to on a radio, especially in such a tense situation?

However, even with all of this going on, the film begins to feel stretched out after a while despite only running about 90 minutes. The second half has Jeremy getting ahold of a cell phone in an incredibly convenient manner, which leads to multiple phone calls for the remainder of the film. This leads up to what is the film’s biggest weakness: a pair of endings that, when combined, become incredibly silly and nonsensical.

The first ending is one that you can see coming from a mile away, but at the very least, it’s a logical ending to the film, and would have been fine if the screenwriter, Timothy Mannion, had decided to leave it there. However, he chose to throw in one more surprise that throws logic out the window and leaves the film with several unanswered questions as to how it was supposed to work in the context of the first ending. This is Mannion’s first screenplay and he’s not that bad of a writer. He just needs to learn to quit while he’s ahead.

Helping to keep the film engaging is the strong performance of Stephen Dorff, who isn’t exactly known for choosing good projects, having lately starred in “Immortals,” “Bucky Larson,” and “Somewhere.” With “Brake,” he does a good job of pouring all of the anger, fear, frustration, and desperation into the character. When your film is only going to have one actor on screen for the vast majority of it, you need to make sure that that actor is up to the task of keeping the audience interested, which is something that Dorff does rather well.

For a film like this, it must be really hard to come up with something that ends up being satisfying as a whole. When a writer chooses a minimalist plot, there are usually only a few options as to the way it can turn out. It ended up hurting “Buried” because there was only one of two ways it could go, and once you ruled out the option that was too obvious, you were left with just one. “Brake” could have gone a few more directions, but Mannion also decided to go with something obvious and then ludicrous instead of trying to surprise us in a good way. Most of it is a decent film despite it being stretched out, but most of it being good just doesn’t cut it.

2.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

This week, my good friend John Zulovitz explains why Coal Miner’s Daughter should already be a part of your movie collection. If it’s not, you can click on the image below to purchase the DVD from Amazon. Enjoy!

1980 saw the release of what are clearly the two best films made in that thankless hyphenate genre deemed the “biopic.” One is Raging Bull, directed by Martin Scorsese. The other, Coal Miner’s Daughter, directed by Michael Apted, is the subject of this review.

We should, by now, be numb to such films, as the industry has more than indundated us with representations of said genre. Some of the films meet the standards of what a good film is supposed to do; some of them do not; and some of them (perhaps too few) exceed said standards of showmanship and effect.

Coal Miner’s Daughter stands solidly in the latter category, owing to a smart adaptation written by Thomas Rickman, assured and naturalistic direction by Michael Apted, and wholly realized performances by the actors. In fact, what the principal players (Sissy Spacek and Tommy Lee Jones) do in this film is conducive to a kind of alchemical bliss. That the collaborative group of artists who worked on this film were able to take what could have been a stock “rags to riches” story and breathe so much freshness and life into it is a kind of alchemy in itself. Though we know the drill, we have never seen it dramatized in quite this way before.

Loretta Webb, a dirt-poor fourteen-year-old girl brought up in the hills of Butcher Holler, Kentucky, meets and marries older Doolittle “Mooney” Lynn, a randy rascal of a man freshly returned home from military service. He’s taken with her, and she with him. He’s keen on getting to know her better; she, though clearly intrigued, isn’t too sure how to handle the situation, as she’s never been courted before and knows next to nothing about the private dealings and rituals of love.

But Doo, if anything, is nothing less than adamant. After a humorous local Christmas party held in a one-room schoolhouse, during which he cunningly buys a chocolate pie baked by Loretta (the other bidder hasn’t a chance, you see, because Doo’s not only bidding, he’s the auctioneer!), he captures Loretta’s heart.

Doo is soon coming around the Webb homestead, much to the ire of Ted and Clary, Loretta’s mommy and daddy (Levon Helm, of The Band, and Phyllis Boyens, of Harlan County, U.S.A., play their parts with realistic precision and great care). They think Loretta’s much too young to be mixed up with the likes of a grown-up, foulmouthed man bursting with the energy of a “banty rooster” (Ted’s words); “You stay away from that Doolittle Lynn or I’ll give you worse than what your daddy did” (Clary’s words).

Doo, however, just knows there’s something he likes about the “little ol’ gal,” and as we will see, he’s not one to take “no” for an answer. For her part, Loretta is receptive, if a little leary, of the emotions she’s starting to feel for Doo. In spite of being naïve, she goes along with the courtship, even though she can sometimes be “ignorant, but not stupid” (her words). It is only on her wedding night that Loretta realizes being a wife entails far more than she could have ever imagined (in short, it’s not all about keeping a clean house and learning how to cook!).

Michael Apted directs these scenes from a perspective that is both quiet and observant. If you’ve ever known people who live in the Appalachian hill country, you’ll know he gets it right, from the quiet dignity of the people who live there, to the poverty with which they have to contend (if you can’t afford wallpaper, just paper the walls with old newspaper).

Marriage intervenes, arguments ensue among the newlyweds (Loretta is fond of telling a perturbed Doo to “stop a-makin’ that noise; you sound like a ol’ bear a-growlin’”), and then come the babies, a move across the country to Washington (Doo will be damned if he’s gonna stay in Butcher Holler and die from “a chestfulla coal dust and bein’ an old man time I’m forty”), and an eventful anniversary on which Doo means to buy Loretta a wedding ring, but having heard the way she sings to the kids, opts for a guitar instead (“What’d you git me a guitar for?” Loretta asks, to which Doo replies, “‘Cause I like the way you sing”).

And the rest, as they say, is history…albeit of the Country-Western Music variety. Along the way, we are given “behind the scenes” glimpses into the music industry, the toll such a life takes on a person, and Loretta’s slow but determined crawl to becoming a person in her own right (thanks in no small part to her friendship with Patsy Cline, played with dizzying verisimilitude by Beverly D’Angelo, who, doing her own singing, elicits chills).

Speaking of verisimilitude, Sissy Spacek, as Loretta Lynn, proves herself to be a national treasure. We get to observe her age from a gangly, knobby-kneed girl in a pink teddy bear coat, to the Queen of Country Music, complete with flowing, coiffured hair, sparkling chiffon gowns, and a whole constellation of sequins (or, as she calls them, “doodads”).

It is a rich, fully realized performance, and one for which Ms. Spacek clearly did her homework. She sounds more like Loretta than perhaps Loretta does herself. And, like Ms. D’Angelo, Ms. Spacek does her own singing as well. Watch her go a round with a group of rambunctious kids and a stubborn washing machine as she teaches herself how to play the guitar (“If y’all run across this porch one more time, I’m gonna have to whup ya!”); watch her shed her shyness and bloom on the stage of a honytonk bar; watch her wither and break down from the pressures of the road on the stage of an auditorium filled with thousands of loyal fans.

From Mr. Rickman’s screenplay:

Just watching Ms. Spacek live this scene is worth your time watching this film. Sure, she may be small in stature, but she is mighty in gumption and will. Doe-eyed and steely, funny and heartbreaking, she never gives less than her all. It is one of the best performances in the history of motion pictures.

Download the script:
Coal Miner’s Daughter

Henry Barthes (Adrien Brody) is a substitute teacher whose latest job has brought him to a troubled school where most of the kids just don’t seem to care about their grades or their future. He makes the best of this while trying to deal with all of the other things going on in his life including regularly checking up on his grandfather (Louis Zorich) in a nursing home and taking care of a young prostitute, Erica (Sami Gayle), he’s saved from the streets. Meanwhile, at school, his students come to accept him as someone who truly wants to help. One of his students, a young girl named Meredith (Betty Kaye), even begins to develop an obsession with him.

Just from that synopsis you can probably see the major problem that this film has. It wants to be about so many different things, trying to pull itself in so many different directions, that the movie itself becomes lost somewhere in the mix. On the one hand, it wants to be the standard “teacher helping troubled students” film, while it also wants to be about Henry’s relationship with his grandfather, his relationship with Erica, and Meredith’s obsession with him.

The storylines don’t even end there as it also attempts to encompass the troubled lives of the teachers and administration of the school. Screenwriter Carl Lund doesn’t seem to understand that, while it’s ok to have subplots, trying to make five different plots equal in a film like this is only going to lead to disaster. All it ends up doing is not allowing any of them to develop properly as it jumps back and forth between all of these stories. This is Lund’s first screenplay, but it clearly shows.

To make matters worse, the film is structured with frequent interruptions by an interview with Henry after the events of the film, which merely serve as just that, interruptions, which disrupt any flow that the movie tries to establish. This was a very strange structuring decision to make, especially since there’s already not enough time for the multiple plots, so why take up time that could be used to develop them?

The one saving grace of the film ends up being Brody’s excellent performance. He puts a lot of emotion into the material and really gives it his all, showing that struggle he is going through between wanting to help his students and all of the other difficult things going on in his life really well. It’s just a shame that the material is unworthy and unsupportive of his strong portrayal.

There are also several “why did they bother” performances from some pretty good actors like James Caan, Bryan Cranston, Marcia Gay Harden, and Lucy Liu that have you asking that very question because they are such small roles. Liu even appears to be trying to make up for the fact that her screentime is so limited by overacting quite a bit in one particular scene where she’s trying to tell a problem student about her future prospects.

If Lund had been able to narrow the focus of his screenplay to one of these plots then he might have had a decent story here. Even cutting it down to just two or three might have worked a whole lot better, but one thing’s for sure, trying to compact all of these plots into one film and expecting it to work as a whole was rather foolish. Even a talented director like Tony Kaye (“American History X”) and a great performance from Brody can’t save a mess like this.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film, based upon the 1987 TV series of the same name, revolves around two cops, Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum), who knew each other in high school and then ended up training at the police academy together. After their first attempt at an arrest goes bad, they are placed in an undercover unit with their mission being to bring down a drug ring.

Once inside, they attempt to find the source of a new synthetic drug that has already caused a student’s death. This leads them to Eric (Dave Franco), one of the distributors. As Schmidt, not used to being considered one of the cool kids, becomes good friends with Eric in order to find the supplier of the drug, Jenko goes about the mission in a different way using a wiretap provided by his new chemistry friends in an attempt to gather the needed information.

What helps make the humor work so well is the fact that the writer, Michael Bacall, makes no illusions that his screenplay is original. In fact, he takes time to poke fun at the fact that this whole film is merely recycling an idea from the 80s. He even has his characters point out how they thought there’d be more chases and explosions in their line of work as policemen, and go figure, later in the film, we get a long chase sequence with a hilarious series of near-explosions before a completely unexpected one occurs.

What also helps make it work is that it’s just plain funny. The jokes are set up really well, such as the aforementioned chase and near-explosions. There’s also a sequence of the two having to sample the drug that’s spreading around the school that leads to a series of stages that the drug takes them through with hilarious consequences.

Aside from one really crude joke near the end of the film, the level of humor manages to stay at a really good level. It would have been easy for Bacall to sink the film into Sandler humor territory, but luckily he almost entirely resists that urge. Bacall has already proven that he can be a pretty funny guy when it comes to writing, having co-written the screenplay to the great film “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.”

While the film itself was an unexpected surprise, what was perhaps an even bigger surprise was to find Channing Tatum in a good film for once. I usually find myself having to berate his “acting,” but here, he actually does quite well with the comedic material, and he even has great chemistry with recent Academy Award nominee Jonah Hill. Tatum has been in one bad movie after another, but they’ve been almost entirely romance or action. Perhaps he’s finally found what he should have been doing all along.

The film comes from directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who also teamed up for the so-so animated film “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.” That had also been their only directors credit before this, making it quite impressive that their first live-action outing turned out as well as it did. They handle the action sequences in a clear and comprehensible manner, which is something that even the most experienced directors still seem to have trouble with nowadays.

If this film is any indication, these two have a future in directing live-action, and indeed, this film does kind of leave it open for a sequel, something I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing. Because of Bacall’s skill at writing great comedic material and Lord’s and Miller’s talent behind the camera, “21 Jump Street” became more than what it originally appeared to be, which is a surprise I’m always grateful for.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film begins with a prologue explaining how there is a great power struggle taking place on Mars between two cities, Helium and Sodanga. A warlord of Sodanga has been chosen by a goddess to be the next ruler of the planet, granting him the use of a powerful weapon. This warlord, Sab Than (Dominic West), proposes that, to end hostilities and unite the cities, he should marry Princess Dejah (Lynn Collins), a prospect that doesn’t sit particularly well with her.

This is intertwined with the story of Captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), a cavalryman in Virginia in 1868 on the hunt for a cave full of gold. On this hunt, he gets picked up by the Army, who plan to ship him out to Arizona to fight off Indians. However, Carter escapes and coincidentally comes across a cave with gold. In this cave he also meets a strange man who doesn’t seem like he’s even from Earth, and before he knows it, Carter is transported to Mars by a medallion.

It’s not long before he comes across an alien race known as the Tharks, who are ruled by Tars Tarkus (Voice of Willem Dafoe). The Tharks are impressed by Carter’s amazing ability to jump great distances due to the lower gravity, which comes in handy when they suddenly find themselves in the middle of a shooting match between two ships. Aboard one ship is Dejah, running away from the proposed marriage, while the other ship is attempting to retrieve her. With Carter’s help, she successfully completes her escape. Eventually, the two unite on a quest to bring peace back to the war-torn planet.

“John Carter” is certainly an interesting idea for a film with a power struggle on an alien world and an outsider affecting the balance, but sadly it never ends up fully working. While it seems like it has a lot of story, most of it is merely set up to the actual plot, leading to a kind of “story deficit” for the remaining two-thirds of the film. It remains mildly intriguing throughout, but with the film being stretched out to over two hours, you begin to feel the strain rather early on.

The blending of the two genres is done rather well, allowing the audience to witness a fascinating juxtaposition to the alien world of Mars and its technology after having started on 19th century Earth. In fact, it ends up being a much more successful merger of western and sci-fi than “Cowboys & Aliens” was, particularly because the story is stronger, yet still not strong enough to save it overall.

The biggest problems occur mainly in the second act where things slow down for far too long. The first act had been quite exciting and the third act picks this up again for the most part, but that slog through the second act, which is where it feels particularly stretched out, makes it feel like a number of minutes could have been trimmed. This would have probably given the film a tighter pace and made it flow much better than it did. The filmmakers were definitely going for an epic here, but in order to warrant an epic length, you need enough story to fill that time, something that the writers tried to do through this prolonged second act and the film’s multiple action sequences.

These sequences do become a bit of a highlight for the film. They are well-done, exciting, and feature some interesting vehicles and weapons, but eventually you get the urge for the story to move on. This eventually comes down to the big finale, which oddly gave off a strange “Flash Gordon” vibe as Carter flies toward a major city to try to put an end to a wedding between a warlord and the woman he loves. All that was missing was the giant forcefield and music by Queen.

The performances are not exactly anything to rave about, but it is interesting that the studio would take such an enormous risk by casting the unknown Kitsch, whose most noted film appearance before this was probably in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” in a $250 million gamble. All eyes are going to be on the film to see how it ends up performing overall as the studio is hoping to create a new and profitable franchise out of Burroughs’s “John Carter” books.

If another film is made, hopefully they’ll take a little more time in getting the story right before making it. This first one has been in development for a long, long time, which makes it surprising that it wasn’t stronger than it was. There are certainly things to like about it such as the production design, the action sequences, and the intriguing set-up of the story, but overall, the execution of the remainder of the story and the pacing end up holding it back from becoming the rousing adventure it could have been.

2.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

J.C. and I had the honor of attending the 13th Annual Nashville Screenwriters Conference last year, and as a result we had the chance to speak with several of the panelists and many of them graciously agreed to interviews.

This interview is a departure from our standard operating procedure, though, as I normally like to let the writers do what they do best: write. But Dan Fogelman is a busy man these days and asked if he and J.C. could chat by phone, so what you’re about to read is a little more fast and loose than what you’re used to here, but it is by no means any less informative or educational. In fact, J.C. had a lot of fun and the interview definitely reflects that, so we might have to look into this phone interview thing a bit more in the future.

Also, a big thanks to Samantha Ortt for transcribing the audio for us. Enjoy!

J.C.: All right. So, how did the shoot with Seth Rogen go?

DAN: Yeah [My Mother's Curse], we just wrapped it up, it looked great. It was really just one I couldn’t get [made]. I’d been working on getting it made for about five years, so it’s been like a long quest to get this movie that was loosely based on a road trip I took cross-country with my mom, so, it was a good one. It went really well.

J.C.: Well, there goes one of my questions, you just answered it like that.

DAN: That’s it.

J.C.: (Laughs) Okay, let’s see — and then you just sold this huge thing with Tom Cruise attached?

DAN: Yeah, I’m in the midst of writing that one now, I’m doing one for him. It’s kind of the same tonally type of movie. Kind of funny drama in between — so I think it’s going to be really good. I’m in the process of writing it for him right now.

J.C.: Can you just, for the basis of interview, talk a little bit about yourself and how you got started?

DAN: Sure. I came out to Los Angeles after college. I basically got in an old family car, I had just graduated college, and I just drove out here to be in the business. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. And I got some jobs in television production initially, just basically acting as like a production assistant. My first job was on the Howie Mandell daytime talk show, actually. I was a production assistant on the show, and I just had a bunch of kind of odd jobs on varying shows and eventually after a couple years… I had always written, and I decided I was going to take a crack at writing screenplays, so I wrote a very autobiographical script about my bar mitzvah. I had never written a script before, and I handed it to a buddy who worked as an assistant at a management company, I asked him if it was any good, and he thought it was good and he gave it to a couple of people and they became like my manager and agent to this day. And that kind of started everything for me.

I decided I was going to take a crack at writing screenplays, so I wrote a very autobiographical script about my bar mitzvah. I had never written a script before…

J.C.: That’s crazy. I remember you talking about the bar mitzvah script, you told some story about it in Nashville.

DAN: Well, yeah, I had basically written it, I didn’t know what to do, and I just thought I’d write something kind of autobiographical, it’s kind of like an almost Wonder Years type feel to it, a guy looking back on his, just kind of tumultuous year of life as a thirteen-year-old. In the back of my mind, I thought maybe there would be a Jewish agent in Hollywood that would find it identifiable and, as luck would have it, that’s exactly what happened. (Laughs) So it worked out. I never got the script made, actually. It’s like, kind of my first script, but I never got it made.

J.C.: That seems to be pretty much standard.

DAN: Yeah, yeah. I’m actually working on a couple of projects right now that I didn’t like, but I’m producing, and we’ve put in a lot of similar stuff from that first script, so, some of it will hopefully see the light.

J.C.: Great. Also at Nashville, I remember you talking about the difference between writing for yourself — say for spec and writing for Pixar, can you go over that a little bit again?

DAN: My first job after I started writing was I basically got the job to go up to Pixar and work on the movie Cars with John Lasseter and it’s just a different world, you know, in live action the process of writing is just you’re very alone. As far as anybody knows you’re sitting at a computer by yourself for most of the time, until it’s time for the script to be read and work with producers and actors and directors and such — if you’re lucky enough to get it made. But, in animation, when you get the job working on animation, you’re really working on a day-to-day basis —— often in the room with people, a group of storyboard artists and the director, and you will write a scene and see it up on the screen in the storyboard reel and then re—write the scene working with the storyboard artist who is boarding that sequence, so it’s a much more collaborative process.

J.C.: What was it specifically that drew you to writing, was it anything in particular — you said you were a production assistant first — was it just one of those things where you were like, “This is what will help me get my foot in the door easier?”

DAN: You know, I don’t know. I had always written… it was always something… I mean, I majored in English in college. I never really did any film study, but I majored in English. I actually always wanted to write a novel, but I had always written essays or things — even long emails to people — and I was kind of working out in the entertainment industry and I loved movies, so it was a natural kind of thing to attack. It took me a while to kind of learn the structure and the form and I still don’t quite know it all, but, yeah, it’s kind of — I was out here, I wanted to work in the entertainment industry, I wanted to live in Los Angles where it was warm, and I almost just fell into it. (Laughs)

I always recommend finding scripts of films that you love and then seeing how they look on paper.

J.C.: Amazing. Do you remember what the first screenplay you ever read was? And did it affect your approach of writing?

DAN: That’s a good question. I don’t remember. I don’t read to many books on screenwriting form, I don’t think I really ever have. I remember looking at one book once to like, understand how many pages a script should be, because I really had very little experience, but I definitely went to a bookstore at some point. I always recommend finding scripts of films that you love and then seeing how they look on paper. I remember I did that, I don’t remember quite what they were. I’ve always been a big Richard Curtis fan, I remember at one point seeing a script for Notting Hill in a bookstore and reading it — literally standing there at the bookstore — I just sat down there for like a half hour. I thought it was really tight and great and I was just really charmed. I remember reading that one, but I didn’t really have a lot of access to screenplays, honestly. I had bought, or read a few, at Barnes and Noble, like, ten years ago.

J.C.: Yeah, it’s definitely different now with the internet.

DAN: Yeah. And if you’re out here in the entertainment industry, you’re actually surrounded by scripts constantly, but back then I wasn’t.

J.C.: As a writer, how do you seek out inspiration, what inspires you to write? Just good movies, good scripts that you might happen to read, or just everything?

DAN: You know, you just got to feel it. I go away, I’m going to, literally, I’m going to the desert tomorrow. I rent a cabin up in Joshua Tree and I just tend to lock down for a couple of weeks at a time when I’m really in the throws of writing something. But, I’m just like, I try to just write limited amounts. I kind of sit on an idea for a long time before I actually put pen to paper to make sure it’s really about something. Like, whatever the movie is really about, or whatever the main characters journey is really about. I make sure it sticks with me, because you don’t want to get to page 30 of a script after putting months and months of work into it and be like, “Oh, I’m not really that into this anymore.” So I tend to like, think about an idea, and I see if they stick with me, and see if it’s something that I really want to commit to a decision before I try to move forward with it.

J.C.: What’s your process like? Do you do outlines, notecards, treatments?

DAN: I don’t. I don’t outline very extensively. I tend to — I mean, often in the business end of this, you have to kind of pitch projects or at least, if you’re working with people, be able to tell them about it — so I kind of outline enough so that I can get through a ten minute kind of verbal explanation of what the movie is going to be like and about and the general structure of it, but I tend to kind of just find it as I go along. I write pretty roughly and a little bit long, and then I kind of pare it down afterwards. It’s not necessarily the best process I’d recommend, but it’s just kind of the one that works for me. But, I outline a little bit. It’s more a stream of consciousness outline, like I’ll just open a Microsoft Word document and just start writing s**t. Scenes, ideas for scenes, ideas for characters, ideas —— if there’s going to be a big second act or third act, a moment I’m going to try to go to. I then just kind of like, know in my head that that’s where I’m heading and see where it goes.

J.C.: I know with Crazy, Stupid, Love. — in the first draft, wasn’t the character like, 40 years old? And then you went in and changed it?

DAN: Yeah, Ryan’s character was a little bit older, I don’t remember exactly how old he was, but a little bit older than Ryan is. It was just kind of a group decision to make him younger. Something like that, I don’t think it really drastically affected the character outside the fact that it’s a different aged character, so that brings it all a different kind of nature. But it was the right decision, in retrospect. Where the movie goes and everything, I think it made more sense that the guy was in his early 30′s than his late 30′s or 40′s.

J.C.: So how do you approach re—writing?

DAN: It’s a process. When you’re on a movie of that size, a studio movie, with all —— I mean, it was one by one, the actors are so incredible in the movie. So, it was a lot of sitting down with the actors or talking with the actors and knowing kind of where they want to take things. And you just adjust it on a scene-by-scene or a pass-by-pass basis, and try to keep your eye on the overall picture and fight for things that are worth fighting for and be open to kind of changing things that can get better and just see where you’re at at the end when it comes time to start shooting. You have enough rehearsals and table reads and whatnot, it doesn’t hurt to try things, you can always go back. That’s always been my kind of theory, so it’s not like once you try something the old version gets deleted from history, you know?

You have enough rehearsals and table reads and whatnot, it doesn’t hurt to try things, you can always go back. That’s always been my kind of theory, so it’s not like once you try something the old version gets deleted from history, you know?

J.C.: Yeah. So, transitioning — your first actual credit is The 12th Man which is a TV movie?

DAN: It was a TV pilot that never made it to air.

J.C.: Is that what it was?

DAN: I did it for Fox and like, you know, every development season 800 million writers are given the opportunity to write a pilot and a portion of those people get far enough that they get to actually make the pilot and do casting and shooting. And then, a select handful actually make it on the air where people see them, so that was one of the ones that got us far enough to shoot, but not far enough to get onto the air.

J.C.: So, what actually led to Cars, then?

DAN: Cars was just… that first script that I wrote [Becoming A Man, the bar mitzvah story], Pixar had read it; people in their development department had read the script and responded to it and they thought it was worth — they bring up a bunch of writers to kind of meet with the directors and the big shots at Pixar, and I kind of hit it off with them and they brought me up on a trial basis for a couple weeks and it just extended for a long time. I was up there for about a year and a half.

J.C.: That was a spec?

DAN: No, no, they already had a script in place, they had ideas in place, they were looking to hire a writer to kind of shepherd it through the process of getting it going. You know, re—writing it, writing it —— but no, that was their idea. It was all John Lasseter, I was just kind of brought up as like a hired hand to work on it.

J.C.: Were Bolt and Tangled the same way?

DAN: Similar ways in that they existed. Tangled, I got because of working with Pixar and working with John. When they needed somebody on Bolt, I was brought in to kind of work on Bolt and same goes for Tangled, so it wasn’t like I brought them a script or even an idea, I was more, kind of hired to write them when they already existed.

J.C.: So what was your first spec that was produced, then?

DAN: My first spec that was produced…

J.C.: Was it Fred Claus, or–

DAN: Fred Claus was not a spec, but it was basically an idea a producer and a friend of mine had for the film. They brought it to me and I liked it and then I wrote the script for it for hire. Like, we took that idea and I think she already set up the idea at a studio, and I was the writer hired to write it, but on that one, since I was the writer from the start, I came up with the ideas and wrote the story. So, yeah, I guess that would technically be my first one. Really, the first spec one was Crazy, Stupid, Love. It’s probably the third, fourth, or fifth for live action film I’ve written, but the first one to actually get made. Now others are getting made, but it happened so quickly that it became the first one to actually get made.

J.C.: Yeah, because you’ve had a couple big years with specs. There’s that, and then there’s Imagine, right? That was spec, wasn’t it?

DAN: Yeah, Imagine we’re getting done, we’re in the process of getting it going, and figuring out budgets and cast right now, so that one’s still in the early, early stages. It’s a hard thing to get a movie made, I mean, I’ve been lucky the last year, I got Crazy, Stupid, Love. made, and My Mother’s Curse is now in the can and will come out next year, so those are the only two that are done.

J.C.: You also mentioned in Nashville a story about a friend of yours and he couldn’t get a script out, so you put your name on it?

DAN: There was one point where we talked about… we had had a lot of passes on a script — on a project I was working on — and I believed in it, so we basically changed the title, and then sent it to a lot of the same people. (Laughs)

J.C.: And did you get any different reactions?

DAN: Yeah, there were different reactions. I mean, at the time, both the writer and I were in different places, so that probably had something to do with it more, too, but it’s more of a story than something that actually worked.

J.C.: Was it LASt VEGAS?

DAN: No, it was just a small little project I’m in the process of getting done right now. LASt VEGAS is another one we’re trying to get up and running right now, it’s been a while.

J.C.: I actually asked a few people from the website that I help run if they had any questions, and one of them was, “What do you think is absent in screenplays that are written today?”

DAN: You know, I don’t read a ton of screenplays, actually. I mean, I get a lot of family friends or friends sending me their screenplays, you know and… it’s not really absent as much as I think sometimes people are trying too hard to come up with the idea as opposed to worrying about the execution of a script, maybe? I think people, you know, when you get a letter from someone who is sending you a script, and there’s a page-long cover letter explaining why this could be a commercial idea, and why the market place is right for their movie, it’s just kind of an immediate sign that maybe somebody is thinking about the wrong things when they’re writing it. Because honestly, the whole business makes no sense and there’s no telling what people are going to respond to or not respond to, and what type of movies make a hit or not hit, so I think to try to over analyze that kind of — it creates — if you devote so much energy thinking about that, I think, then some of what you’re going for in terms of the actual writing of [a script] suffers.

…when you get a letter from someone who is sending you a script, and there’s a page-long cover letter explaining why this could be a commercial idea, and why the market place is right for their movie, it’s just kind of an immediate sign that maybe somebody is thinking about the wrong things when they’re writing it.

J.C.: Something else that seems to be big with aspiring writers every year is The Black List, and you seem to be on it every single year.

DAN: Yeah, the thing where people vote on scripts?

J.C.: Yeah, the executives.

DAN: The executives, yeah. I don’t know… Yeah… I don’t know enough about it. (Laughs) I always, the day it comes out, if I make it, I get emailed about it, but I don’t even know where — is it a magazine?

J.C.: No it’s just — there’s a website that — I can’t remember the executive’s name, but he publishes it every year.

DAN: No, I totally know because I saw it on Nikki Finke before, the Deadline Hollywood site, so… Yeah, no, that’s nice, I mean, you know, some of the scripts, simply by being kind of publicly — scripts with movie stars [attached] and what not get read a lot and that is part of it, too, but it’s a nice thing. I mean, ultimately, you just need one person, the right one person to like your script, you know? Or the right couple of people to like your script, and that could be the difference between getting a movie made and not.

J.C.: So, in your experience, The Black List didn’t really do anything to help you?

DAN: I’m sure it’s really nice, I’m unaware of when — which ones — I know that, I think last year Imagine was on it, it really made it high up, right?

J.C.: Yeah, and then one year The Gary Coleman-Emmanuel Lewis Project was on it.

DAN: (Laughs) Real-really? (Laughs more)

J.C.: Yeah.

DAN: That was a good movie. That’s the movie I can’t get made. Emmanuel Lewis wouldn’t do it and then Gary Coleman passed away. I think getting a movie called The Gary Coleman-Emmanuel Lewis Project on some kind of screenwriting list is a huge accomplishment. (Laughs)

I think getting a movie called The Gary Coleman-Emmanuel Lewis Project on some kind of screenwriting list is a huge accomplishment. (Laughs)

J.C.: Of course. And then in 2005 you had one on there called Becoming a Man.

DAN: Oh, that’s the bar mitzvah script.

J.C.: Yeah, people liked it in 2005.

DAN: Wow. I think I was probably unaware of it at the time.

J.C.: I think you’ve pretty much been on every list though. Every year.

DAN: That’s cool…

J.C.: So, what was it like to sit in a theater with an audience and watch your words come to life for the first time on the big screen?

DAN: It’s cool, you know, on this one, Crazy, Stupid, Love., I’m really proud of the movie and it’s a really —— like, when you go into the theater and you see it, there’s a pretty audible reaction to the movie, there’s some twists and turns and when you’re in the right theater with the right crowd, it can be a pretty fun experience. I remember the first preview of Crazy, Stupid, Love. months before it came out — when you show it to an audience and see what’s working or not — and a couple parts of the movie hit and the audience was really exploding, I mean really exploding, and it was really– that was one of the most exciting moments of my career.

J.C.: Yeah, you guys have been showing that for like, six months to a year now.

DAN: Yeah, we were originally supposed to come out in April and we got moved to a later date, so there was a lot of time between when we shot it and when it actually got released.

J.C.: Since you’ve had a lot of stuff produced, has watching the actors act out and speak your words, has it changed your process in any way?

DAN: Only in that I don’t treat everything too preciously anymore, because if you get the right actors and if you’re lucky enough to get some of the people I’ve been lucky enough to get– ultimately, I don’t sit and nitpick over things too early because I know that it’s part of a process: getting it right with the actors and for the actors and so it allows you to be a little more free and actually a little less precious about everything. It’s been really nice, I like working with actors. I don’t mind when the words are slightly changed. Some writers do, I don’t because if you’re lucky enough to get the right actors, they’re only going to make it better. And the right actor will have a dialogue with you, so it’s not just what they say or the high road, you know?

J.C.: If you could, sum up your feelings of Hollywood and the process of getting a script made into a film — do you think it’s a good process?

DAN: Yeah, you know, I mean it is what it is. Like any business — which Hollywood ultimately is — it’s… when you’re in it as much as everybody wants to be in it, it can be really frustrating at times. Often, it can seem like there’s a bunch of wasted energy that goes into certain things. It’s all about which people you get lucky enough to work with. I’ve been lucky enough to work with really good studios, really good executives, all the way through: really good directors and actors. And if you can walk out and work with the right people, like any business, you can have a great experience, and if you get the wrong people and the wrong experiences, you can have a really negative view of things, so I’ve been very lucky. I know many people who haven’t and say otherwise. I think it’s hard to get a movie made in this town, and it’s harder to get a really good movie made. So, it can be exhausting at times, but when it works and when it actually happens, it’s a pretty great thing, so it should be hard.

J.C.: Everyone seems to answer that question either really positively or really negatively.

DAN: Yeah, it depends on your experience, I mean, I doubt you’re going to catch many people who are struggling with something and have them speak lovingling about Hollywood. But I’m sure the people that are having their little moment feel like it’s the best thing ever. It’s probably like that in the stock market or in the law firm, you know, and it’s all kind of about what your recent experience has been.

J.C.: What software do you use —— do you use Final Draft?

DAN: I do. Final Draft. I think I still have a version from like 20 years ago because I just don’t want to even change anything.

J.C.: Yeah, well I just got a new computer and every time I open it, it makes me re—connect to the website and register, so it’s probably better that you keep the old version.

DAN: Yeah, I’m holding out as long as possible.

J.C.: At the end, it’s kind of cliché to ask for any positive words that aspiring writers might have, so I don’t like asking for aspiring words, I more like to ask if you could speak your mind about what’s in store for anyone that might even think about venturing into the world of screenwriting?

DAN: Sure. Well, I’d say that it’s a very tough business and it’s a very difficult business right now with limited opportunity. So, the first thing I say to everybody is: make sure that you definitely want to do this, that it’s the only thing you can do to make you happy, because if there’s something else, I would say to treat [screenwriting] as a fun thing that you do on the side. Just don’t make a go at it as a career if it’s not the only thing that’s going to make you happy, and, that said, if you’re one of those people who can answer that question “yes,” then you’ve just got to write something good. I think that… like that conference we went to in Nashville, or some other ones, I think that people can over-think a little bit. I think the only way to learn is to write, to listen, but not listen to just what anybody has to say, because then you have to do everything everybody says. And you have to put stuff out there and hope you get lucky, because all you can do is write something, write it well, and then hope it catches the right person at the right time. But, if it does, it’s a pretty great thing. (pause) Is that helpful?

J.C.: Yeah, I mean, I’m sure it’s helpful. It’s one of those questions that I hate asking every person that I interview, it’s just one of those things where it seems like I know that there’s so many writers out there trying to make it that they just want to ask people that question just so they can hear what they say.

DAN: Yeah, no, the people that are telling people otherwise — that tell people it’s easy — they are lying. It’s clearly not. It seems like with every passing month and every passing year, more people want to be doing this. And, it’s a hard thing, there are a lot of materials, so I just think you need to right something really good or really commercial and then just kind of, if that one shouldn’t hit, for whatever reason, write another one and just keep writing.

J.C.: What’s your approach then, you sold Crazy, Stupid, Love. and Imagine, both as specs, was your approach to those just trying to make something that you thought could be commercial or just something that was a story that you were–

DAN: I wrote them as specs because I thought it would be very difficult for me to walk into a room and explain those movies in a couple of minutes to a studio or to an actor. And I thought I was better just kind of writing it and writing it into something good and then seeing what happened. And, I mean, that’s the best advice you could have for anyone is just: write the thing you want to write, don’t worry about whether it’s commercial or whatever you think might get you another movie in development, if there’s a similar idea. If it’s between a commercial idea and a non-commercial idea and you love them equally, I would go towards the commercial one, but I think especially for aspiring writers, it’s not about a concept, it’s about the execution of the script, and honestly, your first script is not —— the likely hood of it getting made and becoming a huge commercial smash is slim. It happens, but it happens very sporadically, so you’re better served writing a great special piece of material, even if it’s something that could probably never function as a movie.

J.C.: Okay, I think that’s all. Thanks for taking the time.

DAN: It was my pleasure, man.

Check out more:
Dan Fogelman @ IMDb
Crazy, Stupid, Love. @ IMDb
- Download the 2009.11.23 Draft
- Download the 2010.02.19 Draft
- Purchase the Blu-ray
- Purchase the DVD
Tangled @ IMDb
- Purchase the DVD/Blu-ray Combo
Bolt @ IMDb
- Purchase the DVD/Blu-ray Combo
Fred Claus @ IMDb
- Download the Script
- Purchase the Blu-ray
- Purchase the DVD
Cars @ IMDb
- Purchase the DVD/Blu-ray Combo
The Gary Coleman – Emmanuel Lewis Project
- Download the Script

The couple, Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), have been friends for ages but have never felt any attraction for each other. They’ve spent their years telling each other everything about their attempts to start a love life and spending time with the same four mutual friends, two couples who have wondered why they’ve never gotten together. Because they both want a kid, Jason and Julie come up with a plan where they will have one together, but not get married, with the idea being not to subject the child to a nasty divorce and all the pain that would bring to the three of them.

They have the baby and proceed to date other people. Jason meets Mary Jane (Megan Fox), an actress, while Julie starts seeing Kurt (Edward Burns). Everything seems to be going well for both of them as they are both very happy. However, complications begin to arise when they start to feel that there might be more to their relationship than they originally thought.

This film contains one of the most irresponsible couples ever featured in a romantic-comedy. Who in their right mind would ever conceive of such a bizarre experiment, let alone carry it out? Sure it’s merely the writer’s (Westfeldt) attempt at comedy, but it never comes off as funny because this couple is purposefully bringing a child into a loveless marriage and an already broken home, which is ironic given that their original plan was to avoid the unpleasantness of a divorce.

Their friends seem to think that this is a very bad idea, but apparently they don’t try very hard to talk them out of it. Later in the film, one of them even tells Jason straight to his face that they didn’t think their idea out very far, and indeed, they did not. You would think that, when dealing with the life of a baby, there would be considerable planning that goes into it, but the furthest that these two get is agreeing to split expenses down the middle. Obviously there would be several complications that would arise from such a disastrous experiment, and yet, they somehow never stop to think about it.

Aside from the premise being completely flawed and unbelievable, it follows the standard formula pretty much beat for beat. You have the couple that has been friends for ages, but has never gotten together, so knowing what genre you’re watching, you already know that these two are going to be together by the end of the film. However, Westfeldt decides to drag the film out to an unbearable length, not only with a bad story, but with a third act that is terribly written.

As mention earlier, the standard couple of a romantic-comedy usually just takes a little while to figure out that they love each other, or in some cases has to overcome a misunderstanding or doubt before they get together. Here, the realization is staggered so that she realizes she loves him, but he still doesn’t realize his feelings for her, and then he realizes he loves her, but she has tried to move on. This brings not only the doubt, but extreme irritation when it tries to make us believe that she’s going to reject him when he tells her he loves her after having told him not long before that she loves him.

If you’ve found any of this to be spoilerish, then you’ve obviously never seen a rom-com before. Usually they will just stick to the formula in a pain-free sort of fashion. It doesn’t make them good, in fact, it makes most of them a bit of a slog to sit through. “Friends with Kids” takes this formula and somehow finds a way to make it worse, which is a very difficult thing to do. Movies of this genre normally want you to root for the couple to end up together. All this one had me doing was hoping that someone would smack them upside the head and talk some sense into them.

1.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film revolves around Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), a man who made a pact with the Devil and is now inhabited by an evil demon that turns him into the vigilante Ghost Rider. Johnny makes a deal with his friend, Moreau (Idris Elba), to help protect a child, Danny (Fergus Riordan), from Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth), who has been sent by the devil, Roarke (Ciarin Hinds), to fetch him. Apparently Danny was born the son of the devil after his mother, Nadya (Violante Placido), made her own pact with him to save her life. Now Johnny, Moreau, and Nadya must prevent Roarke from using Danny as a means to obtain even greater power.

Just from that you can see how completely ridiculous this movie becomes, and because of that, it’s not hard to see why it becomes so uninvolving. It’s basically composed of a nonsensical plot and a few action scenes, again reminding me of the latest entry in the “Underworld” franchise. There are no characters to get invested in here, nor any story that even slightly begins to engage the viewer.

Its problems don’t even end there as it’s also clumsily directed. For those few action scenes where the filmmakers are trying to keep the audience awake, you can hardly tell what’s happening due to the jumpiness of the camera and the quick cutaways. Apparently the directors/writers, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, adhere to the Michael Bay style of action where shots can only last a second or two tops in fear of losing the audience’s interest, something they never had in the first place.

These are the same two who also brought us the interesting film “Crank,” which turned out to be a fun, fast-paced thrill ride. Their sequel to it attempted the same thing, but was not quite as successful. They then turned their attention to the disastrous “Gamer,” which was basically nonstop shooting and utter boredom. This brings us back to present day where “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance” clearly shows their continual decline.

It really has to be seen to be believed just how ridiculous it gets. Eventually, Carrigan, the man pursuing the child, dies, but the devil, apparently unable to do such chores himself, needs him back, so he simply brings him back to life. However, his appearance changes from his old self to that of someone who looks like a Goth rock star.

This all comes down to an ending that is so utterly lazy, silly, and just plain dumb that you can’t help but feel embarrassment for the writers. Whereas they had been so inclined to include action scenes throughout the film, suddenly they decided to cut out what could have been a fairly interesting showdown by replacing it with something beyond simplistic. Perhaps they ran out of ideas at this point. It did seem like they were reusing the same few techniques over and over (chain of fire burning people up, Ghost Rider wobbling his head back and forth at people like a bobble head doll, etc.).

Cage, who seems to make one good movie out of every ten he signs up for, does his standard crazy routine, a routine that becomes rather dull when you’ve seen it over and over again. Sometimes his craziness can be amusing even when the film is terrible (see the awful remake of “The Wicker Man” for a prime example), but here, even he seems to realize there’s not much to work with. Other notable players include Idris Elba, who has received much praise for his role on “Luther,” and Ciarin Hinds, who has starred in such popular projects as “Rome” and “There Will Be Blood.”

This is destined for a place at the bottom of the pile come the end of the year, but in all honesty, did anyone really expect anything good out of a movie about a guy with a flaming skull going around killing people? There’s got to be a more engaging story to be told with this character given that the comics have been around since the 70s. Whether the original premise was actually interesting enough to be made into a feature film in the first place is a completely different matter.

1.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

These two agents, FDR (Chris Pine) and Tuck (Tom Hardy), have worked together for a long time and have become like brothers. As the film opens, they attempt to complete a mission in which covertness is the top priority. However, things don’t go completely by the book. They complete the mission, but not before a brother of a crime lord (Til Schweiger) is killed. Their boss is obviously unhappy that this occurred, knowing that the surviving brother will try to hunt them down, so she grounds the two agents, keeping them close to home to work on the case.

In the meantime, Tuck has decided to find a girlfriend by hooking up on an online dating service. He meets Lauren (Reese Witherspoon), a product tester, and they end up hitting it off. Not long after their date, FDR just happens to run into her nearby and also falls for her, which eventually leads to them dating. Lauren, with the help of her friend Trish (Chelsea Handler), attempts to juggle both men at once while trying to decide which one is best for her. Meanwhile, Tuck and FDR have figured out that they have both fallen for the same woman, which puts a strain on their relationship as they both try their best to win her over.

Just from looking at those two paragraphs of synopsis, you’d probably think that they’re not even talking about the same movie, and indeed that’s just how it feels when the film tries to combine the two different plotlines. We’re expected to believe that these two agents in the CIA have nothing better to do than to spend all their time fighting over the same woman. If that’s the case, then you may ask, why bother with the other storyline? Well, because there obviously has to be some kind of danger that the girl can get into so that they can save her.

However, what would have probably been the better route would have been to try and make this a straight up romantic-comedy instead of trying to merge two completely different storylines into one awkward film, though that probably wouldn’t have worked particularly well either. I suppose they wanted to try and appeal to men as well, so they figured they would add in a few unnecessary plot points and try to make it work despite the fact that they don’t mix very well.

It’s interesting how FDR and Tuck are able to divert several CIA resources towards their personal activities. They put several agents on tasks like finding out what Lauren likes and what she does 24/7. They even keep tabs on each other when they go on dates with her. How is it that none of their superiors notices that this has nothing to do with their mission at hand or that they haven’t even been working on finding their actual target? Their underlings begin to ask questions, but all they have to say are that it’s classified. However, you would think that at the point they start keeping tabs on their dates, more suspicions would arise, leading them to bring it to the attention of those higher up in the chain of command.

The film comes from director McG, whose filmography includes some other works of this level such as “Charlie’s Angels,” “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle,” and “Terminator: Salvation.” The screenplay was written by Timothy Dowling and Simon Kinberg, an interesting combination given that Dowling has helped give us the awful Adam Sandler movie “Just Go with It,” while Kinberg has worked on a handful of decent projects like “Sherlock Holmes” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” It’s unclear what they were all thinking when trying to put this mess together. Perhaps they were merely hoping that people could have an enormous suspension of disbelief and just allow themselves to think that this could really happen to a pair of CIA agents.

Pine, Hardy, and Witherspoon try their best, but they just don’t have much to work with here, especially since their characters never develop. It’s unfortunate that they had to get mixed up in a mish-mash of a film that never comes together. Being a little absurd is acceptable, but completely throwing reality out the window in a film that tries to ground itself in it is pushing it too much. If people like this were really allowed to be CIA agents, there would be much bigger problems to worry about than trying to decide which one of them is going to end up with a woman they both like.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film begins with a married couple, Leo (Channing Tatum) and Paige (Rachel McAdams), who are deeply in love. On their way home, a truck crashes into the back of their car, putting them both in the hospital. In no time, Leo is back on his feet while Paige has been placed in a coma to allow her brain time to heal and for the swelling to go down. When she awakens, she can’t remember who Leo is or what has happened for the last few years.

Paige’s parents (Sam Neill and Jessica Lange), whom she hasn’t spoken to in some time, arrive at the hospital and want to take her home with them, but Leo objects, thinking that it would be best to take her home with him so that she can try to remember their life together. Paige eventually decides to go home with Leo to see what her recent life has been like. Leo does everything he can to remind her of how they met and fell in love, but trying to fill in all the missing pieces of the last few years proves extremely difficult, which puts a strain on their relationship.

What ends up being most detrimental to “The Vow” is the way the beginnings of the relationship are skimmed over. Here was the filmmakers chance to get us involved with the characters, to let us know exactly how they fell in love so that we could feel something for them as we watch them drift together and apart throughout the film as their second relationship goes through its ups and downs.

Instead, they chose to gloss over this section and then throw us right into the situation without giving us the chance to get to know who these people are and why we should care about them. It’s true that the film is sweet about the whole situation as Leo attempts to show that they really do love each other very much, but without that attachment to the characters, we never end up feeling much for them.

It certainly doesn’t help that a large error in casting was made. If you want an audience to feel emotion for your character, it’s never a good idea to cast the expressionless Channing Tatum, who has started to remind me of an older Taylor Lautner, not in looks, but in how they are both emotionless and lack the talent necessary for acting. You would think that after witnessing his attempts in films like “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” “Dear John,” “The Eagle,” and “The Son of No One,” that he would be out of a job very quickly, but like Lautner, he just keeps inexplicably popping up again and again.

The rest of the cast is admirable in their attempts to bring the story to life. McAdams, who has done good work in the past in films like the first “Sherlock Holmes” and “Midnight in Paris,” doesn’t have to do much here besides act like she can’t remember anything. Neill comes off as a bit of a slimy villain as he attempts to set things up the way he wants them now that his daughter can’t remember the last few years. Lange’s talent seems wasted here because other than one revelatory scene near the end of the film, she isn’t given much to do.

The third act also leaves a lot to be desired as it introduces an extremely contrived plot point that leads it to its predictable conclusion. Not only is it predictable, but it ended up feeling quite random how the events came to be, as though the four writers (yes, it took four writers to put this together) just got lazy near the end of the writing phase and just decided that the ending that we know is coming will pop up whether it makes any sense or not.

“The Vow” might have been a decent film had the filmmakers taken the time to allow the characters to develop, or perhaps even if a better actor was cast in the lead, but the way they end up handling the material here doesn’t do it any favors as all it ends up being is a foundation of an interesting topic with no way to get attached to it. It’s interesting to have to say that the same basic premise was handled much better in an episode of “Star Trek: Voyager” than it was in a big budget theatrical film.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Shawn (Voice of David Henrie), a sickly young boy, has come to live with his Aunt (Voice of Gracle Poletti) and their housekeeper, Hara (Voice of Carol Burnett), in a house in the country in order to get some rest before an operation. Living in this same house is a group of little people known as “Borrowers” because they borrow things from the family living there, things that they won’t miss. This little family consists of Arrietty (Voice of Bridgit Mendler), a young girl who is just starting the process of borrowing, her mother (Voice of Amy Poehler), and father (Voice of Will Arnett).

There have been rumors going around Shawn’s family of the little people living there, but on his first day there, he catches a glimpse of Arrietty. Later on, when Arrietty is on her first borrowing mission with her father, Shawn spots her again. The two of them eventually strike up a friendship despite her parents constantly telling her that they must not be seen or else they will have to find a new place to live. Meanwhile, Hara becomes suspicious that the rumors about the little people are true and upon accidentally discovering their home, she decides to do something about them.

“Arrietty” features a screenplay co-written by Miyazaki and the less-experienced Keiko Niwa (based on the book “The Borrowers” by Mary Norton), but with the former being a part of the project, you know you’re going to be in for a good story. It is told rather well, giving us time to get to know the personalities of the main players so that when the relationship between Shawn and Arrietty slowly begins to form, the audience is actually able to connect with them. These characters may not be as particularly memorable as those we’ve seen in past films from this studio, but they are still engaging.

What also makes the film engaging is the same high-quality level of animation we’ve seen in past Ghibli releases. As mentioned earlier, the imagination of the filmmakers tends to run wild for these films, allowing them to create some of the most interesting locations ever used in animation. What’s interesting about “Arrietty” are not the locations themselves, but the major difference in a seemingly normal location from a different point of view.

Take for instance Arrietty going on her first borrowing mission with her father. We watch as they navigate through the walls, using nails as steps and staples as ladders, and climbing cabinets and tables using hooks and ropes. There are also scenes of Arrietty interacting with large insects, running through tall grass, and trying to avoid being caught by an enormous cat. Seemingly normal locations like this have a whole new look when you see it through the eyes of someone only a few inches tall.

This project was brought together under the direction of Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a frequent collaborator of Miyazaki’s on films like “Howl’s Moving Castle” and “Ponyo.” He has put together an interesting film here and has done surprisingly well given that it’s his first attempt at directing. His 15 years of experience in the field of animation makes him a great choice to take on a project like this and with its critical and financial success (it’s been around since 2010 and is just now making its way to US theaters), it seems he has a future in direction.

It’s not quite on the level of some of the studio’s other works, but “Arrietty” is still fascinating to watch for its beautiful animation, interesting characters, and the heartwarming relationship between Shawn and Arrietty. Like those other works, it’s fun family entertainment that doesn’t pander to one particular age group. They are made so that anyone of any age can enjoy them, which is merely another part of their magical storytelling.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

At any rate, I’ve removed all 152 scripts. It’s whatever. Here’s what I removed:

Note: List doesn’t include the multiple drafts.

1. (500) Days of Summer
2. 127 Hours
3. 27 Dresses
4. A-Team, The
5. Alien
6. Aliens
7. Alien³
8. Alien: Resurrection
9. All About Eve
10. Avatar
11. AVP: Alien vs Predator
12. Battle for the Planet of the Apes
13. Beneath the Planet of the Apes
14. Big Trouble in Little China II
15. Black Swan
16. Braveheart
17. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
18. Cedar Rapids
19. Cleopatra
20. Conviction
21. Crazy Heart
22. Darjeeling Limited, The
23. Date Night
24. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
25. Die Hard
26. Die Hard 2
27. Die Hard with a Vengeance
28. Epic of the Planet of the Apes
29. Fantastic Four
30. Fantastic Mr. Fox
31. Fight Club
32. Flight of the Phoenix
33. Full Monty, The
34. Grapes of Wrath, The
35. Home Alone
36. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
37. How Green Was My Valley
38. Hunt, The: Alien vs Predator
39. Independence Day
40. Jennifer’s Body
41. Joy Ride
42. Jumper
43. Juno
44. Kingdom of Heaven
45. Knight and Day
46. Little Miss Sunshine
47. Live Free or Die Hard
48. Machete
49. Marley & Me
50. Minority Report
51. Monte Carlo
52. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
53. Mr. Popper’s Penguins
54. My Cousin Vinny
55. Napoleon Dynamite
56. Patton
57. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
58. Phone Booth
59. Post Grad
60. Predator
61. Predator 2
62. Predators
63. Princess Bride, The
64. Ramona and Beezus
65. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
66. Road to Perdition
67. Rocky Horror Picture Show, The
68. Sexy Beast
69. Sideways
70. Silver Surfer, The
71. Slumdog Millionaire
72. Tree of Life, The
73. Unstoppable
74. Walk the Line
75. Wall Street
76. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
77. Water for Elephants
78. We Bought a Zoo
79. What Happens in Vegas
80. What’s Your Number?
81. Whip It
82. Win Win
83. Wolverine and the X-Men
84. Wrestler, The
85. X-Files
86. X-Men
87. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
88. X2 (X-Men 2)

Television Shows

1. 24
2. Angel
3. Burn Notice
4. Dollhouse
5. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Question is: do you care? If so, what are you going to do about it?

And how do the WGA Separated Rights of individual screenwriters play into all of this? I’d love to get some feedback from actual screenwriters on this one…

Beginning in the present day, we meet Eva (Tilda Swinton), who leads a dreary life, seemingly detached from all outside contact. Her small house has been splattered with red paint, but for what reason we’re unsure. Whenever she does go out, she gets the most peculiar of stares and goes out of her way to avoid particular people. Another woman even gives her a slap on the cheek when she encounters her. Every so often, she visits her teenage son, Kevin (Ezra Miller), in prison, but not much is said. The answers to the mysteries all lie in the past.

Flashbacks inform us that Eva was once happy, living with her husband Franklin (John C. Reilly) and awaiting the arrival of her first born. Once Kevin arrives, things begin to get more difficult as he is a rather hard child to deal with. Right away, he seems not to want to listen to his mother or even talk to her. This evolves into more troublesome behavior such as ruining Eva’s bedroom decorations and being constantly rude. When Kevin grows older, this behavior eventually culminates in tragedy as the pieces of the puzzle slowly fall into place.

“We Need to Talk About Kevin” is a fascinating character study of a broken woman trying to get on with her life after terrible tragedy as well as her dealing with her son as he grows up. It’s hard to put a finger on just one thing that went wrong in his childhood that made him act the way he did. Eva tries to be a good mother from the very start, but begins to get fed up with Kevin’s behavior early on, even going so far as to tell baby Kevin that she was happy before he came along.

Even with his early behavioral issues, there didn’t seem to be much disciplining going on. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any going on at all. This only makes it seem to Kevin like this behavior is acceptable. To top this off, his father is in complete denial about Kevin’s problems, not wanting to accept that he is not a good kid, even after several events that prove otherwise. He even goes so far as to get his troubled teen a real bow and arrows after a childhood fascination with Robin Hood and archery. This, as you probably could have guessed, was not a smart thing to do.

There is also the way Kevin behaves around his parents to consider. Around his father, Kevin is usually well-behaved, yet around his mother, he always seems to have a snide remark to make. A dinner scene between Kevin and Eva is particularly telling of this as he sarcastically predicts the everyday topics his mother is going to want to talk about like school, girls, and drugs.

One incident begins to explain how he acts towards his mother. Early on, when she gets slightly angry at his deliberately bad behavior, she is a little rough with him, causing him to break his arm, leaving him with a small scar. He’s young at the time, but even then, he still gets it into his head that this could be used for blackmailing Eva into doing what he wants.

All of these things are possible explanations for the way Kevin turned out, but then again, he could have been naturally born this way with his parents only serving to compound his behavior through theirs and their lack of discipline. The film doesn’t provide any easy answers for this, but we do know that his childhood certainly didn’t help alleviate any of his problems.

It becomes ironic that in a movie called “We Need to Talk About Kevin” no one actually does just that. Kevin is obviously a very troubled kid, but with a father that’s in such bad denial and a mother that doesn’t seem intent on punishing anything he does, nothing is ever done. You would think that, at the very least, Eva would get the boy some psychiatric counseling or consider military school to make up for their lack of discipline, but these things never happen either, adding complacency to their list of problems. By the time the film gets around to showing us the tragedy that made Eva’s life the way it currently is, we are not surprised in the least after witnessing all that came before.

Eva is such a fascinating character to watch as everything unfolds. This could not have been an easy role, but Tilda Swinton pulls it off brilliantly. Somehow she is able to portray all of the frustration, anger, fear, and more to deliver an incredibly captivating performance. In the present day scenes, she doesn’t speak very much, but her face is an open book that tells us all we need to know about how she is feeling, even when we don’t know what it is she’s gone through yet. In the past, we see her slowly sink into her complacent ways while trying to make some kind of connection with Kevin, but not making any headway. All of this comes together to form a character that you won’t want to look away from.

“We Need to Talk About Kevin” been winning much acclaim as it makes its way around the festival circuit. Especially for Swinton’s performance, and though it’s only in a limited release, it is well worth going out of your way to find it. It may not be a crowd-pleaser, but it’s not every day we get an emotional powerhouse of a film done this well.

3.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Mallory (Gina Carano) is an agent for a private security company who is on the run after a job during which she was betrayed. We flash back to a previous job in Barcelona where we learn that she and her team rescued someone being held hostage. After this, her boss, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), immediately asks her to do another job in Dublin with Paul (Michael Fassbender). Things don’t go quite as expected, especially when Paul attempts to kill her. A phone call to Kenneth from Paul’s phone confirms that she’s been betrayed. Now on the run, she has to discover the truth behind why she was set up.

The structure of “Haywire” was indeed a very odd storytelling technique. In fact, the only discernable reason for even starting it off in the present and then flashing back is to let us know that something does eventually happen plotwise, but even then, by the halfway point, all we know is that she’s been betrayed by her own company. We spend the remainder of this brief film wondering about this, only to have to wait until the last few minutes where a very convoluted plot is attached to explain the situation.

The problem with doing this is that there’s not really anything attaching us to Mallory to get us to care about what’s happening to her. We know something’s wrong, but without the smallest details of what the significance of the jobs in Barcelona and Dublin are, or why she would have been betrayed, we’re merely watching her run around without the faintest idea of what’s happening.

The funny thing about the film is that it ends up being most affective when there’s nothing being said at all. There are two sequences that stand out from the rest of the film that show a really good filmmaker at work, and indeed the film was directed by Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh. The first sequence is the job in Barcelona where we watch as they execute their mission. Things don’t go quite as smoothly as they would have liked, leading Mallory to have to chase down one of the guards. With merely a background score playing, we see just how affective the visuals can be on their own.

The second sequence is a footchase lasting about ten minutes that again requires no dialogue to get the intensity of the scenes across. We watch as Mallory rushes down back alleys, through buildings, and across roofs in an attempt to avoid the police. Soderbergh manages to keep the effectiveness of this sequence going for the full ten minutes, again on visuals alone. These two sequences earn the movie a lot of style points, but sadly they don’t manage to overcome the overarching problems with the story.

Another strange thing about the film is that a number of well-known actors were brought in to play an assortment of supporting characters with small roles including Michael Douglas, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Antonio Banderas, and Bill Paxton. It’s odd to see so many good actors playing these small, thankless parts, pretty much the kind we only expect to see Robert De Niro in nowadays. It would be very interesting to know what attracted them all to this material.

Soderbergh shows talent for a movie like this, he just needs to learn to pick better material for a film of this nature. The screenplay was written by Lem Dobbs, who also co-wrote the interesting “Dark City,” so they shouldn’t have had much trouble doing a film like this, but when you choose to structure a film in a strange fashion like he did here, problems are bound to pop up. The film does have style, but unfortunately the focus on that element seems to have come at too much of a cost.

2.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) is an ex-smuggler who now sells security systems for a living. When his wife’s (Kate Beckinsale) brother, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), is forced to dump a smuggled shipment, Chris is forced to step in to correct the situation by taking on another smuggling job so that a crime lord, Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi), won’t harm his family. Since Chris refuses to deal with drugs, he decides to smuggle several counterfeit bills from Panama on board a ship run by Captain Camp (J.K. Simmons).

The job will require precise timing, help from some of the crew, and a stealthy way to get the money on board and off again. Meanwhile, Briggs continues to threaten Chris’s family, instigating a second deal that Andy will have to carry out, leading to complications with Chris’s deal. It becomes a race against time for Chris and his crew to pull off their complicated operation in order to ensure the safety of his wife and kids.

This was a pretty good antidote to the fleeting blandness of “Underworld: Awakening,” which attempted to string action sequences together with a thread of a story while trying to call itself a movie. “Contraband” has a few good action sequences, but it also has a story for the audience to get invested in instead of turning off their brain and hoping for the best, a practice I’ve never seen the point of. Why would a movie be worth watching if you had to turn your brain off to enjoy it?

Why the story works here is because of how engaging it becomes. We’ve seen movies like this before, where a heist is supposedly planned out perfectly, but, of course, something has to go wrong, because there usually isn’t much fun in watching a perfectly executed heist. There are obviously rare exceptions to this, “Ocean’s 11” come to mind, but that worked so well because of the convoluted events going on behind the scenes. For the most part, a kink in the chain is needed to shake things up a bit.

Here, we’re with the crew every step of the way as they attempt to carry out their plan. Things go wrong when Andy is forced to take action by carrying out a second deal involving smuggling drugs in order to protect Chris’s kids. This leads to a change in plans for Chris’s crew, who suddenly find themselves having to take on another job in the middle of the one they are already trying to carry out.

It’s these kinks, the twists and turns in the plot, that keep it moving along at a good pace. As the smuggling operation continues, you begin to wonder what will get in the way of completing it next. These twists are provided by Aaron Guzikowski, who wrote the screenplay, based on Reykjavik-Rotterdam, a 2008 film from Iceland. Surprisingly, this was their first produced work. Not a bad start for a rookie screenwriter.

It may not exactly be an original story, but when a little effort is put into a film like this, it can be done pretty well. It’s becoming tiresome to see movies where filmmakers think action movies have to be nothing but action scenes strung together. Sometimes all it takes to entertain an audience is an involving scenario with a slick pacing, and that’s something you won’t have to turn your brain off to enjoy.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film opens as a vast manhunt for lycans and vampires is underway. While trying to reunite with her lover, Selene (Kate Beckinsale), a vampire, is captured and taken to a research facility where a team of scientists is studying lycans. Selene escapes and eventually meets up with another vampire, David (Theo James), who is also fighting against the humans. She also meets up with her daughter, Eve (India Eisley), whom she had with her lycan lover, making her a hybrid of the two races. After a lycan attack on their vampire base, Eve is taken and brought to the research facility where it appears that there is more going on than the simple study of lycans.

The main reason that “Underworld: Awakening” felt like it had such a vapid, ephemeral existence was that it only consisted of a thread of a story that seemed like it was only there to act as a conduit for the non-stop, mind-numbing action sequences. It’s amazing to discover that it took a total of four people to write this screenplay, and among them the great J. Michael Straczynski, creator of one of the greatest sci-fi shows of all time, “Babylon 5.” Apparently even he has his bad days, just look at “Ninja Assassin.”

There is absolutely no reason that this screenplay should have taken more than one person to write, especially since there’s barely any story to begin with. Being the fourth entry in a mostly forgettable series, it merely continues the story from the other films: lycans hate and want to kill vampires and vice-versa. This entry merely adds the lycans trying to get stronger through research, but even that’s not particularly new.

However, it’s clear the film was not made on the merit of its story. It was made to try and showcase multiple stunts: explosions, gunfire, throats being ripped out, and so on and so forth. Many of these stunts feature Kate Beckinsale jumping off walls, slashing through opponents, and throwing weapons at them, making these sequences extremely repetitive, dull, and as mentioned before, mind-numbing.

Speaking of Beckinsale, her character remains as one-note as ever. It’s amusing to hear her character say at one point, “I’m not good with emotions,” which is certainly true in the case of this film. Her character never comes to life, no pun intended, nor do we ever care about what happens to her, her daughter, or any of the characters since they are as flat and soulless as the film.

“Underworld: Awakening” is the fourth entry in a series that started off as goofy fun and was silly entertainment for the first movie or two, not particularly good, but alright for a rainy night movie when you’re low on options. However, it’s now overstayed its welcome for far too long and I couldn’t even begin to recommend this one, even when there’s nothing else to watch.

Sadly, we can expect the saga to continue as this entry clearly leaves it open for yet another sequel where undoubtedly we will see vampires battle lycans once more in a series of endless action sequences. Perhaps this time they’ll at least try to come up with a story that will slightly engage the audience, but based on how hard they’ve tried lately with this series, I wouldn’t count on that happening.

1.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The film begins with Thatcher’s (Meryl Streep) post-political life, showing us that she has not been quite right since her husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent), passed away. In fact, she still sees him quite often and holds conversations with him. Eventually we begin to flash back to how she became involved with politics. Even though she is merely a shopkeeper, she decides to run for parliament. It is during this period that she meets Denis and gets married, eventually winning the position of Education Secretary.

Thatcher sees that there are many problems with the country that she simply cannot fix from her current position, which leads her to run for Prime Minister. Amazingly, she wins, making history as the first woman to hold the office. From here, we witness the hardship of her time as PM by seeing glimpses of some of the events of her terms, with the most focus going to the invasion of the Falkland Islands and the struggle to get them back.

Sadly, “The Iron Lady” is a missed opportunity to tell an important story. It’s a shame to see Thatcher’s life reduced to a meandering mess of a narrative and montage, and indeed, these were the two biggest problems of the film. From the beginning of the film, you might think they were going to show a little of her life after her time as PM and then go back and tell the whole story, but it ends up wasting far too much time on this section not only here, but throughout the film as it keeps coming back to it.

This wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it was going to fill us in on what she’s done during this period, but alas, we don’t get anything about her accept that she’s apparently becoming senile and seeing and conversing with her deceased husband. This was a bizarre choice in structure for the filmmakers to make as it adds nothing to the story, which should be focusing on her rise to power and her time in office.

When we do finally get to see how she rose to power, it is in incredibly brief glimpses. It seems like before you can even blink she’s achieved victory in becoming Education Secretary, and again when she becomes PM. How did she manage to get so much support? What were her stances that attracted the people to vote for her? All of this is glossed over as the film jumps ahead, leaving those who don’t know much of anything about her in the dust.

I myself don’t know much about how she achieved these things or about her time in office, which is why I was really looking forward to seeing the film, but unfortunately there is nothing to be learned here. When it does get to her time as PM, the remainder of the film, when it’s not pointlessly flashing forward, is reduced to a montage of what she did in office. As PM, she believed in action, which she took when the Falkland Islands were invaded by Argentina. Since the film spends the most time on this incident, supposedly they see this as her most important accomplishment. The rest of her accomplishments I suppose you’ll have to learn about elsewhere.

If there’s one good thing to come out of the film, it’s Meryl Streep’s brilliant portrayal of Thatcher. She disappears completely into this character, becoming her, and making us forget that we’re only watching a performance. She may indeed win her third Oscar for it, and it would be well-deserved, but it’s just a shame her incredible work couldn’t have been in a film more worthy of it.

This really could have been something had the filmmakers taken the time to focus on her incredible career instead of wasting time with the uninformative, post-political period. It would have been wonderful to learn all about her and her achievements rather than merely getting a bland overview. There’s a great story to be told about the life of Margaret Thatcher. Unfortunately, this is not it.

2/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

J.C. is guesting again, and along with Jeff and I, providing commentary for this week’s DVD and Blu-ray releases. Want a guest spot in the coming weeks? Leave a comment, let us know!

Remember, the images and links will transport you to Amazon, and if you make a purchase you get some cool movies and in return it helps the site. Everybody wins!

The Ides of March [Blu-ray + UltraViolet Digital Copy]

Download the scripts:
Ides of March, The [2007.08.09 Draft]
Ides of March, The [2010.06.04 Draft]
Ides of March, The (Final Draft)
Ides of March, The (Shooting Script)

Abduction [Blu-ray + Digital Copy]

Download the script: Abduction

Courageous [Blu-ray + UltraViolet Digital Copy]

Belle de Jour (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Traffic (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Download the scripts:
Traffic
Traffic [1999.12.03 Draft]

Dead Poets Society [Blu-ray]

Download the scripts:
Dead Poets Society
Dead Poets Society (1988.09.29 Draft)
Dead Poets Society (1988.12.20 Draft)

Good Morning, Vietnam (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

Contest!

Two weeks runnings and still no takers?? We still need a cool logo image for Take-Home Tuesday! Make it classy. Make it cool. Make it your own. Your only limitation is to design it to be 700 pixels wide and 200 pixels high.

The winner will receive an Amazon Gift Card and will be chosen next Tuesday!

At any rate, J.C. guests this week and gives some great (albeit brief) commentary on a couple titles. Remember, the images and links will transport you to Amazon, and if you make a purchase you get some cool movies and in return it helps the site. Everybody wins!

Boardwalk Empire: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray]

Download the script: Boardwalk Empire – 101 – Boardwalk Empire

Moneyball [Two Disc DVD/Blu-ray Combo + UltraViolet Digital Copy]

Download the scripts:
Moneyball
Moneyball [2007.07.13 Draft]
Moneyball [2008.12.01 Draft]
Moneyball [2009.06.22 Draft]
Moneyball [2010.03.06 Draft]

Killer Elite [Blu-ray]

Download the scripts:
Killer Elite [2009.04 Draft]
Killer Elite [2010 Draft]

What’s Your Number? (Ex-tended Edition) [Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy]

An Idiot Abroad

The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption [Blu-ray]

Higher Ground [Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo]

Billy Elliot [Blu-ray]

Download the script: Billy Elliot

When Harry Met Sally [Blu-ray]

Download the script: When Harry Met Sally

Film Socialisme [Blu-ray]

Contest!

There were no takers on last week’s contest, so we still need a cool logo image for Take-Home Tuesday! Make it classy. Make it cool. Make it your own. Your only limitation is to design it to be 700 pixels wide and 200 pixels high.

The winner will receive an Amazon Gift Card and will be chosen next Tuesday!

However, we quickly see that something is not quite right here. From early on, we see that even simple word choice comes under scrutiny (Alan objects to Penelope saying that his son was “armed” with a stick). The meeting begins in a civil manner, but we slowly begin to realize that these characters are merely putting on facades, hiding their true feelings regarding the situation, which are hinted at as Penelope snaps how she wishes her son wouldn’t have had to lose two teeth in order for them to meet.

In a sense, “Carnage” is a study of the breakdown of these characters’ facades over the course of having to put up with each other. The situation is awkward from the start since none of them wants to be placed in that position of having to admit their kid did something wrong or having to deal with the parents of a kid who did something wrong. The one who begins to show his true feelings earliest is Alan, who, as an attorney, is a very busy man, constantly whipping out his cell phone to deal with a client. He appears detached from the situation from pretty much the very start.

This, in turn, starts annoying everyone else who appears to want to take the situation seriously, especially Nancy, who wants to try to pin blame not only on her son, but on Penelope’s and Michael’s as well because their son called their son a snitch and is also the leader of a gang. So, from Alan’s seeming lack of interest in the situation, a breakdown of morals begins to occur as the characters begin to say what they really feel.

The film becomes an interesting character study that shows that when parents are trying to deal with their kids, they can end up behaving like kids themselves, attempting to shift blame from themselves to others. The conversation kind of goes all over the place and ends up ranging from interesting to less interesting. It’s most compelling when their dealing with the issue at hand, but less so when it takes a detour into other areas that make the film feel like it goes on hold for a few minutes.

For instance, early on, when Nancy’s nerves get riled up too much, she vomits onto some of Penelope’s art books. The film pauses for a little while so that everything and everyone can get cleaned up, though it does throw in a scene or two of the couples talking about each other, revealing what they really think of them, not that we can’t already tell that these couples don’t think too much of each other.

This is clearly shown as the day continues and the conversation becomes more and more hostile. We eventually learn that Michael didn’t really want to have this meeting either. Later on, when he finds his own nerves rattled, he pulls out a bottle of whiskey and offers some to Alan, who is only too willing to accept what with his shared lack of enthusiasm. The film probably would have been a little more effective had the writers, Yasmina Reza and Roman Polanski (who adapted the screenplay form Reza’s play “God of Carnage”), not chosen to go the route of having the characters drink in order to become more open with each other, but instead had the characters come to a natural catharsis on their own. As mentioned, the conversation does kind of go all over the place, but even more so when they begin drinking the whiskey. However, it does stay focused enough to remain quite engaging.

The highlights of “Carnage” are the wonderful performances from the entire four-person cast, all of them Oscar nominees, three of them winners. This seems like a very strange role for Reilly, but he does quite well with it nonetheless. Waltz is effective at playing a man somewhat detached from the situation with seemingly more important things to him on his mind. Foster and Winslet bring the most emotion to the film as their characters are the ones actually trying to solve the problem, but not really getting anywhere with it what with their building hatred of each other and the unwillingness of anyone to accept the blame.

“Carnage” comes from famed, Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, who has brought us such memorable films as “The Pianist” and “Chinatown.” Here he has crafted a bizarre little film that runs only about 75 minutes, uses one location, and only four characters who spend most of the film sitting/standing around talking or shouting at each other. Yet the film is engaging and entertaining to watch as these excellent performers show us that even the seemingly-nicest of people can show their true colors when pushed too far. Unlike “A Dangerous Method” (based on the play “The Talking Cure”), this play has adapted rather well to film, showing us that sometimes all it takes is some interesting dialogue and great performers to immerse the audience in the experience.

3/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

The story begins as Control (John Hurt), head of British Intelligence, sends Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) on a mission to Hungary to try and attempt to bring a possible defector to their side who supposedly knows the identity of a mole at MI6. However, the mission goes wrong, resulting in Control and one of his agents, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), being removed from service. However, when Jim fills George in on Control’s suspicions of a mole, George sets out to discover their identity.

Based on the intelligence leaked, Control believed the mole was someone at the very top, someone in his personal circle, which includes Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), and George. It’s up to George to find out which one of these men is responsible, but having been forced into retirement doesn’t make this an easy task, causing him to recruit another agent, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), to assist in the investigation.

To put it simply, “Tinker Tailor Solder Spy” has a good story in it somewhere, but you wouldn’t really know that from its poor execution here. The structure of it is quite strange. This is a film where not much happens, and yet you have to be particularly observant when it comes to even the most mundane event or the passing mention of a character because it may become important later.

Most of the runtime of the film is spent on events that have little to do with George’s investigation. There’s even a good deal of the first half spent listening to the story of a disgraced agent, Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), that has practically nothing to do with it at all. All of these events lead up to an ending that feels incredibly rushed. In a bizarre choice, the filmmakers opted to squeeze the majority of the actual plot into the last 20 or so minutes.

One of the major problems with this is that they haven’t bothered to develop the suspects with all of the time wasted away on those events which didn’t add much, if anything, to the story, so by the time we get around to who was responsible, it feels random and even a bit lazy. You’ll also probably be asking yourself, if it was that easy to find out who did it, why didn’t George just do that sooner?

There are parts that are hard to follow, but as mentioned earlier, the audience is hardly to be blamed for this. To be asked to put together a puzzle when pieces are missing or not explained very well can be hard to do. I got most of the plot, but even after perusing the screenplay, parts of the conclusion I had to put together based on guesses due to the lack of explanation and plot points.

It’s a shame that so many of the characters are left undeveloped because there’s such a great cast here including Gary Oldman, John Hurt, and Colin Firth. Oldman is a particular oddity here. Usually he plays much more eccentric characters, but here he’s very subdued, speaking softly and never in a rush to get anything done. You could even go so far as to say that he’s pretty bland. Here’s the performance that we’ve been hearing so much about, one that could possibly get him an Oscar nomination, and it turns out that it’s a pretty forgettable one.

The film comes to us from director Tomas Alfredson, who brought us the excellent vampire film “Let the Right One In.” That was a film where slow pacing and dark mood helped out quite a bit because the time was spent allowing us to get to know the characters and allowing us to connect and care about them. The slow pacing of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” is merely squandered on several unimportant events instead of important character and plot development, so that when it comes to the sped up pacing of those last 20 minutes, you’re left wondering why you should care about who was responsible.

From watching the film, it ends up feeling like maybe reading the book should be a prerequisite, or perhaps viewing the five-hour miniseries would be a good idea. Perhaps with all that extra time, the story is fully explained and the characters are allowed to develop to the point where we know who they are. By the end of this version, you may know the basic plot, but questions will arise that you’ll wish they took the time to answer.

2.5/4 stars.

You can read this and other movie reviews in my column at The Richmond Examiner.

Here Jeff Beck and I (along with an occasional guest or two) will be spotlighting and providing some commentary for the new DVD and Blu-ray releases of the week and anything else that I think is worthy of your attention (i.e. music, books, and/or tech-related stuff). So, what’s going to set us apart from every other website that’s already doing this? Well, as often as we can, we’ll steer the emphasis toward writing/screenwriting and, as always, provide you with the scripts when applicable.

I think it’s important to mention, also, that we don’t receive promotional items or freebies for this column. Hey, that’d be nice, I won’t lie, but we’re objective. You’re getting our honest opinions… for whatever that’s worth! And since we’re just getting this column started, please feel free to chime in with what you like and don’t like and any additions you might like to see. We’re listening!

Also, all of the product images and links will transport you to Amazon and if you decide to make a purchase, then all proceeds will go toward helping maintain this site.

And, you know, since I had a Twitter contest to help name this column, then we might as well keep that goodwill going, so each week we’ll have a contest of some sort and the winner will receive an Amazon gift card! How we doin’ now? Off to a better start? Great! Let’s get to it!

Justified: The Complete Second Season [Blu-ray]

Download the script: Justified – 101 – Fire in the Hole

Contagion [Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + UltraViolet Digital Copy]

Download the script: Contagion

The Guard [Blu-ray]

Download the script: The Guard

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark [Blu-ray + Ultraviolet Digital Copy]

Download the script: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2011)

Mildred Pierce [DVD/Blu-ray Collector's Edition]

Need the scripts: Anyone out there have them?

Shark Night [Blu-ray]

Download the script: Shark Night 3D

There were a few more releases this week, but nothing of note and I was anxious to get this one posted. Next week we’ll try to have a few more entries for you.

Contest!

We need a cool logo image for Take-Home Tuesday. Something like you’ll find on our CUT TO: and Seven Scripts pages, but with a home media vibe.

So, go wild and hit us with your best shot. Make it classy. Make it cool. Make it your own. Your only limitation is to design it to be 700 pixels wide and 200 pixels high.

The winner will receive an Amazon Gift Card and will be chosen next Tuesday! So break out Photoshop and get crackin’!

And if you haven’t heard of Grabbers, yet, where have you been?!?! It will be premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. So, if you’re in attendance, maybe you’ll see Kevin there. No, scratch that, get your ass to Park City January 19th-29th and track that lovable, huggable Irish lad down and give ‘im a big ole squeeze. He just loves hugs. No, really. I swear…

Remember, this shouldn’t be thought of as a “best of” list, but rather, which scripts Kevin thought would most help aspiring writers better understand the process and craft of screenwriting.

Seven scripts. Seven days. Check ‘em out and dare to become a better writer in a week!

1. Aliens

This script is a master-class for screenwriters. Character, plot, action and exposition are all working in harmony to tell a great, rousing story and it’s truly as enjoyable to read as it is to watch. There are also lots of little line changes and scene adjustments peppered throughout which give it a slightly looser feel than the film but it’s interesting to note how these amendments improve the final film.

A good alternative to Aliens would be James Cameron’s draft to Point Break. Cameron has the same easygoing style as Shane Black but where Black colours his scripts with humour, Cameron infuses his with intensity. His screenwriting is straight down the line, no messing around, clean and clear, and written in the most dynamic and driven way possible. He gets you invested and amped for the film and he does it without trying too hard.

Editor’s Note: American Beauty was a casualty of the Twentieth Century Fox DMCA Request, so it is not currently available here. Apologies.

2. American Beauty

I loved this script for its unshowy style and clear voice. It’s a character drama masquerading as a mystery. It lures you in as one movie then unfolds as another, just like how it deconstructs its world and characters. “Look closer” being the perfect tagline for it. I also read this script at a time when I was still discovering my voice and what that meant, which isn’t about Shane Blackisms or a certain writing style but your point of view. It’s about your take on the world and the one you create and the characters and conflicts that define it. Your voice should still be evident even after two hundred or more people have helped make the film.

Editor’s Note: American Beauty was a casualty of the Universal DMCA Request, so it is not currently available here. Apologies.

3. Good Will Hunting

It’s so sparse on the page that it’s mostly just sluglines and dialogue yet it’s still easy to imagine the film without your usual obligatory descriptive writing. I found the read similar to Diablo Cody’s Juno, in that way. It shows how little you need on the page to tell a good story and tell it well. It favours clarity over any sense of writing style and it’s refreshing in its economy of words. There are very few pronouns used, for instance. It’s also the only ever screenplay to make me cry. For that alone, it deserved the Oscar.

4. Scream

Aside from the airtight structure and overall cleverness of the whole thing, Kevin Williamson’s writing was a revelation to me. In Scream he describes a location in one word, like “affluent,” and charges on with the story. At the time I was still describing the curtains above the credenza in the foyer of the colonial home. Williamson also swears like a f*****g trooper in his action/description and it’s f*****g awesome to read. Up until then I didn’t know we could do that. I thought only the characters could swear.

N.B. Damon Lindelof also swears like a bastard but it comes off as charming, breathless excitement rather than the rantings of a lunatic. I love Damon Lindelof.

5. Fargo

You could pick any Coen Brothers’ script and you’d be on to a winner but I think Fargo is probably my favourite of theirs. It’s just a great story well told and isn’t afraid to forego conventional wisdom where every scene need drive the film forward. Fargo has scenes that have no baring on the plot or even the characters’ story but it’s all the better for having them. If you were a writer who based every creative decision upon the teachings of screenwriting how-to books you’d never write scenes like Marge’s encounter with Mike Yanagita and that’d be a crying shame.

The same goes for the famous scene in Jaws between Brody and his son, mimicking each other. It’s the most heartwarming scene in the whole film and it could easily be excised without affecting a single beat in the story but why would you want to? Whether you realise it or not, it’s because of that scene that you care about Brody and you want him to make it. “Smile you sonofabitch” means Brody doesn’t just kill the shark, he gets to go home to his family. So break the rules. F**k ‘em.

6. The Shawshank Redemption

This is just a beautifully written script but what you get from reading the script that you may not get from the film is how intricately and delicately it’s structured. On the page it’s easy to see a scene that lasts less than half a page and question why it’s there, which you’re less likely to do when watching the film. You’re participating in creating the movie when you’re reading a script and it requires more effort but it’s because of this that you’re able to properly absorb great screenwriting. All those extraneous scenes that seemed little more than world building are actually carefully positioned for a reason and you notice it more on the page. Darabont’s script drifts with his characters and detours from convention in order to tell the story in the most rewarding and affecting way possible.

7. Every Other Script

I don’t have a seventh choice because I know whatever I pick will be the one I want to swap for another, so choose a script from either John Hughes, Preston Sturgess, Quentin Tarantino, Joss Whedon, Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio, Shane Black, William Goldman, and/or Dale Launer. I know there are lots of great writers I haven’t mentioned but that will become more apparent to me after this is posted. I need to have something to cringe about later on, sure.

Nowadays, I read only for pleasure and I tend to quit scripts more often than finish them but of the last couple of years, of the scripts that I’ve read, I’d recommend Michael Clayton, Young Adult, Contagion, The Grey, Chronicle, The Social Network, Star Trek, and Eric Heisserer’s draft of The Thing as ones to seek out. Each are excellent reads.

The rest were shite. ;-)

Follow Kevin on Twitter for more screenwriting goodness: twitter.com/KevinLehane

This is also the first year I can recall there not being a clear choice as the best film of the year. Usually, there is one that stands above the rest and is the clear, deserving choice of the title, such as my choices for the last few years: “Inception,” “Inglourious Basterds,” and “The Dark Knight.” This year, there have been several films that have been quite good, but not any that really stand out from the rest as being the clear choice, so this year I am kind of taking a page from the Book of Ebert and ranking them in order of approximate preference since, really, arguments can be made as to why each one is deserving of having a high spot on the list.

Before I begin the countdown of the best films of the year, I have to mention that, due to poor distribution on the part of the respective studios, there were some films that I did not get a chance to see such as “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “Coriolanus,” and “Shame.” Also, “Take Shelter” played here briefly, but I did not have the opportunity to go see it. If any changes are needed to the list upon seeing them, I will make the necessary amendments, or at the very least, make a special commendation for them.

Honorable Mentions:

The Adjustment Bureau – A fascinating story of trying to control one’s fate.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol – Thrills galore are featured in this excellent addition to the franchise.

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil – One of the best comedies I’ve seen in a long time.

The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius’s amazing recreation of a silent film is delightful, emotional, and quite enjoyable. It’s also the frontfunner for this year’s Best Picture Oscar.

10. Drive – This bizarre film noir is somewhat reminiscent of Melville’s classic “Le Samourai.” Ryan Gosling delivers a very subdued performance as a driver for hire for criminals at night and a stunt driver by day. The excellent supporting cast includes Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, and Carey Mulligan. Features some amazing action sequences punctuated with a touching story of the Driver forming a relationship with his neighbor and her son. Wonderfully directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

9. The Adventures of Tintin – A throwback to the great adventures of cinema such as “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Speaking of which, Tintin was brought to us by the great Steven Spielberg as his first animated film, and what an amazing job he does. Featuring incredibly lifelike animation and a story that sends our heroes, an investigative journalist and his dog, around the world. The great voice cast includes Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis (who also does more of his amazing motion capture work), Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost. The best animated film of the year by far.

8. Anonymous – Sadly, this is one that the other critics didn’t take to despite it being one of the best films of the year. It tells an intriguing tale of how Shakespeare was not the actual author of the plays accredited to him, but rather that that they were written by the Earl of Oxford, who didn’t believe that people of his station did such things. Couple this with a good amount of political intrigue from a rebellion against the throne and you have quite an interesting story, particularly for those interested in the conspiracy theory revolving around Shakespeare, or even for those who are just fans of his work, such as myself.

7. Moneyball – A movie about baseball that is not so much about baseball but rather the people and effort behind making a team work. Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill give excellent performances as two guys trying to put together a championship team for Oakland. Their theory is that a team needs to buy runs, not expensive players who are only good for one position. One of the biggest highlights of the film is the great screenplay by Oscar winners Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. The latter’s contributions to the script are clearly heard in all the fast-paced, engrossing dialogue where, even for a scene that involves Pitt and Hill sitting around trading players, the audience is hanging on every word. One of the rare sports movies that’s for everyone.

6. Hugo – Martin Scorsese ventures into the realm of family film with this incredible film about a young boy and girl who work together to unlock a mystery involving a great filmmaker thought to be forgotten. It starts off a little slow, but the story that unfolds in the second half is a film-lovers delight that even dares to teach the audience a little bit of film history. While labeled as a family film, kids might not take to it quite as much as an older audience, particularly in the section that tells us a little about the beginnings of silent cinema, though they will probably enjoy the kids’ adventure. This is a film that any fan of film can enjoy.

5. Win Win – A sweet, touching story about a struggling lawyer, played by Paul Giamatti, who decides to get some income by becoming the guardian of an elderly man whom he sticks in a nursing home. When the elderly man’s grandson comes to live with him, things become more complicated, causing Giamatti’s family to take him in. Turns out the kid is pretty good at wrestling and the struggling lawyer just happens to be a wrestling coach as well. Win Win comes to us from Tom McCarthy, who has a great gift for bringing us stories with wonderful, unforgettable characters such as those in his previous film, “The Visitor.” A delightful film that’s a great mix of drama and comedy.

4. 13 Assassins – Director Takashi Miike keeps the spirit of the samurai alive in his ambitious, stylish, and spectacular “13 Assassins.” With this film, Miike continues the tradition of great samurai films such as Hiroshi Inagaki’s “Samurai Trilogy” and Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” the latter of which seems to have somewhat acted as a template for this film. The story tells of a madman about to be appointed to the Shogun’s council in feudal Japan. If this should happen, it would mean disaster for the country, so a group of 12 assassins (plus one they meet on their journey) is formed to kill him.

The first half of the story may move a little slow for some, but the second half is well-worth waiting for. It features one of the most unforgettable battle sequences in cinematic history that includes bows, arrows, spears, swords, slingshots, dynamite, and flaming bulls. Miike somehow has this last for an incredibly exciting and engaging, non-stop 45 minutes, but the difference here is that, unlike many action films nowadays, you can tell what’s happening thanks to skilled editing. Usually one has to turn to the old maters for such a film, but Miike has pulled it off marvelously.

3. We Need to Talk About Kevin – The story of a woman who has to deal with the fact that her son is a monster. It jumps between present day and several years earlier when the son, Kevin, was born. We slowly see the events that lead to the way Kevin and his mother are in present day in a film that can be very uncomfortable to watch as you notice several things going wrong. Features a performance by Tilda Swinton that is the best performance by an actress I’ve seen all year. The film doesn’t go into wider distribution until January and February, but when it does, I highly recommend checking it out.

2. Midnight in Paris – Woody Allen returns to top form with his latest film, “Midnight in Paris.” It tells the story of a writer, Gil, who is visiting Paris with his fiancée. His belief is that the best era to have lived was Paris in the 1920s where several of the greatest artistic minds existed. When out on a walk one night, he is picked up by a mysterious car that transports him back to the 20s where he meets such people as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Gertrude Stein. The joy of watching this film is in the artistic grab bag of personalities that Allen incorporates into his screenplay. You never know who you’re going to see pop up next. It’s a wonderful mixture of charm, magic, and wit that should not be missed.

1. X-Men: First Class – I know, I know, I’m just as shocked as you that this hit the number one spot. It was an incredibly close call as both this and “Midnight in Paris” were my favorite films of the year, so it all came down to the second viewing test. While “Midnight in Paris” was still quite good, I found that “X-Men: First Class” held up a little better, being just as entertaining, engaging, and delightful as it was on the first viewing, if not more so.

The story is just what the title implies. This is the first group of mutants gathered at Charles Xavier’s school to stop an imminent threat. Sebastian Shaw, a mutant with the power to absorb energy, is bent on creating nuclear war by forcing the Americans to place missiles in Turkey and the Russians to place missiles in, you guessed it, Cuba. The film features a fascinating double-use of history in that not only are we getting the fictional history of one of the most famous groups of superheroes ever created, but also the incorporation of the Cuban Missile Crisis in which the United States and Russia were actually incredibly close to nuclear war.

Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are excellent as the young versions of Erik (later Magneto) and Professor Xavier, respectively. The younger actors playing the newly-recruited mutants are quite good as well. After a first viewing, I complained that Kevin Bacon is not particularly effective as the villain because he’s not exactly threatening (he’s not the first name that comes to mind when thinking of someone who’d make a good villain), but on the second viewing, I enjoyed his performance a lot more, finding him to be more delightful than threatening.

Now, does having this film at number one mean that it was just a really good film, or is it a sign that this year was rather weak? I think it’s a little bit of both actually. I’ve already mentioned how there weren’t any films that blew me away completely for a four-star rating, but “X-Men: First Class” is quite a good film and will be remembered for being such. If Christopher Nolan set the mark for how good a realistic superhero movie can be with his “Batman” films, then Matthew Vaughn has set the mark for how good a superhero movie can be even when dealing with the most absurd and unbelievable material.

I’ve also already mentioned how you can pretty much make a case for any of these films as being the best of the year. “X-Men: First Class” was lots of fun and shows that even absurd comic book material can be made into a great movie. “Midnight in Paris” delighted me with its excellent screenplay and fascinating personalities and characterizations. “We Need to Talk About Kevin” was somewhat disturbing, but utterly absorbing. For all I know, one of the films I haven’t gotten to see yet was a solid four-star champion, which would indeed change this list.

Next year sees the release of two films that will undoubtedly be great (“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and “The Dark Knight Rises”), so it seems I’ll just have to wait until then to be completely blown away again into the four-star realm.

The Worst Films of 2011

As per usual, the year brought us many stinkers that we as film critics were forced to sit through, so once again, it’s time to air out the dirty laundry to bring you some of the very worst films that the year had to offer.

Before I begin this countdown, it should be noted that I did not see several films that would have undoubtedly made this list such as Jack and Jill, Bucky Larson, The Human Centipede 2, and the latest Big Mama film, so if there’s a really awful film missing from the list, there’s a good chance that I just didn’t waste the time to see it.

Dishonorable Mentions: Season of the Witch, 11-11-11, Dream House

10. The Green Hornet – This is one that I’d completely forgotten about until I was preparing this list by combing over all the films of the year. This was supposed to be a fun adaptation of the Radio show turned TV series, but instead, what we get is a complete mess of badly shot action sequences and an extremely annoying lead character played by a motor-mouthed Seth Rogan. On top of that, we get the pointless inclusion of 3D and Christoph Waltz, who isn’t given much of anything to do throughout the film. It’s no wonder I forgot about it.

9. Paranormal Activity 3 – This is a series that should have died before it was even allowed to start. The first film was an exceedingly dull, slow, and tedious experience, which has since been replicated twice for the two sequels. Unfortunately, these films are becoming as parasitic as the Saw films, though not as bad, but since they cost such a small amount to make, if only a few people go to see it, it’s considered successful, and therefore the studio has enough funds to finance more of them. However, just like with the Saw films, the quality of the final products don’t seem to matter at all as long as it makes money.

8. Drive Angry 3D – I’m still baffled as to how these guys managed to turn what sounded like an interesting premise of a man coming back from hell for revenge into such a bore of a film. It starts off promising, but quickly loses its way as it becomes a mess of a story involving a satanic cult. Throw in some badly shot and badly edited action sequences as well as 3D that stopped being noticeable in record time and you’ve got yourself one of the worst films of the year.

7. Priest – Numbers 7 and 6 actually kind of go together. Once again we have a complete mess of a story, this time involving a priest played by Paul Bettany trying to rescue a girl from vampires. This one was supposed to be in 3-D, but luckily I was able to see it in 2D, though it didn’t help make the film any better. Much of it occurs in dark locations where it’s hard to tell what’s going on, not that the audience ends up caring since there’s zero plot and character development. What a waste of Bettany’s talent.

6. Sanctum – Here we have another movie that takes place in very dark locations, but this time, it’s for almost the entire film. This one was also supposed to be in 3D, but I caught it in 2D instead, and I’m glad I did, because like “Priest,” I can’t imagine how dark the film would have looked having to watch it in 3D when the film is already occurring in a very dark setting. On top of that, the entire film is simply about a group of people trying to find their way out of a cave after trying to find where water is being released from it into a nearby sea. Why they would risk their lives for this is inexplicable.

5. The Twilight Saga : Breaking Dawn – Part 1 – The Twilight Saga is a soap opera that somehow continues to get worse as it goes along. The three leads, Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner, give their usual stiff, wooden performances which merely prove that they have no business being anywhere near the occupation of acting. The story here is even worse and more melodramatic than usual and involves Edward and Bella finally getting married and going off on their honeymoon. This takes up the first half of the film and eventually gets around to Bella getting pregnant. Meanwhile, we get little hints that there’s finally going to be a fight between the vampires and werewolves, but when we do, it lasts no more than two minutes, leaving the audience wondering what they’ve just sat through a bloated two hour soap opera for. Luckily there’s only one more film to go before we say good riddance to this awful series.

4. Transformers: Dark of the Moon – See Optimus Prime take on his most challenging enemy yet: Steel Cables! Yes, the film actually features a scene where the great Optimus Prime gets tangles in steel cables for several minutes while the never-ending climactic action sequence continues on and on. Apparently Michael Bay learned absolutely nothing from the previous film where one of the main complaints was the never-ending battle sequence at the end of that film. Once again we get an overly-long (154 minutes!!!) bore of an action film with no character development, no plot, bland CGI, and editing based on Bay’s belief that everyone has an attention span of approximately half a second. This is yet another series that simply needs to die.

3. Conan the Barbarian – Speaking of films I had completely forgotten about, here we have Conan the Barbarian, a completely mindless, pointless mess of a film. The film is loaded with problems from the nonsensical plot to Jason Momoa’s terrible performance (who thought someone could make Schwarzenegger look good?). The biggest question I was left with after it was over was how in the world they managed to get Morgan Freeman to narrate this travesty of a film. That must’ve been some paycheck. Luckily this bombed at the box office, so that supposed sequel that Momoa wrote will never see the light of day. Thank goodness for small favors.

2. Your Highness – You know those films that make you squirm in your seat just for how bad they are? Well this is one of them. Here we have a film that was written by a pair of prepubescent kids, Danny McBride and Ben Best, whose main goal was to try and fit as many sex jokes into 100 minutes as they could. The result is an embarrassingly unfunny film that will have you squirming a hole right into your seat. It seems almost impossible to believe that James Franco and Natalie Portman, both Oscar nominees earlier this year, would go anywhere near this terrible material. It’s also quite hard to believe that the director, David Gordon Green, is the same man who brought us the excellent film “Snow Angels,” one of the best films of 2008. Such an incredible waste of talent.

1. Battle: Los Angeles – Here’s an example of where just about everything that can go wrong with a film did. There are so many aspects of “Battle: Los Angeles” that are so incompetently done, it’s amazing that the film was ever released. This film’s long list of problems include a terrible story and screenplay, as well as incomprehensible editing and every alien movie cliché you can think of, including a rousing speech to raise the troops’ morale (which got a pretty good laugh at my screening as I recall). All this film made me want to do is rewatch “Independence Day,” which, when compared with this film, looks like a masterpiece. Back in March when I reviewed the film, I predicted that this would be the worst film I would see all year because I couldn’t imagine that anything else coming up this year could be worse. But who knows, perhaps one of the films I skipped was even worse, and if that’s true, I shudder to think about it.