American Graffiti

American Graffiti (1973)

Starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ronny Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Wolfman Jack, and Harrison Ford

Directed by George Lucas

Written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz, and Willard Huyck

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C

Movie Review - Paranoia

Paranoia (2013)

Starring Liam Hemsworth, Gary Oldman, Amber Heard, Embeth Davidtz, Julian McMahon, Josh Holloway, Richard Dreyfuss, and Harrison Ford

Directed by Robert Luketic

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Considering the thrashing Paranoia received from the critics (earning an abysmal 5% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), I was expecting the absolute worst from this financial thriller.  Admittedly, the only reason I watched this flick is because I read the book (link here), but (and I recognize this is faint praise) it really wasn't as bad as I expected.  The problem with Paranoia is that the film puts Liam Hemsworth in the lead role and gives him a love interest in Amber Heard in an attempt to skew to a younger audience, but the film's story is about two large techie corporations headed by bigwigs Nicholas Wyatt and Jock Goddard (played by Gary Oldman and Harrison Ford) who are trying to one up each other -- a storyline that couldn't be further away from appealing to youths.  This juxtaposition places Paranoia in a bit of "no man's land" with a too-confusing plotline for the Twitter-verse, but a too simplistic tale for the older crowd.

The book upon which this film is based was admittedly a light, fun read, but skewing younger may have been the flick's downfall.  The aforementioned Hemsworth and Heard are both lovely to look at and are actually surprisingly confident in their ability to carry the film, but they just don't fit here.  Perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly, but the book seemed to focus on a thirtysomething guy who fits this high-tech, gadget-filled, "smart" environment a little bit better.  I can't help but think that a few more years and wrinkles on Hemsworth's character Adam Cassidy -- an up-and-coming techie who agrees to snoop on Goddard's company after he gets in trouble with his former boss Wyatt -- would've helped the believability factor a bit.

Undoubtedly, there are better films streaming on Netflix at the moment, but Paranoia moves along at a solid clip and if you're in the market for some mindless entertainment this may just fit the bill.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - James and the Giant Peach

James and the Giant Peach (1996)

Starring Paul Terry, Joanna Lumley, Miriam Margoyles, and Pete Postlethwaite

Featuring the voices of Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Leeves, and Susan Sarandon

Directed by Henry Selick

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Although I've always been a fan of Roald Dahl, I wasn't a fan of this film version of his book James and Giant Peach when it was released fifteen years ago.  Still, I figured that it may be worth a revisit to see if I was just a sixteen year-old curmudgeon when it came out.  Well, I'm either still that same curmudgeon today or the film just doesn't work.

Coming on the heels of his critically-acclaimed The Nightmare Before Christmas, director Henry Selick returns to the world of stop-motion animation, but mixes in some live-action bookends featuring young actor Paul Terry as the title character (that would be James...not the Giant Peach).  Living in England with his horrific aunts (Miriam Margoyles and Joanna Lumley) after the death of his parents, James longs to escape his sullen life and visit New York City.  One evening, he meets a mystical traveling guy (Pete Postlewaite) who gives James some magical "seeds" which grow a giant peach larger than most houses.  In order to hide from his nagging aunts, James climbs into the peach, turns into a Claymation creation, and meets a motley crew of insects who call the peach their home.

Surprisingly, it's the live action segments of the film that work best.  There's an absurdist, over-the-top quality to them that feel as if they were pulled right from the pages of Dahl's books.  However, the stop-motion animation portion of the tale fails miserably.  There's never any zip or excitement and the insect gang isn't the least bit engaging.  Of course, they're forced to sing the least interesting songs possible (crafted by the overrated Randy Newman), but that's only a part of the problem.  The biggest issue is that the story just flounders around once James is in the peach (which could be attributable to the original source novel...I never read this book, however).

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Red

Red (2010)

Starring Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Karl Urban, and Richard Dreyfuss

Directed by Robert Schwentke

This is the movie that crapfest The Expendables wishes it could have been.  Fun, entertaining, full of explosions, and good acting (although even ho-hum acting would've been a step up from the empty visages of Sly Stallone and Dolph Lundgren), the "geriatric actioner" Red was a pleasant surprise that had me smiling from beginning to end.

Recently retired CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) is in trouble.  For some reason or another, he has been targeted to be killed.  Narrowly escaping some home invaders, Frank flees and manages to reunite with some former (older) friends and fellow agents as they try and uncover who exactly is the mastermind behind the hit.

Now that the quick summary is out of the way, can I just mention how much fun it was to see Helen Mirren shooting machine guns?  There's an odd joy in the concept and director Robert Schwentke does a great job keeping a fun comic book-ish style going throughout the film (I'm not a comic guy at all, but now I kind of wanna read the book upon which this flick was based).  Perhaps because it's based on a graphic novel (or maybe in spite of it), Red has a hint of intelligence about it.  It's not just an idiotic shoot 'em up -- there's actually a purpose behind the kills.

Ultimately, though, what makes this movie work is the acting.  Across the board, you're looking at top-notch talent.  Bruce Willis is oddly charming and his relationship with Mary-Louise Parker provided surprising laughs.  Morgan Freeman and John Malkovich show comedic chops that I didn't think either actor had.  And Helen Mirren -- is it really wrong to think a 65-year old woman is sexy?  It's gotta be a British accent, I guess...I'll take Helen Mirren over Stallone any day.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Piranha 3D

Piranha 3D (2010)

Starring Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O'Connell, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, and Richard Dreyfuss

Directed by Alexandre Aja

I don't quite know where to go with this one.  Let's just start by saying that Piranha is not a good movie.  Nor does it have any intentions of being one.  It knows full well that it's awful.  The question then becomes does it reach the level of "so bad, it's good" which is the goal it sets out to achieve.

The answer is "it depends."

The problem with a movie like Piranha is that it isn't good or worth your time unless you're able to watch it with a group of people who can talk back to the screen.  Sitting and watching this flick in a theater with folks who are "forced" to be quiet is going to seriously dampen your fun...and it's going to make you realize that the movie doesn't quite hit the heinously hilarious levels it hoped it would.

When a pack of prehistoric-era killer piranhas is unleashed due to a seismic event (triggered -- no joke -- by a beer bottle falling into a lake), the town of Lake Victoria is in for some trouble.  Of course, it's Spring Break and tons of college hotties who are perfectly fine with dancing topless are ready for a dip in the town's lake.  There's really no point in explaining any more plot...killer piranhas attack senseless and obnoxious college students.  You don't need to know anything else.

We're treated to a who's who of has-been actors -- Elisabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, and Christopher Lloyd -- who are all surprisingly decent.  Thankfully, the director realized that watching a movie riddled with horrible actors like the obnoxious Jerry O'Connell would have been painful to sit through, so he actually cast a few decent people to counter the awful ones.

On one hand, it's nice that director Alexandre Aja recognized he was going for pure camp.  There's a scene towards the beginning where two buxom ladies strip down to nothing but flippers and swim through the surprisingly clean waters of Lake Victoria while proceeding to hump one another.  This scene goes on for at least two minutes and it's all set to a classical opera aria.  Alone, the nude ladies would have been just nude ladies, but set to classical music, it becomes a somewhat hilarious scene.  Aja at least has an eye for the corny and it certainly is necessary in a film like this.

The 3D -- which was a conversion and not shot in the format -- was disappointing.  It created a dark tone at times where it became nearly impossible to see what was going on.  In the end, the corniness would've been perfectly acceptable in 2D.

Even after writing this review, I'm still not quite sure where to go with the rating here.  I enjoyed myself, but I'm well aware that this movie sucks.  If I watched it alone at home, I would think it was one of the worst movies I'd seen this year.  In the setting in which I watched it, however -- with a group of seven talking back to the screen -- it was an enjoyable diversion.

In the end, just know what you're getting into with this and maybe you'll come out of it with some moderate enjoyment.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - My Life in Ruins (2009)

Starring Nia Vardalos and Richard Dreyfuss
Written by Mike Reiss
Directed by Donald Petrie

If you ever wondered about the movie-going differences between men and women, this movie is a perfect experiment. I watched this movie with two ladies and another guy and while the two ladies were laughing and longing for the characters to hook up (I definitely heard "Just kiss him already" during a scene), me and my fellow 'Y' chromosome holder were rolling our eyes and longing for the movie to be over (I realize I'm putting words into his mouth, but I think it's a pretty damn safe assumption). There's just nothing here to appeal to the male psyche at all. Are we really that different in our approaches to love? I don't know, but this movie didn't help prove that we're similar, that's for sure.

It also doesn't help that the movie is junk.

Georgia (Nia Vardalos) is an American working as a bus tour guide in Greece. She hates her job, hates her boss, and longs to return to the States. Georgia's boss hates her, too, and gives her the stupidest, most stereotypical group of tourists ever imaginable. You've got the dumb Americans who believe their country is the best (FYI...these two were the worst, most poorly written characters I've seen onscreen this year); the Australians who are never seen without a Foster's (Australian for beer, you know) in their hands; the uppity stick-up-their ass British family; the wise Jewish widow (Dreyfuss); the strung-out American businessman who is constantly on his cell phone; the fat, jolly American kid who makes up for being overweight by being incredibly funny all the time (you know that sitcom character, don't you...we've seen it before); and the "hot" Spanish divorcées (except that they weren't hot at all and one of them looked like a transvestite). Throw in an apparently hunky Greek driver so that our lead can fall in love with him (and then Greece itself, in turn), and you've got yourself a movie -- or at least an awful sitcom which is what this movie really is.

Even if the story weren't so damn awful, the direction of this movie was pitiful. There were scenes that were shot through a blurry lens. The director/editor simply didn't care here...there's no excuse for you to have blurry, poorly lit shots in your film. No excuse at all. Plus, this movie should be a love letter to Greece and the director did nothing to entice me to go there. All the shots of the temples and beaches were so bland and boring. At least make the place look pretty.

The only thing that remotely saves this movie is the fact that Nia Vardalos is actually okay. Don't get me wrong, she does nothing to impress here and her comedic timing is simply middle of the road. But were it not for her, this would've been even more of a trainwreck than it already was.

The RyMickey Rating: D-