New Year's Eve

 New Year's Eve (2011)

Starring Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Hector Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Seth Meyers, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Sarah Paulson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Til Schweiger, Hilary Swank, and Sofia Vergara

Along with James Belushi, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Matthew Broderick, Cary Elwes, Carla Gugino, Cherry Jones, John Lithgow, Ryan Seacrest, and Nat Wolff

Directed by Garry Marshall

Written by Katherine Fugate

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: F

Movie Review - The Tall Man

The Tall Man (2012)

Starring Jessica Biel

Directed by Pascal Laugier

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

Jessica Biel isn't a big name star by any means, but I was a bit surprised when I saw The Tall Man in Netflix Instant's mystery section with a release date of 2012 considering that I had never even heard of it before.  Biel is enough of a "celebrity" that I felt like I should have at least seen some reference to the flick in passing.  Nevertheless, I had not, but given the "mystery" element of the brief plot synopsis -- children in the town of Cold Rock, Washington, are going missing and the only lead that the police have is that a mysterious tall man appears to be the culprit -- I figured I'd give it a shot.  While I now completely understand the reason it didn't get a nationwide release in theaters, it's actually a moderately intriguing little flick that isn't anywhere close to perfection, but kept my interest in the wee hours of the morning when I watched.

Jessica Biel is Julia Denning, the town nurse, who keeps her young son Danny isolated from the rest of the run-down and low-income community for fear of him being abducted by the mysteriously dark-cloaked tall man who has kidnapped nearly all of Cold Rock's children over the last few years.  Despite her best efforts, one evening Danny is nabbed right out of Julia's home by the Tall Man and while she tries to chase him down, she doesn't succeed.  And that's when the movie takes a turn that I admittedly didn't see coming -- and is probably the reason why the film languished in its nearly straight-to-dvd hell.

A long-time reader of this blog (and they are so few and far between that I must recognize them when I can) commented on another thread that The Tall Man is an "ambitious failure," and I tend to agree with that sentiment on a slightly lesser scale.  For starters, I don't think the film is a "failure," but I recognize that writer-director Pascal Laugier doesn't quite have the chops for creating the needed tension a film like this requires (although I think part of that may be attributed to what I can only imagine was a lower budget than other films of its ilk).  As the film twists into something completely unexpected, it ends up languishing a bit in dullness rather than ratcheting up the excitement level.  However, the film's overall tone and overarching message certainly falls under the "ambitious" banner that my commenter noted.  I'm not quite sure I bought what it was trying to espouse, but I accept the concept and give props for the attempt from Laugier.

I'm well aware that The Tall Man isn't high caliber stuff.  [Notice how I didn't comment much on Jessica Biel here...there's a reason for that.]  Still, it's unique enough that despite starting it at 3:15am and telling myself I'd get halfway through and then finish it the next day, I found myself watching it straight through.  That's a positive, I'd say, even though it's certainly a bit flawed.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Hitchcock

Hitchcock (2012)

Starring Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Toni Collette, Michael Stuhlbarg, Michael Wincott, Jessica Biel, and James D'Arcy 

Directed by Sacha Gervasi

On the outset, it appeared that Hitchcock was a movie made for a guy like me.  Psycho, plain and simple, is the best movie ever made and director Sacha Gervasi has crafted a movie detailing the making of that film.  Sign me up for this one!  Oh, wait.  It's really just a movie about Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) doubting his wife Alma's (Helen Mirren) love for him?  And it's a movie about Alma questioning Hitch's affections for her?  So it's a romance?  Well, then...maybe I'm just better off reading the book this film is based on that's been sitting on the Kindle for nearly a year now.

Despite some good performances from Hopkins and Mirren and a nice supporting turn from Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh, Hitchcock plays like a cutesy almost-Hallmark-esque glimpse at The Master of Suspense.  It took a lot for Hitch to get Psycho made, but this movie feels like it shoves the "movie-making" aspect of the story to the side in favor of the "psychology" of Hitchcock and how his fascination with blondes (including his favorite Grace Kelly) gradually led to a schism in his marriage.  In order to get into his mind, the screenwriters and directors decide to have their Hitch imagine that he's viewing the inspiration for Norman Bates -- Ed Gein (played by Michael Wincott) -- as the criminal performs his murderous acts.  As Hitch talks with Ed, the famous director's inner thoughts are brought to the forefront.  To me, it felt gimmicky and it didn't work in the slightest.

Hitchcock isn't awful by any means.  It's got touches of humor (which were always prevalent in Hitch's films themselves) and there are some nice macabre moments that would make Alfred proud.  However, anytime the film shifts towards the romance between the director and his wife, I wanted it to get back to the movie set.  And that's not to say that Hopkins and Mirren are doing anything wrong.  In fact, as is always the case with the two actors (especially Mirren as of late), they find ways to elevate the rather mundane work that is placed in front of them.  I simply just didn't really care about their characters' marital troubles.  The set of Psycho was where the real interesting stuff was taking place...and this film just doesn't linger in those moments long enough for this Hitchcock buff to find a need for this movie to have been made.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The A-Team

The A-Team (2010)

Starring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Sharlto Copley, and Patrick Wilson

Directed by Joe Carnahan

I've never seen an episode of the television show The A-Team, so I have no clue if this flick is some bastardization of the premise.  The lack of connection to the show may have helped my opinion of the flick as I shockingly enjoyed this ridiculous action movie.  Granted, I tend to like my action movies a little more grounded in reality, but despite the ludicrousness of many a scene, I enjoyed this one.  

I hate to harp on Stallone's The Expendables, but a little injection of humor into that one may have helped things out quite a bit as the cast of The A-Team realizes that when you're dealing with ridiculous plotlines that have army tanks parachuting out of airplanes you need to have fun with things.  As much as I want to dislike the smarmy Bradley Cooper, I liked his machismo in this one.  He was seemingly enjoying himself while working on this one and it paid off.  His pairing with the more solemn Liam Neeson worked quite well.  While I wish they could have maybe found a better Mr. T clone than the wooden Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Cooper and Neeson more than made up for Jackson's inadequacies.  

Yeah, I could get into plot here, but it really doesn't matter.  The whole thing's silly and so insanely implausible that if I sat here and typed it out, I think I'd wonder what the hell was wrong with me for liking the movie.  So, instead, I'll just say that while The A-Team is no masterpiece, it absolutely kept my interest for two hours and is worth your time if you want some mindless entertainment.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Valentine's Day (2010)

Valentine's Day (2010)

Starring Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner, George Lopez, Shirley Maclaine, Emma Roberts, Julia Roberts, Taylor Swift

Directed by Garry Marshall 

It's not as if ensemble movies about love can't work.  One of my favorite movies of all time is Love, Actually, and that flick is all about an ensemble's quest for love.  However, with last year's He's Just Not That Into You and this year's Valentine's Day, the ensemble romantic comedy appears to be dead in the water.  While this 2010 flick fares a little better than its 2009 counterpart, one would think that with all the star power on display here, someone could craft a decent script.

I'm not even going to go into a summary here because (as is evidenced by the incredibly long "starring" list up above) there's just too many tangential stories to discuss.  And therein lies the problem.  Too many people with too many unnecessary tales.  Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner's high school romance -- I'd nix 'em since we've already got one youthful tale starring the charming Emma Roberts, but they're appealing to the youth.  Julia Roberts and Bradley Cooper's meeting on a plane -- totally pointless, but Roberts is a huge star and Cooper's star wattage is on the rise.  Shirley Maclaine and Hector Elizondo's out-of-left-field reveal of a "bombshell secret" -- who gives a damn -- oh, that's right, we need to appeal to the grandparents.

That's the problem.  The movie just wants to hit every demographic and it fails because of that.   Any positive vibes that come from actors like Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Topher Grace, Julia Roberts and her niece Emma, and (shockingly) Ashton Kutcher and George Lopez just get washed away by a horrible script.  Not that I'm necessarily one to criticize on this front, but screenwriters need to learn to edit.

And the awful script is shot so incredibly poorly by director Garry Marshall that I laughed out loud because of some of his choices.  Hey, let's put some nuns in that scene.  Throw a sign-language interpreter in there.  Let's have a girl with cerebral palsy point and yell at Ashton Kutcher because he doesn't have shoes on.  Yes, I realize that last sentence might seem callous, but these "attempts at realism" just come across as preposterous.  It honestly seemed like he had family members that he wanted to put into the movie somehow and he was going to do whatever it took to make it happen.

If you want a great romantic ensemble movie, just do yourself a favor and go with Love, Actually.  Skip this one.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Easy Virtue (2009)

Starring Jessica Biel, Colin Firth, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Ben Barnes
Directed by Stephan Elliot

Noel Coward is supposed to be witty, apparently. That being said, this is the second Noel Coward "production" I've seen this year (the first being the play Hay Fever) and I'm not seeing that biting humor. Maybe the 1920s laughs don't translate well to this millenium.

Young John Whittaker (Ben Barnes) has recently married American Larita (Jessica Biel) and he is bringing her home to meet his British family, including his uppity, stick-up-her-ass mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) and his "stuck in a loveless marriage" father (Colin Firth). A simple story that could've been fleshed out, but unfortunately falls flat.

Unfortunately, Jessica Biel is not good here. She's stilted and way too mannered for the role which seemed to require some edginess. And not to be upstaged in the disappointment department, Kristin Scott Thomas makes her character much too one-note and obvious in her pompousness. On the positive side, the men here -- Firth and Barnes -- make the movie watchable.

The director throws in some really odd touches -- if you ever wanted to hear a 1920s version of the 70s disco classics "Car Wash" and "SexBomb" this is the movie for you. He also really likes to look at reflections of people -- in mirrors, in windows, in pool balls -- it got really ridiculous.

It's not that the movie was awful, but it's just not worth the time.

The RyMickey Rating: D+