Nov 15
Year: 2008
Directed by: Louis Leterrier
Written by: Zak Penn
Starring: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson
The Movie Rental: The Incredible Hulk
The Incredible Hulk is another carnation of the classic comic book theme of the mad scientist who creates a monster. Of coarse The Incredible Hulk spin is that the scientist is the monster and the monster has an interest in being a good guy. In this installment of The Incredible Hulk, Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) is pitted against Maj. Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), turned super monster by overdosing on the same serum that created the Hulk. He must defeat the super beast while protecting his incredible love interest Dr Betty Ross (Liv Tyler).
The Incredible Hulk is back and this time it’s actually pretty good. For those familiar with the 2003 movie titled ‘Hulk’ it may take some convincing to rent the newest version of the comic book series. My bone to pick is a little obvious, we have had the Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stories told so many time do we really need to keep flogging this horse? The Hulk story it’s self has gone through comic book, TV series and several Movie versions and not much changes. I guess the same could be said for Batman and Spiderman but The Incredible Hulk for some reason seems even more over told to me. Now back to the sunny side, this time around Bruce Banner is played by Edward Norton who always does a great job and this time is no different, Stir Tim Roth into the mix as the super villain and you have a fine stew. This movie is worth renting, the story is better told than in the past, the science has been modernized a bit to better parallel reality, and as always with such a movie the action is great. So the skinny on The Incredible Hulk: It is work renting which has to make Ang Lee green with envy.
- 3.5 Stars
Nov 10
Year: 2006
Directed by: Wil Shriner
Written by: Wil Shriner and Carl Hiaasen
Starring: Luke Wilson, Logan Lerman, Brie Larson, Tim Blake Nelson, Cody Linley, Neil Flynn
The Movie Rental: Hoot
Hoot is the story of Roy Eberhardt (Logan Lerman),the new kid in town, as he navigates the perils of teenage life and adjusts to a new group of peers. As Roy peruses the mystery of the barefoot kid he finds a friend and puppy love interest in Beatrice (Brie Larson). As the mystery unravels Roy, Brie, Mullet Fingers (Cody Linley), Officer Delinko(Luke Wilson), and even Mr. Ryan (Jimmy Buffett) find themselves facing off against the heartless Pancake House mogul ‘Muckle’ (Clark Gregg) in an effort to save a family of burrow owls.
I’d like to say something like “Hoot was a real hoot!”, but I can’t tell a lie. Though it was not a hoot it was not hootless. The movie is the warming tale of boy meets girl who’s brother is an heroic eco-terrorist and draws the entire cast into his environmentally friendly mission of sabotage. I wonder why Disney didn’t pick up this script? The movie did not interest my daughter or her friend in the least. It seems to be intended for an age group of approx 10 – 13 years of age and I think that age group would really like Hoot. As for me, it was ok. I tend to like Luke Wilson, Clark Gregg and Tim Blake Nelson so Hoot flew a little higher from casting choices alone; but even with a few good actors Hoot was still no more than an okay movie rental.
- 2.5 Stars
Oct 29
Year: 2008
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Written by: Drew Goddard
Starring: Lizzy Caplan, Jessica Lucas, T.J. Miller, Michael Stahl-David, Mike Vogel and Odette Yustman
The Movie Rental: Cloverfield
Within the top secret Cloverfield files a video is archived which documents the last days of Manhattan. The day starts like many other and the evening is dedicated to going away party for Rob Hawkins (Michael Stahl-David) planned by his friends. As the evening moves forward rumbles are felt in the city. As the friends Marlena (Lizzy Caplan),Lily (Jessica Lucas), Hud (T.J. Miller), Rob Hawkins, Jason Hawkins (Mike Vogel) head out into the city to find out what is happening they quickly find themselves running from a giant, building smashing monster and it’s smaller, parasitic yet equally scary team of monsters.
The Cloverfield tag line is “Some Thing Has Found Us”; however, what that something is, never gets approached. The movie was produced by JJ Abrams, the producer of Lost, who is name to remember. I will remember to never rent anything this guy is involved with again. Don’t get me wrong, like Lost, this movie spins a suspenseful tale, and also like lost it digs a whole from which it never escapes. Cloverfield starts as a home movie of a going any party which seems like it will never end. The guy in charge of the camera, known as Hud, is dumb as a rock, and annoys me through the entire movie. Everything that occurs is captured and presented via a hand held home DV recorder, sort of like the Blair Witch, and again annoys me through the entire movie. Cloverfield does deliver when it comes to both action and suspense. The entire movie is the dwindling group escaping death one scene after another which is perpetuated by their never ending series of dumb ideas. This brings me back to the biggest monster on the back of this movie; the willingness to present information that is never explained or even mention as soon as the scene in which it takes place comes to an end. Why is there not more discussion of what the hell the monster is? When Marlena got bit, what was up with the eyes bleeding, the panic, and the shooting her behind the screen? Would it have been so hard for one of the army guys to brief the surviving friends on what happens when someone gets bit? If you were one of those friends would you not have perused the answer a bit harder? I mean really this could have been explained in 30 seconds of dialog. When it comes to renting Cloverfield, I say avoid this monster of a movie as it is crap!
- 2 Stars
Oct 27
Year: 2008
Directed by: Nicholas Stoller
Written by: Jason Segel
Starring: Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand
The Movie Rental: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a romantic comedy about lost love, heartache, misery, and all of the funny things that come with it. When Peter Bretter (Jason Segel), discovers his girlfriend Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) is leaving him for another man, he is crushed. He tries to fight off the pain with a series of one night stands, but to no avail. Against the advice of his brother Brian (Russell Brand) he travels to Sarah’s favorite vacation destination in Hawaii and discovers the beautiful hotel desk clerk Rachel Jansen (Mila Kunis) as well as the fact that Sarah and her new love, rock star Aldous Snow (Russell Brand), are staying at the same hotel. Now Peter has to grow up, man up and make decisions.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall is indeed what you expect, a romantic comedy along the same lines as ‘Along Came Polly’, or ‘Something about Mary’. It is however written by the same guy who wrote ‘Knocked Up’ who delivers comedy totally different than that of your Ben Stiller movies. Forgetting Sarah Marshall could have been a Hank Williams heartache tune for the first 20 minutes and I do love Hank Williams (Sr and III not Jr). After the comic misery begins to subside the movie walks the characters through a series of awkward encounters and conversations. You actually feel a little uncomfortable in some of the situations through out the movie which I attribute to a certain level of relate ability. So I admit it, I liked Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Sure, the whole, ‘less than stellar looking guy gets dumped by his attractive yet, pretensions and manipulative girlfriend – queue the new girl who is not only beautiful but also a good person’, thing is a little on the already been written side, but hey, I liked the 80’s.
-3.5 Stars
Oct 25
Year: 2008
Directed by: Marco Schnabel
Written by: Mike Myers and Graham Gordy
Starring: Mike Myers, Jessica Alba, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Meagan Good, Verne Troyer
The Movie Rental: The Love Guru
The Love Guru is the story of an American boy, Pitka (Mike Myers), raised by spiritual Gurus. Once grown, Guru Pitka, finds himself in America trying to become the next big self help Guru and free himself of the constraints of celibacy by finding true love. His goals collide when he is hired by Jane Bullard (Jessica Alba) failing marriage between hockey star Darren Roanoke (Romany Malco) and Prudence Roanoke (Meagan Good).
The Love Guru is a rental that nearly provided what I expected, a super silly comedy. I can enjoy super silly Mike Myers movies such as Austin Powers (Pats 1 and 2) , and Wayne’s World (Part 1 only – Part 2 was too much Wayne’s World). This movie just fell short of the low bar the I have come to accept and somewhat enjoy from old Mike M. It seems to me that a lot of budget went into hiring a star studded cast and no money was left for anything else. Poor scripting, direction, sound quality, and camera work plagued this film. And despite the high pollutin’ line up; the acting sucked eggs as well. All of this would have been something I could overlook had the story line been fairly interesting and the comedy to have some unexpected highlights, but that is not the case. The Love Guru was just an endless montage of the standard Mike Meyers gags which stopped being funny long, long ago. If you are thinking of hiring the Love Guru to spice up your evening, I would recommend going with Tony Robins instead…his video are probably more entertaining. I guess the old adage holds true: If it looks like crap and it smells like crap, it probably not a candy bar.
- 2 Stars
Oct 22
Year: 1995
Directed by: Brad Silberling
Written by: Joseph Oriolo and Sherri Stoner
Starring: Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman, Eric Idle
The Movie Rental: Casper
Casper, a hybrid of animation and live film, is about a widower, Dr. James Harvey (Bill Pullman) and his daughter Kathleen ‘Kat’ Harvey (Christina Ricci) and individual quests. James Harvey has been missing his wife terribly since her passing and in his grief has given up his legitimate profession to be a psychiatrist for ghosts. This has caused his daughter Kat to be isolated and lonely as the two are constantly moving from town to town to help ghosts resolve conflict which keeps them bound to this world. When Dr. Harvey takes a job from a heartless, greedy heiress to ride Whipstaff Manor of unwanted supernatural inhabitants they encounter three mischievous ghost and one friendly one, Casper.
Casper is a difficult movie to judge. On one hand I found the language and humor to be totally inappropriate for my daughter, for whom I rented the movie. On the other hand, I found the out-of-place dialog to be pretty amusing. What can I say; it kept both my and my daughters attention, despite having actually scaring her a bit. Don’t get me wrong, it is not scary at all, I’m not sure what about it scarred her…I mean her favorite cartoon is Scooby-Doo which does not scare her at all. I am not very strict in regards to what my youngin’ watches within reason. If it is made for children or families she can watch it (with the exception of Brats) and Casper was not a big deal. With that mouth full said I will boil the movie down to this, It is not good enough for adults to really want to watch it on their own and it is not appropriate for most children - hence a crap rating.
- 2.5 Stars
Oct 20
Year: 2001
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Brian Aldiss and Ian Watson
Starring: Ryan Haley Joel Osment, Frances O’Connor, Jake Thomas and Jude Law
The Movie Rental: Artificial Intelligence – AI
Artificial Intelligence is the sci-fi tale of future earth when man kind has both advanced to new levels of technology and sank into anarchistic tribalism. Lifelike robots, known as mechas, have been developed to serve man physically and emotionally. David (Haley Joel Osment) was created using sophisticated AI allowing him to be the first mecha to actually feel emotion. Davids purpose is to fill the void in his adoptive mother’s heart which was left when her son was cryogenically frozen after falling deathly ill to an incurable disease. When a cure is found at last the boy, Martin (Jake Thomas) returns home which erases the need for a robot child. David soon finds out what happens to discarded, unwanted mechas when he is discarded and finds himself on the run from humans. When David meets Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), he quickly learns the ways of the rogue mecha.
Artificial Intelligence is a touching movie and it is pretty good if you like being touched! I personally have a sweet spot for sci-fi and sad drama so I’m game. The story seems to reflect mans fear and hope for technology as do all movies that feature robot characters. Weather or not the mechanical prostitutes are a fear or a hope is up for debate, but I really don’t think I’d like sleeping with robot….It would remind me of too many of my ex-girlfriends. Now back to Artificial Intelligence (AI), the story has also been interpreted as a futuristic Pinocchio who, like David, longed to be a real boy and chased after a fairy who he hoped could make his dream come true. If you ask me, Artificial Intelligence beats Pinocchio hands down because robots are way fancier than puppets.
- 4 Stars
Oct 18
Year: 2008
Directed by: George Clooney
Written by: Duncan Brantley and Rick Reilly
Starring: George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Root
The Movie Rental: Leatherheads
Leatherheads is set in the 1920’s, middle America, where the game of football is talking shape. In the story, fast talkin’ Jimmy ‘Dodge’ Connelly (George Clooney), finds himself 4th and long in life as he pursues his dream of avoiding the life of a working man by trying to make it as a pro football player and entrepreneur. The dream has seeming come to an end until he latches on to a popular college football player and scholar Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski). Insert the lovely Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger), and you have yourself a classic romantic comedy.
I love quick wit dialog comedies and Leatherheads delivers just that. It seems that George Clooney always plays the sharp tongued long-shot character, and yes, that is going to have to get old eventually, but for now it is still working. John Krasinski is also a strong actor. I enjoy his role in the TV series, the office, and his move to DVD rental works well. Of coarse Renée Zellweger is always good, but like Clooney, also seems to play a similar character in most of her movies. You know the classic cigarette smoking temptress who steps into the detective’s office to make an offer that can’t be refused. In the case of Leatherheads, despite the apparent role stagnation and re-hashed underling storyline, I find it to be much more cream than crap.
- 3.5 Stars
Year: 2008
