Threesome, 1994

Watched this at my sister's house on my holidays. Kelli, Shelley, and I wanted to go back in time for a bit, so we picked an old-school classic that we found ourselves quoting earlier that day -- Threesome.

Funny how some movies and songs have such an impact that 15 years after you watch them, bits and pieces stay so firmly in your mind. I don't know that much time goes by that one of the three of us doesn't cap of a huge whining session by imitating Lara Flynn Boyle's big moment in this movie crying, "And I want a facial... And I want newww shooooes..."

The movie's still good. We each had little issues with it, which no doubt will happen when you've aged to the point of being 10 years older than the characters in the film. (Holy crap, how did that happen?) But still, there are a lot of good ideas here about sex and love and fidelity and happiness. I still love Lara in this movie -- she's so beautiful, and as much as she is a whiny bitch, I get her. I understand her drives, here. Although, I woulda picked Baldwin, I have to say. I love Knox, but what's hotter than a young Baldwin, seriously?

So, yeah -- it holds up. It was fun to reminisce, too. I miss the '90s.

The Taking of Pelham 123, 2009

Lessons Learned from The Taking of Pelham 123:

Lesson #1: You can tell how bad a character is by the amount of times he says "motherfucker" in a sentence.

Lesson #2: If you break the law, but do it for your family, and then save some people's lives, even though some other people died -- the Mayor of New York City won't send you to jail.

Lesson #3: Crooked Wall Street guys are smart enough to hijack a New York City subway train and extort 10 million bucks from the Federal Reserve, but aren't smart enough not to reveal their identities by telling the train dispatcher -- ie., everyone else as well -- stories specific to their lives.

Lesson #4: John Travolta does not look Italian. Apparently. That's why it's not weird when he consistently insults John Turturro with anti-Italian slurs like "greaseball".

Lesson #5: People still say "greaseball".

Lesson #6: Spending time in prison for white collar crimes can turn you into a ruthless murderer with a neck tattoo.

Lesson #7: Brian Helgeland still can't write. I'm blaming him for Travolta's inconsistent, stupid character.

Lesson #8: Flash cuts and pauses don't increase tension.

Lesson #9: The older, the better. The changes in this version from the original are stupid. Transit cop Lt. Zachary Garber was a much more interesting character than this film's Walter Garber (although I do enjoy the shout-out to Walter Matthau there who played Garber in the original). And the conceit in that film was better. This was all yelling and Travolta overacting, the original was a mystery, something had to be solved. Less chase bang chase, more... brains.

Lesson #10: Stop watching remakes. They are killing your brain cells.

Jesse Stone: Night Passage, 2006

This was disappointing considering how good the first Jesse Stone telemovie was. Stone Cold was superb, and set up the Stone character as an old-school hard ass cop with, as one woman in this new film says, tons of baggage. It's baggage we're not entirely privy to, which adds to the allure of the character.

Jesse Stone is compelling, he was in the first movie and he is here. But the story surrounding him this time around is so stale, it feels like Bo and Luke Duke could have figured it all out. Or, better yet, Magnum PI. It's small-time for the enigmatic and brilliant Jesse Stone.

In this film, a prequel to Stone Cold, we find Jesse heading out to Massachusettes to interview for police chief in a small bayside town. Stone shows up to his interview drunk and is hired regardless. Stone is on edge from here on in that something is awry. "I wouldn't have hired me," he says.

Add to the mix a violent ex-husband, a too-happy town councilman, and a dead former police chief and it doesn't take too much detective work to figure out who Stone needs to ask the hard questions. I was disappointed because Stone Cold was less about solving a mystery and more about watching Stone establish himself and his motives and actions. Here, we know Stone a bit better, and so, at least for me, I wanted this film to delve a bit deeper into Stone himself. Instead he just gets hit on a lot, and solves a basic crime.

Still, Stone is interesting to watch. Tom Selleck plays him with a repressed sort of rage that on the surface makes him appear quite calm and in control, but there are moments when you wonder if he's about to crack. He is direct, straight to the point, and honest to a fault -- with everyone. He's also logical and smart. He is not ashamed of his flaws or that the fact he is battling personal demons is written all over his face. He is fascinating, and I'd like to see his character with more to do than this.

And Tom Selleck is hot. :)

Trick 'r Treat, 2009

Oh dear. With such a big-shot team behind it, I was convinced this was going to be the horror for movie of the season. A new Creepshow for people like me who have seen Creepshow too many times to truly be scared anymore (um, and that happened about ten years ago).

But, sadly, it's lame. Double-dog-lame. O-rama.

Why? Where do I begin? Do I even care? Um, so three stories are interwoven, with comic-book notations informing us when they are taking place ('earlier', 'later', for instance), and they each twist and curve around to a giant finale featuring Brian Cox getting hammered by a living, breathing Sack Boy from Little Big Planet.

By the time Sack Boy worked his magic, I just didn't care. The three stories are so boring -- they've all been told before, much better than this. With horror short stories and flash fiction such a saturated industry, it's probably impossible to come up with anything truly original, so the idea, I assume, is to make the old new again. I think Bryan Singer and his team tried to do that here with their twisty, comic booky framing, but the stories are so badly written than even the (kinda) newness of the packaging can't hide the shittiness of the product.

I did think Sack Boy's wrap-up was adorable, and would've liked to have seen a whole movie based on the Brian Cox episode. Here it's just throwaway and alsp-dash like the rest of the film. It's not a modern classic as the reviews would have you believe -- it's a boring, too-clever-for its-own-good, rehash of all you've seen before. And, the most tragic thing, it really has no eventual point. I saw something, maybe about taking Halloween back to its roots here, but, again, that was throwaway stuff.

Despite the team behind it, this one just stinks.

Dark Mirror, 2007

Yeah, it was shit. I watched it because it looked spooky, and it was about a photographer. That's it. Sadly, there wasn't much photography in it, and it wasn't very spooky.

So, a couple and their son move into a new house with imported Chinese windows that instantly draw the attention of Deborah, the wife and photographer who is about to go slightly mad. Same old, same old. She takes a photo in the mirror, things start to go awry, people she's been in contact with start to die. So, what's the connection? Hmm... well, maybe it has something to do with the painter who lived in her house prior, and his missing family?

And on and on. It's kinda lame, with a typically unsatisfying ending you often come across in these low budget cheapies. So, what happened to eveyone? How did Deborah end up doing what she supposedly did? How can she be in five places at once? Well, none of that matters. Just be spooked! Ah, it wasn't spooky. Yeah, so, lame.

Up, 2009

It's hard to find a bad review of this movie. I went searching for some only because I couldn't pinpoint just what it was about the film that didn't move me.

Everyone else loves it -- the Tomato-Metre gives it 98%. It's got everyone caught up in its sense of adventure, and while, for the most part, I was also caught up, I'm wondering why, days later, I don't feel the need to watch it again.

Wall.E, Cars, and A Bug's Life were all movies I knew I had to buy. And re-watches of Toy Story never get boring. And Monsters Inc is just genius. Why didn't I feel that way about Up? I've read all those bad reviews on Rotten Tomatoes -- all six that were negative out of about 250 -- and I'm still not sure what it is about the film I didn't love.

Don't get me wrong, though -- it was a very good film, and I laughed, and I cried, and all those other things you're suposed to do in a Pixar film. But maybe the cantankerous old man who's lost his sense of adventure just wasn't enough to grip at my heartstrings over a basic tug?

Little Wall.E the robot still makes me well up every time I look at him. I see him and I think of wonder and adventure and love. When I see Eve from Wall.E, I think about innocence. Carl Frederickson from Up just makes me think of Ed Asner. And the little round kid who follows him into the air makes me think of all those other little round companions that have tagged along in these films for comic effect. Russell the Boy Scout is this film's Dory, this film's Mater. As wonderfully creative as Pixar is, it can still fall horribly back on cliche, even its own cliches.

Old man finds spirit of adventure thanks to a charmingly silly boy scout, some talking dogs, and a big bird who likes chocolate. God, it frustrates me that even though other Pixar films are just as standard, why did this one not bowl me over? It was very good, it just wasn't... something.

I'll keep thinking.

Management, 2008

Not all what I was expecting from the trailer. I thought this was going to be a cat-and-mouse kinda love-story-with-obstacles, maybe like 50 First Dates, with Steve Zahn a much more likable and funny leading man.

But it wasn't. The comedy here is slightly darker, and it's themes much deeper. What do we do when we fall for someone who is complete wrong for us? What do we do if that person gives us everything we need emotionally, but makes little sense on a logical, practical front? The big themes are handled well. I thought the movie slipped in one area, but it's not enough to dampen what was a genuinely affecting film.

Career-woman Jennifer Aniston has a one-night stopover in a small town motel. She's a very serious, with almost no sense of humour. But she has passion -- she attempts to talk the motel owner into making a recycling area for certain hotel trash. So, she cares enough.

Hotel co-manager Steve Zahn likes her straight away, and uses his position at the hotel to get inside her room. What transpires sets the two of them on such a weird, romantic, heartbreaking path. Very quickly you come to understand where both are in their lives, what they need, and why they might not be right for each other, even if they are.

So, the film dropped a bit for me when Woody Harrelson's character showed up. I think it would have been much more realistic for Jennifer Aniston to be seeing someone a lot less weird. Woody's character doesn't match what we've learned about Jennifer Aniston and her desire for comfort and stability. And it's over so quickly that I wondered why it even mattered. Her not wanting to be with Steve Zahn because of his station in life and peculiarities was enough. She didn't need to be involved with someone else. That really didn't move the story along.

Anyway, this is only a small part of the movie, so it wasn't too bad. I really enjoyed it. Steve Zahn is hilarious, and he's so sad to watch when he gets all serious. Jennifer Aniston is good, too -- she is so underrated as an actress, and a movie like this really gives her a chance to show just how good she can be.

I liked it. Good movie.

Red, 2008

Although packaged as such, taking full advantage of the screenwriter's previous work in schlock, Red is not a horror film. It's a study of one man's desire for answers, for a reason why his dog was killed in cold blood by a teenage boy. There are elements of horror within the story, but there's no gore here, and very little blood. This is solid storytelling, with a heartbreaking lead performance by Brian Cox that I can't help feeling would have been recognised come awards season were this not such a hideaway, low budget release.

Then again, it went to Sundance, so you never know. But the fact that it looks so "TV" -- think Masters of Horror -- will work against it, no doubt.

So, Brian Cox. How incredible is this man? His portrayal of the broken yet stoic man-on-mission in this film is breathtaking. I cried just looking at his face. He inhabits this character so well. His slow build from mild-mannered fisherman to a ball of broken rage is amazing to watch. Right up to the final shot of him, as his life begins again, he is the reason to watch this film.

The story was good and well-told up to a point. I do think it turned an unnecessary corner towards the end, and I blame the writer for that, and possibly the desire to maybe horror-up the piece. The incident in the forrest just went that bit too far, taking the film from a Pete Dexter-y look at the lowly man and his worth, to a very modern Grudge-like thriller. Didn't need that to happen, but it doesn't ruin the film. Cox is too good for that to happen.

So, yeah -- a real surprise this one. I expected schlocky horrror and ended up with a drama that left me bawling like I'd just lost my puppy.