This... Wasn't It

Or... This is shit, but I didn't think it was THAT bad,

This Is It is a movie everyone should have heard of through the mass hype and hysteria of Michael Jackson's mysterious death. Though he isn't actually dead, thats beside the point. This movie follows behind the scenes of Michael Jackson's preparation for his huge completely sold out final concert tour "This Is It". The movie follows around Michael, his kiss-ass director, and the back-up dancers, singers, and band members of the huge concert.

The premise of This Is It sounds amazing, a 2 hour movie of backstage access with the biggest icon in music history. Alas, it turned out to be just an extremely long 2 hour movie with very bad audio, with a few good special effects here and there. Michael seemed very picky about all of his tendencies, and the movie did not shine a very good light on how he was as a person. Having a director that listened to everything Michael said and dancers that were crying every five seconds because of the opportunity they were given makes you want to cringe. Also, did anyone notice how big his hands are? That just seemed disgusting...

Though, there were some bright spots in this otherwise bleak movie. Michael still had the dance moves he had in the 80's, you can tell that the concert would have been a spectacle for the ages, and the guitar playing girl was sexy while shredding.

This Is It was a major struggle to watch all the way through, and should have been made much shorter, with less pointless interviews with pointless people. If each song was given the audio clarity it deserved, and the movie was cut down to around the hour and a half range, then maybe I could have stayed interested. Instead, they tried to give you an inside look at the boring and pointless rehearsals for over 2 hours.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (so as to become Jedi Warriors and create world peace while possibly under the influence of LSD) Any questions?

Even from the title, a person can guess that this movie will be different. Men staring at goats doesn’t seem like the most interesting plot line; maybe then does the movie aim to be original rather than just having commercial appeal? The answer is a resounding yes. Men Who Stare at Goats is absurd, odd, hilarious, amusing, definitely original, possibly good and not at all what you would expect.

The plot, well the plot is complicated and involves a present-time storyline that is broken up between flashbacks. In short, George Clooney and Ewan McGregor are on one hell of a road trip in Iraq while Clooney tells McGregor about his time in a secret army training program, bent on creating Jedi warriors. So it’s your typical movie. What it really is is one of those smart-and-dumb-at-the-same-time-comedies-that-involves-George-Clooney; films such as Burn After Reading and The Informant (which he produced) also fall into this category.

Whether you like this movie or not, will depend on how accepting you are of the ridiculous. The movie deals with developing Jedi warriors in a comedically serious way that will be just too much for some people. The sixties counter culture is popular target for jokes in films, but an army program run by a long-haired hippy, working on world peace by dancing, that’s pushing it. My personal feeling for the movie was overall positive; it was original and some segments were genuinely funny. Also on the plus side was the acting. The two leads were good, though McGregor had some accent slips, but the supporting cast was also impressive. Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges and Stephen Lang all embraced the absurdity of their roles and played them with relish.

As for the comedy, the movie is funny. Some parts drag on a little long with no laughs but patience is always rewarded. Jokes in this movie are both smart and dumb, mixing slapstick with intellectual comedy. Clooney running over someone he’s trying to rescue falls in the slapstick category; a guy explaining why the US has to finance the Jedi training because the USSR thinks there already financing it is smart funny. Kevin Spacey’s “psychic voice” is just plain funny.

To finish off, I can only think to repeat that the movie is absurd and just plain odd, but then again so is real life. If the US can torture people with Barney why can’t they train people with Star Wars?

It was Good, Not Biblical

"Law Abiding Citizen" my ass more like "Saddam Husseining Citizen"

Walking into this movie there was an odd feeling in the air that this might be just another action movie with an awful plot line and a bunch of horrible actors and the only thing good about it would be the somewhat cool action scenes. Luckily the feeling walking out of the theaters would be completely opposite to the feeling walking in.

Law Abiding Citizen is about Clyde Shelton ( Gerard Butler) whose wife and little girl were killed. Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) was unable to put both killers in jail. So Clyde seeks justice for the rest of his life, in whatever way is necessary. The entire movie is trying to create a political statement about the justice system and how blah blah blah now for the action.

The script writers in this movie were not amateurs at killing people, they had it figure out quite well in fact. Some of the killing tools used in this movie could sit on the same murder trial case as the ones in Saw. If Clyde wants you dead you're dead it might be a gun that makes you paralyzed so he can chop you up or he could put a bullet in your cell phone that would take a huge chunk out of your head or he might even puncture your jugular with a T-bone from a steak. He will fuck you up ... oddly it makes for a good movie.

The movie fit into an unorthodox category of a murder mystery where you already know who the bad guy is and yet it is still extremely suspenseful. The acting in the movie had its flaws especially when Gerard decided every so often that he was in 300 again and turned on his accent. Jamie Foxx did a marvelous job playing his character of Nick Rice. The only real flaw in the writing of the script was that they killed the hot girl and the only piece of eye candy left in the movie was Jamie Foxx's middle aged wife.

At some parts in the movie it is about as realistic as Twilight Zone, I mean come on (Spoiler Alert) there is no way in hell that a prisoner, who has been creating a circus of the justice system, would be able to escape from solitary confinement everyday. Then, when the entire city is being locked down Mr. "I will fuck you up" can walk out of his jail cell and waltz straight into city hall and then, after being searched and frisked can still assemble and plant a bomb that would blow up city hall.

Although the movie was not the best I had ever seen it did a very good job. The movie did have some flaws of an unreal plot line and a bad accent changing actor but for the most part I was pleasantly surprised at the finished product.

Overall Rating: S-A-B-r-e