Glorious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino is like no other director, and Inglourious Basterds is like no other Word War II. These two statements surmise the entire two and a half hours of Inglourious Basterds, which is an incredible film. Divided into five chapters (which I'm sure someone smart could parallel to Shakespeare's five acts) the movie tells the stories of a young Jewish woman orphaned by the Nazis, and an American guerrilla unit in Germany known for removing Nazi scalps. Both the young woman (Melanie Laurent) and the military unit (lead by a southern Brad Pitt) hatch separate plans to assassinate Adolph Hitler and chaos ensues. The antagonist to all of this and one of the best parts of the movie is the chillingly uncaring Col. Hans Landa (Christopher Waltz) aka "the Jew Hunter."

Inglourious Basterds is not a thriller, action, comedy or drama, though it's not not any of those genre's either; instead it is probably safest to say that it was made by Quentin Tarantino. For people who have not seen anything by Quentin Tarantino the term adult-fairy-tale could be used as well. The characters are larger than life, the sets are over the top, the plot is simple yet huge in scope, and of course it begins with "once upon a time." In addition, the cinematography, the music, the acting and the editing are all excellent and it leaves the movie with the feeling that it is too romanticized to be real life yet somehow more like real life than most other films. All of this comes out from Taratino's distinct style, which is what makes the movie work. The scene in the basement tavern showcases this in particularly, with the suspicious Nazi, the suave British spy and the double-agent socialite battling it out in one long unabridged sequence.

The acting as mentioned is incredibly well done; Brad Pitt becomes the southern US and Christopher Waltz impersonates an evil at par with Heath Ledger's joker. Melanie Laurent is ruthless, beautiful, angry, simple, vengeful etc. all in one complex character. Even Mike Myers and B.J. Novak, known for their comedy, pull off serious roles without problem.

In short Quentin Tarantino is a unique and awe-inspiring film-maker. I mean how many people do you think can pull off an out of the blue narration by Samuel L. Jackson accompanied by sixties font and music in the middle of a WWII movie and make it seem normal. He makes movies with a style so their own that they would be refreshing if the plot revolved around a blind eighty year old dictioneer (dictioneer (n'): one who writes dictionaries). So what if he slightly fudged the facts of WWII, the movie was entertaining and that is kind of the point. Inglourious Basterds deserves full praise as much as Lt. Aldo Raine deserves his one hundred Nazi scalps.

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

District 9 gets a 10

Don't keep this movie in the slums let it bust out into the wide screen metropolis world.



The movie District 9 is a realistic portrayal of what would happen if aliens landed on earth. The movie isn't full of crazy force fields or the destruction of man kind but the story of Wikus Van De Merwe, a head operative at Multi-National United, who has the exciting task of moving 1.8 million prawns ( aliens ) to District 10. Over the course of the movie action, plot and a little love is shown.

The beginning of the movie was shot in documentary style allowing the viewer to understand the concept of the prawn. The middle was a lot of Sci-Fi intense action scenes. Up to this point the movie was a brilliant movie and then the movie took a international trip from south Africa to America and was added to the melting pot of Americanized movies, which was a little disappointing.

The movie parallels the movie Miracle of life in realism. District 9 gave what seemed like an extremely accurate representation of what life would be like with weird creature walking around. The C.G.I in this movie was so unreal as the concept itself.

It takes a brilliant mind to think of a concept like this. The character of Wikus Van De Merwe was very well done even thought the actor, Sharlto Copley, has only been in a few films made in south Africa. The documentary style of the movie was only shown at the beginning and the end of the movie, but most of the movie was shot in third person.

The movie did have a couple parts that were annoying. When MNU was evicting the prawns is only seemed like a few thousand were actually in the slums when really there is "suppose" to be 1.8 million. The alien ship that hovered over the city of Johannesburg was not being inspected or protected in anyway what so ever and it would seem like maybe the human race would want to know a little about the technology of the "mother ship."

Overall this movie was from out of this world

Overall Rating: S-A-B-R-E

Revenge Of The Sequel

Transformers 2: Revenge Of The Fallen is the prototypical Michael Bay movie. "Let's blow so much shit up and make it CRAZY". Thankfully, Bay didn't try anything new, and stuck to what he knows.

Transformers once again has Shia LaBeouf in the lead role as Sam Witwicky, and Megan Fox as his girlfriend, Mikaela Banes. The movie follows Sam as he travels to college, which to the shallow guy seems to be the best college dorm ever created. Though, his stay there is short-lived as decepticon leader Megatron escapes from containment (Shocker!).

The movie is filled with excessive battle scenes between massive transformers, making for an action filled adventure movie. Though, the plot line could've been written by a 5 year old, then given to a college jock to add in some Megan Fox slow motion run scenes in skimpy clothes, and mega explosions every 10 seconds, Revenge of the Fallen is what it is, an action movie.

For an action movie, it's one that takes advantage of new found technology and excessive CGI, and makes one of the coolest looking movies to date. The technology in the movie is unparalleled, making for an amazing cinematic adventure. Add in a lot of Megan Fox, and you have the best movie Micheal Bay has made since Pearl Harbour, though that's not saying much.

It's Not Worse Than Cancer...

But... It's probably about as awkward as telling your parents you have a sexually transmitted disease.

Bruno is another documentary-like comedy starring Sacha Baren Cohen in the lead role. Like Borat, Bruno makes fun of the American Stereotypical southerners. The main plot line of Bruno follows the title character (who is flamboyantly gay) trying to become famous after his hit Austrian tv show bombs. Bruno, with his assistant's assistant, Lutz, must try to find out how to be a Hollywood Superstar.

The movie itself makes Borat seem tame. All the ways that Bruno tries to become a "superstar" are crude, disgusting, and sometimes very un-necessary.

The movie however also shows how stupid Americans can truly be. The fact that there are priests who "convert" those who are gay because "it's not what Jesus wants" makes the audience do a double take because of how insecure it makes these people seem.

Overall, Bruno maybe trying to make southern America look bad but in the end, this movie basically turns into gay porn. Nice try Sacha, but maybe Bruno should stay in short sketchs on Da Ali G Show... Where it belongs

Harry Potter and the Prince of Potter Films

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince clearly stands above the rest of the Potter films. Everything from the character representations to the creative camera shots make Half-Blood Prince a smash hit.

For the first time director David Yates along with screenwriter Steve Kloves have captured the character of Harry Potter perfectly. Every aspect of Harry from the sarcastic comedy to the emotional time-bomb to the loyal friend was captured by the film. As opposed to previous films Harry seems like a decent guy instead of being stuck up and arrogant.

The movie was also helped along by Michael Gambon's best portrayal of Dumbledore to date. However the star of the show is undoubtedly Tom Felton. Felton had a very simple role playing Malfoy in the first five films, but in the Half-Blood Prince he brings complex emotion to the character. Especially in the final few scenes of the film, the Malfoy portrayed is incredibly believable.

The sets and camera shots were also very well done. New sets such as the cave, Borgin and Burkes, and Weasley's Wizard Wheezes brought some refreshing changes to the series. The cave was especially well done, with the dark, creepy feel portrayed in the book coming off very well. The film used much more handheld shots than previous films, which were used to great effect. The film seemed much more natural, and it felt more like a glimpse into the wizarding world, than a "muggle movie".

The one main negative about the film is some very poor Harry - Ginny scenes. Bonnie Wright (Ginny) is a god-awful actor, there is no other way to put it. Unfortunately she wasn't given any brilliant material to work with either which led to some disastrous flirting scenes between her and Harry. Other than that the romance, though possibly excessive, was for the most part funny and true to the books.

Half-Blood Prince is by far the darkest of any Harry Potter film to date, and these dark scenes are undoubtedly the highlight of the film. The attack on the Burrow, the cave scene, the Sectumsempra and the final sequence at Hogwarts are all very well acted and emotionally fueled. These key scenes are not shoved into the viewers face like in previous Potter films, but they are subtly done adding an element of intensity.

Finally and possibly most importantly the film flowed like a film and unlike the fourth and fifth movies in the Harry Potter series it was not a highlight package. Half-Blood Prince is by far the slowest of the movies which gives the action and dark sequences a more meaningful impact. This slow pace didn't make the movie boring at any point, but gave it a certain balance that had been lacking in the past.

Overall Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a booming success that sets up perfectly for the franchise's two part finale "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows".

Robbing a Bank Takes Less Than 140 Minutes

The 1930's thriller, Public Enemies, doesn't quite live up to expectations and it mainly comes down to the fact that the movie is long and drawn out. The entire movie spans 140 minutes (that's two hours and twenty minutes for those of you too lazy to do the math) and becomes extremely repetitive.

The storyline sticks to the true story of bank robber John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) almost too accurately to the point where it hurts the movie. The movie includes way too many gun fights. These gun fights are long, repetitive and poorly shot. Lots of the movie is shot using handheld camera angles which looks very cool except during gun fights. I want to see whats happening, not random angle changes every two seconds, with loud bangs that go on for fifteen minutes at a time. In the end you don't find out what happened during the gun fight (ie. who died) until after it is over, just because it is near impossible to keep track.

Dillinger also escapes from jail twice. The first escape is very cool and starts the movie off with a bang, but when the second escape comes around the element of surprise and excitement is gone.

The various bank robberies are also very similar. The first one or two = cool, the next few = boring.

The movie would have been a lot better if it had been cut down to one and a half hours, with less, but more intense action sequences.

With all that being said Johnny Depp is phenomenal. Unless the otherwise poor film robs him, Depp may be in line for an Oscar. He portrays Dillinger as a witty, yet conniving criminal with an edge.

In the end Depp steals the spotlight in Public Enemies, a movie which has lots of potential but falls short of what it could have been.

Romantic Comedy #1537

I have seen my fair share of romantic comedies, way more than I would like to admit. I have seen so many romantic comedies that I could probably list Meg Ryan's ten last films ... in order. I have definitely seen enough romantic comedies to know the typical format of the genre, considering it never ever changes. Now I know this is true of most genres, but for some reason romantic comedies seem especially bad. I almost wonder if there's a writing-romantic-comedies-for-dummies book out there that all screen writers use that says scene five must be a comedic incident that causes witty banter and scene fourteen must include a deep conversation about love.

Where I am getting with this is that The Proposal is not a bad movie, it's just a typical one. In the film, Ryan Reynolds plays Andrew an Alaskan born twenty-something living in New York City. Against his parents wishes he moved to New York to become a successful publisher, but has spent the last two years as a glorified secretary under the iron thumb of the cold-hearted but successful Margaret (Sandra Bullock, falling way short of Meryl Streep). Margaret however is Canadian and when her green card isn't renewed she risks being deported back to the cold barren waste land  ... unless she marries an American citizen. Before you know it Andrew and Margaret are getting married (he get's a promotion for his effort) and they're off to Alaska to meet the parents.

Due to my extensive knowledge in rom-com's I know that the fake-relationship plot line has been used in films such as What Happen's in Vegas, and Failure to Launch (both made in the last three years), so this angle is not new. Neither is the fact that the love interests at the beginning of the film hate each other, or the fact that they end up together at the end (I would've put a spoiler alert in front of that but let's face it we all knew it anyway). Even the scene where Margaret let's the inside-only pet outside was used in Meet the Parents. The jokes are partially recycled and worst of all the new, funny jokes they did have were all given away in the trailer. The movie in short is nothing new.

The good news though is that those of you that like the standard romantic comedies will love The Proposal in the same way fans of Die Hard loved Die Hard 2. This movie has an audience, a specific but dedicated audience. And it's not all bad; Betty White is awesome, and so is the house in Alaska. Some scenes are funny. the acting is good and it's not totally unrealistic (just around the same level as Die Hard ... it could happen).

So in the end I suppose all that really needs to be said about The Proposal  is that it's a romantic comedy, and not a totally bad one at that.