According to a tip on AICN, Johnny Depp has been attached to the role of the Mad Hatter in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland movie (coming in 2010).

Well, DUH. Could it have ever been anyone else? Tim Burton doesn’t audition. He just watches his old movies to cast his next one.

That means that the Queen of Hearts will DEFINITELY be played by Lisa Marie.

Oh wait…I forgot…He’s boning Helena Bonham Carter now. Scratch that. Helena Bonham Carter will get the job.

Sorry Lisa! If you’re looking for work, I just heard they’re opening a new Sonic location in the Puget Sound area!

July 30, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

It’s possible that I was influenced by the majesty of IMAX. The six story screen certainly brings you right smack dab into the middle of the Gotham. But even without the enveloping surround sound and the large-as-life cityscapes, The Dark Knight is really damned good. That’s what everyone is going to tell you. Because it’s an irrefutable truth. If you liked Tim Burton’s Batman, Batman Begins, or pretty much any aspect of the Batman oeuvre, you will not be disappointed by The Dark Knight

With Batman Begins Christopher Nolan was just getting warmed up. We all knew the man had an ace up his sleeve by the name of Heath Ledger. But he didn’t stop there. He traded in his crappy Katie Holmes card for a Maggie Gyllenhaal, to create a winning hand which already included Christian Bale and the glorious Gary Oldman (playing soon-to-be Commissioner Gordon with all the heart and internal conflict that role requires). Morgan Freeman’s Lucius Fox is fleshed out, tag-teaming with Michael Caine’s Alfred as Bruce Wayne’s moral touchstone.

The replacement of Katie Holmes was completely necessary. She was the big honking blemish of Batman Begins, walking through scenes like a necromanced cardboard cutout. “Step Aside. I am a District Attorney,” she said flatly and we couldn’t help but recall Keanu Reeves’ delivery of a similar line in Point Break. She had no chemistry with Christian Bale (because only Andrew McCarthy can have chemistry with a mannequin). But Nolan had the wherewithal to cast Gyllenhaal. And suddenly, Rachel Dawes was a real girl. She had emotions and witty things to say. And most of all, chemistry with not one – but two male leads. What a breath of fresh air she is.

And then there’s Heath. Once the trailers hit, I don’t think anybody doubted that he was going to nail the Joker role. The over-hyped talk of Oscar noms gave me pause. How could it not? It would be so cheap to give him a posthumous Oscar when a comic book film would never be considered for such things under ordinary circumstances. But he was a mean Joker in every sense of the word. He was simultaneously scary and hilarious. He embodied the character full stop. He made someone like the Joker a real-world possibility. He certainly gave Jack Nicholson a run for his money (not that such things are difficult, these days).

But lets not forget the other villain of The Dark Knight: Two Face. Gone are the days when multiple Batman villains gather together in each others’ lairs and cackle and scheme. Two Face doesn’t revel in his evil. He hates it. It reminds him of everything he lost. But he is no longer in control of his own destiny. Like Anton Chigurh, he obeys the outcome of a coin toss. This makes him more frightening than a room full of Batman villains. Save the Joker, of course.

Thank you, Christopher Nolan, for breathing life into Batman once again. Fantastic actors are playing comic book characters straight and for realism. I really like this trend. Let’s hope it sticks.

The Dark Knight is in theaters now. You pretty much have to see it. Spring for the IMAX if you can.

July 17, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: 3 Comments

I feel the need to refute every other review out there for this film. The majority of reviews are raving about Hellboy II: The Golden Army. But the reasons they love it are the same reasons I think it fell flat. Guillermo Del Toro is a fan-boy director. He is a 13-year-old boy trapped in the body of an arrested adult. Sometimes that works. But in this case, it did not.

The plot is completely nonsensical. One of the last of the albino elves wants to re-raise an army of gold transformers in order to destroy all humans and Hellboy must stop him. Fair enough, but I have questions. Why did the Albino Prince wait so long to attempt this? Was he just working out one day in his lair next to the Subway and decided he was done with humanity? His plan seems to have several steps involving unleashing various monsters upon the Earth. He must also find his twin sister who has the last piece of the crown with which to control the Golden Army. But according to her they have a psychic connection so he can just find her whenever he wants. So why does all of this take so damned long? Just so Abe the fish man can fall doomedly in love with the Albino Princess? So Hellboy and Liz Sherman can have that cliche movie argument where she is pregnant but instead of just telling him like a normal person would, she gets all pissy and throws fire balls?

No. It’s so little Guillermo can make more creatures. CREATURES! OMG! CREATURES! Look at them all! Goblins apparently come in all shapes and sizes. There are some flat-faced dudes too. And some small leachy things. And tumor babies. And this guy with big teeth and no eyes. And a big-assed Treebeard/Godzilla hybrid…and…and…Where was I? Oh yeah. In the middle of a movie. I guess we can have the bad guy battle Hellboy now. He’ll do all those flippy moves we saw him do earlier. But this time it will be against HELLBOY so it will feel fresh and new.

Also, why did the Albino Prince sacrifice the LAST of the Elementals when he knew that Hellboy would have to fight it? So he could get even madder at the humans? Did he think he could win Hellboy over by telling him, after the thing had destroyed half the city, that it was the last of its kind? Albino Prince should take those odds to the roulette table and stop messing with endangered species.

Still more questions: Why the hell do the Dream Team give Jeffrey Tambor such a hard time? As far as I can tell, the man is just trying to do his job directing the B.P.R.D. He has some pretty valid points about Hellboy being insolent. I guess no one likes their boss. But really. Give the guy a break. What are they going to do instead? Open a bakery? Work on their doctorates?

OK, so it wasn’t ALL bad. There were a few shining moments. Ron Perlman is at the top of his game any time Hellboy acts like Hellboy, accepting cigars as motivation and drinking beer. One scene involving drunk Hellboy and Abe talking about women and singing Barry Manilow was a highlight. Though it definitely felt like product placement for Hellboy to have a locker filled with Tecate LIGHT. That’s right. Those silver cans sheath the low calorie version of the classic Mexican beer. I love a cool, refreshing Tecate myself, but I greatly doubt a candy enthusiast like Hellboy would bother with light beer.

Product placement aside, those moments felt like a callback to the comics. But a Hellboy movie should be ALL callback. Del Toro is too easily distracted by his creature-making abilities to bother with a script. And America is too dazzled by his world to pay attention to why we are there in the first place. Why am I the only one who sees this?

Man. I need a Tecate.

July 16, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

I know that, as usual, America probably won’t agree with me on this point, but “Hancock” is not very good. It COULD have been good. It was certainly a cool concept: Reluctant superhero with amnesia drifts through life bungling rescues and generally being disliked until he somehow becomes motivated to improve. Even the Soderbergh-esque docu-style filming COULD have been cool. But it was too noticeable, taking us out of the story every time the camera “artfully” refocused or got all up in someone’s nose.

Charlize Theron usually puts forth a decent performance, but in this case she could have been any ho-hum blonde actress playing the wife of a do-gooder PR man with SECRETS. Even when her much foreshadowed mystery is revealed, she doesn’t get any deeper. Instead, they substitute character development with lots and lots of dark eyeliner. Sam Raimi already tried this.

Jason Bateman, playing the aforementioned PR man, is also squandered. He is known for excelling in the awkward reaction shot arena. But here, they keep the camera far away from him during the moments that count and instead stick them into Will Smith’s constant “Whatchoo Talking About Willis” mug.

Most of the jokes are juvenile and repeated ad nauseam. I liked the old “insult triggering violence” gag better the first 100 times I saw it in the Back to the Future movies. I can’t for the life of me figure out why that one kid has a French accent. Is it ONLY so that he can be named Michel? So that for 5 minutes it sounds like Jason Bateman’s son is being beaten up by a girl? I bet that it is. And it’s a crappy joke. In fact, the whole movie seems to be suffering from some sort of an identity crisis. As a comedy, it’s not very funny. As a sci-fi drama, it’s lazy. The big twist is hinted at for too long and then rushed so that the big smashy ending can happen.

Also, (SPOILER ALERT) why is it that people who are supposedly hundreds of years old talk like they are from…I don’t know…modern day WEST PHILADELPHIA?(End Spoiler).

Every good idea in this film is half-assed. Allegedly, the script was floating around Hollywood for years. Too bad it didn’t float to a re-write desk.

We had the chocolate chips, the flour, the sugar and the eggs. But somebody forgot the baking powder and we ended up with a big pile of mush called “Hancock”. It doesn’t matter though. America loves them some Will Smith cookies. As for me, I’m on a diet.

July 8, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

Here’s a shocker. I actually liked “The Incredible Hulk”.

In general, with these sorts of movies, it helps to have low expectations. In this case, they were as such because of all the whining I’d read from star Edward Norton about how all the best scenes were cut. I recognize that Eddy wasn’t in and therefore probably hadn’t seen any of the action sequences, and, as a result, had a very different image in his mind as to what the final picture would look like. But surely he must have READ THE SCRIPT which no doubt contained stage direction such as “HULK notices abandoned police cruiser, smashes it in half with his fist and then uses each half to beat the pulp out of TIM ROTH MONSTER”. Furthermore, I find it difficult to believe that the cut scenes were SO TRANSCENDENT that this VERY comic book-esque film would, with their inclusion, somehow be transformed into high art. There is just no way.

So at the start of the film, after a fun little montage which catches us up to speed, we join Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) living a quiet life in Brazil, watching Portuguese Sesame Street and taking lessons on how to make your stomach concave. He has also taken a job in a GREEN soda bottling plant which primarily employs brutes and supermodels. All the while he is messengering with a scientist back home as they work on attempting to cure his affliction. His location is compromised when some of his blood gets into one of the sodas, thus poisoning Brazilian Soda enthusiast, Stan Lee. Bruce Banner is on the run again! Teaming up with his estranged girlfriend, Betty (Liv Tyler), Bruce must find his scientist friend and cure himself before Betty’s daddy gets a hold of him.

Ironically for Norton, the biggest problem with the film is its attempt to follow in the footsteps of other comic book films of late, and make this fantastical story somehow relevant to the real world. “X-Men” works on an allegorical level. “Iron Man” and “Batman” are almost plausible. But a scrawny dude exposed to lethal levels of gamma radiation, who survives but gains the pesky side-effect of, whenever he gets angry, scared or excited, turning into a 9-foot-tall ball of testosterone? Who is also GREEN? Because of the radiation? I’m sorry to burst your bubble but THAT COULD NEVER REALLY HAPPEN. So stop trying to act like an IFC Films-approved version of the Hulk story is possible. Stick with the “Hulk Smash” which, in this case, works really well.

Unlike the first attempt at a Hulk movie, which pretty much everyone agrees sucked, “The Incredible Hulk” really captures the spirit of what the Hulk is like when he’s all Hulked out. While he’s a completely different entity than the mild-mannered Bruce Banner and certainly not what you would call an intellectual, he’s not a monster either. He knows who the bad guys are and he smashes accordingly. At no time do we think he is going to hurt Betty or any other creature of light (like, say, kittens). But if you have evil in your heart, Hulk knows it and you are screwed. I think this is an important point that was completely missed in the first movie. It explains why Hulk eventually becomes part of the Avengers. Bruce Banner yammers on about finding a cure and living a normal life yet he is compelled to help people. Deep down he knows he has a calling which will make his life complex but ultimately more meaningful than would just boning Liv Tyler and playing with beakers.

Without a doubt there are many snicker-inducing moments in The Incredible Hulk. For instance, the prevalence of the color green. I’m no scientist, but I have a hard time believing than gamma radiation poisoning (even this special variety) turns your blood cells green and you know you are cured when your blood cells once again turn red. Also, did Bruce Banner turn down jobs at other bottling plants who were making orange or grape soda? Is General Ross really a Midori Sour man?

What’s more, let’s talk about pants. I appreciate their attempt to explain how Hulk, whatwith his 80 inch waist, manages to keep his hulkhood covered by the pants of a much smaller man. Bruce Banner buys elastic waist pants! But it seems like after he buys some Brazilian hemp trousers, he reverts to the Double Denim look pretty quickly, even scoffing at Betty when she bring him the classic purple sweat pant of comic book Hulk. At the climax of the film, Banner is definitely wearing well-fitting JEANS that remain mostly in tact when he hulks out. They do MAKE stretch jeans, but the size difference is still too vast. Bruce Banner would have to rock the hip-hop-boxer-flash to accommodate the metamorphosis.

These are small criticisms, however, of an overall enjoyable film. Liv Tyler as Betty is sweet and likable (albeit unconvincing as a molecular biologist); a welcome replacement to the cold, wooden Academy Award Winner Jennifer Connelly. She brings much genuine affection to her character’s complicated relationship with Bruce. You really feel for her when she begs her father to stop trying to kill Hulk and when Bruce insists on jumping out of a plane with uncertain results instead of staying behind and being her boyfriend.

Likewise, Norton adequately channels the tortured altruist that Bill Bixby brought to the character on the TV show. Tim Blake Nelson is super character-actory as the over-exuberant scientist who may or may not have found a cure for hulkism. Tim Roth is always at his most compelling when playing a villain. In this case he uses the desperation of an aging solider as the motivation for undergoing experiments which would give him Hulk-like abilities and later cause him to ravage the city in a fairly awesome smash battle.

In short, “The Incredible Hulk” is a smashing good time. Especially if you hate helicopters as much as Hulk does.

June 23, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment

I know I am late to the Indiana Jones/Crystal Skull party and a review almost a MONTH later is pretty irrelevant but it’s my party and I’ll blog if I want to.

So why did I put off seeing this movie? For starters, I knew…I just KNEW that it was going to be a profound disappointment. So I waited. And waited. And when I could wait no longer, I saw it.

And it was…“National Treasure”. Think about it. Replace Harrison Ford with Nicolas Cage, Shia LaBeouf with that snarky side-kick who also played the mentally challenged boy in “Gigli”. Swap Karen Allen with that kind of dull blonde lady whose name escapes me and then pretend El Dorado is hidden somewhere in the midwest. It’s “National effing Treasure”. IT IS!

Of course, I LOVED the “National Treasure” movies. But let’s be honest. They aren’t…shall we say…GOOD. They are profoundly silly. Interestingly, critics were calling them the “Indiana Jones” revival. In this case, the student has become the master and the master has regressed. They took their 25 year old franchise and turned it into a “National Treasure” fan film. The biggest problem with this is that Harrison Ford is no Nicolas Cage.

Don’t get me wrong. Harrison Ford…or at least Indiana Jones (and Space Indy, Han Solo) were my first childhood crush(es). I’m fairly certain that his characters affected, at least physically, the type of man I am attracted to as an adult: Scruffy looking (who’s scruffy lookin’?!) fellows with a perpetual 5:00 shadow, glistening with sweat and a bit of chest hair poking out the top of an unkempt dress shirt. A dry wit and a bit of an ego don’t hurt either. Especially if they can save your ass from Nazis or voodoo and sweep you off your feet. Ah…Venice.

In contrast, while I adore the acting of Nicolas Cage, I don’t find him or any of his characters the least bit attractive. Sure, “Wild at Heart’s”, Sailor Ripley is romantic as hell, but he’s already losing quite a bit of hair at such a young tender age. And his snake skin jacket may be a symbol of his individuality and belief in person freedom but…it’s a jacket made of SNAKE SKIN. Tell me…was it a CORN snake?

So the problem with Indy 4 is that Indy/Ford (at this point they are interchangeable) is just TOO DAMN SERIOUS to pull off the cartoonish feat of surviving a nuclear blast at ground zero by hiding inside a fridge while the gophers from Caddy Shack snicker in the distance. The monkey and giant ant shenanigans and even reluctantly gripping a CG snake to get pulled out of quicksand by the Fonz…those things are for a different sort of actor and a different sort of movie. NOT for Henry Jones Jr. He is supposed to be the STRAIGHT MAN. The only jokes he make should either occur during or result in a fist fight.

I suppose I’m not surprised though. My heart was already broken by the Films That Shall Not Be Named. I knew that George Lucas had lost all his marbles. I hoped that Spielberg would reign him in. But he’s not so great anymore either. It makes sense. As you age, your perspective shifts. You become detached and you can no longer relate to the young. You can’t understand what they want and you don’t really CARE what they want either. You have earned the right to do what you feel because you have been around the block, damnit! What this scene needs is a few more hilarious animals. CAN WE GET SOME MORE MONKEYS IN HERE PLEASE?!

Their treasure wasn’t gold. It was gophers. Gophers were their treasure.

June 17, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: 1 Comment

There is a certain target audience for a movie like “Camille”. It is the story of a simple southern girl named Camille (Sienna Miller) who convinces a reluctant petty thief named Silias (James Franco) to marry her. They take off on a honeymoon road trip to Niagara Falls, but, along the way, there is a accident. Luckily, it is a MAGICAL accident, and Camille winds up becoming the most beeyootiful zombie that evar unlived.

Given the zombie element to this love story, you might thing the target audience is more Fangoria than Fairy Tale But you would be, as I was, sorely mistaken. As someone who ordinarily steers as clear as possible from overly sentimental Hallmark crap like “Maid of Honor”, it takes a quirky element to get me to watch anything baring the “romantic comedy” label. For example, a machine that erases memories, or, say, a woman who comes back from the dead. However, the writer of this fluffy little torture piece squandered every opportunity to make an original film. At his point, I’m pretty convinced that he stole the idea from someone else but then had no idea how to properly execute it.

For those of you who loved “Runaway Bride” or think Sienna Miller is just SOOO pretty, this movie is definitely for you. Never mind if you “can’t watch scary movies” or “think zombies are gross”. Trust me. There “gore” in this thing is strictly PG. The presumably dead Camille only grows more radiant as the film wears on. Wouldn’t Silias’ falling for Camille been more romantic if she’d been losing appendages and turning green? And no, a little broken finger under a glove or a tiny bloodless bullet wound doesn’t count. Also, that bitch really needs to stop taking her ring off on moving motorcycles and over open drains.

What could have been a cool embalming scene becomes a boring, soft-lit sponge bath. All the potential hilarity of a rotting living dead girl is simply…missing. Don’t even get me started on the dialog. Let’s just say there’s plenty of people believing in other people and true love prevailing and junk.

Leave a beautiful corpse.

By the way, what the hell is UP with David Carradine? Is he senile in real life? His role as a rambling mystical circus cowboy doesn’t make any sense. Surely somewhere they are making an updated film version of Kung Fu starring Will Farrell or Vince Vaughn. Give the poor man a cameo. He is clearly hurting for work.

As for me, I’m going to watch a well-executed undead love story to try and wipe this experience from my memory.

May 29, 2008
Categories: Filmpinions . Tags: thereel . Author: Baxter . Comments: Leave a comment