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oliver9184 · 12-05-2010, 04:46 AM

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) 6/10 is a silly comedy for guys along the lines of The Hangover. Three old friends and one new one are unexpectedly reunited on a skiing trip and they take a dip in the hot tub. Something magic happens and they are sent back in time to the 1980s. The three old ones were at the same ski resort as young men, and they soon find out that they need to mess around with the course of past/present events to prevent the future from going bad. It's stupid but passable fun for a zero effort watch and John Cusack always brings good vibes to anything he's in. Interestingly Cusack made Better Off Dead, high school comedy set in and around a ski town, in 1985, one year before the events of Hot Tub Time Machine are set.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 9/10. Everyone knows and loves The Shawshank Redemption including me but it still vexes me that it should be the world's favourite movie. It's been at the top of IMDB's top 250 for as long as I can remember (though it was briefly displaced by The Dark Knight - which is now at #10. That THAT film should be anywhere near the top 250 is a whole other issue). That Shawshank is so popular shows how reactionary the public generally is when it comes to movies. The film's a good one - a solid 9 - that pushes the right buttons at the right times but it isn't at all groundbreaking. I think a large part of what makes it popular is a combination of Stephen King's hazy nostalgic storytelling and Morgan Freeman's unhurried voiceovers (of which there are a lot). The first time I saw this film I couldn't stand Tim Robbins in it. I warmed to him on subsequent viewings but he's still very blank and cold a lot of the time. What struck me about Shawshank this time, and this is a very minor criticism, was how uneven it sometimes feels: lurching from blunt, unflinching and surprisingly real violence one minute to sweet, decidedly unreal sentimentality the next. Everyone in the cast does well and my particular favourite is Bob Gunton as Warden Norris.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008) 8/10. Not sure how or why I missed this when it was new, wowing everyone who watched it and winning every single Oscar in the world. I suppose I was probably just being a Grinch, preferring to harrumph to myself about such gushing and unreserved praise rather than actually bothering to see the film: cheeky plucky little slum children up against tremendous odds that somehow manage to come out on top? No thanks! I hadn't been impressed by anything director Danny Boyle had done since Trainspotting. However I liked Slumdog a lot better than I expected to even though it's very contrived and manipulative (and as subtle in its storytelling as an enraged daddy elephant is in his stampede). By the end though the outrageous story has built up enough steam that everything that happens feels justified and fine and though the ending's pretty clear from early in the film, just how it happens isn't as predictable as I thought it would be.

Michael Clayton (2007) 9/10. I started to watch this film thinking it was a period piece about Liam Neeson struggling for Ireland's struggling for independence. It wasn't that. That's Michael Collins. So I had no prior knowledge whatever of Michael Clayton. George Clooney is a fixer for a top law firm whose most senior partner (a brilliant Tom Wilkinson) has either gone quite insane or had a crisis of conscience at exactly the wrong moment. This felt a lot like one of the better John Grisham adaptations (The Firm, The Rainmaker, Runaway Jury) that don't seem to get made anymore and thanks to writer-director Tony Gilroy (writer of the Bourne movies) it's got a steely-cold life-or-death urgency usually missing from countroom thrillers. Plot ingredients bubble and some people die and eventually what results is a dénouement that some people have called a cheat. It seemed fine to me, rousing and satisfying and very VERY nicely handled by Clooney but perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention to some previous important scene.

State of Play (2009) 8/10 is another thriller by Tony Gilroy, this time it's based around newspaper journalism and politics. Russell Crowe is the journalist and Ben Affleck is the politician. Rachel McAdams is a cub reporter at the paper! What was the last film to feature a cub reporter? The jaded newspaperman and the cub reporter is the sort of classic pairing we haven't seen since black and white days. These two make it work well in a modern way. Affleck is stiff and unsympathetic as the senator but he's sort of supposed to be. It's a pretty thankless role. There's a very good and funny turn from Jason Bateman playing some sort of witness. The plot has to do with modern-day conspiracies and some new military industrial complex and that works fine.

St Elmo's Fire (1985) 7/10. Gosh weren't the eighties funny! Look at their hair! Look at Rob Lowe's reckless earring, his saxophone and his devil-may-care attitude! Look at him fighting in the bar, look at him on the roof not caring about how high it is. Oh my god. This film is about some semi-rich fools who have graduated from a college supposedly realising that they can't dick around their whole lives. They each have to carve out credible careers in the eighties, they have to GET ON and figure out for themselves what it is they want, and they have go get it, goddammit! Can all of them figure out said BS before the film ends? Will Demi Moore survive being alone in a furnitureless apartment with the window WIDE open in wintertime before her friends (ALL her friends) can rescue her? Buhhhhhh...... ugk.

Rushmore (1998) 9/10. This is an ace film that everyone should already know about. It's set mostly at a prep school but if we're not being strict it can be called a high school comedy, I think. If so it's definitely in the top 5 high school movies. It's been a few years since I've seen it though and I managed to get through the whole thing thinking that Rachel Weisz was playing Miss Cross. It's not her. It's someone else. However, someone who IS in this film is child actor Mason Gamble, playing Fischer's best friend Dirk Calloway. Gamble starred with fellow child star Spencer Treat Clark in Arlington Road (1999). Treat Clark, of course, was Lucius in Gladiator (2000), asking what are the names of the horses on the armour. Lucious's mother in Gladiator was played by Connie Nielsen who also played Treat Clark's mother in Rushmore.

Ong-Bak (2003) 6/10. Do you like FIGHTING? You do? Then you'll just love Ong-Bak. This film is about 70% about fighting and about 30% chasing and stunts. The barest possible pretext for an excuse for some antagonism is set out at the start and then our hero Tony Jaa - a bit of a modern-day Bruce Lee - is off to the big city (Bangkok), to try to find something that was stolen from somewhere. The harvest rains will not fall until that artefact is returned to the village temple! The setup is barer than that of a computer game but that's fine. The fighting happens, the baddies are bad, and you can guess what happens in the end. I know this deal. I feel weary from having been here and done that. Where Ong-Bak falls down sideways is with the sidekick. I guess the thinking was maybe that Jaa didn't have enough charisma or star quality to carry off a big action movie by himself so a "comedy" sidekick was required. But WHAT an awful sidekick! There's no better way to say it: the guy's a c!!nt. He's hateful, abrasive, constantly deceitful and utterly craven. At no time is he funny or likeable. He's more like a bad guy's cringing henchman than the hero's ally. At times Jaa looks like he knows it too, and almost leaves the guy to whatever fate he definitely deserves. The action and stunts are impressive but before long I found myself longing for the light-hearted yet bruising silliness and large-scale destruction of a Jackie Chan film.

12-05-2010, 04:46 AM	#3905 (permalink)
oliver9184 Psycho	Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) 6/10 is a silly comedy for guys along the lines of The Hangover. Three old friends and one new one are unexpectedly reunited on a skiing trip and they take a dip in the hot tub. Something magic happens and they are sent back in time to the 1980s. The three old ones were at the same ski resort as young men, and they soon find out that they need to mess around with the course of past/present events to prevent the future from going bad. It's stupid but passable fun for a zero effort watch and John Cusack always brings good vibes to anything he's in. Interestingly Cusack made Better Off Dead, high school comedy set in and around a ski town, in 1985, one year before the events of Hot Tub Time Machine are set. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) 9/10. Everyone knows and loves The Shawshank Redemption including me but it still vexes me that it should be the world's favourite movie. It's been at the top of IMDB's top 250 for as long as I can remember (though it was briefly displaced by The Dark Knight - which is now at #10. That THAT film should be anywhere near the top 250 is a whole other issue). That Shawshank is so popular shows how reactionary the public generally is when it comes to movies. The film's a good one - a solid 9 - that pushes the right buttons at the right times but it isn't at all groundbreaking. I think a large part of what makes it popular is a combination of Stephen King's hazy nostalgic storytelling and Morgan Freeman's unhurried voiceovers (of which there are a lot). The first time I saw this film I couldn't stand Tim Robbins in it. I warmed to him on subsequent viewings but he's still very blank and cold a lot of the time. What struck me about Shawshank this time, and this is a very minor criticism, was how uneven it sometimes feels: lurching from blunt, unflinching and surprisingly real violence one minute to sweet, decidedly unreal sentimentality the next. Everyone in the cast does well and my particular favourite is Bob Gunton as Warden Norris. Slumdog Millionaire (2008) 8/10. Not sure how or why I missed this when it was new, wowing everyone who watched it and winning every single Oscar in the world. I suppose I was probably just being a Grinch, preferring to harrumph to myself about such gushing and unreserved praise rather than actually bothering to see the film: cheeky plucky little slum children up against tremendous odds that somehow manage to come out on top? No thanks! I hadn't been impressed by anything director Danny Boyle had done since Trainspotting. However I liked Slumdog a lot better than I expected to even though it's very contrived and manipulative (and as subtle in its storytelling as an enraged daddy elephant is in his stampede). By the end though the outrageous story has built up enough steam that everything that happens feels justified and fine and though the ending's pretty clear from early in the film, just how it happens isn't as predictable as I thought it would be. Michael Clayton (2007) 9/10. I started to watch this film thinking it was a period piece about Liam Neeson struggling for Ireland's struggling for independence. It wasn't that. That's Michael Collins. So I had no prior knowledge whatever of Michael Clayton. George Clooney is a fixer for a top law firm whose most senior partner (a brilliant Tom Wilkinson) has either gone quite insane or had a crisis of conscience at exactly the wrong moment. This felt a lot like one of the better John Grisham adaptations (The Firm, The Rainmaker, Runaway Jury) that don't seem to get made anymore and thanks to writer-director Tony Gilroy (writer of the Bourne movies) it's got a steely-cold life-or-death urgency usually missing from countroom thrillers. Plot ingredients bubble and some people die and eventually what results is a dénouement that some people have called a cheat. It seemed fine to me, rousing and satisfying and very VERY nicely handled by Clooney but perhaps I wasn't paying close enough attention to some previous important scene. State of Play (2009) 8/10 is another thriller by Tony Gilroy, this time it's based around newspaper journalism and politics. Russell Crowe is the journalist and Ben Affleck is the politician. Rachel McAdams is a cub reporter at the paper! What was the last film to feature a cub reporter? The jaded newspaperman and the cub reporter is the sort of classic pairing we haven't seen since black and white days. These two make it work well in a modern way. Affleck is stiff and unsympathetic as the senator but he's sort of supposed to be. It's a pretty thankless role. There's a very good and funny turn from Jason Bateman playing some sort of witness. The plot has to do with modern-day conspiracies and some new military industrial complex and that works fine. St Elmo's Fire (1985) 7/10. Gosh weren't the eighties funny! Look at their hair! Look at Rob Lowe's reckless earring, his saxophone and his devil-may-care attitude! Look at him fighting in the bar, look at him on the roof not caring about how high it is. Oh my god. This film is about some semi-rich fools who have graduated from a college supposedly realising that they can't dick around their whole lives. They each have to carve out credible careers in the eighties, they have to GET ON and figure out for themselves what it is they want, and they have go get it, goddammit! Can all of them figure out said BS before the film ends? Will Demi Moore survive being alone in a furnitureless apartment with the window WIDE open in wintertime before her friends (ALL her friends) can rescue her? Buhhhhhh...... ugk. Rushmore (1998) 9/10. This is an ace film that everyone should already know about. It's set mostly at a prep school but if we're not being strict it can be called a high school comedy, I think. If so it's definitely in the top 5 high school movies. It's been a few years since I've seen it though and I managed to get through the whole thing thinking that Rachel Weisz was playing Miss Cross. It's not her. It's someone else. However, someone who IS in this film is child actor Mason Gamble, playing Fischer's best friend Dirk Calloway. Gamble starred with fellow child star Spencer Treat Clark in Arlington Road (1999). Treat Clark, of course, was Lucius in Gladiator (2000), asking what are the names of the horses on the armour. Lucious's mother in Gladiator was played by Connie Nielsen who also played Treat Clark's mother in Rushmore. Ong-Bak (2003) 6/10. Do you like FIGHTING? You do? Then you'll just love Ong-Bak. This film is about 70% about fighting and about 30% chasing and stunts. The barest possible pretext for an excuse for some antagonism is set out at the start and then our hero Tony Jaa - a bit of a modern-day Bruce Lee - is off to the big city (Bangkok), to try to find something that was stolen from somewhere. The harvest rains will not fall until that artefact is returned to the village temple! The setup is barer than that of a computer game but that's fine. The fighting happens, the baddies are bad, and you can guess what happens in the end. I know this deal. I feel weary from having been here and done that. Where Ong-Bak falls down sideways is with the sidekick. I guess the thinking was maybe that Jaa didn't have enough charisma or star quality to carry off a big action movie by himself so a "comedy" sidekick was required. But WHAT an awful sidekick! There's no better way to say it: the guy's a c!!nt. He's hateful, abrasive, constantly deceitful and utterly craven. At no time is he funny or likeable. He's more like a bad guy's cringing henchman than the hero's ally. At times Jaa looks like he knows it too, and almost leaves the guy to whatever fate he definitely deserves. The action and stunts are impressive but before long I found myself longing for the light-hearted yet bruising silliness and large-scale destruction of a Jackie Chan film.