Sam Saw: Pineaple Express

Here we go. Hit the jump for my review of Pineapple Express.

I'm going to cut right to the chase. Pineapple Express disappointed me. I had high hopes for this, the thousandth Judd Apatow film to come out in the last couple years. The trailer was great...I suppose mostly due to MIA's song, but great none the less. Also, the fact that Forgetting Sara Marshall was so good only raised my expectations. So, when I sat down in the theater to see the 12:01 showing on Wednesday night I was expecting to laugh.
I did laugh...twice. I laughed once during the Love Guru, so thats not saying much...I was really trying to forget I ever saw that abomination of a movie, and you know what, the fact that Pineapple Express made me think of it makes me like it (Pineapple Express) even less.

Lets do a quick summary. The humor: almost exclusively tired "stoner jokes". Ha...Ha...we get it, when you smoke weed you laugh at things that are only sort of funny and you get hungry...ugh. I've referenced Ebert before and I'll do it again; "the movie makes the mistake of thinking it is funny that they sing and dance; next level thinking would have suggested their song and dance be funny itself". Replace, "sing and dance" with smoke weed, and "their song and dance" with what they do when they are high...Done.

On to the plot. It's a complete throw away. Seth Rogan's character witnessing a drug murder was a good start, but after that, the plot goes nowhere. So much time is spent on watching Rogan and Franco sit around and do nothing that there is no time to develop the rest of the story. None of the other characters get enough screen time for us to learn anything about them, so in the end most of them devolve into generic villains. Even Rosey Perez's character is totally lifeless. She has attitude and spunk which make her unique, but none of those qualities made it past the cutting room floor. The fact that the main plot is so thin makes me wonder why they spent so much time with the side plot of Seth Rogan having a girlfriend in high school. Honestly, that plot line perplexes me. Are they using it to try to make him look like a loser for dating someone so young...Apparently not, because they repeatedly have surrounding characters praise him for his relationship, and even more so, the high school kid's he run into basically think hes a cool guy. Are they using it as a tool for humor...nope. In a very "Guess Whose Coming to Dinner" scene, Seth Rogan has diner with his girlfriends parents. Okay you've got a stoner boyfriend who has a dead-end job, tight assed parents, and a 7 year age difference...that sounds like a slam dunk for and awkward/funny situation. The result...one joke.

That brings me back to my confusion with this plot line. There's almost no attempt at humor during most of the interactions between Rogan and his girlfriend, but they don't give it enough depth make us care about the relationship, so in the end it ends up just being a waste of time. Even more so the movie ends with the plot line unresolved....What the hell....so much time is wasted on that whole story, so why the hell can't they spend two seconds to tell me whether or not Rogen and his squeeze stay together...ugh..they even got me to waste a paragraph and half talking about it.

Another aspect of the film that threw me off was the action. Action comedy can work. Simon Peg's Hot Fuzz proves this (also see Beverly Hills Cop 1, yes it was funny in the 80's, 48 hours. ..you get it). The scenes with action in Hot Fuzz are funny because Peg has developed the townspeople so much as docile, law mowing, well mannered folk that when they pick up shotgun's and World War 2 machine guns and start shooting it's hilarious. In Pineapple express the main action sequence takes place mostly between a gang of Koreans and the main villain's nameless thugs, so what we end up watching is a bunch of characters we know nothing about shooting each other. For a few minutes there I had forgotten I was watching a comedy; It just felt like a crappy B action flick. My friend actually fell asleep in the seat next to me, and when I looked over and saw him with his mouth agape and head slumped back, drool on his lips, I wasn't surprised.

Half Baked got it right. If you're going to do stoner humor make it outrageous. Yes, I know that when you get high you can't fly out of a window or hallucinate crazy things, but those things are funny. I once heard someone say, it doesn't matter how true to the source material you are if your movie isn't good. Pineapple Express is probably the closest I've seen a comedy come to actually portraying what it's like when you're high, but guess what, people don't go to the movies to see accuracy, they go to be entertained. Accuracy belongs in documentaries, procedural trial movies and tear jerkers, not in comedy.

C -

Henry's Top 100: #52 - Donnie Brasco

I'm honored to have my father, Theo Mayer, explain why Donnie Brasco is such a great movie.



The good American gangster movies all play on the seduction of evil. In westerns, criminally stupid glorifications of Jesse James aside, the bad guys are just that--having swagger and power and nearly always a good run of success, but one-dimensional, gratuitously brutal, and a little dirty, and having bravado but no true courage. In film noir, there may be a dame who draws the detective or reporter protagonist to the dark side, and the protagonist lays no claim to be on a higher moral plane than anyone else, but in the end the true criminals make it almost impossible even for the determinedly amoral detective not to do the right thing. In the comic book world, the villains often have an eccentric style and sardonic humor that makes them far more entertaining than the hero's, and sometimes a great lair even if you can't imagine them having the patience to have overseen it's construction, but typically they are given to some large repellent gesture that keeps them out of the range of sympathy. Action movie villains are not so different from comic book villains except that they tend to have European accents and less entertaining lairs. But gangster movies, whether morality tales in which crime ultimately leads to electrocution like the James Cagney classics, amoral tales like Pulp Fiction where the best anyone ends up is TFBUNDY, or to movies like The Godfather in which crime does seem to pay, as long as the criminals' run lasts (and sometimes even after it ends--why else would Kevin Garnett's triumphant cry after finally winning an NBA title 12 years into his career be a Cagney' character's last words as he proceeds to execution?), there is a seduction going on, always with the viewer, sometimes with a lead character.Donnie Brasco is one of the best movies that plays that seduction out as a struggle within a lead character.

Johnny Depp goes under cover in the mob, seems at times on the brink of turning, but ultimately brings down the world of the small-time capo who may be his only friend. This is a terrific plotline which happens to be based very closely on a true story but reads like pure fiction, and the movie has some great set pieces -- fuhgetaboutit, the prove-yourself Fugazy scene that in some sense prefigures DiCaprio's cranberry juice tour de force in The Departed.



But what makes this movie special are two things: First, the seduction does not come from glamour, money, power,women, or weaponry. The mob life depicted is a relatively seedy one clouded by fear of failure, thwarted ambitions, and botched jobs, kept alive by dogged pursuit of small-time crime yielding cash in paper sacks. The seduction comes quite simply from the sense of belonging--the loyalty, the language, the going out on a limb just to prove you belong; and from the fatherly interest and pride the Pacino character takes in Brasco. You get the feeling that these elements of the milieu respond to some need in Brasco, but that he would resist those impulses relatively easily if the straight world did not continually let him down. His handlers in law enforcement leave him in when he should be out and then want to pull him out when it is critical he stay in. His wife ceases to recognize him. His character retains a moral core but becomes savage on the outside, something like the lamb Chirin who transforms his character to match that of the wolf that killed his mother in the starkly allegorical Japanese children's cartoon Ringing Bell. The tension within him builds so vividly that when Brasco ultimately does the right thing and arranges the bust, the viewer sees it as a betrayal.

The second thing that makes this movie special is Al Pacino's performance, to this viewer his best on screen. Pacino has been a master of the the slow burn, and the sudden explosion into lip-quivering rage or the big speech, since he was a young stage actor. He does it brilliantly in the right role, as in Glengarry Glen Ross, Devil's Advocate, Dick Tracy. He uses the same repertoire to poor effect in other movies like And Justice For All. It his hard to argue that anyone controls and exploits these skills better than Coppola in the Godfather movies, but it is still the same repertoire. But in Donnie Brasco we see something else. Pacino accepts the essential smallness of the role and scales everything down so that he can move us with the character's emotional changes rather than bully us with his bombast or violence. H is like a Willy Loman of the underworld, but his disappointment is in some way's more compelling than Loman's because his effort to bring his surrogate son along in the world are more effectual than Loman's confused bag of unrealistic expectations.

Let's not get carried away, though. This is a mob thriller, not high art. But a good one.

Henry's Top 100: Number 53 - Braveheart

This entry is from my uncle Craig. And he nails it.



BRAVEHEART


SCRIPT/MOVIE PITCH TO MEL GIBSON CIRCA 1992:

Screenwriter (SW): Mel, I have the perfect movie for you…

Mel Gibson (MG): Fire away mate.

SW: OK, you play a humble but heroic man who fights to free your country from evil, murderous and peevish Brits during the American Revo… wait, sorry, Mel, that’s a script for The Patriot. I meant to say you would play the Scottish freedom fighter William Wallace who fought the oppressive British in 14th century Scotland. The movie will be called “Braveheart.”

MG: I like the concept. Is there torture in the movie?

SW: Yes. You get tortured extravagantly and best of all; you have a mullet and wear a kilt.

MG: Count me in!

Braveheart was created to be an enduring epic movie with heavy atmospherics, rousing music and a splash of history. For the most part, it works very well. Thanks to Henry’s encouragement (and his invitation to review the movie), I watched this 2h57m film again in its entirety for the first time since the 1995 premiere. As a winner of five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Cinematography, Make-up, Sound Editing, Director), the movie has aged better than its best director/producer, Mel Gibson.


Randall Wallace, a distant relative of William Wallace, was inspired to write the movie after visiting Scotland. (He did not write The Patriot – although the movies are peculiarly similar in their use of plot devices, the British, character motivation, etc.). The historical basis for the movie is vague since it is unknown whether Wallace was a verifiable hero or a freewheeling opportunist. Not surprisingly, Wallace has prevailed as mythic hero in Scotland and on celluloid.


The movie begins in grim, late 13th century Scotland. Young William Wallace’s commoner father is killed in a battle with the forces of “Longshanks,” the ruthless Edward I, my favorite character in the film, played by Patrick McGoohan. William then becomes the ward of his Uncle Argyle (Brian Cox in a brief cameo) who sports a dead fish left eyeball. Despite his ophthalmologic shortcomings, Argyle sees to educating William in Latin, French and martial arts. William returns years later to appear at a Scottish wedding where he reunites with former friends and the now stunning woman (Murron) who gave him a flower at his father’s funeral. All’s well with the Eloi like Scots who live an idyllic life with flower wreathed hair until the malevolent English invade the celebrants. The English “nobles” impose Longshanks’ “prima nocta” which gives them the right to deflower the newlywed wife on her wedding night. This law prompts William and Murron to secretly marry. Shortly after the marriage, Murron is set upon and captured by the equivalent of medieval Deliverance rejects. The cape wearing British magistrate with a bad fort summarily executes her as an example to the lowly Scots. Murron’s senseless death radicalizes Wallace and brings out the Ninja that resides within. From here, the movie takes off as he and his compatriots annihilate the murderous magistrate and his lecherous thugs.

Over a period of years Wallace builds a large guerilla force that defeats and outwits the English, eventually sacking York in northern England. Wallace proves to be the savage equivalent of Longshanks when he sends the king his nephew’s head in a basket, the former Governor of York. This brutal act shocks and infuriates King Edward who in a fit of rage throws his effeminate son’s putatative boyfriend out a window to his death. (Gibson might have regretted throwing a gay man out the window after it created a firestorm of controversy and wished he had thrown out a Jew-given what we know about his drunken anti-semitic tirade a few years ago).

A subplot in Braveheart is the wrangling for power within a kingless Scotland. Scottish nobles and Robert the Bruce scheme to support Wallace and their own interests. Eventually, the Scottish nobles and Bruce betray Wallace, leading to his capture, torture and death. Robert the Bruce’s father is treacherous and leprous, with unpleasant weeping skin lesions. He proves to be the Machiavellian equal of Longshanks. A tertiary subplot involves Wallace’s romantic involvement with Edward II lovelorn beautiful French wife who acts as a go between for Longshanks. The future queen torments the dying Longshanks with the knowledge that she carries Wallace’s unborn child. (History definitely does not support this possibility although Edward II was eventually executed after a few years on the thrown leading the queen to ascend to power).

Technically, Braveheart is well done and is free of CGI. The script is no Henry V, though it tries. Battle scenes are graphic but well choreographed with plenty of head squishing, limb lopping close-ups of gore. Wallace’s extended torture and death scene purposely echoes the Crucifixion of Jesus, decidedly religious symbolism. The larger historical themes are, for the most part, accurate. Despite its length, Braveheart still holds up as powerful and effective filmmaking.

Best/favorite scene: Longshanks casual diabolism using his archers against his own men as they fight with the Scots:

Longshanks: Archers.

English Commander: I beg pardon sire. Won't we hit our own troops?

Longshanks: Yes... but we'll hit theirs as well. We have reserves. Attack.

Henry's Top 100: Number 54 - The Shawshank Redemption

I have some guest reviews for the next few entries. This one is from my best friend Elena...

The Shawshank Redemption is the 1994 movie written and directed by Frank Darabont (The Green Mile), based off of a book by Stephen King,
and starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman.

I'm not going to summarize the plot because this is a movie that I think every one in the U.S. has scene thanks to the spawn of Satan Ted Turner that decided playing this movie on TNT every over day was an awesome idea.

This is the first movie I remember seeing that was clearly only meant for adults (and I don't mean that in the "bow-chicka-wow-wow" sense of the phrase). I was probably 11 when I saw it. I loved it immediately.

Before reading the following I have a quick disclaimer: Writing a review for such an iconic movie is extremely difficult because there isn't really anything new to say on the topic…. OK back to the review.

Sitting down a couple of days ago to re-watch the movie after a 4-year hiatus (thanks to the d-baggish TNT channel). I was struck by the extreme brutality of Clancy Brown's Captain Hadley and the crushing sadness of Brooks' post prison solitude that eventually led to his suicide.

When I was younger and first saw the movie it was the moments of levity that made me love the movie. I thought of it as a movie that showed the way people could form deep friendships in a terrifically brutal environment. And in some ways that is what the movie still means to me. Ultimately however now that I'm older I see the movie as
a portrayal of the colossal failure of our prison system to prepare
inmates for the world post-incarceration.

Brooks' and, to some degree, Red's institutionalization due to their loss of hope is the true tragedy Shawshank is trying to convey to its audience.

When described that way the movie sound ridiculously depressing and cheesy à la The Green Mile. But for those who've seen the movie that couldn't be farther from the truth.

With Tim Robbins as Andy Dufresne, Morgan Freeman (foreshadowing his career as a voice over actor) as Red, Bon Gunton as Warden Norton and a fabulous supporting cast this movie is one of the best in the past 20 years. There isn't much more to say on the subject, so it's time to discuss the best scene.

Most people would say that the best scene is the escape or the record playing moment. My personal favorite is the scene when they're cataloging the newly arrived books for the library.
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Elena did a great job describing why this movie is special to so many people. If you somehow haven't managed to catch it on DVD or TNT...you're life will be a better, more hope-filled expierence, if you watch Shawshank.

Henry Saw: Tropic Thunder

I still have problems with writing about comedies so this will be a short one. But in a nutshell: It's fucking funny


I guess I could talk about how witty Tropic Thunder is when it comes to spoofing Hollywood...or how Great Robert Downey Jr. is (how good a summer has he had)? Or how smart the movie is despite how fucking dumb it seems...but none of this matters. You have to see the movie for one reason.

And it shocks me that I'm typing this...

But you have to see Tropic Thunder Because of Tom Cruise.

You read that right. Tom, Goddamn Scientology Crazy, Cruise.

He's amazing in Tropic Thunder. Hilarious. Uproarious. Astonishing. Brilliant. Disgusting. Perfect.

In Risky Business, Cruise's character's motto is "Sometimes you just gotta say, "What the fuck". It's my friend's Juice favorite movie quote. One's gotta assume that Tom took some of that character's advice when making Tropic Thunder because he goes WAY out there. But by golly does it work. See this movie. Don't expect greatness, don't expect anything. But see this film. If you don't appreciate what Tom Cruise does in Tropic Thunder...then just don't come back to this site. Cause it's not for you.

Grade: B+

Best Scene? Tom Cruise dancing...both times...

Henry Saw: The Dark Knight

It's damn good. Click below for the full review

So...first things first...I obviously haven't done anything for the site in quite awhile. Totally my bad. No excuse. Will try to do better.

As for The Dark Knight...well I've now seen in three times. Not totally because I think it is that awesome but because I promised certain people I'd see it with them and...there you go. So what do I think of the "second most successful film ever made" after three viewings? Well as I said, it's damn good. It's really, really good. But it's not perfect.

To start out with - Heath Ledger, as the Joker, is as good as it gets. It is by far the best performance from a comic book movie of all time, and honestly, one of the great performances, in any genre, of all time. It's not just that this is the most interesting version of the Joker in any medium ever (really, the character in the comics is just not that strong) but Ledger found an amazing balance between being completely creepy and actually really funny. The "magic trick" with the pencil, the different stories about how he got his scars, the way he whispers "six" to the cop in the interrogation room...I mean you've probably seen the movie. I don't need to tell you how great Ledger is/was in the movie. So that's first thing.

As for the film itself...The first thing I can think to say is that it is very well written. The dialogue is sharp, it doesn't talk down to the audience, and it has moments of brilliance (which very few films can claim to possess). The interrogation scene, the dinner between Bruce, Rachel, Harvey, and the too-stacked-to-be-a-ballerina-Russian, and the morality play on the two boats...pretty great stuff.

The acting, other than Ledger, is really strong. Bale, as the lead, isn't given much to do. And that goddamn voice he puts on when he is Batman is still a serious problem. It's distracting and silly. But he's still the best Batman ever put on film. Eckhart, as Harvey Dent, is impressive. It's not as great a performance as he gave in "In the Company of Men" or "Thank You For Smoking" but he's very good. He plays the all-American golden-boy very well (he's got the perfect look) and once his character starts to lose it...he pulls it off.

As for the supporting cast...Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman. He's always him, but he's always good. Michael Caine is great, second best performance in the film, and his story about the criminal in Burma was the best sub-plot of the movie. Maggie G is better than Holmes but her character is still uninteresting...she's a plot-point in this movie. Oldman, as Lt. Gordan, is still miscast but very strong. Knowing the actor, and his body of work, its hard to buy him as the every-man, super moral, copper. But he does the job. And I'm glad they gave him more to do in the movie.

So what did I think of the whole thing? Well the movie is obviously really well done. It's a superior summer film, a brilliant comic book movie...it's really good. But it is not ---'s gift to movies. The last 40 minutes are a bit of a mess. The Joker contradicts his entire character in the scene when he talks with Harvey in the hospital...the action scene with Batman fighting the cops is uninspired (in fact, all the fight scenes kinda suck...the chase scene was fantastic...but the fight scenes are rubbish) and the business with "Two-Face" at the end...just not that inspired.

So what is The Dark Knight? It's a great movie. Lifted by a transcendent performance from Heath Ledger...but a great film. But it's not flawless. And for a movie that takes itself as seriously as The Dark Knight does...it's fair to poke holes when imperfections are spotted. I'm sure if you're reading this you've seen the film, and I'm curious what you think, but you are off base if you think this is one of the best films ever made. Do I think Ledger should win best supporting actor? Yes. Should it be nominated for plenty of other things (screenplay, cinematography, etc.)? Yes. Should it be considered one of the great films of all time?

No.

Grade: A.

Best Scene? The Pencil magic trick. That really was great.

Top Ten Action Scenes of All Time #2 Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (Chasing the Ark)

Indiana Jones chases after the Ark

I really feel this is the best done action scene ever put to film. That doesn't mean that it is my favorite, it's not, but it is basically a perfect sequence. It starts with my favorite movie line of all time: when asked how he is going to follow the Nazi truck with the Ark inside Indiana Jones responds, "I don't know, I'm making this up as I go." Awesome.



What follows is an epic chase that sees Indy riding on a horse, then in the truck, then on the front grill of the truck, then under the truck, and finally back in the truck. It is flawlessly constructed and the fantastic stunt work makes the whole thing feel incredibly plausible and brutal.

I also love the joy Spielberg takes in killing Nazis. There is one shot in particular, where a car full of Nazis flies off a cliff that makes me laugh everytime (it's the last shot of the clip posted below)

If you wanna know how to direct a chase scene, or any action sequence, this should be your bible. It's perfect.