Movie Reviews

Aside from the Ocean’s trilogy, Steven Soderbergh hasn’t had a lot of success in recent years. Though some of his films were never going to make much money (Eros, Full Frontal), others, such as The Good German and Che, have failed to resonate as expected. Che, especially, had to be tough; an epic so grand that it had to be split into two parts, the $30-million movie was an instant flop and didn’t even garner any Oscar attention. Thus, it was pertinent that his latest film – The Informant! – got off on the right foot. Matt Damon to the rescue!

Damon stars as Mark Whitacre, an executive who is well known for being the highest-level informant and whistleblower the United States has ever seen. The company he works for, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), is engaged in a major price-fixing scheme with its international competitors, and Whitacre teams with the FBI (represented by Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) to bring them down. He goes on to gather more than 200 tapes worth of evidence, but his battle with undiagnosed bipolar disorder and some improprieties put him in the crosshairs as well.

Though based on a true story (specifically on the book by Kurt Eichenwald), Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns add a comedic slant, portraying Whitacre as an intelligent but off-note goofball who is incapable of fully telling the truth. Lie upon lie upon lie becomes standard, to the point where it’s never clear what the truth is and what is not. Damon, who gained approximately 25 pounds for the role, runs around with a cheesy 90′s moustache and wig, narrating to the camera random facts that have nothing to do with the story at hand. The FBI agents and Justice Department officials become increasingly frustrated with the man as more and more damaging facts are revealed, placing their investigation and integrity into question. Meanwhile, Whitacre never seems to be aware that his actions are indeed a problem.

The Informant! is not your typical comedy. In fact, it’s a comedy that not everyone will like, and you have it to see it when in the right mood. For instance, don’t see it when you’re tired, because the movie can be slow at times. Don’t see it if you’re looking for a laugh-out-loud riot, because the movie will generally draw brief chuckles, nothing more. Do see it if you like high-brow, comedy-meets-drama-meets-thriller antics and strong acting performances.

The movie is good, but not that good. The story is interesting, the character compelling and the performance by Damon memorable, but it’s not a movie that stands out in any particular way. Soderbergh’s direction, combined with fanciful music by Marvin Hamlisch, is catchy, but also off-putting. The movie is so matter-of-fact, and at the same time off-the-wall, that it’s hard to get swept along in the story. There are segments that are pretty slow, and the fact that it’s a comedy without a lot of direct comedy leaves it drifting in a nether-genre where you can’t decide whether you’re enjoying yourself or bored out of your mind.

The Informant! is not for everyone, but who it is for it’s hard to say. Hell, I’m not sure if it’s even for me. The movie has its moments, and when all is said it’s pretty well done, but it’s so unconventional that it’s challenging to just sit back and enjoy it from beginning to end. The second half is definitely better than the first, but Damon’s excellent performance persists throughout. It’s worth seeing, but will be better viewed on DVD, where you’ll be able to determine pretty quickly whether the movie is right for you.

View this Informant!, The movie review at its original location – FilmJabber!

Review by Nathan Samdahl (B+)

In the latest British historical film from the Oscar-nominated screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon), The Damned United is a sports movie not really about sports, but about the crazy personalities that populate them.  Certainly on a much smaller scale than Morgan’s previous two films, the story here is probably one not known to most outside of Great Britain, or to most non-soccer fans (i.e. the majority of Americans).  Despite this, the film is in many ways more satisfying to watch than Frost/Nixon or The Queen.

This satisfaction mostly comes from watching Morgan’s fave Michael Sheen deliver his best and most noticeable performance to date.  I say "noticeable" because he finally plays the character that people will take away from the movie, unlike Frost/Nixon where Frank Langella stole most of the accolades and The Queen where the contemporary figure of Tony Blair overshadowed Sheen’s great character work.  In Damned United, Sheen is manager Brian Clough, the star, an unpredictable, ruthless, cocky asshole that you love (or hate, but in a good way). 

Structurally, the film operates in two time periods, in the present (1974) where Sheen’s character takes over Leeds United (English soccer/football’s best team) replacing the team’s most accomplished coach Don Revie, and in the past (about five years earlier) showing Sheen’s rise from his humble yet wildly successful beginnings as coach of a couple lower division teams.  One of my only issues with the film is that the initial sequences in the past take a while to get going or at least get to the core of the film (Sheen’s competitive feud with Revie).  I found the 1974 sequences much more engrossing and was a bit bummed to get pulled away at the best parts to jump back in time.  However, the film quickly picks up steam in both time periods and finishes strong with a great scene involving Sheen groveling to his longtime assistant manager Peter Taylor played by Timothy Spall (who he undeniably needs to succeed).

This film may not immediately appeal to everyone given the subject matter, but once audiences realize the movie is primarily a great story about the friendship between two men (Clough and Taylor) and the long-simmering feud between two egomaniacs (Clough and Revie), more interest should be created.  If nothing else, see the film because Sheen, Spall and Revie (played by Colm Meaney – yes, from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine for all you Trekkies out there)) are all outstanding.  Or see the film because overall all it’s one of the better ones out there in the thus-far barren wilderness of 2009 films. 

View this Damned United, The movie review at its original location – FilmJabber!

Just a bit over a week ago, a little film popped onto my radar: Paranormal Activity. The ghost film, shot on a budget of just $11,000 or so, was premiering across the country in a rather clever format: midnight screenings near many of the country’s largest universities. Coupled with strong early reviews, the buzz began to build. When I tried to attend last Friday, the showing was already sold out, as was the case elsewhere. This weekend, the movie opened wider, and next week, thanks to the website reaching a million hits, Paramount will release it nationwide.  People, we have a bona fide phenomenon on our hands.

If you’ve heard that Paranormal Activity is 2009′s version of The Blair Witch Project, the comparison is just. The movie is shot on a handheld camera and features only four actors. It relies on sound effects and moving doors to spook the characters and the actors, and spook it does. Paranormal Activity is one of the freakiest movies in years.

The plot is simple: a couple has moved into a house together and set up a camera in an attempt to capture the creepy things that go on at night. As it turns out, Katie (played by Katie Featherston) has been haunted by something since she was eight years old, though whatever is bothering her seems to come and go. Lately, it has returned, and thanks to her rather curious boyfriend, Micah (Micah Sloat), the two begin to experience an increasing number of disturbances.

Paranormal Activity is authentically scary. Writer/director Oren Peli knows that it’s the basic, realistic bumps in the night that scare the average person, and that’s exactly what he delivers. That creaking on the stairs or in the attack. The door that slams shut out of nowhere. The sense that someone else is in the room with you. These are the frightening things Peli takes advantage of, and he uses them within a well-written, well-acted film that feels a lot like it’s real footage.

Sure, once some bad things start happening to the characters you’d assume they’d go to a hotel immediately, or that Micah would stop asking, “What the hell was that?” night after night, or that he would learn to keep his mouth shut. But these are nitpicks. The movie keeps you on the edge of your seat, not because it’s full of a ton of thrills but because the “footage” feels like it could be taken by anyone. Peli crafts some incredibly simple but effective scenes: the powder footsteps, the woman standing still for hours on end, the dragging sequence. There are some images in this movie that will stick with you for a while; I’m getting shivers as I write this in the large, empty house where I’m spending the night.

Like The Blair Witch Project, this movie may only work on its first go around (have you watched The Blair Witch Project recently and realized how boring and non-scary it is?), but that’s OK. This is a movie meant to be watched in a dark theater with a horror-loving audience. People will whimper, others will close their eyes and many will laugh at how scared they are over something so seemingly harmless.

It’s rare to find a horror movie that is actually scary, but Paranormal Activity is one of those movies. It won’t be nearly as effective the next time I see it, but the movie is one of the most frightening experiences in recent memory.

View this Paranormal Activity movie review at its original location – FilmJabber!

Sam Raimi’s return to horror – Drag Me to Hell – failed to register with viewers as it faded into the pits of heck faster than a cow at an Australian barbecue. It’s a shame, because the movie is an entertaining blast, full of demon hauntings, crazy old gypsie women and more than one kind of gross bodily fluid splattering all over the place. The movie, more a comedy and than a fright flick, rings similar to Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy in some ways, only with a bigger budget and more recognizable actors.

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Snow storms can be blinding. I can’t say I’ve been in one where I haven’t been able to see, but there was a movie released a few weeks ago that relies on this premise, so it must really happen. After all, Hollywood never lies. But in other news, I popped the all-new Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-Ray into my player this afternoon to check out all the nifty special features packed within – and got lost.

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Every once in a while a movie comes along that defies expectations, that rocks its very essence, that destroys all hope of anything ever succeeding it. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is not that film.

If X-Men 3 was a disappointment – and it was – Wolverine is a mitigated disaster, full of hammy dialogue, rushed storytelling and crappy special effects. The good news is that the movie is now out on DVD and Blu-Ray, which means you can watch those embarrassing effects in crystal clarity.

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Capitalism: A Love Story, the new well-timed (as always) film by Michael Moore, strikes hard and cuts to the heart of yet another one of the country’s key issues, the manipulation and greed at the core of our capitalist system.  Moore traces the history of our capitalist system from our constitution, which mentions little to nothing about it, all the way through to our current economic meltdown.  Moore follows the style set predominantly in his past two films, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Sicko, relying more on the stories of the victims than those of the perpetrators to tell his story.  Part of this probably spawns from the fact that most of the villains in his docus wouldn’t step within a 100 feet of Moore, let alone give him an interview.  It seems that the Charleton Heston-esque image killing may not be standard course for his upcoming film endeavors.

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With season six looming, NBC is releasing The Office: Season 5 on DVD and Blu-Ray this Tuesday. With the 26 episodes comes the typical bonus feature culprits – deleted scenes, episode commentaries and a gag reel – but in this case, that’s actually a good thing.

As has been the case with other seasons of The Office, the deleted scenes are the highlight of the collection; each episode is filmed with a goal of 38-or-so minutes, which is then whittled down to 24 minutes or less for television. This means that for each episode, 25-40% of the footage is left on the cutting room floor. Most of this footage is actually quite entertaining. Overall, there’s three hours worth of deleted scenes, many of them laugh-out-loud funny.

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From the producers of Little Miss Sunshine comes another seemingly bright dramedy titled Sunshine Cleaning, about two down-and-out women who start a crime scene cleaning business. Though I’m generally not fooled by the “from the producers of” marketing spin films are often given, I did fall for this one: following the trailers, casting and even early reviews, Sunshine Cleaning did seem like another funny drama. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to sink your teeth into here.

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Those expecting Superbad things from director Greg Mottola’s follow-up comedy Adventureland may be disappointed. The R-rated drama-comedy, about a young man in the 1980′s who desperately takes a job at a trashy carnival and finds first love, is a well-made and engaging film, but it isn’t nearly as funny as Superbad, nor is it meant to be.

Jessie Eisenberg, Kristin Stewart and Ryan Reynolds star in the film, which, if anything, can be compared to the classic John Hughes films of the ’80′s. While it definitely offers more swearing and at times crude humor, at its heart is, well, heart, and believable nuances that capture youthful love surprisingly well. Adventureland is now out on DVD, but, unfortunately, the DVD doesn’t have much to offer.

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Paramount, in its never-ending battle (along with the other studios) to make money off of movies they’ve already released, is re-releasing How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days on DVD and Blu-Ray on August 25, 2009. The movie, which stars Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson as two opposing forces each trying to break the other, was an entertaining little romantic comedy when it came out, though it never quite lived up to expectations.

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The best advice for anyone that is thinking about watching District 9 is to go into the film blind. While it’s been often said “knowing is only half the battle” (a G.I. Joe catchphrase nonetheless), the other side of the battle is, of course, not knowing. The more the audience knows about District 9 prior to watching the film, the less they’ll take away from the one of the better entertaining theatre experiences of 2009. So let’s stop while we are ahead and everyone can exit this review of said film to avoid any spoilers…

Read the rest of Dakota’s District 9 movie review.

Late summer is typically dumping grounds for forgettable blockbuster wannabes and never-weres (see: G.I. Joe), but this August is a bit different. With A Perfect Getaway working surprisingly well last week and Inglorious Basterds coming soon, audiences have a variety of quality choices to choose from. But it’s District 9 that will likely emerge as the out-of-left-field winner, a slick sci-fi action-drama out of South Africa with few recognizable actors and a budget of only $30 million.

District 9 is set in Johannesburg, where, 20 years ago, a gigantic spacecraft appeared overhead. After weeks of no contact, the government finally went inside and discovered a species that were soon dubbed “prawns” for their shellfish-like appearance. For their own health and safety, they were relocated to a slum district of the city. Over the years, however, the city and much of the world has turned against the seemingly chaotic creatures, setting up a new form of apartheid and isolating the creatures. In response to increasing unrest, the government has hired a private firm to go in and relocate the creatures to District 10, an area 200 miles away. Needless to say, moving 1.8 million aliens will not be as easy as everyone thinks.

Read the rest of my District 9 movie review.

By the time August rolls around, most of the big blockbusters have faded into the sunset and studios, desperate to ink out a few more dollars in the dog days of summer, start unleashing their B-round of films. These movies are generally worthless and forgettable, hardly worth the $10 price of admission. Going into A Perfect Getaway, a largely un-marketed thriller from Universal Pictures, this is exactly what I expected. Thankfully, the movie is surprisingly entertaining and well done, despite a rather disastrous third act.

Read the rest of my A Perfect Getaway movie review.

This has been the week of the war movie, as I’ve been stunned by not one but two great films in the last few days – and they couldn’t be any more different in their tone and approach.  The American-made The Hurt Locker was one of those movies, and the other is Waltz with Bashir, the Oscar-nominated Isreali documentary/drama that redefines whatever genre it belongs to.

Waltz with Bashir (Vals Im Bashir) is about writer/director Ari Folman’s exploration of his forgotten past. A modern-day filmmaker who, at 19, served in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Folman doesn’t remember anything about his time in the war, or, more specifically, his involvement in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, where hundreds or perhaps thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were slaughtered at the hands of soldiers and militiamen. After meeting an old war buddy for a drink, however, he begins to have flashbacks and decides to set out, interview his friends and former soldiers and regain his memory.

Read the rest of my Waltz with Bashir movie review.