Undertow

Movie: Undertow

Cast:    Christian Mercado      (Miguel)

            Tatiana Astengo          (Mariela)

Manolo Cardona         (Santiago)

Genre: drama

Synopsis: Miguel is a poor fisherman in a poor fishing village on the coast of Peru.  Mariela, his wife, is expecting their first child.  Santiago is a wealthy painter who visits the village every summer to paint.  It turns out that Miguel and Santiago have had a physical and emotional relationship for years.  When Santiago dies unexpectedly, his ghost lingers on – but only Miguel can see it.

We follow Miguel as he has to face the consequences of his actions and has to figure out what to do to put Santiago’s ghost to rest.

My two cents: An interesting movie.  I went in thinking it was a Peruvian ghost story – the part about gay lovers escaped me in the synopsis I read.  So . . . it caught me by surprise the first time the two guys fell, naked, into each other’s arms.  Miguel was forced to face up to his relationship with Santiago in order to save his relationship with his own wife.  I really enjoyed watching this struggle and seeing how the villagers did (or did not) support him.

If you don’t mind a lot of sub-titles (or if you speak Spanish), this is worth giving a try.

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The Dilemma

Movie: The Dilemma

Cast:    Kevin James                (Nick Brannen)

            Vince Vaughn              (Ronny Valentine)

            Winona Ryder             (Geneva)

            Jennifer Connelly         (Beth)

Genre: comedy

Synopsis: Nick Brannen and Ronny Valentine are best friends who co-own an automobile design company.  Nick is the mechanical genius and Ronny is the marketing whiz.  They have a shot at landing a huge contract with one of the major car manufacturers.  Meantime Ronny is trying to work up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend, Beth.  Things get complicated when he inadvertently sees Nick’s wife, Geneva having a tryst with another man.

The movie follows Ronny’s dilemma on whether or not to tell Nick.  While wrestling with the problem, Ronny learns that things are not always cut and dried with relationships.  And . . . Nick is heading for ulcer-city trying to get his latest car design perfected before the deadline.

My two cents: My first problem here is that Vince Vaughn’s voice and way of talking is like fingernails on a blackboard to me.  Getting past that, I think that the roles should have been reversed.  I think it would have been a much better and funnier movie if Kevin James’ character discovered Vince Vaughn’s character’s wife cheating. In particular, I think Kevin James would have added a lot of physical comedy and would have been funnier trying to figure out what to do.

The movie had a lot of funny stuff, just not enough.

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The Green Hornet

Movie: The Green Hornet (in DBOX)

Cast:    Seth Rogan                 (Britt Reid, aka The Green Hornet)

            Jay Chou                     (Kato)

            Cameron Diaz             (Lenore Case)

            Tom Wilkinson            (James Reid)

            Christopher Waltz       (Chudnofsky)

Genre: comedy, action, crime thriller

Synopsis: Gazillionare newspaper publisher James Reid is saddled with an irresponsible playboy son, Britt.  When James dies unexpectedly, Britt becomes the publisher of the newspaper.  He gets it in his head that he wants to be a crime fighter.  He teams up with his father’s coffee maker/mechanic, Kato to become The Green Hornet (and his sidekick Kato).  At the newspaper, he hires Lenore Case to be his secretary.  Much to his surprise, she turns out to be quite intelligent – not just beautiful. 

Their strategy to fight crime is to pretend to be bad guys while actually being good guys.  This way EVERYONE is out to get them, particularly the evil crime boss Chudnofsky.  The rest of the movie follows them as they try to fight crime while not getting bumped off by Chudnofsky and not getting arrested.

My two cents: I had high hopes for this movie.  They were dashed.  Kato was great, the Britt Reid character was just to irredeemably stupid and self-absorbed.  Even after he tries to turn over a new leaf and become a crime fighter, I could not get past his bumbling stupidity.  I initially did not blame this on Seth Rogan, but instead blamed it on bad writing.  But then I discovered that Seth Rogan was the screenwriter, so I guess it is his fault.

This had the ingredients to be a really fun movie.  Jay Chou was perfect as Kato. He came up with a really neat car and lots of James Bond quality gadgets. Cameron Diaz was great as the beautiful blonde who turns out to be the smartest person in the room. I loved Christopher Waltz’s crime boss character – funny and scary at the same time.  If they just would have written the Britt Reid character better . . .

Side note . .  I saw this at an UltraStar theatre and paid an extra $8 to sit in one of the DBOX special effects seats.  BIG waste of money.

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Country Strong

Movie: Country Strong

Cast:    Gwyneth Paltrow        (Kelly Canter)

            Tim McGraw             (James Canter)

            Garrett Hedlund         (Beau Hutton)

            Leighton Meester      (Chiles Stanton)

Genre: Drama, Country music

Synopsis: Kelly Canter is an award winning country music superstar.  Her manager, James, is also her husband.  After Kelly had a miscarriage brought on by a drunken fall from a stage, she went into rehab.  While in rehab, she started having an affair with a talented up-and-coming country singer, Beau.  James pulls her out of rehab a month early to put her back on tour.  For an opening act, James brings along a female singer, Chiles, that he seems to have designs on.  Kelly counters by insisting Beau also be an opening act.

With the first concert, it is clear Kelly was not ready for a tour.  The rest of the movie follows her decaying relationship with James and her relationship with Beau.  Meantime, Beau discovers that Chiles is not the empty-headed beauty queen he that initially thought.

My two cents: An interesting movie.  Tim McGraw did an excellent job of portraying a really unlikeable character.  Gwyeth Paltrow seems to have legitimately good singing chops. O have never been a big fan of her, but I have to admit I was impressed with Gwyenth Paltrow’s portrayal of a star who is in emoptionally very fragile and just unable to cope with her life.  The two I most liked, though, were Garret Hedlund and Leighton Meester.  I had never heard of either of them, but I thought they both brought a lot of depth to their characters.  The development of the relationship between their characters was by far my favorite part of the movie.  I am not a country music fan . . . but seeing a few movies like this could change my mind.  I really enjoyed just about all of the songs in the movie.

Bottom line . . . worth seeing.

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Season of the Witch

Movie: Season of the Witch

Cast:    Nicolas Cage        (Hehmen)

            Ron Perlman        (Felson)

            Claire Foy            (The Girl)

Genre: drama, adventure

Synopsis: The movie takes place during the crusades in the late 1200’s and early 1300’s.  Behmen and Felson are two knights who have been fighting in the crusades for many years.  Behmen finally has had enough when the church’s representative orders them to kill unarmed women and children.  So Behmen and his companion,  Felson, quit the crusade.  They are soon arrested and imprisoned for desertion.  A Cardinal (Christopher Lee) offers them a deal.  Europe is being ravaged by the plague.  The Cardinal has imprisoned a suspected witch that he thinks is responsible for the epidemic.  He wants the two knights (in exchange for pardons) to escort the prisoner to a monastery where the monks will put her on trial.  They alone possess the secret spell that, if she is found guilty of being a witch, will enable them to execute her and bring an end to the plague. 

The ‘witch’ seems to be a helpless young girl.  We soon learn that she is far from helpless.  The journey to the monastery is full of dangers – some normal, some supernatural.  The movie culminates with a battle at the monastery.

My two cents: A pretty decent medieval adventure/thriller/horror.  Ron Perlman was especially fun as the sidekick.  The entity they battle at the end was a true bad-ass.  It was nice to see Christopher Lee (although it was not easy to tell it was him).  I think this movie has gotten a bad rap from the critics.  Sure, it’s probably not going to get a Best Picture nomination – but a movie does not have to be Oscar material to be pretty enjoyable. Another thing I liked was the mix of humor, horror and suspense.  What it does not do is sell the idea that living back in the 1300’s was a lot of fun.  Everyone looked like they were a month overdue for a change of clothes and a good bath.  Lots of action, lots of humor and very few dull parts – I never caught myself checking my watch.

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Gulliver’s Travel 3D

Movie: Gulliver’s Travel 3D

Cast:    Jack Black          (Lemuel Gulliver)

            Jason Segel         (Horatio)

            Amanda Peet      (Darcy Silverman)

            Emily Blunt         (Princess Mary)

            Billy Connolly     (King Theodore)

Genre: Comedy

I saw it on: January 11, 2011

Synopsis: Lemuel Gulliver (a typical Jack Black buffoon) has worked in his company’s mail room for ten years.  For five of them he has had a crush on the travel editor, Darcy. He finally decides to tell her how he feels, but things go awry and instead she thinks he wants a travel assignment and sends him to the Bermuda Triangle.  There, his boat is sucked into a “reverse vortex” and he ends up in in the kingdom of Lilliput.

He is initially a prisoner, but eventually becomes a hero.  His reputation is helped along by a never-ending series of lies about who he was in his own world. He tries to help his best friend, Horatio, make some headway in his quest to win the heart of Princess Mary.  Things go seriously awry when the former general from Lilliput decides to help the enemy. Jack’s temporary exile (I don’t want to give away any more) was a really funny addition to the plot.

My two cents: A pretty enjoyable movie.  Jack Black now seems to own the role of the lovable buffoon who is all talk and no deed.  I have so enjoyed in him in non-comedic roles such as King Kong and especially The Holiday that I wish he would break out and do some more non-buffoon roles.  That said, he plays his character really well.  There really wasn’t any time when the movie seemed to drag – I don’t think I ever checked my watch.  Bill Connelly was really funny as the King and Emily Blunt was a great Princess.  I thought all of the dialogue involving the royal family was very well written.

My only real gripe is with the 3D version.  I thought it was a total waste of my money.  I never saw anything that I felt was made any better by being in 3D.

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