Shall we go to Sin City?

Currently #1 on my "I definitely want to see this on the big screen" list. Directed by Robert Rodriguez of "El Mariachi" fame (and "Spy Kids" notreity), and written by Frank Miller of Batman fame.

Review – M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village (1 out of 4 stars)

M. Night Shyalaman’s claim to fame (or mediocrity, depending on how you see it) is the “big twist movie”. He tries to string you along for most of the film, then drops a twist in, trying to alter your view of what you saw for the last hour or so. It might work once, but since most of us have seen The Sixth Sense, isn’t it time to move on?



I honestly thought that Night was trying something new with Signs. That film didn’t have the huge twist, and was a decent atmospheric creeping doom kind of deal. It sure was an improvement over the weak Unbreakable. The Village is a huge step back, as it’s arguably the worst of Night’s four big films.

Joaquin Phoenix, Adrian Brody, Sigourney Weaver (with around ten minutes of screen time) and William Hurt headline a big name do-nothing cast that inhabits “the Village”. This village seems to be a quaint, rustic town in the middle of a valley surrounded by deep foreboding woods. The town has a legend of “The Ones We Do Not Speak Of”, which is a fancy name for some feral lupine-ish porcupine monsters that like the color red, aka “The Bad Color”. Is that silly enough yet?

Phoenix is Lucius Hunt, a quiet, inquisitive young man (honestly, Joaquin is too old for these young man roles) to dares to enter the woods out of curiosity. He also keeps asking the village elders for permission to visit “the towns”, which seems to stand for any civilization outside of the village. Unfortunately, a tragedy befalls Lucius, and his ends up at death’s door, driving his fiancé, the blind girl Ivy (Judy Greer, I think) to take up his quest to brave the woods to get some life-saving drug for Lucius.

This whole thing munches up 75 to 80% of the film. Then, Night drops his big twist in, and brings the whole thing to a close before you lynch him for such a stupid conclusion.

If you figure out the whole thing (as I did halfway through because the villagers drop hints here and there) or even have a vague sense of what’s going on, the whole film ends up being a tepid anticlimax. Even if you don’t have an inkling, what is to be gained by the exercise? It’s like the director and writer trying for a “ha ha we fooled you” moment at the expense of 90+ minutes of your life.

It might be tolerable if Night did a better job with the front end of the film. Unfortunately, he didn’t. The cast looks like they’re going through the paces. Brody is a huge waste, playing a simpleton part that could be excised with no great loss to the film. The shots throughout the film are either wide angle shots of two characters in conversation (we don’t get to see their expressions) or really dark night shots. The dialogue tries to prove a point (this is a rustic town) but ends up stilted and unconvincing. It’s around Michael Bay quality.

This all ends up as a pretty crappy waste of 90 minutes of your life. Sorry, Night, time to give up the twists and try to be a real filmmaker.

Bottom line: Pass on it. If you’ve never seen an M. Night film, see The Sixth Sense, then Signs. Don’t bother with this or Unbreakable, or any more Night films that you hear end with a “twist”.

Review – David Ellis's Cellular (2 out of 4 stars)

Action movies succeed or fail on one key thing – pace. Never mind the premise, never mind the acting (cf. Keanu Reeves and Sandy Bullock in Speed), never mind the story. The action movie will survive without all of this as long as the pace is kept up and the adrenalin flows through the audience.



Cellular has the flimsiest of stories. Jessica Martin (Kim Basinger) is held hostage by a bunch of ruffians who are trying to capture her whole family. She’s able to get a smashed telephone to dial out randomly, and she gets the irresponsible Ryan (Chris Evans) on his mobile. Ryan ends up believing her and running around trying to prevent her son and husband from being captured. Ryan ends up figuring out the whole plot and spends most of the film running from place to place with a cellphone at his ear.

You’ll get every possible cell cliché here, from the drained battery to the weak signal to dropping your phone from a great height to forgetting it in the seat of your car. Cellular comes across as a tongue-in-cheek piece. It tries to be menacing (Jason Statham, wasted in this film) so that you fear for Jessica and her family, but defeats that tense atmosphere by injecting a silly lawyer and other attempts at levity. The pace is rather uneven at points, as William H. Macy (collecting a paycheck) plays the usual good cop who’s never fired a gun but helps the young hero out investigates and tries to catch up with Ryan.

Chris Evans is generic Keanu Clone #231. He can look good driving a car or running around, but please don’t ask him to emote. New young actor, let’s see another couple films out of him. After all Chris Bale seems to be taking a huge leap after Equilibrium. Director David Ellis doesn't deviate from formula, and crafts a rather forgettable action flick. As for the writing... it's a generic action flick. The screenplay is forgettable.

Bottom line: Cellular is a decent popcorn movie, but it’s nothing that you absolutely need to see. Rent it when you don’t want to think.

Titanic Definitive Edition

The Digital Bits is reporting that a new four-disc Titanic DVD is on the horizon, with the film split over two discs for maximum video quality, and the remaining two carrying the features. This is a must-have DVD, along the lines of the LOTR Extendeds and the Star Wars package!

The Digital Bits also handed out their awards, The Bitsys, for the outstanding DVDs of 2004.

Keep writers around

I found this great anecdote on John August's blog. Screenplay writers are largely underappreciated in the grand scheme of moviemaking, since their input tends to disappear into the shadows of the power of the director. This is a good reason to keep the writer around even after the film enters principal.

Oscars aftermath and viewing list

So I did ok in the Oscar guessing game. Most of the big ticket guesses were on target, except for the doomed Nat Portman pick.

Lining up the following for viewing:

The Aviator
Million Dollar Baby
A Very Long Engagement

Maybe the wife and I will see Hitch too. Hey, I like Kevin James. When I watch The King of Queens, he reminds me of me. :-)