Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008)

Can’t help feeling a little disappointed with this sequel. The first one was a classic. I am not saying that Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo Bay wasn’t funny. You laugh through the whole movie, but the laughs seem hollow. It lacks focus and purpose, which might be hard to comprehend since the last one, an all-night odyssey to get to White Castle, seems noble somehow.

In this one, Kumar brings a bong into a plane and everyone thinks it’s a bomb on their flights to Amsterdam. (get it bong v. bomb) Both are mistaken for terrorists and sent to Guantanamo prison. They face real terrorists and prison abuse from the guards. They manage to escape and make it back to the U.S. then make their way to Texas in an effort to clear their name and stop the marriage of Kumar’s ex-girlfriend.

It’s this Kumar romance that kills it. It makes the movie boring, because the rest is great!
Actually, Kumar is lame in this one. He makes the same faces and delivers his lines in a tired manor. Something in the chemistry with Harold doesn’t fly either.

The movie takes place right after the first one finishes. Maybe too much time elapsed between the makings of both films; something of the sprit of the first one is missing.

Now, what really does work is the critique of our post 9/11 world. The film neither takes an all pro or all against stance. In fact, President Bush is the hero of the film. Somehow Bush is made fun of and honored at the same time.

In the film, Kumar is randomly stopped for a searched at the airport. Kumar makes it clear that it is not entirely random. When on the airplane an old woman sees him as an Islamic terrorist just because of the color of his skin. When Harold and Kumar are in custody, the government agents believe they are terrorists despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Rob Corddry is the best part of this movie. He brings the most life and energy into it. He plays the myopic Homeland Security agent. There is another agent played by Roger Bart, who represents a silent faction of American Society disagree with these tactics but keep their mouths shut for the most part.

The trail of two idiot stoners is a perfect vehicle to poke fun at the country. It makes it clear that white people view non-whites through lens that are often negative and are unable to lose their prejudices or see clearly. Of course, some people are cool, but they aren’t the ones who cause all the trouble for Harold and Kumar.

It is nevertheless refreshing as ever to see a Korean and Indian guy going through the world in a non-ethnic stereotyped portrayal. Neil Patrick Harris, no doubt, makes his appearance in the film, but, sadly, is shot to death in the end.

There are plenty of pot jokes and potty jokes. It seems like it would get better the more times you see it. So it will be true cable movie. Alas, it is no Harold and Kumar go to White Castle.

21 (2008)

This movie had the best trailer I have seen all year. With The Doors rockin’ in the background, youth and money set the adrenaline pumping with a dark and almost illicit excitement. Did the movie live up to that? Well, let’s get to that later.

Based on the book “Bringing down the House” by Ben Mezrich and bits taken from his other book “Busting Vesgas”, 21 is totally the pre-summer hit of the year.

It stars Jim Sturgess, Kevin Spacey, and Laurence Fishburn, and tells the story of how a team of M.I.T. students take Vegas for millions.

The main appeal of this movie, I think, isn’t all the stuff that’s good about it. I think it’s the money. Like a television game show, people like to dream about making mad money in a casino. In the movie, the kids are card-counters, and audience walks out feeling “Hey, I can do that too” and in this economy, wouldn’t THAT be nice.

What the film doesn’t show is the hours of practice each member of the team gave and the fact that these true event transpired in the roaring 90’s, when the casinos were a lot less sophisticated. In the book, there is an essay from one of team members about card counting, which gives an idea that this was much more completed than even the book lead on. I read the book.

Ok, but why spoil people’s fun. Let’s focus on other aspects of the film besides card counting.

Something I found irritating was that it was shot like postcard or travel show of Boston and Las Vegas. There is nothing original or interesting in the cinematography.

The cast is stronger than the script. Jim Sturgess does his best American ascent and shows he is a very decent actor in a way that was much to my surprise. One thing that the film did that was very right, was to show the very nerdy/geeky lifestyle of most of those at M.I.T. Trust me it was on target. Sturgess, who seems like he in his real life ever had any difficulty getting a date, was ON on every beat in his reactions on screen to having an attractive woman interact with him.


Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburn act very much like you would except them too. They carry there roles well adding some believability to the rest of the young cast. Aaron Yoo, who was in Rocket Science, shows himself again to be interesting and entertaining presence.

The biggest criticism I have heard about 21 has been from the Asian community. The real team was mostly Asian, mainly Chinese, and in the film the main characters are white, while the two Asians in the movie have small and almost unimportant roles.

My thoughts on that are, the criticism is justified but not entirely. I think maybe the movie wouldn’t be as commercial if it was a race movie. In America we like to believe that race doesn’t matter and we make anyone suffer who points that it really does. In real events the main characters were half-Asian. They were half white and Asian or half Hispanic and Asian. This mixed creates a look that the team wanted, because they could pass a multitude of nationalities that are best known for being obnoxious with money. Mainly, that Asian, Greeks, Arabs, et cetera, with money are seen as so distasteful in their behavior that it would distract the casino pit bosses from card counting system going on. By the time story of “Busting Vegas” takes place, which is a few years after this story, a group of Asian kids at blackjack table was very suspicious. So, that’s one side it. The other, I think, is the fact that there are a lot of Asians at M.I.T. and is reflected in the Blackjack club. The people in the story were almost all from Asian decent in one way or the other. So, it seems to me that probably a big reason not to show that is because, the producers figured that only Asians and few others would go see a movie full of Asians without Martial Arts. Finally, someone can argue that making a movie full of Chinese makes the movie about something other than students playing blackjack, and that is just the society we live in. I am sure you have your own thoughts.

A side from that long digression, the movie is good. The story is really exciting. I imagine this movie being a big hit with older people who doesn’t make it out to the movies very much, when it comes out on DVD and T.V.

It’s a bit long; somewhere around 2 hours, but you don’t really feel it. In short, this is a good one!

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)

This movie is so bad that it is funny. I am not sure what is up with these sexy historical dramas. With the cable show The Tudors and this one, it seems to be a trend. Also, let’s not forget all those Elizabeth movies.

The Boleyn Girl is a quasi-historical telling of the English King Henry the 8th, and his many women. Specifically, the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, which lead to the English split with the Roman Catholic Church, and beheading of Anne Boleyn; who gave birth to Elizabeth the 1st. The story, albeit, is told from a feminists’ point of view.

The strongest part of the film is its star power. Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Eric Bana are the main characters. I would probably would not see this obvious soap opera if it did not have Portman and Johansson, probably the two most beautiful women in film right now. From what my sister tells me Bana is also attractive. So this is the selling point all three of them in the same movie.

Not advertised but The Boleyn Girl also stars Jim Sturgess. He is the charismatic leading man from the recent hits Across the Universe and 21.

Another interesting aspect is that it seems that the movie was shot on location at the Tower of London; so that actual places where these events really took place.

Sadly, that’s where the realism ends. The rest of movie is a bit of a joke, and not even a cheeky one at that. There is such high drama it is suffocating. It is easy to laugh at it, because it is so over-the-top. It makes a Mexican soap-opera look like a BBC special.

On a bit of a disturbing note, Anne Boleyn, the agent of deceptive change that causes everyone great suffering and also the split of the church, is played by Natalie Portman; a Jewish girl is the icon of Semitic beauty. The good girl, who is blond and very Nordic looking, is played Scarlett Johansson. In the end Boleyn, Portman, gets beheaded. This is the classic anti-Jewish myth. I hope I am wrong in seeing this anti-Semitic theme.

Anyway, the movie is bad. Even the eye candy doesn’t make it worth it. The events are so laced with a feminist residue so that it spoils any historical relevance. It would be a good Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, if anyone remembers that old Comedy Central show. I am not even sure that this movie is still out in theatre as I have taken forever to get this review out. Nevertheless, skip this one.

Shine a light (2008)

Stones
This is the IMAX Rolling Stones concert film directed by Martin Scorsese. Should this film have been? No! I’ll tell you why.

The Stones are too old and ugly to look at them for two hours so close and so large that you can see the dust collecting on their copious wrinkles magnified across a huge screen in a crisp digital image.

Another thing, it is shot at the Beacon theatre in New York City. The Beacon is beautiful but small theatre. The seats are practically stacked right on top of each other. Since it is so tight, the cameras don’t have much flexibility, and they certainly cannot to take advantage of grandeur of the IMAX format.

The film starts of with some drama about Scorsese not having the set list, it needlessly takes up 20 minutes of dead time.

Mick Jagger is the only member of the Rolling Stone with any charisma, and he is barely in it outside of singing.

Now let’s get to the actual performance. The Stones will always be the Stones, but now they are a band held together by a daily schedule of medicine to keep them going. Although the Stones are a five piece band, a whole other band supports them and almost carries the entire rhythm. The geezers do their thing and Mick Jagger has more energy than he should at that age.

They are a flickering flame. Sometimes they sound good, often they are flat like a stale soda. It’s really sad, but it’s been this way for a while. I remember going to the Stones concert in the 90’s with my sister, and it was the same way. You wished that they didn’t play an old favorite just so that you didn’t hear them murder it, but as my grandmother used to say “You murder it, but you can’t kill it” – so all of the Stones standard were performed and pleased the crowd.

They brought in some fresh blood to add plasma to the supply. Jack White of the White Stripes and Christina Aquilera join them, and old blues man Buddy Guy. Jack White looks like the happiest guy in the room to be playing with Mick and company. Maybe he understands that his moderately successful band has just been knighted by a band with a stature only lower to the Beatles with a singer as Rock ’n Roll as Elvis Presley.

Scorsese does mix clips of them current Stones with vintage clips of them, which reminds the audience that these guys were once young.

Although, they are in a more nature environment of a theater, which where they got there start, like the Beatles. A better IMAX concert film is U23D whose stadium presence fits the format comfortably. Shine a light is not worth the money.

Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not by Stephan Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello (Audiobook)

Audio was the way to go for this one. Really a book written by Stephan Colbert would be better preformed by the Actor/Comic/Narcissist. Amy Sederis and Paul Dinello preformed multiple rolls and while Colbert did his shtick as Russell Hokes the investigative journalist out to find the story a lifetime, his lifetime, in Wigfield; a town that may not really be a town. It could be just land held by squatters, but that is just what the law says.

A former street painter, Hokes painted the dashes in the center of the highways; he decides that he must be a writer. His first work of fiction is his resume.

After blowing most his advance in a Mexican resort, because he needed a little “me” time, Hokes hits the open road looking for the great story of the American small town, and this is the joke.

Much like the Colbert Report, Colbert and Company pokes fun the media’s decades old news story of the decline of small town America. This story takes the view that real America, the heartland, are small almost all white small towns in the bible-belt, and it being destroyed by “them.” The good true real Americans, with pristine small town values, which are good especially as oppose to “them.” I always sensed a bit of racism in this view and a distortion of fact. So, I enjoyed that this work takes the view of that small towns are not always inherently good and can just as bad as or worse than anywhere else. It really takes that point to town.

It is as funnier as anything as I have come across in a very long time. It makes fun self-righteousness in many forms by making the point that sounding self-righteous doesn’t make you right.

The book is like taking all the funniest jokes of a good sitcom for its entire lifespan and condensing into one book. Brilliant!

As an audiobook it sounds like a play recorded for radio sans a lot of cheesy sound effects.

The rest of the story is that the town of Wigfield is about to be destroy when the local dam is suppose to be destroyed. Here the old anti-government attitude by good ole fashion values is poked fun at here. These satirists are minor sociologist too.

Anyway, Russell (Colbert) has to get his story before there is nothing left or his publisher won’t give him anymore money.

Wigfield: The Can Do Town That Just May Not is highly recommended for constant laughs.

Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) – 2008

By far the best movie I have seen so far this year. Under the Same Moon is highly satisfying and a truly heart felt movie. It is sort of Homer’s Odyssey of Mexican illegal immigrants.

It tells the story of Carlitos (little Charles). Carlitos lives in Mexico with his grandmother. He lives a little better than most people there, because he mother left three years ago to find work in America, send money. His dad is somewhere in Texas. He is not really part of the picture. Carlitos mother Rosario means to send for him but she can’t earn enough money, and instead calls him from a pay phone in Los Angeles at set time on Sunday with a phone card. The situation doesn’t really work.

However, when his grandmother dies. Carlitos is alone and better off alone than being around some loosely related family member who want a cut of the money his mother sends back to Mexico for Carlito’s care.

Fully aware of his situation, Carlitos goes off in search of his mother in America. He crosses the boarder with some help by a Mexican-American couple that is looking to make a little money by hiding a small child inside their Mini-Van. They are stopped by boarder guards due to unpaid parking tickets,their Mini-Van with Carlitos inside it get impounded.

He gets out, and makes his way to a bus depot, but realizes he is flat broke. A junkie there tries to sell him into slavery, but he is rescued by a woman that helps out illegal immigrants get to where ever they are going.

The group of men, living in this woman’s boarding house of sorts, take care of Carlitos and plan to take him to California, but they are raided by the INS during a day job at a farm. Carlitos and Enrique escape. Enrique, one of the the men, takes care of Carlitos as they try to get to Los Angeles.

The movie is both humorous and a little tragic as good stories are. It is very well acted which may go unnoticed by people who refer to anyone with a Spanish last name as one group as oppose to have a distinct nationality.

It makes a strong point that people who cross the boarder have a hard life. With White people, who must be unemployed to have so much time on the boarder with shotguns ready kill any Mexican they see, and a American system that promises them a better life to take the worst jobs, but then criminates them for doing so. It puts a face and a story to villainized group of people living in America.

Besides all that, it tells a very human story, which has been told in every culture from the earliest to writings to stories that have yet to be told.

The movie is never dull. It gets into a lot of humor of the Mexican people. There is a lot of music, some cheesy moments and a tear-jerking ending. It is the best movie out there right now.

Drillbit Taylor (2008)

This is by far the worst movie I have seen this year. It might be the worst movie I will see all year. It is the second worst movie I have seen in two years. The number one worst movie in two years being Reno 911.

Watching this movie you see why Owen Wilson tried to kill himself. When I first heard about that, I thought it was sad for a human being to try to take his own life. Now, I respect Wilson for the effort.

So, is there anything good about this movie? Well, yes there is one thing. In the movie, the kids are being bullied, seriously bullied, by two kids. The movie got this right. It showed a world almost invisible to adults of kids brutalizing other kids. It shows the humiliation of this. It shows how these bullies appear so cute to authority figures. How parents don’t get it either. In the end, the kids who are victims get in trouble for bringing it up. I think it is only now with school shooting that this is getting any kind of attention. There is something so unconscionable about this that it can only be thought of as a common phenomenon.

There is some where serious satisfaction when the bullies finally get their ass kicked in the end.

Other than that the movie tries to be another SuperBad, and fails miserably. The two Laurel and Hardy, fat guy and skinny duo, fail by a lack of chemistry or charm. The hero Drillbit, Wilson, has as much presence as Pauley Shore. The plot is so bad that I won’t even get into it. OK, three kids are getting the sh*#t beat out of them hire homeless body guard Drillbit, and all hell breaks loose.

The worst part was that somehow the whole movie didn’t to work in this day and age. I kept on trying to see if it was suppose to be get 20 or 30 years ago when the plot would have made more sense. But the technology always gave it away. Still there few cell phones except for a couple of adults. School security had a pre-columbine aspect to it, which meant that there was none. A few myspace or facebook jokes would have been good.

Despite adorable, 18 year old, Valerie Tian from Juno, none of the actors have any likeability including Wilson. I really can’t say enough bad things about this movie.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008)

Miss Pettigrew Lives is a pop song like movie. It is enjoyable right from the start. It is quick, and has little substance.

There is really not much to the film, but it is a lot of fun. Ms Pettigrew, played by Frances MacDormand, is a down and out nanny in Victorian pre-war London. She is a Chaplin-like character in drab clothes and eating from soup charts while watching the upper class from a far. She meets Delysia LaFosse, played adorably by Amy Adams. Delysia is an actress/cabaret singer/gold digger. She lives with night club owner in London, is screwing a young theatre manager, and is singing with her love Michael. Michael plays piano.

While juggling her three men each with something to offer her, she meets Ms. Pettigrew who steals an assignment from Nanny Temp situation. She uses some quick thinking and gets Delysia out of one jam after another. Ms. LaFosse, not her real name, decides to keep Ms. Pettigrew as an asset. She takes her shopping, introduces her to her glamorous life where meets the “the bitch” and the love interest. It has all the makings of girl movie.

After this set up is over most movies spend sometimes milking what they can from the audiences’ attention before they reach the ending climax. This one doesn’t do that. After the set-up, the movie goes right the climax. Brilliant!

Never missing a beat, Delysia has to pick her man. They, of course, fight over her first. There’s fist fight. Think Bridget Jones diary. Delysia’s story gets resolved. Ms. Pettigrew finds herself in the same place where we first found her; again like a good Chaplin short, but this is chick-flick, and Ms. Pettigrew has her romantic ending.

Overall, the movie is very entertaining. It is taut in that very little is wasted. It draws you in very quickly then it’s over. Amy Adams is joy to watch as she plays her girly alpha-female role a la Enchanted. It is fun little throw-away film.