The Informant! (Review)

     "The Informant!," starring Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh, is an odd, little comedy.  A lot of the humor comes from the (seemingly) non-squinter actions of Matt Damon's character, Mark Whitacre, a VP at food giant ADM, who turns FBI informant.  However, unlike the almost endless wave of gross out, mostly improvised, idiotic comedies that stain theater screens these days, (you know the ones, the ones that seem to rely solely on the non-squinter stupidity improvised by the comedians while filming) "The Informant!" is funny not because all of Whitacre's actions are completely unreal, and therefor, unexpected, but because Whitacre's actions are, in fact, based on actual fact, and there are very real reasons motivating him.  This, sadly, is also the downfall of "The Informant!"  Once we are through the first act, laughter gives way to cringing as we wonder how anyone can be that dumb, and once we are in the third act, we just feel sorry for Whitacre, his family, and everyone who ever had anything to do with him.  In the end, "The Informant!" leaves you feeling uncomfortable and wishing you hadn't gone through the trouble of going to the theater.  Soderbergh tries to take as much creative license as possible, but, in the end, the reality of the material is simply too depressing. 

     I do have to give Matt Damon credit for doing a great job playing, what turns out to be, a character you only end up feeling pity for, to Scott Bakula, who, likewise, does a great job as FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard, who ends up on the receiving end of Whitacre's problems, and to Steven Soderbergh who does his usual best directing, but, in the end, none of them could really overcome the source material, Mark Whitacre's actual life and actions.

Whip It (Review)

     I got to see "Whip It" nearly a week early as it opened this Saturday in limited theaters for a sneak preview.  (I got a free t-shirt too!)  The drive was definitely worth it.  

     "Whip It" mixes just the right amount of humor, emotion, and self discovery into a uniquely Texas coming of age tale.  Ellen Page, who has an incredible amount of talent for one so young, brings her usual stellar performance as Bliss Cavendar, an 17 year old girl from a small (one stop light kind of small) Texas town who is being forced by her, well meaning, mother, played by Marcia Gay Harden, who does a prefect performance of an obsessive, small town, Texas mother, to participate in beauty pageant after beauty pageant, in an attempt to give her daughter the advantages she never had growing up.  Younger sister, Shania, played by relative newcomer Eulala Scheel, seems to love the pageant life.  Not so for Bliss.  She hates it and longs for something outside of small town life.  Her chance comes during a shopping trip to Austin where she picks up a flyer for TXRD, Texas Roller Derby.  From there, a shy, reserved young girl lies to her parents about where she is going at night, lies about her age to get into the league, and discovers something she truly loves, or, at least, loves more than working as a waitress at a small town BBQ joint.  Daniel Stern plays the father.  He's also very typical small town Texas.  He is a bit overwhelmed by a family of beauty pageant girls.  He has to sneak out to his van to watch football and looks enviously at the high school football signs other fathers put in their yards for their sons.  Additional star power is brought by Jimmy Fallon, who actually does a good job as TXRD announcer 'Hot Tub' Johnny Rocket, Kristen Wiig, also brings a great performance as Maggie Mayhem, player for the fictional TXRD team, the Hurl Scouts, Juliette Lewis, who does an incredible job as chief rival Iron Maven, player for the number one TXRD team, the Holy Rollers, Andrew Wilson, who is truly the most under rated Wilson brother, playing the beach bum-esque Hurl Scouts coach to perfection, (his performance is far more believable and authentic than anything brother Owen could ever pull off) and, of course, let us not forget, first time director, Drew Barrymore, who not only shines in her directorial debut, but also does a great job as Hurl Scouts player Smashley Simpson. 

     (Ok, time out for a second.  If case some of that confused you, let me give you a (very) quick explanation of Roller Derby culture.  Roller Derby is a contact sport, played by women on skates, who try to pass each other on a track for points.  The players and teams usually have, let's say, colorful names.  Actual TXRD team names include the Holy Rollers, the Hellcats, and the Putas del Fuego.  Anyway, you really don't need to know anything about Roller Derby before seeing this movie.  It'll be very obvious or they'll fill you in along the way.  Anyway, back to the movie.) 

     "Whip It" is simultaneously a inspirational tale of a young girl finding her own path in life, a underdog sports flick about a team who started at last and fought hard to be on top, and an incredibly funny, true to life comedy, full of characters we see every day (especially if you live in or near Central Texas) and can actually relate to.

Surrogates (Review)

     Online, you can hide behind an avatar and a lie of a profile and have complete anonymity.  Expand that to real life, with a realistic looking robotic body, made in your own image, or not, and you have the world of "Surrogates."  Most crime being a thing of the past, no more spreading diseases, racism and sexism gone (if you don't know, how can you hate?), and few, if any , consequences for your actions, (destroying a surrogate seems to be considered vandalism) all seem to take our own self centered, hedonistic, world of instant gratification to a whole new level.  Throw in those who don't choose to keep them selves 'safe' by using robotic bodies living on reservations, seemingly shunning technology and being the subject of new racism, and you might think that you have a great vehicle for a truly meaningful and poignant tale about where our ever increasingly virtual world is going.  Sadly, "Surrogates" just doesn't go there.  Perhaps the graphic novel origins of this story needed a bit more fleshing out (no pun intended, well, maybe a little) before it was ready for the big screen.  That's not to say that "Surrogates" wasn't a good movie, just not that good of a movie and a disappointment considering the subject matter.

     Bruce Willis brings his usual performance, that is to say, excellent.  If some of the acting seems a little plastic in the first act, that's because it is supposed to be.  Surrogates, the robotic bodies, are very advanced, but really don't quite pull off the full range of human emotions, especially the negative ones.  This vehicle is used for some of the movie's most poignant scenes, showing surrogates fail to register anything when emotions should be tragic, and having the operator, the person behind the machine, actually disconnect and feel those very painful emotions in real life, like they were meant to be felt.  It also shows the ability of people to lose themselves in lives devoid of any negative emotions and, in the process, they fail to feel anything.  Sadly, again, this is shown and explored very minimally.

     Thankfully, "Surrogates" also fails to explore the potential for CGI enhanced, adrenaline pumping, completely incoherent action sequences that would actually be possible with robotic bodies driven by humans who can't feel the pain or need to fear consequences like death or dismemberment.  There is one chase scene where this comes into play, but it is done realistically and is not unnecessarily fast or over the top.  Michael Bay would be disappointed.

     In the end, what you get is a mildly entertaining action film that doesn't assault your senses, but also doesn't really challenge your brain either. 

9 (Review)

     Produced by Tim Burton (and, yes, you can tell Tim Burton was involved) and based on writer/director Shane Acker's short film by the same name, "9" is a visually stunning, post apocalyptic animated tale about odd, little rag dolls which are the last hope of humanity. 

     Fair warning.  Just because this is an animated film and the main characters are small, doll like things, this movie is rated PG-13 for a reason.  It occurs shortly after the fall of mankind.  There is ruin everywhere, some dead bodies, (nothing really graphic) and some skeletal remains.  Don't bring younger or easily frightened children. 

     That having been said, "9" is, as I said, visually stunning, action packed, and exceptionally well done.  Acker pulls off a fast paced, yet enjoyable and engaging, story about death, hope, and the triumph, quite literally, of the human spirit. Voice talents include Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, John Reilly, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly, and Elijah Wood as our title character, 9.  9 is a small, cloth skinned, creation/creature, brought to life by a scientist, near the end of a devastating war between humanity and machines.  It doesn't take 9 long before he is running for his life, pursued by something that seems to be part machine and part cat skull and aided by 5, one of the 8 other creations/creatures that seem to be the only things life alive.  Each one of these numbered creations seem to have an innate role, including an almost insane 6 who seems to resemble Tim Burton a bit.  9 seems driven to find and rescue 2, who was captured by the afore mentioned cat/machine/monstrosity shorty before 5 found 9.

     From there, the story unfolds quite quickly, all without feeling rushed and while keeping the plot evolving.  The story is simple enough for younger viewers to understand and contains enough subtly embedded meaning and metaphor (like the cathedral-esque factory where the machines are made, the fictional, Nazi-like state that created the machines and used them for conquest, and the best-ever use of a Judy Garland song to foreshadow oncoming doom) to keep adult viewers paying attention.  On top of that, the action is paced very well and keeps you in suspense (nail biting, really) throughout the action scenes.  The ending may seem a bit, confusing or even anti climatic to some, but I, personally, was satisfied with the thought that, one so many levels, live goes on.

Battle For Terra (Review)

      I had seen "Battle for Terra" in theaters when it came out, but only the 2-D version, however, thanks to the Fantastic Fest and the Alamo Drafthouse, I got to see it in 3-D (and have a really good pizza.)      Sadly, the 3-D does very little for this movie.  Luckily, there are no moments of things flying out of the screen, just some floating credits, but there is also not a lot of really good use of 3-D in the screen.  Most of the time, you don't even notice the 3-D or it seems to be almost non existent, as if the movie was not originally made for 3-D and it was added after the fact.  Some of the space scenes are nice in 3-D and the huge, flying, alien whale thing is a nice effect, but all in all, you can safely skip the 3-D version and not really be missing anything.

     Than having been said, this was a pretty good movie.  It is not a lesson on environmentalism.  It is an anti war story.  The movie begins on Terra, an alien world inhabited by large eyed, legless aliens who seem to swim through the air.  Despite the lack of 3-D luster, the animation is actually quite breathtaking.  Not to far in, humans arrive.  It seems that we did not destroy the environment, rather, over centuries, we used up the the Earth's resources.  (No, it is not about recycling either.)  After that, we terraformed Mars and Venus, colonized them, and began to use their resources.  About 200 years after that, the colonies want independence.  War destroys all three worlds, and the remaining humans strike out in a huge ship, taking generations to arrive at the nearest world that can support life, Terra.  So, it's us or them.  The story is a bit archetypal at this point.  There's a general, hell bent on destruction of the native Terrians as the only solution, a young, intelligent Terrian trying to rescue her father, a human pilot who is rescued by a Terrian, and even a cute, little robot sidekick, however, despite a less than original general story, the execution of the story is gripping  and done more than well enough to keep you engaged.  You get drawn into these characters and actually care about what happens to them.  They manage to not make the robot an annoying gimmick and make him more than a bit player.  There is even a surprise as the Terrians end up being not your typical group of backwater natives.

     I enjoyed this movie.  It's not long enough to get preachy or boring or hung up on details or the science of anything and it moves along at a really nice pace.  The voice actors all do a good job, including Evan Rachel Wood and Luke Wilson in starring roles as the Terrian Mala and Human fighter pilot, Jim Stanton.  Other voices include James Garner, David Cross, Beverly D'Angelo, Danny Glover, Laraine Newman, Ron Perlman, Dennis Quaid, and Mark Hamill.  That's quite a lot of star power.  Unfortunately, only James Garner and David Cross play roles of any consequence.  Cross plays the, thankfully, not annoying, (and thankfully not very David Cross) robot Giddy and Garner plays one of the elder Terrians (and guardian of the terrible secret) 

     Ok, so I liked "Battle for Terra," who else will enjoy it?  It's animated, so you think kids, but it's not really a kids movie.  There is war, violence, death, alien autopsy, racial hatred, and an attempted genocide.  Even if you'd like your youngster to see the positive message about living in harmony and peace, it's likely to be a bit much for them.  Adults are likely to be thrown by the short running time, 85 minutes, the sci-fi setting, and the kinda cutesy aliens, and teens will likely think it's a kids movie.  However, if you can get over watching a cartoon (CGI, that is, and beautifully done) and you are old enough for the PG-13 content, I'd recommend seeing "Battle for Terra", at least once.