The General Idea

Plot synopsis from IMDB: Jackie Moon, the owner-coach-player of the American Basketball Association’s Flint Michigan Tropics, rallies his teammates to make their NBA dreams come true

The Good

Tim Meadows isn’t in Semi Pro much, but the strongest scene in the film features him and this is no accident. He is an outstanding comedic performer with amazing timing and when he is on the screen - laughter happens. It was great to see him and Will working together again and I certainly hope for more team ups in the future.

The sports commentators in this film Dick Pepperfield (Andrew Daly) and Lou Redwood (Will Arnett) have quite a bit of dialogue both on and off the court. You would think that the movie would have suffered for it, but the opposite was true. When either of these characters are on the screen, the film is funny and enjoyable. Arnett and Daly had fantastic chemistry and they both fit their characters like a glove. To be honest, if Semi Pro was a film about sports commentators and focused on these two; the movie would have been much, much better. These characters were the pillars holding the film together and without them it would have been a total write off.

Jackie Moon surprisingly does not have a lot of stand alone screen time. We do not get many solo moments with Jackie so we don’t learn much about him, and it’s just as well; the character is forgettable and I would argue the worst Will Ferrell incarnation to date. He was a profane man however and it made for some hilarious moments. Will usually keeps the language fairly clean so it was a bit shocking to see him slinging f-bombs in peoples’ faces. The audience always laughed when he got crass and it was a nice surprise. I just wish this card would have been used with a better character, in a better film

The Bad

Monix (Woody Harrelson) plays the hero of this film and is also the love interest in a bullshit romantic sub-plot. The film is more about Monix than Jakie Moon, which could have been fine - if Monix was humorous. When a focus character isn’t funny in a comedy; something has gone horribly wrong. Woody was great in Kingpin and it’s a shame that Semi Pro ignored and his comedic ability. Monixr was a flat out buzzkill and every time he is on the screen - the film becomes lameland.

The story for this film sucked, It was formulaic, unfunny and spent time trying to provide life lessons in a glossed over, piss-poor manner. Some scenes were quite funny and that will happen when you have a cast like this; but the overall story still needs to be humorous - this was not the case with Semi Pro. This film was the bastard son of a shitty sports film and a mediocre comedy. With the talent they had on board, it’s a god damn shame this film was anything less than outstanding.

Overall

With the little that these actors had to work with, they still managed to get some pretty decent laughs, and some scenes were great. It is for a handful of scenes that I will recommend this film. Andrew Daly And Will Arnett are largely responsible for tipping the scale and they should be proud of what they accomplished. This is my least favorite Wil Ferrell comedy to date, so it has the distinction of being #1 on that list. Out of 10 I will give Semi Pro a 5 and if you are not chopping at the bit to see it; wait for the rental.

The General Idea

Plot outline from IMDB: Wealthy teenager Charlie Bartlett is failing miserably at fitting in at a new public high school run by the world-weary Principal Gardner. As he begins to better understand the social hierarchy, Charlie’s honest charm and likability positions him as the resident “psychiatrist” dishing out advice, and the occasional prescription with his partner and fellow student, Murphy Bivens, to other students in need. Along the way, he decides to take some of his own advice, find romance, and learn to accept who he is, thus wielding a witty dark comedy about the angst-filled years before college.

The Good

The acting in this film was great. Robert Downey Jr. ruled and the young actors that he had to play off of certainly held their own. This film was a great opportunity for a number of fledgeling thespians to showcase their wares and when you have the Jr. Downey in the scene with you, it is quite a bonus.

The film sets itself up pretty quickly into what looks to be a hilarious modern take on the high school drug movie. Instead of weed, hash, mushrooms and acid, we have kids spilling their guts to Charlie Bartlett and he hooks them up with pharmaceuticals. When Charlie (Anton Yelchin) and his hooligan dealer Murphy (Tyler Hilton) sell their first batch of ritilain at a school dance it leads to a hilarious shot of 2 topless girls running down the hall as they are being chased by a mentally challenged giant wearing a cape!

One scene in particular stood out to be awesome. Charlie is assaulted on his first day of school by Murphy, and then after he returns from a few days off…. is assaulted again. In retaliation Charlie hires the schools largest student (who happens to be mentally challenged) and gets his limo driver to cut Murphy off on his way home from school. The giant then throws Murph into the car, and manhandles him till he’s subdued. Charlie then extends the offer to become business partners in drug dealing. It was a classic high school movie moment and was done very well.

The Bad

The movie seems to shift gears from a drug comedy to an after school special about how teens can properly deal with their emotional problems. The majority of the movie focuses on the counseling of Charlie Bartlett and him struggling with his own demons. I don’t mind if the film wanted to have this message but the set up was for a different type of movie, and the punch-line was without a proper setup.

It was needless for this film to have a restricted rating. If the film was going to be a drug comedy, it would have made total sense; but because the lions share of the film is all about sentimental life lessons, I would have preferred to see it PG-13. At this rating the target audience would be able to benefit from the film’s message. As much as I disliked the change in direction, if the film was focused one way or the other - we could have had a great film. Because it tried to be two genres, it didn’t do justice to either.

Overall

The acting in this film was solid, but the film didn’t know what it wanted to be. An opportunity was wasted and out of 10 I will give Charlie Bartlett a 5 just to get him out of high school.

Vantage Point is a film that has a couple of things going for before I even step into the theater to watch it. First of all, it’s a little different. I’m always interested to see films that take a different approach to conventional linear storytelling. They don’t all turn out as well as Memento did, but it’s still interesting to see. Telling a story from different perspectives isn’t exactly 100% original, but it’s not done often. Also, I confess to being a big Denis Quaid fan. Put that man in anything and I’ll be curious at the very least to see it. So did Vantage Point take advantage of these things or squander them? Well… both.

THE GENERAL IDEA

Vantage Point takes place during a major world event where the President of the United States (played by William Hurt) has assembled a massive alliance of world leaders in a new plan to fight global terrorism. The movie happens all on the afternoon of a huge outdoor press conference in Spain with the leaders in front of cheering crowds. But when the President steps up to the microphone to address the world, gun shots ring out and the President goes down. Moments after that, sounds of explosions echo and blast through the crowd. This incident is then replayed for the audience several times, each time from the perspective of a different person. The President, one of his secret service agents, a tourist, a terrorist and a couple of others all sewn together for the audience leading up to the climax of the film when all the various perspectives come together.

THE GOOD

The concept of the film worked. The whole idea of weaving what is really going on to the audience through different perspectives and the new information that comes from each character, and how that new information sheds light on information we learned from a previous one was executed well. It starts us off just from the perspective of the average citizen of the world as we first see the events happen from the view of the world news agency (they can’t call it CNN… so it’s something like GNN or something like that) and then we learn more from each progressive charcter’s “Vantage Point”.

The ensemble cast of the film was quite solid really, no one really stuck out as a weakness (aside from Forest Whitaker, who is always great but whose character was totally pointless and uncessesary which made having an actor like him in there a distraction) and they all fit pretty well into their respective roles. Quaid was quite strong actually, but I expected nothing less anyway.

THE BAD

It’s not really fair to hold the marketing of a film against a movie… but in today’s Hollywood, the marketing is now very much a part of the film’s experience unfortunately, and the marketing of this film absolutely RUINED significant parts of the movie for me. I obviously can’t go into too much detail here without crossing into spoiler territory, but it’s enough to say that as I was watching the movie I realized that a couple of things that were SUPPOSED to be twists and surprises later on, were already ruined because of something I saw in the trailer. This drove me NUTS.

Although the movie executed the whole “telling the story from different Vantage Points” pretty well, the mechanism they used got quite annoying. As each characters point of view was finished being shown, the screen would freeze, then rewind through what we just saw, and a clock would show at the bottom of the screen letting us know that it was Noon again. The first time they did it, it felt out of place… but after that it felt like they were treating us in the audience like idiots. As a matter of fact, instead of creating added dramatic tension to the movie, the technique made people in the theater laugh out loud each time they did it.

THE ENDING OF THIS MOVIE WAS BEYOND FRUSTRATING, UNBELIEVABLE and pure utter nonsense. I wish more than anything I could tell you how this thing ends, but clearly that would be a spoiler, but I will say this… the film comes to its end with a terrorist, doing something so stupid, so ridiculous, so unbelievable that it just sours the taste of the whole film for me. I want to rant and rave about how bad this ending was… but I can’t… and that makes me even more frustrated. AARRGGGHH!!!!!

OVERALL

Vantage Point is a mediocre story told in an interesting way that unfortunately tends to drag itself down by some of the repetativness and techniques it employs. A decent job by the ensembles cast carries the film most of the way, and then is nearly completely ruined by a plot device at the end that soured the whole taste of the movie for me.

Overall I give Vantage Point a 5 out of 10.

The General Idea

Plot outline from IMDB: Jerry is a junkyard worker who attempts to sabotage a power plant he suspects of causing his headaches. But he inadvertently causes his brain to become magnetized, leading to the unintentional destruction of all the movies in his friend’s store. In order to keep the store’s one loyal customer, an elderly lady with a tenuous grasp on reality, the pair re-create a long line of films including The Lion King, Rush Hour, Ghostbusters, When We Were Kings, Back to the Future, Driving Miss Daisy, and Robocop, putting themselves and their townspeople into it. They become the biggest stars in their neighborhood.

The Good

The idea of people remaking well known movies and renting them out is a fantastic idea. In this film the movie is at its best when they are doing just that. Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) use fast talking, ingenuity and limitless imagination to recreate some well known classics and it is an absolute pleasure to watch them do so. They props and costumes that they assemble are made from junk that you or I could gather ourselves (and watching them makes you want to do likewise).

I very much enjoyed the local aspect of this film and watching different people in the community interact with each other. Jerry is pretty much crazy, lives in a trailer and his interaction with the locals was fantastic. He was strange, but because he was local, people just accepted him the way he was without flinching. Every town has their “local crazies,” they become celebrities and part of the tapestry. You learn to appreciate who they are, and what they bring to a community. In my home town of Welland we have a man that wears denim from head to toe and walks around the city from sunrise to sunset. He will sing you assorted Doors lyrics for cigarettes and every time I am in town I keep an eye out for the man. He walks the earth like cain, but looks like a roadie for Motorhead. If you owned a piece of land by how many footsteps you put upon it - he would be be Welland’s undisputed monarch.

The Bad

Although the idea for this film was great and the movie making segments were fantastic, the story that held it all together was quite weak. We spend a lot of time on the myth of a local Jazz Legend that really takes focus away from the story and adds an unnecessary mythos to the plot. Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), the owner of the store, is absent for much of the film, and to be honest his character adds nothing to the story. Danny was good in the film, but his character’s absence would have made for a better movie.

This film was also too long, it really should have been trimmed down to keep the pace tighter, if they sliced out danny glover and jazz history, this film would have had more focus on what was important. The city and the FBI both play enemies of the video store in the film; either would have been fine, but to have two different forces threatening the store was overkill.

Overall

I enjoyed this film, but certainly had problems with the story. This movie reminds us that we love many films in spite of their flaws, and this is a self fulfilling prophecy. I would recommend this film because the cool parts are worth checking out and although I wasn’t busting a gut laughing - I did enjoy myself. Out of 10, I would give this film a 6.

General Idea: A film crew shooting a horror movie for a class project suddenly realizes the world is being taken over by the “walking dead.” They decide to document their horrific experiences of trying to stay alive on camera for the public. They later piece together and re-edit footage from their camcorders, camera phones, security tapes, and the news to make a film entitled ‘The Death of Death.’

The Good: You have to give it up to George A. Romero. The man knows how to stay consistent. Like all his movies, the zombie outbreak takes place in the Present, and the reasons why the dead walk the earth still remains an enigma. (Something I’ve always loved.)

Also, something I always admired about this man is his ability of adapting and growing with the times.  Most people know now that his ‘Dead’ movies are not just about zombies taking over the earth, but more importantly about current social issues and examining how ugly the human condition can be. In ‘Diary of the Dead,’ he makes the audience observe society’s current and ever growing obsession of blogging and social network groups like facebook, MySpace, and YouTube.  While I watched the film, I realized that the zombie outbreak wasn’t the only thing infecting the humans. It became apparent that Romero was trying to point out how we have become a generation of people that would rather watch people living out their lives on a computer screen, instead of living our own. In fact, the characters in the movie become so immersed with filming, that their need for survival starts to diminish. This was an excellent point to get across to the audience.

Additionally, the kills in this movie were fantastic! Romero has some of the most inventive and creative kills I have ever seen in a movie! (There’s a particular one involving a cardiac defibrillator that was pure gold!) The audience was cheering every time one of the undead met their demise. This to me was (visually) the strongest point of the film, so I won’t spoil all the memorably gory moments.

The audience is also introduced to the greatest character ever seen in a horror movie.  When you see Samuel, the elderly deaf zombie killing Amish man, believe me that you will have a giant smile on your face. (Too bad he wasn’t in the film more.) Honestly, if they had made the movie just about him, I would have been cheering the whole way.

The Bad:  Although Romero’s creative twist on the new “hand held” sub-genre was a fairly original concept*, (*showing us a documentary that’s been re-edited by the characters to look like an actual horror film) it unfortunately didn’t succeed in wowing me over.

While popular hand held movies like ‘The Blair Witch Project,’ ‘Cloverfield,’ and ‘Rec’ made you feel like you’re watching real-life footage because of gritty and jerky camera work and natural acting from the leads, ‘Diary of the Dead’ had sleek camera work and actors who LOOKED like they were acting. (Poorly I might add.) For the entire running time I was completely aware I was watching a movie, instead of watching an illusion of real-life events.

Also, although I can’t believe I’m going to write this, (considering this IS a zombie flick) my suspension of disbelief was definitely pushed to the limit.

Somehow, these college kids all managed to have perfect aim and gunmanship when it came to killing the zombies. (Even the drunken professor had extremely accurate bowsmanship.) They also managed to constantly make stupid moves and mistakes which frustrated me to no end. (If you were in your friend’s house and was convinced her undead family was hiding in the house, would the first thing you do is tell her to get her childhood toy to calm down? NO…I didn’t think so.)   I also found it very hard to believe that friends would not only tape, but re-edit a documentary of most of them getting picked off one by one to look and sound like a slasher film. (However, considering what Romero was trying to do with this film, this might not be a bad thing after all.)

Last but not least, one of the biggest letdowns of this film was realizing Romero’s tactful way of covering all the social commentary within his ‘Dead’ films was long gone. No longer is there any under-lining subtext for the messages he was trying to get across in this entry. Unlike ‘Cloverfield,’ which was able to demonstrate how we have become a press-whoring youtube and MySpace generation through one scene where crowds of panicked people foolishly stop running for their lives to take pictures on their camera phones of the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty on the ground, ‘Diary of the Dead’ spends the entire running time of the movie drilling this message in our heads through many ostentatious voice-overs, and characters without the ability to retain any inner monologue, reminding us how bad our society has become.  Although, I know it wasn’t Romero’s intention at all, it still felt like he had underestimated his audience’s I.Q. Unfortunately, this was disappointing to see.

Overall: ‘Diary of the Dead’ is a movie that was beautifully directed, yet horribly acted.  Although the movie’s message was a powerful one, it would have been far more powerful if the movie hadn’t treated its audience like Wile.E Coyote and constantly hit us over the heads with ACME-sized “social commentary” anvils.   This is honestly the first time I feel horrible for not being able to like the movie more than I did.  (This is probably because George Romero just happens to be one of the sweetest and most charismatic directors alive.) However, despite the movie’s flaws, I still would recommend this for fans of the series, because it definitely delivers the goods that horror fans crave for.

I give this movie…. (GULP) a 6.5 out of 10. (I’m sorry, George! :P)