From the Collection: Miller's Crossing

Reviewed by Steve Kochems

I dug out an old favorite in the weekend of moving and other activities, the Coen Brother's third film, Miller's Crossing. Enjoy!

Have you ever watched someone chase something in the wind, like a hat or a twenty? They look ridiculous, even if it’s something they need, you can’t help but constantly look foolish doing it. This idea, the foolish man chasing his hat, is at the heart of the gangster film Miller’s Crossing. The third film by Joel and Ethan Coen was only one of two movies they made that lost money, mostly in part to the fact that it came out three days after Goodfella’s, which is widely considered the best gangster movie of all time. But like anything with the Coen’s, the movie isn’t as one dimensional as it seems, it brings a great deal of comedy along with the violence. And as usual, the Coen’s deliver a smart and entertaining film.

We follow the path of Tom Reagan, who can only be described as a mob boss adviser and a rum head, played by Gabriel Byrne. He tries to prevent a war from starting between city boss Leo (Albert Finney) and the hot-headed Johnny Casper, perfectly executed by Jon Polito, and his ruthless associate Eddie the Dane (J. E. Freeman). Caught in the middle are the weasel Bernie Bernbaum (another perfect casting in Jon Turturro) and his sister, as well as Leo’s lady, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden). The Coen’s don’t waste much time to let the powder keg go and Thomson machine gun’s fire.

After watching it through a few times, I noticed that throughout the movie, it seems as if things are moving only as Tom and Verna manipulates them. Leo and Casper only seem to make major moves when Tom or Verna push them to. This is another example of the Coen’s using a few smart, key characters to move the action and letting them move physically driven stooges keep us entertained with comedy and violence.

The movie will really keep you guessing as to what happens next and works well as a type of gangster movie, since it doesn’t hit the normal points of the obvious films of the genre. But just as Blood Simple works as a murder-mystery or Burn After Reading like an adult soap, things are never neatly packed into one type with the Coen’s. You will laugh a lot during Miller’s Crossing and quickly switch back to a cringe.

It stands out as easily one of the best Coen movies ever and like The Big Lebowski, it gets better each time you watch it. Anyone who doesn’t give the movie a chance, well, they’re getting the high hat.


4.5 out of 5 stars

Upcoming

Hey Guys.

We've got two upcoming movie trailers to show you, and boy do they look cool. The first, Skyline, comes from the minds of Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell. Cordes is partially responsible for the effects and animation for films like Iron Man 2, Avatar and 2012 , while O'Donnell did work on AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem. This means one thing: the digital effects are going to look fucking awesome. The flick is directed by Greg and Colin Strause, guys who worked on Iron Man 2, Jonah Hex, and Avatar. The film, which has a November 12 release date, stars Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson. It has a War of the Worlds feel to it- alien invasion, everyone running type of deal. Click here for the trailer!

The second trailer is for Devil, the latest from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) and directors Drew and John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine). This movie looks pretty damn creepy, something about people being trapped in an elevator with a demon, but that's not the important issue here. While some critics say that Shyamalan has fallen off as a writer (and he pretty much has), this could be his big chance to prove himself to everyone again, and it will be interesting to see how this film plays out in that regard. Check for it in theaters on September 17, and click here for the trailer!

Salt

Reviewed by Mike Kamrowski

I just got around to catching the latest flick from director Phillip Noyce (The Bone Collector, Patriot Games) and, to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised. I hadn't heard much about Salt, safe for the fact that Angelina Jolie was starring as some kind of hot, ass kicking secret agent, so I didn't really have any expectations. The trailer looked solid and the movie ticket was only $4.50 so I figured "what the hell?" Here's what I thought.

First off, Salt was written by Kurt Wimmer who brought us the excellent Law Abiding Citizen. While Salt didn't have the appearance of his previous work, the story was well written, fully thought out and full of great twists (remind you of anything?). The story follows CIA agent Evelyn Salt (Jolie) and her boss Ted Winter (Liev Schreiber) as they interrogate Russian defector Vassily Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski). Orlov gives them some pretty interesting information, revealing that sleeper agents, trained in Russia and sent to the U.S. as children to replace already existing citizens, are going to kill the Russian President in the coming days: the particular agent in question is Evelyn Salt.

OH. SHIT. But that's Jolie!

You can guess where it goes from here- I really don't want to reveal too much because of all the twists and no-fucking-way moments, but I will say this: Jolie beats some serious ass as Evelyn Salt. It was impressive really, certainly reminiscent of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. The action was almost non-stop, the fight scenes were well choreographed and the car chase scenes were fast and surprisingly funny. In one particular scene, Jolie is locked in the back seat of a police SUV and somehow manages to kick out the cops on either side of her. She ends up with a taser, shoots the driver in the leg with it and, crippling the poor bastard to nothing more than spasms, uses his head to steer the car. Each time she hits the taser, his leg pounds on the accelerator. I have to say, that's one thing I've never seen in any movie prior to this one. An interesting concept and one that had the audience rolling with laughter.

The film is well shot, really well shot in fact, and the story was great all the way until the end. So many twists and unexpected moments greet the audience in Salt that I'm hoping for a sequel, which could happen due to the open ending that Wimmer left us with. The climax tied up most of the loose ends and I walked away satisfied... except for the utter lack of naked Angelina Jolie scenes :(

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Expendables

Reviewed by Mike Kamrowski

I've been eagerly awaiting The Expendables for some time now and my initial reaction after watching it for the first time was: Holy SHIT was that entertaining. It wasn't necessarily good story-wise, or acting-wise, or camera-wise... well, keep reading and you'll see what I mean.

The film, which was directed and co-written by Sylvester Stallone (and CHRIST could you tell), had one of the most ridiculous supporting casts ever assembled for an action flick. I mean, how can you go wrong when Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Steven Austin, Terry Crews, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, David Zayas and Eric Roberts all join forces to make the end-all be-all action movie?

The story, which let's be honest here wasn't even necessary because all we want to see is ass-beating by the masters of the craft, followed Barney Ross (Stallone, and the names only get worse from here) and his group of mercenaries on various missions. Well, two missions, but we're to understand that they've been doing this type of shit for years. Joining Ross is his number-two man, Lee Christmas (Statham), who is better with a blade than Paul Hogan from Crocodile Dundee. Rounding off the group are Ying Yang (Li), Gunner Jensen (Lundgren), Toll Road (Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews).

After the teams first mission, where they kill a boatload of Somalian pirates and Lundgren goes ape-shit and ends up getting kicked off the team, Ross is approached by Mr. Church (Willis) and Trench (Schwarzenegger) about a job. Naturally Ross takes the job, it goes bad, shit blows up and gets all kinds of stabby, his love interest (Giselle Itie) gets kidnapped by the evil General Garza (Zayas) and he's torn between going back to save the girl, putting himself and crew in danger or losing what could potentially be the love of his life. In order to resolve this, as most matters these days tend to be resolved, he goes and talks to Mickey Rourke. After the heart-to-heart, Ross decides to go back and fight against Garza and his fellow evil-doers James Munroe (Roberts) and Munroe's henchman Paine (Austin). His crew comes along armed to the teeth, eEverything explodes, the bad guys die and the good guys fly out with not much more than a scratch.

Truthfully, The Expendables was not very good in most respects. The dialogue was terrible, due in part to Stallone and company's writing, but also because FUCK are these guys hard to understand. Jet Li, Lundgren and Stallone can barely be understood most of the time, and Zayas and Statham aren't much better. The story doesn't make much sense- we never find out what the bad guys are up to, just that they're bad. Stallone, as much as it pains me to say this, is getting old; the running-down-the-dock scene was hard to watch, but you have to remember: the guy is 64 and absolutely jacked in this movie, so he's not that old I guess. The camera work was pretty terrible in some parts and the cast, while amazing, was so big that I felt like there just wasn't enough camera-time to go around. It really drags in some parts and I often found myself thinking "wow, this movie needs more action." But when the action came, especially at the end, damn was it great.

The overall body count had to have been in the low thousands and I can't remember the last time I watched a flick where so many guys had their necks snapped or throats cut. The fight scenes were great, as were the explosions while everything had an "epic" feel to it. The weapons were different for most action movies and the ways enemies were killed sometimes had me laughing out loud. The showdown between Couture and Austin was epic, Li's martial arts were fantastic, and Stallone kicked some serious ass but the saving grace for the movie wasn't just the awesome fighting/shooting/explosion/car chase scenes- it was Terry Crews.

If you thought Crews was brilliant in the Old Spice commercials, you haven't seen anything yet. Every time he's on screen he's magic. Whether it's talking about his switch-blade or his AA-12 shotgun (shout out to Modern Warfare 2!), he is just great. There's a scene where Stallone and the boys are trapped at the end of a hall by the baddies with no way out. Cut to Crews with a monster of a machine gun, posted right behind the enemies. He absolutely decimates everything in sight and then pretty much single-handedly destroys most of the enemy base, blowing up guard towers and just about everything else along the way. The crowning moment, however, was when Stallone instructs him to THROW A MISSILE at a helicopter so he can shoot it- he does and everything explodes.

There was a bit of an open ending and I truly hope they make a sequel- except this time, maybe let Stallone do the fighting and someone else do the rest.


4 out of 5 ninja stars

A Weekend Double Up!

Okay, so I saw two semi-recent DVD releases this weekend and thought I’d share my thoughts on each with you. One I had heard a lot of good things about and was a requirement after they way I blasphemously reviewed Dinner for Schmucks (I still stand by my review, but it hurts too much to say it). The other I had zero interest in seeing (pun) until someone told me how it ended. This obviously ruined much of the film, but had I taken the time to see it I would’ve been pleasantly surprised. Here we go!

I Love You, Man

Alright, if you’re homophobic then you should just skip down because I’m not afraid to say it- I love Paul Rudd. He’s got such a range and likability to him that I cannot explain. He swoons me every scene he’s in. So after I said he was awful in a previous review, I knew I had to go back to something that would reinvigorate my faith in him. Hence, the pinnacle of bromanticism.

The story is a fairly basic romance story in disguise of a comedy (I refuse to admit this is a romantic comedy), with a flipping of the desired gender for Peter (Rudd). He goes through a series of failed attempts to make friends, or man-dates, until finally meeting Sydney (Jason Segel) in what would seem to be fate. They hit it off over a series of broments and, well, you know how romance’s go.

The real surprise to this film is Peter’s sturdy relationship with Zooey (Rashida Jones). Jones brings a soft and comforting feel to the screen and helps pace the plot against the building bro-mentum of Peter and Sydney. Outside of those three, the film splits other characters. Jon Favreau’s ill-tempered Barry and J.K. Simmons, playing Peter’s father, are a treat each time they are on screen. The time given to an annoying Rob Huebel, Peter’s coworker, and a high-pitched comedian who isn’t listed on IMDB’s page for the film is minimal but makes you wish it was less.

All in all, I’m glad to back in the Rudd-boat (get it? Think Asian). It’s a nice balance of heart and comedy that hides its true nature so well that many guys who watch it together with pizza and beer will never realize it’s basically the same idea as two women curling up to When Harry Met Sally and a bucket of iced cream.

4 out of 5 stars

The Book of Eli

When I first saw trailers for this movie, it came in between trailers for The Crazies and Daybreakers. I thought it was a triumvirate of post-apocalyptic garbage that seems to fill theatres every year. At the very least, I never thought it was something to worry about. The world’s only hope is Denzel Washington- alright I’m not worried, I know he’ll get it done. So I was told how it ended and got pissed because while most of the film isn’t much different than the normal doomsday dumpster films coming out each year, it ends up being worthwhile.

Eli (Washington) is seemingly a wanderer who is traveling west and will occasionally kill some bandits. If nothing else, the fight scenes in this film were crisp and quick, no elaborate choreography and very realistic. Eventually, he ends up in a town run by a man named Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who has runners searching everywhere for some book (I wonder where he’ll find it?). Trouble arises when Eli sticks to his mission of going west rather than joining up with Carnegie.

The most intriguing part of this movie to me was lining the effects of religion up against each other. The righteous Eli against the manipulative Carnegie is a nice conflict and a believable one mostly because Carnegie’s intentions are never truly evil or terrible in nature, but are rather a perversion of something pure for a less good. This alleviates the lackluster climax, which also acts as a trade-off for the major twist at the end.

Ultimately, it’s got some nice action and shows serious issues in the religious forum, less abrasively than something like Religulous. Its balance ends up being its flaw (along with its lacking of worthwhile supporting characters outside of Oldman) as it carries enough action to entertain and enough smarts to intrigue. It’s going to lose points because the ending will only surprise you once, but that one time is worth watching for.

3.5 out of 5 stars