Movie Reviews: television

'The A-Team': On the rogue again

Welcome to '80s Reboot Week at your neighborhood movie house.

Film-goers might just feel like they're in a time warp as they stroll multiplex hallways and see the re-imagined "Karate Kid" in one theater and a reconfigured "A-Team" in another.

It should surprise no one that "The A-Team" is a B-movie.

The campy TV action series that occupied NBC prime time from 1983 to 1987 provided an action fix, not logic. The redux tones down the campy nature a little. You'll never hear B.A., Mr. T's old character, growl, "I pity the fool," for instance. Audiences are more sophisticated these days, according to the "A-Team" words of wisdom spun in the film's press notes.

This time we get nuance, if you'd like to call it that. The first time B.A. batters bad guys with his fists, we notice the word "Pity" tattooed on the fingers of one hand and -- don't get ahead of me -- "Fool" on the other.

Mixed martial artist Quinton "Rampage" Jackson steps in as B.A., the A-Team wheel man who's in the wrong line of work to have a serious fear of flying. At the center, though, is Liam Neeson as cigar-chomping leader and tactician Col. John "Hannibal" Smith (the George Peppard role).

Rising star Bradley Cooper ("The Hangover," "All About Steve") is Face, designated ladies man and sm-o-o-o-th talker. Sharlto Copley, who sprang to the forefront from nowhere as Wikus in last year's "District 9," steps into the role of crazed-genius pilot "Howlin' Mad" Murdock.

Co-stars include excellent actor Patrick Wilson ("Watchmen") as mysterious CIA weasel Lynch, Jessica Biel ("The Illusionist") as Capt. Sosa, a former love of Face's, and somewhat laughable lines like this:

Face to Capt. Sosa during a heated confrontation: "I forgot how beautiful you are."

"The A-Team," lensed north of the border with the Vancouver area of Canada doubling for Mexico, Baghdad, Germany, Los Angeles and other locales, rattles the theater speakers and singes the screen with plenty of fast-paced adrenalin-pumping explosions and near-cartoon-like action.

These special ops experts survived combat in Middle East conflicts. The '80s quartet cut their teeth on napalm and treachery of the Vietnam War era. Both sets of misunderstood soldiers of fortune were wrongly accused of walking off with war booty (robbing the Bank of Hanoi on TV/ stealing $100-bill U.S. currency plates from Baghdad in the current skirmish).

Director Joe Carnahan ("Smokin' Aces," "Narc") co-wrote this screenplay with actor/writer Brian Bloom (who plays Black Ops leader Pike) and Skip Woods, who co-wrote "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and penned the sly action-crime saga "Swordfish."

There's just a hint of retro in this adventure that culminates in a big, explosive finish at the L.A. harbor. Anyone who saw "MacGruber" recently might have slight "MacGyver" flashbacks. The "A-Team" is plenty adept at warrior arts and crafts at a moment's notice and at grabbing odds and ends for parts to homemade weapons of mass destruction.

Quickly forgettable, "The A-Team" is like a carnival ride that briefly thrills and is fun, but won't linger long in the brain.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 12:05 AM in 2-1/2 jalapeños, action, action-adventure, film, PG-13, television, war drama | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Sex, terrible twos, shoes and the blues

"Sex and the City" movies:

That's where grown women go to swoon like love-struck teenagers at romance, riches and designer shoes just like their daughters roll their eyes back in ecstasy for the brooding vampires and hunky werewolves of the "Twilight" franchise.

It's all slightly decadent fantasy-romance at a distance. Dangerous? Who knows? But at least there's cinematic equality. The men have their wealthy suave anti-heroes in iron super-suits, while the boys can visually play with "Transformers" and think of Megan Fox.

"Sex and the City 2," the sequel to the first feature in 2008 and, of course, the opulent flirty comic HBO series (1998-2004), is all about the terrible twos. Or, to pinpoint the dilemma, the two-year itch.

Charlotte (Kristin Davis), with two kids (including a constantly crying toddler) at home, represents the usual definition of the term in this overlong sequel written, directed and produced once again by Michael Patrick King (a holdover from the TV series).

Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) grates the nerves of her law firm boss (an all-too-brief cameo by comedian Ron White) who can't stand strong women, and Samantha (Kim Cattrall), still single and on the prowl as usual, battles the onset of menopause.

The heart of the "Sex and the City" feline-like foursome, of course, is clever essayist Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker). Carrie has her man, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), and her big -- make that gigantic -- walk-in closet. What's missing after two years of co-inhabiting as a married couple is, says Carrie, "sparkle."

Carrie still wants to do the town. Big, meanwhile, has grown so accustomed to the designer couch that he might sprout potatoes at any moment. What to do, what to do?

In the vintage musicals of the '40s, someone would shout, "Hey, let's put on a show!" about this time. But this film pays homage to Busby Berkeley musicals in the first reel with an extravagant gay wedding complete with swans, an all-male chorus in white and Liza Minnelli in black.

So it's off to the new Middle East (with Morocco doubling for the United Arab Emirates). Via a contrived plot twist, a filthy rich investor invites Samantha to check out his gaudy, extravagant hotel in Abu Dhabi. She will if her gal pals can tag along on the sheik's Dirham.

From this aisle seat, it seems odd that writer-director King chooses to take his central characters so identified with the Big Apple on what is basically a Hope and Crosby road trip to the casbah.

Leave it to Carrie, though. She finds designer shoes even in a crowded marketplace. And when she's not trying on shoes more befitting a genie, old flame Aidan (John Corbett) sort-of magically appears to scratch (and possibly infect) the two-year itch.

I like the way King evens the score a little when it comes to opposite-sex ogling. In "Sex and the City 2," the dirty old men of Hollywood (in control for decades) take a backseat to a woman who views male bodies as slabs of beefcake.

At two and a half hours, though, even Samantha's funny menopause rants become tiresome. This is a frivolous, overly indulgent, two-Cosmos (at least) sequel.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 12:03 AM in 2-1/2 jalapeños, film, R, raunchy comedy, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

'All About Steve,' nothing about funny

Sadly, "All About Steve" returns Sandra Bullock to harebrained comedy that falls flat more than it works.

Bullock bounced back into the spotlight nicely in June with "The Proposal," a funny, if goofy romantic comedy. Now, however, "All About Steve" plunges the queen of romantic-comedy back into the much-too-silly romps not unlike the "Miss Congeniality" duds that derailed her career in 2000 and 2005.

I'd write this one off as simply an unfortunate script choice, except that the leading lady is a co-producer. Surely director Phil Traill, who has worked mostly in TV, and screenwriter Kim Barker (irresponsible for "License to Wed"), deserve some blame.

It's Bullock out front on screen and on the marquee as ditsy-yet-intelligent crossword puzzle author Mary Horowitz, though. So the Texas-based actress will likely take the hardest hit for this comic underachiever.

Mary Horowitz is a cruciverbalist. Don't bother running to the dictionary. That just means she constructs crossword puzzles. The (fictional) Sacramento Herald newspaper publishes one a week, although Mary is pushing for daily exposure.

Living at home with her eccentric parents, Mary does nothing but work. No, strike that. Mary does two other things. She wears fire-truck red go-go boots everywhere, and she babbles on so much with brainiac facts and figures that no one can stand to be around her.

When a cable news photographer named Steve (Bradley Cooper) shows up for a blind date, Mary pins him down and across in the back of his van before he can even get the engine started.

Mary, convinced Steve is The One, loses her job when she writes a crossword titled All About Steve that perplexes, then angers her regular readers.

Much of the rest of this dismally silly comedy involves Mary chasing "her man" cross-country: to Arizona for a hostage situation, to Oklahoma City where a baby is born with three legs and, finally to a disaster scene where a group of deaf children has fallen into a sinkhole.

It's not an uninteresting character for Bullock. But the hyper, but one-dimensional script gives her nowhere to go with her verbal encyclopedia babble.

Cooper, on screen recently in the hugely popular lowbrow comedy "The Hangover," can do nothing but play defense. Bullock's in his face from one direction and Oscar nominee Thomas Haden Church ("Sideways") is acting equally goofy. Church, who could have read the script a little more carefully as well, hams it up as ego-driven cable news reporter Hartman Hughes.

Frankly, Sandra Bullock is one of my favorite actresses. She was great acting against comic-type in "Crash" (2004), and she's made me laugh for years in comedies like "Practical Magic," "Two Weeks Notice" and the aforementioned "Proposal."

"All About Steve" is just a waste of Bullock's talent. And our time.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 12:30 AM in 2 jalapeños, film, PG-13, romantic-comedy, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

'Beth Cooper' is super bad, not 'Superbad'

"I Love You, Beth Cooper" is the title. Middle-aged men trying to rekindle real or imagined memories of wild high school-age debauchery could be the reason it all falls flat.

Who among us hasn't thought back on, or perhaps forward to that wild graduation night. After all the diplomas have been handed out and the obligatory pictures with mom and dad are safely locked inside the family camera, it's wild-ass party time, right?

That actually didn't happen to me, or perhaps not to you either. I marched right into college summer-session the morning after high school graduation to get a head start on my career.

(I did that for this? Never mind, I'll work that out with my therapist later.)

The point is, we can all dream a little and pretend we were the cool guys and girls in the hot car zooming away from high school and into adventurous adult life whether it actually transpired or not.

Unfortunately, when humorist, novelist and now screenwriter Larry Doyle teams up with director Chris Columbus to make yet another raunchy teen comedy along those lines, the creative tires are seriously deflated.

Anyone who has read Doyle's contributions to The New Yorker's "Shouts and Murmurs" page knows what a gifted comedy writer the former "Simpsons" writer/producer can be.

For some reason, though, this collaboration between the promising writer and the formerly hot filmmaker (Columbus helmed the first two "Harry Potter" adventures) fizzles.

I've got to think that the outtakes to "Superbad," a far superior recent variation on the theme, probably captured unbridled, but uncertain teen excessive indulgence much better than this.

Up and coming actor Paul Rust, who claims to hail from Iowa but needs to be DNA tested as a possible Sean Penn offspring, plays high school dork Denis Cooverman.

He's been secretly in love with Beth Cooper (Hayden Panettiere of "Heroes" on TV) for years, although he's never quite summoned the nerve to speak one word to her.

So in his valedictorian speech, Denis professes his love for the head cheerleader who fills his heart and the ceiling over his bed (in poster form). Kevin (Shawn Roberts), Beth's square-necked, military boyfriend with double-digit intelligence, doesn't appreciate Denis gushing love for "his girl" in front of a graduation ceremony crowd.

So off we go on a wild night where Denis gets savagely beaten more than once, cars crash through mansion plate glass windows and even some parents get caught with their pants down.

Doyle and Columbus never intended this comic bottom-feeder to be a documentary, of course. But the ease in which these kids buy booze and wreak havoc doesn't summon up the usual line of "Where are you going to college?" The question here should be, "When do you expect to get out of prison?"

Rust, who does all he can here with scant material, is a young actor with range who bears watching. Not just in Quentin Tarantino's upcoming "Inglourious Basterds," but beyond as well.

Panettiere proved she can hold our attention on the big screen in "Ice Princess." There's not much for her to do here but pout and shout, although she handles that with ease.

As for Doyle and Columbus, two thoughts:

"I Love You, Beth Cooper" pretty much seals the deal on the thought that novelists should write their own screenplays only in the event every other screenwriter has been wiped off the planet by a mysterious plague like ... what's the word, what's the phrase? ... oh yeah, writer's block.

Secondly, I knew Columbus had discovered nothing promising here when I realized early on that I liked this boring teen romp less than the director's uninspired screen version of "Rent."

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 11:38 AM in 1-1/2 jalapeños, books, film, PG-13, raunchy comedy, romantic-comedy, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

'Brüno' aims for the funny bone, crotch

In the radio business, guys like Sacha Baron Cohen's Brüno are called "shock jocks," at least in semi-polite society.

Howard Stern is the best on the airwaves, of course. But the prodding, do-almost anything veteran radio personality (now holding court on satellite radio) mostly paints vulgarity with words.

Cohen, especially this time out, flops his, uh, humor right out there in vivid detail; almost to the point of being in our faces. Thank God this 82-minute, squirm-in-your-seat ride isn't in 3-D. (Oh, the humanity!)

With "Brüno," as it was with "Borat" three years ago, the British comedian flings graphic nudity and shock-and-awe vulgarity onto a mainstream movie screen near you.

That said, know this. "Brüno" is funny.

Cohen's follow up to unabashed outrageousness is not quite "Borat" funny, but it's shockingly clever enough to make anyone tough enough to hang around laugh out loud more than once.

Once again, Cohen draws on one of his outlandish characters from "Da Ali G Show," which first aired in this country on HBO in 2003.

"Borat" got Borat, Cohen's lampoon of a Kazakh journalist loose in the U.S. He ups the ante with Brüno, an openly gay fashionista and host of Austria's late-night fashion show "Funkyzeit Mit Brüno" (complete with broken German and subtitles).

Since Cohen, who co-wrote the script with Anthony Hines, Dan Mazer and Jeff Schaffer, is well-aware that savvy movie-goers might be on to his corral-and-shock style of so-called "guerrilla" filmmaking, "Brüno" goes straight for the comedy crotch, so to speak.

The title character cavorting in graphic sex scenes arrived near the end of "Borat," and served as the gut-reaction comic knock-out punch.

Not this time. Brüno begins the cinematic evening with a vigorous sexual romp with his "pygmy" boyfriend Diesel (Clifford Baňagale) and marches into more offensive, confrontational territory post haste.

By the way, if anything you're read in this review so far offends you, forgive me. But if you can't handle this, you have no business wasting your money on the movie itself.

Pretending to be straight, Brüno tricks a martial arts instructor into showing him how to defend himself against gay attackers (waving sex devices at the guy the entire time). He also disrupts a swingers' sex party and even drops trou on an increasingly seething presidential candidate Ron Paul in a Washington, D.C. hotel room.

Once again, the Deep South suffers the most. Drunk rednecks in Arkansas prove that the South will rise again when a clamoring crowd out for blood gets tricked into watching two men -- one is Cohen, of course -- caress tenderly.

Who can blame them? The very vocal local majority had been expecting straight guys to beat the crap out of each other in a cage fight.

And so it goes. The formula remains the same for "Brüno." Veteran director Larry Charles, who called the low blows on "Borat," returns for more. It's just more blatant and exaggerated each time out.

From here, we can only guess which will happen first: Cohen running out of new character disguises to dupe the unsuspecting, or Cohen getting snuffed trying to top himself.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 12:15 AM in 3 jalapeños, comic spoof, film, R, raunchy comedy, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

We're having a baby: Road trip!

To be perfectly honest, I got the slightest tinge of actors acting watching "Away We Go."

That's only a slight enjoyment red flag, though, because the actors acting out front are otherwise very good.

Well-established TV actors Maya Rudolph (a former "Saturday Night Live" cast member) and John Krasinski of "The Office" take on the roles of happy-go-lucky Verona and Burt.

Perhaps with Jed Clampett somewhere in their distant ancestry, they're a modern couple living in a Colorado shack with cardboard covering a window. And they make out a lot when Burt's not whittling (although he doesn't quite know the proper term).

With a baby on the way and Burt's parents (Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara) going away a month before they're to be grandparents, Burt and Verona hit the road themselves.

Frankly, I had slightly higher hopes for "Away We Go." It's directed by Oscar-winner Sam Mendes ("American Beauty"), based on the first screenplay from novelists Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, who are a couple.

Don't get me wrong. This is a frank, often silly road film about a devoted couple tooling around the U.S. and (Montreal, CA) looking for a comfortable place to, basically, nest. They visit friends and relatives, almost all of whom are over-the-top goofy or seriously conflicted.

From this aisle seat, I think I prefer Mendes when he takes the bumpier marital road. Maybe the fact that Mendes was still tying up post-production loose ends on last year's scathing marital drama "Revolutionary Road" when this one launched has something to do with it.

Perhaps it's the fact that Eggers and Vida just don't quite have a handle on consistent screenplay tone yet.

Or maybe light and fluffy comic romance stirred with serious drama isn't Mendes' strong suit as a filmmaker.

When this one's in its zone, though, "Away We Go" combines bright spirit and goofiness (Krasinski falls down some, which feels contrived) with real-life poignancy.

Look beyond the "actors acting" element and the lack of a discernible attraction spark between Rudolph and Krasinski (that may just be me), and you'll be sweetly entertained by a couple in love on a romantic journey home.

Wherever that happens to be.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 2:57 PM in 3 jalapeños, family comedy, family drama, film, R, romantic-comedy, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

'My Sister's' weeper

"My Sister's Keeper" doesn't look or feel like a summer movie.

Nick Cassavetes' offbeat, powerful emotion-tugging tale of a family suffering through the serious illness of a teenage daughter would be a much better fit for a late fall or winter trip to the cineplex.

We're accustomed to three-hankie weepies once the bombastic action blockbusters of summer have run their special-effects-dominant course.

But here they are just the same: A tough-as-nails California mom (Cameron Diaz) fighting to keep Kate (Sofia Vassilieva), a leukemia-stricken daughter, alive at all costs. In this case, that means shutting out her husband Brian (Jason Patric), her son Jesse (Evan Ellingson) and her sister Kelly (Heather Wahlquist).

This sad drama based on Jodi Picoult's best-selling novel might have ended up as a TV tragi-drama had it not been for this story's most compelling element. Oscar nominee Abigail Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine") makes a major acting step forward as Anna, Kate's little sister who's real purpose for being brought into the world is to provide spare parts for her dying older sister.

Even though she's only 11, Anna finds an attorney via a TV commercial and sues her family for the rights to her own body.

"I thought she was selling Girl Scout cookies when she first walked into my office," the attorney (very well-played by Alec Baldwin) says.

Cassavetes, whose directing credits include both the syrupy "The Notebook" and the hard-hitting teen drama "Alpha Dog," combines those seemingly at-odds tonal asthetics for "My Sister's Keeper."

His approach is a little heavy-handed at times. For instance, do we really need to see rain splattering across a window pane to sledge-hammer the point that something extremely sad is going on?

Overall, though, it's a loving approach to the material, perhaps because Cassavetes has a daughter of his own fighting medical challenges.

If you're a devotee of the book, don't expect Jeremy Leven (who also penned "The Notebook") to stick strictly to the printed word. The ending is changed, for one thing.

One of the deviations involves Cassavetes' casting of the judge. Even though the key character is a man in the book, Cassavetes talked Leven into rewriting the judge as a woman. There's a simple reason for that. The director always wanted to work with Joan Cusack. Let's just say that a personal wish turns into a casting coups. Cusack, who usually provides quirky comic relief, is spellbinding here as Her Honor.

Diaz, who fought through the sudden death of her own father during production last year, is strong as well. She may come off as a bit of a banshee at times, but that's just the teeth-barring toughness this role requires.

I also enjoyed very much the tough, but believable performances of Vassilieva, who portrays teen daughter Ariel Dubois on TV's "Medium," and Breslin ("Kit Kittredge," "Nim's Island").

"My Sister's Keeper" will more likely than not blindside you with plot twists once and maybe twice.
Just don't forget to pack plenty of hankies. It'll be a crying shame if you don't.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 11:34 AM in 3 jalapeños, books, drama, family drama, family movie, film, PG-13, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tardy arrival works fine for 'Hangover'

Here's an idea. Show up about an hour and a half late for "The Hangover."

The funny stuff's in the end credits of this shock-raunch comedy starring Bradley Cooper and the nerdy guy from "The Office."

OK, I'll be a little more specific. It co-stars Ed Helms, who plays Andy Bernard on "The Office." That nerdy guy.

The plot of this one couldn't be more simple. A guy named Doug (Justin Bartha) is getting married, so his buddies take him to Las Vegas for a night he'll never forget.

Trouble is, no one can remember what happened when the sun comes up the next morning. There's a chicken, a tiger and a baby among the ruins of a $4,200-per-night hotel villa. And, by the way, Doug is missing.

When this kind of in-your-face, bottom-feeder gross-out comedies first came along, some of them were really fun.

Todd Phillips, who calls the low-brow shots here, has directed a couple memorable ones. "Road Trip" hit on all cylinders, and so did "Old School."

"The Hangover," despite some good moments from Heather Graham as a stripper-hooker with a heart of gold, is old hat.

If they had a hat around -- old or new -- it should have been used to cover up some of the dicier shock-humor images in the end credits.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 9:56 AM in 2 jalapeños, film, R, raunchy comedy, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

'Lost' land, losing valuable time

Mostly, though, this feature film incarnation of Sid and Marty Krofft's mid-'70s Saturday morning TV sci-fi adventure is a yawner; an entertainment value underachiever of almost scary proportions.

Even the most memorable elements from the TV series -- those cheesy reptilian humanoids called Sleestaks -- disappoint.

But not as much as the overall adventure itself.

Ferrell, on Broadway recently as former President George W. Bush, only has bush league writing to work with here. This is all a couple of supposed writers named Chris Henchy (who runs Ferrell's production company) and Dennis McNicholas (former head writer for "Saturday Night Live") can come up with?

Bumpered with fake, and supposedly funny "Today Show" segments where Dr. Rock Marshall (Ferrell), a scientist of questionable smarts, spars verbally, then physically with Matt Lauer, this lame duck sci-fi comedy finally gets down to business.

Fade in three years later and near-bonkers Dr. Marshall has given up on making his alternate universe travel machine work. At least he does until Holly (Anna Friel of TV's "Pushing Daisies") shows up to jolt his confidence and flirt with the on switch of his show tunes-playing time warp device.

A test run of the device turns into the real thing suddenly and awkwardly in the California desert. Soon the reluctant doctor, his disciple Holly and a redneck yokel named Will (Danny McBride), who runs a rundown Devil's Canyon Mystery Cave, are flung through a space worm-hole of sorts. They hit the sand in an alternate place and time where three moons glow above and some very strange creatures lurk too close for comfort.

They're quickly joined by ape-boy Chaka, a hairy creature with a human face. He's portrayed with semi-effective grunts by Jorma Taccone, a "Saturday Night Live" writer.

The sets are elaborate and well thought out. The acting, for what it is, is adequate enough. And, frankly, it's sort of fun to get lost here for brief moments when this behemoth of a movie works.

But director Brad Silberling, who showed real promise early in his career with "City of Angels," has nothing to work with other than some cool looking retro props and a CG dinosaur nicknamed Grumpy.

Ferrell, who deserves better scripts than this (Find some, Will!), should have known better.

Posted by Larry Ratliff at 12:05 AM in 2-1/2 jalapeños, fantasy, film, PG-13, raunchy comedy, romantic-comedy, sci-fi, television | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Movie Reviews

9 posts categorized "television"

06/11/2010

'The A-Team': On the rogue again

05/27/2010

Sex, terrible twos, shoes and the blues

09/04/2009

'All About Steve,' nothing about funny

07/10/2009

'Beth Cooper' is super bad, not 'Superbad'

'Brüno' aims for the funny bone, crotch

06/26/2009

We're having a baby: Road trip!

'My Sister's' weeper

06/05/2009

Tardy arrival works fine for 'Hangover'

'Lost' land, losing valuable time

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9 posts categorized "television"

06/11/2010

The A-Team

On the Web

05/27/2010

Sex and the City 2

On the Web

09/04/2009

All About Steve

On the Web

07/10/2009

I Love You, Beth Cooper

On the Web

Brüno

On the Web

06/26/2009

Away We Go

On the Web

My Sister's Keeper

On the Web

06/05/2009

The Hangover

On the Web

Land of the Lost

On the Web

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