While our good buddy Walt has been out diggin’ in in the dirt (and cow tipping), I’ve been spending my time (drinking, carousing, and spreading the seeds of insurrection), doing what I enjoy most (blowing crap up), going to the movies.
Here are some of the flicks that I’ve recently seen:
Baby Mama: This is a modern-day, formalistic screwball romantic comedy-lite; complete with hidden agendas, oddball characters, and a fair dose of random silliness, all of which contributes to a very enjoyable evening out at the movies. Cute, fun, and lighthearted, with a little bit of social commentary; what more could you ask for from a romantic comedy?
Former SNL Alum, Tina Fey (30 Rock, Mean Girls) plays Kate Holbrook, a 37-year-old, successful VP of a large organic food company run by a very restrained Steve Martin —her new-age, California-style loopy boss). Up until now Kate hasn’t wanted kids, but apparently her biological clock has just kicked into overdrive. Everywhere she looks, she sees the cute, adorable faces of cherub-faced infants. Now she wants one, but can’t (she has defective girl parts) so she chooses instead to hire a surrogate mom who turns out to be the very unrestrained Amy Poehler. Way a lot of fun, go and enjoy.
The Happening: This yet another creepy film from Wunderkind M. Night Shyamalan (The 6th Sense, Unbreakable, Signs) who cut his cinematic teeth on delivering us films with a (usually subtly telegraphed) “twist” Here he is doing something similar, only not so much. The Happening is a well-paced, heart-pounding paranoid thriller about a family on the run from an inexplicable and unstoppable event. Is it the work of Terrorists? Has the U.S. Government targeted it’s own citizens? Or has the Earth itself decided to strike back in its own form of eco-survival? This “Event” is something so subtle and mysterious that it terrifies everyone and threatens humankind’s very survival.
This film is different than other Shyamalan’s films in that it doesn’t so much wrap everything up neatly, as is his wont, but leaves a bit of an air of mystery around what is occurring. Quite a good film, and much better than The Lady in the Water (which was both too confusing and predictable at the same time.
The Hulk: This is so NOT the film that we saw in 2003 where we spent the first half of the film waiting for Bruce Banner to turn green and hit something and the second half of the film no longer caring. This one jumps right in with Banner already the Hulk and on the run form the U.S. Government — in the form of General T-Bolt Ross — that wants to turn him into the ultimate weapon (much in the same fashion that “The Company” in the Alien flicks wanted to turn those nasty beasties into bio-weapons). In fact, in some fashion (with all of the origin material recapped under the opening credits, you can consider this to actually be the follow-up to that first, forgettable, flick).
This one hits all of the numbers right, combining action, angst, and a big, angry green Goliath with equal amounts of drama, humor, and lost love to form a more well-rounded product. Plus, there is the requisite amount of back-story in this film to (loosely) tie it into not only last month’s Iron Man, but into foward-looking projects (including 2011’s highly-anticipated Captain America.
Get Smart: now, here is the best of the lot. In it’s day, Get Smart was the coolest, smartest, hippist TV show on the air. Written by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, this show lampooned everything from “modern day” culture to the then-current spate of Spy films. (Think I’m exaggerating? Tell me another prime-time, family-friendly show that can spin off a film titled The Nude Bomb which carries a “G” -Rating!). Here the same can be said. this is a true tribute to the TV show without being silly, demeaning, or, well just plain goofy.
If you ever watched the show, you will love this flick as it delivers everything you want it to deliver, from Agent 13 hiding in a tree, to Steve Carrell’s dead-on, blank-eyed Maxwell Smart stare and delivery of likes like “I Missed it by that much,” “Sorry about that, Chief,” and “…would you believe…” This film has the perfect cast, a solid script, great pacing, as well as people healming it that have an obvious reverance for the source material. Always a sure winner.
Whelp, Kiddies, that’s it for this installment of Films at the Café. catch you in the funnypapers!
The Perfessor
Related Articles
2 users responded in this post
Glad to hear you liked M. Night’s movie. GeoDude won’t see any of them anymore. The Village is still one of my all time faves. Think I’ll pop in the DVD later.
I actually liked The Village as well, the only real problem that I had with it was, once I learned the “twist” it really wasn’t that unique, and — in fact — was rather trite. Still, this did nothing to diminish my overall enjoyment of the storyline, and the telling of the tale itself.
I felt that Signs was a much weaker film overall, as everything was set up from the get-go to neatly tie in to the overall design of the story, thus making the story one big set-up for the delivery at the end.
The Perfessor
Heh, you said GeoDude