This movie was not too bad, but it wasn’t great. You might find it entertaining, but you probably won’t find it amazing.

I don’t know if you saw Eagle Eye or not, but this movie was based on a similar but not identical idea. It had quite a bit of potential and some interesting twists, and overall I had fun watching it. It also had some good dialogue (“Yuri the Hacker: In Prague, there is no Radio Shack, only Yuri!”) and some good action scenes. Even though the acting was unexceptional, this could have been a really good hacker/conspiracy film if the essential premise of the movie had been more original. Unfortunately, the premise and key plot elements were just a replay of ideas and tropes that we have all seen over and over again in science fiction for the last 30 years. An original treatment of those ideas could have made the story way better.

Eagle Eye had the same problem, although it had a different plot. It was also a repeat of 30-year old science fiction. Both of these movies ultimately re-hashed episodes of the original Star Trek and Outer Limits and a lot of sci-fi movies that I saw as a kid. That said, I was still entertained by it. It did have a couple of original ideas (at least original in film), and a lot of this movie was well done and enjoyable to watch despite its failings. If you like hacker/conspiracy movies and you don’t expect more than light entertainment, you will probably enjoy it.

It looks like this movie was actually released overseas (in Russia) before it was released on video here in the US. I noticed that the director, Greg Marcks, also directed 11:14. Since I probably won’t take the time to give a full review of 11:14, I’ll give my mini-review: Stylistically derivative, but an interesting and entertaining movie. It’s a story told in the style of the films Crash and Babel. Both of those movies remind me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut’s storytelling style: A montage that eventually ties together with a wha-bam! To be fair, Babel came a year after 11:14. Crash was thought provoking and pretty awesome. 11:14 was entertaining and a bit shocking. Babel made me ask, “Cool, but why this story?”

Man, that makes me want to write a review of Sydney Lumet’s ‘Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” and “Serpico”. Let’s see if I can get around to it.

• Director: Greg Marcks
• Length: 1 hour, 45 minutes
• IMDB: Echelon Conspiracy

This film was better than I expected. I really liked it!

This movie is a story about a guy who does very well with the ladies but doesn’t have any real male friends at all. Paul Rudd plays the main character, and he is ok. But much more importantly, Jason Segal and the supporting cast, including Jon Favreau, Andy Samberg, J.K. Simmons,  Jaime Pressly, and many other great supporting actors are all terrific in this movie. I thought it was an original, funny, and authentic story of a guy finding his best friend. It has a lot of great scenes and lines and a good story. If you are not offended by dirty jokes and you like comedy, I recommend this film.

This movie is not a chick flick. Even though there is a girl/boy romance in the background, this movie is about the brotherly love between two men. This film is an awesome and very funny contribution to the the “straight man-love films“ genre, along with classics like The Fast and the Furious and Brian’s Song. Also Fight Club was a kind of straight man-love film, except that (warning: massive spoiler alert, just in case you recently travelled to my blog in a time machine from the 80s) in Fight Club the two straight dudes turn out to be one crazy dude played by two actors who then blow a lot of stuff up. So Fight Club may be more in the “Narcissistic Psychotic Self-Romance / Apocolypse Crossover” genre, which is a fairly narrow genre. Are there any other films in this genre? Maybe Angelheart would count. All right, a prize to any of my readers who can come up with another movie in that genre.

• Director: John Hamburg
• Length: 1 hour, 45 minutes
• IMDB: I love you, Man (2009)

This movie was not as bad as (but MUCH longer than) I expected.

So I thought that “Wolfhound” was going to be a very low-budget fantasy movie with a strong possibility of sucking really bad. I don’t like to know too much about a movie before I see it, so I didn’t read the details–it just looked lonely sitting there on the shelf at the video store. It turns out it is actually a blockbuster fantasy film with lots of pretty good swordfights, tons of beautiful on-location filming, and even some special effects. But here’s the catch: It’s a badly dubbed cheesy RUSSIAN blockbuster fantasy film, and it’s 2 hours and 15 minutes long and totally self-indulgent. So basically to Americans it will look and sound like it was made about 20 years ago.

This movie started off with a totally derivative scene and I started to think it was going to be a total waste. But by the time the real bad guy shows up in about the 4th or 5th scene I was interested in it. It’s hard to be fair to a film that was made in another language by people from another culture and then dubbed. This film was a great success in Russia. But it clearly won’t have the same appeal to Americans. Our standards for special effects and dialogue and all the hollywood magic are very high. And cultural issues and a backlog of fantasy movies will make it feel even more derivative and weird to us (it did to me.) But, here are some of the many things I enjoyed about it:

• Good swordfights and lots of action scenes. As a bonus, lots of stunts and special effects were done “in camera,” ie non-computer generated. For example, the main character has a pet bat, which I’m sure (from the way the actors react to it) was an actual trained bat, not CGI. These guys hired bat wranglers. Did Peter Jackson hire bat wranglers? I don’t think so. I am making up a new tag for this film. “Bat Wranglers.
• A lot of beautiful cool on-location scenes. The cast and crew of this movie put a lot of work put into the locations and shooting. There were some very beautiful outdoor shots and long close-ups of the cast and props and settings, and the director decided to keep them ALL in the movie. This slowed it down a lot. But it was interesting.
• A very visually fascinating cast. The mediocre voice dubbing did not flatter the actors, but the hot girls were hot, the rough hero was a seriously believable tangle of dreadlocks and scars, and the bad guy was downright awesome. Ok, he was basically Sauron from Peter Jackson’s rendition of LOTR with a twist of Skeletor from He-Man. But if you’re going to rip off something, ripping of the most awesome fantasy movie scene ever is a good place to start.
• By the way, just for your reference, the “most awesome fantasy movie scene ever” is in the beginning of  ”The Fellowship of the Ring” where Peter Jackson recreates Sauron and the battle that culminates in Isuldur chopping of Sauron’s finger. Don’t argue with me about this, it’s an entirely self evident fact, not just my opinion. And if you are a LOTR geek and you think you read the Silmarillian, don’t even start with me about Gilgalad and Elendil and author’s intent. It’s all irrelevant. The movie awesomeness of that scene was about how ultimately bad-ass and frightening Sauron was, even if Peter Jackson kinda changed the story. Tolkein himself changed it like 5 times anyway, and he would have been proud.

Anyway, this Wolfhound movie is medicore to bad in a lot of ways, but not so bad in certain ways. It turns out that it is based on a novel called Volkodav by russian author Mariya Semyonova. Like the novel, the movie is derivative, self-indulgent and long. These are things that often don’t stop a novel from being popular. But they are usually a lot more detrimental in movies.

All this criticism aside, you may want to see this film. If you don’t mind long movies with mediocre voice dubbing and derivative fantasy plots, this movie may be just the thing to help you get your fix of swordfighting, cheesy magic, and fair maidens (the hot russian variety of fair maidens.) Also, this movie has some romance and incidental nudity, but basically exactly the wrong amount of nudity. Just enough skin to offend the book-burners and prudes, but nowhere near enough to titillate all you perverts out there.

• Director: Nikolai Lebedev
• Length: 2 Hours, 16 minutes. Yeah, really, really long.
• IMBD: Volkodav iz roda Serykh Psov

This movie was really really good!

This film was made in the Czech Republic. It is in Czech or German with english subtitles. If you are easily offended by sex or nudity, don’t see it. But if you have any kind of sense of humor about sex and you don’t mind subtitles, go see this right away! The story involves a lot of very funny observations about sex and the lechery of the wealthy upper class in WW2 era Czechoslovakia. It was funny, moving, sad, and clever. The story and the script are filled with fascinating jokes, observations, and historical notes.

This movie has a huge and eccentric range of emotion and storytelling style. It’s a very good looking movie filled with visually captivating scenes and people. It has an array of different types of humor, from irony to clever sex humor to outright physical comedy. Although it covers a range of heartbreaking topics (the invasion and desolation of Czechoslovakia by first the Nazis and then Communists, executions, death, heartbreak, racism, prostitution, avarice, exile, aging, and prison) it keeps a playful view of the whole world, even in its most serious moments.

This film was moving and left me feeling great. I’m not surprised that it won 8 different film awards in the US, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Even though it came out in 2006, Sony Pictures Classics picked it up and subtitled it for US release in 2008, which means you should find it in the new releases section. I really recommend it!

• Director: Jirí Menzel
• Length: 2 hours
• IMDB: Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále (2006)

Obsluhovjsem anglického krále

This is an interesting movie, but not everyone will find it entertaining.

This movie is mostly in Spanish with English subtitles. It has a very homemade/indie feel to it. Two things made me rent it: (1) It was endorsed by Wired magazine, and (2) The picture on the front looked very cool. And I don’t regret watching it at all. It is a near-future Sci Fi movie with some interesting insights and some cool ideas. I enjoyed a lot of the scenes and I felt like it was pretty good social commentary. A lot of work was put into the details of this movie. It was clearly made on a budget, and the special effects were grainy, but that didn’t bug me at all. A lot of work and thought went into the portrayal of technology in this movie, even though it was relatively low budget.

The very end of this movie seemed like something made for hollywood–I was expecting a bigger surprise or something more sarcastic from an indie film. ”Sleep Dealer” had a lot of good irony and humor in it, and those were its best moments. In fact, when I think of all the cyberpunk stuff I have read, I liked the funny stuff better than the serious stuff. For example, Neuromancer by William Gibson  was brilliant but distant, while Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson was silly but entertaining as hell!

All my criticism aside, giant kudos to this director for making this film. I would love to see another movie from Alex Rivera. I won’t be surprised at all to see three hollywood movies ripping it off next year, or even a hollywood remake in English. If you are into Sci-Fi or Cyberpunk and you don’t mind subtitles, see this movie!

• Director: Alex Rivera
• Length: 90 Minutes
• IMDB: Sleep Dealer (2009)

I was thoroughly entertained and amused by this film.

So when I went to look up the director, Tony Gilroy, I learned he was the one who directed Michael Clayton, which was another absolutely awesome movie about corporate espionage. Yes,”Duplicity” was fantastic. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen were sexy and very funny. Paul Giamatti and Tom Wilkinson were also fantastic.

This movie was not action-packed. On a technicality, it had punching, but I’m not giving it the punching tag because it was not really the satisfying kind of punching. It’s very clever story told in an interesting fashion. It’s extremely funny, but it’s not a slapstick comedy by any means. The comedy is in the story and the characters–no cheap tricks.

If you are in the mood for something with suspense and drama but you want a break from the police/political drama tropes, this great movie is just the thing to see. It’s on the long side, but totally worth it. By the way, Gilroy’s other movie, “Michael Clayton” is also a real treat, although it is a much darker and more philosophical film.

• Director: Tony Golroy
• Length: 119 Minutes
• IMDB: Duplicity (2009)

I was totally entertained by this film.

But I’m expecting a flurry of “mediocre” and “good but not great” reviews. It was very well promoted and very well hyped. It had possibly the coolest trailer ever with an awesome theme song. It came out on 9/9/09 and the first showing was at 9:09. They promoted the living heck out of this movie! Which means that everybody expected it to be the greatest film of the year. Which it wasn’t. But I still really recommend this movie if you like Tim Burton, sci-fi, or animated movies. It was really well done and a pleasure to watch.

“9″ is an animated feature rendered with computers. I would say it was basically Nightmare Before Christmas meets WALL-E. It looks just amazing. The characters are original and very cool. The action was great, the soundtrack was great, and the voice acting was great. I really enjoyed it. But I’ll have to admit, it was moving but not especially deep or thought-provoking. And when your trailer is as awesome as the trailer for this movie was, people are basically expecting the greatest movie of all time. This is not a criticism of the film itself.

Now here’s an interesting reflection on the topic of really entertaining science fiction: After watching this film, I was talking to one of my close friends about what makes really epic science fiction. He and I have observed that a lot of the most epic science fiction movies, video games and tv don’t try to explain their entire universe. Because if an entire universe is simple enough be explained, its seems fake. A lot of really entertaining Sci Fi gives the impression that the universe is much, much bigger than the story being told. It leaves you with a lot of questions, and just gives hints.

When I saw Star Wars as a kid, Luke sees a Light Saber for the first time and says ” What is it?” and Obi-Wan tells him “An elegant weapon, from a more civilized age.” And you find out this guy was a knight of some kind of mystical order. My mind raced FOR TEN YEARS with awesome speculation on just how cool that must have been. There were hints about a vast civilization of epic awesomeness and a whole galaxy filled with stuff. And some kind of mystical awesome knights. Wow.

Then, years later, George Lucas stomped all over that childhood fantasy by trying to show it in a movie. No matter how much he spent on special effects, he just couldn’t make it as cool as I had imagined. Heck, it wasn’t even as cool as my first trip to Manhattan or the Hoover Dam. There was no way it could be. Just like the sequels to “The Matrix” could never live up to all the super cool expectations that we built up in our heads in the intervening two years.

Many good movies and video games show pieces of the background, but are careful never to never try to zoom out and give you the whole story in detail. This seems like a cheap trick, and it is, but it can make a 90 minute movie into an epic! Jaws was a successful movie precisely because it didn’t show the shark very much. I think District 9 (an amazing movie, by the way) did a fantastic job using a similar tactic. It focused on one great story and one very interesting character, but it created the idea that the whole thing happened in a much larger universe. We’re left wondering so many things about the universe in which the story took place. Maybe Neill Blomkamp actually thought it all out and maybe he hasn’t decided yet. But it captured our imagination.

So bringing this back to a discussion of “9″–it’s a simple story in a lot of ways. The universe is well explained by the end of the movie, and that makes us feel that this tiny universe was invented just to tell this story. Which is fine, because it was still very cool. But I think that’s a reason why a lot of people are going to feel that it wasn’t “epic”. But it was epic-looking, dammit!

• Director: Shane Acker
• Length: 1 hour, 19 Minutes
• IMDB: 9 (2009)

I was entertained and pleasantly surprised.

The guy from hollywood.com said this movie was “Ferocious and action packed!” but I think that’s selling it WAY short. The reviews and recommendations on the dvd box don’t do it justice at all. It is a character driven movie, not just a series of action scenes. The fight scenes are very well done, but the aren’t the best part of the movie. This movie has way more to offer than punching. It’s a cleverly told story. The characters are pathetic and interesting at the same time. This movie presents a gritty picture of New York City that reminds me of Strays (1997), an indie movie written and directed by Vin Diesel. There is some romance in this film: intentionally awkward romance between tortured and frustrated characters. This film is full of tense conversations and great drama. I was glad I took the time to watch it!

• Director: Dito Montiel
• Length: 1 Hour, 48 Minutes
• IMDB: Fighting (2009)

I was totally entertained.

It was long, but the main character (played by Russel Crowe) was an interesting and complicated person who kept my attention through the whole thing. The backdrop of the movie revolves around a lot of current events: accusations of corruption in military contracts in Iraq and the looming death of the old school newspaper industry. If you love predicting the ends of movies, you could say that some aspects of it were predictable, but for me the action and dialogue were interesting enough that I never started worrying about the ending. Russell Crowe was fantastic in this film. It was a really well done movie with a great cast and an excellent script!

• Director: Kevin Macdonald
• Length: 2 Hours, 7 Minutes
• IMDB: State of Play (2009)

Dear Readers,

I am starting my very first movie review post today. I will do my best to review all the movies I have watched in the past 5 years, but I thought it would be best to start today and stay caught up as I go forward, and fill in older reviews as I go. So I’m starting with the movie I just saw. Please enjoy!

Joshua