Few New Reviews

Even though it's a cool picture, I actually saw the following films from the comfort of my own couch.

I’ve seen a few movies over the last week or so that I figured I’d weigh in on, but not too heavily. The first is Reign Over Me starring Don Cheadle and Adam Sandler. Don Cheadle plays, Alan Johnson, a happily married, successful dentist, who reconnects with his college roommate, Charlie (Sandler) who lost his wife and three daughters on 9/11. The film isn’t about 9/11, it’s about a man who isn’t able to deal, and ultimately function, with the loss of his family. I liked the film overall, it’s a little heavy handed at times and could’ve been better by laying off some of the schmaltz, but Cheadle and Sandler are good and there’s some nice moments so I think the film ultimately succeeds.

Next I saw The Invisible, which was a nice surprise. The film is about a bright kid who’s about to graduate high school and has aspirations of being a writer. One night on his way home from a party, he is attacked, beaten brutally and left for dead. Thing is, he turns up in the morning, walks into to school only to discover no one can hear him or see him- this is were the title comes from- He’s invisible (clever, huh?). He has to convince one of the living, or pray to God, that someone finds his body before he dies. The film goes into a direction I couldn’t have possibly imagined from the previews and I liked that it had more on it’s mind than a revenge thriller or some stupid seen-it-all-before bullshit. I recommend this one too. The film stars Justin Chatwin, who has been in The Chumscrubber and War of the Worlds and seems like a pretty promising young actor. Another find is Margarita Levieva who is very good and also very pretty- I’m sure you’ll see more of her in the future, starting with Noise, a movie starring Tim Robbins, which has an interesting concept- a man living in NYC is overwhelmed by the noise and takes a vigilante approach to solving it. Check out The Invisible.

Have you ever seen Shaun of the Dead? Oh for real? Well go rent it right now because it’s friggin hilarious! And so is the latest from the same filmmakers- Hot Fuzz. Both films star Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and are directed by Edgar Wright. Here’s the drill: Hot Fuzz is about a policeman who gets reassigned to the quiet country because his arrest re cord is too high and he’s making the other cops look bad. He relocates to the quiet country and finds out it’s not so quiet. I watched Hot Fuzz for the second time this past weekend and found myself laughing even harder than I did when I saw it in the theater. Same went for Shaun of the Dead. Both films start out by poking fun at the genre their films take place in but they do it in a very underhanded, unassuming way and before you know it the film turns into just the thing they were initially making fun of. Very, very, very funny…I highly recommend them both.

Finally, I saw Spiderman 3 this weekend. Frankly I’m not sure what to make of it. I loved the first 2 Spiderman films. Solidly acted, and very well directed by Sam Raimi, the excellence of the first 2 made me think the third would be another out of the park home run. Not necessarily so. I didn’t hate the film, but it felt unfocused and certainly bloated. It bit off more than it could chew and then tried to swallow everything quickly. In between were varying degrees of tone which didn’t switch as deftly as they should’ve. Whether they’ve or not is beyond me because I wasn’t sure what Raimi was trying to do. Anyway, the jury is still kind of out for me because of how I felt about the first and how I feel about Raimi as a filmmaker. But at this point the film was a bit of a letdown. The action scenes were incredible as usual but I think the franchise has run it’s course. Of course they are making a fourth one, but without the help of any of the actors or director…so far at least. I have Sicko, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and Ratatouille on the way from Netflix so I’ll drop a note about those when I watch them.