More Movie Reviews

Yesterday morning the Oscar nominations were announced. (Why they felt the need to do it at 5:30 AM West Coast time I'll probably never know.) Anyway, we'll cover my award picks when we get a little closer to the actual ceremony, largely because I haven't seen most of the movies which are nominated yet, but I am working on that. However, since movies are on everyone's minds, I figure now is as good a time as any to do a few more premium cable channel movie reviews, with the minor difference in that none of these movies will ever be nominated for an Oscar. As always, these reviews have very little to do with the actual quality of the movie and focus more on something from the movie which caught my eye.

-The Sitter: I get what this movie was trying to be - an R-rated update of the classic "Adventures in Babysitting", only with a foul-mouth Jonah Hill in the lead role. At first I thought the movie tried a little to hard to put the kids in outrageous situations, except if you think back to the original movie, those kids had some pretty dangerous moments. With that in mind I couldn't figure out why I didn't like this movie as much and then it hit me - it was the kids. I think I have reach that age where kids saying outrageous things for the sake of being outrageous just isn't funny to me anymore. Also, I don't find Jonah Hill as funny when he is trying to be the responsible one or the guy trying to carry the movie all by himself. He's much better working with other funny actors he can bounce off of, like in "SuperBad", where he shared the starring role. He's not the first guy who falls into this category and he could have a very long career doing it. Hopefully he'll understand this and stick to roles like that from here on out.

-Wanderlust: Considering my well-documented annoyance with hippies, a movie about a hippy commune admittedly had to be excellent if I was going to find it entertaining. While it had a few funny parts, there were not enough to justify all the positive word-of-mouth reviews I had heard from people whose opinions I usually trust. That is why, after watching this I would like to declare I am done with Jennifer Aniston. I think every movie-watcher has come to this point with one star or another, where you haven't been entertained by anything they have done for many years and decide that you will no longer see any movie they are in (Kevin Costner is a popular choice). They have simply abused your trust too many times to be worthy of your time any longer. Since I can't think of the last movie she was in which I enjoyed, I have reached that point with Jennifer Aniston. I wish her all the success, but if she is in a movie I am 95% less likely to see it, unless it starts winning every award in sight. Given her recent string of duds, something tells me I am in the clear on that one.

-Goon: The story of a hockey player who can't skate but is a talented fighter, "Goon" essentially answers the question, "What would have happened if Happy Gilmore had stuck with hockey instead of switching to golf?" The movie is fine, but what drove me crazy was the fact that they were making open references to professional hockey, yet clearly couldn't afford to pay the NHL enough money to use team names and logos (or, given the fact the movie emphasizes fighting and the NHL is trying to get away from that image, the league wouldn't allow them to). Rather that work around this the writers tried to press on like it was no big deal. So, they would say a player was in Boston, but they obviously wouldn't be wearing a Bruins jersey. As a sports fan, it drove me a little crazy, like when shows are supposed to be based in Boston but are clearly filmed in LA. They should have either used NHL teams or totally ignored it by using non-NHL cities. Going halfway bothered the hell out of me.

-Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol: I understand that when you watch a spy thriller (or any movie, really) a certain suspension of belief is required. So, I was willing to let little things like a sand storm coming through at the exact second Tom Cruise was chasing a suspect slide. But what I found annoying was the fact that they kept going back to the cliche of the cool spy equipment failing. Honestly, at every turn some piece of expensive spy technology was crapping out on Tom and his team mid-mission. It was as if the writers couldn't figure out any better way to move the story along. I'll grant it happening once, but isn't half the point of these spy movies that they have super-cool gadgets that work every time? When they die because the batteries ran out that feels forced. Seriously, spend 5 minutes thinking about it and I'm sure could come up with another reason Tom would have to do some insane stunt that looks really cool, which is all these movies are about anyway.

-Safe: At least, I think I was watching "Safe". I could have been watching one of the "Transporter" movies. Or "The Mechanic". Or maybe I wandered into an advanced screening of "Parker." Seriously, there is no difference with this movie from any other Jason Statham movie, ever. Every film he plays a man with a particular set of skills (p.s. - that skill is kicking people's asses) who was wrong in some way and is on a mission to kill everyone associated with that slight. As near as I can tell the only difference from movie to movie is the character's name and the new and inventive ways in which Statham kills bad guys. I'm not saying I don't enjoy these movies and you can easily argue plenty of actors have had long careers of playing the same character over and over again, it's just that I have to imagine even Statham is getting bored with them by now. I would suggest he try something like a comedy before he gets typecast, but I'm pretty sure it is too late for that. However, who really knows? Maybe he could team with Jonah Hill and save both their careers.