I hate the war in Iraq. It’s ambiguous, never-ending, divisive, thousands have died and to this day I am not sure why and I believe no one ever will. With WWII it is simple on paper: Hitler was an evil man with intentions to rule all of Europe, hence he had to be stopped. In 2003 the United-States invaded Iraq for a couple of reasons, including ties to terrorism, but mostly because of Weapons of Mass Destruction. A popular joke I kept hearing around that time was “Of course the Americans know Saddam has weapons. They kept the receipts!” Years later it seems pretty clear that whether or not receipt were kept, the WMD program was not updated by the time George W. Bush decided it was time to take down Saddam Hussein. Green Zone begins shortly after the end of the war when Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his men have to fend off a sniper in order to enter a building where chemicals weapons are located, according to the latest intelligence reports. They waste their time when they put on...
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Women in Trouble Imagine this situation: you are a thug sent to a rich man’s house who owes your employer a lot of money. You go inside, beat him up, and then you notice a hooker getting out the door and taking a nice good look at face. Later that same day, you and your partner track down said hooker to a lesbian bar and abduct her right outside the front door. You put her unconscious body in the back of the car; you turn around and notice that your partner is lying unconscious near the trash container. You walk towards him, hear a clicking sound, look to your left and see a woman pointing a shotgun at you. She then says the following words: “How much do you like your balls?” I would put my hands up too. This is a scene from Sebastian Gutierrez’s film Women in Trouble and I have only one question: where did this guy come from? How many guys out there have written a script where the cast is almost entirely female, the dialogue can be both funny and smart, and the characters inclu...
Adam Sandler does something rather brave in this movie: he plays a guy that if he wasn’t rich, famous, or funny, you would have a hard liking him. The character is George Simmons, a Hollywood comedian whose career is modeled on Sandler’s own and the film even begins with old footage of him doing prank calls years ago. The camera is held by Judd Apatow, the actual director of the movie. In fact, this movie has Apatow’s name written all over it. His wife, Leslie Mann, plays Laura, an old flame of George, and her children are played by their real-life children and they are pretty good at well, playing kids. Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, Apatow regulars, play Ira Wright and Leo Koenig, aspiring stand-up comedians living in Los Angeles, the usual local for Apatow films. They share a room with Jason Schwartzman, who actually has a steady job staring in a second-rate sitcom, while Ira works at a deli and lives on the couch. This understandably causes some animosity amongst the roommates. ...
Down the rabbit hole we go. And who better to lead us there this time than Tim Burton? He is an expert at crafting movies that are both visually arresting and populated with quirky characters. The Wonderland characters are played by his regular gang of friends: Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen, Alan Rickman as the blue caterpillar and Christopher Lee even briefly lends his voice to the Jabberwocky. This feels like a chess board where all the right pieces have been placed in the perfect place for a smashing victory. This version of the tale is familiar at first, but evolves into something new as the story progresses. Alice, played by newcomer Mia Wasikowska, is now 19 and about to be married to a Hamish (Leo Bill) a man not interested in imagination, which is a shame because Alice loved her father’s ability to think of six impossible things to do before breakfast. When Hamish pops the question, in front of an entire family gathering, Alice panics and ...
Here is a movie that felt somewhat uneven. Is it trying to take itself seriously when it is revealed early on that the main character, Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) is the son of Poseidon, Greek god of the sea, that his mother (Katherine Keener) has been living with a drunk (Joe Pantoliano) all these years just to hide him from demons with the smell of his booze? Maybe not, when we meet Hades and see that he is being played by Steve Coogan. That is actually one of the most entertaining things about this movie: seeing which grown-up actor is playing which Greek god, goddess, demon, or anything in between. We have Pierce Brosnan playing a centaur that is charged with protecting Percy and any other spawns of Greek gods at a training camp called, I kid you not, Camp Half-Blood (It says so on a big sign written in Greek). There is Sean Bean as Zeus, Kevin McKidd as Poseidon, Rosario Dawson as Persephone, and in a slithery performance, Uma Thurman as Medusa. If you have wondered what T...