Movie and Television Reviews

Taken, wonderfully unpretentious and honest, is so brisk that upon receiving the script, the director, Pierre Morel, must have felt that somebody had handed him a plot summary instead, "this happens...and then...boom...after...finally..."

In Taken, Bryan Mills is a divorced former "government agent" whose X-wife,* Lenore, convinces him to let their too-sweet daughter (Lost's Maggie Grace who acts like a thirteen-year-old at a Jonas Brothers concert) go to France where she's abducted by Albanian slave traders. Mills telephonically directs one of the all-time "I'm gonna getcha" speeches -rivaling Dirty Harry's, really- at one of the slavers as the slaver's in mid-abduct and then goes into super-spy mode.

Instead of describing the rest of the plot, I'll just ask you to imagine what would happen if you cram an entire season of 24 into a 93 minute movie. Got it? OK.

A movie like this has to have some clever touches, and Taken has more than its share,** including the use of an unwitting Albanian translator, some phone misdirection, and a great corrupt-cop impersonation.

Taken moves so quickly and deftly that one hardly has time to find the logical flaws, of which there are a few, mostly having to do with the rapidity of the information-finding and old-guy-versus-a-building-full-of-young-Turks*** fighting action.

Taken introduces and discards characters like Albanian construction workers go through hookers, and the action gets a little Under-Siege-ish. Either characteristic would have face-kicked a less well-crafted movie, but both work here.

I loved the confrontation with the French policeman.

Liam Neeson can manufacture more meaning with a hug of his X-wife* than Keanu Reeves can with four minutes of (slurred) speech.

Taken does something that most great movies do: It makes one think about life and what's really important. Children, primarily, here. Bonus thinking for men: "What would I do in a similar situation?" Women: ditto, plus: "Whom would I rather marry, the rich guy or the one that'll fight half a city to retrieve our daughter?"

Politics/message:

Taken is like Dirty Harry or Death Wish in that it acknowledges as legitimate the frustrations of a population usually dismissed by PC elites.

I imagine some French, for example, cheering the entry and cleaning-out of an immigrant-dominated thievery den. Mills must speak for millions of French when he tells the Albanian slave-traders that they're ingrates, feeding off of French hospitality and delicateness.

By lingering on some crescent tattoos, Awake makes it clear that Muslims are the bad guys here, which makes sense in Taken's context and, thus, gives the movie a sense of realism that Robocop 3 lacks when it makes punkers the greatest menace in a future, chaotic Detroit.

The French willingly prostitute themselves to the Albanians, unlike the women the Albanians kidnap who only do so by force.

Notes:

*Famke Janssen is in X-Men. Get it? Fine, you try writing a review.

**I think writer's union rules limit clever touches to four per movie. Maybe they have different rules in France.

***Yes, I know that they're Albanians, but the Turks conquered Albania.

Dirty Harry Ultimate Collector's Edition

Death Wish 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 Collection (5 Pack)

Robocop Trilogy by Frank Miller, Juan Jose Ryp

X-Men Trilogy (X-Men/ X2 - X-Men United/ X-Men - The Last Stand)

Lost - The Complete Seasons 1-3

24: Season One (Special Edition)

Under Siege/Under Siege 2

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Tags: anti-muslim, arabs, muslims protest taken, positive review

In the beginning of Bangkok Dangerous, the Nicolas Cage character, Joe, goes over his four assassin rules. They resemble those in most dishonorable codes: "There is no wrong and right," "don't care about anybody," etc. (I wonder if it's based on some un-Natural Law. Maybe, it's Ayn Rand.). To those four, Cage seems to add his own, fifth, rule: "Never turn down a role no matter how un-challenging to the actor or how weak the script."

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Joe is an assassin in Bangkok to ply his trade. He enlists the help of Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm). Nicolas also falls in love with a deaf girl (In the original Chinese film, Joe himself is deaf.). He teaches Kong assassin tricks like how to shoot watermelons and look in mirrors (Actually, the glass reflection part was pretty cool.).

The story continuously prompts the question, "so what?" As in: Who's Joe? Why should I care about him? Why should I care that the person he doesn't kill remain alive? Is he on drugs? If he is, why doesn't the script deal with it- you know, to develop the character or something?

Cage is in serious mode throughout the film- I think I saw one smile and maybe one other emotion. No acting, however. The training montage is weaker than Team America's. The action is unimaginative (One chase resembles the boat scene in the James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun.). The slap fight- martial arts scene looks like one of the bunnies in The Girls Next Door taking a self-defense class. Romantically, I think more sparks flew between Spitzer and ho #7 than Cage and his foreign conquest.

The Girls Next Door - Season 3

BD itself looks and sounds like somebody dropped the film can underwater. I thought I was watching one of the camcorder movies we'd buy from the Iraqis outside of the base.

For a movie based in Thailand and featuring one of its many "tourist destinations," BD was strangely "uninteresting" from a male perspective.

Team America: World Police - Unrated (Widescreen Special Collector's Edition)

The Man With The Golden Gun (Special Edition)

The bottom line is that I was bored and you will be too.

Politics/Message:

The message reminds me of those in "artistic" comic books: Ethical nihilism. Cage does something "good" or, at least, restrains himself from doing something "bad" for no reason except an emotional attachment, but then does something very non-life affirming at the end. This must be what passes for moral reflection amongst bourgeois, middle class rebels.

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Tags: funny review, negative review, positive review

Like some other human activities, even when Star Wars is bad, it's still pretty good (Let's face it: Star Wars jumped the Opee sea killer after Empire Strikes Back and has been running on zero-point energy fumes ever since.) In that spirit, Star Wars: Clone Wars should be fine for most boys and non-starlitist fans of the Star Wars universe.

Boba Fett:

1. The plot is fine with a few telegraphed, but interesting twists. It takes us through several adventurous locations. Clone Wars is set between Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith when Count Dooku is leading the Banking Clan separatists in a war against the Republic with the covert approval of Senator Palpatine.

2. It fit well within the Star Wars context. The Padawan named Ahsoka Tano is tragically killed in Revenge of the Sith. The weapons and spacecraft are familiar.

3. The animation is good, if not groundbreaking. Except for Obi-Wan's beard, it's sufficiently detailed. I think that at this point in human evolution, "spectacular" is going to be harder to achieve in special effects. Maybe we can concentrate more on stories now.

4. I initially didn't like the Anakin-Tano chemistry, but it ended up being O.K.

5. After plumbing the depths of human speech variance, the Star Wars people in charge of stereotyped accents come back home to the American South for Ziro the Hutt's voice.

6. The clones' combat scenes are very well done. Lot's of tactical movement and arm signals.

Jar Jar Binks:

1. Like all martial arts movies, the combat gets a little old after a while.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars received terrible reviews, proving that most movie critics are child-less man-boys without a life. If you want a spiritual experience, go to church, guys.

Politics/Message:

Some Hutts will find offense in the many references to their odor and manners. They have a point, too: Almost every Hutt we've seen on screen has been involved in crime. We never see the many hard-working Tatooinites trying to raise families.

Tags: positive review, why is star wars good

I and the other two people in the theater stayed through the whole movie- a testament to my dedication to the Asymmetric audience and the couple's ostentatiously demonstrated physical desire for each other and not the sometimes thoughtful, but ultimately boring Swing Vote.

The concept is good: One irresponsible lower middle-class loser's daughter votes in his stead when he doesn't show up to the polling station. As she's voting, the power goes out, causing an error. Bud Johnson (Kevin Costner) is therefore allowed to recast his ballot. It turns out that the candidates tied in New Mexico which means that Bud Johnson alone will decide the presidential election. When a reporter, Kate Madison (sexy Paula Patton), finds out that the voter is Bud, both candidates, political groups of all kinds, and the media descend upon his home. After being pandered to for eight days, Bud Johnson decides to hold a debate with letters from "real Americans" as the questions.

The movie isn't too bad. Bud and his daughter are a little obnoxious. The plot is much more predictable than the similar It Could Happen to You. None of the secondary characters are very interesting, and, except for Kate, they disappear quickly. So, we see Nathan Lane being an unscrupulous campaign manager in the beginning and middle, but we don't see him get his comeuppance, repent, or even slow clap at the end.

It Could Happen to You

The biggest problem in Swing Vote, however, is the subject matter. Politics is a complicated, emotional business. It might make a good backdrop for a historical or scandal movie- or maybe a pure comedy where issues are not to be taken seriously, but a political theme makes for a horrible feel-good film. Did you like Dave, Bob Roberts, or Bullworth? Yeah, me neither.

Bob Roberts

Bulworth

Dave

Kevin Costner keeps his 20-movie non-hit streak intact.

Politics/Message:

Swing Vote is a very pro-integrity movie except in one very important case.

The Republican in the movie isn't a cold-hearted, corporate shill or mass murdering war monger which makes Swing Vote more conservative-friendly than 95% of politically-themed Hollywood movies.

On the other hand, Swing Vote treats issues in a cringe-worthily simplistic manner so that even fifth graders like Bud's daughter can understand them which means that it takes a liberal point of view- the government exists to "give" people health care and "rights."

Any candidate who addresses concerns people may have about illegal immigration or same-sex marriage is pandering (Oddly, redistributing wealth isn't pandering or playing to people's bad instincts- it's "helping.").

A river dam is just a corporate "interest" and against the environment. No mention that dams provide electricity so people can work and make money.

Speaking of money, the letter we hear Bud read during the debate is from a couple in Kentucky. The man is an Army veteran who "fought for this country." He and his wife each work two jobs, and they still can't "afford to live in the country." Before you start tearing up, let's examine this issue:

1. About 95% of married couples where one spouse works full time live over the poverty line.

2. Army veterans get education aid and received a livable salary- while in the Army at least. I'm almost certain that very few veterans work at minimum wage jobs.

3. Even if he and his wife did work for the minimum wage: $6.65 x 160 hours per week is $1,064.00 a week. Over $4,000 a month and they can't live- in Kentucky!

4. And no child in America is without health care.

Or, is Swing Vote liberal? During Bud's speech, he admits to having wasted opportunities to get ahead. Isn't taking responsibility for one's plight a conservative idea?

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Tags: negative review, positive review

(not an "F" for the best Sabre-tooth scene since Flinstones.

Youtube trailer

A movie as bad as this only comes around every 12,000 years organically, but one may speed up the process by giving Roland Emmerich enough money to film his live-action, Saturday-morning cartoons.

Plot:

Take every movie with... 1) ...a questing party whose travel over spectacular mountains is captured on film by a “gorgeous” long shot and who eventually forms...2) ...an alliance of freedom-loving peoples who fight well because of a...3) ...rallying speech by the protagonist who then leads them into a...4) ...huge, computer generated battle; mix them together; place the contents into a microwave to destroy any nutrients; and serve to an audience on the far left of any bell curve.

Not that I wouldn't travel a few weeks and take down a few mammoths for a dirty-faced and primitive, but foxy village-chick with a mamak stampede-stopping face like Evolet (Camille Bella).

If you bought a ticket to learn some anthropology, however, this is the movie for you: At least, I learned a lot (I fact-checked with eyewitness John Sydney McCain himself.):

1.Isolated villages with populations of less than 1000 can have more genetic diversity than a Barack Obama rally in Los Angeles.
2.You think we have climate problems? 12,000 years ago steamy jungles, barren deserts, and Alaska-like mountainous tundra were within a week's walk from each other.
3.Ancient peoples had English words for everything except "woolly mammoth" which they called “mamak.”
4.Good tribes are almost always better-looking than evil tribes.
5.Bronze age weapons are no match for bone-age spears.

Politics/ Message:

1.Germans can make movies as awful as Korean ones.
2.Slaves should be screened for weapons at the door.
3.Almighty rulers shouldn't pick advisers from a pool of inbred mental-deficients no matter what the ADA says.
4.Speaking of worker protections, where's OSHA when you need it?
5.Don't be quick to dismiss old wives tales if they come from old wives with the super-natural gift of long-distance resurrection.
6.Men with long finger nails- watch them.
7. The producers used "B.C."instead of the idiotic "B.C.E" (OK, when did the common era start?).

Tags: best prehistoric movies, is 10000 bc realistic?, positive review, review ten thousand bc