And I must say that I am even more unimpressed then I originally thought I would be. Post-apocalyptic films should be right in my wheel house, instead The Book of Eli gives me what looks like an overly serious Yojimbo rehash, Denzel Washington badly channeling a religious version of the Man with No Name and Gary Oldman parading around like a freaking lunatic.
As if that isn’t enough, the trailer doesn’t seem to show any footage of the people I actually would care to see in a film like this, namely Ray Stevenson, Michael Gambon and Tom Waits. Instead the trailer focuses on the Karate Kid influenced plotline of Denzel training Mila Kunis. Mila Kunis! Oh sure she’s great in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but the idea of a girl who weighs 79 pounds as an action star is completely ridiculous.
Now the question is which will I hate more, the trailer, or myself for inevitably watching this movie?
Color me unimpressed with the trailer/hype for the latest Angelina Jolie big-budget action flick, Salt. While I think Jolie is a solid actress, I’ve never been much of a fan of her as an action star. Oh sure, I liked Wanted, but that has far more to do with me loving the source material and ignoring the flaws of the watered down film adaptation than with think Jolie totally rocks out with her gun out. And this latest “Is she or isn’t she?” espionage film just isn’t doing it for me.
As a youth I used to live in the shelves of my local video store. Most summers I would spend my days down at the local strip mall (a scant 1.3 miles away) bowling for hours, reading comics off the rack at the drug store, picking out the most essential candy at the grocery store and finally wandering in the stacks, searching for the perfect movie to watch that weekend. All this time spent in the stacks lead to a curious skill of recognizing films based solely by their cover art, and I’d often know the plot of the films based off of the descriptions on the back. Soon it became a bit of a game for my friends to quiz me on what the films were about, but only the films I’d never actually seen and using simply the cover as a hint.
Of course, back then I was still very young and simply didn’t have the time nor the resources to watch every film I wanted to. So I would pick and choose which I would watch, often leaning heavily towards science fiction and fantasy films (my horror obsession didn’t really kick in until my early twenties). So how is it that I never watched a post-apocalyptic film about a nomadic swordsman? Simple, I hated the cover.
Friday afternoon, on a lark, I decided to attend a screening of the new action/science-fiction film Surrogates starring Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, and James Cromwell. To be honest, I was a bit cynical about it going in – aside from District 9 I’ve been left wanting by films of the action/science-fiction genre for quite a while now. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Surrogates is a fun, engaging film with enough twists to keep you guessing until nearly the end.
The special effects were used to great advantage and never felt superfluous. There were a number of terrific performances by the film’s well-known cast, Ving Rhames’s performance of ‘The Prophet’ (a Mumia Jamal-style subversive at war with future Earth’s techno-establishment) being especially outstanding. It is a fresh approach to a kind of science-fiction film (that being the kind of film where the main characters’ senses of reality are altered in some irretrievably extreme way through the use of technology) that have been seeing a lot of screen time since The Matrix made such a splash lo those many years ago. And, with films like these, it manages to make several pointed observations about the subtle ways in which a life filtered through certain technologies (such as the one we’re using now) can make for a more vivid, yet distant, reality. There are a number of spots where the film shifts between its mystery and action elements and the kind of social commentary one might expect from a work of speculative science-fiction like this.
Sure the plot runs afoul of a few science-fiction clichés here and there, and the film gets by with minimal tickling of the cerebellum; however, Surrogates is an exciting action/science-fiction film with enough going for it to make it well worth your time.
At first glance my watching Cutthroat Island might seem a bit out of place with the purported purpose of this website. My goal was to watch lesser known films, specifically films I knew nothing about going into them, in the hopes of finding the occasional gem as well as simply taking a few risks when compared to my standard movie watching habits. I’m as guilty of being selective as anyone else and this seemed like a fun way to test the cinematic waters. And, well, watching one of the biggest financial flops in film history certainly has its own brand of appeal. How often do you get to watch a movie that killed an entire genre of film?
The pirate film, as most probably know, had a long, rich and financially successful relationship with Hollywood since Hollywood’s inception. They would have been considered the “blockbuster” films of their day, at least in comparison to modern day films. Big stars, big sets, bigger production budgets and big, big profits. While over time the popularity of pirate films, and the assured giant box office takes, fluctuated within Hollywood, their were few genres considered as sure as a thing as the pirate film.
By the time Cutthroat Island was being made the pirate film’s greatest glories had long since passed. While they were still being produced with regularity, they hadn’t dominated at the box office in years. So, as production began on Cutthroat Island, word soon began to spread that it would mark a return to Hollywood’s Golden Age, a time when people of all ages could lose themselves in the wonder of the movies. Cutthroat Island, it was promised, would mark the first step of many to a new Hollywood Golden Age.
Even years later I still remember being inundated with the marketing push for Cutthroat Island. TV spots were everywhere, and I specifically remember all the television tabloids like Inside Edition and Access Hollywood offering numerous “exclusive” behind-the-scenes looks at the film. Geena Davis, whose star had steadily risen for years, was being pushed as the next Hollywood superstar, an actress who could excel in both dramatic and action roles. Her husband, and Cutthroat Island’s director, Renny Harlin, was being touted with equal fervor. As the next “it” action director. The press simply couldn’t get enough of this husband and wife duo battling to resurrect a cherished but slightly forgotten genre. Cutthroat Island quickly became a looming juggernaut. A Christmas film that simply could not fail. Would not fail. That is, until it failed. Rather spectacularly as it turns out.
Friday afternoon, on a lark, I decided to attend a screening of the new action/science-fiction film Surrogates starring Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, and James Cromwell. To be honest, I was a bit cynical about it going in – aside from District 9 I’ve been left wanting by films of the action/science-fiction genre for quite a while now. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Surrogates is a fun, engaging film with enough twists to keep you guessing until nearly the end.
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