Movie Menage: Shutter Island

Sometimes the Reel Whore likes a little company in the dark of the theater. Though the interwebs bring us closer, reviewers cannot always bed down together for a post. With the Movie Menage, I surreptitiously pluck a couple of reviews from fellow LAMBs and other film bloggers. These brief blurbs coupled with the Reel Whore take constitute a critique à trois, if you will. Getting three opinions of a film tossed together should be better than one, right?

Shutter Island
Release: 02.19.10
Rated R
2 hours, 18 minutes

Full Price

U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo, Zodiac), arrive at Shutter Island, an institution for the criminally insane, to investigate the strange disappearance of a patient. Once there, Teddy tries to dig deeper into the hospital's shady practices only to be met with repeated resistance from the hospital head, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley, The Wackness). As a hurricane rages outside, Teddy worries Cawley and the staff may be conspiring against him.

The first of our lovers trio:

...The film started out kind of slow - it had a lot of dialogue in the beginning. Now, this is the type of movie that you need to pay attention to as there are many characters being introduced. Also, it's also set up as a sort of detective type movie.

From an audience perspective, it had kind of an eerie feeling and was very Alfred Hitchcock in style. (If you've seen this Hitchcock movie, which is among my favorites, the style is very similar).

Watch this gurl work the hell out of Shutter Island...


Joining in the fun is our second partner:

...Shutter Island delivers payoffs. Patience is required, especially through an abundance of expository dialogue, but when the film's questions are answered, the trip was worth taking. Kalogridis' script (based on Lehane's novel) spins a labyrinthian tale of mystery, deceit, and paranoia. Scorsese's visuals compliment the writing through its complexity of the writing. Pay close attention to the visuals, and especially the editing, and you'll appreciate the film much more than those who don't.

Head here for elgringo's explosive finish!


Have you ever tackled a 1000-piece puzzle? You go to the store and find one with an appealing image. The foreground is covered in colorful gardens with lush weeping willows while a meandering cobblestone trail leads to a looming castle in the distance. With such distinct sections, it should be easy to assemble. Then you get it home, dump it on the table and realize just how damn huge the sections of clear blue sky and grassy knolls are! Watching Shutter Island is as challenging as tackling that 1000-piece puzzle.

I'd seen trailers for this film fifty times over the past year, and was confident all the major plot points had been mapped out. Shutter Island proves that you may have all the pieces, but it's not satisfying until everything fits together. Director Martin Scorsese (Goodfellas) uses his masterful attention to editing, cinematography and symbolism to create a tense, enthralling story.

DiCaprio gives an excellent (and exceptionally athletic) performance as the easy-to-anger detective. The supporting characters are played by a slew of skillful character actors; Max von Sydow (Judge Dredd), John Carroll Lynch (Fargo), Ted Levine (Silence of the Lambs), Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children), Emily Mortimer (Match Point), Elias Koteas (Fallen) and Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April). I wouldn't normally do such a laundry list of actors, but they're all that good. Of them all, Michelle Williams's (The Station Agent) role is the one that stuck with me most; it reminds me she's the most talented actor to emerge from Dawson's Creek.

Shutter Island is a mystery set to a slow boil. Scorsese hand selected the ingredients and triple checked the recipe to prepare a story to stimulate your palate. Sure, McShyamalan's has served over a billion twists, but Scorsese's thriller really satisfies.

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Movie Menage: The Brothers Bloom

Sometimes the Reel Whore likes a little company in the dark of the theater. Though the interwebs bring us closer, reviewers cannot always bed down together for a post. With the Movie Menage, I surreptitiously pluck a couple of reviews from fellow LAMBs and other film bloggers. These brief blurbs coupled with the Reel Whore take constitute a critique à trois, if you will. Getting three opinions of a film tossed together should be better than one, right?

Brothers Bloom

Release: 05.15.09
Rated PG-13
1 hour, 54 minutes
Full Price

Ever since they were children, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo, Zodiac) and his little brother Bloom (Adrien Brody, Hollywoodland) have been running cons. Stephen is the maestro; he has a knack for crafting the most elaborate and successful cons. Though, much of the credit goes to Bloom and his ability to embody the character Stephen creates, thus swindling their every mark. Over the years, Bloom feels he's lost his true identity and retires. Stephen refuses to let Bloom rest and convinces him to join in one last great con to swindle the eccentric Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz, Confidence) out of her millions.


The first of our lovers trio:


... The Brothers Bloom, Rian Johnson’s follow-up to 2005’s Brick, is kind of a difficult film to assess because it is equal parts enjoyable and frustratingly over-plotted. It’s like a sketch on Saturday Night Live that’s really good and funny but then just doesn’t know how or when to stop and so fizzles itself out. That being said, while its weaknesses keep it from being a really great movie, its strengths are enough to qualify it as a good movie. Besides, anything that starts with a voice-over by Ricky Jay can’t be all bad.

Let's go get cozy with this chick and her flick.


Joining in the fun is our second partner:


... The critical success of Rian Johnson’s Brick gave him a lot of freedom for his second feature film The Brothers Bloom. Unfortunately, like a lot of other directors, with this new found freedom of better actors, and a higher budget, this writer/director fell into some of the same pitfalls as directors like Guy Ritchie: all style, very little substance. Johnson himself stated that he based his three main characters on those of Homer’s Odyssey. If this isn’t representative of his expectations for his film, I don’t know what is.

See Blake make Brothers Bloom his bitch.


Writer-director Rian Johnson (Brick) creates the cleverest of tales in Brothers Bloom. Excellent performances are given all around. Brothers even helped improve my low opinion of Brody and Weisz. Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi, Babel), the brothers' silent prodigy with the eccentric fashion sense, is funny, foxy and easily my favorite.

Brothers suffers from the same problem that plagues many a heist film; the creator twists the tale one time too many. Someone should have told Johnson that when you spare the editing, you spoil the film.

Johnson's last flourish didn't ruin Brothers, he just throws thee tone and rhythm one comes to expect in a heist off kilter. Still, the dialogue and situations presented in Brothers are exciting and amusing. For that, I'd easily watch this again (well, and for Kikuchi, too).

Movie Menage: Surrogates

Sometimes the Reel Whore likes a little company in the dark of the theater. Though the interwebs bring us closer, us reviewers cannot always bed down together for a post. With the Movie Menage, I surreptitiously pluck a couple of reviews from fellow LAMBs and other film bloggers. These brief blurbs coupled with the Reel Whore take constitute a critique à trois, if you will. Getting three opinions of a film tossed together should be better than one, right?

Surrogates

Release: 09.25.09
Rated PG-13
1 hour, 44 minutes
Second-Run Seats

The year is 2017. Most of humanity has withdrawn into their homes, choosing to live their lives via a surrogate; an interactive robot that has been designed to be whatever the operator wishes. Two such surrogates, Detective Tom Greer (Bruce Willis, The Jackal) and his partner Peters (Radha Mitchell, Phone Booth), are called in to investigate a vandalism case involving two surrogates. Following the clues, Greer and Peters discover the destruction of these two robots simultaneously caused their operators' deaths. This leads Greer to venture out into the world, sans-surrie, not knowing the responsibility to stop an apocalyptic plot rests in his human hands.

The first of our lovers trio:


... There's not an easier way for a film set in the future to bother me than to not pay attention to the cars on the road. Surrogates is set in 2017 (according to Wikipedia, which is odd, because I swear that title cards said "14 years from now"). and yet everyone's driving 2009 Toyota Priuses and 2009 Chevy Cobalts and sh*t. WTF? So, super-advanced robotic technology will have worked its way to photo realism in 8 years (and crime will vanish), but we'll all still be driving our cars from today (which look brand new eight years from now, too)? Really?

See Fletch blow his full load.


Joining in the fun is our second partner:


... Pseudo-Bruce (Bruce Willis’ surrogate) is chasing a real human who committed a crime. Pseudo-Bruce’s helicopter crashes and explodes and his arm gets torn off, but it’s Pseudo-Bruce so it’s no big deal. So he gets up and shakes it off in time for a pick up truck to smash into him. It will take more than that to take down Pseudo-Bruce because his operator Bruce Willis is a super bad ass. The truck barely slowed him down, so a woman shot him in the chest with a shot gun. Then, since apparently they’ve seen Bruce’s previous work, they hung Pseudo-Bruce on a cross that said, “Die Robot Pig!” That finally took care of Pseudo-Bruce, but then the real Bruce came after them. Dum dum dum.

If you like it rough, Action Flick Chick is waiting.

Surrogates is loosely (and I mean loosely) based on the graphic novel of the same name by Robert Venditti. I had the chance to meet Venditti this summer and briefly talk about his success story. He was very excited that his first project had been optioned, but being his first, the decisions were in the hands of the movie wizards. Still, he couldn't ask for a better opportunity to get his name in lights. Having now seen the movie, his comments make so much more sense; the movie is only a shadow of his original concept.

My major complaint is that surrogacy becomes integral to society within the next decade; highly implausible. Most likely this decision was made to spare money on developing a futuristic setting. Venditti set his world in 2054. The world was not a utopia and crime was still a major issue. The key difference between the novel and the film is that the book defines the shift in crime from physical harm to property destruction. That's just the tip of the divergence iceberg.

As for Surrogates the movie, the makeup was awesome. I had forgotten how hot Radha Mitchell is, but they did a great job of uglying her up when needed. Pseudo-Bruce was slightly off-looking, but good ol' Bruised Willis was as ornery as ever. I just wished he'd been surly enough to bash in a few more surrie skulls. The most exciting scenes were Pseudo-Bruce and Pseudo-Radha hopscotch shipping containers and atop cars in two different chase scenes.

Aside from those few thrilling moments, Bruised mainly wanders around lost instead of cracking heads and one-liners. Unless you wish to join Bruised's perplexed perambulation, I suggest you resist pondering the plot logistics too thoroughly. Surrogates is a good way to pass an afternoon, but don't be surprised if you've forgotten most of it by the credits' end.

Movie Menage: X-Men Origins Wolverine

Lately, it seems for every movie I review, I've got three to four more waiting in the wings to be serviced. Exponential expansion, while sometimes good, can also be a burden. The Reel Whore is always looking to spice up his movie life for both his benefit and yours, stargazers.

In this latest innovation, the Reel Whore will surreptitiously pluck a couple of reviews from fellow LAMBs and other film bloggers. The brief blurbs from these two reviewers coupled with the Reel Whore take constitute a critique à trois, if you will. Getting three opinions of a film tossed together should be better than one, right?

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Release: 05.01.09
DVD Release: 09.15.09
Rated PG-13
1 hour, 47 minutes

Matinee

Fanboys' favorite member of the X-Men, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, Van Helsing), started as a tiny, sickly young boy named James. On the run at an early age, he and his half-brother, Victor (Liev Schreiber, Scream), found that a life of fighting suited them. It isn't until joining a secret government team led by William Stryker (Danny Huston, 30 Days of Night) that Logan (the Wolverine moniker comes later) gets fed up with Victor and the gang's cold-blooded ways. Years later, he's working the wood daily as both lumberjack and boyfriend when Stryker surfaces to give him a proposition he can't refuse. Several explosions, a handful of mutant cameos and a LOT of killing later, the no-nonsense killing machine Wolverine is born.

The first of our lovers trio:

... The movie also doesn’t follow the franchise’s own canon, which makes it unbelievable to watch. The movie’s so focused on blowing shit up that the plot at times crosses into the grotesque. When Stryker realizes that he’s made Wolverine indestructible, he shoots him with adamantium bullets because his brain will heal…but his memories won’t.

What?!

... will.i.am from the Black-Eyed Peas is in this movie. Why, I’m not sure. It seems as though the prerequisite for his character, Wraith, was to have a terrible Southern accent and be willing to wear a lot of turquoise jewelry. In that regard, will.i.am succeeds. In every other way, he is astonishingly, depressingly bad to watch.

Uncover Caitlin's full, uncensored opinion.

Joining in the fun is our second partner:

... Liev Schreiber clearly relishes playing a man who bounds up buildings like Tigger and slashes faces with his fingernails. He practically purrs his lines.

Hugh Jackman, for his part, spends most of the movie sharpening his claws or screaming at the sky — his tan, much-muscled frame either nude, shirtless or clad in a torn white wife-beater. Meow!

Sarah's waiting for you to come calling.

Two major issues with Wolverine are the amazingly weak special effects and the blatant misuse of Ryan Reynolds (Blade: Trinity). The special effects in the early scenes with the mercenary teams are pretty spanky. Evidently, when time came for Wolverine's adamantium upgrade, the money was running thin. Several times Wolverine's claws looked as believable as a pair that came packaged with my nephew's Halloween costume. Victor's Tigger-esque bounding became laughable. Only the lack of lifebars on the screen and a controller in my hand saved the climactic fight scene on Three Mile Island from feeling like a poorly choreographed video game.

Speaking of the final fight scene, why would you hire the sexy, smart-mouthed Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool only to make him play a mute while literally defacing him?! The inclusion of Reynolds in the cast was the driving factor for me to see Wolverine, but his five minutes of screentime was an insult.

Wolverine is entertaining enough if you just roll with the mostly landed punches and don't get hung up on pesky details like plot or faithfulness to the source material. Logan's saga was pretty well covered in the X-Men trilogy, yet they're already talking an Origins sequel. If the next installment is similarly flawed, I doubt even his phenomenal healing factor could revive it.