Man of Steel (2013)

KNEEL BEFORE BOB!!

Seeing today’s movie proved to be harder than it should have been.  Shortly after it came out, I made a trek to the theaters with Friendboss Josh to see this movie, only to find it sold out.  That worked out for us both because we went and saw This Is The End instead.  Later, I tried to get to see it with some of my other friends, but going to my sister’s wedding made things difficult because I needed to pack.  And then my dog died.  Jesus didn’t want me to see this movie in a big bad way!  After I got back from my sister’s wedding, my friend Phil had returned to town and he was the only other person in the world besides me that had not already seen the movie, but he didn’t really care to.  I gave him such a purple nurple that his nipple was fully removed.  I promised to give it back to him after we had seen Man of Steel, written by David S. Goyer, directed by Zack Snyder, and starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Anteje Traue, Ayelet Zurer, Harry Lennix, Christopher Meloni, Richard Schiff, and Laurence Fishburne.

The people of planet Krypton have mined the core of their planet to the point where the planet is beginning to implode, just as their head scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) had warned them.  Jor and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) decide to send their baby, the first baby born naturally on Krypton in centuries, to the planet Earth in a shuttle to avoid the collapse of Krypton.  The planet’s military commander, General Zod (Michael Shannon), is the only one that agrees with Jor about Krypton’s state, but disagrees that Krypton’s genetic codex should be sent to Earth with Jor’s son.  He disagrees so strongly that he kills Jor while staging a military coup.  Jor still manages to send his son away with the codex, and Zod and his rebels are captured and sentenced to prison in the Phantom Zone, where they are released a short time later when Krypton is destroyed.  On Earth, Kal-El is taken in by Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane) and raised in Smallville, Kansas.  As he grows up, life is difficult for him as he develops superhuman abilities.  When Kal – now called Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) – becomes an adult, he leads a nomadic life because he always ends up having to use his abilities to save someone and must then disappear again.  On one job, he meets a reporter named Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and finds a ship from his ancestors that tells him his past.  Shortly after that, Zod shows up in orbit and demands that the people of Earth turn Kal over to him.

I heard such mixed reports about this movie before I saw it that I had no idea what assumption to make going into it.  But that’s typically a good thing because expectations do more harm than good.  Overall I thought this movie was good.  It didn’t blow my mind, but it was an entertaining watch.  I guess part of the problem I had with it is that there’s nothing really surprising about the story.  I’ve seen this story so many times, and they really didn’t change it drastically from what I had seen before.  And I hate Superman, but I still know this story like the back of my hand!  But the minor changes they made were ones I appreciated, like the fact that Kryptonite was nowhere to be seen in this movie.  The greater majority of Superman movies that I’ve seen are all completely based around Kryptonite.  Superman is all awesome, someone busts out a shiny green rock making him less awesome, and he overcomes it by taking it super seriously or flying into space to charge up.  This one came close to that by having him weakened by the Kyptonian atmosphere, but they never had a green rock lying around.  It also made me wonder if people making future Superman movies would be pissed that they took away their typical major plot point.  But the atmosphere thing did make the same stuff happen with Superman.  He was weakened by the atmosphere when he had to take out that terraforming “world engine” but had to sack up and take a cue out of Randy Quaid’s book from Independence Day and fly straight up that alien ship’s butthole.  I did have a problem with Superman’s flying though, just because of the part where they were saying he needs to take a leap of faith before he starts flying.  That’s not a leap of faith.  A leap of faith is like what Indiana Jones did in the Last Crusade, where he stepped off a ledge with the faith that he wouldn’t die because of it.  Superman is invulnerable and can fly.  Not a lot of faith involved in such a leap.

The visual effects of the movie and the action were all very well done, which helped save the movie from the very typical story.  Everything in the movie looked great, though occasionally I found that the shaky cam look they went for got a little tedious.  But the fights were pretty dope, especially the ones involving Faora.  She was dope.  And hot.  I liked the fight with her, that unnamed Kryptonian, and Superman, even though they made a bitch out of Superman.  Superman should probably be able to hold his own a little better than he did in most of that fight.  On the other hand, I hate Superman.  Seeing him made into a bitch doesn’t bother me that much.

I liked the greater majority of the actors in the movie, but I took issue with a lot of the characters.  Superman, for instance.  What kind of protector did you turn out to be when your fights with the Kryptonians leveled a large portion of both Smallville and Metropolis?  The Superman I know is a little more concerned with collateral damage than that.  The Superman I know also doesn’t have a hairy chest, but I guess that’s okay because chicks seem to be into it.  And speaking of being into chicks: was I the only one that was disappointed when baby Superman didn’t come flying out of his mom in the beginning, fist first?  I also had some thoughts about his parents.  First, how well does Krypton train its scientists in combat that they can beat up their top military officials?  And what the hell is the deal with his mom?  I understand the concept of a parent not wanting to give up their child, but she’s fully aware that the planet is dying.  It’s better in her opinion to let the baby die with you than to live without you?  You’re a shitty mom!  Superman’s adopted parents weren’t much better either.  I don’t remember the Kents teaching Superman the valuable lesson that sometimes you should let people die so you can keep yourself a secret.  Jonathan Kent was spectacularly stupid.  He actually dies because he tells his invulnerable superhero son to stay under the safety of the overpass while the aging human Jonathan ran back into the middle of a tornado to save a dog.  Your son … IS SUPERMAN!  He could’ve zipped out and saved that dog so fast that no one would’ve even seen him do it.  He could’ve walked through the middle of a tornado like everyone else walking in front of an oscillating fan.  But you’re right that dying in a tornado is the best way to go.  That’s how I intend to go.

Man of Steel offered nothing new in the story department, but made up for it with some pretty decent action and some fantastic visuals.  If you’ve followed Superman at all, you know pretty much where the story is going, but it will at least be visually entertaining enough to make it worthwhile.  This movie didn’t exactly blow my mind with pure awesomeness, but I was satisfied with the experience.  I’ll recommend you check this movie out in theaters.  Man of Steel gets “You will give the people an ideal to strive towards” out of “That’s why we risked so much to save you.”

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Les Miserables (2012)

Now Prisoner 24601, Your Time is Up and Your Parole’s Begun.

My friend Ashley Janet is not very good at requesting movies.  She told me I should watch this movie a while ago, and I told her (as I tell everyone) to make sure to request it on my Facebook Fanpage.  27 years later, lying on my deathbed, I received a request.  I had very little time – as the Reaper grew near – to meet this request.  I had my great, great grandchild run to a RedBox and pick up a chip that I installed in my futuristic eyeball player (I assume that’s what’s going to happen in the future).  Thankfully, after watching the movie, I welcomed the sweet release that the Reaper brought, so everything seemed to work out.  Did I want to die after watching the movie because it was so depressing, or because it was bad?  Or are they one and the same?  Let’s find out as I review Les Misérables, from a musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, which is itself based on a novel by Victor Hugo, written for the screen by William Nicholson and Herbert Kretzmer, directed by Tom Hooper, and starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter, Samantha Barks, Isabelle Allen, and Aaron Tveit.

Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) is a slave in a prison where he’s serving a 19-year sentence for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving child.  He’s released on his parole by the prison guard Javert (Russell Crowe), but finds it impossible to find work or shelter because of his criminal background, but he finds sanctuary with the Bishop of Digne (Colm Wilkinson) and in doing so adopts Christianity and changes his identity to start a new life.  Javert devotes his life to bringing Valjean back to justice.  But he’s not that good at it because eight years later, Valjean is a factory owner and mayor of Montreuil-sur-Mer.  A young lady named Fantine (Anne Hathaway) is working at his factory, but is fired by Valjean’s foreman because she has an illegitimate daughter named Cosette (Isabelle Allen), who is in the care of the unscrupulous  Thénardiers (Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen).  Fantine eventually resorts to prostitution, where she is found by Valjean, who then learns that he is (kind of) the cause of her predicament.  Then she dies and Valjean collects Cosette to raise her in her mother’s stead.  Nine years later and Javert still hasn’t caught Valjean.  Cosette is now Amanda Seyfried, and she falls in love with Marius Pontmercy (Eddie Redmayne) at first sight.  He loves her back … and her front, I assume.  The daughter of the Thénardiers, Éponine (Samantha Barks) is in love with Marius.  Marius is also in love with France, and is a member of a group of revolutionaries that blah blah blah sad things.  The end.

Man, I was beginning to get bored of my own summation there.  I was not a fan of this movie, but it’s not to say there are not things within this movie that are to be respected.  I was not really surprised by any part of the story.  There is a chance I’ve seen this in musical form before, but if I have, I have no recollection of it.  I think I was more able to predict the story by just thinking about what the most melodramatic thing that could happen was, and then that would usually happen.  It was comforting, at least, that the ending was vaguely happy, at least in comparison to the rest of the movie.  Well, Cosette probably wasn’t too fond of the way it ended, but it was a bit of a relief for me.  Of course, I may not have really realized what was going on half the time because they sang 98% of their dialogue, making it much harder for me to just listen to what they’re saying.  One thing I did understand is when Valjean asked the young Cosette what her name was and she responded, “I’m cold Cosette.”  I asked your name, bitch.  Not for your name and temperature.  You think you’re updating your Facebook status or something?

The biggest problems I had with this movie was with the directing and the singing, which is not a good sign because this is a movie and a musical.  First off, they sing way too goddamn much.  I’ve generally hated musicals, and this is usually the reason.  They have to sing everything!  They have small talk in musical form!  Like the song that the poor people sing after they jump forward 8 years in the story where they sing about being poor and downtrodden.  I can see that.  You’re all dirty and diseased.  You could just pan the camera over those people and I’d know what that song laid out for me.  I really do feel like I’d like this movie much more if they just sang the few songs that didn’t just sound like people were chatting while autotuned.  Of course, then I had the problems with the director to deal with.  Every time someone in the movie was singing, he seemed to forget that he had the ability to move the camera or make something happen on screen.  You wouldn’t really even need a camera operator for most of this movie because you could just set up a camera mount on the actor’s belt and let him or her film themselves.  They were all just shots of the people’s faces anyway.  And I understand why he did it in some ways.  I heard lots of stories about how the people in this movie actually sang live on the set and didn’t get dubbed over later.  First off, I don’t care.  Second off, you don’t need to prove it to me by just focusing on their faces whenever they were singing at the detriment of your movie.  And since most of your movie is people singing, you’re going to have a pretty visually boring movie.

I liked the greater majority of the performances in the movie, so it does have that going for it.  Hugh Jackman did a great job.  Not only did he have the singing chops, but he played Jean Valjean throughout the 17 years of the movie very successfully.  From all I had heard of the movie beforehand, I kind of thought that Anne Hathaway was going to be a bigger part of the movie, but she actually dies fairly early on.  On the other hand, she was a motivating factor for the majority of the movie.  And she still kind of managed to steal the movie with her performance of “I Dreamed a Dream”, which was a good song delivered with a lot of passion and emotion.  I’m sure everyone already knows what it looks like because it was most of what I had seen of her part of the movie before I watched it.  If it hadn’t been filmed so boring, I probably could’ve been brought to tears.  I’d definitely say she deserved the accolades she received for that song alone.  I didn’t really understand what people were complaining about with Russell Crowe, though.  I didn’t think he was a mind-blowing singer or anything, but I expected him to be awful from what everyone was saying about him.  He did fine.  I doubt I could do better, and I’m pretty sure you couldn’t either.  And I thought the performance was a good one as well, because I could never tell how I felt about the character.  He was clearly the antagonist of the movie in that he chases the story’s hero to the end of … well the town, because Valjean never seemed to really try to get that far out of Javert’s jurisdiction.  But you also can’t really blame him because dude’s just really good at his job.  On the third hand, maybe there are people that deserve your attention more than a guy that stole a loaf of bread 30 years ago to feed a starving child.  And he’s rich now!  He’s not stealing bread anymore.  There were also some dumb people in this movie.  First, Eddie Redmayne as Marius, who is so dumb and in love with Cosette that he’s oblivious to Éponine’s obvious love for him, so much so that he is totally content to sing about how much he loves Cosette right in front of her.  But he did do an almost Hathaway-esque job performing “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” near the end of the movie.  Also dumb is Gavroche, played by Daniel Huttlestone.  What is his motivation for crawling over the barricade and collecting ammo as he sings a song about how badass he is while he gets shot to death?  Possibly the most stupid thing is that Sacha Baron Cohen did this movie instead of Django Unchained.

I didn’t hate Les Misérables, but I didn’t like it either.  I’m just not into musicals, and I’m also not that into depressing movies.  I guess I should’ve known that the movie would be depressing as I was going in, but my French is just so rusty.  I still think the basic core of the movie would’ve worked a lot better on me if they didn’t sing every single menial line in the movie as much as the important ones, and if the director didn’t film most of those singing scenes in a really boring way because he was so impressed with himself and his actors that they were all singing on set.  The performances in the movie were either good or phenomenal, so I’d be impressed too, but I still would’ve recommended moving the camera from time to time.  I would say this movie is worth buying for people that are really into musicals, but for people like me a rental will suffice, if you get so inclined.  Les Misérables gets “You have only done your duty; it’s a minor sin at most” out of “Empty chairs at empty tables, where my friends shall sing no more.”

WATCH REVIEWS HERE!  YouTube  OTHER JOKES HERE!  Twitter  BE A FAN HERE!  Facebook  If you like these reviews so much, spread the word.  Keep me motivated!  Also, if you like them so much, why don’t you marry them?!

The Quick and the Dead (1995)

We Both Have Guns.  We Aim, We Fire, You Die.

Westerns are some of my favorite movies, so including it as a category in my contest was a given.  What wasn’t a given was which movie it would be.  Being a fan of the genre, it could have been any number of movies.  I’ve already reviewed True Grit, so that was out.  I really like the Unforgiven, but it’s a little too slow for my tastes so I don’t think it’d make it as my favorite.  It could’ve been any number of Sergio Leone and/or Clint Eastwood movies, but I don’t have that much love for older movies.  That being the case, one western movie caught my attention, so I picked it.  Going into it, I remember being very fond of this movie, but wasn’t sure how well my memory holds up.  So I’m throwing the dice and hoping that I was right in thinking I really liked the Quick and the Dead, written by Simon Moore, directed by Sam Raimi, and starring Sharon Stone, Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Roberts Blossom, Gary Sinise, Kevin Conway, Keith David, Lance Henriksen, Mark Boone Junior, Tobin Bell, Jonothon Gill, Lennie Loftin, Sven-Ole Thorsen, Josef Rainer, Pat Hingle, Raynor Scheine, and Olivia Burnette.

A lady named Ellen, but referred to almost exclusively as “The Lady” (Sharon Stone), rides into the town of Redemption, where a single elimination quick draw contest is about to start.  The town is run by the ruthless John Herod (Gene Hackman) and the Lady enters the contest shortly after Herod does, and shortly after saving the life of a reverend named Cort (Russell Crowe) who used to ride with Herod.  Then she gets drunk and sleeps with another contestant, Herod’s son “The Kid” (Leonardo DiCaprio).  As the contest movies along, the Lady is revealed to have a deep hatred for Herod, but we find out why slowly.  Will the Lady be fast enough to kill Herod?

Hey!  I was right!  I still really liked this movie.  It’s just badass.  The action is well realized, the directing is great, and the story was very involving.  At first, the movie makes itself seem like it has a pretty obvious story, being all about the quick draw contest.  It would be interesting enough with this, but wouldn’t be anything special.  It’s not until the Lady’s motivations of revenge bubbles up that I started getting more invested in the movie, but it works very well.  She’s definitely got a really good reason for hating Herod, and when it’s finally shown in its entirety, it’s such a horrible thing that happened to her that you can’t wait for her to kill this dude.  Not that he had made himself seem like a likeable character at any point in the movie as everyone hates him, but even he has some decent reasoning for the way he is.  Cort also has a pretty great back story.  As a matter of fact, a lot of the characters in the contest are given enough story that they’re mostly not just bullet fodder.  I would say that one thing didn’t make sense about the story.  If everyone in the town knew how fast and deadly Herod was, why would any of them join the contest?  Cort didn’t have a choice, the Lady had revenge on her mind, and the Kid wanted to earn his father’s respect, but all of the other people should’ve known better.  The dialogue in this movie was also very crisp and most of the characters had a nice snappy line prepared for any old situation.

All of the action in this movie worked very well for me.  Some people might think quick draw shootouts move a little slow, but I appreciate them so long as they build up the tension well leading up to the draw.  And Raimi does it very well, using a lot of quick cuts, close ups on the faces of the contestants, and quick zooms on the clock that will set things in motion.  He also uses the montage a lot, but not in an annoying way.  It just works for getting the lesser contestants taken care of quickly so we don’t waste too much time.  And one of them was the people preparing for the contest, using various period-correct ways of loading their weapons, which would seem to be pretty boring, but I was interested by it.  He also uses shadows and lighting very well, like the part where it showed a guy had gotten shot clean through by having his shadow have a hole in the chest.  There was also a part where a character got his head canoed by a bullet that is one of the coolest and most memorable moments in the movie.  Even with my dim recollection of the movie, I remembered that part before I started watching.

The greater majority of the performances in this movie were just fantastic.  Sharon Stone sets herself up as a badass quick, fast, and in a hurry.  She’s got this gruff, abrasive exterior at all times, but sometimes shows that underneath she’s out of her element and frightened.  I thought this worked excellently for a character, starting her off as the classic, fearless protagonist, but then humanizing her.  Of course, at the very end of the movie she is just straight up badass.  She was almost scary when it came time for the climax of the movie.  Gene Hackman was almost always intimidating.  He played it as almost nice on the surface, but if he was even slightly crossed he turned very intimidating.  He even cracks that intimidating façade slightly when something actually happens that he seems to regret.  He’s mostly holding it back, but you can kind of see a hint of it.  I really liked Russell Crowe’s character in this movie.  He was always made out to be this epic badass and stone cold killer, but he had denounced violence and claimed he wouldn’t pick it up again.  When he did, it was great.  He has a little scene near the end of the movie where he takes out something like six guys in a very short amount of time and it was fantastic.  I liked Leonardo DiCaprio too.  He always had this cocky little twerp attitude, but it was clearly covering up some serious low self-esteem issues that had been beaten into him by his father.  He also performs it very well around the time when he’s going to face his father in the contest where he gets very serious for the first time, and has a very well-acted emotional scene shortly after.

The Quick and the Dead may not accurately be considered my favorite western movie, but I think it’s up there.  It’s a lot of good action, a very engaging story, and some pretty top notch performances to back it all up.  I’ve liked Sam Raimi as a director for a while, and he seems to fit into the western genre very nicely.  It’s not the most groundbreaking movie, but it’s pretty awesome.  Check this movie out.  The Quick and the Dead gets “Me and Jesse James think it’s the best handgun in the world” out of “Is it possible to improve on perfection?”

Congratulations again goes to Chris for guessing today’s movie and winning his third DVD in this contest.  A more paranoid man would begin to think that he’s got cameras in my bedroom and can see the stack of DVDs waiting to be reviewed, but I think I’ll just assume that he’s madly in love with me.

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Gladiator (2000)

Today I Saw a Slave Become More Powerful Than the Emperor of Rome.

Today’s contest was admittedly difficult to manage.  I decided that I would pick a movie from the drama genre, but as I’ve mentioned many times, I hate dramas.  How would I be able to pick a movie that depressed me and call it my favorite?  I would have to be deceptive and find a movie that was inarguably a drama, but perhaps with enough elements of a type of movie I do like it will overcome the melancholy.  And that’s when it struck me.  I could think of a movie that was definitely a drama but with plenty enough action in it that I wouldn’t hate watching it.  It’s also one of my favorite movies, so the decision was clear.  I would call Gladiator my favorite drama, written by David H. Franzoni, John Logan, and William Nicholson, directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Richard Harris, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, David Schofield, John Shrapnel, Tomas Arana, and Ralph Moeller.

The great warrior and general Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) leads a victory for the Romans over the Germanic tribes.  The dying emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris) makes the decision to make Maximus the leader of Rome so that he can return the power to the people.  When he informs his son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), of his decision, Commodus murders him.  Maximus realizes what happened, but is betrayed by General Quintus (Tomas Arana) and sentenced to be executed, as well as his wife (Giannina Facio) and his son (Giorgio Cantarini).  Maximus escapes his execution and rushes back to find his family already dead.  He buries them and is later found unconscious by slavers and sold to Proximo (Oliver Reed), and forced to become a gladiator.  With Commodus reinstating the games in honor of his dead father (even though his father disbanded them), Maximus figures that, if he performs well, he will be able to stand before the new emperor and finally have his vengeance.

This is how I take my drama movies: barely being able to be considered a drama.  It’s great action and a great story, but with a fair share of drama mixed in.  Revenge is an easy but great motivator in movies.  The movie starts itself off pretty strong with the war in the beginning, but then I start getting emotionally invested when Commodus not only kills the likeable emperor, but also tries to kill Maximus and succeeds in killing his family.  I’m instantly on board.  I love Maximus and I hate Commodus.  That keeps me interested past the satisfying, albeit a little depressing, conclusion, and I enjoy the entire ride.  The dialogue in the movie is extremely well-written as well.  Most of it’s very crisp and stinging, including a lot of smarter versions of “fuck you”.  Any time that Commodus is talking with Maximus, every line ends with a version of “fuck your face”.  I was confused by the relationship between Commodus and Lucilla though.  I don’t know if it was more common back then, but Commodus was really aching to jump Lucilla’s bones, regardless of the fact that they were brother and sister.  They never said half-siblings or step-siblings, so I just found it weird.  That part of the movie felt like watching Clueless all over again.  The movie was beautifully filmed though.  It starts off really cold and blue and gritty when they’re in Germania, bright and hot and orange in the middle when he’s first becoming a gladiator, and colorful and bright and beautiful when they’re in the majesty of Rome.  The recreation of Rome was fantastic as well.  The fights are what really interest me about this movie, and they’re all great.  Not a lot of flourish to the fights, but every one of them was exciting and awesome.  Maximus never seemed to be the strongest or the fastest, and was never super human in any way, but he won all of his fights with skill and cunning.  They’re gory and exciting and you’re always rooting for the home team.

The performances are what set this movie apart for me.  Them and the action.  But the performances were really good.  Russell Crowe was great all the way through the movie.  I’d say there was one part that was iffy with me, but it was only partially his fault.  When he was crying over his dead wife and kid he had snot running out of his nose and drool coming out of his mouth.  Then he kissed the feet of his wife and had it sticking to her feet.  They probably should have taken that out with CG or something.  I found it not only distracting, but icky.  Also, in the part where he was kissing the wooden figures that represented his wife and son, he got a little too freaky deaky with the figure representing his wife.  He’d been alone for a while though.  I hated Joaquin Phoenix from the very first time I saw him, but that’s a credit to him because we weren’t supposed to like him at all.  He played the role so utterly despicable in every way, but it wasn’t in a cartoony way.  You could kind of get a handle on his motivations, though it doesn’t justify his actions.  And the entire movie we watch his slow descent into madness and paranoia, and he pulls that off very well.  Connie Nielsen was a good character as well.  I started off not trusting her because she always acted as if something was going on behind the scenes.  As they say in the movie, she would make a great leader if she was a man.  But, by the end of the movie, you side with her as her brother’s craziness starts getting to her as well.  And mother fuckin’ Dumbledore was up in this bitch!  Richard Harris is always great though.

It doesn’t come as any kind of a surprise that Gladiator is an awesome movie.  Yes, it’s a drama, and it’s also a bit mopey at times, but the action and the excitement override that, and the story is something that gets me involved almost immediately.  The action is great, the look is fantastic, and the performances are all top notch.  You don’t always like all of the characters, but they’re very well performed.  If you have managed to not see Gladiator by this point, I hate you.  Fix it or we’ll have troubles.  Gladiator gets “Smile for me now, brother” out of “At my signal, unleash hell!”

Congratulations to Fabio, who guessed my favorite drama correctly, despite his learning disability.

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Off the Record, On the QT, and Very Hush-Hush

My roommate and I did two movies back to back, but thankfully the second one originally came out well within our lifetime.  It was one I knew about, but never really found myself that interested in watching.  But he got the movie, so I figured we might as well watch the thing.  While watching it, I found myself completely unable to stop thinking about a certain video game that I really enjoyed last year, but I’ll be mentioning that later.  For now, let’s get into my review of L.A. Confidential, based on a book by James Ellroy, written by Brian Helgeland and Curtis Hanson, directed by Curtis Hanson, and starring Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, Kim Basinger, Kevin Spacey, David Strathairn, Danny DeVito, Ron Rifkin, Graham Beckel, and Simon Baker.

Detective Wendell “Bud” White (Russell Crowe) and his partner, Dick Stensland (Graham Beckel), are delivering alcohol to a policeman party, while periodically stopping so Bud can whoop on some guys abusing their ladies, something he has a big problem with.  At the police station, narcotics detective Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey) shows up along with a group of Mexican guys rumored to have recently attacked and beaten some police officers, and they get turned over to the night’s watch commander, Sergeant Edmund Exley (Guy Pearce).  Alcohol and rumor make their way quickly around the office, inciting the police officers to go down to the cells and attack the Mexicans.  Reporters get some pictures of it and call it “Bloody Christmas”, which makes the LA Times and tarnishes the reputation of the LAPD.  District Attorney Ellis Loew (Ron Rifkin) and Captain Dudley Smith (James Cromwell) interview officers to figure out who will testify and who will have this pinned on them.  White won’t testify, Exley is totally on board, and even suggests using the TV show that he works on to gain leverage on Vincennes and get his support.  This whole plan gets a couple of officers, including White’s partner Stensland, is expelled.  Exley gets promoted.  Shortly after, Exley is called to the Nite Owl coffee shop and finds a large group of people murdered in the bathroom.  One of these people is Stensland.  For the rest of the movie, we follow Exley, White, and Vincennes as they try to find out what truly happened that night in the Nite Owl, but what they find may go much deeper than they expected.

I really liked LA Noire … I mean Confidential.  This was a really good movie, but all I kept thinking about the entire time is how similar this movie is to LA Noire, which gained respect for this movie, but lost a little for LA Noire.  The movie had a really interesting story, but it was perhaps a bit predictable, and it was elevated by some really good performances and some really good action.  The story of the movie is fairly classic noire movie fare, with corruption and betrayal happening with the police that’s being battled by a few good cops, and there’s a little mob action going on to boot.  You can probably figure out who the bad guy is before the movie tells you, but it’s much harder to figure out why and how.  Either way, having guessed the culprit didn’t really affect my enjoyment of the movie.  A lot of the movie was just back to back intense scenes of puzzle solving.  It could not go without saying that the movie reminds me of LA Noire.  Not just the noire style and the LA setting, but there were some scenes of collecting clues, some pretty intense interrogation scenes, and even some entire plot points that were shared with the game.  They worked really well in both.  The movie is not one that I would call “action packed”, per se, but there’s a couple of scenes with good, solid action.  One in particular that stands out is the one that ends the movie in a giant shootout that was pretty awesome.

The performances are another great part about this movie, and I can scarcely think of one that did not hold up their end of the bargain.  Crowe was the bomb in this movie.  He was a total badass, but also put in some serious acting in parts.  His part of the final shootout in the movie was particularly badass, and a later scene with Basinger was particularly well acted, but he’s pretty great throughout.  Guy Pearce is a good contrast to Crowe in this movie.  As the movie moves along, we find that they’re both good cops, but in different ways.  Pearce is all by the book and Crowe is all about seeing justice served.  Pearce is Superman, Crowe is Batman.  Unfortunately for Pearce, him being the by the books cop made me dislike him until near the end of the movie.  I’m more of a Batman kind of guy.  Spacey is still a good guy, but he’s barely a cop until the end of the movie.  He’s more of a celebrity who does police work on the side.  Kim Basinger puts on a great performance as well, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing this chick looks and she was in her 40’s in this movie.  She’s almost 60 now, and I haven’t seen her in a bit, but I’d wager I would still smash.  James Cromwell did a great job as well, being very charming and likeable for the greater majority of the movie.

LA Confidential is a movie I’m happy that I finally watched.  If you’re not into games, but you heard good things about LA Noire, you can basically just watch this and get the gist of the game because they borrowed so heavily from it.  Good story, great performances, and some intense scenes and action make this a good watch.  I watched my roommate’s copy of the movie, but I would totally buy it myself as well, so it’s at least worth a rental for you.  LA Confidential gets “You look better than Veronica Lake” out of “Lookie here, the great jerkoff case of 1953.”

Hey, peeps. Why not rate and comment on this as a favor to good ole Robert, eh? And tell your friends! Let’s make me famous!