Drive

Rating: 5/5

He has no name. All he's there to do is make sure the bad guys escape so the hardboiled hero cop can uncover a conspiracy later. But what is the getaway driver outside the getaway car? Who doe he love, how does he live? Why does he drive? I have never thought about any of this before in crime movies like Heat or Takers. Drive has not only made me consider all this, but understand it. That is only part of why Drive is one of the most brilliant films of 2011.

A nameless stuntman (Ryan Gosling) works part-time as a getaway driver. He is extremely precise about timing, is always unarmed, and never gets caught. As he says in the film, he does not want to be seen. His car is an extension of himself, a passion he tries to share with Irene (Carey Mulligan), an angelic woman the driver loves. When Irene's reformed ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is threatened by a local gangster (Ron Perlman) into robbing a pawn shop for 40 grand, the driver agrees to help. But after a double-cross that leaves the husband dead and the driver with a million dollars of stolen mob cash, all hell breaks loose.

As I write, it has already been a couple days since I saw Drive into the theater. I do that for all my reviews, because I don't get into preview screenings and I need time to process. After processing Drive in my head, I can't find anything wrong with it. No nitpicks, no cons, nothing. Drive is supremely written, but there isn't a lot of talking. Nicolas Winding Refn uses this to a genius degree, because he builds such tension with such intelligence and subtlety that it's truly astounding. Drive is similar to a Tarantino film in that it makes us think about how we view the film as we watch it.

Technically, Drive is perfect. It has brilliant direction, great, subtle dialogue and character development, fantastic cinematography, and amazing acting. Ryan Gosling is always good, but here he truly shines. Because of his character's usual silence, Gosling gives an almost purely visual performance full fo authenticity and emotion. The driver is not a catalyst for the events around him, he is merely a pawn with knighthood thrust upon him by pure chance. Drive makes us think about how we are watching the film through genuine emotional attachment to a character who could only come from the world of film.

Drive is many things. It is existential and deep, but not pretentious. It is an action film but its own kind of action film. It is very violent in parts, but not for the sake of being violent. Drive was clearly very carefully constructed, and it pays off with a huge jackpot. This is one of the rare films that is both immensely entertaining as well as brilliant in its themes and symbolism. It is definitely worth seeing, more than once, and is indubitably one of the three best films of the year along with 13 Assassins and Attack the Block. I cannot recommend Drive enough. See it for your sake.

Red State

Rating: 2/5

Oh how the mighty have fallen. As I write this review, I am drawn back to when I first discovered Kevin Smith. Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Clerks II were my gods for years. Even now I'll pop in a DVD every now and then and have a good time. For a while, I thought Kevin SMith could do no wrong. Then I saw Jersey Girl, but that was ok because no director has a perfect track record. Then Zack and Miri came out, which I never saw but I hear is terrible. Then came Cop Out, which was excruciating to sit through. Now we have Red State, for which I have no words.

Ok, let me try to explain this craziness. Three dumb teenagers (Michael Angarano, Nicholas Braun, and Kyle Gallner) answer an internet ad posted by an older woman (Melissa Leo) who promises to deflower them. Of course, it's a trap and the three wake up imprisoned by nutjob preacher Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a fanatic who's cult murders gay people regularly. Then out of nowhere, John Goodman shows up with the ATF and a firefight starts, beginning what is I guess supposed to be another Waco siege.

If you take anything from the above paragraph, I hope it's that this movie is a mess. There's no buildup or pacing, the camerawork is schizophrenic, nothing makes ANY damn sense, and it's just mediocre. The script, acting and story are all over the place and just not great. There's just no point to the whole thing, but boy does Red State think highly of itself. Seriously, I haven't seen a political opinion so bluntly bashed over my head since I tried reading The Fountainhead.

Ok, I am being a little mean to this movie. The atmosphere before the ATF shows up is well done and Michael Parks is amazing as pastor Cooper. And as a very liberal guy, I appreciate a film that takes such a hard left stance on the issue of the Westboro Baptist Church and hate speech. I just can't help comparing Red State to Machete, a similar but much better film. I think the main thing is that Red State tries to be a serious horror movie, but it isn't Red State is an exploitation movie, and a damn good one at that. If the ending wasn't such a, dare I say it, cop out, Red State could've been made by Bruno Mattei in the 70's.

It;s too bad that Red State is a Kevin Smith movie. I know (based on Clerks II) that he can do better, even though it isn't the 90's anymore. Especially since Smith claims to be retiring after his next movie, there's no reason not to bring Jay and Silent Bob back for one more adventure. Luckily, Red State proves that Smith can't do horror, but he can still hold my attention for 90 minutes. Come on Kevin, I know it's been a weird couple of years, but I believe in you. I know you can deliver a true curtain call. Come on man, do it for the fans. Go out on a high note.

Contagion

Rating: 2/5

The best piece of apocalyptic fiction out there is Max Brooks' novel World War Z. The book details the human-zombie conflict, from the beginning and the great panic to the systematic defeat of the undead. It is a truly brilliant piece of literature and is important considering the state of the modern world. I bring up World War Z because whoever wrote Contagion definitely read it. Too bad Contagion isn't half as good.

Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) returns from a business trip to China sick. Her illness is undiagnosable and ends up killing Beth and her son. The mysterious disease quickly spreads all over the world, transmitted by touch and causing death extremely quickly. People all over the world, including Beth's husband Mitch (Matt Damon), CDC operatives (Lawrence Fishburne and Kate Winslet), a WHO epidemiologist (Marion Cotillard), and a conspiracy theorist (Jude Law) scramble to achieve their goals, whether it be a vaccine, survival, or profit.

Contagion's number one problem is that there are way too many characters. Too many characters all played by great actors who all could hold a basic epidemic plot by themselves. Not enough time is given to develop anyone, and the film wil go for 45 minutes without showing certain people, leaving most subplots unresolved. All of this is compounded by the fact that nothing really happens. Steven Soderbergh puts a lot of effort into setting up everything and putting the characters into tense and complex situations, and then it just kind of ends. There's a kind of happy ending, and the movie just stops.

Speaking of the plot (or lack thereof), it has no point. It jumps all over the place and several of the more popular characters like Jude Law and Marion Cotillard don't have anything to do with anything. these two don't accomplish anything in the grand scheme of things and are completely inconsequential. Also, the whole thing just feels small. Rules about who dies and how fast change several times over the course of the narrative, and because the movie is so focused on good-looking celebrities reacting to things, we don't see the scope of the tragedy.

I was looking forward to Contagion. Maybe my hopes were too high, but Soderbergh can and has done much better. It could have been so much better, but Contagion spreads itself too thin and collapses. Now that I think about it, the messages of "wash your damn hands" and "people over profit" don't matter because Contagion fails to infect. Zing!

Warrior

Rating: 4/5

don't like sports movies. I just don't get engaged by them, probably because they're 95% "true stories" and I know how it's gonna end. Boxing movies are especially guilty of this, because they either rip off Rocky or Raging Bull. It's always the same too: lower-class tough guy/family man meets the girl of his dreams and/or needs money for his family. Cue a training montage with an unconventional mentor and a touching scene of familial reconciliation, all while a big fight is coming up. Put these together with an overrated director and you get stuff like The Fighter or Cinderella Man. God I'm glad for Warrior.

Tommy (Tom Hardy) just got back from Iraq and refuses to talk about what happened there. He also decides to shack up with his dad (Nick Nolte), after over fifteen years of no contact. Tommy needs money and is a powerful martial artist, so he enters Sparta, a huge MMA tournament with a five million dollar prize. Meanwhile, Tommy's older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) is a physics teacher with a family and a looming foreclosure on his house. Out of options, Brendan enters Sparta, ignorant of Tommy's involvement.

Warrior does something that I've never seen in a sports film. It makes the audience want both Tommy and Brendan to be the victor in the big final fight. Warrior gives both protagonists real motivations, feelings, and personalities, making them likable and empathetic. The movie is mostly about Brendan and Tommy's relationship, and that is portrayed very, very well, partly because of a characteristic not seen in most movies these days: subtlety. Instead of having long monologues about Nick Nolte's bad parenting, we are shown that through facial expressions, mis-en-scene, and genuinely great acting.

My main problem with last year's big sports movie, The Fighter, was that there wasn't anything extraordinary about it except Christian Bale's performance. The story was standard, the script was cliche, and overall it was just eh. I just didn't connect emotionally with the film because like I said earlier, it was a true story and I knew the end. Warrior definitely relies on some cliche, but does it so well that it's very effective.

I liked Warrior. I didn't love it, I didn't cry at the end, but I liked it. The performances are great, it's a well written and directed story, and it isn't predictable. Warrior is a good story of two brothers, with MMA as a centerpiece. The whole thing just feels genuine in it's emotion and atmosphere. Warrior isn't Oscar bait, and a lot of people might not like it, but I recommend it.

Shark Night 3D

Rating: .5/5

Another year, another killer fish flick. Seriously, don't quote me on this, but I'd take the gamble that at least one fishsploitation film comes out per year. None of them are good per se, but as evidenced by Sharktopus and Piranha 3D, they can be fun. There are key factors to doing this, namely an R rating. I haven't seen a movie all year like Shark Night 3D. I have not seen a movie this year that falls on its face so hard right out of the gate.

When Tulane student Malik (Sinqua Walls) passes a big test, Sarah (Sara Paxton) decides to take him an their other friends (of which there are too many to name) out to her family's vacation home in the middle of nowhere, Louisiana. On the way the group runs into to obnoxious rednecks (Chris Carmack and Joshua Leonard) who know Sarah. After partying for around 20 minutes, Malik's arm gets bitten off by a shark in the lake. To their horror, the students discover that the rednecks put sharks in the lake to kill college kids. Why? Because.

If you couldn't infer from the previous paragraph, Shark Night 3D is terrible. So terrible I'm giving it my rare 1/2 a star rating. I have genuinely not seen a horror movie so inept and stupid since My Soul to Take, which was at least funny. I tried, I really did, to laugh at Shark Night, but I just couldn't. The script and acting are so beyond just bad movie acting, I think some sort of enlightenment was reached. But I wouldn't mind as much if not for one big problem/

Shark Night was dead on arrival as soon as the filmmakers decided to make a PG-13 movie. Just think about that for a second. I wasn't Piranha 3D's biggest fan, but it had extreme gore and female nudity, so I was entertained. Shark Night is clearly trying to rip Piranha off anyway, so why it's PG-13 baffles me. This may sound like I'm being a snob at a dumb horror movie, but I own Stargate on DVD and I liked the new Conan so leave me alone.

Shark Night 3D does absolutely everything wrong. The acting sucks, the script sucks, the story sucks, the CGI sucks, and the fact that it's PG-13 SUCKS. If we got to see some naked women and some awesome gore, I wouldn't have hated it so much. Seriously, this is the worst moviegoing experience currently out there. Usually, I wouldn't bother seeing this film. But I did, so there's my two cents.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Rating: 2/5

When I was little, the darkness was my worst enemy. If I saw or heard about anything remotely creepy or frightening at any part of the day, no matter when, it would come back to me at bedtime. I was a kid with an active imagination, and sitting alone in the silent dark let my brain run wild. Honestly, the stuff I came up with back then was scarier than Don't be Afraid of the Dark.

Sally (Bailee Madison) has just moved in with her architect dad (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes), who are living in a creepy old house that they are refurbishing to sell. In the night, Sally hears voices calling for her, and discovers a basement full of unreleased artwork of the home's previous owner, a famous artist who just so happened to disappear mysteriously. In the basement, Sally finds the source of the voices and sets them free, unleashing 90 minutes of generic and contrived horror scenes.

This film has a simple premise, but in the beginning it has pretty good atmosphere and some interesting setups. Unfortunately, the genuine creativity that the movie promises is outweighed by the stuff that doesn't make sense and the bad acting. I mean, Sally is portrayed as a moody, antisocial, and dark kid, and no background as to why is given. When the creatures that have been heard and built up throughout the first act finally show up, they can't stop hogging the spotlight, and any possible scares are totally destroyed.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a good summer horror movie, but not a good horror movie. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it's rather humorless and inconsistent. I'm sorry, but when a groundskeeper at the house is attacked by the creatures and emerges from the basement covered in blood with scissors in his neck, the excuse "he had an accident" is just silly. The mythology of the monsters is cool, but it's all explained in around two minutes. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark just plays it too safe.

The TV film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is supposedly one of the scariest ever. A lot of the positive reviews of this movie say it isn't fair to expect the original. That is true, but it is not a good justification for this version's favorites. This movie should not have to stand on anyone's shoulders if it's a strong and modern picture. Surprise, it isn't. Overall, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is just a bad and forgettable horror movie.