The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

Also known as Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo.
What can be said about this movie that hasn't been said already? The score is legendary, the actor is a cinematic mainstay, the title itself is a constant reference in pop culture, and the film itself is largely considered the defining film in the genre. So it's important at least, but is it any good? Does it hold up to decades of age? In a word: yes. In a bigger word: YES. This savage treasure hunt has barely aged a day. Every moment of its gun slinging charm and backstabbing twists hold up to years of scrutiny. Eastwood's nameless hero still remains the archetype for the modern movie action hero, while the moments where the film crosses paths with the Civil War remain potent and some of cinema's most impressive scenes. There is genuinely nothing to knock here, nothing to criticize. If you have any love of cinema at all, watching (or re-watching) this is three hours incredibly well spent.

10 out of 10.

Ghostbusters (1984)

Just something about that theme song! For much of a generation, this movie is required viewing, a piece of childhood canon without fault. There's a fairly good reason for that: the film is legitimately fun, featuring outstanding chemistry between the heroic foursome and an exceptional comic performance from lead Bill Murray. The special effects were great for their time and mostly stand up to the ages, and the script itself has just enough metaphysical mumbo jumbo to support it's plot about a group of ghost-exterminating quasi-scientists. It's light, funny, and filled with fun action with iconic set pieces. Sure, there are moments that drag, and a few gags which fall flat, but it all comes back to that exceptional chemistry, and the spontaneous mayhem that ensues whenever these guys leave the house. And that song.

9 out of 10.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

Following up on a runaway hit is never easy. Picking up five years later, the Ghostbusters are finding it difficult to maintain steady work since their actions in the first film. Then along comes a river of goo and the ghost of a long-dead warlord. As much as it tries, this sequel can't quite recapture the surprise and ease that the first one brought in abundance, instead feeling a little less lively, a little more stiff. That isn't to say it's a bad film—not at all. It just isn't as good as the first. The foursome still have that same flawless chemistry, the dialogue is still wonderfully witty and Murray still brings it all together with his never-serious attitude. But the story lacks the spark that turned the first into a mega-hit, causing hits to plausibility, and diminishing the feeling of threat from the villains. Regardless, there's still a lot of fun to be had, a lot of excitement, and some great laughs. It may not be it's predecessor, but it definitely holds its own.

7 out of 10.

Get Smart (2008)

Though generally opposed to the remaking and re-imagining of damn near everything that made my childhood dear, I find it hard to feel angry when the result is this much fun. Honestly this shouldn't be nearly as successful as it is, but the combination of a perfectly silly script and the utterly flawless casting of Steve Carrell as Maxwell Smart results in a delightfully hilarious romp. The sense of humor is squarely middle-brow, with surprisingly few cheap shots or overtly foul humor, and it all manages to hit home far more often than it fails. Carrell's bumbling secret agent is a pleasure to watch, with a sense of humor so perfectly dry and timed that you can't help but feel how proud Don Adams would have been. But as good as the humor is, there are deficiencies. When the action decides to ramp up a bit, it frequently leaves the laughs behind, and the action itself isn't anything all that great. Similarly, the prototypical spy gadget dispenser characters are woefully unfunny, and do a remarkable job of dragging down every scene they're in. But the focus of the film is kept mostly on Carrell, steering the tone toward just the right mood. Indeed, if Hollywood is going to continue to pilfer my formative years I could certainly stand to have more of this quality.

7 out of 10.

Groundhog Day (1993)

Ten years before he finally gained recognition as more than a comedic actor for Lost In Translation, Bill Murray crafted one of the most complex and endearing performances of his career in a movie that was never really built for more than a few cheap laughs. It's a simple plot: a weatherman is forced to relive the same day over and over again until, one assumes, he gets it right. Along the way, he faces confusion, desperation, depression, anger, and enlightenment all within the same twenty-four hour span. Murray plays it to the hilt, showing a surprising tenderness and gravity as a man realizing he's face-to-face with eternity itself. It's a truly remarkable showing and every bit as charming and manic as the script asks for. The rest is no slouch either; every bit of the film is of comparable quality. The writing takes advantage of its concept in almost every conceivable way (the death montage is darkly hilarious), while the expansive supporting cast offer near-perfect work across the board. In the end it isn't much more than a few memorable laughs and a single but potent shot of thoughtful musing, but for being a great idea put to great use thanks to a great performance, this is deservedly a comedy classic.

9 out of 10.

Garden State (2004)

Some lessons in life are tougher to learn than others. Some you're not even aware you are being taught. Garden State is about a man, medicated into oblivion since age ten, going off his meds for the first time in fifteen years while returning home to deal with death of his mother. The film speaks to a lot of things, about moving on from old friends, about alienation with one's parents and about how, ultimately, you can't go home. For a debut, writer-director and star Zach Braff damn near knocks it out of the park, telling his story with heart and humor and an always surprising sense of quirk. It still smacks of amateur filmmaking at points: the pacing can be erratic and Braff's hand seems unsteady handling the older actors. Also the very end reeks of a last-minute rewrite. But on the whole it's an exceptionally competent and, I expect, personal film. It may not be everyone's cup of tea but it's probably safe to say many will find it a fitting and appropriate way to cathartic melancholy.

8 out of 10.

Grindhouse (2007)

guest review by Phineas Gopher

More than a few people complained when Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill was broken up into two volumes which were then released months apart. Those people felt they were paying for the same movie twice. In a welcome twist, Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez have teamed up to deliver just the opposite: two movies for the price of one. Each director offered a full-length feature shot in the style of 70s exploitation cinema, billed jointly under the name Grindhouse, with hilarious fake movie trailers linking the films. Rodriguez's Planet Terror is an over-the-top take on the zombie and military disaster genres. The poster image of actress Rose McGowan with a machine gun for a leg sums up its gritty, campy tone. Parts of it are funny, a lot of it is gross, but the whole thing is wild and action-packed. Tarantino's offering, Death Proof is more meditative, and is this reviewer's favorite of the two. It starts as a buddy movie with a bunch of bar-hopping girls drinking and talking before introducing a unique serial killer in the form of Stuntman Mike (a perfectly cast Kurt Russell). The tone and genre shift several times, arguably offering the equivalent of two small films that happen to be related (take that, Kill Bill naysayers). Tarantino's culturally relevant dialogue is in top-form, and his CGI-less approach to the stuntwork gives us car-on-car action that seems straight out of the 70s (in a good way). It's a shame the two films were broken up and released separately in most places outside the U.S., but a special edition DVD (or Blu-Ray, or something) should correct this in the future.

8 out of 10.

The Great Debaters (2007)

Formula films can be a tricky lot, especially with the dreadfully overused “underdog sports movie” template. Every time you step into one you pretty much know how it's going to work out, who's going to triumph, and when each of the various character setbacks are going to occur. But it's when you take formulaic tenets and apply them in unique ways that you can come up with an exceptional film. Here the creed is applied to my favorite of college bloodsports: debate. And it's not just debate here; it's debate as an allegory for civil rights circa 1935. Director and star Denzel Washington's second effort behind the camera is a finely paced, relevant, and uplifting film. The casting and acting are uniformly excellent, and the underdog struggles of African Americans in the film are depicted with just the right balance to be honest but never preachy. The argument isn't all perfection, though. While the debates and discussions and the intellectual food for thought brought to the table are wonderfully enthralling, like all movies of the template the personal issues around the players can be hit or miss. Thankfully the majority of the movie is on the good stuff, leaving the gristle to pop its head up from time to time to break up the pace. While it has the same failings as (by now) hundreds of movies of its ilk, this is the rare movie that applies its modus operandi to great effect, becoming a touching tribute to the struggles of a people.

8 out of 10.

The Golden Compass (2007)

Swing and a miss! When New Line Cinema bet the house on Peter Jackson's interpretation of Lord of the Rings, the result was an unquestioned masterstroke. Here, New Line is at it again with a less beloved, far more complicated tale of alternate universes and the churches that try to control them. The result is a mish-mash of uneven film making, incomplete exposition, and confusing ideals. Sure, the effects are spectacular, and newcomer Dakota Blue Richards has more acting chops than most Oscar winners (and she's 13 and this is only her first movie!), but it's tough to love the good in the movie when you can't understand what's going on. The concepts that run the fiction here are labyrinthine and far-reaching, but they're rarely given a good moment or two to properly sink in, and since the entire story is built on these imaginative ideas a lot of the drama suffers. It really is a shame because there is a good story being maimed here. If the movie had been given enough wiggle room to set the world and the story properly, New Line's gamble might have paid off. As it stands, for every triumph the film has, there are sparks of confusion and frustration to match.

5 out of 10.

Gigli (2003)

guest review by Phineas Gopher

Oh, the dangers of putting your real-life romance into a Hollywood movie! Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck weren't universally liked in 2003, but they lost many of the fans they had when they headlined Gigli, a crime/drama/ romance that became the most reviled film of the year. And having sat through it recently this critic can say, it really is godawful. All the sarcasm, babytalk, and playful fighting you've ever loathed between couples you know is even harder to watch between two multi-million-dollar movie stars exuding as much charisma as a dog humping the leg of a dead body. Sorry, less. Gigli contains painfully bad dialogue like the infamous "I'm the bull. You're the cow." line, but has such high production values (and Christopher Walken!) that it manages to be entertaining as an example of Hollywood blissfully unaware of not wearing any pants to work. Plus, now is the perfect time of year to watch it, since it is both an unintentional horror film and a turkey.

1 out of 10.

Gracie (2007)

guest review by Phineas Gopher

Even though it is based on true events, Gracie doesn't ring true. It asks the viewer to look at the world (specifically the 70s) through the eyes of a teenage athlete who is denied the privilege of playing high school soccer because she's a girl. The politics behind this perspective get in the way of the story because the titular heroine isn't painted as a real person, but as a walking lump of stereotypical female rebellion. The cliches are so numerous, this almost becomes a sports movie parody. Its only effort to be unpredictable consists of making Gracie not really that good at soccer. What are we cheering for exactly? The inevitable triumphant ending is satisfying if you stick with the movie that long, but the feel-good fix is only a chaser to a pretty bland brew.

4 out of 10.

The Game Plan (2007)

Standard issue heart-warmer. Comes with all the features—a charismatic lead, a cute kid, and a completely predictable dilemma that leads to general purpose shenanigans and goings-on. It's easy to be exceptionally cynical about so-called “family films” so just put these comments in comparison with other films of the genre. It goes where you want it to go, and doesn't come off nearly as annoying as you expect it will. The chemistry between The Rock and The Kid is solid, and the rest is just as contrived as almost every other movie of this type. It's a decent film with a few laughs but has nothing you haven't already seen in every one of these kinds of movies. It's just another Disney film, but that's not all bad.

6 out of 10.

Ghost Rider (2007)

This review is based on the 'extended' cut of the film.
I have nothing against the idea of a leather-clad, chain-wielding, burning skeleton who rides atop a motorcycle whose wheels are made of fire. I really don't. I have nothing against Nicholas Cage either. Nor any problems with a father who makes an honest living as a professional plot device. Apparently, someone does. There is not a single good thing I can say about this movie. The acting ranges from bored to horrible all across the board, the script is something you'd expect in some goth kid's student project, and the special effects—the one thing you should be able to count on when a movie costs upwards of $110 million dollars—are absolute trash. It's a superhero film. I get it. You're supposed to lower your expectations and suspend your disbelief a bit when watching them. After this, I think I'll just hand my disbelief a noose and be done with it.

3 out of 10.

The Girl Next Door (2004)

This review is based on the 'unrated' cut of the film.
Now here's an interesting thing: most R-rated movies about teenagers try their best to pump in as much T&A and dirty jokes as they possibly can. Most of these are awful. Then comes along this movie, which cuts out the middle man and makes an R-rated movie about teenagers and porn stars. And it's excellent! Though, even I have to admit that it's a bit inconsistent. If I had to judge the whole movie by the first half hour, I'd call it a genre defining coming of age story and knock out for the rest of the night. It's a drama at first, but that doesn't last as the sparse but effective humor of the start takes the center stage as the story gets more and more convoluted and ridiculous. The movie swaps between genuinely funny comedy, and effective drama for much of the remainder of the film. The problem here is that the comedy side of film and the drama side don't really feel like they have anything in common. It's like watching two separate movies juxtaposed on top of each other. Both are well made, but seemingly unrelated. It isn't till the very end that both films come together, the mixed-up plot reconciles itself, and you're left with the feeling of cinematic euphoria that comes from a truly good ending. Ultimately it's not the definitive genre film it could've been, but it gets enough right that it doesn't matter.

8 out of 10.

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