3:10 to Yuma (2007)

Being the story of an outlaw and a family man in the American south(-wild-)west as told by actors Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, an Aussie and a Brit respectively. Are we so low on manly man actors in this country that we need to outsource? As to the film itself, there really is very little to complain over, but at the same time nothing to start calling friends about either. The script is well written and engaging, the film's pace set to a steady and sure 'amble', the costuming and accents correct in their place, and the acting solid all around, especially Ben Foster's turn as a brutal second banana to Crowe's first... pineapple? Everything seems to skate the line of “very good” from start to finish, but never quite makes the jump into “great”. The only disappointment about the whole thing is that its ending takes what becomes a fascinating study of moral ambiguity in the wild west and lends it a level of uncomfortable certainty, simultaneously confusing and insulting the audience in the process. Worth seeing if you're a fan of non-ironic (except that whole Brit/Aussie thing), old fashioned westerns. Good to see Alan Tudyk is still getting work.

8 out of 10.

TMNT (2007)

I can't believe I'm about to say this: I hope this movie gets a sequel. While it falls into many of the traps that aimed-mostly-at-kids films tend to fall into, it nonetheless manages to come across as wonderful return for four+ of my childhood idols. The acting is great, the animation is spectacular, and the action scenes are exceptionally well done (the fight in the rain is particularly exciting). The movie tends to be a bit too quick-paced for its own good at times, preferring to throw you through plot with redundant exposition at a break-neck speed, but the personalities of the entire crew, from the four turtles to April, to Casey Jones and the rest managed to tickle my nostalgia bone for all the right reasons. Even with everything it gets right however, it still has trouble keeping its footing for the majority of its running time. The things it gets right are stellar, but there are just enough hard-to-define off balance elements that keep it from being what it could be. A more focused sequel could fix a lot of these elements and bring in more outstanding action scenes as well. Maybe somehow bring in Shredder too... Till then, I'm mostly pleased with what I saw.

7 out of 10.

Rent (2005)

AIDS! Woo! Lets all sing about it! Look, I won't deny that the music is about as catchy as you can possibly cram into a musical, or that the cast isn't... uh... well cast. I just think it was a mistake to have Chris Columbus direct. His tendency to take deep, dark, complex themes and turn them into sterile, safe films goes against the very grain that this story deserves. This is a tale of slow painful deaths, poverty, and homelessness. Instead we get pretty-boy actors singing about how much it sucks to be gay/sick/a documentary filmmaker in a supposedly poverty-stricken part of New York City that, while home to an unusually high population of homeless folks, still somehow seems like a nice place to live. The whole film just feels disingenuous. Part of the reason that musical theatre is fun to watch is seeing real live people sing their hearts out and dance their feet off in front of you. The magic of film editing means that anyone can pull off even the most impossible dance steps, and computer tech can easily alter a failing voice to make sure it's exactly on pitch. I don't question that there's a great show in Rent, but I question the wisdom of putting to film something that worked so damn well on stage and shoehorning it onto the silver screen, especially under the direction of someone incapable of making a movie with any real dirt in it. The soundtrack remains nearly brilliant and the story still works, but whatever it is that makes this show a phenomenon never made it past the proscenium. Good to see Alan Tudyk's stunt double is getting work.

5 out of 10.

Fullmetal Alchemist (TV series - 2003 to 2007)

Silly title aside, as a whole this series turned out much better than I expected it would. In its world the science of alchemy is mankind's greatest tool and weapon, and the law of equivalent exchange, where creation through alchemy must also yield equal loss, is the guiding principle. The show follows two brothers as they search for the mythical philosopher's stone, a tool said to allow an alchemist to bypass equivalent exchange entirely. Along the way they become embroiled in wars, politics, religious struggles, and a few old fashioned grand conspiracies. For its part, this show depicts both the best and worst of what anime has to offer. On the bad side it has a brutally slow start, obscure cultural cues, a few filler episodes, moments of nauseatingly introspective melodrama, and a neat pile of too-convenient coincidental plot devices. But the good far outweighs the bad, featuring absolutely outstanding character writing, a plot that manages to make good sense despite its near-Shakespearian complexity, and relevant and powerful metaphors about sin in science, the ongoing struggle between religion and science, and the army's conduct in dealing with opposing cultures. It's all very heady stuff, and most of it is extremely well handled. It also has the good sense to come to a close instead of being like so many endless anime soap operas out there (have some evil eye, Dragonball, Inuyasha. and Gundam!), meaning the story has a definable and easy-to-follow arc that lets the massive plot move forward to its close at a tolerable pace. There is a good bit of action in the series but it's far from the program's focus, preferring instead to hone in and develop on the 20 or so major characters. All of this is aided by remarkably competent voice acting in most of the English dub. As a whole, the series may not be perfect but its hard to argue when by the end of its 51 episode run I was genuinely and meaningfully touched by its melancholy conclusion.

8 out of 10.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Conquerer of Shamballa (2005)

In a lot of ways the film reminds me of the Scouring of the Shire chapter in the novel (and not in the film) 'Lord of the Rings' where after the Ring is destroyed, the hobbits return home to find that the Shire has been overrun by brigands. This film takes place after the series' conclusion, meaning that all the major plot points that existed in the show are solved, with only a few loose ends left to create a movie from. Bad move. While it's nice to spend just a bit more time in the world of alchemy, the entire effort feels forced. What was once a smart metaphor for for so many relevant and layered conflicts now boils down to a third-rate Indiana Jones adventure. The character writing is still good, and the voice acting actually managed to improve compared to the series, but the story just doesn't manage to justify its existence. It's nice to wrap up those last few threads but I'm of the opinion they were better left unsaid.

3 out of 10.

Shoot 'em Up (2007)

This film may be the most enthusiastic mess released to theaters since the original Saw. It even has close to the same hook: Saw showed jaded moviegoers brand new ways for characters to die onscreen, while Shoot 'em Up has brand new ways to conduct a gunfight. It's actually very easy to see how this got greenlit. The script is light and breezy with just enough story to set up the next crazy gunfight, the action concepts on display range from tried-and-true-with-a-twist to bet-you've-never-seen-THIS-before, and the dialogue is virtually one cheesy one-liner after another. It has popcorn muncher written all over it. And then the movie starts and you realize the director is nigh untested, and his vapid-but-fun script is all of the former and precious little of the latter, which wouldn't be such an issue if there were more than two funny lines in the whole film. A pair of particularly fun action sequences show up, though by the time they roll around you're already checking your watch. On paper, a gunfight between a man with ten broken fingers and another who's lost so much blood he can't even lift his pistol sounds hilarious. In ideal circumstances it could have been Charlie Chaplin with guns, but it just never comes together like you beg it to. The ideas are here, the enthusiasm is here, but the craft isn't.

4 out of 10.

Tideland (2005)

If Raising Arizona, Pan's Labyrinth, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, and Castaway had some freaky four way sex, this would probably be their illegitimate bastard movie child. It's just a shame that it isn't as good as any of those movies. Except Castaway, but that isn't saying much. Starring a soon-to-be-jailbait kid, a lobotomized epileptic and a prosthetic Jeff Bridges, it's the kind of film that makes you wonder why you started watching it in the first place, and keeps you watching to see if it ever devolves into full-on train wreck or just skirts around the idea. The pun was unintentional. It's a fascinating movie that maintains Terry Gilliam's kung-fu grip on fantastic camerawork, but never quite coalesces into truly solid narrative till literally the last five minutes. That it remains interesting if occasionally grating throughout is to its credit. Gilliam's work has always been about keeping the audience off balance (recall his animations for Monty Python back in the day), but some stuff comes off better than others. Tideland pretty much manages to show that he's still got the gift to make a great movie, but that sadly this isn't it. Still, if you like Gilliam's work it is absolutely worth watching.

7 out of 10.

Superbad (2007)

I'll just come out and say it: Judd Apatow is singlehandedly saving the R-rated comedy. Everything he's touched has gone golden, from 40 Year Old Virgin, to Knocked Up. Here he takes a producing role in what is, in my opinion, the best yet in his ongoing string of extremely smart, hilariously raunchy, and embarrassingly honest comedies. It just feels like what the end of high school was like—the parties, the drinking, the desperate attempts to stay friends with people you probably were never going to see again, and that one last chance to prove to yourself that there was some point to it all. Movies like this come along once in a very long while: the kind of film that for better or worse defines a generation of teenagers. It's the kind of film that, frankly, should be required viewing for anyone with a high school aged kid. This is how it is, hilarious warts and all.

10 out of 10.