All posts by Josef Rodriguez

Hey, I'm Joey and I'm a (usually) film and pop culture blogger, but I'll write about pretty much anything.
MOVIES

Grizzly Review: Red Tails

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There’s nothing like two hours of hokey, old-fashioned, and exciting entertainment. Ridden with clichés and one-dimensional characters, big budget blockbusters are the foundation of American entertainment. I mean, what would we do if pretentious art films were the only things hitting the megaplex? You know what we would do? We would poke our freaking eyes out, and beg people like Spielberg and Lucas and Jackson to just get back behind the director’s chair, and give us the goods. But not Michael Bay. No, Michael Bay is on a permanent time out after the Transformers sequels.

George Lucas announced his retirement from big budget filmmaking, saying that he’ll be going out with Red Tails, a fictionalized telling of the Tuskegee airmen, the first all African-American pilot group. Serving as Executive Producer for the project, it was a story that Lucas was very eager to tell. He felt that the Tuskegee pilots were extremely underappreciated and wanted to bring their story to life in the most entertaining way possible. Now, in 2012, he’s achieved that goal, finally releasing Red Tails after twenty-odd years in production.

Red Tails’ main pilots are ladies’ man, Lightning (David Oyelowo), the “best pilot in the whole damn world”, Joker (Elijah Kelley), Junior (Tristan Wilds), and their leader, Easy (Nate Parker). Together, they make up the most talented and fiercest pilots in the military, but because they’re colored, they’re forced to do minuscule surveillance jobs where no enemies have been spotted for months, as they aren’t trusted to handle real combat due to the belief that they have “inferior mental capacity” to the other pilots.

The group’s leaders, Major Emanuelle Stance (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and Colonel AJ Bullard (Terrence Howard), land them a mission that involves escorting bombers across enemy territory. They nail it with no US casualties which catapults their status into the top air league in the entire military.

TV director Anthony Hemingway makes his feature film debut with Red Tails, and the directing is definitely the first thing I want to talk about, because it’s f***ing awesome. Granted, this is one of the most heavily produced movies you’ll ever see, but it’s damn cool to look at, and the CGI is quite realistic. The dogfight scenes are breathtaking, and Hemingway makes use of steady cam, immersing us in the action instead of flip-flopping the camera every which way so that we see nothing.

The screenplay is the definition of cheesy, but I really didn’t care because the corny one-liners and unrealistic dialogue is just a part of what makes Red Tails the old-fashioned action fest that it is. In fact, the film borders on Chaos Cinema, with the extended dogfight scenes and thin plot, but it’s Chaos Cinema done right. Unlike 2011’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Red Tails know how to balance action and plot well enough to the point where the resulting product actually comes off as a movie and not a commercial for explosives.

I had an amazing time watching Red Tails. It’s a fun, family friendly movie that can appeal to all ages, races, genders, and anything else you can think of. It’s an inspiring tale that isn’t meant to be taken too seriously and being a George Lucas skeptic, I was surprisingly impressed by this movie’s capacity to entertain and inspire all at the same time, while still not losing its edge. The surprisingly bad reviews can be called “racism”, but I call it opinion, and by definition, Red Tails isn’t necessarily a “good movie”, but it’s an extremely fun one to watch, and isn’t that all we really need sometimes?

4/5 Bears

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: The Grey

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When I first saw the preview for The Grey, I was immediately put off by the presence of Liam Neeson, as well as the film’s seemingly relentlessly stupid plot and mindless action, but upon watching the trailer a couple more times, I began to see things that influenced me a little more. See, when you watch a preview, you need to look at it in parts, because more times than not, what you see in the preview is what the studio wants you to see and in most cases isn’t what you see in the actual film. A sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.


Regarding what caught my eye, there were three things in particular. Three things that may not mean much to the occasional moviegoer, but to someone who spends hours a week watching movie previews over and over again (pathetic, I know, don’t judge me), you pick up on a lot of things really quickly. The very first thing that caught my eye was the camera work. Most action films starring Liam Neeson insist on steady cam for scenes not including action, most notably Taken, which had one of the most steady hands I’ve seen in a picture of that kind. In The Grey‘s preview, this is not the case, starting off with a shot of Neeson simply walking, a voice-over invading the silence of his footsteps.

The second thing that I noticed almost immediately was the casting of Dallas Roberts, who hasn’t made a bad movie big budget movie since I’ve known him, and in many cases, his choice in independent film roles aren’t too bad either. But still, I know that good actors can star in bad movies, so that didn’t necessarily seal the deal for me. What did seal the deal though, was the film’s R rating. Now, you might be thinking I’m crazy, and you might even be considering clicking out of the page, but just stick with me for a bit, there’s a point to all of this.

Now, Liam Neeson is a middle-aged action star who has revived his career quite successfully, once again retaining the sex symbol status that he really never had. He hasn’t made an R rated movie since 2009, meaning he’s spent the last three years happily topping the box office, and at one point probably considered never looking back. What’s even more interesting is the MPAA certification behind the rating which is violence/disturbing content including bloody images, and pervasive language. Not once does it mention excessive gore or sex, but rather a subdued R rating.

I feel like as an industry, film is at a point where if the film earns an R rating, it’s usually because of either nudity or intense psychological drama, whereas PG-13 films have the excessive violence. The Grey proves my point, trading in useless action for some of the most intimate but not necessarily most violent death scenes in recent memory. Following a group of oil drillers in Alaska, a select group of survivors must make their way to safety after their plane back to Anchorage crashes, killing most of the other passengers, as well as the entire crew. Led by their mysterious hunter, Ottway (Liam Neeson), the group of seven survivors must make their way to safety, and in the far north of Earth, they have no idea where that might be.

To add insult to injury, the men are also being picked off by a group of wolves whose den is no more than 20 or 30 miles from their current location. They theorize that they only way they can get to safety is if they make it to a forest about 15 miles from them, they’ll be able to set up a camp, safely away from the pack of wolves, and possibly find a shelter or cabin of some kind. The more they walk, the more dangerous their journey becomes, with the wolves, the storms, and the altitude all playing factors into whether or not they’ll be able to survive this ordeal.

During the lonely nights, the men share stories of back home, what they would do if they made it out alive, and if their faith is enough to get them out alive. Ottway himself thinks of his wife back home, but states early on in an opening voice-over that he’ll never be able to be with her again, and we don’t know why. The film poses both philosophical and religious questions at many points throughout its duration, like the validity of human civility, the reliance on God and other higher beings, as well as survival skills in a time of desperation. There are also plenty of metaphors, as well as a good dose of symbolism to keep you thinking amongst all the atrocity.

The Grey is a film about 100 times sadder than I thought it was going to be, but it was also 100 times better than I thought it was going to be. Taking me completely by surprise, The Grey managed to take me on an emotional journey that I honestly wasn’t ready for. The characters are all individuals, beautifully fleshed out to represent a different walk of life, all with equally true and heartbreaking results.

Writer/Director Joe Carnahan is able to craft a beautiful film from a dismal topic, focusing much more on narrative than action while still keeping up a brisk pace for the film’s 118 minute long running time. But trust me, there’s plenty of action, and even a couple good scares to get the blood pumping. Liam Neeson turns in one of the best performances of his career, but Dallas Roberts is definitely his equal, playing a man of faith who struggles to maintain his sanity at times. He’s the most strong-willed of the group besides Neeson himself, and is the most resourceful when it comes to medical information.

Despite the film’s vast location, the addition of the man hunting wolves surrounding the group gave The Grey an extremely claustrophobic feel, with the mentality that the men have all this open space but nowhere to run. Speaking of the wolves, they were surprisingly realistic looking when looked at up close or dead. After some research, it turns out that they actually were real for the most part. The crew used four dead wolves that had been hunted and discarded in the surrounding area for the more “intimate” scenes. You’ll see what I’m talking about if you go see the movie. But when they weren’t real, the CG animals were quite realistic looking, and on a budget of only $17 million dollars, that’s definitely saying something.

The Grey, simply put, is an arthouse thriller suitable for the megaplex, but could most definitely find a home at your local independent theater. There were plenty of times when I feared that Carnahan would suddenly shift the bleak tone of the film, giving the characters the happy ending we know they deserve, but thankfully he doesn’t, and it results in a final scene that keeps playing over and over again in my head. It’s equally riveting and revealing, and if you have any remnants of a soul, you’ll probably shed a tear or two like I did. And on the bright side, the black guy does not die first in this movie. That right there should be enough incentive to hand over your ten dollars, right?

5/5 Bears

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: Man on a Ledge

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The American film industry has been plagued with so many heists movies, that it sometimes physically pains me to see a trailer for a film of that genre. It’s a genre that only works for a select group of people, most notably Steven Soderbergh in the Ocean’s movies, and a few others that I honestly can’t even recall right now, but when I saw the preview for Man on a Ledge, to be perfectly frank, I was hooked. The premise, admittedly, was rehashed and redone a million times over, but the way that it was presented was strikingly fresh.

Man on a Ledge follows Nick Cassidy (Sam Worthington), an escaped convict who checks into a New York City hotel, with a room on the building’s twenty-first floor. He then climbs out of the window, onto a ledge, garnering the attention of some passersby which soon turns into a large crowd complete with ambulances, cop cars, and news vans. The man in charge of getting Cassidy safely back into the hotel is Detective Jack Dougherty (Ed Burns), but Cassidy doesn’t want him talking him through the ordeal. He wants the infamous Detective Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), who was once the department’s best until she let a rookie cop jump off the Brooklyn Bridge a month prior.

The whole thing seems rather routine by New York’s standards, but sometimes things aren’t exactly what they seem. Cassidy, who’s an ex-cop, was jailed for the robbery of a $40 million dollar diamond that belonged to David Englander (Ed Harris), one of the city’s most well known and richest businessmen. Cassidy insists that he’s innocent and the only way he can prove it, is if his brother Joey (Jamie Bell), and his girlfriend, Angie (Genesis Rodriguez), are able to get into Englander’s safe, retrieve the diamond, and make it out without a trace.

Written and directed by first time feature filmmakers Pablo F. Fenjves and Asger Leth, respectively, Man on a Ledge is a simply told film with an amazing cast that really have no business being there. Granted, the real purpose of the film is to serve as an exciting distraction from our regular lives, offering a halfway decent story and some predictable twists. In that respect, Man on a Ledge does what it’s supposed to, but not much more.

With some extremely cheesy writing and a sad attempt at a New York accent from Elizabeth Banks, the film is rather a caricature of what it could have been, hinting at greatness with the likes of Ed Harris turning in a great performance, as well as rather inspired performances by Sam Worthington and especially Jamie Bell, who serves as both the comedic relief and the nail biting action hero of this flick.

With that being said, Man on a Ledge does get rather exciting in its last 20 minutes, taking Cassidy off the ledge and into what is possibly the most dangerous places for him to be. The climax of the movie also gives the viewer some pretty decent twists that keep you on your toes for the remainder of the running time, but I just wished that the film’s first 80 minutes could have been as involving.

2.5/5 Bears

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: Haywire

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When I think of Steven Soderbergh, I definitely don’t think of the terms “out-of-touch” or “has-been”. He’s a cinematic chameleon who is able to stay relevant while still sticking to his guns. His Ocean’s trilogy are among some of the best heist movies in recent years. Traffic is one of the best films you’ll see on the drug trade. Last year’s Contagion is a disturbing and stylish take on disease and a rather accurate take on what would probably happen.

Continue reading Grizzly Review: Haywire →

MOVIES

Grizzly Review: Contraband

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I’m man enough to admit that I love the “one last job” genre. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this genre you either don’t watch a lot of movies, or don’t pay attention to the movies you watch. A “one last job” movie involves a retired or aging criminal who has to do one more job to get himself out of the game forever and back to his family or his money or what/whoever he wants to be with. One of the most recent, and best, examples of the “one last job” genre that comes to mind is the Christopher Nolan, no pun intended, mindbender, Inception.

What is it about having to do one last job that makes a movie so damn exciting? Well, the stakes are almost always higher, and the payoff is always bigger. Whether it be millions of dollars, or the chance to be an actual citizen of the free world, sometimes all it takes is that one job to, well, get the job done. In the new action vehicle for Mark Wahlberg, Contraband, he plays a legitimate ex-con who now has a job installing alarm systems. That, my friends, is called action movie irony. Get used to it because it doesn’t get much better than that.

Wahlberg plays Chris Farraday, one of the best smugglers anyone knows. He did what he had to after he and his wife, Kate (Kate Beckinsale), had their two sons, Michael (Connor Hill), and Eddie (Bryce McDaniel). Kate’s brother, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), has been going against Chris’ good word and doing runs, despite his brother-in-law’s advice to get out of the game while he could. Now, Andy has gotten himself into some deep doo-doo, dumping a bag of drugs that belonged to a local criminal, Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi).

The only way that Andy can get off the hook is if Chris helps him out with this one last job to get him out for good. Calling in a couple of favors, including a reliable counterfeiter from Panama, Chris reluctantly agrees, enlisting the help of some old partners including his right hand man, Sebastian (Ben Foster), and newlywed Danny Raymer (Lukas Haas) to get the money for the drugs from Panama, and back to Briggs in two weeks.

Contraband is definitely not the best action movie you’re going to see this year, maybe not even this season, but for a January release, the month which is notorious for its bad films, it could be a lot worse, and the excellent performances by the cast, especially Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi, elevate the film from run-in-the-mill, to, marginally above average. There’s also a pretty cool cameo by Diego Luna, which contains the most action packed sequence in the entire movie.

The writing is obviously not what anyone would call Oscar-worthy, and the shaky cam can get a little irritating at times, but overall, it’s nothing to cry about. Contraband delivers exactly what you’d expect; an average enough story and predictable plot points. But it also offers some of the best supporting performances I’ve seen in an action pic in recent memory, and everyone can appreciate some good acting.

3.5/5 Bears

Movie News & Opinions

The Expendables 2 Is Going To Be PG-13…Because of Chuck Norris

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The news that every action fan in the world did not want to hear has been officially announced. Chuck Norris is ruining yet another action movie. The much-anticipated action flick, The Expendables 2, which was announced sometime last year, is getting the kiss of death in the form of a PG-13 rating. The reason? The film’s addition of Chuck Norris, of course. He commented, saying, “In ‘Expendables 2,’ there was a lot of vulgar dialogue in the screenplay. For this reason, many young people wouldn’t be able to watch this. But I don’t play in movies like this,” Norris explained. “Due to that I said I won’t be a part of that if the hardcore language is not erased. Producers accepted my conditions and the movie will be classified in the category of PG-13.”

Excuse my harsh language, but this is just a steaming pile of bullshit. First off, The Expendables wasn’t rated R just for its language. It was rated R for the bloody violence that we’d come to expect with an action cast of that caliber, no pun intended. To prove my point, The Expendables‘ MPAA rating says: Rated R for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language. Please take note of the italicized words and what follows. Strong and bloody are both followed by action and violence, whereas language is preceded by some, a term used when said classification isn’t used excessively.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but didn’t The Expendables make about $267 million dollars worldwide? Oh, that’s right, it did! And the comment about young people not being able to see it, erroneous! The small minority of young kids who are honest in their movie watching and want to see this movie without stealing it or sneaking into it can just continue being honest and rent it when it comes out on DVD, which they will. And I mean, if we’re being honest here, should young kids even be watching hardcore action fare like The Expendables?

Norris’ comments are bogus, as is his career. He’s famous for being the butt of a couple of good jokes, and even in the prime of his acting career, he was nothing special. He’s going to end up being the Billy Mays of action movies; we’ll remember him fondly, but in actuality he didn’t really do anything of significance. Stallone wrote a letter to Ain’t It Cool News’ founder, Harry Knowles, stating, “Harry, the film is fantastic with Van Damme turning in an inspired performance… Our final battle is one for the ages. The PG13 rumor is true, but before your readers pass judgement, trust me when I say this film is LARGE in every way and delivers on every level. This movie touches on many emotions which we want to share with the broadest audience possible, BUT, fear not, this barbeque of Grand scale Ass Bashing will not leave anyone hungry…Sly” But with Stallone stepping down as director and instead taking on the screenplay alone, there’s a chance that The Expendables 2 may hold on to one shred of lonely, lonely dignity, but I doubt it. Of course, all of the original cast will be returning, with Simon West in the director’s chair. The Expendables 2 is set to release on August 17th of this year.