http://www.flipsidemovies.com/ Reviews and commentary on mainstream and independent films. Copyright 2006 Flipside Movie Emporium mscrutchin@flipsidemovies.com (Michael Scrutchin) mscrutchin@flipsidemovies.com (Michael Scrutchin) Tue, 06 May 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/teeth.html Seriously, dude, no means no. The early word surrounding Teeth describes it as "every man's nightmare," which I suppose is apt if you're looking at it from a man's perspective. Director Mitchell Lichtenstein, however, approaches it from the other side of the chromosome divide, and that makes all the difference. His topic is the vagina dentata myth: the notion of a fanged orifice into which randy young men go poking about at their peril. Rather than viewing it as a monstrous threat, however, Teeth treats it as feminine empowerment -- a unique weapon bestowed upon one lucky young woman in order to give impolite boys the biggest surprise of their life. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/teeth.html Tue, 06 May 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/redbelt.html You don't normally think of David Mamet as a martial arts enthusiast, and yet the subject does have some cross-over with his body of work. Notions of masculinity, duplicity, honor, and corruption work well within its tenets, especially since Ultimate Fighting and similar endeavors have become such a huge business. How does a tradition steeped in a warrior's code react to the pressures of millions of dollars? How easy is it to dupe someone whose actions adhere so predictably to notions thousands of years old? http://www.flipsidemovies.com/redbelt.html Fri, 02 May 2008 00:20:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/ironman.html It takes more than a clever ad campaign to turn a second-tier superhero into a first-tier hit. Until this movie came along, Marvel Comics' Iron Man never had the springboard to launch himself into the elites. Spider-Man had better villains, the X-Men had a better hook, and both of them dripped with character and personality that he never quite found. He made a nice also-ran with the Avengers and his fatal flaw -- alcoholism -- gave him some distinction, but when push came to shove, he didn't have the right amount of snazziness to hit the big time. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/ironman.html Thu, 01 May 2008 02:05:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/whereintheworld.html Morgan Spurlock deserves all the credit in the world for good intentions. His new documentary, Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? has its heart firmly in the right place, and delivers a message that maybe a few more people need to hear. If it has anything near the cultural impact that Super Size Me did, no amount of criticism from the peanut gallery will matter: the good it does will far outweigh our petty sniping. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/whereintheworld.html Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:50:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/forbiddenkingdom.html The central flaws in The Forbidden Kingdom actually boil down to conceptual decisions rather than subpar filmmaking. As such, they are more subject to the vagaries of opinion than, say, an Uwe Boll film, whose stinkiness can be objectively quantified. In the case of The Forbidden Kingdom, the problem stems from screenwriter John Fusco's stated purpose of showing a Chinese wuxia epic from the perspective of a 21st-century white kid. Why? What does a piece of mythic Asian storytelling need with a contemporary American in the mix? http://www.flipsidemovies.com/forbiddenkingdom.html Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/streetkings.html While no one will mistake Street Kings for the most original motion picture ever made, it demonstrates the value of commitment to a project. Yes, we've all seen the notion of corrupt cops who run their operations like just another gang before. Indeed, one of the best purveyors of such mayhem is Street Kings co-screenwriter James Ellroy, whose novels delved deep into the concept long before Steven Bochco and his ilk gussied it up for mass consumption. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/streetkings.html Thu, 17 Apr 2008 05:45:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/smartpeople.html America exhibits a fundamental distrust of intellectuals. They're an elite, after all, and this country despises elites of any sort. One of the reasons why George Bush took the White House in 2000 (besides, you know, the naked fraud) is because his aw-shucks media persona connected with a number of voters. And on some level, many of them just didn't want snooty egghead Al Gore staring down his nose at us like a disapproving homeroom teacher. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/smartpeople.html Thu, 17 Apr 2008 04:45:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/juno.html I'm not fond of the soundtrack: smug, quasi-indie Liz Phair style mooning that gilds the film's lily in all the worst ways. I mention this now because it is the only thing about Juno that didn't utterly enchant me from beginning to end. Story, character, brilliant dialogue from screenwriter Diablo Cody, and sharp direction from Jason Reitman... every element arrives with pitch-perfect care to deliver one of the funniest and most insightful human comedies of the last few years. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/juno.html Tue, 15 Feb 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/therewillbeblood.html The opening of There Will Be Blood makes bold reference to the "Dawn of Man" sequence from 2001: stark, eerie music playing over a seemingly abandoned piece of primal desert. You may think that's a stretch when the camera finally pans down to frustrated silver prospector Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) hacking away at the wall of a mine, but don't worry. They'll come back to it. Plainview has far more in common with Stanley Kubrick's prehistoric yahoos than may initially be apparent. He's more eloquent and he disguises his intentions beneath a modicum of decorum, but at his core, he is equally cunning and no less savage. In other words, he's the perfect man to reap untold riches when he shifts from silver to the burgeoning business of oil. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/therewillbeblood.html Tue, 08 Apr 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/miff2007.html Chuck a stone at the Milwaukee International Film Festival, and you're likely to hit a documentary, probably one about the Bush Administration or slaughterhouses or a musician -- or in the case of Air Guitar Nation, bogus musicians. Nonfiction films have always been a staple at Milwaukee, which concluded its fifth edition in September and saw record crowds queue up for popular docs like Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten. To these eyes, Julien Temple's conventional biography of the founder of The Clash relies on too many wooly testimonials by old pals, but the screening still provided one of my lasting memories of this year's festival. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/miff2007.html Sat, 05 Apr 2008 03:40:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/leatherheads.html It's hard criticizing an effort like Leatherheads because it so clearly adores its subject matter. Positing the early days of professional football as a screwball comedy of the Cary Grant/Irene Dunne variety requires passion both for the game itself and for that particular style of filmmaking -- a style which director/star George Clooney at first seems tailor made. Comparisons to Grant come very easily and previous work -- especially with the Coen brothers, who have an excellent sense of slapstick -- has put his comic proclivities to good use. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/leatherheads.html Sat, 05 Apr 2008 02:15:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/sweeneytodd.html Sweeney Todd is a simple matter of the right man for the right job. Purists may quibble at its incidental changes in tone and visual style from Stephen Sondheim's original musical, but few could contest how tailor-made director Tim Burton is for such a grand and ghoulish endeavor. When his psychopathic protagonist (Johnny Depp) extends a silver razor and proclaims "at last my arm is complete again," you can hear Burton echoing the same sentiments about the film surrounding him. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/sweeneytodd.html Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/21.html Even though it's set in Vegas, I'm not sure we can cut 21 any slack for being as empty and shallow as it is. The razzle-dazzle flashes across the screen like stacks of casino chips, starting with a slick crawl along the impossibly large grooves of a card on the blackjack table and proceeding through a carefully choreographed wet dream of wealth without consequences. Its youthful target demographic will doubtless eat it up, seduced by director Robert Luketic's gorgeous display of hot young things and the naughty capers they pull off. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/21.html Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:10:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/runfatboyrun.html A wise man once noted that the caliber of a movie star (as opposed to just an actor) doesn't come with his or her best work, but in the mediocre films beneath them. Does a star keep you watching when you know exactly where the movie is headed? Does he hold your interest while navigating otherwise unremarkable plot twists? Does he take an utterly formulaic run-of-the-mill piece of genre filler and convince you -- if only for 90-odd minutes -- that something more is going on? If so, then please allow Run Fatboy Run to present Simon Pegg: movie star. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/runfatboyrun.html Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:10:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/funnygames.html I usually reserve the F grade for films that are either utterly incompetent or abjectly vile. Funny Games certainly isn't the former, and if it's the latter, it comes at least partially by design. It sets its sights on us, the filmgoing audience, and on our seeming enjoyment of horrific, sadistic violence. Couched as an upscale slasher film, it presents 100 minutes of brutal, carefully realized torture intended not only to make us squirm, but to take note of our squirming and ask why the hell we find it so enjoyable. I wish I could say it was a new argument, but it's been around as long as cinema itself, and others have delivered it without the condescending sneer that Funny Games has plastered all over its face. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/funnygames.html Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:10:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/10000bc.html 10,000 B.C. presents the same problem for me that The Other Boleyn Girl did last week. It appears for all the world to be taking itself seriously and yet it's so magnificently transcendentally ridiculous that you wonder how the cast and crew made it through a single shot without collapsing into snickerfits. The challenge as a critic lies in waiting for the film to wink at you: the point where it lets you know that it's in on the fun and actually wants you to laugh at its thundering idiocy. I couldn't spot it in 10,000 B.C. Not once. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/10000bc.html Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:55:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/nocountryforoldmen.html I'll start with the ending, which will likely cause No Country for Old Men the most grief, and which everyone should be prepared for when they purchase their ticket. In plain terms, it is not a crowd-pleaser: challenging, unexpected, and in many ways quite frustrating... at least if you're accustomed to the way most movies end. It's the sort that plays better in novels, and since No Country for Old Men is based on an acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy, the filmmakers may not have wished to alter it. Critics tend to love endings like this because it gives us lots to talk about. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/nocountryforoldmen.html Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/beemovie.html When projects go as severely wrong as they do with Bee Movie, it's hard to pinpoint the exact cause. I suppose we can start with the simple fact that somebody signed off on this wretched collection of inarticulate junk in the first place. In Hollywood, where celebrity trumps all, the splashy presence of Jerry Seinfeld might have been enough to silence any naysayers... who should have been fighting tooth and claw to send the film back to the drawing board. But they didn't and we the consumer must now pay the price. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/beemovie.html Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/sleuth.html If Kenneth Branagh's remake of the Anthony Shaffer play Sleuth is flawed, it's certainly a high-minded sort of flawed. The word "reimagining," so cynically deployed in the name of every lazy new version of a much better cinematic classic, actually has bearing here. The filmmakers genuinely seek some new tricks for this old dog, and have the talent both behind and in front of the camera to pull it off. So when it works, it works spectacularly well, and when it fails -- as it sadly does at a few too many key points -- at least they're the failures of full-bore effort. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/sleuth.html Tue, 11 Mar 2008 04:30:00 GMT http://www.flipsidemovies.com/otherboleyngirl.html To the gentleman sitting next to me during the screening of The Other Boleyn Girl at the Grove last Tuesday: I apologize, deeply and profusely, if my steady stream of giggles caused you distress. It was not my intent to detract from your enjoyment of the film -- indeed, it's nice to know that somebody was enjoying it in the way the filmmakers apparently intended. However, regarding your assertion that the penultimate revelation in director Justin Chadwick's overheated historical soap opera "isn't funny," I beg to differ. http://www.flipsidemovies.com/otherboleyngirl.html Sun, 02 Mar 2008 03:25:00 GMT