Annie

Annie - 118min - PG

Remakes have their work cut out for them. When filmmakers attempt to take on a beloved classic there are a lot expectations to live up to. This film did a fine job at reimagining the original story. There are some updates that are mixed well with some of the classic songs. They did a fine job playing to the target audience. It's a family film that caters to the younger audience members. This movie was a family film, my son enjoyed it and so did I. It fits nicely in the green light category.

Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis) is an orphan, sorry "foster kid". She is under the care of Mrs. Hannigan (Cameron Diaz), a washed up pop star from the 80's who doesn't like the kids in her charge. Annie inadvertently runs into billionaire Will Stacks (Jammie Foxx) when he saves her from being hit by a car.  This helps improve his standing in the mayoral race, so his campaign manager, Guy (Bobby Cannavale), tells Mr. Stacks that more interactions with Annie are going to do wonders for his image. Annie was meant to improve Stacks' public image but she ends up improving more than that.

Quvenzhané is so talented. She is the embodiment of the indomitable spirit of Annie. She is naturally engaging on screen. Musicals are not in fashion now so it is nice to see two at the theater. This one seems to be more aimed at the younger audience, and brings Annie to a new generation. There are some updates to the film that needed to be done however they are not distracting.

I do have two issues with the film. The first is that Annie's inability to read is underdeveloped. There were hints there but they play it off so well that you don't catch that she can't read. Maybe that was the intent, to show how easily people can hide it, but it ended up feeling forced in to the story. It would have been better to show the audience that she can't read and then, when she is faced with having to read, we can share her fear. This is such an important massage that it really needed more time on the screen.

The second problem was how Jamie Foxx's scene in the helicopter was poorly filmed or edited. There was so much distraction with the outside shots mixed in with the internal ones that it really lost focus on the message of the song. Ideally they should have had some external shots before and after the song, but really just stay on Mr. Foxx while he sang. It seemed like a tender moment was lost because of the poor handling of the shots.

Despite the two errors in judgment this is a great movie to take the kids to. The songs are too catchy to not have you and your kids singing in the car on the way back home.

What movie have the critics trashed but you really enjoyed?

Sex Tape

Sex Tape - 94 min - R

Blink, blink....Um....Blink. I have no words for how bad this film is. Obviously a red light film. However more disappointing: this is proof to the contrary of a point I have been making for years. If you enjoy working with a group of people on one film, don't do a sequel--make a new movie. This turd burger is brought to you from the makers of Bad Teacher. Thank you for giving me an hour and thirty minutes to reevaluate my life and enjoy the fact my life is way better than the characters you showed us. Bask in the red glow of the light you have earned.

Jay (Jason Segel) and Annie (Cameron Diaz) are in the time of their lives when you and your spouse get wrapped up in life and responsibilities you forgot to carve out some time for yourselves. So to break out of this pattern they decide to make a sex tape on the new iPad Jay has just gotten. This will bring passion and excitement to their otherwise dull boring sex life.

We thankfully don't get to see this evening of debauchery we just see the afterglow moment when they are both drifting off to sleep. "Don't forget to delete that file?" ..."Hum..Ok. I won't." Well the auto back up to the cloud happens in the morning and the rest is hijinks history.

See Jay has this habit of sharing his old iPads with friends and family. Why a person would have more than one is beyond me. He likes to keep them linked to his cloud because once he discovers great music play list everyone gets an update.

We now have the setup and like any traffic accident we see the problems coming way before the participants do. There is one person who has seen the sex show and keeps sending mysterious texts and is threatening to upload a copy to the web. So Jay and Annie spend the night trying to get all of the iPads back and deleting the offending film. Too bad they couldn't get to the production office before this movie was released.

One of the most painful scenes is the section where they try and get the iPad back from Annie's prospective buyers of her parenting blog. His company is focused on wholesome family values. She gave Hank (Rob Lowe) an iPad with a power point slide on it. Who are these people who can just toss around iPads like business cards? I want to be that rich. Well maybe not--it apparently makes you dumb.

Hank is enjoying a quiet night at home with some heavy drinking and cocaine. Annie distracts him by doing a few lines and spending time while Jay wanders through the maze of a house trying to find the iPad and avoiding the attack dog pet. This is turning point for Jay who decides to not pay the mysterious blackmailer because of his horrific experiences with the dog.

A copy goes to a porn sharing website. The only funny part in this film is Jay's attempt to watch it to judge how bad it is because they never watched it. He gets about 30 seconds in and freaks out. Their big plan is to go to the website servers and break the internet. They get caught and the owner just tells them, why didn't you just send us an email and tell us to take it down because they didn't give permission to use the tape?

The writing crew has got a lot of good work under their belt. I can't explain why this film flops so supremely. This just goes to show you even when you have a good cast and crew and talented writes sometimes they fall flat.

Like The Hangover, at the end we get to see the tape in a manner of speaking. We get to watch how bad the night was. There are no naughty bits because of creative prop placement and shot composition. This movie is not really anything. Not funny, not titillating and not worth a look. If you are locked in a room and you have a choice between watching this film or being locked away in solitary confinement for two years, think long and hard on your choice. The two years will seem like a bargain compared to the lasting damage this film could do you.

If you are a person who enjoyed this movie, first I am sorry. Second please leave a comment and tell me why you enjoyed it. I promise not to judge you.



Jason Segel looks like he is going to be ill, I know how you feel man.

The Green Hornet

The Green Hornet - 119min – PG-13

Seth Rogen plays Britt Reid, a rich kid slacker who inherits his father’s(Tom Wilkinson) estate and is now in charge of his father’s newspaper. While taking revenge on his father’s image he and Kato (Jay Chou) stop a crime in progress. Britt is changed by this experience and now wants to use his resources to become a superhero. Not just any superhero, a superhero that is pretending to be a bad guy to cover up his heroic activities. With the help of Kato and Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz), Britt works through his team to take over the territory of the current crime lord Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz).

I have never watched or knew anything about the original stories, I have heard a few old radio programs but I think they did a good job of representing the characters and the story. I was not lost because of my lack of historical knowlage. This is a great action hero film. I enjoyed 95% of it. I would say the only parts that were hard to watch were Seth’s tomfoolery with the main character. In many scenes Seth’s attempt to overpower a joke with uncomfortable humor took the jokes over the top. A prime example of this is a scene that was in the trailer. Brit wakes up from being knocked out by his own hand with the gas gun, and then takes out his frustrations with the situation on Kato by gassing him in the face. This interaction could have been better served if the two had not had a poorly constructed moment between them where Brit realizes he has been out for several days not a few hours. The interactions between the two would have been fine without dragging out the joke. There is an uncomfortable moment where Britt implies he is surprised that Lenore a woman of declining age would be applying herself to her pursuits, um… She is still hot and does not look like a woman in her twilight. Despite Seth’s playing his character over the top the overall movie experience was still ok. One actor I really liked is Edward James Olmos. Edward played Axford, the second in command at the newspaper. Olmos never disappoints as an actor. I felt the main bad guy was a bit weak, we know Christoph can play a menacing villain from his work in Inglorious Bastards. I don’t know why this character was not as good as his previous one. There is a funny bit where his character has an identity crisis that perhaps his is not as menacing as the Hornet so he decides to reinvent himself, but the change seems to fall flat. Cameron Diaz is good as a supporting character that is the brains of the partnership. Lenore is the organization, Seth is the face man and Kato does all the heavy lifting with the crime fighting.

The film was good in 2D I did not see it in 3D but I can’t see a specific reason it needed to be in 3D. The credits were done to play to the 3D effects but overall in the film it did not seem to play to the fact it had a 3D version out there, no one was pointing to the screen or things were not flying at the camera. I would say it was fine as a 2D picture. There were some creative editing on a long shot that was sped up to let us see time pass, this shot seemed out of place for this kind of film, as a style it should have made a reoccurrence but it was only used once at the beginning. The movie kept me involved to where I did not notice any other gaps in the filming of this movie. Overall a well made film and they need to pull in the reins on Seth’s asshattery and you might really have something here. A go see movie even if it is at a matinee.