Archive for February, 2006

A Prairie Home Companion

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted February 25, 2006 at 2:02 am

A Film Review By Jeff Fro

Starring: Garrison Keillor, Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep, John C. Reilly
Directed By: Robert Altman
Rated:PG-13 for sexual references
Review Posted: July 25th, 2006

Final Grade:

Long ago Garrison Keillor started a radio show about a fictional Minnesota town. It contained stories and songs all in an old fashioned way which harken to a simpler time and simpler people.

I have to say up front that I was never a fan of the show. I never took the time to get the humor or tone. The comedy was so dry and it always seemed that it was all some big inside joke. Obviously I did not get the joke.

Now we have a film presentation of the last day for this radio show. It stars Keillor as himself and a cast of impressive players. First let me say that Garrison Keillor has a face for radio, he is uncomfortable to watch on the screen.

Let me just take the cast in groups and break them down:

Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin are singing sisters who were once part of a larger singing family until various tragic events paired the act down to just the two of them. They have a nice rapport and its fun for a while watching them play off each other. Meryl’s character has a daughter who is tagging along. She is played by Lindsey Lohan. I have read that Lohan was used so that younger audiences would want to see the film. Heaven help the teens that wander into this movie. Lohan is adequate in the role. She is handed what should be the big ending to the radio show at the last minute and is supposed to be improvising a song. That moment was a flat line for me.

Virginia Madsen and Kevin Kline play an angel and security guard respectively. At first it seems that only Kevin Kline can see the angel, but soon it seems that almost anyone can see her and then she claims to be the angel of death and she takes the lives of two people in the most uneventful way possible. Kevin Kline is the worst security guard ever. He dresses like he is going to a funeral, but hey maybe he was.

Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly are two performers on the show. They are billed as the last cowboys in America or something like that. They basically tell bawdy jokes and make fun of each other for most of the film. They actually provided some of the highlights and a few of the only real laughs.

Tommy Lee Jones plays the big business man who comes to shut down the show. They could have used a cardboard cut out of him really.

Eventually all of these people come together for the end of the road. They are all nostalgic and sad to see the end of an era.

I was not one of the sad ones.

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Filed under: Comedy, Drama, Movies

Firewall

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted February 23, 2006 at 2:52 am

A Film Review By Jason L. King

Starring: Harrison Ford, Viginia Madsen, Paul Bettany
Directed By: Richard Loncraine
Rated: PG-13 for some intense sequences of violence.

Final Grade:

Every year thousands and thousands of people are victim of identity theft. That’s what I am told at least. If you ask me the more ID numbers they give the easier it is to steal my identity. As a retuning student I am forced to remember my social security number, my student ID number, my bank account numbers, my driver’s license number, and my health insurance numbers. At work I’m forced to remember a Lawson number (whatever that is) my computer account numbers and about 50 other various numbers. With the world quickly going to an all digital world where hard cash is quickly becoming extict, it’s no wonder that the real way to make money is steal an idenity. Computers make it easy for anyone to learn just about anything about anyone in just a few seconds. Firewall helps show you just how easy it is to hack into anything and take what you want.

Bank security advisor Jack Stanfield (Harrison Ford) finds his family being held hostage by a bank robber who wants to hack into the bank’s computer system. In order to save his family, he is asked to do one thing, help the bank robbers make off with a million dollar heist. The robbers believe that can frame Jack by having him hack into the system and wire money from the bank to an offshore account with little to no problem. What they don’t realize is that Jack has different plans in store for them.

This film is mediocre at best. It’s a premise that we have seen a million times, and this time it is no different. The bad guys think they have the one up on the family man, but he finds a way to turn the tables on them and still save his family even though their are unbeatable odds stacked against him. The aging Harrison Ford does an OK job in the role, however he’s just getting too far up their in age to play the family man. Action scenes where he is shouting at the robbers are almost laughable. His gruff voice makes him sound like your grandfather, not an action hero. His wife, played by Virginia Madsen proves to be wasted talent as well, as her role is limited to the nearly forgettable damsel in distress and not much more. Also adding her own special flair to the film is Mary Lunn Rajskub aka Chloe O’Brien for you 24 TV show fans. While Rajskub grates on me more than any low rent actress should, I must say she looked less cross eyed than normal, and I think her blinks per second ratio was far less than normal.

The actor that really stood out in the film is Paul Bettany. The Blond British star was once in the running for playing James Bond, and has enjoyed a successful career that is just starting to blossom. In previous years we saw him begin paving his way in Hollywood staring opposite of Kirsten Dunst in Wimbledon, and is set to Wow audiences as Silas in the upcoming movie adaptation of the Dan Brown novel, The DaVinci Code. Bettany, who for some reason that I can not explain is often mistaken to be Jude Law by the average moviegoer, is a joy to watch in this film. He plays the role of the friendly yet fearful villian to near perfection.

Yet the biggest problem with Firewall is that there is nothing memorable. There is nothing that takes this film above or beyond anything that we as viewers have ever seen before. It’s just a recreation of a story that’s been rehashed time and time and time again. There is something that can be fun about watching the good guys win and the bad guys losing in the end, but this film didn’t provide that flair that made it a memorable and fun experience. The mediocre story, the waste of talent and the generic cinematography and direction made this film not a terrible film, just a forgettable one. If you want some pointless fluff to fill a void in your life for a few hours, you can pick up Firewall as a rental. This film is mediocre enough to keep it off of the worst of the year list, however this film is also far too mediocre for me to suggest that you put it on your must see list.

The Verdict:
Firewall is a quickly forgetable film that wastes talent and your time for a few hours and not much more

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Filed under: Action, Movies, Suspense

Transamerica

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted February 22, 2006 at 6:39 am

A Film Review By Jeff Fro

Starring: Felicity Huffman
Directed By: Richard Shephard
Rated: R for drug use, nudity, and sexuality

Final Grade:
<

Transamerica is a journey. It gives us the chance to see what life must be like at times for someone who is not who they believe they really are, both physically and emotionally. It forces that person out into a society that can be brutally honest and cold in it’s ambivalence. And it makes both the character and the viewer aware that respecting yourself can hold the greatest rewards.

Felicity Huffman plays Stanley/Bree, a pre-operative trans sexual who is one week away from the final surgery to complete the transformation from male to female. Bree is informed by phone from New York that seventeen years ago she may have fathered a son during a fleeting college affair. That son has landed in jail and requires a parent to come for him to be released. Bree’s counselor advises that this new information and person must be addressed before she will approve the last surgery. That forces Bree to head to New York City to confront her long lost son and her reality.

Bree flies from Los Angeles to New York and is mistaken by her son as a religious missionary. Her son wants to go to LA to get into the adult film industry. So together they head to Los Angeles keeping the secret that she is in fact his father and that she is in fact still a man wearing women’s clothes.

Along the way they encounter a highway full of tragic people and circumstance. The way they deal with those issues and the predictable reveals of the secrets, creates a bond with each other and with the audience. Bree has been so consumed with self examination, she has stopped noticing how other people see her. This journey allows her to see people can care or even be attracted to her along with those who will never see past who she used to be. But most people just treat her normally and average. We get a sense of relief when no one in the film judges her more harshly than she does herself. And even her own judgments are put into perspective by juxtaposition with things that really matter.

This film was highly enjoyable. I would say this film is a true buddy road picture with a real sense of humor at it’s core. Some people may be put off by some of the subject matter, but this is not a story about people most of us associate with every day. If you allow a film to take you to places that your ordinary life would never take you, then you can appreciate this film for the real humanity and heart that was carefully included in the story.

The film makers obviously cared about every character shown. Even Bree’s obnoxious parents are shown to act so radically because of a misplaced sense of love and protection. There can be heartbreak and hope all in the same place. And by the conclusion of the film, you may know just a little what may be like to not fit into your own body and life.

But you’ll be glad that you do!

The Verdict:
A journey on the fringe of society, one worth a visit.

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Filed under: Drama, Movies

Capote

  • Written by Box Office Boredom
  • Posted February 3, 2006 at 12:02 am

A Film Review By Jason L. King

Starring: Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Directed By: Bennett Miller
Rated: Rated R for language, violence and disturbing imagery

Final Grade:

I enjoyed Capote enough to suggest that you check it out as a rental or on TV sometime. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is outstanding as writer Truman Capote as he digs for the truth about the Kansas murders of the Clutter family. The problem is, this slow moving character drama is just that, slow moving. The big draw of the film to me was the actual murders and the the chilling retelling of them by the accused Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.). However this tale has been told before in an earlier film, “In Cold Blood” which was based off of the book that Capote is writing in this film.

What I was amazed to learn was that while Capote was an interesting person, Capote came off as such an arrogant snob. Many scenes Hoffman showed the true nature of Capote’s arrogance. Scenes where he tells people how his unfinished book is “going to be so good that when he thinks about it he can hardly breathe” an scenes where he mocks someone about an abstract painting shows the audience how much Capote thought he was “so more far advanced” than the people around him. If that was how the real Capote was, Hoffman did an excellent job, yet I never until now realized how much I hated Capote the writer!

The Verdict:
This film is worth a view for a strong performance by Hoffman worthy of Oscar nods and for the chilling tale of the Kansas Clutter murders. However if you want to just know more about the murders alone, check out “In cold Blood.” One of the murder’s in that film is Robert Blake. If nothing else, that should at least make you chuckle a little bit.

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Filed under: Drama, Movies
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