The Recent Cinema

Why is Willy Wonka shooting all those people?

Public Enemies

What’s Johnny Depp doing outside of one of Tim Burton’s masturbatory passion projects? Well I’ll tell you: After butchering his own creation in Miami Vice, Director Michael Mann is back to a more traditional storyline to try and regain some of the confidence he had back when he was shooting modern classics like Heat. You probably know that its about the final few years o’ bank robbin’ for John Dillenger, and you probably even know how that story ends.  Taking this into account Mann focuses on the hunt to kill Dillinger and his gang members by the brand spanking new but totally not gay Bureau of Investigation (aparently, not Federal, yet.  Christian Bale plays a character much different then we’ve seen, and he employs a southern voice that seems more authentic than any of that smooth cold talking hes done in the past. This movie’s been criticized a lot for not showing enough of depression era America.  I can only assume that this is because most people right now are depressed themselves and don’t really need a movie depicting their great-grandparents feeling the same way.  What progress. But the movie is really about how, by the late 1930′s John Dillinger is an antique.  A big point in the movie is when Dillinger is disowned by local (Italian, I might add) crime bosses because they can make in an hour through illegal businesses what Dillinger makes in a day of knocking off banks.

Its a good movie, and in classic Michael Mann style, he succeeds once again making it impossible to leave without your ears ringing due to his hyper-realistic gunfights (average 1 per 20 minutes).

The Hangover

Mike Tyson,  Zack Galifanakis and the asshole from Wedding Crashers run around Las Vegas in a cross between Old School and Rat Race (a really funny movie, by the way, which people seem to forget about). The overall impression for this movie is that its funny, but really stolen by the people in it who are not really actors by trade, no matter how short their parts are. Galifanakis, by trade, is a comedian, and to the best of my knowledge the last movie he appeared in was Out Cold, which you probably have never heard of with good reason. His quirky weird comedy actually transfers well to this movie where he plays the Bride’s brother who hangs out with the groom’s friends because he has none of his own (most likely due to his habit of drugging and mysteriously lying to people.) The other heavy comedic hitter in the movie, who isn’t even in it for more then 10 minutes, is Mike Tyson, whom you may know as the former heavyweight champion of the world, apart from some other accomplishments. He plays himself like a good sport and half of the comic relief comes from him trying to be a tough guy with that cute little voice.

GI Joe

I was saying this a few months ago when the trailers first came out for this and I’ll say it again.  This will suck.  I’m sorry, but there’s not evidence that it won’t.  You know, cartoons, for whatever reason, are not always meant to be completely serious action epics.  And I’m not a hater of Michael Bay, but whoever directed this probably saw one of his shittier movies (The Island) while trying to get out of directing commercials and though “oh, I can do that, let me ruin every young male born before 1991′s childhood in the process. I’m a son of a bitch.” Just the voice overs in the trailer sound like the actors are joking. I also like how they set up the idea of “accelerator suits” which give Dennis Quaid and, apparently one of the Wayans Brothers the power to disregard the laws of physics. One more thing…they’re a team of American soldiers slash (very) special operatives, that have an underground base, that get in a fight in Paris, that drive around in their own super-jet thing and Humvee… that reminds me of  something.