I’m personally not a fan of the Western genre. That was very popular for many decades, but I believe it lost its allure when the space race began in the late 1950′s and into the 1960′s. I once worked with a fellow who was very much a fan of the Clint Eastwood westerns of the 1960′s, but I’ve never seen any of them. I’ve always been a sci-fi or fantasy type of fellow. I’ve never seen a spaghetti western, or even seen Clint Eastwood’s 1992 Unforgiven.

So what did I think of this movie? I thought it was good. The story itself is not mind-altering or genre-busting. It’s a western. What made this film stand out was the interplay between Bale and Crowe. Russell Crowe especially plays a very nuanced villain, and Bale portrayed a realistic protagonist that was NOT an action star performing fantastical stunts. No one spouted one-liners, and the villain didn’t have a wacky evil plot. I didn’t see one giant mechanical spider terrorizing the Arizona desert. Themes of greed and corruption permeated the story, and experiencing the interaction between the characters was the most enjoyable facet of this movie.

Note #1 – It was good to see Russell Crowe perform some good acting in a film. After Gladiator, he’s had a string of misses, so it was nice to see him play an intriguing vcharacter, albeit a villain, but intriguing nonetheless.

Note #2 – Out of all the actors, I was oddly surprised to see former “It Girl” Gretchen Mol in a small role as Christian Bale’s wife. Still beautiful, but what has she been working on all these years? Actually, upon further review of her IMDB profile, she’s been working steadily, so good for her.

3:10 to Yuma (2007)

The Departed is a 2006 Martin Scorsese that won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Achievement in Directing. It stars a great cast, including Leonard DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Alex Baldwin, Martin Sheen, and many more. Big, talented cast. Strong performances. Interesting story with edge-of-your-seat plot turns. I certainly didn’t know how the story twist and turn, and I couldn’t accurately predict the climax for the story.

I would recommend this film. I love a well-done film.

The Departed (2006)

The Expendables is a new release this week, directed by Sylvester Stallone, and starring a veritable who’s who of action/regular stars from the 80′s and 90′s. Stallone, Stratham, Li, Rourke, Lundgren, Steve Austin, Bruce Willis, and even a brief cameo by Schwarzenegger himself. It’s a action film about a team of mercenaries who get hired by, we think, the CIA, to kill a corrupt South American (and imaginary) country.

While they’re down there, they get a heart for the suffering populace (and more importantly, a beautiful woman with a heart of gold.) The story was a bit cliched for sure, but at a certain level, the film was entertaining. It was interesting to see the old stars in action. For that, I’ll give Stallone some slack on the story.

The Expendables (2010)

Although the Blu-ray disc contained both the rated and unrated version my wife “woosed out” on watching the unrated version. Having watched the rated R version, I’m curious to know what the heck they took out that was too crazy for normal consumption. The Hangover was hilarious, it didn’t hit slow parts, and I found it to be fun movie to watch. I was laughing hard at times, which is always a good sign of a comedy. If you examine the film, there are no big-name celebrities, so I hope this is another nail in the coffin in the Hollywood belief that studies should pay celebrities big money to bring in the audience. If you have a good movie, people will come.

The Hangover (2009)

PC World compiled their list of nine stupid movie tech moments. Robocop was running MS-DOS? Wow.

1987's Robocop ran MS-DOS?

Haven’t most people seen this film already? I won’t write out the entire synopsis — I’ll copy & paste from the Wikipedia entry.

Inception is a 2010 American science fiction action film written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy. The film is inspired by the experience of lucid dreaming and dream incubation. The film, a variant on the heist genre, centers on Dom Cobb, an “extractor”, who enters the dreams of others to obtain information that is otherwise inaccessible. His abilities and questions about the death of his wife have cost him his family and his nationality, but he is promised a chance to regain his old life in exchange for planting an idea in a corporate target’s mind. This process of planting an idea, known as “inception”, is less familiar and far more difficult than Cobb’s usual job of “extraction.”

Good synopsis, eh? The film runs 148 minutes, but it was pretty good. I had read so many good reviews that you get the impression that it’s the greatest film ever. I wouldn’t say that. It won’t change your life like the Star Wars original trilogy or The Matrix (yeah, I said it), but it’s an intelligent movie that is entertaining. I couldn’t believe that my wife sat through and enjoyed a sci-fi action film. That’s a testament that this was a good film.

I was happy to see this film. I was happy to see a smart Hollywood film. After experiencing the mindless debacle that was A-Team, it was refreshing to see something that someone with a brain had written.

Inception (2010)

Tonight, Paul and Biji are watching the kids, and we’re going to see Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster film Inception. Afterwards, we’re going to get some Mediterranean for dinner. Tonight is our last night in Michigan. Tomorrow, we head home. It’ll be nice to be home, but I’m going to miss hanging out with friends, vacationing, and all the relaxing.

Here’s the synopsis from IMDB:

In this 6-story anthology collection, Batman faces new villains and old ones in a time-line after Batman Begins. In “Have I Got A Story For You”, 3 kids tell wildly different stories about Batman during a fight through Gotham. “Crossfire” focuses on two policemen who end up getting in the middle of a crime battle. “Field Test” has Lucius Fox creating a new technology for Batman, but is it too powerful? “In Darkness Dwells” features Killer Croc and Scarecrow, who have kidnapped a priest. “Working Through Pain” goes through flashbacks of Bruce Wayne’s training while Batman finds his way through the sewers. Finally, “Deadshot” focuses on the titular sniper, who has a new target in Gotham.

I thought overall this was a decent movie to rent. It’s about a little over an hour, so it’s not a huge investment. The individual stories are interesting, and while the anime styles are all different, each Batman costume was nice. My favorite aspect of the movie was that Kevin Conroy, who has voiced the various animated Batman characters since 1992 performed the voice of Batman for each of these stories. That was icing on the cake for me. Kevin Conroy IS Batman to me.

Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)

This is a small indie black comedy, and it had its moments. It was nice to see a film about regular folks working hard to make it. Too many times, we’re watching movies about well-to-do people with meaningless problems. These characters were just trying to make it, which was more satisfying. I’d give this a 6 or 7 out of ten.

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

Now, on to the movie review. Wednesday night, we all decided to catch the late showing of A-Team. If you haven’t heard, this is the latest 2010 remake of 70′s & 80′s entertainment properties. Now, I grew up in the 80′s getting my weekly fix of the A-Team. Who didn’t love Hannibal, Face, B.A., and Howlin’ Mad Murdock?

A-Team (2010)

Coincidentally, I recently caught a viewing of the pilot episode, which I don’t believe I’ve ever seen. I had no clue that Dirk Benedict was not the first choice for Templeton “Faceman” Peck. It was some Tim Duggar fellow who lasted one episode, and he didn’t have the same charisma of Dirk Benedict. You need a guy who can turn on the charm, and this fellow was just some guy with dark hair. He was that nondescript.

Back to the movie review — how do I put this? Starring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Rampage Jackson, and Sharto Copley, this movie is an amazing movie to be written and directed by…. an eleven-year old boy. That’s the only explanation for a film like this that had no basis in reality, history, or common sense. I don’t know where to begin to describe it, except that I had major problems with the movie’s logic within the first, say, 10 minutes of the beginning.

I’m not a 34-year old A-Team fanboy complaining that Rampage Jackson wasn’t a good Mr. T. As a matter of fact, I generally liked the actors in their specific roles, but I do admit that Jessica Biel didn’t quite fit. Instead, I’m referring to the non-sensical plot. Very little in the movie makes actual sense. Some examples from just the 30 mins, in no particular order, and here’s the obligatory minor spoiler warning anyway:

1. Hannibal escapes from the hands of corrupt Mexican Federal Police, runs across the Mexican desert (no car), and coincidentally meets B.A. driving along deserted road. Tries to carjack B.A, shoots him, but all is forgiven as they are both former U.S. Army Rangers.
2. Together, they rescue Face from a corrupt Mexican general. Btw, Face is also an Army Ranger.  They head to a Mexican insane asylum, and look for a pilot (I didn’t skip anything, that’s what happened), find Murdock, then steal a broken-down Mexican ambulance helicopter.  Murdock is a good choice, as he’s both American AND ALSO a former U.S. Army Ranger. Did I mention that only only Face and Hannibal know each other, but there a lot of “former U.S. Army Rangers” hanging around in the same dusty part of the Mexican countryside.
3. While in the broken-down helicopter, they then get chased by the aforementioned corrupt mexican general…. in his own attack helicopter. No worries, as it’s flown by a pilot with terrible skills. He can’t maneuver to catch the rusty helicopter, nor can he hit them with any of assortment of guns or missiles. Murdock avoids a barrage of heat-seeking missiles by doing a loop (still in the rusty helicopter), and then does a move where he turns off the engine, the helicopter engine cools down unrealistically fast, and the missiles strike each other. Oh, and the helicopter restarts, establishes adequate upward lift, and they get away again.
4. Finally, Hanibal makes a plan? He “tricks” the general into chasing them via helicopters over the U.S-Mexican border where the Mexican general is promptly shot down by a F-22 Raptor miraculously patrolling that portion of the border. Then the movie jumps to “8 years and 80 missions later”, they are now all re-enlisted in the U.S. Army, and serving in Iraq. The Raptor wasn’t in service eight years ago. Why would the Raptor be flying around with weapons hot, and then only shoot down the 2nd helicopter (with the bad guys?) Why would the Army take back former Army soldiers who are noticeably much older than the normal age range?

 The movie made about as much sense as the old 1960′s Batman tv show. It is extremely illogical, and most of the time, you get the sense that certain events and scenes are just set up for the next action sequence.  The writers made up story elements so that these key events can occur, or to move the flimsy plot. At one point, the A-Team steals a C-130 Hercules plane (with tank) from 3 Air Force men, from an Air Force base, without any weapons. Oh, they didn’t sneak and steal it. They walked onto the plane, and told the soldiers they were stealing it. One soldier says, “Oh, you’re the famous Hannibal Smith!” and says ok, and the three airbase men walk off the plane. Absolute nonsense.