Surrogates

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Plot:  In a futuristic utopia, robots do all the work, and the people stay at home in their pajamas operating them. Just like "Second Life", all the robots are cooler and way more attractive then their real life masters. Not everyone likes the robot society and someone figures out how to kill the operator by shooting a fancy gun at the robot. FBI Agent Tom Green (Bruce Willis) and Agent Peters (Radha Mitchell) are FBI agents trying to track down the killers. The investigation quickly leads this leads to evil corporation VSI and its founder Dr. Canter (James Cromwell.)

Review: This movie is a murder mystery told with a Sci-Fi storyline. The science-fiction detail is pretty deep, but all the premises are in the first few minutes, and the geeky technology is not needed until the climax, which I won't give away. The premise is original, and the story flows naturally, with a few twists as we get closer to the identity of the bad guys.

Their are some really good chase scenes in the movie. The robots jump more realistically than in similar movies, and look less like CGI.

The acting of Bruce Willis and James Cromwell is excellent. I would like to have seen Tom Green and his wife interact in the real world.

The movie has a lot to say on a satirical level, For example,  people only interact on-line, and this is an extreme form of people who spend all their evenings online especially in Second Life or in World of Warcraft.

In the movie, people put forward a different public face from their real selves that they keep hidden -- rather like people do psychologically. After her son dies, Maggie Greer, Tom's wife, (Rosamund Pike) never comes out of the synthetic world, despite Tom asking her to come.

Finally, the movie takes on the notion that the whole world is just an illusion like The Matrix, but also like some Eastern philosophy. In the surrogate world, people get reincarnated all the time.

Cast: Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Ving Rhames, and James Cromwell

Crew: directed by Jonathan Mostow based on the graphic novel.

Rating: 3.0 flasks (just barely)


More: The action scenes are dramatic and bold, but the producers did not spend as much money on the robot costumes. The robots in Terminator or Star Wars are far  more detailed; these seemed too simple and plastic.

Even more: The cover for the Surrogates, the graphic novel:

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The Informant!

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Plot: This is a dry, wry comedy about fraud at the agricultural products company ADM in the 1990's. Mark Whitacre, Matt Damon, is a vice-president at ADM and he gets involved in a price fixing scheme. It turns out that Matt is also a schemer, a very strange dude, and not so mentally stable. Mark calls FBI agent Brian Shepard, Scott Bakula, who begins to collect evidence against ADM, and Mark agrees to bug his conversations. After the arrest, the story gets more complicated and it is unclear how believable Mark really is.

The best thing about this is that it is a movie about a chemist in the chemicals industry -- though a biochemist and an agrichemical -- still there are a lot things I can relate to. Well, not the price fixing or the multi-million dollar kickbacks. The movie has a knowing ironic tone that is almost campy. The movie is not really about price fixing it is really about the sitcom situations that Mark is in, and his outrageous behavior. The laughs are mostly about how self-serving and glory-seeking Mark Whitacre is. On the other hand, Mark is not very likable, and none of the other characters are either. I did not care for Scott Bakula. This movie could have used a co-star and another subplot.

I thought the film was well-directed despite the marginal acting. The tone of the movie is its most appealing part.

Cast: Matt Damon, Melanie Lynskey, Scott Bakula

Crew: directed by Steven Soderbergh based on the book by Kurt Eichenwald

Rating: 2.0 flasks (originally 2.5, but now 2.0 because Mark Whitacre is so annoying.)



More: Wikipedia says that Whitacre informed because his wife made him do so.

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Extract

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Plot: Joel (Jason Bateman) runs a flavor extract factory, which has bickering factory workers, and during a spat Step (Clifton Collins) gets injured. Cindy (Mila Kunis) a cute con artist, hooks up with him so he can collect settlement money. Meanwhile friend Dean (Ben Affleck) hires a gigilo to seduce Joel's wife Suzie (Kristen Wiig). 

Review: The most distinctive part of this movie is its wry ironic attitude -- something not everyone will appreciate. All the people in this movie are strange & colorful -- except Joel, and this strange world rotates around him. Ben Affleck, JK Simmons, Gene Simmons, and Kristen Wiig all give good performances and are fun to watch.

There is a lot going on in this movie, but it is not always a funny "ha ha" movie; more of a thoughtful comedy that has farcical, absurd situations. It is like a Coen brothers movie in that respect.

The final scene is funny -- worth the setup.

Cast: Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, Kristen Wiig, Gene Simmons, JK Simmons

Written and directed by: Mike Judge

Rating: 3.0 flasks




More: There has to be a clever "writerly" reason that this is set in an extract factory, but I don't know what it is.

Even More: I wish people would stop comparing this movie to Office Space. What does that have to do with this movie?

500 Days of Summer

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Plot: Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) at the greeting card company in LA where they work. The movie tells the story in a non-linear way -- skipping from their flirty & dating phases to their breaking-up & broken-up phases. The twist is the Tom believes in True Love, and wants a long-term relationship, and Summer does not; she just wants to be friends. Of course usually its the girl who believes in True Love and who wants to get married.  Summer's real feelings are unclear, and she often  seems to lead him on.

Review: This is a light confection that tells a pleasant story pleasantly. The star of the movie is the script (by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber) which gives us a romance without the usual stereotype plot twists and ending. I did like the ending, even the cutesy pun that they work in.

The movie is about Tom not Summer, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt delivers a solid performance. 

The problem with the movie is Summer's motivation because there is no good reason why she just wants to be friends. I kept waiting for some secret in her past that explained it. I kept expecting to learn that she is a lesbian, or has a terminal illness, or has a husband in Iraq, or was a child abuse victim, or something like that. I would even have bought it if she just want to have fun and be a hedonist. Zooey Deschanel is perky and likeable, and gives a reasonable performance; the gap with her character is in the script.

Tom's kid sister Rachel (Chloe Moritz) is funny as she dispenses worldly-wise advice that no middle-schooler could know.

Cast: Joseph Gorden-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel  

Crew: Directed by Marc Webb  

Rating: 2.5 flasks - just barely.

 

More: I hated the opening split-screen sequence with the little kid videos. It made me want to close my eyes. Very disorienting video. Zooey sings the song that plays during the opening. My wife likes the song, but it was not my style.

Even More: I liked the art direction especially the when Tom becomes a silhouette and an artist erases the background -- nice detail. I'd buy a poster of that.

Yet More: I loved the first day of Autumn.  Great ending.

The Time Traveler's Wife

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Plot: Henry (Eric Bana) is a born time traveler. He begins time traveling to avoid death in a car accident that kills his mother, and continues to time travel as he ages. He meets a Clarie (Rachel McAdams) when he is about 25, and then he time travels back to meet her as a child. As Claire ages she meets Henry over and over, and they have a life together -- living out the situations made possible by the premise.

Review:
The movie works because of a well-written script and good acting that plays out as chemistry between Henry and Claire. The pacing is good, and the tension builds up to the end.
This a romantic fantasy not unlike stories of princesses and moats, but perhaps better because the characters are in modern situations. The plot device of time traveling sets up two people who were "meant to be together," which is a staple of the whole genre of romances.

It confuses me why the teenage Claire does not rebel from him, and go play the field. I am pleased that the 25 year old Claire at least brings this up. Still this is a fantasy, and it is not profitable to ask these questions. Similarly this is not a science fiction, and the movies skirts the time paradoxes that science fiction writers dream up -- that's fine because that is what fantasy is about.


This is a puff piece of pop entertainment with no higher motive; similarly the characters while realistic, and not living out three dimensional lives with issues besides relationships and romance and perhaps procreation.
I would have liked a little snapper sound track too.
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Eric Bana

Crew: directed by Robert Schwentke; based on the book by Audrey Neffenegger

Rating: 2.5 flasks
1/2



More: I like the plot line with Alba (Haley & Tatum McCann), whom they could easily make a sequel about. I could see that as a Disney channel series.

Yet More: Zooey sings the song that plays during the aforementioned opening.

Ponyo [English]; Gake no ue no Ponyo

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Plot: An underwater Princess (Ponyo) falls in love with a boy (Susuke,) and wants to turn into a human girl. It is a version of Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid, but told from the boy's point of view

Review: Sincere, Adorable, Cute -- and I thought this movie was great. Many will disagree; this movie is probably too sincere, too adorable and too cute for most Americans. If you can't stomach a movie full of adorable and cute -- see District 9. The biggest criticism of this move is that no one is this pure-of-heart, and that the world is not this happy. This is a genre film where the audience receives an escapist experience to a Fairy Tale World.
The animation is like the previous movies from Miyazaki -- perhaps more artistic. The backgrounds are colored pencil drawings and watercolors, and the anime-style characters movie in front.
The movie was charming from the opening sequence. I decided that Ponyo was going to be a spectacle and to suspend disbelief, sit back, and watch. Ponyo's little sisters are playful and fun to watch. Ponyo's discovery of the land world is clever and interesting. Ponyo's running on the waves scene is unforgetable. The use of a toyboat to sail to the nursing home is clever. The whole movie is visually satisfying and occasionally spectacular.

There is strong character development for Ponyo herself, and there are interesting minor characters including the old people at the nursing home, and the Mom, Risa. The boy, Susuke, is pretty one dimensional in his love for Ponyo. The un-varnished devotion is why one needs to suspend cynicism to enjoy this movie.
The story is based on Hans Christan Anderson's Little Mermaid, but its moral teaching of accepting other people and helping others is clear.
Crew: Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Rating: 3.5 flasks
and 1/4

More: I am no expert on Japanese culture, but I believe that Japanese pop culture is more sincere and less cynical than American culture. This movie is an example of that. Previous Miyazaki movies have been big hits with adults in Japan. In the US, this probably will not cross-over to the general audience. For example, my wife could not wait to leave the theater.

Even more: The children had a sequence naming pre-historic fish. I can't ever see that happening in a Shrek or Toy Story movie. I like the idea that they had anatomically correct pre-historic fish swimming around. I even recognized a trilobite.

Yet More: It occurs to me that most people that like Ponyo probably would not like Bruno, but I liked both. What does that mean?

District 9

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Plot: Aliens land on earth, but they are quickly herded into an alien ghetto in Johannesburg, with an obvious parallelism with the Apartheid era in South Africa. The people want the ghetto moved farther from the city, and when soldiers try to do that, one civilian, Wikus, is contaminated with an alien substance. Later in the movie the aliens begin to fight back, and the movie ends like an action movie.

Review: The first half of the movie is a political allegory, and the second half of the movie is an action movie. The whole movie is told with a handheld camera in a documentary style. The character development is awful, and Wikus Van De Merwe played by Sharlto Copley, is creepy and unlikeable. I did like the baby alien though.

I don't know how they animated the aliens, but that seemed realistic thoughout. They were pretty ugly, and they spent a lot of time wiggling their facial appendages at the camera.

This is a Sci-Fi, and it does not need to make sense, but this movie makes less sense then most. There are too many loose ends that have no purpose except to advance the story.

There is a tradition of Sci-Fi that is darker and scarier than recent Sci-Fi films. This film is trying to channel that tradition, and maybe it succeeds in bringing Sci-Fi back to its roots -- on the other hand, better dialog, more character development, and more attention to the plot would have helped.

I ordinarily give a extra points for taking on a tough political or moral issue, but this was a heavy-handed morality play. The messages of this movie -- something like, "People are terrible," and "Be nice or the aliens will get revenge," -- do not seem worth the effort.

Cast: Sharlto Copley -- the only actor worth mentioning

Crew: Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp; produced by Peter Jackson

Rating: 2.0 flasks

More: District Six was a impoverished inter-racial district of Cape Town South Africa during their apartheid era. Notably 60,000 black people were evacuated from District Six during the 1970's. District Six was the subject of many novels, songs, a museum, and a musical. [The poster for the musical is at right.]