Jun 17, 2011
If you thought “Borat” was wild, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet… “Bruno” makes “Borat” look like a sweet version of Disney on Ice. This time Sacha Baron Cohen is “Bruno,” an Austrian fashionata in search of himself. Within ten seconds of the movie’s opening scene Bruno attacks Autism. Within twenty, he focuses on every form of jaw-dropping anal sex. And, that’s just the first few minutes. He attacks retardation and pregnancy termination, too. And if you’re offended from reading this review, you may just want to skip the movie. The plot goes like this: Moments after being black-listed from the Milan fashion shows, Bruno flies to L A in an attempt to be the biggest Austrian star since Hitler (a poke at Arnold Schwarzenegger.) In tow is his “assistant to his assistant” – soon to be his lover, Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten). In twenty years of movie reviews, this is by far the raunchiest movie ever witnessed – since I don’t review porn – leaving the viewer on over-the-top-gross-out-overload. The best scenes are the ones where Bruno is placed in fish-out-of-water situations that rely more on stereotype than sex – like his short stay at Army boot camp. But the audience’s most hilarious moment is the Psychic visit scene. We’ll just leave it at that. It’s amazing Bruno wasn’t assassinated for his terrorist visits either. Nevertheless, the film falls short – despite its blood sugar rush, and only garnishes a 1.5 tiara rating.
Jun 17, 2011
(Rated PG-13) So there’s this guy (Jim Carrey) a down on his luck (so he thinks) newscaster who has a babe girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston). But because he’s so narcissistic, he doesn’t realize just how good he has it. So, he curses, cusses and challenges God (Morgan Freeman) who decides to bestow his worldly powers on him as the ultimate revenge. This is the first re-teaming of director Tom Shadyac and Carrey since “Ace Ventura” still with some butt-yodeling qualities, but delivering a more sophisticated Carrey on a whole. There is a great lesson in the power of prayer and a miracle in the fact that any movie, can run close to two hours without one swear.
Jun 17, 2011
Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the wilder, younger brother of Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) a decorated Marine whose father (Sam Shepard) idolizes him. Sam is madly in love with his high-school-sweetheart-wife, Grace (Natalie Portman) and his two little girls. But, when Sam goes off to war and assumedly dies in Afghanistan, Tommy is forced to be the uncle to his nieces and the friend to his brother’s wife that he’s previously ignored. Or in other words, the wrong brother has died, so now the bad brother has to step up to the plate. Not so easy. Sam’s funeral takes place, their lives go on and everything seems fine. Until it isn’t. Then Portman and Gyllenhaal are torn between loyalty, love and a frosty dynamic that hangs between them. This movie is a rare Oscar-worthy gem. It evokes all-over-the-map, rare emotions previously felt in movies like “The Perfect Storm” for its man’s man camaraderie and “The Deer Hunter” for the battle moments/prison/love triangle between two brothers and a woman they pine for. Directed by Jim Sheridan – who did a similar film about the emotional battles of families with “In America” – this “In the Name of the Father” Oscar genius again cements you to your seat from the opening scene. But when you think it can’t get any better, “Brothers” continues to elevate you as it sharply alters scenes between the insanity of Sam’s prison camp to his wife back home debating something as menial as kitchen wall colors. The performances of the small daughters – Taylor Gearae and Bailee Madison – are the best child actors out there, while Gyllenhall, Maguire and Portman give us their peek performances. They actually possess the identities of these characters the way Sean Penn did in “Mystic River.” A definite top ten contender. Four tiaras
Jun 17, 2011
Director Antoine “Training Day” Fuqua again tries his hand at good cops, bad cops, dirty cops, and in this case three cops. Eddie (Richard Gere) has been on the force for twenty-two years and is seven days away from retirement. He’s barely used his gun. He’s more the type who calms violent situations via his soothing logic. Tango (Don Cheadle) is certainly the ultimate thug, but then we find out he’s one of them – a policeman – undercover in a major drug operation. Finally there’s Sal (Ethan Hawke) whose family of four children and a wife now pregnant with twins have outgrown their home that’s ridden with mold. This scenario paints the good sympathy crutch in justifying why he’ll do in the film. Of course my immediate way to solve it was to put his wife on the birth control pill. The three men are the quintessential Brooklyn officers, equipped with coffee cups, Priests, confessionals, crucifixes over their kitchen sinks, you name it. But unlike, say, The Departed this movie is dark and stays dark. That said, it has its own original way of doing things as it starts out slowly before opening up full-throttle. Eventually it develops into a plot that puts all three men in the same location. But while there may be some revelation in that ending, there won’t necessarily be the audience pay-off you’d hope for. Two and a half tiaras
Jun 17, 2011
Don Jonston, spelled ‘with a t’ (Bill Murray) is an everyday computer guy whose girlfriend (Julie Delphy) just walked out on him, because he received an anonymous pink letter probably from ‘one of his other girlfriends’. He’s an “over the hill Don Juan” and she leaves. Upon opening it, he discovers he has a son that may be looking for him. His neighbor, a (conveniently plot set-up) Sherlock Holmes wanna-be (Jeffrey Wright) encourages him to go seek out all his past lovers who could possibly be the mother of the child. First stop, an ex (Sharon Stone) a professional closet organizer, with a daughter named Lolita. Second stop, Dora (Frances Conroy) a successful realtor. Third stop, an animal communicator named Carmen (Jessica Lange) whose receptionist (Chloe Sevigny) is her lover. Final stop, a rural trailer trash woman (an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton) who won’t even discuss the possibilities of a son. And so in the end, whether father/son/mother reunion is determined or not, Murray learns to examine his relationships, instead of moving onto the next one, in his lovable, often still, unaffected and soul searching way. The same way that he’s charmed us before in everything from “Groundhog Day” to “Lost In Translation”. But not quite as good. Directed by Jim Jarmusch.
