Beauty is a Cruel Mistress

After seeing Guy Ritchie's disappointing Revolver I had to wonder if He had lost his touch...if he was going to be entering into a stage of mediocrity. I am glad that he has not. I was wrong to doubt him. Sure he has one bad film, but that's behind him now.

I know many people love Snatch, and to them it may be blasphemy to say this, but I think that RocknRolla is Guy Ritchie's best film to date.

I really liked and enjoyed both Lock, Stock and Two Smokin' Barrells as well as Snatch. I truly did. They were great works in and of themselves...but Ritchie's latest takes it to a new level. It not only goes into London's seedy underbelly, but also goes into the world of the rich. I'm not talking about gangsters on the same level as a Hatchet Harry, but gangsters on a level completely above even him.

The whole of it is beautifully acted, directed, written, and shot. It is pure poetry in its words and in its movements. It is this way from the beginning to the last.

I can't necessarily say that the story is wholly original...Ritchie steals/borrows a plot twist from his protégé Matthew Vaughn's (and former producer) film Layer Cake, as well as a story somewhat similar to what was in Lock Stock. But through all this Ritchie creates a world through the dialogue and through the actor's movements that is far above anything he has done before.

Speaking of Layer Cake, I think that Ritchie was impressed with the how Vaughn was able to borrow from Ritchie's own films and add to it with more serious action and a more subtle humor. Not to say that Vaughn's debut was better than Ritchie, but they were different yet similar. Ritchie seems to have taken what Layer Cake did well and merge it with the best of Lock Stock and Snatch.

I'm going to give this film a 8/10, A-. Yes, I think it's just that good. Mark this up as a triumphant return for Guy Ritchie after a poor showing with Revolver. BTW, unless you are a huge Jason Statham or Ray Liotta fan, go ahead and skip Revolver.

More on Dark Knight

I just realized that I talked a lot about Batman and The Dark Knight a while back but that I never gave my opinion of it.

So here it is...7/10, B+. It was a very good film. But Heath Ledger was the best thing about it. It was too long, the last half hour was poorly written, Two Face wasn't fleshed out enough, and Joker was simply TOO crazy. He was just crazy for the sake of being crazy. I didn't really buy it. And that's that. One of the better ones of the year, but not in my top three, maybe not even in my top five.

My Fair Lady

HDNet Movies was showing My Fair Lady, a movie I've always heard great things about, and so I simply had to DVR it. Also, I'm a huge Audrey Hepburn fan (the epitome of grace and class in my book), so that's another reason why I had to see it.

Great musical. Amazing. What else can one say? Hepburn is at her best switching between accents and singing; and Rex Harrison is, well he's Rex Harrison, and that's all that needs to be said.

This film is just a classic. It's even been parodied in "Family Guy"...twice.

I do, however, have one grip with this film: The ending. I prefer the ending to George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion play, which served as the basis of the original film, as well as the stage and film musicals based on that adaptation. Generally it's a rule of mine to avoid the endings or plot twists, but I don't care in this instance. The musical is over 50 years old, and the film that changed the ending is 70 years old. If you haven't seen it or don't know the ending, then too bad. Anyhow, the ending would've been 10x better if Eliza hadn't returned to Prof. Higgins. She should have kept true to her plan to marry Freddy Eynsford-Hill.

Other than that, it seems to be the nearly perfect musical. One of the best I've seen, with songs that are absolutely amazing!

Full grade of 10/10, A+. It clearly deserved all the Academy Awards it received.

Next Up: The Rocker

"I had no idea real life was so boring." "And soul-crushing. Don't forget soul-crushing."

I love those lines. And I love Rainn Wilson and Jeff Garlin. I love how once the American heavy metal band makes it big they start speaking with British accents.

Unfortunately those are about the only things about this film that I loved. I like other parts of it, but that's about it. It's not so bad, and for anyone looking to go see a light comedy it's worth a look. It even makes fun of the fact that they have a tormented lead singer/songwriter, a nerdy kid on keyboard, and a quiet punk chick on guitar.

But most of the movie elicits just a slight chuckle, even with its predictable story line. Fish (Wilson) gets kicked out of his original band, lives a life filled with unfulfilled dreams while refusing to grow up, and gets a second chance with his nephew's band. Not surprisingly he's a bad role model, gets the kids in trouble, and the rest of the tour has to be chaperoned by one of the band members' mother (Christina Applegate). The formulaic story continues with the record company trying to force Fish out of the band, and succeeding for a little bit before he returns for one triumphant concert.
This story is definitely where the movie loses some points. Simply put, there's nothing special about the story. Some of the jokes, however, are dead on. For instance, when the band tried to ditch Fish at the beginning, he chases after the band's van, eventually jumping on top and using his drumsticks to punch through the roof and pull himself forward in a manner reminiscent of, in my mind, the T1000 in Terminator 2.

All in all, it's a C+, or in number terms, a 6/10.

Starting back up//The Lucky Ones

Alright, I'm going to start back up with my semi "stream of consciousness" reviews as I watch the film, or just whenever I get around to it...unfortunately I can't do this from work (where I do get to watch movies), so I may not talk about all the movies I watch.

First up:

Niel Burger's The Lucky Ones starring Tim Robbins (Mystic River), Rachel McAdams (Wedding Crashers), and Michael Peña (World Trade Center).

This film is about a trio of soldiers returning from the wars in the Middle East, all three wounded in some way, who find themselves on a cross-country road trip. It's a cross of the "soldiers returning home" genre and the road trip film.

That being said, this is no The Best Years of Our Lives, but then again, what is? It's got your standard road trip gags, a car accident, one of them getting more than they anticipated in a sexual encounter, a bar fight, and dashed expectations. In that, it's pretty standard. Why I think this is an interesting film and one to watch is simply because it tries to merge that service veterans.

It does bring the stories of the soldiers to life, although probably quicker than those stories would happen in real life. Cheaver (Robbins) returns home to suburban St. Louis only to find after a few minutes that his wife wants a divorce and his son needs $20,000 in a matter of weeks or he loses his spot at Standford University. T.K. (Peña) suffered an injury to his "upper thigh" that caused erectile disfunction, a condition he's hesitant to tell his fiancée. Colee (McAdams) is returning her dead boyfriend's (he died saving her in Iraq) guitar to his family.

Its shortcomings are mostly in the road trip and in the things that bring the trio together. The bar fight happens because a snotty college girl makes fun of Colee's service and war injury; and only a heartless b*tch would ask a returning soldier for a divorce five minutes after he gets home. It's a little hard to believe that those would actually happen. But I found the rest of the soldiers' interactions civilians to be true and honest. I recognize not quite being sure what to say when people say "Thank you for your service;" I myself have never been "over there," but I have an idea of what it feels like when people who aren't in the military talk about it and the war. I think that those scenes are well witten, and could be interesting for people unfamiliar with the military to see those scenes. It can be a bit uncomfortable for those who are serving or have served to talk about the war with those who have never been in the military or who don't have anyone close to them who serve. I found the actors pulled those scenes off very well.

It also stumbles towards the end when it gives T.K. second thoughts about going back to the Army once his leave is done. I do wish the story had been a little bit longer and hashed out both Colee's and T.K.'s personal stories a little more; it also should've put them together more...not necessarily in a romantic way (although it seemed there was that aspect, I'm glad they didn't focus on that and make it a romantic dramedy), but shown them growing closer as friends. There was some chemistry there, while we didn't get much of a sense of chemistry with T.K. and his fiancée or why they were together. In fact, we never meet her. His story is the only one we don't even get into at all.

Overall, about 5 or 6/10. On a 5-point scale, it'd have to be a 3; I just couldn't go down to a 2, although 2.5 would be more accurate. It has lots of unfulfilled promise, which is a real shame; this could have been the first GREAT movie to come from the Middle East wars. Still though, it's probably one of the better films to deal with the Iraq war.