Movie Reviews By Gavin of The Wake Up Call

The marketing campaign behind this movie was genius.  It wasn’t as smart as the viral “true” story that was launched months beforehand for “The Blair Witch Project” but this was all about word-of-mouth.  They released this only in big college towns first hoping to get word on the Internet to spread like wildfire.  Then once interest was peaked they would only release it in your city if you went online and demanded it.  Luckily Sacramento was one of those cities and we got it…at one theater…that only had one showing…at midnight!  Smart!  The plot is simple: a couple buys a camera in hopes to capture some ghostly goings-on that the girlfriend has been claiming.  To know anymore about this story might water it down.  The cast consists of the couple, who are newcomers named Michah Sloat and Katie Featherston.  There’s a physic and a best friend that appear in the movie twice but only briefly.  Even though the movie is a first-person shot of a handheld camera, it won’t make you motion sick like “Cloverfield” and “Quarantine” did for some.  It’s important to note that this entire movie was made for only $11,000!  You heard me right!  That’s so impressive since and a bigger budget would’ve only made the movie worse.  The director, another newcomer Oren Peli, basically sets up a house (the entire movie takes place in one house) full of cheap parlor tricks to scare us and his actors.  There are many times during the movie where the unafraid and manly Michah yells out “Shhhhh” to his girlfriend while they’re frightened.  He’s not really yelling that at her, he’s yelling that at the audience.  Some of the more terrifying things that happen are so slight and subtle that you’ll miss them because you’re still screaming from what just happened.  But don’t think this is your typical scary movie.  This movie gives a new definition to “creepy.”  It never once frightens you into jumping because that’s too easy to do.  ”Paranormal Activity” is just a collection of scenes filled with tension-mounting sounds and sights that make the goosebumps appear and you have to look away because you’ve been creeped out too much!  My only complaint with it is that when the final 5 over-boiled minutes of the film happen, the climax is absolutely terrifying, more could’ve been done with it.  That being said I am writing this review at 2:30 AM.  We got back from the movie and I was too scared to go to bed.  Be warned that what the movie “Psycho” did for taking showers, “Paranormal Activity” has done to simply falling asleep in a bed!  The feeling of being trapped in this house with this couple is conveyed perfectly.  When either of the other two cast members appear you feel perfectly safe but when they leave you feel like they abandon you and are responsible for the frights to continue!  Every time night falls and the couple attempts to go to sleep, the audience (totally sold out show) groaned with fear of what they knew was coming and when it does, even being surrounded by 600 people in a big-ass theater wasn’t enough to make us all feel like we were alone in that room with them.
Paranormal Activity (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: A

It’s difficult to review a Michael Moore movie because it’s hard to separate the film from the message.  Most people who write a review on his movies end up dissecting what they agree or disagree with what he’s trying to say.  But that’s not what a movie reviewer should do.  What we should do is judge the movie based on how well it was executed as a piece of cinema, as a documentary.  That’s what I plan on doing.  It is interesting to me that one of the harshest criticisms of Moore is that his movies are biased.  Well, of course they are…they’re documentaries.  ALL documentaries are biased.  They all start with a thesis or a opinion and then the movie sets out to prove it true.  In “Capitalism,” Moore’s thesis is that Capitalism is a corrupt and evil system that has replaced Democracy in our country and devastate many for the gains of a few.  I happen to agree with that, but as a reviewer I’ll refrain on diving into my thoughts and how they differ from his on the matter.  Moore is one of the best documentary filmmakers of all time.  His movies are refreshing, edgy, revolutionary, funny, heartbreaking but above all…entertaining.  He uses archival footage from How To films, propaganda movies, news reels and more to create this fast-moving, brightly colored world of examples of how things were (for the good or bad).  As in all his films, he has his sarcastic at times, somber at others and always monotonous voice to narrate us through it.  He does however cast himself as a more visible player in “Capitalism” than he has in past, such as “Fahrenheit 9/11.”  But it moves too slow and it’s too long.  At over 2 hours, it’s exhausting after a while trying to keep up on such a complex and confusing subject.  Most of us, including me and HIM, don’t understand the concepts of what made Wall Street collapse or why financial de-regulation happened or even what the hell a derivative is!!!!  So to try and cram all that into a movie is really a jagged pill to swallow.  But besides that aspect, it’s still very good.  Moore is great at telling stories; he lets things get really sad but then is sure to pick you up with something funny.  He makes sure you get angry over what he claims is wrongdoing, but then inspires you to do something about it.  In fact the last 15 minutes of the movie, which is nothing but a Call to Arms, will give anyone goosebumps on the arms and inspirational tears in the eyes, unless you’re rich.  The only problem is that I hope you’re brain isn’t fried by the time you get there.  I do have to say that it bothers me that most people who hate Michael Moore just because they’ve been told too by radio pundits, cable blowhards or politicians.  Most of these people have never and will never see one of his films.  I do firmly believe that if they did form an educated opinion about him by doing that, they’d change their tune once they find out that his movies are not only entertaining, but they’re made for us little people…well, and for him so he can make money too.
Capitalism: A Love Story
Gavin Grade: B

What is it about zombies that make people create such a natural tie-in to comedy?  It seems that there have been more horror-comedies that were about zombies than any other monster movie I can think of.  There will be lots of comparisons made of this movie, from first time director Ruben Fleischer, and the Simon Pegg classic “Shaun of the Dead.”  I’m a HUGE fan of “Shaun” and in my opinion, “Zombieland” stands up, toe-to-to with it; the only difference being that “Shaun” was the dry British version and “Zombieland” is 100% USAsskicking.  The film starts off with a cold opening followed by opening credits that not only set the tone for the film, but sets the level of violence as well.  This is not a movie for the squeamish.  If there’s some horrible act of violence coming up in the film that you just know they’ll cut away from because it’s much too graphic, guess again ’cause they’re showing it.  In fact a big part of the comedy of the film is the shock at how high they’re willing to take some of the gore.  The movie stars Woody Harrelson, Abigail Breslin (”Little Miss Sunshine”), Emma Stone (”Superbad”) and Jessie Eisenberg (”Adventureland”  I guess he can’t stay away from movies with “land” in the title).  Eisenberg is still very new on the scene and he’s apparently who Hollywood calls on when Michael Cera says “no” to a role because the two are virtually the same person.  Just like Cera, he can play one kind of part, and that’s the awkward, shy, funny guy and he plays it well.  That’s pretty much the cast of the movie minus a hoard of the undead.  The only other person in the movie is a cameo that should go down in history as the BEST CAMEO IN ANY MOVIE EVER MADE!  What the director, Fleischer, did in this was keep the film funny from beginning to end.  He didn’t fall into the trap of it getting too serious or too scary or too sappy at all.  His #1 goal in this was to make sure you have a damn good time watching it and you’re entertained; he doesn’t fall short of that one bit.  The only issue that it runs into is that it has a saggy middle act.  It starts strong, ends strong and gets rather dry in-between.  It’s still very funny, but looses its zombie allure by not having any scares, jumps or action for about 40 minutes.  Of course he makes up for that and then some with the climax.  The credit in this film can be spread evenly all the way around.  Not one actor carries it more than the others and they all seemed like they had a blast filming it…I know I would.  If you have a strong stomach and a sick sense of humor, then “Zombieland” is your idea of a fun night.  If you don’t, well…let’s be honest; a movie called “Zombieland” probably didn’t appeal to you anyway.
Zombieland (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: A-

Matt Damon gained over 40lbs for this movie and he certainly looks every inch of it.  But people who hate on The Oscars make fun by saying that anyone who changes their appearance usually wins one.  So is Damon next on that list?  I don’t know, but I think he should get a nomination.  He plays a fat, bumbling headcase named Mark Whitacre who became an FBI informant against his own company.  But wait…there’s SO much more.  In fact there’s so much to this true story that it gets pretty confusing.  That’s the problem with white collar crime - it’s pretty hard to follow.  Tell me that someone got shot or a store got robbed and I can follow that.  But you tell me that Bernie Madoff made off with $500,000,000 in a Ponzi Scheme and I have no idea what you’re talking about.  This film, from directing master Steven Soderbergh, tries its best to explain what kind of crimes are going on but doesn’t slow down for the slow kids in class.  I wasn’t a slow kid, but I wasn’t an A+ one either while watching this.  However, whether you get the plot completely or not doesn’t hinder your ability to laugh at the utterly stupid things that are done and said by Damon’s character, which leads me to wonder why the real Mark Whitacre would ever allow this movie to be made.  Nevertheless it was and it’s good.  Soderbergh (the Oceans 11-13 movies, “Traffic” and “Erin Brockovich”) is great at making his movies seem cool and slick, even when it’s not.  Every scene has its own color and every angle has a purpose.  It’s really fun to watch as a film geek, although “The Informant!” doesn’t scream his name overall.  It does though in two areas.  The first is the casting, which has the formerly famous such as Scott Bakula (”Quantum Leap”) and Thomas Wilson (Biff from “Back to the Future”), the upcoming like Joel McHale (”Talk Soup,” “Community”) and a bevy of stand-up comics in not so funny roles.  The other area that is classic Soderbergh is the soundtrack which was done by the camp-master, Marvin Hamlisch.  It’s almost a character in the movie itself adding whimsy and goofiness to a movie that, at times, is a fairly dark comedy about the unraveling of a man.  The movie is almost 2 hours but feels more like 3, but not in a bad way.  There’s just so much information in the film that I wonder if some of it could’ve been kept out since it didn’t have the luxury to explain it in a timely or entertaining way.  But Matt Damon might have the mental illness of Mark Whitacre to thank come Oscar night if…that is if no other actors come out this year with a changed appearance too.
The Informant! (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: B+

There’s no other movie star out there that looks better all beat up than Bruce Willis.  I think every movie he’s ever been in, he’s beat to hell by the end of it and still looks great.  Unfortunately for this movie, that might be the highlight of the film.  (That and seeing how fat the guy (Devin Ratray) who played Buzz in “Home Alone” has gotten.  He plays a long, haired FBI surveillance guy in “Surrogates.”)  The story centers around humans using surrogate robots that go out in any form you want and live your life for you while you stay at home controlling them.  The problem with that is everyone uses absolutely gorgeous models for their robots, which means they needed a cast of absolutely gorgeous people, which also means you now have a cast of good looking people who can’t act.  Even the performances from such veterans as Ving Rhames (”Pulp Fiction,” “Dawn of the Dead”) and James Cromwell (”W,” “i-Robot”) were terrible.  But I’ve seen bad action movies before that had awful stories and cheesy dialogue that starred Bruce Willis, but the man always seemed to make it work.  But his apathetic meandering through this movie made it stink so bad, I’m pretty sure he only did it for the paycheck.  Even the special effects weren’t that great.  If you’re a sci-fi movie that deals with robots and action you gotta make sure you hit the nail on the head.  Some of the action sequences (which were few and far between) looked like they were made on a teenager’s iMac for a YouTube video.  The story was fine and was really the only saving grace, but the movie deserves none of that credit since it was based on a graphic novel.  The script was written by the team responsible for the last two Terminator movies and “Catwoman.”  Ugh!  Who keeps giving these guys jobs?  However I was shocked to learn that they also wrote the David Fincher classic “The Game,” so maybe that’s why.  Hollywood’s hoping for that level of genius again.  But this sure as hell wasn’t it.  There was zero character motivation and drama that was shoehorned in with embarrassing results.  Leading all the way to the climax of the film which is so visually hilarious that those people left in the theater (yes, people were walking out) were cracking up, which was really not the intention of the scene.  Sadly you’d think that someone working on the film would’ve understood the story and applied the message to the movie itself.  No matter how shiny, beautiful and well-packaged something is, it doesn’t mean there’s a soul or substance behind it.
Surrogates (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: D

Keeping it real here, I totally went to see this movie with a chip on my shoulder and didn’t give it a fair chance.  I saw the God-awful commercials and trailers for it and couldn’t possibly have been more sure that it was going to be a festering bowl of formulaic feces.  I mean come on!  The title alone sucks.  ”Love Happens?”  What the hell does that even mean?  Isn’t the saying “Sh*t Happens?”  I don’t like it when I’m wrong, so good thing that my instinct about “Love Happens” was only partially true.  This movie staring Aaron Eckhart (”The Dark Knight,” “Thank You for Smoking”) and Jennifer Aniston is almost as cookie-cutter as a movie can get, but it’s not terrible.  It’s also a little misleading.  It’s not the gushy romantic comedy that one would be led to believe it is.  It’s simply a story of a Self-Help Motivational Speaker who meets a fun, free-spirit and finds out that he’s the one who needed the help.  It’s a plot that’s been told time and time again.  But it was darker than I thought it would be.  It deals mostly with death and letting go of loved ones.  Not your typical story for a late summer estrogen party.  I’ll admit that there were even moments that had me tear up.  However most of the sobbing in the audience came from the WAY overly melodramatic ending that, for me, flirted with the edge of ridiculous.  But one of the more moving parts of the movie was one of the smallest and it involves a secondary character named “Walter” who’s played by character actor John Carroll Lynch.  The all-male creators of this movie would hope that the comedy side would be carried on the stereotypical sidekick characters of Eckhart’s chubby agent and Aniston’s hippie co-worker.  Even though these parts are played by the moderately talented Dan Fogler (”Fanboys”) and Judy Greer (”27 Dresses,” “The Village”) they fall WAY short of making me laugh more times than I can count on one hand.  But I need to repeat that the movie isn’t bad and serves its purpose.  I didn’t think that I was going to see Oscar magic, original content or hell, even anything closely related to a good movie.  But what I saw was harmless, sweet and simple.  And because I was thrown the curveball of actually feeling something during the movie (for however brief it was) I gotta give it credit considering the state of mind I was in when I sat down.
Love Happens (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: B-

The writer and producer of this movie, Diablo Cody, was the person behind the Oscar-winning film “Juno,” and in my opinion, is a writer to be respected.  She has a great way of creating dialogue that sits in a world inbetween fantasy and reality, while keeping it very funny and thoughtful…much the same Kevin Smith used to do in the ’90s.  (Sorry Kevin, you had a good run.)  But in “Jennifer’s Body” that style got the tone of the movie wrong.  You can’t have a movie that is a horror comedy spoofing it one second and snarky the next.  I enjoy both types but combining both in the same movie is just confusing.  A movie like “Shawn of the Dead” was a perfect horror comedy because it was a great horror movie that happened to be funny.  There are some scenes in “Jennifer’s Body” that are legitimately chilling.  It’s easy and satisfying to have a demonic possession movie use long-lasting images stay on a screen with no action, just to freak you out.  And the star of the film, the stunning Megan Fox, seemed like she reveled in doing that.  You can see the macabre, blood-filled smile on her face is almost indistinguishable from whether or not it’s the character “Jennifer’s” or Megan’s.  The same blurry line of real and fictitious emotion can be said for co-star Amanda Seyfried (”Big Love,” “Mamma Mia!”) and her looks of being creeped out.  Both girls are really good in this.  Director Karyn Kusama is also really good, although she lets her fascination with lesbianism get the best of her with a very sensual scene between the two stars that has absolutely no purpose in the film at all (although I did enjoy watching it).  The problem for this movie comes squarely on the shoulders of Cody and her ridiculous script.  I honestly feel like giving this movie a much worse grade than I gave it just to punish it for coming so close to being a good movie and then crashing and burning as badly as it did.  There is one single scene that was the tipping scale for me.  ”Jennifer’s Body” had me!  I was buying all of it and enjoying most of it until the scene that explains what happened to Jennifer that was so poorly done that it just made me angry.  It wasn’t funny, it wasn’t scary, it wasn’t good storytelling.  It was lazy and stupid.  In fact it was so stupid that I didn’t even care about what happened in the rest of the film.  I sat there half concentrating on the climax of the movie, while the other half of me was still dwelling on how a good movie could go so wrong.  Pity too since you’d think someone with the first name Diablo would do a great job writing a movie about the demons.
Jennifer’s Body (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: C

From the very first opening scene of this movie you know right away that it’s gonna be complete trash.  It’s the typical Hollywood college party that shows beautiful people swilling copious amounts of alcohol while getting naked and having sex all over the extremely large mansion that is decorated with millions of dollars of finely crafted furniture and expensive fixtures.  That’s one thing about cinema that I’ve never understood and never enjoyed - the bloated, false caricature of what “college parties” are like.  However, the good news is that after that, the movie is shockingly not bad.  It’s a classic horror mystery that is so much fun to watch.  It’s one of the sub-genres of horror that I really enjoy.  It’s the gore and fun of a slasher movie mixed with the whodunit story of a murder mystery.  Unfortunately the best movie to ever pull this off was the Wes Craven masterpiece “Scream.”  The whole time I was watching this I was thinking that it was done better when “Scream” did it.  See, even though the movie isn’t bad it’s really predictable and very formulaic.  But as I noticed at the reaction of my fiancee, it still does the trick with the building tension till the inevitable scare.  But the script is pretty much awful.  You can tell it was written by two men and directed by another.  It has no insight at all as to how girls interact or talk to each other.  The characters are drawn as stereotypically as you can and as far as a thrilling climax, clever killer reveal or even major loose ends to be tied up by the end…you won’t find that here.  The acting is far from varsity level but considering it stars a bunch of new actresses, such as Briana Evigan, Leah Pipes, Rumer Willis (and yes Audrina from “The Hills” for a whole 5 minutes), I wasn’t expecting Oscar performances.  (Especially from you Rumer.  You’re not hot enough or good enough to be in movies so that must mean Mommy (Demi Moore) and Daddy (Bruce Willis) helped you out there…sorry she annoys me.) But if you plan on plopping down $10 in hopes you see some blood, boobs and booze, you won’t be disappointed.  You’ll jump, laugh and scream but still leave the movie theater not remembering one thing about the movie you just saw.
Sorority Row (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: C+

If there is one consistent problem with a Rob Zombie movie (and there always is) it’s that he makes movies for a very small and very specific type of audience.  If you’re not in that group than you shouldn’t even waste your time because you’re not only gonna hate the movie but you’ll be so revolted by it that you’ll want to leave.  Luckily for him, I fall into that small group.  When his first movie “House of a 1,000 Corpses” came out, I thought it was funny, disturbing, and a fresh take on the grindhouse films of the ’70s.  Although it went in a completely separate direction, the sequel “The Devil’s Rejects” was possibly even better.  After that, came the original remake of “Halloween.”  Zombie wanted to tell HIS version of the classic John Carpenter horror.  I thought he did a good job with it.  He gave depth to the Michael Myers character by adding a 45-minute-long backstory as to why is the psychotic killer that he is and in-turn gave him a soul.  But the problem was that it was a success.  The movie made over a hundred million when it was all said and done and pressure was put on Zombie by the studio to make a sequel.  Rob Zombie movies are not made to be mainstream or box office success.  I’m not saying this out of an elitist want to keep him indie.  I’m saying this because “Halloween 2″ was made to be mainstream and it simply did not work.  It turned into exactly what is wrong with the horror genre today, whereas the entire movie is made up of the same scene done over and over again with no story ever developing.  I’m glad that he got the cast to return which includes the always impressive Malcom McDowell and Scout Taylor-Compton, but it wasn’t enough.  (It wasn’t enough for me to have Danielle Harris return since I’ve had a huge crush on her since I saw her in “The Last Boy Scout” when I was 13.)  Zombie is getting much more confident as a director.  He uses color and lighting in ways that most directors would consider to be too ridiculous or theatric.  But that’s becoming one of his staples.  He also used soundtrack in this film in quite innovative ways.  I’m not talking about the music though; I’m talking about the FX.  Besides the torturous sounds of knives sawing through muscle and bone and stabbing through limbs, he has sounds that make no sense in the scene playing so prominently that it’s almost distracting.  One suspenseful scene in particular has no sound at all except for a record skipping…awesome!  But again, it’s not enough.  The script is awful, the story was non-existent and the pacing of the movie was just confusing.  I await Zombie’s next movie in hopes that it’s another box office failure, which might make it a success to me.
Halloween 2 (Rated R)
Gavin Grade: D+

I‘m a little behind in seeing this, but I was given the heads-up that it makes you very hungry.  I was pressed for time so I had to eat dinner that night at Applebee’s before seeing the film.  Within the first couple shots of the movie you automatically feel like whatever you just ate is inadequate and lacked in flavor by a landslide to what’s being made on the screen…in my case it was made even worse by my dinner choice.  ”Julie & Julia” is based on two books, two true stories and mushed together because it probably looked great on paper to do that.  In my opinion, it wasn’t.  I actually would’ve been very interested in a movie that was just about Julia Child (Meryl Streep).  I consider myself a “foodie” but besides that she led a very interesting life, was a pioneer and an inspiration for women who want to bust through glass ceiling.  The story of Julie Powell (Amy Adams) is not interesting at all.  She’s a woman who was lost in her own life so she started a blog where she wrote about trying to cook all 500+ receipts from Julia Child’s famous “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” book in a year.  According to her, Julia Child and this project saved her life, her marriage and her sanity.  Unfortunately you don’t see any of that in the film.  It’s never fully explained how doing this made her see her life and marriage in a totally new light.  Although I love Adams as an actress, she shows us one side of the character and never gives it an arch at all.  To me it seemed that the Producers wanted to do a movie on Julia Child and thought no one would see it unless it had something else to it.  That might be true for most, but adding the Julie Powell story just made it longer.  Not to say that it’s boring or painful to watch.  It’s not!  It’s cute and light and silly.  But the movie becomes interesting again when it’s back to 1950s France with Julia and her husband Paul.  Now Paul is played by the awesome, Stanley Tucci.  It’s interesting to see the trailers beforehand full of the forthcoming romantic-comedies that star your usual Sandra Bullocks, Sarah Jessica Parkers, and Matthew McConaugheys because none of those actors share chemistry the way that Streep and Tucci do in this.  There are scenes in the movie between them that director Nora Ephron capture in one continuous shot because they glide through dialogue in a way that’s so natural that you honestly believe these people are in love…of course it helps when you were a couple that was as devoted as The Childs were to each other.  This movie has many good parts and is enjoyable to see.  Streep has earned another Oscar nomination as far as I’m concerned and so far is the leading contender.  But it feels like a meal prepared by Julie Powell and not Julia Child…not nearly as good as it should or could be, but still pretty damn tasty.
Julie & Julia (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: B