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October 2005 Reviews By Shawn McKenzie 12/23/2006 Here are my reviews of the movies that were released in October of 2005 (other than the reviews I have already done from that month.) Go directly to my reviews of Doom, Elizabethtown, The Fog, Good Night, and Good Luck, Hellbent, Nine Lives, North Country, Prime, The Squid and the Whale, Stay, and The Weather Man. At the Olduvai Research Station, a remote scientific facility on the planet Mars in 2026, head scientist Dr. Carmack (Robert Russell) and his team are attacked (and most of them are killed) by a bunch of space monsters. Before he is killed himself, Carmack sends out a distress signal to the Union Aerospace Corporation’s (UAC) base in California. A team of elite special ops Marines called the Rapid Response Tactical Squad, led by a man known only as Sarge (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), are deployed to contain the threat and hopefully save any survivors. Sarge’s seven-member crew is: vet John “Reaper” Grimm (Karl Urban); religious man Goat (Ben Daniels); big quiet tough guy Destroyer (DeObia Oparei); the lovestruck Duke (Raz Adoti); the devious Portman (Richard Brake); Chinese immigrant Mac (Yao Chin); and rookie soldier The Kid (Al Weaver.) Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike), Reaper’s estranged fraternal sister, and Abraham “Pinky” Pinkowski (Dexter Fletcher), whose bottom half of his body was replaced by robotics and wheels due to major turbulence during Ark travel (the Ark is the teleportation device that transports people back and forth between Earth and Mars), accompanies them. While Samantha tries to complete Carmack’s research…including the discovery of a 24th chromosome that can make people superhuman…Sarge does everything that he can to neutralize the threat without stopping to make sure if they really are a threat. I haven’t seen 2004’s Walking Tall, but I have seen all of The Rock’s other movies, and Doom is by far his worst movie so far. I was excited to see him play a bad guy for the first time since 2001’s The Mummy Returns, but this mix of 1986’s Aliens and a zombie movie wasn’t very interesting. I will say that the big scene in the end, where Reaper mimics the first-person view of the game (specifically Doom 3), looked cool to me (though I have heard from fans of the game that they were very disappointed, which is why it bombed at the box office.)
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Following the loss of his job from an Oregon sneaker company when he develops a sneaker that costs the company $972 million in losses, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) decides to kill himself. His boss Phil DeVoss (Alec Baldwin) is the one who fired him, and not long after, his girlfriend Ellen Kishmore (Jessica Biel) dumps him…so he feels like he has nothing to live for. Right before he attempts to do it, he receives a phone call from his sister Heather (Judy Greer) that their father Mitch (Tim Devitt) has died of a heart attack, and she needs to come home to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, to collect Mitch’s remains, since their mom Hollie (Susan Sarandon) and she can’t deal with the grief. While on the flight, Drew encounters a bubbly stewardess named Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst) who talks his ear off and gives him directions once he gets to town (along with her cell phone number.) When he gets to town, he is treated like a hometown hero (they haven’t heard yet about his failure.) He reunites with his Aunt Dora (Paula Deen), Uncle Dale (Loudon Wainwright III), and his cousin Jessie (Paul Schneider)…the latter of which treats his unruly son Samson (Maxwell Moss Steen and Reid Thompson Steen) like a buddy. He also sees an old family friend named Bill Banyon (Bruce Mcgill), whom Hollie thinks cheated Mitch out of some money a while ago. Later on in his hotel, while a newlywed couple named Chuck (Jed Rees) and Cindy (Emily Rutherfurd) are celebrating their wedding, a depressed Drew decides to call Claire. They eventually bond over the phone and later in person, and she helps him reavaluate his life. When I first saw this movie, I fell in love with it…but when it became a critical and box office bomb, I was surprised. I have liked all of writer/director Cameron Crowe’s movies (except for 1984’s The Wild Life…but only because I have never seen it), and I don’t know why he hasn’t been embraced critically in the last few years. I will admit that 2001’s Vanilla Sky was a little odd, but I liked it. Bloom did a decent job in his part, and I absolutley thought that Dunst played her part perfectly. It was a tad long (two hours and three minutes), but I recommend checking it out. It’s no Say Anything, but it might warm your heart.
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A hundred years ago on the remote island town of Antonio Bay, just off the coast of Oregon, the town’s four founders (Christian Bocher, Douglas H. Arthurs, Yves Cameron, and Charles Andre) and a boat captain named Blake (Rade Sherbedgia) did something unspeakable. Flash foreword to the present day, while a couple of town officials, Mayor Tom Malone (Kenneth Welsh) and town historian Kathy Williams (Sara Botsford), prepare to introduce a new statue memorial of the four founding fathers, sea tour captain Nick Castle (Tom Welling) and his first mate Brett Spooner (DeRay Davis) discuss Nick’s girlfriend Elizabeth (Maggie Grace.) She had gone to New York six months ago to get away from her mother Kathy, and Nick misses her. While they are talking about it, they accidentally snag a bag on the sea floor with their anchor, which releases some ghostly spirits. Meanwhile, Dan the weatherman (Jonathon Young) tells lighthouse radio deejay Stevie Wayne (Selma Blair) about a thick fog bank coming ashore. Stevie has a young son named Andy (Cole Heppell) who stays with his Aunt Connie (Mary Black) while she does her radio show, so she believes the boy is safe. A drunken priest named Father Robert Malone (Adrian Hough) isn’t so sure though…and he attempts to book it out of town. Later on, Spooner and Nick’s cousin Sean (Matthew Currie Holmes) parties upon the boat with a couple of girls (Sonja Bennett and Meghan Heffern) when the fog kills all of them except Spooner. The survivors try to figure out what the heck is going on and endure the scary fog spirits. The movie is a remake of the original 1980 version, which was directed by Halloween helmer John Carpenter. It was the first theatrical movie Carpenter had done since that 1978 classic horror movie, and that weather-related ghost story wasn’t very scary even then. The remake is even less scary than that one, and it completely wastes the talents of Welling and Grace, who have done better work on their TV shows, the CW’s “Smallville” and ABC’s “Lost,” respectively (which is why it’s a shame that Grace’s character of Shannon on that Emmy-winning show was killed. This movie seems like it is twisting the knife in her career.) If you want to see a very good remake of a John Carpenter movie released in 2005, check out Assault on Precinct 13. This “horror” movie is less creepy than it is annoying.
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Good Night, and Good Luck Review In 1958, CBS news reporter Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) is at a Radio and Television News Directors Association tribute dinner dedicated to him, when he decides to rant about the state of news reporting. The movie then flashes back to 1953, where we see Murrow hosting the hard-hitting news program “See It Now” and the puff piece show “Person to Person.” He works with his producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) to produce the show. They are assisted by a staff that includes Don Hewitt (Grant Heslov), Palmer Williams (Tom Mccarthy), Jesse Zousmer (Tate Donovan), John Aaron (Reed Diamond), Charlie Mack (Robert John Burke), Eddie Scott (Matt Ross), Joe (Robert Downey, Jr.), and Shirley Wershba (Patricia Clarkson.) Joe and Shirley have actually kept their marriage a secret, but almost everyone already knows about it. After a Navy pilot named Lt. Milo Radulovich is discharged for refusing to denounce his immigrant father and sister under the suspicion of Communist activities, Murrow decides to go after Radulovich’s accuser…Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. He starts a war of words with McCarthy, knowing that he might be called a Communist himself…something has also recently affected Murrow’s colleague Don Hollenbeck (Ray Wise.) Murrow is also pressured by the show’s sponsor, Alcoa Aluminum, and by news president Sig Mickelson (Jeff Daniels) to think twice about going after the senator. Sig’s boss, network boss Bill Paley (Frank Langella), decides to let Murrow and Friendly go ahead with the attacks, and the rest is history. Clooney directed this very good movie, which went onto get nominated for six Oscars (including Best Director and Best Picture) and four Golden Globes (including those same two categories.) It’s too bad that neither awards shows honored Clooney’s very creative film that feels old-fashioned and current at the same time. His decision to use archived footage of McCarthy instead of an actor substituting for the senator was creative, and his decision to film it in black-and-white felt appropriate for the time period and the profession that Murrow was in. Strathairn captured Murrow perfectly (the actor was also denied an Oscar and a Golden Globe for the portrayal.) I really liked Clooney’s debut film, 2002’s Chuck Barris biopic Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and I look forward to his football-themed romantic comedy Leatherheads (the release date is projected to be in 2008.)
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Billed as the first-ever gay slasher film, Hellbent doesn’t distinguish itself with a story that is unique. The movie starts out with gay couple Jorge (Miguel Caballero) and Mikey (Sam Levine) making out in a car on the night before Halloween. Suddenly, a man in a devil mask (Michael Louden) kills them with a scythe. The next day, Eddie (Dylan Fergus), a police technician who failed his physical to become a real cop because he has a fake eye, is asked by his captain (Wren T. Brown) to pass out flyers about the murders in West Hollywood. While doing that task, he runs into a biker named Jake (Bryan Kirkwood), whom he is immediately attracted to. After doing that, he heads off to the West Hollywood Halloween Carnaval with his three roommates: ecstasy-popping bisexual Chaz (Andrew Levitas); sexually-inexperienced waiter Joey (Hank Harris); and model Tobey (Matt Phillips), who made the unfortunate choice to dress in drag (which lessons his chances of getting hit on.) Before going to the Carnaval, they go to the site of the murders, where they spot the killer, who they think is a kinky leather boy, so they tease him and moon him. For some reason, that makes them a target for the killers, who kills them one-by-one at the Carnaval. The biggest flaw about the movie is that there is not even a hint of what the motivation is as to why the killer does his killing. Just because it is different in that it is the “Queer as Folk” of horror movies, it isn’t nearly as interesting as that Showtime series. The killer’s scythe was kinda cool though.
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Rodrigo García wrote and directed this movie about the lives of nine women, played by Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, Elpidia Carrillo, Glenn Close, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Holly Hunter, Amanda Seyfriend, Sissy Spacek, and Robin Wright Penn. They are done in 10 to 12 minute segments, but with the exception of a couple of character crossovers, the segments don’t connect with one another. They just have the similar theme of letting the audience witness ten minutes in the lives of nine women (literally…the camera doesn’t shut off during the segments until each one finishes.) Overall, it is interesting, but some segments are more interesting than others. Ironically, my favorite segment was the first one…about a prison inmate (Carrillo) who is looking forward to visit with her daughter, but freaks out when she is denied the visit. Wright Penn is the one who got the most awards attention, but her segment about her being a pregnant wife who bumps into an old boyfriend (Jason Isaacs) in the supermarket is just okay. The thing that is annoying about Nine Lives is that it pauses for what seems like five seconds between segments…which allows you to wonder if the movie is over (and whether or not you care if it is.)
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Josey Aimes (Charlize Theron) is a single mother of two kids, Sam (Thomas Curtis) and Karen (Elle Peterson), who lives in the Mesabi Iron Range in Northern Minnesota in 1989. She has just escaped her abusive husband Wayne (Marcus Chait), and she lives with her old-fashioned parents, Hank (Richard Jenkins) and Alice (Sissy Spacek.) Hank thinks that it was her fault that Josey’s marriage failed, and Alice doesn’t stick up for her, so she takes her kids and stays with her best friend Glory (Frances McDormand)…who is suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease…and her husband Kyle (Sean Bean.) Glory is the only female union rep for Pearson Tacomite and Steel, a local iron mine (Kyle works there as well.) Since Josey desperately needs a job to take care of her kids, Glory helps her get a job there, despite the fact that the men outnumber the women by 30 to 1. Most of the men don’t think that she can do the job because she is a woman…and she and Glory, along with Big Betty (Rusty Schwimmer) and 19-year-old Sherry (Michelle Monaghan)…are the only women there. She can handle the hard, blue-collar work, but she can’t stand the constant sexual harassment. Glory tells Josey to develop a thicker skin, and the other women just take it in fear of losing their jobs. When the harassment becomes worse though…including an attempted sexual assault by her immediate supervisor Bobby Sharp (Jeremy Renner), her former high school boyfriend…she takes it up with the head of personnel Arlen Pavich (Xander Berkeley), who dismisses her. She then tries taking her complaint to the head boss, Don Person (James Cada), he thinks that she is just trying to stir up some trouble. She quits and talks Glory and Kyle’s lawyer friend Bill White (Woody Harrelson) into starting a sexual harassment class action suit against the company. Theron and McDormand (once again doing her Fargo accent) earned Oscar nominations, but they lost…the theory being that the movie itself did badly in the box office. It’s a shame, because it was probably one of the best roles for all concerned (my colleague Reggie McDaniel predicted that McDormand would win Best Supporting Actress.) Some people may compare North Country to 1979’s Oscar-nominated Norma Rae, but I feel like it is a relevant movie even in today’s political climate.
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Rafi Gardet (Uma Thurman) is a 37-year-old photography producer from Manhattan who just recently ended her marriage of nine years. She is seeing Lisa Metzger (Meryl Streep), a Jewish therapist who runs her practice from an office next to her Upper West Side apartment. Lisa encourages Rafi to play the field, which she does…with a 23-year-old Jewish aspiring artist named David Bloomberg (Bryan Greenberg.) David lives with his grandparents (Jerry Adler, Doris Belack), and his best friend Morris’s (Jon Abrahams) bad advice doesn’t help matters (with his tendency to throw pies in the faces of dates), but what started as a fling becomes a full-blown relationship. When Lisa, who uses her professional last name, finds out that the younger man that Rafi is dating is her son David, she consults with her therapist, Rita (Madhur Jaffrey), on what to do. She doesn’t want David to date an older woman who isn’t Jewish, but Rita advises to keep treating Rafi in the hopes that the relationship will soon end. While most other critics were divided by this romantic comedy, I found it original and funny. Also, I love it when Streep does comedy!
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The Squid and the Whale Review Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) is an elitist teacher and author living in Park Slope, Brooklyn in 1986. He and his wife Joan (Laura Linney) have decided to separate, which has psychological effects on their two sons, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline.) While Bernard fools around with one of his students…the young, attractive, and flirtatious Lili (Anna Paquin)…Joan takes up with Ivan (William Baldwin), the local tennis pro who annoyingly keeps calling everyone “my brotha.” Walt has adopted his father’s elitist attitude, especially with his girlfriend Sophie (Halley Feiffer), while Frank acts up in school in disturbing ways. While writer/director Noah Baumbach’s semi-autobiographical movie sounds depressing, it is actually very funny. In fact, The Squid and the Whale was nominated for three Golden Globes in the Musical or Comedy category (Best Motion Picture; Jeff Daniels for Best Performance by an Actor; Laura Linney for Best Performance by an Actress.) The cast is great all around, and if you are a child of divorce, then you may identify with it.
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Sam Foster (Ewan McGregor) is a New York psychiatrist who acquires a new, interesting patient. Art student Henry Letham claims that he will shoot himself Saturday at midnight…the moment he turns 21. This was a case taken over by Dr. Beth Levy (Janeane Garofalo), who had taken ill, and Sam obsesses over the reasons behind Henry’s deadly plan. He consults with blind friend Dr. Leon Patterson (Bob Hoskins) and his girlfriend, art professor Lila Culpepper (Naomi Watts), who was a former suicidal patient of Sam’s, so she thinks that she might be able to talk to Henry, since she can relate. Sam attempts to do it on his own, which leads him to waitress and aspiring actress Athena (Elizabeth Reaser)…a woman who has made an impact on Henry…and Henry’s mother Maureen (Kate Burton)…whom everyone claims to be dead (including by Henry.) Weird to the point of not being enjoyable…I wish that it made sense in the end once they give you the big “reveal.” It has some cool flowing edits though. If director Marc Forster and screenwriter David Benioff hadn’t tried so hard to confuse the audience with Stay then it might have been a bigger hit in the box office.
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Chicago weatherman David Spritz (Nicolas Cage) is very good at doing his job (despite people occasionally throwing food at him when he innaccurately predicts the weather)…but in his personal life, he is a mess. He doesn’t feel like he can ever live up to the expectations of his Pulizer-prize winning author father Robert (Michael Caine), because he thinks that all Dave does is just point at things for a living. Unfortunately, Robert is dying of lymphoma, and he wants to see his son get his life back together. Dave is separated from his wife Noreen (Hope Davis), who is dating a guy named Russ (Michael Rispoli.) His 15-year-old son Mike (Nicholas Hoult) has run into some problems with drugs, and Mike’s rehab counselor, Don (Gil Bellows), is a closeted pedophile. His 12-year-old daughter Shelly (Gemmenne de la Peña) smokes and is constantly teased about her weight and appearance. Dave’s attempt to help her is by signing her up for expensive archery lessons. When she loses interest in them, Dave takes the lessons over for himself, which ironnically boosts his own self-esteem. If Dave can get a job doing the weather for the national morning show “Hello America,” hosted by Bryant Gumbel, then he figures that he can move his family to New York City and live a happy life again. I could really identify with this movie in terms that I am more successful professionally as a radio personality (when I can actually get a radio job) then I am in my personal life (though my life is not nearly as messed up as Dave’s life.) While The Weather Man was a wide release movie, it felt like an indie release. Gore Verbinski, the man behind 2002’s The Ring and the two extremely successful Pirates of the Caribbean movies, took a huge risk with this more personal tale, and while it ultimately bombed at the box office, it remains one of my favorite Cage flicks.
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