Latino movie reviews and quick takes on new releases

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Movie Review)

Rated: R on appeal for strong crude sexual content including dialogue, graphic nudity and pervasive language.
Release Date: 2008-10-31
Starring: Kevin Smith
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Country: USA
Official Website: http://zackandmiri.com/

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RocknRolla (Movie Review)

Rated: R for pervasive language, violence, drug use and brief sexuality.
Release Date: 2008-10-31
Starring: Guy Ritchie
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Country: England
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Guy Ritchie made his mark for film-goers not by marrying one of the world’s most visible pop stars, but by crafting Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. He exploded onto the cinematic scene with the former; the reaction from Hollywood was so ecstatic that the latter became virtually a higher-budget remake of its predecessor. Still, while the two may co-mingle in the memory, both are entertaining in their own right. After that, Ritchie began believing his press about doing no wrong and went off the deep end. His most recent features illustrate how badly he has miscalculated his aptitude. Swept Away, a horrific remake of the Lina Wertmuller masterpiece starring the aforementioned pop star, and Revolver, were unmitigated disasters – seen by few and liked by almost none. RocknRolla is Ritchie’s attempt to return to his roots: rough and tumble action, convoluted plots, and rat-a-tat-tat dialogue. All of these things are on exhibit in RocknRolla, but they do not flow smoothly. They feel forced and unnatural, as if Ritchie is keenly aware of what needs to do to placate the naysayers but can’t put everything together in a way that recaptures the magic. As punchy and energetic as the first few moments are, the rest of the film quickly falls back into mediocrity.

The story, as one might expect, features a congregation of bad guys who sleaze around London’s underworld. They include a boss played by a scenery-chewing Tom Wilkinson (an actor who can be sublime or over-the-top – whatever the role requires), a two-bit thug portrayed by Gerard Butler, and a femme fatale in the person of Thandie Newton. The narrator is Mark Strong who, through a quirk of scheduling, is appearing in two movies released this weekend. (The other being Body of Lies.) There are various double-crosses, a Maguffin in the form of a painting we never see, and a Russian land developer who hires some unsavory underlings. Throw in a junkie ex-rock star and a posse of tough guys, and you have typical Ritchie territory. Plot threads entwine and overlap and, in the end, it all comes together. There’s some torture, lots of shooting, and a couple characters get their just desserts. Yet, when the end credits roll, instead of shouting, “Damn, that was cool!” there’s a desire to yell, “Damn, that was lame!” It’s all perfunctory and feels far too contrived and scripted.

RocknRolla has a few high octane moments: the opening credits, which are loud and boisterous and promise more than the film delivers; a caper-gone-wrong that finds the right mixture of comedy and action; and a uniquely edited sex scene that gives new meaning to the phrase “Wham, bam, thank you, Ma’am.” Unfortunately, the things that work are outnumbered by those that don’t. Some of the “clever” bits, such as the big, black thug who understands culture and art, are clichés. Maybe once, long ago, they wouldn’t have been but that’s what happens when something has become overexposed through overuse. The movie spins out of control when it begins to focus on the rock star Johnny Quid (Toby Kebbell), whose presence in the film serves only to add another layer of complications to an already convoluted plot. The involvement of people like Johnny diverts the story from the more interesting characters. Get us back to Wilkinson, Butler, and especially Newton.

RocknRolla often feels more like a parody of a Guy Ritchie film than a real movie. Lock, Stock and Snatch both rolled along like bizarre cinematic Rube Goldberg machines where the endings justified the convulsions needed to get to that point. RocknRolla breaks down along the way and the ending is so anti-climactic that it leaves one wondering: “Is that all?” Based on the evidence at hand, one can safely state that Ritchie is a one-note director. With RocknRolla, that note is off-key.

Saw V (Movie Review)

Rated: R for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture, language and brief nudity.
Release Date: 2008-10-24
Starring: Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
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Country: USA
Official Website: http://www.saw5.com/site/index.html

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SAW V is the worst film in the franchise’s history, yet it’s disturbing, gory, parody of itself maintains an appeal like no other in its ilk. Bad acting, a ‘horror’ of a script dialogue, all add to the mystique of why we as a collective mass of movie goers flock to films of this nature.

Jigsaw is dead and Detective Strahm is trying to get to the bottom of who is continuing his deranged games.

SAW movies are no longer frightening, they are just living off of their reputation from the first two. Director David Hackl reduces the bloodshed compared to it’s previous incarnations and in this fifth installment he delivers more of a character driven feature, leaving us more time to be engaged by the actor’s skills – why would you put us through such a thing!?

Nevertheless, the inventiveness of how to kill people is amped in this sequel; from homemade nail bombs to guillotine contraptions.

If you’re looking for a fright, save your money on SAW 5 and rent The Strangers on DVD. That has more of what you’re looking for. It was created to scare the skin off of you through a slow build of suspense that keeps you screaming to the very end.

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (Movie Review)

Hummus is funny. Scratch that: Hummus is hilarious. It’s got a weird name. It’s gooey. It’s foreign. Like, imagine if someone dipped their eyeglasses in hummus and then licked the hummus off–that’d be pretty hysterical, right? Or what if someone combed hummus into his hair. Or put hummus on the cat. Or used a whole giant tub of hummus to hose down a fire. Or how about this: One rich New York executive asks another what hummus is–because, I mean, how could he possibly know?–and the second guy tells him, “It’s a very tasty diarrhea-like substance.

“How you respond to the preceding paragraph will probably give you a pretty good idea of whether you should see You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Adam Sandler’s latest exploration of the cinema of adolescence. As is so often the case, Sandler plays a character pulled between the competing poles of masculine aggression and boyish sweetness. (In his most ambitious performance, in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, this duality was advertised right in the title.) This time, though, the split is literalized–or, rather, professionalized: Sandler’s Zohan is a superhuman Israeli counter-terrorism agent who wants to quit the Army and become–wait for it–a hairdresser.

To this end, he fakes his own death in a confrontation with his Palestinian nemesis, the Phantom (John Turturro), and smuggles himself to New York in a dog carrier, taking his co-travelers’ names as his own, “Scrappy Coco.” Upon arrival, he immediately visits the Paul Mitchell salon looking for a job, pausing briefly to rub his crotch against the glass front door to signal his enthusiasm. Remarkably, he does not find employment there, nor at a black women’s hair boutique, nor at a kids barbershop. He eventually insinuates himself into a salon run by a beautiful Palestinian named Dalia (Emmanuelle Chriqui), where he sets about Warren Beattying his way through the clientele, a la Shampoo. The gag is that rather than offer carnal solace to the likes of Julie Christie, Goldie Hawn, and Lee Grant, he instead boinks a series of grateful sexa-, septua-, octo-, and nonogenarians in the salon’s back room.

As he explains while putting off one eager client, “First, I have to cut and bang Mrs. Greenhouse.”

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Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (Movie Review)

Rated: PG-13 for mature thematic material including teen drinking, sexuality, language and crude behavior.
Release Date: 2008-10-03
Starring: Lorene Scafaria, Rachel Cohn (novela), David Levithan (novela)
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Country: USA
Official Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/

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If you like romantic teen movies and love Manhattan’s lower east side, you’ll be infatuated with the new cinematographic work of Michael Cera, North America’s sloppy king. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is an honest romantic tale full of authenticity, with a simple principle and a dialogue that’s intelligent and current.
 
Nick (Michael Cera) is a solitary character that wonders the world; meanwhile Norah (Kat Dennings) is an insecure person that is looking for herself. Although they don’t have anything in common except music, a casual encounter at a punk concert will become a romance that will change their lives forever.

This film perhaps won’t define the youth of our generation like “Sixteen Candles†from the master John Hughes, but it achieves to capture a real portrayal of the youth in NYC in 2008. This is credited to the young director Peter Sollet (Raising Victor Vargas, Five Feet High and Rising) who guides himself through big filmmakers such as Richard Linklater and Woody Allen, except that there are no neurotic characters or super-complex dialogues. What is evident is the relaxed vibe of the characters and of the movie. It’s a world where the only worry is the time it takes one to forget about one’s ex.

The main characters, Cera and Dennings are the new Allen and Keaton of today. There is a magnetism that exists between them and individually. The camera adores these two and their futures are almost guaranteed.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is directed to a young audience that is looking for love that is innocent and real, without radical idealisms or complicated answers to questions. This is a movie that will make you smile when you are sad and will make you remember the moments when love was pure and innocent.