Green Zone - ***

There's something about Green Zone that just doesn't feel right. It follows fake characters who influence a real war, with an outcome that clearly didn't happen, which would normally be fine. But because the outcome is Matt Damon discovering the corrupt and fallacious beginning of the war and exposing it to the world, an ending with so much hope it seems that it is signaling an end to a war that clearly did not end three months after it started, it feels wrong. What you get is essentially a fantasy film told in the hyper-real Paul Greengrass "shaky-cam" style that worked so well for United 93 and the Bourne series. In Green Zone, Greengrass proves to anyone that didn't already believe that he has mastered the technique of shooting an entire film handheld; there are some outstanding chase sequences through darkened streets that rival the Bourne films. Matt Damon and a supporting cast that includes Amy Ryan and Greg Kinnear are great, but the film suffers from the clash between style and substance. Had it been a straight-forward action film, or had it been released six years ago, Green Zone probably would have been great, but today it just feels... off.

Alice in Wonderland - *

I'm not a fan of Tim Burton. I think he tries way too hard anymore to be "weird". I think that his "weirdness" isn't that "weird" and his films often bore me to tears. That said, he also directed one of my favorite films of all-time, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. In that last decade or so, though, his work has become stale. The same old tricks just don't work anymore. And it seems that ever since his 1999 film Sleepy Hollow he's been obsessed with using computers to achieve the look of his films. How ironic is it that this is when the quality of his films began to deteriorate?

For some reason, this isn't really the true Alice in Wonderland story. It's a sequel to nothing, essentially, as Alice has been "down the rabbithole" already. I don't really get why that was necessary, but, then again, I don't really get why the movie itself was necessary, either. After so many retellings of this story, don't we get it by now? Was the point of this movie really to improve upon the story or was it just an excuse to put Johnny Depp in the ugliest makeup I've ever seen? Did he really need to look like that? If you've seen a poster for this film, you only get an idea of how ugly he really looks, because the people in marketing scaled back the computer-generated bulging of his eyes and creepy smile that he dons throughout most of the movie. It's hideous, as is most of the movie.

I should note that the scenes which take place in the "real world" are well-shot and, for the most part, gorgeous. I can honestly say that it's some of the best cinematography in a Tim Burton film in ages and, I'll go out on a limb on this one, some of the best-looking period piece material I've seen in a few years. It is once Alice makes her descent that the film starts to look like neon diarrhea and never looks back.

Like I said, Tim Burton just tries too hard to be weird. And for what? This is a story that is already weird, and in an insurmountably greater way. His revisioning just wasn't necessary in this case, the same way it wasn't necessary when he "revisioned" Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Planet of the Apes.

By the way, the Red Queen, with the giant forehead and putrid makeup? That's Helena Bonham Carter, who just so happens to be Tim Burton's wife. Who on Earth would do that to their loved one? Then again, I think Johnny Depp is his best friend or something, so, who knows? Maybe Tim Burton's way of saying "I love you" is to make you the ugliest thing imaginable.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid - *

When did children's films stop having any element of reality in them at all? When did they altogether give up on trying to challenge kids or teach them something about life and give in to this hokey, hyper-polished Hollywood universe? I'm not sure when it was, but curse that day.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid features every awkward moment that never happened to anybody, but for some reason end up in every single movie or television show about junior high. Where did the idea for a circle of kids chanting "Fight! Fight! Fight!" come from? How about the one where the kid goes to a new school where there is a rigid social hierarchy that is so hard to break into that he has to sit on the floor at lunch next to the trash cans so asshole kids can miss the can and their uneaten food can land comically on New Kid's head? And who designed the cafeteria that doesn't have enough chairs for all of the students? What a dickhead. The most surprising thing about this film is that New Kid never shows up to school with no pants on, though that may be because there are already one-too-many shots of kids sitting on toilets with their pants down. It's weird, though it is the only thing in the film that actually happens in junior high.

She's Out of My League - ***

I thought about writing a one-line review for this movie. I think it would have looked something like this: "Surprisingly not terrible". And let's face it, folks. That's exactly what this movie is. It has everything going against it, but in the end, it somehow works.

In a world filled with unfunny movies, this one made me laugh. I can't say anything else about it. The story is crap, it isn't particularly well-shot, it is filled with those perfunctory scenes of bros just hanging around and talking about stuff, the women exist for the sole purpose of being lust after by unattractive men, it is based on a premise that is so full of shit that only some of the characters have to abide by it (this being the points system for relationships), at least two-thirds of the punchlines are dick-related, there is more than one scene involving hockey, and there is a Pepsi can in every shot.

It shouldn't work, but it does. Bravo.

Cop Out - **1/2

The first scene of Kevin Smith's Cop Out is fantastic. It's cliche, sure, but it's done so very well and involves a frantic Tracy Morgan yelling and screaming bits of dialogue from every shoot-em-up action movie of the last two or so decades, while a somber Bruce Willis looks on and notes the films these lines came from. There's even a somewhat "meta" moment when Morgan hollers a line from Willis' Die Hard, to which Willis claims he "hasn't seen that one". Like I said, it's nowhere near original, but it's cute and it works and really, how could it fail? You've got action star Willis, funnyman Morgan, and director Smith who is known as a pop culture junkie who often pays homage to these sorts of films in his own work.

How could it fail? Just see the rest of the movie. Oh, sure, it's funny, from time to time, but that isn't enough to support a whole movie. The plot is filled with the moments that made Lethal Weapon and Running Scared exciting and hilarious, while in this movie they just seem retread and tired. It doesn't help, either, that the score was done by Harold Faltermeyer, of Beverly Hills Cop fame, who does an excellent job in recreating that 1980's buddy cop sound in his themes, but to no avail in a film that is so glaringly from this century. I think that might be the film's biggest flaw - that it suffers from a strange identity crisis in wanting to be something fun and a bit retro for a target audience who just doesn't want to see this type of movie and is thus seen by young people who probably don't get (or care about) most of the references being made, and so it's stars and soundtrack just make it feel "old".

Brooklyn's Finest - Zero Stars

Brooklyn's Finest is a film that allows for the emotional detachment necessary to experience just how bad movies can be. The only thing I took away from it was the assurance that most of the movies that I hate are probably not as bad as I thought they were. It fails on some of the most fundamental levels; there were very few moments when I had any idea of what was going on, why it was going on, what it meant, or what it was intended to mean, who the characters were, what they were trying to do, what the consequences would be if they didn't do it, who I was supposed to care about, or if I was even supposed to care about someone at all, because I didn't care about any of them.

It takes place in a world where actions have no consequences, alcoholics don't drink, where there's a police raid every day, and every character speaks like he's rehearsing lines for an audition for a TNT original. Has a real cop ever said "The media's shoveling shit on our badges?" I hope not. It's an action film with no action, and it's two hours and eighteen minutes long. Bad movies are not allowed to be self-indulgent.

The film follows three characters who are cops, or scumbags, or scumbag cops. It opens with some pseudo-philosophical bullshit about "the righter and the wronger." Then some other stuff happens, guys pull guns on each other, act tough, wear doo-rags, and put their guns away. The film is devoid of any entertainment whatsoever, and there is no real drama in any of the three stories, which never converge at any point to make any sort of statement or observation about what it is to be a cop, a criminal, a resident of Brooklyn, an eater of pizza, anything. Nothing. There's nothing there. At all. Seriously.

A Quick Note About Shutter Island's Reception.

I was going to include this in my review for Shutter Island, but I ended up going a little too far with it for it to make sense being in a review, so here it is separately:

Shutter Island has been dismissed by many as just a glorified B-movie with no ambition to be anything more than that, saying that Scorsese just phoned it in (Yes, that phrase was actually used), ironic criticism coming from people who probably loved last year's triumph in self-indulgent boredom, Inglourious Basterds, or every other Quentin Tarantino film (Tarantino himself has even written Scorsese off!). To these people I would say two things: first, What's wrong with glorified pulp, especially when it is done this well? As much as I disagree with the consensus about the annoyingly-misspelled Inglourious Basterds (I don't care that it's a reference to a movie you've never seen!), and Death Proof, for that matter, I would agree that Pulp Fiction is a masterpiece, but I don't understand why Scorsese gets criticized for doing in Shutter Island what Tarantino has made a career of: piggy-backing on old movies. The irony is that Scorsese does this, ahem, a lot more maturely than Tarantino; Scorsese uses his influences as inspiration to tell his story more effectively, as support for his narrative, rather than using them entirely to construct it (though maybe that's what QT meant when he called Scorsese "geriatric").

And the second thing I would say to these people is Watch the fucking movie again.

Shutter Island - ****

"Most bombs explode from the outside, but the hydrogen bomb? It implodes. It falls in on itself and goes through a series of internal breakdowns, and creates an explosion a thousand times greater," says a mental patient to U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. It is a particularly resonant line, the poignance of which is revealed in the final moments of the film. Shutter Island works on two levels, one being a straightforward, pulpy detective story, and the other being a psychological thriller which examines the nature of paranoia, insanity, and perception, all of which is kept honest by DiCaprio's performance as a grieving husband haunted by the death of his wife.

The film takes place in 1954, at the height of Cold War paranoia, but that is really just used as a back-drop, for the film needs no outside help in creating tension. Teddy is on Shutter Island investigating the disappearance of one of its patients, but Teddy's motive runs deeper, hoping to uncover a conspiracy on the island and find the man responsible for killing his wife and children. I'll say no more about the plot, because I wouldn't dream of giving any of the details away.

Shutter Island employs a mess of B-movie cliches, right down to the twist ending, and completely works as glorified pulp. But the twist is a brilliant one, which turns all of the cliches upside-down, and transforms the entire film completely, forcing you to reconsider everything you've just seen, from the brilliant performances by a stellar supporting cast (Ben Kingsley is particularly good) to the manner in which it is presented. Scorsese uses a series of images that can be viewed several different ways, depending on your knowledge and understanding of what is going on at a particular moment, which makes Shutter Island a completely different experience a second time around.

With Shutter Island Martin Scorsese breathes some hope into this project. At this point, roughly twenty films into the year, twenty films ranging from bad to awful (with the lone exception being The Spy Next Door), something merely good would have done just fine. But instead Scorsese delivers an absolute masterpiece that is easily the best thing he has done in the last decade, which is no small feat.

The Ghost Writer - ****

There is a scene toward the end of The Ghost Writer, Roman Polanski’s latest film, in which a note is passed through a group of partygoers, hand to hand, for what seems like minutes. Calendar pages fall as we see it pass by half-full glasses of champagne, through ringed fingers and finally to the hands of the person it was meant for. The audience knows what the note reads, and the suspense which has built over the previous 60 seconds of screen time has nothing to do with finding out what it says, but how this person will react. It is a shining moment in what is one of the first great films of 2010.

The film opens with a meeting at a publishing house. Ewan McGregor plays a “ghost writer” – one who writes a book but receives no credit; someone who comes in handy when a noted politician is trying to write his autobiography but has no more talent than the person writing this review. In this case, we have Adam Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan, a former Prime Minister who is involved with several scandals involving an ongoing war. In the midst of writing his book, Lang is accused of several crimes and his first ghost writer ends up missing. It is at this point where McGregor enters, and the puzzle begins. What is so enticing about the mystery is that it isn’t just whether or not he is guilty, but who it is that might benefit from Lang taking the fall, and the ways in which the supporting cast, including Tom Wilkinson, Kim Cattrall and the always fantastic Olivia Williams try to push “the Ghost” in different directions.

I think what is most impressive about the film is the pacing. In addition to the passing of the note, there is a chase scene later in the film involving slowly-moving cars which end up on a ferry boat. Once aboard, the passengers take foot, quickly scurrying about both tiers of the vessel until one of them escapes. It travels at a snail’s pace, but is one of the most exciting sequences in the movie.

In the end, The Ghost Writer is more than just a captivating thriller. It serves as a statement on politics today and the idea of power and where it comes from in this age. I will also say that I hated writing this review because of how fond I am of the film, and look forward to tearing apart all of the muck and grime that was movies in March 2010.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief - *

Uh-oh. Somebody stole Zeus' lightning bolt, the most powerful weapon in the universe, and he thinks it's Poseidon's son, Percy Jackson. Thus we have all of the elements that comprise the clumsy, franchise-fishing title, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and I hope that franchise never bites.

It seems like a joke that Chris Columbus directed this film, because it feels like a cheap rip-off of the Harry Potter films, whose first two installments were directed by Columbus. But then again, maybe it is a joke. Columbus has proven to be a capable director in the past, with films like Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire, and this latest "effort" uses the same structure: a wacky situation is established in the first fifteen minutes, gags follow. Only with this film, he neglects any kind of character development or dramatic depth, and the action is so far from interesting or entertaining that it making fun of it almost becomes boring after a while. Almost.

There are too many stupid, ridiculous details and plot points to mention, like when the kids go to a casino to get a magic pearl that will let them of the Underworld and get high on Lotus Flowers in a weird rap-video-like montage in which Percy's sidekick, who is half goat, has his hooves painted by beautiful women. A large portion of the rest of the film involves big-name actors taking turns embarrassing themselves in cameo roles as gods along the journey, with bizarre make-up, costumes and accents, like Pierce Brosnan, who begins the film as a teacher in a wheelchair, but later he reveals his lower-half to be that of a horse. But Uma Thurman wins first prize as Medusa, sporting CGI snake-hair and sun-glasses on a decapitated head the kids carry around for most of the film. She even beats Anthony Hopkins' bald, flaming, evil-eyed Wolfman head for worst decapitated head of the February 12th weekend (I wish there had been some competition from Valentine's Day, a film that really needed to decapitate some of its characters). Despite being about gods and quests, the film's only genuine hero is Rosario Dawson's cleavage, because for three and a half minutes it is actually worth it to look at the screen.