Homeland Insecurity

To say the United States has lived in a cocoon of paranoid over-reaction for the past decade or so is perhaps an understatement. What 9/11 really seemed to accomplish more than anything was to give credence and deference to media-fueled mass hysteria. There was no logic or reason to how this country reacted to that tragedy. On the one hand we launched several ill-considered wars which when combined now represent the longest conflict in American history. But that wasn't all; we also managed to gut the constitution in what now seems almost a whim (the very rushed Patriot Act). This is all the more remarkable given that throughout the entire Cold War when the world was a heartbeat away from total nuclear destruction, we somehow managed to preserve, protect and even cherish our freedoms.

Homeland Security came into existence two years after 9/11

The latest headlines can attest to the fact that we're doing more spying now than we ever have before - even more than during the Cold War. People don't seem to question the motives or rationale behind this unprecedented level of paranoia - but they should. Let's put this into perspective; every year more than 10x as many Americans die from gunshot wounds (self inflicted or otherwise) as did during 9/11. Put another way, in one year more Americans will die from guns here at home than died in both the entire Afghan and Iraq wars combined.

Like I said, there's no logic to what's been going on here - its more or less crazy...

Season 3 has taken Homeland in new directions

Crazy, like say, Claire Danes' character in Homeland. Homeland is a Showtime series which is in its 3rd season now. Up until this season it was something we only watched while traveling - where hotels only had Showtime and Showtime kept rerunning these episodes over and over again so you really couldn't miss it. We didn't like it during season one or two and part of the reason was the principle of the thing. It seemed like a combination of the most paranoid theme of the Cold War (The Manchurian Candidate) combined with all the worst aspects of the god-awful Fox series, 24. It was about as much fun to watch as getting the Rapiscan at airport security.

But then something changed this year. The show shifted from its terrorist paranoia to a deeper focus on the Intelligence Community in general and began highlighting many of the secondary characters. More than that, though - the plot began to focus more and more on Carrie Matheson's (Danes) inability to separate mental illness from intelligence practice. This has proven much more entertaining on many levels. It allows the show to poke criticism at itself and the larger sense of national paranoia while still shifting more towards a traditional spy thriller format. Another key aspect to this season's success was the decision to put Brody (Damien Lewis - you remember him, he played the straight-laced hero Captain Winters in HBO's Band of Brothers) on the back burner. Brody in this series, is the Manchurian Candidate and quite frankly he didn't play role so well anyway. We've had two movie versions of the Manchurian Candidate and in the first one Frank Sinatra (who wasn't the candidate) was the star and in the second Denzel Washington was (although Liev Shrieber playing the candidate did a good job).

Danes, Lewis, Baccarin and Patinkin

Lewis, while a competent actor, doesn't have great range and when he does try to break out of his normal character he comes across as though he is struggling a bit. Claire Danes on the other is perfectly convincing as both a desperate agent needing to be heard and as a stark raving looney - she's got range.

Rounding out the cast this year are Mandy Patinkin, Morena Baccarin and F. Murray Abraham (yes, that guy from the Mozart movie - Salieri). All of these folks are simply stellar; Mandy Patinkin is one of the best character actors in the business and Morena helped make Firefly the classic that it's become. All in all, Homeland seems to have done a very effective job of reinventing itself this season - becoming a much more reasonable drama.

The question is; will the U.S. do the same? (and someday emerge from this collective paranoia)



Copyright 2013, Raving Reviews

#Homeland
#RavingReviews

Read More

Flight Product Placement Gets Grounded

In an unprecedented turn of events, producers of the movie Flight have been asked to obscure or remove images of certain types of brands of alcohol used by the high flying pilot Denzel Washington plays during the movie. Here's the news release:

"Denzel Washington's character in "Flight" drinks a lot throughout the film, but his portrayal of a highly functioning alcoholic pilot isn't going down well with brewing company Anheuser-Busch or the distributor of Stolichnaya vodka.
Anheuser-Busch said Monday that it has asked Paramount Pictures Corp. to obscure or remove the Budweiser logo from the film, which at one point shows Washington's character drinking the beer while behind the wheel." Associated Press

We can't recall anything similar to this happening before in Hollywood and are quite frankly stunned. Why wouldn't Beer and Vodka makers not wish to be associated with a heroic pilot who can flip his plane over drunk and still land it? It boggles the mind, but then again so does the movie which we reviewed last week.

The new pilot training program at Southjet airlines

We're wondering perhaps if the Beer and Liquor industry was incensed that Denzel needed to snort copious amounts of cocaine in order to achieve his super-piloting skills - a technique he used to counteract the effects of drinking 100 gallons of beer at one sitting. It turns out we were right because several leading Drug Lords and gangs have come out and decided to ask for their logos to be included in the movie. Look forward to seeing the Juarez Cartel logo plastered on John Goodman's jacket sometime in the next week.

Welcome to your flight - we will be flying over snowcaps on our way to paradise

So not only was this one of the dumbest movies ever made; it is likely one of the most irresponsible films ever made (for which we will have to a create a list soon). Other companies are following suit as Black and Decker and Sears have just withdrawn their support for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Saw.

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

Read More

Flight Crash Lands

We went out to the movies last night and witnessed a horrific disaster - there was an uncontrollable dive - then it burst into flames and crashed into the ground. Actually, we're not talking about the plane crash scene - we're talking about the whole movie. "Flight" has to be one of the worst films this season. This is the worst work Robert Zemeckis has done since "Who Framed Roger Rabbit."

Roger Rabbit probably did a better job than Denzel in Flight

 Ground control to Denzel, here's why we are panning this flick:

1. Because the crash should have occurred at the end instead of the beginning; it was fairly anti-climatic the way it worked out.
2. Because having a crotch-close up in the first shot of the movie doesn't lend a lot of credibility to it.
3. Because no human being could drink as much as Denzel's character and live.
4. Because Denzel makes a truly awful and unconvincing drunk. 
5. Because a British actress playing a Southern crack-ho doesn't come off as very convincing.
6. Because movies ought to a have a plot.
7. Because the movie can't decide whether it wants to be Cheech & Chong or Days of Wine and Roses. Talk about sending mixed messages - it's wrong to drink but it's ok to be a super-cool coke head?
8. Because they wasted a lot of talent. Denzel, John Goodman and Don Cheadle (who looked as though he wished he was anywhere else but in this movie).
9. Because it was predictable - we knew exactly what Denzel would do for most of the movie including the big "surprise" confession during the hearing. Know why, because the movie was one giant cliche. 
10. Because an inside look into the porn industry is just one of several bizarre and meaningless redirects tossed into a movie that seems as though it was made up as they went along.
11. Because only playing 3 to 5 seconds of really cool popular songs is annoying and none of that coolness rubs off onto the movie.
12. Because making fun of people on chemo isn't cool.

1,296 bottles of beer on my wall...

We're thinking of suing the airline over our lost $31 dollars. This was a movie that was supposed to be about a heroic pilot but turned out to be about a silly alcoholic. At the very least, Denzel and Bruce Greenwood got a chance to catch up as this might have been their first project together since St. Elsewhere (a real show). Although Bruce and Denzel share 20 minutes on screen and seem to have the rapport of two strangers sitting in a waiting room, so who knows. And what was with the crazy religious co-pilot and his wife shouting praise Jesus - another wacky misdirection which led nowhere. Do yourselves a favor and don't book passage on Flight. Heck even the name of the movie seems to forewarn us that the makers of this dud wouldn't know originality if it fell out of the sky and crashed on top of them.   

Copyright 2012 - Raving Reviews - All Rights Reserved

Read More

Top 10 Movies of 2010 We Wish We Hadn't Seen

We're not sure if these are the absolute worst movies of the year, but they do represent the worst ones we had to suffer through personally. When it gets closer to Oscar time we will do some more research and provide a more accurate Worst of 2010 list. But for now - here's the losers from last year...

• The Book of Eli - We watched this on a flight, we can't be sure if it was the altitude or the awful airline food but we got nauseous during this one. The plot was as bizarre as it was simplistic (basically it all revolved around one punchline), the acting was post apocalyptic, the scenery was dreary and depressing. All in all this movie had little going for it. Denzel Washington also seemed hopelessly miscast and out of place in his lead role. This movie rated a big "Yuk" (and not a funny yuk either).

• Extraordinary Measures - Harrison Ford proved definitively with this movie that he can play a complete jerk with zero redeeming qualities. The story was supposed to inspire us we guess, but we're not quite sure because by the halfway mark we just wanted to throw Indiana Jones into the snakepit.

• Edge of Darkness - OK, we admit we didn't actually watch this one, but it was a movie about Mel Gibson acting crazy and mean and we already saw his antics on Youtube and other places so we figured how different can it be? Just say no to Mad Mel...

• Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief - We suppose there is some value seeing Pierce Brosnan CG'd on top of a horse's ass, but beyond that this movie was fairly tedious. Granted it was supposed to be a kid's film but it just didn't have any magic to it even with the over the top special effects.
  

• The City of Your Final Destination - One good rule of thumb about movies might be that if you find the title incomprehensible it is likely that the movie may follow suit - that certainly turned out to be the case with this ridiculous Merchant Ivory flick. Luckily we caught this on DirectTV instead of the theater and saved ourselves about twenty bucks. By the end of the movie we didn't know what had happened and we didn't really care either.

• Boogie Woogie - Another rule of thumb about movie prediction is if the movie title just sounds stupid, the movie is likely to be stupid. This movie conclusively proves the point - there basically is no plot and what does appear on the screen is disjointed and mainly unpleasant. We're treated to the worst English accent in the history of Cinema from Gillian Anderson (where's Mulder when you need him), the worst gift idea ever (we cannot even begin to describe it), and the worst whining, suicidal gay rant ever. Oh, let's not forget the many knowing glances and evil hearty laughter between the rich sinister art dealers and collectors. Film as modern art is a bit hard to take - but then again so is any modern art.
  

• Robin Hood - This was without a doubt our biggest disappointment of the year; Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe and the easiest story ever - and they blew it. Seriously, how can you screw up Robin Hood? Well, if you really want to know watch this version.

• Prince of Persia - For the second worst English accent ever, check out Jake Gyllenhaal's performance in the video game inspired, insipid and downright stupid PoP. Did we say we didn't like this movie? OK, first of all why the hell do people living in ancient Persia need to speak with pompous British accents (and doing it in such a way as to insult pompous Brits everywhere)? Second, didn't they know how to shave back then and if they did were they using the Don Johnson razor stubble specials that Jake seemed to have found? And what is with the hair? Did anyone in ancient Persia go around looking that stupid? You may think we're ignoring the plot here - well, guess what there wasn't one so we're justified in focusing on the parts of the movie which will scar us forever.
  

• Knight & Day - This one should have been titled, Botox & Facelift. Are we the only ones who have noticed that Tom Cruise & Cameron Diaz seem to be unable to accept how old they are? This movie was a sad attempt to recapture lost youth and like all such attempts ends up embarrassing the folks searching for their lost youth and making the audience feel unconformable. The script is preposterous and dull at the same time (a remarkable feat) and the action scenes were all off. It's time for these two to embrace middle age.
  

• The Expendables - If ever there were an award for accuracy in movie titles - this movie would win it hands down. The whole movie is expendable, the plot is expendable, the characters are both reprehensible and expendable, the action is expendable - it was truly awful on a scale that defies description. In a previous post we noted how mental ward escapee Dolph Lungreen nearly killed Stallone while filming this monstrosity - why oh why couldn't he have killed the whole movie? If criminal penalties could be assessed to people who produce bad cinema everyone involved with this movie would be behind bars.
  

Stallone assaults his on crew during the filming of the Expendables before assaulting the American Public with one of the worst films of the year...

Our next post will be dedicated a more serious topic, to the Worst Hollywood / Celebrity hairstyles of all time...


Copyright 2010, Raving Reviews

Read More

Unstoppable is High Speed Rail

Well, since we live in Ohio we had to mention our new idiot Governor, John "the Fox" Kasich gave away $400 million dollars which would have finally given us intercity rail again (since it was shut down in the 1950's) - so this movie is the closest we're ever going to get to High Speed Rail in our State.

And this movie was based on a real incident which happened in Ohio and it was filmed in in Ohio as well. We were wondering if either Chris Pine or Denzel were from Ohio as well but we were too lazy to look it up. Anyway, one thing is for sure - Tony Scott isn't from Ohio and he tends to put Denzel in his best movies (although he's worked with Tom Cruise, Will Smith and others). Tony Scott's brother, Ridley Scott who is our all time favorite director (see our Blade Runner review) and he likes action films - this one while relatively uncomplicated is built for high speed suspense.

The aged veteran versus the punky upstart, a timeless plot but it works

There is something to be said for uncomplicated plots - sometimes we just want to go to the theater and be transported to another state of mind - to the vicarious experience. This tends to work better at a physical level - where adrenaline starts pumping as we become part of the story without having to think too hard about the philosophical implications. In Unstoppable, the freight train is without a doubt the main character - we don't get too deep with the other characters - they are ordinary folks placed in an extraordinary situation. We'd like to think we would react the same way they do (at least the folks who are trying to rescue the town, not the morons who sent the train off without the brakes turned on).

The two stars represent action of today versus action of the last twenty years. Denzel Washington has wowed us since Glory (well, we like him on St. Elsewhere too, but the action films is where he really shines) and Chris Pine made quite the splash last year with the new J.J. Abrams version of Star Trek. Placing these two stars together as the crusty veteran and cocky punk was a good casting move. The rest of the cast was relatively unimportant and in some cases downright distracting (especially the scenes with Denzel's daughters working at Hooters). It's almost as if someone said - hey there's zero sex appeal in this movie so they threw in gratuitous scenes of Hooters girls (at least they were in the bar and not trying to stop the train, although that would have made for an interesting twist).

Saturday Night Live did an excellent spoof of the Trailer -
the Denzel impression is awesome...

Unstoppable is pretty easy to figure out - we sort of knew how it would end before it started - but in a movie like this, it really doesn't matter as long as you enjoy the ride - which we did.


Copyright 2010, Raving Reviews

Read More