Review: "Live Free or Die Hard" - I Really Liked It, Didn't I?

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 102 (of 2007) by Leroy Douresseaux


Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Running time: 130 minutes (2 hours, 10 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language, and a brief sexual situation
DIRECTOR: Len Wiseman
WRITERS: Mark Bomback; from a story by Bomback and David Marconi (based upon the article “A Farewell to Arms” by John Carlin and certain original characters by Roderick Thorp)
PRODUCERS: Michael Fottrell, John McTiernan, Arnold Rifkin, and Bruce Willis
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Simon Duggan (D.o.P.)
EDITOR: Nicolas de Toth
COMPOSER: Marco Beltrami

ACTION/THRILLER/SCI-FI

Starring: Bruce Willis, Timothy Olyphant, Justin Long, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Maggie Q, Cliff Curtis, Jonathan Sadowski, Andrew Friedman, Tim Russ, and Kevin Smith

The subject of this movie review is Live Free or Die Hard, the fourth film in the Die Hard movie franchise. Bruce Willis returns as John McClane, a character created by the late novelist, Roderick Thorp, for his 1979 novel, Nothing Lasts Forever.

According to pop culture magazine Entertainment Weekly, after watching Underworld: Evolution with his daughters, Bruce Willis knew that’d he found in Underworld franchise director, Len Wiseman, the man to helm the long in gestation fourth Die Hard film. Willis’ Die Hard character John McClane is perhaps the actor’s signature role, and in the new film, Live Free or Die Hard, Willis proves that he and McClane are great in these movies. Meanwhile, Wiseman doesn’t just make a good movie. He makes damn great movie.

On the July 4th holiday, a mysterious figure attacks the United States digital infrastructure, and he’s figured out every angle, except old school, tough guy cop, John McClane (Bruce Willis). When’s he’s asked to escort Matt Farrell (Justin Long), a talented young hacker, into FBI custody, New York Police Detective McClane thinks of it as just another pain-in-the-butt favor keeping him enjoying his time off. When heavily armed and highly-trained killers come gunning for Matt and literally obliterate the young man’s apartment with gunfire, McClane knows Matt is part of something really big. Soon, McClane is dragging Matt across Washington DC, simultaneously trying to save his life and hunt down the cyber-terrorist who has brought America to a standstill.

Live Free or Die Hard practically hits the ground running, giving the viewer very little time to take a deep breath before diving into this smorgasbord of chase scenes, gun fights, and hand-to-hand combat that is a buffet of international fighting techniques. Of course, this is pretty much the way Underworld: Evolution opened – throw gasoline on the fire and then, throw that in the viewer’s face. Wiseman, however, does stay true to Die Hard’s roots. This is the kind of macho, big budget, special effects laden action filmmaking that thrived from the late 1980’s and into the 90’s. The 1988 Die Hard helped to give birth not only to sequels but to films that relied on gargantuan sound and complicated stunts like Bad Boys, Con Air, Face/Off, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and The Rock among others.

Willis is so good here that I hope he not only gives us more Die Hard flicks, but I also hope that he makes more action films just like this. Here, he certainly satisfied even the die-hardest Die Hard fan, but he does this with a good supporting cast. Justin Long is the perfect tag-along as Matt Farrell, who is basically a hand-held device – giving macho, blue collar McClane the lay of the geek-techie land, and Long seems perfectly happy to play that part. Timothy Olyphant’s brilliant smart bad guy, Thomas Gabriel, is the perfect foil for Willis’ comin’-to-kick-your-ass hero. Mary Elizabeth Winstead hits the right note as Lucy McClane, the fruit of John McClane’s loins.

Live Free or Die Hard may not seem like a great work of film art, but when McClane uses a car to “kill” a helicopter, you know that this is more than just another action movie. When a fighter jet takes on an 18-wheeler with McClane behind the wheel, you know Live Free or Die Hard is extra-special, and that’s not even the climax.

9 of 10
A+

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Review: "DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story" is Still Funny (Happy B'day, Ben Stiller)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 100 (of 2004) by Leroy Douresseaux

DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Running time: 92 minutes (1 hour, 32 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for rude and sexual humor, and language
WRITER/DIRECTOR: Rawson Marshall Thurber
PRODUCERS: Stuart Cornfeld and Ben Stiller
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jerzy Zielinski
EDITOR: Alan Baumgarten and Peter Teschner
COMPOSER: Theodore Shapiro

COMEDY/SPORTS with elements of romance

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Christine Taylor, Ben Stiller, Rip Torn, Justin Long, Stephen Root, Joel David Moore, Chris Williams, Alan Tudyk, Missi Pyle, Jamal E. Duff, Gary Cole, Jason Bateman, Al Kaplon, Curtis Armstrong, and Hank Azaria with (cameos) Lance Armstrong, Chuck Norris, and William Shatner

DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story is a 2004 sports comedy set in the world of competitive dodgeball. Ben Stiller is one of the film’s producers and is also one of the movie’s stars. DodgeBall follows an underdog dodgeball team and their rivalry with a powerhouse team from a big-budget gym.

A group of misfits band together and enter a dodgeball tournament in Las Vegas in order to save their cherished gym, Average Guy Gym. The gym owner, Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn), is not an ambitious guy, but he reluctantly joins his friends/customers to go after the $50,000 championship prize.

This prize money will save his gym from foreclosure, where upon it will end up in the hands of Global Gym and its owner, White Goodman (Ben Stiller). When Goodman learns that Peter’s friends will compete in the tournament and that Peter is also dating an attorney (Christine Taylor) he desires, Goodman assembles a killer team of hired muscle to compete in the Las Vegas tournament against Peter and his friends.

DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story is absolutely hilarious. It’s witty, sarcastic, lewd, crude, snarky, and unabashedly lowbrow, but ultimately it’s the kind of belly laugh comedy that doesn’t come around often enough. It’s not high art; it’s the love child of such films as Caddyshack and Revenge of the Nerds. Vince Vaughn, once destined to be a matinee idol, has turned out to be a funny comic actor who gets plenty of mileage out of dry wit and dead pan humor, and though he is warmer than he is hot in this film, he makes DodgeBall.

Anyone who can not take DodgeBall seriously and has the kind of sense of humor that finds a film like Dude, Where’s My Car? funny will like this.

6 of 10
B

NOTES:
2005 Razzie Awards: 1 nomination: “Worst Actor” (Ben Stiller)

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Review: "Drag Me to Hell" is Gross-Out Fun

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 5 (of 2009) by Leroy Douresseaux

Drag Me to Hell (2009)
Running time: 99 minutes (1 hour, 39 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images, and language
DIRECTOR: Sam Raimi
WRITERS: Ivan Raimi and Sam Raimi
PRODUCERS: Grant Curtis and Sam Raimi
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Peter Deming
EDITOR: Bill Murawski

HORROR with elements of comedy and thriller

Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, David Paymer, Adriana Barraza, Chelci Ross, Molly Cheek, and Reggie Lee

The Sam Raimi who directed The Evil Dead films has returned to his demonic spirits-gone-wild roots with the new film, Drag Me to Hell. Before he directed the Spider-Man films, Raimi unleashed ghoulish, comic horror movies that featured, among other things, preposterous scenes of mutilation and slapstick dismemberment, in flicks like Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992). Drag Me to Hell is essentially from the same family as those scary movies. It’s like EC Comics on crack with a steroid chaser – and rated PG-13!

This film focuses on the soft-hearted Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), an ambitious L.A. loan officer for WilshirePacific Bank. Christine also has a charming boyfriend, Clay Dalton (Justin Long), who has recently become a philosophy professor, but all is not well. The winsome girl with a dazed look in her eyes is tired of being life’s punching bag. She knows that Clay’s mother doesn’t like her (although they’ve never met), and at work, a cheesy co-worker, Stu Rubin (Reggie Lee), is scheming to snatch a promotion from her. When the mysterious, one-eyed Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) shows up at the bank and begs Christine for an extension on her home loan, Christine decides not to follow her instincts and give the old woman a break. Instead, Christine denies the extension in order to impress her boss, Mr. Jacks (David Paymer), and, in turn, get an edge in the battle for the promotion.

Christine’s fateful choice shames Mrs. Ganush and essentially dispossesses Ganush of her home. In retaliation, Ganush, a rotten-toothed old gypsy woman, places the powerful curse of the Black Lamia on Christine, which transforms the young woman’s life into a living hell. Almost immediately, the evil spirit starts to haunt and torment Christine, and her plight is misunderstood by her skeptical boyfriend. Christine seeks the aid of a seer, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), in hopes that he can tell her what’s happening. What Christine learns is that after three days of tormenting her, the Lamia will drag her soul to hell to burn for eternity.

Perhaps, it is Allison Lohman loveable, huggable, girl-next-door quality that makes it easier for the viewer to sympathize with her and even want to take on her troubles. Maybe it’s Raimi’s ability to scare the hell out of his audience with cartoonish, ghoulish nightmares – or maybe both. Whatever the reasons are, Drag Me to Hell gets in your head. Raimi does that by creating a hellish carnival atmosphere: the kind where the ticket salesman is a hideous, curse-spewing crone; where the fun house is a level of hell; and where the cotton candy maker is a jack-in-the-box full of wormy devils. The film is also very old school; Raimi often creates the sense of creeping dread by using atmospherics like shifty shadows and sound effects. This film even features a favorite Raimi trademark – a demonic possession

Drag Me to Hell is also filled with wonderfully deranged sequences. The first physical altercation between Christine and Mrs. Ganush is film’s best confrontation, and it involves nothing but hands, feet, and teeth – nothing supernatural until the end of it. In fact, Mrs. Ganush is a great character, conceived to be a physically aggressive granny who is as delightfully vindictive as she is demonic and ghoulish.

You’ll laugh. You’ll scream. You may even laugh at your own gullibility, but Sam Raimi has returned to the wretched roots of his filmmaking – bugf*ck crazy horror movies. Drag Me to Hell isn’t perfect; there’s too much of a focus on Alison Lohman’s Christine to the detriment of the other quality characters (like Justin Long’s Clay and Dileep Rao’s Rham Jas, for instance). Still, its mixture of blood-curdling terror, gross-out horror, and inspired lunacy make Drag Me to Hell one of the most entertaining horror flicks in years.

7 of 10
A-

Sunday, June 21, 2009

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Review: High Quality Ensemble Leads "Galaxy Quest" (Happy B'day, Tim Allen)

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 118 (of 2006) by Leroy Douresseaux

Galaxy Quest (1999)
Running time: 102 minutes (1 hour, 42 minutes)
MPAA – PG for some action violence, mild language, and sensuality
DIRECTOR: Dean Parisot
WRITERS: David Howard and Robert Gordon; from a story by David Howard
PRODUCERS: Mark Johnson and Charles Newirth
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jerzy Zielinski
EDITOR: Don Zimmerman

SCI-FI/COMEDY/ADVENTURE

Starring: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, Daryl Mitchell, Enrico Colantino, Robin Sachs, Patrick Breen, Missi Pyle, Jed Rees, and Justin Long

For a period of 4 years from the late 70’s to the early 80’s, on a sci-fi television series called “Galaxy Quest,” the starship, NSEA Protector, and its crew set off on thrilling and dangerous missions in outer space, until the show was cancelled. Twenty years after the series began, the five stars of the classic show: Jason Nesmith as Commander Peter Quincy Taggart (Tim Allen); Gwen DeMarco as Lt. Tawny Madison (Sigourney Weaver); Alexander Dane as Dr. Lazarus (Alan Rickman); Fred Kwan as Tech Sgt. Chen (Tony Shaloub); and Tommy Webber as Lt. Laredo (Daryl Mitchell) are still in costume, making appearances at various Galaxy Quest shows and sci-fi conventions, making speeches and signing autographs for their rabid and die-hard fans.

However, a new group of fans that are a bit too “far out,” appear at one of the conventions, but it turns out they really are aliens – the Thermians from the planet Thermia located in the Klatuu Nebula. The Thermians, who saw Galaxy Quest when the TV transmissions of the show traveled through space and reached their planet, believe that Galaxy Quest was a series of “historical documents,” of the real events. They shockingly believe that Galaxy Quest was about a real commander and his crew. They’ve built an exact replica of the Protector, but it is fully functional and operational. The Thermians whisk the crew off into space on an adventure to help them in their all-too-real war against the vile and deadly General Roth’h’ar Sarris (Robin Sachs). Now, the original crew plus Galaxy Quest TV show extra Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell) have to use their wits and their acting talents to save the Thermians and their own lives.

Galaxy Quest is simply an ode to the ultimate cult TV series, the original 1960’s “Star Trek.” This movie plays on the notion of the original Trek cast trying to escape the fame (or infamy) that came with being on the show, although the series’ enduring popularity made them famous and kept earning them money. Galaxy Quest’s hook is to ask the question, “What if the cast of such a show really had to be interstellar space adventurers taking on deadly galactic threats?” Ultimately, the film takes this novel idea and turns it into a superb, comic sci-fi film – one of the best sci-fi comedies ever to hit the screen. Anyone who has ever seen Star Trek will get the jokes and in-jokes because this film is so obviously a riff on everything that has to do with Star Trek, from the series itself to the Trek actors and the rabid Star Trek fan base, known as “Trekkies.”

I don’t know if someone who has never seen Star Trek will get this flick (“Galaxy Quest” was the title of an actual short lived Canadian TV series), but those who know Trek will love the gentle reminder of what made the series good and what makes it fun to be a fan. When Galaxy Quest seems to ask, “What if this were real?” we can feel that and can dream of how much fun it would be, and this winning and charming film captures that sense of fun.

8 of 10
A

Saturday, May 27, 2006

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