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seriousficThe Gray
It's like that, but with Liam Neeson. What more do you want, a lollypop?
Man On A Ledge
Okay, not all movies can be great. It's a given that most movies are going to be average. That's what the word average means. They come on TNT and you're like "oh, that's on?" and maybe you watch it, but you don't buy the DVD. That's Man On A Ledge. It's really their own fault. This movie was made by people who weren't creative enough to realize they could call this movie Man On The Edge. I mean, there's a fairly important character who gets shot toward the end, and the movie just kinda forgets about him. Next scene, everyone's celebrating and proposing marriage and coming back from the dead, so did he live or are they all just cool with that guy dying because he was kind of a prick?
Also, they cast Sam Worthington in the lead. Now, Sam Worthington has his place. If you need someone who can look cool while shooting people, or punching people, or stabbing people, or other activities that don't require a convincing American accent, he's your guy (and not Shia LeBeouf, Hollywood). But here, he has to play a guy pretending to threaten to jump off a ledge. So pretty much all he does is talk. And it's not like he's talking about interesting stuff. We, because of the trailers that have played in front of every movie for six months, know that he's just bullshitting the hostage negotiators while the real action happens across the street. So maybe David Mamet could take scenes that the audience knows are basically bullshit and make them interesting. But whoever they got to write this, can't. It's like spending an entire movie with the stripper that Danny Ocean hires to distract the guards instead of watching George Clooney and his amazing band of character actors steal shit (or engage in asshole fourth-wall nonsense, if you're watching Ocean's Twelve).
I will say this, Jamie Bell and Genesis Rodriguez: Cute Jewel Thieves are fun, even if Genesis Rodriguez (G-Rod?) spends 75% of the movie in a top cut down to her bra--just the thing to wear when you're going to be drilling into bank vaults and setting off explosives, et al--and the other 25% in a high-tech catsuit. Amazing how the latest in garment technology is always incorporated into catsuits when it's for women. We can make women's garments bulletproof but we can't make them two-pieces? Odd.
Okay, that's a lie, she spends one percent in lingerie. Just checking, but if your boyfriend is Jamie Bell and he sees you in lingerie and he says you look like a piece of art, would your reaction really be "oh, gross"? C'mon, what more do you want from him? Is he just supposed to not say anything while his hot girlfriend who he loves is in lingerie? Man's just trying to have some fun while he pulls a jewelry heist to prove his brother's innocence.
By the way, The Closer plays Suzie Morales, and she always says her last name with this weird emphasis, so is she supposed to be Hispanic? I don't know, she doesn't curse in Spanish when she's irritated like Genesis Rodriguez does. Then again, she never does get very annoyed. She's possibly the only scumbag reporter in a Hollywood thriller who ends up with no comeuppance. Maybe they're saving that for the sequel, Man On A Ledge 2: During A Rainstorm.
Oh, sorry, I didn't mention Elizabeth Banks. She plays a hard-living, world-weary, bitter old police officer--no, really, gets out of bed at three PM after a one-night stand with tequila. I didn't buy it. Her backstory--and I'm not spoiling anything here, this "mystery" gets revealed five minutes after she shows up--is that she's a hostage negotiator who had a jumper commit suicide on her, so now the entire police department hates her. I'm not really a law enforcement expert, I haven't even seen Homicide: Life On The Streets, but would anyone's reaction to a negotiator who lost a person be "Nice job not getting someone killed, bitch"? Wouldn't they, I don't know, sympathize with her? I know the screenplay wants her to be an underdog so we like her, but she can just be fucked up from having someone die on her watch, we don't need every cop in New York to treat her like a Roald Dahl protagonist. Or does that happen in other professions? "Oh, you lost a patient, Dr. Ferguson? Why don't you go fuck off and die, cocksucker? Hey, Fireman Joe, you didn't get that kid out of a burning building? Fuck your mother! Yo, Private Tom, great job saving that guy from the IED that exploded under his Humvee. Not!"
Anyway, watch The Gray instead. The sooner we all stop pretending Sam Worthington is a real actor, the better.
Although The Gray doesn't have this. Maybe they could've had a scene where Liam Neeson had to break into a bank vault? A bank vault would be very safe from timber wolves. Just spitballing here.
It's like that, but with Liam Neeson. What more do you want, a lollypop?
Man On A Ledge
Okay, not all movies can be great. It's a given that most movies are going to be average. That's what the word average means. They come on TNT and you're like "oh, that's on?" and maybe you watch it, but you don't buy the DVD. That's Man On A Ledge. It's really their own fault. This movie was made by people who weren't creative enough to realize they could call this movie Man On The Edge. I mean, there's a fairly important character who gets shot toward the end, and the movie just kinda forgets about him. Next scene, everyone's celebrating and proposing marriage and coming back from the dead, so did he live or are they all just cool with that guy dying because he was kind of a prick?
Also, they cast Sam Worthington in the lead. Now, Sam Worthington has his place. If you need someone who can look cool while shooting people, or punching people, or stabbing people, or other activities that don't require a convincing American accent, he's your guy (and not Shia LeBeouf, Hollywood). But here, he has to play a guy pretending to threaten to jump off a ledge. So pretty much all he does is talk. And it's not like he's talking about interesting stuff. We, because of the trailers that have played in front of every movie for six months, know that he's just bullshitting the hostage negotiators while the real action happens across the street. So maybe David Mamet could take scenes that the audience knows are basically bullshit and make them interesting. But whoever they got to write this, can't. It's like spending an entire movie with the stripper that Danny Ocean hires to distract the guards instead of watching George Clooney and his amazing band of character actors steal shit (or engage in asshole fourth-wall nonsense, if you're watching Ocean's Twelve).
I will say this, Jamie Bell and Genesis Rodriguez: Cute Jewel Thieves are fun, even if Genesis Rodriguez (G-Rod?) spends 75% of the movie in a top cut down to her bra--just the thing to wear when you're going to be drilling into bank vaults and setting off explosives, et al--and the other 25% in a high-tech catsuit. Amazing how the latest in garment technology is always incorporated into catsuits when it's for women. We can make women's garments bulletproof but we can't make them two-pieces? Odd.
Okay, that's a lie, she spends one percent in lingerie. Just checking, but if your boyfriend is Jamie Bell and he sees you in lingerie and he says you look like a piece of art, would your reaction really be "oh, gross"? C'mon, what more do you want from him? Is he just supposed to not say anything while his hot girlfriend who he loves is in lingerie? Man's just trying to have some fun while he pulls a jewelry heist to prove his brother's innocence.
By the way, The Closer plays Suzie Morales, and she always says her last name with this weird emphasis, so is she supposed to be Hispanic? I don't know, she doesn't curse in Spanish when she's irritated like Genesis Rodriguez does. Then again, she never does get very annoyed. She's possibly the only scumbag reporter in a Hollywood thriller who ends up with no comeuppance. Maybe they're saving that for the sequel, Man On A Ledge 2: During A Rainstorm.
Oh, sorry, I didn't mention Elizabeth Banks. She plays a hard-living, world-weary, bitter old police officer--no, really, gets out of bed at three PM after a one-night stand with tequila. I didn't buy it. Her backstory--and I'm not spoiling anything here, this "mystery" gets revealed five minutes after she shows up--is that she's a hostage negotiator who had a jumper commit suicide on her, so now the entire police department hates her. I'm not really a law enforcement expert, I haven't even seen Homicide: Life On The Streets, but would anyone's reaction to a negotiator who lost a person be "Nice job not getting someone killed, bitch"? Wouldn't they, I don't know, sympathize with her? I know the screenplay wants her to be an underdog so we like her, but she can just be fucked up from having someone die on her watch, we don't need every cop in New York to treat her like a Roald Dahl protagonist. Or does that happen in other professions? "Oh, you lost a patient, Dr. Ferguson? Why don't you go fuck off and die, cocksucker? Hey, Fireman Joe, you didn't get that kid out of a burning building? Fuck your mother! Yo, Private Tom, great job saving that guy from the IED that exploded under his Humvee. Not!"
Anyway, watch The Gray instead. The sooner we all stop pretending Sam Worthington is a real actor, the better.
Although The Gray doesn't have this. Maybe they could've had a scene where Liam Neeson had to break into a bank vault? A bank vault would be very safe from timber wolves. Just spitballing here.
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no subject
Date: 2012-01-28 03:39 pm (UTC)Entrapment had Sean Connery in what was basically the exact same outfit as Catherine Zeta-Jones.
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Date: 2012-01-28 04:43 pm (UTC)