Bogey

I don't think it's fair to judge Drake Bell just based on that role.You could put the greatest actor in the world in that movie and it would still bomb.But as of now,Josh Peck is having a better film career.

Bouma

Rockhead

Well as of right now its the truth. Josh peck in Drillbit Taylor and The Wackness is miles better than Drake in Superhero Movie and College.

__________________

Xander

The Verdict
(Lumet, 1982)



In this 1982 courtroom drama, Paul Newman found the perfect role for a transitional period of his stellar career. As alcoholic Boston lawyer Frank Galvin, Newman shook off his screen persona as a handsome, blue-eyed hunk to portray an aging, weary man whose best years are behind him, with a shot-glass future that looks very bleak indeed. But when Galvin is given a chance to redeem himself - by proving medical negligence in the case of a comatose woman - he makes one final effort to regain his self-respect and tarnished reputation.

He's an underdog against formidable odds, facing a powerful, politically connected lawyer (James Mason, slick as ever) who will do anything to win his case, regardless of professional ethics. Further complicating matters is a woman (Charlotte Rampling) who only appears to be worthy of Galvin's trust and love, until Galvin's best friend and colleague (Jack Warden) proves otherwise.

Excellent as both courtroom drama and riveting character study, the film crackles with Mamet's sharp dialogue, and Lumet's direction is a brilliant example of forceful restraint. The film gave Newman one of the best roles of his career; many felt he deserved the Oscar (he lost to Ben Kingsley in Gandhi) that would belatedly be given to Newman for The Color Of Money.

The first courtroom drama in years to recapture the brilliance of the form.
9/10

__________________


The greatest trick Hulk Hogan ever pulled was convincing the world he could wrestle.
And like that...he was champion.

King rKo

Haunted Mansion -

Don't ask why I watched this. It came on TV and I was bored.

Anyway, the film sucked so bad I think and the plot of it was not good. Eddie Murphy made me chuckle a bit though.

1/10

dele

Sleepaway Camp

I'm too lazy to summarize this. If you love camp horror, you will LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!

__________________

Jun Kasai > You

Xander

Vanishing Point
(Pearson, 1971)



Art film and road movie collide for Vanishing Point, an existential car chase across the desert in a post Easy Rider America. Barry Newman stars as Kowalski, a taciturn driver who bets that he can drive a new Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. He loads up on amphetamines and begins his odyssey through the contemporary west while a funky black DJ (Cleavon Little) turns the driver into a folk hero and broadcasts advice on dodging the cops.

It's like a counterculture precursor to Smokey And The Bandit, with the road as the last bastion of freedom and the DJ as a combination commentator and mystical guide. The slim plot offers a network of society drop-outs that aid the "last free Man on Earth" (as the DJ describes him) on his obscure but obviously symbolic quest while flashbacks paint Kowalski as a world-weary hero.

It doesn't really make much sense, but the amazing car chases and excellent stunt work are stunningly set against the American west, beautifully captured by cinematographer John A. Alonzo. Vanishing Point is most assuredly a product of its time, the heady, anything-goes era of rebellion in the early 1970s.

Really nothing but a one hundred minute car chase across country, and I loved every minute of it...
8/10

__________________


The greatest trick Hulk Hogan ever pulled was convincing the world he could wrestle.
And like that...he was champion.

Rockhead

Bangkok Dangerous- a film about a hitman named Joe and the four assassinations that much take place in Bangkok. Starring Nicolas Cage (National Treasure). This is a remake of the thai film of the same name. Its kind of bland, and doesn't have much development in terms of a good plot and characters. The action is enjoyable, but overall the film is nothing to go crazy over. Not something you have to go out of your way to see.

6/10

__________________

Xander

21
(Luketic, 2008)



An unconvincing exercise in moral complexity, 21 is based on Ben Mezrich's book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions.

Jim Sturgess plays brilliant, blue-collar scholar Ben Campbell, whose doubts that he'll win a scholarship to Harvard Medical School compel him to join a secret, M.I.T. gang of math whiz kids. Under the silky but chilling command of a math professor (Kevin Spacey), Jim and the others master card counting, i.e. the statistical analysis of cards dealt in blackjack games. The team lives a humdrum existence during the week, but on weekends in Sin City, the students are rolling in cash, going to exclusive clubs, and feeling on top of the world.

Despite all that success, Ben feels ethically compromised, and indeed director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde), in the old tradition of American movies, plays it both ways where fun vices are concerned. On the one hand, it feels so good; on the other, we know it's wrong. That studied ambivalence proves wearing after a while, making the most interesting character in the film a casino watchdog played by Laurence Fishburne. A master at reading the emotions of gamblers beating the house with a scam, he's admirable for being good at his job, but repellent for wrecking the faces of counters in casino dungeons. He's all about moral complexity in the tradition of anti-heroes, and a truly provocative element in an otherwise superficial movie.

Given the true story that inspired it, 21 really should have been a sure-fire bet. Yet the movie is about as interesting as counting cards.
5.5/10

__________________


The greatest trick Hulk Hogan ever pulled was convincing the world he could wrestle.
And like that...he was champion.

Xander

Flags Of Our Fathers
(Eastwood, 2006)



Thematically ambitious and emotionally complex, Clint Eastwood's Flags Of Our Fathers is an intimate epic with much to say about war and the nature of heroism in America. Based on the non-fiction bestseller by James Bradley, and adapted by Million Dollar Baby screenwriter Paul Haggis, this isn't so much a conventional war movie as it is a thought-provoking meditation on our collective need for heroes, even at the expense of those we deem heroic.

In telling the story of the six men (five Marines, one Navy medic) who raised the American flag of victory on the battle-ravaged Japanese island of Iwo Jima on February 23rd, 1945, Eastwood takes us deep into the horror of war (through painstakingly authentic battle scenes) while emphasizing how three of the surviving flag-raisers (Adam Beach, Ryan Phillippe and Jesse Bradford) became reluctant celebrities – and resentful pawns in a wartime publicity campaign – after their flag-raising was immortalized by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal in the most famous photograph in military history.

As the surviving flag-raisers reluctantly play their public roles as "the heroes of Iwo Jima" during an exhausting (but necessary) wartime bond rally tour, Flags Of Our Fathers evolves into a pointed study of battlefield valor and misplaced idolatry, incorporating subtle comment on the bogus nature of celebrity, the trauma of battle, and the true meaning of heroism in wartime. Wisely avoiding any direct parallels to contemporary history, Eastwood allows us to draw our own conclusions about the Iwo Jima flag-raisers and how their postwar histories (both noble and tragic) simultaneously illustrate the hazards of exploited celebrity and society's genuine need for admirable role models during times of national crisis.

Flags Of Our Fathers defies the expectations of those seeking a more straightforward war-action drama, but it's richly satisfying, impeccably crafted film that manages to be genuinely patriotic (celebrating the camaraderie of soldiers in battle) while dramatizing the ultimate futility of war.

A fascinating look at the reality and meaning of battle.
8.5/10

__________________


The greatest trick Hulk Hogan ever pulled was convincing the world he could wrestle.
And like that...he was champion.