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The Dukes of Hazzard [2005]

Director: Jay Chandrasekhar
Actor: Johnny Knoxville, Sean William Scott, Burt Reynolds, Jessica Simpson

Wow, this was an enjoyable film, and very funny. This is one of those films where you can be as loud as you want in a theatre, cheer and throw popcorn; nobody is going to mind because nobody is going to miss something important in the film, since there are really no important bits to miss.

Luke (Knoxville) and Bo Duke (Scott), two cousins more akin to brothers, help out their Uncle Jessie (Nelson) with his moonshine business, bootlegging his alcohol all over Georgia. They get in trouble with the law a lot, but they are helped by their beautiful cousin Daisy (Simpson) and their trusty steed General Lee (Dodge Charger). The plot is absolutely unimportant – having to save their rustic town of Hazzard while having to win a car rally at the same time – but involves their arche-enemy; the nefarious, villainous Boss Hogg (Reynolds)!

This film tries hard to stay true to the spirit of the original Dukes of Hazzard, and it succeeds quite brilliantly. The cousins all preform brilliantly in their roles, even the slightly retarded Jessica Simpson is a good cut for the part. They even have their accents down, with the possible exception of Mr. Cool himself; Johnny Knoxville. If you’re not a fan, however, I recommend you see it on DVD, rather than on the big screen.

Wedding Crashers [2005]

Director: David Dobkin
Actor: Vince Vaughn, Owen Wilson, Christopher Walken

What a wonderful new production from Ferrell/Stiller/Owen/Vaughn, previously of Zoolander and Dodgeball fame. This is, to me, the funniest of them all so far, mostly because I don’t dig Stiller much, but I dig Vaughn all the more. What a boy’s boy he is. Love it.

Anyway, the film is about two friends John (Wilson) and Jeremy (Vaughn) who are self-styled, semi-professional wedding crashers, which basically means they show up at weddings, pretend to be family, and party like nothing else, scoring heaps of chicks along the way. They’re glib fast-talkers, conmen who will stoop to untold depths in order to score the poon. They are addicted and no how to play weddings and be liked like no others. They decide to go to the mother of all weddings, where the daughter of the Secretary of Finance (Walken) is getting married. There they both get involved with the two other daughters of the Secretary, which leads to much hilarity as Jeremy has, what is known in the Wedding Crasher’s Jargon as, a “Stage 5 Clinger” and John is falling head over heels with the one daughter of the Secretary who isn’t available.

The best quote of this film has to be Vaughn saying; “I’m gonna go see Dr. Finklestein and I’m gonna tell him we have a whole new bag of issues. We can forget about mom for a while.”

Great film!

Batman Begins [2005]

Director: Christopher Nolan
Actor: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Rutgher Hauer, Morgan Freeman, Ken Watanabe, Tom Wilkinson

Great film! Loved it. Since Michael Keaton did Batman the franchise has been sorely abused by people who thought a Big Name Actor could make a movie a Big Movie and rake in Big Bucks, sadly it just made for a Big Mistake each and every time. Ever since Tim Burton passed the baton on to Joel Shumacher the films have sucked. Until now.

While either Christopher Nolan’s directing is bad, which is kind of hard to believe, or whoever edited this film needs to be shot, which is much easier to believe, because the crossovers from one scene to the next were so rough. It almost makes you feel they were cutting it close in order to make the movie fit a certain time length. It also felt like they had a very long and detailed storyline regarding Bruce Wayne’s disappearance from Gotham, his life of crime and his incarceration in a Chinese prison and his rescue from that by Ducard, but that they had to significantly edit and cut pieces of that out of the film in order to make the film fit a certain length. All in all it makes for some rather rough edges around an otherwise great movie. Also, Christoper Nolan can’t direct a fight scene to save his life. :)

The story is rather straightforward; rich kid sees his billionaire parents try to diffuse a mugging and get shot in the process. Insert guilt. When the mugger gets let off on parole because he strikes a deal with the district attorney to help testify against a big crime boss, it sees rich kid, who is now quite a bit older, filled with disillusion at the judicial system. He wants to take revenge by gunning the mugger down while he leaves the courthouse, but is denied that chance by one of the mob boss’ assassins who beat him to it. After a confrontation with said mob boss he decides to live a life of crime in order to know his enemy. He drops out of sight for several years. He lands himself in a Chinese prison and is soon discovered by the mysterious Ducard, who tells him he can offer him direction, training and a purpose as super-vigilante. After years of expert training he finds his graduation rather…ehm…going against what he believes and he flees the school and is on his way back to Gotham City, which has, in the meantime, become even more shitty and deplorable than before. He decides to take on the entire city’s criminal underbelly in the guise of his worst fear; bats. He will be the Batman.

Oh, and Batman is really a ninja.

Great flick. Great performances by Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy. Okay performances by Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman and Rutgher Hauer. Weird performances by Gary Oldman. :)

Mr. & Mrs. Smith [2005]

Director: Doug Liman
Actor: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Vince Vaughn

John and Jane Smith have been married for five or six years when they hit a point in their marriage in which everything is rather stale and fmeh. They decide to go into therapy together and find that the relationship is even worse than they had previously admitted to themselves. And all of that isn’t really strange considering how they’re both assassins, working for competing agencies, and don’t know it about eachother. Jane thinks John works in construction. John thinks Jane is in the IT industry. When they go after the same target and discover eachothers secret identity much hilarity ensues while they try to kill eachother.

This film gets five stars if only I could put my foot to Doug Liman’s ass often enough for him to keep the camera still. It’s solid acting, especially from Pitt – Jolie, while not bad, was just out of her league – and good choreography. The chemistry is all there while the two most beautiful people in Hollywood slug it out together. (Can you imagine the babies!?)

…and it’s fucking hilarious. Seriously. Funnay!

The Machinist [2004]

Director: Brad Anderson
Actor: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Trevor is plagued by insomnia. He hasn’t slept for a year, and his body is quickly deteriorating. Weighing only 120 pounds, he’s skin over bones. He works as a machinist in a factory and his co-workers and supervisors are concerned for his health, and concerned that he might be doing drugs. After a particularly difficult discussion with is supervisor about his health he goed outside to have a smoke and meets Ivan. A tall, heavy-set, bald man with an ugly but amicable grin. He says he’s replacing one of Trevor’s colleagues as a welder at the factory. Later, Ivan deliberately distracts Trevor while he’s helping another colleague do maintenance on one of the machines and because of that his colleague loses an arm. When questioned, Trevor mentions Ivan, whom his supervisors claim doesn’t work there. Upon inspection, Trevor finds that this mysterious Ivan hasn’t replaced the man that he said he did. Trevor is haunted by Ivan, and goes in pursuit of him, slowly questioning his own sanity.

This film reminds me a lot of Jacob’s Ladder, starring Tim Robbins, where you never really know if what the obviously disturbed main character is seeing is real or fiction. Christian Bale does an excellent job of portraying the intelligent Trevor – reading Dostoyevsky, knowing union regulations by heart, while still working as a blue collar machine operator. He went from 186 pounds to 120 pounds in order to prepare for the role as Trevor, which is the highest recorded weight loss in preparation of a role ever. He wanted to go to 100 pounds, but the producers wouldn’t let him, since that would greatly jeopardise his health.