FILM REVIEW: CHILDREN OF MEN (2006)

Wow. That's what comes to mind first. Children of Men is a distopian sci-fi adventure thriller set in 2027 in a rapidly deteriorating world where humans can no longer have kids, and haven't had one for 18 years. It's presented about as realistically it could be, extremely gritty, colorless, you feel exactly like you're along for the ride, running along with the characters. The story is fairly simple: Kee, the last pregnant girl on the planet, has to be delivered safely to "Human Project," something we (or the characters) are not sure even exist. England (London in particular) in 2027 is proudly proclaiming itself to be the last bastion of hope in the world, while dozens of other cities have folded into destruction. Quickly we discover that this London is in a state of disrepair: bags of trash litter the streets with no garbagemen to pick them up, schools are totally abandoned and overgrown with weeds, and most of all, refugees (or "fugees") are hoarded up and taken to ghettos, or just killed outright. This is the environment Kee has to navigate, with her at-first-reluctant guardian Theo (Clive Owen, the main character of the picture) to guide her along the way.

The movie is shot in a mise-en-scène pseudo-documentary style, with numerous single-take shots that just blow you away if you're a fan of directing, editing, or cinematography. The longest of which is seven and a half minutes long, making Quentin Tarantino's impressive long single-take sequences look like peanuts in comparison. It's really amazing seeing the different aspects of the production all come together, especially how the near-future was envisioned. But I'd better not get ahead of myself slobbering over the aesthetics of the movie: the acting is superb all around, with Michael Caine delivering an atypical hippie, weed-growing and long haired, he actually based his performance after John Lennon apparently. There's lots of goods here, and had I seen this in 2006 I *might* have considered making this my favorite film of that year instead of the Departed. Maybe.

9/10

FILM REVIEW: SMOKIN' ACES (2007)

Smokin' Aces is an interesting film, despite itself and its (maybe) cliche plot. Picture this; card sharp and magician turned Mafia snitch Johnny "Aces" Israel (played hilariously by Jeremy Piven) is under federal protection from two FBI agents Messner and Carruthers (Ryan Reynolds, Ray Liotta) who themselves are under the direction of the FBI director Stanley Locke (Andy Garcia). The aforementioned Mafia snitch is obviously in some deep water, being that he wants to rat out the La Cosa Nostra, so naturally he has a few people after him. Actually, ten. This includes a bail bondsman played by Ben Affleck, a master of disguise played by the Irish Tommy Flanagan, an ebonics-blurting hitwoman in Alicia Keys, and a trio of redneck neo nazis called the Tremor brothers... and much more!

You might think a movie with so many characters being thrown at ol' Buddy Aces could get complicated, and it certainly does. The dialogue is pretty much non-stop from the time the movie begins, think a Tarantino flick on steroids without some of the wit. It's fast-talking, fast-moving, and the movie really ends up shooting itself in the foot in that respect. It tries to do pretty much everything, introduce over a dozen characters (most of which played by big names, this movie would make Ocean's Eleven blush with its cast) and try to flesh them out completely, while still keeping the plot under wraps and making it less than 2 hours long. I must say, it can be overwhelming, but they pull it off well enough. Think of a barrel of snakes, and that's somewhere close to where Smokin' Aces is, plot-wise.

I know this movie hasn't been recieved very well by most of the press, but it's really worth a shot if you're looking for some good ol' fashioned Vegas shoot-em-up popcorn action-type movies, with bizarre fast-talking gangsters and hitmen by the dozen.

7/10

FILM REVIEW: VIDEODROME (1983)

Videodrome delivers on all cylinders as far as I'm concerned. Creepy, surreal "venereal horror," from the master writer/director David Cronenberg, starring James Woods and the beautiful Deborah Harry, who's naked in the movie several times I might add. Just as a fair warning, the movie is very, very strange and features some (lots) of torture sequences, including some things with needles and skin that aren't for the squeamish. I think Andy Warhol put it best when he said that Videodrome was "A Clockwork Orange of the 1980s." Can't disagree with that, there's some genuinely awesome sequences in the movie, and some very memorable quotes. The directing and photography are superb.

Like I said before, the movie is very surreal, but the plot manages to stays pretty taut throughout, and the acting is just about as solid as you could expect from a sci-fi horror flick from 1983, with James Woods naturally being the best actor of the bunch. The movie does stand up very well over time, especially considering its time period and what it's about. I throughly enjoyed this, has a very John Carpenter type feel to it, if you enjoyed movies like The Thing or The Fog (1980) then check out Videodrome.

8/10