Phil Villarreal's Blog, page 151

Review: Looper

Movie studios play this little game where they try to pretend the source of movie piracy is people recording preview screenings on their cell phones. They post security guards at the door to make sure people don't bring their phones inside, then those guards stand in the aisles during the show, scanning the crowd for non-existent offenders.

Looper is so good that the security guards were absolutely useless. Instead of watching the crowd, they were staring at the screen the whole time. I wouldn't have noticed, except for the fact that it occurred to me every 10 minutes or so how amazing this movie was, and how impossible it was to watch the crowd instead of the screen. Just to prove myself right, I darted my eyes over to the security guards to make sure they were watching the movie just like I had been.

And then, in that tenth of a second in which my eyes were on the guards instead of the screen, I got insanely jealous of them for watching such a great movie when I wasn't, so I immediately went back to watching. At least until I needed to verify that they were watching the movie just like I should have been.

So oblivious were the guards to what was going on, I could have propped my phone on top of one guy and adjusted the picture by shining a light off the other one's forehead while doing a celebratory tap dance with a peg leg, while wearing a parrot on my shoulder and an eye patch.

I couldn't blame them. Looper takes parts from Terminator, Blade Runner, Inception, Back to the Future, Wanted and the three and a half good Die Hard movies, creating a super movie that shoots rainbow pixie dust out from the screen and makes viewers into better people.

Writer/director Rian Johnson, who wowed everyone with the fast-talking high school film noir Brick in 2005,  but hadn't done much since, lives up to his potential with a time travel movie that makes you wish you could go back to 2005 to show everyone who watched the awful time travel movie A Sound of Thunder to deliver the message "It gets better."

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is contractually obligated to star exclusively in mind-bending sci-fi thriller and seminal Zooey Deschanel anti-romances, plays a Looper, which is future-talk for Guy Who Shotgun Blasts Dudes The Mafia Sends Back In Time To Get Whacked.

The work is steady and pays well, but there are drawbacks. Like, say, when future you is Bruce Willis, sent back in time to be murdered by you, who then roundhouse kicks you instead, then totes you around trying to convince you to murder 5-year-olds who may grow up to be Looper eradicators.  

Yeah, Loopers really need to unionize.

Then again, the downside of the job is canceled out by perks, such as the occasional moments when you're stranded on a farm run by a character named Hottest Single Mom Farmer Evaaaa! (Emily Blunt), who is not opposed to sexing up Loopers when she's absolutely certain her child, Five Year Old Whom Bruce Willis Wants To Shoot Like The Dog In Duck Hunt, is fast asleep.

The plot, though awesome, doesn't quite encompass what's great about Looper. What does encompass what's great about Looper is all the ramifications of hanging out with your future self. For instance, if you want to send him a message, you can text him. But if one of you doesn't have a phone, you can carve a message into your skin and it will show up on his arm in the form of a scar. Just wait until AT&T figures out a way to charge you for that.

The movie is set in 2044, a future of hover motorcycles -- Meaning season 37 of Sons of Anarchy must totally rock -- boomerang-shaped phones and tiny frog toys that Emily Blunt uses to make booty calls to Loopers.

Although the future is amazing, the people of the era will no doubt be nostalgic for 2012, back when that amazing time travel movie came out, and security guards were powerless to stop people from pirating it.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emily Blunt and Bruce Willis. Written and directed by Rian Johnson. 118 minutes. Rated R.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Hotel Transylvania

The whole time Hotel Transylvania played I sat frozen in terror. Judging by the general lack of creativity on display, I was absolutely sure the cast of gangly animated monsters would break out into a rendition of Monster Mash. If they couldn't work it in to the regular running time, they sure wouldn't miss the opportunity to shoehorn it into the credits.

I wasn't going to be able to handle the Monster Mash performance when it came. I knew it was destined to force me to hate a movie that I sort of liked, and I loathed that prospect. Luckily the catastrophe never came, and all my suspense was for naught.

That's just the way the movie goes, doing little to dazzle you but less to offend. Given half a chance, the kid-friendly monster romance will sink its fangs into you and convert you into its ranks of the gleeful undead. Like a giddy grandma on Halloween, it dispenses candy giddily, at least for your eyes and ears. The Count Chocula/Boo Berry-like animated style, along with the impossibly star-studded voice cast, jolts electric shocks into the dead, patched-together screenplay to pump what passes for life into the stumbling, Karlovian monstrosity, which you can only gawk at as it innocently stumbles about.

Adam Sandler voices none other than Dracula, who has created a sanctuary from monsterkind by building a mansion boardinghouse sequestered beyond a haunted forest. Mummies, hags, trolls, werewolves and the like scurry for protection from humans, which they imagine to be terrifying hunters of their kind. They all adore Drac's shelter, except for Mavis (Selenea Gomez), Drac's daughter, who longs to escape and check out the world of man for herself. Looking to protect his fresh-faced 118-year-old girl, Dracula conspires to trick Mavis into wanting to stay.

There's a lot of Monsters Inc., Little Mermaid and even a little Finding Nemo going on here. Drawing from classics, however, does not necessarily a great film make. The slapstick tries too hard, the verbal exchanges are as limp and tattered as the mummy's bandages, and the love story, pairing Mavis with extreme-dude Jonathan (Andy Samberg) is about as appetizing as Drac finds garlic.

But at least there is no Master Mash, which counts for something. Plus, the movie openly mocks Twilight, which scores it enough points to get me to drop my torch and pitchfork.

Starring the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Kevin James, Fran Drescher, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Molly Shannon, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi and CeeLo Green. Written by Peter Baynham and Robert Smigel, based on a story by Todd Durham, Dan Hageman and Kevin Hageman. Directed by Genndy Tartakovsky. 91 minutes. Rated PG.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

I work for Consumerist again*

*I don't work for Consumerist.

But I do according to Real Simple, which ignored me saying that I have not worked there since April during a 'fact check.'

Real Simple October 2012 - Virtual Currency

At least it was cool to be interviewed by such a huge magazine, and especially to get the title of my book mentioned.

Review: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The problem with life is that it disobeys the rules of a coming-of-age movie. Whenever you address your problems head-on, start to discover yourself, only to sink into doubt during a crisis of confidence only to overcome that doubt and emerge changed and better, the credits don't roll, leaving you happy ever after.

Instead, something awful happens that makes you realize you really haven't learned anything. You're no better off than you were before, and the only thing that came of your coming of age is more age.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is determined to be more like life than a coming-of-age movie, and it's worse off for it. It lures you into the corner of Charlie (Logan Lerman), a tortured, friendless freshman, then lets a few good things happen for him, only to torpedo everything and have him sink to lower depths than before, with tougher problems and less hope.

Credit director Stephen Chbosky for nailing the rhythms and hells of adolescent life. His movie is based on his screenplay, which is based on his book, which is probably based on his memories, which is definitely based on a mess of insecurities and dread. The movie amounts to a brain dump about how hard it is to make friends, keep them, find romance and not screw it up, all while hanging on to your fleeting sanity.

Wallflower would be even more of a downer if not for the presence of Ezra Miller, who was Kevin in We Need to Talk About Kevin. As a flamboyant social outcast named Patrick, he takes the movie by force as the ringleader of a group informally called the Wallflowers, which is high school's version of the Island of Lost Toys. Chbosky seems more interested in coloring Patrick's character than the one that's probably based on himself, so he gives him all the best lines, most entertaining things to do and most absorbing conflicts.

Patrick may be the king Wallflower, but he's more like the giant man-eating piranha plant in the center of the room. Charlie, on the other hand, is so effective at living up to the Wallflower title that it's tough to see what Sam (Emma Watson), Patrick's stepsister and equally interesting wild child, would ever see in him.

Watson's got more talent than her Harry Potter classmates -- she was Hermione, in case you only ever knew her as That Girl Who Played Hermione Eight Times -- and it's exciting to see her trash her prim typecast to play the sort of girl moms warn their sons about. Patrick and Sam are too interesting to be relegated to sidebars in Charlie's long, dull descent into doom, and deserve their own movie so much that you start to coordinate your bathroom breaks and cell phone time checks to when they're off the screen.

The movie's other stars also have far too little to do. Paul Rudd plays Charlie's awesome English teacher, who cultivates the talent he sees in the kid. You hope he's got a plot twist or extra dimension somewhere up his tweed sleeves, but there's nothing. Kate Walsh and Dylan McDermott are Charlie's clueless parents, but you'll have to check IMDB to verify that they were even in the movie.

No such check is necessary to make sure Lernman plays sad, aloof and bored Charlie, who proves the greatest perk of being a real Wallflower is that at least you don't get stuck watching a movie about one.

Starring Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, Ezra Miller, Kate Walsh, Dylan McDermott and Paul Rudd. Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, based on his novel. 102 minutes. Rated PG-13.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Lawless

The square-dancing whiskey runners in the Prohibition-era Virginia-set movie Lawless may not think much of regulations from smarmy, moonshine-hating Yankees, but they sure do abide by melodramatic cliches.
If you're a timid would-be gangster who looks up to your invincible, cold-blooded criminal mastermind brother, you're sure to step in when your bro goes down to overcome your hang-ups and become a marauding booze baron.
If you're a pent-up preacher's daughter, you're sure to fall for the timid would-be gangster, gritting your teeth as he sinks deeper into a self-destructive web.
If you're a smarmy Yankee federal agent sent to Virginia to clean up the corrupt, booze-swilling backwoods, you'll hurl gratuitous insults at all comers until you're smacked with a climactic comeuppance.
If you're an innocent sidekick hobbled by a childhood case of rickets, your life is as fragile as a glass bottle in a bar fight. 
There's nothing in the movie that takes you by surprise, but it's still as much Southern-fried fun to watch as a Dukes of Hazzard marathon. There's something inherently awesome about watching a moonshine-hauling jalopy skid down a winding dirt road, just out of target range of Johnny Law. 
The dim-yet-fun thriller casts Shia LaBeouf in the lead role -- the timid would-be gangster, if you're keeping track. His performance is memorable because he's finally managed to find a script that doesn't order him to talk to himself throughout, as he did in all the awful Transformer movies, Disturbia, Eagle Eye and that Indiana Jones movie Harrison Ford likes to pretend he never made.
It's a welcome change of pace to see LaBeouf play a likable bad guy in front of a movie camera, rather than a Walgreens security cam. He sheds his peach-fuzzy innocence to slip on a grimy pair of boots, no doubt lined with lead to slam on the gas when it's time to make a getaway.
Tom Hardy, free of the ridiculous Bane mask from The Dark Knight Rises, is LaBeouf's grisly older brother who e v e r  s o  s l o o o o w l y comes a'courtin' to an exiled Chicago dancer (Jessica Chastain). Taffy-pull-speed flirtation must run in the family, because LaBeouf also takes his time romancing the preacher's daughter (Mia Wasikowska), who somewhere under several layers of petticoats and underwear is a naughty girl yearning to hide out in tent distilleries.
Guy Pearce has some fun with the thankless villain role, a Chicago agent determined to shake down the boozehounds, attacking not only with tommy gun fire and rude kicks in noses, but words. He says the word "hick" as often, and with the same tone, that GOP convention speakers utter "liberal." The ungentle gentleman has end boss battle written all over his Pomade-slicked head.

Watching the movie unfold is a lot like witnessing a heated game of checkers go down. Only with booze, blood and bullets. Which makes the movie pretty much a win, especially for LaBeouf, since there are no CGI sentient robots swiping all the best lines and no sacred franchises or Walgreens destroyed.

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska. Written by Nick Cave, based on the Matt Bondurant book. Directed by John Hillcoat. 115 minutes. Rated R.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Social Media is Bullshit

Due out Sept. 4, B.J. Mendelson's Social Media is Bullshit aims to tear down the curtain propped up by so-called social media gurus who peddle their consultant services to clueless companies looking to stay competitive in the changing media landscape.

Using wit, humor and formidable on-the-job experience, Mendelson demystifies the powers of Facebook, Twitter and the blog world to spread influence and maintain popularity. The book should be must-reading for any organization that hires a 20-something hotshot and hands over free reign over its internet branding, expecting magical results.

Far from the teeth-gnasihing teardown implied by the title, the book includes some solid advice about how to build a strong social media profile as a business or individual. He doesn't have any stunning revelations -- his point seems to be that genuine influence spawns from organic mastery of content rather than SEO-style tricks -- but that dovetails with his overarching point. Online, just as offline, there are no shortcuts to success.[image error]

Review: Cosmopolis

I try hard to convince myself that movies are fictional stories played out by actors pretending to be different people than they are, but can't convince myself that Cosmopolis is anything other than unscripted documentary about the life of Robert Pattinson, shot by security cameras. Especially now that his possibly PR-concocted relationship with KStew is on the rocks.

When I imagine Pattinson's daily life, I picture him being driven around in a gadgeted-up stretch limo, being all rich, pompous and entitled, screwing everything that moves either inside the limo or out — whichever he prefers at the time. I also picture him waking up in a coffin, because the dude needs no makeup whatsoever to look exactly like a vampire, but they must have cut that part out of the movie to avoid confusion with the Twilight movies. Which I also picture as an accurate depiction of Pattinson's life.

That said, I'll play along and assume director David Cronenberg is on the level and that he actually directed this thing, and got the story from some book. If that's indeed the case, I have to credit Cronenberg for economically telling a riveting, passionate and unpredictable story mostly through the spoken word. Eighty or 90 percent of the movie takes place inside the limo, but the cramped world never seems constricting — much like Phone Booth (2002) or Tape (2001).

Pattinson gets dinged for his soulless, dead-eyed performances, but I don't hold them against him. Not only because he's a vampire but because according to the movie, he has sex so often that he's probably exhausted but there's never any time for a nap. His flat, clinical performance in Cosmpolis is perfect for the character, who has piled up his billions by looking at the world as a matrix logic puzzle, exploiting his angles to obliterate his competition and suck funds out of investment sectors, consequences by damned. To him, life and love are little more than games that he's long since mastered and gotten bored with. Even as the fluctuation of the Chinese currency plunders his fortune, or rumors of deadly activities outside the car threaten the well-being of himself and others, he stays plugged in and absent — a passenger rather than a driver of the charade that passes for his existence.

Pattinson's blank performance is a magnifying glass that amplifies the work of the supporting actors. Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Juliette Binoche and Jay Baruchel color Pattinson's character with various levels of introspection, fear a loathing for their master/lover/secret or not-so-secret enemy. No actor's flame flickers brighter, though, than Paul Giamatti, whose unhinged ferocity ricochets harder off of Pattinson's ice.

As fine as the performances are, Cronenberg's machine gun dialogue is the main attraction. The film bulges with verbose, highbrow debates and vicious monologues smacked back and forth like tennis balls. The sheer amount of words spoken in the movie is staggering. Its script could probably crush someone's foot if dropped.

Cosmopolis is a heavy movie indeed, and one that demands multiple viewings. But surely no viewing would slap you so hard in the face and make you like it as much as the first one would.

Starring Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, Sarah Gadon, Jay Baruchel and Paul Giamatti. Written and directed by David Cronenberg, based on DonDeLillo's novel. 108 minutes. Rated R.

Review: My Sucky Teen Romance

The product of teen horror filmmaker prodigy Emily Hagins, the high school vampire romance mocks the bloodsucker-obsessed pop culture world while simultaneously sucking the lifeblood from its veins. Rounding up a gang of raw, fresh-faced actors, Hagins tells the story of a group of friends at a sci-fi convention who encounter real-life vampires and try to use knowledge gleaned from movies, comic books and panel discussions to stay alive.

Elaine Hurt plays Kate, the proudly geeky protagonist who wants more than anything to become Bella to the Edward of Paul (Patrick Delgado), who proves to be not just a brooding vampire wannabe, but the genuine article. When an unlucky break finds Kate and her pals battling to save her soul, she struggles to reconcile her feelings for Paul with the movie tropes ingrained in her mind, as well as the need to protect her friends.

The dialogue and story twists are entertaining — for once, here are people who look and talk like actual teenagers, rather than 30-year-olds pretending to be younger — but the amateurish acting drags the production down to student film levels. The movie didn't quite do it for me, but I'd like to see what Hagins could do with a better cast and budget.

Review: Sparkle

There may or may not be an actual movie hidden among all the showstopping musical numbers in Sparkle. Not that there needs to be.

Sparkle is all about the music, and seems to have been created for Jordin Sparks, who so thoroughly owns the affair that you'd swear it was named after her. It's cosmically appropriate that Whitney Houston looms in the background as Sparks's mom, and it seems as though there's a passing of the torch from one generation's crossover star to the next.

A slimmed-down Sparks seizes the spotlight with the ferocity that fellow American Idol alum Jennifer Hudson did in Dreamgirls. There's no Hudson-like Oscar in store for Sparks this time out, but she finds something at least as valuable -- a new dimension to her growing superstardom. There's enough meat in Sparks' role for her to show she's a skilled actress who will show up in future movies because she belongs rather than a Katy Perry-style gimmick.

Sparkle, a 1960s Motown-set historical fiction-style retelling of The Supremes' rise to fame, is a remake of a long-forgotten 1976 movie that starred Irene Cara and Mary Alice. Sparks plays the title character, an unconfident dreamer who writes songs for her more confident sisters, the aspiring med student Dolores (Tika Sumpter) and the appropriately named diva Sister (Carmen Ejogo).

Stix (Derek Luke), a not-quite-trustworthy manager, romances Sparkle and convinces her to round up her sisters into a girl group. The girls shimmy, dance and croon their way up the ladder to fame, dodging slimy record label execs and cokehead comedian boyfriends along the way. And they do it under the nose of Houston's character, their disapproving, Bible-bopping mom.

Houston, a gifted actress who rarely got much of a chance to show what she could do, turns in some of her finest work in this movie. Many of her lines are haunting and almost transcendent with unintended double meanings, such as when she scolds her daughters for not learning from her mistakes.

Describing any more of the movie's plot would be like breaking down the narrative intent of Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe video. The movie is mostly an excuse for slick choreography, heart-melting soul grooves and stage-owning razzle-dazzle.

Ejogo shows sexy flash as the group's troubled lead singer, and Sumpter's sassiness fills out the trio nicely. But wouldn't you know it, Houston effortlessly draws all attention to her when given her one chance to perform, belting out a heartbreaking number at the climax that all but ensures everyone in the theater will be wiping their eyes.

Sparkle may be the name of the movie, but in moments such as these, the movie truly shines.

Starring Jordin Sparks, Whitney Houston, Derek Luke, Cee-Lo and Mike Epps. Written by Mara Brock Akil, based on a story by Howard Rosenman, Directed by Salim Akil. 116 minutes. Rated PG-13.

My novel, Stormin' Mormon, is available as a Kindle book for $1.

Review: Goats

No matter how intelligent or well-heeled a kid is coming up, he's just as likely to squander and be crushed by his potential as he is to make some use of it. Ellis (Graham Phillips), a silver spoon-fed high school student who breezes through his studies and is too smart and evolved to take any advice from grown-ups seriously, seems certain to head down a troubled path.

The protagonist of Goats, Ellis drifts through life finding little that engages him. He reacts to his oppressions and influences instead of seeking out his own interests and goals. His role models range from a brain-fried, sexaholic hippie (David Duchovny), a vacant, self-discovery-obsessed mom (Vera Farmiga) and an absentee, success-driven dad (Ty Burrell), whose idea of success is to sacrifice matters of the heart for prestige. Shoved off from his eccentric desert home to a prestigious New England prep school, Ellis is left alone in the rye with nary a catcher in sight.

The antidote to the typical coming-of-age movie, Goats shuffles into the muck of adolescent angst, aware that there are no easy solutions for finding a sense of self, letting go of lifelong resentments or establishing and sticking to a moral code. Mark Jude Poirier did an admirable job of adapting his novel to screen, although camerawork — no matter how well-designed, can't replace the author's uncanny ability to paint scenes or translate his sly, descriptive observations. With the film, Poirier is forced to boil his novel down to dialogue and plot points, and much is lost in the distillation.

Duchovny is maybe too good for this movie, commanding his scenes as a poolboy/drifter/rancher/drug trafficker with effortless glee. His stuff saves the movie while sort of ruining it, detracting from Ellis's journey. Duchovny's out-there antics serve as welcome comic relief apart from Ellis's oft-overserious drama — he tangles with a headstrong, clingy roomie, falls for a possible call girl and wrestles with his grudging admiration and disgust of his dad — that you miss Duchovny's Goat Man when he goes away, and wonder what he's up to. But like Gandalf in Lord of the Rings and Aslan in The Chronicles of Narnia, his actual antics are probably best left to the imagination. As a stark opposite to Duchovny, Phillips lacks a compelling command of what Ellis could have been. He's got the blank slate part right, but his character would have been more lovable if he were more precocious.

Keri Russell does well in the thankless role of Ellis's trophy mother-in-law, and Farmiga is a tasty flavor of nutso as his mom. Credit director Christopher Neil and his filmmaking team for wrapping a disjointed package in gorgeous trappings. Pretty, confused and thrilling to analyze and revisit, Goats is just like adolescence.

Starring Graham Phillips, David Duchovny, Keri Russell, Justin Kirk and Vera Farmiga. Written by Mark Jude Poirier, based on his novel. Directed by Christopher Neil. 94 minutes. Rated R.