The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

I don’t even know how to go about starting this review.  Having just watched it, I feel both emotionally and mentally exhausted while at the same time thrilled and ecstatic over what I’ve just borne witness to.  The Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy is one of the greatest accomplishments in cinema history, not just for a comic book movie, because as I stated in my Avengers review, the Nolan Batman movies are above just being classified as comic book movies.  Despite attempting to avoid any and all spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises, I had read a Cracked article last year that had mentally prepared me for anything Nolan might have in store for us.  At least I thought it had.

When we last left Batman (Christian Bale) at the end of The Dark Knight, he had told Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) to lay the blame for Harvey Dent’s death at the hands of Batman, thus giving Dent a martyr-like status in the eyes of the citizens of Gotham City.  Between Dark Knight and this film, eight years have passed and Gordon has used The Dent Act to clean up Gotham with his police forces, as Batman retired to his secret identity of Bruce Wayne rather than be hunted.  Wayne has become a recluse, appearing to only communicate with his butler Alfred (Michael Caine) in regards to affairs of the outside world.  When an attractive cat burglar named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) makes off with a Wayne family heirloom, something is awakened in Bruce and he begins to come alive again.  All the while, a cerebral and brutal villain by the name of Bane (Tom Hardy) concocts a plan to bring the city of Gotham to its knees.  Then there’s also Officer John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a hotheaded young man who comes to the attention of both Wayne and Gordon.

That’s as vague as I can get without giving away any surprises in the plot, but also identifying the major players.  As with many Nolan films, he brings back a lot of familiar faces in his casting, and just take a look at all the tags if you want to see identifiable names jump out at you.  A couple of them are minor spoilers, but not really surprises at all.  While I’m writing this review, I’m taking time to read the Wiki entry for Dark Knight Rises and it says numerous times that Nolan was unsure about coming back for a third film.  Nolan might just be a great actor himself, because there are certain aspects of the story that would suggest just the opposite: that Nolan had been planning the entire Trilogy from the very first film.

There are few movie trilogies that I have given perfect marks to all of the installments.  The Toy Story Trilogy is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, and now even that is going to fall by the wayside since apparently Toy Story 4 has been announced to be in production.  The Batman Trilogy is exactly that.  Nolan won’t come back to make a fourth film, neither will Bale, neither will any of the principles.  Even the way Rises ends should not fill people with hope for that to happen.

Everything in Rises is excellent in my eyes.  From the casting, the acting, the set pieces, the direction, the writing (minus a couple little things that I won’t go into here, and may just be inconsequential in future re-watchings), the action, all breathtakingly great.  During the opening sequence I was legitimately catching my breath, wondering if my nerves could handle the end of this storied franchise.  The sheer menace that Bane brings with him is astonishingly well-executed, and Hardy doesn’t let the mask control his acting.  Hathaway is probably the best Catwoman/Selina Kyle ever, because she’s not used as just a vehicle for puns.  Bale and his familiar cast mates deliver exactly what they did in the first two films, sheer awesomeness.

Better film critics than me will write more detailed reviews than I did, because mine just seems to be what ultimately can only be construed as nothing more than a Thank You note to Christopher Nolan and the team he put together for these three films.

5 / 5

Memento (2000)

Full confession here: this is only the second time I’ve watched Memento.  It has been over a decade since I first watched it, and I sort of planned that way.  I wanted to have only the vaguest of recollections when I watched it for the second time, so it could be new to me again and that I could experience the mystery of it all over again.  And it worked, to a point.  I started remembering little details, but for the most part I just sat back in awe at what a tremendous filmmaker director Christopher Nolan has been for his entire career.

If you don’t know the plot line for Memento, well it concerns Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a man who suffers from short term memory loss.  There was an incident, and since that incident, he has been unable to form new memories.  You can talk to him for an hour and then see him the next day and he’ll have no recollection of that conversation.  Shelby is searching for the man that killed his wife (Jorja Fox), and since he can’t remember the facts he discovers, he develops a system of notes and tattoos to fill in the cavernous gaps in his memory.

The film is shown both in and out of chronological order, almost similar to what Irréversible did, minus the horrible 10-minute long rape scene.  If you haven’t seen it yet, any clues I drop here will potentially lead to the movie having less of an impact on you.  It is a masterful film, and one that I would say benefits from multiple viewings if I had not just taken a decade long break from watching it again.  Nolan gives us many clues throughout the movie, and it certainly invites a person to pay close attention to the details.  Pearce is off the charts excellent in his performance, and the movie itself should be required viewing for everyone that are sick of films that are basically commercials and don’t challenge you in the least.

5 / 5

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

For me, there’s a real easy well to tell if someone is humourless and pretty much dead inside.  If they cannot enjoy HTTM for the ridiculousness that it is, then they really need to evaluate their life choices.  It’s a comedic gem of a movie that explores many fun topics like suicide, broken hearts, marriages ending, the ’80s and the potential loss of a limb.  It is everything that a modern comedy should be, R-rated and reveling in it.  Oh, and duh, there’s time travel involved too!

I’m not even going to give you a synopsis of the movie, the title is one of the most self-explanatory ever.  The awesome cast just bounce off one another, the writing is crisp, fun and intelligent.  The time travel is smartly (and almost too neatly) done, and there’s copious amounts of booze and boobs.  And not nearly enough Lizzy Caplan or Lyndsy Fonseca in ’80s outfits.  Missed opportunity there, but this is a tremendously entertaining movie and infinitely rewatchable.

4 / 5

I Love You, Man (2009)

One of the things that I truly love about the so-called Frat Pack or Apatow’s Army or whatever the hell label you want to put on them, is that the large group of actors work with each on project after project and give little throwaway parts to their friends and the entire cast feels like an enormous ball of fame.  I mean, there’s a ridiculous amount of tagged actors for this movie.  Granted, I go a bit crazy with the tagging, and a few of them weren’t really well-known (or known even) back in 2009, but here we are in 2012 and I’d say that the massive audience that watches “Big Bang Theory” weekly knows who Melissa Rauch is.  Anyways, enough about my attempts to get more hits.

I totally have a man crush on Paul Rudd.  I probably write that in every Paul Rudd review that I write (okay, I only have one for Our Idiot Brother so far, well now two I guess), so you’re going to have to get used to it because I think I might go on a Rudd streak here.  Dude’s been in so many good movies, and movies that have been made better just by the sheer presence of him.  Anyways, he plays Peter Klaven, a somewhat introverted wonderfully lovable guy who proposes to his girlfriend, Zooey (Rashida Jones) almost directly after the opening credits.  However, it comes to light that Peter doesn’t really have any close guy friends, leading to the premise of the movie: find Peter a guy friend!  Soon he meets the blunt and charmingly honest Sidney Fife (Jason Segel), and they totally hit it off and Peter’s life undergoes radical changes.

No matter my predilection towards Rudd, I will still be honest and tell you if a movie he’s in sucks or not.  I totally disliked Wet Hot American Summer when I first saw it, but now I’m wondering if I missed something there.  May have to revisit that one sometime.  Anyways, this is a charming and awkward comedy, with Rudd and Segel bouncing off one another wonderfully.  Lots of funny moments from the rest of the massive ensemble-ish cast and it’s a feel-good movie in my books, though I will say that some audiences might just not fall in love with the characters the way I did.  They all know their roles and play their parts to perfection though, no matter if they have to look like a huge asshole doing it, right Jon Favreau?

3.5 / 5

A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011)

This shouldn’t take too long.  If you’ve seen the first two Harold & Kumar movies, you kind of know exactly what sort of movie you’re in store for with the third installment.  I didn’t have a chance to check it out before Christmas 2011 so you’re getting my review now.  It’s a fairly festive Christmas-themed movie, while also introducing new characters into the H&K universe, and also revisiting old familiar faces.

If you’re seeing it in 3D, well congratulations, you’ll be getting an additional dimension of humour that is merely hinted at in the 2D version.  That’s the inherent problem with intended 3D movies, when you’re relying on that gimmick and the gimmick isn’t available, the movie suffers for it.  As a rarely-partaker, I’m sure there’s loads of “pot humour” that is gut-bustingly funny as well, but for me it just garnered an unknowing nod of acknowledgment if that makes any sense at all.

Oh yeah, and if you didn’t see the end credits of H&K2, Neil Patrick Harris (Neil Patrick Harris, the distinction needs to be made) survived and shows up for his trademark scene destroying with awesome appearance.  This time he brings his husband, David Burtka (David Burtka) along for the fun, and that whole sequence was easily the most entertaining of the entire movie.  Oh and Waffle-Bot was fucking awesome.

3 / 5

What’s Your Number? (2011)

Truth be told, I’m an Anna Faris fan.  Not the Faris of the Scary Movies, but the fan of her more recent work.  She always strikes me as an actress with degree of integrity when it comes to her work, and also doesn’t just do every “Katherine Heigl rejected this so maybe we can put her in it” movie role.  She’s a talented comedienne with great timing and isn’t afraid to make an ass of herself if it serves the joke.  I’m not a pothead, but I did enjoy her Smiley Face movie because first and foremost, she totally committed to the part.  Anyways, this seems to be a more box office friendly version of that character, which I’m sure studios are clamoring for more of thanks to the success of Bridesmaids.

Ally Darling (Faris) is a somewhat carefree, recently unemployed woman who finds out that she’s slept with almost double the amount of men than the average woman does in her lifetime.  The thought of that terrifies her, as she’s worried she’ll never find The One.  So, in a nearly High Fidelity-esque loophole, she decides to look up all the men she’s slept with before to see if there’s a spark there now, freeing her up to continue to enjoy sex and nothing having Her Number increase any higher.  Through the help of her next door neighbour, Colin (Chris Evans), she begins to track these men down while also helping her sister, Daisy (Ari Graynor), get ready for her wedding.

It’s not the most original of movies, but it’s also not insultingly vapid garbage like 27 Dresses or well, name any shitty Heigl rom-com over the past five years that isn’t Knocked Up.  Faris and Evans are great as usual, and there’s a fun vibe throughout the film.  As someone who occasionally agonizes over the amount of women he’s slept with and can barely remember all their names (I feel like such a dirty slut right now), I completely identified with her character.  She’s definitely smarter than her character in The House Bunny, but I didn’t enjoy the movie as much.  I know it came out just after Bridesmaids, but after seeing that movie, every movie that has women proving they can be as disgusting as dudes just kind of rings hollow to me.  Not that Bridesmaids was the most revolutionary female comedy ever, but I hold it in the highest regard.

3 / 5

Bad Teacher (2011)

It was with mixed feelings and trepidation that I sat down to watch Bad Teacher.  Would it live up to its predecessor Bad Santa and create a whole Bad Franchise?  Would I be able to watch the increasingly-leatherish Cameron Diaz in high definition, fondly recalling her introductory scene in The Mask and try not to cry a little?  Would I be entertained and would I even like it?  So many questions, so little Internet space.

Basically Diaz’s character, Elizabeth Halsey, is the worst teacher ever for so many reasons, and she’s a gold-digging tramp as well.  She’s looking for the easy ride, get-rich quick schemes and stuff, just so she can get a boob job and then hook a really rich guy.  The charming Jason Segel is the gym teacher, Lucy Punch is the overbearingly and psychotic nice teacher, John Michael Higgins the harried principal and Justin Timberlake is a substitute teacher.  There are also children in the movie.

I really thought it was going to suck, but it didn’t, so hurrah!  It’s not as funny as it probably could be, but the writing team of Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky bring plenty of their experience from “The Office” to the table and they created a fairly charming movie in my books.  I’m as surprised as you are.  There’s loads of comedic talents in the cast, and despite being a total cunt at the beginning of the movie, Diaz kinda grows on you by the end.  JUST LIKE BILLY BOB THORNTON IN Bad Santa!  Watch that too!

3.5 / 5