Sometimes Movies Are Better Than I Expect

We'll see whether that hold true for this Jesse Stone: Death in Paradise flick I'm getting ready to watch with my dad. It certainly held true for one movie I've watched thus far during this week. We'll get to that soon enough.

Rented four movies with Alex, but two of them were for his benefit, one was for a friend of his (who chipped in no money to pay for said rentals, or vittles to eat during the watching of said rentals) and one for me. We didn't get to War, which was what I wanted to watch. I'm hoping for lots of kicking, explosions, and gunshots, but I'm worried that I'll wind up feeling 'Yeah, those were pretty nice explosions, I guess'. The number of explosions is really critical, since I'm not really expecting a significant amount of plot or character development. Maybe I'll be surprised.

{Death in Paradise update: Dad has expressed concern that this is based on the book where Stone's dog dies. Meanwhile, one of Dad's dogs imitates a rhinocerous in the kitchen, making more noise getting in and out of her box than a beast of her size should be capable of. Also, Stone may have a drinking problem.}

Did watch Live Free or Die Hard, not out of some burning desire to see it again, but Alex hadn't seen it yet. I know there's a lot of ludicrous stuff in that movie, but that scene with the fighter jet and the big rig is still the one that pushes things too far for me. Then we watched Unleashed, again because Alex hadn't seen that either. I was more eager to watch this though. I still really enjoy those scenes where Jet Li experiences life beyong being Bob Hoskins' "dog". Plus that first arena fight he has (if you can call something that lasts five seconds and three throat punches a fight) dances that line between hilariously absurd and very cool. I still find the appaearance if the bald white guy in the robes a bit abrupt. He shows up in the crowd watching Danny fight, next time you see him he's working for (with?) Hoskins.

{Death in Paradise update: Jess Stone (Tom Selleck) has been told he does have a drinking problem. And he's crying at somebody's grave. No, not his wife, she's alive and they're divorced.}

In both cases, Alex enjoyed the movie, so I guess it was money well spent. The same can't be said of Prom Night, rented at the request of Alex' friend. Pretty typical slasher stuff, with an obsessed killer who doesn't seem particularly remarkable, but moves with remarkable stealth, and stabs with a brutal energy, though he remains fairly deadpan. The problem is, while watching the movie, I couldn't shake the feeling that the only reason he was having so much success evading capture was because everyone else in the movie is a complete twit. Heather did make a good point at the end: No matter how it turned out, that girl is never going to be right in the head.

OK, enough of the stuff I disliked, stuff I watched again, and stuff I didn't get to see yet. Time to discuss Tropic Thunder. This movie was much funnier than I expected it to be. I didn't expect it to be bad, but I laughed more often than I figured I would. From the "previews" that immediately proceed the start of the movie, to the opening sequence describing how this movie came to be, to all the bickering and idiocy of the characters in the jungle, to the big battle, there are laughs a plenty. Not highbrow laughs, mind you (unless a man screaming 'Ha, you OD'ed!' at a bat, then eating part of it, highbrow), but laughs. There's a sense I have that it's a parody of lots of things. Roger Ebert mentioned a connection to Hearts of Darkness, a movie about the making of Apocalypse Now, but it also seems to be making light of movie stars' exorbitant demands, different schools of acting, and there was a scene that felt very much like a send-up of all those espionage movies, where some high-ranking suits argue over policy versus innocent lives. Looking at Ebert's review a second time, I see he mentioned several of these besides the documentary, which is not terribly surprising. He gets paid for this, after all.

Usually, I only like Ben Stiller (playing Tugg Speedman) when he plays a jerk (Dodgeball), as opposed to the nice idiot, who probably does have anger problems, and so keeps switching from passive to aggressive, while being such a klutz he can't do anything properly. He's not really a jerk here, though he's probably pretty similar to his Mr. Furious role in Mystery Men. He's not a bad guy, just one who sees some writing on the wall about his career, and is desparate to get something different up there. He wants to be a serious actor, but he doesn't understand the styles he's tries to adopt, with results like his film Simple Jack, which based on the clips we see, convinced me it really could have been the worst movie ever made.

{Death in Paradise update: I think Jesse Stone may see dead people.}

Jack Black's Jeff Pornoy strikes me as a cross between Eddie Murphy (at his current career stage) and Chris Farley (or maybe John Candy), based on some comments he makes about how he feels about himself. Then there's Robert Downey Jr.'s Kirk Lazarus. I don't know what to make of him. He seems to be a sendup of that old tactic from Westerns of hiring people who weren't Native American to play Native Americans, but he also seems to be poking at actors who take their roles too seriously. He clearly gets lost in his roles, so that even when he says he's out of it, he's still speaking as his character. I think he gets the best lines, except I can't understand them a lot of the time. I love the back and forth between Lazarus and Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), who is in the movie partially to hawk merchandise, and partially to present what he feels is a better example/role model of African-Americans than Lazarus.

I think Alex would be mad if I didn't give a shout-out to Brandon Soo Hoo, who plays the head druglord. He is definitively in charge, unchallenged by all those around him, striding confidently with his scar over the eye, the beret, the bandolier, smoking cigars like he's Nick Fury, hefting AKs and rocket launchers, and beating up actors like he does it everyday. If he hadn't been a scumbag druglord, we probably would have rooted for him.

{Death in Paradise: Oh no, one of Jess' officers was shot and is in a coma. Jess is discussing the murder case, and I'm sure is about to recall an important fact about knots. The tied variety, not the nautical speed kind. Now he's trying to trap some criminal type into outing himself as a killer. I find it hard to believe this ploy is actually going to work. Well, it didn't produce a confession, but it did produce gunfire. Criminal Type's henchman wasn't very smart. Guess that's why he's a henchman.}

Obviously, you should not take kids to this movie, and they throw around the word "retard" a lot in this movie (my father informs me they've taken some heat for this), so if that is an issue, then consider yourself forewarned. Otherwise, I think it's a really great movie, and if you go (and you haven't already read or heard about who he is) see how quickly you can figure out who plays Les Goodman, the financier of the movie. It took me until he and Speedman's agent are arguing face-to-face in Goodman's office.