Shorties

What say we try and get caught up

Death at a Funeral (***)

I never saw the original Frank Oz-directed, British version of this movie, which is probably a good thing since, other than the cast, they seem to be nearly identical, right down to the same actor playing the father's diminutive long-time "friend." So I can't really compare this to the original, but I can tell you that I found this version to be pretty funny, though some parts are most certainly funnier than others. Chris Rock is Aaron, our protagonist, a son burying his father--who stipulated in his will that his funeral take place at home--and is struggling to deal with both the logistics and financial reality of the funeral, while trying to deal with the various warring factions of his family. He mostly serves as the straight man, and mostly does a pretty good job of it. Martin Lawrence plays his brother, Ryan, a wealthy and popular writer (well, he claims he got hit hard by the recession) who moved out to New York and lives a playboy's lifestyle. His character's just really not that funny in the grand scheme of the movie. Most of the bits centered around him involve him creepily hitting on an 18 year old and kind of fall flat. Luke Wilson, perhaps snake-bitten by those God-awful AT&T commercials, isn't all that funny either as Derek, the ex of Elaine (Zoe Saldana), who spends the duration of the funeral ineptly trying to win her back.

Much, much funnier are Norman (Tracy Morgan) and Uncle Russell (a perpetually scowling Danny Glover), who pretty much steal the movie. Glover plays Uncle Russell as the grumpy old man archetype turned up to 11, spending the whole of the movie verbally and physically abusing Norman, who has the unfortunate task of having to look after him despite merely being a family friend. Tracy Morgan is... well... Tracy Morgan, showing off his unmatched comedic timing acting like the funniest possible type of complete crazy person. Also funny is the escalating comedy of errors involving various family members trying to detain the little person who was... involved with their father and is now trying to blackmail the family for what he believes is owed to him. The sight gag it all culminates in is somewhat predictable though.

Overall, Death at a Funeral is a well-executed, raunchy, dark comedy.

Sherlock Holmes (***)

Guy Ritchie, who has made a career to this point making British underground movies tries his hand at a crime story of a more classical nature in the form of the latest adaptation of the quintessential detective character, and the results are mostly enjoyable. Bearing only a passing resemblance to a lot of the very gentlemanly interpretations of Holmes, like the movies starring Peter Cushing in the 60s and 70s, Ritchie's film has a bit more of an edge, not skirting around Holmes' drug addiction, and playing up his somewhat anti-social behavior. Robert Downey Jr. brings his usual quirkiness to the role, at times making it seem like his character from Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang has been sent back to Victorian England. Jude Law's Watson is good as well, and the two playing off of each other produces a nice House-Wilson vibe, Gregory House, of course, being basically the modernized, medical equivalent of the Holmes archetype.

Mark Strong plays the villain, a cult-leader who has been murdering the cult's enemies by seemingly magical means, and whose ultimate plot is to kill all the non-cult-friendly members of parliament through a very steampunk-looking device that will flood the parliament chamber with deadly gas. As such, it leads to the old cliched ticking time-bomb scenario, but the detective story that leads up to it is intriguing enough and feels worthy of the Holmes tradition. The movie does an effective job of tying everything up, while teasing a much more iconic Holmes foe for a potential sequel. Rachel McAdams shows up as a old flame of Holmes', but doesn't really end up having much that's all that memorable. Despite not being used to this sort of big-budget, big-hype fare, Ritchie is able to inject a lot of his signature hard-nosed style into the film. Particularly cool are the fight sequences, in we first see Holmes planning out precisely how and why he's going to attack his target in slow-motion, blow-by-blow, then we rewind to see it happen all at once in real time. Compared to how slow-motion is used routinely in action movies nowadays, it feels much less empty and much more purposeful.

Holmes is enjoyable, and if a sequel is to be made (may have already been greenlit for all I know, haven't been seeking out news for it) I would have high hopes for it.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (***1/2)

As if Wes Anderson's movies weren't already quirky and surrealist enough, Anderson tries his hand at stop-motion animation in his adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox. I don't have the slightest clue as to how close the movie is to the book in either plot or feel, but I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. George Clooney plays a fox who promises his wife, voiced by Merryl Streep, to give up his career of chicken snatching when they settle down and have a kid, who turns out to have the voice of Jason Schwartzman. Eventually, though, he falls back on his old habits, and pulls off his greatest caper ever, which causes three of the angriest farmers in the land to come after him and drive him and the neighboring animals deep into the sewers. Thus, Mr. Fox has to hatch a plan for them to escape, which involves, among other things, a badger demolitions expert voiced by Bill Murray. Funnnnn times.

Avatar (***)

Yep, finally got around to seeing it, though I'm not going to waste a lot of ink on it (pretend this is ink). I agree pretty much exactly with what the general consensus seems to be, that being that it's visually stunning, but the plot is derivative and forgettable.