Unforgiven (1992)

Genre: Western/Drama/Crime/Action

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman, Anna Levine, Frances Fisher, Jaimz Woolvett

In the town of Big Whiskey, Wyoming, Delilah (Levine) a prostitute is attacked and butchered by two men leaving deep scars on her face. The town sheriff, Little Bill (Hackman) does little to punish the man and orders him to give the brothel owner horses as compensation. This act infuriates the prostitutes who decide to pool in their money and offer a $1000 bounty to anyone who kills the two men. Bill Munny (Eastwood) was a notorious assassin who was known to kill ruthlessly. Marriage teaches him a lesson and he changes his bad ways. A young cowboy going by the name of Schofiel Kid (Woolvett) approaches Munny and tells him of the $1000 bounty. Although Bill has stopped killing, he needs the money and agrees to help him hunt down the two men. Bill never works without his partner, Ned Logan (Freeman) and gets him to come along on the trip. Little Bill does not like gunslingers coming into his town and has every intention of protecting the two men from cowboys. Clint Eastwood seems to have the fabled golden touch, where each and every movie turns out to be a box-office extravaganza. With a mighty impressive star line-up, the movie delivers exactly what you have in mind, which comes as a huge relief. Fabulous plot and an amazing show, can seem to get a bit slow at times, but the rest of the movie is too good to bother about such anomalies.

Thumbs up: Amazing performance and an amazing star cast

Thumbs down: Lacks the old-world charm of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Rating: 8.3/10

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GET HIM TO THE GREEK

Written and Directed by Nicolas Stoller

Starring Jonah Hill, Russell Brand, Elizabeth Moss and Sean Combs

In director, Nicolas Stoller’s first film, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, North American audiences were formally introduced to Russell Brand, a British comedic sensation. Brand played rocker, Aldous Snow, the man responsible for stealing the title character from leading man, Jason Segel. You are supposed to hate this guy considering what he did to our quite lovable protagonist but there is just something about him that keeps you from ever getting there. Maybe it’s the seemingly uncontrollable vulgarity that flows from his mouth every time he opens it or maybe it’s just the way he struts around in his sister’s skinny jeans as if he were some sort of hyper-sexualized chicken. Whatever it is, it works.

It works so well that Stoller decided to focus his second directorial effort, GET HIM TO THE GREEK, with Brand’s Aldous as the central character. Aldous is now completely washed up and off the wagon once again. There is still hope though. Young music biz keener, Aaron Green, has decided to restage a famous concert Aldous once put on at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in order to miraculously awaken a dying music industry and save Aldous’s career. Both are a pretty tall order but anything is possible in the crazy world of rock ‘n’ roll and Stoller is banking on you knowing that in order to buy his movie. Aaron must get Aldous to the Greek on time but somehow, things go awry.

As comedic as Brand and Hill are together (complimented perfectly by refreshing turns from Mad Men's Elizabeth Moss and Diddy himself, Sean Combs), GET HIM TO THE GREEK is far too stepped in convention to be truly raucous. The jokes are crass and definitely funny but Stoller tries too hard to come up with the most outlandish rock star obstacles possible to deter them from their destination. When they’re crazy, it’s crazy. When they have lulls though, so do we. With this kind of set up, you should never want the twosome to get where they’re going. In this case, I wanted them to get there a good day earlier than they were supposed to.

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Road Trip: Beer Pong (2009)

Genre: Comedy/Adventure/Drama/Romance

Starring: Preston Jones, Michael Trotter, DJ Quallas, Nestor Aaron Asbera, Danny Pudi, Julianna Guill

A sequel to the 2001 hit Road Trip the movie narrates the life of Andy (Jones) and Katy (Guill), a crazy in love couple who have to go to different universities to pursue their education. Andy's friend Korken (Trotter) is always behind him to forget about Katy and to forget about being loyal and to enjoy college life to the fullest. Andy and Jake (Asbera) are beer pong champions and are representing The University Ithaca at the national beer pong championship. Katy decides to get a transfer to Andy's college, something which freaks Andy out. Andy also comes across his childhood crush on the Internet and decides to meet her at the beer pong championship. The four friends need funding for the road trip and approach Arash (Pudi) the son of the dictator of Tandor (which is a subtle spoof on India). He agrees, provided he can come along on the trip. Overnight, the government of Tandor falls and the five of them find themselves on the street without any money. The movie uses a lot of elements from the previous movie and tries to incorporate it in a new story. The entire outcome is an average plot, poor performances and the lack of any kind of humour making it plain boring. A messed-up version of the original

Thumbs up: Decent attempt, although messed-up

Thumbs down: Lack of humour

Rating: 5.6/10

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Best of Black Sheep: FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL

Written by Jason Segel

Directed by Nicholas Stoller

Starring Jason Segel, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd & Bill Hader

On the eve of Nicolas Stoller's GET HIM TO THE GREEK, Black Sheep takes a look back at his first feature, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, which spawned the character of rocker, Alduous Snow.  Russell Brand brings the character back and throws him even further in your face this time around and, alongside Jonah Hill, brings many a laugh with him.  But has Stoller grown too?  Read the Black Sheep review tomorrow.  In the meantime ...

The writer/star of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL, Jason Segel, is the kind of artist who isn’t afraid to let it all hang out there for everyone to see and subsequently appreciate or pick apart. He writes his pain on to the screen and isn’t afraid to get naked on the path to true understanding. In the writer’s world, naked is a fairly obvious metaphor for vulnerability but here it just means nude. And so, as Segal’s penis flaps back and forth against his painfully pale body, moments before Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell) breaks up with him, the Judd Apatow movie machine unleashes its latest raw comedy from the mind of the modern male.

This particular male is Peter Bretter (Segel), a slob who can barely pick up after himself but somehow manages to maintain a serious relationship with a gorgeous actress girlfriend and holds down a job as a composer for schlock television. He’s not unattractive nor without his charms but he does raise the question as to how he ever managed to get himself this well positioned. He also has no trouble at all finding numerous beautiful women to help him take his mind off Sarah. And while forgetting Sarah Marshall proves much more complicated than Peter had hoped - it doesn’t help that they have found themselves both at the same Hawaiian resort – he can at least have the last laugh by vilifying her as a horrible human being before the credits role. Without giving too much away, he will have the option, as the sympathetic character, to walk away happy but Sarah, as the heartbreaker, has been doomed since Hester Prynne was sent to prison with that darn scarlet letter across her chest.


If I were Apatow, I would be a little tired of hearing my name being attached to all of these projects. If anything, he should make sure to have a firmer hand in the process in the future. FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is not without the hilarity and genuine character development that his past productions have captured so poignantly but its bizarre subplots and many rushed moments make it somewhat forgettable.

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Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010)

Genre: Fantasy/Action/Adventure/Romance

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Toby Kebbell, Richard Coyle, Alfred Molina

Based on the very very famous video game, the movie narrates the adventures of Prince Dastan (Gyllenhaal), the prince of Persia. Dastan was adopted by the Persian king and went on to become a great warrior. The kings brother Nizam (Kingsley) and the kings sons Gus (Coyle) and Tarsiv (Kebbell) loved him and respected him. The Persian army invaded the holy city of Alamut based on infromation that it was manufacturing arms and supplying them to enemies. They seized Queen Tamina (Arterton) and made her wife of Tarsiv. Dastan finds a dagger, which does not look like an ordinary dagger and holds a special power of which he has no knowledge. The king of Persia is murdered and Dastan is accused of treachery. He flees with Tamina and later learns of the power he holds in his hands. If the jewel on the dagger is pressed, he can go back in time and change the course of events. However, this can happen only if there is enough magical sand in the dagger. Dastan needs to go to Alamut to refill the dagger and go back in time to change the course of a lot of misfortunate events. The movie gives you a very mixed response with the adapted screenplay not being executed well enough. Jake Gyllenhaal was a huge misfit for the role of Dastan and action just does not suit him. There is nothing really to look forward to in the movie, the action is nothing special, Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't click and plot is badly executed. It does fulfill the role of an overall entertainer but nothing special here.

Thumbs up: Special effects

Thumbs down: Poor casting

Rating: 6.2/10

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Heist (2001)

Genre: Crime/Drama/Action

Starring: Gene Hackman, Danny DeVito, Delroy Lindo, Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon, Ricky Jay

Joe Moore (Hackman) is a smooth-operating criminal mastermind who works with his team of operatives, Bobby (Lindo), Pinky (Jay) and his young wife Fran (Pidgeon). His jobs come from Mickey (DeVito) who tells him what to rob and they split the loot in half. Joe is scared of the heat his operations are creating and wants to quit once and for all. Mickey is not going to let him go so easily and insists they do a 'Swiss' job. To ensure that Joe doesn't walk out on him, he sends his nephew Jimmy (Rockwell) to conduct the heist with them. The job is to loot a Swiss cargo airline carrying tons of gold bars. Joe wants to get even with Mickey for not sharing the loot from the last robbery and is going to use every trick up his sleeve to ensure that happens. The movie is loaded with surprise twists and turns which make it interesting. However, the plot is not supported by the cast, whose performance is mediocre and uninspiring. The entire plot execution itself doesn't make it all that interesting as it should be which brings down an otherwise good movie. Would appeal to someone looking for a good robbery but not its not Oceans Eleven.

Thumbs up: Amazing storyline

Thumbs down: Poor performance and poor plot execution

Rating: 7.1/10

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Black Sheep's Blu-Tuesday

We're going to try something new this week.  As I cannot always find figures on last week's sales on time to post this column, I will also begin each week with the most exciting Blu-Ray release announcements from the last week.  I assume you don't check these sorts of things every day like I do so I figure summing it up once weekly will work for you.  The title that gets all my attention this week is the Oscar-nominated, A PROPHET.  I caught this one just before the telecast, where it lost to the inferior THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES, and I was floored.  It will be released on August 3.  Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning are more likely to find a larger audience with the home release of THE RUNAWAYS, July 20.  And looking even further ahead for all you collectors out there, the original 1933 version of KING KONG will make its way to Blu-Ray on September 28.

As for this week's releases ...

ALICE IN WONDERLAND

The first time I saw Tim Burton's wildly successful version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, my ex had told me that morning that he was already seeing someone else just a short while after we split.  Needless to say, I did not have an easy time focusing on the explosion of matted colour on the screen.  The second time I saw it was the following weekend and, not to be outdone, I was on a date of my own.  I was able to see the film a lot clearer but I can't say I enjoyed it anymore the second time around.  Burton's vivid imagination is something of a cliche now that it is just being used by Hollywood to put a supposedly fresh spin on classic tales.  That hardly matters though when ALICE IN WONDERLAND is the biggest film of Burton's career and only the sixth film in history to cross $1 billion in international ticket sales.

LIFE

Unfortunately, I was stuck in traffic somewhere on the 401 yesterday when the good people at Warner Bros. tried to deliver this brand new BBC Earth series, LIFE.  Subsequently, I have not yet had the chance to watch any of it but I do know what I'm doing as soon as I post this.  The people who brought you the breathtaking series, "Planet Earth", are doing it again, but this time, they're going to focus more on the inhabitants of the planet instead of the planet itself.  The original series was narrated by Richard Attenborough, just like "Planet Earth", but most North American retailers will be carrying the version that played on the Discovery Chanel, narrated by Oprah Winfrey.  I'm somewhat skeptical of this but also certain that whatever imagery will be on my screen will quickly allow me to drown out any voice around.

THE WOLFMAN

I can't say I remember disliking this film as much as most of my colleagues did when the film played in theatres.  I gave the film two stars and a lot of people said I was still being pretty generous.  The truth of it is, THE WOLFMAN has very little to sink your ravenous, razor-sharp teeth into.  It is all show with very little substance and honestly, the show is only passable really.  You spend most of the movie in the dark, literally as the action has to take place at night for the most part, as to why you're even there to begin with.  This is because Joe Johnston infuses the classic horror tale with modern ideas like daddy issues and girl trouble and does a bad job selling that too.  Even more mind boggling is how such a great cast got roped into this mess.  The wolf himself, Benicio del Toro, even served as a producer on this.  I don't get it.

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY:

Tom Cruise teams up with Steven Spielberg for the surprisingly enjoyable and suspenseful, WAR OF THE WORLDS.  Will Smith and Martin Lawrence do wonders for their careers with BAD BOYS.  And a bunch of Clint Eastwood classics, from SPACE COWBOYS to THE ROOKIE with Charlie Sheen, make their way to Blu-Ray, either individually or as part of the new CLINT EASTWOOD COLLECTION.  And yes, I was being sarcastic when I said, "classics".

Source: Blu-ray.com

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