Boyhood review

There are two summer movies that are impossible to dislike. One is Guardians of the Galaxy. The other is Boyhood.

Boyhood is a film about the juvenile life of Mason Evans Jr. (Mason) and his growth to adulthood. The remarkable thing about his movie is that Moses is played by one actor, Ellar Coltrane starting at six, and filmed for twelve years to capture his growth. We meet Mason as a young child living with his single mother, Olivia (Patricia Arquette) and his sister, Samantha. (Lorelei Linklater, the director's daughter) Olivia is divorced from Mason Evans Sr. (Ethan Hawke) who gets the kids on visitation. The kids clearly adore him for his fun loving ways. But he's not a responsible adult. The movie is comprised of moments of Mason's life. Playing video games. Spending time with his separated father. Fighting with his sister. Seeing his mother having bad relationships with abusive husbands. Becoming a rebellious teen. Drinking. Falling in love.

I say that the film is remarkable because writer and director Richard Linklater has managed to capture a fictional life that echoes the human experience. He was able to get four actors to play a part for twelve years of on and off filming which enhances the realism. All the conflicts, drama, comedy ring true. Linklater is not interested in giant dramatic tragedy because that usually doesn't happen to most people. But he's more into the problems of everyday people. And at the same time, he makes this family likable, and I should say lovable. You can't help but root for Mason. His mother and father are far from perfect but do an admirable job of raising a good kid. Yeah, Mason is probably not going to become President but I do trust in the end that he's going to be a good person. Yet, all of this is done without the camera gymnastics that have polluted modern film.

Ellar Coltrane's performance is spectacular. As a child, he gets the idea of who his character is. When a stepfather makes him cut his long hair, we see the dismay in his face. Of course, director Linklater deserves some credit here. He gets the same from his own daughter, Lorelei. Yes, we see the brother-sister rivalry that one sees in most families. There's also growth for the adults. Ethan Hawke's father is a affable guy who really has very little idea of being responsible in life. Yet, his love for the children that will shape them. Patricia Arquette's Olivia, is a person that we all have met. She's a struggling single mother who meets the wrong guys constantly. Yet Arquette is strong for her children, no matter what obtacles life throws in her way.

There are small problems with this film. Many times when you have the writer and director being the same person, you can have either a cinematic disaster or a good movie. Boyhood falls into the latter category. Linklater probably had so much footage and wanted to show the emotional and physical growth of Mason that he left too much of it in the final cut. There were scenes that didn't help the dramatic narrative. For example, there's a scene where a pre-teen Mason is walking with a girl. The conversation didn't do anything for the movie. At 164 minutes, this film should have been cut by thirty minutes. Boyhood is also aloof at times. In one scene, Olivia is crying over an impending empty nest. Mason doesn't do much to comfort her. He just seems clueless. Linklater should have given closure here with reassurance from Mason because we know that he loves her. Still, none of this hurts this movie that much.

Every summer, the theaters are full of cinematic bombast. Much of it is numbing on one's senses. Boyhood comes in like a sweep of fresh air. It's a graceful, lovely slice of life. The grade is B Plus.

R.I.P.D. 3D review

Did you know that spicy Indian food will expose the dead living among us? It's just one of the many rules of the afterlife in the movie, R.I.P.D. The film stars Ryan Reynolds and Oscar winner, Jeff Bridges.

In R.I.P.D., Boston detective Nick Walker (Ryan Reynolds) confronts his partner, Bobby Hayes (Kevin Bacon) about some gold which they took from a crime scene. They decide to turn the gold in. But before they can do that, a call comes in that a major drug dealer is holed up in a warehouse. Nick is killed during the arrest attempt and he's sucked up to purgatory. Once there, he's greeted by Mildred Proctor (Mary-Louise Parker), a supervisor, in the Rest In Peace Department or R.I.P.D. Oh,that's where the title of the movie comes from. Anyway, Proctor explains that the purpose of R.I.P.D. is to go to earth and arrest the dead that are hiding among the living. They're called "deados." What? No zombies? Proctor knows about Walker's life and offers him a deal. Use his police skills and enlist in the R.I.P.D or face judgment. Walker decides to join the force. You didn't think he would choose judgment, did you? I mean that's the end of the movie.

Nick is paired with R.I.P.D. officer, Roy Pulsipher (Jeff Bridges). Pulsipher, let's call him Roy, was a sheriff from the Wild West when he was killed. Roy decides to show the rookie, Nick, the ropes. You know like the Indian food trick. Once a deado is exposed, he or she becomes a hulk of rotting flesh. When a suspect literally vomits some gold, Nick suspects that stolen gold from his life and this gold must be related and part of a bigger mystery.

It took five writers to bring this movie to life from a comic book of the same name by Peter Lenkov. Peter, sorry to mention your name with this movie that's sure to be nominated for a Razzie award. But I'm sure your comic book was better. There are multiple problems with the movie, R.I.P.D. First, it tries to be Men in Black. (1997) But that movie was witty in its juxtaposition of modern life with aliens among us. R.I.P.D is not witty unless you like vomiting and deformed monsters. Second, the comic timing that director Robert Schwentke had for RED (2010) abandons him. That's because the writers do a terrible job at writing jokes. Then there are the plot holes. Let me put it this way. In this universe, there is evidence of God. I mean the guys in R.I.P.D. report to somebody. And somebody is judging the departed souls. So how come God can't tell the R.I.P.D. who is dead or not? To quote James T. Kirk in Star Trek V, "Aren't you God?" But why even have a R.I.P.D.? I think God can return the dead to the afterlife. If only Peter Lenkov wrote about other undead characters in his comic. Republicans. I keeed. I keeed. No, I mean zombies. Yeah, the world needs another zombie flick or a vampire movie, starring teenagers.

Ryan Reynolds needs to read his scripts. Dude, the ladies love your body but it's time for them to love your mind. I will give him credit for an earnes t performance here. Playing Walker's wife is Stephanie Szostak. She radiates a beautiful soul, one that you can see why Nickis reluctant about letting go. Mary-Louise Parker is given very little to do in the comic area and that's a waste. But the worst performance comes from Jeff Bridges. His Roy is similar to his Rooster Cogburn from True Grit (2010) if Cogburn smoked meth. And many times, it sounds like he has marbles in his mouth. Can't laugh if you don't understand what he's saying. But I must admit there's also something appealing about his Roy. Maybe it's the devil may care attitude that works with the cowboy mentality. He reminds me of a R rated Yosemite Sam.

There are two performances that could have been used to better comic effect. Supermodel Marissa Miller is Pavlenko who is Roy's avatar. You see the R.I.P.D. must use avatars to operate on earth. So Roy's is a gorgeous blonde. There's comic gold that needed more mining here. Then there is Nick's avatar. He's an old Chinese man named Chen. He's played by legendary character Chinese actor James Hong.  (Pictured above.)   Now this is interesting. Hong has been in show business since the fifties. He's been in classic films like Chinatown. (1974) Was in a porn movie called China Girl. (1975) No, he did not perform sex acts. Was in great television shows. The Taxi episode, The Great Race (1979) comes to mind. Then there are the iconic genre films. Blade Runner. (1981) Big Trouble in Little China. (1986) He was the voice of Mr. Ping in Kung Fu Panda. (2008) That's quite a resume.

As for the 3D version of R.I.P.D., it represents what's wrong with converting a 2D movie to 3D. And R.I.P.D. is a conversion. I've written many times the lack of quality of 3D cinema when you compare a conversion to a movie shot in native 3D, i.e. with 3D cameras. What you get with R.I.P.D. is the pop up book effect. There's depth between 2D cutouts. That's what it looks like. You can't get the popping effect of native 3D where objects feel like they're in the theater with you. At least most of this movie featured day scenes and the darkness issue with many conversions is not present. But the lack of the pushing out from the screen or popping makes this movie an ordinary 3D conversion. Nothing to see here. Save your money and watch the 2D version.

R.I.P.D. is not a good movie. It lacks laughs. It's not terrible either. I mean I did not find it boring. Could be a guilty pleasure. The grade is C Plus.

Google's Insidious Plan?

This morning I lost YouTube. I mean YouTube videos were running till about three a.m. Then when I went back to YouTube, the videos would not play. The video screen was black. You could see all the other information on the YouTube site but as I said the picture screen was black. The videos went black on this Blog. I tried to upgrade to Adobe Flash. That didn't work. Then I tried Google's Chrome web browser. See I had been using Internet Explorer. Guess what happened? YouTube videos work and now my disappearing followers have reappeared.

Okay, I wonder if something is happening here. Google owns Blogger. They also own YouTube. I'm sure they want everybody on the planet to switch their browser to Chrome. You don't think they're trying funnel everybody to Chrome, do you? Google takes over the planet. Okay, Google don't cut me off. If your engineers can get Internet Explorer to work with Blogger and YouTube, then you wouldn't get bloggers like me mouthing off their opinions.

Bernie's Basement Blog Is Two Years Old!

I forgot. This Blog is two years old. Thank you to the four people who read this blog! And if Google ever figures out why my followers have disappeared, I will write about the solution. But Google should appreciate that I run ads and am getting more visitors. Yeah, I would love to be Perez Hilton and have his money for blogging but that's life. How about some music for the second anniversary?

Missing Followers

Sometime in March, the followers of this blog have disappeared. That's the section down on this blog where you can see the various people who want to follow. I have not changed anything with the blog. Unfortunately, Blogger's only help is to direct the user to a forum where so far no solution has been offered. The interesting thing is that sometimes followers will occasionally appear for a very short period of time then they disappear. Now the followers are present on the Dashboard for users. Also, I've checked my blog on other computers and the followers are not present. It's frustrating.

If you're a follower or want to be a follower, I thank you. I ask all of you for patience. This problem is probably in the hands of Google and Blogger's engineers.

Update: 7-5-11. Today I lost YouTube. In my effort to get it back, I looked at YouTube by using Google Chrome, web browser. I could see YouTube again. I then checked this Blog and saw the followers back on the page. So, for right now it seems that Google Chrome will allow the followers and people who want to follow this Blog. I'm sorry for inconvenience.