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2007 Winter Video Roundup, Vol. II

2/14/07

"Alias", Season Five (17 45-minute episodes)

After watching the first two seasons of "Alias" as they aired on television, I got away from keeping up with the show in season three, so I watched that season and the show's final two seasons all on DVD over the last year or so.  The swan song for J.J. Abrams's spy hit, the creator of "Lost" and the director of last year's "M:I-3" clearly was finished with "Alias" and season five is just really a chance to go through the motions one last time.  Too bad the show had fallen so far after its initial promise.  Jennifer Garner is so removed from "Alias" for this season that she's pregnant for half of the campaign; adding two new agents to the mix doesn't help, and neither does the silly Rambaldi artifact hunt that nearly ruined the first season of the show.  By the time love interest Michael Vaughn (Michael Vartan) got shot about 30 times in the season five opener only to survive that and hide out in the hills of Yemen or some other far away place for 10 episodes, I was on "just let the progression play itself out" mode because this had gotten so ridiculous.  They couldn't even get a two- or three-hour finale out of ABC for this show, leaving us with lots of major characters dead by the time the series is over.  Man, I hope they don't turn this into a movie franchise.

Rating:  Rental

"The Marksman"

Meg and I--to kill some time between activities--watched this incredibly shitty thriller starring Wesley Snipes as a CIA assassin tasked with "painting" a nuclear facility somewhere in Chechnya.  Here's the thing--Snipes has something like not even a hundred words of dialogue in this movie, and with a
stunt double used for a number of the action scenes, the total workload on my man Blade couldn't have been more than about two weeks. Now, I'm down with a guy getting a paycheck on occasion, but has Snipes fallen so far that he needed to do this? What the fuck???  Also strange--the guy that played the commander in "Aliens" who had never been in actual combat played Snipes' lead contact during the mission in this one...man, this puppy was low-budget. Oh, and, uh, awful!!!  Did I mention that the Snipes character's point man had his voice dubbed out by a voice stunt double?  What a fucking piece of shit.

Rating:  Hard Vice

"Vera Drake"

Catching up on Oscar-nominated performances of the last ten years or so, I finally saw Mike Leigh's great "Vera Drake" thanks to Netflix, and I must agree with the Academy--the lead performance of Imelda Staunton as good-wife-gone-civic-duty-soldier Vera Drake is fantastic.  In 1950, this Mrs. Drake character is a loving mother, a dutiful wife, and a great neighbor who is a domestic servant for a number of families in her native town somewhere in England.  A couple of times a week, she also helps prospective moms abort any unwanted pregnancies...which, in 1950s England, is VERY illegal.  When one of these procedures leaves a woman near death, the cops come calling...and, Vera faces some time behind bars if she can't get out of her predicament.  Just a great story idea and one that Staunton plays out to the max, "Vera Drake" is a bit of a slow starter but for various reasons, it really does finish strongly and make you want to investigate what other films Leigh has worked on.

Rating:  $9.50 Show

"Idiocracy"

After you have watched Mike Judge's "Office Space" about a dozen times, you realize that even if it was just for one film, Mike Judge is a fucking genius.  ("King of the Hill" and "Beavis and Butthead" are foreign to me.)  So, when I learned that his first feature film directorial effort since '99 was the new "Idiocracy", I was itching to see what Judge had up his sleeve next.  Then, I heard that he was having a devil of a time trying to get a studio to produce the film...odd, since this guy made maybe the best comedy (especially from a society/cultural certainty standpoint) of the last ten years and has a cult following the size of freakin' Nebraska.  Then, like a year after it was finished filming, it seemed like Judge just kind of gave up and got the movie sent straight to tape.  Then, this week, I saw "Idiocracy", and as shitty a movie as it is--and, make no mistake, it IS shitty--it does have a brilliant idea as its starting point: what if people really are getting dumber and lazier to the point that they could affect evolution?  Luke Wilson and a mostly-awful cast (again, shocking, given that this is the freakin' OFFICE SPACE GUY) try to bring "Idiocracy" to life and fail miserably; the movie gets lame fast and at only 75 minutes, it needs to hurry and thankfully, it does.  This is probably just as bad as "Office Space" was great; I think I'll stick to watching the paint dry.

Rating:  Hard Vice

 

Comments?  Drop me a line at justin@bellviewmovies.com.

 

Bellview Rating System:

"Opening Weekend":  This is the highest rating a movie can receive.  Reserved for movies that exhibit the highest level of acting, plot, character development, setting...or Salma Hayek.  Not necessarily in that order. 

"$X.XX Show":  This price changes each year due to the inflation of movie prices; currently, it is the $9.50 Show.  While not technically perfect, this is a movie that will still entertain you at a very high level.  "Undercover Brother" falls into this category; it's no "Casablanca", but you'll have a great time watching.  The $9.50 Show won't win any Oscars, but you'll be quoting lines from the thing for ages (see "Office Space"). 

"Matinee":  An average movie that merits no more than a $6.50 viewing at your local theater.  Seeing it for less than $9.50 will make you feel a lot better about yourself.  A movie like "Blue Crush" fits this category; you leave the theater saying "That wasn't too bad...man, did you see that Lakers game last night?" 

"Rental":  This rating indicates a movie that you see in the previews and say to your friend, "I'll be sure to miss that one."  Mostly forgettable, you couldn't lose too much by going to Hollywood Video and paying $3 to watch it with your sig other, but you would only do that if the video store was out of copies of "Ronin."  If you can, see this movie for free.  This is what your TV Guide would give "one and a half stars." 

"Hard Vice":  This rating is the bottom of the barrel.  A movie that only six other human beings have witnessed, this is the worst movie I have ever seen.  A Shannon Tweed "thriller," it is so bad as to be funny during almost every one of its 84 minutes, and includes the worst ending ever put into a movie.  Marginally worse than "Cabin Boy", "The Avengers" or "Leonard, Part 6", this rating means that you should avoid this movie at all costs, or no costs, EVEN IF YOU CAN SEE IT FOR FREE!  (Warning:  strong profanity will be used in all reviews of "Hard Vice"-rated movies.)