1408

1408 is about Mike Enslin (John Cusack). Mike is a writer who goes around to hotels that claim to be haunted and tests them. He was once a promising writer before a personal tragedy caused him to abandon his life and begin the one on which he is engaged. One day he receives a simple postcard from "The Dolphin Hotel" with a simple imperative scrawled on the back - "don't enter 1408." Mike laughs at the 'tactic' that is clearly being used on him and even the quaintness that the numbers add up to 13. He researches the room and finds plenty of ghastly murders and decides this is a perfect new chapter to his book. Eventually Mike gets into the room and the horror begins.

If you weren't aware this is a horror film. There is not much more than that. Set up and then scare, its been working for years, so why change a good formula. I desperately wanted to like this film. I really did. I didn't want another negative mark. And for about an hour or so I did like the movie. It has a few jolt you from your seat moments and some genuinely creepy moments and some neat effects. I wished they would cut back on some of the flashier stuff and play up the suspense and tension but not so much I was taken out of the film. That was saved for a moment late in the film. Its a fake out (one you can see coming early on), I saw the seeds laid and I hoped, I prayed they wouldn't do it, that they had just put that scene in to make you think they were going to do it (can anyone follow that?).

Needless to say my prayers were not answered. After that things get bigger and more showy but not scary. If the fake out was cheap, the end is bargain bin cheap. Performances? Well, Cusack as always is entertaining to watch. Sam Jackson has a few ultimately pointless but well acted scenes trying to convince Cusack not to rent the room. And well, that's it really. I don't have much to say about this film. It started well enough and crapped out by the end but maybe I just wanted a better movie. I'd probably watch it again if I found it on free cable (the first half at least).

Rory

A Response:

I should start by saying I've never been what one may term a Horror Movie Fan. They just don't do it for me. I mean, a few of them do. But most of the time I find myself disappointed. There are even horror movies I'll admit are skillfully made but - personally, and personally only - they leave me hollow. Yet, I don't think a lot of them are skillfully made. Any director can couple a door opening with a loud piano chord and make you jump, right?

So is 1408 a typical horror movie or is it something else? Well, I think it has an inkling to be something more. I think it wants to work on more of a psychological level. Or maybe it just wants us to think it works on more of psychological level. You're totally right, Rory, in that as it progresses it just gets more showy. Not scary. Good way to put it.

But I was at least somewhat involved in it most of the time. I wasn't checking my watch (so to speak since I don't own a watch) or tapping my foot incessantly. And that is due in no small part - or completely, if I think about it - to John Cusack's performance. This guy is just such a good actor. I mean, we've gotta' be willing to roll with this guy (even though through some trite character development we learn he's a bit "selfish") as he's pretty much the whole movie. And you do roll with him because Cusack has that ability to pull you in no matter what he's doing. And he's pitch-perfect even if the movie itself is not. (His performance actually brought to mind for me Naomi Watts' turn in "The Ring". I didn't really like that movie as a whole, either, but I thought the moments in which it did work were solely because Watts grounded it.) He goes through the stages of emotion just as I imagine someone would if in a situation such as this. Complete Denial to It Must All Be My Imagination to What The Hell Is Going On?! to an almost Ah, Fuck It.

Samuel L. Jackson is good, too, in what little he has to do. I enjoyed watching Jackson and Cusack go head to head. If I'd made this movie I would have had it be 85 minutes of Jackson's hotel manager trying to convince Cusack's writer not to go into the room and then right at the very end Cusack would have decided not to go in. Most of America would hate that. Too bad.

But yeah, the movie itself just doesn't work, just doesn't hold up. I think the reason I've never been a big fan of the horror movie genre is that so many of the horror movies I've encountered (at least recent ones) seem to rely so heavily on false endings. And I hate false endings. And we get a plethora of them here.

The fake out scene you mention is one that even I caught and I never catch them. I tend to not try and guess ahead when watching a movie, I just like to be absorbed in it. But I totally saw that fake out coming. It stood out like such a sore thumb. There was utterly no reason for it to be there except to come back later for a little trickery. And, in the end, the whole thing is just a big empty bag of trickery and one too many conclusions.

(Did we actually agree?)

Regards,

Nick

Rebuttal?

Yes, Nick I think we are in agreement (mostly): the highlights: Cusack and Jackson are fun to watch as ever. The low points: the horrible fake out and lack of genuine tension. In a cheesy send off of something from this very movie:

"Don't go see 1408"

Ocean's Thirteen

In the third installment of this somewhat beloved series, the entire "Oceans" gang is back. At least, I thought going in the entire gang was back. Perhaps you were in a different boat than me, Rory, but I'll cop to the fact I had no idea that Julia Roberts was not in this movie. I'm completely unaware how I didn't know this considering I saw several previews for it but at about the hour mark I remember thinking to myself, "Wait, I haven't seen Julia Roberts. Have I?" I hadn't. And I didn't. So, in any event, almost the entire "Oceans" gang is back and this time they're going all Charles Bronson (i.e. It's a revenge movie).

Elliot Gould's Ruben, you see, has decided to go into business with casino tycoon Willy Bank (Al Pacino) only to have Bank bilk him out of his fortune. And when this happens the rest of the "Oceans" gang - spearheaded once again by Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) - decide it's payback time. They hatch an elaborate scheme (is there any other kind?) to bilk Bank out of a great deal of his own fortune on the Grand Opening night of his new casino while at the same time stealing an unstealable collection of Bank's diamonds.

Now, before we go any further, I'd like to explain that while most of America seemed to dislike - or, at least, not like it anywhere near as much as the first one - Oceans Twelve, I loved it. In fact, I'll state for the record that I thought it was better than the first one. Was it indulgent? Without question. Was it, as many people have claimed, nothing more than a bunch of well-paid actors having a good time in front of a camera? Absolutely. And I say, what the hell's wrong with that? They were having a good time and so I had a good time watching them. I thought Julia Roberts' character pretending to be Julia Roberts was the comic zenith.

And that's why the first 15-20 minutes of Oceans Thirteen felt excruciatingly flat. All they did was set up and explain the heist that was to come and the actors didn't look in any way like they were having a good time and therefore the movie didn't feel like it was having a good time and therefore the audience isn't having a good time.


Once we actually get to the heist, though, things pick up, if not as much as I would hope. The how of the heist really didn't concern me as much as what went on the way to and during the heist. Like, for instance, the interesting detour that occurs with Casey Affleck's character when he is dispatched to a Mexican factory. Or Matt Damon literally donning a fake nose and yukking it up. Or Clooney and Pitt engaging in their witty rapport. (And, by the way, is there anyone better at reaction shots than George Clooney? He's the King of the Reaction Shot.)

Oceans Thirteen is certainly diverting, meaning it's worth the price of admission on a humid summer night. But there just isn't anything as uproarious in this one as the second one. And the heist doesn't feel as elaborate or as cool as the first one. They wanted to include all the good things from the first two except nothing here feels as well done as either of them.

Or maybe I was just disappointed that Julia Roberts' absence meant they couldn't up the ante by, say, working it out so Tess was posing as Julia Roberts who was, in turn, posing as Julia Roberts' stunt double.

Rory, I eagerly await your response.

Nick

A Response:

If Nick's greatest fear for this forum was that we would agree on our first film out of the gate, my biggest fear was that I would end up hating every movie that was discussed, thus making me look like a person who doesn't like anything. (I assure you, reader, that I do in fact on occasion like movies.) Luckily for Nick and sadly for me, we are once again in disagreement and I mark two negatives in the movie column. The Ocean gang is indeed back for revenge as Nick says. The revenge is over the top, but this film is going for over the top. I was aware that Julia Roberts would not be in this film and I was aware that Catherine Zeta-Jones was not in this film (yeah, I remember she made her debut as Rusty's love interest in the second film). There absences are explained away in a cheap way.

(I would like to note that I'm not fond of the "going Charles Bronson" metaphor because, if in fact the Ocean Gang had gone Charles Bronson, this film would have been way different with a much higher body count. (Go check out Soderberg's The Limey for a great, stylistic revenge film.) Actually as I think about it, this would have been weirdly intriguing, if the film had "gone Charles Bronson.")

Since, Nick, you've opened the door to Ocean's Twelve, I'll add my two cents worth as well. I agree it was indulgent. The actors were having one fantastic time (it seemed). The problem is it felt like one big in joke, which I wasn't in on. You know the kind, the kind that makes you feel bad because you don't get the joke. To me that is what Ocean's Twelve felt like.

But this isn't about its predecessors, its about the current film. Twenty minutes of film for lackluster start, Nick? I'm sorry, no. Let me say that the opening of this film made me do something I rarely do. I checked the time. After an interminably long time, I actually pulled out my time piece and looked at it. The previews for this movie started at 7:00 pm. Even if I'm generous and say they lasted twenty minutes (which they didn't), then the set up for this film finally concluded at 7:50 pm. That means there was a full half hour of set up, all done as exposition. Sure they tried to hide it behind dialogue between Pitt, Clooney and Eddie Izzard but nonetheless it was exposition. But that wasn't even the end of it, there must have been an additional ten to fifteen minutes of exposition later. The movie, which clocks in at just over two hours, had almost forty five minutes of explaining? Are they kidding me?

So after a very long explanation we know the who, what, where, when, why and even how the gang will pull off its caper. Will they pull it off? I don't think I need to answer that. What made the first caper from the first film so great was that we didn't actually know the how. We knew some of it, but not the whole thing, which was revealed in the end. We knew they would pull it off, but we were slightly in the dark as to the how. Now it might be cheap to repeat oneself, but knowing everything isn't entertaining.

Casey Affleck's side plot at the factory in Mexico was by far the most humorous part of the film. I actually laughed out loud when he gave his speech about Zapata. The effect of that speech was priceless. Once they were all back in Vegas, it was boring business as usual. Damon yuks it up with his prosthetic nose but he has a really awful scene with Ellen Barkin. It was actually painful to watch. I felt bad for Ellen Barkin.

And what about the "thirteen" of the title? I actually lost count of how many people were involved in this job. It was more than thirteen though. And sweet merciful crap was that Super Dave Osborne as Damon's father? Oh, you better believe it. Add all that up and I was done. I didn't leave but I checked out. It was just too much bad and ridiculous with too much explanation and too many dull scenes.

Here's hoping the next film I see is good (but I'm not optimistic).

Rory

A Rebuttal:

Your mentioning of the actual allotted time for exposition and set-up makes me wonder if I too mentally checked out, at least at the start. You state there was an explaining away of Julia Roberts' absence, and a couple reviews I read after seeing the movie also spoke of this explaining away, but I don't remember it happening. I must have been asleep, I guess.

What's the deal with the summer sequels this year and exposition? Are the filmmakers just lazy? Are they in too much of a rush to make their release dates? Are they hiring screenwriters straight out of UCLA who don't know any better? At this point I envision the first hour of Live Free or Die Hard as nothing but Bruce Willis sitting around with supporting characters, flipping through Kodak pictures of all his adventures since Die Hard 3, explaining them in detail.

Casey Affleck's "Zapata" speech was indeed hilarious. Probably the single best moment of the movie outside of the gag at the very end, which I won't give away. And I just really, really enjoy the chemistry between George Clooney and Brad Pitt. There were times, yes, where they seemed to be on auto pilot but auto pilot with this duo still makes for a very smooth ride. Steven Soderbergh is a junkie for experimentation and I think he should experiment with a movie just starring Clooney and Pitt in a room riffing. No, wait! How about this?! A Tape-like movie (have you seen that one?) set entirely in one room but done as a comedy with Julia Roberts as the Uma Thurman character. That would be fantastic! Okay, maybe no one else would like it, but I think I would.

But as for Oceans Thirteen, I still liked it. At least, I did once the set-up was done. But I do wonder if I liked it as much as I thought I did just because I didn't want to gouge out my own eyeballs, a la Pirates of the Caribbean 3. And if so, that kind of disturbs me. Is that the new criteria for judging these summertime tentpole movies? Did it make me want to gouge out my own eyeballs or did it not want to make me gouge out my own eyeballs? It didn't so it's a success.

In any event, how long until The Bourne Ultimatum?

Sincerely, Nick

Knocked Up

Knocked Up is a romantic comedy by Judd Apatow and stars Katherine Heigl and Seth Rogan. The director, the writer and not a few members of the cast are veterans of The 40 Year Old Virgin. Knocked Up is attempting to cash in on the former movie’s success. The film stars Seth Rogan as Ben Stone. Ben is an unemployed slacker who spends his time hanging out with his equally unemployed slacker friends attempting to start an internet business together. Katherine Heigl plays Allison Scott. Allison is a hard working woman recently promoted to anchor for the E! Network. She lives with her sister and her sister’s husband and kids. Allison goes out to celebrate her promotion and meets Ben. After a night of drunken passion Allison ends up pregnant. The film follows Ben and Allison as they figure out each other, their relationship and the coming baby.

Allison decides against the opinions of her confidants to become involved with Ben. As one might expect from a relationship built on the foundation of “be with the father of my baby” a comical mismatch is bound to ensue. There are two side plots worth mentioning. The first is that Allison’s sister has marital problems with her husband. She provides a negative example of marrying the person who gave you the kid. The other major side plot is Seth and company’s attempts to start an internet company which will tell you in what movie and when an actress got naked. Allison’s E! job provides plenty of cameos of actors and friends of the director (I assume) also make small cameos.

Aside from the pregnancy this movie is following a pretty standard romantic comedy plot line. Two people who don’t seem to quite belong together get together, it works for a while, then they stumble before they work it out and all ends happily ever after. As I said this film is trying to cash in on the success of The 40 Year Old Virgin. It doesn’t succeed. Steve Carell’s Andy was a loser but a sweet loser and so the resolution inside a basic comedy was actually quite charming. Seth Rogan’s Ben is not charming; he’s a semi-funny loser that the film desperately tries to convince the audience is sweet.

Ben isn’t sweet. Ben is an asshole. For most of the movie everything that Ben does or says is typically raunchy, inappropriate or just plain unfunny. He then has the unbelievable gall to act surprised when his attempts to woo Allison fail. Ben’s friends are assholes. A group of equally lamentable losers with even less tact and not even the reasonable amount of charm that Seth Rogan brings to his Ben. Even Ben’s father is an asshole. In a cameo, Harold Ramis plays Ben’s father who gives him advice. He gives bad advice and then plays cute when he’s called on it. Their jokes aren’t funny and I had no sympathy for anything they did. Allison’s sister is an asshole (albeit with slightly more reason than most in this film). Allison’s brother in law? Sweet Maria, Paul Rudd may be the biggest asshole in the entire film.

I didn’t buy Ben and Allison’s relationship. It isn’t the beautiful woman falls for funny guy bit (a movie standard), it’s the beautiful woman falls for a guy who isn’t funny, just (say it with me now) an asshole. The movie tries desperately to make you think Ben isn’t really all that bad (I think it fails, miserably). Ben’s miraculous third act turn around (this may be a spoiler but there is always a third act turn around in a romantic comedy) doesn’t make much sense. There is a moment when Allison is watching a movie reminiscing about the good (?) times she had with Ben. The movie? Wild Things. I literally thought what the f*** (Yes I thought asterisks)?

The side plots were tired and played for cheap laughs. If Allison’s sister has the marriage to be avoided, why isn’t it played up more? If in fact it is a model of a dysfunctional but still working marriage, why isn’t it played up more? Truth be told, I couldn’t figure out exactly what it was supposed to be doing. As for the internet company, if you were like me when you heard the idea, you said to yourself aloud (like Mr. Skin?). If you get what I just said you probably watch too much porn. Needless to say Ben’s attempts at financial benefit without real work are in trouble.

There are a few mildly amusing cameos by actors playing themselves. The funniest is probably by Ryan Seacrest (Guess what? He’s playing an asshole!). A later cameo by Steve Carell actually resulted in a character calling him an asshole. I almost thought this could be metatheatric but that would be giving the film maker far too much credit. In the end, the attempt to be saccharine sweet falls flat. I don’t like Ben. I don’t care if Ben ever gets it together. Allison is probably better off without Ben. I wish I had counted the times I laughed in this film because I’m guessing it would be low (some smirks but not a lot of laughs).

Thanks for Reading, Rory

A Response:

As I left "Knocked Up" I was overwhelmed by the fear that Rory and I would agree in complete unison regarding this film since, after all, the point of this new blog is for us to disagree. Since this is our first post it just seemed like we were destined to see eye to eye. Lo and behold, my fears were alleviated in no time.

Is "Knocked Up" a masterpiece of comedy? Goodness, no. There's a bit too much pop culture, for one thing. But I enjoyed it thoroughly and several parts made me laugh way, way out loud. As Rory stated, the characters played by Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl are our leads but for my money the counterpoint couple of Pete and Debbie played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are the movie's highlight. In fact, I'll take it a step further. I say this without fear of reprisal.

Leslie Mann deserves an Oscar nomination.

Yes, I thought she was just that good. (Mann, by the way, was the "french toast" girl from "The 40 Year Old Virgin", if that means anything to you.) She's brash and angry and opinionated. She's like a comic version of Mark Wahlberg in The Departed. She's awesome and all alone worth the price of a ticket. The moment when she and Paul Rudd are sitting at the table and she's hurling insults at him and she's staring right at him and he's looking anywhere but at her and she stays locked right on him - that might have been the funniest part of the movie.

No, no, no, the funniest part of the movie is when she confronts the doorman at the night club when he won't let her and her sister in. It's hilarious, and strangely touching, and kind of the moment that I thought summed up the film as a whole.

It's interesting, Rory, that you mention how everyone in the movie is an asshole. I don't dispute your assessment. I find it accurate and also perhaps the point. I think we've all got a little asshole in us. (Well, maybe not all of us but who wants to hang out with anyone who doesn't?) Whenever I think about the possibility of marriage and kids I start freaking out. I kinda' freak out like Paul Rudd. Remember when he indicates his need for "time by myself"? I think that's my #1 worry when I ponder marriage and kids. As those who know me can attest, I need alone time. It's not just that I crave it. I need it. I don't just freak out if I don't get it. I can go into a state of semi-nervous breakdown if I don't get it. So what happens if I get married? And/or have a kid? That alone time vanishes, right? That's a scary thing for me. (My friend Dan once commented that when I get married I would need to get a second apartment solely for the purpose of going there to watch Nebraska Football games.)

Pete and Debbie are often in a state of freak-out. They're are also assholes, yes, but then I can be a little bit of an asshole. Maybe not to this level. But if I got married and lost my alone time?

No one came across to me as a hostile asshole. They're all still lovable assholes. They're assholes that are trying their best, damn it. Even if sometimes (okay, quite often) their best is pretty darn crappy.

Warmest regards, Nick

A Rebuttal:

I agree Nick, every one in life is a little bit of an asshole. Hell, one of my father’s favorite things to say to me in my teen years was “everyone likes a little ass, but no one likes a smart ass.” Okay, so I get the idea that everyone is a little bit of an asshole. But these characters aren’t a little anything. They are whopping huge SOBs. Ad nauseam Ben says and does things to Allison that are unbelievably crappy.

It isn’t the why of Paul Rudd’s freak out that bothered me. I can empathize with your fear of marriage. It’s the how of it. I’m sure my view of marriage is naïve (and someone is bound to tell me so) but I would hope in such a situation I would be man enough to tell my wife I need my space. I might not get it, she might flip out. I really don’t know. And neither did Paul Rudd’s character. He just ran away. Leslie Mann’s character points out she is just as overwhelmed.

I willingly concede that Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd’s performances were pretty good for what they were. The problem for me was determining exactly what they were. It’s clear at times that their marriage is meant as a symbol for Allison. That symbol changed depending on what part of the movie we were at. Some of the early scenes between Mann and Rudd were funny but when it turned darker, those early scenes lost their luster. Suddenly what was a comically dysfunctional couple had become a real marriage in jeopardy. And in that case the humor should go darker. Dark times call for dark humor.

I stick with my assessment of these people. They are hostile. Deep down Ben is saying things because he knows they will hurt Allison or he is doing things that he has to know will hurt Allison. Rudd’s Pete is doing things that he has to know hurt his wife. Ben’s friends are utterly forgettable but they seem like bad people. Leslie Mann is about the only one in this film with any legitimate reason to be pissed off. But being who I am, I know I’ll head right to the theater the next time Apatow and crew release another film, but I’ll be hoping for another 40 Year Old Virgin.

Cheers, Rory

And Away We Go...

Nick and I have seen fit to have our movie debates via a new blog. On occasion (not all the time) we will pick a movie, each of us will see the film and then have a debate about whether it was good or not. Hopefully for all most of the time we will disagree (because its more fun that way). Everyone is of course welcome to post in the comments section their agreement, disagreement, or who you agree with most (I assume that will be Nick 95% of the time.)