Review: Waitress (2007) [Reviewed By Clifford Kiyabu]

Directed by: Adrienne Shelly
Written by: Adrienne Shelly
Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sexual content, language and thematic elements.
Released: 25 May 2007
Starring: Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Jeremy Sisto, Andy Griffith, Adrienne Shelly, Eddie Jemison, Lew Temple, Darby Stanchfield, Heidi Sulzman, Lauri Johnson, Sarah Hunley, Cindy Drummond, Nathan Dean, Caroline Fogarty.

Plot: Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness.

Rating: 7/10


My Thoughts: So I heard about this movie earlier this year but decided that I would just wait for it on DVD like so many other movies I review. So the other day I finally sat down to watch it. And I must say it quite enjoyable. The movie was fun, very loving and warmhearted. And it had originality to it which I feel is very impotent theses days as there is very little or no originality left in Hollywood. But this movie was a sure fresh sight for these eyes.

The story is about a young waitress named Jenna (Russell) who works at a southern diner who love what she does best. Making pies and she dreams of one day entering and winning the national pie contest and taking the money to one day leave her good for nothing husband and opening her own bakery/diner, but when her abusive deadbeat of a husband Earl (Sisto) gets her drunk so he can get his five seconds of pleasure from her, (and yes it’s only about five seconds. LOL.) she finds out that she’s pregnant because of him, and she feels that this is it. Her life is over because now she’ll never be able to leave him now. Until she goes to make sure that she’s 100% pregnant she falls head over into one of the most unlikely affairs with her new hot doctor Dr. Pomatter (Fillion). Now Jenna is in a world of mess and doesn’t know what to do.

Now the movies was great, a little too quirky at times but still good, the acting was nice Keri Russell who I must say has come a long way from her days on Felicity. With a background showing movies like The Upside of Anger, and even her small role in Mission: Impossible III, is showing that she is coming into her own light away from the show Felicity, which she’s stereotyped for, and does a wonderful performance. And Nathan Fillion also does a pretty decent job playing Dr. Pomatter. And it was really a pleasure to see Andy Griffith back on the big screen. Also Jeremy Sisto’s performance as Earl was great! He make you want to hate his characters and love watching him get owned in the end, all though I liked this movie a lot, in the end I felt that there was something missing. A movie is like a pie with all it’s essential ingredients needed to make it work, and when one, just one of those ingredients go missing, you’re left with an incomplete product, that’s how I felt until I learned what that missing ingredient was.

Adrienne Shelly who directed and co-stared alongside Keri Russell was killed before the movie was done. If you ask me some people see movies as art, others see them for what they are, a movie. I on the other hand tend to see it as a child, and the director as the parent. From start to finish the movie will go through a transforming from child to adult, with the director as the parent raising it to adulthood. But what happens when the parent isn’t there to raise it? You’re left with something missing. And that how I felt, the movie was just missing that magic someone only Adrienne Shelly could give to make it grand.

Final Say: Even though this movie wasn’t as satisfying as I hoped it would be it’s still worth taking a look at. So it’s still rental fare and I recommend it.

Copyright 2008 TCWreviews.com
All Rights Reserved

Review: The Brave One (2007) [ReviewReviewed By Kelsey Zukowski]

The Brave One
Review By: Kelsey Zukowski
Starring: Jodie Foster, Terrance Howard
Directed By: Neil Jordan
Written By: Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor
Released: 2007
Grade: B+

The Brave One is a very effective revenge film that doesn’t stick to the norms of the genre. It actually started out as more of a genre film just with a female vigilante rather than the typical male role. Other changes were than made to make this a battle of body and mind. It shows us that revenge doesn’t always have to be directed at one person, it can be towards violence in general. However, when you fight violence with violence you may not like the person you become; the person you are stuck with.

Erica Bain (Foster) is a radio broadcasting on a talk radio show. She is happily anticipating the wedding she is planning with her fiancé. One day they are taking their dog for a walk. The dog runs off and they aren’t the first ones to find it. A group of guys have the dog in custody, taunting it in front of Erica. They are trying to get some money out of the situation, which just leads to further trouble. These strangers attack them until Erica is blacked out. She goes in to a coma and she doesn’t wake up until 3 weeks later. It was assumed that she wasn’t going to come back in to conscious. Erica wakes up to find out that her fiancé didn’t survive, he was beaten to death.

Erica completely breaks done from hearing this news and she is only left with the horrible memories of that attack. The fear, hate, and rage is overloading and she simply can’t handle it anymore. Erica attempts to buy a gun, but needs a license in order to and wouldn’t be able to get it for 30 days anyway. She doubts that she will be alive in 30 days without protection. So she buys one illegally and it isn’t long before she uses it. Erica finds herself at a convenient store robbery. She is spotted and shoots the thief. She than flees the scene scared from what she has just done. Erica begins finding herself in a number of situations like this. She kills two men on a subway who stole a boy’s iPod and threatened her as well as a pervert who had “collected” prostitutes. He had one girl locked in his car for nearly a week and attempted to make Erica a part of this collection as well. Detective Mercer (Howard) finds connections between all of these murders. He is sure the same person is responsible for all of them. When he sees Erica near one of the crime scenes, she says this is because she was looking for an interview for her show. They have the interview and they end up becoming friends. Mercer begins to suspect that Erica might be hiding something and possibly that she is the murderer he is looking for. This becomes even more clear when she kills a murderous man who Mercer was trying convict but was helpless in the situation.

Jodie Foster becomes Erica Bain. She does a wonderful job and makes the movie about more than the violence. It becomes about the inner struggle that she just can’t overcome. Terrance Howard was terrific in the supporting role of Detective Mercer. Howard has given many excellent performances. He goes for movies that mean something and that stick with you. The Brave One is no exception for that. There was something very genuine about his character and performance. Just watching him engaged you so much. Between him and the crazy cycle and uncontrollable violence that Erica was going through, it was really hard to look away.

The Brave One is about fear and what it can do to you. It only takes one terrifying experience, violence exhibited towards you to change your life forever. Erica just wants to feel safe, but it takes very severe measures to get to that safety. From the moment she buys the gun, hope of getting back to normal is gone. She gives that life up. Having that gun gives her a sense of power, something that she wished she had the day of the attack. Erica really doesn’t feel like she has control over her life now. No matter what, her boyfriend is gone forever and he is never coming back. Her dog was kidnapped and she has become a much darker individual. Erica is a very intelligent person. Her voice is heard on the radio, absent of her body. She floats around the city killing others like a wronged ghost haunting those who wreck its’ peace. She still has that intelligence but no matter what she tells herself, her hurt is too strong. Killing becomes a reflex that is triggered over and over again. She knows what she is doing is wrong, but it is something that is stronger than her. Erica wants revenge but not just on those who have harmed her. She wants revenge on all of those causing harm or committing crimes. Erica has the chance to lock up her attacker, but she doesn’t. Being put in jail isn’t enough for her. She wants them to feel what she felt, she wants to take their life herself.

Towards the beginning of the film, New York City, where the film takes place, is shown much more positively. Erica used to love the city, but as she sees all of the wrongs that are happening, she has only fear and hatred for it. There is questioning of the vigilante role as well. Is it simply wrong or does it have some justice in it? Everyone who Erica kills is a violent person harming others’ lives. She feeds on stopping them. Yet not even she can ignore the fact that she is becoming that person she hates so much. This is a person she can never escape. None of her victims were in the right and in most cases she was defending herself. However, she could have just as easily defended herself by showing she had a gun. For all she knows, those people may have been in horrid experience just like she was that turned them to crime. The Brave One shows us that you might not know yourself as well as you think you do. Everyone is capable of terrible things. There are also questions of whether loyalty or duty is more important. Mercer wants to be the best cop he can be, but he wonders if he could turn in someone who was a true friend. When it boils down to it, he sacrifices himself in order to give Erica a piece of mind.

Review: The Nines (2007) [Reviewed By Clifford Kiyabu]

Directed by: John August
Written by: John August
Genre: Drama / Fantasy / Mystery
MPAA: Rated R for language, some drug content and sexuality
Released: 31 August 2007
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis, Elle Fanning, David Denman, Octavia Spencer, Ben Falcone, Dahlia Salem, John Gatins, Andy Fielder, Greg Baine, Martin Yu.

Plot: A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.


Review: 8/10




My Thoughts: So the other night I had the pleasure of watching The Nines, and I must say I was greatly impressed with what I saw, first off let me say I knew nothing about the film other than funny man Ryan Reynolds stared in it, so my expectations wasn’t too high as I had assumed this was yet another comedy with little or no intelligence, as most of you know Reynolds is not known for serious roles so I did think it to be anything special, but what I saw just blow me away and had me warped into the movie 100%. What got me so into it was the complexity of the film, and how it keeps you guessing until the very end as well as giving you a little puzzle piece to the overall big picture little by little and also the direction the movie takes the viewer, for one thing the movie is made up on three short stories involving the same cast playing different roles, which are much different from the last one while at the same time connected to each other as a bigger story.

The thing that connects these character’s together is the fact that bizarre and strange things are happening to these people and it is all surrounded around the number nine, the question here is what does it mean, and what does it have to do with them, the answer however is not in the story, but behind it, hidden from the viewing eye and you most pay close attention in between the lines to fully understand what is really amiss. also each of the three stories have a significantly different feel and style in it’s cinematography, like for example; the first story has a bright and vibrantly colorful feel to it that seems like you’re watching a nice and easy going film, but as the story continues you slowly see that this is no where near as the happy go lucky film, in fact it will give some light chills and thrills along the way that will ultimately be the set up for you to be sucked into the rest of the story, now the second story has a much different take from the first one with the exact same cast and even a some very similar settings from the last story but the cast now playing different people with a different storyline, and the feel and style to it is in a reality style with some of the cast actually playing their real selves, and again the story gives yet another puzzle piece to the story, than finally the third act comes into play now with a darker and very grim look to it, here is where the viewer will see the story’s final puzzle unveiled which will ultimately conclude to it’s reveling the true answer behind the mystery that is the nines.

The first is about three short stories, first being about a young actor named, Gary (Reynolds) after braking up with his girlfriend and accidentally burning down his own house due to being high at the time, his publicist, Margaret (McCarthy) manages to have all charges dropped under the condition he is put under house arrest in the home of one of her clients, while away for six weeks. While he’s there he encounters strange noises at night and odd phone calls and a next door neighbor that might be a little too friendly, but most of all is everything he encounters around him seems to be connected to the nines, the second story is about a screenwriter named, Gavin (Reynolds) who is being taped for a reality TV show of him working on his new show while he is away from his home for six weeks while trying to get his new show off the ground, he cast longtime friend actress Melissa McCarthy (Herself ) for the lead role, only problem is every turn he make something bad keeps happening and more and more his new show is starting to show signs of never getting off the ground, the third story is about a videogame designer named, Gabriel (Reynolds) who is camping out with his wife, Mary (McCarthy) and daughter, Noelle (Fanning) after camping trip is coming to it’s end and it’s time to back it all up they realize that their care battery is dead and they need help. While trying to hitchhike his way back to the nearest town to get some help, but be doing so he encounters some problems that may very well be the end of the world around him.

As for the acting; well like I’ve said earlier Ryan Reynolds is not an actor I take seriously, manly because as an actor he sticks to the same kind of movies with roles that are way to similar (Van Wilder, Waiting, Just Friends) even his role in ”Blade: Trinity” was somewhat comedic, however I will say that his roles in The “Amityville Horror” and “Smokin' Aces” was fantastic even though I didn’t care for the films all that much, but when you look at his track record you’ll see more comedic roles than serious ones so I thought oh this is going to be just another one of those films where he just acts funny the hole time, but wow, he manages to pull off doing this complex film with fantastic performance, not to mention he acts in each of the three roles significantly from each other, which showed that there’s hope for Mr. Reynolds yet, as for Melissa McCarthy well I can honestly say she did great, she a magnificent actress that is never appreciated manly because of her weight. See for some reason in today’s time that it’s cool to be thin, and un-cool to be on the heavy side, well the thing I mostly respect about Melissa McCarthy is the fact she doesn’t care what other people think about her being overweight, plus if you’ve seen her in “Gilmore Girls” you’ll know she’s great, and also little Elle Fanning was great, I can see she is fallowing in her sister’s (Dakota Fanning) footsteps, who knows she might just become the next big child star, she sure has the talent, and last but not least, actress Hope Davis was magnificent, she pulled off doing all three of her roles fantastically, I loved her acting in this as much as I love her in “American Splendor” and now this.

Final Say: I really enjoyed this movie, which was essentially something I was not expecting, though I will say however that The Nines is not for everyone as some will like it and others will, you get the picture right?, Love it or Hate it I highly recommend it.

Copyright 2008 TCWreviews.com
All Rights Reserved

Review: The Comebacks (2007) [Reviewed By Clifford Kiyabu]

Directed by: Tom Brady
Written by: Ed Yeager (screenplay) and Joey Gutierrez (screenplay)
Genre: Comedy / Sport
MPAA: Rated PG-13 on appeal for crude and sexual content throughout and some drug material
Released: 19 October 2007
Starring: David Koechner, Carl Weathers, Matt Lawrence, Brooke Nevin, George Back, Will Arnett, Jermaine Williams, Andy Dick, Dax Shepard, Bradley Cooper.

Plot: This spoof comedy follows an out-of-luck coach, Lambeau Fields, who takes a rag-tag bunch of college misfits and drives them towards the football championships. In the process, this life-long loser discovers that he is a winner after all by redeeming himself, saving his relationship with his family and friends, and finding that there is indeed, no "I" in "team"!

Review: 2/10


My Thoughts: There once was a time when the word “parody” meant something in movies, this was undoubtedly the golden age for spoof comedies known as the 70’s and 80’s. this golden age was made up on films that spoofed other films as well as actual evince and made it work in a very tasteful and some times no so tasteful manner, but all in all it worked fine and made people all around laugh, but than the dawn of the 90’s began and there showed signs of a Genre that was without a doubt slowly dying, films that had more jokes having misses than hits and spoofing that was so idiotic that it made you if anything laugh at it than with it, and of course the new millennium hit and it seems the Genre is now almost completely dead, and yet the same filmmakers who killing this Genre continues to make sad and hopeless attempt after another trying to bring it back to life but by doing this only puts it further into the grave that they have made for it, thinking that if they keep trying eventually it will bounce back, but what they don’t understand is it won’t, it won’t bounce back it’ll just fade away.

The comebacks like other films before it failed horribly to this already dying Genre by trying to hard to be funny than actually being funny, and what I mean by that is back in the day of great parodies a movie didn’t have to be literal when spoofing another film, just hinting it here and there which the audience caught on to no doubt, and if they didn’t they would eventually. But no in today’s film much like this one they overly go into detail in spoofing that the joke is killed by it and what could have been a great laugh ends up being something too embarrassing to look at, like for example; in the movie during the sports montages we see the main character Coach Fields (David Koechner) spoof Kurt Russell’s character from Miracle by wearing the same outfit as he did and even have the same hairdo, than they spoofed the movie Dodgeball when they show him teaching the football team how to dodge a tackle, by this time the character went through a complete transformation from having no hair to having a great hairdo, to having long hair and a light beard and suddenly being in a wheelchair and telling the team if they can dodge a wrench they can dodge a tackle, which is so obviously spoofing Rip Torn’s character, Patches O'Houlihan from Dodgeball.

Honestly I think I’m not alone her when I say this but I could have figured that out by myself without them having to scream it out to me without making it so damn obvious and ridiculously stupid, plus they could have had all these jokes left in and still made it a good movie, all they would have had to do was make other people play the spoofed roles than the same damn actor for Pete’s sake, also the plot seems to center around the coach and his family, however there are so many other things going on in this movie that it takes the viewer continuously away from the main plot, overall it was just downright embarrassing to keep my eyes on the screen the hole time, I mean I even feel embarrassed to dedicate this much amount of my time and life on a movie this bad.

The story is about coach, Lambeau Fields (Koechner) a man who has never won at anything in his life, and after coaching every sport you can think of he give up all sports and works an honest job as a horse massager (He jerks horses off for a living), until one day he old buddy Freddie Wiseman (Weathers) tells him about a collage football team called The Comebacks is looking for a new coach, and that this might be his last first chance at winning, now he must whip these players up and make them the best team in the deviation.

As for the acting, well much like the movie itself I was greatly disappointed with actor David Koechner, I mean after seeing him in such hilarious films like Talladega Nights which was why funnier than this, or his small role in Anchorman and also his cameo in The 40 Year Old Virgin was all fantastic, so you’d think with a career background like that he’d do great being in the lead, right? Wrong! I now know he needs more experience playing side roles before given the solo lead again, I was also disappointed with actor Carl Weathers, for those of you who are too young to remember him, he played as Apollo Creed in Rocky, Rocky II, Rocky III, and Rocky IV, and than he blow our mind away when he co-stared in Predator, you’d think he can’t do any wrong, but than I saw this horrible film and seen he can. Talk about a career taking a turn for the worst, as for the rest of the cast, well there isn’t anything really to say here as it is made up on B-list and C-list actors and actresses, and plus I don’t desire to waste anymore of your time reading my rant on this movies, so I’ll end it with my finale say.

Final Say: The Comebacks is yet another film that falls into the what could have been category, however though I disliked it I will admit it had it’s moments, but other than that all it is, is an hour half of moments with no intelligence that had me feeling as if I lose some mine in the process. So I do not recommend it, but if you still plan to see it than all I can say is watch at your own risk.

Copyright 2008 TCWreviews.com
All Rights Reserved

Review: Eye of The Dolphin (2007) [Reviewed By Kelsey Zukowski]

Eye of the Dolphin
Review By: Kelsey Zukowski
Starring: Carly Schroeder, Adrian Dunbar, Katherine Ross
Directed By: Michael D. Sellers
Written By: Michael D. Sellers, Wendell Morris
Released: Bahamas: 2006, USA: 2007
Grade: B

Eye of the Dolphin’s story line reminded me a lot of that of a Disney channel original movie from 2002 called A Ring of Endless Light. It starred Mischa Barton, Jared Paladecki, and Ryan Merriman. They both are about a girl who finds communication with dolphins and are dealing with a death in the family. The difference is that A Ring of Endless Light is far more laughable and not in a good way. The girl is portrayed as experiencing some comic physic connection through her mind with the dolphins. Eye of the Dolphin takes a similar base point and takes it far more seriously. The girl slowly establishes a basis of communication with them. It is in a more realistic sense shown by reactions, observations, and a level of need and understanding.

Alyssa (Schroeder) has become a troubled 14-year-old girl. She smokes pot at school and has been suspended several times. She really doesn’t seem to care about this or anything for that matter. The reason for this is that within the last year, her mother died. Her mom was an excellent swimmer and practically lived in the water. Alyssa was a big part of this life, until they were in a boating accident and Alyssa couldn’t do anything but watch her mother drown to death. Since then she has been living with her grandmother (Ross). At this point though, her grandma feels she has done everything she can. Alyssa thinks that her father died, since she never knew him. Her Grandmother finally tells her the truth; her father is alive. He never knew that Alyssa was born. Her mother kept this from him, because he didn’t want children and wasn’t ready for a family.

Alyssa and her grandmother head to the Bahamas, where Alyssa’s dad, James (Dunbar,) lives as a dolphin researcher. The relationship between father and daughter has a slow and rough start. James is completely thrown off guard. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted children, and here he has had one for 14 years. As Alyssa, is still in a rebellious stage, she distances herself somewhat as well. James is also in the middle of a crisis with his research. He feels that he is very close to proving the level of dolphins intelligence and that they can transmit images through talking, something that humans would need technology to do. However, his funds are in risk of being cut. The company wants to make the whole island a huge tourist attraction, where the dolphins would just be doing tricks. Everything that James owns belongs to this company, even two of the dolphins, who he has come to care about very dearly. Alyssa shows interest in his work and starts spending time on her own with the dolphins of the island. In time, they respond to her and there seems to be a definite connection between her and the dolphin.

It is still a bit weird for me to see Carly Schroeder doing drugs and getting drunk in films. She even showed moments like this in Gracie. I still think of her as the little girl from Lizzie McGuire. Schroeder is supposed to be playing a 14-year old, so these things are thought to be controversial to the other characters in Alyssa’s life. Schroeder did very well in Eye of The Dolphin. The more Alyssa changed, the more life Schroeder showed. Katherine Ross did very well as Alyssa’s grandmother. She was really the reason why Alyssa had the chance of getting her life back. Adrian Dunbar did fairly well in his role as the father, but the previous two actors stand out more in the film. Jane Lynch was very funny as one of those fighting for a more tourist attractive island.

Eye of the Dolphin questions whether humans really are the superior species. Sure we have control over society, but dolphins have been proven to have great intelligence. They are just as smart as humans if not more so. Based upon James’ theory in the film, they naturally do what humans needed buildings, technology, and inventions for. They seem to be a more peaceful species, possibly because they have a higher understanding between each other due to how well they can communicate. Captivity vs. the wild is also brought up. Two of the dolphins are kept by James so he can study them in comparison to the dolphins who live in the wild. Because of this the captive dolphins are sheltered and not thought to have the same capabilities of others. The wild are thought to be dangerous, yet that is where Alyssa finds the largest understanding. Prior to finding this fondness of dolphins, Alyssa could be considered very wild herself.

In the film it is said that dolphins talk, but it is up to humans whether they really want to listen. Alyssa takes the time to do this and really just needs someone to listen and relate to her in turn. In some ways she needs the dolphins as much as they need her. They really matter to her like nothing else has since her mother died. She finds a passion and joy through them, which fills an empty void that was in her life before. This common ground of interest is really what gives her a real relationship with her father. Without that she might have just left and never seen him again.