I couldn’t do it. I tried, trust me I tried, but I just couldn’t watch Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. I have already heard one “Why? How could you not watch it?” since sending it back to Netflix, so allow me to explain with my four main reasons for not watching Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. The Title: There’s something a little off regarding the title of the movie. The film’s name isn’t Precious. It’s Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire. Look, I get it. You want to drive up your book sales and maybe you think that your audience is made up of a bunch of mouth-breathers who won’t be able to figure out why they can’t find this book named Precious. I imagine the following scene happening at a book table along Brooklyn’s Fulton Mall: Customer: “I’m looking for Precious by Sapphire.”Sidewalk Book Dealer: “Here you go.”He points to a copy of Push.Customer: “No, idiot. You know, the book about the fat girl that’s abused by her mom and raped by her dad. They made it into a movie.”Sidewalk Book Dealer: “I think you mean Push.”The Customer shoots him an angry look.Customer: “Man, what kind of scam are you trying to pull? I said Precious, not Push.”Sidewalk Book Dealer: “Perhaps I can interest you in one of these books by Z.” Do we really need this obnoxiously long title? Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire isn’t the only film that was originally a book to have its name changed. The Ghost Writer was based on a book called The Ghost, but it’s producers didn’t feel they had to name it The Ghost Writer: Based on the Novel The Ghost by Robert Harris;...

Maybe it’s just me, but if the guy I’m replacing on a writing job died of suicide or homicide, I’d just as soon hold out for the next job. But that’s why I’m involved in so few murder mysteries. Thankfully The Ghost, Ewan McGregor’s unnamed character in The Ghost Writer, doesn’t have the same danger sense that I do, because The Ghost makes for a very entertaining thriller. “I’m hear about a writing job. What? Oh the flaming skull aids in the rewrite process. I have references.” The Ghost is tasked with rewriting the autobiography of Adam Lang, played by Pierce Brosnan. I’m not sure why they didn’t just name Lang Tony Blair. Come on, who are we trying to kid? Prime Minister who is often seen as being in the pocket of the US government? Brought his country into a war in the Middle East because Uncle Sam said so? Maybe they didn’t want to risk a lawsuit by Tony Blair, and Bony Tlair is too hard to pronounce. But Adam Lang is even more Tony Blair than The Other Minister from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince combined with Hugh Grant’s Prime Minister in Love, Actually. Little Known Fact: This dance scene was choreographed by Tony Blair. As soon as The Ghost arrives at Lang’s New England compound, the shit hits the fan: Lang is accused of war crimes, his wife heavily implies he’s having an affair with his secretary, and Lang doesn’t seem to be giving out factually correct answers to The Ghost’s questions. Wrong Ghost In the movie, Lang is possibly cheating on his wife, played by Oliva Williams, with his secretary, played by Kim Cattrall. You have to give credit to where credit it due on this one. You...

I feel sorry for the producers of World War Z. Is there any point to making a movie based on Max Brooks’s zombie outbreak book now that Zombieland is here? The stories are largely similar. Sure, Zombieland doesn’t have the worldwide scope that World War Z does, but it does a great job of capturing a lot of the elements that Brooks’s book did so well: the introverted loner who initially survives because he’s walled himself off from society, cross-country zombie hunting, and rules for staying alive in World War Z, er..I mean Zombieland. I’m catching a theme running throughout the movies I’ve been watching on the couch lately. Food Inc. showed us how easily disease can spread when you have cows packed tight, wading in their own manure. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs showed the problems of trying to play God with your food. And now Zombieland tells us that the zombie outbreat was the result of a guy eating some tainted meat at a local fast food joint and quickly developing a taste for human flesh. The lesson is obvious; eat organic or become a brain-hungry creature of the night. Zombieland proves how important it is to be ready for a zombie outbreak. True story: I was walking through Brooklyn one day on the phone with my girlfriend when I saw a limping, smelly, bloodshot-eyed guy shambling in my direction. I told my girlfriend “Either this guy is a crackhead or a zombie.” By the looks of him, I was guessing zombie. I instinctively looked around for a baseball bat, crowbar or shotgun…no luck. I made eye contact with the crackhead-zombie and he yelled “What are you looking at? I’ll kill you!” Whew, crisis averted. Everyone knows that if he was a...

The first time I saw an advertisement for Hot Tub Time Machine, a giant card board stand-up display, I thought I would skip this movie. Then I saw a trailer for it and thought that I would definitely skip this movie. But by the time I saw a third commercial for it, I was hooked and wanted to see it. I’m glad I did. Hot Tub Time Machine is hilarious. If you like funny movies, you’ll like this one. My (and frequent TNM commenter Bryan’s) first encounter with Hot Tub Time Machine. Three friends, played by John Cusack, Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry, whose lives are going nowhere go away for a weekend of planned debauchery at the ski resort that was the site of their teenage glory days. Unfortunately, the ski resort is in as rough shape as the three of them. This doesn’t stop them from boozing like madmen in their room’s hot tub, which goes back in time to 1986 when some Russian Red Bull knock-off gets spilled on the tub’s control panel. At first this seems a little ridiculous, but at the end of the day, I guess that doesn’t make any less sense than spinning a wheel to send a whole island back in time. How many guys peed in this tub for it to become this yellow? Like in Quantum Leap, the three guys look middle aged to themselves and to the viewer, but the mirror reveals them to look exactly like they did in 1986. The costume designer did a great job outfitting John Cusack in a dark brown duster and fingerless gloves; it was like watching the second coming of Lloyd Dobbler. Time travel comedy alum and perpetually creepy Crispin Glover has a small role in this...

I wish that 3D TV sets were on the market and that I owned one. Watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, it was obvious that this movie was made to be shown in 3D. There were plenty of scenes where I sat there thinking this would look a lot cooler in 3D, and I’m sure it did for people who saw it in the theater. I wonder if Avatar will have the same effect when it gets released on DVD. Will it be obvious that something is missing because it’s not in 3D? This would look so much cooler in 3D. I have to say I loved Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. The story revolves around almost-mad scientist Flint Lockwood, voiced by SNL’s Bill Hader, who wants to invent something that will put him up there with the big-name brains of the ages. There’s a great scene showing his childhood bedroom that is not decorated with bands or athlete posters, but instead posters of scientists; my favorite being Tesla Rocks. Flint also has enough daddy issues to get him trapped on the island in Lost. No matter what he does, his dad thinks he would be a better bait & tackle salesman than a scientist. Flint Lockwood, in his last ditch attempt to become a great scientist, invents a machine that turns water into food. Through some high-paced hijinx, the machine ends up stuck in a cloud, causing it to rain whatever food Flint thinks of programming it to produce. The townspeople rejoice. So sanitary. It’s odd that the townspeople rejoice about this, considering how big the organic food movement has grown over the past few years. But as is explained early on in the movie, the locals eat nothing but sardines,...

Tim Burton’s very hyped, heavily advertised take on the Lewis Carroll classic is surprisingly light on  its Tim Burton. Sure, the surface elements are all there: the characters and their surroundings look weird. But for the most part, this is a by-the-numbers approach to Alice in Wonderland. It’s so by-the-numbers that it comes across a bit pointless. Even the story doesn’t seem new, despite this being Alice’s second trip to Wonderland. Tim Burton must be working with the major theme of if you forget the past, you are doomed to repeat it; Alice at 19 finds herself going through the same motions as Alice at 6. She’s dismissed her earlier adventure in Wonderland, or Underland as she’s told it’s really called, as a bad dream. The Wonderland/Underland misnomer comes across as a one-off bit shoe-horned late in the film. Is there a point to Alice having the name wrong? Is Underland really a better name than Wonderland? I don’t want to come across as too harsh against this movie, as I did enjoy it. Johnny Depp as The Mad Hatter is the best performance in this role by someone not named Tom Petty. Although it is weird that the Tim Burtonized Mad Hatter makes Johnny Depp look surprisingly like Elijah Wood. Maybe Wood wasn’t available due to Hobbit commitments, or maybe Burton just thought Depp did a better Scottish accent, but still wanted that Elijah Wood look. The Mad Hobbit Speaking of people looking like other people, am I the only one who thought that Anne Hathaway’s White Queen looked a lot like Lady Gaga? Rah rah rah ah ah ah! White Queen ooh la la! I went to a 3D, but non-Imax showing of Alice in Wonderland. The 3D in the movie was...

Anyone thinking about enlisting in the military should be forced to watch The Hurt Locker. Chances are after seeing this movie, they’ll think twice about signing up. Unless they’re like SSG William James, an adrenaline junkie who consistently manages to get his team in as much trouble as he gets them out of. But unlike most action-war movies, Sergeant James’s actions aren’t glorified in any way. He’s technically proficient at what he does, but he, and those around him, pay the consequences for his decisions. Those things will kill you. The Hurt Locker is unapologetic look at life in the war in Iraq. Focusing on men in the army’s bomb squad, possibly the most dangerous assignment in Iraq, the film does an excellent job at getting the viewer into the heads of the soldiers serving in the unit. When the enemy looks and dresses the same as the friendly, the US soldiers are forced to be on constant, nerve-fraying high alert, knowing that anyone along the street, or watching from a rooftop, could be specifically there to kill them…or not. It’s that constant not knowing of who the enemy is that heightens the suspense in the film to so much. After watching The Hurt Locker, I have a new appreciation for the men and women who serve in our armed forces fighting overseas. And I’m glad it’s not me. I also hope that any friends and family over there come home as soon as possible, and decide not to go back. The only big stars in The Hurt Locker are Ralph Fiennes and Evangeline Lilly, both who make only cameos. I listened to an interview with Kathryn Bigelow where she said that it was a conscious decision not to cast big stars in the...

A Single Man is a film about a man in mourning. It stars Colin Firth as George, a recently widowed gay college professor living in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. With the sudden death of his lover Jim, all the life seems to be taken out of George, both internally through his grief, and externally in that out of the two of them, Jim seems to have been the one with more fire in his soul. He ignited George, and now that he’s gone, George has gone cold. A Single Man is a beautifully shot movie. Tom Ford utilizes color throughout the film to a very good effect. It’s easy to tell George’s emotional state regarding the world around him depending on how bright or muted the colors are in the scene. This really pops when George is in a good mood, providing some of the prettiest visuals in the film. The problem with following a depressed man around for the course of a day is that it makes for at times a verrrrry slowwwwww moving movie. I didn’t fall asleep at any part during the movie, but if we had picked a later showtime, I might have been danger of fighting off some serious drowsiness. I was a fan of the TV show Pushing Daisies, so it was a pleasant surprise to see a cameo from Lee Pace, who played Ned on the show. Here he is stodgy colleague of George who is obsessed with the cold war and impending nuclear holocaust. His scene is one of the two funniest scenes in the movie, when he explains to George why everyone needs a fallout shelter. Ned! The other big surprise about A Single Man was seeing Nicholas Hoult, the awkward kid from About...

Food Inc. should be on everyone’s must see list. This documentary about how our food is produced in America is as startling as it is enlightening. This is a movie that will scare you more than a Friday the 13th marathon or the prospect of sitting through a Celine Dion concert. The hypocrisy of our food producers are laid bare; they advertise “farm fresh,” but what we’re really consuming is generated at a place more akin to a factory assembly line. And the factory isn’t pretty. Cows, pigs and chickens are bred in such close quarters that they’re walking around in their own excrement. They’re cleaned at the slaughterhouse, but living a life of spending your days in their own feces seems to reveal why cases of e. coli and salmonella have risen so much over the years. If an infected cow is taking a dump at the feet of non-infected cows, it’s no surprise that infection spreads. It will also make you look at hamburgers in a while new light. According to the movie, a single hamburger patty can have the meat of 1,000 cows in it, any of which might be infected with something. 1,000 cows! This didn’t scare me into becoming a vegetarian, but I might look a little more leery at my hamburger next time I’m at 5 Guys. 10,000 cows? Another startling piece of information learned from watching Food Inc. is just how big a part corn plays in our food consumption. Corn, or a derivative of it, is used someway in about 90% of what you’ll find on your supermarket shelves. The main reason for this is that corn is subsidized to the point that it’s cheaper to buy it than it is to produce it. Corn is...

In the battle between District 9 and Avatar on which would make for a better date movie, Avatar wins hands down. Not because of the 3D, or the more attractive aliens, but because of Avatar’s lack of vomit. If I were to summarize District 9 in three words, it would be “too much vomit.” Someone seems to be upchucking every few minutes in the movie. It doesn’t matter if you’re human or alien; if you’re a character in the movie, there’s a good chance you’ll heave at some point. Even a robotic exoskeleton battle-suit throws up a couple of times. I didn’t know robots could barf! If District 9 had a smaller special effects budget. Once you get past all the ralphing, District 9 is a pretty cool movie. I like science fiction films that use aliens to highlight how shitty we can treat our fellow man. The aliens in District 9 are freaky looking, with a mother ship right out of Independence Day, but unlike the aliens on V, they’re not bent on world domination. They’re also not cute and cuddly like ET. They’re just trying to get by, living in their shantytown, dealing with prejudice from the local populace, getting screwed by the government and big corporations, selling outer space tech to the local Nigerian gang, and eating as much delicious cat food they can get their appendages on. To be honest, I’m surprised there’s such a backlash against Avatar, but such a love for District 9. Both are about humans gaining an appreciation for the other side by becoming one of them. Both show that corporations care more about making money than doing the right thing. Both feature villains that are pulled from the action villain cliché book. So what is it? Does...