129. Ted

129. (28 Jun) Ted (2012, Seth Macfarlane)* 41

Better than one would expect a film about a foul-mouthed, living teddy bear to be, Ted is still hokey and formulaic enough to have sprung from the mind of Seth Macfarlane. Like his generic Family Guy, the pop culture jokes will date woefully. Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis do what they can to make their bland romance something more, but they can only do so much with this volume of potty humor and lameness.

SAFE HOUSE

SAFE HOUSE
Written by David Guggenheim
Directed by Daniel Espinosa
Starring Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds and Brendan Gleeson


Tobin Frost: Remember Rule no. 1 - You are responsible for your house guest. I am your house guest.

Despite the title, at no point in time while watching SAFE HOUSE will you feel anything close to safe. Director, Daniel Espinosa, an unproven talent in the industry before now, delivers a non-stop thrill ride that provides Denzel Washington with an all too uncommon role worthy of his weight as an actor and co-star, Ryan Reynolds with an opportunity to step up his sometimes all too easy game. Once the chase is on, it is flat out relentless. By the time you do actually get to catch your breath though, you might wonder if there was any real need for all the fuss.

Washington plays Tobin Frost, a former C.I.A. operative who went rogue years ago and is now one of the most wanted traitors on the American watch list. After acquiring a microchip with naturally damaging information on it, he becomes instant prey around the world, allows himself to be caught and then finds himself in a C.I.A. safe house, which is a holding tank of sorts, awaiting his fate. Reynolds plays Matt Weston, a green C.I.A. operative whose job it is to oversee this safe house in Cape Town, Africa. It sounds important but he hasn’t had a single guest in the year he’s been there. Once the safe house is inevitably compromised, Washington and Reynolds begin a dance that finds them both helping and hindering each other as they try to stay alive together.

In the end, SAFE HOUSE plays too safe a hand. Espinosa plays all his cards properly, including shaky camera, grainy tone and off center framing, all devices that heighten tension and keep the viewer on edge, but it’s an exercise in competency at best. At no point does it elevate to a place of originality, which is also due to the oversimplified plot structure. David Guggenheim, another untested player, has written a script that relies too heavily on the genre’s familiarity to make any part of it necessarily memorable. For instance, we don’t know what’s on this microchip until much later on in the film but it doesn’t even matter what is on it really. All that matters is the chase. Espinosa can keep that chase fast and taut, and this is what makes SAFE HOUSE a pretty safe bet, but once the cat catches the mouse, the game is gone and simply forgotten.

THE CHANGE-UP

Written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore

Directed by David Dobkin

Starring Jason Bateman, Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Mann and Olivia Wilde

Dave Lockwood (in the body of Mitch Planko): Oh my God; I'm a douchebag.

There are certain things you need to just plain accept as fact in order to enjoy THE CHANGE-UP. First of all, you have to accept that the notions of what it means to be a responsible adult in the film will be as cliched and contrived as they can possibly be. Past that, you need to accept that, as this is a comedy for dumb boys and from the minds of dumb boys, there will be plenty of T & A and no fart joke opportunity will be missed. Foremost though, you need to accept that two grown men can urinate into a random fountain, wish they had the other's life and then wake up with their wish come true. To be fair, you don't actually have to accept any of this but if you won't, you should definitely avoid this movie.

Director David Dobkin (WEDDING CRASHERS) introduces us to Dave Lockwood (Jason Bateman) and Mitch Planko (Ryan Reynolds) while they are still sleeping soundly in bed. Dave's blue pyjamas match his blue sheets, which in turn match the duvet and complimentary pillowcases. This is a man who is consumed by order. Mitch, on the other hand, would be lucky to find two socks that go together, let alone two pillowcases. They have been friends their whole lives and are only really friends now because of their history. Like any true family man, Dave works tireless hours at a law firm and rarely gets a chance to spend any time with his family. Mitch smokes pot all day and plays with his swords, both of the steel and metaphorical variety. Having switched lives though, Mitch must learn to see something through in his life while Dave has to learn to chill out. Naturally, they each go to extremes in their new lives before they learn that happiness lies somewhere in the middle. They say the grass is always greener, which is even more true when you piss all over it like these two dolts do.

With characters as vapid as this and a storyline as obvious and played out as body swapping, THE CHANGE-UP needs to have solid talent on screen to raise the material to a place where it is at the very least passable, let alone impressive. And while it never truly reaches great heights, Bateman and Reynolds work their hardest to get it there. Both men have sharp tongues and plenty of charisma to engage the viewer and it is at times a great delight to see them play against the type that each has fallen into in their careers. As great as their performances are though, there is only so much they can do for a film that finds spurting poop smeared all over someone's face within five minutes of its opening.

Green Lantern

I went into Green Lantern expecting the worst. Was this going to be another Hulk, or worst yet another Daredevil? To my surprise what I got was a smart, fast moving, summer blockbuster whose only fault it seems is that it was released so close to X-Men First Class and Thor. FYI as always I saw the movie in 2D.

So, here are 12 reasons for why you should go and watch The Green Lantern;

1.      Origins - Green Lantern is a story about a cocksure fighter-plane pilot who ends up becoming a member of the intergalactic Green Lantern Core whose main objective is to keep peace and harmony across the universe. So, you have a bit of sci-fi, some fantasy, alien characters, all mixed up that make up for an interesting watch.

2.      Let’s Go Green - Do you recycle? Be honest. Whatever your answer, after watching the movie which comprises of a whole lot of “green” (and that is not counting the use of the “green screen” for CGI) you can broadcast to the world that you went Green with a straight face.      

3.      No Cameos! - Okay at least none that I know of. You know what that means? You can talk about the movie in detail with everyone. Nothing to hide. Nothing to skip. No chance of someone telling you in advance and spoiling the movie for you. Obviously, I could have just made all this up and there might really be a cameo and I’m just tricking you into believing that there isn’t one, or two J

4.      3D takes a fall again - It brings me pure joy in telling you that although I have not watched the movie in 3D, there is no reason for you to not watch it in 2D. It worked perfectly in 2D so save those extra dollars/pounds/rupees/insert your currency here.

5.      Ryan Reynolds – I like Ryan Reynolds because is he amongst the few actors who are ready to experiment. Not many can say that they have been part of a TV sitcom and movie genres ranging from comedy to rom-coms and from independent cinema to big budget ventures. Moreover, he plays Hal Jordan perfectly with the right attitude and charisma.

6.      Blake Lively.

7.      The excessive use of CGI was evident considering the nature of the story. Comparing it with Thor, Green Lantern lacked a certain wow factor. Not to dismiss it entirely, there are moments like the Green Lantern flying in front of the sun towards the end that looked brilliant.

8.      The Story – The movie does proceed at a pace. To say that it leaves you confused would be wrong. It does keep you on your toes and interested. It’s definitely not a no-brainer, so make sure you have your thinking caps on.

9.      The X Factor – Green Lantern works well for both the sexes. So you can actually take your date to the movie. Seriously, Ryan Reynolds is bare-chested for the right amount of time to keep your female companion happy. True, they might think of him in the night, but it’s a small price to pay, especially when your other option is Bad Teacher. Also, don’t tell anyone, but you can always lust after the gorgeous Blake Lively playing Green Lantern’s love interest Carol Ferris.

10.  The Suit – Personally I felt that all the Green Lantern suits worked well. If you are the type of person who thinks that the suit was of the wrong shade (overheard after the movie), well then somebody needs to get some help of the medical kind.  

11.  The End Credits Scene – Yes there is one. It’s just enough to whet your appetite for the future.

12.  What you have with Green Lantern is a summer blockbuster full of drama, romance, the right dose of action, and all round pure popcorn entertainment that receives a solid 3.5 stars out of 5.

Black Sheep interviews Ryan Reynolds

Good and Buried

An interview with Ryan Reynolds

(with Rodrigo Cortes)

If you want to get to know who Ryan Reynolds is as an actor, you will have to dig a little deeper past his title role in VAN WILDER, even though it made him an underground goofball god. And you will have to go deeper still past his turn opposite Sandra Bullock in THE PROPOSAL, a role that catapulted him to international stardom and the top of every housewife’s “Celebrities they can cheat with” list. You have to dig deep but you needn’t look any further because Reynolds career-changing performance in Rodrigo Cortes’s BURIED, will show everyone what was behind that killer guy-next-door smile the entire time.

In BURIED, Reynolds plays Paul Conroy. The only thing we know about Paul when we meet him is that he is trapped in a wooden box, buried alive somewhere in Iraq. For the next ninety-five minutes or so, we learn that he is an American contractor working in Iraq, that he loves his wife deeply and that it is just as infuriating to navigate through automated voice systems when you’re buried alive as when you’re standing in your kitchen. And while that might be a slight exaggeration, Paul’s situation is not. He is being held hostage by a terrorist group looking for money that Paul just doesn’t have. He is running out of air and the only tools he has at his disposal are a cell phone and a Zippo lighter. If it sounds terrifying, it’s because it is.

“This is one of those movies where that’s a good thing,” Reynolds quips about BURIED’s distinct resemblance to a horrible nightmare, when we meet at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. BURIED director, Cortes joins him for the interview and joins in with, “There was no room in there for Sandra Bullock.” Without missing a beat, Reynolds adds, “Yeah, I was trying to make room.”

If you want to get to know Reynolds as a person though, you don’t actually have to dig very deep at all. He is about as genuine as they come, or at least that’s how he came off to me. When he entered the hotel room where our roundtable interview was to be held, he was introduced, one by one, to the handful of other journalists. I stood and admired his unassuming stance, his dressed down look and what seemed like actual interest in meeting the people he was shaking hands with. When he was introduced to me last, he took my hand, shook it firmly and said, “Hi Joseph. I’m Ryan,” while looking me directly in the eye, as if I wouldn’t know the name of the man who adorns the majority of the magazines on my coffee table. Fortunately, I did not swoon and pass out on the spot.

BURIED marks a drastic departure for Reynolds. Not only is it a far cry from his more accessible fare, but he also has to carry the entire project on his own shoulders as the camera never leaves him. Reynolds has headlined before but never to this extent, so how did he know he could do it? A vote of confidence from the man behind the lens certainly helped.

“Who else could I think of?” Cortes says of his star. “He never acts; he always sees. And when you’re doing a movie that has just three elements, you have to be very aware of pace, of rhythm and of music.”

It may sound poetic but Reynolds was not convinced at first. “I did say no at first but only because it was impossible.” He says this as if he has forgotten that he and Cortes found a way to make the impossible very possible. “The movie had an incredible narrative challenge with the one actor and then an incredible technical challenge.” Cortes had some tricks up his sleeve though and after forty minutes of chatting up his inventive shooting plans for the film, Reynolds was in.

Before long Reynolds was in Barcelona for a 17-day shoot that would prove to be much more difficult than he ever expected. “I lost a lot of weight,” Reynolds jokes. “It’s a great diet, coffins.” He had trouble sleeping; he had trouble eating. He even developed a bit of a bald spot on the back his head by the time it was all done. “Wood and sand are tremendous exfoliants.” Fortunately, the box didn’t kill his sense of humour.

Reynolds insisted on not having any rehearsal time before the shoot. “I wanted to have all those moments that you see on film be firsts – the first moments he wakes up in there, the first sounds that come out of him.” The approach paid off. The first moments of BURIED are extremely jarring, not only because they are horrifying but because we are not used to seeing such a likable face in such a dire and confined situation. The tight framing and Reynolds’s very real reactions make you feel like you’re right there, trapped in the box with him. That said, I can think of worse people to be buried alive with.

Still, there is a big difference between preparing yourself mentally to get into that box and actually getting in the damn box. “I’m not a huge fan of actors overly romanticizing their process. It is usually self-aggrandizement masquerading as story telling,” Reynolds says, as if excusing himself for answering the question asked. “But I had a tough time on this movie. I will definitely say that.” Tough is perhaps too easy a word to describe a set where paramedics were present for the last days of shooting. They didn’t have to do anything but the fact that they were there nonetheless says plenty about what was at risk. “I was a little out of control when I was in there and it was nice to be done.”

Reynolds swears he will never complain about his job again after BURIED. And while it may have been rough, he could not be happier with the way it turned out.

“I love that the beginning of this film is in total darkness, that we don’t know who this person is but, by the end of the movie, there is a whole universe in that coffin. That is what Rodrigo saw from the very beginning and that is what I fell in love with.” His pride in both the director and the picture is clear. “Rodrigo made it a big movie not in spite of its limitations but because of them.”

One other thing is clear too. When Reynolds emerges from BURIED’s coffin, he too will be bigger because of it.

For the BURIED Black Sheep review, click the title of the film anywhere in this interview. BURIED is playing nationwide right now.

BURIED

Written by Chris Sparling

Directed by Rodrigo Cortes

Starring Ryan Reynolds

(Click here to read an interview with Ryan Reynolds)

I suspect claustrophobia likely affects more people than actually realize it. Feeling trapped without any real means of escape, either physically or metaphorically, is certainly something we can all agree is unpleasant at the least. In extreme cases, your breath gets short and quick; you begin to feel dizzy and flush. You are likely to pass out from the sheer intensity of it all. If you have yet to go through a claustrophobic episode, fear not. Director Rodrigo Cortes has made a movie just for you.

BURIED is ninety-five, uninterrupted minutes stuck in a cramped wooden box somewhere under the ground in Iraq, with only a Zippo lighter and cell phone for light, communication and a potential salvation. Now, if you’ve got to be buried alive, you couldn’t ask for better company than Ryan Reynolds. Naturally, nobody wants to see an actor as likable and handsome as Reynolds perish like this, so the urgency is elevated just by his being cast. He can’t get by on looks and charisma alone though. The premise itself demands that Reynolds push himself as an actor in a way that I don’t think he has ever had to in his entire career. Fortunately, Reynolds gets the fear, the desperation and the hope just right to keep us trapped in that box with him the whole time. For his sake, I hope Reynolds isn’t actually claustrophobic. If he wasn’t beforehand, I suspect he might be now.

In case you’re wondering how he got in the box to begin with, allow me to clarify some. Reynolds plays a contract truck driver in Iraq mistaken for a soldier and kidnapped for ransom. He spends most of his time in the box calling anyone who might be able to get him out and pleading with his captors. The somewhat damning undertone about America and the Iraq war could have been buried a little deeper within the subtext but Cortes pulls off a pretty impressive feat with this hard sell. Ninety-five minutes in a box with Ryan Reynolds? I wouldn’t say no.