Fun with Dick and Jane review

Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) is promoted to VP of Communications at Globodyne Corporations he thinks he's got it made. His wife, Jane (Tea Leoni) quits her job because of his promotion. However, Globodyne tanks and soon their life goes from great to terrible as their lawn is repossessed, their electricity is turned off, turning in their leased car and selling their possessions. Eventually they are forced to become armed robbers.

The Film:

Where do I start. The film is very unfunny for most of the first hour. There just isn't anything really funny until they actually forced to become robbers. Until that happens we are forced to watch unfunny skits about their misfortunes such as Jane's cosmetics test, stealing the neighbors grass and plants and watching them fail at new jobs.

It doesn't get somewhat funny until they actually start robbing places. But even some of those fall flat and even those that are funny only bring a smile or a short chuckle. Eventually they scheme to steal 400 million dollars from their ex-boss and there are some funny moments in the finale. But it's too little too late.

Jim & Tea try their best with the script as do their costars, but it's to no avail. For a comedy it fails for it never made me laugh out loud once. For a 90 minute film it seemed so much longer.

Even Jim Carrey fans will find this one lacking. In fact I feel sorry for Jim to have been cast in this mess.

Can you tell I didn't like it much. I'd say skip it.

Features:

First we get a 3 minute montage of bloopers. Some of which is funnier than what wound up in the film itself.

Next we get 6 deleted scenes. Just more dull scenes that deserved to be deleted and none would have helped the film anyways.

Press Junket Highlights runs about 4 minutes and is exactly what is sounds like. A few smiles, but nothing laugh out loud funny here either.

Audio Commentary: Sorry didn't listen to it. Just not going to watch the film again just to listen to it, it's just not worth it.

Conclusion:

A huge letdown. A comedy that almost completely lacks in anything that would make me laugh out loud. Sure there are a few funny moments, but they are absent from almost the first hour of the film. The last half hour is really the only thing that's even remotely funny. But it's simply too little too late for what may perhaps be one of the saddest attempts at a comedy I've seen in years.

Alpha Dog review

Alpha Dog is an underrated film that many have overlooked.

In either case here is my review.

The Film:
The film starts out with a montage of home movies of children playing while the song "Over the Rainbow" plays over it. A great way to begin. Truly representing the idea of innocence & as the story unfolds of innocence lost.

The basic premise of the film is that Johnny Truelove(Emile Hirsch) is a drug dealer who eventually kidnaps Zack (Anton Yelchin), the younger brother of Jake (Ben Foster) over a debt and held as collateral to get the money. While kidnapped Zack actually starts to bond with his captors. He even has several chances to escape but doesn't because of his love for his brother as well as his misplaced trust that his captors won't harm him. Zack is often placed in the care of Frankie (Justin Timberlake) with whom he creates a bond with. As each witness is shown on screen their names & witness # appears briefly on screen.

Eventually they are over their heads and clearly not thinking straight. Johnny orders Elvis(Shawn Hatosy) to kill the kid. All of them are arrested for the crime, except for Johnny who flees the country. The final scene is of Johnny in Paraguay with a caption stating that he was arrested on August 10,2005.

Performances:

Emile Hirsch gives a very good performance as Johnny. According to what I've read his portrayal of the real life counterpart is very close. While Emile isn't exactly an imposing actor, his character never was meant to be. He's a kid, a poser, a wanna be who gets way over his head and panics and doesn't know what to do.

Justin Timberlake is the real surprise. I suspect that many overlooked this film because of him. He gives perhaps the best performance out of the entire film and his character is really the emotional connection we have with the film and Zack.

Anton Yelchin is also good. His portrayal of the kidnapped kid is quite subtle. You can feel his pain especially in the final scene on top of the hill.

Ben Foster is good, but for me perhaps a tad over the top at times. While I am not friends of anyone who uses drugs, I can't really judge his performance as one.

Chris Marquette is just ok in the few scenes that he's in.

Bruce Willis is also very good in his glorified cameo as Johnny's dad.

Sharon Stone is great as the mother of Zack. There has been much made of the "fat suit" scene, while the fat suit does hamper that scene I think her performance shines through and overcomes the badly done makeup in that scene.

Harry Dean Stanton: While I like him as an actor and all, I just can't get past how old he looks in the film. I don't know if it's me or not, but he doesn't look too well.

Amanda Seyfried gives perhaps the films only really bad performance in the film as the "That's Hot" girl.

The Direction:

I liked the way Nick takes his time to let the audience to get to know the characters, especially the bonding between Zack & Frankie. While some may say it's boring, I like films that show details of it's characters. I didn't really care for the split screen use during a few scenes. I also understand that there was to have been court room scenes in the film, but these were either never filmed or deleted from the film. The film really needed closure, which we really don't get. Sure we get recaps of the sentences most of them received, but since the film was completed way before the real life case of JJH even went to trial it's left open-ended.

The Special Features:

All we get on the dvd is two very lacking extras.

The first is an 11 minute featurette about the making of the film called "A Cautionary Tale: The Making of Alpha Dog". It's your standard featurette that features some interviews, behind the scenes footage and clips of the film. Nothing really special. What's surprising is that they don't mention the real life case that the film is based/inspired by.

The second extra is a useless thing called "Witness Timeline" which is really just a gallery of the "Witnesses" who witnessed the crimes and we see their "testimonials" and given the chance to view their scene in the film itself.

This film really deserves better extras than this. It really needs audio commentaries, deleted scenes and in depth documentaries not only about the film, but the real life case it's based/inspired upon.


Conclusion:

I highly recommend this film. It's not for everyone as the subject matter doesn't appeal to many. The R Rating is much deserved, if you can't handle cuss words, sex, drug use and violence then steer clear. But if you can handle the subject matter, the please don't overlook this film.

Hello

Hello and welcome to my first blog.

I will be posting reviews of DVDs asap.