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TNOTE
any decent action sequence, has been replaced
with pixels and posing. The American action
movie is dying, and ! miss it so.
With Haywire, Soderbergh and screenwriter
Lem Dobbs (they previously collaborated on
the rarely seen Kafka and the underrated
revenge picture The Limey) valiantly resur
rect the modern-day action movie in its gritty
1970s incarnation. It's also spiced with a dash
of Hong Kong 1980s-styled "heroic bloodshed"
and given a strong blast of Bronson at his
bone-crunching best The big difference from
» Wi t H
STAY OAMPS
new Pope deal with his anxiety in this
warm and witty comedy. .
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE
EXPECTING (PG-t3) Expecting a
cinematic extinction level event on par
with Garry Marshall* star-whoring
Valentine's Day!New Years Eve, What
to Expect When You're Expecting pleas
antly met my vastly lowered expecta
tions. What to Expect would have
been a decent Apatow/ Bridesmaids
knockoff had it slimmed down to one
main ploF-an expectant couple played
by Elizabeth Banks and Mr.- Melissa
McCarthy (Ben Falcone) compete with
his race car legend father (Dennis
Quaid) and his pregnant trophy wife
(Brooklyn Decker)—and shed the extra
plot poundage involving Jennifer Lopez
adopting an Ethiopian baby, Anna
Kendrick and Cbace Crawford* uh-oh
moment and Cameron Diaz* star
pregnancy (with that wet blanket from
“Glee,’ Matthew Morrison). The almost
interstitial scenes with the daddy club
of Chris Rode. Rob Heubel, Thomas
Lennon and Amir Talar amuse, as
does Rebel Wilson as Banks* mostly
• clueless employee. Like unfortunate
clockwork, every time the movie started
to get things comically right, the scene
would shift to JLo* woes or the young
couple* romantic predicament Still,
I expected little, and the romantic
dramedy delivered a bundle of tiny,
intermittent joy that like some babies,
cried more than it laughed. So did I,
unfortunately.
WRATH OF THE TITANS (PG-13) Is
the problem that they don’t make them.
like they used to or that they make them
too much like drey used to? Wrath of
the Titans, the tedious sequel to the
boring remake of Clash of the Titans,
is fully stocked on seen-that-before
moments. Demigod Perseus (former
next big thing Sam Worthington) is
asked by his godly pops, Zeus (Liam
Neeson), to help save humanity again.
Apparently, Zeus’ bro, Hades (Ralph
Fiennes), and Zeus' other kid, Ares
(Edgar Ramirez), are scheming with
Zeus’ Titan dad, Cronos, to stage a
monstrously large prison break, and
the half-god is the only person who
can stop it. Battle: Los Angeles director
Jonathan Liebesman brings the exact
same bag of shaky action tricks to
ancient Greece, but believe it or not s
Battle; LA is more exciting.Triey’re just
lucky that the statute of liminations has
run out on whatever copyright law pro
tected the literary output of the Greek
pantheon.
Drew Wheeler
/TV
HAYWIRE (R) Because of the holiday dead
line, this week's Movie Pick focuses on a DVD/
Blu-ray recommendation instead of a first-run
release. Normal programming will resume next '
issue.
Steven Soderbergh's super-lean action
movie Haywire was released earlier this year
but left theaters quickly. It deserved bet
ter. Mallory (Gina Carano) works for a private
security firm run by her ex-boyfriend Kenneth
(Ewan McGregor). The government covertly
uses the firm to do dirty jobs around the
Gina Carano does all her own heavy lifting in Soderbergh's action picture Haywire.
world. Mallory is sent to Barcelona, ostensibly
to rescue a kidnapped Chinese journalist. She
teams up with a new guy, Aaron (Channing
Tatum), and they complete the job. But while
working on another assignment in Dublin with
a British agent (Michael Fassbender), things
go awry. Bones break, heads roll and Mallory
goes rogue.
The American action rfiovie has been on
suicide watch for some time. Most studio prod
uct is top-heavy with backstory, overstuffed
with visually incomprehensible action scenes
relying on jump cuts rather than fluid fight
choreography to jolt. The fun component has
been taken out of the entertainment formula,
replaced with narrative bombast and tech
nological bullying. But the most egregious
cinematic sin is that true physicality, the meat
and blood and pulse that is the foundation of
other Hollywood action movies, however, is
that like the legendary Jackie Chan or Tony
Jaa, Carano, a mixed martial arts fighter,
performs her own stunts. She has limited dra
matic range, but she's equipped with enough
low-wattage charisma to keep things interest
ing between fights. Dobbs' script prods with
some feminist subtext—the movie's tagline is
"They Left Her No Choice!"—as Carano pum
mels her way through the men who've done
her wrong. The best thing, though, is the
action. The stationary camera captures every
snap, crunch and gouge, treating Cdrano's
brutal grace with respect, much like Astaire's
fleet-footed genius was once filmed. Some of
Soderbergh's best work has been in the crime
genre, and Haywire is no exception.
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