Welcome to ReelFellas.com!
Children of Men - Thursday, January 11
Review by Fritz Esker
Thankfully, after a mostly lackluster year for films, director Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, which received a limited release in December to qualify for this year’s Oscars, is every bit as excellent as one could hope it would be. ....CONTINUED
Fritz: The Worst of 2006 - Friday, January 5
Review by Fritz Esker
Snakes on a Plane
Well, well, well. I will wait a few more weeks before posting my best list, as I need to catch certain highly regarded movies (Children of Men, Letters from Iwo Jima, Pan’s Labyrinth) before posting that list. But, I feel comfortable in putting out my worst list. As always, lists are subjective. Also keep in mind that I did not catch many of the movies released this year that might qualify for this (Turistas, the Van Wilder sequel), and I probably never will. So, I’ll start with the films I merely found overrated, then proceed in alphabetical order on my worst list, culminating with my worst film of the year. ....CONTINUED
The Good Shepherd - Thursday, December 28
Review by Fritz Esker
Robert DeNiro returns to the director’s chair (his last credited effort was 1993’s effective A Bronx Tale) with The Good Shepherd, a sprawling tale of one man’s life in the CIA. Sadly, the film starts out strongly enough, but ends up collapsing under the weight of its nearly three hour running time. ...CONTINUED
The Best of 2006: The Wire - Tuesday, December 19
Review by Fritz Esker
Since my best list for movies will have to wait until January, when I get a chance to see some of the higher profile releases, I thought I’d write a piece on season four of The Wire, which is better than any movie I’ve seen this year. I will avoid any major spoilers in this discussion, but it will be impossible to fully discuss the show without going into minor spoilers. Don’t worry, though, you can read this piece and still have plenty of surprises in store for you with The Wire. ...CONTINUED
Blood Diamond - Tuesday, December 19
Review by Fritz Esker
2006 has seen the release of a handful of films that fall into the category of Incredibly Well-Meaning Films That Are Really, Really Hard to Dislike But Just Aren’t That Good (An Inconvenient Truth, Fast Food Nation). Edward Zwick’s (Glory, The Last Samurai) new film, Blood Diamond, can also be lumped into that category. ...CONTINUED
Rocky Balboa - Tuesday, December 19
Review by Fritz Esker
While I eagerly awaited the return of James Bond with Casino Royale, in large part because of my childhood memories of watching Bond films with my dad and my brother, I have no such sentimentality towards the Rocky movies. I’ve seen them all, but not as a child. Both of my parents have a distaste for boxing (one, incidentally, that I share – I’m in general a rabid sports fan but have never warmed to the sight of two people beating each other nearly to death). As a result, I didn’t see any of the Rocky films until I was older. ...CONTINUED
The Holiday - Tuesday, December 19
Review by Fritz Esker
Writer-director Nancy Meyers’ (What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give) latest effort, The Holiday, is a movie that girlfriends and mothers across the country should love. And it’s pleasantly enjoyable enough to keep boyfriends and husbands from complaining too much when compelled to see it. ...CONTINUED
The Fountain - Thursday, November 30
Review by Fritz Esker
As I’ve mentioned before, 2006 has not been a particularly stellar year for films. Oddly enough, there have been several home run hitters (Martin Scorcese, Spike Lee, the late Robert Altman, Sofia Coppola, Richard Linklater, among others) who have released films this year that ended up ranging from disappointing to good-but-not-great. The Fountain, the new film by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream), can be added to that list. It has its undeniable merits, but the parts don’t add up to a completely satisfying whole. ...CONTINUED
Deja Vu - Wednesday, November 22
Review by Fritz Esker
Déjà vu, the new film by director Tony Scott (Top Gun, True Romance), was the first movie to be filmed in post-Katrina New Orleans. While the film acknowledges the existence of Katrina with a few lines of dialogue and a brief trip into the ruins of the Lower 9th Ward, it really has nothing to do with the storm. ...CONTINUED
For Your Consideration - Wednesday, November 22
Review by Fritz Esker
Performers, by nature, tend to be insecure. One of the best examples of this was Sally Field’s infamous Oscar acceptance speech where she blurted out, “You like me! You really like me!” That need to be liked is what drives much of For Your Consideration, the new comedy from Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show). ...CONTINUED
Fast Food Nation - Wednesday, November 22
Review by Fritz Esker
Adaptation is a much bigger screenwriting challenge than most people realize. An average person probably believes that adapting a book to screen involves basically copying the novel to screenplay format and little else. Not so. Even in relatively straightforward adaptations, tough decisions must be made about what subplots/plots to keep or delete, staying faithful to the tone of the book, conveying internal conflict without over-reliance on voice-over, etc. Fast Food Nation presents another screenwriting challenge entirely. While non-fiction books can be adapted into film, they are often non-fiction books that feature some sort of straightforward narrative that Hollywood can cling to. Eric Schlosser’s book Fast Food Nation was a highly intriguing piece of investigative journalism about the fast food industry. ...CONTINUED
Stranger Than Fiction
Review by Fritz Esker
People tend to view God in one of two ways. Good people who believe in God tend to think of him as a benevolent father figure, someone who has a master plan for all of us. Dogmatic jerks who believe in God tend to view him as sort of a psychotic disciplinarian who inflicts pain on all of those who don’t fall into their own narrow views of what’s “right.” I don’t buy either view. Regarding the first opinion, I always felt that there were too many hideous things that happened in the world (Katrina, the tsunami, the Holocaust, Darfur, Pol Pot, Rwanda, etc.) on a regular basis for God to be the benign father figure ...CONTINUED
Casino Royale
Review by Fritz Esker
I have a fondness for the James Bond series. My father was (and still is) a big fan, and I have a lot of childhood memories watching Bond movies with him. I remember feeling particularly manly when he took me to see A View to a Kill in 1985 (my first Bond film in a theater). That being said, the Bond movies feel particularly dated, even the best ones. Most obviously, the serial philandering of Bond seems horribly outdated after the advent of HIV. As feminism spread, most Bond films’ portrayal of women as passive victims and/or sex objects also seemed tacky and obsolete. ...CONTINUED
Bobby
Review by Fritz Esker
Writer/director/actor Emilio Estevez (last seen on the big screen directing Men at Work) aims for Oscar nominations with Bobby, his sprawling, Crash-like melodrama featuring a huge cast of characters interacting on the day leading up to Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968. ...CONTINUED
2006 Holiday Movie Preview
by Fritz Esker and James Jones
Fritz and James preview Casino Royale (above), Stranger Than Fiction, For Your Consideration and the rest of the 2006 Holiday Films ...CONTINUED
Harsh Times
Review by Fritz Esker
Lots of films concern themselves with the horrors of war. Considerably fewer address the realities of what a person goes through after he/she has experienced or done the unthinkable. Flags of Our Fathers leaps to mind. People forget this because of the inanity of the ensuing Rambo movies, but First Blood in many ways made worthy attempts at showing the hardships faced by Vietnam vets after they returned home. ....CONTINUED
Borat
Review by Fritz Esker
Borat, directed by Larry Charles (of the Bob Dylan flop Masked and Anonymous) takes the TV character of Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen), a horribly anti-semitic and misogynistic television reporter from Kazakhstan, and puts him in an 82-minute movie. Borat travels to America with his producer (Ken Davitian) to make a documentary on America. Along the way, he sees Baywatch on TV and falls in love with Pamela Anderson. He then decides he must go on a cross-country odyssey from New York to California to make Anderson his wife. ...CONTINUED
Marie Antoinette
Review byFritz Esker
When Marie Antoinette premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, stories abounded of the film drawing boos from the attending audience. The buzz was that writer/director Sofia Coppola (2003's brilliant Lost in Translation) made a disastrous decision in incorporating anachronistic music and modern touches to the story of the doomed French queen. In reality, the anachronistic touches are far less intrusive than one might imagine or fear. That being said, Marie Antoinette is still a major disappointment coming from such a talented filmmaker. ...CONTINUED
Catch a Fire
Review by Fritz Esker
Director Phillip Noyce (The Quiet American) returns to the realm of the political film with Catch a Fire, a story about South Africa in the waning years of apartheid. It is not a bad film, but it has the misfortune of coming on the heels of other films ( Munich, V for Vendetta) that cover similar thematic ground more effectively. ...CONTINUED
The Prestige
Review by Fritz Esker
I felt it necessary to wait a few days after I caught the latest from director Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Memento) before I reviewed it. Like Memento, it is a film that features a big twist at the end and is such a intricate, complex film that multiple viewings are probably necessary to fully appreciate all of its subtleties. Upon a few days reflection, I've come to the conclusion that The Prestige is a very good film, if not quite the all-time classic that Memento is. ...CONTINUED
The Prestige (8 of 10)
Review by James Jones
Since he burst on the scene with 2000’s best film, the mind-bending Memento, Christopher Nolan has established himself as one of Hollywood’s premier directors. Most recently, Nolan helmed last year’s franchise re-launch, Batman Begins, and turned in one of the best superhero films ever made. He has an uncanny knack for breathing fresh air into the somewhat stale suspense genre, while remembering to stay focused on his characters and not simply his plot twists (a lesson that would serve the overwrought M. Night Shyamalan well). And Nolan’s skill set is put to good use in his latest, The Prestige. ...CONTINUED
Recent Releases