While walking out of The American, a fellow critic pointed out something that couldn’t be close to the truth: this is the anti-Bond film. With the Bond movies, the audience is filled with envy. You wanna be that man. Here, it’s difficult to imagine anyone wanting to be George Clooney’s unnamed assassin. Read the full story

It’s hard to find a good horror movie these days. The majority of ideas have been done to death. It’s rare that an original and good idea comes along that manages to scare and entertain us at the same time. With the Daniel Stamm directed and Eli Roth produced The Last Exorcism, we’re still waiting for that good idea to come along.

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Vincent Cassel is proving to be one of this generations most talented and prolific actors. Better known perhaps as the villain in Ocean’s 12, Cassel has been making movies for nearly two decades and has starred in some of the very best contemporary films to come out of his home country of France, where he is considered a certified rock star. With Mesrine: Killer Instinct, Cassel delivers the performance of a lifetime in a sprawling biopic crime drama about notorious French criminal Jacques Mesrine better known as Public Enemy No 1. Read the full story

Formerly known as The Baster, the much more aptly-titled The Switch deals with just that. Directed by Blades of Glory duo Josh Gordon & Will Speck, this dramedy is not really about the baster, a quick throwaway gag in the film. It deals with a man (Jason Bateman) on the road to revealing to his best friend (Jennifer Aniston) the switch of his sperm from a donor’s sperm that she used to get pregnant. The script by Allan Loeb (Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, Things We Lost In The Fire) could easily have become a wacky sex comedy. Instead, it takes a more mature look at the effects of that switch — both on the child and all the adults involved. Read the full story

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If the title Piranha 3D makes you think of descriptives like stupid or awful, and it just doesn’t interest you at all, then this isn’t the film for you. But if you’re one of the sane people out there and can appreciate a horror comedy done well, then you’ll enjoy Alexandre Aja‘s latest as the unapologetic, blood drenched, and nudity filled film that it is. It knows exactly what it is, and it embraces the ridiculousness.

Aja is a man of good taste when it comes to the gratuitous side of things. He knows how to make a well crafted B-movie; aside from Mirrors. While this is a ridiculous spectacle Aja doesn’t go all towards camp. Nearly everything – including most of the performances – are played with a straight face. Nobody acts unbelievably goofy. Even Jerry O’Connell manages to create a real character. All of these characters feel real, which makes the tonal outlandishness of it all even more believable. It would be asinine to say this takes itself seriously. It doesn’t. This is one hundred percent self-aware of what it is and what it’s trying to be.

There’s no real need to describe the plot in an in-depth fashion. One can practically figure it out from the poster: it’s piranhas attacking during beach season. The film mostly focuses on the least interesting of the group being attacked: Jake Forester (Steven R. McQueen). Jake is a mostly whiny character and one you don’t particularly care for, or like. It’s not Forester’s fault, but when you’re surrounded by Elisabeth Shue‘s macho town sheriff, Adam Scott‘s surprisingly heroic outsider, and of course Jerry O’Connell’s great Girls Gone Wild-esque show host, you’re just not going to come out being the standout. Even some of the smaller characters, like Eli Roth‘s wet t-shirt contest meat-head, are a lot more fun to watch. And let’s not forget two fantastic appearances by Christopher Lloyd and Richard Dreyfuss, the former being a perfect deliverer of hammy exposition on paper and the latter being a simple fantastic nod to Jaws; obviously being the main inspiration for the film.

Fun is what Aja gets. His previous films we’re more horrific than fun and here he’s changing things up. Aja keeps the story moving briskly with practically no dull spots to speak of. Early on he gives you exactly what you want — mayhem. While this does slightly affect the narrative quite a bit, feeling slightly choppy, it’s tough to say it’s not fast paced. The only arena where Aja really drops the ball is when it comes to the 3D itself. The dimness doesn’t take away from the poppy look of the film, but the 3D doesn’t add as much to the experience as it should. It’s not the all-out gimmicky effect you expect and want. Surprisingly, this would probably work better in 2D.

Even when Piranha 3D looks cheap you still cant help but to find it charming. A few sequences don’t look as sharp as others, and yet those moments still manage to entertain. This is Alexandre Aja’s blood spattered extravaganza.

7.5 out of 10

What did you think of Piranha 3D?

Neil Marshall delivers the goods when it comes to creating solid B-movie schlock. With Dog Soldiers and The Descent he showed great promise in the horror world. With Doomsday and now Centurion, Marshall shows he also has a steady hand when it comes to delivering on the action. Both films couldn’t be more similar. They each focus on a chase, have over-the-top kills, a solid lead, all while happening to be a mess. Read the full story

Viewers (much like this writer) who have grown to identify Joan Rivers with plastic surgery, jewelry sales on QVC, and red-carpet banter are in for a surprise with the humorous and engrossingly honest documentary Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work. Through a family connection, directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg were able to gain access to capture an incredibly intimate portrait, showing an the ups and downs of compulsive celebrity and this complicated life. The cameras follow Rivers for a year, beginning on her 75th birthday.

The film opens with a merciless close-up of Rivers, in the morning moment right before her makeup is applied. There is a sense of unapologetic candor in this shot, as we see the real Joan right before a thick application of makeup is applied. Slowly we see her transformed into the Joan we know, with the artificial golden glow hiding the years underneath. The theatrical feel of this transformation feels very much like one’s preparation before they go on-stage, which might be a sense of comfort for Rivers.

“When I am onstage is the only time I am truly happy,” she confesses. Sadly, that appears to be true. When on stage, she comes alive under the lights, seeming to thrive on the attention, laughter, and love of each audience.
Born in 1933, Joan Rivers grew up as Joan Molinsky, a dark-haired girl with a big nose. From a very young age, Rivers was self-conscious about her looks, and felt that others agreed with what she saw as her shortcomings. To the camera, she recounts how her mother used to assure her that “looks don’t matter,” which she accepted as meaning she was ugly and they all knew it. And so the surgeries began, revealed in the footage of her first television appearances, when Rivers is in her early 30s, with her nose having gone through its first transformation.

It’s very easy to criticize the overuse of plastic surgery, but there is also something hauntingly sad in not being able to appreciate the face that stares back at you in the mirror. “No man,” Joan says, at one particularly heartrending moment, “has ever told me I looked beautiful. Oh, they say, ‘You look great!’ But never beautiful.”

Along with chronicling of the year, archival footage from her 40-year history on camera fills in the story with interesting personal moments. One of the most heartfelt is her recounting of the moment she had a fall out with Johnny Carson, from being his close friend and constant show guest to being completely cut-off from contact with him after she pursued her own ill-fated late-night talk show on a rival network. Rivers also discusses the tragic tale of her husband, Edgar, from the rise of their love, to his fall into a suicidal depression.

With a glimpse into Rivers’s life comes a glimpse into her home: a gilt-and-crystal Manhattan apartment with Rivers describes as “where Marie Antoinette would live if she had the money.” She lives a life of extreme luxury, seeming to fill an emotional void with material possessions, and with such a life comes with a hefty price tag. At one point she shows the camera the blank pages in her appointment book, which has a sense of gravity in that Rivers recognizes lack of bookings as not only loss of interest in her (a fact which she finds quite devastating) but also a potential end to the lifestyle she is accustomed to. She holds up a blank page and states, “I’ll show you fear.”

Biographical documentaries are always revealing, but the really good ones can turn you on your head, bringing the subjects into a new light. Yes, Rivers is rude, offensive, and cosmetically enhanced, but underneath that makeup cover is a fragile, lonely soul who spends Thanksgiving delivering meals to the sick. Indeed, she is a piece of work.

7 out of 10

What do you look for in a biographical documentary? Do you plan to see this one?

On paper, The Expendables sounds like heaven. All the B-action stars we (mostly) love, directed by Sylvester Stallone in a non-stop action film sounds like the best time one could have at a theater. When the film kicks off Stallone seemed to have delivered what he promised and intended, but soon it’s apparent that’s not the case. There are hints in the opening that this isn’t the ultimate 80′s callback we were expecting, with CG blood, CG lasers, and the CG in general, but it was still promising. After the quick and impressive intro, it loses steam quickly. Read the full story

We see a lot of soul-searching, inner reflection, and spirituality in Eat Pray Love, but it is a rare moment when we actually experience it. I never read Elizabeth Gilbert‘s bestselling novel about her meditative excursion, but I can imagine the author acts like a cipher for wish-fulfillment as we reflect about our own personal life. Read the full story

E-mail Jordan Raup here. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook for the latest TFS updates!

Scott Pilgrim vs The World is the rare kind of a movie that makes you hopeful about the future of films. It’s filled to the brim with wit, humor, action, romance and comedy. It’s a seemingly perfect blend of everything you want from a movie going experience and it does with style, pizzaz and originality. Based on the fantastic and idiosyncratic comic book by Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim vs The World centers around the world of Scott Pilgrim, his friends, his band and of course his love life. The comic exemplifies elements that perfectly seem to describe the amalgamation of geek/nerd culture including various references to video games, pop culture and film. Directed by one of the most talented filmmakers working in the industry today, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) has created a cinematic masterpiece with Scott Pilgrim vs The World that impressively continues his perfect streak of not making a single bad film. Read the full story