Tomorrow marks the first time that the September 11 anniversary has looped back to a Tuesday. In lieu of my typical Ponderings posting, I’m taking the time to watch United 93 once I finish posting this. I’ll likely watch World Trade Center tomorrow as the follow-up in honor of the day. If time allows, I might also cue up French brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet’s documentary, 9/11, and the HBO In Memoriam documentary. Those latter two are, in my opinion, the finest of the real-life documentaries to date on the event. I’ve said before that I was with most people in being hesitant after hearing that not one but two feature films were being made to release in 2006, only 5 years after. And, one of them would be directed by Oliver Stone. When I saw United 93, the first of the two made/released, I was stunned with how fantastic a job director Paul Greengrass did with the film. It was an honest-to-goodness masterpiece, and set the defacto standard for how a feature film could treat a real life event with respect and integrity. It was my movie pick of the year for 2006, and I’ve watched it a number of times since. I then had mixed feelings of what Oliver Stone might be able to do. Could he not only get it right, but live up to the standard that United 93 had set? Amazingly, he was up to the task. While United 93 might be more impressive of the two in my opinion, Stone’s World Trade Center is darned impressive as well. In fact, it impresses me more with every viewing, and I’ve seen it a number of times as well. I recently picked up the HD-DVD edition of it, which is a flat-out top notch release. Not only is the transfer stunning, but all the spectacularly made extras on the disc are in full high def (which is still unusual so far on most high def discs). I hadn’t gone through most of the extras as yet on the normal DVD release, so it was the first time I’d watched most of them. World Trade Center went through enormous pains in recreating the real life story, like United 93. Both films utilized a large number of real life people who lived through the events portrayed on screen, and it’s clear that both of them were extremely ambitious to get things right. At any rate, on this 6th anniversary of the chaos of September 11, 2001, we must keep the events of the day in mind. Like most everyone else, I’ll never forget the day it happened. It’s the Kennedy assassination and/or moon landing of our generation. Those two films and the handful of excellent documentaries, the ones I mentioned and the others, are as good a way to remember the day as any.

I know Hollywood is cyclical, but could somebody explain to me why the studios are so against westerns? Or, since I know studios only care about what they perceive audiences care about, could somebody explain to me why audiences dislike westerns so much? Sure, I’d be the last person to ever want to live in the environment of a western, but I think it’s one of the better film genres. This is one of only a few westerns of the last couple decades. And what a marvelous film it is. I absolutely loved it. Heck, I’ve seen it twice in two days.

Writing: Many people don’t realize that this is a remake. I think I’ve seen the original. At least much of it seems familiar, so I think I’ve at least seen much of the movie some time ago. After loving this new version, I’ve gotta make an effort to see the original again. I don’t remember the original well enough to make any comparisons, really, but I do have vague memories of the original having a happier ending of sorts. I guess a modern western would be a bit more cynical, which makes sense (and which I actually prefer). Ultimately, this film is less fittingly described as a “western” than it would be as a all-out character drama. It primarily comes down to two characters and their growth playing off each other. It’s an excellent story, laid out in a great script and brought to life by a fine cast and talented crew.

Production: Director James Mangold has a fine, varied track record over the years. This is yet another film genre he’s jumped into, and yet again he succeeds with flying colors. This may be his finest film to date, or at least a top contender. The rest of his crew bring forth equal talent in bringing this story to life without feeling like they are trying to hard. The production seems less interested in the flamboyancies of western genre films normally would (few sweeping shots of the vistas or stylistically framed shots). They seem more interested in the characters and story, which is cool.

Cast: This is easily one of Russell Crowe’s finest performances. He really gets to have fun with this role, and he gets to play a wonderfully multi-faceted character. And he does such a great job with it. Like all the characters, he gets to play many shades of gray. Many people associate the western genre with good vs evil, white hat vs black hat, all too often. Most great westerns are nothing of the sort. In fact, most are all about that middle ground. Crowe’s performance as Ben Wade is on such example. The always-reliable Christian Bale is also excellent as Dan Evans. While his role might be a little bit more thankless than that of Ben Wade, Christian Bale none-the-less brings out all manner of levels to the characters. The two of them are surrounded by an excellent supporting cast. Ben Foster is fantastic as Wade’s raging sociopath right hand man, Charlie Prince. Foster has played everything from romantic teen comedy lead (the under-rated Get Over It) to all out psychopaths (the also under-rated Hostage). He really makes the role of Charlie Prince memorable. Peter Fonda lends the long-time pursuer character of Byron McElroy some great gravitas. As one of a number of Pinkerton agents in the film, he helps sell the time and place of the film. Then you’ve got actors like the fantastic Alan Tudyk in supporting roles, so it’s nearly impossible to go wrong. Gretchen Mol, who isn’t cast in films nearly as often as she should be, does a nice job as Alice Evans, Dan’s wife. Logan Lerman does a nice job as Dan’s impressionable teenage son, William. Heck, Luke Wilson even turns up in a small role and has some fun with it.

Music: Marco Beltrami unsurprisingly comes through with a knock-out score. His score was one of the key things I was looking forward to seeing this movie for, and it surely didn’t disappoint. The score is often times understated, but always fantastic. It does get its moments to shine, and shine it does. With some gorgeous orchestration and complementary percussion, Beltrami works in some nice thematic work and the occasional, wonderful action cue. It’s a fantastic score from start to finish. Beltrami proves once again that he’s one of the best composers actively working in the film score industry. He’s one of my favorites, anyway.

While this movie may not be as offensively rancid as the atrocity known as Crank, it’s another action movie for the sake of action. It has some great stuff in it, to be sure, but it fails more than it succeeds. Ridiculous scarcely covers the description of this movie. Just once, I’d like to see an action movie like this where the henchmen are even remotely good shots. One often wonders if they are even holding their guns in the correct direction to miss so completely on so many clear shots.

Writing: There actually is a little bit of a plot to this one, and it does feature a modicum of character development. That’s not to say that this is a character of any particular note. But compared to pieces of steaming crap like Crank or other underachievers of the genre like the Transporter films, this is Shakespeare.

Production: Some of the action scenes are well staged with some fun stuff done for humor’s sake. Unlike many films of the style, the humor is pulled off a little better in this movie, particularly the tongue-in-cheek type material. Then there are the visual effects, which are for the most part terrible. There’s a sky diving sequence that is cringe-worthy terrible. I know they are in no way going for realistic with much of it, but it’s bad in a way that makes you want to look away.

Cast: Here’s the key highlight to the movie. Clive Owen is channeling his darker characters from the likes of Sin City and filtering them through his “Driver” character from the old BMW short films (”The Hire”), where he got his start. Interestingly, it’s BMW cars that he drives around again in this film, which surely must be a reference to his previous work in those short films (which are superior to this movie, as they were made by some talented directors and crews). Then we have Paul Giamatti, who is fantastic in this film, and easily elevates his role beyond what it should be on the page. Somebody should get him to play this kind of role again, in a superior film. As much as Monica Bellucci tries, she can’t quite make her role work. It’s the most stereotypical of roles, despite the somewhat unusual job she has. She’s a talented actress, as can be witnessed in the likes of Tears Of The Sun, and it’s kind of sad to see her saddled with such a thankless role.

Music: Here’s one of the worst aspects of the film. If it isn’t the metal source cues being used over a number of the action scenes, it’s the score lifting other action scores or songs by prominent electronic music artists. There’s a grossly obvious lift of Paul Oakenfold’s song Ready Steady Go to score one of the action scenes. I know Paul Haslinger is better than that, and to be fair there are a handful of moments where his score does work OK. None of it works particularly great.

Like Hot Rod, this movie thrives on the use of stupidity for comedy. It’s dangerous when stupidity is your primary form of comedy in a film, cause it’s either gonna work or it’s not. Thankfully, a majority of the jokes in this one work, much like Hot Rod.

Writing: Like Hot Rod, not all the jokes work. The film occasionally falls on its face, but it doesn’t do it too often or too completely. The plot of the film is a riff on so many of the Bloodsport, Karate Kid, what-have-you 80’s films. It mixes in a fair amount of international espionage action to give it some more retro flair.

Production: The use of lameness for humor is carried over into the production, who takes the jokes a step further playing of bad stereotypes and big action scenes. It’s the kind of parody that most bad parody comedies in recent years don’t get - when you are lovingly making fun of other films, or the genre as a whole. If you consider the talentless hacks that churn out pieces of crap like the first couple Scare Movie entries, Date Movie or Epic Movie, movies like Hot Rod and Balls Of Fury are pure brilliance. Then again, so would just about anything ever made.

Cast: Dan Fogler is fun in the lead role of ping pong natural Randy Daytona. He balances charm and loser quite nicely. George Lopez is quite funny as loser FBI Agent Ernie Rodriguez, who talks Daytona into this far fetched “plan B” situation. James Hong is funny as the requisite sensei. Maggie Q is fun as his daughter and the main romantic lead. Robert Patrick has fun in his couple scenes as Randy’s father, Sgt. Pete Daytona. But it’s Diedrich Bader who lands some of the funniest stuff in the movie, including a scene with a delivery so deadpanned and perfectly timed that it had me laughing out loud for a couple minutes.

Music: Randy Edelman has great fun playing up the goofball drama, understanding something that Elmer Bernstein exemplified back in the early 80’s - the approach to comedic films of scoring them as seriously as possible. Edelman takes things on as if it were a grand sports epic, embracing things like the big training motif and the “final confrontation” type cue.

Here’s a movie that is 100% what I expected, from start to finish. And that’s OK, cause it at least features an excellent cast that makes the completely predictable plot work.

Writing: If you’ve seen the trailer, you know exactly what to expect from the movie, and what the plot will be. The characters are written fairly obviously, and they interact in the ways you’d pretty much expect. There are some nice character tid-bits tossed in from time to time, and some nice scenes here and there. It’s all pretty harmless fluff, with a few tear-jerking moments when it is needed.

Production: Pretty run-of-the-mill romantic comedy production from start to finish. Much of the production is helped from the somewhat atypical setting of a restaurant kitchen environment. The movie never quite takes full advantage of the setting. At least not to the degree that (criminally overlooked) shows like Kitchen Confidential did.

Cast: Without a doubt, the strongest aspect to this movie is the cast. I’m a big fan of Aaron Eckhart, and it’s great to see him continue to get lead roles. Catherine Zeta-Jones is another talented actor that isn’t in a heck of a lot in recent years. While she doesn’t revolutionize the role she’s given, she pulls it off with remarkable ease. Then we have Abigail Breslin, who has made quite a name for herself recently with her fantastic performance in Little Miss Sunshine and the likes. She’s excellent in this film as well, definitely elevating the role higher than it has a right to be. Her and Eckhart have a remarkable chemistry and repartee on screen.

Music: Philip Glass is an interesting choice for a movie of this genre. While much of it has that distinctly Philip Glass style, he also tones it back a bit from that recognizable style. Overall, it’s a good score that has some rather nice moments.

There are few actors I find less annoying than Chris Tucker. He all but nearly destroyed The Fifth Element, a movie I otherwise love. I’ve learned to ignore him in that film for the most part. I just think of a happy place during his moments. I’m a Jackie Chan fan, and have suffered through Tucker in the previous Rush Hour films, so I knew what I was in for. While this might be the weakest of the Rush Hour films (though not by a lot), it has enough fun with itself to work. And despite my dislike for the actor, Tucker’s character does get some fun material from time to time. I’ll take the Shanghai Knights films over the Rush Hour films any day. Owen Wilson is a major improvement in partner over Chris Tucker.

Writing: I’m not going to bother trying to ground this plot in reality when considering the success of the writing. It connects one scene to the next well enough to stage some fun action and pull off some amusing comedy.

Production: There are some nice set pieces in this franchise entry. Of particular fun is the big action finale on the Eiffel Tower. It incorporates some of the lesser considered inner workings of the landmark quite well. Other production aspects are well done, from cinematography to sound design to location work.

Cast: Jackie Chan is my primary reason for seeing the Rush Hour films. He gets to do some cool stunt stuff, and there’s still some of the Jackie Chan magic at work, but he’s been scaling things back a bit in recent years. I guess his age, and American film production paranoia, are catching up with him. The big action set piece at the end of the film does give some nice stunt opportunity. As I said before, I tolerate Chris Tucker in this role. He’s not 100% annoying, but I’d take pretty much any other actor in the role. Well, not Richard Gere, but there’s zero chance that he’d ever be considered for a role even remotely like this. The rest of the cast is filled out with interesting choices, from Max von Sydow to none-other-than Roman Polanski.

Music: One of my other reasons for seeing the Rush Hour films is for composer Lalo Schifrin. As in previous films, Schifrin does a marvelous job in scoring this third entry. He’s worked with director Brett Ratner on 5 films now (all 3 Rush Hours, Money Talks and the under-rated After The Sunset). Schifrin is a film score legend, and surely one of the oldest still working in the industry at 75 years old. Everyone knows his work, whether they know it or not. The Mission Impossible theme will always be his greatest hallmark.

Yippie, the return of Mr. Bean. I’m not a die-hard Mr. Bean fan, but I’m enough of a fan to own them all on DVD and enjoy Rowan Atkinson’s total goofball antics.

Writing: I liked the first feature film, but I thought they tried a bit too hard in rounding out a plot and character development to stretch the normally sketch length character to feature film length. They learned from their mistakes and tried a little less hard this time out. What’s the end result? A better movie. It’s a return to form for the Bean character, who’s as hapless as ever.

Production: All the location filming is a great aspect of the movie. Thanks to the simple and fun plot, involving Mr. Bean trying to get from point a to point b on a vacation he’s won in a raffle, we are treated to all manner of European locations along the way. We’re also treated to the very British character of Bean not just stumbling his way through every day life, but in a country he doesn’t understand dealing with a language he amusingly tries to half speak.

Cast: Rowan Atkinson has perfected this character after so many years of playing him. He slips back into the role with remarkable ease. Mr. Bean is a type of character that we rarely see in movies anymore. His Chaplainesque mannerisms and witless ignorance, often times bordering on the sociopathic, almost always result in hyjinx and hilarity. Surrounding him are an assortment of fun cast members. Emma de Caunes works well as the stereotypical enjenue. Max Baldry is fun as the boy Mr. Bean inadvertently gets stuck with. And Willem Dafoe gets to make fun of pretentious directors with his daffy role.

Music: Howard Goodall also returns to form with a brilliantly fun Bean score. It’s got his trademark BBC comedy flair and gets to have fun as often as it can. A wonderfully playful score.

While this movie is truly crass when it wants to be, it’s also more naive and charming than most others of the crass-comedy genre. I’m not a fan of outright crassness for comedic purposes, but when it manages to lend itself to other comedic outlets within the film, it can work. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to most of the people I know, as it would easily offend them. Then again, most any of the recent films involving Judd Apatow and/or Seth Rogen would do the same.

Writing: Supposedly, Seth Rogen has been trying to get this movie made for quite a few years. I can imagine it to be a hard sell to the studios, particularly without making changes to some of the scenes and details. I also imagine that it became much easier after the success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin and the also-in-production Knocked Up. The 2 main characters are pretty well written, though I considered Jonah Hill’s character of Seth to be a bit too nasty and grating from time to time. On that note, it’s amusing that the two main characters are named Seth & Evan, surely comparative to the two writers, Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg. The funniest characters in the film, however, are the two keystone cops played by Rogen and Bill Hader. They get 75% of the funniest material in the movie.

Production: What can be said about low-budget comedy film productions? It’s not like they have to be overly stylized or slickly produced. Nothing stood out as particularly great or particularly bad. Some of the 70’s retro throwback is kinda fun, most notably in the music choices.

Cast: Casting is generally good. Jonah Hill can get a bit annoying at times, but pulls off much of the roll. Michael Cera is more fun in the poor hapless victim role in the middle of these insane characters. Newcomer Christopher Mintz-Plasse is a hoot as ultra-lame Fogell. Seth Rogen & Bill Hader are hilarious as officers Slater & Michaels. Other cast members do a pretty good job. However, the one who elevated this movie from a 7 to an 8 in my book is Emma Stone. Having recently liked her work on the criminally short-lived Fox series Drive, it took me a bit to figure out where I recognized her from. She lends a sense of weight and instant respectability to her smaller role in the movie. How her character could possibly end up with the lead character of Seth is beyond me…

Music: Like I said, the choices of source music are amusing, in their retro way. Lyle Workman, who has worked on previous Apatow projects, does a workable job with scoring duties. Not a heck of a lot to accomplish with the score to a film like this, but it’s workable.