BRETT MICHEL

Four Christmases

BRETT MICHEL — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:56:54 GMT

Tests the audiences' tolerance of grim cheer
Rather than the typical snowstorm that strands characters in a Holiday-themed comedy, it's heavy cloud cover that keeps San Francisco couple Brad and Kate from catching their flight to Fiji.

Drowning in a sea of red

BRETT MICHEL — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 22:16:30 GMT

Seeing Saw
As a film critic, I'm obliged to approach every film with an open mind.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 19:20:40 GMT

An uninspired sit-com packed with Hollywood stars
It’s a light entertainment that can cash in with election-weary audiences.

Pride and Glory

BRETT MICHEL — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:43:28 GMT

Overwrought, derivative police procedural
Here comes director Gavin O’Connor ( Miracle ) to demonstrate that threatening a baby — especially with a hot iron — will never be acceptable.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

BRETT MICHEL — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:55:46 GMT

Full of raunch and snappy dialogue
Kevin Smith’s ear for raunch is as piquant as ever, but he’s moved beyond his usual unconvincing leads to Judd Apatow regulars Rogen and Craig Robinson.

Max Payne

BRETT MICHEL — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:08:48 GMT

Bloodless, PG-13-rated action noir
No longer the undercover DEA agent of the game, Max oversees NYPD “cold case” files. They don’t come much colder than this one.

Body of Lies

BRETT MICHEL — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:47:08 GMT

Another forgettable thriller
For a film dealing with Intelligence, Body of Lies has little enough of its own.

Eagle Eye

BRETT MICHEL — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 20:57:57 GMT

A credulity-be-damned plot
The trouble with Shia? He’s no Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart, or Cary Grant.

Interview: Simon Pegg

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:43:15 GMT

Shaun of the Dead star on losing friends, alienating people, and wanking off to Gillian Anderson
Thirty-eight-year-old British actor Simon Pegg’s US star has been on the rise since his zombie-movie parody Shaun of the Dead shuffled into multiplexes back in 2004.

Read the full transcript of Brett Michel's interview with Simon Pegg
Part 1 | Part 2

Thirty-eight-year-old British actor Simon Pegg’s US star has been on the rise since his zombie-movie parody Shaun of the Dead (directed by his old pal and fellow geek Edgar Wright and co-starring his portly friend Nick Frost) shuffled into multiplexes back in 2004. That was followed in 2006 by a brief but memorable cameo in J.J. Abrams’s Mission: Impossible III. When Hot Fuzz (directed by Wright and co-starring Frost) came out last year, I described the film as the “unholy offspring of Old Blighty and Hollywood: picture Agatha Christie buggered by Michael Bay, with (old-school) Peter Jackson administering lube.” Pegg’s beloved 1999–2001 BBC television series Spaced was recently released on DVD in the US, and he’s sure to see a rise in fame once Abrams’s reboot of the Star Trek franchise opens in theaters next summer, since he plays Scotty, the role originated by the late James Doohan. Just now, though, you can see him in Robert B. Weide’s adaptation of Toby Young’s memoir How To Lose Friends & Alienate People, headlining a cast that includes Jeff Bridges, Kirsten Dunst, and The X-Files’ Gillian Anderson, an actress he admitted as having “crushed on enormously” when I spoke with him at Boston’s Liberty Hotel.

I just got finished watching Spaced. At the close of the pilot episode, you were about to masturbate to Gillian Anderson’s photo . . .
The first thing Bob Weide said when Gillian sat down in the rehearsal room — with me having said, “Please don’t mention it to her” — was, “So, have you seen the episode where Simon wanks to ya?” I don’t think I’ve ever been as embarrassed. But she is such a good sport, Gillian is. She’s a boy’s girl. For someone as stunningly beautiful as she is, she’s a bit of a lad, which makes it all the more easy. We’ve become good pals now, which is bizarre for me. When I met Piper — her first child, Piper’s like 13 now, and she was conceived at the beginning of the second season of The X-Files, and you could see how Gillian grew on screen — the first thing I said to Piper was, “Ah, you must be the ‘bump’ from season two,” which she must have thought was half-geeky, half-hilarious.

My Best Friend's Girl

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:42:13 GMT

Predictability ensues. Hilarity doesn’t.
How many awful films must audiences sit through before producers realize that Dane Cook is not a romantic lead?

The Lucky Ones

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 23:39:53 GMT

A contrived film about the war in Iraq
A roller-coaster ride toward spurious patriotism; a road trip transporting unlucky viewers from hoo-rah to ho-hum.

Towelhead

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:20:44 GMT

A grosteque and unbelievable adaptation
Towelhead is the type of tripe that poses as enlightenment in “important” Oscar winners like Crash and American Beauty .

Righteous Kill

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:15:24 GMT

A predictable, tedious thriller
It’s been nearly a decade since Al Pacino and Robert De Niro were choosing roles based on quality rather than cash.

The Women

BRETT MICHEL — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:35:53 GMT

A Botoxed ode to Saks Fifth Avenue
Rewritten, directed, and produced by Diane English in a flat style that betrays both her TV roots and her status as a first-time director.

Disaster Movie

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 16:58:09 GMT

Devoid of laughs or recognizable actors
Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer (the hacks behind Date Movie and Epic Movie ) unleashed their second witless rehash of pop culture references this year.

Devil at the Gate

BRETT MICHEL — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:50:58 GMT

Giving voice to Red Heroine
The ensemble has spent the better part of a decade composing and performing soundtracks for silent films, creating their own brand of musical alchemy.

WHERE’S THAT ERHU? You can’t see it here, but you might hear it this weekend.

If the name Devil Music Ensemble conjures an apparition of musicians accompanying Rupert Julian’s adaptation of Gaston Leroux’s 1909-’10 serial Le fantôme de l’Opéra, then you might not be surprised to hear that such an outfit exists. And though Boston bandmates Brendon Wood, Jonah Rapino, and Tim Nylander have yet to achieve the fame of Cambridge’s Alloy Orchestra (or accompany Julian’s 1925 film, as Alloy have), they have spent the better part of a decade composing and performing soundtracks for silent films, creating their own brand of musical alchemy.

This weekend, they debut their latest work, an original score for the sixth (and only surviving) episode of the 13-part Chinese serial Red Knight Errant, Wen Yimin’s 1929 silent Red Heroine [Hongxia], the oldest extant martial-arts film. It will screen on Friday at the Chinatown Gate (on the vacant paved lot on Hudson Street) at 7:30 pm as part of the “Films at the Gate” free outdoor festival, and then on Saturday in Somerville’s Union Square at approximately 8 pm.

So, where did “Devil Music” come from? “Well, there are a couple of stories,” Rapino tells me. The main one has to do with George Crumb’s Black Angels (Images I): 13 images from the dark land. It’s really amazing music, composed during the Vietnam era. ‘Devil-music’ is the name of a piece of one of the movements.”

“That’s the more sophisticated version,” laughs Wood. The “real story,” he confides, involves a lazy afternoon spent cranking Van Halen’s Fair Warning after school. “I was playing the record pretty loudly when my grandmother comes in yelling, ‘What’s that devil music?!’ I knew right then that that would make a great name for a band someday.”

That day came in 1999, when Wood formed the rock band Devil Music with Rapino and Nylander. But the film influence didn’t creep in till a couple of years later. Rapino: “We used to play at AS220 in Providence. Brendon was a fan of Jean Cocteau’s Le sang d’un poète, and he installed a monitor on stage showing the 1930 film “purely as a backdrop to our playing.” In 2002, Devil Music Ensemble (“We added the ‘Ensemble’ after we started playing live accompaniment for films,” says Wood, “since we sometimes bring in more musicians”) performed their soundtrack to René Clair’s 1926 film Le voyage imaginaire during the “Celluloud” series at the Coolidge Corner Theatre.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:06:47 GMT

A stiffly-animated, money-grabbing afterthought
It is Star Wars , but it's also an ad for an upcoming video game and an animated TV series debuting in October.

Henry Poole Is Here

BRETT MICHEL — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:35:40 GMT

An unbelievable climax that will test your faith
Hopeless Henry Poole (Luke Wilson), suffering from one of those terminal, nameless movie diseases.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

BRETT MICHEL — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:45:08 GMT

Disjointed, sketchy, and saccharine
Like Sex and the City: The Movie, Sanaa Hamri’s continuation of the journey of a pair of jeans that magically fit four girls of disparate genes feels tailored for the small screen.

Bottle Shock

BRETT MICHEL — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:05:29 GMT

Bland vino
I found myself thinking, “I detect corn, laced with cheese.”