Ninja Assasin Trailer
It's a movie about ninjas and it looks to be better than American Ninja! Remember that one with Michael Dudikoff? You do remember, right?
Box Office Results
July 24th- 26th
1/ G- Force $32,152,000
2/ Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince $30,000,000
3/ The Ugly Truth $27,000,000
4/ Orphan $12,770,000
5/ Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $8,200,000
Alice in Wonderland Teaser
The terrific trio are at it again! Director Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and Composer Danny Elfman have teamed up once again to bring you their version of Alice in Wonderland. I am a HUGE fan of Tim Burton and besides Planet of the Apes, I have enjoyed every single one of his films. I'm sure this will be something special. It's due to be released March 2010. Thats only 8 months away!
Julie & Julia Trailer
From director Nora Ephron, comes a deliciously true story about famed chef Julia Child and Julie Powell, a secretary who starts a blog about her experience cooking all of Child's 524 recibes within a year. Bon Appetit!
Box Office Results
July 17th- 19th
1/ Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince $79,475,000
2/ Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $17,700,000
3/ Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $13,750,000
4/ Bruno $8,374,000
5/ The Hangover $8,315,000
Box Office Results
July 3rd- 5th
1/ Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs $42,500,000
2/ Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $42,500,000
3/ Public Enemies $26,172,000
4/ The Proposal $12,779,000
5/ The Hangover $10,415,000
Public Enemies (Review)
Public Enemies
Directed By: Michael Mann
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard
What’s It About
During the Great Depression, John Dillinger was known as Public Enemy number one to law men and Robin Hood to the victims of the times. Public Enemies chronicles his last year of his criminal career.
Thoughts
If you want a Depression Era film, you won’t find it here. In Dillinger’s world, life is good. He goes to nice clubs, bets on horse races, eats at upscale restaurants, wears nice suits and drives very nice cars. The film then is seen within that world. The only time you see anything concerning the Depression is in the beginning of the picture, in the form of a text.
Public Enemies begins with a jailbreak that will leave you in shock. From there, you’ll witness Dillinger’s gang rob banks, have shootouts with the Feds, go into hiding, and in between all that there’s Melvin Pervus (Christian Bale) and his G-Men on the hunt for the gang. Shootouts are insane and will satisfy any gangster film fan. One of the best scenes comes halfway in the film when the Dillinger Gang goes at it with the G-Men in a hotel in the forest. The main draw though, occurs once Dillinger sets his eyes on Billie Frechette and that’s where the strength lies in Public Enemies.
Johnny Depp is superb as Public Enemy number one. I don’t think anyone else could have brought all the charisma, confidence, and brutality to Dillinger quite like Depp. Christian Bale was good here too, though I do wish more time were spent on his personal life, just to flesh his character out a bit more. The surprise performance though, came from Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose) as Dillingers girl, Billie Frechette. She loved Dillinger, and you feel the pain she goes thru both emotionally and physically because of him. I looked forward to every scene she was in and I hope to see her in many more big roles after this. Two smaller but great performances came from Billy Crudup as the Director of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover and Stephen Graham as Lester Gillis a.k.a Baby Face Nelson. Graham in particular, reminded me of a young Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.
The camera work on this film is tight. There are hardly any panoramic vistas in this picture. The intent of the filmmakers was to have you there, next to the characters, almost as if you’re ease dropping on what’s going on. While it works for the most part, I really which they would have pulled the camera back more times to allowing for some sets to be exposed, this is a period piece after all. Part of the charm in these movies is getting sucked in the environments. While we’re on the subject of cinematography, allow me to give my two cents on the use HD cameras on this picture. While it made the night scenes stand out beautifully, the day time scenes would have worked better if shot with film. It’s not that they looked bad; on the contrary, it was too clean. By using film, it would have given the picture a grittiness that is normally associated with gangster films.
Before you go in to see Public Enemies, do some reading on Dillinger and his associates. If you don’t, you will be confused about who’s who until about halfway in the film. Director Michael Mann shot this period piece expecting its audience to know who the players are and does not attempt to tell any back stories to help us become emotionally attached. It’s kinda like walking in the middle of a discussion and having to play catch up, only to finally understand the who, what, where and when, but by the time you do, the story is over. That is not to say that Public Enemies is a bad film by any means though. You’ll most likely walk out of this film wanting to get more information on the life of Dillinger, his associates and the men who tracked them down. Maybe that was the intent of the filmmakers all along. While this may not be the gangster film to top them all, it’s a well made big budget attempt.
Memorable Moment
The forest shootout. It brought back memories of Heat.
FYI
Diana Krall makes a cameo in the club scene.
Score
7 out of 10
