Tag: Mark Webber

TRIGGER WARNING (2024)

~ jbg ~ Leave a comment

Directed By: Molly Surya

Written By: Josh Olson, John Brancato, and Halley Gross

Cinematography: Zoe White 

Editor: Chris Tonick and Robert Grigsby Wilson

Cast: Jessica Alba, Mark Webber, Anthony Michael Hall, Jake Weary, Tone Bell, Alejandro De Hoyos, Gabriel Basso, Kaiwi Lyman, Nadia Molcho, Peter Monro

A devoted daughter is attempting to figure out the cause of her father’s passing.

I am guessing this was supposed to be Jessica Alba’s comeback film To the big screen after being out of the film world for a while and running her Honest brand. 

This definitely was not the right project as it seems like a Netflix movie that even one of their bigger stars Jennifer Lopez would turn down that is how disappointing this movie is. I’m wondering if they had the script and tried to sell it to Alba as her return to movies but not tell her that probably Jennifer Lopez turned it down as well as another list of stars I mean Netflix as an action movie starring character actor Allison Janney. That is way more entertaining than this will ever be.

Jessica Alba, who is a great beauty even deserves better than this film. The audience doesn’t even deserve this film. The film is that poor. 

In watching the film. I know it takes place in a small town so I know it can’t be too impressive when it comes to the action plotting or visuals but this should still definitely be better.

The action sequences are not that impressive or expressive action and are far short of what one would hope for. 

The film is basically unoriginal and doesn’t seem to have any intentional humor. It also has no mystery. You pretty much know how it’s gonna go and offer no surprises in the way that it happens, except that you expect everyone in this film the characters to be a lot smarter. 

Which unfortunately is the quality one has come to expect when it comes to Netflix’s star vehicles.

This is a film, where a character you can tell is gonna be a jerk as he has a stylish mullet. that is derivative and bland that this film is.

What is shocking is that the film is co-written by some noted screenwriters Josh Olson and John Brancato. As well as Halley Gross who has quite a few screenwriting elements under her belt. So I wonder if each tried to make it better by laying on their expertise and somehow it all got simplified. 

It’s a good thing. This film didn’t go to the big screen. It would definitely be a disappointment even more than it is here. There is nothing in this film that feels worthy of being on the big screen.

Even while it was fighting for either a bad or worse. as you watch a film with a crap charisma villain, and the characters get to take down a terrorist for extra measure.

This also could’ve ended much quicker. It needs to be so long and also feel that way.

by the end, the only question I had was why do they use the name ghost always for terrorists or assassins? I know maybe it gives a certain visual or maybe informs the audience of their mysterious nature and how easily they can disappear but I think it’s time for Screenwriter to come up with a better name or alias for these types of characters. That was the most interesting aspect of this movie and it was still derivative.

Grade: F

HOLLYWOOD ENDING (2002)

~ jbg ~ Leave a comment

Written & Directed By: Woody Allen
Cinematography: Wedigo Von Schultzendorff
Editor: Alisa Lepselter

Cast: Woody Allen, Tea Leoni, Treat Williams, George Hamilton, Debra Messing, Mark Rydell, Isaac Mizrahi, Erica Leerhsen, Aaron Stanford, Fred Melamed, Douglas McGrath, Lu Yu, Barney Chang, Marian Saldes, Tiffani Theissen, Greg Mottola, Mark Webber 

A director is forced to work with his ex-wife, who left him for the studio’s boss, bankrolling his new film. But the night before the first day of shooting, he develops a case of psychosomatic blindness.

This is where Woody Allen lost me after having a  period of disappointing films. At this point, I eagerly awaited every new film he had made since 1992. When I saw HUSBANDS & WIVES. Even though some were not as good as others I stayed loyal though I can admit to not seeing the previous two years’ films.

CURSE OF THE JADE SCORPION and SMALL TIME CROOKS even to the day that I am writing this review, but I took a chance on this film and saw it in theaters as I figured it would be a return to form in making fun of himself. That comes across as a tone-deaf parody of himself. 

Unfortunately, the jokes are stale and the situations Seem like a good setup but don’t ever come around to getting the best use out of them. It makes him seem out of touch to a certain extent and tries to portray youth he doesn’t exactly understand. Which is characterized by the character of his punk rock son who calls himself scumbag. 

There are plenty of Hollywood and anti-California Jokes but even the movie he is trying to make within the movie seems pretty bad.

The film feels almost like it was put together or written like a puzzle. Where it is trying to put itself together as it goes along. To kind of have a running theme and story.

It seems to try and spoof Allen himself with the preference of foreign-born cinematographers who speak little English. Which opens up the avenue of having to hire a translator. Who he confides in about his condition. Who pretty much is his confidante, but who he begins to have artistic conflicts with as the translator who is not into showbiz or movies. Becomes almost a co-director and has artistic opinions of his own. This could have been a great side story of giving more time to it, but sadly more wants to focus on past loves and mental trauma as well as blind director Jokes.

The film is one of the few of his films. At least at the time that felt like an assembly line production. He usually puts out a film a year, comes up with a story fast, and tries to build a screenplay around it without feeling it out or doing follow-up drafts. As it feels like he isn’t trying to have any interest in the material. This might have worked more in the ’80s or ’90s but when it came out it felt. I curated it without any nuance. Jaded for no real reason. Almost a Rushed homework assignment.

As always it feels like a prestige film but has little input and feels haphazardly put together. Especially when it comes to casting which seems very random. 

The romance in the middle of the film seems sloppy and unearned other than being entirely predictable. 

The film lives up to Its title, but overall the film deserved better and more. 

Grade: D

WHITEBOYZ (1999)

~ jbg ~ Leave a comment

Directed by: Marc Levin 
Written by: Danny Hoch, Garth Belcon, Marc Levin & Richard Stratton 
Story By: Danny Hoch & Garth Belcon 
Cinematography: Mark Benjamin 
Editor: Emir Lewis 

Cast: Danny Hoch, Dash Mihok, Mark Webber, Piper Perabo, Eugene Byrd, Lisa Jane Todd, Bonz Malone, Reno Wilson, Jaqueline Williams, Doug E. Fresh, Slick Rick, Kim Wozencraft, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Fat Joe, Dead Prez

In a virtually all-white Iowa town, Flip daydreams of being a hip-hop star,. He practices in front of a mirror and with his two pals, James and Trevor. He talks Black slang, he dresses Black. He’s also a wannabe pusher, selling flour as cocaine. And while he talks about “keeping it real,” he hardly notices real life around him: his father’s been laid off, his mother uses Food Stamps, his girlfriend is pregnant, James may be psychotic, one of his friends (one of the town’s few Black kids) is preparing for college, and, on a trip to Chicago to try to buy drugs, the cops shoot real bullets. What will it take for Flip to get real?

This feels like a film that tackles a cultural phenomenon movement but feels a little late. So it also feels stale and a bit out of step. 

While it offers lead actor (and Co-Writer) Danny Hoch a cumulation of his work (as a Caucasian obsessed with the stereotypes of African Americans and their culture) even as he looks too old to play the lead role of a teenager just beginning his post-high school life. 

The same when it comes to dash Mihok even though a little closer to the right age, but it becomes more obvious their age when next to Mark Webber, who actually still looks like a teenager. 

The film starts off being more satirical before becoming more dramatic and serious in the third act. Where it tries suspense and ends in violence. When due to that violence characters finally break out of their fantasy and reveal themselves good and bad as one shows his racism, but it finally adds the edge the film seeks.

As before the third act, the film jumps from Social realism where we laugh at the characters to more juvenile comedy that comes off as goofy. 

This was director Marc Levin’s next film after the Sundance award-winner SLAM. Like that film this film stays rooted in African American culture but whereas that film felt artistic. Even though it was independent also. This seems to go more for a mainstream audience. As well as taking on the story more from a Caucasian point of view trying to look in.

Soon the way to its inevitable end. It tries to provide insight but can’t help but feel a bit preachy while sticking to its small-town roots.

It seems to want to play into its own fantasy world.

Maybe if the film stayed with the character base and let the comedy come naturally from there and their ridiculousness. This film could have been stronger.

As it tries to present a microcosm it doesn’t offer up anything to say. So that it seems like posturing while presenting a subject that seems more comedic and like a news report that never probes any deeper. 

It might have been more interesting if the film opened itself up and explored other characters a little more than the less. Working fine when it decides that I have more of a plot. While it tries to offer insight. It just feels stale and where it’s missing some points

Grade: C

WEAPONS (2007)

~ jbg ~ Leave a comment

Written & Directed By: Adam Bhala Lough Cinematography: Manuel Alberto Claro Editor: Jay Rabinowitz 

Cast: Nick Cannon, Paul Dano, Mark Webber, Riley Smith, John Campo, Regine Nahu, Brandon Mychel Smith. Arliss Howard, Aris Mendoza,  Amy Ferguson, Serena Reeder, Jade Yorker 

Weapons present a series of brutal, seemingly random youth-related killings over the course of a weekend in a typical small town in America, and tragically reveals how they are all interrelated.

The film’s structure is Tight and how it begins with a shocking and graphic scene. Then the rest of the film explores how we got to that event by following different characters’ experiences or their own points of view. Leading up to one event where it is handed off to a character who was more in the background of the last character P.O.V.

I don’t like the film but I can’t Lie. It has you as an audience member thinking about it a lot for a few days after. But I can’t say if I didn’t like it because it’s a gruesome story that I felt didn’t need to be told and had no real desire to ever see again or did one just not like the film. 

In its own way. The film tries to have a message of what is going down on the streets with teenagers at the time. it makes no real decisions. It doesn’t condemn nor does it celebrate these kid’s behavior, but tries to show it in simple terms. No gloss, no glory but it still feels wrong.

It’s like wanna-be kids but with more violence and a lot less sex. It just ends up being very disturbing.

It bothers you the way the characters really don’t care about anything or have no fear of the future. Where their actions might lead. The only time we get a glimpse is when Nick Cannon’s character has second thoughts about a decision he has been dead set to do. Then another person takes the decision out of his hands and does it for him. 

You truly feel sorry for most of the characters. Except two by the end. The kids seem so narcissistic. They are impervious to dangerous and shocking things that lie before them.

Plus the director attempts a gritty realism. Which he gets but some scenes could be easily cut down. I’m all for realism but they go on long. Where the characters do absolutely nothing and don’t add to the film overall or characters unless they are supposed to be as bored as the audience.

One question that was left with where are all the parents The whole time? That bothers you and no answers are offered.

What worked against the film was seeing established actors mixed in with the novices. You could tell the difference. It seems real but when you see nick cannon or someone else familiar. It instantly takes you out and reminds you that it’s a movie. No matter how good and believable he is, which is shocking.

This is definitely not a movie teenagers should see, but maybe parents should at least scare them To pay more attention to their kids.

So this worst-case scenario doesn’t happen to them. As this film keeps leaning towards the artistic

This film feels like it goes overboard to be shocking and provocative. It ends up coming out more exploitive. that’s educating the audience and trying to confirm the worst fears of the viewers 

GRADE: C- 

LAGGIES (2014)

~ jbg ~ Leave a comment

laggies

Directed By: Lynn Shelton
Written By: Andrea Seigel
Cinematography By: Benjamin Kasulke
Editor: Nat Sanders 


Cast: Keira Knightly, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell, Ellie Kemper, Jeff Garlin, Mark Webber, Gretchen Mol, Daniel Zovatto, Sara Coates, Kaitlyn Dever

Megan’s approaching 30 with a good degree and a boyfriend in hand, but when he proposes at her friend’s wedding and everyone seems to think that the best way to advance in her career is to take a seminar where you find out what animal you are, Megan’s understandably feeling lost. After meeting teenagers who want her to buy them beer, Megan is drawn into 16-year-old Annika’s simpler life. She ends up moving in with Annika and her single father, juggling the life of a teen and that of an adult, two romantic interests, and the feeling of lagging behind.

Continue reading “LAGGIES (2014)” →