Red

Red was a movie I almost didn't see in the theaters. The trailer looked cool, but everytime the chance came up to see it, I shrugged it off and went and saw something else. I did manage to make it, though, before it went out of theaters completely, and, man, am I glad I did.

Red stars Bruce Willis as Frank Moses, a retired black ops agent who has fallen in love with a case worker he regularly deals with, Sarah Ross (played by Mary-Louis Parker). When the CIA flags Frank, and tries to assassinate him in his suburban home, he kills the assassins one by one, and then takes off to try and retrieve Sarah, believing that she might be a target. The CIA, realizing their failure, and the potential mess that could ensue, puts Agent William Cooper (played by Karl Urban) on the job. Cooper is highly trained in assassination, and may be the only one who can take him down. Moses, with Sarah in hand (and freaked out), teams up with some of his old cronies - Marvin, Victoria, and Joe (played by John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, and Morgan Freeman, respectively), to find out why the CIA wants him dead.

First of all, this movie is not only a top notch action film, but is also hilarious. I found myself laughing constantly. Everyone does a fantastic job at hitting all the right marks. Parker is fantastic at being the unwitting love of Willis's life, Malkovich is fantastic as a crazed weapons expert, and Mirren is just awesome. Freeman isn't in much the film, but is solid, and Urban plays a fantastic "straight man", if that is even what you can call him. Director Robert Schwentke manages to mix humor and action in a way that is completely enjoyable, never cheesy, and always natural. This film really hit it out of the park, and I can't recommend it more.

The short commercial work of Camille Marotte

These are all shot with the Canon 5DMkII, and all feature amazing music by an artist named Matthieu Ouaki. What a novel idea, to try and connect with your audience through feeling and art, as opposed to shoving a product down their throat...

We.own.the.sky from Camille Marotte on Vimeo.

Lady.Velvet from Camille Marotte on Vimeo.

Fame.is.Noise from Camille Marotte on Vimeo.

Forget-me-not from Camille Marotte on Vimeo.

Wanted

Choose your destiny.

Yeah, right.

Wanted is one of those films that tries to make fun of you, the audience member, for being the kind of person who simply accepts who you are as a person, when, if you just made the effort, you could unleash unbelievable power within yourself. Power, for instance, that can curve a bullet, slow time, allow you to hit harder, run faster, and, on occasion, even fly (sort of). In fact, the films main character, Wesley Gibson, goes so far as to, in no uncertain terms, call you a schlub (through the power of voice over narration), at various points in the film, and, after he starts to become proficient at all of the skills that this film tells you you should be able to unlock (if you just try), keeps reminding you of how big of a loser you are.

Wanted centers around Gibson, played by James McAvoy, a schlub himself, who works in a New York City accounting firm for an overly cliche fat, ugly, bitch of a boss. When the overly cliche Fox, played by Angelina Jolie (you see how they did that? They gave the Angelina's character the name Fox? Cause she's a fox? clever...), comes to "rescue" Gibson from his boring life, he learns that the dad he thought was dead, was actually only killed the day before, and was one of the world's greatest assassins. Fox (one name only, the whole movie) takes Wesley to meet Sloan (played by a horribly cast Morgan Freeman), to introduce him to the clan of assassins that his father was a member of, and see if he wants to join up. Oh, yeah, and Wesley is also being hunted by this random assassin guy named Cross.

Wanted is just ridiculous. It is. There are some of these movies you look at and say - "Oh, well that'll be fun", but Wanted is just stupid. It feels like it was written by some screenwriter when they were fourteen, and then they found it ten or fifteen years later and said "Hey, I could polish this up and sell it!". Who came up with this? And did everyone sign up for this for the paycheck? There's nothing redeeming about any of the roles. Jolie and Freeman are already stars, so its not like this is going to make them any more of a star, and McAvoy doesn't seem to really fit into the whole "action star" category. Don't get me wrong, he's leading man material, but he's NOT Bruce Willis.

I wish I could make some really academic response to this film, but, for me, it just comes down to one thing - Wanted is stupid. The only redeeming thing about this film is that Angelina Jolie is exceptionally hot in it. Hmmm... So, if you think about it, Wanted is kind of like Beowulf. Weird.

You know what, just save your hard earned dollars. Here you go, here's the best part of the movie -