This song by Cee-Lo Green is awesome. Not only does it express a sentiment that most people can connect with, but the Motown beat is amazingly well done. (Uh … just don’t play this with kids in the room …)

What also makes it funny to me is that a month ago a record producer told a friend of mine that the old-school sound “doesn’t work anymore” and he ended up mixing her song with the typical 900 layers of noise that gets (0ver-)produced these days. Sorry, dude, Motown is a great sound – clear, distinct, every instrument discernible.

Rating:

“How Stallone Spent His Summer Vacation”

Only 3.5 stars, with all these action-movie veterans in one film? Yeah, ‘fraid so.

Actually, as I sit here and ponder it, The Expendables wasn’t really all that bad. It just wasn’t really all that good either, not good enough to be a 4-star film, anyway. There’s a lot to like in this movie, actually, and for pure action fun, it’s pretty good. I enjoyed this movie more than I did “Inception”, to be honest.

OK, lets start with what’s wrong with the movie:

• One of the best scenes – with Arnold and Willis and Stallone all together – felt forced. Clearly Stallone (who directed and produced as well as acted) was having fun with this movie, so they probably had fun shooting it. But this scene felt completely out of place.
• A good mercenary flick really needs to dig a bit deeper into each member of the team’s speciality. Statham’s skill with throwing knives was about close as we got. And even that was just sort of matter-of-fact. OK, Stallone’s quick-draw is well done too. Part of the fun is knowing the “signature” move or weapon or skill of each

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Rating:

The trailer for The Other Guys looked great. But trailers often grab the best jobs, stunts, or whatever and from that get you to assume the rest of the movie is just as good. And that’s what happened here.

That sounds a bit harsh as this is actually a pretty funny movie. It’s just not side-splitting funny, nor is it funny throughout. I’m not quite sure who they were targeting with this movie, maybe everyone, maybe that’s why it’s inconsistent.

OK, so what’s good about The Other Guys?

• Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as the super-cops early in the movie. Completely over-the-top caricatures of cop-movie detectives. Jackson was best, but Johnson actually did OK.
• Eva Mendes as Ferrell’s hot, kinky wife. They hit just the right balance with her character and scripting. The scene where he Mom is relaying messages to Ferrell who’s hiding outside is truly sick and had the theatre rolling.
• Michael Keaton as the head of detectives also did a fine job. He really did come off as a guy who was having trouble remembering if he was working his day job at the NYPD, or his night job at “Bed, Bath, and Beyond.”

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Rating:

The reviews on this one were awesome, hailing it as “the next Matrix.” Well, given that I thought most of the Matrix movies sucked, I guess that’s accurate. OK, I’m being somewhat unfair. I saw Inception on a Sunday night and there were a surprising number of people in the theatre, given that the film had been out for over two weeks. So I went in with high hopes.

The premise is decent enough – that our thoughts and dreams are the next battleground for espionage. The special effects were kept under control, the writing was decent, the acting and cast were pretty damn good. So where did Inception go wrong?

For starters – the length. Two and a half hours is a long time to sit through a movie that really isn’t all that fast-paced until near the end. They could have told the story just as well with thirty-minutes less footage. Then there is a lot they just sort of assume the viewer will take for granted – like the ability to invade someone’s dreams and thoughts has become de rigueur at some point in the near future. They never really convey the sense of what it…

Rating:

It’s been a while since there’s been a good Cold-War spy thriller. Probably because the Cold War ended over twenty years ago. But Angelina Jolie’s latest film, “Salt”, is a solid addition to the genre.

The basic premise is that Salt (Jolie) is a CIA agent who was recently returned from being captured by North Korea. One day a former KGB agent walks into the CIA building and announces that Salt is, in fact, a KGB “sleeper” – an agent planted decades ago by the Russians to one day perform some major act of sabotage against the US. And from there Jolie is doing her best James Bond impression as we try to figure out who’s on what side.

As spy stories go, this one is pretty good. There aren’t a lot of Bond-esque gadgets, yet the story moves along and overall is plausible. The traitors aren’t obvious until the very end and they don’t telegraph the end-game of the movie until the last moments. The acting and directing are both good – though probably not Oscar good.

As Evelyn Salt, Jolie does truly kick ass. From building a bazooka from a fire extinguisher and cleaning supplies,…