HOT: The Great Buck Howard

It's rare a Tom Hanks film will come out and sneak past me. Here I understand it a little more, but I can honestly say I had never heard of this film until I started looking up his work.

The Great Buck Howard is much like That Thing You Do where Hanks' production company PlayTone put out the movie, but Hanks himself is not the star - instead he plays a smaller part.

Here, he plays an even smaller role than the role of Mr. White in That Thing You Do. However, Colin Hanks, Hanks' son, plays a much larger role. In That Thing You Do he is only seen escorting Liv Tyler into the Showcase.

Colin Hanks stars in The Great Buck Howard as Troy Gable. Gable is a law school student desperately in need of a change - so he drops out of school to become a writer. But, in order to continue paying his rent and all of his bills he answers an add in the newspaper for a road manager.

The job is for "The Great" Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a once popular mentalist who over the years has slowly faded from popularity - but not in his mind. He still believes he is amazing and loves travelling to cities to showcase what he can do.

Colin Hanks takes on the roll of departing Alan Berkman (Adam Scott) as Howard's road manager. He gets things ready for Howard on the road and makes sure everything is perfect for the show.

Meanwhile, Howard is trying to retain his popularity - and Valerine Brennan (Emily Blunt) a publicist is brought in to take on this difficult task - and also happens to start falling for Gable.

Tom Hanks plays the role of Colin Hanks' father, Mr. Gable. His role is very small and actually only has a pair of scenes - both with Colin. But his presence is felt.

Colin Hanks is a pretty talented actor himself - no where near his father yet, but he can continue to climb. The star of the film, though, is of course Malkovich. So over the top as Howard and really fun to watch the ups and downs of the role - and all of his idiosyncrasies.

The film itself is based loosely on The Amazing Kreskin - and was pretty fun to watch, but not the greatest of films. Pretty decent, but not amazing.

Grade:

3/50x2: Being John Malkovich

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in someone else's body?

Well, what about if that body was that of actor extraordinaire John Malkovich?

Being John Malkovich gives you the opportunity to do just that. Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is a puppeteer, who does small jobs here and there, but wants to make puppeteering huge.

He is married to Lotte Schwartz (Cameron Diaz), who is completely obsessed with animals - and has a ton of them throughout their apartment. Lotte wants to have a child, but Craig doesn't feel they are ready financially yet. He does agree, however, to get a job and he lands one at a weird office at LesterCorp on the 7 1/2 floor. He becomes a file clerk under new boss, Dr. Lester (Orson Bean).

While there he runs into Maxine (Catherine Keener) and becomes very attractive to him - despite her non-attraction to her, he stays very persistent.

Schwartz the makes a pretty iconic discovery - a small door that when entered allows you to get inside the body of actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes. Then it spits you out on the side of the NJ Turnpike.

Schwartz brings this to the attention of Maxine in hopes to gain her attention, and it sort of does, but more in the form that the two of them begin charging money for people to spend time inside John Malkovich.

This was a very strange, yet entertaining film. I like when films go out on a limb a little bit and don't completely fall on their face.

The acting was done very well, but the most entertaining was John Malkovich practically playing himself - yet even more over the top, if that is possible.

Grade:

31/50: Red

This movie sort of got lost in the wind. I found myself counting the rest of the films I had left on my 50 list and I was coming up one short. I had to go back through and figure out what was missing - and sure enough I had forgotten to put down this film.

So, here is the missing film that I watched a good while ago.

Red is a film that follows a quartet of retired CIA agents that are brought back together to after Frank (Bruce Willis) is attacked in his house.

After realizing that the assailants have tapped his phone, he heads to Kansas City to find the only person he has been talking to, Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) in fear that they would go after her to find him.

To help him along the way, he joins up with his former CIA team of Joe (Morgan Freeman), Marvin (John Malkovich) and Victoria (Helen Mirren) to help him track down who is after him and why.

This film had a lot of great action and plenty of small jokes. Malkovich was way over the top which is the way I like my Malkovich. Freeman wasn't in the film as much as I would have liked - and he was outstanding as well.

I won't go into the entire story as it might ruin what the film was about. I had heard that this film was outstanding, but I was a bit underwhelmed - however, it was a decent watch, just not outstanding.

Grade:

Burn After Reading

Brad Pitt in a comedic role really had me wanting to watch this movie - and I have to say, Pitt was rather impressive in this role.

Burn After Reading is a bit of a roller coaster in terms of plot. There are tons of random characters that are thrust upon you - and you don't really understand where they all fit in until the movie picks up towards the middle and end.

I guess, technically, the movie revolves around Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), who quits his job at the CIA after his superiors think he should be demoted. After quitting, Cox decides to start penning his memoirs - which his wife steals as leverage as she begins the divorce process.

Cox's wife, Katie (Tilda Swinton), is cheating on him with another married man, Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) - and decides to divorce Osbourne and encourages Harry to do the same with his wife so they could be together. Harry meanwhile is also having affairs with a slew of other women.

The action, and most of the laughs, pick up when we are introduced to Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) - a worker at Hardbodies Gym, an internet dater and someone who is looking for money to pay for four cosmetic surgeries. Pitt's character, Chad Feldheimer, is a co-worker friend of Litzke.

The pair of them find a lost CD, which holds Cox's memoirs (which they believe are government secrets) and Chad believes that if they return it, they should get some sort of reward. Litzke, however, decides to blackmail Cox in order to get the money for her surgeries.

The rest of the movie is pretty chaotic and fun - with some very odd suprises that I was not expecting, but I am not going to ruin it for you.

In the end, everything comes together and all the characters are connected in some way or another

I really enjoyed Pitt's character - and the small role of JK Simmons as a CIA higher up. His lines were very funny and pretty matter-of-factish.

Also pretty funny - the contraption that Harry was building in his basement. I never expected that and it almost floored me.

Grade:

LWITM: Con Air

I haven't written anything in two days, and for that I am sorry. My life has been pretty busy, and yet I haven't really had anything to write about. The start of the NFL season has gotten me excited for football - but I didn't want to have yet another NFL blog post, so I wrote nothing instead.

So, I thought I had better write something before the weekend - so here is my fourth installment of the LWITM (Look Who's In That Movie).

Fletch over at Blog Cabins is having himself a Cagefest for Nicolas Cage movies. Fletch doesn't hide his hatred for all things Nic Cage, and I respect that. But, I have no ill feelings of the actor - he doesn't bother me, and yet he doesn't get me running out to see a movie either - so I guess "I nothing him" (extra points for what show that comes from).

So, I have decided to 'gel' with his Cagefest and make my fourth LWITM be about Con Air.

The movie obviously stars Nicolas Cage as Cameron Poe, a military man who is tossed in jail for killing a man while protecting his wife.

The movie's premise is simple, Poe is parrolled and on his way home to see his wife and his daughter - who he has never met. To get there, however, he is tossed on a plane that happens to also be transporting every known badass possible.

So, of course, the plane is taken over by these mad men - and it's up to Poe to be the vigilante in the sky.

The bad boys are as follows:

• John Malkovich: Plays the leader Cyrus Grissom, who is the brains behind taking over of the plane.
  
• Ving Rhames: Plays Nathan Jones, Crissom's second-hand man.
  
• Nick Chinlund: Plays Billy Bedford, the third major criminal on the plane.
  
• Dave Chappelle: Plays Pinball. A druggy, who gets everything started by setting his seat partner on fire and releasing Cyrus.
  
• Danny Trejo: A rapist known as Johnny 23.
  
• M.C. Gainey: Is picked up in Carson City and is known as Swamp Thing. He takes over as the pilot.
  
• Steve Buscemi: Garland Greene, the most feared of all of the inmates, even the other inmates fear him - but seems to be the most well behaved.
  
• Mykelti Williamson: Mike O'Dell, Poe's best friend in prison who goes into diabetic shock when his insulin isn't administered.

Not bad, and that's just the inmates. The movie also has a few of the good guys, including:

• John Cusack: U.S. Marshall Vince Larkin, who is in charge of the plane before it gets taken over - and becomes an ally on the ground for Poe.
• Colm Meaney: DEA Agent Duncan Malloy. Not a total good guy as he ends up getting one of his men shot on board, and gives Grissom a gun in the process.
• Monica Potter: Plays Tricia Poe, Cameron's wife.

Not a bad hall of well-known actors for a movie. Most of these actors have gotten even bigger since Con Air was filmed. Although for the most part I think you could get most of them together in a single movie again. Chappelle, despite having a small part, might be the most difficult to get on - without a large pay raise.

Grade: