Review: Next Day Air

Drugs, guns, vulgarity and rims are just the tip of the pigeonholed iceberg that is Benny Boom’s feature debut, Next Day Air; but what this little caper has that so many other films of a similar ilk lack is heart, and lots of it.

The improbable story follows ten bricks of cocaine from a formidable drug dealer in Calexico, California to his dispatcher in Philadelphia by way of an overnight delivery service, Next Day Air. Donald Faison, of Scrubs fame, plays Leo Jackson, a chronically stoned delivery man for the fictitious company, whose mind is so clouded on the job that he delivers the coke to apartment 302 instead of 303, setting events in motion. The drugs end up in the hands of fledgling criminals Guch, Brody and Hassie instead of the diminutive yet feisty Jesus, who prefers to be called “Gee-sus” rather than “Hay-zoos”. While Hassie is sleeping on the couch, as he is for the most of the film, Guch and Brody, played with an incredible balance of humor and charisma by Wood Harris and Mike Epps, respectively, hatch a plan to sell the dope to Brody’s cousin, Shavoo, before the rightful owners get wise to the mistake. Think of it like True Romance but without white people and set in Philly. Continue reading at the candler blog.

Have Cameras Gotten Worse?

This Panasonic camera commercial makes think of only a single word: amazing. Too bad camcorders have seemingly gotten worse over the years. That fancy HD-ified whatchamacallit you got for Hanukkah can’t make you look this good on the beach, and in slow mo, can it? Nah, didn’t think so. Tune in for this awesome action here.

Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Sitting down to consider an entire series of X-Men (X-People?) Origins films, I am reminded of Chaucer, the Middle English scribe whose death kept him from completing nearly 100 promised stories in The Canterbury Tales. With any luck, I’ll be long dead before anyone tries to make another installment in this franchise with the same foolhardy bravado that director Gavin Hood and his team have brought to X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

The film opens with a hint of promise in northwestern Canada in 1845. A sickly young James Logan, who is to become our Wolverine, accidentally kills his biological father (who had just killed his adopted father!) with his newly discovered retractable bone claws and runs off to the woods. There, another boy, Victor, who we just learned is in fact James’s brother, is waiting. They run off together, promising never to separate and to never go back.

As it turns out, Victor is a mutant just like James. He will grow up to become who X-heads will recognize as Sabretooth, though filmgoers will never know that as he is never bestowed a fabulous nom de guerre as our hunky Logan is (Wolverine, rawr). Since their main power is the ability to cheat death, they live on through history, though oddly, United States history. For whatever reason, these two mutant Canucks fight in every major U.S. war of the last two centuries. This confusion is compounded by the question: if they are immortal, why did they choose to stay thirty-five forever? Normally I might gloss over these niggles, but this is an origin story after all; these are the questions we need answers to. Continue reading at the candler blog.

Great Movie Blogger Spoof

Oh SNL, you rib us bloggers so perfectly. I love this because of how frighteningly accurate it is of so many snarks out there on the interwebs. And for my latest takes on movies and such, check out my new site, the canler blog. It’s rarely written while clutching an iced latte, but I think you’ll like it nonetheless. Enjoy.

Review: Adventureland

Adventurland is the story of James Brennan, a recent college graduate with a noggin full of impeccable vocabulary and lofty esotericisms. When his father takes a pay cut at work, his trip to Europe is called off and his fall plans for grad school are put in jeopardy, leading him to a summer job at the local theme park whose name is the film’s title. There, of course, he falls in love, learns more about himself, and meets all kinds of wacky characters along the way in this refined coming of age comedy.

Setting aside (most of) the raunch and raucousness of 2007’sSuperbad, writer/director Greg Mottola offers us a view of young adults that has become frighteningly rare in Hollywood. Grounded yet hopeful, with limited but sufficient resources, James and his love interest, Em, are relatable and realistic twenty-somethings, not overly ironic Napoleon Dynamites or vacuous shells like those found on NBC’s failedQuarterlife (does anyone even remember that show?). It’s hard to describe their trials without giving away much of the film’s draw, so let’s mostly take a look at the who instead of the what. Continue reading on the candler blog…