Idlewild is indeed wild

Andre 3000 and Big Boi, who make up the rap duo OutKast, have always lived up to their group name, stretching what we consider hip-hop to far-out extremes. And here's the thing: they manage to sell millions of record by predictably being unpredictable.
Which brings us to their new movie, Idlewild, a brilliant mess of a movie.
Andre is Percival, a piano player who is a mortician by day, slaving away for his dad, played by an underused Ben Vereen. Big Boi plays his friend, Rooster, who spends his nights running "Church," the local jukejoint, cheating on his wife and drinking way too much hooch.
Into all this enters Trumpy played by the always mesmerizing and menacing Terrence Howard (a friend wondered how he is so good at playing bad) who is the film's villain.
Percival and Rooster now have to figure out how to keep from getting killed.
Now, all of this is set in the 1930s Prohibition era, though you may have a hard time believing that with all the rapping Big Boi does in the movie. Yes, there's rapping but again what else would you expect from an OutKast movie.
Horns blast, Big Boi raps, Andre gets drenched in rain and men and women jitterbug all over the place. And somehow, this movie works, with visual treats provided by first-time movie director Bryan Barber, who infuses his debut with all the tricks of the trade he learned while making music videos.
As my friend and I walked out of the theater, we had a hard time describing exactly what we saw. But we liked it. We were never bored.
Again, what else would you expect of OutKast?

Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a Plane was and is one of most hyped movies ever and even better, the movie actually lives up to the hype.
Of course with a movie in which the plot is summed up perfectly in the title, how could the movie not exceed expectations.
This is not Shakespeare -- not even close.
Snakes on a Plane is good, squirm-in-your-seat fun, the kind of movie made for screaming at the sceen while eating buttery popcorn.
Samuel L. Jackson does what he does best: exude cool. He's certain to be the coolest 57-year-old in the world who is blessed with the jealousy-inducing ability to say a particular profanity with a potent eloquence, one honed by years of practice.
The movie is cheesy, no doubt, with at least one scene of gratutuitous nudity and lots of gore and sight gags.
Yet, the movie works, mixing in humor with suspense.
And judging by the audience I saw the movie with recently, the fans loved every minute of the movie. They cheered when Samuel Jackson said that line everyone had waited with baited breath throughouth the movie: I've had enough of these mother(bleep) snakes on this mother(bleep) plane. That line, thanks to the power of the Internet, has become a cult classic long before the movie even came out.
Is this the future of moviemaking, where fans have the power to shape a movie? Don't know. But Snakes on a Plane works and it works well.

Descending into Vice

Miami Vice, the series, epitomized style. You may not remember the story lines but the pastel suits that Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas wore on this 1980s series were unforgettable.
Thankfully, Michael Mann, the mind behind that series, decided to do something too many directors don't do: He went about as far from remaking the series for the big screen as he could.
The movie of the same name might bear some outlines of similarity but that's about it.
Instead, Mann has created a dark world in which good and evil blur, where doing your job and living your life has little to separate them from each other.
A few critics have blasted the movie, but I found myself drawn into the world Mann is creating here.
Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx don't do much here, and you wish Naomie Harris, so good in Pirates of the Carribbean: Dead Man's Chest, had more time on screen. But the minimalism works, and the action set pieces have the power and the ability to shock you out of your senses.
And the mix of music and gorgeous cinematography puts you into the queasy underbelly of undercover police work, the compromises and sacrifices you make to get the job done.
It is a compelling piece of work, one I want to revisit soon.
And then there's The Descent, your basic horror flick. But it is also something more, thank goodness.
Here, we follow six women into the mountains after one has suffered a tragic loss. They go spelunking into the caves and find themselves trapped, squeezing themselves through small passageways as they look for a way out.
One by one, they fall victim to blind flesh-eating monsters.
Yet, as the movie slowly sets up in the beginning, the women are victim to much more than monsters. They have little pent-up demons of their own, secrets they have that will devastate them more than the monsters will.
And the slow beginning sets up for a psychologically tense finale, one you don't often seen in slasher flicks such as this.
What a sweet surprise.