Fourth Row Center

The Ides of March

2011-10-10T18:42:00.000-07:00

An idealistic campaign politico (Ryan Gosling) backs a presidential contender (played by George Clooney) and finds himself immersed in a world of double-crossing dirty politics and in a morass of moral and ethical dilemmas. This is a nail-biter of a political drama, as poignant a commentary on contemporary politics as Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men or Michael Ritchie’s The Candidate. It can be taken as both a condemnation of today’s political and electoral system and as a cautionary tale about how and where we place our political trust.

With writing, producing and directing chores, Clooney, nominated for an Oscar for directing Good Night and Good Luck, delivers a smart, well-paced movie that shines with a cast that includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a crafty career campaign manager, Evan Rachel Wood as the intern that catches Gosling’s eye, Marisa Tomei as a New York Times reporter working all the angles, and Paul Giamatti as the man who throws the wrench into the works. And that wrench breaks things down. And not just a campaign, It brings the characters in this film, great and small, to a point where each must reconcile his or her ideology and integrity with what it takes to win. Few films serve as a conversation starter as well as this one, particularly given today’s abrasive political climate. After seeing this film, place yourself in the shoes of each of the movie’s main characters and ask yourself, what would you do?

STRAW DOGS

2011-10-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

The 1971 version of this film, starring Dustin Hoffman and co-written and directed by the Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch), is a classic tale of violence visited upon the innocent, and how violence begets violence. This remake, directed by a capable Rod Lurie (The Contender), stars James Marsden and Kate Bosworth and is set in the rural South instead of rural England, but the story stays surprisingly close to the original.

A couple of city mice move to the country, and the hubby is a fish out of water in his wife’s home (hick) town. He’s not welcomed by the locals, relationships are strained and things get ugly, his wife is brutally violated and before all is said and done the couple's home is horribly and terribly besieged, and they must fight for their very lives.

Straw Dogs is one of those films that should not have been remade (at the very least with present company). Instead of improving on the original it only manages to come off as a grainy monochrome copy of a colorful masterwork. Like the original it is brutal and violent, but here the violence seems gratuitous and expected whereas in Peckinpah’s version it manages to shock us and disturb us and haunt us still 40 years later.

If you are tempted to watch this film, do yourself a favor and find the original, now out on Blue-Ray.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

2011-08-07T20:24:00.000-07:00

I have long been a fan of The Planet of the Apes, a series of movies, a television series and a Saturday morning cartoon all based on a novel by French writer Pierre Boulle. While the Apes television series from the 1970s is more or less kids’ stuff, the original 1968 film starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell is a classic work of science fiction. Not only does the film make social comment in the guise of a space fantasy, but it includes one of the most memorable endings in twentieth century cinema, thanks to screenwriter Rod Serling.

The subsequent Apes films became progressively poorer, and the 2001 reboot by director Tim Burton was met with mixed results.

But Apes has had legs, and remains a valuable property for 20th Century Fox, so it’s no surprise that Fox has rebooted again with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, starring James Franco, Frieda Pinto, John Lithgow and Brian Cox. Hollywood loves telling “origin” stories these days (Green Lantern, Iron Man, X-Men: First Class, Hulk twice, the upcoming Spiderman 4) so it seems logical that Fox feels that audiences need to be told how people Earth becomes monkey Earth.

As with many “origin” stories, Rise strikes me as an attempt to get a lot of back story out of the way so that the real apes stories can be told in later films. Indeed, there are many clues throughout this movie as to what may be coming later in the franchise. But this particular story seems rushed, and there were moments toward the end of the film that I thought the material would work better as a TV mini-series than as a feature film. The movie does a pretty good job of developing the character of Caesar, the super-intelligent chimp who goes on to lead the ape revolution against mankind, and that of Will, Caesar’s caretaker and the inventor of the serum that turns dumb apes into smart ones. But most of the other characters are so much stereotypical window dressing.

There are some nice allusions to the previous Apes movies, which should please fans: apes using the word “no,” an orangutan named Maurice (the orangutan in the original Apes was played by English actor Maurice Evans), the head of the genetics firm named Jacobs (the original Apes was produced by Arthur P. Jacobs), a chimp playing with a toy Statue of Liberty, and so on. And the portrayal of Caesar, a CG capture of Andy Serkis, Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, is eerie engrossing and stunning and occasionally brilliant.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is great summer popcorn fare. It has suspense, action and an intriguing story. But I can only wonder what it could have been in the hands of a J.J. Abrams or Bryan Singer. Then again, the great Tim Burton helmed the 2001 Apes reboot and….well…. I guess I’ll wait for the sequel. In the meantime, check out 1972’s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. At least that one has Kahn in its cast, and Ricardo Montalban doesn’t monkey around.

One Ring to Rule Them All

2011-06-23T13:26:00.000-07:00

Like super heroes, not all comic book movies are equal. Marvel has done a mostly terrific job with their franchises, with a slew of super types getting ready for an Avengers movie next year. The DC hero, Green Lantern, gets the big screen treatment this year with director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, Edge of Darkness) at the helm, and an A-list cast that includes Ryan Reynolds, Peter Sarsgaard, Angela Bassett, Michael Clarke Duncan, Geoffrey Rush (voice) and Tim Robbins.

Martin does the best he can with what a slew of screenwriters have given him. The film looks good and Reynolds is passable as the hero, but the script is talky, predictable, clunky, and not nearly as tight as, say, Iron Man or its sequel. Sarsgaard, an actor I pay attention to, is almost unrecognizable as the nasty villain Hector, and he chews the scenery and does the best with the clichéd dialogue and one-dimensional character he’s saddled with. The once-great Tim Robbins dials in a performance as a senator who….I won’t even bother. Suffice it to say he’s got nothing to do as a mere plot device any actor could have played.

And I won’t even go into the plot, except to say that a test pilot is chosen by a magic ring to save the earth, and the universe, by creating odd, Wonder Twin power-like objects to fight his battles with.

So where does this leave us? Green Lantern is a visually agreeable movie, the cast is fine and the story plays well enough for a super hero flick. I lump it in there with the 2003 Hulk, mindlessly entertaining but hardly memorable. But I like my super hero movies smart, like Iron Man, Christopher Nolan’s take on Batman and, hopefully, the forthcoming Captain America.

Super 8

2011-06-15T18:29:00.000-07:00

I don't go into many movies blind, but with Super 8 I did. I had read nothing about the film, nor had I seen the trailer. I only knew that it was directed by J.J. Abrams (Lost, Star Trek).

Now that I have seen it I have read up on the film. Read about Abrams's connection to Steven Spielberg in 1982, how Speilberg, having seen the teenager's student Super 8 film, hired Abrams and a friend to restore his own decaying Super 8 movies from the director's childhood days. How Spielberg encouraged Abrams to say "yes" to the Trek reboot. How Super 8 is E.T. retooled for the new millennium. And so on.

And in many ways it is something of a retelling, or homage, to E.T. And I came out of the film having enjoyed it but not knowing what I really thought about it. The first hour was enthralling. Teenagers making their own Super 8 movie find themselves involved in something strange and mysterious and terrible. SPOILER ALERT. And yes, there's an alien who only wants to get home, and while the military tries to track it down it's up to the kids to make sure the alien phones home.

It's a well-made film. The performances work all the way around, the direction is crisp and the storytelling is first rate. So why did the ending leave me a little flat? I don't know. The conclusion to E.T. was magical and light and moving. The way Super 8 ended up was just too....big. Does that make any sense? In many ways E.T. started out a small film and ended up a small film. Whereas Super 8 started out as a small film and ended up as....Cloverfiend? Independence Day? Add your own giant Hollywood blockbuster title here.

I think what bothered me is that Super 8 seemed to lose its intimacy somewhere along the way to it's massive GCI climax. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It is what it is. But despite that I did manage to enjoy myself for two hours in the darkened cinema. If this kind of movie is your thing, go see it. You'll enjoy yourself. Just make sure you stock up on the buttered and the Goobers.

The Conspirator

2011-04-18T19:05:00.000-07:00

In the wake of the assassination of President Lincoln, a boardinghouse keeper named Mary Surratt (Robin Wright) is charged with conspiracy to murder the president. John Wilkes Booth and his henchmen met at Surratt’s boarding house to plan their misdeeds, and Secretary of War Stanton (Kevin Kline, playing this despicable character with an understated zest) is determined to see her hang at the hands of a military court no matter the facts of the case.

This is a courtroom drama with a great backstory, set in a time of fear and chaos, its plot driven by the power of the characters involved. James McAvory is the former Union captain-now-lawyer assigned to defend Surratt despite his conviction that she is guilty. He is torn between his personal beliefs and his desire to do his job to defend Surratt to the best of his ability, and it is this conflict that is central to The Conspirator. Having taken the case is already turning out to be ruinous to his career, but to win the case would mean making enemies of powerful people, including President Johnson, who are determined to see Surratt at the gallows.

The parallels to Guantanamo and the U.S. military tribunals is obvious, and at times the preachy screenplay gets in the way. While questions about denying constitutional rights to the accused in the face of terror and fear are important and critical to the story, The Conspirator as a straight historical drama would have fared better than The Conspirator as a message movie. This is Robert Redford’s eighth film as a director, and thankfully not as politically heavy-handed as Lions for Lambs. I don’t mind a political movie, no matter what the slant. I just don’t like politics getting in the way of a good story. And this movie comes close - but doesn't quite manage - to cross that line.

But politics aside, The Conspirator has a lot going for it. It’s beautifully shot, competently directed, nicely acted (Tom Wilkinson as former Attorney General Reverdy Johnson stands out) and serves as a window into a post-Civil War story that is not often told.

Source Code

2011-04-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

In 2009, director Duncan Jones brought his film Moon to the Seattle International Film Festival. The screening was sold out and very well received. After the screening and the Q&A I wondered what this talented, energetic director would do next.

And here it is. Source Code is a tightly written, tautly directed thriller that surprised and delighted me as much as Moon did almost two years ago.

The film finds an Army captain Jake Gyllenhaal repeatedly transported to a commuter train in Chicago in order to find out who is about to blow it up. He has eight minutes before detonation, and after the explosion he must return (in Groundhog Day fashion) to repeat the same eight minutes over and over again until his mission succeeds. I won’t try and explain the “science” of how this works. The film does a decent job of it, so I won't steal Jones's and writer Ben Ripley's thunder. But I will say that the film turns and twists its way to its satisfying and very unexpected conclusion. Like Moon before it, things in Source Code land are not quite what they seem.

MY OSCAR PICKS

2011-02-27T15:41:00.000-08:00

BEST PICTURE – THE KING’S SPEECH
TRUE GRIT is my favorite film of 2010, and my pick if I were handing out the Oscars. THE FIGHTER is also remarkable, in my top three along with BLUE VALENTINE, but I think my number four is the most “Oscarly,” if you will, and deservedly so.

BEST DIRECTOR – DAVID FINCHER, THE SOCIAL NETWORK
This category is a close one, but I think that although THE KING’S SPEECH will get the best picture nod, David Fincher’s work exceeded so many expectations that the best picture/director category will be split this year.

BEST ACTOR – COLIN FIRTH, THE KING’S SPEECH
I have not seen Javier Bardem’s performance in BIUTIFUL, but have seen the others. My personal favorite is Jeff Bridges in TRUE GRIT, but Bridges won the Best Actor honor last year. Jesse Eisenberg is terrific in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, and James Franco’s work in 127 HOURS is truly an achievement. However, it’s Colin Firth’s time.

BEST ACTRESS – JENNIFER LAWRENCE, WINTER’S BONE
The odds have Natalie Portman for BLACK SWAN, but having disliked the movie and Portman’s character’s constant weeping and whining so much I had to go with either Annette Bening or Jennifer Lawrence. I found Lawrence so natural and sympathetic and emotionally involving that I am going to go out on a limb for this little seen but terrific film.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR – GEOFFREY RUSH, THE KING’S SPEECH
Though Christian Bale was terrific in THE FIGHTER, one of the year’s best films, Rush’s performance as the speech therapist in THE KING’S SPEECH was so perfect I don’t see how he could lose.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS – JACKI WEAVER, ANIMAL KINGDOM
Perhaps the toughest category this year, with a remarkable performance by Hailee Steinfeld in TRUE GRIT (my favorite). But I am going with an underdog this year in Jacki Weaver in a bold and chilling performance as the “Ma Barker” head of a family gang of two-bit criminals in the Australian film ANIMAL KINGDOM. There were moments in that film that her performance chilled me.

BEST ANIMATED FILM – TOY STORY 3

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – THE KING’S SPEECH
THE KING’S SPEECH is such a simple story, and its delivered on film so delicately and with such grace and subtlety that I think it manages an edge over its competitors.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY – THE SOCIAL NETWORK
The Coen brothers managed to take some pretty heady and awkward dialogue and make it work in TRUE GRIT. Their script is a complex but simple narrative line that results in a terrific movie. However, I think Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay for THE SOCIAL NETWORK will win the Oscar. The real trick in making a movie about the founding of Facebook is making it both suspenseful and gripping, and less about the technology and more about character and thematic elements, and Sorkin pulled it off in spades.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE – THE SOCIAL NETWORK
I thought Hans Zimmer’s score for INCEPTION was fine work, but among the nominees the score for THE SOCIAL NETWORK by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross resonated strongly with me. It gave the movie an emotional power it might not otherwise have had.

True Grit

2010-12-27T16:39:00.001-08:00

The Brothers Coen have gone back to the novel for their inspiration for this version of True Grit, and the result ranks along side No Country for Old Men as the brothers’ best work and the best movie I have seen all year.

Fourteen-year-old Mattie (played with true grit by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) hires boozing Federal Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track her father’s killer and return him to Arkansas for trial and a just hanging. They are accompanied into Indian territory by a Texas Ranger, played by Matt Damon, in pursuit of the fleeing villain.

First and foremost, True Grit should not be compared with the previous film version, as it is neither a remake nor a “reimagining.” Despite its origins, this version, adapted, produced, edited and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, manages to remain quite Coenesque, if there is such a term: unconventional, with quirky dialogue and action peppered with offbeat humor and sudden acts of brutal violence. The story, a straightforward narrative, is augmented by nice characterizations and terrific performances.

Jeff Bridges delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as the crusty Cogburn, a complex man whose true character remains in question until the film’s bitter end. Matt Damon is adequate as the Texas Ranger who also seeks a reward for the capture of Tom Chaney, and Josh Brolin is in fine form as Chaney. But it’s Hailee Steinfeld who carries this movie in a remarkable performance worthy of an Oscar nomination. (I will be surprised if she does not receive one.) It takes a great deal of moxie for a young teen to steal a scene from the likes of Bridges, Damon and Brolin, and Steinfeld manages to more than hold her own with all three.

Roger Deakins’s cinematography is suburb and sweepingly beautiful at times, and the Coens’ writing and direction are crisp and move the action along quite nicely. Though the dialogue may seem stilted at times, the cast makes it work, and the end result may have its flaws, but they are too few and too minor to nitpick over. True Grit is a remarkable movie.

Get Low

2010-09-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

A cantankerous hermit with a shady reputation named Felix Bush (Robert Duvall, in a brilliant performance) has lived alone in a ramshackle cabin for forty years before realizing it’s about time to “get low,” or die, and decides to venture into town with a wad of cash to plan his funeral, which he wants held while he is still alive.

Hearing of the money, an unscrupulous funeral director (Bill Murray in a humorous but subdued performance) and his assistant, played by Lucas Black, rise to the occasion. Bush, who is feared by many of the locals, insists upon inviting everyone in four counties who has a story to tell about him, knowing full well none of them will be flattering. But the story he truly wants told is a dark and secret one, and as we learn more about Bush’s curious past we realize that what he seeks is redemption for the sins that forced him into his decades-long seclusion.

Get Low is a simple film with a strong story and well-developed characters. The unraveling of Bush’s past adds an unexpected aspect of suspense. Duvall takes the stereotypical “hermit” character and infuses him with a depth and sense of mystery that is remarkable and refreshing. Sissy Spacek plays Bush’s old love, but the promise of a rekindled love is shattered by the dark secret Bush has kept for forty long years.

There is a subtle power in this film reminiscent of Duvall’s The Apostle or Billy Bob Thornton’s Sling Blade. It is definitely worth checking out.

Harry Brown

2010-08-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

There is something about Harry Brown that is mesmerizing from the first moment we meet the elderly shut-in in his simple apartment, and the grim journey that Harry Brown takes its audience on becomes far from simple.

Michael Caine plays a poor, grieving widower living in a crime-ridden section of an English town who, after losing his best and only friend to street violence, decides to do something about it.

Yes, this is a vigilante movie, but Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson, Caine is not. His soft, reluctant determination is in marked contrast to characters in movies of a similar vein, and Caine’s performance elicits sympathy and concern more so than a hope that he gains vengeance.

First-time feature director Daniel Barber use Caine’s age to great advantage, and the stellar performance by Caine is muted and complex. The film rests entirely on his capable shoulders and he carries it like a martyr on the way to the cross.

OSCAR PICKS

2010-03-07T14:37:00.000-08:00

As usual I have waited until the last moment to post my annual Oscar picks, and the field for Best Picture, now with ten nominees instead of the previous five, makes it more difficult this year.

The one film that really stuck with me was Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker, which was screened last year at the Seattle International Film Festival. In a field of great films, including UP (which should take the award for Best Animated Feature), Up in the Air (a great movie and serious contender), Avatar (a real ride of a movie but not Titanic), A Serious Man (a remarkable film I enjoyed very much, but was little-seen), and An Education (another great, but little-seen movie), I predict The Hurt Locker will take home top prize.

Here is what I wrote about this film:

The Hurt Locker follows a crew of American Army bomb experts through their tour in Iraq in 2004. Sergeant James is young, cocky, and takes unnecessary risks, so much so that he puts the lives of his crew in danger. But he is good at what he does, the best, and this window into present-day combat is intense and sobering. This nail-biter is one of the year’s best films.

Other categories:

Best Actor: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
Best Supporting Actor: Cristoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds
Best Actress: Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia (Streep inhabited the role of Julia Child)
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, Precious
Best Score: The Hurt Locker
Best Song: "The Weary Kind," Crazy Heart
Best Visual Effects: Avatar (I'll be surprised if I am wrong on this one)
Best Cinematography: Inglorious Basterds
Best Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
Best Original Screenplay: Joel and Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Best Animated Feature: UP
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker (over ex-husband James Cameron)

Avatar

2010-01-02T06:18:00.001-08:00

This review is coming in a week late. Cindy and I went out to see James Cameron’s Avatar before Christmas. Already, I knew that this film had some mixed reviews from sources I trust, so, if we were going to see, let us see it on a IMAX Screen in 3D.

It was recommended that we arrive at the auditorium early to secure a good seat at the AMC Lynnhaven theater. The advice was gold: forty minutes prior to the film starting, most of the good seats were taken. I was able to secure a center seat, but, only in the fourth row of the second tier seats.

3D Movies

I am not a fan of 3D movies.

Lately, many of the animated films will be released with a 3D version that you can pay a few extra dollars to see. Very few mainstream films employee the technique. The last two films I saw in 3D were Beowulf and My Bloody Valentine. Neither film was very good, and the 3D was gimmicky.

Avatar’s approach to 3D felt different – it provided visual depth. The movie screen became a window that we were invited to look through.I don’t recall a moment where I thought “Oh, look, they are pointing at someone in the audience.”

I am still not convinced that I like wearing the 3D Goggles.

The Animation

Avatar blends live action and animation. I thought this looked a bit “video gamey” in the trailers. Sometimes, with this type of movie, there are distinct lines between the animation and the live action – they never quite blend together.

Once the film began, I found the animation was absolutely gorgeous and the live/animated scenes simply blended together in a very natural motion.

I think that the reason why it work in this case, and why it so often fails in others, is because of the story.

The Story

What is an Avatar?

In video games, an avatar is the in-game representation of the player. The game avatar is controlled by the player using a hand controller. Generally, the avatar can perform actions that are beyond the natural abilities of the player.

In the movie, technology exists for humans to take control of a specially grown, ten foot tall Na’vi referred to as an Avatar. The humans can control the Avatars remotely, but they are able to sense and experience everything that their Avatar sees, hears or smells.

The Na’vi are the natives of a planet called Pandora. This planet is a source of a valuable mineral, and a Company is strip mining the Pandora to obtain it. The scientist have been using the Avatars to interact with the natives, and teach them English. However, these Avatars are strongly distrusted.

Jake Sully is a paralyzed ex-marine who comes to Pandora to participate in the Avatar program. His mission is to convince the Na’vi to move from their homes so that the company can mine the mineral. Otherwise, a mercenary force hired by the company will use hi-tech force to displace the non-tech Na’vi.

Once Jake becomes integrated with the Na’vi, he falls in love with the Chief’s daughter who has been assigned to teach Jake the Na’vi ways. Jake finds that he is unable to finish his mission and teaches the Na’vi how to fight the Mercenaries.

As David Spade might say, “I liked Avatar the first time. When it was called Dances with Wolves.”

Political Undertones

I have heard a lot being made over the underlying political message.The Company (aka the Capitalist) is painted in broad evil stokes because they are willing to commit genocide in order to obtain the mineral.

Like the main story, this is not a new theme. Corporations are generally used as the antagonist in modern and post modern films such as Robocop, Aliens, and The Hudsucker Proxy.

The para-military force is another source of antagonism against the Na’vi. Even though it might evoke images of Blackwater to some, I think they served a different plot device. The mercs have an arsenal of flying weapon platforms, mechs and machine guns. The Na’vi have bow and arrows. There is little doubt that if Jake fails in his mission, the Na’vi will be wiped out.

If you go looking for hidden messages, you will find them, whether they were intentional or not.

Did I like the Film?

Overall, I enjoyed the film. I thought that the Na’vi were incredibly cool. Neytiri, the Chief’s daughter, is a fiercely strong female character that Cameron is so fond of (Ripley, Sarah Conner).

The blend of live and animated characters did not work against the film like I thought it would. Even with a familiar plot, Avatar struck an emotional chord and was fun to run with. Unlike Lucas or Spielberg, James Cameron has maintained his distinctive visual style that we first glimpsed in the original Terminator film. I always enjoy Cameron’s vision of technology – it always looks plausible.

And for that, I liked Avatar.

Sherlock Holmes

2009-12-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

The spirit of Sherlock Holmes and his loyal assistant and chronicler Dr. Watson (played by Robert Downey, Jr., and Jude Law, respectively) is alive and well in this breathless reinvention of the Holmes genre, although in the details these characters are more Ritchie than Doyle.

No matter. The convoluted plot involving a strange cult bent on wielding great power in England (which in my mind borrows heavily from Mark Frost’s intriguing novel “The List of Seven”) manages to sustain itself only by the sheer power of Downey’s performance as the illustrious detective. It's absurd, confusing and over-blown, but Downey manages to infuse a degree of style and modern sophistication into it.

This version of Holmes is not for the purist. If you want Doyle’s work and character incarnate seek out the phenomenal BBC series starring Jeremy Brett. There’s no better interpretation of Holmes’ character than Brett’s. But as holiday flicks are concerned, Sherlock Holmes is as entertaining and fun as anything at the multiplex right now.

Where is Chuck's Review of Avatar?

2009-12-28T23:49:00.000-08:00

I was hoping Chuck would post his Avatar review by now, but in its absence, I'll plow ahead.

After more than 10 years, James Cameron (The Terminator, Titanic) returns to the director’s chair in this visual feast of a film that combines live action with CGI so seamlessly that it lives up to the techno-hype. And there has been quite a bit of hype, indeed.

The story is simple: mankind goes to far off planet to rob it of its precious natural resources. Primitive alien people stand in the way. Mankind must wipe out primitive people. Good man comes to the rescue and saves the day.

Heavy-handed? Maybe. Culturally and environmentally relevant? Sure. Where this film succeeds visually, it lacks in character and in its very simple and uninspired storytelling. And aside from Sigorney Weaver, Avatar sports a cast that is merely adequate. Still, in 3D, Avatar is not something to be missed. See it.

A Cast Reunion

2009-11-15T13:41:00.001-08:00

Recently there was a cast reunion worth mentioning.

No, I am not writing about the Seinfeld reunion that is the subject of this season's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" on HBO.

Think more David O. Selzenick and less Larry David.

To honor the 70th anniversary of Gone With the Wind, surviving cast members gathered at a tribute event outside Atlanta recently. With Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh being off-planet, the cast reunion comprised actors who played children and babies and Beau Wilkes at various childhood ages in the classic 1939 film.

I don't suppose there was much reminiscing going on at this reunion. But for those surviving performers in attendance , it must be marvelous to know that each was a part of such a remarkable feat of cinematic grandeur the likes of which are long gone in American motion pictures.

I think I'll add Gone With the Wind to my Netflix queue. It's been a while for me, too.

Oh, and George is divorced and is trying to get back with this ex-wife, in case you were wondering.

[*REC]

2009-11-07T17:40:00.001-08:00

To follow up on Jay’s post, I have two films that follow the vein of The Blair Witch Project, but, does it right.

The films are Quarantine and [*REC], but we only need to talk about the later as the former is an American remake of the later Spanish Film.

Both are excellent, but, I have to admit to liking [*REC] better.

Both stories follow a female reporter who host the show “While you were sleeping” and follows a group of fire fighters who are called to a tenement building to help with an old lady who has fallen.

That’s when the film goes to hell. Literally.

What makes both films great is that it does not start as a horror film. It lulls you into a false sense of security. The second thing is that the actors in the film feel like normal people who have gotten stuck inside the building.

I prefer [*REC] because the main character is absolutely convincing and ending is…well…creepy. It has more in common with Aliens than Blair Witch, and makes for a pretty scary Halloween movie.

Is it Real, or is it Crap?

2009-11-07T16:38:00.000-08:00

Two films have been released this autumn that fall in the vein of The Blair Witch Project: feature motion pictures produced from purported actual archival video capturing elements of the unexplained.

The newly released The Fourth Kind, starring Milla Jovovich, is one of those “let’s pretend this is real using actual video footage” movies, like Paranormal Activity, except here the filmmakers augment the archival “footage” with “dramatic reenactments.” The premise involves a close encounter of the fourth kind, abduction, and the aliens here are not the happy ET’s of Spielberg’s movies. These are bad beings with a grudge.

The set up is intriguing: a psychologist in Nome, Alaska (Jovovich), has patients who seem to all have abduction accounts when placed under hypnosis. And so, too, as it turns out, does our heroine. But the result is uneven, and the climax never really wraps anything up, except to suggest that these bizarre nocturnal owl sightings are really alien abductions, which the audience knows from the get-go. So going in, the audience already knows “the big secret,” so the filmmakers have the responsibility not only to tell a compelling story, but to bring us to a climax that pays off somehow. They fail at both.

The flip side of the coin is Paranormal Activity, which emerged on the festival circuit two years ago but received a wide U.S. release in October. Its premise is very simple and effective: a young couple experience unusual noises and happenings in their San Diego home, and set up a video camera in order to not only record their every waking (and sleeping) move, but to hopefully capture whatever it is that may be haunting them. The film that audiences see is supposedly culled from video tapes released by the San Diego police department.

Director Oren Peli shot this film, which has grossed more than $80 million thus far, at home, in seven days, for $15,000, and delivers a tense and spooky film wherein what the audience doesn’t see is often scarier than what it does. It’s been a while since off-camera audio and mere sound effects have provided such a powerful emotional impact on audiences. And a few of the sequences, shot during the night, in time lapse, are rough and grainy and as spooky as anything I've seen in a movie in a long time. Shot simply in a cinema verite style, this film succeeds where The Fourth Kind comes across as merely a bad two hours of “UFO Stories” on the History Channel.

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

2009-10-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

Cirque du Freak is something for teens, a modern Fright Night, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s a good, clean vampire fun. Two best friends become vampires after visiting a peculiar little freak show run by Mr. Tall (Ken Watanabe) and come down on opposite sides of a vampire conflict: one sides with the good vampires (they do not kill humans) and the other sides with the evil vampires who kill humans and want a war with the good vampires.

Silly, of course, but this kind of goofy cinematic fun is sometimes what movies are all about. Director Paul Weitz (In Good Company, About a Boy) keeps the action moving in this simple but entertaining good versus evil story. The decent performances by John C. Reilly, Selma Hayek and a terrific turn by Willem Dafoe as one of the "good" vampires provide the flick with a little street cred, as does a screenplay co-written by one of my favorite screen scribes Brian Helgeland (Payback, Mystic River, L.A. Confiedential).

Bright Star

2009-10-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

Directed by Jane Campion, “Bright Star” is not only a poem by John Keats but the person for whom the poem was written, a young Englishwomen by the name of Fanny Brawne, who falls in love with the young Keats despite the fact that the struggling poet has no income to support a wife. Their romance is not an easy one, lacking the approval of both Keats’ best friend and Fanny’s traditional family, and the three year romance is ultimately cut short by Keats’ tragic death at age 25, a failed poet, broke and alone in Italy recovering from an illness. A great romance flick for those who love poets and poetry.

Another Summer Movie Round Up

2009-09-03T08:11:00.001-07:00

DISTRICT 9
Produced by Peter Jackson. This sci-fi lesson about racism has some nice ideas—unwanted aliens stranded on earth and kept in camps, growing inter-species mistrust, a plan to return the aliens to their planet gone awry. But the follow-through is lacking, the performances second-rate and the film withers pathetically on the vine.

G-FORCE
Animated, from Disney. Talking CG guinea pigs are secret agents. Why, Disney, why?

HANNAH MONTANTA
Starring Miley Cyrus and Billy Ray Cyrus. After so many bad films, Disney takes a kids’ Disney Channel sitcom and stretches it out to an hour and a half motion picture, and what do you have? A pretty watchable film, actually, and much to my surprise. Although the first part of the picture (set in Hollywood) is pretty much business as usual for the “Hannah Montana” show, the rest of it takes on some meaning as Robbie Ray takes his daughter Miley (who is actually superstar Hannah Montana) back to the family farm in Tennessee, much against Miley’s wishes, where she learns lessons about the importance of family, integrity and closeness, lessons her big time life in Hollywood never taught her. This movie is actually about something, has some interesting characters and there is character development, juvenile as it may be. There are also decent performances from the supporting cast, some humor, and a story you can hang a hat on.

INGLORIOUS BASTERDS
Starring Brad Pitt; written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino is back with a violent, talky and exceptionally crafted motion picture about a squad of Jewish American soldiers (led by a Tennessee-accented Pitt) dropped behind enemy lines in occupied France in order to kill and scalp as many Nazis as they can get their hands on. A second storyline, involving a young Jewish woman living as a Parisian Gentile in order to escape the Nazis who murdered her family, intersects with the first in a Paris cinema where dual plots to assassinate Hitler and his cadre of Nazi killers are hatched.

STAR TREK
Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Bruce Greenwood; directed by J.J. Abrams. Director Abrams got it right, and Star Trek is retooled for the 21st century. The story is clever and manages to preserve the canon while introducing a new cast and new elements to the classic Star Trek universe.

ORPHAN
Peter Sarsgaard is rarely bad in anything he does, though he is not above appearing in a bad film. Like this one. Clumsy and predictable, the film should have been abandoned on a doorstep and not distributed to theaters nationwide. Someone might have adopted it. Sarsgaard, maybe?

PUBLIC ENEMIES
Starring Johnny Depp and Christian Bale; produced, co-written and directed by Michael Mann. I expected much more from writer/director Michael Mann (Collateral, Heat), but Public Enemies failed to deliver much of anything. Johnny Depp as John Dillinger dialed in a performance unworthy of the great actor, but I give him a pass given that the story was confusing and uninspired, and the dialogue uninteresting. The cinematography was too “TV drama,” and did not service the needs of a period piece like this one. The final scene seemed shot on DV. This film just did not look good, and it did not help that the set design and art direction were bland and uninspired. The only thing I really enjoyed here was Christian Bale as Melvin Purvis, but it was not enough to render the experience the least bit entertaining or enjoyable.

TERMINATOR SALVATION
Starring Christian Bale; directed by McG. The time-bending Terminator back story can be mind-bending as well, and McG and company make the most of it and deliver a film that looks good, and incorporates a welcome cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger, but on the whole is soulless and unremarkable.

TAKING OF PELHAM 123, THE
Starring John Travolta, Denzel Washington, John Turturro and James Gandolfini; screenplay by Brian Helgeland; directed by Tony Scott. Unnecessary remake of the 1974 film with Robert Shaw and Walter Matthau manages to stay tense and entertaining throughout despite a mediocre performance by Travolta as a baddie who hijacks a New York subway train. Washington is terrific as the dispatch operator who finds himself the conduit between Travolta and the New York police. John Turturro as a police negotiator and James Gandolfini as New York’s mayor are well cast.

WHATEVER WORKS
Starring Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley, Jr., and Michael McKean; written and directed by Woody Allen. Larry David, co-creator of "Seinfeld" and creator and star of HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” is a perfect Woody Allen New York curmudgeon in this comedy about a bitter genius whose life is transformed when he takes in a runaway from the deep South (Wood). The supporting cast is terrific and the story, although a little tired and recycled, works thanks to David’s energy and amusing performance.

Summer Movie Round Up

2009-08-29T06:11:00.001-07:00

I went to see what will most likely be my last summer movie today, and it got me thinking: I haven’t posted a single thought about it on 4RC. Shame on me.

Wolverine *
I really liked the first two X-Men films, but the third was completely lost on me. Wolverine started off with one of the best opening montage sequence since The Watchmen. After that, it jumped around, and by the time film ended, I just didn’t care anymore.

Star Trek ****
I have mixed feelings about this film. TOS has a particularly special place in my inner geek, and part of me was sad to see that they made a TOS film that was better than five of the other TOS movies. I approached this movie fully expecting to kinda like it, but not love it. But J.J. breathed life into my childhood heroes and proves one of my friends favorite sayings: “it’s all about the story.”

Terminator Salvation ***
I think that after Seth Rogan, Christian Bale must be the hardest working man in Hollywood. I went into this film with a chip on my shoulder: the Sarah Conner Chronicles had just been canceled. Maybe that was why the film seemed to take forever to hook me. In the end, I didn’t really like John Conner – I don’t think he was meant to be liked. He had this weird destiny to play: he had to protect Kyle Reese long enough to send him back in time. Throw into the mix a new Good Guy Terminator and the appearance of the 80’s Arnold Terminator made for a big finale.

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian **
I took one of daughters on a date to see this movie. It was so puny that I laughed all the way through. Not very deep, but was a laugh a minute. The humor was corny, which was a relief – so many kid movies today are simply 90 minutes of Fart and Booger jokes.

Pixar’s Up ****
Does this movie REALLY have the company’s name as part of the title? I did not like Wally or Ratatouille. But Up caught me by surprise at is a very tender film about an old man fulfilling a dream that he shared with his departed wife. I wasn’t expecting to cry in this film. Excellent all around.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
The film that made me mad at marketing. A solid PG-13, this film’s marketing targeted kids. With “ghetto” robots, a mom strung out on hash brownies, the main character being seduced by a hottie Decepticon. I could go on, but I have already let it go. The film was ok otherwise.

Bruno *
When Bhorat came out, it was so over the top that I could not believe that they got away with what they did. I was hoping Bruno would be the same, but it did not feel as authentic as the first film. It was very offensive, but, that’s kind of the point. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that funny (which was the point).

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince *
It had to happen: a Harry Potter film that I did not like. But, this could have been because of the baby that was crying behind me. Either way, they made it a much somber film to reflect the darkening tone of the books. But, I think what was lacking for me was the absence of fun. The book also had a somber mood, but, it was still a fun visit to the Potter Verse. Some things felt like they should have had a bigger punch (e.g. Malfoy and Snape and Dumbledore) that just did not pay off.

District 9 ****
This was a special movie for me. It was low budget film, a leading star that I had never heard of, a director I had never heard of, and the creative backing of Peter Jackson and Company. It reminded me of films from the 80s that only I really liked (e.g. Buckaroo Banzai) – but this film was really smart. It plays like a pseudo documentary, but more in the style of The Office than the “found footage” gimmicks of Blair Witch or Cloverfield. And like the office, they break the rules for the supposed documentary crew and you hardly question it (seriously, they were filming that?). For a science fiction film, this was refreshing.

Inglorious Basterds ***
The truth about QT is that I can either take or leave his movies. Generally, I enjoy them while at the theater, but quickly forget them. But, the thing that makes a QT flick is how psychopathic everyone tends to be. Usually, the psychosis is masked in dialog, but, the entire time, you have this knowing in the back of your mind that this will end very, very badly. For IG, I point to the meeting in the Bar Basement. Unfortunately, the last two chapters started to feel rushed, and I felt like that I was missing something.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra ***
I debated about seeing this film on screen. I played with the Vietnam error G.I. Joes when they were twelve inch figures, but gave them up around 3rd grade (I believe that Bullet Man was the last one I had). The 80’s Joes became considerably smaller, but had a cartoon that meant a lot to kids growing up in those days. So, all that to say, I had no investment in the 80’s Joes, so I had no expectations to live up to. Honestly, after Transformers, I wanted to pass on this. And, I am glad I did not. The difference between Transformers and G.I. Joe was that the latter embraced what it was – a cartoon brought to life. The action was big, the equipment looked like toys brought to life, the characters two dimensional, and the fun was amped up to 11 (although they only sustained about a five throughout).

Inju, The Beast in Shadow

2009-06-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

Inju: the Beast in Shadow follows French mystery novelist Alex Fayard as he arrives in Japan for a publicity tour and receives a cryptic warning from his Japanese rival, Shundei Oe, a wildly popular but reclusive author who has never been seen or photographed, known only by a gruesome self portrait on his book jackets.

Alex meets a dancer in a tea house who thinks she knows who Oe really is, a brutal and insane former lover who may be capable of harming Alex.

Director Barbet Schroeder (Reversal of Fortune, Single White Female) seems at ease with both the material and the odd French/Japanese hybrid style of the film, which blends mystical Asian themes with elements of a taut European thriller. The plot unfolds like a flower, petal by petal; and as the plot unravels myriad twists and misdirection are revealed, the end result is a watchable and satisfying cinematic experience.

Hachiko: A Dog's Story

2009-06-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

First time screenwriter Stephen Lindsay, who hails from Greer, SC, not far from my old stomping grounds, says he was thrilled to be involved with Hachiko: A Dog’s Story, to which actor Richard Gere attached himself early on and provided a great deal of creative input toward the final script.

Gere stars as Parker, a New England man whose life is changed when an Akita pup finds him late one night at the train station. The station master, played by Jason Alexander, can only turn him over to the pound, so Parker elects to take the pup home until the owner is located. It’s not an easy transition for Parker’s wife, but Hachi and Parker bond, becoming an inseparable pair. And, as any dog movie worth its salt would have it, the pup’s owner never comes forward.

Hachi becomes not only Parker’s best friend but a staple in the community where they live. Parker commutes to work by train, and like clockwork Hachi is waiting on his master every day outside the train station at five o’clock, rain or shine. Hachiko is based true events that occurred in Japan in the early part of the twentieth century. At its heart it's a story of friendship and undying loyalty, and manages to achieve the right balance of drama and sentimentality without going overboard. A word of warning, however – when the screening ended there was not a dry eye in the house.

Director Lasse Hollstrom (My Life as a Dog, The Cider House Rules) has a graceful and elegant visual style, which brings an intimacy to this simple yet poignant story which is appropriate for families and general audiences.

Wonderful World

2009-06-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

Matthew Broderick stars as Ben Singer, a an embittered civil servant whose marriage has failed, who is estranged from his only daughter, whose career is at a dead end and who blames corporate greed on the part of The Man (an amusing performance by Philip Baker Hall) as the origin of both his and all society's ills. Then his roommate (and only friend) enters a diabetic coma and Ben is forced to take stock of his life.

He's helped along by his roommate's sister, Khadi, who travels from Dakar to wait by her brother's bedside, and by a coworker who discovers that Ben was previously a very successful recording artist of children's songs until being put down by The Man.

Thankfully, Wonderful World is not as heavy-handed as it might have been, and Broderick brings a soft, sympathetic touch to Ben’s pessimistic nature. Writer-directer Joshua Goldin (who wrote Out on a Limb with Broderick and 1990’s Darkman) crafts a movie that blends comedy into a hopeful story about a man in search of the good things that life has to offer.

La Forteresse

2009-06-12T00:59:00.000-07:00

The Fortress is a Swiss documentary about a weigh station for foreign refugees seeking asylum in Switzerland, and it manages not only to paint a clear picture of what a refugee has to go through to obtain Swiss residency, but it paints portraits of a few hopeful souls and the dramatic and often painful journeys their lives have taken to arrive at the Swiss border petitioning for refuge.

This is the only documentary I have seen at this year's festival, and I arrived thinking I was about to see a movie called Cold Souls with Paul Giamatti. I did see Giamatti standing outside of the Harvard Exit theater, signing a few autographs, but he did not appear in the Swiss documentary I screened.

There was no narration nor were there any interviews. The Fortress was shot entirely in the refugee center, and the filmmakers did a terrific job editing the film in such a way that the lives of the workers and refugees there were vivid and fully realized. The movie is fascinating and flows nicely. It was amusing that the couple behind me seemed to be unaware that The Fortress was a documentary. The man’s comment after the screening was, “There didn’t seem to be much of a plot.”

World's Greatest Dad

2009-06-08T01:21:00.000-07:00

Many of the films shown at Seattle's film festival were made here, the majority of them independents. Such is the case with World’s Greatest Dad.

Robin Williams plays Lance Clayton, a high school poetry teacher and failed writer. And he is hardly the world’s greatest dad. His teenage son, Kyle, who is crude and cruel and virtually friendless, seems to have no moral or ethical compass and runs roughshod over his weak-willed single parent. Williams is terribly sympathetic in his failure to discipline his son, and his rebuffed efforts to bond with the teen – dinner, movies, anything – are heartbreaking.

But this is a black comedy, one of the darkest American comedies I've seen, and when Kyle dies in an accidental and undignified manner, his grieving father pens a suicide note leading all to believe that Kyle was a friendless genius who has taken the easy way out. Having redefined his worthless son, Lance finds that his life takes a remarkable turn for the better, as others (who previously despised Kyle) see him as something of a martyr.

Director Bobcat Goldthwait steers the film on a fine line between pathos and farce and manages to succeed. But World's Greatest Dad is not for everyone. It’s a comedy derived from a lone teenager's inability to fit in and subsequent death, and had Kyle been portrayed as the least bit sympathetic the film would not have worked.

2009-06-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

So Long at the Fair is one of those rare treats offered at film festivals, an old British film not available in the states but well worth the look on the big screen.

Fair is a 1950 suspense thriller said to be a favorite of Hitchcock's. It incorporates an old legend about a disappearing room. Directed by Terence Fisher, who went on to direct most of the classic Hammer horror films of the 1960's and 70's, Fair stars Jean Simmons as Vicky Barton, a woman attending the 1889 Paris exhibition with her brother when inexplicably he disappears. Upon making inquiries as to his whereabouts she is told by the hotel staff that not only did she arrive in Paris alone, but that her brother's room, number 19, does not exist. Indeed, there is no room 19 and Vicky is unable to find anyone in Paris who has any memory of him.

So Long at the Fair is a solid thriller, and holds up fairly well. While it lacks the flair of a Hitchcock film, it benefits from numerous unexpected turns of plot and a truly creepy hotel owner who may know more than she's letting on.

Like Dandelion Dust

2009-06-01T00:56:00.000-07:00

Jack and Molly Campbell are the well-to-do parents of six-year-old Joey who are informed, out of the blue, that their infant adoption was not legal. To make matters worse, Joey's biological father, until recently wholly unaware of the boy's existence, wants his child returned now that he's completed his seven year prison sentence for domestic abuse. A judge orders the child removed from his adoptive parents in Florida and flown to Ohio to live with his biological mother and father.

That is Like Dandelion Dust, a movie chronicling the lives of two sets of parents intent on raising young Joey and of the confused child caught in between. It goes without saying that to a point both sets of parents are sympathetic. Rip (a terrific Barry Pepper) has reformed and his desire for fatherhood fuels his efforts to rebuild his life. His wife, played to near perfection by Mira Sorvino, desires a simpler life, a life with a family, and her desire to be a mother to the child she gave up six years before is moving. But in the end both families are ripped apart, all for the love of a single, vulnerable child.

Like Dandelion Dust is a tearjerker, yes, and an audience pleaser. The script is very good and the editing and direction, in the capable hands of Jon Gunn, are fine. But it’s the performances and characterizations that stand out here, and they are strong enough to move most anyone, particularly one who knows firsthand the love of a child.

2009-05-31T02:21:00.000-07:00

When the director of the indie The Merry Gentleman suffered a ruptured appendix, actor Michael Keaton stepped up and delivered a beautiful, quiet and contemplative film about two souls looking for redemption and release from the horrors of their pasts while struggling with issues of trust and acceptance as they face painful and uncertain futures.

Set in Chicago, Keaton plays a loner who struggles with the horrible things he does for a living, and is about to end it all when a woman (Kelly MacDonald) running from her past as the wife of an abusive husband interrupts his attempt and ultimately saves his life.

This one moment draws the characters together into a complex relationship that has dangerous – and perhaps deadly – consequences. But these characters, drawn with light stokes of the director’s brush, manage to embed themselves into the psyche of the viewer, resonating with a power that is both puzzling and refreshing.

The Merry Gentleman is not an easy film to sum up without giving too much away. It’s also one of those films that inspired a lengthy, speculative conversation afterward. The performances are first rate, understated, as is everything about this film. MacDonald’s character speaks a great deal but says little; Keaton plays a man who says very little but speaks volumes. In the end, much is left to the interpretation of the viewer, perhaps a little too much. But ultimately the movie proves to be a cinematic experience with characters who are so well rendered they remained with me for days.

More on Moon

2009-05-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

Moon is one of those festival films that manages to surprise and delight, as it far exceeded my expectations. Often, "independent" and "sci-fi" add up to a nice effort and only that, with two much effort expended in trying to make "cool sci-fi" while leaving story and character back on Earth. Not so, Moon.

English director Duncan Jones said his influences were the original Alien, Silent Running and Outland, and he's crafted a story about a simple blue collar working man who's finishing up a three year contract mining helium on the moon and wants nothing more than to return to his wife and child back on Earth. But with two weeks to go before returning to Earth, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell, in a role written with him in mind) begins to suspect that he is not alone on the moon.

To continue with the synopsis would include a spoiler on which the entire plot of Moon turns, so I will say only that Sam is tested physically and psychologically to his limits as a human being, and things on the lunar surface (and perhaps everything else) are not what they have seemed.

Rockwell, who appeared recently in Frost/Nixon and also The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, manages a performance which was truly remarkable. I have never doubted that Rockwell was a decent actor, but did not realize he had such chops. He alone carries the movie, a remarkable feat on its own but even more remarkable since the only other actor he truly interacts with is Kevin Spacey.

In an homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey, the moon base is run by a computer called GERTY, voiced by Spacey, and Jones uses our shared cultural familiarity with the HAL-9000 to project a sense of dread and doom on Sam's mission. It's no accident that we soon discover that GERTY knows more about what's going on than it lets on, and that ramps up the tension and suspense a few more notches.

Moon is one of those independents that deserve wide distribution, which I hope it finds. If you enjoy a twisting "Twilight Zone" storyline with great acting and a sci-fi bent to it, seek this one out.

Waiting on Moon

2009-05-26T18:57:00.000-07:00

I am sitting in the Egyptian theater waiting on Moon to start. It's been a good festival thus far, as I've seen films ranging from a Romeo and Juliet-inspired tale of teen angst and forbidden love to a few of the great classics classics of American cinema. Tonight I am here to see a cabin fever flick set on the moon starring Sam Rockwell as an astronaut who has spent three years alone overseeing a mining operation and, with two weeks to go before he is to return to earth discovers that he may not be alone.

The Egyptian is one of those huge, grand old city cinemas with lush velvet curtains everywhere and colorful ornamentation (in this case, the theme is, well, Egyptian). They feature typical art house fare - independents, foreign films, classics and great weekend midnights like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Bladerunner and The Princess Bride.

Tonight's feature is sold out, and the place is packed. Fourth row center feels like the middle of a sardine can. But the cinematic experiences I have had here over the past 11 years have been memorable. I took Tarantino's B-movie tutorial here, listened to Ben Kingsley talk about his craft, enjoyed two weeks of Hitchcock and have enjoyed dozens of film festival screenings in this very auditorium.

The Egyptian remains one of my two favorite movie houses in Seattle,and I am always pleased that it continues to play a role as one of SIFF's primary venues. But enough for now. The lights are beginning to dim and director Duncan Jones is stepping up to speak.

More from the Festival

2009-05-26T07:10:00.001-07:00

In The Answer Man Jeff Daniels plays the author of a bestselling book on spirituality who is himself still searching for answers to life's most painful questions. He lives in fear of being discovered as a fraud and his solitary life is invaded by a few fearful and searching souls who believe he holds the answers they've been seeking.

At its core The Answer Man is about fear -- fear of being alone, of not knowing where our lives are headed, of losing those close to us, of not finding the answers to the questions that plague our lives.

Daniels is immensely likable as the bitter sage who gleans answers to his own questions through the act of helping others. He is supported by a capable cast that includes Lauren Graham as the love interest.

The Answer Man is not a perfect film, but neither are its characters.

I Love Old Movies

2009-05-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

Among the many programs featured each year at the film festival it is perhaps the archival program that I enjoy the most. I have screened many great films from years past, both well known and obscure, in large venues packed with movie lovers.

This year's archival screenings are introduced by Robert Osborne, that knowledgeable, film-savvy host from Turner Classic Movies. He's like a professor: he knows everything about every movie ever made. And he is also much like a favorite uncle who knows all the family gossip, but in Osborne's case they are stories from Hollywood's Golden Age. Watching him introduce a movie is like having him in your living room, rummaging through you DVD collection and offering observations like,"Once Hitchcock completed filming the classic shower scene he realized he could never use Janet Leigh in a movie again because viewers would forever associate her with Psycho."

Osborne introduced The Adventures of Robin Hood starring Errol Flynn, a lively, colorful and action-packed yarn that has held up well in the 71 years since it was released. Today marked the first time I have seen it on the big screen, and it plays very well. Warner brothers sent along a short to accompany the screening called "Rabbit Hood," starring Bugs Bunny and Errol Flynn.

Osborne also introduced the 1950 Billy Wilder classic Sunset Boulevard, and told an amusing story about mogul Louis B. Mayer (who walked out of a screening of the picture) blasting Wilder for making a film that made Hollywood look bad. And so it does, but the film, starring William Holden in his break-through role, and Gloria Swanson, is considered the best movie about Hollywood ever made, and among the best films to ever come out of the studio system.

Seattle International Film Festival Opens

2009-05-23T00:55:00.000-07:00

The Seattle International Film Festival is back and again this year I am going to cram as many films as I can into the 25 days of non-stop screenings. SIFF boasts 268 features and 124 shorts this year, as well as the usual few surprises.

Today I screened a new film called Shrink, starring Kevin Spacey as Henry Carter, a successful Los Angeles “psychiatrist to the stars” who turns to drugs following the death of his wife. The movie deals with loss, suicide and drug addiction. But despite the heavy subject matter the superb cast delivers a good deal of humor and humanity along the way.

Shrink is also about movies – watching movies, loving movies and making movies. The lives of an obsessive-compulsive Hollywood power agent, a struggling screenwriter, two substance-abusing film actors and a distraught teenager who escapes her pain by cutting school and going to the cinema orbit and intersect with Carter as his life and career spiral out of control.

This is a film about broken people searching for answers, seeking redemption, and discovering that happiness may be fleeting but hope for acceptance is very real.

Pell James, Robert Loggia and Robin Williams are also in the cast.

Retro Review: George of the Jungle

2009-04-21T03:56:00.001-07:00

In order to review George of the Jungle, it must be placed in proper context. This is a Jay Ward cartoon come to life. Jay Ward brought us George of the Jungle, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Cracked Fairy Tales, Dudley Do Right, and many others. The Narrator was a trademark of each tale.

George of the Jungle stars a very likeable Brendan Frasier as the main character, Leslie Mann as Ursula Stanhope, George’s true love, and Thomas Hayden Church as George’s competition for Ms. Stanhope’s heart. And, then you have John Cleese providing the voice of an Ape named Ape.

My family watched George of the Jungle and it was a big hit with everyone. The language is fairly clean, and most of the jokes are juvenile.

State of Play

2009-04-19T10:21:00.000-07:00

It is best to remember that the twisted mystery in which Ben Affleck’s character, one Congressman Collins, entangles himself does not bear careful examination. It is convoluted and raises more questions that the film ultimately answers. The real power in director Kevin (The Last King of Scotland) Macdonald’s political thriller is in Russell Crowe’s star-powered performance as the reporter who manages to unravel it all.

It’s not an easy task, but Crowe, playing a methodical, tenacious old-school hard-news reporter makes it look easy. He inhabits the role with such rumpled grace that, as with many of his best roles, the character emerges and remains a dominate force in the film as a whole. The movie becomes less about the mystery itself and more about how Crowe’s Cal McAffrey goes about solving it all.

Much is being made of the issues confronting the film’s fictional Washington Globe, which is helmed by the always solid and compelling Helen Mirren as Cameron Lynne. McAffrey laments that the decline of the newspaper in America leaves the public with little but news blogs which are lacking in true content and often devoid of facts. McAffrey advocates instead the traditional solid, factual reporting on which the Fourth Estate has been built. It‘s a discussion the movie does address, albeit weakly, and a topical one in light of major newspaper failures in the U.S. (most recently Denver’s Rocky Mountain News and Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer). But in the end this film is a political thriller, a Russell Crowe movie (or a Ben Affleck movie, if you’re one of the many misguided moviegoers out there who think Casey's lesser-talented older brother can carry a film) and little more.

Though Crowe really goes a long way in carrying this film (or at least compensating for its story weaknesses and for the lackluster performance of his costar Affleck), credit must be given to the supporting cast: Rachel McAdams as Crowe’s rookie reporter partner who learns what real journalism is all about; Helen Mirren as the paper’s managing editor, torn between her responsibility as a newspaper editor and her charge to turn a profit for the paper’s owners; Robin Wright Penn as the beleaguered wife of Congressman Collins; and Jason Bateman, who delivers a small but brilliantly executed performance as a seedy marketing consultant on whom the plot turns in the film’s third act.

State of Play delivers solid performances and nearly two hours of genuine entertainment. Just don’t read too much into it otherwise. There is less written between those lines than you might think.

Dark Knight Ends

2009-03-10T04:05:00.001-07:00

I found this article interesting. The Dark Knight finished its official run last on March 5th, the day before the Watchmen opened. It ran for 231 days and made $131, 364 in the final week on 54 screens. Officially, this put the movie in the top 50 money makers last week according to Box Office Mojo.

It amazes me that a movie released last July had those legs. I watched it once in the theater, and maybe twice on DVD (and the second time because my wife agreed to watch it). Did the film cross boundaries with people that most "comic book" movies don't? Like the Watchmen, I thought the film was over long, and started to dry up when Heath Ledger wasn't on the screen. Something about Christian Bale's growling Batman voice bugged me.

But kudos to the franchise for launching the most attended movie since The Phantom Menace.

Watchmen

2009-03-09T16:22:00.001-07:00

I read the Watchmen back in 1989. At the time, I was going through a string of up and down relationships. To clear my head, I invited my bud, David, with me to go spend the weekend at Edisto Island. It was great. We hung out, drank some beer and he loaned me his copy of the Watchmen.

It did not grab me like it did others. In fact, I would have gone as far as to say I did not like it. Fast forward, last week, I bought the comic (sorry, graphic novel) and have been making my way through it. I think there was too much heartbreak, sand (and maybe beer) that I missed a lot of the story. I don't think I even read excerpts at the end of each issue.

It is in those narratives that flesh out the world of the Watchmen. What I missed the first time was that Alan Moore created another world that was really fleshed out.

How could they ever make this into a movie?

All of that back story just so that you understand how this movie hit me. It was like the reading back in 1989: it was good, but not great. Believe me, they did a fantastic job with the film, and I recommend it (but, look at the rating people, don't bring the kids to this one). They captured the look, the feel, but, it was still missing something.

Without spoiling too much, the Watchmen covers a span from the early 40's through the mid 80's. I really loved the use of music to convey the different periods. The opening sequence, set to Bob Dylan's "The Times they are a changing" was brilliant (along with the action poses of each of the original heroes - The Silhouette's "outing" was brilliant). When we see the "Riots of 77," K.C. and the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Man" accompanies Nite Owl II and The Comedian putting down the crowd. It worked. The music they picked was spot on.

Even though I felt the film was overly long, you get your money's worth. I hope to catch it again on IMAX, if I can convince the wife to go along.

Academy Award Marathon

2009-02-23T17:22:00.001-08:00

Saturday was the third annual Best Picture Showcase, featuring the five movies nominated for this year's Best Picture Award. Sitting through five movies is very difficult, especially for the final film. Last year, they played No Country For Old Men, and I dozed off during a critical part and I was lost for the final twenty minutes of the film.

Not wanting to repeat the same thing this year, I packed up some "No-Doze" to help me make it through.

With the exception of Benjamin Buttons, I had very little idea of what the films were about. I posted the films that I liked the best on my Facebook page when I got home, and I wanted to address that here.

Milk - It was the first film of the day, and it was the one that I was looking forward to watching the least. It was the subject matter - an openly gay man running for office. What I found was a movie that was more about civil rights than homosexuality (however, there was plenty of men kissing men in the film, so be warned). It was good. And Bravo to Sean Penn.

The Reader - This started off weird...an older woman and a fifteen year old boy having an affair of sex and reading. It was obvious that she could neither read nor write. But her secret was much more than that. There was a scene early on where she was crying in a church. Was she crying because of the beautiful children singing, or was she remembering something else.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons - I liked the film. But, I found myself melancholy afterwards. The idea of two lovers passing each other in age saddened me. Excellent flick - beautifully filmed. Wonderful soundtrack.

Slumdog Millionaire - Excellent story telling convention. Possibly right up there with Momento - a bit of the story is unveiled a little bit at a time. I think I wanted to dance with them at the end.

Frost/Nixon - I won a poster for this movie for just showing up. I was worried about making it through this film, as it was the last one on the billet. Frank Langella was su-perb as Nixon. There was an audible gasp in the theater when Frost got Nixon to say "it was illegal." After the taping, Nixon is leaving out of the house, his vision all blurred until he focuses on a small dog. All the weight in the world rising off his shoulders.

I did not watch the Oscar's this year. I was very happy with the outcome, especially for Heath.

This Year's Oscar Picks

2009-02-22T16:15:00.000-08:00

It’s not unusual for me to wait until the last moment to post my Oscar picks. I am always torn between picking my favorite in a given category or choosing the artist or film that I think will win, regardless of my own opinion. What follows, this year, is a combination of both, a few predictions and a few hopefuls. We'll see how I do following tonight's Oscar telecast.

Supporting Actress Viola Davis, Doubt
Supporting Actor Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Actress Kate Winslet, The Reader
Actor Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Editing Slumdog Millionaire
Art Direction The Duchess
Cinematography The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Costumes The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Makeup The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Visual Effects The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Screenplay, Adapted Frost/Nixon
Screenplay, Original In Bruges
Song Peter Gabriel, “Down to Earth,” WALL-E
Score The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Foreign Film Waltz with Banshir
Documentary Encounters at the End of the World
Animated Feature WALL-E
Director Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Picture Slumdog Millionaire

Taken

2009-02-01T02:01:00.000-08:00

In Taken, Liam Neeson plays Bryan Mills, a retired secret agent who moves to Los Angeles to be close to his daughter, who is living with Bryan’s ex-wife and her well-to-do husband. But when his daughter is kidnapped while visiting Paris with a friend, Bryan comes out of retirement and hunts down the thugs who snatched his daughter.

Taken is a high concept movie that moves along well and benefits from Neeson’s determined and level performance. He is likable and believable. Taken holds no surprises -- we know how things are going to go down in the end: with fists and bullets flying. It’s the journey that’s entertaining, seeing how Bryan uses his experience and his wits to connect the dots and find his daughter’s kidnappers.

Taken is co-written by Luc Besson (who directed La Femme Nakita and The Fifth Element), but his script, though often crisp and tight, has no real spark. The film is ultimately mediocre, and it occurred to me that as capable as Neeson is, Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis could have slipped easily into the role of Bryan, perhaps with better results. Ford would have brought a little more vulnerability to the character, while Willis would have lightenened things up a bit, as the film gets a bit heavy at times. So in the end, Taken is entertaining but uninspired.

But that’s not such a bad thing.

2008 Movie Wrap Up

2009-01-18T12:35:00.000-08:00

In advance of the Oscar nominations I thought I'd share a few thoughts about 2008's slate of movies.

In thinking about the forthcoming Oscar noms it is strange that there was nothing huge this year that would make for typical Oscar fodder, big films such as Titanic, The English Patient, Braveheart or Shindler's List. I suppose those who produced the big-budget period picture Australia were hoping a late-year release might generate Oscar buzz. No one, apparently, went to see it.

So this years best movies are, in my opinion, all over the board. Still having not seen a couple of flicks on many critics' top ten lists (The Wrestler, Happy-Go-Lucky and Revolutionary Road among them), I will endeavor to offer one of my own:

Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire
In Bruges
Doubt
Gran Torino
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Man on Wire
The Bank Job
Iron Man

Regarding Wall-E: although it failed to move me personally, I was impressed with the animation and particularly the storytelling in this Disney/Pixar release, and recognize that as an artistic achievement it is easily considered among the year's best.

For my worst of 2008, I present my bottom five:

Step Brothers
Fly Me To the Moon / Space Chimps (tie)
Blindness
Burn After Reading
Rachel Getting Married

Frost/Nixon

2008-12-28T02:52:00.000-08:00

Director Ron Howard is at the height of his powers with this screen adaptation of Peter Morgan’s play about a series of interviews British talk show host David Frost conducted with Richard Nixon in 1977. For such a simple concept the film is taut, engaging and fascinating.

Frank Langella is brilliant as the embittered Nixon, hoping to reverse his fortunes by vindicating himself in the interviews. It’s an Oscar-worthy performance. Sheen (Tony Blair in The Queen) is spot on as the talk show host hoping to reverse his own fortunes by essentially “convicting” Nixon of his crimes.

Langella and Sheen are supported by terrific performances by Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt as Frost’s associates, and Kevin Bacon as Nixon’s chief of staff.

Frost/Nixon is an absorbing exploration of television journalism, entertainment and politics. Watching the movie I was unaware as to what was fact and what was not, but the end result was so engrossing that ultimately the line that blurred truth from fiction did not matter.

***** out of 5

A Mouse's Tale

2008-12-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

That The Tale of Despereaux is beautifully designed and animated does help to make up for its few flaws, among them a script and a story that could have been a bit tighter. Despereaux hails from Universal Animation Studios (the folks who brought you Curious George and The Land Before Time XIII: The Wisdom of Friends), no giants in the animation arena and not known for the caliber of films coming out of PIXAR or Dreamworks Animation. Despereaux seems to be Universal's desperate attempt to play in that arena. That said, it is an honest effort despite the mixed results.

In addition to the elegant production design the movie boasts an A-list cast that is at times stellar but for the most part merely adequate. Matthew Broderick hits the mark with his portrayal of the titular mouse, an oddity among his peers because of his uncommon boldness and desire for adventure. After being banished from Mouse World for essentially not fitting in, Despereaux discovers that he is destined for great things after he meets a forlorn princess (voiced by Emma Watson) languishing in a tower, prisoner of her father’s grief at the death of his wife, whose tragic demise, face-down in a bowl of soup, is portrayed unnecessarily onscreen. Despereaux accepts his destiny and makes a valiant effort to free the princess and return rats and soup and sunlight to the kingdom. (Yes, it sounds convoluted and it is, so I won’t bother going into it here).

Tracey Ullman, Christopher Lloyd and Stanley Tucci do a fine job as a maidservant, thread maker and soup genie (don’t ask) respectively, while Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Robbie Coltrane, Frank Langella and Sigourney Weaver round out the cast.

Despite its flaws, Despereaux is watchable and enjoyable, and thematically compelling for adults. But it’s much better suited for kids, many of whom are sure to love its charm, sense of wonder and tenderness.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

2008-11-18T06:57:00.000-08:00

Director Mark Herman (Brassed Off, Little Voice) adapts a moving and tragic novel about two boys separated by race, hatred and superstition during the height of the Third Reich. Having seen this movie it’s no surprise why the reviews are so mixed, and why both positive and negative reviews have been delivered with such conviction. There seems to be little middle ground as to whether or not it is fitting for filmmakers to tell this type of story in the way that it was told, partially set in a concentration camp in Germany during the second World War.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas brings to mind Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful, a concentration camp film that dealt with the tragedy of the Holocaust with hope and at times a comic touch. Both films use similar elements to tell their stories, but Pyjamas takes a heavier hand and Herman never flinches away from the story he is telling, and in the end he delivers a film that is sure to elicit discussion from its viewers.

It was only after discussing this film at length with Mike that I was able to work out that I like this film, and would recommend it. But it took some doing. (As well as a screening of Jonathan Demme’s new film, Rachel Getting Married, which was so painful to sit through that most anything seems appealing by comparison.)

Eight-year-old Bruno is the son of a German Commandant who is taken from his idyllic life in Berlin into the country when his father is transferred to a work assignment there. Now friendless and no longer in school, Bruno is left to fend for himself on a swing in a small fenced in courtyard of his family’s compound. But Bruno years for adventure, and manages to escape the compound to explore a farm he has seen from an upstairs window. The farm is of course the concentration camp run by his father, and crouching behind a rubbish pile on the other side of the electrified fence Bruno encounters Shmuel, and eight-year-old Jewish boy who becomes Bruno’s only friend.

Pyjamas deals with the loss of innocence and the lies we perpetrate on our children, and the consequences of both sanctioning such indoctrination and failing to fully oppose it. But underlying all of it is the simple act of friendship, of two boys who accept one another for what they are and are not daunted by the propaganda of war and hatred that swirls around them.

Quantum of Solace

2008-11-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

The new James Bond movie kicks off with a ferocious car chase wherein Bond struggles to get the upper hand. He leads his pursuers around narrow winding mountain roads and, not surprisingly, experiences a number of close calls. I kept waiting for Bond to engage some Q-section gadgetry on his Alfa Romeo to take out his opponents -- machine guns, oil slicks, and so on.

But not this Bond. He has but his raw nerve and wits to get him out of this scrape, and I realized that this is the new Bond. Bond retooled. A tough, layered and resourceful secret agent who doesn't need to rely on techy gadgets to save his skin.

And I like it.

Quantum of Solace is a new Bond adventure, yes, but ties in heavily with Casino Royale. Quantum builds on the story told in actor Daniel Craig's initial outing as 007, and as such this film does not stand well on its own, which is its weakness. That said, director Marc Forster (The Kite Runner, Finding Neverland) delivers everything audiences have come to expect from Bond films: spectacular chases, beautiful women, twisted plots and a tough handler who is never quite sure what 007 will do next. M, played since the Pierce Brosnan days by Judi Dench, is a delight, and Craig as Bond continues to develop the character he created for Casino Royale.

Quantum does not surpass its predecessor by any means, and I would recommend screening Casino Royale before seeing this one, as the plots are intertwined. As a sequel, screenwriter Paul Haggis (Million Dollar Baby, Crash) neatly carries on the plot threads established in the previous Bond film and wraps things up nicely in the end. His builds a story about trust and betrayal that has merits worthy of the dramatist that he is. And as Bond film, Quantum delivers enough to earn it a place among the better bonds in the pantheon.

***1/2 out of 5

Changeling Provokes an Emotional Response

2008-11-02T01:38:00.000-07:00

My friend Mike summed up one aspect of this film with the comment, “The half of the audience that doesn’t have kids was watching this movie on a whole different level.” Director Clint Eastwood’s Changeling brings to mind other recent films wherein parents deal with tragic circumstances involving their children: Gone Baby Gone and Eastwood’s Mystic River among them. The emotional core of films like Changeling rely on the audience empathizing with the pain of a parent who loses a child, and Angelina Jolie delivers her best performance in years as a mother whose son is nowhere to be found when she returns from work.

Set in Los Angeles during the 1920’s, Changeling is a true story. Eastwood works from a marvelous canvas in this period film. Its rich set and costume design suits the movie’s slow and deliberate pacing, and Eastwood’s minimalist musical score allows the audience to immerse itself not only in this world of 1920’s L.A. but in Jolie’s solid performance as a determined woman who repeatedly insists that a corrupt police captain help her find her son. John Malkovich is superb as a minister who rallies to Jolie’s aid, and the supporting cast lends itself to what is in the end a very well made but emotionally draining film.

**** out of 5 stars.

Expelled No Intelligence Allowed

2008-10-25T06:56:00.000-07:00

Ben Stein (speech writer for both Nixon and Ford, comedian, game show host, and actor) continues to intrigue me. Like many of you, my first introduction to him was as the droning economics teacher from Ferris Beuller's Day Off ("anyone? anyone?") . Years later, he hosts a game show called Win Ben Stein's Money, a series of Visine commercials and an internet letter. And that leads us to his documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. If it was not for this appearing on Netflix's Watch Now section, I most likely would not have watched the film, but why not? I added the title to my Watch Now queue and went upstairs to have it streamed to my TV via the ROKU Box.

One other thing you have to know is that Stein rejects Darwinism and embraces Intelligent Design.

The premise of the movie is that Academia has created a wall that is dividing science and rejecting new ideas. In this case, Academia is rejecting Intelligent Design as a new attempt by Christian's to have creationism taught in school. However, most of the people interviewed by Stein were not Creationist in the sense of Genesis. In fact, none accounted the design to the Judeo/Christian God - they did not know who created it, but evidence suggested intentional creation versus natural selection.

Ben interviews several Darwinist and atheist who reject the concept of ID. The most familiar to me was Richard Dawkins. What I found interesting was that no one has ideas of how life actually created - spontaneous generation, lighting, crystals and aliens are all presented as possibilities. Stein gives a history lesson that links the holocaust, eugenics, euthasia, Planned Parenthood and abortion to Darwin's natural selection (in a nutshell - each of these are attempts by man to get rid of unwanted human life much in the same way as nature in the wild will not let a lame or cripple creature survive).

I found the film entertaining. As a Christian, it helped me to understand where the ID movement is coming from because I thought it was another attempt to put Creationism into science text books. Some of the video that was used to highlight his points were often funny, but some crass.

** (out of 4)

City of Ember

2008-10-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

This year I have seen two post-apocalyptic movies about Earthlings returning to terra firma after some cataclysm, Disney’s WALL-E and the yet-unreleased Terra. City of Ember is the third, and this time humans are tucked away in an underground city for two hundred years, with instructions on how to leave the city passed down generation to generation through the office of the mayor.

Except something goes wrong, and the instructions are misplaced for nearly half a century. When the power source for the city begins to wind down, two clever teens must figure out the secret of getting out of Ember and back to the surface before their world is plunged into darkness.

City of Ember is not without its faults. The performances are merely adequate, and Bill Murray, as the mayor, never seems to inhabit the character. It’s Murray up there reading lines, and it’s a distraction. I could go on about the gloomy set design or the holes in the script, but I won’t. City of Ember is an intriguing family film that would appeal to older kids and teens, and is at its best a passable couple of hours.

** out of 5 stars

Summer Movies

2008-09-01T17:24:00.001-07:00

Even though summer hasn't officially ended, the 2008 Summer Movie season is at an end. This year, I did not see as many as I would like. But what did surprise me was how fast they seemed to drop out of the theaters. Already, X-Files can be found in our local second run theaters. And, I really wanted to see The Happening, but it left the theater so quickly, it left you asking "What Happened?"

So what films stood out for me this summer?

Iron Man: What a way to start the summer. This film could have been such a miss, and I was prepared to dislike it. But it seems that Marvel knows what their characters are about. Robert Downey, Jr just owned the role of Tony Stark.

Prince Caspian: I think I saw this movie. I think I just didn't care about it.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: Ok, it was fun and captured the essence of the original film, but I think I could have lived without this adventure.

Kung Fu Panda: Finally a Jack Black film I liked.

The Incredible Hulk: An incredible redemption from the bad taste left by the first film. You did good Norton.

Wall-E: I am really split over this one. I really liked this film until he got on board the ark. The animation was tops.

Hancock: This was an example of a film that showed all of the good parts during the preview. You can almost feel the moment that this one jumped the shark.

Hellboy II: This film reminded me of movies like Buckaroo Banzai and Big Trouble in Little China. I totally bought into the milieu and had a blast with it. I am looking forward to see what Guillermo Del Toro does with The Hobbit.

The Dark Knight: My second favorite Batman film. Heath Ledger's Joker was fresh and different, and really brought a sense of legitimacy to the character. What could have made this film better? About 20 minutes less.

Clone Wars: Not the film I thought it would be. Luckily, I was well informed of what it was, so, when I did go to see it, I did not stand and scream about how George Lucas stole my childhood.

Films I did not get to see:

Speed Racer : I was never into Speed Racer, beyond the song.

Sex and the City:
Never saw an episode. And, besides…er, no.

You Don't Mess With the Zohan: When was the last funny Adam Sandler movie. I expect this will be a riot on DVD.

The Happening: I wanted to see this, but the reviews were awful.

Get Smart: Wait for the DVD.

Wanted: This looked cool, but I missed it when it came out. Will catch it on DVD.

Step Brothers: From the Director of Anchorman and Talladega Nights and starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly…how could they possibly miss? Seriously, is anyone counting how many movies Will is cranking out?

The X Files: I Want to Believe: Personally, for me, the X-Files died when I saw the first film. It was never the same for me afterwards.

The Mummy 3: I like Brendan, but, I will say it three times: No, No, No (at least until it hits DVD).

The Rocker: I like Rainn Wilson – only as Mr. Shrute.

Pineapple Express: I decided to skip this one. I had seen most of Seth Rogen's films, but, after awhile they are all the same – and all about stoners.

Tropic Thunder: I may still catch this one before it leaves the theater.

And what do we have to look forward to for the Summer of 2009? Two Words: Star Trek.

Traitor

2008-08-24T15:14:00.000-07:00

Don Cheadle is one of those actors who can say volumes with a simple expression. Maybe it’s his dark, contemplative eyes set into a face that the audience wants to trust. Someone told me that director Steven Soderbergh once said that if you wanted to make your movie better, put Don Cheadle in it.

Whatever it is that makes Don Cheadle a believable character actor does not fail him in this summer’s political thriller Traitor.

Traitor is yet another one of those moralizing post-9/11 films that attempts to make a statement at the expense of character, story and dialogue. I have no problem with films with a message, and the message here is one we have heard before: Muslims are wonderful people, except for the few nuts who misinterpreted the Koran and became terrorists, and the US government is a lot like those aforementioned terrorists – good people who lost their way. And there is plenty of blame in Traitor for both Islamic terrorism and American Imperialism to share.

Aside from the overbearing politicizing, the movie is entertaining. Cheadle and costars Guy Pearce and Jeff Daniels are an apt cast who manage to take a rather weak and loose first act and keep the audience interested enough for the payoff in act three. Yes, this is one of those twisting, turning plots that, when properly executed, can turn a mediocre thriller into a really good one. And perhaps it’s plotting that works here. The script, heavy-handed and even trite at times, is the weakest link in the chain. Competent directing and a great cast more than make up for the movie’s flaws.

Traitor opens this week.

*** out of 5.

A Space Chimps Odyssey

2008-07-20T18:48:00.001-07:00

It seems as if there are a rash of space-themed CG animated films out. We’ve already covered WALL-E and the yet-to-be-released Terra in this blog. Then there is the forthcoming Flyboys, about a trio of houseflies who travel in a space capsule, a movie I hope never to have to review.

In the mean time there is Space Chimps, an uninspired idea so poorly developed and executed that I realized I was not the only adult snoozing in the Cineplex.

It's from Starz Animation (the cable & satellite TV channel?) and the Weinsteins.

It’s about a trio of chimpanzees who travel in a space capsule. They go to a strange planet. Stuff happens. They return home as heroes, each having grown a bit in the process. The script, animation and performances are so mediocre that I won’t bother to mention them further.

So is there anything good about Space Chimps, you ask? My reply: yes, and it's this: it’s clean, G-rated fun for the little ones. And they will love it.

* out of 5

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

2008-07-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Hellboy II: The Golden Army was a fun movie, and on top of that, was extremly interesting to look at. I guess you really should go and see the first movie because I felt like I could have used a refresher. Guillermo Del Toro has created a world that blends live action, animatronics and a bit of CGI along with a really cool story.

The movie opens with a prologue that sets the history. A war between humans and elves (and other non-human creatures) results in defeat for the elves. The king employs the goblins to create an army golden mechanical warriors. The humans are nearly decimated and the king realizes the danger of the army. He divides the crown used to control the mechanical fighter into three pieces, giving one to the humans, one to himself and one to his daugther. The princesses twin brother disagrees with this action and leaves.

Years pass. The Prince returns and he wants to bring the three pieces of the crown back together and control the army so that he can finish the job that his father started. The only thing standing between him and the rest of the world is the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, a super secret team that includes Hellboy.

Ron Perlman is just great as Hellboy - seriously, how do you play a big red demonic looking character complete with a tail and shaved off horns and a serious left hook? Oh, and he likes cats. It's just plain fun.

Besides a interesting story, Hellboy II was just great to look at. It reminded me of some older movies that I enjoyed in High School (Buckaroo Banzai, Last Star Fighter): films that probably will not go onto become memorable pieces, but those of us who did see it will watch it many times over.

Hancock

2008-07-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

There was something about the trailer for Hancock that made me want to see this movie. The idea of a bum with superhero powers, drinking a big bottle of Jim Beam while fighting crime, really spoke to this comic book guy.

And, Hancock delivered. To a point.

Will Smith is Hancock a street bum with superhero powers: he can fly, bullets bounce off of him, and, oh yea, he doesn't age. Everyone in LA hates him because everytime Hancock helps, millions of dollars in damages occur. Jason Bateman play Ray Embry, a PR rep who is saved by Hancock from an oncoming train and takes Hancock on as a pro-bono case. Charlize Theron plays Bateman's wife, Mary, who is more than skeptical of Hancock and warns her husband that this will end badly.

For the damages that he has done, Ray convinces Hancock to turn himself in and go to prison. The plan is that the crime rate will rise so high that they will beg Hancock to come back and save the day. In the meanwhile, Hancock attends a twelve step program and receives lessons in superhero etiquette from Ray.

All of this leads up to the cop rescue scene in the movie. The part that made the movie a comedy and fun are over. And this is when my wife leans over to me and announces that this movie has jumped the shark.

That may have been premature, but the third act adds a new element to the mix that slightly changes the relationship with the characters. It was a bit rough, but works itself out by the end of the film. Ultimately, I am not sure if Hancock worked as a superhero film. It felt more like the second film in the series as we never see his origin. I am not sure that it worked as a straight on comedy, but there were some great sight gags that, unfortunately, were pretty much revealed in the trailer. The special effects were interesting in this film, and I thought they had a rough feel to them. Some felt very much like they hung Smith in front of a rear projection screen and put him on wires.

So, my opinion is that you will enjoy this on the big screen. But, you may be more forgiving of its short falls with a rental.

Two Hulks in Five Years

2008-07-13T01:10:00.000-07:00

Earlier tonight I shuffled off to a late showing of The Incredible Hulk, not particularly looking forward to it but it was the one film that started at the Cineplex when I arrived.

I thought with director Ang Lee at the helm of 2003’s Hulk that perhaps Marvel could get it right with everyone’s favorite jolly green giant. I was wrong.

Eric Bana was barely okay in the role of Bruce Banner, and costar Nick Nolte provided some interesting moments. But when the Hulk-dogs appeared on the scene, I though the film had jumped the shark. Besides, the CG Hulk was too much like, well, a CG Hulk.

So why do it again? And with another CG Hulk who is too much like, well, another CG Hulk? The Incredible Hulk is wholly unrelated to the 2003 movie Hulk, and has a couple of things going for it. It appears Marvel had more control over the material. It had an A-list star as Bruce Banner, one Edward Norton, an Oscar-nominated performer who is no slouch when it comes to acting. (Marvel Studios scored well with Iron Man using another Oscar-nominated A-lister, Robert Downey, Jr.) It had a great supporting cast in Liv Tyler, William Hurt and Tim Roth. It hit the ground running and never stopped. It sported a decent script (with an homage or three to the television series starring Bill Bixby), solid direction and fair production values.

But after two great acts, the film seemed to delve into all-too-familiar territory with Tim Roth’s character becoming a super Hulk, and their climactic battle seemed uninspired. Still, it was fun, and Downey’s cameo as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man) was awfully cool. Not a bad couple of hours on the fourth row.

*** out of five.

Why Wasn't I Crazy About WALL-E?

2008-07-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

Pixar Animation continues to reaffirm itself as the preeminent animation studio by telling good, compelling stories. WALL-E, about a solitary robot whose purpose it seems is to clean up the long-abandoned Earth, uses a strongly visual storytelling technique to establish character and place.

WALL-E’s interaction with his environment, his possessions and a cockroach, his one companion, establishes his character and sums up his existence without the use of any dialogue. When a space ship lands and leaves behind another robot, WALL-E’s desire for companionship becomes a real possibility. But nothing in Pixar’s worlds is so easy, and WALL-E ends up accompanying Eve, his sleek new robot friend, into the far reaches of outer space for adventures WALL-E could never have dreamed of.

Thematically it is a lot like a full-length animated indie flick floating around out there called Terra, in which the short-sighted humans destroyed their earth and were forced into space. In Terra, which features Dennis Quaid, Luke Wilson, Rosanna Arquette, Amanda Peet and James Garner, the earthlings find a planet that they can colonize, where as in WALL-E, the wayward earthlings are waiting for the robotic Eve to return an olive branch to the ark so that they can return to Earth. Both films serve as cautionary tales for children, reminders of the havoc their parents are wreaking on the planet.

My personal reaction to both films was that they were okay, Terra being far more heavy-handed than the gentle WALL-E. Though the latter is a better film, I think I enjoyed Terra a little more.

As for WALL-E, it is an exceptionally entertaining and well-made film. I cannot find any real fault with the movie’s animation, its characters, design or performances. (Star Wars fans note that Ben Burtt is credited with the film's sound design and the as voice of WALL-E). And the story is certainly elegant and interesting. Perhaps it was because I saw it on the night of July 4th after a large plate of ribs that it failed to truly move me. Regardless, this G-rated Disney/Pixar offering will appeal to every child and many parents.

Above: As of May of this year, Terra, directed by Aristomenis Tsirbas, had played in Toronto and Seattle and had yet to annouce national discribution.

Film Festival Wrap-Up

2008-06-21T21:38:00.001-07:00

The Seattle Film Festival wrapped for the year and all-in-all I had a great time.

For one who enjoys movies, the film festival experience is unique and fascinating. I saw dozens of movies, met many interesting people, learned about movies and the film making process from many of the artists involved, and ate at Bill’s Pizza a couple of times, which has become part of the festival experience for my movie-going buddy Dan and me.

This year’s Secret Festival was a smash as well, but I am unable to communicate anything about any of the films I saw there.

I have eleven months to rest up before the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival.

A Flawed But Enjoyable Independent Film

2008-06-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Each year at the film festival I always manage to find a small independent film that I might not have otherwise had the chance to see, the kind of film that will make the festival and art house circuit but is unlikely to flicker across screens at the suburban multiplex.

Previously it was a clever little death by milk comedy called Expiration Date. This year it's another Seattle-filmed flick called Visioneers.

Thematically reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Visioneers is the story of George (comedian Zack Galifianakis), a man with dreams stuck in a drab world of mindless conformity and desperately wishes for a way out amid a growing national crisis in which the emotional and the discontent inexplicably explode. His absent brother, having extricated himself from society, returns and moves into the pool house with designs on becoming a pole vaulter, and George realizes that his brother is truly free – free from the constraints of society and free from the risk of unnecessarily exploding.

Visioneers is a bizarre and off-kilter black comedy that benefits from its freshness and originality while at the same time skewering social conventions and making insightful and meaningful comments about the society in which we live.

Two Documentaries

2008-06-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

Two documentaries stood out in my mind at this year's Seattle Film Festival, and they could not have been more different.

The first, Alone in Four Walls, is a lyrically shot documentary about nine to thirteen-year-old boys serving time for crimes ranging from theft to murder in a rural Russian prison for boys. The film is startling in that the inmates are indeed children: frightened, weeping and pining for parents who never come to visit.

As sympathy for the boys begins to mount, Director Alexandra Westmeier takes her audience outside the prison walls to the sad, angry and sometimes bitter families who tell stories of oft times startling delinquency, including the story of one of the featured boys' grisly murder of a friend. Westmeier had free access within the walls of the prison and the result – a simple film told in images and interviews without narration and commentary – is powerful and mesmerizing.

Man on Wire, from France, is a first rate documentary that feels like a heist movie.

Philippe Petit was a French tight rope walker who saw a drawing of a proposed construction project in New York City and dreamed of walking a rope between the twin towers of the World Trade Center long before the towers were built. Years of planning, including multiple trips to New York during and after construction (including a visit posing as a French reporter, which the artist captured on film), culminated in the ascension of two teams to the roofs of the towers under the cover of night where a cable was strewn across the void and anchored to each of the buildings.

The ploy was intricately planned – the teams had an inside man, disguises, dodged security guards and were forced to hide for hours at a time under tarps or behind columns in order to escape detection. And with a crate containing a cable that weighed more than a ton! The film is at times a nail-biter, and when Petit finally takes the wire between the World Trade Center buildings the audience was holding its collective breath in awe. Archival footage, photographs and new interviews with Petit and his teams are used to great effect in this utterly fascinating and captivating film.

Top: A photo I took in 1993 at the WTC: I cannot imagine anyone having ever walked across such an expanse. Above: The movie poster for Man on Wire.

The Film Festival Continues

2008-06-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

Over the past few weeks I have been attending the Seattle Film Festival. I have enjoyed a few outstanding flicks, like director Anand (Shopgirl) Tucker's When Did You Last See Your Father?, as well as a little gem of a movie called Phoebe in Wonderland with Felicity Huffman, Bill Pullman and a remarkable Elle Fanning.

There was some mediocre fare (Continental, a Film Without Guns and the Sundance award-winner Ballast) among the films I saw, and a couple of great documentaries as well.

Then of course, amid the hits, there were the misses: Huddersfield, a pointless drama from Serbia, and The Bluetooth Virgin, a small film about struggling Hollywood screenwriters, were two outright snoozers.

I've also attended some interesting presentations and Q&A from writers, directors and actors attending the festival.

Among the highlights were two foreign films brought to the festival from Japan and Australia, respectively: Love and Honor, a period samurai movie, and The Children of Huang Shi, from director Roger Spottiswoode (Air America, Tomorrow Never Dies).

Love and Honor, about a blind samurai facing his final duel, is beautifully shot and well acted, a character piece with heart and a happy ending (unlike many other Japanese samurai movies, which tend to go the way of melodrama).

The Children of Huang Shi, a powerful and captivating true story set during the Japanese occupation of China, is about a wounded journalist who finds himself convalescing at an orphanage that he soon takes charge of. As the dangers of the war loom closer, he packs up the orphanage and leads them hundreds of miles across the desert to a place where the children will be safe, giving his all – and his life – to deliver them safely. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is a capable lead, with Yun-Fat in a memorable performance as the Chinese rebel who acts as guide and mentor.

Save the Clock Tower!

2008-06-05T01:08:00.000-07:00

A disastrous fire on the Universal back lot destroyed a number of exterior sets this past weekend, including the clock tower from the Back to the Future movies.

To see it as pictured here, in 1992, you will need a Delorean. A very special Delorean.

Seattle International Film Festival

2008-05-26T00:43:00.000-07:00

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means the Seattle International Film Festival has come around again. I am settling in for four weeks of new, foreign, documentary and independent film.

This first weekend saw the SIFF tribute to Sir Ben Kingsley, the Shakespearean stage actor turned film star whose work includes Schindler’s List, Searching for Bobby Fisher, Bugsy, House of Sand and Fog, Dave, and the Oscar-winning Gandhi. The actor spoke of his craft and many of his roles, providing insight into his work and artistic experiences.

Thus far this weekend we have had the opportunity to screen two of the seven (!) new films Kingsley has coming out this year: Elegy and Transsiberian.

Today’s program included the North American premiere of Elegy, with Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson and Peter Sarsgaard. Based on a novel by Philip Roth, Elegy is the story of David Kepesh, a writer coming to terms with his inability experience intimacy. Long estranged from his ex-wife and son, and unable to commit to a steady girlfriend, Kepesh is openly vulnerable only with a poet friend, played by Hopper. Kepesh will have the opportunity to open himself up to love and be loved only in the shadow of great loss. Screenwriter Nicholas Meyer crafts a story that is tender, at times startlingly honest, heartbreaking, yet ultimately hopeful.

A gripping thriller in the Hitchcock style, Transsiberian follows missionaries Roy and Jessie (Woody Harrelson and Emily Mortimer) on a passenger train from Beijing to Moscow where they are pulled into a web of intrigue by a mysterious young couple, Carlos and Abby (Eduardo Noriega and Kate Mara) and a sinister narcotics cop Grinko (Kingsley) who is searching for heroin and cash that disappeared from a crime scene.

A sense of chaotic restlessness dominates the scenes on the train as Roy disappears and Jessie is drawn into Carlos’s secrets. She makes a series of incredibly poor decisions, and when Roy turns up again she finds herself layering on lie after lie in order to protect herself, and Roy, from suspicion by Grinko, knowing full well the brutality of Russian justice. Transsiberian builds to a chilling, gut-wrenching climax that is both intense and ultimately satisfying.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-05-24T04:55:00.001-07:00

My friends and I are children of the eighties: we were born much earlier but our formative teenage years occurred during that decade. We had MTV, Thriller and many really cool films, most coming out prior to 1985. The Empire Strikes Back, E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi and Temple of Doom. I could name other films, such as Romancing the Stone, Goonies, or Ghostbusters, but they did not hold up in the same way. During the next decade, my friends and I would embark on our next stage of life, and become separated not only by distances but by shared experiences. Perhaps it was fitting that, in 1989, when Last Crusade finished, our childhood hero was riding off into the sunset.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not a perfect movie. It has scenes that will make you wince, but, as I said over on Creative Loafing, the other three films have a bit of whimsy, and ultimately, you have to allow the films to exist in a world where over the top action exists. They exist in a world where the difference between good and evil, right and wrong is clear cut, unambiguous and black and white. A world in which a man armed with a bullwhip, a revolver and a fedora can make a difference. And, that is the exact world where we find Indy, and if you want to go there, you need to suspend reality for about two hours.

Harrison Ford, a little older, reprises the "other" role that made him famous. Spielberg and Lucas did not try to hide his age, but, instead embraced it. Indiana may have more gray hairs, but he is still the hero.

And apparently, his services are still needed.

The movie opens with Indiana, kidnapped from a dig in Mexico by Russians, trying to retrieve an artifact from a secretive government warehouse. The warehouse will be instantly recognized, but, John Williams reprises the Ark's Theme from the first movie if you require a little nudging. The artifact that the communist want is not that item. Indy tries to escape with the item, but fails (does he ever succeed in the opening sequence?) and it appears to the FBI that Dr. Jones is a red sympathizer. He loses his job at the university and prepares to leave when he runs into Mutt.

Mutt convinces Indy to come with him because a common acquaintance, one Professor "Ox" Oxley, is in trouble. Ox was searching for El Dorado, when, something happened, and he ended up in a South American sanatorium. Indy and Mutt discover that Ox was taken from the sanatorium at gunpoint. All that was left behind are Ox's writings on the wall instructing that a crystal skull be returned. Unfortunately for our heroes, the Russians are also searching for the same crystal skull which they believe can be used as a weapon to subdue the west.

The story structure is not new. Indeed, like Last Crusade, the plot often gets weighted down with heavy exposition trying to explain the nature of the Crystal Skull. Heavy exposition is rarely good in a movie – Raiders summed it up very succinctly: "an army which carries the ark before it is invincible." Enough said. KCS has many stunt sequences, but none that rival the truck sequence from Raiders. With the advent of CGI, I couldn't help feel that they cheated just a bit. There are some scenes that made me wince (Tarzan), but I think I winced much more during Temple of Doom.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is as much an Indiana Jones movie in the same way that the Star Wars prequels were not Star Wars movies. I hope that makes sense. The only thing I feared about this film is that ultimately, I would be disappointed. I had a blast watching this film, and only wish that I had seen it with a packed house for the shared experience.

Or even better, with my pals.

Indiana Jones and SIFF

2008-05-22T23:46:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Film Festival opened tonight with a premiere of the film Battle in Seattle, starring Charleze Theron, Ray Liotta and Woody Harrleson. The film, about the WTO riots here, opens in September, and represents the first big American movie premiere in at the Seattle Festival since "Braveheart." They did the whole red carpet thing with Theron, director Stuart Townsend and other cast members, but I decided to skip it.

Though a pass holder for the entire festival (I have many, many movies to see over the next four weeks), I elected to take in Indiana Jones with some present and former office cronies at Seattle's Cinerama.

What can I say? Harrison Ford is back, and the action never stops. And seeing Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, the best of the Indy dames) back with Ford again was sheer pleasure. It's a pot luck of elements that have worked well in the first three Indiana Jones flicks, so it often seems familiar. But the lack of freshness and the deja vous factor did not detract from the fun of the movie. And moreso than its precursors, this Indy outing is one big popcorn flick. I won't try to compare this one to the three: it's different, and ought to be. It goes places the others never ventured (outer space and other dimensions, anyone?) and there were moments I found myself scratching my head.

No matter what the critics say, this is one of those flicks you have to see it for yourself. Draw your own conclusions.

*** out of 5 stars.

Now on Video: Diary of the Dead

2008-05-21T04:07:00.001-07:00

I post this in honor of the time I tried to introduce Jay to the world of George A. Romero, and it fell flat. In this world, the dead do not stay dead. They rise. They attack. They eat.

Romero's first film, Night of the Living Dead, never identified the dead as zombies. Romero even thought of them more as ghouls, but that doesn't matter. The first film crossed social boundaries and began a theme that permeates all of his movies: the dead are just a reflection of the living. In all of his movies, there are a group of heroes trying to survive, only to have the efforts ultimately ruined by the living. Sure, the dead always pose the threat, but it is the living that is the bigger threat. The dead physically prey on the living in the same way that the living preys on each other. Well, perhaps not quite the same – in the case of the dead, when I say prey, I mean eat. The only way to re-kill the dead is to destroy the brain (that's Romero's rule…many have copied it).

Dawn of the Dead amped up the gore and the action, pitting four survivors in Monroeville Mall, just outside of Pittsburgh. Day of the Dead was almost too loquacious as the world was almost completely overrun by the dead. Scientist and Military try to domesticate the dead, and they begin to show signs of understanding. By the time of Land of the Dead, the humans have retreated into cities and send out raiding parties for supplies. They have tried to forget about the problem by isolation. Unfortunately, some zombies are beginning to show signs of intelligence.

As each film progressed, each one topped the previous with makeup and gore. But, they still retain that feel that Romero is an independent and works outside of the Hollywood Machine. The latter film was extremely polished.

Within two years of Land, Romero released the latest film, Diary of the Dead. This film is of the "found footage" variety: think Blair Witch or Cloverfield. However, the film has been edited together by one of the protagonist of the film and presented as a finished product of amateur film. Romero asks the question: what if this phenomenon of the dead returning happened today in our world? With so many people carrying around video recording devices and able to upload to YouTube, could it be kept a secret? Until the final moments, the film takes itself fairly seriously and portrays the dead in a much more hyper-realistic fashion than the other films. The makeup is subtle and, thankfully, we are not subjected to the typical disembowelments that are always shown since Dawn. The makeup can be subtle because the dead are not yet decayed (in Land they are referred to as Stenches).

Diary of the Dead is possibly my favorite in the series since the original film.

Ironman

2008-05-02T17:39:00.001-07:00

The summer 2008 movie season officially started today with the release of Ironman. I had been planning to see it on opening day, and I took an extended lunch along with one of my employees to see if the coolness of the trailers lived up to the film.

It did.

In fact, Robert Downey's Tony Stark is possibly one of the best "alter egos" of any of the super hero flicks out since Toby McGuire spun out as Peter Parker a few years back. But I wasn't sure if Robert would sell Tony. Sure, he was perfect as the self-absorbed Tony, but I knew at some point he has to become a hero, and I honestly did not think I was going to buy it. Not quite as big of a gamble as Michael Keaton's Batman, but that was in the back of my mind.

I remember reading Ironman, but I do not believe that I had ever caught his origin story. I liked this story. And, with the state of the world, it was very timely. I was never really sure about the circle on his chest and what it was for (beyond giving him power for the suit). And the suits! Wow, we get to go through three versions of the Ironman suit until we get to the one we are most familiar with.

I really liked Jeff Bridge's character because it took me a while to pin him down. With no hair and a beard, he looked like no other character of his I had seen before. At some points the story felt a little long, but the pace picked up once Ironman came on the scene.

Ironman is great summer movie material. Best enjoyed with Popcorn, a ice cold beverage and a box of Goobers.

And Stan "The Man" Lee. I really appreciate that he has a cameo in each of the Marvel flicks. What a way to honor a guy who has given us so much through the years.

Excelsior!

Leatherheads

2008-04-29T19:29:00.001-07:00

Tuesday night has somehow become date night round here. The choice of date was to use a free, one day membership to the YMCA, or, go see a movie. Why not combine that movie with dinner and yourself the full package. I hadn't been to the Commodore Theater since Phantom of the Opera, and Cindy was keen to go back again. The Commodore Theater is a restored 1945 Art Deco style motion picture theater says the web site. It also claims fine dining, but I do not think that I have ever had a meal there that could be categorized as "fine." Fried? Yes. Greasy? No Argument. But Fine? Not so much.

The only potential downside was that Leatherheads, the George Clooney, Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski, was playing. I saw warning flags when I visited the Leatherheads web site to check the trailer and the site has to explain that John Krasinski is from the hit comedy series "The Office." That's got to hurt, you are the star of a hit show, and no one knows your name. Oh yeah, the cute one from "The Office" who loves Pam.

Just a quick comment on the Commodore: it is a great theater, but sometimes the thought of going to the Commodore is more attractive than actually going to the Commodore. It sports THX Certification, and unfortunately, this film did not show off the quality sound system. In fact, the sound checks that are supposed to wow you were a tad too loud. The idea of combining dinner and a movie seems appealing, but I don't think I have ever had anything there that I like. I had the fish and chips and it was lousy. The movie started at 7:00, and I was told to have all my orders in by 7:15. We were late getting there and got seated about 6:50. It really made me feel rushed. By 7:20 they were distributing checks to get payments processed. Our meal, with gratuity added was $26.35 for fish and chips, a fish sandwich and pitcher of Pepsi. Regardless of party size, a gratuity is automatically added. This really irks me. It is the biggest "screw you" that a restaurant can say to the customer. It tells the customer that we can give you crappy service, lousy food and overcharge you at the same time and STILL collect a gratuity. The gratuity should be a reflection of the service rendered, and in the case tonight, the service was not very spectacular.

The projection was a little weird, too. The top of the picture was a little shorter in width than the bottom, resulting in a keystone shape. A noticeable amount of debris seemed to make its way to different parts of the picture. I was trying to determine if they needed to clean their equipment, or if the film was just had that much damage to it.

So, how was Leatherheads? Glad you asked. I wouldn't watch it again. The film was intentionally hammy and very indulgent of Clooney and Zellweger, but I think they were going for that golden era of movie dialogue. It tended to sound a little too snappy and too intentional. It felt forced. By the time the final football scene came around, I was ready for it to be over.

Was there anything good? Yes! Randy Newman's score was very fun. I really like Randy's movie scores ever since Monster's Inc. There is a scene near the end when Sully is telling Boo good bye, and then he closes the closet door. Boo opens the door yelling "Kitty," expecting to see Sully, but there is only an empty closet. The music that Randy wrote to accompany that good bye scene was so tender. He used the same motif in this movie, and Cindy and I picked it out almost simultaneously. Then, Randy made a brief appearance as the piano player in a speak easy.

Leatherheads ***

Commodore Experience *

Thought of Commodore Experience *****

I Heard A Who, Too

2008-03-19T07:52:00.000-07:00

Horton Hears a Who

I saw this film with my seven-year-old daughter last night at the old Des Moines Theater. We received a tour of the projection booth prior to the start of the film, which managed to clear up a few things about film projection for my daughter, who was raised in the celluloid-less era of video and DVD.

I wouldn’t say that this film is a perfect adaptation of the Dr. Seuss children’s classic, but it does the job and then some.

While Jim Carrey and Steve Carell amount to good casting, and perform well (Carrey as the speck-protecting elephant Horton while Carell plays the mayor of Whoville), the inspired casting is Carol Burnett as the vindictive Kangaroo and CBS Sunday Morning’s Charles Osgood as the narrator.

Horton is one of those films that will delight the little ones while at the same time providing some enjoyment for the grown-ups as well.

***½ out of 5

The Counterfeiters

2008-03-17T08:15:00.000-07:00

Die Falscher (The Counterfeiters), the recent Oscar winner for best foreign film, asks many questions in its hour and forty minute running time, and inspires discussion upon viewing.

In what Steve Ritter calls "a good movie," a group of artistic Jews led by Sally Sorowitsch are removed from their respective concentration camps and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp to work in a shop dedicated to the forgery of foreign currency. As the war winds down and Germany lacks funds, they are on a race to copy the American dollar so that Germany can help finance its war effort against the Allies.

While others in the camp die around them, the counterfeiters are given regular meals, soft beds, music and treated relatively well. Is their participation in aiding Germany in the war justifiable in order to save themselves from torture and death by gunshot or gassing? One of the counterfeiters doesn't think so, and puts his colleagues at risk when he elects to sabotage the counterfeiting efforts, against the wishes of the others.

The Counterfeiters is not about the horrors of a concentration camp; such horrors are there, but on the periphery of this story. The Counterfeiters is a morality tale that pits its characters' faith and heritage against that of their state, and asks the question, can one justify evil in order to save oneself? To save another? Or to save a few while allowing the many to die?

After viewing this film we found ourselves asking each other, who was wrong and who was right? And why?

***1/2 out of 5

The Bank Job

2008-03-09T01:32:00.001-08:00

Director Roger Donaldson's The Bank Job is one of the best caper films to come along in a long time. A cunning woman recruits a group of two-bit hustlers to tunnel into a London bank vault, where they hope to score big by emptying the safe deposit boxes.

It seems a simple set-up, but The Bank Job is a complex story with a twisting, interconnected plot in which numerous dirty little secrets are tucked away in this same vault and suddenly the robbers have not only the police after them, but the government suits, white collar officials, a crafty madame, crooked cops, a Malcolm X wanna-be and a seedy crime boss.

As the plot weaves itself into a tight, well-plotted mesh, the audience finds itself pulling for the bank robbers all the way. Even more astonishing is that the film is based on an actual caper, the details of which were sealed by the British government because of the officials involved with the vaults numerous dirty little secrets.

***1/2 out of 5.

This Year's Oscar Picks & Winners

2008-02-24T13:22:00.000-08:00

We find it interesting this year that we agreed on so many of the nominations, considering we diverged on so many of our picks last year. That said, we appear to be back in old form with many of the same opinions on the 2007 crop of films (The Mist being the one big exception). And our picks weren't way off, either.

Here, them, our picks and the results for the 80th Academy Awards:

BEST ACTOR
Chuck & James: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood (winner)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Chuck & James: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (winner)

BEST ACTRESS
Chuck: & James: Ellen Page, Juno

Winner: Marion Cotillard, Le Vie en Rose

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Chuck & James: Tilda Swenton, Michael Clayton (winner)

BEST SCORE
Chuck: Atonement (winner)
James: 3:10 to Yuma

BEST EDITING
Chuck & James: Roderick Jaynes, No Country for Old Men
Note: Roderick Jaynes is a pseudonym for Joel and Ethan Coen

Winner: The Bourne Ultimatum

BEST ART DIRECTION
Chuck & James: Sweeny Todd (winner)

BEST COSTUMES
Chuck & James: Sweeny Todd

Winner: Elizabeth: The Golden Age

BEST MAKEUP
Chuck & James: Pirates of the Caribbean

Winner: Le Vie en Rose

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Chuck: There Will Be Blood (winner)
James: No Country for Old Men

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Chuck: Atonement
James: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Winner: No Country for Old Men

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Chuck: Michael Clayton
James: Juno (winner)

BEST DIRECTOR
Chuck: Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
James: Joel & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men (winner)

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Chuck: Surf’s Up
James: Ratatouille (winner)

BEST PICTURE
Chuck: Michael Clayton
James: No Country for Old Men

Review: Cloverfield

2008-01-19T10:34:00.001-08:00

If you have seen the trailers for this film, which have been around since Transformers, then you really have the complete gist of the film: Blair Witch meets Godzilla.
Cloverfield documents the story of a gargantuan monster that attacks New York City and is told from first person pov of a single video camera. The camera operator, and his friends, are trying to rescue a girl, which means they have to go deeper into the city, right to the monster.

So, without giving too much more away, the question is, does it work? I believe it did. Ultimately, it wasn't as satisfying as I was hoping, and the very nature of this style of story telling tends to feel "forced." But, I think it works because had this been a simple giant monster movie, who would go see it? Remember Godzilla a few years back? Ultimately, it did not work because the story was all about the monster. With Cloverfield the monster serves to direct where the characters go, and to make that journey difficult. The monster is more like the shark in Jaws because we hardly really see him until the end, but you see all of the destruction.

Cloverfield was fun, but I think that I would be more critical of it with a subsequent viewing.

Fourth Row Center Likes Sweeney Todd

2007-12-31T01:18:00.000-08:00

I saw Sweeney Todd on Broadway in 2005 and was surprised to learn earlier this year that Tim Burton was bringing the Stephen Sondheim musical to the screen with Johnny Depp.

This is one review that I fully concur with Chuck on.

Like Chuck, I was surprised that Depp can sing but he more than does justice to Sondheim's beautiful songs. Sweeney Todd is indeed quite grisly, yet imaginatively staged with with terrific performances from the entire cast. Alan Rickman, perhaps my favorite villainous actor (Hans Gruber in Die Hard and the sheriff in Robin Hood) turns in a satisfying performance as the hated Judge Turpin.

Not one for the family, nor for the faint of heart. But despite the grim subject matter and gruesome murders, Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite films of 2007.

***** out of 5

Sweeney Todd

2007-12-26T09:30:00.001-08:00

Please know two things prior to seeing Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Alan Rickman. First, this is a cinematic adaptation of the 1979 musical of the same name, so, there is very little dialogue that is not sung. Second, there is a lot of squirting blood. And, by a lot, I mean "a lot."

With that said, it is a fabulous adaptation. I did not think that Burton and Depp would pull it off. And Burton has embedded his own visual style into the story and it works.

The movie opens with Todd's return to London after being imprisoned in Australia by the local Judge Turpin. Turpin, it is told, desired to have Todd's wife, Lucy. With Todd out of the picture, Turpin could seduce Lucy. However, even that goes wrong, and Lucy commits suicide by taking arsenic. Todd discovers that Turpin has taken his daughter, Johanna, as his ward. But, Turpin's true motives are less than noble. Todd determines to take revenge by slitting the judge's throat with a straight razor.

What makes Todd interesting is the juxtaposition of the beautiful music and songs with the horror of what is occurring on screen. In the same manner, Burton uses a grey palette and the actors wear heavy makeup with deep circles under the eyes. There is very little color, so when Sacha Baron Cohen's character appears, all in royal blue, the contrast is striking. Indeed, there is a song where the characters are taken out of London and placed by the sea. Their clothes change appropriately, but the deadness of their makeup never does.

The movie does not wrap up Johanna's story, but I am not sure if anyone else noticed that. It bugged me a little bit because I had seen this musical performed by a talented group at Princess Anne High School in Virginia Beach this year. The amount of blood was startling. But what do you expect from Burton? I remember watching "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and thinking, how many ways can a man be decapitated?

I was already of fan of the musical and I think that it worked extremely well on the big screen. The biggest surprise for me was that Johnny Depp could sing!

The Mist

2007-12-08T04:25:00.000-08:00

Frankly, I have not seen a creepier film in a long time.

The Mist is the story of a group of people who are entrapped in a grocery store when an unexplained mist settles on the town. And, there are creatures in the mist. What I noticed was the absence of music: there is very little to be found. As the characters begin to understand their predicament, they form off into two groups. One group is led an over the top religious zealot. At first, no one listens to her, but she gradually gathers a following. The second group, the “hero” group, attempts to escape the store and hopefully the mist.

The ending was unexpected.

This makes three movies from Frank Darabont that I have enjoyed. And, recommend (but not for the squeamish).

edit: James and I disagree with this film. Which is ok. I think that in general, horror is really hard to do without falling down into what you usually get in a horror film. I would give the film *** out of five stars. But, check out my comment on James' post.

The Mist - The Opposing Viewpoint

2007-12-08T04:24:00.000-08:00

One cannot help but make comparisons with the two films Darabont adapted from Stephen King’s work, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Both are great films, and neither wears the horror badge one usually associates with King.

The Mist is a B-movie creature feature that brings to mind some of the best of the genre from the mid-20th century. As a character-driven monster flick, the film works on a B-movie level. Yes, there are plenty of thrills and chills, but The Mist tries hard to be more than it is, and one expects such from a writer/director like Darabont. The film suffers from something of a forced comment on the human condition, on society and religion, a difficult feat to accomplish, what with all the wonderful camp and the nail-biting, scream-inducing chills.

To Darabont’s credit, he loses no time revving things up right off the bat, and he sustains the suspense to the last, horrific moment. But it’s that moment, for me, that brings this flawed but creepily entertaining bug-fest crashing down. There are many things I can forgive a filmmaker for. The ending of this film is not one of them.

THE MIST (2007) Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden; from a novella by Stephen King; written and directed by Frank Darabont.

CHUCK: *** out of 5.

JAMES: ** out of 5.

Beowulf

2007-11-22T14:17:00.000-08:00

This year's thanksgiving movie was Beowulf. Or, as I care to think of it: sweet revenge for having to sit through Sense and Sensibility two years ago. I saw the movie with my still blushing bride at the Colonial Mall Cinema in Myrtle Beach. This theater had removed all but two of their 35mm projectors and had them replaced with DLP projectors. Beowulf was also shown in 3D, making this the first full length, non kiddie, 3D film that I have seen. The film is also animated in the style of Polar Express and Monster House. Robert Zemekis directs and bring long time collaborator Alan Silvestri along to compsose the film's soundtrack.

Other than the story of ridding King Hrothgar of Grendel the troll, I had no idea of the story. To be honest, it took a long time for me to get into the story.

The movie almost took a turn for some unintentional humor as Beowulf slays Grendal without the help of any clothing. It reminded me of the closing scene in Austin Powers where he uses strategically placed fruit to cover his privates.

Over all, this is a film you would see more for the technoloy than the story. Visually, it was impressive. The 3D effects were tasteful, and only used a few gimmicks to show off the techniques. Our presentation was marred by bleed through from the adjoining auditorium.

American Gangster

2007-11-19T03:28:00.001-08:00

American Gangster is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Denzel Washington as Frank Lucas and Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts.

The film is a seventies period piece that tells the story of the rise and fall of Frank Lucas, the American Gangster. Richie Roberts is a New Jersey detective who is placed in charge of a special task force that is trying to discover the source of high quality heroine known as Blue Magic. Lucas, a driver for the Harlem Kingpin, takes over when his boss dies. He brings family members up from North Carolina to distribute the heroine, which he has obtained from a source in Vietnam. Using military transports, he is able to baffle the police, and remain an anonymous figure in the crime world. Robert's task force is unaware of Lucas, and is focusing on the usual suspects, until Lucas makes a simple mistake: he draws attention to himself.

Excellent film and highly recommended to catch while it still plays on the big screen.

Joel and Ethan Coen Return to Form

2007-11-18T02:46:00.000-08:00

No Country for Old Men is a riveting and powerful thriller that recalls two the Coens’ best, Fargo and Blood Simple. It is as compelling and suspenseful a thriller as I have seen in a long time. It is near perfect as a Coen film can be, as any film can be, regardless of what viewers think about film's unexpected ending.

Josh Brolin is Llewellyn Moss, a hunter who stumbles upon the bloody remains of a drug transaction gone bad, and makes off with a case full of money. He doesn't get far before Anton, a ruthless killer played to chilling effect by Javier Bardem, is hot on his trail. Moss packs his wife off to her mother’s, absconds with the cash, and that’s when things get interesting. And go terribly wrong for just about everyone in this film.

The local sheriff, played by Tommy Lee Jones, is pressed with finding both Moss and Anton, following the bloody trail of murder, death and destruction left in Anton’s wake. Jones stands out in this film, delivering a strong, even-handed performance as Sheriff Bell, his quiet speech peppered with terse, sometimes bleakly funny Coenesque dialogue. The stark west Texas landscapes and minimalist dialogue create a subdued canvas onto which the filmmakers weave a violent tale rife with nail-biting tension and an ending Mike and I discussed for hours afterward.

Many critics are calling No Country for Old Men the Coens’ best film. It very well may be. It’s certainly one of the best films I’ve seen this year.

Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson, Kelly MacDonald, Stephen Root, Tess Harper; written, produced, edited and directed by the Coen Brothers. ***** out of 5.

On The Trash Heap of My Memory

2007-11-03T14:06:00.000-07:00

Funny that James should post about the Russell House Theater. While in college, I worked at the Bush River Mall Cinema, a mall that died and has been replaced with a Walmart. I started working there shortly after my graduation in May of 1986 until the time that I quit for the second time (circa 1989).

Besides kicking James out once for sneaking into a Theater (under the influence and guise of Stanley), the best part of working there was changing the marquees on thursday night. I nearly lost a finger on that sign, and I still bear the scar. I changed the sign while Hurricane Hugo was bearing down on South Carolina. And this sign was the inspiration for my first Computer program, ultimately leading to my current career.

And, btw, I more than made it up to James who got his free share of movies during this stint, and my next one at Blockbuster Video.

On the Trash Heap of My Memory

2007-11-03T09:54:00.001-07:00

I saw many great flicks at the University of South Carolina's Russell House Theater back in the 1980s.

Though it was my number three venue behind the Nickelodeon and the long-defunct Bijou, there were memorable screenings there, including the work print of Blade Runner and my favorite film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

The marquee for the Russell House Theater was discovered in a pile of junk at the government surplus store on Boston Avenue in West Columbia.

Photo by Tim Hill.

Blade Runner: Another Cut

2007-10-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

Blade Runner: The Final Cut, with Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy. (1982)

How many versions of Blade Runner are there? Anywhere between five and seven, depending on how you’re counting and who you’re reading.

It was released theatrically in 1982, and afterward rumor had it that the studio had taken final cut away from director Ridley Scott and made changes. By the late 1980s there was what was then called a “director’s cut” of the film floating around, now known as the “workprint version,” which I managed to see screened back in college. It was different from the theatrical version. It contained no titles, lacked the Harrison Ford voice over, and it there was no Vangelis soundtrack. Instead, this cut of the film had a mish-mash of sampled music which was presumably added by the director to set the mood and tone of his version of the film. I seem to recall numerous differences in how many of the scenes were cut, but it’s been 20 years.

Rumor also held that there was a version of the film which contained the fabled unicorn dream sequence, suggesting that Deckard was a replicant.

Fast-forward to the 90s, when the officially labeled “Director’s Cut” was released. It was similar to the workprint cut I had seen years before, but with the addition of the Vangelis score and the unicorn. But I suppose this cut was not definitive enough.

In theaters now is an incarnation called the “The Final Cut,” which arrives on DVD in December. I saw this at Seattle’s Cinerama and was stunned by the crispness of the print, the boldness of the sound, and the impressed with the overall presentation of the film on the giant Cinerama screen.

However, “The Final Cut” adds very little to “The Director’s Cut,” though footage that had been previously trimmed from numerous scenes has been restored here. A few of the effects shots have been tweaked, though not to the extent that Lucas revisited his effects in Star Wars. One of the most important changes, though small, is that the unicorn dream sequence has been recut a little differently, presumably to give it more weight than it had in “The Director’s Cut.”

Perhaps the biggest change is the snake-wielding replicant Zhora’s “retirement,” which was actually reshot for this version of the film, with Joanna Cassidy reprising her role. But the change is not so big that this version of the DVD is anything to rush out and buy.

Do, however, see it on the big screen, if you're a fan.

Question: whose eye is seen in close up at the very beginning of the film?

Rendition Compelling Despite Shortcomings

2007-10-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

Rendition (2007) Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard, J.K. Simmons; directed by Gavin Hood.

Witherspoon’s Egyptian-born husband finds himself a suspect in a terrorist bombing and CIA-head Streep orders him nabbed off a commercial airline flight and shipped off to North Africa for some American-style torture.

Gyllenhaal is a first-time CIA interrogation observer who comes to realize that the prisoner is innocent of any wrongdoing and acts to make amends. Witherspoon is passable as the grieving angry wife, but she has little to do. Streep dials in a terrific performance, as expected. But the real support comes from Peter Sarsgaard as a senator’s aid who tries to intervene, and Alan Arkin as the politician Sarsgaard works for.

The movie stretches a bit in the middle and manages to circle itself once too often (if you see it you'll know what I mean), and I could tick off another half-dozen faults in 12 words or less. Like Gone Baby Gone and Michael Clayton, Rendition is a movie about making choices and doing the right thing, tough the resolution of this movie appears earlier and far more obvious to the audience than in the other two. But I managed to like this film despite its shortcomings, probably because I like Streep, Gyllenhaal, Sarsgaard and Arkin so much.

**** out of 5

Ben Affleck Should Stick to Directing

2007-10-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

Gone Baby Gone (2007) Starring Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris; co-written and directed by Ben Affleck.

Ben’s brother proves to be the real actor in the family, and manages a performance with some depth which holds its own against performances by Morgan Freeman as a revered Boston police legend and terrific Ed Harris as a tough Boston cop with questionable ethics.

Affleck is private missing persons investigator Patrick Kenzie, affable but tough, with plenty of street contacts from whom he gathers his information. He is hired by a grieving family to assist the police in finding a missing, presumed kidnapped, child, and he and his girlfriend-slash-associate take the case, finding themselves up against more than they bargained for.

The film moves forward through the first and for most of the second act with smooth predictability -- the likely suspect is introduced, a tough streetwise cop gets angry, time is running out on the missing little girl. Can she still be alive?

This thriller surprised me in that it ultimately morphs into a rather compelling tale of moral ambiguity, wherein Patrick's choice to make the right decision becomes a catch-22. Lines of right and wrong become blurred.

The film is not without its faults, but the elder Affleck manages to find a voice as director. And as director and co-screenwriter he makes some bold, if not always sound, choices: I personally found the brief image of an abused and murdered child rather gratuitous. But what Affleck gives his audience in the end is a film – and a character’s decision – which one will ponder for days to come.

***out of 5

The Wilhelm Scream

2007-10-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

Points deducted for a lazy posting last evening.

Several years ago, the Ain't It Cool News web site pointed out a sound effect that was used over in over in movies. It was called the Wilhelm Scream (or just the Wilhelm), so named after the character who first had the scream applied to him. Once you see the video below, you will pick it up everytime you hear it. ABC News has a feature article on the Wilhelm.

Evan Almighty

2007-10-13T05:18:00.001-07:00

The Star Trek 5 Effect (ST5E, for those of you in the know) is where watching parts of a movie is better than the whole film put together. So named because I hated Star Trek V when it came out, but came to like certain set pieces of the film. I have, since starting to rent movies from one of many redbox kiosks, now created what I call the Redbox Effect (RBE, again, for those of you in the know). This is when a bad movie, is not so bad, because you only paid a buck for it, and it is not due back until nine tomorrow night.

Evan Almighty was influenced by the RBE, and wasn't as bad as I had thought it was going to be.

The film stars Steve Carell as a newly elected congressman from Buffalo, NY. He quickly is courted to be a junior sponsor on a bill by congressman Long, played by John Goodman. We come to find out that perhaps Evan's election was somewhat rigged by Long, but that would give too much of the plot away. Besides, we don't want to see Evan the Congressman, no we want to see Steve Carell build an ark.

Evan begins waking up at 6:14 every morning, according to his GENeral Electric bedside clock. And the God, in the form of Morgan Freeman starts showing up and telling Evan to build him an ark. Evan needs convincing, and God starts showing up in all sorts of places. Animals start following Evan around (in pairs of course), and a follicle transformation begins to mold Evan's appearance to the role. After being humiliated in Congress, Evan eventually starts work on the ark.

We watched Evan Almighty for pizza movie night. The kids had been wanting to see it, and we watched it sans clearplay (it has been a while since I have used that player). There were a few things that went over their head, but overall, it was not that bad. I like watching Carell, but it is getting more difficult to separate him from his Office character (unlike Little Miss Sunshine). I sorta like the idea of God being more like the Easy Reader than George Burns. My favorite line is when God appears in the back seat of Evan's car. Evan screams in fear, and God says "Let it out son, it's the beginning of Wisdom."

Perhaps better than the movie, are the technical extras on the DVD. There are two "Making Of" films that describe the make up of Noah, and the building of the ark. Don't miss those. The outtakes are not that funny, and there was a deleted scenes section, but I skipped it.

Evan Almighty was entertaining for what it was, so keep your expectations low and rent it for a dollar and you might get a few chuckles.

Rest in Peace, Miss Moneypenney

2007-09-30T09:57:00.000-07:00

Lois Maxwell, 1927-2007. Her credits include: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds are Forever, Live and Let Die, The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View to a Kill.

Death Sentence

2007-09-03T01:53:00.000-07:00

Halfway into Death Sentence, grieving father Nick Hume, played by Kevin Bacon, leads a group of gang bangers on a rather uninspired foot chase though city streets, alleyways and a parking garage. The scene was shot in downtown Columbia, South Carolina, the location where I once shot a student film, and this was the sole reason I saw this sometimes thrilling but mostly uneven mess.

Death Sentence is a riff on the Charles Bronson thriller Death Wish, but this time it’s Kevin Bacon seeking revenge against an urban drug gang for the murder of his favorite son. There are some nice moments here, and theme of what an everyman is prepared to do to avenge the brutal murder of someone he loves is worth exploring on film. But it is never completely clear how Bacon transforms himself from a white collar executive into a gun-toting vigilante. We understand his motivation is simple revenge, but this is thin and leaves more questions than it answers.

There is also the problem of the police detective, Wallis, played by Aisha Tyler. There have been few cops in movies as incompetent as Detective Wallis. Not only is her delivery staid, but her sloppiness as a police detective is inexplicable, and I can only reason that she is on celluloid because this type of story needs a cop waiting in the wings.

John Goodman as a cut-rate crime lord is the film’s bright spot, yet somehow his participation in this film seems almost an afterthought. Neither Goodman nor Bacon can save it.

On the upside, even though I knew where this film was going, I was never sure how the film would get there. I did not anticipate this Death Wish riff to change gears in the third act and become an homage of sorts to Taxi Driver. I didn’t understand it, wasn’t ready for it, didn’t really buy it, but it was interesting, and kept me in my seat through the final bloodbath.

Death Sentence is a very violent film, and director James Wan (Saw) takes us places a family man would rather not go. His vision of downtown Columbia is one place I’d rather not be.

Dispatches from Another War

2007-08-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!

So said President Merkin Muffley to General Buck Turgidson and the Russian ambassador as they scuffled on the floor of the Pentagon War Room in Stanley Kubrick's blackly comic Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

I never tire of seeing this twisted apocalyptic film, this cautionary tale about the absurdity of war, and I jumped at the chance to see it again on the big screen at Seattle Center as part of a Kubrick retrospective.

This is one movie that leaves me not only laughing out loud in places, but giggling like a school girl in others. Peter Sellers' triple performance as Group Captain Mandrake, President Muffley (above, with the Russian ambassador), and the mysterious Dr. Strangelove (top) is among his best work on screen, but it's George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson who walks away with the big laughs. Scott (famous for his portrayal as Patton) is not widely known as a comic actor, but in Strangelove he's as funny (and some might argue, funnier) than Sellers.

Slim Pickens rounds out the cast as Major Kong, the bomber pilot on his way to drop nuclear weapons onto Russian targets, despite the best efforts of the Americans to call him back and the Russians to shoot him down.

"Well, boys," he tells his crew, "we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader's mule, the radio is gone and we're leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we'd need sleigh bells on this thing... but we got one little budge on them Rooskies. At this height why they might harpoon us but they dang sure ain't gonna spot us on no radar screen!"

Young Frankenstein

2007-08-11T21:24:00.001-07:00

Following on the heels of his successful Broadway hit "The Producers," Mel Brooks has brought his 1974 comedy "Young Frankenstein" to the stage.

"Young Frankenstein" opens on Broadway in November, but we had the opportunity to see the show previewed in Seattle this week.

Brooks, who picked up three Tony awards for his stage version of "The Producers," was in town for the world premiere of this latest musical extravaganza. (He is a small man, I was pleased to discover).

Brooks, who wrote the songs and co-wrote the book for this show, stays close to the screenplay he and Gene Wilder crafted for the '74 film. The sets and staging are spectacular, and the show brings enough cinematic flair to the stage to make it visually arresting while at the same time "Young Frankenstein" is still very much a stage musical." Together Again for the First Time," "He Vas My Boyfriend," "Transylvania Mania," and the crowd-pleasing "Puttin' On the Ritz" are favorites among the cleverly conceived and effectively choreographed songs which Brooks has added to the familiar Frankenstein tale.

It's tough to fill roles already identified by other actors, but Roger Bart, Meagan Mullally and Andrea Martin head a solid and very funny cast as Frederick Frankenstein, his finance Elizabeth and Frau Blucher.

"Young Frankenstein" is entertaining, it's bright, it's funny. If you are in Seattle or New York, Mel Brooks needs you to see it.

A Response to the Below Review of Ratatouille

2007-08-02T02:10:00.000-07:00

Ah... a Siskel and Ebert moment.

After reading my partner Chuck's brief review of Ratatouille I felt I must respond. It's a shame that the two of us were unable to view the movie together (the miles make it impossible); it would have resulted, no doubt, in an interesting discussion.

My rebuttal begins by saying that Pixar is right on track with this bold and unique idea. Not one to repeat itself, the studio resists the temptation to beat a dead horse (Shrek 3, anything with penguins) and is willing to take a chance on offering a vision that is fresh and unique.

Though not a perfect film, Ratatouille is warm and funny, and proffers an genuinely felt interspecies relationship between the rat Remmy and the boy Lunguini. The animation is rich and lushly realized, and the voice characterizations are vivid and compelling.

Granted, the whole "rats in the kitchen" element is not for everyone, and perhaps Pixar renders them too realistic toward the end for all tastes.

Chuck did not think the movie ever "kicked in," and maybe the resolution to the conflicts which were presented in the film were a little obvious. But to me, the bottom line here is friendship. At first, Remmy and Linguine merely needed one another, but in the end it was their affection for one another that won the day.

His kids loved it; so did mine. And that's another thing I'll give Pixar: Ratatouille is a great family film with little or no objectionable content. Which is more than I can say for many "family" movies these days.

Sunshine

2007-08-02T01:46:00.000-07:00

I have not seen many of the big summer movies this year, probably due to the number of films I saw at the Seattle Film Festival. Most of what I have seen have been small or indie movies. (I'm not going to admit I actually saw Shrek 3.)

Which brings me to Sunshine, from director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later). It looks like a big budget summer movie (the special effects are top-notch) but feels like a much smaller, indie film.

What's it about? Think Alien crossed with Deep Impact with The Core thrown in for good measure. A team of astronauts must seed the sun with a huge bomb in order to ... well, save the sun. It's going out. (Remember the "Twilight Zone" episode?)

The ensemble cast led by Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, Red Eye) is Earth's second try, and they run into the foreseeable challenges after discovering the remains of the previous, failed mission on the dark side of Mercury. Yep, people will start to die, one by one. But will the mission succeed?

The movie looks great, and the dramatic arc of the story is solid. Cast is good, direction is good, yet I remain strangely unmoved and neutral about the whole thing. I never connected emotionally, but that's not always a prerequisite to enjoying a film. A day later, I still don't know how I feel about it, though I have to say it's not a bad film.

Do I recommend it? Yes, ultimately I have to say if you are into this sort of thing, you may get something out of it. But if your speed is more along the lines of Evening, then stay away.

Triple Feature

2007-07-11T16:59:00.000-07:00

Transformers: Ok, this movie had the potential to tank big time. However, seeing it on a DLP screen was awesome. But, for big time action, it delivered. The only thing that bothered me was how hot they made an 11th grade girl. Didn't really think about the age until later and then went "ewww." Personally, I think they could have toned the Maxim down and just made the love interest because I think this could be a deal breaker for some pre-teens who want to see this.

Ratatouille: It had to happen: this dish was missing something. It was not the same class of story that Pixar is known for. Near the end, I thought it was going to finally kick in, but, it never did. The kids loved it.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: Perhaps my third favorite in the series. This movie starts off dark and pretty much stays there. I started remembering more of the book as the film progressed, so there were not many surprises. Was it great? No, but, then again, none of the Potter films have been great. But, they have been great adaptations of the books.

Deja Vu

2007-06-25T03:26:00.000-07:00

Earlier I have confessed my penchant for "apocalyptic" style movies. These movies deal with the not too distant future, or even present day, that has somehow been changed (war, flood, famine, zombie) and the survivors must work out how they will adapt. Another favorite vehicle would have to be time travel.

"Deja Vu" stars Denzel Washington and was directed by Tony Scott. Washington plays Doug Carlin, an ATF official investigating the bombing of a New Orleans ferry that kills over five hundred passengers. He is recruited by the FBI to participate in an experimental use of technology that allows investigators to peer back in time four days. Carlin uses the technology to investigate the death of Claire Kuchever, who Carlin believes was murdered by the bomber of the ferry.

One of the time travel themes explored is that the past can not really be changed. It is as if "God has decided" and no matter how the characters try to affect the past, the will end up changing nothing. Kuchever will still die, the ferry will still explode. But, they can still use the technology to capture the person responsible.

Or, can they do more with the technology?

An interesting use of the technology is that it is limited. It can not be stopped, it can not be rewound and can only be focused within a distinct range - it is always four days in the past. However, they have created an extender pack that a person can use to extend the range. Wearing a special set of googles, a person sees into the past. This device comes in handy for a unique chase scene where Carlin is pursuing the bomber.

I really liked "Deja Vu" and enjoyed the a new twist in the time travel story. It gets to a point where you can begin to fit the pieces together, but that does not occur until late in the picture. I highly recommend this title, now out on DVD.

More Notes from SIFF

2007-06-17T01:33:00.000-07:00

The past few weeks has been a good one at the Seattle International Film Festival, with some fantastic indie flicks like Cashback, a mediocre Japanese ghost story called Retribution, a chilling and cautionary tale about a nuclear power plant accident called The Cloud, a Spanish language film from director Antonio Banderas, a world premiere documentary from the producers of March of the Penguins called Arctic Tale, and a few classics enjoyed on the big screen.

From Germany, The Cloud is an arresting film about a town impacted by a meltdown at a nearby nuclear power plant. Unlike The China Syndrome, which dealt with a near-meltdown from inside the plant, The Cloud focuses on a teenage girl separated from her family who is irradiated in the disaster. Finding she has lost everything, she is rescued from her dismal existence in a hospital ward by a distant aunt and a fellow student with whom she has fallen in love. The film is brutally honest in its treatment of the tragedy, and compelling in an intimate way. No Hollywood endings here.

As far as Hollywood endings go, however, about the most fun I have had at the movies during the festival was at an archival presentation of the classic Captain Blood. Starring Errol Flynn and Olivia De Havilland, Captain Blood is a rousing adventure tale set in England and the Caribbean during the late 17th century. Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, The Sea Hawk) directs one of the all-time greats of the genre.

Peter Blood (Flynn) is an English doctor imprisoned with rebels by King James. They escape the gallows and are taken to Port Royal, Jamaica, to work as slaves. After a bold escape, Blood and his fellow slaves steal a ship and become pirates of the Spanish Main, becoming rich and much-feared throughout the Caribbeans.

Following a rather well-done climactic battle with two French warships (even by today's standards), Blood and company save Port Royal and receive their pardons.

And, of course, Errol Flynn gets the girl.

Christopher Plummer Scores a Hit at the Festival

2007-06-09T01:25:00.001-07:00

One of the most compelling performances I have seen thus far at the Seattle Film Festival is given by the multi-talented Christopher Plummer in The Man in the Chair.

The movie concerns a high school student who befriends bitter, retired filmmaker Flash Madden (Christopher Plummer) and enlists his aid in making a student film for a scholarship competition. Flash and a long-retired screenwriter, played by M. Emmet Walsh, must exorcise their own demons before becoming fully involved with the student project, a movie about neglect in nursing homes.

A story about youth, age, purpose and usefulness, Chair boldly compares neglected residents of nursing home with dogs waiting to be euthanized at the animal control shelter. The message here is a bit heavy-handed at times, but within the dramatic framework of the story it manages to work.

Plummer carries the film with his complex, moving performance, one director Michael Schroeder already predicts will generate Oscar buzz when Chair goes into limited release later this year. Robert Wagner (pictured with Plummer) costars.

Paris Je t'aime

2007-06-05T23:27:00.000-07:00

One of the most anticipated films we viewed at the Seattle Film Festival has been Paris Je t'aime, a delightful stack of greeting cards from the city of lights. Eighteen directors contributed to the film, including the Coen brothers, screenwriter turned director Richard LaGravenese, Tom Tykwer (Run, Lola, Run) , Alexander Payne (About Schmidt, Election), Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham), Alfonso Cuarón (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkanban), Walter Salles (Dark Water) and horror master Wes Craven.

The vignette concept works here better than in similar efforts that I've seen, mainly due to the common theme that threads its way through the shorts. There is a unity and cohesiveness present among these stories about love which makes watching this film a true joy.

The cast, which includes Nick Nolte, Natalie Portman, Gerard Depardieu, Barbet Schroeder, Juliette Binoche, Miranda Richardson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, Elijah Wood, Ben Gazzara, Gena Rowlands and Steve Buscemi, takes audiences on an emotional journey through the heart of Paris in this movie about living and longing and losing and loving.

Bring a date.

The Perfect Summer

2007-06-04T03:38:00.000-07:00

I was trying to pull together five sumer films that, if originally released today, would help make one great summer.

1. Star Wars: Exploding onto America in a year when gasoline was high, disillusionment with the government was even higher and an our part in an unpopular war had just concluded. This was the film that redefined cinematic science fiction and gave America her very own mythology.

2. Aliens: James Cameron took the premise of one Alien wiping out a crew of unarmed miners and turned it into a hive of aliens wiping out two squads of heavily armed marines. Underneath this was a subtext of a mother daughter relationship with a final show down with the biggest mother of all.

3. Jaws: Memorable characters (Quint, Brody and Hooper) and memorable lines ("Smile you son of a BOOM") combined with a sinking boat and a twenty five foot great white shark equaled a movie that kept me out of the ocean for years.

4. Terminator 2: This might be the role that Arnold will be remembered for, and this sequel is definitely the most memorable chase film. The action simply does not let up as stunt sequence after stunt sequence is thrown at you (each one more insanely impossible than the last). And, how cool would it be to have your own, personal Terminator?

5. I really thought I had five films. Perhaps I should start using notes, or, maybe anyone reading this can fill in a fifth movie, or even a sixth or seventh. Go for it.

The Perfect Summer - the Fifth Movie

2007-06-04T03:37:00.000-07:00

I think what Charles meant to write down in his notes under "5" but forgot to do because he was not taking notes and was too preoccupied dreaming of a Star Wars re-release in order to do so, was Raiders of the Lost Ark.

5. Leave it to George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to reinvent the adventure genre. Raiders had it all -- an unlikely hero, a gutsy girlfriend, exotic locales, a grand quest, high adventure, sinister villains, close escapes, mystery and intrigue, Nazis, great fight sequences, fabulous set pieces and a sense of humor. Oh -- and did I mention it had Harrison Ford at the top of his game? And most importantly, it was something many of us had never seen before, or something a good many more had not seen in very long time. Raiders rounds out the top five perfect summer movies.