Rocky III

I had every intention of doing a post on Blade Runner next as part of the retrospective of the Summer of 1982. One of the bloggers that I follow reminded me on his page, what a great year the Summer of 82 was. His list of Top Ten Films from that summer would do any pop movie lover proud. I think both of us would agree that Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was the most influential film on the list. But her's what happened, I started surfing on my satellite channels and Rocky III was starting at that very moment. It was on the list and I have not watched it in at least a dozen years, maybe more, so I committed to the two hours and soaked up the early 1980s feel of this Sylvester Stallone Directed sequel.

Stallone wrote the original Rocky and the story of how it became a film that he starred in is legendary. He came back to this character repeatedly during the eighties and ran it dry by the time we get to Rocky V. The first three films in the series are the freshest and most soul satisfying. When Rocky Balboa came out a few years ago, I think he managed to redeem the character for one last hurrah and put the character to rest with some dignity. Rocky III is the commercially and artistically successful middle story. I was disappointed in Rocky IV which felt manufactured to me, and I barely remember the fifth one. My comments on Rocky II can be found here.

Eric's blog post on Rocky III, seemed dismissive to me. His main criticism being the acting in the film. He does however point out the great emotional punch that comes from the resolution of Mickey's storyline, and I think Burgess Meredith sold that pretty well. The charismatic Mr. T makes his first movie or TV appearance in this film and he is a character you love to hate. Clubber Lang was Mike Tyson before Tyson was Mike Tyson. In addition, Clubber lacked the charm of Mr. Tyson as a boxer. His voice was as scary as his looks were. The small amount of time that was spent on his backstory is told primarily through montages during the story. We see him growling in the background while Rocky defends his title against lesser contenders. When their first match is set, we can see the loner hunger that drives him to be the animal he is in the ring. This was solid movie storytelling, showing instead of telling. It built up an antagonist for Rocky to have to measure himself by.

The three act structure of the story is really apparent, and the best acting moment comes at the conclusion of act two. Adrian has had little to do up to this point and Rocky's self doubt is preventing him from committing to the rematch the way he needs to in order to succeed. She gets a very good scene in which she gets to confront those unexpressed doubts and put them up for the audience to confront as well. The dialogue is not perfect but the tone works and Talia Shire sells it enough to justify the next moment, the start of the third act. Stallone is no idiot, he knows exactly what emotional button to push then, and we get the more intense training sequences underscored by the triumphant horns of the original theme song from the first film. At that point what follows is inevitable but it was also very satisfying. We have been hooked for an hour and a quarter and now are ready to be reeled in in the last twenty minutes of the movie. Stallone's performance may be the weak link here, but I think it is due primarily to the bad haircut that Rocky sports for the whole film. Only during the last fight does he start to resemble the palooka we fell in love with in the original film.

Rocky III is not a great piece of art but it is a rousing piece of entertainment. It lacks much of the grit that both of it's predecessors had, but by switching in a new opponent and creating a different relationship with Apollo Creed, it manages to have some solid emotional heft to it that goes beyond the fight sequences. Of course the fight sequences are staged the way we always wish a heavyweight fight would be, with two aggressive opponents willing to trade vicious blows and keep on fighting.  This movie also features the second of two great music themes from the Rocky films. Both the original title score and the rock anthem "Eye of the Tiger" have been used by sports teams and competitions of all kinds for the last thirty years. The movie may feel a little dated in the directorial style of Stallone. He is very straight forward and direct, but the music cues are timeless and we get to enjoy our hero one more time .

Piranha 3DD

We had to drive down to Hollywood to see this on a big screen in 3DD. That means a seventy five mile round trip, $12 for parking and a premium price for the tickets. Totally worth it. I have an extreme weakness for bad movies with fun ideas, even if they are not well made. My criteria is simple here: One, does the premise turn me on, two, are there some good bits of humor, and three, do the film makers know they are making a joke. If you can meet those requirements, you are most of the way to a successful couple of hours at the movies for me on a Saturday afternoon.

So we start with the premise, Piranha in a waterpark. Oh yea, I forgot, an Adult themed water park. What is there not to like about this? Now, if the film makers had had the effects budget of the first Piranha from a couple of years ago, this would totally have rocked the gore house. Unfortunately, there must have been a very tight budget on this because there are not as many inventive deaths as the setting demands. In the first movie, a para-sailing girl gets eaten from the waist down when her boat slowed down enough to let her dip in the water. There was nothing half as inventive in this movie. There should have been piranha shooting out of water slides and tunnels, or tossed in the air by waves in the wave pool. Heck, I would think anyone could imagine the scene with kids coming out of the wading pool on the stumps of their legs after having their feet bitten off. As I said, the budget was way too low for this film. Most of the gruesome images are static and many of the corpses looked like they might have been recycled. So while the gore factor was a let down, there were still a couple of very effective deaths that got a rise out of the audience. With sequels you go one of two ways, bigger to get more butts in the seats or cheaper to make the profit margins per butt a bit higher. They chose to go cheaper because the original was not as financially successful as they might have wanted.

Next, are there some good laughs? While the idea of a water park with an Adult section might seem far fetched to some, I think it is the next big attraction at some casino in Vegas. They should definitely steal the idea from this movie to get strippers for lifeguards. Excuse me, water certified strippers, my mistake. There was not as much fun from this as there should have been, the stupid story keeps getting in the way of the random nudity and the chance for crude jokes. There is however at least one line of dialogue that will live in the annals of my movie history. I can't repeat it here, because it would ruin a gag in the movie and I hate when that happens. Let me just say it is a sentence I will never forget. There are also several duds spread out through the film, for instance, the homely fat guy having sex with the water exhaust port was just contrived, lame and unfunny. He does get a good visual joke later but it is not the one you might expect.

Third, does the movie know that it is not supposed to take itself seriously? This movie absolutely knows that it is crap and it takes advantage of that in several places. In the opening, there is a cameo appearance by an actor that is simply a joke whenever his name comes up now a days. We get a return by Ving Rhames in the part of the Sheriff from the first movie, missing his legs and afraid of the water. But when the mayhem starts and he straps on his shotgun loaded titanium prosthetic legs, you know that no one is really trying to make art here. They are clowning for the camera. Featured star David Hasselhoff as much as says so when he mutters to himself about his stint as guest lifeguard "bottom of the barrel". The money spent to get him in the picture was worth it for the humor quotient although it may have cost them on the gore side of the scale. He mocks himself, the premise of the movie and his own fame and it still is a lot of fun.

This movie is available as Video on Demand, and it is only playing on around 80 theaters in the country. I am ashamed of myself for liking crap like this, but not so ashamed that I won't share my glee with others. I saw several very negative reviews of the movie and most of them compared it unfavorably to the first movie and to the original from back in the 1980s. My guess is that these people only give the others praise so that they can dump on this one. Go ahead, make a joke of the movie. Thirty of us who saw it today in Hollywood laughed and jumped a couple of times, and then we slunk out of the theater with our heads down. Yep, a guilty pleasure, but a pleasure none the less.

Snow White and the Huntsman

A couple of weeks ago, I came across Ridley Scott's "Legend" and watched it for more than an hour. I've seen it dozens of times and have a very nice DVD copy that I hadn't got out for a few years. That movies' set design and art direction were ground breaking and the cinematography was truly special. Today, twenty seven years later, we can see the forest that has grown from that seed. Several sequences in "Snow White and the Huntsman" are set in enchanted forests that have both light and dark sides to them. Scott's accomplishment was done without the aid of computer generated images, so there are a few spots where the beauty is limited by necessity to some narrow sets that make up the forest. "Snow White" follows in the path of "Avatar", creating wide expanses of beauty and terror. The vivid images and creepy lighting will be the things that this movie is ultimately remembered for. "Snow White" is a demonstration by technical virtuosos on how to create an other worldly place but still keep it in the familiar.


Much of the story in this Snow White will be familiar. Snow White is an orphaned princess whose wicked step mother desires to be the most beautiful in the land. She flees for her life into the dark woods and is cared for by creatures and small men who once made their livings as miners. The huntsman that was sent to kill her spares her life and the witch of a Queen pursues Snow White. At this point, the resemblances to Disney are at an end. The dwarfs are not cute and charming, they are bitter and dangerous. The huntsman is haunted by the memory of a dead wife and is driven to act on desperation at his own depression. The Queen has an involved back story that might actually create some sympathy if she were anything but selfish. She is in fact an emotional doppelganger for Snow White herself. There is powerful magic that is largely unexplained but it puts the Queen and her evil brother in positions of power that look to be undefeatable. The set up of the movie prior to the appearance of the grown up Snow White takes a bit of time and introduces story elements that are new in this telling of the tale. The stakes are higher and there are battles and armies that will be effected by the outcome of the main plot line.


All of the leads are fine in their parts. Charlize Theron as the wicked queen is beautiful and bitchy. The relationship she has with her brother is vaguely incestuous although he appears to be perving over the young and ripening Snow White. It is a disturbing element that makes the story creepier but also a bit repellent. Some of her dialogue has to be over the top and out of control, it is a testament to Theron's skills that the character does not come off as laughable in those spots. Chris Helmsworth, fresh from his two appearances as Thor, continues to be well cast as the rough around the edges, physically imposing, near barbarian. He is easy to buy in the stalwart role of protector, but less convincing in the key emotional scenes. There are themes set up in this story that make it seem as if the film is only partially complete and most of that has to do with his character. We did get some character development on his role but the follow through is less than complete and he is required to act out of character in a couple of places just to add some drama to the proceedings. Kristen Stewart manages to make it through the movie without biting her lip constantly. She is a pretty young woman, but what needed to be emphasized more was not her appearance but rather that her heart is what makes her the fairest of them all. She has relatively few lines in comparison to the other leads, but she is the focus of the story and so it is appropriate that she has first billing.


There are three sets of peoples that Snow White encounters in the escape from the queen; the abandoned wives, the dwarfs and the outcast subjects of her father. Each of these groups receives the minimum amount of development to make the story work but because those strings are not followed very far, there is not as much emotional investment in what happens as there should be. Three actors that I would normally have recognized immediately, were hidden from me by the special effects that make them little people. Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone and Toby Jones bring three of the dwarfs to life and add some spark to the movie that it needs in some other places. Ian Mcshane is also in the picture, but so many characters come in and out so quickly, I am not sure which character he played. One of the best ideas in the film is the notion that girls would mutilate their beauty to avoid being a victim of the Queen, but like a lot of things in the story, it goes by so quickly that the horror of the thought barely sinks in, it is another lost opportunity to make the movie something more than it is.


The ancient battle scenes are spectacular to look at but have little drama to them because most of the people involved feel anonymous to us. The opening battle sets the trap for Snow White's Father, and it is staged in a manner that makes it easy to follow. The final battle scenes involving an army of rebellious subjects storming the Queen's castle, is harder to follow and largely serves as a way to set up the final conflict between Snow White and the Queen. The final confrontation does pay off a piece of character development from earlier in the story, and it is one of the few places where there is follow through on an idea. The story needed more of that type of follow through.

"Snow White and the Huntsman" is a handsome film with some spectacular visual designs to it. There are elements of a deeply emotional story which are set up but not as successful as they need to be to make anyone care. In many ways, this feels like a lot of summer entertainments; Big, Loud, great to look at, but a little hollow inside. This Snow White is done on a grand visual scale but a perfunctory emotional one.

50 Years of James Bond - Variety.com

50 Years of James Bond - Variety.com

Ratatouille

It was a nice surprise to see this special movie event was playing not to far from us. If I had the time and energy, we might have gotten out to see all four movies. I may still make it out to "Up" or "Wall-e". Today though we enjoyed a Pixar film that I had not seen for a couple of years and I had to ask myself , Why? Why in the world don't I watch this movie every few months. It is delightful and has one of the great emotional moments in any Disney Film.

Admittedly, rats in the kitchen is a disgusting idea, but when you go all in the way the film makers do here, it is easy to overcome your squeamishness. Our hero "Remy" just wants to cook and as the title of the book featured in the story says "Anyone Can Cook". The creativity that goes into getting him into the kitchen and becoming the "puppet controlling guy" (puppet master is the word you are looking for Linguini) is elaborate, convoluted and hysterical. There are the usual twists and turns in the friendship and romance parts of the story, but the climax of the movie is all original heart.

Anton Ego: "In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends. Last night, I experienced something new, an extraordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source. To say that both the meal and its maker have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. It is difficult to imagine more humble origins than those of the genius now cooking at Gusteau's, who is, in this critic's opinion, nothing less than the finest chef in France. I will be returning to Gusteau's soon, hungry for more."

I can't say it any better. Except that I enjoy writing positive reviews as well. They are not always as much fun, but they are often incredibly satisfying.

MEN IN BLACK 3

I was a big fan of the original Men in Black. The sequel I saw once in theaters and maybe once on satellite years later, it was not very memorable. I suspect that there is a return to the franchise more than a decade later because Mr. Smith needs a bit of a hit. Up until "Seven Pounds" a couple of years ago, Will Smith had taken over the role as biggest star in the world (apologies to Tom Cruise). Even a lousy movie like "Hancock" was a hit when he starred in it. Something happened in the last couple of years however. I don't know why he has not been working, but looking at his upcoming slate of films, there seems to be a desperate need to reconnect to his audience. He has sequels to "Hancock", "Bad Boys", "I,Robot" lined up and his return to the front of the camera is today's movie, another sequel. I have nothing wrong with a sequel if it is done right and feels like it exists for a story based reason. I can even accept a sequel if I like a character well enough and the story doesn't work. What I originally liked about "Men in Black" was the creativity in concept and the execution of the story. The problem with "Men in Black II" was that it was a star vehicle and the originality felt warmed over. Frankly, I was not expecting much from this.

It is a mildly pleasant surprise to report that it works pretty well. While not as original as the first film, it is miles ahead of the second in plotting, character and inventiveness. Will Smith repeats his character riff on Agent J and there is not much new here. Tommy Lee Jones has the highest billed cameo appearance since Marlon Brando in Superman. The one real new treat of the acting ensemble is Josh Brolin, doing a spot on impression of Tommy Lee Jones' agent K character in a time travel storyline that actually works pretty well. Time travel plots in science fiction are tricky things because there are continuity issues that can become confusing and the time period visited could turn out to be just a punchline and not really needed for the story. It turns out that the use of the 1969 time-frame works well for an obvious reason and for a nice twist as well. There are a few jokes made about the time period but most of the important references are about technology and the story that brought us back in time in the first place. I don't want to say too much because the appreciation the movie earned in my eyes came from the surprise and you all should get to enjoy that as well.

The technical elements of the film are all sound. The modern MIB headquarters, reflects a futuristic vision, complete with strange visitors from other worlds. Most of what goes on there is treated as everyday minutiae. The villain of the piece, who is introduced in an extended escape sequence at the start of the film, is gruesome and very inventive in his looks. Like the previous films, the background on the threatening species is kept to a minimum, after all this is an action-comedy not a sociological mediation on humans place in the Universe. A little bit of double talk sets up the time travel possibility without making it an everyday outcome that would make every decision meaningless because we could always go back and fix it again. There are some good visual jokes and clever verbal sparring as the time travel technique is explained to us and J. The verbal bits are funny in these early sequences, but when they same type of talk comes up later, it is an important part of the story telling. The foreshadowing was just enough to make what comes later seem reasonable but not give away some of the surprise.

Like I said before, Tommy Lee Jones is basically an extended guest starring role here. That does not mean his presence is not felt however. Josh Brolin channels his character into a very believable younger version. He also manages with some acting skills and the script to make the character more distinct in anticipation of a dramatic alteration of his future attitudes. Emma Thompson is here for no particular reason at all, almost any actress in her age range could have played the part. I get the feeling there was more to the original story line but somewhere along the way it got trimmed and they must have already shot enough of her in the scenes they kept that eliminating her would be complicated. There was nothing wrong with her, but why have an Academy Award winning actress play such a nothing part? I did miss Rip Torn, his character added a third dimension to the original K and J interaction that is missing here. Speaking of third dimensions, we saw this in regular 2D and I did not feel I missed anything. Some of the sequences on high buildings and scaffolds might have given me a little more vertigo, but there was nothing in the story that 3D would enhance.

So while MIB 3 was not highly anticipated by me, it was enjoyable. I don't think it will set the Summer Box office on fire. It is a little tough for me to look at it in these terms, but after it brings in it's domestic take, it will probably be labeled a disappointment. A couple hundred million ain't what it used to be. It is not an exceptional film but it is entertains enough. The ten year period between episodes will make this feel a little more fresh and as a result Smith will be able to continue making entertaining sequels. I wish he was doing something a little more challenging. He is a good actor who may be forced into these vehicles for the studio to make money off of. If he is not careful, he may burn out his welcome like so many others have.

Battleship

Loud, yes. Jingoistic, hell yes. Stupid, you know it. Entertaining as hell, you bet your butt. This movie will never be appreciated as cinema. There is nothing artistic about it and there is not one ounce of subtlety. So if that bothers you don't go and see it. On the other hand, if you don't mind being manipulated this may be the most guilty two hours you will spend this summer. "Battleship" is everything you might have been afraid of and it works it's tail end off to give you a good time despite yourself. It looks great, plays on your emotions and leaves you with a goofy smile knowing that you have been taken advantage of. Like a roller coaster, you know what is coming but you want to enjoy it every minute.

How, you might ask, do you make a movie out of a board game that is not all that interesting to begin with? You start by jettisoning any obvious development of the story. There are only two or three references that will remind anyone of the game. This is basically an alien invasion movie like "Independence Day" only instead of the Air Force as the heroes we get the Navy. Build in a lone survivor vessel to fight most of the battles with and create a time based tension device. It is clear the aliens have superior weapons but they are not invincible and that makes the confrontations more meaningful. Unlike "Independence Day" this movie stays largely free of political decision making by higher ups. The President does make an appearance but only in background news footage. All the decision making we see is being done by fairly low level military personnel who are cut off from contact by the events we are witnessing.

Taylor Kitch, who earlier this year starred in the under rated John Carter, gets a chance to shine like Will Smith did sixteen years ago. He doesn't have the same star power but he is a handsome guy with a appealing personality that he must learn to manage. He actually is the co-star because the U.S. Navy is the main hero in this film. There are big ships and little ships and men and women who do their darn-est to make the world safe. The most inspiring characters turn out to be a wounded Army Colonel and a couple dozen Veterans of World War Two and Korea. There is so much CGI in the movie that I was not sure if the actor playing the wounded Army officer is really legless or if his was a performance that is enhanced by special effects. The biggest Veteran of WWII makes a guest appearance and it is very satisfying although completely nonsensical. You still won't care because it was so much fun just imagining it happen that you will not want to think about the impossible logistics and completely silly plot development. We just cackled with joy because it got our red, white and blue blood up.

There is one sequence that is from the game, as our destroyer plays cat and mouse with the aliens using not radar, but wave motion detectors. The grid that gives away the otherwise invisible space ships is pretty darn close to the plotting of target spaces in the game. Another reference to the game involves the explosive weapons the aliens launch into the Navy vessels. Those devices are suspiciously shaped like the pegs from the game that you would use to mark your hits and misses. The design and execution of those explosive effects is really nicely evocative of the outcome of a game when all the slots in your enemy ship are filled.

Liam Neeson is in this movie but you would barely know it because his character is locked out of all the action. He gets to glower at Kitch a couple of times and growl a bit, but otherwise, his role is an extended cameo. Another set of stars that play a more prominent role are AC/DC and Credence Clearwater Revival. The Australian heavy metal band provides two perfect music cues for the action scenes. They better have gotten a big chunk of the production costs because their music makes all the difference in a couple of spots. I know John Fogarty is not getting his due because of the Fantasy Records contract that he fought against for twenty years. "Fortunate Son" is an anti-war song but it has a guitar riff and drum/baseline that screams "AMERICA". It was used a few years ago in "Live Free or Die Hard" to much the same effect. So although the words are meant to be ironic, much like Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A.", meaning is in the mind of the listener. Audiences listening to this music in this context are getting a patriotic message not the satiric interpretation that CCR had intended.

This is not intelligent science fiction. We will get that next month with "Prometheus". This is shoot em up, wave the flag, laugh at the jokes summer entertainment. People who hate Michael Bay should probably stay away because this movie apes so many of his films. Those who dig "Transformers", "The Rock" and "Bad Boys" will be glad that the director here, Peter Berg, cribbed his movie from those sources. I went in a little jaded, hoping for the best in a movie even when it looks like it will let me down. Fortunately, every once on a while instead of being let down, we are rewarded with a nice surprise. This is like the shiny toy you get on Christmas, it may not be the gift you remember the most years later, but it is the one that you want to play with and enjoy right now.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

When I look around the theater and see that we are the youngest people in the audience, I begin to worry that I have officially passed into old fogeydom. That was pretty much what it looked like today when we went to see "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel". When the cast is headlined by Judi Dench and Tom Wilkenson, you realize that this was not going to be a movie that was marketed to the usual teen audience. There is virtually no chance that this will break out into a four quadrant hit that will demand a sequel and a soda cup at the nearest Jack in the Box. This movie is counter programing to all the big summer blockbusters like "the Avengers" and "Battleship". Nothing blows up, there are no super heroes or aliens or robots. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is an adult film with humor, drama and a touch of pathos.

Critics will frequently point out the obviousness of a big action film, but a small adult drama can be just as obvious in the same ways. There is personal conflict between couples, romance that may or may not flourish, and an economic threat to the hotel in the title and all of the retirees. Throw in a sub plot concerning the star crossed love life of the young manager of the hotel and there is something for everyone. All of the plot threads go pretty much where you expect them to, so the surprises need to be in the dialogue and the performances. Luckily for us, the old timers are up to snuff at making some of this entertaining.

Maggie Smith lays on the cheese as a xenophobic former head of a prestigious family house, who is forced to dwell in her own version of hell in order to get a hip replacement that she needs. Will she overcome her racist tendencies, will she find a new purpose in life, will she surprise everyone with a level of humor that is unexpected? Will I spoil it for you if I give you an answer or have you already figured it out. Judi Dench is just as deeply troubled but for other reasons, and we will get a similar character arc for her plus a potential romance. Tom Wilkenson, feels a little miscast for the character he is supposed to be deep down, but as the world weary former justice, with a personal history of India, he serves as a guide for most of our main characters in the early parts of the movie. As an actor though, he is as reliable as ever and does his part to sell the wistful and forlorn victim of the past.

The movie has been beautifully shot and seems to give a real view of what it is like in some of the modern sections of India. There are a couple of characters that keep representing two opposing views of the culture and place. It is beautiful and the people are warm, it is also ugly and the sound of the urban world crushing your senses can be overpowering. Obviously the theme here is that everyone needs to try to overcome their patterns of life. Discovery is still the best reason to go on living. The retirees who find themselves living in India because they can't afford to live at home, must overcome fear and the unfamiliar in order to get something out of the rest of their lives. The young couple has to fight tradition and and family to find a dream of happiness for themselves. Most manage to find their way in the end, and that is not a surprise because that is what the movie wants the audience to leave feeling good about.

It won't be a blockbuster, but it appears that it is doing very well in the demographic it is aimed at. The Four o'clock show we went to was packed. There were quite a number of laughs from a receptive crowd, and the look on everyone's face afterward seemed satisfied. It was a perfectly nice film, it reminded me of the Movie "Calendar Girls" from a couple of years ago. A decent comedy directed at a middle aged crowd and older, that had enough dramatic bite to it that it feels like it is about something. In the long run all it is really about is two hours. At least it is a pleasant two hours.

Bite The Bullet Update

This is an update to a post I did nearly two years ago on one of the Original Movie A Day Project Films. I have long wanted to see Bite the Bullet in it's original widescreen form, but it has not been available. The version in the original post was a pan and scan DVD that I acquired for a very modest price. You can find my original comments here. "Bite the Bullet" was a big scale Western at a time that such movies were dying out. It features a brutal 700 mile horse race across deserts and mountains and plains. It is perfect for a director to compose shots that will fill that screen with those vistas and also show the characters in relevant space. A month ago I read a review of a Blu Ray release of Bite the Bullet and went in search of it. It turns out that the film was not being mass marketed but was a specialty release with only 3000 copies being produced. None of them was available at any of my local retail outlets so off to the internet I flew. I could buy a new copy on Amazon for $36 plus shipping. I found a used copy on ebay for thirty and went for it. I am happy to say that it was worth the investment. I still think the last few minutes of the movie are underdeveloped, but the rest of the film looks spectacular.

There is an early shot of two trains passing each other in a railroad yard that would cut out one of the trains in the pan and scan version. Since the character we are following would need to stay in the frame, a severely cropped for television version leaves out a side of the picture. Here one gets a greater sense of the enormous changes that are taking place in the world at this time because of the trains passing each other in what might charitably be called a small town. Later shots of the railway also cut out the whole train in the shots, but here we get to see it as it moves across a bridge or travels though a forest. These are mostly little points in the movie, the real use of the widescreen comes in the horse race scenes, especially those set in some wide desert vistas. In the current widescreen Blu ray, we can see shots that include several of the contestants in the race at once, although they are clearly a great distance from one another. The empty spaces between them emphasize the desolate nature of the environment. In some later scenes, the layout of the territory in a chase and prison break makes more sense because of the way we can view it. There is a scene in which Gene Hackman's character chases down Jan Michael Vincent and lays into him for the negligent way he has treated his horse, it has more drama and excitement in it with the space not being as condensed as in the pan and scan version.

This was one of the first times I remember seeing the death of a horse from exhaustion being visualized in such a dramatic way. John Wayne's horse in True Grit gives up the ghost when he is trying to get Maddie Ross back to the trading post. Here, we see all of the horses perspiring and covered in foaming sweat. Their legs are shaky and the riders are either tender and cautious or reckless and indifferent. As the animals are falling in the sand or rolling down a hillside, the broad view makes us much more aware of how difficult the race really would be. I am very satisfied with the quality of the picture and the extra price was worth it to me. One more comment about the movie that is unrelated to it's presentation. Hackman has a great piece of dialogue about the charge at San Juan Hill that his character was supposed to be a part of. It sounds at first like it is going to be a sucker punch slam at the Spanish American War and Teddy Roosevelt. Instead it reminds me,and I hope you, of why Theodore Roosevelt was in fact one of our greatest leaders. After having his glasses shot off and his arm nicked, Roosevelt rallies the Rough Riders to storm the hill. Hackmans character says that they didn't follow out of a desire for victory, or to promote freedom. They went willingly with Roosevelt into the rain of death from above because they would have been ashamed not to. If it's not a true story, it feels like one.

Dark Shadows

This is a very deceptive trailer. It looks for all intents and purposes as if they are taking the Dark Shadows soap opera and turning it into a comedy with the odd Tim Burton/Johnny Depp touch. Most everything that is funny in the movie is in the trailer, and often, when it is seen in the context of the movie, it is not really designed to provoke a laugh. While it might appear that the music featured in the trailer is in some way a satire, the film is not really satiric at all. The music and the images are evocative of the time and place of the films primary setting, 1972. The title scroll features The Moody Blues "Nights in White Satin", and it is both pure seventies hokum and mystical at the same time. Most of the rest of the songs work the same way, they bring out the mood of the time period but not in the self aware and mocking style that is seen in so many other movies. The song score reflects events and place for the audience, but more on this later. When I was a kid, I remember seeing Dark Shadows on TV, it was a late afternoon soap opera that had Gothic and horror elements to it. While I would drop in from time to time, it was not a must see and I have very little recall of the story or other characters. Barnabas Collins was the only character I remember and the only one that I wanted to see. The problem for a kid my age was that there was way too much exposition and not enough of the horror of a vampire sucking the blood out of people. The current film tries to remedy this by putting in several bloody killings and some other supernatural gibberish to keep us hooked on the story. The set up goes very quickly and it was done with a good deal of panache. The tragic history of the Collins family is revealed and the fate of Barnabas is transferred to the Twentieth century almost immediately. This sets up the only comedic elements to the story, a fish out of water plot device that almost always provokes chuckles when used right. The arcane manner of speech and the lack of familiarity with modern conveniences, put the Johnny Depp played Barnabas at the center of any jokes. It is not long into this story that most of those jokes slip away and we are mostly returned to a soap opera horror story.

 This movie is more like a soap opera than any other kind of genre. There are small town intrigues that keep the locals a part of the story but always in the background. We have mysterious visitors who keep their true identities secret until a crucial point in the plot line. There are outrageous plot twists that seem to have nothing to do with the main story and often trail off into nothingness. Sometimes those plot twists are designed to distract us from what is obviously coming and sometimes they are there to fulfill our expectations of the genre. In the last section of the movie, there are reversals and surprises that have virtually nothing to do with the main plot. They exist to give other characters something to do and bring the audience something to enjoy. The only soap opera convention that was not a part of this film was the "evil twin" trope, which will probably be first paragraph if they ever decide to do a sequel to this film.

 I like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp together, but there have been misfires before. I disliked the "Alice in Wonderland" from a couple of years ago, but thought "Sweeney Todd" was great. There is a real feeling in the movie that they wanted to tell a real story and be true to the source material. The humor is needed to sell the film to an audience that loves Johnny Depp as a quirky character. Most of the time here, there is a real character that is odd only in context. When a joke is layered on top of that, it feels like the point of the story is lost. All of the visuals are really solid, and the moody "Collinswood Manor" is nicely imagined. The historical scenes and those featuring a 1970's vibe work pretty well with the lighting and the music. The jokes mostly have nothing to do with the story and simply reflect the absurdity of taking any of this seriously. This feels self defeating in a lot of places. Our investment in the characters is not enhanced by the humor, it undermines our ability to care much about the outcome. The film makers continue to act as if we should treat this seriously and then another weird development comes along to side track us. Except for the little boy David Collins, the modern family Collins is a waste of talent. The actors are fine but Michelle Pfieffer has virtually nothing to do for most of the story. She is exposition central for the current events of the family but plays no active part except at the end and that feels tagged on. Also tagged on is the plot line that Chloe Grace Moretz ends up enduring. She plays bitchy and odd very well but the point of it all is lost on me except that it feels like a typical soap opera ploy for more distraction in the background. The idea that Barnabas is going to restore the family is a good plot device, but after we see a montage of building and construction projects we have no idea what is happening. Eva Green as the villainous witch Angelique is beautiful in a overdone soap opera manner. She also goes over the top for very little purpose and we are never sure if the people she works with are aware of her powers or not. As with most material like this, the continuity of the story is less important that getting to the next dramatic scene.

 I enjoyed the song score, there are several nice 70's era hits interspersed in the story and background. "Superfly" makes very little sense put was great to hear. The same could be said for the "Carpenters". There is a ball sequence that accomplishes nothing except getting Alice Cooper in the movie and making a pretty weak joke out of it. The Danny Elfman score was appropriately moody. I thought it fit the creepy tone of the Gothic story elements really well. The problem was not with any one element of the movie but with the odd way that it is all supposed to fit together. Ultimately, I thought it failed to be as memorable as a fan of any of these elements could want. It does not disgrace the memory of the TV series but it also does not make you want to go back and see it again.

Marvel's Avengers

Having seen the Box Office Returns and watched the TV for the last few days, I doubt that many of you have waited to hear my point of view on this film before you went out and saw it. It was pretty obvious that this was going to be one of the big films of the summer, what was not as obvious was whether it would be any good. I won't hold you in suspense about my assessment, It's terrific entertainment and the kind of summer popcorn movie that should keep the theaters busy until the next big blockbuster shows up. This movie has a cool factor all over it, all the comic fans and casual fans and their families are going to have a good time at the movies.

Marvel has been building to this film for several years now. As new super heroes from the Marvel Universe have made their way on to the screen, there has been an attempt to connect them with the thread of SHIELD, as the agent that will bring them all together. This has been a grand idea much like the Harry Potter films managed to follow one another with a good deal of consistency, the Marvel Super Heroes have stayed mostly true to their origins and layered on a bit more for the coming climax. While the Potter films have had the advantage of being true chapters in an ongoing narrative, the Marvel characters have had to live in their own worlds and break into a story that could bring them into one universe together. The first film to plant that seed was the excellent "Iron Man". It was followed up by the reboot of the "Hulk" franchise which was launched without the desired success earlier and needed a more consistent tone. The reboot with Edward Norton worked, but it did not break any box office records, it was perhaps about the same in financial return as the Eric Banna version had been, but it did water the seed of this particular concept. The second "Iron Man" movie was a disappointment but it did introduce a new character or two who would make more memorable appearances in the current film. Then, last year, we got a double whammy with the very serviceable "Thor" and the truly excellent "Captain America". Each film set up a small connection to the Avenger's Initiative that makes the current movie the capstone of the series.

 The writer/director of "The Avengers", Joss Whedon, understands what the comic book crowd wants and delivers it in abundance. There are several smackdowns between our main characters as the story is being set up. Each gives the geeks the kind of moment they have wanted since the characters first showed up on the page. We get to see Ironman face off with Thor, and then Thor match fists with the Hulk, and Captain America take them all on in one form or another. Those are the sugar bombs placed around the story that draw in the comic book crowd. After all you can't expect this group of larger than life figures to mix perfectly right off the bat. Eventually they will come together but it will not be a smooth transition nor will it be one without loss. There is a threat to the planet that only our heroes will be able to respond to. They need some motivation, and while there are a lot of ways this could have gone, I think the idea that finally triggers it works because of some of those links set up in other films. Once you have seen the movie you will know what I mean, but I am not going to give anything away.

 All of the characters get a chance to have some moments of glory. The least developed is "Hawkeye" played by Jeremy Renner. This is an actor I like more every time I see him. He was really solid in the last Mission Impossible movie and will be the featured star of the "Bourne" reboot coming later this summer. He has the smallest amount of dialogue and the least developed of the characters in the movie but manages to hold our attention every time he is on screen. When he pulls out his bow and gets ready for business, we all anticipate some Robin Hood type moments and are not disappointed. Part of the reason that his character is underdeveloped here is that he is playing for the wrong side for the first half of the movie. It is a little complicated but it does set up some revenge factor in the second half that makes us root for him. Marvel is going to have tons of money to spend on new films featuring these characters, in using Hawkeye they have a film that could be told with a smaller budget and a much more dark story.

 Scarlett Johansen's Black Widow is a spy character that would need to be modified a little to make a whole film. There is an excellent set up of her skill set early in the movie, but she really is a comic book version of a spy and there would need to be an outlandish over the top story to justify her presence. The fighting skills would make it seem too much like the "Electra" spin-off of "Daredevil". It would all be about hyper fighting skills. The better story is the other set of skills she has, I just don't see how you could get a whole movie out of that trick. Her character is good for the background of these hero movies but would struggle to meet the needs of a stand alone movie. There is however a satisfactory payoff of her manipulative skills in this film, one that justifies here in a featured part. At the end of the movie it was hard to find something for her to do and that may be the one weak spot in the story telling.

There is a lot of humor in the interaction of the main hero characters. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is his usual smug but charming rebel. He provokes all the others at some point or another, and it is his conversion to the cause that makes the team finally come together. He of course has all the best jokes as well, stealing the function that Tommy Lee Jones had in "Captain America" last year. The vast majority of humorous dialogue is his or it is connected directly to his character. He is well used in the story as a point of conflict and for comic relief. While I am on the subject of comic relief, I want to mention the character of Agent Phil Coulson. The actor Gregg Olsen has played him for several films and he has always had the right dry delivery for his lines. His role has been to stand in for us mere mortals while still being able to carry off a stoic expression in the face of billionaire genius arms manufacturers, monster green scientists and demi-gods from another world dressed as background scenery from Wagner Operas. After Tony Stark, he gets the best jokes, but they are humorous only because of his delivery and timing. This was good casting from several years ago that is paying off in this film.

Thor and Nick Fury are along for the ride. They move the plot when it needs to be moved and there are places that the story depends on them for a dramatic intervention, but they are the two characters that stay the most on the surface of any of the main players. This is an ensemble piece and everyone has a contribution to make, they can't all be equal contributions. The work of both actors is fine and there are some good lines delivered by Samuel Jackson, and some nice visual images with Thor, but none of their character's roles were meaningful outside of the confines of the ensemble. Everyone gets a moment here and there and both of these characters shine in their moments, the moments are just not as memorable as those for other players.

My favorite Avenger is "Captain America". I liked the stand alone movie from last year the best of all of the others with the possible exception of the first Ironman. Chris Evans Cap is still a straight shooter, who when moved to modern times can see the hypocrisy of the new world more clearly than others can. He is disillusioned by what his country and the world have become. His lack of cynicism in contrast to Tony Stark sets up a very effective conflict for the middle section of the film. His heroic persona is mocked, but then shown to be exactly the kind of thing that can make a difference when the chips are down. He is an argument for patriotism even in the muddled times we currently live in. Steve Rogers also knows how to lead, you make decisions that you hope are right and then follow through the best you can. His character has the initial fight with the evil "Loki" early in the movie, but after that, he has to be everywhere as part of a team and his stand alone moments are fewer as a result. His orders to the defenders of the Earth are clearly needed and there are two swell payoffs that provoke smiles from the audience. The second one gets a cheer from all the comic book geeks because it is a favorite saying from the Marvel Universe.

 After two prior attempts to make the Hulk a success as a screen character, the writers, director and casting finally pay off. Mark Ruffalo is a great Bruce Banner, disheveled, world weary and with an anger problem that makes him the focus of much of the movie. When everyone is not walking on eggshells and the Hulk finally comes out, we get a much more successful version of the green monster that Dr. Banner discretely refers to as "the other guy". There is clearly a problem with having an uncontrollable monster on your side. The story acknowledges that this is a complex nut to crack and finally does. "Loki" as played by Tom Hiddleston, is not perturbed or threatened by any of the other heroes. Even his brother Thor is viewed as just another threat. The one character he does seem worried about is the Hulk, and in the biggest cheer in the whole movie, we get to see why. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner make a connection in the movie, and I would not be surprised to see them team up again, but if I were Robert Downey Jr., I'd watch out for Ruffalo and the Hulk stealing his thunder in another movie. The film is nearly two and a half hours long. It is packed with a number of story lines and characters and comic book conflict set up. Yet despite the possibility that it could end up a bloated piece of junk like "Batman Forever" and "Batman and Robin" or "Spiderman 3" were, it manages to tell a story quickly and efficiently with a lot of humor and plenty of fireworks. You get a lot of bang for your buck with "Marvel's The Avengers". It is an unashamed piece of pop entertainment that delivers for the audience the elements they want in a summer movie. Just try not to get sick from eating too much popcorn in the theaters this summer.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Featurette

Found this on Ain't It Cool and Thought I would share. This is the movie I am most looking forward to after Prometheus. The book was a real kick, a clever mash up of history and fiction.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

I have always loved stop motion and claymation in movies. The original King Kong still delights me with the quirky movements of Kong, and Ray Harryhausen is a genius as far as I'm concerned. I know that the modern versions of this style are largely done through computer animation but the creativity still impresses and the look is so retro that it feels like it is still a throw back to the old days of Gumby and Pokey although no clay figurines were actually involved. "Chicken Run" and "Curse of the Wererabbit" are two of the best kids animated movies of the last dozen years and the Aardman Studios has another winner with the new "Pirates, Band of Misfits". This movie comes in 3-D and it might have even more charm in that format, we saw it in a regular 2-D format because some of our group have trouble with headaches after a 3-D experience.

The look of the film is the starting point for those things that are most pleasurable about the movie. The characters are rich and quirky with details that harken back to childhood memories of pirates on the high seas. Cutlasses fly, limbs have been replaced with wooden pegs, and pirates have lush beards that you can hide just about anything in. Does it sound silly yet? OK, the first fight the pirates have is not over a damsel in distress or how to divvy up the booty, it is a brawl based on a dispute over what is best about being a pirate. When you see the answer, if you don't laugh with delight, you should leave the movie theater immediately because that is the way the rest of the film is going to go. The traditional touch points of a pirate movie are juxtaposed with a cartoon version of buccaneer lunacy. As an added bonus there is usually a silly song to go along with the crazy.

Kids films sometimes repeat patterns so obviously, that a smart child could get bored because they can figure out what is going to happen next. While the plot of this movie may have some of those drawbacks, it never the less manages to keep us hooked by the outlandish way in which those well worn paths are tread. A put upon hero, betrays his true self and his friends but later redeems his actions and reaps the rewards. This sounds familiar right? Well, in the process we get a Pirate Award Show, a Scientist Award Show, a showdown on a blimp and a Dodo thrown in for good measure.  Oh and Charles Darwin is a part of the mix as well, and he is both foil and comic relief. The path of this story is never as straight as the morality play seems to suggest it will be and along the way we are treated to completely silly visual gags that provoke laughter and surprise most of the time.

The background images in the movie are especially worth mentioning. If you pay attention to the bills posted all around London, you will get some extra laughs. Don't worry if you don't see them all the first time, there will be a recap in the credit sequence, making this another one of those movies that you want to sit through the credits for. The music is rousing and silly at the same time. There is a nice mix of  recycled pop tunes and original movie songs. The pop tunes evoke moods as the images fit with the lyrics or the sound. The Clash almost certainly did not have a movie like this in mind when they penned "London Calling". There is a wonderful lament from "Flight of the Concords", that should be the Academy Award winner for Best Song at next years Oscars. I loved the disguises that the pirates resort to in several scenes, they are completely British in their execution. The sad efforts of the Pirate Captain to plunder treasures from the ships they board are also plenty amusing. There is one unfortunate change for political correctness. If you look at the trailer above, you will see a leper drop an arm on the deck of the ship the captain boards. Apparently, lepers in Great Britain (who would have thought that was a special interest group?), objected to the visual joke. So in the film, it is referred to as a plague ship rather than a leper ship. It makes no sense but at least all the lepers out there will not be humiliated at being the butt of a cartoon joke.

All the voice work of the actors is spot on, while none of it calls attention to itself. Unlike "Rango" from last year, this is not a star vehicle for an actor looking to do animated voice work. This is a story that focuses on the characters and their efforts to solve their problems. The kick here is not listening to Hugh Grant do a pirate character, it is a pirate character that is so clearly a parody of himself that makes us laugh. There are plenty of quick jokes for the adults in the audience as well, the movie is not just for kids. It will however appeal most to kids because it takes a big pile of imagination to come up with some of the stuff here and only someone with a child's wonder could manage it.

The Raven (2012)

There are movies that draw you in on the basis of the premise, some on genre and some use stars. "The Raven" is a genre picture that attempts to use the serial killer taunting the authorities premise as it's hook. It features a star as the author Edgar Allen Poe, and it features gruesome images to pull the horror crowd into the theater. As I was watching this movie, I was struck by the notion that it feels less like an exploitation film and more like a real "movie". The pacing and imagery is much more in tune with a serious drama, or maybe a biopic on the famous author who basically created the horror field. There are times that the planning of the shots reveals an ambition to be taken as a true artistic enterprise. Unfortunately all of this is the weakness of this movie. Instead of horrifying us, it tries to titillate and comment on our obsession with horror. Instead of providing a full fledged story about Poe, we get a cliche based murder mystery. Finally, instead of having fun with the outlandishness of it's premise, it takes itself too seriously.

I like John Cusack as an actor. He has a laconic manner and hangdog expression that have appealed to me on screen since "The Sure Thing". The look should fit a story about Edgar Allen Poe, but Cusack is a tall guy and he makes Poe look much too healthy for a drunken, TB ridden, poverty stricken artist. The opening sequences of Poe in a bar trying to get some recognition and some credit to drink, are rushed and overdone. His lines stem from an acting exercise rather than a character. The performance settles down after that but the tone has already been set, Cusack is going to treat this pulp material as if it is meaningful. This seems like the wrong way to go, there is no chance for insight into Poe. This is a story about a serial killer, re-enacting scenes from Poe's gruesome catalog, with a race against time to save the imagined love interest. Every time there is some discussion of literary pretension in the movie, it takes us out of the horror plot we are supposed to be engaged in.

The makers of this movie are hedging their bets, they never commit to one particular point of view for the movie. I think they might come close to getting a gruesome procedural out of this, but every murder save one, is revealed so quickly and in such a perfunctory manner that the horror element fails to develop. There is no dread sustained, no vicious act to pull back from. It simply comes on screen and then is rushed off for another sequence of Poe trying to write and understand the killer. This movie is probably budgeted in a moderate range, they needed to have the budget cut to force them to use some sensationalism to make it work. The admirable shots of a nineteenth century Baltimore, can't make up for the lack of terror on the screen that a better developed scene of sick murder could bring to the story. It is not as if they did not have horrific ideas, they do. The problem is that instead of dwelling on the horror elements, there is a focus on action chases and inner turmoil. The lovestruck, writer with a creativity block is the lynchpin of the plot, but it is also the weakest element of the story.

Many things in the movie work well. After the histrionics in his first few scenes, Cusack begins to feel more real as Poe. The movie is nice to look at and there is a serviceable mystery plot to follow. There are some disturbing visual images and nice references to Poe's works, but without any anticipation of what is coming, we are mostly left with looking at what has already transpired. That seems to be one of the elements that keeps this movie from working as well as it should. There is simply something not quite right about how it fits together. In the hands of a director who specializes in this kind of material, it could work well, here it simply feels workmanlike. As I said before, I felt like I was watching a movie that the film makers wanted people to see as a real film, instead of an entertainment piece. With this sort of material, I think the audience will feel a little cheated on both sides.

There is some nice writing in the story. I liked the idea of Poe having to write himself into the plot to be able to solve and resolve the mystery. The final shot resolution turns out to be satisfying as well, although it is not very well explained. Too often the movie relies on action sequences and chases to tell a story that does not really require them. I thought it particularly odd that a brilliant serial killer would count on his ability to be slightly faster than a police inspector in running through the water works catacombs under Baltimore, in order to deliver his next clue or see the reaction to his last one. There was no reason for him to be anywhere in the vicinity,except to put a little action tension into the film. "The Raven" is not a failure as a movie, but it is not as satisfying as it ought to be. If it sounds like I did not like the movie, that is wrong. I just wanted to like it more. In order for me to do, "The Raven" needed to be less middle brow and more exploitation.

The Three Stooges Movie

Sometimes the world comes together in a great way and all the stars line up for you. Other times, the fates conspire to trip you up and leave you in a more desperate situation. It was the later of these two scenarios that lead me to the new Three Stooges movie. In all honesty, I am looking forward to four movies that opened wide today, and I am looking for a couple of smaller films if I can just work out some timing. But instead of watching Jason Statham hand the bad guys their asses, or relaxing with claymation pirates on the high seas, I ended up at this movie. Those of you who have read at this site before may be aware that my film enthusiasm is shared by my youngest daughter. She is currently working a job that keeps her out most nights well past 2a.m.. That means that there is not always a chance to sneak off with her and catch some piece of trash that we both enjoy, or discover a treasure in a film that we had mild expectations for. I finally talked her into letting me take my wife out to the movies without her and she even agreed that we could see one of the major releases this weekend. So we headed off to run errands, and then we dropped by the theater to see if "The Five Year Engagement" was starting any time soon. Well we had missed it by twenty minutes, but I'll be damned if I was going to walk away without seeing something.  My wife and I have been going to movies as a date since 1975. She was all set to sit down in a dark theater, share some popcorn and enjoy each others company for a while. She simply looked at the marquee for the next available show (that is the next available show that our daughter had not forbidden us to see without her) and said, let's see the Stooges movie.

If you watch the trailer above and laugh at some of the slapstick, then you will be able to get some pleasure out of the film. If you look at it in horror and see it as a sacrilege, then you better stay away because the trailer gives an accurate feel for the movie that I am talking about here. I like the Stooges well enough. I enjoyed the shorts when I was a kid and whenever I run across one while waiting for something else on the satellite to start, I will stop down and watch. I am not however a stooge aficionado, I don't know all the routines, quotes and inside references. I just like watching grown men poke each other in the eye, bash each other in the head and generally spread mayhem wherever they happen to go. From my point of few, this should be good for a few laughs.

I started to worry early on because the first part of the film does not feature grown men doing all the stupid head butting and nose gouging,  instead the Stooges are introduced as kids. These kids have the same mannerisms, looks and physical routines as the adults, but it does not work because the humor in most of the stooge material I have seen is based in large part on the fact that these are men who ought to know better but act like kids. Kids acting like kids just sort of falls flat. Once the adult versions of the stooges hit the screen the effect is a lot more promising. Instead of one out of five physical gags provoking a laugh, which was the ratio in the kids section, you get three out of five hitting the mark.

The Three actors playing the stooges actually do a remarkable impression of the original clowns. The guy who plays Moe has the right kind of bluster and aggression and the physical resemblance was very effective. Sean Hayes plays Larry, and he has always been a great comedic actor, here he disappears into the look, voice and general persona of the one non-Howard stooge really well. I was most impressed with Will Sasso, doing a great version of Curly in his footwork and pun laden comebacks. The script got the tone of his rejoinders right the great majority of the time. The script itself was no great shakes, but most of the Three Stooge's shorts were not all that well thought out either. The stuff that works the best here is not surprisingly the same stuff that worked for the the real Moe, Larry and Curly, lots of slapstick physical humor combined with some good sound effects to get a laugh.  I will say I laughed out loud several times, but they were so dispersed throughout the film that they felt less intense than they needed to to be entirely successful.

There was one long sequence that was staged like a stooge gag, but felt too much like a modern gross out comedy to really feel stooge-like. I know why it was included, and it was funny but it took me out of the fantasy a little. It does have to be a fantasy to imagine the three Stooges working again in the movies. If the Farrelly Brothers really want to revive the stooge tradition, put these guys in some shorts and find a way to attach those shorts to some other big release. I think the reaction would be more positive and the laughs would be sustained for a realistic amount of time rather than trying to make it work as a feature. I appreciated the effort, I just wish I had appreciated the movie a little more.

MovieClips.com

Intro to MOVIECLIPS
Movieclips at MOVIECLIPS.com

This is the site my daughter Amanda is working for right now. They do some very cool things and it is all on the up and up.

Lockout (2012)

There was no way this movie was going to be much good. It came out of no where, was made by nobody and had virtually no publicity around it. Hell, I did not even know it existed till I saw the trailer a month ago. So if all of that is true, why did I go and see it? Simple, Guy Pearce. I have been a fan of his since I first saw "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". There he was the screwed up drag queen, who did not know when to shut his mouth. Here he plays the same character, except that he is not a drag queen and is fighting convicts in space rather than backwards yahoos in the Australian outback. OK, maybe there are a few other differences as well.

From my point of view, he is the actor from L.A. Confidential who got screwed out of completing the L.A. Confidential Academy Award, Best Actor trifecta. Kevin Spacey won the next year for "American Beauty", Russell Crowe won the year after that for "Gladiator", and Pearce not only did not win for his brilliant performance in "Memento", he did not even get nominated. He did however appear in the Academy Award winning Best Pictures for the two years prior to this. That gives him some professional cred. So what is he doing in this slice of sci-fi /action mash up? Hell, Michael Caine has made a lot of crummy movies over the years as well, sometimes you just have to pay the mortgage. Plus, he does get to be the lead in an action film which let's him channel his best Kurt Russell snarl and Bruce Willis bravado and play cops and robbers in space.

The set up of the movie is made clear in the trailer. A top security prison in space is taken over by the inmates and the President's daughter is one of the hostages. Enter tough guy, rogue spy/cop to infiltrate alone and try to save the day. It's basically "Escape From Space", minus any John Carpenter competence. The story is boiler plate action spy nonsense which has a mysterious briefcase being sought after but it largely turns out that is simply an excuse to make us suspicious of everyone's motives. Plot is not really where this movie is going to leave an impression. The script also does not treat most of the characters as if they have any common sense. The one main exception is the dialog that spills out of Pearce's character Snow's mouth. He has a wisecrack for every occasion and an insult for everyone in sight. Listening to him spit out a punchline or mutter a crack under his breath is what makes this work at all. He is not some unbeatable robotic character like Arnold, he just happens to be the right kind of guy they need and he gets lucky, the script fixes most of his problems so he does not have to get by trying to out tough the scum of the Earth.

The effects on the shoot seem to be a mix of well done space backgrounds, lousy action CGI, and endless soundstage tunnels that allow the characters to get from place to place without being seen by every convict on the prison satellite. This was the first time I saw in the credits, every name of every member of the orchestra that played the score; including the instrument they played. As I looked at the credits, it was clear that most of the below the line talent came from somewhere in Eastern Europe. I never saw so many names ending in "vic" in my life. The two main bad guys in the prison, sounded like they had heavy Scottish brogues or were such drunken Irishmen that no one could understand most of what they say. Peter Stormare plays the head of the Secret Service/Security Service, and he has little to do except glower at other characters. The lead actress looked familiar but I had the cheat and look at IMDB to see she played Liam Neeson's daughter in "Taken".  So basically she is being typecast. You actually sort of hate her character anyway because she is so oblivious to the world she lives in. By the end of the movie though, she is supposed to be the smartest person in the story.

The movie was not something I could recommend to anyone except those who have a taste for dumb Saturday matinee fare. This was a low budget action film that needed to get the most out of it's main asset, the lead actor. Guy Pearce delivers but it is something that you wouldn't have ordered if he was not the deliveryman.

Cabin in the Woods (2012)

I have been away from a movie theater for two weeks and was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. There never was enough time or a product that I wanted to see in the last couple weeks, even though I was on a partial break during that time. This week however intrigued me because there is a highly talked about horror film, a schlocky rip off of Escape from New York, and a Three Stooges movie of all things. I expect to see the stupid action film sometime this weekend, and I can't decide if the Stooges movie is a good idea or not, although I have heard good things about it. So I choose the horror film because it was arriving with some fanfare and I wanted the visceral experience with a chill down my back. I have to say that I was a little disappointed.

Comedy and horror can go together and often do, heck see my previous post on Army of Darkness. The Cabin in the Woods has a self aware sensibility that suggests a "Scream" like twist on the horror genre. We are going to get our story deconstructed for us at the same time that all the thrills are happening. The main problem with this movie is that the backstory framing of the traditional "Cabin in the Woods" type story, undermines the horror effect in the traditional movie. I know we are supposed to be taken out of the film and look at it from the modernist perspective, but there needs to be a solid movie there to begin with, and everything feels off. There are some shreds of information dropped in on the first cast which lead to a little bit of suspicion, but by the time any of that is beginning to get percolated, more than half of our characters are dead and the ones remaining are viewed in a very diffident manner. I am trying to write my opinion without giving away too much, and that is exactly what the film makers did wrong. They gave up the twist before the traditional story gets going and the mundane approach that gives the second story it's humor, sucks the energy out of the horror version of the movie.

I will say there are a lot of laughs in the second story development and payoff. The subversion of the horror genre plays like an over the top episode of "Supernatural". Without Sam and Dean around to root for, there is not the kind of tension you need to make the jokes work as well. I liked many of the concepts. There is an extended joke with a speaker phone, and the elevator tour of the backstage horror factory was visually amusing most of the time. The mash-up of film horror genres was fun to watch for the twenty minutes or so that it was on, but the justification was tipped early and it simply seems silly rather than profound. If the characters in the main horror plot had been treated a little more creatively, then the second story resolution might seem more appropriate. As it was, there was not enough humor to compensate for a lack of horror. The creativity that comes with the inventive visual play on all other horror genres, get played for laughs in an ejaculation of visual jokes that leaves you wishing the experience had not been over so quickly.

The movie does have three secret weapons at it's disposal. Bradley Whitford and Richard Jenkins are front and center the whole movie. They come across like a more normal version of Jules and Vincent from "Pulp Fiction". They have mundane verbal sparring and gossip, interspersed with flashes of dramatic action. As good as the actors are, they can't overcome the script that makes them nothing more than sad cases of arrested development doing a serious job. The self assured manner of their decision making reflects the hubris that comes from self delusional self confidence. They have this in spades and it works for the first part of the movie, but during the climax, it makes everything happening seem as if it is just a joke and the story undercuts the drama that it was trying to produce. I don't want to say anything about the third actor in the movie that adds a touch of "special" to the face of this project. Almost like the Bill Murray cameo in another horror flick a couple of years ago, this appearance generates a chuckle and some satisfaction in part because it was not expected.

Clearly there was a lot of creative energy put into the film. The idea is a good one but it needs to come off perfectly to work. It only came off adequately, so instead of the drop your jaw kind of awesomeness I was hoping for, I got the mildly amused chortle that comes with a good but not great joke. I wanted to be frightened but I was not, I wanted to laugh but I only giggled. I wanted to shout the praises of this movie to all my friends and readers, but I can only say it was OK. If you never see this movie, it will not be a huge loss in your movie life. If you do see the movie, you will be mildly amused for a couple of hours and then wonder what it was that just did not work. You at least now know what my theory on that is.

Army of Darkness - Dino De Laurentis Tribute

There was not a bigger, more flamboyant movie producer in the last fifty years than Dino De Laurentis. He was an international Academy award winning producer from the 1950s up until he died at the age of 91 in 2010. His list of American produced films is lengthy, and includes such quality productions as The Shootist, Ragtime, Serpico, Blue Velvet. He owned and lost more movie studios than you can shake a stick at and I remember fondly seeing the title card for DEG (De Laurentis Entertainment Group) at the start of many treasures from the 1980s. I will personally be forever grateful for his willingness to back the David Lynch version of Dune, which was produced by his daughter, it is one of my favorite films despite it's flaws. The USC Cinema school hosted a tribute last week that included a number of films. It is not listed in the program because it was not part of the official weekend, but Dune screened on Thursday night and I kicked myself for having to teach at night and missing this on the big screen. However, Saturday night I did have a chance to take in one of the many odd films his studios produced over the years, and I had the added pleasure of being accompanied by my oldest daughter. Allison ditched her husband last Saturday so she could spend a couple of hours with her old man taking in the genius that is "Army of Darkness".

Army of Darkness is the third film in the Evil Dead series of horror films. These movies became more competent and humorous with each new edition. There may not be a more blissful 81 minutes of  comedy and horror ever committed to film. This movie came out in 1993 and was very anticipated by myself and the Yenny family. John and Anne are friends of ours that share a taste for Bruce Campbell and Zombies. I was reminded by Anne on my Facebook update on Saturday, that she and John went with us and that they brought their newborn Nate with them. They are still trying to see every Zombie movie ever made. Technically this may not be a Zombie movie since most of the reanimated dead in the story are skeletons which have no craving for human flesh but do desire the souls of the living.   This movie is choc-a-block with great throw away movie lines, many of which are responses to the attacks by the dead or those possessed by the dead. It is so quotible, that it should have it's own AFI special to commemorated it. I don't know that in Hollywood would be proud to list it on their filmography, but De Laurentis understood the cult nature of the Evil Dead films, and although he was not going to give them a budget to make a Heaven's Gate version of a horror film, he did pony up for extras when the movie needed it. I remember reading about the delays in release and how they were connected to the need for some more effects work that the studio finally gave some money for.

I read a story in the Rolling Stone Magazine decades ago, about an actor who came in to talk to Dino De Laurentis about a movie that he might be cast for. The story was that the meeting took place in De Laurentis large corner office, in which there was a pool sized desk with only a telephone on it. The actor, taking note of the producer's diminutive size (he was just over five feet tall), asked why such a little man needed such a big desk? You would think that would be the end of that actor's career, instead it was just the beginning and De Laurentis consented to his casting in a Sword and Sorcery flick he was producing. For better or worse the wise guy actor went on to a huge movie career and later became governor of the sate of California.

"Army of Darkness" is a perfect example of a movie that today would be ruined by special effects done in the computer. It has so much charm because you can see how the creators put every trick in the book to use in making the visuals work. There is rear projection, time lapse make-up effects, stop-go animation a-la Ray Harryhausen, and puppet work. These days, you would get motion capture and CGI, and while it might look better, it would lose the cheesy charm of this throwback to the old days of science fiction, horror. It is almost like those geeks from Michigan went out in the back yard one more time to make one of their super eight movies. The acting is not great, the effects, not perfect, the lighting is a little inconsistent, but the effect is exactly right. It is over the top funny, with a hero who has significant flaws but we love him anyway. The creativity in story and script are the things that make young kids want to be film makers. "I've got a cool idea of something I want to see. How do we do it?"

Bruce Campbell is the epitome of geek hero worship. There is a classic hero image that he puts forth but it is subverted by his sardonic voice and blustery bravado. I try to see all the things he does, and I continue to be a fan of the TV series Burn Notice because he is a part of it, but he will go to his grave as "Ash" the character he plays in this series of films. The sequence where he is attacked by miniature versions of himself and then has one grow out of his body, is hysterically creepy and ridiculous  at the same time. All the quotable lines from the movie are so quotable because of his delivery, and when you try to throw one out be sure to add his tone to it or it will fall flat. He transforms from shlub to hero in a instant on multiple occasions in the movie, and each time it is a delight.

The screening had a goodly portion of geeks who knew the movie by heart. They anticipated laughs and responded with enthusiasm. I would have to count Allison and myself in that group. We have seen this movie dozens if not a hundred times but it was her first time to see it on the big screen. The print was not perfect and that made it all the more appropriate since the film making was done on the cheap. She noticed the signals and cuts when they changed reels, not something you get these days with digital delivery of movies. She was also quick to point out that there were only three reels, so clearly the movie does not run long. My only answer to that is that it runs the perfect amount of time to completely satisfy me in my quest for the ultimate experience in Medieval Horror.  Sam Rami has certainly gone on to bigger things, but to me he is forever the king of the horror/comedy genre. "Hail to the King Baby."