Gravity

If you find the trailer tense, wait till you see the movie. This is a film that lived up to my expectations and had a solid emotional wallop to go with it. There are beautiful moments and poignant ones but most of all there are tense interludes that will keep you on the edge of your seat for most of the running time. The 3D IMAX experience was well worth the extra cost because the story is really told from a first hand point of view and you get to experience that point of view in vivid detail with all of the debris and drama flying at you.

Two weeks ago, the newly refurbished Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. reopened as an IMAX venue. One of my on-line friends took his family to the one week run of the 3D version of the Wizard of Oz. After reading his glorious appreciation of the experience I was frankly envious. I would have loved to do that. I knew however that "Gravity" was scheduled to be there in the following week and I have been looking forward to this film since the first teaser. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are the whole show when it comes to actors on screen. They however are not really alone because the magicians who perform special effects magic are right there beside them. This is the most realistic vision of space we are likely to see in a fictional form. The only images that compete with it are the films done by NASA themselves. The camera work is likely to leave you dizzy but not in the way that the shaky cam has over the last ten years. The rotation of the Earth and the difficulty in finding a fixed point in space contribute to a sense of vertigo that makes the story feel more personal.

If you are wondering what fills the time in a film about astronauts cut off from their ship, don't fret. There is a very effective survival plot to go along with the events that lead to the tragedy. This is not an hour and a half mediation on man's place in the Universe as their time slowly runs out. The well trained professionals here are going to find every opportunity they can to rescue themselves. Well each of the characters may despair at one point or another, we ultimately have a powerful story of human will to survive presented to us. There are moments of surprise and quick actions accompanied by more slowly building incidents that also bring the kettle to a boil. This is a world where Murphy's Law is clearly in place and nothing can be counted on to be simple. While that seems manipulative in a film like "Armageddon" it is much more natural and easy to accept in this story.

Both actors have to do most of their work inside of the pressurized space suits that sustain life for a limited time in space. There is a plethora of digital readouts and space based images that cross the clear face-masks of the astronauts. This adds data but not enough to be distracting or to answer too many questions. There are so many details to take in at any moment that we wonder how it is that these two can keep from being overwhelmed. It is Clooney's clear and calm voice that reminds us that they have been trained and prepared for all sorts of eventualities and that this is the time that their training needs to kick in. His ability to remain focused and even at time make a well placed joke, pulls both characters back from the panic that any one of us would surely go through in the same situation.

Sandra Bullock gets the lions share of the accolades however since so much of the stories emotional impact depends on our ability to identify with her. The set up makes it clear that this is her first time in space and as a mission specialist, she has the least amount of training to handle the catastrophe. In most of her quiet moments we can see a frightened woman who is struggling with the question of how to go on in the face of overwintering odds. There is a fantastic effect when her tears float off of her face and into the camera that brings us really close to the character she is playing. I have not seen many female performances this year that would rival the work she does here without resorting to histrionics. I thought it was deeply felt and subtly conveyed. She is a movie star to be sure but she is also a very good actress.


"Gravity" is the most exciting film I have seen this year and it will certainly be a contender for a number of awards in technical fields including directing. Alfonso Cuarón has created a dynamic film that features a terrific lead performance by his female star and all the editing and camerawork should be noted as well. We have a contender here and it is also a very entertaining film.

Addendum: It suddenly dawned on me that I have not seen a film in the main house at the Chinese Theater for almost a dozen years. The last film I am certain we saw there was a press screening of "3000 Miles to Graceland" where we met both Kevin Costner and Kevin Pollock. Clearly it has been too long. The Outside of the theater continues to be a tourist destination as you can see here.

From the outside the theater has not changed at all. The foot and hand prints of the stars still line the courtyard and the crowds bend over to examine them and stand in the same spot that John Wayne or Gregory Peck stood when they were immortalized. The only things missing from the days when I used to haunt this location on a near weekly basis are the ticket booth with awning that has long gone and the giant marquee that announced in huge lettering the feature that is playing in the big theater. The only marquee now visible is the one at the street box office for the multiplex Chinese Theater located in the same complex. The theater has been taken over by a Chinese conglomerate and they have wisely upgraded the screen and the seating area but left most of the traditional trappings in place.

The interior still looks like a Chinese Palace and the original wall hanging appear to have been cleaned up and restored but not changed. The IMAX screen is large but it does not hover above you like those at museum locations around the country. The bathrooms continue to be located inconveniently in the basement, requiring a descent down a narrow flight of stairs. It looks pretty much the way I remembered it so those modifications that took place did not drop down to the lower level of the lobby. The one difference in the lobby area that was clear was the depth of the concession stand area. While not as wide and roomy as many theaters now a days, it is back away from the main doors enough that you no longer have to cross through the lines of patrons waiting for popcorn to get to the main exit or the stairs to the bathroom. Prior to the film today, two trailers ran for films that will be on the big screen here: The Hunger Games:Catching Fire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Each film looked like a winner in the brief shots we got and the 3D IMAX should complement them very well.

Prisoners

As the father of two girls, I approached this film with a great deal of trepidation. Although my kids are grown, I know what a horrible feeling it would be to have your children disappear. The nightmare that these two families face gets worse with every minute that the children are gone.  I was not sure that this would be the kind of film that I would be able to stomach. If you are a parent and wary of seeing this because it might hit too close to home, then you are better off skipping down to the next start time and seeing a good family film or a thriller where child abduction is not the starting point. In the long run the story will reveal it's secrets and there will be moments of redemption, but they come at a great cost.

Usually I avoid reading other reviews before I see a film, but this past week on the radio and on a podcast that I listen to, both viewers mentioned the same tell. They each generally liked the film but they said they knew who was responsible for the crime based on a well known trait of film making most recognizable on dramatic TV programs. (I won't tell you what the clue is because I don't want you to have the same issue that I did). As a result of hearing this info, I spent a chunk of the movie watching for the give away instead of just following the story. As it turns out, it did not matter because I did not recognize the an actor playing a key character and I was diverted from the tell at the beginning. After I settled down to watch the story unfold, I did find myself caught up in the details of the plot. It is a complicated set of events and the resolution follows some strong plotting techniques but also some typical movie shortcuts. There are a couple of glaring coincidences that help things move forward, but there are also so many side issues and red herrings that those contrivances do not matter much.

All of the advertising for the film has already revealed that the parents of the kidnapped children are willing to go to extreme lengths to try and find them. This raised some pretty tough moral issues and there are some scenes of brutality that are hard to take. We are spared the visualization of the process for the most part but we do get a lot of the after effects and it isn't pretty. Hugh Jackman's character is a self sufficient type, prepared for emergencies, able to provide for his family and the owner of his own business. His portrayal of a father pushed to the breaking point and pushing back is the strength of the story, but it is Jake Gyllenhaal's police detective that is the strength of the movie. Jackman's intensity is understandable from the beginning and he goes on full Wolverine mode at times to get what he wants. Detective Loki, is a different matter. As the story progresses he becomes less detached, more volatile and a lot more conflicted in his motivations. Gyllenhaal is impressive playing a completely different type of dogged determination than he played in "Zodiac" as a man obsessed with finding the identity of a killer. The script lets him down in a couple of places, but his work pulls us back into the story and away from the conventional tools that might unwrap the mystery.

The scenes where the two fathers pursue their own project to get information are solid but rarely a surprise. The false trails and secondary characters that seem to create a diversion are actually all cleverly tied into each other. I thought it was a very solid job of plotting. There are two outstanding "thrill" moments which occur as those threads are being unraveled and then some other moments of dramatic fireworks as well. It is unfortunate that the resolution does not have quite the same spark to it, although there is a much darker element and personality revealed. The personality of our heroes is shown in the most naked circumstances and this is where the redemption comes through for them. You have to have been paying attention to have it all make sense and there are still a couple of small bits of info that I would like clarified, but it was overall satisfying.

The other thing I heard talk of before I saw the movie was the running time. It is two and a half hours. Both of the commentators I happened across suggested that it could lose nearly an hour of run time. I did not notice that the story moved slowly. I think if the pace had been quicker, then there would be even more difficulty in making sense of the plot. This feels like an attempt at creating an original piece of story telling and not simply a programmer like those 1990s Paramount films that crammed plot, thrills and Ashley Judd into ninety minutes. I can't say it was perfect but I did think it worked very well and despite my hesitation over the subject matter, I was glad I saw it and I think most of you will be as well.

The Wizard of Oz IMAX 3D

There is nothing I can say that has not already been said about this film. It is the quintessential family entertainment of the last century and a masterpiece from that greatest of years 1939. I do think that makes this "75th" Anniversary Release a bit premature but I am not complaining. This morning I skipped down the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy and her friends and although I have seen the movie dozens of times it was like a new adventure. It was just a few short years ago that the film was re-mastered for high definition release but a little something extra was added this time. This was a 3D IMAX film.

We ended up seeing it in Fauxmax because I could not bring myself to drive down to Hollywood after the last couple of long days. The the local upgrades to neighborhood theaters that claim to be IMAX screens do provide a nice picture and superior sound, but they do not have the enveloping scope of the real IMAX screens that are seven stories high and require audience seating at a stiff 45 degree angle. There were other films that I might have seen this weekend but this is a one week engagement and those others can wait.

A picture to show that I am a "Musical" lover, not that there's anything wrong with that.

 The colors when they appear are brilliant and the clarity is amazing. If you were not able to see it before, the Scarecrow actually has burlap cross weave in the makeup on his face. You can see all the birds in the background during the" apples" sequence and the flying monkeys will creep you out even more because they still look real. The 3D conversion is competent and it adds a nice texture to a special occasion but it is not needed. This movie just rocks.

No rainbows here in Southern California this weekend

The songs are wonderful and all of you who play the slots in Vegas or some other casino, you know how the sound can be addicting. The Video slot versions of the Wizard of Oz use the sound to suck you in and keep you playing, just to hear that sweet music again and again. I continue to deny the explanation at the end. Everyone else thinks it was just a dream but Dorothy, Toto and us all know that OZ is a real place that you get to over the rainbow. If you don't have any rain on your horizon in the next few days and thus no chance of rainbow, the other way you get to Oz is by plopping down your $15 bucks and putting on some geeky glasses. This week, it is the shorter route.

Riddick

The drought is officially over. No, not the dearth of good films, just my absence from movie theaters. As the summer ends and we creep into fall, a confluence of circumstances has come together to keep me away from my holy temple for three long weeks, 21 days, 504 hours (not that I was counting or anything). I have returned to school and that limits opportunities. Football has restarted and now the holy ground of the L.A. Coliseum calls to me many Saturdays, we will ignore the desecration that took place two weeks ago. Finally, good movies have dried up, making a trip to the theater difficult to plan unless I want to repeat something or trek forty miles to see something new that I might be interested in. "Riddick" represents a methadone injection, it scratches the itch but is not as satisfying as an addict might want. I saw "Pitch Black" when it came out ten years ago, and I thought it was an effective piece of science fiction/horror hokum. I only saw it the one time so I can't recall any details. "The Chronicles of Riddick" made it onto my plate as a Saturday afternoon satellite film. Since I subscribe to everything, it came up and I watched. Again, just the one time and my memory of it is even fuzzier, though it was the more recent experience. So if I am not a big fan you ask, why did this new film draw me back to theaters?  Well it turns out that my delightful oldest child is a fan and we seldom get to go together to the movies anymore. We do share some tastes and when an opportunity knocks I am going to open the door. As a bonus, today we were joined by her husband, a rather large man who seldom travels to a movie so it was a fun change of pace.

One of the nice things about a movie like this is that the history of the character is mostly irrelevant to the story that is being told. "Betrayed again, shoulda seen it coming. Especially since the first time it happened was the day I was born." That is the opening line of the movie and it is as much as you really need to know. Riddick is a badass who has crappy things happen to him and then he solves those problems with extreme prejudice. He has killed something in front of our eyes before we have even seen him, so you know what is coming. There is a short flashback sequence to explain how he was abandoned on this hostile planet. This is the only sequence that Karl Urban appears in so if he is the reason you are thinking of taking a flyer on this film, don't. He has maybe ninety seconds of screen time. The first half of the movie is pretty much Vin Diesel doing his growling thing. When you pay to see a movie starring Vin, it is unlikely that dialogue is what you want to see and hear. You want action sequences and hard guy attitude. Well, you will get the hard guy attitude, but the action sequences are not quite as involving as they could be.

So Riddick is trapped on the planet and has to figure out how to survive. This entails scoping out the landscape, assessing the local monsters and figuring out how to shelter himself. One of the ways in which he integrates himself into the world is by doing Will Smith in "I am Legend". His CGI costar is actually kind of fun, but you know in the long run it isn't going to be a happy ending. It is standard man in the wilderness film making except that the wilderness is a giant planet teeming with vicious creatures that special effects computers render in abundance. The look of the movie is interesting but you can notice at times that they cut some corners on visual effects in order to make them inexpensive. It won't undermine your enjoyment of the movie any unless you are uptight like that. Once Riddick has figured out that there is a mercenary way station on the planet (a sort of bounty hunters cabin in the woods), he sends out a notice that he is there, basically trying to get a ride off the planet. For reasons that are never gone into, Riddick is the most notorious criminal in the universe and every planet seems to have put out a bounty on him. As soon as he makes himself known, two competing crews of mercenaries show up to capture and kill him. Of course the bounty hunters will not only be outmatched by Riddick himself, we are going to get a repeat of the first film where the monsters come out at night and Riddick is their only hope.

There is not much need for character development. Hairstyles and clothing manage to tell us all we need to know about the bounty hunters. One group is cruel and probably as big a group of criminals as our hero himself. The second group is tough and more professional and they have a hidden agenda to go along with their story. Heads will butt, testosterone will flow freely and Riddick will kill enough of them to show he means business and then have the remainder to potentially save. There are a few clever tricks in Riddicks handling of the two crews. The guy has the biggest cojones in the universe and he does a good job trying to intimidate the others, although they frequently continue to underestimate him. When the CGI space creatures show up, the movie slips into auto pilot and gives us random shoot outs, sudden deaths and lots of screaming critters in the dark. The creatures are not scary the way I remember similar creatures being in "Pitch Black" but they will do for an adversary that brings competing forces together. The last section of the film feels a little rushed and incomplete which is odd because so much time was taken in the first hour to set things up.

If I was thirteen or fourteen, and seeing this stuff for the first time, I'd be excited as heck about it. This is juicy Sci Fi action and a tough guy character that every adolescent boy would probably want to emulate. Somewhere inside of me, that kid still survives. He got a kick out of the cheesy space motorcycles in the film. He liked the vicious payoff of the main antagonist in the story. He is also a sucker for a good dog and even if this one was a virtual pet, it was still something to enjoy. The older version of that kid thought the movie was fine for a Sunday afternoon and I will probably not remember any of it in a couple of months. That will make it better when someone down the road suggests a "Riddick" marathon on a rainy weekend. It will be like new for me, and then I can repeat all of these jokes.

The World's End

Everyone knows there can be a gap between that which is quality and that which is enjoyable. Occasionally they go together but many, many, times, you have to accept that you just like something because you do, not because it is artistic, innovative or excellent. "The World's End" is silly, annoying and spins off in a direction that makes almost no sense what ever, it is my favorite movie this summer. I laughed more per minute during this film that I have at any film I can think of for the last four or five years. If you have a low tolerance for Simon Pegg, then you should stay away because he is the show entirely for the first half of the film. If you are like me however and find him oddly sympathetic in spite of himself, then you will be sucked in during the first minutes of the movie and you will practically cheer at the conclusion.

It would be easy to confuse this movie with this summers earlier "This is the End". Both of them feature a group of friends who party too hard and end up facing an unexpected Apocalypse. "The World's End" builds up to the fireworks more slowly and it has a much stronger sense of character. The actors here are not playing thinly veiled versions of themselves, they are characters in a story. There is some background established and we are not reliant on our knowledge of other movies to make sense of who each one is. Bits and pieces of the back story emerge as the film goes forward, revealing some surprises but mostly confirming our fears and expectations about these friends. Most of us have a friend like Gary, a guy who was full of himself once upon a time and has the same party hardy attitude that got us in trouble when we were kids. That Gary is able to wrangle up his four best mates twenty years after they fell out of contact is not a surprise. Even though people do change, relational dynamics often follow built in patterns long after they have worn out any sense of purpose. Four successful guys get wrangled into doing a pub crawl they all failed to finish twenty years earlier because the one friend who needs to fulfill this wish still has the same ability to push their buttons and exploit their weak spots. Gary is not even smart about it, he is simply following programming.

Everything in this opening section worked for me. The awkward re-connections, the "white" lies, the sense of guilt and obligation are all exploited in very funny ways. We discover that Gary has been exploiting some of his old friends for years and they did not know it. Gary is a force of nature, not automatically for good, but one that anyone in his path will have to deal with. Pegg delivers his lines like the cocksure, cheery, a hole he is playing. Timing is essential for a comedy and he has perfect timing for the comebacks, asides and outrageous arguments he spouts off on. Most of this gets even better when we get to the actual pub crawl and the alcohol starts taking effect. In the second act the other characters start to step forward and make their own comic contributions. They stop being foils for Gary's character and develop their own personality quirks that are just as amusing. Nick Frost, Pegg's partner in "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz", finally comes alive with some self righteous attitude and serious ass kicking skills playing Andy, Gary's closest friend in their youth. In the off the wall third act he is the main focus of the humor and he comes through just like Pegg does in the clinches.

The slow burning second act cheerfully breaks down what sense of normalcy there was for these friends. There are a couple of life lessons and sad stories injected to add a bit more meaning to the proceedings, but everything continues to be funny. The pacing of this film is a lot like "Hot Fuzz" because once we hit the third act all hell breaks loose and any sense that this movie was going to be about the bonds of friendship gets lost in a completely creative yet oddly derivative story. Look, this is a Mash up of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "Night of the Living Dead", so how is it creative? All those parts come two thirds of the way in and they speed the film along to it's conclusion so fast that it is hard to know exactly where we left the tracks of sanity, and who cares anyway? So it makes no sense that a bunch of middle aged men are suddenly mixed martial artists, or that an alien invasion is confronted with a hysterical reductionist Star Trek type alien computer meltdown. It is done in a silly and entertaining way. The creativity here comes from taking the absurdity of the plot twist and having a damn fun time with it.

There are technical issues with some effects, and there are story issues that seem just awkward. I don't care. This is the second film in the so called  "Cornetto" Trilogy to turn a former James Bond into a villain, the music cues are fantastic, Rosamund Pike appears again in a Pierce Brosnan movie and she is mature beautiful instead of hot beautiful. The audience was laughing so much that I missed several lines so this experience will clearly need repeating. What better recognition can you give to a comedy than I cried my eyes out with laughter? Maybe I could have wet myself but I did not lose that much control and I'm still willing to say it was incredibly funny. Humor is subjective at times, maybe it won't strike you the same way it did me. If that's the case I'm sorry for you because this was the movie I enjoyed the most this year. It was original, familiar, and just so damn funny to me that I pity you if you missed the experience I had.

Blue Jasmine

Frankly, Woody Allen has always been a hit or miss proposition for me. Early films were zany comedies, then there came the more mature adult stories and finally there is a long stretch of inconsistency. The last of his films that I saw and liked was "Midnight in Paris". Before that I had gone for almost fifteen years without seeing any of his work. It's not that I dislike his style, it simply is that he writes movies that have little resonance for me. The fantasy of "Midnight in Paris" worked for me and I suspect I might like "Match Point" because it has a thriller element. So you might ask yourself, "What was he doing at Blue Jasmine?" It is a brittle comedy that travels some very dark places and requires a lot of patience. The answer is I am blocked for the moment from seeing other films until my movie going partners are able to attend, and I needed a cinema fix. I could have stayed home and watched something I've seen before but a fresh film is just hard to turn down.

In the long run I may have been better off turning down the siren call of the theater. "Blue Jasmine" is not a bad film, but from my point of view, Woody Allen brought half a thing. There is an extensive number of incidents that make up the story, but the major events are all told in flashback so the movie does not feel like it has any narrative drive. There is so much character development that you never feel like the story is going someplace and then it turns out that it isn't going anyplace, it just sort of ends. With "Annie Hall" Allen told a nonlinear story but the transitions and incidents were all building to something. Maybe I can't remember the sequence of events exactly, but I could tell you what the story was about. I'm back to that old joke I use with my kids and I think I may have used on this site once before. "What's it about?" It's about a hundred minutes.

Cate Blanchett is a wonderful actress who is capable of creating real emotions on screen. This movie is basically an opportunity to show off her craft and she never seems to overplay it, even when the story calls for her to have gone over the edge. As one of two adopted sisters, she seems to be the one who should have the most solid chance at success. Of course life does not always work out the way it looks like it should and her character ends up living with her sad sack sister in San Francisco. Both women turn out to have self destructive impulses when it comes to the men in their lives. Each one makes bad choices but we don't always know why. As Cate's character Jasmine gets buffeted about by the life she chose, she also influences the life of her sister, despite the fact that they are not close and feel somewhat estranged from one another. Blanchett plays confident and doubtful in the same scenes, She gets a chance to have on screen breakdowns and deal with humorous but uncomfortable situations every few minutes. There is no fault in her performance, I'm just not sure what it is in aid of.

There are several actors who should be mentioned for the good work they do here as well. Bobby Cannavale who I liked so much in "Win-Win" a couple of years ago, plays the sister's current boyfriend. He is rough around the edges but he appears to be good hearted. Even the scenes that he appears in where he is something of a menace, you never feel threatened. Instead you might have some empathy for the guy. Exactly the same thing could be said about Andrew Dice Clay. If you had suggested twenty years ago that he would be working with Woody Allen, people would have laughed, but not in the way the "Diceman" would have wanted you to. His character is the former husband of Jasmine's sister and he has a legitimate amount of anger that gets channeled pretty well.  Louie C.K. shows up for a couple of scenes and his character seems like an opportunity for some happiness in a different direction. The resolution of his character in the story is handled by a phone call that may seem obvious to the audience but was a direct betrayal of the character as presented. Maybe that is the point. Just as Alec Baldwin turns out to be something less than he appears to be, I guess it is going to be a characteristic of all the men in the story. Peter Sarsgaard plays effete snobbery so well that it is easy to believe he could be a political animal from San Francisco. For someone who is not too fond of the Golden State, Allen gets this character exactly right. Probably because he is just a left coast version of a New Yorker.

The movie follows a lot of ideas and trails back on itself several times. There is a revelation that I suppose was designed to be shocking but felt exactly right and was not much of a surprise at the end. We haven't traveled very far from the start of the story when the movie is over. The status of the main characters has not changed, there is a bit more sadness about everyone involved and there was a slight amount of humor but it is largely smothered in the melodrama of the main characters. It feels a bit like six weeks of a soap opera condensed to a couple hours. Of course in a soap, the story never ends, and this movie feels the same. If you are an Allen completest,    than by all means enjoy. If you can take him or leave him like me, this would be one that you can safely leave on the table.

What Did I Do This Summer When Not At The Movies?

Laser Discs are an outmoded technology that never quite took off outside of the world of aficionados and tech geeks. They introduced many of the features that we now take for granted on a DVD or Blu Ray release. Such features would include a secondary audio track; either score, commentary or dubbing. Lasers also introduced Trailers, outtakes,  featurettes and a bucket load of other cool stuff.

Last Year at the Archlight theater in Hollywood, they had a fifty foot high poster wall with a light box for all the 80s posters they were showing off. Then next time I was in they had a sports movie themed wall. At the other locations they have similar displays. I love this idea and am jealous that I don't have the space or money to reproduce it with my own poster collection. I do however have those a whole lot of discs and now I can create my own theme walls using the Laser Disc covers.

Laser Discs never managed to spread out in a wide enough pattern to make them more cost efficient. At most, 2% of American homes had laser players, I am among those two percent. I still have almost 800 discs that were previously stored in two magazine racks in my home office (along with two big tubs on the floor). I currently have three players that are not working so they really are not doing much for me except reminding me of all the money I spent. Still, most of the Discs that I bought had beautiful covers or gate-fold jackets and it is a shame not to be able to see them.

To fix this issue, I have borrowed an idea from one of the Laser Disc stores I used to haunt back in the early 1990s. "Laserwave" was located in San Gabriel, about a mile from where I lived and they sold and rented Discs, so I was in there on a weekly basis. I always loved the way they had them displayed on the walls. Much of their business was karaoke based, being in a large Asian community in Southern California, but the displays were all movies. They had a unique wall system that I always admired. The thin shelves were fronted with acetate edging to keep the discs from slipping off and the shelf above had an acetate edge to keep the disc from falling over. You simply insert the disc under the top lip and then drop the bottom behind the lip on the lower shelf. It was harder to get right than I thought and it took more time as a result.

Here is my humble attempt to copy both the Arclight and Laserwave:

I anticipate being able to put up theme walls when I have all my discs sorted and the office back in working order, I'll try to shoot some of the KAMAD VLOG posts in front of the themes. Look for a horror wall in October, that will be the soonest I will have my stuff together.

By the way, if you have a collection of old LPs, this would be a great way to feature a large number instead of merely a few well chosen pieces of music art.

Unlike Siskel and Ebert, I don't have a balcony to close, so I'll just sign off and wish you happy celluloid dreams.

Kick Ass 2

Right off the bat let me say that there was no way that the sequel could live up to the magnificence that was the 2010 Best Movie of the Year (At least here on My site). The original Kick Ass introduced my favorite character in movies in the last ten years or so, and it featured a deliberately off the wall, in an appropriate way, Nicolas Cage performance. It had the most insane style and over the top characters and a solid hero story at it's center. The pacing and the whole comic book milieu was mixed in pretty perfect proportions. Kick Ass 2 would be lacking the touch of the original director, Matthew Vaughn, and Nic Cage's character doesn't make it out of the first story so you knew he was not going to be back. So how can you possibly try to match that first experience. The answer is that you can't. So you just try to make the best movie that you can out of the pieces that remain from your origin story. In my view, Kick Ass 2 manages to be a successful action comedy, that does nothing to embarrass the first movie and still entertains the heck out of those of us who love the characters.

One way that the story tries to compensate for the loss of the surprise factor in the first film is by introducing novel new characters to fill in some gaps. Mark Strong was a great villain, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse returns as Chris D'Amico, the son of Strong's character and the double crossing hero named Red Mist. Mintz-Plasse is never going to be anyone's nightmare villain. He doesn't have the look or the muscles to carry it off. In an early scene where he tries to make his new super villain, "The Mother F*****" a more viable adversary through training he gets pounded by his ring opponent. The screenwriter knows that he can never be the physical equal of the Dad, and tells us so right then. The "MF" is going to have to rely on hired muscle to extend his power and take vengeance on Kick Ass. Enter a series of nasty criminal types who are drafted into his crazy army of evildoers. The most memorable of which is a female former KGB agent that he dubs "Mother Russia". The mob that made up his Dad's enforcers is mundane compared to the nut jobs he tries to replace them with. The plot has a bit of a role reversal. In the original, the Cage character "Big Daddy" is the insane vigilante that the gangsters can't comprehend. Here, Chris and his evil army are the insane ones. They are not motivated by the average gangland objectives, they exist only to cause the havoc that the now crazy son is wrapped up in. The frightening part is not in how they dress up, that's just as silly as the hero side. The scary part is the willingness of the crew to kill cops, blow up public spaces and generally do what the nut job with all the cash wants them to do.

Kick Ass himself has matured and grown a little. He settles down into a routine of normalcy that is ultimately unsatisfying to him. The call to do right brings him back to the super hero ranks that have swollen with a lot of everyday people who want to fix the world. Some of them have gifts, some have only dreams but all of them have some determination. Just as the the bad guys have one memorable group member, the group that calls itself Justice Forever has an inspirational leader, the born again mobster who calls himself Colonel Stars and Stripes. Kick Ass connects with these everyday heroes and they try to make the world a better place. Inevitably there will be a clash between the two sides, and as usual, the side without any scruples would appear to have the edge. Dave Lizewski won't be able to retreat back to High School once the lines are drawn. The motivation for the final confrontation is a lot more significant than he had in the first story. It is different and one of the things that makes the tone of the movie quite  distinct from that earlier story. Dave's narration of the first movie puts us into a different position as observers. His voice was detached and ironic at times, in the current movie, his character seems much more the Kick Ass at the end of the first film, than the mild mannered geek he was at the start of the process. He has a pretty satisfying story arc considering that it is a comic book movie.

Despite the title of the two movies, Aaron Taylor Johnson's character is not the main hero. The true hero of both movies is little Mindy Mcready, better known as "Hit Girl". Mindy never really retired from the hero business, and when Dave discovers that he wants back in himself. There is another side of Mindy though that gets explored here. When she is taken out of action not by the bad guys but by a promise she makes to follow her Daddy's orders, she learns that evil starts somewhere and sometimes that somewhere is High School. It will seem like the sequences of Mindy discovering the cruelty of high school kids is a side track to the main story, but she has to go through some adolescence angst to mature into a more complete version of herself. That fact that she does so in such humorous, touching and vicious ways makes her character more important than ever. There are a couple of moments when the tough chick we know as "Hit Girl" is also the young and maturing Mindy. Subject to some of the same temptations and mistakes that other girls make. There are no doubt a million young girls out there in the audience (along with their parents) who have a wish fulfillment sequence when the queen bee gets her comeuppance. At that moment we know that the real "Hit Girl" will be returning with a furious vengeance and all will be right again, even if it takes a while. Her character can not have the same impact as the eleven year old killer we met a few years ago had, but she still manages to hold the screen and impress in all of the fight scenes.

A couple of ways the director Jeff Wadlow differs in tone with the movie can be found in the action sequences and the use of music. Vaughn's original film was full of whimsy and visual energy that was at times silly but utterly entrancing. Wadlow stages the action scenes very well but they lack the joyful nonsens in the first movie. The joyful ballet that was "Hit Girl" massacring an entire mob family is replaced with realistic action sequences, that emphasize the drama rather than the visual pyrotechnics of film that were found in the first film. The same thing can be said about the music. The house and rap music used in this film is fine and fits the scenes but it never tickles us in the same way that "The Banana Splits Theme" or the key notes of "A Few Dollars More" that remind us that we are watching a movie. There are not many cultural references in the film to bring in all the geeks who loved those touches in the first movie. They have been replaced by a more straight forward narrative. There are still some pretty over the top bits, like a shark tank or the resolution of Chris's Mom in the story but they are fewer. One of the most effective scenes is when Chris gets a lesson from his Uncle that pushes him completely over.   It's one spot where Mintz-Plasse doesn't chew the scenery and actually shows he can act a little.

I did not like that the Katie character from the first movie was so quickly disposed of, and I think I might have enjoyed a few more scenes of "Justice Forever" being lead by Jim Carrey with his maniacal eyed look. Still the film moves very effectively and seemed to be paced very well. The main threads that were hanging from the first movie got resolved and I feel we have been set to either enjoy another sequel or to leave these characters behind. I  for one would like them to come back in a couple of more years and give us some more ass kicking, but if it doesn't happen, I am pleased with the films we got. The first was brilliant in my opinion and this follow up is perfectly enjoyable and manages the difficult task of being satisfying even though it does change the nature of the story a little. If you are a big fan, stick around for a funny little stinger at the end of the credits.

We're the Millers

This is an R rated comedy, featuring Jennifer Aniston as a stripper, and the details on the rating read: "Rated R for crude sexual content, pervasive language, drug material and brief graphic nudity." Don't get your hopes up for that shot of Jen in the buff, it does not happen and the brief graphic nudity will do the exact opposite of turning you on. The story takes a funny premise, puts it into a typical story arc for all of the characters, and then throws in as many jokes at they could come up with that involve people repeating the phrase "WTF". It's a late summer comedy and it will be fine for adult date night but if you are looking for something unconventional, or consistently funny, or you just want to see Jennifer Aniston strip, be prepared for a disappointment.

Jason Sudeikis plays a low level pot dealer shanghaied into smuggling a whole lot of ganja from Mexico to Denver for his rich drug lord former college classmate. When he gets the idea to disguise himself as a family man traveling on vacation with the kids as cover. OK, that sounds like a promising idea. The problem is that to set up the concept, the writers have attempted to make everyone in the movie (with the exception of one character) into hipster malcontents. Almost everyone expresses contempt for the idea of a normal family life. In one early scene, the reliable and funny Thomas Lennon, plays an old acquaintance of our drug dealing hero, and gives every indication that his life pretty much ended when he got married. There is a very funny quote that comes when David, the dealer, describes to the stylist how he wants his hair cut. All of this subversion of the traditional life style is in aid of setting up the suppressed instinct that it turns out all of the maladjusted characters actually crave. Later in the film is a long sequence with another couple that strengthens the impression that married life is actually a kind of hell on Earth. The problem is that since they sell this concept so thoroughly in the set up, it makes very little sense when the turn comes. The sad story of how David and Rose, the Jennifer Aniston character, supposedly met is meant to create a bridge to that reversal but it is simply not strong enough.

There are a lot of random laughs in the film so it is entertaining. The problem is that the laughs often have little to do with the story. A corrupt and misunderstood Mexican cop creates some chuckles, and that is linked to the pot story. The plot line about incestuous kissing is just a joke that only fits the tag along plot development. Finally, there is the aforementioned bit of nudity which creates a big laugh but does so without really being part of what goes on. It is a stand alone joke that gets repeated later in the movie for another attempt to drain some laughs out of the audience. It works but it seems pretty lazy and there are a lot of opportunities that just seem to get lost because we are following some set ups that have little to do with the plot.

Aniston's costume design for the segments where she is playing a woman who is a "stay at home wife" work pretty well. Several outfits she wore reminded me of some of my own friends who fit that title, or at least have in the past. The strip club where she works at the start of the movie has the least amount of nudity you are likely to encounter in a "gentleman's club". Not only does Jen do a dance that might be considered a poor cousin of the dry hump, all the other strippers simply deliver punch lines, not characters. This may begin to sound like a gripe that there was not any T and A in the movie. I did not go to see it for that, but it is set in a world where that kind of behavior might be expected and no one behaves that way. It is just a constant reminder that you are watching a product put out to make you laugh, but that nothing in the movie should be viewed as real whatsoever.

Since Colorado is now one of two states that basically make marijuana a legal product, it might have made sense to include some humor based on the setting. Instead we get Sudeikis doing schtick to muggers that rob him, drug dealers trying to kill him and his boss who is threatening his life. If smart ass dialogue were all that were required to make a movie work, then this film would be a total success. Instead it feels like a pretty mundane film, using a set of risque characters and the only way that it could be sustained was to make tampon jokes. Admittedly, they are sufficiently disgusting and out of place as you an imagine, but they feel like the adult equivalent of a fart joke, they are old and tired and keep coming up despite the lack of humor. The characters are inconsistent and the plot can't sustain itself. There are funny lines and pieces of business throughout the movie but it seems like random humor, and not the "Airplane" kind. The line I laughed the hardest at was the name that the other married couple had for their vibrator. In context it was funny and if you can live with so hit or miss humor, than the movie is funny also. Of course I was in a pretty good mood when I saw this, you may be less forgiving.

The Wolverine

Basically I have no memory of the X:Men Origins Wolverine film. There were a couple of characters that were used in the movie that I recall but I don't know if they were good bad or indifferent. That's not to say I thought it was a bad film, everyone else has already said that. I think I enjoyed it while it was running and then it promptly went out of my head. I have not seen it since. "The Wolverine" has fewer X:Men and a simpler story. It was relatively easy to follow and there were some good action sequences. I can't say that I will ever see it again,but I enjoyed it while it was on and it seemed a more substantial film than the last one was.

Hugh Jackman can play this role without having to over do it because he was well cast to begin with and it looks like he has been in training for the part for fifteen years now. Logan is living like a real wolverine, hiding from the bad past and creating a fantasy relationship with the late Jean Grey. It is another version of the tortured soul as a character trait of a super hero. It fits fine because we know eventually he will stop moping around and start kicking some butts. When he does, he is identified and then reunited with a man whose life he saved many years earlier. The plot then proceeds from the obligation one man feels and the desire that another man develops.

As far as I could count there are only three mutants that participate in the story. That should allow things to remain relatively simple, but there are also at least three other groups involved with the family corporation run by Logan's old friend. The loyalties and animosities going on here are a little complex but mostly it comes down to yakuza versus ninjas. Sometimes the ninjas are on "The Wolverine's" side and sometimes they are not. There are however several fight scenes that combine both elements and then throw in the Wolverine to make it all more relevant to us, the audience. The idea of immortality as a curse is not new, but for this character, it seems to be important because otherwise he is invincible. Chemical biology and a mutant combine to create Wolverine Kryptonite. This makes the middle section of the picture a more dangerous place for our hero. The vulnerability subjects him not only to risks from his enemies but it allows him to consider a life that he thought could never be his. Basically he can begin to resolve his guilt issues and feeling of isolation because he is a more susceptible hero.

The vast majority of the film is set in Japan. There are gleaming Tokyo neon night spots where danger lurks. There is also a "Hidden Fortress" on a him, overlooking a smaller city which is closer to being a village. Logan spends time in the seaside town of Nagasaki as well. The history of which is part of the bigger story. The settings make the movie more distinctive than other X:Men movies. Local traditions and cultures mix up the motives of the participants in the story and the setting makes the battles look more exotic. As Logan tries to protect a young Japanese woman from the forces that seem to be after her, she contributes to the problem by acting as if she is unclear that there is a threat or that he is something different. Once these characters become more involved, she begins to act in a more consistent manner, one that is a lot more logical. At that point the movie settles down and has a much clearer plot line to follow.

I know the film is PG-13 because we get only one f-bomb, and the blood from all the fighting and evisceration that is taking place, stays mainly on the characters. Body parts don't come flying off the screen, there are no fountains of blood spraying the walls, and the violence remains mostly in the imagination. Even though we know that if those claws of the Wolverines were used the way he uses them, and the swords that all the character wield would produce galleons of crimson everywhere, it is a fairly tame visual atmosphere.  There are several battles that seem to be climatic, but of course there is always one more to go through. Stick around for a stinger that should make you anticipate the next X:Men movie as well. This is not as great a film as X:men First Class was, but it beats the heck out of "Iron Man 3".

The Conjuring

That is how you make a scary movie!

So for the second time today, I can report that the health of the creative industry in Hollywood is not as grave as everyone thinks. The financial condition I can't speak to, but when it comes to making an entertaining film, it seems they are not bankrupt yet. "The Conjuring" lives up to the hype I have been hearing about. It does not do anything really new when it comes to horror, but what it does is manage to sustain the suspense for the entitity of the movie instead of running out of gas halfway through. With a very minimum of CGI effects and a heavy dose of atmosphere, it delivers scares every time it tries to.

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of "The Exorcist", a film that defines what horror really means. That movie created a real background for the characters that the events ultimately happen to, and the foreboding atmosphere exists before we even get to the the so called haunted house. In a similar way, "The Conjuring" starts off with a seemingly unrelated prologue. The creepiness factor is turned way up and the hair on the back of your neck stands up at just a couple of images, sounds and ideas. There is no great throwdown between good and evil , the explosive histrionics are saved for the climax of the main story, but we get a good idea of what is coming.

A family moves into an old house that they have spent all of their money to get into. It doesn't take long for us to know something is wrong, because the dog wants nothing to do with the house. No big special effect, just a dog unwilling to go into a house and then barking most of the night. In the morning though, things get a lot more creepy a lot faster. The pace of the story is not rushed and although there are a few gotcha moments to go along with the tension, those moments are earned. There is a really great scene where one of the five girls living in the house experiences and sees something that no one else sees quite as clearly but all involved believe. The two sisters in that bedroom are frightened to pieces, and the film makers have the good sense to show us almost nothing. There are several other moments in the movie that work just as well and there is not an overuse of special effects. I can say that there was a very strong use of sound in one of the fright scenes and I think Sensurround could make a come back with this kind of sound design.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are the Warrens, a pair of paranormal investigators we met early on who come to the aid of the family. Unlike so many films of this ilk, where the ghostbusters show up out of no where, we actually get a parallel story of their travails as the family is being haunted. That adds a lot more credibility to the plot. This is not a group of people that have to be convinced, they already believe evil exists because they have seen it. The Perron family has stumbled into the usual bad situation and the revelation that this is what happened is not the point of the story, but rather, how it will play out. That is nicely drawn out and Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston sell the characters they are playing without becoming melodramatic. The five young actresses who play they daughters are all solid. There was never an attempt to make them more precious than the average family would be. This is another way in which the frights work so well, it is not over played for most of the movie.

As I said earlier, this film has not got anything in it that you have not really seen before. It just does all of the things that are familiar really well. The editor lets things be suspended for just the right beat, the acting is just dramatic enough, and the special effects are saved for moments when they make the most sense. Toward the end of the movie we get a possession story that is frightening and the exorcism sequence uses up most of the special effects budget. There were maybe one or two slight places where it was pushed a little further than needed, but having gone ninety percent of the way through the film without those flaws, it made them just a little more noticeable. and also forgivable. If scary movies bother you, then definitely stay away from this. If a horror film is something that you crave, here is a full meal that will leave you satisfied and with a little touch of the hair raised on the back of your neck.

The Way, Way Back

Put away your popcorn, forget robots and superheroes, and don't look for any guns or explosions, the best film of the summer is here. "The Way,Way Back" is a basic story that relies on understanding a character and developing an emotional connection to that character. That the film takes place in the summertime is a bonus that will make this a perennial must watch in the month of July for years to come. It will not replace "Jaws" as the go to July Fourth movie at our house, but a couple weeks later, when the summer season is settling in, I will be bugging everyone to sit down and watch this as a family. The film is not overly dramatic and it is not hysterical either, it is just real enough to touch you and make you remember those awkward moments in your own life. It is nostalgic without the trappings of visiting another era.

Duncan is a 14 year old kid, trapped in a family nightmare and only able to see the world as it sucks. He has every right to. His parents are divorced, his Dad is not present in his life and his Mom has found an unsuitable partner to fill the void in their lives. Trent is not the worst human being ever, but he is the worst for Duncan at this point in his life. Steve Carell plays the new boyfriend as a little self righteous and weak at the same time. Toni Collette is Duncan's uncertain and awkward Mother, a part she has grown into pretty well over the years. It is not until the end of the film that we begin to understand her at all. Yet, these are not the main characters of the story. The film focuses on Duncan and the way in which he is having to adapt to seeing the world from a different perspective.

The two different paradigm shifting relationships in the movie are the cute girl next door and an inappropriate but ultimately essential mentor figure that he attaches himself to. Liam James plays the overwhelmed young Duncan. He gets the suppressed anger and the awkward small humiliations just right. One of the reasons he works so well in the movie is that he is stingy with his smile. It does not come easily and it never seems to arrive at the moment we expect it. Part of the reason it is difficult for Duncan to relate is that he has not found a complementary force in his life yet. Mom can't provide it for the moment. Trent does not fit at all and girls are a mystery that are slightly beyond his reach at this stage of life. Lucky for him, and for us as the viewers, Owen drops into his life.

Owen is a local, at the water park near Trent's summer home, where Duncan's Mom has dragged him for the summer. Sussana, the cute, slightly older neighbor girl is potentially a friend but Duncan hasn't learned how to communicate as an adult yet. Owen seems the least likely to be able to help him with those skills, since he is in arrested development himself and speaks mostly in jokes and asides that are hip but maybe not always appropriate. But Owen is older, and wiser than he cares to admit and he has one other special gift. Owen can feel the need that Duncan has to break out of his shell. Owen instinctively responds to Duncan, despite the fact that Duncan can barely get out a coherent sentence. Maybe he recognizes a younger self, or like a lot of partnerships, simply fits in because the other person is letting them. The friendship between a grown man and a 14 year old kid works in a non-creepy way.

OK, so far I have neglected to say that Owen is played by the amazing Sam Rockwell. Over the years, Rockwell has provided more enjoyment to me in movie theaters than could be measured. He has played serious and comedy roles and is willing to inject himself into a story in ways that are not always going to draw attention but do shore up the film. This film lets him do both. He electrifies the movie every time he shows up, but he doesn't steal focus from the character of Duncan who is after all, the main point of what we are watching. Here is an easy way to describe it, Rockwell is a soda bottle full of charisma and energy and the story allows us to pop the top off and let the fizzy lifting goodness flow over us. It may seem in retrospect too contrived to work, but while watching the movie I never felt taken out of the story. The impact that Owen has on Duncan is actually subtle even if his character is not.

There are some dramatic fireworks but they do not exceed the situation that the characters are in. It never feels over the top. The story is populated with unpleasant characters, funny neighbors, thoughtless idiots and surprisingly deep and empathetic kids. It is a coming of age story for Duncan but also for his Mom and Owen as well. Younger viewers may not quite get the reference to the title because for more than twenty years now, automobiles with a third set of seats, have all had those seats facing the same direction. The old (or classic wagon as Trent sees it) station wagon that begins and ends this summer trip has a traditional rear facing seat. Kids traveling with their families in the old days often were on a completely different trip than everyone else because they look at the surroundings through a different perspective. That's what happens here. Everyone gets to see the world from a different view, and it's not all bad.

R.I.P.D.

 The overwhelming majority of reviews of this film have been negative. I try to avoid reading other people's material until I have seen a movie myself. I want my opinion to be MY opinion. Yet in the past month the stink on this film has pervaded the inter webs. The trailers make the film look like a refugee from the late 1990s, and Ryan Reynolds couldn't buy a hit if he won the powerball. Well let me tell you, there is a reason for all that chatter and smell, the movie isn't very good. I suppose it is faint praise to say I did not hate it, but it is likely to end up on my list of disappointments at the end of the year. I can't imagine that there will be many more films that waste as much potential as this.

 I'm a fan of Jeff Bridges. He is a terrific actor and he has a great body of work. This movie probably seemed like a lark, something that would be light and fun and just right for the summer. In concept it is. Or maybe I should say it was. We basically saw this movie in 1997. You know what the reference is. I am going to try and go the whole review without making any direct reference to the film that everybody knows this is basically a knock off of. Instead of having all those qualities that I am guessing Mr. Bridges hoped for, this movie is lazy, loud and not very clearly thought out. The plot is straight out of every sci-fi/action film that precedes it. A hero is plunged in over his head, learns the ropes from a mentor, discovers the nature of his betrayal is more significant than he thought, and has to stop a plan that will let in the end of the world. Check almost every comic book film of the last couple of months or years. Look it can still be done with pizazz, like "The Avengers" or "Pacific Rim", but there is no flair here. It just hits the notes and moves on to the next riff.

 Bridges should be a selling point but instead he is a reason to dislike the film. The accent he affects here is as ridiculous as Nick Cage in "Peggy Sue Got Married" and as hard to understand at times as Bane in the IMAX scene trailer for last year's "Dark Knight Rises". In addition, he never stops rambling on. The jokes might work if they were polished and delivered with some timing, but there are so many of them, they are rushed and sometimes they just repeat the same bit of business we had in an earlier scene. There are at least four spots where we are treated to a review of the story concerning Bridges characters mortal remains. The last one tries to make a joke out of the phrase "SkullF**K". Instead of a laugh, it is just a moment in the movie where we are saddened by the lack of any creative and humorous spark. At one point in the film, Ryan Reynolds character tells Roy (Bridges) to just stop talking. Everyone in our group agreed it would be good advice.

 The CGI special effects go overboard to make disgusting "Deados" gross and creative. They succeed only in the gross part of the equation. Never are any of them particularly frightening and so much of what happens is cartoony that it undermines any interest in the action. Some of the problem is that we have seen all of this before, and the second problem is that it was not well executed, and the third is that they go to it whenever they need something to pump up the energy. Instead it is energy draining. Even the name for the bad guys "Deados" feels lazy. It is supposed to be clever and the slang of the R.I.P.D, it doesn't feel organic, it feels like a compromise to make the story simple.

The concept of a "Police" force pursuing the undead in the afterlife is not a bad one. It's just treated badly by the creative team that put this together. There is a funny idea to use an avatar character in the place of the actor cast in the part, when the R.I.P.D. encounter the living. There is a good set up of the two alternate visions, and then they do nothing with it except repeat the same joke. James Hong is one of those character actors I like seeing in films, but he may have two real lines in the movie and neither of them was done in an interesting or humorous context. It was a complete waste of the potential and another example of the laziness of this screenplay. There is some nice production design, and not all of the visual effects are failures. I liked the sequences where some characters are frozen in time while others are moving rapidly, the cinematography on those shots looked good. Yet every time a "Deado" gets revealed, it just looks cheesy, and not in a fun way. I saw two Ryan Reynolds films and two Mary Louise Parker films in the same week. The good one for each of them is the one that is not this. At the end of the story, it was clearly set up for a series of films. Given the autopsy that this movie has been given, those plans can...well, you know.

Turbo

Weird, but fun. I'll finish this post in the morning.

Bugs, Toys, Robots, Fish, Cars, Planes OK, why not snails? Just about every sort of critter has been used as the basis of an animated movie at some point in the past. I guess that leaves us at the bottom of the list for this movie. It's not really a put down, in fact I appreciate that someone has managed to make a subject that I previously would have thought unappealing, somewhat watchable.  As I sat watching this I kept thinking of "Ratatouille" and how awkward it was to get over the idea of rats in the kitchen. Here we have to get used to snails in the taco truck. It wasn't easy but by the time the film ends it doesn't really bother any more, at least not as far as the grossness factor. The concept is still strange but it was inventive enough that most people will be able to suspend their disbelieve sufficiently to just sit back and enjoy.

The most obvious plot string for a movie about snails to pull on is their speed. "Slowing down to a snail's pace" is a cliche phrase for a reason. The idea that a snail might dream about speed makes sense, that there could be some humor based on snails that are still slow or other characters that are not used to fast snails is perfectly legitimate. Getting a snail into the Indy 500, that's just odd. I can't quite put my finger on why but it is. It was hard enough for me to believe that someone would put together snail races, the extra step of having them race on a track with cars just stretches the concept a little more than I was comfortable with. Still there are some fun moments, and the characters are occasionally interesting. The best thing in the movie though are the visual jokes, and the race track sequences allow us to have a few of those.

I actually enjoyed the first part of the film the most. The every day drudgery of being a snail was tweaked in interesting ways. The idea that a collective of snails is responsible for harvesting food, that they anticipate the ripening of a tomato, or that they want to avoid spoiled food is funny. Crows make a few guest appearances in the story and every time they do, you get a pretty solid laugh. It was amusing to me that our hero, Theo aka "Turbo", finds it a surrender to use the one defense mechanism that a snail has. This marks him as different for sure, but also as reckless and impractical. Ryan Reynolds does fine giving our racing snail the enthusiasm the character needs. His voice is not distinctive or particularly interesting but it does have a youthful tone to it that works for a minimal shortcut to "Turbo's" personality. Paul Giamatti was born to play characters that are the equivalent of "Eeyore". As the sad sack brother "Chet", he is the personal (human interest) element that the story needs to give it some emotion. If Turbo can turn his brother around then all sorts of hope exists. We get a parallel story of brothers on the human side as well. Tito and Angelo are doppelgangers for our two snails and I guess it's needed to get us to care about a snail's ability to inspire. There are also several jokes made about the food truck so it provides a more target rich environment than just the garden.

I know it will sound silly to complain about how hackneyed an idea is in an animated movie about racing snails, but there was virtually no reason to have a human villain. Guy Gagne, "Turbo's" car racing hero did not need to be turned into a murderous cheater to make the story work dramatically. If he had stayed simply the hyper competitive rival who learns that he is not all that, it would have been sufficient. The last part of the story with him feels like dramatic overkill. There could have been more about both sets of brothers that would have worked just fine. Most of the characters don't get much more than a voice actor to give them personality. The look of some of them is fine, but other than the joke about shadows not being inherently fast, a lot of the characters just are not needed. The voices are all familiar, and I did enjoy the fact that Richard Jenkins animated character looks exactly like him. I could not tell why Snoop Dog, or Samuel Jackson were doing voice work, except maybe to give the urban song score more street cred. Bill Hader does an accent so why is his voice needed? Ken Jeong screeches out a voice that is annoying, but it is a stereotype and that seemed a bit over the top as well.

The look of the movie is very good in all regards except one. The garden is realistic and inventive, the snails with racing equipment are funny, the cars and the track and the taco truck all look  great. It is the human characters that are all a bit off. They all have these huge triangular shaped bodies and nearly blank but definitely bland faces.  It amazes me that snails can be made to have interesting faces with the antennae eyes and not much else but the human faces don't have much personality at all. Still, this is a minor quibble with the look of the movie. The weaknesses of the film are the story, the jokes are fun, the characters are well drawn and the backgrounds are excellent. I laughed several times but I did not quite get that heat warming feeling at the end that the story tellers were clearly shooting for. Maybe that's because we are being asked to identify with snails, and most of us, regardless of how slug like we behave, still think snails are icky.

RED 2

Two years ago, I had the original RED on my top ten list for the year. It was such a surprise and so much fun that it was easy to ignore whatever faults it might have. For the sequel, I'm willing to make the same deal. The tone of the movie and the glee that the actors have in playing their roles, allows me to ignore some plot holes, forgive some of the over the top action beats and not worry about the convoluted plotting that could confuse anyone who got up to go to the bathroom during the film. Locations change, loyalties shift and the goal of the protagonists shifts repeatedly. None of that matters because this is just in exercise in looking cool and saying the right thing to get a laugh from time to time.

Much like Dwayne Johnson and Mark Wahlberg, Bruce Willis seems to be starring in every movie that comes out this year. This is his third time in theaters in 2013 and his second extended visit to Moscow as part of the plot. Fortunately, this movie is a lot more successful in giving the audience some pleasure than "A Good Day To Die Hard" was. Frank, the Retired Extremely Dangerous C.I.A. asset, is called on to participate in some spy nonsense where old rivalries and revenge plots overlap and spies that make James Bond seem like he has been under trained, crawl out of every storefront and bar in the vicinity. Unlike the "Die Hard" series, where John Mclane is a serious character who manages to break the tension with a well timed quip, Willis here is playing a comedian who is occasionally called upon to perform acts of violence as a side note. The characters are really the reverse of each other, and in this movie, Willis gets the tone correct and he is in sync with the picture which was not the case earlier this year.

This story lacks two ingredients that made the first movie a little more successful. We don't get the charm of Morgan Freeman and there is no conflicted agent like Karl Urban. Instead, those characters have been replaced with three other actors who provide different strengths. Anthony Hopkins joins the shenanigans as a  scientist, long time kept out of the game by conspiracies within different spy agencies. Early on in his appearance, there is some charm to the absent minded, partially deranged character. As the movie goes on, he keeps some of the charm but the plot shifts again to something a bit bigger. I don't know if that was designed to give him a greater part in the story or if the plot just was bouncing around so much that this is where it ended up.  Also on board for this fast moving mess of a story are Neal McDonough and Catherine Zeta-Jones. McDonough plays his standard creepy bad guy, brutal in his methods and the threats he makes. He basically plays the Robert Quarles character from "Justified" only without the complicated background. It is easy to dislike the character immediately and know he is not to be trusted. Zeta-Jones plays a Russian espionage specialist, who's loyalties seem to shift on a very regular basis. She is used primarily for star power here since her part could have been done by any number of other actors.

The surprise for me this time was the work of Mary Louise Parker. As Frank's girlfriend Sarah, she was just a damsel in distress in the first movie. In this film, she gets to be an instigator and an active participant in the activities of the group. It seems that Sarah is stimulated by the dangerous missions and the romance between her and Frank needs the spark that the high adventure injects into their lives. She jumps full throttle into the activities and shows some skills that are needed from time to time. As Marvin says "She has some thing you and I Frank will never have, she's likable." That likability gets tested several times and she has to grow up a little in the part she is playing, but it never gets too heavy handed. The welcome presence of our other RED agents is also comforting. Helen Mirren plays off her deadly skills with some well placed quips. She has a great action scene that is just silly CGI baloney, but it works because she sells it. Two handed gunplay in a Lotus never looked so good. John Malkovich tones down the crazy in this movie and replaces it with slightly brilliant eccentricity. It works, and he gets to have a lot of fun being the occasional voice of irrational reason.  Byung-hun Lee shows up in a second movie with Willis this year after earlier appearing in G.I. Joe 2. There are several scenes of him being a bad ass assassin and trying to take the team out, mostly for no reason other than to fit in some action scenes and chop socky material. His is another character with conflicted loyalties. I was also happy to see the return of Brian Cox to the film, although his part is relatively limited to exposition and easy story plotting.

Some of this may sound like I had big issues with the movie. I didn't. I know that it is comic book action for people who want their super heroes to be a little less alien and a lot more funny. This movie gets the tone of the characters right and the ridiculousness of the plot is clear from the beginning. My kids are well trained and respectful of film makers, we always watch the credits to give the people who worked so hard on the film their due. When Amanda had to get up at the start of the credits, I knew she really needed to go to the restroom. She made it back before the credits were finished and she made what I'm afraid is an accurate and telling point. She said she forgot that this is an old persons movie, and she had gotten stuck behind several people who did not appear to have any place to go as they were leaving the theater and she really needed to go. It's true, this movie is focused on "retired" agents and so in addition to the cast, the audience is a bit older as well. That was one of the reasons I liked the first movie. It showed that the old dogs still had a few tricks to show. Well it is true again. there is some life in the older generation (at least among these actors) and that gives my demographic a better reason to go to the movies. The young cast featured in the trailer that played in front of this film for the "City of Bones" film coming soon left me cold. Bruce, Helen, Tony, John and Brian warmed me up just fine. 

Dominick and Eugene

This was a happy assignment from the Secret Santa Movie blogathon currently running on the Cinematic Katzenjammer. I have known about this movie for more than twenty five years, but I never had enough motivation to sit down and watch it until now. For some reason I have always confused it with "Echo Park" another Tom Hulce film that opened a couple of years earlier. In fact, it took me several minutes to get used to the fact that this movies setting was going to be in Pittsburgh and not L.A.. After the introduction of several characters that were clearly going to be part of the plot, I realized these two guys were not moving together to Southern California. It should have been more obvious to me since the credits roll over a loving shot of the three rivers at magic hour with a golden hue that makes Pennsylvania pretty attractive. No way was this going to shift to the the urban lake park neighborhood south of Dodger Stadium.

Dominick (Nickie) and Eugene are fraternal twin brothers. Eugene is an intern at a local Pittsburgh hospital but is looking to do his residency at Stanford in California. Nickie is a garbage man, working for a city contractor. Nickie is also brain damaged as a result of a childhood accident, and needs a lot of help in order to function in this world. The dilemma faced by Eugene is how to continue his drive to be a doctor and still care for his brother, a man who needs a pretty strong structure to function in. They are approaching their twenty sixth birthday and their lives are at a transition point. The drama in the film starts off focused on this conundrum but takes off on a tangent in the third act. While the third act dramatics are the most exciting components of the story, they seem to be the least organic. Issues that may have simmered for ages, now become the central issue in their lives and it all seems to happen very quickly.

That last phrase is a bit ironic because the truth is nothing happens very quickly in this movie. It is slow paced and deliberate in showing the struggle that both brothers have to go through on a daily basis. We got a couple of minutes on taking the dog out to relieve himself, and several scenes where Nickie works diligently along side a couple of more colorful characters on the garbage truck. This does seem a little more necessary because it turns out that Nickie is substantially paying for his brother to go through medical school. So although Nickie is dependent on his brother, the reverse is true as well. Audiences used to a more frenetic paced film will be hard pressed to wait through the first hour where very little actually happens. The brothers convey a warm relationship in several scenes. Whether they are eating, sleeping or showering, it was clear that they love each other a great deal. Ray Liotta is not really known as a warm fuzzy type, but he is game here and does a pretty good job suppressing his more natural menacing persona. He is early in his career and has not yet been type cast as the thug or cop he usually ends up playing.

The central focus is on Nickie however, and it is his story that creates the arc of the plot. Clearly good-natured, Nickie is also vulnerable to local bullies and manipulative "friends". We are repeatedly told that he is not stupid but just slow, but that slowness puts him in some awkward positions and provokes the intervention of his brother on a couple of occasions. Tom Hulce is doing a role very similar to Dustin Hoffman in "Rainman" from around the same time. His performance was clearly the selling point of the film. If you look at the trailer above, you will see that his work in "Amadeus" is highlighted and that the acting job he does is meant to bring in the audience. It is indeed a solid performance. Hulce was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an actor in a Drama the year this came out.

There is an analysis of the awards nomination process that year by Charles Champlin, who was the LA Times film critic at the time, which tries to explain why certain performances got overlooked at the Academy Awards. If you click on the picture to the left, it will take you to that article. He says it essentially comes down to timing. While I agree that timing has an influence I think there could be some other issues as well. This movie was nakedly marketed as Oscar bait from the beginning, I think there might be a little blowback on that. None of which means that Hulce isn't good. On the contrary, he is excellent and does not resort to overly dramatic vocal exercises or facial tics until the climax of the movie. Most of the time he gives us an honest portrayal of a man struggling to function in a world that is a little too fast and cynical for him to maneuver in. Anyone with sensitivity will be worried about him for the whole picture. Everywhere he goes, you think it is a chance for some disaster to happen. At first I thought it was going to be his co-worker on the garbage truck who would be the agent of disaster. The guy is too crude, earthy and belligerent for a soul like Nickie to fully comprehend. In the long run, despite his flaws, he turns out to be one of Nickie's support group (although not always a wise source of support).

 It is the other two friends that Nickie has that are the catalyst of the third act histrionics. If you like kids and dogs, this movie is going to be tough for you to watch. I understand the desire for there to be some "action" in the drama, but the events of the third act feel over the top and conveniently timed. It's not that they could not happen but they happen so quickly and with such obvious foreshadowing, that it feels overplayed a bit. It takes what was an interesting but slow character study into the realm of melodrama. I suspect a lot of people would enjoy the more active events in the movie. They lead to a somewhat satisfying resolution of the brothers emotional baggage, but it really feels like a scripted moment to me. Each of the brothers has baggage that they have to deal with. Guilt and resentment are laced throughout the story. It just seems harsh to require the events that take place to be the fulcrum for allowing those issues to get resolved.

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