Get Smart (USA. 2008)

Director: Peter Segal

A big screen adaptation of the comedy series from the 60’s ‘Get Smart’ puts Steve Carell in the shoes of agent Maxwell Smart and he responds by comfortably slipping into his well worn "Awkward man-child who tries to stay calm in situation that’s way over his head.” The only difference is that now he's pulling it off in front of a globe trotting action-comedy flick.

(Stolen from IMDB)

Over-analyzing analyst Maxwell Smart (Steve Carell) dreams of becoming an official Agent for the top secret government organization CONTROL, and longs to execute action-packed spy missions like his idol, the charismatic Agent 23 (Dwayne Johnson). When CONTROL headquarters is attacked by longtime nemesis group KAOS and many of the Agents' identities are compromised, Smart is promoted to Agent 86 and partners with the unwilling Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to thwart the villainous group's latest plan for world domination.

My biggest surprise was that Maxwell Smart here isn’t an incompetent agent in this cinematic universe, he’s just a little naïve, and with his skills determined the creative team allows him to pull off a plethora of fancy moves (Well, his stunt double does) when dangers comes a knocking. There's more than a handful of straight faced action scenes here but their meekfully well put together but generic . The digital format doesn’t do all the movement any favours, with a ton of blurring making it look like a cheap video. And for a so-called comedy, most of the gags are surprisingly small or lazy. Carrell has been doing this better on ‘The Office’ for four years now and ‘Get Smart’ makes me feel like he’s only half trying.

Peter Segal (Director of Tommy Boy, Naked Gun 3, The Longest Yard – Remake) does a workman-like job with the material. Acting wise: Anne Hathaway plays Carrel’s straight female foil without much fuss and only grates when she’s forced to pull off a few drawn out dramatic back story rest-stops. Dwayne Johnson (THE ROCK!) is Steve Carrell’s best friend in the agency (OR IS HE!!!??? DUM DUM DUMMMMM) and isn’t’ given nearly enough to do. Alan Arkin is the crusty warm hearted chief of CONTROL. Terrence Stamp does his menacing Zod song and dance as an evil peon of K.A.O.S.

I’ll have forgotten most of ‘Get Smart’ by the end of the day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a waste of your time. It’s just a safe, un-surprising affair from everyone involved.

Um. I don't have anything else to say. *looks at word-count* Not. Long. Enough.

For your reading enjoyement, I’ll peel this deliciously juicy orange! Tune in to the next review of a film that didn't really have an impact, when I maybe, just maybe, eat the ORANGE!

*PEELS*

Wanted (USA. 2008)

DIRECTOR: Timur Bekmambetov

If you'd like the actual slightly lucid review part, skip to the second paragraph, if you want to read a uncessarily lengthy war chant for the action film READ ON brave soldier:


If you’ve ever been forced by someone with curly hair and glasses (whose name rhymes with Ustin), to read Film Junkies before, you know that that I like my action movies. Nothing gets me razzled up like the motion, movement and aw-shucks excitement that accompany a good double barreled gun fight, bloody knuckled fist fight and gravy covered food fight. Sadly, most people view the action film with the disdain they give the cheapest beer in the liquor store. “Action? That’s for stupid un-literal people with only half an iota of intelligence” a friend once told me as he sipped on his Speckled Hen. I can see where they’re coming from. He believed that action films are made up of nothing more than a bevy of explosions, millions of shell-casings and a high body count. WRONG. I’m not trying to stand on my high horse either. I’ll even hit rock bottom and defend action that works as spectacle and spectacle alone. I like to be invested in the character but it isn’t a must. That’s like saying that I need to listen to the whole album to enjoy one song. I know that I like my action stylish, acrobatic and over the top. There’s a grace that can be achieved through suspension of disbelief and physical harm that can match the greatest musical number or work as little mini dramas (John Woo, action maestro, always called his films “Bullet Ballets”). It’s one of the reasons that I love Hong Kong martial arts over the stiff bare chested muscle fests that qualify as American Action. At least, it used to be that way before The Matrix came along. Now, everyone’s aping the Hong Style. And sometimes, it’s nice to see something different. Here, we have something that’s exactly that. It’s based on the anti-super-hero comic book by Mike Millar, strips everything but the assassin part from the story and then proceeds to kick the whitewashed blockbuster in the balls. How do they pull it off? Blood, style, swearing and an anti-conformity message wrapped up in big budget gloss.


Directed by Russian Timur Bekmambetov, the man who helmed the visually audacious but frustratingly muddled Night Watch and Day Watch films in his native home. Here in his American debut, he keeps his style intact while sticking to a linear narrative that’s perfectly suited for his quick cuts and excessive use of slow motion. John Mcvoy (The ultimate skinny non-physical type) is endearing as the everyday loser Wesley Gibbons, a man who discovers that he’s the son of the world’s greatest assassin. The truth comes with the catch Wesley now has to step into his father’s shoes. Thankfully, he has a few hereditary si-fi/fantasy powers to keep him going (The ability to curve bullets, jump across buildings in a single bound, slow down time, and make-out in slow motion with Angelina Jolie) and he’ll need everyone one of them if he expects to work for “The Fraternity”, a secret society led by a paycheck eager Morgan Freeman.And for all the marketing hu-bub, Angelina Jolie is a tattooed non-presence that smiles craftily every few minutes. The story is unsurprising in its denouement but it’s the films over-all feel that works. It's style built upon style. The action here isn’t abundant (I counted three total ‘set-pieces)’ but when it does appear it’s hits the audience over the head with bloody mayhem and creative gag after gag. I don’t care how long you many bullet are wasted because if it doesn’t continually make me go ‘WOW’ I’m not interested. Wanted had me WOW-ING at the top of my lungs. People actually applauded during choice beats and that’s a tell a tale sign that the things are working. It’s refreshing to see a film that wears an R rating proudly on its sleeve. We’re even fooled to root for a protagonist who by the end of the film, is pretty much an asshole.

If you want yourself a fun expletive filled time at the movie’s…well…Wanted Wants You!

P.S: I punched the guy in the face who insulted action movies, stole his speckled hen, and then said a one liner that ended in a horrible pun. And then, I cried myself to sleep because the only way I can communicate is through violence.

Wall-E (USA. 2008)

Director: Adrew Stanton

There are a million reviews of this floating around in dark air-less expanse of the internet (97% on Rotten Tomatoes) , so until I have something compelling and eye opening to say about Wall-E (As Devin Farci did in his article of the film's hypocritical message stance: HERE) I’ll keep it brief: Experimental, touching, awe-inspiringly visual, simple and most importantly it made me…*makes sure there are no women or manly men in the room*…shed a few tears. I’d see it again in a second.

Heat After Dark (Japan 1998)

Blast from the past! Here's a review I wrote about three years ago on my first film review website "Only Foreign Film". Don't worry, it'll be over soon.

***
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura

Kitamura finally made an art film.

Gone are the kinetic camera moves, kung-fu, over the top violence and leather. Here are the long shots, silent musing, dramatic pretense and long static pans. But does this make it a bad film?

Two low-time hoods kidnap a local gang boss and put him in the trunk of there car. When suddenly they’re assaulted by a motorcycle riding police officer, the body gets the chance to get up and get moving. The two then decided to enter a deserted warehouse to follow the body before it gets the chance to return to civilization. But both of them have bitten off more than they can chew. The body brought a bag which hid a gun, ammo and a cell phone. And before you can say “Oh crap I shouldn’t have left that gun loaded”, local Yakuzas have found the warehouse and are bent on getting there boss out. At any cost.

I popped the disc into my player with a giddy look of expectation on my face. Here was another film from the man who brought us the great “Down to hell” and “Versus. But if the first scene gave me any indication, I was wrong in my expectations. The scene itself is a long shot from below the waist as the two hoods stand in a bar and talk endlessly. While all along, the camera follows them as they move from one side of the room to the other. Slowly as the scene progresses a drunken man in the background garners are attention. Until the final phrase is uttered and the two men jump on the drunken man, knock him out, and drag him out of frame.
There wasn’t any spinning camera moves in that scene. It was just an intimate moment between two friends as they decided what to do and then ‘just did it’. All the while staying in one place, keeping the viewers fixated on specific object in the room. If there’s one thing I’d like to applaud other than the direction is the lighting. Because when you light such a simple-low budget film as this one, your creative juices usually just aren’t flowing. But the every scene in this film is an awe to see (Hats off to the cinematography) as it takes place almost exclusively in an abandoned warehouse. Every little dust might is illustrated as a beam of light hits the characters in the face. Only shadowing half of there body as one of them realizes that his clip is empty.

Action wise it’s not a smorgasbord of John-Woo style gunplay. Instead it plays the hunter/hunted vibes as bullets will zing by characters , but they just don’t know were they’re coming from. This squashes the factor of acrobatics. No roles, dives or jumps. Just ducking and screaming at they’re partner to watch out. But Kitamura used his budget to a beautiful extent here, maximizing everything he had (Notice that all the guns appeared in Versus. 3 years later.) The score is a masterwork in itself. Employing music to fit the tone perfectly. Whether it’s a slow jazz beat or a bit more technical guitar riff, the artist pulled his tricks and laid the cards down on the table.

Other than the fact that everyone pretty much strikes a pose every 20 seconds, and that the characters are as stylized as can be, this barely feels like the old Kitamura we know. This is good, because many of you have always accused him of creating worthless-drivel. Pumped with so much excitement that it flat lines any depth the film may have had. If you are a kitamura fan, or a kitmura hater. You still owe it to yourself to see this short. (It’s about 48 minutes long.) If you’re nervous about buying the film without subtitles you’ll have to take the plunge. Because it doesn’t look like it’ll be getting a subbed release anytime soon. Especially with this marking itself as the *Deluxe* edition. Other than the first 10 minutes, dialogue is pretty short and self explanatory. The story is simple and straightforward.

DVD:
At a paltry 48 minutes you’d expect the film to have appeared somewhere else as a supplement. The film is presented in a letterbox format, which deftly highlights the dark and grimy feel of the environment which the picture takes place. The special features are all new, created exclusively for this release. It includes an interview with the director, composer and main actors. All un-subbed of course (DAMN!)

Wrong Turn 2 (USA. 2007)

Director: Joe Lynch

I could have sworn I heard a constant stream of boyish giggling as Wrong Turn 2: Dead Ends splattered bucket after bucket of blood across the screen. And after watching all the special features on the DVD, I have a feeling that it was probably first time director Joe Lynch enjoying his chance to “MAKE HIS OWN DAMN MOVIE!” A former Troma Film Intern (Lloyd Kaufman Butt Slave) and cult film fanatic, our faithful director swore up and down in his interviews before the film’s release that WT2 “ …would put every single disgusting thing I ever wanted to see on screen!” Big words.

Retired military commander Colonel Dale Murphy (Henry Rollins) hosts the simulated post-apocalyptic reality show where participants (The Goth Girl, The Slut, The Black Guy, The Military Type, The Asshole) are challenged to survive a remote West Virginia wasteland. But the show turns into a nightmarish showdown when each realizes they are being hunted by an inbred family of cannibals determined to make them all dinner!

It starts off with an silly kill that’s almost scientifically designed to have the audience cheering (A body split right down the middle = Two easy to carry pieces to bring back home to mom and dad!) and then the creative team does the worst thing a film of its caliber (The Film Shot in Vancouver To Pay For All The Cocaine Caliber) could attempt…They try to make us care for the characters. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a noble endeavor, but it’s also one that can easily explode like a can of compressed feces, right into the viewer's face.

I hope you brought some mouthwash.

Thankfully, after a painful first half hour, the shit really hits the fan, but this time it's the pleasent shit that smells like freshly baked bread. The hillbilly rednecks from the last film are back, looking a little cheaper, but are ten times more mean! YARGHHHHH! Director Joe Lynch shoots everything creatively with style to spare with his Sam Raimi light chops. Two eyes meet the pointy part of an arrow and don’t get along. People have roughly forty miles of intestine ripped out of their lower chest cavity. Dynamite gets jammed into pants in an old man’s pants. If those last three sentences don’t make you giggle like a school-girl then this ride isn’t for you. Some people want to make great art, others want to make you think and then there’s films like this that want you to knock on your friends door at 2 AM in the morning screaming “You have GOT to see the scene where the two inbred mutants have monkey sex!” It’s rough around the edges, the characters are dull and disposable, but it does have Henry Rollins as a Bow-N-Arrow Bad-Ass TM…It should succeed on that point alone!

DVD:

The giggling takes physical form in a fun director/actress/actor audio commentary and a trio of featurettes that are mostly composed of Joe excitably jumping around on set. Nothing is very deep or eye opening but it’s all filled with enough enthusiasm to make them worth your time.
torturous thirty minutes first act the shit hits the fan again, but this time its nice pleasant shit that

The Incredibles (USA. 2004)

Director/Writer: Brad Bird

With Wall-E just around the corner, I thought this would be a perfect time to tip my eyes and ears into Pixar Studio's pool of solid gold animation. Personally, I believe that writing a review for one of their masterworks is a pointless endeavour. I could spend this time fighting crime or making the world a better place to dominate. The only reason I’m bringing up the Incredibles is because it’s without a doubt the highlight of the bunch. Or at least it is…until I get to see Wall-E.

The Incredibles is a semi-retro set and designed Super-Hero film that doesn’t pander, talk down too or simplify for the below ten set. The story follows family man Bob/Mr. Incredible’s quest to find meaning in his life (even though it’s right under his nose) after being banned from being a Super-Hero. It’s been over 10 years since he last picked up the costume and reality isn't becoming any friendlier. His job sucks, his family life is generic and even his friends are starting to want him become more “normal”. It’s only when mysterious woman contacts him that life starts to get interesting again. The problem is he has to lie to his wife (A.K.A “Elastigirl) and his three super-powered children (Dash with his super-speed, Violent with her invisibility, and The Baby with…they’re not sure yet) if he wants to go out there and BE something...something...special. Will he ever realize that he can be special without having to do super-heroic things?

The Incredibles is packed with explosions, giant robots and death-defying peril, but it’s really the quieter human moments that push through the razzle dazzle. You won’t find scenes of domestic dispute, suspected adultery and boring family dinners in a film starring a bunch of talking cars. Actually, you probably wouldn’t expect to find it in an animated super-hero film either! But Director/Writer Brad Bird meshes all of these elements together in such a way that it works without ever distancing the audience or turning things too mundane for us to care. The film lasts two hours and change but you never feel the weight of it. When the end credits roll you may even wish that it last just a little longer.

My main point of contention the actual moral that’s presented: I took it as “We shouldn’t treat everyone as special because only a select few are!” or “Be successful, but not TOO successful.”? Both of those messages aren’t exactly cookie cutter, but maybe that’s exactly what Brad Bird set out to do. Life is complicated and not everything is black and white. No matter hard we wish it where.

Eh. Most people just want a good story, good characters and something to keep them excited. You got that here folks.

Rules of Attraction (USA. 2002)

Writer/Director Roger Avary never gets a break. He co-writes Pulp Fiction and Tarantino steals all the credit, his first film as writer/director “Killing Zoe” is labelled as nothing more then a Tarantino wanabee and his script for Silent Hill is critically molested and its corpse is left to rot in a ditch on the high way (So I’ve heard)

Good thing he has Rules of Attraction to fall back on…Oh…That’s hated too?

(From DVDTALK.com)

Set at the fictional Camden College, the film starts off at an "End of the World" party, where we're introduced to low-level drug dealer Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), who is attracted to Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), who he thinks is sending him secret letters proclaiming her attraction. Victor (Kip Pardue) is Lauren's boyfriend, but he's in Europe. There's also Paul (Ian Somerhalder), who used to date Lauren, but now is interested in Sean. Add to this several more supporting characters, more bouncing around in time and pretty much about everything you'd expect from material by Ellis.


Rules of Attraction is a stylistic cocktail with a lemon flavoured poison center. Every trick in the film-school book is thrown at the viewers face as Avary jams it down you’re throat and screams “You think you’re choking now? YOU AIN’T SEEN NOTHING YET!”. Fast Forward, Reverse, Split-Screens, Blow Out Colors, Voice-Over, Multi- Person Perspective…all of it dances on screen till it can dance no more. The first time I saw ROA I was more enthralled with all the tricks on screen then the actual content. The despicable characters and story (What story?) were nothing but blips on my peripheral vision. I wanted to see that Split-Screen backwards slow motion shot that morphs into one single frame!

The main problem here is the subject matter. James Van Der Beek as our main man Sean Bateman (Brother of Serial Killer Patrick in the Ellis penned “American Psycho”) is scum on two legs. He has absolutely no redeeming values of any kind. Everyone else on screen is also self-absorbed, spoiled and pretty despicable in every sense of the word. It’s only a emotio plucking final act that a little bit of humanity starts to bleed onto the audience, but for many, by that time it’s too late. Avary was a smart man to use so much style to keep you watching for so long but it’s a shame he couldn’t keep us more invested in the film on other leves other then the “Golly Wow! Did you SEE that?” level. Seek it out, watch it, and prepared to be impressed but not blown away.

DVD:

Six Audio Commentaries (With One by CARROT TOP!?) come packaged with the disk but they all have too many huge gaps of silence or good commentator/bad commentator mixed in to make it worth your time to shuffle through all of them. The Avary/Vanderbeek track is nowhere to be seen but can be found on the UNCUT (22 EXTRA seconds! Yay?) version that was released in the UK and France. There’s also a made for tv Sundance channel doc that skims the surface of the film and concentrates on the impressive split screen into one shot that everyone keeps talking about.

Shock and Awe: Part 2

Tintoras

A jaws rip-off with very little jaws, we’re treated instead to a love triangle between a well-worn English girl, a studly tanned Mexican and our fuzzy glowering hero. The excitement is supposed to come from the lengthy underwater stock footage and scene after brutal scenes of scuba-divers senselessly killing (real life) sharks, mana-rays and giant sea turtles. The shark makes about two appearances and there's some interesting instine chomping but it isn't worth it in the end. There’s supposedly a 123 minute version out there and all I pity the inmates on death-row that are forced to watch it. It won’t be a pretty demise.

Danish Pastries

Straight from the days when pornos where ‘classy’ and sex fell like ripe apples from trees. It's shot on film, lensed in exotic Europe locals and actually masquerades as a real motion picture (This one is even dubbed!) Danish Pastry is nothing more then a bunch of people fucking continuously. There is a plot about a super aphrodisiac put in the water supply beside the local catholic school but it’s quickly forgotten once the giant 30+ orgy begins. You know it's legitimate because there's a scene the wacky doctor has a unprotected (Condom? In Europe? Pshhh!) three way that’s shot in fast-forward and lasts two FUCKING (A pun!) minutes. SPOILER: It ends with sex.

Dead-Alive

The funniest SPLATstick masterpiece of all time. That is all.

George Carlin - 1937-2008

fuck






FUCK.

GODDAMN IT!!!!!

Rest in peace, you funny man, you.

Harryhausen Week, Day 7: Jason and the Argonauts

This is the one film Harryhausen has done that is most often talked about. Not only is it incredibly watchable, 45 years after it's original release date, but the kinetic skeleton battle is still fantastic. I mean, look at that picture. That's a pretty freakin' badass picture right there. I'd probably pay more to just sit and look at that picture than I would to go see "The Love Guru".

Ok, the skeleton battle, blah blah blah... as much as it is talked about... and it is the finale of the film, I think the entire movie works. It works better than just "fantasy camp with Harryhausen creatures". This is prime product right here, from the opening onwards, the characters are well fleshed out, with dialog that doesn't feel too corny. The actor who plays Hercules is also really funny and fun to watch. The music by Bernard Herrmann is suitably epic at times, delicate at others; however, I think he's done much better work.
This is the best movie Harryhausen ever worked on, and the final battle with 7 moving skeletons is probably the most technically accomplished of his scenes. Apparently it took him 3 or 4 months to animate the 4 minute sequence, and it shows. Each skeleton seems to naturally attack and parry to the actors who are obviously swinging their swords through dead air. They also seem to think and move fluidly. It's really fun to watch, and you could go over the fight many different times and still notice little nuggets of awesomeness. Other monsters include Talos the giant freakin' statue and the Hydra, which has 7 ducking and hissing animated heads. Let's not forget the harpies either. Damn there's lots of good stuff in here. This is the must-see film in the Harryhausen library. If you don't like this one, I doubt you'd like any of the others.

So this concludes Harryhausen week, I hope you manage to pick up a few of his films and can see through the lens of time to truly apreciate this man's work, which was groundbreaking in its time.

Shock And Awe: Six Times The Fun (Part 1)

Red eyed and hallucinating faintly I sit before you. Here's the first half of the movies I caught at the Shock and Awe screening at Fox Cinema.

The Boogeyman (USA. 1980)
The most terrifying nightmare of childhood is about to return!

It starts off as as blatant rip-off of Halloween (Music and All) as we witness a child murder his mother's evil boyfriend. We jump twenty years later and it looks like we'll stick around in slahser land until the plot takes a sudden right turn and morphs into an evil mirror-telekinesis-possession-exorcist-Amytiville mash-up. The characters are bland, the body count small but creative and the ending (Mirrors explode when coming in contact with water?) has to been seen to be believed.

The Black Six. (USA. 1974)
See the 6 biggest, baddest and best waste 150 motorcycle dudes!

Six NFL players ride around on motorcycles (For about 2/3rd of the running time) to a twangy kick-ass theme song. They all seem like fun characters (REALLY stiff manequin like one's) that end up doing nothing. George Washington takes the lead and his horrifying one take drama sequences had the guy next too me gasping for breath as laughter choked the life out of him. The only conflict happens in the last ten minutes where the BLACK SIXXXXX take on what seems to be about 1000 white suprecist (Lead by a guy named THOR in a viking helmet) in an all out fist-fight. Out of nowhere a bike explodes, we freeze frame on it, and then the credits roll. What the hell?

Naughty New Orleans (USA. 1954)

A spicy treat... with the girls you'll meet... on Bourbon Street!

The reddish color scheme (Shot in amazing EASTMAN COLOR!) hurts my eyes. This was nap-time for most of the audience. The naughtiness on stage here ditches conventional things like a plot and decides instead to show us an entire burlesque show in a really cramped little club. The woman bored/chunky and the biggest giggles rose from the awkward cuts to the canned audience members laughing, the highlight being the toothless bald man and the husband and wife couple...Right.

Harryhausen Week, Day 6: Clash of da Titans

In Harryhausen's "farewell" film, he would create some of the most memorable scenes in his library. The plot concerns greek hero Perseus, the son of Zeus. Guided by the gods, he follows the path of destiny, which, of course, crosses him with political intrigue, witches, true love and a shit-load of monsters.

There's 3 or 4 incredibly well done stop-motion sequences, with a smattering of lower quality stuff thrown in here or there. Arguably the best scene Harryhausen has ever done is the battle with the Medusa. There's a well animated fight featuring a two-headed dog, a cool battle between soldiers and some over-large Scorpions. Recurring Harryhausen creations include Pegasus, the ubiquitous flying horse, and a robotic owl that seems to take some cues from Lucas's droids. This film probably has the highest MPM (Monsters per minute) count out of all Harryhausen films, and while monsters aren't always on screen, there's usually breathtaking scenery or the soaring musical score to grasp the viewer's attention.

The actors do the best they can with the weak material they're given. Harry Hamlin as Perseus is suitably untested and heroic, and the gods are all played by well known names, such as Lawrence Olivier, Maggie Smith and Ursula Andress.

It's one of the better looking and superiorly produced of any of the Harryhausen films, and definitely worth a watch, whether you like campy fantasy or not. Tomorrow I'm reviewing the one all (2) of you have been waiting for: Jason and the Argonauts. 'Til then!

Lazy Reviewer: The Reason Why He Sucks

I'll be sleeping in most of the day in anticipation for the 11:30 PM smorgasboard that is "Shock and Awe" so they'll be no review on my part for the day. Check in tomorrow for a triple header review of the first half of tonight's festivities!

Shock and Awe in TORONTO: The Grindhouse Experience

June 21'st. The Fox Theater, 2236 Queen St. East. 11:30 PM.

Six Movies. Eleven Hours.

- Naughty New Orleans and Danish Pastries (Sex Ploitation Fun)

- Tintorera (Stock Footage Jaws/Orgy film. Yes. You read that right.)

- The Boogeyman (Forgotten Slasher Classic)

- The Black Six (Blaxploitation explosion)

- Dead Fucking Alive On the BIG SCREEN (A.K.A: The Greatest Film Ever)

Hosted by Dion Conflict. Secret Celebrity Guests (Shall we say director's...hmmm...directing films in T.O soon? Films that are...Precious?) Enough Junk Food to choke a small army of small happy childrens. Memorebelia. And more!

It's a measly 25$ and you'll never get a chance like this EVER again. Be there.

For more info visit the official page at http://www.foxtheatre.ca/

Hell's Grounds (Pakistan, 2007)

Pakistan’s first gore flick turned out to be exactly what I feared it would be: An enthusiastic but ultimately disappointing amateur attempt. It’s sloppy, light on innovative ideas, and while enthusiastic for the genre, it still doesn’t seem to know how to deliver the goods.

Four kids lie to their parents and hit the road en route to a big rock concert. They get diverted by a political presentation and after a way too long set-up are attacked by zombies, chased by a burka clad medieval mace swinging maniacs and are one by one turned into food for the local meat party.

The mix of all these different ideas a mix that could lead to a wild ride, but director/writer Omar Khan doesn’t know what to do with them all. The zombie sub-plot is introduced and dropped after one scene. The serial killer ‘action’ can be summed up with “Burkaman chases victim through fog. He swings the mace. Rinse. Repeat”. And to sum up the gore in one word: Lame. It happens mostly off screen, is few and far between and isn’t creative at all (Stabbing, Mace Head Squish, and lamest kill of them all…The NECK SNAP) There’s also a weird use of freezing the frame and making it look like a comic book panel which is neat at first, but then put to use during incredibly distracting moments. There’s a few positive here, like the lighting and camera-work which is really professional for such a low budget flick, which is a shame because there’s nothing interesting happen within it.

I can’t recommended Hell’s Ground to anyone other than the people obsessed for a little (and I mean little) gore or the novelty of seeing a splatter flick from a country that has never done it be fore. The director seems to like doing this and is enthused by all it all, so I I hope he learns from ALL his mistakes and goes balls out on his next project.

DVD: A commentary track, a fifteen minute making of, a ten minute premiere video and an mile a minute commentary track by the director are more fun than the actual film itself. After Dark Film has been bringing us rare foreign films for a while now and this is the first time they lay out the Extra Features action, sometimes I hope they do further into the future.

Harryhausen week, Day 5: 20 Million Miles to Earth

This is a "b" movie with a capital B. The premise is simple: animated monster specimen from Venus crashes in a human exploration rocket, grows to phenomenal size and eventually wrecks havoc on one of Earth's major cities. I watched the original black and white version, so I can't comment on the colorized one.

The opening of this movie is practically unwatchable. We get stuck having to sit through about 20 minutes of people faking Italian accents and... well, it finally gets somewhat interesting when we see the monster, which slowly grows in size throughout the film, 'til it's about 25 feet tall. There's no stages to its growth, though, it's just the same model, shot from different distances. It gets to chomp on an Italian farmer, crush a bunch of people with stones and wrestles an elephant.

Please excuse the brevity of this article, but when a film just doesn't bring anything to the table except one measly monster, what do you want me to say? I guess I've been spoiled by the buxom beauties of "1 million BC" and the infectious charisma of the "Sinbad" films.

Probably the least interesting Harryhausen film I've seen. Tomorrow take a look at "Clash of the Titans", which looks a lot better.

The Rocker (USA, 2008)

Director: Peter Cattaneo

“Hey Jimmy Fallon! Do you want to star in a movie? It’ll be great. You’ll be called Corky Romano and they’ll be tons of whacky Mafia related mis-adventures! The script will written in children’s blood and the celluloid will be crafted from the flesh of nubile virgins! It’ll be great time for the whole family...of Satan!.”

- Exhibit Two Hundred Fifty Five in the ‘Bit Part actors taking on AN ENTIRE FEATURE FILM’ horror museum.

The Rocker’ stars Rainn Wilson. Yea, you guessed right, that guy in the picture up there is the one who play Dwight on the mega-hit sitcom “The Office.” Give him a little credit! It's always hard for someone to step out of the shadow of their defining performance (Especially when they have such a distinct look) and paint themselves anew in the feature length format. ‘The Rocker’ is Rain’s dive to start his own career and this is on it plaid.

Robert “Fish” Fishman was going to make it big. That was, until his band Vesuvies (which he named dammit!) kicked him out because the label told them too. Now it’s twenty years later and the dream is dead. Vesuvius is HUGE and Robert stuck in a dead end life. We pick up the tale just as our hero loses his job, breaks up with his girlfriend and moves in with his sister and her family. Out of nowhere his nephew loses their band’s drummer for the senior prom so as a last resort gamble he decides to use his uncle. It goes horribly rong but the rest of the pre-ten band-mates are slowly convinced that maybe they do have something on their hands. Something to make them HUGE!

I didn’t want to see The Rocker. The trailer passed my quota of people getting shots to the groin, knocking their noggin and falling off of thing comically. It was only because the screening I went too was completely free that I actually gave it a chance. And I’m happy I did, because, while the ‘The Rocker’ is filled with lame slapstick and convenient plot devices, it is the star turn by Rain that really makes. He’s a revelation here as someone that can play dead-pan comedy and drama in the same scene! I think the man should back away from being smacked with trees and get a some comedy/dramas under his belt. He’d been better at it.

The film moves at a brisk pace and the rest of the cast are from the Island of Judd Apatow players that time Forgot. There’s the girl from Superbad, the boss from 40 Year Old Version, a dark haired clone of Jonah Hill, and Jeff Garlin (The go to Fat Comedy Guy). Will Arnett is once again wasted as one the members of Vesuvius. Boo! Hiss! My biggest problem with the film where the generic music numbers that go on-and-on-and-on. Rain Wilson looks goofy playing the drums but that can only take me so far.

The Rocker will be remembered as the movie that launched Rain Wilson. Will the anything else be talked about fondly? Not really. It isn’t earth shattering, but much better than most comedies clogging the shelves.

NOTE: The Rocker is being released in August. I saw it at “North By Northeast” in Toronto 2008

Harryhausen Week, Day 4: The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

Sinbad's up to his old shenanigans again in 1974's "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad", finding artifacts and battling wizards, saving the kingdom and getting the girl. All in a voyage's work I suppose. I found this one a lot more enjoyable than "7th Voyage". While "7th" had arguably the more "classic" monsters, such as the cyclops, a dragon and a skeleton (among others), I found the effects work to be much better in this one. There are several sequences that I could rave on about, but I'd like to mention 2 in particular. There's a battle between a Centaur and a Griffon near the end and it's one of the most compelling shows of stop-motion animation I've ever seen. Harryhausen even gets the tail wagging right on this one. There's also a really well done battle between a group of sailors and a six armed sword god (Kali), a sequence beaten only by the skeleton battle in "Jason and the Argonauts" in terms of sheer epicness.

This one's a little darker in tone than the other Harryhausens I've reviewed up to date. The wizardry on show isn't just puffing smoke and fairy dust, it has consequences. You see the conniving wizard get visibly older each time he casts a spell. The characterizations aren't as one dimensional either. The wizard's helper seems to have a conscience, begging his master to stop using magic. Additionally Sinbad seems to be a moral man, freeing slaves and valuing human life over valuable objects. But don't let this rambling on about emotional depth get to you. It's just a bit more developed than most of the fantasy camp that came out of that era.

Next up is "20 Million Miles to Earth"

Harryhausen Week, Day 3: 1 Million Years B.C.

While watching "1 Million Years B.C." (1966), a film famous for its buxom, fur-bikini-wearing cave women, I realized that there was much more to like than just Raquel Welch being hot. Well, not that much more, but still... OK, there's a catfight. A catfight between two buxom, fur-bikini-wearing cave women. Hmmm.... If I recall correctly there were some dinosaurs fighting, and a turtle, and pterodactyls. But before all that melted my masculine brain, I admired many little touches that made this movie stand out among the other camp I've been watching lately.

First of all, the opening minutes are pretty great, being a kind of low budget prototype to the stargate sequence in 2001. I appreciated the film-makers' attempts to push what visual boundaries they could, even if the effect is ruined by the narrator, who proceeds to tell us exactly what is happening on screen. -_- Anyway, there is no English spoken by any of the characters on screen, just a few words of tribal dialect here and there, un-subtitled. Not that we need subtitles, as the story is rather simple. It concerns two tribes, one more brutal than the other, who eventually clash over hot babes, or something. To tell you the truth I stopped paying much attention past the hour and fifteen minute mark. There's only so much that fighting dinosaurs and hot babes can give, right? (did I just say that?)

Harryhausen's creations are really cool as always. The dinosaurs on display are instant classics, and it's admirable how he got them to expand their chests. It actually looks like they're breathing! There's also a large turtle who's hustled away by thrown rocks and spears and such. The score is alright, if a bit unoriginal. I did appreciate the dissonant start, and some eerie choral music in the ape cave.

Did I mention there's a catfight? Yeah!

Anyway, tommorow I'm checking out... "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad"

Flashpoint (Hong Kong. 2007)

Director: Wilson Yip

Drama is not your friend. It's a dirty word in the minds of martial arts fans. They hate it. It should be banished to a dungeon to train till it is fit and ready for combat. Instead, every director wants to give the fights “meaning” and this translate to heavy handed music, constipated like expressions of grief and wet rimmed eyes, as they pummel their foes to a bloody pulp. No one is more guilty of this then martial arts star/director/choreographer Donnie Yen. All of his films try to be something more, something ground breaking, something that isn’t just a tussle of epic proportions. As a director sometimes his arti-er sensibilities come together (The flash-back heavy ‘Legend of the Wolf’) and sometimes they fail miserably (The mopey heroic bloodshed ‘Ballistic Kiss) but all in all he has a distinct and fast paced style that works as pure combat. He did a fantastic job working on Sha Po Lang (Killzone) and this film ‘Flashpoint’ is his third team up with director Wilson Yip (After the fantasy kung-fu misfire ‘Dragon Tiger Gate) in the crime/cop sub-genre that put them both on the map. Did they learn their lesson to tone down the wooden drama and up the martial arts quotient?

"Ma Jun (Donnie Yen), a cop known for dispensing justice during arrests, teams with Hua Sheng (Louis Koo), who's undercover, to try to bring down three merciless Vietnamese brothers Archer (Ray Lui), Tony (Collin Chou), and Tiger (Xing Yu) who are running a smuggling ring in the months before the mainland's takeover of Hong Kong."

Wilson Yip is a maestro behind the camera when the action heats up. Everything swoops and zooms in such an organic fashion that you can’t help but be caught up in the festivities. Donnie Yen’s choreography is also at the top of its game, with a nice mix of wild fist slamming, fanciful kicks and Ultimate Fighting grappling locks Together give birth to (arguably) the greatest final action scene of the year…

The problem is the other eighty minutes.

Horrible. Drama. One day someone’s going to have to go tap Mr. Yen on the shoulder and go “Listen, you look really intense when things get violent, but please, for the love of all that is holy, stop trying to be an act!” That person will then have their arms and legs snapped off in five different places. It doesn’t help that the rest of the cast is padded out by always perfectly tanned Louis Koo and a few token female mainland super-models. They all go through the motions as someone waves their paycheck off-screen. Only fan-favorite Collin Chou gives it his all as the main baddie. His work during the final fist fight is strong enough to make it classic.

After SPL, Flashpoint can’t help but come off as a miss-fire. Thing should move TOO fast in Hong Kong film, not drearily slow. Skip to the end of this, watch the amazing action scene and keep it at that.

NOTE: Donnie Yen swears up and down he directs all his own action scenes but you should take that with a grain of salt. Yen is a well known Ego mania who would probably swear up and down that he designed his mother…but I do like the guy regardless.

DVD: Not as "Ultimate" as it sounds, the Dragon Dynasty release of Flashpoint is still impressive for the simple fact that they got Donnie Yen to particpate exclusively for the realase. The udio commentary with HK film connoiseur Bey Logan is better then the usual DD commentary because this time someone who was on set gets to comment on the action on screen. The rest of the special features on the second disc are stricly fluffy EPK stuff or extremely short. The alternate ending Donnie mentions in the commentary track is nowhere to be seen.

Harryhausen Week, Day 2: Mysterious Island

One of the soldiers attempts to strike the Giant Enemy Crab's weak point in order to inflict massive damage.

In this second article in a planned serious of 7, I'm taking a look at 1961's "Mysterious Island". Although it is only loosely based on Jules Verne's significantly less monster-filled novel, it still manages to touch on the themes of exploration, resourcefulness and cooperation which were the hallmarks of the book. It also gives a chance for stop-motion maestro to animate some devilish monsters. Hmmm... well... they're not really "monsters" in the mythical sense. More like over-sized animals. There's a giant (dare I say enemy?) crab, a prehistoric flightless bird, and BEES, as well as a Giant squid. In any case, it's one of the more believable of Harryhausen's movies, when it comes to the actual monsters.

The story concerns a troop of Union soldiers who escape from their confederate prison during the siege of Virginia in 1865, taking to the skies in a hot-air balloon. However, they and a confederate soldier who was brought aboard during the escape are unable to land due to a ferocious storm which blows them off course and all the way into the Pacific. Here they crash land onto a Island, which turns out to be pretty mysterious. *cue eerie Bernard Herrmann music* Here they find a few other cast-aways and try to survive. It's an interesting concept, and of course we get to see some pretty good animation by Mr. Harryhausen. The last 40 minutes has some pretty decent twists and manages to keep up a certain amount of momentum.

Overall, a good early fantasy effort. Tomorrow, I'll check out "One Million Years B.C."

{V}_{^w^}_{V}

Harryhausen Week, Day 1: The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

"Y'all gonn' die!"

When looking back at the works of stop-motion auteur Ray Harryhausen, it's necessary to shut off one's cynicism for an hour and a half and revel in his own, very peculiar world. It's a world where colorful costumes and corny dialog are abundant, where the heroes are heroic and their women... womany. It's necessary to suspend one's disbelief for a moment because over here, there is black and white; good and evil. There are no shady corporations, no corrupt politicians hiding in the shadows. Shades of gray are not to be seen, and while there may be a crafty wizard or a treacherous king at work, the storytellers make sure that you know they're evil even before their misdeeds are shown.

Such is the case of "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad". We have the titular character himself, Sinbad, dashing sailor. We have his beautiful soon to be wife, whose hand in marriage assures peace for each of their kingdoms. Finally, the cunning wizard, who will do anything to obtain a fabled magical lamp. These characters, along with a rabble of sailors and a gaggle of monsters, complete the cast of this fantasy masterwork.

Sure the effects are aged, the work of the actors laughable... but there is something here that is rarely seen in the effects-laden work of the 21st century. I think the right term would be... magic? I don't know why, but these creatures seem to have more personality than most of the stuff put out by effects houses these days. It must have been really mind-blowing to have seen this kind of stop motion work in 1958. Today, they can only be seen through a thick lens of nostalgia. It's campy, monstery fun on a grand scale!

I hope you can enjoy this kind film. You should, unless your inner child has been withered and pruned to the point of non-recognition. In that case, *Mr. T* "I pity you!"

On Tuesday, I'll take a gander at "Mysterious Island" 'til then!

The Incredible Hulk (USA 2008)

Director: Louis Letterier

I’m prefacing this min-review with my thoughts on a matter that everyone who reviews the new hulk-out filled picture must spit out.

I didn’t mind the first Hulk. It was okay.

There. Fini. Let’s talk about this new one and break it open for a plate of green eggs and ham.

I didn’t mind the new Hulk. It was okay.

Both film approach the subject matter differently but still stumble where they should soar. The first one was a psycho-drama with action shoehorned in. The second INCREDIBLE one seems to be an action film with drama shoehorned in. I prefer the latter approach but you still need some fantastic action to back it up. And on that count, they do okay, but don’t completely succeed. The final 26 MINUTE (Lies) Hulk VS Abomination fight was ho-hum and the only other flat out action scene had all its best scenes spoiled in the trailer.

Edward Norton makes a compelling weakling Bruce Banner, Liv Tyler whispers all her lines breathlessly and William Hurt is terribly out of place as General Thunderbolt Ross. The stand-out is Tim Roth as the human who mutates into the hulking ‘Abomination’ for the final knock’em down brawl in on a New York Street seems to be having a blast. (A.K.A Toronto)! Director Louis Letterier is in my good books for his work on the popcorn fun films Transporter (Not so much 2) and Danny the Dog, so I knew he would deliver a solid motion picture. He presents the Hulk as the monster he should be thanks to some fun shaky cam during the action bits that never sacrifices audience comprehension. Hulkster even uses his environment a few times to creative ends and that was a nice breath of fresh air. Shame it all happens so quick. For a two hour film that only has three actions scenes the dramatic parts suceed at being rushed AND slow at the same time.

It’s a nice entry into the new Marvel Film Universe (with shout-outs to Tony Stark and Shield) but it will always live in Iron Man’s shadow.

Young People Fucking (Canada, 2007)

Director: Martin Gero

People see it and giggle. Co-Workers ask me in a hushed whisper if I’ve seen this “Fucking young people film?” The government jumps on it and it becomes the poster boy for the new bill (C-10) that would allow government to deny tax credits to films they find ‘offensive’. The title rolls onto the screen in big white lettering on a completely black background.
The word “Fucking” is in the title. I get it. Let’s move on.

The film is a series of inter-cut vignettes which follows the obstacles of five couples (The Exes, The Threesome, The Unadventurous Couple, The First Date, and The Best Friends) as they attempt to HAVE sex. It’s not supposed to mean anything. It’s just a little bit of fun. It’s just sex.

Complexities follow.

Behind a ‘controversial’ title (We’re moving on right?) is a light fluffy film that skims over the surface of the subject matter it sets out to broach. The only attempt at Drama (Capital D here) is the ‘Exes’ part of the film. And even then it reaches a conclusion that has any meat on its bones. Maybe that’s the point. But that doesn’t mean it’s interesting to watch. The rest of the stories are happy to be broad comedic sketches on subject matters you’ve seen variations of before. The ‘dirty’ part is kept to a few bare breasts, rear ends and a frightening strap on dildo. The fucking happens on screen, but with pre-planned non threatening angles. It’s the edgy film that won’t put you on the edge!

It's an allright little ride but I couldn't help but grind my teeth as missed opertunity after missed opertunity sauntered by: The ‘Best Friends segment never goes anywhere, the ‘First Date’ hits obvious beat after obvious beat, and the 'Couple' is nothing more then an excuse to have a ONE gross out gag. The one standout is the ‘Threesome’ segment, which is filled with enough strong performances and clever direction/writing that it would have probably worked better as a short film.

The credits rolled. The title was displayed on the screen in BIG WHITE LETTERS ON BLACK again. I felt like I had just witnessed a few ‘risque’ dirty anecdotes I’d be comfortable sharing with my mum. No big reveals. No dramatic beats. Only fluff. Lots of fluff. The director’s joked during the Q&A session that there was a chance film would have been released under the name “Bed-Time Stories”. If it had, the whole shee-bang would have gone straight to video and been sentenced to the bargain bin. There’s nothing here you haven’t seen before. Go rent ‘Short-Bus’ instead if you’re in the mood for more in-depth deconstruction of sexual intercourse. Just don’t bring your mom to that one…

Definetly Maybe (USA, 2008)

A slight romantic comedy with a solid lead in Ryan Reynolds and an interesting storytelling gimmick to prop up its guy falls in love, falls out love, then back into love scenario. I've gone soft. There's no blood gushing out of wounds, zombies, or explosive action explozzzions to be seen here! Be warned.

Ryan Reynold’s eight year old daughter gets a crash course in sex education at school and asks her dad to tell her the story of how he and her mother met. He decides not to do it straight on and instead tells the story of the three major relationships in his life. He’s changed all the names, so his daughter is going to have to guess which one is her mom.

I don’t expect too much from lovey-dovey films. I suspend my disbelief, want to be entertained and if I’m feeling really optimistic I even expect caring for the characters a little bit. On those counts, Def-Mayb works. I’ve been keeping my eye out on Ryan Reynolds since I first saw him appear in the horrible Van Wilder film and here he doesn’t disappoint. He looks charming, mopey and does the slapstick that’s expected of him. The three female leads are all outstanding charismatic presences (Elizabeth Bank, Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz) and their characters are different enough to keep you interested. The narrator/story structure keeps things fresh in the face of a pretty uneventful screenplay (There’s bumps and twists but of the predictable variety) with the only negative part being the daughter who suffers from Hollywood kid syndrome. She’s cute for cuteness' sake and acts way too mature and aware for her age. It’s the one thing that completely took me out of the film and made me wish kids acted like kids sometimes on screen, not like adult meat puppets. (Ed. That's quite disturbing imagery there.)

If your girlfriend holds a gun to your head and forces you to pick something ‘Girl Friendly’ (In the broadest sense of the word) you can do a lot worse then this. You could be forced to see the racist and dehumanizing ‘Sex and The City’ instead. *shivers* (Ed. Good Lord! You haven't actually seen it have you? D: )

PH. D takes a look at Legend (1985)

Ridley Scott's 1985 fantasy effort is a worthy addition to the canon. That is... if you're considering the Director's Cut, which includes over 20 minutes of extra fleshing-out and reintroduces Jerry Goldsmith's wonderfully lyrical score. The original theatrical cut was severely truncated and had a trippy, yet eventually ineffective score by Tangerine Dream. Some people might look at the box and be turned off by Tom Cruise, but don't worry. This is a rather young (pre-ego?) Cruise and he actually seems somewhat invested in a role that doesn't involve him sprinting for half the running time.

O.K., on to the movie itself...

The plot would be considered standard fantasy fare. Lord of Darkness wants to cause eternal night, attempts to kill unicorns. Uncertain young man becomes hero, must capture his true love who happens to be a princess... etc. etc. etc. It's all rather predictable, but where this movie does show it's colors is in it's visual presentation. Ridley Scott is, of course, renowned for his sleek, commercial quality films. These qualities come out really well in this fantasy-adventure yarn. As in some scenes of Kingdom of Heaven, Scott is obsessed with tiny bits of floating... stuff. I guess it's dandelion fluff, but it seems to be EVERYWHERE. Sometimes it seems like the actors are being bombarded by the left-overs of several pillow-fights. It's silly, but I guess it adds a certain whimsical, and should I say, fantastical (?) element to the visuals. Later on, he pours torrents of snow on the actors, and achieves really brilliantly effective winter scenes.

The sets are really fantastic, and include an impressive forest that was based in the 007 stage at Pinewood Studios until it burnt down during filming(!). There's also an underground lair which has an awful ventilation (there's always a crap load of steam and smoke billowing into everyone's faces).

One of the craziest parts of this movie is the Lord of Darkness, played by Tim Curry, in intense makeup. This is NOT a guy you'd like to meet on the street. I mean it. Also, the size of his horns are really ridiculous. Other actors of not are Mia Sara, playing the young princess with a mix of detached regency and horror, and an assorted cast of dwarves and goblins, including Kiran Shah, who was in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and was Frodo's body double in all the Lord of the Rings films.

Phew!!! All in all, a decent watch if you're craving for your fix of fantasy/adventure. Make sure to get a version which includes the director's cut... and watch out for those horns!

Return of the Living Dead (USA. 1985)

Director/Writer: Dan O’ Bannon

It’s difficult to review flat-out classics. It’s even harder to do it when they are loved by die-hard uber fans who have glow in the dark t-shirts, play with LIMITED EDITION dolls and spout the catchphrases on a daily basis. I'm going to try here. I guess it helps that I'm one of those zomb-bo's who love to groan "Send more...Parameddddiiiics". ‘Return of the Living Dead’ may get frowned upon for being part of the go-to genre of the day (especially in today’s market, over saturated with walking corpse films) but at the time of its release it was a breath of refreshingly rotten air to a genre that either took itself deadly serious or winked and nudged the audience till their elbow punctured our lungs.

ROTLD was the first zombie film I ever saw in which made me feel "Well, people would probably react this way". Don’t get me wrong, the going ons here are still wildly over the top in a true grue fashion, but the difference between this and Dawn of the Dead can be summed up as Comic Book Vs Grimy Underground. DOTD pops with larger then life heroes, technicolor gore and broad moral lessons. ROTLD is populated with people scared out of their wits, dirty basements and stupid decisions. DOTD may have had a glimmer of hope for humanity in its empty eye socket, but ROTLD is bitterly cynical all the way to it’s brain stem. The only thing that keeps ROTLD from being a classic is the fact that it’s impossible to think of it as anything other then a child of the 80’s. The clothes, music and mannerisms on show reek of moldy social norms that are almost impossible to take with a straight face.

The idea of making the zombies mildly sentient, as well as quick moving, reeks of desperation. If you can’t stop them by removing the head then you can't get out of there alive! The film knows this and never cheats its way out of it (As opposed to the sequel’s depressing “You can kill them with ELECTRICITY”(!) cop-out). As the story pushes along things get more and more desperate for our cast of characters till the explosive finish (which I thought as anticlimactic the first time I saw it) plays out exactly like it would in the real world. Return of the Living Dead gets permission to wear its COMEDY/HORROR pin proudly. It actually works as both and that’s a rarity in a world that would rather have spurting amounts of blood then actually work as a narrative film that can involve the audience.

DVD:

Dirt cheap priced. Director/Writer Dan O’Bannon and the main effects designer have a low key but enthusiastic, discussion over the film and also participate in a talking heads video about the film in question. There’ another DVD that was released that’s supposedly the “Director’s Cut” but I haven’t spotted it on the shelves yet.

Double Fun Review!

Blood, Bullets and Octane.

A dire Tarantino rip off that could have been trimmed down to a 10 minute short film without losing anything I would have missed. Director/Writer/Co-Star Joe Caranahan’s peppers the whole affair with lots of people screaming at each other as a substitute for conflict. The story about two used car salesman trying to score big, the assassin on their tail and their asshole boss is wafer thin and I think it was supposed to be funny. No laughs here. The “big twist” is interesting for about a minute before you get outraged for wasting 75 minutes of your life. You’d never think the man behind the outright brilliant “Narc” vomited out this indie (Sensation? Really?) dull-fest

NOTE: Carnahan also used a very similar “twist” in BMW short film he wrote/directed that starred Clive Owen.

That Thing You Do

Tom Hanks only directorial effort is a light and frothy story of a one hit wonder Beatle-esque band’s rise to fame and eventual fall from grace. It’s non threatening and isn’t very high reaching for dramatic conflict but it’s a pleasant little ride while it lasts. It’s a film you’d chuckle along with when it floats by on a dull Sunday afternoon. The cast of male teenage stars never really hit it big following the film (You could argue about Steve Zhan’s career) but the female set boasts Liv Tyler and Catherine Theronz to lend them some ‘they became famous later on’ factor

PH. D's Favorite Movies: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Terry Gilliam is one cursed individual. Not to say he’s mean or spiteful, he’s just had a run of phenomenally bad luck in the course of filming his wonderful pieces of art, and in trying to release them properly to the public. Almost all his films have been beset with a variety of different production problems, delays and even full-blown disasters. Such is the case of his failed Don Quixote film, a catastrophe which was documented on camera and later released in documentary form as “Lost in La Mancha”. Now, I haven’t seen that documentary, but I hear it presents a rather grueling picture of that films' troubled production and eventual doom. This man… it’s very difficult to believe he’s still making films, after all the shit he’s had to go through. Both “Brazil” and “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” were marathon productions that over-shot their budgets and tested their crews to the breaking point. Really, though… thank God! Those two films are among my very favorites. First of all, they’re funny, they’re constantly visually engaging, and they have very broad thematic depth. I should stop talking about Brazil (which IS my favorite film, and my love of that one is a whole other story) and go on to Baron Munchausen. This one’s just had a brand spankin’ new DVD release for its 20^th anniversary with a pretty good documentary and an insightful commentary track.

First of all, I’d like to state one thing: This entire film is a beautiful painting. It becomes immediately clear to the discerning eye that this film works fantastically well visually. It really does stretch the possibilities of 1988 technology, and benefits from Gilliams’ affinity for practical props and effects. As the director states in the commentary track, there really is something special about seeing real things, be it the floating personage of the Grim Reaper, Death with his tattered, wispy cloak floating behind, or be it a hot air balloon escaping over a crowd of Turkish soldiers. Note the excellent use of miniatures, in scenes that would be taken in today’s cinema as only practical with computer generated effects.

So yeah, the movie is insane visually, but what about the other important parts that constitute the film? The plot, for one, is perfect to support Gilliam’s recurring themes of imagination and its conflict with reality. The film is set during the 19^th century: the age of Enlightenment, where politicians and intellectuals attempt to rule everything through logic and reason. The story centers on the daughter of a Theatre manager (a young Sarah Polley) who, whilst performing in a town besieged by the Ottoman Empire (read: The Turks), gets entangled with the mythical figure of Baron Munchausen (John Neville). Along the way, you get to meet the Baron’s crew: the strong man, the dwarf with the lungs of steel, the human version of the Road Runner (Eric Idle) and a talented sharp-shooter. We get taken to various fantastical locations, such as the moon, where a mad king battles between the primitive cravings of his body and the more intellectual pursuits of his head. We’re presented with a rather comical version of a forge located in a Volcano, where the god Vulcan fawns over Venus, his beautiful wife, while his workers go on strike for better wages. Also explored are the innards of a Leviathan of a fish, where the crew members of ingested ships play never ending card games. Of course there is an epic confrontation as a climax, where huge ships are thrown about, Eric Idle outruns a bullet, and the Baron decapitates a more than a dozen men. All of this is good, and stuff, but what does it MEAN? (Who really cares about that suff? I do!)

Thematically, the film explores the conflict between the whimsical world of imagination and dreams, and cold, logical reality. It effectively completes the “imagination” trilogy begun with “Time Bandits” (imagination as a boy), followed by “Brazil” (imagination as a man). "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” explores imagination seen through the eyes of an insane (or senile?) German Baron. All three seem to present a rather dull view of the real world, dominated by appliances and bureaucratic political figures, concerned with appearance and the opinions of discerning individuals. In contrast to this somewhat exaggerated portrait of modern and dystopian (in the case of Brazil) society, we have the land of dreams, of fantasy. While it becomes clear to the audience that these dreamscapes are more pure, more full of adventure than the real world could ever be, they are still fabrications, lies, to tell the truth. To Gilliam, this doesn’t seem to matter. I think he believes that the world of dreams and creating and imagination is a really effective portal to get out of the blatantly depressing world, and his films are there to provide that escape for the casual and invested film-goer.

I realize that the average viewer would find “Brazil” and “Munchausen” either too childish, or too impenetrable, but to me, and seemingly many other film “buffs”, they seem to hit the right buttons. Gilliam has the touch, and I really, truly hope that anyone who is reading this can feel the same sense of joy and escape that I do while watching these wonderful films. There’s so much loving craft and layers of meaning carved into these that I can’t possibly keep all of it to myself. See “Baron Munchausen”, share the joy! Fly my minions! Fly! Mwahahahaha!

UHF (US. 1989)

Director: Jay Levey

It’s difficult write an unbiased review of what what my pre-teen mind perceived was the BEST MOVIE EVVVVAAAAARRRR after I recorded it off of a fuzzy TBS broadcast back in the days before them newfangled Dee-Vee-Dee. I forced everyone I knew (Distant mutated cousins, neighbors pets, poltergeist spirits) to listen to me re-quote scenes ad-verbatim till I ran out of saliva. UHF for a small portion of my life WAS my life. And the person you have to blame is writer/director/star/genius Weird Al Yanchovich.

Weird Al is down out of his luck and out of a job (again) His wacky gambler stereotypical uncle wins the deed to a pitsville UHF television station and decides to give the reigns to his Al, his nephew. Many unrelated TV/film parodies, a half hearted storyline about an evil rival station and Micheal Richards over-acting at 150% follow.

I hit play, sat back, and basked in the glow of…Hey…What the….It was a sinking heart that I realized that UHF, just, well, god, this is hard…It isn’t the guiding light for all comedy. The film itself is pretty slow and most of the jokes screech along painfully. Weird All yelped his high pitched voice again for ‘comedy effect’ and I smiled nervously in my friends direction. ‘It’s funny! I swear it’s funny!’. Lame gags piled over lame gags. The direction was workmanlike. Doom seemed assured.

And then I saw the “Spatula City” commercial. “There’s no better way to say ‘I Love you’ then the gift of Spatula.’

Light! At the end of the tunnel! Nuggets of hilarity like “Wheel of Fish”, “Raoul’s Animal Kingdom” and “Gandhi II” popped up on screen. I finally realized that I only remember parts of the film as great comedy because it succeeds a sketch compilation but fails as a narrative film. Weird Al as an actor is a one note screechy voiced wide eyed caricature and his shtick gets grating fast. Fran Dresher is his female wide eyed screechy companion. Michael Richard is off his rocker as expected. Everyone else hams it up and is quickly forgotten. It’s only the weirdness of the unrelated TV/Shows commercial that make this worrth your time at all...As difficult as that is to say.

DVD

Weird Al sums up the tone of the DVD Special Features perfectly in the commentary “Ugh! What the hell where we thinking?” Self Deprecating from start to finish the special features that adorn this disc are exactly the way people should approach past work. The picture quality and sound presentation is all right, nothing spectacular, but it was never a high budget film in the first place so I don’t expect the heavens.

Crew Expendable: PH. D. looks back at Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986)

I’ve recently watched the first two films of the Alien “Quadrilogy” (Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986), respectively) and I thought I’d share some thoughts. For those who haven’t seen the films, go rent them now before you read spoilers and such. We don’t want your kind here anyway ;)

First, I’d like to mention how remarkably well these films have aged. The effects work in each still holds up and sometimes surpasses the computer effects of the modern age in terms of believability. The miniature work for the towing ship in “Alien” is impressive for its time, a bare two years after the special effects in “Star Wars” made their debut. However, the quality of these effects shouldn’t be surprising, considering they were supervised by the same guys who worked on “2001”. The Space Marine ship and the Terra-forming plant in “Aliens” are equally impressive pre-CGI accomplishments. The creature effects really shine here, especially the face-huggers and the Queen in the sequel. There’s something about seeing a tangible, physical construct, such as the Stan Winston designed Queen, which makes the action in these films more impactful than any other aliens we’ve seen since.

Consider 1997’s Starship Troopers. While I’ll be the first to shout out my appreciation of that ironic-fascist piece of sci-fi action, I’ll also willingly admit that the bugs just didn’t work. Sure they were dangerous, they were a threat, but they weren’t that scary. These aliens though, they’re smart. It’s like they’ve read Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”. This is the best direction Ridley Scott and James Cameron could have gone for, especially in Scott’s Alien, where a half dozen crew members must fight a single organism. It’s the fact that this foreign body can outsmart a bunch of tech-savvy humans on their own turf that is really terrifying. “Aliens” has always been categorized as sci-fi/action in most circles because, sure, in the sequel there are more of the creatures and certainly more action… but I think the film remains a horror movie at heart. Defining these films with genres is kind of stupid though, because they’ve created their own little niche.

Acting wise, both films are anchored by Sigourney Weaver’s strong-willed, yet oddly motherly Ripley. Playing the lead with a great mix of terror and bravery, you could hardly have asked for a better heroine. I guess it also helps that she can kick some major ass when she wants to, as shown in the final loading dock sequence in the second film. I also really enjoyed the performance of Ian Holm as the science officer who turns out to be an android. He’s really creepy when he’s trying to kill Ripley, an act he’s obviously not programmed to perform. His actions get all stiff and he starts to twitch. In “Aliens” we get the cult-classic performance of Bill Paxton, playing the annoyingly distressed private Hudson. This is probably his most quoted role ever, and if you haven’t seen the film I won’t ruin those golden lines for you.

Critics have been heard saying that “Aliens” is one of the only sequels to surpass the original. I certainly agree that “Aliens” is a fine film, but I think overall that each film stands on its own as near-perfect examples of sci-fi horror. I really can’t recommend these enough. The recommendation is kind of wasted though, as you’ve probably seen these films already. Screw you! See ‘em again!

P.S. I hadn’t seen that chest-burster scene in a long while, and heck, I knew it was coming, but it still gave me the willies.

Kung Fu Panda (US. 2008)

Directors: Mark Osborne and John Stevenson

The idea that animated films have to please the lowest common denominator is a blatant miss-conception. It’s a label that isn’t helped one bit by pieces of pop culture filled vomit like Madagascar and Shrek clogging our collective conciousness. People automatically assume that because REAL people don’t adorn the screen that the film MUST be for the kiddies. It’s a rare occurrence that we get a good animated film in North America from a major studio OTHER then the always winning Pixar (Toy Story, The Incredibles) that isn’t filled with explosive diarrhoea and reference to the newest pop single.

“Kung Fu Panda” is the exception to the rule.

Po (Jack Black) works at his father’s (James Wong) noodle stand by day and dreams of being a kung-fu fighter by night. His dreams of joining the awesome martial arts experts “The Furious Five” will never be a reality because he’s a fat lazy Panda! It’s only when he gets ‘accidentally’ picked as the “Dragon Warrior’ the impossible becomes reality. The overweight panda now has to train under a jaded master (Dustin Hoffman) to take on the seemingly invincible recently escaped tiger warrior (Ian Mchsane)

Kung-Fu Panda succeeds where others fail becomes it’s is aware of the roots of it’s subject matter. It’s not a parody of chop-socky action but is instead a love letter homage to all those Shaw Brothers movies of old. The idea of adapting all the styles of combat (Crane, Mantis, Monkey, Tiger) to their real animal counterparts was a brilliant move that is breathless on screen. The action scenes here are REAL action scenes. Characters weave, duck and defy gravity in ways that could only be achieved through the tireless work of a few people moving pixels around. There’s no fart jokes or sly winking at the audience to completely take the thrills out of the set pieces. KFP takes the subject matter and characters seriously in the context of the story that’s being presented. Sure, there’s lots of people falling down and crashing into things but it never hurts the story (simple as it is) that’s presented. It may pull at the heart strings a LITTLE too much but it never grates because you have to give it credit for these melodramatic beats being organic to the rest of the universe.

Jack Black plays himself as the talky joke-ee buffoon and he does that pretty well. Dustin Hoffman brings way more emotional depth to his sifu character that is necessary. The ‘all star’ voice cast (Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, Angelina Jolie, David Cross [!]) on the Furious Five are just there, not a jaw dropping job, but interesting tell your friends trivia. Jackie Chan as Monkey has maybe three incomprehensible lines and is only there for geek currency.

On the IMAX screen Kung Fu Panda pops off-screen. It’s Chinese inspired design and direction is jaw-dropping but that doesn’t make it a good movie. The fact that it works is the real seller. I recommend KFP whole heartedly as a light action packed tale for the WHOLE FAMILY!

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I expect my cheque for the quote in a week.