Guest Review - Halloween (1978) by Sean Brage

Hey everyone! I know it's been a while since my last post, but I couldn't pass up the offer by one of my friends to post a guest review. So, here is Sean Brage's review of the original Halloween. Make sure to keep an eye out for his comparison between this film and the Rob Zombie remake, the first in what will hopefully be a series of columns comparing remakes with their original source material.

Halloween: past and present.

In 1978, John Carpenter released his breakthrough hit horror film, Halloween, and critics and moviegoers alike agreed: the movie was scary as all get out. Filmed on a humble budget with a cast of unknowns, Carpenter set out to give audiences something new, something the horror genre hadn't really seen yet.

The era in which Halloween arrived was a strange one for horror. The genre was gaining new ground and popularity, with directors such as Dario Argento and Wes Craven embracing horror as a true art form, not just a way to fill seats and sell popcorn, as it had been with horror in the 50s and 60s. But horror films were largely spiritual and supernaturally themed, often with elaborate back-stories, occult sub-plots, and at times overwhelming themes of light, darkness, and social commentary. Enter John Carpenter, originally hired on to direct a new kind of horror movie, simply entitled The Babysitter Murders. It wasn't long before Carpenter had re-written the script, recreated from scratch the premise, and filmed a movie that would become a landmark for the genre.

Set in small-town Illinois, Halloween opens with an almost impossibly simple sequence of events. We witness in first-person a shaky, frantic sequence leading us through the kitchen, up the stairs, and into the bedroom where we witness a murder through the eyes of the killer. Reversing the role of audience and killer was just the first groundbreaking sequence in Carpenter's original Halloween. Carpenter's film is terrifying, keeping you glued to the couch and checking your closet every night for weeks; the strength of scares comes from Halloween's simplicity. A killer kills someone, and then 15 years later, he returns to continue killing people. We don't know why, and not knowing makes the evil of these events so much more chilling. Without an elaborate "origin" back-story, we're presented with "evil on two legs," a single-minded madman who could appear in any of our windows at any time. But it's not just the simple storyline that adds to Halloween's credibility. Carpenter's filming of Halloween was revolutionary, showing a focus on we the viewers, striving to put us into a situation that keeps us biting our nails and shaking from fright. Carpenter's use of long, tracking shots would become a staple of the genre, but is fresh and original in his '78 entry. Keeping the camera tight in extended single-angle sequences gets the audience craning their necks, trying to see around the next corner before the unthinkable happens. It's the same kind of filmmaking that would go on to making Stanley Kubrick's The Shining legendary, and in John Carpenter's Halloween, it is terrifying.

Another of the films strengths comes from its understatement, its willingness to take things slow. Rather than making the kills the focus or showering the screen with gore, the highlights of the film are the times when nothing is happening. Instead, it's seeing The Shape peering through a window at a non-the-wiser character, the panning shots showing him in the shadows one moment and gone the next. The anticipation of what could happen is what stops hearts and gets us sweating in this film. Carpenter also managed to save up a good portion of scares for the later 1/4 of the film, so that when something finally does happen, it happens big, leaving us no room to catch our breath.

Lending to the strength of the film is newcomer Jamie Lee Curtis in her first movie role as the first "last girl" in the first slasher film. Her role would go on to be a much-copied cliché of the genre, but adds to the groundbreaking nature of Halloween. While Ms. Curtis truly shines as the "virginal survivor," my favorite role in the film goes to the indispensable Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis, personal psychiatrist to the killer, a man hell-bent on finding and destroying the man he blames himself for letting go. Loomis is at once the film's most sane and most insane voice, a man beyond the edge, trying to explain to the world that this killer is "pure evil." Loomis's monologues on the nature of Michael Myers are chilling and delivered with the brilliance of a stalwart stage actor. Pleasance's character would go on to be one of the only redeeming qualities of the films subsequent and lesser sequels, and in the original he is what makes the story human, lending himself to our relief while giving us due reason to be afraid of Michael Myers.

If you think that good horror films weren't made before Hostel, or if you think that bereft of grisly and "creative" death scenes a film suffers, I encourage you to pick up a copy of John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween, turn the lights off, and let yourself be placed inside that house, trying to understand and escape the circumstances of the film. It will shake you, without disturbing you via explicit gore or eliciting cheap thrills via explicit nudity like horror films of today. Halloween is a landmark of the genre, and still serves up true scares after 31 years.

Movie Review - Ladron Que Roba a Ladron

Today's review is my first of a film in a foreign language, 2007's Ladron Que Roba A Ladron. I had never heard of this movie until I saw a trailer for it before 3:10 to Yuma, which was also released by Lions Gate. The trailer looked interesting, and reminiscent of the Ocean's Trilogy, so I figured I'd give it a shot. And I'm glad I did.

The film is about two thieves who decide to rob a modern day snake-oil salesman who is ripping off immigrants via infomercials for products that don't actually work. The plan is to disguise themselves and a crew as day laborers because very few people bother to pay attention to the illegal immigrants who clean their toilets or park their cars. The subtitles translate the title as "To Rob a Thief," although a more accurate translation would be "A thief who robs a thief."

The plot is actually more like The Sting than the Ocean's films, although for the most part it is actually funnier than either of those franchises. The thieves find that all their old partners aren't willing to work with them anymore for various reasons, so they instead have to build a crew from actual day laborers instead of polished professionals, to hilarious results.

The film moves along at a good pace, and there are plenty of unexpected twists and turns in the plot that most won't see coming. The only negative thing about the film is a pro-illegal immigration stance it seems to take that sometimes over shines the well scripted plot. Overall, however, I found this movie to be a pleasant surprise. I would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of caper films.
Grade: 7
(All films are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being cinematic perfection, and 1 being a direct-to-DVD sequel of a Disney movie.)

Movie Review - The Hunted

Directed by Academy Award winner William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist), The Hunted is a fascinating and flawed film. It stars fellow Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones as L. T. Bonham, a famous tracker used by the army to train special forces operators to hunt and kill their targets in an almost invisible manner. He is called upon by the FBI to track one of his former students, ex-Green Beret Aaron Hallam (Benicio Del Torro, another Oscar winner) who has gone rogue, and has killed at least four hunters in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.

The tactics both men use are incredible, and are portrayed as realistically as possible, thanks to real life survival expert/tracker Tom Brown, Jr., who not only served as a technical advisor, but was also the basis for the Bonham character.

One of the major flaws of the film is that it never quite gets the balance between realistic and fantastical right. Jones is terrific as usual in his role as the aging Bonham, but one can't help but wonder how much better he would have been had he not been given a couple more months to get into shape. For a man who lives off the land, he seems a bit paunchy and slow. Del Toro, on the other hand, seems to put about as much effort and emotion into his role as you might put into taking out the trash. With the exception of a few moments of true madness behind his eyes, he seems to be woefully miscast as the bad ass soldier Hallam. Add to that the fact that he seems to be at least twenty pounds overweight, and by the end of the movie you'll be wishing they'd found someone else, not just the first Oscar winner that answered the phone.

But what's done wrong on the screen is matched by what is missing. Bonham, who at one point says he's never killed anyone, shows no hesitation when it comes time for fight Hallam to the death. Sure, he trains men to kill on instinct, but can one accomplish that having never done it himself? Also missing is any trace of a relationship between Bonham and Hallam, who seems to trust Bonham over everyone else. Yet at the end, we see that Bonham has kept several of the letters that Hallam has been secretly sending him. We seem to be missing a scene where Bonham shows Hallam any kind of softness or forgiveness for his crimes.

Also glossed over is what would have been the most interesting aspect of the film. Hallam escapes custody early in the film, leading the FBI and Bonham on a chase throughout Portland. What could have been an extremely cool scene (Bonham struggling to track Hallam, who had learned additional skills during his time in the military, through an urban area) is reduced to a five minute sequence filled with coincidental sightings and a ridiculous jump off a bridge.

The films flaws, however, are almost forgotten by the time the film reaches it's climax: an amazing, bloody, innovative knife fight between Hallam and Bonham, student and teacher. Never before have I seen a more brutal or well choreographed knife fight on a film. It brings to mind a line from the rarely seen David Mamet film Spartan (which I will review here someday) in which Special Forces operative Scott (Val Kilmer) responds to a soldier's affirmation that she teaches knife fighting by saying "Don't you teach 'em knife fighting. Teach 'em to kill. That way, they meet some sonofabitch who studied knife fighting, they send his soul to hell." Not a movement in this fight is wasted. There's no fancy blocking of a knife with a knife (which is ridiculous), nor is there any ludicrous monologuing. Just two men who know how to kill trying to end each other's lives by any means necessary.

Alas, it isn't quite enough to overshadow the film's shortcomings, and the feeling you are left with is one of wasted potential. You'd expect more from three Oscar winners.
Grade: 6
(All films are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being cinematic perfection and 1 being every Police Academy film with a number in the title.)

DVD Review - King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Director Seth Gordon has crafted a fascinating and heart wrenching film in The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. On the surface, it's a film about two nerds trying to one-up each other to be the highest scorer in Donkey Kong. However, it manages to be about much more than that.

Billy Mitchell (who, in my opinion, is the definition of the word "tool") is a conniving, dishonest, and slimy jerk who also happens to be a major hypocrite. His main opponent in his battle to remain as important as he was in the '80s is Steve Wiebe, who began his quest to break the world record in Donkey Kong because he had been laid off and it was something to do.

In Wiebe, we have one of the most compelling heroes in modern cinema. There are several hints throughout the film that he has some form of high-functioning autism or obsessive compulsive disorder, and truly, in everything he does he feels he must be the best. Watching him slam out an amazing solo on his 5 year old son's tiny drum set, or shoot a perfect nothing-but-net three pointer from about 50 feet away drive this point home. This is a man who must excel at everything he does.

However, Steve's plans to be the best hit a roadblock in the form of Twin Galaxies, an international video game score keeping organization that seems to have an agenda. That agenda is to keep Billy Mitchell relevant by foiling Wiebe at every turn. His video taped score is deemed inadmissible, so Steve travels cross country at least twice to beat Mitchell's score in person, only to never actually face Mitchell the coward in person. Mitchell even submits a video tape of himself beating Wiebe's high score, even though throughout the movie he continuously says important scores must be beaten in person.

I had been interested in seeing this movie ever since I saw the previews for it when they first came out. What I didn't expect was to get so emotionally involved with these characters. If someone had explained the plot to me and I'd never seen footage, I would have thought it was just have been another cheesy faux-inspirational movie in the vein of The Wizard. However, I found this documentary far more compelling and inspiring than anything Hollywood has produced in years.
Grade: 10
(All films are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being cinematic perfection and 1 being a movie about an inter-city dance crew.)

DVD Review - Interview with the Assassin

Today's review is of the creepy fake documentary ("mockumentary" is too jokey a description for this movie)Interview with the Assassin, starring Raymond J. Barry and Dylan Haggerty. Barry, an accomplished character actor, plays ex-Marine Walter Ohliger. Ohlinger is dying of cancer and wants to confess his most major of crimes to Haggerty's Ron Kobeleski, a recently laid off TV cameraman. The confession is that Ohlinger was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, and that he, not Lee Harvey Oswald, fired the head shot that killed John F. Kennedy.

The film does an excellent job of keeping this film grounded in reality, although the premise is one that could have easily lead to an unbelievable action movie or thriller. It is shot very much like a documentary, never once tipping it's hand to the fact that everything on screen is being faked by extremely gifted actors.

While Ohlinger and Kobeleski spend the entire movie trying to prove the sniper's story, in the end it is left up to the viewer whether Walter is telling the truth, or just a crazy old man looking for attention. Unlike Push (below is my review for that movie), this is not done in a cheesy way. Everything in this film feels very true to life.

The film was the first written and directed by Neil Burger, who later went on to write and direct The Illusionist. Very rarely does a writer/director so thoroughly hit one out of the park on his first feature, but Burger has accomplished that here. The film was shot with only about $750,000, but that's more to it's advantage than it's detriment. The plot has many twists and turns that surprise as well as any other movie I've seen, and the small budget helps sell the whole premise so completely that I might have been suckered in had I seen this movie without knowing anything about it, and had I not recognized it's stars.
Grade: 9
(All films are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being cinematic perfection and 1 being about as bad as a Sci-Fi Channel Original Picture.)

DVD Review - I, Robot

Loosely based on the writing of Isaac Asimov, I, Robot, directed by The Crow director Alex Proyas, is probably one of the better straight science fiction films of the last ten years. Expertly paced and with a surprise twist I actually didn't see coming, I, Robot surprises from start to finish.

Will Smith stars as Del Spooner, who finds himself investigating a murder in which the suspect for the first time ever is a robot. The robot, named Sonny (voiced and performed via motion capture by Alan Tudyk), was the only thing nearby when Dr. Alfred Lanning (the always amazing James Cromwell) fell through a window he never would have been able to break himself. Thus, his death is ruled a murder, but Spooner finds that the truth may not be so simple.

Smith is in fine form here (both physically and acting wise) as the cautious (read: paranoid) detective. His reason for his deep-rooted hate of robots is one of his more interesting characteristics, and Smith plays it beautifully.

Doing mere adequate work is the wooden Bridget Moynahan as Susan Calvin, a representative of the corporation where Lanning worked and died. For some reason Hollywood has decided Moynahan is either attractive or a good actress, but thus far I am unconvinced. I can't help but feel that this film would have been more enjoyable had a stronger (or at least more attractive) actress been cast in this role.

Tudyk turns in a brilliant performance as the confused and emotional Sonny, a fascinating character. If they gave awards for best motion capture performance, the award for 2004 would have easily gone to Tudyk for his unique work in this film.

Look for a cameo by Shia LeBeof who was just starting his film career.
Grade: 8
(All films are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being cinematic perfection and 1 being any TV film where something is going to strike the earth.)

DVD Review - Push

Directed by Paul McGuigan, Push is a science-fiction film about people with extraordinary psychic abilities. It's basically a comic book movie, although it's not based on a comic book, but an original screenplay by David Bourla, who had previously written only direct to DVD features.



The film stars Chris Evans as Nick Gant, a telekinetic whose father was hunted and killed by the vaguely named Division, a branch of the government devoted to hunting down and experimenting on those with special abilities.



He's found by Cassie Holmes (Dakota Fanning), who is what's known as a Watcher (she can see the future). Her mother had the same gift and was kidnapped by Division when Cassie was a little girl. She is searching for a pusher, which is someone who can make their thoughts your own. The pusher is Kira Hudson (Camilla Belle), who has a mysterious case that will lead to the end of Division.



Chasing them is Henry Carver (Djimon Hounsou), another pusher and Division big-wig. He is hoping to find Kira because she is the first survivor of a test injection meant to boost the powers of the psychics.



Thus we have the first Grand Canyon size plot hole of the film. If the injection kills people, why do they keep using it? This and many other questions go unanswered over the course of the film. The ending in particular feels like it was intended to be continued in a sequel that we will probably never see. The film received mostly bad reviews and barely made it's budget back. Evans, Fanning, and Belle do an adequate job, and the special effects are decent, but the plot is confusing and overly complicated, and most of the editing is too erratic to be effective.



I would only recommend this film to hard-core sci-fi and action nerds, but most others will just find it annoying and, at almost two hours, overly long.
Grade: 6
All movies are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being cinematic perfection, and 1 being anything Mark Hamill has done that wasn't Star Wars related.)

Sequel Saturday - Ghostbusters & Ghostbusters II

This week's Sequel Saturday will focus on Ivan Reitman's 1984 masterpiece and 1989 travesty Ghostbusters I & II.

What I find most interesting about these films is that essentially the same creative team produces both films, and the original actors resumed their roles for the sequel, but the two films vary wildly as far as quality goes. Where the original's jokes succeeded, the continuation feels flat and emotionless.

Ghostbusters (1984)

The brain child of original Saturday Night Live cast member Dan Aykroyd, Ghostbusters eventually became a collaboration between Aykroyd, director Reitman, and co-writer (and rival SCTV alum) Harold Ramis. Aykroyd and Ramis would also star in the picture, along with fellow Saturday Night Live funnyman Bill Murray and Yale School of Drama graduate Ernie Hudson.

Murray by far has the funniest role, that of psychologist and parapsychologist Dr. Peter Venkman, described by Ramis as "the mouth of the Ghostbusters." Aykroyd saved for himself the role of Dr. Ray Stanz, similarly described as the "the heart of the Ghostbusters." Dr. Egon Spengler, "the brain of the Ghostbusters," was portrayed by Ramis himself, while Hudson took on the role of Winston Zeddemore, a role that basically served as a proxy for the audience, in that he joins the others later on and many of their procedures have to be explained to him as they would to the viewers.

The chemistry between all the characters is one of the things that makes the movie work. Without first believing Venkman, Stanz, and Spengler are friends, the film would be asking to much of an audience to suspend their disbelief at some of the more supernatural elements of the films.

Perhaps what makes the first film succeed where the second film fails is in the character of Walter Peck, played with a superb sliminess by serial bad-guy actor William Atherton. In Peck, the Ghostbusters face a flesh and blood foe that the audience can hate, simply because he wants our heroes to fail.

The jokes work (and are still funny 25 years later), the pacing is fabulous, and the then-cutting-edge-effects hold up for the most part. The film's 107 minute running time left audiences wanting more.

Ghostbusters II (1989)

Unfortunately, after five years of waiting, the follow-up audiences received was the astonishingly inferior Ghostbusters II. Despite the return of the same creative talent both in front of and behind the cameras, the film fails on this fundamental level: Columbia wanted a sequel because the first made more money. By all respects, the first film could have served as a perfect stand-alone sci-fi comedy. But Reitman, Ramis and Aykroyd returned only reluctantly, seeing the first film as their complete cohesive vision.

Ultimately the studio won out and this film was made. It fails more often than it succeeds, changing the focus from the scary ghosts in the first movie to the more marketable slime, which had been featured heavily in the cartoon series released between the two films.

Also contributing to the creative failure is the fact that the Ghostbusters don't really have a physical enemy against which they can fight. They lose their relatability as a result. In order for a film to work in which suspension of disbelief is so important, there must be some link to the real world with which the audience can identify.

Although there are some jokes that are funny, the film is no where near as laugh out loud hilarious as it's predecessor, and it's climactic action involving the Statue of Liberty just feels silly.

New Classic Review - Galaxy Quest

By request, today's review is of the hilarious sci-fi/comedy Galaxy Quest.

Galaxy Quest tells the story of a group of actors from the Star Trek like-tv show of the title. They find themselves assisting an alien race who, believing the show to be a documentary, have modeled their entire society after it.

Tim Allen plays the selfish and egotistical Jason Nesmith, whom the aliens confuse for his über-confident character on the show, Commander Peter Taggart. He is the first to make contact, and is then faced with the daunting task of getting the rest of the cast to believe him. He eventually convinces the others to join him, and they find themselves facing off against the evil Sarris (Robin Sachs). Hilarity ensues.

Allen's co-leads in the film are Sigourney Weaver, of Alien fame, and Allan Rickman, arguably most famous for his turn as German baddie Hans Gruber in Die Hard. The supporting cast includes Tony Shalhoub, Darryl Mitchell, and Sam Rockwell. Everyone turns in fantastically funny performances, straddling the line between straight comedy and parody. Everyone also handles themselves well in the film's action scenes.

Completely underrated in the film is the side-splitting Enrico Colantoni as Mathesar, the leader of the alien race that worships Nesmith and his cast-mates. He delivers his lines in a strange sing-song manner that is half humming, It's difficult to describe, but it's effective as hell.

Also of note is the fantastic special effects the film boasts. Indeed, the shots of the ships battling it out at the end is more convincing that some of the effects in most of the Star Trek films. Part of what makes those special effects and action scenes work is David Newman's rousing score, which at times seems to be written to be overly bombastic and loud, just as the scores in other space movies tend to be.

All in all, thanks to Dean Parisot's excellent direction and a witty, tongue in cheek screenplay by David Howard and Robert Gorden, Galaxy Quest succeeds in being not only a jovial parody of space films, but a decent space film in it's own right. The only negative I see is that the movie was at one time edited to have an edgier PG-13 rating. I think it would have been interesting to see the original cut, which was also supposed to be more serious, to see how the two compare.

Grade: 8

All movies are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being cinematic perfection, and 1 being anything directed by William Shatner.)

New Classic Review - 3:10 to Yuma

Today's review is of another instant classic, James Mangold's stunning western epic 3:10 to Yuma. The film is a remake of the 1957 film of the same name starring Glen Ford and Van Heflin, making it the second adaptation of Elmore Leonard's short story.

The film begins outside of Bisbee, Arizona, sometime after the Civil War. Union veteran Dan Evans (Christian Bale), who lost part of his right leg in the war, is awakened to find the henchmen of his ruthless debtor Glen Hollander (Lennie Lofton) burning down his barn for being behind on his debt. He and his son William (Logan Lerman) manage to save the horses, but the last of their feed is lost in the fire.

The next day, while trying to wrangle their scattered herd, Dan, William and the youngest son Mark (Ben Petry) accidentally run across notorious outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe) and his gang attempting to rob the Southern Pacific Railroad payroll from a heavily armed and armored stagecoach for the 22nd time. Wade ends up using some of the cattle to finally bring the wagon, and it's Pinkerton Detective inhabitants, to a stop.

William, who idolizes Wade from the stories he's read about him, wants to get a closer look against Dan's objections. His hesitation causes them to be spotted by Wade and his sociopath second-in-command Charlie Prince (the brilliant Ben Foster). Recognizing that they pose no serious threat, Wade takes their horses, promising to leave them on the road to town so that they can't go for help. Dan and his sons find a survivor among the stagecoach wreckage, bounty hunter Byron McElroy (a marvelously subdued Peter Fonda), who has been shot by Prince. They drag him to their horses, at which point Dan tells the boys to round up the herd while he takes McElroy into town for help.

Meanwhile, Wade, Prince and the rest of the gang have sent the town Marshall off on a wild goose chase, and proceed to take over the local saloon in order to relax and split their bounty. The gang splits up, agreeing to reunite later, but Wade stays behind to romance the pretty barmaid. Prince agrees to wait near by in case Wade needs anything.

Dan arrives in town with the Marshall and in the process of begging Hollander to allow the stream that once flowed through his land to do so again, finds himself face to face with Wade. At this point, Wade is captured and the plan is to take him to Contention, a two day ride, so that he can be put aboard the 3:10 train to Yuma prison of the title. A posse is formed to accomplish this task, knowing that Wade's gang won't be too far behind. Gathered for the job are McElroy, Grayson Butterfield (Dallas Roberts), a representative of the railroad, Tucker (Kevin Durand), one of Hollander's thugs, and Doc Potter (the always awesome Alan Tudyk), the veterinarian who pulled the bullet from the still-healing McElroy. Dan agrees to go, for the sum of $200 so that he can keep his ranch running. Butterfield agrees, and the men head off after switching Ben for a double to throw Prince off their trail.

What makes this film so amazing is that it could have been played like a typical action movie, with witty banter ridiculous stunts. Instead, interspersed with the action set pieces, we get some genuine character development. There isn't a single character in the movie who isn't changed by the events that occur. Crowe and Bale carry the film, turning in strong, understated performances. Usually in a film with two stars of this magnitude, one will outshine the other, but both actors perform the roles with a stunning minimalist approach that fits the film's tone perfectly.

The film is paced perfectly enough that the audience feels some of the same tension that the characters feel. Mangold also continues the style he used in Walk the Line: Every frame is composed like a work of art. His palette is suitably muted, with everyone wearing different shades of brown, and all the clothes are realistically covered in dust.

The main theme of the movie seems to be what it takes to be a real man, and much like real life, it means something different to each of the characters. William, through watching his father risk life and limb to deliver Wade to train, learns that manhood has nothing to do with how fast a draw you are or how many men you kill, but what you sacrifice for your family. Wade learns through observing Dan that real manhood is sticking to your word no matter what. Even when Wade offers Dan $1000 to look the other way and let him escape, that no one will think less of him for taking the money, Dan replies with "No one could think less of me."

Dan learns that being a man has less to do with how you provide for your family than it does just being there for them. By keeping his word and having integrity, he proves to his son that he is the hero his son deserves.

Also turning in a fine performance is Gretchen Moll as Dan's long-suffering wife Alice. She has a weariness in her eyes that really sells the performance. Also look for a strange, very small cameo by Luke Wilson.

All in all, Mangold's subtle direction perfectly matches the underacting performances turned in by Crowe and Bale, leaving fans of dramatic films well satisfied. And the shootout the ends the film (it takes up nearly twenty minutes of screen time) should be more than enough for action buffs looking for a thrill, although there are several well executed action scenes throughout.
Grade: 10
(All movies are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being cinematic perfection, and 1 being about as good as any film directed by a music video director with one name.)

Classic Review - Starman

Today's classic review is 1984's Academy Award nominated Starman. Considering it's directed by John Carpenter (of The Thing and Halloween fame), Starman is a surprisingly touching tale.

The film opens in Wisconsin in 1984. An alien scout ship, responding to a welcoming message from the people of Earth, has been shot down (real welcoming, right?). It's pilot, seen only as a small blue light, finds it's way to the home of the recently widowed Jenny Hayden (Raiders of the Lost Ark's Karen Allen).

The alien starts up the projector Jenny had been watching, and seeing the images of her husband, begins to go through a photo album sitting on the table. It finds what it needs, what appears to be a lock of the husbands hair from his first hair cut. Using the pictures and the DNA in the hair as a guide, it transforms itself into a copy of Scott Hayden (Jeff Bridges), Jenny's husband, much to her surprise.

Once she has gotten over her shock, the alien commandeers her and her car, needing to reach his rendezvous point in Arizona in three days, or he'll die. She reluctantly accompanies him, first because he managed to get a hold of her gun, and later because she finds herself falling for him.

Meanwhile, SETI official Mark Shermin (Charles Martin Smith) is hot on their tail. His superior George Fox (Richard Jaeckel) wants to capture the "Starman" and dissect him, despite the message of peace Starman's people received on the Voyager II probe, launched in 1977. Shermin wants to fin him and ask him questions, but has absolutely no plans for violence.

Jenny and "Scott" hit a few roadblocks on their journey, and luckily he has a way to deal with them. He begins the film with several small orbs that he can use to accomplish amazing feats, including contacting his people and making a holographic map of the united states so Jenny will know where to go.

It would be hard to miss the film's main themes of hope and acceptance. Jenny learns these lessons as her adventure and relationship with this stranger who looks like her dead husband progress. She finds herself accepting him more and more as not just a clone of her husband, but as a decent person. Starman grows as the film goes on as well, learning about all the good and bad things about humanity. "Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about you?" he asks Shermin during the climax, sharing what he's learned of the human race. "You are at your very best when things are worst."

The film is not without humor, though. Possessing a very limited vocabulary, Starman gets himself and Jenny into quite a bit of trouble as they travel, including using one of his orbs to reanimate a dead dear, getting himself into trouble with the hunter who shot it.

It has it's slow points, but the film as a whole is pretty well paced. Allen and Smith turn in exceptional performances, but it's Bridges, who was nominated for best actor for his role, who really shines. He finds a perfect balance between naivete and altruism that makes his character extremely likable, but not annoying or too goofy. Overall, the film is an outstanding departure from horror/action director Carpenter.
Grade: 9
(All movies are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being cinematic perfection, and 1 being worse than the accompanying video game adaptation.)

New Classic Review - The Rundown

Today's classic review is of one of my favorite action movies of the last ten years,The Rundown. From the opening nightclub scene (which features a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo by Arnold Schwarzenegger), director Peter Berg crams more action and humor into the film than seems physically possible.

The film begin with "retrieval expert" Beck (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson) on a mission from his employer Billy Walker (William Lucking) to collect on a debt from a professional quarterback who "gambles like Pete Rose." The quarterback tries to rebuff Beck with a measly $1,000, even though the debt is fifty times that. Beck reluctantly informs Knappmiller, the quarterback, that he needs his championship ring as collateral on the loan. Knappmiller responds by spilling two drinks in Beck's face.

In the first of many understated bad ass moments in the film, Beck calls his employer and informs him that he doesn't want to get the ring from Knappmiller. See, Knappmiller has five of his teammates with him, whose vital stats we are give by very clever Sports Center style graphics. The reason Beck gives for not going through with the job is "I don't want to hurt these guys." Eventually, Walker persuades him to get the job done, and he does, demolishing all six football players in the process (two of whom were almost seven feet tall).

Tired of Walker short changing him, Beck demands to be released from some un-spoken debt he's been working off. Walker agrees, as long as Beck travels to Brazil to bring back his son, Travis (Seann William Scott), whom Billy has had to bail out of some trouble. Along the way, Beck joins forces with sassy local bartender Mariana (the exotic Rosario Dawson), and finds himself on the wrong side of a disagreement with Cornelius Hatcher (Christopher Walken. Yes, really.), the owner of the local mining town where Travis has been searching for a priceless artifact. Hatcher and his henchmen are after the artifact, which Mariana wants to help free her people from Hatcher's iron grip.

Beck makes a deal with Mariana to get her the artifact, known as "El Gato," in exchange for her to act as his guide to get back to the airport where he has a plane waiting to deliver him and Travis back to Los Angeles. Things don't go according to plan, with Travis and Beck getting captured by rebels, and Mariana eventually getting kidnapped by Hatcher. Beck has a crisis of conscience, and decides to save Mariana, leading way to the spectacular final scene of the film.

Although only Berg's sophomore effort (after 1998's awful dark comedy Very Bad Things), The Rundown is a well-shot, decently paced action comedy. There are a few stylistic edits that seem a bit much, these are infrequent enough to not hinder the movie as a whole. This could have been because Berg seemed to be struggling to find a balance between the TV directing he had been doing, and the extremely stylized signature method he employs in his followups Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom.

As far as the film's star goes, Johnson impresses with not only his physicality (although everyone expected him to be strong, he also proves himself to be very quick and agile), but his comedic timing, which is something even veteran actors of years struggle with from time to time. Even though some of the dialogue is stilted and some of the actors are weak at times (Scott especially seems to have problems with some of the more serious scenes), Johnson's charisma and instant likability more than make up for it.
Grade: 8
(All movies are graded on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being cinematic perfection, and 1 being worthy of the phrase "I've seen better film on my shower curtain.")

Sequel Saturday - The Batman Franchise

Recently, an event occurred that inspired this week's Sequel Saturday. It was the 20th anniversary of the release of Tim Burton's 1989 Batman. So I decided to take a brief look at what succeeds and what fails in each of the Burton produced Batman films.

BATMAN (1989)

Made very much in Burton's already-established style is the dark and gothic Batman, featuring Michael Keaton in the titular role of the Caped Crusader.

Batman was arguably the first comic book movie made mainly for an adult audience. It was the first comic book movie given the then five years old PG-13 rating, which was quite controversial at the time. "What's the point of a Batman movie you can't take little kids to?" was the sentiment most people expressed. Also controversial was the casting of Michael Keaton, then known mainly for comedic roles like Mr. Mom and the Burton-directed horror comedy Beetlejuice.

It turns out that although this is a flawed adaptation, the casting was one of the things Burton got right. Keaton infused Bruce Wayne/Batman with a complexity and depth never present in the '60s TV show, which portrayed Batman as an almost comedic crime fighter, who spent as much time doing the "Batoosy" and monologuing as he did taking down criminals. And who can forget Jack Nicholson's iconic cackle as The Joker, the clowned prince of crime? Of course, this movie did give us a Joker that was more or less created by Batman, and, in the films biggest mis-step, a Batman that openly killed several criminals.

Ultimately, this movie succeeds because it takes itself seriously, and treats the character with the respect he deserves, never resorting to ridiculous devices like the always classic "Shark Repellent Bat-spray" featured in the Adam West movie that was a spin off to the TV show.

BATMAN RETURNS (1992)

Three years later, Burton continued his magna opera with the equally brooding Batman Returns, which was the first movie in the series to make the mistake of having too many villains. This outing featured both Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman (here, for some reason, given supernatural powers) and the overly made up Danny DeVito as the over-acted Penguin. One would assume that Burton was hoping to continue the success of re-inventing The Joker as a scarred sociopath by making the penguin some kind of strangely deformed man/bird hybrid. Also present is yet another villain, an evil CEO named Max Schreck, who was played by the terminally creepy Christopher Walken, who is wasted here.

The problem with so many villains is that there's a lot of exposition to get through just to define everyone's motives. Once that's done, there's very little time left over to actually explain the plot of the movie. One is left to wonder, "Where the hell did The Penguin get all this technology? And how does a guy who lives in a sewer and eat raw fish afford a seemingly endless supply of henchmen?"

But for all it's problems, Batman Returns works for the most part, thanks mainly to Keaton's return, and his inspired portrayal of the main character. Batman/Bruce Wayne continues to be an intriguing protagonist, struggling to distinguish between which of his personalities is real, and which is the disguise.

BATMAN FOREVER (1995)

Oh, where to begin.

First of all, director Joel Schumacher began his two-movie attempt to throw out all of Burton's hard work at making the character respectable with Batman Forever. Val Kilmer was well-cast, but poorly directed, and ultimately not given much to do by the writers, who instead chose to focus most of their energy on (once again) too many villains, with ANOTHER hero thrown in the mix as well. Terribly cast was Chris O'Donnell as Robin, who seemed to think squinting and raising the volume of his voice was the same as showing emotion.

With another three origin stories going on, Batman kind of falls by the wayside. Gone is Keaton's attempts to disguise his voice to throw people off when trying to determine his actual identity. It's as if Schumacher just stood off camera, yelling at Kilmer "Do it darker! It's a Batman movie!" The result is that Kilmer does a fine job as Batman, but there's no distinction between that character and Bruce Wayne. He may as well have walked around the whole movie in that rubber suit.

And the villains... Oh, the villains. Hoping to capitalize on the projected success of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber, which were all released the same year, Schumacher cast Jim Carrey as The Riddler, and then proceeded to seemingly let him do whatever the hell he wanted. Also shoe-horned in was Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face (whose fascinating and heartbreaking transformation into a criminal is glossed over as a retrospective news report), for some reason replacing Bill Dee Williams. Don't get me wrong, Tommy Lee Jones is a fantastic actor, as long as he's not competing with an actor who is bouncing around like a terrier hopped up on cocaine. Carrey's manic performance seemed to cause Jones to over-act in response, fighting to not be overshadowed.

Oh, and there's a shot of Batman and Robin's butts as they put on their suits, for some reason.

Despite it's numerous problems and silly title, Batman Forever is still an entertaining movie, in the same way watching your favorite fighter get his ass handed to him can still be an entertaining fight.

Batman & Robin (1997)

Ah, and now we have arrived at Joel Shumacher's cinematic crime that should have landed him in some sort of director's jail, unable to work on anything of merit ever again: Batman & Robin. Where to begin?

First of all George Clooney: Again, like Val Kilmer before him, not miscast so much as woefully misdirected. This time out, it seems as though Shumacher was busy elsewhere and left Clooney to his own devices. "I'm not doing that stupid voice," he seems to say, causing him to have the opposite problem Kilmer had. He is reduced to a series of gags, and plays the clumsy, jokey Bruce Wayne throughout the movie, never exploring the deeper and darker character of Batman.

Chris O'Donnell: Again, standing in front of a camera and talking while flexing almost non existent muscles is not the same as acting. Either lift some weights or take some acting lessons, but you have no excuse for having both a flabby, undefined physique and a blank look on your face all the time.

Alicia Silverstone: See above. Get in shape or learn how to act, but pick at least one. Your portrayal of Barbara Gor- I mean Wilson (wtf, writers?) as a chubby, spoiled brat was annoying at it's best, and a travesty against the character at it's worst.

To whoever cast Arnold Schwarzenneger as Mr. Freeze: What the hell is wrong with you? Why not cast Arnold as Bane (a frighteningly strong and even more frighteningly genius villain in the comic books, here reduced to a mute psycho with 'roid rage), and cast the always fabulous, classically trained Patrick Stewart as Mr. Freeze, who in the comic books is a tortured genius, not an "Olympic decathlete turned scientist?" Instead, what we get is a lumbering, hard to understand, neon lit muscle head who says things like "Ice to see you," and "In the universe there is one absolute... everything freezes!"

Uma Thurman was passable as Poison Ivy, I guess, but I've never found her attractive and I've never been a huge fan of the character. They could have made her far more interesting by giving her some form of motivation beyond "Men are evil: Girl Power!" But, sadly, they did not.

One final note, to the set designers: How much do you spend on crack a year? I mean, what city planner in his right mind would design an observatory that is only accessible by driving up the arm of a giant statue of a man holding a globe? Are you that mentally retarded that something like that would make sense in your tiny brains?

This movie, from beginning (sky surfing with no parachutes) to end (Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy being put in the same cell), makes no sense. Thankfully, Chris Nolan has proven that just because there are aspects of comic books that require a suspension of disbelief doesn't mean you have to put Batman, who is constantly being shot at and hanging out in darkness, in a Batmobile with an open canopy that puts off more neon light than a gay night club.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention: NIPPLES ON THE EFFING BATSUIT.