All Audiences

Lindsey's One-Sentence Reviews: Electric Boogaloo

2008-07-25T08:41:00.000-07:00

Does anyone even notice? Does anyone even care? Seriously! Where are you people?!

Wanted: Damn. Angelina Jolie sure is beautiful. But so is James McAvoy. Then they shoot things. Around buildings! And each other! SEE IT NOW...if it's still out...sorry, I've been busy.

Wall-E: I have a prediction: Oscar Gold. This is the sweetest, most original film I've seen in years. 4 stars! A-plus! SEE IT NOW! NOW, I SAY!!!

Mamma Mia: Meryl can sing. Pierce can't. It's still a damn good time. SEE IT IF YOU LIKE FUN TIMES! Stay until the very end!

The Dark Knight: I mean, c'mon. Do I even need to say it? SEE IT NOW for Heath Ledger's brilliant performance and Christian Bale's brilliant sinus infection.

So there you go! It's been a good summer so far.

Lindsey's One-Sentence Reviews: This Time It's Personal

2008-06-25T12:16:00.000-07:00

Holy shit, it's June. Nearly July in fact and I haven't posted anything since January 1st! Granted, no one else has posted in far, far longer (a-hem!)

Anyway, it's time for another episode of Lindsey's One-Sentence Reviews! You'll laugh! You'll cry! It IS better than Cats!

Get Smart: Wouldja believe that it's actually really good? SEE IT NOW BECAUSE IT'S SUMMER!

Sex and the City: Estrogen overload!!!!!!! I think our cycles sync'd up during the movie. SEE IT IF YOU HAVE OVARIES AND LIKED THE SHOW!

um....

uh....

Crap. I can't remember anything else that I've seen recently. So stay tuned for more reviews, once I figure out the last thing that I saw!

Lindsey's One-Sentence Reviews: The Dewey Cox Story

2008-01-01T18:03:00.001-08:00

So, 2007 is officially a distant memory and what better way to commemorate its demise than by posting some One-Sentence movie reviews? I know you're thrilled so let's get to it, shall we?

3:10 to Yuma: Bale and Crowe = hot brilliance! But see it for Ben Foster.

Across the Universe: SEE Bono's performance as The Walrus, AVOID Eddie Izzard's performance as Mr. Kite. (I know, I was pissed too!)

The Darjeeling Limited: One of the best films of the year that no one saw: SEE IT NOW!

Music Within: Insulting, ignorant, unbearable. C'mon, Ron Livingston and Michael Sheen! Back to Burger and The PM for you!

Margot at the Wedding: RENT The Squid and the Whale. If you see this, be ready to call your sister afterwards to apologize!

Juno: A movie with heart, with a capital H. Adorable.

I Am Legend: Most definitely! SEE IT NOW!

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story: John C. Reilly really can do no wrong!

And since 2007 is over, here's a recap of the best and worst this year had to offer (in no particular order):

The Best
Sunshine
The Lives of Others
Waitress
Hot Fuzz
Sicko
The Darjeeling Limited
I Am Legend
No Country for Old Men
Juno

The Worst
The Ten
Music Within
Curse of the Golden Flower
Blades of Glory

So, that's what we have for now. We'll see you in a few months!

Not a review, just an observation 2

2007-10-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

If I see anything else about "Bee Movie" I'm going to shoot my television.

Lindsey's One-Sentence Reviews: Reviews Harder

2007-09-07T10:34:00.000-07:00

Okay, here we go again! It's the end of the summer. I'm covered in mosquito bites from my weekend on Lake Erie. I saw a couple of movies. You read on...

Death at a Funeral: Miss Piggy directs Wash on a drug trip, hilarity ensues. SEE IT NOW!

Sunshine: If you like these words: "Amazing" and "Film" SEE IT NOW!

Stardust: If you like these words: "Neil" and "Gaiman" SEE IT NOW!

The King of Kong, A Pocketful of Quarters: Not the best doc on this list. Not the best movie period. Not really worth your time. AVOID UNLESS YOU'RE A REALLY BIG DONKEY KONG FAN OR YOU LIKE SEEING JERK-OFFS WITH BAD HAIR SAY THINGS LIKE "EVERYTHING I SAY DRAWS CONTROVERSY...LIKE THE ABORTION ISSUE." TOOL! YOU PLAY DONKEY KONG!

The Bourne Ultimatum: Things blow up! Matt Damon punches people in the throat! Good clean fun! RENT IT!

Transformers: Goofy dialogue and Optimus Prime doesn't fly. RENT IT LATER TO WATCH ON A BIG SCREEN TV!

Ratatouille: Cute. Not as good as Finding Nemo or The Incredibles or Monster's Inc. It might be on a par with Ice Age 2: The Meltdown. RENT IT ALONG WITH NEMO OR INCREDIBLES AND COUNT THE EVENING AS A SUCCESS.

300: Lots of warriors! Lots of well-defined abdomens! SEE IT NOW!

Knocked Up: The 40-year old Virgin it is not. Cute and silly. RENT IT!

Superbad: If you like dick and fart jokes and no plot line, this is the flick for you! SEE IT HIGH (you know, if you do that kind of thing...not that I'm condoning or condemning)

Sicko: This is the best doc on this list. It's also Michael Moore's best film since Roger and Me. SEE IT NOW, THEN MOVE TO CANADA...OR FRANCE...OR CUBA...

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: They're 18 (in real life) so you don't have to pretend to only be watching the movie...which is phenomenal, by the way. But I advise not being in the middle of book 5 when you go to see it. And, hey! What about that book 7, right? Fantastic! I am missing my Harry...until Thanksgiving 2008. SEE IT! OWN IT! LOVE IT!

Hairspray: You can't stop the beat! Just think about something else when John Revolta is on the screen, okay? Focus on Christopher Walken! Focus on Zac Effron! Focus on Nikki Blonsky! Just forget about Vincent Vega and you'll be fine. SEE IT FOR A FEEL-GOOD...UH...FEELING, OR JUST BUY THE SOUNDTRACK!

The Simpsons Movie: As good as season 6, but not as good as season 4. SEE IT NOW! BUY IT WHEN IT COMES OUT AND PLACE IT LOVINGLY WITH YOU DVD COLLECTION!

The Ten: 20% hilarious! 30% mediocre! 30% strange in that not-so-good way! 20% aw-ful! RENT IT AND USE THAT FAST FORWARD BUTTON TO SKIP TO THE COVET SECTIONS!

For the record, most of these movies are probably not playing at a theatre near you as I am months behind on my reviewing, but the ones you should look out for are: Sunshine, Death at a Funeral, and Stardust. If you find these, you're golden!

Stay tuned because in 3 months or so, I might just post something new!

Not a review, just an observation...

2007-07-06T07:56:00.000-07:00

If I see another ad for "License to Wed" I'm gonna punch someone.

Quick 'n Dirty Movie Reviews

2007-07-05T21:13:00.001-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

A few bite-size reviews, as I saw a lot in the past week and had no access to a computer...

"Live Free or Die Hard" - *** stars

Good to have John McClane back, and good to see him in exactly the kind of rip-roaring action flick the series has become known for. The plot is as ludicrous and entertaining as it traditionally is, and Willis is excellent in the role that made him a movie star, with newcomer Justin Long along for the ride as a computer geek who may hold the key to America's survival. Just great dumb summer fun.

"Sicko" - ***1/2 stars

Michael Moore's long-awaited documentary about the health care industry is not the typical Moore work, but one of discipline and genuine emotional impact. Instead of snidely commenting throughout, Moore instead lets the stories of those who have been damaged most by the health care system - the patients, both insured and uninsured - tell the tale. Even when a standard Moore-ish stunt pops up toward the end (in the form of the much-publicized trip to Cuba), it brings with it astounding power. You've heard about how, Republican or Democrat, everyone would be able to identify with this film. Well, I saw it with several Republicans, and I can honestly say it plays to both sides of the political aisle.

"Ratatouille" - **** stars

One of the sweetest, funniest, most entertaining movies to come along, since...oh, "Finding Nemo." Or "The Incredibles." Or "Monsters, Inc." Or...but you get the idea. The Pixar geniuses have done it again, this time with the unlikely story of a rat named Remy who loves to cook and gets to try his passion through a partnership with a young garbage boy named Linguini. In true Pixar fashion, the story never quite proceeds the way you might expect it to, and as the emotional climax of the story arrives, it comes heralded by some of the funniest sequences this year. A farce with a heart, a film that is genuinely for the whole family (young and old), this IS the best film of the summer so far.

I hope to write longer reviews of all three eventually (especially "Ratatouille," hopefully after a second viewing), but I wanted to make sure to get these up here while I'm on the computer. And for those who haven't seen it, enjoy the full-fledged "Transformers" review below!

"Transformers" Review

2007-07-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

***1/2 stars (out of four)
140 minutes, Now Showing

Okay, how the hell did THIS happen? I was supposed to hate this movie. It was all but preordained. It's a movie based upon a toy franchise from when I was a kid, so the inner child geek in me would be pointing out all the inconsistencies in the storyline and how it "wasn't being faithful" to the source material. The adult film geek in me loathes Michael Bay and almost all he stands for. The end result was clear: "Transformers" was supposed to suck, and I was supposed to write an article explaining why.

Except it doesn't. In fact, not only does it not suck, but it is rather astoundingly good. Not great, there are flaws (which we'll get to eventually), but I enjoyed myself a hell of a lot more than I would ever have bet a few days ago. I have not been this pleasantly surprised by a movie's quality since the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie, which at the time looked like a lame action flick ripped off from a theme park ride. Just goes to show you can never judge a book by its cover - or, as Optimus Prime might say, sometimes there's more than meets the eye.

I was indeed a fan of the action figures and cartoon series growing up. Like every kid my age, I owned Optimus Prime, certifiably the coolest of all the Autobots, and watched the show every chance I got. Like a lot of fans, I became pretty disillusioned when the first "Transformers" movie came out, which served as a pretty transparent vehicle to introduce a new line of action figures by simply killing off all the old ones, Prime included. Even as a boy, I knew cheap marketing when I saw it.

I revisited the series as an adult when I received the first season of "Transformers" on DVD as a birthday present, and found that it had not aged well at all - it was a poorly animated and poorly written show designed to sell toys to the kiddies. Compared to later animated series like "Batman" (which is still entertaining and engaging no matter what your age), the original "Transformers" series just doesn't hold water. To steal a line, I thought as a child, and when I became a man, I put away "Transformers."

So I had little hope or interest in the film, particularly when Bay, a filmmaker whose work I have seldom admired, was attached as director. I can name exactly one Michael Bay film I enjoyed - "The Rock," and that was over ten years ago. He is a bombastic and over-the-top director who, it must be said, always swings for the fences, but who more often than not just goes down swinging.

So imagine my shock at watching "Transformers" and realizing it was working, and working in ways I never would have anticipated going in. Spectacular special effects and action sequences you might have anticipated, even if I didn't. But who could have foreseen the film's tremendous heart and human comedy? The first hour and a half of the movie features some of the most endearing and funny sequences I've ever seen in a film that comes billed as a summer blockbuster. Who knew that Bay had this kind of work in him?

The early scenes focus on a kid named Sam (current Hollywood "it" guy Shia LaBeouf), an immensely likeable teenager who is awkward and clumsy, particularly around the beautiful Mikaela (soon-to-be Hollywood "it" girl Megan Fox). He has a deal where his dad will help him buy a car, and at a used lot, comes across an old Camaro which practically demands to be purchased. It demands this by blowing out the windows of every other car on the lot.

The Camaro, of course, is not just a car, but actually the robot Bumblebee, sent as a scout for the heroic Autobots, who, as anyone who ever heard the theme song knows, are waging battle to destroy the evil forces of the Decepticons. They are all coming to Earth to find the legendary Allspark, a giant cube from which all...oh, no matter, the Allspark is just the MacGuffin, anyway. Doesn't matter what it does or why, it just matters that everyone wants it and will do anything to get it. Calling it a MacGuffin is not a criticism, merely a description - technically, "Rosebud" was a MacGuffin, too. (Yes, film scholars, I just compared "Citizen Kane" to the "Transformers" movie.)

But anyway. We know the Decepticons are coming because these early scenes with Sam are intercut with action sequences where evil robots attack military bases in Qatar and elsewhere. We meet a few soldiers on the ground, like Tyrese Gibson as Sergeant Epps and Josh Duhamel as Lennox (IMDB lists him as a Sergeant but the official site calls him a Captain, and the movie, to the best of my recollection, does not settle the debate), who fight the invaders with little success. The Decepticons are here looking for both the Allspark and their leader, Megatron, who apparently crash-landed here several millennia ago. Given what I remember of the characters, I find it hard to believe that Megatron was gone all that time and Starscream didn't try a revolt at least once.

These action sequences are further intercut with scenes where the Secretary of Defense (Jon Voight - yes, Jon Voight) tries to get a grip on the crisis and is understandably slow to accept that the threat is of an alien nature. Further interference is provided by the agents of a shadowy government agency which seems to know all about these invaders. Their leader is played by John Turturro (YES, John Turturro), who is practically smacking his lips with every line he reads.

But the heart of the early scenes lies in the relationship between Sam and Bumblebee, who tries to help the kid with his social difficulties every way he can. Bumblebee cannot talk (his voice was damaged in battle), but he uses his radio and satellite connections to speak for him, as well as to summon situation-appropriate music to any moment, often to hilarious effect. When Sam successfully talks Mikaela into accepting a ride home, Bumblebee parks them on a hill and starts playing "Let's Get It On."

Eventually, Sam and Mikaela get caught up in the impending intergalactic conflict, and are introduced to the remainder of the Autobots, including Optimus Prime (voice of Peter Cullen, who also voiced the character in the original animated series, as well). The work on each of the robots is meticulous and amazingly well done - each gear and joint is clear and visible, each robot amazingly complex and yet oddly plausible. No corners were cut in the design at all.

The material is absurd, of course, but the tone of the film redeems it by being sly enough to support it without taking it seriously. The use of classic catchphrases like "more than meets the eye" and so forth serve both as a tip of the hat to the original material and a hint of the satire that runs throughout. (This can also be found in subtle choices in the robot design - on the side of the Decepticon police cruiser, the typical "to serve and protect" instead reads, "to enslave and punish.")

The major flaw in the movie comes in the last act, which consists of a final battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons on the streets of a city (which city, I couldn't say). It is an exceedingly long battle, to be sure, but so chaotically filmed and structured that it is difficult if not impossible to follow. The constantly moving camera and the complex designs of the robots lead to long sequences where large balls of electronics crash into other large balls of electronics, making it hard for the audience to keep up with which character is which, let alone figure out whose side is winning. A little more thought and structure, and the last act would be as good as the rest.

But what remains is an exceedingly entertaining film, the kind of movie you can just surrender to on a hot summer night and have a great time. I still don't quite know how Bay, of all people, could have turned out such an immensely entertaining work full of warmth and humor, but he has. And it leads me to write a sentence I never thought I would, but here it is: I am very glad Michael Bay was chosen to direct this film.

"Evan Almighty" Review

2007-06-21T23:17:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

** stars (out of four)
90 minutes, starts Friday, June 22nd

Watching "Evan Almighty" is like having a staring contest with a billionaire. He's offered you a million dollars if you can outlast him. You focus, focus, focus, channel all your energy into keeping...your...eyes...open...you will yourself to keep going, knowing that a great reward awaits you if you can just...make...it. You win, you get the million, but boy, was it agony to get there. Same basic concept here. This is a film that crafts a likable character, proceeds to spend an hour and a half putting him through the cinematic equivalent of a living hell (no pun intended), and then rewards the audience with a fairly good ending. But boy, it is agony to get there.

The first film in the series, "Bruce Almighty," was wonderful, a sweet and genuine comedy with a lot of heart. That film starred Jim Carrey as the title character, who met God (Morgan Freeman, in one of the best pieces of casting ever) and was granted all his powers. Along the way, he learned the value of humility and love. That film had a truly lovely ending, and the action which preceded it was funny and entertaining.

Wisely, "Evan"'s filmmakers (director Tom Shadyac, who also directed the first film, and writer Steve Oedekirk) have decided to avoid simply repeating the first film's plot and take a whole new direction with the franchise, including a new leading man, Steve Carell, who had a small role in the first "Evan" as a rival newscaster who Bruce tormented. The change in lead character may not have necessarily been their CHOICE, but no matter, as Carell is a splendid comic actor who is just hitting his stride as a big name in Hollywood, following the tremendously successful "40-Year-Old Virgin" and "Little Miss Sunshine."

Unlike the brash and unlikable Evan the first film brought us, Leading Man Evan has been transformed into a good family man with a loving wife (Lauren Graham) and kids, and a brand-spanking new job: He's been elected to Congress from the state of New York. How his opponent wouldn't have won in a landslide after tape of the "fit" Bruce gave him on live TV would have hit YouTube is anyone's guess. Evan's views and political affiliation naturally remain a mystery, as no one in any Hollywood film outside of Michael Moore is allowed to outright express support for one political party over another.

Anyway, upon arriving at his new home and preparing to start his new job, Evan takes a moment to pray and ask for God's help in "changing the world," saying "I know that with great power comes great responsibility" without even a trace of irony. Soon after, he starts to receive packages from "Alpha-Omega Hardware" (nyuk nyuk) that contain rudimentary building tools and lumber - LOTS of lumber. Soon after, God (Freeman again) appears to Evan and instructs him to build an ark, just like Noah did. He even provides a handy book: Ark Building for Dummies.

This is not exactly what Evan wants to hear right now, given his new responsibilities. He's got nice digs in the capital, a great support staff (including John Michael Higgins, Jonah Hill and the indispensable Wanda Sykes), and the budding respect of veteran Congressman Long (John Goodman). So God presses the issue by, say, having animals follow Evan everywhere he goes, or making his hair and beard grow at an astonishing rate, or forcing him to appear in public in a robe that looks like it was pilfered from the set of "The Last Temptation of Christ." And so then Evan has to explain himself. Over and over and over again.

This entire section of the movie is like that. Some weird situation is forced upon Evan, and Evan has to bluff his way out, usually unconvincingly. We in the audience could come up with better excuses than the writers conjure up for him. Found in his office with a few hundred birds all over him, Evan just sits there and acts like he hired trained animals to make a political point. Not particularly funny, and certainly not convincing, even less so when Long and his fellow congressmen actually BUY it.

Why is God making it so damn hard for Evan? I know the whole "works in mysterious ways" thing (especially in the old testament, where, for example, God unleashes 10 plagues when just slapping the pharaoh around would have worked fine), but the mysterious ways of this film strain credulity to the breaking point. God seems to delight in putting Evan in a never-ending set of embarrassing situations, making his presence known or not known just enough so only Evan knows he's there, and thus leaving Evan eternally having to explain himself. This is God-as-Allen-Funt. Given all the calamity that Evan faces en route to getting the ark built, God's efforts seem less like setting a path and more like erecting an obstacle course.

The bigger problem, though, is that there aren't really that many laughs in the film. A lot of the jokes fall flat, and few of the characters emerge as genuinely memorable - more like pawns in a narrative game. Carell is a great comedian and makes an excellent leading man, but he really isn't given that much funny to do. He bleats, blusters and makes excuses, but he's never particularly comical, which is genuinely odd. Lauren Graham does what she can with the role of Joan, Evan's wife, but she's left switching from supportive to critical at the whims of the screenplay. Evan's three sons are given only the most rudimentary of character traits and never emerge as individuals. Goodman's congressman is a typical villain, and in fact the entire Washington setting proves completely superfluous. Evan could have become a executive at a banking company and it probably would have accomplished the same thing.

As stated, the ending is quite good and ties stuff up nicely, and, as anyone who's seen any of the previews can tell you, the film does indeed end with a flood, which is very well done. Even then, God-as-prankster kicks in, as it starts to rain, then stops, letting those who were shouting insults at Evan and his crew get in a few more choice comments before the flooding begins in earnest. And so soon after the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, I'm not sure how wise it is to depict massive flooding in a residential area, particularly in a silly mainstream comedy.

There's good stuff in "Evan Almighty," if you can get to it. If you fancy yourself a strong-willed moviegoer who can tough it out through a stretch of odd and relatively unfunny filmmaking, you'll get a fairly nice treat at the end. Me, I just can't help but think it's all unnecessary, and makes God out to be a first-class pain in the butt. If you do see the film, you might end us asking yourself a question, as I did: Given the ultimate cause of the flood in question, wouldn't God have been better served to avoid the whole dog-and-pony (and-bird-and-alligator-and-giraffe-and-hippo-and-EVERYTHING) show and just sent a signal to a public works contractor that they had some rebuilding to do?

"Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" Review

2007-06-14T00:37:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

* star (out of four)
90 minutes, starts Friday, June 15th

(WARNING: The following review is basically one, big spoiler. If you intend to see this film, and nothing I can say will change your mind, I highly advise that you stop reading now, as I basically plan to give away the entire plot of the movie. If, however, you do not plan to see this film and/or would like to hear a compelling, articulate and, dare I say, extremely humorous take on why you should not, please read on. Batten down the hatches, folks, we got "Aeon Flux" coming here.)

It is human to make mistakes. Admitting them and doing your best to atone for them is what helps us to rise above our frailties and become a better person. As a critic, then, I must admit that I enjoyed the first "Fantastic Four" movie the first time I saw it. Yes, I said it, and I'm not ashamed of it. I'm not sure what came over me. At the time, I guess it seemed like a nice dose of dumb summer fun, and on that level I liked it. I would ascribe this reaction to something in my popcorn except I didn't have any.

Further viewings, alas, made plain my mistake for the dreadful error in judgment that it was. Shallow as the kiddie end of the pool, with characters as thin as a strand of cotton candy, the first "Fantastic Four" movie simply cannot hold weight when compared with other examples of its genre: "Spider-Man." "X-Men." "Batman Begins." "Superman." There is more sophistication and story in any installment of "Batman: The Animated Series" than the original "Fantastic Four" film could ever hope to attain, with the possible exception of the "Critters" episode of "Batman."

But I confess to holding out hope for the sequel, subtitled "Rise of the Silver Surfer." That first trailer looked REALLY cool. Comprised entirely of a chase scene between the Surfer (Doug Jones) and the Human Torch (Chris Evans), it had a sense of awe and wonder that was entirely lacking from the first film. Perhaps, even though the same director and writer and cast were being reunited for this sequel, they found some of the magic they were missing the first time around and had crafted something better, something deeper, something grand.

Then, in the same scene in the movie, the Torch catches up to the Surfer and says, "Can we talk?" And the hope gets flushed down the toilet. Trust me folks, all the grand possibilities in the world mean nothing when confronted by the overwhelming power of the cr*ppy dialogue in this movie. Not to mention the plot. And characters. And...but, wait, let us take this in order, shall we?

The film begins with a shot of a planet being destroyed, followed by credits that fly toward us in space, and if we had tried any harder to make it plain that we were ripping off the Superman title sequence, we'd have actually included the "S" logo. A silver streak flies from the destruction towards Earth, bringing about odd climate changes and water that freezes in place and electricity going out. A news anchor makes it abundantly clear that this is NOT the result of global warming, and since she is a Fox News broadcaster, you can practically hear the glee in her voice.

But, of course, the BIG story they report is the impending wedding of Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) and Sue Storm (Jessica Alba), as the nuptials of the heroes have become a world-class media circus. Even though weird events are paralyzing and threatening people all over the globe, Reed makes it clear to Sue that the wedding is the most important thing to him. Reed: "I'm not letting anything get in the way of that, not even the mysterious transformation of matter at the sub-atomic level." Gets you right there, don't it?

Then some military guys show up at the Four's headquarters, accompanied by suitable rum-tummy-tum music, led by General Hager (Andre Braugher), who will certainly go down as one of the least competent military characters ever in motion picture history. He wants the Four to figure out just what the heck is going on with this silver flash, but first they have to fetch Reed from a bachelor party thrown by Johnny and the Thing (Michael Chiklis), in a scene which demonstrates two things: One, that apparently Mr. Fantastic's civilian clothing is as elastic as he is (in which case I wanna meet his tailor), and two, that among Sue's superpowers is the ability to switch between jealous and understanding at lightning speed.

Anyway, Reed is asked to build some kind of tracking device to follow the mysterious figure all over the globe, where, for no apparent reason, it is leaving these huge craters which tunnel down a really long way. Reed says no, because he's getting married, and by gum, his wedding is more important than the world ending. General Hager: (scornfully) "I expected more from you, Richards." Well, I expected more from you, too, Andre, and it looks like we're both gonna be disappointed.

But, oh, never mind, Reed builds the tracking device anyway, without Sue's permission, somehow keeping the giant metal gizmo in plain view in his lab without letting Sue know that he's building it. Wedding day arrives (with suitable jitters from the bride and groom, and a nice cameo by Stan Lee included), but it gets ruined when the Surfer shows up and Johnny has to chase after...but, you've seen the trailer, so you know this. After saving all the wedding guests, Sue slumps down on the stairs in despair, because never mind that a mysterious force is somehow ripping apart the fabric of our civilization and threatening life on Earth as we know it, SHE WANTED TO GET MARRIED, DAMMIT.

Anyway, Johnny survives his encounter with the Surfer, and it turns out that somehow this has left him with the ability to swap powers with his teammates. This leads to a series of "fun" scenes where the characters suddenly find themselves doing each other's shtick, but this is about as significant as if the Ninja Turtles swapped weapons. Meantime, the evil Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) somehow gets freed by the Surfer's power, and, wearing a hood and looking remarkably like the Emperor from "Star Wars," he goes to meet the Surfer by heading for one of the craters. Okay, so, no one else thought of that? Doom's been on the case five minutes and he knows right where to go. Meantime, the Four are busy building tracking devices and swapping powers. Point for Doom.

Meantime, Reed does some research by punching a few buttons on a computer and determines that every planet the Surfer has ever gone to has been destroyed within eight days (um, is that Earth days or Other-Planet days?). He shows the destruction of each using an extremely high-powered telescope that can give amazingly detailed views of the planets in question, as well as, apparently, the ability to see back in time when the destruction happened. Yeah, f*ck you, Hubble, you been FACED by a gizmo the Fantastic Four apparently have just lying around their workshop. This telescope can also determine that all the life on these other planets was destroyed, as well. So, not only does Reed have a time-traveling super telescope, but he's proven that there is life on other planets. Shouldn't he have, like, 40 Nobel Prizes by this point?

But the military, unimpressed by their amazing gizmos and superpowers, can only see failure in how the Four have handled the situation, so they do the logical thing: Recruit Dr. Doom. Yes, the super villain who tried to destroy the Four and half of New York in the last film, and who by this point has magically stopped needing an elaborate makeup job. Doom and the Four agree to work together to stop the threat. Johnny: "Think Reed's right about this end-of-the-world stuff?" Thing: "He's never been wrong about this kind of thing before."

So we decide that the Surfer's board is the source of all his power, and if you separate him from the board, he is then, uh, powerless. They prove this by using some other gizmo they invent (which General Hager scoffs at when he's told it will take three hours to complete) to dislodge the Surfer from the board, but not until after the Surfer dodges a whole missile array, and not until after he's had a heart-to-heart with Sue, who suddenly finds him sympathetic. Well, can you blame her? The Surfer speaks in the voice of Lawrence Fishburne. How can anyone who sounds like Lawrence Fishburne be evil, I ask you? Well, okay, Ike Turner.

Anyway, the military captures the Surfer, and come to the only logical conclusion one can come to when you've captured an other-worldly creature that has amazing powers and knowledge of the cosmos at his command: TORTURE HIM MERCILESSLY. Well, this is a Fox film, maybe Jack Bauer is rubbing off on the rest of the company. Sue sneaks in to hear some more of that sweet, sweet Fishburne voice, and is told that the Surfer is merely the harbinger - the REAL planet-destroying bad-*ss, Galactus, is on his way. The Surfer just does his bidding because he doesn't want his own planet to get destroyed, too. Why a planet-eating entity needs a guy on a surfboard to wreak havoc ahead of him is left unexplained. I guess those huge craters make the planet more devour-able, or easier to grab, like bowling ball holes.

Meantime, even though Doom really didn't DO anything, per se, General Hager keeps his end of the bargain by allowing Doom to test the Surfer's board. Yes, we're LETTING THE SUPERVILLAIN IN THE SAME ROOM WITH THE SINGLE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON IN THE UNIVERSE. In the grand annals of dumb ideas, this has to rank in the top five or so. And, hey, go figure, within a minute Doom has taken control of the board and killed Hager. The Four spring the Surfer and chase after Doom in the new Fantasticar, which, for no explicable reason outside of product placement dollars, has a Dodge logo on the front. Johnny: "Hemi?" Reed: "Of course." Me: (incredulous laughter)

The final battle takes the heroes to a street in Japan, which looks uncannily like a studio backlot, where Sue gets mortally wounded when she tries to save the Surfer, and then Johnny somehow takes the powers of ALL FOUR members of the group at once to stop Doom. How we got from "Power Swapping" to "I Can Hold All of Your Powers at Once" is a mystery that's best left unsolved, methinks. The Four successfully get the Surfer back on his board, and after magically healing Sue (Post-Resurrection Dialogue - Sue: "Hi." Reed: "Hi." Sue: "What'd I miss?"), the Surfer, who has learned the value of life or something, heads off to stop Galactus, who looks uncannily in form and action like a giant anus made out of clouds. The Surfer blows himself up to kill Galactus and end the threat to both Earth and his own world. Apparently it had never occurred to the Surfer that if he'd done that, say, 10 planets ago, it would have accomplished the same thing.

Reed and Sue then successfully complete their marriage and head off to save Venice from sinking into the sea, but not before stopping to make the "4" logo in the clouds with their wicked cool Fantasticar, which I actually think got destroyed during the final battle just a scene ago, but we're just picking nits now, aren't we?

A quick glance at the movie listings reveal that the following films are still playing in theatres this weekend: "Spider-Man 3." "Waitress." "Ocean's 13." "Knocked Up." "28 Weeks Later." Heck, some are still showing "Bridge to Terabithia" and "300," if you missed those. There are plenty of good films to see. You have a lot of options. If, however, after reading this far and digesting all my best efforts to dissuade you from doing so, you still feel the need to see "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," that is, of course, entirely your choice. Leaves more good movies for the rest of us.

"Waitress" Review

2007-06-12T19:32:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

***1/2 stars (out of four)
104 minutes, Now Showing

What a wonderfully odd and unique movie to be talking about. "Waitress" is a comedy which prides itself on never quite going where you think it is, one which would love to introduce you to some characters you've never met before. In today's filmgoing climate, that is certainly a most welcome change.

This is a movie about love and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and hopelessness, rebellion and acceptance, and learning to be strong by being selfless. If I made no sense in that previous sentence, trust me, you'll understand once you see the film. The film runs the gambit in terms of its theme - in turn, it is about being in love, being married to someone you don't love, being pregnant, being a friend, being trapped, and more. It is all unified by director Adrienne Shelley with an infectiously joyous tone which underscores every scene, and a wonderful performance by Keri Russell, who, if she wasn't quite a big star before this movie came out, will certainly be now that it has.

As the film opens, we meet Jenna (Russell), a waitress at a small town pie shop named Joe's Diner. She is a master at pie-making, inventing a new kind every day as the house special, and pours her emotions into every pie she invents. Right after the movie begins, she learns she is pregnant and immediately fashions a "I Don't Want Earl's Baby" pie.

Earl (Jeremy Sisto) is Jenna's husband, and if you had him for a spouse, you might make a pie with such a sentiment, too. Earl is a mean and selfish man who is exceedingly controlling of Jenna, who he wants to stay right where she is so that she can never leave him. She dreams of heading off to a big national pie-making contest and making her fortune, but he flips out and drags her home as she tries to leave. Earl's demeanor and character ride the line of being over-the-top, but the world certainly has its fair share of Earls out there, and there is tremendous satisfaction in how his storyline is finally resolved.

Upon learning of her pregnancy, Jenna goes to her longtime doctor, only to find out that she has semi-retired and is being replaced by Dr. Pomatter (Nathan Fillion), a handsome young man who quickly takes an interest in Jenna. The two of them fall into an affair practically without realizing it, even though they're both married. "Maybe we could have a coffee or something,” he says. She directly replies that coffee is on the list of bad foods he gave her when she got pregnant. "What kind of doctor are you?"

The film is peopled with unique and interesting characters in every corner of the frame. Jenna's best friends at the diner are fellow waitresses Becky (Cheryl Hines), who is constantly grousing that her breasts are crooked, and Dawn (Shelley herself), a mousy but loveable woman who is always on the lookout for love. Cook and manager Cal (Lew Temple) seems to be of a disagreeable disposition, but he has a few surprises in store. Diner owner and mainstay Old Joe (Andy Griffith) seems like a picky and crotchety old coot, but he comes with the obligatory level of homespun wisdom, delivered by Griffith in a way that always feels genuine.

Russell was a fairly unknown performer to me prior to this film. I had never seen her popular show “Felicity,” and her previous movies (including “Mission: Impossible III”) had missed my radar, as well. Here she crafts a screen character that is unique and engaging, completely sympathetic and ultimately lovable. She is the rock on which the whole film stands, as she appears in every scene, and at the end, when her character takes a surprising and sudden turn, we completely understand the thought process that leads her to do it. Before our eyes, we can see her character grow up.

The film also boasts a highly energetic and whimsical visual style. The frame comes saturated with bright, primary colors that practically jump off the screen, depicting an idealized small-town world which Jenna’s drama plays itself out in front of. Dialogue crackles with fast-paced wit and genuinely big laughs while never violating tone or character. Shelley has crafted a world that it is impossible to not smile while you are watching.

Ultimately, “Waitress” is a film about coming to terms with responsibility, and how surprisingly easy it can be to initiate change in your own life, if you want to bad enough. There comes a moment of revelation for Jenna that hits with startling focus (both emotional and literal, in film terms) where suddenly life seems much clearer than it ever has, and what she has to do and hasn’t been able to become remarkably easy. It is odd how, sometimes in life, the easiest decisions are the hardest ones to reach. Another summer film, “Knocked Up,” deals with similar issues and themes (and both use a pregnancy as their central storytelling conceit), but as good as “Knocked Up” is, “Waitress” goes deeper and is even funnier. If you have to choose, this is the one to see.

(NOTE: Tragically, director and writer Adrienne Shelley was murdered last fall in her hometown of New York. She was only 40 years old. I chose to avoid mentioning this in the body of the review, as coverage of the film seems almost dominated by it (I’ve found myself bringing it up a great deal, too), and it threatens to overwhelm discussion of the movie itself. I think if I were Shelley, I’d really want people to talk about the film, particularly when she has left us with such a tremendously touching and entertaining work. Nevertheless, it is a sad postscript that such an obviously talented filmmaker would have her life end in such a way, particularly when she was in the process of completing what certainly would have been her breakout film.)

"Ocean's 13" Review

2007-06-12T13:00:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*** stars (out of four)
122 minutes, Now Showing

The old saying goes, the best way to critique a movie is to make another movie. Perhaps as a corollary to that law, it could be said that the best way for a critic to criticize a film is to point to another one which does it better. As if by magic, just two weeks after "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" confounded me so, here comes "Ocean's 13," which is just as complicated but much more fun. It's not the complexity that is the problem, you see. But complexity without entertainment value is worthless.

I am not sure all the pieces fit in the grand scheme that Danny Ocean and his associates cook up in the third (and, if you believe George Clooney, final) installment of the "Ocean's" series, but we certainly enjoy watching them try to make them fit. This has been a franchise built and operated on the central conceit of magicians everywhere: it's not what you do, but what you let the audience see, and when you let them see it. There are surprises, secrets, twists, turns, complications and more, capped by a cast who is clearly having so much fun that we wish we had been on the set ourselves.

That feeling has infected the whole series up to this point, and this chapter is no exception. Like the Rat Pack film which inspired it, the first film, "Ocean's 11," was a sly and fun time at the movies, propelled by the sheer joy its performers exuded with every moment on screen. The second, "Ocean's 12," still had that feeling from the cast, but sadly it did not really transfer that feeling to its audience. (I enjoyed the sequel, but I appear to be the exception to the rule.)

This film seems to make a conscious effort to return the franchise to its old roots, returning the setting to Las Vegas, and once again making the villain a flat-out scoundrel for the gang to ruin. You know he's a flat-out scoundrel, because he's played by Al Pacino. No one in movie history will ever play a flat-out scoundrel with as much zest and passion as Al Pacino. Even when he's clearly not trying his hardest (like, say, here), his very bearing brings the character more interest than most actors could engender even with months of preparation under their belt.

The plot: Pacino plays Willie Bank, a developer who plans on building a new multi-million dollar casino on the strip (housed in an exceedingly implausibly designed building which looks like it's curling back onto itself). He gets the land from longtime Ocean associate Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould), and then in what has to be the most blatant corporate takeover ever, basically tells Reuben he's out and makes him sign over his share. Reuben, naturally, has a heart attack and ends up catatonic in the hospital.

Cut to the remaining 11, who assemble at Reuben's bedside and plot revenge against the evil Bank, setting in motion an elaborate plan to bankrupt Bank by ruining his casino when it opens. Well, okay, calling the plan "elaborate" is understating it quite a bit. When your grand plan includes importing the drill they used to dig the Chunnel, we have gone past the "elaborate" stage, methinks. Especially when that drill breaks down and they have to get the OTHER drill they also used to dig the Chunnel.

It would not be fair to spoil any more of the ways the plan goes down, especially since the film's structure is to let the audience know what is going to happen, leave out a few select details, then watch the fun as the select details are sprung on the audience at just the right moment to ensure maximum giggles of glee. There are quite a few giggles of glee in the film, not just from the moments involving the heist, but also from the sly little moments that Clooney and Pitt share together (as when Pitt catches Clooney watching Oprah).

The new wrinkle involved in the scheme comes when longtime Ocean nemesis Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) gets involved in the plan (they need to borrow money to buy the other drill). Benedict's motives for helping the crew this time around are a little weak (they amount to Bank's building casting an unfavorable shadow on one of his pools), but it adds a fun new dimension to the con, and we are just waiting for the moment when Ocean tries to screw Benedict, or vice versa, or both, who knows?

The only things missing this time around are Ocean's wife Tess (Julia Roberts) and Rusty's wife/girlfriend/who knows by now Isabel (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who are both dismissed with an offhand "it's not their fight" comment early in the running time. This makes the film even more of a boy's club outing than it has been in the past - the only female character who gets any appreciable screen time is Bank's second-in-command Abigail Sponder, played by Ellen Barkin, who essentially exists in the film to be flirted with by Matt Damon's Linus. Well, Ocean got the girl in the first film, Rusty the second, it only stands to reason that Linus would be the one this time around, even if at the time he's in disguise and wearing a nose that Gonzo the Great would find implausible.

In the end, watching "Ocean's 13" is like eating a Snickers bar - ultimately meaningless, but while it's happening, it tastes great. It's just an entertaining popcorn flick with actors who are clearly having a great time, particularly the great Don Cheadle as demolitions expert Basher, who gets a fun moment impersonating a daredevil that is all the more fun for being so wildly unconvincing. Director Steven Soderbergh makes films that feel like jazz, in a world where most everyone else is playing bubblegum pop. Here he puts together a catchy tune that will evaporate from the memory pretty quickly, but you're glad you were there to hear it.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" Review

2007-05-24T00:27:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

**1/2 stars (out of four)
165 minutes, starts Thursday, May 24th

I do not claim to recall the details of every ad campaign with crystal clarity, but I seem to remember the commercials for "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" saying something to the effect of, "All the answers will be revealed." Well, I still have questions. A lot of them. I am not at all sure what exactly happened here, but the third installment in the wildly successful and entertaining "Pirates" series is just this side of a total mess.

This is a film in serious need of an editor - not of the traditional film variety, but one who would read and pare down text, namely the script by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. These are the same writers who have worked on all three "Pirates" movies, though two additional writers worked on "The Curse of the Black Pearl," the first and best of the series. I'm beginning to wonder if their input is sorely missed. Eh, who knows? We can only evaluate the end product on its own, and I can only say that this third "Pirates" is a seriously confused movie, in tone and structure. To say it's all over the map would be understating it - it's all over the whole of the atlas.

I do not fancy myself a simpleminded moviegoer. I don't need to be spoon-fed a plot bit-by-bit, I am usually more than adept at keeping up on my own. Keep in mind, I'm the guy who saw, liked, and (I think) understood "Ocean's Twelve." But here, there is SO much incident, SO many characters, SO many betrayals, turns of fortune, changes in tone and turns of events, that I was left utterly bewildered. It is not the fact that the plot is confusing that troubles me. It's that I'm not at all sure that, once it is carefully examined, all the pieces fit together in a satisfactory way.

We have reached the point in the review where I am supposed to describe the story to you. The mind reels at the prospect, but I will forge ahead. As the film opens, the remaining crew of the now-lost Black Pearl, along with Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and the resurrected Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) are negotiating for a ship to sail to the ends of the Earth, where they hope to recover the Pearl and, of course, her captain, Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). This involves dealings with a pirate named Sao Feng, played by Chow Yun-Fat, who plays a startlingly small role in the events to come, given the fact that Chow Yun-Fat is playing him. New Movie Law: If you get Chow Yun-Fat for something and do not have anything for him to do, then try and FIND something for him to do.

Anyway, they successfully commandeer a ship and sail for the ends of the Earth, the first of many tremendously imaginative vistas the movie provides us with, and then head for the much-ballyhooed Davy Jones's Locker. (In a perfect world, there would still be doubt as to whether or not they find Jack Sparrow, but we live in a world of advertising, so by now you all know that they do.) The Locker is visualized as a vast desert where Jack Sparrow commands the immobile Black Pearl, while barking orders to an apparently imaginary crew of duplicates of himself. I have to wonder what audience the writers thought they were aiming for, here. As an experienced moviegoer, I'm fairly used to this kind of schizophrenic scene. But what average moviegoer or kid who just wants to see the new "Pirates" flick is going to relate to this with anything but confusion?

The crew locates Sparrow with surprisingly little fuss, and they convince him to return to the real world, though not until after a scene where he threatens to leave Will, Elizabeth, Barbossa and others in the Locker. Or maybe he was bluffing. Or maybe not. This is but the first of many, many scenes where the true motivations of characters can only be guessed at, by design, until the audience is not sure there's anyone they can trust, or even like. Jack is a selfish scoundrel, we know that, and his adherence to that is part of his charm, but we've already had two movies where he's acted like a selfish scoundrel and then did the right thing, so we pretty much already know which way his character is going. Will gets a decidedly evil twinge to his character here, but where he acquires it and why I cannot attempt to explain. Elizabeth's motivations and true feelings toward Jack and Will get turned around so many times it's a wonder the poor girl doesn't have whiplash. And Barbossa is a great character, but who really knows why he wanted to save Jack in the first place?

Phew, we have a lot more characters to cover. There's Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander), who controls the East India Trade Company, and who wants to rule the seas with an iron fist. He holds the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy), who as a result is forced to do his command, though the logic and intelligence of Beckett keeping Jones’s heart under guard on Jones’s own ship is to be questioned. Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport) is back in command of his own ship, sort of, though he too goes through the Character Development Ringer before we are done. Will's father, Bootstrap Bill Turner, is still a prisoner on Davy Jones's ship, and half the time seems like a mindless drone who is losing his soul. All this, and we haven't even touched Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris), the witch doctor who (I think) brought Barbossa back to life and may or may not be the living embodiment of a sea god named Calypso, but seeing as how NOTHING comes of that sub-plot, really, why the heck did we include it?

I'm sure there are answers to questions like these in the movie, but I'll be damned if I caught most of them - or, more importantly, if they were made entertaining. The entire middle section of the movie plays like a long slog through too much plot and too many revelations stacked too high on top of each other. The audience has to start keeping flow charts and scorecards just to keep track of the allegiances and motivations of everyone involved. And since it all is basically for naught as we get caught up in the final battle sequence, and the list of things we really need to know is really quite short, why complicate matters?

The final battle sequence, and all the story developments that come out of it, are indeed well done and quite entertaining, but that only underscores the relatively weak sauce the audience has been served during the film's middle sections. Was that middle 60-to-90 minutes really necessary to prepare for this? The action is suitably spectacular and a lot of fun, but coming as it does, it almost feels like too little, too late.

Let's be honest. People are seeing "At World's End" for Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow. And why not? He's a great actor, playing a great character. That's what makes it so odd that the film gives him comparatively little to do this time around. Compared to the emotional whirlwind that both Elizabeth and Will go on before the considerable running time is over, Jack gets a surprisingly empty plate, or at least a plate empty of memorable incident. There are a few funny lines and good moments, but nothing that holds a candle to even his first appearance in "Curse of the Black Pearl." Even the much-ballyhooed cameo by Keith Richards as Jack's father (in what has to be one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood history) seems to be over before it began.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a review where I criticized "Spider-Man 3" and its director, Sam Raimi, for trying too hard to include too much in the space of one film. In the interim, there have been some additional factors (time, additional viewings of Spidey and the perspective "Pirates" gives me) that all indicate I owe Raimi and his movie an apology. Yes, "Spider-Man 3" is busy, but never at the expense of the narrative, and it all ties together thematically with an elegance that is relatively graceful. "Pirates 3," sadly, is much more complicated with much less emotional payoff. Compare the two films and Raimi looks increasingly like a young prodigy playing a flawed but challenging tune, and Gore Verbinski and his writers look more like a frantic soloist trying to work a one-man-band.

The film is not bad, really - there are the aforementioned action sequences, excellent production values and funny moments, and the endless value that the Jack Sparrow character brings to the enterprise. The flaws are more of the misguided variety, like a bunch of ideas that may have seemed good on paper but probably should have been pared down before they actually reached film. After the wonderful "Curse of the Black Pearl" and the lesser-but-still-entertaining "Dead Man's Chest," this one reads as far more slap-dash and unfinished than its predecessors. If this is indeed the final "Pirates" movie, how curious that such an incredibly successful franchise would choose to end on such a confused note.

From the Favorites Shelf: "Heroes of World Class"

2007-05-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

160 minutes, now available on DVD

"Once...I had five brothers. Now, I'm not even a brother." - Kevin "Von Erich" Adkisson, quoted by David Manning

"Heroes of World Class" is a film that begins in triumph and ends in tragedy. Not an uncommon theme in the cinema, and when you add in the fact that its subject is professional wrestling, it sadly becomes even more common. But the tale it has to tell is one of the most shattering heartbreak imaginable, and includes more astounding twists of fate than even the most sadistic screenwriter could ever possibly invent. And yet, there is also triumph to be found here, in the form of one man: Kevin Adkisson, who wrestled under the name Kevin Von Erich, and who watched as all other members of his family departed, many of them by their own hand.

And yet Kevin still remains, has a loving family of his own, and seems happy and emotionally healthy. When he speaks, it is with a homespun level of insight that we suspect has helped him through some of the most emotionally scarring events it is possible for one man to go through. At one point, Kevin's father, himself suffering from brain cancer, told him, "You'd kill yourself, too, if you had the guts." Kevin responded, "No, Dad, it takes guts to stay here. Killing myself would be the easy way out."

The full title of the movie is, "Heroes of World Class: The Story of the Von Erichs and the Rise and Fall of World Class Championship Wrestling." You have almost certainly never heard of it (the film has never been released theatrically and is only available on DVD), and if you are not a wrestling fan, you almost certainly have no interest in seeing it. But I hope with this article I can convince a few non-wrestling fans to give it a look, as not only is it easily the best wrestling documentary ever made, but it contains a great deal that is genuinely involving and moving for general audiences. Its subject may be wrestling, but its themes and story are universal.

The film begins in the early 1980s, with Jack Adkisson, who wrestled under the name Fritz Von Erich, running a regional wrestling promotion out of his hometown of Dallas, Texas. Expanding their television coverage to include another program, one which would be aired around the world in syndication, this small promotion quickly grew to be the talk of the wrestling world, and revolutionized the business in ways that still are felt today. The film talks to many of the announcers, writers and on-air talent from the era, who paint a portrait of how exciting it was to build such an innovative product from the ground up.

The stars of the show, though, were Jack's sons, who all wrestled under the name "Von Erich": Kevin, David, Kerry, and, later, Mike. They were the complete opposite of what had worked in wrestling before: Instead of older veterans who were slow and hard-hitting, they were young, good looking boys whose charisma and talent drew not only the traditional wrestling audience, but also younger fans. The kind of kids who before would be going to the movies or the clubs on Friday nights were now, instead, watching wrestling. Along with the exploding television ratings, the future looked amazingly bright for the local company which was running out of the grubby Sportatorium in downtown Dallas.

And then it all began to come down, slowly at first, and then in a startling deluge. In 1984, David Von Erich passed away while touring Japan, apparently of an intestinal ailment. Then, Mike Von Erich, suffering from a shoulder injury, contracts a case of Toxic Shock Syndrome, from which he amazingly recovers, but which clearly leaves its mark on his mental faculties. (In an eerie juxtaposition, we see footage from just before his hospitalization, and then at a press conference just after, and he looks like a completely different individual from one moment to the next.) Kerry is involved in a motorcycle accident and has to have a foot amputated. The youngest son, Chris, has his growth stunted by asthma medication at a young age, and is heartbroken over his inability to follow in the family footsteps.

All these events are seemingly aggravated by father Fritz, who apparently insists upon pushing his young sons back into the ring well before it was healthy for them to be doing so. In many ways, Fritz (who passed away in 1997) remains an enigma in the film, as those around the company paint a picture of the man that is both endearing and infuriating. Kevin insists his father loved them all (though it was apparent who were his favorites), but why would a loving father push his own sons so hard at the apparent expense of their own mental health? The movie does not presume to answer these kinds of questions, and the choices Fritz makes remain as mysterious as the man himself.

More tragedy follows, leading to the downfall of World Class as a promotion and the virtual collapse of the Von Erich family as a whole. The sadness connected to World Class is not just limited to the family, though - toward the end of the film, the names of over 20 wrestlers who worked for the company are flashed on the screen, all of whom have passed away, many of them long before their time. Suicides. Murders. Heart failures. Plane crashes. AIDS. Wrestling has had more than its share of death in the past few years, but for so many connected to one small company to have left us, so early in their lives, really underscores the misfortunes of the company in general, and the Von Erichs in particular.

But Kevin remains, the last of his family, and bears the weight of the legacy on his shoulders with a remarkable level of grace and dignity, under circumstances which many (including many in his own family) might find unbearable. He is amazingly open and honest in his interviews for the film, climaxing in an amazing sequence where, as the Sportatorium is being torn down all around them, Kevin and the director tour the old arena one last time.

The film focuses much - maybe too much - on World Class’s in-ring product, particularly in the first hour, but that is understandable, and also gives viewers who weren’t fans of World Class a chance to sample what the product was all about. Brian Harrison, the director, was a fan of the company as a child, and it is apparent that the movie is a labor of love, made practically on a shoestring. The video quality of the archival footage is often poor, but is probably as good as can be found, given its age. The film’s interviews are shot on what appear to be standard television cameras, and overall the film can’t hold a candle to the slick production values that come out of WWE’s DVD factory.

But for all that is lacking on the production side, the movie has a genuinely fascinating and moving story, told with passion and care. It is superficially a snapshot of a bygone era of wrestling history, but deeper it is a tale about loss and rebirth. We all face tragedy and loss in our lives, and it is how we deal with it that helps us define who we are. Toward the film’s end, we see Kevin and his young sons playing on the field at Texas Stadium, where the Von Erichs once performed in triumph in front of thousands of fans. The crowds may have faded, but after facing unimaginable personal hardships and coming out the other side with such a beautiful family by his side, there is still amazing triumph to be found in Kevin’s life. This is a remarkable film.

“Heroes of World Class” is available at Amazon.com for $14.99, and can also be found at Best Buy and other retailers nationwide.

"Shrek the Third" Review

2007-05-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

** stars (out of four)
93 Minutes, starts Friday, May 18th

I officially shrug and throw up my hands. I give up. The “Shrek” universe has simply not engaged me. I am not invested in any of the characters or situations. I am clearly in the minority in this, and I recognize that. But there is little I can do about it and still write an honest review. Fans of “Shrek” may very well enjoy this third outing with the characters and find my point of view mean-spirited. I know this, but I can only speak for myself, and on behalf of me, I simply don’t care about anything that takes place in “Shrek the Third.”

The first film, easily the best of the series, at least had the novelty of its setting and characters, and the incongruity of the modern pop culture references in its fantasy world. I enjoyed that film the first time I saw it, but further viewings did not deepen my appreciation for it, but rather made the movie’s methods and message all the more shallow. It has funny moments and a few memorable characters, but once you strip away the satirical window dressing, the plot is actually relatively standard stuff, with a climax held together by a textbook Silly Misunderstanding. Oh, how I tire of Silly Misunderstandings. They simply make the characters look all the dumber for engaging in them. So, naturally, the creators of the Shrek series have included one in every installment they’ve made so far.

“Shrek 2” was essentially a remake of the first film, with a similar message and storytelling techniques, again held together by that essential Silly Misunderstanding (which made Fiona look like a dope for not being able to recognize her husband when she saw him, whether or not he had become a human being). It introduced a few new characters (Puss in Boots being the most endearing and enduring of them), but otherwise it was a long way around for the core characters to end up, well, pretty much where they were the last time we saw them.

Now here is the third film, which tries somewhat to take a new approach and tell a different kind of story, but still feels less like a legitimate creative enterprise and more blatantly like a commercial one. This is our 2007 model Shrek, available for delivery to theatres and toy stores nationwide, just in time for the summer blockbuster season. Cynical? Perhaps. But the movie gives me little reason to be optimistic. There are some cute moments and more than a few chuckles, but any spark that was at the core of the project is gone. This is a movie that feels like it’s just going through the motions.

It doesn’t help that the basic traits which made the characters unique seem to have eroded. Shrek (voice of Mike Myers) has morphed from an alienated outsider with a kind soul to a simple everyman, the kind of guy you’d run into down at the bowling alley on Mondays. There’s nothing wrong with that, but the character’s essence seems to have gotten lost along the way, making Shrek positively bland in this third installment. Fiona (Cameron Diaz) is superficially given a more active role this time around, but her actual character has become sadly transparent - she’s practically a doting housewife, now. Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) have become so vapid and interchangeable, that when a magical mishap causes the two of them to switch bodies, it has no impact on the story whatsoever.

The plot: Fiona’s father, the King of Far, Far Away (John Cleese), passes away, in a scene that is drawn out for the sake of humor, and then makes a u-turn and apparently expects us to be touched. (Song played at the king’s funeral: “Live and Let Die.” No, really.) This leaves Shrek as the erstwhile king in his stead. But Shrek does not want to be king, and decides instead to seek out the other remaining heir, a young man named Arthur. No prizes for figuring out THAT reference.

Meantime, Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) is back, and reduced to doing musical theatre at a local pub. Um, okay. He plots to claim the throne of Far, Far Away, and sets in motion a clever, cunning and dastardly plan: He recruits other villains and they invade and take over by force when Shrek leaves. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly clever. Or even particularly cunning. But it was dastardly, oh yes, it was dastardly.

While on his journey, Shrek is struggling with questions of personal responsibility and acceptance, as he’s just found out that Fiona is pregnant, resulting in an odd scene where the characters almost get into a discussion of the birds and the bees, which will certainly set a few Family Values folks’ tails’ a-wagging. (As will a scene where two kids emerge from a smoke-filled wagon and say in classic stoner tone, “Hey, man, thanks for sharing the frankincense and myrrh.”) Shrek, Donkey and Puss find Arthur (Justin Timberlake) at a medieval high school, where he’s a little wimp who gets beaten up and mocked even by the biggest dweebs. So Shrek must convince him he would be a good king, convince himself he would be a good father, and save the kingdom from Charming’s clutches. That’s about it, really.

The movie is not completely without charm, of course. The animation is, as usual, excellent. There are several funny moments and lines (my personal favorite is Shrek describing how his father once tried to eat him: “I guess I should have seen it coming. He used to give me a bath in barbeque sauce and stick an apple in my mouth.”). I like the development of Fiona encouraging the damsels in distress to take matters into their own hands this time (including a brief shot of them burning their bras). And the ever-reliable Gingerbread Man gets a great moment where, as he’s being threatened, his life flashes before his eyes, oven and all.

But a few clever moments are not enough to give this “Shrek” a reason to exist, other than the money it will make and the franchise it will prolong. We introduce new characters to sell and further dilude the old ones. It doesn’t help that (spoiler alert) Shrek and Fiona actually have triplets, which means even more characters to keep track of and less screen time to define them in. The word is that “Shrek 4” will be the last in the series. This pronouncement does not upset me in the slightest. For whatever reason, this is one pop culture ride I just cannot go along with.

Spider-Man 3 Review

2007-05-02T23:46:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*** stars (out of four)
140 minutes - starts Friday, May 4th

The one thing that cannot be denied about Sam Raimi’s work on the Spider-Man series is the depth he brings to each and every character that is under his watch. Raimi grew up loving the Spider-Man universe and for him the whole series is a culmination of a lifelong dream, but he does not let his passion for his subject hinder him from building a compelling narrative set within that world. It is far too common for someone to become so passionate about something that they are a slave to its construction, and forget to make it beautiful.

Raimi gets his heightened visual style and flair from his roots as a Super-8 filmmaker. But the soul he brings to his characters comes from maturity as a storyteller. There is a visible worldview in all three of the Spider-Man films, and it is a very positive one, which makes these films genuinely unique in an ocean of visual effects blockbusters. There is genuine goodness not just in his heroes, but in almost all of his characters - almost all the villains are good people who have just taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

It is this level of detail and care for character construction that, ironically, may be “Spider-Man 3”’s biggest problem. I am not saying that the film’s depth is a bad thing. It’s just that there are so many characters that require it. Beyond Spider-Man (Tobey Maguire) himself and his perennial love interest Mary-Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst), there are no less than three villains to deal with, not to mention new love interest Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) and the eternally matriarchal Aunt May (Rosemary Harris). This is a movie in serious danger of overpopulation.

The story: After years of thanklessly fighting for the good of the city, Spider-Man has become a hero to all of New York, and for once in his life, things are looking up for his alter-ego Peter Parker, too. Beyond his success in web slinging, he is doing well in school and still has the love of his childhood sweetheart Mary Jane. Her career as an actress, however, is beginning to hit the skids, and her struggle leads to tension between the two young lovers, even as Peter plans on popping the question.

The first villain comes in an expected form: Harry Osborn (James Franco), who has long been awaiting his chance to take revenge on Spider-Man for the death of his father Norman, the Green Goblin. Harry dons a modified version of his father’s suit and takes to the skies in the first of the movie’s numerous bravura set pieces, a chase scene complicated by the presence of the ring Peter plans to give MJ. The development that delays Harry’s quest for revenge seems a mite far-fetched, but it’s certainly an avenue that comic book lore has exploited more than a few times in its history.

Then there’s Flint Marco (Thomas Haden Church), a petty crook who has just escaped from prison. Through a nifty little re-writing of history, it turns out he is the man who actually killed Peter’s beloved Uncle Ben (he was hijacking the car, while his partner was the guy Peter let escape). On the run from the cops, he (of course) stumbles into a testing facility and becomes molecularly transformed into pure sand, becoming the villain The Sandman, who can shift shape at will and at times become a monstrous lumbering mountain of a man. The scene where he first emerges from the sand in his new form is a simply jaw-dropping creation of special effects.

Peter, upon learning the truth about his uncle’s killer, vows revenge and shuns all other responsibilities (including Mary Jane) in pursuit of Marco. It is, of course, at this moment that a nasty alien symbiote that Peter has been unwittingly housing in his apartment decides to attach itself to his suit, turning his familiar red-and-blue costume jet black and augmenting his already impressive abilities with increased strength and agility. There is never any attempt to explain where the symbiote came from or what exactly it is, which is probably just as well - from what I can gather attempting to explain this thing took YEARS in the comics.

The suit’s real function in the story is to act as a symbol of Peter’s single-minded anger and aggression toward Marco, as the symbiote feeds off of his hatred and amplifies it, leading to a marked change in Peter’s attitude as himself, as well. The scenes where he struts down the street like a hep cat are gleefully over the top, but then, if the world’s biggest nerd suddenly decided he was going to be a bad ass, he would be pretty bad at it, wouldn’t he?

Peter has further complications on the job from the arrival of Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) a hotshot young photographer who is competing with Pete for the job of staff photographer at the Bugle. He is eerily similar to Peter in many ways, but brings a different attitude to his duties, one that Peter only matches when he is under the influence of the symbiote. Fans of the comic books know exactly where this relationship is going and what happens to Brock in the process: without spoiling too much, I will only say, it happens, and he plays a vital role in the remainder of the story.

But as I’ve spent the past six paragraphs outlining the plot and still feel like I’ve left stuff out (like how Brock is dating Gwen Stacy, and how she falls for Spider-Man, and how Harry tries to manipulate things, and how Marco has a daughter, and so on), you are beginning to see just how complicated this is. It is tempting to say the movie does too much, but I’m at a loss for what I would cut out, as there’s so much good in what they’ve done I wouldn’t want to sacrifice anything. Perhaps the film is too short, and could have benefited from a longer running time, but it already runs nearly 2 ½ hours, and they were probably prohibited by the constraints of conventional film releasing.

Raimi and his writers (Alvin Sergeant and his brother Ivan) work extremely hard to fit in as much depth into each of these characters as possible while still fulfilling the basic structure needed of a big summer blockbuster. Fans simply looking for action will not be disappointed, as the film boasts some of the most impressive action sequences around, augmented by truly remarkable effects (particularly those of the Sandman). There is a heart here, and I appreciate its presence greatly. I just wonder if Raimi would have been better served by not trying so hard to hit it so far out of the park.

NOTE TO FANS: Bruce Campbell’s role is large enough to warrant billing in the opening credits. And gets to showcase how bad Bruce is at doing a French accent.

From the vault

2007-04-14T19:42:00.001-07:00

Addams Family Values. Check it out. NOW!

Review: Blades of Glory and The Lookout

2007-04-05T09:21:00.000-07:00

Blades of Glory, B-

It's definitely not Will Ferrell's best movie, and how could it with a costar as boring and annoying as Jon Heder? Really, Jon. Cut your hair. And try breathing through your nose. Ferrell does the same schtick as he did in Anchorman and (I'm assuming, as I didn't see it) Talladega Nights. But it's something that works for him. (Unlike a certain actor from college who only had one character but couldn't even master that. Debate amongst yourselves as to who I mean.) The narcissistic and (usually) drunk characters that he plays make you laugh, mainly because you're happy that you're not him. You're happy that you're not wearing a costume of some evil wizard at a kid's ice show! And you're especially happy that you didn't just vomit all over yourself...unless you are one of the undoubted frat boys who saw the movie and then proceeded to go to a bar where they did, in fact, vomit all over themselves.

But that's neither here nor there. Here, we're talking about Blades of Glory. As a former figure skater, I enjoyed seeing my former ice-idols bantering with Will Ferrell--especially Scott Hamilton (way to represent BGHS!!) and Nancy Kerrigan (way to revitalize that pained look that you had when you were in the Disney Parade after you lost the gold to Oksana Baiul!) The skating was goofy and stylized as I wish the Olympics were sometimes...everyone is always so serious. I remember that I liked skating because it was fun! I mean, I guess that it's their job and everything, but I have fun at my current job...Another tangent...

The actors. Yes. Let us speak of the actors. Will Ferrell, funny. Jon Heder, not funny. Craig T. Nelson, funny as Coach turned coach to Will and Jon. They have ample screen time and (except for Heder) they fill it quite well. But let us now discuss the real stars of the film: Amy Poehler and Wil Arnett. The husband and wife comedy masters play brother and sister skating monsters. Please, will someone just give them their own movie? And not Let's Go to Jailor prison or whatever that film was that Arnett did a few months ago. Please Hollywood Gods? Please?? So often I read that "comedy isn't what is used to be" and it's "going downhill," well here are the two people who can save it for you! Amy Poehler and Wil Arnett!! And throw in a little more Jenna Fischer while you're at it. And maybe some more John Krasinski and Seth Rogen! Comedy Gold!

Back to the review: Basically, there are worse things you could do with your time (which I know I said about Borat, but I really mean it on this one!!) So I give it a "B" for Ferrell, a "D" for Heder, and a big-'ol Gold Star for Arnett, Poehler and Fischer! Oh, and an "A+" to the effects wizards who made it almost look like the actors were landing their own triple Lutzes!

The Lookout, C

Nearly every review I've read about this film is a rave or very close. I agree that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a phenomenal actor! Jeff Daniels is underrated! Isla Fisher is hot! But my fundamental problem with this film is this: if he can't remember what a can-opener looks like, how can he drive a car?!

The script is disjointed, the characters are underdeveloped, and the climax is less than climactic. If you listen to Richard Roeper, you've probably already seen this film. Do you agree with me or him? Please feel free to add your comments.

It's been nearly six months!!

2007-02-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Here is a quick list of movies I've seen in the last few months with my equally quick recommendations. *Note, since it's Oscar time, you best be willing to head out to your local Art House Cinema...or Blockbuster...

Pan's Labyrinth: SEE IT NOW!

Curse of the Golden Flower: AVOID IT ALWAYS!

Letters from Iwo Jima: SEE IT NOW...but only in a stadium style theatre as I kept having to lean to one side to see all of the subtitles around the guy's head in front of me.

Little Children: Read Kevin Smith's blog, he said it best: The One That Would've Won Best Picture If Harvey Weinstein Had Released It Four Years Ago, Circa Miramax. **Note for anyone who knows Helen Carey: She's Jean!

Notes on a Scandal: ...C'mon, Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, and Cate Blanchett, do I even need to write something here?

Shortbus: RENT IT LATER...but don't watch it with your mother, unless you and your mother regularly watch porn together.

The Departed: SEE IT NOW or RENT IT TUESDAY!

Borat: Eh...There are worse things you could do with your time.

For Your Consideration: SEE IT NOW! Christopher Guest's Gang at their best!

The Pursuit of Happyness: Will Smith doing what Will Smith does best: making you love him! And his kid's nothing to scoff at either!

The Break Up: Um, yes please. Please break up "And burn the tape" says co-contributor, AJ.

The Queen: Long live Queen Mirren!

Marie Antoinette: RENT IT NOW! Even with Kirsten Dunst, it's a pretty spectacular piece of film...but it is pretty long, use that pause button!

Little Miss Sunshine: RENT IT NOW!! So very, very wonderful!

Snakes on a Plane: SEE IT DRUNK!!

I'm sure there are many other movies that I saw between the time that I saw Wordplay and last weekend when I saw The Departed. Keep an eye out for Lindsey's one-sentence reviews, Episode Two: Back to the Reviews Three!

Review "Word Play"

2006-07-16T14:21:00.000-07:00

by Lindsey Ruehl, Associate Assistant Manager

*** (out of 4)
Now Showing, if you're lucky enough to live somewhere that shows the hip new documentaries that are out there, as I do.

10 Across: 9 Letter word for this film:
I-N-S-P-I-R-I-N-G

These people love crossword puzzles! For some it's just a hobby, but for Will Shortz, he's made a life and a name doing something that he loves. We should all be so lucky. No. Not lucky. Driven. Inspired. Truthful.

24 Down: With 42 Across
S-E-E-I-T-N-O-W

42 Across: With 24 down
O-R-R-E-N-T-I-T-L-A-T-E-R!

Get Well, Roger

2006-07-02T23:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/ebert02.html

On behalf of the whole staff of All Audiences, I would like to wish a speedy recovery to the father of modern film criticism, Roger Ebert. Get well soon!

Review: "Superman Returns"

2006-06-27T01:26:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

**** stars (out of four)
155 minutes, Starts Wednesday, June 28th

Kids grow up loving Batman and identifying with Spider-Man, but wanting to BE Superman. He is the icon, the granddaddy of them all. For nearly 70 years the character has stood as an unspoken symbol of everything the idea of a “superhero” stands for. If Supes is not as “cool” as he once was to our modern youth, it’s because he’s seen as stagnant, ever unchanging, a boy scout through and through. But while some may see his stalwartness as a weakness, I see it as the character’s most enduring strength. The cape and the tights may be the symbol, but what makes Superman lasting is his unflinching ability to discern right from wrong, his desire to use his power for the betterment of all mankind. If that makes him stagnant, it does so only in the way that a gold standard reflects upon all others. Superman is the mark all superhero characters are compared to.

The fact that the character is so completely burned into the tooth of our collective memories makes him one of the easiest characters to depict, but also incredibly easy to mess up. Superman is one of those characters that EVERYONE has a strong feeling about. Take a wrong step with the Man of Steel, and you’re a dead duck. Just ask everyone involved with “Superman IV.”

This is what makes “Superman Returns” such a remarkable achievement. This was a project that was fraught with potential pitfalls. One wrong move and the whole enterprise could have come tumbling down like a house of cards. But through an amazing amount of respect for both the original material and preceding film versions depicting the Man of Steel, director Bryan Singer has made virtually every right choice and constructed a Superman film that not only deserves to stand alongside the previous films, but also does justice to the character that has such an eternal hold of the American imagination.

The movie begins with a title card establishing the base from which this story is being told - Superman was the earth’s greatest hero, but when scientists discovered the exact location of his former home planet, Krypton, he suddenly departed without warning. He left in his wake a populace puzzled by his disappearance, none moreso than Lois Lane (Kate Bosworth), who grows bitter and angry enough to write an editorial entitled, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman.” Life goes on.

Then, one night, at the Kent farm in Kansas, Martha Kent (legendary actress and former Theta Hardcore champion Eva Marie Saint) is shocked to see a meteor fall from the sky and crash into her backyard, just as one had so many years before. She travels to the crash site only to find her son Clark (Brandon Routh) emerging from the wreckage and collapsing into her arms. The look and feel of all of this is designed to not only be evocative of the previous film, but to emulate it fully - this is not a original film so much as a long-delayed follow-up to Richard Donner’s two original Superman films.

Soon enough, Clark is back in Metropolis, successfully re-integrating himself back at the Daily Planet, and meeting old pal Jimmy Olson (Sam Huntington). It is Jimmy who informs Clark that Lois is not only in a long-standing relationship with a new beau, Richard White (James Marsden), but also has a young son, Jason. He’s barely settled into his chair before a disaster unfolds involving an airplane that Lois is on…and, well, you can guess what happens from there.

Brandon Routh, relatively unknown, is handed the acting challenge of his life here. Not only is he playing one of the most recognizable characters on the planet, but he’s filling the boots of an actor whose portrayal of Superman will forever be associated with the character. No, Routh isn’t everything that Christopher Reeve was in the role - but then, how could he be? Reeve’s work was so spot-on perfect from all sides that comparing anyone’s performance to his would be unfair to them. But Routh embodies all aspects of the Superman persona very well - not only the cape and boots, but also the bumbling nerd that is Clark Kent. One of the best qualities of Reeve’s portrayal was how utterly opposite his Superman and Clark Kent were, so you could believe that people wouldn’t put 2 and 2 together. Routh plays many of the same notes here.

Bosworth’s work as Lois Lane is also deserving of major praise. Lois, in many depictions of the character, has a tendency to be little more than a damsel in distress, feisty though she may be. Bosworth’s Lane is far too complex for that label to stick. She is a strong, independent woman who loves Superman deeply, but was severely wounded when he decided to leave. A rooftop conversation between the two of them not only brings these emotions to a head, but evokes many memories of the characters’ first on-screen encounters, as well.

But of course, every hero is only as good as their bad guy, and “Superman Returns” has one of the best in Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of eternal Supes foil Lex Luthor. Freed from prison by a wealthy old benefactor, Lex has grandiose plans to inflict upon the world, beginning with a return visit to Superman’s arctic lair, the Fortress of Solitude. Helped along on his travels by girl friday Kitty Kowalski (the eternally entertaining Parker Posey), Lex’s plans once more have less to do with world domination and more to do with garnering a commanding share of real estate, though if billions of people are killed in the process, he has no problem with that. Like Routh, Spacey has an uphill battle, coming as he does on the heels of Gene Hackman’s portrayal of Luthor in the original films, but Spacey is more than up to the task, adding a more healthy streak of malevolence to the role than Hackman did. He’s still licking his chops with delight in every scene he’s in, but when the time comes to be evil, Spacey is downright scary.

The body of the film acts as little more than a set-up for the final act, an hour-long orgy of action and spectacular special effects, but the film never drags, even at its two-and-a-half hour length. The basic story is relatively simple and contains few surprises (one of which, if you know the previous films, can probably be deduced with the minimal clues I’ve provided here), but that’s okay, because the power of the tale lies in both its broad and small strokes. It is a masterful achievement for the same movie to garner equal emotional reactions from the greatest feats of strength by Superman and the poignant climax of Lois and Supes’ relationship.

The touches that evoke the previous films go beyond respect into reverence, and all of them are the exactly right choices to make. The use of John Williams’ immortal main theme was a given, but little touches like the main credit sequence flying in, just as in the original, and the final iconic shots of Superman as he flies away will make anyone even remotely familiar with the films smile. There are all sorts of little dialogue touches that are taken directly from Superman 1 & 2 (“I hope this doesn’t put any of you off of flying”), and of course the use of Marlon Brando’s work as Jor-El gives the enterprise as much weight and resonance as using him in the original movie did. The story that’s told is marvelous and works splendidly on its own, but those who know the first two films will enjoy it on multiple levels.

The Superman franchise has stuttered and stalled for the better part of two decades, trying to get another movie off the ground. Countless directors, writers and actors have been attached to the project, with each effort faltering for one reason or another. With the arrival of “Superman Returns,” we can view the intervening two decades as, perhaps, a gestation period, where we were just waiting for the right team to come along. Bryan Singer and his writers (Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, who also wrote the excellent “X2” for Singer) obviously approached this film as a labor of love, out of admiration for those who came before, and out of respect for the icon they were bringing to life. Their success is plain for all to see. This is one of the best superhero movies ever made.

Review: "Click"

2006-06-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

**1/2 stars (out of four)
98 minutes, Now Showing

Adam Sandler certainly has some likeable notes in his repertoire. The question I have whenever I see a movie he's in is, will he play them? Sandler's career up to this point has been a hit-or-miss affair, with the misses sadly far outweighing the hits. I recognize that this puts me firmly into the minority of modern moviegoers, as he's one of our most popular comedic actors. But when I watch his films, I can't shake the feeling that, more often than not, I'd rather die than share a table at Starbucks with one of his characters.

I can and have liked an Adam Sandler movie. The brilliant "Punch-Drunk Love" played wonderfully off of the quirks in Sandler's basic persona by twisting it into the confines of a P.T. Anderson premise, and Sandler was great in it. "50 First Dates" was the first out-and-out Sandler comedy I thoroughly enjoyed, so sweet and funny. I loved his remake of "The Longest Yard," though the idea of Sandler playing a hotshot ex-quarterback seemed somewhat ridiculous on its surface.

What do all three of these cases have in common? In them, Sandler either a.) played a likeable character, or b.) the fact that his character was NOT likeable was the point. In "Love," his character was a bundle of neurosis who saw no value in himself, until he fell in love. In "Dates," he was a womanizer who learned the value of love only when he had to try so hard to get it. "Yard" saw his character go through guilt and denial as he tried to define who he was to himself.

Now comes "Click." In theory, this would be another perfect opportunity to add another notch to the Adam Sandler Likeability Meter - a mainstream comedy with a nice message about learning to take life one day at a time, or else you might miss it. There is a good movie in here...but sadly, it gets torpedoed by the fact that Sandler's character is a flat-out jerk. And this isn't a case of "he learns that he's being a jerk and reforms." Not really. What he learns is that he should pay attention to his family and be less concerned about work. But a lot of other things he does - tormenting the next door neighbor's kid, holding senseless grudges, snipping at his kids - all these things are really unrelated to the main storyline, and put the audience off on the character right off the bat. When Christopher Walken's character says to him, "Good guys need a break every now and then," we wonder what good guy he's referring to, exactly.

The plot: Sandler plays Michael Newman, an architectural designer for a firm. His boss (David Hasslehoff) is a tool who takes advantage of his hard work, and Michael is constantly having to cut back on life with his family as a result. His wife, Donna (Kate Beckinsale) seems a sweet and lovely woman, and is very, VERY patient with Michael in some early scenes where any sane woman would probably have slapped him upside the head a few times.

Anyway, one night Michael tears himself away from his designs to buy a universal remote control, as he's tired of wrestling with his own pile of remotes at home. He stumbles into Bed, Bath and Beyond, and in the "Beyond" section (a joke which would have been way funnier if "Family Guy" hadn't done it a year ago), he meets Morty (Walken), a technician who seems just a hair removed from Philo from "UHF." He gives Michael a "very advanced" remote, stressing that there's a no-return policy.

It doesn't take long for Michael to figure out that the remote works on more than just his TV and DVD player. It controls everything in his life. He can fast forward anything he doesn't want to have to do, flash back to previous scenes to re-experience them, even listen to commentary on his life by James Earl Jones ("He does a LOT of voice-over work"). When his boss makes his latest set of unreasonable demands, Michael hits pause and proceeds to hit him across the face a few times, not reflecting upon the fact that he could just as easily stop time and get the work done almost instantly. He also skips over most any meeting with his parents, played by Henry Winkler and Julie Kavner. How the Fonz and Marge Simpson could have turned out such a rotten kid is beyond me.

The film's more emotional portions come later, when the remote begins to automatically fast-forward past things that it believes Michael doesn't want to experience, like illnesses or foreplay. Eventually it moves forward several years at a time, causing Michael to miss tons of important events and remember nothing, though he was still there, physically. Morty explains to him that when he fast forwards, all that's left is a shallow husk that performs only with the most basic of emotional responses. We in the audience can't see any really appreciable difference between "all there" Michael and "shallow husk" Michael, save for the fact that shallow husk doesn't yell as often.

See, there's the problem...I just couldn't care about the movie because I just couldn't care about the character. If Sandler had played the role just a notch or two lower, toned down the obnoxious persona, I probably would have really enjoyed it. It has a funny gimmick and a nice story, with some nifty gags and something genuine to say about life. The writers are Steve Koren and Mark O' Keefe, who wrote the wonderful "Bruce Almighty," which had a similar arc about a guy who learns about the faults in his own life through extraordinary intervention. But in that one, part of the arc was Jim Carrey's character learning and reflecting on what a jerk he had been, and making steps to correct that, too. With Sandler, a lot of what happens earlier is not addressed in the all-too-brief wrap-up which comes at the end. It's like seeing Scrooge buy the goose, but still not being sure if he's gonna give it to the Cratchetts or cook it for himself.

It's really a shame. There's a lot of very good stuff here, and Sandler's core audience will probably enjoy it very much. I, however, will just have to wait for the next film to come along and hope that Adam plays some of the nicer notes on his scale then. The odds aren't good, I admit, but it can happen. I've seen it.

Review: "Nacho Libre"

2006-06-22T17:24:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

* star (out of four)
91 minutes, Now Showing

The Mexican tradition of Lucha Libre has a long and storied history in the culture. A more free-flowing and high-flying based style of wrestling compared to its American counterpart (it literally translates as "Free Fight"), Lucha Libre is a tradition with deeply rooted respect in the country. The stars of the sport become so much more to their fans than just simple wrestlers, they are national heroes and icons. When the most famous luchador of all time, El Santo, passed away, he was buried in his mask, so that the legend of the character would never be disturbed.

I pass along this information to establish my knowledge of and experience with the honorable art form, and not to bolster the film “Nacho Libre,” which is a piece of cr*p. I honestly don’t know how many more ways this could have gone wrong. I mean, come on! It’s Jack Black as a Mexican wrestler! The jokes are right there! How could this NOT be funny? Oh, very easily, apparently. I mean, you look at the list of talent connected with the film and you just shake your head at how all of it has been wasted. Jack Black! He’s a very funny actor! Mike White! He’s a very funny writer! Jared Hess! He’s…a director!

Okay, okay, maybe I’m being too hard on Hess. I must admit, for the sake of complete disclosure, that I have never seen his previous film, the much-beloved “Napoleon Dynamite.” For all the positive notices that movie got, I got two wretched reports from two of my most respected opinions on film (for the record, their names are Ebert and McGinnis), so I never really felt a pressing need to watch it. Now I feel like I have to. Because if this film is any representation of what Hess feels is “comic timing,” the success of “Napoleon” has now become a deeper mystery than the solution of the cryptex in “The Da Vinci Code.”

The film stars Black as a monk named Ignacio who has secretly dreamed of being a luchador ever since he was a boy. He is stuck making mediocre meals for an orphanage. One day, he sees a notice for new wrestlers and decides to sign up, recruiting a guy on the street who stole a bag of nacho chips from him (named Esqualeto, played by Hector Jimenez). Ignacio dubs himself “Nacho,” and the fearsome tag team proceeds to lose every match they are involved in. Meantime, Nacho lusts after the beautiful Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera), and dreams of learning from the great Ramses (Cesar Gonzalez, better known to wrestling and lucha fans as “Silver King”).

If I have made ANY of this sound even remotely interesting and/or funny, my apologies, for I have failed you, dear reader. There aren’t any laughs in the movie. Hell, there isn’t even A laugh, singular. None of the jokes work. Wait, that’s not accurate, because that implies that there are jokes in the first place. The film sets up what seems to be a comic situation, seems to head for a punch line, then stops before it gets there. Even the gags which were funny in the trailer flop horribly here. The timing is all off.

Jack Black, normally one of our funniest performers, doesn’t help matters. His performance seems to be at right angles with the movie. When a gag would be best served by underplaying, Black mugs shamelessly. When over the top physicality is required, he seems quiet. What happened here? Were Black’s typically keen performer’s instincts really this inaccurate, or did Hess just use takes which were horribly inappropriate? Seeing as how I’ve seen Black prevail in tougher comic environs, I’m inclined to blame Hess, but then I’m inclined to blame Hess for just about everything right now, save for the audience actually having to pay money to see this.

The wrestling scenes are particularly inept. Not only are there no laughs, but even as a simulation of a wrestling spectacle, it fails miserably. One thinks emulating the gist of a wrestling match would be hard to screw up, given how few specifics there are to miss - the rules are virtually non-existent, and the match ends with a pinfall. But by gum, never tell this director that he can’t miss something! Every match is just a half-hearted exhibition of maneuvers that maybe could be mistaken for wrestling moves, and then they just…end. No pinfall or submission or anything. Hmm. A lot of set up with no discernible purpose or climax. Hey, the matches are just like the jokes! It’s a theme!

Look, if you want to have a few laughs with the world of wrestling, just watch a wrestling match. A great deal of the art form is just broad comedy, anyway. I’ve laughed louder and more frequently in a wrestling arena than any audience will at this movie, I guarantee. So save yourself the price of admission and just watch TNA Impact some Thursday. Or Univision airs Lucha Libre on Saturdays, try that. As for this movie, I only hope that Jack Black and Mike White (heh, Black and White, now THAT’s funny) move on to better things, and quickly. As for Hess, well, I’m afraid the jury’s still out on that one.

Review: "Cars"

2006-06-22T00:38:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*** stars (out of four)
118 minutes, Now Showing

“Cars” is probably the most standard of all the Pixar films so far, which is not a criticism so much as an observation. Its story is fairly shopworn stuff, as these things go - a hotshot youngster gets detoured in a small town and learns the value of homespun wisdom. We’ve seen this kinda thing many, many times before, in countless other movies. But as it progresses, the film finds its own path and identity, and by the time the climax arrives, it has genuine emotional impact. The end result is a very worthwhile film.

The movie stars (so much as voice-over work can be considered “starring”) Owen Wilson as Lightning McQueen, a hotshot racecar who has taken the “Piston Cup” series by storm. In a world of sentient cars, of course racing would be the primary sport - one cannot envision a car world in which baseball takes place. His primary rivals on the circuit are retiring legend The King (voice of Richard Petty, of course) and the cocky eternal-also-ran Chick Hicks (voice of Michael Keaton). When the decisive race of the season ends in a three-way-tie, it is announced that all three cars will compete in a final race in California.

While being transported there by his loyal semi-truck Mack (voice of Pixar-favorite John Ratzenberger), Lightning accidentally gets left behind, and while driving blindly through the dark (he has no headlights), he stumbles into Radiator Springs, a small town on Route 66. A contrived series of events leads to him tearing up the town’s main road, after which he is arrested and detained in the impound lot (with a parking boot on his tire, one of the many nice touches in this script), and then commanded to remain in town until he himself repairs the road.

Lightning meets all the usual assortment of colorful local residents: the town mechanic/tow truck, Mater (“As in TOW-Mater? Get it?”), voiced by Larry the Cable Guy, the local sheriff/police car, voiced by Michael Wallis, a VW bus with the mind and soul of a 60’s hippie, voiced by George Carlin, and so on, and so on. It’s the usual assortment of “types” you find in movies about small town life, only this time they’re played by automobiles. The most distinct and memorable characters carve out a life of their own: Doc, voiced by Paul Newman, a grizzled old car who hides a past life, and Sally, the fiery Porshe who Lightning steadily falls in love with.

Again, the plot is nothing to write home about (we’re basically looking at “Doc Hollywood on Wheels” here), but as the film progresses the requirements of the story become secondary to the main things that distinguish Pixar’s work, which are imagination and heart. The three lead characters (Lightning, Sally and Doc) all emerge as fully founded people (or automobiles) with a complete arc of development and personal evolution, all of which wonderfully comes to a head at the big race, but not in the way we think it might.

Technically, as always with Pixar, the film is outstanding. The animation of every car establishes the unique identity and personalities of each, and demonstrates a remarkable variety of motions from characters where, on the surface, a lot of emoting would seem impossible. Beyond the basic events of the story, the writing is crammed with the company’s usually generous amount of imaginative gags and situations, all variations on the movie’s basic automotive theme (all the bugs buzzing about are actual VW bugs, a late night trek into a field for a little tractor-tipping). In a world where the general filmmaking technique seems to be barely-contained laziness, you can’t help but be grateful to the Pixar gang for always trying so hard.

If I’m less enthusiastic than I have been for previous Pixar outings, it may be that they have set the bar so amazingly high that it will prove difficult for themselves to clear it. From the “Toy Story” movies, to “A Bug’s Life,” “Monster’s Inc.,” “Finding Nemo,” and “The Incredibles,” this company has consistently turned out a level of quality in their work unrivaled by virtually any movie studio anywhere. If “Cars” seems weaker, that is only in comparison to what came before. Taken on its own, it’s a very fun ride.

Review: "An Inconvenient Truth"

2006-06-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

100 minutes, Now Showing

There is a certain level of irony that “An Inconvenient Truth” widens its release so near to the opening of “Superman Returns.” Not merely because it will not draw probably even five percent of that film’s total box office take in its opening weekend (we love our summer blockbusters), but also because watching the film made me think of the opening of the original “Superman.” Jor-El, standing before the council at Krypton, informing them coolly but firmly that the planet would self-destruct, soon. The rest of them standing idly by, firm in their belief that he was a paranoid reactionary. Sure, Jor-El was proven right, but he didn’t do anything, and he got fried, too.

Al Gore, on the other hand, is trying to do something with the new film “An Inconvenient Truth.” The former vice president and passionate environmentalist has been giving a speech about the impact of global warming on our planet for years, basically ever since he left office, and the lion’s share of the film is little more than him talking. It is surprisingly involving and polarizing. It has been written more than a few times that if he had shown this kind of fire in the election, he would have won. (We’ll set aside for another day the fact that in many respects, he did.)

What I rather think we see in the film is a man with a great passion about an issue, in a situation where the gloves are off. Gore no longer has to cow-tow and tone down his fire for fear of alienating some of his constituents. We’re seeing a man who is simply trying to share a deeply held belief with others, and trying to get us to join him in that belief, or at least think a second time about it. The nebulous concept of “global warming” has been batted about in pop culture so long that it has doubtless had its impact dulled. Gore’s words and images force us to confront it head-on.

We are shown images of snow-covered mountains taken years ago, and marvel at how much less snow covers them today. We see ancient glaciers cracking and shrinking. We view the polar ice caps breaking off and taking new shapes…smaller than before. Beyond the statistics, charts, graphs and countless studies Gore offers up as evidence, these images stick in the mind. The ice that was there clearly isn’t anymore. What’s happening?

Gore outlines the basic concepts behind global warming, its causes and cures. It comes at us in a blizzard of facts that is never once disorienting or confusing - at every point we understand what we are being told and why. Yes, the global climate index is steadily increasing. Yes, the scientific consensus is that human-based CO2 emissions are the reason why. And yes, there are things we can do about it.

So why aren’t we? Why is society so far from a consensus on this issue? Gore argues it has less to do with the science involved than with the public relations arms of the businesses which would stand to lose the most from more broad public awareness on the issue - namely the oil companies. Gore accuses them of trying to confuse the public by blurring the definition of “theory” and by misrepresenting what the issue is really about. As if on cue, these lobbyists have commissioned a whole new set of ads in response to this movie, one of which extols the virtues of CO2: “Carbon Dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it…life.” (Watch it here: http://streams.cei.org/ ) It’s so ludicrous you’d swear a Daily Show staffer somehow snuck onto their writing staff.

There is debate going on about global warming, no doubt, as there is debate involved in all scientific theory. (For a good public forum for the discussion of the issue, be sure to check out http://www.realclimate.org/.) Gore does not claim there is complete agreement on the issue. What he points out is that a recent study compiled nearly 900 peer-reviewed works on the subject, and all of them agreed that global warming was happening. By contrast, he offers the point that in a recent media study, a sample of media reports related to global warming was compiled, and nearly 50 percent treated the matter skeptically. The incongruity, he argues, is PR at work. (Want another example? Look up how media outlets, as a matter of political expediency, treat evolution as a quote-theory-unquote as well, despite the fact that legitimate scientific debate on that one was closed a long time ago.)

What’s astounding is the way that the tone of the film is not maudlin or even terrifying, as the ads will have you believe. The real, definite feeling at the end of the film is one of empowerment. Yes, this is happening. Yes, we are largely responsible. But we also have the power to do something about it. During the credits, a series of titles appear detailing actions both big (buy a hybrid car, if you can) and little (turn off lights if you’re not using them). Gore states in the film how the human animal has a tendency to go from a state of denial to a state of panic. What’s missing in the middle is the moment where we decide to take action. And the ability to perceive and act based upon intellectual analysis is a big part of what makes us human in the first place.

You may have noticed that I did not assign a star rating to the film. That’s because this is a case where I can’t help but feel one is utterly unnecessary. This film cannot be rated, ranked, in any traditional manner. It comes across more like a document, an argument, a plea. The true test of its value will be in the impact it has, both on the individual and on the culture. I will only say this - no matter what your political or social views, you need to see this movie. As a cultural event, it is important. As a film, it is remarkably involving and moving. And as a passionate plea to instill action and investigation, it is utterly inspiring.

Review: "The Lake House"

2006-06-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

**1/2 stars (out of four)
108 minutes, Now Showing

Maybe I'm just too cynical. Maybe I've seen too many movies and have become too experienced at picking up clues in the narrative. Maybe if I wasn't as experienced in such matters, I would have enjoyed it more. I dunno. It makes the question of how to evaluate this movie tricky - trickier still, the question of how exactly to address my problems without spoiling everything for those who are not as cynical as I.

All I can say is, something happens within the first, say, 15 minutes of "The Lake House." Something that the plot treats as relatively insignificant at the time, but for me, it was immediately apparent what had happened and what that meant. From that moment on, watching the film became an exercise in when it would catch up with me.

It didn't until about five minutes before the end credits, which is unfortunate. I don't like being that far ahead of the storytellers. I like being surprised, tricked, fooled. When a filmmaker can catch me off guard successfully, no one is more delighted than I. But the cynical side of me can often rear its head and ruin the surprises well in advance. When that happens, I am disappointed. Not just that I have been spoiled a surprising twist, but that the filmmakers weren't able to put one over on me. Come on, guys. It's not that hard. I'm not THAT smart.

What makes it doubly a shame is that there's a lot to like in "The Lake House." The main characters are nice people, who you want to see together. The performances are good, the writing has a lot of nice touches, and the story has a lot of promise. If it didn't all come together for me, well, maybe that was just me. Maybe you'll fare better.

The plot is located at the intersection of "Love Letters" and "The Twilight Zone." We meet a woman named Kate (Sandra Bullock) who is moving out of a house located on a lake just outside Chicago. To say on the lake is not as accurate as saying above the lake - it's a glass structure supported on stilts suspended high above the water. It's imaginative and unique, though one does wonder about the bathroom facilities, but never mind.

Anyway, Kate's moving out, and she leaves a note in the house's mailbox for the next tenant. We then see the letter being retrieved by Alex (Keanu Reeves) as he is moving in. He's confused by the letter - no one has lived in the house for years. He should know, his dad (a great architect played by Christopher Plummer) built the place himself. He writes back that she is mistaken. She writes back that she most certainly is not, and asks if Alex could please forward all her mail to her new address. Alex goes there only to find the apartment she lives in hasn't been built yet.

It becomes quickly apparent to them that he is writing to her from the year 2004, and she is writing to him from the year 2006. They are astonishingly quick at figuring this out and accepting it, all things considered (to a degree they seemed less ready to believe it in the trailer than in the actual movie), but then, it becomes equally apparent that they are falling in love. When that happens, more inexplicable elements become less important. Just like in real life.

So we have two people who clearly are meant to be together, separated by a gulf of time. Now, how do they get together...or even can they? This is an intriguing premise, with all sorts of possibilities of what could impact such a relationship. She tells him facts about his current time, which astonish him when they come true. She waxes rhapsodic about the trees at the lake which she misses, and then is astounded when a tree appears in front of her new place (he planted it). At one point, he coincidentally meets her at a party in 2004, but says nothing about what he knows - but then, how could he? If he did, she'd think him crazy, right? And going further, if he did, isn't it possible that he has then altered the timeline, and then she'd never start writing him, and thus then they'd never meet at all?

These are tantalizing questions that the film could have dealt with, but the movie side-steps them all in favor of adding in some relatively standard and contrived obstacles. In 2004, she's dating an utter tool by the name of Morgan (Dylan Walsh), who she is clearly unhappy with, but who pops in and out of the story as necessary to add complications. When the two of them try to arrange a meeting and things go awry, things go sour between the two of them with such bizarre haste that it feels less like honest emotional reaction to the situation and more like the screenplay pulling the strings. The writer is David Auburn, a Pultizer Prize winner and writer of the play and film "Proof," though this script is adapted from a previous film. Maybe he got handcuffed by the requirements of the plot from the previous work - you get the impression that so much more was possible here.

There really is a lot to like here. I enjoyed both Bullock and Reeves's performances, as it's pretty clear these two have good chemistry as an on-screen couple that Hollywood should have reunited long ago. There are all sorts of nifty screen tricks to establish the "conversations" that these two have in their letters, though if you follow the logic of the letter writing such conversations are impossible. The director, Alejandro Agresti, has a nice flair for visuals and pacing. I enjoyed a lot of the film as it was happening.

At least, to the extent I could, given that I knew precisely where it was going, and how. It really disappointed me that the climax was laid so plain so early on, as it prevented me from getting truly invested in the fate of these characters. As far as I could see, it had already happened. Which, in a way, it had. So, the movie didn't quite work for me. But hey, maybe it'll work for you. Give it a shot and see.

Review: "A Prairie Home Companion"

2006-06-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

**** stars (out of four)
104 minutes, Now Showing

When Robert Altman accepted his lifetime achievement Oscar at this past March’s Academy Awards telecast, he informed the audience that he always thought that receiving that kind of award meant “it was over. Then, it dawned on me I was in rehearsals for a play in London that opened last night, and I just finished my new film 'Prairie Home Companion.' So it's not over.”

How wonderfully appropriate that he should have mentioned this film in the context of those comments. If Altman’s acceptance speech stood in opposition to the expected tradition of the twilight of a career, so too does “A Prairie Home Companion” stand in opposition to the real life circumstances of the show that inspired it. The film tells the tale of the final night of Garrison Keillor’s long-running weekly radio variety show, a bittersweet evening of death, life, reflection, denial and above all, joyous performances.

In reality, the show, amazingly, goes on, a time capsule of what radio once was and will never be again. In a world where the airwaves are dominated by the latest bubble-gum pop hits and political blowhards spewing their ungainly views so their followers will know what to think, Keillor’s cheerfully old-fashioned opus remains a rock on public channels across the country. “It’s the kind of show that went out of style 30 years ago,” observes Guy Noir (Kevin Kline) in the opening narration. “Problem is, somebody forgot to tell them.”

The film is a hypothetical tale of the night the truth comes crashing down. Written by Keillor himself, it depicts the last broadcast of the proud old tradition that still commands the attention of “hundreds” of listeners, according to Noir. (The character, whose adventures are depicted on the Companion as a sly detective satire, appears in the flesh here as the theatre’s supposed head of security.) A big conglomerate has bought the station that broadcasts the show, and will be tearing down the theatre it runs in to make it into a parking lot.

The cast whispers about these happenings to one another in questioning tones, not knowing how close the axe actually is. Keillor (playing himself) seems to be in denial, refusing to even acknowledge the event on the air. There is little doubt that there is a serious sense of finality to the proceedings, even among those who still refuse to believe it’s the end. Before the curtain falls, tears will be shed, a life will end, old wounds will be opened, and a sad remembrance of what once was will transpire.

But I’m making the film sound maudlin. The tone is far too joyous for that to stick. This isn’t a funeral, it’s a rip-roaring wake where laughter and music fill the air. The dialogue, while still having depth and weight, is wonderfully crisp and sharp, frequently hilarious, and always true-to-character. Each of the performers and stagehands connected to the show emerge as fully-realized individuals, brought to glorious life by the actors.

We meet them as they arrive for the show, in various states of acceptance of its fate. Most memorable are the Johnson Sisters, Yolanda (Meryl Streep) and Rhonda (Lily Tomlin), a country duet act whose best days have long since transpired. Streep and Tomlin, two of the best actors we will ever have, engage in eternal verbal debate with one another, overlapping, completing each other’s thoughts and sentences, thoroughly believable as both characters and siblings. Along for the ride is Lola (Lindsey Lohan), Yolanda’s daughter, ever-exasperated by her mother and aunt, slouching in her chair as if she wishes she could fall through the cushions. It’s suggested that she perform one of her songs on the show. She explains, “They’re mostly about death.”

Bringing an aw-shucks attitude to pretty much everything that transpires are Dusty (Woody Harrelson) and Lefty (John C. Reilly), a pair of singing cowboys who, like the show they perform on, seem caught in a time warp. It is they who perform a particularly hilarious and over-the-top number, in classic “What can they possibly do to us?” fashion. Maya Rudolph is equally funny as Molly, the overworked stagehand, whose pregnancy brings about many sideways glances and sarcastic remarks.

Then there is the Dangerous Woman (Virginia Madsen), whose arrival leads to no end of speculation and curiosity. Eternally clad in a white raincoat and appearing in and out of shots, her presence is a mystery, as no one knows who she is, or why she would be here. When she finally reveals her nature to Keillor in a backstage conversation, we’re not sure if we believe it, but then, we shouldn’t be. A late arrival is the Axeman (Tommy Lee Jones) a representative of the company which is ending the show, who sits in the back observing the proceedings with a halfway interested gaze. His demeanor suggests that just maybe, a stay of execution will be granted - or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

The film is wall-to-wall with music, with acts coming to and from the stage all night, and virtually every event occurring with accompaniment in the background. Virtually every cast member will take a turn at the microphone, including Lola, though her lack of preparation leads to a somewhat, shall we say, half-remembered delivery. You can practically feel the joy of performance coming through the screen - everyone up there is loving what they’re doing, and it shows.

That kind of joy is apparent throughout Altman’s work. He made it plain in that same Oscar speech that he never had to make a film he didn’t want to, and nowadays that kind of autonomy is rare. Here, he has made a film that is gloriously entertaining and has so much truth within - truth about death, society, obsolescence, living, so much more. There are so many movies nowadays where you can (and often do) have a wonderful time as they are happening, but if you dig even a bit beneath the surface, you find them hollow at their core. This one, however, is filled to the brim with joy, nostalgia, and even a little hope. This is one of the year’s best films.

X-3- The Last Stand?

2006-05-27T20:38:00.000-07:00

by Beth Wander, Head Popcorn Taster

Okay- If you've never seen either of the other X-Men movies, go see X3. You don't know what you're missing, so you'll be fine. In that context, it is a perfectly acceptable action movie. Here's where I'm coming from- I've never read the X-Men comic books, but I was horribly addicted to the television show for years. I started watching about a year before the Phoenix storyline, so it was great, and this movie was very personal to me. And man, did this new director go and screw it up. But I can't place all the blame on him.

This script is BAD. I mean really, really BAD. The story is passable, even had potential to be good. The writing, is BAD BAD BAD. I didn't hear one line that was not based in some kind of cliche. There were lines and moments in the first two that had me rolling, laughing out loud. Specifically, when Bobby and Logan are in the kitchen of the mansion and Logan takes a pop out of the cupboard and hands it to Bobby and he blows on it and it's cold. Things like that, the casual usage of powers, are just really cute, priceless moments to me. There are none of those here. These characters are written to take themselves WAY too seriously.

And these characters are very dear to not only me, but to a lot of people. They're actually probably more important to the comic fans than they are to me. And no kidding, there's no character growth. There's more what I would call character atrophy. Yes, we all know that Halle Berry had a fit because Storm was only used as eye candy in the first two. And you know why? Because Halle Berry apparently used all her acting chops on "Monster's Ball" and ran out and she's best as eye candy. And we all know her eyes turn white when she controls big weather- we don't need to see it 4 different times in closeup. And I'm all for introducing new characters- but you know what I want? I wanna know who they are, where they came from, and what their powers are and how they deal with them. And why they choose to be on the side they've chosen. I'd take that over a few gratuitous explosions. Don't get me wrong, I like the explosions. But try to find a balance.

I read in an interview with Bryan Singer that when he made X2, he made it more personal and less expensive with little touches like the scene when they are leaving Bobby/IceMan's house, instead of doing a long shot of the x-plane taking off, they shot a close up of Bobby's face. I went back and re-watched the scene, and he's right. You save a ton of money in not having to computer generate a take-off, and you feel a genuine connection with the depth of the decision Bobby just made. Brent Ratner could have taken a cue from that.

I could go into a whole spoiler alert right here and talk about specifics. But really, other than some silliness with the title of "The Last Stand" being total BS (stay for after the credits, you'll be even more furious!!), I'm done. As I said from the beginning- it's a perfectly passable action movie. And if you don't know what these characters can be, how funny and deep and emotional the right director and writer can make them on screen, then you don't know what you're missing and you're perfectly ok.

Or, if you're like me, your expectations for "Superman" just went WAY up. Because Bryan Singer abandoned our X-Men, and took his writers with him I believe, to make that. It better be worth it.

Oh, also- disappointed in DaVinci Code. But I'm a book-o-phile- so I'm horribly biased.

As always, these are my opinions, based off seeing the movie and on a huge coffee buzz. Feel free and encouraged to disagree completely!

Review: "See No Evil"

2006-05-22T16:07:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*1/2 stars (out of four)
100 minutes, Now Showing

If Vince McMahon is going to persist in his delusion that his success in wrestling is going to automatically be transferable to success in film production, my first suggestion would be to find someone else to write the scripts. Dan Madigan, the "writer" of the first WWE Films project, "See No Evil," has no previous credits listed on IMDB.com, save for being a writer of WWE SmackDown (exclamation point optional). And his first foray into feature film "writing" reflects an astounding lack of imagination, originality, character or even simple craft.

I do not ask a lot of my moviegoing experiences, really. What I want, first and foremost, is that the filmmakers demonstrate at some level that they actually cared about the project. Not every film has to have memorable dialogue, great characters and original situations. But even one of those things can make an utterly mediocre movie into a decent one, or make a decent film a good one. "See No Evil" is an assembly line horror film, with utterly nothing that hasn't been seen, done, re-done and re-re-done a thousand times before. It is not scary, it is not original, it is not even memorably violent for horror fans with a taste for such things. Everything in it is utterly without value.

The plot is as simple as it could be while still allowing Dan Madigan to earn a credit for "writing" it. A cop and his partner respond to a distress call in a run-down house and are assaulted by a hulking maniac with an axe. (No prizes for guessing that WWE wrestler Kane is the hulking maniac.) One of them killed, the other has his hand cut off, but then seemingly shoots the killer through the head, but (da da) no body is found. Flash forward four years, the same now-handless cop is working with troubled youths and takes a group of them to a rundown hotel for the weekend to help renovate the place so it can become a homeless shelter. The hulking maniac in question lives in the top floors and picks everyone off one by one. Plus or minus a few details, there ya go.

The cop is basically the only individual in the film that generates an even remote level of individuality. The juvenile delinquents, the supposed "leads" of the movie, each have their names and crimes flashed on screen when their characters are introduced, and that's the extent of their character development. None of them is given anything noteworthy to say beyond smug profane outbursts and screams. They are all cardboard cutouts with bare-bones traits that in most cases will prove to be their oh-so-ironic undoing (the animal rights activist will be eaten by dogs, the pickpocket will be found because the cell phone she stole rings, etc.). We cannot make any judgments of the performing ability of any of them, because acting requires something to act.

Nor can we really make a judgment of Glen "Kane" Jacobs, the supposed star of the film. The role requires little more than lumbering around wielding an axe, a hook, a chain, and plucked out eyeballs, with a mild bit of pathos thrown in toward the end (in a "plot twist" that is as obvious as the ridge on Kane's face). He plays his role just fine, I guess, but then no talent is necessary to play it. It's readily apparent that this movie is designed with creating a franchise for him in mind, but compared to the screen presence and inherent charisma of The Rock, Kane's future is shaky.

The look of the film is not bad, I suppose. The interiors of the hotel have a worn down, potentially creepy feel, but all look invariably more like a movie set rather than an actual location. The editing has a bunch of jump cuts and flash frames, like the opening of "Seven," only for the whole movie. The director, Gregory Dark, has extensive experience in music videos, apparently, as his previous credits include work with Xzibit and Britney Spears, so he has at least some nominal flair for visuals. There may be hope - David Fincher came from music videos, too, and his first project was Alien3.

I must correct myself slightly. I said earlier that the film was not at all original. I must admit that this is the first film I can recall to end with a shot of a dog urinating into an empty eye socket. I'm sure Paul Haggis is just slapping his forehead with his palm right now, wishing he had thought of that to close "Million Dollar Baby."

Review: "The Da Vinci Code"

2006-05-19T23:24:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

***1/2 stars (out of four)
148 minutes, Now Showing

One of the difficulties of reading a review of “The Da Vinci Code” is asking what aspect of the film the critic in question is reviewing. The movie brings so much baggage to the table before the opening credits even have rolled that it is difficult to discern at first what angle the reviewer might be taking in their comments. Did they read the book, and thus are analyzing it as an adaptation rather than on its own merits? Did they read the book and dislike it, and thus are negatively criticizing the story itself, outside of the work of the filmmakers? Is the reviewer of a religious bent, and thus criticizes the film for its attitude toward and theories about the church? Do they have a negative attitude toward the church, and thus praise the film based solely on those same attributes? Or do they simply review it as a movie?

I firmly believe that in this case complete disclosure is necessary for you, the reader, to properly receive and classify my opinions of the film, and decide if my views are necessarily valid for you as a moviegoer. I am a passionate agnostic, leaning toward atheist, who does not currently believe in God nor in Christ’s divinity. I am also one of the 40 million or so people who have read Dan Brown’s original novel, and I must confess, I found it fairly disappointing. It contains some interesting debate and discussion of some very hot button issues of faith, but as a story, its settings and events are contrived, its dialogue labored with the weight of the ideas it presents, and its climax, well, anti.

All of this, however, I tried to set aside as I began to view Ron Howard’s new movie based upon the novel, as I firmly believe that a film must, first and foremost, be evaluated as just that - a film. Beyond the baggage, how is it as a moviegoing experience? And I am glad I made that attempt, as the film version of “The Da Vinci Code” amounts to little short of a triumph. It takes what had seemed such a clunky and potentially unfilmable work as Brown’s potboiler, and through the efforts of Howard’s direction, Akiva Goldsman’s screenplay, and especially the acting of Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou and Ian McKellen, have transformed it into a tremendous thriller.

If you don’t know the plot of “The Da Vinci Code”…well, how exactly have you managed that? But, just in case, the story revolves around a Harvard professor named Robert Langdon (Hanks) visiting Paris to deliver a lecture on symbolism in history. His expertise in these matters (apparently) lead to him being called to the Louvre to examine the scene of the grisly murder of a museum curator, who, while mortally wounded, arranged a spectacular scene around himself involving bizarre symbols and hidden messages. One wonders how someone shot in the stomach knows exactly how much time they have left and intuit that they have just enough to arrange a complex series of clues for others to follow, but never mind - the whole device is just the springboard for everything else, and can be chalked up as an unavoidable contrivance of Brown’s original work.

Langdon is interrupted in his analysis of the scene by the arrival of Sophie Neveu (Tautou), who in a clever subterfuge is able to inform him that he is in danger, as the police captain named Fache (the indispensable Jean Reno) believes that Langdon committed the murder himself. Through a series of near-escapes and twists, Langdon and Neveu elude the police and begin to unravel the mystery that the curator (who was also Neveu’s grandfather) left behind.

It is really not fair to discuss the nature of the quest they are on for those unfamiliar with the story, but seeing as how pretty much every article, review, commentary and analysis of the book and/or film sees fit to bring it up (as do the film’s own trailers, pretty much), I feel blameless in proceeding. Still, spoilers ahead. The clues are arranged in a distinct order which leads Langdon to suspect that they are on the trail of the Holy Grail, which is not, as legend suggests, merely the Cup of Christ, but rather a symbol for Mary Magdalene, who was in fact Christ’s wife and the carrier of his bloodline. Langdon tells Sophie of this with the aid of an old friend, the delightfully named Sir Leigh Teabing, played with boundless enthusiasm by Ian McKellen, who is clearly loving every second of his role in this story.

The book’s theories and arguments about all of this and much more are dense and somewhat ridiculous to follow (but no more or less ludicrous than standard dogmatic theories, really), and are presented in long-winded diatribes the characters deliver to one another. The book, at regular intervals, pretty much stops its plot and begins lecturing. What Howard and Goldsman are able to do, however, is take that dialogue and condense it to its essence, taking full advantage of Goldsman’s talent for words and the nature of film as a visual medium, and successfully conveying the true nature and weight of the ideas the book presents, while contributing to, rather than distracting from, the story and characters. And in the hands of Hanks, Tautou and McKellen, scenes which played on the page as bland ciphers spouting ideas become red-blooded debates between complete characters.

The bad guys include not only the misguided Fache, but also fringe members of a Catholic sect named Opus Dei, such as the lumbering albino named Silas (creepily played by the usually handsome Paul Bettany) guided by a shadowy figure known only as “The Teacher.” Their goal is to find the Grail before Langdon and company can, seemingly so its shocking implications about the church will never be known. Members of the real-life Opus Dei have apparently cried foul about the seeming depiction of their membership here as self-mutilating fanatics, but the film makes a point of saying that these characters and their actions are very much on the fringe of the sect - the mainstream church is left rather surprisingly unscathed, the implications about the core of their doctrine notwithstanding. Indeed, the main body of the church is seemingly completely uninvolved with the events of the story, with a small group of cardinals (lead by the always entertaining Alfred Molina) manipulating things with no apparent input from the higher-ups. (An ill-advised shot of these folks playing a game of pool should probably have been removed in post.)

I am really rather pleasantly surprised at how well all of this works as a thriller. On the page, the events of the search seemed contrived and almost perfunctory - this is how we solve this puzzle, now, onto the next one. On film, however, the same events manage, with only a minor bit of cutting and re-writing, to take on a whole new level of intensity and excitement. The use of the actual locations (or, at the very least, thoroughly convincing sets emulating the actual locations) gives the story weight and incident, and the chase for the Grail generates genuine tension, despite the basic incidents being virtually identical to the novel. Even the novel’s anticlimax, faithfully represented, represents a true emotional climax here, thanks in no small part of the memorable score by Hans Zimmer.

The result of it all is a splendidly successful film, one which manages to hit all the right notes and find all the right solutions to problems that would have torpedoed lesser filmmakers. Ron Howard and company deserve amazing credit for turning Brown’s hefty-on-ideas-but-light-on-execution novel into a truly exciting, interesting and involving thriller. Other aspects of the film will be debated in the days to come (probably, and hopefully, on this very blog by some of our other commentators), but as a film, it works, and works very well.

Review: "Art School Confidential"

2006-05-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

** stars (out of four)
102 minutes, Now Showing

“Art School Confidential” is moving along quite well, a well-managed train on a smooth trip, for the first half or so of its running time. Then someone puts a penny on the tracks. It is a searing and insightful depiction of art students in their first steps toward a world where almost no one necessarily knows anything about what they’re doing, and teachers who give contradictory advice and really have no artistic basis from which to be giving that advice, otherwise they wouldn’t have to be teaching. Then it all goes very, very, very wrong.

Let’s start with the good stuff, like the movie does. It stars Max Minghella as Jerome, a young artist who proclaims in his grade school class that he wants to be the next Picasso, not so much for the level of the art itself but because he wants to meet women. Not an uncommon goal for the artistically inclined. He enrolls in a prestigious if small east coast art school, not because of its reputation and pedigree, but because of the attractive female model (named Audrey, played by Sophia Myles) who is nearly naked in the brochure.

The first scenes at the school have an oddly John Hughes feel to them. Jerome meets his roommates, one of whom (Ethan Suplee) is a budding filmmaker whose overly pretentious work adds a second level to the satire. He enrolls in his first classes, where it’s clear he has a real gift in his form, but never draws a single compliment from his peers or his professors, who prefer to praise works which have no substance but a lot of flash. One student’s work looks eerily like they had simply let their infant scribble for five minutes with crayons, but it is praised as “daring.” Another simply draws a car in ink and paints red in the background, and is hailed as a master. When Jerome asks his professor named Sandiford (played with great insight by John Malkovich, also co-producer) for advice, he instructs him to experiment, try different styles, see what works. When he does, Sandiford criticizes him for being “all over the map.”

The frustrations in the classroom are balanced against Jerome’s success in meeting and wooing (to a degree) the beautiful Audrey, who is flattered by his work and begins to take to him as a result. When she also seems to show interest in the talentless Jonah (the creator of the aforementioned automobile masterpiece, played by Matt Kessler), it crushes Jerome, who begins to become more desperate in his artistic outlashings. He also is introduced to Jimmy (Jim Broadbent), a grizzled artist whose world-weary wisdom gives Jerome some direction.

And it’s right about here that the compliments must stop. Because right here is where the plot, which had been fine on its own, thank you, begins to be overtaken by an utterly unnecessary and ludicrous sub-plot about a serial killer who has been stalking the campus and strangling people. I am at a loss to explain why the brilliant director Terry Zwigoff (“Crumb,” “Ghost World,” “Bad Santa”) felt as though this whole angle was worth preserving. I haven’t read the original story by Daniel Clowes (who also wrote “Ghost World”), and maybe the killer worked better as a plot device on the page. On film, however, it is a massive violation of the tone and characters which have been established, and causes more than a few of the aforementioned characters to make decisions and choices that seem completely out of character for them, not to mention idiotic.

Another problem is that Jerome never emerges as a likeable character. I do not demand that the leads of a film be easily sympathetic or anything, but I do demand that they at least demonstrate some semblance of individuality. In the beginning of the film, Jerome’s seeming non-personality fits with the character’s fish-out-of-water confusion with everything that is going on. But by the end, when he’s making some truly bizarre decisions and some very alarming events are occurring, he’s still the vacant lot of emotion he was at the beginning. I’m more inclined to blame Zwigoff than Minghella on this one - there are moments of fire where you get the impression that Jerome COULD have been more interesting, but apparently it was a storytelling choice to keep him muted. A weak storytelling choice, in my opinion.

Seeing "Art School Confidential" with my close friend Stephanie (an amazing artist who has spent much time in art classes) was a great experience, as I could see through her eyes just how well the early part of the film worked as a satire of the whole of the art world. She was whispering to me frequently how dead-on accurate the portrayals of so many characters, situations and events were. For me, that simply underscored what a disastrous choice the plot developments of the film’s second half were. Zwigoff really had something here, and it just got away from him. He has amazing films in his past, and no doubt has amazing films in his future. In the present, however, all he has is a great idea gone wrong.

Commentary: the Da Vinci Code [redux]

2006-05-16T10:19:00.000-07:00

by J. Michael Bestul, That Crazy Guy Who Sleeps in Theater #13

Guess what?! The church is right! This film is heretical! Over 60% of people who read the book actually believe that Jesus and Mary Magdalene got busy! It's in the news!

Wow, that was a lot of exclamation points. I might need to take a breather. Okay, I think I'm better now.

The aforementioned 60% was the result of a survey on the book version of The Da Vinci Code. Of course, it's time to hand out grains of salt when we realize who conducted the survey: Opinion Research Business was commissioned by a "prominent collection of English Roman Catholic monks, theologians, nuns and members of Opus Dei." So there was no bias going into the survey, whatsoever. None.

The issue these theological types have with Dan Brown's story is that they fear people will not see it as a work of fiction. Then again, that's half the fun of speculative fiction or pseudo-nonfiction. It's exciting to watch how writers weave in fact, theory, and fiction into a "realistic" story. Then again, I've been reading this kind of fiction for years (go Lovecraftian Mythos).

And, really, the Church might want to be careful about throwing stones so close to its own stained-glass windows. As Heather Cloete's previous commentary pointed out, the historiography of the Christian religion isn't exactly founded on rock-solid facts. Ideas such as Mary Magdalene being a prostitute, Judas being the ultimate evil, or transubstantiation are all sepculative history. The main difference between these theories and the ones in Brown's book is that these have a millennium of official sanction (well, eight centuries for transubstantiation).

As Cloete mentioned, many of the "wild" theories in Brown's book have basis on centuries-old scrolls and gospels that were not sanctioned by the Church. But people believed in them. The only reason they aren't as prevalent any more is because important people quashed them.

Really, the Church needs to be careful about proclaiming the danger of people "believing" The Da Vinci Code. It might cause people to look into the history of the Church and wonder, "Wait a minute; you believe what?! How the hell did St. Augustine of Hippo get so much of his crazy ideas turned into doctrine?!"

Or some such thing...

American Dreamz, A Review

2006-04-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

by Lindsey Ruehl, Associate Assistant Manager

American Dreamz: My American Dream? NEVER TO SEE THIS MOVIE AGAIN. Oh, but props to bit player Adam Busch, best known as Warren, the season 6 baddie on Buffy. Joss would be so proud.

I award American Dreamz no stars and may God have mercy on our souls.

Brick and The Notorious Bettie Page

2006-04-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

By lindsey Ruehl, Associate Assistant Manager

Brick, A Haiku

Dark and amusing
Young actors are wonderful
Best is Lukas Haas.

***For Brick.

The Notorious Bettie Page: Oh...that's unfortunate.

*1/2 For the Notorious Bettie Page.

From the Favorites Shelf: "The Hard Way"

2006-04-18T19:37:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

(And now, a new feature, suggested by hopefully-soon-to-contribute writer Greg Baker. From the Favorites Shelf will be a look back at the movies that didn’t get a fair shake, listed here so hopefully new audiences will check ‘em out. We begin with a personal favorite…)

If there is a lost art in moviemaking, it lies not in the sights we see, but the words we hear. The movies have become incredibly accomplished at showing us everything our imagination could wish for, and astoundingly dumb at crafting memorable things for its characters to say. There was a long time after sound recording was invented where film reveled in its ability to capture both the sight and sound of performers and artists’ work. Nowadays we might as well be back in the silent era, given how little of the dialogue which is uttered is memorable.

This is a rather grandiose way to discuss a cop buddy comedy, I admit, but when I think of “The Hard Way,” what I treasure more than anything is the fact that this is a movie that presumes its audience will keep up with it. Enough dialogue is uttered in this movie to fill two lesser comedies, and all of it is amazingly crafted to further develop the characters involved. This is not a great art-house film or a Tarantino classic, it’s simply a great entertainment that has a ton of great lines…none of which anyone noticed.

“The Hard Way” was made in 1991, was released, bombed, and has since been relatively forgotten save for a few fans who caught it way back when. I keep waiting for this film to find the cult audience it so richly deserves, but it never seems to happen. Michael J. Fox himself, in his excellent memoir “Lucky Man,” relates to this film as the most dismal failure of his career, while reserving fond memories for his relatively successful follow-up “Doc Hollywood.” That is a decent but utterly forgettable film, while “The Hard Way,” in my opinion, is a classic of its genre that has gone unheralded. In the overflowing garbage bin that is the cop buddy genre, here is the cream of the crop.

The movie stars James Woods as a gritty but loveable New York cop named John Moss, and I quote Roger’s line from his original review: “If they hadn’t been able to get him, they would have had to shut down the movie.” Woods has made a career out of playing this kind of role, and in “The Hard Way” it’s like he’s teaching a master class. We like the guy from his very first scene, where he crashes into another car and blares his police lights to clear the road, just because he’s late for a date. But he then gets distracted by a call on the radio - a serial killer by the name of the Party Crasher (creepily played by Stephen Lang), who has the odd tendency of calling the cops before each of his crimes, has just announced another shooting will be happening. This leads to barrage of obscenity from Moss and the first of the movie’s excellently done action sequences, which for once actually enhance rather than distract from the characters.

We then cut to a dead-on parody trailer for a an action film entitled “Smoking Gunn II” (Snarky Announcer: “Where there’s fire, there’s smoke! Where there’s smoke, there’s Joe Gunn!”), starring Hollywood “it” guy Nick Lang (Fox). Lang is tired of making mindless sequels, and wants to expand into more artistically important work. He sees Moss giving an interview post-chase on his satellite dish, and knows instinctively that this is the perfect guy for him to study to prepare for a role as a cop. He arranges through his eternally-exasperated agent Angie (Penny Marshall in a great cameo) and the department to go undercover and shadow Moss, which forces Moss off the Party Crasher investigation - or so it would seem.

As you can see, the plot is nothing particularly special or innovative. What makes everything work is the writing, the performances and the directing (by the undervalued John Badham). The screenwriters, Daniel Pyne and Lem Dobbs, fill their relatively standard story with non-stop dialogue that is both funny and fun to hear spoken. Fox’s Lang is a hyperactive motor mouth with an opinion on everything, and he never hesitates to make it known, whether he has anything worth saying or not. He is also constantly in awe of the “real life” settings he finds himself in, calling his agent to gleefully inform her, “I’m in the ghetto! No, it’s not a tour!”

Woods, meanwhile, brings his own trademark sardonic tone to every moment that Moss is on the screen, and his responses are often laced with some hilariously-used profanity. Upon learning that Lang wants to stay in his apartment, Moss simply responds, “Maybe when my @$$hole learns to chew gum.” And appealing to his captain to send Lang home, “He doesn’t belong here! He belongs in Never-Never Land, with his personal trainer and his assistant and his god-knows-who wipes his @$$ after he pinches off his daily loaf!” If one ever needs an example to point out how swear words, when used properly, can be hilarious comic props, this movie is exhibit one.

The give-and-take between the two characters is complicated by the presence of Moss’s girlfriend Susan (Annabella Sciorra) and her daughter Bonnie (a pre-Addams Family Christina Ricci). Moss cares about Susan a great deal - “I even quit smoking for her,” he proclaims, just before he tosses away the cigarette he’s currently trying to light in his mouth. But he has trouble opening up to her, a fact which Lang (still pretending to be Moss’s partner) unexpectedly complicates when he recites to Susan, verbatim, a speech Moss had said to him about the nature of the job, leading to Susan telling Moss he should be more like Lang. The subplot with Susan adds another level of depth and lovability to the Moss character…without her, he’d be a hard-nosed fireball of anger at all times, but when she’s around, he lets his guard down. When, later in the film, Moss begins to let down his guard around Lang, too, it’s a subtle indication that he maybe has found a way to like the snot-nosed little loudmouth.

The whole thing, of course, is building to the big climactic confrontation between Moss/Lang and the Party Crasher, but not before a few unexpected twists (and a classic dialogue exchange: “Drop the gun!” “Drop the car!” “Drop the gun!” “Drop the car!” “DROP THE GUN!!!”). The final battle somehow finds a way to pay off the evolution of both main characters, be an exciting fight/rescue scene AND pay homage to the finale of “North by Northwest” all at the same time.

Other memorable moments: The Frog-Dog scene. The new car Moss and Lang have to get out of impound, and the fate of their previous car. Lang dictating the contents of Moss’s apartment into a tape recorder. The Party Crasher’s uber-creepy response to Moss’s on-air criticism. How everyone says that the undercover actor looks “just like Nick Lang - only shorter.” How Moss is able to ditch Lang a day into their partnership. Moss, again to the captain: “Not if you tied my tongue to your tailpipe and dragged me 80 miles per hour naked across a field of broken glass!”

But, space is limited. It is truly unfortunate that a film with so many great lines, moments, characters, EVERYTHING has the stigma of the flop attached to it. Yet another reason to completely disregard box office gross as an indicator of artistic success (as if the fact that “The Benchwarmers” is doing well hadn’t made that abundantly clear). If you have never seen this unsung classic, plunk down the couple of bucks it’ll take to rent it, grab some microwave popcorn, and give it a shot. And make sure to turn the volume up. You wouldn’t want to miss any of the 100 or so bits of great dialogue.

Commentary: "Damning the Da Vinci Code? Pre-review Part One/NO SPOILERS"

2006-04-18T14:52:00.000-07:00

by Heather Cloete, Magenta/Usherette

"One of the ways in which we now celebrate the great Christian festivals in our society is by a little flurry of newspaper articles and television programs raking over the coals of controversies about the historical basis of faith,"

"We are instantly fascinated by the suggestion of conspiracies and cover-ups. This has become so much the stuff of our imagination these days that it is only natural, it seems, to expect it when we turn to ancient texts, especially biblical texts. Anything that looks like the official version is automatically suspect."

"Such theories may be appealing, they do not help in understanding what the New Testament writers are actually saying and why."
-taken from Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams at Canterbury Cathedral 04/16/06

"While we celebrate here the memory of the passion and death of the savior, millions of people are seduced by the clever rewriting of ancient legends to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was never crucified,"

"There is much talk about Judas' betrayal, without realizing that it is being repeated. Christ is being sold again, no longer to the leaders of the Sanhedrin for 30 denarii, but to editors and booksellers for billions of denarii,"

"The apocryphal gospels on which they lean are text that have always been known, in whole or in part, but with which not even the most critical and hostile historians of Christianity even thought, before today, that history could be made."
-taken from Father Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the pontifical household

Opus Dei has told Sony Pictures that putting a disclaimer on the upcoming movie "The Da Vinci Code" stressing it is a work of fiction would be a welcome show of respect toward the Church.

With so much chest beating and screaming going on, let's review a few historic facts.

Whatever happened in and around the Middle East happened. (I'll leave the specifics to your own beliefs.) Stories of those happenings were passed person to person as an oral tradition. There is no way to tell how many of those stories never made it to paper because someone who knew the story didn't pass it on to someone before they died. There is also no way to tell if the stories stayed "accurate" since the teller will inevitably drop a word here, add a word there. Later, when writing methods arrived, people began putting the stories they knew to papyrus or dried animal skins. Various groups devoted to the tales would create by hand perhaps hundreds of copies, which they carried with them and distributed to those they wished to share them with. Again, the accuracy problem comes up. If you wrote out this paragraph, how many times could you do it before you missed a word or a sentence?

The church did not exist in that time as it does in ours. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of sects, each with their own interpretation of events and their meanings. If you compare two modern-day movie reviews, you can see how differently just two people can see the same thing. Differences in interpretation are why there are still so many different Judeo-Christian faiths today. (Catholic, Jewish, Baptist, Lutheran, on and on).

The issue comes down to the Emperor Constantine the Great. In or around 325 AD (centuries after Christ was said to have been crucified), he decided, for whatever reason, that there needed to be a single form of Christianity. He held the Council of Nicaea. They made all kinds of choices that affect us today (like when is Easter). As a result of that meeting, Constantine commissioned a new Bible containing a selection of the stories. The rest from that point onward were to be considered heretical. No one knows how many hundreds of pages were gathered up and destroyed. Some copies were hidden away. Some of those have been located in more modern times. The Coptic Scrolls were found in 1945, the Dead Sea Scrolls in the 1950's, and still in the headlines, a gospel of Judas. Many scholars believe that additional works have been found, but are in private hands.

That's the facts, folks. My uncle, a devout Catholic, chooses to believe that the Bible as it exists today, is as God wants it to be. His faith is based on that belief, and will not be shaken by anything in this or any other film, book, etc.

"The Da Vinci Code" is a work of fiction with some factual elements woven into it. Opus Dei does exist. They are a very devout group who's practices are a bit more severe than most, but nothing the average person would be put off by. They have faced accusations of brainwashing and other strange practices, but no proof has come to light. It is clear, at least in the book, that the going's on in the story are not coming from their organization, but by fictional individuals acting on their own motivations.

The Priory of Sion also existed, but practically no facts are known about the organization. The speculation of who may have been members, what their beliefs or practices were, is endless. A document exists that claims Da Vinci was a member, but he can't be asked to confirm it.

The heretic documents also are real. You can read any of them that you choose to. They contain a lot of familiar ideas, and a lot you may have never come across before. Whether you should believe what they say is no more my business than any of the rest of your beliefs. It is fact
that these historic documents exist. It is also a fact that Constantine went to great lengths to try to destroy them all. Why? There is no factual answer to that question. Theories range from divine inspiration to deepest greed. You believe what you choose.

Dan Brown did not make up many of the theories in the book. (Hence the various lawsuits.) Theories about the exact nature of the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, the details of events around the crucifixion, even the question of Christ being of a divine or mortal nature predate Gutenberg's printing press. There is a rich history of various people proposing alternatives to accepted church dogma. Long ago, representatives of the church put some of these people to death. Historic fact. These days, the church attempts to shout them down, drown them out in hopes average people will never hear what they have to say.

Da Vinci had a reputation as a secretive man who was fond of pranks and puzzles. Art historians have debated all kinds of elements of his work from all kinds of perspectives. Was Mona Lisa a self-portrait in drag? Did he actually paint the Shroud of Turin? Is that figure a man or a woman? I've always thought he would have enjoyed listening in to the arguments. We know from his own writings that he wasn't fond of the church. Anything beyond that is speculation.

The reaction coming from the various pulpits is that somehow "The Da Vinci Code" is going to put their faith on trial. That the church, and even Jesus Christ himself will be damaged by the average person seeing this material. It was interesting to read Archbishop Rowan Williams's
statement about "controversies about the historical basis of faith". History and faith are neither opposing nor interlocking concepts. The whole point of faith, of belief, is that it is not factual! It is a fact that the sun will rise tomorrow. I believe I will wake up tomorrow, but I can't prove it today.

If people have committed themselves to a specific church, nothing in this book/film will change those beliefs. It never proves any theories, merely puts them forward. The viewers then have the free will to judge for themselves. History will not be re-written by Dan Brown. It will also not be re-written by a church that wishes to claim anything they don't sanctify can ever be voiced.

Sorry for my own long delay...

2006-04-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

I've a.) been busy, b.) suddenly been without internet access at home and c.) not been able to see any new movies. No excuse for my lack of updating this here thingy, but I will be working harder to get more original content here in the days to come, from me and others. Case in point, the following commentary from new AA writer J. Michael Bestul and the above commentary from new AA writer Heather Cloete! Yay!

More in the coming days!

Preview: Calling All Cthulhu-philes

2006-04-17T20:52:00.000-07:00

by J. Michael Bestul, That Crazy Guy Who Sleeps in Theater #13

Freed from the constraints of my thesis, I emerge with a few gray hairs and a unforeseen worry. It is a worry that festers in my ulcer-ridden stomach like some horribly gelatenous protoplasm. The question is: How will this worry emerge from my bowels? Will it emerge as a dark god, terrible and beautiful to behold, or as some mere mindless spawn that nibbles away at your sanity?

Let me back up. The subject of the aforementioned thesis, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, creates many a fine Lovecraftian product. Their latest endeavor was a short, silent-film version of the HPL classic, The Call of Cthulhu (highly recommended viewing). During the course of thesis-writing, I wanted a model of how to explain Lovecraftian weirdness to academic readers. To that end, I looked up the Wikipedia entry on "Cthulhu."

At the top of the article was this statement: "For the unreleased film, see Cthulhu (film)." Wait a minute... what?! Did they mean the HPLHS film? Nope. There is, in fact, a film currently in production entitled Cthulhu. And this is where the worry started gestating in my gut. After all, naming your movie after the chief entity in Lovecraft's Mythos takes some serious chutzpah.

Ever the researcher, I visited everyone's favorite study in pastel blue and gold, IMDb.com. The entry for Cthulhu was on the edge of a nightmare; alarm bells were ringing at the first glance. The director and writer have no listed credits (could be good indicator, could be very bad). The producers' only other common credit is Police Beat, a Sundance movie which garnered mixed reactions. Again, this could go either way.

But scrolling down the cast list, I see a name: Tori Spelling. Now, I know she's not the main character, but... Tori Spelling. Ack. Not to mention that the movie is loosely based off "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," a Lovecraft tale that barely mentions Cthulhu. The worry grew.

Seeking more unhallowed knowledge, I pored over the official movie site, the production blog, and an interview with the Horror Channel. And now I'm torn. I had already set my expectations low, usually a necessary thing when preparing for a Lovecraftian film. But this interview intrigued me; it gave me a little bit of hope. And that can be a dangerous thing.

The writer and director seem to know their source material. The ideas of environmentalism and self-destruction are tied to the destructive tendencies of the Mythos. The issue of homosexuality is tied to the alienation and self-discovery from "Shadow." Honestly, these attempts at a multi-layered interpretation of Lovecraft's story could either be insanely effective... or a train wreck waiting to happen. There's no in-between.

So here I sit, waiting for a movie that has the potential for schlock or greatness. Will the stars be right, or am I just getting my hopes up for another mind-numbingly bad Lovecraftian film?

"Ice Age: The Meltdown" Review

2006-04-06T21:34:00.000-07:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*** stars (out of four)
90 minutes, Now Showing

If the original “Ice Age” was a good animated film, then “Ice Age: The Meltdown” is a good sequel. If I were to offer a contrast, I’d note that the original “Toy Story” was a great animated film, and “Toy Story 2” was ALSO a great animated film. The difference is subtle, but it’s there. If you liked “Ice Age” (and I did), then you’ll probably enjoy this second go-around with the characters (as I did). If you didn’t see the original film, or didn’t like it, I can’t recommend it on its own merits.

For fans of the original, “Ice Age: The Meltdown” (which lost its “2” somewhere during the ad campaign) offers a nice revisit to the same core group of characters, and a few new ones, though by and large the new creations aren’t as much fun as the old ones. There are also once again frequent and hilarious interruptions by Scrat the squirrel, still on his never-ending quest for a single acorn, and one gets the impression that this character could be effortlessly spun off into a series of animated shorts that could rival some of the Warner Brothers’ work.

The rest of the cast, however, may not be as extendable. The filmmakers, having taken their characters through a wonderful series of adventures and a bit of personal evolution (no pun intended) in the original film, have fewer solid ideas on how they should progress in a sequel. Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano) gets plenty - the pathos that he may be the last of his kind and then potential romance - but his buddies Sid the Sloth (John Leguizamo) and Diego the Tiger (Denis Leary) seem to be in basically the same roles they were in before, with a few minor details added in. Diego deals with his fear of water, and Sid learns he’s being worshipped by a clan who considers him a “fire god.” Sid definitely got a better deal than Diego.

The story begins with the characters living in a valley surrounded by a giant ice wall, with a whole host of other animals as colorful background. The temperature is going up, which means everyone’s pretty happy until shifty businessman Fast Tony (voice of Jay Leno) begins to spread hype that the world will soon end as a result, and insists the only way to survive is to use his products. (What kind of profit Tony can make in a world without money is another question.) After determining that the ice will indeed melt and fill the valley with water, the whole group of animals decide to trek to the other end of the valley, where a creepy vulture (voice by Will Arnett) has told them a large log sits which could float them to safety.

And so the trek begins, with occasional adventures added in for good measure. Manny is despondant over the fact that there seem to be no other mammals around…until he meets Ellie (voice of Queen Latifah), a mammoth who crashes in front of him out of a tree. Manny is overjoyed that he’s not the last, until Ellie informs him that she’s not a mammoth, she’s a possum, as her two possum brothers (voices of Seann William Scott and Josh Peck) assure her. Why she’s so sure of this, and how she comes to learn otherwise, help provide the emotional center of the film’s main story.

Queen Latifah’s voice work helps bring the whole main storyline weight and dimension, not to mention a lot of energy. She brings Ellie her own inherent sense of likeability, and we can see why Manny grows to like her, too, as frustrating as her bull-headed insistence that she’s actually a possum can be to him. Her brothers are a little annoying at first, but we come to realize that their insistence that Ellie is their sister is not simply a matter of self-preservation, but that they honestly think of her as one of their own. They can be a little stubborn, but they’re family.

The journey of the newly formed herd takes them the length of the valley, with peril brought by collapsing cliffs, rising water, and a pair of newly thawed prehistoric fish monsters which hunt the group whenever they’re near the sea. They are also constantly shadowed by a large group of vultures, waiting for their meals to be ready. “I wonder what they’re thinking?”, Sid asks. It would not be fair to spoil the way they respond to this question.

In short, there’s a lot to like here, a lot of nice ideas and moments, and the constant fun that the Scrat asides bring to the enterprise. It just lacks the unifying factors that made the original “Ice Age” such a great movie. The great ideas and fun moments in that film helped deepen the main story, giving its climax genuine emotional impact. Here, it’s fun to see everyone again, and Ellie is certainly a welcome addition to the main cast, but they’re gonna have to convince me that they have a great reason to make “Ice Age 3” (beyond the cash it’ll make) before I fully sign up for that one.

Question: Favorite tagline?

2006-03-31T23:07:00.000-08:00

Hey, let's have a discussion! Here's a topic - what's your favorite recent movie poster tagline?

Me, I like 'em snappy and creative. The one that sticks out is from "The World's Fastest Indian": "Based On One Hell of a True Story."

(Very) Quick Movie Review: "Thank You for Smoking"

2006-03-31T08:04:00.000-08:00

by Lindsey Ruehl, Associate Assistant Manager

(Lindsey is the biggest movie buff I know, and one of the smartest and funniest people on the planet. However, she also has very little time, as she is currently stage managing at a theatre in D.C., so her comments may be limited as a result - as evidenced by the following comprehensive revew:)

Thank you for smoking: Thank you for almost keeping me awake for an hour and a half.

Dat's all I got.

Movie Review: "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story"

2006-03-30T22:37:00.000-08:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

*** stars (out of four)
91 minutes, Now Playing

“Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story” is like a head-on collision between a Merchant-Ivory piece and a Charlie Kaufman screenplay. It is an attempt to adapt a novel that is unadaptable, by its nature, and the movie deals with this by making the fact that it can’t be done the subject of the movie…to a degree. It is not as non-linear as Kaufman’s brilliant “Adaptation,” which was so confused the author made himself the lead character, but it’s plenty confused as it is.

I have not read the original novel “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman” upon which this film is, ahem, based, but I suspect having read the novel would not help in interpreting the film. Or maybe it would. Who knows. The book, which I only heard of when I learned of the movie, is in essence a book about distraction - the lead character attempts to tell his life story, and becomes so sidetracked with digressions and secondary bits that the book ends not long after he’s just finished recounting his birth. In short, the book is apparently a non-event - a terrifically entertaining one, I gather, but a deliberately without incident.

I’m not sure if the film began as an honest attempt to translate the material (as “Adaptation“ began), or if it’s always been planned like this, but the beautiful part about the film is, it really doesn’t matter either way. What we have is a very entertaining film on two levels - the portions that purport to be from the original novel have a manic energy to their performance, and are tremendously funny, but the real movie begins when the camera unexpectedly turns and we suddenly see a camera crew.

Well, “unexpectedly” is incorrect. We have had a pre-titles debate between Steve Coogan (who plays Shandy and himself) and Rob Brydon (who plays Toby and himself) while in the make-up chair. They discuss such topics as their relative billing (if it was alphabetical order, Brydon notes, he’d be first billed) and the color of Brydon’s teeth (not quite white). Then the movie spends about, oh, 20 minutes pretending to be an adaptation of the Victorian costume farce before the “real world” interrupts again.

The scenes from the novel (I guess) have an inspired comic tone to them - Coogan, as Shandy, notes that his father looked quite a lot like him, so it makes perfect sense that he play his own father in flashbacks. Like the book before it, the story of Tristram (so much as we see) never really gets beyond the event of Tristram’s birth - Tristram gets consistently sidetracked with other irrelevant (and consistently funny) details, then brings us back to the main gist of it. This segment seems to demonstrate just how a true movie based upon the source material might have gone - and it goes so well that I was almost disappointed when the film switched gears.

But that’s not to say that the films main passage isn’t a great time, either. We suddenly see the crew, the actors drop out of character, and we are now behind the scenes of the making of a Tristram Shandy movie. The filming is in trouble, on a few levels. Coogan is paranoid about his position as the lead, insisting that his shoes be built higher so that he will be taller than Brydon (purely for character reasons, he states). The producers don’t want to chip in more money so that an important battle scene can be improved upon. Coogan is introduced to a giant womb apparatus that he is supposed to be lowered into for a scene (bringing up inescapable comparisons to “Spinal Tap”). At one point, a crew member mentions a subplot involving “the Widow Wadman.” Coogan, who’s never read the novel, either, brings up the subplot in conversation, and within five minutes the filmmakers have cast Gillian Anderson in the role. Coogan feels as though he’s saved the day - until he realizes that the addition now gives Brydon a larger part than his own.

Coogan’s performance is the key to the whole enterprise. As both the lead character of the imaginary adaptation and himself, he has to play widely varying notes while still maintaining a level of absurdity. Even a drop of ego into the bucket would have shattered the visage - who wants to look foolish when playing themselves? But Coogan allows his character to be portrayed as a unique combination of talent and paranoia, with plenty of flaws and neuroses thrown in for effect. A messy affair is touched upon, but a fluff magazine agrees to bury the story in exchange for an interview. His girlfriend and their son visit him on the set, but he’s more concerned about finding out how much of his role he’s just forfeited with the Widow Wadman suggestion. He has a pseudo-flirting relationship with a production assistant named Jennie (winningly played by Naomie Harris), the resolution of which essentially provides the resolution of the story, though the film understandably ends somewhat shakily (like its predecessor).

The result is an odd and entertaining film, one which I think I have to see again to truly appreciate the whole of the endeavor. There are just too many subtle touches and silly side bits (in both the main film and the film-within-a-film), I suspect, to catch them all the first time. And maybe reading the novel would help, as well. Or maybe not.

Movie Review: "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada"

2006-03-29T16:54:00.000-08:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

***1/2 stars (out of four)
121 minutes, Now Showing

There’s this one song by Harry Chapin entitled “Corey’s Coming.” The song is a folk ballad (of course, being by Harry Chapin) about a pair of somewhat unlikely friends - an old man who works as a guard at a railroad station and a kid who comes by every now and then just to hang out and hear stories. The underlying story of the song is about how this old man shares tales of his past with this kid - you know, before I got stuck HERE, I had all these amazing adventures. The kid begins to share in these experiences, and they eventually become as big a part of his life as they are in the old man’s - whether they are true or not being another matter entirely.

I thought of this song as I watched “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” the new film from Tommy Lee Jones. This movie is also, at its core, about a close friendship between two unlikely parties - a old rancher named Pete (played by Jones) and an immigrant worker named Melquiades (Julio Cedillo). A unique kinship develops between the two as they work together, and they begin to share stories about their lives, Melquiades in particular regaling Pete with tales of his former home back in Mexico, and the family he left behind. Melquiades makes Pete promise that if he should ever die while still in America, Pete needs to take him back there.

Given the title, we can deduce that Pete will, in fact, be called upon to make this journey before the film is over, and we are correct. But it will be nothing like we, or Pete, expects - indeed, the movie is nothing like we can really expect. For one thing, Melquiades’s death comes at the hands of a border patrol guard named Mike (Barry Pepper). He didn’t mean it, mind you - he was just a little distracted, heard some shots and returned fire. The fact that Melquiades was merely firing at a prairie dog that was threatening his herd did not occur to Mike at the time. We’re not sure if Mike is a genuinely evil man or merely a thoughtless one - we see him being ridiculously brutal to some illegal immigrants he captures, and his general demeanor seems to indicate that he thinks they were asking for it. He also perceives himself as a loving husband, though his wife (January Jones) practically screams her disagreement through her body language.

The first half of the film is spent establishing all these characters, and their relationships to one another (in many ways) through a series of intercut scenes from various points in the story. We begin with the discovery of Melquiades’s body, then flashback to meeting him, establishing his relationship with Pete, introducing Mike and his wife, as well as other characters such as the local waitress Rachael (Melissa Leo) who seems to be sleeping with everyone, and observes the events surrounding Melquiades’s murder with a watchful eye. The editing is disjointed but not disorienting - we never feel as though the movie is telling us the events in this order to confuse us, but merely to introduce the information in the order of its importance to the narrative.

The second half of the movie begins when Pete learns through Rachael that Mike is the killer, and that the police seem to be planning to do nothing about it. Pete’s reaction to this is not at all what we are expecting - he proceeds to kidnap Mike and force him to help bring Melquiades’s body back to his hometown in Mexico. He keeps insisting that if Mike tries to run, he’ll kill him, but we somehow know that Mike’s death is not part of Pete’s plan - and his actions when Mike DOES try to run bear this out. This portion of the movie is a much more straightforward and traditional narrative, but the story itself serves up more than its fair share of surprises.

The film has an easy, relaxed confidence in its story and tells it in a matter-of-fact tone, which makes grisly details (like the exhumation and transportation of a rotting corpse over the U.S.-Mexico border) not only bearable, but entertaining. Pepper’s border guard keeps a steady level of gall and disgust at the task at hand, but Jones as Pete still relates to Melquiades as his friend, who he loves and wants to protect - he just happens to be dead now, thank you very much. His state of mind reflects a combination of righteousness and delusion, as evidenced by his reaction when he and Mike finally arrive at their destination.

Jones emerges as an interesting filmmaker, this being his first feature (a made-for-TV movie back in 1995 is his only previous directing credit). He does not overpower the material or over think the story - he tells it in a relatively realistic tone and lets it speak for itself. The frequent use of flashbacks without some kind of obvious visual cue as to when they are taking place may seem to some like an amateurish choice, but if one reflects on the technique, one realizes that it’s really a tribute to the respect the film has for the audience - the filmmakers presume that the viewers are intelligent enough to catch on to the storytelling technique, and determine when something happened, simply by virtue of the relationships and characters. It makes us invest ourselves more quickly in the events.

If the film has a flaw, it comes in its conclusion, which is of course the one part of the movie that I absolutely cannot drop even the slightest hints about. I will merely note that the film ends somewhat abruptly, and a longer denouement would have been welcome. But in a film as rich in characters and events as this, the point lies not in the destination, but in the journey. My guess is, by the end of the film, Pete is thinking much the same thing.

Movie Review: "V for Vendetta"

2006-03-28T11:10:00.000-08:00

by Beth Wander, Head Popcorn Taster

(Editor's Note: Welcome our first contribution from our first staff writer, Beth Wander! Yay!)

Hey, I like popcorn....

First of all, you probably shouldn't read this if you're anal retentive about knowing anything about movies before you see them. I'm not gonna ruin any special endings, at least I don't think so, but there will be plot points and such.

So, V for Vendetta. For starters, I really enjoy Natalie Portman. I'm disgusted by how good she looks with a shaved head, but I can't blame her for that. For a follow up, I REALLY enjoy Hugo Weaving's voice. I have since I first heard it. The accent has something to do with it, but its not all of it, because I don't love all Australian accents that much. So this movie has a few things going for it when I walk in the theater. Then I meet Finch, the cop; and I immediately greet Fergus from The Crying Game, who gives as masterful a performance in this as he did then! So another big bonus. And then the characters start talking... and I give myself up to it.

I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that I like words. A LOT. I read obsessively, and anyone who can use words wisely and well makes my heart go all pitter-patter. And damn, can those Wachowski boys write. I know the film is based on a graphic novel, and I don't know how much of the script came from who, but damn is it pretty. All I must refer you to is "the V speech" (and if you've seen it you know), the Shakespeare quotes, the flow, the everything. I say, with vim and vigor and absolutely no vitriol, damn.

The story- fascinating. I'm all bleeding heart liberal and stuff, so I was kinda gonna like this movie no matter what I think, but it really was incredibly interesting. I enjoy watching characters change and learn, and movies that take time to cover larger spans of time should have more to offer in that respect, and this one certainly does. The only characters that are static are the ones you KNOW aren't going to change- anyone with a chance to move in any direction takes that oppotunity, or is forced to, and that totally counts. The story was comprehensive, it didn't skip anything, it took time to lead you places, but also gave you time to figure things out. Exposition is a good thing, when well paced with neat stuff- this was a fantastic mix. I dunno what else to say about simply the story, because it only seems right that the pretty story is absolutely tied up and connected to the pretty pretty pictures on the screen. There are at least two scenes that took my breath away, literally. Actually, no there are four. Maybe 6 or 7. And those are just the ones that stuck out from a gorgeous movie. Okay, maybe 8 or 9 or 12 or 40.

To address the political issue. Is this movie making valid political points? Absolutely. Does it make you think? Yes. But really, who's going to agree that the totalitarian government is the good guys? You know whose side you're going to be on when you go to the movie- you just have to let them take you there, and they do it very, very well...

In closing (apologies if this isn't as cohesive as one might hope), when Marsh and Sarah and I left the theater, I realized that it had been a long time since a movie surprised me this much, especially pleasantly. Since they were involved with both, this movie heralded The Matrix. I, along with the rest of the planet, was blown away by the new ideas and the groundbreaking way they were expressed in that movie ("woah" not withstanding- hands down "Vendetta" is better written). That was the feeling I had when I left the theater- seeing and hearing and experiencing that movie had changed me. Not in any groundbreaking way, but in the way of I now have a new standard to appreciate movie beauty. I have some new memories that will never be replaced, some new favorite movie scenes.

Valuable, virtuous, valid, visionary... and I'm out. Man that's sad. I'll give that up and use one of my favorite words. This movie is fancy. So sayeth Beth.

Movie Review: "Aeon Flux"

2006-03-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

And just for fun, here's a reposting of one of my favorite reviews from a couple of months ago. Truth be told, writing this one was what started the ball rolling on this little experiment...

(WARNING: The following review is basically nothing but one, big spoiler. Ignore this post if you intend to see this movie. Not that, you know, you should.)

“New Rule: In her next movie, Charlize Theron has to be sexy again. We get it. You're a serious actress. Now how about playing a lesbian superhero named Nympho? Or that hot teacher in Florida who bangs her students?” - Bill Maher, “Real Time with Bill Maher,” 10/14/2005

I would officially like to ask Mr. Maher to please stick to commenting on politics and social issues and shut the hell up about the movies. Charlize Theron’s daring belief in lesser projects, what you so off-handedly dismiss as the temptation to be considered a “serious actress,” has brought us films like “Monster” and “North Country”. The desire to objectify her and persuade her to cash in on her looks has now brought us “Aeon Flux.” The phrase, I believe, is “case closed.”

Indeed, “Aeon Flux” gives us few options but to regard Theron for her beauty. She either wears skin-tight outfits or next-to-nothing for virtually the entire running time, and the role she’s in gives her no opportunity (or motivation) to demonstrate her considerable acting skills. Like Halle Berry in the much-maligned “Catwoman,” here is one of the top actresses of her generation, completely reduced to the most superficial of her gifts. The lack of an intelligent story surrounding her merely exacerbates the issue.

The plot, as outlined by a pre-opening series of subtitles, is that in 2011, a massive plague strikes the globe, killing 99% of the human race. Then, “scientists find a cure.” Well, better late than never, I guess. The remaining five million survivors are herded together into a one, big, walled-in mega-city, so that if another plague strikes them, it won’t have to work quite as hard to kill everyone off, I suppose. They are lead by the guy who oh-so-efficiently found the cure in the first place, Dr. Goodchild, who becomes the chairman of this new civilization. And it stays like that for 400 years.

Okay, stop and consider what you’ve just read for a second. 5 million survivors, walled into a single city. Considering the relative amount of population growth on the real Earth in a comparable amount of time, logic states that the number of remaining people should have outgrown that little city in about, say, 50 years, tops. Ah ha, but there is a reason they haven’t we will eventually discover, though why this little factoid has not occurred to ANYONE in the city in all this time, well, that’s anyone’s guess.

Okay, so back to the exposition, which switches to narration rather than subtitles, we meet Aeon Flux (Theron), whose incredible fighting skills are demonstrated as she catches a fly in her eyelid while lying in bed. She informs us that this “perfect society,” which largely consists of people riding around glassy-eyed on bicycles and wearing pseudo-hippy throwbacks, is not as perfect as it appears. Well, duh. It’s actually an oppressive police state, people live in fear, cannot go outside the walls, yadda yadda. Exchange “futuristic” for “primitive,” and basically it’s “The Village” all over again. And no one needs that.

But anyway. Aeon fights for a band of rebels called the Monicans, who communicate through taking pills which stimulate the cortex of their brain and put them in contact with their leader, the Handler, who is played by Francis McDormand and who borrows Napoleon Dynamite’s hairdo. She sends Aeon on her first assignment, to blow up a pool of some kind or something, but really what she’s doing is distracting Aeon from a dinner with her kid sister, Una, so the plot can have her killed off by the Evil Police State.

Now Aeon’s really mad and so forth, so of course, NOW the Handler sends Aeon on a mission to kill Chairman Goodchild (Martin Csokas), who is not the original Chairman Goodchild but is, in fact, the descendant of that Chairman Goodchild, but just happens to look just like the original Chairman Goodchild. As did all his descendants, apparently. With subtle hints like this, when the big surprise is finally revealed, considering all the generations of people who came before them and had access to all the exact same clues, and yet didn’t figure out squat, I was praying that Francis McDormand would look at her hapless charges and say, “I’m not sure I agree with you 100 percent on your police work there, folks.”

So, anyway, Aeon heads off on her mission to kill the Chairman, accompanied by her friend Sithandra (Sophie Okenedo), who has hands for feet and hands for, uh, hands. Aeon breaks in while Sithandra stands guard outside, gets the drop on Goodchild, but when he calls her “Catherine,” she does nothing and gets conked on the head from behind. Yes, the bad-ass female soldier who we’ve seen take out dozens of thugs with barely a thought is subdued by getting called the wrong name. Having been on the wrong end of that type of exchange before myself, though, I can sympathize.

So, anyway, she’s locked up but not killed, escapes without too much fuss, accosts the chairman in his room, and promptly sleeps with him. This would seem to be contradictory to the mission at hand, but anyway. After she wakes up next to him, she chokes him out (and who hasn’t been there?), finds some clues about some unsettling testing that’s going on, and leaves to meet up with Sithandra (who’s shown the patience of Job times 10, waiting outside while all of this was going on). Rather than take the time to explain to Sithandra what happened in there and why she’s so confused, she proceeds to beat Sithandra up, tie her up, and leave her helpless at the bottom of a fountain, with only a small reed to breathe through. But it’s okay, Sithandra mind-melds with the hive of the Monicans, who are dispatched to free her, and only take, oh, 30 minutes or so of screen time to do so.

Anyway, in the meantime, Chairman Goodchild is overthrown by his wussy little brother Oren, and won’t THAT look embarrassing in the authorized history of these events. Goodchild and Aeon hook up (not that way) and go through a few chase scenes before the true nature of the world is revealed: the virus also rendered everyone on the planet sterile, and ergo, the past 400 years worth of generations have been clones, so when someone dies, they are immediately cloned and someone in the city is impregnated with them. This is demonstrated to Aeon through her finding her little sister, who has just been born to a new couple. Okay, wait. Her sister was just killed, like, 2 days ago. So either: a.) they fertilized the woman nine months prior to them even knowing they’d kill Una, and it was just a lucky guess, or b.) that woman went through the FASTEST pregnancy period on record.

Meanwhile, it’s revealed that Goodchild has discovered the cure to the sterility (again showing the crackerjack pace of his scientific revelations, just like how lightning-fast he found that plague cure), but his brother wants things to keep on going as they are, so he can “live forever,” even though it’s just copies of him that live forever and not actually him, but we’re really just picking nits now, aren’t we? Oh, and the backup Monicans FINALLY get to Sithandra, and they inform her of the coup which overthrew Goodchild, so of course Sithandra and company decide to continue with the mission and kill Goodchild anyway, despite the fact that Goodchild has no power anymore and at one point, the guy who IS in charge now is standing right next to him and not a one of them thinks to train their guns on him instead. These aren’t Monicans, they’re Monican’ts.

Oh, and I didn’t even get to the big, golden balloon that flies over the city piloted by Pete Postlethwaite that looks like a cross between the Goodyear Blimp and a Snork.

But enough. The movie is competent enough on a technical level, I suppose, and the action is well done for being as ludicrous as it is, but it’s all in the service of nothing. Karyn Kusama is a talented director, having made the excellent “Girlfight” back in 2000, so we’ll chalk this up as a misstep into the big leagues and hope she moves on.

There’s a movie I’m betting you haven’t seen called “Dark City.” It is also about a group of humans caught in an isolated situation for reasons they do not comprehend, and the struggle to regain free will from their oppressors. But that film is visionary, revolutionary, groundbreaking, intelligent, exciting, moving - in other words, everything “Aeon Flux” isn’t. So, save yourself the two hours and having to go all the way to the theatre, and just rent “Dark City” instead. Or, just come over to my place and I’ll show it to you. I’ll even spring for the popcorn.

Trailer Review: "Superman Returns"

2006-03-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

A little taste of what is gonna be going on around here. The Trailer Reviews will have a much more structured formula than my movie reviews, you will note.

The Title: “Superman Returns”

The Formula: The Superman Movies - III & IV + Bryan Singer

The Stars: Brandon Routh (don’t worry, no one else has heard of him, either), Kevin Spacey, Kate Bosworth

The Director: Bryan Singer

The Rating: None yet listed on the trailer. MPAA has rated it PG-13, according to IMDB.

The Trailer Type: Teaser, which is all we’ve had for the past five months.

The Plot: The trailer reveals tantalizingly little about the storyline, just iconic shots of the Man of Steel and various trademark visuals of Supes’ universe.

The Line: “For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you…my only son.” -Jor-El (Marlon Brando), in recycled dialogue from the original film.

The Moments: A breathtaking shot of Superman soaring in front of the sun, as well as Supes hovering over the Earth.

The Sights: The visuals seem to be leaning toward a slightly darker color palate than the original films, but then most films being made nowadays do. Most all the effects look great at this early stage. But those trunks on Supes still look too darn small.

The Sounds: Borrowing the musical score and narration from the original films was a hotly debated idea, but it works marvelously in this trailer. Williams’s music and Brando’s dialogue give the visuals a built-in weight and history, giving the filmmakers an automatic advantage in establishing their universe, as opposed to having to start from scratch (as “Batman Begins”’s filmmakers did, and marvelously).

The Good Stuff: The trailer evokes a powerful emotional reaction in those familiar with the Superman mythos - that only covers, what, 99.9% of the population? By not revealing too much of what is to come, it also makes more information hotly anticipated.

The Problems: The lack of info also leaves viewers uncertain as to what exactly the story here is supposed to be, but hey, it’s just the teaser.

The Tagline: Shot of the “S” Logo, followed by “RETURNS SUMMER 2006.” No credits.

The Release Date: None listed in the trailer, it will be arriving June 30, 2006.

The Verdict: The one that puts the “tease” in teaser, we get no sign of Kevin Spacey and barely any sign of Kate Bosworth, but what is there is there - and HOW. It’s impossible for someone with even the slightest affinity for the character to finish watching the trailer without a big ol’ grin on your face, even if you’re left with little idea what any of it means or what direction they are going. All you know is, they seem to know the notes. All that’s left is, do they know the music?

The Score: **** (out of four)

Welcome!

2006-03-27T14:33:00.000-08:00

by Jeff McGinnis, Lead Usher

We're giving this thing a shot, at long last. So, hello. My name is Jeff McGinnis, and I am a movie buff. Or film geek, whichever term you prefer. I have spent an inordinate amount of my life in a darkened room with strangers all around, staring at a flickering screen. I love movies, love seeing them, love writing about them, just plain love everything about 'em.

Ergo, this blog. I already have a personal blog, which I have filled quite a few times in the past with my intermittent ramblings about the film business. But now, those thoughts have their own home. So, look for movie reviews and columns in the weeks to come, as well as a new feature I've been experimenting with: trailer reviews, as at my current job (at a theatre) I see way more than the national average, I'd say.

But wait, there's more. In the days to come, I will hopefully be adding more writers here - my dear friends who are just as opinionated about the movies and much more entertaining than I am. So, you won't be stuck reading just me, I promise.

Meantime, thanks for stopping by, expect more in the days to come, and let us know what you think!