Movie: Chop Socky. Message: Kung Fooey. With astounding cinematography, well-written characters, directorial creativity, incredible technical prowess and stunning animation, KUNG FU PANDA only lacks in one department – its message that Prophecy Is Better Than Practice. Directed with kinetic frenzy by Mark Osborne and John Stevenson like Michael Bay meets John Woo, the awesomeness of the Panda is diluted with … Read More
THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
The Film that Moved the Earth. In 1951, in the shadow of the Cold War, in the grip of McCarthyism, as America slid into the Atomic Age, THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL was just another stanky B-Movie science fiction thriller with a sanctimonious message of the human race on the edge of doom. Somehow, it rose above the engine … Read More
RANSOM
Blow me the money. Mel Gibson is billionaire airline owner Tom Mullen, whose son gets kidnapped in RANSOM. Rather than play to the kidnappers’ ransom demands, Mullen’s status allows him to go on national TV to offer the 2-million dollars ransom money as reward for any info on his son’s kidnappers – the ransom money becomes bounty money! Serpentine Gary … Read More
QUANTUM OF SOLACE
Quorum of Stinkus. Stunt, stunt, stunt, crash. Stunt, stunt, stunt, crash. Explosion. QUANTUM OF SOLACE, directed by Marc Foster like a speed freak, and edited by Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson like a chicken fight in a monkey house, makes THE BOURNE IDENTITY look like MY DINNER WITH ANDRE. As I watched the opening car chase grind metal, and the … Read More
THE NUMBER 23
The Number of the Least. It just don’t add up! Numerology – utter coincidence coupled with utter stupidity. Try telling that to the EVP fake-moon-landing 9/11-conspiracy empath-candle what’s-your-sign bible-thumping bobbleheads. When dogcatcher Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) reads a mysterious book called The Number 23, he begins to realize how much the number 23 figures in his life, from his birth … Read More
SHOOT ‘EM UP
Love it. Hate it. You won’t fall asleep. I mean, really! How sensible do you think a movie called SHOOT ‘EM UP could possibly be? Just sit back and enjoy Clive Owen in his natural habitat (factory streets grimier than Guy Ritchie could possibly imagine), in his usual plumage (Hard Guy Long Overcoat, perpetual five o’clock shadow), plying his chosen … Read More
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
Owned By His Own War. Before George H.W. Bush sold weapons to Saddam, before Ronald Reagan sold weapons to Iran, before George W. Bush lost 190,000 guns in Iraq – there was Tom Hanks, selling weapons to the Mujahedeen. A splinter group of the Mujahedeen would later become the Taliban. Thanks again, American Politicians. In the Mike Nichols-directed political intriguer, … Read More
DISTURBIA
Rear End Window. Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW for Teen Models. Shia LeBeouf spends the first half of DISTURBIA stuttering his way into the panties of the girl next door; the second half, stuttering his way out of the clutches of a serial killer. Doing time on house arrest, Kale (LeBeouf) eventually turns his bored, binocular perving on the suburban neighborhood … Read More
THE KINGDOM
My Kingdom for a (war)horse… If LIONS FOR LAMBS was the cerebral, intelligent take on the Iraq War, THE KINGDOM is the action-packed, piss-your-pants rejoinder – both written by Matthew Michael Carnahan (who should probably be investigated by the CIA for all the inside information he brings to these military stories). Peter Berg starred in LIONS as a strong, sure … Read More
PI
Uneasy as Pi. There is something genius lurking its way to the surface in Darren Aronofsky’s PI – but it gets sidetracked with hallucinatory drugs. An indie film through and through, filmed in startling, scratchy black and white, with reasonably poor performances from everyone except the two leads – Sean Gullette and Mark Margolis (forever Alberto the assassin from SCARFACE, … Read More
GONE BABY GONE
View to a Hammock. Casey Affleck (Ben’s bro) stars in this controlled, sober, slightly disturbing thriller. From a novel by Dennis Lehane, Ben Affleck makes gravy in his directorial debut, about a redneck daughter’s kidnapping on the mean streets of Boston. And how his sleepwalking brother saves the day. Surrounded by intrigue and Ed Harris as a detective and Morgan … Read More
I AM LEGEND
Will Smith Saves The World – Again… Everyone on Earth is dead – but they left the CGI running. Will Smith is the “last man on Earth,” Robert Neville, tooling through abandoned, overgrown New York City streets, hunting antelope in a red sports car. It is the near future and a plague/virus has taken down humanity – not again! – … Read More
THE BRAVE ONE
Sexy Bronson. Yes, they deserve to die – and I hope they burn in hell! – Samuel L. Jackson, A TIME TO KILL. In THE BRAVE ONE, Jodie Foster is Erica Bain, a New York resident with an independent radio talk show, happily engaged to a young doctor (Naveen Andrews, a Londoner, with Indian ethnicity). One night, walking in Central … Read More
BALLS OF FURY
Kung Fu Ping Pong Panda. BALLS OF FURY is not about ping pong. It’s about Being a Man. It’s about Honor. It’s about uplifting the Human Spirit with–ah, who am I kidding? It IS about ping pong. Starring Dan Fogler, George Lopez, Maggie Q, and the guy who does the second best Christopher Walken impersonation in the world – Christopher … Read More
RAMBO
He’s a Fighter, Not a Lover. Remember when we were kids and the image of a sixty-year-old man was a white-haired fogey with a cane and wobbling knees, using an ear-trumpet and calling everyone “sonny”? Sylvester Stallone is 62 years old. Black hair below the collar, stampedes like a buffalo, fires a 120-pound 50-calibre machine-gun with the kick of a … Read More
TRANSFORMERS
More Than Meets The Eye-Strain. The CGI prowess in the movie TRANSFORMERS almost makes us forget that this film is for people who still play with action figures. Directed by Michael Bay and his motion-sickness cameras, this overwrought production revolves around the All Spark, a mechanical-mystical cube that has knotted the steel knickers of two races of giant robots engaged … Read More
THE RIVER WILD
Up The Creek… Kevin Bacon is definitely one of those good-guy actors who can pull off a sinister performance when called upon by a lusterless script. In THE RIVER WILD, he white-waters into mediocrity as the Bad Bacon, holding a family hostage to help him navigate Montana rapids after a heist. Is it TOO much of a coincidence that this … Read More
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
Crystal Numbskull and the Kingdom of the Buttoned Shirt. In the movie posters, his shirt isn’t unbuttoned as low as it used to be. Good call. Man-essence might have been replaced by man-boob. Indiana Jones … is back? Well… 65 year-old Harrison Ford (Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr.) and 62 year-old Steven (I’ve-got-a-golden-ticket) Spielberg and 64 year-old George (Franchise Botcher) Lucas … Read More
DRACULA
Evil’s Fruity Face. DRACULA is a mediocre 1931 movie, but the concept of the undead, blood-craving supernatural demon is so mythically instilled in the planet’s – ahem – bloodstream that this movie’s ongoing mighty aura is more due to the CONCEPT of the vampire entrenched in society’s psyche than any movie-making quality the film-makers might have aspired to. It was … Read More
DEEP IMPACT
Deep Hurting. DEEP IMPACT is one of those movies where you just know that at some point, someone is going to shout “Get the hell outa there!” long after it’s too late the get the hell outa there. Sure enough, someone does. Trouble is, that someone is The Legend Robert Duvall… oh, ye gods! Did he need the money that … Read More