FINDING DORY is lost at sea. She worked so well as a supporting character in FINDING NEMO (2003) that Pixar spins off Dory’s origin story in FINDING DORY – and only ends up highlighting what a horrifying brain disease she suffers from. Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres), a blue tang fish with short term memory loss, first appeared in the … Read More
ALIEN 3
One Singular Serration… One maximum security prison planet. One xenomorph extra-terrestrial alien. Let the screaming begin. That no one can hear you doing in space… And well I should bastardize the original slogan for the original ALIEN (1979). After the shotgun-sequel ass-klownery of James Cameron’s ALIENS (1986), with hundreds of hissing, cavorting aliens cluttering the frame, the filmmakers of ALIEN … Read More
GHOSTBUSTERS II
Why am I drippings with poo? A river of slime threatens New York and brings the Ghostbusters out of retirement. Any excuse to touch tips again… GHOSTBUSTERS II finds original Ghostbusters Ray Stanz (Dan Aykroyd), Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) reluctantly re-donning the taupe onesies and re-shouldering those unnecessarily heavy ecto-gun backpacks to save New York … Read More
GHOSTBUSTERS
Starts off Solid, Ends up Ectoplasm…. GHOSTBUSTERS has a lot going for it – an original story (by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, about three paranormal investigators in New York opening a business as ghost exterminators), lovable characters, great comedic performances (notably from Bill Murray), and two excellent opening acts that are alternately humorous, intriguing, chilling and action-packed. Unfortunately, in … Read More
CHAPPIE
Slumdog versus Wolverine in REAL STEEL 2: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE BOOGALOO. Another day, another dystopian future. Neill Blomkamp IS the new Terry Gilliam. CHAPPIE is his third crazed metal masterpiece, pitting idealistic slumdog against capitalistic wolverine. In 2016 (yup, “The Future”!) Johannesburg is the first city in the world to instigate an all-robot police force; humanoid in appearance, unthinking, unfeeling, undiscerning, … Read More
THE VILLAGE
Mythed it by that much. Somewhere between expectancy and deliverance – lies M. Night Shyamalan‘s THE VILLAGE. The people of an Amish-styled village share an uneasy truce with the mysterious beasts that haunt the surrounding woods – until a blind girl courageously braves the woods on a mission of mercy. The people of Covington lead an idyllic Old World existence, … Read More
SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR
Once Upon a Terrifying Time… SNOW WHITE: A TALE OF TERROR has the potential to be one of the great revisionist re-tellings of the original Grimm Fairy Tale, but, like BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA, suffers from inauthentic sets, TV production values and bad editing. And big dwarfs. As the title suggests, it’s the age-old German folk tale of Snow White (tabulated … Read More
ALIEN
A Little Extra Extra-Terrestrial. The slogan for ALIEN is embedded in pop culture: “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Even so, there’s an awful lot of screaming going on… A deep space mining crew investigates a distress signal from an unchartered planet, and inadvertently takes onboard a malignant alien life form. What could possibly happen next, but grisly … Read More
PAUL
Kind Encounters of the Close Third. It’s a buddy comedy of the crude kind, a road movie of the chase kind, a close encounter of the third kind! Hey, isn’t that Roger from AMERICAN DAD? Or do all aliens just look alike to me?… Two Brits on a pilgrimage to famed UFO sites in Nevada pick up a real extraterrestrial … Read More
AVATAR
Electra Glide in Jungle Cat Blue. For the protection of the good, for destruction of evil, and for the establishment of righteousness, I come into being from age to age. — Lord Krishna, avatar of Vishnu, The Bhagavad-Gita. Forgive us our trespasses As we forgive those Who trespass against us… — Yeshua, avatar of Elohim, The Lord’s Prayer. Hubris. Conquest. … Read More
VANTAGE POINT
Point Of View Askew. In a town square in Salamanca, Spain, during a public address, the American President (William Hurt), is assassinated. In the ensuing furor, two bombs explode… And we roll our eyes: coulda seen that coming – the president was launching an initiative on counter-terrorism. VANTAGE POINT relates the tales of various players and onlookers in this incident … Read More
BE KIND REWIND
Be Kind – Put this movie out of its misery. BE KIND REWIND looks great in the trailers. In long form, not so hot. Mos Def is an excellent actor. Jack Black is an even better comedy tornado. So putting them together in BE KIND REWIND should have begat gold – instead, a debacle as unfunny as your VHS tape … Read More
WALL-E
Domo Arigato, Mr Roboto! Earth. 700 years in the desolate future. A small robot that looks like E.T. crossed with the Mars Rover Sojourner blissfully rolls along on little tank treads, compacting trash into cubes that he builds into towering trash skyscrapers. He is a Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth class – WALL-E. Humankind has abandoned the ravaged Earth, leaving … Read More
ALIENS
The Warrior/Goddess Dichotomy and the Eternal Feminine. ALIENS! Leaping, screeching, hissing, grabbing – hellish armies of H.R. Giger’s inscrutable extra-terrestrial life forms, swarming killing machines going elongated-head to jar-head with the United States Marines (Roger Ramjet Space Division, Glib Company). Writer-Director James Cameron helms this sequel to one of the landmark space/horror films of our time, ALIEN (1979). And it … Read More
GALAXY QUEST
No Dreck on This Trek. In its swinging skewering of that TV series which featured that Vulcan guy and that Overacting guy, GALAXY QUEST is everything that the SCARY MOVIE franchise is not: well-produced, well-written, well-acted – and funny. Jason Nesmith (Tim Allen) is the ex-captain of a television starship not unlike that one that boldly goes where no man has … Read More
DAVE
Electile Dysfunction. Rooted solidly in the “We Can Dream, Can’t We?” mold, DAVE follows the adventures of a stand-in for the American President who tries to rectify the administration’s shortcomings while “in office” – a grander fantasy than any cobbling from J.R.R. Tolkein. Despite the hypocrisy in trying to retain democracy’s visage by inserting a lookalike into the Presidential post without … Read More