Movie Review Kick Ass

Kick Ass (2010) 

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Written by Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn

Starring Aaron Taylor Johnson, Chloe Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz Plasse, Nicolas Cage 

Release Date April 16th, 2010 

Published April 16th, 2010 

Few movie titles are as fitting as Kick Ass, Indeed the movie does kick ass, balls, teeth and anything else that can be kicked. Also stabbed, shot and variously eviscerated. Director Matthew Vaughn set out for comic book carnage and delivers big time and along the way he gives us characters we like and come to care about even as they are greatly exaggerated, comic book versions of real people.

Aaron Johnson stars in Kick Ass as Dave Lizewski, a teenager who claims that his only superpower is being invisible to girls. Dave longs to be a costumed hero fighting crime and protecting the innocent. Since Dave is subject to harassment and even crime on a regular basis his feelings make sense.

After being robbed by thugs Dave makes up his mind to give the superhero thing a shot. Thus, Dave buys a green and yellow wetsuit and a pair of sticks wrapped green and begins his superhero career by getting stabbed and hit by a car. Several months of recovery later Dave does come away with a minor superpower, nerve damage that allows him to take a better beating.

Get a beating he does but a cell phone video showing him getting knocked around but continuing to fight and defend a downed man makes him a star and eventually a target for a mob boss who mistakenly believes Kick Ass is disrupting his business. As it turns out, another pair of costumed heroes, Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his daughter Hit Girl (Chloe Moretz) have been targeting the mob boss and are killing his men.

Where the story goes from there I will leave you to discover. I can tell you it's a fun, if slightly overlong, ride filled with ass kicking violence and some shocking laughs, mostly, and controversially, supplied by Chloe Moretz's ingenious Hit Girl. At a mere 11 years old when the film was made, Moretz shocks and appalls with her language and taste for severe violence.

Many of my fellow critics are terribly uncomfortable about Hit Girl. Her age and propensity for harsh, bloody vengeance gives them pause and many find it reprehensible. For me, the action fit the character and while I may take issue with such a young girl in amongst such brutally violent acts, I cannot say I wasn't entertained.

Matthew Vaughn and his young star never flinch from the violence or the character's vulnerability. In the end, during the controversial final showdown, that vulnerability played against a comic book hero's sense of invulnerability raises the stakes and gives the audience an extra jolt ahead of the killer finale.

Should someone as young as Chloe Moretz play a character as morally compromised, violent and fetishized as Hit Girl? Maybe not, but try not to be entertained by how well she plays this character, it's impossible. This kid has so much talent that you cannot help wanting to forgive the movie 's many sins because you enjoy her so much. It's transgressive in the best possible way. 

As for the rest of the cast, Nicolas Cage delivers yet another of his wonderfully off-beat characters. Driven by a need for violent revenge, Cage's Big Daddy plays as a mixture of Cage's typically manic action movie characters with bits of the nerdier or dopier aspects of his comic characters. It's a brilliant mix and Cage's wild energy during action scenes is incredibly entertaining. Cage brings a chaos to the movie that stands out even among the chaos intended in Kick Ass. 

Aaron Johnson has a difficult task in playing Kick Ass as an action hero and as an overmatched kid in way over his head. Audiences want to see him in action but the character isn't necessarily up to it and that creates a clever twist on the comic book hero that Johnson plays well. Johnson is even better in the romantic subplot that has him pretending to be gay to get close to the girl of his dreams, Lyndsey Fonseca.

Edgy has become a cliché but it seems an apt way to describe the delicate balance of offensiveness, humor and excitement that is Kick Ass. Campy yet violent, offensive yet shockingly entertaining, Kick Ass quite simply Kicks Ass.

Movie Review The Collector

The Collector (2009) 

Directed by Marcus Dunstan

Written Marcus Dunstan, Patrick Melton

Starring Josh Stewart, Andrea Roth, Michael Reilly Burke, Juan Fernandez

Release Date July 31st, 2009

Published July 30th 2009 

It's a really clever premise. A thief breaks into the home of a wealthy family only to find the family has been taken hostage by a savage serial killer. The thief must either find a way to save his own backside or become a hero and try to save the family. The idea is fraught with moral and physical complications. Sadly, the creators of The Collector suffer a lack of confidence in their premise and the result is a dull series of ghastly set pieces so overly complex Wile E. Coyote would call B******t.

Josh Stewart stars in The Collector as Arkin, a day laborer who uses his job as a way of casing homes for his real vocation as a thief. This job has advantages, he's in charge of a lot of the home security, window bars, door locks and such. With the family supposedly heading out of town the safe Arkin discovered behind a mirror should be easy pickins.

Unfortunately, when Arkin returns and breaks in he finds someone has beat him to the house. The family is still home and they are not alone. A serial killer, known as 'The Collector' for his preference to take one of his victims as a souvenir, has taken mom and dad hostage and worse yet for Arkin, he has elaborately booby trapped the house in case they try to escape.

Will Arkin bolt with his ill gotten booty or try to rescue the family? Well, there wouldn't be much of a movie if he just bolted. Arkin, a family man himself with a daughter the same age as this family's youngest, decides he must act, and a dangerous game of cat and mouse begins.

Well, that is what should begin anyway. The movie The Collector set out to be a movie in which a clever thief and a murderous serial killer match wits. Sadly, the finished product becomes merely a series of dull witted, gory set pieces that sacrifice credulity in favor of the display of viscera.

Instead of having our hero be clever and resourceful, using his unique knowledge of the home against the serial killer, we get an overmatched hero and a remarkably well prepared killer who has, in just a few hours, rigged such elaborate modes of death throughout the house that Rube Goldberg would be horrified and yet appreciate the homage.

Look, I know movies such as this do not thrive on whether you believe what you see, but there is a limit to the suspension of disbelief and the traps created by The Collector, including a head chopping blade on a ceiling fan, a chandelier covered in knives, and a number of sophisticated rope and pulley systems to set off his traps, would take several teams several days to rig. We are to believe he did it in one night, some of them as Arkin is sneaking in the house as they seem to pop up just in time for him to nearly set them off.

The movie is riddled with tiny compromising details such as Arkin's encounter with a dog outside the home. He was at the home for days and never saw a dog and suddenly one is chained up on the lawn hours after the family was supposed to have left for vacation? And he doesn't find this odd?

With the break in, instead of rigging himself an entrance while he was working earlier in the day he merely jimmies the lock. Curious because he was well aware of a security system that armed each time someone opened the door. When that alarm doesn't go off when the door opens this time, is Arkin surprised? No. Is he the single dumbest thief in history? Apparently, or maybe the least observant.

Logic be damned, the makers of The Collector do not care if their characters are idiots or that their clever premise has become an idiot plot. The Collector is all about the gore and the many inventive and grandiose ways human beings can be disposed of. Bear traps, nails, scissors, tripwire, saw blades and gasoline are just some of the tools of the trade for The Collector.

Oh and the film is not at all above the hoary cliches. Whether it's the too loud cat that screams like no cat has ever screamed or the spiking music soundtrack that does the work the director and screenwriter can't in letting the audience know when they should be afraid.

The old horror movie stand by; the dumb cop, shows up for his requisite grisly demise. And the film throws in the hoariest of all cliches, the child in danger plot. That's the one where a tow headed child is placed in harms way to create the tension the story could not create any other way than by manipulating our innate sympathy for children. It's a cheat for hack screenwriters throughout the horror genre.

What a terrible disappointment. The premise of The Collector had so much promise and with Marcus Dunston behind the camera I had really high hopes. Dunston cut his teeth on the last two Saw movies, a pair of disturbing, creepy yet clever and ingenious horror movies that have so unbelievably well maintained horror's finest feature series.

The Saw movies are everything The Collector wishes it were. They're creepy, gory, atmospheric and brainy. Saw has a philosophical basis that gives the gore a context that deepens the experience even as it maintains the visceral, physical scares that people love about horror movies.

As disgusting as the Saw movies can be they proceed from a place of severe story logic. No death happens without a purpose and a price. There is dark reasoning behind each twist and gory turn in Saw. The Collector has no logical base and tries to cover that fact with blood and guts.

It doesn't work. In the end The Collector is another horror movie pretender. Another mindless explication of unnecessary gore and torturous attempts at creating a new horror franchise. The end of the movie is such an astonishing compromise to the commercial concern of sequel making that even those who work hard to like horror movies will be left incredulous.

Collect your money and see any other movie than The Collector.

Movie Review Into the Woods

Into the Woods (2014) 

Directed by Rob Marshall 

Written by James LaPine 

Starring Meryl Streep, James Corden, Emily Blunt, Chris Pine, Johnny Depp, Anna Kendrick

Release Date December 25th, 2014

Published December 21st 2014 

“Into the Woods" is a shrill, monotonous mess of a movie.

Director Rob Marshall has followed up the self indulgent tragedy that was 2010's "Nine" with an even more full-of-itself, or just plain full of it, musical adaptation. The difference this time is that he has buried a good deal of big money talent under his hack direction. 

"Into the Woods" stars Meryl Streep as an over-the-top street performer - ahem, I mean a fairy tale witch - who tasks a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt), with obtaining several magical items. These objects will help the witch to lift a curse, which is preventing the couple from having a child, is one she placed on the baker’s family years earlier. 

The items include a cow of milky white, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper of … something or other. I lost track as I stopped giving a damn. These items, naturally, already have owners including a boy, Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), who believes his cow is his best friend; a nasally singing, irksome girl, Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford); and Cinderella (Anna Kendrick). 

Each of these story threads eventually coalesce into something of a story, but not without various distractions, including the entirely unnecessary inclusion of Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy) and her prince suitor (Billy Magnusson), whose presence has literally nothing to do with the other stories going on. Indeed, the one attempt to rope Rapunzel into the main plot is literally discarded just a few short scenes later. 

Then there is Chris Pine as another prince who is continually abandoned by Kendrick's Cinderella. He too will be discarded from the main plot without much effect before the film is over, but not before he's rendered his entire plot meaningless by turning into a minor villain, a character trait that also has little bearing on the main plot. 

Oh, and did I mention there are giants? Yes, dear reader, this movie that is packed to the gills with needless characters seems fit to toss in a giant in the final act, even after it had reached a fitting, if somewhat abrupt, happy ending. The giant is a tacked-on bit of plot intended to underline something about fairy tales … blah, blah, blah. I truly stopped caring by this point. 

Somehow, I have made it this far without raising the most offensive topic of "Into the Woods," which is Johnny Depp's uber-creepy Big Bad Wolf. Yes, I get that he is a villainous character, but was it necessary for his villainy to carry a child-rape subtext? Just take a moment to ponder these lyrics and tell me I'm overreacting: 

"Look at that flesh, pink and plump. Hello Little Girl" 

"Tender and fresh, (Sniff), not one lump. Hello Little Girl" 

Later, Red Riding Hood herself sings a song that underlines the awful subtext and takes it a step further on the creep-meter:

"He showed me many beautiful things" (What did he show her? Flowers? That's just about flowers?) "Then he bared his teeth and I got really scared, well excited and scared." (Excited? Why would she be excited? She's about to be killed in the surface context, so why is she excited?)

"But he drew me close, and he swallowed me down, down a dark slimy path where lies secrets I never want to know." (What exactly is the context of that?) 

Later Red Riding Hood sings about how she should have listened to her mother and never strayed from her path. The implication: What happened to Red was her own fault. Accuse me of overreacting all you want, but the Red Riding Hood story has long been contextualized as being about a young girl's sexual coming of age. Just ask the French.

Putting aside the creep-tastic Wolf, you still have an ungainly mess of a movie that doesn't know how to end and is overpopulated with unnecessary characters and nonsensical talk-singing. "Into the Woods' ' is a shrill disaster of a fairy-tale musical; one of the worst movies of 2014. 

Movie Review Halloween 2 (Remake)

Halloween 2 (2009) 

Directed by Rob Zombie 

Written by Rob Zombie 

Starring Scout Taylor Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif, Danielle Harris

Release Date August 28th, 2009

Published August 27th, 2009 

Rob Zombie just doesn't know when to quit. Thinking that he is pushing the envelope, Zombie adds one more swing of the knife, one more snap of the bone, one more stomp of a boot to a skull. He can't leave well enough alone and what should be an exercise in horror and fear becomes a twisted, sadistic and just plain sad insight into Zombie's own twisted psyche. This guy wasn't hugged enough as a kid.

Halloween 2 picks up the story of young Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton) who just survived being attacked by crazed killer Michael Myers. With her parents gone Laurie is staying with the sheriff (Brad Dourif) and his daughter. It is exactly one year later and Halloween is once again upon us.

We learn quickly that the body of Michael Myers was never recovered, though another survivor of Myers's attack Dr. Loomis (Malcom McDowell) assures those buying his new book that Michael is dead. He's not. As Halloween looms Michael Myers is seen walking the plains.

Like an evil Caine from Kung Fu, Myers has apparently been wandering the countryside for the past year waiting for Halloween to arrive. Why would a psycho killer wait a year? There is some gobbledygook about Michael's late mother and a deeply set psychosis but really, the only reason Michael has waited is because the movie is called Halloween.

That's about all the depth that writer-director Rob Zombie is capable of. Zombie is a hack who thinks gore is the end all be all of horror. Forget suspense. Forget characters you care about and invest in, the most important thing for Rob Zombie is getting just the right amount of entrails and just the right sound of a knife hitting skin and bone.

There is zero story, a nothing plot, the film is a series of gory set pieces in which a victim is chosen and that victim is dispatched in the loudest and most blood spattered, innards spilling fashion Zombie can dream up. For some, the lower brain oriented, this will be enough. For those with a brain, it will not.

Halloween 2 is as or maybe more brain dead than the 2007 film. Both are supremely inferior to John Carpenter's original which wastes no time with the vague notions of pop psychology that Rob Zombie uses to break up the monotony of blood and guts. Carpenter's killer was a force of nature and his unknown qualities were part of what made him fearsome.

Rob Zombie can't understand this and thinks that the demonstration of human evisceration was what made Halloween a cultural touchstone. He is, of course, wrong and his complete misunderstanding of his chosen genre is part of his overall hackery. Lame dream sequences, overwrought sound effects, overkill gore and awful acting, directing and editing make Halloween 2 one terrifically bad movie.

Movie Review Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas (2014) 

Directed by Joe Swanberg

Written by Joe Swanberg

Starring Anna Kendrick, Lena Dunham, Melanie Lynskey, Joe Swanberg 

Release Date July 24th, 2014 

October 17th, 2014

Joe Swanberg broke my brain. One minute I'm flying from idea to idea, forming connections, creating thoughts and preparing those thoughts for inspection. Then, at about the 15 minute mark of Swanberg's insipid film "Happy Christmas" I first heard and then felt a crack somewhere deep in my subconscious. Where once was the snapping and popping of neurons bursting into ideas there was now but a whistle of cold wind between my ears.

Something about the complete nothingness of "Happy Christmas" simply broke me. I was puzzled at the film and to steal an apt phrase from the brilliant comedian Bill Hicks, I was not unlike a dog who'd just been shown  a card trick. 'Just what the hell is going on here?' I muttered to the vast emptiness. Is he really just playing with a baby and being cute? Did we need to see people arrive at a party, hang up coats and capture snippets of meaningless stranger introductions? 

The emptiness extends as we get an establishing shot of actress Melanie Lynskie, playing the wife to Swanberg's own character in the film, as she shops and then leaves the shop to arrive at her car and then places her groceries behind the front seat on the floor of her vehicle and then she gets in the car? This is a necessary sequence in a supposed feature film? This scene is followed by more baby banality, enlivened only by the attempts at character work by the lovely Lena Dunahm, attempts thwarted by director Swanberg. 

"Happy Christmas," I am told, was partly scripted and partly improvised so as to give it a more realistic sensibility. That sensibility extends to the use of natural light and low quality film stock so not only is the filmmaker not bothering to write anything, he's barely decided to frame or shoot anything that might be of interest. I'm also told that there is a nam to this style of filmmaking, "Mumblecore," and that this has become a celebrated low rent art form. 

Filmed folk art perhaps? How lovely, lack of style and substance excused by the categorization as an artform. Clever? Okay. Entertaining? Not so much. Anna Kendrick is the supposed star of "Happy Christmas" but she is more window dressing than character. The advantage of having a celebrity in the film helps make the argument that this is indeed a film and not merely the beginning of an idea that somehow made it past gates of the cinema and onto the big screen before it could be properly filled out. 

You can see my brain is clearly broken because I get bitter when in pain. I write nasty little things about movies I don't like and act as if they have actually, physically wronged me. That's what happens when my brain gets broken during a movie. Yes, Joe Swanberg, not only do I blame you for breaking my brain with your pseudo-movie, I blame you for making me say mean things about your pseudo-movie. 

Great, now I'm in pain and I hate myself. 

Movie Review Synechdoche, New York

Synechdoche, New York (2008) 

Directed by Charlie Kaufman

Written by Charlie Kaufman

Starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Samathan Morton, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener

Release Date October 24th, 2008 

Published November 7th, 2009

Some movies piss off as many audience members as they enchant. That was certainly the case with Fellini whose masturbatory explorations of his own wild mind kept him a cult favorite in America though a hero in Italy. Charlie Kaufman may want to see if the Italians find his work interesting. Kaufman's film Synecdoche, New York is rather Fellini-esque in the way the director goes all internal, walking around in his own weird imagination, but without Fellini's affinity for circus performers and other such absurdities.

Synecdoche, New York stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a hypochondriac playwright trapped in a bad marriage. Catherine Keener, always Kaufman's idea of the castrating female, plays Hoffman's wife with the requisite disdain for the male gender. Keener's character has barely tolerated her husband for years but he has hardly noticed. 

Together they have a daughter who carries equal parts of dad's hypochondria and mom's disdain. At work, Hoffman has a sweet flirtation with a box office worker played by Samantha Morton who, despite a mousy appearance, has an outward sexuality. The straight forward aspect of Kaufman's screenplay ends when Keener takes the kid and splits for Germany. She claims she'll be back but she never returns. From here Synecdoche, New York turns from the story of a sad sack writer into an exploration of this man's psyche.

We are never clued into the change of setting from the suburbs of New York City to Hoffman's frontal lobe but it's not that difficult to figure out if you are willing. Some viewers will not be so willing. When a seemingly random whim finds Morton's character purchasing a house that is on fire and will remain so for the next 40 years, many in the audience will get irretrievably irritated and give up.

It's not an entirely unreasonable reaction. Hoffman's character goes on to win unlimited funding to put on the play of his choice and begins a play in a giant stadium like building that becomes a play within a play within a play about Hoffman's life putting on a play within a play within a play. At one time Hoffman hires actors to play himself and another actor to play that actor playing him. You can see where some would grow tired of this. I did not. As I watched Synecdoche, New York I found myself becoming enrapt in Kaufman's endless self investigation.

The repeated ways in which Kaufman explores his fears, fantasies and obsessions is almost hypnotic in its oddity. I say his fears, fantasies and obsessions because the playwright is clearly a stand-in for Kaufman whose fascination with the exploration of the mind has run through each of his scripts, most obviously in Being John Malkovich where characters literally went inside the mind of the Oscar winning Malkovich.

Synecdoche, New York won me over with the ways in which Kaufman so nakedly explores his own mind. The honesty, hidden behind the play within a play blah, blah, blah, aesthetic is stunning and it stays with you long after you watch the movie. Indeed, even those who come away irritated by Synecdoche, New York likely won't be able to shake it for a few days. Some may even find themselves moving from baffled and disturbed to appreciating the movie. That's powerful work. Synecdoche, New York is a powerful movie experience.

Movie Review Swinging with the Finkels

Swinging with the Finkels (2011) 

Directed by Jonathan Newman

Written by Jonathan Newman

Starring Martin Freeman, Mandy Moore, Jonathan Silverman, Melissa George

Release Date August 26th, 2011

Published September 15th, 2011 

"Swinging with the Finkels" is an odd sort of romantic comedy. The story of a bored married couple who consider Swinging, swapping partners with another married couple, as a way to spice up their spice-free marriage; "Swinging with the Finkels" has moments that are insightful and cute thanks to its pair of appealing leads.

Martin Freeman and Mandy Moore are the titular Finkels, Alvin and Ellie. College sweethearts, Alvin and Ellie have stopped being intimate with one another and Alvin is ready to chalk it up to the typicality of being married for so long. Since the two don't communicate well their uncoordinated attempts to rebuild intimacy fail quite comically.

Finally, after witnessing the seeming end of the marriage of their closest friends, played by Jonathan Silverman and Melissa George, Alvin and Ellie make one last desperate attempt to change their marriage; swinging. An ad on a website brings a very nice couple to Alvin and Ellie's flat and the night seems to go as planned.

Whether or not the swing is the thing to get Alvin and Ellie going again I will leave you to discover. What is unique about writer-director Jonathan Newman's approach to swinging is how anticlimactic the night is. Aside from a very awkward encounter between Alvin and his husband counterpart, it's a relatively peaceful event.

"Swinging with the Finkels" is not about a big, dramatic, central event but rather about smaller, quieter moments as Alvin and Ellie and their closest friends discuss the small events that add up to the bigger dramatic stuff, like the potential end of Alvin and Ellie's marriage.

Martin Freeman is a terrific actor with a very communicative face. His work has generally played off of his ability to be apoplectic; most notably his consistently overwhelmed traveler in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." In "Swinging with the Finkels" however, we see Freeman as an average, intelligent guy earnestly interested in examining how he has arrived at this point in his life and marriage.

Mandy Moore is her usual adorable self, willing to sacrifice her dignity for the laugh; especially in a scene of self pleasure that ends with an elderly man getting hit in the crotch. You will have to see the movie to see how that happened. Moore's performance however, like Freeman's, is about the quiet, thoughtful moments as much as its about the broad, crotch shot humor. 

"Swinging with the Finkels" is, in fact, so much more thoughtful than its title implies. Yes, it has moments or broad or merely awkward humor, but the the story centers strongly on the troubled marriage and how the couple attempts to understand their issues and determine if they can get past them and whether or not swinging or sex with other people may be the answer. 

Movie Review Suspiria

Suspiria (2018) 

Directed by Luca Guadagnino 

Written by David Kajganich

Starring Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Chloe Grace Moretz,Mia Goth, Angela Winkler

Release Date October 26th, 2018 

Published December 15th, 2018

I’m embarrassed to say that I am completely defeated by Suspiria. I have no idea what this movie is intending to say. I recognize that the filmmaking is lush and gorgeous and a few scenes in the movie are striking and memorable, but I cannot, for the life of me, find a point in the fine filmmaking. Suspiria isn’t scary enough for full on horror, despite some high level gore, and it doesn’t appear to have much of a political message. So what the hell did I just watch? 

Suspiria stars Dakota Johnson as Susie Bannion, a former Quaker turned wannabe dancer who has moved to Berlin to study under the famed Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton). Susie has done this on spec, she is not even guaranteed the chance to try out. The school year has already begun and there may not even be space. But, Susie takes the chance nevertheless and something in her dance strikes a chord so deep in Madame Blanc that Susie earns her way in. 

Meanwhile, in a prologue, we’ve met Patricia (Chloe Grace Moretz), a deeply troubled young girl who is visiting her psychiatrist, Dr Klemperer (also played by Tilda Swinton under heavy and convincing, old man makeup). The doctor believes that Patricia’s rants about witches at her dance school, the same one that Susie is to attend, are delusions. However, when Patricia goes missing, Dr Klemperer is forced to look at her delusions in a different manner. 

Caught in the midst of all of this, the disappearance of Patricia and the arrival of Susie, is Sara (Mia Goth). Sara was Patricia’s closest friend and has been tasked by Madame Blanc with helping Susie get situated, in Patricia’s former room no less. Sara slowly becomes suspicious and her suspicions drive much of the plot in the second act or is it the 4th? The film is divided into multiple parts with a prologue and an epilogue and an epic length, nearly an hour longer than Dario Argento’s original Suspiria. 

The style of Suspiria is top notch. The gorgeous deep focus cinematography of Call Me By Your Name cinematographer, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom takes a few notes from Argento’s original, especially with the use of the color red, but has its own unique beauty in the remarkable angles and striking use of light and dark. I have no problems whatsoever with the technical side of director Luca Guadagnino’s production. 

The issues in Suspiria arise when I attempt to bring the film into some kind of greater focus. I am trying to extract a point. One fellow critic I read said the decision to set the film in Berlin, the original was set in Freiburg, Germany, was intended to evoke the division of the city after World War 2 juxtaposed with the division of the self, i.e the public and the private, the duality at the heart of so many of us, the side we show others and the side we keep to ourselves. 

I kind of see that but it doesn’t help me understand the film's final act of blood and dance. I genuinely have no clue what happened in the final act of the movie. I could describe it in full spoiler mode because I don’t know what I would be spoiling if anything. The final blood-soaked scenes are striking but what they have to do with anything either in the story the film is telling in text or metaphorically in subtext. 

I’m embarrassed because I am usually rather adept at sussing out metaphors and deeper meanings, it’s kind of my thing. If I can’t suss one directly, I can usually assign one but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what Suspiria is intended to say about women, sexuality, dance, or witches. Maybe it’s not intended to mean anything and is just an experiment in form. If that’s the case, it’s not very clear from the characters who seem to be striding toward some kind of point, even if I can’t seem to follow it. 

Movie Review Surrogates

Surrogates (2009) 

Directed by Jonathan Mostow

Written by John Brancato, Michael Ferris 

Starring Bruce Willis, Radha Mitchell, Rosamund, Boris Kodjoe, Ving Rhames

Release Date September 25th, 2009

Published September 25th, 2009

Bruce Willis is the last of his kind it would seem, a real star. People go to the movies to see Bruce Willis. His plots don't really matter. The stories he tells and characters he plays have grown more and more outrageous and ludicrous and yet fans still turn out. The latest example is the likely number one movie of this late September weekend, Surrogates.

This derivative story of a murder in a world where sentient robots carry out the daily lives of real humans never rises to anything more than an exercise in genre and thus carries no real interest on its own merits. And yet, people turn out. Willis is a star and the only reason to spend money on Surrogates.

Set just over a decade from our own time, Bruce Willis stars in Surrogates as FBI Special Agent Greer. With his partner Peters (Radha Mitchell) Greer investigates the first murder in over a decade. Violence has grown almost non-existent in the last decade as more and more humans replaced themselves with sentient robots called Surrogates.

These Surrogates, or surrys as some call them, can't grow old, get sick and if one is damaged it is simply repaired or replaced. All the while humans control the surrey with their minds from the comfort and safety of their homes. I am told that this technology is not merely the stuff of science fiction but a real possibility.

Things are all hunky dory until Greer and Peters are called to the scene of an assault and are shocked when a pair of surrogates are linked to a pair of dead users. Somehow, the weapon employed by the assailant managed to kill the robot and its controller. The implications are staggering to the characters in the movie but anyone with a degree in plot dynamics already has the gist of the lame conspiracy thriller soon to unfold.

The plotting is obvious, especially after we are subjected to the shady corporate villains and equally shady military types who emerge as early suspects. All are going to be involved in some way and in some fashion punished per the plot requirements of such simpleminded storytelling devices.

On the bright side, all of the mediocre story is told through the always compelling presence of Mr. Willis and the capable, if predictable, direction of Jonathon Mostow (Terminator 3). Willis on his worst day is more compelling and charismatic than most of the men in his line of work. His cocksure walk, bullet head and ferocious spirit give him an unpredictable quality that brings life to even the most predictable of plots.

Willis is our tour guide through the lame plot and while he is engaged, so are we. You have to be a fan of his brand of brusque charisma to enjoy Surrogates. If not, don't bother because it is really all that this movie has going for it.

Movie Review Support the Girls

Support the Girls (2018) 

Directed by Andrew Bujalski

Written by Andrew Bujalski

Starring Regina Hall, Haley Lu Richardson, Shayna McHayle, A.J Michalka

Release Date August 24th, 2018

Published October 10th, 2018

Support the Girls stars the brilliant Regina Hall as Lisa, the fed up manager of a Hooters-esque sports bar in some nameless California strip mall. Lisa has played den mother to a core group of waitresses for a few years now, including Maci (Haley Lu Richardson) and Danyelle (Shayna McHayle), among others. Lately, Lisa has grown fully weary of the place where she works. The pay isn’t great, the boss, played by James LeGros, is a jerk and even her girls are becoming a bit of a pain. 

On this day that we are watching unfold in Support the Girls things have begun in a most trying fashion. Krista (A.J Michalka) has dumped her boyfriend and is having a serious legal problem and no money to help her get out of trouble. She’s going to stay at Lisa’s house while Lisa figures out a way to help her. Krista will be at Lisa’s alongside Lisa’s husband, who has recently lost his job and has become shiftless and depressed. 

When Lisa arrives at the restaurant she finds the place has been broken into and the thief is trapped in the ceiling. In climbing into the ceiling, the thief has taken out the cable so now she has a sports bar with no sports and a big fight tonight that is supposed to bring in a big crowd. At the very least, Lisa does get an idea to help Krista, she’s going to do a charity car wash with the help of a group of eager young applicants who showed up for job interviews that Lisa forgot about. 

The car wash will need to come off without her boss, Cubby (LeGros) finding out about it, meaning no social media push. She also needs to come up with a fake charity because if people know it’s just for some girls' legal defense they may not be sympathetic. The problems continue to mount both big and small including Maci spending too much time with an old man customer and Danyelle lacking child care and thus bringing her son to work with her. 

None of these situations that Lisa is dealing with are particularly funny in and of themselves but as they add up, one after another after another, there is a compelling narrative that always keeps your attention. Regina Hall is a wonderful actress, endlessly sympathetic and when she’s fed up, you feel it and you can’t help but be in that moment with her. Her bickering with LeGros’ Cubby has a nasty quality to it with an edge that tells you perhaps she’s going to be fired at any moment. 

That sparky kind of tension is perhaps the real driving force of Support the Girls. Throughout the movie these types of sparky if not flat out, fiery exchanges bubble up and kick the plot forward. Orange is the New Black star Lea DeLaria is in the movie as a tough talking customer who feels a deep protectiveness toward the girls and isn’t afraid to throw down if someone is getting out of line. Delaria keeps amping up tensions in each of her scenes and she is incredibly fun to watch. 

Haley Lu Richardson is a complete doll as the endlessly chipper Maci. Maci is the party starter, the sexy chick who is both putting on an act and living that act. Credit to Richardson, and to screenwriter and director Andrew Bujalski, for never settling on Maci’s stereotypical qualities. She takes the flirting with the old man customer story to a place of genuine, unexpected pathos in a scene that really made me smile. 

Smiles are the par for the course of Support the Girls. The film isn’t big on drama or comedy. It’s a slice of Life movie that consistently engages via smart and charming characters and lead performance by Regina Hall that you can’t resist rooting for. The film isn’t perfect but it will make you happy for the most part. Support the Girls achieves very modest goals of being engaging and charming if not deeply artful, moving or laugh out loud hilarious. 

Documentary Review The Stone Reader

The Stone Reader (2003) 

Directed by Mark Moskowitz 

Written by Documentary 

Staring Mark Moskowitz 

The name Dow Mossman may not stir the average man on the street. Other than the unusual nature of the name Dow, the name has little cache.

That is, except for a one man fan club named Mark Moskowitz who knows everything there is to know about Dow Mossman. Why? Because in 1972 a then 18 year old Moskowitsz read a New York Times review of a book called The Stones of Summer. The review caused Moskowitz to seek out this book that was described as the novel of its generation by Times reviewer John Seelye. Thus began a series of events that some thirty years later became a documentary called The Stone Reader, a paean to the art and craft of reading and appreciating a great book.

As a 17-year-old, Mark Moskowitz got very sick. His weeks of bed rest left him with little else to do but read. It was during this time that he discovered a number of books including The Stones of Summer by Dow Mossman. Unfortunately for Mark, Stones was a little too dense. The pack rat in Mark however caused him to hold onto the book and nearly thirty years later he picked it up again. What he found was a transforming literary experience, a book that spoke to him in a way that few books ever had.

Assuming that since the book had been written so long ago that the author must have a number of books available, Mark began to scour the internet for the works of Dow Mossman. To his surprise, however, there were no other books. There was in fact no information about Dow Mossman at all, as if he had disappeared completely.

What began as a curiosity quickly grew into a passion. Why had such a brilliant writer simply stopped after one incredible piece of work? Mark, now in his late thirties and working as a director of political commercials, decided that he would put his behind the camera skills to new use in the medium of documentary filmmaking, find Dow Mossman and discover why he had stopped writing.

That is the story of The Stone Reader. Without giving too much away as to what Mark Moskowitz discovered in his work and whether he ever found Dow Mossman, you'll have to see that for yourself. This is a truly magnificent documentary. The film has traditional documentary elements like talking head interviews and narration but what is unique is the way that Mark Moskowitz makes the search for Dow Mossman more about himself than Dow or his book. Moskowitz has an aggressive almost abrasive personality and yet as the documentary moves along he wins you over with his passion.

Moskowitz narrates the film himself as if he were reading a book on tape and it's a really great book. The images on the screen often have nothing to do with the narration and yet it feels right. It's as if you were in his head as he reminisces about books and his journey with Dow. One particularly striking sequence, Moskowitz discusses another author whose work output was limited to one brilliant novel, Joseph Heller, author of Catch 22.

Moskowitz goes on for something like 15 minutes discussing military novels that he discovered as a kid and happening upon Catch 22. Heller died just as the documentary was being made and that fact likely inspired this bit of stream of consciousness. As this narration goes, the images on the screen are of Moskowitz's son at an amusement park riding the Ferris wheel, winning toys and eating cotton candy. The camera is Mark's perspective watching his son and it's as if the narration is happening in his head.

There are a number of shorter sequences of the same kind and they all have a quality that draws the audience closer to the subject. Combined with interviews that piece together the clues of Dow Mossman's disappearance, it’s like a Sherlock Holmes novel but with a lighter tone. Moskowitz tips his hand a couple of times that finding Dow might be easier than he lets on and almost admits a couple times that he is dragging things out, but it's such a terrific journey that I didn't mind.

Documentary Review Stevie

Stevie (2003) 

Directed by Steve James

Written by Documentary 

Starring Stevie Fielding, Steve James 

Release Date April 11th, 2003 

Published July 4th, 2003

In 1994, Steve James took us inside the lives of a pair of rising basketball stars in Hoop Dreams. We watched as these two naive kids tried to navigate the world of big time college basketball, all the while still in high school. Roger Ebert called Hoop Dreams the best film of 1994, and it's difficult to argue with that. Now after a brief respite in the world of fiction directing, James returns to the documentary field with a very personal story that draws from his own past and brings him out from behind the camera and into the story.

Before launching his career in documentary filmmaking, Steve James was a college student who volunteered for Big Brothers/Big Sisters, an organization that pairs volunteers with needy kids who need guidance and a good role model. It was here that Steve came across Stevie, a young boy from a troubled home. It wasn't long though before circumstances intervened that caused Steve and Stevie to part ways. Some ten years later James is back home to promote Hoop Dreams and takes time to drop in on Stevie. What he finds is ten years of sadness, pain and familial strife all centered around Stevie.

Originally, James didn't plan on being on camera with exception of the film’s introduction. He had planned on hiding behind the camera and not getting overly involved. However what he found upon visiting Stevie was a kid that needed someone to talk to, who desperately needed guidance and with no father figure in Stevie's life, James unwillingly accepts the role.

In the time James spends with Stevie, learning about his past and all that happened since they last saw each other, we find out the horrors that awaited him. In those ten years, Stevie bounced from foster home to foster home, he was beaten and molested and has become very bitter towards his mother who gets most of the blame for his wrong turn in life. To be fair, James interviews Stevie's mother who explains her side, though she doesn't come off very sympathetic. Stevie also expresses some bitterness toward James who he feels abandoned him.

Over the course of months and years of off and on contact, James chronicles Stevie's odd life. From battles with his sister and mother to Stevie going to jail on a charge that James isn't sure is true. The final scenes culminate in a jailhouse interview in which James has to accept some hard truths about Stevie and excise some of his guilt, however unfounded that guilt is.

Stevie as a character is truly shocking and sad. The stereotype of white trash may have started with Stevie, he's violent, crude, ignorant, lazy and a racist. He's also occasionally sweet and caring, especially with his mentally handicapped girlfriend even if that relationship is as dysfunctional as any in Stevie's life. Stevie is impossible to like and especially care about. Even so, he's been through a lot in his life and certainly a lot of people let Stevie down throughout his life.

As for Steve James the filmmaker, he does earn our sympathy and watching his reaction to Stevie is truly emotional and sad. It's easy to see why James gave up on little Stevie and you don't blame him for walking away from him at the end. James did everything he could for Stevie but now with a family of his own, especially having his own little children, he can't continue to help Stevie. No good deed goes unpunished yet James seems to get nothing but punishment from his relationship with Stevie.

Movie Review Star Trek

Star Trek (2009) 

Directed by JJ Abrams

Written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman

Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, Eric Bana, Winona Ryder

Release Date May 8th, 2009 

Published May 7th, 2009 

On the great sci-fi divide between trekkies and followers of the force I am squarely in the Skywalker camp. I have nothing against Trek. In the 90's in fact I had a brief love affair with Star Trek The Next Generation. That lasted until Deep Space Nine came along and bored the crap out of me. That was followed by three exceptionally mediocre Next Generation movies that did little to bring me around to the Starfleet way, even as George Lucas was damaging my memories of his holy trilogy with his unholy prequels.

Now, I cannot be sure where I stand. After seeing J.J Abrams revamp the Star Trek legend with energy, wit and edge of your seat summer movie adrenaline, I am tempted to turn my loyalties over to Captain James Tiberius Kirk. Blasphemy? Maybe to Star Wars fanatics, but even those who've fought this battle for years must first see this exceptional new Star Trek before excoriating me for allowing Trek into places in my movie loving heart where only the Force had been before.

Star Trek the reboot begins with the birth of James T. Kirk aboard a starship Captained by his father George. It wasn't initially captained by George Kirk but after being attacked by a Romulan ship captained by the empirious Nero (Eric Bana) it was left to First Officer Kirk to go down with the ship as he evacuated the crew, including his in labor wife (House star Jennifer Morrison in a terrific cameo). George Kirk's heroism will no doubt be the model for his son.

Later in life, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) is a rebellious Iowa farm boy with little thought of the future despite a knack for leadership and the instincts of a warrior. Thankfully, these traits are recognized by the captain of the Enterprise, Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) who challenges Kirk to join StarFleet. His father became an officer in just 4 years, James says he can do it in 3.

Parallel to Kirk's story is that of Spock (Zachary Quinto, TV's Heroes top villain Sylar). The son of a Vulcan elder and a human woman, Spock is the Vulcan equivalent of an outcast, one who is capable of emotion as much as he is subject to the rigorous logic that Vulcan's thrive on. It is the human side of Spock that leads him to Star Fleet and his Vulcan mastery of knowledge and combat that quickly makes him a leader.

These two men are destined to clash but history tells us that great things will come of those clashes, including a timeless friendship. This leads us to the main question many will have about Star Trek, how does it fit the Star Trek canon? The answer will be different for different audiences.

Those with the most strict fealty to Star Trek lore may poke a few holes. Those with no loyalty will set phasers on the film's use of time travel and call it a cheat. People who think like me however, not strictly tied to lore, willing to put aside the laws of physics in favor of a good time, will find clever the ways in which Director Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have found to use Trek lore and yet chart their own path to a whole new franchise.

It's a spectacularly clever device, one I won't divulge here, only to say that it isn't unfair to call it a cheat. That said, if you call it a cheat, summer movies clearly are not your cup of tea. A summer popcorn adventure is not subject to all of the rigors of typical movies. Movies that strive to mean more to our lives, movies that attempt to communicate deep human truths and reveal the soul of man are a different breed from the Star Trek-Star Wars-Iron Man movies which occasionally stumble across truths but are geared more toward the visceral excitement that is just as valuable.

People tend to trash the thrill as a base emotion. Maybe it is, but would you want a life without thrills? Star Trek delivers thrills on several different levels and I couldn't get enough. The film is first an action packed popcorn movie with spectacular effects. It is second a film that takes characters with rich histories and makes functional use of those histories to thrill us with surprise. And on another level, this is an origin story that introduces a group of charismatic heroes and fosters a newfound attachment to them. On one level trekkies will geek over this glimpse into the lives of their longtime heroes. On another level, the uninitiated will find well grounded new heroes with new stories to tell in unique and exciting fashion.

Star Trek is a visceral summer movie experience that will make you squirm in your seat, catch your breath and laugh all in the space of mere moments. J.J Abrams has a mastery of the action movie form that might be unexpected of a television veteran and while I wish he would keep the camera static during the quieter scenes, he is forgiven for likely being overly excited to get to the loud stuff, the loud stuff being so darn fun.

Fun is the operative word here. Pure Summer Movie, popcorn fun from scene one to the very end. Movies like Star Trek are why we go to the movies in the summer instead of being outside where we belong, you just can't have this much fun anywhere else.

Movie Review Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D

Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D

Directed by Eric Brevig

Written by Mark Levett, Jennifer Flackett

Starring Brendan Fraser, Josh Hutcherson, Anita Briem, Seth Meyers 

Release Date July 11th, 2008

Published July 10th, 2008

3D remains nothing more than a novelty at the movies. An amusement park attraction that can thrill briefly but only occasionally. For every Robert Zemeckis who wants to use 3D to its most artistic limits, as he attempted in Beowulf, there is a movie like Journey To the Center of the Earth which brings nothing but amusement park thrills to the table.

Brenden Fraser stars in Journey to the Center of the Earth as Dr. Trevor Anderson. A geologist, Trevor has spent recent years tracking the path of his late brother who disappeared as he searched for entry to the center of the earth using the text of Jules Verne's legendary novel as a real life guide.

With funding for his experiments dwindling, Trevor is facing the prospect of losing his brother's legacy forever when his nephew Sean (Josh Hutcherson) arrives. Sean couldn't care less about geology, his dad disappeared when he was very young. However, it is on a tour of Trevor's lab that Sean stumbles on a clue that may lead them to the place where Dad disappeared.

Taking off for Iceland, Trevor and Sean follow Jules Verne's novel and find themselves climbing the side of a possibly active volcano. Finding his brother's former campsite, Trevor and Sean encounter Hannah (Anita Briem) whose father also disappeared in the same pursuit. She offers to be their guide and quickly the trio are repelling into a hole in the earth that leads to an astonishing adventure.

Directed by Eric Brevig, making his feature filmmaking debut, Journey of the Center of the Earth makes no pretense of being anything other than a series of amusement park thrills. The use of 3D is often forced and at times awkward but once we are in the center of the earth encountering chases and dinosaurs and other such dangers, you likely won't care about the forced moments.

Brenden Fraser is the perfect actor for this role. Both a big galoot and a goofball, Fraser has the good nature and the action chops to make this journey a lot of fun. I am getting excited for his next battle with Mummies coming in August. Journey to the Center of the Earth is the perfect reminder of why I'm so excited.

Like the Mummy movies, Journey to the Center of the Earth is pure fun and excitement. Cheap amusement park thrills? Definitely, but who cares when they are real thrills.

Movie Review Bedtime Stories

Bedtime Stories (2008) 

Directed by Adam Shankman

Written by Tim Herlihy, Matt Lopez

Starring Adam Sandler, Courtney Cox, Guy Pearce, Russell Brand, Jonathan Pryce

Release Date December 25th, 2008

Published Decemer 24th, 2008

Oh what a shock! Sean hates an Adam Sandler movie. Stop the presses. Well, now wait a second. I was developing a grudging affinity for the former SNL star. I liked Punch Drunk Love. I thought he was tremendous in the terribly flawed movie Reign Over Me. And, I even liked You Don't Mess With The Zohan for the sheer glee of its offensiveness.

I honestly thought that Sandler was maturing and recognizing that even the most outlandish story, such as Zohan, needed some dramatic parameters. I thought maybe that he was developing a knowledge of how to build believable characters and motivations. And I thought maybe his juvenilia was evolving a little.

Oh how wrong I was. Bedtime Stories is the lowest piece of garbage that Sandler has crafted since Billy Madison. Insulting, stupid, beyond juvenile, this alleged 'family' movie from Disney of all places, ranks among the lowest moments of Sandler's already low career.

Bedtime Stories stars Sandler as Skeeter, a hotel handyman who had grown up in the hotel business. His father played by Jonathan Pryce, who also narrates the movie, once owned the hotel and lived their with his son and his daughter played by Courtney Cox.

Dad passed away not long after he had sold the hotel to a hotelier played by Richard Griffiths. He turned the tiny hotel into a massive hotel palace and kept Skeeter on as a handyman for some 20 years. Now he is about to open a new hotel and Skeeter hopes to run it.

Meanwhile, Skeeter's sis has lost her job and must travel out of state for a job interview. She needs little brother to watch her two kids for a week despite his having not seen them in four years. Nevertheless, he accepts. Each night at bedtime they require a story and for some unknown reason portions of the stories come to life the following day.

The script for Bedtime Stories was apparently penned on the back of a cocktail napkin. It read "Children's Bedtime stories come to life starring Adam Sandler". The rest of the production involved hiring a cast and director who would simply make up everything else that happens.

Nevermind if any of it connects into some coherent story or if the characters motivation or even their dialogue makes a lick of sense, we've got Adam Sandler and a premise, that's all the filmmakers felt they needed. Oh, how wrong they were.

What the cast and director Adam Shankman invented around this premise was brutal, unending stupidity. True garbage. None of the characters make any sense. Plot strands arrive and then are shoved off screen maybe to be revisited later. Characters are introduced and quickly dispatched without making a lick of difference to the story.

I realize that I am not supposed to care whether Skeeter would be at all qualified to run a hotel, it's not necessary information, but as presented I would not allow Skeeter to run a gas pump. Kids will not care that they are being insulted by such plot insinuations but I was endlessly irritated with the lack of care that anyone from Sandler to the director to the producers took with this plot construction.

But again, this is a kids movie you say. Why does it matter. The kids will love the bright colors and the googly eyed, farting guinea pig. They'll eat it up. Well, I will tell you why it matters. Because kids should not eat this up. Kids should not be subjected to such shoddy work.

Director Shankman's work is sloppy at best and Sandler hasn't been this lazy on screen since Mr. Deeds. Kids deserve better. They may not know it but they deserve better than to simply have their senses tickled. They deserve better than bright colors and fart jokes from a slipshod director and lazy superstar who do their jobs on autopilot why? Because it's just a kiddie flick.

No, kids deserve better. Kids deserve movies that don't patronize and appeal to their lower minds. Kids deserve movies that challenge them to think and imagine. They need and I believe they crave movies that expand their minds and make them think of bigger and better things.

Movies like Wall-E and Horton Hears A Who and Kung Fu Panda have been released this year and each of these animated features have entertained kids and caused their imaginations and intellects to expand. Kids came out of those movies laughing and smiling and best of all dreaming.

Bedtime Stories may occasionally make them laugh or smile but it won't make them dream. It will stifle them. They may not know it or show it but they will feel short changed. They will instinctively know that their time and their imagination has been wasted and the long term effect will be for them to expect less of movies.

The long term effect will be felt when years later they expect nothing of the movies and of art but the base visceral need for a distraction from daily life and that is a sad end. I know you will say I am overreacting and that Bedtime Stories is a mere trifle of a movie that will be long forgotten by most in less than a week but I am telling you, your wrong.

Bedtime Stories is an affliction. It is a long term damaging of the psyche. A movie whose future effect will be to lower the standards of what children expect of art and what they think is expected of them as people. If you care so little what you use to stimulate your child they will come to expect less of their own stimulation.

Bedtime Stories is the worst movie of 2008.

Movie Review Stan & Ollie

Stan & Ollie (2018)

Directed by Jon S. Baird

Written by Jeff Pope

Starring John C. Reilly, Steve Coogan, Shirley Henderson, Nina Arianda, Danny Huston

Release Date December 28th, 2018

Published December 26th, 2018

Stan & Ollie is a late addition to my best of the year list. This wonderful film chronicling the final tour of the legendary comedy duo Laurel & Hardy is funny and poignant without ever becoming cloying or pushy. Steve Coogan and John C Reilly beautifully capture the history and the strain between the two great friends and partners as they attempt to salvage one last bit of glory before the spotlight fades for good.

In 1954, having not made a movie together in 15 years, Laurel & Hardy reunited for a tour of England in hopes of getting a movie project off the ground with an English producer. Things don’t get off to an auspicious start as their tour manager, Delfont (Rufus Jones) books them a run down hotel and a small theater that they are unable to sell out. Worse yet, the producer of their proposed film project won’t take Stan’s calls.

Things become so dire that it appears as if the tour will be cut short as ticket sales lag. Meanwhile, we cut to the back story of what led to their break up 15 years earlier. Danny Huston portrays legendary producer Hal Roach, the man who put the duo together and brought them to the big screen. While Ollie is content with their arrangement, Stan, who once partnered with Charlie Chaplin before his days in the movies, wants to make more money.

With Stan’s contract up, he’s managed to book a deal with Fox but only for Laurel & Hardy, not just for himself. The deal fell through when Ollie decided to remain with Hal Roach and even made a movie, Zenobia, without his long time partner. Zenobia wasn’t a hit and for more than a decade both men’s careers foundered. We don’t know what brought them back together but a payday in England appears to have been the reason.

Even still, the two have a tremendous stage act that we get glimpses of and those glimpses are hysterically funny. As the story progresses, the two begin to do press for the tour and eventually the tour begins to gain ground and sell out shows. Naturally, old tensions come back into light and the tour is thrown into chaos when it appears that Hardy’s health won’t allow him to continue.

Stan & Ollie was directed by Jon S Baird whose previous film, Filth, starring James McAvoy, is quite a departure from the gentle and sweet poignance of Stan & Ollie. Nevertheless, Baird does a tremendous job keeping a good pace and with cinematographer Laurie Rose, he’s crafted not just a funny movie, but quite a beautiful movie. Credit also goes to prosthetics makeup designer Mark Coulier for turning the lanky Mr Reilly seamlessly into the corpulent Mr Hardy.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also praise screenwriter Jeff Pope who worked from the book Laurel & Hardy: The British Tours by A.J Marriott. The dialogue, though mostly inferred, feels real, dynamic, and authentic. The lovely recreations of the Laurel & Hardy performances are wonderful but it is the private moments that resonate deeply, especially a near break up scene that plays as comedy for those who can’t hear the deeply hurtful things the two say to one another.

And then, of course, there are the two incredible performances at the center of the film. John C Reilly has earned both a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award nomination for his performance as Oliver Hardy and both are much deserved. Reilly, even under pounds of prosthetics finds the heart of Oliver Hardy in lovely fashion. He appears to have been a lovely man and while the film likely shaves the edges off of all of these characters, this is a lovely way to remember these men.

Steve Coogan in many ways has a much harder performance. Stan Laurel played the fool in many of the Laurel & Hardy movies, bumbling his friend into one silly bit of nonsense after another, but behind the scenes, Laurel was a force to be reckoned with. Laurel wrote much of the duo's routines for stage and screen and was even deferred to by many directors for how to film those routines, though he never earned a directors credit.

Coogan movingly captures the pain and frustration that made Stan Laurel so driven and yet so kind. He wasn’t wrong to want to get the duo more money, they were rather underpaid given their success, and it is a fine tribute to the man that he never stopped fighting for the recognition that he felt they both deserved, but especially for the endless hours of work he put in to make them so successful.

Stan & Ollie is a wonderful movie, a true crowd pleaser. It’s a movie that fans and friends and family of the legendary duo can be proud of. Yes, they had their petty differences and egotism but at the heart, they were showmen and dedicated friends. Stan & Ollie is the kind of tribute these two men deserve after so many years of being under-recognized behind contemporaries such The Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and the copycats who came after such as Abbott & Costello and, to a lesser extent, Martin & Lewis.

Movie Review Spy Kids All the Time in the World

Spy Kids All The Time in the World (2011)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

Written by Robert Rodriguez

Starring Jessica Alba, Joel McHale, Alexa Vega, Daryl Sabara, Rowan Blanchard, Mason Cook, Ricky Gervais

Release Date August 19th, 2011

Published August 21st, 2011 

When it comes to the fourth film in any franchise critical expectations are low and, generally, the movie lives down to those low expectations. Then, on occasion, there are movies like "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" which exceeds expectations beyond all measure and becomes the most pleasant of surprises.

"Spy Kids: All the Time in the World," presented in 4D Aroma-Scope, more on that later, picks up eight years after the action of "Spy Kids 3D: Game Over." The Spy Kids program has been shuttered but the Organization of Super Spies is still in action with Agent Marissa Wilson (Jessica Alba) as the world's top super spy.

Though nine months pregnant and going into labor, Marissa still manages to chase down the evil mastermind Tick Tock (Jeremy Piven) before meeting her husband Wilbur (Joel McHale) and her step kids, Rebecca (Rowan Blanchard) and Cecil (Mason Cook) at the hospital for the birth of a baby girl. Cut to one year later, Marissa is retired and raising the baby while trying hard to connect with the resistant Rebecca and the more welcoming Cecil. Wilbur is now a TV star, host of "Wilbur Wilson: Spy Hunter," though he's never caught a spy and doesn't know that he's married to one.

Tick Tock has escaped with the help of a new mad baddie, The Timekeeper, who has set in motion a plan to speed up time. Soon, Marissa is reactivated to save the world and her step-kids are accidentally activated as the newest Spy Kids. With the help of their mechanical Spy Dog, Argonaut (voice of Ricky Gervais), and some gadgets courtesy of the original Spy Kid, Carmen Cortez (Alex Vega, all grown up), the kids soon become the only kids capable of saving the world.

Just when you think that Robert Rodriguez is cynically cashing in on the known property that is the "Spy Kids" franchise, he surprises you with a brand new, highly inventive, and completely fun new addition to the franchise. "Spy Kids 4" is surprisingly delightful with two terrific new Spy Kids and a game adult cast that both get the joke but go along for the ride just the same.

Ricky Gervais steals the movie as the voice of Argonaut, the Spy Dog. Gervais's constant quipping deflates any sense of importance that the world saving adventure might have and helps keep the light, airy, funny vibe from receding into perfunctory, childish action adventure and 3D explosions.

Gervais is matched scene for stolen scene by Mason Cook as Cecil. This kid is a real find, a terrific young physical comic with the deadpan timing of an old time comedian. Rowan Blanchard has the more complex and far less fun role of the more serious Spy Kid but she doesn't lack for fun, especially with her ingenious love of practical jokes that also happens to be a great asset as a Spy Kid.

So, what of the fourth dimension? Aroma-Scope is the gimmick du jour of "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" and it is kind of fun. Fans attending "Spy Kids 4" will receive a card with eight numbers on it. Throughout the movie an onscreen prompt instructs when to scratch and sniff the numbers on the card. More often than not I smelled nothing but the cardboard card though there was the strong hint of what I believe was Lucky Charms on one of the numbers and, no surprise, a slightly foul scent on another.

Aroma-Scope is not going to catch on in a big way but for "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" it is a cute gimmick in keeping with the overall cuteness of the movie. But, ``Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" is even more than merely cute; Robert Rodriguez also includes a healthy message in the movie about time spent with family.

"Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" is a cute, sweet, smart and very funny kid adventure that gives new and clever life to a franchise that had seemed to have run its course. In fact, "Spy Kids: All the Time in the World" is so good, I am ready for the Spy Kids' next adventure.

Movie Review Spongebob Squarepants Sponge Out of Water

Spongebob Squarepants Sponge Out of Water (2015) 

Directed by Paul Tibbitt 

Written by Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger 

Starring Tom Kenny, Antonio Banderas, Matt Berry 

Release Date February 6th, 2015

Published February 5th, 2015 

How does a film so shamelessly appeal to the tastes of tots and stoners alike and not wind up doomed to be assailed by the culture warriors? By becoming a capitalist commodity first and an anarchic, tripped out, cartoon second. That is the journey of "Spongebob Squarepants" which innocently invaded popular kids culture in the early 2000's and became an unassailable pop titan. 

The freedom of success has allowed this Nickelodeon product to evolve in ways that no one likely imagined. From what was a minor distraction for kiddies a strange cult classic of stoner nostalgia has emerged. Over time the tots who loved Spongebob's seemingly innocent shenanigans were joined in front of the television by their cereal slurping, red-eyed older brother who laughed at the jokes that the little ones just missed. 

Sure, the creators of the series maintain the innocence at the show's heart but their claims to innocence are certainly challenged by a product that has grown increasingly weird in most recent and slightly controversial incarnations. It's a strange evolution that today culminates in the ultimate evidence of the show's sneaky stoner appeal, "The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water." 

Sure, on the surface this is merely an attempt to return Spongebob Squarepants to the pop ether and make gobs of money while doing it. But, watch the film and the Dali-esque, dizzying imagery comes roaring out at the audience in ways only those on psychotropic stimulants can truly understand. As someone who's never experienced a drug induced freak out, I can only imagine it is something akin to the time travel trip taken in "Sponge Out of Water" by our hero Spongebob and his unlikely pal and former enemy Plankton. 

If you thought Peter Fonda's swirling, twisting vortex freak out in 1969's "The Trip" was trip inducing, wait till you get a load of the wall of sight and sound that takes Spongebob and Plankton through time and space. Only a true stoner, wacked out on the best Maui-Wowie and grooving to Kubrick's "2001" could truly appreciate the sites created herein. I'm not kidding, these scenes are really messed up. 

Things really get tripped out when Spongebob and Plankton, on the run through time and space to escape having been accused of stealing the secret recipe for Krabby Patties, find themselves in a future world run by a talking Dolphin named Bubbles. Bubbles is voiced by the brilliant British comic Matt Berry in full Douglas Reynholm bluster. Throwing Berry into a mix that also includes Antonio Banderas as a pirate named Burger Beard, is really the last piece of evidence needed to prove that the makers of Spongebob are indeed attempting to bridge the gap between Nickelodeon comedy and Cheech and Chong. 

Looking back I realize I am making this sound like a bad thing. In reality, it's more innocuous than anything. Despite the bleating of many conservatives, there isn't anything truly dangerous about stoners. The fact that they can be as entertained as little children by the same form of entertainment is only subversive in the eyes of those who see smoking marijuana as some sort of societal ill. 

There are many more damning things that people could be doing aside from getting baked and watching "The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water." Things like Sub-Prime Mortgages or murder for hire schemes against their employers or ironically attending WNBA Games are certainly less worthy efforts than getting stoned and laughing hysterically as a talking sponge battles Antonio Banderas as pirate named Burger Beard. 

I guess my main point is that we should just be honest about the appeal of "The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water" and stop acting like it's just a kids movie. The fact is, Spongebob has a foot firmly planted in two separate but equal satirical worlds that appeal equally and differently to two very specific sets of audiences and there is nothing wrong with that. 

Let's let Spongebob's freak flag fly free and not be so uptight and silly as to believe that just because stoners enjoy a kids show that kids will automatically grow up to be stoners. This isn't a nature or nurture argument over the future of our children, it's just a silly cartoon that happens to be tripping balls and delighting children all at once.

Movie Review: Wanted

Wanted (2008) 

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

Written by Michael Brandt, Derek Haas, Chris Morgan

Starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Terrence Stamp, Common, Chris Pratt

Release Date June 27th, 2008

Published June 27th, 2008 

For years Angelina Jolie has been a lot of flash and little cash at the box office. It seemed she was a bigger draw in the gossip columns than she was at the box office, her star power better suited to selling People and Us Weekly than her movies. With the release of the new ultra-violent action flick Wanted however, things have definitely changed.

Though Wanted is ostensibly about James McAvoy's rookie assassin, the ad campaign made quite clear that Ms. Jolie's killer pout and outstanding derriere were the real draws of this summer mind melter.

Wanted stars James McAvoy as a sadsack cubicle drone who finds himself the target of the world's greatest assassin. It seems that McAvoy's Wesley Gibson just happens to be the progeny of another of the world's greatest assassins and that the ability to kill with precision is a genetic trait that doesn't skip a generation.

Helping to hone Wesley's heretofore unknown talents is an elite group of assassins known as The Fraternity. Lead by Sloan (Morgan Freeman), The Fraternity of assassins dedicated to meting out fate as delivered to them by an ancient loom that can see the future. No, I'm NOT KIDDING! With the help of his trainer, Fox (Jolie), Wesley is to be trained to track down the man who killed his father, Mr X (David O'Hara).

Russian born director Timur Bekmambetov became a world wide sensation everywhere except in America with his series of Russian vampire series Nightwatch, Daywatch and the upcoming Twilight Watch. These stylish, high impact action flicks are on the cutting edge of special effects and likely would have been major hits were it not for the subtitles.

Taking elements of The Matrix and creating a killer trilogy mythology, BekMambetov has set box office records in his home country. For his American debut Bekmambetov brought along his talent for bombast and left behind his talent for mythology and grand storytelling. That may be due to him having left the screenplay duties to Americans Derek Haas and Michael Brandt.

These junk food junkie Americans cram a candy bar full of action and effects into Wanted and neglect anything close to a meal in terms of storytelling. This is brain free American entertainment of the most outrageous level and that it works is a testament for our love of true junk. As bad romantic comedies can be well equated with chocolate, Wanted is the Red Bull of movies, all caffeine.

Angelina Jolie has always dripped with sexuality but few films have played that aspect of Ms. Jolie as well as Wanted. Rather than be merely offensive with it's obvious objectification of Ms. Jolie, Wanted makes it the central preoccupation of Wesley, our hero. With Wesley focused on Ms. Jolie's assets (ahem) so are we. The forced perspective has a way of turning the objectification into a form of worship rather than something entirely sleezy.

So what of Mr. McAvoy? He is actually the perfect choice for a role such as this. A bigger star would be less 'believable', in terms of this movie, not believable in any real sense of the word, (CONTEXT PEOPLE!). Because McAvoy has never played a role such as this we have few expectations of him. He exceeds any and all expectations  by miles and we can't help but be roped into his world and his experiences as he seems to react as an average person might and not just a movie character.

That said, as good as Ms. Jolie and Mr. McAvoy are, Wanted is a relatively dull witted picture. Bouncing as it does from one overly loud set piece to the next, Wanted is not a film to attend if one is searching for the deep and meaningful. Like last year's Shoot'Em Up, a slightly more entertaining version of the same Red Bull style action movie, Wanted is all about the quick shot of adrenaline and little else.

This style is entertaining while your watching it but unless you take notes as I do, it's forgotten by the time you get to your car. Wanted is pure brain free entertainment for the videogame and energy drink crowd. Skip it if you like your movies with a little more meat on their  bones. If however, you are searching for a movie that will be in and out of your consciousness like a freight train, Wanted is the movie for you.

Movie Review: You Don't Mess with the Zohan

You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) 

Directed by Dennis Dugan

Written by Adam Sandler, Judd Apatow, Robert Smigel

Starring Adam Sandler, Emmanuel Chriqui, Rob Schneider, Lainie Kazan

Release Date June 6th, 2008

Published June 6th, 2008

It's strange to think of Adam Sandler and societal relevance. And yet, when you look back on his recent career it's difficult to miss a sort of ripped from the headlines quality to his resume. In Reign Over Me Sandler tackled post 9/11 grieving. In I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry it was gay marriage. Now with his latest Summer blockbuster Sandler takes on the middle east, specifically the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and does so with the kind of irreverence and all encompassing bad taste that leaves everyone offended and everyone laughing all at once.

In You Don't Mess With the Zohan Sandler plays 'The Zohan' an ex-Israeli secret police agent who gives up war with Palestine in favor of New York City and the opportunity to become a hairdresser. Taking a job in a neighborhood where Jews and Palestinians live in peace with one another, the Zohan finds himself not just working for a Palestinian, Deliah (Emanuel Chiriqi), but falling in love with her.

Things get dangerous for the Zohan however when a former Palestinian foe, now a cabdriver (Rob Schneider) recognizes him and decides to kill him. The cabby eventually calls on the Zohan's former enemy 'The Phantom' to do the job. The real enemy however is a developer (Michael 'Are You Ready to Rumble' Buffer) who wants the property occupied by Israelis and Palestinians and hires a group of rednecks, lead by James (rocker Dave Matthews), to burn the community to ground and get the two sides to blame each other for the fire.

The plot is more cohesive than the usual Sandler collection of gags, likely due to the influence of current comedy top dog Judd Apatow who joins forces with Sandler and director Dennis Dugan on a script that does slightly more than exist to allow for Sandler's many physical gags and gay jokes. There is an earnest and honest attempt at a message of peace and love for Israelis and Palestinians even as the film offers stunningly offensive caricatures of each. The filmmakers take the perspective that as long as everyone is offended no one is offended and the approach kinda works.

As resistant as I was for much of the Zohan's antics I did find myself laughing loudly more than I ever imagined. Yes, the gay jokes get old and offensive real fast. Yes, watching the Zohan make his name early on in the New York scenes by banging old ladies is utterly horrifying. Nevertheless, you laugh and in a comedy can you really ask much more? And with the Zohan striving for uplift in such an honest fashion, it's hard to dislike and indeed not admire the efforts of the Zohan.

Adam Sandler isn't about to solve the middle east crisis but he seems to care and that is something from the man who was The Waterboy and Little Nicky.