Tron: Legacy/Tron: The Original Classic [2-Movie Collection] – Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray Disc + DVD + Digital Copy

Tron: Legacy/Tron: The Original Classic [2-Movie Collection] – Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray Disc + DVD + Digital Copy

Posted in1980s, 2000s, 2011, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Disney, Sci-Fi

TRON (1982)
*½/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras A
starring Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan
screenplay by Steven Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird
directed by Steven Lisberger

by Walter Chaw When Tron came out in theatres in 1982, it was touted as a revolution in digital imaging technology (which it certainly was), but the film lost any momentum it might have garnered due to the kind of lock-step exposition that characterized the Disney formula of the Seventies and Eighties. (Think The Cat from Outer Space, or the Love Bug phenomenon.) To this day, Disney animation relies upon anthropomorphic animal sidekicks (there is a floating .gif ball named “BIT” in Tron) and the addled old geezer who’s a genius and also the father of the beautiful young love interest–hoary old chestnuts that provide as good an explanation as any for the extent to which Disney has fallen behind animé and even its Pixar affiliates in the realm of animated entertainment. Tron stinks of that kind of laziness and worse (for instance, it rips off images whole-cloth from Star Wars), leading to the surprising realization that while it touts its technological influence, Tron is actually more instructive a model for the special effects extravaganzas that continue to litter the multiplex: all bells and whistles with nary a hint of plot or character development.

Gnomeo & Juliet (2011) + Cedar Rapids (2011)

Posted in2011, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Canada, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Romance, Theatrical Release, UK

GNOMEO & JULIET
**/****
screenplay by Kelly Asbury & Mark Burton & Kevin Cecil & Emily Cook & Kathy Greenberg & Andy Riley & Steve Hamilton Shaw, based on an original screenplay by John R. Smith & Rob Sprackling
directed by Kelly Asbury

CEDAR RAPIDS
**½/****
starring Ed Helms, John C. Reilly, Anne Heche, Sigourney Weaver
screenplay by Phil Johnston
directed by Miguel Arteta

by Ian Pugh Gnomeo & Juliet is pretty much exactly the movie you’d expect from one of the directors of Shrek 2. On the bright side, it’s also a little bit more. In this latest iteration of Shakespeare’s timeless classic, Montague and Capulet are a couple of pensioners living on Verona Drive whose lawn gnomes spring to life every now and then to wage war on each other. The lad and lass of the title (voiced by James McAvoy and Emily Blunt) meet from opposite sides and fall in love, and so on and so forth. As you may have already guessed, Gnomeo & Juliet makes room for its cutesy puns and pop-culture references by robbing “Romeo & Juliet”‘s premise of all emotional heft: the warring tribes have no sense of familial bond, which renders the central romance completely weightless; and it’s all performed with an absolute minimum amount of bloodshed, culminating in, yes, a happy ending. It’s tempting to cry anti-intellectualism until one considers the film’s predominantly British cast–after all, hasn’t British culture earned the right to make self-deprecating jokes about Shakespeare’s influence? (It just feels right knowing that Michael Caine and Maggie Smith are leading the charge in this gnome war–though Jason Statham voicing an angry, Napoleonic Tybalt sounds more subversive than it actually plays.) In fact, the film’s generally cavalier attitude towards “unassailable” literature gives the impression that it was trying to piss someone off, what with most of the loathing and introspection replaced by the requisite noisy action sequences.

Alice in Wonderland [The Masterpiece Edition] (1951) + The Lion King 1½ (2004) – DVDs|Alice in Wonderland – Blu-ray + DVD

Alice in Wonderland [The Masterpiece Edition] (1951) + The Lion King 1½ (2004) – DVDs|Alice in Wonderland – Blu-ray + DVD

Posted in1950s, 2000s, 2011, Adventure, Animation, Australia, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Disney, DVD, Esoterica, Family, Fantasy, Musical

ALICE IN WONDERLAND
**/****
DVD – Image A Sound B+ Extras A
BD – Image A- Sound A- Extras A+
story by Winston Hibler, Ted Sears, Bill Peet, Erdman Penner, Joe Rinaldi, Milt Banta, Bill Cottrell, Dick Kelsey, Joe Grant, Dick Huemer, Del Connell, Tom Oreb, John Walbridge, based on Lewis Carroll’s The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass
directed by Clyde Geronimi & Wilfred Jackson & Hamilton Luske

THE LION KING 1½
The Lion King 3: Hakuna Matata
*/**** Image A Sound A Extras C+
screenplay by Tom Rogers, Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi and Bill Steinkeller and Evan Spiliotopoulos
directed by Bradley Raymond

by Bill Chambers It’s not like Alice in Wonderland is necessary and The Lion King 1½ isn’t–they’re both unnecessary. The two latest animated Disney films to hit DVD, they have little in common formally save that they’re jointly inessential; and yet, because of their proximate release windows, parents are likely to pick them up as a pair, and kids are likely to associate them as such. Bright, sophisticated children may arrive at the hypothesis that this is the day that animation died.

The Pacific (2010) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Action, Adventure, Australia, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, Drama, Television, War

Image A Sound A+ Extras A-

by Jefferson Robbins The Greatest-Generation worship that Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks share is appreciable and understandable, but by the close of their latest collaborative HBO miniseries, “The Pacific”, you sort of hope they’ve got it out of their systems. That’s not to say the story encapsulated here didn’t warrant telling–the flash conceptualization today is of World War II as a European war, where “rules of combat” may still obtain. The fiercely bloody Pacific campaign–very much a gazing-into-the-abyss kind of conflict, making monsters of men–has become a near-afterthought. So a big-budget TV treatment, in line with the star producers’ 2001 “Band of Brothers”, seems natural.1 But by remaining “true” to the experiences of the U.S. Marines who fought their way from Guadalcanal to the doorstep of Japan, the story comes across as a thing of half-reconciled parts, periscopic views of the larger picture. I mean, more than a miniseries usually does–like it’s two miniseries grafted onto one another.

Inception (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Inception (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Posted in2000s, 2010, 2011, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Directors: Christopher Nolan, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller, UK

**/**** Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine
written and directed by Christopher Nolan

by Walter Chaw I dunno, the wordiness of The Dark Knight didn’t bother me that much. I suppose it has something to do with it being a comic-book movie and plot-driving pronouncements seeming the order of the day. I find it impossible now to think of The Dark Knight without seeing it as a corollary to No Country For Old Men: the one composed of broad, garish strokes, the other of grace notes you hesitate to call delicate, but that’s just what they are. With Inception, Christopher Nolan’s correlative piece is Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, NY, and the comparison in this instance doesn’t prove mutually evocative so much as devastating to Nolan’s film, exposing his shtick as reams of deadening exposition interrupted by the occasional virtuoso set-piece. It is, in other words, aggressively nothing-special, save for a few astonishing zero-g sequences. As it happens, saying the best part of Inception is its weightlessness is a pretty pithy criticism of the whole damned enterprise. For a film about dreams, it’s distinctly light on possibility: Armed with the power to shape reality, our erstwhile dream-weavers fold a city in half in a dorm-room Escher shout-out but decline to, you know, fly and stuff. More, Inception doesn’t confront archetypes of any kind, instead retreating into some basic stuff about projections and the architecture of the unconscious being a freight elevator while relying overmuch on the built-in gravitas of father and dead-wife issues. And in case you miss any of that, Nolan crams it into the dialogue like one crams elephants into elevators. Rule of thumb: if a movie uses the word “deep” as much as this one does, it probably isn’t.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) [Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

Posted in****/****, 1940s, 2010, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Drama, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Mexico, Thriller, Western

****/****
DVD – Image A Sound B+ Extras A+
BD – Image A- Sound A- Extras A
starring Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Tim Holt, Bruce Bennett
screenplay by John Huston, based on the novel by B. Traven
directed by John Huston

FFC Must-Ownby Walter Chaw John Ford isn’t America’s Akira Kurosawa, John Huston is, and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, an intimate epic that unfolds against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution, is Huston’s Throne of Blood. Huston also draws comparisons to Ernest Hemingway, not just for being a man’s man in life, but for his precision and economy in art. There isn’t any flab on The Treasure of the Sierra Madre–it’s as sleek as a dancer in its waltz between complex character drama on the one side and broad social commentary on the other. There haven’t been many better American films (it’s Huston’s best film next to Fat City and maybe The Misfits, and it boasts of Humphrey Bogart’s best performance without question), and when it’s spoken of, it’s spoken of in terms of one of those films that decided careers in the cinema for generations of filmmakers.

Toy Story 3 (2010) [2-Disc] – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Toy Story 3 (2010) [2-Disc] – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Posted in2000s, 2010, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, DVD, Family, Pixar

***½/**** Image A+ Sound A Extras A-
screenplay by Michael Arndt
directed by Lee Unkrich

by Walter Chaw Woody (Tom Hanks) refuses to shake Buzz’s (Tim Allen) hand in farewell at around the middle point of Pixar’s Toy Story 3, marking a dark return of sorts to the petulant Woody of the first film and a harbinger of things to come as the picture closes with sights and sounds that are easily darker than anything dreamed of in its predecessors. Maybe it’s the comfort that comes with being part of an established franchise–with the knowledge that the only watermark to exceed is that left by its own thorny, complex second chapter. Whatever the case, Toy Story 3 is more ambitious than Toy Story 2 yet less successful as well, mainly because the first half of it seems uncharacteristically uncertain of itself. It’s a feeling of awkwardness that, in retrospect, coalesces into this idea that maybe it’s dread that colours our reintroduction to these characters. Half of their number is gone without explanation, after all, including Woody’s love interest, Bo. He grieves for her. We’ll come back to this. Their owner, Andy, prepares to go to college, leaving the toys to limbo in his attic until some hoped-for, equivocal day when maybe Andy could have children of his own and thus reconnect in some pat, schmaltzy epilogue, we fear, through a closed circle of eternity via progeny. The picture resorts to nothing so simple as that, thankfully, wrapping up instead with a worthy extended post-script that returns the series to its origins, though not without irreplaceable losses and an absolute clarity of purpose that binds this trilogy into something like a definitive, modern existentialist philosophy. While it’s not Dostoevsky, it’s not that far off, either.

Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD

Posted in2000s, 2010, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Jefferson Robbins, Blu-ray Disc, Disney, DVD, Family, Fantasy

**/**** Image A- Sound B- Extras C
screenplay by Joe Ansolabehere, Paul Germain, Bob Hilgenberg, Rob Muir
directed by Bradley Raymond

by Jefferson Robbins There’s this thing in children’s fiction I call the Curious George Effect. A character transgresses, and in the context of that character’s world it’s a big hairy deal, potentially life-threatening. But the repercussions are so nifty-neato that the initial sin is shrugged off, perhaps never mentioned again, perhaps not explicitly identified as an error in the first place. The consequences for the guilty character are as follows: anxiety, cool adventure, reset to status quo.

Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy – DVD|Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy – Blu-ray + Digital Copy

Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy – DVD|Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy – Blu-ray + Digital Copy

Posted in****/****, 1980s, 1990s, 2010, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Directors: Robert Zemeckis, DVD, FFC Must-Own, Sci-Fi, Spielberg, Time Travel

FFC Must-OwnBACK TO THE FUTURE (1985)
****/****
DVD – Image A- Sound A- Extras B+
BD – Image B+ Sound A Extras A
starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover
screenplay by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale
directed by Robert Zemeckis

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II (1989)
**/****
DVD – Image A- Sound B+ Extras B
BD – Image A- Sound A Extras A-
starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson
screenplay by Bob Gale
directed by Robert Zemeckis

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III (1990)
**½/****
DVD – Image A Sound A- Extras B
BD – Image A- Sound A Extras A
starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Mary Steenburgen, Thomas F. Wilson
screenplay by Bob Gale
directed by Robert Zemeckis

by Bill Chambers GREAT SCOT! SPOILERS AHEAD! It’s finally here. As not only a mighty-big fan of Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future but also a completist (and therefore keen to collect Back to the Future‘s substandard sequels), I’ve anticipated the DVD release of Back to the Future: The Complete Trilogy (henceforth BTTF) since the format itself became a reality. Alas, the 3-disc set–from its unsexy blue-and-white cover layout to the cheap menus to a slipshod three-part documentary–is problematic. Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy as a clam that the films (remastered in effervescent 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers–pan-and-scan sold separately–supervised by co-creator Bob Gale with Dolby Digital 5.1 remixes that beef up the re-entry effects especially) look and sound as good as they do and that, for the first time in home video’s history, each picture is now being seen as it appeared in theatres (more on that below). But as a BTTF enthusiast, almost every single piece of supplementary material had me arrogantly believing I could’ve done a better job.

King Kong (1933) (DigiBook) – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in****/****, 1930s, 2010, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bryant Frazer, Blu-ray Disc, FFC Must-Own

Kingkong33cap

****/**** Image A Sound A Extras A
starring Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong, Bruce Cabot
screenplay by James Creelman and Ruth Rose, from a story by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper
chief technician: Willis H. O’Brien

FFC Must-Ownby Bryant Frazer Critics of a certain age point to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and George Lucas’s Star Wars as the two new-style blockbusters that changed the course of moviemaking. It’s meant as a backhanded compliment to those films, whose high-concept efficiency appealed to huge audiences worldwide–and to younger viewers, it comes off as a geriatric complaint from Grandpa Sarris: “Get off my lawn, you kids with your laser guns and your killer sharks.” In truth, while Spielberg and Lucas altered the economics of the industry, they didn’t invent the modern blockbuster. That legacy stretches back to 1933, when the release of King Kong defined the studio tentpole for decades to come.

Sex and the City 2 (2010) + Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) – Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy

Posted in2000s, 2010, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Disney, Drama, DVD, Fantasy, Romance, Theatrical Release, ZERO STARS

SEX AND THE CITY 2
ZERO STARS/****
starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, Kim Cattrall
written and directed by Michael Patrick King

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME
ZERO STARS/**** Image A Sound A Extras C
starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Ben Kingsley, Gemma Arterton, Alfred Molina
screenplay by Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard
directed by Mike Newell

by Walter Chaw One may be a misguided liberal screed and the other a misguided conservative screed, but Sex and the City 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (hereafter Prince of Persia) are very much alike in that they’re what a Tea Party meeting would look like with a budget. They’re politically-confused hodgepodges of bad ideas and misplaced, incoherent outrage–most of it gleaned from the one or two times some idiot accidentally read the A-section of a newspaper, the rest gathered from Dummies primers on how to be cursorily informed in the Information Age. They’re similarly infused with healthy doses of arrogance and cultural empiricism that speak directly to the reasons the United States is the target of fundamentalist whackos convinced we’re all just like the randy quartet of aging bitches on a hedonism bender in the Middle East in Sex and the City 2. Hateful, vile, both films are also indicated by a distinct lack of artistry, representing a world post-Michael Bay in which a goodly portion of movies are dependent on not only other cultural touchstones (a TV series, a videogame) for the entirety of their alleged appeal, but on some of the most vapid cultural touchstones in the brief history of our popular culture, period.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) + Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2009)

Posted in2000s, 2009, 2010, Action, Adventure, Animation, Australia, Authors: Ian Pugh, Drama, Family, Fantasy

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS
**/****
starring Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella
screenplay by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff
directed by Oliver Stone

LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA’HOOLE
*½/****
screenplay by John Orloff and Emil Stern, based on the novel Guardians of Ga’Hoole by Kathryn Lasky
directed by Zack Snyder

by Ian Pugh SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. Oliver Stone has a penchant for writing himself into living history, and normally, it’s quite fascinating. By making movies about historical events whose ramifications have not yet fully materialized, he engages in a battle of wits with the unfamiliar. He tries to understand what’s unfolding at this very moment, constantly on the lookout for something resembling closure. From that perspective, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (hereafter Wall Street 2) suffers from Stone’s familiarity with the subject. Having already made a movie about the chaos of the free market, he knows exactly what he wants to say from the outset. Our boy Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) spent the Clinton years behind bars, leaving his personal life in shambles. Beloved son Rudy has died of a drug overdose, and hitherto-unmentioned daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) is–irony of ironies!–a lefty blogger who won’t have anything to do with him. Enter her fiancé, Jake Moore (professional protégé Shia LaBeouf, who’s convincing enough; and the character’s name is More, get it?), an ambitious green-energy investor who wants to learn a few moves from a living legend. As fate would have it, the two men share a mutual enemy in Bretton James (Josh Brolin), the slimy businessman who sent Gekko to the slammer and spread a few market rumours that prompted Jake’s mentor/father figure (Frank Langella) to commit suicide. Gekko sees the chance to rekindle his relationship with Winnie, while Jake wants to make a mint founded on revenge. Alliances are forged, tricks are played, trust is abused, and, above all, greed continues to rule the day. When the bottom falls out, you’d best be prepared for a lot of hand-wringing in the executive boardroom–but hell, you know there are more important things floating around here, right? Winnie announces her pregnancy on the very same day that the 2008 economy does its final nosedive. Where do you think Wall Street 2 is going to end up?

Forbidden Planet (1956) [50th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

Forbidden Planet (1956) [50th Anniversary Two-Disc Special Edition] – DVD|Blu-ray Disc

Posted in1950s, 2010, Action, Adventure, Authors: Bill Chambers, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, DVD, Family, Japan, Sci-Fi, Thriller, ZERO STARS

FORBIDDEN PLANET
***/****
DVD – Image A- Sound B Extras B
BD – Image A Sound A Extras B
starring Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens
screenplay by Cyril Hume
directed by Fred McLeod Wilcox

THE INVISIBLE BOY (1957)
ZERO STARS/****
Image B- Sound C+
starring Richard Eyer, Philip Abbott, Diane Brewster, Harold J. Stone
screenplay by Cyril Hume, based on the story by Edmund Cooper
directed by Herman Hoffman

by Walter Chaw Outrageously influential and utterly unlike its contemporaries, Fred Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet today suffers from prosaic pacing and long stretches where its groundbreaking special effects take centre-stage as the cast gapes in slack-jawed, dim-witted appreciation. I suppose it’s not altogether antithetical to the themes of the picture, one that finds its heroes pontificating on their primitiveness in the face of an awesome (and extinct) alien culture–but this open love of its own coolness ultimately represents Forbidden Planet‘s broadest, most negative impact. The worst of our mainstream spectaculars, after all, are buried under reaction shots as the characters who should be the least mesmerized by their surroundings are impelled to be audience surrogates. What still works about Forbidden Planet is its high-mindedness: those moments where mad scientist Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) declares that the knowledge gleaned from the new technologies he discovers by reverse-engineering a cache of alien artifacts will be jealously rationed by him alone. The dangerous idea that one entity would take on the moral and intellectual superiority to judge who should and should not be allowed to educate themselves was germane here in the middle of the Cold War and remains applicable to our current state of foreign affairs, where just the threat of knowledge acts simultaneously as a spur to aggression and as a deterrent for invasion. Considered by many to be the best of the ’50s science-fiction cycle, Forbidden Planet, at once Luddite and in love with the potential for technological expansion, is at least unique for its unabashed indulgence in its subtext–though mining subtext tends to have the obvious effect of leaving the subtext barren.

Animal Kingdom (2010) + Valhalla Rising (2010)

Posted in****/****, 2000s, 2010, Action, Adventure, Australia, Authors: Walter Chaw, Crime, Denmark, Drama, Esoterica, Fantasy, Theatrical Release, Thriller, UK

ANIMAL KINGDOM
***½/****
starring Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Luke Ford, Guy Pearce
written and directed by David Michôd

VALHALLA RISING
****/****
starring Mads Mikkelsen, Maarten Stevenson, Gordon Brown, Andrew Flanagan
screenplay by Roy Jacobsen & Nicolas Winding Refn
directed by Nicolas Winding Refn

by Walter Chaw David Michôd’s Animal Kingdom respects its audience, a rare commodity during the best of times. The film flatters us by leaving exposition and backstory to our knowledge of anthropology–in fact, Animal Kingdom is best indicated by its unwavering reserve–a reluctance, almost–to say too much when slow, fluid tracking motions and static, medium-distance establishing shots may suffice. Consider a frankly gorgeous tableau late in the film as three people meet in Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria: framed against an open space, Michôd allows an extra beat, then another, before continuing with his family gothic. The story isn’t an afterthought, but the dialogue, however minimal, seems to be. The picture’s told through its actions and its images and, in that way, reminds of a Beat Takeshi film, of all things, what with its focus on criminality and its enthralling slowness. If there’s another indie demiurge to which Michôd pays obeisance, it’s Michael Mann–and the success of the picture (as shrine to masculinity, as introspective character study) suggests that cribbing from Kitano and Mann, if it’s as successful a larceny as this, can be successful in no other way.

Caddyshack (1980) + Funny Farm (1988)/Spies Like Us (1985) [Comedy Double Feature] – Blu-ray Discs

Caddyshack (1980) + Funny Farm (1988)/Spies Like Us (1985) [Comedy Double Feature] – Blu-ray Discs

Posted in1980s, 2010, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Comedy, Drama, Espionage, Sports

CADDYSHACK
½*/**** Image B Sound B Extras B
starring Chevy Chase, Rodney Dangerfield, Ted Knight, Bill Murray
screenplay by Brian Doyle-Murray & Harold Ramis & Doug Kenney
directed by Harold Ramis

SPIES LIKE US
*/**** Image D+ Sound C+
starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Forrest, Donna Dixon
screenplay by Dan Aykroyd and Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel
directed by John Landis

FUNNY FARM
**½/**** Image C+ Sound C+
starring Chevy Chase, Madolyn Smith, Joseph Maher, Jack Gilpin
screenplay by Jeffrey Boam, based on the book by Jay Cronley
directed by George Roy Hill

by Walter Chaw Mean-spirited and essentially ugly, the inexplicably revered Caddyshack can be handily summarized by two moments with Chevy Chase’s Ty Webb–the first when he waggles his tongue lasciviously at a random woman walking by, the next when he says to town pump Lacey Underall (Cindy Morgan), “I’ve got an idea, let’s pretend we’re real human beings.” One identifies the general tenor of the piece as angry and cynical, the other as comedy dependant almost entirely–when it’s not angry and cynical–on arrogance and smugness. (The epitome of the latter might be Bill Murray’s mush-mouthed Carl the groundskeeper staring right at Harold Ramis’s bland camera in the midst of a torrential rainstorm.) Largely, proudly improvised by a gang of hedonistic assholes at the peak of their insufferability, it’s the fallout of “Saturday Night Live”‘s drug-fuelled, experimental-verging-on-hallucinogenic early years, which had felt like the last bastion of the counterculture.

Predators (2010)

Posted in2000s, 2010, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Sci-Fi, Theatrical Release, Thriller

*/****
starring Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne
screenplay by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch
directed by Nimród Antal

by Walter Chaw It opens with a grab-bag of heavily-armed genre clichés–the world-weary man of action (Adrien Brody), the tough-talking Latina (Alice Braga), the mad-dog orange jump-suited killer (Walton Goggins), the Yakuza enforcer (Louis Ozawa Changchien), the Soviet (Oleg Taktarov), the savage (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), the nebbish (Topher Grace), and the wrong Mexican (Danny Trejo)–free-falling through a jungle canopy into bush that doesn’t make Cambodia look like Kansas so much as it makes Predators look like Avatar. They’re the game, see–the most dangerous game! And they’ve been dropped on an alien wildlife preserve for the express purpose of being hunted by a trio of the titular Predators. As if that weren’t enough, the film’s weak-ass script takes pains to establish that our “heroes” are also, vocationally, “predators.” Get it? It’s what passes for clever in a film that takes too long to get where we want it to go, diverting itself with one of those dumb nick-of-time animal-shooting sequences that didn’t thrill in Dances with Wolves and doesn’t thrill here (so they do it twice, why not), as well as an extended monologue delivered by a fish-eyed, paunchy Laurence Fishburne that, for all its kitsch pleasure, grinds the movie to a standstill. If it’s not going to be smart, it could at least have the decency to not also be boring.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 XVII – DVD

Posted in1980s, 1990s, 2010, Adventure, Authors: Alex Jackson, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, Scream/Shout! Factory, Television

Image C+ Sound C+ Extras B-
2.1 “The Crawling Eye” (1989), 5.15 “The Beatniks” (1992), 10.10 “The Final Sacrifice” (1998), 11.5 “Blood Waters of Dr. Z” (1999)

by Alex Jackson I know it’s loony, but I watched “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (or “MST3K”) mostly for the movies. Oh, I liked the jokes. There were some episodes I laughed so hard at I had to turn off the television because I couldn’t breathe. But I saw the riffing as a bonus, a way to make a good thing better. I didn’t really watch the show just because it was funny, and its ironic appreciation of “bad movies” didn’t strike me as all that different from the sincere appreciation I had for the likes of Plan 9 from Outer Space as a child. In fact, I don’t think it’s all that different from the deeper appreciation I have for those movies today. Mocking them doesn’t necessarily detract from them. Their sensually visceral aspect always shines through. You can easily tell if something is any good, regardless of who is talking over it. Besides, there’s something amiably homey and relaxed about the “Mystery Science Theater 3000” approach. If you like a film, you should be able to enjoy it on your sofa. You should be able to converse about it in the moment. And you should even be able to laugh at it. If you can only love something with reverence, I’m not sure that’s love.

Despicable Me (2010)

Posted in2000s, 2010, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Crime, Family, Sci-Fi, Theatrical Release

*½/****
screenplay by Ken Daurio & Cinco Paul
directed by Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud

by Ian Pugh It only takes a cursory glance at its cast of characters and the people embodying them to see the kind of trendy thinking that sank Despicable Me. The movie presents us with the headmistress of an orphanage clearly modeled after Edie McClurg–but rather than hire McClurg herself to voice the role, they got Kristen Wiig, who hits her one, monotonous note over and over again. The antagonist proper is a bespectacled, bowl-cut pervert in an orange jumpsuit–but rather than have Eddie Deezen play him in full-blown Mandark mode, they got Jason Segel to shout a couple of dick jokes to the rafters. Finally, in the centre ring is Steve Carell, performing with a bizarre accent lodged somewhere between Boris Badenov and Ivan Drago. While Carell does an admirable job for what he’s given, he’s a little too dry to be a successful voice actor–you can’t help but think that someone like Billy West or Tom Kenny would have done something truly great with the role.

Predator (1987) [Ultimate Hunter Edition] – Blu-ray Disc

Predator (1987) [Ultimate Hunter Edition] – Blu-ray Disc

Posted in****/****, 1980s, 2010, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Blu-ray Disc, Horror, Mexico, Schwarzenegger, Sci-Fi

****/**** Image C Sound A Extras B+
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Bill Duke
screenplay by Jim Thomas & John Thomas
directed by John McTiernan

by Walter Chaw Appearing the same year as Stanley Kubrick’s great, enigmatic, dangerous Full Metal Jacket, the brilliant neo-noir of Alan Parker’s Angel Heart, John Hughes’s devastating Planes, Trains & Automobiles, and what many feel is the quintessential film of the 1980s, Wall Street, John McTiernan’s Predator is, in plain truth, one of the two real quintessential films of the decade, a distinction it shares with Back to the Future–pictures, both, that initially appear to toe the Reagan era’s line of worship at the altar of Eisenhower’s mythological Americana only to reveal that lost wars cannot, in fact, be re-fought and that the Good Old Days were always a little violent and randy. It’s a film, this Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle all of oiled musculature and technological fetishism, of unusual kinetic power and intelligence, one that sets out to sate the popular audience’s hunger for such entertainments in the age of the modern blockbuster before leaving its hero battered, broken, frightened, alone. Its kinship is to movies from the period like Aliens and, yes, Rambo: First Blood Part II–films that understand that when Shane rode away at the end, he was probably just looking for a place to die.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)

Posted in2000s, 2010, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Drama, Romance, Teen, Theatrical Release, Thriller, Vampire

**/****
starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Dakota Fanning
screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg, based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer
directed by David Slade

by Walter Chaw The first and greatest surprise of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (hereafter Eclipse) is that it’s not awful; it’s actually almost good for its first forty-five minutes or so, until the burden of Stephenie Meyer’s genuinely, legendarily poor source material catches up to it. Until such time, there’s some interest blossoming despite itself in the love triangle between mopey Bella (Kristen Stewart), fruity Edward (Robert Pattinson), and swarthy Jacob (Taylor Lautner): a hint of racial discomfort, a soupçon of class struggle, a glimmer of insight given over to the difficulties of teen relationships at a moment in life when Nancy Drew plays like Richard Wagner. Never mind that of the three leads, only Pattinson delivers a (surprisingly, too) good performance–and then only fitfully; never mind that Meyer has taken a giant, steaming dump on centuries of folklore and tradition to construct thin cardboard monsters that serve as bad metaphors for Mormon libido (as told by Judy Blume’s less talented soul sister); never mind that the picture’s entire last two-thirds devolves into constant repetition of the will she/won’t she theme punctuated by its stupid mythology. Really, the way that new director David Slade’s flat-to-the-point-of-garish camera brings out the faintest suggestion of corruption beneath the pancake makeup and baggy eyes of the film’s immortal underwear models–who are, literally, ancient beasts–lends the series the dread that was buried in the first two films under volumes of camp and dreary incompetence. Not to say that Eclipse doesn’t ultimately end as the same old bullshit, but for the first time, if only briefly, the clouds part for a brief, tantalizing twinkle of what it was that all this could have been.