It seems every time you look for a new movie in the theaters, one of them is a remake from a TV show. Just recently, we had the release of Get Smart. We have also had The Brady Bunch, Mission Impossible and numerous others. Some of them worked, while others just fell flat. One of the latest Blu-ray imports I watched just so happened to be a TV show previously, and that being Starsky and Hutch. This, thankfully, worked out very well and is an entertaining watch.
Todd Haynes continues to dazzle and amaze with his body of work. In Velvet Goldmine, he told the story of a fictitious glam-rock band in David Bowie/Ziggy Stardust style. Far From Heaven found him taking the Douglas Sirk films of the ‘50s into a nontraditional turn. In his follow-up film I’m Not There, his first directorial effect in five years, Haynes examines the persona and essence of Bob Dylan without actually really using the name or the words together at all in the film in a film released in 2007, where features like No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood earned a slew of awards, I’m Not There was an understated gem, and yet summing it up is a little difficult.
I wonder if Johnny Smith could have seen it coming. After 6 short seasons the USA Network series based on Stephen King’s The Dead Zone has finally closed up shop. The series is based very loosely on the early Stephen King novel or the film with Martin Sheen. Johnny still goes into a coma and comes out with psychic abilities. He even meets the infamous Senate candidate destined to destroy the world. The similarities between the original tale and this surprising series end there.
Call it Deliverance meets Texas Chain Saw Massacre by way of Straw Dogs. Really that’s the best way I can describe this incredibly derivative film starring Gary Oldman. It’s Summer in 1978 and two couples are making their way to an isolated vacation house in the woods. The house is the ancestral home for Paul. The four are traveling from England to Spain where Paul impresses the locals with his ability to speak Spanish. More importantly it’s his ability to understand the language as they were insulting the group intending for them to be oblivious to the slights.
Hannibal Lechter is running the show, and even if it is his alter-ego Sir Anthony Hopkins who�s at the wheel of this ride, it could just as easily have been Hannibal the Cannibal pulling the strings. Hopkins is a literal one man show. He wrote, directed, composed the score, and starred in this abysmally horrible film. I wouldn�t be surprised if he pitched in on a couple of coats of paint here and there as well. One man ego driven artistic films are often messy, but Slipstream goes far beyond messy.
Meerkat Manor is back for a third season on DVD. You’re invited back into the South African desert with the famous Whiskers Clan. Animal Planet has themselves a relatively big hit here with Meerkat Manor. OK, so, it’s not exactly The Sopranos or The Shield, but it does have a modestly dedicated audience. Seems that folks just can’t get enough of these fur balls. They’ve set up blogs and websites dedicated to the antics of the celebrated Whiskers. If you, like them and are dying to see what these lil’ guys are up to next, wait no longer.
I have seen plenty of Clint Eastwood films throughout my lifetime. I have always been a fan of his although I have yet to watch any of his Westerns, aside from The Unforgiven. Eastwood, for most of his career, has been the typical badass who you didn’t want to meet up with if you were doing something wrong. In Dirty Harry, Eastwood’s character was the trend setter of what movie cops were to become; the loaner who does things his own way regardless if anyone else likes it or not.
Spoof movies have been wearing on me for the last few years. Complete travesties such as Date Movie & Epic Movie have soured my look on a favorite genre of mine. Where were the Mel Brooks classics or the Scary Movie series that I remember so well? Smart comedy and well done jokes about movies we have come to love. So, I’ll admit when I saw the Comebacks on DVD, all I could see was red and think the torture that was Epic Movie. I wanted to believe it could be as smart and zany as Blazing Saddles or at least in the same league as Scary Movie 3 or 4. I would hope that director Tom Brady would restore my faith in this once awesome genre.
It’s not that video game movies are bad because they are based on video games — things that are usually void of character development and plot in favor of cheap thrills — it’s just that they’ve mostly been handled by hacks, from the director down to the caterer. This usually makes the movie about as tedious as the filmed vignettes you’re forced to watch in between the video game’s levels.
Because I was fairly certain I would be asked to review this second season of Jericho, I did not watch any of the episodes as they aired. With the writer’s strike many shows were going through problems, and I guess I wanted to see how it all shook loose. So, I watched very little of anything from the networks for fear of being stranded in the middle of a compelling story. Now, before the Jericho fans out there devise any plans to have me roasted along with their next batch of nuts, let me assure you I am not a monitored watcher and participated in no survey. They tend to shy away from us critic types.
So I find out I’m going to review a film called Meerkat Manor. My research tells me it’s actually a television show on Animal Planet, but I still didn’t know much. Was this some kind of animal version of The Tudors? And what exactly is a meerkat, anyway? The answer to all of these questions arrived one sunny morning via UPS on my front door. I yawned my way to the door and picked up the nondescript package that fell over with a flop as I opened my home to the bright Florida sunshine. “What’s this?” I asked myself.
The voices aren’t the same. The animation has lost that classic charm. The story is completely contrived. What remains is a dim reflection of a few beloved characters from a bygone year of vintage Disney magic. This sequel of the classic Disney telling of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book looks more like a direct to video knockoff. I was actually quite amazed to note the film did have a box office run.
The time was that following the death of a good king, England was left without a clear heir to the throne. During the time without a king, England had descended into dark times. Suddenly as if through divine intervention a sword appeared in an anvil of stone. An inscription decreed that whosoever could remove the sword would become king. Think you’ve heard the story before? Well, of course you have. It is none other than the story of King Arthur.
It’s nice when a movie lives up to its expectations and even surpasses them because it rarely seems to happen anymore. Such is the case with Anton Corbijn’s Ian Curtis bio-pic, Control.
I’ve been waiting to see Control for a long time. From the start, the film sounded interesting, since I am a huge fan of post-punk alternative rock music, the genre that Ian Curtis and Joy Division practically invented in the late 1970’s. But when I heard that long-time band collaborator and renowned music video director Anton Corbijn was directing the film, my anticipation rose to even higher levels.
Katherine Heigl gets her Juila Roberts on in the romantic comedy 27 Dresses as Jane, a friendly woman who can’t say no to planning weddings for the many people she knows. Ever since she was young she’s loved weddings, even though she doesn’t seem to have the time to find a future groom of her own. She’s in love with her boss, George (Edward Burns), but when Jane’s sister Tess (Malin Akerman) drops in for a visit, Tess and George fall in love and before Jane knows it, they’re engaged to be married and she’s planning their wedding. Let the cliched rom-com hijinks begin!
I’m not sure how many people are familiar with the process of moviemaking, but when a film is not up to studio expectation and takes a long time to finally arrive to theaters after filming has wrapped, the result is sometimes due to financial issues with the studio. But most of the time it’s due to the fact that the studio has seen the final product, and it’s so abhorrent and without any value, redeeming, comic or otherwise, that it will be released as quietly and without recognition as possible. Now I don’t know if there were any financial issues surrounding Strange Wilderness, but I will say this: the film was shooting as far back as December 2005 and was released in February 2008, and at this point on rottentomatoes.com, there is not one positive review from the three dozen that are on the site. I’ll leave it to you to decide what the reasons why are.
Come on, admit it, you want to say that Hayden Christensen was the worst part if the latest trilogy of Star Wars films, and yeah, the guy did bring the suck, to be sure, but he wasn’t really that bad, right? Well yeah, he was, but he’s not the only thing wrong when it comes to Jumper, the latest film from writers David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight) and Jim Uhls (Fight Club), who adapted the Steven C. Gould novel. Directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), Jumper features Christensen as David Rice, a man who grows up with a genetic gift, the ability to ”jump” from place to place, Christensen’s performance was his first major role since transforming Darth Vader from an ominous, silently rueful and dominating presence, to a dude who thought his girl was cheating on him, so he started hanging out with a creepy old guy as a result.
When the Learners are driving home from their son Josh’s recital, they stop off at a gas station where he is struck and killed by Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) who is heading home from a Boston Red Sox game with his son Lucas. Dwight flees the scene while Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and Grace (Jennifer Connelly) mourn the death of their son. In the following weeks, Ethan becomes obsessed with finding the hit and run driver while Dwight deals with his guilt and tries to bond with his son against the backdrop of the 2004 Boston Red Sox historic World Series run.
When last we left the fine folks of Weeds, Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker, Saved!) and her herb-growing buddy Conrad (Romany Malco, Blades of Glory) were being held at the mercy of two rival drug groups, both of which were very interested in Nancy’s stash and her cash, but it was taken by her son Silas (Hunter Parrish, Freedom Writers), who was arrested by Nancy’s friend Celia (Elizabeth Perkins, 28 Days). I’m not even close to discussing how things got to this point, and needless to say, the twists and turns sound a little soap operatic at times, but when you’re invested into the characters’ fates as you are, they provide for some memorable experiences.
Honestly, I don’t know what the bigger tragedy is, the fact that John C. Reilly has been a funny performer for years, or the fact that it’s taken guys like Judd Apatow and Adam McKay a chance to show off his comedic talent. For those who don’t know, Reilly was in a hilarious ten-minute blooper reel in Boogie Nights which showed that he could improvise with the best of them. The guy also played Bigfoot in an episode of the Tenacious D show that aired on HBO in the mid ‘90s. But sure, put him in Chicago where he was nominated for an Oscar or in ensemble films directed by some of film’s greatest voices. His true love, that which gives him much joy and pleasure, appears to be when he’s goofing around, like he does in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.
It’s ironic that 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake (which was originally a George Romero film), have jump-started Romero’s long-running “Dead” series that started in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead.
Since 28 Days Later and the Dawn remake were released, Romero has released two new installments: Land of the Dead in 2005, and now Diary of the Dead in 2007.
It’s also quite ironic, and perhaps a little sad, that 28 Days Later and even the Dawn of the Dead remake were better movies than any of Romero’s “Dead” films since the original Dawn of the Dead was released in 1978. But with Diary of the Dead, Romero clearly isn’t putting this series to bed any time soon. And according to IMDb, a sequel to Diary of the Dead is on its way.
It might be hard for me to admit, but there are certain instances where having a high definition transfer of even a modern film is not necessarily a better thing. The recent Blu-ray release of Cloverfield is one such instance. There is no question that the transfer is about as sharp and clean as anything I’ve seen on Blu to date. The problem is that it only helps to accent the stylistic flaws inherent in this kind of film. The most noticeable improvement is in the first third of the film. Of course, that part of Cloverfield is about as entertaining as watching paint dry.
You probably remember where you were when you saw the trailer for Twister. Hot off the heels of Forrest Gump, which was a nice story with some pretty cool computer effects at the time, Twister simply took the effects to a whole other level. Barns were torn apart, cars were tossed into the air, and that one shot, where the car is driving as a tractor is thrown and slammed into the ground, and the tire from the tractor hurdles through the car window. You wanted to go see that film, whatever the cost might be.
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Starsky & Hutch UK Import (Blu-ray) 
I’m Not There 
Dead Zone: The Final Season 
The Backwoods 
Slipstream (2008) 
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Hitman (Single Disc Version) 
The Jungle Book 2 (Special Edition) 
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