Star Trek

 

2009

Paramount Pictures

Directed by J.J. Abrams

Produced by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof

Written Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman

Based on “Star Trek” created by Gene Roddenberry

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been a fan of Star Trek ever since I can remember. It was a nightly ritual for me that I couldn’t go to bed until I had watched Star Trek on WPIX here in New York where they reran it for years at 11:00PM. And I’ve seen all the movies in the theaters the day they opened. I’ve watched every episode of every Star Trek TV series. Even “Voyager” and “Enterprise” I estimate I’ve read somewhere between fifty and seventy Star Trek books.

I relate all this not to impress upon you how much of a Star Trek geek I am but to let you know that I consider myself pretty well versed in things Trek. So when I tell you that the new STAR TREK movie is 80% on point you’ll have some faith that I know what I’m talking about.

The selling points of the movie are twofold: One: it’s directed by J.J. Abrams who has mostly had success in TV with shows such as “Felicity””Alias””Lost” and “Fringe”. But his motion picture track record hasn’t been too bad either what with his work on “Mission Impossible III” and “Cloverfield” Two: STAR TREK is Paramount’s attempt to reboot/relaunch its primary moneymaking franchise with an all new, younger cast playing the beloved characters of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov as well as giving the Star Trek universe an updated look and feel.

For a long time I’ve felt that Star Trek needed new blood. “Voyager” and “Enterprise” suffered from creative burnout as the producers of those shows had been with the franchise since “The Next Generation” and it showed. Star Trek badly needed someone new to come aboard and bring freshness to the material.

Thankfully, J.J. Abrams and company have done exactly that. STAR TREK isn’t a perfect movie and there are a couple of things that made me groan but there were also plenty of things that made me grin as well.

 
The movie tells us the story that The Original Series never did: how did the crew of the starship USS Enterprise first meet each other? Well, first of all, through some imaginative time travel futzing involving Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and his pursuit/being pursued by a revenge crazed Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) we’re informed fairly early on that this is an alternate reality/timeline where things aren’t exactly the same as us old heads remember. Most notable is that without the guiding influence of his father, this James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) is a rebellious, risk-taking malcontent. But Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) the current captain of the Enterprise sees something in the young man and challenges him to join Starfleet. Kirk accepts the challenge and signs up, meeting Nyota Uhura (Zoë Saldana) and Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban)

Three years later, the planet Vulcan is attacked by Nero and his ginormous mining ship. Starfleet heads out to stop him but the ships they send are all destroyed. Except the Enterprise, of course, which is left in the command of Commander Spock (Zachary Quinto) a Human/Vulcan hybrid of frightening brilliance and severely disciplined logic who immediately clashes with the hot-headed Cadet Kirk as to the best way to deal with Nero. It soon becomes apparent that the two men have to learn to put aside their differences and work together because Nero also has plans to destroy Earth. All while meeting Hikaru Sulu (John Cho) Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg) who along with Uhura and McCoy will become their lifelong companions in adventure and exploration.

The plot in STAR TREK really isn’t all that important or even interesting, to be honest. This is either the third or fourth STAR TREK movie that has had some huge cosmic whatchamacallit heading toward Earth to destroy it and the Enterprise is the only ship able to stop it. Makes you wonder why The Federation even bothers maintaining a Starfleet when it’s the Enterprise that’s always the only ship available all the time.

No, the real reason this STAR TREK exists is to introduce us to the new cast, the new Enterprise and set up this alternate universe/timeline so that we can go on to other movies that will hopefully have more engaging stories. The special effects are appropriately dazzling and at times even inspired. I’d have liked to have seen more of the interior of the new Enterprise but what we do see is glitzy to the max.

The acting is better than I thought it would be. The new cast wisely doesn’t try to imitate the mannerisms or speech patterns of the original cast. With the exception of Anton Yelchin who deliberately does the Classic Chekov accent. Instead, they channel the essence of what makes those characters work and they pull it off quite well. Especially Karl Urban as Bones McCoy and Zachary Quinto as Spock. Karl Urban has the added fun of throwing off a few of McCoy’s famous lines and he does them excellently. Zoë Saldana doesn’t have as much to do as her co-stars (and dammit, would it have killed them to have her say “hailing frequencies open, Captain” at least once?) A lot of Classic Star Trek fans were upset and confused by the romantic relationship between Spock and Uhura but it didn’t throw me at all. It certainly makes more sense than the revelation in “The Undiscovered Country” that Scotty and Uhura had been having a secret romance for years. Even in The Original Series there were hints that Spock and Uhura were closer than anybody else knew about. There were several episodes where it was shown that in their off hours Spock and Uhura liked singing together, often entertaining other members of the crew.

Eric Bana is one of my favorite actors and he disappointed me as Nero. In fact, Nero’s a pretty poor villain. There’s a reason we remember Ricardo Montalban as Khan and Christopher Plummer as Chang: they were magnificently realized villains of Shakespearian stature. Nobody’s going to remember Nero. Neither are they going to remember Ben Cross as Sarek, Spock’s father. Cross is so bland and dull it’s downright sad.

The movie is chock full of Easter eggs and winks to the original series and films. I got a big chuckle out of the nod to “The Wrath of Khan” during the scene where Kirk is taking the Kobayashi Maru test. And there’s even a tribble thrown in. Can’t ever have too many tribbles.

That’s not to say I loved everything about the movie. There are way too many scenes where Kirk is hanging off a cliff or on a ledge and if you took coincidence out of this movie then you just wouldn’t have a movie. Too many characters just happen to be in the right place at the right time and there’s a coincidence involving Kirk and Spock Prime (as Leonard Nimoy is billed) that made me want to throw something at the screen. And I never got the sense that anybody was in any real danger. Even though Spock’s mother (Winona Ryder) is killed in the destruction of Vulcan I really didn’t feel any sense of loss since I never got to know this version of the character at all.

And speaking of Nimoy, he meshes so well with Pine, Quinto and Pegg in the scenes he has with them I wished he had had scenes with the other members of the cast. It’s a nice lump in the throat moment when young Kirk and the aged Spock meet and there’s a wonderful nod to “The Voyage Home” involving Spock and Scotty.

So should you see STAR TREK? If you’re a fan then you’ve no doubt seen it already and have probably seen it a second or even a third time. But this is a movie that accessible to non-fans who just may want to check it out to see what all the fuss is about or who just want a slam-bang space opera. I know, I know…there’s been a lot of debate and argument that this new incarnation of STAR TREK is way too much punchy punchy run run and not enough of the philosophical core at the heart of STAR TREK. And I can see that. But that was tried once in “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and even though I enjoyed it a lot there were Trek fans who didn’t, claiming it was too slow moving. Let’s face it, the STAR TREK movies that have garnered the most box office and the favor of fans and critics have been the more action oriented ones.

Hopefully with the next movie we’ll get more into the exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations that is really the meat of what STAR TREK is about. But as a launching point for a new series of STAR TREK movies, this is terrific stuff.

127 minutes

Rated PG-13

The Killer

1989

Media Asia

Written and Directed by John Woo

Produced by Tsui Hark

Set the WayBack Machine for 1989, Sherman. We’ve got to go back a bit before I get into the meat of this review because it’s important. Trust me.

Even back in 1989 I had a reputation among my friends and family as a movie guy. That’s because I went to the movies two or even three times a week. This is 1989, remember. There is no Netflix, no Hulu, no Internet, no DirecTV, no 500 HD movie channels, no DVD, no Blu-Ray. VHS is king. So I would frequently take in a movie during the week with my buddies after work, maybe go to one by myself and then take Patricia (we’d been married five years by now) on the weekend. Got the picture so far? Good.

In the spring/summer of ’89 I was besieged by friends of mine who constantly asked me had I seen this Hong Kong action movie that was like nothing they had ever seen before and I absolutely had to see this thing as it would change my movie going life forever. Matter of fact, friends were telling me that this movie topped “Die Hard” and I really couldn’t believe that as I thought “Die Hard” was just about the best action movie I’d ever seen in my life up to that point. So I finally decide to go see this movie. Problem is that it’s playing only at one theater; an arthouse cinema on the East Side around 23erd St somewhere and the movie is only showing three times a day. And all those showing are during the early part of the day while I’m working. The first showing was around 11AM or something like that.

Hey, no problem. It’s the warm weather season and I don’t need much of an excuse to play hooky anyway. So I call in sick and determine I’m gonna check out this movie that everything insists I just have to SEE to believe!

I get to the theater, pay for my ticket, go in and I’m surprised to see that at this time of day the theater is packed. I get one of the very few seats remaining, sit back and wait to see what everybody has been telling me is so mollyfoggin’ amazing.

One hour and ten minutes later I stumble out of the theater with the rest of the audience as if I’m Moses who’s just seen The Burning Bush. Some of the audience members have seen this movie three, four or even five times already and soon I am engaged in a discussion those other people about the movie. In fact, about a dozen of us become fast friends due to our mutual admiration of movies in general and this movie in particular so we go out to get something to eat and then come back to catch the third and last showing of the day which is even more packed than the first showing to the point that people are standing in the back of the theater or sitting on the floor.

That movie was John Woo’s action masterpiece THE KILLER.

I only relate all this because I know how much time has passed between then and now and for most of you reading this, you’ve seen so many action movies that you have absolutely no idea of the impact that THE KILLER made when it first came to American theaters. Trust me. THE KILLER was like nothing else we had ever seen. For me, it was my first exposure to John Woo and yes, my movie going life was never the same again.

Master assassin Ah Jong (Chow Yun-Fat) wants out of The Triad and agrees to take one last job in return for his freedom. During the job he accidentally blinds the nightclub singer Jenny (Sally Yeh) while trying to protect her from getting shot. Ironically it’s the muzzle flash from his own gun that blinds her.

Filled with remorse, Ah Jong visits Jennie at the club every night after he blinds her to listen to her sing and they fall in love. She has no idea he’s the reason for her being blind and Ah Jong determines to get enough money to take Jenny to America so that she can have a corneal transplant. In order to get that much money, Ah Jong has to take a high-risk hit. The hit goes bad and during his escape, Ah Jong is identified by a police detective, Li Ying (Danny Lee) who becomes obsessed with capturing Ah Jong. Li Ying is the perfect guy to catch Ah Jong since he’s on thin ice with his bosses who consider him pretty much a wild bull on thin ice anyway. But he has a gift of putting himself in the mindset of criminals and he finds it pretty easy (maybe too easy ) to get into Ah Jong’s head.

Ah Jong has to not only stay out of the gunsights of the police but also his Tong boss Wong Hoi (Shing Fui-On) who has ordered a hit on Ah Jong since his identity has been compromised. What makes THE KILLER so unique is in that Ah Jong’s pursuer Li Ying becomes his closest friend and ally as the both of them discover that they’re mirrors of each other, bound together by similar personal codes of honor and loyalty.

Even today when I watch THE KILLER I am astounded by the action sequences. The final shootout in the church is the second best shootout I’ve ever seen on film and it’s earned by the fact that when it comes, we’re totally invested in the characters so we care who lives and who dies. THE KILLER has a great story that is both tremendously simple and yet overwhelming complex at the same time. It’s pretty simple why Ah Jong takes on the responsibility of restoring Jenny’s sight. It’s pretty simple why Li Ying comes to admire Ah Jong. What’s not so simple is how these characters have their own agendas that come into play and have to resolved in blood.

This is the movie that made Chow Yun-Fat a star in this country. He’s got the same kind of badassery cool that made Sean Connery, Steve McQueen and James Coburn stars and it’s all there on the screen in this one. I also like Danny Lee a lot because of his character and his acting talent we to see a lot of the Ah Jong character through his eyes as he gets inside the head of his quarry.

And the gunfights…good googlymoogly…us provincials here in America had never seen gunfights like this until John Woo said “Here…let me show you how it should be done.” And he did. Each and every gunfight in THE KILLER is epic. And this is the one that begins the classic. quintessential John Woo standoff with two guys pointing guns in each other’s faces. This one has Ah Jong and Li Ying maintaining the pose that they’re having a nice, quiet and friendly conversation in Jenny’s apartment while she serves them tea. But all the while they’ve got guns on each other. Being blind she can’t see the guns. It’s a scene that’s both hilarious and suspenseful to the max.
So should you see THE KILLER? Without a doubt, YES.

Love & Sex

 

2000

Lions Gate

Directed and Written by Valerie Breiman

Produced by Martin J. Barab, Darris Hatch and Brad Wyman

Either I’m getting old, soft in the head or just downright developing a conscience. That’s the only thing that can explain my sitting down to actually watch a romantic comedy. And on top of that, liking it a whole lot more than I thought I would. But I’ll be upfront here; the leads are played by Famke Janssen and Jon Favreau. Famke Janssen you’ll know for two outstanding movie characters. She was one of James Bond’s more memorable villains; the beautiful Xenia Onatopp in “GoldenEye” who delighted in squeezing men to death between her thighs while having sex. And she played the telepathic/telekinetic mutant superhero Jean Gray in the “X-Men” movies. Jon Favreau has made quite the reputation for himself as a dependable and extremely talented actor/director. Everybody knows him from his roles in “Swingers” and “Made” and he directed the megahits “Iron Man” and “Iron Man 2.” So it was more my curiosity in seeing just what the two of them were doing in a romantic comedy more than anything else that led me to check out LOVE & SEX.

Kate Welles (Famke Janssen) is a writer for the magazine ‘Monique’ and she’s suffering a creative crisis. She’s supposed to write an article about how to find and fall in love with the right man. A perky, happy article. The best she can come up with is 2500 words comparing romantic relationships to blow jobs. In her words: “It’s only the suckee that benefits. The sucker is left depressed.” Her editor doesn’t want to hear it and says if Kate can’t come up with something a tad more cheerfully readable by 5PM, she’s fired. Kate’s struggle to write the article triggers her memories of her past relationships that we’re allowed to share.

The relationship that really matters is the one she had with Adam Levy (Jon Favreau) an artist of decidedly bizarre talent. One of his paintings depicts a bleeding woman pulling a severed head out of her ass. And that’s one of his milder pieces. But Kate is attracted to him right off and they begin a truly touching and funny relationship that had me chuckling all throughout the movie and even laughing out loud several times. It’s love at first sight for the both of them but can it last? The movie is told through Kate’s eyes and she’s just as hard on herself as she is on Adam. They’re great together but both of them become too obsessed with wondering if they’ll still be madly in love with each other years from now. It struck me halfway through this movie that Adam and Kate are like a lot of people I know: they worry way too much about if they’re still going to be in love twenty-five years from now instead of enjoying being in love today.

I like Famke Janssen a lot in this movie. She’s not all glamorously gorgeous here. She looks like most women I see during the day walking down the street. Her character is remarkably open and casual about her past sexual experimentation and freely admits to Adam she’s had 13 lovers in the past. Adam only having had two partners naturally feels inadequate. And despite what Adam says she refuses to apologize or made to feel slutty because of her choices. She realizes she uses sex to make herself feel better because she’s so desperately afraid of being alone but that’s her choice and she stands by it. Jon Favreau’s Adam is a character equally as quirky and interesting as Janssen’s. I really liked the scene where he shows he’s a standup guy when Kate tells him she’s pregnant and his actions during a later tragedy are quietly moving.

But eventually the breakup comes. Adam and Kate go their separate ways for a time to try and find out if they’re really in love or not. The funniest part of this sequence comes from Kate’s dating action movie star Joey Santino (Josh Hopkins) who just happens to be one of Adam’s favorite actors. The sex is great with Joey but he’s got about as much brainpower as a head of cabbage. Kate tells him that he “just doesn’t get it.” Joey shrugs and goes one with life. He’s happy that he doesn’t get it. He’s content to live life for today. Kate worries about the fact that everybody today is going to die and nobody is going to remember them because everybody else is going to die.

It’s sequences like that in LOVE & SEX that reminded me a lot of Woody Allen’s work during the 1980’s. Famke Janssen’s character could easily be a female version of the neurotic persona Allen honed and perfected during that period. And both she and Jon Favreau are obviously having a fun time with the sharp dialog. It’s a nice little movie. Unpretentious and it doesn’t try to be the tearjerker of all time. And it’s nowhere near as predictable as other romantic comedies I’ve seen. It’s concerned more with telling a good story about some interesting characters instead being impressed with its own cuteness. LOVE & SEX is a movie I’m pleased to recommend as a more than satisfying Friday or Saturday night rental for you and your significant other. I think you’ll be as charmed by it as I was. It’s intelligent, funny and has its own unique heart. Enjoy.

82 minutes

Rated R: for language and sexual situations. The f-word is thrown around a lot as well as other sexual slang so be warned.

The Apple

 

1979

Cannon Film Distributors

Directed and Written by Menahem Golan

Produced by Yoram Globus

Once in a decade or so there comes a movie that is so astronomically bad that it pounds through every level of badness there is and comes out the other side having achieved such a holy transcendence of awfulness that it approaches genius. And in the 70’s the movie to have achieved this Mount Everest of WTFery is THE APPLE.

There is nobody who has seen THE APPLE is going to tell you it’s a good movie. As a matter of fact, calling it a bad movie or an awful movie or even a terrible movie is being extraordinarily kind. And yet for those of us who have seen THE APPLE will recommend it to everybody who asks the dreaded question: “So should I see it?” we’ll always say “Yes.”

Why? Why does THE APPLE have such a hold on us who have seen it? In my case I’ve seen it multiple times and I swear each and every time I do so I sit there with my lower jaw hanging open in disbelief at what I’m watching. Maybe it’s because even because it’s so bad I don’t see where it’s a malicious or mean-spirited film. The people making it and the actors really give it all they have. I get the feeling that they really believed they were making a good movie. Except for maybe Vladek Sheybal who gives me the impression he knew full well he was in the middle of the grandmomma of bad movies but determined to have as much fun as he could while doing so.

It’s 1994 and life is nothing but show business.  Alphie (George Gilmour) and Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart) are two wide-eyed young singers from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan who have come to America to perform in the Worldvision Song Festival.

Their poignant folk love song; “Universal Melody” and simple performance is no match for the glitter rock duo of Dandi (Alan Love) and Pandi (Grace Kennedy) and their monster hit “BIM” which is a song that I guarantee you’re going to hate by the end of the movie like you’ve never hated a song before in your entire life.

BIM stands for Boogalow International Music. It’s owner, Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal) sees something in the innocent naivety of Alphie and Bibi that cries out to be corrupted and seeks to lure them into signing a contract with him. Bibi quickly and willingly embraces the dark side while Alphie resolutely sticks to his values and principals, resisting the drugs, sex and wild partying. From the title and a vision Alphie has halfway through the movie you’ll soon guess the true identity of Mr. Boogalow and what the entire movie is; a retelling of the Adam and Eve story as a disco/rock musical.

THE APPLE is the sort of movie that I watch and while watching it wish that I had some of whatever substance the writer was ingesting when he was writing it. It’s the kind of movie that the longer it goes on it gets crazier and crazier. It’s by no means a boring movie at all. The songs and production numbers, terrible as they are come one right after the other so there’s no real lag time with a lot of plot or story. There’s just enough to get you from one musical number to the other. For instance, BIM goes from a mere record company at the beginning of the movie to ruling the world with not so much as a line of dialog to explain how that happened.

Not that all the songs are terrible. The best ones are performed by the guy who can’t sing; “How To Be A Master” is performed by Vladek Sheybal. He’s the guy who fills the “Who The Hell Let HIM In This Movie?” slot as you’ll most likely recognize him as one of the SPECTRE spymasters from the James Bond movie “From Russia With Love.”  He does that Rex Harrison/Richard Harris thing where he’s really not singing but talking along with the music but he does it very well. It’s a delightful reggae flavored tune that Mr. Sheybal performs with sly mischief. The lyrics are actually quite clever and fun. And his other big number, “Showbizness” is also pretty good as a commentary on the values of living in the media obsessed world of 1994 America.

But then we have ear bleeders like “Coming” sung by Grace Kennedy as Pandi tries to seduce Alphie. It’s such a blatant rip-off of Donna Summer’s “Wasted” that I hope like hell that somebody got their ass sued. “Speed” “I Found Me” and “Cry For Me” are equally as bad.

And undoubtedly most of the fun of watching the movie is how the filmmakers in 1979 thought people in 1994 would dress. Everybody in this movie has clothing that had to be inspired by David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Earth, Wind and Fire, Funkadelic/Parliament, Kiss and Elton John. The only people who dress like regular folks is Alphie and the hippies from the 60’s he falls in with after having the piss beaten out of him by two of Boogalow’s thugs who for some reason have tusks coming out of their mouths. And no, don’t even ask why they have tusks. This is a movie that gets so crazy that the only way things can be resolved is for God Himself to come down from Heaven and take control of the plot. And no, I am not kidding.

So should you see THE APPLE? Without a doubt Yes. THE APPLE is one of a very few movies that you can watch, be totally sober and still feel like you’ve taken some kind of hallucinogenic. It’s audaciously awful and spectacularly bad. But for all that, it’s a movie I recommend with no reservations because at the end of the day, it’s fun to watch and bad as it is, if you approach it in the right spirit you won’t feel like your time has been wasted.

90 Minutes

PG

 

The Fabulous World Of Jules Verne

1958

Ceskoslovensky Statni Filmexport/Warner Brothers (U.S. release)

Directed by Karel Zeman

Produced by Zdenek Novak

Written by Karle Zeman, Frantisek Hrubin, Jiri Brdecka and Milan Vacha

Based on “Facing The Flag” by Jules Verne

God bless the Internet is all I have to say. Sure, it’s got a lot of bad things we could sit around and bitch about for a couple of hours. And we all spend way too much time Googling all sorts of useless trivia and Skyping away until Blip A.M. But thanks to the Internet I’ve been able to reconnect with a lot of stuff I watched on TV during the 1970’s and 1980’s I thought I’d never be able to see again. And the marvelous 1958 Steampunk adventure THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE is one of these.

Of course, when I watched it all those years ago, the term Steampunk wasn’t used. The movie was simply labeled as Science Fiction but Steampunk is what it is and a marvelously imaginative visual example of the genre at that. THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE was usually aired on NY’s Channel 9 on Saturdays, sandwiched in between Ray Harryhausen’s stop motion fantasies and Italian muscleman sword-and-sandal epics. Somebody at that station must have been in love with the movie’s visual style as much as I was because it seemed to air every three or four months. Now you have to understand that a movie being shown that often in such a relatively short time period was truly something special back then. This was before even pre-VCR days which meant that at the time and day your favorite TV show or movie was airing, you either stayed home to watch it or you didn’t watch it all. Which meant you had to wait months for it to be rerun. If it ever was.

Some of you who just read that last two sentences now have looks of utter horror on your face, I know it for a fact.

Engineer Simon Hart (Lubor Tokos) is thrilled and excited to be living in an age of scientific wonder where new modes of transportation such as the locomotive, transatlantic ocean liners, airships and submarines, all powered by steam are revolutionizing travel. Simon is the assistant of the brilliant Professor Roch (Arnost Navratil) who is working on a powerful new explosive. The term ‘atom bomb’ is never mentioned but since Professor Roch says later on he needs heavy water for his explosive I’m going to guess that’s what he’s working on.

Professor Roch and Simon are kidnapped by Captain Spade (Frantisek Slegr) the leader of a band of ruthless cutthroats who have hijacked a submarine for their nefarious trade. Captain Spade works for the diabolical Count Artigas (Miloslav Holub) who wants the professor’s explosive for his own diabolical purposes. They are then taken to the pirates’ secret lair hidden inside a dormant volcano on Back Cup Island. Can Simon escape the clutches of the pirates and Count Artigas to warn the unsuspecting nations of the world before the trusting Professor Roch creates the most terrible explosive known to man?

I’m not familiar with the original Jules Verne novel, ‘Facing The Flag’ this movie is based on and I gather from what little I’ve read about it, it’s a pretty obscure work of his. But it’s a pretty good story we’re presented here. And the movie moves along at a really good pace which it has to, given its short running time The acting is nothing to brag about but it serves the needs of the story and I’m happy with that me. But what you want to watch THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE for isn’t the acting; it’s the utterly amazing visual style of the movie that’s the real star.

Director Karel Zeman wanted to reproduce the look and texture of woodcut illustrations and line engravings on film and the result is a movie that looks utterly and totally unique. The special effects are a mix of animation and stop motion, double exposures, miniatures and matte paintings combined in such a way that is simply amazing. There’s no other way to say it. THE FABULOUS WORLD OF JULES VERNE is like a 83 minute showcase of all the special effect techniques available to filmmakers at that time because they’re all used here and used wonderfully. The result is a movie that looks marvelously surrealistic. But here, I’ll let the trailer make my point for me:

Still not convinced? Well, I tried. But for those of you sufficiently intrigued to want to see for yourself what all the fuss is about, the movie can be seen in it’s entirely on YouTube right below. Enjoy.

Oblivion

 

2013

Universal Pictures

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

Produced by David Fincher, Peter Chernin and Ryan Kavanaugh

Screenplay by William Monahan, Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt

Based on “Oblivion” by Joseph Kosinski and Arvid Nelson

I get what OBLIVION is trying to do. Or at least I think I get what it’s trying to do. Watching OBLIVION I felt myself squinting like Fry from “Futurama” in one of those “Not Sure If…” memes. OBLIVION makes a noble try at being a Science Fiction movie with some action in it rather than an Action Movie with some science fiction. If that makes any sense to you. It started out to make sense to me but the longer the movie went on, the more I squinted. The movie’s leisurely pace gave me time to think about what was going on and yep, start doing the “Not Sure If…” thing.

After a devastating war with a race of aliens known as Scavengers, The Moon is destroyed and humanity’s Hail Mary use of nuclear weapons has all but destroyed the Earth’s ability to continue supporting life. Technician Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) and his communications officer/partner/lover Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are part of a massive operation to extract water from Earth to use on Titan where the human race has relocated. Jack and Victoria get their orders from their commander, Sally (Melissa Leo) who communicates with them from The Tet, a gigantic space station that resembles an upside down pyramid.

Now all of this information is conveyed to the audience in a voice over by Jack in the first ten minutes of the movie. I kid you not. I gave you the short version but just about everything you read in the paragraph above this one is relayed in a voice over, along with the information that Jack and Victoria had their memories wiped five years ago as a security measure in case they’re captured by Scavengers. Do I really have to tell you that any character in any science fiction movie who’s had their memory wiped is not to be trusted? Or that at some point in the movie, everything the characters in the movie have been experiencing will turn out to not be real? Didn’t think so.

Jack’s job is pretty much being a glorified maintenance man as he keeps the weapon-laden drones running. They protect the ginormous water extraction machines from those Scavengers that still remain on Earth. But Jack is conflicted in his job. Unlike Victoria who has no desire at all to go down to the surface, Jack feels more at home there than in the mile high tower complex they live in that looks as if it were designed by the same architect who designed the spire where The Jetsons live. He has reoccurring dreams about being on Earth before the war. He’s on the 86^th floor observation deck of the Empire State Building with a woman he knows he has deep feelings for but cannot remember her name or why he has these dreams. The answer comes one day during his routine patrol when a sixty year old spaceship,  The Odyssey, crash lands near the ruins of the Empire State Building. The ship contains a number of hibernation capsules carrying humans. One of them is Julia (Olga Kurylenko) who is the woman in Jack’s dreams. Defying direct orders from Sally to bring Julia to The Tet, Jack and Julia begin their quest to discover what The Odyssey’s mission was and how it is connected to the war with The Scavengers.

OBLIVION has some good things going for it. It’s a gorgeous looking movie with some really cool gadgets and gizmos to ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ over. I really dug Jack’s flier which is one of the coolest flying machines I’ve seen in movies recently. The special effects are appropriately amazing but in this day and age of computer wizardry do we ever see a movie with bad special effects anymore?

I really wish I could tell you to go for the acting but Tom Cruise doesn’t do anything to stretch his acting muscles in this one. And Tom Cruise can act when he wants to. I point at “Tropic Thunder” “Magnolia” “Collateral” and “Valkyrie” as just a few examples of what Cruise can do when he takes himself off autopilot.

I’ve seen Olga Kurylenko in three movies now and the more movies I see her in, the less I want to see of her. Didn’t like her in “Hitman” and actively disliked her in “Quantum of Solace.” She’s not much better here. And Andrea Riseborough is just plain dull. And despite what you see in trailers, Morgan Freeman isn’t a major character in this movie. His character’s name is Malcolm Beech but it should have been Malcolm Exposition as that’s the main purpose Freeman serves here.

So should you see OBLIVION? Are you a Tom Cruise fan? If so, you’ve probably seen it already or have plans to see it and so nothing I say will change your mind. And that’s okay. Believe me, I understand. But for the rest of you I say wait for OBLIVION to come to Netflix.

124 minutes

PG-13

Better In The Dark #146: Rock The Sunset Delusion Where The Crimson Contenders Lie

 

It’s time for the 2013 edition of The Obscure Movie Episode!  Join Tom and Derrick as they present their annual six-pack of films you might not otherwise know about.  From the southwest noir Delusion to the Hollywood action thriller Sunset to the animated epic (that almost destroyed a Canadian movie studio) Rock and Rule, the Guys Outta Brooklyn cover a wide range of genres.  Plus talk about rats, New Year’s Eve, gullible football players and…Big Electric Cat!  You know we’re the hottest

thing since World War Three, so get to clicking!

http://earth-2.net/

 

Olympus Has Fallen

2013

Millennium Films

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

Produced by Gerard Butler, Alan Siegel and Mark Gill

Written by Creighton Rothenberger

Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) is the agent of charge of the Secret Service’s Presidential Detail. And as such he enjoys an usually intimate relationship with The First Family. He calls President Asher (Aaron Eckhart) by his first name while they work out together at Camp David. He advises First Lady Margaret (Ashley Judd) on what earrings to wear at state functions. Their son Connor treats Mike as if he were his favorite uncle. That all comes to an end when there’s a horrifying car accident and Mike has to make a choice between saving The President or Margaret. Mike chooses President Asher.

Mike is transferred to working in the Treasury Department as Asher doesn’t want Mike around to remind him of that night. Mike’s boss, Secret Service chief Lynne Jacobs (Angela Bassett) tells Mike repeatedly that nobody blames him for what happened as he did his job of protecting The President. But it doesn’t make it easier for Mike who hates his desk duty, seeing it as a demotion.

Mike’s chance for redemption comes when The White House is attacked and captured by the brilliant terrorist mastermind Kang Yeonsak (Rick Yune) who takes President Asher and most of his top aides hostage. His goal is to use them as leverage to force U.S. military forces to withdraw from Korea’s DMZ. Kang also is after the access codes for Cerberus, a computer system that will allow him to detonate all of America’s nuclear missiles in their silos, turning America into a nuclear wasteland.

During the ferocious assault, Mike joins the Secret Service agents defending The White House and manages to get inside. By the time military backup arrives, the terrorists have slaughtered all the Secret Service agents and secured The White House. It’s up to Mike Banning to go full-blown John McClane to save the day single-handedly. Can he rescue Conner Asher before Kang’s men find him? Can he save President Asher? Can he deactivate Cerberus before the countdown hits zero and the United States goes ka-boom?

If you have to ask, then you must not be familiar with action movies of the 1980’s which is what OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is an unashamed throwback to. In fact, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is so committed to its 80’s Action Movie roots that for me it’s a better “Die Hard” sequel than “A Good Day To Die Hard.” The story is totally preposterous of course, but then again, what action movie doesn’t have a preposterous premise to begin with? And the movie has more than its share of plot holes such as; why does Kang waste time executing hostages to force Speaker of The House/Acting President Allan Trumbull (Morgan Freeman) to order U.S. troops to withdraw from Korea when he could have simply used the threat of Cerberus to do so? Why does Asher wait until his Vice President (Phil Austin) and Secretary of Defense (Melissa Leo) are beaten damn near to death before ordering them to give up their codes while he gives his up without putting up any kind of resistance?

But OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN, despite the plot holes is a pretty solid action thriller. And I liked how it didn’t go down the usual route of this genre of movie. Thankfully, Mike doesn’t turn into a burned-out, alcoholic mess who screws up his marriage after his demotion. He’s actually a pretty well-adjusted guy with a solid marriage. He just needs to spend a little more time with his wife (Radha Mitchell in a really boring and uninspired performance) and get from behind that desk.  I figured that the only purpose of the President having a son was so that at a crucial point he’d be taken hostage and we’d get yet another tired scene of the bad guy holding the gun to the brat’s head and telling our hero to drop his gun. That doesn’t happen here and I was so glad for that.

The casting of this movie is really first rate, full of A-list actors who I was quite surprised to see in what is essentially a big budget B-Action Movie. Besides Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Ashley Judd, Angela Bassett, Melissa Leo, Rick Yune and Morgan Freeman we’ve got Dylan McDermott as Dave Forbes, ex-Secret Service agent and best friend to Mike, Robert Forster as the Army Chief of Staff and Cole Hauser. That’s one impressive line-up of talent for any movie and they all do their usual professional work here. I can’t really single out any performance that I didn’t like. Except for Radha Mitchell and I’m willing to chalk that up to her character really being underwritten and never really getting a chance to do much.

And I really enjoyed seeing Gerard Butler back doing what he should be doing: making kick-ass action movies. Hopefully this won’t be his last one and he’ll stay away from making crappy romantic comedies. And I can’t close out this review without a special nod to Melissa Leo whose character takes one of the most excruciating ass-whoopin’s I’ve ever seen in a movie.

So should you see OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN? If you’re an action movie fan, yeah. The spectacularly gory violence and sheer level of destruction in this movie is gleeful and plentiful. This movie has got one of the highest body counts I’ve seen in recent movies and the CGI guys were apparently given full leave to go nuts, which they do. There’s nothing in OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN that will really surprise you as the director, Antoine Fuqua is not out to reinvent the Action Movie genre here. He has produced a solid piece of entertainment designed to do nothing more than put asses in seats, sell popcorn and provide two hours of carnage. If that’s all you’re looking for, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN is your huckleberry.

Rated R

180 Minutes

Dredd

2012

Entertainment Film Distributors/Lionsgate

Directed by Pete Travis

Produced by Alex Garland and Andrew MacDonald

Written by Alex Garland

Based on the character “Judge Dredd” created by John Wagner and Carols Ezquerra

I miss the huge eagle shoulder emblem and that honkin’ huge chain. Really. I can understand why that shoulder emblem is impractical for police work but I still miss it. It’s the only thing I miss from 1995’s “Judge Dredd.” Well, I miss Diane Lane. And as good as he is (and he is very good) Karl Urban can’t say “I am the law!” like Sylvester Stallone. But outside of that, fifteen minutes into DREDD I couldn’t remember anything else about that earlier movie. That’s how good a job DREDD does of giving us a version of the classic British comic book character that is far closer in spirit to the Judge Dredd we know and love.

Mega-City One is an impossibly huge city covering the East Coast of what used to be the United States with over 800 million citizens living in it. The number of violent crimes is staggering. In order to combat the crime wave, Mega-City One is policed by The Judges who fulfill the functions of both police officers and judges. Having caught a criminal, Judges are authorized to try and sentence criminals right on the spot. Cuts down on the paperwork.

It’s new Judge recruit Cassandra Anderson’s (Olivia Thirlby) first day on the job. Even though she failed several of her aptitude tests to become a Judge, she’s given a chance to prove herself due to her being an extremely powerful psychic. If she can pass her Assessment, she’ll get her badge. That’s the good news. The bad news is that she’s partnered with Judge Dredd, the toughest and most feared Judge in Mega-City One and it’s him who will have the final say if she becomes a Judge or not.

And then comes the worst news. While investigating three murders in Peach Trees, a 200 story slum tower, Dredd and Anderson arrest Kay (Wood Harris) one of the lieutenants of The Ma-Ma Clan. Run by former prostitute and now drug kingpin, Ma-Ma (Lena Headey) takes control of the tower’s control room and seals off the building from the outside, trapping Dredd and Anderson inside. Ma-Ma can’t afford to let Dredd and Anderson escape as since during their investigation they found out that Peach Tree is the center of production and distribution for Slo-Mo, a highly addictive drug that slows down the user’s perception of time. On their own and cut off from back-up, Dredd and Anderson fight their way up, floor by floor to get to Ma-Ma.

DREDD is just about a perfect B-Movie. If this had been made back during the heyday of grindhouses in the 70’s and 80’s it would have run on 42end Street for a solid year. It’s gloriously violent and wallows in the violence because it’s a movie that knows full well what it is: it’s a grindhouse/exploitation B-Action Movie  and it has no desire or aspirations to be anything but the best grindhouse/exploitation B-Action Movie it can be.

But there are plenty of touches here that elevate it to the top rung of B-Movies. First off, it’s a lot smarter than it has to be. It doesn’t have the satirical edge the comic strip does but it makes up for it with sharp characterization and plausible motivation. None of the characters are dumbed down so that they’ll play by the numbers. These are smart, dangerous people on both sides and they behave like it. The production is also highly unique looking. Mega-City One and Peach Tree has a look both realistic and functionally futuristic at the same time. It’s a good movie to look at just for the production design.

The movie doesn’t flinch away when it comes to the violence. Especially during gunfights which are shown from the point of view of those who have inhaled the Slo-Mo drug. Everything is then shown in slow motion. The idea is to capture the hallucinogenic feel of the drug user and the movie pulls it off in a way that I’ve really never seen before. People are getting taken out with head shots or having their guts blown into hamburger and the way it’s filmed is actually beautiful in a way.

The acting is wonderful with Karl Urban leading the way. He’s become one of my favorite actors in recent years and he gets another gold star from me for his commitment to the role. Just like the comic book character, Karl Urban’s Dredd never removes his helmet and we never see his face. Urban does all his work with his chin and his voice. He talks in a terrific pseudo-Clint Eastwood voice that isn’t exactly an imitation or impersonation but is just short of that. Urban manages to get in quite a bit of humor in a character that is essentially humorless. It cracked me up how no matter what Ma-Ma throws at them or how dire the situation got, Dredd never forgets that he’s supposed to be training Anderson and from time to time will ask her questions as if they’re in a classroom and not standing knee deep in dead bodies.

Since by his very nature we can’t get into Dredd’s head as he has no friends, no family and lives only to uphold the law we have to turn to Anderson for the movie’s emotional center and Olivia Thrilby does a better than average job of that. Anderson doesn’t wear a helmet because it would interfere with her psychic abilities so we get to see her face and the emotions at play in her as she tries her best to survive this hellish day. I really liked the adversarial relationship that develops between her and Kay as they play mind games with each other, trying to get the upper hand. Since Anderson is a psychic and can tell what others are thinking and feeling, she has to reconcile that gift with the duties a Judge must perform. Thrilby does a great job at portraying and balancing that conflict

And as one of the best bad guys I’ve seen in recent movies, Lena Headey doesn’t just take the cake. She steals the entire damn bakery. Ma-Ma is smarter, tougher and more sadistic than any man that works for her and Headey dives into the role with manic glee. Out of everybody in the wonderful cast she looks like she’s having the most fun.

So should you see DREDD? If you haven’t yet then you absolutely should set aside time for DREDD. It’s a perfect Saturday afternoon movie, perfectly cast and told in a direct, straightforward, pedal-to-the-metal manner. I had a great time watching it and I think you will as well. Just one little warning: the language in this movie is not for those of you with soft ears or gentle sensibilities and the violence is not for kids or those of you who don’t like violent movies. It grinds my grits when people watch R rated movies and spend the whole time complaining about the language, sex and/or violence. The movie rating is there for a reason and DREDD more than earns it’s R rating so don’t say you weren’t told.

Rated R

95 minutes

Dark City: The Director’s Cut

 

1998

New Line Cinema

Directed by Alex Proyas

Produced by Alex Proyas and Andrew Mason

Screenplay by Alex Proyas, David S. Goyer and Lem Dobbs

Based on a story by Alex Proyas

A man (Rufus Sewell) wakes up in a tub full of cold water. He’s a resident in a hotel but has no memory of checking in there, let alone living there for the past three weeks as the desk clerk insists. He gets a phone call from a man claiming to be his doctor (Kiefer Sutherland) who tells him he must leave the hotel as there are people looking for him. ‘People’ is somewhat of of an understatement. The Strangers look like walking corpses dressed all in black and have extraordinary psychokinetic powers. The man leaves and begins a search for his identity, pursued not only by The Strangers but by Police Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) who suspects that the man is the maniac responsible for a string of horrifying murders.

The man eventually discovers his name is John Murdoch and that he has powers of his own that enable him to evade The Strangers. Armed with these powers he sets out to discover the truth of his origins. Did he really murder six prostitutes? Is the sultry torch singer Emma Murdoch (Jennifer Connelly) truly his wife? Why is he tortured with memories of his youth living in the coastal town of Shell Beach and why is it nobody can remember how to get there? Why does everybody in this city of eternal night, this DARK CITY fall asleep at midnight? Why do The Strangers use their power to rearrange the very city itself and swap identities of the sleeping inhabitants?

If you’ve never seen DARK CITY I wouldn’t dream of spoiling the fun of you discovering the answers to those questions and many others. Because DARK CITY is just as much a neo-noir detective story as it is so many other genres. It’s also a horror movie. A live action graphic novel. A science fiction movie. A suspense thriller. In a way, it’s even a superhero hero. It’s so many different genres blended together and amazingly, they all work thanks to the utter brilliant screenplay and direction. I know people who go on and on and on about how great “The Crow” is but they can keep that movie. Just give me DARK CITY which for me is the best thing Proyas has directed so far.

The visual look and texture of this movie is just as unique as the story. The architecture of the Dark City itself looks European mixed with Art Deco and German Expressionism. It’s a look like no other city in a movie has ever has. It’s even more impressive when you find out that it was all constructed on a set. The production design alone is worth seeing the movie.

This is the first movie I ever saw Rufus Sewell in and right from there I said to myself I would have to keep an eye on this guy. He’s one of those actors who I just can’t take my eyes off when he’s on screen. He’s always doing something interesting with his eyes, his body or his hands. And he’s one of the few actors who I can actually see thinking. He’s flat out terrific in this movie. Kiefer Sutherland is equally terrific. People who only know him as Jack Bauer really need to watch DARK CITY to see just how good an actor he really is. William Hurt has a lot of good scenes as Inspector Bumstead. I liked his relationship with a uniformed policeman who admires Bumstead and who acts as his unofficial sidekick in police work. Bumstead has long had his own suspicions about the origins of the city as he reveals when he asks Emma Murdoch questions about her own memories. And as usual, I can’t say a bad word against Jennifer Connelly. Not only is she gorgeous as hell she’s an amazing actress as well.

What else can I say? Not much else. Chances are most of you reading this have already seen DARK CITY and so you know what I’m talking about. As for those of you who haven’t. Please do yourself a favor and this weekend get yourself a Blu-Ray of DARK CITY. I’m advising you to get the Blu-Ray because not only does DARK CITY look astounding in Blu-Ray, it also has a commentary by Roger Ebert who was a major champion of this movie from Day One. ‘Visionary’ is a word thrown around far too often when describing movies but in the case of DARK CITY it’s more than well deserved. It’s one of the most imaginative and fascinating movies I’ve ever seen. It tells a great story and does it in a memorably thrilling and original way. Enjoy.

 

Rated R

100 Minutes