Movie News and Reviews

Don’t get too worked up, because it doesn’t involve a birth/marriage/raise/Grammy nomination, but awesome news all the same! Thirty plus years ago my Grandpa and I sat down and watched a wicked action flick called “Dark of the Sun” starring Rod Taylor. Once Grandpa passed, I spent twenty plus years trying to track down the title of the movie, then found it wasn’t on DVD and was out of print on tape. I found a VHS copy in the library system, only to rent it and find out the video was damaged and unwatchable. End of story. Until . . . last night at work a supervisor hands me a copy of Entertainment Weekly and on page 59 is an unmistakable picture from the film – Taylor fighting a chainsaw wielding opponent! The remastered film (which counts Quentin Tarantino as a fan) is now available on DVD solely through Warner Archive on its direct order website warnerarchive.com.  You can bet that after the holidays I’ll be buying a copy of this, and hopefully watching it with my Smiley (if it isn’t as violent as I remember;  Grandpa had rather poor judgment on what was age-appropriate to watch)

Also out on DVD – Doctor Detroit, a cheesy Dan Aykroyd comedy about a college professor who moonlights as a pimp with a metal hand. I loved this as a kid (again, it wasn’t age appropriate). What I remember most is a scene where Aykroyd turns down the services of a drunk, down on his luck lawyer.  The scene tore me apart, and I cried and told my Grandparent’s that I wish we could go buy the lawyer some groceries, because he looked like he needed someone’s help. What can I say – I was a sappy, Smiley-like kid.

Men in Black 3 was pretty darn good. The plot is pretty simple, but unique enough to justify returning to what I’d consider a dead in the water franchise. Agent J travels back in time to 1969 to stop another time-traveler from killing Agent K and triggering an interstellar invasion. Kudos to Josh Brolin on a masterful job channeling Tommy Lee Jones, and while I saw the “emotional” plot point at the end from a mile away, the film as a whole was entertaining and great popcorn viewing. Grade: B+

What are the the best magazines in the world? I can’t answer that, by can tell you which ones are my favorites: Smithsonian, Entertainment Weekly, Archeology, and (a distant fourth) Biblical Archeology.

A Bad Day

So far today: my car battery died after work but the repair shop doesn't have the size in stock and won't until early afternoon. My watch stopped too, and my cell phone is acting up. YaYa came home sick from school in what I am certain is a deliberate attempt by the universe to scratch any attempt to enjoy what little remains of the day with my wife. Oh, and then when I had YaYa carry out a bag of garbage it broke all over the sidewalk and she refused to pick it up until I threatened all manner of terror. I have also not slept in close to 20 hours, and won't have the chance to for another four or five hours. Miserable, miserable day. Happy 12/12/12!

Smiley's new 2nd Grade School Pic - Get that kid a haircut!

A Princess in Peril, a World about to End, and a guy in a rubber suit. Star Wars? Nope just three reviews (and Vader wore leather, not rubber. Pay attention.)

A few nights ago a friend sat me down to watch The Princess Bride, a movie I’d never seen in its entirety. I knew the basic premise, and I knew it was written by screenwriting legend William Goldman (Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men), but the rest of it was new to me.

So what did I think? I liked it, but only in a ho-hum, “that was a pleasant way to pass the time” manner.  There were a lot of pluses, to be sure. Top to bottom it was a great cast, with Robin Wright’s pure beauty and Mandy Patinkin’s awesome talent headlining the list for me. I thought the story itself was good, although certainly nothing original. I like that the special effects were pretty non-existent, which is refreshing to eyes that are sick of CGI. The interaction between the grandpa and his grandson was sweet.

The bad? Well there was no ‘bad’, just ‘less good’.  As I said, the story wasn’t original in the least, and I’m in the distinct minority in saying that the humor largely distracted me from what  little story there was on screen.  And while I raved about the cast a paragraph ago, in truth I found Cary Elwes’ portrayal of Wesley to be too over the top for my liking.

I’m fully aware that I come off as a joykill, but I rate this a B-

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is a bittersweet little dramedy starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley as two neighbors who spend the last few days of mankind on a quest to fulfill their last wishes: his to confess his feelings for his true love and Knightley to find a plane to carry her home to her parents one last time.  Whether they reach their goals is beside the point, as the experience changes them in ways neither could have foreseen.

A friend asked me if this was like Melancholia, and other than the impending doom of planet Earth, I told her no, it isn’t ; Melancholia was a festering heap of hopelessness, not just for the future but for the present and the past – nothing mattered, and nothing ever would.  It dang near drove me into waking off a short pier. This is in many ways the opposite. The future is non-existent, but that fact is almost secondary to, well, everything.  What’s important is that the few days they have left are spent making the whole of their lives accumulate some value beyond just ‘being’, and so, even as disaster looms, I think this film resonates with the wonder of life.

I enjoyed it, and despite some noticeable flaws, I’d rate it an A-

Finally, Lisa and I finished watching Season 1 of American Horror Story on Netflix.  I don’t think it quite lived up to the hype my friends piled on it, or the critical acclaim it racked up, but given the mountains of each saying it wasn’t tip-top still means  it was grand.

At first I was put out by how often the show plagiarized real-life tragedies – Columbine, Richard Speck, the Lindbergh kidnapping – but then Lisa, in her wisdom, pointed out they were key tragedies of American life and thus part of the mosaic of an American horror story.  Smart girl that one, but I will argue that the appearance of the Black Dahlia herself was too much, no matter the scholastic interpretation. 

Still, bit by bit as the storyline evolved I was drawn in, and had the series ended after episode 11 (the birth), I’d have walked away saying “wow”. The final episode, which seems written just to force a “happy ending”,  felt contrived to me and watered down the whole. In fact, I think if you trimmed the fat this 12 episode (mini)series would have been tighter and cleaner at 8 or 9 hours of TV, but that’s splitting hairs. There were plenty of great twists and turns (Violet’s status, for instance) to keep us all from grabbing the remote. 

[Special kudos to Evan Peters, who played Tate. He’s a wonderful actor, and I expect we’ll see more of him in the future]

Grade: B+

Lulu loves her new school pic, saying she looks like a 'businesswoman" - 4th Grade

A New WNBA Star In the Making!

Just after returning from a three day vacation with a friend at Christmas Mountain, LuLu played in her first basketball game for the Cudahy Girls Basketball Club. She did well - much better than I expected based on my own time in grade school basketball. 

She led the team in rebounding and twice stole the ball, once running it all the way across the court to her own basket. There were better players on the court, but not by leaps and bounds, and none were nearly as beautiful. 

Well done LuLu!

Ginger in her school pic retake - K5

Mad River by John Sandford

Book #95 of 2012: 

Mad River is a Virgil Flowers novel by John Sandford. Three people go on a killing spree in a remote Minnesota county, leading to a manhunt that will last days and leave a trail of bodies behind. 

I fully acknowledge Sandford as a genius of the mystery genre, and this one is a fine example of his craft. The portions of the narrative devoted to the killers’ flows like In Cold Blood mashed with Bonnie and Clyde, but without stumbling in blunt imitation, and I love how Sandford incorporates an affection for his home state into every facet of the book without turning it into a tourist guide put out by the local chamber of commerce.

Grade: A+

Three '70's Greats

If you know me, you've probably picked up on the fact that I’m overly fond of the 1970’s, at least when it comes to movies, TV, and, to an extent, music.

Let me state it clearly: I believe the 1970’s were the single greatest decade for movie making to date.  The ‘70’s produced Godfather I and II, Annie Hall, Taxi Driver, Rocky, Jaws, All the President’s Men, Star Wars, Young Frankenstein, just to name a few. Even the clunkers were epic; Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Rocky Horror Picture Show, for instance.

This past week I finally got a chance to watch three of the undisputed best offerings of that golden decade.

Network is best known for its “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” scree, which is certainly worth remembering.  

Still, it’s a shame that memory of the film has been largely reduced to one catchy line of dialogue. For those of you unfamiliar with Network, it’s the story of a television news anchor that slips off the rails and speaks his mind on the air, and the ensuing ratings boost inspires the network to make the newscast more of a circus than an informational broadcast.

It was intended as broad satire, an exaggerated swipe at the business of television. Flash forward nearly 40 years and much of that satire is unrecognizable. Oh, sure, we don’t have psychics on our nightly news (yet), but much of the ‘insanity’ of the network decisions is just par for the course in this day and age. It reads much ‘straighter’ now than it ever did when it was released.

It is a finely written film with inspired performances by the entire cast; my one complaint would be that each character seems contractually obligated to launch into at least one long, preachy monologue during each act.

Grade A+

Next up was Marathon Man, the Lawrence Oliver/Dustin Hoffmann thriller best known for the torture scene in Oliver’s dentist’s chair. I thought it was a good thriller, though I remain a little confused as to the relationship between the American agents and Oliver’s Nazi character. Additionally the final scenes in the water treatment plant seemed flat, and I’ve heard a rumor that the author of the source material was annoyed with it too.

A great movie? Eh. A very good movie? Yes. More proof screenwriter William Goldman is a Hollywood genius? Darn skippy. 

Grade: B+

I have seen and read more about Dog Day Afternoon than just about any film out there (it even popped up in a novel I just read) and so I was eager to see this Pacino classic. The verdict? Wow. As good as advertised.

Pacino is perfect as the quirky, slightly effeminate Sonny, while John Cazale’s otherwise minuscule part resonates with hopelessness and an undercurrent of violence. Were there flaws? Precious few. The police response to the bank robbery seems ham-fisted and overblown to my eyes, , but I’ll chalk that up to a different time and place.

The grade for this film is a no-brainer from me: A+

YaYa's stunning new school pic - 6th grade