American Reunion

American Reunion is awkward and unfunny, just like an actual high school reunion. It's a comedy that didn't make me crack a smile. It's a relationship picture in which not one single relationship feels authentic. It's a mess in which characters show up for the sole purpose of cashing a check and getting the heck out. And it's a considerable waste of the talents of Seann William Scott, who really won me over with Goon.

Here's the setup: it's 13 years since the events of the excellent American Pie. As one might expect with a successful ensemble piece, some of the players' careers have advanced and some haven't. So it is with the characters they play as the characters descend upon their home town, get themselves into awkward situations, and resolve a variety of relationship issues.

But it all feels forced and unfunny. Characters who aren't central to the narrative show up merely for the audience to say, "Hey, I remember that guy!" Rather than inspire guffaws, awkward situations only make us wish we were somewhere else. The story comes from its outline, as opposed to flowing organically. Something about the whole production reeks of desperation.

I felt icky and sad while watching American Reunion, much the same way I imagine I'd feel if I had to watch actual thirty-somethings recreate their high school years. Pass on this film. Forget it ever existed. Hopefully, they won't try to make another.

Lincoln & Skyfall

I haven't had much time to write lately, so I share with you these excellent reviews of Lincoln and Skyfall.

http://badassdigest.com/2012/11/08/movie-review-lincoln/

http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/review-skyfall-represents-a-series-high-by-humanizing-the-superhuman-james-bond

Enjoy.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I took my wife and oldest child to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I loved it, which isn't saying much. I'm wedded to the source material, you see. The book was my early-adolescent gateway drug to the world of fantasy, and I loved Peter Jackson's film simply for the opportunity it gave me to spend time in its world.

This is the paragraph where I tease the plot, to help you decide whether it interests you. But this is The Hobbit we're talking about. If you don't know the plot, just go read the book. If you're a reasonably fast reader, you can plow through it in about as much time as it'd take you to get in the car, drive to the theater, see the film, and drive home.

That said, the film is a prequel done right. Yes, it puts pieces in place for the LOTR movies (discussed here, here, and here), but it tells its own story, with its own dangers and its own heroes and villains. I cared about Bilbo qua Bilbo, and not just because of the effect his actions might have on other people in other movies down the storyline. Sherlock's Martin Freeman does great work in the role, giving us the very much settled adult hobbit, as opposed to Elijah Woods's young adult Frodo. James Nesbitt, alternately chilling and charming in BBC's Jekyll, shows a whole different side as a particularly cheerful and resourceful dwarf (whose names I never could keep strait, in print or on film). And it's always nice to see 7th Doctor Sylvester McCoy getting work, this time as nature wizard Radagast the Brown.

When I inevitably purchase this film, I'll be particularly interested in watching the special features about the technical aspects of its creation.  With as much care as Peter Jackson and his team put into creating Middle Earth for The Lord of the Rings, they had to work even harder here. See, Jackson chose to film in 48 fps, the kind of super-high definition you may associate with sporting events on an HDTV. That means that spray paint over styrofoam wasn't going cut it, this time around. This stuff needed to look better that low-def real: it had to look real real. In this, Jackson succeeds perhaps too well. His vision, at 48fps 3-D, is so clear and detailed that we find ourselves moving into the uncanny valley, where our brains shift from willing suspension of disbelief to unwillingly noticing that things are not quite right. While the film's hyperreality works to breathtaking effect in sequences like the battle of the stone giants, I had to consciously suspend my disbelief when it returns to a bunch of actors on a stage who look just like a bunch of actors on a stage.

Nevertheless, I was happy to keep on believing. I cared about Bilbo, I loved the action set-pieces, and I just plain enjoyed spending 2 hours and 45 minutes in Middle Earth. I look forward to going back again.

Get The Gringo

I've heard Get The Gringo described as the unofficial sequel to Payback. That's about right.

As you may recall, Payback is the story of a bad man who is doublecrossed by other bad men and seeks revenge. Its advertising slogan, as I recall, was "Get ready to root for the bad guy." Its unique charm lies in the fact that its protagonist really is a bad guy, but we let that go because he's played by Mel Gibson (Also, apparently, a bad guy. But an incredibly magnetic screen presence.).

Get The Gringo begins with Gibson making a run for the border with three duffel bags full of cash, a clown costume, and an associate who's bleeding out all over his money. Gibson is very concerned. About the money.

And that's about all you need to know about this picture.

Now, I liked Payback, and the comparison was enough to get me to queue up Get The Gringo.  I'm happy to report that this newer film hits just the right tone of relentlessly amoral, yet curiously fun, scumbaggery. Gibson steals and kills and generally behaves badly, yet he does exhibit a moral core, even if it is tainted by self-centeredness: there's just enough of a flicker of a soul in there to allow us to root for him.

And the film itself, well, it's direct-to-video yet it looks like a full-budget, big screen production. The Mexican prison where Gibson finds himself has an understandable geography, recognizable citizens, and lived-in feel that makes it seem organic, and not just a studio lot. The music accentuates the action without overwhelming it. The cast, featuring a number of well-known supporting actors in crucial roles, hits its marks and sells the material. And the action set-pieces, well, let's just say some stuff blows up real good.

So it comes down to this: if you liked Payback and you can still stand to look at Mel Gibson, I think you'll find that Get The Gringo comes through. It stays true to its premise, it's utterly professional, and it delivers a scuzzily entertaining hour and a half at the movies. It worked for me.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

I pity the cold and withered heart that doesn't quicken at the very notion of a film entitled Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. I can't imagine the psyche that doesn't thrill to the idea of a Timur Bekmanbetov (of Night Watch) vampire movie that combines the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Harriett Tubman and the Underground Railroad, and the Battle of Gettysburg into a thrilling, funny, and action-packed hour and forty-five minutes of Historic Undead Battlin' Action. Why, of course Jefferson Davis was in cahoots with the Vampire Nation all along. Of course Mary Todd Lincoln used a Springfield Rifle to put silver bullets through undead foreheads. Of course Abraham Lincoln, rail-splitter in his youth, could handle a silver axe like Bruce Lee of the Frontier.

And of course Rufus Sewell, who was a marvelous villain in The Illusionist, is a 5000 year old Alpha Vampire who just wants freedom for his people. I mean, whom would you cast?

Oh, how I loved this movie. Benjamin Walker is the Young Mister Lincoln Henry Fonda only wished he could have been. Alan Tudyk, who hit a home run with Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, is the perfect is-he-or-isn't-he Stephen A. Douglas. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is, well, {sigh}.

But y'know what? A clever idea and a terrific cast only get you so far. It's all in the execution, and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter succeeds beyond all expectations. This isn't a one-joke exercise in meta-irony. Rather, Bekmanbetov plays the material completely straight, creating a full-throated horror-themed action-adventure and a tribute to the ideals of the actual President who saved the Union. Somehow, this complements his film's inherent ridiculousness. As the viewer, we don't think, "Ah, how amusing. There's Lincoln working on the Gettysburg Address while fighting the undead." Rather, we think, "Wow! Look at that stuntwork! I never thought you could do that with an axe, but I do now! Lincoln is awesome!" Then he delivers the Gettysburg Address and we cry because, doggone it, it's the Gettysburg Address and we believe in it. And still, we grin because, c'mon, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

There are films out there so delightful, so unexpectedly good, that they make us want to grab our friends by the lapels and shake them until they agree to rent them. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is one of those films. See it and rejoice.

Appointment with Danger

Appointment with Danger is a great movie.

Here’s the deal: It’s Gary, Indiana in 1951.  A nun has just seen Jack Webb and Harry Morgan strangle a man, but she doesn’t know it.  It’s raining and her umbrella’s jammed and she buys Morgan’s excuse that the victim’s had too much to drink and they’re “helping him get some air.”  The nun suspect’s something’s up and tells the next beat cop she sees, but he’s quickly distracted and nothing comes of it.  The next morning, a body in an alley turns out to be a postal inspector (FYI, the postal inspectors were America’s first federal law enforcement officers.  They’re a legitimate organization.).  Cue Alan Ladd, the best but meanest postal inspector of ‘em all, to piece together the clues, find the bad guys, and ring down the curtain.

That’s the first five minutes.  The rest of the film is moody black and white, men in fedoras and women in slinky dresses, and exchanges like, “Do you even know what love is?”  “Sure.  It’s what happens between a man and a .45 that won’t jam.”

Webb and Morgan, who went on to make television history as the cops in “Dragnet,” make convincing and dangerous villains.  Alan Ladd is clearly having the time of his life as a hard man who who gets to deliver lines like “I don’t have a heart.  I have a muscle in my chest.  When a postal inspector dies, they don’t say his heart stopped.  They say he got a charley horse.”  And Paul Stewart, one of the great character actors, delivers a mastermind who’s smart, ruthless, and flawed enough to make him interesting.

Appointment with Danger has fistfights and innuendo, car chases and shootouts.  It also has a watertight plot and great photography.  Further, it takes advantage of its unique location, snappy dialogue, and a wonderful sense of what makes a noir picture great.  Appointment with Danger works in every way.

The Amazing Spider-Man

The Amazing Spider-Man is a perfectly fine superhero film.  It's professional, it has no obvious flaws, and it rocks along along at a fast clip for a good two hours.  Would I have preferred a fourth installment Sam Raimi's version?  Sure: I loved all three (here, here, and here) and was ready for more.  Nevertheless, I credit Amazing for making me forget its predecessors and capably executing its own vision.

The Amazing Spider-Man offers an origin tale that parallels its antagonist's origin, exciting set-pieces, and seamless effects work.  While its web-swinging sequences lacked the smooth, "you are there" joy of Raimi's, this film offers a unique take on spider powers that surprised and delighted me (look for a spot where Peters binds up an opponent in a particularly creepy, spider-like way).  As far as origin stories go, this is a solid take.

The film's biggest surprise comes from its lead, Andrew Garfield, as Peter Parker / Spider-Man.  Andrew Garfield (of the brutal Red Riding: In The Year of Our Lord 1974 and the atrocious 'Daleks Take Manhattan') actually made me believe that he was an American high school student, albeit one who hit puberty perhaps a bit early.  This is an extraordinarily talented actor with significant range, and I look forward to following his career in the years to come.  Emma Stone (magnificent in Easy A), punches below her weight as love interest Gwen Stacy, but a woman's gotta pay the bills.  The rest of the supporting cast, including Sally Field, Martin Sheen, Denis Leary and Rhys Ifans are as good as you'd expect (which is pretty darn good).

So I was all ready to hate this movie, but I can't.  The Amazing Spider-Man does exactly what it's trying to do, and it does it well.  Will it find a place on my shelf beside my Raimi Blu-Rays?  Probably not, but we can't fall in love with everything.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Growing up in America, my sense of Santa Claus had been that of a nice old fat guy who brought kids presents as Christmas time. That is, that was my sense of Santa Claus until I spent one Christmas in Germany with my extended family. Their Santa Claus was more serious figure. Sure, you could count on nuts, tangerines, and chocolates if you'd been good. If you'd been bad, however, expect a thrashing.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale is very much about that second sort of Santa. When excavators find Saint Nick encased in ice under a Lapland burial mound one December, they scoff at rules like "no cussing, no smoking, and wash behind your ears." But they learn. Oh, how they learn. As far as this Santa's concerned, everybody's naughty.

So begins an original horror adventure that stays true its premise without losing the twinkle in its eye. There's a scary Santa. There's a protective father. There's a naughty boy who just might be more good than he thinks. Best of all, there's a real sense of place. Rare Exports feels like a movie about actual people in an exotic setting, dealing with something terrifying and quite outside their experience. Its story develops naturally, with no left-field moments and characters that stay true to themselves. Best of all, it's exciting and horrific and a great time at the movies.

So if you're looking for something a little different this Christmas, see Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Its Santa is the baddest of them all.

Wreck-It Ralph

My kids loved Wreck-It Ralph. My wife loved Wreck-It Ralph. I liked Wreck-It Ralph. Two out of three ain't bad.

Here's the setup: Wreck-It Ralph is the bad guy in a video game that's a cross between Donkey Kong and Rampage. He's tired of being the villain, however, so he sets out on a quest to find the legendary Dumont, the oldest program in cyberspace. He's blocked by the Evil Master Control Program. With the help of his allies Tron and Yori, he defeats the Master Control Program and takes his place as a hero.

Sorry, I got lost in my imagination there. While Ralph does set out to be a hero, he does so in a universe that's just one step to the left of Tron. Where Tron's vision of the world inside computers and video games (which are ... but you already knew that) is both awesome and a little scary, Wreck-It Ralph's is a lot more fun. While the film states that a game character can die if it leaves its own machine, we sense that the odds of that actually happening are really quite slim. This played well with my three and six year-olds, who thrilled to the film's dangers rather than hide behind my arms, as they sometimes do. Further, much of the film takes place inside a game Ralph visits called "Sugar Rush," a cart racer set in Candyland. Scary monsters become decidedly less so when they can get stuck in gum.

This reasonably non-threatening milieu makes for a nice place for kids to lose themselves for a couple of hours. Plug in a redemption quest, a cute sidekick, and sweet romantic B story, and you've got yourself a movie. Of course, none of it could work without good voice acting, and John C. Reilly voices the title character with a winning combination of soulfulness and lovability. While the other major voice actors basically do their schtick, Alan Tudyk (CDNW) outshines them all. His King Candy, with a voice reminiscent of Ed Wynn on a Fanta and Twizzlers bender, is the most energetic, exciting, and delightful villain you're going to find at the movies this season. (By the way, you really should see Tucker & Dale vs. Evil. It's available on both Amazon Prime and Netflix Instant right now.)

So why did I just like, instead of love, Wreck-It Ralph? Well, I'd been up for 20 hours, so perhaps I wasn't at my most receptive. Thing is, I felt like I knew every beat of this movie before it happened. Don't get me wrong: the script is tight and the whole thing flows, but it felt, maybe, a little too perfect for me. It offered no real challenges, no insights beyond "Hey, be yourself." And that's fine, really. It just takes a little more to make me flip for something.

So, what am I telling you? I'm telling you that your kids will probably love Wreck-It Ralph. You very well may, too At worst, I bet you'll like it. Wreck-It Ralph is a good time at the movies.

Religulous

Religulous is great fun for fans of bullying.

In this documentary cum op-ed piece, comedian and public thinker Bill Maher seeks to explore modern religion.  In his quest, he mostly sticks to the three Yahvistic religions with which most of his presumed viewership will be familiar: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  (There's material on Mormonism, Scientology, and a few other belief systems, but the viewer in search of a comparison of Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism will come away disappointed.)  Maher, a funny guy, uses his comic instinct to challenge and ridicule his interlocutors.  His point?  That it's time we evolved past religion before our beliefs lead us to destroy the world.

So far, so good.  The movie is well made, Maher is a genial host, and the proceedings succeed in being both thought-provoking and entertaining.

But there's a problem:  Maher avoids engagement with his intellectual peers, meaning people who are smart and theologically sophisticated and comfortable in front of a camera.  He discourses with well-meaning but intellectually unarmed truck stop evangelists.  He shows up frauds and hucksters and villains, but he often does it with subtitles or voiceovers, which speaks to a lack of either preparation or courage.  When he does talk with someone who, in my opinion, "gets it," he doesn't seriously engage him.  Rather, he appears to realize that he's swimming in deep waters and disengages fairly quickly.  In editing, the film, focuses on the man's disability, one which saddles him with distracting vocal ticks.

It was this interview, with a Vatican theologian, that turned me off to Religulous.  I mean, this guy was interesting.  He actually listened to Maher's ideas and built on them, rather than merely trying to joust with a professional comedian (always a bad idea).  He put Maher on his back foot without really trying, merely by being a smart and interesting guy to talk with.  And this made me realize what a missed opportunity Religulous really is.  Rather than follow Maher around for two hours as he picked on lightweights, I'd have gotten so much more out of two hours of conversation with this guy and his intellectual peers from other religions.  Could Maher have made this entertaining?  I think so.  Would it have helped him prove his point?  Probably not.  But it would have been world-class entertainment.

As it is, Religulous is content to tee off on the scrawniest kids in the playground.  It's funny as long as you aren't one of the scrawny kids.  But it's lazy and it's cowardly.  Ultimately, it makes us turn on the bully.  Religulous has a great idea and a capable host.  It deserves to be better than this.

Fort Apache

John Ford’s Fort Apache is a great movie about a bad commanding officer.

Henry Fonda is a lieutenant colonel in the cavalry, assigned to command Fort Apache.  It’sa dusty outpost in Utah’s Monument Valley (which is actually Navajo country, but that’s not important right now).  He feels he’s been sidelined to a posting beneath his dignity, mentions his “years serving in Europe,” and refers to Civil War generals as old friends.  This leads us to believe that he missed the War Between the States, perhaps serving as an attache somewhere in the Old World while the new one tore itself apart.  He’s steeped in military history, has a powerful sense of decorum and tradition, and must have thrived in the courts of Europe.  The Army dropped the ball in sending him to the Frontier.

In one of his first official conversations, he learns that his senior enlisted leader (Ward Bond) has been on-station for some time, had been advanced to Temporary Major in the war, won the Medal of Honor, and saw his son graduate from West Point.  In other words, he learns that his senior enlisted leader is a personal and professional success, as well as an expert on the local conditions.  He dismisses the man like a servant.  Naturally, the SEL’s son is a lieutenant in the command and a fine young officer.  Fonda forbids his daughter (Shirley Temple, growing up nicely), from seeing him because he’s “of a different class.”  How European.

Shortly thereafter, he meets one of his captains, a young John Wayne.  The captain has the respect of his men, a diplomatic relationship with the local Indians, and an expert knowledge of the terrain.  When Wayne questions some of his orders, Fonda interprets it as a threat to his status. 

I am here to tell you that when you have a top-performing SEL and hard-charging junior officers, you are in the catbird seat as a commanding officer.  These people are assets to cultivate, not burdens to force into line.

Fort Apache isn’t The Caine Mutiny with horses, however.  While it uses the same basic premise of a bad CO to create tension, Fonda’s lieutenant colonel is a bad CO not because he’s a coward or an incompetent, but because the Army did him a disservice in plunking him in the middle of the Indian Wars with no training and no time to get up to speed on life on the frontier.  The men of his command do their best to back him, to advise him, and to carry out his orders, but what he really needed was a couple of years as somebody’s second-in-command.

This is great stuff.  I thought Fort Apache was going to be a seige movie, with Fonda and Wayne fending off hordes of attackers in an increasingly desperate attempt to hold their fort.  Nope.  This is a movie about Fort Apache and its denizens as they adjust to their new CO and the constant challenges and perils of life in Indian country.  When a fight does come, it comes for reasons we understand, reasons grounded in personalities and conflicts that flow from character.  We care about Fonda because he isn’t a jerk, he’s just a guy who’s way out of his element.  We care about Wayne because he’s John Wayne and there’s a reason why he’s one of history’s greatest movie stars: the guy radiates trustworthiness and competence.  In the context of this film, he’s a man you’d be proud to command and happy to follow.  We care about all these people because this is an observational film, one that puts us at home in Fort Apache’s insular society and gives us a stake in the well-being of its people.

This is a great movie, one that looks fantastic (John Ford shooting in Monument Valley: I mean, c’mon), tells a great story, and even serves as an object lesson for military officers like me.  I’m only sorry it took me this long to see it.

The Campaign

The Campaign, a vulgar political comedy, kept me laughing through the end credits.  It never earned a deep, belly laugh, but it generally did its job.

Will Ferrel plays an incumbent congressman who doesn't actually do anything, but dos enjoy being a congressman.  When evil billionaire industrialists (the Moch brothers) sense his weakness after a scandal and create a controllable challenger in Zach Galifianakis, the fight's on as the two men race to the bottom of taste, ethics, and self-respect in their battle for the seat.

This leads to a variety of physical and verbal gags, delivered with gusto by our leads and backed with strong performances from Jason Sudeikis, Dylan McDermott, and Brian Cox.  It's sharp, bitter, yet ultimately hopeful comedy that worked well enough.  Did I love The Campaign?  No, but it's still a pretty good time at the movies.

Battleship

I just sat down to write a review of the movie I saw last week, then spent a good ten seconds searching my memory to recall which movie it was.

Either I'm getting old or I saw Battleship.

Here's the setup: blah blah blah, high-spirited naval officer needs to mature and hey I think I'll do the dishes, aliens and something and some ships, blah blah blah, a bunch of SWO stuff and I might as well pick up the toys and straighten the bookshelves, and hey, what's this?  The mighty USS Missouri putting out to sea to attack some interstellar bad guys?  *Now* you have my attention.  Too bad it's already the third act.

I'm not joking.  I have almost zero recollection of anything that happens before the third act.  And I watched the whole movie (and did the dishes, and picked up around the living room, and straightened the bookshelves).  My three boys, including the one who begged me to let him stay up last night to finish watching Vincent Price in The House on Haunted Hill, wandered off sometime during the leadup to the second-act crisis.  But once that third act hit and the Mo got underway, the red in my veins turned to blue and gold and I planted myself on that couch.  What followed was hot, hot battleship action, with the 16-inch guns booming and the captain on the bridge wing calling the shots and the ship itself doing things I'm pretty sure no battleship can actually do, but that looked really cool.  I'm tellin' ya, if you like Navy stuff, you'll love the last act of Battleship.  Better yet, if you're a USNA '92 grad, you'll love the denoument even more.  Our very own Chad Muse, all-around great guy and the very first person I hope to see if I ever get rolled up somewhere out there, makes an appearance and even gets a few lines.  He offers the hero, established as the SWO (Surface Warfare Officer) of SWOs, the ultimate reward for saving the world: a ticket out of the SWO community.  It's beautiful, man.

So there you have it.  Wait for Battleship to hit instant, fast-forward 'til the Mo shows up, then enjoy.  It's a great 30 minutes at the movies.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

This is what I’m talkin’ about.

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame is audacious medieval Chinese fun.  When Detective Dee (a kind of ancient Chinese Sherlock Holmes, but with wire-fu) is brought out of prison to investigate the spontaneous combustion of several imperial court officials, the trail will wend through mysterious underground caverns, mystic temples, giant monuments, and even the coronation ceremony for the next (and only, historically) Empress of China.  Along the way, he’ll meet seductive shape-shifters, vampiric magistrates, talking elk, and more assassins than he can shake a mace at.

So what?  Not your bag?  Well, Tsui Hark directed it.  He’s made roughly a million wire-fu movies over the years, and he’s an absolute master of the form.  Sammo Hung choreographed the fights and served as the action director, and Hung (a Chinese Opera School classmate of Jackie Chan’s) is a legend of the genre.  The cast includes luminaries such as Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs, House of Flying Daggers, The Legend of Drunken Master), Carina Lau (2046, Days of Being Wild), and Tony Leung Ka Fai (Election, The Lover, Three … Extremes).  Not only are these folks fine actors, they’re accomplished gymnasts, martial artists, and stuntmen who will impress and delight you with their ability to wow you time and again.

So what I’m talking about here is big-budget, big-fun imperial adventure.  Lots of stuff gets blown up real good; lots of bad guys get kicked in the face; lots of money gets spent on lavish costumes, sets, and CG environments; and it’s all wrapped around a mystery that’s actually mysterious and interesting.

I enjoyed the heck out of this movie.  Even if you don’t think Chinese movies are your bag, give this one a shot: I just don’t see how anyone could not love it.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

I love Nicolas Cage.  He's a gifted actor who can play it straight, as we saw in Leaving Las Vegas, but who seems to feel most at home going over the top.  Some may see his performances as so many antic pantomimes, but I think Cage has the unique ability to channel and express pure, unadulterated id.

Thus, I present to you Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, an international production that seems to have been created for the sole purpose of fleecing as many foreign investors as possible.  I loved the first Ghost Rider, feeling that Cage's crazy eyes alone were worth the price of admission.  In this iteration, Cage's Johnny Blaze lives in a place labelled "Eastern Europe," but which could only be Bulgaria (Which leads one to wonder, why not have the subtitle simply read Bulgaria?  Would that be too confusing?).  He's a hermit, fighting his ghost rider - hood like a deadly addiction.  But then Idris Elba shows up to make him a deal.  I'm here to tell you, when Idris Elba offers you a deal, you take it.

The deal?  Oh, it's it's some mumbo-jumbo about an ancient prophecy (one of the laziest screenwriting tropes of them all), a sacrificial child who must be saved, and the Devil (Ciaran Hinds, having a great time).  Did I mention that the child has a fetching mother with a cute Bulgarian accent?  Or that her ex is a demon of decay who can only eat twinkies (Hey, I laughed.)?

Why bother with all this setup?  Well, two hours of Cage in a studio making crazy eyes at the camera sounds great in theory, but a little narrative structure, some scenery, and a few gags make for a much more interesting mix.  And all this does its job, but let's face it:  you came for the id.  You came for the crazy eyes, and Cage delivers in spades.  He doesn't overact so much as überact (I'm telling you, when you can make Christopher Lambert look like a restrained thespian, you're on to something.).  His Johnny Blaze carries the crazy just below the surface.  When it starts to break through and transform him into the Rider, the film uses a clever combination of (first-rate) CGI and no-limits acting to give us the joy of letting go and letting our fires burn.

Bottom line: this movie is fantastic.  Even if it only served as an excuse for actors you like to ham it up, it'd work.  The fact that it lets the great Nicholas Cage cut loose in a symphony of 'splosions and loud music makes it that much better.  I dare you to watch Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance without a great big smile plastered across your face.  This is an exuberant, wacky, gloriously unrestrained time at the movies.  I give it two big, burning, skeletal thumbs up.

Fright Night (2011)

Fright Night is actually good.

Sure, it's just another vampire movie with a menacing villain, plucky hero, and distressed damsel.  But Colin Farrell is an inspired choice for the vampire next door, Anton Yelchin is a likable and sufficiently plucky presence, and Imogen Poots makes for a particularly fetching damsel.  Add the beautifully aging Toni Collette (CDNW) and Balcony favorite David Tennant in important supporting roles, and Fright Night punches well above its weight.

Let's begin with Farrell.  Known for his good looks, there's something about him that has always struck me as menacing and untrustworthy.  While he can minimize that angle in films like the wonderful In Bruges, he plays it up here.  His vampire is the kind of guy women want and men fear, and he knows it.  He's been around for 400 years, he knows all the angles, and he enjoys playing with his food.  Described (by the typecast Christopher Mintz-Plasse) as "the shark from Jaws," he's set up a perfect hunting ground in a Las Vegas suburb where it's normal to sleep all day and work all night and where, in community dotted with foreclosure signs, no one can hear you scream.  He's wonderful, in the classic vampire tradition, and Fright Night's special effects team complements his performance with monster prosthetics and CGI that take him from menacing to terrifying in the blink of an eye.

Moving on, Yelchin and Poots perform capably in the hero and damsel roles, respectively.  Yelchin, winning as Checkov in the new Star Trek, does what he can with a part that hamfists the film's thematic elements, and, most challengly, requires him to dominate screen space shared with experienced, excellent actors like Farrell, Collette, and Tennant.  Poots is pretty and screams when appropriate, and she did nothing to break my disbelief.  Unfortunately, her part is rather thinly written, which is  normal for the genre.

Collette, well, she Can Do No Wrong.  As a capable single mother who is not immune to the charms of the hunky, though rather pale, new neighbor, she sells the flustered demeanor of someone who's not quite herself when a certain other someone is around.  When it's time for her to scream she screams with gusto.  When it's time for her to fight, we cheer her on.

Finally, we have David Tennant in the role of a Chriss Angel manque whose schtick is vampire hunting.  It's a fun update on Roddy McDowall's "Creature Feature" host of the 1985 Fright Night, with a vulgar and alcoholic Tennant blowing through all of Yelchin's illusions about heroism and the supernatural right up until it's time for him to man up and join the fight.  One feels that Tennant is deliberately distancing himself from his "Doctor Who" persona with a performance that's definitely not fit for television, and I must admit that I found it jarring at first.  Once I settled into it, however, and met the character on his own terms, I bought it and enjoyed the ride.  Fright Night didn't do particularly well at the box office, as I recall, and I don't know how many opportunities Tennant will get to make his splash in American films.  Nevertheless, he acquitted himself well here.  I hope it works out for him.

So the performances work, the effects are fantastic, and the movie rocks along in the finest action-horror tradition (it isn't really scary, not like The Shining, but it is fun in a scary way).  I liked everything about Fright Night.  If you missed it when it hit theaters last year, it's worth queueing up in anticipation of Halloween.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is professionally made, well acted, and like being dragged through broken glass.

Andy and Hank are brothers.  One's a striver and one's a loser, and they both need money.  When the striver pitches the loser on the perfect robbery, the loser buys in.  When things go south, they go south hard and fast.  The result is a symphony of selfishness and remorse.
Don't get me wrong: if symphonies of selfishnessand remorse are your bag, you'll find plenty to like about Before the Devil Knows You're Dead.  Director Sydney Lumet is a towering figure among practitioners of his craft, with credits such as 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, and The Verdict to his name.  He has assembled a cast including luminaries such as Marisa Tomei, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Albert Finney, Amy Ryan, and Ethan Hawke.  He's working from a tight, well-written script.  In other words, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead is precisely the movie it wants to be.  Unfortunately, what it wants to be was, for me, agonizing.  This is a dark, despairing film, one in which the good suffer and the evil nurse no hopes of redemption.

No, thank you.  I don't need that kind of depression in my life, not even for a couple of hours.  This movie was a nightmare.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

When you sit down for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, you know exactly what you're getting: classical piratical adventure with swordfights, damsels, treasure, and men of questionable hygiene shouting "Yarrr!"

The film is competently made, it looks great, and I'm still not tired of Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow.  Toss in Penelope Cruz (CDNW) as a foil and love interest, and we have a recipe for high seas adventure that ought to be worth at least a few more entries.  Did POTC IV capture my imagination as well as the surprising Wrath of the Titans?  No, but it was just the thing to help me while away a couple of hours while riding as a passenger on a transpacific flight.  You could do worse.

Wrath of the Titans

I enjoyed Clash of the Titans.  It was a juvenile action-adventure, but it was juvenile action-adventure done right.  Its sequel, Wrath of the Titans, continues in the same vein.  This is a fun time at the movies.

The film is structured around the Hero's Journey, with a reluctant Perseus called upon once more to play a role in the struggles of the gods.  He's assisted on his journey by a cast including Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike, and even Bill Nighy (CDNW) as Hephaestus.  He confronts elaborate, beautifully designed and realized monsters and obstacles, clashes swords in energetically choreographed battles, and even finds time to squeeze in a character arc.  Star Sam Worthington sells all this, acting mostly against green screens and tennis balls and making us believe he is actually riding, fighting, or conversing with all manner of creations.

Now, I'm kind of a literate guy, and this is the part where I think it's expected of me to opine that if this film inspires one person to read up on the gods and legends of Greco Roman civilization, it will have served its purpose.  Forget that.  The legends of Greco Roman civilization were, as much as anything, entertainment, and Wrath of the Titans is a proud claimant to that inheritance.  By making legends anew in the form of the big summer blockbuster, Wrath continues a storytelling tradition as old as language.  I'm all for it, I loved it, and I look forward to screening this film for my boys as much as I look forward reading to them from our tattered copy of D'Aulaire's Gods of the Greeks and Romans when I get home.

Bill Cunningham New York

Brilliant writer and great guy Les Phillips turned me on to Bill Cunningham New York, a film I otherwise wouldn't have seen, with this review.  I loved it, and I think you deserve a chance to have him talk you into seeing, it too.  With Les's permission, here's his review.

BILL CUNNINGHAM NEW YORK (2011, directed by Richard Press).  The legendary photographer and dancer Editta Sherman, well into her nineties but quite frisky and saucy, looks straight at the camera:  "You want me to say something about Bill?"  There are many things to say about Bill, who is one of the most celebrated fashion photographers in the world.  Bill Cunningham goes to all the New York fashion shows and takes pictures; he goes to all the most important charity events in New York and takes pictures; but, very especially, he takes pictures of random women on the street.  I should not say "random" women; Bill prowls Manhattan looking for well dressed women, fashionable women in all modes of fashion, sometimes leaping off his bicycle and into a broken run, through Fifth Avenue traffic, to capture that perfect woman in her perfect clothes. 

Bill Cunningham is 82 years old, and his photographs have appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES forever and ever.  He is trim and energetic, and he has the face of a slightly mischievous 12-year-old -- full of joy verging on ecstasy, pure delight at his work, which he does all day and all evening. all the time.  For years he has traveled to Paris to photograph the new collections.  He says that he goes to Paris "to re-educate the eye." Bill is a Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres!  He was the only member of the working press invited to Brooke Astor's 100th birthday party.  We see Anna Wintour, the real one, describing him as one of the most important people in the entire fashion industry.  Certainly he must be the least pretentious person in the fashion industry.  Until recently, he lived in a one-room studio over Carnegie Hall, no kitchen, no room to turn around, bathroom in the hallway.  ("What would I do with a bathroom or a kitchen?  I've never eaten in in my whole life!  More rooms to clean!").  His residence is crammed with filing cabinets and more filing cabinets; they contain the negatives of every photograph he has ever taken.  Cunningham has no wardrobe of his own to speak of, and no time for restaurant meals, in New York or Paris either; that would be time not spent working.  He loves stylish and beautiful people because they are stylish and beautiful, but is entirely unimpressed with celebrity itself; he passed up opportunities to photograph Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford because "they were not stylish."  He loves the philanthropist Mercedes Bass because he thinks she's kind, and because "in that dress, she looks like a John Singer Sargent portrait."  So Bill photographs her, and, indeed, when he's done, she sure does look like a John Singer Sargent portrait. 

Back to Editta Sherman, who lived down the hall from Cunningham for 40 years, in her own Carnegie Hall studio.  "Some people say I'm a legend," says Sherman.  "Other people say I'm a fixture.  I'm both!"  She talks about Warhol and Leonard Bernstein and the many other famous people she's photographed and worked with.  She worries about Bill.  What does she know about Bill Cunningham's personal life?  "Nothing!"   Bill himself reveals only that he's had no romantic relationships because he's been busy working, and casually brushes away questions about his sexuality.  When asked about his religious beliefs, he becomes uncommonly silent and closed, looks at the table, and mutters something about how Catholicism has always been of deep importance. Bill Cunningham goes to Mass every Sunday morning. 

Bill Cunningham's bicycle is a Schwinn Classic.  It's his 29th Schwinn Classic bicycle; the other 28 were stolen.  He dropped out of Harvard.  He used to design shoes.  He runs through city traffic like a war photographer.  Bill may have met more fabulously rich people than anyone living; he says that "money is the cheapest thing, the least important thing; freedom is what's expensive."  Go see this marvelous film.

Blackthorn

Blackthorn requires that the viewer have at last a passing acquaintance with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  In the 1969 film, Robert Redford and Paul Newman play the titular Butch and Sundance, fun-loving outlaws whose adventures seemingly come to an end when they choose to leap into a river chasm rather than face certain capture and probable death at the hands of Bolivian federales. 

Blackthorn supposes they survived the jump, and it catches up with Cassidy much later in life.  He owns a small ranch high in the Andes and he keeps more-or-less to himself.  Change comes in the form of a letter telling him a lost love is dead, and their adult son lives on in San Francisco.  Butch resolves to cash out the ranch, travel to California and meet his son.  He resolves to reenter the world, albeit under his assumed name: James Blackthorn.

And we're off, but we're off on a different kind of adventure.  While Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a young man's adventure of fun and hope, Blackthorn is an old man's journey: one of hard choices, regrets, and character.  Blackthorn is elegaic, very much a western of the Old West, and beautiful.

Sam Shepard plays the title character as a tough and principled survivor, and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaimie Lannister in HBO's "Game of Thrones") plays him in flashback.  Combined, the two performances give us a man with one foot in the present and one very firmly in the past, perhaps in a way that only a man who has run from himself can be.  Best of all, they do this in lovely continuity with the story and characters as we know them from the previous film.

The picture itself is beautiful, showcasing Bolivia's varied and rugged scenery and playing to a meditative score by Lucio Godoy, and the effect is mixed, both a classic Western adventure and a contemplation of a life nearing its twilight.  It's an effective combination, and I found myself caught up in the moment and considering the film for hours after I hit the eject button.  Blackthorn is a fine film.