Review: BERNIE

Small town, middle Americans are mocked as uncultured, uneducated, discriminatory and naïve. At the same time, many of the residents pride themselves on simple joys, practical know-how, camaraderie and displaying trust. Having grown up in Kansas and lived in other places, I’ve lived through interactions of both states of mind and saw each on display yet again in Richard Linklater’s refreshing and personable film, “Bernie.”

Linklater, while not quite worthy of household recognition, is essentially the Otto Graham of Mumblecore cinema and to a lesser extent, the indie film movement from the early nineties. In such a sense, Linklater is as condemnable (if not more so) as Quentin Tarantino for his legions of film school imitators who have far less to offer the world than their silver screen superstars. As he has for the last twenty years, Linklater’s newest movie can only knock at the door of mainstream cinema—which is a sad limitation given the quiet brilliance of “Bernie.”

Review: MEN IN BLACK 3

I’ve put forth a theory before that the "Hollywood alien movie" is the most reflective genre of America’s military-industrial complex. In short terms: when the federal government nears a zenith of trust and efficiency (1960s, 1990s) alien movies are routinely about government employees saving the day. And when people are feeling rather low on their government (1970s, 2000s), alien movies are more personal, civilian and disaster-prone. This is the difference between “Independence Day” and “Men in Black” verses the post-9/11 counterparts, “War of the Worlds” and “Signs.” While the third “Men in Black”—in a rather inconsistent trilogy—offers nothing new cinematically, it at least hypothesizes that the nation has turned a corner in the last eight years.

Review: LOCKOUT

While this has been a personally disappointing year in cinema so far, I still find myself at the movie theater. Perhaps to escape the early nice weather, I don’t know. The string of disappointments started with “Tailor Tinker Soldier Spy” and at least continued through Guy Pierce’s bicep showcase, “Lockout.” In the interest of full-disclosure, shortly after leaving the theater, I must have been bludgeoned over the head as I cannot recall a startlingly large amount of the movie. Thankfully, the plot was neither a primary nor secondary nor even tertiary concern to the film production. I suspect the crews’ catering occupied more deliberations and concerns. Why some action movies cast themselves as so defiantly passive is beyond me but it makes for a nice exercise in viral criticism.

Review: THE HUNGER GAMES

Before seeing the intended feature film, two movie previews juxtaposed together revealed that the most obvious, and perhaps best, trailer mash-up for this year will be “Twilight: Breaking Wind: Part Two” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” That my computer-literacy tops out at around updating a blog stops me from creating the fan-trailer myself—well, that and I now I feel the joke has been acknowledged and drained of its comedy. Measurably more shocking, and for the first time in a long time, two hours later I found myself in a very, very small circle of dissenters and carping faultfinders holding an abysmally low opinion on the year’s first megahit: “The Hunger Games.”

Review: THE GREY

The urge to stay alive is a peculiar one. Thousands of people kill themselves every day and millions more want to kill themselves to varying degrees of sincerity when the line at the grocery store moves too slow or when a former love announces on Facebook that they’re getting married to a drug dealer on April 20th. Hypothetical? Yes. Philosophical? Indeed. Depressing? You bet your meaty ass. Surviving is not enough; one needs a reason to live. Liam Neeson's latest romp in a string of ultra-masculine, brutal, inwardly driven films, is “The Grey” and never has a search for purpose come up so empty.

Review: RED TAILS

A prominent executive producer publicly stated that financing and distributing the WWII-fighter pilot movie “Red Tails” was hindered primarily by movie studios’ racism. Or, to be more specific, the major movie studios feared that the rest of the world was too racist to go see a big-budget war movie starring a predominately black cast. Following through on the pessimism, 20th Century Fox dumped the movie in late January, when ticket numbers reach annual lows rivaled only by the month of September. This is a conversation worth having.

With the film starring Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr, are we going to get some Oscar-caliber acting?

Nope. But Howard will chew on some scenery and Gooding will chew on his pipe in a distracting caricature of Black Douglas MacArthur. Also, both are given a smaller font than one George Lucas.

Wait. George Lucas? The Star Wars guy?

Lucas has an executive producer credit. Which is the same credit he had in “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” However, it’s also the same credit he had in “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” and “Howard the Duck.” In short, “Red Tails” can not be chalked up as yet another Lucas tragedy but his finger prints are there.

Review: LIFE IN A DAY

Perhaps “The Artist” was doomed by the high hopes handed down to me. Perhaps it was the hope that a non-traditional film would walk off with the grand prize on Oscar Night. Could this be the first, again mostly, silent film to be nominated for Best Picture in the last 80 years? The foreign-language “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was a note-worthy nomination. As was “Beauty and Beast.” Perhaps now we’ve reached a time to nominate a truly extraordinary film this year. A film unique not just in genre but in content and context, scope and intimacy. I want to argue the best film of 2011 was not the remake of “Footloose” (close one, I know) but was actually the documentary “Life in a Day.”

Review: TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

The next James Bond movie is in the works and movie audiences will likely be treated to the more familiar beats of the franchise than the last two films offered. Gritty reboots have run their course and the movie industry has begun to reestablish escapism proper. Fortunately, as in the 1990s, enough films will pride themselves on political intrigue and power acting—ala "The Stockholm Affair"—as to keep audiences moderately involved while gushing up and slurping down gummy worms. One such newly released mood-heavy movie is, the playfully titled, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”

The Dark Knight Rises: An Ominous Disappointment

Here: TDKR trailer

Okay. I’m saying it now. We got some problems.

Years ago, as a big fan of “Batman Begins,” I had to stem my excitement for “The Dark Knight.” I had to keep my expectations low, even though after the teaser and trailer, I knew that TDK was going to be something special. It was actually exhausting to not get carried away. And afterwards? I wanted no more sequels. I felt Nolan’s Batman had run its phenomenal course and that the two films balanced each other just fine. Adding a third film would be gratuitous or, at best, an imbalance. This was like Terminator, not Star Wars. Two can be better than three.

PULGASARI: True Escapism

In honor (?) of the passing of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, I would like to present the greatest story ever stolen, er, kidnapped. (written 8/8/11)

Review: J. EDGAR

I never quite understood why those protesters a month back were occupying Wall Street. Wall Street, as a symbol, is a carnivorous monster bent on hoarding money--the most quantitative element of hedonism. Wall Street failed nobody anymore than a shark fails swimmers by taking a bite out of them. We don’t blame sharks though; we blame the lifeguards.

Review: IMMORTALS

Not since the 1998 “Godzilla” monstrosity has a movie so brazenly promised a sequel that everyone immediately knows will absolutely not come to fruition. I loved “The Fall,” and at least appreciated “The Cell,” but Tarsem Singh’s latest film, “Immortals,” exhausted all my goodwill within ten minutes. And for the remaining hundred minutes in the auditorium, I found myself counting the virtues of this film’s spiritual predecessors: “Troy” and “300.” These last two films rank among my guilty-pleasures and I would have freely admitted as much for “Immortals” but, frankly, this may be a film with no redeeming qualities and, worse, no earnestly enjoyable moments.

Review: MARGIN CALL

The film “Margin Call” is marketed as “based on a true story” though the film adamantly, even awkwardly, refuses to be about specific people in a specific place at a specific time. Even terms like “Wall Street,” “New York,” “politicians,” “crash” “2008” and “recession” are erased from the characters’ dialogue even though such distinctions are as clear in the audience’s mind as the filmmakers intended. The movie is not so much based on a true “story,” but rather based on true ideologies and motivations. Yes, people like these character existed—and still exist—but I’d say most movies contain such realistic characters, though other movies have the theatrics to put said characters in extraordinary circumstances. Fortunately, all the dads in America can breathe easily knowing “Margin Call” is not a 109-minute rant on the immorality and un-sustainability of unchecked, rampant capitalism. Nor is this even an Occupy Wall Street-geared movie. This is a re-enactment for those who don’t read books of how and why America’s, and thus the world’s, economic system seems to collapse every ten years. Granted, “Margin Call” may be based on a true story, but at what cost?

George Lucas Fixes "Star Wars"

As reported by Moviefone, here.

In the re-re-re-re-re-release of the "Star Wars" trilogy...

Obi-Wan's dragon call has been changed.

Darth Vader screams "No!" when saving Luke Skywalker.

All I can say is, "Finally!" Because, man, I love the original trilogy but those two audio clips are really saving what I always said were the worst parts of any Star Wars film. For some reason, like always, there are talks of boycotting the Blu-Ray releases--so I guess that means I'm going to have to buy multiple copies of the Blu-Ray super 9-disc set to off-set those efforts.

Come on people! If we buy enough Star Wars crap again, Lucas is sure to keep "releasing" the films and we'll finally all get what we really want: a CGI Admiral Akbar!

Review: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

What a stupid title. Why be in-line with other stupid 1970s sci-fi titles such as "Beneath the... Conquest of... Escape from the Planet of the Apes?" Better titles would have included "Rise of Ape Planet" and "Those Wacky Monkeys." My love for the original is self-documented, so that might be a consideration to bare while reading this review. Then again, few people would challenge my displeasure with the Tim Burton remake in 2001; so maybe I'm in the best position to say the latest re-imagining of the franchise is bland, annoying and yet viscerally rewarding.

I mean we are talking about almost two movies in one--and a rather brisk one at that.

The 6 Worst Endings of Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg is among only a handful of directors who successfully jackknifed their careers through several film genres, posting a classic in each one. However, genre and intentions aside, Spielberg again and again and again shows himself as a man with no end game. From his worst to his best, far too many films come to a screeching halt, make a cut that’d knock the cleats off Barry Sanders and dive into the warm embrace of absurdity. Fair warning, there will be several spoilers in this post, but the movies are all popular enough that I feel even modest film aficionados will be safe.

About the ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT Movie...

Or: "Why a Fan Does Not Want an 'Arrested Development' Movie"

A few weeks ago, actor Jason Bateman was promoting the movie “Horrible Bosses” and once again got the attention of the internet-savvy by letting some MTV writer speculate, without provocation, on a Jennifer Aniston cameo in the impossible/inevitable “Arrested Development” movie. Bateman said absolutely nothing about the un-produced movie continuation of the cult TV show cancelled nigh on five years ago. In fact, nobody from the original cast or crew has offered anything but bland optimism for months or years now. Yet rumors are propped up by the unrelenting and vocal support of misplaced ambitions. Indeed, this very website has a link (down and to the left) for a fan-made “Arrested Development” documentary project. No outsider changes the minds of a group and so “true fans” of the former series wave off any discouragement from people unfamiliar with the show or--worse--who have moved on, as if British citizenship was renounced by anybody jumping off the Titanic. No, I’m a fan of the show and won’t even say a film adaptation won’t happen, but rather I want to say that there is room for a fan to not want a movie.

The Conspirator: Ideas Defended

The Conspirator is the first film released by The American Film Company, a production company that has staked its entire existence on the notion that real drama is more compelling than fictional drama. And with their maiden feature, the company has completely washed away any criticism about their film being historically inaccurate. This academic ambition will likely stay on the borderlands of Mainstream Country, as boasting historical accuracy just makes people look harder into the details, missing the story. More confounding to the creative team, historically accurate elements of the story are still brushed aside in lieu of budgetary restraints and the simple mathematics of forcing 4 months of American life into a 2-hour run time.

Nick Adams on “The Adventures of Tintin”: A Series of Animated Quotes

If Hollywood ever decided to replace the famed 50-foot, hillside letters with a (3D!) Mount Rushmore knockoff, there is no doubt that Steven Spielberg would be among the four titans. For the better part of forty years, the man crossed genres as fluidly as Stanley Kubrick, though with considerable more mainstream appeal. He won Oscars, dabbled in children’s TV shows (Tiny Toons, any one?) and just generally influenced pop culture discussion with every release. Then, after 2005 with the regrettably forgotten “Munich,” Spielberg went cold. More than that, he flatly disappeared from the directorial scene—except to somewhat accidentally film “Indian Jones and the Radiation-Induced Fever Dream.” Later this year, Spielberg will released his long--though not much--anticipated film, “The Adventures of Tintin” and seemingly nobody has caught on to the ramifications.

Nick Adams on "X-MEN: FIRST CLASS": Reclaiming Some Dignity

Who are the bad guys in history? It’s a question that can make historians squirm and laymen wonder why historians squirm. Simply put, a sentiment too often forgotten is that morality can be subjective. This is one of many points made in one of this year’s top 50 superhero movies, the surprisingly philosophical, “X-Men: First Class.”

Also it's not in 3D! Hooray!