Zack Snyder’s Superman, Not Henry Cavill’s

Just heard the new Superman has been cast and British actor Henry Cavill has won the role. I have not seen one single film that he’s been in, nor do I watch the Tudors. As others have said, that’s probably a good thing. The picture above looks close enough to the John Byrne drawn version of the 80s.

But, as I often say, never give too much of the credit to the actors for a film’s success or too much blame. It’s the director. David Goyer and Christopher Nolan are writing the script (and Nolan is one of the producers), but that really doesn’t mean a darn thing, either. A director (along with an editor) can butcher even the best told story.

This will be the guy that makes or breaks the new Supes franchise: Zack Snyder. There are a lot of nerds that worship this guy. I’m not one of them. His best film (IMHO) that he’s made so far was the Dawn Of The Dead remake and that one wasn’t as good as the original. I did like it though. I also have liked his other films I’ve seen, but not to a large degree. “300″ was far too long and after initially liking the look of the film, I started having second thoughts about it. The more I see those types of green screen films where only the actors are real (but not always), the more I notice how devoid of actual emotion that the film gets out of me. Aide from Gerard Butler(!) shouting about “dining in Hell” and everything else got a little old. “300″ wasn’t the best written story in the world, anyway.

I also liked “Watchmen”, but found it to have the same kind of lifelessness that “300″ had. And the slow motion shots. Wow.  It causes the same problems as the greenscreen, not to mention making his films twice as long as they should be. Combine the two and you’re looking at geeksturbation which is what he’s going for it seems. that would explain all the hot tail in his latest film “Sucker Punch”.

He also changed the meaning of the Watchmen ‘graphic novel’ (it was actually a 12 issue limited series, later collected, but I digress) also, by making one of his few seemingly insignificant alterations. I’d suggest reading the comics instead of seeing the film. It’s watchable, but is extremely spotty in quality. I hope I don’t have to say all of the same things about the Superman reboot. The superhero film disappointments are piling up.

I Am Comic (2010) Review

I try to avoid documentaries, because usually they’re depressing. This one; not so. “I Am Comic” was suggested to me by a friend who happens to be a stand up comedian and he was right.

This is a fairly interesting (surface) look at the mentality and thoughts of comedians on the art of stand up comedy. It has snippets of stand up material, but mostly does two things.

The first is that it largely follows Ritch Shydner who after helping the director to conduct a few of the interviews, decides to get back into doing stand-up after having been ‘out of the game’ for over a decade.

I actually remember Shydner, as I did with many, MANY of the other comedians featured here. I recall seeing practically ALL of them on shows like MTVs half hour comedy hour.

A highlight for me was the one quick segment with lovely comedianne Felicia Michaels (I always loved her). She gets the short shrift here, though, only appearing the one time. It was a mistake, whereas they could have easily cut the non-funny female comedians. Won’t mention any names.

There are many comic stars that appear also, like Tim Allen, Tommy Davidson, Larry Miller, Bobcat Goldthwait, Tom Arnold, Jeff Foxworthy, Paul Rodriguez among many others. I guess that’s the second thing, isn’t it?

The film does what it does very well. It has a lot of comedians telling stories about the business.  My only gripes are that it never is intimate with any of the performers. Although this is behind the scenes, it’s still at a distance.

Like any documentary, the film is only as good as its subjects. Some of them are more interesting than others. While the film isnt a fluff piece, it mainly just shows the various comedians in the best light. A pretty good effort by the director, though.

4 of 5

Winter’s Bone (2010) Review

The OSCAR NOMINATED film Winter’s Bone is a simple cliched story centering on stereotypical backwoods characters that borders on being offensive. It also has a level of ambiguity like The White Ribbon (which I also hated). If I’m going to watch your movie, give me an ending. It doesn’t have to be in concrete but give me an ending. Like the White Ribbon, this sets up somewhat of a mystery and then leaves with one character claiming to know “Who dunnit” (using the fake sounding dialect of this film), and then leaves the audience to wonder who that may be. I can watch news stories like that. I don’t pay to see films that do that. It’s lazy and stupid. The fact that the daughter doesn’t question who that may be also speaks of the filmmakers view that this particular segment of society is completely devoid of morality or intelligence.

Practically every character in the film is not just uneducated but mean, crazy, sinister, sloooooow talking, unreasonable, drug addled, irrational, unaccommadating, criminal and the stronger the faux Southern accent, the dumber the character. And I mean duuuuummm with no B.  I know I’ve made similar omments on similar films, but if the shoe fits…. This is a film with names like Thump and Teardrop and there’s a family portrayed here that could have been switched out with the Sawyer family of a famous slasher franchise with minimal changes. The family beats the lead and are ready to kill her at one point. Not one of them is portrayed with a conscience. And who else have they killed?

The protagonist played by Jennifer Lawrence and has EVERYTHING going against her. She frowns the entire film. That’s acting. Her Deddy’s (yes, I spelled it with an E) gone and because of that, the family’s going to lose their home. The film moves at a snail’s crawl, mostly because the filmmakers are trying to stretch a thin story to a maximum running time. It lingers on many unnecessary moments like a cow mooing. This became increasingly difficult to get through. Boring and didn’t seem bleak so much as a parody of bleak.

I imagine that the reason the lead actress is nominated for an Oscar says more about what Hollywood thinks of the South and po white trash than about actual believable characters. The ending (the last 20 odd minutes) is completely braindead, PREDICTABLE and I would say anticilmactic, but the film never builds any tension in the first place. Even the music in this is terrible. What a crap movie and a waste of time. It seems that recent filmmakers have studied and are trying to emulate the Coen brothers’ No Country For Old Men. That one however, HAD A POINT. Films like this do not. Now excuse me, I have to go find the person that recommended this to me as a great movie and choke him out.

1 of 5

And YES, this made my 10 Worst of 2010, so I guess I don’t see eye to eye with Hollywood yet again. Keep in mind how bad this has to be for me to actually want to revise a ‘Worst of’ list. It’s a pain sometimes, but I’ll endure the aggravation. I NEED to warn people.

The Social Network (2010) Review

I really wasn’t interested in watching this so I may not be in the right mindset or the right person to write this review. I’m not really on Facebook, either. I made a minor stab at a Crash! Facebook page, but… Anyway, I watched the film because it’s one of the biggies in the lackluster movie year of 2010… And because David Fincher is a great director that seems to be getting better.

It’s ironic that a movie called The Social Network is full of so many obnoxious antisocial people. There are a few characters/people in the film that are engaging enough to invest interest in, but they certainly aren’t the main protagonist Mark Zuckerberg (the CHARACTER of Mark Zuckerberg, leastways), the creator/co-creator of Facebook. Or maybe he just wrote the code using someone else’s idea. I don’t know. Director Fincher was a stickler for at least attempting to adhere to the facts in Zodiac, so I expect he did hs best here also since he was portraying a allegedly bratty billionaire in a harshly negative light.  Jesse Eisenberg plays the character adequately. I only say that because although he was spot on for the role; he plays the same character with virtually the same delivery in every movie I’ve seen him in.

This IS the story of Mark Zuckerberg (the CHARACTER), the creation of Facebook (or ‘TheFacebook’) and the subsequent lawsuit nastiness.  It begins with Zuckerberg being nasty to his girlfriend and losing said girlfriend played by Rooney Mara (who must have graduated from the Laura Linney School of Acting. Take that however you want to). Mark is enlisted by three fellow Harvard students (Divya Mirenda and the Winklevoss twins) to create a Facebook-like website that would be exclusive to Harvard students, but quickly decides that he can take that idea and run with it.

The Winklevoss twins are played by Armie Hammer (and Josh Pence) and he (they) provides a lot of unquestionably entertainingly funny moments. Usually in films about nerds the jocks are the enemy. The bad guys. The tormentors. But here, they are much more the victims (albeit victims that received 65 million dollars for their victimhood).

Hammer is maybe even better than Nic Cage was in the film ‘Adaptation’ in the ability to get across which twin is onscreen by his behavior and mannerisms. He’s the best character(s) in the film. The CGI is seamless also. Fincher was a graphics guy at the Lucas Ranch before he started directing and it’s clear he knows how to design shots and put them together.

Zuckerberg stalls Mirenda and the Winklevoss twins while he creates the computer code for ‘TheFacebook’ website. He gets money that he needs from his one friend Eduardo. Andrew Garfield affably plays Eduardo and is one of the more sympathetic character in the film. He is the one that ‘fronts’ the money to pay for the servers and the work…. Hey! Am I boring you? Just checking. I’ve managed to get this far and I care nothing about Facebook so at least you can bear with my review. I have friends and relatives that are on TheFacebook ALL the time, but I’ve never had any interest, so there was a reluctance for me to enjoy even through Fincher’s camera lens.

And I don’t want to give any more of the plot away. See it yourself and see what you think. Fincher is agreat director as I said and he makes the scenes as interesting as they can possibly be, especially given that there’s a lot of scenes involving lawyers and lawsuits. there are plenty of scantily clad women in the film also. That wasn’t so bad, but it did seem a little over-sexed than actual reality.

Fincher explained that on the commentary as “well, it’s CLOSE to reality (paraphrasing)”. Whatever. Fincher films hot tail and wild parties as well as he shoots everything else in those muted greens and browns that he seems to shoot all of his films in now.

Aaron Sorkin’s script (an adaptation of “The Accidental Billionaires” by Ben Mezrich) has many witty moments, but that is contrasted a few times where he is SO obvious with what he’s saying through one of the characters, that it’s like he’s throwing a bucket of cold water on the viewer. It’s that subtle. At times, some of the dialogue appeared to exist simultaneously in some other film. There were sequences that were a little too cute to fit the tone of this type of bio-pic/drama. It is intelligently written for 95% of the movie, though.

The film is essentially about someone with one friend that is such a jerk he ends up with none, but a lot of money. Listening to Fincher, Zuckerberg is someone to be admired. If that’s the intent of the story as he actually (paraphrasing) says on the film, then the movie is a failure. The film, for me, is predictable (even without knowing the real-life events), and there’s nothing AT ALL admirable about the lead character other than he invented/co-invented/whatever something and made a lot of money. The film is one of those ‘For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?’ stories that is recognizable as such right from the beginning. Sort of. The main character is never portrayed as having any ounce of morale fibre in the first place which makes his character as uninteresting as the Facebook website itself. However, the overall story of The Social Network did manage to hold my interest most of the time. It does merit a viewing.

4 0f 5 whatevers.

Side Note: There was also a highlight (for me, anyhow) in the fact that Alex Reznick appears in the film as Prince Albert’s Aide. Reznick made an appearance in the local film (National Lampoon’s) Beach Party At The Threshold of Hell just 4 years ago. Kevin Wheatley made an appearance in the indie film ‘The New Year’ also, so some of those guys are actually making headway in Hollywood it seems. Good for them.

Matt Moseley At The Big Easy

If you happen to be in Pensacola on April 1, 2011 (or if you live here), stop by the Big Easy Tavern for Laugh-Core 2011. There are a number of comedians (and bands) performing, not least of which is Matt Moseley, who I’ve promoted here before. He’s played a number of shows along the Gulf Coast and is worth seeing.

If the other comedians (Jacob Cobb, Karry Johnson, Alan Shaw and more) are half as funny as he is, then it ought to be a good show. Matt and the other comics will be sharing the stage with several bands… Drayton Sawyer, a local rock band from Milton who have a new singer, X-Ray Vision (who I’m assuming is local),  and an experimental hip-hop/comedy band called Unnatural Soundz and maybe a few more surprises. I don’t know how comedy and live bands will mesh, but it should be interesting.

Yeah, I know. It’s a month away… So make plans now.

Runaway Train (1985) Short Review

Runaway Train has a fairly simple premise; a locomotive goes out of control when the engineer dies from a heart attack. Two escaped convicts make the misfortune of choosing the wrong train to make their getaway in. The most interesting thing about the movie is how the writer (Akira Kurasawa? What the—?!) kept the premise going.

The action is decent, but nothing spectacular. I did like the stunt sequences that were outside of the speeding train. It’s too bad that that was such a small part of the film. The problem with the movie was with the across the board over acting. Pro wrestling is an entertainment of subtleties by comparison.

One of the understated moments of Runaway Train.

This was made by Russian director Andrey Konchalovsky who has made other films in the same vein like the Kurt Russell/Sly Stallone prison epic Tango And Cash. This ain’t Shakespeare, but Konchalovsky has no shame in quoting him in full melodramatic fashion at the end of the film. Perhaps a Russian audience would more readily buy into the wackiness presented.

Eric Roberts has had some decent roles, but might be at his worst ever here with what I think is supposed to be some kind of retarded person with a Southern accent. He acted in a similar style in the Cable Guy if you remember his (dual?) role there.

Rebecca De Mornay makes an extended appearance, but she doesn’t have a lot to do. The film doesn’t treat women too well in this, in general. Maybe that’s a Japanese/Russian thing. Her character is on the train because she neglected her duties by sleeping on the job. The only reason her character is female is because she could tell the 2 inmates how to try to slow the train, but deemed by the director (as female) as incapable of doing anything herself. If the train worker had been a man , he would be the one saving the trio. As it is, she just fills a victim role.

Jon Voight is plain ridiculous here. He’s some kind of superhero criminal in the story. When he gets let out of his cell that’s been welded shut for 3 years (you heard me), the other inmates riot in celebration. Then he gets attacked during a prison boxing match (Roberts was doing a little boxing back then offscreen. It was the in thing to do for Hollywood actors).

Probably the most low key person in the film is the late (great) Kenneth McMillan. He’s known for his wild eyed, loud mouthed villains, but he’s like an NPR announcer compared to the rest of the cast.

I give it a 2.5, but that may be because I find trains fascinating. It’s not the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it’s probably not in my Top 10 Films involving Trains, either.

Akira Kurasowa? Really? Okay it’s only based on one of his stories, but c’mon…

2.5 of 5 whatevers.

The Train (1964) Short Review

It’s always nice to find an old film that is considered a classic and then find it better than expected. I’ve always enjoyed what Burt Lancaster brings to the table, director John Frankenheimer generally delivers very intelligent thrillers and I love films about World War II, so I was expecting a lot already.

The script lays a very solid foundation for everything else. The subject matter was very well researched. This isn’t just the typical shoot em’ up. There are some spectacular sequences involving the trains.

The movie has many, MANY complications, but a rather simple premise. Towards the end of WWII, the Nazis try to take a number of treasured paintings (by the likes of Renoir and Van Gogh). The French Resistance try to stop it.

Lancaster plays a train engineer (and Resistance fighter) who doesn’t believe in risking French lives to save art (especially when the Allies are due to liberate France at any moment), is forced by the Nazis to drive the train to Germany. That’s all you need  to know.

Lancaster is one of the better action heroes you’ll ever find. He’s equally adept in the acting as well as the athletics (and he’s one of the most athletic actors Hollywood’s ever come across).

His character Labiche uses his brain as much as his brawn in the film. The former acrobat does all of his own stunts and makes it look easy until his character… Well, see it for yourself.

Paul Scofield is one of the many great supporting characters in the film. His art loving Nazi is not the typical villain. His motivations are nearly as fully realized as Labiche.

The framing of the entire film is very artistic. It’s a gritty atmosphere, you can almost smell the oil, coal and metal of the locomotives. The characters are constantly covered in grease and sweat.

I loved the questions raised about what is fought for in the film. I also love that the main character never really fights for what everyone else is fighting for, even right to the end.  Just a great movie, one of best of everyone involved. It’s worth repeat viewings.

5 of 5 whatevers.

The Neverending Story (1984) Review

The NeverEnding Story is an interesting early 80s children’s film that has a few flaws but still managed to be engrossing. It’s an ‘empowerment’ fantasy, which is fine, but I’ve always preferred fantasy movies to have other underlying themes, which may be one of the reasons that I don’t entirely embrace this film. That and the fact this has always seemed more aimed at young girls, despite having a male protagonist. I did enjoy the grittier aspects of the film. It isn’t as dark as some of my favorite films of this ilk (The Dark Crystal, Dragonslayer, etc…), but it is far darker than I had remembered. Some of what the film also tries to say comes out sounding profoundly misguided in certain instances.

The story revolves around a young boy named Bastian (Barret Oliver) whose mother has recently died. His father isn’t the most understanding father in the world, telling him “Get over your mom’s death because it’s time to grow up (paraphrased)”. To me, that’s a little harsh and may be part of the reason that he’s not doing well at school.

He’s also the target of several bullies who routinely take his lunch money. On this particular day, he tries losing the bullies and ends up in a used book store.

He loves books and the store owner tells him about a special book called “The NeverEnding Story”. Bastion proceeds to ‘borrow’ when he thinks the owner isn’t paying attention. When he leaves the store he is again harassed by the other kids and is late for school because of it.

Instead of going to class, though, he dodges a math test and locks himself in an old storage room, reading the book to pass the time. He’s soon off into the land of Fantasia that is being threatened with utter destruction by a force called ‘The Nothing’.

It’s up to the child warrior Atreyu to save Fantasia and the Childlike Empress (Tami Stronach) who is the spirit of the land. On a side note Atreyu was played by Noah Hathaway, who would be the first actor to play Harry Potter… In the movie Troll. Look it up.

Atreyu encounters (and is assisted by) a number of fantastical creatures along the way. There are elements in some fantasy stories that I don’t care for. One such element is that sometimes it seems that these are written as the writer goes along.

This film has an idea of where it’s going but doesn’t always know how to get there. For instance, Falkour the The Luck Dragon appears unannounced just in the nick of time to save Atreyu from…. Well, see for yourself.

The creepier designed characters were always my favorites of this. G’mork, a big black wolf-like creature pursues Atreyu across Fantasia in his quest. G’mork serves ‘The Nothing’ and is quite menacing for a kids’ movie. Voice actor Allen Oppenheimer gives speech to the evil wolf. He’s also who I hold responsible for the voice of Falkour. I still recoil whenever I hear Falkour’s laugh.

The sets are sometimes impressive. I say sometimes because there is a cheapness in a couple scenes that might indicate that the production was running short of cash. Segments like ‘The Swamps of Sadness’ on the other hand are very effective and have a foreboding atmosphere to them.

It’s here that Atreyu is at his most despairing in the film. There’s quite a lot of melodrama going on and the sets and creatures reflect that. Maybe a little too much for me. The movie dwells on the most desperate moments and when a character cries (like the Childlike Empress for example), their anguish is prolonged nearly in slow motion.

Using imagination as a way to overcome fear, intimidation and depression is the message that is trying to be gotten across. It has a strange, not completely concise way of expressing that. The story seems to be saying to run away from your problems and escape into fantasy, at times. It means well, though, so it’s still a success in my eyes.

It does try to do some twisty little things that you might not always see in fantasy films. It goes right in hand with the dimension of ‘empowerment’ in the film, but attempts to compel the viewer to be less passive. You’ll know what I’m talking about towards the end. It’s not a perfect film, but was better than your average children’s entertainment.

4 of 5 whatevers.

It also made it onto my Top 100 films of the 1980s. It fell short on my 1984 list. There were quite a number of good films that year.

Terror Train (1980) Review

Mildly entertaining but nowhere close to being a good movie, Terror Train is interesting only in who it features. If you’re a horror film completist, you MUST watch this just because it stars Jamie Lee. She was always a notch up in intelligence from other scream queens. The disappointing thing is that she’s not featured as much as she should be as the heroine. The film’s focus is all over the place, giving more time than what’s needed to minor characters who are there only to be victims anyway.

Many segments of the film have the appearance that Curtis is only brought in to either walk away from an argument so as to provide more time for the rest of the cast. Her only real prolonged sequence in the film is the one at the end. It lends the impression that she just came in to the set for a very short time and that the bulk of her work was the opening and closing of the film. For everything in between it seems she’s just making an appearance to link the sequences together and to remind you she’s in the film. I’m betting she didn’t spend nearly as much time on set as the other actors did. She is cute as a pirate, though.

Okay… I should probably give a SPOILER ALERT right here, although it won’t really be too much of a surprise if you’ve watched a slasher film before…. So… (clears throat).

SPOILER ALERT! Kind of…

Some other castings that add to this curiosity of a horror fim: Hart Bochner, who had just come off the Oscar Nominated Breaking Away (and went on to play ‘Ellis’ in another classic:Die Hard. He probably does as solid of a job as Curtis does(far better than the rest of the cast). The difference in their performances is that he’s there to be a slasher victim. She’s the star. There’s not much for him to work with.

End of Kind of  a SPOILER ALERT!

Ben Johnson, who had appeared in a number of films like The Last Picture Show(a critically claimed stinker IMHO). He has a certain robotlike way of delivering his lines in this. D-stringer Vanity makes an early career appearance. And…

David Copperfield? The stage magician is given a major role in this and he’s one of your main suspects as to who the killer is. He doesn’t say a whole lot, but yes, his acting in this is as cheese filled as his ‘magical’ stage performances.

The story begins with a fraternity prank that’s rather mean spirited. The students are med school students so a cadaver is involved in a prank that is preposterous in its execution. It doesn’t go as planned as you would expect and the victim is so traumatized that it’s off to the funny farm with him. As with all of these types of films, the heroine (Curtis) participates only reluctantly in the tomfoolery, and is the most affected by it, therefore she is the least deserving to die (according to the rules of the slasher film). This is a slasher film of the mostly braindead variety, with the only saving graces (as I said) being those involved in the cast. Moving along…

Flash forward a few years later when the same students involved have graduated. They’ve planned an all night party on a train and guess who has managed to sneak aboard with everyone else? Hijinks ensue as one by one those involved in the aforementioned prank are murdered one by one. The party is a masquerade party so as to provide the killer ‘cover’ and to interact with the party goers openly. The killer assumes the ‘identity’ of the victims and of course there’s plenty of mistaken identity moments. I have to add the killer is pretty dopey in the various masks. The ‘reveal’ is even worse.

This was Roger Spottiswoode’s first film. He did manage to find more work after this and has directed a number of films. He’s never managed to direct something I would call a really good movie, but he has had some moderate successes like “Turner and Hooch”, “Air America”, and  ”The Sixth Day” . All of those were vehicles for big name stars and none of them overachieved at the box office. Probably his best film was the James Bond flick “Tomorrow Never Dies”.

This is tolerable to some degree as a low budget  LATE night horror flick. You really don’t have to follow too closely. I would say it had some nods to another Curtis film that may come to mind to general horror fans or maybe to Hitchcock’s Psycho, but that would be assuming a lot. It’s not very clever and that would be giving it more credit than it’s owed. It’s adequate as a shlocky, poorly made B-movie slasher flick and reasonably entertaining for  what it is. That is, if you’re a fan of horror flicks.

2.5 of 5 whatevers.

Although I don’t think this is an un-viewable effort it did manage to  make my Worst Films of 1980.

Anne Hathaway Cast As Catwoman…Umm… Selina Kyle

Two days ago, it was announced that Anne Hathaway would be playing Selina Kyle in Christopher Nolan’s next Bat-flick. It took about 12 seconds for indignant nerds to take the net to vent their frustration. Yet again, instead of a ‘wait and see’ attitude there’s the knee jerk reaction by a vast number of nerds that hate her because the movies she’s been in weren’t necessarily aimed at their nerd tastes.

Personally, I think it’s a great choice. I have no doubt that she’ll be just fine. She played a similar action role in “Get Smart”, but then again, I liked that one much more than most. Tom Hardy will be a great Bane, also. I never cared for the character in the comics. Despite some great art by various pencillers and inkers, the whole ‘breaking of the Bat’ was a sham and a money grab, anyway. If Nolan decides to go in that direction, I’m sure he’ll do the same great job that he’s been doing with Bane’s character. Hardy’s a great actor from what I’ve seen and Nolan will see to it that there’s something interesting for him to do to put Batman through the ringer.

The actors won’t make or break the film, anyway. It’s the director and except for one (slight) misstep (the Insomnia remake which wasn’t terrible), he’s got a great track record. When it was announced that Heath Ledger would play the Joker in the Dark Knight there was catastrophic upheaval in all of Geekdom. I even read one of my all time favorite comic book artists proclaiming that because the ‘batpod’ had what LOOKED to be gun turrets mounted, that Nolan was ‘off the leash’ and ‘what had begun with promise in “Batman Begins” was now ruined’. He also shut down any forum on his site that mentioned the Dark Knight. Then the movie actually came out and Heath Ledger became some sort of genius to nerds everywhere (Not to the artist, though. He’s still protesting in anger I think.).

All that said  you may think I’m being hypocritical having judged the new X-flick by the photo just released. Maybe, but I don’t think so. I still go by the director (who I have been underwhelmed by in his previous efforts. He’s had some good films, never great). And I’ll wait to see the trailer to make a decision to see it or not, like always. Maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Yeeeeaaaahhh... She'll make a decent Catwoman.