0 Movie Review - Avatar

I think it's pretty clear that James Cameron is a Kevin Costner fan. I really liked Avatar, especially in 3D, and I liked it even more than the first time I saw it, when it was called Dances with Wolves. In fact, I wonder if the working title for Avatar was 'Dances with Cat People.'

I'm not going to deliberately throw out any spoilers here, but if you're one of those people who avoids hype like a social disease, you may want to wait to read this review until you've seen the movie. Me, I don't care about hype, but then, I'm jaded enough that I assume nearly every movie ever made is going to suck.

Avatar, for the record, does not suck. It's not particularly deep, and it's fairly predictable, but it sure is fun. In case you haven't seen one of the eighteen million ads for this movie, there's a dude who takes over an alien body so he can explore an alien world, and so he can chill with the indigenous cat people and swap body fluids with the blue-skinned hottie with the big eyes and the nipples that are exposed for half the movie. There's more computer-generated imagery than a Star Wars movie, and tons of really cool effects and monsters and stunts and all kinds of stuff that makes your average sci-fi movie fan get all soaked in his trousers.

(Ironically, my favorite effects were not the phosphorescent tree tubers or the leaping alien jungle cats. My favorite effects were the robots, because they were bad-ass. They have these huge guns and they're wicked powerful and meaner than hell, and the marines (who are the bad guys) are so believably cool that half the time, I wanted the humans to win, even though we're supposed to be rooting for the blue furries.)

I wouldn't generally be a fan of a movie that is as predictable as Avatar, but it was actually kind of comfortable, like watching Wrath of Kahn for the sixth time, waiting for Spock to say that 'good of the many' line. It doesn't really matter that the movie doesn't surprise you, because you don't want it to surprise you. You want it to take the course you know it will take. You want to see the romance, and the fights, and everything else you know is going to happen because you're over ten years old and you've seen more than three movies in your life.

In fact, the movie is so comfortably predictable that you don't even mind the heavy-handed 'humans are a virus' message that we've been enjoying for the last fifteen years. You know the message is coming, but the characters are so likable and the story so exciting that it doesn't really matter if you can spot the impending morality play. If you've seen just one trailer, you know the plot, and you probably know how it will end. What you don't know is how cool the huge elephant guys will look, or the flying dinosaur thingies, or the intensely cool robot jocks.

And really, the actors may have had top billing, but the real star of Avatar is the computer that made everything look awesome. I guess it compares on some level to the first Transformers, where you could overlook a stupid plotline, horrible script and even that douchebag lead actor because at one point, the jet turns into a robot and punches the other jet and then turns back into a jet. Only this is far superior to Transformers, because the story actually works, as opposed to Transformers that didn't make any sense whatsoever, but was basically an excuse to see robots punch each other in the metal junk.

In fact, more than just a story that works, Avatar delivers characters that are believable and sympathetic. Even the bad guys seem like they have some history to them, including the head bad guy who was actually just a really good marine. The characters don't surprise you, but their actions and dialog seem natural, which is more than I can say for a lot of action movies that include smooching.

(On the matter of smooching, can I just say how convenient it is that the aliens are so much like humans? It would have made the romance a lot more uncomfortable if the human skinwalker had been doing weird alien butt probes on the sexy chick in the loincloth.)

If you're looking for the next Citizen Kane, or you're the kind of movie snob who can't enjoy anything if it wasn't made in France, you're going to hate Avatar. It's not a particularly original tale, but it is a boatload of fun, and a complete visual feast. The characters are as likable (or not) as they're supposed to be, the fighting is fast and furious and fun, and the story manages to avoid any truck-sized plot holes. Avatar is enjoyable, entertaining and gorgeous. That makes it good enough for me.

Summary

Pros:
Amazing visual effects
Story is comfortable, if a little predictable
Characters are believable and likable, except for the bad guys, who are believable and unlikable
Doesn't rely on 3D, just uses it to make a very cool movie

Cons:
Really, really predictable
Club-to-the-head environmental message

0 Movie Review - The Avengers

I hate going to the movies, because no matter how crowded or empty the theater, there's always some inconsiderate douche nozzle who feels absolutely compelled to hold lengthy conversations while the rest of us are trying to watch the film. So as much as I wanted to see The Avengers in the theater, I didn't get around to it until last night.

Holy CRAP that movie is awesome. If it weren't for Christopher Nolan's recent Batman reinventions, The Avengers would easily be the best superhero movie of all time. It was fast and exciting and hilarious and just plain fun. It was the first time in years that I saw a movie and said, 'Damn! I need to own this movie!'

If you've seen the movies leading up to this huge special-effects monstrosity, you know the characters. Heck, if you read comic books, you know Captain America and Thor, Hulk and Iron Man, Hawkeye and Black Widow. You probably also know they're not the actual founding members of The Avengers, but if you see this movie, you'll be willing to let that ride. I'm not sure what Ant-Man could have added to this one, aside from being a really stupid hero that would only have been marketable in the late 60's.

When you go to a superhero movie, you expect a certain level of action. And that certain level would be 'a lot.' The Avengers knows this, which is why it has lots and lots of high-flying, hard-hitting, laser-blasting fights. Hell, the first throw-down happens in the first five minutes, and blows a crater into New Mexico the size of Poughkeepsie. And that's just the appetizer that comes before the salad that you get before the steak. The fights just get better and better, until the battlefield is all of Manhattan and explosions are causing more property damage than Godzilla with explosive diarrhea.

A recent development that I've seen in so-called action movies recently is the shaky-cam fight. This is where two heroes mix it up with brutal punches and lightning kicks, and the camera flies all over the place like it was taped to a gadfly with ADD and a caffeine buzz. The result is that you know you saw a fight, but you don't actually know what happened. This is as satisfying as having someone describe a cheeseburger. It might make you hungry, but it's not going to make you jump out of your chair and say, 'Oh, HELL YES!!!' Of course, if a cheeseburger is making you jump out of your chair and yell, you may want to let it cool off first.

The Avengers does not use the shaky cam. In fact, the fight scenes are exciting because you see every blow, every blast, every flying body and demolished tree. When Hulk pounds the stuffing out of Thor, you see the giant green fist hit that pretty-boy face and then you see the sanctimoniously arrogant tool go flying through a stack of metal crates. It's visceral and powerful and fun, and you can almost feel the blows landing. Happily, they're not landing on you, because these guys would seriously kill you if they hit you.

If you saw Captain America or Thor or Iron Man 2, you might have been skeptical about The Avengers. I actually kind of liked Iron Man 2, but Thor and Captain America left me wondering why anybody would want to watch these yahoos doing anything at all. Those two movies were dry and flat and uninspired, but it turns out that all you need to do to make Thor and Captain America interesting is to put them in the same room with Bruce Banner and Tony Stark. Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr were not just spectacular on their own, they provided the raw material that made it fun to watch two otherwise dull heroes really come into their own.

In fact, while the action sequences in The Avengers were enough to make me hoot and holler (especially the ones with Hulk), the reason the movie was so fantastic was the dialog. There were witty jokes delivered with spot-on precision. There were lightning-fast exchanges that left you a little dizzy and lightheaded, and grinning like an idiot when Tony Stark makes someone else look like a neanderthal moron. Even the one gut-wrenching scene was punctuated by lines so well-written and well-delivered that you wanted to laugh as you wanted to cry.

The recent Batman trilogy raised the bar for comic-book movies, but it raised to a dark, serious level with disturbing acts of violence and too many shades of gray (but not 50. Definitely not 50). The Avengers is like the slap-in-the-face answer to those moody epics, because while it has its serious moments, it's a fun romp and a thrilling tale that leaves you wondering if Joss Whedon is going to pull a Joss Whedon and kill one of the heroes. I won't spoil it and tell you whether they all live - it is, after all, Joss Whedon.

I am absolutely delighted to see comic-book movies pulling in the audiences they're seeing these days. It's like vindication for my misspent youth (which I misspent by being scared of girls and reading WAY too many comic books). I am also glad to see them being made by awesome writers and outstanding directors, full of big-name actors who bring power and poise to the screen. I remember when superhero movies were crap, and it's great to see them really kicking ass. And if you want to see the best that super-movies have to offer, you should see The Avengers.

0 Movie Review - Crackling Fire

I actually had a really long anti-Christmas rant written already. I was going to complain about how Christmas is too commercialized, like I was some kind of wise man pointing out what everyone in the freaking civilized world already knows. But then I realized that I don't have a single useful thing to say that everyone hasn't heard a hundred times since Thanksgiving, and I decided to go another way and tell you why I had a good night.

Amazon has this cool service called Prime, the main feature of which is fast, free shipping all the time. But a lesser known side-benefit of this service is that you get access to a huge range of streaming video, and it's all free. So tonight, while trying to invent a reason to hang out with my family, I turned on the idiot box and started looking through free movies we could watch. At least that way, we would all be in the same room, and nobody would be hurling profanities (or at least the profanity would all come from the people on the television).

Then I noticed the funniest thing - a video called 'Crackling Fire.' This was not an action movie about a firefighter in Iraq. It was not a romance movie full of passion and drama. It was exactly what it said it was - a one-hour video of somebody's fireplace. I am not making this up. Someone filmed their fireplace for an hour and sold the video online.

I turned it on as a lark. I was laughing, wondering aloud what kind of moronic doofberry would pay for a video of a fireplace. I was only turning it on to mock the very idea - but something incredible happened.

My seventeen-year old son was transfixed. He ran around and turned off all the lights except the Christmas tree, then sat on the floor and proceeded to watch the fire burn. Or rather, the video of some other man's fireplace. And my daughter, who is a jaded sixteen-year-old who rarely has time to spend with any of us lower life forms, laid down on the floor to watch.

I was dumbstruck. This was insane! Who wants to watch a fireplace on television? Why not just film a fishtank for an hour? (And yes, I know that people do that. It's also lame.) I picked up the remote, intending to turn off this stupidity that had already gone too far, and everyone else in the family shouted me down. Knowing when I'm beat, and figuring it couldn't last too long, I left it on to listen to the crackling fire. On television.

I was wrong about it not lasting. It lasted the whole hour. We watched that stupid fire for a full hour, during which time we did something we hardly every do any more - we talked. We laughed and joked and enjoyed each other's company, and it blew my mind. I can't get all four of us around a table to play a game any more, but an electronic fireplace in a darkened room, and we're suddenly Little House On The Prairie.

That hour was one of the best Christmas memories I'll have. My kids (who watch Sons of Anarchy and play Assassin's Creed) asked me to tell them some of the stories I used to tell when they were young. Hell, I couldn't even remember these stories, and they were giddy as they recalled me telling them tales of The Shadow or Tarzan or Scrappy the Squirrel.

(Scrappy is an original creation, one my children used to love. In these stories, Scrappy goes to visit his two friends, John and Judy. Only I always messed up the names, and then my kids would correct me. 'Scrappy was off to see Ralph and Lydia-' 'No, Dad, John and Judy!' Then some dick would mess with the kids, and Scrappy would sort it out by throwing acorns at the bad guy. Scrappy was a bad-ass with an acorn, so the tales usually ended with the villain in intensive care after Scrappy embedded an acorn in his eyesocket and then the bully had permanent brain damage and spent the rest of his days crapping into a colostomy bag. God, no wonder my kids swear.)

I don't get Christmas spirit, or rather if I do, my Christmas spirit comes in a glass bottle and is usually at least 43% alcohol by volume. But I swear, that one ridiculous video of a popping fireplace has given me a better Christmas than I've had in years, and it wasn't even Christmas. I still insist that the idea of watching a fireplace on TV is a sad commentary on how much electronics have replaced actual experiences, but I also know that I'm going to be hunting for more fireplace movies, because while the fire was fake, the family was real. For that hour, my daughter wasn't hiding in her room texting her friends about how stupid her parents are. My son wasn't holed up somewhere listening to Social Distortion and reading magazines about knives. My wife wasn't frustrated with the mess in the house (which is caused largely by the kids, who for some reason walk in the house, drop their bags and coats, and then walk directly to their rooms and leave their crap in the living room). We were a family, and even better, we all wanted to be a family.

Fair warning, though - that crackling fire video has the weirdest thing. At about minute 42, some crazy classical music plays for a few minutes. We used it to tell a ghost story about haunted fireplace movies, but next time, I will look for a video that does not include random musical interludes. Because I want my family time again, and this time, I don't want to be interrupted by unexplained Tchaikovsky.

0 Movie Review - Total Recall

I tend to get Running Man and Total Recall confused. Both are dystopic-future sci-fi flicks with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and both have wacky cool tech like exploding neck collars or Martian terraformers. I don't have any trouble remembering which movie has the hooker with three boobs, though.

The new Total Recall doesn't help any. Aside from a few overlapping details (for instance, the triple-nipple streetwalker is in the new one, too), the old Arnold movie and the new Colin Farrell version are really not very similar at all. The names are largely similar - friend Harry, wife Lori, old flame Melina, bad guy Cohaagan - and the plots bear a passing resemblance to each other. Overall, however, these are not the same movie.

For one thing, Colin Farrell is a much better actor than Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm a big fan of the miniature Austrian giant, but when it comes to acting chops, let's face it, he's really not very good. Colin Farrell, by comparison, is actually believable as something other than an immigrant who gets a lot of exercise.

Also, the women in the new one are hotter. The old one featured Sharon Stone and some dame who vanished from my memory as soon as the credits rolled, but the new one has Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel, who are two of the three sexiest women in movies today (the third being Megan Fox). I could watch Kate Beckinsale pressure-clean a dog kennel and it would be hot. Running around in her drawers and doing wild acrobat stunts just makes her that much better. Add in Jessica Biel as a gun-toting resistance fighter, and this is a movie designed for men who want to see killer dames doing violence and looking tasty.

The visuals in the new Total Recall are staggering, too. There's a car chase on elevated freeways where the cars are magnetized to stay hovering in the air on the bottom side of the road. There are ridiculously cool high-tech disguises. There's an elevator that goes from Australia to Britain, and it drops into zero-G as it races past the planet's core. Holographs and super-guns and robot assassins make the new Total Recall a science-fiction nerdgasm. Also, club music in the future is just dubstep.

What's missing, however, is the thought-provoking element that made Philip K Dick one of the greatest science fiction writers of all time (and it's missing from both movies). Sure, there are fantastic gun battles and daring rooftop chases, but the depth of Dick's genius goes unrealized. Compared to Bladerunner, which actually did a remarkable job of conveying the ideas Philip K Dick brought to his fiction, both Total Recall movies are almost mindless.

This part is actually kind of a shame. Philip K Dick embodied the best parts of science fiction, by using fantastic situations to get us thinking. His fiction presented futuristic ideas that related to us now. Moral gray areas were his specialty, and while his stories had villains and heroes, it wasn't always easy to tell which guy was the good guy and which was the bad guy.

Also missing is the crisp writing that makes us fall in love with stuff like Firefly and Star Wars. The characters in Total Recall are not so much three-dimensional people as they are vehicles that carry us from one action scene to the next. There's no cocky smuggler peeling off one-liners, no sharp-tongued woman who irritates the hero as he falls in love with her. The dialog carries the plot, but not much more. I had a great time watching Total Recall, but it's not destined to become a classic because the characters don't come alive. Even with a cast full of people I love to watch, the real stars of Total Recall are the explosions.

The new Total Recall is a cut-and-dried action flick with some good, old-fashioned violence and thrilling movie magic. The bad guys are very bad, the good guys are heroic, and the gunfights are splashy and exciting. I'm totally fine with that, because I love to see stuff explode, but if you were hoping for depth, you're going to be disappointed.

On the other hand, if you want to see gorgeous women, awesome future-tech and bad-ass action sequences, Total Recall is right on the money. It's a ridiculously fun movie, and a great way to just turn off your brain and enjoy a Saturday evening.

0 Movie Review - Dead Snow

I don't generally have much interest in foreign film, whether it's French arthouse navel-gazing or dubbed Japanese classics. But every now and then, a foreign movie challenges what we expect out of cinema, elevating the art form and raising the bar for filmmaking in general.

Dead Snow is not one of those movies.

Dead Snow is stupid. It should be pretty obvious once I explain the premise - a bunch of med students going to a cabin in the mountains encounter frozen Nazi zombies - but this is a film designed for people who giggle out loud when they see brains fall out of heads. Nazi zombies, as it turns out, are fast and mean and much more dangerous than regular zombies. Mostly because they don't follow any rules, not even the rules set out by the movie itself.

Just so you can get a feel for how stupid this movie really is, here are a few highlights:

- The creepy old man comes to the cabin and tells the kids to be careful, because Nazi zombies are out there. Then he leaves, goes to a deserted part of the mountain, and sets up a tent for the night. Predictably, he is killed by Nazi zombies. Probably because, despite just having told the med students that Nazi zombies made it dangerous to go out at night, he decided to go out at night.

- The creepy old man tells the kids (before he is killed by Nazi zombies) that there were about 300 soldiers, and most of them were killed, but some escaped just to be lost in the snow and turned into Nazi zombies.  So there should be a relatively small number of Nazi zombies, right? No. Apparently they are having Nazi zombie orgies to create more Nazi zombies, because later in the movie, hundreds of Nazi zombies start popping out of the snow like they were shot out of a toaster.

- Sometimes the Nazi zombies are very strong, like when one of them grabs a kid's head, puts its thumbs in the poor boy's eye sockets, and rips the kid's skull in half. That would take some pretty impressive upper-body strength. But other times they are candy-ass Nazi zombies, like when one punches a college kid in the face and barely hurts him at all. Strong enough to pull a skull apart and weak enough to hit like a girl. No wonder they lost whatever battle left them moldering in the snowy mountains of Sweden - they just can't decide whether to be killing machines or ski bunnies.

- The Nazi zombies are killing people from the opening scenes of the film, but at the end, we discover they were just angry because the kids had their gold. Except that the kids did not have their gold when the Nazis started killing them.  Apparently Nazi zombies do not need many excuses to rip heads off college kids.

There are more inconsistencies, plot holes and idiotic moments, but if I tell you about all of them you won't have any reason to see the movie (outside watching a guy rappelling down a mountain using Nazi zombie intestines for rope). If you have a lick of sense, you also don't have a reason to see Dead Snow, but it just might be that you like campy horror movies with ludicrous bloodshed.

If you do enjoy a brainless comedy-horror flick, however, Dead Snow should be on your watchlist. It is intensely idiotic, but it doesn't take itself the least bit seriously, and it contains some rather clever moments. Some of the lines are hilarious, even when you're hearing them in Swedish and reading the translation at the bottom of the screen.

Dead Snow is also a very self-aware movie. The writers know what they are creating, and they want you to know that they know. It follows horror-movie tropes with near-religious fanaticism, acknowledging its roots in dopey slasher flicks. It even has a moment, near the beginning of the film, when the characters are discussing how many stupid horror movies start off with a bunch of kids going up to a remote cabin before they all get horribly murdered. And I love when the one college student, covered in gore and slaying Nazi zombies as fast as he can, screams, 'We should have just gone to the beach like I said!'

I first heard about Dead Snow in a promotional video created by a Swedish pop singer. It was a music video with a perky little blonde who sang a charming tune called, 'My Ass,' in which she extolled the virtues of her shapely backside. Halfway through this nearly pornographic little ditty, the singer pauses while girls carrying large cards reading 'Dead Snow' walk in front of the camera. The song has absolutely nothing to do with Dead Snow, and the promotion was so immensely out of place that I had a very good idea exactly what kind of movie it was. And I was pretty sure it was going to be inane. And I was right.

But it is fun, and the writers know they are making a stupid movie, to the point that they actually bother to reference other stupid movies. Dead Snow is an example of one of those 'so bad it's good' films, the kind you watch with a bunch of other people who are all halfway inebriated and amused by impossible decapitation. Stupid and campy and gory and fun, Dead Snow will entertain even while it lowers your functional IQ.

0 Movie Review - Seven Psychopaths

Being a huge fan of crime movies, especially the quirky kind made popular by True Romance and Pulp Fiction, I ignored my rule about not going to the movies to go catch the new crime-almost-a-comedy Seven Psychopaths. I mean, I went to the first show of the day on a Sunday, when most people in Texas are in church and the hoodlums who ruin movies are still in bed, but the point is, it had to be a pretty big deal to get me into a theater at all.

Seven Psychopaths is not a comedy, but it's got lots of moments that will make you laugh. It's not a thriller, but it has lots of excitement. It's not a date movie - and thank God, there are no lame-ass romantic entanglements or love triangles. Yeah, it's definitely not a date movie. I did take my wife, but I took my son, too, so it wasn't a date.

This off-kilter movie about stupid criminals and angry murderers features a Hollywood screenwriter with writer's block, a couple of dog kidnappers who make their money cashing in on reward money, and an especially deranged mob boss who loves his dog, but hates his girlfriend. The setup might seem like black comedy, but unlike other campy films that laugh at dead bodies, Seven Psychopaths is a smart, engaging film with a point much deeper than tasteless humor.

But that's not to say the movie isn't funny. Christopher Walken is routinely hilarious. Sam Rockwell steals every scene, and you'll want to laugh at nearly every single thing he says. Woody Harrelson, playing a remorselessly murderous bastard, will make you laugh all the way through the film. Even Colin Farrel, who I really don't tend to like, is funny and entertaining. But like I said, even with all the jokes, Seven Psychopaths is not a comedy.

Some movies have gimmicks. Memento, for instance, relied on telling the story backwards. Pulp Fiction tells its story out of order, focusing on a single character for a spell and then moving on to another, but with the stories all out of order. Seven Psychopaths features what could be mistaken for using a gimmick, but it's not really. It juxtaposes a screenplay about seven psychos with a story about killers, and uses both to weave a layered story that comes at you in pieces.

This fake movie vs. real movie back-and-forth crosses over between the 'real world' of the movie you're watching and the make-believe story being written by the main protagonist. The fake story features several characters who never make it into the actual events, but the real tale also has several people who don't make the leap to fiction. However, while the fake movie might be fun to watch, it's not there purely for its entertainment factor. It's there to make a point, to make you think, and to present a mutable backdrop that changes to reflect the mindsets of its collaborating writers. You find out more about the real characters from the stories they tell than you ever get watching their actual lives.

I saw Seven Psychopaths this morning, and had to think about it all day before I could write this review. There's a great deal of hidden meaning and subtle commentary - so much, in fact, that I know damned well I didn't get it all. There were some points about linear, predictable Hollywood film-making (a point driven home when the previews featured a basic revenge fantasy movie with that bald guy from Snatch). There were some thought-provoking comments on the value of revenge, some commentary on our societal desire to see people being brutally slain, and no small amount of discussion on what it means to be a friend.

I don't want to make it sound like Seven Psychopaths is a movie you can only enjoy if you're some kind of Harvard film school snob. Taken purely at face value, this is an entertaining, chaotic adventure with an ending you won't see coming. And not like an Alfred Hitchcock 'holy crap why I didn't I see that' ending, more of a 'real life doesn't wrap itself up in a bow' ending. There's dark humor doled out by the bucketload, plus shootings and explosions and sex. Without having to dive into the deeper meaning of the film, you can enjoy Seven Psychopaths as a wacky crime movie with lots of over-the-top characters and dialog so tight you could bounce a quarter off it.

Comparisons to Pulp Fiction are going to be almost unavoidable. Seven Pyschopaths has some amazing dialog, so tight Tarantino could have written it before he started believing all his own press and not letting anyone edit his movies. It has the same kind of surprising moments (well, there are no bizarre basements under the pawn shop, but there are surprises). It has the same irreverence for human life, brought into stark contrast with the unconditional love for a pet. But while I did think Seven Psychopaths was an excellent movie, and I intend to buy the DVD when it's out, this is not Pulp Fiction. Hell, even Tarantino can't bottle that lightning again, no matter how hard he keeps trying.

There are some pacing issues, for instance. The first two-thirds of the film are crisp and fast and demented, and then there's a lengthy lull near the end when you may be watching impatiently to get to the part where something happens again. We go from a raucous series of senseless murders (and a few that make sense) to an oddly elongated campfire in the desert.

OK, actually, that's about it. That's the only flaw I found. A couple scenes at the end of the movie kind of threw off the timing, but not only was that part of the movie necessary for the deeper meaning of the tale, but it's really not as bad as it could have been. The acting is exceptional, the story is bizarre and engaging, the dialog is hilarious and impeccably timed. If Pulp Fiction is the perfect 10 of quirky crime movies (and in my opinion, it is), Seven Psychopaths is a solid 9.75. I haven't seen a movie I enjoyed this much in a long time, and I loved the layers of story being told. The gimmick wasn't a gimmick at all, and it worked perfectly to serve up the deeper points without having to bludgeon us with them.

Now, fair warning - don't take your kids to see this movie, unless your kids are older. There's toe-curling profanity, messy murders, and more than one scene with boobs in it. Not only that, but I don't think there's a snowball's chance in Hell that any kid who hasn't digested Fight Club is going to understand any of the deeper meaning in Seven Psychopaths. That's fine, though. This is a movie designed for adults, not meant to appeal to the immature. It's got an entertaining surface story combined with some very funny moments and an undercurrent of deep thoughts. If you liked Pulp Fiction, you're going to like Seven Psychopaths.

0 Movie Review - Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Ask the average American what the Civil War was about, and they might tell you slavery. Some (especially throwback rednecks who think the South should rise again, as if that would be anything other than completely disastrous) might tell you it was just about Northern Aggression. Ask a tweed-jockey academic, he might just tell you all about how it was about the rise of industrialism and the decline of agrarianism. But they're all wrong - it was about vampires.

If you want the true story behind the Civil War (and when I say 'true,' I mean 'silly'), you need to watch Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Then you can learn all about how Honest Abe killed the nightwalking dead with a special axe coated in silver, because a vampire killed his mom when he was a kid. Then he tried to outlaw slavery, since vampires were eating slaves, and the South got kind of pissed and started a war.

Interestingly, the war is not the biggest part of this campy action flick. The bulk of the tale is about young Abe Lincoln as he learns about the evil beasties of the night and learns how to chop down trees for no reason. There's a love story, as he falls for Mary Todd, and lots of actual historical factoids are woven into the tale in an attempt to make it even semi-believable.

Of course, the story is not believable. I mean, even if you accept that vampires exist, and that they can turn invisible, and that they can live forever if they eat your face, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is still a little tough to swallow. Young Abe develops super powers when he… trains real hard. He's not bitten by a radioactive vampire or granted an emerald vampire-killing ring. He just discovers the hidden powers of the mind and uses them to deliver vengeance to the inhuman predators that are turning South Carolina into an all-you-can-drink blood buffet. Why is he suddenly able to run across the backs of stampeding horses to chase his evil prey? Because it looks cool.

But if you're watching a movie called Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, you're not here for an intellectual treatise. If you want that, read Gore Vidal's book. Instead you get to see one of the greatest presidents of our nation do backflips and choreographed ass-kicking with a sweet wood-chopper and a stove-pipe hat (though when he's fighting on the top of a train, he doesn't wear the hat). The action sequences in this movie are larger than life and twice as silly, but they're really fun. Acrobatic synchronized slaughter, complete with slo-mo blood spatters and grim expressions of rage, are the real stars of this movie. The actual character could be almost anyone, but the fact that it's such an absurd combination makes it that much more entertaining.

Also entertaining is that the acting is not half as bad as it ought to be, given that the biggest name in the movie is Alan Tudyk (who plays Steven Douglas, and is on-screen for maybe two minutes total). These are a bunch of actors you probably don't know, and yet they do an admirable job of making you really want to believe that any part of this campy blood-bath is even remotely possible. A few stretches were required in casting - Mary Todd is extraordinarily pretty, and considering she actually had a face that could curdle milk, the choice of actresses was a bit of a stretch. But they did get an actor who looks quite a bit like Lincoln, then shaved off that dorky Amish beard so he could be a kid instead of a president.

The real beauty of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is it delivers almost exactly what you think it should. There are vampires, obviously. There's vampire hunting. There's blood and fighting. There are explosions and bullet holes and gruesome scars. And as young Abraham Lincoln takes on the mantle of leadership to save the nation from the undead menace, there's blatant silliness. This is a movie that knows what it is. It's campy and violent and cool. It's about as deep as a New York pizza, but it's exactly what you expect it to be. If all filmmakers believed in this much truth in advertising, I never would have seen Magic Mike.

0 Classic Movie Review - Aliens

My parents were very, very Christian. The first time I saw an R-rated movie, I was 17 years old. They didn't want to let me see Back to the Future because they heard that the mom has a crush on her son (which was true, but it was 1950s mom and 1980s son, so that was OK). I once had to leave a party because my friends decided to watch Commando, and I was not allowed.

But my old man had a weak spot - kick-ass sci-fi. The exception to the R-rated movie thing was when there was an awesome science fiction flick we could rent from Wherehouse (you might remember Wherehouse as the place where you got videos before Blockbuster put them out of business. You might remember Blockbuster as the place you got videos before the Internet put them out of business). So even though there was copious profanity (or, as one guy says at the beginning of the movie, harsh language), I got to watch Aliens on VHS. Though by the time we could rent it, I was already 17, so I still didn't really get to game the system.

Aliens is one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time. Ridley Scott kicked off the phenomenon with ideas he cribbed from HR Geiger, but it was James Cameron who made the movie fans wanted to see. Hard-assed space marines battling acid-blood bugs in a derelict planetary colony? Yeah, like you could pass that up.

It's almost a moot point to review Aliens. If you haven't seen Aliens, a movie that has been available for more than 25 years, then I'll send the nerd police around to repossess your nerd badge. The original was a sort of high-concept horror-in-space flick, and while it was OK, it was largely unremarkable. The sequel put it on the map, and marked it permanently in the collective sci-fi geek consciousness.

In case you're one of the very few actual nerds who has not seen this absolute classic of space movies, I'll run it down for you. Ripley, the tough broad who managed to eject the creepy alien from her ship in the first movie, gets recruited to return to the planet where the first bugs were found. Predictably enough, things go poorly, as the hard-hitting marines are under-equipped to deal with a threat of this magnitude. There are excellent explosions, thrilling gun battles, moments of tension and suspense and outright fear. And then lots of people die.

The brilliance of Aliens is not just in the great plot and excellent camera work. The action scenes are spectacular, but the stars of this movie shine brighter. Some of the lines in this movie are etched into my brain like alien acid - 'It's game over, man! Have you ever been mistaken for a man? In case you haven't been keeping up with current events, we just got our asses kicked!' OK, most of the best lines belong to Hudson, but there's still the eternally memorable, 'Get away from her, you BITCH!'

The story has betrayal and greed, heroism and redemption. Characters who seem like cowards turn out to be loyal and brave. While virtually nothing goes right for the marines and their civilian escorts, their strength in the face of adversity is inspirational. Corporate greed is overruled by human compassion and grunt common sense. And as I may have mentioned, there are more explosions than a Michael Bey movie.

Aliens was so good that it spawned lots of great material. The creators of Space Hulk, for instance, should be paying royalties to James Cameron, instead of trying to shut down every reference site that dares to post a rules summary for a game that's been out of print since the Clinton was president. There were comic books, video games, and a whole slew of sequels (and if you've seen the third movie, you know the only smart thing to do is pretend it never happened at all. You know, the way we do with the Star Wars prequels).

You might be wondering why I'm reviewing Aliens at all. It is a rather old movie, and most of us have seen it already. But it was at the top of my mind because I watched it this evening, and was amazed that after 20 years, it's actually better than I remember. After all that time, I still remember the names of the marines, even the ones who got killed early like Frost and Spunkmeyer and, of course, Drake. I anticipated all my favorite lines, laughed at Paul Reiser's ridiculous 80s haircut, and was on the edge of my seat even though I've seen the movie a half-dozen times.

Aliens is just as fantastic as it was the first time I saw it. I don't care if it's been out for two and a half decades, it's a magnificent movie, and if you don't like me reviewing old classic nerd flicks, ask the guy with the gun to your head if you can read something else. If you haven't seen Aliens, you need to correct that oversight as soon as you possibly can. Maybe right now.

0 Movie Review - Dark Knight Rises

[Spoiler alert. I won't spoil Dark Knight Returns, exactly, but I'm assuming you've seen the two movies before this one. Because if you're a nerd, you should have seen that one by now.]

If I had never seen The Avengers, Dark Knight Rises might have been the best superhero movie I ever saw. But I did. So it's not. And actually, The Dark Knight was also pretty damned good. But still not as good as Avengers. I have to stop before I start handing out abritrary numerical scores.

The Dark Knight Rises does a splendid job of spinning the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy franchise. Unlike the previous batch of Batman movies, that started out with style and ended with cheesy camp, the Nolan trilogy has a definite start and a definite end. It's a tightly controlled tale that still takes nearly nine hours to tell, which makes for three very long movies.

And they're not as fun as they seem like they should be. Nolan's Batman is very much the brooding semi-psychotic obsessive that we got when Frank Miller gave him a grim-faced makeover, and that kind of character makes for serious movies, even when they are about people who wear Halloween costumes to work. But then, these are not supposed to be 'fun' movies. They're dark and serious and moving and powerful.

I could go into all the stuff about how the acting is great and the casting is great and the effects are great and the action is great, but if you've seen the other two, you already know that. And if you haven't seen the other two, you need to watch those first. So either way, I'm not going to talk about all that.

Instead I will discuss the theme of Dark Knight Rises, because there's a lot more happening than what's on the surface. Nolan obviously has some pretty interesting opinions about terrorism, the United States, and the human condition. He opens with a Bruce Wayne who has to walk with a cane and never leaves the house - years of fighting crime have ruined his body to the point that many of his joints have no cartilage left at all, and his scar tissue has scar tissue. It takes some clever inventions to make him able to walk at all, much less jump off buildings and kick people in the face.

So now I get both political and high-brow, so bear with me a minute. Let's say that Bruce Wayne is the United States. Let's say that when he is the hero, when his strength and ability to whoop the crap out of bad guys lets him save babies, he stands tall. He's psychologically whole.

But then enter the end of Dark Knight, where Batman allows himself to be labeled the villain to save the image of Harvey Dent as a hero. The city responds by outright hating Batman. They enact the Dent Act, which allows them to clean up the streets by denying due process to criminals involved in organized crime. Batman has to hang up his cowl, because he's no longer the hero. Now he's public enemy number one. And Bruce Wayne can't dig that.

To extend the parallel to the United States, compare what has happened since 2001. We are fine with embracing the Patriot Act, which allows law enforcement to decide who is bad and keep them locked up without a trial, which allows Uncle Sam to listen to our phone calls and track our Internet searches and even see what books we check out from the library. We are fine with it, because it keeps us safe. But it can't keep us happy, because while we know we're making the nation a safer place, we also know, deep down, that surrendering those freedoms is against everything that made America the greatest nation on Earth... once upon a time. But that's cool - it's called the Patriot Act. How bad can it be? You don't want to go against the Patriot Act, do you? Aren't you a patriot?

I'm definitely out on a limb here, and I accept that. I may have seen stuff in this movie that normal people missed because it wasn't there. But I don't think so, because the theme continues. In previous Batman adventures, the bad guys are bank robbers or extortionists or murderers, but Bane is none of those. Bane is a terrorist, plain and simple, with the single intent of destroying what he sees as corrupt. Even Joker had other motivations, including a psychotic desire to see the world burn, but Bane is not crazy. He hates Gotham and wants it to end. But he's not crazy. He's determined. He's a new kind of villain - the kind who bombs skyscrapers with suicide jetliners.

There's a lot more in the story. There's the rise of a heroic nation as opposed to the dispirited, unguided desire to ask for change and walk away when it doesn't happen. Nolan shows us how embracing a lie for political ends corrupts not just those in charge, but everyone affected, from the powerful to the disenfranchised. We see that you don't have to be a fighter to be heroic. The subtle but damning messages delivered by The Dark Knight Rises start with the title and end with the credits, and discussing every aspect that holds a double meaning would take a lot longer than you want to sit here reading this. Besides, by now, your 15-minute break is almost over and your boss is going to start wondering why you're not working.

The Dark Knight Rises is a magnificent movie. It's not as fun as Avengers, but it's not supposed to be. It's the crowning piece in Nolan's trilogy, the final page in his powerful three-part message. Sure, it's dark. Hell, it's in the name. But it's dark for a reason, because Christopher Nolan has a rather dark view of the United States, and while he also shows us hope for a better future, he doesn't seem particularly optimistic that we can get there without a serious, dramatic change in the way we think and live.

For that matter, neither do I.

0 Movie Review - Lawless

I'm a fairly shallow guy. I like sci-fi movies, superhero movies, tough-guy-shooting-people movies, and mob movies (only when I was a kid, we called them gangster movies, but we can't anymore because now that doesn't mean Al Capone, it means guys who buy pants that don't fit). So when I saw the trailer for Lawless, I was like, 'hey, that looks cool!' even though it had Shia LeDoof, and I freaking hate that guy.

I should have taken a hint from the fact that the stupid kid from Transformers was in the movie. That should have been my clue to avoid the movie completely. But it had the guy who played Bane! It had Gary Oldman, for crying out loud! How bad could it be?

Pretty bad, is how bad. It could be pretty bad. Which is to say, it was pretty bad. About halfway through the movie, my wife goes, 'do we have to finish watching this stupid movie?' and I said, 'at this point, I have to review this movie so that I can find some way to get back at the bastards who made it. And that means I have to see how it ends.'

Lawless tells the meandering, unfocused tale of three hillbilly brothers in Virginia who run moonshine during the days of prohibition. There are cool old cars, tommy guns and cops on the take. That alone should be enough to redeem it, but they made the worst mistake they could have made, given the casting - they focused on the lamest character in the whole story.

Shia TheDouche is the star of Lawless, and while I was hoping to see him maybe redeem himself by being something other than the awkward halfwit he plays in every other movie he makes, I was disappointed. He was exactly as useless as he always is (with the possible exception of the latest Indiana Jones movie, which I actually enjoyed despite the stupid ending and the fact that it had Shia DeFruit). He can't shoot a gun. He can't woo a woman without throwing up. He makes stupid mistakes that get his family whiskey still burned to the ground. And he's a candy ass, to boot.

Guy Pierce is also in Lawless, and I actually like him. He was awesome in Memento, and outside of that weird thing where he's the crossdressing performer with the bad guy from Matrix, I can't think of one of his movies where he wasn't pretty great. Except for this one. In this one, he's a deviant freak who murders children and abuses women, and also shaves a weird line down the middle of his head. I get that he's supposed to be the bad guy, but the director sent him so far over the top that he's barely recognizable as a human being.

I blame the writing and directing for the horrid failure of Lawless. They had a great story to work with, one where three fiercely independent and almost preternaturally tough brothers (not counting Shia TheGoof) make their own deals, defy the rule of law, and kill people when it's good and necessary. This could have been exciting and gritty and awesome. Instead it's a story about a weak-minded dingbat who wishes he was a bad man, but instead he's a loser who gets people hurt all the time by being an incompetent boob.

It's not just the misplaced focus that messes up this movie, either. The pacing is horrible. There are some fantastic scenes of death-defying raw heroism, but they are few and far between, being punctuated with stuff so odd and yet still so boring that you will wonder who thought this would make a good movie. Or rather, you would wonder that, if you were to ignore my advice and watch this movie.

Obviously, the director and writer of Lawless were going for a mood piece. They wanted to show what life was like, to give us some insight into the American South during Prohibition. But they also wanted it to be a little surreal, a little odd, to show us how different life was for people who lived in crappy houses and had crappy clothes and made whiskey in tarpaper shacks deep in the mountains. We could have seen all that without the terribly bizarre church service or the disturbing sex crimes, but the creators of the movie wanted to turn a straight-up bad-ass gangster movie into an arthouse flick.

If I were to offer any advice, I would tell you unequivocally not to watch Lawless. It's not even silly-bad or fun-bad or laughable-bad. It's just bad-bad. I haven't been this irritated with a movie since Deathproof. The story that takes place around the main character would have been really cool, but sadly, the best parts are background, and the foreground is wickedly lame and almost painful. Skip this one.

0 Movie Review - Pitch Perfect

I swear, I have not started playing for the other team. I still dig chicks. But I also loved Pitch Perfect, a movie where a bunch of nerds enter competitions where they sing and don't have any backup music. Again, I am not gay.

 The thing is, Pitch Perfect was freaking hilarious. From the disturbing little Japanese girl who whispers that she starts fires to feel joy to Fat Amy doing horizontal running, the movie is jam-packed with laughs. Every character in the movie has a funny line at some point. The one guy from Workaholics is in there, and he's funny as hell, too. The whole movie is just damned funny.

But there are plenty of comedies out there. You could watch one of those ridiculous Wayans brothers send-ups, if you just want a comedy (and if you can find absolutely nothing else to watch). Pitch Perfect doesn't just make you laugh. It makes you smile.

There are essentially two or three stories running alongside each other. You've got the classic romance - will the guy get the girl? You've got the team battle - can the all-girl singing squad win the national competition? And will the main character, a stand-offish hottie who pushes people away from her, be able to overcome her general mistrust of everybody and make some lasting friends? OK, there's really nothing earth-shaking here, but that's fine. Pitch Perfect is a likeable movie, a fun movie, a smiling movie. It's not a brain-stressing indie film, and you'll smile at the outcome to all these stories, as you watch the lead girl discover herself in the great big world.

I don't think I'm actually selling this very well. Usually, a sing-off in a date movie is the exact opposite of a compelling reason to watch a movie. In fact, until my wife chose this one because it was her birthday, there was no possible way I was going to consider watching Pitch Perfect. Which is why I'm going to have to ask you to trust me. Pitch Perfect is so good, I watched it twice.

I've saved the best part for last - the musical numbers. Let me reiterate that I am not the least bit romantically interested in men. Furthermore, I hate musicals. Why anyone thinks it ever makes sense for a regular conversation to suddenly break into song is beyond me. I heartily dislike Andrew Lloyd Weber, and I have very little patience for most Disney movies. I would rather clip my toenails than watch Glee. Yet I couldn't wait for the singing to start in Pitch Perfect.

This is not a musical. The characters do not start singing unless they have a good reason. Nobody is just walking along, minding their own business, and then they start serenading the birds. The songs happen when they should, and they're amazing (except the ones that are supposed to be boring, and that's OK because they are occasionally punctuated by spontaneous projectile regurgitation). They're incredibly fun because they're original and fresh and upbeat. When the lead character breaks into her solo at the end of the movie, my smile got so big I was afraid my face would get stuck that way and completely ruin my reputation as a grumpy old man.

A funny thing happened to me since I saw Pitch Perfect. I mentioned it to a friend at work - who absolutely loved it, and I was surprised. Then I mentioned it to my best friend, who is a cop and a bad-ass, and he had seen it, and HE loved it. I'm not just blowing smoke up your skirt as a joke - Pitch Perfect really is an exceptionally fun movie, one that will make you laugh and smile and maybe dance a little. I swear.

0 Movie Review - Hit and Run

I have a total man-crush on Dax Shepard. I also have a regular crush on Kristen Bell. I would really love to be friends with both of them so I could hang out at their house and tell stupid jokes to Dax Shepard, who in my imaginary world would laugh at them and then grab me a beer, and while he was out of the room I would pretend not to be terrified that I would say something moronic to Kristen Bell just to fill the dead air.

So even though Hit and Run looked kind of like a romantic comedy, I wanted to see it because it has Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell. I'm pretty sure those two could do an actual romantic comedy with no action scenes and just crappy date-movie antics, and I would still watch it. I wouldn't admit it, though.

Turns out, Hit and Run wasn't just funny with an element of romance. It also has car chases, gun fights and brawling, and one particularly awesome scene where the very likable bad guy steals an abusive asshole's dog after making the muscle-headed jackass eat kibble.

The story behind Hit and Run is interesting enough to be the kind of movie that Vin Diesel could ruin. An ex-bank robber in witness protection leaves his comfortable backwater of a town to take his girlfriend to a job interview in Los Angeles, where the guys who he put in jail (and who got out) are waiting to cause him considerable consternation. You could put The Rock in this movie, and it would just be a bunch of gunplay and vehicular manslaughter, with occasional mugging for the camera and showing everyone how enormous his neck is. Instead, Dax Shepard makes it light and funny even as people are shooting and punching and causing freeway mayhem.

There are loads of little things that make Hit and Run more fun than it would have been if someone else had made it. There's the gay highway patrol officer who develops a crush on the bumbling US Marshal, the obsessive tool of an ex-boyfriend who chases his girl to the big city, the lecherous college administrator who knows she's never going to amount to anything more, and a supporting cast of goofballs and hardcases that is sure to entertain.

Unfortunately, that romantic angle still plays in, but since the romance is between Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell, it's actually thoroughly palatable. I'm not above some mush in a movie - don't tell anybody, but I liked Love Actually - but I'm not usually this interested in the obvious chick-appeal part of a movie like Hit and Run. But when these two do it, it's fun, even when it's a little sugary. They never take themselves too seriously, even when they're dead serious, so while I personally could have done without the extended cuddling and protestations of adoration, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie even though, technically, it's a romantic comedy.

There were plenty of ways that a weaker cast or less capable director could have totally ruined this movie, but the creators of Hit and Run did an outstanding job of putting together a fun action/romance/comedy that entertains without trying. It's not some powerhouse emotional roller-coaster or high-suspense thriller, and it's not going to wind up in anyone's pile of favorites-of-all-time. But if you're looking for something that will appeal to just about anyone, with some laughs, some kick-ass car chases, and some excellent casting, rent Hit and Run and enjoy an amusing romp.