Jupiter Ascending

Life being what it is, there are plenty of folks in dire circumstances. My own situation has been (as someone from China apparently said) "Interesting Times" lately. So you may take what I say with all the grains of salt on the moon of Io.

But Jupiter Ascending is a kick-ass romantic adventure and it's totally worth your time!

Whether it's worth your cash depends on your high level of tolerance for gorgeous, possibly extraneous amounts of lasers, space opera cliche, and handsome people saying ridiculous things betwixt explosions.

It's about Russian-Chicagoan janitor Jupiter Jones who discovers she is royal genetic heir to the Earth, which planet turns out to be a commodity the One Percent of the Galaxy are eager to begin fracking. Also Channing Tatum comes to her rescue a lot as Timber Wolf from the Legion of Super-Heroes with his handy-dandy rocket boots.

The poster says "Last Starfighter", Michael "Speed Racer" Giacchino's bombastic music says "Star Trek 2009", and the universe of partly Animal-Men (including D&D-style dragon men in leather jackets) says "Flash Gordon". It's not ground-breakingly feminist although it does pass the Bechdel test (I mean, seriously, Jupiter has to be rescued at the last minute from a loveless space marriage, but she does physically save her own space bacon more than I could). This popcorn flick is no "Guardians of the Galaxy", but it's a darn sight more fun than "Man of Steel" or "John Carter". And speaking of popcorn flicks, dire circumstances, and interstellar greed- $15 is officially nutballs for a salty corn bag and soda.

Movie Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Say, now I KNOW it's Christmas once again! Because I hear the pitter-patter of little elf feet...

What? Not Buddy the Christmas Elf, nor even the Gremlins of Kingston Falls, but Orlando 'Legolas' Bloom and Tauriel 'Kate From Lost' the Red-Headed Step-Child. Who doesn't want some light-footed elves prancercising their way across white-water Donkey Kong barrels? The Elf Driver's Waltz Pleases Nerds Completely!

I have to admit, there are times when 'The Hobbit Part 2' feels a little like Second Breakfast- a little too much of a good thing. But then it'll lurch back from its drunken wanderings and find the path through Mirkwood again. I'm consoling myself with the belief that they've left plenty of material for the third film, which I'm also as eager as anything to see in 2014.

This does what you paid for (and thanks again to my buddy Ron for the ticket!) with cunning action sequences, bombastic music, stunning natural vistas, strange and wonderful creatures, and more. It's a great way to kill an afternoon. See it with friends as excited as mine and you'll really be in for a swell time!

Stephen Fry as the Master of the Lake-Town of Esgaroth is a particular treat, because Stephen Fry doing ANYTHING- (including reading the entire indicies of 'The Silmarillion') would be a particular treat.

All the returning characters do great work- Bilbo, Gandalf, Radaghast, Old Dwarf, Fat Dwarf, Proud Dwarf, Hot Elf, Haughty Elf, and The Elf who Makes Pies and Raises the Dead. Plus you've got that lizard in a human suit Benny Batch delivering the creepy goods as the BIG BAD!

And lastly, I'll try my best, but I think I'm always gonna pronounce the titular dragon's name as "smog"... not "s-miaow-g".

Move Review: Robocop Trilogy on Blu-Ray

Just in time, too! Nothing like an up-to-the minute movie review, and this is nothing like an up-to-the minute movie review. I probably owe you, my beloved followers, an apology for abandoning this blog for so long...

Then again, being Robocop means never having to say you're sorry!

This weekend when my sweet wife was away overnight I dug into my newest Blu-Ray acquisitions and re-watched the 1987 Paul Verhoeven-directed, Ed Neumeier-penned original film of corporate greed, urban decay, and a horrifying war machine that can't negotiate stairs.

Robocop is still my 22nd favourite movie, and hero in crisis Peter Weller is really great at this biz called show! A trio of baddies from Miguel Ferrer, Ronny Cox, and Kurtwood Smith are, by turns, smarmy, corporate cutthroat, and literally cutthroat. Upright cop Alex Murphy is shot into chunks by gangsters in what is either 1992 or 2044 Detroit. Soulless corporate giant Omni Consumer Products resurrects Murphy as a gunmetal cyborg with a heart. A Nissan heart! When a man is reduced to a few pounds of internal organs and most of a face to suck baby food through, what is left to make him a man? Find out with plenty of bullets, car chases, and fiery explosions!

The next day I re-watched Robocop 2, written by Frank 'Sin City' Miller and directed by Irvin 'Empire Strikes Back' Kershner. Which isn't quite as good but which DOES have John 'Daniel Clamp' Glover hawking a car security system that murders thieves but doesn't drain your battery! Both sequels rely a little too heavily on child actors, which especially in R-rated Robocop 2 is a head-scratcher. But I must grudgingly admit that Robo's SFX battles with the drug-addled messianic/maniac cyborg Cain are technically superior to the first film's ED 209 FX.  But when it comes to ED, you never forget your first murderously malfunctioning enforcement drone.

Finally I re-watched Robocop 3, which has Steven 'Macho Business Donkey Wrestler' Root and CCH 'Amanda Waller' Pounder (I think she pronounces it "ccch"?) as freedom fighters, a little girl hacker moppet, and Josh 'Bradley Whitford' Lyman pre-West Wing. In which that pesky partner Anne 'Nancy Allen from Carrie' Lewis dies a contractually-obligated death in a Frank Miller-obligated church. Also it has ninja androids and a jet pack. (For some- a deal breaker. For me- the whole point.)

Since the returns do diminish sharply, I'd prefer to think of this purchase as $15 for the first movie, $7 for the second, and... Robocop 3... "Well, I'll buy THAT for a Dollar!" Although 3's director Fred Dekker DID bring me Night of The Creeps and some Star Trek Enterprise, so he's o.k. in my book.

I'll probably look up the cheesy TV series and cheesier cartoon, all in preparation for a 2014 re-boot that will almost certainly fail to please and will very probably be the re-make equivalent of a two-hour kicking of my ball sack. (That new black suit really stinks.)

Movie Review: The Brother From Another Planet

**** (4 stars out of 5)

The other afternoon I made some effort (always necessary in these days of easy entertainment accessibility) to clear out my PVR. It's been nearly 20 years since I first saw 'The Brother From Another Planet'. And, you know... I'm so very, very glad I revisited it!

Halfway between 1982's E.T. and 1986's ALF there came 1984's otherworldly visitor with a strange perspective and a noble heart. He didn't land on Harlem... Harlem landed on him. No... no, I was right the first time. Yup, crash-landed from space, pretty sure about that. Those three toes are a dead give-away.

Mute and cast adrift, terrified but stoic, the Brother struggles to rise up from nothin'. He even lost his whole FOOT getting here! (It grew back.) He's got a surprising array of mental and physical powers revealed to the viewer as needed. And he uses each one for the betterment of his adopted community. This Ree-Toh would give a Kryptonian a run for his money. Or make him check his wallet. Oh, I kid! Seriously, though, The Brother needs money.

Joe Morton's astonishing silent performance in the lead role held me spellbound. I've enjoyed him as the repentant Dr. Miles Dyson in Terminator 2, and as the brilliant yet warm-hearted rocket scientist Dr. Henry Deacon in Eureka. Not to take anything away from those fine characters, but he's just amazing here. If you can bring yourself to stop chattering and just really LOOK at the guy... his whole soul is there in his eyes and face.

Making a new life isn't easy for a space-brother, especially with pursuers literally baying for your blood to drag you back to your invisible but all-too-real chains. These menacing men in black are given the right amount of deeply unnatural gusto by Alphas' David Strathairn and writer/director John Sayles. Now I really need to locate and watch (or is it revisit? I honestly can't remember) another of Mr. Sayles' sci-fi productions: Battle Beyond the Stars.

If you need your SF superhero story fix, or you're just trying to find an overlooked gem, brother, this is the film for you!

Movie Review: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

"All Great Stories deserve a little embellishment," claims Gandalf the Grey. And I find I am forced to agree wholeheartedly.

I know at least one Hobbit purist who refuses to pay up front for THREE movies culled from a 300-odd page children's book. In his view, perhaps, the makers are on a cash-grab: stretching the material too thin and inserting too many ideas from author J.R.R. Tolkien's indices and supplementary sources.  I respect this attitude, while personally of the opinion that while there may be such a place as 'too much of a good thing'... I haven't hit it yet!!!

Howard Shore's fine musical backdrop for this lovely fantasy world is a great treat. There's a whole new album out there for you aficionados, and it's very worthwhile. The lyrics from the book are put to music to great effect throughout.

Much is owed for the toil of the basement trolls who make possible the CGI trolls. Not to mention goblins, orcs, wargs, eagles, moths, rabbits, ghouls and what-have-you. Nice job, boffins and weirdos! Your art is marvelous. Making the unreal real surely adds to the beauty and the terrors of millions of our dreams.

I've heard talk of the doubled frame-rate from standard movie 24 frames per second to this first time attempt at 48. This did not impact me negatively when I noticed it at all. (I was impressed by the sharpness and clarity of the image, but then I just got new glasses so I'm saying that about a lot of things.)

The actors are in fine form. Clearly they're all having a splendid time and we get to come along! Martin Freeman is, quite simply, an ideal Bilbo Baggins. I thought he would be, and I was not disappointed. 'Riddles in the Dark' is an absolute highlight. (A lightless highlight? Highlight at night?)

Speaking of bright spots, I was also very, very NOT disappointed when it came to the role perhaps most typical of "additional material". My beloved Sylvester McCoy (he of Doctor Who fame 1986-89) as the obsessively animistic wizard Radagast the Brown was a poop-covered hoot.

Now that there is such a thing as Radagast, I feel like there always should have been.

I can't lie to you, I'd like to go back again. Join me for The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug in 2013 and The Hobbit: There and Back Again in 2014, won't you? (Spoilers: there's a subtle theme in these tales about the futile emptiness of greed. Maybe a little hypocritical from the behind-the-scenes "Battle of Five Armies" that has been happening for nearly a decade to decide whose heirs and what conglomerates get the biggest pieces of Hobbit Pie.)

Still and all, with a Jackson/Tolkien joint in the theaters once again, it really does feel like Christmas!

And lastly, for my part, it was a film to enjoy with a friend. Many thanks to my buddy Ron for his generosity.

Movie Review: Star Wars Saga on Blu-Ray

O.K., fine, so I haven't exactly watched ALL of it yet. There's like a solid WEEK of features, if I watched it from the bathroom and watched Star Wars instead of sleeping! Which I am no longer willing to do.

Like that crazy old wizard out beyond the Dune Sea, I'm getting too old for this sort of thing.

But what can I possibly say that anyone who knows me won't expect? Episodes 6, 4, and 5 are my top three favourite movies OF ALL TIME. Episodes 3,2, and 1 are inching lower with every revision I make to my TOP 100 List, but I should point out that they are still in my top THIRTY. Take that, Hitchcock's Vertigo! (Not under consideration)

So what would surprise you? Because this blog has been lying nearly fallow all year, I should mention that I bought a BLU-RAY player, after avoiding it as utterly unnecessary for quite some time. And it still is. But it's SOOO SHINY!!!

Sooo... I bought the Star Wars movies. Used. $72. Then, over the last few weeks, I watched them. They are wonderful. Worth every damn nickel.

The first thing I checked out was the Nelvana Cartoon with the first appearance of Boba Fett. Go, Canada! Dripping with nostalgia, I can tell you it is a rare delight. Since I'm not a child anymore, I can't bounce off the walls with glee. Except in my heart!

Then I watched the deleted scenes: Biggs and the Anchorhead Chums, Wampas Amok, and the much-too-unfinished and now unfunctional Sandstorm Farewell scene. Wizard!

Also a 2.5 hour scene called 'The Phantom Menace' which I hear everyone on the Internet wants deleted. Me? I'm fine with it. Episode One Yoda looks much better in CGI. But is it too late to colour over Jake Lloyd and Hayden Christiansen?

I couldn't spot any tweaks at all in 'Attack of the Clones' or 'Revenge of the Sith'. But they are better than ANY TEN OTHER FILMS!!! Well, maybe not ANY. But most.

There is no reason at all to change the sound Kenobi makes to scare off Sand People, but George did. Maybe it's the sound his tummy makes when he's full of cheese bought with his billions?

Greedo and Han shoot nearly simultaneously, but Han's split-second flinch looks a little less dodgy, pardon the pun. The albino dianoga is keen. 'Empire''s AT-AT's  and 'Jedi''s rancor are exactly as they should be, classic stop-motion but with black matte-lines removed. Freakin' sweet, is the term, I believe?

I still love the 'Return of the Jedi' Special Edition, Joh Yowza, 'Weesa FREE!', and all. Only now Wicket and the Ewoks blink. It's simultaneously adorable and unsettling. In other words, PERFECT.

There's still lots to enjoy and explore. I'll get my money's worth in the years to come. Thanks to Carlos for loaning me his copy for the nonce, and (paying it forward), you're all welcome to borrow mine. When you pry it from my cold, dead, Jawa hands!

Movie Review: The Muppets

I saw it this afternoon in a virtually deserted theatre. A couple, a bearded singleton, a dad and his noisy, stomping tots. If I start with complaining ($14 dollars for parking!! My fingers ache! Aren't the Muppets dead?) it becomes apparent I'm pretty much both Statler and Waldorf already.

So thank you to everybody involved with "The Muppets" for dancing, singing, and smiling past my layers of crusty cynicism for a blast of fun. I needed that, and you guys and gals brought it.

Steve Whitmire- Kermit The Frog for the majority of my life. Brings nostalgia home hard and tender and tragic and beautiful. Always a romantic, always a dreamer, and always forced to be the realist in a barnyard crapstorm of chaos. Will Kermit carry the day?

Jason Segel & Amy Adams- adorable as Gary and Mary. Will their love survive... The Muppet Show?

Bret McKenzie- my fellow 35 year old, whose music, as always, is sheer delight. Is he Man, or is he Muppet?

Dave Goelz- still my favourite Not-Much-Like-a-Turkey alien.

Rashida Jones- the straight-shooting CDE TV executive Veronica whose ratings charts prove you can't go home again. Are you going to finish that latte?

Chris Cooper- evil Tex Richman, humorless oil tycoon. Is it as thankless job as it looks to be scary standing next to Uncle Deadly?

And Peter Linz- who plays Walter, the Anything Muppet in the midst of realizing himself.

Walter is the Muppet's biggest fan (for all the good it does him) and his love and devotion may be all that can bring the floundering Muppets together again. Can they find a celebrity to raise them from obscurity and raise $10 million to save their derelict theatre?

And why does nobody ever notice Hobo Joe?

To the most salient question: can devoted fans of the original cast see their way clear to accepting the newbies? I think some will. Gene Roddenberry's dead but the Star Trek reboot film was deservedly successful. Though the Muppets are even more the emotional brainchild of Jim Henson's toil, and though his too-early death was deeply tragic, I see no reason to bury the Muppets with him like some tyrant Pharaoh's powerless slaves. Jason Segel's story CLEARLY comes from a place of great veneration and love. I hope he makes a mint, because it's obvious the man loves these ping-pong balls on socks like the beloved characters they are to so many.

The biggest coup will be somehow pleasing that wide, jaded middle ground between the tykes and the aged. I'm not sure this film will work for everyone. But it sure does for me. I laughed out loud. I cried a little. I clapped. It was like a (kind of) torture.

When my wife returns from her adventures in the city where they filmed it, I hope we can see it together. To paraphrase the small green one: She makes me happy, now and forever.

Movie Review: Tower Heist

It's a lazy Sunday, and if you have nothing to do but set your clocks back, why not see a great little comedy?

I saw a preview of Tower Heist with my wife and friends recently and enjoyed it so much more than I expected to from the so-so trailer I saw.

Ben Stiller plays a genuinely nice guy, a fastidious building manager who finds himself hatching a scheme to rob the secretly cruel despot Alan Alda and repay the poor serfs who toil beneath his penthouse.

Eddie Murphy is a riot as the more practical thief Stiller bails out to assist him.

Lots of laughs, some of my favourites came from sad-sack laid-off Matthew Broderick and safe-cracking, wise-cracking Gabourey Sidibe. And I'm impressed as ever by Tea Leoni. You know what? Great work all around.

It's a mark of distinction for me how loudly I heard my wife laughing throughout.

Please see a fine review at WISDOM OF BOOKMONKEY now.

Then treat yourself to a little comedy wish fulfillment from the emotional core that yearns for justice in matters of greed and brings us the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Do not give in to the desire to pirate the movie itself, despite the madcap robbery theme.

Wild Wild Waste

I was warned away. I didn't heed.

And why should I? It's a comic book movie. I LIKE those, y'know?

JONAH HEX (2010) is quite terrible. Let's be extra fair here: I'm not a fan of the comic anyway. Unless scarred cowboy bounty hunter is paired up with 'time-traveling' and 'outer-space' I tend to think he's just the Punisher with spurs. (To be clear, I'm not a fan of the Punisher.)

That said, I've only read Jimmy Palmiotti's Jonah Hex, which was good storytelling in a genre that rarely wows me.

So while we're accumulating a little perspective on who I am, I'll add that I enjoyed the Wild Wild West movie, Pushing Daisies, and The Crow (somewhat). Mush those three things together, however, remove all sense of logic and all sense of humor, paste in Jonah Hex and you've got yourself a box office flop!

SPOILERS (like you care)

What horse would stand for side-mounted machine guns? AND not get immediately shot in the head when he inevitably starts bucking?

What person talking to John Malkovich's Quentin Turnbull character could fail to burst out laughing when his cowboy hat comes off and their eyes are drawn to that lustrous, curly... oh, what luck, here's a picture:

Now that's the face of a terrorista!

(Because casual mass-murdering revenant Hex, of course, is our hero. Don't forget now.)

Cringe at the tame but unappealing bedroom scene with a prostitute- that horrible face! Don't know how Hex could stand it. Of course, they've bonded over the fact that they're both drunks, mutterers, and dead inside, so awww!

Bored with the cotton gin, Eli Whitney apparently built a superweapon from cannonballs and the lost Pallantir of Sauron. How can Will Arnett be a part of this masterpiece and be given no jokes?

Soulless. Overburdened with effects, gimmicks, and exploding plot cul de sacs. Paint-by-numbers vengeance fantasy. And if that's what you like, it's all here.

The hell would I know? I still like Howard the Duck.

Between the Head & The Hands... Jodhpurs!

Nothing says FUTURE like a tight, wistful pair of jodhpurs, or so it seemed to Freder Frederson, ineffectual son of wealthy industrialist Joh Frederson in 'Metropolis', the 1927 black and white silent film by Fritz Lang.

Many thanks to my buddy Ron for running the recently released restored version of this sci-fi classic for me yesterday!

At 2 and a half hours, it is an hour longer than the version I watched back in my university film studies class- but this time I stayed awake and it made more sense!  The restored footage comes partly from an all-but-scratched-to-hell copy found 2 years ago in a Buenos Aries museum.  Thus, this DVD is the closest you can come to seeing this film in its original form without a time machine and a willingness to visit NEARLY-NAZI Germany.

(If you have a time machine, PLEASE consider going forward.)

Such as fabulous 2026!  

Where biplanes meander between skyscrapers and hordes of miserable workers die in horrible explosions while servicing bizarre machines! 

Where the elite drive classic hundred-year old German cars along spindly sky-high roadways!

And where C. A. Rotwang (yes, a name and a venereal disease all in one!), the mad scientist, kidnaps a lady preacher, copies her features onto an eerie robot and incites rioting via alternating strip shows and church sermons using her indoor screams.

The writer joined the Nazis 6 years later and her husband, Lang, divorced her over it and continued his film directing in less deadly countries.  He remained chapped about the extreme editing job done on the film and it seems he was right.

Metropolis had a hella big budget: 5 million is a lot of ANYTHING, even twenties-era Reichsmarks.  And although it didn't turn a profit, it was very popular.  That kooky Joseph Goebbels thought the world of it!  Joey killed a lot of people before he got the right one, but I guess we agree on one thing: it's a cool movie.

83 years old and it managed to give me both heebies and jeebies.  

That's precision German-engineered creepy!

The gyrating robot girl was a mere 17 in her triple role as Maria, Machinemenchen Maria, and Tod (the Grim Spectre of Death), while the bad guys lusting after her closely resemble Grand Moff Tarkin and Beetlejuice.  Yeeurgh!  

H.G. Wells gave Metropolis a thumbs down, apparently, so to see what the future will REALLY be like, I'll soon be watching Wells' 'Things To Come'.

Jodhpurs!

Movie Review: Despicable Me

I saw an advance screening of an upcoming movie this past Saturday with my lovely wife, my close friend, and his daughter.

It was Universal Pictures' latest, a CGI comedy churned out by the hard-working animators of France and American vocal talent.

And I must respectfully disagree with Bookmonkey's post regarding the awesomeness of 'Despicable Me'.

While Jason Segel's character Vector is undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with, the true star of the picture and the source of the lion's share of the awesomeness to be had is in the personage of Gru (pictured below).

Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) is a stone-cold old-school super-villain. Greedy, grasping Gru with his underground lair and his deformed minions and his schemes for wealth & power cannot be ignored. Because it's the CLASSICS, the tried and true, that really stand for something.

Like the heavy, steel, jet-propelled car; great for parallel parking.

Or a creepy old mansion, ideal for cooking up cunning plans.

And nobody will argue for long with a traditional freeze ray.

So, with my hat off to Bookmonkey, he is completely in the wrong: 'Despicable Me' is a gorgeously rendered, cleverly written, devilishly funny film treat, but it all comes down to Mr. Gru.