Flashback Corner--Twilight Zone: The Movie

“Hey, you wanna see something really scary?”

          There are not too many TV shows that are considered timeless.  The ones that last are not products of their time, but transcend time, or in this case transcend time, mind, things, and ideas, a place called…the Twilight Zone.  Movies can be like that too, and because movies have beginnings, middles, and ends you are given less time to tell a story than on a TV show.  In the late fifties to early sixties The Twilight Zone told amazing stories, with simple and powerful messages about the human condition that still speak to us today.

In 1982 men who grew up watching the show had a chance to come together to tell and re-tell some of their favorite stories from the original show.  Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Joe Dante, and George Miller each directed an episode of the Twilight Zone that was made into their own movie.  The opening directed by Landis is one of the best openings of any movie ever.  Albert Brooks and Dan Aykroyd driving on a deserted highway at night, and when the Creedence goes out, they have to talk to each other which leads to what any geek of any show would recognize as the “you remember the one about the…” twilight zone episode talk.  This puts you into the mindset of the kinds of stories you are about to see.  The conclusion of this seven plus minute scene is classic.

The first segment (as they are called in the credits) was also directed by Landis is about a bigot who is tossed around in time and is seen by others as a Jew in Nazi-occupied France, a black man in the South at a Klan lynching, and a Vietnamese in war-torn Vietnam.  This one is very reminiscent of the old episodes where the person feels what it’s like to walk in another’s shoes.  The tragedy of this portion of the film is the real-life death of actor Vic Morrow and two kids during a special effect scene involving a helicopter.  In my opinion he wasn’t the same director after this horrible accident.  He did direct the Michael Jackson Thriller video, The Three Amigos, and Coming to America, but not much more of note after.  It’s even more of a shame when you see his early work of Animal House, Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and An American Werewolf in London.

The second segment directed by Spielberg was and is for me the weakest of the bunch, based on an episode called “Kick the Can”. The cinematography is great, and I love the ending, most Twilight Zone’s have great endings, but it still feels like Spielberg-lite.

The third segment was my favorite as a kid about a boy who has the power to make anything he wishes happen.  Directed by Joe Dante (The Howling, Gremlins) this is a slightly toon-ized creepy tale mixed with humor and frightening images.  Also watching a young Nancy Cartwright as Ethel, you can’t help but giggle at the early Bart Simpson waiting to come out. Watching it now it feels like an origin story of a superhero who is abusing his power when he meets someone who could potentially be his teacher.

The last segment which is my new favorite, directed by George Miller who is responsible for all the Mad Max films as well as the new “Mad Max: Fury Road” in production right now.  It is based on the ‘zone’ episode with William Shatner as a man who sees a gremlin on the wing of a plane.  In this version the man is played by the always brilliant John Lithgow.  He is a terrified passenger who sees the creature and whips the whole plane into a frenzy when no one believes what he sees.  The music is especially noticeable in this segment, Jerry Goldsmith makes you feel the terror, and the weird angles are just as jarring.

Overall Twilight Zone: The Movie feels like it did when I was a kid, some of it I liked and some not so much.  I also feel the same way about the show that inspired the movie.  But you better believe I always watch the ‘Zone’ marathons every time they come on.

--Robert L. Castillo     

Men in Black III

     In 1997 a little movie came out about the infamous men who protect our planet from extraterrestrials. Little was known about them except that they wore, which was a black suit and sunglasses. “Men in Black” was a blockbuster in every word, going on to make over $ 580 million worldwide on a $ 90 million budget. It spawned a sequel in 2002 that many of us would have liked someone to have zapped us with one of those flashy things and let us just forget it. Now they are back again twelve years later ready to protect our planet again.

    Everything seems right in Agent K’s (Tommy Lee Jones) and Agent J’s (Will Smith) world. They are policing the world to make sure the aliens living among us are blending in.  Unbeknownst to them, Boris the Animal ( Jemaine Clement) has escaped the lunar prison he was in and is looking for pay back on Agent K. Boris has devised a plan to go back in time and kill Agent K before his arm is shot off and he is imprisoned. Boris goes back to 1969 and changes the timeline, a timeline that Agent K has been dead for forty years and he and Agent J were never partners. By Agent K being dead, he wasn’t able to install a system that would protect the world from an alien invasion. The only thing that can fix it is that Agent J has to go back to 1969 to kill the Boris that went back to Kill Agent K, in order to put the timeline back to normal. Agent K tracks down Boris, but is instead captured by a younger Agent K (Josh Brolin) who at first doesn’t believe Agent K’s stories. In the end Agent K believes Agent J and together they try to stop Boris and return the timeline back to normal.

      “Men in Black” was probably not one of those movies you kept asking yourself, “I wonder when they are going to make another one?” especially after the second one. The good news is we can just pretend the “Men in Black II” never happened and make this a sequel to the original. The movie starts off ok, with bad dialogue written by way too many writers to put on here, but the good news is the film gets better. Once Agent J goes back in time, the film becomes really fun, especially watching Josh Brolin do a perfect Tommy Lee Jones impression. Some of our favorite aliens are back as well, luckily some are not, and we get to meet some new ones that really make the film enjoyable.  They even dusted off Berry Sonnenfeld, who has been directing TV movies and put him back in charge. With a reported budget of over $ 250 million there is a lot riding on this film to get back to the black. The good thing is “Men in Black III” is an entertaining film to watch, one that will have you laughing and remembering why you enjoyed the original so much.

Brian Taylor

Top Five Films I Love Watching with My Kids

Every parent knows the feeling of burnout on a kid’s movie.  There is always that movie that enchants your child to the point where you will have violent tendencies towards the characters or thoughts of mysteriously losing the movie on the top shelf of a bookcase in the house.  My kids have got hooked on films I can’t stand like Shark Tale, Happy Feet, Gnomeo & Juliet, or one of those God-awful Barbie movies.  Then there are some I enjoy letting them watch on their own, like Tangled, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and any Pixar movie (Except Cars 2).   Finally there are the movies, that I have to sit and watch with them, because you should have that sit-down time with your kids, but secretly I love watching them over and over too.

#5- The Sandlot

The movie fueled my son’s love for baseball, even though there is not much baseball through the last quarter of the film.  Other than the boys trying to get back an actual baseball that’s been hit over a fence.  However the magic of that film is it does make you want to go outside and throw the ball around while still telling a fun story about a group of friends and their fantastic summer.  There is a couple of “S”-bombs in the movie, but it never stops me from watching my son watch it all the way though, all the time.

#4- Bolt

On paper, this is an awesome premise.  What if Lassie didn’t know he was on a show and that he didn’t really save the day all the time, and what if he had to survive in a the real world?  On film it’s presented even better as Bolt and his two new friends have to travel across the country to get him back to his person Penny.  With a cute opening that transitions into an action-packed super charged intro to the title character, this movie is about discovery and finding your place in the world, especially after you find out your world is not what you thought.  This at a time when Disney had nothing worth watching that didn’t have Pixar attached to it.  Bolt is a great little film worth re-watching.

#3- Monster House

At first I didn’t even think of showing my kids this movie until they were at least six or seven, however the daycare that watches them had other plans.  One day my daughter grabbed it from the shelf and insisted “I like this movie!”  I said no, and the next week I pick them up from daycare and guess what they’re watching?  So I let them watch even with the scary images and pretty sad and somewhat horrifying backstory of Mr. Nebbercracker.  Both my kids get entranced when watching it, as does anyone who watches a Spielberg/Zemeckis collaboration.  As do I.

#2- The Incredibles

Of the twelve Pixar movies, this one still remains my favorite and after almost burning out on it myself before the kids were even born, I re-discovered its greatness through my kids eyes.  The family values, the amazing adventure set pieces, the humor, and the look on my kids face when Dash runs across that water (I’d say spoiler*, but this movie is almost ten years old, you need to see it).  I never get tired of it, and now that my son is really into superheroes, The Sandlot may have to take a backseat to Mr. Incredible and his super family.

#1- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

This film, is not just one of the best cartoons, it is one of the best films of the last ten years.  The story of a failed inventor whose greatest invention may also be his worst, as fame and long awaited acceptance make its way into his life.  This film is very funny and nostalgic without trying to be nostalgic.  It has memorable lines, and a snowball fight scene that had me laughing for days.  It is the film when my kids as to see it and it’s late I look to my wife as one of them and ask to stay up late to see it from beginning to end.

Now I learned a few tricks to the repeated viewings of my kid’s movies, like stashing them on that high shelf to starting them in the middle as to not keep them on the couch too long.  But as a lover of film I can’t deny the joy I get it watching my kids discover and wonder at the first time the Rocketeer flys, when Jack Skellington finds the land of Christmas, or hearing the Iron Giant’s final line of his film.  I do see it as quality time with my kids, there is something about those images connected to time spent beside a parent.  I’ve been on one side of that connection, and now that I’m on the other, there is no other place that I rather be.

--Robert L. Castillo  

The Dictator

Laughter to me is the secret of a happy life, if everyone would just laugh more the world would be a better place. There are so many ways we can find that laughter, in books, on TV, and of course the movies. When it comes to movies there are so many choices when it comes to comedy, I mean who is to say what is funny and what is not.

       Sasha Baron Cohen wants to tell you what is funny with his newest character General Aladeen or “The Dictator”. In a country in North Africa, Aladeen has everything he wants and needs. He can buy anything he wants and he has the world’s attention because of what he is trying to build. After Aladeen is threatened with force, he agrees to travel to the United States to give a speech at the U.N. Once in the United States, Aladeen is kidnapped and robbed of his beard, which makes him unrecognizable to everyone. He is rescued by a girl named Zoey (Anna Farris) and is given a job at an earth friendly grocery store. While he is selling earth friendly items, he is also trying to get back and be the evil Dictator he was born to be. All he has to do is replace his double, foil his uncle’s plot to sell his country’s mass oil reserves and free his people from Aladeen’s rule.

   Sasha Baron Cohen’s act might be wearing a little thin these days. When he released “Borat” in 2006 he was at the top of his game, but by the time “Bruno” was released in 2009 you could already see the decline. It’s like hearing a joke for the first time and you are on the floor laughing, but by the second and third time the joke just isn’t funny anymore. That is like watching a Sasha Baron Cohen movie; his characters are so much the same that it just isn’t funny anymore. Sure you can find a few moments that will make you chuckle, but when you go to a comedy don’t you want to do more than just chuckle a few times? I think Cohen should take some time off from releasing movies like this and concentrate on being an actor, something he is good at. If you are in the mood for a Sasha Baron Cohen film, re watch “Borat”, because after that everything went downhill for him, with “The Dictator” clearly being the bottom.

 Brian Taylor

Flashback Corner-- Weird Science

“You ought to know better than to walk into somebody’s house and start hitting people with your Rex Harrison hat.”

          There are some films you call 80’s movies, because they are considered classics and happen to be made in the 1980’s like Die Hard, Ghostbusters, or The Empire Strikes Back.  Then there are movies that are called 80’s movies because of their comment on the time.  In my opinion writer/director John Hughes made two films that fall into the first category, that being The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  The latter category which is a product of its time and is not one of his best, but is one of my favorites is Weird Science.

The story is simple, two geeks decide to make a girl on the computer and through movie logic, she comes to life.  She has the power to do anything, so mayhem ensues.  The boys are played by Ilan Mitchell-Smith as Wyatt and Hughes alumni Anthony Michael Hall as Gary.  The girl they create in her best performance in any film as Lisa is Kelly LeBrock, she is beautiful, funny, sassy, and sexy in the role.  She honestly looks like she is having the time of her life, just being an all-powerful creation of two geeks.  As I said the movie is very dated, it relies mostly on visual gags, funny line readings mostly by LeBrock and Hall, and a young boy’s memory of what it’s like to be an outcast.  Plus you gotta love Bill Paxton who is hilarious in every scene as big brother Chet.

Watching the movie now, I can see some of the shortcomings through the great screenplay by Hughes, mostly at the end.  However, overall it’s still a very funny movie and does have a slight timeless feel of movies about a crazy weekend, or having a genie granting your wishes, even the ones that you didn’t know were for your own good.  I also have an incredible amount of nostalgia that comes with this film, like a kid who watches the same movie over and over again.  I remember Weird Science being in every VCR of every relative’s house for years.  All of my cousins watched it, and loved it, so much so, that laughing at some of the scenes now really comes from their reactions to it 26 years ago.  John Hughes did speak to a generation about what it is like to be young and misunderstood in school, and I will always be grateful for that.  But the man made me laugh, and still does.  He will be missed.

--Robert L. Castillo   

Dark Shadows

There is a popular belief that Hollywood is running out of original ideas. With all of the remakes and movies made about toys, you can almost see where that thought is coming from. For the past twenty two years Jonny Depp and Tim Burton have made   movies together, some good like “Edward Scissorhands” and some bad like “Sleepy Hollow”. When it comes to Burton, he has not found a movie in the past few years that he won’t remake or reshape in his vision, so here we go again.

        “Dark Shadows” is Burton and Depp’s eighth film together and they do their best to prove that you don’t always get better just because you spend time together. Based on the supernatural soap opera that ran from 1966-71, it is the story of a vampire and the curse he and his family suffer. Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is cursed to be a vampire because he refuses the advances of Angelique (Eva Green). After he parents and the love of his life are killed, Barnabas is buried to suffer a life in solitude. In the year 1972, Barnabas is freed and returns to his home to bring his family back to its greatness. Once back home, Barnabas finds that Angelique is still alive and making sure that the Collins family is still suffering. Will Barnabas bring the Collins family back to the top? Or will Angelique keep getting her way?

  “Dark Shadows” attempts to be two things, a dark drama and a typical “fish out of water” comedy, unfortunately it gets neither one   them right. There is something about Tim Burton directing Johnny Depp in makeup that just does not work. There is also a total waste of talent, with Michelle Pfeiffer, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Jackie Earle Haley doing as little acting as possible. The screenplay was written by Seth Grahame-Smith who wrote the novel and film version of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer”. One can only hope he gets better with his next film. Both Depp and Burton loved the original series and have wanted to make it a movie for a long time. I just wish they had kept it a dream project and not turned it into a nightmare to watch. I would like to ask Burton and Depp to take a break from each other and not remake anymore classic tales in their images. It would be good for both of them and above all it would be good for us movie goers, who might be getting tired of below average storytelling from these two.

 Brian Taylor

Flashback Corner--Darkman

          Back in 1990 before writer/director Sam Raimi brought to the screen one of the best superhero movies of all time (Spider-man 2) then followed it with one of the worst (Spider-man 3) he created a hero of his own, his name?  “Darkman”.

The film showed us Liam Neeson in one of his early starring roles as Dr. Peyton Westlake a scientist on the verge of creating synthetic skin. Before succeeding in the skin-grafting process he is interrupted by a gang of thugs looking to silence his girlfriend played by Frances McDormand who stumbles across a shady development deal, not finding her, they blow-up Dr. Westlake’s lab as well as him, but miraculously he survives though with burns over 90 % of his body.  He also has nerve damage that allows him to feel no pain and pushes his adrenaline up to almost superhuman strength.  He escapes the hospital to take revenge on the gangsters that took his life away.  While continuing his experiments he decides to use his synthetic skin to impersonate the criminals he’s after and ruin their lives.  The head of the gang is played by Larry Drake as Robert G. Durant, a name that’s used as a pretty effective joke in the film.

Darkman is an awesome 90’s film, it’s filled with the style and semi-wacky humor that makes Raimi’s films fun to watch.  It has the B-horror elements as well as the hero elements throughout the movie, and with the score by Danny Elfman it sounds like a dark, eerie, crazy superhero film.  Neeson plays the character completely straight even as he’s going from a little crazy to a lot crazy.  The action is pretty amazing as is the last few final set pieces where Darkman squares off against the villains of the film.  Even though it spawned two really boring sequels the last of which does have one of the funniest sequel titles since “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo” in the third film of the series titled “Darkman III”: Die, Darkman, Die”, Darkman is a great superhero film for its time, and deserves to be remembered as such.

--Robert L. Castillo     

Summer Movie Preview

A Summer of aliens, soldiers, and superheroes…but mostly aliens

          Sometimes the summer movie line-up looks good on paper, they have all the right ingredients, but it’s just not cooked right.  Now since we’re talking about movies not food, I’ll get to my list of movies that may or may not entertain this summer.

Prometheus - (June 8) Is it an “Alien” prequel? Is it not?  Who cares, did you see that trailer?  It looks amazing, I am so glad that director Ridley Scott got those dramas/period pieces out of his system.  This man needs to get back into the world of sci-fi.

Brave – (June 22) After the nearly unwatchable “Cars 2” Pixar is hopefully back to form with this swords and arrows Scottish tale about a young girl who simply doesn’t wish to be married off, but to be in charge of her own destiny.

The Amazing Spider-Man- (July 3) Well at least they got the title right this time.  I originally was not looking forward to this re-boot of the franchise that ended with oversaturated “Spider-Man 3”.  However the trailer which shows a darker tone and Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) as Peter Parker looks really promising.

The Dark Knight Rises – (July 20) An epic finish to what so far has included a fantastic origin in “Batman Begins” and the ‘Godfather’ of superhero movies “The Dark Knight”.  I completely trust Christopher Nolan and the awesome cast he’s put together for Batman’s final battle.

The Bourne Legacy – (August 3) It’s not on everyone’s radar this year with this being the fourth film in the “Bourne” series this time without Matt Damon.  Still I think it looks like a good hand-off, with Tony Gilroy who was a writer on the three previous “Bourne” films as the director.  Also on board is Hawkeye himself Jeremy Renner (The Avengers).  This could be the surprise of the summer.

Other big summer flicks include:

Battleship (May 18)

MIB 3 (May 25)

Snow White and the Huntsman (June 1)

Ted (June 13)

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (June 22)

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (June 29)

The Expendables 2 (August 17) 

--Robert L. Castillo    

The Avengers--Review

“The Avengers.  That’s what we call ourselves.  Sort of like a team.  “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” type, thing.”

          I am going to try and be as objective as I can about “The Avengers”…nope, not gonna work.  I love this movie!  But I would, it was made in part with me in mind, fanboys that is.  The other part of it was made for boys, actual little boys who love to see explosions, superheroes being heroic, and Hulk smashing.  Which indeed he does.  A lot.

Marvel attempted something here, something historic.  They tried to use five separate films (The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and two Iron Man’s) as a set up to this Avengers movie that would include all the previous heroes plus expanding a few more in the way of Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), The Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).  A bold move to be sure, even in the realm of Hollywood.  It’s a good thing for them that their gamble paid off.  They made a fun, entertaining, super-hero charged film that will appeal to both fans and non-fans alike.  And you don’t need to have seen the previous Marvel movies to understand what’s going on, but it helps.

We start with the villain from Thor, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) who is also Thor’s half-brother, he gets it into his head that if he can’t rule Asgard, their homeworld, Earth is the next best thing.  So he gets the MacGuffin (Alfred Hitchcock coined it as the device used to motivate the characters and plot) called the Tesseract, a cube of ultimate power, and then proceeds to play chess with the seemingly unprepared Nick Fury and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Little does he know, or does he?  That Fury has begun to gather Earth’s mightiest heroes to help defend it against the Loki’s evil plan.  The ‘gathering’ of the heroes is the first half of the movie, re-introducing Captain America (Chris Evans) Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Bruce Banner aka the Hulk played by Mark Ruffalo, who is the third actor to portray the character in the films.  So while you’re waiting for the big final brawl to come in the last part of the film, in the meantime you get some great banter between the characters, who each are given a moment to shine, something writer/director Joss Whedon (Serenity) does extremely well.

The Avengers does not disappoint as a fantastic summer blockbuster, as a great super-hero team film, and as an epic undertaking that began five films ago, or to put it in fanboy terms.  This is the superhero film we’ve been asking for, and now that it’s here all we can say is, “Thank you sir, may I have another!”

P.S. Be sure to stay in your seat through the first part of the credits, there is a great teaser waiting in the shadows.

--Robert L. Castillo      

Flashback Corner--Serenity

“This is the Captain.  We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some turbulence and then – explode.”

          So this Avengers movie is coming out.  Now this will get fans of The Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Scarlet Johansson in the seats starting May 4^th, or midnight May 3^rd.  In short, this movie is going to be huge.  And when I say huge, I mean HUGE!  All of the early buzz ranges from really, really good, to spectacular.  While I have no doubt fans will love this movie, others may be wondering if this movie will fall the way other superhero movies have before it, by the over-saturation of characters.  Too many characters can kill a movie, just ask Batman & Robin and Spider-man 3.  Sure they made money, and kids loved it, but let’s face it, they were bad films.  Mainly because they had to juggle so many characters, you want to give them all their own moments, give them all something to do and also tell a good story.  Now when it comes to Avengers trust me, you don’t need to worry about that, all you have to do is watch Joss Whedon’s last and only film 2005’s “Serenity”.

The story follows the adventures of the crew of the Serenity, a Firefly class ship in the future where the Earth was so over-populated that we had to create settlements on the inner planets which are controlled by the Alliance.  The rest of the galaxy has reverted to an old west mentality; robbing and stealing are a way of life just to scrape by.  Captain Malcolm Reynolds played by the great Nathan Fillion (Castle) is trying to make his way in the universe with his crew and two fugitives running from the law, a doctor and his mentally damaged sister River (Summer Glau) who he broke out of an Alliance facility that was experimenting on her.  The crew stumbles across a secret that River has in her head that the Alliance is trying to keep quiet, to do that they have dispatched the Operative, played as a brilliant villain by Chiwetel Ejiofor (Inside Man).  The film is an incredible mix of action, humor, intrigue, and a crazy Star Wars style ending.

Serenity as a film is a finale of sorts for Whedon’s canceled 2002 TV show Firefly featuring the cast that stars in the film.  While you don’t need to have seen the show to enjoy the film, at the time in the theater I had yet to see one episode of the show.  I did however seek it out afterwards and was amazed at the phenomenal show that Fox let slip through the cracks.  Again what you will notice when watching the film is that Joss Whedon can handle a group dynamic, while telling a fun, and exciting story.  He is the man you want making your Avengers movie.  So give Serenity a watch, you’ll enjoy it as much as I do watching it every year, even now it still reminds me of when I saw it in theaters and I had compared it to Raiders of the Lost Ark, a comparison I still stand by.

--Robert L. Castillo