The Watch

 

                                               


                   It is easy to fit movies into genres. There are comedies, horror, drama, action… you get the point. Sometimes, just like in everything else in life you can’t just put something somewhere because you think it belongs there. Some movies go through so many different rewrites or story ideas, that what once sounded like a great idea turns into a mess because of all the different directions the story took. “The Watch” is one of those films, it even had a different title when the year began, even though it was the same movie it is now.

        Glenview, Ohio is the perfect small town that everyone wants to live in. It has everything that someone would need, except all of the bad things like major crime that comes with living in a big city. Evan (Ben Stiller) loves his city and starts things like a runners club in order to bring everyone together. He also is the manger of the town’s Costco, which seems to be the center of everything going on in town. One night there is a strange murder at the Costco and Evan decides that the only way to keep his town safe is to start a Neighborhood Watch. After an emotional plea for people to join him in his effort to keep Glenview safe, he finds three guys who are willing to step up. Bob (Vince Vaughn) is a guy who wants to protect his daughter from the world. Franklin (Jonah Hill ) is a reject from the police who just wants to be some sort of law-enforcer, and Jamarcus (Richard Ayoade) is new is town and just wants to make friends. Together they team up to stop crime, or in this case, an alien invasion and make their town safe again.

    “The Watch” really has a hard time trying to figure out what is wants to be. I always find it a bad sign that there is not much laughter going on during a movie that claims to be a comedy. Not even the comic genius of Seth Rogen, who co-wrote the film with Jared Stern and Evan Goldberg, could find a way to give this film many laughs. Vince Vaughn is the only one who gives the film any humor, and in the end he’s just being well, Vince Vaughn. Ben Stiller to me has joined Adam Sandler in people who should stop making movies for a bit. Stiller just plays the same character in every one of his movies and he just isn’t funny anymore. I wish I could say more good things about this film than bad, but I can’t. My suggestion is to skip this movie and go see “The Dark Knight Rises” again, because “The Watch” deserves nothing more than a passing glance.  And if you saw the preview, that’s enough.

Brian Taylor

Step Up: Revolution

                                                                       

              In 2006 Duane Adler brought us “Step Up”, a film about dancing, it also the break out role for Channing Tatum. The film made for 12 million dollars went on to make over 65 million at the box office. The one thing Hollywood loves more than a movie that makes money, is a movie that makes money and cost nothing to produce. So flash forward six years and two sequels later, we get to “Step Up: Revolution”.

        The premise is pretty simple and the plot is a lot like the previous films, but there is a difference. Sean (Ryan Guzman) is part of a flash mob that is trying to win a YouTube contest. Sean with the help of his best friend Eddie (Misha Gabriel) organizes and plans each flash mob so that they can achieve ten million hits and win one hundred thousand dollars. Sean meets Emily (Kathryn McCormick) who is an aspiring dancer, but whose father Mr. Anderson (Peter Gallagher) wants her to come work for him. When Mr. Anderson’s decides to build a hotel where Sean and Eddie live, the pair turns their performances into a protest to keep their homes.

      “Step Up: Revolution” is a movie that has some great dance numbers and decent music. So with that said any kind of acting is far from being the focus of the film. That is ok though because the dance sequences are fun to watch, with each one becoming more elaborate the last. Also the music throughout the movie makes you sometimes want to find an aisle and try some of the moves yourself. It is easy to bash this movie and say it is no good, and at times it isn’t, but only during the time when there is no dancing going on. Is this movie for everyone?  No, but I know there is a target audience for this movie and they will enjoy it. The other thing the film does well is make Miami look great and a lot of times deserted, but how hard is it to make Miami look great anyway. Every movie has its audience, and I am sure “Step Up: Revolution” was not made with me in mind, but I was entertained and after all isn’t that why we go to the movies anyway?

Brian Taylor

The Dark Knight Rises

          There are so few movie franchises that can pull off the movie trilogy.  Some that spring to mind that remain solid films on their own as well as part of the overall story are Indiana Jones, the original Star Wars, The Godfather, Toy Story, The Lord of the Rings, and Back to the Future.  And there is something all most of these movies have in common with the final chapter of the Christopher Nolan ‘Batman’ film trilogy “The Dark Knight Rises” it is the weakest of its series.  Don’t freak out.  “Rises” is not a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination.  The music is boomingly awesome.  The cinematography and visuals are beautiful. Anne Hathaway as Catwoman is fantastic.  The ending is in all ways epic.  But it does suffer from the trilogy curse.  It has to wrap up a story that took two films to set up, while introducing new characters.  Plus it has to follow up 2008’s “The Dark Knight” a film I now consider the best comic book movie of all time.  Nolan does succeed in ending in a big way, but falls a little short in tying everything together.

The film takes place 8 years after the events in “The Dark Knight” which had Batman (Christian Bale) on the run from the police with his friend Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) leading the charge.  What was able to happen in that time was that the organized crime in Gotham City was all but eliminated, without Batman’s help.  Now a retired Bruce Wayne comes across a plot involving a terrorist known as Bane (Tom Hardy), who is attempting to do what previous villains Ra’s Al Ghul and the Joker were not able to accomplish, the destruction of Gotham.  So Wayne must once again don the cape and cowl to save his city, but will it be too late?

Director Nolan helped shape this dark and gritty world in which Batman could hide in the shadows and fight crime as Gotham’s protector.  However he feels the need to cram so much in this last film that even if you’re closely following all the threads and callbacks in this almost 3 hour running time, a lot is left relatively unexplored or just plain rushed.  Which would not be a bad thing if this wasn’t the last film of this particular series, but it is.  It should feel like we are getting a clearer sense of closure.  So while the last thirty minutes is the big battle for Endor, I mean Gotham, there are revelations about certain relationships, and there is much at stake, you don’t really feel that worried about the outcome.  My favorite moments, were pretty much anything with Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the young cop Blake.  The guy just brought his A-game to the film, and killed it in every scene despite the limits of his role.  His performance, along with Michael Caine, and the previously mentioned Hathaway and almost “all in the eyes” performance of Tom Hardy saved the picture for me.  Over all “The Dark Knight Rises” does what it needs to, it tells the ending of a story.  There are solid moments throughout and as a whole I would put this trilogy up there in the pantheon with the greats, not just because he’s Chris Nolan, and he’s Batman, but because they earned it.

--Robert L. Castillo       

Flashback Corner--La Bamba

“I’m gonna be a star.  And stars don’t fall outta the sky do they?”

          There are times when a movie transcends the screen and spills into your life by other means.  For “Star Wars” it was action figures and being able to re-create scenes from the movies.  “Superman: The Movie” it was comics, finding new and better stories than in the movies.  And for the 1987 film “La Bamba” it was the music.  From this little bio-pic about musician Ritchie Valens who died way too young in a plane crash in 1959, became for me, a journey to discover great 50’s rock, from Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly all the way up to, at the time, the present with Michael Jackson and Madonna and all that fell in between.

The film written and directed by Luis Valdez starring Lou Diamond Phillips as Richard Steven Valenzuela whose name was cut to Ritchie Valens in a pretty funny scene tells the story of a musically gifted teen who quickly rises to fame in the late fifties.  We see Valens growing up in slight poverty working to help support his single but equally hard working mother played by Rosanna De Soto who is wonderful in the film.  The most stand out is the performance given by Esai Morales as Bob, Ritchie’s half-brother who I had only known before as ‘Paco’ in the awesome Sean Penn film “Bad Boys”.  Valens trying to make it on the local music scene is discovered by a small label owned by Bob Keane (Joe Pantoliano) which puts him on the fast track to stardom all the way to the stage of American Bandstand.  The drama of the film still works with the mother obviously favoring one brother over the other, which leads to heavy scenes in a mostly light movie.  And while the writing hasn’t aged too well, the performances by the predominately Hispanic actors still makes the movie extremely enjoyable and watchable after 25 years. All the songs by Valens are performed by Los Lobos who bring fresh life to fun pop songs.  Again enough cannot be said about the outstanding performance given by Esai Morales.  People play drunks all the time in films, and some have sold it better, but Morales seems so authentic, and bold it has become one of my favorite performances ever by an actor re-watching these films for this blog.

This became one of those films the whole family would watch together, I remember my female cousins swooning over Lou Diamond Phillips, and me mocking him, though secretly wanting to be him.  Being Mexican you could identify with the characters and dream that if this all could happen before for people like them, it could happen for us.  Also as I said at the start “La Bamba” is one of my favorite 80’s movies, mostly because of the impact it had on me beyond the film.  I don’t go out and buy movie soundtracks anymore unless it’s just the score, but I will go back and buy this soundtrack, along with the originals and remember the gift that Ritchie Valens and Buddy Holly left us.  The music never died.

 --Robert L. Castillo

Savages

            In the 1980’s and 90’s there were not many directors better then Oliver Stone. From “Platoon”, which he won an Oscar for Best Director (as well as one for “Born on the 4^th of July”) “Wall Street”, “JFK”, “Natural Born Killers” to “Any Given Sunday”.  Somehow the movies he has made the last ten years have gotten a little more political and his movies have lost their way a little. Not to say movies like “World Trade Center” or “W,” were not good movies, they just seemed to want to make sure you got the message he was delivering. Lucky for us though Oliver Stone has decided to show us what a great filmmaker he is once was again.

         “Savages” is just the type of story that lends its self well to the man responsible for writing “Scarface” and “Midnight Express”. Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson) have a great friendship. In fact they are greater than friends, more like brothers. With Ben’s IQ and Chon’s muscle, they have everything to run the perfect business. That business just happens to be making and selling the best weed out there. Ben and Chon share everything, including the woman they both love, O (Blake Lively). The story is told from O’s point of view and in it she professes that between Ben and Chon they form the perfect man. Business is great and it garters the attention of the cartel, who wants to partner up with Ben and Chon and learn how they do what they do. When they refuse to team up with the cartel, the cartel decides to play rough and kidnap O. The cartel underestimates Ben and Chon’s love and loyalty for O and the lengths they will go to get her back.

        Gritty film making is what Oliver Stone does best and a film like this reminds everyone that he is still one of the best directors out there. The story is pretty simple, it’s a love story, but this love story also had drugs, violence and a little sex thrown in for good measure. Taylor Kitsch helps you forget that he was in two of the biggest flops of the year and shows that those flops may not have been his fault. The supporting cast really makes this movie. John Travolta gives maybe his best performance since “Pulp Fiction” and Benico Del Toro is great as always. They also get help from Selma Hayek and Emile Hirsch, as well as others. All the pieces are there for an enjoyable movie, and “Savages” uses them all really well.  Although not on the exact same level as his classic films from early in his career, it is a big step towards that greatness that is Oliver Stone.

Brian Taylor 

Flashback Corner--Streets of Fire

“Don’t worry about it.  They always hire bums like me for jobs like this.”

          When you’re young you pretty much have no choice but to watch what your parents watch be it on TV or at the movies.  Growing up in during the birth of both the cable generation and the home video age I watched a lot of videos and cable TV, mostly what my dad watched.  So if he watched Barney Miller, so did I.  He watched Wild Wild West, so did I.  He watched the same three Michael Paré movies all the time, then so did I.  It took a while for me to come around to both “Eddie and the Cruisers” and “The Philadelphia Experiment” both had for the time, complex relationships and themes that I was too young to really get. I just liked the music in ‘Cruisers’ and the man-out-of-time element in ‘Philadelphia’.  The film that I gravitated toward was “Streets of Fire”, being 9 years-old the time, the title immediately brought an image to mind.  Then I heard the soundtrack, after that I was on board.

The film directed by Walter Hill the man behind classics like “The Warriors” and “48 Hrs.” is a mash up of genres, the sets and costumes of the movie is steeped in 50’s cinema, and the music, dialogue, and action is all 80’s.  The story is pretty basic, biker gang kidnaps up and coming pop singer, for unknown reasons, and her old boyfriend is called back into town to rescue her.  An18 year old Diane Lane plays the singer Ellen Aim, and a young tough looking Michael Paré plays Tom Cody.  He gets to town at the behest of his older sister Reva (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) and no one really seems all that rushed to save her, we get character set up of Cody, Ellen’s manager/boyfriend Billy Fish (Rick Moranis) and even the sidekick of the film McCoy (Amy Madigan)  with a dash of what every film needs a little Bill Paxton.  But time is given to set up the plan and get to the neighborhood called the “Battery” to save the girl.  Even the villain of the piece a young and creepy looking Willem Dafoe dressed in rubber overalls takes his time before taking advantage of a tied up on a bed Ellen.  It feels really silly watching now, and takes away from trying to enjoy it even on a visual level.  Which is even harder, since the sets look like their straight out of “The Flash” TV show.  The only moments I liked watching now, was some of the 80’s dialogue is cleverly blended together with the 50’s speak, and Paré’s performance as the tough guy who says little with his cowboy looking duster and rifle.  I also enjoyed some of the humor brought by Madigan and pretty much all of the Rick Moranis performance.

Overall it was not like how I remembered it, though I still liked the Sorels (Stoney Jackson, Robert Townsend, Grand L. Bush and Mykelti “Bubba-Gump-Shrimp” Williamson), lip-syncing to the Dan Hartman song “I Can Dream About You”.  The music is very 80’s but still enjoyable, and what can I say, I’m a guy, but Diane Lane is hot in this movie.  This film was set up to be a trilogy, which shows at the ending.  None was ever done because of the poor success of the film.  However someone did try to make a sequel called “Road to Hell” starring Michel Paré, I watched the trailer on youtube, and it’s awful.  Kind of a failed version of Sin City.  I was going to put the video at the end here, but it’s way too bad, so I went out on the best note I know…

Robert L. Castillo

The Amazing Spider-Man

      Back in 2002 Sam Raimi brought to life Spider-Man in a way that fans could only dream of. With Tobey Maguire playing Peter Parker Raimi took and made that world a reality and ushered in what comic book movies have become today, an event. Raimi was at the helm for a total of three films and when in 2010 it was announced that Raimi and Maguire would no longer be a part of Spider-Man there was some questions on where the character was heading. Sony decided to reboot the series and renamed the film The Amazing Spider-Man, and it was just what the series needed.

This is once again an origin story, but told in a different way, but of course keeping the important elements to the story. Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is still an awkward teenager who is being raised by his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field). Peter has always wondered what happened to his parents and when he finds a piece of the puzzle he seeks out more. The piece he finds takes him to Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), who worked with Peter’s father before he disappeared. While visiting Dr. Connors Peter is bitten by a spider and you know what happens next. Unlike the first Spider-Man, Peter discovers his powers pretty quickly on a ride back home on the subway. While some of the ways he becomes Spider-Man are the same, you can tell there is a different road being taken all together. Peter Parker and Spider-Man just feel like this is who they were supposed to be all along, like the first films were the warm up. Once Dr Connors discovers a way to regenerate his missing arm by combing Lizard D.N.A with his own the action really gets going. Now Peter must stop Dr Connors from trying to improve the human race in the way he believes it should be.

It is real easy to prejudge something before you have had a chance to see it. I remember when I first heard about this reboot my only question was “why?” I mean wasn’t it too soon to do this already. I got a little excited when I heard Marc Webb (500 Days of summer) would be directing. You can really see his contribution in all the Peter and Gwen (Emma Stone) scenes. And after watching this film that evenly matches an origin, with a love story, and a superhero action epic, I have come to one conclusion that this was a great idea. The Spider-Man of 2002 wouldn’t work today, he is too polished, that Spider-Man was made for the movies. In The Amazing Spider-Man the story and the characters fit with the present, in tone and style. It’s a big summer movie with a human feel to it, thanks to the wonderful casting. It’s hard not to see Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker to the point where you almost forget someone else played him no less than five years ago.

Maybe Warner Brothers was on to something when they let Batman get retold by a new group of filmmakers. I think it is a great thing to have a new take on a story we all know. After watching The Amazing Spider-Man I am really looking forward to see what they will do next with this series. I do know that this is an impressive first step in the right direction for the telling of a new story of a classic character.

 Brian Taylor

Flashback Corner--Cat's Eye

“Just trying to keep you on your toes.”

In the 80’s there were several horror anthologies, like “Twilight Zone: The Movie”, “Creepshow”, Creepshow 2”, and “Nightmares”.  One that I remember enjoying though most of it was not very scary was “Cat’s Eye” written by Stephen King, based on two of his previously released short stories and one original written for the film that tie the other two together.

The first scene of the movie has guest appearances by Cujo, and Christine which lead the hero of the piece, a tabby cat, who is eventually named General on his journey to save Drew Barrymore, from…something.  The cat is picked up in the street by an employee of “Quitter’s Inc.” where James Woods character decides to go to try and stop smoking.  What he comes to find out is that the corporation is run by former Mafioso’s, who bring their tough guy mentality and brutality to helping their clients kick the habit.  It clearly is my favorite of the bunch now, mostly for Woods, who does a lot with his little amount of screen time.

The next story called “The Ledge” has Robert Hays (Airplane) as a washed up tennis pro who has hooked up with a crooked casino owner’s wife.  He’s kidnapped by the husband and is made a wager that he can’t refuse that has him walking along the ledge of a high rise apartment if he wants to live.  This story has a little bit of suspense, and a couple of humorous moments, but mostly it’s tame Stephen King.

The last story which was my favorite as a kid and has become my least favorite now has Drew Barrymore as a suburban kid who finds the cat that has been jumping from story to story and decides to keep it.  Much to the mother’s objections, the cat now called “General” is allowed to stay where he encounters a house troll intent on stealing Barrymore’s breath.  This last bit is not very good, the acting is bad, the dialogue is worse and even for 80’s effects the troll creature is pretty lame, aside from the decent work they do on his face, it comes off like a demented shaved ewok with a jester hat and a cartoon voice.  Plus his demise which you know is coming, so I don’t consider it a spoiler, is silly.  Over all “Cat’s Eye” left me with what started off as a promising set of tales by the master of horror but ended with a “meh”.  Oh well, not all flashback’s can be gems.

--Robert L. Castillo

Flashback Corner--Popeye

“Bluto.  Even though you’re bigger than me, ya can’t win, ‘cause you’re bad, and the good always wins over the bad”

          When I was six years old I saw what at the time was the first cartoon made into a film.  What I had only been seen on bad color TV’s and the Sunday comic strips, was brought to life by Robert Altman’s “Popeye”.   With Robin Williams in his first starring role, who was perfectly cast as was Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl, who was fresh off her role running from a crazed Jack Nicholson in “The Shining”.   Now when I think of an Altman film, what comes to mind is “MASH”, “Short Cuts”, “The Player” and “Gosford Park”.  How a film like “Popeye” which was written as a comedy/musical got on his radar, I will never know.  I remember loving this movie as a kid, and I also remember watching it over and over, loving the catchy songs, and mimicking the wacky big fight scene at the end of the film with my cousin at the local pool in the summers that followed.

Watching the film now I see moments where it starts to get inconsistent, it was funny, then semi-serious, then it almost felt like there was a political message, but just when it seemed to start to go all the way off track another song would come on, almost all of which were written by Harry Nilsson.  These stood out to me the most after over ten years of not seeing the movie all the way through.  They are cleverly written lyrics, like a good album, and like a good album they all have a similar tone, and they all seem to be sung by the cast themselves.  The other stand out is the performances, Williams, and Duvall are amazing, Williams with his Popeye mumbling, and talking to himself with great lines like “I ain’t no physcikisk, but I knows what matters.”  And Duvall with her vocal sounds that are so good, you can almost see the word balloons over her head when she goes “Ohhh…”.  Ray Walston as Popeye’s Pappy, and Paul Dooley as Wimpy are pretty great too.  Something else I was impressed by was the set design of Sweet Haven, that decrepit looking dock town, it looked like a set but felt like a real place if that makes any sense.  And with the spectacular looking costumes I did get a little immersed in the world after all these years.  Again, it’s by no means perfect, but it’s stood the test of time to be considered a classic ‘80’s film.

--Robert L. Castillo