Premium Rush

                             

          I have always wanted to live a more adventurous life. Now I don’t mean being a spy or anything like that. No, what I am talking about is doing things like sky diving or scuba, things where you may not have complete control of what happens. Well it seems I might need to add a new one on my list, bike cycle messenger in New York City. It may not sound as dangerous as the other things I mentioned, but after watching “Premium Rush”, you might change your mind.

          Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a bike cycle messenger in New York, not because he has to be, but because he wants to be. Wilee likes the open air and living his life on the edge. You see Wilee has no brakes or gears on his bike, things that have caused him to have accidents. Wilee’s life is pretty uncomplicated, except for the trouble he is having with his girlfriend Vanessa (Dania Ramirez). All of that is about to change though, when Wilee is requested to deliver an envelope. Everything seems normal until a guy tries to stop Wilee before he even starts his trip. That guy is Detective Bobby Monday (Michael Shannon), and his reason to wanting to get the letter is truly personal. Wilee is able to elude Detective Monday, but is perplexed as to why the package he is carrying is so important to so many people. After getting away a couple of times, Wilee decides he wants nothing to do with the package and takes it back to where he got it. Things change though when Wilee finds out what he was carrying and he will do anything to get it to its correct destination.

         “Premium Rush” is a fun ride, but is lacking a solid story that would have made the film better. Directed by David Koepp, who also wrote the film with John Kamps, it really doesn’t give the characters much depth. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Michael Shannon are both good in their roles, but they don’t really have a lot to work with. Where the movie shines though is the bike scenes. Those scenes really show the dangers of being a bike messenger with all the daily peril that they go through. The good thing is, with a movie like this, I don’t think you really care about the story and characters. All you do care about is that the movie is fun and entertaining. I had higher expectations for this movie because of Koepp and Gordon-Livitt, and was let down. Don’t get me wrong I was not expecting a masterpiece, just something a little more entertaining. I didn’t get the rush I wanted, but I still got a decent ride, a ride most people might enjoy.

                                                                                                    

Brian Taylor

                                   

                                           

The Expendables 2

                   

The Eighties brought us a lot of things we love to remember and some things we wish we could forget. Being a fan of the movies, one of the things I remember most about the Eighties was the birth of the Action Star. These guys you all knew by one name, names like Arnold, Sly, Chuck, Bruce, and Jean-Claude (ok not one name there, but close). I always wished we could see them all in one movie; well my dream came close to being true with “The Expendables”. Now my dream has come true, even if it is thirty years later then I would have liked to have seen it, with “The Expendables 2”.

       Barney Ross (Sylvester Stallone) leads a team of mercenaries who take care of jobs other people don’t want to do. Ross’s team is handed a mission from a guy named Church (Bruce Willis) to retrieve something from a safe on a plane that has crashed. The mission starts off well, with Ross and his team retrieving the item in the safe, but soon goes south when they are ambushed and one of their members is caught and killed. When Ross loses one of his team, he vows to find and kill the guy who is responsible and retrieve the item back that they were sent to get in the first place.

       This is an action fan’s dream. The film has no story, bad acting, but lots of explosions and mayhem. The big complaint on the first “ The Expendables” was the lack of blood. Well they make up for the first film in the first twenty minutes of the second one, with more than enough destruction. This is the kind of film that requires no thinking, just a love for lots of explosions and bad one- liners. There is one scene in the film that seems too good to be true; it has Arnold, Bruce, Sly, and Chuck Norris all fighting side by side. This is not a good movie by any means, but what it is, is an entertaining film. There are plenty of parts that will make you laugh at the absurdity of some of the things you will see, but that is all part of the fun in watching this movie. This is not a great date movie, but it is a bad movie that is fun and one that knows exactly what it is and never tries to be anything else. My only wish now is that the film had been made twenty years ago, but you know what they say, better late than never.

 Brian Taylor

                                         

ParaNorman

           

         Movies are always first and foremost meant to entertain us. Most movies do just that while some have you looking at your watch thinking about why you wasted your time. Great movies not only entertain us, they can actually teach us things sometimes, even delivering messages. Animated movies always seem to do this the best; I think it is because they look so innocent so the things that they are saying are subtle. ParaNorman is just the type of film I am talking about and after you see it you will be talking about it as well.

     Norman (Kodi Smit-Mcphee) is not a normal kid. He loves zombies and horror movies, but that is not what makes him different. What makes him not like anyone else is that he can see and talk to the dead. This may sound fun and interesting to be able to do, but no one actually believes him, including his parents and sister. Meanwhile at school Norman is made fun of and called a freak because of what he claims he can do. There is one person in town who actually believes Norman and that is his uncle, who he has been told to stay away from because he is crazy. Norman’s uncle has been following Norman and finally talks to him and tells him that he has to do something that only he can do. It seems that the town Norman lives in did something bad three hundred years ago. A group of seven people accused a girl of being a witch and ordered her death. Before the witch was killed she put a curse on the seven who condemned her, so they would suffer like her. Now every year on her birthday someone like Norman must read her a story so that she will not bring the dead back alive. Things happen and the dead do come back to life, as Norman and his friends and family try to avoid the zombies, Norman realizes what must be done to end the curse  once and for all.

     ParaNorman is one of those movies that will be with you for a long time. It is such an enjoyable film to watch that you will want to tell all of your friends about it. Sometimes when movies are trying to tell you a message they try and force it on you, so that you will hear what they are saying. ParaNorman does not do that, its message is delivered in such a way that you can’t help but listen. This movie is funny, tender, and at times generally scary. I wish more films had the heart and magic like this one has. This movie has something for everyone and movies like that just don’t come around often enough. So make some time to catch this gem, I promise you will thank me after.

 Brian Taylor

                                                         

Flashback Corner--Night of the Comet

“Do you think what happened here, happened everywhere?  Like Burbank and places like that?”

You know when a movie starts and you hear a synthesizer score, with red credits on back, you are watching a 80’s movie.  This one also has a very 80’s title, “The Night of the Comet”.  This falls into the category of one of the end-of-the-world movies.  Some were the world is ending like “Miracle Mile” or "War Games".  Others are the after the end like “The Road Warrior” and “The Omega Man”  “Comet” follows the latter but showing the immediate aftermath of the end of civilization.  Catherine Mary Stewart (The Last Starfighter) is Regina, a Valley girl who with along with her sister, Smantha (Kelli Maroney) are part of the handful of people who survive the end of the world brought on by the comet.  Also surviving are people who were partially exposed to the comet which turns them into, you guessed it, zombies.  Watching from an underground base, also survivors, a think tank lead by great character actor Geoffrey Lewis (The Way of the Gun) who with his group that has an inescapable maze as a logo (genius) have dark unknown intentions towards the girls and the last man on earth Hector (Robert Beltran).

Watching now, it doesn’t hold up as well as it did in ’84, but it does move along pretty quickly from the event, to the girls alone, meeting Hector, to eventually going to the mall with the classic line “THE STORES ARE OPEN!”  This leads to the best part of the film when the girls run into the stock boys who have declared ownership of the mall, there is a shoot-out, capture, villain monologue and the great “scary noises” game.  From there it’s all about the think tank group and their motives that drive the rest of the flick. The ending has a great call back to the beginning and the movie hilariously ends with a romantic duet singing during the closing credits about learning to love again.  Like I said, it’s very 80’s in both good and bad ways.

Like “Red Dawn” what “Night of the Comet” does well, is it puts your mind in that scenario and makes you think about what you would do in that situation.  You, like me, may have gone so far into your head that you lived out your own movie version of when the world ends, where you and a select few are left in your own town.  Where would you go and what would you do?  Maybe you should check out “Night of the Comet” again, to remind yourself of who you were then, or maybe just to create a new end-of-the-world plan.

--Robert L. Castillo       

What's on Redbox?--Detention

          Most people don’t know the director Joseph Kahn, but most have seen his work in the world of music videos.  He’s worked with Blink 182, Brittney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, Eminem, and U2.  His only feature film was in 2004’s “Torque”, a failure at the box office, and in my opinion a little misunderstood as a film.  What was slotted in with the Fast and Furious and Biker Boyz flicks, is more in the realm of “Kick-Ass” and “Scream” where it pokes fun at a genre while trying to be a part of it.  “Torque” is not a great movie, but a fun B-movie.  And hey, where else can you experience “bike-fu”?

Kahn’s latest film which according to a studio that once again did not understand how to sell this kind of picture, only had a small theatrical run, has just been released on DVD/BluRay.  It’s called “Detention” and stars a huge group of young relatively unknown’s Dane Cook as the principal, along with Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games) as the lead and also one of the producers.  Must be a “Torque” fan.  The film starts off as a mash up of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Scream”.  On acid. Played at fast forward.  Then it veers off into “Donnie Darko” territory.  Still at fast speed.  It’s littered with teen and horror movie cliché’s and 90’s pop culture references throughout.  The plot listed on IMBD is “a killer named Cinderhella stalks the student body at the high school in Grizzly Lake, a group of co-eds band together to survive while they’re all serving detention.” That is only two of the plots of this movie that has over a dozen storylines going on, many are told in flashbacks like superhero or in some cases villain origins.  Hutcherson is great in the role as Clapton Davis, who is the coolest kid in school, so much so, that everybody says his whole name when referring to him, including him.  I don’t want to give too much more away as it has to be experienced.  I’ll just say that if you can hold on it’s worth the ride.

Much like “Torque” before it Kahn, brings a rapid fire of insane images, and even faster goofy dialogue to the screen.  It doesn’t always work here, and when it slows down for the last act, I found it pretty entertaining.  Silly for sure, but fun enough for a film that all but skipped the theater to go straight to video.  If you can get over the first half which is so senselessly fast and try to follow the intentionally ridiculous plot, you may enjoy “Detention”.

--Robert L. Castillo   

The Bourne Legacy

          It seems less like a trend now that every year we see more and more movies that fit in the category of remake, reboot, re-imagining, and flat out rip-offs.  It’s comforting to know that some filmmakers are really making an effort to at least adjust this way of making movies.  Paul Greengrass, director of the last two Bourne films and star Matt Damon decided not to go for a fourth round in the further adventures of Jason Bourne.  For this reason it fell to writer/co-writer of all three Bourne films Tony Gilroy to take up the challenge to make an interesting story set in the same universe.  Even more, setting the events in the same time frame as the last two Bourne films.  In short, he succeeded.

“The Bourne Legacy” starts off with secret agent in training Aaron Cross, played by Jeremy Renner (The Avengers) in Alaska surviving in the wild, battling wolves and taking mysterious little blue and green pills.  Meanwhile in the states the previous events involving Jason Bourne, and secret projects Treadstone and Blackbriar are playing out in the media as well as deep inside the government.  The players doing damage control this time around are led by Stacy Keach and Edward Norton, who both do a lot with little screen time almost always with their expressions.  They are in charge of trying to sweep the Bourne mess under the rug, the consequences of this involve shutting down similar programs.  As they start to eliminate spies in the field, as it does in these types of films, there is one agent that is not that easy to kill.  Jeremy Renner as Cross is very intense with a good soldier syndrome much like his character in “The Hurt Locker” only without the deathwish.  Rachel Weisz (The Mummy) is pretty good as the doctor who can help Cross get the answers he needs to survive.  She has several really good scenes where she becomes slightly unhinged as a woman involved in something bigger than her.  The film does takes a while to get going, which is its only drawback, but when Weisz and Renner get together, every scene is really solid, and the final minutes belong in the pantheon of chase scenes.

The one thing I noticed reading other reviews is the notion that this is not as good as the previous Bourne films.  That Renner lacks the charisma Damon brought to the role.  Both of these evaluations are true, but I didn’t go into this movie expecting to see Renner do his best Matt Damon impersonation.  That really would have been re-hashing horrible.  Director Tony Gilroy is not trying to make “Batman Begins” or “Casino Royale” those were dying franchises that needed new life.  The Bourne universe is big enough for both of these characters.  Renner has a sense of confidence and energy that is ever present on the screen.  He is a perfect fit for this series and I would love to see him and Damon in a future film together, because they are so different.  Maybe it was a mistake to only have 50% of the title be accurate, there is a ‘Legacy’ just no ‘Bourne’.  But that should not distract you from the great film that was put together here.  Most action movies are mindless, thoughtless underdone plots with set piece after set piece of seen it all before action.  Here we get a deeper action film, with characters you enjoy watching go through these intense moments, and we should be glad that some movies strive for more than just letting you get over-charged for popcorn while things explode for no reason.  There is reason here, and “The Bourne Legacy” is an action movie not to be missed.

--Robert L. Castillo      

Flashback Corner--The Monster Squad

“Look, we got two consolations. Number one, Frankenstein’s on our side, and number two, my dad’s a cop.  Anybody fools around with us, he kicks their ass”

          In 1985 I wanted to be one of the kids in the “Goonies” and in the “Explorers”, two years later I was still young enough to want to be part of a group of kids who have fantastic adventures, so you can imagine my excitement when I saw “The Monster Squad”.  The film directed by Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps) and co-written by 80’s - 90’s action writer extraordinaire Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) is about a group of kids who get caught up in a 100 year old plot to take over the world by the villainess Count Dracula and his monsters.

Sean (Andre Gower) is the leader of the monster club where he and his friends draw pictures of monsters and hang out in their tree house, just talking about monsters.  But thanks to movie logic, it just so happens that in his town resides an amulet that keeps the balance between good and evil.  Dracula who wants to destroy the amulet along with his crew begin to come together as the Mummy escapes the museum he’s been sleeping in, the reluctant Wolfman joins in, Frankenstien’s Monster played by Tom Noonan awakens, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, whose make up is outstanding comes out of nowhere.  Most of the visuals are substandard even for 1987, but as I said the makeup effects done by the genius Stan Winston and are still pretty amazing even today.  It’s a real standout in this CGI movie monster world we live in now.  Getting back to the film, it is a bit ridiculous to think that Dracula can have his plans jeopardized by a group of elementary school kids along with their new member from junior high Rudy (Ryan Lambert) and a scary German guy.  You can also imagine that upon its original release “The Monster Squad” didn’t do too well, mainly because of its violence and children spouting off bad language.  But watching now with the fast pace, fun dialogue, and silly action scenes you can forgive pretty much any of the films shortcomings.

And again this is probably the only time where you get all these great Universal Monsters in one movie.  “Van Helsing” tried and failed by way of poor CGI and a forgettable story.  And while it doesn’t all work, the fact that the filmmakers stayed true to the characters make the movie memorable and this is what also made it last.  This became a cult classic over 50 years after the original films that featured these creatures ended.  Part of the reason we are able to watch “The Monster Squad” on DVD and Blu-Ray now is because of the fan base that would not let it die.  This is a fun movie to throw in on a Saturday night if you want to see classic 80’s fun horror, or if you are just curious to know if Wolfman’s got nards.

--Robert L. Castillo    

Flashback Corner--Almost Famous

    
"It was fun."
"Cuz, they make you feel cool, and hey I met you.  You, are not cool."


      Most of Cameron Crowe’s films are memorable for one reason or another.  His first film “Say Anything…” had that great Peter Gabriel song and the iconic John Cusack pose.  You know the one, where he’s holding that enormous boom box over his head, playing, well, that great Peter Gabriel song.  Next was “Singles” whose soundtrack was on everyone’s CD player in the early 90’s.  Next up was “Jerry Maguire” something about showing somebody the money comes to mind.  After that, there were not so many memorable films like “Vanilla Sky” which I still enjoy and the much underrated “Elizabethtown”.  However in the fall of 2000, Crowe gave us the film that he was destined to make, mostly because he lived it.  “Almost Famous” is my favorite movie about a fictional band.  Now there are real band movies, like “Eddie and the Cruisers”, “The Commitments”, and of course “This is Spinal Tap”.  And to be fair this is a film about a boy walking into a grown up world, filled with people who haven’t quite grown up themselves.   But this story of William Miller and his time on tour with the band Stillwater in 1973 is something special and there is no other band movie like it.

The film opens with an almost baby Michael Angarano (Sky High, Red State) as young William Miller and his mother played by the brilliant Frances McDormand (Fargo) who is a very independent school teacher who pounds in education and the non-commercialization of all things America into her children.  This causes William’s older sister Anita (Zooey Deschanel) to leave home to become a stewardess.  Next we find a 15 year-old William now played by newcomer Patrick Fugit, who has aspirations of being a great Rock writer, or Rock journalist like the almost famous Lester Bangs who steals every scene he’s in, and why not he’s played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  William stumbles his way into writing a piece on the up and coming band Stillwater for Rolling Stone Magazine.  This gets him involved in the world of 70’s touring.  Sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Young William is like a beacon of innocent light that shines around the dark edges of the almost famous band Stillwater which consists of the power duo of Russell and Jeff brought to magnificent light by Billy Crudup (Big Fish) and Jason Lee (Chasing Amy) respectively.  Also in the mix is almost famous and semi-retired Kate Hudson in her breakout role as the original (not groupie), ‘Band-aid’ Penny Lane.  As William struggles to get his interview with the band as they hop from city to city, he learns lessons of life and love that will change him forever… almost.

I can’t say enough how perfect this movie is.  The original music, the acting, the writing, the memorable scenes throughout, all of it is amazing to me.  Then I saw the “Bootleg Cut”, or “Untitled” as it’s known by its original title.  This version, which can be found on both DVD and BluRay is an extra 36 minutes of awesome!  Anymore time spent in this semi-fictional world is time well spent. The character of Penny Lane is expanded, you get more scenes with the band, all of Jason Lee’s stuff is gold, you get more of the unrecognizable Jimmy Fallon and you get more fantastic scenes like this one with William and Polexia, an 18 year-old Anna Paquin:

Polexia-Do you smoke?

William- No…  But, I grow it.

Polexia- You’re funny.  If only you were taller, and English, and rich, and a guitar-player, and older.

William- I’d be somebody else.

Polexia- Good point.

That’s just a taste of what’s on that version of the film, and I’ve seen it so often, I forgot what the old version was missing, I only watch the “Bootleg Cut” as should you.  If you like the movie you’ll love it after you see the way Crowe intended.  Plus you get a bonus cut scene where you can play along “Stairway to Heaven” in its entirety.   And if nothing else you get to see one of the best scenes in any movie.  Ever… 

--Robert L. Castillo