Only Lovers Left Alive

                I think vampires are misunderstood. Every movie that comes out portrays them as cool blood thirty beasts that only want to suck our blood. Then it went the other way where they sparkled in the sunlight, but let’s not go there again. What I have always wanted to see is a movie where it showed that vampires were like us, except for the whole blood thing. If you feel like me, then wonder no more, because writer/director Jim Jarmusch (Broken Flowers) has cured our curiosity.

                  Adam (Tom Hiddleston) is a recluse, who doesn’t get out often. The reason for his solitude is because he is a vampire. Adam also happens to be a musical genius, who has a love for rare instruments and making music that no one really gets to hear. Adam uses a kid named Ian (Anton Yelchin) to get the things he needs, everything except blood, which because so many people are contaminated Adam has to get his from a doctor. It seems this vampire is a little out of touch though, and pretty much despises the current time. Adam’s life is pretty uneventful, a lot of sleeping and making music, that is until Eve (Tilda Swinton) pays him a visit. Eve and Adam have been lovers for centuries and they bring out the best in each other. Everything is going great until Eve’s sister Eva (Mia Wasikowska) shows up and changes turns it all upside down.

                  I think it’s good that we got a vampire love story between two vampires, and one that doesn’t paint the same picture of vampire life. Too often we are made to believe that being a vampire would be cool. That’s the other aspect that makes this film an interesting watch, it shows how their life can be a bit boring, especially if you have been alive for over a thousand years. I mean what else can you do when you’ve already done everything? The story moves at a leisurely pace, but then again it is a Jarmusch film, which makes perfect sense if you’ve seen any of his work. Even if you are not a fan of a slower moving movie, you will still enjoy this, just by the performances alone. Plus you get to see a lot of good looking people and that is never a bad thing. Although not exciting, “Only Lovers left Alive” moves you in other ways, and gives you a rare view of the down side of eternal life.

 

 Brian Taylor

Neighbors

Let’s face it, making a stand-out comedy in this day and age is a very hard thing to do. And one thing that I’ve noticed reviewing movies for many years is that it’s hard to make me laugh. Being a critic does indeed make you very critical of what you find funny in films. Sure there are laugh out loud moments in plenty of movies, but trying to sustain laughs for ninety plus minutes for people who’ve seen it all from the classics of the 70’s and 80’s to the gross out comedies of the 90’s is almost impossible. Only in the last few years have movies made me laugh out loud, films like “21 Jump Street”, “Bridesmaids”, and last year’s “This is the End”. Amidst the sea of comedy classic hopefuls the first true contender is here in Nicholas Stoller’s “Neighbors”.

Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne are new parents who are just making it out of the ‘no-responsibility’ zone, he works in an office with the occasional ‘pot-break’, and she is a housewife teetering on boredom. When they get new neighbors in the form of a fraternity house they start to realize how old and possibly how immature they really are. Zac Efron the president of the frat house and his V.P. Dave Franco when challenged by the nice-at-first couple, decide to bring their loud parties and college antics right to their neighbor’s front door.

What starts as simple set up to back and forth pranks turns into a greatest hits medley or an extended trailer of gag after gag. Some quite funny and clever, but the rapid fire nature steals away time when you could be even slightly caring about what happens to the characters. Not that you have to, but the filmmakers did decide to give some paper thin substance to their casts wacky nature and it ends up falling short, at times even bringing the film to a stop. This occurs mostly at the end of the film when it’s huffing and puffing its way across the finish line.

The entire cast is given their moments to display their comedy chops, Rogen is as Rogen as he always is (and I mean that in a good way). Rose Byrne was really great in almost every scene she was in. Efron and Franco both have great comedic timing and played well off each other, and even some of the supporting cast is given time to get a few laughs in, the best of which are from TV comedian Ike Barinholtz as Rogen’s goofy buddy.

Over all “Neighbors” is a decent comedy with some great gags and a really good cast, but loses its steam or in this case its bong water before the party is over.

--Robert L. Castillo      

In Your Eyes

 

Writer/Director Joss Whedon once again proves that he loves his fans, by releasing “In Your Eyes” his latest penned film directed by Brin Hill on Vimeo for $5.00 only a day after it played at the Tribeca Film Festival. Much like he did back in ’08 with “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” putting it out there for the masses instead of waiting until a DVD release or even a theatrical one. And while the fan in me believes that was the reason for releasing the film this way, the critic in me believes you get what you pay for with this one.

Not really complaining here, I love the idea of watching a movie written by Joss Whedon for five bucks, which is less than the price of a movie theater ticket. You save on gas, you avoid the constant glow out of the corner of your eye from the people texting, and no one kicking your seat is always a plus. But this particular film borders on the line between ‘Indie’ movie and ‘Lifetime’ movie. It does have the taste of the familiar cleverness with some of the dialogue and the story of a couple trying to connect is vintage Whedon.

Rebecca (Zoe Kazan) a soft-spoken well-to-do house wife and Dylan (Michael Stahl-David) an ex-con with no direction share a supernatural bond, where they can see though the others eyes, hence the title. Since they were children they have been able to feel each other’s feelings, usual the stronger ones, like fear, anger, and even it can manifest itself by way of physical pain. Separated by several states the pair’s connection enhances when they are able to talk to each other, but only out loud, as to make it difficult to do in public, except when masked by cell phones (something they never actually use to communicate, weird). They enter each other’s life just when the other needs someone to talk to and they develop a relationship that gets more complicated as they become closer.

Kazan as Rebecca is really good, not as good as she was in “Ruby Sparks” a couple of years ago, but she nails the role. And Stahl-David performance is much like the entire film; by the numbers. Except for the still unrecognizable Jennifer Grey, there’s no surprises or twists, not that there has to be, but without it, the only thing Whedon and Hill give us is the same old same old. There is nothing unique about the relationship except for the supernatural nature of it and little else. You don’t really care very much about the leads or if they will ever end up together and it’s certainly hard to buy by the ludicrous last twenty minutes of the film.

Okay, now it sounds like I’m complaining. Maybe my expectation was too high, but after “Avengers”, his take on Shakespeare’s classic “Much Ado About Nothing” and “A Cabin in the Woods” Whedon was bound to show his mortal side. He’s not a geek god we all assume he is, he’s just a guy who creates fantastic worlds for us to play in, he can lay down some un-paralleled dialogue, and has the ability to pull you into whatever he’s working on and turn it so that you enjoy it on a level you never thought possible. Okay, I changed my mind again, he is a geek god. But it’s understandable that not everything is gonna be a homerun. I would put “In Your Eyes” in the category of the Nicholas Sparks books-to-films, good date movie, but with the seemingly endless music montages it has, not once do we get the classic Peter Gabriel track of the same name, false advertising.

--Robert L. Castillo      

The Raid 2: Berandal

To me there is one sure way to tell how good a movie is, its ability to stay with me. I think about it and get excited as I tell other people about what I saw. That doesn’t happen often, when you see as many movies as I do everything sometimes blurs together and I get that feeling maybe a handful of times though out the year. “The Raid 2: Berandal” gave me that feeling and I cannot wait to see it again.

           “The Raid 2” is the sequel to the highly enjoyable “The Raid: Redemption”, which is already being Americanized in a remake, but that is another story. We pick up two hours after the first film ended, and Rama (Iko Uwais) is picked to go uncover to help end the police corruption that is brought to light in the first film. Everyone must believe Rama is who he says he is, so he commits a real crime and is sent to prison, so that he can get in with a certain crowd. What follows is not so much a story, but one action scene after another that will take your breath away. With heavy doses of fight scenes that play more like choreographed dance numbers than actual fights (but with lots of blood) all you can do is marvel at them. Everything builds up to the end fight scene that reminds you of a video game both in action and story, but in this case it is all cinematic intense fun.

          This movie will appeal to anyone who likes action movies. If it was up to me, writer/director Gareth Evans can make as many sequels to this series as he wants, especially if they maintain this kind of quality. No CGI, only real people doing real stunts that will keep your eyes glued to the screen. There seems to be such a contrast of opinions on what action fans want to see when it comes to the people who make these movies. Some think you need bigger explosions and bigger guns, but in the case of “The Raid 2” sometimes all you need is a guy with a bat or a girl with a hammer to make a film worth seeing more than once. My only complaint is the running time, at two hours and twenty minutes, you sometimes feel the length, but it does pay off at the end.  I can go on some more about all the reasons you should see this film, but I won’t instead I will just end with the best advice I can give, just see this movie, you will thank me later.

 

Brian Taylor    

Flashback Corner--Cronos

 "He thinks it will help him live longer."

“Cronos” is one the most unique vampire movies I have ever seen.  It’s never called out in the film and it stays away from some of the troupes of the genre, but still shows the ones that give you little doubt that you are seeing the classic monster, though viewed through a skewed prism.

Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) discovers a gold scarab-looking device in the hollow base of a archangel statue.  When activated it sprouts spider-like legs and punctures Gris injecting him with a chemical of some kind.  This begins to reverse his internal clock as he gets younger and has acquired an insatiable need for blood.  At the same time Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook) and his nephew Angel (Ron Perlman) are looking for the ancient device and are ruthless in their pursuit to attain it.

This movie is visually impressive for a first feature by Guillermo del Toro.  Who would later bring his exceptional vision to films like “Hellboy”, “Pan’s Labyrinth”, “Blade II” (the best in that series) and the underrated “Pacific Rim”.  When watching “Cronos” you can see the artist’s imagination striving to be given a bigger budget as well as better actors to tell the story.  That is one of the few drawbacks, the performances are not all that they could be, probably from a lack of understanding the material.  There still remains some classic moments throughout the film, with the sunlight scene, a not gory but equally unnerving blood-licking scene, along with some decent gore.  Ahead of his time is what del Toro is here, few in the early 90’s twisted the genre like he did.  They were mostly of the Bram Stoker or Anne Rice persuasion, and most of us would like to forget 1995’s sad attempt “Vampire in Brooklyn”.  Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino would make a more memorable impact the same year in “From Dusk til Dawn”.  “Cronos” had them beat by a couple of years and this is a great film to go back to if you are a fan of del Toro’s work.

--Robert L. Castillo   

Something Blu--Dredd

If the Amazon customer reviews are any indication, the 1995 film version of “Judge Dredd” starring Sylvester Stallone is a five-star film.  With 102 viewers giving it a five-star rating and only 23 giving it a one-star it must be more amazing than I remember.  Either that or nobody really took the time to devote words of hate to this epic fail at the box-office of a movie.  I do remember seeing it at the theater when it was released, back when I was trying to watch anything and everything.  I committed very little of it to memory.  I remember Armand Assante and Stallone both had the same chin, and Rob Schneider added nothing but shame to the Dredd name.  This 2012 version of “Dredd” is a hard “R” violent, tough, and entertaining B-movie with a better Dredd and better story from the 90’s version, even if the story is the same as “The Raid: Redemption” which was released a year earlier.

Karl Urban (Star Trek) is Judge Dredd a judge, jury, and executioner in a future police state where he and his fellow judges are the law.  Dredd is saddled with Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) a trainee with psychic abilities.  Together they answer a homicide call at a building run by local gang boss Ma-Ma (Lena Heady) who is manufacturing and selling the latest drug to hit the streets ‘Slo-Mo’.  When Dredd and his trainee get to close to Ma-Ma’s operation, they are trapped in the building and hunted by the gang as well as the tenants.  Then it’s one shoot-out after another filled with brutal kills and really great looking shots in slo-mo that show the impact of both bullets and explosions.  The story is easy to follow and a might predictable, but doesn’t take away the enjoyment of what a good action movie should give you.

Urban is spot-on as Dredd, for one and almost most importantly for comic-book continuity’s sake he leaves his helmet on for the majority of the film.  So the entire time you buy him as Dredd.  He’s gruff and hard as nails tough.  Thirlby is pretty basic as Anderson, she’s essentially a mutant, so if you’ve seen any “X-Men” movie, you know how she is treated by the people around her.  She clearly doesn’t struggle with her power, just with the fact that people think she’s a freak.  My favorite moment with her is where you get that typical moment of her decisions as a Judge and how they affect others.  However the filmmakers don’t harp on it, they just show it as part of the job and never mention it again.  Everything else is Action Movie 101, the battles get bigger and crazier, the big showdown happens and goes about like you’d expect.  And in the end “Dredd” becomes a decent entry into the action genre, and an even better one into the comic-book movie genre.  All of it done without guys in capes and superpowers.

--Robert L. Castillo

Something Blu--The Killer

I had learned how to program our VCR when I was 7 years old.  So by the mid to late 80’s if something showed up on the TV guide too late for me to stay up and watch, I’d just set the timer on the VCR, and tell my parents that they were not allowed to watch any videos that night.  They would roll their eyes and I would sleep soundly with the knowledge that the latest episode of “Tales from the Darkside” was being recorded.  By the mid-90’s I rarely used the timer on the VCR anymore. One of the last times that I did was to record this movie I always heard come up in interviews from my favorite filmmakers at the time, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino always mention John Woo’s “The Killer” as inspiration.  When I watched it for the first time after recording a 1 AM showing of it on Showtime I also could think of no other word to describe it except as ‘inspiring’.

Chow Yun-fat (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon) is Ah Jong a professional killer for hire who while on a routine job where he takes out almost a dozen guys in minutes and accidently blinds Jennie (Sally Yea) a nite-club singer who takes a muzzle blast to the front of her face.  He is compelled to watch over her and is introduced to her when he saves her from a couple of guys trying to attack her.  They start a relationship as he decides to take one last job to help pay for her eye surgery. This last job puts Jong in the crosshairs of his own employer and in the sights of relentless Inspector Li Ying (Danny Lee).  When Ying and Jong form a reluctant alliance it leads to one gunfight after another, leading the way to the final showdown in a church.

Even now this movie is awesome as an action movie, every shootout gets bigger and better all the way to the ultimate bullet-fest at the end.  I remember watching it years ago and wondering how a guy could shoot fifteen times out of a six-shooter, or how he could still be so accurate while jumping through the air shooting with a gun in each hand?  But that soon wore off as the action unfolded, with the cool slow motion shots, the crazy kills, to the signatures of John Woo, Mexican stand-offs and the pigeons, yes, the pigeons.  There are moments and shots in “The Killer” that you would see ripped-off for nearly a decade afterwards in American cinema.  The only thing that made me wince a few times was the dialogue, Woo was writing the script as they were shooting the film, and it shows.  And the performances are not stellar nor are some of the situations believable even in the world created here, but it’s easy to forgive when you get action on this kind of scale in return.    

The Blu-ray is as good as a transfer that there can be, it still looks like bad DVD, but nothing takes away from the film, it just places it firmly in a certain time.  You have to remember, in the states in ’89 we just started getting the Die Hard’s and the Lethal Weapon’s and even though those films started a formula that is still being used today, we had never seen anything like this.  It would take us years before we would see a movie as ultra-violent and filled with the ballet-like movements with deadly weapons that make you feel every hit like this one did.  There’s even the epic slo-mo “hero shot” as the cop and criminal walk side by side to face their destiny, guns in hand as a building burns behind them.  This is without a doubt one of the best action movies of all time.

--Robert L. Castillo         

Muppets Most Wanted

It’s time to play the music and light the lights on the Muppets sequel tonight?  Nope, doesn’t have the same ring to it.  Most of the time sequels fail to live up to the original, but as the clever self-deprecating musical opener to “Muppets Most Wanted” will remind you, this is the 7^th Muppet sequel.  That gives the filmmakers of this one plenty of time and material to get it just right.  Right?

We begin literally where the last film ended, and the Muppets are immediately wooed by their new manager Dominic Badguy (Ricky Gervais) into playing a European tour.  What they don’t know is Dominic is secretly the Number Two of a criminal mastermind known as Constantine, who looks just like Kermit except for a mole and a hard accent.  The evil duo hatches a plan to replace Kermit and use their tour to conceal several heists leading to the theft of the crown jewels.  The mistaken identity lands Kermit in a Siberian gulag run by a pretty funny Russian Tina Fey as she forces Kermit to put on a show of his own.

“Muppets Most Wanted” feels like a huge mash-up of the previous Muppet films, with the singing and dancing, the countless cameos, and a basic plot that seems to combo “Muppets Take Manhattan” and “The Great Muppet Caper”.  With a bit of “The Shawshank Redemption” thrown in as well.  Pretty much all the scenes with Ty Burrell and Sam Eagle are a waste as Burrell does his best impersonation of Steve Martin impersonating Peter Sellers genius portrayal of Inspector Clouseau.  The only problem is Burrell’s performance is just as forgettable as Martin’s.  The gags are rapid and most stick the landing, what is worth remembering though is the musical numbers by Bret McKenzie.  There are humorous moments and they are filled with lyrics that beg to be re-listened to again and again.  The opening and closing number along with Constantine’s love song to Miss are the stand outs.

The actual Muppet cast is given very little to do, they are mostly associated with the gags as are the celebrity guest stars.  Only late in the film do we get some time with Fozzie, Walter, and Animal, but it feels too late even as fun as it is.  The only other drawback is the humor seems to go right over the heads of most kids, they just won’t get the references like when Constantine calls Fozzie “Fonzie” most people under the age of 25 may not even get the joke, it just sounds silly.

I really enjoyed this new Muppet film more than the previous attempt, it was simple enough and had me giggling throughout.  My kids on the other hand only responded to the physical humor which added nothing new to this kind of comedy.  It’s almost as if the filmmakers wanted to keep the older generation happy as long as there are kids filling up the seats next to them.

--Robert L. Castillo            

Flashback Corner--Children of the Corn

“Question me not Malachai.”

 

The first Stephen King book I read was “Pet Sematary” in 1988.  Four years earlier I saw the first horror movie based on a King short story that terrified me: “Children of the Corn”.  I had caught glimpses at that time of “Salem’s Lot”, “The Shining”, and had seen “Creepshow” and “Cujo”, while they had their scary moments, none of them stayed with me like the children of Gatlin, Nebraska.  From the opening scene where adults are massacred to the sounds of the eeriest chanting music I had ever heard, this movie made an imprint on my fear center like nothing else.

Watching it now after years of horror movies, I can say that “Children of the Corn” is not a very good movie, nor is it particularly scary anymore.  The chanting is still a little creepy, if it were more underplayed it would work better, and the acting by the children is a couple of rungs short of a daytime soap.  There’s jump scares and blood, though nothing gory for the most part.  It pushes the thriller aspect when the interlopers Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton get to the children’s evil little town.  The tense moments are few and far between but he worst is the voice-over narration by Robby Kiger who plays Job.  All he does is describe what’s happening and it removes any surprises, he eventually gets better near the films climax.  Along with the adults the only good child performance is given by Courtney Gains as Malachai, he’s the most terrifying like a Destro to Issac’s Cobra Commander (the cartoon, not the movies).  By the end I was glad it was over as the chanting music lost its sway over me.  This is one of my childhood horror classics that didn’t live up to my memory of fears and it certainly didn’t age as well as something like “The Omen” or “A Nightmare on Elm Street”.  I have to say I will probably never watch it again.  But, I’ll still quote that ‘Malachai’ line to my kids for years to come.

--Robert L. Castillo

What's on Redbox--In Fear

Getting lost while traveling is a fear we all have when driving in an area we are unfamiliar with.  It is also the jumping off point for many a horror film.  The search for gas leads to Leatherface and family, skid off a desert road, you get cannibals, take a wrong turn and you end up…in the movie “Wrong Turn”.  The film “In Fear” takes a familiar horror movie troupe and delivers a tense and claustrophobic drive through the woods and into the heart of our worst fears.

Lucy (Alice Englert) and Tom (Iain De Caestecker) is a new couple taking a trip to a music festival with a side jaunt to a nice hotel, which happens to be in the middle of nowhere.  Apparently this is one of those movies where characters believe everything they read on the internet.  Well it doesn’t take too long for the couple to get lost in a labyrinth of back roads and deceiving directional signs.  Pretty soon after they discover that someone or something is messing with them.  With falling trees, belongings on the road, and a mysterious stranger who may or may not be connected to it all.

Like I said, there is not a lot of new territory covered here, and it has been done better elsewhere.  However, I couldn’t help but be pulled in by the events as they unfolded, the reactions by the two leads have an honesty and a sense of realism going for it.  It’s not very scary, but I was very eager to see how it all played out, and there is enough well placed jump scares to keep you into it.  There are still moments that didn’t really work, but when I decided to watch the ‘behind the scenes’ feature on the DVD, I had a new respect for the filmmaking process.  Director Jeremy Lovering tried for something different here, something again, that has been done before back in 1999, and I won’t tell you where, but you’ll get it.  Overall “In Fear” is just a hair past unique enough to warrant a view, and I have to say I really love the ending.  Give it a watch.

--Robert L. Castillo       

Tim's Vermeer

                                                               

              Two people can look at the same object and take away two completely different things. Most people may just wonder at the beauty of the object and admire the person who created it for their talents. Some though will wonder how the object is created and want to replicate it or be inspired to create something of their own. Johannas Vermeer was someone many consider one of the great painters in history. His work, though 350 years old, is often admired for its photo like appearance.  Many over the last 300 years have tried to figure out Vermeer’s method, and while most have not, there has been some who believe that they have solved the mystery to what made Vermeer’s paintings so amazing.

             British artist David Hockney in 1992 wrote a book called “Secret Knowledge “on how the old masters used technology to make their works realistic. That technology was optical tools, that help the painters make their paintings so photo-like. Inventor Tim Jenison read that book as well as Phillip Steadman’s “Vermeer’s Camera”. Tim though was not just satisfied with reading, he wanted to try and paint a Vermeer to see if the theory was correct. Tim had a slight problem; he had never painted before, which might be a problem if you are trying to recreate one of the great pieces of art. Well Tim didn’t get discouraged by such a minor detail and set out to recreate Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson”. In order for Tim to do that, he would have to recreate everything he could about the setting the Vemreer used to paint. He would recreate the environment perfectly, even turning a room in a building to match the painting’s environment exactly. Before Tim would do any of that though, he tested the theory on a black and white picture, where he used a mirror to match the colors exactly, with a finished result that will amaze you.

        For 5 years Tim toyed with mirrors, darkrooms, and lenses to be able to archive his desired result. After working everything out, Tim would spend the next 213 days recreating the classic work of art, with a result that will blow your mind. The film follows Tim from the conception of his idea to him completing the painting and the bumps and triumphs along the way. Now while the saying “It’s like watching paint dry” is said when something is beyond boring, watching Tim paint is far from that. You would think watching a man paint so rigorously would not be very fun,but not this time. Tim’s personality makes it very easy to watch, and you will marvel at the time and effort he puts into every detail. This documentary is just a pleasure to watch, and will leave you in awe and also just might inspire you to create some art of your own.

Brian Taylor

B.O.T.T. Sin City: A Dame to Kill For

2005’s “Sin City” is without a doubt the most faithful translation of comic-to-film ever made.  The look, the dialogue, the feel of the entire film screamed off the screen, “Now this is a comic book movie”.  There may have been some lines that got lost in the transition, but the action and stories were spot on.  Why it took over seven years for the sequel, not sure, maybe the 100 million dollars profit it brought to the studio wasn’t enough.  But all that matters now is that this August we get to see the further adventures of Marv and his fellow Basin City toughs in “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For”.

The trailer is brief, but enough to whet the appetite.  If you’ve read the Frank Miller books, you recognize some of the classic images, and if not, it still looks amazingly good.  That stark black and white pallet looks better than ever before, and looks as intense with that bit of fun as the original.  It also doesn’t hurt having talents like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, and Josh Brolin joining the fold.

--Robert L. Castillo

B.O.T.T.-Transformers: Age of Extinction

          One of the first major Intellectual properties I got caught up in when I was young was the Transformers franchise, I watched the cartoon, played with the toys, listened to the movie soundtrack, and I read the comic books.  I even had to have the lunchboxes, pencils, notebooks, and collectable cards.  Yeah, I pretty much ran the gamut on all things that were ‘more than meets the eye’. So back in 2007 when they released the first “Transformers” movie that wasn’t animated, the child in me was ecstatic.  Yeah it was Michael Bay, who at the time was all flash and no substance, and they were very pointy-looking which made all the Decepticons look the same.  But again, it was a Transformers movie, Peter Cullen as the voice of Optimus Prime and big robot knock-out-drag-outs in the cities.  Unfortunately after two sequels they have gone the way of the Batman movie franchise as steered by Joel Schumacher.  In an attempt to right the ship Bay is directing the fourth installment “Transformers: Age of Extinction” and here is the new trailer for it.

 

Looks like they want to go the “Godzilla” route here, with this trailer focusing on the human ordeal and the giant robots beating the crap out of each other is just a coincidence.  Though that probably won’t be the case given Michael Bay’s track record.  But cool-looking action can sometimes trump a weak story, but not often.  However with this one we got dinobots, and that can overrule everything, or just make this franchise extinct.

--Robert L. Castillo       

Non Stop

                                                         
                                                           

                 As someone who writes about movies I got quite excited about seeing a film titled “Non-Stop”. There are so many options to describing the movie in clever and/or obvious ways, like ‘Non-Stop’ action, or ‘Non-Stop’ suspense, it just screams to be used. With such lofty expectations based on the title, and because it stars one of the coolest actors on the planet in Liam Neeson, how could “Non-Stop” go wrong?

             The story is simple enough; Bill Marks (Liam Neeson) is a man going through some tough times. We know this because the movie opens with him sitting in his car drinking whiskey from a coffee cup. If Marks was just a normal guy traveling somewhere it might not be a big deal, but Marks is an Air Marshall. He boards a plane to London, where we get the “I don’t like flying” bit, even though Marks flies all the time. Lucky for him a lady named Jen Summers (Julianne Moore) befriends him and comforts him though his trying time during takeoff. The flight takes a real turn for the worse when Marks receives a text message informing him that someone is going to kill a passenger ever 20 minutes, until he receives $150,000,000. Being an ex-cop, Marks tries to start piecing together the puzzle. Marks become a bull in a china shop, or a plane in this case, when he uses brute force in order to figure out who is behind the threat. Will he be able to figure it out before it becomes too late? Of course! He is Liam Neeson after all.

             I am not really giving anything away when I say he figures it out, how else could there be a “Non-Stop 2: All Flights Canceled”? The fun in a film like this lies in you trying to figure out who it is before Neeson does. While the story by John W, Richardson and Christopher Roach is good enough, where the film falters is the execution of that story. It is one of those things that works well in concept, but with an over-abundance of plot holes, the finished product fails to deliver the promise of a good movie. Neeson has become the go to guy when you want to make a movie about a older man saving the day, after the success of the “Taken” franchise. While the screenplay stumbles, director Jaume Collet-Serra actually does a decent job, at least until the climatic ending, where some of the camera choices were not so fun. I wanted to enjoy Non-Stop, I like ‘Taken” Neeson and ‘The Grey’ Neeson. Instead I am left with a ‘Non-Stop’ let down.  Hey, got to use one after all.

Brian Taylor

What's on Redbox--Mud

The coming-of-age drama is a staple in the book of cinema.  From classics like “Rebel without a Cause” and “The Graduate” to the John Hughes movies of the 80’s and films like “Stand By Me” all the way to the more recent “Almost Famous”, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”, and “The Spectacular Now”.  They have their own tropes and points of familiarity, but they should all have heart and tell a truthful story.  Not truth in the way of facts, but truth by way of emotional and relatable situations and moments in life that clearly take you from childhood to adulthood whether you want to go there or not.  “Mud” is a coming-of-age of which I have not seen the like it quite some time.

Directed by Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter) and starring Matthew McConaughey as Mud and newcomer Tye Sheridan as Ellis a 14 year-old boy who lives on the riverbank in Arkansas with the estranged parents of the afore mentioned coming-of-age staple.  Ellis and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) stubble across the man who calls himself Mud on a small island not too far from their home.  He tells them why he’s isolated himself away from civilization and this prompts the boys help Mud acquire a boat and reunite him and his true love Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) before the some bad men try to kill him.

 Director Nichols pulls off a virtual magic act here.  He seamlessly blends a modern Huck Finn tale with the multiple levels of relationships between men and women.  We see the first love of Ellis, the doomed love of Mud and Juniper, the strained marriage of Ellis’s parents, and the lost love of Tom (Sam Shepard) Mud’s surrogate father.  All get enough time throughout the film as mostly seen through the eyes of young Ellis.  Tye Sheridan’s performance is as honest and sincere that even with a slightly off-kilter final act, the film as a whole is very satisfying and a real pleasure to watch.  I usually don’t care much for films with Reese Witherspoon, but she does a great job here with minimal dialogue as does most of the cast.  It’s a quiet film with spiritual speeches by Mud and the great long shots of the South give it an almost timeless feel, you can’t help but get immersed in this sure to be classic of the genre.

--Robert L. Castillo

Pompeii

                                                               

               I have always had a thing about disaster films. I could give you a line about how I enjoy watching mankind overcome diversity and cataclysmic events. But that would be a lie, truth is I like to watch things get destroyed. There is something about watching those iconic places blown up, or flooded, or even frozen. Maybe it all started with the iconic ending of the original “Planet of The Apes” and that Statue of Liberty shot, or maybe the White House being blown up in “Independence Day”. Whatever started it I don’t know, but we as moviegoers like watching them.

          We’ve had our fill lately of disaster films showing us fictional versions of the end of the world, but why not show something that actually happened? We have all heard the story of Pompeii, the Roman city that was built at the base of a volcano. As you know from history, things did not work out too well for the city as the volcano erupted and obliterated Pompeii. Since we can only take so many fireballs destroying buildings, or earthquakes opening up beneath us, we are given good old human drama. No, not the drama of all the people who perished at the hands of the volcano, just the drama of a few. Milo (Kit Harington) is a slave, but more importantly a gladiator, whose talents have taken him to Pompeii. On the way he uses his skills with a horse to impress Cassia (Emily Browning), who just happens to be important. Milo is set to fight Pompeii’s champion Atticus (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), but during another engagement runs into Corvus (Kiefer Sutherland) the man who killed his father, who is in town to make Cassia his wife.  Can you smell the conflict? The volcano, however has other plans, and has no time for weddings or gladiator matches and soon erases Pompeii from existence.

          Ever since “Titanic” writers have taken the worst disasters and added a love story amidst the chaos. Now while it may work in some cases, others, like “Pompeii” doesn't find that balance. I have always heard that if you do not have anything nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all, well then this would just be a blank page, and we can’t have that. Written by four different writers, two of whom brought us the classic “Batman Forever” and directed by Paul W.S Anderson (The Three Musketeers), you kind of know what you are getting. If the writing and the direction wasn't bad enough, we get Jack Bauer with a sword instead of a gun and not very “special” special effects. With flying boulders that have perfect aim, and water that stops is the strangest place, the people of this movie are the luckiest and unluckiest victims of a disaster movie. Everything about the movie was bad.  Even in my distant and fading memories of “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano” I never found myself actually rooting for the lava like I did here. Just when you think they could not do anything worse, they save the best for last and give you an ending so cheesy, only this movie could have done it. My advice, go see “The Lego Movie” again, and leave the disaster films to the 70’s where they belong.

Brian Taylor 

B.O.T.T.--The Guardians of the Galaxy

Here is the first trailer for Marvel’s latest and hopefully next big franchise, “The Guardians of the Galaxy”.

 

This trailer looks to be just something to introduce the characters and give us an idea of the tone, which is obviously humor with guns-a-blazin’ action. Opening with the homage to “Raiders” and adding the humor is pretty bold, but that along with the music choice, it appears to be right up the alley of its co-writer and director James Gunn.  Whose writing credits include a Troma film, the Scooby Doo movies, and the “Dawn of the Dead” remake.  While his only two directing credits are for two much underrated films, 2006’s “Slither” and 2010’s “Super”.  With “Slither” he was able to balance gross-out horror with humor with an always fun Nathan Fillion performance.  And “Super” was the slightly more grounded version of “Kick-Ass” that never was.  Both films show that he’s primed for a big-budget comic-book property.

I think he’s perfect for a film like “Guardians” mainly because like him they are under the radar, and not as popular as The Avengers and that gives Gunn the chance to surprise both comic fans as well as the masses.  And I also believe he’s been chomping at the bit to take on something like this.  Plus think about it, the last time Disney/Marvel gave a cult geek their big hero movie it was Joss Whedon, and that turned out okay for everyone.  Right?

--Robert L. Castillo

About Last Night

                                                   

        When it comes to trends in music and fashion, things always seem to come back around. That shirt you wore ten years ago or that music you use to listen to in High School becomes vogue again, and at the same time reminds you how old you are. Well movies always come back around in the form of remakes or reboots. Well, many people love a good portion of the films of the 1980’s, and studios know this, so they have started to mine the 80’s properties and attempted to put a new spin on them. Just in the last two years we’ve had a remake of “Red Dawn”, “Footloose”, “Total Recall”, and “Robocop”. The thinking is, put a hot young star in it and you get audiences young and old in the seats, unfortunately for us most of them never go over that well. So how do you take something old and make it new and fresh again? Well let the makers of “About Last Night” show you.

   Based on a 1986 film starring Rob Lowe and Demi Moore about dating and relationships and the fun they can bring. Danny (Michael Ealy) and Bernie (Kevin Hart) are just two of your average single guys in Los Angeles. They both work as kitchen supply salesman and hit the town together, where Bernie is on the prowl every night. Bernie meets Joan (Regina Hall) and their passion instantly ignites, where no position or place is too daring. Joan brings along her roommate Debbie (Joy Bryant) with the hope that her and Danny would hit it off. The plan works too well when Joan and Danny not only hit it off, but begin a relationship that eventually leads to living together and even a dog. While Danny and Debbie’s relationship soars, Joan and Bernie’s cool down, but the good thing is like this film, both relationships go out of style, but come back again.

       Love and relationships is a tricky thing, just ask any single person, but so is remaking a movie. “About Last Night” got it right though. While in the original Lowe and Moore were by all means the reason for the movie, the new one reverses it. The characters Bernie and Joan, played originally by James Belushi and Elizabeth Perkins, have been put in the forefront. What you get from Ealy and Bryant is okay, but Hart and Hall are much better and even funnier. Some thanks of course goes to Director Steve Pink (Hot Tub Time Machine) with an updated script by Leslye Headland.  There are enough relevant laughs to keep the story moving along its hour and forty running time.

While I enjoyed the trailer, my only fear was that it would end up like Kevin Hart’s recent disaster on wheels “Ride Along”. Most of the funny parts of that one you would have already seen in the preview, here you get plenty more than what was shown on the TV spots. The movie is originally based off a David Mamet play called “Sexual Perversity in Chicago” so based on that alone you knew there had to be some good in there. That and the fact that it’s about relationships on film, which is almost always timeless.  So if you’re looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day movie to take your loved one to? Well “About Last Night” is one you will both enjoy, and who knows it might bring back memories about those nights of being single.

  Brian Taylor 

          

Singles Awareness Day -- A Message from Kevin Hart & Regina Hall

Robocop

                                                                   

         How do you make a good action movie? Well for the last thirty years you call guys like Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Willis, or any of the other guys who currently star in every Expendables movie. Nowadays it’s a little tricky, because without that star, or even someone you can root for, action movies have to rely solely on well, the action. Those movies do have a few things working for them though, but the biggest tool by far is CGI, all you have to do is dream it up and its skies the limit. However, big explosions, gun fights, and go old hand-to-hand fighting is great and all, but without character and story it’s all for nothing. Enter our current movie to try and give us our action fix, a film about a man in a suit of armor, and his name is not Iron Man.

Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman), is a detective in the Detroit Police Department.  Murphy was a little too good at his job, together with his partner Jack (Michael K. Williams) they almost bring down a crime lord. Alex gets targeted and just about dies when his car blows up with him right by it. Lucky for him, Alex becomes the prototype for a future kind of cop, all machine, but with the emotions and judgment of a man. A Robocop. Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman) is the man who put Humpty Dumpty back together, and Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) is the man paying for it all. Everything is going as planned until Murphy starts to solve his own murder, and that is when the house that built Robocop starts to fall.

     When a movie like this comes out it is hard to judge it on its own merits, when you have something so original to compare it to. Director Jose Padilha had an uphill battle the whole time; he had to remake a film many people loved. Padilha can’t give you the same film, because “Robocop” of 1987 was such a product if it’s time. “Robocop” of 2014 is rooted in technology that is out there already, and in a world with lot bleaker outlook. When the trailer first came out I wanted to scream “What have you done to Robocop?” I was prepared to turn my nose up to this film, but I did my best not to do that; instead I enjoyed parts of it and saw what Padilha was trying to do. He didn't remake Robocop, MGM and Columbia were going to do it no matter what, he made “his” Robocop, and for that alone I can appreciate what he was attempting. Once I got past the appreciation of that, I was still left with a movie that I was pretty indifferent about. On one hand I loved seeing Michael Keaton being Michael Keaton, even an evil one, but then I didn’t enjoy that it took almost an hour to get to the title character. And the action was good, what little of it there was, and that made it hard to stand out. “Robocop” is just an average movie with an iconic name, and when it comes to good action movies, I wouldn’t buy this one for a dollar.

Brian Taylor 

The Monuments Men

                                                   

             Someone once said “Those who don’t learn from the past are condemned to repeat it”, so what would happen if someone tried to erase the past?  That is what Hitler tried to do when his defeat was imminent, he ordered his army to destroy all the art he had stolen during his rule of Europe. Lucky for us there were those who recognized the importance of saving these historic pieces of artwork, and put their lives on the line to do so. These were the kinds of soldiers that you don’t read about in any history book.

        They went by the name “The Monuments Men”, but what they really were was a group of men who knew what it meant to the world to try and keep these important works from being incinerated. They were led by Frank Stokes (George Clooney), who put the team together based on their particular fields of experience. On this team was James Granger (Matt Damon), Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), Walter Garfield (John Goodman), Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban), and Jean Claude Clarmont (Jean Dujardin). After a little basic training, they are off to find out where the Nazis hid all of the stolen art. As they follow the clues like they were part of the Scooby Gang, they start to find some of the lost pieces. In the midst of the search, they find the order from Hitler, stating that if he were to die, his army is to destroy everything. Now the Monuments Men must race against time to save all they can before all is lost.

     A story this noble and great deserves to be told. What these men did has allowed people like us to enjoy art that could have been lost forever. Based on a book by Robert M. Edsel who with Bret Witter brought light to what these men did, and although it really is an intriguing story, the same can’t be said for the film. The trailer makes you believe this is “Ocean’s 1944” but the simple truth is that it is not. While the all-star cast is there, gone is the coolness and freshness that made “Ocean’s Eleven” what it was. Clooney and his crew once made stealing a bunch of money from a casino an art form, saving a bunch of actual art, not so much. Sure there is humor here, but it’s more likely to produce a chuckle then a laugh.  There is no balance between the humor, the drama, and the historical significance.

I always have a fear when a movie I want to see gets pushed back from its original release date; because that always signals that something is wrong. This film reaffirmed that belief, because this movie would have gotten lost last November. I wanted to enjoy this movie, but found myself looking often at my watch, wondering when it would end. While I didn't actively dislike it, I certainly didn't enjoy it, it just falls in the ‘take it or leave it’ zone. My suggestion is to read the book, because even with all the star power, these Monument Men can’t save this movie from itself.

Brian Taylor 

Justice League: War

“Who the hell is Bruce Wayne?”

     So like the comic book universe DC has decided to re-vamp their direct-to-video animation division as well.  Why they would do that, I have no idea, as far as superhero animated films go, their catalog is far superior to Marvel. From “Justice League: New Frontier” to “All Star Superman” to the epically awesome “The Dark Knight Returns” DC has proven that their kung-fu is the best.  The first of this new “shared” universe of films “Justice League: War” is much like its comic counterpart where the heroes don’t know each other but are forced to work together to save the world.  It looks okay, has some interesting moments, but a weak storyline and even lesser attention paid to the iconic characters, this film stumbles a bit out of the gate.

 It begins with a mysterious group of aliens that are taking random citizens from Metropolis, and Gotham and Batman (Jason O’Mara) is on the trail.  Followed closely behind is Green Lantern (Justin Kirk) who upon their first meeting don’t really get along.  Such is the same as when they encounter Superman (Alan Tudyk) who is about as much a jerk to Lantern and Batman as they are to him.  When they discover that the aliens have “take-over” on their mind in order to pave the way for their ruler, the evil Darkseid.  It doesn’t take long for the rest of the heroes to get in on the alien smashing act, Wonder Woman (Michelle Monaghan) who is working closely with the government, The Flash (Christopher Gorham) a cop, Shazam (Sean Astin) the boy turned super-god, and Cyborg (Shemar Moore) a star athlete in the wrong lab at the wrong time.

The animation is okay, the voice-work is hit and miss, but as I said the plot is not one of the better ones, even when it was on the page it didn’t work too well.  The biggest change from the original storyline by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee was dropping the red-headed stepchild of the Justice League: Aquaman, and replacing him with Shazam.  Which would have been alright if they had decided to go with his origin instead of Cyborg, personally I would have rather seen what happens when a boy is given the power of Superman and has to deal with if he really wants to be a hero or not than the footballer with daddy issues.

Plus I know they usually go the PG-13 route mainly because of the violence, but does every character have to say something like “Damn”, “What the hell?”, “Pissed-off”, and the schoolyard sin “Shit”?  They don’t need to go full-on adult to entertain, I would most likely let my kids continue to watch the classic Saturday morning “Super Friends” than this version of the JLA, but worst of all what made me a little sad to see was that a good portion of the action beats near the end mimicked the ending of the film version of “The Avengers”.

The action is fun to watch, Superman and Batman are entertaining, but it does feel disjointed with Green Lantern doing his best Ryan Reynolds impression, and the Flash’s humor taking a backseat to Lantern’s.  There is good in the “Justice League: War” some of the dialogue is decent but then they were taken directly from the comic book.  But in the end it mostly comes across as a pale version of what is possible from this superhero team and more importantly from these proven filmmakers.

--Robert L. Castillo