Magic Mike

   

   I always feel lucky when I get to see a movie a little earlier than most people. I enjoy it because I get to tell all of you what you can expect and if you will be entertained or not.  You always see a lot of the same people at these screenings and nothing really exciting happens.  When the big films come out, like Spider Man, or maybe The Dark Knight, you tend to see crowds that you don’t usually see, but with that being said nothing prepared me for the crowd I saw Magic Mike with.

    Now being a heterosexual male you would think I wouldn’t have a lot to say about a movie about a group of male strippers. You might be right, but this is a movie about male strippers directed by Steven Soderbergh, so that makes it very easy to watch and to talk about. Mike (Channing Tatum) seems to have it all, great looks and great personality and he is the hottest stripper at a male revue club in Tampa. Mike has dreams of opening his own custom furniture design shop, so he does odd jobs other than just entertain the ladies. On one of these jobs he meets a young kid named Adam (Alex Pettyfer), who seems a little down on his luck after losing a football scholarship. Mike decides to help Adam out and gives him a chance to help with anything at the club he dances at. Events occur that put Adam on stage at the club that is run by Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), who acts like a ring announcer now that his own personal entertaining days are over with. Adam gets into the life too much and starts going down paths that he shouldn’t travel. Mike on the other hand is intrigued by Adam’s sister Brooke (Cory Horn) and the desire to live his dream.  So there’s equal balance of conflict and story for the guys and ‘raining men’ for the ladies.

       When I arrived at the theater I did not know if I was watching a movie or I was in fact about to watch a live show with male dancers. I was even more confused when the movie started and women were yelling at the screen, I may have seen a dollar or two thrown at the screen. The good thing is you don’t have to be a girl to enjoy this movie, because it actually is an enjoyable film to watch. Channing Tatum once again shows that he is more than just something to look at. He brings the same charisma and sense of humor he showed in this years “21 Jump Street”. It is easy to get lost in the fact that everyone looks good in this movie, including the film itself, because of the camera work of Soderbergh. So guys this weekend make your girl happy and take her to see Magic Mike, she will enjoy it, you will enjoy it, and who knows what magic might happen for the both of you after the movie.

Brian Taylor

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

         

Naturally when you hear about a movie about Abraham Lincoln, you automatically see stove-top hat, beard, and sometimes an axe.  You just usually don’t see that axe plunging into the neck of a vampire.  But you get that here hence the title, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.  The film is an adaption of the novel of the same name that splices the historic events in Lincoln’s life with an added twist of vampires roaming and eventually planning to rule the country.  So who else can stop them, but our kung fu, silver axe wielding 16^th President of the United States.

Starting with Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) as a young boy who sees a loved one murdered by a creature of the night, who indecently have really good sunscreen, since they walk about in the day armed only with stylish sunglasses.  He vows to exact vengeance against the fiend, only to be stopped and eventually trained by Henry (Dominic Cooper) the mysterious man with a secret who knows all about the existence of vampires among us.  The first half of the film plays like the origin story of a superhero, you get the family tragedy, brooding, the training montage, the love interest, the buildup to his first big challenge, or in the videogame terms, “big boss battle”.  This first half didn’t work too much for me, even though it was all pretty basic set up.  The second half of the film has him already President and is trying to fight the monsters with politics, and finds that there may be no other way than to get his hands dirty to help save the country from evil Rufus Sewell (Dark City) and his gang of bloodsuckers.  Watching Walker as Lincoln try to win the civil war, free the slaves, and deal with another personal tragedy all with vampires in the background really worked for me. Even though it probably shouldn’t have, all the way up to and including the over the top heavy CGI’ed action packed ending.  There was enough overall to be an entertaining film despite the problems.

Director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Wanted) does bring his unique vision and hyper action to the screen as always, and it’s a decent fit with a premise that on the surface seems absurd.  However writer Seth Grahame-Smith who wrote the script for last month’s “Dark Shadows” and here adapts his own novel to the screen needs to work on his screenwriting, much like the young Lincoln in the film, he has a lot to learn.

--Robert L. Castillo      

Brave--Review

          Pixar has made a name for themselves by bringing to the screen some of the greatest animated films of all time starting with Toy Story in 1995.  One area they have yet to delve into, being a part of Disney, is the realm of the Disney Princess.  With “Brave” they are introducing to the world their own version of a princess filled with independence, bravery, and a spirit as fiery as her flowing red hair.

Her name is Merida, excuse me, Princess Merida, and we meet her as she has become of age to be married away to the first prince who is good at shooting a bow and arrow.  The problem is that she wants to be in charge of her own destiny and she can shoot a bow better than any man.  In her defiance against the rules of the land and her mother she makes a deal with a witch to change her fate.  And as in all tales of this sort, it does not go as she expects.

There is one great sweeping shot after another of the landscapes of Scotland, beautiful music, and fantastic animation which has come to be expected from Pixar.  What was a bit of a letdown was how the story shifted to an interesting story about your fate and what you choose to be, to a formulaic Pixar version of a Disney movie.  And Pixar is better than that.  Yet that’s where they go with the story, and it is by no means bad, it’s just not what I expected from the creators of Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, two films that are truly about what a family is.  In Brave the family story feels basic even amongst the great visuals and perfect voice acting by Kelly McDonald, Billy Connolly, and Emma Thompson.

I think that kids, especially young girls of a certain age will really love this movie.  If for nothing else, it shows the consequences of when you’re only thinking of yourself and that your personal decisions can affect others as well.  That may seem heavy for a children’s film however Pixar manages to pull it off in the end.   And while I don’t feel that this is a return to form for Pixar after the misstep that was Cars 2, Brave is a leap back into the right direction, even if their next film up is a prequel to Monsters Inc.

--Robert L. Castillo

Flashback Corner--Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

“There are no heroes anymore Bishop, just men who follow orders.”

          There are several interesting things about John Carpenter’s “Assault on Precinct 13” one is that there is no Precinct 13 in the film, another is that many people know it was remade a few years ago with Ethan Hawke and Morpheus from “The Matrix”, but few know that the original itself was a slight remake of “Rio Bravo”, only no John Wayne and no singing.  It does however have plenty of shootouts, bad hombres and that all too wild western feel.  Coming out the same year as classics like “Taxi Driver”, and “Rocky”, Carpenter’s feature sophomore effort was a feat to behold.  It is filled with methods, music, tones, and tropes that became unique signatures in all his films to follow.

The movie begins with a group of teens getting shot down by police, and through a news broadcast we learn the gang Street Thunder has got a hold of automatic weapons, enough to be an unstoppable force.  Then it turns to the main cast of characters including a father and daughter, three cons being transferred to Death Row, a new Lieutenant, and a police precinct at the tail end of moving to a new building.  About thirty minutes in the Carpenter shows he’s not messing around when he breaks one of the unwritten movie rules.  I won’t tell you which one, but you’ll know it when you see it, it’s pretty shocking.  Eventually it all comes down to both cons and cops being trapped in the closing precinct while they are surrounded by faceless gang members “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” style.  There are several two to three minute shoot outs that foreshadow the alley brawl from “They Live”.  It just goes on and on, so much so that one of the characters calls out the time of the shootout, and that someone is bound to have heard and called for more police.

I don’t want to gush too much about “Precinct 13”, because it does have its problems, some scenes are very cheesy, the lighting is too much like a horror movie, the dialogue is clunky, and some of the camera set ups are done on the cheap with mixed results.  All in all, it’s worth seeing if you’re a fan of John Carpenter films, watching his early work you can see the genius pushing his way out of the indie realm into big budget creature features.  This is one of those films that screams old school, and shoots like it too.

--Robert L. Castillo          

What's on Redbox?--The Innkeepers--Goon

Before the movie began there was a note, a screen that read “For optimal sound reproduction the producers of this DVD recommend that you play it loud”.  No movie ever told me that before, which is only the beginning of why “The Innkeepers” is a horror film like so few are now, it takes chances at pushing tension and the build-up of possible but not guaranteed terror, over actual jump scares and gore.  Director Ti West (House of the Devil) embraces films of the 70’s where it seems like not much is going on, and the girl who’s looking for things that are going ‘bump’ is taking that ever so slow walk down that creepy hallway that seems to go on forever.  The story centers on two twenty-somethings Sara Paxton as Claire and Pat Healy as Luke who are working the day and night shifts on the last weekend before The Yankee Pedlar Inn closes its doors. The whole movie feels very unconventional, with its tone, its awkward dialogue, and the reliance on the score to keep you unnerved.  Overall it worked for me, though it may not be for everyone as I said, there is not much in the way of originality here, but it does what it was intended to do.  So on a late night, turn your lights way down and your sound way up and check out “The Innkeepers”.

If you wanna see the best and funniest rip-off of Rocky ever, you could do worse than see “Goon” a very loose take on a true story of a bouncer turned minor league hockey player.  Sean William Scott plays Doug Glatt a not too bright tough guy who stumbles into a sport where his only job is to beat people up.  He takes to it much to the disappointment of his parents.  It’s a very entertaining movie, the team scenes are funny, the relationship scenes with Scott and Alison Pill (Scott Pilgrim vs. The World) are very cute, and some of the fighting is pretty brutal.  There is a great scene where Doug confronts his family about his career choice that got me a little choked up, and the buildup to the big fight between him and aging goon Ross Rhea played brilliantly by Liev Schreiber (Scream) is much like the journey of Apollo and Rocky to the ring.  There is even a “Heat” like encounter between the pair of goons in a dinner, good stuff.  The film shows some pretty good acting chops by Sean William Scott who looks to be trying to shake the Stifler persona.  If he takes more roles like “Goon” he will be well on his way.   

Robert L. Castillo

A Commentary on Commentaries

When I was young I would always love to watch the behind-the-scenes shorts that they would show on TV right before a film was released in theaters.  Whether it was “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, “Beverly Hills Cop II” or even “Jaws: The Revenge”, I would eat those things up, I would record them on VHS, and re-watch them both before and after the movie came out.  Later these behind the scenes bits would be put on the DVD’s of these films as a special feature.

The next evolution of behind-the-scenes in the early days of the DVD, was the audio commentaries.  It’s something that most average DVD, now DVD/BluRay buyers never look at or treat as a reason to buy the disc in the first place.  I always thought of them as good ways to get a little more insight into a movie you love or way to watch the film with its creators/actors where they are not confined to a five minute chat about their movie like in a late night talk show, they have to endure the entire film start to finish.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, other times and to be completely honest most of the time they end up just describing what’s happening on screen with sometimes telling stories about the scenes, these can be boring and can turn you off to the commentary track all together.

Early on almost every movie had a running commentary, the first DVD I ever bought “Analyze This” had a commentary.  It featured Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro talking as the movie played, which went about like you would expect, Crystal trying to be funny for 100 minutes and De Niro grunting a ‘yeah’ or ‘no’ every now and then but mostly counting the seconds to get the hell out of there.  However this was not the first commentary I ever heard, the first to get me interested was on the extinct Laserdisc system from the 1997 Kevin Smith film “Chasing Amy”.  It featured commentary by Smith, producers Scott Mosier, Bob Hawk, actors Ben Affleck, Jason Mewes, exec Jon Gordon, and historian Vincent Pereira. It was a lot of people for a one audio track, but the best moments of it are Smith and Affleck, they are hilarious through the entire track, the others tell some relevant stories, but the humor and good natured ribbing by Smith and Affleck is awesome.

To me the best commentaries are the ones that either take you further into the movie making process like “Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring”, or John Carpenter’s “The Thing” with a Carpenter/Russell commentary track, or there are ones that treat the viewing like their own personal MST3K (Mystery Science Theater 3000) where they poke fun at the films as well as themselves like David Fincher, Brad Pitt, and Edward Norton do in “Fight Club” and Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renee Zellweger, and Cameron Crowe laugh for hours in “Jerry Maguire”.  Another classic commentary is a classic itself, “Ghostbusters” with a track by director Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis, and Joe Medjuck.

Then there are commentaries that are so special that they can be even more educational or at times more entertaining than the film itself.  Some of my favorites are films like “The Usual Suspects” track with director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie as they wax intellectual about their masterpiece and nit-pick the hell out of it as well. The “Stir of Echoes” track has writer/director David Koepp treating it like a filmmaking 101 class, it’s great.  There are geek commentaries like Tarantino on “True Romance”, his story of the origin of the Walken/Hopper scene makes it even more memorable.  “Dark City” and “The Matrix” has several different interesting tracks.  “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn” is pretty good, “The Zero Effect” is a fun one as well as “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” with Val Kilmer and Robert Downey Jr. making fun of, everything.  If you want to laugh, check out the commentaries for “Tropic Thunder” or “Pineapple Express”.  The afore mentioned Kevin Smith films have multiple commentaries, so good in fact that a huge portion of his career now is just that, ‘talking’ on podcasts.

What brought all this back to my attention again was that I watch very little of the commentaries anymore, most are too technical or the speakers tend to play it safe and can be very politically correct.  However, recently I watched “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengance” the sequel to the horrible original “Ghost Rider” starring Nicolas Cage.  This version was very B-movie-esque, which is fine, it works for the film and for Cage who gets to be a little crazy.  What I found totally worth watching was though was the video commentary by directors Neveldine and Taylor.  The pair walk you through the movie, praising the greatness and insanity that is Nic Cage, they pause at certain scenes and show a behind-the-scene clip of how the effects were created, they slow-mo a shot of a stunt man breaking his ankle, they make fun of the silly moments in the film as well as the short-comings of the script, they lust after actress Viloante Placido, and most importantly they show their love for making movies, even if it’s not intended to win Oscars.

There are plenty that I have not mentioned and after doing a little research myself, I found that there are several top ten best commentary tracks of films that I didn’t even mention or have seen.  So I will seek them out and try once again to see an old movie in a new way.  You should give it a try, you might like it.

--Robert L. Castillo               

Rock Of Ages

1987 was a memorable year for me for many reasons. The biggest reason was it was my first year of High School. It is hard to forget your High Schools days and the music that surrounded it. I remember the first Guns N’ Roses album and all of the other hair bands of the late eighties and early nineties that thankfully seem to never die. With all the musicals out there it was only a matter of time before someone made a musical of that era and that music. With its beginnings on Broadway and its success, it just made sense to bring “Rock of Ages” to the big screen.

         Sherrie Christian (Julianne Hough) is just a small town girl, living in a lonely world; until she decides to take the midnight bus to Hollywood. She has visions of becoming a singer, and is immediately taken in by the bright lights and the big city. Sherrie finds a job at “The Bourbon Room” where she meets Drew (Diego Boneta), who is a busboy there. Drew is a city boy, who was raised in Los Angeles and is just waiting for his band to get its big break. When Sherrie and Drew meet, it is love at first sight, but can their relationship survive as they chase their dreams? Drew and Sherrie’s boss is Dennis Dupree (Alec Baldwin), who always seems to be flanked by Lonny (Russell Brand), no matter where he is. Dennis is in dire need of money, or risks losing his famous club, because there are people who want to clean up the area and consider “The Bourbon Room” the cause of it all. Those people are the Mayor Mike Whitmore (Bryan Cranston) and his ultra conservative wife Patricia (Catherine Zeta- Jones), who might have other reasons why she dislikes Rock and Roll so much. Dennis gets Stacee Jaxx (Tom Cruise) to play “The Bourbon Room” as a final performance with his band Arsenal, in an effort to save the club from its end. Can “The Bourbon Room” be saved? And will Drew and Sherrie’s romance survive their dreams? These and other answers will all unfold to the sounds of classic rock.

                 I want to say “Rock if Ages” is a good movie that everyone would enjoy, unfortunately I cannot. The music is fun and I found myself singing along more than a few times to music I love to this day. I just know that this movie isn’t for everyone, but to people who grew up with this music, you will have nothing but a good time, remembering the music of your youth. All of the actors sing the songs, including Tom Cruise who plays a perfect rock god who has lost touch with what made his music special. I really feel like this movie will have a lot of thirty plus in the audience, who will be tapping their feet and singing along, and not many people in their twenties and below. Every generation has their music and to the generation below they don’t understand it, and to the next generation it is just old. My generation will enjoy this movie, because of the music and nothing more. So go see this movie and relive a time when hairspray was as important as the music you played, because I know you will have a good time.

 Brian Taylor

Prometheus--Review

          I will start off by saying, that Prometheus is a beautifully epic, masterfully shot, and brilliantly scored sci-fi film that is totally worth seeing.  Yes, there is a “however” coming.  However, I had a lot of problems with it.  First, let’s look at some of the history leading up to this film, which as a geek, you kinda have to.  Way back in 1979 director Ridley Scott brought to the screen a film that defined alien films, so much so that it proudly holds the name “Alien”.  Starring a young Sigourney Weaver as Ripley an officer aboard a ship that encounters a life form on another planet that (spoilers for this 30 plus year old movie) starts to take out the crew.  It is considered a classic that spawned an awesome sequel directed by James Cameron, and a few more not so great sequels, and I have to mention but I try to forget the horrendous ‘AvP’ films.  If you don’t know what AvP means, I wish I was so lucky.

Prometheus, when it was announced started the internet a buzzin’, was this an Alien prequel, was it not?  To me none of this was too important, I just wanted to see a film that lived up to that amazing teaser trailer.  I don’t want to give away too much of the story as it will spoil too much as the more recent trailers already have, so I’ll just say that a group of scientists go looking in space for beings that may or may not have created the human race.  For the most part I was not disappointed, what I wanted to work really did, the movie was amazing to look at, the ideas presented were big and interesting, the effects and some of the gore are fantastic.  They even managed to one-up the chest bursting scenes from the other Alien films.   One thing though with the appearance of Guy Pearce in the film, it does seem that the effect of making someone look ‘old’ has not progressed much since 1985’s “Back to the Future”.  Michael Fassbender as the synthetic life form David is incredible, and is by far what I will remember the most about the film. Noomi Rapace and the rest of the cast don’t add much to the story, but I don’t blame them.  That rests on the filmmakers.  The average movie going audience doesn’t really care about all of those things though, they just want a really good sci-fi movie.  And you get one here, only not much else.  What did not work I mostly attribute to the sloppy writing by John Spaihts and Damon Lindelof.  Again some big ideas are presented, and pretty much none of them are present or addressed again throughout the narrative, and some beats look to be shoehorned in, like a checklist for anyone coming to see more of what they saw in other Alien films.  It also did not feel like any chances were taken here.  Maybe it’s been so long since Ridley Scott has played in this sandbox, but where he does seem right at home visually, the good storytelling elements were lacking.  There are moments that literally had me thinking I am going to see something amazing here, which turn into seeing something straight out of a B-horror movie.

  I think audiences will enjoy Prometheus for the most part, and I do feel that I had more fun talking afterward about the ideas presented in the film than I did actually watching the last half unfold.  I admit, I wanted more, and maybe I wanted too much, or more like I expected too much from a film that is trying to re-launch this dying franchise.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect to have every question answered for me and I don’t want to have the entire story all lead up to the doorstep of the original, but after you see the film and think about it for a bit, you will see plot holes bigger than that space that no one can hear you scream in.

--Robert L. Castillo

The John Carpenter Decade

Carpenter: Constructed Classics

or The Thing called Starman that wanted to Escape from New York in The Fog that could mean Big Trouble in Little China for Christine and The Prince of Darkness if They Live

          When I was a kid there were things that scared me, creepy noises in the night, snakes, and the elderly.  However there were images that were put into my head by certain films that stayed with me into adult hood, some of them terrified me.  Some of them were put there by John Carpenter.  The director’s filmography spans decades, but the most interesting of his films were released in and around the 1980’s.

The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), They Live (1988).

Everyone knows about the “Halloween” movies, there have been nine films to carry the “John Carpenter’s” Halloween name.  Most people have seen at least one if not most of them.  The original from 1978 is still by far the best, with the music, the style, and the tone that it brings to the screen.  Even watching now by today’s standards of “Saw”-like films where you see every bloody mess-of-a-kill, there is something about seeing so little blood and gore that can be unsettling.  Carpenter understood that just as Hitchcock did before him.  The less you show and more you imply, the more the audience will have to use their imagination, which is indeed more terrifying.

From there Carpenter did some TV work including a fantastic Elvis bio-pic that began his friendship with actor Kurt Russell who together did some of their best work.  Then in 1980 he released The Fog, which carried his signature style camera work, jump scares, and eerie self-composed score.  In a plot that on paper, sounds straight out of a Scooby Doo cartoon.  Ghost pirates coming back from the dead to terrorize a small town, which use, you guessed it, a fog.  It could have been silly but it has some genuine frights even mixed with some of the 80’s cheesiness.  After that film he created a cult classic with afore mentioned Russell in “Escape from New York” about world renowned criminal Snake Plissken who is forced to save the president who has crash landed on the wrong side of Manhattan.  Russell is bad ass as this iconic character, in this gritty failed utopia of the future.  This is where Carpenter’s politics are most prominent, as well as his anger about the issue of government control over the people it governs.

His next film which still to this day is my favorite of all his films is “The Thing” based on the film “Thing from another world” which in turn was based on short story “Who goes there?”  Set in the artic as a research group gets involved with a life form that has been dug up and thawed out and begins to tear the group apart from within.  This is another glimpse in to the psyche of Carpenter in as much it is a question of identity in a group where everything should be obvious is now not so.  Again teaming with Kurt Russell as MacReady the group fights for survival in set piece after set piece that continue to one up themselves, from sled dogs getting torn apart to a nightmare defibrillation scene.  And while the stop motion effects do feel a little dated, the practical effects and the incredible amount of tension more than make up for it in a film that is both terrifying and timeless. Also if you pick this one up on Blu-Ray, it looks beautiful, like it was filmed last year instead of 30 years ago.

The next couple of films are still great in their own right and fit nicely into their prospective categories the possessed car in “Christine” being the horror and alien from another world “Starman” in the sci-fi.  Much like “The Thing” before them, they both explore individuality as well as the search for identity.  They don’t come into the classic category mainly because of their by the numbers approach, but they do have memorable moments and great stand out performances by their stars Keith Gordon in “Christine” and Jeff Bridges in “Starman”.

Then in 1986 Carpenter seems to have the most fun by doing something that was almost unheard of at the time but is now part of the norm in Hollywood, he smashed several genres into a wacky, funny, creepy, action-packed, completely enjoyable and his most re-watchable film to date “Big Trouble in Little China”.  Combining a western and a martial arts film was not Carpenter’s idea, but he grabbed the ball and ran it in.  Though a commercial failure it achieved cult status when I and many others discovered it on home video.  Again reteaming with Russell, Carpenter took the character of Jack Burton and made him American almost to a fault and a little of a parody.  But the lines, and the plays on stereotypes would make any Joss Whedon fan smile , this if truly one of his best films.

“Prince of Darkness” though not one of Carpenter’s best is something that should not be forgotten.  Again with a blend that not really had been seen before with the idea of genuine supernatural evil mixed with science.  There are more images that stick with you from this film than the storyline.  It’s filled with the jump-scares and creepy music, and while the idea is a little silly there are moments that can unnerve the hell out of you.  I think Carpenter found a better way to tell this kind of story while still displaying his talents as a great filmmaker that began with “The Thing” and ended in 1995 with the underrated and at least to me still kinda hard to watch with the lights off “In the Mouth of Madness”.

The previous three films Carpenter considers his “Apocalyptic Trilogy” however one that I would tack on to that train is his 1988 film “They Live” starring Rowdy Roddy Piper as a drifter who stumbles across a pair of sunglasses that enable him to see the global and mostly successful takeover of the human race by aliens.  Most people, who don’t know the movie, know the things that have been spoken or parodied from it, like the sunglasses that see things as they are, in black and white, and the overly long but awesome fight scene between Piper and Keith David.  Writing under a pseudonym Carpenter displays his usual genre blend of horror, sci-fi and dark humor along with his distaste of at the time modernism of classics, and the rampant mindless consumerism of America.  I do have to admit that watching it as adult the image of a dollar bill when seen through the eyes of the sunglasses reads “This is your God” really spoke to me, as heavy handed as it is.  And of course who can deny one of the greatest lines in movie history, yes, I’m going to write it with pride.  “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass…and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

Overall and up to this point (not counting him out yet) John Carpenter has cemented his place in history as a phenomenal filmmaker that has given the world of cinema some great films.  Even though the 90’s were not kind, with the unforgettable “Memoirs of an Invisible Man”, the probably unintentionally funny “Village of the Damned” remake, the almost unforgivable sequel “Escape from L.A” and the not so great “Vampires” (I’m not ashamed to have it on my DVD shelf) Carpenter might still have something left in the tank.  I have not seen “The Ward” though didn’t hear much good about it, however the best part of his career is that we can go back to discover and re-discover his films, I am currently going back to 1976 to see the original “Assault on Precinct 13”.  I didn’t care much for the remake but I know without a doubt that I will see something special in the hands of one of not just one of the masters of horror, but a true master.

--Robert L. Castillo

Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted

         Every studio is always looking for that next great franchise. It is built in money for them, and if it is done right people will always go to what they know. Animated movies are perfect franchises, so if the first one is a big hit, you can expect as many you will pay to see. In 2005 we met four zoo animals who escape and make their way to Madagascar. After a trip to Africa in 2008, we catch up with our friends once again trying to get back home.

             This time around we find Alex (Ben Stiller), Marty (Chris Rock), Melman (David Schwimmer) and Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) in Africa after they found that they can still be wild. The penguins have gone off to Monte Carlo to get rich and Alex and everyone else must find them in order to get back to New York. Once in Monte Carlo the crew gets the attention of animal control led by Captain Chantel DuBois (Frances McDormand), a woman who does not love animals. With the help of the penguins everyone escapes and hides with a traveling Circus, which just might be their ticket back home. Alex and the gang help reinvent the Circus, now all they have to do is avoid Captain DuBois and animal control.

       The great thing about animated movies now, is that they are made for both adults and kids. Studios understand that parents with bring their kids, but if they enjoy it as well, they don’t mind coming back again. Madagascar 3 is nothing special, but at the same time it doesn’t stray from the formula that has worked so well the first two times. The old saying “If it isn’t broke, then why fix it?” fits perfect with this franchise. The third film, like the first two was co-written by Eric Darnell, with some help on this one by Noah Baumbach ,(yes that Noah Baumbach). The story remains the same, four zoo animals out in the wild trying just to get back home. The penguins once again provide the most laughs, with their ever seeming being one step ahead of everyone else. Madagascar is easy to enjoy and have fun watching, but I will say I think we might be running out of ‘all they want to do is get home’ stories. There are parts of this one that drag and are not that funny, but still for the most part it is watchable. So parents just do what your kids are going to want you to do this weekend and take them to see Madagascar 3, you will enjoy it, and they will enjoy it. The one thing though at the end I bet you won’t be saying is “I can’t wait till the next one”, but trust me there will be one.

 Brian Taylor

Flashback Corner--Cloak & Dagger

“I want you to infiltrate their seventh level.  And go to their vending machine.  Pick me up a pack of Twinkies.  There’s a secret message inside.”

Most young boys dream of being heroes.  Some like me dreamt of being a James Bond type spy who single-handedly saves the country using all of the knowledge he’s gathered by age ten.  So in 1984 when I saw the film Cloak & Dagger staring the kid from E.T. running around dodging bullets, knives, and three-fingered spies, in my home town no less, I almost didn’t have to dream any longer.

The film opens in a foreign country as we follow the fictional adventures of master spy Jack Flack played by Dabney Coleman.  When we enter the real world, we see Davey Osborne (Henry Thomas) playing his games with his little friend Kim (Christina Nigra) and almost unrecognizable William Forthsythe as Morris.  When Morris sends Davey and Kim on a mission for gaming catalogues and Twinkies, Davey is witness to a murder of an FBI agent by spies.  Naturally no one believes him, including his father who is also played by Dabney Coleman.  Now the killers are after Davey since the FBI agent gave him a Cloak & Dagger video game cartridge with secret spy stuff on it. It turns into a race against time as Davey is pretty much on his own with his imaginary friend Flack to keep the game out of the hands of the bad guys.

The film over all hasn’t aged too well, it all feels a little too unbelievable even for the 80’s, what saves the entire film is the performance by Henry Thomas, his second best after Elliot in E.T.  You believe in him as a boy caught in these circumstances and you by his smarts even at age eleven.  The script was written by Tom Holland the writer /director of the classics Fright Night and Child’s Play.  The silliness creeps in with some of the clunky dialogue and the bad guys talking in exposition like an “Incredibles” villain.  Coleman does have a great line in the film about ‘real’ heroes and they don’t just shoot bad guys, but go to work and put food on the table.  I really liked that moment.  Another stand out was he music by Brian May, no, not The Queen’s Brian May, another one, it was all very distracting.  Some of the ‘march’ themes work in places, but when two people are sitting in a room talking, you don’t need an entire orchestral score going on in the background.

I did get a twinge of nostalgia from my time at the local Kroger store playing the Cloak & Dagger arcade game while my mom shopped.  And as the events unfold in the film, I felt the latter half of it still worked for the most part.  I still wondered a bit what it would be like to live that kind of heroic adventure, but now being older I strive to be the hero that just puts the food on the table.

--Robert L. Castillo