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