The Raid: Redemption--Review

Best Action Movie since…all time?

          Back in 1995 I was up watching late night cable, and there was a movie coming on I had read a lot about, some called it the greatest action movie of all time.  It was John Woo’s “The Killer” and I will admit up until that point I had seen three Lethal Weapons, three Die Hards, almost every Bruce Lee movie and several Kung-Fu flicks.  But this was indeed the greatest piece of action cinema I had ever seen.  That charged up feeling it gave me at three o’clock in the morning that kept me up for hours later was incredible.  Since then the last time I got the slightest of a charge from an action movie was five years later in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”.   It was action on an epic scale compared to John Woo’s cops vs. killers.  Then came Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Tony Jaa.  All of them great in the realm of action cinema.

This new film by Gareth Evans “The Raid: Redemption” gave me that long lost feeling from 1995, a charged up piece of action cinema that I not just witnessed, but experienced.  The little of plot that there is pretty much feels like a cliché for this type of film,  a rookie cop complete with pregnant wife and dark secret goes on a mission with his swat team to take down a gang lord in an apartment complex.  Things escalate quickly as they become trapped in the building and the crime lord announces to the tenants over the intercom that whoever kills the uninvited cops will have protection for life.  This starts a barrage of action set piece after action set piece of brutal carnage between the cops vs. killers, drug dealers, and gang members all equipped with guns, machetes, and kung-fu.  There is kind of a story with almost zero character development, but it is only there so you can rest between the action scenes, otherwise you would get a heart attack.

It’s a foreign film, which means it will not be in theaters long, so check it out as soon as you can.  I also recommend you don’t watch the trailer, it does show some of the scenes of the film, but the best stuff is not in the trailer. There are things in this film that we all may have seen before, but I appreciated the director’s respect for his target audience.  We don’t always need something new, sometimes we just want what we’ve seen before done well.  If you love action movies, they truly do not come better than this.

--Robert L. Castillo      

Bully

     There is a lot of problems facing kids today as they grow up. One of the bigger problems is that a kid’s life is so transparent now, with Facebook, cell phones and other social sites, everything they do is put out in the world. The negative of one’s life being an open book is that other people can find you and harass you in multiple places now. When I grew up, if kids picked on you at school that is where it ended, you went home and life was normal. Now if a kid wants to pick on another kid they can do it at school, on the Facebook wall, on their Twitter, and their cell phone. There is almost no where safe anymore.

     The new film “Bully” tries to bring attention to a growing problem with kids today.  Now kids are taking their own lives in order to escape the constant bombardment brought on them by their peers. The film follows five kids and you see firsthand the abuse they go through at the hands of the other students in their class. You have Alex, who it seems has been picked on for so long that he thinks it is acceptable. He laughs as the other kids are punching him and it seems at time he seeks out the abuse. We also meet Kelby, whose only crime is being gay in a in small town. Kelby tries and takes the abuse believing that a change starts with just one person. Some kids get bullied and they retaliate, something Ja’Maya does one day on the bus as she brings a gun, just to scare the kids that have been picking on her. The other two kids that the film focuses on are Tyler Long and Ty Field Smalley, both who take their own lives after being bullied for so long. The film has some disturbing footage of Alex being harassed both at school and on the bus, but the more disturbing thing you will see is the denial that the school administrators have that anything bad is happening.

    The Documentary opens up your eyes to problems that a lot of people know about, but who seem to do little about. Sometimes the film isn’t as good as the message, but does that matter? After the entire message is what you want to take with you, not the camera shots or great dialogue. All of the stories seem to take place is smaller southern towns. That isn’t to say that the problems are only there, but they are harder to hide from in smaller towns, where everyone knows everyone. “Bully” is a film every child should see from age 7 to 18 because sometimes it takes a mirror in order to change someone. Take your kids to see this film and talk to them about it afterwards because in the end the one way to stop this is at home with your own kids.

Brian Taylor

  

The Cabin in the Woods

Joss Whedon has some juice with the geek world. Being responsible for “Buffy” and “Firefly” he has a big fan base that will follow him no matter where he goes. In 2012 we get a double dose of Joss Whedon written movies. The first is a little film called “The Avengers” and the second is a little horror film he co-wrote with fellow “Buffy” and “Angel” writer Drew Goddard called “The Cabin in the Woods”.  Now the title may sound a little confusing, but the film really is about a cabin in the woods, a cabin where things are set to happen for a reason.

  It starts off like most horror films, a bunch of teenagers who want to escape to a place where they can be alone and do whatever they want . Curt (Chris Hemsworth) has just the place; it seems his cousin has just bought a cabin in some woods near a lake. With the place picked out, Curt and his girlfriend Jules invite Curt’s friend Holden (Jesse Williams) and Jules’s friend Dana (Kristen Connolly) along for the trip. Everything wouldn’t be complete if you didn’t have the stoner friend come along as well and that part is filled in nicely by Marty (Frank Kranz). Everyone climbs in the RV and heads out for a weekend of bliss, one where everyone will surely have fun. On the way to a place that no GPS can find, they come upon an old gas station, where a very unfriendly man gives them directions, but tells them that they won’t have to worry about coming back. No one listens and our group makes its way to the cabin and when almost there we see that things are not what they seem. While enjoying the night, they  come upon a basement with a wide array of treasures they all start to explore. What they don’t know is that they are about to unleash a horror upon themselves and they, by means of what they discover in the basement, are about to choose their own nightmare.

     The film starts off with a “hey look at me, I am making a cheesy horror film” vibe. It appears the writers were going for this all along, and for about half the movie it works. Then, I think, the writers started to take some turns that didn’t really need to be taken and in the end they just drive us off the cliff, but not in a good way. This film has been sitting around for a year or so and you can kind of see why.  There has been a lot of great buzz building around it but like most great buzz, it kind of lets you down. No one was expecting Whedon to reinvent the horror movie, but I believed he would make something different and fun. Well he did for about half of the film and when your film is only 105 minutes, half is not good enough.

 Brian Taylor

Flashback Corner--Frailty

“Has God spoken to you yet?”

          “Frailty” is one of the many really good movies that slip through the cracks of film history for one reason of another.  Back in 2002 I saw it, and I tried to tell everyone to go and see the amazing directorial debut of Bill Paxton.  No one did.  So, I’ll just keep trying.

The film starts off with Matthew McConaughey as Fenton Meiks telling a FBI agent played by Powers Boothe the story of his brother and father and how his father became obsessed with visions of angels who told him to kill demons who were disguised as regular people.  Paxton play’s the father in the flashbacks, and is incredible at starting off as average loving father and morphing into eerie fanatic father who thinks gloves, a lead pipe, and an axe will protect him from the demons he’s meant to kill.  He’s given list of names by an angel, of people to take out and he eventually in-lists the help of his two young sons played incredibly by Jeremy Sumpter (Friday Night Lights) and Matt O’Leary (Brick) O’Leary as Fenton being the young version of McConaughey who is the older of the two brothers and truly believes his dad has gone insane overnight.  Sumpter as Adam the younger and more influential, takes his father at his word that they are demon hunters doing God’s work.

          The film plays out like the best of Hitchcock’s work, it’s creepy, unnerving, and keeps you guessing at characters motives and also whether or not Paxton’s character has truly lost it mentally.  His performance is intense and memorable.  Along with him the rest of the performances are great as well, every actor brings their “A” game to this film and as it goes on you get more and more invested in the story and the characters.  The final scenes in the film really pay off and lead to a satisfying ending.

          “Frailty” is a great thriller to watch at home on a Friday night.  It’s been ten years since its release, trust me, it’s worth your time, and you can find it on the cheap on Amazon or rent it on Netflix.  Give it a chance.  It’s Bill Paxton.  He’s one of two guys ever to be killed on screen by an Ailen, a Terminator and a Predator.

--Robert L. Castillo

American Reunion

        High school was a great time in most peoples’ lives and holds a lot of memories. High school reunions on the other hand, only serve to bring up those points in your life when everything seemed better and you seemed to have no worries. I never went to my high school reunion, but after watching this film, I am thinking I should have. From what I can tell you can go back, well at least for a weekend.

     “American Reunion” is the fourth film in the popular “American Pie” series (I don’t really count the direct to video titles) and is the best one since the first film. It’s time for the ten year reunion for one of our favorite high school classes, even though in reality it has been thirteen years since they graduated, but who is counting? As we catch up on our characters from the first films, and this time they are all back, we get to see where they are now. Jim (Jason Biggs) is still married to Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) with a kid, but their once amazing sex life is now nonexistent. Oz (Chris Klein) has his own sports show and is a “D” list celebrity who appears on shows like “Celebrity Dance Off”. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is a house husband and Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas) has lived a life of mystery. The one person who seems not to have changed a bit is Stifler (Sean William Scott) as he still lives his life like he is in high school. They meet up at a bar and start reminiscing about good times and decide that they are going to make this weekend one of the best ever. Everyone seems to fall back to who they were in high school, for good or bad, and the fun times begin.

  The great thing about this film is that all of the characters returned this time, something that didn’t happen in “American Wedding”. There is also new energy injected by writers and directors Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg, who were also responsible for the “Harold and Kumar” series. There are plenty of laughs and even a few up the ante moments that will have you crying with laughter. “American Reunion” shows you how a sequel can be done right.  It brings fun back to the “American Pie” series, a series that had looked to be  dead. After seeing this film you might be hoping that there is another slice of pie still left.

Brian Taylor

What's on DVR?

A Duck, a Turk, and some really Mad Men

“What’s on DVR?” Will be a series of mini-reviews for films/TV shows that I recorded on my DVR either because I haven’t seen or I haven’t seen them in a long time and I wanted to revisit them.

First up is “Your Highness” directed by David Gordon Green.  It was as about as funny as I expected it to be, James Franco as the noble prince was really good.  But Danny McBride is the star here and is as funny as he usually is, he has all the good lines, which makes sense since he co-wrote the screenplay.  Natalie Portman feels out of place, even though she tries to play it straight.  I see what director Green was trying to go for, but not all the jokes worked, and he has to do a lot better to top in my opinion his greatest work, “Pineapple Express”.

Next is a pair of 80’s movies that I haven’t seen since I was a kid the first is “Turk 182” from 1985 directed by  Bob Clark, the man that brought us the first two “Porky’s” and the classic “A Christmas Story”.  “Turk 182” stars a young Timothy Hutton as the younger brother of a firefighter played by Robert Urich who is injured saving a little girl from a fire, but because he was off duty and drinking the city won’t pay for his medical bills.  And after the mayor insults his brother Hutton decides to follow the mayor’s re-election trail and graffiti’s up whatever is being dedicated using the tag ‘Turk 182’.  I remember watching this a lot as a kid on cable, and I remember liking it, or maybe I just liked Kim Cattrall as the love interest.  Either way now, I found it kinda boring.  It drags and drags, the story is more compelling than the execution.  It all feels like an hour long build up to the end which I admit I still felt a tinge of nostalgia for during the final scene of the movie.  Though after watching the movie I did have a desire to watch “The Greatest American Hero” TV show starring Robert Culp who plays the mayor in “Turk”.

Next up I re-watched the 1986 movie “Howard the Duck” directed by Willard Huyck, though more famously produced by George Lucas.  It tells the story of a humanoid duck named Howard who is zapped from his planet and easy chair by a laser on earth where he is transported to and has to save the world.  It also stars Lea Thompson and Tim Robbins.  Now this was a movie I watched over and over again, probably too much as a kid.  I remember liking it because Howard was not a cute and cuddly duck from a fantasy land, he was from a real world, and he had real world problems, he was made fun of, he needed a job, and he struggled to find his place in life.  I thought he was really funny and rude, it made him stand out more than say a muppet.  After watching it now, I can see how critics and just about everyone else thought it was horrible.  And it is.  But now I would put it with mindless fun of a movie that you watch Sunday morning when you don’t want to think too much.  I still liked Tim Robbins, even though he is overly-stupid in the role.  And there is still some good line deliveries.  When my kids get older I may show it to them, who knows, maybe they’ll love it and then watch it again over twenty years later and wonder why I showed it to them.

Lastly I have finally caught up with season 4 and now started watching season 5 of “Mad Men”.  For those not watching, it’s a show set in the 1960’s world of advertising in New York.  And it follows the lives of the people in the agency, though usually centering on Jon Hamm’s character Don Draper.  And if you’re not watching this show.  Why not??  You are missing out on some great TV.  It has won the Emmy for best drama for the past four years, and you will see why watching just about any episode.  Don Draper is one of the most complex characters in television history.  I have never both loved and despised a main character in a show before, sometimes in the span of the same episode.  The show moves from the serious, to sad, to funny, to the downright surreal.  Just to give you an example of how the amazing writing of creator Matthew Weiner and company take the show, here are two lines spoken by Don Draper from one episode to the next:

“We’re flawed because we want so much more.”  “We’re ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had.” To this:

“I would have my secretary do it, but she’s dead.”

AMC is showing the show from the beginning 3 episodes at a time on Sunday mornings.  DVR them and catch up, you won’t regret it.

--Robert L. Castillo     

Flashback Corner--First Blood

“They drew first blood, not me.”

Maybe we are always more fascinated by things that we shouldn’t see.  At age 8 I saw my first rated “R” movie.  The daycare I was left at the summer of 1983 had movie day every week.  Our first trip to the Fox Theater, a second-run movie house we saw “The Secret of Nimh” kinda dark for a kids film but still a cartoon.  The second movie we saw was “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn” not a kids movie at all, but I was one of the few who enjoyed it.  The final film, final because when parents found out that we were taken to see a movie called “First Blood” and it was rated “R” we never took a field trip to the movies again.  Some parents didn’t want their kids seeing “those” kinds of movies.  The kind with guns, explosions, bad language, and for some of us we got to see exactly what the title promises, first blood.

          Released in the fall of 1982 “First Blood” directed by Ted Kotcheff starring Sylvester Stallone, fresh off “Rocky III” who decided to take a different kind of role that would eventually create a new character as popular as Rocky, his name was Rambo, John J.  The film starts as Rambo discovers that he is the last of his Vietnam Company that is alive; he wanders into a small town in Washington where the local sheriff “nicely” leads him out of town.  After being talked down to and insulted Rambo gets arrested for vagrancy, resisting arrest, and carrying a concealed weapon.  He is taken to the police station where he is further humiliated by the local cops, along with a series of flashbacks to ‘Nam, Rambo cracks and takes down the entire station of police.  He escapes into the woods where while in pursuit one officer dies, as Rambo incapacitates the rest of the group single-handedly.  Giving the Sheriff played by lovable and hateable Brian Dennehy his only warning “Don’t push it or I’ll give you a war you won’t believe.”  Which he does indeed.

          Now Rambo became a series of films that spanned over 25 years that also became a phenomenon, they even made a cartoon series called “Rambo and the Forces of Freedom”.  However after re-watching the movie today, there is a lot that stands out.  Mostly, it’s a hell of a good film.  It’s not too long, the action keeps moving, and it almost feels short.  The music by the great Jerry Goldsmith is still awesome.  Richard Crenna as Col. Trautman in the role he will forever be known for.  What surprised me the most was that (Spoilers, if you haven’t seen this 30 year old movie) Rambo never kills anybody.  The Deputy dies due to anger and negligence.  Rambo does kill three dogs, a warthog, and a few rats, but that’s it, unlike 2008’s “Rambo” where he kills…well everybody.

          As a kid too young to be watching “First Blood” it certainly made an impression, as I said I had never seen a movie like this before, so when he started stitching up his own arm wound with needle and thread my little mind exploded.  Was this possible?  It was set in the real world, it all felt like it could really happen.  I thought, could someone without the suffix ‘Bat’ or ‘Super’ in front of his name take out all these guys by himself with some twine and a knife.  That knife, which took on a whole life of its own as well.  It was incredible to see then, and as I watch it now, I long for movies like that.  Short, to the point, exciting, disguised as a message about war and what it can do to a man.  The storyline has been done to death at this point, but if you haven’t seen it in a while give it another watch, you may or may not feel the same way.  You may want your heroes to not just be cool, but to be real.

--Robert L. Castillo