A Heaping Pile of 2012 Summer Movie Reviews (Including The Dark Knight Rises)

Brave

Finally, Pixar presents its first movie with a female protagonist.  Not only is the main character a young girl, but the theme also reflects the prime gender - it's about relationships between mothers and daughters.  Set in ancient Scotland, it follows the adventures of Princess Merida, a rebellious teenager who wield a bow like Robin Hood (or that Catnip chick from "The Hunger Games") and doesn't listen to anything her mother says.  Needless to say, she does something really brash and must go to great lengths to fix her mistake.  What that thing is, I will leave to you to discover.  The advertising campaign for the movie has been great at not giving away "the big twist", so I won't either.  I will only say that it does involve magic.

Pixar has created another winner here.  It may not quite be up to the level of their most well made movies (due to some behind the scenes shake ups and shenanigans), but it is a damn sight better than "Cars 2".  Speaking from a visual and audio standpoint, it's high quality stuff, with solid 3D work on top of that.  Merida is a great role model for young girls, too.  This is one princess who doesn't need an irrefutable prophecy, a manly suit of armor and a well-trained army at her back in order to kick some ass (take that, "Snow White and the Huntsman").  "Brave" is another great offering from Pixar and I recommend it.


Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Hmmm.  When Tim Burton (as a producer) and Seth Grahame-Smith (the screenwriter, based on his novel) are attached to a movie, I get scared.  Earlier this summer they brought us the unfocused mess "Dark Shadows".  Now this.  Thankfully, "Abraham Lincoln" is a better movie than "Shadows", yet suffers from a similar malady - it doesn't quite know what it wants to be.

The novel was a much more staid, straight-laced mash up of historical fiction and vampire-killing horrificness.  The movie, under the direction of Russian madman Timur Bekmambetov, adds a third genre to the mix - slam-bang comic book action craziness, creating a movie which never quite finds its own stride and feels incomplete.  Plus, I found the first half of the movie to be rather cliched as it indulges in the typical vampire hunter movie cliches.  When the setting of the movie shifts to Abe's presidential life, I started to enjoy it more, since Abe's priorities shift from mere revenge to securing freedom for all human beings (of America, at least).  Mary Elizabeth Winstead (a screen crush of mine) and Anthony Mackey (so good in "The Hurt Locker") become more prominent in the second half, too, adding to my enjoyment.  By the time the final shot of the movie arrived, I must admit that I was a little bit hooked.  Too bad it took so long to kick in.

I also have a problem with the look of the movie.  No doubt it was shot on digital, and the way it was photographed made many scenes look like they came from a cheap shot-on-video 80's soap opera.  Other scenes (mostly the ones with CGI) looked great.  And the action sequences (most of them aren't from the book) are very hit-and-miss, which is very unlike Timur.  Usually his action stuff is pretty reliable.

Ultimately, it's a flawed-but-okay movie.  It could have been so much more.


The Amazing Spider-Man

A needless reboot?  Why yes, of course!

There's absolutely no reason they couldn't have just made this a Part 4 and brought in an all-new cast and crew to freshen up the franchise.  Nevertheless, they remade it and the end result is - not bad.  But not particularly good, either.  There is no new ground broken in this movie, but it is a solid Spider-Man tale and a decent foundation for a new trilogy of Spider-Movies.

The biggest improvement is in the casting.  Andrew Garfield is an awesome actor and makes a great Peter Parker (although his version of the character wasn't nearly as nerdy and unpopular as the character was always meant to be) and Emma Stone is absolutely perfect as Gwen Stacy.  Add Martin Sheen, Denis Leary and Sally Field and you have a great cast.  The main villain, the Lizard, was handled all wrong.  Originally conceived as a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde type of character, where the scientist Curt Connors was a good man and his alter ego the Lizard was, well, a monster, the movie presents him (and actor Rhys Ifans plays him) as somewhat dubiously creepy from the beginning, reducing him to a boring one-note villain.

Director Mark Webb comes from a background of directing dramas and romcoms, which explains why the best scenes in the movie are the quiet dramatic ones between the actors.  The action scenes and special effects are all solidly done, even though they lack the energy and imagination of the ones in the Sam Raimi trilogy, and the 3D is solid but unspectacular.  The movie is also more serious and less fun in an obvious bid to replicate the tone of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy.  This, unfortunately, is a very anti-Spider-Man thing to do and only adds to the already heavy dose of deja vu offered up by this movie.

In conclusion, some good, some bad, lots of unnecessary retreading.  It's better than Raimi's "Spider-Man 3", but inferior to "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2".


Ted

I've never been a big fan of "Family Guy".  It's made me laugh a few times, but I've always found the show to be needlessly crass, random and unfocused, too reliant on pop-culture references and far too lacking in heart and soul.  But creator Seth MacFarlane knows what he's doing and is a very successful dude.

Now comes "Ted", written, produced and directed by MacFarlane, and while it shares some of the same shortcomings of "Family Guy" it has the one thing that show lacks - a powerful, central theme that will keep this movie relevant and applicable long after "Family Guy" becomes a footnote in television history.  It's about growing up and moving on, leaving childish things behind.  While it's a very simple theme, it's well-told (if a bit overt) and doesn't subtract from the laughs.  It centers on Mark Wahlberg and his friendship with a foul-mouthed, perverted living teddy bear named Ted.  As a child, he wished for Ted to come to life.  Now, as an adult, his over reliance on his old buddy is getting in the way of his relationship with girlfriend Mila Kunis, and things need to change.

The human actors are merely serviceable to the story, nothing more (except for Giovanni Ribisi's VERY creepy antagonist).  It's Ted who's the star.  Voiced by MacFarlane and brought to life (very well) via CGI, Ted is the most well-realized character in the movie.  The jokes are hit-or-miss, but mostly hit.  Someone really needs to tell MacFarlane that merely making an obscure pop-culture reference does not make it funny - unless you're stoned.  Case in point: Wahlberg and Kunis are having dinner together, reminiscing about the day they first met.  In Kunis's vision, we see how it really happened.  In Wahlberg's vision, he remembers it as an exact recreation of the disco scene from "Airplane".  And that's the joke.  It's exactly like the scene in "Airplane".  Congratulations, you're a mimic.  And he does this multiple times during the course of the movie.  Sure, it touches on the nostalgic region of my soul, but it's ultimately just lazy storytelling.

Yet despite the "Family Guy"-isms, "Ted" is a funny movie with a solid heart, and I recommend it.


Ice Age: Continental Drift

They should have called it "Ice Age: Audience Drifts - To Sleep", haw, haw, haw.

All kidding aside, it's. . . alright, it's still kind of a snoozer.  The biggest snoozer of the series for me is still the second installment, "Ice Age: The Meltdown".  I've tried to get through that movie twice without falling asleep and have yet to succeed.  Did I also mention that computer animated movies about talking animals are really starting to wear me down?

The kids should like this one.  Scrat, my favorite character in the series (who gets less funny each time I see him), accidentally triggers a continental shift which sends our intrepid menagerie of main characters on a grand and adventurous sea voyage, where they must battle oceanic beasties and nefarious pirates.  Peter "Game of Thrones" Dinklage, as the pirate captain, seems to be having fun with role; everyone else is just, well, there.  As is the rest of the movie.

The first "Ice Age" is a classic.  The second one is a snoozer.  The third one is fun, thanks to the inclusion of dinosaurs and some great action sequences.  This new one is also a snoozer, but still better than the second one.  See it only if your kids say you must.


The Dark Knight Rises

I'm not going to touch the shooting in Aurora, Illinois.  Not yet.  I'm just going to talk about the movie at the center of the tragedy, which has now been permanently stained thanks to some gun-toting orange-haired wacko.

It's an awesome end for the trilogy.  While I thought that this was the least best of the Christopher Nolan Batman movies (too much excess plot baggage, too quick of a wrap up - psychologically speaking, some redundant action scenes, not enough Batman), it's still a Grade-A movie.  I won't be spoiling any surprises (there are many), but I will say that Anne Hathaway completely bowled me over as Catwoman.  I guess I just wasn't expecting her to be able to pull it off.  Stupid me.

See this in IMAX while you can.  It's one of the best movies of the summer.  While I still preferred the other superhero epic "The Avengers" a little bit better, this is a very close second. 

The Gate. . . Nope, the Other One (2011)

And now I'd like to present my vote for best short film of 2011.  Made (amazingly) on a shoestring budget, here's Matt Westrup's freaky sci-fi cautionary tale, "The Gate". . .



Snow White and the Prometheus 3: Moonrise Kingdom's Most Wanted

Snow White and the Huntsman

That other recent Snow White interpretation, "Mirror, Mirror" (starring Julia Roberts), gave me a severe brain hemorrhage, caused my eyeballs to explode and made blood shoot straight out of my fingertips.  Okay, that may be somewhat of an overexaggeration, but it was still a really bad movie.  So I had higher hopes when I saw the trailer for this darker interpretation of the Snow White story.  Unfortunately, it bored the crap out of me.  Visually, it's a very cool looking movie with well designed effects work, good cinematography and a very gritty palette not unlike "Game of Thrones".  Director Rupert Sanders knows how to make a good looking visual.  After all, he has an extensive background of directing television commercials, so he knows how to grab you very quicky with an arresting image.  It's too bad the movie never finds its own identity.  It's such a hodgepodge of modern fantasy movie pastiches that I was constantly thinking, "Gee, that's just like [insert fantasy movie here] - I wish I was watching that movie right now".  There's a helluva lot of "Lord of the Rings" here (to be fair, though, almost every movie made in the last 10 years has ripped something from "Lord of the Rings).  There are the random, whimsical touches of a "Harry Potter" movie, the darkly inventive creatures of a Guillermo Del Toro movie ("Pan's Labyrinth", etc), the mucky danger of "Game of Thrones", and an entire sequence taken almost verbatim from Studio Ghibli's "Princess Mononoke" (except this scene ends with a flying arrow rather than Mononoke's flying bullet).  Only more half-hearted.

The same goes for the characters.  While many of them are played by talented actors, none of them are ever fully realized.  Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen comes closest to being a real character, but her one-dimensional nature and random outbursts of hammy shouting (which sent the audience into fits of giggling) kind of kill any progress in the realm of three-dimensionality.  And don't get me started on Kristen Stewart.  What kills many acting performances for me is one, simple thing - dead eyes.  I can't stand watching performances where absolutely nothing is going on behind the eyes.  Stewart used to be a good actress in the pre-"Twilight" days, but since then. . . blank and unengaging.  It gives me the creeps.  And she's the main character we're supposed to root for.

She gets to make a "rousing" Richard III-style speech to her troops before they go into battle (as seen in "Braveheart", "Lord of the Rings", "Gladiator", ad nauseum).  It's a terrible speech.  The audience I saw the movie with was laughing.  Her troops weren't cheering because the speech was any good or because she had any charisma, they were cheering because she was "The One" who was prophesized to destroy the evil that was plaguing the land.  "Barbarian Queen" was a better female empowerment movie than this weak-willed sludge.

And don't get me started on the whole prophecy aspect of the movie.  At the beginning of the movie, she (and we) are told that she is the fairest in the land who will one day overthrow the evil queen.  And she does.  Zzzzzzzzzzzz.  If you're going to insert one of those tension-killing prophecies into your narrative, at least have the smarts to change it up a bit and do something original with it (i.e. "The Matrix").  Otherwise, just leave it out.

I didn't like it.  But, as I stated earlier, it's still a far better film than "Mirror, Mirror".


Prometheus

Okay, I spent way too much time on "Snow White".  Now it's time to take a look at another movie that I found to be disappointing in some very big ways, but still managed to hold together well enough for me to recommend it as a worthy viewing experience.

[Spoiler Alert]

Yes, it's a prequel to "Alien".  Taking place about 30 years before the events of that film, "Prometheus" is not a monster movie but a hard sci-fi/horror exploration of the origins of human life and the fundamental aspects of the relationship between Creator and Createe.  Based on H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness", "Prometheus" is at its best when wallowing in dark atmosphere or giving us fleeting glimpses of The Unknown.  The horror sequences are very strong, too.  Intense and freaky, they churn the stomach as well as raise the hairs on the back of your neck.  Visually and aurally, the movie is fantastic as well.  The IMAX 3-D presentation was stellar, and the score knaws at you in subtle, unexpected ways.  It's been way too long since Ridley Scott ventured into science fiction territory, and it's great to have him back.

On the other hand, the movie leaves you with an overabundance of questions.  Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing.  Normally.  Would it surprise you to know that one of the showrunners of "Lost" wrote this movie?  No?  Then expect to leave scratching your head.  While, in the end, the unanswered/unsatisfying questions of "Lost" were overcome by the strong characterizations of the cast, the characters of "Prometheus" leave a little more to be desired (except for Michael Fassbender as David the android, a character as enigmatic as the plot itself).  It seems to me that there are large chunks of character footage missing from the film.  This, indeed, seems to be the case as a Director's Cut of "Prometheus" has been confirmed for release in a few months time, featuring over a half an hour of cut scenes.  The characters just didn't gel for me, therefore making it hard to really care about the bigger questions proposed by the narrative.  Plus, the characters just kept doing really stupid things, which was really frustrating.

Overall, I recommend it.  If you can live with the flaws, it's a ride worth taking.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

Animated movies featuring talking animal characters are starting to wear thin.

Nonetheless, I'm not over them yet.  And here comes chapter three of DreamWorks Pictures non-Shrek franchise, featuring a different set of locations and a some new characters voiced by celebrity guest stars.  I really have little to say about this movie other than this - if you enjoyed the two previous movies, you will enjoy this one.  Actually, it surprised me to find out that it was just as good as the first two because the trailers were so flippin' awful.  But it's fine.  There's plenty of off-the-wall humor, fast paced action and bright, pretty colors, ooooooh...

And, as usual, the penguins steal the show.

If I were to rank the three films, I would have to say that the second film in the series ("Escape 2 Africa") is the best one (it's actually got some emotional heft to the story), but they're all on an equal plain, quality-wise.  And the 3-D was well done.

Not bad.


Moonrise Kingdom

Now I will use a familiar-sounding argument -

If you like the films of Wes Anderson, then you will enjoy this one as well.

Lots of people don't understand his whimsical, character-based comedies.  That's fine.  I happen to enjoy his films very much, because true character-based comedy is very hard to pull of successfully and, therefore, rarely done.  And he does it well, over and over again.

Essentially it's a story of young love and discovery, but it's presented as a madcap chase across a coastal island.  Lots of noise has been made about the big talent cast (Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Harvey Keitel), and they are all great, but it's the two main kid actors who carry the show (Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward).  They fit perfectly into Anderson's stylized vision, and the whole movie is a sweet, satisfying and very funny night at the movies.  It's one of the best movies of the summer and, I think, one of Anderson's best movies, period (right up there with "The Life Aquatic", "Rushmore" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox).  I highly recommend this.  Well, if it's your kind of thing. . .

The Wrath of Godzilla, Part 14: Reincarnation

Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth (1992)

Originally known as "Godzilla vs. Mothra", this became the highest grossing Godzilla movie in Japan, a record which still holds today.  A new director, Takao Owara, stepped in to take the helm while the writer/director of the previous two entries, Kazuki Omori, merely provided the script.  With series stalwarts Koichi Kawakita (special effects) and Akira Ifukube (score) backing him up, Owara created a fun, fantasy-laced monster romp.

A meteor strikes the Earth, causing rampant climate upheaval which uncovers a giant egg on Infant Island.  An Indiana Jones-like treasure hunter is sprung from jail in order to lead an expedition to find the egg, a joint venture between the Japanese government and the Maritomo corporation.  After braving dangerous jungles, flimsy rope bridges and raging rivers, the adventurers locate the egg, as well as the egg's two tiny faerie guardians known as the Cosmos (Series 2's version of the Twin Beauties).  Their purpose in life is to keep the natural order of things in balance - as well as lay out the backstory -

Long ago, a powerful and technologically advanced civilization ruled the Earth.  They created the giant moth Mothra to be their protector as well as a machine that was able to control the planet's climate.  Mother Earth didn't like this new development and created a giant moth monster of her own - Battra.  Battra set out to destroy the people, but Mothra rose to their defense.  In the ensuing battle, Battra was defeated, but not before the climate machine was destroyed, causing a massive flood which wiped out the ancient civilization.  Mothra and Battra, shrugging their insectoid shoulders, decided to sleep until something else came along that was worth fighting for.

The chaos caused by the meteor (which is described as the match that set off the environmental instability created by the pollution of mankind) wakes Battra from the bottom of the ocean floor.  Godzilla is also freed from beneath the bulk of Mecha King Ghidorah, but reliable psychic Miki Saegusa is on the case and warns the powers-that-be of his imminent return.  The Maritomo corporation, meanwhile, decides to ship the giant Mothra egg to the mainland for exploitation purposes.

Battra, in larval form, reaches land and destroys both the city of Nagoya and all military opposition.  Soon after, Godzilla arrives to harass the ship carrying Mothra's egg, causing it to hatch.  After a brief tussle at sea, the Battra larvae also enters the fray.  After slapping aside larval Mothra, Battra takes on Godzilla and the two of them get sucked into an underwater volcano.  In order to compensate for the loss of Mothra, the Maritomo corporation kidnap the Cosmos and bring them to the mainland, followed by our heroes (Indiana Jones-guy and the government people).  The Cosmos sing the "Mothra song" and the giant grub comes running, cutting a swath of destruction through town.  Miki Saegusa uses her ESP to locate and rescue the Cosmos (Cosmoses?  Cosmosii?).  Mothra settles down and builds a giant cocoon in the middle of Tokyo.

Mt. Fuji then erupts, belching out Godzilla and Battra, now in adult form.  Adult Mothra emerges from her cocoon in a pretty, ethereal light show.  After an aerial dogfight, Battra shoots Mothra down then turns on Godzilla, who stumbles into the fight.  Battra drops a building on Godzilla's head, but it's not enough to keep him down.  He retaliates and gives Battra a merciless pummeling.  Mothra comes to Battra's rescue.  The two giant moths form a temporary truce and gang up on the big lizard.  Battra knocks Godzilla down with a ferris wheel, and the two moths attempt to carry him out to sea.  On the way, Godzilla bites into Battra's jugular.  Godzilla and the dying Battra fall into the sea together, sinking to the bottom.

Mothra returns to pick up the Cosmos.  It seems that Battra was meant to fly into space and destroy a large meteor before it annihilates Earth in 1999.  Mothra decides to take up the cause and, with the Cosmos in tow, flies into outer space to fulfill Battra's mission.

This is another great film in a series of great films.  The monster action is furious and exciting, the human storylines are never boring (centering on the Indiana Jones-guy and his relationship with his ex-wife and daughter), and the score by Ifukube is, of course, The Shit.  There's a greater sense of fun and fanciful derring-do in "Godzilla and Mothra" than in the past entries, making it stand out from the pack.

And here's the song "Mahara Mothra".  It's basically the 90's remake of the original 60's version by Ifukube.  It became a #1 chart topper in Japan in 1992.

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

Don't let the title fool you.  This is not a sequel to 1974's "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla".  American distributor Sony/TriStar merely added a "II" to the title to separate them.  It only added to the confusion.

The father of Godzilla, Ishiro Honda, was originally meant to direct this, but he passed away in 1993.  So   director Takao Owara returned from "Godzilla and Mothra", with fresh screenwriter Wataru Mimura brought in to supply the script.  Koichi Kawakita (spfx) and Akira Ifukube (providing one of his best scores) also returned.

Japan's Counter G Bureau, in charge of anti-Godzilla countermeasures, created a ship called the Garuda to defend the planet.  Then they recovered the remains of Mecha King Ghidorah, retrofitting his future-based technology to create their own giant robot defender, Mechagodzilla.  Garuda, now obsolete, was mothballed, but this didn't stop it's creator and pilot Aoki, who continued to dote on the ship like an old mother.  Unfortunately, against his wishes, he's transferred to G-Force where he is to train to become a pilot for Mechagodzilla.

On an island in the South Pacific, a cooperative Japanese/Russian expedition finds a giant nest with two eggs, one unhatched and glowing red from the inside.  The scientists are soon attacked by the giant mutated pterodactyl Rodan, who is shortly defeated by the one-and-only Godzilla.  In the ensuing rabble, the scientists make off to Kyoto with the glowing egg, where it's taken to the Counter G research center for study.  Aoki visits the egg on the same day as psychic Miki Saegusa (he's obsessed with pteranodons - he even has a personal pteranodon-shaped hover bike).  For those with keen eyes, look for an appearance by the actresses who played the Cosmos in the previous movie, playing ESP students.

Miki senses a strange music coming from the egg - which hatches, revealing Baby Godzilla.  Apparently, the hatched egg belonged to Rodan and was "parasite egg" placed into the Godzilla nest by its mother.  Godzilla appears in Kyoto, following the egg.  Mechagodzilla is sent out to do battle with its plasma grenades, synthetic diamond skin, energy beam, paralyzer missles and shock anchor.  MG soundly beats Godzilla - then short circuits and keels over.  The army steps in to attack G with Masers (!) while Miki and the others put Baby Godzilla in a room which isolates ESP signals.  Godzilla loses track of Baby, destroys Kyoto tower, and leaves.

Aoki is demoted for not returning in time to pilot Mechagodzilla, so he goes back to his precious Garuda, and even manages to convince his superiors to modify the Garuda to interact with MG and become a secondary power source.  While Mechagodzilla is being repaired, Baby Godzilla is given his own isolated habitat for study.  His eyes glow red when he's agitated and he engages in all sorts of cute hi jinks, but he's never cloying or obnoxious like Minilla was in the original series.  He's a miniature Godzilla.  Counter G plans to use him to lure Godzilla to an island where the repaired Mechagodzilla can take him out (scans on Baby Godzilla reveal a second brain halfway down the spinal cord - they plan to destroy Godzilla's own second brain).

Then Rodan recovers from his first battle with the Big G.  He mutates into Fire Rodan and now has the ability to shoot a red hot heat beam from his pecker.  He steals Baby Godzilla from Counter G, with Mechagodzilla (Miki on board to pinpoint the second brain) and the Garuda (piloted by Aoki) in pursuit.  Garuda gets into a dogfight with Rodan but is shot down, so Mechagodzilla steps in and beats down Rodan.  Godzilla shows up late for the party once again, and Round 2 of the G vs. MG fight begins.  It's a draw until the Garuda revives and merges with MG.  Super Mechagodzilla pummels Godzilla to the ground then uses the G Crusher (and Miki's reluctant psychic help) to pierce G's spinal cord and fry his second brain (ouch).  Godzilla is paralyzed, but Rodan wakes just long enough to transfer his dying energy to Godzilla.  Now fully healed, G vs. MG Round 3 begins - and it's a no-brainer.  Godzilla (now with a temporarily red energy beam, like Rodan's) trashes Super Mechagodzilla, with the human occupants barely making it out alive.

Godzilla then approaches Baby Godzilla.  Miki uses her ESP to tell Godzilla that they will give him Baby without a fight.  After a tearful farewell with his human keepers, he heads out to sea with Daddy Godzilla.

Originally, Godzilla was meant to die at the end of the movie. Rodan wasn't in the original script, so in the climax Mechagodzilla was to have killed G, who would then transfer his dying energy into Baby Godzilla, mutating him into a new adult Godzilla.  Rodan was added at the last minute to recapture some of the magic of the previous movie by having another three-way monster battle.  Rodan's part in the new movie does feel tacked on and ancillary, but it's still good to see him.

All-in-all, another strong entry in a strong series of movies.  It may be the most action-packed entry of them all and it's never boring on the human side of the story, either.  The emphasis on mecha action brings a new flavor to the proceedings as well.  Plus, yet another great Ifukube score.

Next time, it's the final two entries in Godzilla's second series.

Mini Movie Reviews: Summer 2012 Edition, Vol 1

Titanic 3D

Yup, still good.  Only now it's in 3D.  The 3D quality wasn't bad, either.

So let me get this straight - at the end of the movie, Rose changes her last name to Dawson and goes into hiding to avoid both her mother and Cal.  Her grand plan to achieve invisibility involves becoming a famous movie actress and a highly-publicized female pilot.  Hide in plain sight, I guess.


Cabin in the Woods

F'n brilliant.  The less revealed about the plot, the better.  I will say that laughs and wit outweigh scares, but horror movie fans will still go away highly pleased.  It's intelligently made and inspires much post-viewing discussion and at the same time delivers the goods and pleases the kiddies.  Thank you Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon.


The Pirates!  Band of Misfits

Do you enjoy stop-motion animation, wide-eyed dreamers, witty humor and characters with very large eyeballs?  I do!  The folks at Aardman Animation ("Wallace and Gromit", " Chicken Run", "Shawn the Sheep") have delivered their best movie yet.  Featuring an eye-pleasing combination of stop-motion and CGI, a talented voice cast, lots of laughs for both the kids and the grown-up kids and some of the best quality 3D of the year, I thoroughly enjoyed this one.  Here there be fun!  Here there be quotable blurbs!


The Avengers

Thanks again, Joss Whedon.  The perfect payoff of the 5 previous Marvel movies ("Iron Man 1&2", "The Incredible Hulk", "Thor", "Captain America: The First Avenger"), this movie epitomizes the term "crowdpleaser".  It's pure joy to watch this movie play the audience.  In fact, the opening night audience I saw the movie with whooped and hollered with approval for durn near the entire end credits.  Speaking of end credits, be sure to stick around for not one, but two extra bonus scenes (one for the fans, one for the humor).  Funnier than most comedies, more exciting than most action movies, and with the best, most well-utilized ensemble cast I've seen in a long while, this is one of my favorite summer movies of all time.  The IMAX 3D presentation was of the highest quality, one of the better examples of both IMAX and 3D that I have ever seen.  Thank you, too, Arbor Lakes 16!


Dark Shadows

I love most Tim Burton movies, but this one was a mess.  In trying to be a genre-blender, it fails at each genre.  Not funny or witty enough to be an effective comedy, not scary enough to be a horror movie, and the characters aren't engaging enough to be a good, twisty soap opera.  The script is haphazard, with no direction and no good payoffs.  While the movie certainly looks good and has another great Danny Elfman score (not to mention Eva Green with blonde hair - grrrowwl), Johnny Depp seems as bored in this movie as he was in "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides".  It's an even worse film than "Alice in Wonderland" (but not as bad as Burton's "Planet of the Apes").  Oh well, I'm still looking forward to seeing his "Frankenweenie" remake.


Battleship

It's a miss!  Cliche characters, underdeveloped story, boring action sequences - hey, what did you expect from a movie adapted from a board game?

You know what I freakin' expected?  All I wanted was one of the characters (preferably the admiral played by Liam Neeson) to say "You sank my battleship!"  But, no, the filmmakers couldn't even manage that!  Fer cryin' out loud. . .

A couple of good special effects and action beats are not enough to make a good movie.


The Dictator

Sacha Baron Cohen is a funny dude, and this is a funny movie.  In the SBC rankings, it's way funnier than "Bruno" but not quite as good as "Borat".  It's weird, but "The Avengers" and "Cabin in the Woods" are the funniest movies of the year, even more hilarious than my favorite "true" comedy of the year, "21 Jump Street", which is also better than "The Dictator".  Got that?  If you're looking for an irreverent, politically incorrect good time at the movies, you could do worse.  I laughed quite a few times.


Men in Black 3

Or "Men in Black Cubed", like it shows on the poster.

After hearing all of the negative buzz on this movie, I went in with diminished expectations - and was quite surprised by how much I liked it.  Maybe that will change with further viewings, but right now I rank it as "Not Bad".  It's a large improvement over that chunk of dead weight known as "Men in Black 2", but not quite as good as the original.  The storyline had some freakin' large plot holes (join the "MIB" club), but there were lots of laughs, lots of cool Rick Baker aliens, a fun villain played by Jemaine Clement of "Flight of the Conchords", and a great doppelganger performance by Josh Brolin as the young Tommy Lee Jones.  The ending even effectively tugged on my heartstrings a little bit.

In summation - s'okay.


Here's a movie that's far more entertaining than "Battleship".  And scarier than "Dark Shadows".

The Top 25 Movies of 2010: Final Chapter

Here's the part where I tell you what all these people have been up to lately.


Centurion

After a couple of false starts (a horror/western and his short-lived attachment to direct "Drive"), director Neil Marshal has landed a couple of good gigs - after directing a pivotal episode of "Game of Thrones", he'll be taking on Count Dracula in "The Last Voyage of the Demeter", which centers on Drac's ocean voyage from Transylvania to London.  Can't wait!

Despicable Me

Both Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin are hard at work on "Despicable Me 2".  Renaud, unfortunately, took a little side trip to direct the dull and lifeless animated hit "The Lorax".  Come back to us, Chris. . .

The Fighter

After developing a movie based on one of my favorite video games, "Uncharted", David O. Russell dropped out to develop a couple of original movies called "Nailed" and "The Silver Linings Playbook".  "Nailed" is apparently about a woman with a nail in her head who's looking for love.  That old story.

Shutter Island

Martin Scorcese went on to release one of my faves of 2011 - "Hugo".  He also has a million other projects on his plate - "Silence", "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "Sinatra", a biopic about Ol' Blue Eyes himself.  Wait, that's only three.

The Good, the Bad, the Weird

Last year, Kim Jee-Woon released the disturbing and hard-hitting revenge/serial killer thriller "I Saw the Devil".  How do you follow up something like that?  By coming to America and directing an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick called "The Last Stand".  Fingers crossed.

Monsters

As I've previously mentioned, Gareth Edwards is currently working hard on the new American reboot of "Godzilla".  There's also a "Monsters 2" in development - without Edwards' involvement.  I'm not optimistic.

The Karate Kid

Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan are set to return for the sequel, but director Harald Zwart hasn't signed up yet.  He's currently attached to a big screen version of the fantasy novel "The Mortal Instruments".

Never Let Me Go

The sequel "Let Go, Already" should be released sometime in. . . well, never.  I'm obviously kidding.  Mark Romanek is tentatively set to direct the third "DaVinci Code" movie, "The Lost Symbol".  Maybe this one will be the good one.  Or not.

Micmacs

Jean-Pierre Jeunet is making a movie called "The Young and Prodigious Spivet".  It's about a cartographer on a road trip to visit the Smithsonian.  Sounds dull, but through Jeunet's eyes it should turn out to be interesting.

Frozen

Like I said, there's a small coda to "Frozen" in Adam Green's follow up flick "Hatchet 2".  At the moment, he's producing, directing and starring in a cult TV series about young filmmakers called "Holliston".

The Book of Eli

The Hughes Brothers (Albert and Allen be their names) will be giving us "Motor City", a hard boiled revenge thriller.  Will it also star Denzel Washington?  I dunno.

Buried

Talented dude Rodrigo Cortes brings us the maybe/maybe not paranormal thriller "Red Lights", in theaters July 2012.

How to Train Your Dragon

"Lilo & Stitch" creators Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois seem to have gone their separate ways for now.  Sanders is making an animated movie called "The Croods" about a land full of evolutionary mistakes, and DeBlois is developing "How to Train Your Dragon 2".  In the meantime, there are a couple of short "Dragon" films on DVD to keep you company.  Or you can check out the "How to Train Your Dragon" live stage show, which looks damn cool.

The Social Network

Director David Fincher followed up his Facebook hit with the film adaptation of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo".  While his involvement hasn't been announced in the "Tattoo" sequels (which are highly likely to occur), he is producing and directing the TV show "House of Cards".  I'll be checking that one out for sure.

Paranormal Activity 2

Well, "PA 3" was just released this past Halloween, and "PA 4" is due for scary season 2012.  What's Tod Williams up to, you ask (he was not involved with part 3)?  I'm not sure.  He not revealing what he's been up to lately.  Shifty bastard.

True Grit

My favorite directors, The Coen Brothers, are in production on a movie about the folk music explosion of the late '60s called "Inside Llewyn Davis".  They've also written a heist movie remake of "Gambit" and (like many other talented filmmakers lately) are developing a TV detective show called "Harve Karbo"

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Edgar Wright has reteamed with "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz" cohorts Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to make "The World's End", a movie about a bunch of guys going on a pub crawl that may somehow determine the fate of the planet.  He's also long been attached to "Ant Man", a comedic Marvel Comics superhero flick.

Let Me In

Matt Reeves has returned to direct the sequel to his first film, "Cloverfield".  Which would make it "Cloverfield 2", I guess.  And Hammer Films has continued to make scary stuff like "The Resident" and "The Woman in Black".

The Expendables

Well, "The Expendables 2" is out this summer, but Sylvester Stallone is only writing and producing this installment.  He's also starring (alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger) in the action/heist film "The Tomb", as well as "Bullet in the Head".  There are also rumors of him producing a movie about young Rambo, but I really hope that isn't true.  That last Rambo flick (um, "Rambo") was the best the series could possibly get.

Mother

Bong Joon-Ho has an interesting film in the works - it's about a train full of people who have survived an apocalyptic snow storm and their struggles to survive the environment and each other as they roll on down the tracks.  Sounds cool (heh, heh)?

Kick-Ass

Matthew Vaughn made the excellent "X-Men: First Class" directly afterwards and will be filming "First Class 2" in short order.  "Kick-Ass 2" was recently announced, but Vaughn will only be producing and co-writing it.

Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky's next film is a big budget retelling of the story of Noah's Ark.  Funny enough, it's called "Noah", and Russell Crowe will be the guy shepherding the animals onto the big boat.  I don't think there will be as much ballet dancing this time, but who can say?

Hot Tub Time Machine

Steve Pink has a couple of comedies on the way - something called "Zap Gun!" and something else called "The True Memoirs of an International Assassin", which doesn't sound like a comedy at all.

Inception

Warner Brothers is developing "Inception 2" with or without Christopher Nolan's help.  Nolan, however, has moved on.  He will be finishing up his Batman trilogy this summer with the highly anticipated "The Dark Knight Rises", and is shepherding Superman back to the big screen in next year's "Man of Steel".  He also has something to do with the Batman reboot due out in 2015.

Toy Story 3

While the "Toy Story" characters have continued onward with a couple of short films, the main story ended with this threequel.  Director Lee Unkrich is currently at work on untitled animated movie over at Pixar.


The End.  For 2010, at least.  I will be back next year with my Faves of 2011.

Oh yeah.  Here's my pick for Worst Movie of 2010.  Truth be told, there were lots of movies that I could've picked that year, I just didn't have the heart to wade through them all (I try to avoid them when I can).  Here's one I couldn't dodge.  I've already reviewed it in one of my previous Crap Lists.

Drum roll please. . .


Furry Vengeance


It's crap.

So skip that one and check out these others.

Later!

The Dragon In My Dreams

I'm a really big fan of James Rolfe and the gang over at Cinemassacre.com.  There's an infectious DIY spirit over there that inspires the heck out of me.  Plus, the Angry Video Game Nerd makes me laugh.  Not long ago they posted this rather poignant short film that I felt I should showcase.

What is is about children and their attraction to cinematic fear?  I remember being scared of so many films when I was a kid.  "Jaws" was a big offender, as was "Poltergeist", the face melting scene in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Gremlins" - damn you, Spielberg!  Even stupid scenes would make me soil by Underoos, like the scene in "Superman III" where the evil lady was transformed into a cyborg by the supercomputer, or the scene with the mutant bear cub lying in the creek in "Prophecy".  Hell, the commercial for the televised version of "Alien" sent me packing.  If a scary scene ever came up when I was watching a movie, I'd run to mommy and have her cover my eyes.  It was pathetic.

And now here I am, a major horror movie fan and longtime subscriber to Fangoria magazine.  I love scary stuff.  I think that learning to "survive" horror movies is an easy training ground on the the road to mastering the real fears of life.  Obviously this is only one way to learn to conquer your fear - there are many roads in this regard.  It always makes me sad to see parents who shelter their kids from absolutely everything that might upset them.  I know it's just their natural parental instincts kicking in, but the kid's gotta learn someday or else they'll turn into one of those self-centered, loud mouthed "extreme sports" A-holes.  No, I'm not saying you should sit down with your kids and have a "Saw" marathon, either.  Just let the kid live a little.

As for my own Dragon, I'm not entirely certain.  My first cinematic memory was of one of the banthas (the big furry elephants on Tatooine) from the original "Star Wars".  Did that inspire my love for Mr. Snuffleupagus on "Sesame Street", or my later obsession with paleontology and frozen woolly mammoth corpses in the Arctic?  Perhaps.

I think it's something else.  When I was about 2 or 3 years old I lived in a trailer with my parents in a town in northern Minnesota called Ely.  One night, my dad spotted a pack of wolves outside of our trailer, lurking in the darkness.  Against my mother's wishes, he lifted me up to the window so that I could take a look.  I remember being excited and scared all at the same time.  What I remember seeing were the black shapes of wolves against the white, snow-covered ground moving swiftly in the cold moonlight.  Even to this day, many of my nightmares revolve around dark, menacing shapes lurking just outside the light, waiting. . .

Maybe some day I will get the chance to (safely) scare the hell out of your kids.  My dreams are still a work in progress, but they will be unleashed upon this earth one day to entertainingly torment the souls of the living.  This I swear!  Until that time, I will have to torment you with my blog.

As for Mr. James Rolfe and his dreams, well. . . the "Angry Video Game Nerd Movie" is currently entering its third week of filming!  Dreams do come true. . .

The Top 25 Movies of 2010, Part 5

Kick-Ass
Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Controversial for its scenes of a foul-mouthed 11 year-old girl (Hit Girl, played by Chloe Grace Moretz) dealing out graphic deaths to nasty bad guys, "Kick-Ass" is 2010's "Watchmen", the year's razor-edged cinematic deconstruction of superhero myths.  And I like razor-edged cinematic deconstructions of superhero myths.  "Super" also came out in 2010, but I prefer the unbridled enthusiasm and rousing energy of "Kick-Ass".  Based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr., "Kick-Ass" is the story of a high school nobody (Aaron Johnson) who decides to become a superhero and fight injustice.  With the help of Hit Girl (Moretz), her father Big Daddy (Nicolas "yes, I can still make a good movie, now and then" Cage) and Red Mist (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), he gets swept up in a whirlwind of fame, comedy, pain, and an evil New York crime lord who loves the color orange.  While "Watchmen" had more high-falutin' themes on its mind, "Kick-Ass" brings it down to "the personal", as a good-intentioned innocent gets pulled into a world of highly twisted, yet honest, morality and must rise to meet "real life".  Plus, it's intended to be a good old-fashioned crowd pleaser, and it succeeds.

Black Swan
Directed by Darren Aronofsky

This is my least favorite Aronofsky film ("Pi", "Requiem For a Dream", "The Fountain", "The Wrestler").  And yet, here it is.  "Black Swan" tells the story of an up-and-coming ballerina (Natalie Portman) and the struggles she endures after she wins the coveted lead role in a New York production of "Swan Lake".  Unfortunately, the pressures of the spotlight, the relationship with her mother played by Barbara Hershey (a history of sexual abuse, maybe?), and her slimy director's attempts to bring out her inner Black Swan all add up to one thing - she goes crazy.  It's a (mostly) psychological horror movie, plain and simple.  From the gleaming darkness of the cinematography, to the disorienting sound design, to the jittery camerawork, it's horror cinema at its most jarring.  And Natalie Portman rocks, giving what, so far, is the best performance of her career.  You like her and root for her even as she goes completely nutso.  So dive headfirst into the surprisingly brutal world of ballet (ye gods) and prepare to lose your mind. . .

Hot Tub Time Machine
Directed by Steve Pink

A loving tribute to sex comedies of the 1980s, "Hot Tub Time Machine" (or "HTTM", as nobody says) follows three old friends (John Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson) as they gather at a beloved ski lodge to reconnect after Corddry apparently attempts suicide.  Sounds funny so far, no?  Cusack's nephew (Clark Duke) also tags along, and before you can say "Porky's" the four of them are whisked back to the 1980s via a malfunctioning hot tub time machine (sounds plausible to me).  Now they must make sure that all past events go exactly as they did before, or else their future lives will be destroyed.  I've always liked John Cusack onscreen, even when he's in crap like "2012".  Here he gets to riff on the movies he made in the '80s, and he's backed by a very funny cast, including Crispin Glover as a bellhop who's destined to lose an arm.  While it has a modern level of raunchy, gross-out humor, it manages to have the feel of a clunky '80s comedy, which I like.  It also has surprisingly touching moments, which are exactingly doled out to color these wacky bozos with empathy.  It's a fun movie.

Inception

Directed by Christopher Nolan

The biggest puzzle box of 2010.  On the surface it's a simple heist movie - as simple as possible when featuring a team of characters trying to plant an idea in someone's head through their dreams.  What does the ending mean?  Everyone has their theory and I have mine.  Christopher Nolan doesn't even know, he says.  Apparently it's a very personal movie for him - many of the sequences in the movie are based on actual dreams he's had.  And Leonardo DiCaprio looks an awful lot like Christopher Nolan in this movie.  Dreams versus reality, dreams versus memory, dreams as the seed of inspiration, equating the art of cinema with the dream state - all of these themes are present and accounted for, wrapped in a fluidly edited, propulsively scored narrative, accentuated with engaging performances and offered up within a pantheon of great sci-fi ideas and visual flair.  It's a movie that must be seen to be believed.

Toy Story 3

Directed by Lee Unkrich

The perfect ending to a trilogy, "Toy Story 3" brings to a close the story of Andy and his relationship with his childhood toys.  It manages to be both incredibly fun and surprisingly powerful, which those wizards at Pixar are masterful at doing.  The twist this time around is that the movie is mainly set in the "prison break" movie genre, as Woody, Buzz and the rest of the gang must escape from a hellish day care center to get back to their owner.  Featuring great new characters like Ken and Barbie, and despicable villains like Lotso Huggin Bear and the nightmarish Big Baby, the movie is a cornucopia of awesome, from its rousing opening sequence (set in the imagination of a child) to its tear-jerking climax and ending, with heaps of voice talent to boot.  The funniest sequence for me, however, is the Mr. Tortilla Head sequence.  You'll know it when you see it.  These movies tap into those childhood memories when toys were our friends and companions, and imagination was king.

The Wrath of Godzilla, Part 13: Creation

Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

After the success of "The Return of Godzilla" (a.k.a. "Godzilla 1985"), Toho Studios held a very special contest for Godzilla fans - submit a brief storyline featuring an all-new monster opponent and see your name up in lights.  The winner was Shinichiro Kobayashi, a mild-mannered dentist (okay, I made up the mild-mannered part - he might've been a raging madman, for all I know).  His creation, Biollante, was Godzilla's new star opponent, and although much of his original story treatment was ultimately changed for the final film, his monster and some of his plot points remained.  He was the envy of Godilla fans everywhere.

The film begins immediately after Godzilla's rampage in "Return".  Japanese cleanup crews scour the wreckage of Tokyo looking for Godzilla chunks, little bits of his skin that have broken off during his radioactive temper tantrum.  They're not the only ones looking for DNA, however - hired guns from the American corporation of Biomajor sneak in, steal some skin, then shoot their way out, only to get the sample stolen from them by an assassin from the made up Middle Eastern country of Saradia (who resembles the lead singer of Depeche Mode).  In Saradia, the sample lands in the hands of Japanese scientist Dr. Shiragami and his rose-growing scientist daughter.  With his help, the Saradian government wants to splice Godzilla's DNA with wheat to create a hardy new strain of grain that's able to grow in the harsh desert.  Unfortunately, Biomajor nixes this plan by blowing up the laboratory, killing Shiragami's daughter and destroying the DNA sample.

Five years later. . .

Shiragami is back in Japan and is obsessed with his rose bushes.  See, when his daughter was killed the rose bushes that she loved to tend survived, and the crazy old doctor thinks that her soul may have somehow become imprinted into the plants.

Meanwhile, Godzilla is still stuck in the volcano he was lured into at the end of "Return" (although the method that they used to lure him there - leading him on with simulated bird calls - is never used again in the series. . . maybe Godzilla got wise), but of course he won't be there for long.  In one of the most foreboding scenes in the movie, psychic kids at the Center For ESP Studies in Tokyo all have the same dream one night and are asked to draw what they saw in their dreams.  When the teacher asks to see their pictures, they all simultaneously lift their artwork into the air and, you guessed it, all the drawings are of Godzilla.  Ace physic student Miki Saegusa (played by Megumi Odaka, who plays this character in every Series 2 movie) confirms that the Big G is stirring, so Japan gets ready.  The government hires Dr. Shiragami to create a new anti-nuclear energy bacteria to use against Godzilla, so they loan him some of G's DNA to use in its creation.  Unbeknownst to them, Shiragami uses some of the DNA to keep his precious daughter-possessed rose bushes alive (it was crushed in a Godzilla aftershock tremor), creating a new Godzilla/rose bush hybrid.

The Japanese government also builds the Super X2, a new version of the fighter craft from "Return".  Now it's submersible, remote piloted, and has a new diamond mirror which can reflect Godzilla's energy beam.

After Biomajor agents and the lead singer of Depeche Mode try to steal Godzilla DNA from Shiragami's lab (the rose monster drives them off, killing an American), the Americans try a new plan - they threaten to blow up Mt. Mihara and release Godzilla unless the anti-nuclear bacteria is handed over to them.  Thanks to the Saradian agent, however, the exchange goes badly and he makes off with the bacteria - the bombs blow, the volcano erupts, and Godzilla is back, more pissed off than ever.

Now comes all the defense shenanigans.  The army attacks Godzilla.  No use.  The Super X2 engages him next.  After a long, brutal fight (the Super X2 lasts much longer than the Super X), the reflective mirror melts and the ship has to disengage.  Godzilla is then drawn to the plant monster who is part, well, him.  After the spies attacked the lab, the rose beastie moved into a nearby lake and grew into a giant gnarly rose-headed plant.  Shiragami names it Biollante, after a plant creature from Norse mythology.  Godzilla and Biollante fight - briefly.  One blast from Godzilla's beam and Biollante dissolves into radioactive pollen and floats away on the wind.  Balls.

Godzilla stomps onward.  The humans figure out that he's headed for the nuclear plant at Osaka to juice up.  Young Miki Saegusa manages to stall Godzilla for a while by hitting his little brain with her psychic powers, but she collapses from the effort.  At the same time, Japanese agents take back the anti-nuclear bacteria from the Saradians.  The extremely damaged Super X2 lures Godzilla into the heart of Osaka city, keeping him busy while the Japanese prepare a trap.  The Super X2 is destroyed, but Japanese snipers get in position and deliver the bacteria into Godzilla's system via intravenous bazooka blasts.

The bacteria isn't working.  It seems that Godzilla's temperature is too low for the bacteria to breed.  At first I thought that this was weird, given that Godzilla's heart is a nuclear reactor, but eventually I realized that Godzilla would need some kind of internal cooling system to avoid melting down.  It makes perfect sense, in a nonsensical sort of way.

The Japanese government decide to use a prototype "thunder control system" to heat up Godzilla (a giant minefield of heat inducing nodes).  Not even the awesome power of their Masers can get the monster to go where they want - until suddenly, from the sky, Biollante descends, fully formed and bad ass.  The climactic monster fight begins.  It's spectacular, it's bloody, and it doesn't end until Godzilla heats up and keels over into the ocean, succumbing from the bacteria.  Biollante then dissolves into glowing pollen and flies into space.  Miki Saegusa hears the psychic voice of a woman saying "goodbye".  Dr. Shiragami realizes it's his daughter - then gets shot by the Saradian agent.  After a brief car chase, the lead singer of Depeche Mode is vaporized when he accidentally stands on one of the thunder control system nodes as it's activated.  Oops.

Godzilla rises again.  The cool ocean water has lowered his temperature, but he no longer has any fight left in him.  He stumbles into the ocean while the world mourns over the death of Shiragami, who took the secret of the anti-nuclear bacteria with him into the grave.

This is a great Godzilla movie, far superior to "Godzilla 1985".  The action is fun, the human characters are enjoyable (there's quite a large cast), there are several stand out moments (like Godzilla's face off with one of the guys who hit him with the bacteria) as well as several cool ideas, and Biollante is an awesome opponent.  Like a cross between John Carpenter's "The Thing" and Audrey from "Little Shop of Horrors", the effects used to realize this character are stellar, even though its motivations are somewhat nebulous (which I think is the point).  The only weak point of the movie is the musical score by Koichi Sugiyama.  It's very cheesy and dated.

Kazuki Omori wrote and directed this movie.  He would be a major creative force for the rest of the series, and one of the best Godzilla directors of all time.  Unfortunately, this movie has yet to hit DVD in the United States.  You can find it online, though.

Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)

Writer/Director Kazuki Omori came back for this follow up movie, which featured the return of one of Godzilla's most popular foes.  Legendary composer Akira Ifukube also returned to the series for the first time in nearly 20 years, delivering one of his best musical scores ever.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's take a gander at what Toho has in store for us. . .

The movie picks up three years after the events of "Godzilla vs. Biollante".  A flying saucer appears in the skies above Japan (oh no, not again).  Authorities track its movements as it swoops around the country and takes a small trip to the ocean to observe the sleeping form of Godzilla, who's been resting and recuperating after becoming infected with anti-nuclear energy bacteria.  Psychic wunderkind Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka, now a 20-year old professional) keeps an ever-watchful eye on the big lizard, ready to sound an alarm the moment he wakes up.

At the same time, a hotshot young Reporter tracks a story about a possible dinosaur sighting in the 1940s.  The trail leads to a powerful industrialist named Shindo, who was the commander of a Japanese garrison on Lagos Island during World War II.  With some reluctance, Shindo reveals that a Tyrannosaurus-like dinosaur (Godzillasaur) once saved his men from being overrun by American forces during a fierce battle on Lagos.  Lagos was later used as a test site for atomic bombs, leading the Reporter to conclude that Godzilla may be the Godzillasaur savior in mutant form.

The flying saucer eventually lands and official representatives of the Japanese government go out to meet their new visitors.  Surprise!  It's not aliens this time, it's people from the future.  From over 200 years in the future, to be vaguely exact - two balding Americans and a Japanese woman named Emiko.  Within their flying saucer base is a smaller, sleeker ship that can also travel through time and comes equipped with a teleportation device.  This smaller ship comes with its very own android pilot, M-11, who looks like a balding American.  They've come from the future to stop Godzilla from totally annihilating Japan, which is set to occur very soon.  The idea for this trip through time was given to them by a little-seen book about the origin of Godzilla which will be written some time in the next few years by the Reporter.  With the Reporter, Miki Saegusa and a couple of other scientists in tow, the future people go back in time to the 1940s and visit Lagos Island.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. . . the future people have brought a couple of pets with them.  Three, to be exact.  They're called dorats, and they're genetically engineered house pets.  They're covered in gold scales, they fly with bat wings, and they can sense the feelings of people around them.  Hmmm.

It's here in the movie where we see young Shindo and the annihilation of the American forces by dinosaur Godzilla.  It's a pretty cool scene, ending with a badly wounded Godzillasaur being saluted by the Japanese soldiers before they evacuate the island.  There's also a pretty cute scene set on an American destroyer which features a young actor playing a soldier who happens to be Steven Spielberg's dad.  It supposedly explains where a couple of his son's ideas may have stemmed from.  Think UFOs and dinosaurs on islands.

The future people teleport the wounded Godzillasaur to a faraway location in the ocean.  When they return to 1992, they find that Godzilla has never existed (and yet, the events of  "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" still happened, lending credence to my theory that there were two Godzillas on the island).  "Godzilla 1985" and "Godzilla vs. Biollante" never happened - only the time travelers are aware of those events.  However, a new monster has appeared - King Ghidorah!  See, back in the past, Emiko released the dorats onto Lagos.  The atomic tests melded together the cute little pets and gave birth to Ghidorah and now the people in the future have a powerful monster they can control (I guess Ghidorah was just sitting around on Lagos twiddling his wings until the future people needed him in 1992).  Their plan - to destroy most of Japan then help it rebuild under their strict supervision.  They lied - in the future, Japan has become the most powerful nation on Earth.  Now these jealous Americans are here to fix all of that.

 Even though "Biollante" and this movie weren't released in America until the late '90s, I remember seeing a story on CNN around '91 about the controversial anti-American plot of "Ghidorah".  I never felt that was anissue while watching the movie.  The future Americans were not representatives of the American government, they were just one of those wacky extremist splinter groups.

As Ghidorah tears through Japan in spectacular fashion, future girl Emiko is dismayed.  Apparently she wasn't told the whole story and, since she's Japanese herself, decides to fight back.  She reprograms M-11 to be a good guy and leaves her balding masters behind.  Meanwhile, the good guys, knowing the location of teleported Tyrannosaur Godzilla, decide to make an all-new monster Godzilla.  Shindo happens to have a secret nuclear submarine (!), so he sends it out to re-mutate Godzilla, but whoops. . . it appears another nuclear sub capsized in the vicinity a few years ago, mutating Godzilla a little bit ahead of time.  Godzilla destroys Shindo's sub, sucks up all the powerful modern radiation levels and rises as - Super Godzilla!  He's now bigger and meaner than ever before.

The Big G heads directly for King Ghidorah - the battle begins.  Godzilla is thoroughly getting his tail kicked by the gold dragon, but Emiko and M-11 (with help from the Reporter) infiltrate the saucer base and destroy the computer that controls Ghidorah.  While disoriented and confused, Ghidorah is easily defeated by Godzilla, who blows off one of his three heads and sends his body to the bottom of the ocean.  Godzilla then turns on the saucer base and destroys it killing the Americans.  Emiko and the others barely manage to escape in the smaller ship before the base explodes.

Now Japan has an even bigger problem - Super Godzilla!  He takes over where Ghidorah left off and begins tearing through the countryside.  He eventually comes face-to-face with Shindo and, in one of the movie's most memorable scenes, creator and createe have a bit of a reckoning.  It's one of the best scenes in any Godzilla movie ever.  It's moving, it's backed by an incredible score from Ifukube, and it's very, very Japanese.

Emiko and M-11 take the smaller time ship into the future to recover Ghidorah's fallen body.  Soon they return to '92 and they've brought help - Ghidorah's body has been rebuilt as Mecha King Ghidorah!  Now piloted by Emiko herself, MKG engages Godzilla in one last fight, and it's a good one.  Godzilla still destroys the hell out of MKG, but not before MKG flies Godzilla out into the ocean, pinning him beneath his robotic bulk.  Emiko once again escapes in time and, with Godzilla temporarily out of action, she returns to the future - but not before revealing to the Reporter that she's one of his descendants.  Fin.

One of my favorite Godzilla movies of all time, it's fast paced, full of ideas both truly great and enjoyably ridiculous, and is better than "Biollante" with a greater score and more monster battles.  This is the first and only instance that time travel would figure into the plot of a Godzilla movie (to date), and it's kind of refreshing.  Great movie.

Biollante would never be seen again, but King Ghidorah returns.  Eventually.

Next time, a few more old favorites get rebooted - '90s style.

2012 Spring Bite-Sized Movie Review Round Up (Including The Hunger Games)

Yes, I will review "The Hunger Games".  Please stop bugging me.


Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace 3-D

This movie still sucks.  Now it's in 3-D.

The 3-D wasn't very well done, either.


Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

I liked this one slightly better than I did the first movie.  The best qualities of the original movie were the cool Ghost Rider special effects, Sam Elliot, and the strange "Nicholas Cage-y" character moments, otherwise I found it to be a by-the-numbers dark superhero story told in a very staid, unexciting manner.

"Spirit of Vengeance" has a more haphazard storyline and is a bit more overcaffeinated, but I found it to be more entertaining in its own B-movie way.  I recommend this movie, but with a few caveats:  1) This movie is directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor.  If you can stand their irreverent, electric directing style and think that "Crank 2: High Voltage" is one of the most brilliantly insane steaming piles of cinematic gold shat out through Hollywood in quite some time (I do), then you'll think this movie is okay - although this new "Ghost Rider" is my least favorite movie in the Neveldine/Taylor four film catalog.  2) Your Nicholas Cage tolerance.  Most of his movies lately have sucked eggs, but 1 out of every 5 is usually not bad.  Once again he provides some funny "Cage-y" moments, but the directors clearly encouraged him to go "Full Cage" in a couple of scenes, which are not unlike his performance in this infamous deleted scene from his crappy remake of "The Wicker Man" -

3) The Ghost Rider brand.  A few comic book geeks I know hate the Ghost Rider comics.  The movies try to give him more of a mainstream appeal, but it's hard when the source material isn't all that great in the first place.  4) Do you like grindhouse movies?  And 3-D movies?  "Spirit of Vengeance", like all Neveldine/Taylor movies, is a modern day grindhouse flick.  The 3-D, surprisingly, was extremely well done.  Snobs need not apply.  5) I'm just now realizing that I've spent way too much time talking about this movie and making too many caveats.  You should probably just skip it.

The twinkie scene was funny.


John Carter

Boring title.  Awful marketing campaign.  Misplaced emphasis in the press about the high budget and the resulting profit losses.  All taking focus from the fact that it's a decent movie.

I loved Edgar Rice Burrough's "John Carter of Mars" series of stories when I was a kid (even though I always preferred his "Tarzan" novels).  The first story, "A Princess of Mars" has been translated to the screen several times in the past 100 years since its first publication, and they've all been rather lame.  "John Carter" is the first translation I've enjoyed.

Time, I think, is the problem here.  It's been ripped off so many times in the past 100 years ("Avatar," anyone?) that it all seems like it's been done before.  And the creators of this film, in their zeal to start a big new franchise, have packed too much story material into this film (which wasn't in the first book) that won't pay off until a much later sequel comes along, which is unsatisfying if there's no sequel to provide said payoff (there won't be).

Too bad, because I liked it.  It's a solid film for people who like to delve into worlds of fantasy.


The Lorax

Wins the "Pirates of the Caribbean 4" award for being the most lifeless, committee-produced studio product of the year.  I nearly fell asleep during this one.  Such a disappointment, hard to believe it came from the same people who produced "Despicable Me".

Note to Hollywood:  Please stop trying to make films out of Dr. Seuss books.  It really hurts.


21 Jump Street

I've never watched an entire episode of the original series, just small bits and pieces of it.  This new film, which is a comedy, is a continuation of the series rather than a remake.  Characters from the show even make surprise appearances in this movie, providing not only laughs but fond nostalgia for old school fans.

This movie is hysterical.  I've never really liked Jonah Hill or Channing Tatum all that much, but this has definitely elevated my opinion of them.  It's a witty, self-aware film that, at the same time, isn't afraid to go for the gross-out humor.  It will be hard for another comedy to top this one in the 2012 funny movie race.


The Hunger Games

How To Assemble A Young Adult Fantasy Novel -

Take a concept that's been visited many times before in Adult Literature (wizards, vampires, werewolves, Greek myths, aliens, post apocalyptic futures where the upper class controls the lower class through popular entertainment), make it more family-friendly (if necessary), make the main characters teenagers with teenage problems, and throw a love triangle subplot somewhere into the mix.  Voila!  Young Adult gold.

All of which applies to "The Hunger Games".  But don't let that fool you because it's a really good movie.  I may be a sci-fi nerd who's seen it all before and, while I feel that this movie is just a little bit over hyped, solid filmmaking and a well-told story make this one shine brighter than most.  Jennifer Lawrence, last seen in the great prequel "X-Men: First Class", gives a truly strong star-making performance as her character grows from poor starving nobody into a two-fisted cultural icon.  She's one to watch.

My criticisms are minor - there are some sketchy special effects, and the teen actors are a bit too "Hollywood pretty" to be truly convincing as downtrodden waifs, but that doesn't really matter.  The supporting cast is peppered with familiar, talented faces, the storyline is filled with intriguing (if not entirely new) ideas, and the action is well done and involving, from a character standpoint.

Good stuff.  And, no, I've never read the books.  I may get around to it someday. . .


Wrath of the Titans

"Release the sequel!"

Do you like watching guys in metal skirts fighting giant monsters?  Then this is the movie for you.

This is another sequel that I enjoyed slightly more than its predecessor.  The "story" (if, by "story", you mean a loose framework built to shuffle the characters from one monster fight to the next) is a little less of a patchwork job than in "Clash of the Titans" (which was heavily tampered with in post production), the 3-D is good (the "Clash" 3-D was notoriously awful), it's much faster-paced (so fast it's almost slight), and it has a little more emotional resonance than the original (due to the heavily-accented father/son theme).  Sam Worthington is still likable in a down-to-earth sort of way (his Australian accent is heavy, this time), the special effects are awesome, and the fight sequences are fun.  Too bad for the lame comic relief and the laughably tacked-on love story.  But, sometimes, I'm just in the mood for a monster fighting movie.  This will do.

I still prefer the original 1981 "Clash of the Titans" to both of the new movies, though. 

And (Spoiler Alert, sort of) the mechanical owl Bubo makes another cameo appearance in "Wrath".  Just thought you should know.


The Raid: Redemption

And now for my favorite movie of 2012 (so far), this little action gem from Indonesia.  The actual title of this movie is just "The Raid", but a major American movie studio has gained the rights for a remake and Sony Pictures Classics had to add "Redemption" to the title to avoid litigation.  The subtitle doesn't even make any sense, since there is no story of redemption to be found anywhere in the plot.  Oh well.  That's the only complaint I have.

This is a perfect action movie.  The story - a powerful drug lord owns an apartment complex full of scumbags and drug labs.  A special tactical unit of police officers (like S.W.A.T.) is sent into the building to capture the drug lord, but they've been double crossed.  Now they must fight for survival against an army of thugs.  It starts off tense as the team quietly infiltrates the building, then it explodes into a massive firefight, then, when the ammo runs low, it becomes a bad ass martial arts extravaganza.  I saw the movie twice on opening weekend.  At both showings, when the end credits came up, the audience went absolutely bonkers, hooting and hollering like crazy people, me included.  It's an utterly satisfying action movie, something we rarely get in America, since we don't make action movies anymore, just "four quadrant" movies (as the Hollywood execs say).

The "four quadrants" are Young, Old, Male, and Female.  A "four quadrant" movie is a movie that contains elements which will appeal to members of each quadrant, and most American movies nowadays are carefully constructed to appeal to as wide an audience base as possible.  "The Raid: Redemption" is for action fans only.  Since America doesn't make straight action films anymore, we are starving for them.

Don't think it's just a simplistic action movie, either.  It's full of plot twists, character depth, style and some surprisingly funny dry wit.  The lead actor, Iko Uwais, is a star in the making.  He's like an Indonesian John McClane - he bleeds, he sweats, he gets tired.  He's no Superman, but he does happen to be a master of Pencak Silat, a Muslim-based Indonesian form of martial arts.  You want him to survive the blood and chaos and return safely home to his pregnant wife.

Made with an Indonesian cast by an Indonesian crew, it's directed by Gareth Evans, a Brit, and features an awesome musical score by Mike Shinoda of America's own Linkin Park.  It's a true crowd pleaser for action geeks like myself.  Highly, highly recommended.

The Top 25 Movies of 2010, Part 4

True Grit
Directed by the Coen Brothers

Every time the Coen Brothers release a movie, it's a safe bet that it'll be on my Top Movie list.  This one's based on the novel by Charles Portis novel which was previously adapted for the screen in the 1969 classic starring the one-and-only John Wayne.  This new version hews much closer to the source novel and, while it doesn't surpass the Wayne version, it does equal it in quality.  After her father is killed by a no-good horse thief, young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) sets off on a quest to find and punish the man.  She hires herself an experienced (and often drunk) U.S. Marshal named Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, at his most mumbly) along with high-and-mighty Texas Ranger LaBeof (Matt Damon, always good) to track the murderer down.  While everyone in the cast does an excellent job, it's Ms. Steinfeld who carries the movie, and she does so with great ease.  She's a talented one.  And, while this may be the most "mainstream" movie in the Coens' filmography, it's still filled with Coen-y vintage dialogue, surprising violence and eccentric characters (like the bearskin-clad trader/traveling dentist Ross and Cogburn meet on the trail).  Thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Directed by Edgar Wright

I don't like Michael Sera in films.  He bugs me.  I have it on good authority that he's kind of a dink in real life, as well.  Having said that, "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" is good enough to surpass the Cera curse.  Based on a graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley, in the wrong hands this movie could have been a train wreck, but Edgar "Shaun of the Dead" Wright makes it work.  It hits me and my generation right in the cultural touchstone.  The story follows Canadian slacker and amateur musician Scott Pilgrim (Cera) as he embarks on the quest to win the hand of Ramona Flowers (one of my screen crushes, Mary Elizabeth Winstead).  One problem - he needs to defeat her Seven Evil Exes before he can even hope to be her man.  It's metaphor played out in a colorful outburst of video game mania and Anime fury (and many other references as well).  The stylized look, which could have become real tiresome real quick, is guided with a sure hand, the sound design is breathtaking, and it's just plain funny as hell.  It's also one of "those movies" where I notice something new and surprising with each successive viewing.  It's one of the ultimate representations of the battlefield of love, from the 8-bit graphic version of the Universal Pictures logo to the explosion of coins that occur when a bad guy is defeated, it's real fun.  Watch out for the Vegan Police!

Let Me In
Directed by Matt Reeves

I was resistant to putting this movie on my list for one main reason - this is the American remake of one of my favorite horror films of all time, Sweden's "Let the Right One In", based on the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist, and it isn't quite as good.  But the powerful story and the fine performances by the two lead actors make this well worth watching.  It's the story of a lonely, constantly bullied boy named Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and the friendship he strikes up with his new next-door neighbor Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz), who is a bloodsucking creature of the night.  Ultimately it's a story about the traps of love and friendship, the ones we let ourselves get into and the ones we are unable to avoid.  It's grim, bloody, and rather twisted, yet at the same time is very touching and strangely heartfelt, which is a hard combo to make work.  The American version lacks the odd fairy tale quality that the original Swedish version had, some of the more controversial story points are ignored, and there are a couple of obviously digitally-created body doubles that momentarily take me out of the movie, but Matt ("Cloverfield") Reeves holds this remake together (with help from Michael Giacchino's empathetic musical score).  It's a good first film from the newly-reformed Hammer Film Studios (I love the classic horror movies they produced from the '50s to the '70s).  Welcome back, Hammer!

The Expendables
Directed by Sylvester Stallone

Sometimes Extended Director's Cuts of movies replace the original Theatrical Cuts in my heart and I can never go back.  For example:  the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "Brazil", "Kingdom of Heaven".  And "The Expendables".  I liked the original version, but the Extended Edition adds the soul that it lacked in theaters.  It also features more great character building moments, more lines (which make the dialogue flow better and seem less stilted), a new opening credits sequence and a couple of additions to the musical score which, well, rock pretty hard.  Stallone has been experiencing a career renaissance, lately.  His final chapters of the "Rocky" and "Rambo" sagas were spot-on excellent and, while "The Expendables" doesn't quite reach those heights, the Director's Cut comes pretty close.  As a child of the '80s, putting all of these action heroes together in one movie is a celluloid dream come true (need I mention the infamous scene featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, and Stallone all onscreen at the same time).  This story of a group of rootless mercenaries who make the choice to fight for honor rather than money, is a good, old-fashioned, testosterone-fest from the opening to the spectacular final 30 minute action sequence.  Plus, it's so heartwarming to see really bad guys explode into meaty chunks.  (Sniff)

Mother
Directed by Bong Joon-Ho

Have I mentioned, lately, how many great films are coming out of Korea these days?  Here's one more, a twisted drama from the director of "The Host".  Kim Hye-Ja is a crazy lady who works in an herb shop by day and performs illegal acupuncture procedures at night.  When her borderline-mentally challenged son (Won Bin) is accused of murdering a schoolgirl, she sets out to prove her son's innocence, no matter the cost.  The less said about the plot, the better, so I'll just say that it's a brilliantly twisty affair with many tense sequences and lots of quirky, gut-busting humor.  Hye-Ja is awesome in the title role - you will never forget "the dance".  The cinematography is beautiful, the story is surprisingly powerful and I find it incredibly fun to inflict this movie on unsuspecting viewers.  Heh, heh.