Reviews

I don't know why they can't get a Hellraiser movie right since part 3. There is plenty of good material to work with, in comic book and short story adaptations. And yet most of the sequels have been a Hellraiser story grafted onto an average mystery or horror plot. This one is visually interesting for the most part. The acting is alright. And the Pinhead is really not bad. But the plot and visual style owe an incredible debt to Se7en, from the opening credits, to the Commandments killer, to the visual style, to the cop who looks vaguely like Brad Pitt. And yet it has none of that film's compelling story and characters. The opening scenes are a bit more reminiscent of Saw, at least in terms of being ugly, graphic and frenetically edited. But the movie doesn't achieve any element of its own and really just has no good story or original characters to suck you in. The real mystery here is why no one since the 90s has figured out that Hellraiser needs gore and visuals and surprises and mythos, but also character and story.

In this endeavor, a perfectly attractive and ordinary teenage girl is menaced by the stunt doubles of the cast of "Mean Girls" until she finds a magical Asian music box/wish machine that looks like a slide projector and... not much changes. See as how she's already cute and not really an outcast, and the popular boy has already asked her on a date, the whole wishing thing kind of seems like a joke. After the first wish for the ersatz Mean Girl to "just, like, totally rot or something," the wishes don't really seem to do much. She wishes to be popular and this manifests itself as her getting invited to a party and somebody mentioning she looks cute. She wishes for her father not to be embarrassing, and lo and behold, her father is Ryan Phillippe (which he has been all along), only one of her friends notices that he's hot all of a sudden. They don't even do us the courtesy of giving the characters glasses and then removing them to reveal themselves as babes or studs. For each wish, the magical Asian slide projector takes a life in a very Final Destination fashion. Two deaths are outright Final Destination ripoffs. I must mention that our heroine is totally useless. Two suicides happen directly in front of her, and she doesn't even try to approach the person. She just stands there sobbing and yelling, unconvincingly at that. The final death is meant to be shocking, and it might have been, were it not totally laughable. Some of the above 10/10 reviews seem to have been professionally written. The filmmakers ought to have saved their money on fake critics and put it onto screen. Or spent it better, as I believe this thing cost 12 mil.

In the beginning of "Wilson," Woody Harrelson's loser character laments the rise of people on social media and zoning out listening to earbuds, mourning the death of human interaction. Then, he shows us the reason why people listen to headphones in public: so they don't get in inane conversations with people like him. As with Ghost World (and Art School Confidential, less successfully) Daniel Clowes adapts his basically plot less comic into a feature length film, shoehorning a plot into what was just a character piece. Really, this is just the misadventures of a socially awkward, overly truthful, but extroverted person. But the pinned on plot concerns Wilson reuniting with his troubled ex, finding their bullied daughter who'd been adopted away, getting in trouble for contacting said daughter, and forming a new relationship with a yoga instructor. When his reunion with his daughter goes south, this previously lighthearted movie becomes too serious. The audience, who was all chuckles before, suddenly didn't know how to react to violent situations and dangerous people. I can't say the movie would have been successful without this situation. IT still concerns a man who it is hard to like. But adding dark elements to a comedy and then returning to the comedy does not seem to work. The seemingly upbeat ending, too, seems fastened on. The filmmakers wanted to end on a note of hope, so they stuck in a rather cliché sentiment that does not add much to either the story or the overall theme. I have enjoyed many movies about oddballs and social outcasts, but this one just does not manage to reconcile its story elements and its themes. I wasn't crazy about the source material either.

PS: Who came up with the advertising image of two men at a urinal? What are people making of it?

This mini-history of lgbt civil rights begins in 1971 with a young Cleve Jones along with two other activists' story in San Francisco, as they attempt to create a safe space for the gay community, elect Harvey Milk, deal with the AIDS crisis, and finally help to usher in gay marriage. The beginning is quite compelling as we are thrust into the epicenter of late 60s/early 70s activism not only with the gay rights movement, but civil rights and feminism. While it is odd that it did not begin with the Stonewall riots a few years earlier, we do get the impression that we are following the right people at the right time to get a bird's eye view of the struggle. The actor playing the young Cleve Jones, upon whose memoir the story was based, does a wonderful job playing a charismatic young man. His older version, played by Guy Pearce, is equally convincing, though the passage of time and changes in his life have made him a less intriguing character. The young actress portraying Roma Guy, a community activist and feminist, suffers from unfortunate hair styling and a bit of shyness, which is corrected in her older version well-played by Mary Louise Parker. Ken Jones, no relation to Cleve, is first portrayed as a soldier, then we follow him as he loses a partner, contracts HIV, succumbs to drugs, then finds God and himself (and some bad hair choices). Dustin Lance Black, who created the series, is best known for the film Milk, and fortunately/unfortunately, the best elements of the story of When We Rise were also contained in that film. The history of San Francisco through the assassination of Milk is fascinating in and of itself. Then, we go in descending order. The history of the early days of AIDS told in the second two episodes is nearly as compelling (as presented here) but begins a slow descent in quality (needless to say, And the Band Played On, presents it better). By the time we're arguing for gay marriage, we wonder if perhaps focusing on different characters for each segment might have been a better plan. While the three leads are center to the action early on, they drift out of importance. The story begins following dramatic story lines that can seem melodramatic. As soon as a good thing happens to a character, you can be certain that something is coming to take the good thing way by the next scene, if not later in the scene itself. It gets a telenovela quality where anything that happens in the life of the characters is mere grist for drama. I am the sort of viewer who loves stories of protests and human rights struggles, and was nearly crying during the first four parts (or first two in their 90 minute versions). It is a great human story and tragedy, very compelling and very modern. It teaches you things you may not know, even if you consider yourself well informed. The last two episodes, perhaps because they are so recent, just are not as compelling. It seems very few compromises were made to put this show on ABC. I was greatly impressed that it didn't seem heavily censored for heterosexuals who might not even watch it. One of the concessions did seem to be that though Democrats have been better on gay rights issues, the series couldn't take sides. Much is made of Clinton not saying a certain phrase in a speech that the activists wanted him to make. This is a real letdown from the high stakes of earlier struggles, and makes you wonder if that scene was just in there to show that Clinton wasn't perfect on the issue (we all know he was not). Overall, I do wish that perhaps we had a new narrator or narrators for each of the two part portions of the series. And that it had started earlier, in the late 60s perhaps. But as a portrait of this particular civil rights struggle from the 70s until roughly today, this manages to well surpass expectations. It's entertaining, educational, and inspirational.

You'd have to imagine that Rob Zombie knew Suicide Squad was going to be big in 2016 when he decided to write about a warped tramp in Daisy Dukes with a baseball bat fighting with a meth addict clown with metal teeth. To avoid a lawsuit, he instead borrowed plot elements from The Purge and The Running Man to create a no rules game show where ugly hillbillies, gangbangers and sluts fight other similar people with bad circus makeup. All the characters communicate entirely in the f word, sometimes mixed up with similar words in untranslated Spanish and German. For a fight movie with a pro wrestling sensibility, it works. It's not dull. But that's it. The era and camera work evokes Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but in this version it's like the crazy cannibal family is fighting each other: no heroes, no themes, no messages, not much of interest.

I've been waiting for a return of the unabashed musical, and this one announces from its opening scene that it's a movie where actors burst into choreographed song and dance routines on the spur of the moment. This is a good thing. Part of the death of the musical involved the casting of actors who could not sing and/or were wrong for the part. Naturally, I was nervous about the casting. Gosling and Stone are good actors; as singers, they're effective, her more so. As a dancer, Gosling is a little clunky. You get the feeling Channing Tatum might have done it better. The plot echoes a 30s musical with Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler; though not quite as artificial and stylized. There are also elements of Gene Kelly, including a 50s style ballet sequence. Plot-wise: A struggling jazz pianist and an aspiring actress are looking for a break in Hollywood, fall in love, and struggle when they begin to find success. The romance and much of the comedy echoes Woody Allen's screenplays, especially Annie Hall, and his own musical Everyone Says I Love You (luckily the actors don't _act_ as if they're in an Allen film, no matter how much the script sounds like they should). Story and plot don't tend to matter much in a musical, but the lead characters and the love story works. The style and design are mostly spot on, though it's not a showcase of costume and sets. The editing is a bit odd, and sometimes it seems that the singing is not quite matching the lip movement. When John Legend sings, though his songs are not good, we hear what a polished singer sounds like, and can clearly match his mouth to the sound. None of the songs in the movie are breakout hits exactly. Emma Stone's audition song is the most effective, and/but it heavily echoes Paul Williams (I could hum Rainbow Connection over it). Overall, despite criticism, I think it's a great movie for the present time. It may succeed better as a gimmick, given that this type of musical is so seldom made now. In a year with multiple musicals, I'm not sure how memorable this one would be. I will say, in almost all respects, it's well worth seeing, and probably seeing in a theater for full effect.

The second viewing does this movie a lot of favors. Much of the hate comes from diminished expectations, coming off two good movies in the series, and famously not featuring much of Jason "taking" Manhattan. If you can ignore this, and many glaring errors - geographic, spatial, logical - this is fun trash entertainment, and the last slice and dice Jason formula movie until the reboot. The movie is basically shot well, keeps up pace most of the time, features an attractive cast, and - for the modern viewer - lots of fun nuggets of late 80s culture. The filmic portrayal of pre-Giuliani New York always fascinates. Where the film goes wrong are those areas that could have made it more entertaining for what it was: a slasher on a boat. Many of the kills underwhelm. Some go on for so long, we expect more. Some don't quite seem logical: Jason is portrayed as superhuman, yet struggles to strangle or stab pretty easy victims. For a lumbering zombie, he is able to sneak up on victims with no sound, smell, or bodily residue giving him away. This is made plainer by the kills that do work, like the character who boxes Jason, gives up and says "take your best shot." Or the rocker guitar kill. These are like a B on a bad report card, showing it could be better if they tried. When Jason does get to Manhattan, he ignores a plethora of victims to go after the main characters, who don't even have a direct connection to Camp Crystal Lake. His "death," via some whacked out perception of toxic New York, is made more ridiculous by the fact that later sequels deviate to the point where this could be considered his final death scene in the Camp Crystal Lake Paramount octet. It's still better than parts 5 or 9, and still an enjoyable diversion.

Although the ending was original enough, this movie gets so bogged down in plot holes, bizarre character traits, ideas that don't pan out, scenes thrown in for no reason, etc., that it lost me. After an introductory scene with an episode of family violence, which I thought to be a dream, we meet a vanilla, sexually frustrated couple living in Las Vegas, for no particular reason. Although the couple is not social and doesn't appear to have much to do with their neighbors, they insist on meeting a new neighbor who has creep written all over him. The husband is a croupier, the wife a Masters student studying online porn. Neither point is relevant. The wife begins suffering night terrors, and calls her only visible friend, a pregnant doctor, who looks about the same age, yet has a higher degree and hates hospitals. She is pregnant to an unknown father, previously suffered night terrors, and previously knew the creepy neighbor. These two geniuses cannot put two and two together. Normally both women in a good thriller might suspect something supernatural or alien had happened, and when the doctor advises to get a camera, I think we will get bizarre found footage that will deepen the mystery. Instead the terrors are blamed on her marriage and lack of a child or dog. Don't ask why an ambitious student and her low paid husband think it's a good idea to try for a baby. When the found footage scene finally pays off, we have solved most of the mystery with one tape. Then comes the obligatory newspaper search and the visit to the insane asylum. This movie is set in tract housing, and has no Gothic elements except the first scene, and the asylum scene, filmed like any horror movie asylum scene. While some elements are eerie, it provides no suspense and little mystery. I'm somewhat interested to see if the book did it better, because the ending does get points for originality, for the why and the what, not the who. But I can't get behind two highly educated women, as the script tells us, who cannot figure out something as glaringly obvious as the Vegas Strip.

In the first, rather scary, scene in the Conjuring, featuring the Annabelle doll, I wondered, what kind of woman would ever buy a doll that creepy looking? Apparently no one. Since the real Annabelle was in fact a simple Raggedy Ann doll. This movie purports to tell the whole story behind the doll, almost none of which conforms with reality (meaning the "true" story as it was given to and told by the Warrens). We meet a bland, prosaic young couple about to have a child. The wife has a doll collection decorating the child's room (Before she knows if it's a girl or boy), and the husband buys her the Annabelle doll, which is supposedly an expensive collector's item meant to match two similar dolls. Following an attack by two cult members who lived next door, the Annabelle doll becomes possessed, doing usual ghost things like operating a sewing machine, and record player. Later, she seemingly tries to kill the baby in its womb, contradicting the later explanation that the doll is a demon host looking for an innocent soul. Luckily, a kindly mystical black woman owns a nearby bookstore with a well-stocked occult section. The wife and her friend discover the name of the cult to which the neighbors belonged, but use absolutely none of the information to defeat the doll. In fact, there are many threads that dangle and go nowhere. We meet two children who seemingly draw pictures of the baby being hit by a truck, and then the children are never seen again, and bear no relevance to the plot. The fact that the mystic new age black woman is willing to go to any length to protect this bland white family may strike some as offensive, especially since it appears nowhere in the actual story. Like most films of this nature, it is practically an advertisement for the Catholic Church and Christian religion in general. The Warrens also investigated the Amityville story, whose victims were also Catholic, and the book featured an introduction by a Catholic priest. Essentially, these stories say, for better or worse, that Catholics are the religion feared by the devil, and the only ones capable of eliminating supernatural threats from demons. The Warrens, in fact, keep the doll in a case protected with a cross, and blessed by a priest. As for the movie itself, it features a couple good jump scares. There are a couple scenes strongly reminiscent of Japanese horror (Dark Water and the Grudge especially). I've seen this type of movie done better and much worse. I have no idea why the R rating, except possibly the religious iconography and injury to a priest and pregnant woman. But honestly, this could play on television barely edited, if at all. You can definitely wait for this title on video.

Like many of Disney's recent megaflops, this is creakily old fashioned in the worst possible way. The tone - varying between screwball comedy and high body count violence - is so uneven it's bipolar. Johnny Depp is phoning it in with a Willie Wonka-esque performance, all funny faces and gestures like a talking mime. Armie Hammer looks homely and ten years older than he is; they may as well have cast Cary Elwes. The only thing possible that I think the producers/director were going for was along the lines of the more current Indiana Jones films. They didn't even hit the artistry of Crystal Skull. Some of the effects, shots and scenery are great, which is a shame because if they'd told a good story, they could have halved the budget and doubled the gross.

One of the best things about TFIOS was the voice of Hazel. It put a great, creative spin on an otherwise common disease story. We don't entirely lose it here. It's in the narration, and in her speech. Some of the book's whimsy comes out with cute choices like placing text messages into speech bubbles above the characters' heads in the book's font. But...from the beginning, we lose the Hazel's wry commentary, and the movie treats the kids' diseases as the most pressing issues, rather than their mental grappling with them. When Augustus is introduced, he is practically stalkerish in his attention toward Hazel, which is forgivable only because of his cuteness. From here on in, it's all twee cuteness. Augustus is a wonderful, but impossibly movie-like boyfriend who would probably get on your nerves in real life, and would also probably be hiding a terrible secret. The movie is not as pressing as the book when we go to Amsterdam to meet the author that inspires her. There's very little urgency or conflict. The movie delivers sweetness and young love, and it truly is sweet, but at times it loses the flavor of the book. I will also say the wardrobe and art direction are terrible, and that I'm not sold on Shailene Woodley's star quality. Even though her man has one leg, it still seems he could do better. I'm knocking this movie a lot, but I will recommend. The preview audience seemed to laugh and cry in all the right places.

There are a lot of reasons not to like this movie: Its run time, its celebration of bad-boy, animalistic greed, its revel in sexism and related isms. But this is a movie of moments. It reminds me a lot of Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights, there are scenes of ridiculous excess (I'd say the author of the true story behind 'Wolf' exaggerated quite a bit), scenes of intense drama, and then unforgettable scenes that are so well crafted you'll want to own it just to replay the scenes again. The board meeting brainstorm session over dwarf tossing, the Quaalude-fueled car chase…there are scenes that are amazing comedic gems, and genius in crafting. It is difficult to fully recommend this movie, because unlike "Wall Street," the "Greed is good" motto here does not seem to be villainous or ironic at all. Dramatic scenes aside, many people will come out of this wanting to bilk investors on Wall Street during the 'Lude era and reap crazy rewards. The celebration of the bro workplace is like a modern "Mad Men" with nudity. At times, this looks to have been written as a dystopian sci fi novel by a feminist set in a future where the basest men run the economy. Even at three hours, I was alternately entertained, horrified, thrilled, at the edge of my seat. Sure, it could have lost some material. Maybe the consequences could have been amped up. But this is a work of unclassifiable genius.

Christopher Walken gives a distractingly bizarre performance in this trippy alien abduction movie. At times, he is bizarre and manic, going from a Dad joke making fuddy dud, to a somewhat menacing dangerous character (such as when he shoots up his home, and receives a muted reaction from his wife). He seems unfocused and indecisive, as he is both convinced of his alien abduction but on the fence about receiving therapy. This kind of day to day indecision may be common in real life, but it is odd to see a character change his mind with each scene in a movie. As in Fire in the Sky, the characters' positive traits are overemphasized so as to make them seem like everyday Americans and not alien abduction kooks. This is somewhat undone by the strange nature of Walken's performance. The director also throws in seeming Easter eggs to cast doubts on the story, throwing in references to alcohol and making the dream sequences ridiculous, campy and trippy. We also know the lead character is a writer, and that this would make a compelling book. At one point, when Walken is journeying to the cabin to perhaps commune with the aliens again, he is passed by a Miller Lite truck. The dream sequences are some of the most bizarre I've seen committed to film. They are trippier than David Lynch, and various camp musicals like The Apple. There are costumed gorilla aliens and dancing slim aliens that invite Walken to an orgy replete with anal probing, all while Walken recites lyrics from The Beatles. This makes it rather hard to believe. I have heard the author feels that the movie was not entirely accurate to his story, but his name is all over it, so he could have exercised greater control. I can only recommend this as a camp film. I will say it is far more entertaining than Fire in the Sky, but the one alien scene we get in Fire in the Sky is more frightening than the alien activity we see here.

If you asked your local theater for tickets to the new James Wan directed, Patrick Wilson horror movie, I hope they directed you to The Conjuring. Otherwise, you went to see this completely unoriginal, poorly acted, unintentionally funny mess. James Wan had clearly stretched himself thin with two similarly plotted movies in the same year. Besides the usual haunted house clichés: dolls, Victorians, pianos; and the hallmarks of the bad horror movie (crashingly loud noises where genuine scares should be), this script outright rips off elements of The Shining, Sleepaway Camp and Amityville Horror. And because it is a sequel, it can't even claim to have an original idea of its own. The staging of a climactic scene is so similar to The Shining, I was surprised Patrick Wilson did not do the "Here's Johnny!" line. In the last minute, Wan even manages a final rip off by using the exact ghost sound effect from Ju-On/The Grudge. Patrick Wilson is typically neither good nor bad, but he's well beyond his range here. And Danielle Bisutti, as the villainess, is doing an impression of Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest without the fun factor. That's when she's allowed to speak, and not shriek into an echo chamber for one of the movie's many loud jump scares. I have seen virtually every theatrical or direct to video horror movie this year, except The Last Exorcism 2 and Carrie. Either one of them could be worse than this, but I doubt it. The current 6.9 rating astounds me, since so few horror movies ever get above a 6. This is not the one to break that mold.

This movie must have been approved by the participants in the "true story," because this movie spends an inordinate amount of time - most of its time, actually - telling us what ordinary, folksy, down-home, nuclear-family-breeding good old boys these characters are. I expected to see them photographed in front of a giant flag like Patton. After a friend disappears during a trip, the town tries to determine whether it was an actual alien abduction as the men claim. This, in itself, could have been compelling, courtroom drama type stuff, but it is dreadfully dull. We are at about the eighty minute mark before we see any aliens, and they are indeed scary, and the scene is frightening. Fans of the movie must remember these four minutes, which can probably now be seen on YouTube. This is the only portion of the movie worth viewing. For the remainder of the movie, you'd be far more entertained hanging out in a truck stop.

In this Direct to Video "sequel," many of the characters, but not the actors, completely unharmed from the events of the first film, are dropped into Romania to tour vampire country with the assistance of a sexy vampress professor. This seems very much like a remake of the original Fright Night 2, which also had a female villain, but including an alive and unharmed Evil Ed and substituting the charming old Fright Night host with a douchey reality TV Fright Night host, who doesn't believe his own schtick. In this film, Evil Ed is not the dorky lovable character from any previous incarnation, but a fat, horned up bro, who nonetheless has some knowledge of the occult. Charlie must convince everybody - again - that they are dealing with a vampire. Many of the scenes are filmed like a T&A erotic thriller from the pre-internet era, and much of the implicit message of this film is never to trust women because they're all bloodsucking monsters. The only thing to say in this movie's favor is that it does not look cheap, and Charlie is still a sweet, likable character.

Maniac imagines that it is artful by presenting much of the action in the second person (we are looking at scenes directly from the camera's POV) and by filming long driving cityscape sequences like the ones used in Drive and Taxi Driver. The second person technique was used in the very first slasher movie, Peeping Tom, and this movie doesn't seem to know we've progressed since then. It's still the same voyeuristic male gaze that wants to spy on women changing their clothes in front of open windows. We've still got the killer befuddled by Mommy issues, implying that if only she had baked cookies instead of having a sex life her child would have turned out just fine. I think the Second Person point of view was used to hide one of the movie's chief flaws: Elijah Wood is not scary. He could be very creepy, and if he used a subtle Norman Bates harmless quality to lure women in, it could be unsettling. In this, we see him chasing down women who probably outweigh him. What would you imagine if you were being chased by Eljiah Wood with an ironic mustache? That he was going to tell you he saw LCD Soundsystem before they were cool? He also does not seem strong and dexterous enough to scalp women with a single cut. Such a thing seems more complicated. I have trouble opening packages. I don't imagine removing a scalp covered in tangled hair would be that simple. If this movie were from the 80s with an unknown actor (and I know that it was in its original form), we might like its simple stark charm and completely outdated formula. However, in the modern era, speaking as a fan of slashers, a fan of Elijah Wood, a fan of disturbing movies etc, this just does not work in any way.

C.O.G. is my favorite David Sedaris essay, even before I moved to Oregon and recognized some of its landmarks. The movie even begins with one of my favorite speeches from the essay, although the speech is much better on the page.

The story concerns a young man who fantasizes about joining the working class (as in Grapes of Wrath) and travels to Oregon to pick apples, work in an apple sorting factory, and make jade sculptures with a temperamental man who is trying to convert him to Christianity. In the essay, Sedaris, as himself, is state school educated, a stoner, accustomed to menial jobs, and from a working class family. In the movie, David – or Samuel, as he's calling himself – is a smarmy preppy educated at Yale who is first depicted reading Darwin's Origin of Species. When Sedaris makes fun of crazy people on a Greyhound, or working class people at a factory, it is clear that he is making fun of his own expectations, as well as people not far below him in social class. This is quite a contrast to an upper class character looking down on dumb poor people. This is one of the movie's first flaws. And it colors almost everything. What is his true motivation, if he is so jaded and cynical? What is the movie trying to tell us about working people and Christians when it presents us with this character as its hero?

A second flaw is one chief among Hollywood movies, even those intended for the art-house crowd. Though David Sedaris himself, as well as the lead actor, are openly gay, this movie wouldn't want to come out and just say such a thing, why people might flee into the streets. So it teases us with making us believe he might have a female love interest; it does not tell us what the source of the conflict is with his family (it would appear to be his coming out); it doesn't tell us why he is so freaked out by a co-worker's gay advances (is it because he's grossed out by the man or the concept?), or how any of this might impact his potential conversion to Christianity. I'm sure the director has a lofty, annoying explanation for this oversight, but I can count two "so, was he gay?" posts already on the list of five that show up on the main page.

The score, mainly percussion, will be off-putting to many, especially in the first scenes on the bus. And the ending will also confuse. After personal conflicts with many of the characters, how will his opinions and his Christian conversion change? We know IRL that David Sedaris went on to a happy life as a bestselling author. A less vague ending could have shown what the character learned from these experiences, especially since this movie tried so hard to be more sincere than its comedic base.

This movie has some things going for it, but it is philosophically a disappointment.

Everything you've heard about this movie is true, except the part about its awfulness being "enjoyable." To paraphrase Ghost World, "it's so bad it's gone past good and back to being bad." The movie begins promisingly enough, after a mundane folk ballad and long credits sequence, with a scene of intense conflict as a diplomatic crew attempts to flee a war torn country. Enjoy this scene while it lasts because it is the only genuine conflict you will see in this film. The pilot crash lands in a place called Shangri La, which despite being totally cut off from the outside world is well-maintained and full of food and all the worst of hippie New Age fashion. All of the characters, except one – Michael York – seem to enjoy living in Shangri La, and no source of menace or tension appears in the plot to dissuade them. Although this is a musical, the first non-integrated number appears about 50 minutes in. And it's a lousy rehash of Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game." The musical staging appears to be that a character states a thought, and then a song begins that reaffirms the thought in the most glaringly obvious manner ("Am I in Shangri La, or is Shangri La in me?" "Different people have different points of view." You don't say). The staging of the numbers is very similar to The King and I; although it only serves to remind you that you should be watching that instead. As the characters decide either to stay in Shangri La, or to leave for no apparent reason (since the script has no villains or conflict), we are lead to a non conclusion that resolves nothing and says nothing. I suppose this was sold as some kind of Age of Aquarius, anti Vietnam, "Imagine no countries," type of deal, but it just comes off as a lame hippie high school production. I could literally have written better songs and staged better dances, and I have no rhythm or musical talent.

Curse of Chucky is better than most horror movies that get a theatrical run. The staging is rather small, with a small unknown cast and a limited location, but they make the absolute best of everything they have. Brad Dourif, the original director, and another important cast member from parts 4 and 5 appear; and this movie actually seems like a return to the formula of the original movies, using some of the surprise and humor of the last two. A woman caring for a disabled daughter, and living in a lovely Gothic mansion, receives the Chucky doll anonymously. After being quickly dispatched, the rest of the family arrives to take over the estate from the daughter. Among them is a little girl, who adopts the Chucky doll. The parents of the girl seem to have ulterior motives and a strange relationship with their babysitter, which is later revealed as a pleasant and humorous twist. Chucky begins killing off the victims, using the creepy mansion as a great backdrop. The camera work is great. The suspense is good. There are some great kills. This movie does not look cheap. Its only VOD concession seems to be that it sticks to the same location over the same night, and changes settings only rarely. The last entry seems to largely avoid parts 4 and 5, although it does not erase them completely. Often, horror movies that deviate from formula come out disastrous, but Chucky reinvented itself as a series with Bride and Seed of. Fans of those movies may be disappointed this doesn't pick right up where they left off. Still, it's a nice surprise to go back to the pure cheesy formula horror of the first three movies. The ending, of course, leaves room for a sequel that could play off the theme of the movie, and revisit dangling threads from the earlier series. Well worth renting, streaming, buying.

This movie is a bit of the revenge portion of "I Spit on Your Grave" crossed with the home invasion of "Funny Games" and the antics of "Home Alone." But it comes out looking like "Bay of Blood," a surprising family blood feud that ends badly for everyone, and was lots of fun. For the first half hour, as we meet various unattractive loser characters whose actions and dialogue seems largely pointless, through the beginning of the home invasion where the audience was in stitches as a character ran in slow motion into razor wire. It looked like the movie was a failure and the audience (scarier so far than the film itself) was about to rebel and turn the movie into an interactive "Rocky Horror" like experience. Then, the Australian girlfriend of one of the brothers in the family at the center of the home invasion, begins fighting back and put the film squarely back on track, and won the audience back. As we lose many central characters and learn the motivations of the masked invaders, the stakes raise for one of the most proactive Final Girls I've seen in a while. The ending is a bloody, satisfying free for all that is both suspenseful and funny and elicited cheers. There were great moments of subtle intentional humor, but parts of the movie seem deadly earnest and simply don't work. The characters at the beginning are either loathsome – not in a good way - or not likable enough to win us over. This is why the audience was at first on the side of the villains. I don't think that all of this was intentional on the part of the filmmaker. The clumsy beginning and weak characters are the only things stopping me from not rating it even higher.

We open with Bruce Willis and Mary Parker shopping at Costco, attempting a domestic existence. Mary is eager for the excitement of their former adventures. They are, of course, soon interrupted by another chance at international intrigue, and multiple assassination attempts. The main plot of the movie involves an attempt to track down a nuclear bomb left in the Kremlin during the Cold War. A shadowy US government conspiracy is of course in effect to cover up this information, and a surprising number of soldiers and bureaucrats are bloodlessly (it's PG13) gunned down by the enemies. Somehow, this element disturbed me and distracted from the comedy. Our international assassins are of course all cartoonishly portrayed; a new Asian assassin even manages to take down a man with an origami crane. John Malkovitch and, later, Anthony Hopkins practically satirize themselves, phoning in their performances. It seems to have become a thing in movies lately to open a door somewhere and reveal some liver spotted Oscar winner doing an impression of himself. The chases and action sequences range from fun and exciting to ridiculous, such as the scene where Helen Mirren fires two guns in slow motion from the windows of a turning car, which has been featured in the advertising; it seems stolen from Wanted, and is stupid in either movie. This movie is not bad and a good entertaining time killer, but I wouldn't recommend theater pricing on it.

This is a bit of Transformers meets Alien meets Real Steel meets Godzilla meets Avatar. Aliens (who resemble the ones from Alien and Howard the Duck) emerge from beneath the ocean surface to attack coastal cities, and humans develop giant robots manned by two pilots to bring them down. After a defeat early on by our hero, played by Charlie Hunnam, this robot program faces elimination. And a rogue captain tracks down Hunnam (who's taken a civilian job) and attempts to save Hong Kong using the last of the robots. Hunnam wishes to team with a young Japanese woman, whom the captain cares for, but she has difficulty overcoming the emotions left over from the killing of her family during an alien attack.

I saw this from the front row, and the 3D was excellent. I really felt as though I were going to get wet or hit with debris. The visual effects and look of the movie were excellent. Some of the charterization and script are problematic. The two scientists at the base are pencil necked, squeaky voiced comic relief characters and it's hard to tell if they're giving bad performances or the script just demanded that they act like cartoons. The soldiers, especially Hunnam, try so hard to be macho it's almost funny. He's concentrating so hard on looking butch, he forgets to act and his accent fades in and out. Nonetheless, I think if he becomes less self conscious about his acting, he could be a big star. He has a bit of a Brad Pitt look about him. The Japanese woman is a bit of a weak character. The audience is supposed to giggle as she coos around Charlie, and I suppose some people might think it's sexist that the only major woman in the movie is portrayed most of the time as being too emotional to be a pilot. Obviously, most people aren't going to a movie like this for the script and compelling characters. I compared it to Transformers above, but only because of the robots. One great thing is that I can always tell who's who, where the action is happening, and what the stakes are. In Transformers, action scenes go on for forty minutes and we aren't clear who's attacking who. There are some clichés during attack scenes, with bits of obvious humor thrown in. But generally I think this movie will win over most people. Definitely don't wait to see it on video. See it 3D in the theater if this title interests you at all.