Barry’s Score:  8/10

Editor’s note:  This film is scheduled to air on PBS on July 1st as part of the American Masters series.  Check your local listings for air times.

Back before radio had anything to do with digital downloads or being “Sirius”, it provided an old school thrill of discovery to those seeking a glimpse at another type of musical or lifestyle. I remember how much joy my little brother and I had when we discovered that, back in the day, a Maui radio station carried the Dr. Demento show, which provided hours of music so silly and brilliantly weird, it’d never air on any other program. In fact, “Weird Al” Yankovic was discovered by Dr. Demento.

Today, I listen constantly to Nights With Alice Cooper, in which the former shock rocker plays his favorite songs, tells story about the old days and charmingly reveals what its like to be a man with Alice as his first name. Great radio, whether it’s a morning joke-a-thon between over caffeinated DJ’s or a political program with overzealous “experts” tearing into one another, offers two great qualities: storytelling and the feeling that they voices coming from your speakers are talking to YOU, right now, as you drive from Lahaina back to Pukalani.

Garrison Keillor has been a radio legend, storyteller and independent maverick so long, most can say they grew up listening to his A Prairie Home Companion radio show, which, for the uninitiated, is a comedy/musical/storytelling program involving the wacky goings-on in a simple, old fashioned American town. I’ll admit that I was never a big fan of Keillor’s charming but tremendously corny show, but I now greatly admire him and what he provides listeners every week and that comes mostly from Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes, the engaging documentary on Keillor by director Peter Rosen. It gently probes Keillor’s past and shows us current productions of his travelling radio show, which has been on the air for a remarkable 30 years. Rosen’s film is as simple, folksy and enjoyable as the show itself, and observes major factors of Keillor’s life: his daughters, rue barb pie, life in New York, what would have happened if Keillor decided against being a radio performer, and his ongoing dedication to putting on a great show.

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Ethan’s Visceral Score : 9.5/10

I can think of only one way to start off this review. I love Star Trek : The Original Series. But to truly love something you have to acknowledge its flaws. And I can fully admit that TOS was somewhat…wait, scratch that, a totally cheesy show. The acting could be stiff. The sets could look cheap. The fights could be poorly choreographed. But damn, the show had intelligence and charm. But the thing it truly thrived on were its characters. And while this film by J.J. Abrams may not have the cerebral elements that made the original show so admired, it has down pat the characters. But Abrams does even more.

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Dave’s Score: 8/10

It’s a difficult task, writing a review for Battle for Terra. A lot of people I’ve talked to have said that it just looks like another generic CGI flick with no heart or soul. It looks like a dumbed down kiddie flick that just LOOKS sci-fi. I’m here to set the record straight. Battle for Terra isn’t just a good kids’ film with great 3-D, this is a good movie, period. It has great action, isn’t afraid to have fun, and it tackles some pretty tough issues about what sacrifices are worth making for the future of the human race. This isn’t a propaganda piece against war. This film has more in common with the re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica than it does with Fahrenheit 9/11, unlike what some would lead you to believe. The version of the film I saw was in 3-D, and it really is worth checking out in that format.

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Dave’s Score:  9/10 

Anyone who reviews movies has had this happen a million times. A friend comes up to you and tells you about the coolest movie ever made, and it happens to have been made locally by this friend’s buddies. Even though you know the movie is going to suck and you’re going to try to find a way to inject Drain-O into your brain to wash out the memory of it, you still humor your friend and suffer through the little atrocity that these people worked so hard on.  Ink is the reason that you sit through all those piles of crap. Once in a great while, you come across a film that is truly something special and sticks with you after seeing it. It’s the kind of movie that makes you believe in the local film scene. When it comes down to it, it’s worth sitting through 100 crappy movies if that 101st movie is something HALF as good as Ink. Here’s the short version of this review: do whatever you have to in order to see this movie. Catch it in Denver, catch it in L.A. if it screens out there, rent it on dvd or just buy it to save yourself some time. (more…)

Melissa’s Score:  7.5/10

Knowing starring Nicholas Cage is an eye opening revelation about judgement day and the chosen people of God. Although this movie was somewhat religiously based in its main idea, this movie’s take on the subject matter was not overly preaching or forceful at all. Cage’s son recieves a paper from a little girl from 50 years ago who heard numbers in her head. She was driven crazy and wrote the numbers down. Cage figures out that the numbers are in a patter that tell the date, latitude and longitude, and number of casualities in major natural disasters and other events throughout the past 50 years. There are many elements to this movie that tastefully display one man’s experience in figuring out what is happening to his soon-to-be-ending reality and his experience in giving up his only son for the benefit of the world.

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Ethan’s Score : ZERO/10

There comes a time in a film aficionado’s life where he sees something so utterly inept, ill-advised and unenjoyable. Something so flat-out puzzlingly bad that you spend hours wondering “How did that happen? How could something turn out that bad?” And my friends I have come across that movie, and it’s name is Dragonball Evolution.

This “film” (which I would rather refer to as a cinematic crime against humanity) is of course an adaptation of the popular Japanese-anime series, Dragonball (or Dragonball Z). Now, I should tell you something, I’m a fan of the show. Or at least I was when I was a kid. I had plenty of action figures and would go over to my friends’ houses to play with them as we created dozens of scenarios for epic hyper-kung fu battles. So would turning off my film critic mode and setting into 9-year old mode help me enjoy this particular cinematic abomination? No, probably not. And this is a major problem. It’s simply not fun. The action scenes are so dull, cluttered and poorly shot that nobody could get any enjoyment out of it. Sure, there’s copious amounts of slow-motion (that would make Zack Snyder blush) but after it a while it just settles into self-parody, just like the rest of the movie. (more…)

Dave’s score: 6.5/10

Before starting this loaded gun of a review, I have to make an admission. Ideally, any review would look at a film based solely on the merits of the film. Unfortunately, due to whatever personal flaw I may have, I was unable to do this. This review is going to be influenced by the original book by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons and how the changes in the film altered the story itself. I just want to warn everyone before we get into this. By necessity, this review will have PLENTY of spoilers, so don’t read on if you haven’t seen the film.

Watchmen is a story that explores what would happen if masked heroes actually existed and explores the dark side of humanity from there. I know, I know. The actual story is about a hero, Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), investigating the murder of The Comedian (Jeffery Dean Morgan) and uncovering a darker plot. Honestly, the story is more about my first sentence than the second sentence. If it sounds dense and complex, it most certainly is.

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Dave’s Note:  I’m proud to introduce a new contributor to ScreenGeeks.  Melissa comes to us with an impressive knowledge of film and her first piece for us is a character review of Watchmen.  I’m excited to present a view of the film from someone who isn’t that familiar with the source material.  Spoilers are ahead, so I’ve put the article after the jump.  Enjoy!

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8.5/10

If someone asked you what the least successful sub-genre of films today were, you would probably come up with three answers : a) Video-game adaptations, b) Films starring Nicole Kidman and c) Iraq War/Middle-Eastern Conflict movies. The problems of the first two are most mostly hack directors and Botox. But for c), the issue that often leads to both critical and financial failure doesn’t just simply boil down to “TOO SOON!”. It’s simply that there universal ideas about war and humanity aren’t properly approached. There aren’t usually any characters. Mostly there are just political talking heads. Even those that attempt to paint themselves as thrillers, like The Kingdom and Body of Lies have clumsily handled unoriginal generalizations that they try to pass off as “subtext”. But Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker does something completely different.

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Dave’s Score:  8.5/10

Let’s be honest for a minute.  When you hear about some independent movie that “just hasn’t found its audience”, it’s usually because there’s no audience to find.  On rare occasions, however, a really nice film comes along and pretty much defines the term pleasant surprise.  Enter …Around.

…Around centers around the story of Doyle Simms (Robert W. Evans).  He comes from a poor, broken home in Jersey and he finds a way to get into film school in New York City.  He falls in love with a girl(Molly Ryman), life gets complicated and there is resolution at the end.  Doesn’t that just sound like most of the crap that hits theaters these days?  Well, …Around isn’t your typical crappy movie.  I’ve purposely boiled down the story this far just to illustrate how bad a movie like this could be.  The great thing is that this isn’t a bad movie at all.  This movie is a true find for lovers of film. (more…)