This week, we talk about the films we’re looking forward to seeing in 2012. Show notes are after the break.

SGR Episode 169

1/13 Theatrical Releases
-Haywire
-Red Tails
-Underworld Awakening

1/17 Home Video Releases
-Real Steel
-50/50
-Paranormal Activity 3
-Godzilla (Criterion
-Notorious (Blu)
-Rebecca (Blu)
-Spellbound (Blu)
-Manhattan (Blu)
-Annie Hall (Blu)
-The Woman

News
Dave
The Expendables 2 will be PG-13
CES Coverage of Home Theater stuff

Topic: Films We’re Looking forward to in 2012

1/20 Theatrical Releases
-The Grey
-Man On a Ledge
-One For the Money

1/24 Home Video Releases
-Drive
-Transformers: Dark of the Moon
-The Thing (2011)
-In Time
-To Kill a Mockingbird (50th Anniversary Blu-Ray and DVD)
-The Big Year
-The Double
-Into the Universe With Stephen Hawking
-Outrage: Way of the Yakuza

This week, we dig into the joys and pains of 2011 movie watching. Notes after the jump

SGR Episode 168

1/13 Theatrical Releases
-Beauty and the Beast 3D
-Contraband
-Joyful Noise

1/17 Home Video Releases
-Courageous
-The Ides of March
-Abduction
-Belle Du Jour (Criterion)
-Traffic (Criterion Blu)
-Dutch
-License To Drive (Blu)

News
-Moonrise Kingdom Trailer

Topic: Best and Worst of the Year
Dave
Best
1.) The Tree Of Life
2.) Shame
3.) Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
4.) The Descendants
5.) Attack the Block
6.) Haunters
7.) Patriocracy
8.) Submarine
9.) Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
10.) Melancholia

Worst
Seven Days in Utopia
Paul
Burke and Hare
The Mechanic
Red Riding Hood
Suckerpunch
Green Lantern
Don’t Be Afraid Of the Dark
Dance City

Ethan
Best
01) The Tree of Life
02) Hugo
03) Melancholia
04) Drive
05) Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
06) Le Quattro Volte
07) Shame
08) A Dangerous Method
09) Weekend
10) A Separation

Worst
01) Battle Los Angeles
02) Like Crazy
03) Servitude
04) The Divide
05) Horrible Bosses
06) Abduction
07) Beastly
08) Paul
09) Green Lantern
10) Sucker Punch

1/20 Theatrical Releases
-Haywire
-Red Tails
-Underworld Awakening

1/24 Home Video Releases
-Real Steel
-50/50
-Paranormal Activity 3
-Godzilla (Criterion
-Notorious (Blu)
-Rebecca (Blu)
-Spellbound (Blu)
-Manhattan (Blu)
-Annie Hall (Blu)
-The Woman

by Dave Minkus
score: 3/4
director: Brian Malone

There is no doubt that the USA is becoming more polarized in terms of politics every day. Every day, we’ve got Republicans blaming Democrats for the state of the economy and Democrats blaming Republicans. Both sides say the other refuses to compromise. In this day and age, who’s at fault? Patriocracy dares to dig into the issue and come back with the truth. Both sides are at fault. That’s easy to say, but how do you show it?

Aside from beginning the film showing what filmmaker Brian Malone credits as the spark of where we find ourselves today (Republican Newt Gingrich taking full advantate of the 24-hour coverage CSPAN brought by calling out his opposition in session), Malone is VERY deliberate in stating his case that our political system has been hijacked by the fringes of both parties as well as professional lobbyists. For every single point or video clip showing a Republican or Democrat undermining the system they’ve sworn to uphold, it is followed by a clip of a member of the opposing idea doing the exact same thing. The entire film refuses to let either party or ideology bask in the other side looking bad. Malone is relentless is proving ad-nauseum that both sides are culpable parties in the corruption of our government.

Not content to just show the corruption of politics, Malone brings in talking heads to further prove his point. CBS News’ Bob Schieffer comes in to talk about how press/media coverage has changed from the objective look at politicians that journalism demanded when he got into the game to the talking head shows found on the likes of Fox News and MSNBC. Politicians and former politicians like Mark Udall, Jim Cooper and Pat Buchannan prove that we have representatives on both sides of the aisle yearning for compromise for the good of the country. People on both sides say that the system has almost been taken hostage by the fringe parts of both parties, with the perverbial silent majority being stuck in the middle.

Add in a look at how busniesses and corporations have injected themselves into the political system, and Patriocracy could be seen as a very depressing film. However, there are two factors that keep this film from becoming a pity party. First of all, the film is incredibly entertaining. Alan Simpson is an absolute riot in the film. His diatribe about things not changing in this country until we raise up in one voice and yell, “BULLSHIT!” is both an anthem of response for the disenfranchised, and downright hilarious.

The second thing done is that the film provides an outline of things that can be done to change the system. While the steps make sense and do provide hope, I almost have to discount the film as a documentary because of this. Even though I am absolutely the target audience for this film and love it unabashedly, a documentary doesn’t do that. A doc may have a certain position on an issue and set about making its case, this film takes that a step further and provides suggestions for actions to actually be taken. I personally don’t have a problem with that, but this film should be considered more of a commentary than a documentary. Some may go as far as to call it propaganda. Honestly, I’d have a hard time arguing that point, even if it’s propaganda for “None of the Above”, to steal a line from Brewster’s Millions.

Patriocracy is a wonderful film that speaks to me on a very basic level as a disillusioned American voter. Pointing the finger at both parties and proving its point exhaustively, the only people who will be able to try and discredit it will be the fringes of both parties, as it makes them look like the selfish children who throw temper tantrums they are. If you are in the same boat as me and don’t see anybody who reflects your values in your government, see this film. You will walk out of it with a sense of hope and be thoroughly entertained.

Tickets can be purchased for the film’s second showing at the Starz Denver Film Festival by going to this link.

by Dave Minkus
Score:  3/4
director:  Jeremy Craig

Short films can be quite difficult to pull off.  At a runningtime usually under 20 minutes,the film has to get to the storytelling immediately, get you invested in the characters quickly and tell a story leaving you satisfied before the credits roll.  This is the first short film I’m covering for the 2011 Starz Denver Film Festival.

Terrebonne is the story of a college student (Dean J. West) visiting a young boy named Fry (Cullen Chaffin) who claims to have seen an incredibly rare ivory-billed woodpecker.  The boy’s sister, Jean (Jessica Heap) decides to go with them into the bayou to find where the boy saw it.  While on the trip, Jean’s embarrassing past comes to light.  The films ends at a nice point that leaves you satisfied, while still wanting more.

Framed against the backdrop of Louisiana’s eroding coastline, Jeremy Craig has put together a wonderful short film exploring the family dynamic between a sister with a past and her younger brother.  Heap and Chaffin’s chemistry lends to an honest relationship ranging from sibling rivalry to companionship in a beautiful way that feels completely natural.

Craig’s expert cinematography make sure that the bayou itself is also a star in this film, and deservedly so.  The bayou of Louisiana offers sights that you can’t see anywhere else.  Craig does them all justice by capturing the beauty of this overlooked part of the country.

Terrebonne is most definitely worth checking out if you get a chance.  Apparently, Craig is working on a feature length version of this short, and I for one frankly can’t wait to see it.  Honestly, he shows himself to be a filmmaker to keep an eye on.

Terrebonne is showing as part of the First Look Domestic 1 Shorts program.  Tickets can be purchased at the SDFF website.

Right up Ethan’s alley, this episode we talk about the filmography of Tony Scott.

SGR Episode 165

This episode, Barry and Dave talk about their experience at the 2011 Mile High Horror Film Festival.

SGR Episode 164

Sure, you thought we were kidding last episode. We’re talking about Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back In Action this week.

SGR Episode 163

This episode, the guys delve into one of the most unique TV shows of all time, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

SGR Episode 162

This episode, Barry and Dave reminsce about their favorite movie experiences.

SGR Episode 161

This episode, the guys talk about their favorite movie trailers of all time.

SGR Episode 160

This episode, we decide to take an easy topic an recast some of our favorite and most hated movies.

SGR Episode 159

by Dave Minkus
score: 1/4

I generally keep my faith out of ScreenGeeks.com. I’ve never shied away from the fact that I’m a Christian, but I’ve made a conscious decision not to base what we do around that fact. The point of this site is to talk about film and our love of this beautiful art form. With that in mind, I hope you’ll indulge me for this review as my thoughts when it comes to Seven Days in Utopia are directly affected by my faith, beliefs and convictions.

Christian movies have always had an uphill battle. The apparent train of thought held in the Christian filmmaking community is that the genre must always be in service to the message. This means that certain things can NEVER occur in a Christian movie. Things like swearing, violence, sexualization of any kind gore, crude humor, or anything relating to dark spiritual forces just don’t show up in Christian movies. The theory is that by even showing these things, you are glorifying them, which isn’t what good Christians do. Living by that one rule, most Christian movies end up sacrificing things crucial to the cinematic experience like solid set design, an engaging story and competent direction, writing and acting. If you were to look at most Christian movies, the problem doesn’t lie in the religious message. The problem is everything else.

Over the past ten years or so, though, some films have dared to buck that trend. This year’s Soul Surfer makes no bones that Christianity and faith are incredibly important to the Hamilton family, but they don’t make a display of gratuitous Christianity that crams that faith down your throat. The faith is always present and integral to the entire family, but it isn’t reduced to a spectacle. In 2006’s The Second Chance, writer/director Steve Taylor brought what I think is the most honest and powerful Christian film to date by turning the camera on the church and exposing us for what we are, human. Most importantly and shocking, though, is that it proved Michael W. Smith could act. Yes, there are a couple of swear words, but they reflect the world we live in and the movie questions the way we live as the Christian church in America.

So now we come to the movie I’m supposed to be reviewing. There’s just no nice way to put it; Seven Days in Utopia is a complete failure in every goal it could possibly be setting out to achieve. Outside of a performance by Robert Duvall that is fuelled by pure conviction, there isn’t a single thing to recommend about this movie.

The story is about a golfer named Luke (Lucas Black) who loses it while being at the cusp of becoming a superstar and finds himself in Utopia, Texas, where Duvall’s Johnny offers to help Luke get his groove back if he’ll stay in town for a week. Having nothing to lose, Luke accepts the offer and finds himself stuck in a town with what appears to be only one woman under the age of 50, an emotionally stunted Texas hick who is such a jerk he gives Texas hicks a bad name, and other one-dimensional characters who barely merit mentioning. Luke has a Bagger Vance-like experience with Johnny, goes back to golfing and I’ll let you guess how the movie ends. The worst part is that you’ll still be guessing even after the movie is over, but we’ll get to that later.

I’m purposely leaving out the names of the other actors involved in this film because I firmly believe the awful performances are not their fault. Exhibit A for this is just how wasted Joseph Lyle Taylor is. You might know him as Doyle Bennett in the FX show Justified. In that show, Taylor shows he has acting chops and can be compelling. In this movie, however, he’s relegated to being the overbearing dad without a single redeeming quality. I could go down the list of actors and give them a single trait like this ad nauseum, but I won’t. The point is that writer David Cook and writer/director Matt Russell have crafted a supremely boring movie that by most accounts would be (and should be) overlooked as harmless fluff.

The problem becomes that this movie also has Christian themes…or at least it’s supposed to. Being a G-rated movie geared toward adults means 99% of the time, it’s a Christian movie. It’s entirely possible to do this right. Disney’s The Rookie is proof positive of that. The filmmakers decided that they needed to make a movie that is as family-friendly and toothless as other Christian movies, but I guess they forgot to put the Christian part in there. Instead of having the message most Christians would expect, the movie ends up meandering philosophically throughout the movie and dabbling in themes that could be interpreted as Christian, but also qualify as Buddhist. It’s like they were scared to say the word Jesus. So we end up with a movie about golf, but is actually about how life is more than golf…yet doesn’t actually explain what the definition of what that “more” is.  This results in an intellectually insulting piece of trash.

Say what you will about the Left Behind movies, Fireproof, or if you’re older like me, the Thief in the Night movies from the 70’s, but those movies have a definite message. Even if they are a complete failure of an artistic exercise, there is an integrity to them. You know that you’re going to get crappy acting and directing, but a positive Christian message, and that sells these days. It’s like watching a Troma movie. You know EXACTLY what to expect when that label is attached and you’re never disappointed. Yes, I just compared the Christian film industry to what could legitimately be called the only truly grindhouse studio around. I’m a little stunned I went there myself.

Before I get to my main problem, the ludicrous amount of product placement must be addressed. I’m pretty sure Calloway Golf must have paid for at least half the budget of this movie. I found myself yearning for the subtlety of Snakes on a Plane and how they discreetly placed products in scenes. If there is ANYTHING golf related, Calloway is there. If someone is wearing a baseball hat, it’s a Calloway hat. When Daddy Dearest tries to make up with his boy? He said he was sorry with “Calloway’s latest and greatest driver”. I also found out after the movie from one of my coworkers that every single pro golfer who appeared in the movie is sponsored by the same company. I’ll give you two guesses who that company is and the first two don’t count. Seriously people, have a little dignity.

I think I would’ve been willing to just write Seven Days in Utopia off as just another failed attempt at a mainstream Christian movie, but I haven’t reached the ending yet. Yes, I am going to spoil the end of the movie. I am usually vehemently against spoilers, but I feel a responsibility to you, the reader, to warn you of what you have ahead of you should you decide to buy a ticket and catch this atrocity over the weekend. I’d warn you to stop reading if you don’t want spoilers, but this is important enough that you need to read the next bit.

The movie doesn’t end. No, seriously. It doesn’t have an ending. There’s a scene with Duvall narrating that puts a perfect bow on the film that is in keeping with everything else that has happened previously and is in the spirit of the movie. Any crappy filmmaker would have let the fade out happen and then role the credits. Apparently THESE filmmakers decided they hadn’t insulted the audience enough. After said fade to black after they establish that what happens in the climactic moment doesn’t matter, we get two lines of text, each followed by a fade out.

“Want to see how the story ends?”

“Go to http://www.didhemaketheputt.com”

roll credits

A better ending would have been a terrorist running onto the golf course, detonating a suicide bomb and killing the entire cast followed by a grand finale consisting of a crane shot widening out and the maimed corpses breaking out into a chorus of “Always Look On the Bright Side of Life”. It sure would have been in better taste. You don’t take people’s hard earned money and then tell them to go to a freaking website that ends up being proselytizing tool. Here’s tip for the filmmakers: If you want to make this movie a pathetic attempt to be an evangelism tool, don’t take people’s money and then pull a scam like this. At its best, you are telling the audience that you’ve just wasted their time because you don’t know how to end a movie. At its worst, you are cheating the people you’re trying to reach out of their hard earned money in quite possibly the most despicable way possible. With the purchase of a ticket comes the implied agreement that the movie I am about to walk into will end on screen. The ending might be awful, but it WILL end. Had I purchased a ticket to see this movie, I would not have left the theater until my money was refunded. As it is, I think the studio owes me gas money for my drive from Colorado Springs to Denver and back to see it in the first place.

In my opinion, what these weasels did was undermine the tenants of the faith that I hold as sacred and dear. If you have to pull a gag that would make P.T. Barnum slap his head in disbelief that he never thought of pulling a stunt like this in order to do what can only be called tricking people into Jesus while taking their money, the message can’t be that good in the first place. The fact that these vultures can actually sleep at night while releasing this movie for a profit is appalling. Robert Duvall’s performance would have scored this movie as a 2 out of 4, but this disgusting display brought it down to a 1 out of 4 and might spur me to open up the mythical 0 out of 4 for debate.

I feel it’s important to say that I don’t point to Seven Days in Utopia as being an example of Christian cinema. Films like Soul Surfer and The Second Chance show glimpses of what the genre could become. I’d argue that films like Kevin Smith’s Dogma and Terrance Malick’s The Tree of Life should be included in the genre, even if they are films that don’t fit the typical Christian movie mold. That’s kind of the point, though. Until Christian filmmakers understand it’s possible to make a movie where there message is in service to the story/genre without compromising the message, we’re never going to the greatness I see as possible, and that’s a shame. I’m never going to stop my search for the great Christian film, but I can tell you that it isn’t even worth stopping to see the scenery in Utopia.

Rifftrax is an interesting phenomena. Born out of the ashes of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the team of Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett were determined to prove that it’s possible to make a living from mocking cinema. By going with a different approach, namely selling what amounts to an MP3 commentary track, they were suddenly free of only being able to work on the movies they could get the rights to or were in public domain. Now, they can (and do) riff on pretty much every major film that comes out on home video. If you haven’t listened to the Transformers release, you need to just stop reading and go get it. It could be the best 4 bucks you can possibly spend.

Not content with just doing audio releases, the Rifftrax took an interesting leap in teaming with Fathom Events to do a live broadcast riffing a movie to theaters across the country. While a ton of fun to catch (I bought the Plan 9 live DVD and have it signed by Jonathan Coulton so far), the biggest criticism leveled against the gentlemen is that they were covering old material. I believe that the previous shows of Reefer Madness, Plan 9 and House on Haunted Hill have all been released at least one or two times. This has made some of the hardcore fans a little cautious of spending the money on a theater ticket for something they have already seen in another format.

Well, it looks like the guys have listened and are doing something to make the faithful rejoice. Tonight, the Rifftrax crew will be riffing the 60′s not-really-a-classic, Jack the Giant Killer. From everything I’ve been able to find, this is the first time that this movie will have been riffed by the gang. Even though I’ve never seen the film, it’s Rifftrax doing something for the first time and it’ll be live. I just can’t possibly miss this experience. You can find out more about where it’s playing tonight at the Fathom page for the event. It will be airing at 8pm EST/7pm CST/6pm MST/8pm PST (on a tape delay).

And before you ask, yes, I was asked to write about this event, but I had already started writing this a couple hours before being contacted. I love the Rifftrax crew and will always be doing what I can to expose them to more people. There’s really nothing quite like hanging out in a theater with a bunch of other fans enjoying the fun on screen and wishing they’d do a broadcast in your town.  If it’s playing near you, I think it’ll be worth checking out.

By Dave Minkus
Score: 3/4

Apparently, The Help is a best-selling book that everybody loves.  Not always do good books translate into good movies.  Ok, let’s be honest.  For every good book-to-movie translation, there are at least a hundred crappy ones.  So is The Help the exception to the rule, or another in a long line of stinkers?  The truth lies somewhere in between.

Taking place at the beginning of the civil rights movement, Skeeter (Emma Stone) is home from college an enlightened young woman with the goal of becoming a journalist.  After landing a gig doing a housekeeping column, she goes to a party being thrown by her old high school friends.  While there, she notices how poorly the titular help are treated.  Moved by the injustice, she decides to write a tell-all book from the help’s perspective.  Will it change the world or get everyone killed?

I’m just going to get the bad part out of the way.  This film most definitely has its heart in the right place.  The setting of the time is dead on accurate and the mentality of people is fairly true to the time.  Unfortunately, The Help commits a crime that keeps it from being great.  The film plays with the time’s rules just a little too much.  While women had the right to vote and were equal in the eyes of the law, the prevailing mentality of the time was that a woman was meant to be a man’s “little woman” and was supposed to stay in the kitchen or at home raising babies.  Anything outside of that would be more than a little frowned upon.  With that in mind, I find it hard to believe that Skeeter wouldn’t be run out of town for being such a free thinker, especially in this town.  Compounding the problem, though, is the publication of the book.  Playing by the film’s rules, the reason nobody talks about it makes enough sense.  However, I’m also fairly certain that there is no way everybody would have gotten away with it completely.  That time period is notorious for people, both black and white, getting beaten to death or within an inch of their lives for daring to even talk about what racial injustice, let alone publishing a book about it.  It’s also important to note that a lot of those lynchings/beatings were never prosecuted.  As soon as thought it put into the plot, it falls apart.

Oddly enough, those gaping logic holes don’t keep it from being a good movie.  The performances in this film are nothing short of outstanding.  Emma Stone continues to show that she’s the real deal.  She makes Skeeter the kind of person you root for.  I understand that this was obviously the goal, but another actress easily could have made her the most annoying and angsty character in the film.  The way she brings a heart to her character on screen is fun to see.  Bryce Dallas Howard takes a departure from most of her previous performances to be the films villain, Hilly Hollbrook.  Her performance is just short of moustache-twirlingly evil, but she becomes a woman you love to hate, and her performance makes her character’s payoff work brilliantly.

I have to point out Jessica Chastain’s performance, though.  Her character is so completely different from the mom in Tree of Life that I didn’t recognize her initially.  Instead of just playing a man-stealing floozy, she brings a depth to her character of Celia Foote that she absolutely steals every scene she appears in.  Between The Help and Tree of Life, it really seems like 2011 has become her coming out party.  I will be keeping an out to catch anything she’s in from this point on.

The biggest thing that The Help needed to do was keep a low profile historically speaking.  The film has heart and wonderful performances, but it gets caught up in its own grandeur and importance.  It’s one thing to make a film about the south during the civl rights movement that talks about small cultural steps that were taken and showing the cruelty that African Americans had to endure.  It’s another thing entirely to create an event that gets fictionalized national attention and make the fact it happens more important than looking at if it’s realistic to the time period in that it could have happened.  I recommend catching the film, even though it’s difficult to categorize.  It isn’t realistic enough to hold up to scrutiny after seeing the film, and it tackles the tough subject matter of the time more than a light comedy would.  The performances alone warrant checking it out, though.  We’ll be hearing about the wonderful performances for the rest of 2011.

This week, we give Ethan the stage as he talks about all the films he saw at this year’s FanTasia Film Festival.

SGR Episode 158

This episode, the ScreenGeeks crew talks about the film critics who influenced us along with who we like reading now.

SGR Episode 157

This episode, Barry and Dave talk about the films of 2011 so far.

SGR Episode 156

We spend this episode talking about the week’s news

SGR Episode 155

We’ve never hidden our love of The Criterion Collection.  This episode, we discuss the films we discovered due to this amazing collection.

SGR Episode 154

This episode, we discuss the franchises that never should have been in film.

SGR Episode 153

Billy Flynn from Geek Radio Daily joins us to talk about the X-Men franchise.

SGR Episode 152

In this episode, we discuss the films of David Gordon Green, who has had one of the more interesting careers of any director working today.

SGR Episode 151

It’s absolutely no secret that both Barry and I really enjoyed Attack the Block.  I can’t wait for all my fellow film geeks to get a chance to check it for themselves.  /Film broke the news on Friday that the film will FINALLY be hitting theaters in limited release on July 29th.  If you can’t wait until then, the good folks at 43Kix are hosting another set of screenings this Wednesday.  Some of them are already sold out, but hit the link and see if there’s a screening near you that still has tickets.  This is a truly unique film that celebrates the monster movie in ways we haven’t seen for years.

I know this trailer has been online for a couple weeks via Yahoo! Movies, but it’s so good I had to post it here.  A lot of horror movies recently have been trying to make their mark either with the most twisted and jacked up imagery possible, an overload of jump scares or trying to more of a dark comedy than a horror film.  Fortunately, films like Insidious and House of the Devil have been raising the bar for horror by doing what makes for a truly effective fright flick:  You build the tension continually, have legitimate scares (jump scares or otherwise) and don’t let the audience off the hook with much humor.  I get the exact same feeling when watching the trailer for Don’t Be Afraid Of the Dark.  If you like horror but haven’t given this a chance, you really owe it to yourself to check this out.  It’s not too often that a trailer can freak me out, but this one does it perfectly.

Directed by Joe Cornish
Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker and John Boyega
Score: 4/5

It’s just another night in South London, when a nurse named Sam (Jodie Whittaker) is mugged by a teen gang, lead by the imposing Moses (John Boyega). As if things weren’t bad enough for Sam already, an alien invasion takes place just moments later, just outside of her apartment. Suddenly, everyone must work together to overcome a vicious attack from creatures whose mission isn’t initially clear.

While fan boys may note that this is from the producer of Shaun of the Dead, it isn’t a comedy. In fact, it’s kind of like An American Werewolf in London, which was also a horror film that just happened to be wildly funny. Writer/director Joe Cornish, who wrote the screenplay to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming The Adventures of Tin Tin, is a talent on the rise; this sleeper mixes genuine scares, pulse pounding excitement, social commentary, laugh out loud moments and really inventive monsters in a way I haven’t seen since Tremors.

This is a great monster movie. It has attitude and energy to spare and just keeps getting better and better. Of the gifted ensemble cast, Whittaker and Boyega are the break out stars but Nick Frost, playing the neighborhood weed dealer, is bang-on funny in a key supporting role.

The subtext is that this story would be interesting without the monsters showing up but the need for this rag tag community to work together, in a way they normally never would, provides insight on how connected and collaborative we all truly are. This scenario is a proven formula, whether it’s with mall zombies in Dawn of the Dead or punk vampires in The Lost Boys. The set-up for this movie will remind many of Skyline but, whereas that stinker did seemingly everything wrong, this one begins in offbeat fashion, picks up momentum and gives audiences a thrilling 90 minutes of jolts and you-won’t-believe-what-you’re-seeing imagery.

Initially, the thick London accents were a concern and I wondered if subtitles would have helped. However, I never missed a single plot point and, if anything, I only missed pieces of dialogue from how loud the audience was laughing.

It appears that movie monsters will never top H.R. Giger’s horrific creations for Alien and the creatures on hand here bear a superficial resemblance to those giant bugs with teeth. However, there is a huge variation on what you’d expect from outer space invaders: I won’t spoil it but, whether you see them clearly or in shadows, the beasts on the prowl here are seriously scary and kind of novel. The effects are so good, I could never tell if I was looking at a CGI effect or someone in a suit. In any case, the big reveal in a night time park is a creeper, and so is the line that accompanies the moment: “those aren’t its eyes!”

The budget looks to have been small but there’s more entertainment value here than most big budget 2011 releases. Like Insidious, this shows how far a small budget, genuine imagination and film craftsmanship can go to shaping a first-rate horror movie. The R-rating is more for the language than violence, though there are some brief but potently gory shocks I didn’t see coming.

This one plays like gangbusters in a crowded movie theater and deserves to be a word of mouth hit. If you like being scared, on the edge of your seat, and laughing the whole time, see this one, bring someone you want to get close with and a bunch of your rowdiest friends.

Directed by Joe Cornish
Starring Nick Frost, Jodie Whittaker and John Boyega
Score:  4/4

Looking at the poster and trailer for Attack the Block, I don’t blame people for not being more excited about this movie.  When the buzz around it started building (especially the audience award at SXSW), I didn’t understand it.  Obviously I was missing something, so I was more curious than anything when I got the invitation to catch a preview screening last night.  What I couldn’t have possibly expected was a film that is a direct descendant of films from John Carpenter, Wes Craven and even Cliver Barker from mostly the 70′s and 80′s.  If you’re not sure if that’s a good thing or not, believe me, it’s a VERY good thing.  When the opening shot of the movie was a static shot of a starry night and a synth score that John Carpenter could have easily written in the 80′s started up as a meteor fell to earth, I immediately got an idea of what I was in for, and this movie met every single one of my expectations.

Attack the Block’s very simple plot is that aliens have landed on Earth and have decided to converge on a single urban block in South London.  Ok, there’s a little more to it than that, but to explain much more would venture off into spoiler territory, and this film need to be experienced knowing as little as possible.  The story starts with a group of 5 hooligans robbing a girl on her way home from work.  She calls the cops, the cops catch one of the kids, and then things get very interesting VERY quickly.

There are a lot of things to like about Attack the Block, honestly.  I think the most impressive thing is the fact that writer/director Joe Cornish has crafted a film that definitely is influenced by films like Attack on Precinct 13, The Fog, The People Under the Stairs, and even the urban feel of Candyman all while making a film that is different and unique without being just a rehash of other movies.  Like Assault on Precinct 13, the film features a cast made up mostly of unknown actors outside of Nick Frost, who puts in a great performance as Ron.  Had Cornish and his team not cast a team of solid young actors, this movie would’ve fallen apart from the beginning.  Since you don’t know these actors/characters at all, you are unsure of them at the beginning, but you begin to relate to these hoodlums the more they transform from a loose group of kids up to no good into a tight-knit group of friends who will do anything for each other.

The standout performance comes from John Boyega as Moses, the leader of this particular ragtag group of micreants.  The film wouldn’t have suffered terribly had Moses been played merely by a servicable actor, but Boyega’s acting also makes this film a bit of a coming of age story.  Boyega becomes increasingly riveting as the film goes on and Moses transforms from just another street thug into a man ready to face the consequences of his actions at the end of the film.  He brought enough nuance that you almost don’t notice the transformation because of just how naturally Moses matures.  Everyone is solid in this film, but Boyega is definitely one of the biggest highlights of the film.

When you get a cast this solid together, you need to have an equal opponent, and the aliens in this movie prove to be more than up to the task.  This is an area where the filmmakers took advantage of a lower budget.  Creature effects have always been by default been an area that will make or break a movie.  Make the creatures too elaborate and they dominate the film and it suddenly becomes a glorified tech demo.  Skimp too much and there’s no way your audience will take you seriously.  The GWMF’s (Gorilla-Wolf-Mother-Effers, as the film refers to them quite often) are pitch perfect for this movie.  Humanity has always been scared of what it can’t see or understand.  A fully detailed and elaborate alien is scary enough, but make a creature that your brain can’t process completely except for its teeth when it’s standing right in front of you, and you’ve got something truly terrifying.  I don’t know how much of the creature work was practical or CG, but the team that brought these things to life deserves some serious props.

Back to the films influences, there are scenes in the film that no doubt borrow from other films, but effectively use the chosen gimmick and make it the film’s own.  The scenes in the smokey hallways after fireworks have been set off are used to remarkable effect and make you feel like you’re in The Fog.  I mentioned the synth score at the beginning of my review that is eerily reminiscent of the scores Carpenter used in the 80′s, and it shows up here and there, but morphs into modern hip hop.  My point is that this movie doesn’t shy away from its influences, and it doesn’t make these nods a giant wink at the audience.  It takes inspiration from the past and remakes it into something entirely new.

If I have one single criticism of the film, it’s the copious use of the fact that this movie is brought to you by the producers of Shaun of the Dead.  This is because while it definitely generates interest in the film, there is also the huge potential to set up the wrong expectations.  There are big laughs to be had for sure, but you are certain to be disappointed if you’re expecting this to be a comedy.  Make no mistake, Attack the Block is a sci-fi survival monster movie at its core.  It uses humor and big laughs as a mechanism to release tension throughout, which helps make this such a fun monster movie, but it isn’t the focus at all.

If what I’ve written about even remotely piques your interest, you need to see this movie.  It’s such a unique film the likes of which we haven’t seen in a long time and might not see again for a long time that you seriously need to take advantage of catching this if you can.  As of right now, I believe the film may be releasing in August, but I can tell you right now that I seriously want to see this movie again more than coming blockbusters like Captain America, X-Men: First Class or Green Lantern.  There’s a reason why people like Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg have been extolling the virtues of Joe Cornish for years.  In his first feature film, he’s already proven himself to be the real deal and definitely a director to keep an eye on.

It’s clear after watching Fast Five that director Justin Lin flunked physics in high school. How else can you explain the film’s delirious action sequences, moments where both actors and cars zoom across the screen as if untethered by gravity?

The film’s signature chase (mild spoiler alert!) involves two cars dragging a massive safe across the highway. You don’t need an abacus to realize they probably wouldn’t get very far doing that in real life, let alone out-race a squadron of cop cars in hot pursuit.

Audiences clearly don’t seem to mind the liberties taken by Vin Diesel and co. The film hauled in $85 million in its first weekend and continues to rake in the cash.

But Fast Five isn’t alone in tweaking the natural laws to goose our adrenal glands. Movies have done just that for decades. Did you really think James Bond could do all the things he does and not have a little help in the physics department?

Lately, filmmakers are getting better at shoving science aside. It’s all about more, more more, and the only way to up the ante on, say, four previous Furious installments is to trot out even hairier stunts.

The same holds true for recent movies like Knight and Day, Salt and The A-Team.

It’s part of the aesthetic landscape, and the better directors know how to use it their advantage. Count Lin in that category, although it’s a safe bet he giggled up his sleeve watching the film’s dailies.

So why don’t audiences mind when the on-screen action takes a turn for the absurd?

It’s all about consistency of presentation. There’s barely a moment in the Furious films that feels stripped from real life. Surely no one boasts biceps as big as Diesel’s or, in the latest film in the franchise, those belonging to Dwayne Johnson. And every scene pushes the proverbial envelope, so that by the time we watch those cars pulling a safe we’re almost numb to how surreal it really is.

A few films tweak this trend with giddy results, like the underrated Clive Owen film Shoot ‘em Up.

But modern filmmakers understand audiences are a forgiving lot. Throw a few engaging characters our way and stunt personnel who make the impossible a reality and we’ll tag along for the ride.

Even if it means swallowing hard as all those high school lessons flash before our eyes.

As much as we wish Barry could talk about Tree of Life, he can’t.  With all the buzz about the film, though, it just made sense to do an episode about his other films to help prepare us for what’s coming our when when the film opens wide.

SGR Episode 150

This is the first time we’ve ever done a show about a producer, but there’s little doubt that Jerry Bruckheimer was instrumental in changing the landscape of American action movies.  Jack from ScreenGeeks UK joins us for the discussion.

SGR Episode 149

This is our first ever rehash, but it seems appropriate.  Original ScreenGeek Ron joins us to revisit this film 4 years after our original discussion.

SGR Episode 148

Directed by Rob Marshall
Starring Johnny Depp, Penelope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane
Score: 2/4

I don’t know if any film series has had quite the same journey that of Pirates of the Caribbean. Starting off as a film based on a theme park ride, nobody thought the first film had a snowball’s chance in hell of being a good movie. Little did we know that the combination of a solid script, the imaginative hiring of Gore Verbinski (fresh off the only good J-Horror remake, The Ring), and a solid cast including Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush hamming it up and playing off an unlikely straight man in Orlando Bloom would bring us one of the great adventure movies of at least the past decade. The film brought the swashbuckling fun of an Errol Flynn classic and updated it with a good supernatural story and solid CG that was in service to the story.

The second two films pretty much threw everything that worked out the window and turned into a cash grab. The CG took over the spotlight of the films and Disney inexplicably decided to stretch a story that should’ve been in a single 120-150 minute movie over two movies totaling just over FIVE AND A HALF HOURS. Character development somehow found a way to take a backseat to the effects and mugging for the camera. The story was far more convoluted than it needed to be and turned into a complete waste of my time outside of the scene on the beach of crabs in Davy Jones’ Locker that would have been right at home in a Terry Gilliam movie. After the third film barely made its budget back at the box office, geekdom hoped that would be the end of the Pirates movies. The story finally ended and we all hoped the series was thankfully over.

Disney apparently ran out of ideas for live action movies after The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, and decided to blow off the mothballs and bring the franchise back. To their credit, Disney and new director Rob Marshall brought the series back to its roots by telling the complete story in a single film with a reasonable running time and made the CG take a backseat to the overall story. Would that be enough to make me as an audience member love Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and bring me back to the series? Unfortunately not.

The setup in a nutshell is that the Spanish, English and pirates are all looking for the Fountain of Youth. You’d think that would be a simple enough thing to put together, but the first 30-45 minutes become increasingly convoluted in establishing everyone’s motives before finally getting on the road. Amusingly enough, that part of the film is wrapped up with a chase scene involving British soldiers doing their best Keystone Cops impression while chasing Captain Jack Sparrow through the streets of London on foot and on top of various carriages and carts, which incidentally happens to be easily the highlight of the film. It was just as convoluted as the first 30 minutes, but was far more entertaining. With the film moving on to Blackbeard, killer mermaids, jungles, snakes, sword fights, and chases, you’d think that this would be a highly entertaining film. Unfortunately, it comes across mostly as just mediocre.

I’ll just get out of the way that I’m not the biggest fan of Rob Marshall. Outside of the Mr. Cellophane number in Chicago, I unequivocally hate that film. It’s mean spirited and gives you exactly one character to actually like, and he’s barely in the film. Memoirs of a Geisha was pretty to look at, but I have to keep reminding myself that I’ve seen it. Throw in a Disney version of Annie that couldn’t hold a candle to the original and stinker reviews of Nine, and you see why his name didn’t exactly make me hopeful for this to be a good movie. I have to give him some props, though, and say that the action sequences were were well shot and choreographed. I think the biggest issue of this movie is that it’s just a rehash for the sake of making it.

It’s still very fair to compare Johnny Depp to Errol Flynn and his swashbuckling adventures of the 30′s and 40′s. Unfortunately, we’re not living in that time anymore. There wasn’t anyone comparable to Flynn back then because there weren’t as many relatively high budget action/adventure movies being made of that quality. Now, Depp is one of at least a dozen stars who have the capability to draw in a crowd of both men and women. If you are going to bring back a character or archetype over and over, you have to find something interesting to do with him, and that simply didn’t happen in this movie. Steven Soderberg learned this lesson the hard way when he made Ocean’s Twelve. Eleven introduced us to these guys who are cooler than the other side of the pillow, but didn’t do anything interesting in the second film. Having learned from that mistake, he gave the crew something to unite over, specifically someone attacking and hurting Ruben. That ends up being the biggest fault of On Stranger Tides. The filmmakers just didn’t give me any reason to care that what’s left of the gang is back together.

Other issues I have with the movie are Hans Zimmers liberal…BORROWING of the score from The Fountain once everyone finally gets to the fountain of youth and the missionary who starts out as a very promising straight man to the insanity going on around him who turn into a fool falling in love with a mermaid and inadvertently becomes an “As you wish” short of completely becoming Westly.

I know I’m being hard on this movie, but it’s because I’d like to see another good Pirates movie, and it hasn’t happened yet. Yes, it’s absolutely the best sequel by a long shot, but that statement is pretty much the definition of the term damning with faint praise. Four movies into this franchise, I’m beginning to think that the first film was a fluke in the same way that Casablanca was just another movie in the studio system that chanced upon the perfect storm of cast, writer and crew. Oh, one more thing. Don’t waste your money on the 3D. It’s pretty much non-existant in this film except for a few poorly executed swords point out of the screen. If you’re a completionist and HAVE to see this movie, catch it at a matinee at the very best.

If you haven’t been listening to ScreenGeeks for long, you may not know about Rammbock:  Berlin Undead, but you definitely need to see this film as soon as possible.  Barry and I saw the film at the Mile High Horror Festival last year and fell in love with it.  This 60 minute zombie masterpiece even made my 2010 Top Ten list.  I just hoped that people would have a chance to see this special film, and starting today you can.

Filmmakers Marvin Kren and Benjamin Hessler have given us Germany’s first foray into the Zombie genre with RAMMBOCK: BERLIN UNDEAD, an unlikely tale of love, terror and survival set against the dystopic backdrop of a zombie-infested Berlin. We’re partnered with 43KIXDenver to give away FREE passes to see the film – text the word GEEKS and your ZIP CODE to 43549 for your chance to win. Example text: GEEKS 80256. Entry deadline: Sunday, May 8

If you can’t get to Denver to see Rammbock, check the official site to see if it’s playing near you and catch it while you can!

Barry was lucky and got to talk to the man at the top of his interview wishlist for StarFest this year as well.

Jeffrey Combs is known for being in everything from Star Trek:  Deep Space Nine to Re-Animator to The Frighteners and a million other things.  Mr. Combs was generous to spend some time talking with Barry about his acting background and some of his stage work as well.

StarFest Interview with Jeffrey Combs

I may have only been able to do one interview at this year’s StarFest, but I’m thrilled that I got to talk to the gentleman at the top of my wish list for the year.

I’ve always admired Mark Sheppard’s work, whether it be as Badger on Firefly, Crowley on Supernatural or as Jim Sterling on Leverage.  What made me a lifelong fan of his, though, was the discovery that he’s a geek like us.  It was apparent in all of his interviews and even moreso during his interactions with fans at the convention.  He made a point of talking with every fan in his autograph line and went out to hang with the geeks during the gigantic party known as Saturday night.  I hope you enjoy the interview.

Starfest Interview with Mark Sheppard

Partially recovered from their con-daze, Barry and Dave talk about the weekend that was StarFest 2011.

Check out these sites for their StarFest coverage as well:
Geek Radio Daily
Jonja.net
Twisted Geeks

SGR Episode 147

This episode, we take time to talk about Park Chan Wook’s powerful Vengeance Trilogy.

SGR Episode 146

To be straight-up, Your Highness, despite being about what is frequently referred to (and played for comedy) as a “quest” is aggressively-episodic and thus feels like a 102-minute sketch. A Saturday Night Live sketch? An In Living Colour sketch? A god forbid it, Cedric The Entertainer Presents sketch? No, the kind of short-form comedy a bunch of friends perform to crack each other up; even if they’re the only ones actually laughing in the very-full high-school auditorium. Being that David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and James Franco are doing this with tens of millions of dollars that could be spent towards I dunno, cancer research or funding like ten Harmony Korine movies, it may seem a little upsetting and somewhat of a waste of time. Truth be told though, despite it not being overtly funny, Your Highness is purely able to float by through its utter eccentricity.

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Not as much spoofing as it is lovingly emulating 80′s fantasy “classics” such as Beastmaster and Krull, Your Highness provides the same difficult terrain for David Gordon Green to map his stylistic tendencies on as his last effort, the stoner-film Pineapple Express. That film if anything provided more of a challenge being that producer Judd Apatow had already carved out an auteurship of sorts on his own through his revitalization of the raunch-with-heart subgerne. Green though, with his reliable collaborator, director of photograph Tim Orr, was able to craft a film that bore many of his visual signatures and even with the humour being somewhat less subtle than that of some of his previous films such as George Washington and All The Real Girls, proved that he was someone who could successfully balance the art-house with the mainstream. Now having done two stoner comedies in a row, suspicions have arisen of Green having sold-out, but that is simply not the case. While Your Highness contains very few David Gordon Green-isms (though watch out for a great slow-motion sequence of Danny McBride getting high interspersed with a wedding), there remains artistic credibility in a film that despite homaging shallow popcorn films, remains as far removed from the modern mainstream as possible.

While the film does embrace the use of computer-generated effects, a good portion of the creatures and sets are practical. The scene in which McBride and Franco go to a pot-smoking miniature wizard is funny on its own, but in making it a Jim Henson-esque puppet, the implication of it once molesting James Franco actually becomes far more amusing. Scenes like this, and specifically one involving a Minotaur are not only bucking a trend by being practical, but the pure bizarreness of them only reinforces the idea that nobody else in Hollywood would be doing this. So while Your Highness has none of the introspection, beauty and character-work of his previous films, it at least remains the work of someone thinking about more than pleasing the mall-crowd. The film’s biggest embrace of digital effects is probably the use of blood, which actually works to add comical fakeness, the only thing that probably wouldn’t have been achieved by practical effects. All the sets and costumes though actually feel like they could be a part of a fantasy film, one of the film’s few aesthetic choices that doesn’t inhabit irony. Stuck in between irony and genuine use though is the score by frequent Michael Bay-collaborator Steve Jablonsky, whose often cheap Zimmer-theft makes it confusing whether it’s on the side of the irony of the puppet or the authenticity of Danny McBride’s armour.

To get away from the technical side though, is the film funny? Well…kind of sort of not really but a bit. Almost the entirety of the humour is based on vulgarity of sorts, but this is where it gets interesting. Such as with Danny McBride’s character from Eastbound and Down, Kenny Powers, the joke isn’t as much what foul things he says but THAT he says them. No, just saying “fuck” isn’t funny, but being used by a British-accented Danny McBride as a medieval prince wielding a sword, it is sort of amusing. Your Highness draws frequent attention to all its aforementioned technical choices by making its humour based almost purely on the contrast between it. The supporting cast being full of British characters actors playing it straight such as Toby Jones, Damian Lewis and Charles Dance reflects this entirely. Though, playing it the straightest is Natalie Portman, who you genuinely think could kick ass and gives a surprisingly grounded and driven approach to her character. Compare it to McBride gross-pompousness shtick (funny, but still shtick), Franco’s goofy earnestness and Justin Theroux’s self-aware mugging and it sticks out. Her utter gameness for the material though certainly succeeds in making the film just a little more enjoyable.

While I personally enjoyed Your Highness, I’ll admit to being a part of the film’s completely-niche audience. As said before, Green, McBride and Franco are clearly enjoying this far more than any audience will, but I like to imagine myself on set, laughing along with them at the fact that Danny McBride is wearing a necklace of a Minotaur penis and a studio payed for him to do so.

Russell Brand may be in for a long weekend.

The bawdy British comic takes over for Dudley Moore in the just-released remake of the 1981 classic Arthur.

The early reviews have been withering. And the initial two trailers won’t convince many movie goers to give Brand’s latest a try. Not only are there few laughs to be found in either, they leave a main character on the cutting room floor – Greta Gerwig as Arthur’s love interest.

That might doom Arthur 2.0 to box office oblivion.

But Brand isn’t to blame for bad marketing, and since every other ‘80s favorite is being rebooted it’s hard to say Arthur deserved special protection.

Brand’s speedy career arc has been remarkable. Three years ago, he made a splash as a hedonistic rock star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. He parlayed the role into a spinoff feature, Get Him to the Greek, and the chance to step into Moore’s miniature shoes as the sloshed Arthur.

Yet Brand has a legion of detractors, notably amongst the critical set.

* Unable to relax, Brand is unable to charm. Without coming near a ukulele, he manages to be as odious as his doppelganger, the ’60s novelty singer Tiny Tim. – The New York Post

* Brand can be funny in supporting parts. But he doesn’t yet know how to command a front-and-center role, and Arthur groans with the effort from its first moments. – The AV Club

* If anything, this movie should put a nail in the coffin of Russell Brand’s career as a movie comic because, well, the guy’s just not that funny. – The Huffington Post

What I admire about Brand is that there’s more much to his shtick than just that frizzy hair and warbly speech. Listen to him on a chat show and you’ll hear a fertile comic mind at play. That’s evident during Arthur, a film that’s consistently witty even if it ultimately can’t live up to its predecessor.

The gangly comic’s screen career is still brand new, pun mostly unintended. And he’s already scored one major hit in Marshall, proved he could anchor a comedy in Greek and made a slick Hollywood remake that doesn’t embarrass the source material via Arthur.

Frankly, it’s shocking that the alcohol-fueled Arthur could be remade in the first place given our PC times.

Where Brand may struggle is straddling the line between outrage and the mainstream. He tries to do so in Arthur, and it doesn’t always work. Having cinema’s premier drunk attend an AA meeting simply feels too sterilized. Some of Brand’s best bits take us out of our comfort zone.

Brand’s big screen future could indeed take a hit if Arthur tanks. But I’d rather watch him on screen than suffer through another Saturday Night Live skit writ large or a fourth Focker.

Today is an exciting day for all of us at ScreenGeeks.com.  This has been in the works for a few weeks, but today I get to officially announce a guest poster on the site.

We’re very lucky when it comes to reviewers in Colorado.  I have yet to run into anybody at any of the screenings I’ve attended where all of the reviewer’s weren’t great.  No matter if they write for a big paper in town or just their own website, everybody is friendly and nice.

Then, there is Christian Toto.  Christian is just an incredibly cool guy and he’s a fun guy to talk movies with.  The man has been published in The Denver Post, The Washington Times and MovieMaker Magazine.  There’s a good chance you’ve also heard him on the radio on shows like The Dennis Miller Show, America’s Morning News or even The Mike Rosen Show in Denver.

Honestly, none of that matters, though.  When you read a review by Christian, you’re being exposed to a talented writer whose love of film comes through in everything he puts out.  Simply put, you want to tell more people about his work.

Christian approached me about a month ago or so and asked if I would mind posting something from him occasionally.  Obviously, I wasn’t about to say no.  I hope you dig his work as much as we do.  If you like what you see here, you definitely need to make a point of checking out What Would Toto Watch? as often as possible.

We’re excited to welcome Christian to the site and look forward to seeing his work in the future!

That’s right, everybody.  This episode, we discuss the cinematic career of the artist formerly (and now currently) known as Prince.

SGR Episode 145

This week, we talk about the films of Gus Van Sant.

SGR Episode 144

It’s never easy to have your expecations for a movie crushed by the actual film.  It happens, though, and we talk about that on this week’s episode.

SGR Episode 143

Last week, I had the honor and privelage of sitting in on a roundtable with Glen Keane, the supervising animator and executive producer of Tangled.

Tangled didn’t exactly set the world ablaze at the box office, but I think that’s because a lot of people have a hard time accepting a CG Disney animated film (Pixar movies being the exception).  Once people give this film a chance when it releases to DVD and Blu-ray on April 29th, I sincerely hope it finds the audience it so richly deserves.

Before the interview, Mr. Keane treated us to a live webstream where he talked about the importance of hair in various Disney characters and gave us some examples of the rough animation from Tangled and what he did to help the computer animators give the film the more traditional look while moving the medium forward.  I hope this footage is made public at some point, because it is truly magical.  What follows is a transcript from the session I took part in.  Our sincere thanks go out to the good folks at Disney for letting me sit in on this chat with a master.

Please note that there is a huge spoiler discussed at one point in the interview.

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Q – Was it strange — after being a pencil & notebook guy for all those years — to suddenly be drawing on a tablet? 
A – Glen Keane: The Syntec tablet at first was very slippery with the stylus pen on glass and it took a couple of weeks to get used to that but I quickly found that there were benefits to it. I could animate very quickly moving from one frame to the next and have my drawings projected up onto the screen in our dailies screening room. All the animators would watch my drawings form and I could talk and actually give animation lessons to the young animators on our crew. I saw this as an opportunity to pass on the baton that had been given to me by Walt’s “Nine Old Men.”

Q – Is there a sequence you’re most proud of, and why? 
A – Glen Keane: The sequence where Flynn is dying in Rapunzel’s arms. It was the most difficult and the most rewarding because the acting was so extremely subtle. The expressions of someone crying are inherently ugly. All the muscles in the face fight each other. No one wants a camera in their face at that moment. But we challenged the animators to go for the ugly face and as Rapunzel fights and holds back tears, the emotions are so real and so true. And it’s so effective because when that tear comes from Rapunzel’s eye and heals Flynn, you believe there is enormous pain in Rapunzel’s heart. If you don’t believe that tear comes from a heart of love the movie doesn’t work. It was successful and emotionally gripping. I was never more proud of our animators then at that moment.

Q – Why was it decided to make Tangled a musical? It seems every Disney animated theatrical release is a musical; why is this? 
A – Glen Keane: Music brings an enormous amount of freedom in storytelling. You can advance a story in fun ways and also in extremely emotional, dramatic ways. Howard Ashman used to say, when you have tried to say something through acting, through dialogue, in every way you possibly can and there is nothing left to do to communicate those feelings, your character has to sing. And there is something about music in fairytales that go together like peanut butter and jelly. It just seems to taste better.

Q – You go to work closely with your daughter Claire on this animated feature. To the point that your granddaughter Matisse was the model for baby Rapunzel. What was it like to work on such a family-based project? 
A – Glen Keane: I guess the idea of using your family in your work comes from my dad. He created a comic called The Family Circus based on his own family, I was the character Billy in Dad’s comic. So when it came time for me to animate I have always used my own family as models. Ariel was my wife, Tarzan was my son, I was Beast and my daughter Claire was very much the inspiration for Rapunzel. I remember when Claire was 7 years old she wanted to paint her bedroom walls and ceiling. My wife said no, but when Claire was 21 as an art student, I realized she was the perfect choice to create the look and style of Rapunzel’s paintings. So when you see Rapunzel paint you are seeing my daughter Claire’s paintings. During the making of the film she gave birth to our first grandchild, a little girl named Matisse. I used Matisse as an inspiration for designing little baby Rapunzel. It all goes back to taking what you know and using that as a source for inspiration. I believe the audience connects to the sincerity that inspired those characters.

Q – Given that you worked on the Disney Princess movie that helped kick start Disney’s Second Golden Age of Animation (i.e. “The Little Mermaid”), how does it feel to have been so involved in the creation of “Tangled,” the Disney Princess movie that proved that WDAS can make truly great films in the CG format? 
A – Glen Keane: It seems that a fairytale launches every important era of Disney animation. Snow White launched the golden age, Little Mermaid a renaissance, and now it’s my hope that Tangled can launch this third golden age of Disney animation. I think the key is finding the synthesis between a new technology, CG and the roots of our heritage, hand drawn.

Q – What is some memorable advice you received from Ollie Johnston? 
A – Glen Keane: My mentor was Ollie Johnston. When I was 20 years old he taught me things like the key to Disney animation is sincerity or don’t draw what the character is doing, draw what the character is thinking. These ideas I repeated again and again to our crew during the making of Tangled. For me it was really an occasion to pass on the baton to this new generation.

Q – What advice would you give to people who want to break into the entertainment industry? 
A – Glen Keane: I would say be yourself. The temptation is to give the audience what you think they want instead of opening up and being vulnerable and sharing who you are with them. It seems that every time someone takes that step of vulnerability they discover an audience ready to embrace them.

Q – What was it like working with (directors) Nathan Greno & Byron Howard on this feature? 
A – Glen Keane: Nathan and Byron are great actors. They would issue the scenes to the animators by relating moments in their own lives to what they were asking the animators to do. They would act and express very deep emotions, sometimes even with tears. The animators would watch and take notes, I would do drawings on the Syntec tablet, all in an effort to capture Nathan and Byron’s performance. They were an engine for driving the subtlety, humor and drama in this film.

Q – I’m told that you took a run at developing an animated version in the mid-1990s, before you started work on “Tarzan.” What was it about this Grimm’s fairy tale that grabbed and then held your attention? 
A – Glen Keane: While I was working on Tarzan I was simultaneously developing Rapunzel. This story captured my desire to animate characters that have this burning desire inside of them to do what seems impossible. I was attracted to the story because of what I imagined to be Rapunzel’s irrepressible nature. And so I developed it with that idea and I believed with all my heart that Disney had to make this fairytale. It went through many changes of management and often times great doubts and efforts to change the story into something other then what I believed. Ultimately it was a joy to work with John Lasseter and Nathan and Byron who caught the original vision and allowed me to focus my efforts into bringing hand drawn into CG.

Q – What do you believe is the most important part of creating a character? 
A – Glen Keane: I have an odd belief that the character exists before they are designed, similar to Michelangelo seeing a figure incased in marble. His task was to set it free. So for me the joy of creating a character that I believe is real is at the heart of creating a memorable character. I use people I know as inspiration. It’s a very intimate personal process and I will do hundreds, sometimes thousands, of drawings in finding that design. There is a great “aha” moment when I finally recognize the character on my paper as someone I know. And that happened with Rapunzel. I look at her and I can say with confidence that’s her.

Q – Rapunzel is such a “real” teenage girl, especially when it comes to that sequence in the film where her emotions whipsaw back and forth (i.e. where she’s thrilled to be out of the tower one moment and then deeply depressed that she’s betrayed her mother’s trust the next). Given that Disney Princesses tend to be so optimistic and upbeat, was it hard to convince the Studio that a Disney Princess whose emotions were kind of all over the place would play better with today’s audiences? 
A – Glen Keane: There was a time when Disney princesses were neatly packaged and always pristine and pretty. Ariel was the first to break from that box. I remember my mentors Frank (Thomas) and Ollie (Johnson) said after the opening of The Little Mermaid that they would never have animated Ariel that way.  I said, ‘why?’ “Because you drew her face with ugly expressions at times when we were very careful to only draw our princesses with prettiest of expressions.”   And at that time I realized that this was a new generation of acting.  Anytime we had a choice to choose pretty or real we would always chose real. The authentic emotion is our goal.

Q – How did you get your start in the entertainment industry? Was animation always you passion? 
A – Glen Keane: I sent my portfolio when I was 18 to CalArts to the school of painting. I wanted to be a fine artist. My portfolio was sent by accident to the school of film graphics, an artsy way of saying animation. I was very disappointed but ultimately discovered animation as the ultimate art form. I liked to think that if Da Vinci or Rodin was alive today they would chose animation as their metier.

Q – Which do you prefer, the 2D traditionally hand drawn animation or 3D computer generated animation? 
A – Glen Keane: I love to live in the skin of the characters I animate. I find the pencil the most intimate connection to my heart in terms of communicating what is inside. There are artists today who don’t draw with the traditional pencil. Instead they express themselves with a much more expensive pencil, a computer. One of our top animators on Tangled used to be a plumber and discovered that animation was his true calling. So I have to say I have enormous respect for the pencil and the computer. Personally I prefer to draw with the pencil, but I chose to stand in the middle of the computer world and use everything in my power to make the computer more artist-friendly. Tangled is a result of those efforts.

Q – Which character has been your favorite to animate? 
A – Glen Keane: Every character has touched on some real part of my life. I suppose Ariel really was that character that opened up my heart, that connection in me to animate characters who believe that the impossible is possible. I am a guy who sees life as a glass half full and I relate to a character’s optimism.

Q – Do you plan to do more computer animation, or do you see yourself returning to traditional hand-drawn? 
A – Glen Keane: I see myself continuing on the path of bringing more of hand drawn influence into CG. However, this project has been a long, long journey. I can’t wait to get back into animating in 2D. So I suppose I will be running down both paths at the same time.

Q – “Tangled” is a film that often surprises (EX: The fairy tale version of “Rapunzel” is mostly about this girl locked away in a tower. Whereas “Tangled” spends much of its time outside of that tower, as Rapunzel goes out into the world to discover herself; The clichéd movie bad guys — the thugs at the Snuggly Duckling — actually turn out to be the good guys, helping Flynn & Rapunzel escape from the guards and then again helping Flynn escape from prison). Was this a deliberate choice while you guys were working on “Tangled” ? That you’d take the audience’s expectations and then flip them? 
A – Glen Keane: Have you ever been on a dark ride at Disneyland? The goal is to make the audience think they are heading one direction and then surprising them with a 90 degree turn in a new direction. Suddenly a black wall opens and what once seemed to be a lovely forest turns into a scary witch and you are delighted and scared at the same time. Tangled is like a dark ride in that sense. We are constantly surprising the audience with a twist by playing with their expectations on stereotypes. Really underneath it all is the theme of following your dreams. Even the toughest thugs have dreams.

Q – Can you talk about the difficulties in drawing Rapunzel’s hair and how you overcome these? 
A – Glen Keane: Rapunzel’s hair was 70 ft. long. 140,000 individual hairs animating and controlling thousands of hairs was at times like herding a thousand cats. The hair would often explode into a chaotic mess of strong willed pixels bouncing against one another and heading off in their own direction. The real miracle in this movie was Kelly Ward a software engineer who had a PhD in computer generated hair. She wrote software for 6 years on how to control this gigantic beast. We really thought of the hair as another character. I did many drawings to describe the esthetic look of the hair, the rhythm, twist, volume, etc. that needed to be incorporated into the animating of the hair. Drawing once again became the best tool for communicating ideas. A picture is worth a thousand words. But I discovered that creativity is not limited to pencils. Kelly proved that the domain of numbers and equations can be just as creative.

Q – How are Ariel and Rapunzel alike and different? 
A – Glen Keane: Ariel and Rapunzel both are being kept from living their dreams by a barrier. For Rapunzel it’s a tower wall and for Ariel it’s the ocean surface. They both share this irrepressible spirit . The joy in these characters is to watch them overcome impossible odds in attaining their dream.

Q – How has your impression of computer animation changed over the years? 
A – Glen Keane: In the early 80?s John Lasseter and I animated the first blend of hand drawn and CG in the Wild Things test. John eventually left Disney and started that obscure little company, Pixar.  I continued down the path of hand drawn but anytime the computer crossed my path I embraced it. Tarzan surfing down the branches, thanks to deep Canvas, created a wonderful synthesis between 2D and CG. In Treasure Planet, Long John Silver was a combo of hand drawn and CG in the same character thanks to his cyborg body parts. So it was not a big stretch to move towards computer animation for Tangled. The upward path of computer animation continues to approach the beauty and intuitive feel of hand drawn. Eventually there will be a seamless marriage between the two.

Q – Who are your inspirations as far as family, friends, or even other artists go? 
A – Glen Keane: Frederic Back is my favorite animator – a French-Canadian artist, in his 80?s now, who created The Man Who Planted Trees. It is a tour de force of personal expression. I dream of doing something so beautiful someday.

Q – How do you keep the creative ideas flowing? How do you fight back against creative blocks? 
A – Glen Keane: I find that when I hit a creative block I see it differently now than I did when I was younger. I used to think of a creative block as proof that my creative journey had come to an end. That I just never really had it. Then I discovered it was not the end but a wall to climb, that really I had come to an end of a plateau and there were new ideas to discover and eventually another creative block to confront. So the way out of a block is to open yourself up to something new. The way I do that is escape from Disney, go to a library and randomly search through books of artists or writers and find some new wind of inspiration. Sometimes I head down the street not far from Disney to the Norton Simon Museum and I always am reminded that this is my time to be an artist and to make the most of the opportunity like these artists before me did i.e. Degas, Renoir, Rodin.

Q – What was the hardest sequence to deal with in this movie and why? 
A – Glen Keane: The difficulty of animating crowds is monumental. When Rapunzel enters the kingdom and sees a world filled with people it put the fear of God into all of us at the studio. How in the world could we animate this crowd and maintain the integrity of everything we wanted in Rapunzel herself? The heroes of that sequence were John Kahrs and Clay Kaytis, my fellow animation supervisors . Typically animation supervisors give the task of animating crowds to the newest animators as quote, “dirty work”. Instead John and Clay took it upon themselves to organize, oversee and animate those crowds. Those guys are awesome.

Q – What was your favorite part of working on the masterpiece that is “Tangled”? 
A – Glen Keane: The very best moments for me were working with the animators in helping them dig down deep and find something real inside their own hearts to put into their characters they were animating. It was so rewarding to see people genuinely respond with laughter and tears and to know I had a small part in encouraging this new generation of animators to enjoy what i have enjoyed over my own career. Amen!

Q – What castle inspired you when drawing this one in TANGLED? 
A – Glen Keane: Mont St. Michel in Normandy, France inspired our castle in Tangled. It sits out in the bay surrounded by water and feels so very fairytale like. When I visited it I knew this has to be the kingdom that Rapunzel will someday be Queen of.

Q – Any final thoughts on TANGLED? 
A – Glen Keane: Disney animation has been a home for me for 37 years and I have learned an enormous amount from the artists who I have worked with and the creative challenges in the characters I have animated. I have told the animators many times on this film that they are artists and had they been born five hundred years before, we would be talking about building a cathedral or painting on wet plaster and creating frescoes. But we are born at this time and our cathedral is animated filmmaking. This is their time on the planet to be artists and to be make it count. Open up what is inside of them and put all of their heart into moving this art form forward. That is the future for this art form of animation and Disney studios.

by Dave Minkus

Directed by Greg Mattola
Starrting Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig and Jason Bateman

Score:  1.5/4

Paul has been getting mixed reviews pretty much from the get go.  I was legitimately scared to print Jack’s review when he saw it back in November of 2010.  I was afraid to even entertain the thought that the two men who were on their way to becoming this generation’s Abbott and Costello could put out what is at best a mediocre movie.  Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened.  I have some special bones to pick with the film’s treatment of faith, but I’m going to leave that for the end as I’ve done my best to take that out of the equation when it comes to reviewing and scoring this film.

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Paul features the adventures of Britgeeks Graeme (Simon Pegg) and Clive (Nick Frost) going on a tour of the USA and its geeky sci-fi landmarks, starting with the San Diego Comic-Con.  After reveling in the celebration all things nerd, they embark on their road trip to places like Area 51 and other spots noted for their extra terrestrial activity and places in sci-fi history.  Along the way, they meet up stranded alien Paul (voiced by Seth Rogen), who needs help getting home as he’s chased by feds (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio) and a Man in Black (Jason Bateman).  They also kidnap an eventual friend (Kristen Wiig) who happens to be one of those lunatics who believes in God…sorry.  We’ll get to that part later.  Can they get Paul home and survive the ordeal themselves?  Take a wild guess.

Normally, when you watch a film with so many hit and miss jokes, you can’t completely blame the actors as they’re just working with the material they’re given.  In this case, since Frost and Pegg wrote the script, they are the only people you can blame.  The opening bits where these lovable goofs are taking in the majesty that is Comic-Con are great and make you settle in for a fun ride the rest of the way.  That just wasn’t the case for me, though.  There were some fun geek referrences to be had throughout, but some of them were just far too forced (the country band playing the Star Wars cantina theme) or just didn’t work for me.  To be fair, the film is also meant to be a love letter to the Spielberg sci-fi movies and those moments are definitely special and genuine.

There’s also the matter of the profanity in the film.  Look, I don’t have a problem with swearing in movies.  The fact that I love Quentin Tarantino films should prove that point single handedly.  I just don’t like it when there is profanity for profanity’s sake.  I get that when a bunch of guys are hanging out, there’s definitely the potential for a lot of swearing.  My problem is that there are several spots where the characters regress to being 12-year-olds who just learned about naughty words or just played Bulletstorm for the first time.  It works in Wiig’s portrayal of Ruth because she is just now discovering the wonderful world of cussing, so it’s cute that she doesn’t know how to do it, kind of like Spock in Star Trek IV.  It just makes everyone else looks like losers, though.

To say the plot is threadbare is being kind.  It just serves as an excuse to get to the next landmark.  I think the suspense and fun could have been really amped up if the film ended at Comic-Con instead of started there.  I understand why they ended the film where they did, but I think the story would have been served better if the film ended in San Diego.  The sheer number of comedic possibilities of running around with an alien at Comic-Con is absolutely staggering.  I’m sure the logistics of making it happen would be a nightmare, but it would have been amazing.  Instead, we get Sigourney Weaver showing up and being cast only so another character can shout a famous line from Aliens at her.

And now, we come to the film’s treatment of religion and faith.  I just don’t understand why this part of the film was included at all.  Overall, Paul is a geek road trip movie that’s mostly having fun along the way.  To make a point of bashing ANY religion or faith in such a callous, mean-spirited way is confusing to me.  The religous elements of the film probably don’t take more than 5-10 minutes of the film’s running time, but my opinion of two gentlemen I previously respected greatly changed completely.  Making Ruth a backwoods, hillbilly, white-bred trailer trash Christian was done purely for laughs, I’m sure.  The fact that they all berate her mercilessly until Paul shares the knowledge of his life and the universe and cures her of her crazy thinking is insulting, plain and simple.  I know people are probably going to say that they’re just mocking her belief in a young earth as opposed to an old earth, but look at what’s said again.  Ruth (and we, the audience) are told that you are a complete moron if you believe in God.  There is absolutely no way that you can be a sane human being and believe in any kind of supernatural higher power.  Sounds pretty mean spirited and completely out of place for this kind of movie, right?

After Ruth is freed from the bonds of being an idiotic person of faith, the film is content to just let her overbearing, abusive father be a cartoon villain chasing them until the end of the film, where they bring this whole idea back.  When the father catches up to them and declares one of Paul’s powers to be a miracle of God’s healing hand, they immediately mock him outright like he has brain damage.  Even when the guy is finally coming around at the end of the film, Paul completely blows him off as the simpleton he obviously is.

I’m a big boy and can take some jokes about faith.  I didn’t hate Bill Maher’s Religulous simply because of the scene involving Bill at the truck stop Bible study.  The rest of the film may have been a mockery of people of faith, but including that single scene was at least an attempt to play fair.  Eddie Izzard makes no bones about being an athiest and taking the piss out of faith, but he generally does it in a playful way.  Paul just wants to mock ANYBODY of faith.  Yeah, Ruth is a very specific kind of Christian, but they go out of their way to say that any kind of faith is just wrong and you’re an idiot if you believe in any kind of religion.

Without all the faith bashing, Paul convinced me that a team of Frost and Pegg is no longer a lock to be an entertaning blast at the movies.  When it works, it really works, but those moments are so few that they can’t make up for the mediocrity in the rest of the film.

With the faith bashing?  It’s going to take stellar reviews for me to spend my hard-earned and precious disposable income on two gentlemen who have made it clear they don’t respect me as a person of faith.  As someone who went to the fan screening of Shaun of the Dead in Denver and has a Shaun Squad poster signed by Frost, Pegg and Edgar Wright, bought a region-free DVD player, imported Shaun of the Dead and the 2-disc version of Spaced, then imported the 3-disc version of Spaced, bought the 3-disc DVD of Hot Fuzz, bought the US version of Spaced, has a 12″ Shaun figure and upgraded Shaun and Hot Fuzz to Blu-ray, I believe I’m at the end of the line with you gents.  It’s been fun.

I’m not calling for a boycott or something dumb like that.  You should watch Paul for yourself and make that decision…when it’s a buck at Redbox or on Netflix.  I couldn’t honestly recommend this movie even if that content wasn’t in the movie, though.

I know what you’re thinking.  You’ll have to turn off the episode about 10 minutes in.  Don’t worry, loyal listener!  We thought about that ahead of time and only use the dreaded sounder a few times this episode.  We have a good time looking at what an underrated actor Matt Damon is this week.

SGR Episode 142

Notes to come

This week, we take a look back at previous Oscar years to see if the yearly event is truly a signpost to establish or recognize what a great film is.

SGR Episode 141

News:
The King’s Speech to be released in a PG-13 form
Bad Teacher Trailer
RIP Dwayne McDuffie
Remake of The Bodyguard coming
Emerald Knights trailer

I know I talked about this on the latest episode, but it really is worth giving its own seperate post.  Beyond the dream casting of Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan and Henry Rollins as Kilowog, this trailer just shows me everything I need to see to get excited including the epic scope required, great looking animation…and well, it just looks freaking cool.  Honestly, I think the live-action film is going to have a lot to live up to when I see this trailer.  What do you think?

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While I may have found myself being disaapointed by Tron Legacy the first time I saw it, I really enjoyed it more the second time around.  All the nervousness and expecations were gone by the second time I saw it, and I was able to just watch the film and enjoy it for what it was.

That may very well explain why I was so excited to see this short that will be included on the Tron Legacy Blu-Ray.  Acting as a bridge between the second and possible third films, it’s a fun watch and also gives a sense of closure from the Flynn Lives ARG.  Usually, a studio just lets the game die, but I’ve got to give Disney credit for having some form of payoff for the game.  Check it out and let us know what you think!

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Described ad nauseum as “BLACK HAWK DOWN WITH ALIENS” by bloggers and its own filmmakers, Battle Los Angeles arrives onscreen with a resounding lack of flair or passion. Being that the film’s entire point seems only to evoke other pop-culture memories, it makes sense that what we get is a utterly limp action picture. Ridley Scott’s aforementioned film (which was inspired by The Battle of Algiers itself) used semi-cinema-verite with plot and characters driven entirely by action to comment on the confusion and brotherhood of war. Being that those themes are hardly original, the subtle integration of them within an action-extravaganza made them feel actually powerful and not maudlin or cheesy. But of course since Battle Los Angeles has nothing actually on its mind other than entertainment, it feels almost offensively hollow.

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The film starts with the action in high-gear as CNN newsfeeds give us essentially all the exposition we require, unfortunately the film doesn’t trust this enough and instantly cuts to 24 hours before to give us “character development”. Only further ruining this is the use of Tupac and Dr. Dre’s “California Love” to segue us into this segment. It’s refreshing that a popcorn movie doesn’t have to take itself too seriously, but considering the film’s aesthetic, it feels awfully cheap. Our character introductions are given the most arbitrary, shallow development possible. Pvt. Nigerian Guy has a sister back home, Cpl. Hoyt from True Blood uh…he…uh…drinks beer I guess and apparently IMDB tells me that R&B superstar Ne-Yo is in it, great. The hand-held camera draws only further attention to how cliche the dialogue is and equally ruins the film’s attempt at a documentary feel. A particularly ridiculous scene in a graveyard would’ve worked perfectly with camerawork and music that realized how trite it was, such as in a Roland Emmerich film. Though, at this point I was still willing to give the film a chance. After all, we’re here for the set-pieces.

Here comes the key problem, the film’s set-pieces are for a better word, boring. Thinking that sound and fury = excitement, they just seem to begin and then end. They lack any sense of kineticism, the most important part of action dating back from Griffith to Eisenstein to Kurosawa to Spielberg to Greengrass. A character shoots, the camera shakes a bit, the alien is easily defeated. The stakes never seem to rise much throughout the film either. The best comparison is that it’s like watching someone else play a video-game. The sight of a billboard for Resistance 3 in the background of a set-piece only seemed like a cruel reminder of this. The one image in any of the set-pieces that struck a chord with me was when Pvt. Southern Guy has powder spilled on him as he’s engaged in combat; it seemed like a genuine evocation of the silliness inherent in the chaos of war. The apocalyptic images that accompany the title city can be briefly powerful, but almost too short-lived or reigned in by the PG-13 to actually be genuinely frightening. Making the rubble of one of the largest cities in the world resemble a war-zone in Baghdad doesn’t feel as compelling as it should either; the aforementioned Roland Emmerich made better use of a California wasteland in (the far sillier, but far better) Independence Day by having its characters have stronger interaction with it. The film makes an interesting choice of mostly keeping the aliens at a distance, beside a scene in which Sgt. Chin (Sorry Eckhart) and the mother of Tom Brady’s firstborn are inspecting one, we never learn too much about them. It’s refreshing in a way that the film at least makes one aesthetic and storytelling choice that feels like it fits in the film’s goals, but after awhile it just seems like, what is even the point of it being aliens? It barely feels like science-fiction and only furthers the fact that we’re watching is just a first-person shooter.

Despite having nearly nothing positive to say this, I can’t feel too much anger over it. Simply put, it’s just a aggressively pointless movie that evokes no emotion. I remember when the Halo short films came out and how impressed the internet seemed to be over them. While it is interesting to see a video-game treated as a serious war film, the gimmick eventually wears out after five minutes, which is why those were wisely short-films, not a feature-length films that wastes a hundred millions dollars, the talents of Aaron Eckhart and Michael Pena and most importantly, your two hours.

Those who’ve seen 2008′s utterly excellent Wendy & Lucy found it either a) An apt depiction of America’s economic and social turmoil anchored by a stunning performance by Michelle Williams or b) BORING. If your answer was the latter, let’s not have lunch together anytime soon. Anyway, the trailer for her next film, a western reuniting her with her star looks quite promising. It hit the festival circuit last year to rave reviews and it’s easily one of my most anticipated films of the year. The 1:33.1 aspect-ratio and psychological horror vibe (and it’s PG!) fascinate me even more. Having a cast as strong as that doesn’t hurt either. Since it’s not based off a comic-book though I guess it won’t be discussed very much; no costume bulge to analyze for 15 minutes.