I Hate Popcorn

John Carter is a sweeping sci-fi adventure story filled that in it’s IMAX 3D edition is a stunning visual experience that’s combined with lots of action and thrills. It is interesting to me that Director Andrew Stanton, like his Pixar pal Brad Bird, chose a big screen, big budget action adventure as their first film, not some domestic comedy. Except John Carter‘s budget is twice that of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol and has no stars in sight (Willem Dafoe is a CG character Tars Tarkas.)

Although Taylor Kitch (John Carter) and Lynn Collins (Dejah Thoris) have to do all the heavy lifting, they get support from the four-armed, green Tharks who are the best ever CG characters every to appear on film and with actors like Thomas Hayden-Chruch, Dafoe, and Samantha Morton inhabiting them why not? The live action actors including everybody’s favorite baddie Mark Strong (Matai Shang) and one of my favorite British character actors Ciarán Hinds (Tardos Mors) and there’s plenty of quality actors in supporting roles. Junie (Daryl Sabara) from the original Spy Kids is Edgar Rice Burroughs who appears in a small but important role. And don’t miss Malcolm in the Middle’s dad (Bryan Cranston) in the small but impressive role of Colonel Powell.

John Carter has everything that Cowboys & Aliens didn’t have. It’s sweeping in its vision and populated with real or CG characters that you care about. On top of that, the Western elements are much better done than in Favreau’s film and in an interesting bit of casting John Favreau appears as the voice of one of those self-same four-armed green Tharks.

The plot is anything but simple and involves John Carter being transported from the Frontier West to Mars aka Barsoom, which is deftly handled through an introduction narrated by Willem Dafoe. Once on Mars he rescues a damsel in distress, gets chased by some weird animals and bad guys—shape shifters –no less and fights the good fight as any chivalrous Confederate cavalry office must. All of which ends with a finale that leaves room for a sequel and I hope there is one.

There is no doubt that the plot, especially the details can occasionally be vague but for those who say you have to be familiar to get the source material—fuggedabouit. My wife whose only connection with Edgar Rice Burroughs is that her name is the same as Burroughs’ grandmother loved the movie because she cared about the characters in what is a mult-layered story that includes flashbacks to Carter’s wife and child that—and I ain’t kidding—brought tears to my eyes as the film shows quick cuts between Carter on Mars and Carter or Earth. You don’t expect to see stuff like this is a pulp-fantasy adventure but it’s all up there on the screen with big kudos to Stanton and co-writers Mark Andres and Michael Chabon. Yes that Michael Chabon.

What is interesting about the film is that the stroy keeps you guessing and both the action and the visual grandeur—the wedding scene is off-the-charts—picks up as the movie heads toward a climax (both of them) and is helped immeasurably by Michael Giacchino’s memorable score. I said it when mentioning his score for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol—Giacchino is hand-down the finest young composer working in film these days.

The 3D effects are clever but not engaging  (but see it in 3D anyway) and director Staton’s vision is impressive making watching John Carter a great time at the movies. I give it four and one-quarter kernels out of five. Combining the feel of Star Trek—the opening is very Wrath of Khan— Star Wars and bits and pieces of Indiana Jones, but John Carter is it’s own film and a must see movie for science fiction fans.

Officially entitled Resident Evil: Afterlife is the fourth film in the series and I must confess to not only owning the DVDs of the first three but even the Blu-ray versions of the films. My last dis is the 3D version of Resident Evil: Afterlife. There’s no way around it Resident Evil: Afterlife is a guilty pleasure that’s a mash-up of science fiction and horror movies wrapped around the conceit of the video game and while those roots can be felt in the first two films (especially the first) with the third installment writer Paul W.S. Anderson took us into Mad Max territory and writing and directing this film, as he did with the original Resident Evil, does so again.

After that it’s 3D to the (Mad) Max as he tosses axes, throwing stars, and even a pair of glasses at you as if you didn’t already know you were wearing them. This is the most blatant use of 3D since 1952’s Bwana Devil when Barbara Britton laid the first 3D kiss on me and my cousin Jimmy when we went to see that film first run! Speaking about the 3D: The effect of watching it at home, with really good 3D glasses was so much better than the experience I had in the theater. Resident Evil: Afterlife is the first film since Avatar to use Jim Cameron’s Fusion 3D camera but every now and then I would see some ghost images in the theater, which I didn’t see in Avatar. Maybe it’s the fault of the cheapo glasses that AMC uses. But the 3D Blu-ray did not exhibit any of this.

The storyline for Resident Evil: Afterlife is simple. Alice portrayed by Milla Jovavich is in search of sanctuary in the form of a boat called Arcadia. OK, this sounds like Children of Men—a much better film, in fact a minor masterpiece—but I don’t care. I am totally in love with Milla Jovavich. At 35 years old, her close-ups in 3D don’t hide much yet she is drop dead beautiful and seems to get more gorgeous each year. There’s some other people in the movie too, such as Ali Larter who was so great in RE:3 and a charisma dripping performance by Boris Kodjoe.

There’s kind of a story and it goes like this: Alice goes after one of the baddies depicted at the end of RE:3. It starts in Japan with a dazzling opening sequence on the rainy streets of Tokyo, then Alice and friends (no spoiler here) go all medieval on his ass, after which she goes in search of here friends in Alaska and though various plot devices finds her way to La-La land trapped in a prison surrounded by a thousand screaming zombies and this is not a rock concert. How she overcomes this adversity is the meat in the RE:4 3D sandwich and right near the end it seems like all is well with the earth and the series might be coming to the end, but then…

No spoilers here but I strongly advice you not to bolt out of your seats when the credits start to roll. And if you’re bladder can stand it for a bit longer hang around to the bitter end in the credits for an Easter Egg. And get this it’s different than what appeared in the theaters and I mean it was more of  teaser for Resident Evil 5: I can’t wait.

Cowboys and Aliens answers the question—that nobody asked—of what happens when you mix Bat Masterson (with Gene Barry) with War of the Worlds (with Gene Barry.) This movie is one of those great concepts that seems to have gone off the rails somewhere.

I was really excited when this movie was announced. It had everything: James Bond meets Indiana Jones in the Wild West to battle space aliens directed by the guy who made Iron Man such a great film (and Iron Man 2, not so great.) Well it turns out that this is more Iron Man 2 than Iron Man. But a muddled script that combines all of the Western cliches with lots of alien encounter mythology along with lackluster characterization left me wondering why? What really bums me out is that this is yet another nail in the coffin of the Western genre. Please, Clint Eastwood make another Western to show this current generation what a a good cowboy film can look like.

Plot: The outlaw Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) wakes up in the desert with a memory loss—classic alien abduction symptom—with a strange hunk of iron on has wrist. He kicks some ass then heads into town where he runs into the bad son with powerful father (Last Train from Gun Hill) who turns out to be Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford,) a mean old fart who under it all has a heart of gold. And when the Sheriff (Keith Carradine) tries take the son and Jake to trial, the aliens swoop in and raise hell along with some more abductions because, ya know, aliens just do that kind of crap. So naturally a posse heads off for one of the “demons” populated by a bunch of character from Stagecoach, including Olivia Wilde who prompts one of the best pieces of dialog in the film when she asks Clancy Brown as the inevitable preacher if she can join the posse, he answers “Why not, we already got a kid and a dog.” Yes, boys and girls there’s a kid (Noah Ringer) whose grandpa, the sheriff, is abducted and a dog that Jake picks up in Scene 1. Thus completing every Western cliche that Sergio Leone stomped into the dust.

With the exception of Clancy Brown, most of the actors are wasted here, including Walton Goggins who is usually great in everything he does. But the script doesn’t help and meanders around ultimately bringing in The Wild Bunch and a tribe of Indians into the picture which provided the one interesting scene in the movie when they cremate Olivia Wilde’s character and that’s when the movie turns into The Hidden, a much better movie about aliens. There is an extended version on the Blu-ray but because Universal continues to deliver crippled discs lacking any extra features (they expect me to buy this movie?) for rentals I couldn’t tell if it improved things. Shame on you Universal.

Cowboys and Aliens could have been a really fun movie and to be sure it’s not a bad film, it’s just not very good. I got it from the Red Box and it was worth the $1.60 Blu-ray rental—maybe. I give it  two kernals (I really liked Harry Gregson-Williams score) out of five.

With a production of cost of $30 million (director Roland Emmerich calls Anonymous a “low budget” movie and I guess it was compared to his other films) and with a US gross of  $4,463,292 chances are you didn’t see it in theaters but I urge anyone who loves a good old fashioned costume drama that includes political intrigue, history, and conspiracy theories to see it on Blu-ray. I’ll guarantee a rousing good time.

Like Shakespeare in Love, Anonymous takes on the question of who was William Shakespeare and how did he write all those marvelous plays. In this case, screenwriter John Orloff says it was Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford. While Shakespeare in Love focuses on the main characters and a whole lot of fictional ones, Anonymous populates the story with historic figures, all portrayed by a cast of amazing British actors including Derek Jacobi, who appears in the inventive wraparound story, Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Elizabeth I and her daughter Joely Richardson as the young Queen Elizabeth I. You see, there’s lots of flashbacks and many characters are portrayed by multiple actors at different times in their lives. One who doesn’t is the magnificent David Thewlis, as William Cecil, the queen’s adviser who is aged with make-up during the film. Thewlis gives the performance of his life but the only Oscar nomination for Anonymous was for costume design which it should have won, so the film didn’t even win what should have been a shoo-in. Sad really.

One of the reasons there are many actors portraying the various characters is that there are lots of flashbacks and initially the story might be confusing but hang in there; this film is worth paying attention. The plot is simple; yet told in an indirect manner. In the times, it was unseemly for a nobleman such as Edward De Vere to write a play but he keeps on writing them anyway because, he explains to his wife, he “hears voices in his head.” Wanting to see his plays performed he enlists the help of Ben Jonson terrifically portrayed by Sebastian Armesto but Jonson wants to see his own works performed and through a quirk of fate, Will Shakespeare (Rafe Spall) takes credit for the play and the die is cast. Spall’s Shakespeare is devilish, charming and cunning and lights up the screen whenever he appears.

Visually stunning, enhanced with what should have been Academy Award winning costumes and a cast that simply acts their socks off, Anonymous is a delightful film that when it presents some pieces of Shakespeare plays is truly dazzling in portraying them as they might have been performed when they where written. The St Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V is genuinely moving as is the point in the story where the groundlings form what must be the first mosh pit to celebrate another of Shakespeare’s plays. This is cinema at its best.

Is the film historically accurate? I don’t care who wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Like Shakespeare in Love, Anonymous tells a great story and that’s worth a solid four kernels (out of five) on the popcorn scale. It’s definitely worth a rental and might make a great double feature with Shakespeare in Love on a snowy day.

On May 16, 1929, the first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements for 1927 and 1928. That year, there was no Best Picture award and instead, there were two separate awards for production, including the Most Artistic Quality of Production, that was won by Sunrise (1927) and Most Outstanding Production, won by Wings (1927.)

Wings tells the story about the lives of two pilots during WWI and a beautifully restored version of the film on Bu-ray disc was recently released. I suggest that lovers of the cinematic arts should view it even if you have to look around. It’s probably not at the Red Box but you may be able to find a copy—and only get the newly restored Blu-ray—at Blockbuster or Netflix. Or you could do like I did and just a buy a copy because Wings belongs in the library of any serious studnt of the movies for a couple of reasons:

First it encapsulates the art of the silent film as well as any film made before talkies took over. And it shows the power of this art form from the point of view of a visionary director such as William A. Wellman that literally puts you in the pilot’s seat. This isn’t Top Gun with special effects of Tom Cruise in the cockpit. Here the two lead stars—Richard Arlen (David Armstrong) and Charles “Buddy” Rogers (Jack Powell) —and actually flying these planes and the effect is stunning. As is all of the flying sequences that were shot in Texas often against awe surprising cloud formations. This is a major technical achievement for 1927 and you will be amazed by Wellman’s  direction, camera placement, and editing.

Second, Wings is a time capsule of its time and while many of the acting techniques would set Lee Strasberg’s hair on fire, some of the performances especially by Richard Arlen are amazingly subtle and contemporary for its time period. There are genuine touching moments when viewed by modern audiences as when Jack faces David’s parents to admit that (spoiler) he accidentally killed their son. This is an unflinching scene that modern screenplays would sugar coat but here it’s handled directly. And the actors who play David’s parents (Henry B. Walthall and Julia Swayne Gordon) are mesmerizing in their few short scenes.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s plenty of hokieness to go around. As when the flyers live it up in Paris where there is a seemingly endless drunk scene involving champagne bubbles that made me want to puke but I’ll bet it had 1927 audience’s rolling in the aisle. I hated it and couldn’t wait till they got the story back to the war.

The plot of Wings is a typical love triangle but not between the two main actors and Clara Bow (Mary Preston) who was officially the star of the film but with Jobyna Ralston, who as Sylvia is in love David while Mary is in love with Jack who is in love with Sylvia. Got it? Trivia: In the life imitates art department, Arlen meets Ralston on the set, they fall in love for real and get married. In other Wings trivia: Gary Cooper appears in one scene but his star power was so visible that the short time he’s on screen helped launch an film illustrious career.

Wings is not really a silent film; there is sound, just no dialog. It was originally presented with an musical score played by an orchestra with somebody doing sound effects and you have a choice of watching the film with the full orchestra or with piano and organ as it may have been shown in smaller venues around the country. It is also not in black and white but most times shown with a soft sepia tint and other times with a heavier blue tint and there are even hand-tinted (shades of Gorges Melies) sections as when a plane is on fire or the bi-plane’s machine guns fire.

Given the times, Wings is an amazing technical achievement and its ground battle scenes hold up well against more modern films such as Patton. The plot may be an old one—it’s the same one that Michael Bay used for Pearl Harbor—but Wings is clearly the better of those two movies. Wings is a four kernel (out of five) movie and you should see it to understand the power that silent films held over our grandparents and great grandparent. I’ll bet you like Wings as much as they did!