In Bruges
July 25, 2008 | 1 Comment
At first glance this seems a bit like QUENTIN TARANTINO’S EUROPEAN VACATION. Two London hit men, Ray and Ken (Colin Ferrell and Brendan Gleeson), flub a hit badly. So badly that they have to get out of town. Their boss (Ralph Fiennes) sends them to Belgium to lay low for awhile, two weeks, supposedly, in the sleepy Medieval town of Bruges.
While they’re there, the older, jovial Ken wants to play tourist. The younger Ray is bored out of his skull, and also guilt ridden for what he did back in London. They spend a lot of time sitting in restaurants and talking about funny stuff, all while swearing a blue streak. Periodically there’s some sudden, shocking violence.
But the film works at a deeper level than a Tarantino movie. While Tarantino’s characters like to B.S. about philosophy, these guys, surprisingly, actually seem like fairly moral guys beneath their hit men exteriors. And that probably means they’ve chosen a career that isn’t going to end well for them.
Ray strikes up a romance with a Belgian girl (who incidentally is Clémence Poésy, the French Chick in HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE).
He also meets a surly dwarf, hilariously played by Jordan Prentice (And I would have bet money it was Peter Dinklage, because the two actors do look similar, although probably not side-by-side) who is in Bruges to film a movie where he plays the inevitable dwarf in a dream sequence (which is probably a joke reference to Peter Dinklage’s role in LIVING IN OBLIVION).
This is a dark comedy, and very funny, but ultimately surprisingly moving as well. The ending maybe has a little too much synchronicity for its own good.
DVD extras: Deleted and Extended Scenes, Gag Reel, When in Bruges (Making Of), Strange Bruges, A Boat Trip Around Bruges, F**king Bruges.
30 Days of Night
July 25, 2008 | 1 Comment
This movie didn’t make much of a splash in theaters, but it’s worth a DVD rental.
Based on Steve Niles’s 2002 comic book, it’s set in Barrow, Alaska, a town far above the Arctic Circle. At least as depicted here, around the time of the Winter Solstice, it’s in pitch darkness for 30 days, and so a group of vampires decides this is their Disneyland.
Josh Hartnett plays the small town’s sheriff, Melissa George (ALIAS) is his estranged wife, and Danny Huston is the king of the vampires.
This is an atmospheric, snow-covered film, and you really get the feel of the brutal winter trapping these people in the town while the vampires pick them off one by one.
These aren’t some Anne Rice pretty boy vampires; these are feral, nasty creatures who are just hungry, and they don’t seem to be having a very good time with their preternatural immortality. And they want to pass their misery on to their victims.
The film takes some liberties with Barrow; in reality the town isn’t nearly as cut off during its dark time as this makes it out to be. Here it’s depicting almost as remote as an Antarctic base.
Incidentally, the real-life residents of Barrow, Alaska really do have to take precautions to avoid being eaten alive by monsters. Only they’re not called vampires; they’re called polar bears.
DVD extras: Commentary with Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, and producer Rob Tapert. Eight short “Making Of” featurettes.
Futurama: Bender’s Big Score
July 25, 2008 | 1 Comment
FUTURAMA is Matt Groening’s science fiction toon series that aired from 1999 to 2003 with four seasons and 72 episodes before being cancelled. It never quite reached the level of THE SIMPSONS at its best, but it’s a funny series with a lot of fun references for science fiction fans. And like THE SIMPSONS, there’s a payoff when you know the incidental characters that appear here and there. Some episodes and seasons were better than others, and its greatest episode was probably the one with the STAR TREK cast, “Where No Fan Has Gone Before.”
Now FOX is producing four straight-to-DVD movies, and this first one, FUTURAMA: BENDER’S BIG SCORE, came out in November 2007.
A race of nudist aliens (and, like most nudists, they should keep their clothes on) has attacked Earth with an email scamming plot, and are taking over the planet with identify theft and stolen credit card numbers.
They discover that, mysteriously, the secret to time travel has been tattooed on Fry’s ass in the form of a Bender tattoo. Using this, they take over Bender and send him into the past to steal Earth’s greatest art treasures.
Time travel was a plotline not explored on the FUTURAMA series, with the exception of one expedition to 1947 Roswell.
This works as an epic story more than just a string of FUTURAMA episodes lumped together (although it’s being sliced up into 4 episodes for syndication). The 4+ year hiatus allowed the writers to bring their A-game back to this. And they get a bit fancier with the animation. About the only thing that doesn’t work is some ill-conceived musical numbers.
If you’re not a fan of the show, this probably won’t change your mind, but if you did like the show, this is a fun reunion.
DVD extras:
* Feature-length commentary with Groening, the writers and director, and the voice actors.
* “Futurama Returns!”, a live reading by the cast of a FUTURAMA comic book at a science fiction convention.
* “A Terrifying Message from Al Gore.”
* “Bite My Shiny Metal X”, A math lecture about FUTURAMA.
* “Everybody Loves Hypnotoad”, a TV show from the FUTURAMA-verse.
* Deleted scenes.
* Character sketches.
* Comic-Con promo.
Stargate: The Ark of Truth
July 24, 2008 | 1 Comment
STARGATE SG-1, a pretty good TV series spinoff of the rather mediocre movie STARGATE, went on for 10 seasons, a record for science fiction TV shows. But it was cancelled abruptly and the last episode aired in June 2007. The producers of the show didn’t have time to wrap up the Ori storyline, so this straight-to-DVD movie came out in March 2008.
When we last tuned in to the ongoing struggle against the Ori, ascended beings from another galaxy trying to get everybody in our galaxy to believe in their religion or die, our heroes had unleashed a weapon that (they think) wiped out all the Ori. Unfortunately, the human minions of the Ori, the Priors (basically fanatical priests who make the Spanish Inquisition look like a pack of playground bullies), are still around.
This time, Daniel Jackson, Samantha Carter, Teal’c, Cameron Mitchell, and Vala try to locate an ancient secret weapon: One that will brainwash the Ori Priors into learning the truth. That is, it’ll make them get on the side of The Good Guys.
This seems a little morally ambiguous, and they touch on that briefly, but onward. For the first time, the Stargate team flies a ship through the Supergate into the Ori galaxy.
Once there, everybody but Mitchell beams down to another planet that looks like forest around Vancouver to look for this weapon. Meanwhile, Mitchell’s ship in orbit is threatened by an overzealous Earth bureaucrat, and, eventually, an old enemy.
This is a good wrapup to the Ori storyline. At about 2-1/2 times the length of a regular episode, it doesn’t feel like just another episode either. And the production values are higher (as we see with a lot of shots of Teal’c striding majestically over a mountain range).
Either you’re a fan of STARGATE SG-1 or you’re not; if you’ve never seen the TV series, this probably isn’t going to wow you, but if you did watch it, this is a nice wrapup of loose ends.
DVD Extras: They did a good job with these (unlike the bare-bones DVD for FARSCAPE: THE PEACEKEEPER WARS). There’s a commentary track with the director, the director of photography, and Christopher Judge. A 9-minute PRELUDE which gives a synopsis of seasons 9 and 10 of STARGATE SG-1, in case you missed some of it or have forgotten details. A 20-minute Q&A filmed at the 2007 San Diego Comic-Con with the cast. And a 30-minute Making Of documentary (Uncovering The Ark of Truth).
New DVD releases, Tuesday July 29th
July 24, 2008 | 1 Comment
Some straight-to-DVD releases on Tuesday, July 29th: STARGATE - CONTINUUM (Amazon), LOST BOYS: THE TRIBE (Amazon), WARGAMES: THE DEAD CODE (Amazon).
Also the theatrical movies DOOMSDAY (MFG review) and HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY (MFG review) are being released to DVD.
And on Tuesday, August 5th: The Straight-to-DVD STARSHIP TROOPERS 3: MARAUDER (Amazon), and the second (and final) season of STAR TREK THE ORIGINAL SERIES (REMASTERED) (Amazon).
The Dark Knight
July 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Batman is back in The Dark Knight.  There have been several renditions of the Caped Crusader over the years, in this sequel we again get the very dark version of Batman the we got to know in 2005’s Batman Begins.
Christian Bale returns to play Bruce Wayne and the Batman.  The movie pretty much picks up right where Batman Begins left off.  Bruce is in control of Wayne Industries, Alfred and Lucius are trying to keep his head on straight.  Rachel is assistant DA to new star District Attorney Harvey Dent. Jim Gordon is moving up the police ranks.  And oh, there’s a real nutbag on the loose known only as The Joker.
Say what you want about Heath Ledger, but old Brokeback’s performance as The Joker make him one of the best movie villains since Hannibal Lecter.  This is not your typical comic book camp.  Dont expect to see him dancing around to Prince songs when he’s of a mind to make some moogie.  And do not expect this movie to be a background piece.  It gets right down to action instead of spending the first hour teaching us how Joker got his scars.  This is a good thing.
Were it not for Batman’s wonderful toys, we would easily forget this is a comic book movie.  In all fairness, it must be considered a thriller or intense crime drama.  Just like the series it is based upon, The Dark Knight is a very dark rendition of Batman.  If you take your 7 year old to see this, it may be the reason they end up paying big bucks to a shrink when they’re 30.
The Dark Knight is an instant classic.  This is a full on 5 star movie that we’ll no doubt buy on DVD and catch ourselves watching anytime it’s on TV just to relive some of the moments over and over.  There’s very few faults to find, the performances are excellent, the action is outstanding and the effects are so smooth the letters “CGI” never enter your brain while you watch it.  If there is a major fault, it is the length, but even that is a good thing.  Just when you think the movie is almost over, it winds back up, and takes the intensity even higher for another few chapters.  Go see it, even if you have no idea who Batman is.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
July 11, 2008 | 2 Comments
Hellboy is back, and this time he’s facing denizens of a new monster manual. Evil elves, trolls, killer tooth faeries, clockwork magical robots, and giant forest elementals threaten humanity.
As we saw in the first movie, Hellboy is a demon-spawn brought through a dimensional gateway during a World War II Nazi experiment as an infant. But the U.S. Army got a hold of him, and he was adopted by a loving human father and raised to be one of the good guys. Now, 60+ years later (he ages slower than humans), he works for a Men In Black-style organization, the B.P.R.D. (Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense). As his foster father says in the first movie, “There are things that go bump in the night. We are the ones who bump back.”
Hellboy (Ron Perlman) has his motley crew: his human girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), who has pyrokinetic powers, and Atlantis-survivor fishman Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, The Silver Surfer in FANTASTIC FOUR 2). This time out they get a new leader, Johann Kraus (Voiced by FAMILY GUY’s Seth McFarlane), who has a case of the vapors and doesn’t get along well with Hellboy.
It turns out at the dawn of time humans warred with elves. These aren’t your Tolkien elves, though (And they look a little like the Wraith in STARGATE ATLANTIS) . They have a magical robot army that’s been in storage, consisting of 4900 ostensibly indestructable robots. The son of the elf king wants to crank them up and give humanity an ass-whuppin’. Hellboy begs to differ.
This is based on the comics written and drawn by Mike Mignola (who also did THE AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD). It’s directed by Guillermo del Toro, who also did an interesting 1993 vampire movie CRONOS, MIMIC, BLADE II, the first HELLBOY, PAN’S LABYRINTH, and has both a DOCTOR STRANGE movie and THE HOBBIT in the works.
PAN’S LABYRINTH was a big influence on this sequel; the look of the creatures and the underworld is along the lines of that movie. It’s a visual feast. The Troll’s Market feels a bit like Neil Gaiman’s NEVERWHERE. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s too much of a good thing; the director has thrown in everything but the troll kitchen sink, and the pace of the movie is sometimes sluggish due to all the visuals.
The pals of Hellboy, Liz and Abe, get a lot of nice character moments. Liz is finding the trials and tribulations of dating Hellboy; Abe strikes up a romance with an elf babe and twin sister of the bad guy. I haven’t read the comics, but I suspect if you’re a big fan of the comics, you’ll really like all the character moments. But again sometimes this comes as the expense of the pacing of the film; this at times seems more like a DVD “Director’s Cut.” Maybe after the critical raves for PAN’S LABYRINTH nobody felt they could tell del Toro to trim some scenes.
Still, Hellboy gets to kick a lot of monster butt, and it’s a fun ride.
Hancock
July 4, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Will Smith is back with another summer block buster.  This one is called Hancock.  Although not based upon a comic, it is about a superhero.
But John Hancock, Smith’s character, is not your ordinary superhero. Oh, he has all of the usual tricks including the ability to fly, super strength, and skin that bullets cannot penetrate. But he is also a drunk, and a bit of a mean spirited drunk at that.  In fact, he can actually be quite a jerk.
He is a “good guy” in that he protects the innocent and puts away criminals, but there’s quite a lot of collateral damage, and he frankly doesn’t care. In fact, it’s a really bad idea to get up in his grill about it.  This is all quite refreshing after watching a couple of dozen comic book films this summer.  First off, a drunk superhero fighting crime with one hand and holding his bottle of liquor with the other is hysterical.  But it is also refreshing to see the fallout from wrecking dozens of cars, tearing up buildings and such actually have repercussions.
You just know if a superhero really existed he would need one heck of a lawyer.  And that’s what Hancock faces.  He’s being sued hundred of times for millions, there are warrants out for his arrest and his attitude makes him far from a favorite of the people. That and the fact that he tears the road up anytime he lands in your neighborhood.  Enter Ray Embrey, played by Jason Bateman. Ray is a PR man determined to makeover Hancock’s image.
So let’s boil it down, what do we really have here?  A really neat take on the superhero movie with a heck of a lot of humor at the front.  But Will Smith also plays it very serious as Hancock wrestles with being the only one of his kind and the whole self discovery aspect of the movie.  Although this makes for a good story and avoids being totally campy, frankly we were always waiting for Hancock to fall off the wagon again as the drunk scenes are so good.
Bottom line, we give Hancock a rather generous 4 stars.  The first 30 minutes or so are 5 star worthy, the last 30 minutes are more like 3 star, so 4 star seems fair.    Overall, it leaves us hoping for Hancock 2: Off the Wagon.
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