Lorax wins weekend

For the weekend of March 2-4.

1.  The Lorax - $70.7 million - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 3729 screens / $18,960 per screen
2.  Project X - $20.78 - 1 wk (WB)
 . . . 3055 / $6800
3.  Act of Valor - $13.7 ($45.24) - 2 wks (Rel) -44%
 . . . 3053 / $4487
4.  Safe House - $7.2 ($108.2) - 4 wks (U) -34.1%
 . . . 2553 / $2820
5.  Tyler Perry's Good Deeds - $7 ($25.75) - 2 wks (LG) -55%
 . . . 2132 / $3283
6.  Journey 2 - $6.93 ($85.61) - 4 wks (WB) -48.3%
 . . . 3060 / $2263
7.  The Vow - $6.1 ($111.71) - 4 wks (SG) -38.5%
 . . . 2826 / $2159
8.  This Means War - $5.63 ($41.46) - 3 wks (Fox) -33.2%
 . . . 2342 / $2402
9.  Ghost Rider 2 - $4.7 ($44.88) - 3 wks (Sony) -47.8%
 . . . 2487 / $1890
10. The Artist - $3.9 ($37.09) - 15 wks (Wein) +34.2%
 . . . 1756 / $2221
11. Wanderlust - $3.8 ($12.4) - 2 wks (U) -41.8%
 . . . 2002 / $1898

Random Movie Stuff - 3/4/12

- Mary Birdsong (The Descendants), Yvette Nicole Brown (NBC's Community), and Missi Pyle (The Artist) will play the Three Fates in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters.  Logan Lerman, Alexandria Daddario and Brandon T. Jackson are all returning from the first Percy Jackson film.

- Joel Kinnaman (Safe House, AMC's The Killing) will star in MGM's remake of RoboCop.  Jose Padilha (Elite Squad) will direct.

- Olivia Williams (The Sixth Sense) has joined the cast of The Seventh Son, based on Joseph Delaney's book The Spook's Apprentice, about the seventh son of a seventh son in the 1700's who has supernatural abilities.  Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Ben Barnes (Prince Caspain), and Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) co-star.

- Julianna Margulies (The Good Wife) has joined the cast of Stand-Up Guys, about two aging hitmen who enjoy one last weekend together before one of them kills the other. It stars Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin.

And in television...

- Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Evan Peters, Sarah Paulson and Lily Rabe will all be back for season 2 of FX's American Horror Story, but they'll all be playing different characters.

The Artist - Movie Review

Starring Jean Dujardin, Berenice Bejo, John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Missi Pyle, Malcolm McDowell, Joel Murray and Ken Davitian.
Directed by Michel Hazanivicius.

★★★½

Finally, finally, finally got to see the Best Picture winner. I wish I'd seen it early, maybe at a film festival. Some movies can't live up to the hype. I thought Slumdog Millionaire did, as I saw after many sites were calling it the front-runner to win best picture. This one, well, of the nine Best Picture nominees, I've now seen eight. And I think The Artist is probably fourth or fifth best of them. It's in good company; it's worth seeing.

It's a throwback formulaic plot, harkening back to the really old days of silent movies. George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is the king of movies in 1927. Ah, but this novelty called "sound" is coming along. George skoffs it as a fad and is content to keep making silent movies, but the world's about to pass him by. While we see his fall, we also see the rise of Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), a spunky gal who thrives in talkies.

The movie is basically a silent movie. Beyond the score, there are some times when sound is used to clever effect. It also succeeds to a large degree based on Dujardin's charm. He has a 10,000-watt smile and the movie hinges on his ability to act with his face. He's great, as is Bejo.

So don't expect the Best Movie of 2011, but it is a good movie worth hunting down.

Lindsay Lohan flatlines on Saturday Night Live

Cold Open - The opening skit was Shepard Smith (Bill Hader) interviewing Mitt & Ann Romney and their five sons. I kinda liked the Psycho spin with Shep, but it was otherwise forgettable.

Opening Monologue - At first I have to overcome my shock of seeing what Lindsay Lohan looks like these days.  Why oh why did she get plastic surgery on her cheeks?  But the premise of the monologue was good, with Kenan Thompson and Kristen Wiig wishing her well while casually checking her for drugs.  We also got surprise appearances from Jimmy Fallon and Jon Hamm.

The Real Housewives of Disney - Belle (Abby Elliott), Snow White (Vanessa Bayer), Jasmine (Nasim Pedrad), Rapunzel (Lohan), and Cinderella (Wiig) exude typical Bravo behavior. A couple half-smirks in there, but it should have been better than it was.

Scared Straight - Wow, this sketch again?  The one laugh is when Thompson comes out as Lorenzo and Lohan comes out as... herself.  She speeds through her lines with zero conviction.  Awful.  Although I do want to know whatever made Jason Sudeikis crack, thus sending Hader, Andy Samberg and Bobby Moynihan into giggle fits.

I also fast-forward the musical guest.  In this case it was Jack White as Johnny Depp as Jack White.

Weekend Update - Meh. Hader shows up as James Carville and Moynihan as pregnant Snooki.

The 2012 Psychic Awards - Samberg and Lohan act as hosts in this award-show parody. I liked how their In Memorium was for fellow psychics they knew were going to die later this year.  Lohan's also not asked to do much in this one.  Good.

Deliquent Girl Teen Gang - I didn't get what they were going for here.  The main joke was Fred Armisen in drag repeatedly getting hit by a car.

Digital Short - Wiig and Samberg with a giant, giant afro sing a song. This one will not go viral.

B108 FM Morning Radio - Taran Killam, Moynihan and Lohan as morning DJs with a lot of "what what" enthusiasm and no intelligence.  Bayer shows up as a nerdy news announcer who's not on their vibe.  #Yawn

Housesitter - Lohan (in a red wig!) shows up to housesit for Wiig, in a neckbrace, who dramatically answers the phone like one of those 1970's women-in-trouble chicks. The joke is she's butt-dialing herself.  Heh.

Commercial pardoies of Chantix and Verizon, both repeats, but both good.

Musical number.

Rude Buddha - Samberg as Buddha, who gives wisdom to people's faces, then talks smack about them when they leave. Pretty lame.

Songs from the 1970s - Sudeikis acts like he's going to do one of those commercials for song collections on CD, but it quickly goes to a silly place. It was a a throwaway that I actually found one of the funniest things they did tonight.

And that's the show.  Kinda lame overall.  I know calling SNL lame has been as fashionable forever, but sometimes they do have good stuff. I actually miss Paul Brittain and wish I knew why he left the show so abruptly. Lohan as host wasn't January Jones terrible, but she wasn't great either.  I guess it's progress to show she can still walk and talk at the same time.

NBC's Celebrity Apprentice - TV Review

The first episode was Paul Teutel Sr. vs. Patricia Velasquez in a challenge that was really all about rich friends answering favors. Paul had an anonymous donor give him $305,000 so nothing else mattered in the challenge, and Cheryl Tiegs was the sacrificial lamb.

The second episode is more even, as the winning task is determined by the audience. It's putting on a show at Medieval Times. Penn Jillette vs. Lisa Lampinelli.

Penn shows that he's a good leader, assigning tasks toward people's strengths, diplomatic in his approach to others. Lisa' okay, but she has a shorter temper and gets snippy when she feels interrupted.

When it came to the actual shows, I thought they were close. Penn's seemed to go a little smoother, and I would have guessed Lisa would have been docked for the poor technical work and the ladies flashing a little too much to a family crowd.

It turned out that yes, the ladies' show was too narrow. Scantily-clad babes for the men, but what's for the women and children?

In the end, the women have lost the first two tasks and now Victoria Gotti has been sent packing.

By the way, if I was a project manager, and Trump asked me which two I felt were weakest in the task in case I lost, I'd say if we lose, I'll tell you.

So Celebrity Apprentice remains its guilty-pleasure self.  Trump's still a boorish one-percenter, charities are still being helped, and where else can you see George Takei steal some glimpses of Lou Ferrigno's chest?

Random Movie Stuff - 2/28/12

- Several Dracula projects are in development, the most recent being an origin story take from Jason Keller (Mirror Mirror).  There's also a Dracula Year Zero project, a apocalyptical Dracula movie, and a modern take based on Justin Cronin's novel The Passage.

- Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) will next direct Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy in Identity Theft, about a man who has his identity stolen by a woman.  Also, Horrible Bosses screenwriters John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein will make their directorial debut on Vacation, a semi-reboot that will follow grown-up Rusty Griswold taking his own family on vacation.  Chevy Chase will return as Clark, now a grandfather.  While Anthony Michael Hall was the most memorable Rusty, I'd kinda like to see Johnny Galecki (Christmas Vacation) return.  Ethan Embry and Jason Lively were the other two Rustys.

- Demi Moore will play a mother who realizes how disconnected she is with her daughter (Miley Cyrus) after reading her racy journal in LOL.  Thomas Jane, Ashley Greene, and Jay Hernandez co-star.  It opens this May 4.

- Principal photography has begun on The Lone Ranger, starring Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer (The Social Network, J, Edgar, Mirror Mirror) as the Lone Ranger. It also co-stars Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner and Barry Pepper. It's written by Ted Elliott & Terry Russio and directed by Gore Verbinski, who all worked with Depp on Pirates of the Caribbean. It's slated to open May 31, 2013.

- Mike Tyson confirmed he will show up for The Hangover Part III, slated to open May 24, 2013.  Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zack Galifianakis will all be back, as will director Todd Phillips, who confirmed it will be considered the last installment of a trilogy.

- John Lee Hancock is in talks to direct Saving Mr. Banks, about Walt Disney's decade-long quest to get Australian author P.L. Travers to sell him the film rights to Mary Poppins.  Travers viewed Poppins as a personal work and wound up hating the animated sequences, vowing to never sell another title to Disney.  Early casting rumors have Tom Hanks as Disney and Meryl Streep as Travers.  Meanwhile Hancock is currently slated to next direct The Partner, based on the John Grisham novel.

And on the television front:

- James Spader is leaving NBC's The Office after joining the cast last year.  Executive producer Paul Lieberstein (who also plays Toby) said it had always been Spader's intention to just have it be one year.  If Mindy Kaling's Fox comedy pilot gets picked up, she'll be leaving the show as well (she plays Kelly, and is also a co-writer on the show).  There's also a possibility of a spin-off with Rainn Wilson's Dwight running Schrute Farms full-time, with multiple Schrute relatives showing up.


- Monday Night's Ratings:

Channel - Title - Viewers (in millions) / 18-49 rating

8:00/7:00

NBC - The Voice - 14.77 / 5.4
FOX - Daytona 500 - 14.24 / 4.5
CBS - How I Met Your Mother - 9.13 / 3.6
 - - - - 2 Broke Girls - 10.14 / 3.7
ABC - The Bachelor - 7.98 / 2.6
CW - Gossip Girl - 1.16 / .5

9:00/8:00

CBS - Two and a Half Men - 11.81 / 3.6
 - - - - Mike & Molly - 10.1 / 2.9
CW - Hart of Dixie - 1.4 / .5

10:00/9:00
CBS - Hawaii Five-0 - 9.44 / 2.5
NBC - Smash - 6.86 / 2.4
ABC - Castle - 9.06 / 2.2

Compared to other shows on the schedule, Smash's ratings are good, but not so much considering the drop-off from The Voice, which single-handedly keeps NBC a relevant network in the spring the same way Sunday Night Football does in the fall.

Drive - DVD Review

Starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman and Oscar Isaac.
Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

★★★½

There's something very Steve McQueen-cool about this deconstructed actioner.  Down to the synth-soundtrack, this reminds me of old-school flicks where it took time with pace.  This movie may seem leisurely with said pace, but it's tense throughout and builds nicely for the explosive third act.

Ryan Gosling plays Driver. I don't think anyone ever says his name.  He's a Hollywood stuntman by day and a getaway driver by night.  We don't really know what makes Driver tick, or what he'll do next, but Gosling draws us in with his resolute focus.  When Driver tightens the gloves on his hands, we know something's about to happen.

Gosling will eventually win an Oscar.  He was good enough to merit a nomination here (didn't get one), and Albert Brooks should have been nominated for Best Supporting.

Drive takes a well-worn genre and makes it seem fresh.  I would love it if Drive 2 happened.

84th Annual Academy Award Winners

Best Picture - THE ARTIST
Best Director - Michel Hazanivicius, THE ARTIST
Best Actor - Jean Dujardin, THE ARTIST
Best Actress - Meryl Streep, THE IRON LADY
Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer, BEGINNERS
Best Supporting Actress - Octavia Spencer, THE HELP
Best Adapted Screenplay - THE DESCENDANTS
Best Original Screenplay - MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Best Foreign Film - A SEPARATION (Iran)
Best Animated Film - RANGO
Best Art Direction - HUGO
Best Cinematography - HUGO
Best Costume Design - THE ARTIST
Best Film Editing - THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
Best Documentary Film - UNDEFEATED
Best Makeup - THE IRON LADY
Best Original Score - THE ARTIST
Best Original Song - "Man or Muppet", THE MUPPETS
Best Sound Mixing - HUGO
Best Sound Editing - HUGO
Best Visual Effects - HUGO
Best Documentary Short - SAVING FACE
Best Animated Short - FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MORRIS LESSMORE
Best Live-Action Short - THE SHORE

My Live Reaction to the Oscars (on DVR)

6:30 - Love starting the show with Morgan Freeman.

6:32 - I also love the opening segment where Billy Crystal appears in all the other movies.

6:34 - ... and the opening musical number about the nine nominees! I may be one of the last film-lovers on Earth who can honestly say that.

6:42 - Tom Hanks has a grey goatee going on. Hopefully it's not for a sequel to Ladykillers. Aaaand the first win goes to Hugo for Cinematography. And so does the second for Art Direction. Very interesting. I thought The Artist would get one of those. I liked the cinematographer that looked like Yanni's father. The Italian couple art directors were cute.

6:53 - Wow, Billy's jokes are falling flat now. Out come Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Lopez, coincidentally starring in a movie coming this spring, to announce Best Costume Design. And The Artist gets a win.

6:55 - Best Makeup goes to The Iron Lady. Which makes me wonder if the race between Meryl Streep and Viola Davis is actually really close. And both managed to get out what they wanted before the music played them off. No one has been played off yet!

6:57 - Ben Stiller, Morgan Freeman, Adam Sandler, Reese WItherspoon, Brad Pitt, Steve Carell, Hilary Swank (where's she been?), Tom Cruise (has he had work done?), Helen Mirren, and Barbra Streisand all share their early movie memories. Okay.

7:05 - Sandra Bullock is presenting Best Foreign Language Film and speaks Mandarin Chinese with a German accent. (heh heh)

Of the nominees, In Darkness looks intriguing. I knew A Separation would win; can't wait to see it. The director, an Iranian, is probably getting texts for offers to be the next Hollywood villain right now. Very nice acceptance speech though.

7:08 - Christian Bale came out, and my wife and daughter both gasped at his attractiveness. And even though she was the heavy favorite, Octavia Spencer looks shocked. And she gets a standing ovation! Nice.

7:18 - I kinda liked seeing the Christopher Guest ensemble in the Wizard of Oz focus-group skit, but it wasn't "hilarious" as Crystal tried to hype.

7:24 - Hey, cool! Girl with the Dragon Tattoo won Film Editing. These guys were not prepared to win.

And Hugo wins a third one, for Sound Editing.

7:27 - Wow, Tina Fey and Bradley Cooper are presenting three awards. Sound Mixing goes to Hugo as well. Wow.

7:34 - The Kermit & Piggy bit was lame. Should have been Statler & Waldorf. And we get a Cirque de Soleil tribute to the movies. Kinda reminds me of when they did a Riverdance tribute to the movies about 12 years ago. Gotta admit, this would be really cool to watch in person.

7:39 - Billy Crystal's jokes may be lame, but imagine how painful they'd be if James Franco was delivering them. The Robert Downey Jr.-Gwyneth Paltrow bit... well, they tried.

7:43 - Wife's fashion comment: "I think white's the new black."

7:44 - ABC successfully bleeped whatever that one guy said.

7:45 - Chris Rock's rocking the D.L. Hughley haircut.

7:51 - Melissa McCarthy added some energy to the show with her bit.

7:52 - Holy crap, Emma Stone's tall.  Or Ben Stiller's short.  And their bit is funny.  Has Ben Stiller hosted this before?

7:54 - Hugo wins another one?  Is there a surprise Best Picture win in the works here?

8:00 - Christopher Plummer has the best acceptance speech so far.

8:04 - I liked Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis' music intro.  Nine Saturday Night Live members have been nominated?  Murray, Aykroyd, Murphy, Wiig... hm.

8:07 - Angelina Jolie is working it with the hand on the hip and the leg sticking out.

8:08 - But someone really needs to get her a sandwich.  Angie, I'm worried!

8:13 - Woody Allen should forfeit if he's not going to show up to pick up his award.

8:36 - The "Shorts" banter with the Bridesmaids didn't work.  At all.

8:45 - Who are those girls in turquoise passing out popcorn?  Is this a set-up for a joke later?

9:00 - In Memorium is usually one of my favorites.  I hope they don't screw this up.

9:06 - That was actually pretty nice. And now I'm wondering who they snubbed.

9:20 - The Artist winning Director and Actor tells me it's going to win Picture too.  Still haven't seen it.

9:25 - Colin Firth is able to do the praising of the actresses a little more fluidly than Natalie Portman did with the boys.

9:30 - "Her. Again. But, you know, whatever!" Exactly how to handle it. :)

9:32 - Meryl Streep gave the speech of the night.

9:35 - And The Artist wins.  Really need to see it, I guess.

It was an okay show.  Crystal was good in the opening, but I don't need him a tenth time as host.  I'm hoping for Ben Stiller or Steve Carell or Jim Carrey or Eddie Murphy next year.  How about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler?

Weekend Box Office - 2/26/12

1. Act of Valor - $24.7 million - 1 wk (Rel)
. . . 3039 screens / $8128 per screen
2. Good Deeds - $16 - 1 wk (LG)
. . . 2132 / $7505
3. Journey 2 The Mysterious Island - $13.48 ($76.73) - 3 wks (WB) -32.1%
. . . 3350 / $4022
4. Safe House - $11.4 ($98.1) - 3 wks (U) -51.8%
. . . 3052 / $3735
5. The Vow - $10 ($103) - 3 wks (SG) -56.6%
. . . 3038 / $3292
6. Ghost Rider 2 - $8.8 ($37.83) - 2 wks (Sony) -60.2%
. . . 3174 / $2773
7. This Means War - $8.5 ($33.57) - 2 wks (Fox) -51.2%
. . . 3189 / $2665
8. Wanderlust - $6.6 - 1 wk (U)
. . . 2002 / $3297
9. Gone - $5 - 1 wk (Sum)
. . . 2186 / $2287
10. The Secret World of Arietty - $4.5 ($14.66) - 2 wks (BV) -30.1%
. . . 1522 / $2959
11. Chronicle - $3.71 ($58.01) - 4 wks (Fox) -51.4%
. . . 1797 / $2062

Act of Valor aimed for the heartland and won. The low-budget adventure starring real Navy SEALs doubled its production budget on opening weekend. Tyler Perry's Good Deeds delivered a predictably solid opening as well, albeit one of the weaker ones for his career. Wanderlust and Gone are both duds.

Journey 2 has benefitted from the lack of family-film competition, but that will change when The Lorax opens next week.

My Predictions for the Oscars

My guess for the winners of the 84th Academy Awards:

Best Picture - The Artist
Best Director - Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Actor - Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Actress - Viola Davis, The Help
Best Supporting Actor - Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Supporting Actress - Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Adapted Screenplay - The Descendants
Best Original Screenplay - Midnight in Paris
Best Foreign Film - A Separation (Iran)
Best Animated Film - Rango
Best Art Direction - Hugo
Best Cinematography - The Artist
Best Costume Design - The Artist
Best Film Editing - The Artist
Best Documentary Film - Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
Best Makeup - The Iron Lady
Best Original Score - The Artist
Best Original Song - "Man or Muppet", The Muppets
Best Sound Mixing - Hugo
Best Sound Editing - War Horse
Best Visual Effects - Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Best Documentary Short - Saving Face
Best Animated Short - The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris
Best Live-Action Short - The Shore

Second choices in close categories:
Best Actress - Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
Best Art Direction - Hugo
Best Cinematography - Hugo
Best Makeup - Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Best Visual Effects - Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Best Documentary Short - God Is the Bigger Elvis
Best Animated Short - La Luna
Best Live-Action Short - Raju

Henry's Crime - DVD Review

Starring Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga, James Caan, Peter Stormare, Judy Greer, Bill Duke and Fisher Stevens.  Directed by Malcolm Venville.

★★


This minor crime caper has its small pleasures. Fast-forward to any scene with James Caan, and you'll experience them. Otherwise it reminded me too often of Bullets Over Broadway, a much funnier movie.

Keanu Reeves reminds us all how limited his range is here. He plays Henry, a fairly spineless man who goes to jail for robbing a bank, a crime he didn't commit. He befriends a long-timer (Caan) in jail, and when Henry gets out, he decides he's going to go ahead and rob that very bank.

The bank has an old tunnel leaving between it and the theater next door, so they endear themselves to the cast next door, preparing to put on The Cherry Orchard.

The movie needed someone, anyone, with more energy than Henry. I kept thinking how someone like Steve Carell or Paul Rudd might've handled the role. Reeves, though, has the emotive power of a totem pole.

50/50 - DVD Review

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston, Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer.  Directed by Jonathan Levine.

★★★★

Tremendous.

I don't think anyone has ever attempted a serious comedy about cancer before, but Seth Rogen has, and it's great. And I like that it's another showcase for Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who continues to prove himself as one of today's most interesting actors.

JGL plays Adam, a normal guy working a job he likes, wishing maybe his relationship with his girlfriend was better, but then one day he finds out he has cancer. And so down the unknown road he must go.

Everyone knows someone who's had cancer, someone who lived through it and someone who died from it, and the title comes from the survival odds of Adam's particular kind of rare spinal cancer. He and his friend Kyle (Rogen) have all the dark humorous moments that people have when flirting with death, and when the girlfriend leaves, Kyle figures having a buddy with cancer can serve as a chick magnet.

I liked all the different avenues explored and how they were played. Anna Kendrick plays Kathryn, a 24-year-old therapist working on her doctorate, and Adam is one of her first patients, so just as Adam is new at cancer, Kathryn is new at helping him through it, and I liked how you can see her mind accessing college-book answers whenever a new emotional wrinkle develops. I liked Bryce Dallas Howard as the girlfriend (can't remember the character's name right now). It could have been played as the stereotypical bad-girlfriend that our hero must inevitably part from, but she was given more emotional depth than normally allowed. And with what she's given to do, Anjelica Huston is really strong as Adam's worrying mother.

This movie always felt honest. It earns its laughs and it earns its touching moments.  In fact, I've updated my Top Ten of 2011 list over it.

Cinematically Rambling - 2/22/12

If they ever remake Belle de Jour, Cillian Murphy would be really good as that tool with a cane... The overhype and underhype of The Artist has been such a roller-coaster that I fear I will be surprised and disappointed at the same time.  But my gut tells me Jean Dujardin is no Roberto Begnini....

It's a good thing that John Carter is coming out before Attack of the Clones in 3-D.  I know Lucas got that idea from John Carter of Mars for the arena fighting, but most people watching John Carter are going to get to that scene and think "This is just like Attack of the Clones."...

Who are some actors that make you more iterersted in seeing a movie?  And by that, I mean you can hear the plot or one or two of the stars, but then you hear So-and-So's in it, and you're like, "I have to see it now."...

Ciaran Hinds is one such actor for me.  I think of his work in Munich and Amazing Grace and Tinker Tailot Soldier Spy and The Debt and HBO's Rome and The Woman in Black.  He almost tempts me to see Ghost Rider 2....

I get the profit-impact of piracy, but it isn't the same as shoplifting.  The internet moves too freely and too fast, and corporations, instead of trying to clamp down on the internet and suppress freedom like Orwellian tiger, they need to innovate and find ways to best funnel this info...

Abduction - DVD Review

Starring Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina, Sigourney Weaver, Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello, Michael Nyqvist and Denzel Whitaker.
Directed by John Singleton.

★★

I do not think Taylor Lautner is the worst thing to ever happen to acting. I know it's fashionable to despise the Twilight series, and granted, the most recent one was laughable, and granted more heavily, Lautner's acting was among its biggest weaknesses, BUT---! He is who he is, now can someone get him a vehicle where his limited talents can still be exploited properly?

This may be as good as it gets for him, and if that's the case, he'll still have another five years of movies, maybe a TV show or two, then off to obscurity he goes. The teen heart-throb will learn the path traveled by Corey Feldman.

The thing is, Lautner is a true athlete. He trained himself, he bulked up, and so he has the physique of a credible combatant, and that's what we ask for in an action flick, following the tradition of Jean-Claude Van Damme or Chuck Norris or Dolph Lundgren. Except those are guys' guys and Lautner's still a Tiger Beat dude. (Does Tiger Beat still exist?)

Here he plays Nathan, a typical high-schooler whose dad tends to make him spar whenever he gets in trouble, so Nathan's a pretty good fighter. One day he finds his own picture on a missing persons website. The next day men in black show up and kill his parents. Nathan and his girlfriend Karen (Lily Collins) must go on the run.

The reviews for this were awful, and it only made its way into my DVD player because I tend to keep my Blockbuster Online queue 50 titles deep, and if I don't pay close attention, movies in the teens or in the 20's tend to get shipped. (So rarely do I get one of my top ten choices). But hey, let's give it a shot, and worst case scenario, I edit my Worst Ten of 2011 list.

Well, this won't make it there. This movie is directed by John Singleton, the once-promising director of Boyz N the Hood who still knows his way around a halfway-decent action movie (2 Fast 2 Furious, Four Brothers). And the supporting cast is really good. Molina is the CIA agent in pursuit, Weaver is the psychiatrist who of course is more than she appears, and Isaacs and Bello play his parents. Then you have Nyqvist (Mission Impossible 4) as the main villain, and so it's almost an embarrassment of riches. "We'll help you get through this, kid."

There's logistics points that pulled me out. For instance, he lives in Pittsburgh, he goes on the run for a full day, and yet the climax takes place at a Pirates game. Was he just running in circles? Also, how often are Pirates' games sold out?

Attack the Block - DVD Review

Starring John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Alex Esmail and Nick Frost.
Directed by Joe Cornish.

★★★

This is a low-budget creature feature done right.

It follows one of the basics that many thrillers tend to forget about.  Give me characters that feel like they had lives before the opening credits.  Real characters.  This movie takes place in one of London's more dangerous apartment complexes, with drug dealers, punk teenagers, white hipsters, and then the normal folk who wish a Harry Brown would move in and work his magic.  But when an alien lands in their block, and more creatures come hunt, they have to work together, at the least the ones that aren't totally stupid about it.

This movie has commentary on race and class under the surface of balancing comedy and suspense.  I liked the enrichment of some of the characters as the movie progressed.  I liked the design of the creatures.  Nick Frost shows up to remind who's behind this film, and I liked it better than his previous alien-comedy Paul.

Journey 2 The Mysterious Island - Movie Review

Starring Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine, Josh Hutcherson, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzman and Kristin Davis.
Directed by Brad Peyton.

★★½

You know those simulation rides at theme parks, the ones that put it on the big screen, and maybe it's in 3D, and it moves your seat around like you're actually flying or racing? That's what the Journey movies are like. 90 minutes of rides, with awkward human crap in between.

Josh Hutcherson is back as a Vernian, a big Jules Verne fan, but instead of going with uncle Brendan Fraser, he goes with stepdad Dwayne Johnson to visit the Island, where his grandfather supposedly disappeared. They fly to Palau and charter a helicopter ride to the coordinates, flown by a nerdy pilot (Luis Guzman, in kid-movie-acting mode) and his "spunky" daughter (Vanessa Hudgens).

They have to fly through a hurricane to get to the Island and so they crash. But it isn't long before they find the grandfather (Michael Caine), and they figure the only way to get off the Island is to find Captain Nemo's submarine, parked on the other side.

The plot's irrelevant, and more often than not, the characters behaved in ways that I don't think anyone would in real life if this was truly happening to them. The point is to get them from one adrenaline-pumping situation to the next, whether it's running from a giant lizard or flying on the backs of giant bees, and those sequences are fun to watch.

This is more for kids than adults and my kids enjoyed it. For the adults, you have the invaluable Michael Caine, who elevates anything he's in. It's fine. But if you have a $3 theater near you that has 3-D screens, you might want to wait until then to take the family.

Chronicle - Movie Review

Starring Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Ashley Hinshaw and Bo Petersen.  Directed by Josh Trank.

★★★★

The "found-footage" genre, when done well, can be an excellent entertainment, like the first Paranormal Activity.  This one is cut from the same cloth, albeit with multiple cameras using higher-end equipment.

I could compare it to Cloverfield, which gave a fun twist to the monster movie, but with the shaky-cam so shaky it gave me motion sickness.  We don't get that problem here, thank goodness.

Ultimately this is the best original superhero-origin movie since Unbreakable.  It's really about three teenagers and what they do when they suddenly garner great power, like telekinesis and flying.

The cast is full of mostly unknowns, and the director lucked out with them.  Dane DeHaan is the shy one, Andrew, who decided to chronicle his life on camera even before the inciting incident.  He's 2/3 Leonardo Dicaprio and 1/3 Michael Pitt, and it's going to be fun to watch his career blossom (he has supporting roles in the upcoming The Wettest County with Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman, and The Place Beyond the Pines with Ryan Gosling and Eva Mendes).  There's also Australian newcomer Alex Russell as Andrew's cousin Matt, and TV vet Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Parenthood) as Steve, the most popular guy in school.

At a party that doesn't go too well for Andrew, Matt and Steve want him to bring his camera to film a hole they found in the ground.  The three go in, and let's just say after they see what they see, we cut to the next day and they've discovered they have telekinetic powers.  At first it involves levitating Legos but the more they use their powers, the stronger they become.

The movie does a good job of making us care about the characters and the journey they're taking.  It always gets me excited to watch fresh young talent show off what they can do, and yet in an unshowoffy manner. (Yes, I've thought of better words, but "unshowoffy" stays.)

Bottom line is that "found footage" is a device, a story-telling tool, and if your story's weak, the device won't help.  Here, it works great.