strain6

Last year I saw some animated monstrosity at a drive-in theater. It was completely insipid, unfunny and dull. If anyone liked it had to be a kid and a kid who scarfs down paint chips. Throw in the voice of Ray Ramano and you will know why I was cringing in the backseat until the the movie's complete awfulness compelled me to leave. The only other time I left a drive-in theater was when a tornado was in the area.

Meet the Robinsons was the exact opposite of the above. It was funny. Kids and adults can enjoy this story. It poses some interesting conflicts and doesn't skirt the consequences. Letting go a lugubrious past for a brighter tomorrow is the best way to move forward. I'll be recommending this at work on Monday.

This is the best movie that I've seen this year. I know it is the second week out, but it is better than what I can remember seeing last year. There is so much that is good about this film that it is hard to know where to begin. You can start with the characters. There is quite a range of socio-economic backgrounds converging here in comfortable laid back sleaziness, out of which comes the interaction of characters with a range of family values.

There are the second and third generation sleazeballs played by Bruce Willis and Harry Dean Stanton. There are parents like the mother played by Sharon Stone who wants to raise happy healthy decent children. Kids who are essentially vicious and stupid hang with those who won't put common sense and decency in their back pockets and a mix of those in between. We see the initial corruption of the innocent as well as the easy descent of the aimless. This is not just another teen crime movie or the umpteenth hostage flick. It is also a story that is rife for reductionistic moralizing: my pre-emptive strike on one Jesus H. Christ.

I don't what is responsible for the dumpage on this movie, but I think it will find the large audience it deserves.

I saw the original Black Christmas at the Skyvue Drive-in Theater. At first, I thought that this would make a great drive-in theater movie, but it wouldn't. Night scenes don't work that well. Things that happen in the shadow get lost in the shadow on a drive-in screen. I saw this at the best theater in town and was grateful for the details. I recognized two of the girls from Final Destination lll. One has the cutest face of all time and the other has the nicest bod in recent times. With the lame Jessica Alba, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and few other four letter words that I would like to hit with a bat, it is nice to know that there is a girl who will share. Michelle Trachtenberg worried me in a television interview but was very sweet and personable here. I was in the mood for this movie or something. This will be the last movie that I see this year and I am glad that I ended on Black Christmas. It isn't supposed to be Citizen Kane. However, it was more fun and a lot sexier.

Stranger than Fiction could have been sensational rather than okay. There was something low budgetly cult, to use John Water's phrase, about this movie. Putting two characters in a room and having them talk is cheap and not particularly cinematic. It produces a very static feeling in the audience, which should be mistaken for a deep feelings among the characters in the story. Save for the bovine Queen Latifah, the actors were excellent. After Cecil B. Demented, I hoped Maggie Gyllenhaal would be in a part like this. Will Ferrell's less than leading man's features gives us all hope because Maggie is stuff. Emma Thompson was also beautiful and engaging but her scenes reminded me of those photos of George Foreman with a cow on his shoulders. Dustin Hoffman seems to be doing a variation of his role in I heart Huckabees, and in middle-age is starting to look creepily like my dad. And I'm sure everyone knows what he looked like. It is making me identify with the Jason and Will characters for reasons that only affect me. The music was singularly intrusive and misguiding. It is indicative of what went wrong. If another mood was struck for the movie, possibly, brighter and with a lighter touch, this could have outshone the geek who did Human Nature, Being John Malkovich, etc.

Marie Antoinette is more subtle than the reviews and board commentary would have you believe. This is less of a teleplay than people are used to where themes and characterization are hammered home with a sledge. In fact, this is one movie where costumes have a thematic value. The constraint of corsets and elaborate dress parallel Marie's personal restrictedness. When she becomes queen, she has simpler, more comfortable clothes made for her which she wears in a place where she and her friends can be free of regulations of life at court, where she is as stifled in some ways as a convict in prison stripes. As in music or painting much is conveyed here without words. This movie is so visual in fact you should see it on a theater screen rather than wait for the DVD.

I saw this movie on a rainy Saturday afternoon in September when I had nowhere to go and nothing to do. It is about a bunch of essentially nice guys who have special gifts that allow them to cut up, which they don't do at the anyone's expense. There is no need for Adlerian superiority striving if you can make bullies puke at will. They are good students and take part in athletics and have a healthy interest in girls. Conflict develops when a bad apple comes along. He acts like the kids who don't have magical power. I don't want to give anything away, but he makes an ass of himself and doesn't end up very well. The movie has a good look. The production values are rich. The special effects aren't distracting. It might even have a good message that I haven't figured out yet: Don't use your power for evil or don't be a dick. Beats me. As I said this is good movie for a lazy Saturday afternoon. The mandatory minority appeasement character was annoying. As in 13 Ghosts, Freddie vs Jason and countless others, the character is written into the script for reasons totally extraneous to the actual story. There will come time when all the movies that bear this quaint stamp will look ridiculous and the film-makers as craven as they are.

Hollywoodland lays out alternative theories to the strange end of Georges Reeves. I don't know how factual any of them are. Their common denominator is sadness over the death of a decent man. George Reeves is a mythic figure in both his Superman and Clark Kent suits. His real genius was getting the Clark Kent character right. A reporter has to ask intrusive questions of people that he doesn't know. You can't be both a weenie and the paper's best reporter. Some of George's actual character must have come through in those scenes from the series. Who knows if the scenes in Hollywoodland are any more true, but thankfully it didn't assail the feeling that George Reeves left us with.

Ben Affleck did an excellent job. He really nails the voice. It was good to see Robin Tunney in a bigger role, like George and Ben, she deserves better. The guy who looked like Howard Stern with a hair cut turns me off. If this guy is considered a star, I don't know what the world is coming to.

I think the original DOA starred Edmond O'Brien way back in the fifties.( I am not going to research anything, even the spelling of proper names.) It was a yawn of a film noir, unintentionally funny in places. They made a horrible remake with Dennis Quaid that was worse than the first. It was dismal all the way through. You wonder after two flop versions why anyone bothered to do a third. Whoever it was said,"Let's do one that doesn't suck. This movie starts quickly and doesn't let up. Murder, mayhem. car chases, explosions and tits and ass. This is a movie. After two days of Indy reakers, The Quiet and The Oh in Ohio, I found this refreshing. Kudos, kudos,

The nice thing about this movie is that I will forget that I ever saw it in about a month. It is so dull that it sent me to the concession stand once and to the bathroom once. I really had to go to the bathroom badly. I am glad that I was overpowered by gastrointestinal exigency during this movie, which was another little Indy waste of time. I keep thinking of that producer who explained that if it is not in the script it isn't there. Parker Posey, Heather Graham, and Danny DeVito were all good in this movie;in fact, Heather Graham was better than she has ever been. I felt that if you jettisoned the rest of the characters and started over with these three, you'd might be able work out a plot that would not send you to the lobby to check out the posters of what is coming to the theater next week.

Agatha Christie complained that authors adapting her work for the stage were not cutting out enough. That may be the case here. The film shows us scenes from a life from childhood to a the main character's conversion to Chrisianity. We get no deeper understanding of any phase of her life or anything but a superficial insight into her. In the attempt to show us everything, we see nothing. There were three cliché episodes: a child possibly subbing for mom, a rape, an abusive husband. Was that supposed to explain the choices which made Betty Page notorious? I hope not. It was as if the film-maker couldn't get a handle on the subject or the story. On the plus side were the actors. There were just too many of them.

The week before I saw Iowa, I saw Art School Confidential, in which a pretentious student makes a film and can't decide whether he wants it to be art or violent exploitation. Iowa could be the film that he made. I can see elements of much better movies in Iowa - Spun and Natural Born Killers. However, in addition to artiness, both those movies had good character development and coherent story lines. Iowa. This movie stumbles to a preposterous end. I have to admit that it had consistency. This movie is bad from beginning to end and not particularly worse or better in any part. The actors all did what they could. Roseanna Arquette deserves better. She demonstrates that she is very talented, very funny, and very sexy. But why does she have to demonstrate it in this turd ball.

A star of the old studio system asked rhetorically,"What is wrong with a movie that entertains?" At the time I was fetched with European art house wonders, which I convinced myself that I liked and that were very enriching and chocked full of vitamins or something. I am now convinced that the old studio actor was right. There is nothing wrong with something that works, whether an entertainment or a more artistic piece. I found Final Destination Three to be a wonderfully entertaining movie. What I like about thrillers and caper movies is the validation of ingenuity and perseverance. What we think and do is important. The characters in Final Destination know their number is up but never give in to resignation or despair. They don't anesthetize themselves against the inevitable or wave religious relics at the force in the dark. They keep to trying till the end. I liked the nude scenes and the imaginative demises. We might infer that the mysterious force has some connection to Rube Goldberg. Final Destination Three is fun and familiar. It is like re-reading The Ghastly Crumb Tinies.

I have seen this movie four times at the theaters. It was only in town two weeks. I love the movie's imaginative world and would see it again though I already know the twists and turns. The movie starts with a animation during the credit sequence, which was pretty common in the sixties. Also common were detective stories that came in under two hundred pages. You weren't expected to commit your life to it. That is the appeal of this movie and why it so watchable. I like Val Kilmer in talk show interviews, but until Kiss Kiss Bang Bang I couldn't stand his movies save for True Romance, in which he is good but off camera. Robert Downey, Jr. has been the saving grace of any number of movies and is brilliant here. The Singing Detective was the movie to avoid. Michelle Monaghan ( I am not going to look up the spelling) hung with these guys. It was a beautiful thing to see and she is a beautiful girl. I hope her career doesn't fade to black. She can point to this as

an undeniably great film if it does. Shane Black has made a movie superior to his Lethal Weapon efforts. Compare this to something like Paparazzi and you'll know how truly gifted he is.

Our local paper reported that this movie contained nudity. How couldn't there be in a story about Casanova? When I took my seat, I noticed that most of the audience were dumpy old ladies. They knew something that I didn't. The reputed nudity wasn't there. In fact, the amorous scenes were distinctly unhot. I kept noting how they blew one chance after another. I am sure all the dumpy old ladies were happy. This movie could have been rated PG. It is well photographed and well-acted. The plot is clever and Shakespearesque, at times. If you think that you are too old to enjoy Freddy Prinz movies, this is the romantic comedy for you. I hate when professional critics do this, but ... If you want to see a good Casanova movie, see Casanova and Company, starring Tony Curtis. Tony Curtis was a real man. His version tells much the same story and delivers the t&a.

My first choice for a movie this year was Hostel, and I am glad of it. It has what I like most in an entertainment - sex and violence. The last movie that I saw in 2005 was Wolf Creek. It was darker and grimmer. I liked Wolf Creek but I don't know that I could recommend it. Hostel is a hoot. The element of suspense is well done. The plot tripped me up a few times when I thought that I had everything figured out, and the fun doesn't stop till the final frame. All the actors do an excellent job. Whether technically accurate or not, again to my delight, the actresses have shaved their legs and their underarms. Hostel also functions, in a way, as a great tourist ad for Holland. I definitely want to go there. Not so much Eastern Europe. Hostel is what a Saturday matinée is all about. See it!

In J.R. Nash's Almanac of Crime, I discovered an entry about a Scottish couple who lured travelers to a remote place in the hills and killed them. They murdered hundreds of people before they were caught and executed. According to the almanac, the crimes occurred over a hundred years ago, so the couple was not be warped by violent media. We can find these types in any country in any age. There was that guy in Southern California, that guy in Texas, that guy in Illinois, there was that Russian guy and that friend of Joan of Arc. Wolf Creek is a grim metaphor of the constant fiend. Auden implores fate to protect his wanderer, "from sudden tiger's leap at corner." Wolf Creek is a folk tale of the unfortunate, who could any one of us. PS. Ebert is an idiot.

Fun with Dick and Jane is an excellent film. Forget about those laugh-getters, George Segal and Jane Fonda. This is an excellent movie and very funny. Jim is back. This is the Jim Carrey of The Mask, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura. The movie isn't a string of gags. It is well-structured. The supporting characters are funny and very important, not the anchors Jim has been obliged to heft in some of his recent films. Tea Leoni, as in wow! How many actresses would allow their pretty faces to be tampered with. Alec Baldwin is fantastic in this. If Siskel were alive, he'd have to eat a big pile of manure after seeing how good Alec is. He might be chowing on a big one in heaven, anyway. Don't believe the reviews. I'm writing the absolute truth. Go see this movie.

Fans of Jennifers Aniston should know that she is not the main character. She is actually a third banana. Clive Owen as the hapless hero and Vincent Cassel the heavy in the piece clock most of the screen time. The movie is a good little thriller. Its machinery could be derailed easily enough with a choice that seems obvious enough. The machine chokes and sputters to get to the very end. The mail clerk and his uncle could have been written out with no ill effect. It might have been a tighter story without them. One suspects that Hollywood film still have that social monkey on its back. Let's hope for a brighter day and more Jennier Aniston in the next movie that she is in.

The original version of The Fog wasn't any good either. The remake doesn't work for the same reasons. It takes more time than the film-makers have to develop the characters of the town. When they meet their various fates we don't know enough about them to care. We tend to forget who they were since they were dropped from the story till the end. Worse, the cohesion of the story is marred by the Mandatory African-American character. By his own admission, he comes from Chicago and is extraneous to the action. The time spent on his character introduces the themes of racial profiling and man's inhumanity to man. There was too much on the film-makers' plate already to take off a tangent, though I suspect the character was imposed on them. See the remake of Thirteen Ghosts if you want to another example of cohesion versus social exigency. In the case of The Fog, however, I don't think it would have been an effective film, gun pointed at their heads or not. The story of the ghosts is as dry as any in dull high school history text. A remake should be done by someone who is inspired to make the original much better. I didn't get that feeling here.

Waiting should have come out two months and thirty years ago. It would have been a great drive-in theater movie. There was a horrible movie a few years ago about a New York restaurant that starred Stephen Tucci, I believe. It was flat and unfunny from beginning to end and the critics raved about it. This movie is actually funny. What stands out about this movie is the group effort. No one actor or actress carries the thing as in a Jim Carrey flick or a Ben Stiller flick or some other over-rated ass clown. Everyone in the cast has his or her moment. The energy of the movie never flags. The humor is tuned to a certain pitch which may determine whether or not you like Waiting.

My only complaint is the absence of T and A. Brassieres are for commercial television, gentleman. Let's deport Jessica Alba. And as for artificial turf, never!

This was a good time at the movies. I wished the exciting bits could have been more exciting, but I have even less imagination than the screen writers, so I don't know how. All the Fantastic Four characters were well written, but developing four superheroes and a villain must be technically demanding. I wished for more from each of them, especially, Jessica Alba. This is the second time that she played a character who could have been naked and was not. That gripes my ass. What gripes it even more is gratuitous negritude, apparently, Hollywood's compulsory theme. Movies of this era will seem deformed, ridiculous, and antiquated. I want the people of the future to know that were those of us here in the past who realized that the trend was desperate and stupid. We contained our exasperation with idiots in charge as best we could.

Bewitched is not bad. It suffers from casting and claustrophobia. Will Ferrell in a romantic lead is a problem. I could see Jim Carrey in this role. Ademas, there is an echo of Dick York about him. Will Ferrell looks like Ron Perlman's whiny kid brother. There is something vaguely feral about both of them. Though I have seen cute chicks with really horrible-looking guys in real life, that doesn't mean it will work in a movie. The other problem is the lack of open spaces. Too much of the movie takes place on one or two sets. Usually, play adaptations give me this feeling. However, I seem to have liked this movie more than the other voters. It could have been better but it was good enough.

There was a texture to the first and third stories that changes slightly for the worst when Tarantino gets his hands on Sin City. Since this is a long movie, I save this section for visiting the concession stand or taking a dump. The third time that I saw it I cleaned up some popcorn that I spilled under the seat. I got a thumbs up from the staff who would have had to clean up the mess I made and I could still hear Rosario Dawson over-acting and imagine all the close-ups that a face like hers doesn't deserve. All I could think of is the line from the movie that runs something like "power is getting people to say they believe what they know in their hearts isn't true." Why amateur acting is valued so highly is a matter of politics in this case. Artistically Tarantino is becoming the Sarcoma Kid,a pathetic case. I have seen Sin City three times on the strength of the rest of the movie and intend to see it at least a fourth time. It is hard to deal with a zit on a beautiful face sometimes.

Hide and Seek is a solid thriller. It is well-acted and well-photographed. It has been some time since I wanted to say anything nice about Robert DeNiro. His lowlifes and tough guys and neanderthal gangsters were getting very stale. He was very good in this. I like the way he relates to his troubled daughter. Dakota was excellent as was the underemployed Famke Jansen. Unlike the Shyamalan efforts,which have never failed to bore me to distraction, this movie is actually entertaining. The ending of Signs had me shaking the seat in front of me and howling like George C.Scott in Hardcore. The good reviews that followed it made me doubt the integrity of professional critics. Take it from someone who has no axes to grind, who is not connected to the movie industry in any way,no behinds to kiss, no under the table pay offs expected, Hide and Seek is better than most of the movies that I saw last year. See it!