A new standard in cinema and animation

Up

Director: Pete Docter and Bob Peterson

Starring: Edward Asner and Christopher Plummer

MPAA: Rated PG for some peril and action.

I remember growing up on classics like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and The jungle Book. Then during my life time came the hits like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. In 1995 a little novelty was released that turned into massive hit, Toy Story. Now, 15 years later Up is the standard in excellence. I am more and more surprised by the incredible stories that are told through these detailed works of art that come from this studio. In comparison to the older Disney films these computer animated masterpieces are just so full of life. They are visually phenomenal, and so much more interesting than the older classics. Not to say I don’t love the originals, but every Disney/Pixar film gets better and better.



Up takes the genre to new heights of extraordinary in visual beauty that challenges the imagination, and also in a story with rich and interesting characters that touch the soul and warm the heart. I was captivated with Up from the moment it started. The movie opens with a little kid in a theater seeing the downfall of his hero, a great explorer named Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer). The little boy dawdles his way home and meets a little girl who also is a fan of Muntz’s and the two become friends. Their life is played out quickly in pantomime and they grow old together. In this little set up piece the full range of emotions played across my heart and I want from joy to sorrow and back and forth. Then Carl (Edward Asner – Who was Lou Grant in the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Santa Clause in , the little boy from the beginning, is all alone, and an old man now with a little cane/walker complete with 4 tennis balls at the bottom to keep it from scuffing the floor. Carl then proceeds to take his house and accidentally a little Cub Scout boy on the adventure of a lifetime. They find exotic animals, tread the un-trod landscapes, and soar across continents in the most unlikely of transportation. And finally come face to face with the even older Charles Muntz.



The movie is so funny, so sad, so happy, that it is everything I look for in a film. There is even some exciting action so creatively and beautifully put together it captured my mind and enveloped me in a cloud of imagination. In 90 minutes I was whisked around the world and shown some of the most fabulous landscapes I have ever seen, and I was also taken on the best emotional roller coasters I have ever been on in a film. Up is definitely a film that should not be missed.

It is amazing that this film actually made its hero a 70 year old man. This crotchety old widower is the best hero I have seen in years. He is a real person, and average Joe, what we will all become. He is grumpy and lonely and wants to fulfill a promise to his late wife. Movies these days seem to be packed with rebellious children who know more than their parents and always seem to be right and the authorities are always stupid and wrong. Carl’s stowaway Cub Scout neighbor, Russell is a little bit of this stock character. But it was nice to see a child hero that was a little pudgy, a little naive, and still respectful to Carl. Up shifts away from the standard to readily used in today’s entertainment and I think that it showed good moral sense in this decision.



Up is a masterpiece well deserving of its two Oscars and two additional nominations. In fact Up was probably the best or close to the best film made in 2009 and well deserved it’s best picture nomination. I would give up a 9.9 out o10. It wasn’t perfect but as close as it gets in film making. It is an uplifting film that succeeds in entertainment and art.

No Sex/Nudity -

Violence/Gore – minor cartoon peril and action

No Profanity -

Fun Film Fails at Finish

Sahara

Director: Breck Eisner

Starring: Mathew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz, William H, Mace, Rainn Wilson

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for action violence.

I have two questions here regarding Sahara, where it he sequel and why is it only a 5.9 out of 10 on the IMDB? I am not saying that this is a brilliant film and should have swept at the Oscars. It was a silly over the top action adventure film. But in the midst of terrible remakes and bad sequels and a deluge of “B” average action films, Sahara is a little gem. I really wish the makers of Indiana Jones 4 had gotten a little assistance from the makers of Sahara; then it might have been worth my time, when instead it was a deplorable movie with no redeeming qualities. On the other hand Sahara is a witty, intelligent movie, with dynamic and exciting actors and a plot more ridiculous than most of the James Bond films.



What makes this a fun film is not the amazing special effects, the over the top story line, and the exciting fight and chase scenes, it is instead the crazy characters that add spice and life to an otherwise cookie cutter adventure film. Mathew McConaughey and Steve Zahn are the perfect buddy film actors. They are a great duo that have excellent comedic timing and play off each other extremely well. They have the perfect bormance going on. There is none of that awkward love triangle going on when Penelope Cruz steps into the film, it is obvious she and McConaughey are supposed to be the love interest – for the duration of the film only, as it is in all action flicks – and Zahn doesn’t get man jealous as is so often the habit of filmmakers in these situation. Instead he is goofy and funny, and has a great laugh-out-loud line every two or three minutes. The two stars are just dang funny together.



Then there are the characters played by William H. Macy and Rain Wilson, also hilarious side characters that just add more flavor to the soup. Macy is the Admiral, the money backing the expedition. He is the fatherly figure whose stuff is constantly getting blown up, but things always turn out right in the end so it is okay. And Rain Wilson is the inexperienced techie, who bumbles around in the middle of explosions, and we forget that he is Dwight and instead see a goofy, scared, nerd, so funny.



I realize the plot is almost too much to handle. The fate of the world is being decided in the midst of war torn Africa and only these two treasure hunters with the help of a very sexy doctor (Penelope Cruz) can save it. But it is the build up that is interesting. The characters are so much fun that you really just say, Who cares if this is unrealistic and could never happen, it’s fun!” And it is a different kind of fun than the ridiculous Transformers blockbusters, where computer animated machines beat each other up, and the live actors run around green screen sets pretending to act scared. Instead it is a James Bond film with Indiana Jones, and you just smile and go along with the ride. I just don’t understand why people enjoy summer junk like the Transformers movies and then don’t appreciate clever adventures like Sahara. I would put Sahara at a strong 7.4 out of 10, for its good characters and fun script. The Transformers movies might get 6.5 out of 10 on a day when I am feeling dang generous.

The movie has a great build up, and is supported by strong characters. It is a little over the top,true, but the biggest problem with the movie is where the heads, off into plot la la land. The plot just gets too big and too ridiculous. It doesn’t get confusing or muddled or anything like that, it just gets too over the top, and that is what disrupts how good the film could have been. It is almost “Austin Powers” bad in how ridiculous it gets… only the villain isn’t holding the world hostage for “one hundred million dollars.” Overall though, Sahara was a fun popcorn flick.

Sex/nudity – 3 out of 10 – a man and a woman kiss on a beach in swimsuits. We see cleavage and he is bare-chested. We see a man in swim trunks only walking out of the water. A woman wears cleavage revealing clothes.

Violence/Gore – 6 out of 10 – A lot of fist a cuffs, men getting shot, people being shot at. A humanitarian group is massacred, dead bodies are seen. We see a few people shot, no blood is seen. A plague leaves people sick and bloodied; many dead bodies are seen lying around. There are a lot of explosions and people dying but it is all done in a way that is a little unrealistic and there is very little blood splattering or anything like that.

Profanity – maybe 1 F-word, 10 to 15 mild profanities and religious exclimations.

Thriller and Comedy

Signs

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Mal Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, and featuring M. Night Shyamalan

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for some frightening moments.

A tense thriller with a surprisingly humorous and witty script, Signs is a film for both Sci-Fi junkies and family film lovers. M. Night Shyamalan knows how to write and direct real tension and drama; and in Signs he uses these skills, along with a script that rivals a good comedy, and weaves a story so creatively it is okay that we have seen it in a hundred other movies.

While Will Smith is out blowing up Aliens, the Hess family is in rural Pennsylvania trying to catch the news and figure out what is the deal with the crop circles popping up all over the world. We see lights on the TV and news reports, but we never seem to catch a clear look at the invaders, and 90% of the film leaves us wondering if it isn’t a big hoax. The tension is shown through the eyes of a ten-year-old kid, his 6 year-old sister. They are scared and believe aliens are invading. The panic stricken Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) sits in the closet watching the TV, his ace white as a ghost. Graham (Mel Gibson) has rejected his position as a reverend and the existence of God because of the death of his wife six month earlier.



The four are a great family on screen. There are tears and smiles, and plenty of laughs. Gibson walks into the house at one time to see Phoenix and the kids sitting on a couch with tin foil fats wrapped around their heads to keep the aliens from reading their minds, and I went into hysteric laughing so hard. It was great. The dialogue between the two brothers is great, and we have no problem believing Gibson is Phoenix’s big brother. They have great chemistry, and the kids thrown into the mix make for a great family suffering from the death of a mother and now living in the horrible reality of an alien attack.



M. Night Shyamalan really put together a great story here. He used interesting angles in his cinematography to emphasize the eerie aura of the film. One angle that was used a lot, and very effectively, was a head on straight shot; usually it was a medium wide shot, and he used it a lot in the film. It was very basic and very effective in telling the story. To balance the creepy feeling ever present in the film he uses cute kids and great characters with an even better script to tell an almost horror tale. This is not a movie you can stop half way through to do homework. It is a movie that keeps you riveted to the screen, wondering if there are aliens or not, and if there are, what does it all mean?



I really can’t believe I pushed this film off eight years before seeing it. I enjoyed it, and I’d give it a solid 7.8 out of ten. It does remind me a bit of K-Pax because it raises so many questions and gives the audience a far more human and realistic view on what would happen if there really were aliens. I enjoyed Signs and would recommend it to the Sci-Fi nerds and the moms watching Hallmark dramas. There is something for everyone here.

Sex/Nudity – 0 out of 10 – a man talks about kissing a woman and a man talks about having beautiful women licking his feat – in a hypothetical situation.

Violence/ Gore – A woman is said to have been cut in half by a car crash. A police officer tells a man fairly graphically about the accident. Man chops off fingers from a hand that reaches out for him under a door jam. A dog is seen laying on the ground stabbed with a BBQ fork, there is a little blood. There are a lot of frightening scenes, a man is chased in a corn field in a scene of high tension, many scary hands are seen grabbing at people, there is a lot of tension of fright in the film.

Profanity – 4 out of 10 – A few uses of the “B” and “S” word, some name calling and one or two religious exclamations.

K-Pax

Director: Ian Softley

Starring: Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for a sequence of violent images, and brief language and sensuality.

A visually interesting movie, with a plot and actors to match, K-Pax is a fell constructed film that earns a good 7.8 out of 10. This is one of those movies that keeps you guessing throughout, and ends with some questions still unresolved, is it a surprise ending with a wicked twist, or is the twist false, and the movie is in fact exactly as we perceive it. This question makes the movie in its self worth watching.




Kevin Spacey is Prot (pronounced Prote), a man who seems to materialize out of light in the opening credits and is almost instantly sent to a mental hospital because he claims to come from a distant planet. Jeff Bridges is the ever skeptical workaholic doctor in charge of the hospital, and he takes Prot on as a personal project. Both actors are very interesting on the screen. Spacey is comical and very intelligent, almost an idiot savant, but so honest and witty that we keep changing our minds about Prot and his origins. Bridges keeps us guessing too as he examines and Prot, and probes into the corners of his mind searching for the answer. The two actors play off of each other very well, and these two men are a perfect team up for dry humor and the touching friendship they develop.



My only beef with the film comes in the mystic hypnosis sessions Bridges’ character conducts to get to the true root of Prot’s psychosis. As far as I know, from Intro to Psychology, hypnosis and regression therapy are two forms of treatment not practiced by most doctors, and in fact myths from old spy movies and bad melodramas, and their use in this film is not well incorporated and makes for some cheesy scenes.

Getting past the cheese isn’t too hard though, and I recommend the movie to anyone who wants a good drama with a possible Sci-Fi twist. Though I can’t give away the ending or any good scenes, so I’ll say “possible” because you never know what may happen.



The different directions the film goes in are fun. We meet the family of our ever working doctor, and he learns their importance as the film progresses. We also meet many quirky mental patients and see them change to with the help of Prot. Throughout the movie creative filming adds emphasis to the mood of the story and different angles and lighting techniques enrich the visual aspects.
Overall K-Pax is an above average movie that will bring smiles to the audience’s faces. It is heartwarming and fun to watch. It gets a little hoakey as I said before but the acting makes up for any defects there. Anyone looking for a deeper drama check out K-Pax, you won’t be disappointed.

Sex/Nudity3 out of 10 – A couple are awakened in the middle of the night, they appear to be nude but we can only see dark shadows and the top of her breasts. A man talks about painful sexual intercourse on another planet.

Violence/ Gore 6 out of 10– We see shots of a rape and homicide through a man’s imagination. A man breaks another man’s neck in a fight. We see splattered blood on a wall and hear about a woman and daughter being raped and killed. We see the woman’s body briefly.

Profanity – 5 out of 10 – 1 “f” word and a smattering of other profanities and religious exclamations.

The Shawshank Redemption

Director: Frank Darabont

Starring Morgan Freeman and Tim Robins

MPAA: Rated R for language and prison violence

It is simply stunning how the master of Horror, Stephen King, can write a book of such phenomenal brilliance as to bring a tear to the eye and lift the spirit. The
Shawshank Redemption is perhaps the best film ever written. It is absolutely on my top 5 list, and I give it a strong 10 out of 10. My wife and I just finished the film and she gave me a big hug and a kiss and told me she loved the movie.
True, this movie has scenes implying brutal violence, including prison rape (none of which is seen of course), and is littered with profanities including many uses of the “F” word. But the ends justify the means, easily. This is an amazing drama that will change any ones view on the “ease” of prison life and how good prisoners have it.

Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman are convicted felons serving out life sentences in Shawshank Prison. They are not bad men, but are men who are learning from their mistakes and becoming better people for it in the midst of violence and misconduct by the guards and the inmates. The storey covers over twenty years of time spent in the prison and the evolution of the men’s lives through humorous and tragic events within the prison.



Both men perform admirably and could have each picked up an Oscar for their roles. Freeman aptly earned his nomination, but Robbins deserved one as well. This amazing piece of artistic brilliance did not win any of the seven Academy Awards it was nominated for. It lost Best Picture to Forest Gump, though it is an infinitely better film, though Forest Gump was a marvelous movie, it just doesn’t compare to Shawshank. It also lost in Best Cinematography to Legends of the Fall, which might actually be a good call, because Legends was a beautiful film.



This is a flawless film. The acting is perfect, the script is entertaining, the cinematography beautiful, and the plot surprisingly suspenseful and intriguing. It is hard to see where this film is headed. It starts off with a murder and a trial and continues with men being beaten to death and gang raped. You never see any nudity or blood, but you see a lot of hitting and hear a lot of really nasty sounding beatings. Then there are some much lighter scenes that just make you laugh out loud. The balance of dark and light is fantastic, and the very surprising twists and turns make the film a true winner.

You can’t miss this film. It is a landmark in cinematic history. I have seen it too many times to count, and every time I am filled with such happiness. The deep dark spots of the movie are counter balanced very well with the happy moments. This is a visual and intellectual masterpiece, the best adaptation from book to movie I have ever seen. Sit back and enjoy this film of iconic magnitude.




Sex/ Nudity - 7 out of 10 – A man and a woman are shown kissing passionately and his hands go up her dress, we see them thrusting and hear them making noises. There are quite a few references to prison gangs who rape people. There is talk of prison rape, and a man is cornered three or four times and we assume he is raped. We see bare chested men a few times and one brief scene in a shower where we see a few men from the stomach up showering and talking, a man comes on to another man in the scene. We see men holding prison clothes over their privates marched to their cells, bare legs and chests are visible.

Violence/ Gore - 8 out of 10 – A few people are beaten badly by prison guards. We see them hit (or the camera pans off of them and we hear them being hit) repeatedly by the guard’s sticks. One man dies from the beating, one man is taken out in a wheel chair badly bruised and bloodied. A gang of prison rapists beat another man badly three or four times and we hear how long he spends in the infirmary recovering. One man is shot several times. A man and a woman are shot. One man hangs himself and we see him swinging in the back ground.

Profanity – 9 out of 10 – At least 50 F-words and many other profanities and religious exclimations.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Director: Terry Gilliam (The Brothers Grimm, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Twelve Monkeys, Time Bandits, Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Starring: Christopher Plummer, and Heath Ledger, with Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Collin Farrell

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violent images, some sensuality, language and smoking.

The last of Heath Leger’s films is quirky, muddled, and ultimately unsettling. Terry Gilliam has made another film that leaves the audience thinking WTF. It is hard to believe that this director was also behind the comic genius Monty Python and the Holy Grail (one film I could do without… but successful none the less). I tried watching Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, another one of Giliam’s, but it was a disgusting piece of film making that left me with a splitting headache. The Imaginarium though, was interesting, exciting, and fun, if not a little disjointed and confusing.



Heath Ledger was great, but still clinging to some Joker tendencies throughout the film. To be fair he was not really the main character but more like Brad Pitt in Spy Game. He moved the plot along and was an essential character, but not the lead role.



The movie is about Dr. Parnassus, a genuinely good man whose two vices are drinking and gambling. But the stakes are much higher than wealth, the wages are souls, the players are him and the devil. Dr. Parnassus makes bets with the devil, and lives a miserable life because of his choices. Ledger comes into the story as Tony, the mysterious stranger found hanging from a bridge, and he is either the key to beating the devil at his own game, or the instrument that will bring Parnassus to his ultimate downfall.

The plot is a good idea, well used, but this film takes the idea to another level. Dr. Parnassus can take people to another world, the imaginarium where they can choose to come out better people or they are destroyed by the devil. In the imaginarium is a computer animated world that is more bizarre than Alice’s Wonderland, and less realistic than Toon Town. The great part every time Heath Leger goes into it we see another one of his faces (found in the fabulous acting of Johnny Depp, then Jude Law, and finally Collin Ferrell).



Problem is, the movie starts out slow and doesn’t really get the show rolling very well. It putters around badly with some rather poor sound editing and a spotty script and then picks up with the appearance of the devil and then finally Heath Ledger. Where the plot then twists around five or six times trying the keep the audience on its toes but mainly succeeding in leaving out heads spinning. There is deeper meaning to be found in the story, but one has to do a lot of uncovering to succeed in that endeavor.



It is obvious the unexpected death of Heath Ledger through the filmmakers through a loop and so they improvised well with the three faces of Tony, but the plot did seem like there was too much cut and paste – with Terry Gilliam’s track record though it would be very easy for us to believe that was how he wanted it all along though.
Over all The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus gets a 7 out of 10. It was weird and quirky, had a few good laughs, went some wild directions visually speaking, and in the end succeeded in leaving the audience sitting in silence, whether it was a ponderous silence or a stupor of thought will be up to the viewer. Check it out if you want to see Heath Ledger, or just a trippy flick, but if not then this might not be your particular brand of vodka.


Sex/Nudity – 6 out of 10 – A 16-year-old girl is seen naked with a long wig covering all private area, we see her bare hip and the side of her breasts. A man and a 16-year-old girl kiss and then we see their boat start to rock, afterwards we see her laying with her dress open in just a bra and bare stomach, it is assumed they had sex. A man chases after a young lady yelling at her and making sexual suggestions. A teen girl is seen in many cleavage revealing outfits. A man dresses like a woman and the suit has cleavage. A chorus of men dressed in skirts and pantyhose do a song and dance and moon the screen, we can see their bare bottoms through the thin hose.

Violence/ Gore – 5 out of 10 – a man is found hanging, he is cut down and resuscitated. Another man is hung by the neck and we here crunching as the camera pans off of him, then we see his body swinging. A man blows up in a bar explosion. 4 men beat and punch another man. A man tries to comic suicide and is caught in the jump. A man hits a child and a woman a few times. An angry mob chases a man trying to kill him and in the process they trample another man.

Profanity – 5 out of 10 - 1 “F” word (audible only with the assistance of subtitles, it is muttered and background noise obscures it) and 20 or so other obscenities, 10 or so religious exclamations, some name calling.

Four Feathers

Director: Shekhar Kapur (Elizabeth and Elizabeth II: The Golden Age)

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for intense battle sequences, disturbing images, violence and some sensuality.

Starring: Heath Ledger, Kate Hudson, Wes Bentley, Djimon Hounsou, and Micheal Sheen

Heath Ledger in one of his most riveting and emotional roles; Four Feathers is a drama of epic proportions. This is a slow movie, not slow like a monotonous three hours of unbridled dialogue dipped in pompous English accents. Instead it is a masterfully built story about redemption and loyalty that has desolate scenes of desert travel and panning shots of the African landscape as characters contemplate there situation. This is a story of the horrors of foreign wars fought by soldiers who did not understand the need for England to spread itself across the nations of the earth. I think it is a very appropriate movie for our time because it deals with issues of war and hate in a venue a little removed historically, but still pertinent.



Ledger plays young Harry, the son a career military man who now faces war or the woman he loves. His closest friends ship out to fight in the deserts of Africa, while Harry stays behind. Disgraced he feels he must head to Africa to find his friends and prove to everyone he is not a coward. Each feather is a sign of disgrace given him by former comrades in arms and he quests to return the feathers. Heath, with a beard that rivals those of the Old Testament prophets, is brilliant as the young adventurer. He is racked with guilt and torn between his fears and his need to be a better man. His journey is a message to everyone that the path to redemption is difficult.



Supporting Leger's phenomenal performance is Djimon Hounsosou (Gladiator and Blood Diamond). He plays the guardian angel, watching Harry closely in his search for his friends and aiding the boy with the words, “God put you in my path.” He is a stony character with a sneer that could kill the faint of heart, and a smile that could melt ice. He and Ledger make a dynamic duo more interesting than Batman and Robin.



Michael Sheen (The Damned United, Frost Nixon, and the head vampire in New Moon – BLAH!) is a youthful companion of Harry’s. He is a handsome actor and really fun to watch in his supporting part here. It is interesting to see how far he has come in the last few years, and I loved seeing him as a young military officer in this movie.

While slow, this film doesn’t seem to drag at all. The scenes all flow together well, and while sometimes they do jump in the story and leave the audience saying, “What the heck,” it still manages to flow rather well; telling a gripping story and ties up almost all of the loose end eventually.

I wouldn’t say this is a movie for everyone. It is a deeper film that has a lot of emotion. Some people want thoughtless action with little character development and virtually no plot, just look at what is in the theaters and you can tell. While

Four Feathers has a lot of tear jerking war scenes, and breath taking action (done tastefully but still with the dirt and grit of realism) it focuses on Harry’s relationships with his friends and the steps he takes to prove to them and himself he is not a coward. It is a movie that focuses on the emotions of the characters, and it picked fantastic actors who do just that. While it does have four different ending spots that seem to drag out a little bit it is still a well paced film that uses is slower scenes to add emphasis and drama. Four Feathers is a marvelous film with a deep plot, and exciting story, and rich characters. Don’t miss this film, it is an easy 8.5 out of 10.



Sex/Nudity – 5 out of 10 – Two side characters have sex behind a rock as a man looks on trying not to be seen; we see them kissing, moaning, and moving from the neck up. We see some men bare from the chest up. There is some talk about soldiers and prostitutes.

Violence/ Gore – A man stabs a camel and drinks its blood because he is dying of dehydration. Many people are shot and killed. In some prison scenes men are beaten and bloodied. A man is hit over the head with a rock and we see blood. One man is savagely beaten to death off screen but we hear the thuds. Men fight over scraps of food and beat each other. A man is whipped savagely (no blood is shown). We see the legs of men who have been hung, and we see many dead corpses. Some rugby violence. One big battle scene with a lot of shooting and death, no spurting blood or anything like that.



Profanity – Three or four mild obscenities and two or three religious exclamations.

Iron Man 2

Director: Jon Favreau

Starring: Robert Downey Jr, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Scarlett
Johansson, Sam Rockwell, and Samuel L. Jackson, with Paul Bettany and Jon Favreau

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some language.



The summer deluge of “B” average sequels and over the top action flicks has started off with the loud clang of iron being forged. Out of the fire comes a not too shabby, if not anti climatic, return of Iron Man. It is a sequel, one packed with characteristics all “good: sequels must come with, too many top named actors, plots that split and twist into thirty new directions, more action, more stuff blowing up, more flaws in the hero, serious personal troubles that make carrying the responsibility of policing the world too difficult, and on and on and on.
Simplicity is too easy an answer and beyond the grasp of Hollywood writers so instead Iron Man 2 has a plot similar to Pirates of the Caribbean 2, entertaining yes, but elusive! Iron Man 2 wasn’t nearly as crazy as Pirates 2 but it still follows that same BIGGER AND BETTER idea. Hopefully they will grasp that and Iron Man 3 will scale it back a little.



I went into the move with relatively low expectations. Hollywood has broken my heart a few too many times recently and so I wasn’t expecting much. Robert Downey Jr of course was as good as ever. He is a witty actor who knows how to deliver a line with sincerity and realism. He is hilarious, one of the best actors of our time and Iron Man 2 does not hold him back. There are a couple of scenes where he is stomping around in his CGI suit with the face shield up, where he looks kind of stupid, but that happens I guess.



Don Cheadle makes for a great Rhodey, some liked him better than Terrance Howard. For the record I love Don Cheadle and he never disappoints, but I am one for keeping the originals. Like when the first 4 Batman movies came out and the last two had Val Kilmer and then George Clooney for Batman, I was just a kid and I was still way bugged that there couldn’t be any consistency. The same thing bugs me here too. But Cheadel worked just fine and it wasn’t a huge deal because he was in the film about as much as Gwyneth Paltrow, who incidentally was a wreck on screen. It was like she forgot to watch Iron Man before filming and so ignored the lat Pepper Pots and a gave us this new one who was a big spaz. I guess they needed her to contrast the ever so HOT but completely emotionless Scarlett Johanson. I guess when you get so many stars in one movie things just get dull.



Mickey Rourke was just plain scary. It was like The Wrestler with a doctorate in physics. He looked pretty awesome, but let’s face it, we already saw a bigger badder suit in Iron Man 1 with Obadiah Stane’s take on Iron man. I guess they justified Ivan Vanko’s (Mickey Rourke) smaller suit with the 30 other Iron Man suits running around blowing stuff up and Vanko’s wicked but ultimately useless energy whips.

Samuel L. Jackson had a small bit part where he tries to play the fatherly and wise leader. He is mildly entertaining, but there is little need for his part in the movie. It was more of a toss in for the comic book fans and had little need for the plot development. Sam Rockwell was fun to watch. He was the sniveling competitor with Stark industries and had all the classic symptoms of spineless jealousy. He was none the less a fun villain.



Ultimately Iron man 2 is a decent sequel that will thrill the action and comic book fans but will fail to impress any serious film watchers. There is very little depth in the film and it is a bit anti climatic. The film fails to put many of the pieces in place and leaves the audience with a 2000 piece jigsaw puzzle about three fourths completed. It’s entertaining, but not that great. 7 out of 10.

Sex/Nudity – 4 out of 10 – There are some sexual innuendos, we see a woman dressing in the back seat of a car, and we see her in a bra. We see a photo of a woman posing in lingerie.

Violence/Gore – 6 out of 10 – There is a lot of stuff blowing up and guns going off and fighting and punching and all the stuff seen in a million other movies. The
violence involves very few people getting hurt or at least little visible injury. A man does kill a couple of people. There is some fit-a-cuff and a little bit of blood and bruises on faces.

Profanity - 5 out of 10 - 2 bleeped out “F” words and a few other mild obscenities and religious exclamations.

Date Night

Director: Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum 1 and 2)

Starring: Tina Fey and Steve Carell, with Common, Mark Whalberg, Ray Liotta, and Mark Ruffalo

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for sexual and crude content throughout, language, some violence and a drug reference

The perfect date night flick, “Date Night” is an uproarious comedy that pairs off the two funniest people in the entertainment industry today. Tina Fey and Steve Carell are a riot! “Date Night” is a funny as the trailer, and while a lot of the best scenes are in the preview there is still more to behold in the film. If you laughed at all when you saw the ads for this movie then you might as well check out the new dynamic comedic duo found in “Date Night.”




This movie pales in comparison to Oscar Nominated “It’s Complicated” but I guess it is not quite in the same genre. Similar films might be “Baby Mama” or “Stranger Than Fiction” or other movies banking on SNL like scripts. However this movie is not nearly as filthy as “Step Brothers” or even “Talladega Nights” or a farfetched as “Zoolander” though it does seem to be in the same movie family.
I like movies with dynamic couples. I like movies about married people with married problems who try to make things work and in the course of the film resolve some of their conflicts. This is one of those movies. Phil (Steve Carell) and Claire (Tina Fey) Foster are in a little bit of a rut. They go to work every day, work hard, take care of the kids, get to bed late after putting the kids to bed, and are roused from their comas early each morning by WWF movie from their two children and they even go to the same restaurant for their weekly dates.



However they are in love, just resigned to the mundane duties of married life. They still play a little game during their dinners, it is obvious this is a long standing tradition between the couple, where they guess what date the couples around them are on and pretend to talk for these people. This is when the comical genius of these Golden Globe winning actors really comes out, the banter little dialogues back and forth, each comment getting more absurd. It is a hoot to watch. But one night changes their marriage for the better when they take another couples reservation and end up running from the mob in a case of mistaken identity.

Carell and Fey have great onscreen chemistry. They do not overpower each other like some actor heavy movies. They play off of each other very well, trading humorous lines, each funnier than the last. They banter a little bit, but they feel like a genuine couple that has gotten used to being together and, while there are still bumps in the marriage, they are a happy couple. It is easy to believe they are a normal suburban couple in a very abnormal situation that could happen to anyone committing the heinous sin of taking someone’s dinner reservation (a running joke throughout).

"Date Night" had a good story development. It was well thought out and paced at a good speed so as to not dump the audience head over heels into the classic mistaken identity plot. In fact the film was well thought out right up until the last fifteen minutes, which were a huge let down in comparison to the rest of the movie.



We got very little sense of a climax, and completely failed to use Mark Wahlberg’s supreme butt kicking abilities. Instead it kind of wrapped things up in one fell swoop as if the writer (Josh Klausner, the not so genius behind scripts for Shrek 3 and 4) was like, “Dang, we use our one “F”-word, and our allotment for jokes; I guess we are done with the movie,” and left the director with his thumb up his nose for the end of the film. This thoroughly disappointing ending really knocked the film down from an 8.3 out of 10 to a low 7.0 out of 10. The movie was clever and fun, not amazing, but well done, right up until a bogus ending that really killed the light, amusing mood of “Date Night.”



Sex/Nudity – 6 out of 10 – There is an extended scene in a strip club; a lot of women in lingerie dance suggestively on poles. A man women couple goofily dance for another man and he becomes very excited at their dancing, and asks them how much to spend the night with them. There is no nudity at all. There is some sexual dialogue including discussions about sexual fantasies. A woman asks if another couple will be joiner her for sex.

Violence/Gore 4 out of 10 – There are a few small gun fights, no one is shot though. There is a long car chase with some crashing, no one is injured. A few people get hit in the head or punched, no blood of any kind.

Profanity – 6 out of 10 – one very loud “F” word, kind of unexpected, sexual references, use of the “S” word and “B” word a few times, and some mild obscenities and religious exclamations.