The Small Screen

Not everyone can make it to the theater every time a movie comes out, including myself.  That's why people invest in televisions.  Almost everyone has at least one show that they watch weekly.  One big show that's had a large audience is Crisis.
Crisis is a show that has a plot driven, not character driven story line.  The plot is riveting, a man betrayed by the government who has nothing to lose has kidnapped the children of the world's most powerful parents.  He manipulates them into doing whatever he wants in with the leverage of killing the children.  The kidnapper, Francis Gibson, is by far the best character in the series.  He is an interesting man whose motivations fears and ambitions are unraveled with each passing episode.  The best thing about the character is the excellent acting we get from him, courtesy of Dermot Mulroney.
Most of the other characters however, leave something to be desired.  Susie Dunn, one of the good guys is a prime example of what I mean.  Her lines are overly cheesy.  I can't count the ways I've learned how to say "do you trust me" from her.  Her actions are questionable.  Her past is never satisfactorily explained, a missed opportunity, and the acting, courtesy of Rachael Taylor is painfully obvious.   What I mean by that is, when you watch the show, you don't see a character.  You see an actress, trying to be someone else.  You don't see an FBI agent, you see a woman on a set, saying her lines.
Actor Lance Gross does a somewhat better job with his character, Agent Marcus Finley.  His actions are always explained, he has about a quarter of the cheesy lines as Susie Dunn has and he is the picture of a hero.  One thing missing from this hero is flaws, something I would have very much liked to see some flaws surface in him, but with only two episodes left in the series, expounding on them would be counterproductive.
The daughter of Francis Gibson Beth Ann Gibson, played by Stevie Lynn Jones is forgetable.  The acting is terrible.  Every one of the kids has better acting then her, and sadly none of them have the same focus from the plot.
The series is simply something to watch, neither good nor bad.  I look forward to seeing how the plot will wrap up.

Killing Time

There comes a time in every film company's history when they have a series that is so good, that the movies outside that series are nothing but filler.  That is precisely what Thor: The Dark World is.  It is filler, made to occupy you until the next Avengers film.  The movie is one of those that pleasantly spends two hours of your time.  You will not freak out, you will not be shocked, and you will not think. You will be entertained.  That is what this movie has to offer.

The plot of Thor: The Dark World is familiar.  A psychopath wants to destroy the universe and only one hero, along with a love interest, and a host of wacky sidekicks can save the day.  The special effects are good, and heavily used to create cities, giant space ships, trademark lightning and the red goo that the plot revolves around.  The acting is very believable, as there is a memorable cast with Chris Hemsworth, and Natalie Portman as the crown jewels.  The most memorable scenes however are delivered by Tom Hiddleston and Rene Russo, playing Loki, the adopted brother of Thor and Frigga, the queen of Asgard and Loki's adopted mother.

The scene takes place in the atmosphere of a mixed fantasy/sci-fi version of a prison.  Tom Hiddleston is pacing his prison, talking with his mother.  The dialogue is harsh, as Loki rejects the concern of a maternal figure in favor of cold solitude in his comfortable prison cell.  The words are harsh, and they stick with us until a later scene when we realize that Loki did not mean them.

The movie is a pleasant mix of special effects and connections to films past present and future, with a huge cliffhanger at the end that you will not see coming.  Thor: The Dark World is a good movie.  Good is a term that we have all used, and one that any moviegoer will recognize when they see it.



Chris Hemsworth as Thor and
Tom Hiddleston as Loki
(Left to right)

A Little late

I haven't had a chance to get to the theater lately,and the last film I saw in theaters was The Anchorman Two: The Legend continues.  I thought I'd review a 2012 favorite: Inglorious Bastards.  

Black comedy is the film's genre and it is in every aspect of the film, although some parts are more black and some parts more comic.  Brad Pitt is the funniest one of the film, playing Aldo Raine with his band of bloodthirsty soldiers, known as The Bastards, eager to pay the debt of "100 Nazi scalps" that they each owe him. Another character, Colonel Hans Landa, is more black.  Played by Christoph Waltz, the character is wonderfully acted, and we get to see everything we hate about the Nazis and the SS death legions manifest in this character.  Hans Landa however does tie with Aldo Raine for my favorite character in this film, simply because he is the most interesting to pick apart.  He is featured in all the best scenes, the beginning, in which the mood is set with the rest of the movie.  The film is constantly making you wonder how the explosive situations throughout it will end.  

Explosive situations, may not be the right word to describe many of the scenes in this film.  The scenes are more like giant barrels of gunpowder, sitting right next to a sparking fire.  The scenes are mostly talking, with the swastika armbands and lies that are obvious to us, but the characters are oblivious to serving to keep us on the edge of our seats.  

The trademark gore of Quentin Tarantino films is here in copious amounts.  There are horribly gruesome scenes of men being shot about a thousand times, burning buildings and terrifying laughing faces projected in the smoke, and men being scalped while punchlines are delivered with impunity.  At one point, after the bastards kill one of their enemies by beating him to death with a baseball bat, I actually yelled at the screen, "You people are insane!"  

Inglorious Bastards is a film to be watched only when children are far from the room.  Tarantino will traumatize and ruin them.  For all the parents out there, I say You have been warned.

Good Sequels

The Anchorman 2 was thoroughly hilarious.  The combination of the news team, characters, wonderful acting, and things that simply cannot happen kept me laughing the entire time.  Will Ferrell is hilarious as he carries the film with one joke after another.  He effortlessly portrays the character of Ron Burgundy as he goes about his new life which we left off at the end of The Anchorman.  He is helped along by Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, and David Kochner as he narrates "the most American news ever."

The Characters are, without a doubt, the strong point of this film.  If you are looking for special effects, look elsewhere.  This movie is pure actors on sets.  The special effects are mediocre at best, and they are all seen in the end of the movie, which I will not say anything about.

The Anchorman 2 The legend Continues will keep you laughing all the way through its run time.  It did for me, and the entire theater, so odds are you'll enjoy it to


(Left To Right)  Paul Rudd, David Kochner, Will Ferrel, Christina Applegate, Steve Carrell.

An Old Favorite.

I haven't been to the movies in a while, so I thought I'd take us back, way back, to the time of Alfred Hitchcock and his movie, The Birds.  This movie has earned a reputation as a horror film.  To today's desensitized audience like myself, it looks like it tries to be scary and fails miserably.  If you like horror that gives you jump-scares, like most horror movies do, then look elsewhere.  The Birds focuses on building suspense.  We watch, first introduced to Melanie Daniels, played by Tippi Hedren, as she tracks down a man, Mitch Brenner, to the small town of Bodega Bay intent on playing a practical joke on him.  The story changes from a playful romance to a suspense thriller when the characters of the story are attacked by swarms birds of all shapes and sizes, and forced to stay inside a boarded up house, while the three women in the house are all traumatized or hysterical, and Mitch Brenner, played by Rod Taylor, tries to hold back the swarm of deadly animals with the sheer force of his masculine presence.

It is at this point that the film reaches its high point, as the birds swarm the house, and constantly thud against it, while the people inside struggle to keep their sanity.  Blood sweat and tears of the actors went in this scene, literally.  Ms Hedren was bitten many times by the birds used in the film, partly because of the director's opinion that actors should be treated like cattle.  There are many horrible stories I could tell about how Alfred Hitchcock mistreated his actors, but that's not my job.

The Birds may have a severe absence of the cheap tricks that we have come to expect out of modern films, but it is a classic, and I recommend that everyone should see it at least once.  I give it an eight out of ten

   
                                      Tippi Hedren (Left) Rod Taylor (Right

Catching the Things that People Miss.

When you go in to The Hunger Games: Catching fire, you expect acting as good as the last one, them to stay true to the book that you read going into the theater, and you expect that they will have stepped up the special effects from last movie's cheap CGI fire.  You get two and a half of those things.
             The movie stays true to the book except in the case of the new "Head Gamemaker," Plutarch Heavensbee, played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  You get a couple of scenes with him in talking with the president that put a whole new perspective on the story.
             Those scenes are stunningly well acted out.  The same cannot be said of those which feature leading lady Jennifer Lawrence.  During the first half of the movie, when the story is centered in the highly advertised "Victory Tour," she talks too fast, and her more emotional scenes are played down so that the filmmakers can show off how good their white uniformed "Peacekeepers" are with billy clubs.  When they get to the second half of the movie, which I get the impression was worked on much more carefully, we get the same acting that we know and love out of Lawrence, as well as the awesome acting of new cast members, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone, and Jeffery Wright.  
             The visual effects are improved enough to look like something out of James Cameron's Avatar, except in  the ease of Katniss's trademark fire clothing.  We get a good look at this with the high tech stages of the capitol, the giant hovercrafts that float above everything, and most of all the "Districts," which serve as huge backdrops for forced speeches and scenes of incredible brutality.  The only flaw in these districts are the people in them who in the book are supposed to be starving, but all look stunningly well fed.  A problem that was extremely evident in the last movie.  I suppose there's not much you can do about that though unless you want to risk being as cruel as "The Capitol" themselves



           

Gravity Will Give You Vertigo

I expected to be amazed when I went onto the set of Gravity.  With two huge names like George Cluny   and Sandra Bullock, I knew that the writing had to be good.  Good acting also comes along with those two names, if you put any stock into film awards.

The movie takes place entirely in space, and , since we have not invented star wars style Gravity in space, the characters are always floating.  What is also floating is the cloud of space junk that pursues Sandra Bullock like a shark pursuing a minnow.  The Camera work makes you feel like you're right there with our lead characters, floating around in straight lines or in endless circles.  Your view moves like no other movie ever seen before, and the endless track shots make anyone who watches T.V. with stationary angles and fixed sets get a bad case of vertigo, which is a nice ouch, since our characters are up thousands of miles.

There are small flaws, like looking at the earth, and seeing completely alien landscapes, or understanding why characters take certain courses of action long after scenes are over.  (I'm talking to you George Cluny.)  But these small things are overshadowed by the looming pictures of the great beyond which are the only constant feature in set changes. and Sandra Bullock's acting as she slowly goes insane from one harrowing event after another.

I expect Gravity to get at least a couple of award for best special effects in a motion picture, but I wouldn't be surprised if it came up with at leas two more in another category.  I give this movie an eight and a half out of ten.  Leave a comment suggesting what you want me to interview next.