OBLIVION

This review is going to be a little bias. I freaking love OBLIVION! While the film is nothing original, it is in fact directed with such visual style that I couldn't keep my eyes off of the screen. Even during the slow parts I was in awe of film and it's IMAX presentation. OBLIVION not being in 3D was a nice cherry on top as well!

OBLIVION takes place in 2077. Sixty years earlier Earth was attacked by aliens called Scavengers. During the invasion things got ugly just like in any war. The Moon was destroyed and in a last ditch effort to win, Earth launched all it's nuclear weapons to defeat the Scavs (Scavengers for short). After the war Earth became unable to support life. The human race now lives either on Titan (one of Saturn's moons) or the giant space station called the Tet, which orbits Earth's atmosphere.

Tom Cruise plays Technician #49 Jack Harper. Jack and communications officer Victoria are part of an operation to extract the planet's remaining resources, primarily water for the people now living on Titan. The space station Tet is basically mission control for Jack and Victoria.

What remain of the alien Scavs are basically resistance fighters. In the event of Jack and Victoria ever getting captured by the Scavs they have underwent a memory wipe five years prior in case of capture and interrogation. Jack's primary job is the maintenance and support of 'drones' which patrol the landscape to destroy any remaining Scavs and protect the resource retraction machines. In the final weeks of their operation Jack has begun having dreams and flashbacks of New York City before the invasion. In his dreams he keeps seeing a woman that is not his teammate and part-time lover.

Days before Jack and Victoria are to return to the Tet, a spacecraft crashes on the surface. Jack investigates to find a number of sleeping capsules. One of the capsules contains Julia, the woman from his flashbacks. Soon after, Jack and Julia are captured by Scavs who are revealed to be humans living underground. Their leader, Malcolm Beech (played by Morgan Freeman), claims there are no aliens on the planet and insists that Jack sees things their way and demands that he reprograms a captured drone to destroy the Tet.

Jack refuses and Malcolm lets him go but not without telling him to venture out beyond the so called radiation zones, it is there that Jack will have all the answers he needs.

The story of OBLIVION provides nothing new, we've seen and heard these stories before. From the trailers you can piece together that Morgan Freeman's character is really the good guy and Tom Cruise's Jack has been helping the true bad guys all along. The good news is that OBLIVION isn't I AM LEGEND 2.

I love science fiction but by no means do I consider myself a science fiction geek. I love the classics like THE MATRIX, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, PLANET OF THE APES, and THE TERMINATOR. But when I sit down and watch something like STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION I don't understand half the scientific jargon they are talking about nor do I care. Moviegoers like myself and geeks of sci-fi will quickly discover the 'twist' inside OBLIVION but director Joseph Kosinski makes the film shine through the cliches. The world he has created here is absolutely stunning.

I always come from the school of thought that it's not how original your movie is, but rather it's how you tell your story. OBLIVION borrows from many many other science fiction stories and films, but the film is pure genre and revels in pure 70's science fiction film homage; therefore, I give it a full pardon of not being original.

I highly recommend OBLIVION!

Spoilers! Well, sort of.

The ending of the movie had me seriously thinking, did Tom Cruise just denounce Scientology?

EVIL DEAD (2013)

Nothing about horror movies excites me anymore it seems. Nowadays it's all 80's horror icons re imagined, hacking and slashing away at unlikeable Abercrombie and Fitch models. Or what's possibly worse is that our vampires, werewolves, and zombies all have to be sexy now. Lame. The other end of the spectrum isn't all that great either. When the horror genre isn't appealing to teenagers or stay at home soccer mom's, it goes overboard to the tasteless gory torture porn extreme. Does anybody remember that JAWS all taught us that less is more? But what if the movie is meant to be a splatter house blood soaking horror show? Then make it fun maybe even a little humorous, just don't get lost in the tasteless gore. Who am I to tell someone what they should and should not like? There is no accounting for taste. Bottom line is I don't like tasteless gore in my horror movies, the keyword there is tasteless.

When it comes to the Evil Dead movies I love EVIL DEAD II more than the original. It was the first one I saw of the trilogy and is my favorite of the series. It was either 1987 or 1988 when I saw EVIL DEAD II for the first time on good old HBO, A.K.A “The Babysitter”. It was one of the most original and entertaining movies I had ever seen. It was probably the first multi genre movies I had ever seen too. It had everything; horror, action, and comedy. It is and forever shall be one of my favorite movies.

The original EVIL DEAD was a film I didn't get around to seeing until well after ARMY OF DARKNESS. Something about EVIL DEAD did not appeal to me. I had know for quite awhile that it was not humorous like it's sequel but serious, scary, and gory very gory. The time had finally come so my friends and I rented it one afternoon (because we were too scared to watch it at night) and we hated it. We like our slapstick Evil Dead thank you very much. We hated that the movie was so grim and the violence and gore was serious in nature. Yuck. No thanks.

* I want to be clear that I do not think that EVIL DEAD is tasteless. The filmmakers set out to make a scary horror movie.

Over the years I've grown to appreciate EVIL DEAD the more I see it but it's still my least favorite of the series.

For years fans have wanted a fourth Evil Dead film but the original filmmakers have said no, until just recently. So EVIL DEAD IV looks to be happening but it also seems like they are going to call it ARMY OF DARKNESS II. Too early to know for certain. What is certain is that producers Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell along with director Fede Alvarez have made an amazing remake.

My biggest fear with EVIL DEAD (2013) was no slapstick, no Ash, and too much emphasis on torture porn gore. I felt this was catering to a new generation of horror audiences, people that love evil winning and monsters that kill the hero. I underestimated Fede Alvarez big time!

I won't argue that this new film is a remake, but it just felt more like an expanded universe Evil Dead story to me. The nods to the original are much much more than winks to the fans if you ask me. Time will tell.

Five friends head to a remote cabin to help their friend Mia quit heroin. This isn't the first time they've tried to make her quit. No matter what happens no matter how hard Mia begs, they are not leaving until she's clean. Siblings David and Mia haven't been to the family cabin for a long time and since then, some strange stuff has been going on. The discovery of a Book of the Dead leads to the summoning of some demons in the woods. The evil possesses them until one is left to fight for survival.

At first the pacing is a little slow and none of the five friends are all that likable. Mia played by Jane Levy did an amazing job. Everybody else seemed one dimensional which is too common in horror movies today. If the rest of the cast had just a little more to work with in regards to their characters I may have been a little more invested in them. One character in particular, Eric, his curiosity in the Book of the Dead came off as cliché rather than believable curiosity.

Yes, no traces of EVIL DEAD II are to be found in this remake. The gore and horror are serious; however, it's done in such a way that yes it's gross but not once did I get the sense the movie is glorifying the gore.

For me the real star of the picture was the use of practical effects. No CGI gore here at all from what I can tell. I hate CGI blood and gore. Hate it!

I highly recommend EVIL DEAD (2013) only if you love horror movies, and I do stress love. I liked the movie but when the film reached that final act, I absolutely loved it! It brought me to that level of excitement that KILL BILL VOL.1 did.

Kudos to Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Fede Alvarez for opening this universe again.

A few thoughts on the 85th Academy Awards

I cannot help but to continue to watch the Oscars, it's my love of movies.  Who will win Best Picture this year at the 85th Academy Awards?  I really want DJANGO UNCHAINED to win but sadly it doesn't stand a chance I'm afraid.  The award will more than likely go to ARGO who is sweeping up other Best Picture awards in various guilds.  So it's a safe bet ARGO will be the big winner.  The only opposition I see for ARGO is LINCOLN or SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK.  I'd be happy if ARGO won, I really love that movie but among all the nominees DJANGO UNCHAINED has my vote for "best picture".

For me it's hard to tell who will walk away with the award for Best Director?  I'm going to play it safe and predict Steven Spielberg for LINCOLN.

The Best Actor In A Leading Role award should go to Joaquin Phoenix for THE MASTER; however, the award will go to Daniel Day Lewis for his amazing performance as Abraham Lincoln in LINCOLN.  What I'd like to know is where are the nominations for Liam Neeson?  He was amazing in THE GREY!  And what about Matthew McConaughey for KILLER JOE?

As far as Best Actress In a Leading Role goes, I haven't the slightest idea. I've only seen two of the movies in this category which puts me at a disadvantage. It's a shot in the dark but I'll say the award will go to Emmanuelle Riva for AMOUR. I personally think it's still to early for Jennifer Lawrence to nab a Oscar but her time will come I'm sure of it.

Tommy Lee Jones seems like the shoe in for Best Actor In a Supporting Role for LINCOLN. I'd be perfectly happy with that win but Christoph Waltz was amazing as usual in DJANGO UNCHAINED that I cannot help but root for him again.

While I thought that THE MASTER was underwhelming as a whole, I did however love the performances. Amy Adams deserves the award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role because deep down I felt it was her character “running the show” the entire time. It's subtle but it's there.

One more award I'm going to talk about. The one that I honestly care about most this year and that is the award for Best Cinematography. Roger Deakins must, I repeat must receive this years award for his beautiful work on SKYFALL. This is his year! Don't let me down Academy.

SUSHI GIRL

My finally getting to see SUSHI GIRL couldn't have come at a better time. Quentin Tarantino is a big influence on me and some of my recent script ideas over the past few years. It's very important to me that his influence never turns into copying. I loved SUSHI GIRL but in the end it reminded me what not to do.

SUSHI GIRL is an homage more or less to Tarantino, the heist genre, and exploitation film goodness.

Six years ago Fish went to prison. Six years alone. Six years he kept his mouth shut about the robbery, about the other men involved, and about the diamonds. The night he is released, the four men he protected with silence celebrate his freedom with a congratulatory dinner. In Japanese Yakuza tradition the feast is an array of Sushi served off the naked body of a woman. The woman is trained to be catatonic and ignore anything and everything that happens in the room. And I do mean anything.

So as you can imagine things get pretty heated as the thieves open old wounds over dinner finding out what happened to the missing diamonds. While technically being original a lot of this reminded me of the film RESERVOIR DOGS especially with all the flashbacks and torture scenes. The filmmakers did a good job of making an homage to Tarantino, but the lesson learned is that there is only one Quentin Tarantino.

The best thing about SUSHI GIRL is Mark Hamill (CORVETTE SUMMER) . He chews a lot of scenery here. Sometimes he lays it on pretty thick but the majority of the time he is amazing. I was getting tired of his shtick but by the third act he was really selling his character. Great stuff. Worth the price of admission alone. Being a low budget film and looking well made was another thing that really impressed me. I believe the budget was only a million dollars I think? I don't know for sure? It definitely looks more expensive than it probably was to make. The icing on the cake was the wonderful cameos from Grade A B-Movie actors like Danny Trejo, Jeff Fahey, and Michael Biehn.

My only complaint which is going to sound like a nit pick is one of the films music cues. The director of SUSHI GIRL should spend some time in Movie Jail for using the song 'Diamonds Are Forever' during the opening credits. I know DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER isn't the best James Bond 007 film but this type of borrowing just feels wrong,something you just don't do unless you know 100% that you're going to do it better. It didn't work for me. Gutsy move in my opinion.

Time will tell if SUSHI GIRL will become a cult classic or just be remembered as a Tarantino rip-off. It's definitely an homage but to call it a rip-off is way too easy and obvious. There are far worse rip-offs, far far worse.

If you like heist and or exploitation films then I rate SUSHI GIRL a must see.

A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD

LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD wasn't the best Die Hard film in the series but believe me when I tell you that A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD makes LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD look like the original film that started it all. And no the new film doesn't suck because John McClane 2.0 is even more superhuman this time around. The movie sucks because it's one of the most laziest action films I've seen in quite awhile. TAKEN 2 has more of a pulse than this!

Going back to what I said about the new John McClane from LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD not being a problem, that's correct he's not. In fact Bruce Willis playing John McClane is the best thing about A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD. He's having more fun with this character than he did in the previous installment. What's embarrassing is that Bruce Willis is the only one in the cast and apparently the crew as well that knows he is in a Die Hard movie! Everything else besides Bruce's performance feels like something taken out of a generic action movie.

Before I blame 20th Century Fox for releasing something so bland with 'Die Hard' in the title and on the 25th Anniversary of DIE HARD mind you, lets look at who wrote and directed this piece of crap. Written by Skip Woods (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE) and directed by John Moore (THE OMEN:666, MAX PAYNE), nuff' said.

Director John Moore does know where to put the camera but too often he loves the shaky cam and slow motion. He also likes to blow stuff up but his action scenes come across very uninteresting. After what felt like a 15 minute car chase scene I was starting to feel a little sleepy.

John McClane finds out his son Jack has gotten himself in trouble and is going to prison in Russia. So like any loving father would do, John travels to Russia with hopes of getting his son out of the jam he is in. What John doesn't know is that his son is a CIA agent working on a big assignment involving one of the big wigs involved with the Cold War and Chernobyl. So in the grand tradition of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, father and son team up to do what McClane's do best and that's kill bad guys.

Somewhere hidden within the convoluted plot, one dimensional villains, shaky cam, and generic action the movie does have shining moments when John tries to bond with his son Jack. These moments are too few and far between.

I mentioned one dimensional villains, the bad guys in A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD have to be the worst in the history of the franchise.

I've raged enough, sorry. Bottom line, A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD is a terrible entry into the series and a mediocre action movie at best.

RISE OF THE ZOMBIES

Danny "Machete" Trejo verses zombies! Sold.  What could possibly go wrong ?  The script, the acting, CGI, the script, and Mariel Hemingway.  Mariel Hemingway?  I thought Danny Trejo killing zombies was the star? Nope. Damn, figures.

RISE OF THE ZOMBIES has one of the strongest casts for an Asylum Studio movie I've seen to date. You have Danny Trejo, LeVar Burton, Ethan Suplee, French Stewart, and Mariel Hemingway who I thought was dead.

Don't quote me on this but I'm willing to bet that RISE OF THE ZOMBIES had it's debut on SyFy Channel then was realeased on video unrated with re shoots (French Stewart is not listed on IMDB but is in the movie) and given a leaner run time on video. I say this because a lot of the movie seems missing and focuses on the action. RISE OF THE ZOMBIES is directed by Nick Lyon the man behind ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE which sucked and was about a group of people dressed in cosplay lost in the city looking for comic con. I'm joking, but seriously the whole movie felt like people just walking around 2 hours. RISE OF THE ZOMBIES is a slight improvement with more focused direction.

In RISE OF THE ZOMBIES we have nothing original, just your run of the mill zombie fare. The zombie plague is because of a virus and there is rumor of a cure. Alcatraz is a safe haven that gets compromised so a team of survivors flee back to San Fransisco. The team breaks up with some looking for a cure and the others just seeking a place to fortify because they believe finding a cure is hopeless. Mariel Hemingway plays Dr. Lynn Snyder who leads the group that wants to find a cure which makes her the main character of RISE OF THE ZOMBIES. Danny Trejo plays Caspian who doesn't wanna waste time and anymore lives with searching for a cure and would rather find a safe place to bunker down. Caspian is a far more interesting character than Dr. Lynn Snyder.

At the start of the movie when Alcatraz gets over run by zombies It's Caspian who truly shines as a badass killing a lot of zombies. This is where RISE OF THE ZOMBIES was winning me over. So when the survivors split up I was really banking on Caspian doing the heroic thing and saving the group seeking the cure. Unfortunately Caspian gets bit and turns into a zombie 40 minutes in and RISE OF THE ZOMBIES then becomes boring until the last 10 minutes of the movie.

There is fun to be had watching RISE OF THE ZOMBIES with zombie dummies getting run over, bizarre use of CGI, head shots with no blood, and a baby turning into a zombie which is meant to be shocking but ends up being hilarious.

One thing about the movie that I don't think is a coincidence is the fact it's a THE WALKING DEAD cash-in. It's probably a stretch seeing that all zombie movies are about sticking together and surviving, but you really get that feeling this is The Asylum's money grab at THE WALKING DEAD popularity.

I cannot recommend RISE OF THE ZOMBIES for a bad movie night. It doesn't quite reach it's so bad it's good status. They shouldn't have killed off Danny Trejo so soon.

V/H/S

Now this is what I'm talking about! Sell that Paranormal Activity stuff to the tourists. It's upsetting the amount of money PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3 and 4 have raked in. V/H/S is the found footage horror film that audiences really need to rally behind. The good news is that the movie has seen some moderate success and enough of a following to justify a sequel S-V/H/S. I cannot wait to see it.

It was a good thing that the success of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY helped kill the gore fest horror movies like the SAW franchise. What followed was the return of ghost stories and scary spirits films. Too bad we've had maybe three or four good movies in this genre and the rest have been terrible PARANORMAL ACTIVITY knock offs.

V/H/S breaths new life in the found-footage horror genre. It's a horror anthology film much like CREEPSHOW and TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE. The found-footage gimmick comes into play by the movie centered around a group of hoodlums that go around filming mischief and sell the tapes for $50. The hoodlums are hired to break into a house to steal a tape. The break in is a success but they stumble upon a room with several televisions and vhs players. They split up with some searching for the tape and some watching the tapes laying around the room with the televisions. This segment is the wraparound that connects the anthology together.

The first tape shows a bunch of horny college boys hitting the clubs and bars hoping to get laid and capturing it on video with a secret camera. The boys get more than they bargained for when one of the girls they bring back to their hotel room is a real “woman of the night”.

Part of this segment if not all of it was filmed in Colombia, MO which was cool to notice. The gore was real impressive and accompanied the found-footage ascetic really well. The use of the secret camera was original too. A very strong start for an anthology film.

“Second Honeymoon” the title of the second tape was creepy and kept you in suspense of what was going to happen next. Shocking moments mixed with some dark humor from director Ti West makes this entry pretty cleaver.

I should mention that after every tape the movie goes back to what is happening in the house with the hoodlums. They start disappearing one after one until all whose left is the leader of the crew.

Okay, so now I forget what video actually came third, it might be the one called “Tuesday the 17th” which is about some teens driving to a lake somewhere in the woods. It's a slasher film segment which was good but I felt could have been better.

“The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” was my least favorite segment. It's Paranormal Activity with Skype and a twist of lime.

The last video “10/31/98” was my favorite. A group of guys go looking for a party at a haunted house. This was the best segment. A lot of crazy stuff happens and it's the right amount of scary and cool.

I highly recommend V/H/S to anyone that loves horror movies. It breaths the much needed new life in found-footage horror. V/H/S could easily be the new October tradition with it's anthology format always leaving the door open for ideas.

TOP GUN - IMAX 3D

January and February are typically slow months for movie theaters. If you're lucky your local neighborhood multiplex theater will showcase some Oscar bait before the big award show, but for the most part you get crap movies that studios don't know what to do with like SIDE EFFECTS.

I have wanted to see a few like HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS, BULLET TO THE HEAD, and GANGSTER SQUAD but after being kinda bored with TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D and PARKER, I'll just wait and rent them in the future. It was considered a bomb but THE LAST SATND should be an exception because that movie in fact kicked ass.

So Friday night with more movies than I know what to do with, I decided to play DEAD SPACE 3. After hours of survival horror video game madness raising my blood pressure going to the movies to relax sounded like a nice idea. So the only thing that interested me was seeing the re-release of TOP GUN in a special IMAX 3D presentation. Last year seeing RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK on the IMAX was awesome so naturally I thought the same for TOP GUN, turns out it was a different kind of awesome.

It was the last show for the evening and about 30 people showed up which is about right for a re-release in this day and age. The movie is about to start but at a few minutes before show time a couple of stragglers mosey on in. From the get go these guys seemed a little off by talking and joking loudly. Real quick the auditorium had this “Okay? What's up with these guys?” vibe to it. Turns out they were annoying during every preview which I won't get into because what happened next was amazing (not in a cool way).

These guys were the biggest TOP GUN fans in Springfield, MO! I'm not kidding. They knew every line, joke, moment, and what have you. Seriously one of them was laughing at a joke/funny moment seconds before it happened on screen. I could ramble on and on trying to describe the awkwardness that took place but it wouldn't measure up, you just had to be there which is cliché but true. The very best way for me to describe it is imagine Dwight Schrute and Micheal Scott at a theater watching their favorite movie of all time.

TOP GUN on the IMAX wasn't as cool as I thought it'd be. The 3D was worthless which did not surprise me. I wish 3D would just go away. Over the years TOP GUN has lost it's edge but it still has that 80's pop culture thing going for it which is cool.

TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D

Make no mistake, TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D isn't very good but for the most part I liked the movie. The experience of TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D was that of a modern day “grindhouse” exploitation flick. I loved how the opening credits showed the original 1974 film in recap form. That seems like something a true exploitation film would do.

After the opening credits TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D picks up where the 1974 film left off and has a bunch of the townsfolk burn the Sawyer house to the ground. The odd thing about this scene for all the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE fans out there is the sudden addition of all the Sawyer family members inside the house? Continuity error for sure but I had fun with it in a “exploitation film” kinda way. Speaking of continuity errors, the movie's main character was born in 1974 and is obviously twenty-something in 2012 where our story takes place? This definitely has to be one of the strangest “blunders” in a theatrical movie I've seen in a long time. What were the powers-at-be thinking? How can a major studio like Lionsgate let something like this slide? This is something I'd expect out of a cheep cash-in exploitation movie! Wait. Oh... I get it.

Somewhere in Texas 20 years after the burning down of the Sawyer house killing everyone inside, a young woman named Heather receives an inheritance from a grandmother she never knew she had. To learn more about this inheritance business Heather and her friends take a road trip to her late grandmothers estate only to find out that Heather is now the proud owner of a mansion. Unbeknownst to Heather and her friends that the lone survivor of the Sawyer house raid, Leatherface lurks in the basement below.

What happens next is your typical paint-by-numbers who is Leatherface going to kill next slasher movie fare; however, the atmosphere was quite creepy and the gore was good and not overly nasty.

In the films final act it takes this horror revisionist left-turn at who the “real” bad guys are and while it didn't ruin the movie for me it did leave a bad taste in my mouth. Monsters should die in slasher films! Period!

In closing TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D is a poor cash-in of the original film. My opinion may change but as of now despite all the problems with this new movie, I still prefer it over the polished remake and prequel from Platinum Dunes.

Die hard fans of the original THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (which I am not) will hate on this for sure but I'll go ahead and recommend TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D to horror movie fans, especially exploitation film fans.

LES MISERABLES (2012)

I typically don't go for this stuff it's not my thing. Musicals is a genre I always try to keep an open mind about. I like the “big production” movie musicals. I'd say it's the least film genre I hunt down but when I find a classic one that I haven't seen I try to watch it. Films like Baz Luhrmann's MOULIN ROUGE kill my interest fast!

About 5 years ago on a vacation in New York City I had the privilege to see WICKED on Broadway. It left me speechless and forever with respect for stage production.

I don't know the history of the LES MISERABLES Broadway musical except for that it was a smash hit sensation from the 80's. The production has it's detractors saying that it's not very good that it's over bloated with a lot of pizazz and the source material is way too much ground to cover for a Broadway show. After seeing the film and getting lost a few times in the passage of time I could agree that this story is a lot to take in, even for a 150+ minute movie.

LES MISERABLES felt to me as if I was watching the Cliff Notes version of the Musical and novel. If I hadn't watch the adaptation from 1998 way back when and vaguely remember from that what was going on story wise, I'd be completely lost in this new movie and consider it one of the worst movie's of 2012. It took me about 20 minutes to settle in and appreciate and understand the flow of director Tom Hooper's vision. Once I settled in it became more and more entertaining.

The backdrop is 19th Century France and our main character is recently paroled criminal Jean Valjean. Valjean is a freeman but will always be under the watchful eye of the law forever under parole thanks to the ruthless policeman Javert. So Jean Valjean tries and tries but to no avail cannot get work. Frustrated and desperate he steals some valuables from a church. He gets caught and is set to go back to prison but the priest or bishop (I can't remember) tells the police that he gave Valjean these items. With Valjean's second chance he eventuality becomes a mayor. Feeling guilty for ignoring a desperate plea from factory worker and young mother Fantine, Jean Valjean takes it upon himself to raise Fantine's daughter Cosette. This decision will change their lives forever with always being on the run from Javert and Cosette eventuality falling in love with a lad involved with a student led revolution against the government.

I wanna say all these events take place over a twenty year time span I think. This is a lot to take in. Like I mentioned earlier if I had not known a little bit about the story like I did going in, then I'd be lost and severely criticizing the film. The edits are jarring and time lapses a lot with jump cuts. When Jean Valjean gets his second chance thanks to the priest and all, the very next scene is a jump cut and Valjean is a mayor. It's like I said Cliff Notes version.

Hidden in all the break neck pace and jump cut editing is actually a style and continuity I found myself amazed at and enjoying quite a bit. Some of it works and some of it does not in my opinion.

I liked how the filmmakers chose to make this adaptation ugly because quite frankly ugly is the correct tone for a story like this. The choice for live singing was a good one. This isn't a pretty soundtrack. I'm just trying to say that not everything is candy coated and easy to swallow. These voices are full of passion, pain, anger, and sometimes love. A lot of the performances are captured beautifully with tight close-ups and you really feel the performances. My favorite of these moments was Fantine played by Anne Hathaway who has a very powerful 4 minutes of screen time with a solo that is amazing!

Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway really give it their all here. It's true what everyones been saying about Russell Crowe, he's just not very good here. I didn't hate his performance but I did think he wasn't playing Javert evil enough. It felt to me that he was just phoning it in.

Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter were great as Thenardier and Madame Thenardier. They both brought some well needed comic relief to liven things up a bit here and there.

Honestly by the end of the movie I felt they rushed the third act with the student led revolution and love triangle between Cosette, Marius, and Eponine. And with a run time of 2 ½ hours already invested I would have been fine with a 3 hour movie. When this comes out on blu-ray and is an extended edition I'd probably watch it again. Probably.

I can't give this a solid recommendation. I was just curious enough and found it to be just entertaining enough that I was glad I saw it. If you're a die hard fan of the musical you may find yourself having extreme mixed feelings overall because this is a different approach to the musical, you probably won't want to sing-a-long with the movie like you were planning to.

Thoughts on 48fps High Frame Rate

This weekend watching THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY in the High Frame Rate (48fps) format was bittersweet. I loved every minute of it (with the exception of characters in the foreground appearing to be moving in fast-forward from time to time). Everything on screen looks real! The mountains of gold inside Erebor is a sight to behold.

My biggest compliment to HFR & 3D is that while you do have to wear 3D glasses, the image is so crisp and clear that it seems like you are not wearing glasses at all. No blurring effect from the 3D at all. The movie had moments of focusing in and out but that was probably only to give the presentation more of a film quality to it. The HFR also brings out the best in CGI. Nothing can take you out of a film quicker than CGI. With HFR I found myself continuously wondering what was computer generated and what was miniature.

Director Peter Jackson loves to do both and here it is seemingly flawless. The best example I can give is that there is a scene in his King Kong film where a bunch of people are running away from dinosaurs, if you don't remember I'm reminding you that it looked like crap. Everything about that scene was flat and blurry. In THE HOBBIT a similar scene takes place as our band of merry Dwarves and Gandalf are running for their lives in Goblin Town. The action is flawless and no blur whatsoever.

Here's where the bittersweetness comes in; I love film, I love 24fps it has a realness to it whereas 48fps looses that “look” we movie lovers all appreciate. I think the trick is and what ultimately makes THE HOBBIT shown in 48fps work is that the movie is still cinematic, very cinematic. A lot of kinks in the format need to be fixed and more than likely will as technology moves forward. This format won't be for every genre and I hope Hollywood sees that, sadly they won't so choose your HFR movies carefully.

SKYFALL

It wasn't until the release of CASIO ROYALE (2006) that I became the James Bond fan I am today. Growing up in the '80's I always thought the Bond films were fun movies but really had nothing to offer my generation like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies did. In the 90's when GOLDENEYE (1996) came out I really liked it and I became interested in the series. That interest quickly died with a one-two punch of Hong Kong action films like HARD BOILED and the hilarious Austin Powers spy spoof films. By early 2000 the James Bond franchise was a dated and extremely formulaic action/spy genre I had written off.

Somewhere around 2004 or 2005 I became good friends with a fellow film buff and James Bond novel enthusiast. We would talk about movies, specifically genre films like WWII movies, Kung-Fu movies, and Film Noir. Whenever we would talk about movies and writing movies the conversation would seem to always veer to Ian Fleming and how “pulpy” his James Bond novels were. Where I was creatively at the time hearing about these stories was music to my ears!

When the news broke that the James Bond franchise was going for a reboot approach with doing a faithful adaptation of the very first Bond novel CASINO ROYALE, my friend and I geeked out! The film came out and I became a fan.

So many Bond films so little time that it wasn't until after the release of QUANTUM OF SOLACE that I finally decided to start at the beginning with DR. NO and watch them all. Being more of a film buff I have found a deeper appreciation for the popular franchise. This year marks 50 years of James Bond and the 23rd Bond film SKYFALL both of which I have embraced with open arms.

SKYFALL is the best Bond film in years! So it's better than CASINO ROYALE? Sure, but I consider CASINO ROYALE a different kind of animal where it's something like Year Zero and SKYFALL is Year One. This is the "new standard" to carry the franchise into the future much like how GOLDFINGER did and was imitated but never quite duplicated.

Director Sam Mendes did not just set out to make a good James Bond movie he set out to make the best James Bond movie ever. Whether he did or not is entirely up to you but in my opinion he did. SKYFALL's opening scene will be a talked about favorite among fans for years to come, that motorcycle chase is just amazing! Adele's song is also an instant classic, I rank it as my third favorite behind Goldfinger and Live and Let Die.

In SKYFALL the agents of MI6 are in jeopardy after a hard drive containing all their identities has been stolen. 007 is on the hunt to get the information back but after a bad judgment call Bond is believed to be dead. Months pass and the future of MI6 continues to hang in the balance with a terrorist seeking revenge on M. A failed assassination attempt on M brings Bond out of hiding and reinstated to find whoever is responsible.

This brings us to the best Bond villain in years and probably my favorite since Auric Goldfinger. Raoul Silva (played by the always great Javier Bardem) is the quintessential Bond villain. If James Bond had a arch nemesis it would be Silva. So much better than Blofeld by a long shot.

To wrap things up I'll leave you with checklist/report card on SKYFALL:

Theme Song: “Skyfall” - Adele (5/5)

Opening Credit Sequence: (4.5/5)

Bond Girl: Berenice Marlohe – Severine (3.5/5)

Naomie Harris – Eve (5/5)

Bond Villain: Javier Bardem – Silva (5/5)

Overall: (5/5)

I love SKYFALL and with this “new direction” for the next 50 years it gets me pumped for what the future may hold! Just like they did with Sam Mendes I hope the producers continue bringing filmmakers that want to make the best Bond film they can possibly make. It's no surprise that director Christopher Nolan is a big fan of James Bond so it goes without saying that I want a Christopher Nolan James Bond film!

LOOPER

Destined to be one of my favorite films of 2012, LOOPER is an amazing movie. Director Rian Johnson (BRICK, BROTHERS BLOOM) is 3 for 3 and I only see his career getting better. Rian tackles the Time Travel genre with LOOPER starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Bruce Willis playing the same character, Joe.

Joe is a Looper. Looper's are time travel hit men for the Mob. In the future Time Travel is illegal so naturally the Mob has control over it. In 2072, when the Mob wants to get rid of someone they send them 30 years in the past to get “taken care of” by a Looper. Since organized crime syndicate's don't like loose ends they created a retirement package for Looper's to where your older self is sent to get executed by your younger self. The Looper kills his older self, gets a huge pay off and is supposed to live an indulgent life until the day they get sent back. I should point out that these “loose end” sent back it time to get iced are all generally masked and bound with their hands tied behind their backs.

During a routine hit Joe come to “the end of his Loop” when his older self shows up unmasked and ready, willing, and able to fight for his life. So it's Young Joe vs. Old Joe as Old Joe tries to fix his future by preventing the death of his wife while Young Joe tries to “close his Loop” and finish his job before the Mob does him in.

There is a lot more to the story but saying anymore would spoil a lot of the excitement in this kick butt Time Travel tale. It delves deep into the age old question If you could go back in time to make the future better for you (always the case) or the betterment of mankind would you do it even if it meant killing someone? The concept of Time Travel will always be cool and we will always ponder the 'what if' scenario but LOOPER does a fascinating job of making us realize how selfish and messed up Time Travel can be.

Highly recommended!

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION is the best film in the series thus far! That's saying a lot seeing as I really did not connect with the last one RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE. This may sound strange because you could argue that these films are all just more of the same and I'd say you're right; however,sometimes there is not accounting for taste and with RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION I just 'got it' and with RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE I did not.

Say what you will about director Paul W.S. Anderson but I think he's a great filmmaker. He loves movies and you can get a sense of that in his films and I like that a lot. With a smile on my face I consider him one of the best modern day (meaning he doesn't make his stuff look 70's) exploitation/genre filmmakers working today. I highly recommend his THE THREE MUSKETEERS from last year very entertaining film!

So last time we left off with Alice fighting off a bunch of zombies and Umbrella Corp. infantry. This latest installment picks up exactly where that firefight left off and Alice gets captured. The Umbrella Corp. has Alice locked away in a massive underground complex. It is here that the evil corporation run sinister tests involving their T-Virus. Someone from the inside wants Alice free and to help her she gets aid from a team of mercenaries, but they must fight and survive long enough to escape before time runs out!

More of the same but the action is a lot better and I had a lot more fun with what was going on in this installment. I won't get into it but because of cloning Michelle Rodriguez's character Rain is back. Now I've always considered Milla Jovovich today's equivalent of Pam Grier but honestly that title really goes to Michelle Rodriguez. She rocks in this!

The rescue squad of mercenaries were awesome especially since one of them was played by one of today's coolest character actors Kevin Durand!

I mentioned earlier how director Paul W.S. Anderson is a genre filmmaker and during the big action packed escape scene I could not help but think that this is his ALIENS movie. It has some similar action beats and emotional ones as well with the Alice character. Paul W.S Anderson understands what he does and he does it well.

RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION gets a strong recommendation from me especially if you like action movies.

DREDD 3D

DREDD 3D is awesome! Very much in the style of Hard R action films from the 80's like ROBOCOP, PREDATOR, and TOTAL RECALL (1990), DREDD 3D is a welcome return! Every once in awhile we'll get action movies with guts (no pun intended) like CRANK, RAMBO, PUNISHER: WAR ZONE, and THE EXPENDABLES; however, the American action movie genre is weak if not dead.

When TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY came out it was revered as “the greatest action film of all time” and I'll admit I was one of the films disciples, but then a few years later I got to see what was going on in Hong Kong. Director John Woo changed everything for me, the stunts and images I was seeing in THE KILLER and HARD BOILLED completely floored me! The rest of the 90's I couldn't stand another Hollywood American action movie. It vastly improved around the late 90's early 2000's with films such as THE MATRIX, EQUILIBRIUM, and KILL BILL but the momentum ended with spy thrillers like THE BOURNE IDENTITY and whatchamacallit's like TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN.

DREDD 3D is based of off the popular character Judge Dredd from the British comic book anthology 2000 A.D. Dredd is an American law enforcement officer in a violent city of the future named Mega City. Judges are vested with the power to arrest, sentence, and even execute criminals on the spot. Joseph Judge Dredd is one of the best and most feared officers.

Dredd is assigned to take rookie Judge Anderson out in the field and evaluate her to see if she has what it takes to be a Judge. They respond to a triple homicide which turns out to be more than they bargained for when Mama the leader of the gang responsible takes siege of the building complex leaving the two Judges alone with no backup facing 50 floors of hell.

Karl Urban (Star Trek, Red, Priest) does an amazing job (as always) playing the title character. He is so bad ass in this! Ive never read a Judge Dredd comic book but I'm almost certain his performance fits the source material 'To a T'. The same goes for Judge Anderson played by Olivia Thirlby (Juno) who's performance made her my favorite character in the film.

The look of the film is just amazing. A lot of visual style all around with tons of action, slo-mo, and 3D. Major kudos to the director and screenwriter for making the slow motion have purpose. I am sick and tired of 'cool' slow motion action scenes just for the sake of making something happening on screen seem more awesome. Here the slo-mo actually serves a purpose with having a drug that Mama's gang manufactures and distributes that makes the user high as a kite while also experiencing everything in slow motion. Cheep parlor trick for the 3D action but clever and entertaining to say the least.

I want more DREDD 3D films, more importantly I want more action films like this to come out of Hollywood!

Highly recommended for action film fans and comic book movie fans. I even recommend seeing it in 3D which is a format I rarely show love for.