Happy Halloween

I'll wish everyone a Happy Halloween. Unfortunately, I've been busy all this week so no movie reviews to post. Check back here by this time next week for at least one new review; I'll try to watch something late tonight but that's not for certain.

I'll state that earlier this week I found the fixed version of Let The Right One In. It was at a Target and it was only for 10 bucks, so talk about a great deal. I finally saw it again with subtitles and it make it all the better. The original awful subtitles are still on the fixed disk, so you can compare the two if you want to, and laugh at how juvenile and dumbed down the original was. There's no way to exchange the original DVD, though, so sometime soon I'll have to go to an FYE or something and turn that and some other old DVD's in for cash.

Again, Happy Halloween and remember to turn your clocks back one hour tonight.

Let The Right One In

Let The Right One In (Lat Den Ratte Komma In) (2008)

98% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 145 reviews)

Runtime: 115 minutes

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson

Starring: Kare Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl

From: Magnolia Pictures/EFTI

I figured that with this time of the season, I should talk about at least one horror flick on here, right? I’d like to do a few before Halloween but my schedule may be too busy to allow me to do so. I do at least have the time to talk about this flick, one from Sweden that I saw in early November last year on the big screen at the Enzian when it was one of the first places in the U.S. to start regularly showing it.

It was a movie I heard VERY high praise for at Dread Central so I decided to go and see it, and it was a great experience seeing it projected like that.

Now, it’s a tale about someone young who feels alienated and alone in a town but suddenly they meet someone and they develop a romance but it turns out that the love interest is a vampire. I could be talking about Twilight but I’m not in this case; rather, that’s the plot to this movie. Let me copy and paste what I wrote about it at the time on a MySpace/Facebook blog:

“As for the movie I saw, I went to the arty Enzian Theater in Orlando (technically, Maitland) to watch a romantic vampire horror film from Sweden; yes, that's the best way to describe it. Its known in English as Let The Right One In. It's a movie based on a Swedish book which is about a 12 year old boy who is the bullied type and he meets a girl who is also 12… or at least looks 12… and he quickly realizes that she's more than a little weird. I won't say too much more about it or give out any SPOILERS~! Just note that it's more a romantic tale with horror elements in it, and yet it's awesomely shot and put together. No kidding, it probably will be the best movie I see this year, and that's not an exaggeration. It's at the Enzian tonight and tomorrow and then it'll be gone, but at the very least you should see it when it comes out on DVD, as it's a really awesome flick and I'm sure it's a million times better than those God-awful Saw movies or-sigh-that Hot Topic film Twilight, based on the Hot Topic fanbase-loving book of the same name.”

I stand by what I said then about it being the best film I saw that was released in 2008. Yes, even better than The Dark Knight, so that is saying quite a bit there.

What makes it so great is the marvelous storytelling, the pacing, and the performances from the two young leads, who as far as I can tell made their acting debuts with this. They did a tremendous job if you consider that factoid. A “romance” between 12 year olds may sound odd but it’s more of a puppy love thing where they like hanging out with each other, you know.

In the midst of their story you get Eli (Leandersson) doing vampire things while also getting to know Oskar (Hedebrant) as hey, that’s what she is. So, you do get to see some violence; it’s nothing like Twilight at all, that’s for damn sure! Also unlike Twilight, this is a much more complex movie than how I’m describing it. I don’t want to give too much away as viewing it while only knowing a little about it makes what you get to see all the better. There are some very memorable moments that will be difficult to forget. It’s a must-see. Note two things, though:

If you rent it or get it on DVD, make sure that you check the back of the box; on the bottom, make sure that it says “English Subtitles” (Theatrical)”, as that is key. When it was originally put out on DVD by Magnolia, instead of using the English subtitles that were used in the theatre, they had overly simplified English subtitles that pissed people off, and for good reason; I saw examples in stills online and yeah, they are insultingly bad and downright ruin the experience of watching it in that format. So, on the DVD I got the first day it came out, when I’ve watched the movie it was the English dubbed version (as the dubbed version uses the English that you saw in the theatrical subtitles), which is fine enough to make the movie still great, but one of these days I’ll bring that DVD and some others to an FYE or whatever and get money from selling it to them, while probably a day or two later get the correct DVD version so that I can finally watch it the same way I did at the Enzian. Trust me, dialogue is an important part of the film and the relationship between Oskar and Eli.

As you might have suspected already, the movie is going to be remade. It’s supposed to come out around this time next year and be known as Let Me In and be closer to the book than the Swedish movie was. There’s a big backlash against the remake in some circles as hey, it will all but fail in comparison to the original film and some things might get toned down when it gets “Americanized” and yeah, I’m not sure myself if Let Me In will be any good, let alone be as great as the original film.

Anyhow, if you haven’t seen this, it’s a must-see; if nothing else, you’ll never forget it.

The War Wagon

The War Wagon (1967)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Burt Kennedy

Starring: John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Howard Keel, Robert Walker, Jr., Keenan Wynn, Bruce Cabot

From: Universal

Here is a movie that you probably haven’t heard of but if you’re a fan of fun Westerns with action and some humor, then you should find this by whatever means.

Wayne technically plays a bad guy, you could say, although he was set up to go to jail by an evil man (Cabot) who took over Wayne’s ranch *and* possesses the gold that’s there. During all that he’s shot at by an expert marksman/safecracker (Douglas) but Wayne is wounded rather than killed. That all happens before the movie starts so you hear about it throughout. The film actually starts off with Wayne being released from jail and he returns to town and Cabot tries to get rid of him. So, he tries to hire Douglas. But instead Wayne and Douglas team up and the Duke rounds up a motley crew (or maybe even Motley Crue) of men who conspire together to rob the gold from the Duke’s ranch that’s being transported in the title vehicle, which is an armor-plated wagon that even has a Gatling Gun on top and it’s accompanied by a slew of heavily armed henchmen. Simple yet effective plot and there’s really no wasted minute in this flick. Things move along at a great clip and it all ties together in the end.

Wayne and Douglas didn’t have a lot in common in real life and the same goes with their characters; I mean, the Duke sure as hell didn’t wear an all black leather getup with flashy scarf and one black glove with a gaudy diamond on the outside like Kirk did, although that would’ve been quite the look for old John! The other characters are also entertaining and the main ones have character arcs and everything. It’s breezy fun and while you could say that maybe the action scenes could be a little longer, otherwise I really enjoyed it.

Sleeper

Sleeper (1973)

Runtime: 89 minutes

Directed by: Woody Allen

Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory

From: United Artists

To state a quote that’s on the back of the DVD for this flick, the movie is “a bizarre mixture of New York neuroses, splendidly lunatic sight gags, Alice in Wonderland illogic, and too funny to be painful satire.” That is pretty apt.

Here is a movie I’ve seen once before when I rented it from a videostore that went out of business, but I found it at another rental place recently so I decided to watch it again as I didn’t remember too much about it. The plot is that Woody is a nebbish Jew (but of course) who unwittingly gets locked in a cryogenic capsule and he’s awaken in 2173 and the world is much different; it’s a totalitarian state and he’s awoken by a pair of scientists who are part of the underground movement to overthrow the evil government. Everyone has sex artificially and it’s a sterile world. He ends up running into a socialite (Keaton) and they eventually work together to help the movement.

The movie is a comedy that’s rather odd and strange at times but I enjoyed it and I was able to put up with the absurdist stuff, which I’m not always able to do while watching or listening to other forms of entertainment. The main thing is that the flick is like a silent film in several ways, from all the physical humor to the pratfalls to the groovy Dixieland jazz (where you got to hear Woody himself play clarinet) score and so on and so forth. But, you still get to hear much in the way of puns and witty dialogue. By the way, if you’ve never seen a silent comedy from the likes of Chaplin, Buster Keaton, or Harold Lloyd, you really should. The physical comedy there is genius and with the way humor is these days that comedy is oh so fresh and at least with me, I really enjoy it. Note that-and I’m being as vague as I can now-the plot involves cloning, and human cloning at that; I’m sure that Allen didn’t expect that in 2009 human cloning would be such an issue; talk about having a tremendous amount of foresight.

If what I said sounds appealing to you, then it’s worth trying to find either on a channel like TCM, rental, or Netflix, or whatever.

Check back here around this time next week for some new reviews.

Food, Inc

Food, Inc (2008)

97% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 77 reviews)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: Robert Kenner

Starring: Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser

From: Magnolia Pictures

To copy and paste from a MySpace entry I wrote in July:

The first thing was on Friday night, when I went to the Regal Theatre at Winter Park to attend the opening night of a documentary entitled Food Inc. I wasn’t really planning on seeing it but then Friday afternoon I realized that I had Jack Shit to do on that night so I might as well go and see a movie. The documentary-to explain it as simply as possible-exposes the food industry and explains that much of the stuff you buy in the supermarket is really from one of a few companies, and naturally that kind of control leads to people on the farm being mistreated, the rise in E. coli, and all that stuff. One thing they did was push for organic foods; a few weeks ago I talked about my feelings on THAT subject (to me, it’s all hogwash as the idea of non-organic foods being “bad” for you is just unfounded, I think) and even though they mentioned it here as a way to go against the grain (pun intended in some ways) I still wasn’t exactly convinced that organic is really the best way to go no matter what. Still, it was a very interesting and informative documentary that explained something I didn’t know too much about, even if I didn’t always agree with it.

One guy involved with the movie, Eric Schlosser, wrote the very good book Fast Food Nation a few years ago (and was the only great part on the DVD of that overrated Super Size Me; before anyone asks, I haven’t seen the fictional movie version of Fast Food Nation, as I’ve heard mixed reviews on it) and also wrote the book Reefer Madness (the title taken from a hilariously awful 1930’s movie) about underground economies in America; I also recommend that.

The screening had a decent enough attendance and there wasn’t really any problem with the audience, which is always noteworthy. A pair of people from a local organic co-op place (meaning that you order food online and you can pick it up at various locations; a novel idea, at least) were plugging their wares there.

I don't have too much else to say about it now, except that it's coming out on DVD in a few weeks so you can see it that way. Sure, I don't know how the filmmakers think the world could be fed under the model of farming that they advocate, it's still an important movie to see if you're wondering about our food supply, where it comes from, and how it's run.

Annie Hall

Annie Hall (1977)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Woody Allen

Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, Tony Robbins, Paul Simon, Christopher Walken

From: United Artists

Someone else whose career I need to see more work from is Woody Allen, who’s been in the film business since the 60’s and still directing and acting in flicks. Sure, you can carp about his personal life or the fact that he married the adopted daughter of his then love interest Mia Farrow, but his films, while uneven at times are his own and he’s one of a kind. Of the films I’ve seen from him, I haven’t watched them in awhile so I’ll wait until I can find them in a videostore or see them on a channel like TCM or AMC to talk about them on here. But, if you’re a “serious” fan of cinema then of course you should watch at least a few of his flicks, as they’re not too difficult to acquire and he’s done several different genres, from vulgar comedies to comedies relying on wordplay to dramas to mysteries to blends of various types.

This film, Annie Hall, is the flick that many says is Woody’s best, and indeed it’s the only one of his films that has won an Academy Award for Best Picture (and it’s second-shortest movie ever to win that award), but I only take the Oscars a little more seriously than Woody does, so the film’s high rating on IMDb may be a better judge of how the public at least thinks of it.

The movie is about the up and down romantic relationship between the flighty title character (Keaton) and Alvy Singer (Allen), a neurotic comedian (but of course for Woody) through the years. It’s done in an interesting way; it starts off with them being a bickering couple and then we go back and forth in time to examine Singer’s life from childhood to the present and also look at Annie’s past life and sometimes the present characters comment on what’s happening in the flashbacks and even talk to their past selves. Like I said, interesting, and Lord knows, Tarantino’s not the first one to play around with the narrative like that!

Also, Woody talks to his pal (Robbins, who looks like a young Will Ferrell, no kidding, which may be why he cast Ferrell in the movie Melinda and Melinda; Robbins recently had a health scare but I hear he's doing fine now) about living in NYC, and the town also gets some love. Robbins wishes for them to move to LA, and that ends up being an important plot point also.

I don’t want to give anything else away but it’s a movie that-while maybe best for “intellectual” types as you get to hear Allen’s opinions on many topics, some of which are heady, such as references to Fellini and the documentary The Sorrow & The Pity-I think you’ll enjoy even if you don’t get all the references as it’s a nice realistic love story (even though the characters are rich successful types) told in a way that is fresh even in 2009 even though some of its style has been used in TV shows and movies since 1977.

Check back here by the end of the week, where I'll post at least two new reviews.

Brannigan

Brannigan (1975)

Runtime: 111 minutes

Directed by: Douglas Hickox

Starring: John Wayne, Richard Attenborough, Mel Ferrer, Judy Geeson, John Vernon

From: United Artists


This is a movie I saw early this year but I remember enough about it to where I can talk about it on here.

Admittedly I’ve barely dug into Wayne’s catalogue of movies; one of these days I’ll rectify it. For now I’ll talk about this mid 70’s curio, one of two movies he filmed back to back where he played a cop (the other being McQ, another film worth seeing) and he played a gentler version of Dirty Harry, basically. It sounds odd, I know, but allegedly he was either thought of or turned down that famous role. I’ve heard different stories so I don’t know how valid it is, but those two movies certainly are inspired by that 1971 film and there’s also other similar flicks that are borrowed from, especially Bullitt.

This movie is about a Chicago cop who has to go to London to extradite a gangster back to the U.S. He is assigned a British female cop (Geeson) as a partner and with his gruff aggressive American manner he rubs Geeson and her boss (Attenborough) the wrong way. There are twists and turns along the way and you can get a good example of what you get to see by seeing its trailer on YouTube.

As you can see, there are nice flurries of action throughout and it doesn’t drag. Sure, there are some goofy moments, as you saw in the beginning of the trailer where a mid 60’s Wayne is able to knock down a wooden door from its hinges and then deliver a quip, but it’s all in good fun and the highlight is the barroom brawl. It’s not a must-see or anything but both McQ and Brannigan are sometimes on TV on stations like TCM or the HD stations so you can check it out there or rent the DVD if you’re able to.

Check back here tomorrow night.

The Conqueror

The Conqueror (1956)

Runtime: 111 minutes

Directed by: Dick Powell

Starring: John Wayne, Susan Hayward, Pedro Armendariz, Agnes Moorehead

From: RKO Radio Pictures

Remember this post I made in late August, talking about that awful-looking Genghis Khan movie that’s going to be out on DVD… well, sometime in the future? Here is my take on the John Wayne film that I referenced there.

This movie is about Khan (i.e. Temujin) early in adulthood and how (and this is definitely not a historically accurate movie, as they admitted in the opening crawl) he fell in love with a Tartar woman, who just happens to be the daughter of the guy who killed his father. Yet, he still fell in love with her. Go figure. Their relationship is just ridiculous. He bitch-slaps her and they ridicule each other, and yet they still kiss each other and of course she later falls in love with him. The script was just no good. There’s intrigue and romance and all that, but it’s hollow and stupid, and even though there’s a lot of unintentional humor in the movie, it’s a chore to get through the almost 2 hour runtime in one sitting. Temujin’s brother betrays him… just because. Like I said, no good.

Sure, the southern Utah scenery was pretty (although I have no clue if it looks like Mongolia or not) and the sets and costumes looked nice, and you can see that the movie had money behind it (6 million bucks in 1954 money, which is almost 50 million in 2009 money) but it’s never engaging and the action scenes aren’t even all that thrilling (even though it should have been with all the people involved in the scenes) so that’s a problem.

Another big problem is the casting. The Duke as Genghis Khan doesn’t work, needless to say. There’s a few versions of the story, but he had to make one more movie for RKO and he either wanted or was forced to star in this, playing a role meant for Marlon Brando. The script has him delivering flowery lines such as: “She is a woman - much woman. Should her perfidy be less than that of other women?” and “There are moments for wisdom, Juhmuga, then I listen to you--and there are moments for action--then I listen to my blood. I feel this Tartar woman is for me, and my blood says, 'TAKE HER!” in his trademark drawl and it’s preposterous. Him with his eyes slanted back, a Fu Manchu mustache and the outfits was also preposterous. Susan Hayward as a Tartar (an ancient band of people who live around Russia and those surrounding countries) was laughable as they didn’t even try to make her look ethnic as hey, she looks western European and is a redhead. The rest of the cast is the same and it doesn’t help the film’s credibility at all. So, if you can find it cheap (although you can watch a version of it edited down a few minutes on Google Video) or rent it for a library like I did, if you have the patience for it, you may want to get it and laugh at it. Although…

Considering the fact that some of it was filmed near a nuclear test site and a large number of people in the cast/crew developed cancer later in life, probably due to radiation poisoning, and that sobering fact may make you not enjoy the flick at all if you think about it for too long.

And yet it still looks better than that Khan movie with Charlton Heston and the bad guy from Kindergarten Cop.

If you want to see a better flick with Genghis, check out Mongol. Sure, I'd say it's a little overrated but it's much better than the two movies I've talked about here.

If my Internet doesn't crap out on me due to BrightHouse being brutally incompetent, by the end of the weekend I'll have new stuff posted here.

Toy Story/Toy Story 2

Toy Story (1995)

100% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 64 reviews)

Runtime: 81 minutes

Directed by: John Lasseter

Starring: The voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn

From: Disney/Pixar

Would you believe that I hadn’t seen the first Toy Story since ’96 and I had never seen Toy Story 2 before? Sad but true. So, I figured that the double feature of the two movies in 3D is a great way for me to get to see both and in an awesome format.

Recently during the late evening I saw this. The crowd wasn’t large at all and yet of course some people there were Troglodytes. But, even though they were dumb they didn’t cause any problems when the movies started, so I really can’t carp too loudly. I definitely can’t carp about the presentation as the picture looked great (the 3D wasn’t overdone or distracting) and the inserts they had before the movies and during the 10 minute intermission were fun and fit perfectly.

I won’t describe the movie as I’m sure just about everyone knows what it’s about, but this tale featuring such stuff as friendship, jealousy, revenge, being happy with who you really are, childhood innocence, and other things is a classic and works great with both adults and children. As the first-ever feature-length computer animated film, it still looks great 14 years later and the story itself more than holds up, as it is timeless. The kid next door Sid is quite the villain and you enjoy his comeuppance. The climax involving Buzz and Woody still looks great in 2009. So, I’m happy that I finally saw this again in a great format and now I wish I would have seen it again much sooner than I did.

Toy Story 2 (1999)

100% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 130 reviews)

Runtime: 92 minutes

Directed by: John Lasseter/Ash Brannon/Lee Unkrich

Starring: The voices of Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, Wayne Knight

From: Disney/Pixar

Like I said before I hadn’t seen this before so I had no idea what to expect. What I got was a bigger story in scope, a great opening segment, other great action sequences, and a story about loss, children growing up, losing touch with your friends as you get older, and all that jazz. The villains have motives that make logical sense and yet you still root against them and again you’ll enjoy their comeuppance. Everything is bigger in scope-as I said already-and it all looks great due to the improved technology. It was great seeing such an awesome flick in this way for the very first time. Many people say that it's better than the first (and it's a rare feat for a sequel to be better than the original) and I'll have to agree with them, although it's close and both are classics. I also enjoyed the end credits bit where it was like a Jackie Chan movie and you saw bloopers and outtakes.

Check this spot out in a few days to see what new stuff I have posted.

Untraceable

Untraceable (2008)

14% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 138 reviews)

Runtime: 101 minutes

Directed by: Gregory Hoblit

Starring: Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, Joseph Cross

From: Screen Gems/Lakeshore Entertainment

Here is a movie I saw earlier in the year. I won’t mention the circumstances behind me watching this (as after all I’ve always heard it was not good) but I did and it lived up, or rather down, to its reputation.

This is another thriller revolving around computers and the Internet and set in the Pacific Northwest (meaning: plenty of rainfall). I guess Firewall and this did it because Microsoft is located in the area… I don’t know, it’s just a guess. Here, Lane plays the head of a cybercrimes unit in Portland, Oregon along with Hanks and they investigate a major case that happens to be in their own backyard. A mysterious person is killing people and streaming it on the Internet for people to see, and the more hits he gets, the quicker they die. How he lives up to the movie title is done via mumbo jumbo, not all of which is realistic with current technology. I mean, the scene involving the OnStar in Lane’s car… I don’t think that can actually be done.

But, the downfall of this generic thriller with torture porn elements is that (besides it being boring more often than not) is that it’s hypocritical. It criticizes both people who anonymously do bad things on the ‘net and people who enjoy graphic violence and yet… this movie exploits the story of someone who does bad thing on the ‘net AND the movie yells at you for trying to enjoy this. Why should you enjoy this if it bashes you as an anonymous person on the Internet and rips you for trying to like the violence seen on the screen?

All that plus a really preposterous scene where one victim is able to communicate nonverbally where he’s located at and given the horrific conditions he’s experiencing at the time… this is another flick that I say you skip as hey, there are way too many movies out there (tens of thousands) and many of them are more worthy of seeing than this one.

Look below for another review I posted of another "techno thriller".

I'll be back sometime next week.

Firewall

Firewall (2006)

19% (based on 151 movie reviews)

Runtime: 105 minutes

Directed by: Richard Loncraine

Starring: Harrison Ford, Virginia Madsen, Paul Bettany, Robert Patrick, Mary Lynn Rajskub

From: Warner Brothers/Village Roadshow Productions

This is movie I’ve certainly heard of but I have had no desire to ever see it. Through a series of events I won’t recap, I was pretty much forced to watch this earlier this week.

It’s one of those “techno thrillers” (as you can probably gather from the title, if you know much of anything about computers) about a security expert at a bank (Ford) who has his family kidnapped by a gallery of rogues, led by Bettany, and he is forced to rob his own bank and give the money to the rogues. That’s pretty much the entire plot. I overall did not care for it at all. What turned me off the most was how cartoon-y evil the villains were, especially Bettany. You see them slap and punch Madsen, yell and be physically abusive to their kids, and even yell at their barking dog! Plus, Paul even treats his henchmen like crap the entire time, so don’t ask me why they went along with such an ass who is so disloyal to his help. So yeah, you hate the villains but in a “bad” way, and the problem is that you don’t like anyone else either! Talk about bad writing.

As for the technology, not all of it that you see in the flick is made-up babble, but some of it is. I mean, some stuff is rather preposterous. I won’t want to give any spoilers but in this case I have to… it’s to prove a point. You get to see a device involving the scanner from a fax machine wired to an iPod… and it works to capture images! As I heard from someone else, fax machines are so damn slow, how could it possibly capture a viewable image that scrolls by fast? Plus, you see a woman drive an old early 70’s Plymouth vehicle and yet she has an expensive laptop and cell phone… figures.

Yeah, in the end you get some action in what otherwise is just a drama/thriller and it’s a goofy setting and a fight you see is not bad but it’s definitely not one of Harrison’s best by an y stretch of the imagination (not even if you only include the movies he’s done in the past 10 years, when his career has been lean), the impressive-looking cast doesn’t get to do too much (and the guy who played the T-1000 is made to look like a real wimp, so I wouldn’t recommend you go out and see this. Add in no real originality or unexpected plot twists (at least Sorority Row tried to pull off some plot twists, but whether they’re “real” or just red herrings to trick the audience, I’d rather not say in order not to spoil anything, but it’s still more interesting than anything you see in oh so predictable flick like Firewall) and yeah, don’t see this.