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Dear Readers,

I do apologize for not seeing many movies in the last several months. They have now become so long, that getting to the theater becomes a monumental task. I will try to do better as Spring moves in.

Dr D

Best wishes for a great 2013 ….

In the summer of 1979, a group of friends in a small Ohio town witness a catastrophic train crash while making a super 8 movie and soon suspect that it was not an accident. Shortly after, unusual disappearances and inexplicable events begin to take place in town, and the local Deputy tries to uncover the truth – something more terrifying than any of them could have imagined.

I would include a synopsis but it would have spoilers and this is too good of a movie to see and already know the plot. While this movie was obviously targeting youngsters, I found it to be an all around fun and entertaining move. A few plot twists here and there and they kept the mystery going. At almost 2 hours, there was not a dull minute. And it wasn’t filled with four-letter language.

So far, this may be one of the best and most entertaining movies of the Summer. Don’t miss it and see it in XD or in Imax.

Rating: 4.8 out of 5.

Well, I have spent the last two weeks catching up on movies on the big screen:

Limitless

Red Riding Hood

Hall Pass

Source Code

The Lincoln Lawyer

The King’s Speech

Battle: Los Angeles

To give you a heads up, all are watchable and particularly worth the price of a matinee ticket. Reviews are coming soon.

Remake of the 1972 version starring Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent. Plot line varies a bit, particularly the ending. Very good and well worth the price of admission.

Rating: 3.9 out of 5 stars

Not a whole lot of thougthful plot here and it is the formula antagonism seen in Meet the Fockers and Meet the Parents. The movie is a mindless bit of entertainment and coming in at 1 hour and 38 minutes, not a big waste of time. It is beginning to be pretty boring seeing Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson who are the same character regardless of the movie. Although Pam Focker has been played by Teri Polo in all three movies, she looks different in this movie – not as attractive. The bimbo played by Jessica Alba is way overdone and is never fully resolved in the end. Let’s hope this is the end of the Focker as it is now too much formula and repetitive.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars but watchable.

A seasoned team of bank robbers, including Gordon Jennings (Idris Elba), John Rahway (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), and brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse Attica (Chris Brown) successfully complete their latest heist and lead a life of luxury while planning their next job. When Ghost (Tip T.I. Harris), a former member of their team, is released from prison he convinces the group to strike an armored car carrying $20 million. As the “takers” carefully plot out their strategy and draw nearer to exacting the grand heist, a reckless police officer (Matt Dillon) inches closer to apprehending the criminals.

Not a bad watchable flick. In this one, you are cheering for the criminals. Not a bad ending for a movie that makes you sympathetic to the bad guys.

Rating:  3.5 out of 5 stars.

A group of self-absorbed actors set out to make the most expensive war film. But after ballooning costs force the studio to cancel the movie, the frustrated director refuses to stop shooting, leading his cast into the jungles of Southeast Asia, where they encounter real bad guys.

Tropic Thunder may go down as Stiller’s first brush with genius, as well as new, rippling biceps. Countering them (and his pecs and all around movie star looks) is a grizzled, ’60s lingo-dropping African-American Sgt. Osiris, played by Australian thespian Kirk Lazarus, played by Robert Downey Jr. Osiris/Lazarus/Downey uses a play to Stiller’s vanity (how do you look so good? Diet, mostly…) to steal a map away from him at a critical point in the film. What’s really happening is Downey stealing every scene he’s in and, what ultimately makes Tropic Thunder so terrific, ensuring that it will never be thought of as “that Ben Stiller movie.” When it first comes out it will be the “Robert Downey plays a black guy movie” and then, once it settles on cable and DVD, will simply be known as Tropic Thunder, comedy masterpiece. They’ll be quoting from this one for years.

The premise is idiotic and simple – a Hollywood production of a Vietnam war tale is going horribly overbudget and the frazzled Brit theatre director on his first picture (played perfectly by Steve Coogan) takes the advice of the thousand-yard-staring vet (Nick Nolte) on whose book the film based. Put them in the sh*t.

A few misunderstandings, dormant land mines and run-ins with Burmese opium concerns later and you have the best actors-in-distress movie since Three Amigos. But where the Amigos had Randy Newman as a singing bush, Tropic Thunder has Robert Downey Jr. His Kirk Lazarus, the dude playing the dude disguised as the other dude, is a landmark in cinema. I’m not joking. Arriving at a time when racial identity is taking on new dimensions in American life, Downey’s blackface is a carnival of metatextuality, impervious to cries of racism. Partially because “Osiris” is so cool! He’s one of the hippest black characters since Shaft! (I should be careful here – I’m really speaking about Lazarus-as-Osiris, the character we see during the bulk of the film, as Downey’s Lazarus refuses to break character. The “Osiris” we see in clips of Tropic Thunder, the movie they are making in Tropic Thunder is just boilerplate.

All praise goes to Downey, of course, and the chutzpah to let him play this role, but the other performances are top notch. The bald, fat Tom Cruise you’ve heard about is quite good – one can’t help thinking about Cruise during the film’s set-up of Stiller’s Speedman, an A-lister that suddenly everyone despises.  Jack Black reels in his usual shtick a bit as the drug addicted a-hole, and second tier names Brandon T. Jackson and Jay Baruchel do more than hold their own. The big breakout, though, is young Brandon Soo Hoo – the best moppetty Asian kid in a Hollywood movie since Short Round.

Brandon Soo Hoo, as the head of the evil Opium ring who also loves “retarded movies,” made me choke on my complimentary popcorn. He manages to be adorable and ,somehow, also frightening. . . in a 13 year old broken English kinda way.

This is a refreshing departure from some of the more inane comedic roles Stiller has salvaged. Robert Downey, Jr. should be nominated for an academy award for his performance. And, of course, Jack Black had a typical scene in his underwear. While Stiller is a very talented actor and is very capable in a dramatic role as demonstrated in his earlier movie, Permanent Midnight, he seems to find greater pleasure flexing his pecs in a comedy. His comedic roles are getting a bit too stereotypical and some of his mannerisms which carry over from one role to the next, make them all sometimes appear the same. Nonetheless he is very talented and this movie may truly be his comedic pinnacle.

Rating: 4.7 out of 5 Jalapenos

The Dark Knight – 5 out of 5 Habeneros

Hellboy II: The Golden Army – 3.7 out of 5 Jalapenos

Hancock – 3.5 out of 5 Jalapenos

Step Brothers – 1.5 out of 5 Jalapenos

Mama Mia – 1 out of 5 Jalapenos

Swing Vote – 3.7 out of 5 Jalapenos

The Mummy 3 – a good romp – 4.2 out of 5 Jalapenos

The latest from M. Night Shyamalan.

In the northeast part of America, people suddenly begin committing suicide en masse. First they become disoriented, then stop moving, and finally find the quickest way to kill themselves. The pandemic begins in parks, and quickly spreads to nearby population centers. It is initially believed to be a bioterrorist attack, but this is ruled out as the events increase in frequency.

Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is a science teacher in Philadelphia. After the school is informed of the pandemic, he decides to leave the city with his wife, Alma Moore (Zooey Deschanel), and his fellow math teacher, Julian (John Leguizamo), who is also bringing his eight-year-old daughter, Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez). The train soon stops at a small town in western Pennsylvania; train services are discontinued after the crew loses contact with “everyone.” Julian finds out that the “attacks” have hit Princeton, where his wife is currently headed, and leaves Jess with Elliot while he hitches a ride in an attempt to retrieve her. However, it has already been hit by the pandemic, and a hole in the car’s roof exposes them.

Meanwhile, Elliot, Alma, and Jess manage to hitchhike with a botanist and his wife; the man explains his theory that plants are attacking people as a defense mechanism. He elaborates on the complex mechanisms that often seem to appear spontaneously, involving strategies such as attracting predators to kill off specific threats and fostering communication between different species of plants. As they drive, they find themselves surrounded on all sides by affected towns. A number of other cars arrive in the same location. A soldier, Private First Class Auster, suggests moving away from the population centers on foot to avoid any attacks, as the pandemic has been occurring in smaller and smaller populations.

The group of survivors splits into two, with Elliot, Alma, and Jess in a smaller group. Auster’s group is struck by the pandemic within earshot of Elliot, and he concludes that it is likely caused by an airborne neurotoxin exuded by the surrounding plants. The larger the group of people, the more likely it is to trigger the defense mechanism. Elliot makes the group split into three smaller ones with Elliot, Alma, Jess, and two teenage boys staying together.

While looking for food for Jess, Elliot’s group finds a boarded up house with survivors inside, still believing the pandemic to be a terrorist attack. They are unwilling to open the doors. When the two teenage boys begin to aggressively force an entry, they are shot dead. Elliot’s group is forced to leave. They make their way to the house of an elderly woman, who lives in complete isolation; thus, she is ignorant of the pandemic. Though she allows them to stay, she proves to be a harsh host and a paranoid woman once she sees Elliot “eyeing her lemon drink”. In the morning, Elliot finds himself alone; going downstairs, he hears the voices of Alma and Jess but cannot find them. He inadvertently enters the old woman’s room and she angrily insists that they leave immediately.

The woman storms out of the house into the garden, where she is affected by the neurotoxin. Realizing that the defense mechanism has become even more sensitive, Elliot locks himself inside the house. Elliot finds himself in a room where he can hear Alma and Jess. He finds a speaking tube, which leads to a shed outside the house. Conversing with his wife, he says that he would want nothing more than to be with her. They relinquish themselves to their fate, but the neurotoxin doesn’t affect them: the pandemic is over.

Three months later, Elliot and Alma have adjusted to a new life with Jess as their adopted daughter. On television, an environmentalist warns that the pandemic may only have been a warning, like a rash that precedes an infection. Elliot takes Jess to the bus stop for the first day of school while Alma stays at home, timing a home pregnancy test. When he returns, Alma greets him with a smile, and they embrace. In the Jardin des Tuileries in Paris, the pandemic appears to happen once again as everyone in sight suddenly stops moving as the wind suddenly moves the trees.

Now that the plot has been exposed, you may want to save yourself the price of admission and wait for it to come to HBO or even network TV. The movie clocks in at one hour and 28 minutes. The cinematography must have been low bid and certainly contributes to this being another flop. It is a much better plot line than seen in The Village, but like The Village, the essence of the plot is exposed early and then you are just bored. What was up with Zooey Deschanel? Did he force her to be “doe-eyed” to the point of almost being Marty Feldmanesque with exopthalmos? At least Feldman has a medical explanation. Also with her useless dialog and almost autistic acting, she should have been blonde. Of course, the entire dialog was more suited for a Sylvester Stallone movie. In fact, this movie may have played better with simply a good musical score and no dialog and only an occasional superscript. Being a fan of Shyalaman’s earlier works, such as Unbreakable, he continues to disappoint. Maybe if he got over his fear of going more than 50 miles from home his movie’s would improve.

Rating: 1 out of 5 Jalapenos.