Monthly Archives: April 2013

by

Jack The Giant Slayer – Review

3/5 – An entertaining second half to our Nicholas Hoult double feature.

After watching Warm Bodies, we promptly snuck our way into the theater down the hall to catch Jack the Giant Slayer and make it a Nicholas Hoult double feature night. I didn’t have any particular desire to see Jack the Giant Slayer. If Nicholos Hoult wasn’t in it, we probably would have skipped it. It just seemed funny to base a movie night around him. Plus the movie was starting 5 minutes after Warm Bodies ended. It’s like they wanted us make it a double feature night.

Yes, this is the awkward kid from About a Boy.

I’m amazed we didn’t get caught sneaking into Jack the Giant Slayer. Two of us were lugging around yoga mats on our backs, so we weren’t necessarily inconspicuous. But we didn’t even register on the staff’s radar.  I guess the theater employees have better things to do than hunt down people sneaking their way into a very less than full theater.

Understandably, I wasn’t expecting to particularly enjoy a CGI-heavy live-action remake of the Jack and the Beanstalk story. Not being a child, I’m not in the target demographic. I was fully prepared to sneak out of Jack the Giant Slayer as quickly as we sneaked into it.

Perhaps that’s why I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed Jack the Giant Slayer. It’s a good movie.

Second head or well executed photo bomb?

I really liked how they reworked “Fee, fie, foe, fum.” for this movie. I thought that was pretty clever. I also thought Ewan McGregor was perfect as the knight Elmont. He seemed to be channeling his inner Cary Elwes in the role. There seemed to be a touch of the Dread Pirate Roberts in Elmont. The Tooch, Stanley Tucci, is also in the movie and was awesome, as usual.

Elmont, I want your hair.
 
Jack the Giant Slayer is not going to blow your socks off or walk away with any awards, and I doubt I’ll ever meet a person whose favorite movie is this one, but if you’re looking for an entertaining escapist film, you could do far worse.
After the movie, I took in another “double feature,” this time at the nearby Taco Bell to try both the Nacho Cheese Doritos Taco and the Cool Ranch Doritos Taco. The Cool Ranch taco wins, but that’s not saying much. Anything from Taco Bell has a low ceiling in terms of quality. And the weirdo crowd hanging out there at midnight on a Friday? You would have thought you were in a Mexican food themed Waffle House. I haven’t been inside a Taco Bell in years. I think it’s more likely I’ll find myself going to another Nicholas Hoult double feature in the movie theater before I make my next trip to Taco Bell.
If you have to have one, make it this one.
by

Chasing Ice – Review

4/5 – An Engaging Inconvenient Truth

If you liked the idea of An Inconvenient Truth, but found the movie itself to be as exciting as, well, a PowerPoint presentation, I recommend checking out Chasing Ice.

Chasing Ice is much more personable than An Inconvenient Truth. It puts a human face on climate change. The film  follows environmental photographer James Balog in his quest to document the melting occurring at glaciers around the world. Balog and his team create their own camera housings that can withstand subzero conditions day after day and still function. They also have to trek out to hazardous and inaccessible frozen locales. It’s a project that takes its toll on Balog, both physically and mentally. This toll is what puts the human face on the project. Chasing Ice involves the science that made An Inconvenient Truth what it is, but seeing Balog struggles while undertaking this important project is what sets Chasing Ice a step above Gore’s movie.

What comes out of this project are amazing photographs that show the rapid decline of the polar ice caps. These are photos that should put any climate change naysayers to rest. Chasing Ice is the Food Inc. of climate change. It’s a movie that you must see, but also one that will leave you shaken after you see it.

While I usually catch documentaries at home, I suggest seeing Chasing Ice in the theater if you can. Seeing James Balog’s photographs blown up on the big screen is an awe-inspiring sight. The man is a tremendous photographer. The big screen allows you to really take in what is happening to these ice caps, and serves to make it more dramatic when they fall.

I caught Chasing Ice at the Sebastiani Movie Theater in Sonoma, CA. Expect a post all on its own about that theater soon. If you’re ever in the area, I really recommend catching an evening show there after you’ve spent an afternoon wine tasting at the various wineries’ tasting rooms that dot village square.

by

The Best of Marvel’s 700 #1s

Last month, Marvel and Comixology announced they would be giving away the #1 issue of 700 Marvel titles through their joint digital comics service. This quickly crashed the Comixology servers and the program was suspended. The program is reopening today for readers who signed up on Comixology’s website earlier in the week (check your inbox today for an email from Comixology if you signed up). The different #1 issues available to download span decades; you can download the Avengers first appearance as well as the first issue of a new Avengers series that debuted earlier this year. 700 comics can be a little daunting. Here are what Tuesday Night Movies feels are your best choices:

Hawkeye #1 – You might recognize this from our Best Comics of 2012 post. Hawkeye is the best series that Marvel currently produces. The creative team of Matt Fraction and David Aja are working magic on the page. When I recommend this series to people, their reaction is usually, “Hawkeye? The guy from the Avengers? With the arrows?” Yes, yes and yes. This series is so much more than that though. It focuses on what Hawkeye does when he’s not with the Avengers. It’s very street level. His main antagonist is the Russian mob. After you download the first issue for free, you may want to buy the just released Hawkeye, Vol. 1: My Life as a Weapon, which collects the first five issues of the series.

Avengers Arena #1 – If you like The Hunger Games or Battle Royale, I highly recommend checking out this series. 16 heroes have been captured by murderous villain Arcade and taken to an island where they’re told they have to battle it out to the death. I won’t lie, when this series was first announced I thought it would be cheesy and shallow. I was wrong on both counts. Writer Dennis Hopeless is giving us great stories on what it means to be a hero. The pacing reminds me of the TV show Lost.

Infinity Gauntlet #1 – That purple guy at the end of The Avengers movie? That’s Thanos, an alien obsessed with death. Infinity Gauntlet is the tale of Thanos getting the power to do what he wants. He starts the story by wiping out half the universe with the snap of his fingers. Needless to say, Marvel’s heroes aren’t happy about this (the half of them that are left, that is).

Amazing Fantasy #15 – Spider-Man is my favorite superhero. After four movies and countless cartoons, I’m sure you know the story by now. Nerdy high school student Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, imbuing him with spider-like superpowers. Yes, this isn’t technically a #1. But this is the issue that started it all, and Marvel is including it in this promotion. See Spider-Man’s origin as it was originally told by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Superior Spider-Man #1 – What you need to know: Doctor Octopus switched brains with Spider-Man. Spider-Man died in Doctor Octopus’s body, leaving Doctor Octopus in charge of Spider-Man’s body. Having access to Peter Parker’s memories have inspired Doc Ock to use his powers for good and become a superior Spider-Man to Peter Parker. It’s an exciting series full of thrills and intrigue. Will Ock woo Mary Jane? Will Peter find a way back to the land of the living? Will Peter’s friends realize it’s not him in his body? Only time will tell.

Fantastic Four #1 – Another classic. Stan Lee. Jack Kirby. This is the one that really started it all. This is the birth of the Marvel Universe right here.

Daredevil Volume 3 #1 – The best Marvel comic on the stands right now not named Hawkeye. For years, Daredevil has been portrayed as a hard boiled action hero. Writer Mark Waid flips the script with the new Daredevil comic, giving readers the first lighthearted Daredevil in decades. Artist Paolo Rivera gives us the coolest visuals from Daredevil’s POV that we’ve ever seen.

Wolverine #1 – Without a doubt, the most popular character to wear a X on his belt in the Marvel Universe, it was years before Wolverine starred in his own solo comic, a 4-issue mini-series. This is the start of that mini-series. Besides having one of the coolest covers of all time, this comic takes Wolverine away from the X-Men to Japan where he fights ninjas. Ninjas!

All-New X-Men #1 – In the next X-Men movie, the story is going to focus on Days of Future’s Past, a story where X-Men from the future come to the present to stop the annihilation of the mutants from coming about. In All-New X-Men, the original five teenage X-Men from the past come to the present and aren’t exactly happy with what they see.

If you’re a Deadpool fan, you’ll find a bunch of comics to choose from. The two that I recommend most are Deadpool #1 and Uncanny X-Force #1. The latest volume of Deadpool is written by comedian Brian Posehn and his TV writing partner Gerry Duggan. Uncanny X-Force #1 is the first issue of the recently completed 35 issue epic by writer Rick Remender. It gives you Deadpool, Psylocke, Wolverine and Archangel at their absolute coolest. It’s a must read.

That’s 11 of 700. There are a lot of other really good stories among the 689 that remain. Try some out. What’s it going to cost you?

by

Eulogizing Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert passed away yesterday. He was 70.

If you read movie reviews regularly, you probably have a favorite critic. The wild-haired, bushy mustached Gene Shalit has his fans. I feel like Leonard Maltin owes Doug Benson an agent’s fee for introducing his podcast listeners to Maltin’s reviews. Others will identify themselves with the late Gene Siskel or Joel Siegel. I, like many, always preferred Roger Ebert.

I first encountered Roger Ebert when I was a young boy, turning the dial on my parents’s wood-pane-encased television on a weekend morning. Siskel and Ebert At the Movies was on. They were talking in a  movie theater, about a movie I was probably too young to watch and whose name is lost to time. But, I found them both fascinating, though to be truthful it would be years before I could remember which one was Siskel and which one was Ebert. Their thumbs up, thumbs down rating system quickly made its way into the US’s, and my own, lexicon.

I didn’t always agree with Ebert’s reviews (I still haven’t quite forgiven him for calling The Blair Witch Project a masterpiece), but I always respected him. Like any great review, his reviews were both well thought out and well written. I wish my reviews were written half as well as his. His reviews didn’t come from his ego, and he wasn’t trying to show you that he knew more than you did like those guys at the New York Times. His reviews came from a love for the movies. They were often a jumping off point for my cousin and I when we would talk movies.

It wasn’t until Esquire published his portrait in February, 2010 that I knew about the extent of his battle with cancer. Ebert’s perseverance while battling cancer was extraordinary. The disease took his jaw, but not his will. His final byline, a review of The Host, was published just days before his death.  It saddens me how many people, both celebrities and in our own lives, that we’ve lost to cancer. I hope a cure is discovered in our lifetime.

Ebert was the gold standard of movie reviewers. American cinema is lesser for Roger Ebert’s passing.

by

Warm Bodies – Review

5/5 – Warm Bodies is like the anti-Twilight. See it!

Zombies are very hot right now. Just ask Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead. The success of The Walking Dead has led to a huge influx in the amount zombie-related fiction making its way to movie theaters, bookshelves and comic racks. Unfortunately, the majority of these zombie stories have me wishing that the copycats would leave the zombies to Kirkman. Thankfully, Warm Bodies does not fall into that category.

I loved Warm Bodies. It works on so many levels. It’s a great satire of both zombie fiction and modern society. It points out that we are already a bit zombie-like before any zombie plague hits, walking around heads down, staring into our iPhones, oblivious to the world around us. Warm Bodies is my favorite horror comedy since Shaun of the Dead and my favorite adaption of Romeo and Juliet since West Side Story. I never thought I would have to ever write that previous sentence, but I did.Thanks, Warm Bodies..

Most of the movie is narrated by R, the main zombie played by Nicholas Hoult. Yes, that’s the awkward kid from About A Boy. No, I don’t get how he grew up to be so good looking either. But he did, and he’s better looking dead than I am alive. Theresa Palmer seems to be channeling her inner Hayden Panettiere when she plays J. Hoult and Palmer have great chemistry, which is something, because unlike the marble-like vampires of Twilight, R is a rotting corpse.

Rob Corrdry wins in Warm Bodies. He’s M, another zombie, and the closest thing R has to a friend. Without a doubt, M has the best line in the movie, which I won’t spoil here.

When the first Twilight movie was released, before supernatural romance has its own shelf at your local Barnes and Noble (I’m not kidding. Look for it next time you’re there), I joked that I wanted to write a movie about a girl falling in love with a zombie. We laughed it off; a zombie isn’t something you’d expect a girl to fall for. Needless to say, that joke movie idea I had was nowhere near as good as what Warm Bodies turned out to be.

There will be obvious comparisons made to Twilight. Yes, they both fall into the supernatural romance genre and star guys that make girls giggle. But Warm Bodies is so much more than those surface comparisons. I’m guessing those Twilight similarities helped keep people away from Warm Bodies in the theater. It would have kept me away if I hadn’t frst seen the trailer. Warm Bodies did nowhere near the business that the Twilight films did. If that’s not proof that there’s no justice in the world, I don’t know what is.

Upside of a zombie apocalypse? No more Twilight movies.