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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.
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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.
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Top 5 Exclusives of WonderCon 2013

WonderCon starts today and will be running through the entirety of this weekend in Anaheim, CA! The exclusives list isn’t as extensive as San Diego Comic-Con or New York Comic Con, but there are still some very cool items available. Here’s what we think are the best.

Aardman Batman and Robin Action Figures 2-Pack (DC/Graphitti Designs)
Price: $39.95, Limited to 2000

Different than the Aardman Batman NYCC 2012 exclusive, this Aardman Batmn sports the classic blue and grey uniform. Also included is an Aardman Robin, whose costume looks like a cross between Dick Grayson’s and Tim Drake’s Robin costumes. If you’re not interested in an Aardman Robin and want to save some money, you can still order the NYCC exclusive black and gray costumed Aardman Batman directly from Graphitti Designs’s website for $25.

3.75″ Larfleeze and Guy Gardner Action Figures 2-Pack (DC/Graphitti Designs)
Price: $29.95, Limited to 5,000

This 2-pack looks better designed than the John Stewart and Atrocitus 2-pack from NYCC 2012. Guy looks like Guy. I love the smirk on his face. Orange Lantern Larfleeze looks great. And you get a figure of Larfleeze’s orange construct minion Glomulus. If you missed the John Stewart and Atrocitus 2-pack from NYCC, you can find that on Graphitti Designs’s website for $25, $5 less than this set. Personally, I’d rather pay the $5 extra for this set if I had to choose between the two.

Will Eisner’s Spirit Artist Edition: Limited Signed and Numbered (IDW)
Price: $300, Limited to 100
If you want this, you may have had to order it already. IDW took pre-orders for this book on their website on 3/27 and had it listed as sold out on 3/28. If you’re interested in buying this, I recommend making the IDW booth your first stop at WonderCon to see if they have any available. Is this version worth $175 more than the regular edition? Well, it’s signed by a man who died 8 before this book was published. I’m not sure how IDW pulled that off. My guess is that IDW cut Will Eisner’s signature from legal documents and pasted them in the book. That, or IDW has one hell of a paranormal communications division. The other difference is the cover. The regular version features The Spirit front and center, while this version has him regulated to a small circle  in favor of femme fatale Sand Seraf. On a side note, Sand Seraf has one of the coolest names ever in comics.

Gil Kane’ Amazing Spider-Man Artist Edition: Limited Signed and Numbered (IDW)
Price: $250, Limited to 250
This version has a different cover than the regular edition. I like this cover much better. It’s also signed by four of the creators involved. Sadly, IDW’s paranormal communications department was unable to procure Gil Kane’s signature, but it is signed by Stan Lee, John Romita, Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas. That’s an impressive classic Marvel line-up.

It’s not as cool as the John Romita Artist Edition Limited Edition, which was the same price and included a head sketch by Jazzy John Romita. Like the limited edition of the Will Eisner Artist Edition, this version is listed as sold out on IDW’s website as of 3/28. Head straight to the IDW booth if you want to buy this.

David Flores’ “Deathshead” Vinyl Figure
Price: $100, Limited to 30

I have to give David Flores props on his ballsiness. He’s releasing this scary looking skull faced Mickey Mouse in Anaheim, aka Disney-town. WonderCon is a stone’s throw from Disneyland. I’m interested in finding out if Disney’s lawyers give him a hard time about this when they hear about it. That said, this vinyl figure would make a very cool looking antithesis to the cuddly Mickey Mouse on your coworker’s desk.

Star Wars Legacy Volume II #1 Exclusive WonderCon Variant Cover (Dark Horse)
Price $5, Limited to 1,000
This variant cover features Han Solo and Princess Leia’s descendant, and series star, Aina Solo wielding her recently found lightsaber. For those unfamiliar with the concept, Star Wars Legacy takes place a long time in the future of the Star Wars universe. Writer/artist Gabriel Hardman and writer Corinna Bechko will be signing this issue at the Dark Horse booth on Sunday. Make sure to get a ticket to the signing when you pick up this issue. DC has a couple of variant covers available at WonderCon too, but they’re just lazy, recolored editions of Justice League of America #1 (because that issue needed another cover) and Batman #17 at 2 1/2 times the regular cover price (cough, ripoff, cough).

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Skyfall – Review

5/5 – SKYFALL IS AWESOME!

I thought about making this only a three word review: Skyfall is awesome. And leave it at that. Three words, a shot of the poster, and call it a day. It doesn’t come from laziness. It’s just matter of fact. Skyfall is awesome. That’s really all you need to know.

How awesome is Skyfall? I rank it higher than The Dark Knight Rises in movies from 2012. And I loved The Dark Knight Rises. Not good enough? Fine. Skyfall is better than a unicorn riding a dragon. That’s right.

Skyfall is more awesome than this!
Still not good enough? Are you nuts? That’s a mythical beast riding another mythical beast! Fine, Skyfall is more awesome than Batman riding a Tiger with bat wings.
Why does this Tiger have bat wings? I don’t know, but it’s awesome. Not as awesome as Skyfall, though.
I haven’t seen many James Bond movies. I can count the ones I’ve seen one one hand and still have fingers left over. Skyfall makes me want to watch all of them. The only thing stopping me is that I’m not sure if I will enjoy them as much as I enjoyed Skyfall. Maybe I’ll just watch Skyfall again.
I’m really hoping that director Sam Mendes comes back for the next James Bond film. He’s already said he’s out. Hopefully the trucks of money the producers drive to his door changes his mind.
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Dark Shadows – Review

2/5 – Another
2/5 – Watch the trailer instead.

After the disappointment that was Alice in Wonderland, I had high hopes for Dark Shadows to be the movie that would redeem Tim Burton in my eyes. The trailer looked very funny. But as can often be the case, the best parts of Dark Shadows were in the trailer.

If you’re not familiar with the origins of Dark Shadows, the film is based on an old soap opera of the same name. A family from the 60s (or the 70s in the film version) has a very distant relative move in with them…namely a recently unearthed vampire ancestor.

The trailer for Dark Shadows made the movie seem like it would be very tongue-in-cheek and campy, like the excellent Brady Bunch movie from the 1990s. Unfortunately, the tongue-in-cheek campiness is kept to a minimum beyond what what was already shown in the trailer.

Instead, we get a movie that was overly long and slowly paced. The screenplay seemed lazily written. Maybe screenwriter Seth Grahame-Smith was trying to make the movie feel like a soap opera brought to the big screen, but there was a little too much deus-ex-machina towards the end. One character gets special powers out of nowhere, turning the tide in the climatic battle. The love story between Barnabus and Victoria never goes anywhere and seems tacked on. Victoria is often relegated to the background, despite being Barnabus’s supposed reincarnated true love.

The movie is not completely bad. There are some funny lines and amusing montages, but as a whole it’s a disappointment.

Johnny Depp should play Michael Jackson in the Michael Jackson story.

After watching the movie, I turned on an episode of the Dark Shadows television series on Netflix’s streaming service. Wow, I thought the movie was slow. It amazes me that fans can watch this show in marathon sessions. Dark Shadows the TV show is the definition of slow. I didn’t even make it to the introduction of Barnabus. There was a scene where a character was staring at the wall of a crypt for a good 30 seconds. It was like watching a small-screen adaptation of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

I recommend listening to the This American Life story on a Dark Shadows convention more than watching either the movie or TV versions of Dark Shadows. That story was great.

I haven’t given up on Tim Burton yet. I still very much look forward to watching Frankenweenie. The trailer looks great, but then again so did the trailer for Dark Shadows.

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ParaNorman – Review

I was really excited to see ParaNorman.  I remember cackling during the trailer in the theater every time that little Igor kid would come on. And this would happen every time I saw the trailer. So when ParaNorman arrived from Netflix, I immediately put it in my DVD player.

That funny Igor kid never showed up.

When is this kid appearing, already?

It turns out that the movie I was excited to see was Frankenweenie. It was about a half hour into the movie that I realized this. Oops.

The movie I was looking for.

ParaNorman is an enjoyable movie, even if it’s not the movie I meant to watch. I didn’t laugh during it as much as I did during the trailer for Frankenweenie, but it is still a well told story. It’s like The Sixth Sense for kids. Young Norman sees dead people, a lot of dead people. There’s a cool sequence where he’s walking down the street and we see all the ghosts that he sees. It basically turns his quiet suburban commute into the crowded streets of Manhattan. A lot of people are dead, and they all want to talk to Norman.

I was surprised to see ParaNorman earn a Best Animated Feature nomination. It was not even in the same league as Wreck-It-Ralph. But I can see why kids would love this movie: ghosts, parents who just don’t understand, kindhearted fat jokes. What more could a kid want?

Still, I hope Frankenweenie is better.

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Osombie – Review

1/5 – This puts the zero in Zero Dark Thirty.

After watching Zero Dark Thirty, I headed home and popped its sequel, Osombie. I won’t lie, I was genuinely excited for a movie about Osama Bin Laden coming back as a zombie. Sadly, it didn’t live up to my expectations.

Savage Dragon did it better.

Osombie begins where Zero Dark Thirty ends, with the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Unlike the raid in Zero Dark Thirty, Osombie reveals that UBL had zombies in his basement. Before being taken out by Seal Team Six, UBL downs a couple of One A Day vitamins zombie pills.

That’s right, I said zombie pills. The zombies in Osombie are the results of a super soldier program gone wrong. Instead of making Captain America, the program created a bunch of biters. I can’t help but think this was a needlessly complicated plot device. With a zombie outbreak, you don’t need to spend this long explaining how the zombies came to be. They’re here. They’re hungry. That’s enough.

I had a few problems with Osombie beyond the zombie pills. For one, if the US and British governments are aware of the zombie problem, why did they only send a small group of soldiers to wander around the desert to deal with it? The US and Great Britain are worried about the zombies making it over the border and a worldwide outbreak ensuing. So they end a half dozen people, on foot, to deal with it? I get not wanting to risk your own soldiers getting infected by sending legions of soldiers, but this is ridiculous.

All of the characters behave like they have god-mode turned on. Unfortunately for each of them, god-mode decides to turn itself off without warning.

God-mode fail.

Can we get that one guy in the squad to put his shirt back on? I get it, you want to show off your abs to your colleagues, but you do realize that the #1 cause of zombie infection is them biting through bare skin, right? Not to mention the skin cancer risks.

“I didn’t know the risks! For the love of God, where’s my shirt?!”

It’s amazing how little seems to happen over the course of the movie. Most of the film is spent following these soldiers riffing on things while wandering around the desert. It’s like Clerks 2 meets a sandbox. The most annoying of these characters is Joker, the “funny” guy in the group. His jokes are so lame that he had to steal a bit from another movie. Don’t think I didn’t notice that, screenwriter Kurt Hale.

I kept rooting for a group of zombies to just devour Joker.

Osombie is such a great name for a zombie movie! Why’d they waste that on this script? The movie plays out like it was written from someone’s first draft from Screenwriting 1. The only way I’d be able to recommend this movie is if Kevin, Mike and Bill make a Rifftrax for it.