Ten Statements About....FAST FIVE (2011)

"Hey!  The audience is getting bored--let's jump out of this car!"

"This just went from Mission: Impossible to Mission: In-freaking-sanity"

1) Even though this is undisputably a Fast and Furious film, it's nice to see that the caper flick has survived beyond last year's glut. Hell, there's a decided whiff of The Italian Job at points. That being said....

2) Chris Morgan's script tries so hard to make sure every one of the film's massive cast of characters a story arc that the movie ends up at times with a sense of diffuseness. In particular, the second act feels like so much running around trying to convince us meaningful things are going on.

"Okay..here's the plan...I act all bad-ass...and
you, you distract Diesel with your tiny ta-tas."

3) Elsa Pataky's Elena is arguably the most ill-served by this desire to give everyone something uniquely theirs to do. The script sets up an interesting back story for her, gives her some motivations...and then she does nothing much save give Diesel's Dom someone to look at meaningfully. The resulting romance just doesn't have the right feel to it..

4) I don't buy where Dwayne Johnson's Hobbs ends up in his story arc. Considering how much time is spent convincing us that he is truly hardcore ("Real Old Testament," if I recall Paul Walker's Brian saying)...then has him stepping back and pretty much letting our heroes get away because they helped him avenge his team.

5) Jordana Brewster's Mia's main story arc effectively takes away the one thing that makes her uniquely suited for this franchise--namely, that she is overpoweringly sexy when driving a fast car. Sitting at a computer screen and giving instructions over a headset...not so much at all.

6) You gotta give this movie credit for playing thoroughly fair with the big twist of its climatic heist. They lay out the clues, but manage to misdirect us with key lines of dialogue.

7) You know, given how easily Brian and Dominic escape from Joaquim de Almieda's Reyes in the first act, and how they manage to elude him and overcome the obstacles he puts in front of him with inpunity...well, he's a pretty crap bad guy. And no amount of him telling stories about how the Portuguese conquered Brazil will convince us he has more than one dimension.

"What...you can't judge me...you did The Tooth Fairy, damnit!"

8) But then...these movies aren't about vivid bad guys. They're about big-ass stunts, and the film manages to give us something exploding, flipping over or flying into the river every ten minutes or so. And on that level, it is a success.

9) I sincerely doubt the physics that allows our heroes to use precision driving moves to manipulate a ten-ton safe as if it was a mace...and the damage to property, vehicles and--yes--life reaches Bad Boys level of ludicrousness. But it did look cool.

10) I am so happy that this film doesn't forget anyone who was anyone who appeared in the series to date--as the final stinger after the cast credits attest.

Overall...taken for what it is, it works. As a movie, it's a little too convoluted in its desire to make sure everyone gets a chapter in this film's book.

Since I was treating my mom for Mother's Day, we headed out to MovieWorld in Douglaston, to my knowledge one of the very, very, very few independent movie theaters left in NYC--this place still practices a $6.50 matinee on Sunday before 5p.m. Yeah, the place still has a cheesy 'trapped in the 80's' feel to it, but the sheer friendliness of the staff makes up for it. The trailers included The Hangover II, which seems to want to make me not want to see this movie every time I see it; Transformers III: Dark of The Moon, that made my eyes glass over with boredom...and ones for X-Men: First Class, which emphasizes the relationship between Xavier and Magneto and makes the film look even better (and Hell, as a Banshee fan, I marked out seeing him flying across The Bay of Pigs) and Cowboys And Aliens, which reveals more of the plot and is getting me all the more jazzed for this.

BETTER IN THE DARK Shares John Frankenheimer's Paranoia!

In this episode, Tom and Derrick celebrate one of their favorite directors--a director they promised to discuss way back in one of our earliest episodes--John Frankenheimer

Play Solitaire? NO! Click!

Ten Statements About....DOCTOR WHO SEASON SIX, EPISODE THREE: CURSE OF THE BLACK SPOT (2011)

Shut Up!  She's cute... (And yes, I would shiver her
timbers...why'd you ask?)

"The Ship is cursed!"

"Yeah, right. Cursed. Is big with humans. Means bad things are happening but you can't be bothered to find an explanation."

1) PIRATE AMY! I'm totally in agreement with Rory here--Karen Gillen should dress as a pirate more often, and her kinda, sorta swashbucking is thoroughly coo'

(Incidentally....does Rory's comment put more fuel to the 'Amy and Rory Have A Cosplay Fetish' thing?)

2) One of the reasons I love Matt Smith as The Doctor is that he's managed to take many of the aspects of previous Doctors and blend them very subtlely. Many of his interactions in this episode have a very David Tennant feel to them...and yet, he reins in the Tennant manic-panic delivery so it doesn't grate on me as Tennant did after a while.

3) I love how quickly Hugh Bonneville's Avery is able to suss out the TARDIS after getting over the initial shock because, well...'a ship's a ship.' Thompson's script plays this character very, very smart--which he'd have to be, to survive as a ship's captain at that time...and I think the Doctor senses this, which is why he begins to defer to Avery after a bit. In that sense, Avery reminds me of Richard Mace, from one of my favorite Davison stories, The Visitation.

(Doesn't mean I am excited at the implied prospect I'll be seeing Avery and his crew again...)

"Can we hurry this up?  I'm due on the set of SPEED RACER II."

4) The twist at roughly the twenty minute mark regarding the method of travel for the Siren is pretty clever. Although they miss a potential prime scare moment about four minutes later.

5) The intrusion of the element from the overarc is just that...an intrusion. It's unnecessary, and the story would've flowed better without it.

6) I'm sorry...I tried. I really, really tried. But I just can't be scared of The Singing Green Christina Ricci....

7) Ahhhhhhh....so that throwaway line about a distress signal in the first act wasn't a throwaway line.

The search for the perfect Time Lord Hat continues...

8) So it turns out we're once more in the realm of what has become a New Who--the antagonistic thing that was not intended to be antagonistic. One that has been used at least twice by Moffat himself.

9) Rory IS THE MAN, and pretty much my favorite character on the TARDIS right now. That is all.

10) I am becoming more and more convinced that the 'Alternate Dimension Amy' theory I once developed to explain some of the discrepancies of last season (you know, before we learned that the bulk of it was all part of The Silent's Trap) is very much in play this season.

In short...a very, very minor episode. There are elements I like, but it's obvious to me that this is another walk in all-too-familiar territory, and the overarc stuff just disrupts the story flow. This has the potential of being the "Vampires of Venice" of this season...and if it is, then the season might still be on good footing. But on it's on...a big treasure sack of 'meh'.

Ten Statements About....VERONICA MARS SEASON ONE, EPISODE ONE 'Pilot' (2004)

"And the longest running gag on BETTER IN THE DARK
is born..."

"I used to think I knew what tore our family apart. Now I'm sure I don't. But I promise this: I will find out what really happened, and I will bring this family back together again. I'm sorry, is that mushy? Well, you know what they say. Veronica Mars, she's a marshmallow."
 

1) I am not a fan of 'taking a popular song and making it your theme song,' but there's something very, very right about using The Dandy Warhols' "We Used To Be Friends" as this series' theme--yes, the song was extant before the series, but it sums up one of the primary conflicts of the show perfectly....

2) As with all pilots, this one is terribly exposition-heavy--although writer/creator Rob Thomas takes the time to put the show's 'mini-done-in-one-mystery that slowly helps advance the main mystery' format firmly in place.

3) In a series full of rich supporting characters...I have to admit my total and absolute favorite is Daran Norris' Cliff McCormack, the lawyer who works with both Veronica and her dad. It's the combination of his game-show-host voice and his attitude that cracks me up every time. The dialogue, which is choice Thomas Chandler-manque, doesn't hurt, either.

4) Given that this was a series aimed primarily at teens, it's a very brutal one. The gruesome shots of Lily Kane's body, the tasteful-but-frank handling of Veronica's rape, and the footage of how a strip club gets out of paying fines for underage drinking pretty much bear out that this is meant to be a hardboiled detective show hiding out in a teen drama's body.

5) And speaking of the mystery-in-a-teen-drama's-body...this show's central backbone is the relationship between Veronica and Enrico Colantoni's Keith Mars. If these two mismatched actors didn't have the chemistry between them to convince us that yes, they're father and daughter and yes, they truly love each other, the show would have crumbled on the spot.

(Incidentally, Bell and her on-screen mother, Corinne Bohrer, do look scarily alike)

6) Another great chemisty choice--Percy Daggs III's Wallace, who acts as Watson to Veronica's Holmes pretty damn perfectly.

Okay, the screen cap doesn't make it look so hot...
but trust me on this one...

7) For those who have always wondered....33:14....that's the moment in the pilot when I fell in love with The Beautiful One...

.

8) Pilot director Mark Piznarski (who gets immortalized in Season Three, where one of Veronica's romantic interests is named for him) manages to successfully balance the tension between the sunny teen-drama-esque moments with the darker, moodier mystery moments.

9) It's interesting, given how their characters develop throughout the rest of the series, how antagonistic both Jason Dohring's Logan and Francis Capra's Weevil is. Logan, in particular, seems downright sinister in this early episode.

Easily the show's strength is the chemistry between
these two people

10) Thomas' script seems to be setting up a Wizard of Oz metaphor here, down to the catch phrase of Michael Muhney's Sherrif Lamb . I'm not sure if it works one hundred percent, given where this season's plotline goes.

Overall...I can forgive the fact that this is pretty much Veronica Mars: The Show Bible (the fact that this was originally a young adult novel Thomas tried to sell to Simon and Shuster really shows), since the show's casting and dialogue rings so amazingly well. This sets up what we're going to see over the course of the next three seasons pretty damn near perfectly.

Ten Statements About....THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMMAGE (1970)

"And after I catch the baddie...you wanna go to a disco?"

"You're never leaving this house alive."

1) With his beige turtleneck, matching sports jacket and massive jew-fro, Tony Musante could never be the hero of a film in the modern age.

2) Given how much Dario Argento becomes known for grotesque images, it's interesting how...staid the set pieces are in his first film. There's only one real violent murder sequence, with the others utilizing sound, mood and other tricks to get their points across. And the fact that the film's solution revolves around a mistake in perception--a mistake similar to the one made by the killer before the carnage begins--makes us think that Argento could have been a much different filmmaker if things were different.

3) That being said...it's comforting to know that, on Argento world, the police have always been clueless. Even when they utilize what was for 1970 'cutting edge computer technology,' they're lucky Musante was on the scene to save their asses.

"Come on in.  I just put the cat in the oven."

4) Also comforting is how Argento has this love of bizarre human beings that bear no resemblance to actual human beings. The painter who, unbeknownst to anyone, is key to the mystery with a taste for cats and a hatred of doors could only exist in the movies.

5) Looking back at what is now called 'The Animal Trilogy,' of which this is the first, they're actually three variations on the same story, right down to the nature of the third act's final reveal..

6) Even back then....Argento's world is not women friendly. You could replace Suzy Kendall's Julia with a particularly intelligent dog with no change to the story.

7) There's something truly creepy about the ultimate killer, whose screen time is usually punctuated solely by halting giggling, and has a posture and movement like a great cat.

"Maaaaria...I just met a killer named Maria..."

8) I love how non-plussed old ladies are by a gloved, trenchcoated killer trying to decapitate a man with a meat clever in Argento's World.

9) You can still see the seeds of what will become Argento World's most notorious tropes in this film--the bright colors (one sequence involves a man in a yellow windbreaker so bright it practically glows), the lack of logic (it's obvious that Argento is reaching when it comes time to explain why exactly the killer went around slicing people up), the main character with the strange confidante, the artistic pursuit of the hero, etc.

10) Perhaps the most intriguing sequence involves Julia being stalked by the killer in her own home. At one point, Argento simply focuses on a yellow window in the lower left hand corner, plunging the rest of the room in darkness and letting the sounds tell the story.

Overall...this was the first Argento film I saw when I was younger, and it's still one of my favorite films in his canon. It still holds a punch, even as some of the aspects creates a sense of cheesiness to it's 'modern' 70's style.

Ten Statements About....THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST (2009)

Yes...Noomi Rapace remembers 1980's movie punk fashion.

1) Unlike with the previous film in this trilogy, the gimmick of keeping our hero and heroine separated save for two instances works--the film gives us concrete reasons why Lisbeth and Mikael are on their own here.

2) I do like the way that, over the course of these three movies, the roles established for our heroes are flipped until, by this film, Mikael is the leg man--he even interacts with Plague, just as Lisbeth did.

3) Was there really a point to keeping Neidermann around? He wasn't a compelling character in ...Played With Fire, and helped move the film away from the harder, harsher realism of the first film. Every time he shows his lumpen face, I wanted to fast forward through the scene, and his ultimate fate came as an anticlimax.

4) I am relieved that Rapace got back in touch with the intensity she has in ...Dragon Tattoo. Even though she does little in the movie--she barely talks through long stretches of it--we know what's going on in her head. And even though we begin to see a softening of her (there comes to be almost a flitatious air towards her interactions with Dr. Jonassen), we never lose sight of what Lisbeth is at her core.

5) Even though we still get that international thriller flavor of ...Hornet's Nest (Hell, the last two films pretty much make up one long story), the tone works a bit better, mainly because the sex trafficking angle is nowhere to be seen.

6) I was a little startled by how little screen time Bublanski got given how he was built up in ....Hornet's Nest. But then, I rather liked the pair of investigators who take the place of Bublanski (particularly the female half, who I almost suspected had a thing for Mikael).

"Mess with me, and I'll legal your ass..."

7) On the other hand, this is the most we see of the other Millenium cast--and we finally get some flesh on that bare bones storyline about Mikael's romance with Erika, thus making her into a living, breathing human being for the first time. And I love how Mikael's sister is almost as much a hero in this movie as Mikael and Lisbeth.

8) Even though the international thriller aspect is here to stay with the whole Section storyline, I like the fact that this case is cracked open by good ol' fashioned detective work. Even though there are some arbitrary action sequences, it's obvious they're there as a sop.



"...and then I was the bassist for A Flock of Seagulls..."



9) I'm even somewhat surprised that I don't find That Damned Sequence from ...Dragon Tattoo as much. It's a key part of the resolution to the trial, and it's not gone over nearly as much as in ...Hornet's Nest.

10) The ending is just so...non-commital. But then, that might be the point, that life isn't so neat and tidy, and not everything is resolved. And trust me, I know exactly how that very last scene would work when the third film is made.

Overall...so much better than that messed-up, all over the place second film that gives me renewed hope for Rapace's career.

Ten Statements About....DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT (2011)

Brandon Routh looks closely for a
film franchise worthy of his talent.

1) Brandon Routh deserves a better career. He is certainly a talented actor with a smooth, laid back charisma. He is definitely someone who could carry an action franchise. It saddens that this, the second attempt to give him said franchise, is in its ways as much a failure as Superman Returns.
 

2) Director Kevin Munroe was very smart in casting Sam Huntington as his sidekick Marcus. Since Huntington played Jimmy Olsen in Superman Returns, there's already a familiarity between the two actors that sells you on the relationship between the two characters. And Huntington's got a good sense of timing that almost makes his generally comedic character work. However....

3) The biggest problem with this film? It goes far too much for the comedy and not enough for the horror. The imbalance makes of the film's tone blunts the serious aspects and makes the grossness of the comedy (He's a zombie, so he eats worms! Get it? Get it?) more funny weird than funny ha-ha. Compare the way the humor is handled here to the previous film based on Sclavi's comics, Cemetery Man, and you realize how off it is.

"WOOF!  I Mean, Grrrrrrr...I's a werewolf..."

4) Another problem? We never get the sense that these monsters are different from us. The script by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer humanizes these undead so much that there's no reason for most of them to be undead. The few supernatural characters who seem otherworldly--like Peter Stormare's Gabriel--do so not because of hte script, but because of the actor's choices in portraying them. Take away Taye Diggs' pointy teeth or Kurt Angle's hairpiece...and their characters are virtually unchanged.

5) Maybe it's because Anita Briem is Icelandic and can't hide her accent worth a damn, but we never buy her as what she's supposed to be--which makes the big twist in the third act not work at all.

6) I give Donnelly and Oppenheimer credit for trying to create a real world in this film, a sense of community amongst the various undead factions in New Orleans. Of course, every time they go for the easy gag (the literal 'body shop'; the zombie support group), it undermines all the mythology they're trying to build.

7) It's time to move away from the bumpy-forehead vampire look. Every time one of these 'TrueBloods' tries to attack Briem's Elizabeth, I keep expecting Buffy and the Scoobies to show up.

8) The whole 'Heart of Belial' thing is so submerged during the first two acts that when it takes over as the main macguffin, it shatters the forward momentum. That this is obviously brought in so that there's a big-ass special effects sequence in Act Three only sours the film all the more. If the film didn't lose faith on the idea of a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque gang war, or on the concept of a conspiracy by monster hunters to get the supernatural factions to destroy each other, it would have been a stronger film. And speaking of that big-ass special effects sequence...

"I'm Brandon Routh...and THIS--THIS IS MY BOOM STICK!"

9) The big monster just doesn't work--partially because the design is so derivative of other designs, and partially because the sequence just keeps adding new crap on (Okay, you don't like the big scary face? How about we add spikes all over? No? How about wing. Wings not working for you? How about we make those wings, like, eighty feet long?).

10) The script does play fair in planting the key to destroying the big monster--but that information is buried in a scene that seems more about an old vampire urging Dylan to get laid, and as such, the resolution of plot comes off as confusing. It doesn't help that our hero does pretty much nothing to hasten this conclusion, and just watches as it all falls apart.

Overall...a mediocre bid at a franchise that wastes Brandon Routh's genuine charm as a movie star. Although, I suspect watching this may give people a better appreciation of Constantine, which is not good, but isn't as bad as everyone thinks it is.

I saw this as the AMC Loew's 19th Street East...and I was surprised that we were only given three trailers--another showing of the original Green Lantern iteration, one for Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, which looks intriguing not the least because it's got Guillermo del Toro's fingers on it, and one for Skateland, which I swore I skipped when it was called Adventureland.