For the Cinematic Katzenjammer Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse Blogathon

Here is my take on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I tried to find a theme that would be a bit different but I know that some of the choices were going to be obvious, at least they were to me. The four films I’ve chosen to represent the four horsemen have a common actor to unite them. His powerful voice and steel jawed expression make him the ideal stand in for God in the end of days. All of the films have their own following so there is not much need to introduce each of them. So I will give my simple justification and provide a few links to make a short visit worth your time.

Pestilence

To represent the ravages of disease that pestilence consists of, I could have chosen the plagues visited upon the Egyptians by God through Moses.  Floods, fire, locusts, frogs and of course the death of the first born that Passover reminds us of would fit perfectly and it would launch my theme with an epic film featuring the actor that I chose to stand in for us. The only problem is that pestilence makes a cameo appearance in “The Ten Commandments” and I want it to be a bigger feature. So instead, Charlton Heston will cope with plague in the much more recent (by several thousand years) “The Omega Man”. This story by the late Richard Matheson has been made into a movie three times. Will Smith is the hero of the most recent version but it was Chuck Heston who had to deal with the biological warfare disaster that turns most of the population into light sensitive zombie types with a grudge. 

Heston spends the first part of the movie hunting down and killing the infected and then the second half trying to find a cure so the resistant colony he comes across can repopulate the planet. His messianic exit shot reminds us all that this was a plague brought down on us by us and that redemption can only come from sacrifice of the pure (His Neville is after all the last real man on Earth). If you click on the picture above or the poster below, you will get my post from the original Movie A Day Project, or my daughter’s post when I was gone for a week and she sat in for me. Enjoy but think on your sins.

War

Heston was featured in too many historical war movies to count.(El Cid, The Buccaneer, and Midway to start and that does not include any westerns). In sticking to the general theme of the Apocalypse however, there is another obvious war based film that stars our man with the iron grin. We are first introduced to war in this film as Heston and his fellow astronauts are attacked by a hunting party of a very surprising nature.

Who would have thought that the mild human pranksters who stole his clothes like monkeys, would turn out to be the monkeys of this planet and be hunted by a species that was on the other end of the gun on Heston’s home world? Mindblowing right? That’s nothing. At the end of the film in what is probably the greatest story twist since “Psycho”, it turns out that “Taylor” was right all along in being skeptical of the human race. They basically annihilated themselves, deeding the planet to the next highest species in the family tree. The legacy we left them however is not just limited to the planet, it carries the same tendency toward hatred, fear and moral superiority that brought us down. The apes themselves have prejudices and myths that bind them to a parallel path of humans.

The castes of intellectuals, separated from scientists and competing for power with the military sound mighty familiar to anyone who has studied human history. War is the way those problems get solved. As Heston’s character confronts the best visual sucker punch of all times, he tells us the results of the greatest of all war.     George Taylor: “You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

Famine

Back to Back in my list are the two greatest closing lines that reveal how we are all going to hell in a handbasket. With “Planet of the Apes” we blew it up. With “Soylent Green” we ate it up. The opening of the film provides the road to ruin with what basically amounts to a powerpoint slide show. In all deference to  Al Gore and the hyperbole surrounding Global Warming, this is how you show people the end is coming.

The set up takes two and a half minutes and then we know the future is not a happy place because of want. Charlton Heston investigates a murder and discovers a bigger horror story than anyone could contemplate. If you haven’t seen the movie, this is a must  for the top of your list. Great story telling with minimal effects. I’ve actually written about this twice, once on my Movie a Day Project, which you can read by clicking on the face of our guide thru the Apocalypse here:

I also covered it extensively on another blog site that I am guest writing for and you can find that link by clicking on the poster here:

If you have already seen the film, or know the gut check secret of “Soylent Green”, feel free to indulge a minute or so and catch Chuck telling it like it is below.

Death

This may be a cheat but you don’t really need Mr. Heston on screen to be completely fantastic. The voice he wielded could do serious damage in a fight with the voice of Morgan Freeman.

The end of all life on the planet is pretty much what we are talking about here.

So there you have it, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse all ridden by the the same ghost.
 Charlton Heston

Everyone has an opinion about remakes. Most cinephiles hate them with a passion. “The new version will never live up to the original and Hollywood is creatively bankrupt”. Of course people who have never seen the original don’t care and they may first fall in love with the new work sometimes without even knowing that it was made before, “Oh my god, it’s a remake? The original can’t be as good.” My opinion is that a remake is only likely to succeed if there was something about the original that is evergreen. The subject, the role the concept has to be something that people can relate to. This film is not an English language remake of a foreign film, so stupid Americans can watch without reading. It is a traditional remake, a chance to tell the same story in a different way for a new audience. Having seen the original however, it is impossible to approach the new film with impartial eyes. There will always be comparisons. So this review will focus on the comparisons.

The story is largely unchanged. The plot moves in the same direction with the same basic characters so there are no surprises as far as that goes. If you saw Brian DePalma’s 1976 original, you have seen the story.  There are differences in style though that are interesting and help the movie feel fresh despite the previous version. For instance, the start of this film is very different, it has a flashback story technique that takes a little advantage of our expectations and makes what follows a bit more meaningful. Julianne Moore is playing the Piper Laurie role of Carrie’s mom. She is pathetic and frightening and loving and hateful, and usually all at the same time. The religious fanaticism here is contained to her world and unlike the original, this woman is not surviving on the charity of guilty Christians. She is even more clearly disturbed than Laurie was in the part. That being said, I think she feels less of a presence than in the 1976 version. Carrie’s powers dominate after she gets asked to the prom, and the terror that we felt for Sissy Spacek when she returns from the prom is less ominous as a result.

The DePalma version starts with a lurid trip through the girls locker room and the movie is on the brink of being an exploitation film, but it is held back from that by a sympathetic central character. This version never feels dangerous in the same way. It is going to be a serious film from the time it starts and the directors restraint at the beginning creates a more subdued feeling. The bullying that Carrie endures is exaggerated by the modern technology but the bullies are mostly the same. Chris, the main antagonist, acts out her rage at being called on the carpet for being a bitch. When she can’t get away with it, even with her father confronting the principal she goes off the deep end. Nancy Allen’s version of Chris is mean girl standard, Portia Doubleday is a monster in the making that crawls out of the larvae stage to become a full fledged antagonist. The one flaw from the original film was that Chris’ comeuppance was over so quickly, that is a mistake that is remedied here.  

In the original, it always seemed to me to be very ambiguous as to Sue and Tommy’s motivation for getting Carrie to the prom. William Katt came off as a good natured doofus, and Amy Irving did not quite break with the Chris character. Their involvement in the end becomes a bit of a puzzle. In this version, Sue is clearly conflicted about being one of Chris’s drone bees. She is motivated by guilt and a desire to reach out to Carrie. Tommy in this version is also very sweet and he seems to understand his role much more clearly. His exclamation of “What the F@#*” as the crimson shower comes down on them signals to the audience and to Carrie that he was a victim of Chris as well. This is another point that makes the emotions work better although the mind is not taxed as much. I’m not sure which version I prefer but I do know that Tommy is sympathetic in both and Sue is a lot more sympathetic in the new version. The mean girls that follow Chris are not as distinct in the new version so although there is some furious vengence rained down on them, it does not feel as significant.
 
Carrie is played by one of my favorite young actresses,  Chloë Grace Moretz (Hit Girl) for the uninitiated. She is very good in the part. Whereas Sissy Spacek was all big eyes and small voice, Chloë grows more confidence with her power and the decimation of the prom feels like a more deliberate act as a result. The harshness of the original is tempered here in that not everyone dies at the end. That may feel like a sell out but it will make a more sympathetic Carrie at the end of the movie. The remorse and compassion that Carrie feels at the end makes us more likely to resent the “Burns in Hell” graffiti that is the exit of the film. There was no way that the stinger from the original would be matched or that it would work, so they don’t try for that. Instead they try for a more supportive outcome that makes us more likely to feel for our protagonist. 

The one thing that did clearly fail in the film was the CGI effects. They take us out of the movie and were overdone. If you have seen the viral video of the coffee shop, you will see a more convincing and frightening version of the power that Carrie wields. I don’t know that we can but the genii back in the bottle but the old school effects are more effective at creating real shock than the modern computer. I was very satisfied with the film. The story still gives us a slow burn and the actors do a good job making their characters feel fresh even though this is a remake. Since I’m not a hater I am willing to give this movie my approval. It was not necessary but it was not a waste of time either.

I’m afraid this sequel should have been called “Machete Sucks”.

If you have read this site in the past, you know that I am a as big a fan of trash cinema as the next person. I enjoy those terrible SyFy Channel shark movies, I like to wallow in bad taste humor and violent action films are my Big Mac. So this series of movies, based on a trailer invented for the “Grindhouse” feature a few years ago should be right up my alley. I will admit that there were some great bits in “Machete” when it came out three years ago. My favorite part being Machete’s use of a guys intestines to swing down a couple of floors and escape. The problem I had with that film was that it started moralizing about political subjects it had not earned the right to be serious about.

Rumor had it that this new version steered clear on the Illegal Alien subtext and stuck strictly to an action formula. That had my hopes up but they were quickly dashed. “Machete Kills” is supposed to be fun trash cinema and it is dumb trash cinema. Writer Director Richard Rodriguez has taken a great idea, and a great character and turned it into a meaningless cartoon with less personality than Scooby Doo. Somewhere he got the idea that all he had to do was show cool images and that would be enough. There are a lot of neat looking things in the movie, but they are pasted together in such a slapdash fashion that they mean nothing and don’t hold your attention or build suspense. It feels like a TV movie made by someone who has seen enough action films to know what to include but has no idea what an action film is really all about.

The bad guys are all built up to be horrible but they are dispatched without any fun or glee. People are shooting all the time but no one seems to feel any anxiety about being shot at. They die too quickly or escape without consequence. Much of the film reminds me of “Sin City” which was all about the look and did not have a single moment of real emotion in it. Pacing feels wrong, everything happens quickly and without purpose. Characters change allegiance, personality and their faces for no reason whatsoever. There are jokes that just lay there and do nothing and random people are killed without any explanation. The CGI bloodshed may have something to do with this. So much of it seems designed for a visual gag, but the gags only work if we are caught up in what is going on.

Danny Trejo is a national treasure that is wasted here. Action stops repeatedly when he is threatened and he is not escaping by using his wits. When there is a funny bit it is thrown away so quickly that there is not much chance to enjoy it. Mostly he is asked to walk around mayhem that goes on around him. Slow motion walking does not build a good character. It’s as if he was directed to express no emotion at all, but he needs to be angry and determined. He looks lost in a PG sex scene and bored in every other scene. No one gets to spend much screen time with him and that also undermines our ability to care.

This is kitchen sink film making. Throw in everything we can and everyone we can get. Jessica Alba is gone in the blink of an eye, Michelle Rodriguez can’t blink her eyes and Amber Heard, who I liked in “Drive Angy” walks through this with an irritated scowl as her main facial expression. Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr., Walton Goggins and Lady GaGa all play the same character. It is a joke that gets repeated four times and was not funny the first time. The film wants to be a cheap parody of James Bond and Mission Impossible, it’s not even a good parody of “Spy Hard “.  The grindhouse fare of the 70s had grit under its fingernails and simple stories that played out in obvious ways but at least you could tell what was happening. This movie feels as if it was assembled in a computer from a writing program that did not care about motivation, continuity or entertainment. We saw it today using an on-line two for one coupon from AMC. I now understand why they have to bribe people to come see it after only eight days in the theaters. If I had payed full price for two tickets instead of half price for matinee tickets, I would be the one who wanted to kill.

I am so overwhelmed when I encounter talent far beyond my ability to comprehend. I know authors and directors and actors are special people who bring their talent to the audience in a way that is amazing, but more than any other skill or ability in the world of the arts, the talent to draw or paint stuns me. There are very talented computer animators and musicians, but I guess their tools feel so much more significant to their work in comparison to a man with a canvas, some pencils and paint.  To watch someone manipulate an air brush or colored pencil and turn a blank canvas into something spectacular is a gift from the gods. Tonight I had the pleasure of watching a film about one of those artists with a talent far beyond my understanding. Drew Struzan has been making commercial art for forty years and all of it is in my head because the art he is best known for is hanging on my walls right now. Drew Struzan does movie poster art. He paints the images and draws the figures and integrates the imagination with the eye. Everyone who reads this will know his work although many of you will not know his name.

If you were to name a movie series from the last forty years of film, except for James Bond, Drew appears to have painted something for those projects. Even when his artwork is not used for the main poster, there are special edition posters and art books and box art for home video that he created. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future all use his iconic work. He does not produce those images from a computer but rather with his own two hands using an eye for detail that most of us cannot comprehend. This film gives us some brief glimpses of him at work and the small details that he adds to all of his work make the images come to life. Some might dismiss this work as mere illustration but when you see the creativity and magic that the images provoke, you will know that this is fine art.

The film is a love letter to poster art and a warm tribute to the man himself. The director Eric Sharkey managed to make a human story as well as a thank you note from all of us. I was surprised at some of the dark issues that got mentioned, because this type of biographical film might be seen as a mere puff piece. Drew’s start in life was not easy and breaking into the art world was a passion that most of us cannot imagine. The term “starving artist” has been around forever, but it certainly seemed to apply here. Even though it was more than forty years ago, I found myself heaving a sigh of relief when Drew got his first steady job working as an illustrator for album covers.Since I am a huge Bee Gees fan, the work that I most admired was the cover art for the “Main Course” album.
It was however the amazing cover for Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare, that got him noticed by the more lucrative world of movie advertising and it wasn’t long before he was knee deep in the film business with a lot of big names knocking at his door. A collaboration with another illustrator on the poster for Star Wars, lead to a long time association with George Lucas.Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford and many others all line up to sing the praises of this talented artist. Each is able to express a sense of wonder at how his style and technique bring a living quality to his paintings. Spielberg has even gone so far to say that he needs to make the movie live up to the illustrations that Drew provided for the film.

There are highs and lows in the stories and some truly amazing pieces of information. The poster for “John Carpenter’s The Thing” was done without any visual reference to the story, no photos from the set, a complete absence of guidelines for what the “Thing” looked like and it was done in a day. Many would consider the concept to be among the most clever of his career. I can’t think of how someone could accomplish this in months, much less in the space of just over a day. As you listen to Drew Struzan describe these events, it is clear he is not bragging or exaggerating. He is a quiet, unassuming man with confidence in his ability and a sense of guilelessness that is disarming. He tells the stories proudly but without glory. He is a man simply describing his work, not aggrandizing it. That is for everyone else to do and they all do it very well.

I almost went full fanboy at the screening tonight. It took place at the Archlight theater in Hollywood, and I just happened on an announcement on Facebook. Mr. Struzan himself was going to attend and there would be some Q and A. I brought my copy of his book of poster art, thinking I might ask him to sign it. However after seeing how retiring he is in person, and noting that the occasion was a screening not an autograph queue, I held myself back. After the Q and A, I got a chance to speak to the director and shared my appreciation for his work in making the movie happen. The producer, editor and cinematographer were also in attendance and I wish I could have made it over to speak to them as well. I also got to shake the hand of the man himself. Because there was another film screening at the Festival in the same theater, we could not linger in the aisles. I did however force myself on him as he exited the theater and had a chance to speak to him for a few brief moments. As I’m sure he heard from a thousand other lovers of his work, I told him of my admiration for all he had accomplished. He was extremely gracious and shared with me that although he is retired from the movie painting business he still needs to work to take care of his home and family. An artist must work, their art demands it. I know that Drew Struzan does not continue to paint because he needs the money, he does it because he needs the outlet for his talent. I am just thrilled to have seen the film in a theater and even more so to have shaken the hand that produced so much of what I love about the movie poster business.

If you find the trailer tense, wait till you see the movie. This is a film that lived up to my expectations and had a solid emotional wallop to go with it. There are beautiful moments and poignant ones but most of all there are tense interludes that will keep you on the edge of your seat for most of the running time. The 3D IMAX experience was well worth the extra cost because the story is really told from a first hand point of view and you get to experience that point of view in vivid detail with all of the debris and drama flying at you.

Two weeks ago, the newly refurbished Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. reopened as an IMAX venue. One of my on-line friends took his family to the one week run of the 3D version of the Wizard of Oz. After reading his glorious appreciation of the experience I was frankly envious. I would have loved to do that. I knew however that “Gravity” was scheduled to be there in the following week and I have been looking forward to this film since the first teaser. George Clooney and Sandra Bullock are the whole show when it comes to actors on screen. They however are not really alone because the magicians who perform special effects magic are right there beside them. This is the most realistic vision of space we are likely to see in a fictional form. The only images that compete with it are the films done by NASA themselves. The camera work is likely to leave you dizzy but not in the way that the shaky cam has over the last ten years. The rotation of the Earth and the difficulty in finding a fixed point in space contribute to a sense of vertigo that makes the story feel more personal.

If you are wondering what fills the time in a film about astronauts cut off from their ship, don’t fret. There is a very effective survival plot to go along with the events that lead to the tragedy. This is not an hour and a half mediation on man’s place in the Universe as their time slowly runs out. The well trained professionals here are going to find every opportunity they can to rescue themselves. Well each of the characters may despair at one point or another, we ultimately have a powerful story of human will to survive presented to us. There are moments of surprise and quick actions accompanied by more slowly building incidents that also bring the kettle to a boil. This is a world where Murphy’s Law is clearly in place and nothing can be counted on to be simple. While that seems manipulative in a film like “Armageddon” it is much more natural and easy to accept in this story.

Both actors have to do most of their work inside of the pressurized space suits that sustain life for a limited time in space. There is a plethora of digital readouts and space based images that cross the clear face-masks of the astronauts. This adds data but not enough to be distracting or to answer too many questions. There are so many details to take in at any moment that we wonder how it is that these two can keep from being overwhelmed. It is Clooney’s clear and calm voice that reminds us that they have been trained and prepared for all sorts of eventualities and that this is the time that their training needs to kick in. His ability to remain focused and even at time make a well placed joke, pulls both characters back from the panic that any one of us would surely go through in the same situation.

Sandra Bullock gets the lions share of the accolades however since so much of the stories emotional impact depends on our ability to identify with her. The set up makes it clear that this is her first time in space and as a mission specialist, she has the least amount of training to handle the catastrophe. In most of her quiet moments we can see a frightened woman who is struggling with the question of how to go on in the face of overwintering odds. There is a fantastic effect when her tears float off of her face and into the camera that brings us really close to the character she is playing. I have not seen many female performances this year that would rival the work she does here without resorting to histrionics. I thought it was deeply felt and subtly conveyed. She is a movie star to be sure but she is also a very good actress.

“Gravity” is the most exciting film I have seen this year and it will certainly be a contender for a number of awards in technical fields including directing. Alfonso Cuarón has created a dynamic film that features a terrific lead performance by his female star and all the editing and camerawork should be noted as well. We have a contender here and it is also a very entertaining film.

Addendum: It suddenly dawned on me that I have not seen a film in the main house at the Chinese Theater for almost a dozen years. The last film I am certain we saw there was a press screening of “3000 Miles to Graceland” where we met both Kevin Costner and Kevin Pollock. Clearly it has been too long. The Outside of the theater continues to be a tourist destination as you can see here.

From the outside the theater has not changed at all. The foot and hand prints of the stars still line the courtyard and the crowds bend over to examine them and stand in the same spot that John Wayne or Gregory Peck stood when they were immortalized. The only things missing from the days when I used to haunt this location on a near weekly basis are the ticket booth with awning that has long gone and the giant marquee that announced in huge lettering the feature that is playing in the big theater. The only marquee now visible is the one at the street box office for the multiplex Chinese Theater located in the same complex. The theater has been taken over by a Chinese conglomerate and they have wisely upgraded the screen and the seating area but left most of the traditional trappings in place.

The interior still looks like a Chinese Palace and the original wall hanging appear to have been cleaned up and restored but not changed. The IMAX screen is large but it does not hover above you like those at museum locations around the country. The bathrooms continue to be located inconveniently in the basement, requiring a descent down a narrow flight of stairs. It looks pretty much the way I remembered it so those modifications that took place did not drop down to the lower level of the lobby. The one difference in the lobby area that was clear was the depth of the concession stand area. While not as wide and roomy as many theaters now a days, it is back away from the main doors enough that you no longer have to cross through the lines of patrons waiting for popcorn to get to the main exit or the stairs to the bathroom. Prior to the film today, two trailers ran for films that will be on the big screen here: The Hunger Games:Catching Fire and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Each film looked like a winner in the brief shots we got and the 3D IMAX should complement them very well.

As the father of two girls, I approached this film with a great deal of trepidation. Although my kids are grown, I know what a horrible feeling it would be to have your children disappear. The nightmare that these two families face gets worse with every minute that the children are gone.  I was not sure that this would be the kind of film that I would be able to stomach. If you are a parent and wary of seeing this because it might hit too close to home, then you are better off skipping down to the next start time and seeing a good family film or a thriller where child abduction is not the starting point. In the long run the story will reveal it’s secrets and there will be moments of redemption, but they come at a great cost.

Usually I avoid reading other reviews before I see a film, but this past week on the radio and on a podcast that I listen to, both viewers mentioned the same tell. They each generally liked the film but they said they knew who was responsible for the crime based on a well known trait of film making most recognizable on dramatic TV programs. (I won’t tell you what the clue is because I don’t want you to have the same issue that I did). As a result of hearing this info, I spent a chunk of the movie watching for the give away instead of just following the story. As it turns out, it did not matter because I did not recognize the an actor playing a key character and I was diverted from the tell at the beginning. After I settled down to watch the story unfold, I did find myself caught up in the details of the plot. It is a complicated set of events and the resolution follows some strong plotting techniques but also some typical movie shortcuts. There are a couple of glaring coincidences that help things move forward, but there are also so many side issues and red herrings that those contrivances do not matter much.

All of the advertising for the film has already revealed that the parents of the kidnapped children are willing to go to extreme lengths to try and find them. This raised some pretty tough moral issues and there are some scenes of brutality that are hard to take. We are spared the visualization of the process for the most part but we do get a lot of the after effects and it isn’t pretty. Hugh Jackman’s character is a self sufficient type, prepared for emergencies, able to provide for his family and the owner of his own business. His portrayal of a father pushed to the breaking point and pushing back is the strength of the story, but it is Jake Gyllenhaal’s police detective that is the strength of the movie. Jackman’s intensity is understandable from the beginning and he goes on full Wolverine mode at times to get what he wants. Detective Loki, is a different matter. As the story progresses he becomes less detached, more volatile and a lot more conflicted in his motivations. Gyllenhaal is impressive playing a completely different type of dogged determination than he played in “Zodiac” as a man obsessed with finding the identity of a killer. The script lets him down in a couple of places, but his work pulls us back into the story and away from the conventional tools that might unwrap the mystery.

The scenes where the two fathers pursue their own project to get information are solid but rarely a surprise. The false trails and secondary characters that seem to create a diversion are actually all cleverly tied into each other. I thought it was a very solid job of plotting. There are two outstanding “thrill” moments which occur as those threads are being unraveled and then some other moments of dramatic fireworks as well. It is unfortunate that the resolution does not have quite the same spark to it, although there is a much darker element and personality revealed. The personality of our heroes is shown in the most naked circumstances and this is where the redemption comes through for them. You have to have been paying attention to have it all make sense and there are still a couple of small bits of info that I would like clarified, but it was overall satisfying.

The other thing I heard talk of before I saw the movie was the running time. It is two and a half hours. Both of the commentators I happened across suggested that it could lose nearly an hour of run time. I did not notice that the story moved slowly. I think if the pace had been quicker, then there would be even more difficulty in making sense of the plot. This feels like an attempt at creating an original piece of story telling and not simply a programmer like those 1990s Paramount films that crammed plot, thrills and Ashley Judd into ninety minutes. I can’t say it was perfect but I did think it worked very well and despite my hesitation over the subject matter, I was glad I saw it and I think most of you will be as well.

There is nothing I can say that has not already been said about this film. It is the quintessential family entertainment of the last century and a masterpiece from that greatest of years 1939. I do think that makes this “75th” Anniversary Release a bit premature but I am not complaining. This morning I skipped down the Yellow Brick Road with Dorothy and her friends and although I have seen the movie dozens of times it was like a new adventure. It was just a few short years ago that the film was re-mastered for high definition release but a little something extra was added this time. This was a 3D IMAX film.

We ended up seeing it in Fauxmax because I could not bring myself to drive down to Hollywood after the last couple of long days. The the local upgrades to neighborhood theaters that claim to be IMAX screens do provide a nice picture and superior sound, but they do not have the enveloping scope of the real IMAX screens that are seven stories high and require audience seating at a stiff 45 degree angle. There were other films that I might have seen this weekend but this is a one week engagement and those others can wait.

A picture to show that I am a “Musical” lover, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

 The colors when they appear are brilliant and the clarity is amazing. If you were not able to see it before, the Scarecrow actually has burlap cross weave in the makeup on his face. You can see all the birds in the background during the” apples” sequence and the flying monkeys will creep you out even more because they still look real. The 3D conversion is competent and it adds a nice texture to a special occasion but it is not needed. This movie just rocks.

No rainbows here in Southern California this weekend

The songs are wonderful and all of you who play the slots in Vegas or some other casino, you know how the sound can be addicting. The Video slot versions of the Wizard of Oz use the sound to suck you in and keep you playing, just to hear that sweet music again and again. I continue to deny the explanation at the end. Everyone else thinks it was just a dream but Dorothy, Toto and us all know that OZ is a real place that you get to over the rainbow. If you don’t have any rain on your horizon in the next few days and thus no chance of rainbow, the other way you get to Oz is by plopping down your $15 bucks and putting on some geeky glasses. This week, it is the shorter route.

The drought is officially over. No, not the dearth of good films, just my absence from movie theaters. As the summer ends and we creep into fall, a confluence of circumstances has come together to keep me away from my holy temple for three long weeks, 21 days, 504 hours (not that I was counting or anything). I have returned to school and that limits opportunities. Football has restarted and now the holy ground of the L.A. Coliseum calls to me many Saturdays, we will ignore the desecration that took place two weeks ago. Finally, good movies have dried up, making a trip to the theater difficult to plan unless I want to repeat something or trek forty miles to see something new that I might be interested in. “Riddick” represents a methadone injection, it scratches the itch but is not as satisfying as an addict might want. I saw “Pitch Black” when it came out ten years ago, and I thought it was an effective piece of science fiction/horror hokum. I only saw it the one time so I can’t recall any details. “The Chronicles of Riddick” made it onto my plate as a Saturday afternoon satellite film. Since I subscribe to everything, it came up and I watched. Again, just the one time and my memory of it is even fuzzier, though it was the more recent experience. So if I am not a big fan you ask, why did this new film draw me back to theaters?  Well it turns out that my delightful oldest child is a fan and we seldom get to go together to the movies anymore. We do share some tastes and when an opportunity knocks I am going to open the door. As a bonus, today we were joined by her husband, a rather large man who seldom travels to a movie so it was a fun change of pace.

One of the nice things about a movie like this is that the history of the character is mostly irrelevant to the story that is being told. “Betrayed again, shoulda seen it coming. Especially since the first time it happened was the day I was born.” That is the opening line of the movie and it is as much as you really need to know. Riddick is a badass who has crappy things happen to him and then he solves those problems with extreme prejudice. He has killed something in front of our eyes before we have even seen him, so you know what is coming. There is a short flashback sequence to explain how he was abandoned on this hostile planet. This is the only sequence that Karl Urban appears in so if he is the reason you are thinking of taking a flyer on this film, don’t. He has maybe ninety seconds of screen time. The first half of the movie is pretty much Vin Diesel doing his growling thing. When you pay to see a movie starring Vin, it is unlikely that dialogue is what you want to see and hear. You want action sequences and hard guy attitude. Well, you will get the hard guy attitude, but the action sequences are not quite as involving as they could be.

So Riddick is trapped on the planet and has to figure out how to survive. This entails scoping out the landscape, assessing the local monsters and figuring out how to shelter himself. One of the ways in which he integrates himself into the world is by doing Will Smith in “I am Legend”. His CGI costar is actually kind of fun, but you know in the long run it isn’t going to be a happy ending. It is standard man in the wilderness film making except that the wilderness is a giant planet teeming with vicious creatures that special effects computers render in abundance. The look of the movie is interesting but you can notice at times that they cut some corners on visual effects in order to make them inexpensive. It won’t undermine your enjoyment of the movie any unless you are uptight like that. Once Riddick has figured out that there is a mercenary way station on the planet (a sort of bounty hunters cabin in the woods), he sends out a notice that he is there, basically trying to get a ride off the planet. For reasons that are never gone into, Riddick is the most notorious criminal in the universe and every planet seems to have put out a bounty on him. As soon as he makes himself known, two competing crews of mercenaries show up to capture and kill him. Of course the bounty hunters will not only be outmatched by Riddick himself, we are going to get a repeat of the first film where the monsters come out at night and Riddick is their only hope.

There is not much need for character development. Hairstyles and clothing manage to tell us all we need to know about the bounty hunters. One group is cruel and probably as big a group of criminals as our hero himself. The second group is tough and more professional and they have a hidden agenda to go along with their story. Heads will butt, testosterone will flow freely and Riddick will kill enough of them to show he means business and then have the remainder to potentially save. There are a few clever tricks in Riddicks handling of the two crews. The guy has the biggest cojones in the universe and he does a good job trying to intimidate the others, although they frequently continue to underestimate him. When the CGI space creatures show up, the movie slips into auto pilot and gives us random shoot outs, sudden deaths and lots of screaming critters in the dark. The creatures are not scary the way I remember similar creatures being in “Pitch Black” but they will do for an adversary that brings competing forces together. The last section of the film feels a little rushed and incomplete which is odd because so much time was taken in the first hour to set things up.

If I was thirteen or fourteen, and seeing this stuff for the first time, I’d be excited as heck about it. This is juicy Sci Fi action and a tough guy character that every adolescent boy would probably want to emulate. Somewhere inside of me, that kid still survives. He got a kick out of the cheesy space motorcycles in the film. He liked the vicious payoff of the main antagonist in the story. He is also a sucker for a good dog and even if this one was a virtual pet, it was still something to enjoy. The older version of that kid thought the movie was fine for a Sunday afternoon and I will probably not remember any of it in a couple of months. That will make it better when someone down the road suggests a “Riddick” marathon on a rainy weekend. It will be like new for me, and then I can repeat all of these jokes.

Everyone knows there can be a gap between that which is quality and that which is enjoyable. Occasionally they go together but many, many, times, you have to accept that you just like something because you do, not because it is artistic, innovative or excellent. “The World’s End” is silly, annoying and spins off in a direction that makes almost no sense what ever, it is my favorite movie this summer. I laughed more per minute during this film that I have at any film I can think of for the last four or five years. If you have a low tolerance for Simon Pegg, then you should stay away because he is the show entirely for the first half of the film. If you are like me however and find him oddly sympathetic in spite of himself, then you will be sucked in during the first minutes of the movie and you will practically cheer at the conclusion.

It would be easy to confuse this movie with this summers earlier “This is the End”. Both of them feature a group of friends who party too hard and end up facing an unexpected Apocalypse. “The World’s End” builds up to the fireworks more slowly and it has a much stronger sense of character. The actors here are not playing thinly veiled versions of themselves, they are characters in a story. There is some background established and we are not reliant on our knowledge of other movies to make sense of who each one is. Bits and pieces of the back story emerge as the film goes forward, revealing some surprises but mostly confirming our fears and expectations about these friends. Most of us have a friend like Gary, a guy who was full of himself once upon a time and has the same party hardy attitude that got us in trouble when we were kids. That Gary is able to wrangle up his four best mates twenty years after they fell out of contact is not a surprise. Even though people do change, relational dynamics often follow built in patterns long after they have worn out any sense of purpose. Four successful guys get wrangled into doing a pub crawl they all failed to finish twenty years earlier because the one friend who needs to fulfill this wish still has the same ability to push their buttons and exploit their weak spots. Gary is not even smart about it, he is simply following programming.

Everything in this opening section worked for me. The awkward re-connections, the “white” lies, the sense of guilt and obligation are all exploited in very funny ways. We discover that Gary has been exploiting some of his old friends for years and they did not know it. Gary is a force of nature, not automatically for good, but one that anyone in his path will have to deal with. Pegg delivers his lines like the cocksure, cheery, a hole he is playing. Timing is essential for a comedy and he has perfect timing for the comebacks, asides and outrageous arguments he spouts off on. Most of this gets even better when we get to the actual pub crawl and the alcohol starts taking effect. In the second act the other characters start to step forward and make their own comic contributions. They stop being foils for Gary’s character and develop their own personality quirks that are just as amusing. Nick Frost, Pegg’s partner in “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”, finally comes alive with some self righteous attitude and serious ass kicking skills playing Andy, Gary’s closest friend in their youth. In the off the wall third act he is the main focus of the humor and he comes through just like Pegg does in the clinches.

The slow burning second act cheerfully breaks down what sense of normalcy there was for these friends. There are a couple of life lessons and sad stories injected to add a bit more meaning to the proceedings, but everything continues to be funny. The pacing of this film is a lot like “Hot Fuzz” because once we hit the third act all hell breaks loose and any sense that this movie was going to be about the bonds of friendship gets lost in a completely creative yet oddly derivative story. Look, this is a Mash up of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “Night of the Living Dead”, so how is it creative? All those parts come two thirds of the way in and they speed the film along to it’s conclusion so fast that it is hard to know exactly where we left the tracks of sanity, and who cares anyway? So it makes no sense that a bunch of middle aged men are suddenly mixed martial artists, or that an alien invasion is confronted with a hysterical reductionist Star Trek type alien computer meltdown. It is done in a silly and entertaining way. The creativity here comes from taking the absurdity of the plot twist and having a damn fun time with it.

There are technical issues with some effects, and there are story issues that seem just awkward. I don’t care. This is the second film in the so called  “Cornetto” Trilogy to turn a former James Bond into a villain, the music cues are fantastic, Rosamund Pike appears again in a Pierce Brosnan movie and she is mature beautiful instead of hot beautiful. The audience was laughing so much that I missed several lines so this experience will clearly need repeating. What better recognition can you give to a comedy than I cried my eyes out with laughter? Maybe I could have wet myself but I did not lose that much control and I’m still willing to say it was incredibly funny. Humor is subjective at times, maybe it won’t strike you the same way it did me. If that’s the case I’m sorry for you because this was the movie I enjoyed the most this year. It was original, familiar, and just so damn funny to me that I pity you if you missed the experience I had.

Frankly, Woody Allen has always been a hit or miss proposition for me. Early films were zany comedies, then there came the more mature adult stories and finally there is a long stretch of inconsistency. The last of his films that I saw and liked was “Midnight in Paris”. Before that I had gone for almost fifteen years without seeing any of his work. It’s not that I dislike his style, it simply is that he writes movies that have little resonance for me. The fantasy of “Midnight in Paris” worked for me and I suspect I might like “Match Point” because it has a thriller element. So you might ask yourself, “What was he doing at Blue Jasmine?” It is a brittle comedy that travels some very dark places and requires a lot of patience. The answer is I am blocked for the moment from seeing other films until my movie going partners are able to attend, and I needed a cinema fix. I could have stayed home and watched something I’ve seen before but a fresh film is just hard to turn down.

In the long run I may have been better off turning down the siren call of the theater. “Blue Jasmine” is not a bad film, but from my point of view, Woody Allen brought half a thing. There is an extensive number of incidents that make up the story, but the major events are all told in flashback so the movie does not feel like it has any narrative drive. There is so much character development that you never feel like the story is going someplace and then it turns out that it isn’t going anyplace, it just sort of ends. With “Annie Hall” Allen told a nonlinear story but the transitions and incidents were all building to something. Maybe I can’t remember the sequence of events exactly, but I could tell you what the story was about. I’m back to that old joke I use with my kids and I think I may have used on this site once before. “What’s it about?” It’s about a hundred minutes.

Cate Blanchett is a wonderful actress who is capable of creating real emotions on screen. This movie is basically an opportunity to show off her craft and she never seems to overplay it, even when the story calls for her to have gone over the edge. As one of two adopted sisters, she seems to be the one who should have the most solid chance at success. Of course life does not always work out the way it looks like it should and her character ends up living with her sad sack sister in San Francisco. Both women turn out to have self destructive impulses when it comes to the men in their lives. Each one makes bad choices but we don’t always know why. As Cate’s character Jasmine gets buffeted about by the life she chose, she also influences the life of her sister, despite the fact that they are not close and feel somewhat estranged from one another. Blanchett plays confident and doubtful in the same scenes, She gets a chance to have on screen breakdowns and deal with humorous but uncomfortable situations every few minutes. There is no fault in her performance, I’m just not sure what it is in aid of.

There are several actors who should be mentioned for the good work they do here as well. Bobby Cannavale who I liked so much in “Win-Win” a couple of years ago, plays the sister’s current boyfriend. He is rough around the edges but he appears to be good hearted. Even the scenes that he appears in where he is something of a menace, you never feel threatened. Instead you might have some empathy for the guy. Exactly the same thing could be said about Andrew Dice Clay. If you had suggested twenty years ago that he would be working with Woody Allen, people would have laughed, but not in the way the “Diceman” would have wanted you to. His character is the former husband of Jasmine’s sister and he has a legitimate amount of anger that gets channeled pretty well.  Louie C.K. shows up for a couple of scenes and his character seems like an opportunity for some happiness in a different direction. The resolution of his character in the story is handled by a phone call that may seem obvious to the audience but was a direct betrayal of the character as presented. Maybe that is the point. Just as Alec Baldwin turns out to be something less than he appears to be, I guess it is going to be a characteristic of all the men in the story. Peter Sarsgaard plays effete snobbery so well that it is easy to believe he could be a political animal from San Francisco. For someone who is not too fond of the Golden State, Allen gets this character exactly right. Probably because he is just a left coast version of a New Yorker.

The movie follows a lot of ideas and trails back on itself several times. There is a revelation that I suppose was designed to be shocking but felt exactly right and was not much of a surprise at the end. We haven’t traveled very far from the start of the story when the movie is over. The status of the main characters has not changed, there is a bit more sadness about everyone involved and there was a slight amount of humor but it is largely smothered in the melodrama of the main characters. It feels a bit like six weeks of a soap opera condensed to a couple hours. Of course in a soap, the story never ends, and this movie feels the same. If you are an Allen completest,    than by all means enjoy. If you can take him or leave him like me, this would be one that you can safely leave on the table.