JOHN CARTER: Can Disney's Long-Gestating Adaptation Live Up to Its Source Material's Epic Legacy?

JOHN CARTER Review:

- JOHN CARTER has a lot to live up to. It's an adaptation of a classic, influential sci-fi story that has literally been in some form of development for decades. It's an attempt to kickstart a new live-action franchise for Disney - a huge, mega-budget movie that is going to have to make serious bank to turn a profit and justify sequels. It's a film that comes from quite the pedigree of talent: it's directed by Andrew Stanton, the man behind Wall-E, and it's co-written by the great novelist and purveyor of pulp fiction, Michael Chabon. So yes, even though the film's underwhelming marketing campaign likely turned off many, for me, John Carter was something to get really excited about. I had high hopes that this would be an under-the-radar dose of pre-summer awesomesauce - a geek-out worthy pulp sci-fi epic of the highest order. Sadly, on the Disney mega-blockbuster sliding scale, the film is perhaps a bit closer to Prince of Persia than Pirates of the Carribean.

From the get-go, JOHN CARTER has serious pacing problems. The movie starts by hurtling us into the midst of a battle on Mars, with so much going on that it's hard to process. Just as we're beginning to take it all in, we switch to 1880's New York, where a young Edgar Rice Burroughs (the real-life author of the John Carter stories, as well as Tarzan) finds that his uncle - John Carter - is dead. Among the items bequeathed to Edgar as part of John's will is a journal. And that journal serves as the movie's framing device, as we see the world-spanning story play out as Edgar reads it. The journal first places us years earlier, where we meet a young, brash John Carter (Friday Night Lights' Taylor Kitsch) - a civil war vet who's now out in Arizona, prospecting for gold. Carter soon funds himself in the midst of a scuffle between the local cavalry and a tribe of Apaches. But even as tensions begin to escalate, Carter's situation takes a sudden turn for the weird. In the middle of a fire fight, Carter takes refuge in a cave, one thing leads to another, and - thanks to a strange alien device - Carter is transported to Mars. As was hinted at in the film's opening, things on Mars are a bit tense. There's two warring factions of human-like, red-skinned Martians, and another race of tall green aliens called Tharks that are caught in the middle. Now, Carter - who finds himself with superhuman strength and agility thanks to Mars' gravitational differences - must decide whether to use his powers to become the red planet's unlikely savior.

The various factions and politics of Mars, as well as the races, cultures, creatures, and jargon - it's all A LOT to take in. And the fact that the first act of the film is so dizzyingly paced doesn't help. There are a ton of things thrown at you, and it's easy to get lost or overwhelmed. But even if you manage to follow everything (good luck), the first half of John Carter still feels heavy on info-dumping and short on soul. Few if any of the characters register on an emotional level. A lot of this has to do not so much with the story itself but with *how* it's presented to us. For example, we get hints that Carter is a scarred man. He had to bury his wife and child at some point, and he's still not over that pain - that loss made him into a bit of a nihilist. And that right there is the germ of what could have been a really compelling character arc. The problem is, it's hinted at but barely addressed. We get these quick-cut flashes of John's wife and daughter, but there's no real emotion behind them. We are left to fill in a lot of the blanks about Carter. That's fine in theory, but unlike with, say, Liam Neeson in The Grey, Kitsch doesn't do a ton to sell us on our hero's supposedly tortured soul. We're supposed to believe, for example, that he has to overcome this great trauma before he can give in to his attraction to the lusty princess of Mars, Dejah. But you never buy it - Kitsch's 'tude-laden Carter seems ready to get with her from the first moment they meet. Part of the problem may be Kitsch. His Carter feels too much like some dude from 2012 and not enough like a classic, timeless hero out of the pages of a pulp novel. It's a shame that so few actors these days can capture that sort of epic hero tone. And yet, Lynn Collins does just that as Dejah. As the curvaceous princess of Mars, Collins kicks ass, looks good doing it, and does so with the perfect tone of Shakespearian gravitas mixed with pleasingly campy melodrama. Collins is easily the standout of the film. The only downside is that her badassery helps draw attention to Kitsch's relatively limp performance. You think back to the great epic hero actors of cinema - and you long for the likes of a Charlton Heston, Russell Crowe, or hell - Arnold Schwarzenegger - anyone with that sort of iconic man's-man charisma, to have been in this role.

To that point, the film has a lot of silliness that contributes to it feeling very all-over-the-place, tonally. I can see how the film's sensibility is in many ways a sort of Pixar-ish sensibility - there's a lot of cartoonish slapstick - and a lot of the film's scenes have a very animated-style, almost Looney Tunes-like quality in how they are composed. On one level, I can appreciate the goofy fun of a character like Woola - Carter's loyal, dog-like alien companion. But at the same time, there's so much slapstick silliness around Woola that it begins to take away from the dramatic weight of the movie. In an animated movie, you can get away with a lot more of that sort of thing. But this is a huge, live-action, would-be epic. And Stanton and co. already have to work hard to get us to buy into this crazy sci-fi world. Why make it even harder to swallow with such an overload of comic relief? Point being, the movie veers wildly from trying to be gritty and serious to being completely cartoonish. At one point towards the end of the film, for example, right as the tension builds to a crescendo, the movie completely kills all dramatic momentum by throwing in a totally unnecessary and super-lame comedic moment. Even the action is inconsistent tonally. Sometimes, Stanton gives us a brutal, God of War-esque arena battle, in which Carter gores a giant alien beast through the chest in violent fashion. Other times, we get cartoonish fight scenes that just seem to be missing 60's Batman-style "bang!" and "pow!" sound balloons. Ultimately, it felt to me like JOHN CARTER never truly settled on what sort of tone it wants to have. As is, it attempts to throw in Pirates-style slapstick and wit, Conan-style grittiness and violence, and Pixar-style whimsy. Combine that with the pacing issues, and the movie can start to feel like a bit of a mess.

That said, there really are a lot of great little nuggets of coolness in the film. I give credit to guys like Dominic West, Bryan Cranston, Mark Strong, and Willem Dafoe for really doing all they can to make their characters pop. These guys are all fantastic actors - they just don't get great characters to play. Dominic West in particular as the lead villain ... even though the performance was excellent, the character just felt pretty lacking and unmemorable. West's performance was nicely sinister ... it's just ... who is this guy, why is he so evil, what's his deal? It's not that we even need that much information - it's more that, man, for a villain who has so much dialogue, little of it is of much substance. I mean, I'd have been cool with a Thulsa Doom-esque badguy who, like James Earl Jones in Conan, just shows up, looks super badass, and barely speaks. But West, he doesn't even get a particularly cool or iconic look. West makes all the monologuing better than it has a right to be, but still - no kids are going to rush out to buy the action figure, you know? Meanwhile, Mark Strong plays a mysterious, shapeshifting alien who is sort of the master manipulator - kind of a cross between Emperor Palpatine, Galactus, and the Observers from Fringe. Strong, in general, is so great at being the badguy (please let there be one more Green Lantern movie so he can reprise his role as Sinestro). But, again, it takes so long to find out even basic info about his character and motivations ... that the reveals feel anticlimactic.

Okay, okay ... so that's a lot of ragging on the film. The thing is, despite my complaints, I did find it overall to be entertaining. There's a pretty solid sense of anything-can-happen fun here. Certain scenes in the movie also succeed at capturing the sort of old-school pulp-epic feel that you just don't see a lot in movies anymore. And really, it's the slower, quieter scenes - the ones that wouldn't have felt out of place in 70's or 80's sci-fi movies - that worked best. Certain parts of the movie are visually gorgeous, and sometimes, when the look of the film does evoke the old painted covers of a sci-fi pulp paperback, you can't help but geek out. Those epic moments are helped by the actors who convey the right tone to go along with the film's premise. Collins is a big part of that with her bravura performance. And I also give a lot of credit to Stanton and the film's designers. I didn't love a lot of the alien / creature design in the film, but I did absolutely love all of the world-building. The sets, the alien cityscapes, the costumes, the clothing, the technology - all of it looked awesome. Like I said, certain moments in the film had a very pleasing, almost painterly style to them that was evocative and cool.

On the flipside though - the aliens, the Tharks in particular, just looked super cartoony to me and rarely felt real or tangible - it was like an army of Jar Jars. Again, guys like Willem Dafoe gave their all to help bring their Thark characters to life, but I just never fully warmed to the character design. It's funny because this week alone, we've seen the passing of some of the great conceptual movie artists of all time in Ralph McQuarrie and Moebius. Guys who imbued movies like Star Wars and Tron with character design that ignited the imagination of generations. I didn't see a lot in John Carter that had that same spark. I give the movie credit for never feeling generic - if nothing else, this is some far-out stuff that will make kids used to crap like Transformers realize that there's far more under the sun. But again, it's less about originality and more about tone. The Tharks and others are all too silly and cartoony - they're never really eerie or scary. It's all dreams and no nightmares. It's way too much Pixar, not nearly enough Frank Frazetta.

John Carter does take a while to get going. And there's a bit too much of the "look Ma I can fly (or jump really high)" sort of scenes that fill every superhero movie (and that were recently knocked out of the park by Chronicle). But I will also say ... that the movie picks up bigtime in its third act. After a somewhat confusing, exposition-packed first hour-and-a-half or so, the final leg of the film sprints from one big action set piece to another, and Stanton seems to find his groove. The big final battles feel like a great wrap-up to some slightly better, more fleshed-out movie. But taken out of context, there is indeed some rip-roaring action to be found - nicely orchestrated by Stanton (if only the ending wasn't killed by the return of the lifeless Edgar Burroughs framing device).

One other point though - you can almost feel the push-and-pull of studio interference all over this movie, and I can't help but wonder to what extent the film got chopped up, rearranged, re-scripted, etc. by the studio. Even on a point as minor as the film's title, it feels like we're seeing the debate over what the movie should be called play out while watching. The fact that the movie closes by dramatically displaying the title "John Carter OF MARS" and *then* the plainer, official title, "John Carter," - it feels like a very deliberate middle finger to Disney and all of their focus group testing. Testing that left the movie with such a laughably generic title. It's funny, parts of the movie have that slightly awkward feeling of watching creative choices being debated before your eyes.

At the same time, you do sort of have to admire Andrew Stanton for making a movie that is so clearly out-there and complex to the point of being incomprehensible. There's no shortage of crazy sci-fi jargon here. The film doesn't compromise on sci-fi/fantasy nerdiness, with made-up languages, English dialogue laced with Martian (er, Barsoom) lingo, and ten Star Wars cantina scenes' worth of oddball creatures and other assorted weirdness. Again, that alone makes the movie feel refreshing in the age of the dumbed-down sci-fi blockbuster. And for that reason, I can see how some fanboys will latch onto the movie, if only because it never skimps on including every bit of Martian history, dialect, and apocrypha from the Burroughs books.

And because of that, John Carter is a movie that geeks are going to want to love and mainstream critics are going to love to hate. Personally, I fell somewhere in the middle - appreciating certain aspects of the film - visuals, action, a handful of the performances - but also feeling frustrated by the lack of heart, soul, or any true feeling of epicness, grittiness, gravitas, or danger. Other than Dejah's sexy outfits and one or two moments of videogame-like violence, this is a Disney-fied pulp adventure desperately in need of a Jack Sparrow or Han Solo character to give it a little bit of edge. It could also have used a sense of awe and wonder and intensity. The original John Carter stories helped to inspire everything from Flash Gordon to Star Wars and everything in between. But this John Carter is ultimately not at the same level as cinema's best sci-fi/fantasy adventures.

My Grade: B

Will WANDERLUST Make You Wet Hot?

WANDERLUST Review:

- Comedy is in a very weird place right now. On one hand, you've got all of these critics and pop-culture commentators screaming for comedy to be recognized at awards shows like The Oscars, where the genre has almost always gone unappreciated. In theory, I agree. Great comedy should be rewarded. And yet, when I read the justifications for *why* certain comedies should be rewarded, I can't help but roll my eyes. There's now this idea that comedy is only great when it possesses some deep social commentary - when it's essentially drama, only with punchlines. And that kind of comedy can be great, yes. But what I dislike is that that argument disqualifies one of my favorite brands of comedy - the kind that's random, absurd, and crazy. And sadly, WANDERLUST may be a victim of the current mindset that the only good comedy is the kind that tells a dramatic story with a few laughs thrown in. Because Wanderlust comes to us from the brilliant mind of David Wain - a master of absurdist comedy. Wain got his start as a standout member of the influential comedy troupe The State. He went on to form splinter group Stella, direct and co-write the cult comedy classic Wet Hot American Summer, direct surprise hit Role Models, and create the hilarious web series Wainy Days. Now, Wanderlust is another brilliantly, hilariously off-the-wall comedy from Wain - but like Wet Hot and Role Models, it's got the trappings of a more conventional comedy. And so the movie's marketing sort of pretended that this was indeed a typical fish-out-of-water, City Slickers-esque comedy with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston. In some ways - sure, it is. But in most ways, it's anything but conventional. The premise is simply an excuse for Wain and his old The State cohorts to stage what amounts to, essentially, a series of gloriously silly, interconnected comedy sketches. It's too bad that the movie's marketing tried to cover that up. Because ultimately, WANDERLUST - while never reaching the heights of Wet Hot - is still one of the most laugh-out-loud funny movies to hit theaters in a long, long time.

On the surface, Wanderlust is about Rudd and Aniston as a couple of urban yuppies who are forced to abandon their fast-paced, big-city lives after running into financial trouble. Aniston is a creative type whose big plan of pitching a documentary to HBO falls through. And Rudd is an office drone who ends up getting fired after a series of mishaps. Forced to pack up and leave their too-small NYC apartment, the two set off, reluctantly, to stay with Rudd's brother in Atlanta while they figure out their next moves. On the way, an accident forces the two to stop off at a hippie commune, where they find themselves surprisingly charmed by the quirky-yet-welcoming residents and communal style of living. So when Rudd's obnoxious brother (played hilariously by Ken Marino) becomes too much to bear, the couple decides to head back to the commune and make a real go of it there.

Paul Rudd is one of the few comedic actors who can seamlessly transition from more conventional, narrative-driven comedy into absurdist randomosity, and so it's no wonder that Wain keeps casting him in his movies. Rudd is in fine form in Wanderlust. And to that earlier point, he is great in the more narratively-driven scenes as a yuppie-turned-hippie, yet he's also awesome when called upon to just be goofy and weird. One of the movie's best gags, for example, occurs as Rudd stands in front of the mirror, psyching himself up for a free-love tryst with one of his fellow residents, played by Malin Ackermann (funny here as she is on Children's Hospital). Rudd's seemingly improvised motivational speech to himself is absolutely hilarious. And its the wackier scenes - those in the State / Stella tradition - that are far and away the highlights of the film. There's even a great little mini-Stella sketch in the movie, where Wain, Michael Ian-Black, and Michael Showalter have some great repartee as antagonistic TV News anchors. And speaking of those three, the movie's cast is filled out by an amazing ensemble of comedic performers, largely drafted from Wain's past projects like The State, Wainy Days, and Children's Hospital. So you've got Michael and Michael, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Kerri Kenney, Malin Ackermann, and SNL alum Michaela Watkins - all in top form.

And then there's Justin Theroux, who is a total scene-stealer as the slightly-sinister leader of the commune. Theroux is funny as hell, and gets many of the movie's best lines. Alan Alda also is responsible for some big laughs as the loopy founder of the group. As for Jennifer Aniston - I think she is fine. She's not an actress who is typically a favorite of mine, but I think she's got good comic timing, and she does a nice job being the straightwoman for some of the oddball antics going on around her in the film. But again - and here's where the marketing was misleading - Wanderlust is NOT a Jennifer Aniston movie. And by that I mean, it's not the sort of lame rom-com that you usually associate her with. So the bottom line is - she does a nice job here and works well with Rudd and acclimates herself well to the craziness. Would it have been cool to see a Rudd reunion with his Wet Hot ladyfriend Elizabeth Banks? That would have been cool, sure. But Aniston is good.

In any case - as much as I'd like to compare Wanderlust to Wet Hot American Summer, the fact is - it's not Wet Hot American Summer. That was a no-budget indie comedy, and therefore was free to be as insanely random as possible. Wanderlust, like Role Models, is sort of stealthily insane - fitting tons of absurd, Wain-y moments into the aforementioned framework of a more conventional comedy. And sometimes, the movie's more conventional aspects do hurt it. The attempts at sentimentality feel a little forced given all the logic-lacking absurdity that characterizes the bulk of the film. And the attempts at a good vs. evil plotline - pitting Rudd against Theroux, also feel a bit rushed and haphazard. So yes, you sort of wish that this movie could have been freed of its big-studio shackles and that Wain had been given free reign to go balls-out crazy. Instead, Wanderlust does sometimes feel like half of a real State movie, and half like a somewhat lamer, less daring studio comedy. But don't worry - the State-ness does ultimately win out. Those who go in wanting Wet Hot-style craziness will be happy with what they get. And those who go in thinking that they are getting some tame Jennifer Aniston comedy, well, they are going to have their minds just a little bit blown. I know that there were certainly a couple of people like that in the theater when I saw the film - people who seemed surprised to find themselves uncontrollably laughing at the movie's arsenal of out-there jokes.

As for the most important part of a comedy - THE JOKES - I found Wanderlust to have a pleasingly high hit-rate. Sure, there were a couple of whiffs - and one or two characters (i.e. Lo Truglio's nudist winemaker) who never 100% clicked. But overall, I laughed consistently throughout the film and, many a time, I laughed hard. There are several classic dialogue bits in this one that will likely be quoted for a long time to come - and thus, the rewatchability factor here is going to be quite high. Wain and co. have a gift for witty wordplay, and there's no shortage of that here. And oh, there's also a joke revolving around The Spin Doctors' "Two Princes." Dammit all.

Seeing a movie like Wanderlust is sort of like seeing a great indie band go mainstream. You're happy to see 'em get a shot at the bigtime, but you also worry that they had to compromise a bit of what made them great in the first place in order to achieve mass-market success. Wanderlust doesn't have the pure comic brilliance of Wet Hot American Summer, but it still retains a lot of that movie's subversive wit and out-there hilarity. David Wain and his State buddies may have dressed up their comedy in a nice jacket and tie to please the studio suits, but soon enough, the jacket comes off to reveal that yes, underneath the layer of polish, these kids still know how to rock n' roll.

My Grade: B+

Breaking Down RAMPART

RAMPART Review:

- Every year, a number of films get a small, limited release in November or December so as to qualify for the Oscars. Some of those films end up riding a wave of awards-season hype and fanfare. They have successful limited-run releases and get re-released early on in the new year for expanded runs. But there are also many would-be contenders that, for whatever reason, never break away from the pact. I think back to a few years ago, when Children of Men sneaked in at late December. Or more recently, the great but overlooked film The Way Back. This past year, one of those little, late-year gems was a film called RAMPART, which despite coming up empty in terms of Oscar noms, did enjoy a decent expanded release in February. And I'm glad it did. While not mind-blowing, per se, Rampart is a pitch-black LA noir about a corrupt cop who is a hero in his own mind. It features one of the career-best performances from Woody Harrelson, and a fantastic supporting cast. It's well worth a look for anyone in the mood for a gritty, slightly surreal cop drama that pulls no punches.

Set in 1999, Rampart, though a relatively small-scale story, has a slightly apocalyptic tone befitting of the year in which it's set. Harrelson plays David Brown, a tough, chauvinistic, racist, asshole, son-of-a-bitch cop who fancies himself the last real renegade, the one cop who's willing to do what it takes to get the job done. In a city that's still reeling from riots and police corruption, Brown is a liability to the force. Somehow, he's managed to keep his job - in part, it's because he can be a smooth-talker, and he's deceptively smart. So whenever his penchant for brutality gets him in trouble with his superiors, he's usually able to weasel his way out of any serious consequences. But the man is a walking time bomb. Even his nickname implies it - "date rape" - bestowed upon him in honor of his most famous victim. As the story goes, Brown once killed a man who he claimed was a serial rapist, but most believe that the guy was an innocent joe who Brown just happened to have a mad-on for.

Still, Brown keeps on doing his thing in the LAPD until one day when a car rams into him while he's on duty. Brown leaps out of his police car, chases after the assailant, and catches him. The driver - who happens to be African-American, pleads with Brown that it was an accident, but Brown won't hear it. He takes out his club and brutally beats on the man. A nearby news crew captures the whole incident on tape - and soon, Brown is LA's most hated cop. As the walls begin to close in on Brown and his barely-held-together life, he doesn't relent. Instead, he gets increasingly reckless and violent. He's convinced that there's a conspiracy to bring him down - that he was set up - that it wasn't an accident that the news crew was there to capture the beating. And so begins the downward spiral of David "Date Rape" Brown.

As Brown, Harrelson is at the top of his game. Brown is a guy who is lean, mean, animalistic, and just short of psychotic. Harrelson plays him to perfection - mixing tough-guy badassery with bouts of unpredictable rage and madness. Harrelson makes Brown a truly disturbing character - a guy who is oddly likable in his own way - for his sheer doggedness and survival-instinct - and yet who is, in so many other ways, just plain despicable. Though Harrelson didn't pick up quite enough attention here to garner a Best Actor nomination, I'd still put this right up there with the best and most memorable leading man performances I've seen in the last year.

Harrelson is also surrounded by a star-studded supporting cast. A big standout is Sigourney Weaver as Harrelson's superior in the LAPD, a ball-breaker who can go toe-to-toe with the snake-like Brown. I also thought that Ben Foster did a great job as a drug-addicted homeless man who serves as an informant to Brown - it's an unglamorous yet impressive turn for Foster. There's also a fantastic part played by Ned Beatty, as an elder ex-cop and Brown's friend / informant. All sorts of other great actors pop up, from Steve Buscemi to Anne Heche to Robin Wright. Even Jon Bernthal - Shane from The Walking Dead - has a pretty nice little cameo role as a cop.

Now, the movie's got a great cast, but where I think it gets a lot of its juice is from the script, co-written by director Oren Moverman and the great James Ellroy (LA Confidential). Ellroy is a master of LA noir, and he shows it here. Just the world he creates - a world of grey-shaded characters, crime, corruption, and darkness - makes for a movie brimming with atmosphere and a great, palpable sense of dread. That said, I also give a lot of credit to Oren Moverman. His direction is vivid and visually stunning, with a sun-baked, hot, sticky LA setting that acts as one of the movie's stars. Moverman tries some interesting things that are a bit atypical for a movie of this sort. He shoots certain scenes in a very trippy, surreal fashion - emphasizing the fact that Brown is beginning to lose his mind a bit as he increasingly descends into a drug-soaked state of paranoia. The fact that the aesthetics of the movie veer so wildly at times can be disorienting - the film shifts from gritty drama to surreal nightmare to over-the-top action, and that can be a little jarring. Mostly, it works, and it makes Rampart feel unique and different. Every so often though, scenes will feel too over-the-top or stylized as compared to the bulk of the movie.

To that end, a couple of key plot points in the film struck me as a little too cartoonish. Some of Brown's more over-the-top behavior, but also some of the more basic framework elements of the film. For example, Brown's home-life is a lot to swallow. He's the ex-husband of two sisters, and has a daughter with each - one a rebellious teen, the other a precocious tween. The sisters live in a connected duplex, between which Brown alternates his time - occasionally still sleeping with both of them. It's certainly a unique scenario, but you can't help but wonder what's taking these sisters so long to get the hell away from this guy and get their daughters away from this ridiculously awkward situation. The movie tries to explain that Brown's sense of family and love for his daughters keeps everyone living together - but still, come on.

All in all though, I really liked the movie. It was a fantastic character study and, at the same time, it worked as a larger metaphor for America at the turn of the 21st century. Brown was a monster, but at least he was an honest one who made it clear where he stood. Rampart paints a picture of an America with no more room for the Dave Brown's of the world. But by driving him out, were we just making way for an evil that's simply less obvious, but no less dangerous? At the end of the day, RAMPART is a very dark, very grim crime noir film that is an outstanding showpiece for Woody Harrelson. If you're in the mood for a smart but eminently #$%&'ed-up movie, check it out.

My Grade: B+

OSCAR 2012 - Pre-Show Thoughts & Predictions & Rants

2012 OSCAR PRE-SHOW THOUGHTS AND PREDICTIONS:

It's silly to bag on all of the Oscar-nominated movies just because they're Oscar-nominated. Yes, there are plenty of great films that got snubbed this year, but that doesn't take away from the fact that plenty of the movies and performances in the spotlight this year are, legitimately, amazing. From The Artist, to Demian Bichir in A Better Life, to Christopher Plummer in Beginners, to Michelle Williams in My Week With Marilyn, to Martin Scorsese's direction of Hugo.

That said ...

This year's Oscar nominees exclude so many of last year's best films and performances, it's mind-boggling. So let me get this out of the way, before talking about the actual nominees:

MY TOP 15 SNUBBED OSCAR PICKS:

1.) Drive for Best Picture
2.) Charlize Theron for Best Actress (Young Adult)
3.) The Adventures of Tintin for Best Animated Film
4.) Nicholas Winding Refn for Best Director (Drive)
5.) Martha Marcy May Marlene for Best Picture
6.) Young Adult for Best Picture
7.) Young Adult for Best Original Screenplay
8.) Warrior for Best Picture
9.) Elizabeth Olsen for Best Actress (Martha Marcy May Marlene)
10.) Rise of the Planet of the Apes for Best Picture
11.) anything for The Debt (was Jessica Chastain really better in The Help than The Debt?!)
12.) A Better Life for Best Picture
13.) Ben Kingsley for Best Supporting Actor (Hugo)
14.) Sean Durkin for Best Director (Martha Marcy May Marlene)
15.) Chris Weitz for Best Director (A Better Life)

So yes, a lot of my annoyance stems from the fact that Drive, Young Adult, The Adventures of Tintin, and Martha Marcy May Marlene were completely snubbed, and that A Better Life, The Ides of March, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes were given only token nominations. As we all know by now, The Academy is comprised mostly of middle-aged / elderly white men, and the picks tend to reflect that. And yet ... in recent years, we've seen exciting pieces of innovative cinema honored - movies like The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire, and No Country For Old Men. With one or two exceptions, I don't know that this years pack of featured nominees are anywhere close to that level.

Now, the one exception I will point to in particular is THE ARTIST. The Artist was a phenomenal film, and its the only one of the Best Picture nominees that I gave a flat-out "A" grade to when I reviewed it a few months back. And this is exactly the movie I'm talking about when I ask people not to dismiss all the nominees just on principle. So please, don't get caught up in backlash hype and hate on The Artist. Of the other Best Picture picks, I'm also a huge fan of HUGO. I wouldn't mind seeing it win. My only qualm with Hugo is that it had moments of absolute brilliance, but it also dragged and meandered in parts. I graded it an A-, and to me, Best Picture should be an "A." I feel similarly about The Descendents - a fantastic film, but it had enough issues to keep it from being truly transcendent. Of the nominees, to me, only The Artist reached that level.

But here's where the Academy just makes itself look foolish. How in the blue hell are War Horse, Moneyball, Midnight in Paris, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close all Best Picture nominees? I haven't seen Extremely Loud, but the rest of those films are B+ level at best. To think that those films made the cut when Drive, Young Adult, A Better Life, etc. were excluded? Ugh. Tree of Life, I sort of get. I didn't personally love it, but you can't deny its ambition. The Help - okay, it's a shoe-in. But all in all, this is not a Best Picture lineup for the ages.

In any case, here's my list of who *should* win, and prediction for who *will* win. What do you think?


DANNY'S OSCAR PICKS 2012:

BEST PICTURE

Should Win: The Artist
Will Win: The Artist

- Like I said ... The Artist was by far the best of the nominated pictures this year. It's my personal pick to win, but I also think that Oscar voters will be won over by its homage to classic Hollywood. This is a great movie *about* the movies. So is Hugo, but where Hugo uses 3D and CGI to evoke a storybook fantasy world, The Artist has the sort of back-to-basics classicism that Oscar voters can't resist.

BEST ACTOR

Should Win: Demian Bichir
Will Win: Jean Dujardin

- Demian Bichir is badass and awesome and absolutely riveting in A Better Life. He deserves a win (and the movie deserved a Best Picture nod), and more people need to see A Better Life. Now, Bichir is an underdog, but I do think he has a slight chance of being a spoiler, as more and more Oscar voters caught the film late in the game. I also think George Clooney's got a shot for The Descendants. But I also think he is very good in that film, but not great per se. Now, Jean Dujardin is phenomenal in The Artist, and it's the kind of leading man performance that Oscar voters love - he emotes, he dances - it's a role with humor, heart, and romance. Personally I think Bichir was better, but I think Dujardin may have the edge with voters.

BEST ACTRESS

Should Win: Michelle Williams
Will Win: Viola Davis

- Okay, this is a tough one. It may honestly come down to the fact that, perhaps, Michelle Williams peaked too early in terms of Oscar hype. I also wonder if perhaps voters might reject her Marilyn as great, but still not as good as the real thing. To me, Williams delivered an amazing performance, but I think Viola Davis may have the most overall goodwill and least amount of controversy around her turn in The Help. I will add though - Rooney Mara is so good in Dragon Tattoo ... I don't know if she's got a shot, but I wouldn't mind seeing her play spoiler. There is certainly a lot of room for a surprise here, and I guess you can never count out Meryl Streep ... but come on, The Iron Lady received lukewarm reviews - it doesn't seem like *this* was a movie that would win it for Streep. And finally ... how is Charlize Theron not nominated here? And Elizabeth Olsen?! Two HUGE omissions.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Should Win: Christopher Plummer
Will Win: Christopher Plummer

- Part of me wants to root for Nick Nolte in Warrior, just to show some love to that underrated film. But at the end of the day, Plummer was fantastic in Beginners, and this is likely one of the few no-brainers of the night. I mean come on - the part of a 75 year old man who comes out of the closet in old age, only to find out that he's dying just as he begins to truly live? That's Oscar material if ever there was Oscar material. But if / when he wins, it won't be undeserved.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Should Win: Berenice Bejo
Will Win: Octavia Spencer

- Berenice Bejo was magnetic and electric in The Artist. But I think a lot of the attention will be on Jean Dujardin, and that The Help will clean up in the Actress category - as there's just so much goodwill and momentum around both Octavia and Viola. I'd like to see The Artist duo win in both categories, but again, I think The Help has the momentum.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Should Win: Kung Fu Panda 2
Will Win: Chico & Rita

- I haven't seen Chico & Rita, but would like to. But I think it may win just due to lack of a unanimously loved family feature in the category. Me, I thought Kung Fu Panda 2 was amazing - one of the best Dreamworks animated films yet. But will a movie called Kung Fu Panda 2 really win an Oscar? Unlikely. Rango was very good but pretty out-there and received some mixed reviews. Therefore, I go with the underdog adult animated film as the winner.

BEST DIRECTOR

Should Win: Michael Hazanavicius
Will Win: Michael Hazanavicius

- This is another somewhat tough category to predict, and another one where some of the nominees boggle my mind. I think it comes down, personally and prediction-wise, to Scorsese and Hazanavicius. But I look at it this way: it took Scorsese decades to win one Oscar. He didn't win for Goodfellas, or Raging Bull, or Taxi Driver. He deservedly won for The Departed. And Hugo, while great, just feels weird to me as a Scorsese win. The direction of the movie is phenomenal - in fact, the highlight of the film is the incredible direction. But with The Artist ... Hazanavicius did the seemingly impossible: he crafted a *silent movie* that was engaging and captivating and that completely held your emotions in the palm of its hand. That's an amazing directorial achievement. So personally, I give him the edge. And I think Oscar voters will feel similarly.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Should Win: don't love any of these choices - where is Young Adult?
Will Win: Midnight In Paris

- This will be the bone thrown to Woody Allen. And this category is so weak to begin with, I guess why not give it to him? Midnight is, at least, a dialogue-driven movie, so there's that. And it's a good script - one of Woody's better ones in years. I wouldn't call it mind-blowing, but I wouldn't begrudge it a win. If only Woody could write characters that seem like they live in 2012 instead of 1975.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Should Win: The Ides of March
Will Win: The Descendants

- I really liked the Ides of March script - tightly-constructed, pointed, edgy, and relevant. The Descendants is also a very good script, and I think it is probably the favorite to win - if only because Alexander Payne movies tend to be thought of as very "writerly." And yes, I'd get a kick out of seeing Community's Dean Pelton, aka Jim Rash, accepting an Oscar.

BEST FOREIGN FILM

Should Win: no opinion
Will Win: A Separation

- I've been meaning to check out A Separation, and of all the nominated films, it definitely feels like this is the one with the most buzz around it. Plus, it's a great story - an Iranian film winning, given what's happening in that country? Very compelling.

BEST ART DIRECTION

Should Win: Hugo
Will Win: Hugo

- Hugo looks awesome. I could just sit and stare at the movie. I think (and hope) that the Academy recognizes its incredible visual richness with a nod here.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Should Win: The Artist
Will Win: The Artist

- This one is kind of tough, but I think The Artist has got to win for just how amazingly it evokes the Silent Film era, from the hair to the mannerisms and yes, to the costumes.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Should Win: "Man or Muppet"
Will Win: "Man or Muppet"

- First off, this category is pathetic for picking only two nominees. That said, Man or Muppet is fantastic, and a win for it would mean a win for the great Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords fame - and it would be awesome to see him get an Oscar.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

Should Win: War Horse
Will Win: War Horse

- I liked War Horse, but felt it was super-schmaltzy to the point where it was a little eye-rolling at times. That said, the John Williams score is fantastic. Yes, some might call it overly bombastic, but good god, is it epic and memorable. Certainly, it's the more memorable score as compared to Williams' Tintin score.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

Should Win: no opinion
Will Win: Pina

Haven't seen any of the nominees, unfortunately ... but I think Pina is the kind of inspirational story that could win over voters. The West Memphis 3 doc, though a critical favorite, might be a little too rock n' roll for the Academy.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Should win: Hugo
Will Win: Hugo

- Again, I thought Hugo just looked awesome. The camera spiraled and glided through the storybook version of Paris, with some absolutely phenomenal shots of the cityscape. This one should and - I think - will win.

BEST FILM EDITING

Should Win: The Artist
Will Win: The Artist

- I give this one to The Artist simply because as you watch it, you realize what a remarkable achievement it is to craft a movie like this, splicing together wordless scenes with title cards to create a story that's engaging and emotional. Sure, the editing here isn't amazing in a conventional manner, but it's such a unique endeavor that you've got to give it up.

BEST MAKEUP

Should Win: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
Will Win: The Iron Lady

- Personally, I always get annoyed when the Oscars ignore the big fantasy or sci-fi movies in favor of subtler makeup and f/x jobs. Once in a while it's warranted, but mostly, you look at something like Harry Potter - and the way in which fantastical characters like Voldermort were brought to life through makeup, and it's pretty remarkable. Still, Oscar voters love f/x and makeup that transforms actors (unless it's motion capture, which they hate). So I wouldn't be surprised if The Iron Lady gets a nod.

BEST SOUND EDITING

Should Win: Drive
Will Win: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

- So, could DRIVE win ... something?! I'll be rooting for it, and in all honesty, the film is a sonic masterpiece, from the music to the sound f/x to way it all comes together in this masterpiece of pure cinema. Still, I could see this one going to Dragon Tattoo, just because it's a Fincher film and he always creates fantastic audio/visual experiences.

BEST SOUND MIXING

Should Win: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
Will Win: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

- Again, I feel like this could and probably should go to Tattoo just for the combined greatness of its sonics. From the great Reznor soundtrack to the smart and creative use of other music (Enya, anyone?) - this feels like the right pick to me.

BEST VISUAL F/X

Should Win: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Will Win: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

- Okay, RISE should have been nominated for a lot more than this, and it's even arguable that Andy Serkis was deserving of a Best Actor nom. I do think the Academy will eventually have to create some sort of mo-cap/augmented performance category to acknowledge this sort of thing. But man, if F/X are judged by the extent to which they aid in character and storytelling, then APES has got to take the prize. The movie made Ceaser into one of 2011's most memorable characters - human, simian, real, fake, or otherwise. It delivered fully-formed animal characters, and also delivered 100% awesome ape-on-human carnage. Hail Ceaser!

BEST SHORT FILM - ANIMATED

Should Win: ???
Will Win: La Luna

BEST SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION

Should Win: ???
Will Win: The Shore

BEST DOCUMENTARY - SHORT

Should Win: ???
Will Win: Incident in New Baghdad


- And there you have it. Any thoughts on my predictions? Any picks of your own? Just annoyed, like me, that Drive wasn't nominated for Best Picture? Well, that's why The Oscars - while fun to speculate and complain about - are not and will likely never be a definitive measure of quality or merit for any true film fan.

Rock n' Roll Returns! THE DARKNESS and FOXY SHAZAM Concert Review!

The Return of THE DARKNESS: The Darkness and Foxy Shazam - Live at the House of Blues!

- When I was in college, a song called "I Believe In a Thing Called Love," by an up-and-coming band called The Darkness, took over the local airwaves and seemingly became the biggest thing since sliced bread. In Boston at that time, you'd hear it on rock radio, at cool establishments like Newbury Comics, blasted from dorm rooms - and suddenly, in a rock n' roll landscape dominated by nu-metal, classic rock had returned.

I loved the bombastic stylings of "I Believe In a Thing Called Love," and quickly purchased the band's debut CD - Permission to Land. I was blown away. From top to bottom, the album was loaded up with rock n' roll goodness. Just about every song was great, and I was somewhat amazed by the fact that this sort of music was alive and kicking in the era of Limp Bizkit and Staind.

Of course, The Darkness performed their operatic rock with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor. The lyrics to their songs were occasionally sincere, but more often would get completely over-the-top, laced with scandalous double meanings and jokey homages to the excesses of glam-rock glory. The band's music videos didn't help the perception that The Darkness was some kind of elaborate inside joke - they were totally insane and undeniably goofy. But to many, like me, who loved the craziness of 80's arena rock, The Darkness were a glorious, semi-self-aware throwback.

However, the band's meteoric rise ended all too early. They came out with only two albums (their second, One Way Ticket To Hell ... And Back, was just as good if not better than their debut), and then broke up due to infighting, drug use, and creative disagreements. In short, The Darkness were now living through a Spinal Tap-like parody of the classic rock bands they paid homage to - rise, fall, and all. But man, I kept hoping that the band would get back together. Even though they could be jokey and over-the-top, The Darkness had legit classic rock chops - and their second album seemed to mark a slight shift to less satirical homage and more of an original sound and serious tone. They seemed to have what it took to be the modern-day torchbearers of rock n' roll.

And now, several years after prematurely fading into the sunset ... THE DARKNESS have returned, and are having one more moment in the sun. The band is back together, a new album is in the works, and "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" hit #1 on the iTunes rock charts after being featured in a popular Superbowl commercial starring the members of The Darkness. Best of all, the band returned to America on their first tour in years, finally giving fans like me a chance to see the band live in concert.

So this past Sunday, I journeyed to the hallowed halls of the House of Blues Hollywood to - finally! - see The Darkness live. My parents were in town visiting for the long holiday weekend, so my brother and I had to ditch them for the night in order to fulfill our unholy duty and worship at the altar of rock and roll. Now, I had been to the House of Blues before but never for a concert. In many ways, it's a great venue - great atmosphere, a cool setup with a balcony circling the main stage, and decent visibility from most angles. The one downside is just that it's a standing room only venue and it got absolutely *packed* once The Darkness took the stage, as people flooded into the lower stage area where we had staked out a spot. So yeah, there were some uncomfortable moments where we were completely sandwiched by the people in front of us and behind us. Ultimately, though, it was awesome being part of such an energetic, packed house that was electric with excitement over the long-awaited return of The Darkness. And who knows, maybe one day I'll get to see the band in a huge arena. They've got plenty of stadium-friendly rock anthems, that's for sure.

Anyways, the show opened with a band called Crown Jewel Defense that was pretty decent. They seemed like a bunch of guys who really, really loved 80's rock and decided to do a tribute band of sorts. They could shred pretty hard, and the singer had a melodic growl of a voice that reminded me of the singer from Faith No More. They just needed some catchier songs and a bit more stage presence.

But then ... holy lord ... my mind was completely blown by the awesomeness that was FOXY SHAZAM. I knew basically nothing about the band before this show, except that a pretty large number of fans in attendance seemed to be there to see 'em - and as I realized that, my expectations began to rise. But good god - when Foxy took the stage, my jaw hit the floor about 5 seconds in and stayed there for the duration of their 40 minute set. Singer Eric Sean Nally set the tone early. He strode onstage looking like a mix of Freddie Mercury, Iggy Pop, and Joey Ramone, and he said something like: "I know that you guys in LA aren't shocked by much, you've seen it all. You aren't shocked by much, but let me just say this: I used to be a woman, and now ... I'm a man!" And at that, the band launched into a whirlwind rendition of "The Church of Rock n' Roll." It was amazing. Eric Nally bounced around the stage like a man possessed, somersaulting, leaping, karate-kicking, doing the worm. Keyboardist Schuyler White pounded on the ivories as if in a rock n' roll trance. He vaulted his instrument into the crowd. He juked, jived, and shimmied from side to side. He played the keyboard with his feet, stomping up and down. Top to bottom, every member of Foxy Shazam seemed to just explode in an orgy of barely-controlled chaos. Nally was the strange but charismatic ringleader of this rock n' roll circus - telling rambling stories, jokes, dancing like a madman, and even smoking eleven lit cigarettes at once before *eating them*, in a stunt he half-jokingly claimed he hated to do, but felt he had to now that audiences expected it of him. The whole thing was surreal and hypnotic and awesome. I've never seen a rock performance this energetic or insane.

But Foxy Shazam's music was kickass even regardless of the theatrics and stagemanship. They combine rock guitar with horns and keyboards for a rich, full sound that sounds like Queen on speed. But Eric Nally has pipes that would give Freddie Mercury a run for his money. His speaking voice is a high-pitched squeak, but when the man sings (and I guess the woman thing was a joke?), he belts out his tunes with a Meatloaf-like intensity and theatricality. And the songs are great - many are catchy as hell and just great, instant-classic rock anthems. I've had songs like "Killin' It," "Holy Touch," "The Temple," and "I Like It" in my head since Sunday.

Suffice it to say, FOXY SHAZAM was the big surprise of the night, and I became an instant fan. This is just an awesome rock n' roll band that deserves to be the biggest band in the world. And who knows, maybe they will be.

And then, after a lengthy intermission ... Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town" hit the HoB's sound system, and the crowd knew that the main attraction was imminent. Finally, The Darkness stormed onto the stage - singer Justin Hawkins in his trademark red, white, and blue leather ensemble - and blasted the doors down with Black Shuck, the first song off of Permission to Land. As the crowd pumped their fists and chanted the chorus in unison, it was clear - The Darkness - and maybe, by extension, rock n' roll - was back, baby!

The band performed just about every song off of Permission to Land, and several from One Way Ticket to Hell. They also did a couple of B-sides and also a new song - Nothing's Gonna Stop Us, aka the first single off of their upcoming all-new album. They tore the house down with songs like Growing On Me, the gloriously profane Get Your Hands Off of My Woman, Hazel Eyes, Givin' Up, Love Is Only a Feeling, and one of my favorites, second album title-track One Way Ticket. Hawkins did a soulful, acoustic version of ballad Holding My Own. He also trotted out a Radiohead cover, Street Spirit. After several costume changes (including a leopard-print unitard and a leather-pants / cowboy hat ensemble), Hawkins closed out the regular set with I Believe In a Thing Called Love, which had the crowd going bananas, jumping up and down and singing every lyric in unison.

Hawkins was in top form - he reached his trademark high notes with ease, and was energetic and just plain exuberant to be up on stage. The whole band seemed on-point, even despite a couple of tech issues with the sound system. But mostly, The Darkness seemed like they hadn't missed a beat.

For an encore, the band jammed to the instrumental tune Bareback, and then finished with an epic, extended edition of Love on the Rocks With No Ice, during which Hawkins, on the shoulders of a security guy, navigated through the crowd as the band wailed. It was a triumphant moment for a band and a frontman that could very easily have slid into obscurity after a breakup and numerous personal issues. But here they were, very close to the top of the world, rocking a sold-out venue in front of thousands of rabid fans.

Between The Darkness and Foxy Shazam, it was a night of true rock n' roll glory. Even Eric Nally of Foxy remarked that he'd heard the rumors of rock n' roll's death, but didn't believe 'em. And how could you, on a night like this one? It felt like the spirits of the legends - the spirit of Queen, Bowie, The Ramones, and more - was alive and well at the House of Blues.

Does SAFE HOUSE Bring the House Down?

SAFE HOUSE Review:

- Safe House is a very solid, very entertaining early-in-the-year action flick. It's fairly straightforward and not exactly genre-busting, but it maintains a breakneck pace, is packed with great chases and shoot-outs, and has a reliably badass turn from Denzel Washington. I don't know, I felt like some of the critics were overly harsh on this one. I know for me, after seeing some anemic actioners of late (Contraband, anyone?) it was nice to see a movie that delivered both riveting action and some genuine starpower. Denzel rarely fails to deliver in these sorts of roles, and even if, at this point, he tends to fall back on a lot of classic Denzel-isms, well, it was still pretty great to see him kicking ass left and right in Safe House.

Denzel plays the aptly-named Tobin Frost, an ex-CIA super-agent who, years ago, turned his back on his country and went rogue - selling state secrets to the highest bidders, and quickly rising to the top of the Most Wanted list. However, when Frost gets a hold of a chip containing extremely valuable, extremely classified info, he very quickly makes himself an even bigger target than before. While Frost had previously been able to keep to the shadows, he's now got a squad of trained assassins after him. In order to protect his own life (and possibly for other reasons ...), Frost turns himself in at the American Embassy in South Africa. As the CIA gets word of this stunning turn of events, they now face the task of transporting Frost to a CIA safe house in a relatively quiet and remote part of the world. A CIA team is dispatched to assist with the transfer, but ultimately, the man tasked with safeguarding this high-profile prisoner is a young CIA safe house keeper, Matt Weston - played by Ryan Reynolds. Weston isn't used to much action at work - mostly, he sits around at an empty facility, biding his time and hoping for a promotion to a more exciting role. Eventually though, all hell breaks loose at the safe house, and suddenly, Frost - one of the world's most dangerous men, and a master manipulator - is the sole responsibility of an out-of-his-league (or is he?) Weston. And thus Safe House becomes a violent game of cat and mouse between the wily, experienced, ruthless Frost and the dogged, determined, but wet-behind-the-ears Weston.

Denzel brings a huge amount of charisma and effortless badassery to Frost. He molds Frost into a cool, collected, yet incredibly dangerous man who's seen and done it all. And yet, Frost's icy exterior helps to hide the fact that he's in many ways a broken man - a man who's lost all faith in his country and in the system, and who's adopted a sort of nihilistic, let-'em-burn attitude, even as he remains partly motivated by a sense of justice - a desire to expose the corruption that runs rampant in the same institutions that want him crucified. The whole cool-yet-deadly thing is a schtick that, yes, Denzel has employed many times over the years. And he isn't necessarily bringing a lot new to the table in Safe House. But he does give Frost enough flourish that you can't take your eyes off of him, and it's the little details that make the character pop. As for Reynolds, this is a good role for him. It capitalizes on his natural intensity, but it's also not just him wise-cracking and acting goofy. Reynolds mixes it up in some absolutely brutal action scenes, and keeps the smirking to a minimum. His character in Safe House is nervous, shaky, but persistent - it's a different sort of character for Reynolds, but one he takes to well.

The movie is also filled with great actors in supporting turns. Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Robert Patrick ... all are good here, though yeah, all play roles that they could pretty much do in their sleep. It's funny, because Farmiga played almost exactly the same role less than a year ago in Source Code. I enjoy all three actors though, and I think they help elevate and lend some gravitas to parts that might not have worked as well in less capable hands.

Now, one thing I will say about Safe House: I was really impressed with the action scenes. The film adopts a very Bourne-esque, fast-cutting style, which is almost always a bad sign in my book. But director Daniel Espinosa is one of the few I've seen who approaches the level of a Paul Greengrass in terms of making the style work for them. Even though there are some rapid edits and shaky cam, the action flows very well, and there are some killer car chases, foot chases, brawls, and gun fights. One car chase in particular midway through the film really floored me - it kept teasing a finish only to keep on going, creating a really fun thrill-ride effect.

Between the strong lead performances and the fast-paced action, Safe House is never boring. Its main problem is simply that the plot and script are nothing special. The various twists and turns don't have as much impact as they should, because the supporting characters are not well-fleshed out, and too much of Frost's past is left ambiguous, leaving us unable to connect the dots as to what, exactly, motivates his actions behind some vague explanations. Furthermore, there is a pretty useless romance angle with Reynolds and his exotic, French girlfriend. For some reason, in the middle of Weston running around trying to contain a dangerous guy like Frost, the plot focuses on how he hasn't called his special ladyfriend to tell her where he is. Don't get me wrong, the general premise of Safe House is interesting and has a lot of potential. But the movie doesn't give the plot or characters enough depth to keep that premise from feeling generic. The film's ending only emphasizes the plotline's failings, as a final twist meant to wow us instead elicits a much more "meh" reaction.

So yes, there are some pretty unremarkable, run-of-the-mill elements to Safe House, but I still liked it a lot. It just has an overall vibe of badassery - a gritty look and feel, stylishly brutal action, and a scene-stealing performance from Denzel Washington. An all-time action classic? No. But a satisfying flick to satiate your action-movie needs? It's a safe bet.

My Grade: B+

CHRONICLE Is Comic Books For Real

CHRONICLE Review:

- Why do a found-footage movie? I think the reason is that the style of filmmaking instantly serves to ground a story in "our" reality. We get the sense that we're not watching some stylized, Hollywood version of the world, but our world. And that stylistic conceit, in theory, makes anything crazy or out of the ordinary that happens that much more striking and shocking - because it's as if it's happening here, to us or people just like us, in the real world. Now, when The Blair Witch Project first came out, the conceit worked wonderfully. And movies like the Paranormal Activity flicks have been highly effective by playing off of the fact that what we're watching is, supposedly, real. But those movies keep things (relatively) low-key. That's part of why they work so well - nothing happens that's *so* insane that it crosses the uncanny valley, where we're taken out of the movies' real-world settings. That said, there's always been this holy-grail sort of idea floating out there, this concept of: "What if you could shoot a crazy-ass sci-fi story, but do it found-footage style? What if you could make the absolutely impossible feel not just possible, but plausible?"

A few years back, Cloverfield had varying degrees of success with this concept. What if a giant monster movie happened, but here, in our world, and the people witnessing it were just normal, everyday shmoes like us? But now, CHRONICLE comes along, and it raises the bar for what is possible with found-footage.Whereas Cloverfield tended to play coy with its sci-fi elements, only showing the monster in small glimpses, Chronicle starts out smaller-scale, but then escalates to crazy levels of sci-fi, superhero action - all the while (mostly) keeping the you-are-there tone set in its early scenes. That alone is pretty damn impressive.

Chronicle starts off low-key. At first, it's really the story of three high-schoolers who come together under unlikely circumstances. Our main character is Andrew (Dane DeHaan), a sullen outcast who comes from a broken home, with a sickly mom and a drunk, abusive dad. Andrew's only real friend is his cousin, Matt (Alex Russsell), and even he has a low tolerance lately for Andrew's anti-social tendencies and increasingly weirdo behavior. You get the impression that Matt was once more of a free spirit, but he's riding a high of high school popularity, and is more and more reluctant to let his cousin get in the way of that. And then there's Steve (Michael. B. Jordan), a popular, well-liked kid who seems to be a future politician in the making. Outgoing, sociable, and charismatic, posters of Steve are plastered all over school thanks to his bid for Class President.

When the movie starts out, Andrew's just bought a new video camera. He wants to use it as a sort of defense tactic against his asshole dad. His plan is to film his dad's drunken outbursts, and use that as a deterrent. Soon enough though, he starts filming everything, and it becomes a sort of obsessive compulsion for him (and works nicely to explain the found-footage conceit of the film). One night, Matt drags Andrew to a party, which turns out to be a full-fledged rave in an abandoned warehouse. Andrew leaves and goes to sulk outside, when Steve runs into him. It turns out that Steve and Matt found something crazy out in the woods by the party, and they want to get it on film. The three teens go to explore, and what they find is a hole in the ground that leads to a giant tunnel. Inside the tunnel, well ... things happen. And from that day on, Andrew, Matt, and Steve will never be the same again.

Chronicle is probably best watched with a minimum of info going in, so I'll stop there. But one thing I will say is that the movie works as well as it does because of the strength of the three main characters. All three leads do a great job of making their characters both naturalistic and well-defined. And all seem like regular teens. Even Andrew, with his emo-ish, slightly depressed demeanor, feels very real and relatable to some extent. And that relatability makes the journey that these characters go on all the more emotionally impactful. It also helps to have a good script from Max Landis (son of the legendary John Landis!), who seems to really relish the opportunity to take these teens and put them into the middle of a real-life comic book origin story.

And I guess that's one of the big knocks against Chronicle. In essence, it's the classic hero/villain comic book story as found-footage. The brilliance is in the mash-up of the two genres, of the mundane with the fantastic. But the broad strokes of the plot itself, well, the movie hits beats that we've seen many, many times before in film, comic books, etc.

The other inherent problem here is that the movie has to cram a ton of character development into a small amount of time. And because the found-footage style gives everything a very linear, very immediate progression - it feels like a lot of key beats are very rushed. It makes you wonder how this story might have played out in more serialized form, and I couldn't help but think of shows like Breaking Bad as a point of comparison. BB is able to slowly but surely morph it's protagonist over the course of many episodes and seasons. In Chronicle, major personality shifts have to happen within the span of an hour - and since it's found footage, you can't really make those transitions feel filled out with flashbacks or time-shifts or montages. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that we're forced to accept some pretty seismic shifts in Andrew's behavior and morality over the course of an hour and a half.

One other area where I went back and forth a bit is around the way in which the movie plays with superhero convention. Part of me likes the restraint the movie shows in never going too comic-booky. And yet, if the whole conceit of the film is real-life people with superpowers, the logical extension of that would be that the endgame is real-life superheroes (and reportedly, that is in fact where the original script ended up). As it is, there are small allusions to classic comic book iconography (masks, costumes/uniforms, arch-enemies, etc.) - and certainly, the action ultimately ramps up to full-on comic book levels of explosiveness. But I also never quite got that final exclamation point of "wow, so *that's* how a real-world superhero/supervillain could happen." I know not everyone will agree, but to me, that kind of reveal could have been the tipping point in making this movie go from very good to *great.*

But to Chronicle's credit, it really does escalate to levels previously unimagined in a found-footage movie. And that gives it an awesome feeling of uniqueness and unpredictability - as you're watching, you just keep thinking "man, how far are they going to *go* with this?" And they do go far indeed. The other thing that makes the movie sizzle is just how dark and intense it is. Again, you keep wondering how far they're going to go, and as the movie keeps getting darker and crazier, it gets *really* intense. It's one thing to see crazy stuff like this happen to Clark Kent or Steve Rogers, but to see these characters - so effectively built up as ordinary teenagers - get put into such larger-than-life situations - it really becomes both exhilerating and unsettling. When the kids fly - whoah! The sensation is crazy because you share in the sensation of ordinary kids doing something impossible and unheard of. And Chronicle really makes the most of that heightened sense of reality - and then of reality breaking down - that comes from the found footage conceit.

The movie is also just a total showpiece for director Josh Trank. The guy got immediately snatched up to helm the next Fantastic Four movie, and you can see why. He absolutely nails it in Chronicle, and his ability to ratchet things up from zero to eleven over the course of the film is uber-impressive. When the action does ramp up, Trank delivers some of the most visceral and intense super-powered action we've seen in a movie to date - this is some huge, epic, Superman-level stuff. But again, the fact that he's able to save the big stuff for key points in the film, and otherwise so seamlessly integrate smaller, more subtle sci-fi moments into a believable, real-world setting - it's a credit to Trank's sense of storytelling and world-building. Do I wish that he had a slightly deeper and more interesting mythology to play around with? Sure. Do I wish that Trank and Landis had found a slightly more organic way to get some of the shots without having to introduce a female blogger character who *also* films everything? Yeah, that was a bit lame. But overall, wow - as a coming out party for Trank - this is one hell of a debut, and Trank has now instantly shot up onto the list of directors where I can't wait to see what they do next.

Chronicle is one of those movies where you just can't help but admire its ambition, and give credit for the fact that it pulls something off we've never seen before. This is the best high-concept, sci-fi found footage movie we've yet seen, and it really expands the possibilities of what can be done in that subgenre. Do I love found-footage as a whole? Not really - I still wonder if Chronicle wouldn't have been as good or better if shot traditionally or in a less-restricted-but-still-realistic docu-style. And from a strictly narrative perspective, Chronicle doesn't do anything too jaw-dropping or textured. But it's still a must-see - a sort of demo for how the same-old stories can be made to feel new and fresh when you just try something different and unique with tone and storytelling-style.

My Grade: B+

THE WOMAN IN BLACK - Hammer Horror Returns

THE WOMAN IN BLACK Review:

- The Woman In Black is a cool, creepy little horror movie. It showed me that Daniel Radcliffe is going to be very viable as an actor in his post-Harry Potter career. And it also served as a nice debut film for the reborn Hammer films. After a long hiatus following a legendary run of horror flicks back in the 60's and 70's, Hammer is back, and that in and of itself is good to see. That said, this film also feels like a somewhat-awkward compromise between the old-school and the modern. This is a movie that could have made a strong impression on the basis of its solid cast, creepy atmosphere, and classic ghost-story plotline. Instead, the film doesn't seem confident that those elements are enough to win over an audience in 2012. So what we get is a film that sort of undermines its own strengths by adding numerous jump-scares to the mix, leaving us with a movie that at times feels less like classic gothic horror, and more like a version of Paranormal Activity set 100 years in the past.

In The Woman In Black, Daniel Radcliffe plays Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer who travels to a remote village to settle the affairs of a long-abandoned house, so that it can finally be put back on the market. As it turns out, the locals know all too well that not only should no one live in the house, but no one should even visit or go near. Why? Because it's haunted by a vengeful ghost - the specter of its former owner. To give any more detail would be saying too much, suffice it to say that it soon becomes clear just *why* this ghost is haunting the town, and why it seems to do bad things to children in particular. To that end though, the ghost's M.O. is a particularly chilling one for Kipps. He's a widower who's now the sole caretaker of his young son (his wife died in childbirth), and so he's got a very personal stake in the action.

Radcliffe does a nice job here. At first, it's a little jarring to see the actor best known for playing a boy wizard as a widowed father. But, Radcliffe pulls it off, bringing a confident maturity to the part, and doing a nice job of conveying the character's escalating sense of urgency and dread. At first, Kipps is almost comically unfazed by all the weirdness going on around him - but eventually, he understandably becomes desperate to rid himself and the town of the ghost that plagues them. Seriously, one can't underestimate how good Radcliffe has become at playing a character who makes the fantastical seem believable. By this point, he's old hat at talking about ghosts and magic and curses without sounding silly, and that is something that really comes in handy with The Woman In Black. The movie also wisely surrounds Radcliffe with a number of talented character actors who fill out the supporting cast, and lend a lot of local color to the dank, mist-filled village.

Now, where I take issue with the film is the way in which it tries to get a lot of its scares. Rather than going for the kind of memorable scenes that will stick with you long after the movie's over, the film is riddled with "jump scares" - loud noises, quick cuts, and other tricks to get you to jump out of your seat. People quickly pop into the frame, the camera randomly cuts to creepy dolls and other such things in the ghost house, and musical cues slash and soar with the sole purpose of getting you to gasp. On one hand, there's no denying that the movie does an effective job of eliciting scares. The audience I saw the film with was on the edge of their seats - and so was I. But as the movie went on, I began getting a bit frustrated that so many of the scares seemed to come from the Paranormal Activity playbook - a quickly-glimpsed figure at the edge of the screen, objects moving by themselves, etc. But the problem with these sorts of moments is that everything is super quick - it makes it so that it's really hard to have truly memorable visuals or prolonged scenes of ghostly shenanigans. And in a movie like this - a film with lush, gothic art design and a classic, old-school haunted mansion at the center of the plot - it seems like there is potential for a lot more than just quick shocks. Occasionally, the jump-scares do build to a satisfying degree, recreating the feeling of actually being in a haunted house amusement park ride. The extended scene in which Radcliffe spends a night at the haunted manor is pretty deviously clever in the way it just doesn't let up, throwing one scare at you after another. At the same time, that sort of thing seems to lend itself to a different kind of horror movie - because the other half of The Woman In Black is all about gloomy atmosphere, creeping dread, and classic gothic horror. It's that odd juxtaposition of styles that makes this feel more like a somewhat confused horror movie mash-up and less like a singular vision.

And that same sense of dueling tones is especially evident in the film's already-controversial ending. I won't go into any of the details, except to say that I thought the movie had a pretty good final act that was then almost utterly decimated by a really lame ending. It's an ending that goes from delightfully grim to ridiculously cheesy in a matter of minutes, and it felt like a cop-out and a tonal clash to what had come before. In short - it didn't feel like a proper ending to a ghost story.

All in all though, The Woman In Black is plenty entertaining and a good amount of fun. It's a solid way to kick off this new chapter in the life of Hammer horror, and it's a nice little showcase for Radcliffe as an all-grown-up film star. But, where the movie could have been something really special, it instead seems to lack confidence in its own story. Rather than being a self-assured revival of real gothic horror, the movie takes the familiar gothic setting and story tropes and uses them to frame a somewhat ADD, amusement-park-style funhouse horror movie. If anything, it made me dream of what that Guillermo del Toro Haunted Mansion movie might end up being like.

My Grade: B