Matt’s Week in Dork! (3/9/14-3/15/14)

    On Sunday morning, I finished up Brian K. Vaughan’s Pride of Bagdad, the next selection of the graphic novel club.  I liked the art a lot, but the actual story was a bit obvious and pretty bare bones.  Not bad, but not something I’d ever need to read again.  But then it was off to the races on what ended up being a pretty busy week (including my ranty letter to the makers of Star Wars).

The White Queen:  Considering it’s from Starz, this show is shockingly classy.  Sure, it’s full of nudity and violence, but it’s far less crass and exploitative than Magic City or (shudder) Spartacus.  It tells some of the story of the War of the Roses, with a focus on the women involved in the story.  Though women, particularly when seen through the lens of Victorian and consequently early 20th century histories, have often gotten either a bum rap or completely ignored, the idea that women and men do not share a common history is idiotic (why I’m against the idea of ‘women’s history,’ as opposed to ‘women in history;’ to separate one from the other is to miss the point of it all), and the idea that major historic events didn’t involve women is illogical and counter to common sense.  I like that this series shows the active involvement in the changing politics these women take, while not trying to somehow take away from what the men were doing.  You often see in more female-centered history-based tales, not the building up of women, but the tearing down of men (making them stupid, sex-mad monsters, in much the way male-centered histories of the past tried to cast women as either docile or dangerously predatory [akin to the virgin/whore problem]), so this was a welcome and refreshing aspect of the series, with men and women being shown as all the shades of gray one would expect in reality.  Early episodes were a touch wonky, in part because they brought in a bit of the supernatural, which I found off-putting.  I’m assuming that’s from the novels(?).  It wasn’t needed, and distracts from the more interesting, real story.  And I think adding the magic to the female characters lessened their power as humans, by giving in to that old idea that women can only succeed through magic, manipulation, or subterfuge.  Overall, it’s not as well done as some history based shows, and some of the cast is a challenge to get behind (Max Irons, I’m looking at you!…and I wish I wasn’t).  Still, it’s mostly good and worth checking out, and series lead Rebecca Ferguson is darned good.  If this is the direction Starz is headed, who knows.  Maybe one day they could rival HBO in quality programming.  I’m not holding my breath, but maybe.

The Last Days on Mars:  This film has everything it needs…except a good idea.  The production design, the cast, the music, the setting.  It’s all great.  The film looks fantastic.  But once the central idea is revealed, it turns stupid and never looks back.  Now I can add this to the lengthening list of should-have-been-better Mars exploration films, like Mission to Mars and Red Planet.  All of them have good things going for them, yet all of them are failures, because of bad scripts or poorly conceived ideas.  And this film fits right along side.  I can not stress how annoyed I was upon realizing just how lame the central struggle would be.  There was a grimace, followed by a lot of head shaking, and at least one ‘oh, no.’  Please, film makers.  Please.  Don’t do this again.  It works in a movie like Ghost of Mars, because nobody is going to Ghost of Mars for a serious science fiction film.  It doesn’t work here.  Maybe one day we’ll get an adaptation of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red Mars that will live up to its potential.  Until then, I guess we’ll just get a bunch of this crap.

Donnie Darko:  This is a movie that really blew me away the first time I watched it.  It broke my brain in all the best ways, stayed with me for years.  But I have to admit, I don’t feel the same awe and wonder I once did.  Watching it again, I still find a lot of things to like in the film, and there are some excellent bits.  But I see more of the ‘first film’ syndrome than I noticed before.  Still a must for fans of the surreal and challenging.  But perhaps not the modern classic I’d have once named it.

Von Richthofen and Brown:  This Roger Corman WWI movie is surprisingly good, with lots of excellent flying footage.  The acting is uneven and there are some technical issues.  But for one of his more serious efforts, it’s a winner.  The star really is the flying, though.  And a lot of that is gorgeous.

The Grand Budapest Hotel:  Wes Anderson makes a very peculiar sort of film, and he does it very, very well.  This time around he taps into the Golden Age Hollywood madcap comedy films, with plenty of World War II and Cold War allusions.  It’s wistful and nostalgic for bygone eras, but not cloying.  It’s also delightfully crass, and typically surreal.  The by now trademark Anderson artificiality is on display, enhancing the old Hollywood vibe in the sets and backdrops.  The cast is awesome, and it’s so nice to see Ralph Fiennes doing comedy again, and playing someone so dashing (if sleazy).  I love that this movie revels in the wonder and visual craziness of the very medium.  It’s not naturalistic.  It’s not realistic.  But it gets to some truths, even while reveling in its fantasy world.

    Saturday was a crazy danged day.  I assisted Satnam on the set of the film he directed from a script I wrote.  It’s been a danged long time in the works.  I first conceived the idea as something I thought I might be able to do myself, building the ‘set’ in a closet in my old Brewer, ME apartment, about ten or twelve years ago.  Only one cast member, and no camera movement.  I thought I could handle that.  But cameras were too expensive and I had no skill or knowledge of how to do it.  Still, I liked the idea.  Some time after I moved to Virginia, I met someone who expressed interest in filming it, someone with skills and resources.  But it never materialized.  Lots of talk, but no action, and nothing happened.  But after assisting Satnam on a previous film, he said he was looking for another project, and I mentioned my idea.  He liked it enough to want to read my script.  Well…I don’t know what happened to it.  I’m sure if I go searching through my old disks, I’ll find it.  But, I didn’t want to.  So, I sat down and re-wrote it.  And that was it.  A few re-writes, a search for an actor, our fumbling attempts at set construction, finding other professionals to help us out with sound and make-up.  And then filming.  To say I was a ball of nerves is an understatement.  It’s kind of amazing to see words you wrote being spoken by an actor on a set.  I would not be heart broken if I had to do this for a living.

    Now that the movie is in the can, the editing and post production and all that starts up, and I don’t have anything to do with that.  So, it’s on to my next project, prepping for next weekend’s Call of Cthulhu game.  Most of the heavy lifting was done for the first session, so now it’s going to be a lot of details, extra bits, and such.  And then of course, to get myself psyched up and ready to go.  Though it may not be, I could see this being the final session of this game/story.  It might go on to a third or fourth night, depending on how their investigations go, and how deadly things get.  So I'm trying to think ahead for what folks might want to do next.  I think this group would be best suited for something light, fast paced, action and mystery packed, with plenty of room to roam.  I'm still thinking.

-Matt

New Release Tuesday!!! (5/21/13)

Today is a crazy mixed bag of releases.  We get my favorite film of the year tossed in with two of 2013's greatest disappointments.  And then we have a trilogy of releases from Shout Factory that just should not exist.  Frankly, I'm just happy there are more than one or two titles to talk about.  I've been ducking out on this column because the releases of late have failed to excite.  Hope you like sad, downer movies cuz this Tuesday will have you contemplating the abyss.  Keep out of reach of hand guns.

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Side Effects:  A few weeks ago, I thought that Iron Man 3 had moved to the top spot of my favorite films of the year so far.  But upon reflection, that film has faded a little bit from my memory and as enjoyable as it was I can't really claim it as anything special.  So it's Side Effects that remains the highlight of 2013.  This seems to surprise a lot of my friends (specifically my blog buddy Matt), but without going into too much detail, I can tell you that Steven Soderbergh's latest and possibly last cinematic endeavor is a real gem of a thriller.  "Thriller."  It's a genre classification I don't like to use as it really doesn't classify anything in particular - shouldn't all movies thrill?  Isn't Top Secret a thriller?  I will say is that Side Effects is not what it seems on the surface.  Channing Tatum is released from prison and is greeted by a wife suffering from crippling depression.  Their relationship shatters when Jude Law's doctor enters their lives with a fancy schmancy new prescription drug.  Steven Soderbergh makes a film Alfred Hitchcock would have helmed if he were still around.  I cannot think of higher praise.

BUY!

The Burning:  Imagine Friday the 13th but populated with the oddest cast of New York actors.  Jason Alexander! Fisher Stevens! Brian Backer! Ned Eisenberg!  And it's got an even odder slasher at the center of it all.  Beware burn victims and garden shears!  Really looking forward to the blu ray transfer along with all of Scream Factory's in-depth supplements.  This certainly isn't a film I ever thought would get a Special Edition treatment, but that's the geek paradise we currently inhabit.  Yay for us.

Captain America (1990):  One of the absolute worst Comic Book movies I have ever seen, but that's an opinion based on an 11 year old kid's reaction.  Made on a shoestring budget by a bunch of people who have no understanding of why the flag wearing badass is so dang cool.  I remember almost nothing about the plot, but I do recall The Red Skull looking very rubbery.  Here's another flick I never thought would get the high def treatment, but the success of The Avengers has 'em coming out of the woodwork.  I probably shouldn't buy it, but I just can't help myself.

The ABCs of Death:  One of the best anthology films out there, what makes The ABCs of Death work is its never wavering dedication to its gimmick.  26 various horror directors tackling 26 ways to die.  Each is given a letter of the alphabet and 3 minutes to tell their story.  Guys like Jason Eisner (Hobo with a Shotgun) and Nacho Vigalondo (Time Crimes) take on "Y is for Young Buck" & "A is for Apocalypse."  As with all films of this sort, some stories work and some stories don't.  But just when you're fed up of a lame tale here comes a new one to replace it.  At the very least, The ABCs of Death leaves you with some rather grisly, but memorable images.

The Town That Dreaded Sundown:  Here's another film that I know I saw but I don't really remember much about.  I remember it getting namechecked in Wes Craven's Scream and I know it's got a really cool killer covered in a spooky hood.  And it's another film being brought back to life by The Scream Factory.  Those guy's are doing God's work.  Ben Johnson heads up the cast and I'm really hoping he gets some serious screentime.  My Peckinpah love needs to see him crush some slasher heads.

AVOID!

The Last Stand:  The first big disappointment of 2013 has hit the dvd shelves and it's a real bummer of a flop for this die hard 80s action fan.  After some Expendable flirtations, Arnold Schwarzenegger returns to the big screen market with this spectacular thud.  The Last Stand offers little excitement as Korean blockbuster Kim Ji-Woon splatters gobs of CG blood across the Texas canvas and this wannabe modern Western struggles to find intensity with Arnie's lumbering bravado.  And what the hell is Forest Whitaker doing in this movie?  Dragging ass, that's what.  His brief appearances distract audiences and grind the narrative to an absolute halt.  I really wanted to see King Conan return in a big way, but it looks like old Arnie is going to have to find love through one of his big franchises instead.  Terminator 5 coming up.  Groan.

Parker:  And here's my least favorite film of 2013 so far.  This horrid adaptation of Richard Stark's utterly brilliant revenge novel, The Hunter gets everything wrong about the character you (or is it just I?) loved.  Jason Statham's good thief butts heads with Michael Chiklas' bad thief, and there's little action as the two B Movie Lightweights snarl at each other.  Jennifer Lopez pops up to provide minimal romantic distraction, but where this movie should be hard and brutal it's really just a limp noodle.  Time for the Stath to get back on track and leave this dud behind.  A real shame given ITMOD's burning desire to see Stark done right on the big screen.

--Brad

Movie Review: Gattaca

    While science fiction sometimes (all too often) falls on the ‘hysterical fear of the future’ side of the equation (especially in film), generally the better stuff is about cautious optimism, not fear.  Gattaca thankfully does not say genetic engineering is evil, only that the abuse of it and gene sequencing could lead to problems and that we should be cautious.  The retro-future style of the movie taps into that 50s style and heart.  But it imagines the relations between natural birth and medically selected birth as a kind of parallel to the typically unofficial, but omnipresent, racism of that time.  It also captures some of that hope for the future represented by rocket launches and space exploration.

    In the film, Ethan Hawk plays natural birthed Vincent who must masquerade as another man, a man with good genes but a broken body, in order to get a job at Gattaca Aerospace Corporation and have a chance to go to space.  With skin, hair, urine, and other genetically tested materials on hand, he may just be able to pass for his ‘valid’ companion Jerome, played by Jude Law.  In spite of his careful planning, regimented life, and superior drive, he is always in danger of being exposed as a fraud.  As the film begins, a mysterious murder puts his false identity to the test.  With only days until his launch, can he maintain his borrowed life, avoid suspicion for the murder, and get a date with a genetically incompatible dame played by Uma Thurman (from that brief phase where I thought she was cute)?

    The visuals of the film are quite striking.  Of course, many of the actors are extremely attractive, because they’re supposed to be the best and brightest, by design.  But the fashion, the cars, and the interior design all have that 50s Modern thing.  Smooth lines, perfect hair, classy cars, everything in polished wood and glass, sharp suits, etc.  It’s like the whole movie came out of the pages of an early Playboy, or some swanky catalog.  And to a degree, even the story itself, though dealing with issues becoming more obvious in the 90s, when it was made, has the feel of early Heinlein or Clarke.  Still hopeful overall, but with that sense that we have a long way to go, and it isn’t all in the tech department.  We need to grow as people, as a society.  We need to learn how to live with the amazing things we make and discover.  And though we shouldn’t fear progress, technological advancement, or scientific discovery, we must use judgment and logic in adopting and living with it.  Should we engineer our children to be better?  Should we manipulate out genetic disorders and hereditary faults?  Do we have a right to do it?  Do we have a duty to do it?  I personally believe we not only should, but have an absolute duty to the future and our unborn children to make them as healthy and capable as possible.  But that’s just me.  Whatever we do in the future when it comes to manipulation of genetic codes, we must be cautious, do the most good and the least harm.  And certainly making a society where those who are modified are a class above those who aren’t isn’t the right way to go.  One’s genes are a blueprint, not the final construct.  No matter what the potential is, the material has to be put together, and even the best plans can fail.  This is the essential issue in the lives of Jerome and Vincent.  Vincent is unaltered.  He has inherited all his parents’ various genetic faults, including bad eyesight and a potential for early heart failure.  Jerome is engineered to be the best at whatever he does.  But while Vincent always dreamed and strived, Jerome became listless, bored, and idle.  However, this doesn’t need to be the case.  In a healthy society, Jerome could also have found passion for life and struggle to be forged upon.  His nature (in this case, his engineered genes) simply needed nurture (encouragement to push boundaries).  Look at the other candidates at Gattaca.  They’re all genetically engineered, but they don’t all make the cut.  Simply having the good genes didn’t guarantee success in everything.  In a healthy society, it wouldn’t guarantee anything.  A person’s drive and will, their merit, their passion and skills.  Those are the things that matter.

    This film also shows that you don’t need complicated special effects or big action scenes to make a compelling science fiction film.  Don’t get me wrong.  I love those things.  I want to see huge spaceships flying through nebula while strange aliens battle it out in zero-G.  But that’s not the only way to do it.  I think there’s one brief fist fight (does one punch count as a fight?) and someone runs down an ally.  That’s the extent of the action in this film.  The effects?  Rockets launch in the background a bunch of times.  That’s about it.  In spite of the lack of lavish effects, the film has a distinct and effective visual style.  I’d like to see more of these thoughtful, low key, serious science fiction films that explore the dangers of ideas without condemning them.  Contemplating possible dangers does not mean one has to stop trying new things.  Because a technology may present problems does not mean it should be ignored, banned, or feared, only that care must be taken in using it.  Science fiction serves as a perfect place to explore concepts’ pros and cons.  Too often today, science fiction is used as a mouthpiece of fearful, Luddite minded fools who are predisposed to assume the worst at all times and uneducated enough to believe every conspiracy theory and reactionary blubbering.  And don’t even get me started on the Revelations people.  That’s a brand of crazy I can’t fathom.  (Even if you accept that the Bible has any relevance, especially as a means of prophecy, which of course, I don’t, 90% of the crap those people spout isn’t even in there).  Since Hal, every super-computer seems bent on the destruction of humanity.  Since Khan (if not before), every genetically engineered human seems to be out for normal human blood.  99% of robots, cyborgs, uplifted animals, clones, and aliens?  Same thing.  Why does everything in modern sci-fi hate humanity so much?  Almost certainly the post-60s guilt that has weighed us down.  We started seeing the damage we’d done to the environment, to various animal species, to ourselves, and instead of saying ‘oops, let’s stop that and get on with things,’ we became consumed with self-hatred.  Learn from history, lest you be doomed to repeat it.  But don’t be so stuck in the past that you can’t move on.  It’s written large in our literature and film, and its symptoms include the return of spiritualism and superstition, the dismissal of scientists and evidence based reasoning, and technological villains that reflect our own fears.  How often to you hear that old Styx mantra, ‘machines dehumanize?’  Do they?  Am I less human for typing this on a laptop?  Am I less human for keeping in touch with old friends via the internet, as opposed to not communicating with them at all?  Am I less human because my glasses help me see?  When we could have accepted what we had done to nature, figured out ways to stop it, and redirected our collective will toward a more healthy path, we got bogged down in the blame game, scapegoating, religious tomfoolery, smug self-righteousness (vegans, I’m looking at you!), and other unhelpful behaviors that have done little to actually fix things.  What reason does a super computer have to kill humanity?  Why would carefully engineered crops turn people into killing maniacs?  Why does a genetically superior person automatically want to kill all ‘lesser beings?’  Why would they not be superior physically, mentally, AND morally?  (Colossus was right, by the way, and it did save humanity).  This was a refreshing aspect of Gattaca, actually.  Yes, the society presented was unhealthy, with a pseudo-racist system, but the genetically superior people were not evil, they were not bent on murdering ‘natural’ people.  Jerome, for example, wished no harm on anyone but himself.  Even the murder was not motivated by the differences between the biological haves and have nots.  With some proper education and sensitivity training, that culture could easily be back on its way to being a healthy and profitable place for all.

    At the end of the day, my crackpot philosophizing aside, Gattaca is a well crafted, quiet, style-rich science fiction drama and cautionary tale.  Not amazing, but pretty good.  It is not the anti-science, doom and gloom, things usually associated with more serious science fiction of latter years (Sunshine).  Nor is it the explosion-heavy creativity-light sort of thing that tends to get the most play at the multiplex (Avatar).  But it gives me hope that there will be more like it.  And, actually, in recent years there have been more examples, from Solaris to Robot and Frank.  Can some of these serve as the kinds of inspirations to young people that Star Trek and 2001 did decades ago?

-Matt

New Release Tuesday (1/31/12)!!!

Drive: An Illustrated Response

Yep, yep, yep I've been waiting for this one...

Must Buy DVD of the Week!

DRIVE:  What more can I say about Nicholas Winding Refn's brutally simple crime tale?  Since last year's A Fistful of Fall Anticipation post we've been ranting incessantly about this flick.  True, it's not for everybody--in fact I know several folks who downright hated the film.  But if you're a fan of that Michael Mann/Elmore Leonard/Winding Refn thing than you'll do your nut over Ryan Gosling's collision with Albert Brooks' psychotic mini-mafioso.  Yes, that is a Fake Criterion cover above but one can dream, right?

Buy!

COLD MOUNTAIN (BLU):  Here's a film that seems to have been willfully forgotten.  Personally, I think this is a fine bit of Civil War melodrama worthy of old school epics like Gone With The Wind and How The West Was Won.  But Anthony Minghella's brand of high drama seems not to be so popular of late and both Cold Mountain & The English Patient catch a lot of flack these days with cries of Oscar Bait and the like.  Pish posh, I say.  Sure, Renee Zellweger's Ruby takes some getting used to but it's much easier to get absorbed by the collection of British actors in disguise:  Jude Law, Brendan Gleeson, Ray Winstone, Cillian Murphy.  Plus, it's an absolutely gorgeous flick.  If you've dismissed it in the past I think it's time to give it another visit.

Rent!

DREAM HOUSE:  The trailers for this spooky haunting hopefully don't do the film justice, and they definitely kept me away from the theaters last year.  Still, it appears to have a sure-fire cast with Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts.  But man, am I sick of the same haunted house stories being told over and over again with the same tired twist endings.

THE MILL & THE CROSS:  This Polish-Sweedish co-production got a lot of raves last year, but you had me at Rutger Hauer.  The film depicts the characters of Pieter Bruegel's 1564 painting "The Way to Calvary" and also stars Charlotte Rampling and Michael York.  That's worth a rent if not a blind buy right there.

TEXAS KILLING FIELDS:  Is this another by-the-numbers serial killer flick or something special?  The presence of Sam Worthington is troubling, but you've also got Watchmen's (and more importantly Supernatural's) Jeffery Dean Morgan.  And Michael Mann has slapped his name on the cover so that means...absolutely nothing probably.

TWO-HEADED SHARK ATTACK:  Not to be confused with the recent string of Corman produced Mega Sharks and Dino Crocs, Two-Headed Shark Attack is an Asylum production starring no one's favorite playmate, Carmen Electra and the Hulk Hogan spawn Brooke Hogan.  It looks like utter garbage but I've rented worse (see Thankskilling).

Avoid!

THE THING (REMAKE):  What a tremendous piece of shit.  Sorry to be crass, but that's the only way to sum up this dreck.  There could have been an interesting sequel, prequel, or remake to John Carpenter's The Thing but this most certainly was not it.  Wasted opportunity.

IN TIME:  Here's another wasted opportunity.  Shades of Logan's Run and another dozen or so sci-fi tales, In Time manages to squander its roots with the blandest of Bonnie & Clyde tales.  Timberlake and Seyfried are decent together, and Cillian Murphy is an interesting lawman...but not interesting enough.

THE BIG YEAR:  No one cares.

--Brad

Brad's Week in Dork! (12/11-12/17)

Well, last week I didn't spend a moment in the movie theater and this week you couldn't keep me away. Went down to my local art house theater on Sunday for Lars Von Trier's Melancholia and had a most miserable experience.  A bird got loose during the screening, they kicked us all out, eventually brought us back in, but outside the theater they were having an RC radio control car race and it was impossible not to hear the announcements while the film played.  That might have contributed to why I detested the film as much as I did.

On Tuesday, Matt & I trudged out to the Udvar Hazy Air & Space Museum for the IMAX screening of The Dark Knight Rises prologue.  That was a ridiculous experience that I would not have missed.  We got their an hour early and there were already 100 people in line waiting to get inside.  And then we waited, waited, waited for our 8 minutes...a wonderfully dorky outing.

And then Matt and I concluded our week on two nights of Double Features.  Friday = Sherlock 2 & Mission Impossible 4.  Saturday = A Dangerous Method & A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.

2011 is winding down.  Gotta get in as many of this year's movies we can so we can put together an appropriate Best Of list.  I just love this time of the year, marathoning Holiday films.


MOVIES OF THE WEEK!

Melancholia:  As the In Living Color Men on Film duo might have said..."Hated It!" Lars von Trier shows off his visual flair once again, but this story of impending apocalyptic destruction set against the irritatingly mentally ill Kirsten Dunst's wedding managed to aggravate rather than thrill, evoke, or whatever the creator's intention. I hated Kirsten Dunst in this film. She gives a strong performance, but its a character that is unbearably mopey or whiney simply because she's nuts--how in the world did she get to this Wedding Day in the first place? What does or did Alexander Skarsgard see in this woman? She appears to have been genetically doomed from the beginning with two whackjob parents in John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling, two actors I adore but seem wasted here.  As time trudged on I wished for a quicker Earthly devastation to free us from this pointless "life is evil" nonsense.

Zodiac:  Excellent police procedural surrounding the decades long investigation into the Zodiac murders that plagued San Fransisco. David Fincher's clinical direction reaches its apex with this gem, and the three leads (Robert Downey Jr, Mark Ruffalo, Jake Gyllenhaal) are in top form as the obsessed citizens haunted by the slayings. The film is a wondrous technical exercise with some of the best CGI blending I've seen, but the real star of the picture is the mystery...or the investigative process. It's impossible to not get wrapped up in the question and I dare you to not start Googleing the case after the credits roll.

Sherlock Holmes:  Fantastic! Guy Ritchie manages to coat Arthur Conan Doyle's brilliant detective with his unmistakable chop-shop style and still contain the essence of Holmes' devious debunker. It's not the revisionist blasphemy some feared (for that check out Basil Rathbone's Nazi Fighting Holmes). And I love how this seems to complete Robert Downey Jr's rapscallion trilogy that started with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Iron Man; films I'd love to watch back to back to back. Jude Law finally kicks butt in film again as Dr. John Watson, the put-upon but loyal sidekick who's very much the military asskicker he should be rather than the bumbling buffoon the black & whites plastered on him. Mark Strong is a bit obvious as the villainous Lord Blackwood, but at least we have the true villainy of puppet master Professor Moriarty waiting in the shadows.

Batman Begins:  Finally, a Batman movie about The Batman. It's not about kooky 60s cool or Tim Burton's gothiness or Jack Nicholson's stratospheric acting abilities or...gulp..."Batnipples. It's about The Man in the Cowl.  And I love how the theme of fear is carried throughout the film. The Boy Who Falls, Ras Al Ghul, the Scarecrow. Bruce Wayne's psyche is fully probed. And all the actors are at the top of their game. I never would have thought Michael Cain would be my ultimate Alfred, but he is. And Gary Oldman is my Gordon. And Morgan Freeman is my Fox. This is my Batman movie. Hell, this is my comic book movie.

The Dark Knight:  I loved Batman Begins so much I could have been perfectly happy without a sequel, but for the most part this film delivers the goods. Heath Ledger's Joker is fantastic. I'd go with him anyday over whacko Jacko. I dig the exploration of the Gotham Mob and Eric Roberts is bloody devilishly pompous here. But my favorite character in the whole film is Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent. I love how he becomes the white knight in Bruce's mind, Gotham's hope for survival. And the fall, tragic. But this is where the film loses me for a bit. The Dent story wraps up too damn quickly, it should have carried over into the third film. And Bats is really secondary to Joker and Dent. Kinda like what happened to Brucey Boy in the last batch of Batfilms. And that's a bummer cuz the Bat focus is what made the first Nolan picture so amazing. Still, I like the dark place where the film concludes and I think there are some great possibilities for a third film.

The Dark Knight Rises Prologue:  The blink and you'll miss it 8 minute prologue is a fun enough introduction of new Bat villain badass Bane, played hulkingly by one-time Picard clone Tom Hardy. It's true, Warner Brothers will probably have to play around with the sound mix regarding his gaseous voice, but overall I liked the effect. As others on the Interwebs have described, the high flying action sequence felt very Roger Moore James Bond but not in a bad way. Christopher Nolan sure knows how to show off that IMAX camera of his.  And the sizzle reel snippits at the end give promise of some serious backbreaking trouble for Bats and July 2012 can't get here soon enough.

Beginners:  Ewan McGregor evolves into a mature relationship with Melanie Laurent after bearing witness to his father's coming out as a gay man. The basic idea of "It's Never To Late To Become Yourself" is punctuated with a surprisingly effective jumpy narrative, bouncing back and forth in time. Christopher Plummer is completely engaging and definitely deserves all the praise being bombarded his way, but it's Ewan McGregor who draws and eventually traps the viewer into the heart of the film. Melanie Laurent is sweet and complicated and of course, it was nice to see her play a character not so steeped in rage as she was in Inglourious Basterds.

Crazy Stupid Love:  Here's a shock: a straight up romantic comedy that's actually worth a damn! When was the last time you saw one of those? Hmmmmm....can't think. Julianne Moore asks Steve Carrell for a divorce sending him out the car door and into a mad, self-loathing decent of booze and bar drivel until Ryan Gosling's Cyrano routine transforms his style and substance. Carell and Gosling are a wonderful comic duo and even though I should hate Gosling for his ridiculously chiseled abs after this year of top performances I'm seriously considering buying The Notebook. God help me.

Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows:  As Jude Law's Dr. Watson gets closer to wedded bliss, Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes slips further off the deep end (the coca leaves help) while also finally battling wits with his arch-nemesis, Jared Harris' Professor Moriarty. A Game of Shadows is a rollicking follow up to the Guy Ritchie original ratcheting up the action set-pieces and introducing Stephen Fry's not-at-all shy Mycroft Holmes as well as Noomi Rapace's knife wielding gypsy. but if you were not a fan of that film than you most certainly won't enjoy the new one. I, however, enjoy the madness thoroughly and could easily see myself coming back every couple of years for further Holmes/Watson adventures. The rumor of a trip to America definitely gets me to smile.

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol:  Tom Cruise and his IMF team are once again disavowed (have they ever been vowed? MI:II? yeash, keep it dis') when they're accused of magnificently blowing up the Kremlin. As with all MI films, Ghost Protocol's director Brad Bird gives the film a look and feel completely separate from the rest in the franchise and some of his explosive setups (the prison riot, the Dubai sandstorm) are the best of the series. Jeremy Renner manages not to infuriate me for a change, but his character is far too meek/weak to be a replacement for Tom's constant runner. So glad to see Simon Pegg take a larger role, more of him please.

A Dangerous Method:  David Cronenberg's latest might fail to incite that visceral, primordial excitement the way his last two efforts (A History of Violence & Eastern Promises) achieved, but the performances from the three leads will carry you even when the plot does not. Michael Fassbender continues to reign over 2011 as the repressed and morrally disturbed Carl Jung, Keira Knightley delivers an aggressively twisted and chin jutting assault, and Viggo Mortensen is impossible not to love as the grumpy, cigar-is-never-just-a-cigar Freud. For all the crazy madhouse sexual mania occurring in the film you would have expected a film a little less dry from Cronenberg, but I'll take what I can get.

--Brad

Poster: Gladstone!!!!!...from Sherlock Holmes 2!!!!

Oh yeah, this might have to be one of my all time favorite International Posters.  Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows advertised via Gladstone the dog.  Fingers crossed that man's best friend gets some serious screentime in the sequel.

--Brad