(Long Island, N.Y.) 2012, the latest in a long line of nearly-identical disaster films by director Roland Emmerich, is the ultimate “missed it by one inch” movie. By that, I mean that the main characters will get into a random vehicle, start moving, and whatever was right behind them (road / runway / building / whatever) will instantly collapse…but don’t worry, they always manage to

barely escape. And this happens over and over and over and over again for the entire 2 hour and 40 minute runtime. In other words, it’s a typical Roland Emmerich movie. And in case you were worried, all of his other clichés are present and accounted for, just as they were in his past hits (such as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow): the Everyday Joe, the Children in Peril, the Cute Doggie, the Selfless President, the Crazy Wacko Guy Who Knows About Everything (but whom no one believes, of course), the Deceitful Government Official, etc, etc, etc…

Whereas the Earth’s destruction in Independence Day was heralded by an alien invasion and by global warming/cooling in The Day After Tomorrow, in 2012 souped-up solar flares are the culprit. It seems the sun is bombarding the Earth with elementary particles called neutrinos (which, in reality, it harmlessly does every day) that are heating up the Earth’s core like a microwave burrito. Although such a thing is technically impossible (the scientists in the movie exclaim as

such, but hey, why ruin things with facts?), this in turn causes the planet’s crust to start shifting and all manner of doomsday events to occur- earthquakes, floods, and volcanic eruptions. Faced with a 2-year deadline before the Earth is inhabitable, the world leaders (lead by American President Thomas Wilson, played by Danny Glover) converge and meet to discuss the construction of massive ships (I initially thought they were space ships, but it’s later revealed they are boats ala Noah’s Ark) to ensure the survival of the human race…well, some of it, anyway. Like all movies dealing with the end of the world, the higher-ups have all the luck, and the rest of us are fish food…well, provided the fish survive the cataclysm, that is.

You’d think this alone could provide enough fodder to pad out the running time of any movie, but of course we need a normal, run-of-the-mill guy heading up the cast so we have “someone to relate to.” This character comes in the form of divorced limo driver and failed sci-fi novelist Jackson Curtis (John Cusack), whose ex-wife took the kids and moved in with her caring, successful plastic surgeon boyfriend Gordon (Thomas McCarthy) years ago (something known in the car business as “trading up”). Of course, Jackson is somewhat aloof and estranged from his kids, preferring to work on another horrible book that he’ll probably never finish. But he attempts to mend fences by picking them up from Gordon’s posh pad in the Los Angeles suburbs and taking them on a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park. Naturally, he neglects them there as well, first to play with his laptop (apparently Yellowstone has wi-fi), and then to hang out with Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), a paranoid nutcase in the neighboring campground who’s broadcasting his own conspiracy theory radio show. Today’s topic: how the government is keeping the truth about the impending holocaust a secret from its citizens! But while people like Charlie are a dime a dozen, in this case…he’s actually right. Amazingly, he’s also in possession of a map showing the location of the Arks- they’re being built in China of all places (see? Everything really IS built there!).

When huge fissures start opening all over LA, Jackson (who, of course, still loves his wife) takes his family (including Gordon, who, against the protocol of movies of this type, is actually a pretty stand-up guy) on a desperate race halfway around the world in a bid to get to the Arks before its too late. Along the way we’re treated to about 100,000 of the close brushes with certain death that I outlined in my opening paragraph. Again, you’d think this was enough to drive a film, but we also have something like two dozen other sub-plots and characters interwoven into 2012’s narrative. An aging jazz duo doing a gig on an ocean liner, a Chinese monk and his family, the President’s daughter, various international scientists, a Russian businessman/mobster and his family…the list goes on, and many of their relationships are bizarrely and impossibly connected, like something out of a

Star Wars movie.

For example, one of the scientists knows John Cusack’s character because he was one of the less than .0005% of the population that had actually read (and been inspired by!) his book. That same scientist’s father, who gave him the book, is one-half of the jazz band. The Chinese monk’s brother helped build the Arks. The Russian, who has a ticket to get on an Ark, is John Cusack’s boss. The scientist that helped Cusack research his novel is the same one that gave Charlie the Ark map. And so on. One might think such an overload might create a complete mess of a picture, but to 2012’s credit, the scenes containing all these characters are generally quite effective at conveying the global devastation to the viewer on a more personal and emotional level, mostly because the excellent actors involved all make the most of their limited screen time.

Oh, remember when I mentioned

all the stock Roland Emmerich characters/plot devices earlier? I forgot to mention one: the Obnoxious, Morally-Upstanding Scientist, such as the one played by Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day. In 2012, it’s in the form of Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the chief scientist responsible for uncovering Doomsday. I loved how he constantly chided the President’s Chief of Staff, Carl Anheuser (Oliver Platt), for making the hard decisions that NEEDED to be made in such a horrible crisis. Yet no matter how annoying Adrian gets, Carl calmly and coolly shoots down each and every one of his ridiculous objections each time he blubbers them (tell the public? But it’ll cause anarchy! The Ark workers should be allowed to come on board? Okay, give one your ticket and he can!). But the best part was when Adrian insisted that they let all the passengers from a disabled Ark on board theirs, not caring that they probably only had provisions to support just the passengers they had and not a few thousand extra. I could imagine fast-forwarding a few months and finding everyone on board eating each other because they had no food left, but alas, that didn’t happen. There’s a lot of dumb, tugging on your heartstrings bunk like this in 2012, and the outcome of any scene is no surprise- nothing happens that you can’t call at least 1/2 an

hour in advance. Like I said, typical Roland Emmerich.

I suppose you’ve been waiting through this entire article for me to get to the amazing

special effects that are basically the public’s sole draw to see

2012, and yes, they’re amazing. It’s hardly even worth mentioning how amazing they are…suffice it to say, every cent of 2012’s 200 million dollar budget was spent on convincingly destroying the planet with a level of detail never seen

before. In fact, I don’t think anyone can ever make a worldwide disaster flick ever again, because 2012 can’t be topped, at least in terms of scale. Buildings topple, continents split

in two, and lava and tidal waves run rampant all over everything. It’s glorious.

Overall, despite the somewhat negative tone of my review, 2012 was very entertaining in the end. It didn’t waste any time getting rolling and just kept going full-steam ahead until the end, which is probably why it didn’t really seem overly long despite being over 2 1/2 hours in length. In addition to the fine acting and beautiful computer-generated carnage, there’s also some good laughs along the way, including one especially clever gag involving starting a Bentley. So turn your brain off and you’ll be fine, but if you’re hoping for more than just beautiful, eyeball melting, non-stop CG destruction, you’re outta luck.

(Long Island, NY) The Box, a new sci-fi/horror film written and directed by Richard Kelly, ended up almost nothing like I expected. Never having read the 1970 Richard Matheson short story “Button, Button” that The Box is based on, the preview trailers made me think this was a modern re-telling of W. W. Jacob’s “The Monkey’s Paw.” Not so- much like Kelly’s surreal 2001 cult hit Donnie Darko, The Box starts out as one thing and quickly and perplexingly morphs into an entirely different beast altogether.

Recapping The Box’s storyline will prove daunting, as it’s really all over the place. About halfway through watching I began to get a dull ache in the pit of my stomach- the feeling I get when I’m watching a movie that I fear is posing far more questions than it will have the decency to answer by its conclusion. Sure, such an approach can be intriguing, although more often it just makes me want to set the movie screen on fire. Luckily for my fellow patrons at the movie theater (who probably weren’t in the mood to start scrambling for the emergency exit), The Box politely manages to wrap most of its loose threads up by the time the credits roll. At least, I think they were tied up. I’m not quite sure.

Set in the 1970’s, The Box starts out simply enough: Norma (Cameron Diaz) and Arthur (James Marsden, the guy with laser eyes in X-Men) Lewis appear to be a moderately successful married couple (she teaches at a swanky private school, he works at NASA) who tend to live a bit beyond their means. Despair sets in when it appears that their inability to economize will threaten their son Walter’s (Sam Oz Stone) pricey education and possibly even their home, but just when things are looking their bleakest, a strange package is left at their front door early one morning. Containing an odd wooden box with a button enclosed in a locked glass dome and a note informing them that a “Mr. Steward” will come calling at 5:00 pm, Norma and Arthur are bewildered at first, but soon continue with their everyday routines. That is, until Mr. Steward (Frank Langella) actually shows up as advertised. A calm, well-spoken man grotesquely missing a chunk of his face (eew), he presents the Lewis family with a bizarre proposition and 24 hours to decide on it: if they press the button on the enigmatic wooden box, they get one million dollars, but someone they don’t know will die. Now, to their credit, Norma and Arthur agonize for almost the full 24 hours before hitting the button, whereas your average Dick and Jane would probably start tapping out Morse code on the thing instantly.

The deed done, Mr. Steward re-appears with a briefcase filled with one million smackers, but being decent folk, Norma and Arthur immediately regret their decision and try to take it back. Sorry guys- no go. However, this is just the beginning…soon the lines of reality start to blur as the couple and their son become central to a plot hatched by unknown alien forces to decide the very fate of mankind(!). As it progresses, The Box starts to get very trippy, and it’s to director Richard Kelly’s credit that he manages to keep all the threads of the plot-line from unraveling completely. Yeah, you’ll be sitting there wondering just what the heck is going on for most of the movie, but rest assured, it’ll all come together in the end. Well, sort of.

The Box is a very solid, unique and compelling film. It has a strange, nightmarish quality which is more unsettling than actually frightening, but it works to keep the viewer guessing until the very end. And yes, you will be guessing, because for the first 3/4ths of The Box, the storyline gives you nothing, and I mean NOTHING to go on. If you paid for your ticket, just realize that you’re along for the ride- my trying to explain how the plot progresses with its many dreamlike twists and turns would simply be an exercise in futility.

One of the main reasons The Box works so well, despite being fairly disconcerting, lies squarely on the strength of its cast. Cameron Diaz and James Marsden display amazing chemistry with one another as a couple damned by a moment of moral weakness. Frank Langella’s performance creates a aura of mystery, charm, and menace as he tackles the role of a grim redeemer with an unknown agenda. The rest of the cast is solid as well, but the film revolves around these three, and it would have completely fallen apart if left in the hands of less capable actors.

Of course, The Box’s other strength- it’s uniqueness- is also it’s greatest downfall, depending on your viewing tastes. If you like things straightforward and well explained, this ISN’T the movie for you. I could certainly see some people not enjoying The Box’s unconventional narrative, and when the payoff finally does come, it’s somewhat underwhelming. Not HORRIBLE, mind you, but just not worth the extended and rather overwrought buildup. Yes, there’s a huge emotional climax and it is rather heart wrenching, but the hows and whys are fairly unsatisfying, if only because they’re a bit hokey.

Also, I must take a moment to relay a personal annoyance to me concerning the “Mr. Steward” character. You see, as I mentioned above, he’s missing a nice big piece of his face. It ain’t pretty- we’re talking a good chunk of jawbone gone, a hole in his cheek exposing his teeth, the works. But all this was done via rather poor computer graphics, and it’s not convincing- in fact, I found it took away from Frank Langella’s performance a great deal. Here he is, being all chilling and creepy, and all I can do is stare at the unbelievably fake CG plastered across his puss. I could just picture the green placeholder paint used on his mug during filming, and when your CG provides a distraction of that magnitude, perhaps you’d best re-think the benefits of traditional, physical make-up effects. Okay, maybe you couldn’t make 1/3rd of Frank Langella’s head go completely bye-bye, but at least it’d look real.

So, in the end, The Box is an example of refreshing yet flawed film-making- it’ll be loved by some, hated by others, and all for the same reasons. But if you like you’re a thinking man’s science fiction fan, I highly recommend it.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Hi folks. Since I’m both a huge fan of Halloween (not to mention spooky stuff in general), I’m going to do something a little different with my column this week. Instead of just reviewing one film, I’m going to compile a whole list of my own personal horror movie recommendations, past and present, to get you in the mood for this dark and evil season. This way, after you’re done partying or trick-or-treating, you can head on down to your local video store and pick up a few of these 13 creepy selections, comprised of both mainstream hits and obscure cult classics:

The Thing-
Starring Kurt Russell and directed by the great John Carpenter back in 1982, The Thing is probably my all-time favorite horror movie. Based on the short story “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell Jr., it’s the tale of a naughty shape-shifting alien that terrorizes a remote American artic research outpost, killing the men stationed there one by one and leaving nearly-undetectable doppelgangers in their places. Naturally, this breeds intense paranoia among the dwindling survivors, who must overcome their fear and find a way to destroy ‘The Thing’ before it finds a way to get to civilization, where it’s sure to eventually assimilate the entire planet. Dark and relentlessly grim, The Thing is blistered by a great ensemble cast (including Wilford Brimley and Keith David) and Rob Bottin’s legendary creature and gore effects work. One of the most involving and intense horror movies ever made.

The Abominable Dr. Phibes-
Almost any film starring the late horror icon Vincent Price is a safe bet for Halloween, but if I had to pick one, it would be this tongue-in-cheek masterpiece. Price stars in the bizarre tale of Dr. Anton Phibes, a famous musician thought dead who slowly stalks and murders the surgical team responsible for his wife’s accidental death on their operating table. Do these nice people, who were only trying to save the poor woman’s life, really deserve such a fate? Who cares! Using the ancient Ten Plagues of Egypt (as depicted in The Bible) as the basis for his murders, the twisted Dr. Phibes shows us all a good time as he foils the bumbling police time and again as he exacts his misguided revenge. Campy, creepy, and over-the-top, The Abominable Dr. Phibes is an underrated classic.

The Silence of the Lambs-
Okay, everyone should know this one. Serial killer Buffalo Bill has been kidnapping women, holding them hostage, and eventually skinning them, something the FBI doesn’t like. However, they’ve hit a dead end in their investigation and, when a senator’s daughter ends up Billy’s newest victim, they get desperate. The FBI sends trainee Clarice Starling to gain the assistance of the brilliant yet cannibalistic psychiatrist, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, incarcerated in an asylum for many years. A former criminal profiler for the FBI, Lecter’s keen insight and powers of deduction appear to be the key to stopping Bill’s killing spree, but does the sinister Lecter have ulterior motives in helping the naive Starling? Who knows, all I care about is that actor Sir Anthony Hopkins’ charming yet feral turn as Lecter still manages to make me nervous despite his character being imprisoned through inch-thick Plexiglas. If that’s not the hallmark of a true horror icon, I don’t know what else is. A finely directed (by Jonathan Demme)

and shot thriller, The Silence of the Lambs remains one of the very few horror films to win multiple Oscars, an honor it rightfully deserves.

The Evil Dead-
Way before director Sam Rami found success with the Spider-Man series, he was eking out low-budget splatter flicks in the woods with his friends and trying to make a name for himself. This film, the first of the Evil Dead trilogy, gets my personal pick for Halloween viewing mainly because it’s the only one of the three that can be classified as true horror. You see, as the series went on, the scares gave way to campiness and slapstick instead, which is all well and good if you dig that sort of thing. But if you’re looking for a creepy and atmospheric tale of demon possession with a side of blood and guts, it’s hard to top the film that basically launched Rami’s career (not to mention the career of B-Movie god Bruce Campbell). It’s crude and rough around the edges, but that’s all part of The Evil Dead’s charm.

The Mist-
I reviewed the Frank Darabont-directed adaptation of Stephen King’s novella back in 2007, and assigned it my first (and, to date, only) 4-star rating. In retrospect, giving The Mist 4 stars and Pixar’s WALL-E only 3 1/2 was a bit off- looking back, the scores probably should be transposed with one another- but you know what they say about hindsight, right? Anyway, none of that takes away from The Mist’s quality one iota- it still remains one of the best horror movies released in years. The tale of a group of shoppers trapped in a supermarket after a mysterious monster-infested mist envelops their small town, it does what so few horror flicks bother to do: give you characters you care about, so when they’re placed into a dangerous situation, you don’t actually root for the CREATURES to kill THEM like you do when watching Friday the 13th (although that’s fun too). A top-notch cast lead by Tom Jane, some great camera work, and really freakish monster design help to overshadow some of the (surprisingly) poor CG effects.

Paranormal Activity-
In theaters currently, and now that it’s finally gone into wide release, you don’t have an excuse not to see it anymore. And no, that whole “Um, but I have to do my laundry, feed my cat, trim my toenails…” bit ain’t gonna cut it, either. Yes, the somewhat obnoxious advertising campaign billing it as the “SCARIEST MOVIE EVER” might make you think the film is all hype, but trust me, it’s not. It’s the real deal, and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen this disturbing tale of a couple videotaping a malevolent demon who just won’t leave with a rabid, live audience. Chances are you’ll be screaming along with them.

Re-Animator-
Released back in 1985 and based on a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, director Stewart Gordon fashioned a quirky gore-fest that could be considered one-half horror film and one-half black comedy. Re-Animator is the story of mad scientist Dr. Herbert West (a character that has achieved cult status due to actor Jeffrey Comb’s portrayal) and his quest to perfect his invention, known as the re-agent- a fluorescent green formula capable of re-animating dead tissue, at times with disastrous (or humorous) results. Aided by his long-suffering assistant, Dr. Dan, Herbert gets into all sorts of outlandish situations, including confrontations with an arrogant, bubble-headed co-ed obsessed, talking decapitated head and the somewhat annoyed body it used to be attached to. Re-Animator is both fun and freaky.

Halloween (John Carpenter and Rob Zombie’s versions)-
For a good one-two punch, watch John Carpenter’s slasher genre-defining 1978 original about masked murderer and escaped mental patient Michael Myers and his quest to get back home to Haddonfield, IL to wish his baby sister a Happy Halloween. Couple that screening with Rob Zombie’s excellent 2007 re-make (and I normally HATE remakes), which delved deeper into Myers’ childhood and his relationship with his therapist, Dr. Loomis, and you should be all set for a sickenly good time. The sequel to Carpenter’s version isn’t so hot, but at least he can rest easy because he wasn’t the director on that one. Alas, Rob Zombie has no such excuse, as his follow-up, Halloween 2, was pretty terrible. Stick with the originals and you’ll be

okay.

Friday the 13th (any film in the series)-
Now, if you’ve been reading my column for any length of time, you’d know that I’m a big fan of one Mr. Jason Voorhees. The hulking, hockey mask-clad, machete-wielding, mass murdering momma’s boy and most-hated county resident of the Crystal Lake tourism board, Jason is one of the most iconic monsters in cinematic history. While his films all have varying degrees of creepiness, you watch them more for the blatant fun factor, over-the-top and imaginative kills of brainless teenagers out to party, and the abundance of 80’s cheese. The recent 2009 remake/reboot of the series has taken it in a slightly darker and more realistic direction, but it still captures the essence of what made Jason the king of slasher movies. As long as you avoid the blight to humanity known as Jason Goes to Hell, any entry in the series (if not all of them in a row!) will make for excellent viewing this Halloween.

Event Horizon-
A science fiction film released in 1997, Event Horizon is only good movie directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, but that’s most likely because it’s one of the few films he’s helmed where he didn’t actually write the script as well. But regardless of Anderson’s (lack of) credentials, Event Horizon remains an underrated and effective romp through a great big haunted spaceship, complete with hellish imagery and some rather nightmarish set design (that “meat grinder” corridor…eek!). Plus, it has Laurence Fishburne as a feisty rescue ship captain and Sam Neill ripping his own eyes out! What more do you need to know?

Orphan-
I reviewed Orphan earlier this year and gave it all-around high-marks, and I still stand by that review. And, luckily for you, it’s out on DVD in time for the Halloween season. It’s not the most original movie in the world- I mean, how many flicks can they make about charming, evil children and the one adult who discovers their true nature but that no one believes? Quite a few, actually. But that doesn’t change the fact that Orphan is expertly made and readily plays with the standard horror movie conventions by lulling the viewer into thinking it’s going in one obvious direction, then winking and pulling a fast one on us. Talented child actor Isabelle Fuhrman helps make the eponymous Orphan pretty believable…and scary. I’m sure not adopting some brat any time soon, and it’s all thanks to this movie.

May-
A little-known film directed in 2002 by Lucky McGee, May is about a really, really weird girl (played by Angela Bettis) who just wants to make a friend. The problem, as I just stated but must reiterate, is that she’s really, really weird. Relating more to a glass-boxed doll named Suzy given to her

by her mother than to real people, May nonetheless tries over and over establish relationships with actual people, only to be rejected time and time again. So lonely that she’s finally driven to the brink of madness, May sets out to make a friend, no matter what the cost to herself…or them. Overall, a very good movie with an odd, quiet atmosphere that has a thick underlying sense of dread underneath, but sadly it falls apart somewhat near the end. Still, well worth seeing if you’re looking for something offbeat.

Session 9-
Another sleeper, released in 2001 and directed by Brad Anderson, it’s about an abandoned mental hospital and the asbestos removal crew that arrives to clean it up before it can be demolished. Once the job has started, however, strange and startling things start happening, and the ominous past of the hospital and its patients slowly start to reveal themselves. Filmed in an actual ruined asylum, the dilapidated surroundings (dust, broken furniture, peeling paint) help to generate a thick, foreboding atmosphere over the proceedings. The terror in Session 9 is more psychological than physical, but in some ways that makes it all the more menacing. This movie was one of the inspirations cited by the creator of the excellent Silent Hill series of Survival Horror videogames, and if you’ve ever played them, you can easily see the influence Session 9 had on their look and feel.

Well, there you have it…13 scary film suggestions to keep you busy this Halloween. Enjoy

(Long Island, N.Y.) The movie business, just like most things in life, is rife with politics, and at times like these politics can prevent otherwise groundbreaking films from achieving the success they so richly deserve. Sometimes, they can be set up to fail by a studio bigwig looking to prove that his own mundane projects are the way to go.

Other times, they can fall prey to clueless marketing types who clearly don’t know what to do when something unusual comes along, and as a result simply do the bare minimum to promote it (which can be nothing at all). After all, in their minds, it’s best to save money on advertising and let the offending movie die a quick death at the box office so they can get to generic garbage they think the public really wants to see- usually something involving big explosions and lots and lots of computer graphics. It’s sad when someone’s had work ends up on the chopping block like that.

Now, along comes Black Dynamite. A spoof of “Blaxploitation” movies (an action genre created in the early 1970’s featuring black casts for black audiences, and one I‘m a big fan of), BD is one of the funniest and most original movies I’ve seen in years. But alas, I haven’t seen any posters for it in theaters, commercials on TV, or trailers attached to any of the movies I’ve seen recently (and I see an average of 1-2 a week). It’s also getting a very limited release- as of this writing, it’s only showing at two theaters on Long Island (Commack and Valley Stream) and a small handful in Manhattan. It’s obvious that, for whatever reason, Black Dynamite is a victim of the above-mentioned studio politicking, and it’s a total shame. Marketed correctly (read: at all), I think this could have done really well. It’s a damn fine movie.

First off: Black Dynamite, as played by veteran actor Michael Jai White, is perhaps one of the greatest bad-asses ever to appear on the silver screen. Why? I’ll list off why, point-by-point. Black Dynamite:

• Is cool
• Is tough
• Is buff
• Is an ex-CIA agent
• Is a Vietnam Vet
• Is a Kung-Fu master
• Has a big afro
• Drives an even bigger Caddy
• Owns a fine polyester wardrobe
• Has no qualms about beating up stubborn old ladies for info (always a plus)
• Can service 5 women at a time (!!!!)
• Wields a big Magnum (the gun, not…oh, never mind)

We’ll stop our little list there. This IS a family website, after all.

Black Dynamite, a suave ladies man who “drives a $5000 car and wears $100 suits,” is called back into action by the CIA when the Mafia kills his brother, delivers heroin to the orphanage, and floods the ghetto with bad malt liquor. To avenge his brother, protect the kids, and clean up the streets, Black Dynamite must use his wits, hands, feet, nunchucks, and an assortment of real big guns, eventually uncovering a conspiracy leading all the way to the White House! But if any man is up to the task, it’s Black Dynamite!

Calling Black Dynamite a “parody” wouldn’t be accurate- it’s more of a loving, tongue-in-cheek homage to the entire Black Action genre. Unlike 1988’s lackluster I’m Gonna Git You Sucka, BD doesn’t make fun of its source material- for the most part this movie plays it straight, while adhering to all the little details you’d expect from 70’s Blaxploitation- guns, bellbottoms, hot ladies, kickin’ tail, and stickin’ it to The Man! You can tell that writer/director Scott Sanders and co-writer/star Michael Jai White were big fans of movies like the late Rudy Ray Moore’s Dolemite and Richard Roundtree’s Shaft, and set to re-create that type of experience (fun, warts, and all) for modern audiences.

What’s really amazing is that this movie looks like it was actually shot back in the 70’s! Film grain, bad editing, wacky camera work, porn-style wah-wah music, stock footage, you name it. A lot of work obviously went into the production of Black Dynamite in terms of nailing its authentic Blaxploitation feel, and aside from some bad CG (which stands out rather harshly when everything else is so vintage), the filmmakers really pulled it off. In fact, if you were flipping through the channels one night and came across Black Dynamite, you’re never suspect it was a modern movie- you’d swear it was the best Blaxploitation movie you never saw.

And while the cast is great all-around (especially Byron Minns as Bullhorn, a character clearly inspired by Dolemite), the main reason that Black Dynamite succeeds is star Michael Jai White, in what SHOULD have been his big break-out role (had Apparition, the film’s lame-duck distributor, done ANYTHING to support this film). Unlike most actors nowadays trying to play tough guy roles, White actually possesses the charisma, physicality and legit real-life martial arts abilities to make pulling off such a character a breeze- Black Dynamite is one BAD man! Here’s a good example why: In one scene, Black Dynamite confronts a pool hall full of mean dudes who threaten him with a butt whoopin’ unless he leaves. BD turns and walks towards the door, but instead of leaving he slides the gate shut and flips the “closed” sign. Carnage ensues.

Of course, even a flick as awesome as Black Dynamite can have a few minor issues- it does have a few spots where it loses the authentic feel and goes a bit overboard on the spoof, and there are those aforementioned bad CG shots- there’s one scene where a man’s running around on fire that looks horribly fake. But overall, these are minor quibbles and not really worth dwelling on.

Here’s a quick story for you: I originally saw Black Dynamite over 4 months ago at a test screening in Manhattan. After the movie was over, questionnaires were handed out and 25 people were selected to be interviewed by the marketing people for their in-depth opinions. The focus group was kind of an odd insight to how the studios do some of their research- the 25 people were obviously cherry-picked, 25/25 loved the movie, and the marketing dudes seemed to have trouble understanding why. They were just so out of touch, despite asking us every question they could think of (why we all thought it was excellent, what made it excellent, what got us interested, what the best scenes were, what age group it should appeal to, if it would appeal to guys or girls, etc). No wonder Black Dynamite is getting no advertising.

So, in closing, I have to say that Black Dynamite is more than worth the effort you’ll expend in tracking down a theater it’s actually playing at. In going to see it, you’ll be accomplishing two things: One, you’ll be helping support an entertaining, independent film that’s getting no help whatsoever from its distributor; and Two, you’ll be telling The Man that he can’t tell you what movies YOU want to see! So don’t be no jive turkey, brothers and sisters- show Black Dynamite some love.

(Long Island, N.Y.) To start off, Paranormal Activity lives up to the hype- and then some. And aside from being a truly engrossing and disturbing horror movie, it’s also important in the sense that it was made “outside the system.” It’s the brainchild of one Mr. Oren Peli, a regular Joe with no formal film training at all. One day, Oren decided to make his very own movie, tapping into his own fear of the supernatural (supposedly even Ghostbusters scared the poor man) for the subject matter.

To that end, he fixed up his house (the film’s sole shooting location), bought a high-end camcorder, auditioned a few actors, came up with a framework for his story, and just cut loose, free of any of the constraints normally imposed upon films by their backing studios. Heck, the guy didn’t even have a script, instead relying on his actors to interpret his storyline and ad lib to their heart’s content. The whole thing cost 15 grand and Peli edited it himself, most likely all on his home PC. And who would a thunk it? It worked.

Starting out in a very limited release, positive buzz and word of mouth is ensuring that Paranormal Activity is opening in more and more cities every weekend. If it’s not playing in your area yet, keep an eye out- it will be soon. I sure hope the director is at least getting a percentage of the take, ’cause this movie is raking in the dough….

Paranormal Activity can be classified in the “found footage” genre, ala 1999’s vastly inferior Blair Witch Project. That is, it takes the form of camcorder footage recorded by the characters involved that is supposedly “found” and made public so that you, the audience, can watch what happened. The plot is simple:

Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat (both their real-life names) are a couple that have recently moved in together. Now, fellas- we’ve ALL had a girl at one point in our lives that came with…shall we say…”baggage.” Sometimes this baggage comes in the form of “daddy issues” or a psycho ex-boyfriend, stuff like that. Well, consider yourself lucky if that’s all you have to deal with, as Micah has the end-all be-all of girlfriend baggage to contend with- a DEMON. Yes, an actual DEMON. As it turns out, Katie has been stalked on and off by an evil demonic menace since the tender age of 8, a fact that she didn’t bother telling poor Micah until she and Beelzebub had moved into his nice, big house. Gee, thanks Katie.

Anyway, once the demon makes itself at home it starts its shenanigans, creating various disturbances and whatnot each evening after the couple have gone to sleep. Micah, the more inventive member of the relationship, decides he’s going to buy a camcorder and get this all on video, even going so far as to set it up on a tripod near their bed while they slumber. Not having been harassed by this unknown creature for years, Micah takes the making of his documentary very lightly, something that upsets Katie. She considers his constant jovial antics insensitive, but as an audience member, I personally found Micah to be a lighthearted reprieve from the ever-darkening atmosphere. And darken it does, as the nocturnal activity of their otherworldly guest continues to escalate, leading to grim and disturbing discoveries each morning when reviewing the previous evening’s camera footage. Soon it becomes clear that their lives are in danger, but since the demon is tied to Katie and not the house, running away would prove useless. The duo struggle in vain to discover the intentions of the creature and how to possibly vanquish it, but each night brings them closer and closer to doom…

Paranormal Activity is similar to The Blair Witch Project in how it was made (hand the actors a camera and let ’em rip), but otherwise it has 100x the atmosphere, tension, humor and overall “creep” factor, and unlike Blair Witch, it actually has a great payoff at the end. The key is that Katie and Micah aren’t your usual beautiful and perfect Hollywood archetypes, but normal people doing normal things, making them far easier to relate to. The movie starts off slow, but only to establish how “normal” everything is and to set up the pieces that will be going into play later- Katie and Micah, the limited back-story that is given to the haunting, and the house itself, which becomes as much a character as the actors. That slow start becomes a slow burn, and eventually you’ll be equally anticipating and dreading bedtime, as each night only gets worse for the unfortunate couple. The mounting atmosphere of dread and fear becomes almost too much to bear, and as a jaded horror movie fan I loved every second of it.

What also makes Paranormal Activity so effective are the fears it plays upon. For the most part, it doesn’t rely on things jumping out and going boo like most films. No, it’s far craftier than that. It speaks to our most primal fears…those of the unknown, of malevolent forces completely beyond our control, forces from which the best we can hope for is indifference. Geez, even the childhood notion of your bedsheets forming an impregnable barrier against all evil is violated in this movie. Oren Peli sure knows what scares people, that’s for certain. The fact that he also managed to find two lead actors that are 100% believable in their roles and exhibit great chemistry with each other helps as well. After all, in the end, this is basically a movie about two people and a camera. Aside from two other characters that barely get a combined total of 10 minutes of screen time, Katie and Micah are the only human beings you’ll be seeing for PA’s 96 minutes, and they never bore you. Not for a second.

Paranormal Activity and its success have me hyped. It’s a great example of a film that didn’t cost $150 million, has no major special effects (unlike another recent movie involving demonic stalking, Drag Me To Hell, which failed on every level PA succeeds on), no big-name actors (barely any actors at all, in fact), yet is generating buzz and audience reactions like no film I’ve seen in years. This thing is selling out theaters like crazy and audiences I’ve seen it with go completely nuts- one frightened patron even went so far as to walk out after an especially grueling scene and not come back. Seriously! And in the lobby afterwards I found groups of people huddled together, shaking their heads and discussing what they just saw. Do you think drivel like Transformers 2 had this effect on people?

The sad fact is that you’ll never see a million-dollar film that’ll be allowed to take a chance on a concept that hasn’t been focus-tested to death to appeal to everyone and anyone. Our entertainment salvation lies with cheap little nothing flicks like this that can take risks because they cost nothing to make and the director isn’t getting bullied by studio head honchos during production. Paranormal Activity is engrossing from start to finish and does what it sets out to do to near-perfection. I welcome it as a breath of fresh air.

As for the directing future of newcomer Oren Peli, I always wonder what kind of success these kind of filmmakers will enjoy once they transition from their guerrilla-style, low-budget beginnings to mainstream projects with actual funding behind them. The Blair Witch guys both still work as directors, albeit mostly on lame, direct-to-video stuff (including Blair Witch 3, which according to Wikipedia is slated for 2010. Oh, boy!). As for Oren Peli, he’s already working on his next movie. He’s using the same “found footage” premise, but this time it takes place at Area 51. Based on the quality of his debut, that’s got me pretty interested.

Go see Paranormal Activity now. Even if you have to drive five towns over to do it.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Mixing film genres can be a difficult task to get right. Usually there’s not enough of one, too much of the other, and so on. And the two genres I notice being melded the most throughout the years are horror and comedy. Sure, you’ll get the success stories like Creepshow, Ghostbusters, or Sean of the Dead, but that’s only after wading through toxic sludge like Scary Movie, Killer Condom, or Zombie Strippers (no, I didn’t make those last two up). Like Reese’s realized when they invented the venerated Peanut Butter Cup, you have to walk a fine line when mixing two very different ingredients in order to get it right.

And that brings us to today’s review: Zombieland, directed by Ruben Fleischereich (his first feature-length endeavor). It’s a lighthearted film about (if the title didn’t clue you in) zombies starring Woody Harrelson. The plot itself is as simple and clichéd as any zombie flick you’d care to mention: Earth is consumed by an undead apocalypse and only small pockets of humanity remain. A college student called Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg) is heading to Columbus, Ohio to try and find his parents, and along the way he runs into a Twinkie-obsessed zombie hunter called Tallahassee (Harrelson). The two hit it off (sort of) and become traveling companions.

Oh, and in case you were wondering: their names aren’t REALLY Columbus and Tallahassee…that’s just where they’re both respectively heading, geographically speaking. In a world where every second could be your last, the way our heroes avoid painful attachments is to keep their names to themselves. You see, Columbus and company live by a set of safety rules (keep up with your cardio, check the back seat, etc) which are referenced throughout the movie, similar to what you’d find in Max Brook’s humorous book “The Zombie Survival Guide” (available for sale at your local retailer! And no, I’m not getting kickbacks). You see, you need to follow strict guidelines to increase your chances of survival when living in a world filled with re-animated flesh-eating corpses. It’s just common sense, folks.

Anyway, our duo start ransacking a grocery store in search of delicious creme-filled sponge cakes when they meet Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin), two girls headed to…well, Wichita and Little Rock. Now, over the course of Zombieland, these two ladies basically con Columbus and Tallahassee over and over, but in typical stupid male movie character fashion, the dim-witted guys keep falling for it. Eventually, an uneasy truce is declared and, after a change of plans, the group decides to head to an abandoned amusement park called Pacific Playland, a supposed safe haven in a world gone to hell. But uncertainty abounds- even if they manage to make it there in one piece, what will they find? Romance? Human survivors? Vicious zombie clowns? Twinkies? Actor Bill Murray pretending to be a zombie so he can work on his golf game without interruptions?

Nahh, that last one is too silly to be real. Or…IS it?

Zombieland is funny, fast-paced, and for fans of gratuitous violence and gore, there’s plenty to ensure that Zombieland easily earns its “R” rating. After all, it’s a movie about cannibalistic living corpses and humans with lots of guns, gardening equipment, and banjos. Put the two together, add water, mix, and you’re sure to have yourself one heck of a mess. However, Zombieland never goes too far with the guts and sinew- if the bloodstained climax of George Romero’s Day of the Dead still gets you a little queasy, Zombieland might be a bit more your speed.

Zombieland also eschews the annoying habit of modern film running lengths going over the 2 1/2 hour mark- it’s a scant 87 minutes long, a length which can make even a bad movie almost watchable (simply because there’s less pain), but a good movie even better. After all, I can’t count the number of flicks I’ve seen that would have been enjoyable had they not obnoxiously outstayed their welcome by as long as 20-40 minutes. Zombieland wisely doesn’t fall prey to the annoying “more is more” trend adopted by more and more filmmakers. Always leave ’em wanting more, folks.

Okay, I’m not using the word “more” again in this review. Sorry.

I’m happy to finally see Woody Harrelson in a leading role once again after a long series of smaller roles in recent years. Hopefully Zombieland’s box office success will continue this trend, as Woody still possesses the charisma and physicality to carry a leading role, even when pushing 50. The rest of the cast does a fine job as well, all of them establishing characters that you actually grow to care about. Harrelson and Eisenberg possess good chemistry together, and Stone and Breslin provide excellent foils for them. And Bill Murray’s cameo is a joy- they guy just continues to get better and better with age.

But that’s not to say that Zombieland is a home run. The characters of Wichita and Little Rock keep screwing over Columbus and Tallahassee so often that it’s hard to feel any sympathy for them when they finally get into a legit bad situation and need bailing out. And the situation they get themselves into will basically leave you shaking your head at their complete lack of brains…if keeping a low profile is the key to survival in a world overrun by the undead, you don’t start up every light and ride in an amusement part, genius.

But other than that minor annoyance, Zombieland delivers. It manages to enter the rather overcrowded zombie film market and successfully carve out its own unique and entertaining niche in it. Highly recommended.

(Long Island, NY) I’m tired, and honestly, not very much in the mood to be writing at the moment. But I feel I owe it to you, my loyal readers, to persevere and deliver yet another one of my engrossing movie reviews. Such is my dedication to this wonderful website known as Long Island Exchange. Despite my fatigue, I’ll do my best to make sure my writing this week is up to my usual standards (take that as you will).

So…today we’ll be dissecting the new Bruce Willis film, Surrogates, directed by Jonathan Mostow (of Terminator 3 fame). It’s a science fiction movie based on a 2005 comic book series (which I was initially unaware of…I might have to track it down) that takes place in the year 2017. The idea behind Surrogates is interesting…you know how a lot of people nowadays are obsessed with the internet and living through their online personas? Well, in the future, imagine being able to lie back in the safety of your home and remotely control a stronger, faster, better-looking robotic version of yourself (known as a “Surrogate”)? Sound more fun than World of Warcraft or The Sims? Well, in Surrogates, the vast majority of human beings worldwide are living out their lives in that very way, thanks to new technology invented by a reclusive scientist named Dr. Lionel Canter (James Cromwell).

Despite the fact that Dr. Canter originally invented the Surrogates as a means for disabled people to regain their mobility, the social use of Surrogates by the general public eventually becomes all the rage. While turtled up in their apartments and houses, your average Joe or Jane can work their jobs, go out on the town, make whoopee with total strangers, take death-defying leaps onto dance floors, and all without risk. You see, since any damage sustained by a Surrogate never carries over to its user, their actions have no consequences in real life (lucky stiffs!). The world becomes a safe yet sterile and cold place, free of crime or fear.

That is, until the first murder in years is committed. The victim? Jarod, the college-age son of Dr. Canter who was inhabiting the body of a Surrogate at the time. The young man was done in by an unknown assailant wielding a new weapon capable of not only destroying a user’s robotic doppelganger, but it’s user as well. The FBI dispatches Agent Tom Greer (played by Willis) and his partner Agent Jennifer Peters (Radha Mitchell) to investigate these shenanigans. Using his own Surrogate, Greer looks into the mystery surrounding Dr. Canter, the company he founded and was subsequently forced out of, and an anti-Surrogate community lead by a big dreadlocked guy known as The Prophet (Ving Rhames).

Compounding the case is the fact that Dr. Canter’s son just so happened to be using one of dad’s deluxe Surrogates at the time of his death, leading to the speculation that the target was actually the scientist himself.

Despite the distraction of Greer’s problems at home- his son previously died in a car crash and his depressed wife prefers interacting with him only though her Surrogate (considering that she’s pretty beat-up looking in real life, maybe that’s a plus)- the veteran agent pushes on with the investigation, until an encounter with the killer and his weapon (resembling a Star Trek phaser) disables his Surrogate. Having to literally take matters into his own hands, Greer, much older and more follically-challanged than his youthful Surrogate would suggest, physically ventures outside of his apartment for the first time in years. Adjusting to the unease and anxiety of life unplugged from his mechanized stand-in, Greer continues his probe into the case, and soon discovers a plot that could cost millions their lives. But can a mere human like Greer survive when faced with robotic enemies more than his physical match?

Okay, I’ve made it this far through the review. I took a short break, watched some Law and Order: SVU, and had a protein drink. I feel a bit refreshed, ready to push on, finish my review, and hit the hay. Onward.

Surrogates is a pretty solid film, but one that has the odd distinction of sharing exact, major plot elements with another recently-released sci-fi movie…in this case Gamer (which I also reviewed). In Gamer, humans also enjoyed shutting themselves indoors in their underwear while controlling outside avatars to live out their fantasy lives, although in this case they were human volunteers and not robots. Still, it’s strange coincidence, but not one that harms either film, as they each have totally different vibes. Surrogates is more of a gritty, futuristic detective story, while Gamer was just goofy and stupid. While not perfect, Surrogates is clearly the better of the two. It has better story, character, and tension, and I found it fairly engaging from start to finish.

The main attraction of Surrogates is Bruce Willis, who conveys a gruff, angry, yet emotionally burdened sensibility in his role. He remains the ultimate everyman in his performances, dishing out as much as he takes, and this helps the audience buy into his character and see things from his perspective. Radha Mitchell continues to add to her sci-fi resume (Pitch Black is a favorite of mine), and the Aussie actress proves yet again that she is quite talented at her craft. I’d comment on James Cromwell and Ving Rhames, but neither is given much to do in this movie- you only see them occasionally. Cromwell’s character actually does most of his emoting through the other actors that play his various Surrogates, which is a shame because I’ve always found him personally to be very entertaining.

Starting to get tired again, but I’m gonna make it…

I think one of the main attention-getters of Surrogates are the interesting ways the special effects are utilized. Since the Surrogates themselves appear almost completely human, the CG is used sparingly, and only to give them a slightly “plastic” look. It’s subtle, but effective. And while the de-aging done on Bruce Willis’ Surrogate is pretty impressive, I have to admit that I found it pretty disturbing at times. Remember how Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen were de-aged via the miracle of CG in X-Men 3? Or how they pasted Arnold’s 1984 mug onto Roland Kickinger’s body in Terminator Salvation? Now picture that done with Bruce, complete with a full head of blond hair and a nice saran-wrap sheen to his skin. It was just weird. And I’ve mentioned before in this column the implications of this kind of technology…we could really end up raising long-gone actors from the dead for new movies! Just get a stand-in and map John Wayne’s face onto ’em…BAM! The Duke’s alive again, for all intents and purposes. Personally, I don’t know how I feel about that. One hand it’s exciting, but on the other…it’s just plain morbid, and perhaps even disrespectful.

Time for the wrap up…

So, Surrogates. Yeah. It’s good. And I’m tired. But I found the energy to write this review, and that’s not something I could have done with a movie that just plain sucked. Unless it was horrible to the degree that it sapped my will to live (in which case I would have found the energy to exact my revenge somehow), writing a review for a run-of-the-mill bad movie would have had me asleep by the second paragraph. But Surrogates was decent enough that it made me want to tell you about it. It does have some problems (the Surrogate tech developing from scratch to the point seen in the movie in a mere 13 years seemed a bit silly), and it isn’t totally original (how many other movies have we seen where people “plug-in” to virtual reality?), but it does execute its plot well and it contains a few twists and turns that actually kept you guessing. Feel free to give it a whirl.

Good night readers, and pleasant dreams. Zzzzz….

(Long Island, N.Y.) I’ll state it right up front- the worst possible sin a film can commit is to be boring. Now, I’m not saying bad- I’m saying BORING. The two don’t always go hand in hand, you see. While a just plain bad movie may draw the ire of the general movie going public, I find there are usually some (usually unintended) golden nuggets of entertainment contained within if you look closely enough. But when a movie is boring…now that’s true pain. I’d say it’s safe to say a movie qualifies as boring when more than two of the following occur:

• You find yourself struggling to stay awake, or worse, struggling to fall asleep
• You take a keen interest in probing the floor with your sneakers so as to properly identify which spots are stickier than others
• You start thinking about all the vegetables you’d rather be eating, and you hate vegetables
• You text anyone you can think of, even people you don’t know or like
• You constantly have to wake your friends so you don’t have to suffer alone

Alas, I found myself having to deal with all of the above when watching Steven Soderbergh’s latest, The Informant. A black comedy based on true events surrounding naughty corporate price-fixing scandals, The Informant had intrigued not that I’d been hoodwinked by more than one dishonest trailer in the past and grown bitter. Jaded, even. But The Informant would be different, I declared. I just had a feeling. Drat. I fell for it again.

Imagine my disappointment when The Informant (it’s actually called “The Informant!” but I’m leaving out the explanation point because it makes for odd and annoying sentence structure, at least for me) turned out to be the cure for insomnia. Literally. I’d been sleeping pretty poorly for the last few days but I had to endure repeated elbows from my friend Don throughout the first 40 minutes or so of The Informant until I finally caught my second wind. Then he conked out and I had to start elbowing him. But we’ll get into the hows and the whys of this in a minute.

The Informant is centered around a real-life international price-fixing conspiracy in the mid-1990s to artificially inflate the price of an animal feed additive called lysine. Mark Whitacre (Damon) is a successful young officer at Archer Daniels Midland (AMD), a company at the center of the conspiracy. Forced by his goody two-shoes wife to blow the whistle on the happenings at AMD, Whitacre soon finds himself a willing and eager participant in the growing case against its top executives, collecting hundreds of hours of audio and video during meetings with AMD’s competitors to fix the price of lysine. Working directly with FBI agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula), Whitacre seems at first to be the perfect stoolie, happily spending years of his life aiding in the investigation against his bosses at AMD and their Japanese counterparts. However, his behavior eventually starts to turn bizarre and erratic, and as time goes by, it’s discovered that Whitacre himself is weaving a tangled web of lies and deception to cover his own indiscretions at AMD. Could he’s helping to take down?

The Informant had potential. I mean, gobs of it. It tells the interesting true-to-life tale of the beginnings of the world-wide movement by governments against price-fixing (a practice where rival companies secretly agree to uniformly drive up the prices of their product), a crime that was all but ignored up until that point. As a result of Mark Whitacre’s aid AMD was initially fined $100 million, the largest antitrust fine in U.S. history at the time. To date, billions of dollars of price-fixing fines have been paid by various sundry companies, representing a major modern crack-down on corporate crime. Thus, The Informant tells a tale of a significant turning point in legal history, making it ripe for an entertaining trip to the cinema. Unfortunately, the movie itself is a total bore. I know I’m going against the critical grain here, as The Informant is generating fairly positive reviews, but it takes all kinds, folks. And I’m the kind that just doesn’t get the film’s critical appeal at all.

First of all, I have to say that The Informant has an excellent lead. Matt Damon, always a solid actor (remember Good Will Hunting?), is the main reason I didn’t have to prop my eyelids open with matchsticks while watching. I’m not sure what Mark Whitacre was like in real life, but I’d bet at least $10 that Damon nailed him perfectly. I’ve always been especially impressed by actors that are willing to physically transform themselves for a role- the aforementioned weight gain, along with an off speech pattern reminiscent of a Kids In The Hall sketch really enabled Damon to lose himself in the part. As a character, Mark Whitacre is a far cry from Jason Bourne- you can tell a lot of work went into Damon’s preparation. Scott Bakula and Melanie Lynskey also turn in effective performances as FBI agent Shepard and Whitacre’s wife, respectively. Oh, and the guy that played Biff (Thomas F. Wilson) from Back to the Future is in this as well, but he didn’t bully anyone around or make them do his homework. I was bummed about that, but I guess I can’t blame him because he’s probably trying not to get typecast. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that The Informant’s cast is uniformly good.

No, the problem with The Informant isn’t with the actors, it’s with the plodding and ineffective direction. As mentioned above, the subject matter is very compelling, but the material is presented in such a bland and uninteresting fashion and the pace so grating that I wondered how and when director Steven Soderbergh (responsible for the sturdy Ocean’s 11, 12, and 13) became so hopelessly milquetoast. I’m sure The Informant was a great movie when it originally existed purely in script form, but somewhere along the way to the screen all the life was just sucked out of it. It’s a shame- instead of being enraptured by The Informant’s twists and turns, you’re just counting the minutes until it mercifully ends.

Also to The Informant’s detriment is how hard Soderbergh attempts to make it “zany” and “madcap.” The movie is filled with hokey jazz lifted straight out of a 60’s late-night comedy act and strange monologues by Whitacre that are always completely irrelevant to whatever’s happening at the moment…but it all comes across as supremely forced, as if The Informant’s desperately trying to sell you on how damn funny it is. But, aside from a few decent laughs, it’s not.

In the end, The Informant is a missed opportunity. On paper, it had it all- a good cast, a good story, a well-known director- but in the end, it produced a film far below the level of its esteemed pedigree. Still, I’d almost (and by almost I mean not quite) say it’s worth it to see Matt Damon’s performance, but if you do I suggest loading up on the caffeine beforehand, or you’re likely to snooze straight through it. Otherwise, skip it.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Gamer is a sci-fi action film starring 300’s Gerard Butler and directed by the duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, who gave us the completely insane Crank: High Voltage earlier this year . I’m just telling you that so you know what you’re getting into if you decide one afternoon that Gamer might be a fine choice for viewing with your family. While it doesn’t quite reach the However, it also delivers some very solid action sequences strung together by a weird yet intriguing story-line, although one that rather blatantly rips off other (better) sci-fi movies. Let’s get a tad more in-depth, shall we?

The year is 2034. The most popular form of entertainment in the world is a multi-player online game called Slayers where players can control actual human death row inmates (via implanted microscopic nanobots) in bloody warfare. It’s kind of like modern online death-matches that the kids play on their PCs and PlayStations…the difference being that while the player can just walk away when he or she loses and go get a sandwich, the combatants they were controlling are real people who really die. However, all’s not looking bad for the violent, sadistic prisoners involved- if any of them manage to survive 30 games in a row, they earn their freedom and a chance to kill the members of law-abiding society yet again. With all that on the line, Slayers takes the world by storm and makes untold billions for its creator, Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall).

Enter Kable (Butler), a soldier sentenced to death (wrongly, of course!) for first degree murder and Simon (Logan Lerman), the teen that controls him online. Between Simon’s videogame skills and Kable’s battle experience and overall butt-kicking abilities, the two have won a record 27 matches and worldwide fame. Kable is looking at a very real chance of going free and being reunited with his beloved wife (who works an a player avatar in Society, a SIMs-inspired online game invented by Castle where users control paid hosts in social situations) and daughter (who was placed into foster care- with parents like these, are you surprised?).

But when Simon receives communication from an underground rebel group (headed by rapper Ludacris) determined to reveal the ugly truth behind Slayers (to extend the mind control process beyond the boundaries of the game and into the entire world), it becomes pretty obvious that there’s something non-kosher going on. Kable also learns that the freedom promised by the contest is a lie, as Castle plans to have him killed before he can achieve his goal. But considering that the up-and-up side of Slayers presented to the pubic (that is still responsible for hundreds of deaths) is loved by one and all, the underground needs proof to get their message across…and that proof is Kable, alive.

Okay… Let’s see what movie Gamer’s plot-line most closely resembles.

• Future society obsessed with games, and the most popular one is the movie’s central theme? Check.
• Criminals fight to the death in said game, with a chance of a full pardon if they survive? Check.
• Man imprisoned for a false crime, forced to play said game in a desperate bid for freedom, becomes a popular champion? Check.
• The game is secretly made impossible for him to win, making escape impossible? Check.
• The game and its beloved host have sinister going-ons behind the scenes? Check.
• An underground resistance exists, determined to make the truth known? Check.

Yes folks, while the directors have never gone on record as saying so, Gamer is apparently a loose remake of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s 1987 classic, The Running Man. Sure, it’s all gussied up with modern effects and such, but at its core it’s almost the same exact story. Still, Gamer does a great deal outside of that one fact to distance itself from Arnold’s flick- first of all, it adds a nice dose of the insanity contained in the director’s previous effort, Crank: High Voltage. Sure, it’s toned down from that celluloid equivalent of a lunatic asylum, but Gamer still gets pretty darn bizarre at times, which actually works against it. You see, Crank was silly from beginning to end. It put that right out there for all to see from the very first frame. But Gamer is a different beast- it tries to come across as a pretty hard-edged action movie, but when the silliness of Crank seeps into it, it creates a duality that just doesn’t work. I mean, how many action movies have you seen where the climatic battle against the main bad guy turns into a song and dance number? And even weirder stuff happens leading up to that, with the scenes dealing with the online game Society bordering on psychedelic.

And it’s a shame, because when Gamer plays it straight, it’s actually pretty decent. It’s action scenes are intense, fast-paced, and very hard-hitting…among the best I’ve seen this summer. Gerard Butler, despite looking kinda like Russell Crowe after a bar fight, is a large, imposing guy who seems more than capable of carrying his weight in this type of movie. He points and shoots a gun with the best of them and delivers some epic beat-downs during the aforementioned dance scene. The fact that he can actually act helps as well, although Gamer doesn’t really call upon those skills of his all that often. He mostly just kills stuff. However, his co-stars get to exhibit a bit more range, especially Michael C. Hall as one of the most annoying film villains I’ve seen in quite some time, and Kyra Sedgwick as a smarmy talk show host.

Also worth mentioning is that Gamer represents everything I personally hate about editing and camera work in modern movies. Rapid-fire cuts, super-shaky cameras, and an overall overabundance of flashy effects just for the sake of having an overall overabundance of flashy effects. There’s no point or purpose to old-school film-making where it wasn’t all about seeing how many angles you can cram into one scene. There’s maybe two sustained tracking shots in Gamer that last longer than 5 seconds, and considering that the movie is 95 minutes long and basically nuts the whole time, it’s amazing that I managed to notice that.

And yet, with all my complaints- its unoriginal plot, its goofiness, its eyeball-searing editing- I still couldn’t bring myself to totally hate Gamer. I’m not entirely sure why. As an action fan, I suppose that I was satisfied, but there’s got to be more to a movie than a solid body count for me to like it. I suppose the charisma of Gerard Butler helped as well, sure. But I think the one thing that kept me from plunging lit matches into my eyeballs was the fact that I always instinctively give a movie points if it actually tries something different, even if it fails. Despite the issues I’m bringing Gamer to task for, they actually serve the film in some ways. Yes, Gamer is pretty off the wall in parts, and yes, it doesn’t always work, but at least it’s not the same processed, focus group-tested drivel we’ve been getting rammed down out throats month by month. And yes, the editing is annoying, but at least the film is going full-speed from beginning to end, without a lull in sight. It’s certainly not boring, at any rate. And some of the ideas it presents about the future evolution of society and technology are actually quite interesting.

So, Gamer: no, it’s not good, but it’s not totally horrible either. If you’re in the mood for an action movie I’d say see District 9, but if you already have (and you should!), you could maybe give Gamer a shot. Just don’t expect greatness.

(Long Island, N.Y.) Okay, Halloween 2 broke the streak- after 3 solid offerings, director Rob Zombie finally put out a lame flick. As a fan of his, I’m actually pretty bummed. I had a bad feeling when it was announced that creepy heavy metal god and horror movie buff Rob Zombie would be in charge of the sequel to his remake of 1978’s Halloween. If you read my review (of course you did, dozens of times in fact, but in case you wish to indulge yourself once again, click HERE), you’d know that I was quite the fan of Zombie’s 2007 treatment of John Carpenter’s horror classic.

Bucking the Hollywood trend of producing unnecessary carbon-copy remakes of movies that never needed the treatment to begin with, Zombie gave us a unique take on the mute masked serial killer Michael Myers. Expanding on Carpenter’s film, Rob delved into Myers’ largely unexplored childhood, covering his fledgling first murders, his incarceration and eventual escape from a mental institute, his intense relationships

with his mother and therapist, and finally his quest to find Laurie, the baby sister he’d been separated from for years. Stalking her with the intention of reuniting with the last living member of his family, Myers murdered her friends and nearly killed Laurie herself after she rejected him, only to have the tables turned on him at the end in the form of a bullet to the face. Halloween was a tight, fast-paced and horrific movie that paid ample homage to the original while completely standing on its own at the same time.

The problem with doing a sequel to the remake of Halloween, however, is that Zombie’s first outing with Myers’ legend was a very self-contained story, with a very definitive ending that didn’t lend itself to a sequel. In fact, Zombie himself previously stated in interviews that he had no interest in doing another Halloween installment, and that a sequel would in fact cheapen the tale. And honestly, I agreed with the guy. Now, I don’t know what happened since 2007- maybe Herman Munster’s hotrod popped up on Ebay and Rob couldn’t afford it or something- but I’m sure it was the allure of money lured him back into the fold. After all, Halloween was a huge financial success and the producers were probably only too happy to offer Zombie enough dough to buy…I dunno, maybe a castle straight out of a

Hammer film filled with scantily-clad Frankenstein women wearing luchadore masks or something. ‘Cause Rob digs that kind of weird stuff.

I’ll have to admit that I just couldn’t see what Zombie could do with the story in a sequel, so I was biased against this from the start. And that bias stuck with me all while watching Halloween 2…the utter pointlessness of it all, the total “been there, done that” feeling that filled every frame of film. But it just wasn’t that fact that soiled the sequel-

there were other things at play, like a lack of compelling characters, humor, and purpose. Oh, there’s a few odd stylistic speed bumps as well, but we’ll get to those in a moment.

Halloween 2 picks up right after the first movie ended. Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton), the (unbeknownst to her) sister of Michael Myers (Tyler Mane), is wandering down the streets of Haddonfield, IL, after plugging Mikey point-blank in the puss with a .357 magnum.. Picked up by Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif), she’s taken to the Emergency Room along with the other survivors of Michael’s rampage: her friend, Annie Brackett (Danielle Harris), and Michael’s former therapist, Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). What follows is a lot of unnecessary and gross close-ups of surgery, and then a scene where a presumed-dead Michael winds up being not so dead after all and makes good his escape, disappearing for parts unknown. Fast-forward one year, and Laurie is now a basket case

after her ordeal. The year has not been kind to her, as the formerly charming and sweet Laurie has turned into the most annoying film character ever, complete with the official “tramp stamp” lower-back tattoo, a mall-goth Hot Topic wardrobe, and a new “DUDE, I JUST WANNA PARTY PARTY PARTY” attitude. I wanted her to die horribly, and when you’re feeling that way about the supposedly sympathetic protagonist of a movie, you know you got trouble.

The audience is then informed that it’s now October 31st, so of course that means that Michael (who has a thing for the holiday) has to come back from the random backwoods field he’d been vacationing in to once again find his little sister (I bet if he knew how supremely annoying she’d become he

might deep-six that idea). Only now Mike’s being guided by a ghostly apparition of his late mother, Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie), and her white horse, which is supposed to signify wanting to go home or some poppycock that Zombie read in some second-rate Psychology pamphlet. Oh, did I mention that the visions of Deborah are accompanied by a vision of a young Michael Myers (Chase Wright Vanek, recast because Daeg Faerch grew too much in the past 2 years) as well? Anyway, Ghost Mom and Little Mike beckon grown-up Mike to return to the town of Haddonfield once again to get the family back together and kill anyone that gets in the way. And anyone that doesn’t.

Meanwhile, the arrogant Doc Loomis has just published a best-selling book about what happened in the last movie, and is very indifferent to the fact that a lot of the info in said book exposes sensitive secrets of those affected by the Myers tragedy. But once the return of Michael is made public, Loomis’ last shred of decency kicks in and he once again tries to track down his former patient and put an end to the carnage. But can anything stop an stinky 7-foot killing machine who just wants to please his dead mommy’s wishes?

I dunno…Halloween 2 was just bad. Zombie’s overall style, which used to be fresh, is now getting really stale. He showed significant growth early in his directing career between his first two features, but now just keeps going back to the same old tired bag of tricks- grainy footage, epileptic cameras, unlikable lead characters, crude dialogue, played-out classic rock soundtracks…what initially came across as gritty and realistic now just amounts to stagnant film-making. Zombie even resorts to milking all the usual horror movie clichés, such as the “bad guy appears in the medicine cabinet mirror” gag. That one never gets old. Oh, wait, it does. REAL old.

Even the bloodthirsty members of the audience will be found wanting while watching Halloween 2. Don’t get me wrong, the film is graphic and bloody to no end, but the kills were really random (in the original Mike only killed those in his way, now he

goes out of his way to kill nobodies for no reason), and while brutal, lacked any style or imagination. Just STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB REPEAT. Over and over. Plus, you won’t give a damn about anyone Mike kills, more so than any recent slasher movie…his victims were all just interchangeable hunks of meat with no character development, devoid of anything resembling a memorable trait. The plentiful death scenes blend together and actually get boring after a while (hmm..how does that make me sound?).

By the way, Ghost Mom and Little Mike were just horrible ideas. Aside from blatantly ripping off slasher rival Jason Voorhees’ mommy complex, the surreal dream imagery was cheesy and didn’t gel with Zombie’s otherwise gritty and realistic style. It was interesting how Little Mike would appear and answer for the silent grown-up Mike whenever Ghost Mom would ask him a question, however.

In the end, the Halloween remake was a very self-contained story that actually had some emotional resonance. Halloween 2 ruined that with its terrible story and paper-thin characters that added nothing to the mythos. It didn’t need to be made, and it has sullied Rob Zombie’s otherwise impressive portfolio in the sense that it shows his regression, not progression, as a director. By the way, Zombie’s next project is slated to be yet another remake of a classic horror icon- this time it’s The Blob, the 1950’s flick about a giant killer glob of Jell-O. I wonder how that’ll come across, given the Zombie treatment. Time will tell if Rob will continue to tread water and keep producing the same movie over and over, or re-invent himself as he so desperately needs to do. The man HAS the talent to do so, and I wish him the best.

As for the final

word on Halloween 2…it’s not good. See it if you’re really desperate to see a guy’s head stomped flat for no reason by a big bearded hillbilly wearing a crusty old Shatner mask, but otherwise, go and rent a Friday the 13th movie instead. You’ll have way more fun.