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Cormac McCarthy has a way of drawing the reader into his books. The Road is a great book. No Country for Old men is a great book and was made into a great movie. The Road was made into a forgettable movie. We have another post apocalyptic story that centers around a man and his boy. It is a sad dreary existence and that is about the only thing the movie portrays correctly. Viggo Mortensen is a good actor and he does a fine job as a father desperate to keep his son alive long enough to be able to take care of himself. He is the song of experience while the boy is the song innocence. The boy still has a little bit humanity that the father can’t afford. Charlize Theron is the mother and has no place in the story, but we get her inserted for no good reason. Cameos by Robert Duval and Guy Pearce are nice. This is a book that shouldn’t be a movie. The parables are too subtle and too deep. They don’t translate into screen magic. After the success of No Country it appears someone optioned The Road and thought to capitalize on Cormac’s name. Maybe I liked the book too much and had unrealistic expectations for the movie. Perhaps, but maybe it is just another bad film.

James Cameron knows how to tell a story. He understands technology and knows how to use it without it being the story. Some $500 million was needed to bring this movie to the screen and it was worth it. Cameron knows how to market things too. There are 3 versions to show in any theater. Regular 2D, but no one should see that, Real3D for most theaters and an IMAX 3D version that I hope to see before too long. So, we have a standard noble savage versus the mean ‘civilized’ visitors who wish to exploit them and their resources. Nothing too subtle or innovative here. We like these stories when done right. David versus Goliath and we love routing for the underdog. What Cameron excels at is creating this visually stunning world that is beautiful to look at. There is no detail too small for him to note. Everywhere you look on screen is something spectacular. The 3D effects are seamless. There is no tomahawk thrown at your head, just a depth of view that extends out of the screen. It doesn’t feel right to say you are brought into it, the movie seems to flow out and around you and that is the magic Cameron brings to the audience. There is plenty of excitement as we are taught about this world just like our hero is. We experience things as he does, another way to bring us into the movie. While Jackson had to use New Zealand to create Middle Earth for us, Cameron uses a green screen and motion capturing technology to blend live actors with their CG ‘avatars’ to go where no man has gone before. The adventure film will never be the same again. Everyone will be trying to match or improve upon what Cameron has done with Avatar. The bar has been raised to new heights. The gauntlet has been thrown down. Let’s see who can rise to the challenge.

Clint Eastwood is a good director and has tried to explore various directions and depths of the Human experience. Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima were two sides of a dark story and fine films in themselves. Pretty Baby and Unforgiven deserved their Oscars without question. I just don’t know what the purpose of Invictus is supposed to be. Rugby overcomes apartheid is a bit simplistic, but that’s the message. Matt Damon is good as the captain of the team. Morgan Freeman is Mandella and the best part of the movie is watching his characterization of the dissident turned president. He is depicted as an astute observer of human nature and utilizes that skill to try to bring some cohesion to a country with a long and terrible history of racial discrimination. That South Africa’s racial problems ended after winning the Rugby World Cup is not accurate. The gulf between the white minority and black majority remains. Eastwood will get some acclaim for this movie. It is well done with fine performances from all the actors involved. Is it a political film or a sports movie? It’s not enough of either and that is the reason for my ambivalence. Also the poem the title refers to really isn’t the title as the poet, Wm. Ernest Henley, never gave it a title and it was added by a later editor.

Laurence Fishburne, Matt Dillon, Jean Reno, some rapper and Fred Willard might make a decent cast, if there’s a decent script and a decent story. Heist gone bad has been done a few times hasn’t it? OK, we’ve all wondered about armored car drivers making minimum wage and guarding huge amounts of money haven’t we? Here is their story and it’s not a good one. We have basic good guys who decide to turn bad and they screw it up and end up killing each other in this bad movie. With these good actors you’d think something could be done, but the director and writers give us nothing but stereotypes and clichés. It wants to be Under Siege in an armored car, but is more of the Apple Dumping Gang with a bit of graphic violence. I stayed for the entire movie just to see how ridiculous it could get. This could have gone straight to DVD and any money it makes will be from people who have never heard of it and see the cast and think it has to be OK, but it’s not.

Take your standard Hong Kong Fuey or chop-sockey and add new state of art CG effects that makes the gore and violence even more gory and you have a martial arts movie of epic proportion. If you don’t like the genre, then you’ll not be impressed, but if you’re a kung fu fan from the days of Kung Fu like me then you’ll enjoy the graphic violence and improbable feats of these ninja assassins. The acting is mediocre, the story stale and predictable, but the action is excellent. The modified kusari-gama is the main attraction. It gets Matrix like effects and is CG’d to do amazing things that can’t be done in the real world. The machine gun like use of shurikens is like the western revolver that never needs reloading. This is not for everyone and maybe even not for anyone, but I like ninjas and epic martial arts fights, so I really enjoyed this movie.

Some of us are old enough to have grown up watching Gumby, Davey & Goliath, most of us can’t go a Christmas without watching Rudolph, many of us love Wallace and Gromit and Tim Burton is one of the masters of the genre. Claymation as it was called has a long history in film. Using clay or flexible models or puppets gives a unique look that goes beyond cartoon animation. The look of this film is simply delightful. The cuteness of the animals is almost overwhelming. The detail of the sets is astounding. Your eyes are constantly finding new things to observe. Coupled with incredible voice acting and you have a truly fantastic film. George Clooney is the Voice of Mr. Fox and the wit and charm that I hate him for comes out perfectly. The voices of Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, et al. are perfectly suited to their characters as well. The story is by Roald Dahl and is the solid foundation that the script and scenery are built upon. I couldn’t help but smile throughout the entire movie, and that is very unusual for me. Kids might be a little bored because a lot of the story is dialog, clever and intelligent dialog that adults will enjoy, but may be over the heads of smaller children. There is nothing I didn’t like about this movie. If you don’t see it and don’t love it, then you are probably just an idiot.

Comets, climate change, aliens, and Plagues oh my! How many ways have we seen the world end over the years? Personally, I think it will be the zombies that get us, but in 2012 it is the Sun just as the Mayans predicted. John Cusack is our hero who is trying to save his family when he discovers the government has been hiding the truth from the people about the end of the world. What ensues is the reason for the film: special effects. The entire movie is based on the effects of the world coming apart. Things falling, volcanoes erupting, waves crashing, all forms of destruction that can be imagined. The goal is to make it as realistic as possible and they do a pretty good job. But can effects carry an entire movie? Not for most adults anyway. Cusack is a good actor and he carries off his role as the loser ex-husband who turns out to be a hero. Does he get the wife back? Does he save his kids? Is there any hope for Humanity? I’ll let you guess. There have been worse disaster movies and the effects will keep you mesmerized for awhile, so if there is nothing else to see, this might be worth a look.

A wonderful ensemble and an interesting story based on some real crazy things the government tried should make for great movie. This has some great scenes and performances, but the whole kind of left me scratching my head. George Clooney is great as a crazy psychic warrior that takes Ewan McGregor on quite a wild journey. Jeff Bridges plays the officer in charge and is essentially “The Dude” in a uniform. Still a funny character. The best part of the film is the interaction between the dweebish McGregor and Clooney’s bipolar character. Through flashbacks we are told the story of this experimental military project and things are delightfully bizarre and humorous. Things fall apart in the end when there is a need to bring things back to the real world and try to give meaning to the whole adventure. It gets dumb at that point or maybe too bizarre, in any case it ends for me on a flat note that is disappointing. Three quarters of the movie is very good, so if you skip the last 15-20 minutes, you’ll have seen the best parts and can end on a high note.

Gerard Butler is either in great demand or wants to make money while he can. Either way he is making some decent movies. This one is not bad. Revenge has been a common theme since Homeric and Biblical times. Gerard decides to take on the criminal justice system after his family is victimized and justice is not served to his liking. The depth and intricacies of his plans are the key to this film and you wonder how he does it almost till the end. There is graphic violence and you may think this is one of the Saw movies in a few scenes. Jamie Foxx plays the Prosecutor who is trying to stop him. The characters are complex. No one is perfect and we see their flaws. There are some underlying messages that are lost in the action and violence. This is kind of like And Justice for All meets The Bourne Identity, but not as good as either. Still, this is an entertaining action/thriller that is smart enough to keep you guessing most of the way through it. Action for the guys and Gerard Butler for the girls, this could be a win-win for a date night movie.

It doesn’t matter how it happens, only that it does. I’ve been waiting for the zombie apocalypse since first seeing Dawn of the Dead on HBO at my friend’s house and then seeing Night of the Living Dead. I keep a copy of The Zombie Survival Guide handy and believe you can never have too much ammunition. Sean of the Dead was a great twist on the genre, being an overt comedy, and very enjoyable.  In Zombieland Jesse Eisenberg is the dweeb hero who gives us some simple rules for living in a world with flesh eating undead. He runs into the king of zombie killers, Woody Harrelson, and the fun begins. I don’t know the psychology behind our love of killing zombies, but this film makes it very entertaining. The contrast of normal vs. abnormal vs. the new normal is interesting even in a farce such as this. Bill Murray has the cameo of the year and is worth the price of admission in itself. Of course there is a love interest, because after the end of the world we always need a new Adam and Eve. If you like zombies, and who doesn’t, you’ll like Zombieland.

This is a fascinating character study of a true sociopath. You usually don’t see such people until they kill a bunch of people and make headlines. But the fact is there are legions of such people that function quite well when they find suitable employment. (Which tends to be Politics, law enforcement and the corporate world) Matt Damon is wonderful as the corporate executive/scientist who gets involved in a convoluted plot that involves him blowing the whistle on his company for price fixing. He works with the FBI and is hilarious in his escapades. The plot twists and turns through out and you may not figure it out until the very end. (If you deal with such people daily as I do, you will see it coming, but Damon is great to watch as he exhibits the perfect pathologies throughout the movie) I don’t like to give away too much in my reviews, so I won’t say too much. It is a good movie and a wonderful portrayal of a personality disorder at the least and probably a diagnosable mental illness. I bet you know at least one person who fits the mold perfectly.

Here is state of the art animation and wonderful voice acting in an apocalyptic story that is very dark and dismal. I was fooled by the titles and when I saw Tim Burton in big letters, I assumed he directed this. He was one of the executive producers. I can’t complain about the animation, it is great, but I wonder what it would have looked like if Burton had done it with models and stop motion photography. That would be ungodly expensive today, but there’s something about that style that brings things to life in a way even the best animation doesn’t. The little characters are interesting and well portrayed by a number of well known actors. The story is really like the Terminator franchise. Skynet is created and the machines take over. Don’t look too deep though. Just enjoy the animation and voices. If you try to make sense of the story or question what happens in the aftermath, you’ll be left scratching your head. It’s merely a cartoon afterall.

I didn’t hear anything about this movie before I saw it and wasn’t expecting much from it. I found it rather entertaining for an action film and it had some intriguing ideas presented too. It has its roots firmly in movies like Death Race 2000 (1975), Death Race (2008) and The Running Man (1987). We have a framed man fighting his way through a corrupt “game” and we cheer him on through various grisly encounters. This movie adds a new element that shows a dark side to our current infatuation with all forms of social media. It took me a while to recognize Gerard Butler as our hero, because I didn’t see any previews and he wasn’t dressed as a comic book Spartan. He gives a solid performance and you empathize with his plight. There are some gritty run and gun scenes with tricked out G-36’s and all manor of other rifle platforms. The ending is a bit disappointing and anti-climactic, but overall worth a matinee showing or DVD/On demand viewing.

I was expecting the humor. I was expecting the cartoon-like over the top graphic violence. I was expecting the quick and clever dialogue. I wasn’t quite expecting the visual splendor and drama Quentin puts in this film. The opening scene is so tense and dramatic. I didn’t think Tarantino would take a scene that seriously. He shows he can get great things out of the actors and one wonders what he could do if he chose to direct a “serious” movie. There are the classic Tarantino elements we come to expect: The complex storyline that we know will bring together seemingly unrelated sub-plots and a sound track that fits like a glove. It happens almost subconsciously. Here is a movie set in WWII occupied France and the music is from the 1970’s through today, and it just works beautifully. The cast is great, though Steve Buscemi seems to be missing. Brad Pitt is actually very good, and for once over acting helps the performance. The standout is naturally the main antagonist, Colonel Hans Landa played by Christoph Waltz. He is just brilliant. There must be an Oscar nomination for him. He is hysterical one moment and really scary the next. The women are the usual smart, strong, beautiful femme fatale’s and especially elegant due to the 1940’s clothing. As in most Tarentino productions there is an homage to a genre and the post-war war movie gets the Quentin effect here. There is a bit of The dirty Dozen(1967), Kelly’s Heroes(1970), and Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron(1977). I’m sure there are allusions to other European war movies as well, including the Italian movie that has the same title, actually titled Quel maledetto treno blindato(1978). This is a very good movie and immensely entertaining. It shows that Quentin Tarantino is maturing and evolving as a director, but still has a unique style that is not like anything coming from the usual studios.

When you have a small budget and no big names to draw attention to your project, you just may have to rely on originality and a good story to carry the day. For $30 million dollars you can get an amazingly entertaining film with all the thrills and action of mega blockbusters whose 2 A-list actors may have cost $30 million and have a promotional budget of the same amount. Quality ain’t always about the money. In District 9 we have what starts out as a standard stranger in a strange land theme similar to Alien Nation(1988). The setting of South Africa and Johannesburg brings out many allusions and metaphors the viewer can process as he pleases. The use of humor is excellent. There is a very dark theme running throughout and black humor that discharges some of the tension that builds up in various scenes. The acting is very good. Unfamiliar actors are often less distracting and draw us into a character a bit more. I would have had a different reaction, I think, had the main character been Christian Bale or Johnny Depp. In this movie we have a story. We aren’t told everything right away. We have to figure things out. The audience is engaged in the story, not merely dazzled with eye candy and effects. I was engrossed with the visuals and the story from beginning to end. The buzz and clever selling of this film is a lesson for future promotions. Compared to Sci-Fi films with huge budgets like Transformers, or Terminator: Salvation, this production is head and shoulders above them. I hope more original projects come from this. District 9 has rekindled my love for good science fiction films once more.