Movie Reviews

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull rolled onto DVD on Tuesday, and with it the crushed dreams of children-past who were hoping for a flawless, action-packed adventure. Indiana Jones 4 came to theaters amidst a torrent of mixed reviews, and mixed reviews it deserved. The most highly anticipated adventure film was, as it turned out, about aliens. Aliens with big, shiny, plastic-looking skulls. Combine that plot with unnecessary supporting characters and so-so CGI and you get… the latest Steven Spielberg fine?

Frustrations aside, I’m happy Paramount sent me the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD, because I will watch this movie again, and hopefully with dampened expectations I’ll be able to enjoy the picture more. In the mean time, though, I watched the special features. With further special editions inevitably coming in the future, the 2-Disc Special Edition is not jam packed as one might expect; there are no deleted scenes, bloopers or even a commentary. However, the discs do contain some in-depth production featurettes, which take you from pre-production through post-production.

These featurettes are pretty good and rather lenthy, though I compare all of these to the best I’ve seen, those from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and they don’t really compare. While detailed, the Indiana Jones featurettes have an air of promotion to them; the interviews with the actors are very sanitized and not particularly insightful. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the exploration of some of the film’s more eleaborate sequences.

Other than that, there’s nothing but a couple of the movie’s trailers. Oh, and if you have an XBox 360, you can play a demo of LEGO Indiana Jones. However, I don’t, so I didn’t.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull has some decent DVD features, but if you aren’t sold on the movie alone and want some superstrong DVD features, you may want to wait until the next edition comes out.

For years, Robert Downey Jr. has been poison. Maybe not complete box office failure poison, but he was a name people immediately associated with drugs, career suicide and uncontrollable. Oh, how a couple of years of sobriety and a super hero can make a difference. Downey is at an all-time career high, and it isn’t too surprising that Chaplin, for which he earned an Oscar nomination fifteen long years ago, is being re-released in a – you guessed it – 15th Anniversary Edition.

I had never seen Chaplin before, nor did I know much about the famed actor other than the few short films I’ve seen of his. The movie, directed by Richard Attenborough, is pretty good, but Downey is tremendous as the British, silent-film innovator. Much of the time he is unrecognizable, and not just physically. He transforms himself into Chaplin, capturing his moves, his mannerisms, accents and behaviors with amazing sincerity. Given that this is Downey’s one and only Oscar nomination, one has to wonder what he would have done over the last fifteen years had he not been flying a kite the entire time.

Beyond his performance, Chaplin is dotted with a dizzying array of supporting actors, including Anthony Hopkins, Diane Lane, Dan Akroyd, Milla Jovovich, Marisa Tomei, Penelope Anne Miller and Kevin Kline. All turn in fine performances, but none stand out in any way or form.

The movie itself is pretty good, chronicling Charlie Chaplin’s life from childhood through his honorary Oscar acceptance in 1972. Attenborough keeps things rather biographical and subtle, avoiding dramatized moments where possible. Unfortunately, this approach leads to an understated feel and a lack of power; while good, the movie rarely captivates. It also doesn’t help that the makeup used on Downey when he’s portraying Chaplin in his later years looks pretty God-awful.

Chaplin is a worthwhile film, though not tremendous by any means. Downey, however, delivers the finest performance of his career.

I am young, by cinematic standards. I didn’t grow up in the 40′s and 50′s where the film industry was still, in many ways, relatively young. I haven’t had sixty years to watch movies and say with sincerity that dozens of films from the 1940′s are masterpieces. I do see old movies and appreciate them – and sometimes love them – but not all old films are great just because other people say there are. Take Cool Hand Luke, for example. It’s ranked #118 on IMDB’s Top 250, which means that there are only 117 films that are better. In the world. I’m sorry, folks, but Cool Hand Luke isn’t that good.

Cool Hand Luke is a pretty good movie starring the late Paul Newman, but I’d have to say my reaction to the film was lukewarm at best – forgive the quasi-pun. The movie is about some cool dude named Luke who’s a bit of a troublemaker, so much so that he finds himself in a minimum security prison for two years for destruction of private property. However, the rural prison can’t hold a man like Luke, physically or mentally. Constantly beaten down, Luke refuses to give up, and often escapes – only to be dragged back in time after time. After his mother dies, though, the warden sets all sights on Luke, determined to break him.

The movie features some good and likable performances from a recognizable cast. George Kennedy delivers a great performance as Luke’s eventual sidekick, and Newman himself turns in a quality performance. Unfortunately, while Newman is good, his subtle performance – and the movie’s subtle approach – just didn’t work for me. I wouldn’t say that the movie doesn’t stand the test of time; now out on a new DVD, the film looks great, especially when the scantily clad woman is washing her car. The writing, direction and look and feel all hold up well.

It’s just that the movie is sort of boring. I like character-driven stories, but Cool Hand Luke just isn’t one of those stories. Its plot is minimal at best, and I never felt like I could connect with Luke or any of the other characters. Ultimately, Luke keeps resisting and escaping, but I don’t care.

There’s not much more to it than that. Cool Hand Luke isn’t a bad movie, but it certainly isn’t one of the world’s top 250 movies.

Iron Man. The movie shocked audiences by raking in $100 million in its opening weekend and lots of critical praise. This, a movie about a guy who dresses up in a metal suit and goes around blowing things up. Who would have thought?

The huge box office winner is coming to DVD this Tuesday, September 30, 2008, and Marvel and Paramount managed to forward me an early copy of the two-disc special edition. The DVD is a great addition to anyone’s collection, though I doubt this review is going to have any bearing on your decision one way or another. You either liked the movie or you didn’t, though I haven’t met a person who wasn’t blown away by the flick.

As far as special features go, there is a good deal of deleted scenes, some of which are halfway decent. I suspect that a couple of them were removed to keep a PG-13 rating, as one makes a rather direct allusion to a three-way, and eventually a four-way. Others add unnecessary exposition and explanation to the story; you can see where they fit in, but were most likely removed for pacing reasons. Nevertheless, they make for good deleted scenes.

Moving onto the second disc, we are greeted with a series of seven featurettes that look at various stages of the production, from location shooting to suit design to special effects. Some of the best behind-the-scenes featurettes come from the biggest of films, and this single feature runs for a good hour and a half. The featurette is pretty insightful and not promotional in the least, meaning you get a lot of sincerity from Jon Favreau, Robert Downey Jr., the stuntmen and everyone else involved.

Other special features include a deeper look at the visual effects, a screen test with Robert Downey Jr., a featurette called The Actor’s Process that I was too lazy to watch (actually, after watching most of the special features I got so eager to watch the movie that I returned to the first disc to fire it up… though I then got interrupted by the Presidential debates for a couple of hours) and your typical stills gallery, previews, et cetera. Why do they even bother including stills galleries on DVDs? Does anyone actually look at them? Ooh, cool! I can look at non-moving images of a movie I just watched. This is most awesomest.

The DVD is pretty good, though I’d expect there to be an even bigger version to be on the horizon. Regardless, Iron Man itself is well worth the $20 to add this to your collection. You can read my full Iron Man movie review here.

A movie that sort of flew under the radar earlier this year, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a romantic comedy that proved that it was a lot more than a fluff-and-kiss romantic comedy. In reality, it’s in the same vein as Knocked Up, as it’s a romantic comedy for guys – there’s swearing, boobs, crazy sex and lots of awkward situations, including a break up scene with full frontal male nudity. Of course, none of this is surprising since it’s just one of many successful Judd Apatow-produced comedies.

To be straight, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the funniest movie of 2008 to date, thanks to its crafty writing and likable characters. Thankfully, the movie comes to DVD on September 30, 2008, and Universal was kind enough to send me an advanced copy of the 3-Disc Unrated Collector’s Edition. Here are the bonus features:

• Two versions of the movie. Guess. Guess, dammit! OK, fine, you’re going to feel stupid. The two versions are… the normal, R-rated version and – yes, you didn’t guess it – the unrated version. The unrated version has a few additional or extended scenes, but it doesn’t really matter – the movie is just as funny the first time I saw it.
• Deleted/Extended scenes. In addition to those seen in the unrated version, several other funny scenes are available for viewing. To the pleasure of all male audience members (well, the straight ones), the DVD includes a fair amount of additional sex scenes, several of which are pretty funny. There’s also an alternative get-back-together-with-Sarah scene that is notably different in one piercing way. Ha ha, I crack myself up. Don’t get it? Nevermind.
• Auditions. Some entertaining moments of the cast preparing for their roles. The DVD gives extra focus to Russell Brand, who plays the British sex addict rock star boyfriend. Interestingly enough, the character was originally written as a cocky yuppy writer, but Brand’s audition impressed the casting crew so much that the character was rewritten for him. Brand is certainly a funny guy; his “U Show” that is included on the DVD is also quite funny in a limited way.
• Crime Scene. See some alternate NBC television shows that Sarah Marshall will be starring in over the coming months. Some, if not all, are absolutely ridiculous.
• Drunk-o-Rama, Sex-o-rama, Line-o-rama. These little featurettes take the best moments and establishes montages of related material.
• Video Diaries. I watched these, but don’t remember much.
• Gag reel, cast and crew commentary and a few other special features.
• Oh, and the third disc is devoted to a digital copy that you can copy to your iPod. In the day of environmentalism, it’s sad that studios are starting to do this.

Read my full Forgetting Sarah Marshall movie review, or… enter to win a copy of the Forgetting Sarah Marshall DVD.

Holy crap. This just in from a legitimate source: The Godfather 4 is coming to theaters sometime in 2010. Word has it that Francis Ford Coppola has already penned the script, and the movie is currently in the pre-production phase. It is rumored that Al Pacino will return, though the film will focus heavily on a new character played by Nicolas Cage, who as we all know is related in some way or form, by blood or otherwise, to the famed director. This is amazing news.

However, that news is not real. What is real, however, is that a new DVD set was released today called The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration, which includes the three films remastered and with all-new special effects a la the Star Wars re-releases (it’s pretty crazy seeing Marlon Brando in The Godfather Part III, let me tell you). The collection contains five massive discs of goodness. You can probably guess what the first three discs are used for – the last two are saved for special features, and there are a lot of them.

One of the things I find frustrating by being a movie reviewer, other than constantly receiving free DVDs and invitations to LA press screenings, is that in these renewed box sets that exist solely to make the studio just a little more money by duping die hard fans into buying the latest and greatest version when the DVD they bought five years ago is just as good, the new features and old features are rarely separated. So when I actually take the time to review bonus features – which is not that often because I think most bonus features are a waste of time – I have no clue whether these features have been available for years unless I manage to find the info on Amazon.com or something like that… but the extra ten keystrokes is just more effort than I’m willing to spend.

Thankfully, with The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration, disc four includes special features previously available, whereas disc five is exclusively designed for new bonus featuers. In other words, for review purposes, I skipped disc four and went straight to disc five.

I didn’t make it very far, though. I was building a dresser while watching, and I tried watching the deleted scenes, of which there are many (they are broken out by the chronology of the characters, not the movies). Unfortunately, there’s no “Play All” feature that I could find, and thus it wasn’t worth my time clicking on each thumbnail to watch a deleted scene. So… I moved on to the behind-the-scenes videos, and started watching one of them. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was good. Real good. The video features interviews with practically everyone involved in the movie, and goes into thorough detail about the challenges of making the film – primarily, the fact that Coppola and Pacino were always two seconds away from getting fired. The video is extremely detailed and interesting, and one of the best I’ve seen.

There were many other special features, but that’s as far as I got. Why? Because after watching 45 minutes of behind-the-scenes action, I couldn’t resist but put in the first movie. Having never seen it before, I thought now was as good of time as any. OK, I’ve actually seen The Godfather at least ten times (is that all?), but these movies – yes, even the third one – are so incredible it’s hard to believe they were made so long ago. Absolutely stunning.

The Godfather trilogy consists of three of the best movies ever made. This new DVD set includes a ton of new features that are, I hate to say it, worth owning if you really like your Italian gangsters.

If you haven’t noticed, I haven’t been seeing a lot of movies lately. At least not at theaters. I have been making my rounds through the DVD racks, but with a lull in new releases worthy of my time, I haven’t been reviewing a whole lot. Even though the end of August and September are considered dead times for theaters, there have been several films out that I want to see, one of them being Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the latest Woody Allen movie that stars Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

Why? Because I actually like Woody Allen movies for the most part, the cast rocks and the film has Johansson and Cruz going at it… and I don’t mean fighting. Alas, due to an extremely busy month and some so-so reviews from friends, I have yet to get around to the romantic comedy-drama, and probably won’t see it until DVD.

Thankfully, my coworker Alice Graves, who is a diehard Woody Allen fan, did see the movie and has weighed in with her opinion. I trust it, even though she did think Javier Bardem was “cute” in No Country for Old Men.

Read Alice’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona movie review!

Robert Bell, who shares his movie reviews on FilmJabber and who is also based in Toronto, somehow was admitted into the Toronto International Film Festival (known as TIFF) despite the chaos he caused last year. OK, he actually didn’t cause any commotion last year (that I know of), but regardless, he has weighed in on the festival in general and many of the films that screened there. Without further ado…

Thanks to some amazing Canadian PR firms and studios, I have been able to catch some Pre-festival screenings of selected films to play at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival.  While no films have stood out as particularly bad, only a couple of films have stood out as great.  Hopefully, some of the films I screen during the fest will have more of a lasting impact.

Strangely enough, I spend most of my daily life in the same building where a TIFF purchasing office and the main press theatre for the festival is so the impact of the festival on our community and how annoying it is to the locals isn’t lost on me.  Endless parades of accreditation-laden press and starfu**ers mill around the bay/bloor area giving our city some much appreciated tourism dollars, despite occasionally behaving with a manner of entitlement and ignorance.

I have little interest in celebrities and networking parties.  In fact, I have ignored invitations to several of them (but am appreciative and thankful for them regardless).  While I am sure there are a couple of wonderful people at them, I much prefer the comfort of my own living room with sincere and carefully selected friends.  This is why most of the mainstream (studio backed) films I will and have seen at the fest were pre-screening invites.  Thankfully, the fine folks at TIFF have managed to match their understandable need to populate the festival with commercially viable star-centric films with an impressive number of obscure foreign and independent films, as well as documentaries.

Below is a list of the films I have seen, from best to worst, with brief impressions of each.

A Year Ago in Winter

“The magic of A Year Ago in Winter is its ability to dabble in stereotype without becoming overwhelmed and its adroitness in exploring the external impact that suicide has on the living without extending naïve answers or solutions.  Categorization is thankfully eluded with skill regardless of each characters desire to simplify complex, unanswerable questions with adage.  The film is about the human desire to simplify perplexing and layered human emotions while coping with feelings of loss, guilt and isolation.  It is consistently powerful, challenging and unafraid to wear its heart on its sleeve.”

Burn After Reading

“The Coen Brothers follow-up their Oscar-Winning triumph with a decidedly kooky satire on human stupidity and exaggerated interaction with Burn After Reading, a consistently entertaining and entirely amusing, if slight, film.  Structurally similar to “Fargo” but far less reflective in its “Raising Arizona” comic sensibilities, it will likely be criticized mainly for its deliberate lack of depth.  This one suffers only from cartoonish performances from McDormand and Pitt, in addition to the folly of ostentatious hipness.”

Yes Madam, Sir

“Filming the documentary over six years whenever she had time among various editing gigs, Megan Doneman has assembled a cohesive and in-depth portrait of a complicated woman.  It is a testament more so to Doneman’s editing skills than her direction, as her point and shoot technique is not particularly visionary but given the conditions and limitations of her endeavor, the final product is rather impressive.

A sense of humour and an effort to avoid typical preaching and bias keep Yes Madam, Sir on just this side of television biography territory, which is much appreciated in an age of heavy-handed manipulation and self-satisfied “lefty” political hipness.”

Plus Tard

“Reliant on single tracking shots and claustrophobic interiors—specifically to reinforce underlying anxieties that stem from external forces and evils—and passive-aggressive suggestions, Amos Gitai’s translation Jerome Clement’s novel of a man trying to make sense of his Jewish parents declarations in wartime has the appropriate gravitas but lacks the emotional complexity it strives for and has nothing particularly cinematic about it.  Everything in Plus Tard, outside of a WW II flashback, feels and looks like a filmed stage play.”

Blindness

“Acting as a kind of erudite, art-house, zombie movie, which dumbs down potential profundity with hippie-dippy, New Age, pseudo-philosophical insights on the state of mankind, Blindness creates discomfort and despondency but glosses over central connectivity, leaving a void where emotional resonance is intended.  Don McKellar’s script reigns in the literary triumph cohesively on a structural level—which itself is no small feat—remaining within the sociophobic confines that were on display in his earlier success, Last Night.”

Happy-Go-Lucky

“Dealing with Mike Leigh’s trademark talking head sensibilities and class system introspection, Happy-Go-Lucky is essentially a romantic comedy that subverts mainstream sensibilities while questioning the affability of the sincerely well-intentioned.  Everything about the film is far too obvious but the overall impact is fairly affecting if surprisingly lackluster. “

Afterwards

“Likely to be criticized for its structural fallibility and its overly sentimental ruminations on the nature of existence and the anxieties involved with acknowledging mortality, Afterwards is a lyrical and occasionally beautiful visual poem that essentially crumbles under the weight of its own ambitions.

A lack of relationship and character development between the leads ultimately keep the film from having the emotional impact it strives for—especially in an epilogue that should, in theory, have been devastating—regardless of the occasional graphic and unexpected violence towards children and well-intentioned players.  On the upside, sincerity and a refreshingly ‘unhip’ atmosphere make these flaws substantially more palatable and forgivable.”

Sugar

“This seemingly standard sports story of a young Dominican Baseball player who is brought to America to play professionally is deceptively coy in its intentions and ultimately winds up as an examination of cultural difference and Western apathy towards foreigners who are treated mainly as acquisitions and useful only when viable.  While foreshadowing is used appropriately in the film, albeit slatternly, the formula never dips into the typical pattern of assigning blame.  Sugar is interested more in making careful observations about those who are seldom considered in a wholesome and genial manner. “

O’Horten

“Owing a lot of its “uniquely” Scandinavian vision to the dry-humoured and deadpan work of Aki Kaurismaki and the starkly satirical, single-shot obsessed Swede Roy Andersson, O’Horten is a slightly amusing satire of aging and retirement.  It is communicated in an almost somnambulistic and structurally repetitive manner that seems interested more so in being dryly quirky than truly exploring the directionless nature of retirement that the didactic implies.

The predictable nature of the formula based set-up eventually over-rides the element of surprise that each scenario relies on to create humour, but the initial impact of this structure succeeds in what it attempts to do, which is more than can be said for most intentionally sly comedies.”

Control Alt Delete

“From the moment that “Sock” from television’s Reaper and Amanda from Ready or Not are seen fully nude in the “69’er” position, it is clear that Control Alt Delete is out to shock the audience rather than titillate with any allusion or subtlety.  The film seems to be an investigation of sexual perversion and deviance in relation to perceived normalcy and how the desire to be socially accepted can cause repression and self-denial, however, it lacks the sort of cohesion necessary to communicate this point effectively.”

 

 

Dean Spanley

“Sure to moisten the panties of the bridge and knitting crowd, who will most certainly gasp when men of the cloth drink Imperial Tokay and other men exclaim “poppycock” during discussions about reincarnation, Dean Spanley is the sort of film that one would expect the Queen of England to watch while acting coyly offended and hiding her inappropriately erect nipples.  It is a comedy of manners and clever” wordplay that reeks of Oscar Wilde smugness but settles for lengthy analyses of canine customs and thought processes.  Limited scope and sincere emotions give it a nudge towards copacetic regardless of being entirely forgettable and often self-righteous.”

Skin

“Feeling more like an ethnographic biography than anything particularly cinematic, Skin tells an interesting story in a discerning, yet detached and glossed-over manner, which does little to make the film exciting or memorable.  While the story itself should theoretically make for an emotional and engaging experience, the television movie vibe and a tendency to rush through and oversimplify several serious life events that span over twenty-five-to-thirty years in the protagonists life, leave an overall feeling of expositional hollowness.”

As mentioned before, none of these films are actually bad, rather, most of them are simply “decent”, which itself is certainly not a bad thing.

This coming week I will be seeing: Appaloosa, Ghost Town, Deadgirl, Che, Revanche, Parc, Linha De Passe, White Night Wedding, Lymelife and Fear Me Not: check back for updates!

I just finished watching Child’s Play, as the new Chucky’s 20th Birthday Edition arrives on DVD September 9th. While the franchise has digressed into more humorous, satirical stories over the years, it’s amazing to see just how creepy and gritty the original was.

As everyone knows by now, Child’s Play is about a serial killer who, on his dying breath, transfers his soul into the body of a cheerful doll. The doll soon ends up in the hands of young Andy (Alex Vincent), and not soon after the murders begin. At first, Andy is blamed and taken into custody, but it soon becomes evident that Chucky – not Andy – is indeed a live and willing to kill. As his mother (Catherine Hicks) and an investigating detective (Chris Sarandon) frantically try to track him down, Chucky goes after Andy, his last hope at humanity.

So often, these horror movies fail to stand up to the test of time, but there’s something about the 1980′s that brought out the best in the genre. So many good franchises were launched in the decade, and while the sequels have perhaps made them rather routine, it’s always fun and rather surprising to look back at the originals. Child’s Play, about a killer doll, is a movie that should have never worked from the outset. The flick should have been cheesy and tacky, and given that it’s 20 years old, the visual effects should have been ridiculously bad. Instead, Child’s Play is an authentically creepy and violent film that takes itself seriously and pulls it off.

Unlike later iterations of the franchise, Child’s Play isn’t funny and never intends to be. The movie is dark and twisted, and would still give even the wisest of children nightmares. Twenty years later, the flick still works surprisingly well.

The DVD includes a variety of special features, including two audio commentaries – one with the cast and another with the crew. More interesting is the inclusion of several screen-specific Chucky commentaries, voiced by the doll himself. Additionally, there are several featurettes that examine the makings of the film, from the animatronics to casting and so on and so forth. These featurettes are quite good, as they aren’t promotional at all and really dive into the production of the films. All in all, it’s a pretty good DVD, though if you already own the film, it’s probably not worth purchasing this newer version.

Heroes: Season Three is almost here, which means Season Two is coming to DVD. The four-disc set contains the shortened, 11-episode season, complete with time traveling, viruses, wedding massacres and more. It’s no question that most Heroes fans will scoop this DVD set up despite what my Bible-like words say below, but what about those on the cusp? What about those poor, pathetic people who haven’t completely embraced the world of Heroes? What about starving African children?

Let’s all face it: Heroes: Season Two wasn’t as good as series one. Writer’s strike aside, it was still a tad rushed, a little weak in the writing department at times, and so on and so forth. Some characters were taken down some strange paths (Mohinder), and others were introduced that just weren’t very interesting (like the New Orleans girl who can learn anything). The writer’s strike made the last several episodes even more accelerated than the earlier ones, leading to rough transitions, undeveloped stories and a resolution to the season-wide story arc that should have come 13 episodes later. All that being said, Heroes is still one of the best shows on television.

But that’s not what I’m here to review. There are plenty of websites devoted to just how good (or bad) Heroes is, so I’m focusing the rest of this review on the bonus features. As is typical with TV releases these days, the bonus features are annoyingly spread across multiple discs, which is probably fine for most – except for when you’re trying to review the bonus features and have to swap the disc out every fifteen minutes, damn it.

Anyway, the highlight of the box set is the deleted scenes, of which there are plenty. Practically every episode has a couple of deleted scenes, some of which are quite revealing. As always, you won’t miss too much if you never see these, but as far as deleted scenes go, they’re pretty good. The highlight… of the highlights… is an alternate ending, which truly is an alternate ending. SPOILER ALERT. Whereas in the actual final episode of the season, Peter, Nathan and Hiro stop the virus from being unleashed – only to have Nathan get shot while attempting to announce that he has special powers. In the alternate ending, the writers take the darker approach by letting the virus get released, causing Odessa, Texas to go into quarantine. Ultimately, the actual ending is tighter and more effective, but it would have been pretty cool had Peter not caught the vial at the end of Season Two.

Beyond the alternate ending and deleted scenes, Heroes: Season Two comes with some pretty good “Genetics of a Scene” clips, which are pretty entertaining and slightly insightful. I’d recommend these. There are also some NBC featurettes, which I didn’t watch, and a series of “Untold Episodes,” which are pretty good. There are also audio commentaries for the episodes.

Unfortunately, the rest of the bonus features aren’t all that good. There’s a ridiculously cheesy “documentary” about Takezo Kensei, which is so bad I could only watch a minute of it. I mean, it’s about as bad as faux documentaries can get. A “news reel” about Richard Drucker is also quite terrible, and rather pointless unless I completely missed something. The “Season 2: A New Beginning” featurette is just a promotional, “you’re going to see things you’ve never seen before” kind of featurette, and the Season 3 preview is, as expected, nothing special.

Heroes: Season Two is worth the purchase because, yes, it contains all of the episodes from season 2. The deleted scenes, alternate endings and “Genetics of a Scene” bonus features are well worth it; at the same time, NBC would have done well to save themselves some money and not include their “original” bonus features, as they are downright terrible and just a waste of money. Still, recommended for the overall value of the show.

With great reluctance, I offered to review The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. A direct-to-DVD release, the action-thriller had very little going for it, but considering the fact that it’s “from the producers of The Mummy” and stars UFC champion Randy Couture, it had to be great, right? Wrong.

The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior is your pretty typical direct-to-DVD movie, which means it’s pretty damn bad. While the production values are decent enough for a film like this, you can tell from minute one that this movie was made simply to coincide with the theatrical release of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, though why it isn’t being released until August 19th is beyond me. Cash was in the mind of Universal Studios – not quality – and it shows throughout the film.

The movie features a young Mathayus (Michael Copon), the character who will grow up to be the Scorpion King as portrayed by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in The Mummy Returns and The Scorpion King. Long after his father is murdered by a ruthless king (Couture) who has magical powers, Mathayus grows up to be a great warrior and vows vengeance – though killing the king is going to be harder than first thought.

The acting is the first thing that clues you into the fact that you’re watching a cheap production. Copon is pretty bad, and Couture is especially painful to watch. Combined with the clunky screenplay, the actors are barely able to pull off a line without sounding like they’re reading from a teleprompter. Worse still is that the characters – especially Layla, played by the beautiful Karen David – spit out lines that sound like they were written for an MTV reality show; rather modern-sounding jokes and interchange really kill the mood, if there ever was one to begin with.

The action isn’t anything to scream about, and that’s assuming you have the patience to make it to the action. At an hour and 49 minutes, The Scorpion King 2 feels overly long, and while there are plenty of action sequences, they are all relatively small and unimpressive. I could only watch 20 minutes at a time before turning it off to shift my attention to something much more interesting, like preliminary trials in the Olympics.

Basically, there’s no love to be had for The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior. Despite the fact that it’s directed by the guy who did Highlander, the movie lacks action, excitement and, more importantly, quality.

It’s been a long, long, long, long time since I saw the original Lost Boys, the Kiefer Sutherland/Corey Haim/Corey Feldman-starring vampire cult classic. I recall enjoying it and that it took place in Santa Clara, but considering that I was five when it was originally released, I never quite got on the Lost Boys bandwagon, or the “two Coreys” bandwagon for that matter. Nevertheless, Lost Boys: The Tribe arrived in stores last week with much more excitement than the typical direct-to-DVD release.

Lost Boys: The Tribe was speculated to mark the reunion of the two Coreys, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman, but due to scheduling restrictions/green card problems/falsified egos, Corey Haim never quite made it to set. Instead, we get a vampire sequel not distracted by two actors whose careers ended years ago, and for a direct-to-DVD release, it isn’t bad at all. In fact, with some improved special effects and a few tweaks here and there, the movie could have worked at the theatrical level.

Lost Boys: The Tribe is about two newcomers to south California, Chris and Nicole (Tad Hilgenbrink and Autumn Reeser), who have moved in with their aunt. Quickly lured in by the excitement of the area, Nicole finds herself seduced by a local surfer named Shane (Kiefer’s younger brother, Angus Sutherland) and Chris by a sexy vixen (Moneca Delain). Little do they know – at first – that both are vampires, and Shane the head vampire. With Nicole under his spell – but not completely cursed to a vampiric life until she kills her first victim – Chris finds it up to him and his newfound friend, Edgar the Vampire Hunter (Corey Feldman), to take down Shane and his band of goons. But to do so, he’ll have to risk his own humanity to get close enough.

The movie is littered with the little things that make up a direct-to-DVD release, including TV actors, washed up child stars, poor computer graphics and gimmicks like the casting of younger brothers of well-known actors whose careers were made in the original. That being said, all of those problems are rather minor. The stars of the movie are pretty good; nothing fabulous but much better than those found in typical releases such as this. While the computer effects are pretty weak, they only show up in a few places – and for the most part director P.J. Pesce relies on good old fashioned blood and guts, of which there is plenty. Where the film lacks in visuals, it makes up for in gore – a scene where a vampire’s entrails spill out onto a pool deck comes to mind.

Overall, Lost Boys: The Tribe is pretty entertaining, with some good action and hot women. Reeser looks great, and there is also a decent amount of nudity and sex. Hilgenbrink holds his own and makes a pretty good lead. As far as direct-to-DVD releases go, this is the cream of the crop.

The one problem I had with the movie? Corey Feldman. If there was anyone more out of place in a movie, it is Corey Feldman in Lost Boys: The Tribe. His acting is terrible here, as he attempts to play a withered old vampire slayer will still possessing the face of a 10-year old – and a froggy, gutteral voice. His performance just doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie.

Aside from a few flaws typical of a direct-to-DVD sequel, Lost Boys: The Tribe is a lot of fun. Recommended to those who want a different kind of vampire movie – or to relive The Lost Boys.

My roommate and I were there on opening night to watch Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay in theaters. The movie, packed full of racist jokes and pokes at stereotypes (primarily against Indians/Arabs/Asians, with a few black jokes sprinkled in as well), was pretty funny, especially since the theater was 75% Indians and Asians, or at least Indian-Americans and Asian-Americans. It wasn’t as good as the original, but, then again, how it could it be? (read my full Harold and Kumar 2 movie review)

I received a box full of the unrated DVDs yesterday (well, I had to drive out to a very inconvenient FedEx location to get them, as FedEx hasn’t figured out that some of us work during the day, aren’t at home to sign for our packages, and don’t like to put their pickup locations in places where people actually live), and so my roommate and I just had to pop in the movie for a second round.

It was still pretty funny, though not as funny as watching with a bunch of people who found it especially funny considering that they had heard variants of the jokes directed at them in real life. Harold and Kumar 2 doesn’t have the repeat value of White Castle, but that’s OK. It’s still pretty entertaining. The cyclops scene is still pretty classic.

Unfortunately, the Unrated Edition DVD is a scam. Granted, it includes the theatrical version as well, but what the hell is the difference? There are six minutes of added footage, but nothing remarkably different. There’s a below-the-waist shot that my roommate claims wasn’t in the theatrical version, but I’m not so sure. Either way, there is nothing particularly “unrated” about it.

What’s worse? There are no special features. I mean none. Other than a few movie previews, there are no bloopers, deleted scenes and so on and so forth. Clearly, New Line (Warner Brothers) is setting up for a two-disc special edition, but come on. What a waste of a DVD.

In anticipation of The Dark Knight this Thursday, I rented the direct-to-DVD movie Batman: Gotham Knights, which hit stores this last Tuesday. Thankfully, I used my Netflix account, because the movie certainly wasn’t worth the money.

Batman: Gotham Knights is meant to bridge the gap between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, so I assumed there would be something about the Joker, so on and so forth. Hell, I thought there’d at least be a plot.

Instead, this Batman movie is six stories pieced together to create a feature-length, 75-minute action-drama. The first story, about a group of kids who all see Batman from a different perspective (one sees him as a shadow monster, another as an invincible robot, so on and so forth), is completely inane. Actually, it’s downright terrible, and does nothing to move the film along.

The other stories aren’t nearly as terrible, as they delve more into some known but little-used villains such as Killer Croc and Deadshot (oh, and Scarecrow, but after Batman Begins I wouldn’t call him “little-used” anymore). Still, short stories aren’t very exciting as it’s impossible to get into the stories with any emotional committment, and then there’s the fact that this movie is meant to bridge the gap between the two Christopher Nolan movies – yet it doesn’t. Maybe I should never have expected much, but I did.

Oh, and just for a record, I am a fan of the original Batman cartoon, so I’m not anti-cartoon. In fact, the visuals are pretty impressive, as the artwork used in the film are much more advanced than anything I used to watch on TV back in the day. The visuals are the only saving grace.

Batman: Gotham Knights has potential and some of its stories are better than others, but its lack of a single story or connection to the films make it a throwaway film.

77 hours. 77 hours until the lights will fade, the previews will begin, and the theater will roar as The Dark Knight, Heath Ledger and all, rolls onto the screen. Anticipation is high… in fact, amazingly high. In order to subdue my hype, however, I went searching for bad reviews, and, of course, went straight over to RottenTomatoes.

The reviews did not help in crushing my hopes. The movie only has an 88% fresh rating based on 20 reviews, and the snippets from the bad reviews include:

This movie is grim and jammed together. The narrative isn’t shaped coherently to bring out contrasts and build toward a satisfying climax. The Dark Knight is constant climax; it’s always in a frenzy, and it goes on forever. -David Denby, New Yorker

Why do comic-book movies want to be serious literature? That’s the problem with this movie the same way it was with 2006’s “Superman Returns.” Instead of being exciting pop-culture entertainment that forces the viewer to take it seriously, the movie takes itself too seriously – and misses the fun in the process. – Marshall Fine, Star Magazine

But then the novelty wears off and the lack of imagination, visual and otherwise, turns into a drag. The Dark Knight is noisy, jumbled, and sadistic. Even its most wondrous vision—Batman’s plunges from skyscrapers, bat-wings snapping open as he glides through the night like a human kite—can’t keep the movie airborne. There’s an anvil attached to that cape. – David Edelstein, New York Magazine

Actually, those are all of the rotten reviews thus far, and the first two don’t strike much confidence in me. Denby’s review is scathing, to say the least, but he loses me when he bashes Bale, Batman Begins and everything else I know I’ll like. I can’t pre-judge someone else’s movie review until I see The Dark Knight myself, but when someone hates a movie for being “perverse” and sounds like they hated the first one, too, credibility goes right out the window. After all, Batman Begins is the best comic book movie made, and so it’s unlikely I’m going to agree with him here.

Fine, who still gives the movie 2.5 stars, complains that the movie isn’t fun enough, and points out that comic book movies shouldn’t take themselves too seriously. That’s fine, but one gets the sense he doesn’t like realistic comic book movies, and again, we have a severe difference of opinion. I feel most comic book franchises, from Spider-Man to X-Men, would be best served by being grittier and adult-oriented.

The Dark Knight movie review by Edelstein is the most sobering, as he seems the most unbiased by Christopher Nolan’s approach. If I were to end up being disappointed by The Dark Knight, his review is what I’d write. He complains there’s too much dialogue and that the movie is too smart for its own good; could Nolan have gotten too caught up in the drama of it all that he forgot to make an exciting action movie? I doubt it, but we shall see.

More dampening are the fresh movie reviews that fall short of calling the movie a classic; they liked it but didn’t love it. I didn’t go on to read the movie reviews beyond the snippets in RottenTomatoes, but if The Dark Knight isn’t everything I wanted and more, it will probably fall in line with these reviews. After all, if you hype a movie up so much, you’re bound to be disappointed.

Of course, most of the Dark Knight movie reviews rave about the film; some call it a masterpiece; others a classic. At the very least, they say it’s an excellent film. Damn. My hype has not gone away.