Pick of the week:  Paranormal Activity (8/10):  A terrifically scary independant low-budget horror movie.  Actually scarier in your house than in the theatre. 

  Kids pick of the week:  9 (8/10):  9 isn’t really a kids’ movie.  It is good for kids, but really small ones could get scared.  It’s animated, and one of the most wonderful visual experiences of the year.

  TV pick of the week:  United States of Tara First Season (7/10):  I would have picked Glee, because I think it’s a better show, but United States Of Tara is the complete first season, Glee is only Season One Volume One.

  A Perfect Getaway (7/10):  Surprising thriller about a vacationing couple on their honeymoon in Hawaii.  Be patient – it gets better.

  Live! (4/10):  A sadly un-biting satire about a Russian Roulette themed game show.  Eva Mendes is good, but can’t save this poorly thought out film.

  Also out this week:

Jennifer’s Body
The Marine 2
Death Warrior
Glee Season One Volume One
Alien Trespass
Inglourious Bastards
Poker Run
Facing Ali
The Wedding Song

  On Blu-Ray this week:

9
Paranormal Activity
Jennifer’s Body
A Perfect Getaway
The Marine 2
Versus
Home Front
Assembly
Time Warp: Season Two

  On DVD next week:

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs
The Final Destination
The Baby Formula
The Backyardigans: Join The Adventurers Club
Goose!
Julia
Ichi
Lost City Raiders
Shuttle
Yonkers Joe

  On Blu-Ray next week:

Couldy With A Chance of Meatballs
Chuck Complete Second Season
The Final Destination
10 Things I Hate About You
50 Dead Men Walking
The Green Berets
Riding Giants
Solarmax
Battlestar Galactica Season 1
D. Gray-Man Season One Part One
Dogtown And Z-Boys
Cheaper By The Dozen 2
End of Days
The Last Salt Caravan
The Ministers
Wicked Lake

Year:  2009
Genre:  Horror, Thriller
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Milla Jovovich, Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, Kiele Sanchez, Chris Hemsworth, Marley Shelton
Eye candy:  Jovovich, Sanchez
Director:  David N. Twohy
Run time:  97 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     Halfway through A Perfect Getaway, my wife said “this movie sucks.  The only way it would be OK is if blank blank blank happened.”  I agreed heartily, and said that if blank blank blank didn’t happen, I was going to write that movie myself.  Because it would be an awesome idea.  Then, blank blank blank happened, and there went my shot at fame and fortune.  And, just as we had surmised, the movie stopped sucking.

     In fact, thanks to blank blank blank, the film not only stopped sucking, it became good.  Not amazing, because it was still formulaic and silly, but it’s good.  There are moments early on where Steve Zahn, who plays a screen writer (not a screenplay writer – they are called screen writers), talks about red herrings and so forth.  And like every who-is-the-killer movie similar to this one, there are red herrings aplenty.

     The one thing I would say about A Perfect Getaway, after seeing it on DVD (it comes out December 29th from Alliance Films), is that it’s good, but not perfect.  Blank blank blank is a terrific change of direction that really works, but with a DVD you can rewind.  Or watch again.  And for the most part this works, but one scene in particular makes almost no sense in retrospect.  (It’s a scene inside a tent, for those of you who have seen the movie.)

     And now, I recommend watching the movie.  I can’t really say more about it, because then I would be revealing what blank blank blank means, and you would no longer need to see it.  In fact, if you knew, this movie would suck.

Year:  2009
Genre:  TV series, Comedy, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Toni Collette, John Corbett, Toni Collette, Brie Larson, Toni Collette, Keir Gilchrist, Toni Collette, Rosemarie DeWitt, Toni Collette, Patton Oswalt, Pamela Reed, Fred Ward, Nathan Corddry, Hayley McFarland, Andrew Lawrence, Jessica St. Clair, Valerie Mahaffey, Joel Gretsch
Eye candy:  Collette, Larson, Collette, DeWitt, Collette, St. Clair
Creator:  Diablo Cody
Producers:  Steven Spielberg, Alexa Junge
Run time:  5 hours 32 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     It’s rare that I get a TV series on DVD and sit through the whole thing.  I have to really love the show to take five or six hours out of my life to watch a full season.  And I tend not to split the season up either.  If I have watched four episodes of Perry Mason Season Three, and I stop, I will likely never go back to finish that season.  It’s all or nothing with me.  With United States Of Tara Season One, it was “all”.  Over the course of two days I watched every episode in the first season with growing interest.

     My wife did too – it’s even more rare for her to sit through a whole TV season than it is for me (after watching 33 hours of The 4400, which ended without ending, she is terrified of being burned again, and I am terrified with having to deal with a furious wife when a show ends in an unsatisfactory manner).  That’s because this show is compelling.

     It’s a comedy without being hilarious, it’s a drama that isn’t terrifically dramatic, but it’s the kind of show that leaves me wanting more.  United States of Tara stars the wonderful Toni Collette as five different people.  Tara, the wife and mother and regular woman, and her four alter egos.  T is a rambunctious slutty and obnoxious teenager.  Alice is a creepy 50s-style Stepford Wife.  Buck is a beer-drinking, gun-shooting lunatic redneck man.  And “Gimme”, who appears only a couple of times in the first season, is a weird, animalistic freak who is described delightfully by Tara’s husband Max (John Corbett) as a “poncho-goblin”.

     T is an annoying caricature, Buck is an obnoxious jerk caricature, but Alice is terribly interesting.  She is clearly a nut, inventing a pregnancy when no such thing exists and displaying some serious passive-aggressive tendencies.  Toward the end of the first season, we learn that Alice might be the caretaker of all the other alter-egos (“alters”, as they are called) and that she could represent the key to Tara’s insanity.  She appears to be the only one aware of “Gimme”, and I can’t wait for the second season to find out more.

     The family is terrific also.  Keir Gilchrist is great as Marshall, Tara and Max’s gay son who is infatuated with a boy at school.  I thought it was highly unusual and refreshing in a TV show when Marshall actually managed to get somewhere with this boy, and wasn’t rebuffed like so many other gay TV characters.  Of course, it doesn’t work out in the end, but it’s a pretty different plot line.

     Brie Larson plays the couple’s smoking hot 15-year-old daughter Kate, a slutty but very self-assured young girl who behaves as many 15-year-old girls behave.  She unwittingly leads on her loser manager at work (Nathan Corddry) by making out with him and having a brief relationship.  She can’t understand why he still pursues her, since they just “hooked up”.  When he (expectedly) becomes a creepy stalker, she files a complaint with the head office, but it’s because she wants money, and not for any legitimate reason.

     As the first season ends, Tara has spent some time at an institution for insane folks, and she and Max have come closer to solving the mystery.  The idea is that at some point in her past, a specific incident triggered the problems that led to her current craziness.  As we think we’re about to get answers about that incident, we just get more questions.  And the long, slow march toward the truth that has gone on all season must continue.  And that’s why I can’t wait for the first episode of Season Two, which starts in March.

     This show is good, and if you’re going to watch Season Two, the DVD set of Season One is a good place to start preparing yourself.  It came out on DVD December 29th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Year:  2009
Genre:  Animation
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Elijah Wood, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, John C. Reilly, Crispin Glover, Martin Landau, Fred Tatasciore
Director:  Shane Acker
Producers:  Tim Burton, Timur Bekmambetov, Jim Lemley
Run time:  80 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     When you check out the special features on the DVD of 9, out December 29th from Alliance Films, there is one that sticks out.  The original short animated film that was nominated for an Oscar comes with the film.  That’s great, because 9 feels like nothing more than an expanded short film.  Which is exactly what it is.  Shane Acker’s incredibly animated short has been expanded into an incredibly animated full-length movie.  The short itself contains just about all the important plot points, so the movie would be irrelevant if it weren’t so damn nice to look at.

     The story isn’t earth-shattering.  It’s a post-apocalyptic world, where the only survivors with any trace of humanity in them are tiny little dolls with funny little goggles.  They are numbered – #1 through #9.  When #9 awakens, many years after the apocalypse, in the lab of the scientist who created him, he struggles to understand his surroundings.  Soon, he meets others like him – #1 (Christopher Plummer) is the leader of the group, apparently by default.

     Soon, the little sock-puppet folk are fighting against some giant machines bent on their destruction, and although we don’t really understand why until the movie ends, I could pretty much guess what was going on early on.  The thing is, the predictability of the story didn’t matter at all, because the unpredictability of the animation more than made up for it.  The post-apocalyptic world is beautifully realized, and the little creatures are so cute and expressive that I had a hard time taking my eyes off them to look around at the rest of the scene.

     9 truly is visually stunning, and totally engrossing.  It’s easy to predict what the little guys are going to do, and how it will all end, but it’s almost impossible to guess how they’re going to get there, and the journey is breathtaking. 

Year:  2007
Genre:  Horror, Indie
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Amber Armstrong, Ashley Palmer
Director:  Oren Peli
Run time:  86 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

      Paranormal Activity, out December 29th from Paramount Home Entertainment, is one of those movies, like Blair Witch, that has managed to make a ton of money and earn rave reviews, seemingly out of nowhere.  An extremely low-budget film, shot with handheld cameras, with a terrifically frightening ending and some fantastically tense moments.  I really enjoyed this simple, small but wonderfully effective film.

     That being said, I would like to take this moment to complain about films like Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity.  Movies like these are the kind of movies that make every wannabe film maker think they can make a great horror film with their handheld camera in their backyard and become a famous overnight sensation.  Most of the time, those people are wrong.  They forget one thing – they need an original, clever premise, and the skills to shoot it.  I have seen a lot of horrible garbage since Blair Witch, and I am betting that in the next few years I will see a lot more horrible garbage thanks to Paranormal Activity.

     Now, back to the movie.  Which is very good.  When you have a limited budget, you have to find a cheap but effective way to create scares.  And Paranormal Activity succeeds beyond all expectations with a very simple device.  It’s a haunted house movie where a young couple decide to film themselves while sleeping so they can figure out what’s happening in their house.  Almost all the creepiness comes straight from that video while they are in bed.

     At first, it’s little things like shadows and sheets moving.  Then it gets more and more intense as the film goes on.  Adding to the tension is the obligatory psychic who is too scared to come in the house.  Mark Fredrichs plays the psychic, and his terror is palpable as he feels the evil presence in the home. 

     Another nice twist is that it isn’t really the home itself that is haunted.  Instead, it’s Katie herself (Katie Featherston) who is haunted.  It’s a nice plot device to avoid all those complaints that I often have with haunted house movies.  Why wouldn’t you leave the house when you figured out it was haunted?  Well, in this case they can’t, because the evil spirit would continue to follow Katie wherever she went.

     Also adding to the creepiness and the scare factor is the fact that everything they do to try to contact this spirit makes it angrier.  The more Katie’s boyfriend Micah (Micah Sloat) films their bedroom, the angrier it gets.  When he tries to contact it using a ouija board, it becomes infuriated.  This is a really interesting device also, because it means that the one medium we have to see the frightening events is also the one thing making those events worse.

     Paranormal Activity can succeed only as a really low-budget indie film.  Which means it will never be a classic horror film like The Exorcist, for example.  But within the confines of making a movie with no name actors and almost no money, it succeeds more than admirably.

Year:  2007
Genre:  Mockumentary, Satire
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Eva Mendes, Jay Hernandez, Eric Lively, Katie Cassidy, Monet Mazur, Rob Brown, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, David Krumholtz, Andre Braugher
Eye candy:  Mendes, Cassidy, Mazur
Director:  Bill Guttentag
Run time:  96 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films

     The biggest problem I had with Live!, out December 29th from Alliance Films, is that I reject the premise out of hand.  Live! is a “mockumentary” about a hard-nosed, uber-aggressive TV executive (Eva Mendes) who realizes that her network must come up with a gigantic ratings grabber in order to compete.  In this movie world, other networks are running game shows where people are given a car and try to escape the police in a high-speed chase, and the possiblilty of death always exists.  And she takes the next “logical” step – televised Russian Roulette as a game show!

     This is where I have trouble with the film.  Most of the movie is about the behind-the-scenes wrangling at the TV station, where Mendes tries desperately to get her brilliant idea on the air, while sensible people try to stop her from doing so.  At no point does anyone question whether people would actually watch this show.  Of course, it will be a massive ratings grabber.  It’s live death!  How could it be anything other than a Super Bowl sized ratings grab?

     And of course, when it does air, it is a Super Bowl sized ratings smash.  Now, I get that it’s a satire, and exaggerated for effect.  And that the main thrust behind that satire is that ruthless people will go to any lengths to satisfy the blood lust of the public.  And how we’re getting awfully close to reverting to the Roman Coliseum and gladiator combat.  I have, of course, seen similar movies many times before.  The Condemned, Death Race, The Running Man, the list goes on and on.

     But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that this was probably not the case.  I don’t think this is where we’re headed.  I don’t think people would tune in in huge numbers for a show like this.  I don’t think the contestants would appear on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and do interviews with Barbara Walters and become the subject of the day on E Talk.  I think this show would do rather poorly in the ratings, in fact.

     The reason I think this is that most people don’t really want to see real death.  This is why people turn the news off when a story about a firefight in Afghanistan comes on.  It’s why people don’t go to see Iraq war movies, even if they are great movies – they know that the death they are seeing in those movies represents real people.  The “reality” shows and game shows that are successful are the fluffy ones – The Bachelor, American Idol, Survivor.  I think if anyone believed there was real danger of someone dying during the filming of Survivor, they would be less likely to watch because they don’t want to feel bad or be depressed.

     In fact, the part of our culture that is more ripe for parody is our obsession with celebrity.  The reality shows that do really, really well are those that involve “celebrities” – Dancing With The Stars, that Canadian skating show, even American Idol pumps up its ratings by bringing on guest stars and judges.  The stuff in Live! most ripe for parody is the stuff where the people who want to be contestants on the show think that it will be their ticket to superstardom.  A little bit is made of this, but only with one character, and the concept is not really explored at length.

     One more thought on why this would not be a massive ratings coup – you know those video shows on Spike TV and stuff?  The “Most Dangerous Car Chases”, or “Most Terrifying Moments Caught On Tape”?  That’s about the closest thing we have to Game-Show-Russian-Roulette at the moment.  And it airs at 3:00 in the afternoon, opposite All My Children and Happy Days re-runs.  It just isn’t a prime-time-worthy ratings extravaganza, is it?

     So.  That’s my biggest problem with the movie.  Understanding that it’s a satire, and it’s meant to be exaggerated and over the top, most of the rest of the film works fairly well.  Some of it is really heavy-handed (one scene in particular stood out – where Mendes scolds a director for showing a brief glimpse of nipple in a scene he shot and the point is made that she’s fine with having someone blow their own head off live on TV, but not with having people see an eighth of a second of nipple.  I get it, but it’s just awkwardly forceful and none too subtle.)

     There is one more big problem.  The movie spends so much time focusing on the behind-the-scenes network stuff leading up to the show that it seems to not care at all about the show itself.  The finale of the film is an airing of Live! where we get to see the format of the show.  But the setup wouldn’t make any sense.  One gun, one bullet, six chambers, one spin of the barrel, then each “contestant” points and shoots at their own head in order. 

     This guarantees a loser, and guarantees that the show can be kept to six trigger squeezes maximum.  Which is fine.  But it also presents a question that (understandably) is never answered – what if the first five people pull the trigger and no one dies?  Does the sixth person, who is now guaranteed a bullet to the brain, really have to get up there and do it?  If he or she does so, knowing full well it means their death, isn’t that suicide?  Which would negate all the legal wrangling that took place behind the scenes throughout the rest of the film.

     That being said, there are a few good things in Live!  The best thing in the movie is Eva Mendes, who is suitably sharkish and vicious in her business dealings.  She uses her sex appeal (and it is considerable) as a weapon to get what she wants, and if that doesn’t work, she resorts to bullying, whining, underhanded tactics and other devious methods.  And Mendes is utterly convincing as her character does all these things at 100 miles an hour, rarely stopping to take a breath or consider the ramifications of her own decisions.

     But Mendes alone can’t save what turns out to be a poorly thought out, not-very-biting satire of America and the media.  The premise alone is enough – the satire ends there.

  Best films:

District 9

Hunger

Inglourious Basterds

The Hangover

Away We Go

  Best DVD releases:

Quentin Tarantino: The Ultimate Collection

The Five Deadly Venoms

Friday Deluxe Edition

Brick City Complete Series

Sin Nombre

Absurdistan

Human Rights Watch DVD Box Set

The Kite

Lesbian Nation

  Best documentaries

The Cove

They Killed Sister Dorothy

Capitalism: A Love Story

Year:  2008
Genre:  Documentary
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Richard O’Barry, Paul Watson, Simon Hutchins, Mandy-Rae Cruickshank, Kirk Krack, David Rastovich, Scott Baker, Louie Psihoyos, Greg Mooney
Unbilled cameo:  Hayden Panettiere
Director:  Louie Psihoyos
Run time:  90 minutes
Related reviews:  Sharkwater

     I had to include a link to Sharkwater in my review for The Cove, because the movies are as similar as two documentaries I have ever seen – both seek to raise awareness about the slaughter of peaceful ocean dwelling creatures, and both are essential viewing.  Also, both movies are thrillers, as much as they are documentaries, and both are absolutely fantastic, pulse-pounding entertainment.

     That being said, both are very, very sad.  The Cove more so, because watching the slaughter of innocent dolphins in the coastal Japanese town of Taiji is absolutely heartbreaking.  This is the first movie that made me cry since The Hottie and the Nottie, which was carnage of a very different sort.  The brilliance of The Cove, however, is the method used to shoot that carnage.

     When film makers and activists showed up in Taiji, they were immediately shadowed by local law enforcement and local fishermen, who were determined to prevent video from being shown of the massacre.  They realized (probably rightly so) that if people the world over saw what went on in this particular cove, they would have to stop doing what they do.  What follows in the film is an incredible game of cat-and-mouse as the film makers try to set up their cameras to film the slaughter, while the local cops and fishermen operate as a sort of mob organization dedicated to stopping them.

     Soon, the team has cameras disguised in rocks and fake bird nests, designed by top industry professionals.  They have a dolphin-shaped blimp and a helicopter circling overhead taking aerial shots of the cove.  They even hire the best free-divers in the world to dive deep into the water of the cove to place cameras at the bottom of the ocean so they can film the slaughter from below.  Thermal cameras capture body heat to watch for any bad guys who may be approaching.

     This portion of the movie is like a real-life James Bond operation.  It’s terrifically thrilling and nerve-wracking, as the activists sneak around on the hills surrounding the cove, halting their operations when their heat-sensitive cameras capture approaching guards.  Movie making doesn’t get more fraught with danger than this does.  A quote on the cover of the DVD says that “the film itself is an act of heroism”, and I absolutely agree.  Like Sharkwater before it, The Cove required a lot more guts to film than any Hollywood movie.

     The film is also great in the way it educates people about dolphins themselves.  Rick O’Barry is one of the central participants in the film.  He was once the dolphin trainer on the Flipper television series, until one of the dolphins he was training actually committed suicide right in front of him.  Since then, he has been fighting furiously to release all dolphins in captivity, to end swimming with dolphins programs, and to save as many of these magnificent animals as he can.

     The dolphins herded into this particular cove might go to some resort where people will get to swim with them.  They might go to Sea World, where they will perform tricks for an audience.  And those that are not chosen for these purposes are slaughtered, babies and all, to be sold for meat that will be eaten locally and all over Japan.  Most Japanese people would not knowingly eat dolphin, but it is often packaged as “whale meat”, and they will eat that.

          Oh – CHEZ nation – your bonus code in this review is – dolphinmeatisfullofmercury

     The Japanese affinity for hunting whales is a very related problem, which is talked about on rather extensively in The Cove.  The general consensus is that Japan continues to hunt whales while the rest of the world does not as a way of saying “screw you” to the rest of the world.  They won’t let the rest of the world tell them what to do.  However, thanks to movies like The Cove, the rest of the world now knows what it is they are doing.  And it’s time we make them stop. 

     Watch this movie.  Go to the website.  It’s important.

Year:  2002
Genre:  Fantasy, Science Fiction
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Katie Carr, Wentworth Miller, Tyron Leitso, Jim Carter, David Thewlis, Stuart Wilson, Alice Krige, Zienia Merton, Christian Simpson
Voices:  Lee Evans, Terry Jones
Eye candy:  Katie Carr (see above picture), Hannah Yelland
Directors:  Marco Brambilla, David Winning
Run time:  240 minutes

     I don’t normally take issue with other reviewers of movies, or their quotes on DVD covers.  But the quote on the DVD cover of Dinotopia absolutely blew me away.  “Move over Spider-Man and Star Wars Episode II!  As Shakespeare would say…a hit!  A palpable hit!”  Umm…what?  This is so weird on so many levels.  First of all, it’s a positive review of a bothersomely bad product.  But to reference Star Wars Episode II?  Of all things?  Alongside Spider-Man?  And then to sort-of-half quote Shakespeare?

     I guess what I’m saying is – don’t be fooled by the critic-quotes on the DVD cover.  They are misleading.  Palpably misleading!  I was not a big fan of Spider-Man, and Star Wars Episode II really sucked.  But to compare this miniseries with those two movies is bonkers at best.  The special effects are entirely different.  Dinotopia is not one of those blockbuster big-action computer-generated animated movies.  Actually, the animation in Dinotopia is quite good – but it’s quaint and old-school in comparison.

     The animation is likely the very best part of Dinotopia.  It’s done by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and it’s charming and nice.  The talking dinosaurs have a very muppet-ish quality to them, and the best character in the miniseries is the neurotic stenonychosaurus Zippo (voiced by Lee Evans).  Although most of the dinosaurs can speak English, apparently, he is the only one who actually does.

     Perhaps, however, the fact that a dinosaur is the best character in the film is less a tribute to the quality animation and more a comment on the acting and the direction.  The human characters in Dinotopia are positively awful.  How Wentworth Miller went on to become a star (Prison Break and so forth) after doing this garbage is beyond me.  As David Scott, one of two brothers marooned on this lost island of dinosaurs, he is positively irritating, with no charm, no apparent redeeming qualities and no believability whatsoever.

     Worse than Miller, however, are his co-stars.  As his brother Karl, Tyron Leitso is one of the most unconvincing actors I have seen outside 2000 Flushes commercials.  He is supposed to be rebellious and skeptical and vaguely badass.  Instead he is soggy cardboard.  One especially painful scene, involving the lyrics to “Bohemian Rhapsody”, makes it quite clear that he has no idea how a rebellious loner might actually behave in the real world, let alone in the fake world of dinosaurs.  (You can now see Leitso, much improved, on the TV show Being Erica.)

     And then there’s Katie Carr.  She clearly got better with age, as is evidenced by her appearance in six episodes of Heroes in 2007 (you might remember her as “Caitlin”).  Not only did she get better as an actor, she got much hotter as well.  This is why I included a picture of her from Heroes and not from Dinotopia, where she looked more like an extra from Road To Avonlea than an unattainable Dinosaur World Princess.

     The actors, however, aren’t nearly as big a problem as the story.  It’s just so…lame!  The series was produced by Hallmark, which should be a pretty big indocator of the schmaltz to come, but it would have been nice if there had been even a small edge to the film.  The brothers are stranded when their plane crashes near this undiscovered island, and their father goes down with the plane to the bottom of the sea.  At first I thought that was a pretty interesting way to open the series, with the death of a family member.

     But it soon became clear to me that this wasn’t an interesting or difficult series, the kind that would allow a character to die.  And I knew it was only a matter of time before the father would be rediscovered, safe and sound, in some schmaltzy reunion sort of way.  And so it was.  (See clip above.)  The brothers start fighting a little – dad never loved me like he loved you – but then they stop and it’s forgotten.  Then they fight again when it helps the plot.

     There appears to be some tension over the girl.  Which brother gets her?  Do they both love her?  Does she love them?  Does anyone care?  And then…nothing.  No difficult decision must be made, no difficult talk must be had, no painful rejection or sad tale of unrequited love.  Just more stuff with dinosaurs and a sneaky scientist.  And so goes the miniseries.  I like Dinotopia for the dinosaurs, and it still looks terrific after eight years.  But I just can’t get over the colossal, pervasive and glaringly obvious lack of balls.

  Pick of the week:  District 9 (9/10):  Awesome and badass.  And full of aliens.  Really cool film.

  Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day (6/10):  It’s still funny, but this is a pretty weak way to cap off such a great series.

  Dinotopia (3/10):  How Wentworth Miller continued getting work after starring in this miniseries is mind-boggling.

  The Others (8/10):  The best film M. Night Shyamalamalamalaman never made.

  Taxi Final Season (8/10):  This show was always cool.

  Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging (4/10):  Silly little girl British fare.

  Also out:

All About Steve
Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day
500 Days of Summer
Extract
The Other Man
American Pie Presents: The Book of Love
Family Guy Presents: Something, Something, Something Darkside
Lorna’s Silence
Call of the Wild 3-D
It Might Get Loud
Ghost Machine

  On Blu-Ray this week:

District 9
Family Guy Presents: Something, Something, Something Darkside
It Might Get Loud
500 Days of Summer
Extract
Ichi
All About Steve
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
American Pie Presents: The Book of Love
Staten Island
Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp Fitness: Ultimate Body Vol. 1
     Ultimate Abs
     Ultimate 3X30
     Ultimate Cardio

  On DVD next week:

Paranormal Activity
Jennifer’s Body
9
A Perfect Getaway
Live!
The Marine 2
Death Warrior
Glee Season One Volume One
Alien Trespass
Inglourious Bastards
Poker Run
Facing Ali
The Wedding Song

  On Blu-Ray next week:

9
Paranormal Activity
Jennifer’s Body
A Perfect Getaway
The Marine 2
Versus
Home Front
Assembly
Time Warp: Season Two

Year:  2009
Genre:  Fantasy, Science Fiction
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Sigourney Weaver, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Joel David Moore
Director:  James Cameron
Run time:  160 minutes

     To call James Cameron an “artist” is a little bit misleading.  Cameron is an “artist” the way an architect is an “artist”.  Certainly, they have a magnificent vision they wish to impart, but it’s the nuts and bolts of that vision that set them apart.  Really, Cameron is more of an incredibly skilled craftsman than anything else.  Avatar is his gigantic vision that he has had for twenty years, and was finally able to bring to big screens this week.

     I have to wonder, though.  Most “artists” have a story that they are desperate to tell.  They want to find the best possible actors to tell that story, and they want to make sure the dialogue is perfect and the script is flawless and the film has the impact they envision.  And that could take twenty years.  Not Cameron.  He sort of had a story.  And he sort of had a script.  Really, he was just waiting until special effects technology caught up to his vision in terms of the way he wanted his movie to look.

     On that front, he succeeded beyond my wildest imagination.  I have never seen a movie that is as visually impressive as Avatar.  When you go to the theatre, you’re presented with 3-D glasses.  They aren’t those cheesy cardboard blue-and-red glasses either.  They are actual glasses.  Which is nice, because they don’t distract you the entire movie by falling off your face and slipping off your ears and cutting into the bridge of your nose.  Which means you can immerse yourself entirely in the 3-D experience.

     The 3-D, like the glasses, is far from being cheesy.  You know how lots of 3-D movies try to make you totally aware that they’re 3-D?  Like Jason sticks his machete directly into the camera and you can see it coming out of his victim’s back?  Or some character is unnecessarily carrying lumber and turns toward the screen so you can see the lumber coming straight at you?  This isn’t one of those movies.  Instead of watching something take place in three dimensions, you are actually inside the room with the actors.  Or the giant blue alien folks.

     I noticed that in this context, the movie takes on a whole different feel than any other movie I have ever watched.  I was acutely aware of things I would never ordinarily have considered.  Like, the actors are short.  I felt like I was standing beside Sigourney Weaver, and I realized – hey, I’m a little taller than she is!  I found my attention being drawn to some minor movement in the corner of the screen, because I was actually in the forest and a seed blowing in the wind would grab my attention.

     The forest, or jungle, or whatever it is on this alien planet, is sensational as well.  The attention to detail is immense, and the creatures that inhabit the wilderness are spectacular.  Flying beasts, hammerhead-rhino things, six-legged beetle-panthers and all kinds of other almost-recognizeable creatures show up to eat other creatures or to save the day or to just plain look cool.  And the blue Na’Vi people who are the central civilization in the story are so well rendered that I almost instantly forgot that they were not human.  In fact, is it creepy that I was instantly attracted to Sigourney Weaver in giant-blue-smurfish-Avatar form?

     So.  The special effects are out of this world, like nothing I have ever experienced.  And that is why this was the most expensive movie ever made.  I get it, and I think it was likely money well spent.  However, I would like to make a point here for James Cameron.  You can have all the coolest effects ever seen on a big screen, but you had twenty years to prepare for this movie.  Did you really not care about the story at all?  Or the script, or the premise, or the plot?  You may not have had time to make them perfect, but you at least had time to make them good.

     I have no problem with the mostly no-name cast.  You could have had the best actors in the world working on this movie, and no one would remember their performances anyway because the effects are the stars.  Giovanni Ribisi and Michelle Rodriguez are probably at least recognizeable to most people, and Sigourney Weaver is certainly the biggest name in the film.  I last saw the guy who played Norm - Joel David Moore – in the Paris Hilton vehicle The Hottie and the Nottie.

     But the story is so flat, and so silly, and so familiar that it it detracts from all the amazing stuff going on on screen.  Sam Worthington plays a marine whose consciousness is projected into a Na’Vi body so he can infiltrate their society, preparing for the human invasion of their planet.  Of course, the human beings are just greedy parasites, looking to mine a precious substance (cheesily called “unobtanium”) from directly under the Na’Vi’s most sacred place.

     And of course, Jake (Worthington) ends up falling in love with the Na’Vi way of life and joining their cause against the human beings.  And he ends up falling in love with the Most Warrior Of All Na’Vi chicks.  And he ends up leading them in the Climactic Battle Vs. The Humans.  Of course all this happens.  Because really there is not much of a story at all. 

     This is like one of those Steven Seagal movies where, after a crisis of conscience midway through the film, Seagal decides to take on his former employers at the polluting oil rig.  Enlisting the help of the local native population, he goes all commando and attacks the rig, murdering dozens of oil rig workers on his way to the Main Bad Guy.  We never know whether those workers are evil, or whether they just happen to be in the way, or whether they are just trying to defend their livelihood against this rampaging maniac.  All we know is that now they’re dead.

     That’s right.  I just compared Avatar to On Deadly Ground.  I suppose I could have compared it to Pocahontas (similar story) or Titanic (also Cameron, also cheesy silly love story surrounded by spectacular special effects in the most expensive movie of all time prior to this one).  But instead, I decided that this would be the only review of Avatar on the entire internet to reference both Steven Seagal and Paris Hilton.  Mission accomplished!

     The thing is, the story is essentially irrelevant.  I have seen it dozens of times before.  The point here is that I have never seen it like this.  I have never seen anything like this.  And I suspect that on DVD or Blu-Ray, it won’t be close to the experience it is in the theatres.  So my advice is to go see it in theatres now.  After all, it took James Cameron twenty years and half a billion dollars to come up with this thing.  You can spare fifteen bucks and three hours of your life to determine for yourself whether it was worth it.

     Extra CHEZ bonus code – giantsmurf

“I’ve decided to lay off the food for a bit, and go on the booze.”

Year:  2009
Genre:  Comedy, Mockumentary
Country:  Canada
Language:  English
Starring:  John-Paul Tremblay, Robb Wells, Mike Smith, John Dunsworth, Jonathan Torrens, Patrick Roach, Lucy DeCoutere, Jeanna Harrison, Tyrone Parsons, Barrie Dunn, Sarah Dunsworth
Cameos:  Alex Lifeson (as undercover prostitute), Brian Vollmer (as the john who picks up Randy)
Director:  Mike Clattenburg
Run time:  102 minutes
DVD distributor:  Alliance Films
Related reviews:  Trailer Park Boys Season Seven, Trailer Park Boys Complete Series, Trailer Park Boys Live Show

     First, the bad stuff.  Trailer Park Boys: Countdown To Liquor Day smacks of effort.  The series, which for so long was so good and so loose and so seemingly effortless, seems to seize up when it hits the big screen.  The first film wasn’t as good as the series either, and this one is a disappointing finale for what was the greatest Canadian comedy of all time.  All the dialogue seems forced, the comedy doesn’t feel natural, and Mr. Lahey has never been so cartoonish or annoying.

     It’s one thing for Mr. Lahey to be drunk and stupid, it’s another for him to become a raving incoherent maniac at the first drop of liquor.  I don’t want to suggest that Lahey was understated on the television show, because he was over the top there as well.  But in Countdown To Liquor Day, he redefines over the top as he sprints around in his underwear, letting his junk fly in the breeze, threatens to leap off a building and generally makes a painful drunken nuisance of himself. 

     When Lahey is this drunk and awful, it’s impossible to take him seriously, which means that his fights with Julian and Bubbles and especially Ricky have no bite to them.  The clash isn’t interesting because there is no method behind Lahey’s madness.  It’s just madness for the sake of madness, and a bunch of guys watching in stunned disbelief.  Which isn’t that entertaining.

     Another big problem with the movie is that it’s terribly disjointed.  Bubbles’ kitties have been taken away by the Nova Scotia SPCA while he was away, and he is desperate to get them back.  He needs about $3000 to do so, and Ricky and Julian are all about helping him out.  Ricky devises a brilliant plan to use the green bins around town to grow individual dope plants and sell the kits to people.  But then Lahey runs down his bins, and the whole scheme is never mentioned again.  Why he couldn’t just stand up the bins and start over, I don’t know.

     Julian decides the best way to get the money for Bubbles is to trash his own car, incinerate it, report it stolen and collect the insurance money.  So they burn it up, he is briefly investigated by the police, and then – it’s never mentioned again.  Was he busted for insurance fraud?  Or did he get the money?  Or…nothing?  It appears that nothing at all happened.  It’s OK to be disjointed like this in individual episodes of the TV show, but in a movie I would like to see a little bit of continuity or follow-through.

     Now, the good stuff.  And there is more good stuff than bad in Countdown To Liquor Day.  After a fight with Ricky, Randy has his head shaved.  And he and Lahey try to draw hair back onto his head with a permanent marker.  The resulting look is pricelessly funny, and when Julian tells him that it makes him look tough, Randy foregoes a hat for the rest of the movie.  It’s tough to look at him without busting a gut.  No pun intended.

     Julian and Bubbles are as funny as ever, and Ricky is solid as he tries to get his Grade 12 diploma.  There is one awkwardly done scene where he learns, for the first time, what “thinking” feels like – it is too contrived, even for TPB – but for the most part he is the best character in the film, once again.  I do think, however, that the movie could have used more Phil Collins.

     Two interesting cameos of note – Alex Lifeson of Rush shows up briefly as an undercover male prostitute, and Brian Vollmer of Helix is a john who picks up Randy when he returns to the street to work as…a male prostitute.  All funny stuff.  And the boys’ scheme of an armoured truck heist is one of their best-thought-out plans.  Except I think Julian carrying his drink with him to the vault might have set off a few alarm bells.

     Overall, the movie is funny and worth seeing.  It’s just too bad it doesn’t measure up to the brilliance of the show over seven seasons.

“I rob banks.”

Year:  2009
Genre:  Gangster
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Channing Tatum, Marion Cotillard, Giovanni Ribisi, Billy Crudup, Stephen Dorff, Lili Taylor
Cameos:  Diana Krall, Leelee Sobieski
Director:  Michael Mann
Run time:  143 minutes
DVD extras:  Feature commentary with Michael Mann, Larger Than Life: Adversaries, Michael Mann: Making Public Enemies, and On Dillinger’s Trail, a featurette about the real locations.  All very good stuff.

     It’s tough to think about Public Enemies without drawing comparisons to Michael Mann’s other, very similar movie, Heat.  Both are cat-and-mouse stories about a determined cop trying to hunt down an equally determined and dangerous bank robber.  Both have two enormous stars who share precious little screen time and are badly underused.  And both rely on crazy shootouts to fill their overly long running times.

     I do have a soft spot for Heat, however, whereas I don’t have one for Public Enemies.  The crazy shootout in Heat was awesome.  The shootouts in Public Enemies are not the same.  In this movie, the shootouts are pure Hollywood, with thousands upon thousands of bullets flying, but rarely hitting their targets except at the exact moments where a gunshot wound can create a dramatic scene.  You know no one important is going to be killed in that cabin in the woods during the crazy shootout.  But you know that when they are alone, running through the woods, there will be a dramatic scene where one major player dies in another’s arms.

     The biggest difference between the two movies is that Public Enemies is, as far as a Hollywood movie can be, a true story about a really famous criminal.  I think most people are aware of the existence of John Dillinger, many of those people know how he was finally apprehended, and even a few know the name of the man who got him, Melvin Purvis.  So with a run time of almost two and a half hours, I would like to think that Mann could have found a way to connect me with the two main characters.

     Especially when those two characters, Dillinger (Johnny Depp) and Purvis (Christian Bale) are being played by two phenomenal actors who could easily provide each man with humanity and character.   Then again, Mann had DeNiro and Pacino for Heat, and neither one of them really created a character in that film either.  Instead, we get to see Dillinger as a fun-loving, charming rogue who robs banks.  And that’s about it.  He falls for a woman (Marion Cotillard, who is also terribly underused), but I never knew why.  I didn’t get what he saw in her, and I didn’t understand why she loved him so desperately.

     I would get it if it was just an infatuation – he’s a dashing, dangerous bank robber, she’s an idiot – or something like that.  But instead this is a Hollywood functional romance only.  They meet.  He decides he wants her.  He gets her.  Then they are desperately in love.  For some reason.  Who cares why, the point is they are. 

     I had the same problem with Bale’s Purvis.  Pressured by J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup) to catch Dillinger at all costs, Purvis has some scenes where he appears to be conflicted about the methods he is using to bring the bank robber to justice.  Even the title of the movie, Public Enemies, is pluralized, indicating that perhaps Purvis is as dangerous as Dillinger himself.  But aside from a few winces and sighs, I never really saw that inner conflict within the man.  And when the postscript came up on the screen after the film, explaining what happened to Purvis after his pursuit of Dillinger came to an end, it made little sense in the context of the film.

     That being said, Public Enemies is nice to look at, and it’s well shot and it’s slick.  And it’s Michael Mann.  If you want to actually learn about Dillinger and Purvis and the era in which they operated, the Blu-Ray comes with some excellent special features that explain far more than the movie does.  The special features, in fact, are so good that they might make the DVD more worthwhile than the film itself.

  Pick of the week:  Inglourious Basterds (9/10) – Tarantino in fine form.  The 2-disc special edition is worth having.

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  Pick of the week 2:  The Hangover (9/10) – Manages to be amazingly funny despite some really silly set pieces.

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  Also out:

Taking Woodstock

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G-Force
The Girl in the Park
Fighter
Psycho Ward
The Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie
The Headless Woman

     On Blu-Ray next week:

The Hangover
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek Original Series Season Three
2009 World Series Champions
G-Force
The Mel Brooks Collection
Beyonce: I Am…Yours
Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series
La Boheme
Star Trek Original Series Three-Season Pack
Basilisk: The Complete Series
Taking Woodstock
The Other Man
HD Moods: Blu Ocean
Boogie Nights

  Out next week:

District 9
All About Steve
Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day
500 Days of Summer
Extract
The Other Man
American Pie Presents: The Book of Love
Family Guy Presents: Something, Something, Something Darkside
Lorna’s Silence
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

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Call of the Wild 3-D
It Might Get Loud
Ghost Machine

  On Blu-Ray next week:

District 9
Family Guy Presents: Something, Something, Something Darkside
It Might Get Loud
500 Days of Summer
Extract
Ichi
All About Steve
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
American Pie Presents: The Book of Love
Staten Island
Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp Fitness: Ultimate Body Vol. 1
     Ultimate Abs
     Ultimate 3X30
     Ultimate Cardio

  Pick of the week:  Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (8/10):  The second-best in the whole Harry Potter series.  (Next to The Prisoner of Azkaban, which was superb.)  Harry’s getting a lot darker in his old age.

  Documentary of the week:  The Cove:  I have not yet seen this one.  But I have heard enough to know that it’s the one I want to see most of all.  The disgusting and contemptible slaughter of dolphins brought to light by some incredible, badass filming techniques.  I can’t wait!

  Television series of the week:  Brick City Complete Series (9/10):  It’s easy to call something the “complete series” when there are only five episodes.  This is a made for TV documentary miniseries created by Forest Whitaker which shines an incredible light on the city of Newark as they battle crime and murder and try for something better.

  Re-issue of the week:  Quentin Tarantino: The Ultimate Collection (10/10):  The six movies Tarantino made before Inglourious Basterds, which comes out next week.  Two good ones, one great one, and three all-time classics.

  Foreign film of the week:  Ghosted (6/10):  For lack of anything better, really.  This is a Taiwanese-German lesbian romantic supernatural murder mystery.  Which makes it sound a hell of a lot cooler than it is.  But it’s pretty good.

     Also out this week:

  A Finished Life: The Goodbye and No Regrets Tour (7/10):  It’s hit-and-miss, but this story of Gregg Gour, a gay man diagnosed with AIDS who decides to end life on his own terms, is mostly uplifting and amazingly life-affirming considering the subject matter.

  The Fugitive Season Three Volume Two (7/10):  Still a cool show.  Kurt Russell was like seven when he appeared in one episode.

Perry Mason Season Four Volume Two
Prima Ballerina
Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging
Public Enemies
Julie And Julia
Lost: The Complete Fifth Season
The Skeptic
Taking Chances
The Dog Who Saved Christmas
Carriers
The Fox & The Child
Hollywood, Je T’Aime
Plaquers
Knut and Friends
Rescue Me Season Five, Part Two
Spongebob Squarepants Season Six, Volume One

     On Blu-Ray this week:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Public Enemies
Lost: The Complete Fifth Season
Julie & Julia
Harry Potter Years 1-6 Gift Set
Lost: The Complete Fifth Season Dharma Initiation Kit
Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone Ultimate Edition
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Ultimate Edition
George Michael: Live in London
Rush: R30
UFC: Ultimate 100 Greatest Fights
Pink: Funhouse Tour Live in Australia
Lost: Complete Seasons 1-5
World’s Greatest Dad
Knut & Friends
Cyclops
The Alphabet Killer
Red Mist
Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer
Sands of Oblivion
Coraline Gift Set
Lower Learning
While She Was Out
The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon
Walled In
Ultramarathon Man: 50 marathons, 50 states, 50 days
Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
The Arnold Schwarzenegger Collection
Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp Fitness: Ultimate Body Vol. 1
Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp Fitness: Ultimate 3X30
Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp Fitness: Ultimate Abs
Jay Johnson’s Boot Camp Fitness: Ultimate Cardio
The Gene Hackman Collection
Animalopolis
The Sean Connery Collection
The Bruce Willis Collection
The Denzel Washington Collection
The Mark Wahlberg Collection
The Keanu Reeves Collection
The Ben Stiller Collection

     On DVD next week:

The Hangover
Inglourious Basterds
Taking Woodstock
G-Force
The Girl in the Park
Fighter
Psycho Ward
The Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie
The Headless Woman

     On Blu-Ray next week:

The Hangover
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek Original Series Season Three
2009 World Series Champions
G-Force
The Mel Brooks Collection
Beyonce: I Am…Yours
Samurai Champloo: The Complete Series
La Boheme
Star Trek Original Series Three-Season Pack
Basilisk: The Complete Series
Taking Woodstock
The Other Man
HD Moods: Blu Ocean
Boogie Nights