Check Out the Trailer

With horror these days either going to torture porn or weak PG-13 remakes of Asian scarefests, it is refreshing to see a classic horror tale that takes the viewer into the hell of its characters’ minds. But what do you expect from the master of horror Stephen King. This is one of the better horror adaptations of his work in some time. Less interested in the twists and turns of the plot (but there are some), this film is more interested in the twisted turns inside its main character’s psyche.

Mike Enslin (John Cusack, HIGH FIDELITY) is a failed novelist who now writes travel guides of haunted locations across the U.S. Estranged from his wife Lily (Mary McCormack, DEEP IMPACT), he is struggling with the death of his young daughter Katie (Jasmine Jessica Anthony, CATCH ME IF YOU CAN). He gets an anonymous postcard warning him not to stay in room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York City. Enslin’s interest in peaked and he is willing to face some of his demons to see what lies in the haunted hotel room where more than 50 people have died. Hotel manager Gerald Olin (Samuel L. Jackson, SNAKES ON A PLANE) nearly begs him not to stay in the room and warns him that no one has lasted longer than an hour.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

When I first saw this film in college, I hated it. Loathed its misogyny. Now seeing it 10 or so years later, I respect it more, but my issues with the film have not changed. Sam Peckinpah is a man fighting his own 19th Century view of male-female relations as well as violence. You see this over many of his films. He is a great filmmaker, who skillful plays out his stories and fills them with provocative ideas. But what does he leave the audience feeling? What is he saying? STRAW DOGS represents Peckinpah’s own dark internal struggle and the dark wins out too many times over the truth.

David Sumner (Dustin Hoffman, THE GRADUATE) is an American intellectual who moves to England with his British wife Amy (Susan George, DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY) to do his research. David is very non-confrontational, allowing local thugs to push him around. Amy resents him for it and flirts with her burly ex-boyfriend Charlie Venner (Del Henney). Tensions grow between David, Amy and the townsfolk, which turn to violence.

Read the rest of this entry »

With it being the 4th of July, I thought a great theme for this week’s This Weekend’s Film Festival would be America — the good, the bad and the ugly. Once I had my theme lots of ideas and sub-themes came to mind. It’s a ripe area to explore and I will definitely be visiting it again sometime. However, the lineup I have come up with captures the American spirit though politics and sports. I truly feel that American holidays celebrating America should be a time for us to not only wave flags and remember that we are lucky to be Americans, but also to reflect on the bad and the ugly parts of what being an American means to us as well as the rest of the world. This week’s five films address some of our shortcomings as well as our triumphs.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Outside of an earnest performance from Mark Wahlberg and a half decent role for Michael Pena, this stupid film has very little else to offer. This film falls into the category of films that I like to call 15-minute Google movies — they’re films that pretend to know what they are talking about by using what seems like about 15 minutes of Googling the given topic. Reportedly this film is based off a novel by Stephen Hunter, who is either a hack writer or very mad at the film studio. Jonathan Lemkin’s screenplay actually feels like it was based on a million other films just like it. Additionally, director Antoine Fuqua (TRAINING DAY) seems to know this and just goes through the motions on this one.

After losing his sniper partner in battle, Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg, THE DEPARTED) leaves the military behind to go live alone in the woods with his dog. Because of his exemplary skills as a marksman who can hit a target from a mile away, he is recruited by Col. Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover, WITNESS) to help the government save the president from an assassin, who will take the shot from long distance and they want Swagger to get in the killer’s head. However, it turns out to be a set-up. Swagger is shot and must go on the run. He enlists the help of his old partner’s fiancée Sarah (Kate Mara, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN) and later the help of a rookie FBI agent named Nick Memphis (Pena, CRASH), who believes the official story from the government is fishy. Oh, where to start with why this films stinks.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

TRANSFORMERS starts off as a fun summer cruise, but then crashes head on into the medium strip at 100 mph and subsequently kicks it into autopilot. The first third is an entertaining global alien invasion flick in the mold of INDEPENDENCE DAY, but sadly once the Autobots show up the script flips into a juvenile, sitcom-like version of IRON GIANT. Finally in the end, we are given a conclusion with so many plot holes you could drive Optimus Prime right through them.

In Qatar, a U.S. military base is attacked by a transforming helicopter, leaving soldiers Sgt. Lennox (Josh Duhamel, TV’s LAS VEGAS), USAF Tech Sgt. Epps (Tyrese Gibson, BABY BOY) and their teammates stranded in the desert. Then we move to the American suburbs, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf, HOLES) is trying to save up for his first car, going to the point where he’s willing to sell his grandfather’s glasses on eBay. He pines over the pretty, popular girl Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox, TV’s HOPE & FAITH), who turns out to be a grease monkey. Defense Secretary John Keller (Jon Voight, DELIVERENCE) tries to make heads or tails of the robot attack, which includes a hack into the government’s computer systems. To do so he calls in tech experts from all walks of life. Young, pretty, Aussie techie Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor, SEE NO EVIL) discovers the alien robots hacking into Air Force One computers and when she gets resistance to her idea about the hacks coming from DNA based machines, she goes to her hacker friend Glen Whitmann (Anthony Anderson, HUSTLE & FLOW) for help. Later Sam discovers that his beat-up Camero is really an alien robot named Bumblebee (Mark Ryan, THE PRESTIGE) and that his grandfather’s glasses are key to saving Earth from the evil alien robot Decepticons.

Read the rest of this entry »