Check Out the Trailer

Based on Scott B. Smith’s much-lauded horror novel, THE RUINS appears to be just another HOSTEL-like dead teenager film. Though it never rises to greatness, it is a solid entry within the dead teenager sub-genre. It’s a horror story that doesn’t rush into its gruesome moments, allowing use to meet its character before they start descending into madness.

Jeff (Jonathan Tucker, HOSTAGE) is a medical student who has gone on vacation to a Mexican resort with his heavy partying girlfriend Amy (Jena Malone, SAVED!), her best friend Stacy (Laura Ramsey, LORDS OF DOGTOWN) and Stacy’s boyfriend Eric (Shawn Ashmore, X-MEN). When German tourist Mathias (Joe Anderson, ACROSS THE UNIVERSE) present them with the proposition to travel to an off-the-map Mayan ruin, Jeff jumps at the chance to get some culture into their trip. However when they arrive, they encounter hostile natives, who surround them, forcing them to flee onto the summit of the ruins, where they discover why the villagers are so scared of the ancient temple.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic brings a film noir feel to a futuristic Earth where human-like renegade androids called replicants are hunted by blade runner assassins. However killing a replicant isn’t murder; it’s retirement. Perfectly paced for its haunting material, BLADE RUNNER is a moody detective story, but also ponders bigger issues about the meaning of life. If you knew that the day of your death was predetermined, but didn’t know the day, how would that affect the way you live your life?

Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford, INDIANA JONES) is the best blade runner around. Detective Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh, BLOOD SIMPLE) calls on his services after four top model replicants escaped an off-world site and since coming to Earth killed a police officer. Deckard is losing the taste for killing replicants, so Bryant keeps creepy detective Gaff (Edward James Olmos, STAND & DELIVER) on his tail. Meanwhile the renegade replicants, led by the military model Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer, TURKISH DELIGHT), begin searching for Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel, THE SHINING), the creator of the replicants. In his mission to retire Batty, Deckard visits Tyrell and meets the seductive woman Rachael (Sean Young, NO WAY OUT), who turns out to be the most advanced replicants he has ever seen. Sadly she doesn’t know she isn’t human.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

While technology has gotten better since TOY STORY was released, it’s not easy to improve on storytelling this clever. John Lasseter’s masterpiece could have been so many things with its recognizable brands and pop culture references, but it avoids all the pitfalls of that material and crafts an innocent story about friendship and love. The franchise has become a money making machine since, but, the film isn’t about selling toys, but the joy of a toy in the hearts of a child and the joy of being that beloved toy.

TOY STORY presents the whimsical idea that toys come to life when humans are not around. Woody (Tom Hanks, BIG) is the king of the toy chest in Andy’s room. He organizes the other toys, which include the comedian Mr. Potato Head (Don Rickles), dedicated Slinky Dog (Jim Varney, ERNEST GOES TO CAMP), insecure dinosaur Rex (Wallace Shawn, THE PRINCESS BRIDE), piggy bank Hamm (John Ratzenberger, TV’s CHEERS), and the ceramic lamp Bo Beep (Annie Potts, GHOSTBUSTERS), who has a thing for Woody. It’s Andy’s birthday and he gets the new spaceman action figure Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen, TV’s HOME IMPROVEMENT), who doesn’t believe that he’s a toy. With his fancy gadgets, Buzz quickly becomes Andy’s new favorite, leaving Woody feeling forgotten.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Almost 10 years after bursting onto the feature film scene with BOYS DON’T CRY, Kimberly Peirce returns with an Iraq War drama that survives some plot contrivances with very well observed complex characters. As the title suggests, the film deals with the military policy of stop-loss, where soldiers can be reassigned to duty after their term of service is up. Nearly 81,000 Iraq War soldiers have been stop-lossed, which is viewed by some as a backdoor draft that pushes our stretched military too far.

Personalizing this idea, we meet a group of soldiers in Iraq. Sgt. Brandon King (Ryan Phillippe, CRASH) is the strong leader of the men, who is determined to do his duty to the best of his ability. Sgt. Steve Shriver (Channing Tatum, STEP UP) is a tough soldier with a pretty girl named Michelle (Abbie Cornish, CANDY) back home. Tommy Burgess (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, BRICK) is a troubled soldier who drowns his sorrow in liquor. Rico Rodriguez (Victor Rasuk, RAISING VICTOR VARGAS) is a trash-talking private who finds the positive in every situation. After an ambush in Iraq that kills some of their squad and severely injures others, the men get a break back home in Texas. Brandon and Steve have finished their tours and look forward to starting their civilian life, however, the horrors of war have made the transition difficult. Then Brandon is stop-lossed. He strongly objects and ends up AWOL, fleeing to Washington D.C. to plead his case to a senator he knows.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Guillermo del Toro, director of PAN’S LABYRINTH, brings his boundless visual imagination to another screen edition of the HELLBOY saga. Filled with fanciful creatures and whimsical silliness, del Toro nicely balances between humor and action in this fun superhero adventure. While not as fresh as the original, HELLBOY II holds its own in a summer filled with wonderful superheroic antics.

Ages ago the magical creatures of the world made a truce with humans, setting aside their indestructible golden army. They would stay in the woods while humans ruled the cities. However, as the cities spread and humans became consumed with greed, the magical creatures were pushed into the shadows. Now Prince Nuada (Luke Goss, BLADE II) wants the magical world to rule again, so he seeks the three pieces of the crown that controls the mechanical golden army made up of 70 times 70 warriors. With his robbery of the second piece of the crown and the murder of dozens of humans, the U.S. government calls in their paranormal task force of Hellboy (Ron Perlman, THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN), Liz Sherman (Selma Blair, CRUEL INTENTIONS) and Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, PAN’S LABYRINTH).

Read the rest of this entry »

To celebrate IN BRUGES arriving on DVD, This Weekend’s Film Festival’s lineup takes a look at some killer comedies featuring assassins. One is based on a true story (only if you believe it). Another puts a classic suave spy into the role of a hitman. Another mixes assassins and high school reunions. And the final film was recently picked as one of the best gangster films of all time. So grab a Colt .45 (beer not the handgun) and enjoy some laughs and murder.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

The epic Oscar-winning blockbuster that captured the hearts of teenage girls for months upon its initial release, making Leonardo DiCaprio a modern-day matinee idol. James Cameron’s passion project paid off to the tune of $1.2 billion at the worldwide box office. No film since has come close to its success. Mixing a love story with a disaster tale attracted both women and men. It’s beautiful young stars brought in the young viewers, while the historic true-life disaster tale brought in older movie watchers. It was a spectacle that truly had something for everyone.

Against an epic backdrop, the story is simple. Rose Bukater (Kate Winslet, LITTLE CHILDREN) is a 17-year-old girl engaged to the wealthy heir Cal Hockley (Billy Zane, SILVER CITY). She doesn’t love him, feeling trapped in a life that was not of her choosing. Her mother Ruth (Frances Fisher, L.A. STORY) needs her to marry rich so that their future is secure, since her husband left them with nothing but debt upon his death. In total desperation, she decides to jump off the back of the ship. But third-class passenger Jack Dawson (DiCaprio, THE DEPARTED) convinces her to rethink her decision. This begins a whirlwind romance much like Romeo and Juliet, however the sinking ship will put their happily ever after in jeopardy.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

The dark and cheeky comedy puts a new spin on the story of an assassin. Pierce Brosnan sheds his James Bond persona completely as a foul mouthed, boozin’ hitman. The other unique twist is how the average Joe reacts to meeting a paid killer in real life. Would you freak and lock yourself away, or would you be curious and ask what his gun looks like?

Julian Noble (Brosnan) is a flashy dresser for a man who doesn’t want to be seen killing people. He travels the globe doing hits for his bosses, because he’s one of the best. But recently he’s gotten sloppy and his drinking and whoring is becoming habitual. At the hotel bar in Mexico City, he meets struggling business man Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear, AS GOOD AS IT GETS), who is banking on a big deal. During their conversation, Noble says everything wrong offending Danny up and down, so the next day he invites Wright to the bull fights, where Danny asks that seemingly innocent question — so what do you do for a living, Julian?

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Warner Bros. Animation successfully moved into making more mature animated direct-to-videos with SUPERMAN: DOOMSDAY. Their latest effort — an anime infused BATMAN production made up of six distinct, but interlocking, chapters — is another step in the right direction. Six different writers and six different directors handled each section, which was brought together as a whole by the guiding hands of exec producer Bruce Timm and story man Jordan Goldberg, a producer on THE DARK KNIGHT. The distinct visual styles keep the material interesting as we watch the unfolding episodes chronicling the early adventures for the Dark Knight.

The first segment, “Have I Got a Story For You,” is a wonderful tale to start with, following the wild and wildly different impressions of Batman from four kids. In one tall tale he is a shadowy apparition then in the next he becomes a flying, savage creature. The next tale paints him as a weapon-filled machine. In reality, he turns out to be a mere man. With a screenplay from Josh Olson (A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE) and directed by Shouijirou Nishimi (animation director on TEKKON KINKREET), the raw style of the animation makes for a gritty start and a fitting look for what amounts to various legends about Batman.

Read the rest of this entry »

Check Out the Trailer

Recently I wrote about PULP FICTION, which I called the most influential film since its debut in 1994. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is second. Steven Spielberg’s ode to the soldiers of World War II brought a level of realistic violence to mainstream media that hadn’t been seen previously. BRAVEHEART had been bloody, but not like RYAN. The opening Normandy invasion sequence changed the way battle sequences have been filmed since. Gritty and brutal reality has become paramount in depicting the true nature of warfare. Many films have since copied the look with its faded colors and streaks of light across the screen, but none have matched its impact. But the visceral blood and gore isn’t to shock per se, but to transport an audience into the reality of warfare where training and luck save lives, rarely does heroics.

The film begins with an old man visiting a cemetery where he flashes back to the landing on Omaha Beach. The hand of Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks, PHILADELPHIA) shakes as the boats approach the shore. Pitted against dug-in Germans, the savage slaughter begins the second the gates of transport boats open. Dozens upon dozens of soldiers die before even hitting the sand. The carnage is real with dazed soldiers searching the beach for missing limbs. As we watch Miller and his men try to advance up the beach, who lives and who dies seems based on who was in the right place at the wrong time. Upon succeeding at Omaha, Capt. Miller is given his new orders. The military has discovered that three of the four brothers of the Ryan family of Iowa have all recently died in battle and in an effort to save more heartache to their mother, Miller and his men will be sent to bring the youngest son James Ryan (Matt Damon, GOOD WILL HUNTING) home.

Read the rest of this entry »