Just because the history books don’t make note of certain events doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. In “Formosa Betrayed”, the oft unknown story of the true relationship between the United States and Taiwan is given new life. Set in the 1980′s, it follows the investigation into the murder of a Taiwanese-American professor. This energetic, action-packed film starring James Van Der Beek is the amalgamation of true life individuals and events, brought together to enlighten audiences on a topic very important to modern U.S. and Taiwan history. Here at iRATEfilms, we had a chance to sit down and talk with writer/actor/producer Will Tiao:

Matt Balmaseda:  What is your background and how has that affected your work on this film?

Will Tiao:  I am second generation Taiwanese, born and raised in Kansas. My parents were very active in the local Taiwanese community and I witnessed the blacklisting of many children growing up. Although I was raised in the United States, the environment I grew up in was similar to what was happening in Taiwan.

For 10 years I worked in politics, with a BA and MA in political science, in various positions, serving under both the Clinton and the Bush administrations. Seven and a half years ago I left Washington D.C. and went to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career, and five years ago I started putting together “Formosa.”

Tiao’s background in foreign affairs has given him a great deal of insight into the proceedings between the United States and Taiwan. This expertise clearly translates over to the film, which displays the political dealings between the two countries very well. There’s always an air of authenticity to the scenes, even if you don’t have an understanding of how things actually happen overseas. Achieving this level of realism is a true feat.

MB:  What made you choose to write this story as a screenplay?

WT:  Well, there are many books already written on the subject and a few documentaries have been made, too. There has never been a feature film, though. I’ve always considered myself to be an actor, but I have also been trying to become a producer. Formosa was my chance to do that.

MB:  What was your inspiration to write Formosa?

WT:  I heard the stories of murders hapening in Taiwan from my parents. After looking into them, we found lots of information on the subject. Lots of research was done in making the film. I think there were about 15,000 pages of notes taken.

Films like “Hotel Rwanda” were a big inspiration for the film. We wanted to be able to achieve what films like that did, and we hope Formosa was able to.

“Formosa Betrayed,” like “Hotel Rwanda,” helps shed light on a subject many people probably don’t know about. In that way, the film succeeds in meeting the level of its inspiration. It doesn’t exactly reach the emotional intensity of other similar films, but you definitely feel for the situation on screen. For a first film, “Formosa Betrayed” is an impressive historical drama. As such, it is being used and marketed on campuses throughout the United States.

MB:  Can you tell us a little about the college tour linked with the film?

WT:  We have visited colleges all over, like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford, to talk with students about the film and the events that inspired it. There is a lot of interest among college-aged students who are studying the subject and who also love Dawson’s Creek.

MB:  When does “Formosa Betrayed” open?

WT:  We are opening the film at different times at various locations. In Miami, it will be at the Hialeah Cobb theater on Saturday, April 24.

Miami audiences may have much to relate to in the film. With its strong Latin-American and exile community, the on-screen tension caused by U.S.-Taiwanese relations can reflect relations with, say, the United States and Cuba. If not, the film still tells an exciting story that plays out as a mixture of a history lesson, a cop drama, and an action film. With strong performances at the helm, this is a film that should not be missed.

MB:  What’s next for you?

WT:  I have a couple of projects in the works. I’m prepping to shoot a short film in Hawaii and I also have an idea for a feature set there.

“Formosa Betrayed” is a great little film that may not be able to stand up to big Hollywood films and their engrossed marketing campaigns, but it has plenty of heart, a dash of charm, and a smart script that carries it along. It will be great for anyone interested in catching an indie film, or for anyone simply looking to learn about something new.

Adventures in Babysitting – with an adult edge!

Swift shot:  So, if you have seen even one preview (and if you haven’t – you must still use an abacus) you know this is about a bored couple from New Jersey that is bold enough to steal a table reservation at a swanky Manhattan restaurant – and they get more than they bargained for.  Ok, granted, the plot device is a bit weak, but once the comedy knees you awake – literally from the start – you can’t stop laughing every few minutes.  Fey and Carell need to have one of those fucking annoying Hollyweird names, Feyrel?  Carfey?  I dunno, but, they need to keep making shit together, because they blend well – in fact, I would like to stick them in my Magic Bullet and make a spread for my bagel, delicious.  This film was just cheesy goodness, you knew what you were getting when you entered the theater – and it doesn’t disappoint.

What’s the story?

As I mentioned in my shot above, bored couple from the burbs dares to snag table reservations and winds up in deep doo doo.  The exposition on characters Phil (Carell) and Claire (Fey) is brief but you learn more about them through their zany antics.  Yes, there are zany antics, again, did you SEE a preview?

He is a numbers cruncher, tax attorney and she is a real estate broker – together, they are The Fosters, parents and straight-laced card-carrying members of the monotony club and a weekly ritual called Date Night.  It is never explained why they started a Date Night . . . is this one of those things that all bland couples engage in?  I mean, the movie does a brilliant job of showing how a ritual to spark spontaneity is a fruitless effort, because even that becomes a loveless chore. Where the intent was to spark some romance and passion, eventually both parties want to just soak in a pool draped in velvet.  After dealing with numbers and dolts all day, who has the energy to venture into the city?

But, one night at a friend’s house, for a book-club, which apparently the neutered Mr. Foster has to endure because it is “important” to his wife, they discover the hosts are splitting up.  They appear to be extremely happy with this decision and The Fosters both fear that if this happy couple, played by the under-used Kristen Wiig and Mark Ruffalo, can’t make it work – well, who the hell can?  The next Date Night, Claire dons a sexy dress which steps up Phil’s game; he is set to impress her to a late night jaunt into Manhattan.

Their encounter with the host of Claw, “You’re Welcome” is pretty good comedy, and it leads them to eventually snag the table of the no-shows, The Tripplehorns.  They eventually run into some trouble, and here is where I couldn’t help but directly compare it to Adventures in Babysitting.  It was like an older model of the same film – with a modern fuck-it-all edge.  This Date Night turns into a wonderful mis-adventure for The Fosters.  They encounter cops, thugs, gangsters, strippers, cab drivers, corrupt politicians, all the menagerie that Manhattan has to offer.  You’ll enjoy watching them try to survive this one magical night in the city that never sleeps.

Why I laughed twenty-eight times

Carell is the master of playing the dry stooge and Fey is his girl-Friday (yes, Tina, I went there, deal with it – score one for chauvinism) who gets by with a razor sharp wit of one-liners she must keep stored in her fart riddled shoe-box.

The mix of dry, dorky delivery and balls up feminine savvy lends well to the overall results.  You will laugh, and even if you are uber-pretentious (you know who you are) there are scenes that will at least make your stiff-ass grin.  I mean, come on, the world will be over in 2012, LAUGH you cretin.

I loved the little game The Fosters created as they dodged the boredom slowly stifling their marriage . . . their creative people watching routine at dinner. Loved the ad-libbed one-liners too, and you know they are ad-libbed because they show you out-takes during the credits, and not the annoying kind where you have to WAIT for the whole friggin scroll to go by, the immediate out-takes!

The movie doesn’t fail to entertain at all, there are some 80s references for nerds like me, and maybe you, and even a bit of a twist thrown in – let’s see if you are paying attention and catch it.  Of course, when dorkiness is used to set the humor, you have to have a stud and a vixen to juxtapose the awkwardness of the lead stooges.  Enter Holbrooke (Wahlberg) as the shirtless black-ops bad-ass, and his bottomless friend, Natanya (Gal Gadot).  They show how foppish The Fosters are and of course there are cameos by James Franco, as Taste and his girl, Whippit (Mila Kunis), who reminds you how straight-laced The Fosters really are.

Still, there is a lot of action. for a simple zany comedy.  A great chase scene, which I call the LOVE-BUG chase scene, and there are no VWs involved – nor Lohans.  You’ll see what I mean fairly quickly into the chase.

One scene, where The Fosters have to dance their way out of a situation reminded me of one of those SNL skits that starts off poorly, goes on too long and is simply crap.  They manage to salvage it at the end, but it is clear the chemistry of Feyrel was strained in this scene, which, oddly comes off as a pivotal moment in the adventure.  So, Date Night loses points for that scene and some inept acting by supporting cast members, Ray Liotta looked like he was punching a time-card and could care less about being professional, a far cry from his awesome performance in the recent Observe and Report.

Still, watching The Fosters grow as a couple willing to do anything to survive their Date Night is a treat.  And, like I said before, go see it, laugh, don’t worry about the crippling economy, terrorists, nukes, crooked Congressmen, right-wing whackos, left-wing loons or any other silliness – just enjoy this one with a nice glass of Pinot.  And remember, never toast on an empty glass!

“Interesting”

Swift shot: This is a new version of the old classic, with epic special effects and immersing performances by all cast members.  Still, it didn’t manage to really capture my heart like the original; it will disappoint die-hard fans of the classic in several places.  Where director Louis Leterrier tried to sparkle with novel approaches to familiar scenes, but it was like eating a low-fat Twinkie – what’s the point?  Why mess with these scenes?  This new version kills the momentum and destroys child-like memories of the original.  Simply put, just because something looks better, doesn’t mean it tastes better.  Clash of the Titans 2010 will leave you disgruntled and hungry for the classic!

What is it about?

Demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington) and his winged steed, Pegasus, almost an afterthought in this version, are on a quest to kill the Kraken.  Perseus is the son of Zeus (Liam Neeson) and a mortal queen (some hottie), though the queen had no idea she was tricked into bedding Zeus who took the form of her husband.  The king, Acrisius (Jason Flemyng) disgraced and betrayed by Zeus, sends Perseus to die in Poseidon’s seas – but the gods protect him and see to it that he lives to fulfill his destiny – to destroy the only thing that even the gods fear, the Kraken!

The Queen of Argos, Cassiopeia (Polly Walker) has dared to claim her daughter Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) is more beautiful than even the goddess Aphrodite.  Given that these gods and goddesses are the most vain creatures in the universe, they can’t let that slight go unpunished.  So, naturally, these omnipotent creatures decide to wipe out their creations and start again.  An interesting twist though, the gods feed off of man’s love, or fear, to survive as gods. So, to destroy man, is to destroy themselves.

Enter Perseus, the perfect solution to Zeus’ dilemma, like most great heroes, a half-ling of the competing factions.  As Zeus struggles with his decision to destroy man, or at least Argos, his brother Hades (Ralph Fiennes) is plotting to thrive off of mortal’s fear – not love.  So fear vs. love is the central theme of Titans.  The morality of the gods rarely really ever comes into play, which I think the original did a much better job of portraying. While the struggle and the politics of the gods is touched on, the classic’s gods felt more alive – and less sparkly!  Whoever decided to make Zeus sparkle like a damned Twi-god, I hope the REAL Zeus visits you in the form of an anal slug.

So, you be the judge, is it to be Zeus’ mercy or Hades’ wrath that draws man back to the gods?  Or, can man stand on his own feet and shun the gods once and for all, as they sit high on Olympus and judge and seduce mortals?  How will Perseus destroy the very thing even the gods fear?

Why I was disgruntled

I have always loved this story, the quest, putting your ass on the line for something bigger than yourself, of course in THIS version, vengeance is the main force driving the quest, not love.  Perseus witnesses Hades kill his adoptive family and is bent on retribution for their loss.  So, I guess the director was tired of focusing on love from the original, a very important part before which quite literally gets tacked on to the end of Clash of the Titans 2010.  Fear and wrath, in this case – the opposite of love – leads the way.

My favorite characters and scenes were sliced to mere grains of sand in the vast desert of this film’s “epic” special effects.  Yes, they were “riveting” and “spine-tingling” quite amazing in some places and a force to be reckoned with if that is all that you love, then so be it, lap it up like scorpion blood.  If a film lacks substance where it counts, I don’t care how cool it looks in theaters or at home.  I have always been a function over form guy.

The new generation of fans will love this film and tell us old-fogies to shove it up our butts.  I can’t say I disagree wholeheartedly, taken on its own merit, this is a fine film, but I can name several scenes that I could prove to these youngins destroyed the film for me.

As I mentioned earlier, Zeus’ sparkling was overdone and unnecessary, there were some incredibly cheesy moments – of course us old fogies had the clock-work owl, but somehow it didn’t come across as complete cheese to our adolescent minds.  Who knows, maybe Siskel and Ebert tore the 1981 film to shreds for being cheesy too?

The scenes I loved as a kid were all there, for the most part, yet even though they looked so much better and I even found empathy for Medusa, the Gorgon, a creature who terrified me as a child, missing was the sheer terror and tension of the original confrontation.  When you see it, you will know what I mean.  The witches scene was far too brief, certain characters were lost and others added that I didn’t care for.

Even the heroine changes in 2010, enter Io (Gemma Arterton) who acts as the guide and moral compass for Perseus and his men.  She is a sort of limbo soul, trapped on the earth for, guess what, refusing a god.  These gods need to stop seducing our women!

Io was an interesting character, a beauty on screen, and a bad-ass too boot.  Really?  Hollyweird just couldn’t accept the damsel in distress theme, they had to ratchet it up a notch and add a female ass kicker.  I thought Medusa played that part quite nicely myself, but, whatever, this isn’t MY Clash of the Titans – you can have it, kids.   I prefer the original, in all its cheese.

Bottom line for Clash of the Titans, save your 3D money for another film, don’t go into it expecting certain memories from the past to stay intact – you will be INCREDIBLY disappointed if you do.  Have an open mind, experience it as a new angle to your old classic.

Trust – is just a word.

Green Zone will challenge you to take a stand on Iraq, and force you to face why we declared war there.  To bring violence, the full complement of the USA’s military machine, to bear on the hapless dictator with more doubles than Hitler and with his own trademark mustache, there must have been something greater than sheer animosity towards Saddam Insane, right?  The film builds a case and lets you decide what, or more appropriately, whom to believe.

Of course, everyone has one question about this film, is it just a re-hash of Bourne . . . no, not in entirety anyway.  Perhaps it is a more believable rendition of what an actual “Bourne” entity might look like without all the bullshit Hollywood make-believe.  For example, the hero, Chief Miller (Matt Damon) comes across as a more developed character than Bourne and with actual depth and less melodrama.  Quite simply, you might actually run into a Chief Miller in your life, but there is no such person as Jason Bourne.

Starting with the American invasion of Baghdad as American Forces are trying to procure the area, the theater actually shook as bombs rained down in the middle of the night, setting an “explosive” delivery.  When we meet Miller, it is a few months after the initial invasion, and he is leading a team to track down suspected WMDs.  A heavy sniper presence leads him to believe he and his team must be on the right track.  During this sequence, director Paul Greengrass opted for hand-held action, no doubt to add to the chaos and confusion of combat – coming off like an episode of COPS in Iraq. The camera finally gets settled and Miller and his troops have secured the area and find  nothing in the “housing” unit. This is where the questions really start.

The plot thickens as the movie shifts to Saddam International Airport where we meet Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) who works for the Pentagon Security Information Unit.  Poundstone is awaiting the arrival of America’s choice for President of the new Democratic Iraq. Miller soon meets Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan) and finds out that she has information about a source Poundstone was working to obtain WMDs, known only by the Code Name “Magellan” – and now we’re off to the races.

While on his hunt for WMDs, Miller’s team stumbles onto a primary target for the Pentagon, General Al Rawi (Yigal Naor) known to the Soldiers as the “Jack of Clubs”.  After a brief shoot-out between Miller’s team and Al Rawi’s guards, the Jack manages to escape. The team was able to capture one source though, who holds vital information about Al Rawi. Before they get anything actionable, another “friendly” team crashes the party.

It’s hard to determine who are the heroes and villains, when point of view is all that separates the truth.  Green Zone was enjoyable, for most of the film, Matt Damon wants the truth, BUT he apparently can’t handle the truth! Also, with all the different twists in the movie, right when you think you know ALL the answers they change the damn questions! Much like the Bourne movies that Damon and Director Paul Greengrass have done together, there is a good amount of action, and everything is accounted for by the time the lights come up.  The filmmakers did a good job of telling the story they wanted to tell. If you want a movie that keeps you guessing and packs a punch, I recommend Green Zone.

The H-Bomb: Arthur and Norma Lewis (James Marsden and Cameron Diaz) are a perfectly happy middle class married couple living in 1970’s suburban Virginia. She’s a teacher at a private school, he’s a NASA scientist, and they have a young son, Walter (Sam Oz Stone). One day, a stranger by the name of Arlington Steward (Frank Langella) arrives on their doorstep. A vaguely sinister man, missing a portion of his face, Steward delivers a strange wooden box with a large red button on the top and makes Norma an offer: if she presses the button, her family will be given one million dollars in cash, but… someone in the world, a complete stranger, will die.

The other conditions are that she has 24 hours to decide, and she is only allowed to discuss it with her husband. If she tries to talk to anyone else about it, then Steward will somehow know about it and the deal will be off. While their first instinct is to tell this Steward guy to take his box and shove it up his rectum, the Lewis’s realize that they are strapped for cash, and that they won’t be able to afford to send their son to private school for much longer.

They also notice that other people around them have been acting strangely and suffering from nose bleeds. And just who the hell is this Steward guy, anyway, and what is this box? Could it have something to do with that Mars project Arthur has been working on…?

“The Box” is a movie that took me a couple of viewings to form a solid opinion on, and even then, I’m not sure how solid it is. Much like with writer/director Richard Kelly’s “Southland Tales”, there’s a lot about it that I liked, but there were things about it that I wasn’t too crazy about, which ultimately kept me from loving it. Given the studio budget and the cast, I expected this to be more mainstream than Kelly’s first two films, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Even though it’s more focused and palatable than “Southland Tales”, it’s still quite odd and obscure in places.

Adapted from a (very) short story by Richard Matheson (“Duel”, “Stir of Echoes”), this is actually a film that I can’t say much about without giving away spoilers. It’s part sci-fi, part morality tale, and part Richard Kelly mind fuck. The first hour or so of the movie recalls some of the great paranoia thrillers of the past, particularly “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. Helped by Langella’s subtly menacing performance and an terrifically eerie music score, it brilliantly establishes intrigue and builds up tension. I was all set to love it…

Then, along came the last act, where for me it just fell apart. Again, I can’t go into detail, but the way this set up played out just didn’t quite do it for me. I’m not sure where it went astray. Perhaps it was when Kelly fell back on his tired watery portal idea that he’s used in all three of his flicks now, I can’t quite say. I just know that it all but completely fizzled towards the end.

However, this is not at all a bad film. Far from it, in fact. The performances are all strong; Langella, again, is excellent, and Diaz and Marsden are very convincing as an average married couple who are thrust into this strange predicament and are forced to make some very difficult decisions. Many of the best science fiction films out there also deal with themes of morality intelligently, and this one is no different. It makes us think, “What would we do if someone told us to press a button, and we would get a million dollars, knowing that a stranger would die.” We would all like to say that we absolutely would not press the button… but you never know. A million dollars is a million dollars, and people die every day…

While not perfect, this is a smart, suspenseful film that may be frustrating at times, but is intriguing throughout. It’s not as powerful or engaging as Kelly’s “Donnie Darko”, it’s certainly an improvement over the messy, scatter-brained “Southland Tales”. Definitely worthwhile for filmgoers who like to think outside the box (sorry).

Rick Swift

“Wolverines”

Swift shot: Classic Milius! If you read my bio, you know this was one of my favorite films growing up, it put things at the time into a perspective I appreciated.  Today I have heard it described as silly and frivolous story-telling, bullshit, it was a great film and I will tell you why below…

Teddy Roosevelt 1899 – “Far better it is to dare mighty things . . . than to take rank with those poor timid spirits who know neither victory nor defeat.”

To explain why this film resonated with me is to reveal inner darkness, and perhaps why I have so hesitated to review this film.  As we dissect that which we love, we learn much about ourselves – and sometimes the truth is not pretty, but it is honest.

To say I have an intimate relationship with this film would be the understatement of the eighties, it would be like saying Gary Hart made some poor choices, who?  Yes, I see I need to set the tone here – go back with me to 1984, when we invaded Nicaragua and the Russians were occupying Afghanistan, boycotting the Olympics and CIA station-chief, William Buckley was kidnapped and eventually died at the hand’s of his captors in Iran. . . to a time when “Just Say No” was focused on the war on drugs and not trans-fats.

I was ten, and just starting to understand what it was to be an “American”.  Red Dawn wasn’t only socially relevant, it was a warning of what to expect if things didn’t change! As a re-hash of Red Dawn is now in the works, I hear people on blogs saying, how can they make that movie now?  Maybe we need to look at the last decade and the new Sino-Russian threat which may seem far-fetched to you.  But, I digress, that is the new film, let’s focus on the original.

Red Dawn centers around the fictional small-town of Calumet, Colorado, where one small skirmish of World War III takes place.  Russian-Cuban military units paratroop into the town and quickly seize it, rounding up people like me and seeing to it we don’t become partisans and insurgents.  Sounds like an easy plan, right?  WRONG COMMIE!  You don’t just drop into small-town America and expect to walk around unscathed, not if the Wolverines have anything to say about it.

Comprised of a few teenagers who manage to flee the initial assault and hide out successfully in the mountainous woods of “Colorado”, these Wolverines (their high school mascot) put up a tenacious resistance and become a ravenous nuisance for the occupying armies.  They are mostly naive, yet strong-willed youths who only want to survive and return to normalcy, but they soon realize that normal is a dream.  They stand up, willing to die, willing to kill, fighting for their homeland . . . til the death.

What so inspires me about Red Dawn is the way I seem to identify with all the characters – now more than ever even.  All of the characters deserve that scrutiny in Red Dawn, because Milius shows us the dramatic impact of violence, whether it be from the allies or the invaders perspective, death comes to everyone – and death is personal and painful in Red Dawn.

Characters are shot, tortured, humiliated, betrayed, and all manner of angst is printed on their hearts.  Some are led to a firing squad, some are forced to dig their own grave, put yourself in that guy’s shoes.  It’s easy to watch as a spectator, this work of fiction, but I know from my service (in Albania), people who were forced to do just that . . . and worse.   What would you do, tough guy?

We all want to believe we would be fighting the occupiers and holding our own – destroying as much enemy materiel and morale as possible – but, could you, if the shit hit the fan, right now, today, would you be ready?  Go on, laugh, pretend there isn’t evil in the world, pull your covers over your head and bury your fears in the sweet fiction of Hollywood.  It wasn’t too long ago that a man had explosives stitched into his underwear to kill Americans, that sounded pretty damned far-fetched to me . . . until it actually happened.  Think of the level of dedication for that “character” – starting to get my point now?

This film had a cast of relatively unknowns that went on to become somebodies.  The late Patrick Swayze, Jennifer Gray, Lea Thompson, and Charlie Sheen and my favorite character in the film, C. Thomas Howell, as Robert.  At the beginning, Robert dons a Star Wars cap with the bill turned up – until he learns of his father’s death and he drinks the blood of his first deer, after that, he is a different character altogether.

Robert embodies the uber-realist in war, and metes out justice without emotion.  His lust for revenge is never sated.  These characters always interest me the most, because their transformation is so immersing.  Robert has lost everything, and his hate keeps him warm at night, it is why he wakes up every morning and what he dreams about before closing his eyes – and I always wondered, what would Robert have been like if not for the war?

Red Dawn is easy to over-look as “just a cheesy, red-scare movie from the eighties” . . . until it becomes reality.  I lived in Norway, in a house that was seized by a Gestapo officer in World War II, a resistance fighter was killed down the street by having his mouth shoved on a tailpipe, tanks used to roll down the E39, fear and despair was everywhere.  To this day, Norwegians decorate their Christmas trees with little Norwegian flags, and I asked my friend why, he looked at me with no emotion and said matter-of-factly, “because the Germans wouldn’t let us fly our flags – you got killed for that”.  Tell a Norwegian that Red Dawn is just a scare-film, I dare you.

VERSUS

H-Man

“America! Fuck Yeah!”

The H-Bomb: I was checking out the DVD section of my local Wal-Mart when I chanced upon a DVD Double Pack of “Navy Seals” & “Red Dawn” for five bucks.  Knowing that “Red Dawn” is an old favorite of our esteemed editor Rick Swift, I decided “what the hell” and tossed it into the shopping cart. So, how does this personal fave of Mr. Swift’s rate with the H? Read and find out.

It’s the early mid-eighties in America, and the worst thing imaginable has just happened to us, we’ve been invaded by the Ruskies (With the help of Cuba and Mexico. If this movie were made today, you could throw in Iran and Venezuela as well)! The Soviets parachute into our country, and all but completely take it over in what seems to be the span of a day. However, there’s one thing those rat commie bastards didn’t count on… a pack of High Schoolers hiding in the mountains, armed to the teeth and determined to take their country back, guerrilla style! Yeah, take that you freedom hating Pinko fucks!

On the surface, this film seems to tell a purely patriotic, flag waving, nobody fucks with the U. S. of A. type story. However, to look into it a little more deeply, you could argue that the film’s real message is that occupation of one country by another will never work because the natives will always resist. And that could be applied to us in our adventures into Vietnam and Iraq just as much as it could to the Soviets invading Afghanistan. But seriously, who wants to look at it from that angle? I mean, this flick was co-written and directed by all American gun nut John Milius, one of the most macho, bad ass filmmakers in Hollyweird. He had a hand in writing the first two Dirty Harry movies and directed “Conan the Barbarian”. He makes movies for guys who like movies! He ain’t no candy ass!

As for the film itself, I enjoyed it and can definitely see why it’s achieved its cult status among action buffs. The action scenes were well-staged (if a bit redundant) and the film is surprisingly violent for PG-13 (yes, I’m aware this is the first PG-13 movie). Something that caught me off guard is how serious the tone of “Red Dawn” is. Not that I was expecting anything campy, but I was expecting it to be more… rousing, for lack of a better word, but it’s actually quite dark and a little bleak.

Another part where the movie falters is with the characterizations of teen rebels (led by Patrick Swayze. Why? Because he’s Patrick fuckin’ Swayze, bitch!). They all felt underdeveloped and therefore I never quite felt attached to them the way I should have. The young cast of now familiar faces, including Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson (the Mom from “Back to the Future”), and Jennifer Grey (who went on to star with Swayze in “Dirty Dancing”), all do fine, but sadly the script doesn’t give them much to work with. Powers Booth drops in as a shot down fighter pilot and completely owns for about twenty minutes or so. He really brings a sense of gravitas to the cast, and I almost wish he was the star.

Also, there were moments of what I think were unintentional silliness, like when Harry Dean Stanton shouts “AVENGE ME!!!” to his sons. That part just made me laugh out loud.

But why am I even complaining, it’s “Red Dawn”, for Christ’s sakes. Odds are your minds are already made up on this one. If you’re nostalgic for the 80′s, or enjoy good, old fashioned 80′s shoot em ups (80′s action movies… nothing quite like them), then you probably have a special place for it right in your cinematic carnage loving heart. I know boss man Swift does.

As for what I thought of the other half of this DVD Double Header, “Navy Seals”, I think Kevin Smith was spot on in referring to it as one of the most “intellectually devoid movies on the rack”. But I kind of had fun with that one, too.

“When in Rome” is a romantic comedy that is more comedy than romance (thank God). Kristin Bell stars as Beth, a single, career-driven woman whose sister Joan (Alexis Dziena) is about to be married in Rome after a whirlwind romance. While at Joan’s wedding, Beth meets Nick (Josh Duhamel), a charming reporter who flirts with her.

Beth thinks there is chemistry, but then she sees Nick with another woman. Upset and hurt, Beth drunkenly stumbles into the Fontana de Amore, where legend states that if you throw in a coin, you will find love. She decides to take some coins in the hope that she will get some love of her own.

When Beth returns home to NYC, she suddenly finds herself the object of affection of several men. Antonio (Will Arnett) is an artist, Lance (Jon Heder, yes, Napoleon Dynamite himself) is a street magician, Gale (Dax Shepard) is a model, and Al (Danny DeVito) is a sausage magnate. These guys can’t get enough of Beth!! She is inundated with flowers and baskets of meat products. Even with all this attention, Beth can’t stop thinking about Nick. When she learns that the owners of the coins she took from the fountain will magically fall in love with her, she wonders if what she and Nick have is real or an illusion.

The characters in this movie, especially the colorful supporting cast, were fantastic. The story wasn’t as cliched as I thought it would be and there were more than just a few humorous situations. Overall it was a fun, funny movie that I really enjoyed. So is it true love or a magic spell?? You will have to watch the movie to find out!!  But you will not be disappointed. “When in Rome” is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a while.

“Every person is born twice.”

Swift shot:  Only James Cameron could remake Fern Gully and make me enjoy it!  Or wait, was it Dances With Wolves?  Still, the graphics will astound you!  There are times when it starts to feel like you are watching the Discovery Channel though, like a good hour of the film is just vast, expansive shots of nature on the planet, Pandora.  If that is your thing, if you like that, you will freaking cream over Avatar.  If you are like me and are more into the psychology of a story and the action, you’ll want to hit the virtual fast forward.

Hardly spoiling anything here, and unless you are incredibly slow, you get that Avatar is a criticism of the white’s pillaging of the Native Americans (Na’Vi).  But, what you won’t get from Avatar is a fair assessment of that time.

Avatar takes you through a video journal of Marine veteran, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), who has lost the use of his legs, but being a mere Corporal, is unable to attain the credits needed for surgery to repair his spine.

Set in 2154, we follow the transformation of Jake, whose twin was murdered for the “paper in his wallet” hence unable to complete his mission as an Avatar driver on the distant, recently discovered planet, Pandora.

Jake never received any training for how to drive one of these Avatars, or Dreamwalkers as the natives refer to them, but once he feels his toes wiggle – the rest is just cake.  Dreamwalkers are essentially bio-bots, mere puppets for the human masters controlling them from a sensory deprivation chamber of sorts.

His instructor is Jane Goodall, no wait, I mean Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), who feels the only way to understand the Na’Vi, is to literally become one of them.  Jake, being a hot-head, undisciplined type, almost immediately finds himself stranded in his new “vehicle”.  But, he is quickly encountered by the Omaticaya Clan princess, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who reluctantly teaches him the ways of her tribe.

As Jake becomes more engrossed in the tribal life, and as he learns how magically they interact with the creatures around them, he starts to wonder where dream and reality differ.  He begins to identify more with his Avatar than his wheel-chair bound, human persona.  Jake is torn between his loyalty to his mission or his loyalty to his new family, the Omaticaya Clan.   His mission is to learn how to best negotiate with the Na’Vi, to learn what they might want from the humans, and the stakes are dire – for if he can’t convince them to re-settle, they will be removed by force.

The creatures in this film were nothing short of miraculous, with stellar shots of swooping dragon-like birds that become mounts for the Na’Vi people.    By far one of the better reasons to experience this film, and if you can, in 3D for that authentic feel to the action.  Still, a film can’t stand on special effects and amazing creatures alone – the story has to be compelling.  What amazed me about Star Wars was the story, not the special effects, what amazed me about Avatar was the special effects, not the story.

The story was too one-sided, and becoming a common theme out of Hollywood these days, the greedy humans have messed up their world, so they need to rape someone else’s resources, writ small, that is an attack on all us evil prospering nations currently getting flack in Copenhagen (right as this was released, no less).

James Cameron delivers a magnificent dream, as he launches us into a world far from Earth, yet not far enough away from her corruption.  But, he failed to suck me in without coming across as a hypocrite.  About 95% of the film was really voice-work, thus much of the emotional force was driven by a team of geeks in swivel chairs pounding down energy drinks as they painstakingly captured raw feelings through their “avatars”.

Overall, an amazing visual experience will be shared by all who see this in theaters.  What you won’t all share though is enthusiasm for the overall product.  Some of you will be looking at your watches and thinking, crap, is this movie ever going to end?  It was just too long.  It was incredibly predictable and it was painfully preachy.  Some people might not like sitting there for just short of three hours being lectured to, whilst shelling out their money to endure the lecture.  Still, the kids will love this one, shame Cameron didn’t knock out the profanity, as the film is clearly geared towards merchandising – which typically means kids or forty-year-old virgins will line up to purchase their own . . . Avatars.

BLUE ALERT – SPOILERS AND POLITICS BELOW

What is unobtanium?  Is it gold, where it is just a precious alloy, or is it necessary to the well-being of our “dying planet”?  What kind of things did this Marine Corporal do in theaters before, like in Venezuela?  Watching Battle for Terra, at least the humans were desperate for a new home – in Avatar, we are just assholes apparently who want unobtanium because it is pretty?

Or, maybe it was an attack on progress, had we let the Native Americans alone, had we just never invented certain technologies, maybe we would all be happier – again, being non-human, or savages, primitives?  Like District 9, there is this humans are bad attack again, a veiled attempt to shun us for raping Mother Earth.

Yet, here is Cameron using the most state-of-the-art special effects of any film to date – I am assuming it took more than just rubbing two sticks together . . .   So, before you attack my political critique, remember, you are reading this review on a computer or a cell phone – think about that, Cameron.  Maybe you would be happier sitting around the fire singing kumbaya and worshipping a frakking tree.  But, realistically, you know better.

Case in point, enjoy this film for what it is – FANTASY!  Humans are not perfect, and wars aren’t always fought for the noblest of causes, but I am so sick of Hollywood’s green agenda – get a new theme, you are starting to piss me off – and worse, BORE ME!  This movie clocked in at just under three hours, Fern Gully was only 90 minutes.

What I felt was seriously missing was the classic Native American torture scene of all good westerns of my day.  Where the natives ride into camp, kidnap a few settlers and torture them on a wagon wheel all night long, and the screams echo throughout the night in a garish melody of suffering.  Where was Cameron’s balance?  So sick of one-sided stories, no race is without sin, period.  This film failed to show the darker side of the Na’Vi and came across as weak and uninteresting.  I like my films to have more depth and balance.

It will all come together in the end… sort of.

The H-Bomb: A father, Peter (Bernard Hill), is searching for his missing son, young Londoner Milo (Sam Riley) is moping in deep depression after his fiancé dumps him, flaky goth chick Emilia (Eva Green) tries to commit suicide as part of her art school project, and a masked man badly in need of a throat lozenge (Ryan Phillippe) roams around a futuristic city that looks like the fantasy love child of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. During all this I’m wondering, who the hell is Franklyn?

This weird, trippy British film, that flew completely under the radar here in the U.S., has a lot going for it in the ideas department, but falls just short of greatness. As stated above, there are four main story threads involving very different characters. Three of these stories take place in modern day London.

The fourth takes place in an effed up, dystopian nightmare world called Meanwhile City. It centers around a vigilante named Jonathan Preest, who, rather ironically, is the only atheist in a city where having religious beliefs is required by law. He is searching for someone called The Individual, a cult leader who Preest believes kidnapped and murdered a young girl. Phillippe’s Preest is basically your garden variety modern superhero; dark, mysterious, slightly unhinged, and talks in a deep, raspy voice like Christian Bale’s Batman or “Watchmen”‘s Rorschach. This story is also a bit reminiscent of “V for Vendetta” as well.

Meanwhile, back on the planet Earth, the tortured artist Emilia, whose look ranges from hauntingly beautiful to freakishly… freakish, is back in the hospital after yet another suicide attempt. It’s all part of some video art project and at first seems to be nothing more than a stereotypically lame attempt to get attention from her wealthy mother.

However, it’s later learned that Emilia does have a dark secret in her past. French actress Green, who sounds more and more British with each passing movie, inhabits the role perfectly and brings to it the same mix of mystique and humanity that she brought to the role of Vesper in “Casino Royale”.

While this is going on, we are also forced to watch the dour Milo mope around in what is easily the weakest of the film’s story threads. In it, this pathetic, depressing drip of a character moans about how much he thought his cold footed bride-to-be was “the one,” and seeks the comfort of his best friends, and a few bottles of red wine. Then he runs into Sally, a striking young redhead who was his childhood friend, and the two start to hit it off.

This really is the worst of the four stories mainly because, writing wise, it’s the least interesting. For the most part it plays out like some half-assed romantic drama, and even after a key revelation late in the game, it just doesn’t measure up to anything else in the movie. Riley tries his best, but his character was just a frowning sad sack who I hoping would either get hit by a bus or struck by lightning. Oh, and Eva Green plays Sally as well, for reasons that will make sense in the end.

Finally there’s Peter’s story involving his search for his son. As we follow him, we find out that his son is a very troubled person and perhaps even dangerous. Hill plays Peter with just the right amount of dignity and anguish, and comes off like the seasoned pro that he his (he played the captain of the ship in “Titanic”).

First time writer/director Gerald McMorrow lets all the stories play out at the same time, often cutting back and forth between them. For me, that was a problem early in the film. It jumps around to the various characters in random, “21 Grams” style, and just as one story would start to get interesting, it would abruptly switch to another one. It does settle down after a while, but this storytelling style does require some re-adjusting on the part of the viewer.

I would say that McMorrow falls into that trap that many young filmmakers do, that he tries to cram too much into one film. He doesn’t let it go off the rails like Richard Kelly did with “Southland Tales”, but he does run that risk, and there really is enough material here for four films.

All of these story threads do come together (even the fantasy one) in a way that is fairly unpredictable and reasonably satisfying. This did get some attention in Europe during it’s theatrical run earlier this year, but, like I said, it went completely unnoticed Stateside. Hopefully that shall change now that the film is on DVD. It’s a cool, intriguing little movie that’s worth seeking out. Oh, and who is Franklyn? Sorry, you’ll have to watch to find out.