(4 People gave this 3.25 out of 5)

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Brilliant to some, B.S. to others… make up your own mind.

The H-Bomb: As I was exiting the theater for Terrence Malick’s latest film, “The Tree of Life”, I over heard a middle age man say to his wife, “Well, that was… different,” to which they both chuckled. I really could not tell if that was meant as a positive or a negative, but I imagine that would be, positive or negative, what many in the general movie going public will say after viewing this film.

Me, I am familiar with Malick’s past work, with “The Thin Red Line” being in my top ten list of all time favorite films, so I knew going in that this wasn’t going to be a typical film. Not a typical drama. Not a typical period piece. Not a typical storyline. Not a typical anything, and just to state off the bat, this is a film that many, many people will truly dislike. To say it’s not for all tastes is an understatement, so take my high rating, and the fact that it won the Palme d’Or (Best Picture) at Cannes this past spring with a grain of salt, because while I did quite like it, I am somewhat hesitant to recommend it to people.

They say art is in the eye of the beholder, and in the case of a Terrence Malick film, truer words have never been spoken. I have never seen films divide audiences the way his do. His films can best be described as kind of cinematic poems, where plot and even character development take a back seat to mood, visuals, and overall themes. I would compare his films to David Lynch’s in their uniqueness, except the mystery and creepiness are replaced by spiritual and philosophical wonder. Malick has a style all his own, and his work is definitely for a limited audience, and even that audience is going to be divided in their assessment of “The Tree of Life”.

Some, such as myself, will find it captivating. Others will find it simply boring. Let me put it this way, if you hated “The Thin Red Line” and “The New World”, then just steer clear of “The Tree of Life”, as this is Malick’s most abstract, most esoteric, and most lacking in traditional story thrust film to date. If the meandering of his other films annoyed you, this one will drive you batty. Swifty, the fan of “The Thin Red Line” that you’re not, you would be well advised to stay the hell away.

So, with my attempt at a disclaimer out of the way, I shall now attempt to review this thing. At it’s core, “The Tree of Life” is about a man named Jack (played by Sean Penn as an adult, and by Hunter McCracken as a child), who, despite having a successful career, a beautiful home, and an attractive wife, seems to be going through some sort of inner turmoil. One of his younger brothers died at the age 19, and having never quite gotten over that, even decades after it happened, adult Jack reflects back on his childhood, growing up in a small Texas town with his mother (Jessica Chastain), father (Brad Pitt), and his two brothers.

I know that makes it sound like a typical coming of age story, but it‘s anything but. It’s a coming of age story, all right, but a very unusual one. Something, as mentioned by others, more akin to “2001: A Space Odyssey” than “Summer of ‘42”. One filled with ideas about the origins of the universe, life, and man’s place in it all… oh, but, wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s focus on the “main story” of Jack’s childhood and family, first.

We follow Jack from his infancy to early adolescence, where we see a very stark contrast between Jack’s mother, who is kind, nurturing, and soulful, and his father, who is strict, at times distant, and often bitter because of his own failures. He’s a man who is trying to prepare his sons for the harsh realities of life, so they don‘t make the same mistakes he did. He’s never abusive, but he can be stern, even harsh. It’s while being raised by these two very different people he calls his parents that young Jack must find his own self… something he’s still trying to reconcile well into his adulthood. Sounds simple enough, right? Yeah, well, it would be, except for the way it all unfolds.

“The Tree of Life”, much in keeping with the style of Malick, takes the existential, expressionistic approach. The narrative is fragmented, often dreamlike, with very little dialogue, but many of those flowery voiceovers that Malick has used in his earlier films. Like before, these “deep thought” narrations come from different characters; the mother, the father, young Jack, adult Jack. Often delivered in prayer like whispers, sometimes they work, but other times they seem like the kind of bad poetry that a pretentious college freshman would write.

However, the fragmented narrative does make sense, when one stops to think about how memories, particularly distant ones, work. Many scenes seem incomplete, where we only catch a sentence or two of what was a much longer conversation. When we remember a conversation with someone, we typically don’t remember the entire conversation, just the most important things said. An example of this would be when young Jack is scolded for a reason we’re never told nor shown. We’re not shown the reason because adult Jack remembers the scolding, but perhaps not what he did to receive it. That is very much how it unfolds here. We don’t get the whole picture of this boy’s experiences, just the bits and pieces that left an impression.

Then, and here’s the aspect of the film that throws many, there is the story thread that deals with the birth of the universe. For a solid 15-20 minutes of zero dialogue, we simply see various kinds of space imagery set to music. Then we see the start and evolution of life on Earth, and yes, that includes the much talked about scene featuring two dinosaurs, in which one dinosaur shows what seems to be compassion and mercy for the other. What does this have to do with the rest of the film… good fucking question.

In fact, fuck it, no summary or synopsis can even come close to doing justice to what this film actually is. Much of the imagery, such as adult Jack following his younger self through a desert, or young Jack in an attic with a man who appears to be a giant, or the mother floating in the air under a tree, or the relevance of the birth of the universe sequence, is symbolic, the meaning of which is left up to your own interpretation.

If I must offer my overall interpretation of “The Tree of Life”, without spoilers, it is that it’s about a jaded man trying to come to terms with his past, his father, his brother’s death, and his place in the world. Maybe the universe scenes are symbolic of him thinking about his tiny role in the “bigger picture” and being humbled or frightened by it. Or perhaps he’s pondering the existence of God. Who’s to say? These are merely my impressions, and I could be wrong. But that’s what I like about “The Tree of Life”, it’s a film about ideas, and engages me to interpret those ideas without spelling anything out. Films of this kind, that challenge us in this way rarely come along, and I appreciate them when they do.

As far as the performances go, everyone does fine, considering their dialogue is minimal. Pitt makes for a very believable patriarch from that period, loving but less than affectionate. Chastain brings real warmth to what could be a star making role for her, assuming enough people see this. McCracken is impressive as the young Jack, taking on a complex role as a kid who seems to observe everything around him and absorb it like a sponge. He does well at conveying a wide range of emotion through, again, very few words. As the adult Jack, Penn is his stellar self, though I was disappointed by how little screen time he actually had. Despite his second billing, his appearance is little more than a glorified cameo.

Malick’s direction is very much in keeping with the visual style he has established in the past. Much of the film was shot with a steady cam, allowing the camera to float about freely like a ghost and capture moments on the fly. Another characteristic of Malick’s, images of a serene nature, such as trees in a forest or a flowing river, are composed like paintings. His trademark of juxtaposing man and nature, and the effect man can have on nature, is very present. Call his films dull to your heart’s content, but you must concede they are beautiful to look at.

But, pretty pictures alone will not sway a detractor’s opinion on this film, and I can understand why. There are even artsy-fartsy cinema snots who hated this thing, and granted, some aspects, like the dinosaurs or the mother floating, or the flowery narrations, border on being just silly. At two hours and eighteen minutes, it is long, languid, and some will say, not a whole lot happens.

Personally, I found it rich and thought provoking, from one of the few true artists working in cinema. Others will find it boring and incomprehensible. How you react to it depends on you. I know, that can be said of any film, but in the case of “The Tree of Life”, it has never been more true.

(6 People gave this 3.83 out of 5)

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Hail, Caesar?

It isn’t often a preview grabs me to where I’m jotting a movie down on my imaginary Must See list, but as the preview for this film unraveled, it gripped me in its maw like an unrelenting chimpanzee intent on a feast, forcing me to savor every last second. The concept of highly sentient animals or creatures vs. man is always fascinating to me (and no, Narnia doesn’t count), so it was no surprise that I was immediately hooked. At the end of the preview, where they usually slam the title in your face after a cascade of millisecond cut scenes, I was completely floored that this would be part of the Planet of the Apes mythos. My burning need to see this film was now a bonafide bonfire. Could it be that we are finally going to know what caused the downfall of man, and what would lead to arguably the most potent twist of an ending in all of moviedom?

This simian symphony starts off slow, as we get to know how and why Caesar came to be, but it never loses the viewer as it rumbles to a chest thumping crescendo. Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco) spends his life hot on the heels of a miracle cure that will help his father, Charles (John Lithgow) recover from a debilitating illness. At the cusp of a breakthrough, an unfortunate mishap cuts his funding and all the test subjects have to be eliminated. Well, all but one. Caesar, an infant who’s mother passed down Rodman’s science via her genetics, is a tiny chimpanzee, who’s death would be too heavy a burden for anyone to bear, so Rodman is forced to quietly take him home. Most of the movie is spent watching Rodman continue his research in the privacy of his home. He is relentless in his pursuit to cure his father and simultaneously amazed at Caeser’s remarkable intelligence and growth.

Some may find the pacing a bit on the slow side, but I felt it worked. The apes themselves were fantastically done. If I’m not mistaken, they were all cgi, and pretty lifelike. The animators did their research perfectly – I hadn’t felt any single ape was ‘wrong.’That could be due to Andy Serkis, who was the basis of the motion capture for Caeser. I imagine it wasn’t too big a step in transitioning from Gollum.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie. It ties almost seamlessly into the 1968 classic. I was a little disappointed to find out that the “rise” in the title wasn’t an allusion to the apes taking man head on. Instead, man is neatly disposed of by irony. In Rodman’s effort to save his father and, in turn, the rest of mankind, he is instead the catalyst in man’s destruction. For Harry Potter fans, I think they’ll enjoy Draco Malfoy’s unhappy transition into the Muggle world.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes just claimed a spot on my imaginary Must Own list. See it in theaters while you can.

A feminine look at First Class…

I love superhero movies.  I’m not a fan of comic books, but I really enjoy the movies and learning about the characters and their stories.   I’m not going to lie though, I had no desire to see “Thor”.  For awhile I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to see “X-Men:  First Class”.  I really loved “X-Men”, really liked “X2″, and liked “X-Men:  The Last Stand” (although I remember being disappointed about something, but it’s been a while since I’ve seen it).  I like these movies because of the ensemble of characters, the good guys working together, the good guys working together with the bad guys, mutants versus humans, etc. I never saw “X-Men Origins:  Wolverine”, because I thought it only focused on Wolverine, and I didn’t want to see a movie about just one X-Men (X-Man??); I like the dynamic of the group interaction.  So, I was unsure about “X-Men:  First Class”, but the more previews I saw, the more I decided that I wanted to see it.

The movie starts out with a scene that looks a lot like a scene from a previous “X-Men” movie, where we see the beginnings of young Magneto’s powers in the 1940s.  Then we meet Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), a Nazi who enjoys experimenting with people and mutants.  What happens next is similar to a scene from “Star Wars Episode II”, and we see Magneto unleash his full powers.  Meanwhile, Charles is asleep in his family’s mansion when he hears an intruder, and he meets Raven/Mystique, a homeless orphan who is different like he is, and whom Charles offers a place to live.

Fast forward 20 years to the swinging 60s.  Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) has written a thesis on mutation.  He is best friends with his “sister” Raven (Jennifer Lawrence).  Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) is searching for Sebastian Shaw, who is now the leader of the Hellfire Club and has some powers of his own.

Meanwhile, there is some talk about nuclear weapons, Turkey, Russia, Cuba, and the CIA gets involved.  Enter Moira MacTaggert (Rose Byrne, who is seemingly everywhere nowadays) who observes some odd happenings in the back room of a club in Vegas involving Sebastian Shaw, Emma Frost (January Jones), and Azazel (Jason Flemyng).  She seeks out Charles for help in explaining mutants to her boss.  They track down Sebastian Shaw, but guess who else has also caught up to him??  None other than Erik!!  Charles saves Erik from cetain death, Sebastian gets away, and the trio of mutants teams up to help the CIA.  But first, they decide to find others like them.  Other mutants. Other X-Men.  Enter Hank McCoy/Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz), Sean Cassidy/Banshee (Caleb Landry Jones), Armando Muñoz/Darwin (Edi Gathegi), and Alex Summers/Havok (Lucas Til), some of whom appear in later installments in the series.

I really liked learning the back-stories of Mystique and Beast.  It was also nice to see Charles/Professor X and Erik/Magneto as friends and to see what drove them apart.  Prior to the screening, I had no idea that Kevin Bacon was in this movie.  He played a really good villain, because I certainly hated his character!!  And the first Magneto helmet, which Sebastian Shaw originated and wore first, I’m sorry but it made him look dorky.  It was effective, but dorky-looking.

Overall a solid superhero film and an excellent installment in the X-Men storyline.  After watching this movie you may be tempted to go looking for more information about the X-Men characters (I found this to be a very informative website:  marvel.com/universe) as I did, to learn even more.  And, keep your eyes open for a few surprises throughout the film.

Shaken?  Stirred? – Magneto is James Bond!?!?

Swift shot: I promise not to throw out some cheesy “X-cellent” or “X-quisite” or even “X-ceptional” in this review, it’s too tempting to play on that – and this latest film, directed by Matthew “Kick Ass” Vaughn stands alone yet masterfully incorporates the elements that made me love the original X-Men films.  Vaughn uses his own style and throws nods to some great film-makers throughout to deliver an interesting, entertaining summer revenge flick.

Opening in a familiar place, Poland 1944, with a familiar scene, young Erik Lehnsherr (German for feudal lord – Bill Milner) watches as the Nazis drag his parents away – he is writhing in emotional agony, pain and fear, as he wills the iron gates to bend just outside his reach.  His little scene captures the attention of a Nazi “doctor”.  The doctor turns Erik, a mere child, into his play thing, augmenting his talents in the harshest of methods, commenting that while he loathes “these Nazi methods” he can’t argue with their results.  I won’t give anything away here, because it is an emotionally difficult scene with some incredible cinematographic juxtaposition – you’ll see what I mean.

Meanwhile in Westchester, NY, at the same time, a young Charles Xavier (Laurence Belcher) makes the acquaintance of fellow mutant, Raven (Morgan Lily) and an odd relationship is formed.  The two kindred “freaks” are never far apart after that, at least not in this film.

Most of the action takes place where we see the two children, now young men, in 1962, in the midst of the darkest days of the Cold War.  Erik has one agenda, bloody vengeance against the Nazi Doctor who, in essence, created him.  Xavier is a young professor, having earned his doctorate in genetic studies at Oxford University – as he is being congratulated by his, ever close, friend Raven – he remarks, “I am not a professor until I have students”.  Thus foreshadowing his many adventures to come as leader of his own “X-Men”.

Erik, played ruthlessly by Michael Faasbender, extracts a lead from a twisted Geneva banker to begin his pursuit of the evil Nazi doctor.  Following that lead to Argentina, he finds two unlucky Germans, one a pig-farmer and the other a tailor.  Oddly enough, these two have exactly the information Erik seeks, because they are actually Nazis – a scene that is uber transparent and painfully (emphasis on the pain) punctuated.  I know I compared Erik to Bond in my tag, but in actuality, Erik is less about finesse, he prefers cruelty to get results – a trick he learned from a Nazi doctor.  [Fans of Inglorious Basterds will recognize the subtle nod to QT's table talk scene, also with Faasbender]

Meanwhile in Oxford, Xavier (James McAvoy) is using his skills to hit on chicks, much to the chagrin of Raven who is tired of his lame pickup line “Mutant and proud”.  It is also during this time that CIA Agent MacTaggert played by Mrs. Everywhere in 2011 – Rose Byrne, has learned of an international plot to see to it that American ICBMs are placed in Turkey, which will likely incite World War III.   While conducting some brief under-cover work she discovers that so-called “mutants” exist as she sees Emma Frost (January Jones) turn into solid diamond when she crashes a Hellfire Club shindig.  Oh, and now is a good time to insert a bit of “don’t say I didn’t warn you” stuff – hearing McAvoy, as the future Professor X say shit like groovy more than zero times was enough for me.  Yes, Vaughn, we get it, this film is set in 1962, enough of making Xavier look like a weenie – if you were going for the two sides of the same coin comparison with Xavier vs. Magneto – it was overdone.

Things finally come to a head as Erik and Xavier are both pursuing the same man, I feel I would be ruining things here a bit – but, minor spoiler alert coming, the Nazi doctor is Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon) who is the mutant leader of the Hellfire Club and has the power to absorb kinetic energy, and those few scenes where he shows off with this power were done extremely well.  Erik, alone, quickly discovers he is not able to handle these villains without assistance.  Reluctantly, he agrees to work with Xavier to end Shaw’s influence on the world stage.

Not only does Erik agree to help Xavier, he agrees to recruit with him, and in the BEST scene of the movie, there is a cameo from one of the past films – giving that away would be a geek capital crime!  The recruiting sequences and the team-building sequences were necessary.  They didn’t really tack on too long, but it was close, each new recruit brought something fresh to the story – while at least one annoying gnat of a character deserved a place right on my windshield next to the freakin thousand love bugs I slaughtered last month.  I didn’t even know her character existed in the Marvel universe, of course, I am not the expert either.

There was a, vomitorium, love-story taking place in the film as well, as Hank McCoy (AKA Beast – Nicholas Hoult) and Raven (AKA Mystique – Jennifer Lawrence) approached their mutant abilities as both a curse and a gift, respectively.  Then the film gets really James Bond, when the “agents” head to a Russian Military Retreat to discover more about the sinister plot of the villains on hand there, to launch the human world into a global war – killing the humans and taking their rightful place as leaders on the Darwinian scale.

A new character was introduced, Azazel, I didn’t know much about him before the film, but afterwards I was incredibly curious and once you see him and his abilities you’ll know why my curiosity was piqued.  In one scene he has a neat little method for dispatching an entire compound of government agents one by one – their last moments on earth were filled with terror – plus Azazel is apparently a closet fan of the 80′s band The Weather Girls.  [Yes, that last line has two hidden messages, have fun finding them]

The film really doesn’t disappoint much; it had moments that were a tad hokey and at times, because this was a team-building saga, it got melodramatic.  But, the story was well told, the characters were well developed, and even Kevin Bacon was somehow strangely believable as Sebastian Shaw.  Let me put it this way, if by the end of the film you DON’T want Shaw dead, I’d be surprised.  To me, that is all an actor’s job really is, make me love or hate your character and not you as an actor.  Most of the cast pulled this off well.

The effects and art team did a magnificent job portraying the tension of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, using several moments from actual history while penciling in fictional characters that were seamlessly paneled into the historic archive . . . if only in an alternate realm of imagination. The climax of the film was a bit trite and predictable, but I liked how the team actually used their powers in tandem to get results, something the comics do a lot, emphasizing that each member of the team plays a pivotal role in mission accomplishment.  So, yes, it was an anti-climatic ending, pitting the humans vs. all the mutants, good or evil.  But, as the movie’s title indicates, this is the first class of Professor X, so I was expecting the end to be a beginning.  Still, the final crowning scene where Magneto dons his helmet was authentic to the comic books but it made the character less scary to behold.

Overall you are going to like X-Men: First Class; it deserves a slot in your Marvel collection.   If comic book films aren’t your thing, you’ll probably still enjoy the James Bond type story arc, maybe you will like seeing the X-Men’s beginnings, watch as they fumble around with their powers and form relationships and determine why they fight, who they fight for and learn why Magneto becomes a villain.  To me, it was just an enjoyable reprieve from my mundane, non-mutant, existence – which is all I want in a film like this anyway . . . to escape reality.

See what OUR Wolfpack had to say about THE Wolfpack!

Click on each character’s face for a different review, then post your comments below and let me know which writer belongs to which character!

Limacher Low Down: I’m not going to lie and say I was THRILLED to watch a movie with Mel Gibson in it, especially the way he’s been acting the past few years;  BUT he delivers his best performance in YEARS if not his career. Jodie Foster directed this movie, and she must have seen something left in Mel to give him a chance with this role. This film had such a diverse way of presenting itself and provided such a great story; it was something very eye opening to me, and when the credits rolled I was pleasantly surprised with the movie I had just watched.

“The Beaver” is the story of Walter Black (Mel Gibson) and how depression has slowly taken everything he once valued in his life away from him. His wife Meredith (Jodie Foster) no longer loves him, his oldest son Porter (Anton Yelchin) writes notes to himself of things he has in common with his father to correct them simply because he hates his father, and his youngest son Henry (Riley Thomas Stewart) hardly communicates with anyone. Walter gets kicked out of his house by Meredith, his once thriving toy company is close to going out of business, and he has no one to turn to, or so he thinks. When throwing away things of little consequence in his life, Walter discovers something he never really thought of having any value before, a beaver puppet.

After a wicked bender Walter awakes to the beaver puppet on his hand telling him how shitty his life is, and what he needs to do to change it. Walter now starts living his life through the beaver puppet, which coincidentally has an Australian accent. Walter, via the beaver, starts to turn his life around. The company is starting to do better, his family has somewhat started to accept him again, and things are looking up. The way this is presented leaves the viewer curious as to what is really going on, and how things will continue with a man who does EVERYTHING with a damn puppet on his arm.

While Walter is getting better we also have the side story of Porter who is wise beyond his years who has a little “business” in the school. Kids know him to be able to write papers in “their own words” for a hefty sum. Porter then gets approached by the class Valedictorian, and hottest girl in the school, Norah (Jennifer Lawrence). Norah requests the special services of Porter to help her write something she cannot quite seem to write herself. Porter doesn’t know how to react to this, but finally decides to get to know Norah to better understand how she might write something. We now have two growing stories in the same movie; a man who uses a beaver puppet to speak for himself, and his son who has the talent to speak for others. This side story has a very dramatic appeal to it, and doesn’t take anything away from the movie. When watching it you start to wonder about the family dynamic and how this all takes shape.

Walter finds himself not being able to speak for himself without the use of “The Beaver” and when he attempts to he returns to his old ways once again. The way Gibson pulls this off is something unique and special to watch. Porter also finds himself having growing problems of his own that soon begin to spiral out of control. The way the story continues to develop and the dialogue draws the spectator more and more into the movie. Everything that happens comes to a great climax and really adds something to the movie. People in the theater were reacting to a drama the way I had never heard people react before; it was quite special for that alone.

I will say that all the acting, the story, and dialogue gives this movie a special feeling. The fact it has humor in the beginning mixed with dramatic elements throughout the shows the talent that everyone involved delivered on set. The only problem I have with this movie is that the somewhat “climactic” ending came a little too early for me. The fact there are two different stories following Walter and Porter also takes a little something away from the movie as well. The two stories don’t really mesh together all that well, but at the same time they needed to be there for character development. When all is said and done, “The Beaver” delivers something unexpected, and will keep you talking for days (if not longer) about all the little nuances of the overall package.

Limacher Low Down: I will start off by saying that I had reservations about watching “Hoodwinked!” a few years ago, and when I finally broke down and watched it I laughed REALLY hard. “Hoodwinked Too!”, though it is missing the vocal talents of Anne Hathaway as Red, really delivers MORE laughs than its predecessor. Both of these movies give the kiddos something to be entertained by, yet the humor of both (especially Hoodwinked Too!) is enough to entertain everyone. The jokes come at such a fast rate I will have to see it again just to pick up on what I missed the first time from being doubled over in laughter!

“Hoodwinked Too!” continues where “Hoodwinked!” left off, with Red (this time Hayden Panettiere), Granny (Glenn Close), Wolf (Patrick Warburton), and Twitchy (Cory Edwards) joining the services of Nicky Flippers (David Ogden Stiers) and the Happily Ever After Agency (HEA). The movie gives a quick recap of the events and characters of the first movie and starts off with the HEA attempting to rescue Hansel (Bill Hader) and Gretel (Amy Poehler) from the clutches of the evil Witch Verushka (Joan Cusack). Red is not there for the mission and it does not take long for things to quickly get out of hand, and immediately the humor begins. Verushka gets away with Hansel and Gretel, and even Granny gets taken hostage! The story has to develop somehow, right?

We move on to see that Red has been training with the “Sisters of the Hood” to become the best ass kicking baker in the land. Red gets news of Granny’s disappearance and seeks to join her fellow members of the HEA to locate Granny and rescue Hansel and Gretel – she has a full plate. The movie develops well here with the gang headed into the “city” to try and get some answers from Granny’s old informant, Jimmy 10-Strings (Wayne Newton). Jimmy 10-Strings works at a club called the Beanstalk, and his boss is simply known as the Giant (Brad Garrett). Once again, things quickly get out of hand for our heroes, but somehow they get the information they were seeking.

Next we get introduced to a familiar face from the first movie, Boingo the Bunny (Andy Dick), in what can be simply put as a great parody of a classic movie. Boingo reluctantly gives the duo more information than he had previously intended, but the information was seemingly too little too late. Now the plot rapidly develops as we learn the intentions of Verushka.

Red and Wolf continue their bickering ways and Wolf decides for Twitchy and he that it’s for the best for the HEA if they go on their own separate path from then on. In a rather humorous and unexpected twist, Wolf is visited by some enemies of his fairy tale past; the Three Little Pigs of Mad Hog (Cheech Marin), Stone (Tommy Chong), and Wood (Phil LaMarr). Narrowly escaping the attempt on his life, Wolf and Twitchy decide that it’s time to go back and right the wrongs of the past and make sure this story does indeed end Happily Ever After.

The movie delivers many twists and turns and keeps the laughs going throughout. I have heard some people say that these movies are a cheap Shrek knockoff, but I can honestly say that I laughed more in the first 15 minutes of “Hoodwinked Too!” MORE than all 4 of the Shrek movies COMBINED! The humor, the references, the themes, and continuity made the first movie enjoyable and its sequel even better. There are only two bad things I can say about “Too!” Hayden Panettiere as the voice of Red does not live up to the job that Anne Hathaway did in the original. Another part I didn’t care for was the fact the only way this movie was being shown around me was in 3D. The 3D effects mostly fell flat and a person would be just as well off seeing the movie in the standard 2D format. Those two things aside, if you’re a fan of the first one or even if you haven’t seen it, I assure you that “Hoodwinked Too!” delivers the laughs most of the movie.

Review by Alyn Darnay

Directed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend)

Starring: Reese Witherspoon (Walk The Line), Robert Pattinson (The Twilight Saga), Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds), Paul Schneider (Lars and the Real Girl), Jim Norton (Harry Potter), Hal Holbrook (Into The Wild)

Based on the acclaimed bestseller by Sara Gruen, WATER FOR ELEPHANTS congers up a love triangle between three compelling characters in the unique setting of a 1931 traveling circus. Jacob, a suddenly orphaned Veterinary school student, hits the road to find his place in the world and winds up falling in love with Marlena, the star performer and wife of charismatic circus owner August.

The three main characters, played by the beautiful Reese Witherspoon, the simmering Robert Pattinson and the menacing Christoph Waltz each added great verve and style to this depression-era drama as it travels down the rails at a cozy enough pace to please anyone. Credit for that should go to screenwriter Richard LaGravense, who I’m sure watched batches of early 30’s films before whittling down the book into a comfortable running time. In places it reminded me of the 1952 Cecil B. DeMille film “The Greatest Show On Earth”, but without the scope and energy that film brought us.

Told as a tale of his early life by the ever interesting Hal Holbrook, the rough and jagged world of these circus people, who live by their own laws in a kind of self-contained poverty and brutality, seemed to actually conjure up the place, time and characters that occupied this bygone era. It was pretty to watch and the story had enough to it to keep me interested, but the film ultimately fails with the love story.

The heat that should have been there between the two lovers was one of imagination rather than Passion. Pattinson, who walks the screen like a zombie most of the time, was actually more animated in this movie than in other films he’s done, but unfortunately even the supremely talented Witherspoon couldn’t turn this pretty lump into a great screen lover, and that is a pure shame because she certainly brings the heat.

I blame a lot of what’s wrong with “Water For Elephants” on director Lawrence who paints pretty pictures, and pretty leading characters, but appears to hate the circus and its performers. He clumsily emphasizes the ugliness of everything and concentrates on filling it with moments of unflinching violence. He should have toned it down and spent more time on the show’s performers who were virtually ignored.

You should however enjoy this film. It’s a trip back in time with interesting characters at a place we haven’t seen on screen in a very long time. I suggest you take your best girl to this one, despite the flaws she’ll love it, especially if she’s read the book.

“It’s especially important that students from Hailsham never smoke”

The H-Bomb: On the surface, Hailsham seems like a typical English boarding school. The students that attend Hailsham seem like typical boys and girls. They run, they play, they attend their classes, and they’re taught to become very obedient. This includes obeying instructions to never leave the school grounds, even to fetch a ball that flew over the fence. They’re also taught to keep themselves healthy and in perfect physical condition. “It’s especially important that students from Hailsham never smoke,” they’re told by the school’s head mistress, Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling). The students never question that nor anything else she says. To them, this is all typical.

Except it’s not, just as the students at Hailsham are not typical, nor will they grow up to have typical lives. In the 1950′s, science has perfected the art of transplanting vital organs, thus being able to cure previously incurable diseases, thereby extending the average human lifespan to over 100 years. This is all well and good, except these healthy replacement organs have to come from somewhere.

That’s where the children from Hailsham and other schools like it come in. They are people who are cloned (the film never uses this term, but it’s implied) to become “Donors.” They’re raised separately from the rest of society, closely monitored, and when they reach early adulthood, they begin their donations. Donors never live to the age of 30, and most die after their third procedure.

All of this makes “Never Let Me Go” sound like a rather icky Sci-Fi film, but it’s not. Yes, it is technically science fiction, but it’s look and feel is more like a moody romantic drama. It’s quite possibly the most un-Sci-Fi Sci-Fi film I’ve ever seen. The story revolves around three of these Donors, Kathy H., Tommy, and Ruth (Carrie Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, and Keira Knightley, respectively). The film traces this trio of friends from their childhood at Hailsham, to their adolescence at a donor-to-be residential area called the Cottages, and finally into their 20′s, where two of the three have already begun their donations.

Kathy has long been in love with Tommy, but he’s always been romantically attached to Ruth. When Kathy and Tommy finally reunite after years of not seeing each other, they then let their true feelings for each other be known, and they attempt to seek out the long retired Miss Emily in order to receive a deferral; a rumored-to-exist special privilege that allows donor couples who are truly in love to have a few extra years together before they start donating.

This deliberately understated film, set mainly in the English countryside, is one of the more provocative films I’ve seen in recent memory. It asks that same question that “Moon” asked a couple of years ago: what makes a human being human? That question is even more important here, since in this alternate modern society, there is an entire class of people who are not even regarded as human. The movie drives that point home in its most chilling scene, where a donor dies on the operating table. When the donor flat-lines, none of the doctors or nurses say a word about it, they just go about their business of removing the organ. Once they’re finished, they just leave the room without even bothering to cover the donor’s body, as if it’s just garbage being left for a janitor to clean up.

Another unsettling quality the film has is how accepting the donors are of their fate. They don’t challenge it, they don’t question it, for them, it’s just the way things are. Towards the end, two of the protagonists’ eyes are opened to the idea that it may not be right, but at that point they’re really not in a position to do anything about it.

The story does center primarily around a love triangle, which I recently lambasted another movie for doing (“Red Riding Hood”), only in this film, it was handled with subtlety and intelligence, where the characters and their emotions rang true. The fact that all three leads turn in fantastic performances helps, as well. Mulligan is low key but affecting as Kathy, the narrator of the proceedings who is slightly more clued in to what is going on in this world than other donors. Knightley, looking slightly de-glammed, gives an impressive turn as Kathy’s best friend/romantic rival. There is a tension between the two of them that is mostly unspoken, but clearly conveyed.

As good as the two leading ladies are, a special mention should go to Garfield, who is just shattering in the film. He was strong in “The Social Network”, and I’m sure he’ll do well as Spider-Man, but his performance here, as the unassuming and naive Tommy, provides the film with its most powerful moments. I can’t really get into these moments without spoiling things, but you’ll certainly know them when you see them.

Mark Romanek, best known for directing the excellent 2002 Robin Williams thriller “One Hour Photo”, takes an unobtrusive approach with the direction and simply lets the story tell itself. It’s actually an approach I wish more modern filmmakers would take; just set up the camera and let the script and the actors take care of the rest, instead of relying on flamboyant camerawork, over-editing, overusing post-production effects, and other gimmicky, distracting bullshit.

As for any flaws, the film is deliberately slow paced, therefore there are many out there in A.D.D. Land who will label the movie boring, but people like that are best left ignored. Let those mouth breathing dullards have their “Jackass 3D”. This is a film for people with brains, who don’t mind using those brains when they watch a movie. As for my own personal complaints, I for one would’ve liked to have had a better look at the rest of this alternate society, outside of the donors. As it is, we are only given glimpses.

“Never Let Me Go” is probably the best movie to come out last year that you haven’t seen. It’s an intriguing “what if” story that seems very dry at first, but becomes surprisingly moving by the end, albeit more than a little depressing, and, most importantly, it strongly resonates long after it’s over.