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“The secret is always in the clockwork.”

The H-Bomb:  After his father’s untimely death, 12 year-old Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) is taken in by his uncle (Ray Winstone), who maintains the clocks at a train station in post-World War I Paris.  The uncle is a notorious drunk and disappears before long, leaving Hugo alone to take care of the clocks himself.  Although, Hugo is not entirely alone, as he has a child-sized mechanical automaton that his father found to keep him company.  It appears as though the automaton was designed to write, but since its heart shaped key is missing, Hugo has never been able to turn it on.

Since Hugo lives and works behind the walls of the station, nobody actually knows that he’s the one running the clocks, so he is forced to steal food from the station vendors in order to survive.  He has also been taking mechanical toys from a toy booth and using their parts to try and repair the automaton.  One day, he is caught by the owner of the toy booth, Georges (Ben Kingsley).  When Georges makes Hugo turn out his pockets, he finds a notebook with schematic drawings of the automaton inside it.  He confiscates the notebook and tells Hugo that he’s going to burn it, but not simply out of punishment, as the drawings of the automaton seem to actually mean something to Georges.

Shortly after, Hugo follows Georges home and meets his goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz).  They become fast friends and she agrees to help him get the notebook back.  In doing so, they learn something incredible about Georges.  Something about his past…  before he was a toy booth vendor.  And that’s about all I can say about the plot, since discovering the story with our young heroes is the best way to experience it.

“Hugo” is a Martin Scorsese picture.  But, it is a different kind of Martin Scorsese picture.  There’s no Joe Pesci popping some guy’s eye out with a vice, no Mohawked Robert DeNiro blowing a dude’s hand to pieces with a .44 Magnum.  This is a Martin Scorsese family picture.  I had no idea such a thing existed, but alas, here it is, and it is an absolute fucking masterpiece.  Sorry for dropping the F-bomb in a family film review, but it’s the only way to get my feelings fully across– this review’s for the parents, anyway, not the kiddies.

Normally, I hate family films.  I truly despise them.  They bore me with their blandness and insult me with their stupidity.  But this is one family film that is neither bland nor stupid.  Instead, it’s gorgeous, thematically rich, and just absolutely fantastic in every way imaginable.  As we come to find, it’s a movie about movies, Scorsese’s love letter to the films of the past, and he made it using all the technology of today to deliver an experience that’s both moving and wholly cinematic.  He’s considered one of the greatest directors to have ever lived for a reason, and here, he pulls out all the stops.

As one character puts it, movies are the place where dreams are made, and with a heightened visual style that’s reminiscent of Tim Burton, except with more heart and charm, Scorsese turns all of Paris into a giant dream place. The 3D visuals really pop off the screen and hit like a rocket to the eye socket.  The dazzling opening shot, starting on the cityscape of Paris and going into the grimy bowels of the train station, is a stunning blend of CG and live action melded together seamlessly.  Scorsese shows us the Lumiere Brothers’ “Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat”, the film that made the audience think the train was going to come off the screen and run them over (those poor, dumb primates), and then later on puts his own incredible twist on it.

Scorsese has never made a 3D movie before, but you sure could’ve fooled me, because he uses it in a way that’s not distracting, or a gimmick, but in a way that really immerses us in the story and makes us feel like we’re right there with the characters.  The actors really shine in their close ups, and there were so many times when I felt like I could’ve reached out and touched them.

Speaking of the actors, they are yet another major reason this film works as well as it does.  The entire cast is on top of their game and they each play their roles, large and small, to perfection.  Butterfield, who looked to me like a child version of Cillian Murphy, I’ve never seen before, but he sure made me into a fan with his performance here.  He’s equal parts mischievous, vulnerable, and endearing.  Carrying a film of this size is a lot to ask of a child actor, but he makes it look so damn easy.  He’s matched by Moretz, who is absolutely kick-ass as the girl who holds the key to one of the film’s main secrets.  She’s got a big career ahead of her, no doubt about it.

Among the veterans in the cast, Kingsley is first rate as the proud-yet-heartbroken Georges.  He has the look of a man with a painful past, who has given up on dreaming, and I see some award nods in his future.  Winstone, unfortunately, is in and out of the picture before you really get a chance to notice him, which is too bad, since his colorful lush of a character had potential.  Sacha Baron Cohen, who plays the train station cop with a mean Doberman, a gimp leg, and a child-sized jail cell, provides the expected comic relief with his bumbling antics.  I expected to truly dislike him, but honestly, I didn’t.  He manages to be funny without being too over-the-top or out of place.

In fact, I can’t think of anything to really gripe about.  I could whine about the length, as it does go over two hours, but it doesn’t feel too long.  The 3D glasses did give me a bit of a headache, but that’s my problem.  All things considered, “Hugo” is wonderful on every level; the terrific script, the superb performances, the amazing cinematography (by the great Robert Richardson), and, of course, Scorsese’s masterful direction.  I would rate this up there alongside “Goodfellas” and “Raging Bull” as being one of his finest.

It’s a film for young and old, and everyone in between.  For film buffs, especially those with an affinity for the dawn of cinema, “Hugo” will be a huge treat.  Never mind the lame vampire soap operas, the dancing penguins, the talking animal puppets (as much as I love them), and all that other nonsense, “Hugo” is true cinematic magic and pretty much perfect.  It’s certainly my favorite film of the year, I even put it over “Super 8″.  If you only get out to see one film this Holiday Season, do make it this one.

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A ho-hum review for a ho-hum biopic.

The H-Bomb:  To call J. Edgar Hoover one of the most controversial figures of the 20th Century is almost an understatement.  He is the man who more or less created the Federal Bureau of Investigation as we know it today, and ran it with an iron fist for nearly fifty years, right up until the time of his death.  He was also considered a control freak who often abused his power to ruin the reputations, careers, and lives of many, many people.  You would think that the life of such an individual would make for one dynamic biopic, but in the overly-understated hands of producer/director Clint Eastwood, you would be mistaken.

The film, told in non-linear fashion, basically covers the highlights of Hoover’s career;  from his early days hunting and deporting anarchist radicals, to his introducing of scientific methods, such as fingerprinting, into criminal investigations, to his heading up the investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, to his attempt to bring down Martin Luther King.  Along the way we get glimpses of his contentious relationship with Bobby Kennedy, his aversion to the opposite sex, his Norman Bates-like relationship with his mother, as well as his longtime “partnership” with his “confidant” Clyde Tolson.

Occasionally, we are treated to some interesting factoids, like how he came to be addressed as J. Edgar, and how he dreamed of an America where everyone’s information would be registered and available at a moments notice, in the name of stopping crime, but most of the speculative behind-the-scenes stuff seems to arrive at one single conclusion, that Hoover was insecure.  He was insecure in the extreme, maybe because he was maybe gay, maybe because his demanding mother expected too much from him, who’s to say?  Sadly, if you’re looking for any real insight into this most fascinating of historical figures, there is very little to be found.  They go as far as to show him trying on his mother’s nightgown after she dies, but they don’t even touch on what might have been contained in his infamous secret files.

Aside from failing to give us a sense of who J. Edgar was, aside from what we could already surmise, Mr. Eastwood’s film also falls short as entertainment.  Every would be dramatic event from his life, from an early bombing, to the Kennedy assassination, to pretty much everything else is treated in such a matter-of-fact way that they have little to no emotional impact whatsoever.  Eastwood has always been on the low key side as a filmmaker, but here his approach is so leisurely, he keeps the whole film limping along at the same “so what” tempo, that he renders it all dramatically inert.  Even the scene in which the skeleton of Lindbergh’s baby is found, which should be inherently upsetting, is ineffectual due to the indifferent storytelling.

That’s not to say that “J. Edgar” is without any virtues.  The film certainly looks great, thanks to Tom Stern’s artfully shadowy cinematography and the handsome production design by James Murakami, which makes Hoover’s F.B.I. office, where the film spends a good portion of its 137 minutes, look appropriately closed off and claustrophobic.  It conveys, far more effectively than the script does, how Hoover is involved with, yet weirdly disconnected to, many of the important events going on around him.

Solid production values aside, the film is also aided by the efforts of a game cast.  The casting of Leonardo DiCaprio as Hoover may be questionable, but he puts in a commendable performance, nonetheless.  He’s been bucking for an Oscar for a while now, and this is unlikely to win him one, but still, he shows here that he’s got what it takes to someday nab that little gold statue.  His old man make-up is a little distracting, at first, but it’s not nearly as embarrassing as the layers of crap they piled onto Armie Hammer when he had to portray the elder, post-stroke Clyde Tolson.  Good God, that was just a travesty.

As for Hammer’s performance, he’s terrific, actually, despite the laughable Mummy make-up.  His Tolson is sympathetic as Hoover’s foil/maybe (most likely) lover, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see his name come up when the Oscar Nominations are announced.  Naomi Watts fairs well as Hoover’s loyal, lifelong personal secretary, and actually manages to make a strong impression, despite not getting a whole lot, script-wise, to work with.  As for Judi Dench, as the mother who would rather see her son dead than become a “daffy,” she’s good, in her typical scary, Judi Dench way.  It’s just that Clint makes the mistake of showing her in close up, which makes the old age make-up on the other characters look all the more phony in comparison.

Though the actors all bring their A game, they are let down by Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black’s superficial screenplay, which shows us plenty of J. Edgar doing what J. Edgar did, but again, fails to show what made the man tick.  He was an unhappy, insecure little man who wanted power and glory, who hated to dance as much as he hated the Reds.  Okay… but why?  “J. Edgar” is a bit of Oscar Bait that certainly has the look and feel of an important picture, but none of the substance.

It’s as if Eastwood was trying to play it safe with this one, as a character as rich as Hoover most definitely lived a more interesting life than the one depicted here.  Perhaps a director with more teeth was needed to give this film the bite it needed.  As it is, “J. Edgar” is toothless, flat, and just never nearly as captivating as it should be.  It’s certainly not terrible, or even bad, but it’s not good, either.  It’s a false start to the awards season, and most definitely worth skipping in theaters.  I wouldn’t even recommend renting it.  Honestly, this is one that can wait for cable.

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Hisss-terically bad!

The H-Bomb:  According to ancient Indian legend, Nagin is a deadly snake goddess who holds within her body the key to immortality.  If her mate is threatened or harmed, she will hunt down and take vengeance on whoever is responsible, and will in all likelihood claim the lives of at least a few innocent bystanders along the way.  Not only is an evil American by the name of…  wait for it…  George States, fully aware of this, he is actually counting on it, as he is dying of a brain tumor and has kidnapped Nagin’s mate in hopes of drawing her out so he can get at this immortal what-have-you that’s inside of her.

Well, his plan works, as Nagin takes the form of a hot naked woman (Mallika Sherawat) and goes in search of her captive mate.  Along the way, she encounters a few uncouth individuals who would love nothing more than to rape her.  So, she is forced to teach these hooligans a lesson in manners by eating them up and puking them out.  This, predictably, attracts the attention of local police inspector Gupta (Irrfan Khan), who is understandably baffled by these crimes.  However, Gupta’s batty old mother in law, as well as some other superstitious locals, begin to suspect that it’s the work of the serpent goddess.

Will the snake woman rescue her mate from the evil George States, or will she fall into his trap?  Will Gupta the cop catch her before she can, or won’t he?  Who’s to say?  The real question is…  will the audience still be awake at the end to find out, and if so, will they care?  The answer to both: not bloody likely.

“Hisss”, shot on location in India, is the third directorial effort from my favorite nepotistic filmmaker, Jennifer Chambers Lynch.  Ms. Lynch and I have crossed paths in the past when I reviewed her hilariously horrible debut “Boxing Helena”, as well as her decent sophomore effort, “Surveillance”, which was far, far from perfect, but overall a step in the right direction.  With her latest film, she ditched Hollywood for Bollywood, and has slithered all the way back down to “Helena”‘s level of utter awfulness.

Basically, “Hisss” is a B-grade creature feature.  You would expect a filmmaker from the Lynch family gene pool to take this myth and spin it into something creepy and cool…  or at least weird, in a good way.  But no, she made a plain old monster movie, the kind that airs on the Syfy Channel during one of their snake themed weekend movie marathons.  It’s the kind of movie that’s meant to be stupid fun, except here Lynch made it extra stupid, and skipped the fun all together in favor of sheer boredom.

One thing she did manage to nail is the look of a Syfy Original movie, in that it looks spectacularly cheap.  Not cheap in a cool, indie film kind of way, but cheap in that bad, direct-to-DVD way, complete with a laughably shoddy CGI snake monster that looks like it was ripped from a mid-90′s video game.  The snakes in that Samuel L. Jackson movie were more convincing.  As for the cinematography, you may think it impossible to make such a colorful place as India look drab and dreary, but Lynch somehow manages to make it look about as vibrant as London on a gray winter day.

Setting aside that the film is about as visually appealing as a dried dog turd, and that the special effects are only special in the short bus sense of the word, there’s also the putrid script to take into account, which features maybe ten minutes worth of clunky, uninspired action, and spends the rest of its eighty-something minutes wasting our time with bad drama and unfunny attempts at quirky humor until it finally gets to its awkwardly staged, and not-even-remotely thrilling climax.

Is there anything at all that sets “Hisss” apart from other hokey creature features?  There is, actually, in that it is, to my knowledge, the first and only movie to feature a snake-on-human sex scene.  A little Hisss, Hisss, Bang, Bang, if you will.  Leave it to the daughter of David Lynch to come up with that one…  and also leave it to her to make even that boring.

As for the acting, Sherawatt isn’t half bad, considering she doesn’t have a single line of dialogue in the film.  But, given the quality of the dialogue, that probably worked in her favor.  She’s required to look sexy and dangerous, and she pulls off both.  Khan, who plays the police inspector, you may remember from “Slumdog Millionaire”, in which he played…  a police inspector.  Way to cast against type there, Jennifer!  Anyway, he does okay, but he was better in “Slumdog”.

As the evil American George States (wow, really Jenn, really?), Jeff Doucette is over-the-top and cringingly terrible, but I blame that more on the writing than him.  In a well written script, he would have been a good man forced to do bad things out of desperation.  But, that would have required a little more thought than Lynch was willing to put into it, so instead he’s just a one note mustache twirler who is all dastardly and villainous…  just because he is

Is there anything positive that can be said about “Hisss”?  Well, the snake-woman makeup effects by Robert Kurtzman are pretty impressive, I’ll give it that.  Unfortunately, that very faint praise is all the praise I have, because bottom line, “Hisss” is pisss poor.  It truly sucksss asss, and while it was apparently taken away from Ms. Lynch and re-cut by others, it still bears her name, and I can’t see how a good film could ever be made from the footage I saw, so she is still to blame for it being the piece of ssshit that it is.

However, if you do feel inexplicably compelled to see “Hisss”, it is currently available on Netflix Instant Play.  But seriously, why would you, when there are so many more productive things for you to do with your time…  like pulling the wings off a fly, or checking your lawn for severed ears, or about a million other things.

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The other “Batman Begins”…

The H-Bomb:  Okay, before you start throwing Batarangs at me, let me just say that calling this the other “Batman Begins” isn’t at all fair, since Frank Miller’s graphic novel predates the Christopher Nolan film by almost two decades.  If anything, “Batman Begins” is the other “Batman: Year One”, since Nolan most definitely appropriated a number of elements from Miller’s book.  Both tell the origin story of the Dark Knight: how Bruce Wayne’s parents were murdered when he was a child; how he traveled the world for several years, then returned to Gotham City to wage a one man war on crime; and how he came to adopt the Bat as his symbol to strike fear in the hearts of criminals.

Both “Begins” and “Year One” are set in a more realistic world, far removed from the Gothic fantasy of Tim Burton’s take on the material, or the neon nightmare of Joel Schumacher’s (thank fucking Christ).  The Gotham City of both is one overrun with crime, and home to a terminally corrupt police force that refuses to do a thing about it.  So, it is very safe to say that, even though Nolan’s and Miller’s origin stories are ultimately different, without “Year One”, there would be no “Begins”.

The critical difference between them, at least as far as this animated film adaptation goes, is that “Year One” does not focus mainly on Batman, but rather on police Lieutenant Jim Gordon, an honest cop who has just transferred to Gotham with his pregnant wife.   Upon his arrival, Gordon is forced to contend with not only street crime, but also with his dirty partner, his dirty police commissioner, and, last but not least, a vigilante who has been dressing up like a bat and beating the living guano out of bad guys at night.

Gordon also finds himself struggling with his own personal demons.  He has serious misgivings about bringing a child into a world as bleak and violent as this one, and he finds himself attracted to a young female detective who is working the Batman task force with him.  If all that wasn’t enough, there’s also a tough-as-nails street walker named Selina Kyle, who decides to make a career change and become, quite literally, a cat burglar.

Now, to be open and honest with all of you, I have never read the graphic novel upon which this is based, but seeing this film has actually made me want to.  It has the dark, violent tone that’s often associated with Miller’s work down pat, as well as a number of suggestive themes that really push the boundaries of the film’s PG-13 rating.  This ain’t Adam West’s Batman, nor is it a Batman for the kiddies, despite it being in animated form.  I don’t think kids would even like it, anyway, as they would probably find it slow and hard to follow.

This, like “The Dark Knight”, is Batman for grown ups.  The action takes a back seat to the story and character development.  The whole thing has a kind of Noir-ish feel to it, with Batman and Gordon delivering most of their dialogue in voice over narration as the movie cuts back and forth between the two.  This was an interesting approach that, for the most part, worked for me, as we see that Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon are two men fighting for the same cause.  They just happen to be on opposite sides of the law.

While I can’t personally attest to this, I have heard that “Batman: Year One” is very faithful to the source material, which may be both a good and bad thing.  Good in the sense that it is an intelligent, engaging take on the Batman character, and bad in the sense that it decided to make Batman a secondary character in what is supposed to be his own story.

Instead, our protagonist is Jim Gordon, a character who, until Gary Oldman took over the role in the Nolan films, was a one dimensional, ineffectual, incompetent oaf.  Here, he’s fleshed out, complex, and deeply conflicted.  A man constantly having to make personal sacrifices in order to do the right thing.  This in itself is not a bad thing, it’s just that the title of the movie is “Batman: Year One”, not “Gordon Goes to Gotham”.  This is the tale of Batman’s origins, thus one would assume that the story would be told from his perspective…  but it’s not.  This is why, for me, “Batman Begins” is the definitive Batman origin story.

The other big issue I have with “Batman: Year One” is the length.  No, not that it’s too long, but that, at a scant 64 minutes, it’s too short.  There are many things that this film just brushes over and rushes through, like when Bruce Wayne actually becomes Batman.  As it works in the film, Wayne is trying to think of a symbol to scare criminals when a bat flies into the room, and the next time we see him, he’s in his bat costume, complete with his bat gadgets and everything.  Considering how ambitious and multifaceted the narrative is, it really should have been at least a half hour longer, in order to flesh out the key elements of the story.

Another aspect that didn’t pay off was the inclusion of Catwoman.  I know it was meant to set up the character for the future, but, aside from a fist fight she has with Wayne early on, she really has no impact on the story at all, and every scene with her just feels extraneous.  I was, however, amused by how pissed she gets when the press identifies her as “Batman’s assistant.”

The vocal cast, for the most part, is quite strong.  Bryan Cranston (“Breaking Bad”) makes a great Jim Gordon.  I’d put him on par with Gary Oldman, and he does a more than adequate job carrying the film.  Eliza Dushku is good and sassy as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, despite not getting a whole lot to work with.  Hot fuckin’ damn I wish she was doing the live action version!

The only weak link in the voice ensemble is, sadly, Batman himself, as played by Ben Mackenzie (“The O.C.).  He tries for the deep, strong voice, but he just sounds wooden for the most part, his line readings are weirdly stilted, and let’s be honest, Christian Bale he is not.  Hell, he’s not even Kevin Conroy, who kicked ass as the Caped Crusader on the animated series.  I understand why they would want a younger actor, since this is a 25 year old Batman, but…  they should’ve found someone else.  In fact, now that I think about it, maybe giving Gordon the most screen time wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

But, all my pesky grievances aside, I really did enjoy this rendering of the Dark Knight legend.  It’s a tough, mean take on the character and the world he inhabits, the kind that I’ll always prefer over the more kid friendly interpretations (fuck you and your bat-nipples, Schumacher).  The animation is slick, beautiful to watch, and really eye popping on Blu-Ray.  For fans of Miller’s graphic novel, and Batman fans in general, this is absolute essential viewing, and it should be enough to tide us over until “The Dark Knight Rises” hits theaters next summer.

(5 People gave this 3.20 out of 5)

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“Let’s just hope the Cooper Clan sticks with the First Amendment, and stays far, far away from the Second Amendment.”

The H-Bomb:  Jarod (Kyle Gallner), Travis (Michael Angarano), and Billy-Ray (Nicolas Braun) are three horny high-schoolers who get more than they bargained for when they show up at Sara’s (Melissa Leo) trailer for an Internet rendezvous.  What they imagined was going to be a wild and crazy night of three-on-one sex turns into a nightmare when they are taken captive by Abin Cooper (Michael Parks), a Fred Phelps-like preacher who shepherds a flock of gay hating Jesus freaks.  Cooper and his congregation used to pull the usual nonsense of protesting at funerals and whatnot, but they’ve been upping the ante as of late by stockpiling assault weapons and executing gays, as well as other perceived moral degenerates, during Cooper’s sermons.

This time, it’s the three teens who are going to be sacrificed on the Pastor’s altar for their deviant, “fornicatin’” ways.  But, without giving too much away, shit goes wrong…  very wrong.  Shots are fired, people are killed, and the ATF, led by John Goodman and Kevin Pollack, are called onto the scene.  The fit hits the shan and everything goes nucking futs when Cooper and his clan barricade themselves inside their walled-in compound, with children and hostages inside, and the feds move into position on the outside, resulting in a Waco-type standoff…  and that’s about as far as I’ll go, plot wise.

“Red State” is writer/director Kevin Smith’s balls out, no-holds-barred indie bounce back from his major studio flop “Cop Out” (a movie I didn’t hate as much as everyone else seemed to).  In a way, it’s almost as if the Jersey born director is apologizing for “Cop Out” by doing the exact opposite of everything he did on that film;  he wrote the script himself, raised the money himself, and even distributed it himself.  It’s most definitely not the kind of film we’ve ever seen from him before.  In fact, you’ll often have to remind yourself that you’re watching a Kevin Smith film, and even then, you’ll have a hard time believing it.

It’s only in the first twenty minutes or so that it even remotely feels like a Smith flick, with the foul mouthed teens talking about sex, sex, and…  more sex.  After that, it shifts into an intense, captive-tied-down type of torture porn, then shifts again into a stand off ‘n siege pic.  It’s not exactly a horror movie, per se, but like many horror flicks, it is dark, violent, and even oppressive, with a mean, pessimistic undercurrent running throughout.  It’s definitely not the kind of movie we would associate with this filmmaker… but he fuckin’ rocks it, nonetheless.

Simply put, “Red State” is, for the most part, fucking awesome.  This, to me, is Smith’s first film since “Dogma” where he really seems to have something on his mind and where he’s really giving it everything he’s got.  Like in “Dogma”, he’s once again saying that the only thing wrong with Christianity are the Christians, and it’s those who twist and pervert scripture to fit their own hateful beliefs who are once again the target of Smith’s satirical lashings.  But they’re not the only ones, as Smith also takes aim at the inept Government Agents and Bureaucrats, more interested in saving face than saving lives.  Even the victims, the kids who do all their thinking with the wrong head, are painted in a rather mocking light, and shown to be the shallow, chauvinistic dimwits that they are.  No one here is let off the hook.

With this movie, Smith shows that not only does he have a dark side, but that he can be funny in a deeper, more clever way, without resorting to his typical “dick ‘n fart” jokes.  The satire doesn’t always work, as there are some characters, like the closeted, bumbling local Sheriff, as well as the two cackling government suits towards the end, who come off as being a bit too cartoonish.  But for the most part, Smith’s lampooning is spot on, and it’s often as funny as it is frightening.

Tone and subject matter aside, “Red State” is also a major aesthetic departure for Smith, as it features a dirty, desaturated, hand-held look, something akin to “The Devil’s Rejects”, which this movie reminded me of in a number of ways, though things never quite get as intense as they did in Rob Zombie’s film.  As far as the acting is concerned, I would say there certainly aren’t any slouches in the lot, though there are two very notable standouts:  Melissa Leo and Michael Parks.

Leo, of course, won a much deserved Oscar for “The Fighter” this past year, and her turn here proves that she’s no one hit wonder.  She plays the easily led Christian zealot Sara with crazy eyed intensity and a cold blooded ferocity, all the while not falling into the trap of making her one note or a caricature.  She may be a complete moon-bat, but she’s also a dedicated family woman who loves her children and her church.  It would have been easy to go overboard into whacko-land with Sara, but Leo made her real instead, and added yet another knockout performance to her resume.

But it’s Parks who deserves the real accolades.  The guy’s always been a solid character actor, but what he gives here is easily a career defining performance.  Smith actually challenged people to name five actors who have given better performances this year.  Well, I’ve actually thought about it, and I can’t even come up with one.  Cooper is a certifiable nut-job of a Pastor, but Parks plays him as being calm, collected, and surprisingly charismatic.  When he goes off on one of his lengthy sermons, I can’t help but be captivated, even though everything he’s spouting is reprehensible, bigoted drivel.  This is a case where the actor maketh the movie, and Parks should win every award that Hollywood gives out this year.

Is there anything to bitch ‘n moan about, aside from the aforementioned cartoonish characters?  Well, I would say this “horror film” does sometimes fall into that horror film trap of having characters do stupid things simply because the plot needs them to; like when one of the captives gets his hands on an assault rifle, yet does not take everyone out, even though he very easily could.  But, this kind of flagrant dumb-assery happens infrequently enough that it can be forgiven.

When all is said and done, “Red State” is an “unlikely film from THAT Kevin Smith” that’s almost excellent.  I think that if the Tarantino/Rodriguez “Grindhouse” experiment had worked out as intended, and spawned an ongoing series, this would have been Smith’s contribution to it.  It doesn’t hurt that his wild script plays out in ways that are as unconventional as they are unpredictable (I defy anyone to guess how it all ends), making “Red State” a unique, curious little pic that not only broadens Smith’s abilities as a director, but also makes for what is easily his best film in over a decade.

(1 People gave this 5.00 out of 5)

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“The people’s champion… sounds good to me.”

The H-Bomb: No, your eyes are not deceiving you. No, that four star rating is not a typo. No, H-Man is not off his meds. I know what you’re thinking, that the story of “Real Steel” sounds an awful lot like “Rocky” remade by Michael Bay (ewwww… shudder), and that the only result that could ever come of that is pure, unadulterated cinematic retardation. Believe me, I was thinking that very same thing beforehand, and normally I would’ve been one hundred percent right. But on this occasion, I was one hundred percent wrong.

Set sometime in the not-too-distant future, “Real Steel” (adapted from a Richard Matheson story) tells the tale of ex-boxer Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman), who was forced into retirement when human boxing fell out of popularity long ago, and now gets by going around boxing robots. Basically, the way this works is he controls his robot like a video game while taking on another robot being controlled by someone else. Like in real boxing, there are sanctioned league fights, underground fights, and championships. But, no matter who’s running the fight, they usually end with one robot or the other being destroyed. Whether all this could be construed as a step forward or backwards in human evolution depends on who you ask.

But anyway, after Charlie’s last couple of robots have been smashed into junk, he finds himself down and out, in need of cash and a new bot. This is where fate smiles on Charlie, as ex-girlfriend, with whom he had an eleven year old son, Max (Dakota Goyo), has just died. Max’s wealthy aunt (Hope Davis), wants to adopt him, which Charlie has no problem with, since he was never part of the kid’s life, anyway. However, she’ll be in Italy for the summer, and so her husband offers Charlie $100,000 to look after Max until the end of August.

At first Charlie and Max butt heads and want nothing to do with each other, but then one night while they’re in a junk yard looking for robot parts, Max finds an old, long discarded robot named “Atom.” Atom, as Charlie explains, is a sparring robot, not designed for actual competition. But Max, being the headstrong youth that he is, disagrees, and sets about training (programming) the dinged up old bot to fight.

And what do you know, Charlie and Max actually start winning fights, with the puny old robot that wasn’t even designed to fight competitively. Word about them starts to spread, all the way to Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda), a Russian Kim Kardashian who owns the world champion robot fighter, “Zeus,” designed by some scary looking ninja assassin dude (Karl Yune). Lemkova arrogantly offers to buy Atom off Charlie and Max, but Max throws it back in her face by challenging the mighty Zeus to a fight.

Naturally, this is just a joke to Camp Zeus, but after the public’s reaction to the challenge, they’re left with no choice but to accept. Will Charlie and Max be able to get their little-robot-that-could ready to take down the big, bad champion, and, of course more importantly, will they stop kicking each other in the balls and actually bond as father and son over the course of this long journey? What do you think?

“Real Steel” is a much, much better film than it should be. I went into this thing thinking it was going to be stupid as hell, like “BattleBots: The Movie”, and came out of it completely dumbfounded by how caught up I was in it. Strip away the high tech robots and whatnot, and what we have here is basically a good old fashioned, feel good, underdog sports movie. It’s a familiar formula, but it’s one that worked in the past, and I’ll be damned, it worked here, too.

Even though this flick is filled to the brim with slick special effects and metal mashing, robotic beat downs, that’s not what makes it so good. Rather, and hold on to your seat, because this is a shocker, it’s the well developed, likable lead characters and their chemistry together that maketh the movie. Jackman and Goyo are right on, spot on, dead perfect as the mismatched father and son team, and their performances couldn’t be better.

Goyo, as the piss ‘n vinegar filled Max, is a real find, and you won’t be able to help but smile during the scenes when he and his robot dance into the ring. Jackman’s Charlie is a real douche-baggy prick at first, but he redeems himself as his relationship with Max grows. It’s ultimately their journey and their bonding that makes up the back bone of this film, and that makes it so emotionally satisfying. The terrific sense of humor that it retains throughout helps, as well. Charlie’s big toothed redneck tormentor, Ricky (Kevin Durand), provided some real laugh out loud moments.

“Real Steel”, despite its moronic sounding premise, is in actuality a genuine, straightforward crowd pleaser. Yeah, you’re not going to be very surprised by it, but when a formula is done this well, it don’t matter. You’ll be reeled in by it in spite of yourself. I feel guilty saying this, but it’s actually one of the better movies to come out this year, and definitely one to catch on the big screen.

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“Happiness”, Where are you? – Oh, you are RIGHT HERE!!!

The H-Bomb: There are very few films that I can think of that left an impression on me the way Todd Solondz’s “Happiness” did back when I first saw it many years ago. With its assortment of freakish, malcontent misanthropes, some with more issues than others, it was a funny, disgusting, shocking, and poignant experience unlike any other. It went into dark, taboo places that few films dared, yet somehow managed to be highly entertaining despite that. The scene where the young boy asks his pedophile father if he would ever molest him is unforgettable, and the father’s answer to that question is a whole new kind of fucked up.

As far as I’m concerned, “Happiness” is Solondz’s finest hour as a filmmaker and an absolute masterpiece… and it absolutely did not need a sequel. But alas, we got one, from Mr. Solondz himself. The fact that Solondz was the one resurrecting these characters did give me some hope… though unfortunately, hope is a four letter word, and frankly, he really should have left well enough alone.

Like its predecessor, “Life During Wartime” centers around three sisters; depressed dreamer Joy (Shirley Henderson), insecure writer Helen (Ally Sheedy), prim ‘n proper suburban mom Trish (Allison Janney), and the various oddballs in their orbit. Joy is now married to Allen (Michael Kenneth Williams), the obscene calling fetishist who continues to struggle with his… problem(s). Joy still clings on to the vague dream of becoming a musician, but for the time being, she’s content with counseling ex-cons.

Trish, meanwhile, is living in Florida and dating Harvey (Michael Lerner), a nice, middle aged Jewish man. They bond over their inability to talk about their sex lives and their shared desire to be buried in Israel. Trish’s oldest son, Billy (Chris Marquette), is now in college, and still trying to cope with the fact that his dad once re-assured him that he would “only jerk off” to him. Her younger son, Timmy (Dylan Riley Snyder), is about to become a man in the Jewish sense (Solondz, for no particular reason, decided to amp up the “Jewishness” of this family this time around), and has no idea that his father, Bill (Ciaran Hinds), who he has been told is dead, is a pedophile. Except Bill is not dead. In actuality, he has just been released from prison, and is now trying to track down Billy, who he hasn’t seen since being incarcerated over a decade ago.

Helen is now in L.A. making a profitable but artistically unfulfilling living as a screenwriter. She’s about a million times more neurotic than in the last picture and still considers herself to be a no talent hack, but… well, to be honest, her appearance in this film is relatively brief, and everything involving her is of little importance, so never mind.

What is important about “Life During Wartime”? Not a whole lot, really. In this part sequel, part rehash of “Happiness”, Solondz brings back a number of the major characters (all played by new actors) and basically seems to set them forth on the same journey of searching for… um… happiness. Only this time, that journey isn’t nearly as interesting. The ensemble of weirdo losers is on hand, as is the biting, satirical sense of humor, as well as the subversive themes. But while “Happiness” captivated me and made me care about these people, “Life During Wartime” failed to do either.

One problem “Life During Wartime” has is that in the first film, the characters seemed, for the most part, like actual people. This time, they act and sound like broadly drawn caricatures. The fucking pedophile aside, nobody comes across as anything even resembling a human being. If we heard real people saying some of the shit that the characters in this flick spew out, we’d be lining up to take turns smacking the stupid out of them. Seriously, would a mother really tell her twelve year old son how her new boyfriend makes her “wet” by rubbing her elbows? Give me a fuckin’ break!

Solondz’s ultimate theme for this piece, redemption, is muddled all to hell with pretentious crap like, “Should we forgive and forget? Or should we forgive but not forget? Or, should we not forgive but forget.” The fact that it’s the twelve year old Timmy farting this Philosophy 101 gibber-jabber out of his mouth makes it even more laughable. A couple of these attempts at redemption, such as the confrontation between pedo-dad and his son, or Joy being haunted by the ghost of her dead ex-boyfriend Andy (Pee Wee Herman), could have been effective had Solondz brought back the original actors to reprise these roles. But since all the faces are new, whatever weight or catharsis these scenes would have had is lost… or at least considerably diminished.

The decision to recast all the roles was a calculated one by Solondz, operating under the logic that people change over time, sometimes to the point of becoming someone else entirely. I certainly get what Solondz was going for, I just don’t think it worked. With two notable exceptions, most of the cast members are downgrades from their counterparts in “Happiness”. As Joy, Henderson is far less appealing than Jane Adams. Instead of being sweet and soulful, she comes off as an obnoxious, spastic flake.

The straight laced housewife Trish was annoying before, but in the form of Janney, she is truly insufferable, and that she has the most screen-time is fatal to the film. As for Snyder, I know it’s not nice to pick on child actors, but Goddamn! Every time this little shit opened his mouth, I was praying he’d either be struck in the head by a stray bullet, or someone would drop a piano on him. Williams is okay as the prank calling masturbator, Allen, but he’s underused, and Philip Seymour Hoffman (the original Allen) he is not.

Hinds, a very solid thespian, is a perfectly capable sub for Dylan Baker as the ex-shrink/kiddie diddler, but for most of his scenes he’s skulking around, alone and silent, thus he’s under-utilized as well. Also, Baker looked like a regular, all-American dad, which is what made him so chilling. Hinds, on the other hand, is brooding and even a little scary looking, so he’s not as effective. Nevertheless, he gives the film its best performance.

Pee Wee Herman, stepping out of the Playhouse and into Jon Lovitz’s shoes, is also very good as the ghost of Andy, with the actor’s own personal history adding some shading to the character, which is a good thing, since the script sure as hell didn’t. Charlotte Rampling contributes a cameo as a bitter old woman who has a one night stand with Bill. She probably did a fine job, but I can’t really say for sure, because I couldn’t stop staring at that ugly mop on her head.

Overall, “Life During Wartime” is another example of a belated sequel that’s just completely gratuitous. Solondz brought back the old characters, but he couldn’t think of anyplace new to take them. This was made all the more apparent in the number of instances where he mirrored scenes from the original (the opening dinner date, Joy playing her guitar, a key suicide, among others). The whole redemption angle be damned, the story of these characters was finished in the excellent, stand alone movie that is “Happiness”, and “Life During Wartime” is about as pointless and unworthy a follow up as one can imagine. The power and resonance of “Happiness” are gone, and fans of that fantastic film are better off leaving this one unseen.

(1 People gave this 5.00 out of 5)

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Sweet dreams are made of Zzzzzzzz…

The H-Bomb: So this is a dream house, huh? It must have been one dull ass dream. But how did it go wrong? This film, which I’m guessing was supposed to be a thriller, certainly had a dream team on both sides of the camera. A first rate director in Jim Sheridan (“My Left Foot”, “In America”), and a first rate cast in Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts. Sadly, instead of being a clever, well crafted spookfest with A-List talent, “Dream House” is merely a very well polished turd, one in which the audience will not be trying to untangle the over-tangled mystery, but will instead be wondering how it all ended up being such a thrilless and chilless bore?

Well, before I go into what went wrong, let me briefly take you through the set up: Book editor Will Atenton (Craig, sporting a laughably dorky haircut) is quitting his high paying job in NYC and relocating to a small town to write a novel, and spend more time with his all-to-perfect wife, Libby (Weisz), and their all-too-perfect daughters. The house they move into is a definite fixer-upper, but everyone’s happy… that is, until the girls start seeing a strange man out their window, and start hearing things go bump and creak in the night.

One snowy evening, such unnatural sounds lure Will into the basement, where he catches a pack of emo brats messing around with dolls and spray painting things on the walls. Will grabs one as they attempt to run, and she tells him about the man who used to own the house, Peter Ward, and how he murdered his wife and two daughters some five years earlier. When Will goes around town asking about the murders, he notices people giving him the stink eye. In particular, his neighbor across the street, divorcee Ann (Watts), seems to know more about the murders than she lets on. As Will tracks down this Peter Ward, who was recently released from the local laughing factory, he discovers something that… well, I should stop there.

To divulge any more at this point would be to drop some major spoilers, not that it would really matter, since the fucking trailer spoiled at least one major twist anyway (seriously, which intellectually challenged Marketing intern cut the trailer to this thing– I want his fuckin’ name!). Not that it really matters that much, since I highly doubt that not knowing this plot development would have enhanced my enjoyment of this hopelessly dreary affair.

Which brings me back to my original query, despite the Oscar Caliber Pedigree involved, where the hell did this lead footed, boring-er-than-thou “thriller” go wrong? Well, to me the answer is pretty obvious; this “Dream House” simply lacked the foundation it needed to stay standing. To put it more simply, it lacked a good script. When it isn’t just running through the list of supernatural thriller clichés, it’s just hokey, unbelievable, and kind of stupid (the scene in which a character’s name is explained is one of the dumbest, most unintentionally funny moments I’ve seen in any movie). After the key twist, the one the trailer brilliantly gives away, is revealed halfway through, the story just becomes illogical, repetitive, until it finally culminates in a climax that’s as rushed and tacked on as it is preposterous.

I feel bad for this cast, because they try, they really do. But when you give them nothing to work with, how can you expect anything more than nothing in return? I like Daniel Craig, and I really want him to have a bonafide hit outside of Bond, but for him, this is a Double-O Zero. I still have hopes for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”. Weisz does her best with a role that basically required her to alternate between looking happy, looking concerned, and looking scared. She’s done better.

Watts, who looks like she’s had one facelift too many, has even less to do than Weitz, in what has to be her most thankless role since “Children of the Corn IV”. The great Canadian actor Elias Koteas is also in here, but God knows why, because he’s wasted completely in an important but severely underdeveloped role.

Plainly put, “Dream House” is a stinker. When it’s not going the “been there, done that, seen that, bored with that” route, it’s just making no fucking sense at all. The last time I sat through a suspense flick this lifeless was around this time last year with “My Soul to Take“, and while it didn’t quite plummet to the same level of suckage as that Godforsaken piece of shit, it comes shockingly close. Overall, “Dream House” is one sorry excuse for a scary movie, and one lame way to kick off the Halloween season.