When I see Spike Jonze is involved in anything creative, I always get really excited to see whatever product his name is involved in. In this case it happened to be one of my favorite books as a child. Not only because I share a name with the main character, but also because we shared common anger management issues growing up without a father.

Jonze opens up the movie with a beautiful depiction of how a mother and son can interact, as we watch Max (Max Records) play with his mother’s toes until he innocently spits out an incredibly imaginative short story. Max’s stability is shattered when he sees his mom flirting and drinking with another man before dinner; his anger and depression turns into an intriguing parallel world filled with big monsters and never-ending forests. Jonze does an excellent job in creating dialog and a story that doesn’t really exist in the original novel. Two monsters in particular, Carol and KW, have problems of their own stemming from Max’s abandonment issues.

Jonze continues to explore Max’s issues as a perfect world filled with mud fights and sleeping together in a huge pile turns to jealousy between friends and betrayal. The art direction and set design (real forests coupled with CGI) make this movie unforgettable. Jonze’s shaky camera work lends to the viewers immersion into writer Maurice Sendak’s unforgettable artwork. Max quickly becomes the King of his own fantasy world, but soon realizes how much harder being happy all the time really is. Each monster in the wild world has their own specialty they lend to building a new world or town where everyone can be happy all the time. Max has taken personalities and characteristics from every part of his life and thrown them into this pseudo-Utopian world. King Max quickly realizes that nothing can be flawless and even in his own dreams he can’t control other people’s emotions or decisions.

Unfortunately we never really get any kind of resolution when it comes to Max and his exaggerated temper tantrums. Where the Wild Things Are comes to an unsatisfying conclusion at only 94 minutes of run time, and leaves us thinking about what Max will do to cope with his father’s absence. Will he continue to run away and get lost in his own fantasy world, or will he stick around and deal with them now that he’s had such an eye-opening experience?

Experience “the scream”

It’s almost always a pleasant experience when I sit down at a screening, and know absolutely nothing about the movie I’m about to watch. So, walking into the screening of Paranormal Activity was a total treat, seeing that I had absolutely zero knowledge about the movie. As the movie began I was a little disappointed thinking I was watching Quarantine, or the early parts of Cloverfield. For some reason every hand-held, no budget, cheap thrills movie has to spend loads and loads of time developing the characters and establishing the fact that you’re going to be on a very “bumpy” ride for the duration.

We meet Micah and Katie in the first shot of the movie, as Micah explains why he bought the camera, for the purpose of catching something “paranormal” on it. Katie has been seeing and feeling something out of the ordinary since she was a little girl, and it seems to have followed her to their new house. Micah spends most of the homemade movie ridiculing her notions of being “haunted”, and just laughs off her claims until something is caught on his camera overnight. I’m sure the producers would like critics to keep the plot and surprises in this film to a minimum, so I will be short with the plot. Basically, a lot of nothing happens right up until the last 5 minutes of the movie.

This is a good exercise in storytelling, proving that we must learn about the protagonists before we can start to care about them.  The cheap tricks and thrills that we get at the end (startling the entire movie theater as they shrieked and screamed) would have had completely different effects on everyone had the movie been way shorter. That was the only criticism I could give this movie, its length. Many impatient viewers will become tired of the daily, diary like style Paranormal Activity plays in, but the juice is certainly worth the squeeze in this case.

Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, is your typical coming-of-age tale that you would expect from any niche film like this. When it comes to originality please look elsewhere, but formulaic perfection is achieved here bringing you equal parts action and teen angst. Ellen Page plays, well Ellen Page as a young a-social teenager who can only express herself through roller derby games.

The whole movie tries to show how undesirable it is to do what is so desirable to the masses. Drew Barrymore and Juliette Lewis bring their star quality, B+ games to the screen as teammates and rivals to the upcoming roller derby champ played by Page’s Ellen character. This film will be widely appreciated by people between the ages of 10-16, and people who enjoy a good roller derby flick that wasn’t made as an exploitation film in the seventies.

The opening visuals are entrancing and even border on spellbinding, two hands sewing the finishing stitches on a creature made to carry on this post-apocalyptic worlds life. A world where machines and humans have collided, a world we are far too familiar with in Hollywood from Terminator to The Matrix and now to Tim Burton’s producing credit 9. The sad thing about this cgi-sci-fi flick is that Hollywood seems to think dialogue is not important when there is action scene after action scene to compensate. The screenplay is plagued with command after command line , it never tackles the complex themes it aspires to actually cover. 9 asks the question we always ask “why are we here”, but it never even tries to answer it allowing it’s nevertheless amazing visuals to stomp all over it.

9 stars Elijah Wood as the youngest and most intelligent “creature” (which reminded me much of the creatures from Sony’s Little Big Planet) always defying authority, and making dangerous, action packed decisions.  The authority, voiced by Christopher Plummer is #1, who seems to think that keeping to themselves will save them from total extinction and annihilation. Jennifer Connely voices #7, a pretty bad ass creature that is introduced via a visually appetizing decapitation. If you wanna see a movie this year that is visually exciting, has astounding cinematic photography, and leads to absolutely no where, this is your ticket. And although this flick isn’t directed at pre-teens or children alike, it does drum on the same kind of silly underwritten dialogue that hangs way beneath its visual caliber.

Taking Woodstock, Ang Lee‘s newest film spends too much time covering Elliot Teichberg’s (Demetri Martin) outing and screwed up relationship with his immigrant parents, and only dipping it’s toes in the free loving, music festival it borrows it’s name from. Mis-marketed and at times mis-directed, Woodstock is rarely the funny adventure comedy its trailers and marketing execs want you to groove to.  Contrary to what they want you to believe,  Taking Woodstock is a young man’s coming of age or coming out of the closet tale that happens to be surrounded by the most famous music festival to take place in upstate New York.

The plot hinges on a Jewish family’s inability to make their mortgage payments – thus forcing the youngest member to invite half of the United States to his neighborhood for what would be known as the last attempt at a free society. Unfortunately instead of concentrating on this concert, the film is plagued with scene after scene of the problems the concert had – set alongside the problems Elliot is having leaving his parents behind and starting his new life as an openly homosexual artist. There are dabs here and there of some inkling of a back story . . . hidden somewhere is his past life in New York City where he clearly led his life sans judgment or inhibitions.

Overall Lee has taken a great story of free love and some of the greatest musicians to ever overdose on their choice of sin and overshadowed it with a young man’s struggle to confront his sexuality with his family and with a small town. It seemed like two separate films that someone tried to seamlessly edit together forgetting that each story is important on it’s own.

Let’s just get this straight from the beginning, this is in no way an original film.  There are many like it, and there will be many like it to come.  Yes, District 9 is a recipe mixing splashes of E.T. and The Fly, but what it lacks in original overall storytelling it more than makes up in it’s character development, social immigration policy commentary and visual effects.  Not to mention that it was made for under 35 million dollars, which is a nice spit in the face of McG and his lifemate Michael Bay, and all of their100+ milllion dollar CG robots.  Just think of District 9 (D9) as Transformers younger, yet way more intelligent and mature South African brother, who did all his homework, and ended up being the breadmaker in the end.

Shot in a documentary-style which lends to the realism of the entire sci-fi doc look, D9 looks at the way human beings treat “aliens” because they just simply do not understand.  Unfortunately this premise, and all of its importance and commentary go out the window about twenty minutes into the film, but it is quickly replaced with stunning visual effects and a story that still yields fantastic overall results.  Director Neill Blomkaump has directed a few shorts before this, including the inspiration for the full-length version District 9.  It doesn’t transcend the short he made years ago storywise, but visually Blompkaump has surpassed many with his CG team.  Although the aliens “Prawn” themselves don’t have much of a personality, the main character Wikus, played by Sharlto Copley helps move the story along as the narrator/turned victim by motivating the erratic, shaky camera work.  Zooming his way in and out of each scene Blomkaumps look that I like to call science fiction docu-comedy is always entertaining, and will not dissapoint anyone going to see an action movie and god forbid, have to think a little before the explosions begin.

Max Hope is back . . .

Seeing Joe Carnahan’s name on a cop drama is always a good thing, especially after his penned and directed attention getter Narc brought me back into that world with a huge jolt.  Pride and Glory, written by the O’connor brothers along with Carnahan, is another modern cop drama set in New York city that tries to bring that same powerful impact of real life NYC cops on the beat.  Unfortunately Carnahan was not behind the camera, instead actor turned director Gavin O’Connor tells a more personal story of inter bureau corruption blended nicely with old-school cop family feuds.  Obsessed with authenticity and stemming from a line of cops himself, O’Connor breathes the kind of reality into certain scenes that we would only get by watching the TV reality show “Cops”.

Edward Norton and Noah Emmerich play two Irish-American brothers that grew up in a Cop household headed by their “pops” Jon Voight.  Colin Farrell rounds off the cast as their brother in law, playing the “bad cop” as we quickly see after the start of the film.  As always Norton turns in high caliber acting, along with his co-star Emmerich, a New York native and former NYU student.  I only mention his NYU creds because we both took the same courses in film school, and even had the same professor, who mentioned Emmerich’s name all the time when discussing noteworthy graduates.

The only qualm I have with the film, other than Farrell’s usually uninspired performances, is his characters exploration within the family.  The movie spends about two hours and change making sure that everything is as genuine as can be, down to hiring real NYPD cops to act, and real NYC thugs from the projects of Washington Heights, but when it comes to exploring Farrell’s family life or his motives, I felt completely short changed.  Overall I recommend renting the DVD for the documentary found in the special features that for me explored Washington Heights and the NYPD a little more than the movie it spawned.

This new, high-velocity film from the highly acclaimed Russian director Timur Bekmambetov, redefines the laws of physics. Every frame of special effects in Wanted is visually stunning. Where the plot is lacking, it is made up for with several well orchestrated action-packed sequences. So don’t expect much more than an adrenalin-infused shoot em’ up flick.

James McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, the cliche “bored accountant” who is down on his luck and looking for a little action. Enter the lethally sexy Fox (Angelina Jolie), who saves Wesley from being killed by a rogue assassin.  Through a little training, Wesley discovers he has perfect aim and the rare ability to bend a bullet around objects and still hit the bulls-eye. The story, based on a graphic-novel series written by Mark Millar, bears a slight resemblance to the Matrix minus the killer robot world.

I could’ve done without the cheesy voiceover in the beginning used to introduce Wesley and to keep the plot on track. Overall, Wanted is an above average summer popcorn movie worth seeing… after you’ve exhausted all the other comic book movies coming out.

Summer of 1994, New York City, seems to be an appropriate setting for this coming of age tale about Luke Shapiro, a dope-dealing, college-bound student living in the Upper East Side. He forms an unlikely friendship with his client/psychiatrist Dr. Squires, brilliantly played by Sir Ben Kingsley.

The cinematography was beautiful with soft light and slightly desaturated tones. The acting was a little dry coming from the younger parts, but held together by a strong and funny script. This wasn’t your average coming of age story either. Dealing with life and taking a more appreciative look at broken hearts, this story has a lot to offer beneath the surface.

I enjoyed The Wackness and can see why it was an Audience Award winning favorite at Sundance this year. I look forward to writer/director Jonathan Levine’s future projects.

Pixar did a cleanup job with their latest release. Wall-E is arguably the most perfectly constructed animated film ever produced. 3D animation has come a long way since Pixar revolutionized the industry in 1996 with their first animated-feature, Toy Story.

Wall-E is the last remaining robot left behind by the humans, who left earth to escape the ever growing amount of trash being produced. After 700 lonely years of daily waste management, a guest in the form of Eve arrives. Eve is an attractively modern robot dispatched to Earth on a mission to investigate whether life is sustainable. A quirky but cute robot love story follows as Wall-E trails Eve back to the cruise-ship like space-station the humans reside luxuriously in.