The 2012 Clara Awards Nominees

THE 2012 CLARA AWARDS Nominees

Mindless dribble from the year 2012 best and worst in watched movies, not those we did not see. Movies are only rated by which those that have been seen by Kal Kat and sometimes Marx Cards also. Categories include fantasy, horror, drama, comedy, etc. Nominees are as follows. Best picture will be the one that gets the most in all categories. No best actor or actress categories.

Best Fantasy/Science Fiction

 “Looper”

“Marvel’s The Avengers”

“The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey”

“Skyfall”

“Life of Pi”

“The Dark Knight Rises”

“Iron Sky”

Best Animated Fantasy

 “The Secret World of Arietty (The Borrowers)”

“Wreck It Ralph”

“Rise of the Guardians”

“Disney’s Brave”

“Pirates Band of Misfits”

Best Horror/Thriller

“Django Unchained”

“Chronicle”

“Seven Psychopaths”

Best Drama

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

“Les Miserables” (to be seen)

“Life of Pi”

Best Comedy

“21 Jump Street the Movie”

Worst Fantasy/Science Fiction

“Dredd 2012”

“The Expendables 2”

“I am Number 4”

“The Watch”

“Total Recall 2012”

“The Amazing Spider Man”

“Prometheus”

“The Hunger Games”

“Men in Black 3”

Worst Animated

“Hotel Transylvania”

“ParaNorman”

 “The Lorax”

Worst Horror

“Dark Shadows The Movie”

“The Woman in Black”

Worst Comedy

“The Dictator”

“American Reunion”

“The 3 Stooges Movie”

Worst Drama

“Courageous”

Favorites to win are in red.

Best Fantasy Director

Joss Whedon, Marvel’s The Avengers

Chris Nolan, The Dark Knight Rises

Pater Jackson, The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey

Best Drama Director

Tom Hooper, Les Miserables

Ang Lee, Life of Pi

Best Thriller Director

Quentin Tarantino, Django

Review: "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" is everything and then some

"The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" PG 13
Peter Jackson and his workshop return for the follow up series to the Lord of the Rings, a proper prequel called The Hobbit, which unexpectedly will please even the critics. The story is not so mired in the mythology of the previous movies you have to see them, but there is some serttling in to do, as the prologue set just before the first film sets into motion events 60 years earlier with Bilbo Baggins and his adventures to find the dragon Smaug and fight for the dwarfs to retake their Lonely Mountain where the dragon has their gold. Along the ride are characters from the other movie, with some CG to make them look a tad younger, except for Gandalf, who looks older. Jackson is not allowed to use elements from the Sillmarillion so he renames one of the jewels something else cleverly, but it is supposed to be one of them. Also the meeting of Bilbo and Gollum is changed from the original books, but as a movie they needed to do that to get it visually. The camera used shot in 48 framses per minute, twice the frame rate of modern movies, making the edges a bit fuzzy in some places, and the older people really, really looked 10 years older, when they should have been younger, (Gandalf and Sauron). But that's a nitpick. It's still an awesome movie and a welcome reunion of the cast. I look forward to the second half in a few months.(This film was just released).
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy

 "The Lord of the Rings" PG 13

Rather than make three pages of reviews for a long standing DVD series from 10 years ago, I thought it would be all right to just group all three together since I really didn't do proper reviews of them in the beginning anyway. 
      The series was impressive from the start, back in the early 2000s, the trilogy of the decade as it came to be called, and it set a new standard proving the this upstart New Zealand company could make something that surpasses Lucasfilm by leaps and bounds. They seemed the heirs to Henson's world, and ironically they had spoofed Henson in Meet the Feebles decades before. The story is based upon Tolkein's work, a much broader and more interesting story than his contemporary, the CS Lewis and his Narnia, of which then Disney wanted to make movies out of after tyhis took off. Even they could not do Narnia justice. Jackson did Tolkien justice on every level.

The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring - PG-13     

  

Peter Jackson begins this grand trilogy of Tolkein's world with this exciting Middle Earth coming-of-age story, where Frodo Baggins must join forces with a ragged band to save the planet and bring the One Ring to its end.

   Peter Jackson begins this grand trilogy of Tolkein's world with this exciting Middle Earth coming-of-age story, where Frodo Baggins must join forces with a ragged band to save the planet and bring the One Ring to its end. 

     It is a long movie, but all 3 are quite long, and yet as a fantasy adventure one is never bored. The characters and pacing nicely fit in with humor and pitch battles, bright spots and gloom and doom. It's a visually awesome thing. The settings are clearly not Tolkien's obvious Europe, but New Zealand, and yet you get into it and this doesn't bother you in the slightest.

The Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers - PG-13     

 

The middle part in Tolkein's epic saga as told through Peter Jackson's vision. The fellowship struggles to survive hordes of monster orcs while the Ring leads Frodo and Sam to Gollum, the one who took it, and wants his precious back.

   The middle part in Tolkein's epic saga as told through Peter Jackson's vision. The fellowship struggles to survive hordes of monster orcs while the Ring leads Frodo and Sam to Gollum, the one who took it, and wants his precious back. 

     The second is a little pondering but seems to get the story right, and even hints at stories from the books in addition to a few little extras. The story never gets dull and is extremely pretty and the characters well defined, even when speaking weird languages with subtitles. 

The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King - PG-13     

 

The final installment in Peter Jackson's take on Tolkein pits Forodo Sam and Gollum against the fires of Mt. Doom, and the forces og Gandalf and Gimy and Aragorn against the main forces of villains for control of Middle Earth. Incredible effects. Astounding visuals. 

   The final installment in Peter Jackson's take on Tolkein pits Forodo Sam and Gollum against the fires of Mt. Doom, and the forces og Gandalf and Gimy and Aragorn against the main forces of villains for control of Middle Earth. Incredible effects. Astounding visuals. 
      The epic third act is 3 hours but feels like it should not end, as you are drawn into the quest for the castle and the retaking of the fortress, the final battle of the ring, and the awesome wonder of this epic. Truly a masterpiece.  

From the Flixster files of 2006. 

Review: "Life of Pi" is odd mind trip about a cast away

"Life of Pi" G
Pi is a young man who is the son of a zookeeper in French India a generation ago. When his family has to move with all their animals on a Japanese cargo ship, the ship runs afoul in a storm and is sunk, leaving Pi stranded on a lifeboat with a male tiger, a monkey, and a wounded zebra. Told also as a secondary wrap around set in modern times, Pi tells the story to a novelist who plans to make his story into a best seller. Most of the story is spent on the boat out at sea for over 220 days, crossing the Pacific. The tiger must be tamed or he will surely eat Pi. The zebra and the monkey get killed and presumably eaten. The boy and the tiger learn to cooperate while catching fish to eat. They sail into night and day on the sea and even come across a living island, although the island is likely a metaphor or delusion from being out at sea for so long. The story is somewhat interesting and emotionally charged at times, however there are times the story gets ahead of itself and does weird things just to be different, such as the island thing, and the wrap around story, and the whole back story about the boy's name. These are minor points and not issues or necessarily plot holes. It is a bit long though. Worth a rental. Certainly not Oscar bait but interesting.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Rise of the Guardians" brings fairy tale heroes together to fight the night

     The Rise of the Guardians is another Dreamworks movie, 3D in some theaters, and an odd duck of a film. The story stars a strange league of super heroes, Santa Claus with a fake Russian accent, Sandman, a little bald troll,  Tooth Fairy, a hummingbird like nymph, Jack Frost, a nod to toe-headed mischief makers, the Easter Bunny, with a passable Aussie accent, and the villain, Pitch or the Boogeyman.

     The premise centers on a group of heroes from children’s folklore, based upon a book series of recent years, a mash up of classic fairytale figures. Ignore the fact that jolly Santa the fat man comes directly from a commercial icon of the 1930s, not from St. Nicholas, and it might be fine. Timeless almost godlike super fairies save the world? It could be Queen or Abba! No such luck. But that would make an interesting cartoon.

     Not to be confused with the owl movie from a few years ago, also based on a recent book series, Rise is a unique play on the material of childhood fantasies, but somewhat it squanders this for special effects, eye candy, and a lot of things racing really fast through tight places or into the air.

     The audience is actually clued into Jack’s origins from the opening scene, but he isn’t, and he spends much of his narrative trying to figure out what his beginning was. Enlisted by North or Claus to serve in the elite guardians, he becomes the keeper of frosty things and must stop the rising tide of the fear monger, Pitch, who longs to crush the happy dreams of children and destroy the world’s hope. It could be a grand premise for a GI Joe movie, but it’s about these odd fairy tale figures. The Easter Bunny is a smart Alex Wolverine type guy, as the voice actor is a familiar furry X Men actor, and he doesn’t much like Frost for some incident back in ’68. The heroes must protect the children of a strange castle where these little tooth fairy things are hold up, when Pitch captures them. Sandman is apparently killed in battle. Then Frost is later suckered by the Boogeyman when he tries to find his memories. But the avenging fairies manage to right things long enough to get things to right. The books had nothing to do with owls, or the Avengers, or the Incredibles, but it kind of seems like this has been done before. Not a bad movie, just not quite living up to its premise. Also the idea of the Sandman looking like a bald smiling troll hovering over children might actually give them nightmares faster than the villain.

Review by Adan Browne

Review: "Skyfall" is familiar but interesting twist on James Bond films

"Skyfall" R
Sam Mendez (American Beauty) directs the action thriller, Skyfall, the 23rd official James Bond film with Daniel Craig returning to the role of 007. The 50 year span of making the films was nearly cancelled when MGM again went under, but was then recovered by Sony and Columbia/Tristar. It had been 4 years since the rather lacking 'Quantum of Solace' which did not actually use a story from Ian Flemming's novels, but borrowed a title. Skyfall is also not from the original material. After 22 of these, they've run out of ideas, partly because the cold war is long over, and the idea of super villains taking over the world is kind of silly. Still, one does not go for realism if they sit through a Bond film. Our dapper British super spy apparently dodges bullets, gravity after a train get ripped apart and even death. The Curious story begins after the teaser effectively kills 007 during a train chase, so that M, again played by Judy Dench, and the M16 people, are without him when a cyber terrorist called H, played b Javier Bardem, targets the secret service complex with a gas explosion. Bond returns from the grave, because he was actually immortal apparently, and helps to find out who this mysterious hacker is. With the help of a new Q, a young hotshot hacker, he narrows the search to a mysterious abandoned island, but there the action really gets weird. H has other plans after he is captured which involve M directly and humiliating his former employers in the service. Bond and M must try and escape to Skyfall, a Scottish moor looking something like the one in Lady in Black, (Pinewood Studios must be hard up for sets), where there is a final battle. This is not a global superpower bid one at all, although the villain has such aspirations. He is more concerned with humiliating the agents than taking over the world, which makes for a grittier and more interesting thoughtful movie, along with the action pieces. One curiosity though is Daniel Craig looks really old this time around, even though he's not much older than 40, and he does some of his fighting and a love scene behind a shadowy glass door, or whenever possible, not in daylight, implying they really used some stunt doubles. (This is odd because the first 15 minutes are in broad daylight and he fights there too, but mostly runs from bullets and drives on things). Not sure why they needed to tone down the love scene or the fighting. It was still on a par with some of the better Connery ones which makes it very good.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Wreck It Ralph" is cute nod to classic video games

"Wreck It Ralph" G
Disney and Nintendo seemed to team up in this friendly homage to the classic video games of the 1980s, most notably Speed Racer and Donkey Kong, whereas the lead is a brooding giant of a villain, a Donkey Kong spoof, and the other is a smart mouthed all around hero type in overalls, a Mario spoof. The giant, named Ralph is sad because he always must be the villain and wreck the building in his game, so that the hero, Fix it Felix, can repair it with his magical hammer. This goes on for years and when it comes time for the 30th year of this game, the villain is depressed and runs away, fearing that he will never measure up to the heroes of other games, but determined to get a hero medal anyway. He and other game players may pass in and out of the games through the arcade wiring but can allegedly be killed if they enter another game they're not part of. Ralph enters Heroes Duty, an obvious spoof of Call of Duty, where he steals a medal and then tries to hide in a cutesy Strawberry Shortcake meets Candyland race game, also a nod to Speed Racer, called Sugar Rush. Then he meets an insanely hyper moppet who longs to defeat the king of the game and win, so both team up, but havoc ensues without Ralph back in his world. This sort of Tron for Tots is a cute little movie that will be fun for the family. Also some of the newcomer voices are surprisingly similar to classic characters of yesterday. The cameos by actual game characters are also fun, such as Sonic and Robotnix and the Street Fighter guys from Capcom. The visual style is enough to entertain modern audiences and kids whop had no idea who the older characters are. No doubt there will be tie ins as invented new games out there called Wreck it Ralph and Sugar Rush. They did not exist in the 1980s.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" is a bittersweet teen love story

"The Perks of Being a Wallflower" PG-13
Stephen Chbosky's novel is turned into a film of the same name, by him, and somehow he got Emma Watson to star, along with several relative unknowns. This isn't a bad thing actually. The story is a coming of age narrative set in an age just prior to the cell phone and the internet, maybe 1995, such that references to songs from the early 1980s could be considered old. Charlie is a troubled 14-year-old boy who becomes the titular Gary Stu of the author, (make Mary Sue), and somehow this too works. He is interesting enough as the title wallflower that it isn't pretentious or boring, and certainly is not a 'boy version of Twilight', although it is the same production company. Seven years earlier, Charlie's favorite aunt died and he blames himself for it. Also a year or so before, his best friend committed suicide. One might think, this sounds pretty dark and depressing for a movie, and at times it can be, but actually it's like Amy Heckerling meets John Hughes most of the time, a nod to what would happen if they did a nod to the 'emo' kids. Posers everywhere may have their movie. The boy Charlie befriends a group of seniors self identified as misfits, who get stoned and hang out at parties, a bit like the classic teen comedies, but the characters make the story, not the partying. At one point one of them even quips that 'it's like living in an after school special', but it's far cooler than that. Charlie is far more complex than just your average wallflower, as he is genuinely demented, and yet his friends are in other ways, longing to be the lead in a Rocky Horror live cast, or to have clandestine lovers, or even finding the name of the perfect tunnel song. (It was Heroes by David Bowie. I knew immediately). This is the first great drama of 2012 and hopefully now that it's in wider release will get some Oscar attention. Emma deserves best actress, and has since Harry Potter 6, but now she really deserves it, and the movie should get best picture, if something else doesn't best it. It already has teen drama.

Review: "Seven Psychopaths" tries to Tarantono territory and almost works

"Seven Psychopaths" R
Martin McDonagh;s mob movie spoof seems to riff liberally from Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, old pulp westerns, movies about authors with writer's block, and of all things, A Fish Called Wanda. The story opens with a starving writer and his friend who want to make a story about psychopaths and will stop at nothing to do it. They enlist the help of a crazy old man who with his friend is running a dog kidnapping scam. The younger guy steals the fancy dogs and then the old guy gets the reward and returns the dogs, like a ransom. When their hairball plan goes wrong as they accidentally dog nap a mobster's favorite shiatsu, a little poodle like dog, they become targeted by other psychopaths who want to off them. It helps that Colin Farrell plays it fairly straight, or it just wouldn't work. Woody Harrelson spoofs many of his late persona, as it has been decades since he was that nice guy on Cheers, and he's the mobster. The old guy is Christopher Walken, who for the past decade and a half is playing a younger Marlon Brando complete with accent, but it works because he's so completely nuts in this role. At one point a bad guy is aiming a gun at him, and tells him, 'I have a gun' and he replies 'so what?', and there is another clever scene in the desert when one of them clearly channels a Rodriquez style gunfight. Mostly they have fun with the wordy talk back of Tarantino movies, with some clearly offish lines. It's more of a farce than a comedy, and more of a spoof than a mob drama. No idea why there is a subplot about a Vietnamese crazy dude, but even the writers in the movie act like they didn't need him.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Iron Sky" is send up to bad B movies and great fun

"Iron Sky" R
The team behind 'Star Wreck: In the Pickening', the oddball mash up between The Next Generation and Babylon 5, is given 10 Million dollars Finnish, and given actual B movie actors, like Odo Keur,to make the most outlandish Nazi movie spoof ever, the relatively ignored Iron Sky, which is probably the most brilliant B movie of 2012. The premise, in 1945, Nazi Germany, feeling the end was near in the Great War, launched a top secret space program to the dark side of the moon, where they might as well have found Transformers, but didn't. Instead they found something called Helium 3, and let their society evolve for over 70 years in seclusion until the day when they would return to the Earth, in peace, ha, and conquer it. Although their tech was considerably less advanced than other Earth tech, they managed to construct a fleet of saucer warships, Zeppelin space carriers carrying space rocks, and a giant Leviathan war machine thing that shoots everything in sight, a literal plot device as a giant super weapon.
     It is 2018 when the invasion begins and all hilarity is unusual given New York is clearly somewhere in Eastern Europe, (Frankfiurt on the commentary), and the field scene was one in Australia (not Austria). The goofy UFO invasion is a clear spoof of classics such as Plan 9 from Outer Space, Elsa She Wolf of the SS, and Independence Day. And how can you not root for the Dr. Strangelove riff in Odo Keur as the 'Moon Fuurer', complete with twitching arm and coughing spats! They even pay homage to The Great Dictator, the Charlie Chapin film. 
     The mockery of the United States is handled with goofy neo-con results in that the president is clearly a riff on Sarah Palin, ha, and her aide is some kind of vamp parody of Michelle Bachmann (as a female Dick Cheney, which is just weird). The President spends much of the movie claiming she will arm for war to win an election, and her space battleship is the George Bush, commanded by the vamp chick.
     It is R rated and at timesd extremely unsettling and offensive, but that's half the fun, especially when the offenses are immedately followed by albino humor, off color schitck, and crazy overacting.  It never takes itself too seriously, right on out to the hilarious 'everybody's armed their ships' space war, because evidently they watched Star Wars a lot.
     The Blu-ray version includes plenty of extras, casting stuff, behind the scenes stuff and commentary. Get that version.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Looper" is confounded time travel western

Review "Looper" R
In the year 2044, time travel had been outlawed, and folks from 2074 come through all the time back into time, where men called Loopers are armed with blunderbus guns waiting to blast them out of existence. One day, one of the loopers fails to make his mark and tries to hide out with a looper played by Gordon Levitt, but both are caught and one escapes, that is Levitt's character, and must go about his business like nothing happened, before the mob boss calls him in to question him for escaping and trying to help his friend. The problem is his next mark is a bald man, played by Bruce Willis, who instantly kicks his butt and leaves. Later on, he awakens and is found out by the boss, who orders him to hand himself over, but he refuses and flees. Thirty years later, the mob leader, called the Rain Maker, catches up with him in Asia and kills his wife, but he goes back into time, as Willis, and cold conks his earlier self. The two meet back in 2044 with Levitt playing the good one and his older self playing the evil, jaded one, although shooting marks is also bad. Then the younger looper goes to hide out on a ranch where there is a lover of his, who has an unrelated ESP rated son, who may be the key to the whole thing. The time travel angle is confousing, so much so Bruce's character explains it as a mess that makes his head hurt, which could also describe a night on the town for some. The story is interesting popcorn fun if it weren't for the violent disregard for human life, from men to women to children, but it doesn't pull any punches with action and there is plenty to see. It's definitely R rated.
Review by Adam Browne