Fifth Annual Clara Awards 2014 Movies and nominations

Let the voting begin! The Clara Movie Awards, named for the first cat, 1975-1982, and the county, (a mockery if Oscar who is even more esoteric), return for another go around. This time it appears action films sweep the opening features while sneaky clever films get in a few jabs also.

The films we've seen get rated. The films we did not see get nothing. 

2014 movies

Feb

The Lego Movie (family movie of year, best picture of year)

Robocop 2014 (bad movie)

Anchorman 2 (comedy of year)

Mar

Peabody and Sherman (family movie of year)

The Grand Budapest Hotel (drama of year, best picture of year)

The Muppets Most Wanted

April

Captain America The Winter Soldier (action picture of year)

May

Neighbors 2014 (comedy of year)

Godzilla  2014 (action picture of year)

X Men Days of Future Past (action picture of year)

June

The Fault in Our Stars (Young adult movie of year, drama of year, best picture)

Live Die Repeat or Edge of Tomorrow (action picture of year)

A Million Ways to Die in the West (comedy of year)

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (family picture of year)

Transformers 4 Age of Extinction (bad movie)

Jul

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (action picture of year)

Aug

Guardians of the Galaxy (action picture of year, best picture of year)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014 (worst movie of year)

Sept

The Zero Theorum (drama of year)

The Maze Runner (young adult movie of year)

The Boxtrolls (young adult movie of year)

Oct

Book of Life (family movie of year)

Birdman (drama of year, best picture of year)

Nov

Interstellar (action picture of year, best picture of year)

Big Hero 6 (family movie of year)

The Hunger Games Mockingjay 1 (young adult movie of year)

The Penguins of Madagascar (family film of year)

Dec

The Hobbit the Battle of the Five Armies (honorable mention for all three)

Review: "The Hobbit 3: The Battle of the Five Armies" is needlessly long but fun

"The Hobbit 3: The Battle of the Five Armies" PG 13
     Smaug the Dragon heads off to destroy Lake Town with his fire breath, while the Bard struggles to get to the black arrow, and the King runs off and is killed in the confusion, trying to hoard the town gold.
     Then on the Mountain, the new Dwarf King, Thorin, is going mad over his golden horde, as the dwarfs and Bilbo seem to be hiding the treasured Arken stone.
     Gandalf is imprisoned by Sauron's Nocromancer friend and is to be rescued by the White Witch and the leader of the Wizards, Sauruman, who has other motives.
     The Pale Orc and his armies ally with war bats to attack the Mountain.
     The Dwarfs under Thorin's Uncle and the Elves are about to fight at the Mountain to get the gem necklaces, which have Sumarillions in them.
     The battle of the armies is curiously missing the Goblins, although they are mentioned off-handed at one point as having sent 100 men or so, the same as the survivors of Lake Town.
     I will not give away spoilers as it just came out, but these events lead to an epic long clash of all sorts of creatures and people, and there will be a showdown with major characters in the end. The movie played to an audience of 7, just 7 of us, in a 3D noon show. It wasn't exclusive though. It was just that nobody showed up! It wasn't a bad movie. I liked it. I'm just not sure others might. It seems to be missing something. Maybe it was just that there was too much added and it needed t be cut down, all three needed it. These movies really should have been two movies, without all the extra chaff, otr 3 movies only 90 minutes long. That would have been more fitting.
     Still don't sere in the 3D. The high frrame rate makes everyone look CGI when they aren't. I'll have to see it again in 2D.
     This is not the Oscar worthy movie the last of the first trilogy was. It's a fine immersion, but it's not that great. It's just good, worth repeat watching. Owning it on Bluray later will also make for a better experience. 
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Brazil" is classic dystopia out of time

"Brazil" R
Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame directed a film that at the time Hollywood didn't want, a film about a corporate run society of dreary work, which they naturally felt threatened by immediately and chose not to sell right. It came out in the summer of 1985.

Eventually the film went on to win awards in 1985, as the version released in Europe was far superior to the one released in the US, and had more staying power.

After the studio battle, the film eventually was released on video and became a cult classic over the past 29 years.

When I was about 16 and saw the film on cable late at night,  (around 1987), I didn't get it. The version I saw was the hacked up one missing over 20 minutes, and it had a ridiculous tacked on ending that didn't make any sense.

Last night I finally got the original print, although my friend had seen it and said that's the one tyo watch a decade ago. The glorious Criterion print included the full 142 minute version, connecting the bits that were strung together to make studio hacked nonsense decades ago.

The studio was expecting more Monty Python humor and more cute characters, having seen crowd pleasing 'Time Bandits', of which this is considered the follow up. 'Adventures of Baron Munchhausen' followed this and is not as good. Both are much more light of heart and blunt.

Brazil though is an experiment. It is a message against capitalist over work gone amok. The film is set in a future where everyone does mundane things all day, gray is the new gold, and there is a weird overlord of corporate greed with no master running things.  The totalitarian state is upended only by terrorist attacks from an unknown rebel group, that is never actually caught, and so there are people randomly chosen to be picked up and killed by the police.

When one of them, a certain Buttle, is mistakenly arrested, tried and killed due to a clerical error at the ministry, (a joke on the British system actually), the day dreaming clerk hero, Sam, of the story tries to get to the bottom of it. A fly swatted off of a ceiling fell into the machinery of a printer, leading to said execution. This is actually a very dark and funny moment.

Sam dreams about escaping his endless paperwork, (a mockery of any office job in the 1980s), via a mysterious tune in his head, the theme song 'Brazil' as it has nothing to do with the nation of Brazil. He flies around as a winged knight fighting baby faced ghoul dogs, flying buildings, crashing buildings, ogres, and a giant samauri robot to save the damsel in distress.

Think 'The Meaning of Life' with '1984', but only superficially. The point in 1984 was that the socialist Big Brother state was everywhere, whereas in Brazil the mega company is not big brother so much as an evil Santa Claus like icon, which is why there are Christmas images in their only mall, every day, all the time. Holidays have lost their meaning so that only one is remembered, Christmas, which is ironically a riff on the consumerism of that holiday everywhere.

It could be the story takes place around Christmas time, but it probably is that it's the only remembered work holiday on this particular planet. I'd like to think it is another planet and no Earth, where they have adopted an insane post nuclear mismatch of consumerism and blatant neglect.

Sam is disgruntled at his nutty old Mum and her friends who all want plastic surgery to look younger. The old fussy ladies caterwaul like old maids at a fashionable party while eating disgusting paste globs disguised as caviar. Ironically one of them is so obsessed with plastic surgery that she eventually dies and melts into a soup and is placed in a coffin at a garish funeral in a church that looks more like a theater for some old grand opera house.

Sam eventually meets the real Tuttle, who is actually a freelance mechanic and possible terrorist, working to derail the air conditioning department, but two clowns from the real department destroy his flat.

Then Sam meet Jill, who happens to look like the girl in his dreams, and it appears she is a rebel also, driving a big truck and making what appears to be terrorist delivery runs in and out of the ministry regions of the city. They eventually get it on in his Mom's palace while she is away partying.

Eventually the police arrest him and take him to be interrogated, which in that society is certain death, but he imagines escaping somehow with Tuttle, through the funeral procession, only to have Tuttle then disappear into a flurry of paper at a bombing area in that garish nightmare mall.

The mother has turned into a mockery of Jill and is seen at the funeral.

The interrogation features the evil Santa, actually the old minister, who is behind the corporation.

He dreams to have escaped with Jill to a shire like glade, but then he wakes up,, still interrogated and with his head cooked from being brainwashed or getting a lobotomy.

The Hollywood ending was when they escape and roll credits. That didn't make sense.

'Sucker Punch' was ripping the whole nightmare idea off and using the ending wrong.

'12 Monkeys' is another Gilliam movie that uses a similar ending. The hero is not able to change things.

The cynical ending was head of its time. Today that's considered cool. Let's have the hero get a lobotomy.

The movie works despite itself, and shows the mundane nature of a world turned into a big overstuffed machine that is decaying. It's 1984 minus Big Brother. Hollywood hated this idea for obvious reasons.

As some have speculated, the terrorist attacks in the movie may be little more than machines breaking down and exploding, being blamed on the people. I think it's more of a metaphor. (This is really not what Gilliam had in mind).

It's actually likely the 'rebellion' which is never actually seen is all in Sam's head, like in 'Shutter Island' with the violent episodes, or 'Inception' in the dream world that seems ageless. Suppose from the moment he 'awakens' from the daydream the first time he is actually encountering hallucinations of a more exciting life. His subconscious is then recreating heroes to rescue him. He is the one in distress. (That may be actually what Gilliam had in mind).

Say after Sam attempts to right the wrong in the system and go to Mr.s Buttle, he is actually dreaming. This never happened. He never sees Jill there, or finds out about how to get her records, because a dream girl cannot be real. His promotion then may not be real. His being allowed anywhere near the master records place is evident that he's already the hero in the fantasy, and has somehow changed the mind of the machine. He hasn't.

(This logic would ignore the opening part where the police attack and Jill is briefly seen, but if this is just Sam later recanting what his friend told him happened, he might be imagining her there, as he wasn't there but his friend was).

His mother not being in the palace and later turning up as a lookalike for Jill is Freudian. It's possible that Sam wants to have a dream girl that looks like a younger version of his Mother, and which at one point Jill plays along with also. This is probably him alone in the palace just standing there imagining it. (It is probably not that he imagines his plastic surgery transformed Mum is Jill literally, or disguised as Jill, as then that scene would be even more disturbing).

The escape from the system and destruction of the ministry are clearly dreams. The movie implicitly shows this. He wakes up with his brains scrambled back in the chair in the interrogation room.

Modern dystopian novels aimed at young adults get this wrong. If you had a society regimented by an overlord, real or imagined, you are not going to win. Gilliam understood this. You are especially not going to win with you're an unskilled teenager who actually has no mental powers, or a mental patient in a hospital,  'Shutter Island', 'Sucker Punch', 'One Flew Over the Coocoo's Nest', , or an alleged dream controlling power broker 'Inception'.

Even if you could in against the totalitarian leaders and take over, you'd turn into them eventually. 'The Hunger Games' would end in complete 'Lord of the Flies' anarchy if Katniss actually dies . The only way a Hollywood ending works is if the overlord somehow decides to let them go, like in, 'The Maze Runner', or 'The Matrix'. Maybe the overseers become bored.

Although there are riffs on capitalism in it, the story also has socialist riffs and just about any riff on an all consuming society. It's as much a parody of British royals as it is consumer culture. It is also eerily like today.

People are obsessed with the technology and their mundane routines. Conspiracy and confusion fuels some of the paranoid counter culture. Anarchists are seen as heroes for some odd reason. Conservatives claim a war on religion, when they are guilty of being hypocrites, and Liberals will not admit to mistakes, generally. In the end, Orwell happened. The Internet is being watched. Fortunately, Gilliam also happened. So Big Brother has a twisted sense of humor.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "BirdMan" is dark feathered acting held aloft

Bird Man R
Bird Man is the story of a down and out Broadway actor and producer who once was a comic book superhero, played by Michael Keaton, who played Batman. When his play about love is in rehearsals, his lead is injured by a stage light and has to be replaced by a method actor friend played by Edward Norton.The main character though is also in the play, and has a druggie daughter, played by Emma Stone, who allegedly went to rehab. Also his ex wife, played by Niomi Watts, is in it. Then there is a hard drama critic who wants the pleasure of destroying his story before it goes live.

Riggin, the former Bird Man, has hallucinations where he thinks he can use telekinesis to hurl objects, hears his alter ego in his head and sees him as an actual bird man, and is berated by the alter ego for being a loser. It appears his stage manager doesn't see the hallucinations but it is not clear if his daughter, Sam, also has them, as she might.

Norton plays Mike, the actor asked to replace the one who meets with an accident. Riggin blatantly tells his producer that he caused the accident, but he brushes this off as another of his quirky insane hallucinations.

The play within the play is about a lovelorn ex husband who wants revenge on his ex and her lover.

The story makes allusions to Shakepeare but as an homage not a plot device, referencing lines from his plays through other characters.

Riggin's ex in the real world is bitter, as is his daughter, and both do an Oscar worthy job.

Emma Stone deserves a nod for this movie as does Michael Keaton, but Edward Norton is playing himself.

The older female lead and the younger female lead have a romantic encounter, and later the male lead and the daughter shack up in the scaffolding above the set. The awkward love scene in the scaffolding only works because it's Norton and Stone. Anyone else and it likely would have seemed creepy.

This movie is not a black comedy. It is a drama with some jokes. The jokes are good and well placed, but the rest is so dark drama that it's a drama. It just happens to have some funny lines.

It is not for children. They would be bored or even scared of some scenes. It is rater R for a reason.

(Spoiler). The trailers pretty much explain what's in the movie and almost spoil it that he's hallucinating. Some critics needed it spelled out for them early on, but this movie's only real ambiguity is the idea whether or not Riggin has actually killed his career, or him self, at least three times in the movie.

Like Black Swan, a horror movie about dance theater and hallucinations, this tackles similar ideas and similar ending. This is a more fun movie though, with some light moments.

The parts where Bird Man is flying around the city and landing on things, while a creature attacks the city are clearly in his head.

It does makes one wonder if any of it is real, and he's not just living behind the thing out of a trash bin. 

At one point he is locked outside the stage door and has to go about in his underwear around the other side to the front. The crowd is amazed at seeing him and he becomes a sensation on Twitter. This is probably one of his moments though, as it's not likely in New York city anyone would eve notice it.

The director films the movie in a faux continuous take over three days.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Interstellar" tries for trippy space opera and a message

"Interstellar" PG 13
Chris Nolan and his brother, Jon, craft a strange nod to 2001 and The Grapes of Wrath in this epic space adventure about a dying human race and a last ditch space mission to rescue some of humanity, specifically in America. The local community is desperate because of a long suffering drought period where everything stopped growing somehow, and they somehow still have the means to survive despite it.

Cooper, Matthew McConahauhey, is a farmer who was once an astronaut living on a corn farm where there is a massive dust bowl and blight destroying crops. His Father, Donald, John Lithgow, lives with him and his two children, Tom, Timothee Chalemet, and Murphy, Mackenzie Foy.

Tom wants to be a boring farmer but younger Murphy wants to be a scientist, guided seemingly by a spirit that teaches her things in the farmhouse library. So, he decides to chase after coordinates found by her daughter through the strange trippy ghostly thing in the library, because yes libraries are haunted.

Cooper was an astronaut and is insatiably curious about things, and after tracking a drone he finds coordinates to a secret NASA base, but his daughter stows away and comes with him. Once there, they find Brand, Michael Cain, an eccentric scientist, and his astronaut daughter, Amalia, Ann Hathaway. They learn that the secret group plans to launch a space ark before the human race is wiped out.

Then Cooper decides to join the NASA mission wityout even questioning the idea and leaves his family in a heartfelt moment, although it is kind of weird, because he really should have thought it through. The nagging plot that one his last mission he crashed is ignored when he brazenly is able to fly updated ships without training! Presumably Cooper, which is his last name, just kept up with his training all these years while working the farm.

The mission is to travel to Saturn where 40 years before a wormhole just happened to appear, put there by aliens from another dimension, and presumably it is a means to escape. They journey through the wormhole with one token crewman, who is left hopelessly trapped in time at one point, but rescued 23 years later.

They first visit a watery world near a black hole, which must actually be a wormhole, and there time is slowed for them on the planet, but not for their crew mate who orbits the planet. The hapbless black third crewman is left in orbit, Romilly, played by David Geyasi. Because of the relativistic time shifts of the black hole nearby, the two visit the planet for a few hours, but 23 years pass in orbit. This is kind of silly. The token crewman could have had all the time to send word that they were at the time planet and where to find them. They had communications one way with Earth, which is weird, and were never once able to send anything back to Earth, but then later Cooper will do just that.

Then they go to another planet where there is a frozen snowball surface which they could not apparently check even though they had black hole, er wormhole, traversing communication with Earth. The space mad astronaut they find, name of Mann, Matt Damon is pretty obvious from the get go. Here it is Forbidden Planet a little, and 2001. Not going to spoil it as to what happened with him.
In order to explain the movie plot, some elements have to be given away. It is a good movie that should be seen in theaters, even if it is a little long. If you do not want spoilers, stop here.

(Spoilers). Eventually the two heroes make it off the ice planet. Then Cooper decides to travel into a singularity to the mysterious alien 'tesseract' or cosmic cube from Marvel! (They borrowed the name). Inside the cosmic cube though, it is like a fifth dimension and time is a physical space, and it's all trippy like the end of 2001, with the all points in space time leading to the wormholes, the way out, the math formula they need, and everything!

(Spoilers). At the same time, somehow the now grown children have to escape the farmhouse when the dust gets too bad, and miraculously the daughter thinks to pick up the watch, talisman, space thing, which the alien has transmitted the answers inside using a ridiculously convoluted outdated coding device. Inception meets Code Talkers. Well that is trippy.

Tesseract! Yes I know it's also a mathematical puzzle, but in Marvel movies and comics it is also the energy cube used by the Asguardians, and Thor, and in Transformers it was the Cosmic Cube or All Spark.

The great lengths they go to convey that the cube has the ability to manipulate space time is not used to simply negate the entire story! If you can transmit code, you can transmit video images, technical plans, cure the blight, and save the human race. Maybe Cooper wasn't thinking at the last minute there. And man, in the future his space suit has one heck of an air supply converter, which comes in handy when he might be rescued in the future floating in space by the space explorers, or something.  

They used an actual scientist, Kip Thorne, on this movie and still had a guy dive into a black hole. He would have been stripped into his atomic elements never to return. Presumably the Tesseract was put in the way to stop him, which begs the question, who put it there and how did they know where he would be? Is that for the sequel? Nolan loves making up more questions than answers. Oh, maybe the guy was smart enough to transmit his coordinates too, into the watch. They could have done it so much easier. Have the aliens transmit a live message! They can because they did it before when talking to the other ship, as it had to be the aliens doing that. No way can communication travel to other galaxies faster than light.

And why did it have to be another galaxy? Solar system would have made more sense. It's still fantastic if it's another solar system in our galaxy. I bet what happened is even with a scientist into black holes on his staff, he never once asked the difference! Yes, another solar system. Your story would be called Intergalactic if it was another galaxy.

And if they do mount a rescue of the girl on the colony, she will likely be dead by the time he gets there. See, if you had just made it another solar system, it would have worked!

(Spoilers). Also if the human race goes out into space and knows that he sent the message to them, via the watch, then they should have gone looking for him a long time ago, and should have known to send help to the colony planet also. Well maybe he was not able to send that much information to the past, or something, but they say it's never about time travel to the past, except when it kind of is.

Apparently this was intended to be a Spielberg movie but he passed on it, and in the original script the aliens were a real thing that were just looking to save one of theirs, ala ET, not to save humanity. The planets were just out there. The other galaxy stuff came in later too, as it was merely another series of solar systems. It works better this way actually. 

Some critics complained about Nolan not understanding human emotion, or putting too much into the first two acts, but really this is not a problem in the movie. They had seen the original script where there was no ecological disaster and it was just about an alien, which would have made it a glorified mess. No wonder Spielberg passed. Nolan did pretty good with it.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "The Book of Life" is colorful scare festival for the ages

"The Book of Life" PG
This animated feature from Reel Studios Animation tries for the same territory as that in Tim Burton stuff, and succeeds.

In the present, a tour guide leads a group of children into a secret room in a museum to show them the book of life, a magical storybook where all of the stories of the world are kept. Some stories are true and some not.

The story she tells is that of San Angel, a village in Mexico during the 1800s possibly, where there there is an evil cabal of bandits threatening the town, and two young boys who pine for a young girl.

Each Day of the Dead, the village celebrates the festival to honor those who died. Two mysterious figures of the underworld wager that they can control one of the boys, and convince them to either marry the girl someday, or not.

The two creatures seem to be a cross between Greek and Spanish tragedies, and also from old Mayan.

The male demon (Xuibalba) convinces one of the boys to take a mysterious amulet that grants him the power to never be hurt, while the female angel creature (La Meurta) tries to impart something to the other.

Ten years later, the boy who took the gem returns a hero (Jaquim) and the boy who becomes a bull fighting guitarist becomes kind of a loser (Manalo). The loser is the true hero, so the audience, mostly children, is drawn to the character.

The evil male demon it turned out loves the angelis creature but they have a love and hate thing, and when he senses the wager will be destroyed when the girl (Maria) falls for the singer, he tricks the tyoung man and he is killed, sending him to the underworld where he must form an alliance with the dead to get back to his lady love somehow.

Although similar to other creepy underworld and land of the living tales, and cartoons, it takes a twist on the classics and melds them together into a modern myth that seems to have classical undertones.

It is not a rip off of Corpse Bride or Nightmare Before Christmas, or Paranorman, or BoxTrolls.

The only thing that becomes annoying is the pop culture references in some scenes. The songs are modern but done with accents. The jokes about fast food and sexism seem kind of out of place, but because it's a fable, perhaps the modern tour guide is adding them.

The funniest lines concern the center of the world, the land of the remembered, and the bizarre candle man played by Ice Cube, and the kinky relationship the two underworld rulers seem to have for each other. Little children may be a little scared and ask a lot of questions. It seems geared for actually those over 13, but it's still PG.

It's a good movie to see in theaters and to rent or own later, to amuse your children on Halloween for a while.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "The Boxtrolls" is creepy cute flick

"The Boxtrolls" PG 
The Boxtrolls tells the strange stop motion story of Cheese Bridge, a fictional town where the aristocratic men have a club that eats cheese and wears fine white hats, while below the city there are box trolls, little goblin like things, hunted by the evil red clothed villain and his henchmen.

Eggs is an orphaned boy who was raised by the trolls and has come to the surface world to rescue his troll friends who had been taken prisoner by the villains. He runs across a red haired girl who happens to be the mayor's daughter, who goes with him on an adventure to find the lost trolls.

The adults will enjoy the curious riffs on rich fat cats living in luxury while the poor people of the town need things. In one scene the rich people go on about a giant cheese wheel instead of a hospital.

It is fairly easy to follow what happens next as the villain is so obvious in the charades he does, and clearly meant to be a cliche of those old melodrama villains, complete with a fiendish plot to usurp the town via pretending to be an exterminator, and his crutch is a love of cheese that he can't eat, and a ridiculous desire to merely wear a white hat. (Villains have black hats sometimes). His lackeys even discuss whether or not they're actually bad guys, which is one of the funniest parts. The inventor is also supposed to be a parody, but in a horrific state of being hung upside down until he's gone so nuts he can only say 'Jelly' repeatedly.

The story is only sometimes intense and might frighten very little children, but it should be okay for anyone over 8, whereas the grade school crowd seems to be what's it's geared to. Keep in mind it is a horror story with some jokes, but primarily is not meant to be taken as a comedy outright.

Coraline was much creepier. Nightmare before Christmas was at least a musical as well. 

The box trolls are pack rat creatures who like in the underworld stories of many classics collect the lost items others left behind, or take them, which makes for some interesting inventions and things made from discarded things. Pack rats will love this movie just for that. The trolls can 'transform' and hide inside their boxes. Toy line might follow.

This is considered a horror film not a comedy so don't go into it thinking it will be all cute and charming. It's kind of dark and brooding. It is based on a book called 'There be Monsters' (not reviewed), but the film was good.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "The Expendables 3" tries for new blood but something misfires

"The Expendables 3" PG 13
Stallone and his ragged band of GI Joe special ops 'expendables' return for another go around, feeling their ages, so they recruits some unknown younger guys to help them fight crime all over the globe. The original premise of this, and likely of the spin off planned for later, is that these are washed out old action stars. Putting in new action stars just makes them redundant, like sitting through a remake of a remake. Since this newest installment is like watching seven different 80's action flicks rolled into one, it's time for some new younger stars.Also it is only PG13.

Stallone is hired gun once again with Lungren, Statham and Crews, and now Snipes is along for the ride this time, as is Kelsey Grammer and Harrison Ford. Schwarzenegger gets more lines, most of them cribbing lines from his other movies. His favorite seems to be "Get to the chopper!" this time.

It never really made sense to include Crews, but Statham kind of makes sense. And Kelsey Grammer, just because of X Men, really? Where's Mr. T? I pity them without Mr. T. (A Team reference). How about Hulk Hogan?

This time Mel Gibson is the heavy, the first Expendable apparently, who has gone rogue and wants to buy artwork in seedy countries so that he can secretly make arms deals, and blow a lot of stuff up in the process.

Stallone is sent to stop Gibson but he has to enlist the help of Ford, the temporary replacement for Willis from the other movies, so that he can get a new team together after Crews is injured.

The action follows in several make believe countries from eastern Europe to South America. Along the way, the old heroes and the new ones come together to attempt to stop the bad guy in an epic fight involving some kind of Latino army and Gibson in an abandoned city skyscraper complex. They even use the old 'we have a bomb set to go off in 2 minutes' gag, which goes on for 45 minutes, thanks to a jamming device that is running low on batteries, for the same amount of time.

The odd thing is the new crew, who are quite different from the premise. If the idea is they're supposed to be movie action stars, only the guy from Twilight has been in anything, and it was a fantasy series! The girl and one of the guys are MMA fighters, but have never been in major film roles.

So they've ducked the premise of their being 'action stars' and said siad they're upcoming stars, maybe.

And why haven't they let Jet Li do any martial arts in this?

This movie was more hyper than the other two, which isn't better necessarily.If they dodge bullets and mortars so much, how can one of them even get hurt? Many more questions will arise watching this. Most of them are answered though by, oh it was done in the 1980s like this.

And if you're going to rip off the A Team, where the heck is Mr. T? Where's Dwight Schultz?

Wouldn't Chris Pine have made sense rather than the Twilight werewolf?

Antonion Bandaras though it spot on. His character acts with Stallone quite demented and comes off as this nutty eager ex patriot.

Harrison Ford also seems to be enjoying being grumpy and also delights in pretend helicopter  action.

Well there is is, another movie. When the finish the Expenda-Belles, it will be reviewed, but they didn't get Sigoruney Weaver, so expect at least that complaint next time. (That is the name of the fourth one,).

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "The Giver" is not such a wonderful life

"The Giver" PG 13
This film is actually not bad and is recommended for being actually quite an original twist on the YA genre dystopia stories of late. The novel it is based on is part of a series that predates all of them, the Giver quartet. It seems more like a nod to Orwell and his 1984 than it is to say Battle Royale or Dystopia. Some critics only read the press release. It is nothing like the Hunger Games of Divergeant, except the premise of a fallen utopia, which is a basic science fiction conceit, 'man versus his creation'. Post communist thought is evident in the novel and the movie.

It is worth a viewing and could be watched again on DVD or bluray just to figure some things out, as it is not an easy movie to follow and one can find more in it on a second showing. 

Phillip Noyce, a crime thriller director usually, takes on the adaptation of 'The Giver' by Lois Lowry. The trailer made the movie look like an action thriller with drones chasing bikes and motorbikes, and people screaming. Actually the trailer is ridiculous. If you go in thinking it is going to be an action picture, you will be disappointed. Maybe Alphonse Cauron might have been a better choice of director, but oh well.

The book is a psychological drama set to a dystopian (fallen untopia) future where an idyllic culture only looks great and perfect, but is actually corrupt and rotten. Apparently long ago this society was created to end war, strife and pain, and was stuck inside a barrier system somewhere in the wastelands of the old world.

The movie is different though, as the 1984 vibe is more literal. Big Brother in this case is a sister, and she is literally watching your every move. Thoughts are controlled through medication and some kind of implants that allow for telekinetic and psychic memory implants.

The story is told from the vantage point of a young teenager. In the book he is only 12, and he should be in the movie. The vast difference between the onset of puberty and practically old enough to have a car and a job is astronomical. It would have made much more sense had they cast at least 14 year olds. Then the idea of them being assigned jobs, even as birth mothers, (The baby's mother is a teenager in the book), would have been more punctual. In the books there is that idea, which tells the reader immediately that this society likes child labor, which is already a sign it's messed up.

The boy, Jonas, has two friends in a world where there should be no friendship, and he is judged to be the Receiver, and to have his job be keeper of memories. This would seem a slightly ridiculous idea. If you want to control your society, allowing them access to the very thing that keeps them in line is like saying hey, rebel why don't you. In the book it makes more sense.

Jonas begins to have feelings for Fiona after being given memories from the Giver, the crusty old sage of the village. The old sage failed a decade prior giving memories, (to an obvious Disney princess cameo), so doing it currently seemed like a good plan.

Thoughts and memories cannot travel outside the human brain. People think they can have psychic powers, but it's all fantasy. This is fine, but in this movie it is treated like a download from a memory chip.  Are they all androids? Then it makes sense a little. If they're machines, they can merely imitate their human creators, and would essentially be a modern Frankenstein monster procreates and makes a society. But according to the book, they're just ordinary humans who are in this communist (literally a community of same people), and socialist (but ruled by a dictator who appears benevolent), utopia gone bad, but are not aware they're bad, and misguided, and essentially as bad as the old world in a way.

The moral center from the book is still there, about the denial of love, of color, or music, and even ironically the nurturing the community implies keeps everyone in line. Even the messed up parts from the book made it in. Not giving it away.

Maybe the hero's journey in the story is all a dream and he will wake up? Nope. It's not a dream. Not in the book. It's been out for over 20 years and this is no spoiler. Ignorance literally becomes their bliss. And if you've read the other three books, yes it is not a dream.

So really it's not a great movie but it's entertaining and will teach a message. The movie does get that right. It is quite clear that sameness and perfection would make mankind superficial and dull, and the idea lands squarely in the YA realm, where everyone seems to try and fit in.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Ninja Turtles 2014" is the mutated version that may leave some shell shocked

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014" PG 13
Apparently in 1999 there is a warp in space time where somehow April O'Niel was a little girl and her father some kind of scientist making the mutigen, an alien ooze, that leads to the creation of Splinter, Mikey, Raph, Donnie and Leo, the ninja turtles of the future. Somehow they are rescued and survive the destruction of the lab, while the paper thing villains plot their future revenge on tyhe city, based on hearsay from this evil businessman, who is from the get go evil.

Michael Bay did not direct this, and that's good. So it shows that the guy that did knew a little bit about the variations of the Eastman and Laird comics, even if he changed it considerably.

The movie plays a bit more like the 2003 reboot cartoon than it does the 1990 movie, but it is a remake of the 1990 movie, complete with a convoluted reason for why Shredder is now white, Splinter is now clearly played by a white guy, and the turtles are way too big and their magic blood enters into the story somehow. (It wasn't written by Kurtzman or Orci but by some of their allies).

The bad guys want the magic blood so that they can fire off a dirty bomb and then use it to cure everyone, making themselves rich from being called heroes. This idiotic plan would never work because they have no idea if it will even work on humans. It's that much of a mess.

It is no more silly though than in 2007 in the cartoon movie based on the 2003 cartoon in which they're older and this evil villain wants the turtle's powers to activate a stellar alignment whereas in that one stars apparently hang like planets just above the Earth. The turtles foil this plan also.

Speaking of dirty bombs, did the creators know the miscasting of April would create so much fervour? Was Megan Fox miscast? Yep. Why didn't they just let Gellar come back from the 2007 one? Who said April has to be hot? She wasn't on the show or in any of the cartoons. Megan does get to channel Shia at one point when she is running from some foot clan people and goes, 'No,no,no!', which is like weird.

Then again, in the Transformers cartoon, Carly wasn't hot. She was a nerd who could fix stuff. They've changed the Turtles a little too, like they tend to do.

Not sure if Johnny Knoxville was a good choice to play one of them, as he sounds a bit too unnatural. 

Making Shredder actually Japanese would have not been insensitive to the Japanese. Why must Hollywood change things to make everyone white? They did this in Iron Man 3 because Mandarin could have been an offensive villain, but here Shredder is supposed to be a ninja from Japan! He's obviously not in this movie.

The fighting looks like Transformers and Shredder looks like Megatron with blades. If you want cool ninja moves, go see the original trilogy, 1990 to 1993. They were campy but at least they had heart. The first is the best.

The 2007 movie was almost as good as the second one, which was okay.

The third movie was not worth it, although after this, the third one might be considered a better film.

The new Turtle movie is not ultimately horrible and the critics have been merciless to it, when they know full well Bay produced it, so as one of his movies it rates alongside the first Transformers film, 2007, but is not as cool as the 2007 Ninja Turtles cartoon film.

Do not spend 12 bucks to see it in 3D. Just see it cheap. You will then have melted your brain for two hours.

Also the big lipped turtles are given such lips so that they can compensate for Megan's enhancement created lips, but there is no kissing in the movie.  For shame.

And there is a fart joke, but it actually works in the context of the movie, but considering it comes off in a sewer, they could have just pretended it was a leak somewhere.

But even though Megan is miscast this is probably one of her best performances in a movie, as she no longer sports that spray on tan, and has learned how to act against made up characters and stand ins, and actors like Whoopie Goldberg. And when she was acting with the motion captured turtles she was also not bad. Lol. So basically she acted better this time with the human characters, not just made up ones. Lol.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy" is underdog fun for all

"Guardians of the Galaxy" PG 13
James Gunn directs the next Marvel movie, a Chris Pratt and Zoe Saldana vehicle for the Marvel super hero series, set in another part of the galaxy. The story begins with a flashback to 1988 where a young boy playing headphones and a Walkman is called into his mother's hospital room by his grandfather. She dies before he can find out about his father. He rushes out into the field by the hospital ad an alien spaceship sucks him into space.

Twenty five years later, Star Lord, the now grown boy Quill,  still has his Walkman and it still works, and he flies around in his Milano space ship looking for not just booty as in pirate treasure, but also booty in the other sense.

He comes across a ruined planet where he must score a polished alien orb and get paid by a gunny looking alien, but another alien tries to take the orb, leading to a chase sequence. Eventually he makes it to a binary star system called Nova, where there is a fantastic city state ruled by a crusty female alien. Before he can fence the orb, a green lady alien and a small powerful rodent are hot on his tail, with a large tree thing helping the raccoon alien.

Everyone wants a piece of Star Lord, and there begins probably the most fun fantasy film since Firefly and the original Star Wars. Star Lord is trying to be Han Solo and Mal Reynolds, a working stuff bounty hunting self proclaimed loser, and along for the ride are aliens of every creed who either want to kill him, or merely get him out of the way to get to his treasures.

Eventually, the tree man, Groot, who only can say his name, the green assassin Gamora, the bionic raccoon and Star Lord are arrested and tossed in a Novas prison, which they plan to break out of, with newcomer Drax who they meet in prison, a slow witted hulk who doesn't get metaphor. They break out and are chased by lackeys for this big bad dude named Thanos, one of whom is called Ronan, want betray him and use the orb to destroy Nova, the Earth like planet.

The movie is just fun all around and should not be taken as a serious movie. It is a space hero movie with a clutch of talking aliens who behave like bandits and come out at ultimately compassionate, longing to get a piece of the action, but never quite getting there. Most superhero movies go for the super powerful demigods, ultra geniuses and such, but this one goes for the lefotver ones that might be hired to clean up after the major heroes have left a mess everywhere.

Again it would seem the creators were thinking what many teenagers did in the 1980s, escape from reality for fun, but not necessarily being super, just merely important.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is a revisionist take on earlier legend

"Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" PG 13
The plague that attacked the human race at the end credits of Rise of the Planet of the Apes has decimated humanity, leaving San Francisco a wasteland, but a police state has formed in a futuristic colony building tower somewhere in the city. (It does not exist now). The film is set around 2026 or so, so it's the future. The apes that got out in the last one have set up camp in the woodlands across the golden gate bridge, but in the movie this is made to look like a vast Canadian style wilderness. Ah, Hollywood. The story opens in the ape lands using sign and subtitles, but then we meet the humans, who stumble into tgh woods looking to restore the dam. (What dam? Did they build that later too)? Then they can get power to the colony.

This might seem a little like "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" but with new CGI motion capture and nifty special effects tricks.

The human colony leader decides that he wants to arm his colony with weapons from a cache at the Presidio, which is for some reason still stocked with such things, even after a global pandemic. The leader is kind of paranoid and nuts, and when the apes show up he goes off the deep end, but the other rational humans try to go to the apes and get their help.

The dam is eventually repaired, but factions in the human camp and factions in the ape camp are turned to their own ends, and want to destroy the fragile peace, leading to a possible all out war in the streets.

Some of the post Katrina New Orleans streets are used as San Francisco ones.

The Canadian wilderness becomes the park land.

Anyway, the story is engrossing and exciting on the big screen and must be seen there, although HD bluray rentals would also be nice, or to own it.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Earth to Echo" tries very hard to be ET and Super 8 but is an echo of them

"Earth to Echo" PG 
An adult group of mysterious workers is allegedly building a freeway while some friends in high school use found footage techniques to go on one last night quest, but they find an alien instead. An alien crash lands in a Nevada suburb, leading some teenage boys on an adventure to free him and send him home. It sounds like ET from 1982 and like Super 8 from just af ew years back, but it's not. Echo stars a little CGI owl alien thing that is found in the desert and begins to mimik the boys that find it. They soon learn that it is trying to get to as space ship hidden under the neighborhood, and that is why there is a plan to uproot the area and allegedly build a freeway.

It isn't a bad movie, it's just like a cross between Cloverfield, shaky cam stuff, and super 8, and a bit of Paranormal Activity is tossed in. Some of it harkens to ET but more than often, the Goonies is also there, as they attempt to rehash the 80sd boy's journey deal again. It's worth a rental.

The young cast is merely competent and not as charming as those in Goonies or in ET, but they manage.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Transformers Age of Extinction" tries to imitate newer animated series with typical explosions

"Transformers 4: Age of Extinction"
The third sequel to Michael Bay's take on the iconic classic Transformers series reboots the humans.

As for canon the film makes it seem kind of like Transformers Animated, where Megatron'd head leads human inventor to build him a new body,  and Transformers Prime Beast Hunters, where like in the classic series, Megatron is reborn again somehow, as though both meet. The never movies have always been about the post Armada stories, with a little of the classic peppered throughout, but never enough.

The comparisons with the series are superficial though, as the writing team were given only an outline and Bay ran off and filmed several explosive set pieces, then someone strung them into a semi cohesive plot.

Although there are more personalities with the robots, finally, they're still textbook Bay, not Transformers. This time though Optimus Prime comes off as kind of a jerk who wants to destory the humans for killing both Autobot and Decepticon kind alike. He goes in disguise and is adopted by a human, Cade Yeager, in Texas, who then discovers he's a Transformer. Then a top secret group making a lot of noise trashes his ranch while trying to find him, leading the hero, and his hot blonde teenage daughter, and her boyfriend, to a road trip to find other Transformers while on the run.

The two villains are a CIA guy named Harold Attinger and his lackey, Joshua Joyce, whereas Attinger is evil apparently and is pulling this corporate scientist to rebuild Megatron into Galvatron to destroy the Autobots, like there will be nothing wrong with that.

Cade, Tessa and Shane are on the run and eventually make it to the desert where they run into the Autobots, new ones that sound bizarre, but not too offensive, except for maybe the homage to samurai. Then they high tail it to Chiocago, which looks pretty gfood for a city that was decimated 5 years before. They then break into Joyce's secret lab and try to convince him he's doing evil.

Somehow later on they encounter a Decepticon ship that formerly was commanded by the Klights, whoever they were, and is now under Lockdown, a Decepticon bounty hunter with a gun face. You'd think the recoil would blow his head off. Oh well.

Lockdown wants to get the all spark so he can blow it up in Hong Kong, but they call it the Seed this time, and it looks like a metal robot poo.

They group somehow gets onto the alien ship, captured, and must escaping, leading eventually to Hong Kong where there is an epic series of battles and spy versus spy, and where finally the Autobots enlist the Dinobots to help them fight the Deceptions and get that spark thing slash bomb, slash cyber forming metal maker back.

So the seed acts like the key for Vector Sigma and if you blow it up it's bad. Got it.

Well it's not a horrible waste of time, with its similarities to other stories, and even online fan films like mine, from years back, but it is at times a little long and nauseating.

At least they got rid of the endless stream of dumb jokes and only went for some of the mawkish humor.

I saw the 3D version which was also kind of painful. Later I will have to see the other version.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Cloud Atlas" is engaging but ultimately a reference to karma

"Cloud Atlas" R
This complicated Wachowski sibling vehicle is a Tom Hanks and Halley Berry acting adventure in an attempt to get a 2012 Oscar. Now that it is 2014, it has actually been seen for review here. It probably needs a second viewing, but it's tedious so it will not be necessary.

It is not actually about time travel, as the trailer implies, but about some kind of meta trip by souls through history, connected like a sort of far eastern allegory, crossed with a lot of weuropean cultural hangups, people in strange eras and costumes, and a really completely disconnected science fiction world at the end.

The reason for this is that much of the earlier footage set in the past, from the 1800s stuff to the 1970s stuff, was shot by several crews. It is three or four different movies. If you like one of them, then just watch that.

Although they do not reference video games they do reference use of cell phones and old movies, including an obvious and rather jarring reference to Soylent Green, specificially the ending, which actually gives away one of the plot twists later on.

Fahrenheit 451 is also referenced. 

In the far off distant future, a former native of Big Island in a future similar to that in The Time Machine, is telling his grandchildren about being trapped on devastated Earth and being rescued by the humans that left the planet for space colonies.

Fifty some years earlier, the tribesman is trapped in a war over land while a mysterious ghost chases him, and a human from a space crew that has been studying the tribe breaks regulations and rescues the man.

Over a century earlier, in a future Seoul, Korea, a mysterious AI robot server becomes the Christ like leader of a rebellion unwittingly when she is saved by a mysterious stranger.

In the present day, 2012, an old man is trapped in a nursing home.

Then in the 1970s, a woman reporter must stop a mysterious environmental scandal when she unwittingly falls into a crime scene.

In the 1930s there is something about a mysterious author and some bad guys.

In the 1800s during slavery times there is a sea crossing where a man is poisoned by a crazed rich guy so he can steal his money, slowly.

Many of these stories allegedly intertwine because actors play several parts. The original story was a novel that was nearly not adaptable to screen. This could have been much better played as a miniseries, each episode taking place in each time period, so there was no flash forward, flashback stuff until the last act.

The jumps become disconcerting like the directors were on drugs, or had serious ADHD, or both.

Yes the directors were in love with the sound of their own stuff, and it shows, and yes it was based on a book of similar pretense, but still guys, come on.

Although it is not a bad movie, and it is engaging, it's just too confusing, and should have been two movies or a miniseries.

Clearly the concept was such a big idea they claimed destiny somehow makes people reborn over and over, like karma, and that somehow everything is connected. Six Degrees of Wachowski, with creepy undertones of that the creators are secretly in love with each other for real, not just in the movie.

They even have messages about intolerance everywhere, and that's okay, but it is 2012 as of the story and there should be very little left to the imagination about that.


And it was also directed by this other crew that did all the stuff that made more sense, but they don't get much mention.

So it is a mess but it's not a bad movie. It's probably on the bargain bin so it might be fund to have playing in the background at a party while discussing the nature of movies and destiny.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "A Million Ways to Die in the West" tries very hard to be 'Blazing Saddles'

"A Million Ways to Die in the West" R
Taking a page or more from Rob Zemekis, Mel Brooks and Quentin Tarantino, Seth McFarlane's corny western ode is a ballad of gross jokes and gunfight cliches but it actually works somehow. The creators of Ted and a few Comedy Central shorts summon their inner cowboy and go out to the 1880s in Arizona.

This is nowhere near the town in Back to the Future 3 even though it's referenced in the trailer, Hill Valley California is clearly some town near Los Angeles in that film, and that scene was in 1885, not 1883 when this takes place.

The town is not all that important though. The gag is that it's such an awful hell hole that frequently people randomly die just because chance is a bad, bad thing. The hero is a sheep 'farmer' who is dumped by his girl because she likes a man with a mustache. His upright Christian friend is a clueless puppy who is dating the town harlot, at the cat house, and is oblivious to this fact even when told repeatedly.

Then in comes the oily bad guy, the nastiest gunslinger in the west, who married his partner ridiculously young, and runs around killing defenseless prospectors and anyone who looks at him funny. The wife though runs on ahead during a raid and befriends the hero, teaching him about life while observing the town's self destruction firsthand.

Eventually it will be up to the hero to face the villain and save the day, but along the way he gets high off an overdose of Indian spirits and gets into several near gunfights.

It could have been a hilarious movie, and at times it almost is roaring funny, but the jokes are mostly gross outs, that modern stock of joke where it's funny to make someone poop in a hat...a lot. (It was pretty funny actually).

Then at times is tries so hard to imitate Blazing Saddles that one half expects the cabaret ending. I will not give away the Tarantino connection though. They go there.

Some things in this movie are just downright mean, from the dastardly villain to the disaffected parents of the hero who when he was a boy left him a disgusting surprise from the Tooth Fairy.

The gags about the cathouse are actually pretty clever. At one point a bandit holds up the feeble guy and his hooker girlfriend and his reply is, 'Don't shoot us during night sex'.  Ha.

The all star cast is well known and they seem to enjoy the film.

It's not a great movie but it would make a decent rental or even to own on the bargain bin.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Edge of Tomorrow" plays to edgy Tom Cruise and battletech gamers

"Edge of Tomorrow" PG 13
Doug Liman directs a movie version of 'All You Need is Kill' with Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt playing special forces people in an alien invasion. What could possible go wrong? Well in minutes of the big action landing, they die! Then they are rebooted to another timeline, ala Groundhog Day, or maybe Halo or Eve, or Starcraft, with elements of any number of strategy video games. The mech suits look something like exoskeleton armor from any number of games, as mech warriors and armored soldier games are everywhere. So why not make a movie about it? The novel might not be much like this though.

The idea that Tom's colonel character is moving through time is silly but go witrh it. He gets splashed on by alien blood and gets powers because the alien Omega's brain somehow has the ability to time shift. Yep, it seems pretty out there. It is science fantasy. It also seems like the Lords of Xenu might have inspired it. (Tom is a Scientologist, but not his character). Anyway, so aside fro audience members cracking jokes about the silly mad scientist 'Is he L Ron Hubbard?'or the alien brain, 'Is that Xenu'? the movie is so nuts that it's actually entertaining.

It was a better movie than 'Oblivion' just by including actual people and having actual tension going on that didn't seem immediately forced or robotic. Tossed into the action, the direction moves when it should, and the slomo is not embarrassing, although a lot of the Paris part was so dark! In 3D it must have been nearly black.

Each time Cage dies he gets more powers somehow, which is never explained, or at least doesn't make sense, but the audience seemed okay with it. The idea is that somehow he can recall not only what happened before, but also pull in strength and alertness from other timelines, because of the alien blood that gets sprayed on him. This is really a stretch, but somehow seems more rational than the alien plan.

The aliens are some kind of land squid things with glowing blue blood that use time travel as a defense against planets they invade. This seems cool on the off set until you step back and figure, how the heck did they evolve such a power? Then how does Cage somehow use it? How does Rita lose it,really? If Cage and Rita, the main characters, are always in a paradox, there is no losing or gaining from the share. If anything, they gain from it.  Then why would the aliens be dumb enough to allow such a power to be passed on to their enemies through bleeding on them? Dumb idea. They would then know all and see all eventually.

Then again, in Battlefield Earth (with John Travolta of Xenu) the aliens teach humans to understandf math, and fly the invasion that decimates their plans, so aliens in this story follow the same logicor lack thereof.

Time travel is a total head banger. But at least this movie says ignore that because a lot of cool stuff explodes and it's a video game and it thankfully is not Michael Bay or M Night Slayaman.

Xenu would also thank them. Ha. Is it mocking Scientology or just time travel, you decide, and see in in theaters or buy it later.

Maybe the makers of Starcraft and Eve should consider suing this movie maker! Ha. 

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "X Men: Days of Future Past" attempts to retcon mistakes from past films

"X Men: Days of Future Past" PG 13
The follow up to 'The Wolverine (in Japan)" is directed by Bryan Singer, who for let Bret Ratner direct the third movie, agreeably the weakest link in the series, so he could go on an make Superman Returns the most darkly adoring stalk slasher movie ever. Yes, he knew that the script for The Lat Stand sucked, and pawned it off to the other guy, hoping he'd take the fall. Well this is according to legend.

In this remake he attempts to redeem his mistakes by putting Wolverine in the future where mutans and humans are being exterminated by crazed robot Sentinels and Cable is in it, (but miscast), and Professor X and Magento of the future have a way to send his consciousness back into time. They have this mutant that can do it, and she sends Wolverine's mind back to 1973 to try and convince the cast of X Men First Class to team up and stop the assassination of a short and frustrated Ron Burgundy clone who is trying to build those pesky Sentinels.

Thank goodness it is not about trying to change the Kennedy era somehow, but it is mentioned that Magneto was arrested for the infamous Kennedy assassination, but was framed. Wolverine and his new found mutant allies must bust him out to restore the timeline.

Singer plans all along to try and kiss butt to X Men fans and try and right The Last Stand. This review will got give away if he does or not.

Yes, the story is based on the comic books where the Phoenix saga leads into the Cable saga and Days of Future Past, and then Apocalypse, which will be next, but this time the adaptation works. The 1990s cartoon series covered this ground also, and they got Cable better, but that's an aside. They also did Phoenix better. Still the comics were probably better.

The movie is worth seeing in theaters and on Bluray later.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Neighbors" tries to update feel of 'Animal House' and almost makes it work

"Neighbors" R
Nicholas Stoller (Get Him to the Greek) directs this comedy. Seth Rogan, Rose Byrne and Zack Efron tackle the frat boy comedy in this mix match of Animal House meets Christmas Vacation, two classic movies that the Efron crowd have probably never seen or heard of. For the uninitiated, there was a party hard dude named John Belushi (you might have heard of his younger brother, Jim), who was one of the Saturday Night Live original Not ready for Prime Time Players in the late 1970s. He was playing a college student who was de facto clown of a frat house at a Canadian college that was into all sorts of trouble. Parents hated the film and said it made children think bad things were good. Same old thing here. Or was it? Then Chevy Chase, another SNL alumni from the Prime Time players, was part of the Vacation franchise, the best of which is his Christmas one, where his dopey family is stuck at home for the Holidays and all manner of trouble happens.

Now just imagine Belushi's rebel, gross out gag spewing, naughty man child growing up a little, and having a family. Seth Rogan is essentially his character, or more like his caricature, his inspired everyman.

When the naughty family discovers that their new neighbors are a frat house led by Efron, they immediately want to join them, but the culture clash is the joke. They can't relate. Their jokes are from the 1980s, (granted Animal House was in the 70s, but this is because Rogan is playing someone like like Belushi, not Belushi literally).

The frat soon tires of the nagging couple, who have a baby and need their rest, and seek frat pranks as a form of revenge, but then the couple decide to get them back, as they did in college apparently with another group some time in the late 1980s. (Guess)?

Anyway, this leads to funny moments, so there is much comedic screwball joking, some crude jokes, a truly demented milking scene, and a prank involving making fake penises to amuse the college. Also there are a lot of raunchy jokes and some pranks go wrong. All of this leads to a half way decent comedy movie that doesn't try too hard to be over the top, but when it is it nearly reaches a startled laugh, even a few blasts of 'oh did they just do that, wow', which for this generation is their form of humor.

It is worth owning on the Bluray later, which is sure to have an unrated version.Some of the jokes they just couldn't get away with. If you don't like raunchy humor with people pranking and 'punking' each other, don't see it. But don't complain about it that it causes kids to act crazy. It doesn't any more than sugar.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Disney's Bears" tries to make brown bears more human

"Disney's Bears" G
The year in the life of three Alaskan brown bears is detailed in this cute and often brithtly majestic story. Again the narrator tries to make it like bears are just like people, like they did for chimpanzees and lions. Bears do not get revenge. Big bears are only bullies because they're looking for food, not thinking things out. Skye and her cubs seem well trained for wild bears and even though they keep saying some peril will strike, it is rated G so there isn't really going to be any. In real life though, it's probably much more raw and violent if something did happen. The movie is a nice and wholesome documentary. If you're looking for National Geographic or Mutual of Omaha this isn't it. It's worth a rental.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is intense update of the Marvel mythos

Captain America: The Winter Soldier PG13
     In this sequel to the first series of Avengers movies and to Captain America, the Cap is trying to adapt to being alive 72 years after being frozen during WW2 fighting Hydra. The SHIELD organization has revived him to go on missions with the Avengers, and then suddenly he and Widow are off to fight seagoing pirates on a night raid. Cap discovers that the true mission though was to steal the computer files for Widow's other plans, which he does not approve of. Then some time later, Nick Fury the director tells Cap to trust no one, and then is apparently killed in a massive car case and post chase death scene. Cap enlists Widow and a new person he met, who becomes the Falcon, to fight an enemy inside of SHIELD that may be connected to HYDRA and to a mysterious terrorist wit a robotic arm called the Winter Soldier.
     The movie is too new to give a review without spoiling the ending, as the Russo brothers take on the material and make it more of a Bourne saga story with a little Clear and Present Danger, instead of a fantasy superhero movie. That asaid, there is plenty of fantasy and impossible escaping hails of bullets and explosions, right on up to the explosive decimation of a flying fleet. (It was in the trailer). It's a good movie if you like action fantasy, but if you're all about logic, gravity working a certain way, or a shield that really can't act as a boomerang, you probably won't like it.
     They do briefly address the lady from the old base in the story, from the first film, who using old age makeup looks to be over 90.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Grand Budapest Hotel" is a romping vacation caper

"Grand Budapest Hotel" R
Wes Anderson's quirky character dramas and oddball comedies are an acquired taste. For some they can be rapid fire, confusing and strange, but others consider them so different as to be good. Somewhere in between is this movie, a character piece that finds an all star cast in a fake town in Germany in around 1932 at a lavish hotel called the Grand Budapest.

At first, the narrator is in the 1960s telling his tale to a guest to his hotel, about how he roxse from being the bell boy to being the curator and master of an old hotel, then in decline.

In the 1930s, between the great wars, the suave hotel manager and his new apprentice, Zero, get into trouble right off, when they attend the wake of the manager's elderly lover. They are chased out by the angry family at the reading, because the lawyer is in on some kind of scam.Once the manager gets his prize, the painting of the boy with an apple, he and his bell boy flee the scene, somehow unknown to the angry family.

The killer though is after them, and it is soon revealed that this hired gun has killed the old lady and disposed of a second will. Through some mishaps though the manager ends up in jail and must forge an alliance to escape, using the bellboy and his girlfriend as accomplices, to clear his name and find the will.

The angry family is also searching for the lost painting.

All of this is connected in a bizarre fate filled series of coincidences. It seems kind of like Wes has done this kind of movie before but goes all out to make it fresh and different.

Hade it been released say next November though it could get an Oscar, but it likely won't be remembered 10 months from now.

Go and see it because it's good. See it in theaters. The actors in it have been in his other movies and are quite good, elevating it from being just about annoying people. The lead is likeable and interesting. Even the cameos are fun.

Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Muppets Most Wanted" tries really hard to be muppet caper

"Muppets Most Wanted" G
This is the seventh Muppet movie, based on the reboot from nearly 2 years back. The story brings the iconic felt puppet mayhem back to the roots of some of the earlier films, most noticeably Muppets Take Manhattan and The Great Muppet Caper. In the rather oddball plot, Constantine the world's most dangerous frog escapes from a Russian gulag run by a cheery gal trying to do a Russian accent. The story swaps Kermit for Constantine and his evil number two, a human called Badguy, somehow convinces all of them to go on a tour, so he can steal the crown jewels of London. The most disturbing scene is when Piggy imagines herself married to Kermit, believing the evil frog's nuptial plot genuine, and imagines a frog-pig pair of hybrid Muppet babies (ala the Manhattan onle, dream and all, that laughed a cartoon). It seems they're borrowing a lot from Frank Oz but aren't so much making if fresh, just borrowing it. The film is good for a rental later, but not worth general admission.
Review by Adam Browne

Review: "Mr. Peabody and Sherman" is a fair attempt to remake Bullwinkle characters

"Mr. Peabody and Sherman" PG
The old cartoons about Bullwinkle and Rocky and friends from th 1970s have been made into several films, even some live action ones, so it was inevitable some studio would do a movie version of Mr. Peabody, the Einstein like white dog, and his boy, Sherman, traveling through time in their Wayback (WABAK in this one) machine. Set in the present day, the story appears to turn the adoption angle into a movie, with an angry young edgy child out to get Sherman, name of Penny, and a giant angry lady, and twists and turns lead to the boy eventually liking the girl, and their going on a love hate adventure in time, to show each other up. Sherman is supposed to be 7. Unless he has the intelligence and social graces of a genius, which supposedly he might, this could not happen. Becasuse it's a cartoon the plot may not necessarily need anything beyond kid logic to explain it. The premise is a blend of corny puns and stuff the adults get mixed in with stuff the kids might get, ans the time machine is used to accidentally lose Penny in time, and so the dog and his boy must go back into time and rescue her, and learn to like each other. The goofy imagines of historical figures add puff, including jokes about ancient Egypt, Rome in the Renaissance, the French revolution and the founding of the US, in an attempt to come to terms with the history in the original. but those first stories were part of 'fractured fairy tales', so none of it was to be taken seriously. Dreamworks does a fair job of combining the modern age with the original material but modernizing it loses something. It's worth a video rental later on. None of the previous Bullwinkle movies are worth getting, unless you count the original cartoons.

KATS guesses for the 86th Academy Awards tonight and results

The 86th academy awards will be no different than in years past. They will not take many risks, will go for most popular or trendy, and delve out Oscars to the movies they think the public liked the most.

Usually if a movie like '12 Years a Slave' is a contender, Oscar likes to pick it foereerything, so if it starts out that way, it will win best picture.

An action picture like Gravity may get the popular vote and if they liked Bullock she may get actress, but she also may not.

Oscar doesn't usually like action pictures.

American Hustle is going to muscle in on the Oscars this year because Dallas Buyers Club and Wolf of Wall Street just weren't as cool.

Best supporting actress could go to Lupita Nyogo of 12 Years, and if she does get it, the movie may get best picture.

If no, our choice will be Jennifer Lawrence for American Hustle. But Hustle will not win picture. It is trendy but not likely due to it not being controversial or scary.

12 years a slave is a dark drama, not reviwed, and will likely take most of the night, if supporting categories go to it. Oscar loves dark drama.

Blue Jasmine and Osange County aren't popular enough to win anything, although it's possible that Kate Blanchett could win best actress. Gravity was a fine action movie but cinema darling Sandra Bullock winning would spin the Oscar a bit too much to the left.


If Bullock wins then Best Picture will be Gravity. That would be unusual.

Blanchett will win. Blue Jasmine is another dreary drama, not reviwed.

Matthew McConaughey of Dallas Buyers Club could win, but that movie is not popular, and not reviewed, so we're going to go with Christian Bale for the upset. American Hustle will walk away with actor, even if it doesn't win picture.

Best director may be Alphsono Cauron for Gravity but if it is Steve McQueen for 12 years a Salve, it will decide best picture.

Cuaron has a good chance of winning director. Slave has a bit too much baggage.

If Guaron wins, Gravity wins best picture,

The Oscar guys might throw a curveball though and give 12 Years a Slave best picture, wich would be making an unpopular movie best picture, and that hasn't happened in a while. (Slumdog Millionare anyone)?

The best picture will also likely be 7 bucks on the bargain bin next Christmas.

Does anyone even care what the winner was last year?

We will see tonight.

Update:

Jarod Leto has won best supporting actor for Dallas Buyer's Club.

Lupita Nyongo has won best supporting actress for 12 years a slave. Movie may be contender for best picture.

The Great Gatsby has taken costume.

Gravity has taken sound mixing, editing, score and special effects.

Frozen has won for animated movie and for song.

12 Years a Slave has won for adapted screenplay.

Her has won for screenplay.

Best director is Alphonso Cauron for Gravity.

Makeup, Dallas Buyers Club, really? Why? No idea.

Best Actress goes to Kate Blanchett for Blue Jasmine.

Gravity wins for Music.

Best Actor goes to Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyer's Club.

Production design goes to The Great Gatsby.

Knowing they would never give best picture to another action scifri flick, and they love dramas about slavery, they have...

Best picture of 2013....12 Years a Slave.

Note it's now 2014 but these are 2013 movies. Confusing yes.

They weren't going to go for Dallas Buyer's Club.

Review: "Robocop" remake is unncessary and not all that fun

"Robocop" PG 13
The classic 1987 movie was a message story about excess corruption and the Reagan years, and cowboy cop movies. It was clever and witty, and everyone remembers Peter Weller for it. The new one is just about half of a good movie, and packs really none of the punch of the original.

The origin story is retold with more flash and flair, and neat special effects, as they introduce a future world where it's obvious drone robots are used in every country but the US, trying to the modern age message. They also have a subplot where they explain about cybernetic and prosthetic tech being used to make people better, and they keep bringing up the nation of man versus machine and free will, but not in an interesting way, just as a by the numbers bit.

In future Detroit, a cop named Murphy goers on a raid and is later nearly blown up in front of his house. The mega company that is looking to make a cybernetic being (they never say directly a cyborg) somehow obtains him and rebuilds him as their newest creation, Robocop.

But if you've seen the trailers, you've pretty much seen the movie. No surprises except for some gross out moments, but nothing really all that original. This could be Dredd or any combat video game on the market.

In 1987 you didn't have trhe tech to make realistic play video games. Now that they do, they've remade a classic. Really they've made a sequel or reboot. Just call it Robocop 4.

Well they have the robocop learn of his alleged murder, as in the first one, ans he seeks to solve it through a series of coincidental actions, while crooked politicians and businessmen vie for a robot law they want to end to sell more robots.

The original had a quirky and violent charm to it. This one is just a lot of game style stuff blowing up.

It reminded me of as lot of other modern, angrier, dark movies that were better, and some worse. It could have had a witty script. Just having him quote lines from the first one with no soul to it was just not right.

At least some of the leads get to chew scenery, like Samuel Jackson as a later day news pundit, and Michael Keaton plays the OmniCorp guy.

The new dude is not Peter Weller.

They even have a scene where the new robot cyborg gets to shoot what looks like original Robocops, which is really stupid but the director apparently thought he was being clever. See, our movie kicks the old one's butt! Uhm, no.

Review by Adam Browne