Movie Reviews

(I consider myself a pretty serious movie fan. But the simple fact of the matter is that I miss stuff. Famous and interesting stuff. But not for long! Welcome to the column where I continue my film education before your very eyes. I will seek out and watch all of the movies I know I should have seen by now. I will first "review" the movie before I've watched it, based entirely on its reputation. Then I will give the movie a fair chance and actually watch it. You will laugh at me, you may condemn me, but you will never say I didn't try!)

The Film:



Starring:

Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner and Cindy Morgan

Why I Haven't Seen It Until Now:

I grew up on a steady diet of Indiana Jones, James Bond and Marty McFly. 1980s live-action Disney films couldn't have felt less appealing to a kid like me.

Pre-Viewing:

Tron is a fascinating but tremendously dated and ultimately boring film that hit a specific generation at the exact right moment to have a lasting impact. Like The Goonies, this is a film that coasts on nostalgia and rose-tinted childhood memories and those who loved it as children have yet to realize just how bad it really is.

Jeff Bridges stars as an adventurous computer programmer who enters the computer world known as TRON, where he engages in a bunch of lame video game challenges, culminating in the famous light cycle sequence. There is little plot to speak of and what is there feels like filler to connect the various special effects sequences, which may have been impressive in 1982, but are borderline unwatchable today.

Ultimately, I can see how Tron was a major step forward for visual effects, but outside of that, it's an empty, plotless mess with little to offer me and I'm only watching it because the trailer for Tron Legacy looks pretty nifty.

Post-Viewing:

Okay, put those stones down. I was way off.

Until recently I had no idea who Dan Dare was. I didn't grow up as a comics reader, but even if I had, the series began publication in England in 1950, well before I was even born. However, having now discovered it as an adult, it's safe to say that I would have loved as a kid were I, you know, actually alive. And into comics. In England.

That may sound like a lot of ifs, but Dan Dare is the kind of period-specific, pulpy sci-fi that would have fueled imaginations during a time when sending a man to the moon was still a lunatic flight of fancy, a time when traveling across an ocean was still revered as an awesome milestone for humanity, a time when basically all of the ideas in Frank Hampson's creation would have been at their most fantastic. The series focused on the adventures of the titular Dan Dare, the chief pilot for the Interplanet Space Fleet, as he explored the universe with his friends (and sometimes enemies).

The great sci-fi champs Titan Books have just published the latest entry to their hardback collections of Dan Dare comics, titled Safari in Space, which encompasses both the title volume and the Terra Nova runs from 1959. But don't worry if you're unfamiliar with the character, as I wise, because these library editions of the comics include not only easily digestible character biographies, but extensive background material to give the comics context in the scope of the series' nearly two-decade long publication.

It's hard to watch television these days without being hammered with ads for the second installment in BioWare's space-loving, alien-sexing, sci-fi action-RPG series, Mass Effect. In fact, one of the most striking things about Mass Effect 2 is how/why Electronic Arts is standing so heavily behind it. The advertising campaign has been relentless, blanketing a number of different networks and demographics. Having now finished the game, it's clear why.

Mass Effect 2 transcends genre expectations. It's not just a cut-and-dry role-playing-game with a sci-fi skin to it. If you want it to be a third-person shooter, it's a third person shooter. If you want it to be a team-oriented, tactical RPG, it can be that, too. If you want it to be a story-driven continuation of ME1's adventure to save a universe on the precipice of decimation at the hands of an alien race, well, it's that as well. Indeed the most ambitious aspect of ME2 is how malleable its various play-styles can be while still falling under the umbrella of dense science fiction filled with meaningful relationships and storylines.

That ambition, however, is also its weak spot. In an attempt to make a product that could be marketed to a bigger swath of gamers, BioWare inadvertently lost sight of what made the first Mass Effect a resounding triumph; mainly that it was a totally geeked out RPG that played perfectly to the customize-everything wants of RPG players. ME2, on the other hand, is a bit more linear in its attempt to appeal beyond the RPG consumer base.

Greetings fellow cinephiles, Brian Salisbury of Horror Squad here; Sci-Fi Squad's twisted sibling. Over on our side of the blogosphere, I operate a weekly feature focusing on horror movies on VHS that never graduated to DVD or are no longer readily available as such. It's called Terror Tapes and it has sent me wading waist-deep through some of the worst garbage the local Austin video stores have to offer. There have been a smattering of gems among the waste, but for the most part these films emphatically argue against their own upgrade.

I received a film for Christmas that I have desperately wanted to see ever since saw the cover art on the rental shelf when I was younger. It was called Split Second and featured an alarmingly nonchalant Rutger Hauer strolling casually away from a badass alien monster. Once the DVD went out of print a few years ago, tracking it down became a bit arduous. Thank goodness for dead formats!

So, I thought I would do a special Sci-Fi Squad edition of Terror Tapes as Split Second certainly seems to fall under that banner far more than horror. Enjoy!

(This review originally appeared onTV Squad. Battlestar Galactica: The Plan airs Sunday at 9 p.m/8 p.m. Central on Syfy.)

Leoben, that tricky toaster, was right: All of this has happened before, and all of it is happening again.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan retells major events from the first two years of the celebrated sci-fi series through the eyes of the Cylons. It weaves together recycled scenes from the series with new footage to reveal a first-hand account of the Cylon agenda, or "plan."

The result is a film that feels incomplete, episodic and disjointed. It plays less like a movie and largely like a disk full of high quality bonus material. Most of what happens here feels irrelevant to the series -- almost like it was tacked on to the BSG mythos to satisfy completists and hardcore fans. Still, it's worth watching to see Dean Stockwell carry the film with a fearless performance as the scheming and duplicitous Brother Cavil. The veteran character actor takes center stage in The Plan, and your enjoyment of the film will rest largely on how much you like, or dislike, Cavil and his major role in the series.

Stockwell's performance isn't the only thing worth recommending here. The Plan fleshes out a few of the series' more compelling stories, and it makes room for a new one involving Simon (Rock Worthy), aka Cylon Number Four. Worthy is terrific as a Four living with a human family and torn between his human life and his duty as a Cylon. Cylons learning to love other humans and to cherish their own humanity is a repeating theme in The Plan.

The buzz and buzzkill leading up to Avatar, it turns out, found inadequate purchase now that the world has finally glimpsed the fabled film. The echo chamber of hype that believed it would drastically alter the landscape of filmmaking forever, the virulent, vitriolic cries of Dances with Smurfs, the total indifference...all misplaced.

You are not prepared for Avatar. Roll your eyes at that; laugh it off, you've heard that pitch before. It's not hyperbole, though, it's bald truth. Whether it's your most anticipated movie of the year or your least, it is not precisely what you think it is. How could it be? Avatar is a motion picture precedent, after all. It's fair to say that the core conflict is less than revolutionary and that parts of the narrative are broad, but those ills are scarcely symptomatic of James Cameron's ultimate goal. It's not about challenging the formula of Group X oppresses Group Y, who then fight back. Nor is it about only showcasing the bleeding edge technology that Cameron and company have invented and licensed over the last decade. Avatar is about transporting a viewer to the awe-inspiring alien world of Pandora and integrating them into its fantastic way of life for 150 minutes. That's the bullseye Cameron is aiming for, and that is the bullseye he obliterates.

By Todd Gilchrist (reprint from 10/28/09 -- L.A. Screamfest)

I'm not sure exactly what quality it is that real people possess and actors lack, but any time a film pretends to document real behavior, either literally or as a reenactment, something is almost always missing. Sometimes the problem is a deliberate decision to enhance events with artificial emphasis or drama, and sometimes it's simply too great a sense of self-awareness in the actor, who knows he or she is performing. But while there are a precious few movies that nail that authenticity, notably the recent underdog-blockbuster Paranormal Activity, such is certainly the case in The Fourth Kind, a film that purports to build an argument for alien abductions using "actual" footage from case studies.

While much of the movie's so-called source material carries the convincing roughness and deficiencies of homemade, handheld recording, too much of it seems far too calculated, both in its technical proficiency and the performances contributed by its "real" people. Further, its accompanying reenactments by recognizable actors undermine the possibility that audiences can take its case seriously, all of which adds up to thriller that unravels easily even if it nevertheless occasionally qualifies as a scary good time.

I'm not sure exactly what quality it is that real people possess and actors lack, but any time a film pretends to document real behavior, either literally or as a reenactment, something is almost always missing. Sometimes the problem is a deliberate decision to enhance events with artificial emphasis or drama, and sometimes it's simply too great a sense of self-awareness in the actor, who knows he or she is performing. But while there are a precious few movies that nail that authenticity, notably the recent underdog-blockbuster Paranormal Activity, such is certainly the case in The Fourth Kind, a film that purports to build an argument for alien abductions using "actual" footage from case studies.

While much of the movie's so-called source material carries the convincing roughness and deficiencies of homemade, handheld recording, too much of it seems far too calculated, both in its technical proficiency and the performances contributed by its "real" people. Further, its accompanying reenactments by recognizable actors undermine the possibility that audiences can take its case seriously, all of which adds up to thriller that unravels easily even if it nevertheless occasionally qualifies as a scary good time.

Read the rest over at Cinematical

Leoben, that tricky toaster, was right: All of this has happened before, and all of it is happening again.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan retells major events from the first two years of the celebrated sci-fi series through the eyes of the Cylons. It weaves together recycled scenes from the series with new footage to reveal a first-hand account of the Cylon agenda, or "plan."

The result is a film that feels incomplete, episodic and disjointed. It plays less like a movie and largely like a disk full of high quality bonus material. Most of what happens here feels irrelevant to the series -- almost like it was tacked on to the BSG mythos to satisfy completists and hardcore fans. Still, it's worth watching to see Dean Stockwell carry the film with a fearless performance as the scheming and duplicitous Brother Cavil. The veteran character actor takes center stage in The Plan, and your enjoyment of the film will rest largely on how much you like, or dislike, Cavil and his major role in the series.

This review originally appeared on Cinematical

Why review a Japanese-language film without sensational violence, naked ninjas, or giant robots? Because when it's a movie as smartly comic, raggedly rocking, warmly appealing, and richly rewarding as Yoshihiro Nakamura's Fish Story, you want the whole world to know. Or, at least, people who don't happen to be in Austin right now.

Not that Fish Story is the best movie ever made, but it certainly deserves to be seen by a wider audience than will have a chance to see it at special events like Fantastic Fest. And distributors tend to shy away from films that don't have easily marketable elements, like those mentioned in the opening line. In several important ways, this is a rather modest little flick, and I don't want to hype it out of proportion to its relative merits. But I must say: Fish Story engages, delights, and surprises as it criss-crosses wildly through the decades, and I think it's the kind of movie that a broad variety of people would enjoy, if only they had a chance to sample its many pleasures.

Rather than a fish, or fishes, the linchpin of the narrative is a song entitled "Fish Story," recorded by an obscure Japanese punk band in 1975 (one year before the Sex Pistols were formed). Unappreciated in their own time, the band's song takes on a life of its own over the years, still entrancing listeners in a record store in 2012. A comet is about to strike the earth, and mankind only has five hours left to live. With the rest of the populace departed to supposedly safer high ground, three men come together, listening to the record and fantasizing that, somehow, the song will be able to save the world.