X-Men: The Last Stand * *

Released: 2006
Runtime: 104 minutes
Rated: PG-13 for intense sequences of action violence, some sexual content and language.
Language: English
Country: USA
Directed by: Brett Ratner

Tagline: Take a stand.



In the land of comic books, I was always more of a fan of lone heroes like Batman and Spiderman. The ensemble cast of The Uncanny X-Men didn't interested me until they hit the big screen. Now I can't get enough of them and their allegories of social intolerance and search for acceptance. While the first two movies developed a compelling storyline with sympathetic characters, the third film unfortunately rises like a Dark Phoenix bent on destruction.


If you're familiar with the story up to this point, you know that Jean Grey has apparently died leaving Cyclops and Wolverine heartbroken. Xavier and the X-men seem to have made progress with the Government. There is a Secretary of Mutant affairs played by Kelsey Grammer (a.k.a Beast) who works directly with the President. Society, while not openly embracing mutant kind, has begrudgingly developed a live and let live policy. But as usual a threat emerges when a team of doctors are able to use a young mutants powers to provide a "cure" to those afflicted with mutant abilities. This sets up a show down between the good mutants led by Xavier and the bad mutants led by Magneto.


One of the bigger problems with X3, is that it lacks a strong central villain. Magneto has spent too much time jumping sides between the good mutants and the bad. Are we supposed to hate him, feel sorry for him, I don't know. While his fear of society and its attitudes towards mutants are not unfounded, he obviously overreacts just like the normals. Meanwhile, Dark Phoenix/Jean Grey could have been left at the bottom of the lake, she spends most of the runtime standing in the background pouting. Again, our feelings toward her are mixed leaving us not quite satisfied with the final conflict. X3 could really have used a character or two as straightforward as Colonel Stiker. Superhereos need supervillains and they seem to be missing in action here.

Another problem with X3 is that it doesn't flow very well. It jumps around trying to include a host of new mutants while losing focus with the central story. The movie is clearly geared for the teenage fanboy special effects crowd rather than people who emotionally connect with the characters. What has made X-Men enjoyable on an adult level is the social commentary about prejudice in modern society. Much of this is simply lost in the blizzard of explosions and mutant powers. I wouldn't call X3 a total failure but it certainly is the weakest film of the three.

Blade Runner: Final Cut

According to a Variety article, Ridley Scott is due to release his version of Blade Runner after a long uphill battle with rights issues. A limited theatrical release is planned for 2007. Following that is of course the DVD release which is alleged to include the three previous versions plus the new Ridley approved Final Cut. Sounds like a Blade Runner geeks wet dream...of course I'll be buying it.


We really need to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions.

I wish I could quit you Roy.

Human, Replicant, who cares.

Have you ever dated a raccoon before?

Bowties never go out of style do they Gaff.

Saw II * *

Released: 2005
Runtime: 93 minutes
Rated: R for Grisly Violence and gore, terror, language and drug content.
Language: English
Country: USA
Directed by: Darren Lynn Bousman


Cast:
Tobin Bell...............Jigsaw
Shawnee Smith..........Amanda
Donnie Wahlberg........Eric Matthews
Erik Knudsen.............Daniel Matthews
Franky G.................Xavier
Dina Meyer...............Kerry

Tagline: Oh yes, there will be blood

The original Saw appeared just as horror films were coming back into the mainstream. It was the first gore flick to get a real media buzz since Scream appeared back in the 90's. I was psyched about it weeks before hand and mildly disappointed on opening night. Naturally, I stayed away from Saw II until it hit DVD and I can't say I regret the wait.


The movie picks up with the Jigsaw still at large and spreading his own twisted brand of enlightenment. This time, instead of grisly scenarios spread around the city, everyone is trapped in a funhouse of death. It's like an outward bound weekend gone bad with the ropes course made out of barbed wire and the pits filled with used hypodermic needles. The participants are an eclectic group of low lives who all have something in common besides they fact they were kidnapped and poisoned. The clock is ticking and their only hope is to survive the Jigsaws traps to reach the antidote in time.


Saw II's biggest problem is that we could care less about the victim's survival; none of them are very interesting or sympathetic. There is nothing all that creative about the plot or the traps, its like a gorier version of Agatha Christie's "and then there were none" but with all the mystery torn out. While Donnie Walhberg has proven himself to be a decent actor, all he gets to do here is chew scenery as the clichéd troubled cop. Ultimately we're invested in this movie long enough to see how it plays out with the characters survival rates only to be somewhat meh about the big surprise ending.

Oldboy * * * *

Released: 2003
Runtime: 115 minutes
Rated: R for Strong Violence and Sexuality
Language: Korean with English Subtitles
Directed by: Park Chanwook
Cast:
Min-sik Choi...............Dae-su Oh
Ji-tae Yu...................Woo-jin Lee
Hye-jeong Kang.............Mi-do
Dae-han Ji.................No Joo-hwan


Tagline: 15 Years of Imprisonment...5 Days of Vengence


Sitting in a jail cell, Seoul Businessman Oh Dae-Su explains that his name means, "Getting through one day at a time". Beneath the alcohol fumes, we can smell the fermenting odor of misery and desperation. He is a man who would get drunk and arrested on the night of his daughter's birthday. Clearly it’s not just the day he’s having trouble getting through, it’s his entire life. Finally, after he begs, bargains and rages at the police, they release him into the custody of his friend No Joo-hwan.


Soon after being released from one cell, he is kidnapped and imprisoned in another. One of the major themes in the film is whether Oh Dae-Su has been in a prison his entire life. His past is never completely revealed to us so it is impossible to answer. What we do see is how his imprisonment in the film completely alters him. The one thing we are sure of is he will never be the same man again. After fifteen years of captivity and teetering on the brink of madness, he awakes on a rooftop, apparently a free man. He is soon informed however, that his captor has only loosened his grip. Oh Dae-Su is given five days to find out why this has happened to him and who is behind it.


Oldboy is a stylish blend of film-noir, action, mystery and morality play. The story combines the clichés of revenge within a cat and mouse game that should tell you, if you didn't already know, how big a Hitchcock fan Park Chanwook is. But there is nothing truly unique here; you’ve seen many parts of Oldboy in other movies. It’s a competent work that recycles familiar pieces into to an entertaining whole. Ultimately, the film hinges on the performance of Min-Sik Choi, and he doesn't let us down. As Oh Dae-Su, he is believable and sympathetic, creating a surprisingly deep sense of humanity. If I were only allowed to recommend one thing about Oldboy, it would be for Min-Sik Choi. Take him away and the film would not be nearly as good.

Fight Club Redux

Three...Extremes * * * *

If you like a good spicy Asian meal, then you’ll enjoy this little number served up in three terrifying courses. It features an all-star line up of directors, including Hong Kongs Fruit Chan, Koreas Chan Wook Park and Japans Takashi Miike. Unlike most American Horror Films, these short works shun the tired supernatural themes for more modern psychological chills. While genre is the only thing they seem to have in common, there is a malevolent undercurrent at work that makes them all fit perfectly together.

Dumplings by Hong Kong director Fruit Chan may be the most disturbing of the vignettes. Lacking the usual supernatural conventions, it is a meditation on our obsession with youth and beauty. The story follows Mrs Lee, an aging actress with a failing marriage, who is desperate to turn back the clock. In a run down apartment complex, she meets a strange woman called Aunt Mei with an even stranger beauty secret. Out of all three, this was definitely my favorite. It is also the one most likely to disgust and offend.


Cut is another of Chan Wook Park's disertations on the human condition. Best known in the U.S. for his 2003 tale of revenge Oldboy, Park delivers the most violence and gore of the segments. It concerns a professional movie "extra" who feels that life has been extremely unfair to him and all too kind to a famous director. Held captive on the set of his own movie, the director is given a lesson he won't soon forget.


Box is Takashi Miike's dream like story of death and regret. It tells the story of a woman named Kyoko who is haunted by the loss of her sister in a tragic fire. Miike is known for his graphic violence and gore but here he shows a great deal of restraint. The use of color and style is in some ways reminiscent of Dario Argento's Suspira. And, like a dream or more aptly, a nightmare, it is a disjointed narrative that will often have you wondering what's real and what's not.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006) * * *

No desert road trip movie would be complete, in my opinion, without homicidal nuclear mutants.
(Really could nuclear mutants be anything but homicidal?)
In this 2006 remake, Alexandre Aja gives us grotesque deformities and scenes of blood-soaked violence the likes of which Wes Craven could only dream of back in '77. Instead of the originals savage inbred hillbillies, Aja opts for an irradiated freak show living on an old government test site. With the help of a local gas station owner, they lure unsuspecting victims off the main road to their doom.

I get the top bunk!

Mmmm, left-overs!

It's hard to get a good workout in the desert.

4th of July Mutant Style
My reaction to this film was pure old-school horror enjoyment. Simple plot, great make-up effects and buckets and buckets of movie blood. The Hills Have Eyes is a big slice of B-Movie Cheese and I mean that in the most positive sense possible.

Swimming with Jessica Alba

I really didn't care whether Into the Blue was good or bad, as long as Jessica Alba kept swimming. Clearly, the woman could do an instruction swimming DVD and it would fly off the shelves.

It took many grueling hours of training to swim like "The Man from Atlantis".

One of the few scenes where Alba's butt was not in frame.

Being a less than talented B-Movie actor does have its perks.

Diving for treasure never looked this good.

Beauty and amazing lung capacity.
Not that it really matters, but Into the Blue is a rip-off of another soggy sea adventure called The Deep (1977). That film starred a younger, and less homeless looking Nick Nolte, as well as a bikini clad Jacqueline Bisset. They play a pair of young lovers on vacation who simultaneously discover a sunken treasure and a lost shipment of drugs. It didn’t hurt that the screenplay was written by Peter Benchley (Jaws) and Directed by Peter Yates (Bullitt). As you'd expect with all this creative talent and beautiful underwater cinematography it was obvious that Jacqueline Bisset should be as naked as possible throughout the film.

Jacqueline Bisset increasing The Deep's ticket sales.

The Bald Women of Sci-Fi

In the upcoming "V for Vendetta", actress Natalie Portman loses her locks during an on-screen head shaving. At the Berlin Film Festival, she told reporters she was even looking forward to the transformation:
"I was really excited to get to shave my head -- it's something I'd wanted to do for a while and now I had a good excuse, it was nice to shed that level of vanity for a girl."
Portman isn't the first actress to play a bald Sci-Fi heroine, it seems future has yet to solve the riddle of female hair-loss.

In the Lucas Film "THX 1138", Maggie McOmie plays LUH 3417. Her character is a faceless cog in an uncaring social machine. When she stops taking the Government issued medication, she begins to notice romantic feelings for her roommate, Robert Duvall's character THX 1138. After the films release, McOmie decided not to pursue a career in film.

The late Indian Actress Persis Khambatta played the bald Lt. Ilia in "Star Trek The Motion Picture". Her character, a navigator aboard the Enterprise, was killed and replaced by an android double. Khambatta began her career as a model and was crowned Miss India in 1965. Through out her life she starred in numerous Hindi and Hollywood films including Nighthawks with Sylvestor Stallone.

Feminist icon Lt. Ellen Ripley crash lands in the much-maligned "Alien 3". Set in the future on a prison colony called Fury 161; all residents are required to shave their body hair due to a persistent problem with lice. Begining with the original 1979 "Alien", Signourney Weavers portrayal of the headstrong Ripley paved the way for other actresses to play strong female leads.

In "Minority Report", Samantha Morton plays a psychic named Agatha whose visions of the future allow police to stop crimes before they happen. As a "pre-cog" Agatha doesn't get out much, her life is spent floating in a special pool while technicians monitor her brain. The British born actress then went on to star, still close cropped, in the Sci-Fi Romance "Code 46".

R.I.P. Kolchak

Darren McGavins death is sad news for all of us who grew up watching the original television series Night Stalker, as well as the classic holiday film A Christmas Story. McGavin was 83 at the time of his death and reportedly in poor health over the last several years.