Author: Darren Goodhart

The Barrett family appears to be your average, ordinary family of four. The father, Dan, is an unemployed architect who’s trying to find work. The mother, Lacy, is earning a supplemental income in real estate sales. the oldest son, Jesse, is just discovering girls and getting into trouble with his best friend, Kevin. the youngest son, Sam, is an average kid playing with his friends and listening to scary stories told to him by his brother. Everything appears normal for this family until a series of disturbing events start to happen to them and then they learn that something is very much out to get them.

That’s the basic premise for the generically titled Dark Skies, a movie about an extraterrestrial encounter (that’s no real spoiler, it’s pretty much told in the trailers for the film) for an ordinary family. It’s the latest movie from writer/director Scott Stewart who’s previously directed the movies Legion (which I wasn’t that thrilled with) and Priest (which I actually liked quite a bit). Dark Skies doesn’t really do anything new with the genre, but for the most part, it’s pretty well executed and has a pretty effective ending.

As the events start to unfold, it all pretty much happens by rote- strange events happen, family gets worried, authorities are called in and are pretty dismissive of what happens, wanting to chalk it up to something happening internally in the family. This all happens at a pretty slow-burn pace, but starts to pick up some steam in it’s back third when Daniel and Lacy seek out the advice of an expert, Edwin Pollard, who warns them of what to expect next.

The movie has an overall good look to it, and in some places, it looks to me like Scott Stewart’s been studying some of what Stanley Kubrick has done with his storytelling approach, which I certainly think adds to the atmosphere. One of the nice things that I think Stewart gets across quite well is just the sheer isolation that the Barretts experience while this is happening to them. You’d like to think that if this sort of weirdness was starting to happen to you that you’d expect some sort of support through your friends and neighbors. The only support that the Barretts receive comes from Pollard and even then, it’s not so much support as it is expecting the inevitability of their situation.

Josh Hamilton and Keri Russell play Daniel and Lacy, and they’re both very good at projecting the everyman quality that this family should have (and I just want to shout out Keri Russell a little further here for the fine work that she’s currently doing in the new FX series, The Americans) Dakota Goyo and Kadan Rockett play their sons, Jesse and Sam respectively, and they’re certainly quite believable. The great J.K. Simmons plays Edwin Pollard, and it’s a pretty different performance for Simmons in that he’s a pretty beaten character who’s now totally resigned to the fact that he can’t do anything about any of the situations that he’s encountered.

While I enjoyed Dark Skies, it’s not exactly the sort of movie that I’m going to tell you to run right out and see in a theatre. For the most part, this seems like pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, but it does get saved by a pretty effective back third. The work here by both Stewart and the cast is certainly solid, but it’s pace is maybe a little too relaxed up front. It’s certainly worth seeing, but I think most will find it more entertaining as home video viewing than making the effort to go to a theatre to see it.

Jack McClane, the estranged son of New York Police Detective John McClane is now living in Russia and has gotten himself caught up in some nasty bit of business that has him ready to be sent to jail. John McClane, wanting to do the right thing, plans a little “vacation” to Russia to see what he can do for his son. Of course, once John McClane gets there all hell starts to break loose as he soon discovers the real reasons why his son is there.

That’s a real loose description to the premise to A Good Day to Die Hard, the fifth film in the Die Hard series, all featuring star Bruce Willis as the intrepid John McClane. It’s also the latest in a series of action films featuring the return of big name action stars of the 80s and 90s doing what they do best. This started with Sylvester Stallone’s The Expendables and has continued with the recent releases of The Last Stand with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bullet to the Head again with Stallone. All of these have been fun movies which I’ve certainly enjoyed.

I guess it was time that the streak ended. It’s just a shame it has to do it with the Die Hard series.

A Good Day to Die Hard comes to us from director John Moore, who’s previously directed films like Behind Enemy Lines, Max Payne and the re-makes of The Omen and Flight of the Phoenix, and screenwriter Skip Woods, who’s written such movies as The A-Team, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Swordfish. Of Moore’s movies, I actually like Behind Enemy Lines a great deal, but thought he faltered with the others and there’s aspects of Woods’ prior work that I like , but I don’t think the whole of each ever quite came together. The thing is, I find it pretty hard to blame either of these guys totally for the mess that A Good Day to Die Hard is.

No, instead I’ll blame the bigwigs at 20th Century Fox for wanting to put this in production. They’re trying to keep it on the cheap by moving it’s production entirely out of this country and not wanting to invest in ay sort of casting beyond Willis that could’ve brought more to the table. I think both Moore and Woods fit into the budget that Fox wanted to give this and rushed this into production to get it to ride this wave of action star comebacks.

Other than Willis being here as McClane in name only, there’s really nothing here that says this is even a Die Hard movie in the first place. The set-up of the tension between the McClanes is ill-conceived, the action is way over-the-top in the most cartoonish of ways, there’s nothing to make you give a damn about either of the McClanes (who of course are both invincible to everything that gets thrown at them) and the villains of this piece are nowhere near the same league as what has been seen in the prior films.

Hitting a couple of these points individually, yeah sure, you expect John McClane to save the day in these films, that’s certainly a given. Some of the nicer aspects in the first three movies show at least a hint of vulnerability in the action, especially the first film. I mean who can ever forget the idea that John McClane is running about Nakatomi Plaza in just a t-shirt and pants and has that grueling bit of having to cross a floor filled with glass in his bare feet? That sort of thing gets carried through the movie, but here, Jack McClane gets a hunk of metal lodged into his gut, takes it out and doesn’t feel a thing the rest of the film.

A hallmark of the other films are really good villains that get as much good show as Willis does. Alan Rickman, William Sadler, John Amos and Timothy Olyphant all had good turns in the prior films to various degrees, but here our villainous side of the cast is made up of foreign actors who you simply will not remember after the film ends. They may very well be top-notch talents, but this film doesn’t give them the opportunity to really show it. Again, I’ll blame the idea of a rushed production that doesn’t give it’s writer the chance to do some memorable work with these characters.

Instead, this film hopes to succeed on the idea of John McClane being there and churning out a few one-liners while big-ass fireworks are going off in the background. It hopes you’ll get invested in it emotionally with it’s tired trope of the strained relationship between the father and the son and it all just feels like it’s in there by rote more than anything else.

As much as I want to blame Fox for this, I also have to throw some of that credit Willis’ way as well. I’d like to think that Fox is holding something over his head by committing him to this, but you’d still like to think he’d know better. Bruce Willis is certainly still capable of good action work as witnessed most recently in last year’s Looper, but here, it’s more like he’s just running this by the numbers and just cashing the check. Jai Courtney is cast as his son, Jack, and I think he’s certainly got the physical chops for this sort of thing, but there’s really nothing there in the character to get behind other than the fact that he’s John McClane’s son.

Supposedly, there’s still a sixth movie in this franchise to come and the idea there is that it’ll be the last in the series as well. I’d like to think that this franchise could still be brought back to glory as long as Fox doesn’t rush it into production and takes the time to invest in a script that lets you get fully behind it’s characters and a director who can show you just how special the Die Hard film series is. I’d like to think that anyway… but if A Good Day to Die Hard is any indication of how Fox wants to take this series, then maybe they should just let it die with this one. Your best bet here- miss this one entirely and watch any of the other ones (preferably any of the first three) again, you’ll have a far better time.

James Bonomo, an aging New Orleans-based hitman and Taylor Kwon, a Washington, DC detective form a bit of an uneasy alliance after watching both of the partners killed in situations that are tied together. Taking place in New Orleans, both are now working their way up a food chain of bad guys to go after those responsible.

That’s a pretty simplified premise to Bullet to the Head the latest movie from director Walter Hill and star Sylvester Stallone who plays Bonomo (also know as Jimmy Bobo) and it’s an adaptation of the graphic novel Du plomb dans la tête from writer Alexis Nolent and artist Colin Wilson. I haven’t read the graphic novel, though I have seen parts of it and it looks quite impressive, but I can’t say if this is a faithful adaptation or not. This isn’t unfamiliar territory for director Walter Hill though, as he’s teamed the cop up with the crook before in the movie 48 Hrs. and he’s certainly no stranger to gritty action films with such movies as The Warriors, Streets of Fire and Last Man Standing to his credit.

From the initial trailer, my expectations for the film were pretty low, but I’m a fan of both Stallone and Hill and wanted to see what they’d cook up here. Watching the trailer, Stallone’s character seemed to me to be even more punchdrunk than Rocky Balboa on his worst day and that was something that I was just a little wary of at the start. Fortunately, there’s way more to Jimmy Bobo in the movie itself and I just think it’s a little unfortunate that that’s not shown in the trailer, though it’s understandable why it isn’t.

The story here is pretty straightforward and it’s nothing that you haven’t seen before, which as I’ve said in other reviews, doesn’t really bother me as long as it’s presented well. Bullet to the Head does it pretty well and I ended up enjoying this one more than I thought I would though that’s due largely to the work of two of the players in the film Sung Kang (from the Fast & Furious movies) as detective Kwon and Jason Momoa (our newest Conan) who plays Keegan the chief enforcer of our main bad guy, Morel (played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).

The thing that I like about Stallone here, and it’s certainly been true to his work in The Expendables films as well, is that’s he’s willing to acknowledge his age and play with that in the film. Jimmy Bobo has seen better days, but his years of experience play a huge role in his task at hand. Sung Kang has certainly done well with supporting parts in the past and it’s cool to see him stand his ground with Stallone, while playing the counterpoint of a detective who’s very much a technophile. The big surprise for me though here was Jason Momoa. I thought Momoa was terrific in Conan the Barbarian and I think he’s even better here. Momoa’s got real presence and commands the screen just about every time he’s on-screen. He’s a terrific threatening presence and I certainly look forward to seeing him in more movies down the road.

I mentioned Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje above, and while I’ve certainly liked his work in the past, here he seems a little out of place. His character, Robert Morel, carries himself on crutches through the movie and it just sort of seems to me like the part would’ve been better suited to an older actor who’s maybe a little less fit than Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Sarah Shahi plays Lisa Bonomo, Jimmy’s daughter and a possible love interest for Kwon. She’s certainly solid here though again it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Another surprise though was Christian Slater who plays Morel’s laywer, Marcus Baptiste. Slater’s only in the movie a brief time, but he certainly plays his part to the hilt and is especially entertaining during a scene when he’s being interrogated by Bobo and Kwon.

Bullet to the Head is an entertaining 80s throwback action piece that’s certainly a nice little diversion at the theatre. Sylvester Stallone can still very much do this sort of part and it’s certainly wise on his end to acknowledge his age along the way. The best part of the film though is watching up-and-comer Jason Momoa in action. This kid’s got real chops and his presence is positively magnetic. In the end, I’d certainly recommend the movie, but it’s not necessarily the sort of thing that you have to run out and see right away on the big screen, unless you’re a Stallone fan and want to continue to catch the current wave of the return of the big action stars of the past.

Young Hansel and Gretel have been seemingly abandoned by their parents in the forest. The two children are cold and starving. They walk together through the forest and come upon a house made entirely of candy. They think they’ve found salvation, but once entering the house, they’re horrified to find that it belongs to an old witch who certainly has her own fiendish plans for the siblings. As the witch is enacting her plan, Hansel and Gretel find an opportunity to kill the witch and escape the house, never to see their parents again.

From there, both then dedicate their lives to stamping out the threats posed by witches. Years later, the duo have made quite the name for themselves and have now come to a small village that’s facing a series of child disappearances, believed to be at the hand of some sort of witch threat.

That’s the premise to Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and while one could look at this as sort of jumping on the same bandwagon started by movies like Red Riding Hood and Snow White and the Huntsman that’s not the case at all. Those movies (neither of which I’ve seen, so don’t take this for fact) both seemed to me to be taking the classic fairy tales and wanting to update, darken them up and make them far more serious for the Young Adult audience, and more specifically the Twilight fans. That’s not the case with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters at all, and the movie goes in a direction that’s more reminiscent of what you might get if you crossed the movie Van Helsing with the films of John Carpenter. Hansel & Gretel doesn’t take itself too seriously at all, and that’s very much to it’s credit. What you have is a pulpy, comic-book treatment here that’s having a lot of fun with what it’s doing.

Credit for this goes to writer and director Tommy Wirkola, who prior to Hansel & Gretel directed Dead Snow a rollicking film that told the story of a vacationing group of medical students being hunted down by a large group of Nazi zombies (it’s a fun little film and I believe still available on Netflix Instant Play). That same sensibility is right here on hand for Hansel & Gretel which doesn’t shy away from bloody violence, but has it tempered by firmly having it’s tongue in cheek. It’s all handled at a brisk pace with a run time of under 90 minutes. It’s not the highest of budgeted films around, but it still has a great look and some pretty darn good action sequences that are certainly made more effective viewing it in 3D (which I did).

Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton play the title characters, and they do have great chemistry together. Both have their own individual stories as well as coming together for the task at hand and discovering what really happened when they were children. Both look like they’re having a lot of fun with this, and it’s really evident with Arterton, who not only looks terrific, but just genuinely looks like she’s loving being a bad-ass action star. Famke Janssen plays Muriel, the villainous witch of the film, and again, she looks fantastic and certainly appears to enjoy chewing the scenery here. Further support is provided by Pihla Viitala as Mina, a good witch, Derek Mears and Robin Atkin Downes playing Edward, a troll who is smitten with Gretel (Mears is the physical actor and Downes provides the voice), Thomas Mann as Ben, a young fan of the witch-hunting duo, and Peter Stormare, who plays the sheriff of the village and resents Hansel and Gretel even being there. All are doing good work here, though keep in mind, they all certainly know what kind of film they’re making as well. Awards won’t be won for this work, but it’s all in service to the vision of the film.

I had a ball with Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Wirkola, Renner and Arterton come back to this later, though I’m not exactly holding my breath. If you enjoyed films like Stephen Sommers’ Van Helsing from a few years ago or more recently, last year’s Abraham Lincoln; Vampire Hunter, well, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is right in the same vein. Definitely see it if you like you action/fantasy/horror that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Ray Owens, a former LAPD officer, is now the Sheriff of the sleepy border town of Sommerton Junction, Arizona. He’s content with his life there, it’s quiet and even with his inexperienced staff, the peace is kept. Unbeknownst to Ray, Gabriel Cortez, a notorious Mexican drug cartel kingpin has just escaped captivity by the FBI. Cortez now speeds across the land in souped-up Corvette to jump the border to Mexico, crossing across a bridge that has been built past Sommerton Junction. Now Ray, his staff and a couple of other volunteers are the only thing that stands in their way.

That’s the premise to The Last Stand and with the exception of his co-starring appearances in The Expendables movies, marks Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to leading in a big-ass action film after 10 years away. This is also the latest movie form Korean director Jee-woon Kim, who’s known for such films as The Good, the Bad, the Weird and I saw the Devil neither of which I’ve seen, but I certainly hear good stuff about them. I’m certainly a fan of Schwarzenegger’s and was very much looking forward to seeing this, and it is indeed a lot of fun, but don’t think too much about it.

What Jee-woon Kim has crafted here, at least to me anyway, reminds me a little bit of the movie Shoot ‘Em Up with Clive Owen, Monica Bellucci and Paul Giamatti and was this sort of mash-up of big over-the-top action film with Warner Brothers Looney Tunes cartoons. Now I know that might sound a little insulting, and it’s not meant that way. But when you see a side scene of an old woman sitting in her shop quietly as all hell is breaking loose outside, and a mysterious gunman breaks in and then the same old woman pulls out a big gun and blasts him through her window… well I don’t know how you can think of this any other way.

Now I’ll take that even further, with so much of an international sort of cast here and their, let’s say “colorful” use of the English language and with Jackass front man Johnny Knoxville in a supporting role, I could almost hear Mel Blanc doing voice work for this if it was a cartoon (or the very least Ralph Garman doing his best Schwarzenegger impression- and you should all listen to Garman on the Hollywood Babble On podcast and watch Spike TV’s newest iteration of the excellent The Joe Schmo Show – sorry for the digression). None of this is meant to be taken seriously at all, just sit back, enjoy the ride and wallow in it’s big over-the-top style.

And speaking of style, Jee-woon Kim certainly has plenty of it- the film looks fantastic and the action scenes are extremely well done and very easy to follow. Kim knows when to pull his camera back and give you a big picture as well getting right up into the action and making you “feel” it.

It is good to see Schwarzenegger back leading a film. Yeah, he’s certainly gotten older and a little smaller, but he still knows how to command a scene and with this movie anyway, he’s also plenty generous to his ensemble of support. Jaime Alexander, Luis Guzmán and Zach Gilford all play the sheriff’s deputies and they all get their moments to shine. Rodrigo Santoro plays a former boyfriend of Alexander’s who joins up with the sheriff, and he certainly gets a few good action moments. I mentioned Johnny Knoxville above, and Knoxville plays a gun “entrepreneur” and certainly provides even more comic relief to the film. Further with Knoxville, he genuinely looks like he’s having the time of his life with this as well.

Also in the cast, Forest Whitaker plays the FBI agent who’s handling the Cortez situation, and he certainly helps to ground things, though just for a bit. Eduardo Noriega plays Cortez and like Knoxville, looks like he’s just eating this part up. Peter Stormare plays Cortez’s right-hand man in Sommerton Junction, and certainly adds the right amount of smarminess and odd sort of threat to the part. And even veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton gets in on things as the farmer who owns the land Cortez’s crew is looking to use (and as a side note, I saw Broken City this past weekend as well- Griffin Dunne is in the film and I almost thought he was a younger version of Harry Dean Stanton at first sight- sorry, digressed again for just a moment).

The Last Stand is a terrific little comeback piece for Arnold Schwarzenegger as well as being a nice little show piece for Jee-won Kim’s visual skills. It’s a big-ass 80s-esque action cartoon that’s hard not to like as long as you’re not going in and expecting this thing to be as grim and dark as possible. Schwarzenegger does show his age, but he’s also solid enough to know that and play with it as well. The Last Stand probably won’t end up on any “Best of 2013” movie lists, but it certainly is a fun diversion and just looks fantastic on the big screen.

NYPD Detective Billy Taggart is on trial for a wrongful shooting. New York City Mayor Nicholas Hostleler and Police Commissioner Carl Fairbanks know that Taggart is guilty due to evidence that has been held back from the trial, though the mayor believes Taggart to be a hero for what he’s done. Taggart is declared not guilty but still gets bounced by the force.

Seven years have passed and now Taggart earns his keep as a Private Investigator mostly on cases of marital infidelity. He’s having problems paying his bills and then one day gets summoned by Mayor Hostleler to come to his office. The mayor, in the midst of a re-elction campaign, wants to hire Taggart to shadow his wife because he believes she’s cheating on him and offers Taggart $50,000 to take the case. Taggart agrees little knowing what he’s about to walk into.

That’s the premise to Broken City the latest film from director Allen Hughes, who’s better known as one half of the directing team The Hughes Brothers (with brother Albert, the two have directed such films as The Book of Eli, From Hell, Dead Presidents and Menace II Society). What Hughes has crafted here is a nice little slow-burn noir-ish detective thriller that I thought was a lot of fun to watch.

Broken City is about way more than what I described in the premise, but it’s not hard to follow at all. In the midst of the main story, we also follow Taggart’s personal life involving his girlfriend Natalie (who’s an actress), his struggle with alcohol, and his day-to-day work life with his assistant Katy. All of this certainly helps to make Broken City a pretty full experience and I tend to think it makes it feel somewhat like a classic detective/noir film of the 40s.

What’s most impressive here though are the performances. Mark Wahlberg plays Billy Taggart and he’s really fun to watch here. He feels totally authentic in the part and it’s particularly satisfying to see his chemistry with actress Alona Tal who plays his assistant Katy. It’s just as pleasing to see the scenes that Wahlberg has with Russell Crowe who plays Mayor Hostleler. To me, this is one of the best performances that I’ve seen from Crowe in awhile. Nicholas Hostleler is a slick and charismatic character and Crowe’s playing it to the hilt.

There’s lot’s of good support here as well, Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the mayor’s wife who’s got way more going on than a case of infidelity, and she just looks fantastic. Barry Pepper plays Jack Valiant, a councilman who’s running against Hostleler for mayor, and it’s certainly solid and committed work from Pepper. Most pleasing to me in the support category though are the performances from Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Fairbanks and Kyle Chandler as Valiant’s campaign manager, Paul Andrews. Their parts feel very “lived-in” and they command as much attention on-screen as the leads do.

I thought Broken City was just terrific. It is a slow-burning film, but it never feels boring and there’s always something there to keep your attention. Hughes’ direction and storytelling is right on point and I love that, at least to me, this does harken back to classic noir thrillers of the past. All of the performances are first rate and certainly drive the film. Broken City was quite a little surprise for me, I wasn’t expecting to be as drawn into this movie as I got. Very much recommended.

Director Kathryn Bigelow won an Oscar for her skills with her last film The Hurt Locker which also won an Oscar for Best Picture and deservedly so. so how does she choose to follow that up? With nothing less than the hunt and trackdown of Osama Bin Laden himself…

Zero Dark Thirty tells the story of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden as seen through the eyes of a CIA operative named here as Maya. It covers a period of nearly ten years (from the tragedy of 9/11 to finding Bin Laden and while I’m sure certain events are compressed or altered, this still feels extremely authentic. This isn’t exactly as emotionally effective a film as The Hurt Locker was, Zero Dark Thirty is way more clinical and procedural, but it’s still very impressive and certainly worthy of it’s Oscar nomination.

While I described the film as being more on the procedural side, it still has it’s emotional moments- chief among them being a scene between Maya and a CIA chief With Maya making certain demands. This is a really terrific scene between actors Jessica Chastain and Kyle Chandler and it’s dramatics are way more real than theatrical. I saw this scene and though Chastain’s performance here is stellar all around, to me this had to be the scene that cinched the Oscar nomination for her.

I think the whole movie is compelling viewing, but where it really got to me was watching the actual operation go down in the end when Seal Team 6 takes out Bin Laden. This isn’t shown in a typical Hollywood theatrical manner, and as such, I think it makes the scene even more tense.

One of the criticisms that I’ve read about Zero Dark Thirty elsewhere (which I don’t share), is that there was a “lack of character development.” Zero Dark Thirty isn’t that kind of movie at all, there aren’t huge character arcs here where people go on self-discovery or learn tremendous lessons in the end. This is about a group of dedicated, highly competent professionals doing their duty for their country. Bigelow’s approach is indeed more matter-of-fact with this, and the film does have character moments, but they’re just not the focus. Obviously much has been said as well about the torture scenes at the start of the film and how the film is “an endorsement of torture” which just isn’t the case at all, though I guess the argument can be made that just by showing it, they’re endorsing it. I don’t exactly subscribe to that and think this talk of boycotting the film for Oscar consideration because of that is ridiculous.

Already, we do know that Zero Dark Thirty has been nominated for an Oscar and it’s certainly worthy of that nomination. Will it win? I tend to think that’s doubtful. It is a terrific film, no doubt about that, but I don’t necessarily think it’s as effective as say The Hurt Locker was at getting it’s audience as involved. It’s a more passive experience, but certainly still effective and highly recommended.

The time is 1949 and gangster Mickey Cohen is running roughshod over the city of Los Angeles. Chief of Police Parker tries to take back the city by assembling a few good men to work outside of the law, headed by sergeants John O’Mara and Jerry Wooters and a literal war is about to break out over the streets of Los Angeles.

That’s the premise behind Gangster Squad the newest movie from director Ruben Fleischer, who previously directed the film Zombieland (which I have not seen, but plan to rectify that in the near future). As this movie starts, it basically tells you that it’s “inspired by true events,” and that’s basically a little warning sign to tell you that they’re going to play fast and loose with history here. That’s certainly fine if your intention is basically making escapist fare as opposed to a docudrama, and that’s exactly what Fleischer is doing here. [b]Gangster Squad[/b] isn’t meant to be taken seriously by any means, though don’t get me wrong, it’s not a comedy, but pure popcorn entertainment.

Fleischer wears his influences on his sleeve and obviously, the first thing that will come to mind for just about anybody (providing that you’ve seen the film) is Brian DePalma’s version of The Untouchables. Gangster Squad’s set-up and approach pretty much mimics what DePalma did, though without DePalma’s signature visual and dramatic style. For me, I also thought I was seeing a few little homages to films like The Dirty Dozen (during a break-in bit of Mickey Cohen’s home) and the first Lethal Weapon with the climactic fight between O’Mara and Cohen. There’s really nothing original at work here and there’s nothing wrong with that if the final film is entertaining and I certainly thought that it was.

Gangster Squad has a terrific look to it and Fleischer dramatic style here harkens back more to classic gangster films of the 40s as opposed to a dryer tone. As such, all of the characters are pretty broad and that certainly might be a turn-off to some if you’re looking for something that’s a little more deadly serious in it’s approach. To me, this felt a lot like a classic crime comic book complete with over-the-top violence and I just had a ball with it.

Fleischer’s assembled a pretty impressive cast here and they all look like they’re having fun with this. Josh Brolin plays O’Mara and Ryan Gosling plays Wooters. Brolin really looks the part as the tough as nails cop who’s all about doing the right thing. Gosling’s character is a little reluctant to take the straight arrow path, but also displays a killer instinct when he’s pressed. The rest of the team that O’Mara assembles is played by actor Robert Patrick, Anthony Mackie, Michael Pena and Giovanni Ribisi and they’re spot-on perfect for their supporting parts. I was particularly surprised to see Patrick as part of this group and thought he helped bring some proper weight to the whole thing.

Emma Stone plays Grace, Cohen’s woman who’s also very much attracted to Wooters. Nick Nolte plays Chief Parker and veteran character actor Jon Polito plays a rival to Cohen. They’re all just fine and certainly serviceable to their parts. The best performance in the movie though has to go to Sean Penn who plays Mickey Cohen. Now, I’m not exactly the biggest fan of Penn’s and ted to think most of his performances are a little overrated, but here… well, I just thought it was a lot of fun whenever he was on-screen. He really looked like he was having a ball here and no doubt needed a toothpick after each scene to clean the scenery out of his teeth. It’s a big over-the-top performance that’s very much appropriate to the film that Fleischer’s made.

I had a great time with Gangster Squad. It moves quickly, has a terrific cast and is unapologetic in what it’s doing, which is basically reveling in the style of classic crime movies of the past. Yeah, I’ll grant you, there’s nothing new here, but it’s still well put together and it’s just plain fun- very much recommended.

In the past (the time isn’t specifically mentioned here), tragedy strikes at a group of five young people as they’re taking a road trip through Texas. Four of the five are brutally slaughtered by a murderous family, most notably by a hulking brute who wears a patchwork face and wields a chainsaw. One girl manages to escape and warns the authorities. As the authorities and a lynch mob descend upon the family- two manage an escape, the chainsaw murderer and a young baby girl who’s found and adopted by a couple who’s part of the lynch mob.

Years later, the baby girl has grown up. Her name is Heather Miller and she’s just been informed that she’s inherited an estate and now Heather and a group of friends decide to travel there and discover what it’s all about, little realizing the horror that’s to come…

That’s the premise to Texas Chainsaw 3D billed as a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s genuine horror classic from 1974, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a film that’s certainly one of my all-time favorites in the genre. Since it’s release, it’s seen a few sequels and re-makes, none of which ever really approaches the genius of the original, and vary in satisfaction on their own. This latest iteration comes to us from director John Lussenhop who’s previously directed the crime film Takers which I have not seen.

I’m sure that Lussenhop is a huge fan of the series, there’s certainly lots of nods and homages here to the original. That’s all well and good, but the core of this film, it’s story and characters, it’s execution and it’s sort of re-imagining of the concept is just all wrong on just about every level. After seeing the final film I just have to wonder how Lionsgate could even greenlight this one in the first place.

It starts strong, using footage from the original movie to set everything up and give it a new sheen with it’s 3D, but other than the use of 3D in a few other places in the film, it just falls apart everywhere else.

Where to begin? First, this film decides to add more characters to the family from the original. As this piece begins and the authorities begin to come into play, we’re taken into the house of the murderous family and now instead of just the three characters that should’ve been left from the original film, there’s a whole bunch more added including women and a baby- where the hell did they ever come from? They certainly weren’t in the original film, but they’ve been added here as mostly a way to “humanize” the character known as Leatherface (who’s never once called that in the original) which is a mistake all it’s own, but I’ll get into that in a moment.

Then, this plays fast and loose with time- the original film was made in 1974 and the date is even used in the promotion of the film, yet when we fast forward to Heather in present day, she’s a young woman in her twenties as opposed to approaching 40 which is what she should be, if this was properly acknowledging the time. But doing that wouldn’t necessarily allow the film to give us it’s young and edgy cast of characters, all of which you pretty much want to see meet grisly ends in this, just by their sheer unlikeable nature, though that doesn’t really apply to Heather herself.

This brings us to the film’s execution. One of the most brilliant things about the original film is just how homemade the movie looks and feels. There’s no slickness of production and certainly no pervasive background music. A huge part of the success of the original is just how matter-or-fact that it looks and feels. It gives the film an unnerving quality that in today’s horror films best gets represented in the “found footage” sub-genre. The slicker production values just automatically takes away from what made the original so successful.

This in turn leads right into the re-imagining of the concept and the idea to “humanize” the Leatherface charcacter, who’s here given the name of Jed Sawyer (which in itself is whole new kettle of fish that just does not work) and turn him from this utterly terrifying individual and just make him “misunderstood.” Again, part of the success of the original is just how off-the-wall that the whole family feels. There’s no explanation given in the original as to why this family is the way it is, they’re just there and it’s up to the audience to fill in the blanks and more than likely, what you’re going to imagine is going to be way more terrifying than actually committing the idea to film. As it is here, it’s laughable what they’ve done and it all comes full circle late in the film when Heather realizes how she’s related and tosses Leatherface his chainsaw and says the line “Do your thing, cuz!”

I can’t really fault any of the performances in the film, though really no one’s going to win any awards for this or even be remembered for anything other than just how good both Heather and one of her friends looks. Everybody’s doing what they’re asked of here, so the fault is solely in the hands of the director and writers behind this vile bit of business.

The thing is, I’m not against re-makes, sequels or re-imaginings in the slightest. As long as those films remain true to what made their originals so effective, then there’s nothing wrong with putting them out there. I actually believe that one could make an effective direct sequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre but to do it right, you’d have to go for the same low-budget quality of the original as well as not try to explain everything away as is the trend in so many bits of entertainment now. If you’re going to try for some sort of explanation, then do it with background subtleties and not in ways that totally alters the core. When it comes to something like the horror genre, I tend to be a little more forgiving when it comes to gauging the quality of the film and saying if it’s one of the worst things out there right now. I tend to reserve judgement like that for films with bigger budgets, bigger stars and filmmakers who should know better. But Texas Chainsaw 3D makes it really hard to do that, especially considering the classic nature of it’s source. It’s only the start of 2013 and already, we have here one of the very worst films that will probably come out this year with it’s only saving graces being it’s nods to the original and some good bits with the 3D. They’re still just not enough. Save your money and watch the original film again.

For myself, a new Quentin Tarantino movie is always an event. I first saw Reservoir Dogs when it opened here in St. Louis at the Tivoli theatre before that theatre’s massive renovation, and just thought I’d seen one of the greatest films that I’d ever saw. Ever since then, I’ve loved each and every one of his films. Yeah, sure, there’s degrees of “love” for each one, but still I’ve found everyone very entertaining and always worth multiple viewings.

Thanks to Quentin Tarantino, I got a huge appreciation for B-movies and grindhouse films and still think those are often more fun to watch than the big-budget, star-driven Hollywood releases. Tarantino has chosen with this sort of subject matter for all his films- he embraces all of the conventions of B-movie and grindhouse films and yet he elevates them as well by virtue of his writing skills and being able to get his casts to embrace the subject matter as much as he does. It’s a hallmark of all of his movies and the same can certainly be said for his latest film, Django Unchained.

Django Unchained starts off in the year 1858 and tells us the story of Django, a slave who’s been sought after by a bounty hunter by the name of Dr. King Schultz. Schultz has gone after Django for his familiarity with a group of outlaws known as the Brittle Brothers. In exchange for Django’s help, Schultz has promised him his freedom once they’ve been found and killed. But Django has found that he enjoys working with Schultz and enters into a new plan with him; continuing to work with Schultz until he can raise the money that he needs to buy his wife, Broomhilda, out of slavery from a plantation owner named Calvin Candie.

That’s the basic premise to Django Unchained, but trust me, there’s a whole hell of a lot more to it than that. With this movie, Tarantino has chosen to mash-up the genres of Spaghetti Western with Blaxploitation films as well as tipping his hat to the classic slavery exploitation film (though it wasn’t exactly made to be an exploitation film) Mandingo. He’s crafted a nearly 3-hour epic here that’s driven with very rich characters, terrific dialogue sequences and over-the-top violence that to me makes Django Unchained just as satisfying as Tarantino’s last film, Inglourious Basterds.

Now this isn’t entirely perfect, but it’s one bit of imperfection, a scene that involves a hooded lynch mob, doesn’t really last too long and for me didn’t really detract from the movie as a whole. This scene basically goes for a cheap laugh and almost seems like it’s more suitable to something like Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles than it does for this heavy revenge film. As I said though, it’s relatively short and at least features a big ending that actually does a lot to quell it.

Tarantino has once again assembled a terrific cast. Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz play Django and Schultz respectively and they’ve got terrific chemistry together. Foxx is pitch-perfect for his part and almost always seems right on the cusp of explosion, but he’s constantly tempered thanks to the smooth skills that Waltz puts on display as his partner. As good as these two are, they’re totally outshone by Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie and Samuel L. Jackson as Stephen, the head man amongst the slaves at Candie’s plantation, known as Candie Land. Both are extremely over-the-top in their performance, but I think that’s what’s needed to really sell this to the audience, at least it certainly did the trick for me. Jackson in particular is just electric to watch on-screen. Yeah, some could see his performance bordering on the edge of parody, but once you think that’s the case, Tarantino pulls out something new around the character to tell you that there’s way more to him than just that. Jackson is lapping this up and obviously having a huge ball with the part.

It’s really fun to see who Tarantino casts in some of the background parts- look for folks like Bruce Dern, Tom Wopat, Don Stroud, Lee Horsley, Tom Savini, Zoe Bell, the great Michael Parks, John Jarratt and Tarantino himself in the smaller parts. One of the more rewarding bits of casting features Italian actor Franco Nero as a man gambling against Calvin Candie in Candie’s introduction. What’s rewarding about this is that at one point it’s literally a meeting of the Django’s as Franco Nero is extremely well known for playing a character named Django in a series of Italian Spaghetti Westerns.

If you’re a Tarantino fan, I have no doubt at all that you’ll enjoy Django Unchained. As with all of his films, it really is a big, profane and glorious ride from start to finish and again, it just leaves me in anticipation of Tarantino’s next big project. For those that aren’t as familiar with Tarantino’s movies, you’re in for an extreme sensation, some of which you might find off-putting due to it’s violence and it’s subject matter, but I say give it a chance and allow yourself to wallow in it just as Quentin Tarantino does. Don’t miss it… easily for me right up there with the best that I’ve seen this year.