Reviews

This series is a fair effort but fails at the script level. A script is the foundation for all cinematic presentations in any language, even wordless ones. The basic continuity needs refining and polishing. Not being smooth, it tends to jump and has gaps.

Viewers follow a film due to their attachment to the characters in the story. Here, the protagonist, despite much presence, remains blurry throughout so we have only a nodding interest in her. The antagonist, on the other hand, is clearly obsessed but we never get deep enough into his character to understand why this is so. As a result, again, we have only a mild regard for him or perhaps, a mild disdain. Since his role is so pivotal, his motive should have been deeply etched and not tossed off with a superficial excuse for his brutal and bizarre violence on a group of complete innocents. He is not depicted quite as we must privately assume what he is, a psychotic who has lost touch with reality. Like the colleague he kills, he is a linear comic book character and so, frustrated, we cannot really care that much.

As it stands, the filmmakers are asking the audience to use their various, different imaginations to fill in gaps. This is not good filmmaking. To see a fine example of screen writing, find The Night Of, by Steven Zaillian and Richard Price. This superb series stars the talented Riz Ahmed who plays Elias Rahim in The OA. The writers grab you by the collar from scene one and never let go until the end. The suspense is created by an old fiction writer's technique called The Chain of Promises.

The one outstanding feature of this series is its casting. Nearly every one of the players is at their top game. This starts with Alice Krige and the venerable Scott Wilson as the mom and dad. Ultimately, the makers of The OA do show promise, especially in locating fresh ideas, such as the hunt for ontological meaning in the NDE, to bring interest to a tired kidnapping plot, so we would like to see them continue to see what they can come up with after acquiring more experience and insight. ###

As a writer and visual concept artist, I was designing a new book cover for an author friend of mine, so in the process I recommended the movie, Ex Machina, to her. She said she was not going to bother with it --- and I found out why, the trailers caused her to believe it was about humans having sex with robots.

I told her, "not even close" and that if you blink, you might miss even the mention of sex in the picture.

Once again, the pinheads in advertising thinking they know how to sell a movie but in fact, destroying its release in the process. In fact, the film has one of the few multi-level-of-meaning, brilliant scripts I have seen in many years and everything else that follows, casting, production values, all superb. It would be a shame to see this one not make back its investment. Ex Machina is one of the best films I have seen in years. It is a study of human consciousness and the possibility of consciousness without conscience. For me, that is brilliant time and money spent on a movie.

PLANET OF THE APES (1968) This original production, inspired by the 1963 Pierre Boulle novel, La Planète Des Singes was cast well, with a screenplay co-written by none other than Rod Serling. However, someone marred it by injecting period politics. It still stands out as the "one and only", primarily because it was the surprise evolutionary reversal that made it great and launched it into the Pantheon of Classics.

The ensuing milking of the original in the following years was nothing more than various filmmakers attempting to cash in. The first sequel was somewhat interesting but it takes the story beyond known and theoretical science into metaphysics, thus, shattering the original concept. In my humble opinion, it is not a true sequel in that it varies wildly from the original concept, creating its own plot line and becoming silly, actually, with the introduction of malicious, telepathic super humans. That is like a bad pastiche on good art. The following "sequels" are not worth watching.

The 2001 re-make of the original, with a bizarre script and completely incomprehensible ending that essentially tells audiences they have just wasted two hours of their lives and a few dollars, was stillborn, mostly because Tim Burton, who can claim some merit for other movies, such as Mars Attacks, is still no Franklin J. Schaffner.

If you have not seen this original obtain a good copy of it and stick with it. You will be disappointed with anything that follows it.

It is not just the impossible science in the script, for example; the fact that a gravity sufficient to slow down time by a factor of 60,000 (one hour equals seven years) would make it impossible to land a ship using our known technology. It would instantly crush the vehicle along with its crew. Not major but contributory, the title itself, "Interstellar" is a misnomer since the lead character travels beyond dimensions, not just between stars.

The script begins to fall apart when it is actually less than half way through. By the end, it is out of control and wildly bizarre. The intelligence alluded to as "they" is far too nebulous and ranges into incoherence. A murky plot and the use of often-mumbled tech-babble move it all to the realm of the juvenile scenario. As a literary device, the use of babble instead of coherent language is as silly as Bugs Bunny pulling a large hammer from behind his back, out of nowhere.

The scene where Coop finally meets his daughter, Murph, as an old woman was touching, but the casting of the highly recognizable Ellen Burstyn, albeit, a wonderful actor was, however, inappropriate since it tends to destroy suspension of disbelief.

Those critics that do not wish it revealed that they do not understand it will give it rave reviews in order to convince others that they do understand it. Some of the audience will go the same way. Such is our contemporary Hollywood scenario.

We humans come in so many different mind-sets that, astonishingly, a film like this tedious, annoyingly mundane and meaningless churning can actually have value to some.

For me it was a time for slapping my face to stay awake, looking for gummed tape to hold up my eyelids. But then, there was such a marvelous pay-off, again, not for all of us but for those with iron clad stomachs. What was it? The boring protagonist discovers that all his children are really the offspring of his wife's long time sexual relationship with her brother. Indeed, he walks in on them slapping loins, at some point.

One looks for meaning in all forms of literature only to find that, perhaps, life might very well be devoid of meaning. Maybe that is what those given to this drivel have objectified.

For me, this new Superman epic, Man of Steel, where the name Superman seems to be verboten, was greatly disappointing. The trailers, at least the early ones were filled with promise and hinted at intelligence, substance and story instead of yet another gross-out treatment of today's over the top violence that has begun to show up in blockbusters.

What story there is, was swamped and drowned out with the excessively loud noise of a sound track that has not been equalized and drifts from normal to painfully loud, all to keynote meaningless, superfluous and excessive violence. Here, the villain, Zod, is a cardboard, two dimensional character without enough subtext for audiences to be able to identify with him beyond anything but a machine that has broken down.

Curiously, there was also no stimulating or illuminating musical score to unify and bring inspiration to the entire procedure. This was not a well made film. I am reminded of the awful corporate blunder, in 1985, by the Coca Cola Company when they replaced a drink that had become an American tradition given impetus by WWII, with carbonated pancake syrup.

In my view, the expenditure of more than $200 million on a production carries social implications and at least the responsibility of the social impact. Beyond that, an opportunity to bring a bit of literacy and decency to the millions who will see the movie. This was not to be in this outing.

If the rumor mills are correct they are doing a sequel. Well, perhaps they should start by trying to find where Kal El's red shorts disappeared and then hire a professional screenwriter and director with at least some semblance of consciousness.

//Raúl

This lovely little film is based on the Ambrose Bierce story first published in 1890 for the San Francisco Examiner and not "first published" in the Bierce anthology of a year later, (1891) Tales of soldiers and Civilians.

Note that the film is based on the story and not exactly the story. The film takes a right turn in focusing on the illusory aspect of the story, while missing a few sharp impacts in the story itself. I was a friend and co-worker of Rod Serling's and know, also, that the film was discovered by one of the TZ producers, William Froug, not Rod himself, and it cost $25,000 for American TV rights (not the reputed $10,000). This was still a great saving as well because the typical original production budget for this series was $65,000.

The film was also released in the U.S. (theatrical, limited) before it appeared on TZ a year later (1964). For all those who love this film I strongly suggest that you might also enjoy the short story by Ambrose Bierce upon which it is based. This is not to say that the film is not good. When it comes to great cinematic story telling, the French are usually found in the front row.

Without one iota of exaggeration, this new Pixar production, Disney release, is visually stunning. It has artful, clearly defined characters that loom off the screen, literally and especially so, in 3D. Some of the scenic movement is reminiscent of the great Ratatouille of a few years ago. That is saying a lot.

To its credit, Brave depicts a young woman who fights for the right to live out her own life. However, that did not quite snatch the gold ring for me. It was just not enough substance. The production budget on this animated film was $185 million. In decades past, the shallow, somewhat sluggish script, seen here, would never have obtained a green light. It was difficult to watch all of the superb, brilliant artistry (actor voices included) and production values, design elements, wasted on that flat, empty script.

Real literature, with its varied levels of meaning, and the old, sage, scenarist's secret, best embodied by the works of Frank Capra, Gene Roddenberry and Rod Serling, the "Spiritual Payoff" is now absent from the big screen. Take note how their works have survived through the decades.

Most of today's studio suits do not appear to be aware that films structured at that level have the best word of mouth and the best legs. Today, they aim only at the child mentality where Walt Disney aimed at the widest audiences. His Pinocchio, for example, is still vital today. Indeed, some of its music has become the signature Walt Disney logo theme. That said, one blessing in current animated feature films, they no longer break continuity for Broadway type song and dance numbers, tedious nonsense that clung on to animated features like a giant fungus, for decades.

Is it very difficult to come up with a soul for these scripts? I think not. In Pinocchio, for example, the log line is simple: A wooden puppet earns the right to his most ardent wish, to become a real boy.

Even some of the most enthusiastic Trekkies do not quite understand the unprecedented success of the original Star Trek as created by Gene Roddenberry. The original show, as we all know, ran only for three seasons in a far less literate world. However, its impact was such that it was followed by five successor series, eleven movies, a mountain of merchandise, and a multi-billion dollar industry collectively known as the Star Trek franchise (currently owned by CBS Television Studios, which now owns television properties previously held by Paramount Pictures.

There is only one reason for this, and creative people in the entertainment industry like Rod Serling and Frank Capra who also left legacies on par with Gene Roddenberry, knew the reason. Much like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner and other literature at that level their stories spoke to the sanctity of the human soul and the problems of human progress on Earth. As in the case of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone, it masked these problems in allegorical science fiction in order to slip them through entertainment suits whose primary interest is in making money.

Although in his fine documentary, The Captains, William Shatner barely touches on this core mission of Star Trek, his purpose for making the film was to come to terms with the role of Captain Kirk and his latter day realization that it was not a frivolous role, nor superficial. Sir Patrick Stewart is also on hand to help him in this realization.

Along with the engaging backgrounds of other Star Trek Captains, all who came from fine backgrounds as actors, Shatner acknowledges that the role, along with the series, was life changing to millions. Many of the ardent followers of the Star Trek phenomenon are people like the rest of us. We all live a daily life of struggle. Here, show business people whose sole purpose was not just to make money but to make life, pass on a little hope.

This excellent documentary accurately depicts, through factual reportage, the nature of a corporation, often a destructive force when it comes to the human consciousness, that is, when in contact with human consciousness, often toxic, when placed under considered scrutiny and in historical perspective.

In my view, a corporation is not an "entity," nor a "person," despite judges in courts who have ruled it that, judges, perhaps bought and paid for by corporations reaching for control of and over civilization in the United States. A person has consciousness, compassion, and morality. A corporation does not. What it does have: "strategy." What the corporation is: a system, often with a singular objective, to make profits. It is the embodiment of greed.

It is a strange phenomenon projected by human behavior. It was isolated, analyzed and described in Truman Capote's 1966 seminal work, In Cold Blood, a "non-fiction novel" first serialized in The New Yorker in 1965. This behavioral revelation is about the formation of an overriding singular force that is either tyrannically destructive or in a few cases, constructive, when two or more humans are present in a scenario. In Capote's book, two petty thieves create a singular, malevolent force that destroys an innocent family. By themselves, neither of the two thieves could or would have been capable of the murder.

The positive or negative nature of the corporate force is created from the combination of top management, sometimes boards, if the board is in close control of the corporation. In most cases, since the objective of most corporations is profitability, the bottom line becomes the most powerful arbiter of the corporate behavioral history. In too many cases, the results are destructive to human health and welfare.

Top management typically walks in a chain-lock-step, especially when members receive the obscene amount of compensation published in today's business journals. As a result, whistle blowers who report malfeasance, crime or destructively bad management are disposed of, and in the case of existing within a modest municipality controlled by the corporation, also black-listed.

Malefactors are usually promoted and rewarded, often in spite of the corporation itself, as it begins to decline and eventually go out of business and close its doors, moving hundreds or thousands of employees and subcontractors who had grown dependent, out into the street to search of new employment.

The greatest danger today (at this writing) is the takeover of governments by corporations who buy entire political parties, government institutions and more or less cause great human suffering and destruction of human well being and in too many cases, life itself. Untrammeled, the corporate system or force, has the potential to destroy all human life on Earth. This documentary clearly shows this possibility. It is the most insidious specter today, soon to come out of China in vast dimensions, presently inconceivable.

Up to segment, Heart and Sparks, Rookie Blue was standing up to anything produced out of Hollywood. in this script the usual, bright, mature characters dissolved into immature teenagers incapable of processing a logical stream of thought. It's like the usual writers and director went out to lunch and let fans write and produce the show.

First, the plot takes on the trappings of a bad soap opera and not the on-going experiences of green (albeit bright) police officers. Then we see several of the characters make decisions not on considered logic but emotional jumps. This includes the wife of an apparent victim of a burned out building who inexplicably runs into the building even though the fire has already been out for some time and curiously not roped off and taped off from the public.

Emotional characters, supposedly mature law enforcement officers, become involved in jealousies that erupt in violence. In one character thread, one of the officers is enraged by his childhood assumption of what took place in his boyhood, meets the man he feels responsible and does not talk to the man or engage him in any conversation requesting an explanation. This is left up to his girl friend who receives the reasonable answer but fails to pass it on the the outraged officer. There's more but my point is made.

The show should continue to be a well written drama of law enforcement (with the additional interest of being a Canadian production shot in a Canadian city environment). Personal issues are good but they should not be allowed to dominate the production. It's likely that if the show is allowed to disintegrate into a soap opera, it will fail.

When I saw the title, "AMBLIN" with a bicycle silhouetted by the moon, as the film started, I said, "Oh, oh." I was right to be apprehensive. The film was filled with dumb, illogical plot devices, non-sequitur scenes, childish, hokey writing and the most absurd plot device I have ever seen in a movie.

Get this:

A high speed train being hauled by a diesel locomotive weighing in excess of 15,000 tons is caused to entirely crash, derail and have its cars spread out about half a mile by a small pick up truck. The crash continues for about ten minutes. Is that stupid enough? No. Guess what? The driver of the small pick up truck survives ... with some injuries. The driver is later murdered by the Air Force, giving no meaningful or logical explanation for the murder.

It's Sci-Fi as seen from the eyes of early teenagers. The dumb things we saw in some of the Spielberg films from years ago, such as a boy hammering away at his breakfast dishes at his breakfast, with a large plastic bat, while his parents ignore him, all intact in this film.

I cannot believe this is a JJ Abrams movie. The film was one "HUH, WHAT?" moment after another. Going further would contain too many spoilers. If you can ignore all the dumb moments, you might enjoy it.

This original Predator # one is extraordinary, even in repeat viewing, for Arnold fans. Its sequels are OK, especially number two with Danny Glover but this one is the best. For first viewers it has a great, slow reveal to terror.

Two future state governors worked on this one and both are interesting to watch, both former athletes with large bodies.

The only two issue I had with this one is –

A) In one scene it shows Arnold going for his knife only to discover it has fallen out of his sheath somewhere, back perhaps during his two long falls into water. Later, we see that he has magically found it, somehow.

B) In the final scene, he has escaped the predator. The predator has set up what appears to be a nuclear explosion in attempt to destroy his adversary, who has dealt him a lethal dose of heavy timber. A helicopter shows up on the scene. Inn the middle of the jungle and after the explosion, the helicopter magically locates Arnold.

Giant gaps like this work against my suspension of disbelief. What also works against the grain is that something like that gruesome monster, a brutal hunter, has managed to create the technology for interstellar travel. It's akin to believing that a wild boar has accomplished rocket science and all of its ramifications.

While I cannot agree with some of the critics positing that the script for The Kids Are All Right is "brilliant" I can easily state that it is a well thought out, intelligent script but with a childish resolve. It is also clear that all of the performances are superb…even going beyond my expectations from the three professionals that lead the ensemble. Julianne Moore as Jules, the fem part of the lesbian couple and Annette Bening, as Nic, the butch, are at the top of their game but Mark Ruffalo (Paul) is deserving of special recognition in this production.

In Connecticut, (at least) this good movie is not in wide release. After all, it is not only a movie for grown-ups in an era when teenage movies predominate but also at a time when most exhibitors ignore mature audiences.

The theater that I attended is in Madison, CT and is known to be a "Little" theater that runs movies for thoughtful, intelligent audiences. What I also saw, however, while watching the movie is a few elderly people walking out who are not used to seeing life portrayed as it really happens, especially in the bedroom.

As for the story, all is going well until everyone discovers that Jules has had an affair with Paul, the sperm donor and biological father of both kids who are each the birth children of each of the lesbian women. Jules sees a lot of her birth son, Laser, in Paul (no surprise since he is the boy's biological father) and is attracted to Paul as he is to her, eventually confessing that he loves her. The affair is obviously not a hormone driven adventure but a real heartfelt episode that takes place between two adults who are in their 50s.

Then and only then do we discover that the primary relationship between the two lesbians is just another possessive pairing and not a mature, transcendent love at all…a love that might have been given with no expectation of a return. The characters go to pieces with anger, weeping bitterness, pouting and emotional separation. The children also pout.

As a result, Paul is "tossed under the bus" (so to speak) and labeled an "interloper" despite the fact that he is generous, kind, and loving, a decent and honest man. Could we have hoped that when Paul asked this family (that invited him in to begin with) to discuss the conflict, and could they have behaved openly and generously with him to resolve the issue? Yes! What we have instead, is a non-resolved ending where Paul goes off stage and the immediate lesbian couple and their children decide to weather it all out.

Some day, perhaps in the not too distant future someone will write a script that might reflect the idea put forth by Richard Bach some time ago… "If you love something, set it free; if it returns to you it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was." The problem, perhaps even discussed by the writers of this film: How many among us would understand it and be emotionally mature enough to deal with the gift of love…something that we can all actually do if we can only be generous?

DESPICABLE ME has toppled the two giants, Pixar and DreamWorks Animation in this animated feature that is far above this year's animated feature products as we enter the mid-summer releases. Those of us who are grown-ups can forgive the predictable story since we know that we are not the primary audience for this film. Animated features are still made for children although the art form itself has long hungered after adult fare. It is quite capable of being applied to adult stories although very few Hollywood suits have yet to grasp that concept. The one exception that quickly comes to mind was the Ralph Bakshi animated films. Unfortunately, his work was illiterate and vulgar.

Designed beautifully and with whimsical cleverness the characters are matched by superior writing. Although the scenes borrow concept humor from the once great Warner Bros. animation teams, the best-known being "Termite Terrace," the presentation is continuously funny, whimsical and entertaining. Steve Carell does his usually fine comic dialog--- as Gru, the villain that we know we will grow to love. Fortunately, for those who are very familiar with this fine comic voice, he masks it with an odd European accent that sometimes sounds like Bela Lugosi on steroids.

This brings to mind having to sit through three Toy Story movies (thus far) and having to fight the image of Tom Hanks every time the character, Woody, would speak. Walt Disney was, of course, correct when he cast Adriana Caselotti as Snow White instead of the "A" listed movie singers of the time because he wanted his audience not to have to go through that painful exercise. No doubt, greedy agents have sold modern animation producers a bill of goods but the tots who go to see these films could not care less about the names behind the voices even if they knew who they were, which they do not. Known, "A" list voices needlessly pump up budgets for these films.

Above the entire picture is the most amazing fact that DESPICABLE ME comes to us from Universal Animation, which was originally cobbled together from the Sullivan-Bluth efforts and other entities less than ten years ago. Whatever happened to bring this formerly humdrum studio to life let us hope for more…we will certainly look for it.

The earlier versions of this old chestnut from Jack Finney in his serialized novel, first published in Collier's Magazine, were somewhat superior.

The best of the Invasion of the Body Snatchers was Don Siegel's 1956 edition with Dana Wynter and Kevin McCarthy. Hollywood seems hell bent to remake good movies, repeatedly, with inferior copies. The stars in this latest version are fine as are the production values but the script seems somehow lackluster and tired compared to the freshness of the original. The original offered an entirely new concept in science fiction and a superb comprehension by an extraordinary director.

The modernization of the alien life form into a microbe is an inferior concept and lacks the impact of the original, a separate, plant-like creation from some mysterious alien world from unknown space.

There is also no real social parallel today as once was when subtle but palpable societal changes created by the cold remoteness of the then, new nuclear age fear had moved into a once comparably innocent world where global epidemic was only partially felt.