Kurt Thomas was on the U.S. Olympic team, and he won a lot of medals, but unfortunately none were at the Olympics.² He also invented a sweet move called The Thomas Flair which many break dancers use today. You’d think that after all he accomplished in his gymnastic career he’d take some time off to rest on his laurels. Not Kurt Thomas, after conquering gymnastics he set his sights on film and totally changed the world.

Wow, that trailer is awesome! The “Game” that they’re talking about is played in a tiny country called Parmistan. No one has won it in 900 years. If you win, you get one request, if you lose, well… you get the idea. The reason the U.S. Government has sent gymnast Kurt Thomas to compete is because somehow Parmistan got a hold of a satellite station which can monitor every satellite and it has something to do with the Star Wars program. I think terrorists are involved too and they could destroy nations somehow with the station. Someone mentioned nuclear threat too. So whoever wins this game gets to request control of the station. Don’t worry though, they only mention the plot in the beginning of the movie. After that you just have to enjoy Kurt Thomas fighting people with gymnastics.

One of the best scenes is where he has to go through the village of the damned and deal with all of Parmistan’s criminally insane. For some reason there’s an actual pommel horse which he then proceeds to pommel the whole village with. I think they had to do a lot of scenes in one take because there’s one part early on in the game where they’re leaving the city on horses and a towns person totally gets plowed over by a horse on accident.

All in all I’d say this movie is a winner. It’s based on a novel from 1957 too so that gives it a little bit more class. It’s so completely inept that it’s amazing it even got finished. Here’s two more weird scenes if you need more convincing:

1. ‘Killer’ added for emphasis.

2. He probably would’ve won a few if the U.S. didn’t boycott the 1980 games.

I’m not going to say what the movie is about. It’s a Pixar film, that should be enough. Fred Willard is in it too, he says my favorite line of the movie, “Space is the final FUNtier!”. 5 stars.

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Aimee said I have to say something more about the movie.

I’m a big fan of Pixar, they consistently do it right. They get wonderful talent to make their films and then they do something that no other studio has dared to ever do; they keep them around and nurture their talents so they can make more imaginative films. Brilliant! This crazy plan makes the worst Pixar movie¹ better than the best piece of garbage coming out of any other studio. I’m not just talking about CGI kids fare, I’m talking about EVERYTHING coming out today. On average² for every Toy Story, we get 100 You Don’t Mess With The Zohans. Why would anyone want to have their intelligence insulted by watching that junk is beyond me. I know, some people don’t care. They just want to watch something that they don’t have to think about. I like watching dumb movies too, but I still get more out of repeated viewings of R.O.T.O.R. than I would if I had watched the newest rehashed Dane Cook “comedy”. Gosh, I didn’t think I’d get so angry writing about Wall-E.

Ok, so I know it’s not for everyone, but Idiocracy³ is a great companion piece to Wall-E. I did a good job of avoiding the advertisements of Wall-E so I didn’t really know what it was about. And I’m not going to ruin one bit of it for you. The animation is the best ever, the sound design is just superb, and the storytelling is top-notch. Storytelling, that’s what it’s all about. If you can’t even do that then your movie is going to be terrible. I don’t really care what the story is, the art of telling a story well is enough for me.

1. I say it’s Monsters Inc. But I’ll probably change my mind if I had a Pixar marathon. Which sounds like a great way to spend my weekend.

2. I just did the math in my head, it’s correct.

3. Idiocracy definitely has it’s problems, but at least it exists.

I don’t have much time, and I don’t think much needs to be said about the new Hulk movie. So I’m going to keep this one short.

If you loved the TV show like I did growing up in the 80’s then you’ll love the new movie.  It has an intro very similar to the show intro, and it even uses the same Bruce-Banner-walking-away-music at one point. I tried to find a video of the closing credits to the tv show with the song, but instead this came up.

One of the best things about Marvel having their own film studio now is that they can finally have crossovers without any legal problems. How much better would Daredevil had been if Spiderman showed up? Probably not much better, but it would’ve been neat. Starting In the beginning- and throughout the whole movie- we get a lot of crossover from the recent Iron Man movie. Very, very cool. Oh, and Martin Starr from Freaks & Geeks is in it for a second too!

So Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk are both hits in my mind (Iron Man was better though). My concern is for the future of Marvel Studios. Are they going to do it right and copy Pixar’s business model, or are they going to get greedy like everyone else and stop getting great talent to make great films? People will go see Iron Man 2 no matter what now. Marvel can get a terrible director and writer to make it for a lot cheaper than bringing back Jon Favreau to make another brilliant piece of film that will stand the test of time. We’ve seen it time and time again.

The Hulk was a blast. I had a great time. Everything is better this time around. Don’t waste your time with The Happening. I hear from trusted sources that it’s just simply terrible. Hulk Smash The Happening!

I would like to also point you to The Magician, it was a show that Bill Bixby did before he did The Incredible Hulk TV show. He was a magician that solved crimes or something. He really was a magician in real life too. I just really like magic and the Hulk. God Bless you Bill Bixby.

Back in 1981, when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, three 12 year old kids in Mississippi saw it multiple times and became a little obsessed with it. They decided that it would be a great idea to remake the movie shot for shot during the summer. 7 summers later it was finally finished.

I had first heard about this remake 5 years ago. It was so fantastic it just couldn’t be true. I looked around for bootlegs, but it turned out to be as hard as finding a copy of “The Day the Clown Cried“. Who has that kind of patience? Who has the resources to create something so epic? It was a huge Hollywood production, how could 3 kids possibly do such a thing? A few nights ago I saw the proof. It is very real, and they totally pulled it off, and it was one of the best movie experiences I’ve ever had in my life.

You really should watch the trailer that The Belcourt put together for this screening. It looks awful, the sound is unintelligible half the time, and pretty much everything about the movie is bad. But there is so much magic in it. What these kids accomplished is nothing short of spectacular. It really reminded me why I love movies.

Obviously there are some things they couldn’t film, but they’re few and far between. For instance, they decided not to film the scene where the muscled dude gets destroyed by the airplane propeller because they thought it would “look fake” when they had to blow up a model airplane at the end of the scene. I don’t want to spoil any more of it for you because half the fun is trying to figure out how they’re going to pull off the next big scene.

The director Eric Zala was in attendance and did a Q&A session after the screening. He told us that Daniel Clowes (writer of Ghost World) is currently writing a movie about their experience during the 7 years. He told a lot of great stories about the filming. But perhaps the best story was about Steven Spielberg writing a letter to him after seeing a bootleg of it and telling him that not only did he love it, but it actually inspired him. That would be like if I was a teenager and somehow got to compete against Bo Jackson in the many things he knows and he gave me a high five after I kicked his butt. That was a really bad analogy. Man I really love Bo Jackson.

The movie can only be screened at non-profit venues. So if you want to see it then you’ll have to bug your local non-profit art house theater or college and demand that they show it. We’re lucky that George Lucas hasn’t pitched a fit and sued the pants off the filmmakers. There have been rumors since 2004 that it will one day be released in an Indy box set or something. They were filming a lot at the event, it looked like they were filming for a documentary perhaps. So maybe it will get released, but don’t hold your breath. Also it’s better than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

This has been the first time in years that I’ve seen a movie with nothing but the poster to go on, I never even saw the trailer. It’s really hard to see a movie these days without being tainted by any sort of baggage. I saw the poster. It didn’t make any sense, but I’m a fan of both David Fincher and Spike Jonze. Tarsem’s only other film was the completely insane The Cell¹, a film I’ve been meaning to revisit for the past few years, but I have yet to make the time.

Tarsem is known for being really artsy. He often recreates or pays homage to paintings in his work, he’ll spend 17 years working on a film (which he did for The Fall), and he doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it’s always really pretty anyway.

The Fall is about a crippled stunt man (Lee Pace) in a hospital in 1920’s LA. A cute little girl that barely knows English (Cantinca Untaru, who really didn’t know any English) befriends him. He starts telling her an epic story during her daily visits to him, but he’s really just using her so she’ll do stuff for him. It’s very much like The Princess Bride² in that the story frequently gets interrupted by the storyteller or listener. In fact, the interactions between the stunt man and the girl were filmed first and all improvised. The chemistry they have is the best I’ve seen in a long time. They actually dictated a lot of what happens in the story by their improvisation.

The story world scenes are spectacular. They really are epic. Tarsem shot this movie all over the world. Really. He’d been scouting locations for nearly two decades³. There’s so many amazing places in the world I didn’t know about, but thankfully Tarsem exposes many of them in this film. Palaces, deserts, tiny islands in the middle of the sea (and I do mean tiny, like only 20 wide), ancient ruins and an M.C. Escher drawing come to life.

I’ll admit it, I don’t get the movie⁴, but it still haunts me nearly a week after seeing it. It doesn’t make any sense to me. You’ve got an elephant swimming, Charles Darwin wearing a pimp coat, birds coming out of a dude’s mouth, evil black guards that sound like snarling dogs and this amazing scene. I love really great slow motion and this film really gets it right. The whole intro to the film is a long slow motion black and white sequence that’s just brilliant.

The film is rated R, but really should have been rated PG-13. There is nothing in here that warrants an R rating, I guess it might be because of the violence, but it’s no worse than Lord of the Rings or Star Wars. There is a scene that comes to mind that could be found offensive in this post 911 world, and I’m assuming that’s why they got the R rating. If it is the reason, then I’m offended.

If you like breathtaking photography then you’ll enjoy the movie no matter how weird it gets. If you like knowing what’s going on then buy a ticket to The Fall and sneak in to What Happens in Vegas.

1. I understand that The Cell was pretty much only made because The Matrix was such a hit and the studio heads finally “understood” what Tarsem was trying to do.

2. Turns out The Fall is actually a remake of an old Bulgarian movie called “Yo Ho Ho“, but who’s ever seen or even heard of that movie?

3. He was just waiting for the right little girl to come along, and when she did he knew he had to make it right away because little girls grow up so fast.

4. I think it’s a tribute to the pioneers of stunt work in the early silent films. Seriously.

I was so excited to finally see this movie.  I’ve heard so many great things about it. I really dig Hammer and Tongs as filmmakers, plus it’s about the son of Rambo(w). I must say the wait was definitely worth it.

Son of Rambow takes place in the 80’s in England, but unlike movies like The Wedding Singer it doesn’t bombard you with 80’s nostalgia (except for one amazing over the top dance party scene).  Will Proudfoot is a young boy with a healthy imagination.  He also belongs to a highly religious family (they’re Quakers or something, I never did catch what religion they were).  At school he has to leave the classroom whenever they watch a documentary because he’s not allowed to watch TV.  The school troublemaker, Lee Carter, befriends him and tricks him in to being a stunt man in a movie he’s shooting.   There’s also a French exchange student that has got to be the coolest kid in world.

Will accidentally watches a bootleg of First Blood¹, the first movie he’s ever seen. It has the same effect as giving a six pack of Mountain Dew laced with LSD to a 6 year-old.  He goes completely bonkers.  He becomes obsessed with making the movie.  What happens next is nothing short of brilliant.

This film is a total 80’s PG family movie². It can stand up next to The Goonies, Monster Squad, and The Sandlot- all movies that capture the spirit, imagination, and excitement of being a kid. I don’t want to ruin any more of the movie for you, this is something you need to see with as little preconceived notions as possible.  Just go in there with an open mind and let it get blown.

Real quick- you should really check out Hammer and Tongs other videos right now.

1. The writer/director Garth Jennings says that this was the first R rated movie he ever saw as well.

2. The Goonies was rated PG even though the language was a bit hard, PG-13 had just been invented a year earlier and was still being defined. Just like The Goonies it features kids talking like kids.

If you’re a David Mamet fan then you don’t need to read any further; you’re going to see this movie no matter what I write. I loved it completely. There, now you can go out and see it for yourself.

Now, for the people that have never heard of David Mamet, the ones that think that Tim Allen is a terrible actor, or maybe they think it’s just going to be a fighting movie. Come with me and I’ll tell you about one of the great movies of 2008.

Did you like The Usual Suspects? Yeah? It was good huh? David Mamet had a similar movie come out at the same time called The Spanish Prisoner. And guess what? It was better. Well… I think it was better. David Mamet also wrote other classics such as Glengarry Glen Ross, Ronin, the Untouchables, and House of Games (his directorial debut).

Redbelt is about Mike Terry (the magnificent Chiwetel Ejiofor), a jujitsu instructor who is all about the way of the warrior, you know, honor, doing what’s right, the golden rule, all that stuff. His business is failing, but he refuses to start competing for money because “It makes one weak”. After a series of seemingly innocent exchanges (a Mamet staple) he finds himself in the place he never wanted to be. “There’s always an escape” is what he tells his students, but what will he do when he gets tested himself?

I’m not a fan of the Ultimate Fighting scene. I appreciate the art of a good fight, but I don’t need to see someone just get pummeled. The fighting in this movie is not hyper-fighting, this is the real deal. The movie begins with two of Mike Terry’s students sparring, with Mike telling them what moves to perform. It might sound boring to some people, but I was hooked right away. If you’re not riveted by the first scene you might as well walk out and watch “What Happens In Vegas” instead. Something so simple has been made interesting through Mamet’s dialog. Mamet has always been great at dialog, but this is probably his most dialog light movie. He won’t hold your hand through the film, he won’t explain anything that can be explained with actions instead. Mamet doesn’t treat us like kids. We don’t need a secondary actor explaining that the other guy is a bad dude, we know it just by the way he carries himself.

Okay, let’s get this Tim Allen thing out of the way. He is in the movie, he plays a famous actor currently filming an action movie, but don’t let that turn you off from seeing this. Just because someone is known for doing comedy doesn’t mean they can’t hold their own with real dramatic actors. I’ve always believed that some of the best actors are the ones that start out doing comedy, or more specifically improv. Woody Allen, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Jon Lovitz, Will Farrell, and even Adam Sandler have all proven they can do good drama. I’d go so far to say that if the abismal Rob Schneider was cast in a drama I’m sure he’d do an excellent job. Before anyone writes a comment about Jimmy Fallon I’d like to remind them that I can’t consider him a comedian since he’s never made me laugh. Anyways, don’t let the fact that you hate The Santa Clause trilogy as a reason to stay away.

There’s so many great actors in this movie. Tim Allen was one of my favorites besides Ejiofor. Emily Mortimer and Alice Braga as the two main women were spectacular as well. Seriously, there’s so many great actors doing their thing here that I can’t even mention them all. Ricky Jay¹ did weird me out a bit, he seemed to be reading from a cue card at points. But upon reflection of his character it was just right.

Mamet writes a lot about what it is to be a man, and I know that most men will love this movie because of that (and the few awesome fight scenes). But I believe it has something to offer to the women as well. If you’re a woman and saw the movie please leave a comment below and let us know what your thoughts were.

1. Ricky Jay is a Mamet regular and master magician, which is good since deception and misdirection are themes in most of Mamet’s writing

P.S. I just remembered… The ending is preposterous. It could never happen, but even so, I stuck with it to the end to see where it went. It was still ridiculous, but it somehow worked. Oh man, just thinking about the last shot makes me want to hug Chiwetel Ejiofor.

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The folks in the Young at Heart Singing Chorus would have something to say about that. With an average age of 81, this singing group teaches us you’re never too old to learn a new song.

The Young at Heart Singing Chorus started in ‘84 at an old folks home. Just some old people singing old people songs, then one day one of the members got up and sang Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy” and it just took off from there. Now they exclusively sing “rock” songs. Songs from the likes of Talking Heads, The Clash, and Sonic Youth- just to name a few. They mention singing Radiohead in the movie, but it didn’t make the cut, I wonder what song they did. I should mention that “Young at Heart” is also a tv documentary for the BBC called “Young @ Heart”. From what I understand they just recut the show for a theatrical version here in the states.

The chorus is gearing up for a new show. They’ve got a lot of songs under their belt, but they’re learning a handful of new ones for their next tour. Yes, they tour. I’ve been on tour a few times and I imagine it would be a complete nightmare to deal with 2 dozen seniors (who at any moment might need the last rites read to them) on tour in Europe. If I ever get to meet their touring manager I’m going to give them a trophy.

The film focuses on about 1/3 of the members while they try to learn the new songs. James Brown’s “I Feel Good” does not come naturally to anyone. Everybody hates “Schizophrenia” by Sonic Youth, and Allen Toussaint’s “Yes We Can Can”, with it’s 71 “Can”s in the lyrics, proves to be terribly frustrating for all involved. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the music and the singing, maybe it’s New England, but these people are full of life. They seem so strong. My grandparents can’t get around like these people do. There’s even a 92 year old lady that won’t stop flirting with the film crew nearly every time she’s interviewed.

This movie is very, very touching. I’ve seen it twice now and both times I think the person sitting next to me was tearing up at certain points. I can’t be sure though due to my own affliction at the time. One of the standout scenes for me was their performance at the prison. One moment they’re all old people standing in front of a bunch of prisoners. Then they explode in to Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark”. I’m serious, they really explode. There was so much energy I thought it was a bunch of kids dancing up there. Then they sing “Forever Young”. I know it’s a cheap trick to utilize a touching song during a touching moment to make the audience feel a certain way, but I fell for it, and so did most of the prisoners. In fact, the movie is chock full of these musical moments, but it works here. One of the final performances is a solo of “Fix You” by Coldplay (the only song I was unfamiliar with) sung in honor of a recently deceased member of the group, who was supposed to sing that very song as a duet with said soloist. If that doesn’t tug at your heart strings, you’re a robot.

And now, I present to you, The Young at Heart Singing Chorus performing The Ramones “I Wanna Be Sedated”

Gee whiz! Iron Man is great! I’ve read more than my share of comics, but I never read Iron Man. I pretty much missed the boat on Marvel altogether. I think Spiderman was the only Marvel book I picked up as a kid. We didn’t have much money so all I had to read were my dad’s old comics, which were pretty much all Batman and Groo, with some smatterings of a few titles that never got popular but were drawn by his favorite artists. My mom was just glad I was reading until she noticed all his old Frank Frazetta calendars were in the same box under the Mad Magazines. Anyways I had no clue why they were even making an Iron Man movie, but when I read that Jon Favreau was directing I knew it would be well worth my time.

Iron Man is Tony Stark(played perfectly by Robert Downey Jr.), gazillionaire and boss at Stark Industries, a corporation that invents awesome stuff- including weapons for war. His best friend is Jim Rhodes (played perfectly by Terrence Howard), a powerful military man. Pepper Potts (played perfectly by Gwyneth Paltrow) is Stark’s personal assistant. Obadiah Stane is 2nd in command or something at Stark Industries, he was best friends with Stark’s dad. I’m terrible with faces so I didn’t realize Obadiah was played by The Dude AKA Jeff Bridges (who was perfect by the way) until I heard him talk. Everyone is so good here.

This is an origin story, but don’t think it’s going to be like every other origin story. It’s definitely got its act together. Stark is a regular guy, he doesn’t get covered in radioactive ooze or get struck by lightening. He’s a super smart scientist inventor who’s also super slick with the ladies. He’s put into a position that forces him to grow a conscience. I’m not saying Stark is a perfectly moral dude, he’s not. He kills terrorists when Batman would’ve delivered them to jail (I know Batman has killed in the past, but it’s been a rare occurrence). He’s also an alcoholic, which I hear is a big deal, but not in this movie. I believe they’re saving that storyline for the sequel. And yes, they hinted at a sequel a few times in the film. With every origin story you get the obligatory new-invention-test-run-that-doesn’t-go-so-well montages. These are pretty fun, but the action scenes are spectacular. Holy cow was I excited. I was alone in the theater and after each awesome moment I couldn’t keep from saying out loud how cool that was.

Jon Favreau really hits it out of the park this time. I’ve always admired him for focusing on story and character rather than special effects (I’m looking at you Transformers). He even prefers using practical effects instead of CGI whenever possible. The last movie he directed was Zathura. It wasn’t just a quasi sequel to Jumanji, it was a great movie for all ages. It was full of practical effects and the movie was better for it, it didn’t hurt that he had a fully fleshed out script either though.

I predict that Iron Man will be huge. It’s going to have great word of mouth. If Indy 4 doesn’t deliver, and early reports say it won’t, then everyone should go watch Iron Man a second or third time. Iron Man isn’t perfect, I think it has maybe 2 extremely minor flaws; I couldn’t find either one. Don’t hesitate throwing down that $10 for a ticket. You’ll get your money’s worth.