It happens almost every year.

This is deeply disappointing but unfortunately not surprising at all. The two best documentaries I’ve seen this year have just been screwed out of a shot at an Oscar nomination.

“Anvil! The Story of Anvil” and Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” were not picked as one of 15 films deemed eligible by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to be nominated for an Oscar.

Also left off the list was Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim’s “It Might Get Loud” starring Jimmy Page, The Edge, and Jack White and the high-profile doc “The September Issue.” WTF?

These movies join a long and distinguished list of classic documentaries that got screwed by the Academy such as “The King of Kong,” Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man,” Kurt Kuenne’s “Dear Zachary,” “Hoop Dreams” (which was nominated for Best Editing),  “Crumb,” and “American Movie.”

“Soundtrack for a Revolution,” which features the Roots, the Blind Boys of Alabama, John Legend, and Wyclef Jean, however, was nominated. This is the first time I’m hearing about this movie.

By the way, “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” wasn’t released before the Oscar deadline, so it’s ineligible for the documentary category this year. Some insiders say it has a chance at the Best Picture category (which is now expanded to 10 nominees).

Here are the lucky nominees. The three most high-profile docs are in italics:

• The Beaches of Agnes
• Burma VJ
• The Cove
• Every Little Step
• Facing Ali
• Food, Inc.
• Garbage Dreams
• Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and The Pentagon Papers
• Mugabe and the White African
• Sergio
• Soundtrack for a Revolution
• Under Our Skin
• Valentino The Last Emperor
• Which Way Home

What are some of the other high-profile worst Oscar documentary snubs in history?

Tags: 2009, anvil, capitalism: a love story, documentary, included, ineligible, left, Michael, moore, not, off, oscar, screwed, shortlist, snubbed

“Pirate Radio” - the new film from writer/director Richard Curtis (”Love Actually”) - knows exactly what it’s doing.

It tells the story of Carl (Tom Sturridge), an 18-year-old recently expelled British student, who in 1966, is sent to stay with his godfather, Quentin (Bill Nighy), on his boat in the North Sea. From this boat, Quentin broadcasts the pirate radio station Radio Rock, along with a group of DJs and glorified interns played with tremendous heart by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nick Frost, Chris O’Dowd, Rhys Darby, and Rhys Ifans, among others.

The performances are uniformly excellent. They, like the film, strike a perfect balance between humor and a very measured, appropriate dose of sincerity. Nothing is taken too seriously, here, but there’s no cynicism to be found. Carl’s romance with Nighy’s niece plays out logically and simply and his relationships with the others on board are established slowly but surely without being milked for phony tension. Curtis’ affection for his characters comes through and gives way to our affection.

Some elements are coming-of-age; some feel like a Cameron Crowe movie. What’s the most surprising is how many cliches Curtis sidesteps while simultaneously embracing and channeling others. It’s pretty cheesy at times, but it’s so funny and effortlessly endearing that its cheesiness takes on a kind of blissful self-awareness. Again, it knows what it’s doing.

Another nice touch is the way the political conflict is handled. In the midst of a veritable rock embargo on British airwaves, the folks at Radio Rock march forward, delivering new music 24/7 to the salivating masses.

This defiance unavoidably incurs animosity. Kenneth Branagh plays an imperious politician whose goal is to shut down the radio station using any contrived legal loophole available to him. While he’s often very funny, the tone of his scenes is a lot different than the rest of the characters’, and Curtis wisely keeps them separated.

There are no scenes of interaction between Branagh and Nighy, and the film avoids devolving into an underdog story. In fact, the residents of Radio Rock seem to be thwarting Branagh’s every attempt to dismantle them with relative ease. This provides just enough conflict to make us care but not enough to spoil the fun.

And that’s what this is. It’s not a great film, but there’s a lingering, nagging satisfaction in the back of my mind that I can’t ignore. It sets out to be consistently funny and entertaining and it does so with enormous efficiency. Walking out of the theater, I felt relief. It’s been a miserable screening experience this past month or so with tepid disappointments galore. I’m hoping “Pirate Radio” sets a new precedent.

Tags: 2009, boat that rocked, curtis, philip, pirate, pirate radio, radio, richard, richard curtis, seymour hoffman

I didn’t expect much from director Roland Emmerich’s latest disaster flick other than a little dumb fun. “2012” couldn’t even deliver that.

What follows is a short, and hopefully concise, review for a long, and depressingly boring, film (158-minute running time) that is about as almost as much fun as spending three hours alone in a doctor’s waiting room.

Maybe it was asking too much of Emmerich to give us another big disaster flick and distinguish it at all from any of his previous ones (after all, it’s not like “10,000 B.C.” did anyone any favors). The man who gave us “Independence Day,” “The Day After Tomorrow,” and that woeful “Godzilla” remake, it seems, has nothing new to share. Instead he brings back the same tired storylines, with new actors and larger special effects, in hopes that this alone will be enough to satisfy. It’s not.

We’re given: The workaholic dad (John Cusack) who we know will take this opportunity to make things up to his estranged wife (Amanda Peet) and cute kids (Liam James, Morgan Lily). The noble scientist (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who is constantly surprised and thwarted by the government bureaucrat (Oliver Platt) in his attempt to do the right thing. And don’t forget the strong woman with a heart of gold (Thandie Newton) who will no doubt fall for him.

Sadly the special effects, though impressive in the scale and level of destruction, can’t save this sinking ship either. The film delivers none of the fun that “disaster porn” should provide. The morose cloud which hangs over the picture takes away any and all enjoyment to be had from the wanton destruction of the planet.

And do we really need to see the White House destroyed again? Even if Emmerich’s new method of throwing an aircraft carrier at it is different, the result is the same. Been there, done that.

For all its boasts, “2012″ is mostly a tease. We are forced to wait 40 minutes before the real destruction gets started. Then the script does its best to keep interrupting these moments of chaos with canned emotional scenes between the characters (who have just narrowly escaped disaster, again).

The only one here having any fun at all is Woody Harrelson as a crazy conspiracy nut who smartly (given the script) commits suicide at the first possible moment to get out of this dreadful bore of a film. He’s the lucky one.

Emmerich wastes talented actors I normally like, even those I like in bad movies (I’d much rather sit through a double-header of “A Lot Like Love” and “America’s Sweethearts” than sit through “2012″ again), but this lifeless bore delivers nothing. The film lacks the thrill of “Armageddon,” the campy fun of “The Core,” the patriotic jauntiness of “Independence Day,” or even the cheesy B-movie charm of “The Day After Tomorrow.”

I didn’t actively hate “2012″. It didn’t make me angry or want to throw something at the screen. All it really made me do was want to take a nap. I wasn’t rooting for the nature to kill off these characters, but I didn’t exactly care what happened to them either. The latest disaster movie is just that, a disaster (and a pretty boring one at that).

Tags: 2009, 2012, 2012 disaster, 2012 movie, cusack, emmerich, movie, review

Even if you haven’t seen a movie about psychic Jedi warriors in the United States Army who kill goats with their mind, you may come out of “The Men Who Stare at Goats” thinking that you’ve seen a lot of it before.

George Clooney stars in this adaptation of Jon Ronson’s non-fiction book and Grant Heslov, his producing/writing partner from “Good Night and Good Luck,” takes the director’s chair for the first time. Where Clooney exhibited measured control directing “Good Night,” though, Heslov is all over the map with “Goats.”

The movie can’t quite make up its mind about what it wants to be: a silly farce, a character drama, a military satire, a supernatural story, or the personal journey of a humiliated cuckold. This wouldn’t be a problem if it did all of things well and found a through-line, but “The Men Who Stare at Goats” doesn’t do that. Instead, it’s a random string of gags and scenes (some that work well, some that don’t) that all somehow ring familiar. What the film is lucky to have is an excellent cast that seems game for anything.

The cuckold’s tale

Ewan McGregor plays Bob Wilton, the reporter who stumbles onto the story of the First Earth Battalion around the same time his wife leaves him for a one-armed man. His discoveries about a New Age branch of the Army headed by long-haired Vietnam vet Bill Django (Jeff Bridges) should be enough to get him interested, but instead it’s being dumped that gets him to Iraq, talking quite coincidentally to Django’s star pupil, Lyn Cassady (Clooney). His backstory seems forced from the get-go, but when the absurdities of the situation start piling up, it’s easier to forgive.

Silly farce

From there, the movie has a lot of fun filling in the details of this psi-ops Army division. Few actors today can do furious deadpan delivery like Clooney, but some of the stuff he has to convey is so preposterous that when the film asks you to believe in its characters, it’s just impossible. The exception: Bridges is quite sympathetic as a man who’s faith and hope are always teetering on collapse. On the level of farce, however, the film works for a good hour or so.

Military satire

The suggestion that the Army would pursue psychic exploration—and put up with a flower-carrying troop that stands for everything contrary to Army policy—for the sole reason of weaponizing it, is pretty funny. Screenwriter Peter Straughan gets a lot of mileage out of the notion, hoisting awkward notions of peace right up there against men in military outfits who start behaving strangely. But just when the movie feels as if it ought to be getting somewhere comes the sad realization that it has actually begun to wind down.

Character drama?

When all the characters from this flashback-riddled and disjointed movie finally converge, it’s the biggest letdown of the film. All the possibilities that the script hinted at earlier are unwisely scuttled for a lame escape attempt with no real consequence or purpose. It’s hard to get involved in the characters’ plight, especially when the road that they take is so arbitrary all of a sudden.

Supernatural story

Kevin Spacey plays a career-minded psychic warrior who brings unwanted change into the New Earth Army and therefore confirms our suspicions that all of this mind-literally-over-matter stuff is hogwash. Or is it? “The Men Who Stare at Goats” has an unconvincing and unfunny ending that wants to have it both ways, but just comes off as pandering.

The movie is uneven for sure and ludicrous in conceit, but that’s not to say that it isn’t entertaining at times. McGregor is saddled with a tiresome everyman role, but Spacey, Clooney, and especially Bridges make some of their scenes work better than they should. If only Heslov had been able to make a cohesive film out it …

Tags: 2009, clooney, film, goats, movie, movie review, review, The Men Who Stare at Goats

Here’s a post about the validity of the film’s “documentary footage” and true story claim. Review below.

Milla Jovovich, bathed in white light, steps into the foreground. As the camera circles her and abruptly changes angles, the actress delivers a spiel about the film’s production, its authenticity, our freedom to draw our own conclusions, and she wraps things up with the caveat that “some of what [we]’re about to see is disturbing.”

If you start things off with a proclamation like that, you’d better have the goods to back it up.

Set in a small town in northern Alaska in October 2000, the movie purports to use real video and audio from various interviews conducted by Dr. Abbey Tyler with several of her patients who were experiencing alien encounters in conjunction with dramatizations of those interviews and events. With that premise, one would think having convincing documentary footage would be the logical place to start. One would be wrong.

Right off the bat, “The Fourth Kind” can’t get its act together. The footage that kicks off the actual feature is of Dr. Tyler being interviewed by the film’s director, Olatunde Osunsanmi, and it’s so awkward and obviously scripted that the immediate effect is incredulity.

This persists throughout the entire film. None of the footage is convincing and the insinuation that it’s authentic becomes insulting. It doesn’t do itself any favors when it goes into split screen, either, showing the dramatized action alongside its allegedly real counterpart, often revealing the former to be more startling.

With that crippling problem set aside, Jovovich, playing Dr. Tyler, turns in a surprisingly decent performance. She’s convincing as a woman grieving the death of her husband while juggling motherhood and her duties as a psychologist.

Elias Koteas is good, too, as her visiting colleague who champions hard evidence, the scientific method and…yet…denies the validity of his own extraterrestrial encounter later on in the film.

And Hakeem Kae-Kazim as Dr. Awolowa Odusami (said to be an alias), a scholar of ancient languages, provided the film’s one sincere moment of intrigue and disturbance when he discussed the relationship between aliens and ancient Sumeria.

But then we have Will Patton as Sheriff August (another alias) who brings things to a screeching halt with his self-aware, arbitrarily hostile and unreasonable antics which make no sense and do further damage to the credibility the film so desperately needs.

He acts the way only a character in a bad movie would: ignoring evidence, making hasty, irrational decisions that negatively affect just about everyone, withholding basic information about Tyler’s husband’s death without purpose. Did Osunsanmi honestly think we wouldn’t find his character insufferable?

If for nothing else, the film fails by not living up to its own hefty proclamation. It isn’t scary in the slightest. The interviews seem fake and so much of the action borrows from “The Exorcist” and other possession films that it’s laughable. The scares that do occur are simply surprises and couldn’t haunt you if they wanted to.

I have a friend who’s never watched “E.T.” all the way through because he’s terrified of aliens. Just the other day, he was whining to me about being bullied into seeing “Signs” in theaters and how it nearly ruined his life. This wouldn’t faze him.

Tags: 2009, abduction, alaska, Alien, fourth, fourth kind, kind, movie, movie review, review

Robert Zemeckis has helmed his share of modern classics. “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” is not one of them.

There’s so much in the film rife with potential and I frequently caught glimpses of what it could have been. But, sadly, it just didn’t amount to much.
For one thing, it’s operating at cross-purposes. The contents of the story as well as the vernacular employed throughout are not child-accessible. And you know what? I appreciate that. It’s consistent with Dickens’ tale of a man being haunted by various spectres on Christmas Eve that essentially frighten him into festive compliance.

But that serious narrative approach winds up being completely undermined by the visual and sonic strategy, which is, apparently, “more is more.” More shrieks. More thuds. More bright lights. More flying, swirling, twirling scenes. More falling from great heights. More chases. All that time spent assaulting us could have been used to build up necessary emotion.

Jim Carrey is a perfect fit for this material. He plays Ebenezer Scrooge at every stage of his life exceedingly well and the motion-capture is startlingly realistic at times. And I was pleasantly surprised when it occurred to me that Gary Oldman was the man imbuing Cratchit with all that neurotic humility.

However, in Carrey’s case, Scrooge becomes nothing more than a rag doll to be thrown around and dropped on his head and chased through city streets. Instead of being invested or amused, I spent most of my time wondering how a man his age could endure such tremendous physical strain. How about a subdued optical and aural experience to leave room for some Christmas spirit?

All this begs the question: Who exactly was this supposed to appeal to? Certainly not adults. For us, it’s akin to seeing your favorite uncle drink too much at a wedding and embarrass himself on the dance floor. For kids, it’s a gloomy, frightening experience fraught with purposeless eye candy (one family at my screening actually left within the first half hour because their kid got spooked).

The people that were apprehensive about “Where the Wild Things” because it was a bit despairing are the same people that are going to come out in droves to see this thing. And that’s really disappointing. “Where the Wild Things Are” was profusely soulful and heartfelt and honest. Whatever was dark or scary about it had its roots in a very authentic place. This behemoth, on the contrary, has all the emotional honesty of an elaborate fireworks display.

Look, I know it’s a 3D flick. I saw it IMAX and was as unimpressed by 3D as I’ve ever been. Dare I say that Charles Dickens wasn’t the right authorial choice for a big-budget Disney adaptation to be shot in 3D and play on IMAX screens? Zemeckis directed “Forrest Gump.” You’re telling me he couldn’t have made a delightful live-action version of this?

I actively wanted to like this movie. It certainly has some qualities. The themes are intact and the recreation of mid-19th century London is really captivating. Also, the animated characters are extremely expressive. But, again, why did they have to be animated in the first place? The only justification for that is the visual freedom permitted by animation, but that freedom is utilized in such a way that it robs the tale of its spirit almost entirely.

I’m a sentimental pushover and it doesn’t take a lot to put me in the Christmas spirit. This film didn’t. For all its sound and fury, it’s pretty forgettable.

Tags: 2009, 3-D, 3D, carol, carrey, christmas, christmas carol, jim, zemeckis

Mira Nair’s biopic of groundbreaking aviator Amelia Earhart has many components working in its favor. It’s got Oscar-winner Hilary Swank in the title role, supporting performances from Richard Gere and Ewan McGregor, cinematography that ranges from elegant to breathtaking, and a really thorough sense of time and place. And yet it never quite pulls itself together.

The film is competent and solid but there’s little consequence. It suffers from the same problem Michael Mann’s “Public Enemies” did earlier this year, in that it exchanges what could have been a gripping examination of an historical figure for a stylistic retelling of key events in said figure’s life.

While the level of detachment in “Public Enemies” was reasonable considering its central character’s line of work and its director’s brand of storytelling, “Amelia” lacks these excuses and unwisely keeps the viewer at arm’s length.

The screenplay (by Ron Bass and Anna Hamilton Phelan) glosses over the entire formative period of Earhart’s life and tries to compensate for this by giving us poetic tidbits about the glory of flight in Swank’s voice-over narration. This isn’t wholly ineffective, but it’s a far cry from the resonance that would’ve been added had Nair and her writers shown us the development of Earhart’s passion for aeronautics from its infancy to its fullest realization.

What keeps things emotionally afloat is Amelia’s romance with George Putnam (Gere). It’s an honest, loving, imperfect relationship and while their exchanges as written are never anything profound, the two actors are good enough to smooth things over with a lot of sincerity. That’s not to say the dialogue is jarringly awful; it’s just somewhat stilted at times. Ewan McGregor has a nice turn as Eugene Vidal, the West Point pilot instructor with whom Earhart had a small affair - the details of which are left fairly ambiguous and whose repercussions are almost void.

Stuart Dryburgh’s cinematography is actually really impressive, capturing transcendent aerial views of planes immersed in cloudscapes hovering over mountain ranges and beneath the expanse of the firmament, but it’s hard to tell how much of that is justly attributable to him and not the art, special effects and visual effects departments. There’s a nice variety to the ground visuals, though, as Earhart travels around the globe, flying above jungles and deserts and sojourning in various locations.

All in all, the technical excellence of the film doesn’t serve a greater emotional purpose. The performances are strong, the relationships are well established, and the filmmaking itself is pretty impressive.

But I never really got to know Amelia. She mentions her father’s alcoholism in passing and we can infer that this stimulates her fervent desire to escape in some way, but it’s not enough to justify what was ultimately a self-destructive way of life. Because of this disconnect, we are only impacted by Amelia’s fate vicariously through her husband, George Putnam, and never on our own terms.

For a film that has little problem with sentimentality, it should’ve dug deeper in its story and relied less on sweeping orchestrations to affect its audience.

Tags: 2009, amelia, amelia movie review, film, movie, review

There are times when being both a movie critic and a musician come together, and this is one of those times.

My love for the Greg Mottola’s “Adventureland” (bound for my Top Movies of 2008 list for sure) has manifested itself in a Halloween night rock show. As a tribute to the movie and its awesome soundtrack, The Dead Girls (under the name ADVENTUREBAND) will be performing 13 songs from the movie on Saturday, Oct. 31 at the Replay Lounge in Lawrence.

We’ll be dressed like characters from the movie (I’m more of a “rides” guy myself), and we’ve hand-picked 13 of our favorite 80s tunes (and a couple from the 70s) from the 21 songs that were used in the movie.

And because this is a Scene-Stealers event, we wanna give you cool free stuff!

We will also have a DVD of the movie, some mini-posters, postcards, and CD soundtracks (which were made only as promo items and never sold in stores) to give away during the night.

Here is the Facebook event page.

It’s going to be kind of an insane 80s tribute night since we’ll also be playing with Daryl Hall & John Oates tribute act Haulin’ Oats (which is coincidentally the punchline to one of my favorite Neil Hamburger jokes).

So break out those leg warmers and headbands (or just wear jeans and a flannel like I did then) and head down to the Replay Lounge on Halloween for ADVENTUREBAND, a one-night-only 80s rock extravaganza!

Tags: 1980s, 2009, adventureband, adventureland, halloween, live, soundtrack

Fantastic Fest 2009 may be over, but the wrap ups are still coming. Day 5 was one of my favorite days specifically because it consisted entirely of the lower-profile films that Fantastic Fest champions. Coincidentally, my schedule for the day ended up comprised half of horror movies, though in their own ways each felt like they each were from different eras despite all being recently made. “Trick ‘R Treat” is a horror anthology that feels like a cross between the best of late 80s and early 90s horror. “House of the Devil” is made to resemble the fondly remembered low-budget horror of the late 70s and early 80s, and “Rec 2″ is very much a modern shaky-cam fright fest, but with a supernatural twist most reminiscent of early 70s horror.

“Merantau” - solid rock fist up

The first movie of the day was the martial arts film “Merantau.” The Indonesian film industry has had a resurgence lately, and this is the first straight-up martial arts film to be produced by that country. A feet all the more remarkable considering just how good the finished product is.

Easily the best traditional martial arts film at Fantastic Fest this year, “Merantau” tells the story of a young man trying to build a life in the big city of Jakarta, when a chance encounter leads him to rescue a beautiful young woman from a sex trafficking ring.

Of course, the criminals won’t let her stay rescued. As they pursue the pair and her her younger brother, eventually they are forced to make a stand. It should be noted that while the plot may sounds a little trite or inconsequential, the unique atmosphere and culture help keep things feeling impressively fresh. Also, the movie is so sincere and the characters so earnest that you can’t help but be affected by both what happens and how it happens.

The fighting style on display here is also something slightly different than anything I’ve seen before. While not as dancey as capoeira, the way the fighters move here is new to me. It’s not quite the blast that “Ong Bak” was, but “Merantau” is a great example of what this genre and the future of Indonesian cinema has to offer.

“Trick ‘R Treat” - solid rock fist up

The long delayed “Trick ‘R Treat” successfully melds so many sub-genres of horror in a comparatively brief runtime that it’s understandable why it sat on the shelf for two years. It’s not that this movie isn’t good, it’s that it’s so varied it becomes difficult to sell.

Ostensibly a horror anthology, this movie diverts from the standard by actually having all its stories take place on Halloween night in the same town. Not only do some characters show up in multiple stories, the stories are interwoven in such a way that makes for a more involving narrative.

The brisk pacing also keeps the tension up throughout. Unlike most anthologies, there’s really no place where this drags and no weak stories. It may only be 82 minutes long, but so much happens that it almost feels overly generous. The body count is high, the gore and the kills crowd-pleasing, and the performances from actors such as Brian Cox, Dylan Baker, and Anna Paquin all transcend expectations for the horror genre.

It’s really a shame that this is being doomed to a direct to video fate because it’s better than the vast majority of the mainstream horror movies that do play theatrically. “Trick ‘R Treat” is available on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow just in time to become a Halloween institution in your house.

“Mandrill” - solid rock fist up

“Mandrill” is the new spy/hitman movie from the Chilean creative team behind “Kiltro” (a mostly traditional martial arts film) and “Mirageman” (a vigilante/superhero movie grounded in reality). If you haven’t checked those out, you should definitely give them a chance. There’s an inventiveness and a wicked sense of humor that drives both of those two movies, and it thankfully also guides “Mandrill.” The star, Marko Zaror, also happens to be a talented martial artist and was most notably a stunt and fight double for the Rock in “The Rundown.”

When “Mandrill” opens, our hero is on a mission. He infiltrates, beats, or kills a string of people all the while demanding “Where’s Waldo?” From there it just gets more outrageous, including a send-up of B-movie spy films shot in a similar style to the Brock Landers segments of “Boogie Nights.”

There’s a lot more here to like. The love story mostly works, and the fighting, while less plentiful compared to the previous films, is well-staged and appropriately brutal.

The interesting thing about all three of the movies from this team is that they catch you off guard. The low-budget look and subtitled dialogue is like a Trojan horse sneaking in a generous amount of humor and satisfying fights. They all scratch the same itch that the best cult 70s and 80s action movies do. While “Mandrill” may not quite exhibit an evolution in filmmaking for writer/director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, it is the best looking and funniest of the three and accomplishes all it sets out to do.

“House of the Devil” - rock fist way up

Ti West’s “House of the Devil” looks and feels so much like a horror film of the late 70s or early 80s that it would be easy to mistake it for one if not for the presence of industry vets Dee Wallace, Mary Woronov, and Tom Noonan. Think “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Black Christmas,” or “Halloween,” and you’ll have an idea of the look and feel of this. In fact, the costumes, performances, and dialogue are so perfectly analogous to that bygone era of a film making that you’d swear this was a lost classic and not just an exercise in style.

Thankfully it also completely succeeds as an unnerving and suspenseful horror film. Its slow burn may be too much for the ADD set who think it isn’t horror without rapid-fire cuts, heavy metal music, and a death every five minutes, but those with patience will be rewarded with a movie with a rare power to unnerve.

The text that opens the film briefly touches on the Satanic panic that swept across the United States in the early 80s. It then suggests there may have been some truth to it after all. Enter Samantha, an angel-faced young woman looking to extricate herself from the untenable conditions of her dorm and the burnout roommate from hell. She thinks she’s found the perfect place, but she’s short on cash and only has the weekend to raise it. An on-campus flier looking for a babysitter draws her attention, and despite just about every warning bell going off, she agrees to take the job.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a horror movie without a really bad decision at its center, and we spend nearly two-thirds of the movie with her in the titular house as she slowly discovers just how bad one decision can really be. Like the films that clearly influenced it, this movie has creepy atmosphere to spare. It also rewards patience with a bloody, satisfying climax that makes one thing clear: we all owe Geraldo Rivera an apology.

“House of the Devil” is now available as a “pre-theatrical rental” at Amazon.com.

“Stingray Sam” - rock fist way up

“Stingray Sam is not a hero, but he does do the things that folks don’t do that need to be done. He’s got a bravery inside of him that won’t let him run away, will not let him run.”

When I sat down to watch “Stingray Sam,” writer/director/composer Cory McAbee’s followup to the lesser known cult favorite “The American Astronaut,” I had no idea what I was in for. I also didn’t realize I had memorized the lyrics to its catchy theme song, but there they are.

Originally conceived as a series of downloads for portable media players and phones, McAbee embraces the once-popular serial format to present this science fiction/western/musical/comedy. While that may sound like a lot of slashes, the focus here is on the music and the comedy, with the science fiction and western elements providing a template for pointed satire that miraculously feels both timely and timeless.

Each of the six episodes runs about ten minutes in length, includes the above theme song with its opening and closing credits, and sticks to a formula that has the welcome side effect of grounding McAbee’s myriad ideas in palatable segments that never wear out their welcome. They all feature witty and biting David Hyde Pierce narration that recalls Douglas Adams, charming lead performances from both McAbee and his bandmate Crugie, a seriously wonderful and undeniably catchy soundtrack, and the best comedic performance of a director’s daughter since “Godfather Part III.”

While there is nothing out there quite like it, fans of the recent “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog” should feel right at home here. Even McAbee’s beautiful “The American Astronaut” seems more cerebral and restrained by comparison. Thankfully you don’t have to wait long to find out just how great this is. You can watch the first episode directly at StingraySam.com and if you like it, the entire film is available now with exclusive bonus content directly from its creator’s website.

In a sea of quirky titles, “Stingray Sam” stands out as the most fun I had at Fantastic Fest this year.

“[REC] 2″ - solid rock fist up

Two years ago, the Spanish film “[REC]” burst onto the scene. A shaky-cam horror tale about a late-night television personality covering a day in the life of firefighters that could have otherwise turned into “The Blair Zombie Project,” was hailed as an instant classic. This was thanks in part to several factors, including its location, lead actress, atmosphere, and the way it unraveled the central mystery behind an illness that turns people into rabid, seemingly mindless killers.

Thankfully, the majority of these elements are leveraged effectively here as well, while the events of the first film are put into a new context and that central mystery is explored even more deeply. The events of “[REC] 2″ span a few hours, some of which take place before the events of the first film even end. In that film some emergency workers and the film TV crew following them were trapped inside an apartment building in an attempt to contain a potential outbreak of a dangerous disease.

This film begins by following a paramilitary group and a man claiming to be a scientist as they enter the quarantined tenement building after all contact with those inside is lost. Told they must document everything, the team uses cameras mounted to helmets as they search the building for survivors and continue the mission of locating the source of the outbreak in order to synthesize a cure.

More action packed than its predecessor, “[REC] 2″ does not sacrifice scares or gore. In an interesting twist, the film also shifts perspectives to a separate group later in the film. While a little jarring at first, the shift in perspective actually keeps things fresh and adds yet another layer to the film. While some people may groan at the inclusion of nosy teenagers, their story provides a more identifiable human element that the first one handled so well.

Essentially a “middle chapter” film, “[REC] 2″ is the rare sequel that effectively expands the overall story in a way that enriches both films and makes the changes made in the rote American remake “Quarantine” seem extremely shortsighted. While being a great standalone horror film, “[REC] 2″ ends in such a way that so perfectly sets up a third part that the wait for “[REC] 3″ will be a very, very difficult one.

That was it for day five. Day six brought James McTiegue’s followup to “V for Vendetta” with “Ninja Assassin,” as well the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man,” Uwe Boll’s non-videogame based film “Rampage,” and more.

Tags: 2009, fantastic fest, House of the Devil, Mandrill, Merantau, movie, Rec 2, review, Stingray Sam, Trick 'R Treat

It’s been five years since the one-two punch of Zack Snyder’s amped-up “Dawn of the Dead” remake and Edgar Wright’s loving tribute “Shaun of the Dead” made the zombie movie mainstream entertainment again.

While not as clever as “Shaun” or as scary as parts of “Dawn,” the new horror comedy “Zombieland” does pull off a minor coup in its genre—it successfully uses a zombie apocalypse as the setting for a romantic comedy/family picture.

There are many surface-value stylistic touches that make “Zombieland” immediately accessible. The first that leaps to mind is a super slo-mo opening sequence set to Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” that pinpoints specific moments where the irony of becoming a zombie is simply too funny not to laugh at—like a zombie bride tackling her new husband moments after the nuptials and a zombie stripper wearing pasties and chasing businessmen out of a strip club. (The scene is even funnier when taken as a parody of the slo-mo opening of “Watchmen,” Zack Snyder’s latest film.)

“Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer sets the playful tone with this scene, and by the time he starts inserting 3D graphic titles (a la TV’s “Fringe”) onscreen to illustrate the “rules” of how to survive in a zombie-infested world, he has the audience in his pocket.

What propels the plot forward, however, is the central conceit that it’s not the big macho types who survive in this overrun non-society. It’s the smart ones—like Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a nerdy videogamer whose neurotic nature now actually works in his favor. He is able to remember and learn from each dangerous zombie encounter he has and create a massive list of rules to live by.

When he meets Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), he’s happy to latch on to a seemingly insane cowboy with a gung-ho attitude and large supply of weapons. A pair of young grifter sisters (Emma Stone and Abagail Breslin) that the new allies meet in a supermarket present a new set of challenges for them.

It turns out there’s more to the characters of “Zombieland” than one might expect. Like Sam Raimi’s horror comedy “Drag Me to Hell” from earlier this year, the movie relies on several small in-crisis moments to define these people. The casual attitude they all have towards the worldwide plague of flesh-eating monsters actually masks some common insecurities. This may seem incongruous in a movie where a creative zombie kill earns bragging rights, but it’s essential to why the movie works so well.

In “Zombieland,” the survivors search for any nostalgic connection to the past. Screenwriters Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese mine this idea for some unexpected poignancy and also some unexpected laughs. One scene in particular leads to one of the best cameo appearances in recent memory from a Hollywood star not afraid to lampoon his old movies. The script doesn’t stay too long on anything either—it’s efficiently plotted.

Even though the ending of the film requires the acceptance of some silly contrivances, it’s easier to accept because everything that has come before it is delivered with a heavily self-aware quality. Columbus narrates the movie to the audience, constantly acknowledging their presence. Despite this artifice, Fleischer also balances the campy with the affecting to a great degree.

In the end, what makes “Zombieland” work better than it should is that it taps into a sort of common loneliness and the innate desire to feel like you are connected with people—be they family, friends, or fellow survivors of a zombie holocaust.

Tags: 2009, movie, review, zombieland, Zombieland movie review