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The Mist (DVD)

Don’t plan on going to sleep right after watching this one. It is not conducive to sweet dreams.

The problem with Stephen King’s tales of horror is that they are too plausible, if you can allow yourself to sretch your boundaries on what might be reality. The situation is not totally impossible, what with man screwing around with genetics, physics and anything else. And the reactions of the people involved in the situation is entirely realistic. But the story is not an accepted reality, so the horror is still “out there”.

The painter/dad, played by Thomas Jane of The Punisher fame, reacts and acts just as a man of his nature would be expected to. His son, played by Andre Braugher Toby Jones, is a normal boy thrust into a bizarre world. The acting is superb, and the story lacks nothing in character development, fast paced action, special effects, and shear terror.

The religious fanatic is entirely believable as well. And the rest of the characters, hoping to remain safe in the supermarket, each add believable detail.

It has left me wondering – did I miss something in the news, was Maine perhaps visited by strange creatures from an alternate reality, and I missed it?

Alvin and the Chipmunks (DVD)

Need a de-stressor? Have the grandkids over for the weekend? Then this is the perfect solution.

The story definitely has the awwww factor. Aw, the poor chipmunks tree has been cut down. Aw, the mean man put them out in the rain. Aw, they are soooo cute sleeping under a small blanket on the chair, with little pillows under their tiny heads. Aw, look how sweet Theodore looks curled up around Dave’s shoulder, when he couldn’t get back to sleep because he had a nightmare.

Aw, the evil record executive Ian is making them work too hard, their little throats are sore. And he gave them coffee, loaded with sugar and chocolate. Everyone knows chipmunks can’t handle caffeine!

It’s no wonder the movie won the 2008 Blimp Award for Favorite Movie in the Kids Choice Awards, USA.

And the ending is a nice long awww when Dave resolves his commitment issues and rescues the trio and wins the woman.

If you go expecting a horror story, you will be disappointed. This is more a somebody did somebody wrong song, and a tale of revenge wrought by a ghost. Not a very original theme, but told with more restraint than most ghost stories. So the horror factor wasn’t there, but the story had a few twists that made it worth the 85 minutes spent.

There likely is a magazine publishing fake pictures of ghosts trying to connect with the living. There likely is a medium or two in Japan who can discern what a ghost is trying to communicate. These lie in the realm of possibility, given the premise that ghosts are a reality. Even if there is no such thing as revenge seeking ghosts, there are certainly enough believers to make the publishing of the magazine and the vocation of medium lucrative. I would like to know what the medium said to the couple in this film you’d think he would speak English so the wife would be able to understand. After all, the warning was for her, and with his preternatural sensibilities he should have known.

The telekinetic special effects were restrained as well, in comparison to other films in this genre. Personally, I found this made the story more believable. I was somewhat disappointed with the ending, as it reminded me of a Disneyland ride, the Haunted House. But it seemed a fitting and final revenge.

Laws of Attraction (DVD)

A movie starring Pierce Brosnan is bound to attract attention, law numero uno. Julianne Moore rates the bright lights herself. But the attraction between these two bright lights seems to dim as the movie progresses. Perhaps it is simply the age-old truth that the chase is more fun than the kill. Perhaps they didn’t like each other in real real life.

Whatever, the scenes where Miss Woods (Moore) was cutting Rafferty (Brosnan) into fine little pieces so she could sweep him under the rug were well done. As were the scenes where Rafferty soused up Woods, or in some other way connived to get her into his bed. If they were in fact two wee-heeled, successful lawyers, I would recommend they find the nearest AA meeting, forget the laws of attraction, and practice the 9 steps.

I was hoping for a corny chick flick I could enjoy with a nuked bag of popcorn and a diet pop, and actually did enjoy the first three-quarters of the story. The court battle that took them back to Ireland, the phony minister who had performed their marriage, the reconciled rock-band singer and his designer wife just seemed too contrived.

At any rate, given the amount of trust between the two of them, I don’t think the resulting marriage will make it through the first year. Much as I didn’t make it through the last quarter.

Casino Royale (DVD)

Daniel Craig is not the most exciting Bond to come along, nor is Casino Royale truly a Bond film. It’s more a take-off on all the other blood and guts movies hitting the theatres these days.

No cars that turns into a plane or boat, no amazing gadgets to outfox the bad guys. Just smash and shoot. Oh, and hit the balls with a cement ball on a chain, through a bottomless chair. Nice touch.

Not only is this not a relaxing delve into the fantasy of sexy spy-dom, it’s convoluted story line along with the mumblings of the characters makes it an effort to try to follow.

The crowning touch of bad taste, just to be sure you have a foul taste when the movie is finally over, James really doesn’t give a damn if his martini is shaken or stirred. Yuck!

The Queen (DVD)

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

This is really not a show about the Queen at all; in fact, a movie based on the short period surrounding Princess Diana’s death only portrays a small slice of the Queen’s life. As a staunch supporter of the English royalty, I was offended in the presumption of Hollywood to title such a moment with such an encompassing name.

Helen Mirren plays the queen with sensitivity and understanding, and just the right amount of nose pointing upwards.

The setting is England in 1997; the defining event is the death of Diana. Mr. Blair, played by Michael Sheen, is the new prime minister, an event that was already cause for change in England.

The conflict is the way details of Diana’s funeral are to take place. The Queen’s desire for a sober, private ceremony are not the wishes of the country, which naturally allows the media hype to dictate their emotional response.

While Mr. Blair comes off as some sort of demi-hero – he does take his turn at washing up the dinner dishes – he is also put smartly into his place at the end of the movie.

I hope the Queen does not think everyone hates her for being more upset over the death of a beautiful fourteen-point stag than she appears to be over the death of her grandson’s mother. She did mention the stoic British tradition of grieving silently to oneself, so who can say what feelings she was actually going through. And who can say the events did take place as the movie portrayed, poetic license and all that.

In the end, she did what was best for her people and for the monarchy.

In the end, she is the Queen.

Babel (DVD)

If true art portrays the culture that spawned it, Babel is art in its purest form. Perhaps that is why this film won an Oscar, plus 26 other awards from ALMA to Eddie to Best American Film, plus 72 additional nominations.The historical significance: human hands built the tower of Babel at a time when everyone spoke the same language. Mankind was attempting to build a tower to reach God. God struck the tower down, and when the people dispersed, they all spoke different languages.

Perhaps today’s shrinking world, the ease of travel to other countries, is the attempt to bring mankind to the lowest denominator, the striving for survival.

In Babel, four very diverse countries and cultures are involved. The convoluted story begins in Morocco with a family of goat herders, and their purchase of a rifle from a friend. The rifle’s purpose was to kill the jackals that were decimating the goatherd. But the boys were testing it out while watching the goats, to see if it would actually reach three kilometers as promised. The younger son, who was by nature a good shot, hit a bus that was approaching from some distance away. He thought he had missed, until the bus stopped not long after his shot. So the two boys ran back home, and later heard that an American tourist had been shot.

Meanwhile, the American tourist (Cate Blanchett) was there with her husband (Brad Pitt), who was trying to make amends for having left her and their two kids at some time in the recent past. She was not ready to acquiesce at that time. The tour bus got them to a small town where she was patched up. Her husband contacted the embassy for assistance.

While all this was going on, the children’s nanny, an illegal from Mexico, decided to take the two small children with her to her sister’s wedding in Mexico. She had tried unsuccessfully to get someone to watch them for the day. During the course of events, Amelia and the two children are dropped in the dessert on the American side of the border after the wedding.

Where do the Japanese father and his daughter fit into the picture? Besides providing the nude scenes, it turns out that the father had given the rifle to his hunting guide in Morocco as a thank-you for the trip. The daughter is deaf, and adjusting to the loss of her mother. The teenage form of the angst all humanity goes through. Her misguided attempts to lose her virginity are deep cries for comfort.

Babel literally means confusion. And this movie is definitely about the confused states of the people involved. Awareness comes slowly, and to some it doesn’t come at all.

Troy (DVD)

Brad Pitt is the Rock Hudson/Jackie Chan of Ancient Greece. This epic movie, based on The Iliad, and The Aeneid, does take a lot of creative liberties with its portrayal of this noble period of Greek history. However, history exists to be interpreted by creative minds, and the result in this case is an uplifting couple of hours examining the human pathos.

“The face that launched a thousand ships”, the “Trojan horse”, the Spartan method of battle, the gods and the temples – all these images bring back high school memories of beginning awareness of different cultures and the romance to be found in history.

Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Achilles, with a battle style somewhere between dance and martial arts, and a body that would launch a thousand delicate hankies, (well, probably a lot more than a thousand) poses the soldier’s eternal paradox. Why indeed do kings not fight their own battles? And there are good men of honour who will die on each side of the battlefield. Achilles is remembered, and who better to remind us of his story than Brad? Perhaps one of the most fitting incidents in the making of the movie is the delay in shooting Achilles’ big fight with Hector due to an injury to Brad Pitt’s Achilles tendon.

Paris (Orlando Bloom) as prince, lover, poet and coward. This part of the story is open to interpretation, but Hector’s reluctance to kill him as he crawls to his brother’s feet is viable, and probably easier to portray than a rescue by a goddess. As the gods are continually being put into question during this depiction of Homer’s great epic, the mood of the story would be radically changed if a goddess actually intervened in the human drama.

This is a movie to purchase. It improves with multiple viewings, and not many movies live up to that type of scrutiny.

Riding the Bullet (DVD)

It seems as humans we get in trouble during puberty, either by doing things we really shouldn’t have, or by not doing things we should have. Either way, we are doomed to be haunted.

Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) didn’t ride the bullet after making his mom (Barbara Hershey) wait in line for this amusement park ride for hours. And that error of judgment, even though he saw at the time that he was barely stepping out of the grasp of the grim reaper by leaving, returned to torment him the fateful Halloween night he spent hitch-hiking to visit his Mother in the hospital after a stroke.

Halloween night is not the time for a young man who has already defied the specter of death on at least two occasions (although on one of these, the reaper was smoking pot, so was likely considerably more mellow than usual) to travel down a road past a graveyard. And Alan is foolish enough to wander in and take a look at the tombstones. He also didn’t show his higher education in his decision to swear at a couple of rednecks in a pickup. His Philos should have been more active at these times, but therein lies the plot.

Mick Garris’s screenplay adaptation of Stephen King’s 30-page novel doesn’t quite make it into the same class as “Sleepwalkers” and “The Stand”, but it’s still a must-see for those of us who are faithful King fans.

Proof (DVD)

With shades of “A Beautiful Mind”, Proof holds interest as the love affair/mathematics proof trundles on its treacherous path.

Gwyneth Paltrow is convincing in her role as the daughter of a brilliant mathematician who suffered from schizophrenia in his later years. After his death, there are questions regarding the authorship of a proof Catherine (Paltrow) presented to Hal (Jake Gyllenhaal), a teacher who was once her father’s pupil, as their romance blossomed. Combine this with a controlling sister ready to script Catherine’s life, and you have an emotionally charged, challenging story.

The brilliant script combined with the convincing acting make this a memorable movie with emotional impact. The only flaw is the lack of mathematical content – we do not know how Robert’s original proof impacted the world, only that it did. And we don’t have a clue as to what the later proof might purport, or why it would be significant. Even if we, the audience, have a limited understanding of mathematics, it would have grounded the story better if a premise and conclusion were included.