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A mostly TV director, Miguel Arteta made a great film with one of the new generation’s most brilliant actors, Michael Cerra.

The script was quite intelligent, with doses of incredibly funny, laugh out loud moments!

Spoiler Alert: Fred Willard takes his shirt off!

Denzel Washington is one part prophet, one part assassin, one part messiah, and one part ordinary, flawed person in this ground-breaking post-apocalyptic movie.

Unlike the other post-apocalypse movie this year, The Road (the most depressing movie ever, beating out Angela’s Ashes for first spot), Eli is a story of hope and the enduring human spirit.  It is also a story of faith: unusual for Hollywood, the man of faith, the Bible and religion are portrayed positively in this film. Weird.

I cannot recall seeing a post-apocalypse movie that dealt with these topics in quite the same way.  If Mad Max, The Postman and Waterworld were good movies, with good stories and better acting, this one would still be better.

I’m not sure what was more entertaining, the movie, or the two young ladies who sat behind me in the theater with their jackets over their faces the entire time.

As the preview tells us, Alison Lohman’s character is cursed by Lorna Raver’s creepy and flat-broke bank client.  The result is a nasty haunting by an evil demon, and a series of attempts to prevent the eventual “dragging to hell” by said demon.

In one intense fright scene, Lohman confronts the image of Raver on her iPhone.  Naturally, I leaned over to my friends and said, “There’s an App for that!”

Alas, I was disappointed to learn that it was more Hollywood trickery, and, in fact, there is no App for that.  I think they missed a great cross-promotion opportunity by not releasing it on iTunes.  Of course, the iTunes people had so much bad publicity with their recent shake the baby application, that a horror film app maybe wasn’t in the cards.

Perhaps having Justin “Hi, I’m a Mac” Long was sufficient enough promotion for Apple.

Product placements aside, the movie is genuinely frightening, and genuinely funny.

If you liked Evil Dead or Army of Darkness, you will like Drag Me To Hell.  Sam Raimi delivers his own brand of brilliance yet again.

Unnecessary Spoiler: Somebody actually gets dragged to hell in the end. Can you guess who it is?

Meet the Spartans (Trailer)
Reviewed by Paul Holmes

This monstrosity ties with “Date Movie” (2006) as worst spoof movie ever. Oddly – they have same writers and directors. In North Korea, this duo would be publicly hung for making such a terrible film. (Further proof that North Korea isn’t really all that bad.)

I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but “Please, Hollywood, bring back the Wayan Brothers!!”

I’m embarrassed that I paid money to watch this – I even had a $2 off coupon, but it was still more of a waste of precious time than money.

I’m no prude. I like adolescent humour (I am male, after all). But this was just stupid! I’m pretty sure that even the 12 year old boys who went to see it would be shaking their heads.

Theoretically based on the smash hit, “300″ (2006), they had plenty to work with. The result was a miserable, amateurish, unfunny mess.

There may be no resurrecting Kevin Sorbo’s career now!

Finally a chance for Burt Reynolds to prove he is the great actor we all knew he could be!

Just star in a movie next to Ray Liotta and Jason Statham (who were amazing in Revolver), and make it a “knights of old” fantasy thriller, good versus evil sort of deal – NOTHING can go wrong.

Wow. WRONG!

This movie had every cliche of the “knights of the roundtable” genre. Honestly, I was waiting for juggling midgets to appear (almost surprisingly, they did not).

In case you care, here’s the gist of it: evil sorceror (Liotta) creates army out of mud people using magic, makes pact with evil nephew of King; orphan farmer’s kid gets killed and wife gets kidnapped by said army; farm boy (Statham, named “Farmer”, no less) wants to rescue his wife and runs into others in a similar pursuit, including the King’s army. [Breath] King (Reynolds) gets killed, but trusty and loyal advisor lets everyone know that Farmer was long lost son (don’t blame me for spoiling – you saw this coming); evil nephew gets his due; Liotta defeated; mud army goes home. Farmer becomes the new King and the world returns to good.

The hot forest women (think Poison Ivy from Batman times 10) made for an amazing and original plot element!

Not!

This movie was truly awful. Don’t waste your time or money.

And Jason and Ray – I’m very disappointed! Please don’t do this to me again!

Iron Man (DVD)

Everyone is surprised that this movie opened as the second-highest grossing non-sequel movie in history. Everyone except me (with crystal-clear advantage of 20-20 hindsight). The fact is that most “blockbuster” movies in the last quarter have been awful and inspired people to stay home, or just go out somewhere else (how about dinner and a half-marathon). I’m not sure if it’s because of the writer’s strike or what, but it appears this dry spell is finally over.

You heard it here first: there were many pent up “movie nights” waiting to happen, and this was the first movie to take advantage of that. The next few “summer” blockbuster releases will not beat records. If I’m wrong, I’ll eat this web page!

The movie itself? Pretty good CGI action hero flick. Acting was good. Story was good. Tying the comic book into current events worked OK. A few interesting twists (who was that kidnap video directed at?) And, best of all, we can finally forgive Gwyneth Paltrow for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

Sequel Warning: Do not leave the theatre during the credits. Wait until the very end, after the credits. You get a very distinct Ferris Bueller’s Day Off moment feeling when Robert Downey Jr. walks in and says “You’re still here? It’s over. Go home. Go!”. No, that doesn’t happen. Instead, you get a little surprise. Spoiler Warning: “Get these motherf***ing snakes out of my motherf***ing high-tech robotic suit.”

Enjoy the show! It’s the best we’ve seen in awhile, but don’t read too much into that.

Revolver (DVD)

In case you thought Jason Statham was a one-trick pony typecast (as a con man with a heart), you are in for a big surprise. Yes, he’s a con man. And, yes, he has a heart. But his character is far deeper than this – he’s pretty much a psychology doctorate thesis-in-waiting. But, more importantly, Statham proved himself as a very capable actor that will transcend the type-casting that he has been boxed in by.

This is definitely an edgy film, even for Guy Ritchie (thank god Madonna was Swept Away from casting considerations). The style and execution here are simply brilliant. Unfortunately, the story didn’t make a lick of sense. Spoiler alert – skip to next paragraph if you haven’t seen this movie: What’s with the 12s? Who is Mr. Gold, and what does he control exactly? How did Mr. Green make his money, and lose it and make it again? We know who the prison-mates are, but how exactly do they fit in? What is the history of the central conflict? What the heck does Deepak Chopra have to do with any of this? I’m only getting started here. I feel like if I watched it again several times, I would simply end up with a sore brain, versus solving any of these nagging questions. If you have any insight, please post a comment.

Ray Liotta’s character was a disappointment. He was just an angry guy lashing out. If that was the point, well, fine. But other than that, it completely lacked depth. I don’t blame Liotta for this; I think this too may have been a result of story weakness.

Andre Benjamin (aka Andre 3000 for “awful music” fans) was a delight. I’d go so far as saying that this is the best example of “singer/rapper turned actor” EVER. His character, and specifically his interaction with Statham was simply fantastic. It was a pleasant surprise, too, since I had seen Four Brothers a few years ago, and did not find him particularly memorable. Of course, neither was “Four Brothers”.

Overall, 5 stars for acting, 5 stars for directing, 5 stars for style, and 1/2 star for storyline/plot. But definitely worth watching for the good stuff – but only once!

Warning: Do not watch this movie over and over, as your head may explode.

It starts as a primitive civilization doing their typical primitive stuff – hunting, building fires, finding beautiful lovers with perfect teeth, etc.

But the truth is, this was a good movie.

However, in order to enjoy this movie, you must truly suspend reality.

What’s interesting is the way this movie attempts to tie the primitive notions of “Africa” circa-10,000 B.C. with the great civilization of Ancient Egypt around about the same time. In this sense, it was a little bit of a groundbreaking story. We typically see Ancient Egypt as a standalone subject, sometimes with the occasional tie-in to Greece or Rome, but never in contrast to the rest of Africa.

If you cried at the end of Moulin Rouge or City of Angels (like me) because of the tragic ending, you will feel about the same towards the end of this movie. Don’t worry, this is not a complete spoiler – there is an interesting twist!

Charlie Wilson’s War (Paperback)

OK, here’s a spoiler.

According to this movie, the collapse of the Soviet Union is due, almost singlehandedly, to the relentless efforts of one U.S. Congressman named Charlie Wilson.

In short, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was countered with some secret U.S. (and Saudi Arabian) spending on Russian-designed weapons bought from Egypt, then delivered by an Israeli arms dealer to the Pakistan government, who then disbursed these to the freedom fighters of Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invaders. And Rep. Wilson (D-Texas) made it all happen using some interesting channels and spheres of influence.

This is a fantastical interpretation of history that dares to suggest that politicians with a cause are truly able to achieve great things. It was a surprise, therefore, that it was not a preachy Hollywood film about some Democrat cause du jour. In fact, the Democrats and Republicans we meet are all likable in many ways, yet despicable in others. Julia Roberts even played a likable right-wing religious zealot. (A far cry from Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist.)

While these people are truly fun to watch on the big screen, none were people you’d want to hang out with on Friday nights. The exception, perhaps, is Amy Adams who plays a very pretty, smart, fun and thoroughly likable assistant to the hero. Her only apparent personality flaws were her utter devotion to Mr. Wilson, and an unlikely career in politics.

Tom Hanks plays our hero well, as one might expect, balancing the noble and not-so-noble sides of the character in a believable fashion.

The best scenes, however, were when the world’s greatest character actor himself (and the real star of the film), Philip Seymour Hoffman, graced the screen. He plays a cynical career spy who wants to do something useful, despite his superior’s efforts to sideline him. This movie is worth seeing for Hoffman’s scenes alone. Sheer cinematic brilliance.

The movie finishes with a scene where Rep. Wilson attempts to get a mere $1 million to fund building schools in Afghanistan and is turned down by every member of the committee that just funded the war effort to the tune of $500 million. It finishes with a quote from the real guy criticizing the U.S. for leaving Afghanistan without reconstruction help after they fought off the Soviets.

The message, essentially, is “don’t go support a war, then abandon all the people that were displaced by it.” Obviously this ties into the current situations in Afghanistan (and also Iraq), but didn’t strike me as particularly preachy, left-wing, right-wing, Democrat, Republican or otherwise. In fact, and here was an interesting dash of irony, they blamed the work that needed to be done as a result of the downfall of the Soviet Union (that came about ostensibly as a result of Rep. Wilson’s hard work), for declining any help for the people of Afghanistan. Go figure.

Anyway, go see this movie. Five stars!