Alfred Hitchcock never won a directorial Oscar. It sounds crazy, but he’s one in a long list of influential auteurs who never got to carry away a golden statuette (Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman also come to mind). Even harder to believe is that none of his most famous pictures ever took away a Best Picture award. The lone Hitchcock Best Picture Oscar belongs to his first film made under the Hollywood studio system: Rebecca, starring Joan Fontaine and Lawrence Olivier.
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And summer continues with a whimper…

Sex and the City
Why should I try to write a summary of this film, when The Simpsons has already done it for me? “It’s about four straight women that act like gay men.” Ah, brevity is the soul of wit.

Recommended if you liked the HBO series. Seriously, somebody must have liked it, right? It got decent ratings, and stuff…

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The Strangers
“INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS!!!” Yeah, okay, so is anyone still impressed when studios claim that about movies? I guess they figure, “It worked for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…twice.” Here are the “true events” this movie is based on, I kid you not (this is straight off the official website): “On the night of February 11, 2005, Kristen McKay and James Hoyt left a friend’s wedding reception and returned to the Hoyt family summer home. The brutal events that took place there have never been revealed.” In case you weren’t paying attention, that means they just made up a bunch of scary crap, and then gratuitously used it to bring back painful memories for this couple’s families. Thanks, Hollywood. You guys rock.

Recommended if you liked The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Saw, or The Hills Have Eyes

Note: This is the latest entry in a regular MZ column. The rules are simple: The writer has to go to a Redbox automated DVD rental and select a movie. Then he has to watch it and write something funny and/or profound about the experience. The only stipulation? The movie has to be one he’s never heard of.

I have a confession to make: I’d never used a Redbox before this. The very idea of renting a movie from a machine seemed bizarre to me, if not downright scary. Machines are there to sell you things—candy bars, life insurance, used panties—not rent things to you. The very thought is absurd—I can’t rent a car or a tuxedo from a machine; why should I rent a movie from one? Entering into such a transaction means that eventually, I’ll have to return the item to the box—which, of course, makes me beholden to a machine. Is there any denying that these things are yet another step towards the looming robot dictatorship? One moment I’m pulling 2 Fast 2 Furious out of a little slot; the next, Laurence Fishburne will be handing me a little red pill.

And yet—they have such pretty colors…
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Mad Money plays out like a litany of missed opportunities, particularly financial ones (ironically enough, considering its title). First there’s the premise: as a heist film concerning three women, it could have functioned as a hybrid caper/chick flick, making it a film that women could drag their husbands/boyfriends/whatevers to, without too much whining from either party. Second, there’s the cast, which—almost any way you look at it—has three potentially fantastic leads. Sadly, it’s dull as a heist picture and undeveloped as a drama. That leaves comedy, which is surprisingly absent, for a film that has a lot of potential to be funny. The result is a dull march from the obvious beginning to the predictable end.
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So May 27th was yesterday, as in this is a day late, as in I didn’t get up early enough yesterday to write this, as in I have a six-week-old baby who likes to projectile vomit on me at three in the morning. Everyone should have babies - they are the ultimate excuse machines. “Would you like to come to my three-hour monologue I’m performing at the community theater?” “Oh, gosh, would I ever! Its just I have a baby, and he…uh…ate one of his teddy bears and we have to, you know, take care of that.” Works every time.

So this week we have a few movies about war, some subtle and some not so much. I’ll let you figure out which is which.

Rambo -
We’ve been carrying on a surprisingly in-depth conversation on the merits (or lack thereof) of Rambo in the comments section on the review, which will make you smarter if you read it. Promise. As far as a guilty-pleasure action flick goes, this one contains a bit too much ‘guilty’ and not enough ‘pleasure,’ as the violence is extremely brutal and nasty at times. Stallone, however, is not as long in the tooth as you might think a 61 year old would be, and he definitely keeps up with the proceedings. Proceed with caution.

Recommended if you liked…really, do I even need to finish this sentence?

Cassandra’s Dream
Woody Allen attempts to recreate the fleeting success he had with Match Point by essentially copying Sydney Lumet’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. The critics weren’t particularly kind, but then again Allen has been on a bit of a 15-film slump of late (was ’89’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, apart from the fantastic Match Point, really his last well-received film?). Ewan McGregor, Colin Farrell, and Tom Wilkinson star, so if you’ve got the munchies for A-list talent, this might do the trick.

Recommended if you liked Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead or A Simple Plan

Grace is Gone
For your consideration, Iraq War Drama #36. In all fairness, rather than slapping you in the face with some preachy anti-war rhetoric, this one focuses on the drama of a man (John Cusack) and his two daughters who have to cope with the death of their wife and mother (who died in Iraq). If you’re aching for a war drama but desire a bit more subtlety than Mr. Rambo can deliver, this one might be for you.

Fun Fact: Clint Eastwood composed the score for this one.

Recommended if you liked My Girl, Bambi, or Fanny & Alexander. Also, gold star to whoever figures out why I selected those films as recommendations.

61 year old Sylvester Stallone brushes the dust off of his bandoleer and joins the ranks of borderline geriatric action heroes of yesteryear (Bruce Willis at 52, Ahnold at 55, and Harrison Ford at 65) determined to prove that yes, they still have what it takes. And, unsurprisingly, he does. Whether the equally geriatric franchise that (along with Rocky) gave him his start deserves to be resuscitated is another matter.
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Oh, to be a decade or two older. Having been born in 1985, I take far, far too many things for granted. Home videogames have always been a popular pastime. Compact discs have always been the preferred medium for recorded music (until recently, of course). The original formulation of Coke has always had the bizarrely cumbersome moniker “Coca-Cola Classic.”

Summer has always been the time for bloated, effects-filled blockbusters.
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[Originally written as a contribution to the Indiana Jones Blog-A-Thon over at Cerebral Mastication.]

Last December, I sat down with my father to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. To me, it’s one of the best summer blockbusters in a long time (yeah, you heard me: the second one). Yet, after we finished, my Dad turned to me and said, “Where are the feel-good action movies?” I asked him what he meant and he replied by recalling movies that weren’t so oppressively dark. Where were the real good guys? he asked. Where were heroes like Indiana Jones?!
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Perhaps you’ve seen them. The large, ubiquitous red boxes hanging out in the shadowed corners of Wal-Mart or McDonalds or any other pedestrian-saturated destination, boldly advertising $1 DVD rentals. Perhaps, like me, you scoffed. What true cinephile would get his films out of a vending machine like a cheap piece of Laffy Taffy? Check that snobbery, for the Redbox holds (cough) untold delights within its ruddy depths.

Redbox Roulette will be a new, semi-regular column where we dive into the world of the scarlet container, boldly going where no rational film lover would go, and delivering our discoveries (the good, the bad, and the ugly) to you. These columns will be more like personal essays than critical reviews, delineating our experiences plumbing the murky abyss of the Redbox. There is only one rule: the film we choose must be completely foreign to us. It doesn’t matter how we reach the decision (instinct, blindfold, darts, cage match to the death), but the chosen flick must be one we’ve never heard of.
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Okay kids, here’s your reading comprehension exam: Name two things weird about my post’s title this week. Give up? Okay, here we go: First off, like last week, “release” is singular. And second? The date is the 22nd instead of the 23rd - i.e., Thursday instead of Friday. Following the lead of other recent blockbusters like The Lord of the Rings, Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford are releasing their magnum opus a day early. Why? To give the fanboys plenty of time to see it - as many times as they can - opening weekend. This is genius, really: with Memorial Day, this is a three-day weekend already; adding Friday and Thursday showings makes it a five-day weekend for Indy; and with the inevitable midnight showings on Wednesday night, you may as well call it a six-day weekend (by the way, this is why this post is so early this week, in case you were wondering). With this kind of timing, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get everyone and their grandmother in and out of the theater before anyone has had a chance to warn anyone else that the movie sucks. Which brings me to the inevitable question: Does it suck? Well, it’s got two big strikes against it: First, it’s been getting primarily bad reviews in advance screenings; and second, George Lucas was involved. But hope springs eternal with me - I’m going, and it’s gonna be good, dadgummit! If any movie was ever critic-proof, this one is probably it. Well, this one and those awful Star Wars prequels. In any case, now there are four great choices in theaters - this one, Iron Man, Speed Racer, and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - so you really have no excuse not to get out and go see a movie. Get to it. There will be a test.

Recommended if you can still imagine Harrison Ford without a bingo card, a shuffleboard cue, or an early bird special coupon in his hand…

National Treasure: Book of Secrets -
An attempt at an Indiana Jones update, the National Treasure movies are brisk, unassuming fluff. Of course it’s possible to steal the Declaration of Independence, of course there are secret passages in Mt. Rushmore, of course we don’t know what a history book is. But with the right mindset, this is relaxed (albeit forgettable) entertainment, and let’s face it, sometimes popping The Hours into your DVD player sounds as tempting as eating fish hooks.

Recommended if you liked the first National Treasure, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, or Romancing the Stone

Diary of the Dead -
I thought this movie was aggressively stupid and that Romero had come full circle, entering self-parody mode with a vengeance. Luke felt differently and lavished quite a bit of praise on it. I will say I enjoyed reading his review much more that I enjoyed the movie, although I’m not sure what that says. Using shaky-cam footage, a group of young nubile college students flee the shuffling dead. Brains will be eaten and YouTube will be condemned, although not necessarily in that order. Be sure to read Luke’s thoughts on it.

Recommended if you’d like to see a mix between Night of the Living Dead and Cloverfield…seriously, that is a perfect description of this film

Strange Wilderness
I know nothing about this film. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Steve Zahn (Matthew McConaughey’s sidekick in Sahara), Jonah Hill (from Superbad), and Justin Long (ala ‘Mac’ from the iconic Mac and PC ads) all star, and apparently (I’m just guessing here) they are in the wilderness…doing things…perhaps even strange things. Ok, looking it up at Rotten Tomatoes…oh, wow. It has an honest-to-goodness 0% at RT, as in there are no positive reviews. Then again, the critics also hated Saving Silverman, another Steve Zahn picture that I happen to love (I’m like that little girl in Poltergeist…every time Silverman comes on cable I go into a kind of trance and must watch the entire thing). So maybe it’s worth a shot. I use the word ‘maybe’ loosely there.

Recommended if you’re into the cinematic equivalent of Russian Roulette.

This review was originally published April 3rd, 2008.

It is literally impossible to overestimate the influence George A. Romero has had on modern cinema. His directorial debut, Night of the Living Dead, not only single-handedly created both the exploitation film and the zombie film; it also single-handedly redefined the word “zombie.” You can look this up: “zombie” used to specifically refer to a corpse reanimated by a voodoo priest. Then Night of the Living Dead came along, and so many imitators sprang up that a genre was born, which, apparently for lack of a better term, was dubbed the “zombie movie.” (Feel free to use this bit of trivia next time your horror-fanboy friend complains that 28 Days Later isn’t a “real zombie movie.” To find a “real zombie movie,” you might have to go all the way back to RKO’s 1943 masterpiece I Walked with a Zombie—but, of course, I digress.)
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This review was originally published February 19th, 2008.

Remember National Treasure? Yeah, me neither.
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Stephen Frears’ The Queen is a briskly-paced political drama with a simple storyline that works pretty well. It also has the distinction of being made within ten years of the events it portrays—a comparative rarity, as most directors would prefer to allow their subjects to die before hiring actors to portray them. I don’t know if I’d call it “daring,” given its tabloid-worthy subject matter, but it is undoubtedly a fresh look at the British monarchy.
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At first it is only the mere hint of a shadow that appears in the shimmering heat rising from the desert sands. In agonizing slowness the shadow becomes a shape and then a man and then it is Lawrence, stepping out of the waves of molten heat that swim across the screen. If you’ve only seen Lawrence of Arabia on DVD, the grandeur and power of this shot was lost on you. I was privileged to see a 70mm print of David Lean’s mad masterpiece, and was captivated by the desert’s intoxicating presence in the film. It is not just a location–a place where sets were built and actors were filmed and dialog was spoken; it is a character and a force unto itself.

The rocky, frigid landscape of Iceland inhabits Jar City in the same way that the desert inhabits Lawrence. It holds a starring role, although one that I am quite certain the Icelandic tourism bureau is none to happy about.
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Kids’ movies these days are in a great state of disarray. Pixar always offers up their best and succeeds, but the rest usually end up floating at the bottom of that large barrel of disposable cinematic sludge. Judging by the trailer, there could be no more worthy addition to that sludge than Beverly Hills Chihuahua, a new animated (?) film from Disney that looks something like the very scary lovechild of High School Musical and those old-school Taco Bell commercials. While sitting in the theater watching this, my friend Matt leaned over to me and said, “Were you aware of this abomination?” No, I wasn’t. I’m so glad to have grown up in the days of classic Disney…

YouTube below. HD available here, but not necessary in the least.

Those who are of the opinion that C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia as an allegory designed to convert children to Christianity (I’m looking at you, Phillip Pullman) would be well advised to check out Prince Caspian, the latest entry in the eponymous film series (by the way, they should also look up the word “allegory”—but I digress). Make no mistake about it—Lewis, as a former atheist, wrote just as much out of doubt as he did out of faith, and his books were no mere morality plays. Caspian in particular is a dark meditation on the coming of age—the story of children realizing that fairytales simply aren’t true. At the center of it all is the question of what humanity can do when its God has left it alone on the earth. In other words, this ain’t kid stuff; nor is it particularly “religious.”

But it is truth.
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The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Yes, you read the title of this post correctly. That’s “release,” as in, singular. Evidently, no one wanted to go head-to-head against the triple-threat of Disney, high fantasy, and evangelical Christianity. If the trailer is any indication, I don’t really blame them - this one looks flat-out fantastic. It appears to retain everything that was awesome about Walden Media’s first Narnia film (sharp writing and a strong sense of childlike wonder) and fix what was wrong with it (cheesy special effects and a lack of emotional depth). The only downside? It’ll probably be the final nail in the coffin of the Wachowski brothers’ excellent Speed Racer. Go see that one if you’re not into fantasy; but either way, you really can’t lose this weekend if you’re in the market for a family film (and how often can you honestly say that?).

Recommended if you liked The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; Harry Potter and the Socerer’s Stone; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; or anything else in our culture’s current glut of fantasy epics

J.J. Abrams is a producer who’s made a career out of convincing American audiences that his productions are a whole lot deeper philosophically than they actually are. From the reheated spy drama of Alias, to the pretentious mess of audience misdirection known as Lost, to (now) his first major motion picture (as producer) Cloverfield, Abrams has no shortage of ideas that would have been cutting-edge about ten years ago. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not that Cloverfield is a bad film; it’s just that, for all the pomp surrounding it, it’s shockingly vanilla—not to mention hard to watch and even harder to care about.
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I am always amazed at the vibrant diversity on display every week with the DVD selection. Some of these aren’t winners by any stretch of the imagination, but movies about competitive debate, internet predators, female heisters, lightning struck age-regressors, and an autistic musical? It’s a veritable melting pot of tastes and genres. Food for thought: what would a movie be like that combined all 5 of those things? I’m telling ‘ya, there is money to be made.

The Great Debaters
Denzel Washington stars in and directs his second feature film, an inspiring true story that takes place in the heart-stoppingly thrilling world of, um, debate. It’s a classic underdog sports story, except in place of bone-crunching tackles or at-the-buzzer 360 slam dunks, you get people yelling at each other. Politely. Ok, I kid, I kid. This one got great reviews, and if you’re in the mood for an inspiring true story where the underdogs challenge the uppity-ups, this one should deliver in spades.

Recommended if you liked Antwone Fisher, Finding Forrester, Remember the Titans, or Glory Road

Untraceable
This one had a sociological important premise that could have made it a benchmark film for our times: a killer harnesses the anonymity of the internet to perpetuate his/her crimes, and the more you visit a certain website, the faster the victim dies. Knowing the bloodthirsty sheeple that crowd the intertubes, it isn’t long before people are dying left and right. Sadly, this descends into a by-the-numbers thriller where scathing commentary is replaced by generic Hollywood tropes. Diane Lane and Colin Hanks (i.e., Tom Hanks’ son) star.

Recommended if you always dreamed of a Silence of the Lambs meetsThe Net hybrid film. And really, if you combine Jodie Foster and Sandra Bullock you obviously get Diane Lane. I know I’m not the only one who thinks about these things.

Mad Money
Who doesn’t want to see the film that combined crackerjack trio Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah, and Katie Holmes together for the first time in a madcap…wait, Katie Holmes? I thought she was missing or something. Didn’t I see her picture on a milk carton somewhere? Or was it on Nancy Grace? Or the wall at the post office? Someone should call the FBI. Oh, in the movie they steal money or jewels or estrogen injections or something…wow, Katie Holmes. Whodathunk?

Recommended if you liked…ohhowcoolisthis, Katie Holme’s character has her own MySpace page! Oh my gosh! She likes Bye Bye Birdie, So You Think You Can Dance?, and reading Stephen King! Oh, this is too funny, she met her, oh, I am so LOLing right now, she met her boyfriend when they had a fender bender! Hahahahahaha! Sigh, good times, good times….what was I saying again?

Youth Without Youth
Poor poor Francis Ford Coppola. The guy decides to get a bit risky with his storytelling with his first film in a decade, finances the production with his own money (he has a lucrative wine business), and gets raked over the coals by the critics for it. Where is Apocalypse Now Part Deux, where is The Godfather Part 4? they all seem to be saying (ok, maybe not the Godfather bit). A love story wrapped inside an enigma, set in pre-WWII Europe, where a man (Tim Roth) is struck by lightning and begins to get younger as a result. Sounds trippy and intriguing, and what do critics know, anyhow?

Recommended if you liked Inland Empire or The Fountain

Autism: The Musical
This weeks dark horse, my curiosity was severely piqued when I saw this title sitting on the release page at Amazon. A documentary that follows the lives of 5 autistic children as they prepare for a musical production, the film focuses on their struggles and triumphs over the course of 6 months. Equal parts call-to-action and inspirational heartwarmer, this one looks like a sweetly charming winner.

Recommended if you liked Spellbound or Mad Hot Ballroom