REVIEW: Magic Mike

Sometimes you can tell a lot about what a crowd thinks of a movie by how they don't react. Such is the case with Steven Soderbergh's Magic Mike.

I saw the film at a screening where the gender ratio in the audience must have been at least seven girls for every boy. (Eat your heart out, Jan and Dean). Not at all surprising, considering this was a movie about male strippers. And sure enough, when the movie started, the vibe in the theater became less movie and more rock concert. Girls hooted and hollered with wild abandon as Matthew McConaughey strutted his stuff. I didn't turn to look and see if anyone was holding up dollar bills, but I wouldn't have been surprised.

But then I noticed something. As the movie went on, the girls got quieter. Oh sure, they cheered again when it was time to peel off fabric, but the cheering became less boisterous as the movie went on. I like to think that was because the ladies were getting into the story. Or maybe they were bored. In any event, the hook of this movie is supposedly that it turns an old cliche on its head - let's see the guys exploited for a change. But it is worth noting that Magic Mike was written and directed by men. So whom exactly is the joke on?

This movie felt rather like a low-key version of Boogie Nights, only with fewer characters and without Paul Thomas Anderson's visual acrobatics. Both films are about the seamy side of a prurient industry, which turns out to be not as sexy as advertised. Soderbergh directs most of the movie in the fly-on-the-wall style of his experimental movies like Bubble and The Girlfriend Experience, with bits of the Oceans movies thrown in during the stripping. One of Soderbergh's cheekier jokes is that the one glimpse we get of the male anatomy is decidedly non-sexual.

The story is so low key it's a bit too slow to take off at first, but once it does, it's compelling. Reid Carolin's screenplay takes showbiz movie tropes (brash new guy upends old pro) and gives them a gritty, lived-in feeling.

What truly puts the movie across, however, are the performances. Alex Pettyfer is solid as the reckless new pro, and Channing Tatum again proves there's more to him than beefcake. This isn't even the first time the actor played role reversal - he got his butt kicked by a girl earlier this year in Haywire, also directed by Soderbergh. The actor is nothing if not a trooper. And there are some nice female turns as well, from Olivia Munn as one of Tatum's recurring flings, and especially from the appealing Cody Horn, who plays the new guy's more sensible sister.

And then there's McConaughey as the cocky MC of the male revue. The actor has made himself the butt of many a joke for being a little too slick and casual, but his star power here is undeniable. He owns the camera and anyone he looks at, male or female. For contrast, check out his very different performance in Richard Linklater's docu-comedy Bernie. The man has range, and I'd actually argue his Magic Mike performance is Oscar-worthy. Seriously.

Females expecting nothing more than Showboys might be put off, but there's a real movie underneath all those rippling pectorals. And it's a very good one.

 

GRADE: B+

 

Posted with Blogsy

Nora Ephron, 1941-2012

One of the many sharp and funny things Nora Ephron once said is "I always read the last page of a book first, so that if I die before I finish, I'll know how it turned out."

That saying turned poignant when Ephron passed away on Tuesday, but it was also fitting for her career. The last page of her film book was Julie & Julia (my review)  a delightfully entertaining showcase for two of our brightest actresses, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. But it was also a marvel of an adaptation with Ephron cannily stitching together the books by the titular characters. Sure, one could argue that the Julia parts or more interesting than the Juliee parts, but if the movie were only about Julia, it would not have been as interesting, I don't think. If you want to show someone what made Ephron Ephron, start at her final film.

But that's just one example of how smart and savvy her writing was. Her best work is still the screenplay for Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally ... - which is infinitely more savvy than any of that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus stuff. I love how Ephron made the man the hopeless romantic in the end:

I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. 

Heck, Ephron even had the class to admit that the most famous line in the script - I'll have what she's having" - was actually Billy Crystal's idea.

I was also fond of Ephron's You've Got Mail, her remake of The Shop Around the Corner/In the Good Old Summertime. Sure, it's saccharine and predictable and it's now as quaint as AOL has become, but that's part of its charm. I can't claim it's as good as the two earlier films, but it fares pretty well in comparison, which is more than can be said of many a remake.

Maybe it's that I'm a romantic myself. Or maybe it was that Ephron gave "chick flicks" a good name. One of my colleagues once complained to me, "You never like any of my girly movies!" I can't remember what I said at the time, but now I would say, "I would if Nora Ephron made more of them."

My new ranking of Pixar films

Now that Brave is out, and now that I've seen the movie a second time, I present my new ranking of Pixar movies.

Please bear in mind, this is all relative. Pixar has made so many great pictures that even the ones in the bottom third are still great fun. In my opinion, Pixar still hasn't made a bad movie - no, not even Cars 2.

1) Toy Story 2: Among computer animated films, the emotional pinnacle is still "When She Loved Me." Pure and simple.

2) Wall-E: I vividly remember seeing this movie for the first time and calling up at least three friends telling them to go see it immediately. Besides, how many sci-fi movies have the guts to open with a tune from Hello Dolly?

3) Up: Movies aren't supposed to make you cry within the first 10 minutes, dammit.

4) Toy Story 3: Whereas Up was Pixar's best beginning, this movie had the best ending.

5) The Incredibles: Still my favorite superhero movie of any kind, live action or otherwise. Yes, it's even better than The Avengers.

6) Monsters Inc.: The Chaplin-esque final shot is eloquently perfect.

7) Toy Story: I see this one often listed as Pixar's best. It's not, wonderful as it is. It is indisputably a landmark film, but both sequels are superior. How many other film series can say that?

8) Ratatouille: No, that final statement about critics didn't resonate with me at all. Nopity, nopity noooo. (sarcasm)

9) Finding Nemo: A lot of people would name this as their favorite non-Toy Story Pixar movie. I didn't fall as much in love with it as everyone else, but it was certainly Pixar's most beautiful movie - until very recently, anyway.

10) A Bug's Life: This one tends to be forgotten among Pixar's output, and wrongly so. It's not transcendent, certainy, but it's wonderfully entertaining in the way it juggles multiple characters, Seven Samurai-style.

11) Cars: For the first time I got the feeling that Pixar let other considerations (like selling soundtracks) get in the way of the story, but its lamentation of a bygone era (Route 66, etc.) is still deeply affecting, especially for someone like me who revered the Beatles when his peers were listening to Ratt.

12) Brave: I saw the movie a second time, and while it played better for me than it did the first time, I still felt jarred by the shifts in tone, which might be attributable to the fact that directors changed midstream. All that said, I think a lot of critics missed the boat by undervaluing this one. I agree with this astute observation: " If you're expecting something as deep as the first ten minutes of "Up" or the last ten minutes of "Toy Story 3," you're not going to get it. "Brave" isn't aiming for the same emotional targets; its focus is more childlike, as opposed to profound and slightly wistful. If you try to compare "Brave" to the collective weight of something it's not, rather than judging it on its own terms, you're going to be disappointed."

13) Cars 2: I will grant you that Pixar was coasting with this one, but I will not grant you that it's a misfire. It was still a very fun coast. This longtime James Bond fan loved all the homages to spy movies, and even though I am not a car aficionado, I still loved the idea that lemons were the villains. This movie was NOT itself a lemon.

REVIEW: Brave

Pixar reaches yet another milestone with its 13th feature: Brave is the studio's sneakiest movie.

The American trailers for Brave have only shown us about one-third of the story. Almost nothing from the movie's second half is shown, when the plot takes a very sharp left turn. Pixar's first fairy tale starts out a bit like Aladdin (disaffected princess bristles at being forced to marry), then becomes rather like The Little Mermaid (distraught princess unwisely turns to magic). This second, more mystical arc is the focus of Brave's Japanese trailer, which looks like a completely different movie. One could be forgiven for thinking that Brave might be a little schizoid.

 

But then comes the most dramatic, surprising turn of all. It completely threw me, and I was unprepared for it. I will not reveal what happens, but I will say that after the turn, Brave becomes very much like another Disney animated film - but not one of the princess movies. And about the plot, I will say nothing else.

Let me be very clear: I like Brave very much indeed. The second half worked for me after that left turn, once I realized where the story was going. I'm just not 100 percent convinced the movie took the right path to get there.

I spent so much of the second half trying to push "reset" in my head that when the big emotional climax came, I wasn't holding back sobs like I usually am at a Pixar movie. I merely got a little misty-eyed. And for an emotional pushover like me, that lack of a visceral reaction was striking. I felt like maybe Pixar pulled the rug out because it could - not because it should.

Much has been made of the fact that this is the stuido's first fairy tale, and the first with a female protagonist. And both are very welcome, refreshing changes. However, the second half of the movie is more typical of Pixar, in that it deals with themes of parental or paternal attachment, like Monster's Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and Up did. Not for nothing is Princess Merida the rare royal child who has two living parents.

Those parental themes are a double-edged sword, or maybe in this case a double-tipped arrow. The parents may make Brave more "typical" and less unique of Pixar - but it also gives their fairy tale a unique emotional strength at which the studio excels. The characters are all wonderfully drawn, in more ways than one, and the voice work is wonderful. It may shock some people to discover that the voice of Merida is Kelly Macdonald, known to most audiences as Josh Brolin's wife in No Country for Old Men - but it was the Coens film where the Scottish actress was not using her natural voice. Emma Thompson and Billy Conolly are also outstanding as Merida's mother and father.

And if for no other reason, Brave must be seen on a big screen in a movie theater, because this is the most gorgeous computer-animated film ever made, without question. Its widescreen lansdscapes are so lush and detailed, I often forgot the backgrounds were drawn in the computer too. And when I remembered that they were, I could only marvel at the achievement. Those backgrounds also stand out in Pixar's first truly immersive use of 3D.

Since last year's Cars 2 made it OK for critics to dislike a Pixar film, I fear that some reviewers are being a little too critical of the follow-up. True, I harbor a few reservations about Brave, whereas I usually love Pixar films unabashedly. But I still lived more than happily ever after in the end.



GRADE: A-

 

Adam Sandler vs. Adam Sandler movies

I've often said to myself, "I don't like Adam Sandler." Heck, I've often said it out loud, in so many words.

Thing is, it's not really true. I don't hate Adam Sandler himself. I hate Adam Sandler movies. And there's a big difference.

I actually think Sandler is a very talented guy. He's even made me laugh a few times. But you see, I'm one of those egghead critics who typically only likes Sandler when he gets ambitious and goes outside his comfort zone, making movies such as Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish and Funny People. But those aren't Adam Sandler movies. They're Paul Thomas Anderson, James L. Brooks and Judd Apatow movies, respectively. Those are movies that star Adam Sandler.

On the other hand, "Adam Sandler movies" are movies produced and/or written by him, like Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Waterboy and Click. Most of these movies operate on the assumption that their audience has the intellect and taste of a 13-year-old, and they still think armpit farts are funny. Problem is, a lot of these people are older than 13. Physically, anyway. And these movies usually make armpits full of money. I even kinda liked a couple, including 50 First Dates and Anger Management, though I was probably laughing mainly at Jack Nicholson's slumming in the latter.

For a good long while, it seemed like this duality was fine. Sandler would crank out his dum-dum Happy Madison comedies, and then, every once in a while he would stretch and try something different. Unfortunately, when he has done so, he has A) turned off his mainstream fans and B) caught the auteurs on a strange day. Spanglish was an uneven effort from Brooks. Punch-Drunk Love was terminally weird even to non-Sandler devotees who saw it, and it's actually kind of avant-garde, even for Paul Thomas Anderson. And Sandler caught Apatow in an unusually somber mood when he decided to write a script about a comedian who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Heck, Apatow even got Janusz Kaminski to shoot Funny People. That's a long way from Schindler's List.

I liked all three of those movies, but all of them underwhelmed at the box office. And so Sandler kept going back to the dum-dum well, cranking out the likes of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry and the paradoxically titled Grown-Ups. As Charlton Heston once said, the problem with film as as art is that it's a business. The problem with films as a business is that it's an art form. Adam Sandler may embody that dilemma better than any other star.

But now, the rot seems to be setting in with the dum-dum comedies. Even his fans hated his last movie, Jack and Jill, which won the dubious honor of sweeping the Golden Razzies. His latest movie, That's My Boy, was a dud on its opening weekend.

So are fans getting tired of the Sandler shtick? It's hard to say. One could argue That's My Boy tanked because of the lingering stench of Jack and Jill, and that the R-rating kept undiscriminating teenagers out. But then again, Sandler's fans seem to be a forgiving lot. I remember how ater a screening of Little Nicky, someone thought it wasn't much good and said, "His movies are usually so well-written." That I remember that quote so well is remarkable, because I didnt hear it myself; a colleague repeated it to me.

So what's an unhappy Madison to do? Here's my advice. Since audiences seem to be tiring of the typical Sandler fare, he should not write his own scripts, and he should stay the hell away from Dennis Dugan. Make a comedy that's not trying too hard to be sober. I'm thinking of movies like The Wedding Crashers or Horrible Bosses - something funny but not crass, and most importantly, a comedy that laughs with people, not at them, like too many of his movies do. if Sandler does that, he may survive the sequel to Grown-Ups and actually become an adult himself.

REVIEW: Rock of Ages

I had worried that Rock of Ages would remind me of my high school years, in that I would be watching people I really like singing a lot of music I really hate. Read: Hair metal can suck it.

That said, the problem with Rock of Ages is not that it celebrates hair metal. Despite what the ads may tell you, this movie isn't really hair-metal centric. If, for instance, "We Built This City" is hair metal, then I'm Grace Slick. The soundtrack is more a grab bag of an "I Love the 80s" Internet radio station. Some of the music is good, some of it isn't. I'll take "Pour Some Sugar on Me," but I don't have much patience for people who labor under the delusion that "Every Rose has its Thorn" is a great song.

But I didn't dislike Rock of Ages because it fondly recalls a decade as vacuous as Paris Hilton. I disliked Rock of Ages because I really don't care for Ken and Barbie dolls. And that's what the two lead characters of this movie are.

I don't mean to disparage Julianne Hough. She may be playing a plastic character, but at least she has a winning screen presence. That's the opposite of the dullard male lead played by the charisma-free Diego Bonita. When I can't care about the main couple, I can't get into the movie.

It's a shame,because most of the actors are actually quite good and throw themselves into the movie with gusto. Alec Baldwin and Russel Brand play off each other well as a club owner and his flunkie, with Brand being especially funny because he ad-libs left and right. Catherine Zeta-Jones has a nothing part as a PMRC-type zealot, but she at least puts her songs across with verve. Malin Akerman is sexy/funny, bearing more than a passing resemblance to MTV's Nina Blackwood. And Tom Cruise again travels the Tropic Thunder path of a zany supporting part. Director Adam Shankman told Cruise to play up everyone's worst perception of - Tom Cruise. And he delivers.

But that was one of the few smart moves Shankman made. He directs the movie with the color-coding of an exploding candy store and the attention span of a gnat. There may be a lot of big hair in this movie, but I missed the fleeter footing of Shankman's Hairspray. And the screenplay, based on the stage musical, is as flat as a stage.

Some audience members at my screening seemed to be surprised they were watching a full-on musical and not a concert movie. But even people who are not averse to musicals may be disappointed that the title song is thrown away, and that the movie doesn't take full advantage of the fact that the lead character's name is Sherrie.

After all, what can you say when a movie's climactic number, "Don't Stop Believin'" was performed with more panache by the cast of Glee?

GRADE: C

 

REVIEW: Prometheus

Yes, it's a prequel to Alien. And no, that's not a spoiler. But Ridley Scott's long-awaited return to the franchise is something much more important: it's the second great film of the year (after The Avengers).

There has been a lot of confusing double-talk about whether this film was a prequel to Scott's 1979 classic. All one has to do is look at the producing credits that show David Giler and Walter Hill's names. They had a hand in producing the first three Alien movies, so that's a giveaway right there.

But while Prometheus both follows in and anticipates the footsteps of Alien, it accomplishes something that's been a hallmark of this series: It isn't quite like any of the other films.

Although this is the first time in this series that a director has repeated, Prometheus is a very different animal from Alien. That was a horror film; Prometheus is not. It's telling that one of the very first images of the film is a DNA stand mutating.

This movie has some scary moments, to be sure, but it's also not mainly an action film like Aliens or a philosophical prison drama like Alien 3, or the strange art house creature feature of Alien: Resurrection. Prometheus is the most pure sci-fi film of the lot, because it dares to ponder not only why we're here, but how we got here. That may disapoint viewers looking looking only for action and horror. The movie throws in some slimy little buggers besides, but it's got a lot more on its plate, and that's all to the good.

It's no surprise that the film looks great. That's true of every Ridley Scott film, including the bad ones, and his use of 3D is a wondrous must-see. But it's most invigorating to see the director truly swing for the fences when he has recently turned out such forgettable fare as Body of Lies and most recently, Robin Hood. This is the first film of the Alien franchise, and Scott's first film since Blade Runner, that truly inspired a sense of wonder in me. A sense of awe, even.

The film is certainly not the equal of Alien or Blade Runner. Prometheus bites off a little more than it should chew, featuring too many characters that makes the focus diffuse at times. Charlize Theron and Guy Pearce aren't used especially well, but that's mitigated by fierce work from Noomi Rapace, and a spellbinding performance by Michael Fassbender as the requisite robot. The model for his performance is inspired. I don't want to give it away, but I'll tell you this - it isn't Ian Holm or Lance Henriksen.

Endless arguements have sprung up about how well the film's logic holds up - or doesn't. But it's important to remember that most sci-fi films worth their salt ask more question than they answer. In an age when Hollywood usually wants to wow only our eyes, it's refreshing to see a movie like Prometheus that wows the mind as well.

GRADE: A

 

Snow White and the Huntsman/Mirror Mirror

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest one of all?

At the risk of sounding redundant, I vote for Mirror Mirror. And that surprises me.

Months ago, when the trailers for Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman played endlessly in theaters, the former looked like pretty but pointless kiddie junk, replete with bad puns like "Snow Way." The latter looked like an exciting take on the fairy tale, filled with action and drama. Charlize Theron looked deliciously nasty as an evil queen, while Julia Roberts seemed to be mostly mugging.

Now that I've seen both movies, the opposite has panned out. The Lily Collins/Julia Roberts version roundly trounces the Kristen Stewart/Charlize Theron version. Mirror mirror indeed.

How did this happen? Mirror Mirror knew exactly what it was - a silly, peppy kid-friendly version of the classic fairy tale. Snow White and the Huntsman, on the other hand, is a turgid, unfocused mess that wants to be the Lord of the Rings version of Snow White, but fails to live up to either of its antecedents.

Mirror Mirror is far from a great movie. It's slight and innocuous, but it at least boasts moments of real visual imagination courtesy of director Tarsem Singh (The Cell), who has fun with swirling camera movements and inventive visual gags like the seven dwarfs using stilts to rob and fight people. And the writers had the good sense to jettison some of the lame jokes in the trailers.

But Snow White and the Huntsman is a physically ugly film, replete with gray skies, globs of mud and battle scenes that barely make sense. First time director Rupert Sanders pulls off a handful of interesting effects, but his storytelling is terrible. The romance, supposedly one of the key components of the film, is a complete bust, with the title characters having no chemistry whatsoever.

The two Snow White actresses acquit themselves fairly well. Collins isn't terribly distinct, but she's energetic and plays along with the laughs quite nicely. The awful movie surrounding Stewart leaves her somewhat at sea, but she at least makes a solid effort to carry the film.

Theron, on the other hand, tries TOO hard to carry the film. Sure, the evil queen is supposed to chew the scenery, but Theron devours it like the Tasmanian Devil, to stifling effect. She plays almost every scene with the volume turned up to 11, barking like a very pretty mad dog. She's worse than evil - she's annoying.

The trailers for Mirror Mirror made Roberts seem like she was out of her depth, but she gamely rolls with the whimsical tone of the film and is clearly having fun. It's hard to buy her as truly evil, but she does manage to be engagingly nasty.

It's not like turning Snow White into an adventure heroine is a bad idea - Ginnifer Goodwin manages to be both fair and ferocious in the ABC series Once Upon a Time. That series can spin yarns with the skill of Rumplestiltskin. It beasts either of the features. If you only have time for one movie, look into Mirror Mirror. Snow White and the Huntsman is a rotten, poisonous apple.

 

MIRROR MIRROR: B

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN: D

 

REVIEW: Men in Black 3

Since Men in Black 3 trades heavily in alternate realities, I'll give the movie an alternate title: Men in Black to the Future 3.

And I mean that as a compliment. Quality-wise, Men in Black follows the same trajectory as the Back to the Future trilogy: Terrific opening, problematic sequel, much-improved third installment.

But it's not enough to say that Men in Black 3 is an improvement over 2. That wouldn't take much. The second movie wasn't awful, it was just kind of ... there. Typical middling sequel. Didn't hate it, didn't really like it either. So I'm very happy - and very pleasantly surprised - to report that the third movie is actually kind of great.

That threw me, given all the reports I read about this movie's chaotic production. I was especially troubled by the fact they started filming without a finished script - a bad idea for any movie, but especially for an action comedy, which requires a lot of fine tuning if it's going to work. And amazingly, Men in Black 3 works wonders.

One of the smartest moves by the filmmakers was to put J back in a place akin to where he was in the first film - stuck in an unfamiliar world. This time, the unfamiliar world is 1969, where J has time-traveled to prevent the demise of K. I really shouldn't say more than about the plot - the less you know, the better.

What I can tell you is something that was evident in the trailers: Josh Brolin is fantastic as the young K - and he doesn't just copy Tommy Lee Jones. Brolin conveys some of the same deadpan stoicism, but this younger K is also a bit lighter on his feet - he's not quite so world-weary yet, and he plays off Will Smith extremely well.

The picture's midsection moves in fits and starts but recovers for a great third act that packs something even the first movie didn't have: an emotional wallop. I daresay I was really moved in a way that I never thought I would be.

Oh sure, you'll always have people who complain about the plot holes in the time travel, but you know what? When you have an alien with hand vaginas that shoot poison darts, you're allowed to break a few time travel rules. If it leads to an ending that's actually touching, we'll give logic a break.

And here's an added bonus: Even the post-converted 3D is terrific. Although director Barry Sonnenfeld didn't shoot in 3D, he clearly designed his shots for the format, with a lot of zany pop-out effects that are actually worth the upcharge.

Much has been made of the third movie's soft opening at the box office, but the opening was soft because a lot of people didn't like the second movie. I hope they give the third movie legs. I know I found my time - and this franchise - were redeemed.

 

GRADE: A-




 

Did Star Wars kill Roger Corman?

Every so often, someone comes along and blames George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for ruining the movies. The argument is always the same. Before the bearded ones came along, Hollywood was making artsy films that meant something. After Jaws and Star Wars, Hollywood began making money more than anything else.

I've always been able to brush off that argument is disingenuous nonsense. But what do you do when the accuser is Jack Nicholson?

I was watching the excellent documentary Corman's World, about the man who was the king of the B-movies. His movies were quite literally cheap and often unabashedly exploitive. And most of them made money. One of the few that didn't was 1962's The Intruder, a racial drama starring William Shatner as a cracker.

Corman was never going to be Stanley Kramer, so most of the time he cranked out schlock, and he occasionally lucked out into making an actual good movie like The Pit and the Pendulum and the original Little Shop of Horrors, which starred one Jack Nicholson (in the role Bill Murray played later.)

Corman gave Nicholson his break, so it's not at all surprising to watch him boost Corman. It is surprising to hear him say the words, "I hated Star Wars."

Nicholson says, "If Star Wars doesn't make a ton of cabbage, we'd still have little green lines across the screen." The documentary basically argues that once Jaws and especially Star Wars made the popcorn movie hugely profitable, that sparked the twilight of Corman's career.

There is some validity to that. Certainly after the juggernaut of the Force, it became that much harder for Corman's scrappy little movies to break through. Cheap sci-fi and horror were eventually relegated direct to home video. It's not unlike what happened in the porno industry. In the 70s, some porn films like Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door we're actually kind of artistic. In the VHS age, porn became just an endless parade of friction.

Maybe Star Wars took Corman out of theaters, and that is too bad. But it hardly ruined him. In fact, Star Wars itself is not unlike a Corman movie with a really big budget. Have you looked at the 1977 film lately? Sure, it's big piece of myth-making, but in many ways, it's a scrappy little film, especially compared to the other slicker episodes. A line like "But I was going to the Tosche station to pick up some power converters" would be right at home in a Corman movie.

And Corman's spirit lives on today, not only in protégés like Scorsese, Howard, Sayles and Demme, but also in disciples like Robert Rodriguez, who is a past master at making movies on the cheap, and especially Quentin Tarantino, whose pictures are Corman flicks writ large. Their Grindhouse was a very bloody valentine to Corman.

Nicholson complains that instead of making 12 movies a year a studio makes "12 circuses." He's not wrong, and I'm mindful of that the week that Battleship comes out. But wasn't one of Nicholson's best-known roles in a circus called Batman? Playing a clown, no less?

But I don't want to be too hard on Jack. Corman's World also treats us to the sight of Jack Nicholson crying during his interview. And he's not acting. For that alone, Corman's World is wild.

 

 

REVIEW: Dark Shadows

Last week, I wrote that The Avengers was more than the sum of its parts. This week, I'm sorry to report that Tim Burton's Dark Shadows is less than the sum of its parts. Indeed, it's Burton's weakest film to date.

At first glance, Dark Shadows and Tim Burton seem tailor-made for each other. The trailer indicated a goofy/scary good time, not unlike Beetlejuice. The prologue is certainly ravishing, with sweeping imagery and oozing portent. When, as the trailers foretold, the story flashes forward to 1972, and the humor gets sillier, the movie somehow manages to hang together.

But then, slowly but surely, Dark Shadows begins to unravel. Plot threads and characters drop in and out with no rhyme or reason, except to set up redundant action scenes. It's as if Burton and his writer, Seth Grahame-Smith (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) can't decide on a tone, or even whose story to tell. By the end of the movie, when we get the inevitable drop for a sequel, I could only roll my eyes and say, "Good luck with that."

I can't fault the cast. Depp has come under fair criticsm lately for flying on kind of a zany autopilot, which I thought he was doing in Burton's overrated Alice in Wonderland. This time, at least, he pours his heart into his performance, having fun with the dual nature of Barnabas Collins. Depp is one of the few actors who can say a line like, "It is with sincere regret that I must kill you all," and make it sound both intimidating and sad.

The other actors try their best, but are undone by sloppy, shallow writing. It's nice to see Michelle Pfeiffer reunited with her Batman Returns director, but she's given almost nothing to do. Eva Green sexes it up nicely as Collins' nemesis, in a role Pfeiffer might have once played, but her character is poorly defined almost from the start. Helena Bonham Barter has too little screen time as a duplicitous doctor, and the misuse of the talented Chloe Grace Moretz (Kick Ass, Hugo) via a dumb third act revelation, is unforgivable.

I wish that Burton would produce an original property rather than try to graft his sensibility on an existing property, which he has now done for four movies (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland and now Dark Shdows). At least with the upcoming Frankenweenie, he's adapting himself.


I have only a passing familiarity with the original Dark Shadows, but I can't imagine it would have developed its devoted following if it were as scattershot as Burton has made it. His trajectory of late is worrying. I thought Alice was a misfire, but that at least had great performances by Bonham Carter and Mia Wasikowska to keep it afloat. Despite Depp's best efforts, Dark Shadows sinks.

GRADE: C-

 

Yellow Submarine

My review of Yellow Submarine could be more of a Tweet than a review: "It was the first movie I ever saw in a theatre when I was about 5, so I think it's awesome."

The End. (Hey, that's the title of a Beatles song!)

Yes, it combines my two great obsessions, the Beatles and the movies. And it being the first movie I can remember seeing in a theater (then the Victory, now the Victoria Theatre), the personal connection is powerful and undeniable. But my love for Yellow Submarine cuts much deeper than that. I saw Help! around the same time, in the same theatre. That's Beatles and a movie too, but I don't love Help nearly as much as I love Yellow Submarine. Why is that?

I saw Yellow Submarine In the theater, in a new restoration on Saturday. That experience opened the floodgates for me, not only of memories but also of pure dazzlement. The movie is a wonder, not just visually, but verbally. It's damn funny.

"Frankenstein?" Oh yeah, I used to go out with his sister. "His sister?" Yeah, Phyllis.

"Let's get this vessel shipshape!" I kind of like it the way it is. Submarine-shape.

"If I spoke prose, you'd all find out, I don't know what I talk about!"

(Cheif Blue Meanie laughs manically) "Hee Hee Hee! Oh, I haven't laughed so much since Pompeii!"

"It's no longer a blue world, Max. Where can we go?" Argentina?

And then there are the images. Sure, it's easy to argue that Yellow Submarine is best appreciated when you're stoned, but as Ken Kesey said, that's true of any movie. Besides, I've never been stoned in my life, and this movie is still a trip.

What struck me about my newest viewing was that the character animation is actually kind of crude. The design, and the little in-jokes within the design, are breathtaking. The restoration made the "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" scene look like beautiful paint splatters.

 

Before today, I'd never noticed that the cats with flower tails that pop up in "Nowhere Man" also show up in Pepperland. I'd never noticed that the book Jeremy reads when he's fighting the Blue Meanies has a title: Karate.

It goes without saying that the music is great, but even there the movie has unique treats. The mix of the title song in the restored version reveals sounds that were previously buried. The version of "It's All Too Much" in the film has a verse not on the album. Even the bit where the Beatles sing a line of George's "Think for Yourself" is an outtake from a rehearsal.

All told, I love Yellow Submarine even more than I do another great film also embraced as a "head trip." Disney's Fantasia. Fantasia may be more artful, but Yellow Submarine is a hell of a lot more fun.

The new restoration of the film will be released on disc June 5.

GRADE: A+

PS - If the Victoria could ever show Yellow Submarine in their summer classic film series, that would make me very happy.

Revenge - er, Return of the screenings!

Look out, folks. Sir Critic is back!

Granted, I haven't really gone anywhere, but lately I've been a little scarce in these parts. Chalk it up to a truly awful time I had last year, which broke me of the blogging habit and - if I'm being honest with myself, made me more than a little lazy about posting here.

Well, laziness begone! Thanks to the good folks at the Owens Group in Cincinnati, I will once again be attending preview screenings. Those are the ones you usually hear about on the radio - be the 43rd caller, and you win passes to Battleship! (Insert ironic eyebrows here.) To cut to the chase, that means I will be able to post reviews for some movies the day said movies come out - like I used to do when my blog was hosted by my employer.

However, I will be posting on this blog. And I will not be able to make every screening. I cover the city of Fairfield for my paper, and work obligations must come first. (To any of my bosses reading this - hey there!) I had to sacrifice Tim Burton's Dark Shadows tonight, although maybe that's just as well since the reviews aren't terribly enthused. It looks like Men in Black 3 won't work out either, alas. I'll still see and review those films, I just won't be able to publish those reviews the day of their release. But I'll get them up here as soon as I can after I see them.

I also won't see every movie on the screening schedule. As a general rule, I avoid movies starring Adam Sandler, and I won't strain my brain to see That's My Boy. One of the advantages of being a critic on my own dime is I can make my own picks and pans. But I won't avoid every painful experience. Besides, it's too much damn fun to rake Michael Bay over the coals. And this way, I won't have to voluntarily give him my money.

But I want to accentuate the positive. Hopefully I can start day and date screenings very soon. So you keep your eyes peeled, and I'll keep my fingers crossed that I'll be able to screen a certain movie with a football field imploding and Anne Hathaway in a very tight outfit. For I am web film critics' reckoning.

Ebertfest wrap

OK, NOW to pick up where I left off with Ebertfest.

The first film of Friday, April 27 was On Borrowed Time, a documentary about filmmaker Paul Cox, the director who has been to Ebertfest most often. I was at a distinct disadvantage here, because I haven't seen a single film by the man. I will say the doc convinced me to rectify that, and I can see why Roger feels an affinity with Cox. Both men went through life-altering medical procedures, both came somewhat close to death - and most importantly, both men lived to tell about it.

Next up was something I've been lucky enough to enjoy in the past: live musical accompaniment to silent film. But I'd never done it quite this way - through a series of delightfully bizarre film shorts. I could have sworn one of the shorts was by Georges Melies, made famous lately by Scorsese's Hugo. It turned out not to be, it was actually by a Mexican filmmaker who closely emulated Melies' techniques. Another short was a cartoon by Winsor McCay, who was famous for Gertie the dinosaur.

 

Now, we didn't get to see Gertie, but we saw a very similar creature in Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend: The Pet. And this fella had an even bigger appetite than Gertie.

 

 

I could not do justice to the weirdness of the other shorts. What I tweeted was this: You simply have not lived until you have seen a silent animated short with Mr. and Mrs. Beetle & a grasshopper cameraman.

Wrapping up the evening was A Seperation, this year's Best Foreign Language film, which I had already seen and indeed put on my ten best list. Now I think I didn't put it high enough. Michael Barker, of Sony Pictures Classics, called it "a perfect film," and he's very nearly correct. Though it's steeped in Iranian culture, the film's humanity speaks volumes. The best new film of Ebertfest.

Saturday began with Higher Ground, a film starring and directed by Vera Farmiga. It was based on a memoir by Carolyn Briggs, who was in attendance. At first, the film seems to celebrate holy roller culture, but it's much cannier than that. It shows how religion can be both fulfilling and stultifying. Too many movies emphasize one over the other; it was refreshing to find a film that embraced both viewpoints.

Next up was Patang, centering around a large kite festival in India. The film is pictorially lovely but narratively wispy; the story simply did not stay with me. Quite honestly, it was much more interesting when the projectionists had to restart the film to adjust the mattes because subtitles were being cut off. I the interim, director Prashant Bhargarva freestyled an Indian rap.

Wrapping up the penultimate day was Take Shelter, another film I am now convinced I did not rate highly enough. More than many other movies, Take Shelter is better seen than read about, so I'm not going to try to describe it, but I can promise you'll be talking about the ending for a very long time. Director Jeff Nichols was there, along with the brilliant actor Michael Shannon. Alas, the lovely Jessica Chastain was not present, so it was a good thing I didn't bring flowers. The Q&A with Shannon and Nichols was fabulous in itself, especially when Shannon cracked that he and Nichols had similar assess. You can view it and all the other panels here.

You may note that I said A Seperation was the best new film of the best. That's because they saved the very best for last: Citizen Kane. But it wasn't just any showing of Kane. It was played with Roger's illuminating commentary track, so this was the first time his voice filled the Virigina Theatre since he lost the ability to speak. Afterwards, Roger's wife Chaz came out, her eyes filled with tears. She had never actually sat down and listened to her husband's commentary until that very day. Hearing his voice again, talking about a film he so loves, was deeply moving for her and for us, though I'm sure many of us had heard the commentary before.

I will wrap by saying that too many film buffs I know dont see what all the fuss is about in Kane. Any self-respecting film fan owes it to themselves to see it with new eyes by listening to Roger's commentary. Once you've heard the many things he has to say, I am confident you'll see (and hear) what you've been missing. Because that's what any great film experience does - it makes the movies better.

REVIEW: The Avengers

I'll get back to my long-delayed wrap-up of Ebertfest shortly. First thing's first.

People sometimes say that movies are greater than the sum of their parts. I don't think that's ever been truer than with Joss Whedon's The Avengers.

Truth be told, I didn't love the movies leading up to The Avengers. The most immediate predecessors, Iron Man 2, Captain America and Thor, were all decent but underwhelming. I expected more form each. I didn't care for Louis Letterer's The Incredible Hulk, and I even thought the original Iron Man was a bit overrated. Great first two-thirds, lame climax brought down by lame villain.

it was Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America that caused the gravest concern, however. I thought every one of those movies bogged down because they concentrated too hard on setting up Avengers and not hard enough telling their own stories. They felt scattershot. It's very telling that my favorite scene in Captain America was the musical number written by Alan Menken.

So I actually approached The Avengers biting my nails a bit. Having seen the movie now, I can say without hesitation that I'm happily eating crow. Simply put, the movie is the best one yet produced by Marvel Studios by far.

The action scenes are astounding. They held me in the kind of breathless thrall that James Cameron usually creates - but I wasn't really surprised by that. For all the movie's technical flair, its canniest feat is actually in Whedon's writing.

With so many A-list heroes occupying the screen, The Avengers could have easily become bloated, to say nothing of confusing. Thankfully, it's neither. (It helps, but it is not absolutely essential, to see any of the previous films. Thor is probably the one that has the most backstory for this movie. Whedon so skillfully juggles multiple story lines that no one character dominates the movie - visually or thematically (unless you count the Hulk, 'cos he's fricken huge). Among superhero epics, this one is truly a team effort, and you will rarely find a more persuasive argument for the phrase "Better Together."

Speaking of the Hulk, I still feel that too many people were unduly harsh to the Ang Lee film. However, I have to concede, the character's never been put to better use than in The Avengers. Whedon smartly acknowledges the green guys's gravitas while actually having a lot of fun with him. (I do wish Whedon had better explained who Cobie Smulders' Agent Hill was.)

So is The Avengers the best superhero movie of all time? No. It does not have the emotional oomph of Spider-Man 2 or The Dark Knight Rises, but I can say without equivocation that it is the first great film of 2012.

 

GRADE: A

PS: Make sure you stay ALL THE WAY through the credits - even past all the tech folks - or you'll miss the biggest laugh of the movie.

 

Ebertfest II

Day two of Ebertfest began with something missing. Patton Oswalt was supposed to appear to discuss his movie Big Fan, but the shooting schedule of his current movie made it impossible. On the plus side, he did write what may be the most eloquent apology I've ever read.

I hated to miss my chance to see Patton, but writer/director Robert Siegel was there. I had seen his film before, but I had forgotten that he had written The Wrestler, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Big Fan is often described as a less bloody Taxi Driver, and Big Fan also has a lot to say about misplaced obsession. On my second viewing, however, I was struck by how similar it was to a later film with Patton Oswalt: Young Adult. The leads of both films are neither totally unsympathetic nor totally right in the head - but what struck me about both was that neither character learns a damn thing in the end. That may be a flaw to some, but it made Big Fan (and Young Adult) that much more fascinating.

I also took this away from Big Fan, as someone who doesn't follow sports: Just because you're deeply into athletics doesn't make you any less of a geek than, say, a film nerd.

Next up was Kinayarwanda, and it was the first film of the festival that left me a bit wanting. I admired it, and indefinitely understood the value of a movie about Rwandan genocide being made by Rwandans. While the film has a number of great moments, including a striking animated sequence, it doesn't hold together as well as Hotel Rwanda, mainly because it lacked a central figure in which I could be emotionally invested.

The third film, however, was flat-out wonderful. Terri resonated with me a lot because it focuses on social mis fits, and I often felt like one. Indie films like this often succumb to self-conscious quirkiness, but in Terri it's essential because it shows how quirky we all are - quirk is what makes us us. I was especially struck when Jacob Wysocki, who plays the title character, spoke at the festival. This was his very first film role, but in real life, Wysocki is gregarious and outgoing - very much the opposite of Terri. Christy Lemire, the AP film critic and a child of the 80s, said it reminded her of The Breakfast Club. I think it may be even better than that.

Ebertfest Day 1

It didn't take long for me to realize I would absolutely love Ebertfest.

OK, that's a bit of a misnomer. I knew I would love it even before I got there. C'mon. It's me, movies and Roger Ebert.

Still, knowing something in the abstract is still only the abstract. Actually experiencing it? That's something else altogether. I had been to any number of special film events before. The people I've been lucky enough to see include effects maestro Phil Tippett, the lovely Patricia Neal and Janet Leigh, and another Lee called Spike. I've even seen Ebert before, when he came to Columbus for a long interview with this director I like named Scorsese.

I'm only two days into Ebertfest, and I can already tell you this experience trumps them all. First off, there's the theater itself. The Virginia in Champaign is one of those classic movie place with a huge screen that has to be at least 50 feet long. Some of the plaster is crumbling, and it's not quite as resplendent as the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, but the Virgina has character out the wazoo. One look at the place is enough to set the tone.

Then there's the other thing about movie theaters like this - the sound. And I don't mean the speakers, although it's top notch here. I'm talking about the sound of the audience. First, there's the sound of laughter coming from more than 1,000 people. I had not heard that in too long. Second, and more important, is the mood of the place. Every single person is there to SEE MOVIES and not just munch popcorn and dick around. Too many people treat movies, even good ones, like pieces of gum - they enjoy it while it lasts and then they forget about it not long after. Not here - not with these folks.

Our first film is Joe Versus the Volcano, the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie no one saw. I would say it defies description, but it really doesn't. It defies simple description. It's a little Terry Gilliam, a little Fritz Lang, a little Frank Capra, a little Howard Hawks, a little Coens and a lot its own animal. The movie's a strange bird, and it revels in it. The film, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley (Moonstruck/Doubt) is very loosey goosey, and it doesn't always hang together, but that very freewheeling quality is what makes it so charming. Not only do I urge you to see it, I urge you to see it not by yourself, and not even with just one other person. This movie is best viewed with a group of people who can infect each other with slap happiness.

Afterwards, cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt (The Help, Lethal Weapon etc) came out to discuss the film with AP critic and Ebert Presents at the movies co-host Christy Lemire, and one of Ebert's "Far-Flung Correspondents," Pablo Villaca from Brazil. They talked about the stylized look of Joe Versus the Volcano, my favorite moment being Goldblatt's explanation of how he gets shafts of light. "Smoke. Where there's smoke, there's Goldblatt," he said.

The second attraction was sort of a double feature about black comics. The first was a short called The Truth about Beauty and Blogs by Kelechie Ezie, who spoke. It was a very funny piece about a woman who essentially lives on the Internet and has, shall we say, relationship issues. Attention Saturday Night Live - HERE is how to take a one-joke premise and NOT run it into the ground.

Next was a feature-length doc called Phunny Busines: A Black Comedy about All Jokes Aside, the groundbreaking comedy club that was a stomping ground for pretty much every working African American comedian you've heard of. What I most liked about the doc was that it wasn't funny just because comics talked on camera - it was funny because of the way it was made. It cracks its ow jokes, partly because the central figure, former club owner Raymond Lambert is such a figure of fun. He was refreshingly willing not only to crack a joke, but be the butt of the joke.

The evening didn't end until 1:30 a.m., so I was dead tired by then, but I was also deliriously happy. I couldn't wait for more.

 

Summer Movie Preview: June

It's all about the aliens this month ...

JUNE 1

Snow White and the Huntsman - This spring's Mirror Mirror turned out to be decent, but even before I saw that, I had higher hopes for this film, which looks to take Snow White in a more adrenalized direction - and Charlize Theron makes for a formidable wicked queen.

JUNE 8

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - I've never much been into the Madagascar series. They're emblematic of everything wrong with DreamWorks animation - emphasizing gags over characters, and a soundtrack by K-Tel designed to give parents something to bop to. Meh.

Prometheus - Oh, HELL yes. After The Dark Knight Rises, this is the summer movie I'm most looking forward to seeing. Ridley Scott can be maddeningly inconsistent, but my feeling is he's firing on all thrusters here - and whoever says this isn't an Alien prequel is a damn liar.


JUNE 15


Rock of Ages - On the one hand, I'm not much for 80s nostalgia, but on the other hand, I very much enjoyed Adam Shannkman's Hairspray. Plus Tom Cruise looks like he's having a lot of fun, and Julianne Hough is super cute. I'm in.

That's My Boy: Adam Sandler's latest attempt to pander to people who are perpetually 13 years old. And even that may be aiming too high. I'm out.

JUNE 22

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - You know, it's funny. I might be looking forward to this even more than Spielberg's Lincoln biopic due later this year.

Brave -  Pixar. I still have faith, even if they were coasting a bit with Cars 2.

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World - Keira Knightley gets a chance to be funny. The trailer is a trip.



JUNE 29

GI Joe: Retaliation: I don't care if Bruce Willis is in it. Pass. I'm not much into sequels to movies not many people liked in the first place.

Magic Mike: Steven Soderbergh makes a movie about male strippers. Wow.

People Like Us: Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (the writers of Abrams' Star Trek) make their first movie that doesn't rely heavily on CGI,  A fine cast includes Chris Pine, Elizabeth Banks and Olvia Wilde.

Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection: Why, yes, I would like to enter such a program - to protect me from Madea.

May Summer Movie preview

And so the summer movie season is upon us! Well, almost. There's still one more week to go before summer officially starts (movie-wise, anyway), but I wanted to get the summer preview completed before I head out to Ebertfest this coming Wednesday. That mean four days to get May, June July and August accounted for. So off I go.

MAY 4


The Avengers: Like everyone else, I've been looking forward to this movie (seems almost wrong to call it a film). But I wasn't THAT hot on it, mostly because I found the recent Marvel slate (Thor, Iron Man II, Captain America, etc.) somewhat underwhelming.
Then I read this.

It's hard to imagine that anyone with an appetite for the trademark's patented brand of fantasy, effects, mayhem and strangely dressed he-men will be disappointed; not only does this eye-popping 3D display of visual effects fireworks feature an enormously high proportion of action scenes, but director Joss Whedon has adroitly balanced the celebrity circus to give every single one of the superstar characters his or her due.

OK, I'm sold.


MAY 11


Dark Shadows: Fans have been up in arms about the comic tone of the trailer, and I've had my own misgivings about Tim Burton's work of late - I found Alice in Wonderland horribly overrated. But I have to admit, I laughed. I like the Beetlejuice-esque tone. I like any chance to look at Eva Green. I like a chance to see Chloe Grace Moretz steal scenes. I'm in.




MAY 18


Battleship: Barnacles! Hell no! I'm disappointed in a talented direcctor like Peter Berg so blatantly ripping off Michael Bay.I want to be a torpedo.


The Dictator: I admired Borat more than I found it actually funny, and Bruno, aside from a couple good sequences, was an out-and-out botch - but I have to admit, the trailer sold me.





What to Expect When You're Expecting: Anna Kendrick and Elizabeth Banks are in it. Good enough for me.


MAY 25


Chernobyl Diaries: So this is a summer release, huh? It better live up to the trailer.





MIB 3: Having Josh Brolin play the young Tommy Lee Jones is a stroke of genius. So why do I feel iffy about this one? Oh, I dunno. Could be because they started shooting without a finished script, which is never a good idea.

Sequels that were better than the originals? Not always

The website Total Film has published a list of what it says are 50 sequels that are better than the originals (or at least on par with them, it says in smaller print.)

Fifty? Really? Even at the rate they crank out sequels these days, that number seems high. I'm not going to mention every film they cited (there are a handful I haven't seen), but  I knew the list was trouble from the very first entry.

Die Hard with a Vengeance: Horseshit right off the bat. I'll listen to an argument for Die Hard 2, but the third one was a mess. For one thing, the script was originally developed as a Lethal Weapon sequel, so it didn't fit the "jeopardy in a confined space" mold the first two used so well. Worse yet, it has one of the stupidest endings this side of the extended Exorcist conclusion. Even the cheesy sequel, Live Free or Die Hard, was better than this.

Hot Shots! Part Deux: A good film, but simply not as funny as the first. It tries a little too hard.

Shrek 2: As sequels go, not bad - it's certainly better than any of the subsequent Shrek movies. But it didn't capture the freshness of the first, which itself was a bit overrated.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare: I don't know if this one is better than the original, but it's certainly the most clever. Here was meta-horror three years before Scream came along.

Rocky III: I pity the fool that says that. It's goofily entertaining, but not anywhere close to the quality of the original, or even the semi-retread Rocky II. The recent Rocky Balboa was better too.

National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation: OK, that one I'll buy. It's been years since I've seen the original, but this sequel has entered the holiday zeitgeist without question. I hear it quoted at least as much as, if not more than, A Christmas Story.

Fast Five: Definitely. This one lived up to its name; I thought the original was neither fast nor furious.

Lethal Weapon 2: I suppose you could argue the first is better because it introduced the characters, but the sequel is probably more fun because of the presence of Joe Pesci.

Gremlins 2 - The New Batch: Actually, I agree with this one. Funnier and zanier than the original. Too bad not many people saw it.

Desperado: I wouldn't call this as "good" as El Mariachi, but it's definitely slicker. And I'll admit, Salma Hayek's presence is an ... eyeful.

Star Wars Episode III - The Revenge of the Sith: Definitely the best of the prequels. I'd even argue it's superior to the somewhat lazy Return of the Jedi.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army: Yes, this one was superior to the first, because it had more of Guilliermo Del Toro's loopy energy.

Manon of the Spring: Close call, but I still give the nod to Jean de Florette.

Spider-Man 2: Absolutely superior to the first. It always bugged me that the Green Goblin in the first movie looked like a refugee from a Power Rangers episode.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol: It made my 10 best list.

Addams Family Values: Much funnier than the rather lackadaisical original. Never understood why more people didn't embrace it. Bonus points for not featuring MC Hammer's wretched "Addams Groove."

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Terrific fun, thanks largely to the presence of Sean Connery, but there's no way in hell it equals Raiders, much less tops it.

For a Few Dollars More: Not QUITE as good as A Fistful of Dollars, but I was very pleasantly surprised at how good at was when I first saw it. The Good, The Bad and the Ugly whips them both, though.

Superman II: Yes, I'd still say this was better than the original, despite its patchwork production, since Richard Donner started it and Richard Lester completed it. It's not as epic as the first, but it's more entertaining because it doesn't take so long to get going.

A Shot in the Dark: Absolutely better than The Pink Panther, because Closeau was front and center this time.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn: Well, yeah.

Batman Returns: A lot of people will disagree on this one, but not me. I always thought the 1989 original was muddled and overrated. The superiority of the follow-up can be summed up in one word: meow.

Back to the Future Part II: Oh, make like a tree and get out of here. It's got a lot of really clever moments, but this one was clearly the low point of the series, because the alternate 1985 is too far over the top. Part III was a refreshing return to form.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: No argument here. Still my favorite of the lot.

The Bourne Supremacy: No. Ultimatum was better.

The Bride of Frankenstein: I actually prefer the more emotional original film, but I completely respect the original for going in a comedic direction - and working.

The Road Warrior: Absolutely. One of the first films films I saw that made me tired simply by watching it.

From Russia with Love: Well, I don't consider the Bond movies to be sequels (except for Quantum of Solace), but this one is better than the first Bond film, Dr. No. However, it's not quite as fun as Goldfinger.

X2: Definitely. The first movie was fun, but Bryan Singer really found his feet the second time around.

Before Sunset: Yes, I actually did like it better than Before Sunrise, which is saying a lot.

Evil Dead 2: Like Desperado, this movie was essentially a slicker version of its predecessor -  but it had even more imagination.

The Silence of the Lambs: People often forget that Michael Mann's Manhunter preceded this. While Man's film is certainly good, it's rather dated. Silence of the Lambs hasn't aged a day.

Terminator 2: Judgement Day: I still like the original best, but the sequel is awfully close.

The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers: No, it's not better than Fellowship of the Ring. I felt this one rushed too much through the story - a problem that was alleviated in the superior extended cut.

Dawn of the Dead: George Romero is to be commended for taking his series in a satirical direction, but he didn't top his chilling original.

The Dark Knight: Duh.

Toy Story 2: The wonderful original is often cited as one of the best animated films of all time, but the clearly superior sequel is cleverer and even more emotionally affecting.

Aliens: Wow, tough call, particularly because Ridley Scott and James Cameron's films are so different. But faced with a set of extended teeth, I'll have to argue that hundreds of aliens are scarier than one - and I still get a major rush from Cameron's relentless pacing.

The Godfather Part II: I get how this is supposed to be superior to the original, because it's starker and more ambitious, but it comes down to this: the original Godfather has dozens of quotable moments. Do you hear Godfather II quoted as often?

The Empire Strikes Back: Again, I understand why people say it's better than the original - it's certainly the best written and best crafted of the six- but for me, it can't top the thrill of discovery that came with the original.

Your thoughts?