Alien Summer

Well surprise, surprise, I've yet again fallen behind in writing about the movies I've seen this year, so what I had originally hoped to be a nice in-depth essay comparing a few alien movies to each other is going to have to get cut short out of sheer necessity.

Anyway, the summer has finished. Some fun stuff, but nothing that's entirely blown me away. Let's review!

ALIEN MOVIES

One of the most frustrating things about Hollywood is its bandwagon-mentality of grabbing whatever seems to be "hot" at any given moment. I like superheroes, but now the market feels oversaturated. I used to LOVE vampires and werewolves, but Twilight sort of killed that. And as a die-hard sci-fi junkie, I ADORE aliens. For whatever reason, Hollywood decided this year that they were the big "it" thing, so we had a lot of those sort of films this year (even "Green Lantern" and "Thor" crossed the boundary between superhero and alien). I honestly hate that this happens all the time because it so thoroughly kills originality--one alien movie here and there can feel fresh, but having every blockbuster be centered around this theme kills the mood (and even on TV..."Falling Skies" anyone?). But let's check out some alien movies and see how they fared, shall we?

"Battle LA" There is a bit of an interesting story behind this movie. The company that did the VFX for this film, halfway through doing work on it, decided to make their OWN alien movie "Skyline" and rush it to release before this film. I saw most of "Skyline" (though I didn't bother to review it), and it was pretty terrible. Thankfully the movie tanked at the box office, and I heard the VFX company that made the film ultimately got sued by the "Battle LA" folks, since all the VFX hardware they were paid to create for "Battle LA" they more-or-less stole to make their own alien flick.

I was somewhat hopeful that "Battle LA" would be marginally enjoyable because they at LEAST spent more time making it than "Skyline," but I was unfortunately disappointed. It IS a better film that "Skyline," but that's like saying getting stabbed repeatedly is less painful than being drowned to death. The set-up is fairly interesting and could have made for a thrilling film...basically tell the story of the alien invasion from the point-of-view of the defending marines--on paper it's "Black Hawk Down" meets "Independence Day." Though I don't really like "Black Hawk Down" that much, part of why movies like it can succeed are because they're about real soldiers in war, and even with large casts they try to find a way for us to relate to all the guys. Unfortunately the script for "Battle LA" is laughable and cliche-ridden. I have no problem with cliches if executed right, but they have to be done with a sense of purpose. In this film I couldn't tell a single character apart from each other aside from Aaron Eckhart (barely), and the fact that all their outfits looked the same didn't help matters.

Obviously (in my "filmmaker's" opinion) character comes first, but if your movie doesn't have them, so be it. At least the action sequences and special effects were cool, right? Well...not really. I've said it many times before, but I'll say it again. Shakey-cam action sequences CAN offer a sense of realism to your movies if done right, but they aren't an excuse to be sloppy, which is what seems to be the norm these days. All the action in this movie was sloppy and headache-inducing, so even that didn't really pan out.

And worst of all, the aliens didn't even look cool or creative! If you're going to do a movie about aliens, at the VERY least your creatures need to have some sort of cool and freaky design to make them memorable. We never really get a good look at these creatures, but when we do, they don't really look like much of anything...just big squishy things that walk around like people. It's bad enough I couldn't tell the soldiers from one another, but with all the hand-held shakiness, I could barely tell the aliens from the humans!

A perfect comparison to this movie (hell, it's probably WHY this movie got green-lit) is "District 9." While some of the peripheral characters in D9 aren't too complex, there's no denying the antihero Wikus is a character who sticks in your mind, as is the alien character "Christopher Johnson." And the "prawns" are immediately memorable, with their multiple jointed legs, tentacly mandibles, and strange affinity for cat food (there's even a "cute" baby alien!). There are also some pretty hefty action sequences in the film, and though they are rather frenetic, they still have a sense of purpose and drive, and use the hand-held shaky style to make the movie feel like a documentary. "Battle LA" lacked all of this...avoid it at all costs.

"Cowboys and Aliens" I found this film to be one of the bigger disappointments of the summer. On paper I thought this would be fantastic. With so many alien movies coming out, what better way to make them fresh than by throwing the space invaders in the Old West, combining two of my favorite genres? Mix in some solid casting, a good director (forget "Iron Man"...ever seen "Zathura"?), and you could have an awesome retro adventure blockbuster. Right?!?!

Well, no. The biggest problem with "Cowboys and Aliens" is that it takes itself WAY too seriously. Call me crazy, but when your movie is called "Cowboys and Aliens" why not have a little fun?! The inherent silliness is in your title, why not go with it? I'm not saying we need slapstick zaniness here, and handling it more-or-less like a real western is kind of cool...but look at the best action-blockbusters of our time--James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Die Hard--all those films have moments of lightness to keep us from getting bogged down. Even westerns themselves were B-movies of a sort (masterpieces such as "High Noon" aside). But in "Cowboys and Aliens" the movie comes with such a sense of self-importance it's downright ludicrous. Learn to have a little fun why don't you?

This problem is all over the movie, but it is most obvious in the two leads. It's fun to see Harrison Ford play off his star status as the unscrupulous cattle baron, and I actually enjoyed seeing him play a grumpy old man. Unfortunately he is paired with Daniel Craig (whom I usually like). Craig CAN be a good actor, and has the ability to be somewhat snippy and fun when the role calls for it...we've seen a bit of it in "Casino Royale." Overall though people like Craig because he is a no-nonsense tough guy. Fine, but pair that with Harrison's consistent grumbling and you have a movie that just feels like to bulldogs snarling at each other. Personally, I would have switched Craig out with someone a little lighter to play off Ford (it's the "buddy-cop" formula that works every time). Imagine Ford snarling, "We'll never get our people back" and Craig (or whoever) just laughs and gives him a slap on the back, "Sure we will. Can't be any harder than robbin' your damn stagecoach. The ranchers you hired to guard that had brains full of goo too!" Not a perfect line, but you get the idea...immediately there's a fun dynamic going on. A perfect example is "Men In Black" (ironically created by the same comic book developer), where Will Smith's streetwise nonchalance is paired with Tommy Lee Jones no-nonsense take-care-of-business attitude. That movie could have also taken itself too seriously, but had fun with the premise, and at the end of the day it just turned out to be really really COOL.

While the tone is the main problem, a lot of that stems from an issue of too many subplots. Again, I've got nothing wrong with cliches, but they have to be executed right. "Cowboys and Aliens" uses every cliche in the book, but there are so MANY of them that none of them have a chance to breathe. I personally would have cut the one about the kid and his grandpa (I liked the sheriff, but the kid from "The Last Airbender" is annoying here too) and the one about Ford's Native American ranch hand, but it doesn't really matter. Something should have gone, because the movie constantly feels like it has so much INFORMATION to get out of its system that we're never allowed to stop and enjoy what we're watching. I know for a fact that funny moments existed in the dailies...Sam Rockwell especially is an actor known for his improvisational ability. But none of that lightness made it into the final film because it would have just taken so much damn TIME.

And there ARE moments of humor in the film, at least for a while. Paul Dano as Ford's bratty son is pretty funny, especially as he is abused and pushed around by Craig. And the sheriff had a nice sense of western gravitas that added an old-timey flavor to the film. However both these cool characters get abducted at the end of the first act. If you have fun characters, don't lose them so early!

I will give the movie credit where credit is due (though here be spoilers): there is a sequence where Olivia Wilde's mysterious character gets "killed" by one of the big creatures. Then a tribe of Apaches (I THINK they were Apaches) arrives, and takes Olivia Wilde's body in some sort of strange Native American ritual. All the other characters think they are just burning her body and are angry and confused, but in a delightful send-up of the hokey "Indian mumbo-jumbo ritual" we've seen a thousand times before, Olivia Wilde emerges from the flames naked and very much alive. Turns out she's an alien too (albeit a different species) and the Apaches were just helping restore her to her natural form! It's a great reversal of all the hokey Indian scenes we've seen in westerns before, and the movie could have used more clever twists like this one on the downtrodden western formula.

It's too bad...I'm convinced "Cowboys and Aliens" could have been awesome, even while keeping a lot of the same elements intact. But choices were made that caused it to be a wasted opportunity. Stop taking yourself so seriously, Hollywood!

"Attack the Block" So, these days, what DOES it take to make a good alien movie? Why, it takes doing it outside of Tinseltown!
"Attack the Block" is fun alien-invasion horror flick from Edgar Wright collaborator, Joe Cornish. In the film, aliens (not alien ships...the alien beasties themselves arrive like meteors) crash in the British projects, and its up to a gang of street kids to stop them. Like many British films, it takes a while to get a grip on the kids' slang and understand what the hell they're saying, but once the action starts it's a frightful good time. As with a lot of the better science fiction out there, a lot of the fun comes from the subtext; these characters are on their own because nobody bothers to help out a bunch of ghetto kids, and it's topical that I saw the movie right when this years' British riots were going on. The kids have been used to handling things on their own for quite some time now...a bunch of voracious aliens are no different than a rival gang. "What kind of aliens would land here?" one kid asks. "One that's looking for a fight!" the other retorts.

And the aliens themselves are pretty clever too, especially for a movie made on a (relatively) low budget. Rather than your usual CGI mess (which on a lower-end film, would look even worse), they look like giant black menacing furballs--but a PURE black that seems to absorb all light around them, the only visible part being their day-glo snarling fangs (originally mistaken for eyes). They manage to be both whimsical and frightening at the same time.

I will say that "Attack the Block" is shockingly gory at times, so it's something to be aware of if you're squeamish. But aside from that, it's a great little flick that I highly recommend checking out.

OTHER SUMMER MOVIES (AND EARLY FALL)

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" If you had told me this would be one of the better movies of the summer (perhaps the year) I'm not sure I would have believed you. The "Apes" franchise is quite old, it's campy, and Burton's version left us with such an awful taste in our mouth it seemed unlikely to spring back any time soon, if ever.

BUT "Rise of Planet of the Apes" is not only a fun summer movie, it's actually a pretty darn good film as a whole, dealing with issues of animal rights and where the line of humanity is drawn. Sure, it all ends with campy visuals of apes destroying San Francisco (kind of awesome), but it spends its time developing a compelling drama (amongst a bunch of CGI apes no less) so that it earns this goofiness at the end. Even the Alzheimer's stuff at the beginning with Jon Lithgow is poignant and heartbreaking.

Visually the movie is stunning as well. All the apes are done with motion-capture. I've remarked before how motion-capture can often come across as creepy when dealing with human characters (I'm looking at you, Zemeckis), but it sails over the uncanny valley perfectly when dealing with creatures that are similar to humans, but not quite there anyway--it's why Gollum's performance was so brilliant in the Lord of the Rings films. And it works wonderfully on the apes for the same reason. There are a few shots where it's hard to believe you're not watching real apes, and even when the VFX don't hold up quite as well, the ACTING they still gives makes you forget about it. Andy Serkis has clinched the market on these roles, but he deserves it. As the titular ape "Caesar," he imbues the character with such pathos and empathy that you can't help but root for the furry beasts when they start taking over. One particular moment, a clever reversal of the "get your hands off me you damn dirty ape" line is so exhilarating and shocking you forget the visual effects entirely. And at the end of the day, THAT'S what I love about special effects. They don't exist to make us marvel at a bunch of dumb explosions, they exist to serve the story!

And while Serkis is good, kudos must be given to the filmmakers and the other actors for how this film was pulled off. Serkis may have played the main ape, but each and every one of the other apes in the compound is played by a very specific actor, giving them all a uniqueness that shines through and allows them to not be a bunch of faceless animals. And when that's the POINT of your movie...that there are real BEINGS behind these bars, it's a very smart way to hammer that point home. My favorite part of the movie--where Caesar gains control and power over the other apes in the compound through his wits--is handled in a pretty hefty sequence all done with non-dialogue; only looks and gestures. It's storytelling at it's best and I was enthralled, completely forgetting that these were really a bunch of guys in goofy golf-ball suits who were THEN scanned into a computer and digitized by a bunch of video wizards. And it's also nice to know that one reason why it was chosen for the apes to be CGI was because real "movie" apes are often mistreated, and they didn't want to make a movie on the subject of animal cruelty while ENGAGING in animal cruelty. A Hollywood blockbuster with ethics behind it? Maybe this business isn't so bad after all!

And while the apes are the stars of the show, one shouldn't ignore the rest of the filmmaking techniques taking place here too. There are some fantastic and dynamic one-take shots that move with Caesar as he swings through his human home or redwood forest that cleverly show the passage of time. And the human cast overall is very solid, though the best side character has to be Tom Felton stepping out of the Harry Potter films to play the nasty ape caretaker (even if he still is just another asshole with a magic wand). Though I couldn't help but wonder...at one point he tries to impress a couple hot babes by showing them where he works. Would girls ever really be impressed by a guy who works in a smelly ape prison, especially when you show them how terrible you are towards the creatures you are handling? Doesn't seem like much of a chick magnet to ME.

All in all, I'm not sure "Rise of Planet of the Apes" is going to make my Top 10 for the year, but it has a decent shot if none of the upcoming Oscar-bait films live up to their potential. It was a great surprise.

Oh yeah! I also thought it was cute to see humans watching the original "Planet of the Apes" film at one point.

"Spy Kids 4" You can shrug off films like this by saying, "Oh well, Rodriguez needs to make these films so he can keep making his 'Planet Terror's,'" but I'm not sure that's entirely true. As far as I know the "Spy Kids" franchise isn't that lucrative anymore...is it???

I actually sort of enjoy the first "Spy Kids" movie. For all it's cartoonish logic, it still has a fun tone, those kids were decent actors, and Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas seemed like they were having fun riffing on their "sexy" personas. Dare I say the first "Spy Kids" even had a little style here and there?

"Spy Kids 2" was pretty lame, which is too bad because it was supposed to be an homage to my favorite old timey effects artist, Ray Harryhausen. I never bothered to see the third film, and I was forced to see this one because of my job (hooray!).

Anyway it's pretty bad. The two new spy kids brought in to restart the franchise have none of the charisma of the old kids, and the plot is more nonsensical than any of the other films thus far (which is saying something). Ricky Gervais phones in a terrible performance as a talking dog with lame one-liners that feel like the stuff a six-year old shouts at you, and then won't stop grinning into you falsely chuckle so he'll leave you alone (which he doesn't of course...then he just tells you another dumb joke). Jessica Alba is flat in just about every movie she's in, so no surprise there. The real shame is seeing Joel McHale slum his way through the film. I love him on "Community," my new favorite comedy TV show. Clearly the guy is trying to push into film (more power to him), but sadly he is above this dopey script. Shame on you, Rodriguez.

It's a dumb idiotic movie. Kids deserve better, be they spies or movie-goers.

"Fright Night" With all the Twilight b.s. out there, it's hard to be a fan of horror monsters these days. I've always been a werewolf guy myself, but vampires are pretty cool too. Hollywood has experimented in various ways to capitalize on the Twilight phenomenon (look at all the revamped fairy tales we have in development!), and so we've seen vampires in a number of forms as of late. Last year "Let Me In" sort of failed (I didn't like it that much anyway), and on paper it seemed like a remake of the 80s flick "Fright Night" to grab some Twilight fanboys might be a really bad idea.

I was shocked to discover the remake of "Fright Night" was fantastic, done so by solid direction, some smart updating, and a wonderful cast. Updating the movie from generic suburbia to Las Vegas is a smart move, as the desert atmosphere gives the film not only a unique sense of place, but also a slight sense of danger. When the characters have to flee from their home, running off into the desert actually seems pretty scary! In addition the kids' final plea to the "real" vampire hunter makes a lot more sense (and is a much cooler twist) when they go to aVegas magician and not some hokey B-movie TV star.

The direction is solid, but the cast is what sells it. Colin Farrell can be very hit and miss, but he sinks his teeth (haha!) into this role with gusto, clearly having the time of his life being both sexy and scary. The always solid Toni Collette is lots of fun as the mom, Christopher Mintz-Plasse continues to prove that McLovin wasn't just a fluke as the main character's cloying best friend, and one of my favorite young actors these days (and a nice guy in person) Anton Yelchin plays the hero with wonderful teenage vulnerability. The movie also does a good job of giving the female character a little more to do, and she is played well by the beautiful Imogen Poots (though her last name IS "Poots"...it's hard not to chuckle). All in all it's a blast and the new "Fright Night" does a great job of updating the vampire genre while still sticking to its tried and true roots--if you know your vampire films you're not going to see anything TOO new, but rarely will it be able to pack this much FUN into its scares.

So why oh why did "Fright Night" not make any money??? Was it the R rating? Moviegoers, this is why you can't have nice things!!!

"Drive" To start out, I had a LOT of problems with this film. For a movie called "Drive" there isn't that much driving. It runs the cardinal sin of having it's best scene be the first one. The lack of dialogue and awkward pauses is disconcerting. The sudden violent tone halfway through is too shocking and we should have had some hint of it earlier. And (spoiler!) Gosling should have killed that one guy WITH the slick racecar he was given, not just some beat-up junk vehicle.

BUT...

Even though I had issues with the film, more than any other film this year, "Drive" has been unable to leave my head since I saw it. It hits such an amazing groove and such an exotic feeling that I've been thinking about it constantly since I left the theater (the retro soundtrack helps a LOT, I might add). It is the one film this year that feels like it was made by a FILMMAKER and not by a director working to get a paycheck from a bunch of suits. Though I didn't always agree with all the choices, I definitely felt like they were conscious choices made completely within the filmmaker's control. From an artistic standpoint, you should see it. You won't be able to get it out of your head either.

Also, I went as The Driver for Halloween (made the scorpion jacket myself). I looked badass.

"Moneyball" Interestingly, I felt about "Moneyball" the opposite I felt about "Drive." I didn't expect to like the movie going into it ("sports and math" might as well be "cancer and herpes"), but I was surprised how good it turned out to be. However days later I realized I didn't really remember a single scene from the movie for the most part, aside from Brad Pitt's rapid-phone-call-deal sequence.

Anyway, I remember it being a good movie, and that Jonah Hill was surprisingly fun in his (only?) dramatic role. But I can't tell you much more than that other than it was actually accessible to somebody like me who doesn't give a shit about sports.

"50/50" Hey, speaking of CANCER movies!

This is a good dramedy, but I don't think it's as great a movie as the reviewers would have you believe ("it's a good movie about cancer...gold stars for everyone!"). It has a likable cast and overall it feels very genuine, but ultimately I don't think there's much more to the film other than that. I did think the relationship stuff between Bryce Dallas Howard (purr...), Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Eddie Munster (excuse me...Anna Kendrick) was the most interesting. How do you healthily develop a romantic relationship when you might be dead in a matter of months? It's a flick worth seeing, and could even make a good date movie, but it's not going to shatter your perception on life or anything.

"The Big Year" A movie about birdwatching? All right!

As anyone who knows me, I actually LOVE birdwatching, and think in the right hands this movie could have been great. The story about birdwatchers (and science freaks in general) that Hollywood never tells is that we are CRAZY, constantly stopping the nature bus or leaning out of windows to catch the field marks on something that just MIGHT be a rare species ("or...wait...never mind...just a blackbird"). If this movie was handled by, say, Wes Anderson or even Christopher Guest it could have been brilliant...show these birdwatchers for the poetic lunatics they are! "Best in Show," for example, isn't really about a dog show, it's about the weirdos who own the dogs (and Fred Willard as the awesome announcer). Even the central plot device of the movie...that these three characters are in competition to get the highest bird count, could be brilliant as these idiots undercut and back-stab each other at every turn...for a bunch of birds!

Unfortunately "The Big Year" was not directed by anybody whimsical or awesome. They got the director of "Marley and Me," so it's bland, uninspired (despite a decent cast), and sugarcoated to the point where I felt sick. Instead of the three birders fighting amongst each other, they all become buddies about halfway through the film, killing any possible tension that could exist in the story. What?! Why?!

I do applaud the movie for sort of going out of their way to include accurate bird identifications. One of my favorite movies, "Finding Forrester," frustrates me to no end because it incorrectly identifies a yellow warbler as a Connecticut warbler. So that's nice (though they seem to think "red-tailed hawk" is some sort of rare bird when they're really the coyotes of the sky). Otherwise though, this movie has absolutely nothing going for it. People are convinced birdwatching is a boring subject for a movie, and it ISN'T...but it certainly is if you present it like this.

"Puss In Boots" Oh Dreamworks Animation...always one step forward and two steps back (kind of a bummer year for animation, really). It's not enough to have four Shrek films (the last two of which were atrocious), you have to keep milking it with Puss too?

Admittedly, Puss is probably the best character to crawl out of the Shrek series, AND the one most likely to hold his own film. At least for the first act, the movie does a decent enough job setting a cool spaghetti western tone to the whole proceedings. Cute cat jokes can go a long way, and while I normally hate pop culture casting, it's pretty cool that this movie is basically Robert Rodriguez's "Desperado" with cats, since it not only features Antonio Banderas as Puss (basically cat-Zorro), but also Salma Hayek as the slinky cat burglar Kitty Softpaws.

But as the story introduces more fantasy elements like Humpty Dumpty and Jack's Beanstalk, the movie starts to grow tiresome quickly. It's not as bad as the last two Shrek outings, and it's a little more clever than the Madagascar series, but for the amount of WORK that goes into an animated feature, there should be no excuse for phoning it in. Overall "Puss in Boots" just feels...unnecessary.

OLD MOVIES

"Android" An old low-budget sci-fi movie exploring themes of humanity vs. artificial intelligence. I usually applaud low-budget filmmaking from any era, but this one felt extremely dated and the effects didn't hold up. I remember it had some interesting ideas, but I've honestly forgotten most of it at this point. Gah, remind me why I keep this blog again?

"The Andromeda Strain" Based on Stephen King's sci-fi book (which I read ages ago), it's actually a decent film about an alien virus that starts wiping out humanity. I will say that most of the film feels like a fairly standard thriller-drama, but the sudden action-adventure ending felt extremely out-of-place (though memorable). It's an interesting watch. Also, "The Andromeda STAIN" would be an awesome porno.

"Scarecrows" For a low-budget slasher/horror film, I actually really liked this one. A group of burglars crash-land near an old farmhouse (their sin already committed by being, well, burglars), and are picked off one by one by sinister scarecrows lurking in the cornfield. The scarecrow-monsters themselves are creative and scary (they sew pieces of their victims onto themselves to become more human), and there are some very creative kills and shock moments (one person's body is gutted and stuffed with straw...pretty shocking). Even some of the acting is actually pretty good. A recommended watch for 80s horror fans. Maybe grab it around next Halloween.

"Silent Running" I appreciate this movie for what it stands for...thoughtful science fiction as opposed to the explosive space opera. The movie supposes that all plant life on Earth has gone extinct, but a gardener (played by Bruce Dern) aboard an orbiting space freighter takes care of the last remaining bits of flora in existence. When an order is sent from his superiors to destroy the plants, the gardener finds a way to fight off the rest of the crew members and (spoiler?) jettison the plants out into space to survive on their own, though he will run out of oxygen and die in the process.

A neat idea for a movie, to be sure. However it moves at a snail's pace, and I found myself getting very antsy. Slow pacing is not the worst thing in a movie if your actors are riveting, but unfortunately Bruce Dern's performance is one of the worst I've ever seen anywhere.

Even so, "Silent Running" is one of the forerunners of the narrow genre of thinking man's sci-fi, (it directly inspired Duncan Jones to make "Moon"), so I have to stand by it for that reason alone. But aside from this film's historical context, you can skip it.

"Wet Hot American Summer" Gee, how do you even review this movie? It's a fun period piece about summer camps, basically used as a framework to string a series of sketches featuring a large number of up-and-coming comedians. The sketches are definitely uneven with some better than others, but as a whole it's impossible not to be delighted at this movie's sheer irreverence, which reminded me of my favorite parts of "Wayne's World." The movie is definitely worth seeing at LEAST for Paul Rudd, who is always enjoyable but probably gives the best performance of his life this time around as the jerkwad boyfriend of the main character's love interest (interestingly, the budget was so low on the film that Rudd isn't even sure he was paid).

"Broadcast News" Great film! Classic! What can I say? Holly Hunter, John Hurt, and Albert Brooks are brilliant! It is interesting to see how the big "moment" in the film that is revealed to Holly Hunter at the end (where Hurt acts the news) has changed over the years...in today's world people don't really trust their news stations anymore, and it's not quite as shocking as it might have been then. I can't really say too much else other than that it's considered James L. Brooks' best film for a reason. Go see it! I do have one question though...just once (once!) I'd like to be a John Hurt character and not an Albert Brooks character in my life. I've had a couple Holly Hunters leave me out to dry in the last couple of months.

"Death Becomes Her" The perfect Halloween movie to take a girl who hates horror movies (though I would never date that kind of girl anyway). I had no idea what to expect from this film, but it turned out to be quite the fanciful trip. Bruce Willis gives on of his funniest performances ever, and Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn seem to be having a blast as the catty lovers fighting over him. To say too much else would give the film away, suffice to say it's clever midpoint twist that is the crux of the movie is one of the loopiest, funniest, most macabre things I've seen in ages. Wow, Robert Zemeckis, you used to be so GOOD.

"The Offspring" (aka "From a Whisper to a Scream") I like low budget horror especially around this time of year, and I REALLY like anthology films, so I was hoping this would be a lot of fun.

Some of the stories are OK, but mostly it's just gory and disgusting rather than enjoyable. A creepy old man who has an incestuous relationship with his sister and lusts after a beautiful girl, then he accidentally kills her? So what? There's nothing FUN about this idea, it's just skeevy. And the rest of the tales aren't any better. Skip this flick and watch "Creepshow" instead.

"Return of the Living Dead" Once upon a time in film school I wrote a paper I was really proud of comparing George A. Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" to Zach Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead." I ultimately said that I preferred Snyder's version simply because, while Romero tried to add a bit of consumerism subtext to his film, Snyder's was just way more FUN (for the record, it's probably the ONLY time I've ever been on Snyder's side over methods of an adaptation...my "Watchmen" review was not kind).

Romero may have "invented" the zombie genre (he certainly is responsible for our basic image of zombies today), but aside from "Night of the Living Dead" his movies aren't necessarily that well put together (I did like "Land of the Dead" but I'm in the minority).

I thought "Return of the Living Dead" was just another Romero movie I had somehow missed along the way, but it's actually an outrageous send-up of the zombie genre. The movie presupposes that "Night of the Living Dead" was actually embellished from true events, and goes from there. It's campy, it's stupid, some of the gore is completely ridiculous, and it's a blast. It's not as good as "Re-Animator," but it's definitely born of the same cloth...err...braaaaaaain.

"Sherlock (TV Series)" Again, I usually don't review TV shows, but this one was too good not to at least mention. The Robert Downey Sherlock movie that came out last year was OK, but it definitely "Hollywoodized" the story too much. When someone recommended the BBC version, I wasn't really sure what to expect.

At first I was nervous when, upon watching, I realized the entire thing was set in the modern day. But luckily the spirit of Sherlock Holmes is actually MORE intact here than in the Guy Ritchie films, and updating the mysteries to include things like cell phones and other modern technology actually works incredibly well. And it's really cool that Watson served in Afghanistan in the original stories...some things never change! Cap it off with Martin Freeman as Watson, and you've got a winner on your hands. It's a great series of three "mini-movies," and I can't wait to see what else they have in store for us next year.

OK, that's it for now. Bring on Oscar season! And SURPRISE me.