FROM MTV.COM: Do fish have dreams? Do they dream of ominous iguanas, perhaps? Or maybe the disembodied breakdancing souls of freshly capped gangsters? More to the point, will Nicolas Cage ever make another movie that makes sense? Judging by his new one, "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans," and considering his current financial straits, the prospects seem dim.
The director — the esteemed Werner Herzog, stupefyingly enough — claims never to have seen Abel Ferrara's original 1992 "Bad Lieutenant," and I think we can take him at his word. The Ferrara movie, which I'd recommend seeing before — or better yet instead of — this one, concerns a viciously bent New York City cop; and Harvey Keitel, in the title role, is the embodiment of rank, skeezy corruption. In Herzog's take on the story, the action has been relocated, for no reason at all, to New Orleans, "in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina."
Continue reading 'Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans': Drug Bust, By Kurt Loder
FROM MTV.COM: In "New Moon," a new character joins the "Twilight" family of nuzzly PG-13 creatures. It's the Invisible Man. Not far into the picture, the undead Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) fades out of the action for a bit, and is replaced by wolf boy Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Edward eventually returns, but he never really comes back. Last year's sensitive hunk, with his pasty face and glum, mopey demeanor, is no match for this year's actual hunk; and Jacob — vibrant, funny, and madly muscular — romps off with the picture.
It's a silly picture, of course: Given the series' source material — Stephenie Meyer's blathery teen novels — what else could it be? But thanks to Lautner and newly-recruited director Chris Weitz, "New Moon" is a notable improvement over "Twilight."
Continue reading 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon': Eclipse, By Kurt Loder
Episode Title: "A Bright New Day"
Written By: Diego Gutierrez & Christine Roum
Synopsis: Certain Visitors — including apparent leader and spokesperson Anna (Morena Baccarin) — are allowed access to United States soil, thanks in large to positive publicity on the part of newsman Chad Decker (Scott Wolf). But a potential assassination plot requires FBI agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) to protect the Visitors on their first visit, despite knowing their true intentions. To make matters worse, Erica's son Tyler (Logan Huffman) is getting closer to the Visitor known as Lisa (Laura Vandervoort), who winds up having surprising secrets of her own. Elsewhere, renegade alien Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut) attempts to reassemble a group of like-minded Visitors known as the Fifth Column. Read more...
Episode Title: "Weapons Factory"
Writer: Brian Larsen
Tagline: "No gift is more precious than trust."
The Story: Last week, Republic forces brought the fight back to Geonosis -- where the Clone Wars started, in "Episode II: Attack of the Clones" -- to destroy a massive new droid factory and put an end to Separatist bigwig Poggle the Lesser's contribution to the conflict. With the way now cleared, Jedi General Anakin Skywalker and his Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, are joined by Jedi Master Luminara Unduli and her Padawan, Barriss Offee. The plan involves having the two more experienced Force-users create a distraction while Ahsoka abd Barriss sneak inside to sabotage the facility. Skywalker has his doubts however... or perhaps it's just his predilection towards attachment -- his eventual downfall -- getting in the way of the mission. Read more...
FROM MTV.COM: Even if most of the Earth were to be destroyed by a natural cataclysm predicted long ago by the ancient Mayans (or Hopis, or even the I Ching — take your pick), director Roland Emmerich would surely survive, if only to crawl back and polish off what little was left.
Going in to Emmerich's "2012," I was prepared to set my brain on spin-cycle and just roll with it — who doesn't enjoy a good CGI soak now and then? And there is in fact some snazzy digitalia on display here: a monster tsunami crashing over the Himalayas; a spectacular White House takedown (yet again); and some monster-wave ship-twirling that's truly, uh, titanic. An L.A. freeway buckles and falls, Las Vegas craps out, and the coast of California rears up and slides right into the ocean. All that, plus lots of collapsing high-rise real estate, fireball storms and geysers of boiling black magma.
Continue reading '2012': The End Again, By Kurt Loder
FROM MTV.COM: Claireece Jones is one of life's write-offs: an illiterate, junk-food-fat Harlem teenager living on welfare with her viciously abusive mother and, from time to time, her father, who drops by to rape her. She already has one child as a result of his assaults — a little girl with Down's Syndrome — and is currently pregnant with another. Claireece's future seems anything but uncertain. Somehow, though, she's managed not to write herself off.
"Precious" is one of those rare movies that come winging in from nowhere and knock you out. Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title character (Claireece goes by the name "Precious"), is an untrained actress — a Bronx college student whose only performing background is in school stage plays. But she has great instincts, and watching her draw out flickers of hope through the mask of sullen indifference that Precious presents to the world is thrilling to watch.
Continue reading 'Precious': Hell Up In Harlem, By Kurt Loder
Episode Title: "There Is No Normal Anymore"
Written By: Scott Peters & Sam Egan
Synopsis: FBI Agent Erica Evans (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Father Jack Landry (Joel Gretsch) must decide whether or not to hide their knowledge of the Visitors' true intentions — a particularly difficult decision for Erica given the fact that she had to kill former partner Dale (Alan Tudyk), who was secretly a Visitor. Journalist Chad Decker (Scott Wolf) attempts to control the public perception of Visitor spokesperson Anna (Morena Baccarin), while secret Visitor Ryan Nichols (Morris Chestnut) tries to find a way to repair his damaged flesh. Read more...
FROM MTV.COM: What went wrong with this movie? The subject — the U.S. military's apparently actual flirtation with paranormal warfare — has rich comic promise. And the cast — George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges — couldn't be much stronger. But while the trailer for "The Men Who Stare at Goats" suggests a quirky, Coen-esque romp, the picture itself lacks the Coen brothers' sardonic intelligence and deft pacing. It wanders and wilts and very quickly falls apart.
The story begins in 2003, with aspiring combat reporter Bob Wilton (McGregor) waiting in Kuwait for clearance to cross over into Iraq. Biding his time, he encounters Lyn Cassady (Clooney), a man with a strange tale to tell. Cassady says he's a "Jedi warrior" (wink, wink) in the New Earth Army, a sub-rosa military unit dedicated to psychic battle strategies — mind-reading, "remote viewing," the whole new-age imaginarium. He says he's been reactivated to locate Bill Django (Bridges), the ponytailed Vietnam vet who founded the NEA back in the early '70s and has now gone missing. Wilton senses a story here, and decides to tag along.
Continue reading 'The Men Who Stare At Goats': Destination Nowhere, By Kurt Loder
FROM MTV.COM: With the fumbled release of "The Fourth Kind," sneaky-hip viral movie marketing shoots itself in the foot. It's been 10 years since the makers of "The Blair Witch Project" used the Internet to plant eerie suggestions that the events in their film were real. Today the Internet is patrolled by a legion of bull-sniffing bloggers, so any attempt to do the same thing again is doomed to fail. And the picture expends so much of its energy trying to pound home its preposterous assertions that there's very little left over to animate the story, which is in any case a hopeless jumble.
The movie is an attempted alien-abduction thriller. It begins with what is probably the most laughable opening scene of the year. Walking through some misty woods and straight up to the camera, the film's star, Milla Jovovich, informs us that everything we're about to see is true — that it's "supported by archived footage" and is "extremely disturbing." But then we're also told that the names and professions of the characters have been changed. Why would that be, if they're all real people? The silly premise instantly begins to crumble.
Continue reading 'The Fourth Kind': Impossible Dreams, By Kurt Loder
FROM MTV.COM: Claireece Jones is one of life's write-offs: an illiterate, junk-food-fat Harlem teenager living on welfare with her viciously abusive mother and, from time to time, her father, who drops by to rape her. She already has one child as a result of his assaults — a little girl with Down's Syndrome — and is currently pregnant with another. Claireece's future seems anything but uncertain. Somehow, though, she's managed not to write herself off.
"Precious" is one of those rare movies that come winging in from nowhere and knock you out. Gabourey Sidibe, who plays the title character (Claireece goes by the name "Precious"), is an untrained actress — a Bronx college student whose only performing background is in school stage plays. But she has great instincts, and watching her draw out flickers of hope through the mask of sullen indifference that Precious presents to the world is thrilling to watch.
Continue reading 'Precious': Hell Up In Harlem, By Kurt Loder
