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
Episode Title: "The Gift"
Written By: Lisa Zwerline & Ian Goldberg
Synopsis: The specific intentions of the Blue Hand become clearer as agents Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes), Demetri Noh (John Cho) and Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) dig deep into the organization's seedy underbelly. But that's not the only difficulty that Noh and Gough have to contend with, as each agent deals with the life-or-death implications of their experiences during the blackout. Read more...
Episode Title: "Earthling"
Written By: J.H. Wyman & Jeff Vlaming
Synopsis: People in and around hospitals are found dead with their bodies partially or wholly turned to ash — and while there's nothing unusual about people dying in unusual ways around the Fringe Unit's Agent Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), Peter Bishop (Joshua Jackson) and his father Dr. Walter Bishop (John Noble), there is something unusual for head honcho Philip Broyles (Lance Reddick), who dealt with this specific phenomenon in an earlier life-altering case. Read more...
Episode Title: "Pilot"
Written By: Scott Peters (teleplay) & Kenneth Johnson (story)
Synopsis: Men, women and children all around the world are shocked and awed by the sudden arrival of the Visitors, an alien race that appears throughout Earth by way of massive hovercrafts. The various ships all echo the same projected message from Anna (Morena Baccarin), the leader of the V's: "We are of peace, always."
But discoveries over the course of the next several weeks lead some to realize that the Visitors do not come in peace, nor is their arrival as sudden as most people think — indeed, the Visitors have been among us for quite some time, and their intentions are anything but peaceful. Read more...
Episode Title: "Scary Monsters and Super Creeps"
Written By: Seth Hoffman and Quinton Peeples
The Story: Agents Demitri Noh (John Cho) and Al Gough (Lee Thompson Young) investigate the bullet-filled ambushes from last week's episode, while Agent Janis Hawk (Christine Woods) recovers from her wounds in the hospital. Meanwhile, the hospitalized son of Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport) — the man that Olivia (Sonya Walger) will leave Mark (Joseph Fiennes) for in her flash-forward — goes missing, leading to an awkward encounter. Elsewhere, Simon (Dominic Monaghan) reemerges, and he's not the friendly little Hobbit we're all used to. Read more...
Michael Jackson has dominated my life for the past few months. Even to begin to count the number of stories I've written about the King of Pop since his death in June would make my brain go gooey. I suspect I'm not alone in the brain-gooeyness department when it comes to MJ overexposure. My love of his music, and my respect for the man himself, has been colored and contextualized by the past months, and I really wasn't sure how I would feel as I headed last night to the New York premiere of "Michael Jackson's This Is It."
Again, I suspect I'm not alone when it comes to a diffuse sort of trepidation about the documentary. Do I still care? Can I still listen to his music? Is this whole production simply an exercise in soul-sucking morbidity? After sitting through the 105 minute film, I can report that I certainly still care, that I can listen to his music and that for all the doc's flaws – there are many – it's a seriously important piece of pop culture history. Most importantly, it's a lot of fun. Read more...
FROM MTV.COM: Tuesday night marked the worldwide premiere of "Michael Jackson's This Is It," as Sony Pictures simultaneously unveiled the documentary in 17 cities around the world. MTV News nabbed a seat at the New York screening, in the midst of Times Square, to take in the long-anticipated action.
(Spoilers, if you can call them that, abound below, so if you don't want to know anything about what you'll see up on the screen, turn back now.)
Continue reading Inside 'Michael Jackson's This Is It' From The New York Debut
Episode Title: "Belonging"
Written By: Maurissa Tanchareon & Jed Whedon
The Story: The lens is tightened upon Sierra (Dichen Lachman) as viewers learn about her tragic past. Even worse, it dawns on Topher (Fran Kranz) and other Dollhouse officials that Sierra never came to the Dollhouse willingly — but that discovery comes with wildly unpredictable results for Sierra, Topher and more. Meanwhile, Boyd Langton (Harry Lennix) begins to realize that something has changed about Echo (Eliza Dushku). Read more...
