It’s the movie of the year, a simple but true fact we all know by now. But to an even more impressive extent, The Dark Knight has reinstated the power of mainstream pop entertainment. I hadn’t been this anticipatory of anything to come out of Hollywood in years, and for the first time in well, ever, the movie not only met by expectations but exceeded them. It has set a new benchmark for summer blockbuster entertainment, and while it’s not perfect by any means, it is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking that marks what very well be the best Batman movie that will ever be made. It’s also the best film I’ve seen since Children of Men, over eighteen months ago. If that isn’t high praise, I don’t know what is.

Speaking of praise, where to begin? While some may go with the terrific ensemble group of actors, topped by the towering power that is Heath Ledger’s final full performance (more on him later), or the superb direction by Christopher Nolan, my praise starts with the script. Before the first camera had rolled film, all the boys and girls walking on set of this movie had a massively epic screenplay to start with. Batman Begins is a solid effort, but it is the baby-steps-prologue to Nolan’s Batman trilogy, yes, seemingly three films that have all been packed into one movie (more…)

What a blast! This is the third year I’ve attended the festival, and it’s the third year the festival has taken over the wonderful Westwood Village for a week in late June. I saw big premieres, small indies, fresh comedies, and a handful of glorious documentaries, and of the twelve films I saw this week, only one was disappointing. I was extremely impressed with the work I saw at this year’s festival.

Opening Night Film: Wanted

I walked into Wanted expecting absolutely nothing, and I walked out giddy and breathless. The most popular movies of the last couple summers have been big bloated blockbusters like the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, which, for my money, had next-to-no entertainment value if it hadn’t been for Johnny Depp. A movie like Wanted is the crazy bad-ass action movie we’ve all been waiting for. It’s got the movement of Speed and the idiocy of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, all wrapped up in one neat package. The film truly has it all. An identifiable and unlikely protagonist, a simple but electric storyline, and one incredible action scene after another. It’s also a blast to watch Angelina Jolie having fun in a movie that takes itself far less seriously than the lame Lara Croft movies, but still allows her some exhilarating physical action. The first half of Wanted is perfect; the second half isn’t quite as good. But this is still one helluva ride, with director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch) making a sensational U.S. debut. ***1/2 (out of ****)

Closing Night Film: Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Guillermo Del Toro is a visionary in every sense of the word, and in no other film has he shown such depth to his imagination. While I’d be more partial to his quieter, more lyrical films The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy II: The Golden Army is, unlike anything I’ve seen this summer, an absolute feast for the eyes. From beginning to end there is one inventive creature after another, all inhabiting not one but two worlds, a mythical world and our world. Opening with a very cute scene with Hellboy as a young boy being told a story about the title’s very own golden army, the plot sets in when an ambitious leader of the spiritual world Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) targets our world to conquer, but Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and his comrades gang up to stop him. The plot, though, is almost beside the point because you’ll be going to this movie for the visuals, and there’s wondrous eye candy to be had here. The film took me back to 80’s fantasy like The Neverending Story, where we as an audience are transported (more…)

Hello all… it’s been 2 months since my last update. For any who read this column, I apologize! It’s been a busy time for me but I just needed a little break. But this week I have three exciting updates, the first being this link to my newest movie, tomorrow my take on the recently concluded Los Angeles Film Festival, and later this week my review of the biggest movie of the year.

Kelly, shot in June 2007, tells the story of a mother who chains her son up in her garage when she discover he’s… well… you’ll just have to watch to find out! 

After nineteen years, the filmmakers have delivered a new Indiana Jones movie that isn’t all that bad, not very good, and mostly lifeless. The only other recent Steven Spielberg movie I felt this apathetic to was The Terminal. I had a reasonably good time at the Kingdom of the Crystal, with many small joys proliferating the screen from beginning to end, and with a handful of very entertaining scenes, but only rarely did I care about what was happening on screen.

I must start by saying I’ve never been a huge Indiana Jones fan. I’m in the rare minority in actually enjoying the disdained second film, Temple of Doom, the most. While Kate Capshaw’s character is borderline grating at times, Temple of Doom is the only installment I thoroughly enjoy from beginning to end. Raiders is the overall best film for sure, but there’s a quality about Temple of Doom that entertains me more.

To prepare myself for the new film, I re-watched the original trilogy, and the same held true. I admire (more…)

A lot of old romantic comedies I find myself forcing to like (and sometimes forcing to get myself through) but Adam’s Rib hasn’t aged a bit. This is a smart, hilarious comedy, probably the best ever to star both Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (although the only other comedy I’ve seen with them is their first pairing, Woman of the Year.) I’ve seen the film three times now. The first time I saw it on television when I was younger, probably 12 or 13, and I remember, once getting past the blasphemy that I was watching something in black and white, that I was actually enjoying it quite a bit. Then I saw it again two years ago in my Women in Film class at Loyola Marymount University (probably the best film theory class I took in those four years) and I was given a much more modern and enlightening perspective (more…)

I don’t even consider this a great superhero movie. Instead, it’s the great Robert Downey Jr. movie twenty years in the making. Breaking out in 1987 with the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation Less Than Zero, Downey Jr. went on to win an Academy Award nomination in 1992 for his ingenious portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in the Richard Attenborough biopic Chaplin. He stuck around the rest of the 90’s but his career started to go downhill. By the turn of the century, he was in and out of rehab, and essentially insurable by most producers to even be in major motion pictures. Woody Allen wanted him for a film a few years ago, but he wasn’t even allowed to do the movie. Now, he has sobered up, gotten better, and ready for super stardom. After a deliciously entertaining turn in last year’s Zodiac, the awesome David Fincher crime drama, Downey Jr is front and center for all of Iron Man’s running time and deservedly so. This is Downey Jr’s movie, and he is as terrific and unique in this as Johnny Depp was brilliant and different in the first Pirates of the Carribbean movie. Downey Jr. is this film.

I’m typically let down by superhero movies because they pay too much attention on the action and special effects over the story, but the opposite takes place here. Director Jon Favreau, who first came to fame in the 1996 Doug Liman film Swingers, knows a thing or two about storytelling (more…)

By 1948, these Universal monsters, once terrifying creatures of the night (and sometimes day), must’ve been the butt of all jokes, because here’s a comedy that pokes fun at Dracula, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s monster. The reason that these characters would appear in a slapstick comedy like this is that all other uses for the creations had pretty much been played out by this point. Audiences loved Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster in the 30’s because they were new and fresh, and they were given worthwhile stories. By the mid 1940’s, audiences had begun to grow tired of them, with sequel after sequel after sequel. Ghost of Frankenstein, Son of Dracula, and the Houses of Both Those Guys didn’t help matters much.

By 1948, a movie like Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein wasn’t only welcome, it was necessary. Let’s take a popular comedic duo from the day and pair them with these classic monsters. What would happen? The comedic possibilities are endless. The film has a fairly fun storyline. Bud and Lou work for a shipping company (more…)

What is it about Tina Fey that makes me want to see a dozen more features starring her? She has a charm about her that has transferred from Saturday Night Live over to 30 Rock and now Baby Mama, an unremarkable comedy that has some fleeting funny moments, a fairly easy-going pace, and a hilarious supporting turn by the recently MIA Steve Martin. The film is definitely a quick, fun watch, and there’s not a lot that’s necessarily bad about it. However, anybody who gets this cast together for a potentially very funny premise should’ve made a much better movie than what we get here.

2007 marked the trilogy of the pregnancy comedies. Waitress, Knocked Up, and Juno weren’t perfect movies but they all worked very well in their own quirky ways. All were, of course, flawed as well. Baby Mama isn’t nearly as successful as any of those three movies, but it works fine nonetheless (more…)

The work of novelist Scott Smith is as limited as it is brilliant. In early 1999 I saw a great film called A Simple Plan, starring Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton, and the film has stuck with me ever since. It’s a quiet, disturbing, challenging thriller. Last Christmas I finally picked up the book written by Scott Smith and received one of the most thrilling reading experiences I’ve ever had. Even though I knew many moments that were to come while reading the book, there were also many differences (including a terrifying final chapter), and it left me wanting more. It excited me so much that I immediately bought the film and looked at it again. It hasn’t aged a bit, and in fact, it’s better than how I remember it. Smith writes stories that make really good films and exactly the kinds of films that I want to make. He introduces dynamic characters with strong relationships and then throws them into the most harrowing, life-threatening situations that get worse, not better, as the characters make one wrong choice after another.

Such is the case with his second piece of work, The Ruins. Released in 2006, the book tells the story of four college students on vacation in Mexico who (more…)

Sometimes it only takes a few minutes to know that you’re wandering into a true classic, and that was the case with this 1940’s film noir entitled Out of the Past. I didn’t really know very much about it going in except that it was considered one of the best film noirs of all time and that it starred Robert Mitchum. This was my introduction to Mr. Mitchum, and I must say I can’t wait to watch more of his films. He is cool, and this movie is cool. I was absolutely enthralled in the first half, not as interested in the second half, but I very much enjoyed this movie, and it definitely peaked my interest to take a look at more film noir.

The first part of the movie is told in flashback, as a small town gas pumper Jeff Bailey (Mitchum) finds himself face to face with an old friend and he tells his girlfriend a secret past of his that’s about to catch up with him. He used to be a detective, and he took on a rather controversial case in which (more…)