Reviews

On October 3, 1849 Edgar Allan Poe was found wandering the streets of Baltimore, delirious, calling out the name Reynolds. There have been lots of theories as to what Poe died of, from tuberculosis, rabies or to a drunken bender. "The Raven" puts forth a more romantic theory and a detective story for the man who invented the modern detective novel.

"The Raven" as a movie demonstrates that you can make a movie that bridges the biographical facts of Poe's life and its own artistic vision and still make an interesting movie. The movie is driven by the premise, a serial killer starts a series of killings in Baltimore that emulate some of the more gruesome murders in Poe's stories. When the first murder is done inside a locked room, police detective Fields (Luke Evans) recognizes it as the setting of an Edgar Allan Poe story. Fields brings in Poe (John Cusack) at first as suspect, but when another murder occurs Poe quickly becomes the first criminal profiler and consultant. Poe helps Fields both in what kind of mind the killer may have and of course in the details from his stories. The killer kidnaps Poe's girlfriend Emily (Alice Eve) with the killer promising clues as to Emily's whereabouts with each new murder he commits.

The filmmakers, director James McTeigue and writers Ben Livingstone and Hannah Shakespeare don't try to recast Poe's character as a superhero or give the movie Poe attributes that the real Poe didn't or couldn't possess. As mentioned before, the filmmakers stick fairly accurately to the known elements of Poe's last few days, although there are some artistic liberties taken, and they still present an entertaining movie with a few twists and turns as to who the murderer is.

Cusack is spot on as Poe from his look, thin with a black mustache and goatee, to (more importantly) Poe's character. Poe was a writer who had the ultimate confidence in his own abilities as a writer and was dismissive of his contemporaries, especially if they were more successful. Cusack is supported by a cast that hits every note right.

If you think a movie about Edgar Allan Poe won't have enough action for you, this is a movie for you. If you're more literary minded and think this movie will have too many inaccuracies or violate Poe's character or will throw in too much action, you won't be disappointed.

"Predators" is back to basics return for the "Predator" franchise, they have juggled the elements that made the first film successful but couldn't seem to get right for the sequel or the "Alien vs. Predator" movies. "Predators" starts with the original premise of the first movie. Eight people of different ethnicities (if not occupations) are thrown into a living green hell of a jungle except they all don't know how they got there or where they are. The only thing they're sure of is that they were involved in some war, they saw a light and the next thing they remember is waking up as they fell into the jungle.

As the eight get to know each and their surroundings, "Predators" relies on the camaraderie of the individuals and the stress of the situation for each character to reveal themselves to each other and the audience, and they discover every one may not be what they seem. There's also a nice bit of gallows humor to lighten the moments and was one of the things that gave the original "Predator" some of it's charm.

The predators have some new toys including the spiky dogs, and we learn there are two different kinds of predators, the standard one we're used to seeing is the smaller of the species and are hunted by the larger super-predator when no other game is available.

One bit of casting I was worried about was Topher Grace, the geeky Eric Forman of "That 70's Show," he seemed miscast or ill fitted for Eddie Brock in "Spiderman 3," and here he's the one element that doesn't fit, but he isn't supposed to, and he looks right for the part and delivers a role that at first looks like a straightforward but has some twists. Laurence Fishburne does a near-cameo as Noland, a soldier marooned on the planet and who may be from the Vietnam era, I think he hums a bit of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" used to such great effect in Apocalypse Now.

I at first thought "Predators" was directed by Robert Rodriquez and that was one of the reasons I was looking forward to seeing the movie. I was a little disappointed that Rodriquez only produces, but this movie does incorporate some of the feel of a movie directed by Rodriquez but that may be because "Predators" is based on a screenplay Rodriguez wrote sixteen years ago . Directing is Nimrod Antal and he moves the movie tautly along never veering off course or too far off course, and he does add some visual artistry that hasn't been seen in any of the previous movies but gives us a sense of the alieness of the world the characters find themselves trapped on.

"Predators" is conscious of the events of the first "Predator" movie and the climatic battle is a tweaked version that is an homage to Arnold's battling of the predator while building on some of the inferred weaknesses of the predators. "Predators" is a good telling of a "Predator" story, using bits of the original and adding its own devices to the "Predator" mythology.

Man, there's been a lot said about this movie, then there's the word, and the word is, go see When You're Strange.

Not a true documentary in the sense of a Ken Burns style intensive, exhaustive look into a subject, When You're Strange starts with scenes of Jim Morrison's HWY and uses the fictional device of Morrison hearing of his own death in Paris, then we see The Doors story pretty much from the beginning, and moves chronologically through The Doors career. This is The Doors through The Doors' own lens. All the footage derives from HWY and the concert film, Feast of Friends, that The Doors filmed in 1968. Also, included is footage from Ray Manzarek's student films, 60's period footage for context, and there's a lot of previously unseen footage, except for maybe the hardcore collectors.

For years Doors fans have been asking when and where, and if Jim Morrison's HWY and Feast of Friends will be released. Although, this isn't the stand alone films and a lot of the footage has been used before, Ray Manzarek used Feast of Friends footage for MTV videos in the 80's, and the Soft Parade video in 91. HWY has been bootlegged for years and only the fortunate few have seen it (although You Tube expanded this base). This is the movie Doors fans have been asking for. Writer/Director Tom DiCillo (Johnny Suede, Delirious) intricately weaves together HWY and Feast of Friends and provides a narrative the footage has lacked before, and perhaps if Jim Morrison had lived combining the two might have been a solution he might have chosen. DiCillo also makes choices that are a little riskier in presentation. As an example, he doesn't use the songs and the footage as obviously as before, usually, Riders On The Storm is presented with images of thunderclouds and storms, DiCillo chooses images of Vietnamese jungles flowering in explosion.

And the movie looks great! The footage has been restored and it looks as good as it did, if not better than when it was shot 40 years ago. Not only has the film been restored, so has the sound. Things have been pulled from the background you hear things that before were only muttered or obscured by crowd noises. The complete effect of the film is a much more immediate, impressionistic, visceral view of The Doors than before.

Narration for When You're Strange is provided by Johnny Depp and although it is a little basic and simplistic and sometimes a little intrusive there isn't enough expository footage to move the narrative along without adding the intrusion of contemporary or even period interviews. Depp's narration is subtle and understated and his phrasing while not overly dramatic has the timing of the poetic.

A lot of fans and The Doors have been critical of Oliver Stones 1991 movie The Doors (although, I think Stone was using the band as an archetype for the times, in an unstated trilogy of the 60's). The Doors have said they like this movie and I think the fans are going to like it too, and may consider it the definitive version/vision of the band. A good 3.5 stars movie.

You're going to dig this movie.

People have been complaining about the overabundance of big budget Hollywood blockbusters that are heavy on action, and explosions and don't focus on characters or plot. Crazy Heart should quiet some of the criticisms.

Jeff Bridges plays Bad Blake a Country Western star on the far end of his career. He was once a star with hit songs, albums people would buy and stadiums he could fill. Now he drags himself across the southwest in a car that could breakdown at any minute, playing whatever small gigs his agent can find with pick-up bands he fears are getting paid more than he is. He drinks so much he sweats whiskey. At one of his shows, small town reporter Jean Craddock (Maggie Gylenhaal) interviews him, and over a couple glasses of whiskey he falls for her. Despite her previous bad experiences with men she takes a chance on Bad. And for a while Bad vicariously experiences the family life he missed with his wife and child.

The relationship with Jean, which at first seems like the classic older leading man mismatch with the younger woman that wouldn't necessarily happen in real life. But Gylenhaal plays Jean that is desperate in her own way. She may not be at the end of her road like Bad is, but she definitely feels like she's backed into a corner, and the relationship between the two feels real.

Crazy Heart is as gently paced as a Country Western song. Colin Farrell appears in a nicely understated role as Tommy Sweet, a former protégé of Bad's who has hit the big time and is trying to help his former mentor out. Unfortunately, Bad resents Tommy's success and the opportunities he tries to steer Bad's way. Robert Duvall plays the voice of wisdom in Bad's life as his hometown bar owner. Bridges does his own singing in Crazy Heart and really works to the advantage of the character. Bridges' untrained voice exemplifies Bad's broken voice and broken life.

To answer the question posed by my review's title, where do you go when you hit the end of the road? Hopefully, you find yourself again. I don't know if this role will garner Bridges an Academy Award nomination, but it's a solid performance and you should find this movie.

It's hard to relate the Rock 'n' Roll experience to film. Even harder to relate is the experience of the actual lives of rock stars. Rock stars live their lives on the edge of experience. Most rock bio-pics while great at relating the biographical details, fail at the existential experience of the person. So, maybe the way to relate an avant garde life is through an avant garde film? We all have many selves within ourselves. Maybe it should be cellves, the different cellular aspects of our personalities that build the whole person. I'm Not There tries to capture the experience of Bob Dylan by breaking down the different aspects and personas Dylan has projected over the years of his fame. The young Woody Guthrie acolyte trying to find his voice, the Rimbaud rebel, the star, the born again preacher, the aged outlaw trying to lay low. A lot of writers, filmmakers, artists, and psychologists have all tried to break down the human psyche to one degree or another and I'm Not There does portray an interesting and complex personality in an interesting and avant garde manner.

Given it's experimental or avant garde credentials, I'm Not There isn't incomprehensible to the viewer. The portrayals of the different selves overlap and bleed into each other but the fragments fall together into the jigsaw of the whole. You just may have to spend a little time to let it all play out before you.

Probably the most daring aspect of I'm Not There is the casting of Cate Blanchett as Jude Quinn, the mid-60's era Dylan that went from folk music to electric. This could have been nothing but a cheap gimmick to flaunt the experimental nature of the film. But it isn't a gimmick, you quickly forget Blanchett is a woman playing a man, or in the context of the film you're never really conscious of it. It fits in with all the other portrayals in the film. Each is a subtle, nuanced fragment. Christian Bale's usual knock you over the head delivery is toned down to match the rest of the film. Richard Gere as the aging outlaw living in the surrealistic village of Riddle that's full of anachronisms and you're never sure if it's set in the 19th and 20th century. Gere's performance is sympathetic to a man trying to live out quietly his later years without all the fanfare and attention his early celebrity generated. A feeling I'm sure Gere can relate to. Another performance I really liked was David Cross as Allen Ginsburg. Cross leaves behind all his comic goofiness and delivers a nice little cameo.

The movie admits it's failure to categorize Dylan in the title, I'm Not There. As soon as you think you've nailed down the complexity of a person they've moved on.

Special Features-There's an Introduction to the film that gives you a little thumbnail synopsis of the personas. I thought it was a little unnecessary, the movie more than adequately defines the characters. There's a commentary by Director/co-writer Todd Hynes, and a making of documentary.

I've discovered in writing reviews that they tend to actually write themselves. Some reviews demand that a synopsis, others to the themes and style of the movie being reviewed. In either case you're trying to give the reader a sense of the movie and whether it's something they want to see or not. Since Pulp Fiction Quentin Tarantino's movies have so intricately weaved that a synopsis would lead to a lengthy review, and in the case of Inglourius Basterds it's best to see the movie and let all the elements reveal themselves.

As you've seen on the commercial about Inglourious Basterds, it's about a squad of Jewish American soldiers behind enemy lines led by Brad Pitt as Lt. Aldo Raine and their mission is to kill "Natzis." There is more to the plot, it also revolves around a Jewish woman Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) who escapes the clutches of German Col. Landa (Christoph Waltz) who is in charge of German occupied France.

Inglourious Basterds reveals the mature artist in Tarantino. The opening scene is confidently filmed letting the characters talk, as we learn just who Col. Landa is, and despite his civilized and cultured demeanor he is a cunning and devious officer committed to carrying out his orders, hunting down Jews. In other parts of the movie when Shosanna comes face to face to with Col. Landa Tarantino lets the camera rest on her and her struggle to remain calm as the Colonel makes small talk with Joseph Goebbels.

While all the action takes place in war time France and Germany, this movie may be more about movies than war. The characters are self-consciously aware of movies Pitt and his band watch a German officer beaten to death with a bat with the stated reason that it's the closest they get to seeing a movie these days. Shosanna is the owner of a movie theatre in Paris and her plan revolves around her knowledge of film. So, is Tarantino just aware of the part movie's played in the lives of people of the war time era? Or is he making a statement that making movies is a war? And a nasty one at that.

Tarantino plays with his usual palette of colors violence, humor, crisp dialogue, and music and mixes all of them that create new colors and shocking results that only Tarantino can pull off. There is violence, you will see people scalped, beaten to death, and shot to pieces, but it is war. Tarantino's violence has always seemed stylized to me, not cartoonish, maybe hyper-real is a better to describe it. The violence looks like it could be real but there is an element that lets you realize the violence is fictional without pulling you out of the movie. And there's Tarantino's dark humor that if were in different circumstances or situations we might not ordinarily laugh at, but Tarantino bends the situation just enough for a dark humor to materialize and that's mostly because of the dialogue Tarantino is noted for. If the movie hadn't had me already, by the time David Bowie's song Cat People (Putting Out The Fire, from the movie Cat People) hit the soundtrack, it would've captured me right there.

At the end of the movie Pitt's character comments as Tarantino's surrogate "this just may be my masterpiece." I think he just might be right.

The Story of Anvil is a Rock 'n' Roll cautionary tale for those of us living out our Rock 'n' Roll dreams. You can be an innovative band, have the respect of your peers, and have the same access to fans but still not make it into big time Rock 'n' Roll. The story of Anvil is also a story of hope, friendship and following your artistic vision to create something that not only do you like but will be there after you're gone.

Anvil is a Heavy Metal band created by childhood friends Steve "Lips" Kudlow and drummer Robb Reiner. They've been together as a band for almost 30 years and while bassists have come and gone they still share a dream to make it to the big time. Their belief in themselves isn't unrealistic, as proved by interviews by such Heavy Metal luminaries as Lars Ullrich, Lemmy (from Motorhead), and Slash attest to. They credit Anvil with being Heavy Metal innovators not only in their music such as songs like Metal On Metal, which Ullrich says other bands used and borrowed without ever looking back, but in stage appearance such as Lips early penchant for wearing bondage outfits onstage, and using dildos as a guitar slide.

There is a pathos present too. As the band embarks on a European tour that was managed by an amateur promoter, they played bars where the band almost out number the patrons, or a bar owner that tries to rip them off. There's also the family and friends who are shown and they understand and support the dreams and ambitions of Reiner and Kudlow. A sister of Kudlow going so far as to front money for Anvil to record with Heavy Metal producer Chris Tsangarides (Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy).

Why didn't Anvil make it? The movie isn't about that, although, Lips and Robb wrestle with it a little. Lips seems to think it's because in 25 years of Rock 'n' Roll they never had good management. Another reason that might explain why they didn't make it goes uncommented on by either the filmmaker or the band themselves. It may be the reason they didn't rise in the Rock 'n' Roll world is the band members themselves. During a recording session, which they shelled out 13,000 pounds to producer Chris Tsangarides and for reasons not clear at first, Lips blows up at Reiner and even goes so far as to say Reiner is "fired." After an impromptu therapy session run by Tsangarides, Lips and Reiner make up. How much of this played into their not making it to the big time? The movie doesn't delve into that aspect at all, and keeps the focus on their struggles of the present.

Some reviewers and critics argue that Anvil just wasn't as good as other bands they were contemporaries with, such as The Scorpions, Bon Jovi, Metallica. I'm not much of an expert on Heavy Metal but both in the vintage footage of them playing in Japan and in hearing songs off their new album This Is Thirteen they sound as good as any other band in the oeuvre. Their music has moments where the music has something of interest, but my only complaint is the same I have for any other Heavy/Speed Metal band, is they blow past those moments too fast looking for the next interesting phrase.

The movie seems to elicit Spinal Tap comparisons. Maybe it's because the format resembles Spinal Tap so much. We can't leave out the coincidence that the drummer and founding member of Anvil is Robb Reiner. But there are some Spinal Tap moments in the movie such as when the band is recording and the producer turns up a volume control that you quite clearly can see goes to 11! There is also Reiner's painting of a giant anvil in the middle of a park. Other paintings of his are quite good, reminiscent of Edward Hooper. There are moments the band itself seems cognizant of being like Spinal Tap, such as when the band is being lead to the stage and Lips is delivering a monologue about them being lost backstage.

One question I asked myself while watching this movie is, it's very cool to have all those heavy hitting, heavy metal rockers saying how cool and innovative Anvil is, but couldn't they ask Anvil to open for them? That might get them the exposure they need. Hopefully, this film will bring Anvil a larger audience.

I saw iMurders at the Chicago Horror festival where some of the cast and crew was in attendance and director Robbie Bryan was awarded the best feature length picture of the festival.

iMurders is about seven friends who are members of a chat room on FaceSpace, a combination of Facebook and Myspace, one of their number is a Hollywood special effects artist with a flare for the theatrical and every month he invents a new game for them to play. When they start playing his latest game members of the chatroom start turning up dead, and in gruesome ways. While none of the murders is especially explicit there is a fair amount of gore but most of the shock is supplied by quick edits and what you think you may see. I don't think it will disappoint enthusiasts of the genre.

The casting is also outstanding. William Forsthye stars and his voice and his presence on screen is a sinister menace. Another casting coup is Charles Durning with a small role as a psychiatrist. And Tony Todd of Candyman fame extends his horror credentials here, but not as the murderer (that would be too obvious!) plays FBI agent Washington, who is trying to solve the mystery before the entire chatroom is murdered.