One-Sheet Showcase - THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION (1984)

Category: Confusing

Pity the poor 20th Century Fox marketing staff members that were forced to brainstorm a coherent advertising campaign for this 1984 satirical sci-fi cult fave. I mean, having endured The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, I know very well that it's the most foolish of fool's errands to try to sum it up in a sentence or two. A doctoral thesis? Maybe. But a single tag-line? Ha! Good luck, bunky.

That said, a good argument could be made that the approximately 73 lines of context-free description they jotted across this teaser poster are actually more confounding than the movie itself. I mean, who did the team think this poster would appeal to? Who did they think would take the time to stop and spend half an hour reading it in the theatre lobby? It's head-spinning to even try to visualize what it's selling (Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems? Penny Priddy? Za?!), and the lone image is just abstract enough to be utterly meaningless to anyone who hasn't seen the movie.

I'm assuming Fox was hoping to appeal to the geek audience (hence the prominent "Major Marvel Comic" plug, although I'm fairly certain Buckaroo's funny book adventure sales were anything but major), but was that really a smart market to target? Even in this era, where Comic-Cons rule the land and superheroes storm the multiplex, geek dollars only carry so much weight. Just ask the filmmakers behind Scott Pilgrim and Kick-Ass. Solely targeting them in 1984? Insane. Perhaps that's why Buckaroo only Banzai-ed itself to a 6-million-dollar domestic gross. Ouch.

To be fair, the studio did ultimately release a more general audience-friendly theatrical poster, but when it comes to motion picture branding, first impressions are everything. If you don't burst confidently out of the gate, the public catches on lickety split and shifts their attention elsewhere. Call it the Green Lantern effect, if you will. Back on August 10, 1984, you had three big new movies to choose from: the kids and spies adventure Cloak & Dagger, the Commie-busting teen actioner Red Dawn and this bewildering unknown quantity. Which one would you have chosen to skip? Audiences at the time arrived at the same conclusion.

Which isn't of course to imply that Buckaroo Banzai is a terrible movie (although it's pretty far from a good one), just that when it comes to successfully selling a movie a clear hook makes all the difference. The no doubt capable creators of this one-sheet never figured their picture's out. Instead, they crafted a hilarious mess of convoluted nonsense and off-puttingly weird imagery.

Huh. Who says Hollywood doesn't occasionally practice truth in advertising?

Film Review - SHARK NIGHT 3D

As far as aquatic monster thrillers go, Shark Night 3D doesn’t bring a whole lot to the table. It’s mostly a reheated chum bucket of standard genre tropes served up as late summer celluloid filler for the undiscerning. However, it does make one valuable contribution worthy of enthusiastic notice: it finally offers the Cookiecutter shark its moment to bask in the spotlight.

Long ignored by the world of exploitative B-movies, the Cookiecutter shark is an ugly little fellow with a truly unusual method of attaining food. The creature suctions itself onto the bodies of prey with its mouth and then spins in circles, using dozens of razor-sharp triangular teeth to saw loose chunks of flesh. Round, cookie-shaped chunks of flesh. Awesome, huh?! And, if that isn’t impressive enough, their bioluminescent bodies – which lure unfortunate victims into their gory, ninja-like sneak attacks - earned them the genus name Isistius, after Isis, the Egyptian goddess of light. That’s a pretty badass distinction for a carnivore that measures a mere 50 centimetres.

Ol’ Cookiecutter doesn’t get much time to shine in Shark Night 3D, but it makes every single horrible second count. Watching a school of the diminutive swimming night-terrors turn a screaming college student into a bloody human jigsaw puzzle, I couldn’t help but let out a cackle of twisted appreciation. Frankly, this flick badly needed more moments like it!

The picture stars Sara Paxton (no direct relation to Bill) as, uh, Sara, a haunted pixie-ish co-ed with a Mysterious Past, who invites a group of hilariously diverse movieland stereotypes to her family cabin in the Louisiana Gulf. There’s the Slutty Goth Babe (Katharine McPhee), the Black Football Star Who Escaped the Projects (Sinqua Walls), the Football Player’s Sexy Latino Girlfriend (Alyssa Diaz), the Horny Goofball (33-year-old Joel David Moore), the Campus Stud (Chris Zylka) and the Sensitive Nerd (Dustin Milligan – who, like all nerds, is really just a male model with glasses).

Note: If you’ve ever seen a by-the-numbers horror movie before, you’ll be able to scan the above list and easily determine who the first two attack victims are.

On the way to the lake, the criminally attractive friends run afoul of Sara’s ex-boyfriend Dennis (Chris Carmack) and his loathsome pal Red (Joshua Leonard). They’re a pair of racist hicks with a serious hatred for higher education, who object to Sara attempting to escape her small town roots. However, after a couple “boating accidents,” it becomes painfully clear the peaceful lake is thriving with several species of man-eating shark. Thus, in order to avoid becoming dinner, the opposing parties, along with jovial local lawman Sabin (Donal Logue), are forced to quit their squabblin’ and join forces to flee the Gulf’s toothy new residents.

While Shark Night 3D is being marketed as a straight-forward shark thriller, the script by Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg is actually more of a sub-genre mash-up, blending together elements from several different horror movie breeds (which I dare not spoil in fear of ruining major plot twists). Unfortunately, the three primary sub-genres depend on a certain level of creative depravity and go-for-broke lunacy in order to succeed, and Shark Night 3D’s blood-spattered potential is utterly neutered by its PG-13 rating. Outside of the creepy Cookiecutter sequence, none of the kills have any real impact. Oh, there’s plenty of red in the water, but they’re abrupt and frustratingly brief, with precious little gore or flailing-limbed hysteria. Even the fairly ingenious third act revelation explaining how the sharks wound up in the lake is hopelessly dulled by the filmmakers being unable to milk it for everything its worth.

The film’s harmless, bland vibe can also largely be laid at the feet of helmer David R. Ellis, a man who has become infamous for failing to live up to expectations. After grabbing the attention of genre fans with the outrageously over-the-top Final Destination 2 and the fun, if inconsequential, Cellular, he stiffed on two sure-fire camp-tastic concepts: the much-hyped Snakes on a Plane and 2009’s terrible The Final Destination 3D. Now, against Herculean odds, he's managed to make sharks boring. Despite featuring almost a half-dozen varieties of the fearsome fishies, none of them have even the slightest wisps of on-screen personality. They’re under-utilized, cheesy-looking blurs of CG that just dash in and out of frame. At the beginning of the movie, Ellis even lazily attempts to recreate the iconic opening of Jaws – for what has to be the millionth time – and it is borderline embarrassing. Obviously, his options have been limited by the MPAA, but if you can’t find cool new ways of shooting an attack sequence, you have no business wading into the water.

He also makes the critical error of attempting to pad the opening hour with pointless zany montages and diversions in an effort to stretch the picture to feature-length. There's a sluggishly-paced boat chase that seems to drag on for eternity, and a wakeboarding segment that's about as exciting as sitting on a dock and watching others enjoy themselves through binoculars. And, as if lulling the audience into tedium isn't unforgivable enough, neither of these listless timewasters have any effect on the story or characters. 

The cast is largely forgettable shark bait, even by generic horror flick standards. Donal Logue goofs off amiably in a poorly defined stock role, and Sinqua Walls is strangely fascinating due to the fact his football player makes a series of decisions so amazingly stupid that they defy rational human thought. Only Chris Carmack, as the heroine’s sinister former flame, makes a lasting impact. He’s effortlessly charismatic, and projects genuine menace. It’d be great to see the actor cast in a smarter and more daring film that allowed him to really get nuts.

Given the state of the economy and current ticket prices, there’s no good reason you should venture to the multiplex to experience Shark Attack 3D. There’s not much here you can’t see in a dozen crappy DTV killer shark movies, and the 3D is virtually non-existent. Coming almost exactly one year after Alexandre Aja’s giddy Piranha 3D – which rung every last drop of schlocky perversion and winking naughtiness from its dopey premise – Ellis’ movie feels tired, trivial and antiquated. After all, if there’s no frenzy to go along with feeding, what's the point?!

2 out of 5

Epi-Cast: Episode 31 - "Podcast of the Planet of the Apes"

Okay kids, party time's over. Put away your surfboards and short shorts and start gathering up your school books! Time to prepare for another 10 months of soul-crushing study and crippling mental exhaustion. But before you do that, rejoice in the fact that another Epi-Cast has landed plum in your lap to entertain you as you sob the next few days away. If you're looking for a laffy, daffy means of aural escape, this podcast is the ticket, baby! 

Epi-Cast: Episode 31 - "Podcast of the Planet of the Apes"

Summer movie season may be over but there's still fun to be had picking through the wreckage. In this most exhilirating of episodes Cam and Tom journey to that horrible Planet of the Apes and debate where Rise of the Planet of the Apes ranks in relation to the rest of the venerable franchise. In addition, Cam reviews the horror remake Fright Night and Kevin Smith's Red State, while Tom finally joins the party and talks about X-Men: First Class and Joe Wright's indie actioner Hanna. In an exceptionally bicker-happy segment of Trailer Park Encounters, the duo dissect Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, George Lucas's Red Tails and Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Beware, much hooting, hollering and chest-thumping lies ahead. Enjoy!

To download, simply right-click and save on any of the episode titles above. Then you are free to indulge in one of the wild worldwide web's most majestic mp3 treasures.

P.S. We are also available on iTunes! We kid you not! Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and, WHY-COOKIE-ROCKET!, you can subscribe to our feed and receive insta-dl's (Geek-speak for downloads). Oh, and we are the "Epi-Cast", not the "Epicast." Profound interpretations of the Bible will probably not be given here. (I added the "probably" because it's truly impossible to predict Tom's oft-random thought patterns.)

P.P.S. Don't hesitate to leave a review on our iTunes page. As always, we sincerely welcome your glowing praise/earth-scorching venom.

Epi-Cast: Episode 30 - "Let's Get McCracken!"

Is it just us, or has this season's pack of blockbuster releases been pretty dire? Sure, X-Men: First Class and Bridesmaids were great, and Thor was pretty fun, but Green Lantern? Cars 2? Transformers: Dark of the Moon? The Hangover 2? Pirates of the Caribbean 4? Yuck. Let's face facts, people: this is, so far, not shaping up to be one of Hollywood's proudest summers. And we as a society can only put so much faith in Captain America and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2...

Thus, to relieve ya'll of the mid-summer cinema gloomies, Cam and Tom are back with an Epi-Cast episode which covers a couple spectacular alternatives to the typical, glossy 200 million dollar 3D crap clogging up multiplexes at this very moment. You're welcome.

Epi-Cast: Episode 30 - "Let's Get McCracken!"

In this podcasterific dose of sophisticated discourse, Cam and Tom attempt to delve into the mysteries of Terrence Malick's mesmerizing and ambitious The Tree of Life, yet find themselves stumbling to even synopsize this modern masterpiece. Don't fret, though, much appreciation and awe is nonetheless expressed. They also arrive late to the party with a joint review of The Hangover Part II. As solo acts, Cam dutifully slogs through Transformers: Dark of the Moon and cheerfully recommends Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, while Tom catches up on his home video releases with Adjustment Bureau and Paul. Plus, in the latest Trailer Park Encounters, the duo clash over Spielberg's War Horse, are caught slightly off-guard by the teasers for Pixar's Brave and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and debate the literary accuracy of Paul W.S. Anderson's The Three Musketeers. They also whine for an extended period of time about James Blunt for some reason... Anyhoo, it's more of the usual hijinx for cinephiles young, old and in-between! Enjoy!

To download, simply right-click and save on any of the episode titles above. Then you are free to indulge in one of the wild worldwide web's most majestic mp3 treasures.

P.S. We are also available on iTunes! We kid you not! Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and, XANDER-BERKELEY!, you can subscribe to our feed and receive insta-dl's (Geek-speak for downloads). Oh, and we are the "Epi-Cast", not the "Epicast." Profound interpretations of the Bible will probably not be given here. (I added the "probably" because it's truly impossible to predict Tom's oft-random thought patterns.)

P.P.S. Don't hesitate to leave a review on our iTunes page. As always, we sincerely welcome your glowing praise/earth-scorching venom.

One-Sheet Showcase - ALLIGATOR (1980)



Category: Cool

As anyone who reads this blog knows, few things tickle my fancy more than a good creature feature - preferably gory ones involving aquatic predators. In the years following Jaws, there was no shortage of the dang things, and Lewis Teague's Alligator was one of the better efforts. Written by the talented John Sayles - the scribe behind Joe Dante's 1978's cult classic Piranha, who would go on to pen and direct 1988's Eight Men Out and the critically lauded 1996 neo-noir Lone Star - Alligator is a bloody blast of wry humour, creatively depraved gore and general lunacy. It also features the invaluable Robert Forster in a self-effacing turn as a Chicago cop who spends as much time obsessing over his male pattern baldness as investigating gator attacks.

In short, it's a damn entertaining B-movie, and well worth checking out. It's cheap, too! 

The picture also produced one heck of a great poster. Unlike the majority of the Jaws clones, which just copycatted the 1975 smash's iconic art-work, Alligator actually managed to inspire a one-sheet that stands on its own. Although it still places its toothy star front and center, this poster projects a darker, more lurid vibe than Spielberg's originator, and feels more in keeping with the exploitative horror and sci-fi movie advertizing of the era. Thus, it makes for a fantastically cool - if not quite accurate - piece of promotional art.

I love the sewer tunnel-shaped framing of the central image. Given that much of picture involves Forster and his edible co-stars wandering around Chicago's bowels in search of the man-eating beastie, it's appropriate that the poster imagery depicts how the creature could appear to someone who took an unfortunate wrong turn. The artist manages to make the lurking alligator look like it almost belongs in the dank, uninhabitable environment, while still capturing it's alarming otherness. Notice, too, how the eyes are immediately drawn to the monster's frightening toothy grin. It looks less like an inhabitant of the natural world, than an unstoppable, almost supernatural, presence slowly emerging from fog and darkness.

Like many of the best 80s horror one-sheets, it projects an image that is both nightmarish and exciting. It's so striking, in fact, that it even makes up for the goofy title font choice. Unlike the actual movie, which is more campy and fun than scary, this Alligator poster has no shortage of bite.

Film Review - TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON

Transformers: Dark of the Moon defies criticism. It is what it is, and, by this point, you're either on-board or you're not. Those who enjoyed 2007's Transformers or 2009's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will once again be treated to well over two hours of CG robot mayhem, relentless violence, broad humour and heavily made-up Maxim-esque actresses. Michael Bay doesn’t attempt to upset the applecart; he delivers exactly what fans expect from him, and closes out his gargantuan, tin-headed trilogy with enough fireworks to fuel a century's worth of Fourth of July celebrations. Although I can respect Bay's tireless attempts to expand the already-massive scope of the franchise, and gleeful dedication to detonations, I still feel left out in the cold. Watching Dark of the Moon, I didn't experience the visceral sense of irritation I did for the first or second film so much as faintly amused indifference. Sure, the effects are state-of-the-art and the action is well-executed. But why should I care?

It remains fascinating how little Bay is interested in the Transformers. Oh, there are plenty of the towering, mechanized aliens in the film, except few of them have a personality, much less dialogue. We've spent three films with Autobot leader Optimus Prime and what do we really know about him? That he fights for good, dislikes Decepticons, and is sorta friendly with Shia LaBeouf's character. Outside of Peter Cullen's booming voice, he brings very little to the proceedings and exists to recite solemn platitudes, war cries and dull exposition, and chop down bad guys. And, sadly, he's the most well-rounded non-human character. The rest - including the popular Bumblebee, who has maybe 15 minutes of screen-time - are technically impressive background ciphers, defined by their funny accents and powers (or, in one case, inexplicable resemblance to Albert Einstein). If you had told me in 2007 that the villainous Megatron's character arc would culminate in him donning a cape, sitting quietly on the ground for an entire battle, and being verbally ridiculed by a Victoria's Secret Model, I'd have called you batty. Yet, here we are.

Once again, the plot is absurd. The film opens in 1961, the year of the great Cybertronian war between the Autobots and Decepticons, as the heroic Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) attempts to flee the planet with a top secret weapon. Unfortunately, during his escape, he is shot down and crash lands on Earth's moon - a momentous event that instigates the space race between the Americans and the Russians. As we all know, the Yanks emerge victorious and, during the legendary 1969 landing, Neil Armstrong is ordered to investigate the downed craft. Among the wreckage he discovers is Sentinel's corpse and the all too important MacGuffin, and brings the latter back to the U.S. government where it remains hush-hush for over 40 years...

Flash-forward to an undisclosed time in the relative present: the Autobots work for the government, under the rule of head honcho Mearing (Frances McDormand), running covert anti-terrorism missions (how covert can a mission involving gargantuan robots really be?!) all over the globe, while the disgraced Decepticons hang out with zebras and elephants in the African Savannah. Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) has graduated college, been awarded a medal for bravery by President Obama and, oddly, is unable to find any means of employment. He's supported by his loving British girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), who works for shady venture capitalist Dylan (Patrick Dempsey - an unexpected riot in a stock role). Unbeknownst to the jealous Sam, Dylan gets him a job at a tech company run by the eccentric Bruce Bazos (John Malkovich), where he comes across classified information regarding powerful Transformer hardware buried on the dark side of the moon. Soon, it's a mad dash between the government and the Decepticons to retrieve the crucial technology, called "pillars," which may well spell doom for the entire planet.

Many took issue with the previous Transformers film for its incoherent story which, according to Bay, was an ill-fated result of the Writers Guild strike. I sincerely look forward then to hearing him defend the script for Dark of the Moon, by Fallen co-writer Ehren Kruger. Not only does this picture contradict sizable chunks of the groundwork laid by its predecessors, very little of the film stands up to rudimentary critical thinking. Why, for example, does the government not return earlier to excavate Sentinel Prime's crashed ship? I'd imagine, at the very least, the alien technology could have been worth checking out. Why does a certain character not accept the Matrix of Leadership - an item which can resurrect dead Transformers - from Optimus Prime? Why does Carly push for Sam to assist in the Autobot cause, only to become infuriated minutes after he does? Further, anyone able to logically explain Dempsey's character's motivation and decisions deserves to be heroically paraded around town on a float to great fanfare.

Yes, I know, I know. Transformers movies aren't about story, they’re about skull-quaking action. That's all well and good, however it's difficult to generate any type of emotional reaction to epic special effects battles when their reason for occurring makes so little sense. There is an hour-long sequence in which the city of Chicago is utterly demolished (Why Chicago, you ask? There's no good answer to that question, other than the fact that, thanks to The Dark Knight, the city has become the go-to locale for large-scale summer-movie heroics) that is truly ambitious and daunting in scale. Nevertheless, because the previous 90 minutes of build-up is so messy and ridiculous, the climactic set-piece's impact is severely diminished. It doesn't excite or exhilarate, it just happens.

Bay also makes a curious creative decision with his human characters: they’re all portrayed as being insane. Not, like, quirky insane, but full-on foaming-at-the-mouth-and-ready-for-the-mental-ward insane. LaBeouf, usually the dependable grounding force for the series, is now an entitled jerk who has no less than three scenes where he devolves into a spastic, screaming lunatic. Returning once more are John Turturro's kooky former agent character, now a crazed author with unrepressed passion for McDormand's borderline incompetent g-woman, and Julie White as Sam's lusty mom, who this time discusses her son's, um, organ size and the importance of cunninglingus. Never one to be out-weirded, newcomer John Malkovich appears to have spent his time on set ingesting narcotics, and is really terrible in a truly mesmerizing way  (one has not lived a full life until they've seen Malkovich tickled into submission by a Transformer). Rounding out the peanut gallery are Ken Jeoung, as a hyper-agitated tech nerd with critical info, who drops his pants and forces LaBeouf into a toilet stall, along with Alan Tudyk, who plays Turturro's gay German assistant as if auditioning for a Sprockets movie. Even the lower-key characters played by Dempsey and Huntington-Whiteley behave in ways no rational human being ever would. There's a place for broad caricatures such as these but, when the fate of the universe hangs in the balance, a certain level of gravitas is needed in order to build tension. By cramming Dark of the Moon with grotesque oddballs, the filmmakers undercut the dramatic stakes and rob their epic of a pulse.

The childish raunchy humour from Revenge of the Fallen has been toned down; though Bay's other obsessions are still unmistakeably present, including fetishistic depictions of military gear, obvious product placement, blatant allusions to real-world historical tragedies and a borderline-creepy penchant for immature misogyny (Huntington-Whiteley's entrance consists of an leering handheld close-up of her underwear-clad derriere as she navigates her apartment). That said, he delivers the (surprisingly brutal) overkill enthusiastically and, due to the picture being shot for 3D, his robot-on-robot fisticuffs are - for the first time ever - actually comprehensible. Gone are the days of the bewildering blurs of fractured grungy grey chaos; this time around we can usually tell who is hitting who, and with what object. Thank heavens for small miracles.

It'll be interesting to see where the Transformers franchise goes from here. The property has become too profitable to abandon, though Bay and LaBeouf have both stated that they're done with the series, and this film sends a significant portion of its characters to an early scrap yard grave. My hope is that the inevitable reboot cuts down on the unnecessary bloat and makes a conscious attempt to bring the Autobots and Decepticons to the forefront and give us a reason to feel affection for them beyond nostalgia. Bombastic end of the world scenarios can be a lot of fun when there's dynamic, genuine personalities involved. It’s too bad no one behind Dark of the Moon seemed to understand that.

 
2 out of 5

Cinematic Consumption - DEATH WISH V: THE FACE OF DEATH

Death Wish V: The Face of Death (or, according to the fine print on the cheap DVD art, "Faces of Death") begins as all films should: with abundant footage of naked models getting dressed intercut with shots of Charles Bronson strutting like Tony Manero down the streets of New York to terrible dance music. Now, you may think gratuitous nudity in the credits is shameless, but don't worry! It all serves a valuable purpose. See, Bronson's character is going to a fashion show overseen by his girlfriend, Olivia (Lesley-Anne Down). Hence, director Allan A. Goldstein isn't aiming to titillate, he's trying to educate by giving us a fly-on-the-wall documentary-like glimpse into the daily realities of this swanky industry. Besides, who are we to question the man's art? Who are we...?

Ultra-classy opening aside, though, The Face of Death is a pretty shoddy affair. Despite being released in 1994, you would be forgiven for thinking it was a straight-to-video cheapo cash-in from the previous decade (which is surprising, as I was always under the impression that any movie featuring a "Special Guest Appearance" by Saul Rubinek must cost a king's ransom). The cinematography is flat and grungy, and I'm not sure the production ever bothered to hire anyone to cover art direction. Although, someone must have dreamed up that bizarre clothing factory warehouse, which came complete with an acid pit and a high-speed conveyer belt that leads into a wood chipper. Are these things common in clothing factories? They must have some mighty insane workers comp cases.

This fifth Death Wish instalment opens with Bronson's vigilante architect Paul Kersey (whose face really does, at this point, resemble the Grim Reaper) settled down in happy domesticity. He has a hot fiancé 30 years his junior, and a soon-to-be stepdaughter (Erica Lancaster) who adores him. But, because the universe loves making a cruel cosmic joke of the poor dope, happiness is again violently taken away from him. His lady love's sadistic (and impotent!) mobster ex, named Tommy O'Shea (Michael Parks - dependably loopy), finds out Olivia is planning to rat him out to the feds. So, to dissuade her, he orders flamboyant, dandruff-plagued hitman Freddie Flakes (Robert Joy) to dress in drag and smash the poor woman's face into a mirror. Repeatedly. Then, just to be a jerk, he waits until she's recovered and returned home before showing up and shooting her off the roof.

Kersey is shattered, obviously, and demands to know why the law hasn't busted O'Shea yet. They put on their sad faces and tell him they've been trying for - wait for it -16 years! Since that's an unacceptable amount of time to spend failing to arrest a man who frequently murders people in broad daylight in front of dozens of witnesses, the ass-kicking senior citizen tells the cops to take a flying leap, grabs his gun and sets out to kill his enemies in wildly over-the-top ways. A task which he accomplishes swimmingly.

Following the series' previous bombastic entry, The Crackdown(!) - in which Kersey killed approximately 1,692 bad guys - The Face of Death is remarkably subdued and more in tune with the first film. It's nowhere near as good, but there is a conscious effort made to make its hero's battle more small-scale and personal. O'Shea really only has a small handful of goons so, instead of wall-to-wall shoot-outs, the film's runtime deals primarily with the outlandish scenarios Kersey concocts to send his foes screaming into the nether. Poison cannoli, anyone? Or, better yet, how about death by exploding remote control soccer ball? (Speaking of which, did those actually exist? Why would you want a remote control soccer ball? You can't kick it because that would damage the circuitry, and the novelty factor would be remarkably short-lived.) Of course, it all ends with a gun battle in the clothing factory. Gosh, I hope someone remembered to put a lid on that acid pit...

The glorious excess of the villain deaths are The Face of Death's greatest strength, as well as it's most crippling weakness. They're easily the most entertaining part of the movie, but they are so ludicrous that they completely null the film's attempts to be taken seriously. It all results in a tonal mess of a motion picture that, while more watchable than a couple of the other sequels, doesn't congeal into anything of particular worth. After 20 years of wishing gruesome death on the guilty, Death Wish V finally sees Paul Kersey limping off into the sunset. And boy, oh boy, does he ever look tired.

2 out of 5

One-Sheet Showcase - CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)

Category: Confusing

Not all posters featured in this weekly column are winners. Some will be oddities that are so peculiar and wrong-headed that they deserve notice purely for existing. Such is the case with today's kooky-crazy Polish theatrical one-sheet for Steven Spielberg's seminal 1977 science-fiction masterwork Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

Designed by brilliant artist Andrzej Pagowski, this is a classic case of what happens when a painter is asked to depict imagery for a movie they have no frame of reference for. Todd Gresely, director of Monstrose, Houston's Retro Gallery - which ran an exhibit of Pagowski's work in 2007 - said of this bizarro piece that "The government probably said, 'we're getting a movie about aliens, make the poster.'" Thus, the artist conjured up this goofy, green Saturday morning cartoon character with a slightly stoned-looking grin and ran with it. 

While there's nothing inherently wrong with the artistry of the one-sheet, it is hilariously off-the-mark. The silly, droopy-lidded alien bears zero resemblance to the extraterrestrial visitors in Spielberg's opus (it's actually closer, physique-wise, to E.T.), and the piece's tone lacks any of the mystery and awe promised by the standard North American poster. Polish audience members could easily be forgiven for thinking they were buying tickets to a children's movie.

Oh, and Richard Dreyfuss' name is spelled incorrectly. Oops.

That said, I dig the glowing, splattered background of stars and constellations, and the unrestrained weirdness of the design. While not remotely representative of the film, I'll be damned if it isn't still charming in a decidely off-beat way. This one-sheet is pure broad, goofy fun. It's just not Close Encounters. 

I would recommend, however, you take a closer look at Pagowski's diverse catalogue of work. There are some truly breathtaking gems to discover. Personally, I love the Wall Street, Patton and Rosemary's Baby one-sheets. Hopefully, I'll get around to featuring some more of this artist's striking efforts here in the future. Under the "Cool" category, of course. 

Cinematic Consumption - DEATH WISH 4: THE CRACKDOWN

Death Wish 4 may just have the sweetest subtitle of all time: The Crackdown! Because Charles Bronson is "crackin’ down" on crime. Get it? And, since this 1987 film has the aging tough guy singlehandedly winning the war on drugs, it has a double meaning! Down with crack, kids, or crazy ol' Uncle Charlie will shoot you in the face with a grenade launcher! Wait, I'm lost. How did this series get to this point? Wasn't the first one a fairly sombre character-driven revenge drama? Doesn't rapidly mummifying Paul Kersey - architect by day, vigilante by night (except, of course, when he's just being a vigilante 24/7) - usually focus his attention on street punks, rapists and purse-snatchers? How did he suddenly come to star in a hilariously over-the-top-and-down-the-other-side generic mob war shoot 'em up in the Canon Group Pictures mould.

Oh, right, because Death Wish 4 WAS made by Canon, those fine purveyors of crappy-looking, cheesy 80s action extravaganzas, such as Cobra and Missing in Action, who never produced a film in which a villain shuffled off the mortal coil quietly. Indeed, people die horribly in The Crackdown. At one point, a dope dealer gets shot a half-dozen times by a sub-machine gun and turns, arms swinging wildly, and runs headfirst through a car window. That's dedication! Another baddie gets his noggin smashed through an exploding television, is thrown across a room, flips right over a 15-story balcony and lands facedown on a limo windshield. To quote the amazing Spunkadelic: I give it a 9.95!

The film even opens brilliantly! A nameless blonde woman is walking to her car in a darkened parking lot (Is there any other kind?). Nervous, she gets into her vehicle and fumbles with the keys, trying to start the car. It won't start. She looks up to see a shadowy figure nearby wearing nylon over his head. She panics and tries the ignition again. Nadda. She raises her head and now there are two goons patiently watching her. Once more, she freaks and turns the key. Bupkis. Whoa, now there are three goons standing there. What's with these guys' weirdo showmanship? After one last futile attempt she surveys the parking lot. The three men have utterly vanished in the span of two seconds. Or have they?! Suddenly they break through her windows, drag her out of the automobile and begin to slap her. But then Kersey, resembling Marvel’s the Punisher, steps out of the darkness. He blows away two of the assailants and chases the third down, capping him in the back. As he turns over the corpse, he sees his own face staring back at him! Kersey awakes with a jolt. It's all a dream! Obviously, it means that Kersey's quest for vengeance is going to consume his soul, right? Like Luke Skywalker in that magic tree on Dagobah? Wrong. It's never referenced again. Pretty cool opening, though, huh?

Following the silly teaser, we're reintroduced to Chicago's finest anti-hero, who's back in the architecture game and dating clueless investigative reporter Karen Sheldon (Kay Lenz). Her daughter Erica (Dana Barron) is a sweet young teenager with a promising aptitude for architectural design. Surprise, she's doomed! After ingesting too much nose candy, the girl flatlines. However, before Kersey can drag out his killer hobo clothes, he's recruited by Nathan White (John P. Ryan - who looks like Dick Van Dyke crossed with John Carpenter), a millionaire press baron who also lost a child to drugs. He hires Kersey to kill the town's two warring cartels, and supplies him with explosives, Uzis and assault rifles (Revolvers are sooo 1970s!). Soon, Kersey is wiping out powder merchants left, right and center - and making zero attempts to remain inconspicuous.

Whoops, almost forgot: At the same time, Karen sets out to write a damning expose of Chicago's drug scene. Or something. Don't worry about paying close attention. The movie drops this sub-plot after about 5 boring minutes.

Death Wish 4: The Crackdown was one of the last pictures directed by the J. Lee Thompson, helmer of the original Cape Fear and The Guns of Navarone. Seems his waltz with genius was pretty short-lived, as he spent most of the 70s and 80s half-heartedly overseeing junk like King Solomon's Mines, Battle for the Planet of the Apes, Firewalker and the forgettable Bronson clinkers Avenging Angels and Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects. I wish I could say The Crackdown was a final grasp at glory, but it really, really isn't. There's a climactic shoot-out at a roller disco, for the love of Pete!

All beating up on the picture aside, I'd be lying if I said I didn't slightly enjoy Death Wish 4. It's a dopey reminder of the half-witted, cartoonish action flicks I spent my teenage years consuming by the dozen. How can you not smile at a film that makes explicit reference to a villain having a "highly-trained baritone singing voice," and then never features a single scene of him bellowing a tune? Or a film which depicts a 66-year-old man being talked into a limousine by an evil chauffeur, locked inside, then given enough time to watch the goon walk up the road to another car and drive away, sit for a minute in desperate contemplation, try all the doors, shoot out a window, crawl through the opening and, finally, dive away before the vehicle explodes? So, in essence, if you want to watch a trashy movie so stupidly violent it'll give you a bad case of the giggles, you need to get down... with THE CRACKDOWN!!!

2 out of 5

One-Sheet Showcase - KING KONG (1933)

Category: Cool

God, I love this King Kong poster. It's big, pulpy, scary and thrilling in all the right ways, with the title gorilla barrelling through Skull Island's temple doors, almost exploding with fury, bathed in fiery, hellish shades of red, orange and yellow. If there's a better way to capture the unstoppable rage and might of the character, no one else has yet to stumble upon it. Had I been a youngster in 1933, nothing short of divine intervention could have prevented me from skeedaddling to the local movie house and slapping down 25 cents for this humdinger of a talkie! No, siree!

Like the very best one-sheets of the period, this evocative piece of advertising manages to flawlessly convey the sensational feeling of a lost era; an exploratory time when the possibility still existed that maybe, just maybe, there were still undiscovered lands left to uncover. Lands filled with fearsome gargantuan creatures still stalking the earth, untamed by human civilization. It also powerfully speaks to the deliriously imaginative dreams (or nightmares) that so many cinephiles, of all ages, journey to the theatres to see magically realized in front of their eyes. 

It's notable that this poster solely promotes the edge-of-your-seat adventure of King Kong, not the earnest sense of wonder or the heart-string tugging finale. That's just smart marketing. Lure 'em in with promises of bold, unforgettable sights, then hit them with the emotion and message. That said, traces of Kong's veiled sexual politics still remain present. Notice the placement of Ann Darrow in reference to the towering simian's anatomy. I'd say it is pretty unlikely that that was merely a coincidental artistic touch.

The King Kong property has produced a number of frame-worthy posters. This action-packed effort from the disappointing 1976 remake still lingers, as do several of the pieces released in conjunction with Peter Jackson's epic-sized 2005 version. Heck, I even kinda like the cartoony one-sheets for 1986's terrible King Kong Lives and 1963's camptastic King Kong Vs. Godzilla. Maybe I just have a thing for giant monkeys...

Regardless, this one-sheet manages to out-cool the competition. I own a replica print, as well as a t-shirt bearing its likeness, yet still never grow tired of gazing at it. No doubt about it, when it comes to motion picture one-sheets, this Kong poster is still king. 

Film's 5 Most Nauseating Dinner Table Scenes

As anyone who’s ever spent much time with me can attest, I'm a pretty picky eater (I prefer the term "cautious consumer"). It seems to run in the family. Hence, there are few things more unbearable than revolting eating scenes in movies or television. Inspired by a recent viewing of one of the films mentioned on this list, I decided it was time to assemble my own personal Top 5 Most Nauseating Dinner Table Scenes in cinema. The criterion was easy: did the moment in question make me gag? All five of the titles listed below managed that task. Perhaps, a bit too well for my taste...

Before we begin, there were a few regrettable exclusions. I would have loved to include Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and Oldboy but, alas, they feature characters eating alone. I was looking for the communal experience. Misery loves company, after all. Julie Taymor's adaptation of Titus also came close, but I decided one Anthony Hopkins movie was enough. Plus, it frankly doesn't belong in the same category as the five that were ultimately chosen.

5) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) - Steven Spielberg and George Lucas must have been cackling like a pair of naughty school children while assembling their nightmarish Indian banquet from this second Indiana Jones adventure. After all, with a menu that includes such delicacies as chilled monkey brains, eyeball soup, beetle innards and "Snake Surprise," there must have been precious little doubt that audiences would squirm, wince and retch until scene's end. It wound up being one of Temple of Doom's most iconic moments, and ensured that we would never again have to wonder what it would look like to see a grown man scarf down a live eel whole. Ick.

4) Alien (1979) - Was it not punishment enough that Kane (John Hurt) had to spend a couple days confined to the infirmary with a giant space insect suckered to his face? Could he not just be left alone to enjoy a pleasant dinner of freeze-dried rations with his friends and co-workers? Apparently not, as director Ridley Scott soon subjects the poor sap to the worst case of indigestion known to man. When that toothy creature explodes out his chest, spraying the table with showers of gore and entrails, all semblance of calm is instantly eradicated, along with our appetites.

3) Hannibal (2001) - This Silence of Lamb sequel paid off its predecessor's unforgettable closing line "I'm having an old friend for dinner" tenfold. Although the movie itself is a pretty mixed bag, it's doubtful many will ever forget the sight of a dazed Ray Liotta, sans the top half of his skull, being fed sautéed chunks of his own sliced-off grey matter and savouring every stomach-turning, squishy chew. Thomas Harris' original novel had Julianne Moore's Clarice eagerly joining in on the brain-food feeding frenzy but, fortunately, director Ridley Scott (who, judging from #4 as well, apparently has a thing for gross-out meal gatherings) spares us that sight and instead provides us with a relatable dinner party member; one who makes no effort to shield her revulsion. Too bad she's not present at the film's end when an escaped Dr. Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), aboard a flight, offers his leftovers to an impressionable young seat-mate.

2) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - A dinner party requires great company to succeed, so what happens when the company consists of a screaming family of inbred hillbilly cannibals? Such is the scenario faced by Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) in director Tobe Hooper's horror masterpiece. Awakening at a dilapidated table, shackled to a chair made from human remains, the hysterical heroine shudders and screeches in terror as the villainous family of man-eating mass-murderers hoot, howl and paw perversely at her blood-stained hair. As if that wasn't bad enough, set right in front of her is a plate of unpleasant meat products of questionable origin. Why, it's enough to send a poor soul shrieking like a banshee into the night! Not surprisingly, Sally soon does just that, without thanking her hosts on the way out. Unsurprisingly, this situation was repeated in future sequels/remakes/prequels - probably most gruesomely in 1986's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 - but none were as potent as the originator.

1) Eraserhead (1977) - There are few greater discomforts than having to eat dinner at a prospective romantic partner's parents' house. The potential for awkwardness alone is enough to make anyone break into a sweat. David Lynch, who's rarely stooped to subtlety in exercising his gift for mutating the mundane into the sickening, uses his audacious debut to create the mother of all disturbing family dinners. In Eraserhead, Henry Spencer (Jack Nance) is urged, by his girlfriend's seemingly lobotomized plumber father (Allen Joseph), to carve a pathetic genetically modified chicken. Just as he's about break the skin, the tiny morsel's legs start to kick, and slick black, bubbling blood begins to ooze out all over the spotless white plate. Then mom (Jeanne Bates) starts spasming like Linda Blair. It's a repulsive sequence which is, troublingly, merely just a hors d'oeuvre for the plethora of cringe-inducing horrors still to come.

Film Review - GREEN LANTERN

For a fledgling franchise, Green Lantern sure does spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make the extraordinary feel tediously ordinary. When you have a multiple galaxy-spanning storyline, and cast featuring hundreds of bizarre-looking alien marines, why settle for giving audiences lazy earthbound action beats involving helicopter accidents and hordes of extras running in terror through city streets from a big, boring CG monster? In a superhero epic where the hero can traverse the solar system in the blink of an eye, or conjure bizarre weapons out of pure energy, who wants to watch him mope around his apartment in self-doubt or try to win back his boring ex? We've seen these things done too many times already, and done with far more wit and enthusiasm.

Sure, on the surface, DC Comics’ emerald-hued icon's mythology comes across as being a mite silly in live-action, but there's no reason a grand space opera couldn't have been adapted from it. Audiences are willing to step into the fantastic if there's an exciting tale to be told that they can emotionally invest themselves in. Imagine if James Cameron's Avatar had only spent 15 minutes on Pandora, and the rest in the military base. Or if Luke Skywalker had ran back to the moisture farm shortly after stepping through Mos Eisley's dingy doors. That's Green Lantern in a nutshell; a dull wannabe sci-fi epic with zero confidence in its own appealingly unique creative strengths.

Even worse, I'm not exactly sure who this film was made for. It's often too campy and cartoonish - at one point the hero creates a giant Hot Wheels track to save a crashing vehicle - for adults to take very seriously, but also too lethargic and violent to engage young children. Many fans of the comic books will likely take issue with the one-note renderings of their favourite characters, and lack of dynamic space battles, while newcomers to the brand may be put off by the movie's convoluted, sloppily sketched-out mythology and thoroughly unimaginative origin tale structure.

The film follows the adventures of Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a cocky test pilot in the Maverick mould, who, late one night, is up and whisked away to a fallen space-craft containing a mortally injured extra-terrestrial named Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison). A victim of the life-draining, fear-powered intergalactic entity Parallax, Sur presents the irresponsible human with a magic ring and lantern, which harness the green energy source of will, and inducts him into the Lantern Corps, a team made up of hundreds of intergalactic peacekeepers who patrol the many sectors of the cosmos. Upon inadvertently activating the clunky piece of jewellery in a parking lot brawl, Jordan is zapped to the realm of Oa, where he's given instruction on his uncanny powers - which allow him to make his imagination spring to life via energy-based "constructs" - by the warriors Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan), Tomar-Re (Geoffrey Rush) and, most importantly, Sinestro (Mark Strong), the valiant ringleader of the Lantern squad.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the body of Sur has been discovered by the U.S. government and handed over to painfully nerdy xenobiologist Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard). During the autopsy procedure, a fragment of Parallax leaks out of the alien's corpse and infects the insecure scientist, causing grotesque physical mutation and infusing him with potent telepathic and telekinetic abilities. As Hector begins to go insane, Hal Jordan struggles to accept his newfound responsibilities and regain the love of Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), a fellow pilot who has long since grown weary of her colleague's reckless attitude. Following an unsuccessful attempt by Sinestro and the Lanterns to capture Parallax, the menacing entity heads towards Earth and it’s up to Hal to step up and save the world.

Green Lantern's script, cobbled together by a committee of four writers, accomplishes the paradoxical feat of being both rushed and ponderous. At 105 minutes, the film repeatedly spins its wheels by showing us dreary scenes of Hal sulking or staring at the horizon (this passes for character development), and listening to platitudes from Lively's Carol, yet skips over several fundamental building blocks of good storytelling. We’re supposed to feel something for Hector Hammond, but he isn't introduced until it's time for his transformation. Then, the movie attempts to establish a strong connection between him, Hal and Carol in a couple throwaway lines of dialogue. How are we supposed to care about a relationship that's central to the film when there's little on-screen evidence that it even exists?

Much of the picture works that way. We don't see things happen, so much as hear other people talk about them. The Lantern Corps, allegedly, are a near unstoppable intergalactic police force, yet they spend their sadly limited screen-time losing fights and standing around on Oa shining their rings in the air. Everyone endlessly informs Hal what a screw-up he is, but we rarely see him behave in a selfish manner outside of an effective early jet fighter training sequence. In Iron Man, Tony Stark's flaws were laid bare for us to see, and we loved him for them and were eager to watch his metamorphosis. Perhaps Green Lantern's writers were wary of making Hal too unlikable but, by making him so wishy-washy, he's impossible to root for. The film asks us to believe that only Hal is up to the task of tackling Parallax, yet we only see him train with the Corps for five (entertaining) minutes before quitting the group, and having a couple close-call scuffles with Hector. We're expected to accept that growth has occurred without seeing any of it actually transpire.

I'd be curious to know how much material wound up on the cutting room floor. There are a number of jarring edits in the film that make nary a lick of sense. Hal's first confrontation with Hector feels like an island unto itself, with no lead in or denouement. It just happens and then we return to business as usual. As well, Hal's trips between Oa and Earth in the latter half of the movie seem to occur almost at random.

It's unclear why director Martin Campbell was selected to helm this particular project. He's proven adept at kick-starting more grounded heroes like James Bond (Casino Royale, GoldenEye) and Zorro (The Mask of Zorro), but is hardly the go-to guy when you need to sell the otherworldly. Although he never embarrasses himself, there's no spark of invention in his grand CG superhero action sequences. Lantern's powers, which could be really fun in an inspired Looney Tunes-kinda way, are just delivered matter-of-factly. They don't look terrible, but they also aren't particularly thrilling or dazzling. They're just effects for the sake of being effects. The same could be said for the climactic battle with Parallax, though I’m tempted to give Campbell a pass on that one, as I remain unsold whether any director is capable of making a scene depicting a human-being in combat against an evil space cloud cool. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer couldn't pull it off, and neither can Green Lantern.

The cast does what it can with lame material and, for the most part, flounders. As Hal, Reynolds is pleasant enough, and obviously has the masked avenger physique down, but spends too much time looking sheepish to be compelling. He's as edgy as rice pudding, and even his patented ironic observational one-liners feel forced. Lively, competently playing Generic Love Interest, has a few amusing bits, such as during her first face-to-face with Lantern, but is saddled with dialogue no actress should have to utter with a straight face, while Mark Strong acquits himself admirably with what is essentially a non-character (Sinestro, a major staple of the comics, is anything but here). Only Sarsgaard leaves an impression, with a creepy, broad villainous performance that could have been a milestone had Hector Hammond not wound up being completely inconsequential.

Everything about the picture feels weighed down by a crushing sense of nervous obligation; to both expanding DC’s cinematic presence and cramming in enough fan-service moments to appease the faithful. However, by following the strict template established by its forebears so joylessly, and short-changing its own potential in fear of offending the average movie-goer, it fails to inspire anything other than apathy. Green Lantern may shine brightly in the comic-book world, but his value in the universe of on-screen superheroes couldn’t be any less murky.

2 out of 5

Film Review - SUPER 8

Ordinarily, it's not really fair to criticize a new release for failing to live up to a milestone of the art-form. Classics come with too much baggage, and have had the benefit of time to saturate the public consciousness and become something larger and more important than a mere motion picture. So, what then to make of J.J. Abrams' Super 8, a reasonably efficient thrill-ride nostalgia trip that so desperately wants to stand on the shoulders of giants and invite warm comparisons to watershed Spielberg masterpieces such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.? How can one clearheadedly judge a film that so blatantly muddies the waters by mining its most effective elements from treasured memories of the past?

I'm not sure it's possible. For some, Super 8 will be held in high regard purely for its uncanny ability to tap into the nostalgic mindset of its audience. This is a film that seems determined to make ticket-buyers wistfully yearn for childhoods they never actually had. That's not necessarily a fault of the picture, so much as a statement of its obvious intent. I heartily enjoyed the majority of my time spent in the film's idyllic 1979 setting, surrounded by its Goonies-like gaggle of precocious film buffs, but, leaving the theatre, I couldn't help but feel a little let down that the film didn't swing for the fences. When Spielberg blazed new ground with material like this, he infused it with passion, intelligence and tingle-inducing wonder. He created films you didn't just watch, you experienced. Abrams, on the other hand, doesn't have the same drive for innovation or grandeur, and never quite manages to fully immerse us in his world. It's a fun entertainment, but not a whole lot more.

Set in the sleepy Ohio suburbs, Super 8 stars impressive newcomer Joel Courtney as Joe Lamb, a sensitive 12-year-old recovering from the loss of his mother, who died in a tragic mill accident. Obsessed with monsters, movie make-up and homemade model kits, he's in the midst of shooting a super 8 zombie movie with his friends and rebellious crush Alice Dainard (Elle Fanning - a dead ringer for a pre-teen Drew Barrymore) late at night, when a cargo train mysteriously, not to mention explosively, derails. Soon, the military - who enter the picture as ominous flashlights in the night ala E.T. - are swarming the area looking for... something. As the kids continue to assemble their project, strange occurrences begin to happen around town; dogs start running away. Electricity flickers on and off. Something is out there and its just a matter of time before Joe and his friends run headlong into it.

Naturally, if there's one thing almost every Spielberg work has in common, it's aloof father figures. Super 8 completes the homage package by supplying not just one of these all-important characters, but two! Joe's stern, grieving deputy sheriff father (the always welcome Kyle Chandler) urges his son to grow up and consider new hobbies, while Alice's deadbeat alcoholic dad (Ron Eldard) carries a shameful secret of his own; one which threatens to disrupt the slowly emerging romance between the two tweens.

Boldly confident from the get-go, Super 8 works best during its first hour, as we get to know and understand the kids and their little isolated universe. Abrams' script makes a wise call early on in delaying the kids inevitable involvement with the supernatural elements of the story until the third act. Sure, they're present for the fiery train-wreck - which is grand in scale but not as convincingly rendered as I suspect the filmmaker thinks it is, given how long he milks it on-screen - but soon their attention turns back to that which is most important to them; namely, their movie. Many screenwriters have failed miserably writing kids, but Abrams understands the innocent self-absorption that comes with that age, and implicitly realizes that, for them, making a movie isn't just a pleasurable activity, it's everything.

As he proved in his previous filmic forays, Star Trek and Mission: Impossible III, and high profile television work, Abrams posesses one of the canniest eyes for casting in the business. To his great credit, there is not a single child actor in the film who rings false. Courtney and Fanning ably share most of the spotlight, and generate the picture's most powerful dramatic fireworks, but the supporting cast is no less colourful. Riley Griffiths, as the crew's wannabe director, possesses just the right amount of gusto and bossiness, while Gabriel Basso, as the over-anxious leading man, earns the film's biggest laugh during an action sequence involving a bus. Ryan Lee, who boasts some truly daunting dental wear, is also delightfully true-to-life, playing that kid we all knew who never went anywhere without a lighter. These characters are an utter joy to spend time with and, unlike in Richard Donner's often tiresome The Goonies, their non-stop, overlapping chatter is funny, honest and comprehensible.

I really wish the film didn't trip so badly over itself once it introduces its otherworldly co-star. Had it played a less prominent role in the emotional pay-off of the film, it would be far less problematic than it is. Plainly put, Super 8's creature is a dud. Over-designed, poorly explained and always obscured by darkness (likely to hide the fact the CG is less than stellar), it's a generic non-entity in a film that requires us to care about it to truly triumph. Remember E.T.? He was both a brilliantly nuanced character, as well as a poignant metaphor for Elliot's impending loss of childhood. This movie's mysterious being has neither a personality nor clear thematic purpose. Worse, it's appearance in the third act disrupts the natural flow of the other story threads, leading to a rushed finale that badly undercuts the movie's grand attempt at a tear-jerking final moment of awe. Spielberg knew when to pace himself and let the audience bask in his fantastic images and sounds, whereas Abrams seems over-eager to wrap everything up as fast as possible and fade to black.

Yet, despite not succeeding at meeting the standards set by its influences, there's still plenty to recommend Abrams' quirky little film beyond the performances. There's so much love in each and every frame - from the kids' elaborately designed rooms, full of geeky little touches and period detail, to the quiet minutiae of small town life and, my personal favourite, the beautifully evocative shots of the spellbinding night sky - that it’s impossible to resist falling prey to the picture’s gentle whimsy. As a cinematic journey, Super 8 may fall short of the stars, but it's nonetheless a journey still worth taking.

3.5 out of 5

P.S.: Make sure to stick around during the credits to see the kids' completed super 8 movie. It just may be the most charming sequence in the entire film.

Cinematic Consumption - MEGA SHARK VERSUS CROCOSAURUS

Going in, Mega Shark Versus Crocosaurus had to accomplish very little to entertain me. I'm a total sucker for bad killer sea creature movies (Read my obsessive retrospectives for both Jaws 3-D and Jaws The Revenge for proof), and all I ask is that the filmmakers manage to throw in some weirdo inspiration here and there amidst the brain-jellying exposition and scenes of washed up actors staring at unconvincing computer monitor screens. A memorably gory kill, perhaps. Or a climactic monster death so astoundingly ridiculous you find yourself fumbling for the rewind button. Heck, even a winking bit of pointless nudity (an old genre standby that has sadly become a rarity).  I'm an easy customer.

Unfortunately, MSvsCS - as I shall henceforth be referring to it - fails to deliver any of these base desires. Oh, it's rated R, all right. For language. Language! This is a killer shark/crocodile movie whose most extreme element is the F-word! I really don't understand the logic behind that decision. Why make such a film and not deliver on the audience's modest expectations? It's not like there was ever a danger of anyone being invested in the storyline!

What is the storyline, you ask? Well, it's about a Navy acoustics scientist (Jaleel White - he who once wore suspenders, giant red-rimmed glasses and nasally uttered the immortal phrase "Did I do that?!" ever Friday night on ABC) who is developing a new audio technology to repel sharks.  After his fiancé is killed by Mega Shark, who sinks her battleship by leaping over it three times and smacking it with his tail, he is recruited by the military and a tanktop-wearing government agent babe (Sarah Lieving) to destroy the errant fish. But wait! Over in South Africa, a ginoromous prehistoric crocodile has emerged and escaped into the sea, causing the rough-around-the-collar resident croc-hunter (Gary Stretch - who looks like a squintier, sleazier, hairier Pierce Brosnan) to also be brought in on the action. Will the hunter and Urkel be able to put their differences aside and stop the carnivorous man-eaters once and for all? (Spoiler: Yes. Yes, they will.)   

It's amazing how sizable a chunk of this film is spent with Urkel, croc-dude and Agent Hotty McHotterson sitting in a fake helicopter cockpit tediously arguing over whether or not the scientist's "hydrosonic spheres" will save the day. (Spoiler: they do!) Even though the flick runs only 88 mins, I feel like I'm still trapped in that godforsaken airborne purgatory waiting for someone to take charge and DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING!!! No one sane expects strong writing in a direct-to-DVD creature feature, but if you're going to give actors awful dialogue, at least make it so wretched it's hilarious, not boring.

Further, this is a picture which, in its very title, promises an epic clash between the titular monsters. The reality, however, is much more disappointing. The two beasts, which look like refugees from a Super Nintendo game, chomp down on each other's tails in unison and form a rudimentary circle. They then spin around and around, repeatedly and bloodlessly. To add insult to injury, even when destroyed they remain locked in their eternal game of Ring Around the Rosie. This could be forgiven if there were a few decent human fatalities, but there aren't. Most are just swallowed whole, disappearing into a blur of ugly CG. Yawn.

Ultimately, MSvsCS is a complete waste of time. It lacks the so-terrible-it's-funny qualities that made Shark Attack 3: Megalodon and Raging Sharks quasi-brilliant, and never lives up to its deliciously pulpy title. Too bad, so sad.

I'll probably still watch the inevitable sequel...

1 out of 5

P.S.: It's never a good idea to name your submarine USNS Invincible. Soon or later, it will be proven to not be.