I haven't found any conclusive evidence, but I'd be willing to bet, that this film wasn't made as a sequel to the indie-shark film: Open Water - That the marketers saw a film with a similar idea, and thought that the film would get more exposure on video if it had a familiar name attached. See the poster and the teaser trailer as evidence, neither mention Open Water 2. Plus another huge thing missing from this film, that I can't believe they would do if they went into production as a sequel: THERE ARE NO SHARKS!

They hint at it at least two times; one of the girl's feels something bump against her leg, and then somebody gets badly cut with a knife and we're shown a large trail of blood, alas no sharks appear. Don't let that dissuade you from this well made little thriller.

In Adrift we meet a group of young folks who are out for a day of fun on their friend's yacht. There are three couples; Amy and James, who've just had a baby, Amy suffers from a major case of water-phobia, the reasoning is revealed throughout the film; there is Zach and Lauren who seem like a nice normal couple; and then there is Dan and Michelle, it's Dan's boat, he's a wealthy-playboy who just met Michelle a few days before; throwing the rest of the group off, since they've all known each other since high school. They set off on Dan's yacht into the Gulf of Mexico.

After they've passed well beyond being able to see any land, they decide to stop for a little dip in the ocean. Everybody but Dan and Amy frolic about in the water for a bit, Amy is content to stay on the boat with her baby due to her aforementioned phobia, until Dan, being a total jackass decides to grab her and jump in. She instantly goes into shock, ruining everybody's good mood, which is about to get much worse in a couple minutes when they realize that nobody bothered to put the yacht's ladder down, leaving them stranded in the water.

What follows next is pretty terrifying and fairly realistic. Every time I thought of a way for them to get back on the boat, the characters tried it; including standing on each other's shoulders, using their clothes as a rope and finding some sort of hatch. There was only one scene were a character does something really stupid, and it's sort of forgiven by a later explanation. So for the most part, you can believe them when it's said that this film is based on actual events. People do stupid things all the time, get themselves into bad situations, it's how you handle yourself afterwards that sets you apart. Most of the characters are dispatched in tragic, yet believable ways.

While the film is not a classic by any means, it's a fairly tight little thriller. The mostly unknown actors do a good job of conveying the terror that they're facing. The camera-work is inventive and the editing is good, keeping a good quick pace. I could have done without the repeated flashbacks to Amy's reason for hating the water, they stretch it out way too long, when it's fairly obvious what happens the first time around; but it's all shot in super-8, my favorite format, so I could forgive it. If you go into it not expecting a shark frenzy, are able to put yourself in the character's swimsuits, you might have a good time with Adrift.

I already knew this story well. A couple years ago I saw and reviewed the excellent documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a jaw-dropping true-story of survival. The interesting thing was, that director Werner Herzog and real-life-hero Dieter Dengler would have rather been making a fictional feature about his life. At the time they only had the budget for a documentary. Over a decade later, their dream came true with Rescue Dawn. Unfortunately Dieter never got to see the film, I'm sure he would have been proud.

The chameleonish Christian Bale plays Dieter, a Navy pilot during the Vietnam War. Growing up in Germany during WWII, he locked eyes with a pilot who was bombing his town. In that moment, he became obsessed with flying. Moving to America and joining the military was his best chance to do that. He never wanted to be in another war, but that's what he got, and he's the kind of guy that easily rolls with the punches. On his own very first bombing run, he is shot down and left for dead in the extremely dangerous jungles of Laos.

Soon after he's captured by the Vietcong and brought to a small P.O.W. camp with a few other soldiers. The amazing part is under the worst conditions imaginable, he never loses his cool and remains forever positive. While the other soldiers are content wither-away or die, while waiting out the war, he must escape. He comes up with a doable plan and must convince the others to go along with it. They manage to escape their prison, but now they must escape the jungle, which proves to be an even tougher ordeal.

While Rescue Dawn may sound like some kind of Rambo film, it's all very realistically done. And from what I've read and seen in the documentary, it also remains as true as possible to the the real life events. Making Dieter's actions that much more exciting. The film is shot documentary style; nobody makes these films the way that Herzog can. He makes sure that everything is as realistic as possible, and the camera is right there along with them, as they're jumping into rivers and tromping through the impossibly thick jungles.

Mix that with one of the most dedicated actors on the planet, Christian Bale; watch him eat real-live maggots, be drug behind a horse, hung upside down while being pelted by rocks and many other horrible things, and you have one hell of a movie. The film is so in-your-face about it all, that after it's over you'll feel like you've escaped the jungle along with Dieter. While not really a pleasant experience, the film will make you feel proud of human endurance, as it is an incredible true-life story, captured like you're right there with them.

Going into Rize I really had no interest in the art of krumping. The sole reason I watched this film is for it's director David LaChapelle, who is my favorite photographer. His style wasn't very apparent in this film, it has a the same DV look that most of today's documentaries share. There is one scene, where he took a few of the dancers down to the L.A. river and set up his lights, that made it look a little more like his photographic style; but that's obviously not what he was going for with this film, he wanted to tell these kids story.

Despite not being into this high energy dancing at the beginning, I really began to appreciate the skill that goes into this crazy dance form. I'm sure I'd have a headache or throw out my back about 30 seconds into trying it for myself. But even more than appreciating their skills, I was glad to see this as an alternative for kids growing up in very tough situations, where gang life is an easy choice. I'm glad that there are people out there like Tommy the Clown, that dedicate their lives to helping kids and making their neighborhoods a better place to live. The world needs more people like this.

That said, I didn't think there was enough material here for a feature documentary; it could have been an amazing short, but wouldn't have got the same exposure. It's kind of a catch-22. I felt like the film kept telling the same story over and over. And they filled the other half with dancing footage. I liked seeing the history of the dance, meeting some of the main people involved, and I thought that it was interesting when they cut the footage against some traditional tribe dancing from Africa. But there was really only about 30 minutes of story, stretched into over 90.

If you're into krumping, I'm sure you've already seen Rize, and I'm glad that there is a film representing this new movement. But as an outsider, I began to get bored. If you're an outsider like me, and you can catch the first 30 minutes on cable somewhere, it's worth seeing that much of it, after that not much else is developed. It was interesting to see LaChapelle's work behind a movie camera, he shows some promise with this film, I'll be interested in seeing whatever he comes up with next.

I'd never even heard of this film, when I ran across it on one of the movie channels. But it's an 80's horror flick, starring the always creepy Klaus Kinski. That's all I needed to give it a watch. Unfortunately, I think that's all the filmmakers had going for them when they decided to make it. They said, "Hey, we got Klaus Kinski, as a voyeur, psychopathic Nazi, the movie will make itself!" That's basically the whole film right there.

Kinski plays Dr. Karl Gunther, he owns a small apartment building and performs ritualistic tortures in the attic, other than that, he's your basic peeping tom. He will only rent rooms to pretty young women, because at night he crawls through the building's ventilation system spying on girls getting undressed. Sure that sounds like some good-bad cinema, but wow, do they manage to make it boring. Nothing seems to happen. It gets a little more interesting when he decides to bring his rats along as they squeak and try to crawl out of the vents, creeping out the girls.

So a new girl Lori moves in, and Karl begins to spy on her. She seems a little more astute than the rest of the tenants and starts to notice that Karl isn't only a little eccentric, he also may be insane. She stumbles across his evil plot, which includes building nasty torture devices and keeping a girl with her tongue cut out locked in the attic, his only real friend. They bond, while watching old films of Adolf Hitler speeches. Lori discovers all this and in the only worthwhile scene in the film, is chased through the building's Crawlspace by a very pissed off Kinski.

It's a short film with a somewhat good idea, but little actually going for it. Klaus Kinski, who was used to great effect in many Werner Herzog films, is pretty much wasted here, he puts on some lipstick and makes a couple of goofy faces, but that's about it; and sadly he remains the only real reason to watch the film. The director David Schmoeller, made a couple of horror flops in the 80's, this and the gem of his career Puppet Master are the only two I've had the pleasure of seeing. If you're a Kinski fan, it might be worth a watch, otherwise forget it.

(It seems there is new attention for this movie, based on the filmmaker's lawsuit against J.K. Rowling. The main character is named Harry Potter Jr., there's a fantasy element to the film; but those are the only similarities.)

I hadn't seen this film since I was a kid, so long ago that it actually scared me. I didn't have a lot of hope for it to hold up, but I'm always willing to take a stroll down memory lane. Immediately I could understand why this scared me as a child. Within minutes of starting, the film has an evil ugly troll kidnap a little girl and take over her body, begin living with her family, including her brother, a little boy that I could easily identify with.

The Potter family has just moved to San Fransisco, into an eclectic old apartment building, where everyone knows everyone else, and everyone has interesting quirks. Harry Jr.; yes, that makes him Harry Potter, a good decade before the books, which is also highly distracting whenever they call him by his full name, which seems to be a lot; almost immediately notices that something is wrong with his sister. After watching a cheesy sci-fi film, he believes she's a pod-person, but soon discovers the truth, thanks to a friendly witch living upstairs from them.

Meanwhile, the Troll, hiding in plain site as a little girl, is quickly taking over the apartment building, thanks to his nasty ring that has poison needle on it. He's turning all the residents into various mythical creatures, because he's lonely. All their apartments start overgrowing with trees and plants, to better accommodate their transformed residents. Of course the Potter parents are completely oblivious to what's going on, and it's left up to Harry to save the day, with a little help from his witch friend and her weird mushroom boyfriend.

The film has some cool stop-motion effects, most notably when some giant vines start to take over the entire building, as a crowd of San Fransisco-ians watch. There's one creepy scene, at least from a child's perspective, towards the end of the film, where Harry is laying in bed, with his troll/sister lying in the bed next to him, and she keeps transforming back and forth between them. A pretty terrifying idea for any kid with a sibling sleeping in their room.

While I wouldn't call the film well made, it's too goofy for that; it is undeniably entertaining. In a so-bad-it's-good type of way. A kid can look past the bad acting and silly plot-line and enjoy it as a creepy fantasy story. Us grown-ups can enjoy it for the scene where all the puppet Trolls start singing in unison or a very young, half naked Julia Louis-Dreyfus starts frolicking around as some sort of fairy princess high on pixie dust. Troll is some good brainless fantasy/horror fan, if you enjoy it with a double order of cheese.

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Don't confuse this with Troll 2, which has absolutely nothing to do with this film, beyond the name; and has gone on to gain some infamy as the "best worst movie". There's even documentary in the works about it all.

Making a comedy compilation based on the Ten Commandments, is a wonderful idea. Actually pulling it off, is much tougher. The comedy group The State does an okay job with it in The Ten. Some of the skits are brilliant and had me laughing throughout, some of the other skits, not so much. But if you're a fan of offbeat comedies, you should check out the film for yourself.

The film suffers from constantly returning to a narrator character in the form of the usually funny Paul Rudd. He lives in some sort of black void with two huge stone tablets with the Ten Commandments on them. Between each story, we're taken back to him and the continuing story of him cheating on his wife, played by a game Famke Janssen. But it's not funny, and the film keeps returning there, dragging the film down instead of keeping a good rhythm. They should have found a better way to transition between the stories.

I'd say six-and-a-half of the stories are pretty funny. I found three of them to be particularly good. In thou shall not worship false idols: Adam Brody jumps out of an airplane without a parachute, he survives but is stuck up to his chest in the ground, if he's moved, he'll die. He becomes a celebrity for a short while, even getting his own sitcom. The whole idea of being famous for being stuck in the ground, and the image of Brody with his foot sticking awkwardly out of the ground near his head, is consistently funny.

In Thou Shall not take the Lord's name in vain: Gretchen Mol, who even knew she could be funny, plays a Librarian who takes an extended trip to Mexico, where she falls in love with the resurrected Jesus. She has a torrid love affair with him, repeatedly calling out his name, while they're having sex. Jesus is played by the always cool Justin Theroux. In Keep the Sabbath sacred: A guy refuses to go to church, instead comes up with the idea of Naked Sundays. His idea is so beloved, his house is soon full of guys skipping church to frolic naked while listening to the sultry sounds of Roberta Flack. The skit ends with a hilarious song about nakedness.

There's some decent stuff with Winona Ryder falling in love with a ventriloquist dummy. A semi funny bit about the usually deadly, serious Liev Schreiber, coveting his neighbors cat-scan machines, until both their houses are full of them. And some really lame skits about a doctor killing somebody on a goof and then getting repeatedly prison raped. The film is all over the place and with some of the stories, they're really stretching for any relevance to the actual Commandments.

The Ten has an amazing cast; and everybody throws themselves into these goofy roles full throttle. But the writing is where the film suffers, sometimes the jokes hit a home run, but a lot more of them strike out. I thought that The State's previous film: Wet Hot American Summer, was a much better film, better told and more consistently funny. If you haven't seen that film, I suggest it instead. If you've seen it, you could do worse than The Ten, but hopefully they do a lot better with their next film.

This is one of those movies, that looked so middle of the road, that I really had no interest in it. I enjoy Robin Williams for the most part, but this looked like his same old shtick warmed over. Barry Levinson is a decent director, but he hasn't done anything truly memorable in almost two decades. It looked like all the same jokes I've seen in other political comedies like Wag the Dog or The Daily Show. I really only bothered with it, because I try to see everything, it'd been sitting on our DVR for a few weeks, and I was in the mood for a comedy. Luckily it turned out better than I thought.

Not a whole lot better mind you, but it offered a few new jokes and some good political ideas, that made it worth watching. Plus the cast is top notch, it's hard not to get into something starring Williams, Christopher Walken, Laura Linney and a personal favorite Lewis Black. The filmmaking is your average Hollywood production, with everyone's hair and make-up perfect, the lighting colorful and bright; nothing to complain about, but nothing to take notice of either.

Williams plays Tom Dobbs, the host of a political comedy show; when an audience member suggests that he runs for president, the idea starts to build until he's actually doing it. Christopher Walken is Tom's manager, who isn't too pleased to be moving from the entertainment world to the political one. When Dobbs runs with a typical, boring political campaign, his writer Lewis Black takes offense. Both him and Walken want him to run as himself, a comedian. He's resistant to the idea, until the final debate, when he's so sick of the bullshit that the other candidates are spewing, that it sets him off and makes him tell the truth about the whole political process in a very funny and enlightening way, it's easily the best scene in the film.

I could have done without the subplot about Laura Linney, who works at a company that is running the first Presidential vote tallied solely by computers. When a computer glitch accidentally gives Dobbs the presidency, she's the only one who knows. When the guys running the computer company find out, they ruin her life, so she won't have any credibility when she tries to tell somebody. The whole story drags the film down, I never cared a bit about it. They could have come up with some other way for Linney and Williams to get involved with each other. And I would have liked to have seen the film play with Dobbs winning the election for real.

I can't complain too much about the film, it's too average to really care. I didn't think about Man of the Year once after it was over. I didn't feel like I wasted my time, but it didn't change a single idea in my head. It isn't challenging or truly interesting in any way. If you want a few laughs, from some recognizable actors, in a completely safe setting; this is your film.

It's amazing how much the spirit of a film, leads to the enjoyment. The previous film I watched: 2001 Maniacs , from a technical point of view, is a better made film, but I didn't like it because it lacked spirit. Blood Car being at the bottom end of filmmaking budgets, showing all its loose screws and rusted parts, should by all means not be an enjoyable experience; but it has a spirit and freshness that by far make up for the lack of technical wizadry.

The film starts kind of weird, some random guy comes out and starts talking to the camera, laying out the scene about how the film takes place in the future, when gas is so expensive that nobody can afford it. Not a too far fetched thought the way things are going. Archie, the hero of the film, is a school teacher, at the end of every school day he rides his bike to a small wheat-grass stand, run by Lorraine, who is secretly in love with Archie. Lorraine is played by the only recognizable face in the film, Anna Chlumsky, famous for My Girl; I bet there is an interesting story in her casting. Archie buys the wheat-grass for a engine that he's inventing, which is supposed to run on the ghastly green stuff, but he's hit a wall. When he accidentally drops a bit of his own blood in, the motor starts to purr.

He now has a major moral dilemma; in order to drive, he must kill. There's a hilarious scene, where he goes around killing neighborhood animals with a BB gun, acquiring the first gallon of blood to run his car. When he drives up to the wheat-grass shop, to show of his wheels to Lorraine, he's overcome by horniness thanks to Denise, the girl in the meat shop directly across the way. And that's part of the low-budget ingeniousness,these two shops are nothing but a couple of plywood shacks thrown up next to each other in an empty lot; but the signs and the staging make it funny.



Denise is so turned on by cars that she's willing to do anything to get a ride in Archie's modified Honda Accord. And he's so obsessed with Denise's kinkiness, that he's willing to do anything to get his car to run. He rigs a lawnmower blade into his car's trunk, so he can chop up bodies for their fuel. At first he's a little hesitant about it, the first victim is a car-jacker, but he soon has such a blood lust that anybody who's around may end up in his trunk. The government has been watching the whole thing, they don't care about him killing people, they only want his invention. The whole thing comes to a extremely bloody and hilarious end.

Blood Car will not be appreciated many; it is too low budget, badly acted, limited story and chock full of blood to be widely accepted. But for those that do enjoy it, I think it'll be a very memorable experience. It is a very unique film, quite unlike anything I've ever seen. I believe that low budgets lead inventive filmmakers to come up with new ways of telling a story, and that is in full effect here. The film is a great satire of our current gas crisis, told in a very witty, funny and gory way. Writer/Director Alex Orr proves that it doesn't take much more than a brain-full of good ideas and the talent to capture them, to make a worth while film.

By all rights, I should have enjoyed 2001 Maniacs. It's full of graphic violence, naked girls and over-the-top performances; all the stuff I love about horror films. If you're a horror fan, I suggest you give it a try for those elements alone. It may work for you, where it didn't for me. For some reason it never connected. I'll try to figure out why in the next few paragraphs.

It may have been the horror movie cliche' of the characters getting lost on a road trip; it was especially stupid here, where there is a detour sign in the middle of a wide-open highway, and without much thought they characters follow a backwater dirt road. Where they find a small town and they're welcomed by the most extreme rednecks you've ever met, who offer them to stay for a party. As they were supposed to be on their way to Dayton Beach for a week in a beach house, I really don't think they'd bother. But they're characters in horror films, they're supposed to do stupid things, so it wasn't that.

Soon after this, one of the girls follows a "charming" southern-gentlemen out to a barn for some easy sex, but he decides to draw-and-quarter her instead. She thinks he's tying her up for something kinky, instead he rips her apart limb by limb. It's a pretty original scene, and it's pulled off neatly, with some good camera-work and grotesque special effects. It's the best death in the film, which is full of good bloody work. Overall, I was pretty pleased with the film's kills, they wimp out in a couple of scenes, but for the most part it was pretty graphic.

Robert Englund hams it up as Mayor Buckman, he relishes in the chance to be a lead character in a horror film again. Lin Shaye, who's better known for her comedy work, is a lot of fun here too; she really gets into torturing these kids. Giuseppe Andrews, who was fun in Cabin Fever, puts on a cheesy southern accent, and a cheesier southern suit, and is fun as the psychotic, ladies-man. Horror director Eli Roth has a brief cameo as a nasty hitchhiker, that could have been more fun. The rest of the cast is unknowns, and they're all uniformly terrible and forgettable. That may have been the reason, I need at least one character to connect with, and they were all way too lame to care about.

The story is pretty typical, after following the detour, a group of guys, followed by a group of girls and a biker and his babe show up in this small, hidden town. They're offered to be the guests of honor at the town's annual party. But of course their hosts have nefarious plans for them, i.e., barbecuing them for dinner. They're all dispatched in nasty ways, without putting up much of a fight. That might have been it too, there was no twist or hook, the film takes the path of least resistance, offering up nothing new.

But I've seen plenty of horror films that follow the same-old-storyline and enjoyed them more than 2001 Maniacs. It was decently directed, there are some fun camera angles; but it could have used some more pep, the newbie actors needed a kick in the butt. And I guess that's what it was, all the right horror film elements are here in the right order, but it's presented like business-as-usual, with no spirit and nothing truly compelling.

Maybe it was me, maybe I wasn't in the right mood... but I don't think so. I may give it another try in a few years, I've changed my opinions about movies before, but it's extremely rare. Like I said, if you're a horror fan, give it a chance, it may work for. For now, I'll check out the original, Two Thousand Maniacs!, directed by the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis, I have a feeling I'll enjoy it a lot more.

The trailer for this film, made it look like New Zealand's version of Napoleon Dynamite. And there is uncertainly that element at work here; the unrealistically awkward, yet lovable characters, and the overdone thrift shop set design. But there's also a more realistic tinge at work. So while you're laughing at the embarrassing situations, you're also able to fall in love with the characters.

Lily works at a fast food joint, every day she anxiously awaits the moment when Jarrod comes in to get his lunch. He's oblivious to her affections, only has eyes for the cuter girl one register over. When he leaves the cute girl an invitation to an animal party, where everyone comes dressed as their favorite animal, Lily crashes the party. She gains his attentions by beating all challengers in a cheesy-fighting video game. When they meet in the finals, she's so enamored of him that she can't bother to look at the screen. They're soon falling into bed together and begin an extremely awkward relationship.

The movie never makes clear what Lily sees in Jarrod. He's a loser like her, only so full of himself that he's oblivious. And even though he treats her like dirt, she's happy to be at his side. That's my only real complaint about the film, that they don't try to explain Lily's point of view, she blindly follows Jarrod,immediately faithful, though he's offered her nothing of substance.

Though the film starts out a little dubious,when he takes Lily home with him so he can fight the guy who used to bully him in school, we begin to learn a lot more about why he is the way he is. The film has to have the goofy training sequence where Jarrod does ridiculous things, that no real person would ever think of doing, readying for his fight. They're staying with Jarrod's family, who are all as lovably goofy as he is, each with they're own quirks.

The film starts off a goofy character piece, and I bet that's what they sold the of the making of the film on, but as Eagle vs. Shark develops, each character begins to develop and are more realistic than on first glance. The mullet and the thick-framed glasses, initially make us laugh at Jarrod, but you begin to feel sorry for him as he realizes who he is. We begin to see who Lily really is, and learn along with her that she's a much tougher person than originally thought.

This is a film that not everyone will appreciate. I doesn't remain a shallow comedy in the Napoleon Dynamite vein, where you're simply supposed to laugh at their idiocy, you're invited into their world and begin to see them as real people. Both the leads are excellent, Jarrod is played with hilarious affect by Jemaine Clement, who's also in the extremely funny HBO series, Flight of the Conchords. Loren Horsley, a relative newcomer, is Lily, keeping a perpetual smirk on her face, she seems to live and breath this character. Written & Directed by Taika Cohen, who also directs episodes of Conchords, the film shows a definite flair of talent. If you enjoy your quirk with a little bit of meaning, you have to see this film.

Watched this with my son. Great Disney classic. Beautifully animated. I love how it plays almost as a silent film at times. The death of Bambi's mother was especially painful now that I'm a parent. But I don't feel like taking the time to write a review.

I won't even bother with posting the trailer, so you'll find the brilliant Bambi vs. Godzilla short instead.

I'm writing this after the Academy Awards, even though I saw the film about a month before. (Yeah, I'm way behind.) I'm glad that all it won is Best Screenplay, I think Diablo Cody has a fresh new voice, so it was somewhat deserved. But I would have been seriously pissed if it had won best picture, I was mad that it was even nominated. Sure it's a cute little film, but it's not mind-blowing. What I'm worried about is all the Juno clones we can expect in the next few years; sassy girls, speaking hip, through some life changing situation.

All that aside, I enjoyed the film. I loved the cast. Ellen Page is amazing as Juno, she takes these mouthfuls of hipster dialogue and makes them seem natural; I really can't imagine another actress in the role. She's an amazing new talent. (Also see her in Hard Candy.) I've enjoyed Michael Cera since Arrested Development, though he's stuck in the so-nerdy-he's-cool roles, he pulls them off well. Jason Bateman and Jennifer Gardner are both wonderful as the adoptive parents; I was especially surprised by Jennifer, she showed a lot of range, and sensitivity that I didn't realize she was capable of. J.K. Simmons was a stand-out as Juno's father, it was great to see a supportive father, even though his little girl has done something very wrong.

The film is really well directed by Jason Reitman, who with this and 2005's excellent Thank You For Smoking steps out from under his father's shadow. He's now a director to watch for. It's reported he's working on another film with writer Diablo Cody. There's been a lot of hype about Diablo; how she's gone from stripper, to blogger, to Oscar winning screenwriter. I can't name the writer on 9 out of 10 films, and with her first film she's become a Hollywood star; it's all too much too soon, and it'll be all downhill for her from here. But she has my attention, I hope that she can keep up the good work and not get jaded or burnt out.

As if you didn't know, Juno is about a teenage girl getting pregnant, deciding to keep the baby, and give it up for adoption to a local couple she finds in the classifieds. This is Lifetime Network territory, but it's the way it's all handled is what makes it fresh. The film gracefully walks the line between real-life drama and hipster comedy; one minute you're laughing hysterically, the next you're tore-up inside as Juno must make another big decision. Everything about the film, from the opening animation, to the cooler-than-thou dialogue, to the hamburger phone, to the sensitive-emo-rock soundtrack scream "look at me!", but somehow they keep it low-key enough for us to relate.

Honestly in almost any other situation the film wouldn't work. I've seen a hundred other films that try very similar things, but don't hit on all cylinders the way Juno does. It's one of those magical films, that lucks into getting just about everything right. I enjoyed it more than last year's version: Little Miss Sunshine, but I'd put it lower than Rushmore and Election, which also dabbled in the highly stylized, cool-teen-nerd territory. I don't think it deserved the avalanche of attention it's gathered, but it's a nice little film, that just about anybody can enjoy; which is saying something.

I was recently complaining about the National Lampoon's series and how they do just about everything wrong within the teen-sex genre. And even though they left the original gang of Jim, Oz, Finch and Stifler behind three films ago, the American Pie series has done surprisingly well. I seriously had my doubts when they went to Band Camp, but it turned out to be a fairly funny flick, especially considering its straight-to-DVD source; the kid playing Stifler's little brother, was particularly funny. The second sequel, The Naked Mile, wasn't very good, but it had a couple of redeeming moments. I rented Beta House, because Adam & Eve left such a bad taste in my mouth. And well, in all honestly, I'll watch almost anything that involves the mix of comedy and boobs.

And sadly, Beta House, is probably the best of its type over the last year or so. I say sadly, because it's really not a very good film. It's passably funny, but makes up for it with a lot of naked flesh. So much so, that while I was watching this with my wife, I began to feel guilty, and she doesn't care about that sort of thing. So yeah, if you enjoy hot naked girls, this is a good film for you perverts out there.

The film involves the cast of characters from The Naked Mile. Erik Stifler, a cousin of the original Stifler, and one who embarrasses the family name by not being an obnoxious lout, was only visiting college in Mile, is now a college freshman. Character actor Christopher McDonald, who always seems to show up in these sort of films, has a funny bit as Erik's dad, even challenging Erik to have sex with as many girls as he did in college. Within seconds of meeting his roommate, Erik is awkwardly pulled into a three-way with his roommate and girlfriend, who the dad then proudly walks in on.

A few minutes after that, Erik uses the bathroom, which is coed of course, he meets-cute a girl who is taking a shower, while another completely naked girl walks unabashedly out of her shower. (I wish I'd lived in these dorms!) And we haven't even got to the frat party yet, run by another Stifler cousin, Dwight, also from Mile, who is much more like the original Stifler, only more suave, as the girls actually fall for his charms. More boob flashing and then some puking ensues.

The film gets completely unoriginal for the next half. When they decide to rip-off the greatest teen-sex comedy of all time, Revenge of the Nerds. The only twist being that the nerds are now the bad guys. Their college has a time honored, yet banned, tradition of putting on a Frat Olympics; with games like beer chugging and bra snapping. They make an agreement, that the losing frat must leave the college. Eugene Levy, the only character in all six American Pie films, shows up as a former frat-house legend and serves duty as the master of ceremonies. Obviously we all know who wins, the guys get the girls, more boobs are shown, and our intelligence isn't too badly damaged.

Where Adam & Eve got everything wrong, swerving terribly from chick-flick to guy comedy, Beta House does it mostly right. It starts as a guy comedy and stays a guy comedy. And while they share the same kind of juvenile humor, Beta House pulls off the same jokes so they're at least half-way funny. It's nowhere near a comedy classic, I won't ever bother to rent it again, but if I came across it on cable I'd probably give it a few minutes. If you're desperate for comedy and/or naked girls, you could do worse. - Grade: C+

I was pretty jazzed by the original teaser for Cloverfield. It looked like a well done mix of Godzilla and The Blair Witch Project, which intrigued me. Plus the fact that J.J. Abrams was producing it; pretty much everything he touches these days, is at the very least entertaining. The film got pretty hyped in the days leading up to it, I was hoping that we didn't have another Snakes on the Plane situation on our hands, where the hype far outweighed the quality of the film.

I'm good at discerning the quality of a film from the trailer, so I had much more confidence in Cloverfield, than I ever did in Snakes. Enough so, that I made the rare trip out for an opening night. It seemed like the rare movie that would be better with a big and excited audience; I usually don't like to be around a bunch of teenagers talking through a film. But it proved useful afterwards as well, because while I loved the movie, I heard a lot of people complaining about it. So it gave me an immediate sense of how the film would split its audience.

Most of the complaints seemed to be about the downer of an ending and the non-explanation for the monster. Which I was thought was the right choice, they leave enough clues within the film for you to come up with your own good theory. If the film stopped to take the time to spell out exactly what was going on, it would have taken you out of the excitement, and ultimately it would have closed all the discussions that followed.

I love that the entire film takes place from one video camera (even if it has the longest running camera battery in history), the film cuts by having those carrying the camera turn it off. There was only one scene, where I thought this didn't work. They even cleverly add to the story by having the monster footage cut out every once and a while, to a great day between the main guy and his girlfriend, which is been recorded over, and even gives it a bit of a happy ending. Cloverfield is the military code-name for the tape found abandoned in former Central Park, so we're apparently watching it along with some General somewhere.

The film starts at a going away party for Rob, who is leaving New York for Japan the next day. Things go awry when there is a large explosion on the other side of the island. Those at the party move out on to the street, where things have started to go bat-shit. The characters make their way out of the city, when the Brooklyn bridge is knocked down while they're starting across it, an incredible sequence. Rob gets a call from his girlfriend, who has been trapped in her apartment; he and his small group decide to go save her, which gives them a good excuse to stay in the city. Things get much worse from there, they continue to run into the monster and the military which is losing the battle.

Everything is seen only from the one camera's point-of-view, which is passed between the group, it gives the film a limited scope, but it also manages to make you believe in this giant monster attacking New York story. There are only a couple of money shots of the monster, mostly you hear the destruction or see it from afar. There are also a large number of smaller monsters that seem to be dropping off the large one, which then chase people down, there's a particularly good scene involving them chasing the characters through a dark subway tube, lit only by the camera light.

Cloverfield is a great concept for a generation obsessed with YouTube, where everyone seems to have a camera recording every moment of their life. The film takes that concept into blockbuster territory, with big ideas and top-notch special effects. The film is far better than the crappy remake of Godzilla and Peter Jackson's bloated version of King Kong, which might just make it the best American giant monster movie, since the original King Kong. While it originally split audiences, I think the film is slightly before it's time, and that it will go down as a genre classic.

I was stoked when I first heard about this movie. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later), is one of the most interesting filmmakers working these days. And to hear that he was making an ambitious sci-fi film, was music to my mind. There aren't enough smart sci-fi films, it's a genre too little explored. Most sci-fi films follow the Star Wars mode; adventure films in a sci-fi setting, which is fine, I enjoy them as well. But I like to see films, that generate new ideas about what may lie ahead for mankind.

When Sunshine was released, it was fairly trashed by the critics. Everyone kept comparing it to Event Horizon, which I thought was an under-appreciated sci-fi/horror film, but not what I was hoping for. The bad press was enough to dissuade me from seeing it in theaters, a decision I now regret.

Sunshine isn't a new sci-fi classic, and it does share a thematic similarity to Event Horizon, but it's a much better film; well directed, beautifully shot, and great performances from everyone involved. Most importantly it actually makes you think. Sure the idea of the sun dying and being restarted with a man-made explosion, seems a little Armageddon-ish, but it's the way it's handled that makes it seem more serious and plausible.

The film conveys the overwhelming sense of their purpose, that if they fail, it means the end of the world. You get a sense of the loneliness of deep space, so when they need to make a decision about traveling off course, it really means something epic. And the last scene is so beautifully realized, it might just give you chills.

The film has a great international cast, in a mission to save the world, you'd expect to have many different countries represented. Cillian Murphy, is the star of the film; but it also includes great work from Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Rose Byrne, and I never thought I'd say this but Chris Evans. I'm used to him hamming it up, and getting by on his pretty boy looks in crap like The Fantastic Four, but this gives him some hope as an actor, he has a couple of good moments, where he serves as the cold-calculating scientific mind.

Sunshine, isn't a great film; it has too many flaws and a few plot holes that will never allow it to become a classic. But as time goes on, I think that people will appreciate it for what it is. It is another interesting film to add to Danny Boyle's resume, I'm glad that with each film, he tries something new; from family films to horror. I'd love to see him explore sci-fi again, but whatever he makes, I'm there.

This is an awful waste of a film. I wouldn't have bothered to have even finished it if I'd rented it, I would have sent it back for another film, since it was on our DVR, I decided to stick it out. But it took me 4 excruciating sittings, when it's only about 90 minutes long. Once upon a time the National Lampoon's label meant something good, Animal House and Vacation being the best of the bunch. Now all they produce is straight-to-video schlock, hoping to lure us in with sexy girls in skimpy clothing on the covers.

I keep watching them for some reason, hoping for some glimmer of that former glory, but mainly because I'm desperate for comedies. I'm always in the mood for some laughs to take my mind of the day. Adam & Eve didn't do the trick, it was too wretchedly stupid to provide more than a few measly chuckles. Mainly I was groaning and rolling my eyes at the film's poor attempts at humor.

I grew up on these type of Disney films. During the late 60's, 70's, and much of the 80's they made a ton of these family films; stuff like Herbie the Love Bug, The Shaggy Dog, and The Parent Trap. Before the days of cable and videos, the Sunday Night Movie on ABC was a big deal, one of the few places you could catch up with all these Disney "classics". I've never seen The Cat from Outer Space, I'd heard of it, but never had any real interest in seeing it. Until my son picked it out on DVD as a Christmas present to me.

The film is a harmless way to waste 90 minutes. It's not good, but not bad either. The movie is about a UFO getting stuck on earth, the captain of the ship is an alien shaped exactly like an Earth-bound cat. The one feature that makes him unique is his magical collar, which gives him psychokinetic abilities and he's able speak by transporting his thoughts directly into people's brains. He leaves his spaceship in search for a part not yet invented by humans.

His best hope is Frank, a Government scientist working on the prospects of new transportation methods. The cat reveals himself to Frank, and the two quickly become an unlikely friends. He names the cat Jake and is soon using him to pick up his fellow scientist Elizabeth, played by the perky Sandy Duncan, who is a cat lover. With the help of Frank's alcoholic neighbor, the trio do their best to get Jake's ship up and running. In their way stands an Army General, played by Harry Morgan of M.A.S.H. fame, who's in charge finding out who's behind the stranded spaceship.

The group use Jake's collar to rig horse races, football games and mobster run pool games, all done in good fun, to raise money to buy the supplies they need to build the part. There are some fun flying sequences, including Frank and Jake on a bike, years before E.T.. The film ends happy and predictable.

It was refreshing to watch a family film with none of the gross slapstick jokes that prevail today's movies. No doubt if they remade it, the cat would be CG'd, sass-talk everyone in sight, and fart his way through every situation. If you have young ones at home, or are a major cat lover, this is a fun little movie. Otherwise keep on moving, there's nothing of real substance here.

If I had to sum up this movie with one phrase, it'd be this: Run Lola Run on pot. It has the frantic pace of Lola, mixed with the marijuana themed goofiness of Harold & Kumar. Director Greg Araki is known for experimental-indie films, with a lot of homosexual themes. So it was sort of odd to see that he had "stooped" to a comedy best experienced in an altered state.

But right away I had a feeling that his specific filmmaking skills would lend itself well to the genre defined by Cheech & Chong. His films have always had a very strange feel to them, he has a unique view on the world, that he captures well with beautiful, offbeat photography.

The other main reason I wanted to see Smiley Face was for Anna Farris. I enjoyed her comedic stylings in the Scary Movie series, which quickly became unworthy of her talents. She's been great in smaller roles as well, but never had a lead role all to her own. Anna proves herself a comedy star here. She throws herself completely into this role of the slacker-stoner, who gets herself into a never ending series of calamities.

Anna plays Jane, a struggling actress, who spends most of her time sitting around the house getting stoned. When her roommate, played by Danny Masterson, in a role actually nothing like his 70's Show Hyde, leaves some pot-cupcakes sitting in their fridge; not knowing her roommate is also into pot, she gobbles them all up serious state of munchies. When it all hits her, she realizes that she has a bunch of fairly simple errands to run, but in her extremely baked state they seem monumental. There's a hilarious bit, where she gets in her car and all the horrible concisenesses that could befall her while behind the wheel, storm her mind.

From there it quickly goes downhill. She bumbles her way through the days tasks, with things getting worse and worse, and running into a bunch of odd folks, played by a great cast of cameos; including Adam Brody as her drug dealer, John Krasinski as a dweeby-guy who worships her, and Harold himself John Cho, gives her a helpful ride in his truck. But Anna is definitely the star of the film, she's utterly hilarious throughout. Most of the film's gags are worth a laugh, with a few falling flat; but of course the film will work better if you're in Jane's state-of-mind.

I'd have to say that Smiley Face might be the best made pot comedy yet; usually these sorts of films aren't that well made; they're simply in it for the cheap jokes. Director Greg Araki, uses his abstract mind to fill the movie with top-notch weirdness. The film ends with a bit of moral downer, that's unusual for the genre, and might be a bit discouraging to real stoners. But if you're into these sorts of films, you have to check it out.

I thought the first Resident Evil was decent, in a crappy story, overcome by fun effects, good photography and cool zombie-action, type way. The second was pure crap, I watched it once and trashed it from my memory almost immediately. I still had to watch the third one because: #1: It's a zombie film. - I try to watch all of them. #2: It's an end-of-the-world film. - Again, I try to watch all of them. #3: It had Milla Jovovich in it. - I've been a big fan of hers since The Fifth Element, even if she's been stuck in crappy sci-fi/kung-fu flicks for the last few years.

Extinction is a major step up from the second film, so much so that it makes the series relevant again. As a film it's about equal to the first, but the breadth of the scope makes it more interesting. By now the virus that kills everything in it's path, has spread across the world. And I like that it literally kills everything, humans, animals, even plants. The world has become a desert, where even the birds are dangerous zombies. There is almost no hope for the human race.

Milla's Alice has become like Mel Gibson in The Road Warrior, constantly on the move because nowhere is safe, always searching for food and gas, staying alive any way she can. And just like in The Road Warrior she runs across a group of survivors that reluctantly let her help them. The remaining pieces of the Umbrella Corporation, who created the virus, are after Alice for her mutated DNA, which may offer some hope for a cure. The leader of the search has more nefarious plans for her.

It all comes to a head in the sand-covered remains of Las Vegas. Alice and the survivors must stop there for gas on their way to Alaska, there's rumors of life still there, and the Umbrella Corporation leaves a trap for them in the form of a few hundreds zombies. This is where the film loses most of what it had going for it, by becoming a mindless shoot-out where you can barely follow what's what. If they had stuck to more of a low-key approach to everything, with story leading the way, like the first two acts, the film could have been a high-mark in the zombie genre.

I appreciate what they were trying to do in Extinction, to make a more serious film out of what had devolved into mindless video game adaptation. The zombies are cool, I particularly liked the animal versions. The action scenes are well done for the most part, and Milla has her role down pat. The other characters are completely forgettable, including the usually cool Ali Larter, which also could have made it a better film, if there was somebody other than Milla to care about. Of course they left the film open to another sequel, and if they keep the filmmakers from this one, I'm interested in seeing it. If you ever wanted to see the zombie version of a Mad Max film, this is it.

Wow! This film hit me like a ton of bricks. For so long filmmakers have been remaking Friday the 13th into various states of disappointment. Using the archetype of teenagers in the woods getting killed off by some sort of psychopathic monster to create a few memorable horror films like Sleepaway Camp and a whole mess of crappy ones. So when I heard about Hatchet, I didn't think much of it, just another crappy try at the Friday the 13th thing that I'd forget five minutes after it was over.

The film opens with the pretty standard gag, of having a horror icon cameo, in this case it was Freddy himself, Robert Englund, getting killed in the first few minutes. What grabbed me was the use of gore, usually after someone gets killed in one of these crappy horror films, it's over in a second, or not shown at all. But the filmmakers went to great care to get down and nasty here, ripping limbs off and having guts spill everywhere. The whole point of these films is to see people get killed in disgusting ways, and they do that extremely well in Hatchet.

The film moves to Marti Gras, where are hero Ben, played by Joel Moore (currently in the awful looking Hottie & the Nottie), is having an awful time. He's bored of the drunkenness and the bare breasts. Why? Because his longtime girlfriend just broke up with him... but who cares, let's get to some more carnage! After another cameo from the Candyman, Tony Todd; Ben and his friend Marcus, played by Kenny from the Cosby Show, are unwittingly lead into the swamp by a con-artist running his first boat tour. Also on board are a dim-witted redneck couple, a shlubby guy directing a porno and his two slutty actresses, to make sure there are a couple of titty-shots, and a hot-loner-girl with hidden motives.

After they predictably crash their swamp boat in the very spot that Robert Englund was killed a few scenes earlier; the film kicks into high gear. It turns out the loner-girl is Robert's daughter, she's looking for him and her brother who went missing in Victor Crowley territory a few days back. She tells the tale of local legend Crowley, a retarded-mutant boy, who only knew the love of his father, and was then accidentally killed by his father thanks to a couple of jokesters who set their cabin on fire. He now haunts the swamp surrounding his burnt down shack.

The redneck husband breaks his leg, and being skeptical of the girl's story, him and his wife make their way to the only visible home, despite the other's warnings. In an instant Crowley pops out of his cabin and is upon them like a rabid dog. Both are dispatched in gruesome ways, including maybe the best kill I've ever seen in any movie of this type; he grabs the wife by the mouth and splits her head open like a Pez dispenser. The group splits up and runs terrified off into the woods. I was pumped for how Crowley was going to get the rest of them. The filmmakers don't wimp out on a single one in the group, each has their own disgusting death. When only two are left, you can probably guess who, they decide that striking back is their only means of survival. They're successful to a degree only possible in horror films, and the film ends with an appropriate shocker and satisfying "twist".

Writer/Director Adam Green announces himself as a major new talent in the horror genre. Even though he offers nothing really new, he get everything right in Hatchet. The tone successfully jumps from scary, to funny in the blink of an eye. He pushes his effects crew to gross out the viewer, but keeps it campy enough, that it's not disgusting, more nastily humorous. His creation of Victor Crowley, is the best mutant-psycho since the days of Freddy, Michael Myers and Jason; with him appropriately played by Jason's stunt-man Kane Hodder.

I haven't heard much about this film, outside die-hard horror fans, but I think now that it's on video more people will discover it's sickening genius. I wouldn't be surprised to see a sequel within a few years and for Victor Crowley to turn into the next Jason Vorhees with a whole series of ever worsening Hatchet flicks.