How this movie escaped my attention for so long is kind of a mystery. Well, not really much of a mystery, as the film was never released in theaters and languished on VHS until September of 2008, that's when Netflix recommended it to me. What the mystery is, is how I didn't even know it's name. As a huge Bruce Campbell fan, how could I never have heard of an early horror-comedy of this caliber, with him in a prime role? I've been through his IMDb page countless times, trying to find a hidden gem, that I haven't yet seen, but I don't ever remember seeing this title. It sits unassumingly at #77 between Maniac Cop 2 and The Dead Next Door. Now that's not to say that Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, is some kind of hidden classic, but it's a very worthy addition to Campbell's resume, and is probably better than 90% of his other films, which admittedly isn't saying much. But as a Bruce Campbell fan it's a must see.

Bruce doesn't show up until about 20 minutes into the film, but the film is full of cult actors, most notably David Carradine as the head vampire Count Mardulak. The film also features Morgan Brittany, Maxwell Caulfield, Deborah Foreman, John Ireland, but it's M. Emmet Walsh that gets the first big laugh. He and his vampire brothers sit on a swing, wearing sunglasses and bonnets, watching a Jeep approach their gas station. Walsh takes his sweet time, applying a handful of sunscreen, before making his way out to pump gas. When the Jeep's owner gets impatient with this ridiculous looking old man, he gets his head knocked clean off. It's a cheesy gag, but it works for a joke.

A whole group of new-age vampires have moved out west to the tiny desert town of Purgatory, where they've taken over and want to live a quiet life. And thanks to the miracle of sunscreen, vampires can venture outside during the day. They've also stopped feeding on the blood of living humans, instead they have a synthetic blood that a factory in town manufactures. For decency sake, the town's sheriff puts Walsh into jail for a few days to cool him down, although he could break out any second, due to his tremendous strength.

Salvation is on its way to town in the form of David Harrison and his very human family. His expertise is going to help streamline the factory's output of synthetic blood. They're in no real danger from the town-full of vampires, except for Ethan and his faction of outsiders, who want to go back to the way things were. Amongst the baddies is Sarah Harrison's ex-lover, the sleazy Shane, who wants nothing more than to convert Sarah, and live out an eternity of sinfulness. There's a hilarious scene right after the family arrives in town, where Shane flies into Sarah's room and attacks her vampire-bat style. The effects are pretty awful here, a badly done stop-animation bat, flying over a fuzzily matted Morgan Brittney flaying away. It looks worse than something Ray Harryhausen was creating twenty years before, but it adds to the cheesy charm of the film.

Bruce Campbell ambles into town around this time, stopping at a small diner, he immediately falls for the beautiful vampiress Sandy White, a name more fitting a 50's sitcom, but they're trying to be ironic. We soon learn that he's a descendant of Van Helsing, attempting to finish his great-grandfather's life work. His mission doesn't last long, before he's turned into a vampire himself, with an over-the-top comic performance that only Bruce Campbell could get away with. (See directly below.) Before long the family finds themselves in the middle of a vampire war. On one side is David Carradine teaming up with Bruce Campbell to fight for the good vampires, on the other side is Ethan, Shane and their henchmen full of character clichés throughout the ages, including pirates, cowboys and punk-rockers.



This battle takes up the last 30 minutes of the film and it really grows tiresome. Since they live in a desert in the west, they have to fight it out Western style, wood bullets providing the kills. It's entertaining at first, but by the time they show the 1000th smoky shot fired, with a stunt-man falling cinematically to the ground, it brings this otherwise fun film to a screeching halt. The cheesy dialog, performed by charismatic B-actors has ended, the goofy special effects are gone, vampires pretending to be something they're not, over; in its place is the entire cast lined up, firing blanks at one another.

If you're into forgotten films, if you're into B-films or cheesy horror-comedies with or without Bruce Campbell, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat is fun enough to recommend. The first two acts of the film are quite entertaining. The filmmaking, except for the special effects, is quite good throughout. The film is nicely shot in widescreen to take advantage of the beautiful desert scenery. The film is full of great character actors, having a lot of fun playing sun-drenched vampires. But you can't call something a cult classic, when the whole final act of the film leaves you with the taste of boredom in your mouth. If they'd found another way to end it, I might have heard of it a lot sooner. - Grade: C+

The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is one of my favorite sci-fi plot devices. The idea of aliens taking over earth, by appearing to be our loved ones, is a wonderfully creepy idea. In 1998 I couldn't have been a much bigger Robert Rodriguez fan, after the great start to his career with El Mariachi, Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn, I thought the guy could do no wrong behind the camera. Kevin Williamson, who'd burst onto the scene with the brilliant Scream, wrote the script. Bringing these elements together for The Faculty, was an almost ideal situation for me at the time. I remember excitedly trekking to the theater, only to be very let down by an extremely average sci-fi/horror film.

Nothing about it jumped out at me. It felt like Rodriguez had been neutered, none of his style or panache was present in The Faculty, and I lost a lot of respect for him that day. I don't know how Rodriguez felt about the film, but he seemed to take it hard as well. I think the studio system got to him, they beat his creativity down and it took three years for him to make another film. By far the longest he's gone between films, he's released almost one a year since then, sometimes two. His next film was Spy Kids, and even though it was made for children, it felt like a Rodriguez film. And although he's made some stinkers since then, some films worse than The Faculty, all of them have that Rodriguez stamp to them.

It took me 10 years to revisit The Faculty, it played on HBO during one of their free weekends, and I figured, why not? And you know what, without all those expectations I really enjoyed it. I still think it lacks a lot of that fun Rodriguez filmmaking style, the camera-work and editing is extremely static compared to most of his other films. What I enjoyed about it most, was the freedom he gives his actors.

Robert Patrick is deliciously evil as the football coach and first faculty member to be turned into an alien. Bebe Neuwirth, a veteran character actress, seems to be having a blast in this B-movie. Jon Stewart has maybe his finest acting role, which isn't saying much, as the science teacher who is incredibly excited about the new species found by his students. Salma Hayek, unfortunately doesn't have a ton to do, but stand around in the background and look hot. Famke Janssen has maybe the best role in the film, as the quiet English teacher, who turns into a femme-fatale once the aliens take over her body.

If you've read this blog at all, you know I'm a huge zombie fan. Of course it all started with Night of the Living Dead, zombie movies I mean, not my obsession. Although I do remember a childhood viewing of Night that freaked the hell out of me. My zombie fetish actually started with Return of the Living Dead, I must have watched it 20 times when I was younger, and it's still my all-time-favorite. It's the film that should be credited with the first "fast-zombies", not 28 Days Later, as everyone wrongly says.

But I should be talking about the old, lumbering, shoot-em-in-the-head zombies, that George A. Romero invented and made famous in Night, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead. Each of which, I've seen numerous times and love for different reasons. I love how Night sets up the new zombie invasion, we're just learning about and dealing with them for the first time. In Dawn, humanity is fighting and losing the war against the zombies. In Day, the zombies have won, and we're stuck with one of humanities last outcrops, trying to figure out a way to turn back the tide.

I saw Land of the Dead in theaters a few years back and wasn't totally impressed. Mostly because I didn't totally understand where the film fit into the series. Running across the film in the DVD discount bin, I couldn't pass up completing my collection. Watching it a second time, I actually appreciated the film much more. It's still nowhere near perfect, but it continues the story much better than I first believed, and Romero's idea of having the zombies learn and organize made sense. It's the next step in their evolution, and they're ending the war with the living for good.

Romero has never been a filmmaker that's impressed me with his style. He has a classic technique, letting story dictate the pace, the shots, and the look of the film. It's just enough to bring you into his messed-up-world. With Land of the Dead he really lets the actors carry the film, something which most horror films don't do, and they're mostly up to the challenge, offering up some fully realized characters. Simon Baker as Riley, wants to make a life outside of the city, away from the corruption that has overtaken what's left of society. John Leguizamo, as Cholo, is out for himself, always looking for a score, and wants to join the elite. Dennis Hopper, has some fun as the evil leader Kaufman, he gets a chance to chew some cheesy zombie dialog. The always entertaining Asia Argento, is a girl, who is simply trying to survive in this dog-eat-dog world.

I've always liked how Romero focuses on a few main characters among the world's chaos, it brings it to a much more personal level. With Land, he also focuses on a hero-zombie, the one that's smarter than the rest, that leads them into battle, that can figure out problems and seems to have feelings. It's a new wrinkle to the zombie genre; something he started with Bub in Day, but here you get a much better sense of where this world is headed. Although I enjoyed Land of the Dead more this time around, I'd still consider it the weakest entry into his zombie series. (I haven't seen Diary of the Dead yet.) But it's an interesting take on the genre, that probably won't be appreciated beyond anyone that enjoys zombie films. - Grade: C+ (Seen on 7/5/08)

Michael Gondry is a filmmaker I've had my eye on for quite sometime. In 2001 he made an extremely offbeat comedy, Human Nature, that didn't totally work, but it had such outrageous ideas that it caught my attention. He started out as a commercial and music video director, making my all time favorite video in 2003, The Hardest Button to Button by The White Stripes. In 2004, from a script by the brilliantly-demented Charlie Kaufman, he directed one of the greatest romantic comedies ever, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His next film, The Science of Sleep, was again a bit uneven, but presented a bunch of way out there moments, that made it definitely worth seeing.

When I heard about the plot for Be Kind Rewind I thought it would be the perfect vehicle for him to explore his tendency to incorporates different film aesthetics and animation styles into his films. Including stop-motion effects, which is a favorite of mine. What better way to get into all these different styles than to "remake" a bunch of Hollywood classics with Jack Black and Mos Def at the helm? And those scenes, especially the classic Ghostbusters remake, are the highlight of the film.

It's the rest of the film which takes place in the "real world", that lacks luster, isn't completely cohesive, and most disappointing of all, boring. I haven't been bored by a Gondry film yet, sure I've been put off by things that didn't work, but there was always something strange enough going on to keep it interesting. But the story about Danny Glover losing his video store to corporate developers wasn't fresh, there wasn't enough drama built to make me care. (And honestly it's not surprising he's losing the store, renting out VHS tapes, in a DVD/Netflix age.)

But there's enough of Jack Black messing around in front of the camera, playing everyone from Miss Daisy to Jackie Chan in Rush Hour 2, to keep the film interesting. Gondry's filmmaking styles flourish when he's focusing on the oddball aspects of the film, but when they're trying to wring some drama out of the been-there, seen-it-before plot, it's too tired to work. Danny Glover and Mia Farrow, who I've always respected, drag down every scene they're in. Sigorney Weaver, makes an appearance towards the end of the film, brings some life to the losing the store plot, but it's way too late. The amateur movie moments are fun, but they're not cohesive; jumping back and forth between inspired movie-making scenes to boring drama. Be Kind Rewind is too uneven to truly work as a film. - Grade: C+ (Seen on 7/4/08)

There's a delicate art to creating movie gore. First the filmmakers have to decide what kind of tone they want to set; realistic, scary, gross, funny, or a combination. Then they have to decide how they want to use it, a little shown just right can be extremely effective ala Seven, you use too much, the audience can become numb too it, like by the time the girl's getting her eye blow-torched in Hostel, it's become humorous. Sometimes filmmakers want to go all out, and make a movie pretty much all about the gore, see how far they can push it, see how many ways they can come up with destroying the human body. The Italians relished in it during the 70's, now the Japanese hold the market. (Examples: Tokyo Gore Police, The Story of Ricky, or Ichi the Killer.) Machine Girl is one of the better and more original gore films I've seen.

Ami is a high school basketball star, who takes care of her younger brother Yu, because they're parents are dead. When Yu gets killed by the school bully, and son of the local Yakuza boss, Ami goes nuts and starts killing off everyone who was even slightly involved. She's captured by the Yakuza, gets tortured and her arm chopped off, but manages to escape with her life. She stumbles upon the doorstep of Yu's best-friend's parents house, whose son was killed along with Yu. The father, an ace mechanic builds Ami a machine gun arm, and soon the two mom's team up to take down the Yakuza in the bloodiest way possible.

People are tortured, maimed and killed in just about every possible way you could think of, and quite a few ways you never would think of. Guys are sliced and diced with knives, swords and chainsaws, they're shot with Gatling guns inches from their face, Ninja stars fly furiously, at one point Ami gets her arm deep fried in tempura and then she's attacked later by a woman with a drill-bra. Yes, a bra, that has large drills covering each breast; I must say, it's one of the most inventive weapons I've ever seen. The filmmakers make sure to show every bloody detail of every single attack, ramping up the gore to the maximum effect. A small cut to the neck, will shoot off like a fire hose. When somebody's shot in the face, the entire skull is exposed, white eyes bugging out, while they scream in pain.

The Machine Girl is one of the bloodiest films I've ever seen, but I didn't get squeamish even once, none of it can be taken seriously in the least, it's all over-the-top cartoon violence. Writer/director Noboru Iguchi, doesn't want to get us sick, he wants to push the envelope and makes us laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. At times the gore is top-notch, but they also rely too much on cheap computer effects that don't sell the gooshy-red stuff in the same way. It's too bad that the rest of the film does't hold up, they try their damndest, but the rest of the film is a bit weak. It could have been shot with more style, the editing lags at moments, and even for a film this stylisticy goofy, the acting ranges from barely tolerable to painfully bad. But if you're into weird or violent films, you could do much worse, it's worth watching just for the hundreds of gory deaths. - Grade: C+ (Seen on 7/1/08)

I recently reviewed a pair of French comedies, complaining about the lack of good American comedies lately. These two films here are exactly what I'm talking about. I won't even bother to separate them as they both have all the same problems. In the completely unnecessary remake of The Pink Panther, Steve Martin puts on a ridiculous French accent to play the role of Inspector Jacques Clouseau. Originally made famous and a thousand times funnier, by the comedy-genius Peter Sellers. You can practically smell the desperation in the filmmakers attempts to make us laugh. Steve Martin, who himself once was an incredibly funny man, making stupid comedy seem brilliant, in films like The Jerk. Seems lost in how to make a joke work as Clouseau. He simply pumps everything up to 11; the stupidity of his character is so far out there, it's no longer funny.

I felt the exact same way about Robin Williams in License to Wed. This often intensely hilarious actor, seems out of his depth. I didn't find myself laughing once at his portrayal as Reverend Frank. His nonsensical ideas on how to bring Mandy Moore and John Krasinski together as a couple, didn't once seem genuine. There has to be at least a certain sense of reality, when trying to make us laugh. Krasinski, who I find very funny and charismatic on the great show The Office, seems demeaned to be playing this guy set to be married to the ultra-bland Moore. He does the cliche' romantic-comedy thing, of constantly lying to his partner, performing ridiculous often illegal acts, getting himself deeper into trouble, when a moment of truth would resolve everything.

Poor Kevin Kline and Jean Reno, both great performers in their own rights, couldn't have been more obvious in their lackadaisical approaches to their characters. They both seemed embarrassed to be part of the mess that is The Pink Pather. Emily Mortimer, who plays Clouseau's love interest, is the only one that had any realistic attachment to her character, but she's in the film so briefly that she can't help. Beyonce, once again does her, "look Mom, I'm acting!", thing that I can't stand. The only performances with any life to be found in License to Wed, were done by some of the bit roles. I like young Josh Flitter as the Reverend's aid, he brings some life to his character, and out funnies Williams. Brian Baumgartner, Kevin from The Office, is maniacally over-the-top as another finance going through Reverend Frank's trials, but he at least seems to be trying to get some laughs.

The filmmakers behind these two extremely lame attempts at comedic filmmaking should be embarrassed by these movies. They are sloppily put together, with no real sense of zest, horribly acted by reliable performers, and worse beyond anything, not funny. I think between these two films, I had three slight chuckles, but countless groans at the pathetic attempts at humor. Not once was I drawn into the film or made to care about anyone in the least, I remained a distant viewer throughout each. The only worthwhile moment in either film is the opening credits animation in The Pink Panther, because it reminded me of the better versions of the film. - Grade: C- (Seen on 6/4/08) License to Wed plain sucked throughout. - Grade: D- (Seen on 6/15/08)

This was a film I'd never heard of before, but when I ran across it on IFC, it sounded like my kind of movie. A dark-comedy about an alien invasion, made during the 80's. Unfortunately it's one of those "almost" films, where it's almost a good film, almost a cult-classic, but something is missing. Strange Invaders has a lot of the right ingredients, but it was thrown together a little sloppily, cooked at too high a temperature, so the final product isn't totally appealing.

The film starts in 1955, in a small town in Illinois. There's a young couple making out in a truck, when unseen to them a large spaceship lands near town. When the boy goes home, there are some strange lights, a creepy shadow of a hand, a scream, and the film cuts to 1983, New York City. Charles is hanging out at home, when his ex-wife and daughter show up. His ex asks him to watch their kid, while she goes home for a few days to help her mother. When she doesn't come back for a couple of weeks, and he can't get a hold of her, he begins to seriously worry. He leaves his daughter with grandma, and drives out to the same small town we saw at the beginning of the film.

Everything still looks very 1950's. But that's the least of Charles worries, when he starts to ask around town, nobody has ever heard of his wife or her family. This seems extremely strange in a town so small. He's about to leave town, when his car breaks down. He stops for a bite to eat, when suddenly there's a laser blast and his car is blown up, and there's a mob outside the restaurant looking very menacing. He does the sensible thing and jumps out the back window, stealing a car from the lot, and begins to tear out of town. On his way out, he catches a glimpse of what looks like an alien, who shoots some kind of death ray, from his face no less, at him as he speeds away, only catching the tail of his car. This is one of the best scenes in the film, and a good set-up for what I hoped would be a fun flick the rest of the way.

When Charles gets back to New York, he tries to get the government involved, but of course nobody believes him, writing him off as a nut-case. That's when he sees a photo in a cheesy tabloid of an alien that looks very much like the one he saw. He visits the paper, where he meets Betty, played by 80's hottie Nancy Allen, who after her own run-in with some weird alien activity believes Chuck's story. Soon they have a gaggle of aliens chasing them through the city, trying to stop their story from getting out any further. Mostly the aliens keep their human disguises, but when they do reveal themselves, the effects are pretty well done.

When the film takes a turn towards a more modern, alien-action-chase, the movie kind of falls apart. They lose most of the comedy that was keeping the film lively, and the filmmaking isn't exciting enough to keep you on the edge of your seat, the way they intended. By this point it's pretty obvious what truly happened to Charles ex-wife, so the film loses the mystery long before the truth is revealed, leaving the ending fairly anti-climatic.

The first half of the film is a throw back to the old sci-fi films of the 1950's. A nice tone is set between loving tribute and straight-up spoof. I thought I was getting into a forgotten cult-classic, but the second half ruins it. It's not terrible, mostly it's the tonal change from spoof to "intense" chase thriller, that didn't work for me. I liked the lead actors; Nancy Allen is always cute on the run. And it was cool to see Paul Le Mat, best known as John Milner from American Graffiti, get a lead role, he has some good leading-man charisma. The sci-fi effects for a low-budget 80's film are fairly well done, the filmmakers knew what they could and couldn't do, so they use them effectively. Strange Invaders might be worth seeing if you're into dark-comedies and/or 1950's alien invasion films. - Grade: C (Seen on 6/4/08)

There's almost nothing worse than when a movie falls apart at the very end. It makes it seem like such a waste, when you've been enjoying a film all along, and then the filmmakers do something so stupid to ruin all the good faith they've built up. Shrooms is just that type of film. For a low-budget horror film, I thought it was pretty well made, with some good photography, decent acting by a bunch of nobodies, a fairly interesting twist on the horror genre, a couple of cool trippy scenes, and it's all completely ruined by a last minute, unnecessary twist, that tore apart everything that I'd just seen.

Shrooms starts like a lot of horror films with a group of kids going into the woods to camp, take drugs and fornicate; and end up getting chopped into piece instead. What made it work for a good portion of the film is the care that the filmmakers take to make these cliche's somewhat different. The death scenes aren't fantastic, but the killer chasing them is made interesting by the fact that these kids are tripping out of their minds, so you're not quite sure if what they're seeing is real or a hallucination.

Each murder is telegraphed by the main girl Tara, who took some kind of super-shroom that should have killed her, but instead gave her the ability to see her friends gruesome deaths in advance. There seems to be some sort of black-hooded specter floating around these Irish woods, relishing in in the chance to chop them to bits. It also may be as simple as some mutated-redneck with a penchant for blood, which they strongly hint towards, by having a couple of backwoods brothers show up halfway through the film talking about their other crazy brother. But in the end the answer is even stupider, and ultimately doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense, in the way the killer is everywhere at once.

If they hadn't bothered with the last minute twist, I would have enjoyed Shrooms so much more. They should have left the murders a bit of a mystery, not giving us a firm grasp on what actually happened. Having a bunch of tripping-teenagers as our unreliable P.O.V. would have made it different and more ambitious. The film is nicely made, with some good, dark photography, trippy editing and creepy effects. It's also fairly funny in spots, I particularly like the talking cow scene, I thought it was pretty inspired. But ultimately a film is the sum of all its parts, and the stupid tacked on ending ruined, what could have been a decent little cult classic. - Grade: C- (Seen on 5/23/08)

(Seen on 5/20/08) I was fairly stoked to see this film. It had received good reviews and I like Steve Carrell as an actor. I was expecting to see to a smart, well made romantic dramedy. The film is almost there, it has a lot of the right ingredients, but ultimately, it never clicked for me. Too much of the film felt false, so I couldn't buy into this slightly ridiculous story.

Carrell is Dan Burns, an advice columnist, with three daughters and a dead wife. It's time for the Burns family reunion, so he throws his daughters in the car and heads out to the Rhode Island coast to his parents picture perfect home. On a trip into town, he meets-cute with a beautiful woman in a book store. When she asks him to help find her some books, he pretends to work there and helps her find some books. I appreciated that the rouse didn't blow up in his face, like so many films, but instead he plays it off, and the two have a wonderful talk, where he tells her all about his life. Marie is the first woman he's met, that's truly interested him since his wife died a few years before. Despite the obvious connection, she suddenly decides to take off. Before she drives away, Dan gets up the courage to ask her out and that's when she tells him she's already seeing someone.

This being a predictable romantic comedy, they meet up a short while later at Dan's parent's house, where he discovers his younger, irresponsible brother is dating her. This leads to many awkward moments between Dan, Marie and the rest of the family. There are a number of ridiculous movie-only moments; such as Dan and Marie ending up in the shower together, while Dan's oldest daughter is having a heart-to-heart with Marie. So much of film doesn't feel right, this is an only-in-the-movies kind of family; the whole weekend, they're constantly doing something like playing backyard football, practicing yoga together, or having a family talent show. This family is too picture perfect. Diane Wiest and John Mahoney, who've played parents in a combined 612 movies, once again show up as the all knowing, sweet as pie mom and dad, who always have exactly the right thing to say.

The movie is fairly entertaining, it is full of great actors who take these unreal situations and sell them to the best of their abilities. Carrell is his usual awkwardly-charming, hilarious self. Juliette Binoche doesn't have to stretch too much to be the perfect woman, she's beautiful and enchanting. Dane Cook, who plays younger brother Mitch, is the only one I really didn't like in the film; I've never bought him as an actor and proves again he doesn't have the chops. Writer/director Peter Hedges, has created a film that's utterly predictable, where the jokes are telegraphed from way off, with the whole thing playing a bit too on the nose. Dan in Real Life doesn't offer a single unique moment, but the caliber of the actors makes the film works as a cliche' riddled only in movie-land type fashion. - Grade: C+

I've been a fan of Albert Brooks since the early 90's. I saw Defending Your Life over and over again as a teenager, and to this day it remains one of my all time favorite comedies. In the years following I saw his earlier works, Lost in America and Modern Romance, both of which I think are brilliant films. His film that came after Defending Your Life, Mother is fairly uneven, but overall it's funny and worth seeing. His voice work in Finding Nemo is great, and he's always one of The Simpsons best guests. When Looking for Comedy came out in 2005, I was fairly excited, but the critics beat it too death before I got a chance to see it. After The Muse, which I thought was pretty terrible, I didn't want to rush into seeing another wreck from him and have my opinion lowered, so it took me three years to get around to it.

Unfortunately the critics were right. Looking for Comedy is a pretty lame film, there are only a few moments that I laughed at. I don't think the average American audience would find the film funny at all. I hope that he hasn't lost it as a filmmaker, there aren't many guys around that write, direct and star in their own films. The greatest of all-time, Woody Allen has moved behind the camera. Off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone else who's doing it besides Brooks and Edward Burns, who I've never been a real fan of.

In Looking for Comedy, Brooks plays a version of himself; big stretch. In the opening scene, one of the few funny ones in the film, Penny Marshall playing herself, is casting a film she's directing and looking for a Jimmy Stewart type. Brooks shows up to audition, has a brief chat with her and is shown the door, it's obvious he's not the right guy. He's been getting that a lot lately. Never the handsome-leading-man type, as he's getting older, he's losing out on more roles than ever. So when an opportunity comes through the government, for an assignment to go to India and find out what the Muslim culture finds funny, he's intrigued. His motivation is a Medal of Honor, his reluctance is in the 500 page report he has to write about it, but through his wife's encouragement, he decides to take the job.

Along for the ride are two government agents who are supposed to help him in his assignment. One is completely humorless, takes his job seriously and doesn't seem to want to help at all. The other is a fan of Brooks, and considers himself a bit of a comedian, but also isn't much help. Once in India, Brooks finds that almost nothing, except for an small, empty office has been set up. He finds himself interviewing the locals for someone who can assist him, but nobody gets what he's doing or seems qualified in the least. Until he meets Maya, she types quickly, has written a large report for college and has the motivation to understand Brooks' sense of humor. They start by doing man-in-the-street interviews, asking people what makes them laugh; after a couple of days, and only a half a page of answers, he decides to take another course.

Instead, he'll put on a comedy show, covering all sorts of comedy, from the low-brow to the intellectual, and whatever the audience laughs at, he'll fill his report with. It's one of the few inspired moments in the film, and the only one that provided a few deep laughs. But he's doing obscure jokes, that would fly over the average American's head, let alone his mostly Muslim and Hindu audience. He does a bit where he plays an incompetent ventriloquist, and then tries to do some improve, to involve the audience by asking them questions, then changes all the audiences answers because he can't find a joke with them. He does it so dryly, with so little showmanship, that it took me, an Albert Brooks fan, a couple of minutes to figure out that that was the joke. Unsurprisingly the audience doesn't laugh at all.

The film peaks at that moment. It continues on with Brooks traveling illegally into Pakistan to meet with a comedy troupe, where he does the same routine, with better results. Unknowingly, the Indian and Pakistan governments have been following him, and there's a slight subplot about him starting a bit of a cold war between the nations, that doesn't really pay off until the very end of the film, in the background. The whole film's like that.

It's almost like Brooks didn't want the audience to laugh at the film. He doesn't find any comedy in the Muslim world and he almost seems ashamed of his own funny business. I'm sure there's some deeper meaning that I'm missing, maybe about how we all need to find the funny within ourselves. Maybe now that he's older, he's getting more experimental, or the film could truly be a misfire, which I don't want to believe. Looking for Comedy has a few great moments, with a lot of boring ones in between, which drags the film down. With his next one, I'd like him to get back to his observational humor, maybe do something about getting older, where he's not necessarily playing himself, with a ton of insider jokes. I think only the biggest Albert Brooks' fans will appreciate this one, and then, only as one of his lesser films. - Grade: C-

This is one of those films that is so middle of the road that it'll be tough to review. I didn't hate the film, but I didn't particularly like it either. It was mildly diverting in an non-insulting manner, but also completely forgettable. Which makes it tough to write about because I didn't form a lot of opinions while I was watching it.

Mostly War wasn't the film I was expecting. From the trailers it looked like a non-stop action film, full of kung-fu and gun fights. Which there are elements of, but not as much as I hoped for. With Jason Statham, the star of the Transporter and Jet Li, one of the greatest kung-fu stars ever, and a title like War, I was expecting 90 minutes of over-the-top battles. But there's a lot of story-development, which isn't usually a bad thing, but honestly there's too much for a film of this type. I don't want to watch Statham and Li talk out their problems.

Statham plays a rogue FBI agent, is there any other kind in these films? Who's after the master-assassin, Jet Li, who killed his partner at the beginning of the film. The funny thing is that Li starts to play the Yakuzas against the Triads, two mafia clans, who Statham has been trying to take down on his own. He begins to question what's really going on, while also trying to catch Li. They're both so busy with the mafia battles, that they don't get a chance to face off until the final scene of the film. Which is what's to be expected, but I thought there would be some warm up fights as well.

I actually didn't see the final twist coming, which was done pretty well, but the film wasn't entertaining enough up to that point to keep my full attention, so that I honestly didn't care by the end. If they're going to sell a film as an all-out-action film, they better be able to back it up. But the film, while having a couple of decently done scenes, has too much story and talking, that isn't done well enough to care about. They hardly have Jet Li do any kung-fu fighting, he uses his guns far more than his fists. I was hoping for a lot more battles between Statham and Li, their final fight scene is fun, but it takes far too long to get there. War is not bad, not good, a completely forgettable action flick without enough action. - Grade: C

I've written about this before (Black Sheep & Severance), but horror-comedy is my favorite genre of films, although I believe they're extremely tough to do well, just the right tone has to be created. I was a bit excited to sit down with The Mad, which came recommended, 4 stars, from Netflix. The film is a zombie-comedy, or uh, zomedy; and I have a weird thing for zombies, I'll never get sick of them. Another bonus was Billy Zane, I've always liked him and I think he got a bit of a raw deal from Hollywood. He deserves to be seen in more films, in this film he gets a rare lead role. He's fun to watch, the rest of the film, not so much.

It takes a little while to get going, too much step-mom/daughter drama, but the film lulled me into a false state of hope, with a well made, equally funny and gory first half. Topping it off with the best scene in the film. From here the film takes a sharp turn downwards, and devolves into a real mess, relying way too much on some horrible comedy routines and flaking out on the "zombie" action.

The Mad is about a family on a road trip together, stopping in at small town diner for a meal of famous organic hamburgers. Unknown to everyone, is the local farmer, who supplies the beef, has had a bit of mad-cow disease problem at his ranch, and decides to sell the meat anyways. While waiting for their meal, it's fun to watch as two customers behind them enjoy the burgers then quickly change into raging "zombies", and before you know it the step-mom gets a knife to the head and is being chomped on like something from the menu. Things quickly get nuts, as the entire restaurant is turned into a human slaughterhouse. Soon Billy Zane, his daughter, her boyfriend, the chef, and the cute-bad-ass waitress are the only ones left alive.

Billy Zane plays a great reluctant hero, showing a true flair for physical comedy. He manages to kill a ton of "zombies", but each time sort of bungling his way through it with a scared look on his face, eventually towards the end it's second nature. When the group decides to leave the diner to make their way to the farm, to stop the beef from getting any further, the film really starts to get bad. It turns on a dime, from well made, witty gruesome-humor, to poorly executed scenes of slapstick, with the "zombies" playing the fall guys. In one particularly bad scene, Zane and his daughter talk over their family issues while fighting off "zombies" like they were nothing more than bothersome flies. Even in the ridiculous world that the film has created, it was too far out of reality.

I keep writing "zombies", because these aren't zombies, much in the same way that the "zombies" of 28 Days Later aren't zombies; they are in fact infected humans, with zombie like qualities. To truly qualify for zombie status, you must come back from the dead. These people never died, they changed, and once they're dead, they stay dead. The film doesn't claim they're zombies, in the scene I mentioned before, they pontificate on what they're truly dealing with. I simply get annoyed when the film's marketers and other reviewers insist on calling them zombies. Just like when most everyone claims that 28 Days Later was the first film to have running-zombies, when Return of the Living Dead had it beat by nearly two-decades. See, I told you I had a weird thing about zombie flicks. I'm getting off tangent.

If you're a horror fan, there are enough redeeming qualities to make The Mad worth seeing. The first half is some well made fun, and Billy Zane remains pretty great throughout, despite the ridiculous things the filmmakers have him doing. The rest of the cast is okay, I didn't particularly care for the actress playing his daughter, but the tough-waitress chick mostly makes up for her. I wish the film had kept the tone they had set in the first half, it could have been a much better film, and potentially gone down as a minor cult-classic. As it is, it's too big of a mess to be considered anywhere near a good film. - Grade: C-

If you're looking for a good zomedy, with true zombies in it, check out the far superior: Fido

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I believe I have a good sense for what a film-maker's intentions are for their film. And it's often based on that belief that I will judge a film. If I think they're trying to make an important film, but it comes across as preachy and pretentious, I won't like it. If they're simply trying to entertain, and they do that, despite some flaws in the film, I appreciate that. In the case of Drive Thru, I believe that first time writer/director duo Brendan Cowles & Shane Kuhn, were trying to make a cult-classic horror-comedy. Which they don't quite achieve, despite their best efforts. I give them points for trying, but have to subtract some for aiming too high their first time out.

Drive Thru is about a group of kids getting knocked off by a psycho fast food mascot, called Horny the Clown. They desperately want this guy to become the next Freddy Krueger. He never stops talking, constantly popping off one-liners while chasing his victims; some of them work, a lot of them don't. None of the kids are that memorable, most of them are terrible actors, their characters little more than cliche's from other horror films. The goody-two-shoes, virgin-girl is the hero, then there's her sexually frustrated boyfriend, their slutty friend, her boyfriend, and the goth-chick. The lead girl is particularly annoying, I don't think I bought more than a 10th of her lines. They needed a much stronger performance, someone with some charisma to carry the film, while the killer clown isn't in the scene.

The kids do the ultimate horror movie no-no and play with a Ouji Board in the beginning moments of the film. There are some other-worldly consequences, not in the traditional unleashing of, because he's already killed somebody at this point. They tie into the killer in a strange way, by acting a spiritual guide to who the killer is, which never seems convincing. If you've seen Nightmare on Elm Street, it's fairly obvious as to why the killer is doing what he's doing, yet the film treats it like some grand mystery.

Besides the kids there are a pair of cops on the case, one is a no-nonsense tough-girl, her partner is real jackass, constantly doing or saying the wrong thing. Actor Larry Joe Campbell, really over plays this guy, no one is this dumb, especially a detective. Lola Glaudini, who you may remember from her recurring role on The Sopranos, is the best actor in the film, unfortunately they don't give her enough to do, besides be annoyed by her partner and brood over the case. It might have worked better if she was more of a bad-ass. Morgan Spurlock, of Supersize Me fame, has an extended cameo as a fast food manager, and gets a few laughs, before being dispatched.

Make no mistake, Horny the Clown is the star of the film. They did a good job in creating his look; a devilish ceramic face, with a speaker-box for a mouth, and a leather jump-suit with flames on it. The film is the most fun when he's around, and I can easily see them cranking out a few sequels, simply for his involvement. Some of his kills are creative, I especially liked the bit where he chops a guy's head in half and his tongue starts wagging around. The microwave death is also a bit inspired, but doesn't fully work because of some bad special effects. He has that innate ability to be all places at once, and know exactly where his victims will run to, which grows tired and ruins any suspense. They spend too much time on developing his back-story, and the mystery surrounding it, when it's fairly obvious to who he is by anyone that enjoys horror films. Too many of his one-liners fall flat and quite a few of the deaths are sub-par, but ultimately he's a very memorable villain.

Despite all it's faults, this film will have devoted fans. Any film with over-the-top gore and comedy, with a killer clown in a psychedelic mask will gain attention somewhere. And that's what I liked about this film, but I think they were reachng for Evil Dead territory, when they don't quite have the talent to do so. Their shooting and editing style is trying to live on the edge, but it doesn't quite get there. They try to make the gore really unique and disgusting, but the effects aren't done well enough to make you completely buy them. They have their characters spouting off a lot of comic dialogue, but the actors don't have the chops to pull them off; so it becomes unintentionally lame, instead of intentionally cheesy. Maybe with a bit more time, money or skill, they could have created something special, it's not quite there. If you're a horror fan, it's worth giving it a shot. - Grade: C+

Check it out for Free over at: Hulu.com

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I'm a huge Seinfeld fan, in my book, it goes The Simpsons, then Seinfeld as my all-time favorite TV shows. So I was a little excited when I heard he was finally creating something new, even if it was another computer-animated family film about insects. The film does have some of that Seinfeld humor, but it also has a lot of standard, family style jokes that don't really stand out. The film is the same way, a few stand out moments, a lot of average, forgettable bits. It has the standard kid movie plot of a character figuring out who they are.

Seinfeld plays Barry B. Benson, who has just graduated from Bee college, and is about to go into the only business available to him, Honex, where they make honey. He gets only one real choice in life, which job he wants; he can stir the honey, clean the honey, take care of the drips, and a hundred other things, all revolving around honey. After he makes that decision, he's stuck with it until he dies. While it's nothing for every bee around him, for some reason he can't bring himself to make the choice. He wants to try live more first, but mostly he wants out of the hive, to see the world.

His chance comes, when some of the pollen jocks take a liking to him and decide to take him out with them. After some close calls with a tennis ball, rain and a boot, his whole world changes when he meets a human woman Vanessa, ho after the initial shock of talking to a bee, they form a fast friendship. Through her, he learns about the world conspiracy of humans stealing bee's honey for their own use. He discovers what he believes is his life's mission, to take back what is rightfully theirs; and he sues the entire human race to get the honey back. Of course there is more too it than that, and through it he discovers the true meaning of his life and begins to value his bee community.

Bee Movie has a nice message about finding yourself and your place in the world, without beating you over the head with it. What they do beat to death is the bee jokes, they're constantly throwing them at you, everything from Barry's name, to his wardrobe, to the constant honey references. It's the obvious thing to do, and instead of using them in the right situation to get the biggest laughs out of them, the use them up within 5 minutes and after that get very tired, very quickly. The Seinfeld humor, the simple observations of everyday life, are the best thing about the film, but there's not enough of it; I was disappointed in his script, the film doesn't feel fresh, uses way too many old or obvious jokes that have been seen a hundred times before.

The animation is good enough, it doesn't distract you, but doesn't blow you away either. The voice work by Jerry Seinfeld is fun, Rene Zellweger is fine as Vanessa, though I don't think she's done anything totally worthwhile since the first Bridget Jones Diary. Chris Rock does some really funny work as a crazy mosquito, Patrick Warburton and his deep voice, shows up in about his 10th animated film in as many years, and does his typical reliable thing. There's a few cameo's that work and don't, did we really need another Larry King appearance, might as well have had Jay Leno show up again, the Ray Liotta cameo was a bit more inspired, but the joke will fly over any kid's head, since they won't have a clue who he is in real life.

Bee Movie might be worth checking out if you have kids, just to see something new, and it's not too bad of a film, and a lot of the humor is aimed at the adults. But it's not very good either, if you don't have kids, and aren't a big Seinfeld fan or animation buff, I can't see a reason to bother with it. - Grade: C+

Nobody can build a thrilling scene like Brian De Palma. He creates an incredible mix of photography, music and editing, that builds unbelievable tension. At the beginning of his career, critics claimed he didn't do much more than rip-off Hitchcock. (If you're going to steal from someone, you might as well steal from the best.) If you take Hitchcock's perfect sense of terror, add in a dash of over-the-top violence and sex, you get a good De Palma film. He was at the top of his game in the late 70's, early 80's, creating such classics as Carrie, Dressed to Kill and Scarface. In the middle of these films, he directed Blow Out, a film that never received the sort of attention these others did. After seeing it for the first time, I understand why.

A very young John Travolta, plays a sound engineer for a low-budget horror producer. He's out one night recording ambient sound effects, when he witnesses a car crash over a bridge. He jumps into the river, saving a girl from the back of the limo. Dying in the accident, was a senator, who had ambitions to become president. Soon Travolta is contacted by the secret service, and told to keep the girl's involvement under wraps. He begins to dig into what really happened. Through his sound recordings and photos taken of the accident he begins to unravel a much larger conspiracy.

The rest of the film doesn't live up to the ending, and Blow Out is certainly one of the lesser De Palma films, especially when he was at the height of his skills. It's not a total waste, it has a couple of well built scenes, I can think of no other film-maker that will show you the same scene multiple times, from a few different angles, so on each viewing you learn something more about what really happened. It's a fascinating skill, but there are better uses of it, in better films. - Grade: C

Instead of Blow Out, and many of his classic films, I'll recommend another of his lesser films, at least by other's standards, for a lesson in how he puts his unique vision to work: Body Double. It's a better made film, keeping you intrigued throughout the film, full of sex, violence and the suspense he's known for.

I want to see the movie on the poster to the right, it looks so much cooler than the film I watched. The rats never looked this scary, nor were there any scantily-clad girls getting carried off by them. There were giant rats, yes, but they were either big immobile puppets thrown at the actors, or cute pet rats climbing on miniature sets. The effects are laughably bad throughout Food of the Gods, but they're endearing because the filmmakers try so hard to make them work, despite their limited budget and 70's technology.

Honestly the film is nowhere as near as bad as I thought it would be or hoped for. I was expecting a laughable mess, instead the film is fairly competently made. The effects are very cheesy, but respectably so, not nearly as bad as many films of this era. The acting by the mostly unknown actors isn't terrible, they give good line readings, with the right inflections. The film is decently shot, directed, edited and scored. Which was a bit of a disappointment on one level, because I couldn't laugh at the film-maker's incompetence, and sort of had to take this ridiculous story seriously, which didn't make it as entertaining as I expected. Because the film's not funny, and I obviously can't be scared of it either, because I'm not 10 and living in the 70's, it becomes mearly a mediocre piece of entertainment.

Now don't get me wrong, the effects are humorous, I especially liked the part where our hero Morgan gets attacked by a giant chicken. The scenes of the giant animals are definitely the highlight of the film, but there are too many dead scenes of dialogue, that slow the film down. I was also hoping for more variety in animals, at the very beginning Morgan and his buddies are hunting in the woods, when one of them is attacked and killed by giant wasps. There's some good make-up effects here of the guy gruesomely puffed up. After the funeral, Morgan, a professional football player, heads back into the woods to figure out the mystery of what happened. That's when he comes across the farm with the giant chickens. That night, the farmer is attacked by giant rats. For the rest of the movie only the rats attack, and it got boring seeing the same old puppets. I guess that's all the animals they had in the budget.

There's some kind of magical goo seeping out of the ground on the farmer's land, and any animal that eats it turns gigantic. So by all means, there should have been more, especially of the insect variety. (Writer/Director Bert I. Gordon did the giant insect thing with his next film Empire of the Ants.) The farmers decide to feed it to the chickens, then the rats steal the chickens eggs, and apparently that's where the food chain ends in this world. Anyway, I shouldn't be complaining, three giant animals is three more than most films have to offer. An evil businessman shows up, he wants to buy the goo to use in animal production. In tow, is his cute secretary, who soon falls for Morgan and his manly blond curls. Soon they're all trapped in the farm house with giant rats crawling all over and it's up to Morgan and his NFL buddy to save the day.

They made a lot of these nature-revenge films in the late 70's and early 80's. It all started with The Birds, then became popular with Jaws, which remains far-and-away the best of the bunch. But there was also Day of the Animals, Piranha, Grizzly, Squirm, a personal favorite, and quite a few others. In terms of quality, Food of the Gods lies somewhere in the middle, as it's a fairly well made for a B-movie. But lies in a strange area between good and bad, which makes it unfortunately boring. Watch it for the giant animal scenes, skip the rest. - Grade: C+

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I'll admit that Adam Sandler's brand of juvenile humor makes me laugh. I don't watch his films expecting realistic characters, an intriguing story or good film-making, I watch them because Sandler does a lot of stupid things that my inner twelve-year-old finds funny. Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, both over ten-years-old, continue to be guilty pleasures; and sadly both remain the funniest films of his career. While The Wedding Singer, is his most all-around satisfying film. (I'm talking about films that he and his company developed, not films that he's appeared in as an actor, because Punch-Drunk Love would be my all time favorite.) His last two films, Click and The Longest Yard were both uniformly terrible, with minimal laughs. It was with reluctance that I went into I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.

I was pretty desperate for a comedy, and with it being out for months on DVD, I figured it was time I got around to it. Another reason I wanted to see it was for Jessica Biel's scene in her panties, which they flaunt in the trailer (and I use in the site's banner, not above selling sex myself), she's a total hottie and it's a scene worth seeing. Even if it's completely unrealistic and unbelievable. The whole movie's like this, Chuck & Larry are the least convincing gay couple ever, I don't think anyone would buy it, especially not New Yorkers, let alone an attorney who specializes in discrimination cases.

I said I don't expect realistic characters in an Sandler flick, but these guys are so out of touch that it remained a distraction throughout. The whole film is pretty offensive to homosexuals, their constant disgust and joking at the thought of touching or kissing each other didn't make me laugh. The worst comes when Rob Schneider puts on the Asian look and accent, he might as well have put on black-face, it was so offensive. At the core of the film, they're trying to teach tolerance, which makes it a mixed message, but I appreciated their intent.

Overall, I liked I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry more than Sandler's last few flicks. I chuckled lightly at times, but no huge laughs; I tried to overlook the offensive bits, and enjoyed seeing Biel in her panties. The film never raises above average, dips below for much of the time. But thanks to the performances of Sandler, Kevin James and an excellent supporting cast, including the always funny Steve Buscemi and a fairly brave performance by Ving Rhames, it managed to keep me slightly entertained throughout. - Grade: C-