How does one critique something that was totally beloved by them as a child? I watched Ninja Turtles today and my head was telling me how ridiculous and corny it was, but my heart was fully into it. I was actually a little surprised by how well it holds up, and also by how dark the film is.

Having never read the comics, I have to go by what I’ve read online, and the general concensus is that the film was faithful to the original comic books. The film is less sunny and possibly a little much for the youngest of the ninja turtles fans back then, although I am a believer that kids are smarter and more sophisticated than they are given credit for, and there is nothing graphic or shocking enough in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to really keep kids from it. Although maybe it’s darker and grittier tone would have been a disapointment to them.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tells the origin of Splinter and his four half-shelled wards and their first encounter with the evil Shredder. It seems the Shredder has indoctrinated all the lonely and outcast kids of New York and has them doing his bidding, when he kidnapps Splinter it’s up to the four turtles and their friends, sports fan/superhero Casey Jones, and television news reporter April O’neil to save the day.

The film has a bizarre look for what’s basically a children’s action movie. It has a gritty film quality like Mean Streets or The French Connection. It has all the grime of those New York movies from the 70′s, but with giant jump kicking turtles! The ninja teens are incredible creations, they all have actors inside of the suits and what would have to be anamatronic faces. Each turtle has a look all their own, their faces are all more individualistic than simply having a different colored head band, and they can portray a wide range of emotions. The special effects in this film are top notch.

So if you’re feeling a little nostalgic for your sugary cereal, Saturday morning cartoon past, kick off your shoes sit cross legged in front of the TV and slap on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You’ll probably have more fun than you’d expect.

District 9- Started off intriguing and funny, last act was typical shoot-em up garbage.

Inglorious Basterds- Tarantino’s finest and possibly the best movie of the year.

Halloween 2- It’s getting knocked around by critics, but I think it’s Rob Zombie’s best movie. 10/10.

She-Devils On Wheels- Hershell Gordon Lewis! Biker babes racing for the right to choose their stud for the night. Great Great stuff.

Fallen Angel- Gram Parsons documentary. Well balanced, good stuff.

Behind The Mask- Like District 9, behind the mask started off as original (if a little reminiscent of Man Bites Dog) but ends as a typical genre movie.

So I’ll be back with more misspelled, and grammatically incorrect reviews soon.

By the time Combat Shock was released Troma Entertainment had already put out it’s two biggest hits: The Toxic Avenger, and Class of Nuke ‘Em High. Their reputation founded on the camp and fun of those two pictures, Troma must have felt like it was taking a bit of a chance with Combat Shock. It’s undeniably Troma-esque, but it certainly had higher aspirations than many of the studio’s previous work. It is undeniably low budget, and has the look and feel of a Troma movie, but it’s story is sad, poignant and observant about the squalor that the poor in America had to edure during the 80′s.

Combat Shock is the story of Frankie, a Vietnam vet who suffered in a P.O.W camp and had been contaminated with Agent Orange. His life back home in the states is one of misery and despair. He has a young wife who is starving because he is unable to bring home money or food, they also have a baby boy, deformed, who cries all the time. Frankie is desperate to make some sort of honest living for his family, despite lack of any formal skills. But today he’s being evicted, and he’s reached the end of his patience.

I really wanted to like Combat Shock, I appreciated that it is a b-movie with a conscious, but I couldn’t help feel a little cheated. First of, it’s quite clear that the screaming deformed baby is lifted straight out of David Lynch’s Eraserhead. Also, Frankie is clearly the b-movie version of Travis Bickle. Giovinazzo stands firmly on the shoulder’s of giants when creating these characters, and any audience the least bit familiar with either Eraserhead or Taxi Driver will find it hard to shake off the comparisons.

Combat Shock is m0st interesting when dealing with the day to day existence that Frankie lives. His visit to the unemployment office, his friendship with a junkie, his daily struggle to make a buck.

Yet the film’s reputation as a cult classic relies on it’s shocking ending. The final few minutes of Combat Shock are harrowing, the elements used to set up the last scene are hard to forgive. I cannot fully recommend Combat Shock.

Here we have that rare cinematic jewel. A film based on a book that doesn’t leave the viewer wanting more. The spirit of William Golding’s novel is faithfully adapted and hauntingly shot by Peter Brook who at the time was best known for his work in the British theatre. Brook creates a world that is harsh and forbidding. Shot in black and white, the filming location is robbed of any lushness or beauty color would have caught. Instead we are shown a bleak world of sharp fronds, grey skies, foreboding caves and thick jungle. The look of the film is brutal and frightening.

Incase you’ve forgotten high school English, Lord Of The Flies actually has a surprisingly simple plot. A group of young English boys are stranded on an island in the midst of a war. No adults have survived, and the boys are left to fend for themselves. They start off united. Ralph who is sensitive, intelligent, and sympathetic to all around him is voted the leader, and for such a young kid, he does a commendable job. He provides shelter, and arranges to have a fire built so any passing ships or planes can see their distress signal. The only other boy on the island with this kind of influence is Jack, the head of a boy’s choir who rounds up his group to be responsible for hunting and the upkeep of the fire. That the island is plentiful with fruit and that a large group of hunters is unnecessary seems to go unnoticed. One of the smaller children explains that he’s seen a “beastie” in the woods. Jack uses this as an excuse to gather support as he feels that he is the only one suited to protect everyone, and that Ralph is not decisive or strong enough.

The other key characters are Simon and Piggy. Piggy is an overweight bespectacled young man who is tormented by the other children from the get go. He’s also the voice of reason and is the most desperate to cling onto the remnants of civilaztion and the adult world. He vehemently denies the possibility of a monster on the island from the outset. He knows, perhaps even before Ralph, intuitively that things on the island are falling apart. He’s logical and opinionated and immediately disliked by the id driven Jack. Simon is, to my mind, the most interesting character. He seems to be the most soulful. He sees quite clearly the true nature of the “beastie”, not simply as a matter of whether it exists or not, but he sees that the creature is something the boys have all created for themselves. To give them an excuse to revert to savagery. He says prophetically “Maybe the beast is us.”

Jack and most of the other children are basically at play. They eventually do succeed in killing a boar for food, but the food is not their ultimate goal. It’s the fun of the hunt, of stripping down, running through the woods and playing the part of a savage. They are so wrapped up in this fantasy that they let the distress signal go out at the most inopportune moment. A plane flies directly overhead, Ralph is crestfallen, but Jack and the others seem not to care in slightest. The pressing matter of getting rescued takes a back seat to childish games, and why not I suppose. They are children after all.

As tensions escalate Jack takes his followers and starts a new tribe. They paint their faces, punish those who misbehave with whippings, they build a huge bonfire and dance around it completely disinherited of any sense of civility. Viewing the movie during these scenes is shocking. The boys whip themselves up into such a frenzy that they are able to do any act of evil. This is what happens when we see soccer riots, mass looting, Jonestown, the Manson family, ect.. What one can’t, or is unwilling,to do alone, many are perfectly capable of, and the guilt gets diluted as it’s passed around.

Brook’s film still has the power to shock, as does Goldings book. Not in any sort of tawdry way, there’s no gore, and most violence appears off-screen, but it’s themes are so disturbing that we are appalled by the story alone. We don’t necessarily want to believe the worst in human nature. We of course sympathize with Ralph because he is clearly the protagonist of the piece, but it is foolish not to at least consider for a moment Jack’s motivations, even if we condemn them.  I see him as a representation of religion in a modern world. Jack is the leader of a choir, we are introduced to them walking in formation dressed in their robes singing Kyrie Elieson from the catholic mass. Does Jack maybe have the most to gain by this newfound freedom, away from rules, teachers, parents, and priests? Perhaps it’s this sheltered existence that leads him to act so demonically when his social structure is torn away. I don’t think it’s any mistake that when the subject of rules comes up early in the film he is initially all for it, and enthusiastic about administering punishments for rule breakers.

At the end of the film we are left with just Ralph, the last shred of civility and reason. Jack and the rest of the boys have completely transformed. One of the younger boys introduces himself at the beginning of the film, stating his name, address and telephone number. Half way though the film and he has forgotten the phone number and breaks down crying. By the end he is rendered mute, struggling for any words to say to identify himself, and he can’t even manage tears anymore.

What to say about Star Trek 4. I’d read it was campy and not necessarily the most loved Star Trek motion picture, but I had no clue how absurd it would be. What could have been a fun, campy time travel themed movie was basically a soap box for whale conservation. That’s fine, but you have to entertain me while you’re doing your preaching.

The Voyage Home starts off pretty interesting. The crew of the Starship Enterprise must travel back in time to procure a humpback whale, the only creature that can communicate with an alien ship wreaking havoc on earth. This premise is enough to hang a movie on I guess, and I’ll even grant that the early scenes of the crew trying to interact with the San Franciscans of 1986 are legitimately funny, but as the film drags on the fish out of water story (allow me this pun) gets tired. The special effects are decent, but have really not improved over the course of the four films, and the modern day setting doesn’t provide a lot of chances for the effects department to shine.

The best thing about this film is that it gives each of the core members of the crew something to actually do. No character sits on the sidelines as they all pair up to explore San Francisco and to complete their own separate missions. In the previous films it often felt like certain characters were getting substantially less screen time. So I guess that’s Star Trek 4′s best accomplishment, the story STRUCTURE. Although the plot itself is ludicrous.

I think that’s it for me and Star Trek. Unless someone can give me a compelling reason to stick with the series, I think I’m done. Maybe I’ll check out what the cast of the Next Generation is up to?

The third Star Trek motion picture is a little more fast paced than it’s predecessors and therefore has been the most enjoyable so far. It’s story is fairly lean, taking place immediately after the event’s of The Wrath Of Khan, Captain Kirk and crew steal the Starship Enterprise to return to the Genesis planet to recover Spock’s remains. What they didn’t count on is the Genesis machine’s ability to give life to the lifeless, even if it is unstable.

The Search for Spock is kind of low on secondary characters, which is great, we get to focus on the characters that the series is known for. The villains in this installment are the Klingons whose leader is played by Christopher Lloyd. They are suitably menacing and evil, if a little bit one dimensional. These Klingons give The Search For Spock an almost western feel. We know clearly who the good guys are and who are the bad.

The special effects are really fun, as are the Klingon prosthetic effects. Leonard Nimoy directs the action admirably and clearly understands the characters and their relationships with each other. There’s some moments that don’t work to great on film. The Enterprise’s escape sequence is so slow that it becomes almost laughable, I know that in space things would move at that rate, but for an action picture they could have given that scene a little more excitement. There’s also some questionable moments of character development, such as when Kirk learns his son has been executed by the Klingons. Kirk mourns for about two seconds, and his son isn’t mentioned again until the final moments of the film.

My goal has been to make it through the first four Star Trek pictures, as I understand Part IV is pretty campy. I’m looking forward to it.

The marketing behind Judd Apatow’s latest film Funny People is probably the only thing that it has going against it. Funny People is clearly not another 40 Year Old Virgin, or Knocked Up. Where Apatow’s previous films only hinted at the dramatic aspects of the stories. Funny People is not really just a comedy, it’s a drama with some funny scenes. I could sense some disappointment in the audience, and some of the things I overheard coming out of the theatre were negative. The trailers have almost totally misrepresented the film in my opinion and have done this great movie a disservice.

Funny People is the story of the decline and missed redemption of George Simmons (Adam Sandler) a stand up comedian and movie star who is a few years past his prime. George is dying from a rare form of Leukemia. He tells only one person, his new personal assistant and aspiring comedian Ira Wright (Seth Rogen). Ira is star struck by George, and willing to take all sorts of his abuses, as they get to know each other, Ira starts to care deeply for George going far beyond the duties an assistant is required. George, however, is the opposite of his public persona. He’s not very funny in person, and he’s never funny when Ira isn’t around. He seduces Ira with private jets, high paying comedy gigs, celebrity friends, but is completely closed off of himself. When it suits George, Ira is his closest friend, when it doesn’t Ira is just the assistant again, fetching soft drinks and helping George with routines.

When George’s experimental treatment for his disease turns out to be a success, he makes efforts to reconnect with his old girlfriend. She’s fairly happily married, with two bright kids. It’s obviously a bad idea from the start, when Ira voices his (and the audience’s) opinion he is told by George just how expendable he is, George’s true colors are unpleasant.

That’s what’s most intriguing about Funny People, the central character of the movie is loathsome, he treats even those he professes to care about as if they owe him something, he’s spoiled, bratty mean, and for a comedian, fairly humorless. Yet, we still care about him. He’s so miserable being the type of person he is, that we feel as if he’s a victim of himself. He’s cut off from real people, real problems, and real relationships by his wealth and celebrity. Getting the disease is probably the first connection to the rest of the world in a very long time. Everyone gets sick and has to face mortality. That George’s sickness doesn’t automatically make him a new and improved version of himself is a testament to the talent and insight of Judd Apatow.

Adam Sandler puts in, what I believe, is his best performance. Sandler can handle darker roles, such as Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love, but his performance in Funny People is so honest, and obviously something Sandler can relate to. I don’t think he’s necessarily the narcissistic prick that George is, but I don’t think I’d be out of line to say that he would understand the disconnect from regular people that celebrity brings.

The other great performance belongs to Seth Rogen. Rogen has proven his ability with drama as far back as his breakout role on Freaks and Geeks, despite his reputation as being merely a comedian and comedic writer. I think Rogen has wells upon wells of untapped potential. Ira is the polar opposite of George. He’s romantic, kindhearted, totally caring and mostly selfless. What he lacks in financial success and opportunity, he makes up for in being a good person with a sense of integrity. There aren’t a lot of roles written like this in comedies.

Apatow also comes off well, his previous movies were uproariously funny, but I don’t think he made his mark visually as a director. Funny People has a lot of beautiful compositions, some creative camera movements that not only look good on film, but progress the story and provide insight into the characters, such as when George initially receives the news that his disease is fatal, the camera moves across the face of the Doctor and focuses on the family portraits behind him on the wall. We know without any dialogue so much about George in this moment, what kind of a man he is, and what kind of things he lacks.

I’ve always looked forward to any movie with Apatow’s name attached. There is no one making mainstream American comedies that are better. I’ve always suspected that these guys could make a really effective feature length dramas based on the hints of emotional content, and the fine character development that has run through the rest of their movies, and the incredible Freaks and Geeks. Funny People has proven me right.

This is only the second film directed by the great Francois Truffaut that I’ve seen, the previous being The 400 Blows, from what I understand it is not a typical film for him, and he himself had not been entirely enthusiastic about Fahrenheit 451 in the years since it was released. Critics were also unimpressed with the film when it came out, and it didn’t do very well at the box-office.

A few years before Stanley Kubrick changed all the rules for Sci-Fi with 2001: A Space Odyssey, science fiction was predominantly the stuff of b-movies. There were exceptions of course, The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, The Day the Earth Stood Still, both made by very competent directors. But Fahrenheit 451 was a first. A film that dealt with the future but lacking the obligatory scenes of violence, little green men, flying saucers, and ray guns. Fahrenheit was done by one of the pre-eminent French directors, a man who was already a legend for those interested in film art.

Fahrenheit 451 takes place in a future where houses are fireproof, and firemen set fires instead of putting them out. A fireman’s job is to round up any and all literature that they can find, and set them to flames. We follow Montag (Oskar Werner) and up and coming fireman who is the pride of his station who, after a chance meeting with a young teacher named Clarisse (Julie Christie), begins to develop a curiosity. What are in the books he burns? Why are they so dangerous? Why is his love life an empty shell, his wife (also played by Julie Christie) who is a zombie stuck in front of a television set?

Truffaut is not interested in the trappings of a typical sci-fi movie. There is nothing really in the look of the film to distinguish the time period as anything but the 1960′s. Fahrenheit 451, starts with what is now a famous opening credit sequence. To go along with the plot of the film no titles appear on the screen, instead the titles are read by a narrator, setting the mood of the piece. Visually the film is filled with bold colors, and ends with an incredibly picturesque scene in lightly falling snow. This was Truffaut’s first feature in color and he makes great use of it.

The film is not without it’s flaws, where Julie Christie plays two roles wonderfully Oskar Werner is wooden and unsympathetic as Montag. This is fine at the start of the film, but as Montag becomes enlightened Werner’s performance should reflect it, and I don’t feel he does. The film also has some pacing issues. Scenes do seem to go on longer than necessary in some occasions. Also the few special effects that are in the film are quite silly, even by 1966 standards, I’m thinking specifically of the patrol men flying through he sky looking for Montag, I guess it really wasn’t until Superman that we would believe a man could fly.

There is a scene that is one of the most haunting I’ve seen in any film. An old woman has just been found to have a vast library stowed away in her attic. She is asked repeatedly to leave the home so the burning can be done, but refuses. She stands amidst all her books, as they are doused with some sort of flammable liquid. She is still asked repeatedly to leave. Montag frantically suggests someone to force her to go, but before anyone can she lights a match and stands amidst her burning books, with a slight smile on her face. All accompanied by Bernard Herrmann’s hauntingly wonderful score.

I would recommend to any fan’s of Sci-fi to give Fahrenheit 451 a chance, it’s a rare foray by a director known in art-house circles into a genre film, and it’s a fairly successful achievement.

We all know guys like Peter Klaven. Nice guys, courteous, intelligent, but completely clueless when it comes to the details of making friends. In Klaven’s case he’s always been a “girlfriend guy”, spending so much time with female companionship, that his male friends all fell by the wayside, reduced to a few acquaintances at work, and the guys from the fencing team.

Making friends as an adult is weird, and I can relate. All my close friends have been people I’ve known since at least high school, some even longer. If I was forced to go out and try and make a new friend at this point in my life, it would feel awkward. I don’t think I’m the only person to feel this way, so I imagine that the premise of I Love You Man will be relatable to a lot of men.

Peter Klaven is set to mary his girlfriend Zooey. While planning the wedding it becomes clear that Klaven’s going to need a best man. Problem is, he doesn’t have anyone to turn to. His mother, and his younger brother both try their best to set him up on “man dates”. Plutonic  outings with other men that result in some amusing mix up’s and disastrous evenings. Just as Peter is set to give up he meets Sydney Fife, an uninhibited free spirit, and man’s man who pulls Peter out of his ways, showing him what it’s like to have a friend, and what it’s like to be a guy.

Peter Klaven is played by Paul Rudd, whose star presence seems to be on a continuous rise, and for good reason. Rudd has shone in such Judd Apatow productions as The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Being aligned with Apatow means Rudd is on the cutting edge of American comedy. Jason Segel who plays Sydney is obviously no stranger as well, he co-starred with Rudd in Knocked Up and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, as well as other Apatow productions like TV series Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared. Segel has natural comedic talent, as his earliest work will attest to. He’s also one of the bravest actor’s of the new school of comedy, completely unashamed and willing to make himself look awful for the sake of a good joke.

I’m a pretty big fan of these guys, so I Love You Man was a pretty sure bet for me. It didn’t disappoint. I love Rudd’s improvisations and Segel’s physical humor. There are great cameo’s from Lou Ferrigno, J.K Simmons, Jon Favreau, Joe Lo Truglio, Carla Gallo, and many many other’s. Even the characters that come in for very little screen time all seem real, and get some of the biggest laughs, Lo Truglio particularly steals every scene he’s in.

I Love You Man may not be quite as memorable as 40 Year Old Virgin or Superbad, and it may not have the emotional resonance of Knocked Up, but it’s a worthy comedy, really fun, and features a couple of the best actors working in comedies today.