New Releases

Review: John Dies at the End

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John Dies at the End

Don Coscarelli has two successful cult franchises to his name in Phantasm and Beastmaster.  The announcement of Bubba Nosferatu, sequel to 2002's Bubba Ho-Tep, makes that three ... so why not go for a fourth? The writer/director purchased rights to John Dies at the End, itself a cult web serial by author David Wong, first released online in 2001. The resulting film, opening Friday at Alamo Drafthouse on Slaughter, is arguably the best work Coscarelli's ever done.

Coscarelli's screenplay is smart, fast-paced and exciting, full of razor-sharp wit delivered first-person by star Chase Williamson. The story incorporates many important elements from the book while changing various details, sometimes for practical reasons. (Fans of the book will note the name and sex of the dog Molly have changed.)

A worthy modern-day successor to Ghostbusters, the movie John Dies at the End follows Dave and his friend John (Rob Mayes), paranormal investigators who derive their powers from the use of a mysterious otherworldly substance they call "soy sauce."

When under the influence of "the sauce," they experience various strange effects including telepathy, precognition and others for which there is no proper name. Forces beyond their control pull them into a battle to save the world. They're assisted by the alien Roger North (Doug Jones) and psychic superstar Dr. Albert Marconi (Clancy Brown). Paul Giamatti rounds out the fantastic cast as the reporter Arnie Blondestone.

Coscarelli's team does superb work with practical effects, rivalling much larger budget films and giving John Dies at the End a timeless quality akin to the original Evil Dead. People who have read the source book already know, as people are discovering through the movie, that John Dies at the End is a cult superstar in the making with a rich mythology drawn from diverse supernatural cultures, lovable characters, and a time-twisting plot that never rests. The movie is highly recommended for people who like to have fun at the cinema.

Review: Safe Haven

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Safe Haven posterThis Valentine's weekend, if moviegoing is you and your significant other's thing, you'll be presented with two choices: the very dude-centric shoot-em-up fifth movie in the Die Hard franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard, or a movie based on yet another Nicholas Sparks novel, Safe Haven. Guys may try very hard to convince their ladies of the positive and word-saving attributes of John McClane, but let's face it, you'd rather watch the Die Hard movie with your boys anyway. So there you'll inevitably sit, in a theater watching a movie based on a novel written by the same author who gave us The Notebook. But guess what? Safe Haven is actually a pretty good film, with two incredibly charming leads.

Safe Haven doesn't start out like most Nicholas Sparks adaptations. With music that sounds like it's from some gritty crime drama, the movie opens on a frightened young woman (Julianne Hough) soaked with blood, running away from a house in the rain. Seeking shelter with a neighbor, we then see her at a bus station being chased frantically by a detective (David Lyons).

For a second, you might not believe you're watching a film based on a Sparks novel. Safely on a bus, it's clear the woman is looking for a new start or a way to erase the memories of whatever she was running away from. It isn't until she arrives at a seaside North Carolina town that she decides to settle down with a job, a new name -- Katie -- and a secluded home. While there she meets Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widower with two adorable children, and the sparks fly ... but she's never really comfortable, because she's still afraid whatever she escaped might come looking for her.

Playing charming and charismatic isn't all that hard for Duhamel. Whats new is the emotional vulnerability his character is living with, so he comes off as a guy you're rooting for. Hough's character has a similar kind of vulnerability, and together they're a couple that is remarkably different from other couples in Sparks' movies and films. In The Notebook, and Dear John particularly, the female leads at times made decisions that didn't make them characters to root for. In Safe Haven, both romantic leads are so cautious while they feel each other out that their feelings develop organically, and it doesn't feel like overly sentimental fluff that causes eyerolls or groans.

Review: Beautiful Creatures

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Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert in Beautiful Creatures

I'm just going to come right out and say it: Beautiful Creatures is one of the most unintentionally hilarious movies I've seen in a long while. My friend who attended the screening with me called it "a laugh riot." There is some wit and bite in Richard LaGravenese's screenplay (based on the YA novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl), but the rest of the laughs are caused by other factors ... well, pretty much everything else involved with this film.

Beautiful Creatures opens with narration by Gatlin, South Carolina teen Ethan (Alden Ehrenreich), who sounds like a refugee from the set of HBO's True Blood. Maybe Ehrenreich learned his accent from watching that show? (Giggle count: 1) He has haunting dreams and stumbles upon items during his pre-dawn jogs in the town graveyard. His mother died recently and his father never leaves his room (in fact, we never see or hear him!). His lone parental figure is family friend Amma (Viola Davis), the town librarian.

Review: A Good Day to Die Hard

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A Good Day to Die Hard

In July 1988, Hollywood introduced movie audiences to John McClane (Bruce Willis) in the movie Die Hard. An everyday man, a guy with nothing but good intentions, trying to make amends with his wife -- he's simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. When an office building is overtaken by greedy terrorists, he saves the day, despite nearly killing himself in the process.

Since then, we've been treated to three more films in the Die Hard series and in each film, despite his age, McClane seems to become more and more superhuman, losing just a little bit more of the charm that made us fall in love with him as a hero in the first place. That problem is still very much evident in the now fifth entry to this franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard.

In McClane's latest adventure, we discover he's rekindled his relationship with his daughter, who needed rescuing in the previous film. She's dropping him off at the airport to he can go to Russia and see his son Jack (Jai Courtney), who's gotten in some trouble after killing a Russian gangster. It doesn't take long for the elder McClane to cause trouble.

Review: Identity Thief

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Identity ThiefActress-comedian Melissa McCarthy is a hot property in Hollywood since her breakout performance in the 2011 movie Bridesmaids. She's got an ongoing co-starring role on the TV series Mike & Molly and a part in This is 40 added to her list of credits, along with an upcoming police comedy with Sandra Bullock (The Heat), and a rumored appearance in The Hangover Part III.

McCarthy's over-the-top vulgar antics are a huge box-office draw right now, and the producers of Identity Thief are banking on that, showing previews filled with her most outrageous moments in the film. The film is  scripted by Craig Mazin, whose experience writing outrageous humor includes The Hangover Part II and a couple of the Scary Movie outings, and directed by Seth Gordon, who did similar work in Horrible Bosses. (Remember when he was The King of Kong filmmaker?)

The road-trip comedy co-stars Jason Bateman as the victim of her character Diana's criminal madness, out to deliver her to justice and reclaim his life. Though it delivers plenty of insanity, the laughs grow thinner as outrageous comedy gives way to touchy-feely tugs on the heartstrings, concluding with an ending straight out of an ABC Afterschool Special.  

Identity Thief is a generally enjoyable film, and would have been more so, if I could have looked beyond a couple of weaknesses. The first was a painfully awkward cameo scene with Jon Favreau, which seems like it was filmed only to prove that Favreau needs to stay behind the camera. The second was a clunky story that brings characters in, makes them important and then fails to resolve their story arcs. Even when I take my critic hat off, these two problems remain.

Inexplicably, Identity Thief earned an R rating, apparently entirely on the basis of "adult situations." The movie contained mild gun violence, almost zero nudity (a single shot of male buttocks) and even very little rough language. It felt entirely PG-13 and with only small alterations, could easily air on network television.

Review: Warm Bodies

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Warm Bodies

From the director of 50/50 and All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Warm Bodies is not that hot. Director Jonathan Levine has adapted Isaac Marion's unique zombie love story into a predictably safe PG-13 screenplay.

There are a couple of well-established formulas for zombie movies that people expect to see. First and perhaps most prevalent is the survival story that pits a random group of people against an inevitable horde of the undead, trapped in a shopping mall or on an island, usually killing them off one by one until they are all gone or perhaps one or two escape.

Next is the post-apocalyptic adventure which focuses on one or two travellers as they make their way through a landscape from which the undead pop up along the way to drive the story forward. Zombieland is one of the best recent examples.

Many films combine elements of both of these stories, and hopefully throw in enough humor to balance the more gruesome mechanical aspects that are often very graphically displayed. Some of them are better than others, but an original approach is important in a subgenre so popular that it has been done to death (no pun intended).

Warm Bodies is the first story I know that is told from the point of view of the zombies, which is a highly novel take, but the structure of the film unfortunately left me hungry for more, and not in a good way. Loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, the story follows "R" (Nicholas Hoult) through his daily zombie routine as he philosophizes on the zombie condition and longs for slightly more lasting and meaningful relationships than the one he has with his zombie best friend "M" (Rob Corddry). On a hunger raid with his cohorts, R encounters Julie (Teresa Palmer) and a group of her friends on a supply run. In the scuffle that follows, R eats the brains of Julie's ex-boyfriend Perry (Dave Franco) and falls in love with her. What follows is a story of forbidden love that brings to mind Beauty and the Beast.

Review: Stand Up Guys

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Stand Up Guys

The hands of time move against us at the beat of a steady drum currying favor for no one. The film Stand Up Guys tells the story of what happens when mobsters reach their golden years. With an amazing cast, the movie creates an endearing story of friendship among thieves.

Stand Up Guys tells the story of Val (Al Pacino), an old school gangster, and his best friend Doc (Christopher Walken). After serving a 28-year prison sentence, Val is picked up by Doc. Wasting no time, Doc begins the process of reintroducing Val to a world that has changed a lot in 28 years. After some awkward re-introductions, Al and Doc set out for a night of girls, good food, great friends and simply making up for years that have passed these two by. 

But as is often true, life is more complicated than that. Doc has been given a job, and that job is, to "take out" his best friend within the next 24 hours. Almost immediately Val smells a rat and asks Doc if he "has a job to do?" Doc freely admits he does but is faced with a difficult choice: save his friend or do what he has always done, his job. The men make a decision: Doc will carry through his job, but first they'll make Val’s last day on earth a blast (literally and figuratively). 

Review: Quartet

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Tom Courtenay and Maggie Smith in Quartet

If there really is a place like Beecham House, I want to go to there someday. In the Dustin Hoffman-directed film Quartet, the site is a home for retired classical music performers and opera singers. As the main four characters wander about the beautiful grounds, a solo clarinetist plays, or a string quartet performs in a gazebo. How wonderful would it be to be surrounded by amazing instrumentalists constantly playing music (well)? It seems like a slice of heaven to me. The movie itself, however? Not so much.

The plot is a bit of a muddle, but here goes: Flamboyant Cedric (Michael Gambon, wearing Dumbledore-esque caftans) is putting on the home's annual concert, which, from the number of times he asserts that the home could be closed if the event is not a success, I infer is a fundraiser. It's reminiscent of the classic-musical plotline where the gang would put on a show to save a farm (Summer Stock, anyone?).

A trio of friends -- serious Reginald (Tom Courtenay, TV's Little Dorrit), naughty Wilf (Billy Connolly, Mrs. Brown and Brave), and dotty Cissy (Pauline Collins, Albert Nobbs) -- sit around reminiscing about the days when they once sang together in Rigoletto. Then the fourth of their quartet moves into the home. Jean (Maggie Smith) was the diva of the group and once had an ill-fated romance with Reg. Cedric wants them to perform the quartet from Rigoletto at the annual concert, but Jean is wary.

Review: Broken City

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Broken City

Many modern filmmakers attempt to recreate the atmosphere and tone of film noir. Some succeed and many more fail. Allen Hughes' first solo effort Broken City is a middle-of-the-road noir. Rough dialogue and an obvious set of twists make for an overlong trip into familiar territory.

Broken City begins with a city in turmoil. Officer Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) is on trial for shooting a perpetrator who was recently released on a technicality for raping a young girl. After being exonerated by the court officer, Taggart is summoned to appear before Mayor Hostetler (Russell Crowe) and Commissioner Fairbanks (Jeffrey Wright). These two men have come into possession of evidence that would incriminate Taggart in the shooting. They soon convince Taggart to resign from the police force.

We flash forward seven years. Taggart is now working as a private investigator with a cash-flow problem. Conveniently, Mayor Hostetler summons him to his office with a job of his own: the investigation of his wife Cathleen (Catherine Zeta-Jones). As can be expected in noir style films, things do not go as planned. The rest of the movie is spent uncovering the various subterfuges, turns and twists common to these types of films.

Review: The Last Stand

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The Last StandThe Expendables 2 was only a mild teaser of the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to making action films. What we've really been waiting for is his own action vehicle, and it finally hits theaters this week in The Last Stand. There's an added element to this movie that makes it special and ramps up the anticipation, at least for a few movie fans.

The Last Stand marks Korean director Jee-woon Kim's first American film. He's directed some amazing films, among them I Saw the Devil, The Good, the Bad, the Weird and A Tale of Two Sisters. He's proven to be a director who can handle violence with ease, and is able to get great performances out of some memorable villains. The quality of The Last Stand isn't quite up to par with the level of quality in his earlier Korean films, but some of his signature elements are still here and make it overall a good time at the movies.

Arnold plays Ray Owens, a small-town sheriff of an Arizona border town. On a light weekend, when most of the town leaves to watch the local high-school football team, an escaped fugitive attempts to cross the Mexican border, and the only town in his way is the home of Sheriff Owens. In the words of Schwarzenegger's Jack Slater from Last Action Hero, this fugitive just made a big mistake.

As expected, Jee-woon Kim handles violent action brilliantly, full of unflinching gore, and lots of mostly practical blood. There's a great villain in Peter Stormare. Wisecracking, intimidating, has just a silly an accent as Arnie. 

The Last Stand has one main problem throughout, though and it's the writing. It's hampered by a weak first act, and very cheesily written. This shouldn't dissuade too many people from watching it though, because it is an action vehicle starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, it isn't Shakespeare with guns. Once you get past the anemic first act, sit back and enjoy the ride because it is a fun one.

The rest of the cast, Arnold and Stormare aside, do a pretty good job, and all have comedic moments to shine, Johnny Knoxville and Luis Guzman especially. For a Texas connection, Friday Night Lights alum Zach Gilford (Matt Saracen) has a nice role in the film.

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