Oz: The Great and Powerful

Happy Halloween everyone! Let’s end today with the 2013 prequel to one of my favorite movies of all time, “Oz: The Great and Powerful.” There is quite a bit of magic in this movie, although most of it is borrowed.

One could resist that’s what prequels are: They must link themselves undistinguishably to what we knew.

Writers Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire based their script on the works of the great L. Frank Baum. However, this movie, which was also released in 3D, is based on the classic 1939 movie with Judy Garland. The movie even opens up with a black-and-white Kansas, with a twister.

Obviously Dorothy will not be in this movie, and neither will Toto. Instead, “Oz” directed by Sam Raimi, tells how the Land of Oz and its Emerald City citizens came to get the Wizard of Oz. It also tells how the two witches got to be so evil as well.

Michelle Williams gives a brilliant but supported turn as Glinda the Good Witch. Rachel Weisz and Mila Kunis (who also does the voice of Meg Griffin in “Family Guy”) play sisters Evanora and Theodora. One’s intentionally evil, and the other turns evil because of hurt.

LisaKennedy of Denver Post said in her review, “None of them — good or evil — are as interesting or refreshing as the complicated roommates of the blockbuster musical "Wicked."”

James Franco smiles a lot as Oscar Diggs, a hustler/magician working the circus circuit in Kansas. “My friends call me Oz,” he tells Theodora, all when his hot-air balloon makes an unexpected landing in the Technicolor land of strange flora and fauna and a diverse citizenry desperate for a wizard to accomplish the prophesy.

It’s hard to think of Kunis as immature as her character. I think Kennedy is right when she says, “With her Bette Davis eyes, one gets the sense the actress sees through everything. The script robs her of that innate intelligence.” Plus the parts between Theodora and Oz, the main part of this movie’s plot, show that weakness of this visit. “Oz” drifts from its yellow-brick path every time there is a romance part, frustrated or otherwise. Kennedy says, “It finds its way back onto the magical route when it hews to a more egalitarian saga of people rising to the occasion of their own liberty.”

A handful of visual effects are definitely special. But many are also movie-making’s version of flying a lily. Besides, Evanora’s flying army of monkeys is only slightly more evil for being recast as sharp-fanged baboons.

The tornado that whisks Oz away in the hot-air balloon is impressive. Kennedy also adds, “And his zero-gravity moment in the twister is a thing of momentary beauty, but it still doesn't trump the wonder of the one Dorothy awoke in.”

Since I didn’t see this movie in the theater, I’ll let Kennedy describe the 3D feel: “Raimi, director of the first "Spider-Man" trilogy but also the cult classic "The Evil Dead," uses 3-D as he might in a horror flick. Shards of wood pierce the hot-air balloon's wicker basket. Spears thrown by henchmen appear to rain down on the audience. Cool. Barely. Because by now, aren't those gestures just the 3-D equivalent of a magician pulling a bouquet out of thin air?”

Kennedy then goes on to say, “If all this sounds harsher than seems fair for a movie with many a bright spot, chalk it up — some — to the DNA encoding of "The Wizard of Oz" on my soul.”

Let’s take a moment to give credit to two great and surprisingly the best characters in the movie: a flying monkey and a little girl made entirely out of china.

So many humans wonder is in these two characters made up of make-up, puppetry, digital effects and great performances.

Even though it’s nice to see Zach Braff (from the sitcom “Scrubs”) as Bob, Oz’s assistant in Kansas, it’s even better to see him once he is in Oz. He voices Finley, the little flying monkey in the bell-up costume. His chattering tangents are often as insightful as they are hilarious.

Like Braff, 13-year-old Joey King also has two roles. First, she shows up in the black-and-white segment of Kansas. With a nice touch of magic, Oz makes a believer out of the little girl watching his show in her wheelchair. She asks Oz to cure her, which he can’t do.

Later when Oz and Finley walk into a place called China Town (which we probably would think that Asians will now be in Oz), all they hear among the ruins is soft cries of a little porcelain girl. Oz saves her and she joins the journey.

With China Girl and Finley with Oz as he goes to destroy the wand of the witch he thinks is evil, Oz becomes a more worthy hero. Also, the film’s journey becomes funny and emotional and memorable all at the same time, like “The Wizard of Oz.”

I highly recommend you see this movie. Even though the acting isn’t really that good, I still believe that this is worth checking out. Especially since it’s within the same vein as the other movies I have reviewed based on original Grimm Brothers tales that were turned light-hearted for children.

Thanks for joining in on “Halloween Month” this year. I hope you enjoyed all of these reviews, go out tonight, dress up in your costume, get some candy, and watch some scary movies. I’ll see you next month.

Jack the Giant Slayer

Now that we’re getting really close to Halloween, which is tomorrow in fact, it’s time to wrap things up here on “Halloween Month.” To do that, I will take a look at another 2013 adaptation on a children’s tale, which was originally a Grimm Brothers tale I believe, “Jack the Giant Slayer” (previously called “Jack the Giant Killer”).

This is how Roger Ebert began his review: “You never know.

“Based on those unavoidable TV ads for "Jack the Giant Slayer" featuring CGI-looking giants clomping around and throwing windmills while a hipster-quipster Jack romances a generic-looking princess, I wasn't exactly dreading the screening, but I can't say I had it circled on my calendar, either.

“I'm pleased to report, however, "Jack the Giant Slayer" is a rousing, original and thoroughly entertaining adventure. Director Bryan Singer, a first-rate cast and a stellar team of screenwriters, set designers and special-effects wizards have dusted off an old and (let's face it) never particularly compelling fairy tale and have given us a great-looking thrill ride in which we actually care about a number of characters.

“There's even room for just the hint of empathy for the giants. It's not easy being a giant. In fact, I have a few questions about the Giant Way of Life, but we'll get to that later.”

“Jack the Giant Slayer” begins with the telling of a same bedtime story in two different houses told on the same night. Young Jack, a farm boy who is 8-years-old (Michael Self), has read this story so many times, and the pages are nearly worn out, but he pleads his kindly, widowed father (Tim Foley) to read him the story one more time.

Meanwhile, at the castle of the Cloister, a princess (Sydney Rawson) is also desperately waiting the same story, read to her by her mother, who, like Jack’s dad, isn’t going to be seen after the opening credits of the movie.

Jump forward to 10 years later. Jack has grown up to become Nicholas Hoult, a handsome and almost blandly noble young man now living with his bitter old uncle, played by Christopher Fairbank, after the plague killed his Dad.

Eleanor Tomlinson plays Princess Isabelle, who obviously is adventurous and romantic and hopeless, and “really” wishes she didn’t have to marry the gross, old and obviously two-faced Roderick, played by the great Stanley Tucci, hamming it up just short of a twirling mustache.

To be honest, a few scenes past the point of great timing, it takes a long time before we see the magic beans and the stalk grows towards the sky and the mysterious land above Earth populated completely by giants. Once we arrive there, it’s time.

Especially in the close-up shots, the giants look pretty awesome. They’re an ugly bunch of hoodlums, picking their noses and passing gas and making pigs in a blanket, which “are” pigs…In blankets.

As always, the 3D is mostly about 2.5D, but we do get a few fight scenes where you would want to duck. Over all, the special effects are impressive. It really looks like the little men are fighting those colossal giants, whose leader is a two-headed general, with the important Bill Nighly buried there somewhere playing the general.

There’s no way you can have a fair fight between giants and people, so there’s a convenient device to level the battlefield. A magic crown made from elements including but not restricted to the heart of a long-ago defeated giant. Whoever wears a crown are in complete control over the giants, and the evil Roderick’s plan to take out the crown when the time is right and lead the giants to travel to Cloister and all the kingdoms of Earth.

Ebert suggests, “You'd think Roderick would have been pleased with the deal he already had: marrying the hot young princess, commanding the kingdom and living a cushy live, but there you have it.”

“Jack the Giant Slayer” is filled with great looks, from the casting of Ewan McGregor as Elmont, a knight in shining armor who’s supposed to be the protagonist of the story and is definitely “a” hero, but not “the” hero, to be an epilogue that’s hands-down cool. The PG-13 violence, including a close-up of an eyeball bulging out of one of the giants, means the action is not meant for very little children. Ebert does admit, “But for everyone else, including cynical grown-up critics who didn't think they'd ever give a Fee, a Fi, a Fo or a Fum about this movie, it's a terrific adventure.”

Finally let’s talk about the giants. They live in a world between Earth and heaven, and if you want to overlook scary rock formations and isolation, it seems like a pretty cool look with fertile greenery, room for a giant to wander around, and plenty to eat if you can develop your appetite for humans.

Ebert does ask, “What I want to know is, where are the lady giants and the teenage giants and the baby giants? If there are no women, how do these guys not die off? They're not immortal, because several get killed during this movie.”

It would have been nice to see the two-headed general’s wife, just to see what her problem is and how she spends her days. Maybe in a sequel, if they are planning to make one, but if not, then that’s fine.

Anyways, if you want to check this movie out then by all means do so, it’s really good. I personally liked this movie a lot. However, I didn’t know that all these movies that are based on children’s stories I grew up reading were originally stories made by the Grimm Brothers. Maybe I should check out their movie to see for myself what tales they made or research which ones were they’re stories that were made child-friendly.

Well, stay tuned tomorrow for the finale of “Halloween Month.”

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

Look out everyone, Halloween is right around the corner! To celebrate, let’s take a look at the 2013 Grimm Brothers adaptation, “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.” Have you noticed how the Grimm’s fairy tales have attracted people lately? An equally large audience will probably get sucked into the corny 3D show when they see it. The movie was filmed two years ago, but Paramount probably found the right time to release it – in the beginning of January, when competition was not that big. Young fanboys will sneakily see this despite that it’s rated R, but there isn’t much in it to attract anyone with the slightest of maturity. Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner looks out of place in this cheap imitation, but hopefully the huge paycheck he received will allow him to go back to the artier work very soon.

When you see both Will Ferrell’s and Adam McKay’s names among the film’s producers, you know that “Hansel & Gretel” never was meant to be taken seriously. Stephen Farber stated in his review, “Lots of anachronisms and tongue-in-cheek dialogue establish the spoofy nature of this violent venture. All that’s missing is a genuine sense of wit.”

The film begins by submitting to the original fairy tale, when a young Hansel and Gretel (Cedric Eich and Alea Sophia Boudodimos) are deserted in the forest and wander into the witch’s (Monique Ganderton) cottage built of candy. (There’s a good joke later when adult Hansel takes a medieval version of insulin injections to help him with the sugar addiction.) Then the movie fast forwards a couple of decades where we see the adult Hansel (Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) are turning their childhood suffering into a career. The time period is a bit impulsive. Some of the production details suggest the Middle Ages, yet our protagonists have a weapon store of somewhat more modern weapons to help them kill witches and warlocks.

As they follow their enemy, they both find friends – a “white witch” (Pihla Viitala) for Hansel and a troll (Derek Mears, but voiced by Robin Atkin Downes) who takes a fancy for Gretel – but basically they have to depend on their own courage to succeed over the enemies. Their main enemy is a slyness vixen who morphs from beautiful to ugly when the mood hits. This must be the year for hot actresses to spoil their ugly side. Famke Janssen follows Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron in letting out her hidden beast.

Despite its few ironic jokes, the script is terribly thin. Farber says, “Norwegian writer-director Tommy Wirkola (Dead Snow) loves to film crushed and exploding heads, but the film is too fanciful to be truly revolting.” Wirkola makes the most of the 3D technology. There haven’t been as many dangerous weapons that seemed to be zooming out at the audience since the time of “It Came From Outer Space.”

Sadly, the director doesn’t really let the actors have too much going on for them. Renner and Arterton are certainly great, but this irrational work doesn’t give them a chance to show what they can do best. Since the time is less than 90 minutes, the film is smart enough not to torture its audience for very long. Farber admits that, “But that’s the only sign of true intelligence in this juvenile caper.”

If you’re looking for something that will be along the lines of “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” then this film is for you. However, if you didn’t like that film, you won’t like this one as well. Some of the jokes are funny, the effects can look nice, and the action is definitely enjoyable and you can get into it, but that can’t really save this film. I would say it’s up to you if you want to watch this film, since the tale does seem like a nice basis for “Halloween Month” movies. I can say that I enjoyed the action when I saw this on NetFlix, but that’s about it.

Alright, watch tomorrow for the next review in “Halloween Month.”

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Remember when I reviewed the movie “Lincoln” for President’s Day this year? Well, there is another movie about Lincoln that fits perfectly for “Halloween Month,” “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” released in 2012 and another novel adaptation that I have never read. This movie is hands down the best film that we will ever see on the subject, unless they make a sequel, which won’t happen because at the end, the Lincolns are heading toward the theater. Even Roger Ebert admitted, “It's also a more entertaining movie than I remotely expected. Yes, Reader, I went expecting to sneer.”

The film starts off with young Abe (Lux Haney-Jardine) witnessing the murder of his mother (Robin McLeavy) by a vampire (Marton Csokas). He promises to avenge her, and some years later is lucky to be getting inebriated at a bar standing next to Henry Sturgess, played by Dominic Cooper, who teaches him on vampire-killing and explains that it is a high calling, requiring great enthusiasm and avoiding distractions, i.e. marriage.

There’s a part early in the film where Lincoln tries to shoot a vampire, but that won’t work since they are already dead. What can he do? He tells Henry, “Well, I used to be pretty good at rail-spitting…” This may only make a few people laugh because the movie purposely avoids any way to be funny.

Lincoln’s weapon of choice turns out to be an ax with a silver blade, which he learns to spin like a drum’s baton. Since he carries the ax around most of the time, it may appear to be unusual. Ebert mentioned in his review, “I was reminded uncannily of Buford Pusser, walking tall and carrying a big stick.”

Much like how Anakin did in “Attack of the Clones,” Lincoln (Benjamin Walker) marries Mary Todd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and the story moves quickly to when he is President, where he finds out that the vampires are on the South’s side. This looks strange, since they’ve got to be equal opportunity bloodsuckers, but there you go. Fighting with Lincoln is his childhood friend Will Johnson, played by Anthony Mackie, a free black man whose abuse led to Lincoln’s rancor of slavery. Also with Lincoln is Joshua Speed, played by Jimmi Simpson, who hired him in his Springfield general store. Johnson and Speed join Lincoln in Civil War strategy meetings and are his most important advisors, which are overlooked in history.

The film, directed by Timur Bekmambetov and written by Seth Grahame-Smith, based on his novel, looks at all of these situations with an excellent seriousness, which could be the only way it can work. The performances are serious and genuine, and even villains like Adam, played by Rufus Swell, the American leader of the Vampire Nation, doesn’t spit or snarl over much. It unfortunately introduces but does not explain Vadoma, played by Erin Wasson, a statuesque woman who is many decades ahead of her time in her taste for leather obsession wear. Ebert even asks, “Are vampires kinky? I didn't know.”

Ebert talked about in his review, “Although we do not attend "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" in search of a history lesson, there's one glitch I cannot overlook. In the first day of fighting at Gettysburg, the Union sustains a defeat so crushing that Lincoln is tempted to surrender. This is because the Confederate troops, all vampires, are invulnerable to lead bullets, cannon fire and steel blades, and have an alarming way of disappearing and rematerializing. Over breakfast, Lincoln confides his despair to his wife and says conventional weapons are of no more use against them than — why — than this fork! As he stares at it, he realizes it is silver, and vampires can be killed by silver weapons, as he has proved with his axe-twirling.”

Now try not to focus too much on history. After realizing this, Lincoln uses all his resources to gather all the silver in Washington, melt it, and make silver bayonets, bullets and cannon balls. Then we see him, Johnson and Speed with weapons on a train en route to Gettysburg. It is night again, which may make you think this took less than a day.

Don’t mind that. Now comes an actually thrilling action sequence where the vampires battle Lincoln and his comrades on top of the speeding train, which dashes toward a high wooden bridge that has been set burning by the evil Vadoma. This part is ridiculous and yet exciting, using masterful editing and special effects. Somehow Benjamin Walker and his co-stars are convincing – well, as convincing as such silliness can be.

“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” has nothing useful to look at about Abraham Lincoln, slavery, the Civil War or much of anything else. If you don’t pay close attention, you might miss the detail that Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railway basically won the war for the North. But the film doesn’t promise the details on these areas. What it succeeds at is a surprisingly good job of doing wrong to its title, and treating Lincoln with as much gravity as we can expect, under the conditions.

In the end, like I said before, I’m not sure how accurately this film followed the novel, but it’s a great action flick to enjoy. Definitely give this film a watch, but don’t expect it to be anywhere as good as “Lincoln,” which is far superior.

Check in tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Mirror Mirror & Snow White and the Huntsman

We all are familiar with the famous story of “Snow White.” Princess whose evil stepmother wants to steal her beauty to become the fairest in the land, she runs away, encounters seven dwarves, become their mother, eats a poisoned apple given to her by the queen, falls into a deep sleep before her Prince Charming comes and kisses her, which wakes her up and they live happily ever after. That’s the basic formula that we’ve known since we saw the Walt Disney movie, which was the first movie they ever made. However, we’re not here to talk about that, but can you believe that there were two film adaptations made on the tale back in 2012? First off, let’s start with the atrocious adaptation, “Mirror Mirror.”

“Mirror Mirror” retells the story of Snow White (Lily Collins), although The Queen (Eric Roberts' sister, the very pretty Julia Roberts) insists that the movie belongs to her. Snow’s father, The King, played by the great Sean Bean, disappeared many years ago and is assumed dead, which leaves her in the care of her cruel stepmother.

Snow’s beauty and youth seem to be a threat to The Queen, and she keeps the girl trapped to the palace grounds. Nearing her eighteenth birthday, Snow sneaks out and runs into the Prince Alcott, played by Armie Hammer, who has been robbed and jumped by small bandits. After freeing them, she goes into a nearby town and finds out that the Queen has made the lives of simple village people quite miserable.

The Prince’s arrival offers the vision of economic recovery through marriage for the financially broke Queen, but first she needs to remove Snow White from her life. She arranges Snow White to be killed, but her servant Brighton, played by gay comedian Nathan Lane, can’t follow through, and does not even tell the Queen. Snow is taken in by the happy group of thieves (Danny Woodburn, Martin Klebba, Sebastian Saraceno, Jordan Prentice, Mark Povinelli, Joe Gnoffo, and Ronald Lee Clark) and plans to kill the Queen.

Mark Pfeiffer, who blogged on this movie, said, “The ill fit between MIRROR MIRROR’s screenplay and its director's sensibilities dooms the comedic fairy tale from the outset.  Tarsem Singh excels at staging visual extravaganzas, and in that respect he often delivers what one desires from a fantastical story like this. Costume designer Eiko Ishioka’s work on MIRROR MIRROR, her final film, features strange and imaginative outfits.  Ishioka’s arty creations in her other collaborations with Singh have ranked among the most memorable aspects of those films.  In this instance the clothes steal the show from their wearers, making this umpteenth rendition of SNOW WHITE nearly worth seeing for the peculiar attire alone.”

The sets, which look like they were built on the studio back in the 1950s or 60s, make an effect similar to that you can see in pop-up storybooks. While it’s an inspired increase, sometimes the surroundings appear poorly put together and washed out. Pfeiffer said in his blog, “Singh presents a visually distinctive world for the familiar tale, but in paling in comparison to the lavish lands of THE FALL and IMMORTALS, it seems like a halfhearted or budget-restricted attempt.”

Singh’s treating of the scripts does not come close to his ability for imagery. This weakness is very clear than ever in “Mirror Mirror.” The silly jokes and unusual tone collapse under Singh’s heavy hand and lack of timing. Roberts’ catty take on the evil Queen and Hammer’s unreserved goofiness hint at the potential for a winking tribute to fond stabbing of fairy tales a la “The Princess Bride,” but “Mirror Mirror” is more difficult than playful.

Pfeiffer concluded his review by saying, “To its credit, MIRROR MIRROR makes more interesting characters out of the dwarves than they’re usually granted.  Still, the snarky humor comes off as tired and obvious, and weird accents, like the queen’s disgusting beauty routine and a wildly out-of-place rape joke, seem better suited for a film that isn’t otherwise tame kiddie fare.”

Take my advice and avoid this movie at all cost, it will pain you from first minute to last, although Roberts does a decent portrayal of the evil Queen. I made the mistake of watching this on NetFlix, which I regret ever doing. I will never get that time back ever, which I hate, but now I have to live with the regret of watching this garbage.

But what can be said about “Snow White and the Huntsman,” which was released later that year? Let’s find out:

“Snow White and the Huntsman” reinvents the legendary story in a film of amazing beauty and imagination. It’s the last thing you would expect from a movie with this title. It hesitates in its storytelling, because Snow White must be entirely good, the Queen must be entirely bad, and there’s no room for fine distinction. The ending is therefore fixed. But it’s really enjoyable.

This is an older Snow White than we usually think of. Played for most of the film by the star of “Twilight,” Kristen Stewart, capable and brave, she has spent long years locked in a room of her late father’s (Noah Huntley and Liberty Ross plays the first wife) castle, imprisoned by his evil mistress (the hot Charlize Theron). When she escapes and decides to right the wrongs, she is a mature young woman, of interest to the two young men who join in her mission. Roger Ebert said in his review, “But the movie sidesteps scenes of romance, and in a way, I suppose that's wise.”

The Huntsman, played by Chris Hemsworth, is a heroic, mead-devouring hunter assigned by the Queen to hunt down Snow White and bring her back to the castle. After running into her, however, he is so impressed he changes sides. There is also Prince William, played by Sam Claflin, obsessed since childhood, and the two men join in an understood union.

The Queen lives in fear of losing her beauty of her youth and constantly steals the beauty from the blood of virgins to restore it. She tests her success with the recognizable mirror on the wall, voiced by Christopher Obi, which melts into molten metal and turns into a phantom form, which Ebert describes, “not unlike Death in "The Seventh Seal," although its metallic transformation process reminds us of "The Terminator."”

Ebert also described the castle as, “The castle, which sits in eerie splendor on an island joined to the mainland only at low tide, is a gothic fantasy that reminds me of the Ghormenghast series.” The Queen is joined there by her brother, played by Sam Spruell, somewhat reduced by his blonde page-boy haircut, who does her bidding but seems rather out to lunch. Extras appear when needed, and then disappear. The Queen controls extraordinary supernatural powers, including the ability to materialize countless black birds that can transform into fighting demons or shards of cutting metal.

All of this is provided appropriately by the special effects, but the treasure of the film is in two of its locations: a harsh, forbidding Dark Forest, and an enchanted fairyland. Both of these realms are located near the castle, and the Huntsman is ordered in the first place because he knows the Dark Forest, where Snow White has run off to.

In this frightening realm, nothing lives, and it is thick with blackened bones of dead trees, as if a forest fire had burned only the greenery. There is no happiness here and a monstrous troll runs into Snow White in a dramatic stare-down. After the Huntsman gets her out of the Dark Forest, they are happy to find, or be found by, the Eight Dwarves.

Yes, eight, although one doesn’t survive, taking the number down to the usual seven. These characters look familiar, and no wonder: The wonders of CGI have given the faces of familiar British actors such as Ian McShane, the late Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsen, Toby Jones, Johnny Harris, and Brian Gleeson. While this technique is effective, it nevertheless robs eight working (real) dwarves with jobs, which isn’t really fair.

Ebert stated in his review, “The dwarves lead them to my favorite realm in the film, an enchanting fairyland, which is a triumph of art direction and CGI. Mushrooms open their eyes and regard the visitors. Cute forest animals scamper and gambol in tribute to a forest scene in Disney's 1937 animated film. The fairies themselves are naked, pale-skinned sprites with old, wise faces. The spirit of this forest is embodied by a great white stag with expressive eyes and horns that spread in awesome complexity.” This is a wonderful scene. The director, Rupert Sanders, who began by making TV commercials, is evidently familiar with making memorable places.

Ebert goes on to say, “As for the rest, there is a sufficiency of medieval battle scenes, too many for my taste, and a fairly exciting siege of the castle, aided by the intervention of the dwarves, and featuring catapults that hurl globes of burning tar — always enjoyable.”

There is a great film in here somewhere, maybe one that allowed greater difficulty for the characters. Ebert does admit though, “But considering that I walked in expecting no complexity at all, let alone the visual wonderments, "Snow White and the Huntsman" is a considerable experience.”

In my opinion, I think you should definitely check this one out, you’ll love it. It’s “way” better than “Mirror Mirror,” but that’s probably because they made this darker and more like the original Grimm Brothers tale. Although I will admit I don’t like Kristen Stewart, she actually did a good job here despite the fact that she still has that wondering look that she had in “Twilight,” and the best characters are Chris Hemsworth’s Huntsman and Charlize Theron’s evil Queen.

Check in tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Hotel Transylvania

I think it’s time to look at another animated movie that is just right for this month and is perfect for little kids. Let’s take a look at the 2012 animated comedy, “Hotel Transylvania.”

At “Hotel Transylvania,” they do the monster mash – and play monster shuffleboard, break-in the monster mini-bar and visit the monster spa.

Whether you’re a kid who likes to play around with plastic fangs or an adult who never misses the classic horror flicks like “Mad Monster Party” or “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” you’ll be happy that you watched this feature.

An impressive debut for Genndy Tartakovsky, the TV animator who brought us the classic Cartoon Network cartoons like “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “Samurai Jack,” “Hotel Transylvania” may lack the emotional liveliness of some of Pixar’s best work, but it makes up for it with rapid-fire restrains and an unflagging pace that makes this a rare film for everyone.

In this film, monsters are actually nice who just want to relax without being chased by humans carrying torches and pitchforks.

After the death of his wife, Count Dracula (SNL alumni and beloved comedian Adam Sandler) swears to protect his daughter, Mavis, (singer who started her career on the Disney sitcom “Wizards of Waverly Places,” Selena Gomez) from the animal-like cruelties of humans, so he builds the hotel, a generous castle where the Frankenstein Monster (Kevin James from “The King of Queens,” while Fran Drescher from “The Nanny” voices his wife), Wayne the werewolf (Steve Buscemi, while Molly Shannon voices his wife), Murray the mummy (rapper Cee-Lo Green), Quasimodo (another SNL alumni, the great Jon Lovitz), and Griffin the Invisible Man (another SNL alumni and also was in the hit sitcom “Just Shoot Me,” David Spade) can relax, take a shvitz and enjoy disgusting, insect-filled gourmet cuisine.

Alonso Duralde said in his review of this film, “And yes, technically, he should be named “Frankenstein’s monster.” But that’s one of those subtle delineations along the lines of counting 1990 as the last year of the 1980s: technically correct, but no one cares.”

After more than a century trapped in the hotel, Mavis finally turns 118, and she’s ready to see the world. Her dad is of course scared so he sends her to the nearby village (where he’s dressed up the hotel’s zombie bellboys as evil, monster-hating townspeople) to discourage her of the idea. Little does Dracula know that human backpacker Jonathan, voiced by another SNL alumni who currently stars in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” Andy Samberg, follows the zombies back to the hotel, or Jonathan and Mavis will fall in love when they first see each other.

Forced by condition to let Jonathan stay for the huge 118^th birthday party, Dracula dresses the boy up as a cousin of the Frankenstein Monster’s and warns him about falling in love with Mavis.

However, Dracula finds himself warming up to the first mortal he’s seen in so many years, particularly after the two have a mid-air fight involving flying tables.

In the same way that Noah Baumbach gave the “Madagascar” franchise a chance when he co-wrote the third film, “Hotel Transylvania” ends up being much funnier than you’d think, thanks to the involvement of screenwriters Robert Smigel (the man who voices Triumph the Insult Comic Dog) and Peter Baynham (whose work varies from controversial British TV Comedy “Brass Eye” to “Arthur Christmas”). They dive into these horror icons and turn them into new versions that are affectionate and fresh.

Duralde said in his review, “Not many people were hoping for a Sandler/Samberg re-teaming after the nightmare of “That’s My Boy,” but here they generate a real comic rapport.” Sandler’s Dracula is one of the funniest characters we’ve seen in a long time (if that’s not negative with weak praise) and Sandberg creates a dummy that’s still believably appealing.

I agree with Duralde when he says in his review, “Tartakovsky underscores the comic zip of his performers by sticking bizarre and hilarious sight gags throughout, filling in the margins like the artists who created MAD magazine in the 1950s. He and his crew mine the comic potential for ambulatory skeletons, floating brains, blobby aliens and out-of-control werewolf children for every gag possible.”

“Hotel Transylvania” is the type of film that many will consider to be “merely” entertaining, and even if it’s not as scary as “ParaNorman” or as original as “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” it’s a energetic joyride from start to finish.

For any parent who is reading this blog, take my advice and sit down and watch this with everyone in the room. All of you will have an enjoyable time laughing at this film because I sure did.

Look out for tomorrow when I post the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Insidious 1 & 2

For today, I will take a look at two movies that delve into the supernatural mind, but I found to be funny as opposed to scary. I’m of course talking about none other than the 2010 movie, “Insidious.” What’s that? James Rolfe already did this for his Monster Madness review? Look, I saw the review, and I would just like to say that I know he planned this out months in advance, but so did I. James never posts a list of reviews he’s going to do when he does Monster Madness, so I had no clue. You don’t see me leaving comments on his videos saying that I had already done “Exorcist III” last year and beat him to reviewing “Beetlejuice” before he did. There’s no time sheet, so if someone already did a review on a movie that you were planning on doing, it is fine. You can voice your own opinion on it. Now that I got that out of the way, let’s begin.

Roger Ebert said that “Insidious” is, “an affectionate visit to the Haunted House Movie, a genre that seems classic in contrast to Queasy-Cam gorefests.” The movie depends on characters, atmosphere, sneak attacks and increasing horror. Like I had already said, this movie isn’t really good, but you’ll probably get what you’re expecting. What’s important to know that it’s a combined effort between director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell, who made the “Saw” franchise, which I will never see since I don’t like torture flicks.

In Ebert’s review, he stated, “As the movie opens, an unsuspecting family is moving into a big old house they must have found through the Amityville Multiple Listing Service. It's the kind of house you require for a haunting movie, with lots of rooms, nooks, crannies, corridors, staircases, closets and shadows — and an attic, of course. Although more modern houses were used in the "Paranormal Activity" movies, this genre really requires all the creaky old bells and whistles.”

The Lambert family looked like they were happy before this real estate deal. Josh (Patrick Wilson) is a teacher, Renai (Rose Byrne) writes songs and their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) is like every other kid who is curious. You can see that when he sneaks into the attic, falls off an unfaithful ladder, and instantly falls into a coma. MRI’s reveal that there’s no head injury or brain damage, so what could it be? It’s very much like the episode of “MASH” called, “Bless you, Hawkeye,” where tests were not showing anything physical in Hawkeye for his sneeze attack, so they had to call Sidney, a psychiatrist, to see what was in his head, like a suppressed memory.

Renai is sure that something scary is occurring. Her boxes are moved around, but no one is moving them. Doors and windows open on their own. We are actually feeling more positive about this than Renai, since we start to see the bare ghost of a horrifying spirit.

Josh starts to stay at work pretty late. We as the audience members may want to start blaming him for not caring and wanting to get to the bottom of all these issues at home. We know this because Ebert said it best in his review: “We identify an example of the Absent Father Syndrome, that screenwriter's convenience for getting Dad out of the way so Mom can be home alone and told she's imagining things.”

This is a family that desperately needs some serious help. They hire a psychic named Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), who sends over two paranormal investigators (Angus Sampson and the writer Leigh Whannell). These two look like they are exceptionally useless and are basically the comic reliefs.

What is this apparition that his haunting the family? Why is it there? What does it want? What can it get from the unfortunate Lamberts? Ebert answers this by saying, “The answers to such questions must necessarily remain theoretical at a metaphysical level, but at a practical level, the purpose of the presence is to generate startling bangs at frequent intervals, materialize unexpectedly, look horrifying and be a nuisance.” To sum up, he means that it just wants to go BOO!

Like I said, I didn’t find this scary, just funny because these spiritual movies just don’t seem to be really scary, unless they are done right. If you want to watch this, then go ahead, but you might be either bored, or like me, just laughing at how ridiculous it was.

But what can be said about the sequel, “Insidious: Chapter 2,” released in 2013? Let’s find out:

Unfortunately, this feels like a puzzle movie with too many superfluous pieces and not enough necessary ones, but it’s better than the first one in a few ways. Simon Abrams said in his review, “The first sequel to James Wan's "Poltergeist" homage/ripoff features a couple of set pieces that are thoughtful enough to be scary.” This goes a long way in the film where characters always explain why and how supernatural events occur. Also, unlike the first one, the sequel doesn’t overuse the jump scares and loud noises. Abrams stated that, “For better and worse, screenwriter Leigh Whannell has brought the same klutzy ambition to the "Insidious" films that he did to the first three "Saw" movies (Whannell did not script "Saw"s 4-7, though he did co-write "Chapter Two"'s story with Wan). His ideas for "Insidious: Chapter 2" are spectacularly misconceived, but they're also the main reason why the movie isn't that bad.”

“Insidious: Chapter 2” picks up exactly where the first one left off by telling us the Lambert family is still haunted. Josh Lambert’s body is possessed by the spirit of a mysterious Goth lady, and Renai doesn’t know it. Well, shouldn’t she, especially since she saw the photos that Elise took with the ghost clearly in the background? I guess Renai is not in the right state-of-mind after seeing those photos. Elise previously advised Renai that moving will not help them at all since Dalton was still haunted, not their home, but Renai and not-Josh move back into Josh’s childhood home anyway, which is odd since Renai is told in both of these movies that Josh was haunted as a child. To avoid a haunting, the Lamberts move back to the location of an earlier haunting. Once the household items start to move on their own again, Renai's paranormal investigators Specs (Whannell), Tucker (Sampson), call up retired psychic Carl (Steve Coulter) for answers.

Abrams says that, “Unfortunately, looking for answers in a Whannell-scripted film is more trouble than it's worth.” It’s easy to not pay attention to basic illogic of some plot points: “Why is a group of adults searching an abandoned hospital at night? Why are characters recapping the events of the last film?” (Specs says to Tucker, “You and I have first-hand knowledge that there’s something beyond death.”) It’s difficult to overlook the way Whannell selectively covers up the plot holes he made to let Wan succeed certain effects.

I have to agree with Abrams when he says, “This sometimes results in effective set pieces, like when Renai's group discovers a roomful of corpses; at that moment, you don't need to understand what's going on. But watching characters exhaustively explain why they can and cannot do certain things grows tiresome. It's easy to ignore the fact that Josh is inexplicably lost in "The Further," an astral plane where his soul is struggling to reconnect with his body, but not after he reminds viewers, "I am getting weaker the longer I am trapped from my body." At that point, Whannell inadvertently puts a loose plot thread in viewers' hands and hopes we won't pull too hard. (Wasn't it established in the first film that Josh is/was a gifted astral-plane traveler? Why is he so lost? Why can't he get back into his body?).”

Wilson deserves defended praise for his sometimes-efficient performance. Abrams notes that, “When he's allowed to cut loose, he hams it up like Robert "Freddy Krueger" Englund playing Jack Torrance.” While the movie’s mythology is unnecessarily convoluted, at least it puts both Wan and the film’s game cast into a much bigger corner. The thing that the film is set in more than one haunted house gives Wan more freedom to try new things, and also perfects some old tricks.

In the end, like I already stated, these two films I didn’t find scary, but just laughed at them. They are probably not my kind of horror films, but if they scared you, that’s fine. I personally wasn’t frightened at all.

Look out tomorrow to see what I will review next for “Halloween Month.”

Red Riding Hood

Of the classics of world literature that is demanding to be made as an erotic fantasy for teenage girls, “Red Riding Hood,” released in 2011, is way down the list. Roger Ebert even said in his review, “Here's a movie that cross-pollinates the "Twilight" formula with a werewolf and adds a girl who always wears a red hooded cape, although I don't recall her doing any riding.” It’s easy to think up of a story conference where they said, “Let’s switch the vampire with a werewolf and repeat the theme of a virgin falls in love with a handsome but dangerous man, only let’s get two men!”

What this inspiration flunks to convince is that while a young woman might play with the concept of a vampire boyfriend, she might not want to fall in love with a wolf. Although she might have thought that it would be nice to live in the woods in Oregon, she might not want to live in the Black Forest hundreds of years ago because you’re not able to get any cellphone reception there.

“Red Riding Hood” has put in the trouble of being painfully serious about a plot so ridiculous, it demands to be filmed by Monty Python. Ebert said in his review, “All that amused me was a dream sequence where Grandma says, “The better to eat you with.” I'm asking myself, “How can Red Riding Hood dream about dialogue in her own fairy tale when she hasn't even gone over the hill and through the dale to grandmother's house yet?””

The movie was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who made the first “Twilight” movie. “Red Riding Hood” starts off with computer-generated shots hundreds of square miles of forests, surrounded here and there by grim, stubby castles. Then we meet the narrator, Valerie, played by Megan Charpentier, who always wears a red cape. She is a young woman when she runs away with Peter, played by DJ Greenburg, her adolescent boyfriend, so they capture a bunny rabbit and possibly cut its throat, although the camera moves away from the bunny at the critical moment to focus on their faces as the young actors think, “OK, this is where they jump ahead to the future, and we are replaced by Amanda Seyfried and Shiloh Fernandez.”

They live in a village that is one of the strangest non-places in history of production design. Ebert said in his review, “Because the original fairy tale was by the Brothers Grimm, I suppose there's a chance the village is in Germany, but it exists outside time and space, and seems to have been inspired by little plastic souvenir villages in airport gift shops.” He means populated with Hansel and Gretel.

Valerie (the very attractive Seyfried) wants to marry Peter (Fernandez), who is a wood chopper, but her parents have arranged her to marry a rich kid named Henry (Max Irons). The village for some time has been haunted by a werewolf, who only shows up when the moon is full and must be calmed by a weak little pig chained to a stump, so that it doesn’t get an appetite for villagers. Valerie’s sister, played by Alexandria Maillot, is found dead, amongst distracting cone-shaped haystacks dotted with purple flowers, which is not the type of detail you want to be looking at when a young girl has been killed (spoiler!) not eaten by a werewolf.

The villagers then go to Father Solomon, played by Gary Oldman, a popular werewolf fighter, and he arrives with an army of warriors and a very large elephant. Solomon, an expert, knows that werewolves are not werewolves all the time, and in between full moons they turn into men. Therefore, one of the villagers has to be a werewolf. This has a huge suggestion for Valerie’s possible future lover.

Ebert ended his review by saying, “But I know my readers. Right now, you aren't thinking about Valerie's romance. You're thinking, “Did I just read that Father Solomon arrived with a very large metal elephant?” Yes, he did. A very large metal elephant. I thought the same thing.” The must have been a whole lot of trouble, even harder than Herzog dragging a boat over a mountain. Showing Father Solomon’s men dragging a metal elephant through the woods – there’s your movie right there.

In the end, you shouldn’t watch this movie. It’s not good. The only thing that I really liked about this movie was Amanda Seyfried, because she is just attractive no matter what she is in, and can do a good job. I just don’t think that this take on the “Red Riding Hood” tale is good at all. I do think this was originally a tale by the Grimm Brothers, and I don’t think that I am wrong. However, like I said before, this isn’t a good adaptation and I think there are better ones that you should check out.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”

Inception

You know a director that I haven’t talked about for over a year? Christopher Nolan. I haven’t mentioned him since I did his Batman trilogy last January. Actually, there is a movie he directed that I can review for this month: “Inception,” released in 2010. I saw this movie at a cousin's house a while back.

Rumor has it that Christopher Nolan spent 10 years writing the screenplay to this movie. Roger Ebert guessed, “That must have involved prodigious concentration, like playing blindfold chess while walking a tight-wire.” The film’s protagonist tests a young architect by challenging her to create a maze, and Nolan messes us with her heads with his own dizzying maze. We have to trust him that he can get us out of this maze, because mostly we’re lost and confused. Nolan must have rewritten this story a lot, finding that every change had a ripple effect down through the very core.

The story can be told in a few sentences or not at all. Here is a movie resistant to spoilers: If you knew how it ended, that wouldn’t tell you anything unless you knew how it got there.  By telling you how it got there would give confusion. The movie is all about the process, about fighting our way through the realms of reality and dreams, reality within dreams, dreams without reality. It’s a tiring juggling act, and Nolan may have considered “Momento” a starter. He apparently started this screenplay with filming “Momento.” The story was about a man who had short-term memory loss, and the story was told backwards.

Like the hero of that film, whoever is watching “Inception” is lost in time and experience. We can never be sure about the relationship between real time and dream time. The protagonist explains that you can never remember the beginning of the dream, and dreams apparently that last for hours are only for a short time. Yes, but you don’t know that you’re dreaming. What if you’re inside another person’s dream? How does your dream synch with his? What do you really know?

Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, is a corporate thief of the highest position. He breaks in the minds of other men and steals their ideas. Now he is offered a position by a billionaire to do the antithesis: To introduce an idea into an enemy’s mind, and do it so well that he believes that it’s his own idea. This is something that has never been done before. Ebert says that, “our minds are as alert to foreign ideas as our immune system is to pathogens.” The rich man is named Saito, played by Ken Watanabe, who makes him an offer he can’t refuse, an offer that would end Cobb’s forced banishment from home and family.

Cobb brings together a team, and here the movie depends on the well-established processes of every theft movie. We meet the members that he will be working with: Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), his longtime friend; James (Tom Hardy), a master at trickery; Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a master chemist, and a new recruit, Ariadne (Lesbian actress, but respectable, Ellen Page), a brilliant architect who is a genius at creating spaces. Cobb also gets in contact with his father-in-law Miles, played by Michael Caine, who knows what he does and how he does it. Ebert says, “These days Michael Caine need only appear on a screen and we assume he's wiser than any of the other characters. It's a gift.”

Hold on, how come Cobb needs an architect to create spaces in dreams? He explains to Ariadne that dreams have a shifting architecture, as we all know. Where we appear to be has a way to shift. Cobb’s mission is the “inception” (or birth, or wellspring) of a new idea in the mind of another young billionaire, Robert Fischer Jr., played by Cillian Murphy, successor to his father’s empire. Saito wants him to start ideas that will lead to the surrender of his enemy’s company. Cobb needs Ariadne to create a misleading maze-space in Fischer’s dreams so that (Ebert guesses) new thoughts can come into his head anonymously. Do you think Nolan likes Greek Mythology? Don’t get me wrong, I minored in Classical Mythology in college, so I like it as well. If you have read the myth of Theseus, which I have, the girl who helped Theseus out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth was also named Ariadne.

Cobb teaches Ariadne on the realm of dream penetration, the talent of controlling dreams and navigating them. Nolan uses that trait for teaching us as well. Also as the occasion for some of the movie’s amazing special effects, which appears pointless in the trailer but fit right in now. Ebert admits, “The most impressive to me takes place (or seems to) in Paris, where the city literally rolls back on itself like a roll of linoleum tile.”

Protecting Fischer is a handful of gun-holding bodyguards, who may be working like the mental equal of antibodies. They seem otherwise real and symbolic, but whatever they might be, they start a whole lot of gunfights, chase scenes and explosions, which movies show us the conflict we see a lot of today. Even Ebert says, “So skilled is Nolan that he actually got me involved in one of his chases, when I thought I was relatively immune to scenes that have become so standard. That was because I cared about who was chasing and being chased.”

If you saw any of the advertising for this film, you know that its architecture has a way to surpass the laws of gravity. Buildings tilt, streets coil, characters float, all of this is explained in the narrative. The movie is a confusing labyrinth without a simple through-line, and is sure to inspire an endless psychiatry on the web.

Nolan helps us with the emotional strand. The reason why Cobb is motivated to risk the dangers of this inception is because of grief and guilt which involves his wife Mal, played by Marion Cotillard, and their two children. Ebert says, “More I will not (in a way, cannot) say.” Cotillard amazingly symbolizes the wife in a romanticized way. Whether we are seeing Cobb’s memories or his dreams are difficult to figure out, even in the last shot. Ebert does say that, “she makes Mal function as an emotional magnet, and the love between the two provides an emotional constant in Cobb's world, which is otherwise ceaselessly shifting.”

“Inception” works for the viewer, in a way, like the world itself worked for the main character in “Momento.” We are always in the Now. We did take notes while we made it to the Here, but we are not quite sure where the Here is. Yet matters of life, death and the heart are involved – and the multi-national corporations, of course. Nolan doesn’t take a break without using well-designed scenes from spycraft to espionage, including a clever plot on board a 747 (even explaining why it has to be a 747).

The movies often look like they came from the recycling bin these days: Sequels, remakes, franchises. “Inception” does a difficult task. It is completely original, taken from a new area, and yet made with action movie basics so it feels like it makes more sense than (quite possibly) it does. Ebert said in his review, “I thought there was a hole in "Memento:" How does a man with short-term memory loss remember he has short-term memory loss? Maybe there's a hole in "Inception" too, but I can't find it.” Christopher Nolan remade Batman. This time he isn’t remaking anything. Yet few directors will attempt to recycle “Inception.” Ebert admits that, “I think when Nolan left the labyrinth, he threw away the map.”

This movie will mess with your head, because of how deep they go into the dream world. It’s very much like Dante’s Inferno, where the deeper they go; it’s like a new cycle of Satan’s home. I actually read Dante’s Inferno once for a college class one semester. Definitely check this one out if you haven’t, you will love it.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next entry in “Halloween Month.”