Zombieland: Double Tap

Today I went to see “Zombieland: Double Tap,” which came out two weeks ago, and I will let you know what I thought about it. A lot has happened since the first “Zombieland,” the violent funny zombie flick, came out.

Emma Stone is an Academy Award winner. Abaigail Breslin is no longer a kid. Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg – let’s just say that Harrelson still brings his everything in every movie he’s casted in, and Eisenberg continues to concentrate in playing, as Richard Roeper describes, “fast-talking geeks trying to keep up with their mile-a-minute brains.”

People have also been obsessed with zombie movies and TV shows, including that handful of satirical ones. This makes it very difficult for “Zombieland: Double Tap” to create something fresh and new – and honestly, the task is rarely seen. Roeper said, “Save for a few moments of brain-splattering inspiration here and there, much of this tale has a “been there, killed that” vibe. Even some of the zombies look like they’re going through the motions.”

Roeper continued, “And yet “Double Tap” just made it over the fence from two and a half to three stars in my book, mostly because of how much fun it is to see the four stars from the original reunited onscreen as a dysfunctional family of sorts who are so consumed with working through their various issues, the zombies are often nothing more than annoying distractions.” Everyone kills it, but Emma Stone particularly kills with a harshly perfected, funny and engaging performance as the bellicose and sarcastic Wichita, who is fearless when it comes to killing zombies, but scared when it comes to making a commitment to settling down.

We continue the story in real time, a decade after what happened in the original film, with hordes of zombies still on the loose while a small group of humans do everything they can to survive.

Jesse Eisenberg’s Columbus, Woody Harrelson’s Tallahassee, Emma Stone’s Wichita and Abigail Breslin’s Little Rock are living comfortably and safely in the White House, with Columbus telling the audience in voice-over narration it’s the happiest he’s ever been, including before the zombie apocalypse. He’s madly in love with Wichita, while the serious Tallahassee has really become like a father figure to Little Rock.

However, Columbus isn’t the only one who is impatient. Tallahassee really wants to go out on his own again. Little Rock has just turned 18 and really wants to leave the nest and be with someone her own age. Wichita feels trapped with Columbus, especially after he proposes to her.

Wichita and Little Rock leave in the middle of the night. Columbus and Tallahassee go out to find them. Roeper said, “We’re back on the road, which means an influx of cheerfully gruesome zombie-kill moments, self-referential pop culture comedy, and new supporting characters, including Rosario Dawson as a strong survivor and potential love interest for Tallahassee; Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch as zombie-hunting partners who are almost mirror images of Tallahassee and Columbus, and Zoey Deutch as Madison, a stereotypical idiot blonde straight out of a Z-grade mid-1980s rip-off of “Valley Girl.””

Every time Madison appears, we’re really cheering for the zombies.

Spoiler alert: When the movie ends, you’ll want to stay for a mid-credit and post-credit scene with Bill Murray.

That’s all I’ll say. If you’re a fan of the first movie, then you’ll want to see the sequel. You’ll have a nice, fun, enjoyable, laughing time watching it. It may not be as good as the first, but I say it’s definitely one to see around Halloween day. Make sure to check it out because you will love it.

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope that everyone enjoyed my reviews and hopefully all of you have seen the movies that I have recommended. Make sure to dress up in your costumes, go out and get as much candy, watch some Halloween related movies, and overall, just have a fun, safe time out there tonight.

Stay tuned tomorrow for when I pick back up with my Friday reviews for next month.

Child's Play (2019)

There are horror icons: Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Norman Bates, Leatherface, the members of the high class that have immediate recognition, even to non-horror fans. And below them are the lower class that includes those like Pinhead and Pumpkinhead and the Tall Man, and, obviously, Chucky. The doll villain of the “Child’s Play” series that had a lot of box office success over the course of seven films over 20 years that, undeniably, here comes the remake, which came out in June.

The franchise maker, Don Mancini, and Brad Dourif, the voice of Chucky in every installment are not here because they’re working on their own TV series, continuing from the original series, which causes the story to make a reboot. Chucky the Good Guys doll is now Chucky the Buddi electronic toy: Same design, but instead of being infected and animated by the soul of a serieal killer, he’s given evil intentions by a rascal AI. Richard Whittaker said in his review, “That's explained in an awkward – and quite possibly a little racist – opening sequence in which a disgruntled employee in a Vietnamese sweatshop turns off his safety protocols.” Once he comes to lonely American kid Andy, played by Gabriel Bateman, this killer doll has already been returned to the store by one family – the smartest people in the film – for malfunctioning. Basically, Andy’s mom Karen (Audrey Plaza, bravely trying to give the action some volume and failing) simply blackmails her boss (Amro Majzoub) into letting her keep the damaged toy as a birthday present for her son.

Bad idea! Buddies aren’t only dolls. They’re also a walking, talking Alexa, a learning AI that can also control every electronic and bond with their owner. Once this damaged toy, voiced by Mark Hamill, bonds with Andy, he’ll do anything for his friend. Whittaker said, “Anything (stares pointedly at carving knife).”

Whittaker continued, “When in one of the first acts a major, supposedly sympathetic character commits extortion, that's a bad sign.” Actually, this indicates the direction the remake is going in. None of this is Chucky’s fault. Between the factory worker, and seeing that Andy is kind of a jerk, he gets some bad writing. Whittaker said, “That decision to make Chucky a victim of society never really works. Frankenstein's benighted monster, he ain't.”

Whittaker continued, “Aimed squarely at the late-night Friday night crowd, in its own right Child's Play 2019 is unexceptional. It's got a few laughs and a few decent kills, a couple of them even moderately innovative; but Andy works out Chucky is alive early in the bloody proceedings and starts covering up his crimes, while still supposedly being the likable one. Not only that, but he drags in his own Scooby Gang – Falyn (Kitsos), Pugg (Consiglio), and Omar (Kazadi) – in some misguided attempt to evoke Stranger Things.” Any commentary on how dangerous smart electronics, even digital observation looks like a random extra. Whittaker noted, “Similarly, any critique of end-stage capitalism and must-have toy culture was done better by Jingle All the Way. Worst of all, its mix of horror and comedy never walks the tightrope of shrieking absurdism that the originals did at their peak (and it's easy to forget that they started as a straight horror franchise). Instead, it ends up with the off-putting mean-spiritedness of late-era Charles Band, the king of 2000s straight-to-video exploitation.”

Where does this “Child’s Play” end up in the countless remakes nobody wanted? Whittaker said, “While not as obnoxiously and needlessly revisionist as last year's vile Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, it'll kill an hour and a few brain cells for anyone that doesn't know the original, and irritate fans of Mancini's chilling original.” For them, this Chucky can be thrown in the same garbage disposal as any other horror remake nobody talks about again.

I don’t understand why they didn’t decide to make a sequel to “Cult of Chucky,” seeing how that ended off great. I liked the direction that film went and would have welcomed another sequel following that, seeing how it was the only one in the franchise that I enjoyed. However, we instead get this sorry excuse of a remake that I will highly recommend to those who (unfortunately) liked the original, don’t watch the remake. Unless you want to see how good Mark Hamill is as the voice of Chucky, there’s nothing really likable about this film.

Alright, now that I have reviewed that sorry remake, look out tomorrow to see what I will finish this year’s “Halloween Month” off with.

Joker

My friend and I went out and saw the new “Joker” movie, which came out almost four weeks ago, so I will let everyone know what I thought about this.

Todd Phillips will always be remembered with this stylish, bitter and instinctive movie, which is set in Gotham City in the early 80’s that clarifies about how the depressed Arthur Fleck, creepily played by Joaquin Phoenix, became the DC villain that we all know from the Batman franchise.

Arthur, who has a condition that makes him laugh spontaneously during tense situations, is a punching bag of a society tarnished by money and power. Tortured from intense childhood abuses, he works by performing in parties as a clown or holding store signs on the streets. He lives with his mother, Penny (Frances Conroy), a weak woman who ironically calls him Happy and lives obsessed with Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen), her affluent former boss who is now running for mayor. The latter’s son is the young Bruce Wayne, played by Dante Pereira-Olson, who will become Batman in the future so he can avenge the death of his parents and fight the crime in the streets.

Heavily medicated to treat mental illness, Arthur wants to become a standup comedian, which is hard with his condition. Filipe Freitas said in his review, “He is an innocent victim of a bleak world and is wounded both in the heart and in the head. It’s so, so weird to see one of the saddest persons in the world cackling without control whenever in trouble. It has a disquieting effect. The bitter circumstances of life deteriorate his fragile state to the point of making him commit murder and feel good with it. It’s his instinctive and emotionless response to a poisonous society, the dangerous chant of the displaced and the dispossessed.” The wicked act has the support of the crime people of Gotham, who starts a riot against the corrupt system.

Freitas said, “Arthur’s creepy side makes him unpredictable and his tortuous mind has lots of room for imagination.” With a killer stare and that wide smile in his face, he premeditates his next step: take down Murray Franklin, played by Robert De Niro, the popular host of a talk show who is part of his downfall by making fun of him on his show.

Freitas noted, “Simultaneously gripping and unsettling, Joker is a win for Todd Phillips, an unremarkable director until now, who co-wrote the screenplay with Scott Silver (The Fighter; 8 Mile) and had dedicated his directorial career to comedies such as the Hangover trilogy (2009, 2011, 2013) and War Dogs (2016). Without a hint of hesitation, he injects mordantly funny moments among the torrents of sadness and makes the film thrive both as a noir drama and a clever psychological thriller.” Embodying deep in his role, Phoenix was the main person required to make everyone see the human pain behind the Joker’s evil.

This was not what I was expecting when I went to see this movie tonight. Phoenix wins the creepiest performance this year. This film is not part of the DC Extended Universe, but they might try to insert it in later on, which I doubt if they continue to cast Jared Leto in the role. However, Phoenix’s laugh did sound like Mark Hamill’s Joker laugh, which I believe was an influence for this role. I don’t think this performance is one of the best ones for the Joker, but it’s still a good one. If you’re afraid of clowns, this is not one to see, but if you aren’t afraid and are a fan of Joker, this one is a must to see, especially for the Halloween time. This one fits with the creepy time of the year.

Thank you for joining in on tonight’s review. Look out to see what I will end this year’s “Halloween Month” with.

Leprechaun Returns

Now we come to something new, one that borrows a page from last year’s “Halloween.” “Leprechaun Returns,” released on TV in 2018, like “Halloween,” is a direct sequel to the original “Leprechaun,” ignoring all of the previous sequels before. Rather than taking place in the Hood with Ice-T or in space, the leprechaun, this time played by Linden Porco, has spent the last twenty or so years rotting down that well. He finally comes back when an eco-friendly sorority decides that the rundown house and well are the perfect place for their environmental sorority house. When newest member Lila (Taylor Spreitler) arrives with Ozzie (Mark Holton), the leprechaun finds the perfect way out of the well and soon begins hunting the girls and their friends, as he once again is looking for his pot of gold.

What made 2018’s “Halloween” as great as a direct sequel, which cleaned the slate on the other versions, was that it greatly included the original heroine again. “Leprechaun Returns” didn’t get Jennifer Aniston back in here, so sadly we get the confusing ‘daughter of,’ a trope that was used in a lot in horror sequels around the time of the original “Leprechaun.” Kat Hughes said in her review, “The buzz around the Halloween direct sequel paid off, but here it feels like a really cheap hook, and one that you wouldn’t really miss unless you have seen the first film.” There also included Ozzie, but he’s sort of being a ‘hey he’s back from the first movie,’ his role could be any other character.

Hughes noted, “Leprechaun, which is included with the DVD for Leprechaun Returns, wasn’t the most solid of movies to begin with, and the sequel falls even further from perfection.” It also goes in a very different direction. The first one was a comedy horror, and despite the same could be said for this sequel, it’s way more of a gruesome movie. Hughes said, “The first film was rather anaemic, but here blood gushes freely with nearly all of the deaths featuring bucket-loads of the red stuff. The original had a rather limited kill count, here it’s a more standard slasher affair with almost all characters perishing in more and more absurd ways. We get someone split in two by a solar panel, someone water-sprinkled to death, and an idiot who clearly went to the ‘Rickon Stark school of evading’ whom seemingly allows himself to get taken down by a drone. And did we mention a game of charades with a ghost? That pushes Leprechaun Returns firmly into jumping the shark territory, and certainly won’t keep Wayne’s World’s Garth up at night.”

What really aggravates about “Leprechaun Returns” is the unwanted and outdated trust on misogynistic jokes. For some reason the leprechaun has suddenly become a huge desirable predator. He’s seen watching one of the girls in the shower, and later says that she has ‘boobs of talent,’ the same girl smacks him across his face and he replies, ‘you give great head.’ The girls themselves aren’t the intelligent and independent sisters you would want for today’s times, and each of them instead is a clichéd trope. There’s the bossy one (Sai Bennet), the alcoholic (Emily Reid), and the girl (Pepi Sonuga) who keeps sleeping with the boy (Ben McGregor) she broke up with, just because. Characters also change traits constantly, with one character (Ben McGregor) that has been nice and friendly to Lila suddenly taking a photo of her getting out of the shower and saying it’s going up on social media. It’s confusing and hard to put together whether we should be cheering for the girls or the leprechaun, as both sides are unacceptable.

Hughes is right when she said, “A sorry sequel that limps to its conclusion, Leprechaun Returns is a confused and outdated muddle of a movie.” Just like the leprechaun, you’ll really want to look for gold, but will end up with nothing but weak lead.

Despite that I like the idea that they finally decided to make a direct sequel to a film as opposed to constantly changing the story that you could watch these out of order, just like the rest of the franchise, this one is just garbage. How can anyone really like this franchise, especially since Porco doesn’t stop with the weak rhymes and riddles that he constantly spews? Like I have said with the rest of the franchise, avoid this film and all the others because I don’t find this funny or entertaining, as I didn’t laugh at anything.

Now that I have got that out of the way, look out on Thursday for the finale of this year’s “Halloween Month.”

The Boxtrolls

Sheila O’Malley started her review by saying, “When I was a kid I saw both David Lean's "Oliver Twist" and Carol Reed's "Oliver!," and then promptly spent a summer plowing my way through Dickens' book, which I hadn't read, hoping to step into the fantasy launched by those films. After that, any story involving orphans held a huge appeal, and if it also took place in Victorian-era England, well, even better. It was a fantasy that lasted for years. "The Boxtrolls," the latest film from the Oregon-based stop-motion studio LAIKA (who brought us "Coraline" and "ParaNorman"), reminded me of getting lost in those vividly told and sometimes awful stories of children going up against a cruel adult universe.”

“The Boxtrolls,” released in 2014, co-directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, has darkness to it – in the images and in its themes – a darkness that is really existential in nature. It’s actually heavy stuff for children, but children have been craving for “heavy stuff” since stories for children were made. O’Malley stated, “What "The Boxtrolls" does is create an entire hierarchical world, with strict rules governing that structure, and it introduces us to a cast of eccentric and often grotesque characters who live and breathe in that fetid air.” It’s beautifully inventive, amazingly funny, and splendid to look at; the screen sometimes consisted of overwhelming detail. The world “The Boxtrolls” gives us is one both strange and familiar: a town that exists in some type of combined unconscious with its narrow streets, huge Main Square, shaking mansions and slippery alleyways. O’Malley noted, “It's out of a fairy tale; it's medieval Europe; it's Dickens or the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet.”

Based loosely on Here Be Monsters, the 2005 novel by Alan Snow, “The Boxtrolls” takes place in a city called Cheesebridge, balanced insecurely on the slopes of a dagger-shaped mountain. The town loves cheese. Cheese is this town’s version of owning a fully-loaded sports car. If you can afford to have tasting parties where you offer the latest Brie, you know you have made it.

Lord Portley-Rind, voiced by Richard Harris' son, Jared Harris (who you might remember from "Mad Men"), is the Mayor of Cheesebridge and owner of a “white hat” (the symbol of being a noble). He has a small red-haired daughter named Winnie, voiced by Elle Fanning. The scared silly people of Cheesebridge have been taught, through rumor and scary bedtime stories, that the Boxtrolls, little beings who come out at night and go through the trash, are going to threaten the town, steal their children, and eat them. O’Malley is right when comparing, “It is Cheesebridge's version of The Bogeyman.”

O’Malley continued, “At night, the "Snatchers", led by the snaggletoothed and bulbous-bellied Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley), come out, trolling the streets looking for Boxtrolls.” The mission is to expunge the entire Boxtroll population. Archibald Snatcher is dishonest, and all he wants to do is give up his “red hat” (lower-status) and join the “white hats.” That selfish reason makes him do awful awful acts. He is joined by a dreadful trio of helpers: Mr. Gristle (Tracy Morgan), Mr. Pickles (Richard Ayoade) and Mr. Trout (Nick Frost). Mr. Gristle laughs with sociopathic delight at thinking of expunging the Boxtrolls and is really expressively dull he can only repeat the last word of whatever was said to him. However, Mr. Pickles and Mr. Trout are in the middle of a continuing crisis of principles. At first, they believe they are on the side of law and order; they are the “good guys.” Increasingly, though, they’re not so sure, and they try to comfort one another with unsuccessful supportive statements.

Meanwhile, we see the Boxtrolls. The Boxtroll home is a beautifully-imagined area: a huge cave, packed with found objects, gears, light bulbs and toasters; things thrown away by the Cheesebridge residents. The Boxtrolls speak, but we don’t understand their language, and there are no subtitles. The Boxtrolls exist as amazing evidence of the amount of power and precision of pantomime. O’Malley said, “They babble and gurgle to one another, and we understand every word.” In the Boxtrolls is a little boy named Eggs, voiced by Isaac Hempstead Wright, probably named that because that was the word on the box he wears like a huge sweater. Eggs’ Boxtroll mentor is a nice, worried little being named Fish, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, who looks strangely like Abe Vigoda (probably referencing a movie). The two play music together, they are friends, Eggs has always lived with the Boxtrolls and he thinks he is a Boxtroll.

O’Malley mentioned, “LAIKA has outdone itself in its imagining of this complex world.” There’s a ballroom dance in Lord Portley-Rind’s mansion that has to be seen to know. Sometimes, we see it from Winnie’s point of view, the big leaping skirts at her eye level flying by her, and other times, the camera circles up to look down on the flying colorful couples. The streets of Cheesebridge are abrupt and winding, with secluded streetlights having trouble shining their light through the blue shade. O’Malley said, “There is a gigantic bouncing cheese wheel, catapulting itself down the slopes like some engine of doom and destruction, both hilarious and scary. After a night of scavenging, the Boxtrolls stack themselves into a sleeping formation, and, overhead, the bare lightbulbs they have hung from the dirt ceiling turn their lair into a place of wonder and magic. These images have great emotional resonance. The details of the costumes are amazing, the frayed stitching on Snatcher's waistcoat, the tiered ruffles of Winnie's pink dress, the gleaming ridiculous badges sewn onto the front of Portley-Rind's coat. The images do not have a modern gleam, they are not slick. They feel slightly tattered, hand-made, deteriorating.”

Without being informative, “The Boxtrolls” shows the dangers of a hierarchical society, separated from high-status and low, and also has some very interesting and moving things to say about identity, family, and morality. O’Malley said, “There is a suggestion that a moral compass exists on its own, whether it has been nurtured in us or not.” Critical thinking skills means you look around and estimate reality based on what is being shown. O’Malley said, “The residents of Cheesebridge, drowning in myth, rumor, and the comfort of intermittent mob violence against the Boxtrolls, are unable to do that.” However, Winnie slowly sees she has been lied to forever. She is able to see her world and see that the way things are set up is wrong and unfair.

“The Boxtrolls” is a beautiful example of the possible in LAIKA’s stop-motion approach, and the images onscreen are physical and covered. However, as always, it’s the story that really matters, and the story told here is funny, ugly, emotional and true.

As always, if you’re a fan of stop-motion and liked everything that LAIKA had done with their other movies, this one is actually a very good one to see. It’s actually nice that something came out with an original idea as opposed to making a sequel, reboot, adaptation or some kind of movie that has been told to death. I thoroughly found myself enjoying this movie because it was a lot of fun and I think everyone will enjoy it as well.

Look out next week to see what garbage I will be ending off “Halloween Month” with.

Frankenweenie

In 1984, Tim Burton started his career with a live-action short named “Frankenweenie,” and he came back with that material for the 2012 “Frankenweenie,” a stop-motion, black-and-white animated comedy inspired by “The Bride of Frankenstein” and so many other classic horror film where science has gone insane.

Roger Ebert said in his review, “The story takes place in a familiar Burtonesque world of characters with balloon heads, saucer eyes and pretzel limbs. Seeing them in b&w only underlines their grotesquerie, and indeed the whole story benefits from the absence of color, because this is a stark world without many soothing tones. Burton uses a stop-motion animation method employing puppets, and I learn from Variety that he employed "about 33 animators working to produce five seconds of film per week apiece." Amazing that such a lively film took such laborious piecework.”

The story is about young Victor Frankenstein, voiced by Charlie Tahan, and his dog Sparky, who is, as Ebert described, “not nearly as smart as Uggie the dog in "The Artist."” Sparky is one of those dogs who is really loving and wants to please, but Victor loves him and is shattered when Sparky runs into the street and is blindsided by a car. Victor buries his best friend under a sad tombstone in one of those horror graveyards where you think flowers would be in black-and-white even if the movie wasn’t.

Victor’s science teacher is Mr. Rzykruski, voiced by Martin Landau, who, as Ebert describes, “Looks and sounds like an elongated Vincent Price. If you wonder how his voice can sound elongated, apply here.” The next day at school he gives the students an assignment where they apply electrical charges to the nerves of dead frogs, which makes their legs twitch. Ebert admits, “This brought back strong memories of my own frog dissections. When you make a list of things you learned in school and have never needed to use since, don't forget the dead frogs.”

Victor is a science-loving boy with a weird laboratory up in the attic, which looks two times larger than the suburban house he shares with his parents, voiced by Catherine O’Hara and Martin Short. The frogs inspire him to go back to the graveyard and bring back Sparky into the attic – where, yes, after a few stitches and patches, Victor is able to resurrect him with a nice lightning bolt. Ebert notes, “It must be said that the newly energized Sparky has much the same manic personality as the dog in the original version, although like your cellphone, he sometimes needs to be recharged.” His tail or an ear falls off when gets really excited, but overall he stays together very well.

Victor becomes crazy with hiding the revived dog from his parents. When you think why some kids are bored in the suburbs, it has to be because of the overpowering rule of parents like Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein. Given that they’ve had to live with that name, undeniably they’re not wanting to have it known that Victor has resurrected his dog – especially not since he used lightning bolts just as in the making of the Bride of Frankenstein. It’s the type of thing the town will be scared over.

However, the rumor goes around and soon all the children in Victor’s class are using high-voltage electricity to their own dead animals, and even a seahorse. Ebert said, “This leads to events at a town parade equal to anything you've seen in a Japanese monster movie.”

This isn’t one of Burton’s best, but it has obsessive energy. It might have been too gruesome for kids long ago, but current kids, they’ve seen it all, and the love of a boy and his dog keeps its demand. Ebert ended his review by saying, “I only hope that young Victor doesn't let Sparky lie out in the sun for too long.”

I’m going to be honest; this isn’t one of my favorite Burton movies. He has made better movies, and this one is definitely one of his weirdest. If that’s what you like, you can check this one out. However, this is up to you if you want to check it out. I like how it actually is inspired by the Frankenstein novel and past movies, but it does get very weird. Like I said, if you watch it, there’s nothing wrong with that. Not like this is a waste of time, there are some good things in it.

Check out Friday to see what I have in store for everyone. It’s a current animated film that I actually think is a nice one for this year’s “Halloween Month.”

ParaNorman

From the creators of “Coraline,” but not having that 2009 film’s interestingly chilling, gentle touch, “ParaNorman,” released in 2012, is an entertaining but only restlessly involving animated adventure about an 11-year-old boy with the ability to communicate with the dead – and the living.

With its technically confident stop-motion animation and capable synopsis, the film, co-directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, had the creation of something more significant, but it lacked with story and character development.

Michael Rechtshaffen said in his review, “There should still be enough going on to engage both the stop-motion and zombie-flick aficionado, but the unmistakable Tim Burton-Henry Selick vibe likely will be too intense for younger viewers.”

Set in the ghostly town of Blithe Hollow, whose tourist-attraction self-important rights hang on it being the site of a 300-year-old witch hunt, “ParaNorman” focuses the clairvoyant talents of boy Norman Babcock, voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee, whose ability to speak with its dead residents has him labeled as a freak.

Sharing that look is his disturbed dad (Jeff Garlin) and small-minded older sister (Anna Kendrick), who are scared over Norman liking to watch TV with the ghost of his grandmother (Elaine Stritch).

More encouraging is his eccentric, homeless uncle Prenderghast, voiced by John Goodman, who sees in the wide-eyed kid a family spirit – and the only one who’ll be able to prevent a stubborn witch’s curse from creating all sorts of frights, starting with the zombies of the founding fathers.

Rechtshaffen mentioned, “Wry touches abound, from the retro titles onward, but though the filmmakers have said that they were going for a “John Carpenter meets John Hughes” vibe, those diverse styles never quite come together.”

However, more difficult than making a combining tone and sticking with it is the failure of Butler’s script to give his characters (mainly those walking-dead elders) enough to do and creative ways of making them.

Rechtshaffen ended his review by saying, “Although the 3D element doesn’t really enhance all that much, Laika Studios’ distinctive stop-motion technique makes for notably fluid, jerk-free, detailed animation that continues to introduce fresh, intriguing possibilities to the venerable Ray Harryhausen model.”

Overall, I think that this movie is very well done and something that the whole family can sit around watching around Halloween time. Especially for those who are interested in the dead and zombies, especially with the whole zombie craze that’s been going around lately with the popularity of “The Walking Dead,” which I have never seen. However, if you’re a fan of this studio’s work, definitely pick this one up, and have a scare of a time.

Now hold on tight everyone because next Monday will be a movie that is definitely from the weird mind of a popular director, which I will look at next in this year’s “Halloween Month.”

Tim Burton's Corpse Bride

Tim Burton’s “Corpse Bride,” released in 2005, is not the chilling horror story the title tells, but a nice and visually romantic story of love lost. At a time when most animated films look completely bright and colorful, “Corpse Bride” creates two palettes, and not the ones we expect.

The world of the living is a dull and cloudy place with a lot of color sucked out, and the remaining grays and purples and greens so quiet they look apologetic. In other places, the world of the dead looks like the ideal vacation spot. It’s animated, happier and with brighter colors. Also, as the protagonist sees when he visits there, it is true when your pets die, they go to the same place you go: Victor Van Dort is greeted happily by Scraps the dog he had as a child. Roger Ebert said in his review, “Scraps, to be sure, is all bones, but look at it this way: No more fleas. Or maybe skeletal fleas. I'm not sure about all the fine points.”

Victor is voiced by Johnny Depp, and looking at the current trend in animation, he also looks like Johnny Depp. Ebert said, “Once cartoons were voiced by anonymous drudges, but now big names do the work, and lend their images to the characters.” As the movie starts, a marriage is being arranged between Victor’s parents and the Everglots. Nell and William Van Dort (Tracey Ullman and Paul Whitehouse) are right fishmongers. With Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), her parents Maudeline and Finnis (Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney) are poor nobles. A marriage would give her family money and his family class. Ebert said, “Victor and Victoria have never met, except in the title of a Blake Edwards comedy, but when they're finally introduced, they're surprised to find that, despite everything, they love each other.”

But is it meant to be? Victor is so shy he cannot say the words of his marriage vow and runs to the wild graveyard outside the church to practice. Repeating the words to memorize them, he places the wedding ring on a twig that is not a twig but the desiccated finger of Emily, the Corpse Bride, voiced by Helena Bonham Carter, whose arm is reaching out from the grave. The marriage, according to the rules of the netherworld, makes sense, and soon Victor is at a wedding celebration where happy skeletons sing and dance to the music by Danny Elfman, and the wedding cake is made of bones but looks delicious.

The movie’s inspiration is to make Emily a character of sympathy, not horror. She lost her chance at happiness when she was murdered on the night of her wedding and now wants to be a good wife for Victor. She’s actually good looking, in a haunted way, with her large eyes and overweight lips, and only a few places where the skin has rotted away to show her bones. Long dresses would be a good fashion choice.

Ebert noted, “A piano is shown at one point in the movie, and we get just a glimpse of its nameplate. It's a Harryhausen. That would be Burton's tribute to Ray Harryhausen, the man who brought stop-motion animation to the level of artistry ("Jason and the Argonauts," "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad").” These days most animated movies are computer-generated, making flawlessly smooth pictures. Ebert said, “But in the days when they had to be laboriously drawn one frame at a time, it was scarcely more trouble to do table-top animation, building model figures and moving them a tiny bit between each frame.”

Famous creatures like King Kong were made somewhat by stop-frame animation, shot in a smaller scale before being mixed with live action in a visual printer so that Kong looked enormous. When you watch “King Kong,” you may see that his fur seems to inch or rise a little. You are looking at disturbances made by the creation of the animators between each shot. Ebert said, “My own feeling is that the artificiality of stop-action animation adds a quality that standard animation lacks, an eerie otherworldly magical quality that's hard to pin down. Certainly the macabre world of "Corpse Bride" benefits from it, and somehow it is appropriate that a skeleton would move with a subtle jerkiness.” The same old visual look added to the demand of Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

Meanwhile, in the place of the living, the innocent Victoria is about to be married off by her unfeeling parents to a Victorian villain with the Dickensian name Barkis Bittern, voiced by Richard E. Grant. She deserves better. In the end, it is not her fault that Victor accepted to an arranged marriage. Also, it is not Victor’s. Also, for this situation, it is not the Corpse Bride’s. Three young people are unhappy when two of them should be happy. It’s not fair, even if one of them is dead. Ebert said, “As he does in all of his pictures, Burton fills the frame with small grace touches and droll details. He seems to have a natural affinity for the Gothic, and his live-action "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (also with Johnny Depp) remains one of the most visually beautiful films I've seen. He likes moonlight and dreary places, trees forming ominous shapes in the gloom, eyes peering uneasily into the incredible and love struggling to prevail in worlds of complex menace.” All of that is a lot for an animated fantasy to express, but “Corpse Bride” not only expresses it, but does it, yes, perfectly.

Ebert ended his review by noting, “The PG rating is about right, I think, although quite young or impressionable children may be scared by the skeletal characters. Everyone is relatively jolly, however, so maybe not.”

If you’re fan of the old Tim Burton, this is one you should definitely see. If you also liked “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” then “Corpse Bride” is one that you should not miss. You will absolutely love this movie because it’s a good one that seems to fit perfectly for Halloween.

Look out Friday to see what’s next for this year’s “Halloween Month.”

The Lion King (2019)

Folks, I just made the biggest mistake of watching “The Lion King” remake, which came out in July, and I will let everyone know how much I loathe this remake.

Disney continues to underwhelm with another botched remake of an animated classic, this time remaking the favorite 1994 classic, “The Lion King” in a CG adaptation just mainly focused on making life-like CGI animals that it forgets to do anything else of value in the runtime.

The remake faithfully retells the story of Simba, a young lion (JD McCrary) who is the son of Mufasa (James Earl Jones), the King of the Pride Lands. On planning to steal the authority, Simba’s uncle Scar, voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor, kills Mufasa, and makes the cub believe that his father’s death was his own fault. Simba runs from Pride Rock, surviving an attack by Scar’s hyena minions (Florence Kasumba, Keegan-Michael Key, Eric Andre and J. Lee) before passing out in the middle of the desert. He is about to be eaten by vultures until he is rescued by meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner) and warthog Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) who becomes his friends.

However, his past comes back to him years later when he is a young adult, voiced by Donald Glover, forcing him to remember who he really is and take back his position as the rightful king of Pride Rock.

The story is still the same, as does many of the familiar scenes and the songs (however some of the memorable moments are furiously missing), but the remake fails to recapture the original’s timeless likeability.

Sameen Amer is right when she said in her review, “The animals, though incredibly realistic, lack the expressiveness and emotiveness of their traditionally animated counterparts. The storytelling no longer holds the same impact it did the first time around. The vibrancy and liveliness is gone, replaced by hollow retreading that leaves you yearning for original content instead of this endless string of remakes.”

The voice cast is completely forgettable. Glover and Beyonce Knowles-Carter (who voices the adult Nala, Simba’s love interest – Shahadi Wright Joseph voices her as a cub) – both great actors – are out of place here. John Oliver voices Zazu but he sounds exactly like John Oliver. Amer credited, “The only real exception is (surprisingly) the joyous duo of Eichner and Rogen who effortlessly steal the show, with their characters breathing life into an otherwise dull movie. Also, Jones is (unsurprisingly) impressive as he reprises his part and voices Mufasa majestically.” Alfre Woodard voices Sarabi and John Kani voices Rafiki.

Undeniably, the remake of “The Lion King” is going to make you want to watch the original over this mess. Amer ended her review by saying, rightfully so, “The film just feels like a soulless rehash of its predecessor and proves that no amount of technical wizardry can trump solid, affecting storytelling.”

I’m sorry, but nothing in this movie is going to make me like it. What was the purpose of remaking “The Lion King,” an already perfect movie? The voice cast didn’t act out the characters right, lines and scenes that were trimmed felt missed, scenes that were extended were superfluous, every animal had a blank, expressionless face throughout that you didn't feel any emotion from them, even when the lines were said, the songs didn’t have that same feel like the original and they stole the first line of Be Our Guest from “Beauty and the Beast!!!” Why!?!?!? What were you thinking!?!?!? Also, what's the reason for making this nearly two hours long when the original was only around the 90 minute mark and told the story much nicer than this one did!?!?!? If you love the original, like I do, seeing how it might be my most watched Disney movie growing up, avoid this remake at all cost. Seriously Disney, you need to stop with these awful remakes! What’s next? Live-action remakes of the direct-to-video sequels!? Come out with original ideas again!!!

Now I’m going to cool off so stay tuned for the next installment of “Halloween Month” on Monday.

One Hour Photo

“One Hour Photo,” released in 2002, tells the story of Seymour “Sy” Parrish, who works behind the photo counter of one of those large suburban shopping strips. He has a plain, unknown face, and a positive voice that almost hides his anxiety and loneliness. He takes your film, develops it, and has your photos ready in an hour. Sometimes he even gives you 5-by-7s when you actually ordered 4-by-6s. His favorite customers are the Yorkins – Nina, Will and their son Jake. They’ve been regular customers for years. When they bring in their film, he makes an extra set of prints – for himself.

Sy follows a regular routine. There is a diner where he eats, alone, carefully. He is an “ideal employee.” He has no friends, a co-worker examines. However, the Yorkins treat him as a substitute member, and he is their so-called Uncle Sy. Only once in a while does everyone see a part of the dark side of himself, like when he gets into a fight with Larry, the photo machine repairman.

The Yorkins know him by name, and are a little humored by his devotion. There is a part of need to his moments with them. If they were to decide to stop film and get one of those new digital cameras, a careful sense might make them hide this fact from Sy. The late Robin Williams plays Sy, another of his open-faced, smiling maniacs, like the villain in “Insomnia.” He does this so well that it doesn’t take long in accepting him in the role. Roger Ebert credited in his review, “The first time we see Sy behind his counter, neat, smiling, with a few extra pounds from the diner routine, we buy him. He belongs there. He's native to retail.”

Ebert continued, “The Yorkin family is at first depicted as ideal: models for an ad for their suburban lifestyle. Nina Yorkin (Connie Nielsen), pretty and fresh-scrubbed, has a cheery public persona. Will (Michael Vartan) is your regular clean-cut guy. Young Jake (Dylan Smith) is cute as a picture. Mark Romanek, who wrote and directed the film, is sneaky in the way he so subtly introduces discordant elements into his perfect picture. A tone of voice, a half-glimpsed book cover, a mistaken order, a casual aside ... they don't mean much by themselves, but they add up to an ominous cloud, gathering over the photo counter.”

A good amount of the film’s atmosphere is made through the cinematography, by Jeff Cronenweth. His insides at “Savmart” are white and bright, almost aggressive. You can hear the fluorescent lights buzzing. Through decisions with the set design and lens choices, the One Hour Photo counter somehow looks like an unnatural distance from the other places of the store, as if the store avoids it, or it has reserved into itself. Customers walk from across an open amount of emptiness, with Sy smiling at the counter.

A man who works in a one-hour photo lab might look to be completely weak. That’s what Sy’s boss, played by Gary Cole, thinks. However, at a time when naked baby pictures could be seen as child abuse, the man with the ability to see your photos can cause you a lot of trouble. For instance, what would happen if Will Yorkin is having an affair, and his mistress, played by Erin Daniels, brings in photos to be developed, and Uncle Sy “mistakenly” gives them to Nina Yorkin? The movie initially looks completely grounded in normal reality, in the schedule of a predictable job. When Romanek moves away from reality, he does it faintly, sneakily, so that we believe what we see until he reveals it. Ebert said, “. There is one moment I will not describe (in order not to ruin it) when Sy commits a kind of social trespass that has the audience stirring with quiet surprise: Surprise, because until they see the scene they don't realize that his innocent, everyday act can be a shocking transgression in the wrong context.”

Ebert continued, “Watching the film, I thought of Michael Powell's great 1960 British thriller "Peeping Tom," which was about a photographer who killed his victims with a stiletto concealed in his camera. Sy uses a psychological stiletto, but he's the same kind of character, the sort of man you don't much notice, who blends in, accepted, overlooked, left alone so that his rich secret life can flower. There is a moment in "Peeping Tom" when a shot suddenly reveals the full depth of the character's depravity.” In “One Hour Photo,” a look with a similar reason needs only a lot of innocent family photos, shown in a way that is greatly scary.

The movie has also been compared to “American Beauty,” another film where anger, loneliness and desire worsen under the surface of suburban wealth. Ebert said, “The difference, I think, is that the needs of the Kevin Spacey character in "American Beauty," while frowned upon and even illegal, fall generally within the range of emotions we understand.” Sy Parrish is outside that range. He was born with stuff missing, and has gathered the leftovers in a person who has borrowed from the inside to make the outside look fine.

I think my cousin had told me about this movie and I thought it was another one of Williams’ roles where he played a creepy villain. However, after seeing the movie and knowing the man’s intentions, I actually felt sorry for him the whole time watching this. One of my late best friends said that this movie inspired him to quit the CVS photo lab he was working in and go back to school. With all of that said, I seriously think everyone should watch this, especially if you’re a Williams fan. This was one of his best roles and I think you will understand the character’s intentions the further you watch the film.

Look out on Monday to see what I have in store for everyone in the next review of this year’s “Halloween Month.”

Edward Scissorhands

An artificial man with scissors for hands lives alone in a rundown mansion above his town. Brought down by a nice Avon lady, he at first is really popular with the citizens, impressed by his skills at topiary and haircutting. However, when he falls in love with a cheerleader, things start to get more complicated.

A long time ago there was a young director who made two amazing imaginative films before really finding his niche with the type of films with Batman in 1989. However, instead of cashing in on his largest success at the time, Tim Burton’s follow-up was really far from a mainstream blockbuster as it possible got. Jo Perry said in his review, “Instead, Edward Scissorhands is a touching and decidedly left-of-centre fairytale, and, even from the man who has previously brought you Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and Batman, his most whimsical film to date.”

Edward Scissorhands, played by Johnny Depp, is not a man, but a creation of The Inventor, a cameo from Vincent Price. Edward looks human enough, except for one thing…he has scissors instead of hands, and he lives alone in a rundown mansion at the peak of the street of pastel-colored houses. Kindhearted Avon lady Peg, played by Dianne Wiest, luckily finds Edward’s house and brings him down to the “real” world, where he is soon loved by her neighbors when they see the creation’s frustrated scissorhands are equally talented whether trimming hedges or making creative hairstyles. Things start to get complicated when Edward falls in love for Peg’s cheerleader daughter, played by Winona Ryder, and it is not long before the once loved creation is blamed in making a crime.

Perry credited, “One of the many successes Burton pulls off in this delightfully odd film was to cast his various players against type in this dreamlike world.” For example, Anthony Michael Hall, best known for playing the nerd in “The Breakfast Club,” succeeds here in showing a really evil person in his role as boorish boyfriend Jim, while Winona Ryder brings a soft side to her underdeveloped role as the nice girl in the town. However, it is Johnny Depp, who had previously played the typical bad boy roles, who surprised the most, making a character stuck in his incomplete body, correctly showing Edward’s frustration without saying much, his pale, scarred face showing the hurt when seeing that even the softest touch with his Freddy Krueger-like blades can hurt people.

“Edward Scissorhands,” released in 1990, definitely has flaws, focusing so much on Edward’s talent for scissorwork and leaving so many characters sidelined. However, it still is a motivated and very beautifully created fairy tale.

Tim Burton’s modern-day story succeeds greatly as sharp comedy and painfully sad romance. Perry said, “The imaginative set design and spellbinding story are both superb, but the real joys here are the performances, particularly from Depp.” It’s still one of his best roles, in a movie that is definitely one of the best fantasy films ever made.

I did know about this film for quite some time, but I never bothered watching it until about a year ago, if I’m not mistaken. I think that this film can be also watched around Christmas time, but I think that this film fits more in tune with Halloween. If you haven’t seen this, and you’re fan of Tim Burton and/or Johnny Depp, definitely don’t skip this one over because it’s a good film that is both sad and scary.

Check in Friday for what I have in store for everyone in the next review for “Halloween Month.”

Rambo: Last Blood

I saw “Rambo: Last Blood,” which came out two weeks ago, with a friend and I’ll let everyone know what I thought of it.

11 years have passed since what happened in the last film, “Rambo.” Rambo has left Burma and has come back to his father’s ranch in Arizona. He has found a family somewhat in the ranch’s caretaker Maria Beltran (Adriana Barraza) and her granddaughter Gabrielle (Yvette Monreal), a young girl about to leave for college. Before leaving for becoming somebody, Gabrielle wants to visit her estranged father, played by Rick Zingale, in Mexico but Rambo warns her not to go. Like any other teenager who wants answers, she doesn’t listen and goes to Mexico, only to be kidnapped and sold to a Mexican flesh trade cartel. Rambo drives to Mexico when he hears the news. He’s beaten up and left for dead. A freelance journalist Carmen Delgado, played by the hot Paz Vega, helps him out. He goes back, rescues Gabrielle but it’s too late. She dies on the drive home because of a drug overdose. Now, Rambo is out for revenge and will go to extreme measures to get the job done.

Devesh Sharma said in his review, “Given the storyline, there would be obvious parallels to Taken. A lone fighter seeking revenge -- there isn't exactly anything new in the plot.” What’s new is that for the first time since the second movie, someone has tried to humanize Rambo. He comes back to his family home, and becomes somewhat of a family man, putting his war veteran self behind him. He does create an underground tunnel around his farmhouse for defense and forges guns and knives. Sharma is right when he states, “But as they say, old habits die hard. While his blood lust may have been subdued, it's not completely gone. Rambo V can be said to be the goriest Rambo film ever. The bad guys die in ways which will put the Saw franchise to shame.” The last act is just complete chaos. To praise Stallone, who is 73-years-old, he still looks good at performing just intense violence to the villains. While the previous films the action was complete skill, here is really upfront and shocking. Too many people get killed in so many ways and after a while, you can’t really keep up with the count.

Sharma credited, “Revenge drama aside, Rambo V is also a cowboy movie at heart. The Arizona imagery, what with blue skies merging with acres of green grass, a man and a horse trotting along in each other's company, lost in silent contemplation and a very Ennio Morricone like score blaring in the background -- it seems like another film in some patches. And the end too -- where a wounded Rambo gallops away into the horizon -- brings back memories of Westerns of yore.” The title is “Last Blood,” but will John Rambo’s lonesome self ever settle down?

The film starts off slow, but does eventually pick up. I like that Stallone brought this back to the first one, where he was making it humanizing and emotional, where you feel everything that happens here. Like I had stated before, the last film was very violent and warlike, but the violence in this film takes it to a whole new level in ways that you never imagined. In all honesty, I sincerely think that this is the best of the sequels. Critics seem to really thrash this, but audiences are praising this. Check it out if you’re a fan of the “Rambo” franchise, like I am. Even though this is said to be the last, I don’t know how true that will be. It was in talks for years, but then Stallone said he was retiring the character, and then he announced that the film was being made last year. Everyone must have thought that a fifth movie was inevitable, and we got what we thought.

Thank you for joining in on today’s review, look out Monday for the continuation of “Halloween Month.”