NIGHT OF THE CREEPS 7.5/10

This was recently added to Netflix streaming. Great affectionate homage to 50's era sci-fi/horror movies. I'd forgotten there was a zombie cat and dog.

Also has a hilarious deadpan performance by Tom Atkins.

Love NIGHT OF THE CREEPS.

And Jill Whitlow too!

There were no babes quite like 80's babes.

War Of The Gargantuas (1966) 6.25 of 10

I've been making my way forward in the Toho series since seeing Godzilla 2014 and its been interesting to see how the Godzilla films basically "jumped the shark" starting in the 1965 "Ghidrah" which saw Godzilla become hero for the first time along with Rodan and Mothra and saviors of the Earth. The cringe-inducing moment is a scene of Mothra conversing with Godzilla and Rodan in a conference and Mothra's twin fairies translating (even in the Japanese version it comes off stupid. We learn Godzilla is complaining "Humans always bully me!")

That's the reason why the better Toho kaiju films of the later 60s are the ones without Godzilla because they at least were trying to be different and could still exude some terror at moments. "Frankenstein Conquers The World" and its quasi-sequel "War Of The Gargantuas" fall in that category (and the later "King Kong Escapes" also has more going for it), the latter especially because the green Gargantua who moves fluidly and even eats people is the most frightening Toho creation since the original Godzilla in 1954 with its scary roar.

The contrasting Japanese and US versions have some interesting differences in that the US cut had alternate versions of scenes that had Russ Tamblyn in the action to give him more screen time, whereas in the Japanese verison he's third-billed in the movie (and his vocal dubber even gets a screen credit). Tamblyn admitted in 2004 that he phoned in his performance and didn't have a good connection with the Japanese crew in contrast to Nick Adams (who had an affair with his leading lady Kumi Mizuno, who is also Tamblyn's co-star here) because there was only one English interpreter on-set. Toho could have I think done a better job in these joint productions had they employed more English speaking personnel among the Japanese and also had some writers who could handle American dialogue better since often the American actors had to redo their lines on-set because they were written by people who had no grasp of the American idiom.

The US cut also replaced one key part of Akira Ifukube's score but comparing the two I understand why they did this. Ifukube wrote a very ponderous, slow-moving theme for the Japanese military that just does not fit the on-screen action well especially when you have monsters like the two Gargantuas who are faster moving. What would have been fine for a Godzilla sequence doesn't work here and I think the change was necessary (though they could have done better than repeat the same fast tempo stock music over and over; in the final part of the Tokyo battle they did use another piece, which was actually Ifukube's fight music from "Ghidrah" with the famous four note motif).

As for the movie's infamous nightclub song.....I should only say that its a pity that this is the one thing poor Kipp Hamilton will ever get remembered for since she actually had a credible Hollywood movie and TV career for a decade that included some great TV guest shots on shows like "Wild, Wild West", "Bewitched" and "The Virginian" among others, as well as roles in movies like "The Unforgiven".

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST 3/10

I REALLY wanted to like this movie-I love westerns, Monument Valley is as goof-proof a location as you can ask for (I seriously doubt there is a bad angle anywhere) and I thought TED was surprisingly funny yet with some gravitas sprinkled around.

Seth McFarlane is one of those comedy moguls who seemingly can do anything: write, produce, direct, act (either onscreen or in voice-over), but just because he can does not necessarily mean that he [i]should[/i], mostly because there are very few who can spread themselves around that much and still be effective all-around. Chaplin and Keaton could, and their efforts still make us laugh today, but I also think the ego has a great deal to do with it-Chaplin had an ego almost larger than his talent, which finally overwhelmed with his last two films; Keaton's ego does not appear to be as prominent, with an opposite result of Chaplin's-he lost control of everything and just went back to being a great clown who eventually earned the respect and worship of those around him, yet he never lost that connection to his modest roots. At the end of their respective careers Chaplin had lost it, while Keaton was still able to find those little gems (even his running into a tree in A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO THE FORUM is funnier than some of the gags in that great film). To cut to the chase, McFarlane is becoming one of those funny guys who might have finally bitten off more than he can chew. FAMILY GUY still has some occasionally funny gags, AMERICAN DAD! would be really great if they would just kill off Roger (who has no redeeming qualities whatsoever) and DADS....well, probably best to just forget about that one. TED was a truly funny, touching film that was helped by having Mark Wahlberg giving the film a center for Ted and the audience to relate to-by the time the film reached its climax the audience really had some emotional investment in that nutty bear and you really felt both for him and Wahlberg's character.

As for his latest film, A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST....it certainly looks good (nice location work in Monument Valley), and the musical score by Joel McNeely really delivers, but....you feel like you are watching a bunch of FAMILY GUY episodes strung together with a final act tacked on because, well, since we mentioned that Indians will kill you in the west we'd better make sure we have some. I have no problem with spot gags, as long as you feel that the story is moving forward and the laugh is just a pause on the journey, but there are so many of these types of gags that you feel like McFarlane, his writers and whomever else helped out just turned on a recorder, tossed out gags and funny lines for about 90 minutes then handed it to some poor schmo and said "Here-figure out a plot to fit ALL OF THESE IN AND LEAVE THEM IN THE ORDER WE SPOKE THEM and hurry-we start shooting next week."

Two examples of a gag that might have seemed funny on paper but just does not work in context: 1) the large ice chunk that has been featured prominently in the trailers and TV spots. Now earlier, McFarlane's character goes into a rant as to how literally EVERYTHING can kill you in the West from just going to the outhouse to even going to the doctor, so you would think he would almost be matter-of-fact about what happens when the ice drops, but no, he and Giovanni Ribisi both have full-blown freakouts at what happens which a) takes any possible bit of humor out of the gag, and b) is totally the opposite of how his character should react given what he talked about earlier. Also having an insert shot of the results produces more of an "Ewwwwww" reaction than a laugh (the same thing happens later when Neil Patrick Harris has explosive diarrhea on the street and uses someone's hat)-insert shots to illuminate a gag NEVER WORK, especially if it is just a static shot. If the two had been watching the ice delivery, the accident happens and they would have reacted with a "Go figure," it might have gotten a laugh because of the random absurdity. Here, McFarlane just seems to be saying "WOW!! DID YOU SEE THAT GUY (whom we never know otherwise so there is no emotional payoff for the audience anyway like there would have been if the guy had been behaving like a jerk earlier in the film) GET HIS HEAD SMASHED IN BY THAT HUGE PIECE OF ICE!! HOLY S***! WE ARE TOTALLY SHOCKED BY THAT, AREN'T YOU? AND WE WILL EVEN HAVE A CLOSER VIEW IN CASE YOU MISSED IT!!" 2) McFarlane's character is on the street at night and sees strobing coming from a barn at the end of town-he goes over, opens the door and there is Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown covering up the DeLorean and acting like there is nothing unusual: no build-up to the gag, no reference to it ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE MOVIE-NONE, so that you are more going "Wow-I wonder if this is supposed to be the same town in BACK TO THE FUTURE, PART III?" than laughing. By the way it isn't, otherwise we would have Doc Brown popping up from time to time and the gag with the car would be FUNNY!

Other problems-Ribisi and Sarah Silverman's characters could be cut out of the film completely (a little bit of her goes a LONG way with me) and you would never miss them. The whole thing about him being in love with her and the two of them saving themselves for marriage even though she is a whore (something the film never-ever lets you forget) would be funny as a throwaway gag once, maybe twice, but as a plot thread it just pads the running time...why are Ryan Reynolds and Ewan MacGregor in cameos? Were they driving near the location and McFarlane had them make-up and put on a costume because they happened to be there?...for being such a badass, Liam Neeson's character really does not do much (he needed to be like "Bad Bob" from LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN and be a total wacko), and did we really need to see all of what Charlize Theron's character does to him when they are alone and she disables him?...for all of McFarlane's and Theron's characters wanting to leave town and move to San Francisco, the last shot makes no sense...I'm sorry-Amanda Seyfried's character may be pretty, but when Theron is in the scene, Seyfried just disappears, also because her character is such a jerk and the instant Theron and McFarlane meet, their characters have chemistry which is sorely lacking in the other relationship...I kept on expecting Johnny Depp as Tonto to wander into a shot...I think I might have finally reached the limit as far as bathroom humor is concerned: when BLAZING SADDLES came out the campfire scene was considered hilarious by many (including myself and I still do, even though I know the flatulence sounds were just made by faking it) and condemned by almost as many, and the general consensus was that you could not take things any further-nope! The aforementioned explosive diarrhea-use a cowboy hat-quick show the results gag is just one of many in this film: we get to see a sheep's penis and also see it urinate on someone, fart jokes that even involve someone's penis, a kid getting horse manure instead of money under his pillow when he leaves a tooth and so on...

Through it all, both McFarlane and Theron just seem like characters in the wrong time and place-there is nothing about them that blends with the landscape, although Theron's hair and outfit for the barn dance does work, and everyone else seems to fit, but the two main characters just seemed to have been dropped in from another place...one that is very clean, since these two, along with Harris, look like they take baths on a regular basis unlike the rest of the characters. The two also seem too "modern" and well-read to be there, which is a shame since again, they have pretty good chemistry here.

Oh, well

The problem for MacFarlane is after TED nobody was there to say 'no' to him. This ended up being a bloated self indulgent ego trip from the sounds of it. And 116 minutes? Blazing Saddles said all it needed to in 90.

See below.

I have never like MacFarlane, but you knew that already. Ted was noteworthy mainly for not being one of the worst films of 2012 (I honestly thought I'd despise it), but merely unfunny...painfully unfunny. I didn't even crack a smile watching that. MacFarlane's mixture of 80's pop-culture fetishism, rank racism/sexism and incessant "shock" humor does nothing for me, and everything he's even been involved in is EXACTLY the same in the manner it tells references....uh, I mean "jokes". He's a one-trick pony with an ego the size of Wisconsin, and West deserves to be slapped down, hard.

Like we've said before, it's impossible to argue sense of humor. I found portions of TED uproarious and still laugh at FAMILY GUY -- at least enough to watch it weekly. If you didn't find one thing funny in TED, I don't what to tell you. Plenty of people did -- it was a smash hit worldwide and got good reviews also.

Then again, I usually find Parker & Stone on SOUTH PARK to be hysterical -- but I hated THE BOOK OF MORMON. Couldn't wait for it to end, and everyone thinks it's the biggest thing to hit Broadway in years. I couldn't stand it -- so it just wasn't my thing, I guess, much as you can't stand anything Macfarlane does.

Beyond that, I agree, I do think Macfarlane's got a huge ego -- and I can't stand his political pulpit preaching, as if he knows more than everyone and wants you to know it. Obviously TED's success enabled him to do whatever he wanted with his next film, and he got just that: his own starring vehicle in a genre that, let's face it, was never going to pull in big dollars to begin with. I haven't seen it so I can't comment other than to say the fact it's not going to do much north of $30 million is unsurprising really.

It'll be interesting to see what he does in the future, because I do think he's multi-talented and has a great and obvious love of film music, in addition to being an intelligent guy. I may not agree with everything he says, but he does seem to be trying, and his efforts at producing something like COSMOS -- his political leanings notwithstanding (which have worked their way into the series) -- are laudable. He just needs to keep his ego in check and deliver something not as self-indulgent. 116 minutes was pushing it way hard. When Jeff said some of it should've been cut, I can believe it!

Maybe he can work with other writers, or find material he could put his own spin on that already exists in some form. Just doing live-action Family Guy won't cut it, though I felt TED was much more than that IMO.

Evidently the TED sequel is set for release in July of 2015, with Amanda Seyfried replacing Mila Kunis as Wahlberg's wife, although Kunis will have a tiny role (she was replaced for "creative reasons," according to McFarlane, and she is still working in FAMILY GUY).

So, we will see if his 3rd effort will be better than his sophomore one, which I consider his MALLRATS.

I believe Seyfried is the female lead, but she's not playing that character. More like she's TED's girlfriend or something (I'm guessing). The Kunis character element was resolved by the end of the movie, so it makes sense not to just reprise that element.

Deadline wrote about it a while back:

I’m told this has nothing to do with anything other than a creative decision that MacFarlane decided to take with the plotting of the sequel.

http://www.deadline.com/2014/02/amanda- ... ed-sequel/

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS 9.5/10

Saw this film at an advance screening a couple of weeks ago and the crowd was asked not to post anything until the film opened, but since I have already seen some glowing reviews, I decided not to wait.

This is an outstanding film, not just for the teenage crowd, which has been the main group devouring John Green's novel, but for everyone who likes a good story, believable and complicated characters and those who feel that movies should end happily but not necessarily in a pat way. Shailene Woodley (so good as the older daughter in THE DESCENDENTS and even better here) plays Hazel, a teenage recurring cancer survivor who meets Gus (Ansel Elgort, whom I predict this will make into a breakout star), another cancer survivor for whom the disease just seems another part of the growing process. The two share a love for the unconventional, and bond over a novel by an elusive author that Hazel gets Gus to read, with him connecting with her and the book so much that he finds a way to contact the author in Amsterdam, Holland and even gets to use his wish with Make-a-Wish to have them get to that foreign land to meet the writer...with unexpected consequences.

Director Josh Boone keeps this would-be teenage rom-com/tear jerker at just the right pitch to keep it from falling into either of those traps, with everything going perfectly for Hazel and Gus until a rug gets pulled out from under them, and a story that could have become sticky sweet pivots nicely into poignancy without a jerk but still jolts you with dramatic honesty-you never feel like the shift in tone is due to an inability to resolve a story problem-it feels like something that would really happen, although some might question the setting for the two main characters first real kiss (I will not give that away). Also, the scene where the story does shift is not sugar coated or has a character apologize for their behavior as an easy out-this is where reality rears its ugly head and bravo to both the book and film for not copping out with this part. From this point on the film takes an increasingly serious tone, with the fate of one of the characters not a surprise, yet when it does happen it hits you like a ton of bricks. And yes, there are a few parts of the film which might strike some as a bit hard to take (Laura Dern as Woodley's mother seems almost too good, especially when the kids have their first night together; and for some, the idea of the two leads meeting at a cancer survivors group might strike some as a "meet cute"), but Woodley and Elgort sell their characters so well and so true (Hazel has to lug an oxygen tank everywhere and Woodley handles it so matter-of-factly that I have looked for her to be using one in real life, as well), as does director Boone, who adds no directorial flourishes that take you out of the film but keeps it and the people in it grounded. A good example of this-Gus, who is in his late teens and has never been on a plane in his life, almost has a freak-out when they leave the ground that is a perfect balance of humor and fright and it is a combination of laughter at his plight but also concern over the same thing that you feel as you watch it.

Word is that this might be the #1 film at the box office this weekend, if not a strong contender to be a close second with MALEFICENT-I really hope for the former, because it would be nice to have a small, character driven movie hold the #1 spot if only for a week. I think this will be one of the major contenders at the Oscars next year, and I hope that John Green keeps putting out not only his great online videos (if you have not seen any of his "Crash Course" videos DO-SO-NOW!!!) but continues to create great characters like Hazel and Gus (for giving us characters with names so out-of-favor that they transcend those names-he should be thanked for that and the choice of actors whom you would never in a million years associate with those names yet, they work) that you really want to like and want to spend more time with, which I consider to be the mark of a good storyteller.

Even with their faults.

I went to see EDGE OF TOMORROW while my wife went into FAULT WITH OUR STARS last night. She loved it -- and I can tell you there was not a dry eye out of all the viewers (mostly young women) walking out of it!

EDGE OF TOMORROW
8/10

Described quite accurately in its earliest blurbs as a sci-fi variation on “Groundhog Day,” the latest Tom Cruise sci-fi adventure EDGE OF TOMORROW is another sturdy, entertaining addition to the star’s growing roster of genre outings.

The plot, concocted by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterowrth and John-Henry Butterworth (based on a Japanese young adult novel), stars Cruise as a U.S. military PR person who’s improbably swept up in the battle against an extraterrestrial invasion. Despite having no combat experience, the international “United Defense Force” commander (Brendan Gleeson) assigns Cruise’s William Cage right to the battlefront in an effort to blitz the aliens through France. Unfortunately, the military’s plan is squashed from the outset, and Cage seemingly dies in the fight after encountering an advanced “Mimic” (tentacle-laden creatures that burrow through the ground) – only to wake up and relive the exact same day over again. Cage ultimately discovers that he’s gained the extraterrestrials’ upper-hand – the ability to consciously relive time, thereby adjusting to its enemy’s behavior – and seeks out the help of a decorated soldier (Emily Blunt) who once had the same ability.

“Bourne Identity” director Doug Liman seems right at home in “Edge of Tomorrow,” which offers the regulation battle sequences and special effects, albeit with a twisty, if straightforward, story that truly does mimic (no pun intended) the 1993 Bill Murray comedy. Cage relives each day, remembering every moment and attempting to adjust his actions accordingly, while trying to persuade – often futilely – his superiors that he knows how the enemy is able to consistently win each battle. He – much like Murray’s beleaguered weatherman – also runs the gamut of emotions, from fascination to depression over being unable to advance the clock forward, though his connection with Blunt’s Rita Vrataski ultimately gives him just enough motivation to keep going.

It’s a film that’s naturally repetitive, but Liman does a good job mixing up the various scene reprisals with an effective alteration in camera work and good humor. This isn’t a comedic film by any stretch, but it’s also one that doesn’t take itself overly seriously. Cruise is engaged and charismatic as his character grows from a pampered official to a genuine force on the battlefront as believably as such a premise allows, while Blunt is likewise strong as humanity’s only prior victor against the creatures.

Eventually, “Edge of Tomorrow” wears itself out with a dreary climax set under the Louvre where our heroes have just one chance at saving the planet. With the action taking place in a dank, murky setting, I lost count – and interest – in the resolution of Cage and his team, as Liman’s shaky-cam and excessively rapid-fire editing pushed this viewer’s tolerance level one too many times. It’s a bit of a disappointment, but not enough to put a damper on what’s an otherwise well-constructed and satisfying piece of summer escapism.

Really enjoyed Edge Of Tomorrow (8/10)...like Cruise's previous sci-fi outing Oblivion, it's obviously assembled from spare parts salvaged from previous genre outings, but it's slick, propulsive and frequently witty, with Cruise and particularly Emily Blunt delivering fine performances amidst the time-resetting plot shenanigans. Definitely Doug Liman's best film since Go (sorry, was never a Bourne Identity fan).