The King: Film Review

Few true-life stories are as inspiring as that of Darko Kralj, the subject of Dejan Acimovic’s new documentary The King. A forty-year-old Croatian shot-putter who excels in his sport despite having lost a leg in 1991 during the Croatian War of Independence, this large-bodied athlete displays an indomitable spirit that is hard to resist.

The slice-of-life film profiles the now 40-year-old Kralj, who nearly lost his life as a result of his injuries. But after being fitted with a prosthetic leg below the knee, he went on to compete in numerous Paralympic competitions, at one point not only setting a new world’s record but then immediately surpassing it five times in a row.

Harrowing archival footage depicts the medical treatment of Kralj’s wounds, as well as the fitting of his artificial limb and the extensive physical therapy he underwent afterwards. But the bulk of the film’s running time is occupied with his present-day life. Happily remarried to a woman who lost her first husband in the same conflict, he’s now the devoted father of three sons who spends much of his time hunting and fishing. There are a few too many scenes depicting these leisure-time activities, as well as a lengthy interlude featuring him making homemade sausage with his extended family. Like so many docs these days, The King feels attenuated at feature length. But Kralj is such an engaging, charismatic subject that it’s easy to forgive the film’s indulgences. The sight of him contentedly swimming at a watering hole with his friends is enough to rob even the most morose viewers of the slightest trace of self-pity

Killing Them Softly

A lawyer, professor and assistant U.S. Attorney who long investigated organized crime in addition to writing 27 novels, Higgins knew well of what he wrote. His first novel, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, was made into a fine film and his third, Cogan’s Trade, the basis of this one, consists of torrents of exceptionally vivid Beantown wiseguy dialogue with bits of plot tucked almost incidentally into the chatter. Moving the action to decimated post-Katrina New Orleans without a tourist in sight, Dominik has done a keen, disciplined job of coaxing the plot out of the shadows while retaining the flavor of underclass lingo and attitude. With the background dominated by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama’s optimistic speeches stressing the availability of “the American promise” to all, some bottom-feeding crims plot what looks like a no-risk scheme: Old-timer Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola, the great Johnny Sak of The Sopranos) hires unwashed kids Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) to raid the regular card night run by Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who once robbed his own game and got away with itWriter-director Andrew Dominik, whose extraordinary Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford proved too long and arty for the masses, repositions George V. Higgins’ 1974 Boston mob-world novel as a metaphor for the ills of American capitalism circa 2008, a neatly provocative tact. But he also shamelessly shows off his directorial acumen; unlike the leading character, who’s all business, Dominik makes sure you notice all his moves. Tight, absorbing and entertainingly performed by a virtually all-male cast topped by Brad Pitt, this Weinstein Co. release should generate solid mid-level business this fall

What matter more are style and attitude, which Dominik ladles on like sauce on ribs. Russell’s drug-addled disorientation is represented by multiple distortions of time, visual perception and sound; the pursuit of one victim is imaginatively covered entirely from the outside of the building in which the chase is consummated; Cogan arrives on the scene to the accompaniment of Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around”; the just-scraping-by 21st century hoods drive late-‘60s/early-‘70s cars like a Riviera and Toronado; and one man’s execution is rendered from many angles in a slow-motion explosion of breaking glass and penetrating bullets so elaborate and prolonged that it resembles a self-standing art installation.

In a related way, some of the dialogue scenes, especially a couple of near-monologues superbly delivered by Gandolfini as a booze-guzzling, sex-obsessed, past-his-prime hit man, almost have the feel of brilliant, free-standing acting class scenes; they serve the film’s purposes, to be sure, but there’s a self-consciously showy aspect to them that makes you easily imagine students using them as audition pieces.

The film is terribly smart in every respect, with ne’er-a-false note performances and superb craft work from top to bottom, but it never lets you forget it, from Pitt’s pithy excoriation of Thomas Jefferson’s hypocrisy right down to his “Crime is the business of America” final line that is bound to be widely quoted.

Myn Bala: Warriors of the Steppe

A state-sponsored epic made to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Kazakhstan’s secession from the crumbling Soviet Union, Myn Bala now ranks second only to Avatar in local box-office receipts. Fast-moving and visually ravishing, it was made by seasoned action director Akan Satayev on a reported budget of around $12 million – huge by Kazakh standards –with production values to match. All the same, such a parochial story will be a tough sell to foreign distributors and audiences. Even if it grabs an Oscar nomination, some smart marketing along the lines of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will be required to generate serious interest abroad

Chosen from over 20,000 contenders, screen novice Asylkhan Tolepov plays Sartay, a teenage freedom fighter whose name is legend in Kazakhstan. A delicate beauty with male-model looks, Tolepov makes an unlikely guerrilla leader, but an engaging and dynamic lead. Other juvenile roles are filled by his fellow students from the Almaty theatre school, who hold their own against an older cast of mostly professional actors.

The movie’s chief flaw is its thuddingly simplistic fairy-tale script, which makes the average Bollywood melodrama seem understated by comparison. All the Kazakh fighters are noble young heroes forever proclaiming their readiness to die for the honor of their homeland and their womenfolk. Conversely, the Dzungars are uniformly ugly, black-clad, bestial conquerors with no qualms about killing children or torching entire villages. No prizes for subtlety, or historical accuracy, or nuanced depiction of geopolitical conflict. Then again, such trivial concerns did not trouble Braveheart either

To their credit, Satayev and his team do their best to give this local story a universal resonance. Switch the costumes and their stirring portrait of a raggle-taggle bandit army rising up against brutal imperial oppressors could equally apply to Robin Hood, the French Resistance, or even Star Wars. There are certainly echoes of Luke Skywalker in Sartay’s childhood back story. Most of all, Satayev’s period blockbuster impresses with its widescreen landscapes and epic combat scenes. Staged by a team that includes veterans of 300 and the Russian action smash Daywatch, the battles are bloody and gripping affairs featuring some spectacular showpiece stunts, one involving a burning horse. Sumptuously shot by Khasan Kydyraliyev, and color-graded in the rich candy hues of vintage postcards, the snowy peaks and lush valleys of the Kazakh steppe appear to contain scenery that rivals the Rockies and the Grand Canyon. If nothing else, Myn Bala should boost tourism to Kazakhstan. Who knows? It may even repair some of the damage caused by Borat

Mankind: The Story of All of Us: TV Review

Josh Brolin narrates History's epic new six-part, 12-hour miniseries Mankind: The Story of All of Us, which re-creates key moments from most of human history (hunter-gatherers to WWII). The series offers up fun visual effects, from computer-generated images to well-crafted re-enactments, all at a dizzying pace. In addition to Brolin's narration, History has lined up a bevy of professors, writers and expert historians to flesh out the facts, as well as color commentators such as Anthony Bourdain, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Brian Williams, James Meigs and Henry Louis Gates, whose contributions help give additional dimension to the material

To pull off yet another world history retread requires a rather fresh take, and what History gets right is shaping Mankind around not just the chronology of human development, but ideas and themes. In the first episode (in two parts), the series takes a look at early inventions that separated man from animals, before leading up to one of the biggest game-changers, the Iron Age.

The phrase "game-changer" is probably used too often in the series, though not necessarily without cause. Almost every element of discovery by early man changed the trajectory of humanity: fire, cave paintings, animal domestication, warfare, religion, writing and so on. Though each chapter in the Mankind story picks a general area or people to focus on (including break-out individual stories to help, well, humanize the experience), it also floats around the globe illustrating parallel developments and global repercussions.


The series also brings in flashes of more modern times to help tie the stories together in a way that reminds one of a sidebar conversation had with a friend: mentioning how the Chinese used iron in their crossbows and standardized parts which revolutionized warfare, then showing American Civil War scenes to discuss the musket. Just as the Colt .45 comes into the picture, the episode seems to remember itself, and returns back to the Chinese. Mankind nearly overwhelms viewers with facts, some which even well-entrenched students of history will find illuminating. And despite scattered battle scenes, the series has a PG feel to it, presenting the facts without reveling in their gruesomeness (perhaps not reveling enough, actually -- the ancient past nearly seems like an OK place to be instead of a generally difficult and terrifying one). By pausing on well-known cultural touchstones (the Pyramids, Stonehenge, the Parthenon, the Great Wall of China), the series starts off in a familiar and accessible way, while still throwing in some interesting historical tidbits

Parked: Film Review

Parked acknowledges the dangers and indignities of homelessness but is determined to look on the bright side. A very sympathetic turn by Colm Meaney both lends box-office appeal and helps Byrne pull back from the saccharine possibilities inherent in the premise. Both making their feature debuts, Byrne and screenwriter Ciaran Creagh present an Irishman (Meaney's Fred) who, after years of odd jobs in England, returns to find his native country less hospitable than he'd hoped. Unable to afford a flat or to secure public assistance in a time of cutbacks, Fred parks his car in a seaside lot and, through fastidious organization and hygiene, hides his homelessness while trying to get on his feet.

Across the lot, Cathal (Colin Morgan) isn't doing as well. His gray skin and frightful teeth mark him as a junkie, but Fred's in no position to be judgmental. The two strike up a cautious friendship, and Niall Byrne's easygoing acoustic score (when it isn't channeling Satie) colors their small adventures with playfulness instead of desperation. Things take rather predictable turns, with Fred finding a love interest (Milka Ahlroth's Juliana, a pianist taking water aerobics at the pool where Fred cleans up) and Cathal being chased by creditors, and the script can't resist using Fred's watch-repair hobby for one groaningly obvious metaphor. (He examines a broken clock, observing that it's old but has character; it just needs "a good cleaning and a nudge to spring back into life.")

But the film's prefab aspects are countered by Meaney's convincing performance as a man holding shame at bay -- maintaining his dignity by force of will, even as his spirit sinks -- and by an uningratiating supporting cast. Cinematographer John Conroy finds enough shoreline vistas to remind us there are worse places Fred could have wound up, even as we root for the welfare system to give him that one good nudge back into the workingclass world.

In the Shadow

The film opens in the style of a film noir from the '50s, with handsome, dark-toned cinematography (by Adam Sikoba) of a couple of crooks stealing a cache of jewels. When the police come in to investigate, Captain Hakl (Ivan Trojan) suspects that something more than a simple robbery is involved. Clues point to a group of Jewish immigrants as the thieves, and State Security contends that they have stolen the jewels to finance a Zionist operation aided by the United States. A German agent (Koch) is called in to help with the investigation, which makes Hakl doubly suspicious of the anti-Semitism underlying the charges. The German turns out to be more complicated than Hakl initially suspects, but the Jews are indeed being unfairly targeted. Yet they confess to the crimes and are brought to a trial that is little more than a propaganda show.

Hakl is portrayed as one honest cop fighting more insidious Communist authorities, but he’s waging an uphill battle. The film succeeds as both a good police procedural and as a biting political commentary on the era. The characterizations, however, could use more texture. It’s never quite clear why Hakl’s marriage is faltering. Trojan, who looks a bit like David Strathairn, is not a conventional leading man, but he brings a convincing sense of integrity to his portrayal. Koch finds depths in his troubled character, and Sona Norisova brings warmth to the rather unformed role of Hakl’s wife. The actors playing the Communist officials are appropriately oily and menacing. The film’s production design is impeccable, and the haunting music by Jan P. Muchow and Michal Novinski contributes to the ominous mood. A couple of scenes of graphic violence may be offputting to the arthouse audiences that support this type of film, but Shadow succeeds in bringing a disturbing period back to life

Man at War

Among the endless possibilities afforded by the medium of cinema, watching people play video games has to rank as among the least exciting. But that’s exactly what’s delivered in Man at War, Jacek Blawut’s documentary profiling various several obsessive devotees of IL-2 Sturmovik, a popular computer flight simulator recreating World War II aerial battles. You won’t be surprised to find out that they’re all men.

Other than that, they’re a fairly diverse bunch, encompassing a variety of ages, professions and ethnicities (American, Polish, German and Russian). Some of them have a more than casual interest in the subject, such the descendants of an American World War II pilot and a German Luftwaffe pilot. Others apparently just like to pretend that they’re strapped into a cockpit and have the opportunity to blow stuff up.

Looking on with reactions ranging from bemusement to eye-rolling disgust are the women in their lives, including one elderly grandmother who quite wisely voices the wish that her grandson would pull himself away from the computer already and find himself a nice girl.

After a lengthy build-up composed of alternating profiles of the various players, including a middle-aged priest/dentist who attaches Clark Gable’s face to his computer avatar, the film’s climax is a lengthy segment devoted to an actual game in which they all participate. Other than serving as a generous free advertisement for the product (which does indeed boast impressive graphics), it’s a tedious affair made notable only by the players’ fanatical passion…except, of course, when one of them embarrassedly steps away from the battle to pay for a pizza delivery.

Rise of the Guardians

From first-time director Peter Ramsey, the film is based on the Guardians of Childhood book series by William Joyce, as well as his short filmThe Man in the Moon.

Rise of the Guardians holds a 73 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and below are what some of the critics had to say about the film.

Todd McCarthy (of The Hollywood Reporter) praised the work of Baldwin as North (Santa Clause), calling the character “perhaps the most readily amusing” of the bunch. But he noted the film's villain, Pitch (as in pitch black) isn't particularly original as he resembles Harry Potter's Voldemort.

Despite its shortcomings, McCarthy concluded: “The characters and settings are attractively designed, and the vocal performances have real color and a sense of fun that gently undercuts the treacly sincerity of certain obligatory kid-pandering moments.”

In his three-star review, Chicago Sun-Time critic Roger Ebert called the film “a hyperkinetic 3-D action comedy, with the characters forever racing on Santa's sleigh, hurtling down chutes and zooming through tunnels that rework the same 3-D illusions over and over again.”
Ebert concluded though there was an audience for the film, it wasn’t him. “Still, let it be said that director Peter Ramsey and his art team have created a crisp, colorful fantasy world, sharper-edged than many feature-length children's cartoons,” Ebert wrote.

Time’s Mary Pols said she did not envy filmmakers tackling holiday themes, because it's a genre so full of films that it's hard to come up with an original idea. Pols did have some praise for the film, writing: “The character feels fresh and new, re-imagined as someone kids can relate to and ultimately (no spoilers) proves to have a bittersweet back story.”

But ultimately she concluded the film fell short: “The narrative choice, hand-to-hand combat and a showdown in the streets in order to save children from cynicism and non-believing, is ironic but hardly surprising; like most children’s movies, Rise of the Guardians mimics the patterns of adult entertainment. Where is the magic in that?”

The Atlantic’s Christopher Orr wrote “while there are times when the plot is packed rather more densely than is strictly speaking necessary, there are moments of genuine magic scattered throughout the script. ... But what ultimately elevates the film above the ordinary is its extravagant visual imagination.”

Zero Dark Thirty

Whether you call it well-informed speculative history, docudrama re-creation or very stripped-down suspense filmmaking, Zero Dark Thirty matches form and content to pretty terrific ends. A long-arc account of the search for Osama bin Laden seen from the perspective of an almost insanely focused female CIA officer who never gives up the hunt until the prey ends up in a body bag, Kathryn Bigelow's and Mark Boal's heavily researched successor to Oscar winner The Hurt Locker will be tough for some viewers to take, not only for its early scenes of torture, including waterboarding, but due to its denial of conventional emotionalism and non-gung ho approach to cathartic revenge-taking. Films touching on 9/11, such as United 93, World Trade Center and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, have proved commercially toxic, and while this one has a “happy” ending, its rigorous, unsparing approach will inspire genuine enthusiasm among the serious, hardcore film crowd more than with the wider public.

Its military-jargon title referring to a state of darkness as well as to the time of 12:30 a.m., Zero Dark Thirty opens with 90 seconds or so of black screen accompanied by a soundtrack collage of emergency phone calls from people trapped in the Twin Towers; no need for the familiar visuals here. Cut to two years later, when a captured nephew of Osama bin Laden undergoes a prolonged series of brutal CIA interrogations that involve beatings, waterboarding, being bound by a dog collar and ropes and getting locked in a small wooden box. It's not the most inviting way to usher a viewer into a movie. Then again, the hunt for bin Laden was no picnic either; it was an enormously frustrating endeavor that untold amounts of money, manpower and strategic thinking couldn't bring to a successful close for nearly a decade. The man who had engineered the deaths of some 4,000 people became a phantom, protected by forbidding geography, loyal followers and an already legendary auraEven though it runs more than 2 1/2 hours, Zero Dark Thirty is so pared to essentials that even politics are eliminated; there's essentially no Bush or Cheney, no Iraq War, no Obama announcing the success of the May 2, 2011, raid on bin Laden's in-plain-sight Pakistani compound. Similarly absent is any personal life for the single-minded heroine; when it's suggested at one point that she might want to have a fling, she colorfully replies that she's not a girl who does that sort of thing. The film does question whether she gives up some of her humanity to so selflessly dedicate herself to this sole professional aim but seems to answer that, for some, this is what represents the essence of life; everything else is preparation and waiting.

Scrooge & Marley

Shot in Chicago and set in the present-day, the film directed by Richard Knight Jr. and Peter Neville presents “Ben” Scrooge (David Pevsner) as the owner of a successful piano bar who abhors the spirit of Christmas and mistreats his employees, who at least are able to take out their frustrations in song.

Preparing to spend Christmas Eve in his usual misanthropic manner, he’s startled to discover the ghost of his former partner Marley (former SNL regular Tim Kazurinsky), although as in the original story he at first ascribes the appearance to the aftereffects of dinner.

“I specified no MSG!” he sputters.

He’s then, of course, visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past (Ronnie Kroell) who, with the help of poppers, spirits Scrooge away to his early years plagued by a homophobic father. Ensuing visitations by the ghosts of Christmas present (Megan Cavanagh) and future (JoJo Baby) provide predictable gay spins on the familiar tale, here frequently interrupted by musical interludes.

“Hold on, Scroogey baby, I feel a production number coming on,” says the Ghost of Christmas present by way of introduction to one MTV video-style segment.

The stagey proceedings, narrated by television/theater veteran Judith Light, have their occasional amusing moments despite the amateurish filmmaking and overly broad performances. And even with the severe tinkering on display Dickens’ tale is so sturdy that the sentimental climax remains moving. But this film, being advertised as “A Holiday Movie for All of Us,” is strictly for a niche audience.

'Twilight And 'Skyfall' Dominate Box Office....

The final entry in the Twilight series bowed to around $200 million internationally last weekend - a record for the franchise - knocking Skyfall off the No. 1 spot in virtually all of the 61 markets in which it's debuted. In the U.K., Twilight generated £15.8 million ($25.1 million) in ticket receipts, nearly £2 million ($3.1 million) more than the tally for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 in the territory. 

It was both the highest-opening weekend for the franchise and the fourth-highest-grossing, three-day weekend of all time in the U.K., behind the last Harry Potter films and Skyfall. In Italy, the title took in $13.2 million (€10.4 million) over its first five days, the highest five-day opening in the country this year. And Breaking Dawn - Part 2 set an all-time record in Spain, where it drew $11.78 million (€9.2 million) for Alliance Films’ Spanish subsidiary Aurum Producciones, a three-day record for the territory With the final Twilight tracking 38 percent above its predecessor internationally, it looks all but inevitable that Breaking Dawn - Part 2 will out-gross the $430.9 million of Part 1. 

 

In Germany, the biggest new territory for Twilight this weekend, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is on track to slightly out-perform Part 1 with admissions of between 1.4 million and 1.6 million, a bow that would rake in between $13 million and $15 million - which is sufficient to take the No. 1 slot from Skyfall. Not that anyone should count Bond out just yet.

 

The 23rd entry in the venerable Brit spy franchise cleared $49.5 million last weekend, enough to push it past the half-billion mark internationally and some $669 million globally. Skyfall has shown strong staying power in several territories - among them Germany, where it is predicted to add another 500,000 admissions in its fourth weekend, and the U.K., where it has earned upwards of $135 million so far and could become the top-grossing title in the territory if it can pass the $150 million high-water mark set by Avatar.

Skyfall’s global march is far from over, as it opens this weekend in Australia and New Zealand before moving to Japan in December. There will be international challengers to the twin juggernauts. DreamWorks Animation's The Rise of the Guardians could make an impact in Russia and Ukraine, as well as the Netherlands, when it opens there this weekend. Cloud Atlas, which bowed strongly in Russia and opened at No. 2 with around $3 million in Germany last weekend, rolls out in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece and Poland in this frame, battling for a strong third spot behind Skyfall and Twilight.

Ang Lee’s 3-D adventure Life of Pi has sensibly avoided the Twilight onslaught, with only a handful of international bows, including Hong Kong and Taiwan. The bulk will come mid- to late December, after Twilight has sucked all it can out of the international box office.

Arrow, The New TV Show....

Arrow is the story of “billionaire playboy” Oliver Queen, who lived his life in debauchery until his father’s yacht had a fatal crash and Oliver was lost on a brutal island for five years. While there, he learned to survive and worked a lot on his abs. Most important, he learned how to make and shoot arrows plus develops some cat-quick jumping skills that he mixes in with all kinds of non-gun-related badassery.

Finally rescued, he comes home with a new mission - which honestly is a little vague. He wants to “save his city”- the fictional Starling City. His family’s money had a lot to do with the downfall of the place, and there’s some as-yet-unexplained mythology that his dad passed down to him via a book with names in it. Just a guess from the pilot, but if your name is in that book, Arrow is going to put the hurt on you.

All of this fits perfectly with The CW’s love of superheroes and hunks. Arrow stars Stephen Amell, and he’s got the abs of steel, the good-looking mug and athletic ability. And he fires off any number of arrows of varying makes. Some kill you, others don’t. Some blow up. Others penetrate concrete and stick there. Have a 7-year-old boy make a list of awesome arrows, and they are pretty much in this show.

The show comes from executive producers Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg and David Nutter. Guggenheim and Kreisberg wrote the pilot, and Nutter directed it.

Now, the show has a plot, too. Oliver had a girlfriend named Laurel Lance (Katie Cassidy), but the naughty party boy took Laurel’s equally hot sister on the fatal yacht trip. And she died.

The CW's latest drama, Arrow, proves to be both on-brand and entertaining - if you turn off the snark detector and downplay the need for plausibility or logic. But hey, it seems that’s what makes The CW tick, at least from a distance, so going all-in on Arrow is easier than expected.

You don’t have to be a DC Comics nut to realize Arrow essentially is Green Arrow, though some liberties have been taken with the overall story. You can argue it out among yourselves whether Arrow nails the details or just the spirit of Green Arrow, but the fact is, not that many people know of the superhero avenger anyway, so nevermind all that.

The Wonder Woman...!

The film begins in straightforward fashion, detailing the history of the character who was created by Dr. William Moulton Marston in 1941 just as women were entering the workforce in droves because of World War II. Envisioning a matriarchal society to come in the next hundred years, the eccentric Marston was also an inventor of an early version of the lie detector, which no doubt inspired Wonder Woman’s “lasso of truth.”

Although Wonder Woman’s popularity declined in the ‘70s, especially when D.C. Comics took the unfortunate step of briefly stripping her of her powers, she hit her pop culture zenith with the hit television series starring Lynda Carter, one of the film’s many interview subjects.

Besides Carter, who clearly still relishes the popularity she enjoyed as the character, the film also includes interviews with figures ranging from academics to feminist icon Gloria Steinem, as well as comic book fans, including one guy dressed as a Star Wars character who credits the character for “helping teenage boys through puberty.”
The film falters somewhat when it ambitiously but superficially branches out into explorations of such similarly female-oriented film and television shows as The Bionic Woman, Charlie’s Angels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and even Thelma and Louise. But its fast pacing and clever use of comic book-style graphics make the sometimes heavy-handed educational content go down easy.

A Film on Abraham Lincoln..

Concentrating on the tumultuous period between January 1865 and the conclusion of the Civil War on April 9 and Lincoln's assassination five days later, on Good Friday, this is history that plays out mostly in wood-paneled rooms darkened by thick drapes and heavy furniture and, increasingly, in the intimate House chamber where the strength of the anti-abolitionist Democrats will be tested against Lincoln's moderates and the more zealous anti-slavery radicals of the young Republican Party.

Occasionally, there are glimpses of life outside the inner sanctums of government, first on the battlefield, where black Union troops join in the vicious hand-to-hand combat where the mud renders the gray and blue uniforms all but indistinguishable, then in the dusty streets of the nation's capital and in the verdant surrounding countryside

The stiffest challenge was to lay out enough exposition in the early going to give viewers their bearings while simultaneously jump-starting the film's dramatic movement. Quite a bit of information simply has to be dropped in quickly to get it over with  but the estimable playwright who won a Pulitzer for 1992's Angels in America mostly manages to cover so many mandatory issues by plausibly making them the subjects of the characters' vivid conversation.

Particularly helpful in this regard are the intimate talks between Lincoln (Day-Lewis) and his most valued adviser, Secretary of State William Seward (David Strathairn), as well with his party's founder Preston Blair (Hal Holbrook). Having signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and gotten easy Senate passage of the 13th Amendment the previous April, Lincoln is determined to push the House to act quickly and put his signature on the new law by Feb. 1, before the war is likely to end. What follows is a course in political persuasion in all its forms: cajoling, intimidation, promises, horse-trading, strong-arming and intellectual persuasion, down-home style. In conversation and physical movement, Lincoln is a deliberate fellow who takes his time, a country lawyer whose rumpled exterior conceals abiding principles and an iron will, a man of no personal vanity or fancy education who is nevertheless unafraid to cite Euclid, notably in his equation of equality = fairness = justice, with which Lincoln frames the slavery issue

Silent Hill: Revellation ....

Arriving six years—a cinematic eternity—after the first adaptation of the popular videogame series, this installment seems all too aware that only the most rabid gamers will possibly remember anything of the 2006 original, so writer/director Michael J. Bassett helpfully provides numerous scenes in which the characters deliver reams of exposition so that the rest of us can try to figure exactly what the hell is going on. It’s a losing proposition. 

 Suffice it to say that the little girl in the original is now eighteen and has assumed a new identity as Heather (Adelaide Clemens), living on the run with her father Harry (Sean Bean) from the evil forces of the town of Silent Hill who have claimed her mother (Radha Mitchell). Living with endless nightmares, both waking and dreaming, she comes home one day to find her father gone and the message “Come to Silent Hill” written in blood on the wall, forcing her and new high school friend Vincent (Kit Harington) to journey to the ash-drenched hellscape to rescue him.

Cue an endless series of nightmarish images adapted from the game, featuring a plethora of creatures engaging in gory, R-rated mayhem, ranging from homicidal nurses to a spider-like figure who turns people into mannequins to a pyramid-headed guy wielding a blade that seems entirely too heavy for him. Oh, and cameos by the likes of the slumming Carrie-Anne Moss and, most entertainingly, Malcom McDowell, the latter no doubt ruefully recalling that he once worked with the likes of Stanley Kubrick and Lindsay Anderson. Director Bassett (Solomon Kane) clearly knows his way around the fantasy genre, and the imagery, much of it lifted from the games, is visually arresting, especially the 3D-enhanced swirling ash that seems to literally envelop the viewer. At other times, he indulges too heavily in the format’s in-your-face aspects, thrusting swords and the like directly at us as if it was still the 1950s.

Ice Age Live, A Mammoth Adventure....!!

 Co-directed by Guy Caron and Michael Curry, whose past credits include Cirque du Soleil, the show incorporates giant animal puppets, human acrobats and ice-skating dance numbers.

The plot is only tangentially related to the movies. It opens with cute baby mammoth Peaches being kidnapped by an evil hawk-like creature called Shadow, an all-new character in the Ice Age pantheon. Her father Manny sets off to rescue Peaches, aided by two other series regulars, the comedy sloth Sid and the saber-toothed smilodon cat Diego, with occasional cameo appearances from the super-sized squirrel Scrat. Their mission is successful, but on the way home the team encounter avalanches and rockfalls, diverting them into a kind of fantasy underground kingdom.

The character design is the most impressive aspect of Ice Age Live!, especially the three mammoths, giant constructions who move using a combination of internal human operators and animatronics. Several of the acrobatic musical numbers are also spectacular, particularly a quartet of dancing polar bears, a Bollywood-style set-piece inside a giant flower, and a team of arctic foxes whirling across the ice like vintage Busby Berkeley babes. None of these has much relevance to the plot, nor to the Ice Age films in general, but at least they add visual zing to a fairly slight story. Otherwise, however, this production feels woefully basic for such a major movie spin-off. Framed by a broad arch of glacial ice, the uninspired stage backdrop is a series of almost interchangeable, digitally projected landscapes. The stage itself is a rectangular skating rink filling almost half the main floor of Wembley Arena, although most of the action takes place on a series of moving platforms on top of the ice. The musical score, a mix of anodyne soft-rock ballads and rousing orchestral tub-thumpers in sub-Elmer Bernstein mode, is adequate but unmemorable

'The Man With the Iron Fists', a Cocktail of Varied Styles of Martial Arts

 

A boiling pot of wild martial arts moves culled from dozens (maybe hundreds) of violent Asian action extravaganzas as sifted through a Tarantino-esque fanboy prism, The Man With the Iron Fists feels like both a lavish vanity project and an earnest attempt to deliver a compendium of cool hand-to-hand combat set pieces. The vogue for kung fu, elaborate wire work and fancy blade flashing seems rather past its due-date at this point, making director RZA's realization of his childhood enthusiasms feel a bit quaint, but you certainly can't say it's dull or uneventful.

A cocktail blending aspects of the Chinese wuxia martial arts genre and the Japanese jidaigeki itinerant samurai/craftsman/peasant format, the Shanghai-shot Iron Fists features more lavish production values than most of its precursors as well as an odd but appealing stew of international actors including Russell Crowe as a British mercenary, Lucy Liu as an all-knowing brothel madame, World Wrestling Entertainment star David Bautista as an invincible warrior and RZA as Blacksmith, a former slave who crafts exotic weapons for one and all.
 

The aptly named Jungle Village is like a Chinese Deadwood, the baddest town on the frontier where anything goes and outlaws roam free. The simple setup has a clan chief betrayed and killed for his horde of gold by his sadistic militia leader Silver Lion (Byron Mann). Rampaging and killing as they please, Silver Lion and his animalistic top fighter Bronze Lion (Cung Le) threaten to bring Jungle Village to its knees, but handsome rightful heir Zen Yi, The X-Blade (Rick Yune), Crowe's hedonistic Jack Knife and Blacksmith form a Leone-esque ad hoc band of loners each whom has his own reasons for getting back at Silver Lion.

This is the sort of film where the main characters are defined first and foremost by what type of weaponry they favor: for Jack Knife, it's a fancy combo of gutting knife and pistol; The X-Blade sports a sleek outfit concealing an endless array of sharp objects and projectiles beneath black leather; and Blacksmith fashions for himself forearms and hands of spiked metal, which would qualify him as a uniquely qualified opponent for the mega-fisted title character in the simultaneous release Wreck-It-Ralph.

'Wreck-It Ralph', The Cartoon......

Guided by executive producer John Lasseter, Walt Disney Animation Studios has clearly devoted significant resources and talent to Wreck-It Ralph, recruiting a top-notch cast and a diverse array of animation, visual effects and lighting artists to contribute to the distinct and varied vid-game styles. With a mix of retro eye-candy for grown-ups and a thrilling, approachable storyline for the tykes, the film casts a wide and beguiling net.  

 

After 30 years of taking the blame, Ralph’s ready for a change – he thinks maybe if he can earn a medal, the Nicelanders might give him some respect and invite them to one of their frequent cocktail parties. 

 

Traveling through the arcade’s power cords and surge protectors, Ralph journeys to Game Central Station, the gateway to every game in the store. Hearing that first-person shooter challenge “Hero’s Duty” awards a medal for bravery, Ralph suits up to join no-nonsense Sergeant Calhoun’s (Jane Lynch) platoon to battle the Cy-Bugs, a nasty computer virus in the form of cyber spiders.

 

 

Following an unpleasant encounter with Sugar Rush dictator King Candy (Alan Tudyk), Ralph allies himself with Vanellope in a plan to recover his medal and help the kid win a spot in the race. But first they’ll have to in break into the King’s specialized factory and build a competitive race car – and it might be a good idea for Vanellope to actually learn to drive it. Meanwhile, Felix has abandoned the Wreck-It Ralph game and the Nicelanders, joining up with Calhoun on a quest to retrieve his friend and protect Sugar Rush from the Cy-Bugs before the game gets flatlined.

Making his feature film debut, Emmy-award winning director Rich Moore (The Simpsons) ably manipulates the action by tantalizingly shifting the characters between game worlds. Effortlessly orchestrating a dizzying variety of visual elements, Moore consistently manages to keep the focus on Ralph and his comrade's multiplying perils.

The Twilight Saga, "Breaking Dawn -- Part 2."

Spotted by several reporters holding hands at a press conference for their film, many have speculated that the couple's brief separation has ended.

When Asked if he would ever do another movie with his on and off screen love, Pattinson replied, "Yeah, definitely, yeah."

The actor then joked that the duo could reunite on a future Twilight film, but added, "It probably wouldn't be a vampire movie for a while. That'd be a bit silly."

 

Stewart, when asked the same question, replied: "Yeah… I don't want to say that it's rare. I've been really lucky… I've had simply great experiences with a lot of actors that I've worked with that I want to go back and work with again."

But when it comes to another Pattinson project, Stewart said, "It would have to be perfect. It would have to be so good just because of, you know, we just did five movies together, we play such particular characters -- I think we'd have to really find something great and different. But yes, absolutely, I would love it."

 

Perhaps Robsten would be better suited to collaborating behind the scenes of a future film.

Director Bill Condon said that he could someday see Pattinson as a writer and Stewart as a director in Hollywood. As for Taylor Lautner, Condon imagines he'll one day take on the role of producer for a film.

'Fringe' Season Finale....

After five seasons, the multiple universe, sci-fi cult drama reached the landmark 100th episode.
 

Season five has taken the Fringe team to the dystopian world of 2036, introduced in a season four episode. Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Jasika Nicole and Blair Brown co-star.
 

J.J. Abrams, Fringe co-creator: “It has been an absolute honor to have been a part of the weird and wonderful world of Fringe. I will always owe the cast and crew for pouring their hearts and souls into every dimension of this series. Creating the show with Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman was a joy, but watching it evolve over the years into such an imaginative, insane and heartbreaking ride is nothing less than a thrill. I am grateful to our blessed fans, and to Kevin Reilly and Peter Rice and everyone at the glorious Fox network for allowing Fringe to reach its bittersweet conclusion.”

J.H. Wyman, showrunner: "Above all else, from the bottom of my heart, I would like to personally thank everyone involved with Fringe. From the most amazing fans, to our incredible cast, writers and crew, and our wonderful partners at Fox and Warner Bros. – we would not be here without you. It simply cannot be overstated how grateful I am for the ongoing and unconditional support we have received over the past five seasons. It has been both mind-blowing and humbling. I’ve always been a fan of science fiction, and to be able to tell this story about a family – a family that, through everything, fought together for survival – has been a highlight of my career. As we approach the final chapter, I can hardly believe it, and I’m just truly thankful for this unparalleled experience.”

Kevin Reilly, chairman of entertainment at Fox: "Fringe has truly imagined the impossibilities over its five seasons and will go down in the books as one of FOX’s most riveting and creatively brilliant series. It has been a blast to work with J.J., Joel and their masterful creative teams, as well as with Anna, Josh and John and the rest of the most talented cast and crew in the business.”