The Aviator

   Gave this one a re-watch, it had been awhile since I've seen it and it is one of my favorite films of Leonardo DiCaprio. This movie depicts the life of Howard Hughes between the late 1920s, starting with his making of Hell's Angels, to the mid 1940s.

   Directed by Martin Scorsese, he takes us through Howard's heyday as a Hollywood filmmaker and aviation innovator while also showing us his decent into his sickness caused by OCD and germaphobia. DiCaprio does really well as Mr. Hughes showing us his driven side to prove himself and seeing flashes of fear as he realizes he is getting worse.

    I always enjoy these movies and stories about the Golden Age of Hollywood and having read a biography on Howard Hughes he is a very interesting and enigmatic person and is definitely someone who makes an interesting movie subject. I always thought this was the film Leo should have got the Oscar for.

Dukes of Hazzard (2005)

Dukes of Hazzard (2005) is a poorly done remake of a classic TV show. Remakes are nothing new but when you miscast, and lose the core of what made the characters good you end up with a mess of a film that is just Dukes of Hazzard in name only.

So let us first get the obvious out of the way: The original show, while one of my favorites growing up, is really nothing more than a real-life cartoon, but it had heart and a decent troupe of actors.

So what exactly went wrong with the film? Characterization and casting. Most every actor is completely miscast in this film. In fact, the only person who even remotely is close is, ironically, Johnny Knoxville as Luke. Even I found it odd that the problem with this film is not the guy from Jackass. Sean William Scott's Bo is a dimwit, Jessica Simpson's Daisy is a caricature, and for some reason they made Uncle Jessie (Willie Nelson) into a pot smoking joke telling wise cracker. They took the moral center and patriarch of the Duke clan and made him into a joke. Burt Reynolds as Boss Hogg could have been OK but unfortunately he brings nothing to the table and ultimately doesn't feel like he is even trying. The car seemed to be the only thing they really got right but then they went out of their way to make it a PC problem. 

I'd like to find something redeeming in this movie but thid one should necer have gotten out of the planning stage. Just watch the original TV show instead.

Man Up

   So because I'm a sucker for these types of films I've watched this one a few times. Yeah I think finding true love is a complete load of bull crap but for some reason I keep watching these types of movies. This just happens to be, for me, a little bit better than most. It has two leads that feel like regular, flawed people, it has a setting that is a place I'd love to go (London), and aside from a couple of flaws I find it to be fairly rewatchable.

   Nancy (Lake Bell) is a 34 year old woman who is tired of the rat race of dating, while Jack (Simon Pegg) is a 40 year old divorcee who is set up on a blind date but who he meets is not who he expected. Nancy ends up being mistaken for his blind date Jessica and she goes with it. As the night goes on they get to know each other some until Jack finds out the truth. They try to part ways but they run into Jack's ex and she decides to help make him look good in front of her. As the night goes on they both realize something just might be sparking between them.

   I concede that a lot of the movie is just paint-by-numbers romantic comedy cliches, but the characters and their interactions help make the movie work for me. The only thing that I didn't care for is the super creepy former high school guy who knows Nancy, and the regular tied up in a bow happy ending. I personally would have opted for something a bit more low key that shows they have a chance at a relationship but didn't make it feel like a fairy-tale ending. I think at the very least if you enjoy Simon Pegg you'd enjoy this one.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

   Flashback to 2001. That was the year the first movie came out. I was 21 at the time, I had only barely heard of the Harry Potter books but I enjoy watching movies. So when I saw that the first film was being released and that it was packed full of actors I've heard of and directed by Chris Columbus I knew I'd go give it a try. Once I saw that film I was hooked. I immediately went out and bought the first 3 books in paperback and devoured them. 

   As I read through the first story I realized because of its relative short length that the film adaptation was pretty much spot on, and just very little was left out. Even so, the book was just as enjoyable, even though I knew it wasn't exactly aimed at my age group, it kept me interested, it fleshed out this world really well, and made me want to read those other 2 I bought.

   Young Harry Potter has been living with his mean Aunt and Uncle for 11 years, having not remembered the fateful night in which the darkest wizard ever known killed his family and attempted to kill him. Once he learns the truth he is introduced, along with us, to a magical world beyond the normal world of muggles (non-magic folk). He is accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry finding out that his name is well known throughout the magic community as "the boy who lived". 

   Making new friends, and a few enemies Harry ends up being someone who naturally wants to do the right thing even if that means breaking a few rules to figure out who is trying to steal the so-called sorcerer's stone (philosopher's stone outside the US). We as readers are along for the ride trying to figure out a mystery while learning about this wondrous world of magic. Since a lot of what we know is being told from Harry's point of view it makes you feel like you are there learning and experiencing all these things with him. 

   This series was so much fun to read it had become the one series I have read the most; I am currently starting yet another re-read. It helped make lots of people old and young read more which is a good thing and the books got longer and more adult themed so you can grow up with the series even if you are already grown. If you have never read the series you should start right here at the beginning. If you are not hooked by the time you finish this book then you needn't bother with the rest.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

   As a child if you had asked me if I wanted to watch this film over Star Trek II or IV I always would have said no. To my younger self it seemed so sterile and long, with not enough action or humor. Don't get me wrong, it is still those things but as I've gotten older I appreciate this one more and more. In this day and age of rabid fandom most people's opinions on the new Star Trek is that it is too much action adventure and not enough introspective story. Now this film admittedly skewers a lot towards the introspective and it did it at the cost of some of the characterizations we were so familiar with from the original show. I always feel though people who complain a lot about the current state of Star Trek still don't  like this one that much either, which is odd since for the most part it does what the naysayers say they want in Trek. But I digress.

   I first really started appreciating this movie when I bought the 6 movie DVD set a few years back. That set has the remastered (for DVD) Director's Cut. It trimmed the fat some and added some updated effects to make it look a bit more polished. I am still waiting for them to do a true remastering for HD, I won't buy the original 6 movies again until that get's done.

   After the success of Star Wars Paramount decided to ramp up the current plans of making a new Star Trek TV show, called Phase II, into a full blown motion picture directed by Robert Wise. I think that it was a wise decision to not make it like Star Wars and instead to make it more like 2001: A Space Odyssey. By this point Star Trek only had the original show and a handful of episodes as a cartoon series by Filmation, thus they relied on (mostly) good story telling with a small budget for effects and not a ton of action. If they had tried to make it like Star Wars it would probably have been seen as a ripoff and it could have damaged the franchise.

   As for the things that stand out as great: First off, the new refit ship model does look great, I understand why the film wanted to show it off because it is my absolute favorite of all the Star Trek ships to this day. Also the new sets are great. This film is the one that showed off the interior the most, they finally had the budget to show it off and they did. The effects are very good too, maybe slightly dated but they give the movie an air of mystery with that ominous cloud and great model work. I also do enjoy the overall plot, it asks the big questions as the ship learns more and more of what is going on, very sci-fi, very Star Trek. To the acting, Dr. McCoy is about the same, Kirk is wrestling with being back in command, but the real performance comes from Spock (Leonard Nimoy). His character is on the same journey as the antagonist, he is questioning himself and his place in the world and it makes for a couple of really great scenes with Spock. Finally, the soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith is superb and the basis for the sounds of most all of modern Trek. 

   On to what didn't work: The characters, they are mostly the same, and I understand that a couple of years have passed since they've been together on the original voyage, but a lot of it doesn't ring true. For the most part they are all fairly sidelined except for our main three characters and the two new ones Ilia (Persis Khambatta) and Decker (Stephen Collins). I think this is mostly because of Spock's aforementioned journey through this film. He is seeking out answers of his own and has thus distanced himself from his former crew and comes back giving them the cold shoulder for the most part. This one change throws off the dynamic of the triumvirate of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy a bit. Since Spock finds his answers, however, it does work as some character growth and can be overlooked. Next, we move on to the overall look of the sets and costumes. They are now a bit dated and very 70s looking. I get that the bright color ones from the TV show might not have worked but Kirk's admiral uniform looked pretty good, the rest looked like intergalactic pajamas. All the muted tones of the sets coupled with the uniform choices does make it more like a science lab from 1970 than giving it a feel of a future in space, luckily the sets were redone in later films to look more futuristic in tone.

   Last year I finally got to see this in the theater, and even though it wasn't the director's cut, I understood why it was such a sight to see when it came out, and although it is not as well favored today it still did make a lot of money from the Trekkies who were ready to finally see more Star Trek after a decade of reruns. Something about those shots of V'Ger and its cloud dwarfing the Enterprise makes space seem so vast and full of wonders and the unknown. It reminds me of what Dr. McCoy says in the new film, "Space is disease and danger, wrapped in darkness and silence." That is so very true in this film and our heroes go out and face the unknown as the true explorers they are.  

   I will always enjoy some of the other films more, but this one deserves a top spot for trying to be something different then the rest, it stumbled a bit but its still a really good hard sci-fi film and it just happens to be Star Trek. If you haven't given this one a chance, or haven't tried to watch it since you were younger give it another watch.

The Human Adventure Is Just Beginning.

Death to Smoochy

Death to Smoochy is a 2002 is a black comedy about the seedy, behind the scenes, world of kids programming. Kids show host Rainbow Randolph (Robin Williams) is fired in disgrace after being caught taking bribes to let kids on his show so KidsNet producers need a talented yet incorruptible new host which they get in the form of Smoochy the Rhino (Edward Norton). But can this kind-hearted man really make a difference or will he be swallowed whole by this twisted business?

Directed by Danny DeVito, this film has made me laugh since it came out. Aside from Robin Williams' performance which is always great, we have Norton playing a pretty good naive straight-man who is almost overwhelmed by the corruption of kids programming. They are both surrounded by the acting talents of DeVito as the agent to Smoochy, Jon Stewart as a KidsNet executive, Catherine Keener as a jaded executive Nora Wells, and Harvey Fierstein as Merv Green, the unscrupulous head of the Parade of Hope charity. 

This movie is infinitely quotable but my favorite is by Vincent Schiavelli who plays former host and severe drug addict Buggy Ding Dong: "Scuse if I smell like piss. You know how it is." It should be noted you need to have a strange sense of humor to really enjoy this flick. And remember: "friends come in all sizes."

Spider-Man Homecoming

   Because Sony would like to actually make money they brokered a deal to finally get Spider-Man into the MCU. After his much anticipated cameo in Captain America: Civil War last year he got his own standalone film this summer. Young Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has had a taste of doing bigger things, has a fancy new costume supplied by Tony Stark, and really wants to prove that he can be an Avenger too. Tony reminds him to take it slow and be a "friendly neighborhood spider-man" and to leave the heavy hitting to others for now but Peter really wants something more and ends up stumbling upon some powerful new weapons that are making their way to the streets; weapons made by the Vulture (Michael Keaton).

   So far this year this has been my favorite of the comic book films. This one really felt like a small comic run. We weren't bogged down by yet another origin story, and we pick up the story right after Civil War. Keaton is great as the Vulture, we don't spend a ton of time fleshing out his backstory but the things we are shown, added to Keaton's great performance, are enough to understand the character. Robert Downey Jr. as Ironman didn't overshadow the movie and came around just enough to offer his advice and Marisa Tomei made for a decent and concerned Aunt May. I wasn't as impressed by the school friends but the movie didn't focus a lot on school, even with many scenes in and around it, so it was something easily ignored. I look forward to the next installment, I hope it doesn't suffer from the same things a lot of the MCU sequels suffer from: a less than stellar follow-up.