You can feel this life deeply through MacLean’s lens, and that makes sense; he grew up in this very town, and has found some kindred sense of being with the likes of Qalli (Josiah Patkotak)—the high school boy set to leave and go off to the college—and Avaaq, his best friend who’s looking at a dead-end future caring for his drunken mother and the girl he just impregnated. These two friends share camaraderie in the challenges of their life, but now their different paths threaten that.

There’s no surprise or enlightenment in this scenario, as the duo behave as most young men in coming-of-age stories do. Patkotak and Irelan are amateur actors but they build a believable bond, and the change of setting helps overcome familiarity we feel with their circumstances. They spend those last days of freedom before Qali leaves indulging in what their world affords as sport for young men; free-style rapping and seal-hunting. When both men go out with a group of friends to seal-hunt and and come back without one of the boys and a story of accidental tragedy, the film takes off and transforms into something more nuanced that we expect.

I won’t spoil the trajectory of the film here, but we know as an audience that there’s more to the event than Qali and Avaaq are letting on to authorities, and we also know that the dead boy, John Miller, was a no-account crack-head that wasn’t exactly expected to have longevity in the community . A web of lies and deceit spring up, made harder to control and manage because of the intimacy and connectivity of the town’s inhabitants. There’s nowhere these two can turn where they are not faced with people who know them, know of them, or have expectations on who they are, where they are headed, what they might be capable of.

Therein lies the hook for MacLean’s thriller and why it works in the face of a played-out plot and performances from non-professional actors. We are observing the detailed rituals and behavior of a real and functioning enclave of people, and their status as a minority and as dwellers of a dour environment only enhances the drama. As cinematographer Lol Crawley’s camera attests, the frozen wastelands of Barrow are not the kind of place one wants to test without faithful allies, and the secret Qali hopes to hide is capable of severing all of his ties and ambitious dreams. What happens has a fated outcome but MacLean makes that fatalism register as tension, still left hanging in the air at film’s close.

On the Ice is an enjoyable take on an old stand-by; the group of teens who unwittingly commit murder and then must compromise in ways they never planned to get away with it. It doesn’t go anywhere new as a story, but MacLean finds an outlet here for an up-close look at a culture in a form that merges documentary, auto-biography and paperback fiction. It doesn’t quite reach the goal it’s going for as the thriller pieces are only partially successful, but as a testament to a people, it’s a refreshing and honest snapshot.

PCN Rating: ***~~ (3/5)

I personally don’t care how many millions of dollars ‘This Means War’ brings in at the box office; it’s hands down the worst movie of the year so far. Supposedly a romantic comedy about two spies who end up fighting over the same woman, there’s nothing romantic or funny about it. I guess it’s also supposed to be an action movie, but good luck there.

In fact, using the term ‘movie’ is probably a bit deceptive. This is more like a prefab kit of a film that someone forgot to finish. It’s genuinely odd to see every person involved in the production trying to actively distract the audience from realizing that they are watching this movie. No one has confidence in the script or the concept.

For proof, you need look no further than Tom Hardy and Chris Pine, who play the two spies vying for the affections of Reese Witherspoon’s Lauren. Instead of committing to the skin-crawling reality of the film’s ‘high concept’ they just banter back and forth as if they were in a homoerotic buddy-cop pic, focusing a lot on being bare-chested, batting their eyes at each other more than Witherspoon, and firing off faux-macho barbs. When they start battling it out at a hoity-toity restaurant, I fully expected some MMA man-hugging, but no dice. It’s all embarrassing and has nothing to do with the movie, but it’s still a relief from the smug insincerity of the script.

Perky and peppy, Lauren meets the two would-be lotharios over an online dating service, unaware that not only do they both work for the CIA, they are buds who sit across from each other in the office. See, Lauren won’t consummate her relationship with either until she’s made her choice of one of them. Good for her, but she doesn’t know she’s essentially the last cookie in the jar over which two smug man-children are fighting. It gets worse when these two start using hi-tech surveillance to monitor a girl and stage a manliness contest over which dude gets to plant his flag. Throw in Lauren’s gal pal,a must have for paint-by-number rom-coms like this. She’s played by Chelsea Handler and scrapes up a few laughs before becoming one more mewling signpost of the film’s deeply mixed messages.

Witherspoon is an actress I do like, but she’s better as the quirky indie girl than as the unattainable goddess that makes men melt; that was true of Water for Elephants and it’s doubly true here. She has a bubbly charm that gets abused in the romantic-comedy ghetto because its never paired with her talent for lacing that charm with snark and sarcasm.

The females of Freeway, Pleasantville, and Election wouldn’t have stood for this treatment. Maybe that chick from Cruel Intentions, but she was always a bit naïve. Of course all of those films are more than a decade away from us, and Reese has an Oscar now to delineate between her era of experimentation and her ‘serious actress’ phase. Reese, it’s not too late to pair up with Alexander Payne again or hell, try your hand at a Ti West indie thriller; anything to avoid being the lettuce on a Hardy/Pine meat sandwich.

So while the boys are in their community theater version of Tango and Cash, and Witherspoon thinks she’s making a Montell Jordan comeback video with Handler chirping away like it’s Sleepless in Seattle, director McG decides that he’s going to shoot the whole thing as if he’s still helming episodes of Chuck. Not necessarily a bad choice, but he’s only doing it because he clearly is at a loss for what tone the film should take. When the script introduces Til Schweiger as the villain, I hoped for some actual dramatic tension but it just goes Bad Boy’s lite. I was actively rooting for the assassination of the entire trio of leads, and lamenting poor Angela Bassett’s awful luck for landing her second embarrassing female agent role in two years (the first being 2011’s Green Lantern).

McG will likely take the brunt of the blame for the complete failure of This Means War as a movie. He doesn’t often make pictures I like, but he can be a competent helmer. Here, he’s so completely adrift that he reverts back to his shallow music video sensibilities. Then again, with the current script, you could have hired Ridley Scott and it would still be a raging mess. The reality is the blame deserves equal distribution amongst every talent whose signature made this thing a reality. There’s no way this reject from a high-school script competition would have come into being without them, and if  the concept had found its way into hands who had better things to prove than an opening weekend gross, it might have even managed to be interesting.

Plea to all those couples looking for a night out with dinner and movie; skip this one. Go see The Vow or Safe House—neither great movies but infinitely superior to this slop—or better yet, check out something at home like North by Northwest, Out of Sight, or even Knight and Day before you give This Means War any of your time or money.

PCN Rating ½~~~~ (0.5/5)

Although it lacks the wonderment and wild beauty of Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle, Arrietty delights in its diminutive world and the secrets it hides while telling a small tale in a graceful and beguiling way. For starters, there’s a literate and amusing script by maestro Hayao Miyazaki and a patient and serene direction by Hiromasa Yonebayashi. It would have been easy to transform the story of young borrower Arriety (Bridget Mendler) venturing out into the larger world and meeting a human into a slapstick adventure—as the 1998 live-action film became—or a lopsided romance.

Instead, the animators and writers play by the rules of Norton’s novel, never over-extending their grasp in favor of spectacle or sensationalism. The product is a film that may require some time to grow on its young target audience, planting the tantalizing ideas of how little causes can have big effect when seen through another’s perspective. As gentle as it is, it isn’t ever dull and although I longed for a bit more conflict in its central story, the film gets by well enough without it.

What worked best for me was the way in which we see the Borrowers living against the backdrop of a world that is so big it very well could destroy them if they aren’t constantly diligent. The animators have given loving attention to the way in which these little people adapt and acquire bits of the giant human world into their everyday routine.

Battles with a mischievous cat and a crazy crow are full of danger and fun, and when Arriety meets the human Shawn, the story gains a relationship that bridges the two worlds and reveals as much new about them to the inhabitants as it does to the newcomers. Younger audiences can thrill at the absurdities and surprises in watching the familiar transform into the new, although from the borrower perspective, it is our mundane universe that harbors the mystery.

Will American children get the themes of shrugging off comfort and the need for being aware of all things in your care, even those you can’t see? Perhaps not at first, but that’s the joy and gift of Ghibli films; they operate on multiple levels. Here, the simple interior of a kitchen becomes a complex and arduous journey for Arriety and her father, as they traverse countertops, jelly jars and window sills in search of things that will sustain their world.

The English dub is not a simple rush job, but captures the energy of the characters in a way similar to the British and Japanese voice work. The likes of Will Arnett, David Henrie, Amy Poehler, and Carol Burnett round out the cast and Mendler does a fine job as the precocious Arriety. It’s not the best Ghibli film in the catalogue, but it is a warm-hearted family film that parents can be proud to take their kids to, and it just might cause those tykes to pause and look a little closer at the world beneath their feet.

PCN Rating ***½~ (3.5/5)

There’s a lot going on in Bullhead and Roskam takes his time unveiling what darkness drives Jacky and his brutish exterior. At first glance, it’s a typically gritty foreign expose of hard, uncompromising people living on the wrong side of the law. As it rumbles along, we see a foreboding personal tragedy unfolding with Jacky and his former friend Diederik (Jeroen Perceval), who is linked to the moment that changed Jacky’s life forever. Diederik works with a suspect meat dealer named Dr. Kuyper, who may have been involved in the murder of an inspector investigating the hormone drugs. Jacky’s veterinarian friend prompts him to work with Kuyper and this sets in motion a sordid chain of events that brings  the past bubbling back to the surface.

This is a tricky maze to navigate dramatically, especially considering that Roskam introduces the topical practice of hormone abuse and teases the conflict between the crime families and the Belgian justice system. Once these elements are in place, we are prepared for a winding and concussive exploration of that world, but then the film gradually drifts away from the present and embeds itself in Jacky’s previous misfortunes. A lesser film would likely meander, but Roskam knows what story he wants to tell and Bullhead only gains momentum as it progresses, growing more dour and engrossing with each subtle turn of the knife.

Most of the people involved on the production are first timers and they have carefully studied the nature of film noir before embarking on this particular journey. A director like Nicolas Refn might pay homage to the style of noir with a lark like Drive, but Bullhead also encompasses the substance; it’s an original that stands on its own as a bone-crunching drama even after the surprise of its freshness has worn off.

Much of the impact stands on the performances, primarily the arcane centerpiece of Jacky, acted with a raw energy by  Matthias Schoenaerts. He’s a younger man, virile and strong, but in his mannerisms and posture there is a clear frailty that Roskam unfurls in his direction. This is an astounding performance because it has to touch every other piece of the film; if we cannot believe in and ultimately sympathize with Jacky, none of it works.

The other actors help create a stable of unsavory types and personalities that furnish the dank, basement spaces of the plot. Tension is wound-up in the psychological snarl of Jacky, Diederik and Kruyper, and when it starts spilling out into the physical realm of the story, Bullhead catches fire. This is a strong and assured debut and it’s a confident slam-dunk as a thriller. It’s not always a pleasant film to watch and often there are just too many nooks and crannies of Jacky’s life to explore. Vignettes like his wooing of a local lout’s girl could probably have stood cutting, but the artistry of the picture is impeccable and carries us through.

Bullhead has been rightly nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign picture. Whether it has a shot at winning, I have no idea, but fans of edgy character study will find much to love in it, and there’s an aggressive but poignant sweep to the film that sets up Roskam as a talent to watch. He’s made a neo-noir that discovers a new location for moral crisis, the underbelly of Belgium’s beef market.

PCN Rating: ****~ (4/5)

Although the original film scared up a strong box office over Valentine’s Day weekend in 2007, Sony seems to have been hesitant in bankrolling a sequel. That reluctance has resulted in a thinner budget, shoddier production values and a jettison of the cast and crew from the first go-round.

The only man left standing is Nic Cage, reprising his role as the hell-bound biker Johnny Blaze, whose alter-ego is the Devil’s bounty hunter, the flame-brained Ghost Rider. Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the bargain bundle directing team who produce manic slop like the Crank films and Gamer, take over as headliners but don’t invest much energy in the wafer-thin premise. Fans of the frantic, video-game amorality of Crank will be likewise disappointed to learn that this one has more in common with that other dead-on-arrival comic-book flick, Jonah Hex which the duo also scripted.

The story is of no real consequence, just another obligatory mission that tempts Blaze with the possibility of regaining his immortal soul. The Devil—played with a kind of confused bluster by the usually terrific Ciarian Hinds—has sired a child and now he’s coming to collect the kid unless Johnny and a badass warrior priest named Moreau (Elba) can take him down.

For a brief time it looks like Spirit of Vengeance might triumphantly shrug off its pedigree and become a fun, goofy b-movie with the likes of Ciaran Hinds., Idris Elba, Johnny Whitworth and Christopher Lambert playing hammy second fiddle to the burned-out husk masquerading as Nicolas Cage. The craggy desolation of a Romanian countryside and nifty dream sequences that suggest Blaze’s brimstone-paved trajectory add a bit of charm, but they are promptly crushed under the boot of poor scripting, dodgy direction and overheated visual effects that look llike someone playing X-Box at a rave.

The artists and writers that have contributed to the comic iteration of Ghost Rider over the years have, most of them, understood the character and played by the rules that his creators have set up for him. Neveldine and Taylor have no such interest or commitment and they bungle even the mildest of comic-book through-lines. This is a slapdash film that hastily introduces some characters, inexplicably sidelines others, and never explains the motivations that accompany the action.

That action also misses the mark; it’s just a relentless snarl of incoherent smoke and noise.   Comic-book artists build movement and body language into their character’s DNA and their undervalued craft should be studied by more would-be filmmakers looking to lift franchises off the inked page and up onto the cinema screen.

In between Idris Elba trying to smirk his way into our hearts and Hinds stumbling over his demonic motivation, there’s the Neveldine/Taylor shout-outs to frat-boy comedy and fan-boy pandering, including scenes of molten piss and vomit being evacuated from Ghost Rider’s phantasmal internal organs. None of this matters really, as any volunteer patrons this thing gets will be there to see the latest chapter in the Nicolas Cage supernatural horror sweepstakes.

Cage himself can only take it so far, though, and what should be sublime insanity reflected in Nic’s gaze is replaced by an old, tired actor who seems to remember vaguely that a few years ago he played a character named Ghost Rider. The serious nature of the production needs him to lighten up a bit, and he threatens to make Blaze a compelling train-wreck; wild-eyed, repentant but not reformed, and constantly staring out at the invisible gates of Hell wondering how he failed so miserably at guarding his own soul.  Neveldine and Taylor only treat him like a carnival attraction, but end up highlighting a crucial fact of nature; you can’t cage the Cage and expect to see his majesty in captivity. He needs to be free and wild (at heart).

Alas, that never happens and he and the Ghost Rider find themselves steam-rolled by a big, clunky disaster of a movie that only further sullies the reputation of the second-tier Marvel movie characters. At this point even the Punisher is starting to feel better about himself.

PCN Rating: *~~~~ (1/5)

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (PG-13) Running time: 95 minutes

Directors: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor Cast: Nicolas Cage, Idris Elba, Ciáran Hinds, Violante Placido, Ferfus Riordan, Johnny Whitworth, Anthony Head, Christopher Lambert

Find other Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance reviews here:

Film Fare Review

Total Film Review

SFX Magazine Review  

Check your local showtimes at: www.hollywood.com

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 10%

Either way you slice it–chainsaw or machete– V-day can often be something that’s more endured than enjoyed. Whatever side of the coffin you fall, you can still make the most of the time with a good horror movie.

Whether you are hosting your own anti-Valentine’s shindig or looking to get a significant other to snuggle closer during the scary parts, you can’t go wrong with any ten of the following romantic horror movies.

So, light the candles, dim the lights, uncork the wine, and get your creep on…

10. Candyman (1992)

No, it’s not a  love story in conventional sense. Virgina Madsen is a white-bread college researcher studying urban legends in Chicago’s Cabrini Green–the stalking grounds of a fearsome urban legend–and Tony Todd is an elegantly tall ghetto boogeyman that looks like he raided a pimp’s wardrobe and stole Captain Hook’s prosthetics.  Insteadof pairing them, Bernard Rose’s adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story sets them as adversaries and partners in an alluring tension between the banal of the real and the intoxicating madness of the mythic. Together, Madsen and Todd play out a moody waltz of good and evil set to the haunting strains of Philip Glass’ unforgettable score.

9. Near Dark (1987)

Sexy vampires and wayward travelers caught up in with a band of ageless gypsies. No, it’s not the sparkling abuse-fantasy of Twilight. This is Kathryn Bigelow’s too-cool blood-sucking neo western  that pits Adrian Pasdar and Jenny Wright’s searing passion against the violent thirst of Lance Henricksen, Jeanette Goldstein and Bill Paxtion. The more intimate and touching strains of affection and fidelity between Pasdar’s slowly-turning human and Wright’s reluctant nosferatu make this the absolute best of the 1980

8. A Chinese Ghost Story (1987)

I don’t quite know how to describe this one. Think about crossing Legend of Zu with Mannequin and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead and you still haven’t accounted for the unique and pleasing insanity of Tsui Hark’s dark-romantic fairy tale. Visually stunning, often hilarious and absolutely adorable in the portrayal of its two star-crossed lovers, Ghost Story is a classic mash-up that earns every scream and sigh. Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong have a heart-breaking chemistry as the peasant and hungry phantom who fall for each other despite the bevy of ghost hunters, tree demons and giant tongues standing between them.

7. The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

Forget the Andrew Lloyd Weber lyrics and the garish frilled shirts and partial face masks. By far the most compelling and touching film version of Phantom of the Opera is this one starring the incomparable Lon Chaney who finds his most iconic character in Erik. Erik is a monster inside ( his outside visage is just unfortuane , but he’s still got feelings for Mary Philbin’s Christine and Chaney makes him deeply human, both spooky and pathetic, monstrous and mysterious. The sets, the design and make-up transport the viewer into a world of opulence and gothic imagiation. There’s nothing quite like it in any other version of this tale. If it’s out and out romance you are looking for, here it is, albeit deranged.

6. The Fly (1986)

David Cronenberg’s skin-crawling science fiction is an odd update of Beauty and the Beast, taking the notions of bioligical imperative and alienation and pushing them to bizarre new heights. Gina Davis and Jeff Goldblum have a fearful chemistry hereGoldblum makes Seth Brundle’s brilliance and passion register, and gives his transformation a pathos and sympathy. Through it all Seth’s got real feelings for the girl, who might have been his salvation were this not a Cronenberg movie, Instead, that Canadian auteur of the demented rightly pushes this to its logical and tragic conclusion.

5. Cat People (1942)

Haunting, sensitive and strange, Val Lewton’s Cat People is a wonderwork of noir horror. Simone Simon’s Irena Dubrova is the most sympathetic monster to ever grace the screen and her curious predicament–she cant sexually consumate her marriage to her architect husband without turning into a panther–gives the film an interesting subtext. This is a portrait of a marriage haunted by a curse and it would crash down into psychological rubbish if it weren’t for the dreamlike atmosphere, moody cienmatography and unnerving performances that mark this an unforgettable story of frustrated love and desire. A masterpiece.

4. Blue Velvet (1986)

No, it isn’t a love story persay, but it is a dark romance and as concieved  by David Lynch it’s like a hole of blackest night burrowed into the subconscious of the suburban dream. Machlachlan and Rosselini are pitch perfect in their roles and Dennis Hopper is one of the most dispicable and psychologically interesting villains to chew his way across a movie screen. There’s something rotten and distorted at the heart of the picture, but Lynch finds a way to make these characters breathe in a way the feels real and we can feel the heat and intensity between them, even if it  its being fanned by the flames of hell. Its easy to forget too that Lachlan and Dern connect to as the more innocent boy-girl pairing; they are just two kids skirting young love in the face of an sordid mystery.

3. Ugetsu (1953)

Kenzi Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu is one of the finest ghost stories ever filmed, based off a popular Japanese folktale. Instead of creepy phantoms or spooky demons, Mizoguchi spins a tumultuous tale of love and desire during wartime. Two men, Genjuro and Tobei, leave their wives and families to seek fortune in another province. What they find makes up the supernatural part of the tale–a court of shadows and a vain spectre ensnaring men–but the memorable passages detail what they find at home when they return. This is a film in love with imagery and there’s an organic romanticism that drips off every frame; the sinister waiting just around the corner from the sublime. At its bruised heart,Ugetsu is the story of a man who abandons true happiness and ardor for the empty promises of a false dream.

2. The Vanishing (1988)

The girl is there on screen for only about fifteen minutes or so of the entire film. Her presence, on the other hand, infects the whole film. There may not be a more startlng journey into the heart of devotion than Danish version of The Vanishing. When Saskia disappears on vacation, Rex never stops looking for. His life is changed, broken at first and then redirected, as he discovers her abductor and sets off to uncover Saskia’s fate, whatever it might be. The spiritual trumps the physical in the film, and it transforms a frightening and distrubing ending into a kind of triumph of love and sacrifice. Rex finds a way to make amends for leaving Saskia early on by following her into the very depths of her fate.

1. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

Iconic and cheesy and still so right after all this time. James Whales darkly comic and twistedly sweet follow-up to Frankenstein is a dopey but honest interpretation of Mary Shelly’s serious novel. What Whale teases out is the struggle between the heart and the head, the turmoil of an outcast, and a forthright treatise about unrequited love. Any teenager struggling with acne and hormones and the uncertainty of a guy or gal’s affection need only look to Karloff’s creature for encouragement. As bad as you may have it, you don’t have to worry about the object of your affection–assembled from dead parts and not in the position to be too picky–literally screaming her head off at the very sight of you. Contains the single greatest line from a spurned lover in the history of rejection; ‘We belong dead.’ Kaboom! Now that’s love.

I must have read that particular copy dozens of times, lost in worlds of antique wonder that Verne intended as speculative science fiction. I trace that moment like a vein to my life-long love for words and the feelings they inspire, just as I credit an early-age viewing of Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong with my frantic love for film. It was a defining but small moment that I am most grateful for.

While I doubt that Journey 2: The Mysterious Island will ever be the kind of art that sparks such a passionate affair with literary culture, I can see the same gratitude for Verne and his words in Brad Peyton’s jolly but daft 3D kid’s adventure. A sequel to the amusing but visually anemic Journey to the Center of the Earth, Island imagines a world where Verne and his contemporaries were not merely gifted fantasists but visionaries and explorers whose prose was actual truth. A small handful of present day adventurers spend their lives and resources following the clues of the novels, and in Island’s predecessor Brendan Fraser learned there really were dinosaurs hanging out in tropical jungles at the Earth’s core.  

Ohio teen Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson) is one of these self-dubbed Vernians; the film opens with him performing a dangerous and illegal stunt, Tron: Legacy style, in order to decode a radio message sent by his missing grandfather, Alexander Anderson (Michael Caine). While Sean is concerned with the cryptic code and tracking grampa’s whereabouts, his well-meaning stepdad Hank (Dwayne Johnson) is trying valiantly to connect to the boy and give him guidance. But Hank isn’t just some wet-noodle strawman set up for the writers to exorcise some deep-seated daddy issues, he’s that most rare of  cinematic beasts; a smart, caring and sensible father figure who doesn’t disappear or get eaten by the end of the first reel.

Hank uses his code-breaking skills garnered from the Navy to solve the message, and with the help of old classics like Treasure Island, Gulliver’s Travels, and Verne’s own Mysterious Island (all of them it turns out are describing the same place) he and Sean discover that Alexander has in fact found the isle good ol’ Jules was talking about. Eventually Sean and Hank, with goofy helicopter pilot Gabato (Luis Guzman) and his daughter Kailani (Vanessa Hudgens), end up flying into the eye of a monstrous hurricane and getting deposited on the titular island. There they discover all manner of flora and fauna, including miniature elephants, titanic frilled-lizards, hummingbirds the size of a Harrier jet,  the lost city of Atlantis and a crochety old Michael Caine decked out in his best Dr. Livingston attire.

I may be an ardent admirer of Verne’s majestic steampunk (heck, it’s the progenitor of steampunk) but there’s very little of it in the script by Brian and Mark Gunn. What we get are a series of loose fantasy sequences that ignore even basic, cohesive world-building. There’s a throwaway line about the island’s ecosystem following a rule that large animals are small and typically miniscule creatures are now enourmous, but there’s no consistency on the part of the production team to see it through. Sure, that hummingbird is huge, but why exactly, is it so much larger than the lizards? What about the fact that a bumblebee can be the size of a tank, but the fireflies are still capable of fitting on the center of your fingertip?  Yes, there’s the Nautilus, but it’s just a get away vehicle, drained of the dreams and visions that it’s mad inventor had heaped upon it.

Of course, there’s also an exploding volcano of gold that threatens to sink the entire island back into the ocean. In a clever and refreshing bit, it is Hank, the guy with the construction business, who scientifically observes this, not the ornery, absentee Alexander who looks down on the younger man, running him down in front of Sean as often as he can. It is this tension, not the monsters in the jungle, the imminent doom, or the promise of gold, that drives the movie and makes it more entertaining than it would otherwise be. While the little group is making a mad dash for Nemo’s submarine, it’s really Johnson’s Hank who has our interest as we wait for Sean to see what we’ve been amusingly observing for over an hour; that his stepdad is far more deserving of his hero worship than the wild-eyed old man puttering about in the underbrush. We smell what the Rock is cooking, why can’t he?

Indeed, what Johnson cooks up, with the help of Caine’s smarm—and let’s be honest– Guzman’s pratfalls, is a matinee carnival atmosphere that saves the movie. This isn’t a good adaptation of Jules Verne’s novel, but Peyton makes it a fun and funny Saturday morning cartoon of a movie that hearkens back to the Harryhausen films of the 50’s and 60’s. There are some gorgeously designed set pieces that feature critters that move in the same pleasingly artificial manner of the stop-motion crabs and mega-chickens in 1961’s Mysterious Island.

Johnson no doubt enjoyed some of those films himself, and likely a number of cheesier Disney live-action quickies like Island at the Top of the World. Here he commits to the reality of his character in a way that makes him hugely likable. When he sits around the campfire and sings What a Wonderful World on the ukelele to fussy Caine and moody Hutcherson, it’s more envigorating than any giant eel attack or fist fight with hungry reptiles. Johnson is big and burly but he disarms with his wide smile and mirthful eyes, that stare not just at the audience, demanding ‘throw another cherry,’ but right out at Peyton and co, exclaiming, ‘C’mon, throw another plot hole, my pecs can cover it!’

PCN Rating: ***~~ (3/5)

Anyone familiar with the Berserk universe will recognize some of the characters and setting, with a young Guts going up against Bazuso in a harrowing castle siege. That lovely song playing over the credits is Susumu Hirasawa’s ‘Aria’, created specifically for the film.

Check out the preview below:

Take that opening chase for example. Ryan Gosling driving a getaway car for a pair of thieves while most of the Los Angeles police department pursue him by car and helicopter. All of it captured in such an understated tone that it becomes hypnotic instead of hectic. It’s over before we are aware, danger slipping away in the rear-view just as our heart rate goes up. It amplifies reality in a way few similar scenes ever have.

After this opening, Drive switches gears and takes a leisurely but tension-filled stroll through the back-alleys of classic film noir, grafting on a one-note hero reminiscent of a modern action opus. Ironically released at the cinemas the same week as the dim-witted and thematically deaf remake of Straw Dogs, Drive is the real spiritual successor of Sam Peckinpah; crafting a thoughtful spectacle of brutality wedged in between a tale of isolation and quiet solitude.

The world of Drive—an sprawling Los Angeles that contains the sunlit realm of Hollywood stunt racing and the twilight streets of a seedy criminal underbelly—is populated with a host of interesting characters. At their center is Gosling’s Driver. He is mostly a mystery to us. We don’t know much about his origins, his aptitude, or his personal life. There are a few details planted that take root and grow as the film does; he’s a getaway driver for people who need, well, to get away in a hurry. This he does after his legit day job as a Hollywood stuntman, and then later still, he takes long, night-time drives through the city at a slower, more meditative pace. He has rules and boundaries, and is mostly closed off to people. There are, as always, exceptions to that rule that cause him trouble and propel the central events of the story.

First, there’s Shannon (Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston), the fallen professional racer who manages Driver as a stuntman and uses his garage to help outfit the younger man’s illegal adventures. When Shannon tries to break into the legit world of auto racing with Driver as his ringer, he ends up borrowing funds from crime boss Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks), who with his devious partner Nino (Ron Perlman), are not men to be trifled with. There’s also single mother Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son Benicio ( Kaden Leos) who live down the hall from Driver’s spartan apartment, waiting on a husband who will shortly be home from a long term in prison. With Irene, Driver shows glimpses of a warmer softer side, the only hints at longing and yearning for human companionship that we, the audience, get.

When the husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) comes back to the homestead and runs afoul of shady figures from his past, Driver finds himself stepping up for a job that goes against his rigid rules to protect the family. This is a telling gesture; he stands to get nothing from this other than the promise of safety for Standard and his clan. He, and those around him, stand to lose much. Bernie and Nino figure heavily into the trouble that follows, with others thrown in for extra threat, and we are propelled through a well-oiled machine of intrigue, violence and suspense as seen through the antique, shadowy direction of Refn.

I mentioned film noir earlier. Clearly, this is a big inspiration on both the novel by James Sallis and Refn’s direction of Hossein Amini’s script. Visually, this is a dark and lovely picture, juxtaposing worlds of brightness and fairytale dreams of better days with the night-drenched corriders of the character’s reality. Refn, who used violence to move along the fractured plots of his previous films, Bronson and Valhalla Rising, does a more nuanced job of incorporating the gritty and gut-wrenching moments into his story, sometimes achieving a dichotomy that flirts with the existential . There’s a scene between Driver and an unfortunate thug in an elevator that sits in such close proximity to a gentle kiss with Mulligan that it casts both events in a different light.

If the film walks the walk of noir, it doesn’t quite manage to talk the talk, although Refn isn’t as interested in homage as creating a separate beast. He starts with the moral convictions of Driver, whose code is closer to a comic-book hero like Bruce Wayne than the wobbly, diminished values of an Edward G. Robinson sad sack. Sometimes we see more, sometimes we don’t, even when Gosling is playing the part to the hilt. Bernie, the crime lord, is granted a kind of empathy by Brooks’ carefully timed performance, is also a man of quirks and not easily read contradictions. His code of values is tested by Nino’s barbarism, which in turn has been fostered by bitterness at his outsider status amongst Bernie’s crime family.

The movie works best as a kind of character study in the vein of Melville’s Le Samourai, that austere classic about a hitman driven by his code. It couldn’t work as it does without Gosling. He’s been a revelation as of late, working more than most of his colleagues and refusing to be fenced in by expectations, creating characters instead of performances. Here, he’s been given a man who has as many defining traits as an action stereotype in a Michael Bay movie and what he does with the negative spaces adds dimension and density to the character. Leave it to Refn to redefine the parameters of the action thriller by focusing on those unseen things hiding in the shadows beyond our reach. There’s the real tip of the hat to noir.

PCN Rating: ***~~ (3/5)

Blu-ray Review:

Video:

A bane to some, a balm to others, Drive has often been described as a fillm made up of more style than substance. I’d modify this somewhat to say that the style is the substance, but the point remains. The aesthetic qualities of the film make a great transfer absolutely necessary for the picture to work as it should. There are no worries on this front. The 1080p transfer displays the gorgeous digital photography in all of its glory without much noise or softness. The sparse lighting and plentiful darkness that help the film emulate noir really pop here because of the strong blacks and extremely crisp detail amidst shadows. The clarity of the image is remarkable and adds to the texture and tone. Driver’s city feels like a real and tangible place and those overhead shots of a pulsing, neon nightscape are exquisitely hypnotic. The colors are deep and rich, and the thematic contrast between worlds of light and darkness is enhanced in this release. A great looking film that probably looks as good as it possibly could in this format.

Audio:

Perfectly complementing the stellar picture is a DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack that really makes the most of a strong sound system. Aurally, Drive is an odd duck, filled with the usual sonic mayhem associated with car chase pics while also containing concussive moments of violence and quiet, meditative ambient soundscapes set against lilting faux 80’s chick rock. The track captures all of that with equal attention to detail and realism. The squishing of an enemy’s head has a distinct and disturbing effect and is seamlessly woven into the overall design. The helicopters, revving engines and gunshots have all of the required impact and there’s a subtle immersion to the background noise. Again, a really top of the line soundtrack that works hand in hand with the transfer to make Drive the sensory experience it’s been crafted to be.

Special Features:

While there is no audio commentary for Drive, which is a shame, there are five segments that break down elements of the film’s production into more detail:

I Drive (1080p, 5:26): A promo piece that examines the overarching story and characters of Drive and how it was conceived.

Under the Hood (1080p 11:50): A nice long look at the characters and actors involved in the film.

Driver and Irene (1080p, 6:14): A brisk and austere exploration of the ‘love story’ at the center of the movie.

Cut to the Chase (1080p, 4:35): A brief supplement that offers a glimpse into the making of the film’s driving scenes and vehicular stunt work.

Drive Without a Driver: Entretien Avec Nicolas Winding Refn (1080p, 25:41): Refn’s opportunity to talk a bit about his film and his thoughts regarding the production and final product.

Previews: Additional Sony titles.

BD-Live.

PCN Disc Rating: ****~ (4/5)

Seth Grahame-Smith’s ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Killer’ is a reasonably funny and charming tale in book form. It’s an unusually compelling portrait of the 16th president if you can set aside the wacky bits about him being a killer of the undead. Oh wait, that’s the hook of the entire thing, isn’t it? No matter, it’s a fun and deliciously silly read that does go to lengths to keep Lincoln a relatively grounded character.

Will that be true of this summer’s Tim Burton produced film adaptation with the ‘visonary’ (bleh!) director Timur Bekmambetov helming? I’m not sure, although I’d love to see some of same energy that went into the Nightwatch series used to bring the slayer antics of Honest Abe to the big screen. Benjamin Walker is playing the president-cum-monster fighter in the film and can be seen below talking about the role in a behind-the-scenes featurette courtesy of MTV.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer will open in theaters  next summer.

As time has passed, I’ve found my interest in   Josh Trank‘s upcoming “found footage” superhero thriller, Chronicle, growing. Releasing in theaters on February 3rd courtesy of Fox Pictures, Chronicle tells the story of three high-school kids who discover miraculous powers and then go on to mismanage and abuse them.

The following posters and clips continue to build the feel of a dark graphic novel chucked into the real world. I can only hope Trank’s delivery is as sure as last year’s gritty take on real-life hero exploits, Boy Wonder.

He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as hewiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.‘I will give you a name,’ he said to it, ‘and I shall call you Sting.’”

The folks over at Hero Complex have brought us another new photo from Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’, this time showcasing Bilbo Baggins and his trusty sword, Sting. From the looks of this image, with Martin Freeman’s fearsome visage and all those cobwebs, this is the moment where Sting derives its name, in a battle to the death with the spiders of Mirkwood.

As a big fan of Jackson’s take on the original trilogy, I’ve slowly grown more excited over what he’s doing here. Yes, the world looks the same, but Jackson and company will have a distinct challenge in capturing a slightly different tone, one of growing from a child-like viewpoint to one a bit more expansive and darker in the close. There’s a transition taking place here that deserves a tweaked atmosphere.

Based on all I have seen so far, it’s coming together splendidly.

Check out the trailer for the film which debuted last month:

“The movie is definitely epic in its scope. One of the filmmakers that we ended up talking about to a fair degree of redundancy was David Lean, who directed ‘Lawrence of Arabia. We wanted to make the movie feel big by having the characters be small in big spaces. That connected to the larger themes we were talking about — that we’re all just these little gnats crawling around on our little planet.”

–Damon Lindelof in an interview with The L.A. Times.

Ridley Scott’s Prometheus has come a long way since it was initially announced as a prequel to the Alien films. Still sharing some connective tissue to the Alien films—thanks to the trailer, we know that tissue also includes the original’s foreboding look—Prometheus promises something grander and more ambitious (in scale if not in execution) than the previous films in the series.

I wasn’t sold particularly sold on the idea until I saw the trailer last month, which confirms the epic sweep that Scott and his writers have been promoting. Lindelof’s quote above makes comparisons to David Lean, and whether that’s founded or not, shots like this one do suggest there’s a visually expansive scope to the imagery and sets.

There’s a great sense of H.R. Giger’s design in that image, and I’m most interested in the statues that sit in the background just to the left of Noomi Rapace’s scientist. I’m assuming these are likenesses of the ‘Engineers’, the alien geneticists who presumably jumpstarted life on Earth.

One can also see they are the same form as the ‘Space Jockey’, the pilot that Hurt and co. discovered when they entered the crashed spacecraft in the original ‘Alien.’

Although Ridley continues to stress the distance between this film and the franchise he jumpstarted, I believe that he’s demonstrated enough difference in the stories that it’s not a negative now to emphasize the ways in which the two will ultimately intersect.

If anything, should Prometheus live up to its building hype, it could provide a rich mythology to the Alien series. I continue to be intrigued.

Click the picture above for a closer look at the Engineer statues.

Click here for a frame by frame analysis of the trailer that debuted back in December.

The 69th Golden Globe Awards were held last night in Los Angeles, hosted again by Ricky Gervais, despite the silly upheaval over his performance last year . Although they have become increasingly shabby as a form of predicting the Oscars, the ceremony is still noted as one of the landmarks of the awards season.

‘The Artist‘cemented its status as little-movie-that-could and ‘The Descendants gained some momentum in the overall race by grabbing best Drama picture and best actor for George Clooney. Martin Scorsese won here for Best Director for Hugo, a nod that very well may repeat itself come the Academy Awards. Other acting awards included Michelle Williams, Octavia Spencer, Christopher Plummer, and Meryl Streep for the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady.

In the tv sweepstakes it was nice to Homeland, Peter Dinklage, and Downtown Abbey get recognition.

Complete list of winners is below:

Best Picture, Drama: “The Descendants“ 

Best Picture,  Comedy/Musical: “The Artist“ 

Best Actress, Drama:  Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady“ 

Best  Actor, Drama: George Clooney, “The Descendants“ 

Best Director:  Martin Scorsese, “Hugo“

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, “The Help“ 

Best Supporting Actor:  Christopher Plummer, “Beginners”

Best Actress, Comedy: Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”

Best Actor, Comedy: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”

TV Series, Drama: “Homeland”

Best Actor, TV Drama: Kelsey Grammer, “Boss“ 

Best  Actress, TV Comedy: Laura Dern, “Enlightened”

Best Actor, TV Comedy: Matt LeBlanc, “Episodes”

Best Actress, TV Drama: Claire Danes, “Homeland“ 

Best  Screenplay: Woody Allen, “Midnight in Paris”

Best Original Song: “Masterpiece” (music and lyrics by Madonna, Julie Frost, Jimmy Harry), W.E.

Best Supporting Actor, TV: Peter Dinklage, “Game of  Thrones”

Best Supporting Actress, TV: Jessica Lange, “American Horror  Story“ 

Best Animated Film: “The Adventures of Tintin”

TV Series, Comedy: “Modern Family”

Best Foreign-Language Film: “A Separation” (Iran)  

Best Actress, Miniseries or TV Movie: Kate Winslet, “Mildred  Pierce”
Best Actor, Miniseries or TV Movie: Idris Elba, “Luther”
Best  Mini-series: “Downton Abbey“

The new crime thriller “Contraband”, starring Mark Wahlberg in typical tough guy action mode, pulled off a heist this weekend, stealing the box-office top spot from the re-release of Disney’s ’Beauty and the Beast-3D’ and the Dolly Parton/Queen Latifah comedy vehicle ‘Joyful Noise’.

Earning a solid 24.1 million, Contraband made the most of a relatively soft January weekend, jumping into the fray before next weekend’s action heavy onslaught, which includes Wahlberg’s co-star Kate Beckinsale putting on the fangs and leather again for ‘Underworld: Awakening’ leading a pack of all-new thrillers. A glossy remake of a moody Swedish film, Contraband managed to tap into an audience hugry for b-movie thrills.

Last week’s big winner, the ridiculous exorcsim thriller ‘The Devil Inside’, felt the sting of extremely poor word-of-mouth, dropping 77% from it’s strong start of $33.7 million to a diminished $7.9 million this weekend, landing in sixth place. Growling up to second place was Disney’s 3D re-release of it’s 1991 Oscar-nominated hit ‘Beauty and the Beast’, which took 18.5 million dollars. One would assume that Disney could be satisfied with that sort of performance in January from a 20 year-old film that’s currently available on blu-ray and DVD in remastered versions. Still, it’s hard for the debut to not be seen as a disappointment in light of September’s numbers for the re-release of ‘The Lion King’, which took in $30.2 million it’s first weekend and $22 million its second weekend.

Holding strong in the top ten at number 3–with a total of a$11.5 million–was ‘Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol’, enjoying its fifth straight week in the top three and seeing its total rise to nearly $187 million. The fourth spot for the weekend went to newcomer ‘Joyful Noise’, which delivered spirited musical numbers, a soft-peddled feel-good message, canned spirituality, and the good will of Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah. All of that turned out to be worth about $11.3 million. Rounding out the top ten was ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows’, also enjoying several weeks in the upper half of the list, clocking in with a decewnt 8.5 million, bringing the cumulative total to $170 million thus far.

Next weekend will kick-off a lengthy run of genre fare, beginning with “Underworld: Awakening,” “Haywire,” “Coriolanus,” “Red Tails,” and an expansion of the 9/11 drama ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’. Will Underworld prove to be as potent as previous entries, will ‘Contraband’ fend off the newcomers? Only time will tell.