Prometheus

The ending isn't squishy scary or deeply satisfying. Bummer. Otherwise, Prometheus – especially in its spellbinding first hour – kicks ass so hard and often that it's impossible not to be thrilled by it. For starters, the look of the film is an enveloping amazement, with director Ridley Scott using 3D with the fierce finesse of a master. Scott gives us a world to get lost in. Then there's Michael Fassbender. The Irish-German actor is brilliant as David, an android who's been modeled after Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia – the blond hair, the posh Brit accent, the blend of mirth and menace that plays on his face.

Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. There's a plot. Scott, teasing the film's prequel ties to his 1979 classic Alien, is launching a different kind of galactic voyage. The destination is the planetary moon LV-223 (not LV-426, as it was in the original Alien). Archeologist Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and her boyfriend Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) are on their way to LV-223 to meet their makers. Prehistoric cave paintings have convinced the two scientists that human life originated there. Conclusions are meant to drawn from the fact that Charlie is a strict Darwinist and Elizabeth wears a crucifix. They've persuaded dead tycoon Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce appearing as a hologram smothered in old-age latex and still doing a bang-up job) to finance the trip aboard the spaceship Prometheus (named after the fire-stealing Titan). While Captain Jadek (Idris Elba) and Weyland bosslady Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) spend two years traveling in hyper-sleep with the rest of the crew, David the robot takes control. Shades of Hal 9000 in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

We are now entering spoiler territory. My cue to shut up. Still, post-landing and the start of LV-223 tunnel explorations – warning, parasites ahead! – you could ague that David is still in charge. Fassbender is so good, he owns the movie. And Rapace, the original Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, evokes stirring memories of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in the first quartet of Alien movies. Rapace has one do-it-yourself medical scene that defines mind-blowing. It's here that Scott hits the buttons labeled "ick" and "eww" that he perfected with John Hurt's chestbusting scene in Alien. So even when the script by Jon Spaihts and Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof ties itself in knots trying to be profound, Scott – returning to sci-fi for the first time since 1982's iconic Blade Runner – shows you what cosmic terror can feel like in the hands of a true visionary. Buckle up.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/prometheus-20120607

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

Three is the charm for DreamWorks Animation's entertaining installment of their popular Madagascar franchise. In fact, Europe's Most Wanted is so full of laughs and great characters, it's easily the best in the series. Like Toy Story 3, the Madagascar gang just gets better with time, and this new adventure is funny, exciting and heartwarming. Opening where the second left off with the zoo gang stuck in Africa, the sequel quickly transports them to the south of France where they concoct a plan to find their way back to New York by taking jobs with a traveling circus. With one of the best voice casts of any animated film and some terrific new additions, the filmmakers have re-energized the whole enterprise and should reap a major box office reward upon opening June 8. The film is world premiering as part of the official selection at the Cannes Film Festival, entirely appropriate since much of it takes place right down the coast in Monte Carlo.

Beasts Alex (Ben Stiller), Marty (Chris Rock), Melman (David Schwimmer) and Gloria (Jada Pinkett Smith) are looking for a way out of Africa and back to their New York Zoo. But first, they want to catch up with the crafty penguins who deserted them and are now major players in Monte Carlo. In a hilariously staged slapstick sequence inside a casino, they run into trouble with the law, particularly animal-hating gendarme Captain Chantal DuBois (Frances McDormand) who is determined to stop them at all costs. Stowing away on a traveling circus train, the zoo animals struggle to befriend the performers, including an Italian sea lion named Stefano (Martin Short), a beautiful Italian Jaguar named Gia (Jessica Chastain) and the troupe's de facto leader, a frustrated tiger named Vitale (Bryan Cranston). Making their way to Rome, they weasel their way into the Circus spotlight but complications arise when DuBois gets wind of their whereabouts.

Merging the Madagascar brand into a traveling circus is an ingenious device that suits the tone of the series perfectly. It also gives directors Eric Darnell, Conrad Vernon and Tom McGrath and Darnell and co-writer Noah Baumbach (director of the aptly named indie The Squid and the Whale) a way to introduce a whole new group of animals to carry the action forward. Cranston, Short and Chastain each develop appealing and wonderfully well-rounded new characters that add novelty to the well-travelled premise. McDormand makes a great villain and, of course, the regular gang led by Stiller and Rock continue to shine in roles that fit them like a rhinestone collar. And Sacha Baron Cohen's King Julian is a hoot as he romances the sensitive circus bear.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is a most welcome addition to summer and a great addition to a moneymaking franchise that seems as good as new.

Distributor: DreamWorks Animation/Paramount
Cast: Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Martin Short, Bryan Cranston, Jessica Chastain, Frances McDormand, Andy Richter, Cedric The Entertainer, Sacha Baron Cohen.
Directors: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath, Conrad Vernon
Screenwriters: Eric Darnell, Noah Baumbach
Producers: Mireille Soria, Mark Swift
Genre: Animation
Rating: PG for mild action and rude humor
Running Time: TBD
Release Date: June 8, 2012

Url Source : http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/

Chernobyl Diaries

Young friends touring Europe pick up a transplanted sibling in Kiev who surprises them with an extreme tour to the remains of Chernobyl. These four are cavalier, athletic and about as old as the tragedy—as far as they're concerned, they're having a jaunt to edgy Pompeii. With a premise this insensitive you can expect low-rent scares and a plot that's unaware some people on earth think about the movies they watch. The closest thing Chernobyl Diaries has to savvy is a found footage intro that briefly travelogues the kids' trip before their Kiev reunion—it's the only time the look is faithfully employed—and the real low-expectation mark is the derivative gag the film treats like a third act shocker. With this much to look forward to, Diaries can only satisfy audiences young enough to consider Chernobyl their parents' nuclear catastrophe (whether or not they know the name Fukushima Daiichi), or audiences otherwise undisturbed by the exploitation of the late 20th century's most catastrophic nuclear accident. If this horror movie cashes in on the audience that echoes its character's awareness ("That's where the nucular thing happened, right?") then we're about to learn how low our national academic standards are. If this is an awareness raiser, Midnight in Paris is a doctoral thesis on bohemians. Still, it's getting hot outside, school's almost out and this is just the kind of thing we should be making out to and throwing popcorn at; if we're lucky those distractions will keep us from getting offended.

Amanda's boyfriend dumped her just before the Europe trip so Natalie talked her into coming; Chris is carrying an engagement ring destined for Natalie's left hand; and Paul, Chris' big brother, recently transplanted to Kiev where his slick American antics are a hit with ladies and getting him hit by locals. These four could have more character development if they were in a beer commercial. Uri, an amiable tank of a man, promises them a tour of the world's most toxic ghost town, so they board a van with a backpacking couple that proves how un-fun Americans are compared to peers from any other first world nation. These characters are interchangeable; their names are irrelevant and only offer the others things to scream. Once the team is shanghaied and their ex-military troupe leader disappears, Chernobyl Diaries becomes a fat-pencil checklist of accidental references to other horror films—these aren't homages, they're wild signals that Paranormal Activity creator Oren Peli can't have an original thought. Vacant bowling alleys invoke Daniel Day Lewis screaming "I drink your milkshake," hounds from The Hills Have Eyes snarl on the sidelines while Blinky, The Simpsons' three eyed fish, has a branch of family in the Prypiat pond. Funny thing about that last bit: when the shriveled fish rears its phallic head, the boys taunt each other to touch it saying, "don't be a pussy." The funniest part of that non-joke is the number of levels on which it was lost.

Tidbits of information are handed over with broad gestures and prove writers Peli, Shane Van Dyke and Carey Van Dyke can read Wikipedia. Reactor #4 killed 500,000 people; looters put contaminated Chernobyl artifacts on the black market and got people sick; there are bears in Russia. If you see Last House on the Left as a film about the depths people of comfort will stoop to when confronted with savagery, see this as a film about what incompetence people of comfort will enact when confronted with "nature's" equivalent of a zombie attack. Paul, who proposed the Chernobyl 3-hour tour, sees the broadest death toll and while I can't attest to caring about his guilt, shining a big light on such remorse does seem like a trend destined to grow—that and other riffs on Gilligan's Island with monsters. The next film Peli taunts Friedberg and Seltzer with, he might consider giving more space to the penitence of the careless fun-dealer—it's the only emotion that reached the final cut, so it must mean something to him.

Distributor: Warner Bros
Cast: Jonathan Sadowski, Jesse McCartney, Olivia Dudley, Alex Feldman, Nathan Phillips, Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Devin Kelley, Dimitri Diatchenko
Director: Oren Peli
Screenwriters: Oren Peli, Shane Van Dyke, Carey Van Dyke
Producers: Oren Peli, Brian Witten
Genre: Horror
Rating: R for violence, some bloody images and pervasive language.
Running time: 86 min.
Release date: May 25, 2012

Url  source : http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/reviews/2012-05-chernobyl-diaries

Trailer and Riview Dark Shadows

Summary: In the year 1752, Joshua and Naomi Collins, with young son Barnabas, set sail from Liverpool, England to start a new life in America. But even an ocean was not enough to escape the mysterious curse that has plagued their family. Two decades pass and Barnabas has the world at his feet—or at least the town of Collinsport, Maine. The master of Collinwood Manor, Barnabas is rich, powerful and an inveterate playboy...until he makes the grave mistake of breaking the heart of Angelique Bouchard. A witch, in every sense of the word, Angelique dooms him to a fate worse than death: turning him into a vampire, and then burying him alive. Two centuries later, Barnabas is inadvertently freed from his tomb and emerges into the very changed world of 1972. He returns to Collinwood Manor to find that his once-grand estate has fallen into ruin. The dysfunctional remnants of the Collins family have fared little better, each harboring their own dark secrets. (Warner Bros. Pictures/Village Roadshow Pictures)

Safety Not Guaranteed

The last decade hasn't suffered from a shortage of Sundance films about quirky 20somethings falling into unlikely love, but Safety Not Guaranteed is, at least in its sci-fi-tinged premise, a more ambitious variant. Magazine intern Darius (Aubrey Plaza) is the usual smart-mouthed, depressed and disaffected young woman, while the surprising object of her slow-growing affection is Kenneth (Mark Duplass), a man who's placed a classified ad seeking a partner for a time travel expedition. The ad is true-to-life and became a famous Internet meme, and it's not a bad starting point, but the film sadly turns cloying and queasy. Nonetheless, audiences at Sundance ate it up and there's every reason to suppose this will find a modest theatrical audience and lasting cult fanbase.

Ever since her mom's death, Darius has alternated between sarcasm and barely concealed gloom. Smarmy hornball reporter Jeff (Jake M. Johnson) pitches a story for Seattle Magazine to follow up on the eccentric classified, taking Darius and nerdy Indian intern Arnau (Karan Soni) along to track down the writer. At his workplace, spied by Darius, Kenneth's first heard ranting about his unorthodox views on Schrödinger's cat ("it's like I'm the only one who gets it"), with the kind of uncontrolled, delusional vehemence that would prompt most people to distance themselves. The film's attempts to transform him into someone lovable and not-at-all-alarming never gel, forcing a troubling character into a generic, ill-fitting shell of cutesiness.

Jeff approaches Kenneth, pretending to be a time travel candidate, but Kenneth finds his phoniness repellent; naturally his rationale for disliking him is phrased eccentrically. ("Have you ever looked fear in the eye?" is met with "Sure!"). Kenneth's dismissal of the smirking applicant confirms a time-honored cliché: crazy people are always saner than the world around them. Kenneth cottons to Darius, who allows her hard shell to dissolve as she discovers his softer side.

Not sure if you'll enjoy Safety Not Guaranteed? Here's a quick litmus test: how do you feel about watching Mark Duplass, accompanying himself on zither (!), singing a heartfelt song about how "everyone in the big machine tries to break your heart?" Is this a movingly sincere assertion of emotional openness in a cynical world? Or is it just maudlin groaning that expects to be congratulated for repudiating cynicism and distance? Are the two the same? Is Schrödinger's experiment about a box or a cat? Most would say cat but maybe those people haven't "looked fear in the eye."

It's endlessly odd to watch a film in which someone who's mentally disturbed and possibly dangerous turns out to be just another misunderstood soul in a hard world. Johnson's amusingly rabid as a feckless single guy, but a subplot in which he comes to understand true love robs him of his bite and wit. Everyone has to learn a lesson, meaning the potentially fresh elements get ironed out in yet another film about the power of true love and how sincerity is preferable to skepticism. Safety's audacious ending (best left unspoiled, but surely the film's biggest selling point) seems unearned. Tech credits, as they say, are above average.

Distributor: FilmDistrict
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere, Kristen Bell, Jeff Garlin, Mary Lynn Rajskub
Director: Colin Treverrow
Screenwriter: Derek Connolly
Producers: Derek Connolly, Stephanie Langhoff, Peter Saraf, Colin Treverrow, Marc Turtletaub
Genre: Drama/Romance/Science-Fiction
Rating: R for language including some sexual references.
Running time: 85 min.
Release date: June 8 ltd.

Url source http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/reviews/2012-06-safety-not-guaranteed:

Battlefield America

Veteran music producer/manager Chris Stokes was one of the first to inaugurate the ongoing dance-film craze with 2003's You Got Served. While intended to draw the same audience, Battlefield America's choreographed showcases are comparatively minimal and poorly filmed. Less interested in the film's sole marketable aspect, Battlefield's focus is on delivering a stern message to black fathers on the importance of staying in their sons' lives. Hot shot ad exec Sean (Marques Houston) gets sentenced to 120 hours of community service for a DUI and ends up leading a troubled clutch of kids. By lecturing them about the importance of a positive attitude and teamwork, this business entrepreneur acts as his creator's mouthpiece while serving as a strong black role model. Slapdashly assembled and lacking in dance thrills, the poorly promoted Battlefield America will drive away the few audiences that show up.

Sean is a callow, tailored-suit dandy racing to the top of his profession. On the verge of making partner, his sentence forces him to obey the instructions of community center educator Sara (Mekia Cox, never seen actually working), who places him in charge of a group of tough kids enrolled in an urban dance program. Led by troubled Eric (Tristen M. Carter), the 8-to-12-year-olds up the Kindergarten Cop ante by kicking Sean in the crotch and punching him in the face shortly after introductions. Inevitably, a bond develops, conveyed in herky-jerky scenes filmed from random angles. (Production values are non-existent, undermining the message of material comfort through attention to detail and hard work.)

Sean takes a special shine to Eric, who's never met his dad. "People just don't know how it feels," the young man says. "I understand exactly how it feels," Sean replies, noting his father walked out when he was 16. It all makes for a solid bonding session, complete with a life-narrative about rising from nothing through internships and hard work. (Such tough-but-successful thought is contrasted with failing or pathetic authority figures, like a ludicrously "hood" parent who shows up and bug-eyedly promises to help "if you ever need me for anything, for real, I swear to God, I mean it.")

Superficial military discipline is imposed (and suggested as an alternative for troubled youth) when Sean has the kids salute him "Yes, sir!" when getting pumped before a dance-off. But even more important than this emphasis on eyes-on-the-prize business mentality is the father-son bond. When Sean short-sightedly chooses to pursue a promotion rather than endangering his job by devoting more time to the kids, he's chided for selfishness and must re-earn their respect by returning and displaying contrition. "I never should've walked up on you guys," he says, acting as an example to any current or potential future delinquent dads in the audience.

Secondary lessons pad out the running time. One mother earnestly says she already "lost" one son who, failing to attain NBA success, became a drug dealer and died on the street, and now has no intent of "losing" another son to dreams of unrealistically attained riches. After seeing him in concert, she changes her mind. "I'll support you in anything you do as long as you put school first," she pledges, affirming the importance of electives balanced with scholastic discipline. Due respect is also paid in passing to God's stabilizing effects in times of tribulation: at a funeral, the shot pans up meaningfully to a sign reading "Have Faith In God, Mark 11:22."

Dance sequences get a new angle every second, though always the same ones (overhead left-right drifting, static low-angle fisheye views emphasizing bodies contorting in choreographed unison, reaction shots of judges delightedly bopping along or shaking their heads in cartoonish disgust). Cutting disrupts continuity, perhaps to disguise from the fact that all these young kids can really do is dance in unison: individual feats, the juice of such numbers, are entirely missing. The final product is libertarian-friendly speechifying on the importance of solving social problems through private means and self-responsibility, occasionally interrupted by Lil Jon.

Distributor: Cinedigm
Cast: Marques Houston, Mekia Cox, Tristen M. Carter, Tracey Heggins, Chandler Kinney, Kida Burns
Director: Chris Stokes
Screenwriters: Chris Stokes, Marques Houston
Producers: Sharif Ahmed, Marques Houston, Jerome Jones, J. Christopher Owen, Chris Stokes, Zeus Zamani
Genre: Drama/Musical
Rating: Rated PG-13 for thematic elements involving some drug material, and for some language.
Running time: 106 min.
Release date: June 1 ltd.

Web url sourse : http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/reviews/2012-06-battlefield-america

The Dictator

Middle East megalomania, antisemitism, sexism, racism and war-mongering are given side-splitting censure in The Dictator, a superb vehicle for Sacha Baron Cohen's over-the-top socio-political outrageousness. A worthy successor to his prior mockumentaries Borat and Bruno despite its more scripted construction, Cohen and director Larry Charles' latest finds the comedian assuming the larger-than-life guise of Admiral General Aladeen, the despot of the fictional North African Republic of Wadiya. While on a trip to the U.N. to protest forthcoming NATO strikes predicated on Wadiya's nukes program (which Aladeen can't claim are for peaceful purposes without breaking into laughter), Aladeen is abducted and left for dead by his traitorous uncle (Ben Kingsley), who wants to install democracy so that he can sell oil to foreign interests. Escaping torture and murder, Aladeen—unrecognizable after having his magisterial beard shaven—winds up in Brooklyn working for vegan feminist health food grocer Zoe (Anna Faris). Undercover as political refugee Allison Burger, he plots his return to the throne before his dummy doppelganger can sign a (gasp!) constitution, a quest that Cohen litters with sharp, profane one-liners, both politicized and just-plain-idiotic. Fleet, funny, and smart enough to not overstay its welcome, it's a commentary-coated R-rated comedy with supreme box office potential.

Aladeen is a cartoon lunatic whom Cohen makes an irresistibly ridiculous buffoon. Like Borat, he's gleefully inappropriate, whether it's showing off a bedroom wall lined with Polaroids of the celebrities he's paid for sex, or his habit of executing everyone who bothers him, including nuclear scientist Nadal (Jason Mantzoukas), who insists his warhead should be rounded when Aladeen thinks pointy is more frightening. The autocrat's most prominent trait, however, is his insane arrogance, which is epitomized by his making the name "Aladeen " mean both "yes" and "no" in the Wadiyan language, leading to an inspired skit in which a doctor informs a patient that he's "HIV Aladeen." Should the confused man react with joy or misery? Though maintaining a lack of ethnic specificity (Aladeen claims he's not Arab), The Dictator's targets are clearly Middle Eastern tyrants and terrorists like Iran's Ahmadinejad and Osama Bin Laden (the latter of whom is apparently still alive and staying at Aladeen's country house—we just shot his double), and the region's stereotypical disdain for human, female and minority rights. That becomes even more pronounced once Aladeen begins working with Zoe (who believes him to be a Wadiya dissident) and his fish-out-of-water circumstances result in one tactless incident after another, as when Aladeen is forced to deliver a baby and, upon learning it's a girl, disappointedly asks "Where's the trash can?"

Cohen's critiques are delivered with a gonzo bluntness that ignores any issues of propriety. While the overarching structure is herky-jerky and a climactic speech that draws parallels between American democracy and dictatorships is a bit too cutesy, there's enlivening go-for-broke energy to The Dictator's refusal to mince words about Middle Eastern mores and political agendas. Better still, those concerns comfortably coexist with dim-bulb silliness, such as during the aforementioned birth sequence that features an inner-vagina POV. Aladeen's efforts to thwart democracy while fending off the pesky liberal feelings that complicate his return-to-power make The Dictator's entire set-up a ludicrous stunt. Who—and what—are we rooting for? Be it the Israel-hating Aladeen realizing he's begun using Yiddish slang, or recurring gags about a decapitated head, body double deaths, and Zoe's hippie tomboyishness—not to mention a soundtrack with "Everybody Hurts" and "Let's Get It On" sung in made-up Wadiyan—Cohen and Charles' film melds goofball stupidity, stinging satire and blistering hilarity. In short: it rules.

Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Cast: Sacha Baron Cohen, Anna Faris, John C. Reilly
Director: Larry Charles
Writer: Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel, Jeff Schaffer
Producers: Sacha Baron Cohen, Alec Berg, David Mandel, Scott Rudin, Jeff Schaffer
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R for strong crude and sexual content, brief male nudity, language and some violent images
Running time: 83 min.
Release date: May 16, 2012

sourse web post :  http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/reviews/2012-05-the-dictator?q=3d

Piranha 3DD

It seems impossible that a sequel to a movie as ridiculous as Piranha 3D could disappoint but Piranha 3DD stops at mediocre before arriving at gloriously bad. Director John Gulager, who successfully shepherded the Feast series through three installments, ups the ante on a series whose central appeal is its utter gratuitousness of fish and flesh and still arrives at a final product that feels even slighter than its predecessor, not to mention shorter. Although Weinstein can expect limited theatrical appeal for this follow-up, Piranha 3DD should stay afloat with home entertainment sales.
Jettisoning almost everything from the first film save for cameos from Ving Rhames and Christopher Lloyd, Piranha 3DD takes place 50 miles away from the original massacre in Lake Victoria, which is now a ghost town. Businessman Chet (David Koechner) blazes ahead to re-open his struggling water park as a haven for grown-ups with "water-certified strippers," despite the objections of his marine biologist stepdaughter Maddy (Danielle Panabaker). Despite being distracted by a love triangle involving hunky ex-boyfriend (Chris Zylka) and the sensitive guy next door (Matt Bush), Maddy desperately attempts to avert another bloodbath. But once Chet recruits David Hasselhoff (playing himself) to preside over the opening ceremonies, all literal fish hell breaks loose.
There's no way to describe what actually happens in Piranha 3DD without making it sound patently absurd: piranha evolve in the span of a year, piranha gestate inside a girl's vagina, marine biologists look like Danielle Panabaker. Oddly, Gulager's depiction of these cartoonish events seems restrained—if anything the film, it's too understated. That modesty even extends to the film's running time, which barely reaches feature length at 83 minutes, and spends so much time setting up the mythology of its world and introducing its characters that by the time it acquiesces to its raison d'etre—showing people getting dismembered by killer fish—it's almost immediately over. While that's a virtue for character and story, here those are worthless distractions. Who goes to Piranha 3DD for anything other than nudity and carnage?
In the pantheon of comely Final Girls, Panabaker makes an effective lead: she's as convincing enough as a budding genius as a movie and she shows audiences enough skin to satiate despite the horror rule that demands her virtue remain intact. That said, she's been a horror movie lead three times in four years, and she deserves more diverse work. Despite his role as the requisite hunk douchebag Kyle, Zylka effectively charms the audience into believing he possesses more substance than we expect, and Bush quietly presents an alternative that is equally formidable, regardless of the fact that he's very, very short.
The film's oddball cameos plays better in theory than in practice, though Hasselhoff's willingness to send up his Baywatch transgressions—not to mention his C-grade celebrity status—provides several of the film's standout moments. But the obvious and uninspired utilization of folks like Gary Busey and Christopher Lloyd only underscores the film's wrongheaded approach to its subject matter: the filmmakers are so confident about the tits-and-teeth concept that no one bothers to do anything interesting. Maybe attracting the target audience for a film about giant boobs and piranhas is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, but putting those two things together can be done more creatively. Unlikely as it seems, Piranha 3DD may be the only film featuring David Hasselhoff, an X-rated water park and a three-way between a girl, a guy and a fish that still doesn't go far enough.
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
Cast: Danielle Panabaker, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Gary Busey, David Koechner, Adrian Martinez, David Hasselhoff, Paul Scheer, Katrina Bowden, Chris Zylka, Matt Bush, Jean-Luc Bilodeau, Meagan Tandy
Director: John Gulager
Screenwriter: Patrick Melton, Marcus Dunstan
Producers: Mark Canton, Joel Soisson, Marc Toberoff
Genre: Horror
Rating: R for sequences of strong bloody horror violence and gore, graphic nudity, sexual content, language and some drug use.
Running time: 83 min.
Release date: June 1 ltd.
source web : http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/reviews/2012-05-piranha-3dd?q=3d

Snow White and the Huntsman

The recent resurgence of "revisionist" fairy tales means that audiences have been gifted not one, but two new takes on the Snow White tale in 11 weeks. In his feature debut, commerical director Rupert Sanders shows off his unquestionable flair and eye for style and design, but his Snow White and the Huntsman is an entirely different animal than Tarsem Singh's equally visually-bent Mirror Mirror. A dark and gritty take on the classic, Sanders succeeds mightily in the look and feel of his film, but his ability to direct his impressive cast is severely lacking—particularly his two leading ladies, Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart, who chew the scenery as if it were a delicious (and not poisoned) apple. While the film benefits from solid work by Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, and a highly skilled set of dwarves, it's hard to imagine who will thrill to this violent, gorgeous, and empty film.

The script, by Evan Daugherty with additional work by John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini, sticks closely to the bones of the classic Snow White tale, even pulling direct quotes from the brothers Grimm original. Young Snow is born into a kingdom of love, which is meticulously broken down after the death of her beloved mother and the domination of both her father and her throne by an evil and beautiful queen. Theron's Ravenna makes quick work capturing both Snow's father (Noah Huntley) and his kingdom, thanks to her evil and nebulous powers which are never satisfyingly explained. Snow is tossed into a tower and forgotten by everyone but Ravenna's hideous creep of a brother, until a magic mirror—a solid trick of movie wonder—tells the Queen that she is no longer the fairest of them all. Stewart's ingenious and brave Snow White flees to the horrifying Dark Forest with a huntsman (Hemsworth) on her tail who's been dispatched by the queen and promised a reward beyond riches.

Sanders handily and economically sets up both his characters and their motivations. Sure, that's a basic tenant of all movie-making, but it's one that often gets tossed by the wayside in films that use breathtaking visuals to elevate themselves beyond their simple stories. Eventually bonded together, Snow White (who is called this name only by her mother) and the Huntsman (who never even gets a name) set off for the palace of Duke Hammond (Vincent Regan), the last true servant of the dead king, the father of Snow's childhood playmate William (Claflin), and the leader of a small but mighty army bent on avenging the crown.

Along the way, the pair encounter both friend and foe and explore forests both dark and safe, with Sanders working his visual magic. It's gritty fantasy style is a good fit, as like all fairy tale films, it must conjure up believable spells and sorcery while also rooting itself in some kind of reality to keep the whole thing from looking silly. Snow White and the Huntsman very firmly exists in its own world, a marvel created by Sanders' direction and what Daugherty imagined on the page, and its spooky handsomeness is easily the best part of the film.

Unfortunately, the worst part is the performances. Stewart is game, but she never captures any of the qualities we are continually told she possesses—after all, Snow White is not only supposed to be the fairest in all the land, she's also believed to have the ability to restore life itself to her desecrated kingdom. A tall order from any performer, especially when Stewart is still unable to kick some of her bad tics: she hides behind her hair and bites her lips. Yet it's Theron's Ravenna who's the most truly confounding performance. Theron screeches and caws like the birds that flock around her—a destructive biological impulse as Ravanna loves killing, eating, and wearing them. Theron has done "evil hiding behind a beautiful face" before. Just in December, she turned in one of the best performances of her career as the savage homecoming queen in Young Adult. But in Snow White and the Huntsman, all nuance is removed: Theron crashes and flaps about and we're all waiting for her to die. It's a pity that Stewart and Theron cannot live up to the rest of the film. Snow White and the Huntsman aches for a painful, pumping heart but its leading ladies are bloodless.

Distributor: Universal
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Sam Claflin, Sam Spurell, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone
Director: Rupert Sanders
Screenwriters: Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock, Hossein Amini
Producers: Laurie Boccaccio, Gloria S. Borders, Sarah Bradshaw, Helen Hayden, Sam Mercer, Palak Patel, Joe Roth
Genre: Action/Adventure/Drama/Fantasy
Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, and brief sensuality
Running time: 127 min.
Release date: June 1, 2012

Moonrise Kingdom

In the immaculately designed, emotionally charged bubble filmmaker Wes Anderson builds around the 1965 New England summer, first love blooms. Sam (Jared Gilman) is an orphan at the mercy of foster parents and his Scout troop. Suzy (Kara Hayward) lives in a lighthouse with three younger brothers, two lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and an urge to bust free. Sam, she decides, is her man. No one understands their attraction. Hell, they're both 12. He's a string bean in thick glasses, and she's cool enough to wear eyeliner. But Anderson, who wrote the resonant script with Roman Coppola, knows their secret hearts. So when the kids run away to an island they call Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson is right there with them. And thanks to this enchanted ride of a movie, so are we.

Moonrise Kingdom, Anderson's seventh feature, is unlikely to convert those who believe the Texas-born filmmaker is merely a skilled miniaturist. If mannerism is all you see in Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited and the animated Fantastic Mr. Fox, go lap up the latest big-studio drool. To my mind, Anderson is oxygen in a Hollywood choking from chasing its own greed-driven tail.

Moonrise Kingdom shows a director growing in confidence and maturity. Take the remarkable scene, set on a daylight beach, in which Sam and Suzy first kiss – using tongues and groping awkwardly. Given the underage actors, the moment could have been borderline kiddie porn. But Anderson handles it with a sensitivity and an unembarrassed openness that evoke the style of François Truffaut, in classics such as The 400 Blows and Small Change. Anderson is also expert at using humor as a gateway to deeper feelings. When Suzy mentions love, Sam is pleased but exasperated ("You don't know what you're talking about"). Newcomers Gilman and Hayward stay allergic to sweet and cute, catching the exhilaration and cartwheeling confusion of being young and in thrall to each other.

Adults soon intrude on their paradise. There's a hurricane coming, announces the film's narrator (a delightful Bob Bala­ban). The scoutmaster (an engagingly wacked-out Edward Norton) organizes a search party with the help of his chief (Harvey Keitel) and cousin Ben, a scam artist in scout's clothing played by a stellar Jason Schwartzman, evoking his iconic role as Max Fischer in Rushmore. The police captain (a becomingly non-macho Bruce Willis) is also on the case, pressured by Suzy's mom, with whom he's having an affair.

The top-tier cast, including Tilda Swinton as a character called Social Services, may be star overload, but each actor performs small miracles. Murray and McDormand excel at showing a faltering marriage in microcosm. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," she tells her husband, each in a separate bed. "Why?" says he, instilling one word with a lifetime of meaning. On children, they're agreed: "We're all they have, and it's not enough."

As the hurricane whips up a perhaps too busy climax, Anderson links the everyday and the extraordinary with virtuoso artistry. Shot with a poet's eye by Robert Yeoman and lifted by an Alexandre Desplat score that samples Mozart, Hank Williams and Benjamin Britten, the hilarious and heartfelt Moonrise Kingdom is a consistent pleasure. By evoking the joys and terrors of childhood, it reminds us how to be alive.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/moonrise-kingdom-20120524

Battleship

Liam Neeson, Rihanna, Taylor Kitsch
Directed by Peter Berg

Confession: I'm usually in Peter Berg's corner. Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom and Hancock all show a director with a wild streak Hollywood can't totally tame. But Battleship, based on Hasbro's naval-combat game, shows Berg trying to transform into demon box-office machine Michael Bay. Can you aim lower? Battleship is all noise and crashing metal, sinking to the shallows of Bay's Armageddon and then digging to the brain-extinction level of the Transformers trilogy.

No wonder the cast gives up on acting. It's not that screenwriting brothers Erich and Jon Hoeber (Red) don't put words in their mouths. The problem is, they do. "I've got a bad feeling about this," says Alex Hooper (Taylor Kitsch), a Navy lieutenant stationed in Oahu, Hawaii, who gets caught up in an alien invasion at sea. Alex is a screw-up. He's dating Sam (Brooklyn Decker), the hottie daughter of the admiral (Liam Neeson) who hates him. And he knows his captain brother, Stone (Alexander Skarsgård), is a way-better hardass. So while Sam stays on land with paraplegic Army veteran Mick (real-life Iraq hero Gregory D. Gadson) to make sure these E.T.s don't phone home, Alex and his weapons specialist (Rihanna, of all people) take aim at the muthafuckers. Actually it's just "muthas," thanks to a PG-13 rating. Berg panders shamelessly for the big finish, enlisting the real WWII battleship USS Missouri, and its old-school crew. Way to go, Battleship: Take the crassest of cynical junk, slather it in jingoism and sell it as rah-rah fun for right-wingers.

source: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/battleship-20120517

The Avengers

Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Tom Hiddleston
Directed by Joss Whedon

Let me sprint right to the point: The Avengers has it all. And then some. Six superheroes for the price of one ticket: Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, Black Widow and the Hulk. It's also the blockbuster I saw in my head when I imagined a movie that brought together the idols of the Marvel world in one shiny, stupendously exciting package. It's Transformers with a brain, a heart and a working sense of humor. Suck on that, Michael Bay.
All hail the warrior king of this dizzying, dazzling 3D action epic. That would be writer-director Joss Whedon, enjoying the afterglow of stellar reviews for deconstructing horror in The Cabin in the Woods. Here, in his second directing feature (after Serenity), Whedon stages the most exultantly good-humored, head-on, rousing series of traps and escapes since Spielberg was a pup. It's Citizen Kane for Citizen Geek.
The plot is merely functional. The world will end if Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the banished demigod, has his way. Loki hates his brother Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and lusts to destroy Earth with help from an alien army. As head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has one recourse: Bring in the Avengers, a group of paragons with a rep for not playing well with others.
That's the conflict, and the signal to unleash the FX. But Whedon is exploring richer ground. He sees the Avengers as the ultimate dysfunctional family. Their powers have estranged them from the normal world. As a result, they're lonely, cranky, emotional fuck-ups, which the actors have a ball playing. Robert Downey Jr. still seems blissfully right as Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man (there's a disarming tickle in his portrayal). He mocks the costume of Captain America (a canny Chris Evans) and calls the World War II hero an "old man." The captain wonders what's under that iron suit, sparking a priceless Downey deadpan: "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist."
There's no doubt that the two Iron Man hits overshadowed Thor, Captain America and two Hulk movies at the box office. But Downey doesn't hog the spotlight. Hemsworth's giant-size Thor gets big laughs dismissing his comrades in arms ("You're all so tiny"). And everyone gets to show their skill sets, including Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), the expert arch­er, and Natasha, a.k.a. the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a killer in gymnastics and martial arts. Johansson has a terrific bit dispatching some Russian goons with her hands literally tied behind her back. And wait till you see the funny and touching stuff the sly Clark Gregg does as Agent Phil Coulson.
Mark Ruffalo is the newcomer to the team, replacing Edward Norton and Eric Bana as Bruce Banner, the nuclear physicist with anger issues that turn him into a hulking green rage machine. Ruffalo brings a scruffy warmth and humor to the role that's revelatory. His verbal sparring with Downey – two pros at the top of their games – is a pleasure to watch. And, wonder of wonders, the tech­ies finally get the scale of the Hulk right. The computerized unjolly green giant is a jumbo scene-stealer. And it's hard not to cheer when Hulk wipes up the floor with Loki.
Speaking of Loki, and it's hard not to, bring on a shower of praise for Hiddleston. A superhero movie is only as good as its villain, and Hiddleston is dynamite. The role of Loki demands intuition, wit and crazy daring, and Hiddleston brings it. The British actor (War Horse, The Deep Blue Sea) is a force to reckon with.
Loki claims early in the film that his heart "burns with glorious purpose." He's got nothing on Whedon, a filmmaker who knows that even the roaringest action sequences won't resonate without audience investment in the characters. Whedon is not afraid to slow down to let feelings sink in. Fanboy heresy, perhaps, but the key to the film's super­smart, supercool triumph. In the final third, when Whedon lets it rip and turns the battle intensity up to 11, all your senses will be blown. I have one word for The Avengers: Wowza!

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/the-avengers-20120430

Prometheus

Ridley Scott has only two science fiction films on his resume, but both were massively influential. With Alien in 1979, Scott gave us clean white walls and dark, densely patterned bio-structures, plus a showdown between the kill-or-be-killed ethos of big business and its literal evolutionary equivalent. For Blade Runner three years later, Scott created a crowded, cold, multicultural urban tomorrow that was like today but tripled. Just try to imagine a science fiction film from the last 30 years since that doesn't reference one or both of his looks and themes. Hence the excitement to see Scott refresh his own visions in his return to science fiction with Prometheus. Beneath the hype and promises, however, it's almost a letdown that the actual film is merely very good: a better-than-average 3D big-budget space tale. Seen as such, it's sure to bring in summer audiences eager for smarter-than-usual spectacle, even if it won't inspire the next 30 years of science fiction flicks.

Prometheus starts as academics Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) link a series of ancient paintings from disparate cultures that all share a common link: a giant pointing at the same constellation. And so, Weyland Industries, headed by patriarch/CEO Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), packs Shaw, Holloway and a rag-tag mix of scientists and crew on the ship Prometheus and rockets them off an Earth-like moon orbiting one of the constellation's planet. By 2093, they land. And that's when they finally think to ask if the map was an invitation or a warning.

Soon, the crew are exploring the planet's vast and colossal wreckage, which looks like a Pottery Barn version of a Mayan death temple-rustic and spooky with lots of giant carved heads-that also holds a spaceship and petrified alien life forms. As Shaw and Holloway work, other crew members like corporate overseer Vickers (Charlize Theron), rough-and-tumble captain Janek (Idris Elba) and cold, calm helper-droid David (Michael Fassbender, whose sly work is the best thing here) pursue their own agendas.

Any similarities to Alien and Aliens are purely deliberate. You have, in fact, seen all of what's in John Spaihts and Damon Lindelof's script before, but at least you're in the hands of a master, not a studio gun-for-hire like in Fox's last trip to the Alien universe (which involved the depressing modifier vs. Predator). Prometheus is no lame cash-grab fanboy nonsense that plays like the daydreams of a violent 12-year-old, and it's nice to have Sir Ridley classing the neighborhood back up. Scott's more of a visual stylist than a visual storyteller—his Robin Hood failed because you can't shoot rollicking medieval adventure from a helicopter—and the addition of 3D to his tool chest is both welcome and nicely under-done. Still, cynics will argue that filming people in bluish-black outfits against blackish-blue backgrounds hardly screams for the effort and expense of 3D. The special effects are top-notch, even if we're left pondering why the ship Prometheus is more high-tech than Alien's Nostromo, built for 2122.

The interesting thematic questions are all about creation: do we owe our creators obeisance, or defiance? How do we move forward in our present when our past is built on the temples of fallen gods and men? In fact, when we slam into the final act of shouting, shooting and stomach-stretching monster effects, their familiarity is both comforting and confounding. I found myself wishing that the scary stuff had started earlier (so as to not feel rushed) or not at all (so as to not feel tacked-on). But these are idle and subjective complaints, and even if Prometheus just repeats the haunted-house-in-space visceral horrors of Alien, that still puts it ahead of the pack. We live in a dim and dark era when Michael Bay's idiot fantasies of moralistic robot trucks or the simple metaphors of Battle: Los Angeles are considered "science fiction." Let Prometheus be a reminds that a real science-fiction film this superbly-made, smart and satisfying throws off the light and heat of a fire stolen from heaven.

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

Cast: Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Noomi Rapace, Guy Pearce, Patrick Wilson, Benedict Wong, Sean Harris, Idris Elba, Kate Dickie, Rafe Spall, Logan Marshall-Green, Emun Elliott

Director: Ridley Scott

Screenwriter: David Giler

Producers: Ridley Scott, Damon Lindelof, John Spaihts

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Rating: R for sci-fi violence including some intense images, and brief language

Running time: 124 min.

Release date: June 8, 2012

source : http://www.boxofficemagazine.com/reviews/2012-06-prometheus

Men in Black 3

Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Josh Brolin

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

The alien-busters are back, baby. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones still rock that Reservoir Dogs look as two secret agents in the extraterrestrial waste-disposal business. But, jeez, we haven't seen these dudes in 10 years. My memory is that the first Men in Black, in 1997, hit all its marks as creature-feature farce. Five years later, though, the sequel was a giant yawn. The good news is that director Barry Sonnenfeld has reassembled the troops to mostly gangbusters effect. Yeah, Men in Black 3 (in 3D, yet) suffered production delays, a budget that ballooned to $215 million, and 215 million script revisions (I'm kidding, barely). It was Smith himself who had the idea to send his character, Agent J, back in time to 1969 to stop Boris the Monster (The Flight of the Conchords' Jemaine Clement) from assassinating Jones' Agent K. Don't panic, I've seen the movie and I still don't get it. What works, like comic hellfire, is the casting of Josh Brolin as the young Agent K. Brolin's take on Jones' deadpan delivery (they co-starred in No Country for Old Men) is spot-on and spectacularly funny. Better yet, Brolin brings in a true actor's grace, adding humor and heart that help explain the origins of Agent K's moody blues. Jones disappears for most of the second half, but not before he and Smith trade barbs and slaughter E.T. scum. The effects are cheese-whizzy fun, but it's the unexpected spark between Smith and Brolin that makes MiB3 primo summer fun. Way cool.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/men-in-black-3-20120524

Movie Riview: The Skin I Live In

The Skin I Live In

Antonio Banderas

Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

Anything for Halloween? I'd vouch for The Skin I Live In, a scary, sexy and terrifically twisted horror film from the artist known as Pedro Almodóvar, Spain's stylish maestro of kink and flamboyant emotion. Skin reunites Almodóvar with Antonio Banderas for the first time since 1990's Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! Director and star still bring out the wicked, badass best in each other.


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Banderas plays Dr. Robert Ledgard, a widower plastic surgeon who uses his isolated mansion to hide a suicidal patient whom we see only in a head bandage and a body stocking. She's called Vera (Elena Anaya), and when Robert is not experimenting on her withsynthetic skin grafts, he's observing her behind glass with a voyeuristic perversity that evokes Hitchcock's 1958 masterpiece, Vertigo. Banderas is magnetic with a vengeance, the fire in his eyes a constant threat to the surgical precision of the scientist he plays. He's a new-century Dr. Frankenstein and twice as bone-chilling for that. Vera has no memories; she's a blank canvas on which Robert (and by extension the audience) does all the painting.

You can tell Vera badly wants out; she even tries to seduce Robert, who looks guilty but tempted. Robert's housekeeper, Marilia (the excellent Marisa Paredes), is a fierce guard. That is, until her hood son Zeca (Roberto Álamo) breaks in (wearing a tiger mask) and decides to take carnal advantage of this beautiful bird in a gilded cage.

There's a teasing allure in the way Almodóvar uncovers the secrets Robert hides. Adapting Thierry Jonquet's novel Mygale, director and co-writer Almodóvar never lets the creeping terror obliterate the bruised humanity of the characters. Few directors have Almodóvar's skill at swerving from outrageous camp to unspeakable terror without tipping into absurdity. Even when the film's frigid elegance, perfectly captured by cinematographer José Luis Alcaine, becomes off-puttingly clinical, Almodóvar's passion burns through. The skin he lives in is alive to challenge no matter what warped form it takes.

Movie Riview : The Thing

The Thing

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton

Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen

Did we need a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 version of The Thing? Probably not, what with Carpenter replaced by Dutch commercial director Matthijs van Heijningen. But Thingcultists won't care. Carpenter's version hinted at a Norwegian research team that found something alien buried in the ice in Antarctica. Here they are. Mary Elizabeth Winsteadplays a Columbia prof who joins up. Joel Edgerton is a chopper pilot who becomes her ally as the Thing invades bodies and pretends to be human until it breaks out in gory splendor. That's it. One gut-busting death after another, terror giving way to tedium. Your call.

Movie Riview :Footloose

Footloose

Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid

Directed by Craig Brewer

There are cellphones and iPads and a more integrated cast in this reboot of 1984's Footloose. Otherwise, it's hard to tell the difference, so misguidedly beholding is director Craig Brewerto the original. The old Footloose is best remembered as a breakthrough for Kevin Bacon (I'd pick Diner, which came two years before) as a smartass Chicago kid who brings dirty dancing to a Christian small town that's outlawed rock & roll as the devil's music.

Newcomer Kenny Wormald, who's danced backup for Justin Timberlake, steps into the Bacon role as Ren McCormack, now a Boston homey relocated to a Tennessee backwater where the local Rev. (Dennis Quaid, on rectitude overdrive) has banned dancing after four students died in a postprom car crash. Ren just has to rebel, which he does with the help of the Rev's maverick daughter Ariel (Dancing With the Stars hottie Julianne Hough) and flat-footed buddy Willard (scene-stealer Miles Teller). This High School Musical stuff de-balls the from-the-crotch heat you expect from Brewer, who unleashed Hustle and Flow. And the updates on the original's soundtrack hits – Blake Shelton in for Kenny Loggins on the title song, karaoke kids taking on Deniece Williams' "Let's Hear It for the Boy" – barely register.

Unlike Bacon, who had a double, Wormald does Ren's angry dance himself in an abandoned warehouse. But Wormald is not the actor Bacon is. This crimps his chemistry with Hough, who has the indefinable spark that indicates star potential. Footloose 2011 is harmless as far as it goes, but on the dance floor and off it never goes nearly far enough.