Eye Candy #587 - "Bad Girls" (1994)

Bad Girls (1994):  I would be hard-pressed to find a film that fails so thoroughly on so many levels all at the same time.  Here is a film that helped scuttle its own sub-genre (female empowerment western) in a single outing.  Out in the wild west, four prostitutes (Andie McDowall, Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Drew Barrymore) go on the lam after one of them murders an abusive john.  Throw in the mix a train robbery, banditos, various gunfights, a hanging, the obligatory Pinkerston detective appearance, and a literal “ride off into the sunset” ending, and you get what we have here - a giant steaming pile that did no one‘s career any favors.  Dermot Mulroney, James Russo, James LeGros, and Robert Loggia are here in support of this travesty.  The dialogue is DREADFUL, the story is riddled with every western cliché you can think of (and all of them poorly executed and crammed together), and almost every single underdeveloped stereotypical role is miscast.  The production values are just slightly lower than direct to video (which, unfortunately for us, this wasn’t).  Even Jerry Goldsmith’s derivative score is obnoxious.  This is possibly the worst movie of the 1990’s (and considering that includes most Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme movies, that’s saying something).    I daresay it’s so bad, it may even have setback women’s rights.  Woodchuck sez, “Total crap.”

Eye Candy #586 - "Killer Elite" (2011)

Killer Elite (2011):  Despite the title, this is not a remake of the 1970’s Peckinpah actioner of the same name (they are based on two totally different books from two different eras).  Based on the book “The Feathermen”  by Sir Ranulph Fiennes (which purports to be true), about a team of English mercenaries in 1980, who are hired by a dying sheik in Oman to kill three British SAS soldiers responsible for the deaths of 3 of his sons during the Dhofar Rebellion in 1972.  The catch is that they have to get a confession on tape from each murderer, the deaths must look like accidents, and all must die before the terminally ill sheik dies himself.   The leader of the mercenaries is Danny Bryce (played by Jason Statham), who takes the job because the sheik has kidnapped a friend of his, Hunter (Robert DeNiro), who had previously failed at the same job.   Other members of Bryce’s team include Davies (an almost unrecognizable Dominic Purcell) and Meier (Aden Young).  Once the assassinations begin, the mercenaries draw the attention of the Feathermen, a group of former SAS who watch over their own.  Their fixer, Spike Logan (Clive Owen), is tasked with finding out who the assassins are and eliminating them.  This is arguably the best Jason Statham movie I’ve seen to date - the dialogue is fantastic and quotable after the fact, with fleshed-out believable characters and action set pieces that are well-staged without being gaudy or over-the-top.  This is the first feature length film from director Gary McKendry.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #585 - "Essential Killing"

Essential Killing:  A “suspected terrorist” (that’s from the ad copy; he kills three people with an RPG less than 5 minutes into the picture and kills several more before all is said and done; he is portrayed by auteur Vincent Gallo) is captured somewhere in the Middle East and rendered to a detention facility in Poland.  While being transferred from the facility, the van he is traveling in wrecks and he is accidentally set free into the Polish wilderness, which is apparently wall-to-wall snow, trees, and COLD.  Compounding his problem is his inability to understand the language, as well as the American forces at his heels (though they are portrayed as largely incompetent and ineffectual).  What we get here is more akin to “Jeremiah Johnson” than “Rendition”, with a fairly standard man vs. wilderness survival tale vibe.  Director Jerzy Skolimowski said he was aiming to be apolitical and I think he’s fairly successful (it helps that Gallo has no dialogue whatsoever and no one in the film is given to polemics).  The film IS beautiful to look at, and for a film that’s less than 90 minutes long, it feels longer.   Sure, the morality here is murky, but it doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the film for what it is.  Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”

Eye Candy #584 - "Paranormal Activity 3"

Paranormal Activity 3:  The third in this better-than-average horror film series about demonic goings-on and “found footage” is a prequel, as we finally get the back story of what set the events of the first two films in motion (not a whole picture, mind you; there is still some ‘splaining to do).  In the first film, Katie and her husband Micah encountered increasingly disturbing paranormal phenomena in their house, before ending in tragedy.  The second film focuses on her younger sister Kristi, as the paranormal strangeness overwhelms her family too, with similar results.  We go back in time to 1988, the dawn of the personal video camera era, when both girls were children living with their mother Julie, and Julie’s boyfriend Dennis.  Kristi talks to her imaginary friend Toby, who may not be imaginary, while Dennis starts to hear strange noises and see inexplicable things on his new video camera.  This has a similar build as the previous 2 movies as well: foreboding doom for the first ¾ of the film and then poo hits the fan in the last reel.  The cast is full of relative unknowns (I recognize Dustin Ingram, who was the lead in “Meet Monica Velour”, and the two lead actresses from the previous films, but that’s pretty much it).  If you’ve seen the first movie, then you know it’s all closing doors, squeaky hinges, shadows, things you can’t clearly see that move quickly in and out of frame, though the filmmakers do go for some higher-tech special effects this time around (not crazy big budget, but more so than the previous two).   If you’re a fan of the first two films (like I was), you’ll enjoy this entry as well, though I think this is the least of the series so far (there is a fourth on the way).  Woodchuck sez, “Me likey.”

Eye Candy #583 - "Bunraku"

Bunraku:  A film with style to spare, this actioner combines various genres into one really colorful, visually interesting pastiche, including western and samurai films (something that‘s been in vogue recently).  Unfortunately that doesn’t make up for a certain lack of originality in story or general silliness in dialogue.  In the future, after a globe-spanning war, firearms are banned.   Nicola the Woodcutter (Ron Perlman) is a crime boss that controls his territory with his 9 assassins (including his no. 2 man, Kevin McKidd), all of whom are masters at hand to hand combat.  Into his world come two disparate men - a mysterious stranger with a fondness for fisticuffs (played by Josh Hartnett) and a samurai (played by the relatively androgynous Japanese rock star Gackt).  They are brought together in a pursuit of mutual vengeance.   The supporting cast also includes Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson.   The film purports to lean heavily on the Asian puppet tradition that gave the film its title (and which plays a large part in the opening credits), but I have a hard time seeing it.  It seems more like an excuse to retread German Expressionist film in day-glo colors.  The fight choreography, for the most part, is shabby.  In fact, some of the fights starring the nominally less physically talented actors have an apparent sloppiness that is hard to ignore (as in “how the heck did that take make it into the final film?”).  I was looking for a time-waster and boy! did this waste my time.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #582 - "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"

Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows:  The 2nd Guy Ritchie-helmed film based on Arthur Conan Doyle‘s venerable property, and all the familiar faces are here again, including Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes, Jude Law as Watson, and Rachel McAdams (briefly) as Irene Adler, with Holmes facing off against his nemesis, the anti-Holmes Professor James Moriarty (played extremely well by Jared Harris), who wishes to start a war that will consume Europe.  Noomi Rapace and Stephen Fry are in support here.  This outing definitely veers towards the “more is more!” school of filmmaking, so we get more slow-mo fights and more gimmicky camera-work padding out the length of the film which is already overlong.  In addition, it is decidedly schizophrenic,  with both Downey and the film swerving from mischievous humor to pitch-black violence.  One minute, Holmes is playing practical jokes on Watson, the next he’s dark and brooding.   Not to mention that the convoluted wrap-up at the end feels more overwrought than seamless.  This film, as with its predecessor, is missing something to put it over the top from being an okay-to-good movie to being great.  It’s a very watchable flick, just not a completely satisfying one.  Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”

Eye Candy #581 - "The Ides of March"

The Ides of March:  George Clooney directs and stars with Ryan Gosling in this film based on the play “Farragut North” by Beau Willimon, which is itself based on the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean (we‘ll go with “very loosely“ on that one).  Gosling is Stephen Meyers, a junior campaign manager for Governor Mike Morris’ (Clooney) presidential campaign currently running in Ohio.   While he is politically savvy, Meyers is also more than a little naïve and idealistic.  He starts a relationship with an intern (played by Evan Rachel Wood) who happens to be the daughter of the DNC chairman and also has had sexual encounters with the Governor.  Soon Meyers finds himself out of his depth, out of his job, and exposed to the true nature of the political animals he‘s surrounded himself with, going from golden boy to toxic in the blink of an eye, all while doing what he thinks is the right thing to do to protect the Governor.  Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman co-star.  I’m a fan of most of Clooney’s directorial efforts (I think “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind“ and “Good Night and Good Luck“ are great), but this one left me cold.  The film is populated by unlikable, amoral sharks, none of whom you can empathize with.  It feels distinctly detached from reality. It’s  also advertised as a political thriller, but sorely lacks any thrills.  Technically sound, and it’s nice to see Clooney in a non-good guy role, but this is still a lesser effort.  Woodchuck sez, “Meh.”

Eye Candy #580 - "Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame"

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame:  Directed by the prolific Tsui Hark, this is a period mystery/fantasy based on the real 7th century Chinese courtier Di Renjie.  When several men die under the same extreme circumstances (they spontaneously combust) on the eve of the coronation of the first (and only) Empress of China, Wu Zetian, Detective Dee (Andy Lau), sort of a medieval Sherlock Holmes, is freed from prison to find the culprits.  Working with a member of the justice ministry and the Zetian’s handmaid (Li Bingbing), he is drawn into a web of conspiracy and betrayal.  The martial arts shenanigans here are fine without being exceptional, the plot is fairly convoluted, and some of the cultural elements just have to be accepted on face value (such as the talking deer…yeah, you’re just going to have to take my word on that one).  Some have labeled this film a historical epic.  I disagree - while it doesn’t lack for spectacle, it is missing the appropriate gravitas of a “Red Cliffs” or “Hero”.   “Detective Dee” also has an over-reliance on computer animation and rendering, some of which looks very fake.  I would recommend either listening to the over-dub OR reading the subtitles, but not both at the same time as they don’t sync up correctly.  I often think that some films have potential to be more than what ends up on the reels, but frankly, I don’t know if this film could have.  It is thoroughly mediocre in almost every way.  Woodchuck sez, “Okay.  Just okay.”

Eye Candy #579 - "Attack the Block"

Attack the Block:   A chav’s wet dream, about a group of English juvenile delinquents in London, staving off an invasion of their improverished apartment block by a horde of furry black monsters with glowing teal-colored teeth.  A gang of 5 youths, led by Moses (newcower John Boyega who does well here; several of the children make their film debuts) are mugging a young woman when something crashes into a car next to them.  Investigating, they are attacked by a small, dog-sized alien, which they promptly kick to death…except that only pisses off the rest of the aliens which are bigger, faster, and meaner.  Soon the kids are running around their apartment building, fighting off aliens and dodging drug dealers and cops to save the day.  I had to watch this with the subtitles on just to understand what some of the kids were saying.  A certain shaky morality pervades the whole film (you’re rooting for people who aren’t terribly likable in and of themselves).  Executive produced by Edgar Wright (who gave us “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”), this film is definitely in that same sort of genre-mashup vein.  We even get Wright stalwart Nick Frost in a role as a drug dealer who lives in the block.  I thought this was fun, if a tad lightweight.   Not great, not crap. Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #578 - "If A Tree Falls - A Story of the Earth Liberation Front"

If A Tree Falls - A Story of the Earth Liberation Front:  First, anyone pretending that this documentary is unbiased is smoking some great weed - it’s firmly in the camp of Daniel McGowan, convicted terrorist associated with the Earth Liberation Front, from the word ‘go’.  Tracing McGowan’s life and upbringing through his conviction and incarceration, we get to follow his developing activism and militancy against the broader picture of growing militant environmental movement, as he and his colleagues committed various destructive acts across the Pacific northwest in the late 90’s/early 2000’s, until he and the rest were caught back in 2005.  The problem in lionizing McGowan is that he isn’t’ terribly likable or sympathetic - he’s mostly unrepentant, pathologically self-centered (i.e. enforces his own behaviors on others, including family members he lives with while on house arrest), and hypocritical, as do most of his confreres.  Sure, they committed at least one act worth the risk, the firebombing a slaughterhouse that focused on the killing of wild horses.  But they also committed acts against people using bad information, such as the Jefferson Poplar tree farm in Clatskanie, which they burned down because they thought it was fostering genetically modified plants when the owners were doing nothing of the sort (it’s very telling when the perps of that arson can’t even acknowledge that they were wrong and that they targeted completely innocent).  But in the end, they come off as young people driven by misplaced idealism and a rampant disregard for the consequences of any of their actions.  Still, as a film, it’s worth watching and well put together.  Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”

Eye Candy #577 - "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol"

Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol:  The 4^th Mission: Impossible film to date, stretching way back to 1995, with Tom Cruise back as uber-spy Ethan Hunt, who is broken out of a Russian prison to track down a nuclear extremist bent on setting off “beneficial” nuclear war to bring about peace.  This sends him running around the globe with a team of disavowed cohorts, including Simon Pegg, Paula Patton, and Jeremy Renner, to Dubai, Mumbai, Moscow, and beyond to stop an impending nuclear attack.  This is the first live-action film of director Brad Bird, who is well regarded for his animated films (he gave us “The Iron Giant”, and Pixar’s “Ratatouille” and “The Incredibles”).  J.J. Abrams, who directed the third MI film, is back producing.  It’s ambitious as all get-out and starts cracking before the credits end and doesn’t let up until the final five minutes, with several well-staged action set pieces including an extended sequence involving the Al-Burj Khalifa hotel in Dubai and an Indian automated parking garage.  This is easily Cruise’s best film in quite some time and he underplays Hunt this time around, with large swaths of the film passing without any dialogue from him.  He’s also showing a few more wrinkles and a few hitches in his giddy-up (in his defense, he’s durn near 50), but with plenty of high-tech toys in tow.  Pegg and Renner provide comic relief that never overstays its welcome and Patton acquits herself well as the only female on the team.  And for a movie that clocks in about 2 hours 15 minutes, it actually feels LONGER because it’s extremely busy.   This is my personal favorite of the MI movies – perfect escapist fare.  Wildly improbable?  Absolutely, but that’s why we go to the movies.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”  

Eye Candy #576 - "Stake Land"

Stake Land:  This independent production feels like a cross between “The Road” and “I Am Legend”.  After an epidemic causes people around the world to turn into vampires (and we‘re talking feral, bloodthirsty monsters here, not sexy, effete pale Europeans), a teenage boy’s family is attacked and killed by one of the beasts and he is taken under the wing of a vampire hunter named “Mister” (played by Nick Damici, who, up to this point, has been mostly a small bit-part character actor).  They travel cross-country, from south to north seeking “New Eden“, because the vampires dislike cold weather.  They hunt vampires along the way when they encounter them, but their largest source of trouble comes not from vampires, but from the Brotherhood, a quasi-religious gang of normal humans who believe that the epidemic is God’s work, so they kidnap others, deliberately turning them into vampires to be used as weapons.   The Brotherhood is led by the twisted Jebedia Loven (played by “Fringe’s” Michael Cerveris).  They also encounter other regular folks on the road, including a nun who is almost raped (played by a very old looking Kelly McGillis) and a young pregnant woman who joins them on the road.  Damici is solid as “Mister”, as is Connor Paolo as Martin, the teenager who comes under the tutelage of Mister.  Only the second feature from director Jim Mickle, this film is appropriately grim and somber, and looks good and flows well (it introduces more problems than it solves, but that‘s most films for you).  Rented this on a whim and wasn’t disappointed.   Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #575 - "The Muppets" (2011)

The Muppets:  I’m a Muppets fan from way back and a HUGE fan of the original movie (which I would still argue isn’t a kid’s movie at all), but I had some trepidation watching this latest film, mostly because I haven’t seen a good Muppets film in years.  Jason Segal of “How I Met Your Mother” fame wrote this one, and it harkens back to old school Muppet silliness, complete with dancing, singing, witty banter, and bad jokes.  Segal also stars in the lead as Gary, with Amy Adams as his girlfriend Mary.  Gary, Mary, and Walter, Gary’s puppet brother, take a trip to Los Angeles to see the sights and sounds, including Muppet Studios.  But upon arrival, they find it closed, dilapidated, and slated from demolition by an evil oil man (played by a very hammy Chris Cooper, who even gets to rap a song).  So it’s up to Walter, Gary, and Mary to get the Muppets back together to raise $10 million to save their studio (and they throw a celebrity telethon to do it).  Disarming, cute, with film in-references, some good songs (Bret McKenzie of “Flight of the Conchords” was the music supervisor; director James Bobin is another FotC alum), various celebrity cameos (though not nearly as many as in the original), and a big heart beating away in the face of the fairly rampant cynicism of today’s society, this is a strong entry into the franchise and a big, sloppy love letter to the TV show (there are references to several notable skits from the old TV show, including “Mana Mana”).  However, I don’t think it’s as good as the first “Muppet Movie” for sheer laughs.  The only thing I really missed were some of the old voices - Frank Oz, who was Ms. Piggy and Fozzie, is nowhere to be found (there are only 2 or 3 of the old guard left here).  Still a good movie worth seeing.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #574 - "Red State"

Red State:  I know this is being marketed as a supernatural horror movie, but it’s most certainly not.  It’s more a strange black comedy about religious extemism, government bureaucracy, inaction and overreaction, with nary a wit of supernatural anything to behold.  This is the most recent offering from director Kevin Smith and feels very much like his previous “Dogma“ in some respects, particularly its heavy-handedness in its depiction of religion. Three high school boys set up an sexual assignation with a woman over the internet (Oscar winner Melissa Leo), yet when they arrive, they soon find themselves captives of a fringe church led by pastor Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) and his extended family (a la Fred Phelps) of religious gun nuts who are against a whole litany of “sinners”.  This draws out the involvement of the local ATF field office led by Agent Keenan (played by John Goodman).  Bullets fly as general chaos and mayhem ensues, peppered sporadically with extended dialogue sequences.  Gory, sure (lots of head shots and upper body shots; no one gets shot in the leg here), but hardly horrific.  Also low on insight, high on the absurd, and most of the characters are underdeveloped caricatures.   I enjoyed it for the comedic aspect and I think Parks and Goodman are great, but this is hardly Smith’s best outing thus far.  It almost feels like more of a Tarantino flick.  Woodchuck sez, “Not for all tastes.”

Eye Candy #573 - "Little Big Soldier"

Little Big Soldier:  The most recent effort from Jackie Chan, this film has apparently been in production for the better part of 20 years (something about Chan wanting to film an action comedy in a historical setting…even though this is something he has done numerous times and with better effect in films like “Project A“).  Chan is the “big soldier” of the title, a deserter with a strong preservation streak that kidnaps an enemy general and heads home to the kingdom of Liang to ransom so he can buy a farm and settle down.  The near-constant of inter-state warfare has kept “big soldier” in the field for years and years.  Wearying of war, the ransom is his way of getting a military exemption.  However, the general isn’t going to go quietly.  Kind of a strange little film - the comedy is fast and furious in the first half of the film, but the second half of the film is almost exclusively dark and violent, as if the creators felt that they had to shoehorn something deep and meaningful before the ending, which is certainly somber.  There are some good action bits here, though not as many as in some of his previous films.  An average effort from Mr. Chan.  Woodchuck sez, “For fans.  Others may be bored.”

Eye Candy #572 - "The Three Musketeers" (2011)

The Three Musketeers (2011):   To say that this film plays fast and loose with the source material is like saying the Pope is just a wee bit Catholic - gross understatement.  Director Paul W.S. Anderson (some of his work I dearly love, like “Event Horizon”) steps away from the “Resident Evil” franchise to direct this revisionist-steampunkish version of the French classic, complete with dueling airships, wirework, and slo-mo special effects as Porthos (Ray Stevenson), Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans) and D’artagnan (Logan Lerman) fight against the forces of the sort-of-evil Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz), his henchman Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen), the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom), and the Lady de Winter (Milla Jovovich, Anderson’s wife and star of his “Resident Evil” flicks).  Nary a Frenchman to be found in the cast.  The character names are the same, as are some of the personality traits, but this has just the barest resemblance to the plot of the original.  The dialogue is ATROCIOUS (I‘m fairly certain that even in a movie as anachronistic as this, Richelieu is not going to say “yup“ when asked a question), ridden with clichés (Buckingham speaks nothing but).  The musketeers themselves are good, but Walz is slumming here (and looking very bored in the process), Bloom is over-acting his rear off, Mikkelsen phones it in, and Jovovich seems wildly out-of-place.  The film plays for laughs that aren’t there, with a goofy subplot about King Louis XIV seeking relationship advice from D’artagnan (Freddie Fox plays Louis, and he is one of the bright spots in the film, even if his Louis is a wild caricature).  Watchable, but mindless and generally disappointing.  Woodchuck sez, “You’ve been warned.”

Eye Candy #571 - "The Thing" (2011)

The Thing (2011): “That’s not a dog!”  A prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 film of the same name which I dearly love (which in turn was a remake of the 1951 film “The Thing From Another World”), this film details the 3 days prior to the events featured in the 1982 film, as an alien space ship is discovered beneath the ice in Antarctica.  Its alien passenger, frozen in the ice for 100,000 years, is taken back to base camp by a team of Norwegian scientists (with a healthy smattering of American staff to make American audiences give a crap), where it promptly thaws out and attempts to absorb and assimilate anyone it comes in contact with, all while sprouting fangs, tentacles, and vaguely phallic appendages galore.  Dr. Kate Lloyd (played by Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is a paleontologist hired by the head Norwegian researcher to help extract the alien from ice, but she’s also the first to realize what the alien is trying to do.  From then on, it’s all guns, flamethrowers, thermite grenades, and people who aren’t what they appear to be, as Lloyd realizes they have to stop the monster from leaving the Norwegian camp.  Joel Edgerton, channeling Kurt Russell’s Macready from the 1982 film, is an American helicopter pilot caught up in the alien to-do.  The supporting cast also includes Eric Christian Olsen (in a rare serious role) and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko from “Lost), amidst a host of Danish and Norwegian actors.  Violent, gory, and paranoiac, the film seesaws between monster attacks and the mounting distrust between the remaining humans as the alien hides among them.  Director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., in his first full-length English language picture, has an almost slavish devotion to the production design of the 1982 film, making sure to incorporate salient bits to set up the next part of the story, from where bodies are left and what condition they are found in to the size and shape of the block of ice the alien was trapped in.  For fans of the original, these are nice touches without it being a straight homage.  Because let’s face it – we know how this ends before we ever sit down in the theater.  At times it does feel like it’s retracing some of the same steps as the first picture, but there are enough swerves to keep it going along.  Woodchuck sez, “Me likey.”

Eye Candy #570 - "Contagion"

Contagion:  This Steven Soderbergh-helmed ensemble piece plays more like a thriller than a medical drama.  A young woman (played very briefly by Gywneth Paltrow) becomes infected with a virulent plague in Hong Kong and travels back to the United States where the virus runs rampant, killing quickly with a 25% mortality rate.  Her husband (Matt Damon) has to save the remaining member of his family as society in his home city of Minneapolis as well as around the world begins to descend into anarchy and human contact can kill.  Laurence Fishburne is a doctor at the CDC leading a team tasked with finding the source, make-up, and cure for the virus, and whether or not the increasing pandemic is a terrorist attack or more natural in origin, all while tap-dancing around the inherent politics of the situation across various nations. Spanning the globe, the film follows the efforts of survivors, of government personnel looking for a cure, and those seeking to take advantage of situation for personal gain.  As you can tell, it’s busy, busy, busy.  Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, and Jude Law co-star here.  Structurally very similar to Soderbergh’s “Traffic”, he deftly juggles multiple story lines all happening simultaneously, as well as making a 106 minute movie just fly by.  The cast is uniformly good, the film is technically solid, and the points driven home by the movie are extremely timely.  Hand sanitizer sales should go through the roof.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #569 - "Lone Wolf McQuade"

Lone Wolf McQuade:  The spaghetti western of Chuck Norris movies, with Chuck here as proto-Walker, maverick Texas Ranger J.J. McQuade, fighting for justice in the American southwest against banditos culled directly from Peckinpah westerns, through the medium of his booted feet, sawed-off shotgun, his pet wolf, and his super-charged Ford Bronco that apparently never has its lights off.   He, his ex-wife, and daughter all live in El Paso, though his wife and daughter are planning a move to Las Cruces (which they make sound like the end of the earth, as opposed to say, 25 miles away).  In the course of dealing desert justice, he runs afoul of arms dealer/martial artist Rawley Wilkes (played by Keith Carradine), who is robbing federal arms shipments at the behest of his evil midget partner, Falcon (no, I’m not making that up).  McQuade is saddled with a new partner, Kayo (a very young Robert Beltran) and an obligatory distracting love interest who is more than she appears (played by Barbara Carrere).  This film is trying so hard to be a Sergio Leone homage, it’s hard not to give it some kudos for commitment.  The supporting cast is fun include the always watchable L.Q. Jones and William Sanderson, but the acting is by and large, fairly terrible.  Norris is as wooden as usual.  Throw in some anemic fight scenes, including a much hallooed one between Norris and Carradine (which looks like a joke compared to contemporary fight scenes) and you’ve got the makings of a fairly ho-hum action picture.  Not nearly as much as fun as say, “Invasion USA”, which gets belly laughs just for being awful.  Woodchuck sez, “For serious Norris fans only.”

Eye Candy #568 - "Cowboys and Aliens"

Cowboys and Aliens:  This film is a mash-up of the country and sci-fi genres, which is always a bit of a tough sell.  Our story opens with an amnesiac (Daniel Craig) awakening in the desert, with no memory of who he is or how he got there, with a sophisticated metal manacle on his wrist.  He makes his way to a small cow-town, where he runs afoul of the law (who believe him to be a wanted criminal, Jake Lonergan) and the town’s overbearing benefactor, cattle baron Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and his equally overbearing son, Percy (Paul Dano).  But before they can move against him, aliens attack the town, kidnapping various members of the townsfolk. Lonergan has flashbacks that tie his own predicament into that of the townspeople, so he leads a posse to retrieve their kin, running afoul of outlaws, Indians, and aliens along the way.  The supporting cast here, including Sam Rockwell, Clancy Brown, and Olivia Wilde, is solid.  Even Adam Beach, who I usually can’t stand, has a good moment or two.  The film also has a sense of humor and doesn’t take itself too seriously (which is good, because the explanations for what the aliens are after is nothing to write home about).  The special effects are good, the plot is fairly simplistic without many original ideas, and the acting is good without being remarkable.  Not the best film of the summer, but still worth watching.  Good, without being great.  Woodchuck sez, “Check it out.”

Eye Candy #567 - "The Conspirator"

The Conspirator:  Directed by Robert Redford, this film details the military trial of Mary Surratt (played by Robin Wright) and other conspirators for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Secretary of State William Seward in 1865.  Surratt, who has the dubious distinction of being the first woman executed by the federal government, ran a boarding house that John Wilkes Booth and other sympathizers frequented.  She and her fellow conspirators, in violation of due process and in the name of political expediency, are forced into a military tribunal arranged by Secretary of Defense Edwin Stanton (played by Kevin Kline).  Her defense is led by Frederick Aiken, a Civil War veteran and idealistic attorney fairly railroaded into the job, played by James McAvoy, who has an uphill battle proving her innocence in a court where the burden of proof is extremely lenient and his client is uncooperative.  A better directorial effort than Redford’s “Lions for Lambs”, with a strong contemporary resonance to the current treatment and trials of suspected terrorists by the United States (the subjectivity of morality aside), it’s still not a very good film, with a profound emotional detachment to the proceedings, leaden pace, and lack of energy.  Surratt, as played by Wright, doesn’t make for a terribly sympathetic character – she lies in her own defense to protect her son John, a Confederate courier.  There is nary a likable person to be found, and we have no more profound insight into the life of Surratt, her motivations, and whether or not she was truly guilty of the crimes she was executed for (though it seems she was convicted as a proxy for her son).  It’s a pretty movie to look at, but it’s not a great movie to watch.  Woodchuck sez, “Nothing to write home about.”

Eye Candy #566 - "Conan the Barbarian" (2011)

Conan the Barbarian:  Ah, Hyboria, where men are men and women are topless, where mayhem and vengeance intertwine, and where James Earl Jones once turned into a real big fake snake.  Good times, good times.  This is the third film based on Robert E. Howard’s roguish barbarian Conan of Cimmeria, with actor Jason Momoa (from “Stargate Atlantis") taking the reins here after two outings by Ahnold back in the 1980’s (one of which – “Barbarian” – was great, and one of which -“Destroyer”- was complete crapola).  This go-round is less faithful to the original stories than the first movie (we get no praises to Crom, and the villain here, Khalar Zym, played by Stephen Lang, is a wholly new creation, as is the plot), and though there are some references to various Conan stories, including “Tower of the Elephant”, we still get the general gist of Conan – a ne’er-do-well who spends his time drinking, fighting, whoring, and stealing, a reluctant hero rather than a straightforward one.  That is to say, he gets the girl…but only because he wants to ravish her.  When he was a boy, Conan’s tribe in Cimmeria was wiped out by the aforementioned Zym, who is seeking necromantic powers to raise the dead and rule the world. Like you do.   As he grows older, Conan, while whoring, drinking, and stealing, is still seeking revenge.  In the process of this, he accidentally finds himself in the middle of Zym’s plot to sacrifice a young girl (played by Rachel Nichols), who Conan develops a hankering for.  Violent and bloody, you get arrows to various parts of the body, decapitated heads, heads with their brains bashed out, impalements, severed limbs, monsters ripping people in half, a finger shoved in a the hole left by a severed nose, metal claws to the face, axes to the chest, and at least one death by catapult.  Throw in one softcore sex scene, and this film earns its R rating the old fashioned way.  A surprising cast here – Morgan Freeman does the narration (though I think they could have found someone better suited; it makes you feel like you are watching “The Shawshank Redemption”).  Ron Perlman, as Conan’s father, and Lang lend gravitas to their various roles, and Momoa does a good job as Conan (he handles the action bits well, and luckily isn’t given any long speeches to deliver).  Creepy weird Rose McGowan plays, sans eyebrows, the creepy weird daughter of Zym, Marique.  Nichols mostly just stands around and screams…which isn’t unreasonable given the general chauvinism of Howard’s work.  Director Marcus Nispel has a handful of remakes under his belt, most of which deviate from the source material, so it should come as no surprise that he does here as well.  I can see how people with unrealistic expectations for this film would be disappointed -  Conan doesn’t ponder the meaning of life or other weighty themes.  Guess what?  He doesn’t in the stories either.  The special effects are fine, without being spectacular.  The acting is fair to good without being great.  It won’t win any awards, but it’s fine for killing a weekend afternoon.  Nispel could stand less cutting during his fight sequences, as he makes some of them awfully hard to follow.  But otherwise, it’s mindless fun that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  A lesser effort than the original “Barbarian” but better than “Destroyer” (though that’s not hard to do).  Woodchuck sez, “Me likey.”

Eye Candy #565 - "Mars Needs Moms!"

Mars Needs Moms!:  Based on the book of the same name by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Berke Berthed (best known for his comic strips “Bloom County” and “Outland“ and characters like Opus the penguin and Bill the Cat), this is the latest in a continuing line of Robert Zemeckis-produced motion capture CGI animated films (like “Beowulf”, “A Christmas Carol”) and is about as soulless as they come, though not entirely unwatchable (though why, with the advancements in  technology, do the motion-capture humans look less and less human as these films are released?).  Obnoxious child Milo (acted by Seth Green, but voiced by another actor) is a do-nothing, selfish brat.  He and his mother (played by Joan Cusack) have a fight and before they can reconcile, she is kidnapped by Martians who wish to steal the essence of her parenting to implant in themselves, killing her in the process. So he stows away on their spaceship and finds himself in a disjointed society run by women Martians (who don’t know how to nurture) and men Martians (who do, but are the underclass on their own planet).  He also finds an allies in fellow human Gribble (Dan Fogler, who fairs best here) and a rebellious Martian, Ki.   This is the latest directorial effort from Simon Wells, previously responsible for “Prince of Egypt” and the live-action “Time Machine” from a few years back.  My main complaint - the look of the film is about as far removed from Breathed’s fairly idiosyncratic art style as you can get.  Also, the book is fairly simplistic (it is a children’s book, after all) and generally much more good-natured (and decidedly less sinister).   Plus, the book is all of 40 pages long, so there is a LOT here that was added to expand this to a full-length screenplay.  The final result here is disappointing overall.  Woodchuck sez, “Skip it.”

Eye Candy #564 - "Ironclad"

Ironclad:  A bit of a revisionist take on the Siege of Rochester in England in 1215, as King John (Paul Giamatti) attempted to kill some of the barons responsible for the Magna Carta, including William of Albany (Brian Cox) who, with a Knight Templar (played by James Purefoy), recruits a band of warriors to hold Rochester castle against King John and his army of foreign mercenaries.  The rebel forces in Rochester number less than fifty and are besieged by the King’s forces and siege engines for two months, with the result a foregone conclusion to history (minus the bits they obviously re-write, such as the fates of some of those involved including Albany and the ending of the siege itself).   Think of it like “The Magnificent Seven”, but with brigands instead of Charlie Bronson and Jimmy Coburn.  The supporting cast is better than the film deserves, including Derek Jacobi, Charles Dance, MacKenzie Crook, and Jason Flemyng, with another random American (other than Giamatti), Kate Mara, thrown in as the love interest.  Violent, unnecessarily gory (LOTS of severed limbs, a person taking a cannonball to the face, blood fountaining out of bodies, bodies launched by catapault against castle walls), but with decent production values (they did build their own replica of the keep to destroy so they‘ve got that going for them) .  But it’s overlong (just over 2 hours) and Giamatti is a bit of scenery chewer as John.  This is director Jonathan English’s third feature length film, and while it is better than other recent medieval efforts I‘ve seen (like, say, “Season of the Witch“), it’s still not all that.  But poor James Purefoy, he just can’t seem to get a theatrical release.   Woodchuck sez, “Meh.”

Eye Candy #563 - "Videodrome"

Videodrome:  David Cronenberg has his fetish with sex and orifices front and center in most of his films.  Sure, there are some exceptions, but this film is not one of them.  James Woods (looking very young) is Max Renn, the president of a low-rent UHF TV station in Toronto that is known for broadcasting softcore pornography.  While looking to spice up the programming with something more visceral, he is shown a copy of “Videodrome”, an amateur snuff/torture porn show that he becomes obsessed with.  Soon he starts to have fairly disturbing hallucinations that overlap with what he saw on “Videodrome“.  After a friend of his disappears trying to get on the show, he tries to get to the bottom of it, to determine who created it, and he finds himself being used by the people behind Videodrome, who seek to destabilize the entire country, using society’s infatuation with violence and sex against it.  They manipulate his mind and body, turning him into something more than human, though it’s hard to tell what is real and what isn’t.  And this being Cronenberg, we get lots of bloody internal organs, dystopic future visions, throbbing televisions and VHS cassettes, and people turned into human VCRs through large, phallic openings in their stomachs.  In other words…typical Cronenberg.  Still it’s visually interesting (and some of the things that Cronenberg wanted to do but couldn’t due to budget and mechanical limitations were wild).  Woods does a good job here, with less of the manic intensity he seems to be channeling later in life.   I will readily admit that this may be too “visceral” for some tastes, so you have been warned.  Woodchuck sez, “Worth a look.”