Coffeerooms onDVD

Our Idiot Brother

2011-12-27T22:04:45Z

Our Idiot Brother
Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Zooey Deschanel
3 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

I consider myself fortunate to be an only child. After viewing "Our Idiot Brother" my opinion hasn't changed - if I want in fighting I'll go to work. But if you want an amusing, light comedy about sibling civil war with feel-good life lessons -- brothers and sisters this is it.

Paul Rudd plays Ned Rockliffe, a crunchy granola organic farmer who makes the mistake of getting coerced into offering a lid of smokeable Mother Nature to an undercover cop. After paying his debt to society, Ned returns to the farm to discover his girlfriend Janet has shacked up with a sedate stoner named Billy. Worse, Janet intends to keep Ned from the real love of his life -- his dog Willie Nelson. With no place to live, Ned bounces between the homes of his three sisters, inadvertently leaving their love lives in ruin. Each sister entrusts Ned with a secret they don't want their significant others to know, which is like asking a six year-old full of sugar to go to Disneyland and not get on any of the rides.

Naturally, the three sisters' lives and personalities are radically different. (It would be a bore if they weren't.) High maintenance Miranda (energetic Elizabeth Banks) is an ambitious, career-minded writer at Vanity Fair looking to break out of writing blurbs about cosmetics and get into feature writing. She's gets nowhere in her attempt to unearth the pile of dirt high society entrepreneur Lady Arabella is hiding until Ned connects with Lady M and gets her to spill her potentially Pulitzer Prize winning secrets. But will the confidential information Miranda pulls out of Ned help or ruin her career? And when Ned reveals Miranda's critical remarks about her neighbor boyfriend Jeremy, will Jeremy write off their relationship?

Emily Mortimer plays middle daughter Liz, a drained, dull, dutiful spouse who's unflinchingly loyal to her English horn dog husband Dylan (snobby Steve Coogan). Dylan's filming a documentary about a Russian ballerina and is putting in plenty of late night hours. Liz flinches, and then some, when Ned informs her that Dylan's interviewing the ballerina in the nude.

Youngest daughter Natalie (a typical zooey Zooey Deschanel) is directionless, free-spirited and confused, a bad stand up comic who lives with more roommates than she can count, including her lesbian lover Cindy (an unrecognizable Rashida Jones). Natalie takes an interest in the artist she's posing for and soon finds herself unable to tell Cindy she's pregnant; Ned takes care of that while on a mission with Cindy to "free Willy" (Nelson), turning Natalie's life into bi-sexual bizarro world.

Rudd has the quintessential sensitive post-Woodstock man-child portrayal down pat. He's so trusting he asks a sketchy looking dude on a train to hold his money for him -and in one of the film's more amusing moments, he gets it back. Rudd is seldom given anything knee-slapping hilarious to say, but his naivety and gentle nature will keep you hoping he can unravel the mess he's made of his sister's lives and that he'll at least get visitation rights for his four-legged friend, Willie Nelson.

T.J. Miller is comedically clueless as Billy, who's even more of a laid-back loser than Ned. As Janet, Ned's ex-girlfriend, dog-knapping Katherine Hahn expertly hides behind her New Age nuances while mistreating Ned like a woman scorned. Veteran actress Shirley Knight makes the most of her scant screen time as the clan's wine-loving, good-intentioned mom: "You know Neddy, I love you, even though you've never had a real job and no grandchildren... and that business with the police."

The surprise is Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton's kid, Rashida Jones, who plays Cindy, Natalie's lesbian lover. Arguably the most glamorous actress in the cast, Jones goes against type. She wears thick glasses, no make up and a wardrobe straight from L.L. Bean, and successfully rides an emotional roller coaster, going from spunky to love struck to veins-in-the-neck popping jealous.

The cast displays easygoing charm in the extras, which include a "Making of..." feature. Elizabeth Banks says she took the role of Miranda because the script mirrored her own life; she comes from a family of sisters and is considered "the glam girl living in the city." Rudd exposes director Jessie Peretz's famous past (he was the original bassist in the Lemonheads) and reveals the name of Peretz's well-known babysitter that watched the moon landing with him.

There's a preponderance of wobbly Willie Nelson tunes, but even his mumbled country clunkers can't dampen the storyline's feel good mood.

You don't have to have a brother with bad timing or be a horticultural hippie to appreciate Ned's naïve wisdom. While "Brother" isn't for Rhodes scholars, only an idiot would dismiss its easy going charm.

The Company Men

2011-12-27T21:39:57Z

The Company Men
Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Maria Bello, Chris Cooper
4.4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

If the plot to "The Company Men" seems familiar, it's because it's a reflection of the new American Dream, or should I say the new American nightmare.

In the past five years or so thousands of Americans, including yours truly, have been crushed under the unforgiving wheels of corporate downsizing. In "The Company Men" unsuspecting, unprepared Bobby Walker (an effective Ben Affleck), a sales hot shot with shipping superstars GTX is one of the latest of many employees to feel the cold steel of the corporate axe.

Pretty soon Bobby has "company" at the unemployment center where former six figure execs, secretaries and engineers play card games on laptops to pass the time. Layoffs make their way up the food chain, claiming Phil Woodward (captivating Chris Cooper), a sixty-year old middle-manager who knows his age is a major stumbling block to his ever landing another job. GTS' Vice President, Gene McClary (a terrific Tommy Lee Jones), who founded the company with CEO James Salinger (cool, calculating Craig T. Nelson), wants to save his people as much as the company. He fights against additional layoffs and tries to help Bobby and Phil. When Salinger fires McClary, McClary has enough money to stave off any immediate financial crisis, but finds his own career adrift as he faces the prospect of having no prospects.

I felt pangs of familiarity watching Affleck's descent into a financial fiasco because I've been there. It begins with anger...How could they fire me? Then shifts to denial... I'll get another job in three minutes, three months tops -- so why should I watch my spending? Then as three months turned into a year, I cringed watching Bobby fighting self-doubt and the crippling feeling of helplessness as hundreds of his resumes disappeared into the internet ether and went unanswered. Reliving the moment through Bobby when all self-esteem and dignity finally drained from my psyche and I was ready to join the countless unemployed who'd given up looking for jobs, I pulled for him, hoping he could find a position that would allow him to at least get a foot back on the corporate ladder, because if he could rebound, well then maybe I could too.

Moments of close to the bone reality abound in "The Company Men": Bobby looking down on his blue collar brother-in-law Jack Dolan (a properly weathered Kevin Costner), only to wind up groveling to him for work; McClary sleeping with the human resources executioner Sally Wilcox (a bit too mellow Maria Bello), only to find out she's gutting his department; and Phil's exasperation when he's told he's too overqualified to deliver pizzas.

Cheers to Ben Affleck's for his portrayal of Bobby Walker. At first you'll rejoice watching a corporate fat cat getting his comeuppance, but as he struggles to hang onto his worth as a husband, father and human being you'll cheer, and any actor who can make you do that is worth watching.

Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper are all purpose actors who can make you believe they're living their roles. Jones excels playing outdoorsy cowboys and Cooper cleans up playing quirky, emotionally cool characters. Having Jones portray the number two man at a billion dollar corporation is a stretch on paper but not on the screen, especially when Jones lets his expressions or the tone of his voice convey McClary's guilt and frustration.

Cooper's hangdog visage, jittery attitude, wavering loyalty and black cloud creakiness mark his character as the least likely to adjust to going from the penthouse to the outhouse. You can sense Phil's fate as he slides into a whiskey glass for comfort or throws rocks at the corporate headquarters' windows, but Cooper rises through his telegraphed storyline, delivering his lines like a tired racehorse who knows he's on his way to the glue factory: "You know the worst part? The world didn't stop. The newspapers came every morning, automatic sprinkler shuts off at six and the guy next door still washes his car every Sunday. My life ended and nobody cared."

As Maggie Walker, Bobby's wife, Rosemarie DeWitt takes a cliché, the stand-by-her-man spouse, and turns her character into a memorable, watchable force of nature. Maggie recognizes Bobby's stages of denial and becomes his rock, taking on extra hours at work, balancing the family budget, cutting back on luxuries - bye, bye Porsche, let's take a mulligan on that golf membership and let's think about moving in with your Mom and Dad. Maggie injects Bobby with confidence and faith without having to grandstand or make flowery speeches accompanied by orchestras; she's real, as is the chemistry between them. DeWitt is de-lightful. Her only demerit is her amateurish "pock-da-cah" Boston accent, which appears and fades seemingly at will.

I've been waiting for Kevin Costner to make amends for "Waterworld," "The Postman" and his disappointing account of Wyatt Earp's adventures that seemed to last longer than Earp's eighty years. The role of Jack Dolan, Bobby's beefy, blustery brother-in-law gives him a chance to minimize the damage. Costner is comfortable playing a dumb-as-a-ten-penny nail, classless contractor who hides his concern for Bobby behind callous comments about his carpentry. A future as a character actor awaits you, Kev.

If there's a villain in the piece it's Craig T. Nelson's Salinger. Salinger offers up the same blameless excuses every short-sighted boss trying to save their own keister uses to justify wiping out people's lives: "Hey they got a paycheck," or "We had to make sacrifices to save the company." Nelson's character isn't heartless, just clueless, even throwing McClary, his ex-college roommate and best friend under the bus. He's a corporate version of Don Corleone -- its nuthin' personal, "just business."

Company Expands With Extras

The value of "The Company Men" is enhanced by commentary from director John Wells, deleted scenes, an alternate ending and a "making of" documentary, featuring factoids from Wells and the cast. Affleck has plenty effect in his segments, praising his co-stars. Talking about Cooper, he says, "He's never forced, he's honest as an actor and a person." He beams proudly over DeWitt's portrayal of Maggie: "She brings a natural ease and grace to the role". He's also at ease as the film's philosopher, stating: "Being laid off is like being killed," and "What do you do when everything you relied that tells you you were someone important gets taken away from you?"

May you never have to keep company with men or women fighting off their creditors or fighting each other for menial tasks offering minimum wage. For those of us that have, "The Company Men" is an all too accurate portrayal of our lives as financial and emotional piñatas.

For those of you still able to make your mortgage payments, send your kids to private school or drive a non-smoke belching car with fewer than 100,000 miles on it, let "The Company of Men" serve as a warning. Embrace it, learn from it and keep an eye out, because something might be gaining on you - you could be next.

ConSINsual

2011-04-04T15:00:56Z

ConSINsual
Keena Ferguson, Kathryn Taylor
1 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

"ConSINsual's" tag line is "Some doors were never meant to be opened..." Well, some movies were never meant to be filmed.

It's obvious from the get that the main characters, Terrance and Angel Moore, have no business being together for anything other than a cage match. Terrance is a whiny weakling and Angel is a bitchy hellcat. The only thing they have in common is they both get their jollies role playing.

One night a masked intruder breaks into the Moore's abode while the couple is coupling. Terrance leaves Angel in the clutches of the intruder and runs away like Michael Jackson with his Jheri curls on fire. Angel brains the intruder with a bottle, escaping further anatomical invasion. As you can imagine, Angel isn't impressed with her husband's show of cowardice.

Worried that his marriage may be falling apart (ya think?) Terrance listens to the advice of Angel's sister, Jazzmine, a successful and seemingly wise lawyer. Jazzmine tells Terrance to take what he wants - to seize the moment, and, if necessary, Angel. Our not so bright Lothario takes this to mean he can reignite the passion in his marriage by restaging the attack - only this time he'll play the role of the intruder. Terrance grabs Angel, pulls her to the floor and misinterprets her passionate screams as an open invitation to continue. (Which of course it isn't.) Humiliated and angry, Angel goes to the police and Terrance is brought up on rape charges.

At this point you would think a major apology or a loving selfless act by Terrance would somehow repair the damage - and indeed, Angel, on the advice of Jazzmine - drops the charges. But these are some seriously damaged, sinful folk which means there's no guarantee there'll be a happy ending.

One of "ConSINsual's" most blatant problems is the cast, which is wholly inexperienced --and it shows. Keena Ferguson, who plays the morally corrupt, success-driven Angel, has a few scant credits that include Bridesmaid #2 in an episode of "Two and a Half Men" called "Rough Night in Hump Junction." She's hardly the type of siren men, women or aliens would lust after - there are three noticeable divots on the side of her face, she's shaped like an "S" and she telegraphs every stare and sneer. It's much harder to play sexy if you ain't. Carnival looks aside, she's saddled playing a character that's controlling, hateful and impossible to root for, not a quality you want your leading lady to display in abundance.

Siaka Massaquoi (Terrance) is a dead ringer for frog-eyed actor Omar Epps. Too bad he doesn't have Epps' agent. Massaquoi's biggest role prior to Terrance was "bartender." His character is so spineless you won't care if he redeems himself, although he does have the ability to cry on cue.

Kathryn J. Taylor's character of Jazzmine is a classic example of a stereotype meets overly ambitious actor, with the subsequent fallout causing the character to go from cunning to koo koo. A twist in script requires Jazzmine to degenerate from intelligent to perverse to controlling to sadistic. It's too much of a leap and takes the jazz out of Jazzmine. When the reason for her personality shift is revealed you'll still ask yourself why a successful, intelligent, relatively sane person would start acting like the spawn of Ma Barker.

In most films these days there's a character Spike Lee refers to as "the magic Negro." This particular black character is usually the main character's friend, neighbor or co-worker and helps enlighten him or her through their homespun wisdom or a magnificent act of kindness. In black entertainment films the tables are reversed, so you get the obligatory white angel. In this case the faithful best friend is blondie licious Tara, played by Alexis Zibolis. Zibolis seems to be playing an actual person rather than an oversexed cliché. She actually has a resume, having previously played characters with names rather than titles. She appeared in several low-budget sci-fi thrillers including "Plaguers" and "The Blackout," which, compared to the other actors, is like having been in "Gone With the Wind."

Ironically, Zibolis, who can actually shoot a gun, doesn't wield one in the film. Zibolis and Bryan Keith (who plays Terrance's Neanderthal-minded friend, Dillon) are the only ones who seem to have read the script beforehand and tried to figure out how to leave an impression, good or bad, on the screen.

There are many sins -- gluttony, avarice, coveting thy neighbor's wife and murder. "ConSINsual" tries to incorporate all the sins of the flesh into 98 minutes and makes as much sense as locking a sex offender in a room full of virgins and telling him to play nice. "ConSINsual" is a potentially titillating concept gone awry -- and that's its biggest sin.

Truth in Numbers

2011-03-07T16:58:41Z

Truth in Numbers
Everything, According to Wikipedia
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

"Truth in Numbers" documents the creation and subsequent world-wide popularity of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia maintained by the people for the people.

"Truth in Numbers" is a well balanced, entertaining insider's look at how a dot.com bomb turned into a not-for-profit phenom. The most compelling "character" is Wikipedia's founder, Jim Wales, an energetic cross between a Keebler elf and confidence man H.B. Barnum. He's equal parts dreamer, entrepreneur and huckster and comes off as one those starry-eyed optimists who walks along the street and discovers that the piece of paper stick to his shoe is a hundred dollar bill.

Among the many under the radar facts divulged about Wikipedia is its origin. Wales started Boomis.com, a search engine for porn actresses in 1996 before establishing "Nupedia," the daddy of Wikipedia. Nupedia floundered because of an exhaustive seven step approval process designed to authenticate every article. The combination of a lack of advertising and the collapse of the dot.com community forced Wales to open his new creation, Wikipedia, up to the public.

Wikipedia's enthusiastic and dedicated supporters include Ismail Serageldin (Director of the Bibliotheca in Alexandria), who notes that Wikipedia couldn't exist without the new technology: "It is a child of this century." Wikipedia's most ardent fans (and we hear and see from many of them) are the geeks, brainiacs and exceptional young minds in places like Seoul, Arizona, India and Germany who have ample time on their hands to contribute to the site. Some come across as Wales' acolytes - they're so convinced they're helping to educate people around the globe that their blind dedication would scare Jim "drink the Kool-Aid" Jones.

What saves "Truth in Numbers" from being an infomercial is the balance between Wikipedia's disciples and its detractors, the majority of whom are scholars, writers, former politicians and public figures wronged by inaccurate information.

Wikipedia's chief critic and the villain of the piece is Andrew Keen, a writer and critic whose stuffy British accent makes him sound like a snobby fussbudget. But Keen makes some valid points, including the fact that there are no mediators to settle disputes between contributors and no experts to validate facts. No one is steering the ship or protecting the public from misinformation. (Having signed on to correct several bogus facts about my favorite group, Traffic, I can attest that some of Wikipedia's articles are as reliable as Thomas Dewey guaranteeing a victory over Harry Truman.)

Keen seems to be smarting from the pasting he's gotten in public debates with Wales, who's far less educated but more charismatic and street smart. Of Wales he says: "He's a self-acclaimed entrepreneur, not an intellectual, not a political activist, but he hasn't made a penny from it. It's kind of like having the winning lottery ticket and realizing you can't cash it." Keen is clearly out for blood when he adds, "Wales has said 'I trust a high school kid as much as a Harvard professor.' This is a ludicrous thing to say."

Journalist/writer and former Robert Kennedy aide John Seigenthaler, Sr., echoes Keen's sentiments. Seigenthaler was defamed by Wikipedia in 2005 when a contributor claimed he set up Kennedy's assassination. Still smarting from the incident and Wales' denial of accountability, Seigenthaler says of Wikipedia, "It's like a buzz bomb. Somebody sends it up in the air. If it explodes somewhere you can't say 'Oh, I'm not responsible.'"

Wikipedia has given every person with access to a computer the ability to shape (or misshape) history. As Stephen Colbert says, "Wikipedia is the first place I look for knowledge, or when I want to create some." Whether you're a scholar or you just play one on T.V., "Truth in Numbers" is worth looking up.

Skin

2011-03-02T20:44:04Z

Skin
Alice Krige, Ella Ramanqwane, Ella Ramanqwane
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

"Skin" is the true story of Sandra Laing, a young girl caught up in a maelstrom of racial intolerance. If you're going to release a film about prejudice and racial injustice, why not set it in South Africa, the cradle of bigotry and narrow-mindedness?

"Skin" follows Sandra journey from childhood to motherhood, from segregation to emancipation. There's a huge twist - Sandra's parents, store owners Abraham (Sam Neil) and Sanny (Alice Krige) are white. Sandra was born with the features and coloring of a black girl and in the mid 1960s in South Africa that meant she was subject to the laws of Apartheid, the stringent equivalent of segregation in the U.S.. No one believes Sandra is the couple's biological daughter, and to make matters worse she's been raised believing she's white, which guarantees her life is going to be a solitary hell.

When Sandra attends a white boarding school the principal makes it his mission to have her expelled, even though her birth certificate says she's white. The scene in which a doctor sticks a pencil in Sandra's hair to prove it's kinky and then glimpses at her butt to confirm her black features is both telling and repulsive.

Sandra is reclassified as black and is expelled from school. Abraham fights in the courts to have her re-reclassified as white. Media and political pressure builds, forcing changes in the law. Sandra is classified white again, which elevates her social status, but doesn't cure her insecurities or isolation.

Now 17, Sandra catches the eye of Petrus, a black man who sells produce to her father. Against her parent's wishes, she falls in love with him. ("Dead and buried," Abraham says to Petrus. "That's what you'll be if you come near my family or property again.") When Abraham threatens to disown Sandy if she disobeys him, she runs away with Petrus. Sandra's sense of self and well-being grows while she lives with Petrus and his family in a black community, but she longs to reconcile with her parents.

Sam Neil is superb portraying a father who is both contrary and contradictory. In order to get his daughter designated white, he takes her case all the way to the Supreme Court, yet he calls his employees "kaffers" (the equivalent of the N word in Afrikaner) and shoots to kill when he aims his pistol at Petrus. The viewer gets the feeling that Abraham isn't fighting the good fight for his daughter - he's fighting for himself, for his pride and his reputation. He loves daughter, as long as she abides by his rules and lives her life the way he wants her to. He turns his back on her and makes his position clear to Sanny when he realizes she met with Sandra and her family behind his back: "If I ever find them here I will kill them...and then myself." Neil is tender, torn, protective, rash, loving and angry and gives a wonderfully rounded performance, including a spot on Afrikaner accent that would fool Pieter Botha.

Ella Ramanqwane is a moppet revelation as young Sandra. She captures Sandra's innocence, confusion and sadness, particularly in the scene where she's embarrassed and whipped in front of her classmates. She out performs Sophie Okonedo, who portrays Sandra as a teenager and an adult -- and that's no easy feat given Okonedo's past Oscar nomination for "Hotel Rwanda."

Okenedo is a bit too old to pull off the wide-eyed innocent teen phase of Sandra's life, but shines as Sandra's conflicted and eventually emotionally emancipated older self.

Alice Krige gives a career performance as Sanny, Sandra's sympathetic and loving mother. Krige grew up in South Africa and her pre and post Apartheid guilt seeps into her character's Mother Theresa personality. Sanny draws the line at Sandra dating Petrus (as her emphatic slap across the chops proves), but unlike her husband, her reaction isn't out of embarrassment or her fear that Sandra's breaking the law - she's more worried about the personal hardship Sandra will face if she falls in love with a black man.

Extra Skin

"Skin" has many enlightening extras, including interviews, a script development workshop, a behind the scenes featurette, deleted scenes and outtakes that show the seriousness of the subject matter didn't completely dampen the actors' ability to laugh at themselves.

Director Anthony Fabian's reasons for making "Skin" go beyond the typical goals of box office success or Oscar worthiness: "It's an important film because many people have already started to forget what Apartheid was." Sam Neill's understanding of his character's character (or lack thereof) is in part responsible for his outstanding performance: "(Abraham) is a man of his time and place. That doesn't excuse any of it, but explains it. Explaining and excusing are two different things."

The most touching interview is with the real life Sandra Laing, who is obviously still affected by what she went through as a child and mother.

You have to have a thick skin in order to wade through all the misery, bullying and degradation Sandra endures, and if "Skin" makes you feel uncomfortable, well then maybe that's not such a bad thing after all.

Glorious 39

2011-02-27T18:18:14Z

Glorious 39
Bill Nighy
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

"Glorious 39" has the same classy intrigue as one of those period parlor room thrillers from the 40s and 50s that starred Sirs Lawrence Oliver, John Gielgud or Ralph Richardson. It takes its time revealing the inner layers that point to a dark conspiracy, but once the red herrings and insidious motives are revealed, "Glorious 39" speeds through a series of surprising scenes that will tear your heart out.

"Glorious 39" is set in the summer of 1939, only weeks before Great Britain entered the Second World War. The plot revolves around the aristocratic Keyes family, headed up by Alexander (a regal Bill Nighy), a member of the House of Commons. Among the family members living at their estate are eldest daughter Anne, an actress (Romola Garai), daughter Celia (Juno Temple), Ralph, a rising politician (Eddie Redmayne) and Alexander's wife, Maud (Jenny Agutter) who spends more time in her garden than with her family.

At a dinner party celebrating Alexander's birthday, Hector (feisty David Tennant), a friend of the family and a member of Parliament, voices his adamant opposition to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing Nazi Germany, a view that's unpopular, particularly with Joseph Balcombe (boo hiss worthy Jeremy Northam), a mysterious member of the government who works for Britain's version of the Secret Service.

The following morning, while searching for her lost cat, Anne innocently enters a storage building that Alexander has deemed off limits to the family. The building supposedly contains Alexander's papers and speeches. Anne comes across several phonograph records that Alexander later admits belong to Balcombe. Anne plays one of the records. Although it's labeled "Foxtrot," instead of hearing music, she hears a recorded conversation. Out of curiosity Anne keeps two of the records.

A few weeks later the family receives the news that Hector has committed suicide. Anne wonders if Balcombe is responsible. She plays one of the records and is shocked to hear a distressed Hector pleading with Balcombe to leave his family alone. From that point on, it seems to Anne that everyone she confides in is in peril.

Although she's adopted, Anne is the most popular and beloved of the Keyes, but as seemingly unconnected factors begin to coalesce into a conspiracy, Anne becomes an outsider within her own family.

One of the more intriguing aspects of "Glorious 39" is that it reminds viewers that the majority of British politicians and citizens didn't want to go to war with Germany; there were many people, like Alexander, who'd fought in the First World War and wanted to avoid a repeat of its carnage even if it meant sacrificing Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Any movie with a cast that includes Sir Christopher Lee is automatically afforded watchable status. With more than 266 films to his credit (the most by any actor since 1948!), the 88-year old Lee is all-world, having played Dracula, Sherlock Holmes and Rasputin, among others. How talented is he? He recently branched out, recording a heavy metal concept album! As a septuagenarian version of Ralph (Anne's cousin, who was a young teen in 1939), Lee is one of two characters that provide a bridge between the events in 1939 and what's happening in present day England.

Busy Bill Nighy is a modern day Lee, having distinguished himself in "Love Actually," and despite the octopus make up, he was excellent in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest." He sustains the personality of refined, accomplished, laid back aristocrat who may or may not be privy to a scurrilous covert government plot.

Romola Grapi (one of the few actors in "Atonement" who didn't have to atone for being too mushy) is glorious as Anne, who starts the film as a carefree rising actress. As she uncovers more clues pointing to government chicanery she takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster ride, flawlessly conveying disbelief, fear, betrayal and anger. Grapi is at her best when Anne realizes she stands alone in her effort to untangle a web of lies and betrayal.

Add former sex symbol Julie Christie ("Dr. Zhivago," "Shampoo") and a quietly malevolent Jeremy Northam (who played a noble Thomas More in "The Tudors") to the mix and "Glorious 39" has a lot to live up to. Fortunately it does.

Glorious Extras

"Glorious 39's" extras include behind the scenes footage, a trailer and interview with the cast. There are 13, count 'em, 13 interviews with the actors, who discuss their characters, the twists in the plot and their mutual admiration for director Stephen Poliakoff, who you'll come to admire as well.

Speaking about Anne, Romola Grapi says, "She's the oldest child, but she's adopted. She's the special child, but here status changes as the story progresses." David Tennent offers a glib observation about the film, saying it "Mixes history with a bit of Hitchock." And it's nice that Jenny Agutter gets to say more in her interview than she does in her role as Anne's mum.

A superbly acted, tension-filled period piece, "Glorious '39" lives up to its name.

Everyday Black Man

2011-02-27T17:31:15Z

Everyday Black Man
Henry Brown, Omari Hardwick
2 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

The smug thing to say about "Everyday Black Man" would be I know what it's like to be a black man everyday and this ain't it. The plot has all the subtlety of Charlie Sheen at a sorority club meeting and the cinematography has the same low budget look found in BET and Lifetime movies.

So why should you watch "Everyday Black Man?" Two reasons: the down-to-earth charm of Henry Brown and the boil-to-burn villainy of Omari Hardwick.

"Everyday Black Man" follows the selfless existence of Moses Stanton (Henry Brown, and yes, his character's first name serves as a metaphor for his personality). Moses, a thoughtful, easy going former tough guy, runs a small grocery store in Oakland.

Moses is assisted by Sonny (Corey Jackson), a likeable, mentally challenged man-child. Clair (tepid Tessa Thompson), a bright young woman with a promising future as a teacher, is a frequent visitor to the store. She has no idea that Moses, who treats her like her father, really is her father.

The store is in financial trouble (mainly because Moses never seems to charge anybody for groceries). Enter Malik (Omari Hardwick), a young Muslim preacher who sells pies. Malik says he has a business plan that will benefit both of them. If he and Moses become partners and Moses allows Malik to sell his pies in the store, he'll dump $60,000 into the business.

Moses: Why me?
Malik: Allah told me so. He don't make mistakes.

It quickly becomes apparent that Malik is pie-eyed over Claire, which doesn't sit well with Moses. Worse, as Malik begins to exert more control over business decisions, Moses comes to realize his new partner has lied to him. ("I see a young man movin' too fast, tryin' to get over, that's what I see.") Moses winds up in a struggle to save his daughter, his store and his community.

On the plus side, the limited budget allows the small cast to function as if they're acting in a play, which would have been great if the characters weren't sketches. Unfortunately, with the exception of Brown and Hardwick, it's the minor actors and their characters, such as drug kingpin D'arcy (corpulent Ed Gilles III) and wisdom spouting grandma Mary (reverent Marjorie Shears), that rise above director/writer Carmen Madden's heavy-handed inner city moralizing. Unfortunately, the characters played by the female leads (Thompson's Claire and C. Kelly Wright's Gloria) are ones most in need of fleshing out.

There are a few glaring moments in "Everyday Black Man" that defy logic - such as having a mentally challenged kid pick up on Malik's ulterior motive before anyone else, or having Claire wind up in a lip lock with Malik a scant few minutes after she's buried her beloved grandmother. (He's a charmer, but picking up a girl at a funeral? Yuk.)

The script hits a factorial sour note when grandma goes Code Blue and no one, not a doctor, not a nurse, not even a candy striper comes in to try and revive her. I don't care if grandma was staying at the Acme Animal Hospital, someone would have come in yelling "Clear!" and hit her with the paddles.

Also, a potentially tension-filled scene with Sonny, who ventures out into the mean streets at night unprotected after being goaded by Malik and Yusef, is painstakingly set up but never shown. The next time we see Sonny he's prone in the hospital with a bullet in him. It would have added to the film's dramatic impact if the audience was allowed to see how Sonny wound up a near corpse, especially after having to sit through several cliché riddled minutes of Malik and Yusef goading him.

As for the way Muslims are painted, well, let's just say George Bush and Sarah Palin would be proud.

Hardwick, who excelled as a gang leader in criminal "Line Watch" (see my March 27, 2009 review) commands the screen with the type of slippery charm that the snake in the Garden of Eden would envy. In a way that's what he is - on the surface he's sweet-talking, righteous, interested in rebuilding the neighborhood. Underneath he's a brooding brute with a get rich, screw you agenda, and Harwick plays Malik's two-faced personality to the hilt.

Brown has the unenviable task of making a very hackneyed character (the kind-hearted, proud, smart, community minded saint) believable. He goes steely-eyed when he has to and has the believable countenance of, well, an everyday man. Props should also go to Corey Jackson, who plays Moses' mentally challenged gofer Sonny without turning him into a laughingstock.

The rest of the cast is made up of minor league actors playing caricatures. Whoever told Mo McRae (Malik's right hand man Yusef) that acting tough consists of cussing and balancing a toothpick between your teeth should have been poked by said toothpick. No mo' McRae, please.

C. Kelly Wright (Gloria) is little more than window dressing as Moses' romantic foil (ever hero needs one). Too bad she has all the attraction of Olive Oyl. Lisa Bonet look-alike Tessa Thompson has her character's naiveté down pat, which may be what makes her performance so bland and vacant.

Director Carmen Madden does a good job of capturing effective close ups of Brown's telling facial expressions. But she should have let someone else write the script. Trite lines like "I'm gonna fix things!" "I will make you proud" and "I own you. I own every thing in this motherf***ker" aren't very riveting, although Madden did come up with an observation spoke by Yusef that effectively sums up his and Malik's personalities: "Being a Muslim is in your heart. Making money is in our hearts."

As great character actors like William Smith, Morgan Woodward, Walter Brennan and now Henry Brown and Omari Hardwick prove, sometimes it's the actors, not the script that can make or break a film.

Pandorum

2010-04-10T17:20:02Z

Pandorum
Dennis Quaid, Ben Foster
3 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

"Pandorum" is rapidly rolling, dark-toned, often scary sci-fi with a crazy crew, hungry humanoids and nuclear nastiness. It's survival of the fittest - or the fastest.

Astronaut Bower (boring Ben Foster) wakes up from hyper-sleep to find himself alone in deep space with no memory of who he is. As Bower's memory returns, he's joined by a second thawed out astronaut, Payton (Dennis Quaid, playing the film's only multi-dimensional character). The two men try to figure out what happened to the ship's crew and the 60,000 refugees escaping from Earth who were headed to a new home world.

Bower explores the ship as Payton tries to establish contact with the crew from the bridge. Bower encounters a crazed crew member being pursued by flesh-eating homicidal humanoids that move about unopposed at blinding speed. The racing roughnecks track down and tear apart their terrified quarry with merciless glee as Bowers cowers, unable to help.

Bower leads a group of mismatched survivors (is there any other kind?) that battle their ravenous foes while making the perilous journey to the ship's reactor in the hope of resetting it before it explodes.

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Bower is meant to be a captivating, charismatic hero. After all, he goes by one name, like Sade or Madonna. He's highly heroic, going hand-to-hand with the spike-wielding mutants, and in a scene that will test your "yuk" reflex, he's beyond brave when he tip-toes through the mutants' crowded, slimy slumber chamber in order to get to the reactor. But Foster is bland - an expressionless vessel whose better delivering punches rather than punch lines - Christopher Lambert (or lame-bert) comes to mind. Foster left a much more intense and diverse impression as Russell Crowe's second in command in the 2007 remake of "3:10 to Yuma."

Bower's love interest, German actress Antje Traue, is a hyperkinetic hottie, but you'll need a U.N. translator in order to wade through her heavily-accented, unintelligible utterances. Her character, Nadia, is a matter of convenience. As the "scientist" of the group, she provides the audience with the background info we crave... Why the passengers were forced to abandon earth, how the humans of board became entrees, and the origin of the augmented aliens. She's also the necessary love interest (albeit a greasy and violent one) - Bower's battlin' Eve to his intergalactic Adam.

The bad-ass blue bad guys who zip hungrily throughout the ship are plenty rabid and rapid - perfect sci-fi boogeymen whose sole reason for being is to devour their human enemies. But there might be a copyright infringement going on here - the creatures are near carbon copies of the subterranean slugs that made 2005's "The Decent" a claustrophobic classic. The recycled blue-colored brethren in "Pandorum" may be retreads, but they're just as just as scary the second time around.

The dark, dispassionate hallways and crumbling computers within the ship provide the goosepimply feeling of terror at every turn. The early scenes in which Bower begins his deadly game of hide seek with the blue-colored cannibals will make your nerve endings crackle. Once Bower joins forces with German karate chopping coquette Nadia, a Vietnamese Ninja and the ship's crazy cook, and Payton starts acting like he needs liberal doses of lithium, "Pandorum" spins toward a conventional conclusion.

An Extra Dose of Pandorum

One of the burning questions in the early part of the film is "Where's crewman Cooper?" In the short film "What Happened to Nadia's Dream?" a prequel to "Pandorum," we find out what happened to Cooper and the group of survivors he cast his lot with. It's an entertaining vignette that adds to the film's inventive back story.

Dennis Quaid's presence helps, but "Pandorum" is all about action rather than acting. Watching the unbowed band of space travelers battle the ship's shrieking savages is worth opening Pandorum's box.

The Fourth Kind

2010-04-10T17:09:08Z

The Fourth Kind
Milla Jovovich, Will Patton, Corey Johnson, Enzo Cilenti, Elias Koteas
3.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

"The Fourth Kind" is a different kind of E.T. experience. It's been advertised as "containing genuine disturbing documented archival footage" alongside dramatizations of hypnotized patients channeling ancient tongues, a graphic murder/suicide and a possible glimpse of an alien abduction.

The story begins with footage of the "real life" Dr. Abigail Tyler being interviewed by the film's writer and director, Olatunde Osunsanmi. Tyler (a hollow-eyed, skeletal psychologist who bears a striking resemblance to Celine Dion - therefore, she must be from another planet), unspools a tale that begins in Nome, Alaska with her husband's murder and ends with a second, more bizarre family tragedy. Somewhere in mid-sentence the interview dissolves into a scene with Mila Jovovich ("Resident Evil," "The Fifth Element") portraying Tyler.

Tyler flashes back to the time when she began putting her life back together after finding her husband lying next to her one morning stabbed through the chest. Her husband's murder was such a shock to her daughter, (name), that she went blind, and her son, (name), hold's Tyler responsible for his father's death and his sister's psychosomatic condition.

Returning to her practice, Tyler begins treating three paranoid patients. Separately, each patient tells her an identical story... They wake up at 3 a.m., finding themselves being observed by an owl.

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Tyler's actions anger Sheriff August (Will Patton, a standout in "Remember the Titans" and "No Way Out"), who's been stymied in his attempts to find out what's been causing the increased number of murders and disappearances in the area. When a second patient, Scott Stracinsky, begs Tyler to put him under in order to release his inner turmoil, Tyler, calls in her friend Dr. Abel Campos (Elias Koteas, formerly the worst actor of all time) and Dr. Awolowa Odusami (Hakeem Kae Kazim, a great name for a genie, not an actor) to assist her.

Scott reacts violently to being hypnotized, his body thrashing and levitating from the bed as he spouts threats to humanity in ancient Sumerian. The session leaves Scott paralyzed from the neck down and will leave you terrified from the neck up.

Tyler's irresponsible behavior pushes August to the brink of arresting her, but an equally skeptical Campos offers enough murky corroboration to keep her from wearing stripped pajamas. ("I was there! You can't arrest her for something you don't understand!"). August acquiesces. Placing Tyler under what amounts to house arrest, he stations an officer outside her home.

At 3 a.m., the officer is startled by a bright light that appears over Tyler's house. Turning on his video camera, he films a large shadow passing overhead. (This is supposed to be part of the actual archival footage, kids.) Naturally, the strange doings cause so much interference the visual is obscured by static at the most opportune moment, but the audio still works, so we get to hear the astounded officer shout "Oh my God! There's something taking them out of the house!"

When August arrives, a hysterical Tyler greets him with more bad news. August acts to save her son by shipping him off to child services. ("You've run out of all the good will I've got," a flustered August utters.) With her life dissolving, Tyler feels she has no choice. She asks Drs. Campos and Odusami to hypnotize her in order to find out what's really going on...

You'll have to decide if the documented footage is real or not. Jovovich introduces the film as herself with teasing lines like "Every dramaticized scene in this movie is supported by either archival audio, video or it was related by Dr. Tyler during extensive interviews with the director. In the end what you believe is yours to decide." I was bothered by a nagging question (well, not just one)... If the producers had genuine footage of an actual abduction and interviews with the real Dr. Tyler, then why did they need actors?

Jovovich is credible as Dr. Tyler, although no matter how much she dresses down in L.L. Bean plaid shirts and jeans, she still looks like she belongs on the catwalk instead of walking in mukluks.

After decades of ruinous performances, Elias Koteas seems to have found a niche playing Tyler's well-intentioned, non-believing friend and mentor. Will Patton's performance as Sheriff August is thankless, but vital. August could have been a one dimensional adversary for Tyler, but Patton balances his frustrations with his unsaid sympathy for a woman who's lost her husband, is about to lose her children and seems to be losing her mind.

The archival footage in which Scott jerks violently into an upright position, his mouth wide open, barfing Sumerian, is the film's defining moment. I've always subscribed to the theory that if there are aliens out there watching us they haven't come in peace and will likely leave humanity in pieces. "The Fourth Kind" bursts the big-headed buddy-buddy foolery of "E.T." and movies like it, re-establishing spacemen as angry extraterrestrials.

Real or not, "The Fourth Kind" will make you shiver and check the trees for owls.

Law Abiding Citizen

2010-04-10T16:43:32Z

Law Abiding Citizen
Jaime Foxx
2 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

Congratulations, Jaime Foxx, you have surpassed Elias Korteas as the least talented actor of all time. Based on his wake-me-up-when-it's-over performance as prosecutor Nick Rice in "Law Abiding Citizen," Foxx should be arrested for impersonation an actor. The next award he should get should be the first shot at getting fried by Old Sparky when the warden flips the switch.

Lost in Foxx's huff-and-puff performance as Nick Rice is a brilliant turn by Gerald "300 Spartans" Butler, who plays master criminal Clyde Shelton, the law abiding citizen in question. Shelton helplessly watched as his wife and daughter were slaughtered before his eyes by a pair of home invaders, Clarence Darby and Rupert Ames.

In order to send Ames to death row (and to protect his 96% conviction rate), Rice cuts a deal with the very sleazy Clarence Darby (a great boos-hiss turn by Christian Stolte). Darby's lying through his rotten teeth about his role in the murder and Rice is too busy lining up his next case and coddling his viola-playing daughter to notice the wrong guy's going to get a lethal injection. Incensed that Rice would cut a deal with a killer rather risk a trial, Shelton seethes at the prosecutor's betrayal.

Ten years pass and Ames is finally set to be executed, still pointing a wobbly finger at Darby even as he nods off. But the execution goes horribly wrong when Ames dies screaming in agony. Aha... As improbable as it seems, someone spiked Ames' sayonara serum.

Soon after, Darby receives an anonymous phone call telling him the police are coming to question him about Ames' death. Darby escapes with the help of his benefactor, who tells him to carjack a snoozing police officer and take his gun. Darby is caught off guard when the sheepish officer turns out to Shelton. He attempts to shoot Shelton, but when he presses the trigger, he's injected with a toxin that paralyzes him.

Shelton takes Darby to an abandoned warehouse, revealing he intercepted Ames' lethal injection and doctored the contents so Ames would suffer. He plans to make Darby suffer even more.

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Shelton agrees to confess to dissecting Darby in exchange for an expensive mattress that will comfort his delicate back. An angry Rice gives in, but at his hearing, Shelton, acting as his own counsel, cites legal residence, making the same judge that presided over the Darby/Ames trial (frequent "Law and Order" guest star Anne Corley) agree with him that Rice has no case. She's about to set bail when Shelton goes into a tirade, seething that the judge would swallow his mumbo jumbo. Instead of going free, Shelton is tossed in jail.

Shelton gets his mattress and confesses to killing Darby and Ames, then nonchalantly tells Rice, "By the way, I kidnapped the lawyer that defended them." Shelton proposes another deal with Rice: if a gourmet dinner is delivered to him by 1:00 p.m. - sharp - he'll tell Rice where he stashed the lawyer. (Presumably, the meal is to be served with rice.)

The warden delays the delivery and the meal arrives eight minutes late. By the time Rice and Detective Dunnigan (the always entertaining Colm Meaney) reach the site where the lawyer was buried alive, well, he's dead. Had the meal arrived by one o'clock, there would have been enough time to dig the counselor out.

Shelton shares his meal with his redneck cellmate, then, using a bone from his steak, brutally murders him. He's put in solitary - exactly where he wants to be.

From his cell, Shelton exacts his vengeance against the judge. As she's agreeing with Rice and District Attorney Jonas Cantrell (hey it's Bruce McGill, D-day from "Animal House") that it's okay to violate Shelton's civil rights, she answers her cell phone. It explodes, killing her. Talk about a wrong number.

Shelton warns Rice that others will die because he didn't keep his word - and they do - in spectacular fashion, until its mano-a-mano, Shelton's intellect against Rice's steadfast belief in an obviously flawed judicial system:

Rice: You think your wife and daughter would feel good about you killing in
their name?
Shelton: My wife and daughter can't feel anything. They're dead.

As blustery, boneheaded and braying as Foxx's Rice is, Butler's Shelton is his opposite - a study in cool, conniving conviction. He's a step above the typical genius gone bad, mainly because he's right. You'll cheer when he dismembers the despicable Darby and makes Rice bend the rules in order to deflate the injustice in the justice system.

Originally Butler, who co-produced the film, planned to play Rice and Foxx was signed on to play Shelton. That certainly would have broken several laws of nature.

Foxx has been hopelessly miscast before as an idiosyncratic homeless musician in "The Soloist" (see my September 3, 2009 review) and as Tubbs in the laughable remake of "Miami Vice," to name a few. That he received an Oscar for playing Ray Charles not only proves the Academy is as blind as Brother Ray, but that Ray's personality was big enough to transcend Foxx's lack of skills. In "Citizen" Foxx speaks with the clarity of a Bill Cosby cartoon character or a toothless longshoreman. True, not all lawyers have the oratory skills of Orson Welles, but if you sent mush-mouthed Foxx in to defend a traffic ticket his lack of grace and cock-sure attitude might get you a ticket to death row. That Rice feels no responsibility and bears no guilt for the deaths of half a dozen people and is arrogant and selfish is a major flaw in Kurt Wimmer's script that no amount of posturing by Foxx can fix.

Supporting roles by McGill (the boss with the good heart) and Meaney (diligent Detective Dunnigan) are all too brief and never fleshed out. Meany appears out of nowhere and if McGill's Cantrell was a real person he'd lose his post for giving Rice way too many chances to bollocks things up.

Viola Davis' career continues to be a series of cameos. In "Citizen" she gets three scenes as the Mayor of Philadelphia, but her get-results-or-else threats are hollow - she actually promotes Rice for screwing up. Davis' forced frowning countenance is a far cry from her emotional Oscar nominated cameo in "Doubt."

You know the supporting characters are going to fall like bowling pins because they're such nice naive people, particularly Rice's Polly Purebread assistant Sara Lowell (Leslie Bibb) and his mentor/buddy Jonas Cantrell. Both go out with a bang. Lowell is the typical eager-to-please energetic go-getter, but the way her expression goes from frenzied to one resignation is unforgettable.

Creative plot twists, Butler's unique villainy, the explosive special effects and the ongoing mystery of how Shelton is able to so easily out wit dozens of lawyers, police and F.B.I. agents make "Citizen" worth watching. As for Jaime Foxx - he's one citizen that deserves a full body cavity search.

District 9

2010-02-12T14:53:50Z

District 9
Sharlto Copley, David James, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt,
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

"District 9" isn't your run of the mill aliens invade earth with bad intent sci-fi thriller. It's in a district all by itself. For one thing it takes place in Johannesburg instead of New York, Los Angeles or some other city that thinks it's the center of the universe. How many sci-fi movies can you name that take place in South Africa? "District 9" also mirrors the nasty, racially-charged undercurrents of Apartheid, with aliens being treated like second class vermin. In most sci-fi films humans are either inferior in strength or intellect, and in other flicks we're just lunch. In "District 9" mankind has the upper hand and we're using it to repeatedly bitch slap a needy species.

The aliens are referred to as "prawns," a disparaging reference to their resemblance to a surf and turf special minus the turf. The shrimp-meets-cockroach aliens have been stranded on earth for the past twenty years, their crippled spaceship hovering silently above Johannesburg. We're told the prawns' sorry situation sprang from a malfunction that damaged their ship's engines, followed by a biological epidemic that killed the intelligent commanding officers, leaving the inferior worker bee subordinates to fend for themselves. Starving, diseased and marooned, the remaining prawns were rescued by humans, who segregated them in a crime-ridden section of Johannesburg, where they were preyed upon by Nigerian gangsters. In order to survive, the prawns now trade the weapons they salvaged from their ship for cat food. (I'm not sure if its shrimp flavored.) The weapons, which are organic, can only be fired by the prawns. Obesandjo, the wheelchair bound leader of the Nigerian gang, is convinced there's a way he can adapt his broken body so he can fire the weapons. Unfortunately for the prawns, Obesandjo believes that the best way to become a prawn is to eat one, so he frequently murders the prawns he deals with in the hope of literally chewing up their technology. And even worse for the prawns - unbeknownst to everyone but a handful of high security honchos, Multinational United (MNU), a government agency, has been experimenting on kidnapped prawns, trying to develop their own method of integrating the alien technology into the human body.
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Rather than root through the refuse for Friskies, one of the prawns, Christopher Johnson (considered smarter than the others and worth watching), has spent two decades salvaging computer components. He's been distilling a liquid that will fire up the engines of the damaged ship and take his people home, but when Wikus knocks on his door, demanding he relocate, the forced evacuation drastically changes everyone's plans. When Wikus accidentally comes in contact with the liquid and begins to morph into a prawn his world is turned inside out. The pursuer becomes the pursued - Frankenstein chased by the villagers. MNU wants to see if a man infused with alien DNA can fire the prawn's weaponry - and Obesandjo wants him as an entrée for the same reason. Wikus is forced to live like a prawn, negotiating for cat food, running from government agents eager to dissect him. In order to find a cure for his encroaching metamorphosis and send Charlie home, he forms an uneasy alliance a creature he'd persecuted only days before.

Copley gives a wide-ranging performance. In the film's early scenes he's a smug pawn, an incompetent boob lucky to have married well. He's clueless about his father-in-law's capacity for self-preservation and dear ol' daddy's desire to make his daughter a widow. Wikus' marriage is his only success, and as he morphs into a prawn, it's the one thing that keeps him alive. Wikus goes from being a hard-headed, hard-hearted hump to a sympathetic soft-shelled soul who sees the light, and Copley is brilliant in conveying his transformation. Given its Copley's first acting role, I can't wait to see what he does next.

Square-jawed, maniacal Piet Smit masks his hatred of Wikus' devotion to his beloved daughter, tossing him on the trash heap the first chance he gets. Louis Minnaar does a lot with a character that's mostly a sneer and a heart of lead. As Colonel Koobus Venter, the sadistic head of the military arm in charge of relocating the prawns, David James accurately captures the black heart of a mercenary who loves his work too much, bumping off prawns like pawns in a game of chess. Awash with voodoo undertones, planted in a wheelchair and brandishing a perpetually crazed look, Eugene Khumbanyiwa marinates in a role that requires him to play a nutty Nigerian determined to play God.

The prawns aren't very scary; they really do look like they stepped out of a Red Lobster menu. (Jason Cope, who plays the dual roles of a reporter and Christopher Johnson) developed their clickity-clackity language, a combination of Nigerian and Helen Keller mumbling that gets a bit obtrusive at times (don't worry, there are subtitles) but serves to make the prawns look more human than their flesh and blood counterparts.

There are a number of entertaining comedic moments, such as Wikus' encounter with an upchucking prawn, or watching him bumble through his delusional role as a conquering hero. The special effects are at least a nine as well, especially the scene in which Wikus dons a robot tank suit and battles Colonel Ventor's genocidal G.I.'s, or the sickening sight of MNU's laboratory, a crustacean chamber of horrors where prawns are iced, sliced and diced.

Although "District 9" is first-rate sci-fi, at the core of the story is a theme that audiences will identify with. Wikus is a misguided man facing his petty prejudices who wants nothing more than to return to the arms of his loving wife - and there's nothing alien about that.

Paranormal Activity

2010-02-12T14:44:16Z

Paranormal Activity
Kate Featherston, Micah Sloat
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

There's plenty of gripping activity - paranormal and otherwise - in this claustrophobic ghost story. "Paranormal Activity" proves you don't need a big budget, endless slasher scenes or mutant mayhem to register high grade chills.

Writer/director Oren Peli's simple script uses fear and the audience's apprehension to create an edge-of-your-seat tension-filled atmosphere that fires up the imagination. There were moments in this iconic Indie production when my heart skipped and I jumped in my seat - and I haven't done that since a dead body popped out of a sunken hull in "Jaws."

"Paranormal Activity" centers around Kate, a college student and her boyfriend, Micah, a day-trader. The only crimp in the San Diego couple's connubial bliss is the spirit that's haunted Kate since her childhood. It's followed her from place to place, and is now making its presence known in the couple's two-story apartment.

Micah buys a video camera in the hope of catching the ghost going bump in the night. At first the camera doesn't register anything more than the couple sleeping peacefully. As the nights pass, lights click on and off by themselves, objects appear to move on their own, raspy voices whisper and shapeless shadows silently stalk across the room. The ghost's actions escalate, prompting Kate to contact a psychic who immediately feels the spirit's "negative energy" and urges the couple to seek help from a higher authority (not God, a more qualified psychic). The psychic also warns the couple not to try and communicate with the spirit. To Micah, the warning is like telling a precocious child not to stick a wet finger into a light socket. Against Kate's vehement protests, Micah gets a Ouija Board, challenging the ghost to talk to him. That night the camera records the Ouija Board going up in flames. Challenge answered - and the ghost is now very, very angry...
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It would have been easy for Peli to fall into horror movie clichés, creating a snaggle-toothed wraith that terrorizes the couple, or having Kate spit green pea soup and spin her head around. What makes "Paranormal Activity" so frightening is not what you see, but what your mind thinks it sees. We're given glimpses of the malevolent ghost - a crossing shadow, footprints. It's the atmosphere of dread, the anticipation of danger, and the unanswered questions that will keep you wide-eyed. Does the ghost live in the attic? (Okay, ghosts don't live.) What's the significance of the scorched childhood photo of Kate, and where did it come from? Why does the ghost haunt Kate? We're given hints, but it's up to the audience's imagination to fill in the blanks, which serves to tap into those childhood fears you thought you'd buried long ago.

If it wasn't for one of the actors giving a slightly off-putting performance I'd give "Paranormal" a full five stars. (Since it's essentially a two character movie, casting is a serious matter.) Yes, it's true, leading lady Kate Featherston answered an ad posted on Craigslist and won the role. She and her co-star Micah Sloat were paid $500 for their roles - I bet they wish they had a share of the profits instead. Featherstone isn't what you'd expect in a horror flick, given it takes place mostly in a bedroom. She's no big-lunged scantily clad blonde bimbo. (If this were a lesser film I'd be upset about that.) That Featherstone looks like the average big-boned brunette you might pass on the street is an advantage - her slightly freckled All American look makes her a more believable victim. On the other hand, as Kate's non-believing, over confident, obnoxious boyfriend, Sloat's annoying activities pushed a few too many of my negative buttons. I'll give him some props - at the beginning of the film I hated him for his stubbornness and how he trivialized Kate's fears. By the end of the movie, Micah was more of the white knight he was supposed to be, but Sloat's nay saying nagging made him hard to like; he needed to ease up on the intensity accelerator a bit.

Sit down with someone you can hang on to when you watch "Paranormal Activity." But make sure you leave the lights on.

Star Trek

2010-02-01T14:41:23Z

Star Trek
Chris Pine, Zackary Qunito
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

Star Trek is a science fiction dynasty. Even though it aired on TV in the late 60s, there's a legion of fans that can quote you entire passages from episode six, season one. They're called Trekkies (or is it Trekkors?) and they made so much noise after the TV series was cancelled prematurely in 1969 that their cards, letters and conventions finally prompted Universal Studios to bring back the cast for a big screen adventure in 1979's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture." Trek revisited was an extravagant bore, but was enough of a financial success to warrant a second classic film, "The Wrath of Khan," which featured Corinthian leather King/Fantasy Island father figure Ricardo Montalban chewing up the scenery alongside a very hammy William Shatner. Unfortunately, the cast got too old to pretend to be thirty something's gallivanting around the universe, and sadly, two members of the crew, DeForrest Kelly (Dr. McCoy) and James Doohan (Scotty) have been beamed up to that great transporter room in the sky.

The franchise was revived when "The Next Generation" crew hit the screen, but age and lukewarm plots caught up to Patrick Stewart's bunch as well. As the new millennium dawned, what Star Trek needed was new blood - an entirely new cast of young guns that could bring the next generation of movie goers back into the theaters.
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Well, I'm happy to say the remake of "Star Trek" lives up to the lofty reputation of its namesake. The new cast may not be as accomplished as the originals space truckers, but the action is non-stop. It's no "Wrath of Khan," but it won't incur your wrath either.

The plot takes place in a galaxy far far away. (Wait a minute, that's the wrong franchise.) The starship U.S.S. Kelvin, with first officer George Kirk and his pregnant wife on board, is attacked by a ship captained by Romulan renegade Nero. The Kelvin gets the very short end of a hull-crushing fusillade. George nobly sacrifices himself and the Kelvin by ramming Nero's ship and lives long enough to hear his son, James, being born. Flash forward to scenes of James Kirk's misspent youth and Spock being emotionally tormented because he's half-human and half Vulcan. Barroom brawler Kirk is straightened out by Captain Christopher Pike, a revered Starfleet officer, who challenges Kirk to follow in his father's footsteps: "Your father was Captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother's and yours," Pike says. "I dare you to do better." Meanwhile, Spock declines an offer to serve on the Vulcan high council and joins Starfleet, where he quickly rises through the ranks and devises the Kobayashi Maneuver, a test for cadets with no solution that Kirk manages to solve by cheating. As a result, the two become adversaries; but their personal war will have to wait - word comes that Spock's home planet, Vulcan, is being threatened by a strange anomaly (is there any other kind?)

The starship Enterprise, commanded by Captain Pike, is sent to find out what's threatening Vulcan's atmosphere. The anomaly is a trap and they're attacked by Nero, who has reappeared, intent on making Spock, the man who destroyed his planet, witness the destruction of his own world...

There are a few creative twists and turns in the plot that plays fast and loose with Star Trek lore. There's from out of left field Ulhura/Spock romance, and the death of Spock's earth-born mother ("Father Knows Best" mom Jane Wyatt played Spock's very much alive mater in the TV series.) And I'll let you try and figure out how an alien that lives zillions of light years from Earth wound up with the name of one of our most nefarious ancient rulers. But the biggest busting of a Star Trek sacred cow is the main plot itself. In an episode of the original series, "The Balance of Terror" (which featured Mark Lenard, who would later play Spock's father, Sarak), the writers took great pains to tell the viewers that it was the first time Romulans and humans had made contact. (I remember this because "Balance of Terror" happens to be my second favorite "Star Trek" episode.) Since the action in "Balance of Terror" took place in the future when Kirk and his crew are seasoned space travelers, and the plot of the new Star Trek movie takes place in their past during the crew's first assignment when they encounter the Romulans, it's safe to say that the movie messes with a sacred time line. It's kind of like finding out that Patrick Duffy dreamed a whole season of Dallas, or the equivalent of sneaking Dick Sergeant in to replace Dick York on "Bewitched" hoping no on would notice. Yeah it's a gyp if you're a Star Trek purist, but the fast-paced action might make even the most die hard Trekkie forgive the revisionist plot line.

In the battle of who's better, the original cast is light years ahead. By the time the first "Star Trek" flick hit the theaters, the original cast had lived their roles for so long we forgot they were acting; fans really believed that Canadian James Doohan ran around shouting "I haven't got the power, Captain!" in a Scottish brogue and that sword-wielding George Takei was really a man's man (no, not that way). In time, fans may come to feel the same way about the new cast.

Chris Pine's Kirk is an arrogant, hard-headed brawler who cranes his neck like a horny teenager every time a pretty woman is within hailing frequencies. If you think William Shatner's Kirk was over the top, wait till you see Pine go to warp factor eight on the over-acting scale. The role of Kirk calls for a bit of brag adagio and a heavy dose of libido, but Pine turns Kirk's into a swashbuckling superhero, making him more like an intergalactic roadrunner than a human being. Pine has a knack for comedy and brawling, but tends to shout his lines like "Saturday Night Live's" Garrett Morris providing closed captioning for the deaf.

Seeing an emotional Spock is, as he would put it, "fascinating," but having him act squirrelly at inopportune times does not compute. Zackary Qunito is more in control of his performance when he taps into Spock's more expected stoic nature. Quinto's Spock is so unstable, Don Knotts could hold it together better than he could. Plus having the original Spock on board as a wizened version of himself just shows that Leonard Nimoy owns the role.

Simon Pegg's Scotty serves as Trek's quirky comic relief. But Pegg's appearance is a near cameo and his screwy Scotsman act comes as the action is building toward a dramatic showdown, so his amusing appearance is a welcome, but an ill-timed distraction. It would have helped the flow of the action to have Scotty introduced at the same time as the rest of the crew. James Doohan played the role with the right amount of pride, panic and passion. Pegg's Scotty is a fool; a boozy buffoon who seems incapable of coming up with a theory that people can be teleported from one place to another.

Karl Urban matches up well with DeForrest Kelly's snide Southern sense of humor. The scene in which he sneaks Kirk on board The Enterprise by repeatedly injecting him with a virus in order to make him appear sick is one of the most amusing scenes in the movie. Zoe Saldana doesn't have Nichelle Nicholas' exotic looks, but she's not a Horta either. This Ulhura is part Ninja warrior, more in-your-face than the original, which goes along with the film's action environment. Her interspecies affair with Spock is an interesting but awkward idea that's bound to be fleshed out in future flicks. Anton Yelchin's Chekov is a badly accented caricature of Walter Koenig's blustery teen idol original. Say Das vadanya, Anton. John Cho's Sulu is less steeped in Asian lore than George Takei's version, but he handles a sword better (no, not that kind of sword) and is given a more personable relationship with Kirk.

Bruce Greenwood ("St. Elsewhere," "Nowhere Man") is an excellent actor, but, in my opinion, Captain Christopher Pike is was and shall always be the property of Jeffrey Hunter, who was so ridiculously handsome and viral he starred opposite John Wayne in "The Searchers" and played Jesus Christ in "King of Kings." (Hunter also happened to star in my favorite Star Trek episode, "The Cage.") Greenwood humanizes the role in his early scenes with Chris Pine that focus on the Pike-Kirk/mentor-grasshopper relationship, but Hunter put his indelible stamp on the role by making Pike look even more heroic than William Shatner's Kirk. (The original TV series was supposed to star Hunter as Captain Pike. When NBC demanded the pilot be reshot because it was too cerebral, Hunter pulled out to star in a movie and Shatner was called in.)

As for a tightly-wound Eric Bana, who sports a Mike Tyson-like facial tattoo as Nero, he's a credible actor, but he's given little to do except sneer, threaten and grit his teeth. He's really good at it, though. Tyler Perry, who's everywhere these days, gets in two scenes as Admiral Richard Barnett, but looks a bit befuddled. Stay behind the camera, Tyler. Wynona Ryder impresses as Spock's soft spoken loving, human mom. Welcome back to the acting world, Wynona.

The new franchise has a way to go before they make a film that matches the quality of "The Wrath of Khan" (which is rumored to be the next remake on the launch pad). "Star Trek's" action is invigorating, which helps mask the dubious storyline. Still, the maiden voyage of the new crew shows a lot or promise. If the cast and crew keep improving, then the new "Star Trek" will live long and prosper.

Public Enemies

2010-02-01T14:29:18Z

Public Enemies
Johnny Depp
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

A good gangster film like "Bonnie and Clyde" or "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre" will take grim moments in criminal history and turn them into romantic folklore. Great gangster movies like "The Godfather" or "Goodfellas" make you feel like you're part of the action - and will leave you quoting the character's signature lines.

With that in mind, "Public Enemies" is a very good gangster/bank robber movie; there aren't any iconic lines, but the action is fast and dangerous. "Public Enemies" is a realistic recreation of the Depression era, a time when working stiffs betrayed by failed banks looked up to the criminals that pilfered those same lending institutions.
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A romantic figure to many (especially to those in the Mid West who admired his Robin Hood veneer and helped him hide out), Dillinger pulled bank jobs using ingenuity rather than muscle, passing off his gang as a film crew or posing as a security alarm salesman in order to slip by the guards. Unlike his contemporaries, the sociopathic Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd and psychopathic Lester "Baby Face Nelson" Gillis, Dillinger seemed to go out of his way to avoid bloodshed. Johnny Depp's portrayal of Dillinger is based on the bank robber's media-friendly image. The man himself is more of a mystery, particularly what motivated him, but we're given a brief glimpse between bank jobs:

Billie Frenchette: I don't know anything about you.
Dillinger: I was raised on a farm in Mooresville, Indiana. My mama died when I was three. My daddy beat the hell outta me 'cause he didn't know no better way to raise me. I like baseball, good clothes, fast cars, whiskey and you. What else do you need to know?

"Public Enemies" validates Johnny Depp's chameleon-like acting abilities. I loved his drunken seafaring imitation of Keith Richards in "The Pirates of the Caribbean," as well as his cross-dressing canonization of director Ed Wood. My personal fave is Depp's on the run wounded cowboy in "Dead Man," a film few have seen. Is he up for the challenge of portraying Dillinger, a desperado so ingrained in our mind that everybody has a preconceived notion of what he should look like, the way he should talk, and act? (In my mind he's a bit like Humphrey Bogart.)

The answer, of course, is yes. Depp turns Dillinger into a charming, charismatic rock star who dotes on his girl, poses for pictures with cops, cracks wise about the few days he has left, and seems determined to live them in style. Chalk up another acting triumph for Johnny.

As Dillinger's adversary, Christian Bale's Melvin Purvis sounds like George Bush, Jr. and is about as stuffy. A man of honor, Purvis chafes at F.B.I. boss J. Edgar Hoover's lack of scruples. Bale captures Purvis' lock-jawed determination and conflicted personality as if he wearing Purvis' skin. You can tell he studied his character's every nuance.

Billy Crudup gets his crud up (I love saying that) as Hoover. Crudup's Hoover is modeled after what we learned about the secretive head of the secret service after his death; he was prissy, fussy, and as equally obsessed with his image as he was with killing Dillinger. Despite being a good guy, Crudup's Hoover is contemptible, not above threatening his subordinates ("Take off the white gloves, Mr. Purvis"), manufacturing lies for the press or allowing his agents to "question" a woman with their fists. You'll hiss when he's on screen, which means Billy didn't do a cruddy job - he's first-rate.

Oddly, its Marion Cotillard portrayal of gun moll Billie Frenchette that keeps "Public Enemies" from being a sure fire hit. Her role as Dillinger's love interest is overstated and boring. Whenever she's on screen the action screeches to a halt faster than a Packard hitting a police van. True, most great films have a love story, but this one's D.O.A. I try not to make fun of a person's infirmities, but the distracting mole in the center of Cotillard's head is so big it looks like a third eye, and the effort to de-glam her to fit her role as a hat check girl worked too well - she looks like the butt end of a machine gun. Couple her empty personality with that intermittent comical Canadian accent that makes her sound like a drunken hockey player, and it's hard to believe that Cotillard was nominated for an Oscar let alone won one.

Stephen Lang (Ike Clanton in "Tombstone") is remarkable as unsmiling, business-like Charles Winstead, the Texas Ranger who fired the shots that propelled Dillinger toward immortality. Lang's Winstead maintains a steely-eyed, knotted expression throughout the action, yet in the end he shows he has more of a heart than either Hoover or Purvis.

As captivating as the cast and mouse struggle between Dillinger and Purvis is, "Public Enemies" other sub plots pale by comparison. The supporting characters personalities are skeletal as prisoners trapped on Alcatraz. The film is called "Public Enemies," not "The John Dillinger Story." True, Baby Face Nelson is pretty easy to figure out - he's a psychotic, trigger-mad imp who takes his insecurities out on the world, but it would have been nice to see Stephen Graham's blood-thirsty portrayal given more substance. Pretty Boy Floyd's death is little more than a cameo, and too many of Dillinger's bank-looting cronies come across as faceless targets. One of the more interesting (and true) incidents in the film is when Dillinger breaks out of jail with the help of Herbert Youngblood, a black man. Equal opportunity employment, especially among hoods and gangsters, was rare in the 30s, so it might have been an interesting aside to find out more about the Dillinger/Youngblood back story, especially since Dillinger treats "Mr. Youngblood" with such reverence.

There are more historical inaccuracies in the film than there are bullets in a Thompson Sub-Machine gun (that'd be about 100). The filmmakers would lead you to believe that Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson were exterminated before Dillinger; in fact, Nelson became Public Enemy No. 1 following Dillinger's demise. The Dillinger/Frenchette love story is a necessary ploy device, but Polly Hamilton (Leelee Sobieski) was his girl; it was Polly's picture that Dillinger was carrying around inside his pocket watch the night he was dusted, not Billie's. The romantic subplot would have mattered if luscious Leelee Sobieski was the lead lady instead of third eye Cotillard. Other moments are manufactured or exaggerated for dramatic effect, such as the shoot out at the Little Bohemia Lodge. In reality, Baby Face fired a few rounds at the Feds as he and Dillinger escaped. Although Baby Face brought down a Fed, there was no battle royale as depicted in "Public Enemies," but the night time showdown is a rat-a-tat blast and one of the film's most noteworthy scenes.

There are other made up moments, such as having Dillinger calmly stroll into the police station to check out photos, folders and news clips of himself. The brief face-to-face showdown between Purvis and Dillinger never occurred, but it's not hard to figure out why it was added. Watching Depp and Bale trade barbs is like witnessing an epic battle between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier; they both hit so hard you're not sure who's going to deliver the knockout punch.

If you're really into Dillinger, there's an earlier unapologetic, more visceral and definitely less romantic self-titled flick about the notorious bank robber filmed in 1973 starring rough and tumble character actor Warren Oates, the only thesp to ever play Dillinger who actually looked like him. The rest of the cast are tailor made for their roles with Ben Johnson as Melvin Purvis, Michelle Phillips as Billie Frenchette, Cloris Leachman as Anna Sage (the lady in red who lured Dillinger to his death) and Richard Dreyfuss as kill-crazy Baby Face Nelson (!)

So take "Public Enemies" into the privacy of your home. Depp's in-depth performance will leave you saying, "Go, Johnny, go."

Drag Me to Hell

2009-11-23T15:40:01Z

Drag Me to Hell
Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Ruth Livier, Lorna Raver
3.5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson

What the hell? A funny horror movie? "Drag Me to Hell" is an inventive, entertaining horror flick pulled from the twisted imagination of Sam Riami. Raimi gave us the very visceral "Evil Dead" series and "Army of Darkness," a hilarious howler in which hardware store hero Bruce Campbell gets teleported back to the 14th century and winds up battling skeletons with a chain saw attached to his arm. "Darkness" was rife with blood and guts, but was balanced by witty one-liners and gut-busting visuals. (Campbell's Three Stooges inspired eye-poking scene with a bunch of skeletal appendages will tickle your funny bone.)

Riami's latest, "Drag Me to Hell" isn't your typical slasher, mangled mutant or poltergeist blood bath. Riami deftly employs tension, surprise and slapstick to create some must see madness.

Christine Brown's future looks heavenly - she's up for a promotion at the bank and has an ideal relationship with her boyfriend, Clay Dalton (pretty All American boy Justin Long). It all goes to hell in one afternoon. Her chief competition for the assistant manager job, sleazy, posterior-kissing Stu Rubin (weasely Reggie Lee), is making progress buttering up their bottom line boss, Mr. Jacks (uptight David Paymer). Mr. Jacks tells Chris (squeaky clean Alison Lohman) she might have a better chance at getting the job if she can show him she can make the tough decisions. In walks Mrs. Ganush (a rave perf by Lorna Raver), an old, sickly gypsy with a milky blind eye and rotting finger nails (which figure heavily in helping to establish tension in the plot). Mrs. Ganush asks Chris for a third extension on her mortgage. Seizing the moment, Chris turns Mrs. Ganush down. Mrs. Ganush prostrates herself in front of Chris, begging her to reconsider. Surprised and befuddled by Mrs. Ganush clawing at her, Chris panics. Mrs. Ganush takes Chris' reaction as an insult. As the security guards haul her away, she screams she'll get her revenge against Chris for shaming her in public.

After work, Chris notices Mrs. Ganush's beat up Chevy in the parking lot and hears the old woman's phlegmy death rattle. When Chris gets in her car, she's attacked by Mrs. Ganush, who tries to sink her stained dentures in her face. During their struggle, Mrs. Ganush tears a button from Chris' jacket, using it to put a curse on her. Soon after, things really begin to go to hell for Chris. An unseen demon tosses her around her apartment, and she dreams that Mrs. Ganush attacks her in bed. Seeking relief and forgiveness, Chris goes to Mrs.Ganush's soon to be foreclosed home, and literally stumbles into the midst of the old woman's wake, knocking her body out of its coffin. (A sure bet she'll have trouble getting that forgiveness she's seeking!)
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Alison Lohman (Christine Brown) is a dead ringer for Jennifer Jason Leigh, another blonde-tressed actress frequently in distress. She's got the corn fed Midwestern innocence act down pat and did her own stunts, getting tossed around a room like a human rag doll, having a prosthesis jammed down her gullet, gagging up a mouthful of maggots and nearly drowning in manufactured mud. Lorna Raver (Mrs. Ganush) will scare the hell out of you, especially the way she pops up at unexpected and inopportune times to try sink her ill-fitting fangs into Chris' neck. The veteran actress really dove into her role, studying Hungarian curses and telling Lohman that it was okay to belt her for the sake of realism in their fight scenes. In Mrs. Ganush, Raver has fashioned a boogey woman as frightening as Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch of the West.

Aside from being Drew Scarymore's boyfriend (in heaven's name, why?), Justin Long is the slacker in the Apple computer commercials. As far as I'm concerned, his claim to fame was as Darry Jenner, the male half of the brother/sister duo chased through the flatlands by an indomitable demon in 2001's very original scare fest "Jeepers Creepers."(4 out of 5 stars). He's window dressing here, called upon to play the doubting, devoted boyfriend, but the shattered look on his face in the last scene is worth whatever private hell he may have endured. Dileep Rao (Rham Jas) exhibits cool psychic chic, never succumbing to the gibberish spouting stereotypical image of a movieland Indian mystic.

"Hell" never drags and the special effects are hellacious. The funeral scene is a prime example of the film's dark humor. I recall carrying my cousin's casket as a pallbearer, realizing all the tall guys were on one side of the coffin and watching his body roll out onto the floor. When we revived his mother, she didn't find the incident anywhere near as funny as you'll find Chris' spillage of Mrs. Ganush. Other special special effects include a gut-check gross-out grave ransacking, Chris' head butt encounter with the Lamia; a nose bleed that springs forth like Old Faithful; Chris and Clay's disastrous dessert get together with his parents; and the fast-paced final scene, which will be a surprise for your eyes.

A Helluva Lotta Extras

When "Hell" is over, drag yourself back to the screen for the dozen of so mini-features about the making of the film. They're as much fun to watch as the finished product. Introduced by Justin Long (hey, they had to give him something to do), "The Production Video Diaries" include "Bloody Nose," which shows the trickery involved in creating a gushing nose bleed; "The Parking Lot Fight," which blocks out the fisticuffs and hair pulling match between Chris and Mrs. Ganush, and "The Nightmare," which reveals how the geriatric gypsy was able to spill bucket loads of maggots into Chris' mouth.

Among my fives were "Inside the Psychic World," an interview with Dileep Rao where he shows off how thorough he was in researching his character's background and the crew showcases their meticulous attention to detail in decorating Rham Das' back room parlor. Lorna Raver's interview reveals her to be - as you might suspect - a kindly grandma who also immersed herself in her part: "I was shocked, a little surprised (at the role) and then I thought, 'Let's go'!"

My favorite of the mini-documentaries is - you guessed it - "The Goat," in which the secrets of the invective-flinging farm animal are revealed.

You can't go wrong with a talking goat. Drag me to hell...Please.