On the surface, it feels nothing is wrong: the combination of novelist James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential) and David Ayer, who directed Harsh Times and is most known for writing the scripts for Training Day and adapting Ellroy’s Dark Blue to the screen. Yes, the pair up seems like a good combination-at first. See, there is only so many corrupt and “bend-the-rules to get the bad guys off the street” police officer stories one can see without saying “I’ve seen all that in other films before”. That’s regardless if anyone watches TV’s The Shield or loved…well… L.A. Confidential or Training Day and for that matter, The Recruit, the latter which was written by Kurt Wimmer, who rewrote Ellroy on this film.
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If you appreciated the tragically underrated Wonderboys, chances are that you will find pleasure in watching Smart People. The central character, Lawrence Wetherhold is played by Dennis Quaid–in perhaps his best performance in years. He is an obnoxious, smug college professor of English literature. Along with a great supporting cast (with one exception), Smart People wows its audience with wit but it’s hardly destined for greatness.
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Oh, the good old days, how we miss them. Once upon a time there was this wonderful talented actor turned director who went by the name of Rob Reiner. When his name was on a picture, the picture cried out quality entertainment. Then it seems some time after The Ghosts Of Mississippi the director of those terrific films The Princess Bride and A Few Good Men among others just made a streak of clunkers. I’m still crossing my fingers that the jinx will end one of these days. The Bucket List confirms I’ll still be waiting.
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The Bug War wages on in the third Starship Troopers outing, and like the previous sequel, straight to video. However, unlike Hero of the Federation,the low budget is well hidden, giving off an impressive step forward, and an actual cast member from the first film returns- although getting Casper Van Dien back as Johnny Rico most likely wasn’t hard to do, seeing how Dien has carved a notch in the DVD market anyway. But the real promise of this installment is that there is now a little more in common with the film series inspired by the Robert A. Heinlein novel.
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I have to hand it to screenwriter Chris Hauty and director Jeff Wadlow: Never Back Down is a well cast, good looking, slick action-drama with some decent fight and training scenes lifted from the first Karate Kid only without the grounding in any sort of reality. Yes, Never Back Down is watchable, and while the film is one of the dumbest films to ever hit the screens in recent years, and it is one shy hair of being annoying, but at least it is fairly well acted and entertaining.
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After a promising start with the wonderful horror action of Dog Soldiers and The Descent, there was little surprise that writer-director Neil Marshall would soon get a picture that would have a bigger budgeted film. His love of action, sci-fi and horror films was evident in the previous pictures, but they are nowhere as much in quanity in his third film Doomsday, which works well up to a point.
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The Good German is shot in Black and White in 1940’s film noir style, giving the film an original old-style charm. The novelty of this soon wore off for me though, and I found myself getting quite bored with the slow pace the movie seemed to be going. The characters spoke quite monotonously and it was hard to maintain interest. I persevered however and things did pick up slightly. I became intrigued in the main character’s (George Clooney) discoveries about his past lover and her acquaintances. It becomes apparent that people in high places are keeping secrets from him and I was anxious to find out what these secrets were and how they related to his lover, as well as to post-war Berlin.
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It took me a little while to get into this series, but positive reviews from friends made me persevere through the somewhat confusing and downright weird first couple of episodes. Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl), a young man living in a solitary, rickety house in the middle of the desert, has barely finished burying his mother when confronted with a bulldozer ready to demolish his house. ‘Coincidentally’ a passing train of carnival trucks offers him a ride which he hesitantly accepts - a step of fate, as it turns out.

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There seems to be a “Top Ten” list of everything these days, so I figure one more isn’t going to hurt anyone. In this category I have chosen : The The Top Ten Insane Non-Killer Movie Characters. This excludes the homicidal such as Hannibal Lector, and Michael Myers of Halloween, as well as characters pretending to be insane. Or suicide, such as Billy from ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’. By ‘insane’ I mean mentally ill on a psychiatric or mentally troubled level. The characters would have be seeing a therapist or under the supervision of a group of therapists. As with all lists of any kind, it is all subjective.
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You got to hand it to Quentin Tarantino. When the Kill Bill director wants to make a film, it will always be surprising and out of the box thinking. It is widely known that as soon as he’s done filming the WWII action flick Inglorious Bastards he will shortly move on to remaking the cult camp classic Russ Meyer B film Faster Pussycat!Kill!Kill! for mass consumption. Word is getting out on who is actually being considered for one of the Faster roles…none other than that wonderfully gifted thespian… Britney Spears. What?!
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