John Carpenter's Halloween: A Quick Review

John Carpenter's "Halloween" was released in 1978.  It stars Donald Pleasence, Jamie Lee Curtis (in her first movie role), Nancy Loomis, and P.J Sole...yep...I also have no clue who those last two actresses are.

 Most people probably know the story, involving Michael Myers, one of a handful of popular serial killers in movies.  The movie starts off in 1963.  Michael Myers is 6 years old and extraordinarily disturbed and psychotic.  It's Halloween night and he stabs his sister to death.  Fifteen years go by and he's in a mental hospital under the  care of Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence).  However, he escapes and he's out to kill again...yep it's Halloween...like the title told you it would be.  The three actresses that I mentioned earlier are all babysitting while Michael Meyers is out to kill.  Of the three girls in the movie Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the only one who wasn't incredibly annoying and a whore...so of course she'll be back for sequels.just like Sigourney Weaver in the "Alien" movies, it was meant to be apparently.

Well anyway it was the 1970s so nothing is too graphic or gratuitous.  Which is nice and one of the reasons why this original is better than the Rob Zombie remake from a few years ago.  Sure in the new one we got a back story to Michael Myers which is fun and all but this modern era of film making seems to think that more graphic violence and other behavior is necessary when it is not and doesn't add to the movie.  Ok, back to the original.  I love John Carpenter.  He really came through...he directed and did the music.  The music is great and adds so much to the terror of the movie.  Sure the killings aren't that violent or scary but the music makes it feel like they are...like with most movies...it would not have been as successful without the score.  Also, the cinematography was great...whoever was operating that camera should be very proud of themselves.  The camera work with all the wide shots of actors walking or tracking shots and various points of view were very well done.

  Overall, a great horror movie, that I thought has aged pretty well.  Not as good as "The Exorcist," which was released 5 years before...but come on it's "The Exorcist."  "Halloween," however was way better than "Carrie," which came out 2 years before...the horrible music ruined a movie with potential.  So yeah, I really enjoyed it...and the original is always better of pretty much anything.  By the way never, ever see the new "Friday the 13th," it is a horrible experience I wish on no one.

-Joseph Sbrilli

Clash of the Titans

Does anybody remember the absolutely terrible, eye-gougingly awful, suicide causing debacle that was 10,000 B.C.? The one where the filmmakers decided that if you throw in enough CGI people would like it? The one where the best part of the movie was when I was leaving and saw some little girl coming out of a horror flick and she had quite obviously peed her pants? Yeah, thats what Clash of the Titans was like, only no little girl peed their pants (unfortunately). 

Here is the plot summed up in 11 words: Humans hate the gods, gods need human prayers for immortality= Clash! But for the sake of consistency I'll flesh out a bit further. Perseus (Sam Worthington) is the son of Zeus and some mortal woman, but he is raised by a fishing family because of some subplot where he is thrown in a casket with his mom into the ocean but only she drowns. Quite ridiculous. Anyways Perseus' family is killed by Hades in a fit of rage. Perseus is pretty mad about this and after being captured by some soldiers of the city of Argos, which is cursed by the gods and will be destroyed by the Kraken in ten days (that giant monster in the poster). Perseus and a band of soldiers head off to fight some mythical beasts in order to learn how to beat the Kraken and save Argos, and maybe avenge his family along the way.

There are so many things wrong with this movie that I might just have to go into every single one of them and make fun of this movie in every way possible. In fact, lets count how many problems I have with this movie.

1. Sam Worthington is a decent actor, and I have a bit of respect for him in holding his own in all the recent movies he's been in. But his skills are horribly distorted in this film. After his family dies, with him miraculously surviving, he lays on a piece of driftwood and starts going, "ARGHh GRAHHARGH GRAGGLE ARGH." Horrible sounds that I'd only associate with hernias being extracted without anesthesia.

2. Sam's Australian accent pops its head a lot in this movie and annoyed the hell out of me since he is supposed to be Greek.

3. Perseus has this immortal girlfriend that follows him around protecting him. She is the most annoying woman on the planet, and when she finally dies (Thank you God) they flipping bring her back to life (NO). Her acting consists of reading the script as skillfully as a chimp throws its feces.

4. Everyone dies. All the people who are trained for battle, die. Whereas Perseus, who was fishing until the night before, grabs a sword and kills everything in sight.

5. There is some sort of magic character that looks like a walking piece of burnt wood with blue eyes.

6. Liam Neeson is the all powerful Zeus but can't seem to figure out that his brother Hades has it out for him. And when he does, he's like, "Nah I'll let Perseus figure it out, I'm too busy chilling in my glittery armor for this."

7. There are no Titans. And they kill whatever monster they face fairly easily, well Perseus does, everyone else just stands around waiting to get killed or to get saved by Perseus (Which doesn't help, because they all die anyways).

8. You know the Kraken? The giant sea monster that they spent the entire movie hyping up as the end of the world? Yeah, well they kill it in about 3 minutes. It comes out of the water, and then it dies. It was about as threatening as a flock of butterflies.

There has to be a ton more points but I am so angry right now I'm seeing spots. Rage flashes at how poorly this movie was executed. Clash of my head against the wall should be its new name.

Half a star out of four

-Christopher O'Connell

Date Night

"Date Night" is directed by Shawn Levy.  It stars Tina Fey and Steve Carrell.  Ray Liotta, James Franco, Mila Kunis, Mark Ruffalo, Kristen Wiig, and Taraji P. Henson have small roles.  Mark Wahlberg's role is somewhere in between.

Steve Carrell and Tina Fey play Phil and Claire Foster, respectively - a couple living in New Jersey.  Their lives are a gigantic rut and each week includes the exact same date, at the exact same restaraunt, eating the exact same food.  One night they try to switch things up and go into New York City for a expensive night on the town.  That turns out to be an awful idea as they are mistaken for another couple, who the mob and other people are after.  This of course leads to car chases, gun fire, Mark Wahlberg without a shirt...the usual fare in these kind of movies...so yeah...the title of the movie was pretty darn descriptive.  

First off, Shawn Levy is a horrible director.  He has directed such awful family fare as "Cheaper by the Dozen"...the beginning of Steve Martin's horrible movie period of his career, "The Pink Panther"...a continuation of Steve Martin's infatuation with making awful movies...this time Beyonce is involved, and the two "Night at the Museum" movies...honestly the only reason to see the first one is for Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, and Bill Cobbs.  With that being said, "Date Night" is a definite improvement over his past movies...which isn't saying a whole heck of a lot.

Whoever is in charge of deciding this sort of thing should have definitely had Tina Fey and/or Steve Carrell write the script to "Date Night."  It would have definitely ended better as they both are hilarious, talented people who have had experience writing comedy...Tina Fey has had more experience in case anyone was wondering.  I could tell you the name of the man who wrote this movie, but it would make no difference because no one has heard of him and for good reason...he can't write...the script was very weak and they were not enough quality jokes or memorable scenes.  This is pretty common with comedies these days.  For some reason people can not make a consistently funny, well written comedy...it boggles my mind.  Very little in this movie makes sense...which is fine...it is an action-comedy...and that's to be expected.

The only reason any human being would ever watch "Date Night" is to see Steve Carrell and Tina Fey.  They were very believable as a couple and successfully played off each other.  Even though they were given mediocre dialogue they were able to make it work pretty well and get basically the only laughs from the entire movie.  Tina Fey flirting with Mark Wahlberg is surprisingly funny, as is Tina Fey and Steve Carrell pole dancing in a strip club...I'm just saying.  The brief scene with Steve Carrell and Tina Fey with James Franco and Mila Kunis (the Tripplehorn's, the couple the Foster's are mistaken for because they took the Tripplehorn's reservations, and then the corrupt cops went after them), was also a funny part in the movie.  The movie ends with some outtakes...too bad there weren't more of them - they were pretty funny and featured Steve Carrell and Tina Fey improvising some lines.  

I feel like I should mention this somewhere...I really have no idea why Ray Liotta was in this movie.  Does he need money that badly?  Have the royalty checks from "Goodfellas" run out?  He plays an extremely watered down version of a mobster in "Date Night."  It's a strange parody or something of his role in "Goodfellas," and he gets to say some pretty terribly written lines...

There was a great cast of actors in the movie.  Apparently that's where the money went...it certainly didn't go into this fun thing known as a script.

"Date Night" could have been a lot better given the amount of talent that was there to work with.  The script was extremely poor, but Steve Carrell and Tina Fey managed to make it semi-work...at least their lines. They should really make another movie together and hope that it's better...or make it better by writing, directing, and possibly producing it themselves.  2 stars...one for Steve Carrell and one for Tina Fey.  


-Joseph Sbrilli

How To Train Your Dragon

If you look at every ancient civilization, you'll find that they all have one thing in common. No, not slavery. Well, they do have that in common, too, but all of them have dragons in their folklore. Large, reptilian beasts that breathe fire and generally cause trouble for everyone that isn't flame retardant. Dreamworks's "How To Train Your Dragon" is a nice spin on the old tale.


Cut to a quaint Norse village, filled with houses made of wood and hay and generally looking very Vikingish. This village juts out into the water on a peninsula and as the narrator explains, it snows most of the year, but generally is a nice place to live...if you exclude the dragons, of course. Every so often the village is attacked by various species of nasty, toothy dragons looking to steal sheep and burn houses - which is kind of ironic because that's always what I picture Vikings doing when they go off to pillage and rape (the Viking national past-time). All the Vikings in the village look like the characters from "Ax-men", which I suppose fighting off dragons all the time might do to you.


They all look like big, burly loggers except for one: Hiccup (Jay Baruchel). He is as scrawny as you can get with a Viking diet (most likely modeled after the actor himself), and being the runt of the litter, he doesn't have the muscle strength to kill dragons. This is very disappointing for him because his dad, Stoic (Gerard Butler), kills dragons as easily as you or I eat a bag of chips. Hiccup, not being blessed with Schwarzenegger muscles, was blessed with brain power. To make up for his inability to swing an ax, Hiccup uses a catapult he invented to shoot down the most dangerous dragon of all: a night fury. When he finds the downed night fury, Hiccup finds he can't kill it and instead lets it go and nurses it back to health.


Dreamworks is no Pixar but every once in a while they get it right and "How To Train Your Dragon" is the right way to do things. I was absolutely captivated by Hiccup's dragon. Any recent comparison would be the bird from "Up". He just charms your socks off. Throughout the whole movie, as Hiccup learns to ride the dragon (whose name is Toothless), I kept thinking to myself, "I want one, I want one, pleeeeease dear God, hook me up with a dragon." Toothless, although never speaking a word, is the most important character in the movie by far, and provides the most fun.


"How To Train Your Dragon" can get pretty cheesy at points, but you can easily let it slide. I did, because in the end I truly felt for each of the characters. It is not an Oscar-winning movie, but it is a good, solid film, with endearing characters, fantastic animation, and a nice twist ending that keeps it out of sappy Disney territory.


Gosh, I want a secret dragon that lives in my woods that I can train and ride all day, it is like the ultimate kiddy dream.


3 out of 4 stars


-Christopher O'Connell

The Godfather: A Quick Review

DISCLAIMER: Anything I say about this film would be a huge understatement to just how great it really is.

"The Godfather," released in 1972, was directed and co-written by Francis Ford Coppola.  It has a great cast which includes Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Abe Vigoda, and Talia Shire.  The film was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, winning three: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actor for Marlon Brando.  "The Godfather" goes through 10 years in the lives of the Corleone family.  For those who don't know, they are a mafia family led by Don Vito Corleone, played excellently by Marlon Brando...another one of the best actors in American film history.  The rest of the cast is just as great...they just don't have Oscars to prove it...although the majority of the cast was nominated.  Everything about "The Godfather" is pretty perfect.  The movie is almost 3 hours long but just about every minute is essential to the movie and the pacing is perfect.  Add to that great cinematography, lighting, direction by Francis Ford Coppola, etc and you've got yourself a classic American film.  One scene towards the end in particular uses cross cutting extremely well, making two scenes (the christening and some mob killings) going on at the same time much more effective.  It took me a while, but I finally saw "The Godfather," for the first time.  If you haven't seen it yet, you really should, it's kind of essential to being an American.  According to the American Film Institute it is the #2 film in American film history.  I'd say it more that earned that kind of recognition.  The film is exceptionally well acted and well made in every single regard, spawned two sequels, and changed the way that the mafia was dealt with in films.  "The Godfather" has definitely stood the test of time...


-Joseph Sbrilli 


Alternate Review: Aside from some brilliant acting, i.e. Robert Duvall, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando (could you expect anything less than perfect in the acting department from those three? No, you can't.) I found this movie to be much too long and a little boring. Then again I am terrible at judging movies before 1985, but I found "The Godfather" to drag on forever and several times I almost turned it off. Lies, it was only once, near the end.


-Christopher O'Connell

The Verdict: A Quick Review

"The Verdict," released in 1982, was directed by Sidney Lumet.  It stars Paul Newman and was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.  Of course "Ghandi" was also released in 1982 and proceeded to dominate the Academy Awards, so "The Verdict" got nothing.  "The Verdict" was a great movie directed by one of my favorite directors.  Paul Newman gives a fantastic performance and is the main reason why the film is so good.  He's one of the greatest American actors...a fact and not merely my opinion.  Paul Newman plays Frank Galvin.  He's a lawyer who used to have a future, but that all changed when he became an alcoholic and only got four cases in the last three years...all of which he lost.  Frank takes on a malpractice case (a woman is in a coma because she was given the wrong anesthetic) and is determined to win.  The character of Frank Galvin is pretty complex and requires a person who is capable of getting deep into a character.  Sidney Lumet found the right person and we got a classic out of it.  The film also visually looks fantastic with a nice variety of shots and generally just good composition for the movie.  Music is important in movies and that aspect of the film was also a success.  The rest of the cast were great as well - I just decided to only focus on Paul Newman.  "The Verdict" is a great courtroom drama...one of my favorite genres, which also could be why I enjoyed it so much.  It's yet more proof that Sidney Lumet is a great director.  Every aspect of it was extremely well done and I would highly recommend it.  


-Joseph Sbrilli

From Paris With Love: A Quick Review

After recently watching "Bad Boys II", "From Paris With Love" feels like the shorter, less pretty sister of all action movies. You would date her if you really had to but you don't particularly want to. Jonathan Rhys Meyers plays some no name CIA agent who only has one face for every emotion in the book. He is horribly mismatched with John Travolta as Charlie Wax, a CIA spec ops agent. Travolta's character feels pretty much rehashed from "The Taking of Pelham 123." Together they're out to kill drug dealers and terrorists and pretty much anyone in Paris that isn't caucasian. Well, Travolta does, Meyers just stands around complaining about the morals of the situation. The action scenes are decently done, with Travolta doing all the stunts and shooting, and all the acting actually. I like how my grandpa described it, an entertaining action flick with absolutely no social value at all. Don't read into the film much deeper than the fact that there's explosions and gunfights. Otherwise stay far away from this one. And the scene in the poster doesn't happen. It's a lie, that particular scene isn't as exciting as its made out to be.


-Christopher O'Connell