That’s a wrap for Sir Critic on Cinema

By Eric Robinette | Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 12:41 PM

“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a critic.”

Freeze frame. Cue Tony Bennett’s “Rags to Riches” as Saul Bass titles zip across the screen, a la Goodfellas.

For nearly four years now I have been writing about movies on this blog, having fulfilled a longtime dream of reviewing movies for a newspaper audience. So it is with mixed emotions that I announce this will be my final post on this blog.

I have been named the Arts & Entertainment reporter for our Southwest group of newspapers, covering Middletown, Hamilton and the surrounding area. I love writing about this field and am very much looking forward to meeting new people, and to telling all of you about things to do, of which there are plenty. I will also be taking over a “things to do” blog.

That means I will no longer have time to write a movie blog for the newspapers, a fact I recognize with more than a little regret. I will very much miss this forum. I have so many great memories here, ranging from co-writing an American Girl movie review with my dear friend Angela Allen to getting in a heated discussion with movie colorizers to interviewing the director and producer of Pixar’s Up. I was particularly proud when this blog and its readers prompted the Victoria Theatre to change its Cool Films program last year, so they would play the excellent 1933 version of Little Women instead of the less well regarded 1949 version.

All that stated, Sir Critic is not going away entirely - he’s just moved to new digs. I have already created a new blog, Sir Critic’s Cinema, with its own domain name: www.sircritic.com.

I will be doing the same thing there that I did here: opining about all things cinematic. With rare exceptions, I will no longer be able to write day-and-date movie reviews, but I will still see a great many of them. I was seeing more than 100 movies in the theater long before I started this blog, and I’m not about to stop now. In fact, just last night I caught the Toy Story 3D double feature, with a review on the new blog.

I invite you to follow me to my new home, because my favorite part of writing this blog was not seeing the movies early - It was interacting with all of you. We’ve had more great conversations than my limited mathematical abilities can count, ranging all the way from your first R-rated film to the movie that most traumatized you to the recent controversy over the arrest of Roman Polanski.

I hope I’ve been able to direct you to good movies and steer you clear of bad ones. Whether you agreed or disagreed with me, it didn’t really matter, as long as you found my writings interesting and entertaining. I thank you all profoundly for reading, commenting, and even occasionally criticizing. It has truly been the stuff that dreams are made of.

My fellow bloggers Zack McGhee and Tony Black will continue their Movies and TV blog, and Ron Rollins is apt to chime in about movies now and again at Brain Droppings. As I fade out, I will slightly paraphrase the words of Orson Welles, when he accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.

“Let us raise our cups, standing, as some of us do, on opposite ends of the river - and drink together to what really matters to us all - to our crazy and beloved pastime. To the movies - to good movies - to every possible kind.”

Hope to see you at the new site. Thank you all again.

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Zombieland/Whip It - two very fun debuts

By Eric Robinette | Friday, October 2, 2009, 07:54 AM

Zombieland and Whip It wouldn’t seem to have much in common, but it just so happens they are both highly entertaining directorial feature debuts.

When I first saw the trailer for Zombieland, I was surprised to learn that what looked like such a wild, zany ride was the work of a novice. The director, Rueben Fleischer, had only made a few shorts and TV shows. Thankfully, Zombieland really is a wild, zany ride.

As is so often the case in zombie movies, hordes of the mindless monsters have overrun the landscape. In the thick of it all is Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a geeky protagonist who has become quite the zombie killer out of necessity. He’s concocted a whole series of amusing rules about fighting zombies including “Always check the back seat” and, simply put, “Cardio.”

Columbus eventually hooks up with Tallahassee, a trigger-happy zealot who is singularly obsessed with Twinkies, and is quite indignant to find a Hostess truck that has nothing but Sno-Balls in it (It’s that kind of movie). Then, the plot thickens with the addition of two con artists, winningly played by Emma Stone (Superbad) and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine).

You may notice I haven’t said that much about the plot, and that’s deliberate. Zombieland is very much a movie that’s more fun the less you know about it. What I will tell you is that it’s often uproarious. The momentum flags in a few places, and I could have done with less distracting voice-over narration. Most of the way, however, Fleischer, his cast and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have imagination to spare. A lesser movie would have contained the entire story in an amusement park and run out of ideas. Here, the amusement park scenes make for a hilarious climax to a movie that was already a great deal of fun.

And speaking of climaxes, make sure to stay through the end credits to catch all the gags. As far as the fairly narrow genre of zombie comedies goes, it’s not up to the original Dawn of the Dead or Shaun of the Dead, but it’s a lot more effective than what passes for “real” horror these days.

GRADE: B+

Whip It review after the jump …

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What’s opening Friday, Oct. 2?

By Eric Robinette | Thursday, October 1, 2009, 09:35 AM

If you believe the tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes, well, there’s nary a rotten one in the bunch this week.

Bright Star: Jane (The Piano) Campion’s film about the romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne has gotten strong Oscar buzz for the lead performance by Abbie Cornish.

Capitalism: A Love Story: The mere mention of Michael Moore’s name is bound to make some people roll their eyes. For what it’s worth, though, I’m hearing that people on both sides of the fence can find something to agree on in Moore’s examination of the economic meltdown.

The Invention of Lying: Ricky Gervais stars in and co-directs this movie set in a world where no one lies until Gervais comes along. It it’s half as entertaining as the undervalued Ghost Town, this one will be a treat.

Toy Story/Toy Story 2: Pixar’s signature films come back out as a 3D double feature for only two weeks. I will be there for at least one of them.

Whip It: I saw Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut set in the world of roller derbies at the public sneak last weekend. Gertie can direct - well. More Friday.

Zombieland: One wonders what it is about actor Jesse Eisenberg that attracts him to movies set in amusement parks with “land” in the title? (He was in Adventureland earlier this year.) Maybe it’s good scripts and casts. More on this Friday too.

At the arthouses

Neon opens Bright Star and Capitalism: A Love Story; Little Art plays this year’s Foreign Language film winner Departures, as well as Richard Attenborough’s Cry Freedom as part of the Screenpeace Film Festival.

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Do you like going to second run movies?

By Eric Robinette | Wednesday, September 30, 2009, 11:29 AM

The recent closure of the Beaver Valley movie theater in Beavercreek brings to mind something that I don’t hear much in the discussion of moviegoing: the second-run experience.

Somewhat surprisingly, I don’t go to second-run houses much anymore. That’s partly because I do most of my moviegoing in first-run houses because of this blog.

However, it’s also because, I have to admit, I don’t find the second-run theater as appealing as I once did. I’ll go every once in awhile, but I’m a stickler for presentation, and by their nature, that’s not the best feature of second-run houses. I’ve been rather spoiled by the big screens and digital sound of the megaplexes, and you don’t typically find those in a second-run house. Moreover, by the time the prints reach the second-run theaters, they tend to be beat up and scratchy, and for me, that takes away from the experience.

Probably most importantly, I’m not personally fond of the second-run places here. The Danbarrys in Huber Heights or behind the Dayton Mall are OK, but I’ve seen better second-run places. It would be nice if, for instance, someone would take the old Showcase Cross Pointe and turn that into a sub-run, but that seems like wishful thinking.

Considering all the stories about the recession and how moviegoing supposedly booms in such times, I find it curious how news stories very rarely mention how well second-run houses fare in such times. Since they’re not telling me anything, let me ask you:

Do you go to second-run movie theaters, like the Danbarrys? Why or why not? If you do, do you go to second-run houses instead of first-runs, or in addition to them? What has your experience been there?

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What Are You Watching? Monsters, Aliens and such?

By Eric Robinette | Tuesday, September 29, 2009, 10:53 AM

Today’s DVD selection brings us monsters, aliens, misfits, and a porn star starring in a movie by an Oscar-winning director.

Away We Go: John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph play an expecting couple who travel around the country to find the right home, only to realize everyone else is crazier than they are. The movie gets a little too self-consciously kooky at times, but the strong performances of the two leads keep the movie grounded. Directed by Sam Mendes, the film makes a fascinating companion piece to his much bleaker (and underrated and misunderstood) relationship movie, Revolutionary Road. GRADE: B+

The Girlfriend Experience: One of Steven Soderbergh’s experimental movies got quite a bit of press for casting porn star Sasha Grey in a non-porn role. I intend to watch it soon to see if it deserves press for being a good movie.

Monsters vs. Aliens: I enjoyed this funny, often inventive mash-up that pits a band of underground monsters against an alien force, but like so many DreamWorks animated features, this movie is noisy, busy and shallow in story and character. It’s fun to watch, but it could have been even better. Full review: GRADE: B

Management: Some will be curious to pick up this indie title because Jennifer Aniston is in it. It didn’t get much of a release (I’m not even sure it played Dayton) and reviews were mixed.

The Wizard of Oz: Some movie about a girl with ruby slippers walking down a road paved with yellow bricks comes out on DVD again today. For those who are not yet Blu-Ray converts (like myself), there isn’t much new material if you already own one of the special editions that came out a few years ago. However, If for some strange reason, you don’t have a copy already, you really ought to remedy that. GRADE: A+ (of course)

Speaking of Blu-Ray, check out fellow blogger and fellow movie buff Zack McGhee’s roundup of Blu releases.

What Are You Watching?

Fame: I didn’t watch much on the small screen over the past week, but I did catch the original Fame, as promised. Those who mainly remember the TV series may be surprised at how gritty and emotionally intense the movie was. That’s very typical of the films of director Alan Parker, who is particularly skilled with musical material, as also evidenced by Pink Floyd The Wall, The Commitments and Evita. The “fly on the wall” narrative gives short shrift to too many characters and leaves a lot of story threads dangling, but at its best, the movie resonates and pulses with energy, especially during the musical sequences. GRADE: B+

Standard question for Tuesday: What have you seen lately?

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Free Roman Polanski?

By Eric Robinette | Monday, September 28, 2009, 12:40 PM

Director Roman Polanski, who was jailed over the weekend by Swiss authorities in connection with his 1977 sex crime will fight extradition back to the United States, his lawyer says.

Quite frankly, I can’t blame him for fighting this latest obstacle in his ongoing legal battle.

Make no mistake, what Polanski did all those years ago was despicable. Polanski’s tragic past, including surviving the Holocaust and enduring the horror of his wife and unborn child’s murders at the hands of the Manson family, does not excuse his crime. The fact that he is one of cinema’s greatest talents certainly does not excuse his crime.

When you get down to it, he, by his own admission, took advantage of a 13-year-old girl, to put it mildly. Many people cannot look past that fact, and I understand that.

However …

Many people will point to alleged prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the case, noting how Polanksi did plead guilty and did serve time, but, upon learning that a judge was about to renege on a plea bargain and throw the book at him, Polanski fled the U.S. and has never returned.

But that’s not the crux of the matter for me. The crux of the matter for me is that Polanski’s victim, Samantha Geimer, who has since identified herself, has long said she wanted the case against Polanski to be dropped so the ordeal could come to an end.

If the person most directly and seriously harmed by Polanski’s crime forgives him and wants the case dropped, I ask you - who is anyone else to say Polanski should continue to be punished?

What justice would be served by now? What’s the point? To me the whole thing seeems like a waste of time, energy and taxpayer dollars.

But that’s just me. What do you think?

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‘Surrogates’ too robotic for its own good

By Eric Robinette | Friday, September 25, 2009, 08:46 AM

Surrogates very effectively shows what it’s like to be a fake human being. That’s why it doesn’t quite work.

Although it sports clever action scenes, good performances and an intriguing premise, Surrogates fails to connect because it’s too mechanical for its own good. Bereft of emotion, the movie left me cold. Fascinated as I was by some of the ideas, ultimately I didn’t really care about the characters.

That’s a shame because Surrogates, based on a graphic novel by Robert Vendetti and Brett Weldele, had a lot of potential. At first, it struck me as kind of a low-rent Minority Report, depicting a near future that uses innovative but unethical technology. In this movie’s case, that technology is robots, or as the title would have it, surrogates. Originally, the surrogates were created to help the disabled and the military.

As humanity so often does, however, it lets the technology get out of hand. Surrogates become so popular, almost everyone uses at least one. From a remote location, humans can make the surrogates do risky adventurous things they wouldn’t attempt themselves.

This becomes especially dangerous when a terrorist finds a way to kill the surrogates. Not only does a specialized weapon disable the robot, it also taps into the robots’ feed to the human. So when the surrogate dies, the human dies with it. Investigating the crime is Greer (Bruce Willis), a police detective who is himself so attached to his surrogate, he hasn’t left his house in years.

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