The Artist or...?

Is that David Bernstein?

Static

This 2008 sleeper is reallly fun! It's sci-fi, and it's got two things that will grab you!

First: The story, of which I will NOT give details, is truly mind-boggling (as you'll see, the pun is intended). Three inventive young people decide that dialing a cell phone by holding it is really old school! So they create a phone on a chip, implant the chip in their brains, and just say, "Phone ON" or "Phone OFF". Wow!

Second: Two of the three protagonists are really among the most attractive to hit the big screen. I won't speak for the ladies, but I think they will find Stephen Byer (above) quite the dude to look at! I found Kathleen Robertson (above) as pretty as any of the most dazzling starlets.

OK, there you have it: a fun plot and eye-candy actors.

Is there much else? I'd say yes! Of course, the inventors' plans go a bit awry with the phones in the brain....what else would you expect from good sci-fi? And there's a very evil person in the mix. Also, some good, well-placed violence! Even a bit of sex!

Yeah, not your high-brow movie. No sophistication. But not bad at all for an original, thought-provoking film.

Very entertaining. A- Grade.

The minus is for, well, one or two scenes where we must stretch our disbelief a little too much!

Equilibrium

Just came across a wonderful film that came out in 2002. Starring Christian Bale, who excelled in American Psycho and later The Fighter, the flick is a winner!

Quick plot overview: In the future, long after the nuclear apocalypse, a "leader" has deemed that mankind must no longer go to war. The solution: Feelings lead to anger, anger leads to war, so feelings must be taboo. Thus he creates a futuristic society where feelings are forbidden.

Nice premise!

Of course, in order to enforce this bizarre rule, totalitarianism is required. Every citizen must take a daily injection to repress feelings. An all-powerful police force must ferret out the folks who dare have a feeling!

Bale is a super-cop who enforces the no-feeling rule. He has been trained to shoot and kill better than any kung-fu master, and to wipe out all those who dare have an emotion....without feeling a bit of remorse himself.

Now what if the hardy Christian, the cop par excellence, gets a feeling or two himself? Haha! Therein lies the story!

NO SPOILER.... but just imagine the anti-hero turning hero! And what about Christian's son? Will he turn his father in? After all, little kids are trained to turn in anyone who feels!

Remember some of the creative shoot-em-up scenes in The Matrix? The shooting scenes in this film are way better! Watch the main protagonist use guns, swords, and knives like no one else!

Grade of A..... A thinking person's action/sci-fi film! Just wonder how viewers will FEEL about this creative flick!

Haha.

Downton Abbey Redux

I occasionally do a "redux" review when I just can't contain my enthusiasm! See below for my recent comments on this series. We just finished Season One, which consisted of seven episodes. How can I laud this program enough?

No spoiler, so thus no details. But the plotting, character shading, costumes, flavor, history, dialog....everything...absolutely dazzles!

The picture above shows the three sisters, who form only one of several plots, all decked out in the turn-of-the-century finery. Two of the sibs fight like cats and dogs. One is a great liberal in a very conservative family, who goes to protests and fights for the underdog.

WHAT FUN!

Golden Globes 2012

Poor Ricky Gervais! He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't! I'm referring, of course, to his crassness last year and squeaky-clean act this year. Which Ricky do I prefer? The crass one! After all, this is evening TV, when the kiddies are not supposed to be watching.

OK, that issue aside. How were the awards? B-O-R-I-N-G! My spouse and I figured the three hours we watched were the longest three hours of our lives...and we fast-forwarded through the ads!

There was one good, genuine moment: It happened when Seth Rogen appeared next to the very dazzling Kate Beckinsale. He said he was trying to hide a "massive erection"! Poor Kate, not knowing what to say, simply started giggling. That was fun!

What really distinguishes a good awards show? The presenters, and the awardees, need pizzazz! I'm talking about great personalities. The issue is, however, that many actors don't have personalities at all! They are directed by the director to emote on screen, and we often confuse their screen personas with the real person.

Meryl Streep, a case in point: She is always so well spoken at the awards ceremonies. Why? Well, it would now seem she reads speeches. You see, this time, she lost her glasses, and all she could say was an expletive, followed by very common gibberish. Very un-Meryl-like!

And so on for the others. The comedians stand the most chance of being entertaining....but there are usually too few of them on stage and their lips are tied by censors.

Thus: A boring, dry show.

Alas!

The Wave

No,it's not a surfer movie, or a stadium crowd pastime flick. It is a most unexpected find in the foreign language department of Netflix.

We have made the switch to streaming on Netflix, and so far I am far from impressed. I had been warned that the inventory is not nearly as broad as the snail-mail method, but, honestly, I was hard pressed to find any film that was "primetime," well-known, and didn't look totally low-budget lame. I'll keep looking.

But in the meantime, we managed to find a gem.

In keeping with my aim to keep my posts brief - this is a German film about a high school teacher whose unwilling assignment to teach a one week course on autocracy goes terribly, terribly wrong. Aside from the language, one would swear it's American. Absolutely captivating in watching the vulnerability of teens as they're unwittingly sucked into the claws of ideology, reminiscent of Hitler's Youth. Chilling.

Excellent film. Watch it and we'll talk more.

Downton Abbey

Once again, our daughter, the philosophy professor, advised her ol' parents to watch what she called an amazing masterpiece. Downton Abbey is exactly that.

See the castle in the picture above? And all those folks? The people are the two "crusts" of society, the nobles and the servants. They live together, scheme together, gossip together, and most of all, create the most endearing relationships and soundbites to hit TV in recent years.

Downton Abbey was a huge hit in England and only recently got to the U.S. It's been the topic of so much buzz that it's apparently catching on like wildfire.

OK, I know what you're thinking...not another stuffy, British, hard-to-understand, starchy story of the rich and famous. No way. Not at all. It will take a few minutes in the beginning of each segment to tune your ear to the British accent, but once you do, you'll enter a world full of wonder!

Expect delightful acting, turns of phrase, plot twists, and characters. These people, both upper and lower classes, seem so darn real! I go to sleep thinking of them!

So RUN out and rent the series. First the complete series from last year. Then watch the new ones.

Wow! Grade of A+