I’ve never understood the success and popularity of Cheech and Chong, but they are making comeback to the big screen. But then I’ve never been a fan of pot humor. The Weinstein Company (TWC) have partnered with Cheech Marin, Tommy Chong, and their managers Ben Feigin and Josh Klein to produce a concert movie to memorialize the comic duo’s reunion and first tour together in 25 years. The announcement was made today by Barry Gordon, executive vice president of home entertainment at TWC. As part of the arrangement, TWC has worldwide theatrical, home video, digital and television rights.  The feature-length program, which will portray a live concert experience of the “Cheech & Chong: Light Up America” tour, is expected to make a major TV premiere, followed by the DVD release. TWC International will handle foreign sales beginning at AFM this week. “The Cheech and Chong Concert Movie” will be an historic, must-experience event for the many fans that grew up listening to their recordings and watching their movies,” said Barry Gordon, EVP of Home Entertainment at TWC.  “For the millions of new fans who have discovered Cheech and Chong over the years as cultural icons, this will be the first time many of them will be able to enjoy the artistry and one-of-kind magic that is Cheech and Chong live on stage. This is the comedy event of the decade."  "It’s great to get a chance to cap a long career with a show of where we are now,” said Marin. Chong stated, "I really like Harvey because he picked up my dinner tab."  Start of production and official release dates are to be announced. The “Cheech & Chong: Light Up America” reunion tour officially kicked off on September 26, 2008 and has been selling out across the country. Many of the dates have needed to add multiple shows each night to meet demand. The tour will continue through 2009, and will bring the duo overseas to multiple continents.

It’s been several hours since I walked out of the theater and I’m still wondering whutinthehighholyhellwuzzat?!? If you’ve seen any of the films that Kaufman wrote previously [Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind], then you know that is the usual state of mind that follows a screening his work. It’s just that Synecdoche, New York takes things to a whole other level.

Kaufman lulls us into a state of false comprehension by opening with the family of small time theatre director Caden Cotard [Philip Seymour Hoffman] as they go about a depressing day – a day that seems to last forever and ends with his artist wife, Adele Lack [Catherine Keener] and daughter, Olive [Sadie Goldstein] leaving for a show in Berlin. The two-week separation becomes seventeen years.

In the meantime, Caden, following on the heels of a Broadway success with Death of a salesman, wins a genius grant of quite possibly billions and mounts a play that he hopes will bold and true and a bunch of other artistic stuff. What he winds up with is a scale version of New York – peopled by actors playing all the people in his life [however slightly or parenthetically]. But that’s all window dressing.

Besides being a pun on Schenectady [the Cotards' hometown], synecdoche is a word that can mean “a part that represents the whole.” In terms of Kaufman’s film, this can mean any number of things – Kaufman himself says that it means what you take out of it. For me, the film is about Life. It grows and shifts in variations on a theme even as members of Caden’s cast quit and are replaced – even though the new actors are doing the same things as their predecessors, they are different because they are different people, much as we are different people at various stages of our lives.

Life, and Death, are both bigger than we are, and smaller. We can be replaced, though never exactly. We can be reproduced, though never exactly, in any number of media. In an odd way, Kaufman seems – to me at least – to be saying that life, the universe and everything is what it is. That can be both a comforting thought and a harrowing one.

Final Grade: A+

Confession time. I did not see Madagascar. Nope. The trailer did nothing for me – and I was thoroughly penguined out, in any case. Thus, you can imagine my surprise when the trailer to Escape 2 Africa actually caught my attention. Further, you can probably imagine my surprise when I sat through the film and found myself laughing. Not uproariously, mind you, but laughing.

There’s probably no point in providing a plot description. Other reviewers will have covered that in enough detail that only the ending will be in doubt [though I’m not spoiling anything when I say it’s a happy one].

What you need to know is that Madagascar 2 is funny, frequently very much so. Also that the main characters – Alex the lion [Ben Stiller], Marty the zebra [Chris Rock], Melman the giraffe [David Schwimmer] and Gloria the hippo [Jada Pinkett-Smith] – are only half the story, laugh-wise. The second string – King Julian the lemur [an unrecognizable Sascha Baron Cohen], Mort the squirrel [Andy Richter] and head penguin Skipper [Tom McGrath], among others – more than hold up their end of the comedy tentpole.

There are some scenes that might scare younger kids [a toddler was taken, crying, from the theater when the villainous lion, Alec Baldwin’s Mukunga, was being particularly nasty], but as a whole, this is a film that will thrill kids while not boring parents. Fans of CG animation will also enjoy the film.

Now I’m going to have to rent the first film. Nuts!

Final Grade: B

Now that I’ve had time to recover from the 2008 World Fantasy Convention, I find I’ve needed to get a bit caught up on the movie front. Both Zack & Miri and Rachel Gets Married are faring poorly at the box office and that’s a shame.

Zack & Miri Make a Porno

Zack & Miri Make a Porno is Kevin Smith’s latest film and is about best friends who are a hair’s breadth from being out on the street. Zack [Seth Rogen] seizes an idea from something Miri [Elizabeth Banks] says – even though she was saying it was something they shouldn’t do – and decides they should go for it. The pair decide that they shouldn’t let their moment of sex on camera change things between them, but of course it does.

Kevin Smith’s script is sharp, concise and combines the sweet and the gross in ways that remind us that he was doing films like this long before Judd Apatow became famous doing similarly themed material. Besides coming up with what seems like it just might be the ultimate poop joke, Smith mines real emotion and, yes, a sweetness that contrasts nicely with balances the film’s over the top material. It’s a good movie. Go see it [stay through the credits – you’ll be glad you did].

Final Grade: B+

Rachel Gets Married

Jonathan Demme returns with a film that returns Kim [Anne Hathaway] to the bosom of her family on the eve of her sister, Rachel’s [Rosemarie DeWitt] wedding. Kim is just out of rehab and her presence is unsettling for everyone, as there layers of pain and dysfunction to be revealed over the next few days. Those levels are so deep that the marriage of Caucasian Rachel to African-American Sidney isn’t even an issue.

Jenny Lumet’s script is solid, but – outside of Kim, at least – pretty low-key. One of the reasons that the film works is that the casting is excellent, especially Debra Winger as the sisters’ mother. Another is that the film often veers in unexpected, but real ways – as with the dishwasher competition between Sidney and his soon-to-be father-in-law [Bill Irwin]. Despite having the deepest emotional reaches to plumb, Hathaway’s [who really does deserve an Oscar® nomination] Kim is the glue that holds the film together, rather than the big scene stealer.

How cool is this movie? Robyn Hitchcock plays at the reception! ‘Nuff said.

Final Grade: A-

My Bloody Valentine: 3D starring Jensen Ackles (Supernatural, Smallville, Dark Angel and Dawson’s Creek), Jaime King (THE SPIRIT, SIN CITY, SIN CITY 2) and Kerr Smith (FINAL DESTINATION, “Dawson’s Creek”) doesn’t open in select theaters across the USA until January 16, 2009. 

However, until then fans can check out the official online website for the movie. The web site features a full length theatrical trailer for this remake of the 1981 horror classic.

In this updated remake, aptly titled MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3-D which is directed by Patrick Lussier, produced by Jack Murray and filmed entirely on location in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area,  events of the movie are going to be presented in stunningly real, cutting edge 3-D projection.

Ten years ago, a tragedy changed the town of Harmony forever. Tom Hanniger (Jensen Ackles), an inexperienced coal miner, caused an accident in the tunnels that trapped and killed five men and sent the only survivor, Harry Warden, into a permanent coma. But Harry Warden wanted revenge. Exactly one year later, on Valentine’s Day, he woke up…and brutally murdered twenty-two people with a pickaxe before being killed.

Ten years later, Hanniger returns to Harmony on Valentine’s Day, still haunted by the deaths he caused. Struggling to make amends with his past, he grapples with unresolved feelings for his ex-girlfriend, Sarah (Jamie King), who is now married to his best friend, Axel (Kerr Smith) who is also the town sheriff. But tonight, after years of peace, something from Harmony’s dark past has returned. Wearing a miner’s mask and armed with a pickaxe, an unstoppable killer is on the loose. And as his footsteps come ever closer, Tom, Sarah and Axel realize in terror that it just might be Harry Warden who’s come back to claim them.

I’m not a fan of triple dips, but MGM and Fox Home Video have done an amazing job on the newly released James Bond Blu-ray set. I was generally skeptical about this dip because I already own three different versions of all the Bond films. But these Blu-ray versions are the definitive set. The picture transfer/upgrade is beautiful. I put on Dr. No and it was an eye-opening experience. The colors were deep, reach and sharp. There is so much more depth now it’s hard to believe this film is over 30 years old. It looks like it was shot on HD last week. The blacks are black which make the colors pop on my Vizio HDTV set. The hours and hours of extra features (in Standard Def) are the same ones from the Ultimate Collection from a few years ago with some neat little Blu-ray additions like a 42 Minute HD Feature called Inside Dr. No and a 18 minute feature on Terrance Young, the director of Dr. No.

The one area where they dropped the ball is on the Menu navigation system. It reminds me of the early days of DVD where the one thing you could always count on was Fox Home Video totally screwing up the menu. This is one of the ugliest and most unfriendly systems I’ve seen in awhile. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to play the movie and access the special features.  The Pop Up/Menu button doesn’t work once you select a feature. If you select a feature to watch, while viewing the film, it kicks you out and doesn’t return to the point you left off.  Each film are on a 50 GB Dual Layer disk, is in Widescreen 1.66:1 (No letter boxing!) and Lossless Audio. The movie sounds amazing on my Sony Crossbar.  I sampled a few of the other titles in this collection and it’s safe to say all six of these releases and must own.  The Six disk set includes Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Thunderball, For Your Eyes Only, Die Another Day and Live and Let Die. I’m not going to bother reviewing the movies or giving you the TPS, come on it’s Bond! You’ve all see these a million times. My only, minor complaint with this set, beyond the menu system is the lack of Profile 1.1 or BD-Live support. Yeah BD-Live sucks, but I would still like to see them implemented as standard features in all Blu-ray releases.  After watching a slew of lackluster Blu-ray releases (I’m looking at you Iron-Man!) this release restores my faith.

Movie Grade (All 6 Films, except Thunderball) - A

Features - A

Picture - A

Audio - A

Final Overall - A

EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally Posted 10.21.08

The winter of my discontent continues. It’s been awhile since I’ve written a movie review for one simple reason, everything for the last three months has been terrible. Nothing that I liked or disliked enough to write 400 words on. After being on a sugar high from this summer’s amazing crop of summer films, The X-Files brought everything to a screeching halt and the disappointments continue. This time it’s Mark Wahlberg in Max Payne. I’m a gamer, but don’t think I’ve ever played Max Payne. If I remember correctly the thing that made Max Payne fun was it’s John Woo sensibilities with Matrix style bullet time effects thrown in. When first announced, my initial reaction was, why? It isn’t like Payne is one of the most popular game franchises in the world. Like I said, I never played it.

As production progressed, I was getting interested. As a general rule I really like Wahlberg - even though he is a one note actor and never displays much emotional range. He has that "it" factor. The early trailers looked really good and highly stylized. I was thinking, yeah, I can go with this. Video Game movies don’t have the best track record in Hollywood, can’t think of a single one that was any good or even made money. Which is ironic because Video Games based on movies generally suck to. So maybe, we’re lucky Hollywood and the Video Game industry will reach a point when they realize they just shouldn’t cross pollinate.

This movie lost me within the first ten minutes, and I can’t tell you why. I really wanted to like this, but the relentless darkness and graininess of the environments just put a complete damper on everything. I normally complain that films like this should be dark, grimy and relentless, so I feel like a hypocrite when I say that’s why it doesn’t work. The cinematographer only had to worry about lighting one color palet - gray and silver with fake looking snow. It felt like this entire movie was made with the Unreal Engine. Even though director John Moore used mostly all practical SFX. This dark, grey, warehouse look annoys me in games, I certainly don’t want to see it on a big screen. In a theater where the sound system was so loud it was making my ears bleed (not literally - I think).

Between the dark look and loud ass sound system I was getting a headache real fast. So I thought maybe I could get sucked in if I paid attention to the plot. But there wasn’t one. I couldn’t tell you what the heck was going on in this movie if I tried. At least until the last half hour when things finally made sense. But the big plot twist was like, "Really? Are you kidding me? They couldn’t have come up with anything more original?" This movie takes itself way too seriously. All of the gun play was by the numbers and totally uninspired, I would have preferred it if the director just ripped off Woo or the Matrix.

Final Grade F

EM Review by
Michelle Alexandria
Originally posted 10.19.08

Take the basic Punisher plot [cop’s family killed by bad guys], add some designs by Constantine and top with a superficial gloss of Norse mythology, and you get the videogame-based Max Payne. Max Payne [Mark Wahlberg] is the cop whose wife and son are murdered; Alex Balder/Baldur [Donal Logue] is his ex-partner who discovers a link between the deaths of Payne’s family and the death of Natasha Sax [Olga Kurylenko], sister of assassin, Mona Sax [Mila Kunis].

Then there’s the blue fluid that is a failed super-soldier formula [so very Captain America] and the hallucinations it induces of Valkyries [the warrior women who bear Vikings who died in battle to Valhalla. The question is this: if everyone who uses this stuff sees the same hallucination, is it a hallucination or a glimpse into a supernatural realm – a question that is never answered [and could have made the movie something much better]. That fluid leads to the mighty Aesir [residents of Asgard – home of the Norse gods] Pharmaceutials. The company’s head of security [Beau Bridges] is Max’s dad’s former partner on the police force.

There’s more of this kind of thing throughout Max Payne – like the big blowout that occurs in a club called Ragnarok [the Norse end of the world myth]. Of course it’s a red herring. What else could it be? The biggest twist possible would have been if the club actually was where the movie ended.

Max Payne is beautifully shot, well-paced and so technically accomplished, overall, that it’s a shame it never attains any actual style. Most of the action choreography is an homage to John Woo [or blatant theft – you decide]. All it needs is a few doves…

Max Payne is a waste of some very talented actors – and of an hour and forty minutes in the life of anyone who sees it.

Final Grade: D

In the movie “The Secret Life of Bees” (opening today), Queen Latifah plays the role of August Boatwright, who along with her two sisters May (Sophie Okonedo) and June (Alicia Keys), own and operate a successful bee farm in South Carolina during the tumultuous Civil Rights era. The three women befriend a fourteen year old Lily Owens (Dakota Fanning) and her caretaker Rosaleen (Jennifer Hudson) on their journey to discovering the truth about Lily’s mother. Lily and Rosaleen quickly become part of the Boatwright sister’s family where they are embraced with love and a sense of belonging, something they both have been searching for.

I sat down with the Queen to discuss her role as matriarch and big sister to this incredibly impressive group of women both on the set of “The Secret Life of Bees” and off. We also talked about being confident in knowing who you are and how being comfortable with yourself in life can bring great happiness.

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Jennifer Hudson is an Oscar winning actress with the voice of a true diva. This American Idol cast-off’s career  has taken off over the past few years to great heights. In her latest venture, Hudson co-stars in the upcoming film “The Secret Life of Bees” where she plays the part of Rosaleen, a young black woman living on a peach farm in the south during the volatile sixties hired to care for Lily Owens; a young white girl with an abusive father whose mother died tragically when she was a child. Rosaleen is Lily’s surrogate mother and dearest friend and when the two take the monumental yet dangerous step of trying to register Rosaleen to vote, they find themselves in a world of trouble and are forced to go on the run.

I sat down with Jennifer to chat about her role as Rosaleen and how it has impacted her life today as a young, successful African American woman; where she keeps her Oscar and I even got a peek at her gorgeous engagement ring…its ginormous!

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