Silent Runing

Actors:  Bruce Dern, Ron Rifkin, Jesse Vint, Cliff Potts
Rating: 6 out of 10, I asked for this movie because I remembered a soaring sci fi movie from the seventies with some truly memorable music and camera shots of space ships.  I held off watching it until I had the new, larger TV to watch it on.  I was left with the impression that my memory must really starting to go because the music was not that memorable and the space ships were obvious models. This is the story of the last forests remaining being stored in massive domes on space ships.  The order comes for the crews to jettison and destroy the forests so the ships can be put to better use.  Dern, as a crazed ecologist, murders his fellow crew member and takes off with the ship to prevent the destruction of his beloved forest.  He’s left with three miniature robots as his lone companions.  This really isn’t a bad story and Dern can play crazy with the best but the story has not aged well and the camera shots don’t soar very much.  Maybe I just need to watch this when I’m in a better mood because this was a disappointment.      
MVP:  Dern as the truly disturbed Freeman Lowell

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Actors:  Paul Mantee, Adam West, Victor Lundin
Rating:  8 out of 10, A rediscovered treasure from my mis-spent youth haunting Saturday matinees at the Scenic Theater.  Prior to Christmas I was wandering through Amazon.com and their incredibly insightful recommendation algorithm which suggested I might like this movie; Christmas morning it dutifully appeared under the tree.  I was rocked because this was one of my absolute favorite sci-fi movies from the 1960s and I couldn’t believe I didn’t already have it.  The movie holds up incredibly well although the scientific guesses as to the Mars atmosphere were wildly inaccurate and the special effects are cheesy by today’s standards.  Mantee plays an astronaut who is stranded alone on Mars with only a monkey for company.  He faces and meets a number challenges ranging from oxygen food, water, shelter, and company. He solves all of his problems along with a faithful companion supplied by some marauding alien miners.  This movie still has the ability to re-awaken the wonder of space travel that was so rampant in the early 1960s.    
MVP:  Mantee as the resourceful Commander Kit Draper

End of Watch

Actors:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Natalie Martinez, Anna Kendrick, Frank Grillo
Rating:  9 out of 10, This was very entertaining but tragically flawed due to the overuse of the hand held, point of view camera.  I know that was the idea – to follow the duties of these two young LAPD officers but they went away from it when it was convenient and didn’t when they should have.  This was a little better watching on the blu ray than it was at the theater but it still took away from the story.  I really liked the story and the interplay between the different policemen.  Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena are very, very good and believable in their roles as the cops.  Pena will win an Oscar someday; he seems to get better with each role he takes on.  There was real chemistry between the two and the reality of their duties is almost visceral at times.  That’s what makes this movie kind of special – the reality.  The relationship between the two cops and their ladies, more than ably played by Martinez and Kendrick, also seemed real.  In all this could have been something very special but loses points for the hand held camera which wasn’t needed.
MVP:  Pena as LAPD officer Michael Zavala, believable and charismatic

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day

Actors:  Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, Billy Connolly, Julie Benz, Clifton Collins, Jr.
Rating:  6 out of 10, I bought this on a whim because I had a gift certificate and it wasn’t as bad as I had heard.  It is still a very bad movie, especially when you compare it to the original, awesome Boondock Saints.  They try to revive the same formula in this sequel but it just doesn’t work.  They really miss having Rocco along for the intense comedy relief provided to the two Irish assassin brothers in the first movie.  Benz is certainly no Willem Dafoe (which I guess is a good thing) but she fills his part as an off kilter FBI agent helping out the boys.  The plot picks up eight years after the original with the boys peacefully living in Ireland until they’re called back to Boston to engage in some more carnage.  This movie is a complete mess but there were brief glimpses of the magic that made the first movie so memorable and that was enough.
MVP:  Flanery and Reedus as the still deadly Saints

Taken 2

Actors:  Liam Neeson, Maggie Grace, Famke Janssen, Rade Serbedzija

Rating:  7 out of 10, The original Taken is one of my favorite movies and this sequel picked up the action shortly after the events of the first.  This was obviously a naked attempt to cash in on the surprise hit of the first movie.  Neeson didn’t seem as engaged in this movie (and is really starting to show some age) and the plot strained credulity.  After the events of the first movie why the hell would he bring his family within striking range of the family he decimated in the first movie?  This movie didn’t have the same tension or ingenuity of the first and was lazily written.  All that being said, Bryan Mills is still a very dangerous bad ass and it was a great ride watching him cut a swath through another bunch of bad guys.  Maggie Grace was more than just a pretty face in this one but Famke Janssen (one of my favorite actresses) was kind of wasted as only a victim.  If you liked the first one – you’ll want to see this in the theater, if only for the stunning camera shots of Istanbul – one of the world’s great cities. Serbedzija has carved out a niche for himself as the go to Slavic bad guy and he’s believable here as the vengeful father.  Looking at the deleted scenes it became obvious there was another movie originally shot and then they had to rework the ending.  That may explain why the plot was not as tight as the original – still enjoyable but certainly not up to the Paris adventures of Bryan Mills.
MVP:  Neeson as the implacable Bryan Mills

The Time Machine

Actors:  Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, Alan Young
Rating:  9 out of 10, as I was putting together this year’s Christmas list I went back and asked for a number of films from my youth.  I could not believe that I didn’t own the 1960 version of this movie.  This movie along with Forbidden Planet started me on my life long adoration of all things science fiction.  The special effects are incredibly bad by today’s standards but this film still hold up well.  Taylor was a true movie star and his turn as HG Wells was one of his best parts.  He lends a post-WW 2 earnestness to the role that probably wouldn’t work nowadays but is spot on here.  The plot follows Wells from the turn of the 19^th century to a million years in the future where he battles Morlocks who are eating their more human seeming relatives, the Eloi.  Mimieux plays the incredibly dense but beautiful Weena.  This movie still had the same power of middle aged me that it did over a ten year old boy in the 1960s.  I especially like the ending scene where Wells’ friends try to guess what three books he takes back with him into the future to rebuild civilization.  One of my favorite movies of all time.
MVP:  Taylor as HG Wells, intrepid savior of the Eloi

Rio Grande

Actors:  John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara, Ben Johnson, Victor McLaglen, Chill Wills, Claude Jarman, Jr, Harry Carey Jr.
Rating:  7 out of 10, a John Ford directed cavalry movie starring the Duke and Maureen O’Hara – what’s not to like.  Well there was a lot of singing in this for some reason.  Every time a scene was building up the regimental choir would wander by for a rendition of some song.  It got to the point it becomes distracting.  The movie is great when it gets back to the action and the scenery that Ford specialized in.  There was also that special chemistry between Wayne and O’Hara that makes anything their in together worth watching.  Here they’re a married couple at odds (when were they not).  He burned down her plantation in the Civil War and now he’s a regimental commander fighting Apaches when his estranged son shows up as a recruit.  O’Hara shows up shortly thereafter to rescue him and the songs start.  Interesting to see Ben Johnson at the very beginning of his legendary career and seeing the actors doing their own horse stunts. 
MVP:  Wayne as Colonel York trying to beat the Apaches while dealing with domestic issues

Dredd

Actors:  Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby, Lena Headey, Wood Harris
Rating:  8 out of 10, I was interested to see what they would do with Dredd after Stallone’s 1980’s comic book type adaptation. I’ve liked Urban since his Eomer days and he does really well under helmet once again, even though you only see the lower half of his face. I’ve always thought it takes a brave and really self-confident actor to play a role that never shows his face. He’s ably supported by another young actress I like, Olivia Thirlby who played a psychic rookie judge. The only miss in the cast was Lena Headey, someone who is usually awesome, but she played the evil villain like she was sleep walking, a real disappointment. The plot was also different as the two judges find themselves trapped in a mega-skyscraper, cut off from outside help and battling Headey’s minions who are trying to rescue Avon Barksdale, who’s been captured by the judges. The film makers felt the need to show their 3D capabilities with some early graphic head wounds tracing the bullet’s path through the head but the rest of the movie was a very entertaining sci-fi adventure.  Dredd’s character is great because he is absolutely implacable – a true force of sci fi nature and Urban pulls it off
MVP:  Urban as Judge Dredd because – He Is The LAW!!

Looper

Actors:  Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Joseph Gordon Leavitt, Paul Dano, Noah Segun, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo, Pierce Gagnon
Rating:  9 out of 10, that rarity – a smart, high concept science fiction film. The three main actors really deliver. Leavitt obviously altered his look to resemble Willis who plays an older version of Leavitt’s character and their work together on screen is memorable. This has been a good year for Leavitt who certainly seems headed for bigger and bigger things. Even though I predicted the outcome (it was still jarring) this was a lot of fun to watch because it was about the story and the characters and not the special effects.  It also has an incredibly creepy kid who is supposed to be lovable – didn’t get that.  This movie has taken some shots from people with too much time on their hands bemoaning the holes in the plot.  I wish these people would get a life – the story was about time travel – of course there’s going to be paradox upon paradox.  That’s what makes it interesting.  Here’s a big clue guys – time travel doesn’t exist, get over yourselves. 
MVP:  Blunt as Sara the kid’s mother who holds the key to everyone’s future

Time After Time

Actors:  Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, David Warner
Rating:  8 out of 10, this was a fondly remembered movie from the late 1970s that I received as a Christmas gift.  It’s a charming take on the life of HG Wells and time travel.  The plot has HG Wells actually creating a time machine and then following Jack the Ripper from Victorian London to 1979 San Francisco.  He finds love there and has a lot of trouble dealing with a future he had imagined as some sort of utopia.  It’s interesting that evil Jack, played by Warner, finds it much easier to adjust to the time change than does Wells.  It’s a nice little story told extremely well and the actors are extremely good, especially Steenburgen.  I forgot how hot she used to be. The special effects are laughably bad but the story and implications of time travel are enough to make this a great watch.  It’s especially funny now, more than 30 years later looking at how the 1970s viewed themselves and, as always, I love watching movies set in San Francisco – one of my favorite places on earth.
MVP:  Steenburgen as Amy, the plucky modern love interest for HG Wells