Smith's Verdict

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is one of the most ambitious, visually impressive, narratively spellbinding movies I’ve ever seen. It’s one of those movies that is just absolute magic—a movie you’ll remember for years to come and just can’t bear to see only once. It just gets better with every viewing. It’s creative to say the least and showcases some great special effects that are not just there as gimmicks, but to serve the purpose of the story.

If you’ve seen “Song of the South,” “Mary Poppins,” or “Pete’s Dragon,” you’ll notice something similar in each of those movies—blending live human actors with cartoon characters. But you never really get the impression that the cartoon characters are really there with the people and interacting with them. This is what “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” does different. This blends human actors with cartoon characters, but in this movie, they really look like they’re there. They look more three-dimensional than their two-dimensional sketches, they cast shadows, and they occupy the same space as the people. It’s unbelievable. They’re so convincingly blended into the scene with the actors, and they’re able to move around the settings of the scene because the camera doesn’t just stay in one spot to make it easy—the camera moves all over the place, following the animated characters…sort of.

“Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is shot as and takes plot elements of a 1940s thriller. But it takes place in a Hollywood that hires cartoon characters, or “toons.” Nearby is ToonTown, where every toon lives. But some are in show business and have moved to Hollywood to star in their own cartoons. Wherever you look, there’s a toon. There’s black-and-white vintage Betty Boop in a bar, upset that cartoons have turned to color. There’s Disney’s Dumbo flying outside an executive’s window. There’s a series of dancing broomsticks, occupied by a saxophone player playing their theme from “Fantasia.” And look! There’s Warner’s Daffy Duck and Disney’s Donald Duck having a piano duel! How great is that! The best thing about the cartoon characters we recognize is that we don’t just see variations of them—including Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Warner’s Bugs Bunny; the only time they’ll ever be seen together. We see them. They are the cartoons we grew up with. They’re here in this world.

There are a few newcomer toons that should be welcomed among the more popular ones (although, in this world, they are). They’re Roger Rabbit—a wacky, zany, clumsy white rabbit with a bowtie; Jessica Rabbit—Roger’s wife, who is not a rabbit but a sexy femme fatale with a seductive voice provided by an uncredited Kathleen Turner; and Baby Herman—a tough-talking midget who plays the innocent baby in the Roger Rabbit cartoons.

As the movie opens, we see one of those cartoons and it’s a true delight. Roger has to babysit Baby Herman while Mother is out shopping, and immediately gets into trouble. There’s enough cartoon slapstick humor to cause laughter for a long time. The cartoon is a masterpiece. And we see that the director Raoul had to call “Cut!” because when a refrigerator drops on Roger’s heads, little birds fly around his head when he wants “stars, not birds!” And Baby Herman walks, complaining in a Brooklyn accent and asking for a cigar—hilarious.

Anyway, what’s the story of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” Well, like I said, it’s in the style of a 1940s thriller if intersected with toons. Private detective Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is hired to follow Jessica Rabbit from the Ink and Paint Club, where she performs as a nightclub singer, and catch in the act of cheating on her husband Roger (or in this case, playing “Pattycake”). Roger doesn’t take the news very well, and that’s why when the man who was seeing Jessica—a rich prankster named Marvin Acme (get it?)—is murdered by a toon, Roger is the prime suspect. Eddie doesn’t think much of it, since he has a prejudice against toons. You see, a toon killed his brother by dropping a piano on his head…is it wrong to say that that’s hilariously catastrophic?

But Roger finds Eddie’s office and is in desperate need of help. He didn’t commit the crime and knows that Eddie and his brother used to stand up for toons and give them justice. Nowadays, the justice system is more direct and diabolical. It’s mostly run by Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd), who has found a way to kill toons—something called “the dip”; one drop burns them like acid. He and the slimy, cartoonish (haha) Weasels, who serve as his squad, are on the hunt for Roger to execute him. So Eddie decides to keep him hidden as he tries to solve the mystery, but the main problem is that Roger can’t be one place without causing a lot of attention. This proves to be a difficult task.

Perfect examples of how technologically groundbreaking this movie is are two scenes that just stand out. One is the scene in which we first see Jessica Rabbit. She really interacts with people. She squeezes Marvin Acme’s cheeks and plays around with his handkerchief, and then she takes off Eddie’s hat and shoves it right back in his face. It really looks like she’s there, doing these things. Another example is when Eddie tries to keep Roger hidden from the Weasels in his office. He and Roger are handcuffed together after a prank, and there’s no key to separate them. So Eddie hides Roger in the sink full of water, making the Weasels think Eddie’s cleaning his underwear. Roger, of course, can’t hold his breath very long (which is kind of odd, since he can’t feel pain and there’s only way to kill a toon, as the movie keeps suggesting), and panics in the water. The water splashes about, making it look like Roger is really there. How did director Robert Zemeckis and his crew do all of this? They always keep the toons in the right places and the actors look like they’ve been seeing toons for a very long time.

This is some of the best special effects I’ve ever seen. They’re far from simple. Every detail was plotted out and the result is just perfect.

Bob Hoskins does an excellent job as Eddie Valiant. He has the hardest part of the other actors—Christopher Lloyd as the villain and Joanna Cassidy as Eddie’s girlfriend—in that he interacts with the toons the most. He acts to pretty much nothing, except for a few wires that move certain things, and he has to imagine that he’s really looking at a cartoon character. He does an incredible job. Without the right credibility, it wouldn’t be convincing that there’s human interaction with toons. And Hoskins is also a great comic actor and for his character, he mixes gruffness with sincerity and gets a good amount of laughs as well.

The story goes through many turns as we get many hints of social commentary, all of which developed to the final act, in which Judge Doom (I’m not giving away that he’s the villain; you’ll know the first time you see him) has a plan to get rid of all toons as if they were secondary individuals and turn their world ToonTown into a “freeway.” There’s also a lot of inventiveness in ToonTown, seen near the end as Eddie gives chase inside. This place seems pretty cool—a whole world full of cartoon characters. It’s every kid’s dream come true. But the place is an insane, chaotic hell ride where everything is just completely nuts and even your favorite cartoon characters are…somewhat sadistic. Look at Mickey and Bugs skydiving while Eddie is free-falling—they offer him a spare parachute, and what do they give him? An inflatable tire!

From the first scene to the last, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” is a joyous, funny, delightful, inventive entertainment. It’s a ton of fun and visually remarkable. I can imagine seeing this movie a hundred times and never getting tired of it. That’s the magic of the movies that comes through with this movie.

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“Stranger Than Fiction” is a delightful, thought-provoking film with an ingenious premise. What if you and your life were subjects of a novel being written as you live your life? What if you heard the writer talking in your head, as a narrator of your life? And what if the writer foretold that a harmless act will lead to your imminent death? That’s the idea for “Stranger Than Fiction.” It’s executed remarkably well, hardly ever stepping wrong. It’s a comedy-drama, a fantasy, and romance all in one, while featuring great work from the cast and great moments of eccentric humor, happy-or-sad truth, and genuine tenderness.

Before I write the review, I want to tell a little story. I have to be honest. I didn’t like this movie when I first saw it. I saw it on the big screen in early December 2006 (it was released in mid-November), when I was fourteen years old. That night, I was going to see “Unaccompanied Minors” with my family. For some reason I can’t quite recall, I saw “Stranger Than Fiction” by myself. So there I was, one of only two people in the theater, and “Stranger Than Fiction” became a much more poignant movie than I was expecting…which disappointed me. I was expecting a broad comedy, especially since Will Ferrell was the star, and was looking forward to seeing one. This wasn’t it. Then, that night, I saw “Unaccompanied Minors,” marketed as a gentle family comedy, and it actually met my expectations.

If you don’t know what “Unaccompanied Minors” is…well, you’re not missing that much. As time went by, that film just wore out on me. But soon enough, I started to recall the other movie I saw that day, and was really starting to think about it. So I rented “Stranger Than Fiction” on DVD and noticed something in it that I never would have seen in my ignorant early-teenage state. It affected me so much that it totally changed my entire view of it. I realize it did leave an impact on me, and the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to see it again.

Anyway, that’s the kind of film “Stranger Than Fiction” is—one that takes you totally by surprise. One of the main surprises is that, yes, Will Ferrell is the star of this complex, touching film. Ferrell has been known for his broad comedic work, whether on “SNL” or movies like “Elf” or “Anchorman.” Although he has done dramatic work a couple times before, none of it was really that memorable. His performance in “Stranger Than Fiction,” however, puts him up there with comedic actors that show that they are capable of equaling their skills to their dramatic capabilities.

Ferrell plays Harold Crick, an IRS auditor whose life is based around numbers—calculating large sums in his head and counting his every move each day. While this is effective in keeping in time with his everyday routines and his work, this doesn’t work well with human interaction. He lives alone, keeps to himself, and has no real friends. Then, something strange happens—Harold starts to hear a woman’s voice, talking about him “accurately and with a better vocabulary.”

Harold becomes convinced he’s hearing the narrating voice of his own narrative being written. He goes to see a shrink (Linda Hunt), who tells him that these symptoms resemble schizophrenia. She then recommends that he visits a literary professor (Dustin Hoffman), who doesn’t believe him at first, but ends up giving him some helpful advice in finding out if his story is a comedy or a tragedy. And Harold must find out soon, because the narrator has already spoken of a foreshadowing to his “imminent death.”

Meanwhile, we do see the author herself—an odd reclusive woman named Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson) who is suffering from writer’s block. Her trademark in her novels is that her protagonists are dead by the time the story is finished—she can’t decide how to kill Harold Crick. With the aid of her new assistant (Queen Latifah), she attempts to come up with something tragic and fitting, not knowing that Harold is a living person whose life is in her control.

While this is going on, Harold finds he does have something to live for. That would be Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a baker whom he has to audit. At first, she hates him and does everything she can to make his job miserable. Harold, however, can’t stop thinking about her and is even nervous around her. But eventually, Ana does take pity on Harold and even bakes him cookies. This is the start of a nice relationship between the two, meaning that it’s very important that Harold lives longer than Kay intends him to. Harold has to find her and practically beg for her not to kill him.

Director Marc Forster and writer Zach Helm show a great deal of fondness for these characters and it constantly shows. We like them just as much as they do. These are real, appealing people; not merely caricatures that they could have become. I enjoy spending time with them, and credit for that must also go to the actors. Ferrell is just brilliant. He’s likable, endearing, tragic, and funny when he needs to be. He creates a three-dimensional character in Harold Crick and we don’t want him to die, even if it means that Kay will have her masterpiece if he does. Emma Thompson, as Kay Eiffel, is wonderful—playing her role as an intelligent, but slightly odd, artist obsessed with creating the perfect novel. Maggie Gyllenhaal is delightful as Ana, and displays great, convincing chemistry with Ferrell—they’re great together. Dustin Hoffman plays it straight with the role of the literary professor and he’s allthemore effective because of it.

The story is incredible on paper and comes through on screen with great execution. It just gets better as it goes along, making you feel for these people and the outcome of every situation. And it’s a lot of fun to follow along with the creativity of the tale as it continues—touches such as Harold quietly checking off every mark of a “comedy” or a “tragedy” are just fantastic.

The final half is just perfect. While many films deteriorate and run out of energy before the last reel, “Stranger Than Fiction” just delivers the right amount of payoffs and displays the exact right tone of emotions. It deals with mortality in the sensitive ways you can think of, given the situation. It also asks the questions of whether or not Kay has the right to kill off her main character to have her “masterpiece.” If he dies, the story will come full-circle and there will have been a well-crafted piece of work. The solution fits the film perfectly.

I was expecting a comedy out of “Stranger Than Fiction.” What I got instead was something more wonderful, sweet, and impactful. It’s a great film; one that made me laugh, made me cry, and made me smile. So as you can tell, it did leave an impact on me when I was 14. I just didn’t know it yet.

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“Collateral” is a thriller that works as film art, a case of casting-against-type, and an experimental genre picture. It’s a chillingly entertaining film that is trickier than you might expect, but intriguing enough to follow along with.

The film’s two lead actors are Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx and they both play against type. Cruise surprisingly plays the villain—a contract killer named Vincent who kills without mercy or remorse; he figures that out of more than a million people in Los Angeles, what’s a few dead bodies going to matter? Foxx, usually displaying comedic talents, plays the straight-arrow hero—an L.A. cab driver named Max who on one crazy night winds up as collateral for Vincent. Both actors do great work, playing against the usual types that they’re accustomed to, and playing off of each other.

Here’s the premise—Vincent hails a cab in L.A. and as luck would have it, he gets Max’s. Vincent needs Max to make five stops for him, which Max doesn’t agree to…until Vincent brings $600 into the mix. But Max finds out too late that Vincent isn’t out selling real estate for the night. On Vincent’s first stop, a dead body—killed by Vincent—drops on Max’s cab from four stories up.

“I think he’s dead,” Max exclaims, frightened. “Good guess,” Vincent states before inspecting the body. Pause. Max nervously asks, “You killed him?” Vincent puts it straight, “No. I shot him—the bullets and the fall killed him.”

Now Max is taken hostage by this sophisticated, psychotic hitman for four more stops. He’ll get paid if they both survive the night. Max doesn’t want to go through with assisting a killer, but he has no choice. Vincent is smart, alert, violent, and extremely dangerous. He kills and goes on, and doesn’t care about anybody in this city. Max keeps trying to stop Vincent, with no luck. Even when Max tries to get away, Vincent is always one step ahead of him. The next time he pulls something like this, he could be dead. How can he stop him?

The two men are paired together for most of the movie, but this is not a buddy movie. The two are talking about what’s happening and what’s going on with each other’s lives at this point, and yet they’re still at odds with each other, even if they don’t want to admit it. The conversations are quite fascinating in how Vincent can see through Max’s talk—Max is always talking about opening a limo company, even though he’s been driving a cab for twelve years. He’s a dreamer, and not necessarily a doer. And of course, there’s the issue at hand that comes into the conversations, and that’s well-handled as well—tense and vague.

Tom Cruise is disturbingly convincing as Vincent and his character is given more dimensions than you might expect. He brings a lot more to the role of antagonist than just playing the bad guy. He is a killer, don’t get me wrong. But he’s interesting in the way that he has his own perceptions of life and humanity and isn’t afraid to let anyone know it. He knows what he’s doing is murder, but he doesn’t care and he doesn’t feel guilty. He just thinks it won’t matter in the slightest, as long as he is not caught. Without giving anything away, his final scene, the payoff for this character, shows an enormous amount of gravity.

Even though Jamie Foxx was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, this is really his character’s story. He is the lead—we’re with him to the very end. Jamie Foxx has been known for his comedic roles in TV and movies (including “Booty Call”) and his work here is a pleasant surprise, showing a great deal of unexpected dramatic range and depth with his performance. Throughout the movie, we’re rooting for him to survive this crazy night.

(My guess is that the Academy had already nominated Foxx for Best Actor for his starring role in “Ray,” which he did win for, and didn’t want to forget that he was in something else of note that year.)

I’ve gone on enough about the unique premise and great acting by the two leads. Michael Mann, who loves to bring style to his projects, directed “Collateral.” Here, he has the unique visual style that makes the night seem bright and Los Angeles come alive. Los Angeles feels like a character of itself, which shows that Mann really knows this city at night. Sure, it looks nice during the day, but note how mysterious and somewhat beautiful and bright the city looks at night.

There’s also a great deal of humanity in the other characters of the screenplay, written by Stuart Beattie. For example, in an opening scene, taking place before the madness, we see Max pick up an attractive fare—a lawyer, played by Jada Pinkett Smith—and they have a real conversation with each other; not just small talk. It’s a sweet scene and it’s carried over later in the movie as Vincent gives Max some advice about his love life, after seeing the woman’s phone number. And she does become an important asset to the film’s climax, without giving too much away. And there’s a light-comic scene in which Max is forced to visit his ill mother (Irma P. Hall) in the hospital, with Vincent accompanying him. The mother embarrasses Vincent with stories about Max, but her dialogue is also revealing in developing further Max’s character traits.

My favorite is a nightclub owner (played by Barry Shabaka Henley) who meets Vincent and Max and shares a memory he had when Miles Davis came into the club one night. He tells the story with such warmth that we hope nothing bad happens to this person, and we’d like to know more about him. Max feels the same way, smiling as he tells the story, and Vincent actually fools us into thinking that nothing bad is going to happen. But no—this is the nightclub owner’s final night. Max can’t believe it, and neither can we.

This shows that “Collateral” is a thriller that is more about the characters than about the actual plot. Cruise and Foxx’s characters come alive and the supporting characters are interesting as well. We don’t just wait for the big climax to come along so that they can all shoot each other. Situations happen to these characters—mostly with a purpose, sometimes without. And that’s what make “Collateral” as great as it is.

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

It would just be one thing to make a documentary about a rock band with a few issues. It’s quite another to make a mock-documentary about a fictional rock band with more than a few issues.

“This is Spinal Tap” is a mock-“rockumentary” about a British band called Spinal Tap who, according to an introduction, has been pretty famous back in the day because they’re the loudest band on earth. But now back on tour for their newest album, they are just loud. How are they the loudest band on earth? Well, when most bands crank their amps’ volumes up to 10, they take it up to 11.

Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) explains the amp to filmmaker Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner, the film’s director). “Most amps go to 10?” “Exactly.” “Does that mean it’s louder?” “Well, it’s one louder, right?”

“Why don’t you just make 10 louder, and make 10 be the top number, and make that a little louder?”

Baffled by that notion, Nigel just replies by restating, “These go to 11.”

Nigel’s ideas aren’t logical and DiBergi realizes that a little too late. Nigel obviously lives in a world of his own.

“This is Spinal Tap” is one of the funniest, original, and most intelligent movies ever made. Spinal Tap does not exist, although the actors playing the band wrote and performed their own songs for the fictional band. But it could. While on tour in America, their career is heading downhill. Back in the day, the arenas were packed. But now, not many people care. Some may have forgotten about them. But who’s to blame for the reason that Spinal Tap is a bad rock-n-roll band?

Director DiBergi narrates throughout the documentary. He likes Spinal Tap’s music and follows the group on tour, asking them questions about themselves. I was chuckling when they explained what happened to their old drummer (“He choked on vomit…but it wasn’t his own vomit.”). But I was laughing when I found out that that drummer wasn’t the only Spinal Tap drummer who died. Apparently, they have a new and clever way of killing off all of their drummers. Maybe the other guys don’t kill him—maybe it’s a “drummer curse” that occurs when a new drummer is brought to the band, which means that the current drummer in this movie is not going to last very long.

Bad luck happens with the band when rhythm guitarist/lead singer David’s (Michael McKean) girlfriend Jeanine (June Chadwick) arrives to join the tour. Gigs are cancelled, the lady and the band’s manager Ian (Tony Hendra) have an argument which results in him quitting, the cover for the new album stinks, and a gig at a military base is a disaster with all of the planes roaring off outside. The events that occur in this movie—even the quiet moments, such as when the group visits Elvis’ tombstone—are funny and original; even more funny is that they’re all played naturally.

Other funny scenes—the band gets lost on a gig on their way to the stage (not to the place but to the stage); bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) is trapped in a womblike stage prop but keeps his cool while the others perform and a stage crew member tries to get him out; a set designer is assigned to create an 18-foot replica of a Stonehenge element but instead creates an 18-inch replica that the band is forced bring out dramatically…and embarrassingly.

That last scene mentioned is very funny because the band members don’t know what the thing will look like and when they see it finally, on stage, their surprised reactions are hilarious.

“This is Spinal Tap” is a great, funny movie not just because of the really funny scenes but because Spinal Tap aren’t mean-spirited, and the way that they are going about this film is not cruel. The appeal of this movie is how it shares the pleasure of just being themselves. They love to rock, they love to entertain—they probably go out there every performance just to hear and feel the beat.

American comic actors Christopher Guest and Michael McKean give respectable British accents and heartfelt performances. Guest, McKean, Shearer, and Reiner co-wrote the script themselves—they went through improvisational stages and wrote the Spinal Tap songs (most memorable are “Sex Farm” and “Hellhole”). “This is Spinal Tap” is also Rob Reiner’s directorial debut. I love the way he puts background information and glimpses of style into almost each frame of the film.

You could call “This is Spinal Tap” a spoof. But the laughs aren’t coming from sight gags such as “Airplane!” or “Top Secret.” But it’s more of a satire in the way that this movie feels like a real documentary with the dumb questions and the ridiculously funny answers. This is a really rare, specific type of satirical comedy to do. It’s a brilliant satire on documentaries, stage decorations, rock music, and troubles with rock bands. “This is Spinal Tap” rocks!

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

“The Descendants” is the latest from writer-director Alexander Payne. Payne specializes in bizarre comedy (read “Election,” read “Sideways”). How bizarre? Well, bizarre enough to make you question whether it should be labeled as a comedy. I’ve met a lot of people who saw the film and couldn’t decide to label it as a comedy or a drama.

To those people, I say this: Well…yeah, doesn’t that go without saying? It’s a comedy-drama. Why are you looking forward into this? Comedy-dramas do exist, or have you forgotten that? “The Descendants” is a comedy-drama. You laugh, you cry. This genre is not new. You’ve seen plenty of TV shows like this too.

Anyway, “The Descendants” goes through comedy and drama. However, it has a consistent tone, along with some great acting and a well-executed script, which makes for a touching and funny film that takes chances and delivers much more than you’d imagine. It’s strange, mind you, as most Alexander Payne productions are, but it’s also very effective.

The film features one of George Clooney’s best performances as Matt King, a lawyer based in Honolulu, Hawaii, whose life is falling apart as his wife Elizabeth is comatose after a boating accident. It’s his job to keep the family together. He starts by trying to keep his youngest daughter, 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller), out of trouble in school—she behaves inappropriately with other kids. Matt’s other daughter, 17-year-old Alex (Shailene Woodley, from TV’s “The Secret Life of an American Teenager”), is at a boarding school and as Matt finds out when he comes to take her home, she drinks. Matt has never been close to these girls, as he’s usually labeled as the “back-up parent,” but now he has to be the one to tell them that their mother will never wake up from her coma and it states in her living will that the situation requires removing her from life support.

From here, many complications arise. Matt of course has to tell everyone related or acquainted to Elizabeth that she’ll die soon. His father-in-law (Robert Forster) flat-out tells Matt that he should have been a better husband. Alex and Scottie attempt to cope with the situation. Stuff you’d expect from this type of crisis. But there’s more. Alex’s idiot boyfriend Sid (Nick Krause) stays over to help out and constantly says or does the wrong things, while possibly stoned (I’m not sure—there’s a line of dialogue indicating that he smokes pot). And Alex breaks the news to Matt that Elizabeth has been cheating on him!

All this happens while Matt and his cousins—including Hugh, played by Beau Bridges—tries to sell acres of land on the island of Kawai in order to open a new resort. Not a good time for Matt.

So…yeah! The “Terms of Endearment” elements have flown out the window since we discover that the woman on the verge of death has pretty much caused trouble even before the accident. Alex recognizes the guy who was sneaking around with her mother, and decides to help her father find him. He’s a real-estate agent named Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard, looking middle-aged) and he’s been cheating on his own wife (Judy Greer) for Matt’s. What Matt is going to say when he finally meets Brian is always in question.

“The Descendants” balances comedy and drama, mostly in an effective way. But it’s not conventional. It deals with the deeper issues realistically. These are realistic people in a realistic crisis that happens to be saddled with all sorts of little twists and turns in the midst of it all. That the film takes place in Hawaii lets the record show that life itself isn’t paradise. Things are just as complicated here as anywhere else. Even the moments that practically force you to weep aren’t conventional either. The dialogue is right, the awkwardness in most scenes is believable, and just about every scene just plays itself out.

George Clooney is very good in this movie—he’s low-key, convincing, and delivers some parts comedy and other parts drama. In that case, he’s equal to the material he’s working with. The young actors are strong, especially Shailene Woodley as the oldest daughter who constantly battles her emotions. Nick Krause as the dumb boyfriend is very funny and actually proves to play a dummy with more dimensions than you might think, as we see in a scene in which Matt and the kid have a little heart-to-heart. He’s not so dumb. Also, Matthew Lillard and Judy Greer do nice work, and Robert Forster is solid in a small but effective role.

“The Descendants” is an odd but wonderful movie. The story had me guessing, I was invested in the characters, there are moments of accurate truth, and it’s probably Alexander Payne’s best work.

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

In my humble opinion, “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” is the best of the “Mad Max” movies, which is very surprising considering the impact of “The Road Warrior,” the sequel to the original film “Mad Max” that I liked more than the original, actually. “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” is the third in this post-apocalyptic action-film series about a man named Max, who walks around the wasteland that was once America. I liked this better than “The Road Warrior” because of its greater surprises, amazing locations in its fictional world, and (I’m not gonna lie) some of the best action sequences I’ve ever seen. Mad Max remains the same, but the world around him has improved greatly.

To begin the movie, we get aerial shots of this world as Mad Max is forced to ride through the desert on a carriage carried by camels. And as the movie goes on, we see that mankind lives by its own set of new rules and order. Mad Max (Mel Gibson) finds his way to Bartertown, a village constructed out of automobile parts. In Bartertown, anything goes and anything stays. You sell, you buy, you do whatever. The ruler is an imperious queen named Aunty Entity (Tina Turner) and the supervisor is a fat man named the Collector (Frank Thring). And there’s also a little man with an attitude.

Bartertown is powered by an energy source driven by the leavings of…pigs. You see, there are countless pigs in Bartertown’s main factory that eat. Their leavings are used as methane gas. Mad Max finds a job, working with the pigs. However, that requires walking through piles of pig crap.

Bartertown itself makes the first half-hour of this movie memorable and enchanting. But that’s just the beginning. Also in this new world is Thunderdome, a spherical arena that includes the most original idea in the whole series. The spectators climb on the dome to watch matches being fought between two competitors. How do you win? Don’t die. The competitors use harnesses to leap up and down and try to kill each other. As Mad Max is chosen to compete in Thunderdome, it turns into one of the best fight scenes I’ve ever seen in an action movie.

Mad Max survives Thunderdome and escapes Bartertown but then comes across a tribe of children, who dress and act like Native Americans. They believe that they will be saved by someone and they believe that Mad Max is that person. But of course, Mad Max doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or even who he is anymore, for that matter.

Everything comes down to a thrilling action scene that occurs on a train. Tina Turner and her cohorts must fight Mad Max, whose only army is the tribe of savage children.

I don’t really know what else to write about “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” except that I very much admired it. I admired it for its look and how the characters were projected, I admired it for the sets (especially Bartertown, Thunderdome, and even the kids’ home which looks like the home of Peter Pan’s Lost Boys), and I admired it for the spirit in its storytelling. Director George Miller also made the original Mad Max movies and delivers true craftsmanship and a great deal of fun. And I believe “Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome” is the best in the series.

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

When “Donnie Darko” was released in 2001, it became a box-office flop. But since then, it has become a cult classic. It is easy to see why. “Donnie Darko” had a lot going on with it and while it didn’t pay off the way people expected, the setup left people wondering what they just saw and have their own ways of explaining what happened. I love a movie like this. It lets our imaginations run wild but also, doesn’t make us hate the movie. We love the movie. We embrace it. This is why “Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut” is actually somewhat better than the original cut. This new cut is twenty minutes longer but not a lot easier to understand. However, fans of the original will love the new footage that delivers more of the characters we have grown to love. It also enriches and strengthens the material, but the tone of the movie remains the same.

Richard Kelly is the director and writer of “Donnie Darko.” He delivers so much ambition to the screen and fills it with great performances and a unique, clever script. He warns us (on the Website and as a line said in the movie) to “pay attention; you might miss something.” It is possible to miss something here, but once you have your own idea on how every strange event in this movie pays off, you don’t really seem to care. I will not say how I think everything paid off because I could be wrong. I do think I have an idea, however. But I still won’t spoil anything.

“Donnie Darko” has a plot that doesn’t toy with reality but also with logic. How can anyone explain the presence of a six-foot-tall creature that is a demon crossed with a rabbit? His name is Frank and he visits the title character of the movie Donnie Darko. In the beginning of the movie, Frank forces Donnie to sleepwalk out of his house in the middle of the night just to tell him that within a month, the world will end. When Donnie wakes up and walks back to his house in the morning, he learns that a jet engine fell into his bedroom. The strange thing is that there are no reports of a lost engine. Nobody knows where it came from. Now how can you explain that?

Donnie Darko is played by Jake Gyllenhaal in an offbeat yet believable performance. He plays a schizophrenic oddball who visits a therapist every day, finds logic in almost everything that’s being thrown at him which causes him trouble in class, and lives with a seemingly normal family. He has supportive parents and an older sister old enough to vote (the movie takes place in the mid-80s—the sister announces she’s voting for Dukakis). His school life is like something out of a John Hughes movie. He has an English teacher (Drew Barrymore, also credited as an executive producer) who is good enough to get herself fired, a life lessons coach who lives her life following the tapes of a motivational speaker (played by Patrick Swayze), and a girlfriend (Jena Malone) who is in the witness protection program, taking the name of Gretchen Ross because it “seemed cool.” One of the film’s best scenes is in which Donnie’s parents laugh at Donnie’s behavior at a certain point instead of scolding him.

Donnie gets visions of the future from Frank and he discovers that time travel may be involved somehow. In this new cut, we see pages of “The Philosophy of Time Travel” being shown on the screen just to see if we can understand what’s happening. I understand that there is a Tangent Universe that rarely occurs. But when it does, the world has 28 days before it flashes into nonexistence. We also get a countdown every few minutes that keeps reminding us. We wonder what could happen when time runs out. Also strangely intriguing is when Donnie can see timelines (which look like the liquid ropes from “The Abyss”) pulling people into the future. When Donnie follows his own timeline, it leads to a gun. What would he do with that gun? Then there is the case of Grandma Death, an old lady who checks her mail everyday, expecting a letter from somebody, but from whom? Then we discover that she’s the one who wrote the book about time travel and we’re thinking about where it could go from there.

Richard Kelly directs and writes with a strange, creepy mood in this sleepy small town and suburban setting as Donnie tries to piece everything together, just as we try to piece it together as well. Maybe Drew Barrymore is the six-foot rabbit or maybe not, maybe we’re in a parallel dimension throughout this movie or maybe not, but it’s such an intriguing and interesting film that we desire an explanation. It would be one thing to have somebody revealed as Frank and an explanation as to what’s happened and why. But it’s another to figure it out for ourselves. All of the clues are there in the amazing journey and we just have to piece it all together. It’s like a “Twilight Zone” episode without a Rod Serling narration to explain what happened. The performances are very strong, especially by Gyllenhaal who has to carry the movie with his odd yet appealing gawkiness.

“Donnie Darko” was already alive, original, and compelling; with the director’s cut, it is even more alive with originality and compelling energy. The pacing is just right. It allows the story to have depth and room to breathe. Like I said, I have an idea as to where everything led to but I will not give it away because of what everyone else may think. For the most part, “Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut” is better than the original cut and I loved it.

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

John Carpenter’s 1978 thriller “Halloween” sure has spawned more than a dozen ripoffs, most of which deplorable wastes of time. But how does “Halloween” itself hold up? It holds up very well—so well, that I believe it’s one of the best horror films I’ve ever seen. You know the storyline—a masked psychotic killer stalks and kills teenagers. That’s also the storyline for those afore-mentioned deplorable ripoffs like “Prom Night,” “Friday the 13^th” (and its sequels), “Terror Train,” and even the lame “Halloween” sequels. But the original “Halloween” is very different from all of those other movies. Why? Read further and I’ll try to explain.

The film opens (on Halloween night 1963) with a wonderful but scary point-of-view shot of someone stalking a teenage girl who apparently had sex with her boyfriend. The person grabs a carving knife, picks up a mask to wear (so we can see through the eye holes of the mask), and stabs the girl repeatedly, killing her. Only when he is discovered do we see who the killer is—it’s a six-year-old boy in a clown costume. That’s the opening scene and it’s an effective chiller. It grabs our attention—especially with the lack of emotion in the little boy’s face as he holds the blood-soaked knife.

The kid is sent away to a mental hospital and is described by his psychiatrist as pure, unadulterated evil. The psychiatrist is named Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and he says he has spent eight years trying to reach through his mind, and the next seven years trying to keep him locked up. But now, fifteen years since the incident, the guy escapes. He returns to the same town and the same street where it happened. And wouldn’t you know it, it happens to be on Halloween. So now, Loomis has to track him down before he finishes what he started all those years ago. But he just might be too late…

Loomis is well-played by Donald Pleasance, but most importantly, the other actors give likable, sympathetic performances. I say “most importantly” because like all thrillers and horror films, they work best if we care about the characters that are in jeopardy. The guy’s primary targets are a trio of teenage girls—Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her best friends Annie (Nancy Loomis) and Lynda (P.J. Soles). When we first meet them, they seem like realistic teenagers and are likable enough for us to fear for them. That’s either a credit to the writers’ part (the writers are Carpenter and Debra Hill) or the actresses’ part, but it works.

As for the killer—named Michael Myers, or “The Shape,” as he referred to in the end credits—he seems like a demon that stalks before he kills. He kills mercilessly, silently, and remorselessly. Carpenter, as director, is careful about his camera angles for this guy. Until the final act, he isn’t seen entirely. He’s kept obscure to shadows, lighting, or distances.  He’s creepy especially when he is seen from a distance (like when a kid that Laurie is babysitting looks out a window and sees him just standing under the porch light of the house across the street) and still creepy when he gets closer to chase his final victim for the night. He sports a white-painted Captain Kirk mask and black coveralls, and that makes him just as frightening. And we never know what his motivations are. That shows that killers are more terrifying when the motive is unknown. And since he’s possibly mentally-unfit, it would seem like all it would take is teenage sexuality to set him off. All of these make Michael Myers an effective, ominous villain.

John Carpenter’s chilling piano music score for the film may seem simple, but it’s just fantastic. It works well with the tone of the story and it also goes all over the place. Most of the scores will start one theme and lay another theme on top of it, but it will keep the other theme and sometimes start another theme. With this music, added with Carpenter’s clever camerawork in keeping the killer obscure for the most part, it is so hard to feel secure when watching this movie. I remember I had to tell myself, “It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie.”

So “Halloween” loves moviemaking, but it also loves its characters. No one in this movie is presented as a stereotype, although that’s how I fear they’ve become after being exploited in the other movies—the Virgin Girl Who Lives to Fight, and the Sex-Crazed Friends Who Die. I don’t know why the ripoffs don’t have the writing talent to create characters as effective as the ones in “Halloween,” but each one has these stereotypes. But here’s something the ripoffs do even worse—they keep the sympathy away from the characters in jeopardy and have the killer be the main focus. That’s a very important difference between “Halloween” and the ripoffs it spawned—we never identify with Michael Myers in “Halloween,” and the movie has us care about what happens to Laurie, Annie, and Lynda.

It’s so hard to make a horror film of this brilliance. “Halloween” is well-crafted, well-acted, thought-provoking, and scary. Since its release and popularity, filmmakers have tried so many times to recreate its terror…but hardly even close to what “Halloween” has created. It’s a classic in the horror-movie genre.

Smith’s Verdict: ****

Reviewed by Tanner Smith

Baseball and the movies usually blend well together. With movies like “The Natural” and “Bull Durham,” among others, the love of the game is evident and well-portrayed. “Field of Dreams” is no exception—in fact, it’s a magical movie. It reminds us of why people love baseball and why it’s America’s pastime.

“Field of Dreams” is a fantasy. It features a man named Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner), who, along with his wife Annie (Amy Madigan), has gone through the fast lane long enough and moved to Iowa to run a family farm. Ray and Annie have a young daughter (Gaby Hoffman) and they all enjoy sitting on the porch and enjoying the relaxation and quiet. But then, Ray begins to hear a mysterious voice in the cornfield. The voice is soft and personal and its instructions aren’t particularly clear—“If you build it, he will come.” Who’s he? What should Ray build?

Then, Ray begins to envision a baseball field in the place of his cornfield. Unsure of whether or not the voice came from his head after stressful work, Ray does the unthinkable and actually plows underneath the corn to build his own baseball diamond.

And what an image it is! To see a baseball diamond right there in your own backyard right next to a cornfield. It’s a wonderful, unforgettable image.

Then suddenly, onto the field walks the ghost of “Shoeless” Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) of the 1919 Black Sox, who promised until the day he died that he would play the best he could. “Is this heaven,” he asks Ray. “No…it’s Iowa,” Ray responds. And then comes along the rest of the baseball team to come and redeem themselves by playing on the field.

There are problems, to be sure. The decision to keep the field on the farm may put Ray and his family into bankruptcy. And no one else besides Ray, Annie, and their daughter can see the dead baseball players practicing on the field, so a banker (played by Timothy Busfield) believes that they’re all going crazy. But Ray believes a miracle will occur, as the voice is heard again, telling Ray to travel east to meet a famous controversial writer for support, named Terence Mann (James Earl Jones). Terence doesn’t believe Ray’s story about the voice until he has his own experience.

I suppose that’s all I should say about the plot because as the movie progresses, it becomes more imaginative and thus more involving. Just the idea of having these baseball players from the past playing right there in your backyard is intriguing enough, but then the story gets deeper as it goes along with a character who never had a chance to play with the pros and a speech about how much baseball means to people. That speech is so heartwarming and so true, and strongly spoken by James Earl Jones late in the movie, that it exhibits the attitude that the movie is going for with the love of the game—innocence. These ballplayers aren’t merely at the field to impress anyone or prove something to themselves, but merely to continue to play the game they love. They’re stuck in a time when baseball was a game and not just an industry. That makes “Field of Dreams” not merely a great fantasy film, but an effective baseball movie.

The acting in “Field of Dreams” is first-rate. Kevin Costner makes a likable protagonist that you want good things to happen to, and he makes a good couple with Amy Madigan—they’re great together. Ray Liotta does a convincing job playing the legendary Shoeless Joe. James Earl Jones is phenomenally good as the writer who knows a thing or two about the National Pastime. And I can say the same for Burt Lancaster who portrays a character who deserves a second shot at the game as well, after he quit the game early to study medicine.

I won’t give away the ending to “Field of Dreams,” but let me tell you it doesn’t end with a “big game” climax. It’s an ending in which the themes like family values, redemption, reunion, and innocence all come together with the promise of something better to come in the future.

It’s hard to describe how good “Field of Dreams” really is. It’s a wonderful fantasy film about following your dreams and it’s also effective in how it handles baseball and captures the love of the game. It’s a positive movie too—this is not for cynics or disbelievers. The tone and spirit of the movie is modest, but not making the story too sweet that we can’t get invested in it. “Field of Dreams” entertained me, intrigued me, and in the end, it moved me.