New Releases for Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Posted Jul 5, 2010 by John Allman

Updated Jul 5, 2010 at 02:11 PM

What’s new in stores and on video shelves this week:

The Crazies
Genre: Horror/Remake
Directed by: Breck Eisner
Run time: 101 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray

The Lowdown: Breck Eisner’s remake of George Romero’s original government-disaster-turned-quarantine-cover-up thriller rockets along with serious chills, intense performances and very solid special effects.

This is one redo that is actually welcomed and worthwhile, particularly in these paranoid times in which we live.

“The Crazies” is a very good genre film that eschews the original’s point-of-view to focus less on the government forces that are dispatched to a small Midwestern town and instead hone in sharply on the people (the sheriff, his pregnant doctor wife, his deputy and a young girl) trying to avoid the madness that spreads following the crash of a military plane carrying a lethal strain of virus.

The cast is especially strong with Timothy Olyphant finally getting a top role that showcases his leading man abilities. Much like the woefully underappreciated “A Perfect Getaway,” Olyphant has just the right mix of moxie and menace to keep you guessing as to what he may do next.

And Radha Mitchell continues to shine whenever she’s given a role that combines dramatic weight with an action heroine’s sensibilities.

Eisner’s direction is steady and restrained. He nicely sets up the big thrill sections while never intruding on the quiet moments of doubt that threaten to tear the frazzled survivors apart.

And he strikes just the right balance between requisite jump scares and legitimate jolts.

Romero has been fortunate to date. The remakes of his early classics, minus the misguided efforts to constantly reinvent “Night of the Living Dead,” have been effective and impressive.

“The Crazies” stands with “Dawn of the Dead” as an above-average film that won’t make you long for the original.

The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks – Genre hottie Radha Mitchell.
Nudity – No.
Gore – Considerable.
Drug use – No.
Bad Guys/Killers – Anyone can be a killer.
Buy/Rent – Buy it.
Blu-Ray Bonus Features – Audio commentary; Multiple featurettes; Storyboards; Two episodes of “The Crazies” motion comic.
On the Web – http://www.thecrazies-movie.com/#/home

Hot Tub Time Machine (MGM, 100 minutes, Unrated, Blu-Ray): The greatest comedies of the 1980s had a spontaneity that kept you off-balance, meaning anything could happen at any given minute that might make you scratch your head even as you erupted with unexpected laughter.

Yet, they also had a focus, a foundation of a plot, no matter how trivial, that ran from beginning to end and would occasionally pop up to keep the film grounded long enough to avoid spinning off the rails.

This was true from the low-budget sex comedies like “Zapped!” and “Porky’s” to the broader farces like “Bachelor Party” or “Police Academy” and even the more ambitious mainstream hits like “Back to the Future” or “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

Take a movie like “Better Off Dead,” for example.

This 1985 cult classic starring John Cusack and directed by the unfortunately named Savage Steve Holland managed to mix a basic high school love story with everything from a menacing paper boy, an over-protective mother and her creepy son, competitive skiing, random moments of sci-fi involving a weird younger brother and a claymation hamburger mimicking an Eddie Van Halen guitar solo in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. 

But the hysterically funny core of the film remained focused enough that the nonsensical, peripheral flourishes of creative excess didn’t detract from the ridiculously memorable quotes and performances.

These were the movies of my youth, and they remain films that I will always stop to watch on cable and appreciate the fond memories, even if age has shown some of the gags to be less funny than they first seemed.

Often, the 1980s comedies were toplined by actors who would go on to have successful, mass market careers. Guys like Cusack who made a living off the funny in the 80s, or Tom Hanks or even Keanu Reeves. Go back and watch “Fraternity Vacation,” an ultra-low-budget spring break boobs and beach flick that featured a very young, pre-“Bull Durham” Tim Robbins. Hell, even Steve Guttenberg would go on from “Police Academy” to star in a string of hits as varied as “Coccoon” and “ Short Circuit.”

“Hot Tub Time Machine” wants desperately to capture the zeitgeist of that decade and, on paper, it should have been a smash. Leading man Cusack used to kill in this type of movie, playing the lovable sad sack who loses and later finds the right girl with his charm and off-beat personality. The 1980s are ripe for a good skewering with its what-the-hell-were-we-thinking fashion, cumbersome technology and love of cheesy rock spectacles. And there are so many films to riff on.

Plus “Hot Tub” lands two other guys who know how to bring the funny – Craig Robinson and Rob Corddry, both of whom have impeccable comic timing and an edgy delivery.

And there are three cameos – the incredibly awesome William “Cobra Kai” Zabka, the better-than-he’s-been-in-years Crispin Glover (who is experiencing a career resurgence on the heels of “Alice in Wonderland” by Tim Burton) and Chevy Chase.

Chase’s cameo, playing a cryptic, unnamed hot tub repair guy, is the least effective, which is sad. He just seems lost in a poorly defined, too-limited role that doesn’t play to any of the actor’s comedic strengths – pratfalls, smarmy zingers or holy-crap expressions.

So what went wrong with this early-buzz, hotly-anticipated festival favorite?

In a word, it’s too broad.

The first 30 minutes fly by so quickly, introducing so many different subplots and characters, on top of the poorly-explained time travel, that you simply can’t latch on to any one thing long enough to settle into a comfortable groove.

Once the three leads, accompanied by Cusack’s character Adam’s nephew Jacob (Clark Duke in a thankless role that seems to suggest he should be funny because he’s chubby and wears glasses), land back in 1986, the film starts settling for the easy marks – clunky shoebox-sized cell phones, indoor smoking, parachute pants, leg warmers and Frankie Goes to Hollywood billboard shirts.

The most interesting elements of “Hot Tub Time Machine” are the ones that aren’t explored – what it means for guys to hold onto lasting friendships over time, the disappointment of not reaching one’s true potential, the inability of men to accept the need to change or even attempt it.

Sure, those things might not be hilarious plot points for a campy comedy, but they are smart observations that would lend the necessary gravitas to an otherwise juvenile and sophomoric outing.

Director Steve Pink isn’t up to the challenge of actually challenging his capable and gifted cast to stretch beyond their one-note roles.

Corddry’s Lou is a loud, obnoxious drunk who never grew up. Cusack’s Adam is doomed to second-guess his every decision but not try to do things differently. Robinson’s Nick is a cuckold husband who resents his wife for cheating on him, but can’t grow the stones needed to talk about his feelings with her.

They each are given the chance to see how a key moment in their lives in 1986, if handled differently, might have made a difference.

But unlike similar, more intelligent movies like “Back to the Future” or “Groundhog Day,” they seem too focused on trying to elicit laughs than on generating thoughtful moments of self-reflection that might mine more fertile, albeit dramatic, revelations.

What you’re left with is a lightweight, harmless, but ultimately unsatisfying, romp that generates giggles, but not guffaws, by tipping its hat at far better 1980s movies like “Pretty in Pink,” “Red Dawn,” “The Karate Kid” and more.

The unrated edition shows a bit more skin, but doesn’t titillate nearly enough. The theatrical version is actually a little more funny, but this is a rental only, and be advised to keep your expectations low.

Uncle Sam (Blue Underground, 90 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Blue Underground unearths a horror gem from 1997 that takes the “crazed killer on a rampage during a holiday” genre that was so popular in the 1980s and adds a sly anti-war message to the bloody fun.

“Uncle Sam” isn’t a classic by any means, but it does have a lot going for it.

First, it was directed by William Lustig, the genre icon responsible for two fan favorites from the 1980s - the controversial slasher “Maniac” and the campy classic “Maniac Cop.”

Second, it was written by Larry Cohen, another genre icon whose credits include “Black Caesar,” “Its Alive,” “Q” and “The Stuff.”

Third, it features Isaac Hayes (Shaft), P.J. Soles (Halloween) and Robert Forster (Alligator).

And, finally, it has some clever, gory kills.

“Uncle Sam” is a zombie movie set during a Fourth of July celebration where a violent, kill-at-any-cost soldier reanimates to take revenge on yellow-bellied, peace-loving activists and his widowed bride whom he tormented before leaving for war. The soldier, Sam Harper, also wants to turn his nephew – get it, he’s Uncle Sam – into a next-generation killing progeny.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Fox, 118 minutes, PG, Blu-Ray): The latest tween novel series to try to become the next Harry Potter film franchise is Rick Riordan’s popular Greek mythology series about the half-human offspring of the Gods.

It suffers from the same pitfalls that other attempts have encountered, namely The Chronicles of Narnia, A Series of Unfortunate Events and His Dark Materials.

The pacing is hyper-elevated, and allows little time for the necessary exposition to catch newcomers up on what fans of the books already know. The characters are thinly-sketched and given short shrift as far as screen time. And the special effects seem to take center stage over the plots.

“The Lightning Thief,” the first of five books in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, tells the story of how Percy Jackson, the unbeknownst son of Poseidon, is accused of stealing Zeus’ lightning bolt and must travel all the way to Hades and back to save his mortal mother and avert the destruction of the world by angry, giant Greek gods.

Logan Lerman does a fine job as Percy, and he gets ample support from a star-studded cast playing mythological creatures and Gods, including Sean Bean as Zeus, Kevin McKidd as Poseidon, Uma Thurman as Medusa, Steve Coogan as Hades, Rosario Dawson as Persephone and Pierce Brosnan as Chiron the half-man, half-horse centaur.

The direction by Chris Columbus is adequate, and the special effects range from pretty cool to overly-CGI.

But the story zips along so fast that your head begins to swim while trying to take in an abundance of information, namely that every Greek god has the ability to come to Earth and sire a half-mortal child and that many of those children eventually end up at a secret training camp where they learn to harness their special gifts and/or powers.

You’re never given sufficient time to digest all the creatures, the gods and the rules by which they live and preside over our world.

And once Percy and two friends set out on their own to find three magic pearls that will gain them entrance to and escape from Hades, the movie just stops trying to explain anything and opts for one should-be spectacular set piece after another. There’s a decent cat-and-mouse chase through a stone garden with Medusa, but it borrows too liberally from “Clash of the Titans.” There’s an overlong battle inside a museum with a hydra. And the final fight between Percy and the real thief of the lightning bolt simply feels overstuffed with too many elements and not enough genuine tension.

The best part of the movie is when the characters finally make it to the Underworld. Coogan is a riot as Hades and plays him as a petulant rock star in leather pants, and Dawson is incredibly sexy and dangerous as Persephone.

Though its run time is less than two hours, “Percy Jackson” also feels long and it doesn’t generate enough wow wonder to offer much hope that the other books will be adapted.

Predator: Ultimate Hunter Edition (Fox, 107 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): Just in time for what hopefully will be a worthwhile sequel, John McTiernan’s original “Predator” from 1987 gets a worthy Blu-Ray release. This is an excellent example of how to create a cult classic. The film’s stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers never break character to question for too long the impossible and improbable notion that they are being hunted by an alien. The supporting cast is given minimal, but strong, dialogue and moments to create indelible impressions. And the creature is never fully explained and its full-body reveal is held back until near the movie’s end, creating anticipation and appreciation once it happens. McTiernan wisely keeps the pace throttling forward to allow for any gaping holes in logic to seem inconsequential and setting most of the action scenes in the jungle succeeds in generating an “anything can happen” sense of urgency and palatable menace. The movie holds up remarkably well given its age, and the “Ultimate Hunter Edition” makes for a worthwhile double-dip given its bevy of special features, which include the obligatory sneak peek at Robert Rodriguez and Nimrod Antal’s anticipated “Predators,” hitting theaters in early July.

Don McKay (Image, 90 minutes, R, Blu-Ray): This neo-noir wannabe thriller in the vein of “Blood Simple” falls flat, but not at the fault of stars Thomas Hayden Church and Elisabeth Shue. Writer/director Jake Goldberger just doesn’t have a good enough story to hold your interest.

Leave it to Beaver: The Complete Series (Shout! Factory, 5,610 minutes, Unrated, DVD): It’s been the basis for the prototypical nuclear family for decades.

Ward, June, Wally and the Beaver.

The great American family living the great American dream in one of the landmark American sitcoms of all time.

It’s served as a time capsule of a simplistic time when kids could be kids, fallout shelters weren’t acknowledged and scary atomic drills weren’t routinely practiced in school where children hid under a flimsy wooden desk to protect themselves from the big bang.

And it’s become the butt of countless comedic rimshots – ‘Ward, I think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night!’ Barump-bump.

Did anyone really know “Leave it to Beaver” would be the cultural tsunami that it became when the show premiered in October 1957? Surely not.

But from that very first episode of the series, and over the next six seasons until June 1963, the Cleaver household became a welcome weekly destination for millions of American families who saw in this fictional family the very tenants of the life they thought they should and could lead.

Shout! Factory, the bastion of cinematic and TV cult classics, has finally culled together for the first time all 235 original episodes in an astoundingly cool 37-DVD collection that is heavy enough to do definite damage if you struck someone in the head, but also compact enough to store on your library shelf without rearranging multiple titles.

The box set comes with its own separate Special Features disc that includes interviews with surviving cast members Jerry Mathers, Tony Dow, Barbara Billingsley, Ken Osmond and Frank Bank. The original, uber-rare pilot episode. Multiple featurettes, including “Forever the Beaver: The Cleavers Look Back,” “Ken and Frank Remember” and “The Drum Major of the Toy Parade.” Plus there is a reproduction of the original 1959 “Money Maker” board game.

This is one set that transcends nostalgia. “Beaver” was an American classic, a television show that set a benchmark for every family comedy that would follow from “The Brady Bunch” to “The Cosby Show” to today’s edgier hits like “Modern Family.”

Recapture the feeling, relive your favorite moments and revive that sense of purpose that a little boy, his big brother, their meddling friends and amazingly grounded parents provided.

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