Reel To Reel:
Fahrenheit 9/11

How It Rates: ***1/2
Starring: George W. Bush as himself
Rated: R
Red Flags: A couple of graphic scenes of war injuries, but really, it's no worse than what you may have seen already on CNN or Fox News

Preconceived Notions: Disney dumped it. Dems delight in it. Repubs don't want you to see it. It won at Cannes. What is it in this film that people don't want us to see?
The Bottom Line: Like it or hate it, there's a lot of facts that can't be ignored -- selective facts, yes -- and a lot to think about.

DIRECTOR: We're 1:30 away. How's he looking?

FLOOR DIRECTOR: Fine. How's his mic?

AUDIO: Give me one more check.

FRANCIS: Okay, how's this. One, two, one, two. I'm speaking for a mic check.

AUDIO: A little hot. Okay, that's got it.

FRANCIS: Wait, I need to put my hat on.

DIRECTOR (after a pause): You're going to wear that?

FRANCIS (annoyed as he straightens black tricorn hat with white trim): Yes, I'm going to wear that. I consider myself a patriot. Those who came 200 years before us fought and died for free speech, whether we like it or not. It doesn't make a difference whether or not you like Michael Moore or not, he still has First Amendment rights. We all do--

DIRECTOR: Okay, okay, save it for the review. One minute away.

FLOOR DIRECTOR: Cameras, you're going to have to shoot him wide with that hat. Damn, it's bigger than I thought.

FRANCIS: Hey, size isn't everything.

DIRECTOR: Knock it off down there. In fifteen. Black is up.

[Pause... fade up]

It doesn't really matter what you think of Michael Moore as a filmmaker. He's caustically talented by any measure. He knows how to make a point and score points with his audiences. I remember him talking about why he did Roger & Me as a big-screen documentary instead of using some other medium to tell his story of the devastating effects of GM jobs outsourced from Flint, Michigan. Loosely, he said he liked movies, so he made one. But he had to figure out a way to get people to plunk down $8.25.

Thus was born the genre he has mastered: the goofumentary -- a hybrid of 60 Minutes and The Daily Show. Fahrenheit 911 is a two-hour long remix of news footage and original interviews blended with style and Mad-magazine satire like a club DJ. Moore's point is obvious: The American people were duped into supporting the invasion of Iraq when the real threats to America were (and still are) in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. He lays out his interviews and supporting evidence like Mike Wallace going in for the kill, but with a narrative style that sounds like a bedtime story, hyphenated with hilarious use of stock footage and pop-culture riffs. A play on the open to the TV western Bonanza for the war in Afghanistan is a howler. And we get to see numerous behind-the-scene clips of Washington's power players (including the president) being groomed for their close-ups.

Fahrenheit 911 opens with the 2000 presidential election debacle, with Moore explaining how Bush allies tipped the votes in George W. Bush's favor. Conservatives will jump all over this as sour grapes, but watch a little closer, and you will understand Moore is setting the stage for a larger point -- the fate of nations doesn't always rest on what's right or what's honest but what's least likely to disturb powerful connections, corporations, and allies. And there are plenty of powerful connections and allies, as Moore shows ties between the White House and the Bin Laden families. There are connections between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., and the White House and Halliburton, and things that must not be disturbed. And hundreds of enlisted men and women have died to protect those alliances -- not freedom, not safety. Heartbreakingly, we have allowed ourselves to give up freedoms we should be standing up for in the name of security.

Let's pause for a minute right here, before you go writing me off as some conspiracy theorist. Facts are subject to context. Truth is relative. I have no doubts Moore has picked and chosen which facts he wants to present, and not all of them are going to hold up. I spotted one glaring fact error in an interview with a congressman who claimed the U.S. terrorism alert level has gone up to red -- not true. Yellow is the highest it has ever been as of this writing. But this is Moore's movie, not See It Now. And the hard evidence is up on the screen, larger than life, and impossible to write off.

I'm not going to debate the politics of this film. That is another task for other people. But I can't understand why Republicans in Tucson are refusing to mount a full court press against this film if they dislike it so much. We tried to take a Republican and a Democrat to see this film for an edition of KOLD's Reel Life Movie Reviews. The Republicans declined, instead referring all responses to some higher-level spokesman. I can't speak for Pima County's GOP (I'm an independent, by the way), yet if I had a burning desire to confront what I thought were lies and distortions, I wouldn't allow myself to be gagged by my party leadership. And I wouldn't gag my members, either. Let them see this film and take Moore on if it's so flawed.

Democrats and the media take some licks here too. Especially damning is Democratic congressman Charles Rangel's admission that lawmakers don't read most of the bills they pass -- including the Patriot Act, which Moore reads on Capitol Hill over the loudspeakers of an ice cream truck. He also jabs the 2000 Senate -- a place with plenty of Dems -- for refusing to back party members in the House who wanted to voice objections to the results of the presidential election.

Moore goes to great lengths -- almost too long -- to prove he's not anti-soldier. Two of the most powerful sequences in the film involve mothers of soldiers who died in Iraq. And near the end of the film, Moore offers his own ironic tribute to the troops.

Conservative filmmakers are readying responses to Fahrenheit 911. One Tucson author has co-written a book trashing Moore. A conservative film festival is even in the works. Fine, go for it. Michael Moore would welcome you, even if he doesn't want to publicly admit it. But I doubt whether any of those responses will have the impact or smart-alek style of Fahrenheit 911. Conservatives, who have shown how they can set the agenda through Fox News and talk radio, have yet to score a major victory in the arena of independent documentaries. Some conservative Michael Moore may be hiding in an edit room somewhere, but I doubt it.

[fade to black]

DIRECTOR: We're clear. That's a wrap. But come on, did you really need the hat?

FRANCIS (pause): Why don't you ask Michael Moore?

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Reel To Reel:
The Terminal

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Tom Hanks, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Zeta-Jones
Rated: R
Red Flags: Mild profanity

Preconceived Notions: Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, together again. Sounds good.
The Bottom Line: The premise is a little far-fetched, but it's ultimately heartwarming.

[Special Note: This is not the original review. It got accidentally trashed while I was updating this blog and I could not recover it. However, the sentiments and the star rating are the same in this shorter, re-created version I have submitted below.]

The Terminal is that stray puppy you take in. It chews your furniture. It scratches your walls. But you love it anyway, and you keep it.

That's the way I felt about this film, which re-teams Hanks with director Steven Spielberg. Although it's based on a true story of a man who ended up stranded at a Paris airport, the concept itself is a stretch. Yet it redeems itself with plenty of heart from Hanks.

Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a man from a non-existant eastern European nation -- not just in real life, but in the film's life as well. His country is in a coup, meaning his visa is not recognized by the U.S. So he is confined to New York City's JFK airport until the whole mess can be straightened out. Viktor comes up with creative ways of getting through the days -- building cracker sandwiches, collecting carts to get money, and even landing a job with a renovation crew.

Frank Dixon (Tucci) is in charge of security. He's trying to help Viktor, but he's thinking more about his career. A promotion is in his future if he can show he's doing his job to the letter. And ice water seems to be running through his veins. He enjoys screwing with one of Navorski's early money-making schemes and offers anything but gratitude after summoning Navorski's help with a Russian-speaking man who's out of control upon being caught with drugs for his sick father. And yet he tries to offer Navorski more than one chance at a way out that's not exactly by the book.

Navorski wins allies among a baggage handler who organizes poker games for unclaimed merchandise, a food-service worker who uses Navorski as a middleman to win the love of an immigration official, and a janitor with a mean streak. The foreigner also has a girlfriend (Zeta-Jones), who has enough troubles with men to warrant a picture of her own. Dixon, we should mention, tries meddling in there, too.

Through all of this, Hanks saves the picture with his strength as a character actor, playing his role with innocence and warmth. Viktor is a immensely likable character, a la Forrest Gump. But while Gump had a fairytale charm to it, The Terminal dampens its charm with improbability, including the very reason why Hanks has come to New York with a can of peanuts in his hand. Some of you will find his motivations charming and heartfelt, and some of you will find it just, well, nuts.

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Reel To Reel:
The Chronicles Of Riddick

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Vin Diesel, Judi Dench, Colm Feore
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Sci-Fi Violence, Mild Language

Preconceived Notions: It's a sequel to Pitch Black, which I haven't seen. But Vin Diesel is back, and he hasn't missed yet.
The Bottom Line: Diesel's ultra-cool persona and sharp dialogue add spice to what's otherwise another CGI sci-fi film.

Vin Diesel will kick your puny butt and then tell you in that gravelly cigarette voice: "You should have gone quietly." I like him a lot in this picture.

In this sequel to Pitch Black, Riddick (Diesel) takes on the evil Necromongers. As Dench's character explains in the opening voiceover, they will convert you to their religion or kill you. Mostly it's the latter.

Riddick is the only hope of stopping these guys, being the only person left in a race the bad guys fear. But first he's gotta get some bounty hunters off his back and do a little housekeeping on Helion, a peaceful planet in the Necromonger crosshairs. They're quickly running out of targets, as their armies roll over anything faster than American troops in Baghdad. What are these folks gonna go when they run out of places to conquer?

Much of the picture, though, is spent with Diesel trying to get away from the bounty hunters -- or maybe con them somehow as part of his plan. He does plenty of kung-fu fighting, fast as lightning, before slipping back into wise-ass anti-hero mode.

Amusing through all of this is the dialogue -- not just Diesel's, but everybody's. In the old days, you would expect a musical stinger after one-liners like: "You mentioned HER!" It's almost self-parody. But boy, is it fun for the ears.

Vin Diesel has made better pictures than this (XXX ranking as my favorite). But he didn't do badly. However, with anybody else in the role, this would have been just another episode of Star Trek.

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Reel To Reel:
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint
Rated: PG
Red Flags: Fantasy Violence, Mild Language

Preconceived Notions: The boy wizard's growing up. J.K. Rowling's novels are getting deeper and darker. Hermione is morphing from cute girl to hottie.
The Bottom Line: Third movie in the series is darker, more mature, but runs like Cliffs Notes of the book.

Pity screenwriter Steve Kloves. He has the gargantuan task of boiling down a beloved children's book into a two-hour film. All right, we'll allow two hours and some change. He must extract from J.K. Rowling's intricate storylines and rich exposition a coherent screenplay. Did we say there was a two-hour time limit?

Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban is a book well suited for film -- a five-hour long film, as one KOLD "Reel Life" reviewer suggested. No way would a major studio release a product that long. One notable exception was Kenneth Branagh's 1996 version of Hamlet, which clocked in at a little more than four hours. People gasped when the first Potter film ran more than two-and-a-half hours. I say you can make a four-hour Potter film that does the book justice and people will still lap it up. But that film will not be made under Hollywood economic mandates, and begging is futile. So the squeeze is on Kloves as well as director Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien). Cuaron seems like the right fit at the right time, as Harry and friends grow out of their kid roles into more complicated characters.

The result is hit and miss. They hit some good stuff. They miss some good stuff. The film suffers from omission, and it's stunningly obvious if you've read the book. I kept asking myself, shouldn't another scene go here? How did we get here? Rather than try to massage some scenes to flow together or take necessary liberties with the storyline, Kloves cuts. It's as if he waved his screenwriters' wand, crossed his fingers and uttered the incantation, "Hope this works." But then again, he's trapped. He has to follow the book as closely as possible, because that's what the audience, largely Potter readers, demand.

In the third installment, a murderous wizard aligned with He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named escapes from Azkaban prison, and he's looking to kill Harry (Radcliffe). So too are Dementors, shadowy grim-reaperlike spirits who suck the soul out of you. The rest of the Hogwarts gang is back, including Harry's pals Ron (Grint), Hermione (Watson), and Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane). So too are the usual foes: Professor Severus Snape (Alan Rickman) and Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton). Michael Gambon steps into the huge shoes of the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore.

Harry Potter and The Wizard Of Azkaban is as visually stunning as its two prequels, and not merely because of CGI spells and magical creatures including the half-eagle, half-horse Hippogriff. There are many moments when Cuaron lets the film breathe and saturate us into the world of Hogwarts. Cuaron works at setting moods to complement the pictures, and that is Prisoner's strength. Another strong point: many moments of dry, understated wit. But one key scene in the third act of the picture is a nightmare, brimming with breathless dialogue that is essential to us understanding the rest of the film, and yet it's going to go over a lot of people's heads unless you have read the book. That's obviously what Kloves counted on.

The fourth book in the series, in production now, will be the acid test. Steve Kloves will face an even tougher challenge condensing the darkest Potter book yet to be made. Plans to split it into two films have been abandoned. Bring it in at under three hours. The clock's running...

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Reel To Reel:
The Day After Tomorrow

How It Rates: **
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Emmy Rossum
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Deadly Bad Weather, Mild Language

Preconceived Notions: Environmentalists (and Al Gore) are latching onto this disaster flick as some sort of a wake-up call.
The Bottom Line: It won't happen. It can't happen. And with director Roland Emmerich at the helm, that's a guarantee.

Disaster films live by a standard set of rules. So rather than take The Day After Tomorrow at face value, let's size it up by how it hits its marks.

1. One guy really understands what's going on, but nobody will listen to him. That guy is Jack Hall (Quaid), a paleoclimatologist who studies the weather, particularly disastrous weather, of the past. When temperatures in the seas shift suddenly and the storms roll in, only his climatology computer models have a chance of figuring out what's going on. Naturally, nobody in the government wants to listen, particularly the Vice President (who bears a nice resemblance to Dick Cheney by accident or design -- you make the call). The VP disses Hall's predictions of global climate change, and he just keeps on dissing. Fortunately, the President (passing resemblance for W.) gets a clue, but only because he got it in a direct briefing from Hall. But as usual, it's too late to do anything by this time but damage control.

2. Some strained relationship must be redeemed. That relationship is between Hall and his son (Gyllenhaal). When the film begins, Hall's marriage seems to be strained too. We're not really sure how strained, but we know Hall is an absentee parent. Dad and son part ways. But before the film is over, we know that the father and child reunion is only a blizzard away.

3. Rely on TV news to underscore the peril. 20th Century Fox flexes its synergistic muscle with scenes featuring live shots from Fox stations in L.A. and Washington. And for good measure, Fox News Channel makes a cameo. Obviously, nobody will be watching CNN when the world ends. Of course, we get the obligatory, hammed up stand-ups from reporters. None of these folks saw the now-famous tape of the KSNW crew who hid under a bridge when a twister tore through Kansas. I have yet to see a film (other than Broadcast News or Up Close And Personal) that gives TV crews something close to the common-sense street smarts of the people I have worked with for 10 years plus.

4. Somebody's gotta fall in love somewhere. That love interest, shallow and forgettable, is between Jake's son and a girl in his school's Academic Decathlon team (Rossum). Together, they're stranded in the New York Public Library amid the disaster after a competition (which we never know if they win or lose, by the way). But hey, at least they're stranded together. And there's a touching scene of them in front of the fire built to keep everybody warm. Why don't they just have sex already and get some serious body heat going? After all, if the world's really ending you might as well go out with a bang [insert rim shot sound effect here].

5. Logic is flexible. Rules can be bent. For Emmerich, we have to add and underline this one. He's the guy who gave us Independence Day, a movie rife with improbabilities right down to the notion that the world could be saved with a computer virus, assuming the killer aliens are running Windows.

Here, the one real annoyance is a serious injury to Rossum's character, which is conveniently ignored until the film needs more action. This leads to a sequence on board an huge empty Russian ship which amazingly steered its way up to the public library on its own, presumably breaking through whatever cars, buildings, debris, whatever is in the way. And that leads to more drama involving wild animals, which are conveniently inserted into the film for no other reason than boarding an empty ship and looking for supplies isn't perilous enough in a blizzard. And let's not forget, Jake warned his son to stay inside or freeze, and the son warned whoever else would listen (there's rule number one again). But both father and son go out again, without even anybody raising one question.

Great liberties are also taken with the science in this film, which we will discuss in a moment, and with the time-space continuum, which somehow is manipulated to get Dad to New York, by car and by foot, in a matter of days in the middle of this superstorm.

6. The effects are the real show. And baby, we've got 'em. Ice cracking. Killer hail. Twisters tearing through Hollywood. Floods ripping through Manhattan like the Red Sea falling on Pharaoh's chariots in The Ten Commandments. Characters chased by frost. Snow drifts three times higher than your roof. That's the part where you nudge Grandpa and say, "Is that what you walked through as a kid?"

7. Somewhere in this, there's a moral. It's preached to us at the end, albeit not in an overtly partisan manner worthy of a propaganda film, but it's there for us to deduce. Gotta stop driving those SUVs. Gotta stop burning those fossil fuels. Or one day, this all could happen.

The truth is, it won't. A paleoclimatologist who saw this film with us for KOLD-TV's Reel Life Movie Reviews told us that without hesitation. If you need more proof, check out The Weather Underground's excellent analysis by meteorologist Dr. Jeffrey M. Masters.

Al Gore and the environmental left are embracing this film because nothing else seems to be working to further their agenda. We love our SUV's. And try convincing somebody who went through record cold in New England this past winter that the planet is getting warmer. The left needs this film to get people talking about living cleaner and greener, which it will surely do. It will provide plenty of ammunition, despite its fictitious science, for critics of the Bush Administration's environmental policies.

But it will not make a dent in our laws any more than Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, which failed to toughen gun control policy. Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me will not run McDonald's out of business, even though it has discontinued Super Size Meals (which was a move to simply the menu, not caving in). Movies are meant to entertain us, not spur us to reform. This one widens our eyes with the storm of the millennium, but when the credits roll, it's just another disaster film.

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Reel To Reel:
Shrek 2

How It Rates: ***1/2
Starring: The Voices Of Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz, Eddie Murphy, John Cleese, Julie Andrews, Antonio Banderas
Rated: PG
Red Flags: Some Adult Jokes (which the kids will get anyway)

Preconceived Notions: It's said to be even better than the originial.
The Bottom Line: It is, with pitch-perfect casting.

Jeff Katzenburg, one of Shrek 2's four producers, is a Disney expatriate. And I'm sure he was giddy about sticking it to his old bosses in this sequel to the fractured fairy tale which lampoons Hollywood and Grimm in equal doses. Shrek 2 is the kind of movie people take the kids to see while secretly desiring to see it themselves.

Picking up where the animated original left off, Shrek (Myers) and Princess Fiona (Diaz) are sliding into their obligatory happliy-ever-after. But then they are called to attend a newlywed ball thrown by Fiona's parents, king (Cleese) and queen (Andrews) of Far Far Away (actually, Hollywood and Beverly Hills). Donkey (Murphy) is back for the journey, having run into relationship issues with his fire-breathing girlfriend.

The royals thought their princess married Prince Charming, and that's where the storybook ending slams shut. The first meeting with the newlyweds falls apart. We learn the king has also made backroom nuptials through a Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders of Absolutely Fabulous) whose nephew happens to be Charming, and there's no welching on the deal. The king hires Puss 'n Boots (Banderas) to off Fiona's ugly groom.

Shrek 2's casting is on the spot, especially so with Banderas, who gets to ham up his machismo. Myers and Murphy continue to deliver what they had in the first film. Walters and Cleese -- now there's a royal couple. But much of the fun derives from the film's non-stop Hollywood allusions (including From Here To Eternity, Ghostbusters, E.T., Hawaii Five-O, Willie Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, Mission: Impossible, The Wizard Of Oz, and many more). And pay close attention to the signs in Far Far Away as Shrek and Fiona's carriage rolls in. In fact, just pay close attention period, because many more jokes lurk in the CGI backgrounds.

Some of the attempts at adult humor feel forced, as if somebody decided the film didn't have enough flatuence gags. But the rest of it brims with energy, and yes, there is a happy ending. This is still a fairy tale, after all.

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Your Gay Marriage Doesn't Threaten My Straight One

First, a disclaimer: I'm single. I'm straight. But my parents are married. That's close enough for me to say to conservatives, "Get a grip."

I have yet to see any evidence, beyond the biblical, that same-sex marriages devalue marriage in general or devalue families. This is the rallying cry made again and again by family and religious organizations.

If you think about it, we don't even need gay marriages to degrade straight ones. We've done that already. We've done it through a 50 percent divorce rate. We've done it through "triple-a:" adultery, abuse, abandonment. We've gotten into committments we weren't ready for, and we refused to let somebody talk us out of them because nobody else is allowed to be judgmental when we're in love. I find it amazing the right wing forgets all of this now.

Instead of denying gay couples a legal right to marry when they are given that right, it's time to improve the marriages we already have, gay or straight. Think about this: you take a test to get a drivers license. You take the bar exam to practice law. You take tests to practice medicine and dispense prescriptions. But aside from a few medical examinations, nobody tests you on your relationship skills before you get a marriage license. It's like getting tags for your dog. No wonder we see so many marriages break up.

I'm interested to see what the divorce rate will be among gay couples, once we've had a few years to study gay marriages. Something tells me it will be lower, mainly because those who are committing to relationships now have been committed unofficially for a long time already. And then maybe the rest of us can get a few clues.

Reel To Reel:
Troy

How It Rates: **1/2
Starring: Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom
Rated: R
Red Flags: Ye Olde Graphic War Violence, Brief Sexuality

Preconceived Notions: With a massive, bloated budget, pride cometh before the fall of Troy.
The Bottom Line: It's no Greek tragedy, but it's not a triumph either.

Somewhere in the making of Troy, some Warner Brothers executive had to have looked at the $175 million budget and said, "We're spending how much on this picture? A war over a woman?" And that's the question people still ask when they hear the story of the Trojan War, the triumph of testosterone above everything else.

It all starts when things are looking good. A war-weary Greece has called a truce with Troy. It looks like everybody's going to put down their swords and shields for awhile. That's until Prince Paris of Troy (Bloom) runs off with King Menaleus' wife, Helen. Not a good diplomatic move. Menelaus wants his woman back, and he wants revenge. With the help of his brother, King Agamemnon of the Mycenaeans, he enlists the help of armies across Greece. Agamemnon enlists the help of legendary warrior Achillies (Pitt), a wildcard who fights for nobody but himself and hates Menelaus. Hector (Bana) is the best the Trojans have, and down the line we know these two are gonna tango.

Troy is not history any more than its source material, Homer's Illiad is. It's still an epic, though, in size, in budget, in visuals. This is the kind of film Hollywood used to make before CGI, and people were blown away by it. This is also the kind of film that lends itself nicely to riffing in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000, with corny elevated dialogue, especially Achilles screaming "Hector!" outside the walls of Troy. Part of me wanted to shout back, "Oh Hector!" like the crowd did to Sonny in Dog Day Afternoon.

Troy's major accomplishment, besides blood-and-guts warfare, is showing how the two toughest kids on the block will go to the wall and kill everybody in the name of honor and their own inflated egos. And yet these same men have some respect for civilized warfare, as a sequence late in the movie shows. They also have a desire to settle things man-to-man instead of army-to-army. But we know all's fair in love and war. For an epic, this sounds all too human.

The film runs long at more than two-and-a-half hours. But it doesn't feel long. Some cuts could have been made, but I'm not sure you would have a better picture for them. Troy wants to be an action movie and a love story at the same time. But it seems like we're only getting half of both.

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Reel To Reel:
Van Helsing

How It Rates: **
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Horror Violence

Preconceived Notions: Just what we need, another Underworld.
The Bottom Line: Lucent, loud, long, lame.

Van Helsing draws from classic source material. But alas, the filmmakers translated it onto screen as a celluloid haunted house, with shallow story and character development. The plot merely functions as a device to transport us from one CGI action scene to the next, where five will get you ten some window will be broken and somebody is going to be screaming. Pella employees will quake in their seats.

All you really need to know is that the movie centers around famous monster-hunter Van Helsing (Jackman), who's sent to Transylvania to kill Count Dracula. Maybe we should say Helsing... Van Helsing, because you can see a number of rip-offs from the James Bond series. There's a sexy sidekick, Anna Valerious (Beckinsale), who apparently moonlights as a dominatrix when she's not battling evil. And there's a "Q," too, a weapons-guru monk -- excuse me, friar -- who's along for the ride with his incendiary toys. Even Dracula reminds me of the Bond villians, always talking, talking, talking about world domination instead of just dominating. And I challenge you to spot the scene which reminded me of the movie poster of For Your Eyes Only.

Van Helsing suffers from many of the same flaws as last year's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Too much action, not enough coherence. We are presented with a host of characters we don't care enough about, except maybe Frankenstein, because he's such a loveable old monster. Just as we're starting to see some semblence of depth, another effects scene hits us over the head and we're back to page one. Even the characters seem lost in their own movie. They are talking, but I wonder if their lines are coming from a script or from their hearts. And there's a host of peasants with sickles and hammers who have nothing better to do than to hate strangers and serve as lunch for growing vampires (or nookie for the friar, but I digress).

This film could've been a lot better, a la Hellboy. But somebody down the line decided effects were the way to go. Van Helsing comes with a $160 million price tag, and you can see the money on the screen... if some flying vampire doesn't pick it up and crash through a window with it.

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Reel To Reel:
Kill Bill Volume 2

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Darryl Hannah
Rated: R
Red Flags: Graphic Violence, Language

Preconceived Notions: Saw Volume 1. Can this be any geekier?
The Bottom Line: No, not really. But there's enough to satisfy those film festish freaks.

Volume 2 of Kill Bill shows what Quentin Tarentino is capable of when he keeps his inner geek restrained. Where Volume 1 was mostly style and sampling, this one's deeper.

Yes, there is a climactic showdown between The Bride (Thurman) and Bill (Carradine). But that showdown unfolds in a manner we have not been groomed for. More satisfying for the blood-and-guts crowd will be the Bride's showdown with Hannah's one-eyed character.

We get more of the backstory we could've used in Volume 1 regarding Bride and Bill. They had a history. They had issues. They had a serious monster of a martial-arts trainer. And they still have some latent affections.

But let's get back to the sampling everybody liked from the first picture. Again, Tarentino drops references to blaxploitation, spaghetti westerns, chop-house and even 70's soul. Yet there's less imitation and more innovation.

Kill Bill would have stunk as a heavily-cut single feature. But I imagine we will eventually get a whopping four-hour version on DVD, along the same lines as The Godfather Saga or Sergio Leone's uncut version of Once Upon A Time In America. Yes, they do make novels for the screen, and this is one of them.

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Signs Of Life...

I admit we've been MIA over the past month or so. Some of that is related to my recent trip to Williamsburg, along with editing work on The Video Diaries: Patriots' Paradise, the DVD chronicle of a very patriotic, uplifting journey. More on that to be chronicled soon. (Email me at cfrancis21 (at) cox.net if you want a copy! :-) ).

So don't fret. We'll be playing catch-up over the next few weeks. I hope. I believe.

Reel To Reel:
The Alamo

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Jason Patric, Billy Bob Thornton
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: War Violence

Preconceived Notions: Delayed from last year's Christmas-season release. That's not a good sign.
The Bottom Line: Unromantic, just the facts, ma'am treatment of one of history's most famous battles.

You will not forget The Alamo. Now that we've gotten past the predictable cliche, let's talk about what this film is not.

It's not a history film with a tacked-on romantic subplot, like Pearl Harbor.

It's not a gritty, gut-wrenching war picture, like Saving Private Ryan.

It's not a Disney-fied portrayal of an American legend, like Davy Crockett.

I have to wonder if that's by design or result. The making of this film was a battle in itself. Ron Howard moved from directing to producing when studio brass mucked with his vision. Two A-list stars bowed out. The release date was pushed back to accommodate studio demands.

Touchstone ended up with a dazzling yet unglorified picture. The Alamo subtracts from the legend, painting its heroes not as heroes but as a bunch of guys standing up to unbeatable odds. Even Davy Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton) would rather be known as David, or maybe even Dave. Most of what people have heard about him is hype. And that coonskin cap? He's only wearing it for the fans. Col. Jim Bowie (Jason Patric) has his own problems. He's in a struggle to command his ragtag bunch. And he's got TB. The Alamo itself looks like it has already lost the battle from the start.

General Santa Ana, as portrayed here in his fancy bicorn, is a Spanish-speaking Napoleon. His character is not drawn for us any more than absolutely required, and the same goes for his Mexican troops. They at times seemed like they belonged in Attack Of The Clones.

The climatic battle sequence is one of the few I've seen recently where I have not had to wonder at times who is winning and losing, meaning there are no shaky camera shots in the heat of battle. Or maybe I just found a better seat further away from the screen this time. It's worth mentioning, too, that all the battle sequences are relatively bloodless, making this a film that's probably all right for kids under 13 who have some appreciation for history (and know that the Alamo didn't always have the word "dome" after it). And watch for the scene with the cannonball that reminded me of a particular shot from Pearl Harbor.

If a textbook company wanted to make a big-budget historical film, this may be the one they would have made. And no doubt this film, or excerpts, may make its way into a few history classes. No it's not boring. Not by a long shot. But it is also curiously restrained, and for Hollywood, that's a wonder.

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Reel To Reel:
Hellboy

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, John Hurt
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Copious Violence, Mild Language

Preconceived Notions: Another comic-book movie. But this one seems like a cross between X-Men and Men In Black.
The Bottom Line: Ron Perlman's performance gives an edge to what would otherwise be just another comic-book film.

Hellboy is not, as a coworker jibed, the life of Chris Francis. It is, however, a hell of a picture easily enjoyable by non-fans of the comic-book series from which it emerged.

Hellboy (Perlman) is a demonic creature raised from the underworld by Nazi dabbling in the paranormal gone wrong, a la Raiders Of The Lost Ark. He is adopted by eccentric paranormal expert Dr. Broom (Hurt), who raises him to be more angel than devil as part of a super-secret Bureau Of Paranormal Research and Defense. There are no Men in Black, but there is a fish in blue -- mer-man Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). There's also Liz Sherman, Hellboy's flame in more ways than one. And there's Hellboy's keeper, FBI man Meyers (Rupert Johnson), who's got something for the girl, wouldn't you know.

Perlman's character may file down his horns, but his wisecracks are pinpoint sharp. He enjoys cigars, cats, Baby Ruth candy bars and food in mass quantities (something he must've picked up from a Conehead or two). And while he's stone-fisted, he's also soft-hearted.

Hellboy's mission is stopping the evil Rasputin from bringing about the apocalypse through a wormhole to the dark side of the universe. The first attempt with the Nazis failed, but Hellboy slipped through as a cute little devil. Now Rasputin needs Hellboy's help, notably his repressed evil side, to do it. He also needs the help of hundreds of Alien-esque monsters who only multiply when you kill them.

Director Guillermo del Toro was determined not to let this picture turn into one of his earlier films, the disappointing Mimic. He got his way, and we get an above-average picture out of it. And it's mainly because both del Toro and Perlman realize one key fact: comic-book films, good ones, must possess a human factor we can all relate to. Perlman does a lot of acting under that red suit.

Yet I feel some of the picture's backstory could've been stronger. In the comic-book series, Hellboy is raised with a Christian upbringing, and while there are plenty of hints of it, I didn't think it was set up well enough. I would've liked to have seen more of how Dr. Broom raised "Red" into someone who fights evil while containing the evil within him. I know you have to review a film for what it is, rather than what you want it to be, but I felt there could be more.

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Reel To Reel:
The Ladykillers

How It Rates: ****
Starring: Tom Hanks, Marlon Wayans, Irma P. Hall
Rated: R
Red Flags: Copious F-bombs, Some Sex-Related Dialogue

Preconceived Notions: The Coen brothers return to comedy and snag Tom Hanks to boot. This looks very promising.
The Bottom Line: One of the best caper comedies ever.

Ethan and Joel Coen have proven themselves the plastic men of film, stretching their writing and directing talents amongst goofball comedy (Raising Arizona) to high-brow goofball comedy (Barton Fink, The Hudsucker Proxy) to musical comedy (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) to dark comedy (Fargo) to just plain darkness (Blood Simple, Miller's Crossing).

So when I hear the Coens have a caper film up their sleeve featuring Tom Hanks, it's just another stretch on their rubbery resumes.

And boy, this is some stretch. The Ladykillers is a remake of a classic British caper film featuring Sir Alec Guinness, but transplanted to a Mississippi ghost town which only exists for two reasons: gambling and garbage. A parade of trash barges dump refuge on a heaping island in the river running through town, whose waters also float a riverboat casino.

That casino is the target for con-man professor G.H. Dorr (Tom Hanks), a Colonel Sanders knock-off who's probably conning about his professorships, too. But we're really not sure with the way he performs elevated verbal gymnastics, gliding between poetry and Renaissance music as he cons his way into the home and heart of Marva Munson (Irma P. Hall). She's a no-nonsense churchgoing lady who despises "hippity-hop" music, sends weekly donations to Bob Jones University and lives in the shadow of her late husband, whose portrait perpetually looks down from the fireplace.

Door and his crew have a plan to rob the casino's counting-room, conveniently accessible from Munson's basement, if they're willing to dig. Door's partners in crime include a trash-mouthed homeboy (Wayans) who's the "inside man" at the casino (and whose mouth earns the film an R rating), a blockhead football player who's taken too many tackles, a laconic tunneling expert who could have come from the Viet Cong, and an explosives man with irritable bowel syndrome. Door's cover story for all of this is that they're Renaissance musicians who need a place to rehearse.

The Ladykillers puts a huge weight on Hanks to deliver, and watching him finesse as he finagles is sheer joy. You can watch him work in this film over and over again, like playing your favorite song, and never get tired of it. Hall is a scene-stealer, but wisely, the Coens don't let her make off with this picture. And of course, with everything Coen, the script is the real star, masterfully crafted and full of comic energy, right to the end, even if its supporting players seem a little too exaggerated.

The film is packed with memorable moments and outstanding photography. The soundtrack soulfully blends gospel with that "hippity-hop." You may need to watch the film twice to catch the nuances.

Other critics have complained about this film's cartoonishness, and I would sympathize more if this wasn't a Coen film. Cartoonish qualities seem to be their trademark. Look at O, Brother. Look especially hard at Raising Arizona. Both were embraced for their quirkiness. I can only conclude other reviewers are trying too hard to measure this film against of Guinness' original. Oceans Eleven proved a caper film can be remade with wit, style and new energy. And that's what I see here.

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Reel To Reel:
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

How It Rates: ****
Starring: Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet
Rated: R
Red Flags: Language, Sexual Content, Drug Use

Preconceived Notions: A lot of people are going ga-ga about this film featuring Jim Carrey in a serious (but not completely serious) role
The Bottom Line: Well worth the hype -- could be a huge sleeper hit

Many a person would want to get inside Jim Carrey's head for sixty minutes. This film is about as close as you can get, with its dreamlike sequences and sheer unpredictability.

Explaining the plot of this film would rob it of its gush of originality, so I will merely say it revolves around two guys, two girls, a doctor, and a mind-erasing technique to wipe out memories of ex's. But breaking up, as always, is hard to do.

Jim Carrey retreads some of the ground from The Truman Show, playing somebody who's trying to escape from an overwhelming force running his life. Kate Winslet's character seems undaunted by that force, at least we think she is.

Much could have been made of the sci-fi aspects of this story. Some other director might have turned it into another Minority Report set in the year 2033 with a moralizing layer. But director Michel Gondry and company realize this is still a love story, surrealistic as it is. We'll learn the lessons for ourselves and our love lives.

Eternal Sunshine is a great date movie, something to watch with somebody you've known for awhile and you want to hold onto, memories and all.

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Lion In Wait

Say Martha Stewart's going to jail and people start talking. But talk about Arizona Game and Fish planning to shoot mountain lions in Tucson's Sabino Canyon and people reach for their torches and pitchforks. In my four years of producing newscasts in Tucson, I have never seen an evironmental or animal rights issue draw so much debate. And it all comes down to one question: do we really have to kill 'em?

Game and Fish says there's no other solution. These cats will eat you for lunch. It's only a matter of time before somebody gets attacked.

Moving them won't work, we're told. They're territorial. They can't adapt. They can't be put into a zoo. They can't be rehabilitated.

Yeah, but at least they'll still be alive.

Conservation is part of Game and Fish's mission. It's disappointing it can't live with half a loaf. Maybe the cougars can't survive a move, but at least it's a more natural way to go. It's a solution the animal-rights groups can live with, even if the lions can't.

Game and Fish says it put a five-day hold on the lion hunt so it could listen and understand the issues. But it didn't change its mind. The absolute refusal of this agency, funded by your tax money, to even consider testing an alternative solution on one lion is galling. Just move one. If that lion survives, the experts have some explaining to do. If it dies, well, the animal-rights crowd got what it asked for.

This is not bowing to pressure from some group of wackos. This is forcing a public agency to be accountable to the public. Technically, it owns the lions in the eyes of the law, but don't we as citizens own Game and Fish, too?

Reel To Reel:
Secret Window

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Johnny Depp
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Violence, Language

Preconceived Notions: Can Depp do it again after Pirates Of The Carribean?
The Bottom Line: He does, even though some may feel jerked around a little.

Johnny Depp appears to be channeling Captain Jack Sparrow in the first 20 minutes of Secret Window. Maybe that was intentional, maybe not. I won't say any more than that, because after the end of the film, reflect back on that observation and judge for yourself.

Depp plays horror writer Mort Rainey who's doing more sleeping than writing as the picture opens (been there, done that). Writers' block has left him a mess, as has a breakup with his wife. He's living in the type of dark musty cabin that horror movies just adore. And here comes a deranged fan, John Shooter (John Turturro), who claims Rainey ripped off a short story he wrote. Secret Window is itself adapted from a novela by Stephen King, and Depp at times resembles the Master of Macabre.

As somebody who knows what it's like to struggle through a novel, Depp has got it down cold. I really don't want to reveal any more about the plot, except that we eventually learn a lot more about Shooter, and he's not simply some psycho.

Suspense films have a lot in common with caper films, and the challenge with both is to construct a mystery and/or con that is both beliveable and suspenseful. For the most part, Secret Window succeeds, but there are things you will still wonder about, when you think back upon them in light of the picture's end. However, I don't think you'll really mind them, and it's because of Depp's performance.

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Do You Know Where You're Going To?

Looks like Diana "Drop In And Out" Ross is going back to jail for not serving her 48-hour DUI sentence all at once... and she'll be locked up in Tucson this time. It sure took long enough for the courts to find out. I had heard off the record a month ago that she had skipped in and out of the pokey after KOLD contacted authorities in Greenwich, CT, where Ross did the time. I only hope the moron who wrote me to complain about us reporting Ross' celebrity treatment is watching. I also wish we could throw her into Joe Arpaio's Maricopa County lock-up for a couple of days. Maybe she could even work on his female chain gang.

Reel To Reel:
Hidalgo

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Malcolm McDowell, Omar Sharif
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Swordplay, Gunplay, A Couple Of Sexual References

Preconceived Notions: Based on a true story, we're told. Filmmakers might cash in on some success of Seabiscuit
The Bottom Line: Entertaining, adventurous yarn about a man, his horse, and the race both of them must survive for honor and money

Many new films can be described as a hybrid of at least two other films. For example, last year's The Last Samurai could be described as Dances With Wolves crossed with Shogun (okay, that was a TV miniseries, but the theory still holds). The Butterfly Effect is Back To The Future minus the funny parts and added to The Thirteenth Floor. And of course, Kill Bill is snippets of other movies remixed.

So the equation for Hidalgo is The Mummy plus The Black Stallion Returns plus Seabiscuit. Here's a mixed-breed film about two mixed breeds: Viggo Mortensen (Lord Of The Rings) as half-Indian Pony Express rider Frank T. Hopkins racing in the ages-old "Ocean Of Fire" with his trusty mixed-breed mustang, Hidalgo. Both know how to go the distance and win cross-country contests.

But one big-shot shiek, who witnesses a washed-up Hopkins in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, is less than impressed with the less-than-purebred horse and rider. He throws down a challenge for Hopkins, and soon our heroes are off and running on a 3,000-mile trek across the African desert.

Hidalgo follows the formula of most race or sports films, where winning isn't the point, it's how you win. Hopkins is a likable character whose cowboy grit and craftiness are just too much for his Arab competitors. Count the number of times you hear Mortensen's character labeled "infidel." A real danger of racism lurks within this film, but it doesn't materialize. A couple of ladies are also in the mix -- one a rich Englishwoman who's backing a rider to get presumably richer, the other a shiek's daughter who is a free spirit trapped in a veil.

The title horse does enough acting for an equine Oscar nod. Perhaps he's jealous of Seabiscuit. His reaction shots are fun to watch. And so is Mortensen, who for all his cowboy skill is always on the verge of the last roundup.

If Hidalgo has a downside, it's that the two aforementioned ladies seem like excess baggage. The filmmakers must have thought a 3,000 mile race through the desert pitting an "infidel" against native Bedouin riders wouldn't provide dramatic material. Get the girls out of the movie, focus everything on Hopkins and his horse, and you've got a real winner.

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Reel To Reel:
Starsky & Hutch

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Owen Wilson, Ben Stiller, Snoop Dog
Rated: PG-13
Red Flags: Partial Nudity (half a boob), Language, Homosexual Erotic References, Drug References, Comic-Book Violence

Preconceived Notions: Trailer looked promising. But will this just degrade into another Charlie's Angels 2?
The Bottom Line: Better than you'd expect, not perfect, but a heckuva lot better than many big-screen TV series treatments.

Starsky & Hutch is actually fun without degrading into total dorkiness, and it's a lesson many TV-show movies should've learned from frame one. Owen Wilson is the laid-back Starsky, Ben Stiller is pent-up Hutch, and Snoop Dog is faux-pimp Huggy Bear, their smooth tipster. The cherry red Ford Gran Torino stars as itself.

The cop duo blasts around Bay City trying to bust drug kingpin Reese Feldman (Vince Vaughn) who's developed cocaine undetectible to drug dogs. Naturally, it's undetectible to certain other police characters too, or we wouldn't have a picture.

Banter between the title characters made the 1970's series enjoyable. The film smartly picks up on that, as Owen Wilson just breezes through the picture much like many of his other roles. He doesn't so much fit the part as the part fits him. Ben Stiller has more work cut out. Snoop just plays it cool and smooth... and refreshingly restrained from his drug-and-sex persona, looking more like a playa than the real thing.

Starky & Hutch washes just enough 70's nostalgia over us without making us drown. There is the obligitory scene in a disco, but it's more fun than silly. Owen Wilson even gets to riff on the one-hit wonder of original Hutch, David Soul's "Don't Give Up On Us, Baby."

This film knows how much to push and how much to let ride. But one segment may push some viewers a little far -- a scene where Starsky and Hutch interview a football cheerleader in a locker room as she's changing. She seems oblivious to what the two men in front of her are looking at, and it's definitely no wardrobe malfunction.

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