Gary Wolcott's "Mr. Movie" column has appeared in the Tri-City Herald since 1992. The Tri-City native now lives in Portland, Ore., and watches about 250 movies each year. This member of Portland's association of movie critics, Far From Hollywood, believes movies are made to be seen on theater screens and should be seen there and not on television screens. Have a question for Mr. Movie? Click on "Add Comment" below. Mr. Movie has joined Twitter. Follow him here.
'Cirque du Freak': Vampire assistant in need of assistance
By Gary Wolcott, atomictown.com
By Gary Wolcott, atomictown.com
The reinvention of vampires isnt working.
Writers such as Anne Rice, Stephanie Meyer and Darren Shan have turned the tortured into the trivial. They fall in love. They dont kill people. Theyre philosophers, and some of them even stay in high school for 80 years.
How boring is that? Leave them alone. Some of the best horror films in history belong to Dracula and clones. Blood-suckers are intense and terrifying, they dont need revamped.
Cirque du Freak: The Vampires Assistant combines books one through three of Shans 12-book series The Saga of Darren Shan. It is directed and co-written by talent titans Paul Weitz, who did About a Boy and In Good Company, and Brian Helgeland of Mystic River and L.A. Confidential fame. They give the film a dark, authentic and original look.
Their struggle is that its the set-up movie of what will obviously be at least two, maybe three more. Of course that depends on the income of movie one. Set-up movies are boring.
Youre given the details of how Darren and his best bud Steve become vampires and get tossed center stage into a several hundred year war between vampires who are good guys and the vampaneze, the blood-sucking evil. Darren is just a half-a-vampire so he can go out during the day and run errands for coffin-bound John C. Reillys Lartin Crepsley.
Packed with great character actors and anchored by Reilly (Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story), Cirque du Freak: The Vampires Assistant cant make up its mind if it wants to be a comedy or a straight-ahead drama. Stuck in the middle with nowhere to go, the plot turns to mush and crawls to a to-be-continued ending.
Bottom-line: this vampire movie sucks.
Mr. Movie rating: 3 stars
Rated PG-13 for mature themes, violence, some intensity. It opens Friday, Oct. 23 at the Carmike 12 and at Fairchild Cinemas 12.
5 stars to 4 1/2 stars: Must see on the big screen
4 stars to 3 1/2 stars: Good film, see it if it's your type of movie.
3 stars to 2 1/2 stars: Wait until it comes out on video.
2 stars to 1 star: Don't bother.
0 stars: Speaks for itself.
Younger audiences, those unfamiliar with the original or that hate the twaddle of Twilight will likely like Fright Night . Hey, no Twilight vegan, goody-two-shoes crap here. At least this vampire sucks.
Unfortunately, so does much of his movie, and in more ways than one.
Before we get to the bad news, the good news. This vampire and his spawn are the real deal. Colin Farrell's Jerry never took a course in sulking 101. He doesn't sigh or pout over unfulfilled love. This guy is a bloodsucking, babe hunting, cold-hearted, pitiless villain like vampires of old.
Yasmina Reza and writer/director Roman Polanski adapt her Tony Award-winning play God of Carnage for the screen and cast Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz as the four characters in the story.
-- Local show times, theaters, trailer.
Two couples get together after the teenage son of one hits the teenage son of the other with a big stick. It causes hundreds of dollars in damage to his teeth. They sit down to discuss who is at fault, why and what to do about the tiff.
Here’s the premise. Set in the near future, Hugh Jackman is a loser robot boxer working fairs and rodeos with a robot destined for the scrap heap.
More con than kind, Jackman’s Charlie ends up signing the parental rights of his son, Max, over to the boy’s mother’s rich sister to finance his endeavors. He’s estranged from the boy anyway and doesn’t know him at all.
I’m going to ramble a bit. Normally when picking a best list you do five or 10. I’m doing six. It just worked out that way.
When you look at my picks you will note I deliberately left The Exorcist off my list. While some think it’s the best horror film of them all, I read the book and it pales in comparison. Other than Linda Blair’s spinning head, lots profanity and vomit, and Mercedes McCambridge’s brilliant work as the dubbed-in demon voice, there isn’t much substance.
I guess at this point you’ve guessed the topic of this post is horror movies for Halloween. You’ll want to get started early. These days they get gobbled up at the few video stores that are left. I know next to nothing about Netflix so I’m not sure what kind of a supply it has for those still doing the mail thing.
'Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1' Blu-ray: Haters gonna hate
On a commentary track included on "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1" Blu-ray (Summit Entertainment, $34; also on DVD, $30; in stores Saturday), director Bill Condon addresses the disproportionate hatred the series seems to inspire in critics. "This series is about things women care about and has a woman at the center," he says. "So there are people who just stay outside of it and mock it."
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