CINEMA SEEN - "Lip-smacking Leftovers"
By William Margold

     With last week’s column being served up as a "Movie Menu"---that featured a five course Thanksgiving Day spread---this week’s sextet of offerings should be looked upon as "Lip-smacking Leftovers" although as you will read...the lip- smacking of "almost all of the titles" presented here faded very quickly...much like the taste of food dissipates after a few days of improperly wrapped refrigeration.
     (Please note that I said "almost all of the titles"...as the last production discussed is a quite a meal in itself...and more than makes up for all the rest of the rather stale cinema snacks on this page.)
     
     FOOD, INC---Appropriately leading off this page is Robert Kenner’s mind (and stomach) unsettling look at how truly unpalatable what we are ingesting really is. But secure in the knowledge that my stomach acid can melt the chrome off a VW van’s bumper, I rarely flinched as the images of callously clumped cows and cruelly constricted chickens flashed before my eyes. Indeed...while not starving after enduring the ponderous proceedings...I must admit that my only real concern a few minutes after the dim documentary ended was where I would be dining that evening.
     
     CORALINE---Some rather unnerving blather about button-eyed doppelgangers directed by Henry Selick (who combined with Tim Burton for the magnificently imaginative "The Nightmare before Christmas" back in the early 90’s) makes for one of the most tedious stop-motion animated features that I’ve ever counted the minutes enduring. Accompanied by the scrawniest cat that I’ve ever seen, cranky Coraline discovers another seemingly better world on the other side of the wall of her new home, and repeatedly escapes into it---learning with each visit however---that perhaps it really is better to stick with what you’ve already got.
     
     IS THERE ANYBODY THERE?--- At first this was somewhat evocative of the early 1960’s when I hung around the caddy shack at The Riviera Country Club in the Pacific Palisades lapping up considerable history lessons from those who "had lived them." But the opportunity for a young boy (Bill Milner) to absorb knowledge as the son of a couple who own a retirement home, and in particular, one of its most eccentric residents---Michael Caine as a rather muddled magician---dotters about way too much to have any impact...which eventually makes death the most enviable way to escape the plotline.
     
     SIMON SAYS---When flying pick axes have all the best lines in a horrifically rotten fright film...then you quickly realize that you’re being subjected to the wrong intended-to-be-scary viewing experience. Crispin Glover (who should have gotten Best Supporting Actor consideration for his role as Michael Fox’s father in 1985’s "Back to the Future") is terrifyingly dreadful as demented twin brothers who like to make a seemingly endless supply of capricious campers targets of those aforementioned axes...as well as other forms of backwoods butchery.
     
     RIDE AROUND THE WORLD---Thanks to the combined efforts of Greenleaf and Associates and Image Entertainment (www.image-entertainment.com) yet another IMAX production ("Dinosaurs Alive!" and "Mummies" have already been acknowledged in previous columns) is given credit here. But I must admit that I found this 40-minute travelogue-like look at the history of horses and their riders galloping in so many directions that by the time it was over...my mind was saddle sore.
     
     SPLINTER---Sort of "Assault on Precinct 13 Meets The Thing"---director Toby Wilkins and writer Ian Shorr have concocted a perversely plausible little nightmare about the end (and/or the beginning) result of one too many government experiments with the natural order of things. Stars Paulo Costanzo, Jill Wagner, and an immensely effective Shea Wigham (in the hero by default role) take refuge in a gas station when a ghastly beastie of questionable lineage goes on a cast- consuming (in more ways than one) rampage. Greatly enhanced by Elia Cmirai’s bone crunching, synaptic creaking score, this feisty ferocity literally gets under your skin...and stays there...no matter how hard you try to dig it out!
     end
     NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, December 3, 2009 issue.

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CINEMA SEEN - "A Movie Menu"
By William Margold

     Coinciding with the fact that this serving of Cinema Seen is dated to hit the street on Thanksgiving Day...I thought that I would present a quintet of recently viewed films as if they were the courses in the festive and reflective Holiday’s meal. And speaking of that meal...I am planning on dusting off my cooking utensils as I will be creating the magnificent center attraction---a massive golden bird stuffed with many secret ingredients that will insure that it will be juicy all way through---and then will be partaking of it with a cross section of associates in what I’m sure will be a warm (and festive) as well as tasty (and reflective) experience...or something like that.
     
     WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE---Wrenched solemnly by director Spike Jonze from Maurice Sendak’s apparently very popular children’s picture book---this genuinely un-cuddly creature feature is a very under nourishing combination of sour soul searching soup and soggy sentimental salad---that had me questioning my own perpetual juvenile delinquent ways throughout the ponderous proceedings. But I eventually shrugged the whole damn thing off as simply being a nightmare that I had been subjected to watching with my eyes open.
     
     2012---If ever the time was ripe for a film being labeled "a turkey"---the arrival of this foolish special effects stuffed flatulence about the (near) end of the world had me gobbling in glee---as I couldn’t wait to hack away at director Roland Emmerich’s fetid fowl. And although the visual of Santa Monica slipping into the Pacific Ocean ghoulishly fulfilled a recurring nightmare of mine (but that’s another story), the meandering misery of featuring various landmarks being decimated finally made me wish for some semblance of apocalyptic reality...even it meant that the theatre that I was squirming about restlessly in would fall down on my head.
     
     LAW ABIDING CITIZEN---Truly a hefty helping of potatoes example of filling up most of the senses filmmaking, director F. Gary Gary’s perverse offering deals with a wronged fellow (Gerard Butler) hell bent on exacting revenge pitted against the toothy determination of Jamie Foxx’s on the right side of the law character. And the grotesque gravy---slathered on thick---is the amusing way Butler rigs his seemingly endless series of traps. However...not wanting to divulge too much...all I will reveal is that from my first bite many decades ago, I also realized another use for a t-bone steak...after I’d gnawed all of the meat away. I just never met anyone worth the effort. Yet...!
     
     AMELIA--- This is a remarkably bland assortment of side dishes (overcooked peas, limp green beans, and mushy corn) eerily enhanced by the fact that Hillary Swank is the spitting image of the famous 1930’s aviatrix Ms. Earhart, whose legend still radiates because she vanished on her attempt to fly around the world. Ironically, although most of its soaring through the clouds action takes place 20,000 feet in the air, the Mira Nair directed clunker never really gets off the ground.
     
     WHIP IT---Absolutely the pecan pie dessert of this page is Drew Barrymore’s delicious look at the wrist shattering, rib-cracking, knee-dislocating world of ladies Roller Derby in Austin, Texas through the innocent, wistful eyes of Ellen Page. And the "whipped cream" on top of Barrymore’s spirited concoction are the nicknames of her roller/warrior women including Babe Ruthless, Smashley Simpson, Maggie Mayhem, Iron Maven, Eva Destruction, and my favorite, Bloody Holly.
     end
     NOTE: Originally published in LA Xpress, November 26, 2009 issue.

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