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Aloha, Stranger: Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna are somewhere down there beholding the might of an alien invasion force in BATTLESHIP.

The aliens have landed! Yes. Again. This time they’ve invaded off the coast of Hawaii, so it’s just like Pearl Harbor, if the attack on Pearl Harbor had included such devastating weaponry as Giant Exploding Pegs and Hot-Rodding Robot Fireballs. Can slacker sailor Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), finding himself in command of the lone, surviving ship and assisted by crewmate Rihanna and visiting captain Tadanobu  Asano (just to prove we’re all over Pearl Harbor), find a way of defeating the enemy? Can Hopper’s fiancee Brooklyn Decker, with the help of (actual) double amputee Greg Gadson, destroy the island-based satellite substation before the invading force can signal their cohorts, even as her father, the Admiral (Liam Neeson), stands on the sidelines, shaking his fist and screaming, “Hopperrrrrr!!!” (not really, but close enough)? C’mon, it’s a movie based on a board game — are these really questions?

Come join Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons as they debate whether director Peter Berg might have been better served doing a film called CROCODILE DENTIST. Also: Dan gives his capsule review of LOVELY MOLLY, the new exercise in ominous horror by BLAIR WITCH’s Eduardo Sanchez. Plus: What’s coming to theaters.

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The Fangs are Almost as Big as the Lapels: An undead Johnny Depp braves the ravages of the 70's in DARK SHADOWS.

Two hundred years is a long time to revive a vampire, but then again, forty years is long time to revive the first horror soap opera (not counting an earlier, feature adaptation and a TV reboot in the ’90s). In Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows, Barnabas Collins (Johnny Depp) is cursed into vampirehood by spurned lover Angelique (Eva Green) in the 18th century and is buried alive (undead?) to await his unearthing in the 1970′s. What he finds is the family fishing empire in ruins, the occupants of stately Collinswood manor — including Michelle Pfeiffer as matriarch, Helena Bonham Carter as drunk doctor, Jackie Earle Haley as drunker handyman, and Bella Heathcote as a nanny who bears a striking resemblance to Barnabas’ lost love Josette — devolved into feckless dissolution, and Carpenters music everywhere. It will take the formidable powers of the Nosferatu to rescue the accursed clan, and prove that there is indeed life after undeath.

Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons have seen the film, and sit down to discuss whether Burton’s more comedic take on Dark Shadows‘ melodramatics are worth the trip back to the Me Decade. Also in this show: What’s coming to theaters.

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Are You Really Going to Leave THESE Girls Behind?: The women of a Lebanese village recruit some unusual allies to stave off a war in WHERE DO WE GO NOW?

A comedy about dire consequences, WHERE DO WE GO NOW? takes a look at the ease with which humanity slips into war, and the sometimes insurmountable difficulties that arise as people struggle to avoid it. Setting the film in a small Lebanese village where Christian and Muslim live side-by-side, director/writer/actress Nadine Labaki tells the tale of women — wives and mothers who have seen too many husbands and sons claimed in pointless battles — attempting to stave off another religious conflict through methods ranging from dissuading the men folk with direct entreaties to distracting them with a bus full of Ukrainian strippers (U.N, take note: works better than a planeload of old white guys).

As with her previous film, CARAMEL, Labaki manages to mix an empathetic understanding of human tragedy with warm, wry humor. For so gentle an outlook, the film has a powerhouse impact, which made it a genuine pleasure to talk with Labaki for this episode.

WHERE DO WE GO NOW?
Trailer

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Official Website:
wheredowegonowmovie.com

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Dustin Poirier in Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's FIGHTVILLE.

I’d like to think humanity has advanced beyond the primal necessity of raw combat, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a whole lot of people who are willing to pay good money to see a couple of guys get locked in a cage and beat on each other for a while. Fightville is a documentary about the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, a.k.a. Ultimate Fighting, a particularly intense brand of man-to-man combat where very few holds are barred. Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker — who also go by the handle Pepper & Bones — attempt to give audiences a better appreciation of the rational for such brutality, focusing in on a regional organization staging fights in Louisiana and a couple of fighters who have found meaning and some measure of redemption in the activity.

Our weekly radio show Indie on Demand closes out its first season with a review of the gritty film. Click on the player below to hear it.

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Left to right: Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Robert Downey Jr, and a mass of pixels that look kinda like Mark Ruffalo prepare to do some avenging, because they are THE AVENGERS.

There are so many ways a grand conglomeration of super heroes could turn into a car wreck (case in point: THE FANTASTIC FOUR), that we should be grateful when a film manages just to clear that bar. Fortunately, and quite happily, THE AVENGERS not only manages that base-line feat, but goes far beyond it, becoming a rare example of a top-notch comic book movie. Granted, the team-up of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), aided and abetted by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), doesn’t boast much more than a bare-essentials plot — demigod Loki (Tom Hiddleston) wants to take over the Earth ‘cuz… well, just ‘cuz — but under the direction of Joss Whedon, the proceedings offer enough kick-ass action and delicious character moments that plot barely matters.

Come join Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French and Dan Persons as they break down the first official blockbuster of summer 2012 to find out what makes it pop and where it fizzles. Also: What’s coming to theaters.

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They're Magical! They're Muscial! They're So Very, Very Wrong!: Peter Frampton (right) joins forces with the Bee Gees (left) in SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND.

Like a black velvet reproduction of Guernica, SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, the movie, takes one of the landmark works of art of the twentieth century and renders it shallow, pointless and silly. Included in its list of crimes: entrusting the Beatles’ most innovative work to the likes of the Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, Steve Martin and Alice Cooper, among an almost infinite roster of incomprehensible casting choices; and placing the whole mess in the hands of a director who was clearly incapable of telling a coherent story (the magical musical instruments need to be stolen because why? And how exactly does that lead to the charming town of Heartland, U.S.A. being turned into Pottersville?), but never met a cheapjack, circa seventies special effects trope he didn’t like.

Does that mean the film should be avoided like the plague? Aw, hell, no — here is a musical (rock opera, actually) so wrongheaded in all its aspects that it manages to work its way around to inventing its own brand of awesomeness — terrible awesomeness, to be sure, but awesome nevertheless. All of which makes it perfect for worship upon the altar of the Temple of Bad. Come join Andrea Lipinski, Keven Lauderdale, and Dan Persons as they delve into this singular time capsule of seventies pop culture, style, and, most of all, hair, and have a few larfs at its expense.

SGT. PEPPER’S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND Trailer

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Theme I Wonder If God was Sleeping by scottaltham 

SONG PUBLISHED UNDER CREATIVE COMMONS

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Tom Jones' Fans Just Throw Their Underwear on the Stage: An admirer takes his love of Edgar Allan Poe (John Cusack, right) too far in THE RAVEN.

If truth is stranger than fiction, then can a serial killer inspired by the eminently strange writings of Edgar Allan Poe be said to be even stranger still? In THE RAVEN, a mad murderer has managed to engineer the deaths of his victims in ways that accurately (and in some cases, implausibly) replicate the works of one of the true geniuses of horror, and only Poe (John Cusack) can break the clues that will end the crime spree.

Cinefantastique Online’s Steve Biodrowski, Lawrence French, and Dan Persons sit down to contrast the film with its source materials and discuss whether director James McTeigue (V FOR VENDETTA) has succeeded in turning Poe’s baroque fantasies into a compelling dark mystery. Also in the show: A brief conversation of THE HOBBIT’s less-than-triumphant technical sneak preview, and what’s coming to theaters.

Continue reading »]]> A young girl is forced to confront inconvenient truths both global and personal in the drama FUTURE WEATHER. Making her Tribeca debut, director Jenny Deller has gathered a cast that includes Amy Madigan, Lili Taylor, and William Sadler to tell the story of a teenager (Perla Haney-Jardine) who’s abandoned by her mother and tries to compensate through an obsession with climate change. Reflecting its protagonist’s concerns, the Philadelphia-based project was shot while following sustainable production practices — the drama may break your heart, but at least you won’t feel guilty about the environmental impact.

For the final entry in my Tribeca 2012 Diary, I met with Jenny at the Tribeca production offices for our interview. Our discussion is below.

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Continue reading »]]> Why let others torture you when you can cut out the middle man and do it yourself? In NANCY, PLEASE, twenty-something Paul (Will Rogers) tries to retrieve a book from his former roommate, Nancy (Eléonore Hendricks), a task complicated both by the fact that the woman appears to be an unholy gene-splice between the Marquis de Sade and a rabid pit bull, and by Paul’s seeming inability to disengage from her provocations.

In his feature film debut, director Andrew Semans has created a slyly disturbing tragicomedy that explores how a life strategy built around wallowing in one’s own victimhood can lead to a rapid, and quite mortifying, undoing. I returned once more to the Tribeca Festival’s host hotel to talk with Andrew; our discussion is below.

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Continue reading »]]> Sometimes the 70′s weren’t about wide lapels and avocado-colored kitchen appliances. Sometimes they were about ignorance, fear, and bigotry. In Any Day Now, a gay couple (Alan Cumming and Garret Dillahunt) rescue a teen with Down syndrome (Isaac Leyva) from his abusive mother, but when they try to make their de facto family legal, the roadblocks thrown in their way have nothing to do with their suitability as parents and everything to do with a nation that, some ten years after the fact, still hadn’t received the big news from Stonewall.

Director Travis Fine (The Space Between) is making his return to Tribeca with this moving drama. We sat down in the bunker-like entryway to the press lounge to talk about the film. Our conversation, complete with a special guest appearance by Leyva, is below.

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