12 Monkeys The TV Series

When I first saw Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys on the screen back in 1995, I was a bit confused. I was amazed by the quirky performances of Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis, and intrigued by the odd time travel story. I liked the film, but for the most part didn't really 'get it' until I saw Chris Marker's short film La Jetee on which it was loosely based.

Tomorrow night (Friday, January 16th) the new "12 Monkeys" television series debuts on Showcase and Syfy. I had the chance to see the nine minute preview recently, and let me just say that while the film had me intrigued, this extended clip had me hooked. You should definitely check it out.

You can see those first ten minutes right here:



And don't forget to check out Biff Bam Pop!'s Marie Gilbert's interview with "12 Monkeys" star Amanda Schull right here.

La Jetee

La Jetee ~ This is an interesting little film, and by little, I mean it. It's just under a half-hour long. Written and directed by Chris Marker, it was apparently the inspiration for 1995's 12 Monkeys. This is how I first encountered it. When 12 Monkeys was in theaters, I was working in a video rental store and everyone wanted to see the inspiration for the flick. Needless to say, there were not a lot of customers who were happy with this award-winning twenty-eight minute black and white art film from 1962. That's not to say its not good, let's just say it's different, and not what they expected.

La Jetee is almost exactly the stereotype we mainstream American movie goers think of when we think of a French film. It's arty, subtitled or dubbed (from two different languages), avant garde, hard to understand, and makes 1980s jeans commercials seem to have more depth. And then there's the weirdness of it not actually being a 'motion picture' at all - it's composed of all still shots with voiceover.

Want to give an unsophisticated American Brad Pitt and Bruce Willis fan a headache? Here you go, all in one half-hour package. I remember I had several customers raise a stink not wanting to pay for the rentals for reasons ranging from 'it's not a real movie' to the more direct 'it sucks.' Sorry, no refunds, even for this.

Not being what one would expect is not necessarily bad. La Jetee is just different, very different from 12 Monkeys, but thematically so however. We're still dealing with time travel, just not traditionally so, like its American cousin. In post-nuclear World War III Paris, scientists are trying to send people to the past and to the future in order to save their present, prevent the war, and save civilization. Paradoxes occur and our hero is on the run, haunted by a childhood memory, but eventually things come full circle in an ending that would make O. Henry smile.

If you remove 12 Monkeys from the equation and from your head, La Jetee can be quite compelling and you'll forget all the obstacles that may at first seem hard to get over. The twenty-eight minutes fly by as you're pulled into this world and this man's journey. Marker blends striking imagery with an intriguing storytelling style to create a startling vision. Worth seeing, those long ago video store customers didn't know what they were talking about.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Well now, this was a surprise. I don't recall being all that impressed with the first G.I. Joe movie. And my connection to Joe is more 1970s Adventure Team than the 1980s Yo Joe anti-terrorists. I felt that the first movie was meant only for folks into the 80s toys and didn't care if it left everyone else behind. I expected more of the same with G.I. Joe: Retaliation. I was pleasantly surprised.

In the aftermath of that first movie the big bads, Cobra, swore revenge. Not only did they get it, but as this film begins, they have already won. The President has been compromised, he is held prisoner as Cobra operative Zartan masquerades as PotUS. An air strike takes out all of the Joes except for a handful who must rebuild and take back a country that now finances and iodizes Cobra as heroes and hates the Joes as villains.

I'm not a fan of Channing Tatum. He's never impressed me much, but here, in the precious little time he's on screen, his chemistry with The Rock is enough so that you miss him and you really almost feel the pain when he dies. Yeah, it's that good. The Rock, as Roadblock, brings his comrades home to the hood to regroup. The Rock equally is good.

The leftovers go to the original G.I. Joe, Bruce Willis, for help. He's fun as the tough old crotchety know-it-all with the heart of gold and a wisecrack for every occasion. The cast is rounded out by David E. Kelley pilot Wonder Woman Adrianne Palicki (who has also just been cast as Mockingbird in "Agents of SHIELD," wow, somebody wants to be a superhero bad) and D.J. Cotrona who is basically Channing Tatum lite.

In between the interesting scenes with The Rock, Bruno and company, there are ninja interludes featuring characters with names like Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, and Jinx. I didn't have any emotional connection or even knowledge of them, so I just enjoyed them for the James Bond/Shaw Brothers wannabes they were. Fun but hollow.

All in all, while a bit dark in places, G.I. Joe: Retaliation was a fun action flick with more warmth and depth than I ever would have expected. If you're looking for a better than average actioner, this is it. You might be just as surprised as I was.

This Is The End

This Is The End ~ This film does one thing that I like. Usually when one sees a movie with name stars, unless the movie completely immerses the viewer or the acting is prime, one will always think of the star as the star rather than the character. For instance most folks don't know who John McClane is, but they know Bruce Willis was all that in the Die Hard films.

This Is The End uses that logic in its own favor by having its stars - Seth Rogan, James Franco, Jonah Hill, Danny McBride, etc. - play themselves. Well, it's themselves as pot smoking partying losers, which may or may not be the truth, but at least you know who is who. As someone who stopped 'partying' quite some time ago, it made me think of most of these actors in a lesser light, fiction or not. Now get off my lawn.

Anyway, the pothead slob comedy brigade are at a party at James Franco's house when apparently The Rapture happens, followed by an apparent Hell on Earth. It vacillates between end of days satire and Exorcist parody and succeeds in neither. The movie tries really hard to be funny, but unlike old Cheech and Chong, which is funny whether you're high or not, I imagine only stoners would find this flick hilarious.

The only time I even smiled was when Emma Watson from the Harry Potter films, and later the Backstreet Boys, showed up for a couple minutes. Although I did jump when the demon bull jumped in through the window - so points for horror but very little for comedy. For a movie called This Is The End, it really never seemed to end, it just went on and on and on. This was relentlessly bad, I hated it a lot.

Hudson Hawk

Hudson Hawk ~ I have never seen this flick until quite recently. I have never really believed its reputation for being a terrible movie. As someone who loved John Carter, David Hasselhoff's Nick Fury, most recently After Earth, and I even liked Temple of Doom, I thought, hey, how bad could it be?

Reading up a few months back on subgenres of science fiction, I came across the term 'clockpunk' and specifically Hudson Hawk as an example. Clockpunk is posited as steampunk but with its origins more in the Renaissance rather than the Victorian era, along the lines of "Da Vinci's Demons," which I love. So I decided it was time to see the flick. Sadly, this aspect is barely background in the movie.

Bruce Willis plays a just released from prison cat burglar supreme known as the Hudson Hawk who is swept back into business by baddies seeking components of Da Vinci's accidental alchemy device. In this crazy cartoon reality, Willis is David Addison on speed, and unless you're in on the joke from the start, it's hard to catch up. I really want to see if "Moonlighting" holds up after all these years now.

Camp, slapstick, and downright ridiculous, the movie is riddled with bad performances and a plot that barely holds up. James Coburn and his candy bar henchmen are fun though, and I loved heisting to "Swingin' on a Star," but there's little else to recommend here. I think it may really just be as bad as its reputation.

The Die Hard Prequel

The Detective ~ We know all about Bruce Willis in Die Hard, and its four or five (who's counting?) sequels. But did you know there was a prequel to Die Hard? And did you know it starred Frank Sinatra? All true, keep reading and I'll tell you all about The Detective from 1968.

The Die Hard we all know and love, starring Bruce Willis, and made in 1988, was based on a book by crime novelist Roderick Thorp. The book's original title was Nothing Lasts Forever and it was published in 1979. Thorp had been wanting to write a sequel to his earlier novel, The Detective, and felt inspired after watching the film The Towering Inferno.

Nothing Lasts Forever was destined for the screen almost immediately, but Frank Sinatra, who portrayed Joe Leland in the film based on the first book wasn't interested. The idea floated around Hollywood for a while, was even suggested as the basis for a sequel to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando movie at one time.

Eventually it ended up with producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon, and director John McTiernan. The script was revamped and updated, some names and details were changed, and Bruce Willis came on board to play the younger John McClane as opposed to much older Joe Leland. The film went on to become a blockbuster with multiple sequels.

But as I mentioned, Roderick Thorp wrote a Joe Leland novel before Nothing Lasts Forever. The Detective was published in 1966, was a bestseller, and fast tracked to the screen starring Frank Sinatra two years later. The book featured a police case with as many possibilities as characters, almost reminiscent of a Raymond Chandler novel.

The film, while dated, lacks the humor of Willis' John McClane or even Sinatra's other crimestopper of the day, Tony Rome, so it has a very different vibe. Joe Leland is very serious about his police work. Those around him may joke, but Joe holds it together. Advertising of the time called it an adult look at police work.

The film features one of Sinatra's strongest performances of the late 1960s, a performance only elevated by the cast that surrounds him. Look for character actors Robert Duvall, Jack Klugman, Tony Musante, and William Windom, as well as beauties like Lee Remick and Jacqueline Bisset. There's also a great Jerry Goldsmith score that we just don't hear enough of.

While there are a few light moments, the film lacks the humor, and for that matter, the action, of Bruce Willis' Die Hard. Sinatra may well be a god in the film and music industry, but he's no Bruce Willis, and this was no Die Hard. It is however, quite a good film, and definitely worth a viewing. Recommended.

Looper

Looper ~ This is one of those movies that's hard to explain, and once you explain it, as complicated as it is, you go wow, that's a great idea for a movie. Looper is like that, only then it turns everything upside down and plays with possibilities. Plus time travel. And it's awesome.

Loopers are assassins sent into the past to dispose of targets from the future. Eventually their future selves are sent back, killed by themselves, whereupon they are retired and can live happily for thirty years until their loop is closed when they are sent to the past. Got it?

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is living the life of a looper, and everything is perfect until Bruce Willis, his older self, shows up, and escapes. That's when all hell breaks loose. That's when all the rules of time travel you thought you knew get turned in their ass.

Writer/director Rian Johnson has fun with this time travel twisting thriller, and puts both JGL and Willis through their paces. It's full of shocks and surprises, and even Emily Blunt comes off looking good. If you think you know time travel, this will put your Terminator and Back to the Future philosophy to the test. Good stuff, worth watching.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation Preview

G.I. Joe: Retaliation comes out June 29th 2012.

The Nature of Spoilers

Since I've gotten my iPhone, with the miracles of streaming Netflix and HBO Go, I have been stripping entire TV series before I go to bed instead of reading myself to sleep. I have gotten to see some pretty cool programs, stuff like "Oz," "Avatar the Last Airbender," "Nip/Tuck," "Sons of Anarchy," "Big Love" and "Deadwood." Great stuff, just amazing television. And also through apps like Miso and GetGlue, I'm able to let folks know what I'm watching.

My most recent project has been "Six Feet Under," and a friend of mine saw I was watching it and offered his opinion that the first season was great (of which I'm only almost done), the second was only okay and that the third and fourth seasons jumped the shark. Now I know that "Six Feet Under" is more than a handful of years old, but it got me thinking about spoilers, and when is it safe to talk about something after it happens without spoiling it?

I would think that news and sports would have the absolute shortest shelf life. News travels at the speed of light nowadays with Twitter. Sports would be only as long as you can keep a secret I suppose. I have a friend, seriously not into sports, who used to make it a game to see how long he could go without knowing who was playing in the Super Bowl each year. He used to do quite well, but this was back in the days before the Super Bowl was about more than football. Now it's more about middle-aged women exposing themselves or which ancient rocker was going to break a hip in stage this year.

In my tiny world of comic books, where the new titles come out on Wednesdays and most folks don't buy them until Friday, mid-weekend seems to be safe harbor to talk without spoilers. For TV, even in the age of DVRs and OnDemand, it seems a good idea to avoid the water cooler and not speak until at least the next episode airs.

Movies are a little different and I think fall into my "Six Feet Under" problem. Everyone knows Rosebud is a sled, but how many folks know the calls are coming from inside the house, Deckard might be a replicant, and that Bruce Willis is really dead - or do they?

Should it just come down to a matter of courtesy? If you know someone hasn't seen something, just be cool and don't spoil it, or should there be a statute of limitations on entertainment? What are the rules for spoilers?

A Couple of Dicks

Cop Out ~ This is the second time (that I know of) that Kevin Smith has been cock-blocked over a movie title. First Zack and Miri Make a Porno was trimmed to Zack and Miri for family viewing advertising purposes. This time, the entire title has been changed, from the funny and on-the-nose A Couple of Dicks to the ridiculous Cop Out. Although, in hindsight, this might be a better title for the finished product, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. The title is indicative of the genre it’s paying homage to.

This is the film that Smith talked about in great detail when I saw him in Philly a few months back, at the time tentatively called A Couple of Dicks. Smith talked about how Bruce Willis knew what he was doing, had been doing it for years and wouldn’t let Kevin direct him. It shows on the screen. But maybe it was intentional.

Cop Out comes off both as a relic of the 1980s buddy cop movies, and as a perfect homage to those same 1980s buddy cop movies. And Bruce Willis is a veteran of that era, and a master of the genre. Smith uses Willis’ reluctance to be directed and his experience to the film’s advantage. Willis’ solo scenes, along with those of the flick’s villains, are right out of the target decade. Smith might as well as recruited the bad guys from an old Steven Seagal cop movie. One of the good ones, that is.

The sound of the flick is also unique and homage. Kevin Smith wisely utilized not only 1980s and 80s-type tunage for the film but also brought Harold Faltermeyer, composer of the Beverly Hills Cop films among others, out of retirement to do the score. Brilliant. Despite the current day trappings of the Cullen brothers script, the soundtrack never lets you forget what it is you’re watching.

Kevin Smith actual direction surprised me. He’s very good at action despite what he himself says. There are scenes that surprise with their effectiveness, like the backwards car chase and the gunfight at the end. All very eighties, mind you, but effective. Smith’s movement is fluid and quick-cut all at once, and it’s a good thing. I’d really like to see his Green Hornet or Fletch now after seeing this.

Tracy Morgan is hill-larry-us as his hype promises, and the highlight of the film. Seann William Scott is fun whenever he’s on screen (perhaps he should be more in a sequel, hint hint) and the cameos by Susie Essman and Jim Norton are a hoot. And any predictability, clichés or monotony of the 1980s buddy cop genre that are present are elevated by the considerable talent of Willis, Morgan and Smith. Great flick and fun night at the movies.

Surrogates

Surrogates ~ Imagine a world where you just sit plugged in at home and live vicariously through a robot that does everything for you, as well as everything you’ve ever wanted to do or even dared to think you could. That’s the premise of this comic-based film starring Bruce Willis. And all the robots are good looking and perfect. Insert your own World of Warcraft or internet chatroom joke here. Yep, you never know who you’re really interacting with.

As our story begins with a homicide in a homicide-less world, Surrogates seems an awful lot like I Robot in that it’s really just a police thriller with scifi trappings. Things change quickly however when Willis is forced to solve the crime in his real body as opposed to as his perfect robot surrogate.

There are some really nice and unexpected twists here, and I can see where the director Jonathan Mostow stole some cues from District 9 when it comes to chases scenes. This is a good actioner, and while the ending is telegraphed early on, it’s still done to good effect. Good for a rental, even though it failed quickly in theatres.

And does Bruce Willis have it in his contract that he gets beat up in e very movie he’s in?

Kevin Smith in Philly

I’m a huge Kevin Smith fan. I love his movies, his comics, his writing, his podcast, even that animated “Clerks” thing, but most of all I love his DVDs of his Q&As. He’s done three so far, surely more to come, but the other night I finally got to see the man in action live.

We had great seats, third row, which were a birthday present from the lovely Bride and the Merriam Theater is a terrific place to see anything – not huge, but small enough to have some intimacy. A little after eight the man came out, in gigantic clothes. We all know about his weight problems, but it’s darn hard to tell when he’s wearing clothes that appear to be several sizes too big for him. It was like a flashback to David Byrne in the big suit.

Kevin Smith began the festivities with a story about one of the previous times he’d been to Philadelphia - when not only did his father get to see him at a comic con and his whole family got together for a great dinner and discussion – but his father passed away later that night. Yeah, Kevin started the night on a down note, but he quickly recovered, telling a tale of his dad that had a much more pleasant ending.

The night quickly moved to the question and answer portion of the event there after with topics ranging from the Twilight phenomenon to Smith’s working with ‘the Bruce Willis persona’ on the upcoming film not-to-be-titled A Couple of Dicks to how and why he ended up on “DeGrassi High.” Further questions dealt with Smith’s ‘rivalry’ with Reese Witherspoon, the health of Jason Mewes and social networking.

Kevin ended the night with tales of former Film Threat writer and friend Malcolm Ingram and an exploration of bear society. I had a great time and have to say Kevin Smith live is better than Kevin Smith on DVD. I look forward to his next tour and, as always, his next films. Rock on, Kevin, and thanks to The Bride.

Coming Soon...

Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis, is the next comic book based film to hit theatres. It opens September 25th.


Pandorum, promising a new level of horror, opens September 25th.



The 'reinvention,' rather than remake, of 1980's Fame also opens on Septemeber 25th. It's gonna be a busy weekend at the movies...

Popcorn Quickies 4-21-2009

10,000 B.C. ~ Ever since Roland Emerich and Dean Devlin ruined Godzilla I have been wary of any Centropolis film. And when I saw previews of 10,000 B.C. my first thought was it was a way of cashing in on some new state of the art special effects and also the flood of prehistoric programming on the Discovery networks. When it finally came around on the cable I took a peek just to see the effects, and I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a hero’s journey story in the Joseph Campbell vein that follows a primitive man into the world of wannabe gods building pyramids with saber-tooth tigers and wooly mammoths thrown in for good measure – and it’s quite good, or at least tons better than I expected. Worth taking a chance to check out, good adventure fodder.

Live Free or Die Hard ~ When you Google the term ‘popcorn movie’ it should take you right to the movie poster for this flick. If you’ve seen any of the other Die Hard movies, or any Bruce Willis action flick really, there are no real surprises here. Willis knocks a helicopter out of the sky with a car because he’s out of bullets, and it’s got Kevin Smith, really, what more could you ask for? Munch lots of popcorn and call it a night’s entertainment, you’ll be satisfied.

Timecrimes ~ Also known as Los Cronocrimenes is a brilliant but just a tad predictable time travel thriller from independent Oscar-nominated writer/director Nacho Vigalondo. He also acts in this one. It’s slow, and thought-provoking, a different pace from most time travel stories but meticulously planned and not without twists. Stay with it, even when you think you’ve got it figured out – it can be surprising even when you think you’ve got it figured out.

Star Trek: Nemesis ~ The final Trek film before the powers-that-be decided a complete reboot of the franchise is not as bad as I would have thought. The Enterprise crew from the “Next Generation” TV series find themselves caught in the center of a hostile takeover in the Romulan Empire, one masterminded by, as it turns out, a clone of Captain Picard. Hilarity ensues. While there are nice touches and cute nods and nudges throughout, this is really just an action flick in Trek dressings. I can see why hardcore fans were disappointed in what was considered, even then, the final voyage for these characters. Lotsa action and special effects, but it could have so much more, and definitely not as much of a rehash of Wrath of Khan as it seems to be. Recommended if it’s on free TV.


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