Moroni's Review of "Dark Shadows"

I have liked Tim Burton for a long, long time.  Years ago, when I was a teen, "Pee Wee's Big Adventure" was campy and weird (as well as quotable).  "Beetlejuice" was every goth boy's dream (complete with Winona Ryder dressed in black).  By the time "Edward Scissorhands" and "Ed Wood" came out, Tim Burton had taken his craft beyond art to perfection.  This culminated in "Big Fish".  But after that, he began to fizzle.  It seemed almost as if he were becoming a parody of himself.  He was settling into the niche of "weirdness" that he had invented, mostly because people expected him to.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - to say that it is "a Tim Burton movie" doesn't carry the same weight anymore.

I feel the same way about Johnny Depp.  He was an actor's actor.  His goal always seemed to be to make himself as unrecognizable as possible - from the tortured character in Edward Scissorhands to the grinning fiend in Ed Wood.  He has always been a true artist's canvas - starting out blank and allowing expression to fill out every corner.  But lately it seems as if every character is another variation of Captain Jack Sparrow.

So that makes for a disappointing combo for Tim Burton's new movie "Dark Shadows", starring (surprise) Johnny Depp.

"Dark Shadows" is based on a TV show from the late '60s.  I, myself, was born and raised in the '70s, but I have no recollection of this TV show.  I must have been too sheltered.

Johnny Depp plays a vampire named Barnabas Collins from the 1700s.  After his lover is cursed and dies, Barnabas is turned into a vampire by an obsessed witch (played by the lovely Eva Green).  He is chained in a coffin and forced to remain for 200 years until he is accidentally dug up.  He finds the world of 1972 Maine to be bizarre, and he takes up abode with his relatives to run the family fishing business against a competing fish company - which just happens to be run by Eva Green's character.

I wanted this movie to be more interesting, but it wasn't - despite great performances by Michelle Pfieffer and Helena Bonham Carter.  To me, it just seemed as if Johnny Depp was playing the same character he played in "Sweeney Todd".

The most enjoyable part of the movie was the music - T-Rex, Moody Blues, Black Sabbath, and a wonderful cameo by Alice Cooper, who played himself (although with wrinkles digitally removed to make him look 40 years younger).

This movie would be a great movie to watch from home.  On DVD.  Not paying bucks to watch in the theatre.  Save that for "The Avengers".

Moroni's Review of "The Avengers"

Generally, I am a typical postmodernist and have a undefined disdain for anything too mainstream, sneering at anything designed to please the masses.  But there is a part of me that I have retained since childhood that thinks superheroes are frickin' cool.  As a result, I see just about every superhero movie that comes out every summer.  It kind of helps that I have kids who love superheroes, too.

Just because I see just about every superhero movie doesn't mean that I LIKE every movie featuring a caped crusader.  For instance, the "Dark Knight" series - I really WANT to like them.  I think Christopher Nolan is an excellent film maker.  But they don't move me.  I can't find myself excited for them the way I liked Tim Burton's version of Batman.

Marvel has come up with several movies with different heroes that lead up to the movie "The Avengers".  Some of them have been really good movies, some of them not so good.  "Iron Man" was really good.  Robert Downey, Jr. was really made for this role.  "Iron Man 2" was kind of dull.  "Thor" was a really  good movie.  "Captain America" - I wanted that movie to be good, but I was extremely disappointed when the movie devolved into a series of montages of the patriotic hero fighting with no story.  They have made a couple of movies with the Hulk, and I think that I am the only person on the planet who thinks that Ang Lee's verion (the first one) was more than a movie, but a work of art.

As we were on the way to the theater, I told my wives that I was afraid that I would be disappointed.  I didn't want to have any expectations for this movie, because I didn't want to be let down.  I wanted so badly for this movie to be good, but I knew that it probably wouldn't be.  I even made a prediction - the whole movie would build the plot up, and they wouldn't become the Avengers until the very end.

Boy, was I wrong.  This movie was action-packed from start to finish.  This movie reduced me to a quivering preteen boy.  With its apocalyptic battle scenes, it is everything that the "Transformers" movies tried to be and failed.  I guess I should have expected this from director, Joss Whedon, who created one of my favorite TV shows of all time - "Firefly".

The movie starts out with Loki, the villain of the preceeding "Thor" movie (played with pizzazz by Tom Hiddleston) finding a way to come to earth by means of the Tesseract, the mystical device from the "Captain America" movie.  So Nick Fury - in a disappointingly subdued role by Samuel L. Jackson - puts the Avenger initiative into effect, which is to assemble a team of superheroes to protect the earth.  They recruit the narcissistic Tony Stark, aka. Iron Man as well as the conservative Captain America, a role reprised by Chris Evans.  They track down the bitter Dr. Banner, played wonderfully by Mark Ruffalo, who refers to his alter-ego as the "Other Guy".  Chris Hemsworth again plays Thor, sent from Asgard to track down his adopted brother, Loki.  The team is completed by the Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson (rawr!) and Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner.  The last two characters were my favorite.

The effort to create an cohesive team fails when it becomes evident that every one of the superheroes has a super ego.  They can't seem to work together - which I think was the most compelling component of the movie.  Imagine that you are blessed with tremendous power, and suddenly you are expected to cooperate with someone equal powers and equally opinionated?  The team doesn't become effective until they learn to work in conjunction with each other.  But when they do - watch out!

Loki finds a way to use the Tesseract to open a portal in the universe that unleashes a hellish army - on Manhattan, of course.  Because the story would be different if it was in Concho, Arizona.  And the baddies seem bent on destroying familiar landmarks first - the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, etc.  The film culminates on a pitched battle - superheroes against aliens, trying to save us all.

I won't divulge too much.  But the audience reacted with laughter in one part when the Hulk confronts Loki, and Loki sneers at the green monster and says, "How dare you, you dumb brute!  I am a god!"  And the Hulk proceeds to turn Loki into a superhuman piñata.

This movie is a roller coaster ride.  It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is - which is a fun escape for two hours.  It was a good way to start the summer.  I plan on going back - again - with the kids.

Moroni's Review of "The Lucky One"

So a man with more than one wife is expected to see his fair share of chick flicks...

And you can't get more chick-flicky than a movie based on a novel by none other than chick-flick guru, Nicholas Sparks.  Nicholas Sparks is known for coming up with the printed format for stimulating estrogen.  It doesn't matter that his work is formulaic, it gets tremendous response from the ladies.

These are the types of books that my wife Temple eats up.  (Although she does have a geeky side that loves sci fi/ fantasy.)

So this past weekend, it was a warm, spring day.  I took both of the ladies to Lotus Garden for lunch, and then I said, "Do you guys want to see 'The Lucky One'?"

"What's that?" they asked.

"It's based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks.  You know.  The author of 'The Christmas Box'."

I make this joke all the time.  It always gets a rise from Temple.  Every time.  "The Christmas Box" is NOT written by Nicholas Sparks, but by Richard Paul Evans, who is Temple's favorite, favorite author - another scribe of all things feminine.  The first time, I really did confuse them - what guy wouldn't?  They write the same type of book and market them in plain covers with nothing more than a title encased by a pretty vignette.

So the three of us went to see "The Lucky One", me seated and flanked by my two wives.

The beginning was promising, with some action sequences in Iraq.  But these were short-lived.  Zac Efron (with a puffy face now that he is older) plays a Marine haunted by his experiences in the war.  While in battle, he finds a photo of a beautiful young woman (played by the fetching Taylor Schilling, who is the libertarian pin-up girl, having played Dagney Taggart in the movie adaptation of "Atlas Shrugged").  He believes this photo saved his life, and so he sets out of a trek to find the girl.  He finds her running a dog kennel in North Carolina.  And instead of returning the photo to her - which is his intention - he gets a job at her kennel and slowly worms his way into her life.

During the movie, much to Temple's annoyance, I whispered in her ear predictions about the plot.  OF COURSE there is a "another guy" who is trying to thwart this budding love.  OF COURSE she finds out about the photo (which is the weakest link in the plot). OF COURSE she wants him out of her life.  OF COURSE he offers his sincerest apologies and wins the girl (which never happens in real life).

Before the movie even started, I KNEW that my wives would absolutely adore this movie.  Before this movie even started, I KNEW that I would give it a bad review.  Sure enough, as the end credits started rolling, I started plotting the horrible things I would say about this movie as I secretly wiped the tear from my eye.