Mike's Movie Tips

 3/4 Starring: Oksana Akinshina, Fedor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fyodorov, Anton Vasilev Not Rated (probable R for Sci-Fi Violence and Gore) "Sputnik" resists formulas and easy payoffs.  It's too ambitious for that.  Although it is in many ways a traditional sci-fi/horror flick, it is willing to follow through with its ideas.  That makes it a cut above most American alien movies.  It's not a perfect movie, but it is effective. Tatyana Klimova (Akinshina) is not in a good mood.  After bending the rules to save the life of a patient, her superiors threw her under the bus.  Now, she's about to lose her license.  Help comes when a military officer named Semiradov (Bondarchuk) comes to her with an extraordinary opportunity for redemption.  He heads a top secret research facility where a man with an unbelievable secret is being held.  He is Konstantin Veshnyakov (Fyodorov), a cosmonaut who has recently returned to Earth.  He has a parasite inside...

 3/4 Rated R for Language, Violent Images and Some Drug Material We don't get to choose how we start in this life.  Real "greatness" is what you do with the hand you're dealt. -Victor Sullivan, "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune"  I realize just how odd it is for me to open a review of a documentary by quoting a character from a video game, but under the circumstances it's more apropos than Shakespeare.  After all, this movie is about a man who had been dealt the worst possible hand by life and unfortunately decided to lash out in anger and frustration. June 12, 2000.  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  Sandro do Nascimento gets onto Bus 174 and pulls out a gun.  This isn't an ordinary stick up.  Nascimento takes hostages, and together with the woefully inept police response it turns into a disaster. With this documentary, director Jose Padilha does two things.  First and foremost, he uses archive footage and interviews to create a play by play guide through ...

 1.5/4 Starring: Jeff Bridges, Tommy Lee Jones, Forest Whitaker, Lloyd Bridges, Suzy Amis, Stephi Lineburg Rated R for Violence and Some Language Where to begin with this movie? "Blown Away" is one of the dumbest action thrillers I've seen in a long time, and that's the least of its problems.  Almost nothing goes right for this film, and that leads to boredom.  Not a good quality for a wannabe adrenaline cocktail. Jimmy Dove (Bridges) is the hero of the Boston bomb squad.  He can defuse any bomb with a wink and a one-liner.  His first assignment is saving a pretty college student whose vengeful boyfriend rigged a bomb that's set to go off if, I kid you not, she either stops typing or the machine runs out of memory.  He succeeds and his name and face are plastered all over the news.  It's seen by Ryan Gaerity (Jones), a madman who was "too crazy" for the IRA and has a bone to pick with Jimmy.  Now he's rigging bombs and killing off members of the ...

 3.5/4 Starring: Sihung Lung, Kuei-Mei Yang, Yu-Wen Wang, Chien-Lien Wu, Sylvia Chang, Winston Chao, Chao-jung Chen, Chit-Man Chan, Ah-Lei Gua Not Rated (Probable PG-13 for Sexuality) "Eat Drink Man Woman" is an irresistibly charming dramedy from Ang Lee, who is probably one of the finest independent filmmakers working today.  Although he has achieved mainstream success (and two Oscars for Best Director) and has directed a few blockbusters ("Hulk" and " Gemini Man "), he remains, at heart, a filmmaker who takes chances yet always marches to his own beat.  You can see his signature style in all his films.  Or rather, you can feel it.  His films are understated but filled with intense emotions bubbling beneath the surface.  He concentrates on people's repressed feelings as opposed to their actions.  The characters in his movies often try to balance their intense desires with the reality of their situation.  It's most obvious in his two most famous f...

 0/4 Starring: Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgard, Hayley Bennett, Riley Keough, Mia Wasikowska, Jason Clarke, Robert Pattinson, Harry Melling, Eliza Scanlen, Sebastian Stan Rated R for Violence, Bloody/Disturbing Images, Sexual Content, Graphic Nudity, and Language Throughout My dad is a huge fan of my movie reviews and loves listening to me read them.  But whenever I read him a review of a movie that sucked, he tells me to always be positive.  He's my dad and is hopefully a bit wiser than me, so what do I know.  Maybe he has a point.  So for my dad, I'll say this about "The Devil All the Time:" I'm positive that this movie sucks. This is a vile, reprehensible piece of filth.  The fact that there are some good performances to be found here actually makes it a more miserable experience to sit through.  A person could, I suppose, defend it by saying it's supposed to be dark and violent.  I might agree if there was any point to it all.  But there isn'...

 1.5/4 Starring: James Keach, Stacy Keach, David Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine, Randy Quaid, Dennis Quaid, Pamela Reed, James Whitmore Jr., Christopher Guest, Nicholas Guest Rated R (probably for Graphic Violence and Brief Nudity) "The Long Riders" is noteworthy for one thing and one thing only: it stars four sets of brothers.  Ultimately what should be a casting coup turns out to be its Achilles heel.  Trying to balance nearly a dozen characters would try the talents of the best filmmakers even if they had a three hour running time.  Trying to do that with only 100 minutes is just asking for disaster. Story is not the film's strong suit.  Allegedly about the final exploits of the James/Younger gang, the film has no real plot to speak of.  In fact, it's not really about the crimes at all.  It's more about the love life of the main characters.  It might have been interesting, if a bad bait-and-switch, but the film is so badly written...

 1.5/4 Starring (voices): Dom DeLuise, Phillip Glasser, Tawny Sunshine Glover, Cloris Leachman, Charles Nelson Reilly, Jonathan Pryce, Hayley Mills Rated G For some reason, filmmakers tend to underestimate the intelligence and imagination of children.  Not to mention their attention span.  There are exceptions (the Disney classics, anything by Hayao Miyazaki), but in general, that tends to be the rule.  Call me a cynic if you want, but that's the only possible explanation for something as banal and insipid as "A Troll in Central Park."  What makes it all the more surprising is that it came from Don Bluth and Gary Goldman, who made the sophisticated and thought-provoking film " The Secret of NIMH ."  Then again, they were also behind the unspeakably awful " The Pebble and the Penguin ," so maybe it's not so much. The film has no plot.  At least none that it can pay attention to for more than a few minutes at a time.  Stanley (DeLuise) is a troll wi...

 3/4 Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, Marthe Keller, William Devane Rated R (probable for Intense Violence, Language, and a Scene of Sexuality/Nudity) "Marathon Man" is what critics call a "turn off your brain" kind of movie.  It's the kind of movie that offers cheap, visceral thrills as long as the audience member doesn't use their thinking machine.  Plot holes abound and characters act like either Sherlock Holmes or Bill and Ted depending on what the story requires.   A cast of solid performers and energetic direction can smooth over a lot of the seams, but this is not a well-written motion picture. Babe (Hoffman) is a young graduate student at Columbia who is about to start his dissertation.  He is wooing a pretty student named Elsa (Keller).  His brother Doc (Scheider) is in the oil business and has just shown up in town to surprise Babe.  But Doc isn't who he says he is.  He's actually a government agent in town to a...

 2/4 Starring: Martin Sheen, Helen Shaver, Harley Cross, Robert Loggia, Elizabeth Wilson, Lee Richardson, Harris Yulin, Carmen Pinza, Malick Bowens, Richard Masur, Jimmy Smits Rated R (probably for Disturbing Violence and Rituals, Language and Some Nudity) Not to be confused with the 2002 film " The Believer " with Ryan Gosling "The Believers" has just about everything it needs to be a great chiller: effective performances, a spooky story, and scenes of real terror and dread.  What is does not have is a good screenplay to exploit these elements (some of which are top-notch).  Watching this movie is compelling but ultimately frustrating because it's obvious just how good it could have been with just a little more TLC.  The pieces are definitely there. Cal Jamison's (Sheen) wife has recently died in a tragic accident.  Unlike most movie characters who suffer unspeakable tragedy, Cal moves into the city rather than leaving it.  He sets up a nice practice as a...

 3/4 Starring: Garrett Hedlund, Forest Whitaker, Andrea Riseborough, Tom Wilkinson, Taylor Gregory Rated R for Disturbing Violent Content, and Language Throughout including Racial Epithets At first glance, the key scene to "Burden" might seem to be when the protagonist, Mike Burden (Hedlund), decides at the last second not to murder Reverend Kennedy (Whitaker), a local civil rights activist.  In point of fact, it comes right before.  Two groups of people are gearing up for a protest at the new Redneck Museum founded by the local Klan leader, Tom Griffin (Wilkinson).  Griffin's crowd chooses hatred.  They stew in the their own resentments, projecting their own perceived inadequacies on a target they find convenient.  They feed on hatred and cynicism because it's easy.  Kennedy's crowd similarly pumps itself up, but in a different way.  They find strength in what they have overcome, in the values that they hold dear, and what they know to be right. ...