Mike's Movie Tips

I've found that the best movies take place in worlds so immerse that I wish I could touch the screen and get sucked into it.  I love movies that just seem to whisper "Explore Me!"  Not all movies have this quality, even the good ones (as much as I like "Saving Private Ryan," it's a movie I'd rather experience from a safe distance).  Believe it or not, "Brotherhood of the Wolf" will not be appearing on this list.  It's a great movie, but due to the nature of the story, the world it inhabits isn't as inventive or expansive. So here are the five movies (or in most cases, franchises) that I would love to visit and explore... 5. Heat : This may seem like an odd entry for this list, since it takes place in our reality, but let me explain.  Not only is everyone (based on the evidence) intelligent, thoughtful and unique, Michael Mann created a vision of Los Angeles that is vividly realized.  I got a sense of how his LA worked and how segmen...

1.5/4 Starring: Zach Braff, Kate Hudson, Mandy Patinkin, Joey King, Pierce Gagnon, Josh Gad Rated R for Language and Some Sexual Content For a brief period, Zach Braff's directorial debut, "Garden State," was my favorite film of all time (emphasis on brief, since I only saw the film once, and that was years ago).  The same will not be said about his newest film, "Wish I Was Here," which is just awful. This new dramedy feels like a trailer for another movie, although it would be stretching it to say that it would be good.  There are plenty of "emotional" moments that would look good in a trailer, but Braff doesn't build upon them.  The whole thing feels like an assembly of little clips that, by themselves, are decent enough, but they don't really add up to much. Aidan Bloom (Braff) is a struggling actor.  He has the support of his lovely wife Sarah (Hudson), but his father Gabe (Patinkin) considers him a failure.  After Gabe's canc...

1/4 Starring: Willem Dafoe, Morgana Davies, Frances O'Connor, Finn Woodlock, Sam Neill Rated R for Language and Brief Violence God, I really hate movies that do nothing with an interesting premise.  It reeks of ego.  Audiences are coming to see a movie based on the premise that they heard about.  But to only give it cursory mention in favor of half-baked individuals that have nothing to do with the story is a slap in the face. The idea, that a company would want to find the last member of a species so they could kill it, copyright its DNA and bring it back into existence, is interesting and provocative (the film was made two years before Molecular Pathology vs. Myriad Genetics , which ruled that genetic patenting of naturally occurring genes is illegal).  Sadly, the only thing that director Daniel Nettheim does with it is provide some segments of Martin (Dafoe) running around the woods of Tasmania setting traps or hiding from the elements.  The bulk of t...

2/4 Starring: Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Viola Davis, Joseph Foster Rated PG-13 for Thematic Material Doubt is an uncomfortable position to be in.  You don't know the truth, and the pain of not knowing can frustrate tremendously.  Just look at a missing persons case.  How do you think it feels to not know where your loved one is?  Granted, "Doubt" doesn't deal with a missing person, but a crime, if one indeed occurred, that is just as terrifying. Donald Miller (Foster) is the lone black child at St. Nicholas Catholic School.  It is 1964, so life is understandably difficult for him.  He has been taken under the wing of Father Flynn (Hoffman), the progressively minded parish priest.  That raises the ire of Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Streep), who believes that things must stay the same.  But when young Sister James (Adams) sees Donald acting a little odd after being called to a private meeting with Father Flynn, Sister Al...

3.5/4 Starring: Jason Clarke, Keri Russell, Gary Oldman, Kodi Smitt-McPhee, Andy Serkis, Toby Kebell Rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Sci-Fi Violence and Action, and Brief Strong Language I know, I know... I said I'd go see "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" right after I saw the first one .  And I did!  I just missed the first few minutes of the movie (actually, probably only about a minute), and it is a personal policy that if I miss any part of the movie, I don't review it (this is why there is no review of "Mirror Mirror," among others).  So, I've finally gotten a chance to see it again and review it. I mentioned that James Berardinelli said that "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is much better than the first one (3.5/4 vs. 2.5/4).  He was right.  This is an improvement on all fronts.  The plot is more complex, the storytelling is considerably better, and the stakes are higher. After the events in the first film, the medicine th...

1/4 Starring: Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Mathis, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, Fiona Shaw Rated PG for Action Violence (I guess...) "Super Mario Bros." is what happens when a studio hopes to cash in on a new trend and hires filmmakers without a clue.  I would be extremely surprised if the writers (Parker Bennett, Terry Runte, Ed Solomon) and/or the directors (Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton) have played any of the Super Mario games.  Granted, the film was made in 1993, and the latest release at the time was "Super Mario World" for the Super Nintendo, but at the time it had what passed for a plot in those days (unlike the original arcade game). Anyone who has played any of the games in the series would tell you that if it could be pegged into a genre, it's fantasy.  It's lighter than air and cuter than cute.  Yet, the people who turned the beloved games into a monstrosity of a movie have made it into a gritty sci-fi action m...

3.5/4 Starring: Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard Da Silva, Doris Dowling, Frank Faylen Not Rated Few movies can be seen as "game changers."  Movies that have fundamentally altered the way movies deal with a subject.  " Saving Private Ryan " changed the way war films have been made (to be fair, there were other movies that looked at the dark side of war, but not even "Platoon" was as frank or brutal).  " Brokeback Mountain " was the first mainstream movie to show a homosexual romance.  And while it came out a half century before either, "The Lost Weekend" changed the way the world looked at addiction. Before Billy Wilder made "The Lost Weekend," which was based on a novel by Charles R. Jackson (Wilder picked up while riding on the train, and by the time he reached Hollywood, he had decided to make this his next film), America was divided as to whether or not alcoholism was a disease or a weakness of charac...