Mike's Movie Tips

1.5/4 Starring: Milla Jovovich, Ali Larter, Oded Fehr, Iain Glen, Jason O'Mara, Mike Epps Rated R for Strong Horror Violence Throughout and Some Nudity Suspension of disbelief is a common necessity for many movies to work.  For example, when watching " The Lord of the Rings ," we have to accept that Middle Earth is real.  When watching " The Peacemaker ," we have to be willing to believe that two people can play a life-and-death game of bumper cars on the streets of Vienna and survive with no serious injury (or any significant coverage by the news).  For a zombie movie to work, we have to believe that it is possible for the dead to come back to life and have an insatiable desire for human flesh.  I'll accept that.  I'll even go so far as to accept that it's possible to have secret research labs the size of skyscrapers located underground.  But when you have characters who suddenly develop telekinesis in a zombie movie, it becomes too much. It...

3/4 Starring: Chris Pine, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Holliday Granger, Kyle Gallner, John Magaro, Eric Bana Rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Peril "The Finest Hours" does exactly what it sets out to do, which is to provide almost two hours of forearm gripping adrenaline and entertainment.  It's tense, exciting, well-acted and splendidly photographed.  While it doesn't achieve the terror of " The Perfect Storm " or the emotional complexity of " In the Heart of the Sea ," remember that those films set the bar pretty high.  Even a film of significantly less quality is a sure bet for a night's entertainment. Bernie Webber (Pine) is a shy young man working for the Coast Guard.  He meets a lovely young woman named Miriam (Granger), with whom he becomes engaged.  But trouble is brewing off the coast.  Two ships have split apart out at sea during a terrible gale, and with the majority of the Coast Guard at the first wreck, it's up to Be...

2.5/4 Starring: John Goodman, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, Kellie Martin, Cathy Moriarty, Lisa Jakub, Jesse Lee Soffer, Lucinda Jenny Rated PG for Language, and for Mild Violence and Sensuality I'll give points to Joe Dante for ambition.  He's combined a William Castle-type director premiering his new movie, two teen romances and the Cuban Missile Crisis into one movie.  I can't recommend it, but there are definitely some great things about this movie.  I'm certainly not mad that I sat through it. Gene Loomis (Fenton) moves around a lot because his father is in the Navy.  He and his family have recently settled into Key West, Florida, where he is having difficulty making friends.  He's a monster movie fan, and, much to his delight, horror-meister Lawrence Woolsey (Goodman) is premiering his next monster opus, dubbed "Mant!", in his hometown.  Trouble is brewing, however.  His father has suddenly been called away and the Cuban Missile Crisis is soon...

3/4 Starring: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan. David Morse, Doug Hutchison, Barry Pepper, Bonnie Hunt, Sam Rockwell, Michael Jeter, James Cromwell, Patricia Clarkson Rated R for Violence, Language, and Some Sex-Related Material "The Green Mile" is a standard order melodrama that is built on nostalgia and faith in something greater than ourselves.  It is very manipulative and never subtle, but in this case that's a good thing. Paul Edgecomb (Hanks) is a guard on death row at a prison in Louisiana.  E-Block, or The Green Mile, as it's known, is where he works with his fellow guards.  Most of them he likes, but then there's Percy (Hutchison), a sadistic creep that Paul can't wait to get rid of but who is staying around long enough to see a live execution.  One day he gets a new prisoner.  John Coffey (Duncan) is a mountain of a man convicted of raping and murdering two little girls.  But when Paul introduces John to the reality of life on The Green Mi...

2/4 Starring: Nastassja Kinski, John Heard, Annette O'Toole. Malcolm McDowell, Ruby Dee, Ed Begley Jr. Rated R (probably for Creature Violence/Gore and for Pervasive Sexual Content including Aberrant Sexuality and Graphic Nudity) When you think of sex, what animal comes to mind? A totally weird question, I know, but it's at the heart of the movie "Cat People," a remake of a 1942 film.  Believe it or not.  So what's your answer?  I bet it wasn't panthers. Sure, sex kitten is a term used to describe a playfully sexy young woman, but panthers and sex don't really go together in my mind.  Still, I'm open to just about anything when it comes to movie premises.  I'll accept anything on its own level.  But "Cat People" doesn't work.  It starts out strong, but it devolves into an incoherent mess at the halfway mark and never finds its way back. Irena Galler (Kinski) has just come to New Orleans to meet her long lost brother Paul (...

1.5/4 Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell, Dan Fogler, Allison Sudol, Carmen Ejogo, Samantha Morton, Ezra Miller, Jon Voight Rated PG-13 for Some Fantasy Action Violence The success of the "Harry Potter" film franchise took everyone by surprise.  The idea was to make a few bucks off the movies and milk it for as long as they could.  No one expected to film the entire franchise.  But that's what happened, and Warner Bros. was drowning in cash.  The problem is that There were only seven books in the franchise.  Dividing the final chapter into two parts (a wise move, all things considered) stretched things out for a bit longer, but there was no getting around the fact that the story ended.  So what's a studio to do when their cash cow runs out of gas?  Why, do a spin-off. J.K. Rowling penned a few small "reference" books for the world she created, most notably, "Quidditch Through the Ages," "The Three Tales of Bee...

2/4 Starring: Ray Winstone, Guy Pearce, Danny Huston, Emily Watson, David Wenham, John Hurt, Richard Wilson Rated R for Strong Grisly Violence, and for Language "The Proposition" is one long exercise in revisionist Western clichés.  The hero is conflicted and morose, the violence is graphic and bloody, and everyone is in desperate need of a bath and a day at the salon.  This could have been hilarious satire, but director John Hillcoat treats the material as if it's the most important movie ever made.  Apparently he thinks that if these characters brood enough we won't notice that they're stuck in a plot that would have been old when the Western was actually relevant. The entire Hopkins family has just been brutally murdered, including the mother Eliza who was with child at the time of her death.  The Burns gang, consisting in part of the three Burns brothers, is found to be responsible.  The two younger siblings, Charlie (Pearce) and Mike (Wilson) are ca...