JUNE, 29


SAM & TWITCH 2

Crime
Cast: John Goodman, Tim Roth, Martin Short, Ramon Rodriguez, J.K. Simmons, Toni Collette, Michael Ironside, Jodelle Ferland, David Makalaster, Chad Taylor
Director and Screenwriter: Matt Kubrick
Producer: Midnight Movies

Box Office: 10 mill.
Net Losses: 9 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
Due to its technical characteristics (shot in 105 mm film, mainly) we couldn’t find more than 2000 theatres to show it. That made almost impossible from the beginning to expect net gains. Our only hope at the Studio was that the DVD market would answer well. But it didn’t. So, finally, there was no way to save it from financial disaster.

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON

Suspense / Horror
Cast: Elle Fanning, Cayden Boyd, Amy Ryan, Josh Lucas, Cuba Gooding Jr., Ryan Simpkins
Director: Frank Darabont
Screenwriter: Josh Collins


Box Office: 36 mill.
Net Gains: 7 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
It’s not easy to take big crowds of moviegoers to watch a horror movie starred by a 12 years old girl. But still it made a correct box office, although lower than deserved, in my opinion.

JOHN WAYNE MUST DIE

War / Drama
Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Maggie Grace, Anton Yelchin, Will Patton, Julianne Moore. Cameo by Shia LaBeouf.
Director: Ron Howard
Screenwriter and Producer: Chad Taylor

Box Office: 46 mill.
Net Gains: 3 mill.

Stark’s Reaction:
It didn’t became the big cinematic event it could have been but at least it didn’t make net losses. Wow, you bet this is being a tough Season…! Most of our releases are staying in this nobody's land of slight net gains and slight net losses… Let’s hope things begin to go better in the upcoming weeks!


SAM & TWITCH 2

‘Twelve Seasons after the first ‘Sam & Twitch’ movie, Matt Kubrick has repeated the same cinematic experience with this sequel. And the key work here is ‘repeat’. Both movies are a daring visual experiment, trying to translate to the big screen the peculiar camera angles, characters, dark atmosphere and spirit of the original graphic novels. Again, the movie is shot in digital film and black and white and again it lasts almost two hours and a half. The problem is that Kubrick already did all that in the first movie back in Season 2. There’s nothing new in this sequel so the surprise factor is missing and the visual impact is lowered, as we saw it all before in the first movie. This sequel does not add anything to the original movie. It is just a copycat of the first one, only twelve Seasons later. But I don’t think that’s enough to revamp a franchise that didn’t completely work at the first time.’
-Roy Winslow

‘’Sam & Twitch’ had its main appeal in its double eccentricity, both in terms of visual creativity and plotline. Sadly, that second element is lost in this sequel. The first movie had an eccentric and peculiar sense of humor that is missing in this sequel. This time, Kubrick has written a more routine crime plotline, much more standard than the plot of the original movie, more ‘serious’ and not adding the gallery of peculiar characters seen in the first movie. Sam and Twitch are now just another couple of ordinary investigators and the characters surrounding them are nothing more original than corrupted politicians and child abusers, something seen in so many movies. Bravery is lost in this screenplay and, at the end, that weights too much the movie once you get used to the visual originality.’
-Anne Roman

‘Why Matt Kubrick has thought again that Sam and Twitch’s adventures need 2 hours and a half to be told? The plot of this movie could have been easily developed in no more than 90 or 100 minutes. But Kubrick has decided to stretch each sequence, dialogue and situation to reach an exhausting length of 240 minutes. Absolutely needless. That decision is like committing suicide: you just kill yourself and your movie making it last forever without any need or justification to do so. That’s the main problem of this movie: you are just sitting there willing with desperation to get out of the theatre to breath fresh air and enjoy daylight again.’
-Jake Cobb

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON

‘Besides the wonderful CMP’s Dark Tower saga, I have always thought that the best movies based on Stephen King’s books are always the ones based on his minor works. The delicious and unforgettable ‘Stand By Me’ or the mastery ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ – also directed by Darabont – are a proof of that theory. And that’s valid too for this one. ‘The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon’ is a big little movie, highly engrossing, perfectly paced and brilliantly developed. Again, a minor novel from King becomes a big movie. Darabont – a specialist in King’s adaptations – perfectly translates the spirit of the book to the big screen. The claustrophobic atmosphere of those woods and Elle fighting to keep her sanity in there comes out from the screen the way it pretends to pass on the audience. And that’s what this kind of movies need: to make viewers feel involved in what’s going on at the screen. Something this movie absolutely accomplishes.’
-Charlie Kiggs

‘Forget about Dakota and Abbie. There’s a new queen in town. We suspected it when watching ‘Velcro’. We were convinced it would happen sooner or later when watching ‘The Green Children’. It should have already happened with the sadly undervalued ‘The Orphan Train’. But now it’s a fact. Elle Fanning confirms in this movie that there’s something more than cuteness about her. She is also an Actress, with capital letter. She perfectly shows all the range of emotions needed in her character, from fear to vulnerability to hope to insanity, in an acting show particularly remarkable for a 12 years old actress. After ‘The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon’, Elle has finally reached the seat she deserves on the first row of the Hollywood’s child stars. Congratulations!’
-Amy Ratched

‘’The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon’ is a wonderful piece of what can be described as ‘soft horror’. There’s no gore sequences, no slashers, no blood in this movie. The story looks more for our subconscious, our deepest and most hidden fears. Trisha’s adventure is the representation of the most common nightmares. That’s what makes it so easy to feel identified with what she’s going through. And that’s what makes the story so disturbing without the need to appeal to recurrent tricks of the horror genre. This movie ends up scaring you much more than any big horror show because it directly appeals to situations that directly touch your unconscious primary fears: loneliness, darkness, monsters... Great job by Darabont again and also by Collins, who has perfectly captured the essence of King’s story in his adaptation.’
-Tim Reeve

JOHN WAYNE MUST DIE

‘’Another movie about Vietnam War?... I must admit that was my first reaction when I heard about this movie. And, sadly, that’s my reaction too after watching it. Yes, ‘John Wayne Must Die’ is just that: another movie about Vietnam War. I can’t really point out anything really new, surprising or innovative that can make a difference from the legion of movies that have looked back at that conflict that remains as a collective trauma for American society. The loss of innocence for the whole American people that Vietnam meant, the demolition of American icons, beliefs and myths, the open wound that Vietnam left in so many American… It has been told too many times. I won’t list here the many movies that have told us all that before… Just to mention one, ‘Born On The 4th of July’ could have been perfectly titled ‘John Wayne Must Die’ and it told the meaning of that metaphor in a much more impressive, intense and dramatically solid way than this one.’
-Chris Burgess

‘No news at the war front. ‘John Wayne Must Die’ appeals to well known narrative resources to tell us again the intimate trip of a young man from idealism to deception through his experiences at war. This time, Taylor and Howard have tried to show us the young man’s feelings through a succession of letters, a narrative technique that adapts better to literature than to movie language. As the movie progresses, the pace decreases and the final letters, instead of upgrading the emotional level as pretended, it ends up making the story lose its strength. I won’t say that this ‘John Wayne Must Die’ is a horrible or lousy movie at all. But, without doubt, it’s a failed attempt to make an approach from a new perspective to a story seen before too many times.’
-Andrew Stampton

‘The handsome Garrett Hedlund has worked hard in this movie to make us believe than he is something more than just the handsome Garrett Hedlund. Personally, I think that he does not survive to the big challenge his character was. Hedlund does not fulfill the screen the way an actor has to when playing an epic dramatic character like his. This kind of movies depends so much on the credibility of the talents playing the lead roles and I didn’t completely believe Hedlund or Grace. And that became a too heavy weight for me to appreciate the effort made by Howard and Taylor to tell an emotionally big story. This movie is not even close to the best Taylor’s writing works, like ‘John and Tommy’, ‘The Bus’ or ‘The Beatles’.’
-Vic Carter


SAM AND TWITCH 2

OPENING STATEMENT: It is too bad there's not more in-depth technical awards, because this movie certainly has some nice art direction. It takes on the grittiness of Sin City and doesn't necessarily need to have too much going on like Sin City. There are some moments where the film drags and we grow a bit tired of the cliche 'cops after kidnapper' film complete with the formulaic 'hired by someone else who has a connection to the kidnapped victim and family' but it happens to be well acted particularly from John Goodman and Martin Short.

BEST OF IT A movie for buffs who enjoy cinematography and art more than anything else in a film. Goodman and Short are showstealers, even if we've seen the same kind of characters in the same kind of movie: But the magic here is that we're so not used to associating Martin Short in the role and even though Goodman's a great actor, he's hardly been given much of a chance to do so.

WORST OF IT A bit too long with plenty of stuff that could have been cut in the final movie and added to the 'deleted scenes' on the DVD. The plot is the same though; so familiar that you can map out everything that happens in the movie by the time the title screen hits.

SHINING STAR/DEAD WEIGHT: John Goodman and Martin Short stood out most for me here. The rest of the cast didn't really do much; even Tim Roth seemed to take a backseat to Goodman's role.

THE BRAINS BEHIND I'll applaud Kubrick's ability to challenge himself in directing different kinds of films. It may not be his best written movie and it's a film we've been wanting to see for a long time, but it doesn't seem to outdo the predecessor. It's definitely the movie to see though for that great art which Kubrick gives us. You forget he's the director many times!

IN CONCLUSION C+ Due to the success of the first one, it gets to be the summer blockbuster of the week, but don't be fooled by the look of the trailer; it's not anything new or exciting.

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON

OPENING STATEMENT Not so much a horror movie, but the horror is these sorts of things can indeed happen. The more realistic, the more terrified we are in our seats. Something I enjoyed in the film and book were how the atmosphere and environment of the woods played just as important of a role of our starring player. It's somewhat of a Cast-Away but with a kid lost in the woods.

BEST OF IT Elle manages to pull off an almost-one-girl show and does it well. I haven't felt so scared and helpless in this kind of movie in such a long time! As a movie adaptation of a book, it does a great job following it.

WORST OF IT I know there had to be a few parts throughout to let audiences know what's going on in the real world about her family looking for her, but it disappointed me those scenes were in there. They would take us out of our scared child's head, thus bringing us out of the story.

SHINING STAR/DEAD WEIGHT: Cayden Boyd is the shining star! Nah, I'm kidding; Elle IS the shining star in this movie. You can't not sit there, watch her suffer by getting sick, nearly freezing and turn away. The rest of the cast falls flat, including Cuba Gooding Jr who doesn't appear often in the movie but when he does you wonder why. He's not necessarily a "heartthrob" for a kid these days is he?

THE BRAINS BEHIND Darabont does a correct job bringing the story to life. He directed Elle to a grand performance of a scared kid lost in nature, being just as much of an animal as any other she came across; not knowing if the next day will be her last. Being an adaptation, Josh had a pretty easy job; but lately his book adaptations have been improving, not having too much or too little going on, knowing what to leave in or take out; minus those few scenes where we are taken out of the woods, but those parts are short, few and far between.

IN CONCLUSION B+ Sam and Twitch might have the tools to be a summer blockbuster movie, but this movie should not be ignored.

JOHN WAYNE MUST DIE

OPENING STATEMENT Not only is summer reserved for all the blockbusters, but some manage to get in early on the award-bait; especially with the award fisherman Ron Howard at the helm. I have to hand it to Chad on this one; it's peculiarly, but extremely creative. It has it all to earn a few award nods.

BEST OF IT The talented star power, writing and plot are the things to look for with this film. Plus if you're tired of all the sequels, remakes and superhero films that flood the theaters during the summer, it's always good to get something that will refresh your view on how Hollywood has no ideas.

WORST OF IT The time jumps may startle a few people who are easily lost while trying to figure out what the heck is going on in the film.

SHINING STAR/DEAD WEIGHT: CMP newbie Garret Hedlund may not have been the first choice to fill the shoes of the once considered Gordon-Levitt, but he could very well end up with a nomination for this movie in his debut just like the former choice. He carries the show with such ease. The rest of the cast holds the film up well. Save for the brief screen-time of Shooey Labooboo at the end. You ever make out with a chick and you almost go all the way with her, but she stops you right when you're about ready to drop your pants? That happened when Shooey's face appeared on the screen.

THE BRAINS BEHIND Ron Howard manages to do with this movie what he does so well in telling the story in a pretentious way. Some may like those types of films, others don't. Chad here, the real brains as the writer gets the applause for coming up with something new.

IN CONCLUSION A- worth a couple of viewings indeed. I don't think it'll be a huge GMA contender type of film though, but it might get some!

MR. THUMBS' CERTIFIED MUST SEE OF THE WEEK:

THE GIRL WHO LOVED TOM GORDON