Ed's Review Dot Com

Hello friends,

I know I’m a movie guy, and I have never been a big fan of the Tony Awards. I always felt it was a party that I was not invited to. It’s kind of like the local morning “news” shows that is a huge party of inside jokes that unless you watch every day, you’re not privy to. Everything is funny, but you’re not in on any of the jokes. I’m a movie guy, and I think once when I was a little kid, my Dad drove (yeah, drove himself) down Broadway, but I’ve never seen a Broadway show. The closest I’ve ever been was the High School stealing old Rogers and Hammerstein musicals and the drama department putting them on with 15 year old kids singing and dancing. But my DVR was absolutely empty. I’ve been struggling for weeks to catch up on shows, and suddenly there were so many “season finale” episodes and my DVR went silent, so I decided just for hoots I would record the Tony’s. After all, Doogie Howser is the guy from “How I Met Your Mother”, right? And of course there’s his appearances in the Harold and Kumar films. 🙂

Well, I have to say, I was completely blown away. Neil’s opening number was absolutely awesome! It was perhaps the best opening number I’ve ever seen, even including the Oscars from the Billy Crystal years! This number had everything. It even had a magic trick that made himself disappear.

Then there were the musical numbers from the musicals. They were also very interesting. The Best Song at the Oscars is always so awful, that I really wish they would give it up. There is no “Hard out there for a pimp” type songs here. Broadway seems to be on a bit of a revival kick this year, and we got to see scenes from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Annie, Pippin, and even the new shows were spectacular with the effects, staging, props, and such. Everything live, and they killed it. Neil was a great host who was pretty funny (although Mike Tyson looked like he was quite a bit annoyed at all the Mike Tyson jokes!), and he knew to keep himself scarce when he wasn’t needed.

All in all, it was by far the best awards show I have seen on TV in years and years. I really enjoyed it. I hope you were able to catch it. It’s nice to see how closely related the theater and movie business really is. It’s the same people. Cyndi Lauper performed a beautiful version of True Colors in an “In Memoriam” segment that was stunning. Great job guys!

Blue Yonder Films, GRF Productions, Jon Shestack Productions,

Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jessica Alba, Jane Lynch, Craig Robinson, William Shatner, Sofía Vergara, Rob Corddry, Ricky Gervais, Jonathan Morgan Heit, Chris Parnell, George Lopez, Steve Zahn

Far away in outer space is Planet Baab, where a population of blue aliens crave excitement and adventure. Their hero is Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser) who heads out into danger time after time, and is rescued by his nerdy brother Gary (Rob Corddry). But when Scorch decides to head out to the “dark planet” Planet Earth, Gary wants nothing to do with it. Earth has a history of ships that have gone in to explore and never returning, and no one has ever escaped the planet. Scorch insists to the brothers break up their team, and Scorch heads out on his only into a giant trap. Now Gary will have to head out to try to save Scorch or die trying.

This animated space adventure is a lot like many other of the same genre with either earthlings going into outer space to be captured by aliens or aliens coming to earth and getting trapped here. In fact, this is not far off a feature length “Marvin the Martian” cartoon from vintage Warner Bros. But it’s charming and funny, and does a few twists and turns that keep it interesting. In that respect, it’s a little like Men In Black where there is a whole world going on around us of which we normal humans are not even aware. It’s not highly cerebral, of course, but kids will love it, and this may be a pretty decent animated film that families can enjoy together. I didn’t pay to watch this film in the theater, as I was very willing to wait till it was out on DVD, but now that it is, I am glad I watched it. Though not the greatest animated film ever made, it’s certainly cute and funny enough to pass some time with the kids and enjoy the humor. I enjoyed this film.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Langley Park Productions, Lin Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures,

Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Nick Nolte, Emma Stone, Michael Peña, Anthony Mackie, Holt McCallany, Robert Patrick, Mireille Enos

Mobster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) has taken over Los Angeles in this 1940’s crime drama. As it seems Mickey has bought out everyone from cops to judges to senators, two dedicated LAPD Sergeants put together a secret band of cops to try to take him down. Knowing Mickey can have them sacked from the force, disgraced, or even killed, their only hope is to take him down before he has a chance to put an end to them.

This based on the real story of the early days of organized crime in L.A. and the brave policemen who tried to put an end to the reign of terror of those who held the city hostage in their quest for power and control and all the money in the city. Very well done, with a bunch of really great talent, this is a fairly decent cops and robbers films like the days of old. With all the talent in this project, it just couldn’t suck, and it doesn’t. It didn’t however, blow my socks off, as I guess I’m just not really a fan of organized crime dramas like this. I loved the Godfather films, but those are so complete that nothing much can compare to those stories. But this is typical Saturday afternoon matinee stuff like the Untouchables and dozens of other films of that genre. This is pretty good in that genre, and if you’re a fan of those kinds of stories, this is a really good one. It has a perfect old film, but with modern equipment and technology and great acting. So I don’t want to discourage anyone from watching this who is interested in this type of film, but my rating is not real high, as for me, I’m just not into these kinds of stories. As far as I can tell, it’s rather as historically accurate as possible in this kind of story, and it does cut to the chase pretty quickly and has a lot of action and suspense. So make your own choice, as you probably will really enjoy this if this is your kind of story.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

New in theaters this weekend Friday June 7, 2013

• The Internship
• The Purge
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Violet & Daisy
• Dirty Wars
• Wish You Were Here
• Syrup

Last Weeks top Box Office:

1 – Fast and Furious 6
2 – Now You See Me
3 – After Earth
4 – Star Trek Into Darkness
5 – Epic

IMAX, MacGillivray Freeman Films, Warner Bros.,

Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep narrates this IMAX film taking us to the Arctic Circle to follow a mother polar bear and her two seven month old cubs and their struggle to survive in a horrific environment. They suffer dangers at every turn, and it will take all her wit and strength to survive. This was originally shown in IMAX 3D.

This film is short. It’s barely 40 minutes long, but the beauty and charm is very stunning. Looking at the glaciers and ice flows of Norway, this is a very nice nature film. Of course they have to waste a lot of the little time reminding us how horrible humans are, especially Americans as we strive to kill the polar bears as quickly as possible with our gasoline cars and nice homes and furnishings. They basically remind us that anyone who doesn’t believe in global warming is just plain stupid. Well, I believe in global warming, and I also believe in global cooling. It’s cyclic, just like most else of nature, and mother nature has a habit of balancing things herself. My poor son is married now, has a beautiful daughter, but I remember the horror he came home from school with about the imminent disaster of the hole in the ozone layer. By 2010 we will never again be able to go to the beach, and when we go outside, it will only be with umbrellas and heavy protective clothing because a mere 10 or 15 minutes in the sun would kill a person. This is not some far distant future, but merely 5 to 10 years down the road. He shook with fear when he talked about how life as we know it is going to end. Sad to do this to an elementary school child. But there were no apologies at all when they realized that it was a cycle, and the hole was closing. Now no one mentions the hole in the ozone. When Mount Pinatubo blew it’s top it put more pollution into the atmosphere in one week than all the humans on earth since the beginning of time. What really chaps me about the global warming argument is that humans can actually have any effect on the globe in such a huge manner. Do we think we’re so important that we can really make that much impact? How proud of ourselves we are. Will we, or the polar bears die because of global warming? Well, that’s up to nature, I guess, as many species aren’t here anymore without the humans harming them, and if it keeps getting warmer, that could happen. But to think that we can stop it is like thinking we can stop the earth from spinning. (If everyone starting running west to east at the same time, perhaps we could slow the earth down and get it spinning the other direction, eh?) Anyway, I will step down off my soap box and get back to the movie. Regardless of the obvious political leanings, I still enjoyed the beauty of this film, even though it was so short. I felt like it could go on and on, but it ended much too soon. But the film was beautiful and very interesting, and quite exciting at times. Very well done from the technical standpoint and the cinematography is awesome. I respect those who go through such hardships to allow us to see something as beautiful as us. Oh, and the polar bears are not from the arctic. They are black bears that migrated up there and gradually adapted to the environment, including changing their color to white to blend in. Just thought I’d mention that. 🙂

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog