Latest Trailer for The Revenant Comes Alive

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Arleigh

We finally have the first official trailer for Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s follow-up to Birdman which won him a Best Oscar for Director in the 2015 Academy Awards.

He once again teams up with frequent collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki and has attracted the acting talents of Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy and Domhnall Gleeson. A film adaptation of the Michael Punke novel The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge which itself was based on and inspired by the incredible life of Wyoming frontiersman Hugh Glass (to be played by DiCaprio).

The film has been gaining some major buzz since even before the first teaser came out a couple months ago. Tom Hardy had to drop out of a major role in DC’s Suicide Squad when filming ran behind schedule on The Revenant. The film was also confirmed to be shot using only natural lighting which looks quite evident and beautiful just based on the scenes shown in the trailer.

Will The Revenant make it two in a row for Iñárritu? Or will another prestige films such as The Hateful Eight, also a western thriller set for December 25, 2015 release date as The Revenant steal it’s thunder?

We will just have to find out on Christmas Day (I know I’ll be watching one, the other or both that same day).

Hallmark Review: Hello, It’s Me (2015, dir. Mark Jean)

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it’s been 100 Hallmark reviews. This being 101. I think from now on I’m going to review each of them separately. It’s easier for me. It will make it easier for people to find a specific movie I’ve reviewed. Plus, it’s more fair to the movies themselves because I will be able to come off of viewing one and immediately write a full review.

So, what do we have here? The title does remind me of the Verizon guy and I think it’s supposed to. The movie opens with Kellie Martin on the beach with her husband and two kids. A boy and a girl. She shoots a short video of them all together. Then Martin and the kids go home while the husband goes off in his boat. He doesn’t make it back alive.

Cut to two years later and you can tell none of them have moved on because they still visit the same beach and watch the video together.

Martin is a baker in this movie and while on her way to deliver some pastries, Kavan Smith backs his car up and nearly kills her. That’s how they initially meet. Then they part ways. Of course by part ways, I mean they go to the same party for different reasons. For her, it’s a delivery. For him, it’s his family having the party. Running into each other again kicks off their relationship.

Now this is where it kind of becomes a Movie A, Movie B type thing. Movie A is Kellie Martin and Kavan Smith just doing their thing much to my delight. They’re good actors. They fall in love while the two of them work to open up a bakery for Martin. This part worked very well for me. The problem is Movie B interjects itself from time to time and then a bunch near the end.

During their time together, Martin is getting messages from beyond from her dead husband through her cellphone. Well, sort of. It basically amounts to a couple of words that summed up mean: move on with your life already. I’m sure this worked better in the book this is based on because there was time to flesh that out and have the relationship part too. But here, when it happens, you just want it to stop so you can see more of this.

And this.

I even like the kids and kids don’t always fare that well in Hallmark movies. I feel for Julie Sherman Wolfe who wrote the screenplay for this movie. She even tweeted me because of a response I had to some of her dialogue. This.

I feel for her because adapting a book into a Hallmark TV Movie must be the equivalent of what Tod Frye faced trying to port Pac-Man to the Atari 2600. Or any arcade port back then. You are taking something from a more powerful medium and have to try and squish it into a much more constrained one.

Oh, Kellie Martin does look a little goofy back there doesn’t she. Well…

there! Now they’re even.

The only real resistance these two meet in the movie comes from Martin’s daughter and Smith’s mom. Smith’s mom tries to set him up with someone of their class, but that doesn’t work. He has his heart set on Martin. Martin’s daughter is worried that he is going to leave if he is allowed to get too close. Both of those things are just minor friction and never really threaten to derail them coming together.

It was a little disappointing for me because I do like these two actors on their own and together, but that dead husband kept poking into my fun. There are also a couple things that seemed to reference a scene that I sure didn’t remember seeing. But I’m fallible. If you don’t let those parts bother you, then this is worth seeing. Definitely better than the usual middle of the road formulaic Hallmark romance.

Now we just need a sequel where Alison Sweeney plays an evil baker with Smith and Martin trying to catch her. This time the husband tries to give them clues from beyond. Make it happen!

Film Review: Leonard Part 6 (1987, dir. Paul Weiland)

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Valerie Troutman

Well, it was going to expire from the XFINITY app in a couple of days. Also, I have seen Howard The Duck (1986) and Mac And Me (1988). Those two and this, were the three films I remember from childhood as having a reputation for being some of the worst movies ever made. At least from the 1980s. Mac And Me is bad. Howard The Duck gets a bit of a bad rep. Leonard Part 6 deserves it’s reputation.

While I’m here, I love that this particular part of the opening credits looks like it could have been made in the NES game Color A Dinosaur.

I’m going to summarize this nonsense and then just show you some highlights. Seriously, this movie only really exists for the morbid fascination of how awful it is. Before I do that, I have to say that while I expect garbage from Bill Cosby outside of The Cosby Show, having seen Ghost Dad (1990) as a kid. Why the hell was Tom Courtenay in this? Seriously, he was in The Dresser (1983) just 4 years prior and was nominated for an Academy Award! I’ve seen it. He was good in it. In this, Tom Courtenay is Cosby’s butler a la Batman.

Let’s get this summary over with so we can point and laugh. The movie is about Leonard who is a retired CIA agent. He retired after his wife left him. It had something to do with a 19 year old, but honestly, I’m not sure if that was referring to a human being or an animal. There’s a mad vegetarian woman who uses a special sphere and chemical to convince animals to turn on humans en masse. In other words, this movie is a giant parody of animal monster movies like Night Of The Lepus (1972) while also making fun of James Bond. That, and product placement. Michael Bay’s The Island (2005) was bad about product placement, but dear lord what happened here?

That’s it! He comes out of retirement in the hopes of getting his wife back and tries to take down the evil vegetarians. I can’t possibly show you every ridiculous thing, but here we go.

Yeah! One of the opening shots of this movie is Bill Cosby jumping off a building riding an ostrich. Also, he does a little ballet dancing too. I’ll skip over the barking fish that eats humans, but first stops to look at a Playboy magazine.

By the way, this review is sponsored by Coca-Cola. Official beverage of the Leonard Part 6 review. This is one of several times that Coke is prominently featured. All the product placement is prominently featured and usually doesn’t make any sense. Why would there be a giant fridge full of Coke in a restaurant kitchen? Then again, this whole kitchen scene has bullets flying everywhere, but the cooks just go about their business. I mean even when it’s machine gun fire.

But at least those bullets hit olive oil into pans just when it’s needed for the cooking. Oh, and Star Brand olive oil. Official olive oil of the Leonard Part 6 review.

Beware the cats! And the squirrels. And the rabbits. If you live in Sacramento, then watch out for the “caterpillars on the march”. Folks in Piedmont, you need to watch out for the possums. They are “awaiting orders”. Oh, and remember, according to Leonard Part 6, if Oregon falls, then that means all hope is lost.

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. Those are frogs lifting a car to toss it in some water. I guess that’s why Ray Milland didn’t leave in Frogs (1972). He knew they would stop him. Sadly, that’s really the only shot where you see the frogs. The subsequent shots don’t have the frogs, but the car is still lifted and tossed in the water anyways.

Jane Fonda workout videos. Official workout videos of the Leonard Part 6 review. Fonda speaks to him personally through the TV as he works out.

I’m really glad they never explained what this anteater was trained to do. It’s bad enough I’m aware of E.T. and Sasquatch porn.

Johnson’s Baby Powder. Official baby powder of the Leonard Part 6 review. Also, massive amounts of alcohol work for watching Leonard Part 6 just as well as they did for this bullet removal scene.

I can handle this movie making fun of movies like Night Of The Lepus and Frogs, but if I want bee fighting it better be William Smith from Invasion Of The Bee Girls (1973)! Accept no substitute!

Lava soap. Official soap of the Leonard Part 6 review. This is probably the weirdest piece of product placement in the movie. There’s just this huge mound of Lava soap backstage at this theater. They show it several times, and not once does Vincent Vega show up to wash his hands.

A bunny to the throat! Monty Python did it better.

Safeway. Official grocery store of the Leonard Part 6 review. This is where Tom Courtenay buys some dishwashing soap to help take down the bad guys.

And of course he buys Palmolive! Official dishwashing soap of the Leonard Part 6 review. It later turns out that dishwashing soap does nothing. It’s just there so you see it’s Palmolive.

As someone with one testicle, this disturbs me. Also, this shot follows shortly after he is holding a hot dog wiener.

Action Max. The official video game console of the Leonard Part 6 review. I love that a couple of kids are just playing this in the back of a van as it does the requisite flying over the top of San Francisco streets shots.

You see this is the brilliance of Leonard Part 6 here. Only here will you see the Goldfinger (1964) laser to the crotch scene if it were done by angry lobsters who just watched Annie Hall (1977).

This is probably something I’m going to have to vote on during the next election. Seriously, living in California, I’ve had to vote on propositions to split it up like this.

Ah, we now know what really happened to that guy in Scanners (1981). He was a vegetarian who ate some meat. Seriously, Cosby threatens this guy with a sausage, the guy takes a bite, and his head explodes. Also, he throws beef at the attacking vegetarians and it burns them.

Alka-Seltzer. Official antacid of the Leonard Part 6 review. Leonard uses it to toss in some vats that then destroy the evil vegetarian’s lair.

Swap out Cosby for the audience, the food for feces, and you probably have the experience of seeing Leonard Part 6 when it came out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, there are a lot of turkeys where I live and they are obviously going to try and kill me in my sleep. I need to get them first.