Lean, mean and hilariously dark, CHILD'S PLAY is an entertainingly fast remake of the original 80's horror classic. If you're going to reboot Chucky, here are some strong choices to make it work: Cast Mark Hamill as the voice of your murderous doll. A long way from Luke Skywalker here, Hamill has a blast swearing and singing his way through a bloody trail of victims. Cast Aubrey Plaza (Ingrid Goes West) as an overworked, unsuspecting Mom who buys Buddi for her latchkey son. She's believable and delivers jet black humor with style, giving a much better performance that the material requires. Drop the original story about the spirit of a serial killer inhabiting a doll and update it to 2020, with a frustrated programmer taking all the filters off the doll's programming. The fact that the same company services everything else from self-driving cars to your automated vacuum provides plenty of murder weapons from start to finish. Cast a good young actor, Gabriel Bateman (Lights Out) as Andy, so you grow to like him before his treasured little buddy goes on a Manson spree. Have Bear McCreary (Godzilla King of the Monsters) write a scary music score that manages to inject a little humor into the jump scares. And keep the whole film to a brisk 90 minutes, so there's either a laugh or a bloodbath every few minutes. I laughed quite a bit at that damn Buddy doll. The effects keep him moving well and Hamill switches deftly from sweet to damn creepy so often you dont know quite what to expect. It's R rated fun (if you like this sort of thing) and I defy you to not get freaked out by Hamill's rendition of a very twisted "Your Best Buddi" song. If I ever hear those opening notes, I'm running as fast as I can. CHILD'S PLAY gets a B.

If you haven't seen the intricate thrills of 2006's CHILDREN OF MEN, you are in for an intelligent and exciting surprise. Clive Owen is our everyman, scraping by in London in 2027. The world has turned ugly, with nearly every nation collapsing save Britain under the weight of constant terrorism, suicide bombers, and the criminalization of all immigration. The film's opening shot is a brilliant, uninterrupted tracking shot of Owen going for a morning coffee. Once inside, the masses are grieving as they watch the breaking news of the youngest person on the planet dying. The entire world has grown sterile, without a birth in nearly twenty years. A sudden near death experience startles Theo (Owen) just outside the coffee shop, beginning a non-stop adventure for him and the viewer. Theo is soon reunited his extremist ex, Julian (Julianne Moore) and reluctantly recruited to smuggle a young woman to the border. Kee, the young woman, is carrying a very important secret and the possible secret to a calmer world. As Theo and Kee near the border, the film grows more intense, featuring incredible action scenes of intimate violence along with battles on an epic scale. The scene in their car that starts with Moore and Owen popping a ping pong ball playfully back and forth and escalates into terror is so incredibly well shot that only upon multiple viewings do you realize the camera never stops moving, putting you dead center into the violence. Director Alfonzo Cuaron went on to direct "Gravity" and his talent with the camera is on full display here. The acting is superb. Michael Caine is terrific as Theo's secluded friend Jasper, an aging hippie and former political cartoonist with plenty left to say through words and actions. Owen has never been better. The final battle in the apartment building is one of the best first person action sequences ever shot. It's exhausting and you'll feel like you are right there with Theo and Kee. Emotional and action packed, CHILDREN OF MEN gets a smart & violent A.

Many years of cinema history have taught us that It's hard to adapt a Broadway musical to the screen. For every "West Side Story" there are five "Jersey Boys". It's a tough process to get right. In 2002, Director Rob Marshall nailed the transfer with CHICAGO. Re-framing the stage version brilliantly for the big screen, Marshall presents all the musical numbers as fantasies within the mind of murderess Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger at her best). After Roxie murders her lover and convinces her dim-bulb husband Amos (a fantastic John C. Reilly) to take the fall for her, she soon finds herself on murderer's row next to Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones in an Oscar winning performance). Through song and dance, we meet the prison matron Mama Morton (Queen Latifah), Bandleader Taye Diggs and Richard Gere in a winning role as Billy Flynn, the slickest lawyer in Chicago. Kander & Ebb's music and lyrics are smart, witty and as rapid fire as the tommy guns firing throughout. It's the musical for people that don't like musicals, and Zellweger and Zeta Jones are as good as it gets. By staging the songs as dream sequences, it avoids the "why are these people singing all of a sudden?" pains that most musicals encounter with modern audiences. Look for Chita Rivera and Christine Baranski in small but pivotal roles that they both kill. CHICAGO won six Oscars, for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Zeta-Jones), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Editing and Best Sound, all well deserved. "All That Jazz", "Cell Block Tango", "We Both Reached for the Gun", "Roxie", "Mr. Cellophane" and "Nowadays" are all great songs, and brilliantly visualized by Marshall and his team. To prove just how hard it is to adapt a musical, Marshall stumbled with his next two efforts, "Nine" which was flawed but very watchable and "Into The Woods" which I would compare to two hours of waterboarding. But in 2002, and arguably so far this century, CHICAGO stands as the best musical in decades. It gets an A.

Charles Bronson has always been a man of few words on screen, but he's rarely said as little dialogue as he did in 1972's rough edged Western, CHATO'S LAND. Brosnan stars as Chato, an Apache who kills a small town sheriff in self defense. Five minutes into the movie, he's been taunted and provoked into the murder and takes off on his trusty horse as the opening credits role. The next hour and a half is a Native American Rambo against all the men chasing him, picking them off one by one as the posse of lugheads continuously wanders into trap after trap. Its a great bunch of lugheads though. Jack Palance is the straight drama version of Curly in "City Slickers" as a Civil War Captain seeking justice with a fair eye. Ralph Waite (The Waltons) is the low life older brother to Richard Jordan (Logan's Run, Raise the Titanic) a truly revolting rapist, murderer and bad neighbor. Simon Oakland (Bullitt, The Night Stalker) is their eldest brother Jubell, blinded by revenge in his quest for Chato. Richard Basehart (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) and James Whitmore (Give 'Em Hell Harry) bring strong character work to the posse as well. Director Michael Winner (Death Wish, The Mechanic) has no filter in showing the strong PG-13 rape and vile attacks on Chato's wife by Jordan and the gang. Just as he did in "Death Wish" the following year, he portrays the graphic violence setting up Brosnan as a ruthless killing machine. It's pretty distasteful and just about derails the film, as does the clumsy camerawork by Robert Paynter, who seems thrilled by constantly zooming WAY in and WAY out from key parts of the action. It must have been his new camera trick in 1972, but he'd go on to do MUCH better work in "American Werewolf in London". The pace is pretty slow, but Brosnan and the cast throw the whole thing on their dusty backs and keep you mildly interested. Director John Landis was a camera assistant on this film and has told legendary stories about the 6 plastic Saguaro cactus that they kept moving around on the set to make Spain look like the American Southwest. Watching the movie, I knew there was something bizarre about the cacti, but I couldn't place it. Makes more sense now! Chato's Land is an early entry in what would become Bronson's massive film stardom for 30 years. It's not one of his best, for that I'd point to "The Great Escape" or "Telefon". CHATO gets a C.

As the 2014 Winter Olympics wrap up tonight in Sochi, it's a great time to look back at 1981's Best Picture winner, CHARIOTS OF FIRE. The film takes a detailed look at the British track team and their prep and participation in the 1924 Olympics. Ben Cross stars as determined, serious Jewish athlete Harold Abrahams. He faces discrimination at nearly every turn, but channels his resolve into becoming the fastest man on the planet and gaining victory on the track. Ian Charleson stars as Eric Liddell, a devout Christian who feels that he must win as a testament to his faith. As the story shows their quest for victory from their different perspectives and very different receptions from the fans, you realize they share one trait. Neither is willing to bend from his devotion and faith in their quest to win. A great supporting cast surrounds them, including Ian Holm as a cantankerous Italian trainer and Sir John Gielgud at his pompous best as a racist University Master. Many scenes are taken to the next level by Vangelis award-winning and legendary musical score and the photography of David Watkin. Together, they turn a beach run into film legend. The races are fast, the film is stately but never boring. The story draws you in quietly. This was Director Hugh Hudson's first film and he followed it with "Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan". After those two big hits, he just slipped away into much lesser films. Academy Award winner for Best Picture, Music Score, Best Screenplay and Costume Design. Chariots of Fire runs away (in slow motion) to a solid B.

In 1962, the two best looking movie stars in the world got together and made a GREAT film, CHARADE. Cary Grant (in full Hitchcock North by Northwest/To Catch a Thief mode here) and Audrey Hepburn (fresh off Breakfast at Tiffany's) are charming, likable and a lot of fun playing off each other. Hepburn, planning on divorcing her husband in Paris, returns from a ski trip to find her husband missing and their apartment empty. Soon, she meets three of her husband's partners who are after a quarter million dollars he came into under questionable circumstances....and the film is off and running. James Coburn and George Kennedy provide strong support as two of the people after the cash, Walter Matthau is a CIA agent after the truth and Peter Stone's screenplay is the real star, providing witty, fast and fun dialogue for the entire film. Grant and Hepburn are at FULL star power here and make the whole affair look easy. It's hard to balance suspense, comedy and thrills this well, so sit back and enjoy. Charade is an unexpected A for me.

I only thought I knew the story behind Edward "Teddy" Kennedy's infamous and ill-fated drive into a lake in 1969. The suspenseful new drama CHAPPAQUIDDICK details all the events around the event and what SHOULD have been Kennedy's last days in politics. Jason Clarke (Zero Dark Thirty, The Great Gatsby) looks EERILY like Teddy, especially in some key moments in the film that are spooky in their realism. The black sheep of the Kennedy family and last surviving brother of the wealthy clan, Teddy is a womanizing, drinking, mess of a politician. He's able to turn it on for the cameras, but behind the scenes, he's always lesser than the moment. When he decides to drive young campaign worked Mary Jo Kopekchne (Kate Mara) home after a night of drinking, he drives their car off a bridge. The car flips, Teddy swims out and Mary Jo perishes (not quickly) inside the car. Inexplicably, Teddy simply walks back to the party and grabs his two cousins and close advisors to tell them, at leisure, what's happened. Those two men are played in serious fashion by two great comic actors, Ed Helms (The Office, The Hangover) and Jim Gaffigan. Rushing back to the scene, they dive repeatedly to save the girl, without success. The men plead with Teddy to report the accident immediately, but he fails to do so, setting off a chain of events too crazy to be anything but actual history. Clarke is excellent as Kennedy, showing the remorse, the anguish, the ego & the arrogance of a man raised in privilege, with no clear sense of moral obligation, but a very obvious sense of entitlement. Bruce Dern is powerful in an almost dialogue free performance as stroke-addled Joe Kennedy, who rules the family with an iron fist and abhors Teddy's weakness. Clancy Brown (Carnivale, Highlander) cuts a powerful swath as Robert McNamara, who leads a veritable gaggle of power players brought in by Joe to clean up the latest Teddy mess. The way the power brokers twist the truth and control the system to protect the powerful Kennedy's at the expense of ANY resemblance of due process for the bumbling senator is as horrifying as it is revolting. I never realized that this event took place the same weekend as the first Moon Landing, which was blessed timing to bury Mary Jo's death on the back pages of the paper, at first. The film plays like a suspense thriller, well crafted to reveal the sequence of events in a fashion that shows Mary Jo might have lived quite awhile after the accident. How many of the EIGHT HOURS after the accident, in which Kennedy failed to report it, was she fighting for life in the car? Watching the actual ABC news footage of man in the street interviews after Kennedy finally makes his statement about the accident in prime time, you cant help but shake your head on the near complete lack of justice served. Kennedy comes across as a flawed, less than intelligent man living in the long shadow of his older, smarter brothers. I felt the same amount of sympathy for him watching the film as he ever expressed for the death of the young woman in his car: ZERO. Observant, smart and telling, CHAPPAQUIDDICK gets a B.

Consistently hilarious and a perfectly executed showcase for its two stars, CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE exceeds expectations. As the film opens twenty years ago, our two main characters are at opposite ends of the high school spectrum. It's the last assembly before graduation and school superstar Calvin Joyner (Kevin Hart) is accepting a national award before the adoring students. Suddenly, school bullies toss a very naked and very obese student into the middle of the gymnasium. Calvin is the only student not to laugh and hands the terrified young man his letterman's jacket. Flash forward 20 years and we meet modern day Calvin, a low level forensic accountant passed over yet again for a promotion. Dreading his 20 year high school reunion and feeling very unworthy of his "most likely to succeed" banner, Calvin is suddenly contacted by Bob Stone, that obese bullied boy, who has now become Dwayne Johnson in all his glory. There are a hundred great physical references to Hart and Johnson's comparative size, and both play them for maximum impact. When Bob asks Calvin to take a look at an accounting problem for him, the numbers cruncher is soon pulled into a massive government and global conspiracy. Since it's in the title, it's no spoiler to reveal that Bob is in the CIA, but surprisingly, the film does a great job of creating an exciting thriller that will keep you guessing on just who are the bad guys. The other thing the film gets right is in its casting. Hart plays against type as the straight man and Johnson becomes the comic lead. Both are having a great time and nail every verbal and physical punch line. Johnson has been great on SNL in the past, but he shows real comedy gifts here, unafraid to go in any direction to deliver the laughs. Amy Ryan is terrific as Bob's CIA boss, Jason Bateman is our evil high school bully now grown up, Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) is Bob's former partner at the CIA and Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars) has a true comic breakout performance as Calvin's fellow accountant Steve. The man has never met a taser or an opportunity to suck up to the boss he didn't grab. Hansen is hilarious in his small but memorable role. You KNOW that Bob & Calvin will eventually end up at their high school reunion, but by the time they do, you'll be pleasantly surprised how well its executed and what twists are in store. Credit screenwriter Ike Barinholtz (MAD TV, The Mindy Project) for crafting a screenplay that elevates a formula beyond expectations. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE is far better than it needs to be as a formula movie. Its the rare film that I left HOPING there would be a sequel. Just like Melissa McCarthy's "Spy", I walked out of the theatre hoping I would see these characters again. Get ready to have some fun! CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE is a laugh filled bulls-eye that gets an A-. (Make sure and stay for the credits for some very funny bloopers.)

Oh my, what a mess. Based on one of Stephen King's more recent books, which was a fun, lightweight and short (for King!) thriller, CELL is a misfire on nearly every level. The film opens well, with graphic artist Clay Riddell (John Cusack) in an airport, surrounded by thousands of strangers on their cell phones. When a mysterious pulse signal broadcasts to every phone in the world at once and turns everyone with a phone in the ear into a bloodthirsty, mindless zombie, the airport turns into a killing field. The entire opening ten minutes shows real promise, from the first frames until the airplanes spinning into the tarmac in a massive explosion. And then the film begins a fast downward spiral into pathetic, predictable and boring plot lines. Samuel L. Jackson is normally a fine actor, but his role is so poorly written here, he's rendered helpless, spewing clever lines that dont ring true. As Riddell and a small band of survivors battle the phone zombies on a quest to get to a cell free sanctuary, the film slowly evolves into an all too literal and clumsy allegory about cell phones turning us into zombies, blah blah..... Especially surprising is the fact that the film is co-written by King himself. With this and "Maximum Overdrive" on his screenwriting credits, I think one of my favorite writers should stick to novels, where he excels. Cusack is one note. It feels like every scene that fleshed out the villain in a way we would have some feeling of motivation or clarity, was left on the editing room floor. The final reel has some startling visuals, especially the human carousel of zombies circling the tower by the thousands, but the final 5 minutes is one of the worst endings since "Jaws:The Revenge" leaving you muttering "what the hell...?" as the credits roll. When this didn't receive a theatrical release and went right to iTunes and Pay-Per-View, it should have been a louder clue of just what an ill-conceived bomb it is. CELL is a wrong number on every level and gets a D.

Oh man this is one funny movie. At first I was worried that it was all going to be too predictable, but pretty soon I realized I couldn't stop smiling at this sweet, dirty, hilarious movie. If there is anyone funnier in supporting roles than John C. Reilly is here, you have to tell me who and where. How can you be this nasty, smarmy, sexist and likeable at the same time? Reilly steals the show. Ed Helms and Anne Heche are great here too. It surprised me with some of its darker moments. You can definitely feel the influence here of producer Alexander Payne (Sideways, About Schmidt). This is really a sweet, funny flick. Traveling to Cedar Crapids gets an A from me.

In 1985, Stephen King was a mainstay in theatres. As a follow up to his successful adaption of King's "Cujo" the previous year, Director Lewis Teague brought a trilogy of King short stories to the screen with CAT'S EYE. He should have stuck with the Dog. Mean-spirited and dull, the three stories only linking thread is a house cat that wonders through the first two tales before taking part in the 3rd. Chapter One is 'Quitters Inc', detailing the most heinous Stop Smoking organization in history. Comedian Alan King has fun as a former mob boss bringing his talents to smoking cessation and James Woods is at his nervous best as a hard core smoker. What might have been fun on the page just becomes sadistic on screen. Chapter Two is the weakest, with a millionaire (Kenneth McMillan from 'Dune") making his wife's lover (Robert Hays of "Airplane") walk around the outside of his penthouse building in a bet as penalty for his infidelity. It's boring and goofy. The last chapter "The General" is the best chapter (it's a low bar) with a young Drew Barrymore as a young girl with a seriously demented little Gremlin in the wall of her bedroom. The problem with the story is that her Mom (Candy Clark) comes across as the worst mother of the year in service of the story, while Drew's left battling green screen monsters. Thank heavens that damn cat is there to help her against the goofy little creature. Come to think of it, there was a Disney movie called "That Darn Cat" in 1965 that probably had more dramatic credibility than this stinker. It's hard to believe that King wrote the screenplay. To this day he's one of my favorite writers on the page, but he's rarely had success in writing for the big screen. A different forum to be sure. I'll follow King anywhere in hardcover, but this one is all set up and no payoff. I'll give it a D. King fans might have fun spotting the all too obvious references to Cujo, Christine, The Dead Zone (one of the BEST King film adaptions) and Pet Semetary.

One of my favorite guilty pleasure films of the early 80's, CAT PEOPLE is loaded with visual style, dark sexual undertones and terrific music that could only have been born in 1982. Writer/Director Paul Schrader had just made "American Gigolo" and tackled his own dark take on a b-movie classic as his next film. It would not receive the same response as his previous blockbuster hit. Nastassia Kinski (Tess) stars as Irena, arriving in New Orleans as the film opens to meet her brother for the first time. Her sibling Paul is perfectly played for creeps and loaded with inappropriate sexual desire by Malcolm McDowell (Time After Time, Blue Thunder). Meanwhile, a wild, hungry black panther begins prowling the Big Easy, showing up in seedy hotel rooms to slaughter hookers. Why is that every time the Panther appears, Paul goes missing? Hmmm... We meet Zookeeper Oliver, well played by John Heard (Home Alone), his girlfriend Alice (Annette O'Toole) and their co-worker Joe (Ed Begley Jr.) as they track down and capture the panther. Irena finds herself drawn to the zoo, Oliver falls for her and lust emerges from every corner. Oliver for Irena, Alice for Oliver, Paul for Irena and the panther for human blood. When Schrader's story hits a wall, he just piles on nudity and gore or throws us back in time to an ancient world where huge sleek cats mate with beautiful natives, surrounded by the coolest fantasy sets of the 80's by Ferdinando Scarfiotti (The Last Emperor, Last Tango in Paris, Scarface). It makes virtually no sense, but is so beautiful to look at and hear, who cares? Lather a rich, beat-heavy music score by Giorgio Morodor on top of the production design and throw in a David Bowie favorite made for the film "Putting Out the Fire with Gasoline" and you have one of the strangest films of the era. I loved it from the first time I saw it, but if you cant roll with a film that's much more about visual grace and style than it is storytelling, run for the hills. It's way more David Lynch than Alfred Hitchcock. There are violent animal attacks, buckets of artery pumping blood, graphic nudity and sex, along with layers of Schrader's patented vision of morality, sexual desire and human weakness. It bombed at the box office but found new life in the early days of DVD as audiences discovered it and made it a cult favorite. Tarantino loved it and used Bowie's song in the critical Nazi movie theatre sequence that serves as the finale for his brilliant "Inglorious Basterds". This is one twisted, dark little adventure and I love its complete disregard for anything appropriate. Revisiting it every few years, I'll give CAT PEOPLE a purrfectly revolting B.