One Minute Movie Review: The Book Thief

Very rarely does a film adaption of any award winning novel do justice to its literary grandeur and depth.  Masterfully crafted, beautifully told, deeply moving, with performances so genuine and passionate that you quickly transcend from audience member to fellowship with old friends.  Director Brian Percival creates an intensely earnest and utterly engaging silver screen incarnation of the international best seller painstakingly penned by Markus Zusak.   Filled to overflowing with intense and honest moment after moment, affecting every sense and emotion, from rage, to compassion, hope, tragedy, and triumph.   Young lead Sophie Nelisse delivers an Oscar-worthy performance supported by an inspired cast that includes such extraordinary talents as Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson.   The history and authenticity of every stitch, backdrop, and frame are undeniable reminding us of how a relentless evil stole the innocence and integrity of a people leaving an inexplicable and irreversible horrific crimson stained scar on its history perpetuating an unforgivable atrocity that still haunts humanity's legacy.   No matter how many times the story, the history has been told, this feature reignites all the rage and disdain for the tyrannical empire forged in the darkest and vilest pits of hell.   It also demonstrates the unbelievable levels of sacrifice, courage, heroism, and even martyrdom of those who chose to resist the oppression, violence, and misery of the Third Reich and stand firm in their beliefs and compassion.   Among all of the blockbuster flops and over hyped disasters this is a shining star piercing through the deepest theatrical thunder clouds.  A must see if only to remind us of the importance of never forgetting the darkest parts of our history so they will never be repeated again.  5 out of 5 Kernels;  one of the best films of 2014 that you probably didn't know existed.

Never Forget

Those who forget the mistakes and horrors of the past are destined to repeat them.

Never forget the fallen and those who sacrificed everything to rush into the heart of darkness, towards the roar of chaos.

Never forget who the real enemy is, ignore fools who tread boldly into confusion, ignoring the terrain they travel and the trappings of nonsense below their feet.

Never forget the cost of freedom and that its defense knows no rest.

Never forget that those who would kill the innocent do not possess a heart to win over, or a soul that wishes for salvation.

Never forget, we choose the fate of our nation with every single vote cast or ignored.  That the lesser of two evils should never be a choice.  That there was a time when we were governed by statesmen and not politicians and that we alone are accountability for that transformation.

Never forget that death is a silent hunter who disobeys the graces of time.  So love for today, pray for tomorrow and never allow the shadow of regret to occupy any inch of your soul.

God bless the families of those who lost loved one on that horrific day.  God bless the men and women who turned fear into hope, chaos into compassion, and weakness into unbridled strength and courage.  God bless those who face their mortality on a daily basis in the name of liberty for total strangers.   God bless this country, for it truly is the land of the free and home of the brave.  And no force great or small, foreign or domestic shall take that birthright away.

The Vampire's Ball: Act 2

One night, the sisters found an open window at the local bakery. Their mouths watered as they shimmied through the narrow window frame eagerly imagining the days, maybe weeks of bread, cakes, and cookies they would store and then feast upon. Hands trembling, they scurry from the back kitchen to the storefront, snatching a couple of large and worn burlap bags lying on the floor. Their hunger nearly overcoming them, anxiously hoping to break the forced fast of the last few days as even the smallest scrap of refuse was hard to come by. The townsfolk were now concealing their trash, securing windows and doors, sitting on watch to prevent these new pests from entering their domiciles and stores. They would tolerate their antics no more, and if that meant starving them, even from their carelessly cast aside leftovers and garbage, so be it.

As they creep deeper into the bakery, eyes widened, as case after case filled with delicious treats comes into view. Pausing only for a moment to mentally digest the delicious panorama, they sprint, splitting up to mercilessly pillage each case of any and all contents that will fit in their sacks. Like vaporous blurs they move from area to area, grabbing all they can. Once their bags are filled to near overflowing, they begin to stuff whatever else they can snatch into their mouths, barely chewing each bite. Each taste is indescribable, a symphony of flavors orchestrating complete satisfaction. They want to eat more, but quickly find themselves full, nearly ill from the rapid fire buffet. Physically satiated, but psychologically famished, they hoist their goodie bags over their shoulders and make way to their escape, unsure of how they are going to exit with their newfound delectable treasures.

In the backroom, they cautiously place their plunder down to devise a plan of exodus. Suddenly Katalina interrupts their strategy session, “Felicity,” she screams, “The window!” Felicity looks up to see their point of entry now tightly boarded up from the outside. “Oh God,” she gasps, “They know we are here, it’s another trap!” “What do we do now,” Katalina cries? “We have no choice, we have to run to and through the front door,” she commands with the determination of a seasoned captain. She sharply grabs her sister's arm, leaving their prized cornucopia behind, “Run and don’t stop,” she demands. They spring from the back into the arms of a mob of angry awaiting arms.

Before they can react, they are bound and beaten by the furious posse. Dragged from the store they are brought to the town’s square and furiously locked into the stocks for all to view and mock. The relentless throng of the irrational horde endlessly pelts them with rotten fruit and wet and putrid trash. Soaked with the vulgar smells and textures of excrement and refuse the two weep, their tears burn like acid as they mix with the atrocious concoction now covering them like a slimy, stench ridden second skin. Felicity looks up from her hunched posture and glares through the fiery assault bombarding her tired eyes. She strains to see her attackers, her ears slowly filling with their taunts and profanity. The vile mixture drips into the crevices of her lips as her tongue retreats to avoid the hellish taste of her shame.

“I curse you all,” she struggles to scream as more of the repulsive residue oozes into her mouth slinking down her throat. “I will have my revenge,” she growls but is quickly muted by the heavy hand of the constable who incarcerated them. He strikes her two more times for good measure, “You will have nothing,” he scolds, “because you are nothing!” Blood streams down her forehead, embracing and dancing with the rest of the fluids she is engulfed in. Katalina cries out to her, but her sister has surrendered to the exhaustion, disgust, and pain. Katalina weeps as the constable provides her with his demented form of discipline as well.

In time the scowling and violent crowd subsides leaving the two battered and bruised siblings to suffer alone in the courtyard, chilled to the bone by the crisp night air. “We are in hell,” Felicity barely whispers, “it is certain now.” Katalina has neither the strength nor desire to respond. Hopelessness has taken hold, crushing their bodies and spirits with the weight of regret and solitude. “We are truly lost and alone,” she weakly continues, “there is no one to save us now.” Katalina groans as the heaving of her sorrow is painful as her body stands contorted and twisted by her shackles and wooden constraints. “We are utterly alone,” Felicity mumbles as she drifts out of consciousness again.

The air is still but brisk as the moon rises illuminating the scene in its eerie glow. All is quiet but the sounds of approaching footsteps, confident and determined. A shadow falls over their limp and fragile frames. A tall and slender figure looms over them, shaking his head, “Tsk, Tsk. Tsk,” he sighs, “what have these backwards fools done now to condemn their souls?” His large top hat nearly eclipses the moon as he drapes his silver handled snake's head cane over his arm near the elbow. He is wearing a black wool overcoat that covers his entire body, with only his black, leather, silver-tipped boots are visible. Pale skin, far whiter than even the moon’s silent luminance, glistens in the night's hue. He removes his grey glove and gently touches Felicity's bruised face, brushing away her matted hair, stripping away the dried and dismal coating with his fingers. Felicity does not respond she has nothing left to give; it is as if she is awaiting the sweet release of death’s cold hand.

His dark and empty eyes soften “No, my child, your story is not over,” he whispers as he bends down to her ear, “it has only just begun.” He rises and stares up at the grand ball of white fire smoldering among the shimmering stars. “It has only just begun.”

One Minute Movie Review: Sabotage

This is put simply, just an excuse to fill nearly two hours with excessive amounts profanity, violence and CGI gore.  With a fragmented, at best, script held together with obscenely vulgar sexual references, F-bombs galore, and an abundance of sexists and masochistic dialogue, it appears to be written by a prepubescent fourteen-year-old online gamer toke’d up on Red Bull and Swizzle Sticks.   Schwarzenegger really needs to rethink his career, as a dramatic actor, try not to laugh after reading that, he fails epically and, as an action star, despite his great shape, now possess all the agility of rigor mortis.   Add in the unremarkable, barely lucid remaining, kinda of A-list but mostly B-List cast and you have one steaming cinematic stool sample.  I bet Worthington misses working with just the computer generated version of Arnold; at least that version could act.  Then again, the only version of Sam that seemed to possess any ability was computer animated as well.  And Howard, who seems to be in a casting chaos, has to be kicking himself for abandoning his Rhodey role thanks to his superhero sized ego.  Despite the deliberate attempt of realistic urban combat tactics, this film has all the authenticity of a spray tan liberally applied to an incoherent, nonsensical plot.   Director David Ayer is apparently trying to portray himself as some big screen, hardcore, extreme version of Dick Wolf but lacks the vision, talent, or maturity to do so and the majority, if not all, of his incarnations, are box office Kryptonite.    0 out of 5 Kernels: that's 1 hour 50 minutes I'll never get back, to bad nobody sabotaged my Blu-ray player before I decided to watch this atrocity.  

One Minute Movie Review: Transcendence

This is an excellent example of the importance of why many Sci-Fi films fail time and time again.   As an Uber Fan Boy of this genre for over 33 years, especially the more cerebral fare, when telling such imaginatively strange stories they must be, even in the most minor way, believable to the mainstream avoiding the trappings of becoming encumbered in either the director or writer's message, tech, perspective, or ideology.    Whether driven by a conceptual prophecy, political dissent, morality play or futuristic warning, if the propaganda eclipses the storytelling, depth or authenticity of the characters, and/or relate-ability of the plot itself it will fail.  If the scientific exploration, spiritual, psychological and/or philosophical expression, Avant-garde presentation, or explanation of  the technology introduced or examined moves from intriguing and engaging to overbearing sermon, self-indulgent art-show,  and/or outright lecture, no matter how talented the actors are or how well the script is written and performed, a possible extraordinary cinematic journey becomes a tedious, burdensome dead end with all of the time spent communicating the production's purpose simply lost in translation.    And, unfortunately, despite possessing two of my favorite thespians, top notch character players; this feature is immediately crippled thanks to the aforementioned Achilles’ heel.   It starts strong, a bit of a logical stretch, but I was willing to work with it.  By mid-section, the intellectual fabric of the story, so carefully woven in the beginning, begins to fully unravel, trying too much to be an abstract metaphor about dissecting religion, justifying terrorism, government corruption, and the dangers of technological dependence.  None of which stick because the recipe never cohesively evolves thanks to an over indulgence of disconnected ingredients.   They just spread the concepts so far they become transparently thin.  This is director Wally Pfister's first outing, and with the disastrous box office returns, it may be his last.  0 out of 5 Kernels;  in this, as in many other cases of Hollywood of late, proves that high priced star power is never a solution to save a poor production, sometimes studios need to pull the proverbial plug and transcend to another more potentially successful project.  But do the Tinsel Town elite even know what that looks like anymore?

The Vampire's Ball Act 1: The Tragic Tale of the Eternal Sisters Felicity and Katalina

The Vampire's Ball:
Act 1

Have you ever heard of the tragic tale of the eternal sisters, Felicity and Katalina? It all began on a crisp autumn night in September of 1790 at the Vladimir Orphanage in the alleys of southern New Orleans. The old and rotting institution housed over fifty orphans ranging from infants to teenagers just about to partake in adulthood. 

Over the years, the former dilapidated plantation turned wretched half way house saw its share of disease, death, poverty and hunger, duly earning the nickname, Death’s Nursery. It had haunted the streets of the city for over ten years and in that time; it bore over seventy graves of the children who simply wasted away under the weight and heartache of starvation and daily filth. So much so the city forced the owners to utilize one of their many acres behind the property to create a makeshift cemetery.

With poorly dug and maintained graves and decaying wood crosses in lieu of headstones, it was a place of deep sorrow and hopelessness. Dark, dank, and with every fog that rolled in during the misty morn, the stench of mold, mildew, and the recently deceased gleefully floated into town, invading every home and nostril. A despised place, ignored by the denizen of the districts. The children imprisoned there an inconvenience to them, no longer flesh and blood, spirit and soul, but refuse staining their lives and homes with the filth of their existence. It was most certainly a place death would be proud to call his home.

Mr. Vladimir, the founder of this architectural atrocity, never cared for children and only opened the facility to appease his young wife whose barren womb plagued her with shame and regret. The only way she could subdue the aching guilt of her condition was charity, as selfish and unwanted as it was among this stoic community. As an anniversary gift, he gave her the plantation, and she decided to use it to save the lost and homeless children of New Orleans. She was going to save them all, be a mother to the suffering and abandoned, find families to love them as she would have. It was a glorious and vain ambition, but midway through the reconstruction, she contracted Scarlet Fever and died soon after. By then, the incomplete habitat housed over one hundred souls and Vladimir had no intention or concern to maintain the burden. But the city fathers gave him no choice, so he operated it with the lowest of priority and compassion, employing the most coldhearted and hateful of staff.

It was in the summer of 1790 that two young sisters, Felicity and Katalina, came to the orphanage from Mississippi. Their parent’s dead of influenza, and grandparents unwilling to take them in, they were sent, by stage, to this purgatory on earth. Stubborn and rebellious, Felicity, the eldest, soon found herself at the receiving end of many beatings and inhuman punishments. Whether locked in an empty room for days with no food, water or human contact or made to stand on a stool with her arms raised, stacked books in each hand, for hours as her tears and screams of agony were either ignored or mocked.

Katalina, the younger, naive, pure, and honest found herself continually bullied by the stronger children, left out of every game, forced to forage for the scraps of food left after everyone else had eaten. She was weak and pale, but her spirit remained high despite every reason for it to fail.

It was soon after their arrival that the two decided to sneak out at night and haunt the streets concealed in the darkness seeking adventure and something to fill their empty, cramping bellies. With so many children to keep track of and so little compassion to go around, they were barely, if ever missed.

They would scavenge garbage cans desperately seeking the smallest morsel to eagerly devour. Each night they found open windows and shabbily locked doors, which became gateways of escape from their relentless misery.

If they found something inside it instantly became theirs. Theft became their only glimpse of control. They would steal and then horde their stash in an old shed behind the orphanage. They stole everything from trash to tattered and ragged garments, broken furniture, to photos carelessly cast away by thoughtless, unsentimental hosts. It was their treasure, their only joy in this curse called life.

But it took very little time for the townsfolk to realize who had been invading their shops and homes. To them they were as obscene as the rats that scurried across the streets at midnight leaving their droppings and mites to pester the citizens of the small settlement. And like rodents, they had to be trapped and exterminated. However, the sisters were far cleverer than their hunters and for the longest time avoided every snare and pitfall with ease. They were shadows just before the dawn, too quick and elusive for the curmudgeons to capture. But like all things that fate has a hand in, it all was surely about to change.

One Minute Movie Review: The Expendables 3

Undoubtedly simplistic, entirely predictable, & teetering on the edge of absolute ridiculousness, this third installment of the franchise, directed by the somewhat unknown Patrick Hughes, brings the series full circle.  Yes, it is low on plot & acting but it sets new heights on testosterone fueled 80's action mixed in with an overdose of effects & explosions that would certainly make Michael Bay orgasm.   This film performs exactly how it was designed, as a high energy, non-stop, one-liner laden, violence galore, Bro-Block-buster that packs more punches than Jay Z's sister in law in an elevator.   Forget about the fact that most of those one liners are grunted, mumbled, & drooled through by the collective oratory skills of Stallone, Statham, & Lungren, so much so that not even a quantum computer version of Google Translate could provide any assistance.   Or that the good guys can't miss at any distance, from any vantage point, with any weapon, & at the same time no matter how much ammo their enemies expend they are unable to hit the proverbial & literal broad side of a barn.    Or that if most of the cast was to consider even making a 4th installment they would require armor plated rascals & adamantium walkers.   Or that this script could have been written in crayon by sugar addled toddler.  If you are a man of any age, none of that matters, as long as we can watch Crews mercilessly empty a mini-gun into a thousand or more baddies, Snipes ram a train into a gulag creating a brilliant eruption of flame & chaos for no good reason, or Rousey wipe out an entire platoon with her bare hands.  For us, this is what cinema was born to do, to erupt onto the silver screen like Vesuvius spraying bullets, body parts, & corny signature retro quips into the gleefully awaiting audience.   Stallone is the da Vinci of brainless, brawn driven, spectacle & we are humbled by his blatant disregard for story, substance, & character development.  That is as long as dirt-bikes are allowed to jump seven stories into a vacant building while its occupant riddles his attackers with shrapnel without regard for physics or, even gravity.   This is a celebration of male gravitas in its most exquisite form, &, Sly, we thank you.  Super excited to see Snipes return in all of his Kung Fu, heavily ripped, snappy comeback magnificence which begs for a serious BBB (Bring Back Blade)! 3 out of 5 Kernels; the sequel was the best, but this is a well-expressed exclamation point to end the trilogy.