It’s Halloween, and that means it’s time to trick-or-treat or attend costume parties or seek out a local haunted house.  But for me, it’s hard to find a better haunted house than my plasma TV.

I was a bit of a fraidy-cat when I was a kid.  I used to sleepwalk after seeing scary movies, or if that didn’t happen, I would awake-walk into my parents’ room for a hug from Mom.   In order to confront that embarrassing—if amusing—childhood demon, I became a bit of a horror buff.  Hopefully my pain is your gain.

Five Movies to Watch This Halloween

“Return of the Living Dead” (1985)
In this “cult classic,” a group of punk rock-loving teens venture out to pick up a friend from his job at a medical supply shop in Louisville, Kentucky.  When a foreman opens up a military drum that was accidentally sent to the shop—which, oh-by-the-way has an UNDEAD BODY IN IT!!—all zombie-hell breaks loose.

The film is genuinely funny, has a couple of good scares, and a rockin’ soundtrack, but it also injected life into the genre because all the zombies run (fast!) and most of them talk.  Like this one:

Doesn’t she look familiar?  Check out this zombie from “The Walking Dead.”

The B-plot, featuring an Army Colonel on a mysterious, tedious, yet seemingly extremely important mission, is tied up brilliantly in the frightening, apocalyptic conclusion.

But what really puts this film over the top is that it features the best zombie of all time, Tarman.  Gruesome, evil, and with just the right amount of camp, the zombie that first exclaimed “BRRAAAAAIIIIINNNNSS!!” before chowing down on the cerebral cortex of some young punk deserves a place in cinematic lore. (more…)

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What’s to Like

This comedy reunites Academy Award nominee Jesse Eisenberg with “Zombieland” director Ruben Fleischer, which could be a winning combination. The trailer reminds us that Eisenberg can be funny when given strong material and Aziz Ansari (“Parks and Recreation”) looks like a good sidekick for him.  “30 Minutes” could be another unconventional success story like “Zombieland”.

What’s to Dislike

The premise itself is extremely weak. It looks like Eisenberg’s character is forced to rob a bank after a bomb is strapped to his chest by men dressed like gorillas. If the script is funny, the movie could work, but the concept alone isn’t incentive to fork over your $12 ($14? $18?). Also, Danny McBride has appeared in a few clunkers recently so his presence in this film could foreshadow some problems with it.

The Verdict

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“Rio” is by definition a formula film. After watching its trailer you should be able to figure out essentially every major plot point before it happens. It’s “101 Dalmatians” meets the love story of “Shrek,” starring birds. But “Rio,” for all its unoriginality, is immensely entertaining.

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Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is a Blue Macaw whose domesticated life in Minnesota with bookstore owner Linda (Leslie Mann) has left him flightless yet book-smart. He also happens to be the last male of his species. To keep his kind from becoming extinct, Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), a Brazilian ornithologist, brings Linda and Blu to Rio de Janeiro where Jewel (Anne Hathaway), the last female Blue Macaw, is being kept in a bird sanctuary. But efforts to breed Blu and Jewel go south when a gang of bird smugglers, with the help of a villainous cockatoo named Nigel (Jemaine Clement), kidnap the birds and try to smuggle them out of Rio. The birds escape, but not before being chained together – the flightless Americanized geek Blu and the fiercely independent Jewel. It’s a race against time as Linda, Tulio, and the thieves hunt for the birds, and the world’s biggest party, Carnival, hits the streets of Rio.

“Rio” is not a heavy, Oscar-worthy film like “Up” or “Toy Story 3.” This lighthearted adventure avoids a truly serious antagonist, in that while Nigel (played in dry villainy by Clement) is pretty mean, his human counterparts are essentially buffoons. The romance of Blu and Jewel serves as comic relief, as the nerdy Blu struggles to find his inner romantic, and unwittingly wins Jewel because of it.

What makes “Rio” stand out is its beauty. Rio de Janeiro is nes

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After seeing “The Social Network,” it’s easy to dislike Mark Zuckerberg.

Still in his 20’s, Zuckerberg is the billionaire creator of Facebook, a massively popular website that has changed how people use the Internet. “The Social Network” chronicles the creation of Facebook and the success of  Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg). Leaving aside its harsh treatment of its lead character, “Network” is still one of the best films of the year.

“The Social Network” tells the story of a young man disillusioned by rejection and unwavering in his determination to become successful. The film begins in a bar with a conversation between Zuckerberg and his then-girlfriend. After comparing dating Zuckerberg to dating a Stairmaster, she breaks up with him. He is shocked by her cold rejection and carelessly apologizes to win her back. When that proves unsuccessful, he takes his frustrations to the Internet calling her a “bitch” on his blog. As he drinks in his dorm room that night, he single-handedly creates a website where Harvard students can judge the attractiveness of school’s female population.

After his website proves successful in a matter of hours, Zuckerberg becomes well-known on campus. He then begins work on a new social website that will eventually become known as Facebook. The battle over who invented Facebook lies at the heart of “The Social Network.” (more…)

“The Social Network” wastes no time in getting started. The film opens in the fall of 2003 with future Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), a 19 year-old Harvard student, simmering with resentment over the insecurity he feels in his relationship with the pretty young co-ed sitting directly across from him in a crowded campus bar. Using a brilliant mind and monotone voice perpetually set on superior/ironic, he methodically attempts to cut her to pieces; his controlled hostility bubbling through in the form of insults wrapped in innuendo just innocent-sounding enough to allow Zuckerberg to claim any rise on her part is an overreaction – which is also part of his cruel game. The girl about to become The One Who Got Away might attend a lesser college, but she’s no dummy and breaks up with him on the spot. Angry, humiliated, but always the narcissist, Zuckerberg marches back to his dorm, pops open a few beers, and does what bitter losers do in our Internet age: humiliates her in front of the world online.

Emboldened by alcohol and a vengeance fueled by his own palpable sense of inadequacy, Zuckerberg then goes on to use his impressive computer hacking skills, and those of his more level-headed best and only friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), to humiliate most every girl on campus through the creation of a website that ranks their attractiveness using sorority photographs. A small Harvard scandal erupts but this only ends up being the first sordid step towards what will eventually become the multi-billion dollar sensation we know today as Facebook.

Directed with skill and precision by David Fincher and impressively scripted by “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network” is tightly told, well paced, and quite brilliantly structured with a story that unfolds through the inter-cutting of two different lawsuit depositions and flashbacks. The acting is impeccable, especially Eisenberg’s performance as the world’s youngest up and coming billionaire and Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker, a craven party-boy genius whose unerring sense of the big picture is frequently undone by a dark nihilistic streak. His Svengali-like influence on Zuckerberg, who like himself is driven beyond reason to settle old scores, real or imagined, will prove the old adage about gaining the world at the cost of your soul. (more…)

She has a hit TV show on the Disney Channel, a pair of albums that have debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts, a concert tour with 69 sold-out arenas in North America, and now a second #1 movie in as many years. Miley Cyrus is the biggest teen star in the world.

With most of Hollywood (including myself) expecting an opening in the mid-$20M’s for Hannah Montana The Movie (Disney), Miley has surprised “grown-ups” with her box office clout once again. The picture opened with a heavily front-loaded $17.39M on Good Friday then dropped 40% on Saturday to an estimated $10.34M, and it will reach an estimated $34M by the end of Easter weekend, making it the all-time #2 opening for the bunny holiday weekend. My Friday night early 3-day projection was for $33.6M, but then I raised my number to $39M on Saturday. As it turns out, I should have stuck with my first pass. These young skewing movies are tricky to project, and the Easter Weekend, where Saturday traditionally drops from Friday, makes it even more complicated.

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Easter weekend 2009 will almost certainly be an all-time record-breaker for Hollywood with a pair of new releases that could be among the top six bunny holiday openings of all time. Although neither Hannah Montana: The Movie (Disney) or the new R-rated comedy Observe & Report (Warner Bros) will challenge 2006’s all-time Easter weekend opening champion Scary Movie 4 ($40.2M), both new offerings look very solid in pre-release industry tracking, and they will be joined by some strong holdovers.

Universal’s Fast & Furious is likely to cross the finish line first for a second consecutive weekend, following up last weekend’s almost $71M with about $30M, which would mark a 58% drop. Still, it must be considered a triumph that the re-teaming of Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez may have $120M in US sales after just 10 days. That will mean that Fast & Furious will have almost doubled the domestic gross of The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (the last film in the franchise), and this souped-up thrill ride could be headed for $160M US.

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