Journey to the Center of the Earth

Journey to the Center of the Earth in 3D! (Warner Brothers)

Journey to the Center of the Earth (opening July 11 throughout San Diego) may have been shot in 3D but the end result is completely flat and lifeless. Based on Jules Verne's classic 1864 science fiction novel about a professor, his nephew, and a hired guide who venture down a volcano in Iceland to the "centre of the Earth." From a scientific point of view, Verne's story hasn't aged well since many of the ideas raised in the book about the center of the Earth have since been proven wrong. But the book still serves up a ripping adventure yarn filled with prehistoric creatures and natural hazards. But this second feature film (there were also a handful of American and French TV movies) based on Verne's book plays out like a painfully slow version of Disneyland's Indiana Jones ride.

Midnight Movie: Jurassic Park

Stan Winston's dinos made Jurassic Park fun for me (Universal)

This Saturday June 28, Landmark Theaters' Ken Cinema will host a midnight screening of Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park. The timing is eerie because special effects wizard Stan Winston, who created the film's wonderfully impressive dinosaurs, just passed away on June 15. I was never a big fan of Jurassic Park but I adored the dinos. When the characters run alongside a herd of these majestic beasts, it took my breath away and I wished that I could have joined them. So although the film disappointed, Winston's work never did. So maybe there will be a moment of silence before the midnight screening starts or else everyone will hold up their Bic lighters when the first dino appears as a fitting tribute to the special-effects wizard who felt that "nothing is impossible." Winston also contributed to Terminator, Aliens, Edward Scissorhands and most recently Iron Man. Winston will be missed but his work will continue to dazzle, shock and delight moviegoers for generations to come.

The Perfect Frame

It's not often that I get to highlight a film that comes from someone who works at KPBS. But New Media Production Assistant Ross Ching and News Production Assistant Iris Caffin have collaborated to make The Perfect Frame. The short film just won top prize at SDSU's end-of-semester film festival, beating out nearly a hundred other entries. The prize means automatic inclusion in the San Diego Film Festival that's coming this fall.

In the past, Ching has shown me some impressive time lapse and effects driven projects. In Eclectic, his time lapse (all done with a digital SLR still camera and edited together using Quicktime Pro and Final Cut Pro) often employed sweeping pans of nature or dazzling night skies. Think Koyaanisqatsi for the kind of breathtaking and powerful imagery he creates. Ching also showed me a more playful project involving a light saber battle (something any Star Wars fan would find hard to resist). Both projects revealed an amazing attention to detail and an incredible patience in the post-production phase of filmmaking.

On his website, Ching explains that he showed Eclectic to his professor at SDSU and "he was very impressed by the quality and skill shown in it. But then he went on to say that as far as real world applications go, if I could tell a story with that, THEN I'd have something. I really paid attention to that, and I began thinking about movie ideas to pitch to my film class."

Ching says he had gained a reputation as "time lapse boy," so he knew the project would have to involve time lapse in some way. Working with producer Caffin, they came up with what Ching says was "the most complicated, and visual effects intensive story I had ever written." This meant taking extreme care in pre-production and shooting so that post-production would go more smoothly. Ching calls that post-production "insane." He and is visual effects supervisor Dane Tellinghuisen spent around 150 hours going frame by frame through the film and applying the necessary editing effects.

But don't let this focus on technology lead you to believe that The Perfect Frame is merely a showcase for flashy effects work. Ching, who wrote and directed the film, has created a story in which the effects are in service of the story rather than the other way around. The story, which opens in crisp black and white, involves a young man painting a room, and accidentally discovering color and a kind of brightly hued parallel universe. Ching tells his story without a lot of dialogue - but be prepared for a brief bit of singing and dancing. The film captures a joyous sense of discovery on the part of the main character. It's a joy that mirrors Ching's own delight in the possibilities of the medium. What's amazing is how effortlessly the surreal tale plays out. You'd never suspect the amount of painstakingly slow and intense work needed to make a film of such visual delights.

It's inspiring to see this level of creativity at a student level and it makes me hopeful about the generation of filmmakers to come. You can get a sneak peek at the film online. But I also suggest checking it out on the big screen at the San Diego Film Festival in September to fully appreciate all the work that has gone into the project. You can also find more of Ching's work at his website. Kudos to these young filmmakers for challenging themselves, their budget, and the technology they had on hand.

Midnight Movies Return

TRON kicks off a new season of midnight movies at Landmark (Disney)

Brad Hesselbrock ran Landmark's Midnight Movies for years. But he has moved on and out of San Diego. A moment of silence in appreciation for all his efforts... But the series continues with a best of series of films playing Friday and Saturday nights at midnight at Landmark's La Jolla Village Theaters. Kicking off this latest Midnight Madness is 1982's TRON, starring a young Jeff Bridges, the perpetually (and delightfully) constipated David Warner, and Bruce Boxleitner (remember him?!) The Disney film involves a hacker that's literally abducted into  a computer and coerced into partaking in gladiatorial games. His only hope lies in the computer's secutiry program. The film boasted what was then state of the art effects technology. Now the film looks rather quaint. But it seems like a good warm up to the retro looking Speed Racer that will be coming out shortly. Each weekend there will be trivia contests with prizes supplied by the good folks at Mysterious Galaxy, Citizen Video, Sobering Conclusion, and Lloyd St. Rockers. Hungry Hank from Sobering Conclusions has leaked info about a particularly cool prize for Johnny Depp fans at the Fear and Loathing screening. So brush up on your Depp trivia. Here's the schedule. I'll post reminders each week for what's playing.

April 11 and 12: TRON
April 18 and 19: Uncut European Version of Terry Gilliam's Brazil
April 25 and 26: Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro in Terry Gilliam's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
May 2 and 3: A bit of the ultraviolence with Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange
May 9 and 10: Jeff Bridges is The Dude in the Coens' The Big Lebowski
May 16 and 17: Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction

Enjoy!

10,000 B.C.

Just me and my woolly mammoth in 10,000 B.C. (Warner Bros.)

Be Kind Rewind - Pro

Teen Critics take opposites sides on Be Kind Rewind (New Line Cinema)

By CANDACE KAVANAGH

Michel Gondry has struck another warm, heart felt piece of film, in his on going practice of taking common day trash and turning it into art. In his new film Be Kind, Rewind (opening February 22 throughout San Diego), characters Mike (Mos Def) and Jerry (Jack Black) have to take care of a rundown movie store that has one foot in the grave. While watching over it, a freak accident causes all the tapes to be erased, forcing them to create new ones with their own creativity and their free use of a junk yard. Soon giving the video store a new life of it's own.

First off the actors' performances were amazing. Mos Def's uptight personality -- at least compared to Jack Black's character -- and Jack Black's screwed up character, go well together. Both pulling off a believable friendship. Now on to the director. Michel Gondry definitely shows off his creativity in this film, not only showcasing his ability to make anything look beautiful. He also brings back a low budget technique, mixing it with his own out-of-the-box mind. And by doing this, he takes the trash of the mainstream film industry -- you know the really horrible remakes, including digital everything -- and turns it into something we can actually enjoy and laugh at, instead of feeling bad for the director who actually tried to remake the classics. Along with pointing out how unnecessary it is to add special effects to movies like The Omen or Halloween. Throughout the movie we see familiar faces, such as Danny Glover, Mia Farrow and Sigourney Weaver. Now if you're up to date on your film, you'll notice all of them have starred in cult classics, that lately have been put aside, kind of like the movies the video store is filled with. By reminding us of these faces, Michel Gondry gives us more empathy for the store, that lags behind other updated, DVD-ridden stores. Giving the movie a subtle connection to the real world.

In the end Be Kind, Rewind (Rated PG-13 for some sexual references) reminds us of how unifying making a movie with friends can be, and how fun it is to put high paid actors and high graphics budgets aside. Later coming to the conclusion: the less technology, the more fun people can really have watching.

Candace's Suggested Companion Viewing: Science of Sleep, High Fidelity, Clerks

-- Candace Kavanagh spends her life absorbing celluloid images. She loves every type of film from so-called "chick flicks" such as My Fair Lady and Legally Blonde, to mind bending thrillers like Mulholland Drive and Hard Candy -- with every zombie movie, action flick, musical, and comedy in between.

Check out an opposing Teen Critic's review of Be Kind Rewind.

George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead

The dead are coming back to life... again. Diary of the Dead (The Weinstein Company)

Let me be upfront about this – I love zombie movies. I don’t know what it is about the lumbering undead that I find so endearing but they definitely charm me. And George A. Romero is THE master of zombie horror, having essentially created the genre with his 1968 black and white film, Night of the Living Dead. (There were some zombies before Romero but he defined them as we know them today, and anyone who saw him at his panel at last year's Comic-Con should be convinced of his master status in the horror genre.) This year, the 67-year-old Romero delivers his fifth zombie film, Diary of the Dead  (opening February 15 exclusively at the AMC Palm Promenade Theaters), so run, don’t “shamble,” over to catch the undead’s latest uprising.

The great thing about Romero’s zombies films is that you can enjoy them in any of a number of ways. If you just want a zombie gorefest, he delivers a bloody thrill ride of horror fun. But his films can also be appreciated as truly independent filmmaking in which Romero has complete control of everything; his films serve up primers on how to make a film on little or no money outside Hollywood. And finally, if you want something a little meatier, you can always find social commentary mixed in with all the blood and gore. Romero’s latest, Diary of the Dead, satisfies on all three levels.

Cloverfield

Cloverfield: Can it live up to its hype? (Paramount)

When Transformers opened last July 3 it was almost overshadowed by the trailer that proceeded it. The trailer boasted no title, just the release date of 01-18-08 and some shaky, handheld camera shots that included the head of the Statue of Liberty rolling down a Manhattan street. Since the film being touted came from J. J. Abrams (creator of Alias and Lost), it created a massive buzz. Abrams wouldn't even reveal the film's title at the Comic-Con later that July. There was a teaser poster unveiled that showed the Statue of Liberty without a head and a wake in the water heading to New York that implied a big creature. All Abrams would fess up to at the pop culture con-fab was the fact that while promoting Mission Impossible III in Japan, he and his son came across a store with shelf after shelf of Godzilla toys. That's when he realized that the U.S. needed a monster movie like that. I love King Kong, he confessed at his Comic-Con panel, he's adorable, but I wanted something that was just insane.

Abrams did get something insane. Insane viral marketing for his film months before it even came out. Wild speculation ran rampant on the Internet, people proposed that it was a new Godzilla movie, an H.P.Lovercraft creature, even Voltron! Rumors spread about the title, the story, everything. Not until late October did Abrams confirm that the title was Cloverfield (opening January 18 throughout San Diego), but his refusal to provide any additional information about the film, and specifically about the monster, just kept the Internet a buzz.

Grindhouse

Grindhouse (Miramax)

At last summer's Comic-Con, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez brought the house down with a ten-minute teaser of their joint double feature, Grindhouse (opening April 6 throughout San Diego). The double bill of Rodriguez' Planet Terror and Tarantino's Death Proof finally arrives in theaters after a year of intense build up.

Quentin Tarantino, sat on the Grindhouse panel at the Comic-Con last July and told the 6400 people that "I'm actually proud that I make movies that adults respond to the way kids respond to." And that's what Grindhouse does -- it delivers a film that fans will line up to see, watch repeatedly on DVD, and scramble to collect all the toys. They'll also memorize favorite lines and compete to prove they know more trivia or get more of the in-jokes and references than anyone else. And that's the way a kid enjoys a movie -- wholeheartedly and with obsessive passion.

Frank Miller’s 300

Frank Miller's 300 arrives on the big screen. (Warner Brothers)

Graphic novelist Frank Miller had long been a hold out from Hollywood. But then a maverick filmmaker from Austin coaxed him into adapting his Sin City books to the big screen. Now he has allowed his 1998 graphic novel retelling of the famous Battle of Thermopylae,300 (opening March 9 throughout San Diego), to be filmed by Warner Brothers, and his fans should be pleased once again.

300 is based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the pivotal ancient Greek Battle of Thermopylae that took place in 480 B.C. But don't let the ancient setting put you off. The events are taken from historical fact but the story is told with such audacious innovation that you'll be riveted to your seat. The story involves the Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 of his fiercest soldiers who fight to the death against Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his massive Persian army. Facing certain death, these Spartans fought with such valor and sense of sacrifice that they inspired the rest of Greece to rise up against the invading army and make a stand for freedom.