Small Soldiers (1998) Review

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(More customer reviews)For pure entertainment value and eye-candy alone, I really enjoyed this film. The acting was good, even though the plot was full of holes and the script had some extremely cheesy lines. It was good to see Phil Hartman on screen, but his talent was wasted in this flick - his character was a minor one and he didn't get many lines.
The premise: a military defense contractor expands its boundaries by buying up a successful toy company, hoping to put surplus chips to use by remarketing them as toys.
Two races of action figures - soldiers (human) and Gorgonites (totally dissimilar to each other, from the planet Gorgon, both are programmed to be mortal enemies. The soldiers are programmed to win, the Gorgonites are programmed to either hide or lose.
Apparently no testing takes place before they hit the shelves and the soldiers are ruthless, ripping the Gorgonites limb from limb.
They decide that children who play with Gorgonites must also be destroyed, as they are perceived as being collaborators with the enemy. Needless to say, this is entertainmen for grownups, not for little ones.
The chips that are used in them give them artificial intelligence - the ability to learn and to create new weapons using anything they find. Almost like "Universal Soldier" along with the passion and emotion.
Archer, protector of the Gorgonites, is the true heartwarming character of the film. He is homesick for Gorgon, and even though the planet only exists in the mind of the toymakers that marketed him, he longs to be home.
Alan, a boy trying to re-earn the trust from his parents, has a hard time proving that toys are the ones wreaking havoc until they are caught in the act.
In the end, it becomes a literal fight to the death between the small soldiers and the children and their parents.
The film falls short in that it doesn't know if it's a farce, a parody, a comedy, an action flick or a drama. They try to put in way too much, so most of it falls flat.
The scenes with the attacking Barbies is more creepy like "The Stepford Wives" than it is funny, even though you get the jokes in what are supposed to be comic relief moments.
Still, this is well worth watching for the animitronics and for sci fi concepts.

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Meet the commando elite renegade action figures with an attitude. Theyve burst out of their boxes to combat their arch-rivals the gorgonites kindhearted but unusual looking creatures. Now small-town teenager alan abernathy gets enlisted to the gorgonites.Studio: Paramount Home VideoRelease Date: 02/08/2005Starring: Kirsten Dunst Denis LearyRun time: 109 minutesRating: Pg13Director: Joe Dante

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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) Review

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(More customer reviews)I've worked on Wall Street my whole life. The first film was cut throat Ivan Boseky insider trading and raw greed at its finest. Michael Douglas was simply riveting. I had been waiting for the sequel ever since announced. Going opening day, I was stunned after watching it the first time. Yes, Oliver Stone nails the Collapse of Wall Street in 2008 with the mortgage meltdown. Every character can be parlayed into a real life individual involved in the Bear Stearns and Lehman collapse. But the real story is about second chances in life, fighting for family, doing the right thing, commitment to work and the price paid for loyalty. Shia Labeouf (Jake Moore) is at his best when he sets out on a course of vindictive revenge after James Brolin (Bretton James) causes the "perceived" collapse of Keller Zabel(KZI) and the suicide of his mentor and KZI's leader Lou Zabel.
Michael Douglas (Gordon Gekko) and Shia Labeouf team up given that Jake is engaged to Gordon's daughter Winnie. They embark on path to understand KZI's collapse and to seek revenge, plus make a few dollars along the way for Gordon. Gordon and Jake make a series of "trades" to learn that Bretton James and his firm, Churchill Schwartz, were illegally betting on everything under the Sun to destroy KZI. Oliver Stone's attention to detail is STUNNING. Words won't do justice to the perfection of the each set. You have to know Wall Street to know that on a scale of 1 to 100, he gets a 99 because no one gets a 100. Gordon's real redemption is his name, reputation and a deep love for his family. Jake simply wants to do right by the death of Lou Zabel and persecute those respondsible. Wrap those emotions around a fast paced collapse of Wall Street, and you have a beautiful movie. Vetrans of investing will be amazed, but the film has a broad reach. One can't spoil the detail in the screen writer's brillance, but the lines are wit personified. To be "blamed for all disasters since Nintendo" speaks to taunt tone and wit. Best line of all is Gordon's---"When you stop telling lies about me, I'll stop telling the truth about you." Gordon finally does do right. One shouldn't spoil this film. I titled my review "Love, Life Family...." The last 20 minutes bring together all aspects of any excellent drama. On a personal note given Michael Douglas' condition, I will remember his 2 performances in Wall Stret with deep gratitude and always wish him good health. "Time is the most important thing in life." Well said Mr. Douglas

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Following a lengthy prison term, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) finds himself on the outside looking in at a world he once commanded. Hoping to repair his relationship with his daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), Gekko forges an alliance with her fiancé, Jake (Shia LaBeouf). But Winnie and Jake learn the hard way that Gekko is still a master manipulator who will stop at nothing to reclaim his rightful place at the top of Wall Street.

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Starting Out in the Evening Review

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(More customer reviews)STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING is a quietly moving work of art, a film adapted from Brian Morton's novel by screenwriters Fred Parnes and and Andrew Wagner (who also directs) that dares to take us to the wall with decisions we make about how we conduct our lives and negotiate the changes that can either be stumbling blocks or stimuli for creative awareness, It has much to say about the creative process of writing, a theme upon which it first appears to be based, but it more importantly urges us to examine how we live - how we make use of this moment of time in which we inhabit a body in the universe.
Leonard Schiller (in an extraordinarily understated performance by Frank Langella) is an aging author, a man whose first two novels seem to set the literary world on fire, but whose next two novels languished on the shelves and slipped into the same plane of obscurity Schiller finds his life since the death of his wife. He has a daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor in another richly hued performance) who is nearing age forty and is unable to bond permanently with a man because of her obsession with having children before her biological clock ticks past fertility. Into their lives comes Heather Wolfe (Lauren Ambrose), a bright young graduate student who has elected to write her master's thesis on the works of Leonard Schiller. Schiller is absorbed in writing what may be his last novel and can't be bothered with Heather's plea for a series of interviews. But curiosity intervenes and soon Heather and Leonard are involved in the process of interviewing, a process which gradually builds into overtones of Heather's physical as well as intellectual attraction to Leonard. Meanwhile Ariel observes the process that seems to be infusing life into her father and encourages her to exit her current relationship with Victor (Michael Cumpsty) and re-connect with the true love of her life Casey (Adrian Lester), a man she loves but who refuses to give her the children she so desperately wants. The manner in which these characters interact and learn from each other the importance of sharing Life instead of obsessing with selfish goals brings the drama to a rather open-ended close, another factor that makes this story significantly better than most themes of May-December romance and unilateral coping with self-centered directions.
The pleasures of this film are many, but among the finest is the quality of acting by Langella, Taylor, Ambrose, and Lester. In many ways the story is a parallax of views of life as art that subtly intertwine like a fine string quartet. Why this film was ignored by the Oscars only suggests that movies for the mind take second place to movies for the merriment of entertainment. For people who enjoy the challenge of a meaty story, this film is a must. Grady Harp, April 08

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Battling illness and unable to finish a novel that has taken him ten years to write, aging novelist Leonard Schiller is slipping into literary obscurity. Formerly a famous author, Schiller has been all but forgotten by the readers, colleagues and critics who once praised him. But when Heather Wolfe, an ambitious graduate student, convinces Schiller that her thesis could reintroduce his writing to the world, the reclusive writer is forced to confront his past regrets. Frank Langella delivers a career-capping performance as a man who must redefine his work - and his perceptions - in the twilight of his life.

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