Sometimes hitting the multiplex just isn’t in the cards. That’s when cable, the web and streaming step in to provide an instant movie fix. But how to separate the wheat from the chaff? I’m happy to help; every week I’ll pick a flick and see if it’s worth your time. This week? “Red Riding Hood”

The Story: Valerie lives in a village that, well, looks like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. Lots of timber, dirt and snow. Any wonder she wants to run away with her love Peter? The fact that her mom just made a marriage contract for Valerie to marry Henry isn’t making it tempting to stay, either. Just when Valerie and Peter decide to blow this popsicle stand, there’s a murder in the village. Seems that there were killings years ago, done by a rather vicious wolf. Killings that stopped when the villagers decided to placate a wolf by sacrificing their best livestock each year. Now that doesn’t seem good enough. Enter Solomon the werewolf hunter. But what’s worse; the Big Bad Wolf or those sworn to defeat it?

The Good: You’ve gotta love it when Gary Oldman gets to play batshit. And with this Were-finder General role, there is plenty of scene-chewing, literally and figuratively. Amanda Seyfried (Mama Mia, Big Love) plays Valerie/Red, all ethereal beauty and fire. How could Red not be gorgeous, with Julia Christie as her grandmother? (And what is Christie doing here, anyway; is she behind on her mortgage?)

There are enough twists and turns in Red Riding Hood to keep viewers guessing, and tons of gorgeous scenery to look at while the story unfolds. Bonus points for throwing in beautifully done art-school shots of long flowing red capes. Red Riding Hood manages to straddle entertainment and art without doing a disservice to either. Nice trick.

The Bad: When Big Bad W is revealed? It’s more of a whimper than a howl. What a shame. With all the obvious work that went into art direction, cinematography and set design, to dump a clunker of an ending is a disgrace. Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Twilight, Lords of Dogtown) should know better.

And the big love triangle? Sure, there’s a love triangle here, but there’s no real heat between anyone. One character seems to love Valerie just because it says so in the script, and since there’s no real history behind the characters, there’s no clear reason for her to choose either of them. The love scenes seem uncomfortable for the actors, and with no real chemistry, I was rooting for Red to just pick up and leave everything far, far behind. That’s a new twist I’d like to see. Future filmmakers? You’re Welcome.

The Everything Else: There’s an interesting side-story about Valerie’s mother that I would have liked to have seen fleshed out a bit more. Since the film runs at a little under an hour and forty-five minutes, a few extra bits of non-verbal communication here and there would have made things a bit more interesting, while keeping the mystery front and center.

The effects are well done, from The Big Bad Wolf to Solomon’s creepy silver fingernails. The cinematography is crisp, clear and sets the mood of the film from the first frame. There’s a focus on the red of Valerie’s “hood” and the white, black and grey of the village. Wolf scenes are handled well, with quick cuts; editing this good is a welcome surprise for what is essentially a throw-away movie dumped into the post-awards season wasteland.

Here’s the breakdown:
Would I watch it again?: Yep. Even though the “romance” is bland and not a little bit forced, Oldman is at his usual Method acting creepy best, Seyfried does a lovely job, and the story has a weird-artsy vibe to it.  Plus, I want to take a closer look at Grandmother’s house.  It’s pretty awesome.
Should you see it?: As long as you’re not expecting the run-of-the mill fairy tale — or even thinking about letting your young kids watch it (Just Say No, people) — it’s a fun way to enjoy the current were-craze without hitting the usual overtired storylines. Just don’t expect much, and you’ll enjoy yourself.
Netflix average rating: 3 Stars
My rating: 3 Stars

Recently I asked you who your favorite big screen werewolf was and that got me thinkin’ about some other popular characters portrayed by multiple leading men in the movies. This discussion must always start with the character of agent 007 James Bond, best played by Sean Connery. Other popular Bonds were Pierce Brosnan and Roger Moore while Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby aren’t

remembered so fondly for their portrayal of the famous secret agent. Currently carrying the torch and ordering shaken martinis is Daniel Craig who seems to make a lot of people happy; I prefer him on the other side of the law as he was in Layer Cake and Road to Perdition.

Then there’s Dracula, or vampires in general. The list of actors who have played a vampire on film is a long one. So here are a few that come to mind, please remind me of any as I’ll most definitely leave some out – Leslie Nielsen (Dracula: Dead and Loving It), Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise (Interview with the Vampire), Willem Dafoe (Shadow of the Vampire),  Robert Pattinson (Twilight), Bela Lugosi (Dracula), Gary Oldman (1992′s Dracula), Frank Langella (1979′s Dracula), Christopher Lee (1970′s Count Dracula), and Kiefer Sutherland (The Lost Boys). Needless to say, all of these guys suck, but who is your favorite?

Second in big-screen adaptation popularity to Dracula is  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes who, along with Dracula, has been in the movies since the very beginning. Personally I’ve got a John Barrymore’s Sherlock Holmes (1922) waiting for me on my DVR, which I recorded after seeing Robert Downey Jr. play the part this past Christmas. I also watched a slew of Sherlock films from the late 1930s into the 40s starring Basil Rathbone, the man most of us think of when we imagine Holmes. Robert Stephens played the part of Holmes in what I consider to be one of the worst Holmes films The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Probably the most popular Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles has seen many leading men including Peter Cushing (1959) and Peter Cook (1978) in the role of Holmes. My favorite Holmes adaptation is Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective (1986) starring Barrie Ingham’s Basil of Baker Street as a Holmes-like mouse.

Another Hollywood mainstay that’s been around almost as long as Sherlock and Dracula is Robin Hood. Russell Crowe will be slinging arrows this May in theaters as Robin Hood. My favorite Hood is a tie between Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and Disney’s foxy 1973 adaptation voiced by Brian Bedford. Douglas Fairbanks first wore the tights and feathered cap in 1922′s Robin Hood followed by Errol Flynn in 1938′s Robin Hood. Mel Brooks didn’t play the part but he did direct Cary Elwes as he had fun with the part in Robin Hood: Men in Tights. One Hood adaptation that I’ve not seen and as a native Texan am dying to see is Gene Autry’s 1947 Robin Hood of Texas! I can only imagine…

Honorable mention goes to Batman and Superman, both qualify for this discussion but I really don’t think either are very interesting as the best/worst in each case are pretty black and white. Don’t agree with me? Say so!

He comes striding out of the desert wastelands of the U.S. like a man on a mission. Wearing dark shades, carrying a longbow and a formidable machete, with a single knapsack on his back, that’s exactly what he is. Denzel Washington is the Strong Arm of the Lord and the powerful core of the Hughes Brothers thriller Book of Eli.

We have had more end-of-the-world duress than we can stand lately, but Eli, crowned with excellent and rousing action scenes, evocative cinematography and a refreshing spiritual subtext is the genre’s best entry since they laid Mad Max to rest. Filmgoers looking for a bit of weekend popcorn fun will find themselves surprised by it. This is the apocalypse with a sense of the thought-provoking and the profound. Best of all, it turns out to be a hum-dinger of a samurai film.

When it all ended is never made perfectly clear, because we aren’t ever certain of the current date. Eli, the wandering warrior who evokes the spirit of bushido samurai crossed with an Old Testament prophet, says it’s been 30-plus years since the whole thing broke down. It’s been long enough anyhow for the life expectancy to rapidly drop, rendering most of the current population youngsters who were born after the nuclear apocalypse that ruptured a hole in the Earth’s protective shielding and let in the destructive rays of the sun.

Most of the world is like Solara (Mila Kunis), a feisty young woman living in a wrecked way-station that is learning to be a town again. Solara’s mother (Jennifer Beals) is a blind woman under the forcible control of the town’s leader, the sinister and opportunistic Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Their existence is a stifled and brutal one, but it beats life beyond the protection of the town, where those turned by the sun’s radiation seek out human flesh and the opportunity to waylay passers-by and take their…Wet Naps? Yes, in this moribund future seemingly irrelevant things have become prized possessions.

Enter Eli, who comes into the town carrying with him a book. A book he will protect above all else, and a book that Carnegie needs to get if he ever wants to rule the remainder of the population the way he wants. He pushes, and Eli pushes back, and then the action fireworks fly as Carnegie and his men set out after Eli and Solara, who has bonded with the lone wolf and followed him out of town. Instead of dropping all the film’s most spectacular pieces in one section of the film, the Hughes Brothers have generously spaced the picture’s many battles throughout. The details of a world shattered by war are abundant and specific. One of my favorite scenes involves a hunter stalking game through a forest of snowy white ash and drawing his quarry into his bow’s sights: the menu? Hairless cat.

The acting is top-notch for this kind of thing and the performers don’t look down upon the material or coast on their reputations. Gary Oldman has played bad so many times that his picture is in the dictionary, but he’s never played bad badly and that remains true here where he takes a one-note black hat and transforms him into a dangerously practical man that believes only in power he can wield. I haven’t seen Beals in ages, but she’s radiant and fragile here as Oldman’s downtrodden mate. Mila Kunis as Solara, the acolyte to Washington’s spiritual samurai, shows new facets as an actress that never saw the light during her television days. Michael Gambon plays a crazy farmer who may have eaten more than his fair share of human meat but who’s still willing to help protect Eli and the book he carries. Even Tom Waits shows up as a greaseball engineer. When Waits is the guy recharging your batteries, you know the end is well nigh.

Finally, there is Denzel as Eli. This is one of his best performances. Eli is a man of single-minded determination, carrying what he believes to be hope for all. He is also, when the need arises, capable of swift and violent retribution. Washington understands this and plays his character as a morally righteous man whose faith hasn’t just set him free of the death sentence of this world; it’s also charged him with rescuing it if he can. What he learns along the way is that the secrets housed within his book are more than just words; they have impact he has yet to fully experience. Here is a man who will quote psalms in one breath and blithely decapitate someone with another, and yet he doesn’t come across as a contradiction. This is a magnificent performance in a film that is far better than I would have expected it to be. 2009 was a stellar year for science fiction and if Eli is any indicator, 2010 will give it a run for  its money.

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Whether you’re a fan of what Robert Zemeckis has been doing with motion capture technology lately, in films such as Beowulf and the upcoming adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, you have to admit that the technological expertise required to execute such films is pretty extraordinary. Also extraordinary in Zemeckis’ upcoming film (which is slated to be released on November 6) is the fact that actor Jim Carrey is embodying not only the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, but also the character of Ebenezer Scrooge at four ages.

We have on our hands an interesting clip on the making of the film, which focuses on Carrey’s performances. Take a look at it below, and be on the lookout for it when it comes out next month!

(Also note: this isn’t quite a one man show. Alongside Carrey will be Zemeckis staple Bob Hoskins, Colin Firth, Gary Oldman, and Robin Wright Penn.)

Check out the clip below.

Simply judging from the looks of this latest trailer for the Hughes Brothers’ The Book of Eli, we might have our hands on the best post-apocalyptic action film since Mel Gibson took the leather gear off in the 90s.

The Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis, centers around Washington’s lone hero Eli, who has in his possession what looks like the biblical book of Genesis, on his quest to reform society. Standing in his way is a small town villain in the form of Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who won’t stop until the book is in his possession.

At this point, The Book of Eli has enough stacked in its favor that I’ll be there opening day. I love this genre, and with Oldman in the villain role, you can do no wrong, and Washington is a proven edgy hero. The Hughes Brothers’ last output was the Alan Moore adaptation From Hell in 2001.

One last, nerdy point — the screenwriting credit caught my eye: Gary Whitta, former Editor-in-Chief for PC Gamer magazine, is making his film debut with this film. Let’s see if his genre knowledge translates to good screenwriting skills. The film is scheduled for release on January 15th, 2010.

We just received a few photos from the upcoming thriller The Unborn, and figured, “Why not share them with the fabulous folks who visit Atomic Popcorn?”

Below are some screens from the upcoming Rogue Pictures thriller staring the ever-beautiful Odette Yustman of Cloverfield fame.

Check out the below photos and let me know what you think. I am not big into thrillers like this, but it seems to be a pretty freaky concept if you ask me.

The Unborn will hit theaters this coming Friday, January 9th, and we may have a review for you – so stay tuned.

David Goyer’s new movie, The Unborn has gotten its first trailer that you can check out below. In all due honesty, this looks like something I may skip. Not that it looks bad at all, its freaky as s%*t to be honest. This is the type of movie, at least for me, that would stick with me for way too long.
While this looks like a mashup of other various films we have seen in the last few years, I think this may strike a chord with a few folks. Looks well done and Gary Oldman is in it for pete’s sake!
Enjoy it!

What do you think? Am I over reacting or will you not sleep either if you see it? Keep up to date with the latest news by joining our newsletter.