Pirate Radio

First Hit: This is a really fun film if you are a baby boomer and liked the music of 1966.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Bill Nighy star as an American DJ and a renegade seaborne radio station producer respectively.

The station is a ship off the coast of England because rock and roll was only allowed on the BBC radio for 1 hour a day in 1966. Therefore ships were anchored off-shore which flooded England's air waves with rock and roll 24/7.

On this particular ship, Hoffman plays The Count a DJ with a certain bold panache while numerous other radio personalities each present their own style on their shows on this 24 hour a day station. The DJs and the radio crew live on the ship and have a very close camaraderie and belief of what they are doing is the right thing.

However, the British Government, especially Kenneth Branagh (playing Sir Alistair Dormandy), hate rock and roll and thinks it will hurt society, therefore they want these offshore pirate stations shut down. However, there were no laws to prevent these ships from existing and playing rock and roll.

Eventually the government creates a maritime law and at midnight one new-years-eve they are supposed to shut it down. But the group on this ship say "to hell with it" and continue to broadcast. They eventually have to move their location and then the ship gets a big hole in it and starts to sink. Will they survive, will the music live?

Nighy is outstanding and wonderful as Quentin the producer of this seaborne Pirate Radio station. Hoffman is strong and fully American in his attitude among his British peers. Everyone else in this film is very good in their parts and are to be commended. However, the real star of this film is the music. I loved it.

Overall: This was a good time movie and filled fun music which brought up great memories. If you are a boomer and liked rock and roll go enjoy this film.

Couples Retreat

First Hit: There are some out loud laughs but overall this film's gags soon run out of energy and the film loses its way.

Vince Vaughn is always Vince Vaughn regardless of the film he is in. He doesn’t really play another character; he plays Vince Vaughn in a particular situation. 

In this film he suppose to be Dave a successful video game maker who doesn’t like picking tiles or door handles for his wife’s remodeling scheme. He’s a loyal friend and supports his friends in whatever they need to move their life forward. He is selfless in this way.

Dave and his wife Ronnie (played by Malin Akerman) get convinced to support another couple Jason (Jason Bateman) and Cynthia (Kristen Bell) on a trip to a paradise island for fun, leisure and couples therapy.

Jason and Cynthia think this trip will help them resolve their problems. With Dave and Ronnie's influence two other couples join them on this trip thereby getting a discount on their trip. The other couples are Joey (Jon Favreau) and his wife Lucy (Kristin Davis) and Shane (Faizon Love) with his girlfriend Trudy (Kali Hawk).

Each morning they meet up with the island's relationship guru for some bonding and exploratory couples exercise which include yoga, snorkeling and fish feeding. Each couple also meets with a therapist. 

Each scene creates situations which are played for a laugh. However, the scenes don’t make a cohesive film and we know how it’s going to end.

Vaughn is great as Vaughn but as Dave a family man who creates video games? I don’t think so. Davis was probably the best of the actors in creating a character of interest. Love and Hawk were amusing and fun to watch as a couple. It doesn’t surprise me that Vaughn and Favreau wrote this film as they were the center of male focus of this film. They were also the most egotistical and least interesting of the characters.

Overall: At best this is a video on a Sunday evening where nodding off wouldn't matter.

A Serious Man

First Hit: Well filmed, mildly amusing and probably more amusing if one is Jewish.

The points of this film are; some people are cursed, the curse can last generations, Rabbis don’t listen very well and they tell non-helpful stories.

Yes, I laughed at some of the situational and/or circumstantial comedic real life situations experienced by Larry Gopnik (played by Michael Stuhlbarg), but I also felt like I was missing the deeper meaning of the joke.

There were a couple people in the audience that were totally lock in on the humor and they laughed loudly and often to the situational scenes and dialog. I did enjoy the late 1960s look and feel of the film and thought it was accurately reflected.

The story is about Larry and how things keep coming down on him like a tsunami. First we see him at the doctor getting tests (later we have the hint of bad news), his wife Judith (played by Sari Lennick) tells him she wants a divorce and she's seeing someone else, his son is a pothead and complains about the TV antenna not being aimed right, and a Korean student is bribing him for a passing grade.

His brother Arthur (played by Richard Kind) is living with him, is jobless, and has a machine which attaches to his neck and drains some unknown infection. Larry also gets in an automobile accident, he's threatened by his neighbor who's encroaching on his property line, and he has no one to confide in. When he visits the Rabbis he is told stories that have nothing to do with his current problem.

Stuhlbarg and Kind were good in their characters as were most of the cast, but the Coen brothers appear to have made this film with a smaller audience in mind. For me the best part of the film was the outstanding musical choices. Jefferson Airplane and Jimi Hendrix along with other classical rock and finer classical pieces enhanced the overall feel of the film.

Overall: For me, the brothers created a very self indulgent piece work and although it is well made its appeal is limited.

Whip It

First Hit: This was very entertaining and brought back fond roller derby memories.

I use to like watching roller derby on television. There were teams called the Bay Bombers from San Francisco and from LA there were the T-Birds. And then there was the voice of roller derby in Southern California. His name was Dick Lane (voice of the LA T-Birds) and he would yell out with a particular inflection “Whoa, Nellie” when a skater would do something wild or get whipped out from the pack.

Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavendar a lost young girl who is forced into beauty pageants by her once beauty pageant maven mother (Marcia Gay Harden).

Bliss works at a local diner, wears combat boots on her own time, and with her best friend Pash, they keep looking for ways to leave their small hometown outside of Austin Texas. Seeing a flyer to a roller derby contest in Austin, Bliss and Pash drive over and watch the contest.

Bliss falls in love with the idea of roller derby and with a singer in a band who happens to be watching the same contest. Bliss goes home and decides to drag out her old Barbie skates and, with practice, ends up making the Hurl Scouts, a team that always loses.

There she meets Smashley Simpson (played by Drew Barrymore), Rosa Sparks (played by Eve), and Maggie Mayhem (played by Kristen Wiig). All the teams play in the same building every Friday night and the Hurl Scouts are absolutely the worst and they are proud of it.

However with Bliss’s speed, by listening to their coach, and executing his plays for the first time they start winning games. They actually win enough to challenge the perennial champions headed by Iron Maven (played by Juliette Lewis) in the playoff match which is on the same night as the biggest beauty contest in Bliss’s home town.

Faced with a major decision, a missing boyfriend, and an alienated family life, Bliss must make some hard choices.

Ellen Page is believable, strong and wonderful to watch as Bliss (AKA Baby Ruthless). Drew Barrymore as Smashley Simpson was good but better was her direction of this film as she got the feel and touch just about perfect. There was the sporting aspect and kept it fun as well. The updating of roller derby as it might be today was probably as good as one could get. I was overjoyed to see Juliette Lewis back on the screen. She’s been mostly involved in her band but it is always great to remember she has acting chops. Jimmy Fallon is the voice of the roller derby as "Hot Tub" Johnny Rocket and although he wasn't Dick Lane, he brought an effective style to the genre.

Overall: This was a very enjoyable film and had the grit of a sports film and the touching sense of a coming of age film.

Zombieland

First Hit: It is a fun horror film and I enjoyed it a lot.

Woody Harrelson is perfect as Tallahassee the lone ranger and killer extraordinaire of zombies. Jesse Eisenberg is superb as Columbus the nerdish young man who, through his rule making,  finds himself skilled at being one of the few humans left in the USA.

As a team they are fun to watch as they traverse the USA in hopes of finding other humans or maybe sanctuary. Columbus has stayed alive by following certain rules like: “Always check the back seat.” “Never use public restrooms.”

These rules pop-up on the screen as the film moves along and add to the campy enjoyment of the film. Tallahassee is hell bent on killing zombies any way he can. He has found his calling and thoroughly enjoys the subtle enticement of a zombie towards him followed by a browbeating that is second to none (Zombie kill of the day, sort of stuff).

On their travels towards Ohio, they run across sisters Wichita (played by Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin). These two girls are a tightly woven pair and dupe Tallahassee and Columbus twice by taking their car, guns and ammo. However, each time the men run across them again. It is the last time at Pacific Playland where they finally decide to hang out together and fully trust each other.

The film is filled with vomit, black vile, killing and stringy human flesh everywhere. This is a zombie film so expect it.

Once you get over those visuals as being too disgusting, it is a fun romp with a great reference to the film Deliverance and also a reference to either Dan White or Russell Crowe because of Tallahassee’s sole desire to score some Twinkies.

Harrelson is simply perfect in this part. This underrated actor always makes me believe he is the character he is playing. One may not like his choices, but he is not afraid to show you he is not the aw-shucks guy he was on Cheers. Here, he is simply a down home boy who doesn't think too far into the future, isn’t afraid to be kind, but is prone to use a gun to settle an argument or to gain a Twinkie. In zombie killing he has found his calling. Eisenberg wonderfully fits his character as an antisocial nerd who spends most of his time in front of his computer playing games. He is lonely, wants a girlfriend, and wakes up one day to find a zombie in his apartment. He decides it is time to get outside more only to find he may be the only human left, at least in LA. Stone and Breslin are great as sisters plotting to keep themselves alive and protected. Their first allegiance is to themselves. Lastly, Bill Murray shows up as himself, living life the best he can in a zombified world and his get-up is perfect Bill Murray stuff. Ruben Fleischer perfectly paces this film and his direction is spot on throughout, job well done.

Overall: This was fun film and crisply executed. It is a no frills event and will find its place in the hallowed archives of fun horror films like the 1964 film "Zombies", the 1968 film "Night of the Living Dead", Mel Brooks "Young Frankenstein" and "Love at First Bite" because it sets a mark right between them all.