Rick's Flicks Picks on AWN

What do you get when bringing together Mary Norton's award-winning children's book THE BORROWERS and the talents of animation studio Studio Ghibli — magic. Scripted by animation legend Hayao Miyazaki, along with Keiko Niwa, and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, the film captures the innocent, wide-eyed passion that many of Miyazaki's directed films do. It's like they borrowed the adventurous spirit of CASTLE IN THE SKY and stitched in the joy present in films like SPIRITED AWAY and MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO.

Borrowers are tiny beings who live in the walls of normal sized people's homes, borrowing things from the humans that they will not notice such as a lost pin. Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler, TV's GOOD LUCK CHARLIE) is growing up and it is time for her father, Pod (Will Arnett, TV's ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT), to take her on her first mission to collect items for their use. Her mother, Homily (Amy Poehler, TV's PARKS AND RECREATION), on the other hand, either oscillates between mild panic and outright terror and believes that her daughter is way too young to be venturing out into the larger house. In the end, the calm levelheadedness of her father wins out. However, what Arrietty has not told them is that she has already been spotted by the sick boy Shawn (David Henrie, TV's WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE), who has come to live in the country home of his great aunt where his mother grew up.

Director Oren Moverman adds another entry into the growing sub-genre of over-the-top corrupt cop films which includes the likes of both BAD LIEUTENANT films and TRAINING DAY. Like Denzel Washington in the latter film, Woody Harrelson gives an Oscar worthy performance as a dirty and brutal cop. The key difference is that Washington's Alonzo Harris has greed as his motivation — Harrelson's David Brown just likes being bad.

Set in 1999 right before the Rampart division scandal broke in Los Angeles, Brown has a long history of violence on the job. His nickname is Date Rape and not for the reasons you might think. As he is trying to dodge his latest excessive force accusation, he finds himself videotaped beating a suspect in the street. This is the one that DA Joan Confrey (Sigourney Weaver, ALIEN) has been waiting for — the one to make an example of.

DEAD OF NIGHT is considered a horror classic. The anthology film is made up of a series of small stories that have become tropes of the genre. Unlike other classics the stories have since been improved upon imitated, stolen and butchered so many times over the years that they have become cliché. You can see it's influence on shows like THE TWILIGHT ZONE and movies like MAGIC. One could say that its influence has lasted longer than its impact. However, the one element that hasn't been improved upon is how compelling the framework story is.

The framing story is simple — an architect, Walter Craig (Mervyn Johns, A CHRISTMAS CAROL) is called out to a country home on a job. When he arrives the house seems so familiar to him and when he meets the people inside he is struck with the fear that he has been dreaming this situation for years. His fears spur others to share their tales of encounters with the supernatural. Craig is convinced that during the course of the evening he will be driven mad. However, one of the guests is Dr. Van Straaten (Frederick Valk, BAD BLONDE), a skeptical psychiatrist, who sets up the battle of wits to convince Craig that there are not demons lurking in the shadows.

What do you expect from a horror movie titled THE CABIN IN THE WOODS? A pretty young virgin? A handsome jock? A dumb blonde bimbo? The token nice guy? The stoner goof-off? Director/writer Drew Goddard and writer Joss Whedon provide all of these slasher movie clichés. You might expect the characters to be picked off one by one by, say, zombie rednecks. And you wouldn't be all that off. And yet Goddard and Whedon turn the tropes on their ear and provide us with a new meta, modern myth.

The movie doesn't start with the tried-and-true character types mentioned above, but begins in a very sterile-looking government facility. Sitterson (Richard Jenkins, THE VISITOR) and Hadley (Bradley Whitford, TV's THE WEST WING) chat about their top-secret project like it is a routine event. We wonder how their work project will affect the college students heading out to a remote cabin in the forest. Why is this agency watching these kids?

Joe Carnahan's thriller is not your typical popcorn fare. It's main character is somber and suicidal. Then it strands that man in the cold Alaskan wilderness where wolves try to hunt him down. Whether or not the film is completely accurate about wolf behavior doesn't matter because it made me believe it was real.

The suicidal man Ottway (Liam Neeson, SCHINDLER'S LIST) is a survivalist who works for the oil companies to hunt down wolves in order to protect the workers from attacks. He boards a plane out of the remote region of the oil fields to head back to Anchorage. When the plane goes down he is forced to think on his feet and continue his job of protecting the workers in a far more extreme arena.

Paul Thomas Anderson is the master. His films feel epic even when they're essentially dealing with just two characters as he does here. It's because he mines the central theme for all it has to give. On the surface the film is about a cult leader and his latest devotee. But it is also a post war story and can even be extrapolated to the meaning of life. Anderson asks who is your master?

We are introduced to Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, GLADIATOR) during World War II when he is on the beach with his fellow soldiers trying to unwind. He builds a naked woman in the sand, talks about how to get rid of crabs, all the while he guzzles down booze from his flask. He shocks his fellow soldiers and makes a strong impression on the viewer. When he comes home from the war, he is confused, lost and angry. He drifts from being a department store photographer to a day laborer on a cabbage farm until one night he stumbles upon the yacht occupied by Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, CAPOTE).

Richard Linklater has a wide range of movies on his resume. You have his trippy animated films like WAKING LIFE and A SCANNER DARKLY and his more conventional comedy SCHOOL OF ROCK. BERNIE is a dark comedy that doesn't easily fit into any of the groups of his previous films. However there is something in its core that reminded me of his films SLACKER and DAZED AND CONFUSED. Place and time are key in those films and they also play a role in this one.

Based on the true story Bernie Tiede, the film is the tale of two unique characters coming together. But it is also a tale about the small town of Carthage, Texas. Bernie (Jack Black, HIGH FIDELITY) came to Carthage to serve as the town's assistant funeral director and quickly became the most liked person there. He was a kind gentleman who had a way of easing the grief of those who had just lost a loved one. This made him good at his job, but his smooth talking helped, as well. Bernie could up-sell a customer on a coffin like the employee of the month at McDonald's does with extra large fries. His civic dedication to the town made him even more popular. However his biggest challenge was winning over the widow Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine, THE APARTMENT).

Christopher Nolan's DARK KNIGHT trilogy has come to an end. In many ways it reminds me of another great trilogy's finale — RETURN OF THE JEDI. Not quite up to the grand standards of its predecessors, but a satisfying conclusion to the story of its main characters.

The action takes place eight years after the end of THE DARK KNIGHT. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale, AMERICAN PYSCHO) is now living as a recluse in his Wayne Manor, his body broken from years of abuse defending Gotham as the Dark Knight. The city has not seen the Batman since the death of DA Harvey Dent. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman, THE PROFESSIONAL) has kept the secret of Harvey Dent's descent into madness from the city. Dent's death, which Batman took the blame, has given the authority the clout to enact tough anti-crime laws that some feel overreach. Because Bruce believes that great power takes great responsibility and can easily be abused, he has decided to shelve a fusion power project, which has the potential to bring cheap power to millions.

It's frightening that in the 21st century sex trafficking is becoming a bigger issue each year. The reason is simple — it's extremely profitable. Young women are stolen and forced to pay off some imaginary debt that never ends. If they run or talk, they are brutalized. The problem is only worse in the chaos of war zones. But in the early part of the century, the sex trafficking scandal that rocked the U.N. and its contractors was beyond repulsive. Those tasked with protecting the citizens of Bosnia where participating in the rape of them.

Based on the true life scandal, this thriller follows Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz, THE CONSTANT GARDENER), a Nebraska cop who signs on to be a peacekeeper in Bosnia for the big paycheck. When she gets there she discovers that many of her fellow peacekeepers are too there for the paycheck, but nothing else. Her efforts to bring some law and order to the country are noticed by higher up human rights activist Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave, ANONYMOUS). Bolkovac is put in charge of women's issues and soon discovers sex clubs where the "waitresses" have been forced there against their will. At first she is appalled to find that U.N. officers are frequenting these clubs, but it only gets worse the deeper she goes.

Based on Suzanne Collins' bestselling YA series, Gary Ross' screen adaptation has already become a mega hit. The film was supposed to be the next TWILIGHT and it has surpassed it at the box office already. But is it any good? In the categories of story and especially acting, it is certainly better than any of the TWILIGHT films. With its dystopian society and futuristic technology, it tells a compelling sci-fi yarn. But I still have a sneaky feeling that I've seen it before and done better.

Oscar-nominee Jennifer Lawrence plays the heroine Katniss Everdeen, a scrappy teen who lives in a future America where the country is split up into 12 districts. Each year a boy and a girl from each district are selected to participate in the Hunger Games, a televised battle to the death. The solo winner is awarded food and wealth from the State for their home district. On selection day, Katniss's younger sister Primrose (Willow Shields) is chosen to represent District 12. Katniss instead volunteers to take her place.