Celluloid Heroes

When Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) wakes up, he knows that he doesn't want to go to school. He's ready to take a day off and stop to take a look around. If you don't, life just might pass you by. But in order to do that, he has to convince his parents that he's sick enough to stay home, but not sick enough to go to the doctor.

In order to do that, Ferris gives us his plan. He's going for the clammy hands. While he's bent over from coughing, he licks the palms, which gives them the wet feeling. He also gives us a point-by-point on-screen blow of why not to go for a fever (you might end up at the doctor's office). Which is a little odd, really, because the on-screen thing isn't used elsewhere. But it works, and his parents head to work and he has the day off. Now he just has to get through it.

Read All of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 27, 2007 in Comedy

A seemingly never-ending line of dirt-encrusted men, women and at least one child prepare to be hanged in the gallows, all to appease Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) and his war on the pirates. As they march endlessly towards their doom, a cryer announces that item after item is suspended. No longer can people gather, demonstrate or even have lawyers. Instead, they can just die.

Then, a young lad, clutching a piece of eight, begins to softly sing. The song is gradually picked up by each of the others in line behind him, until it seems that everyone is singing the haunting song. This seems to do nothing more than infuriate Beckett.

Read All of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 26, 2007 in Adventure

That cuddly green ogre Shrek (Mike Myers) has returned for the third go-round, and this time the stakes are a bit higher. King Harold (John Cleese) has croaked (he's a frog, get it, he croaked?) and with one of his last breaths (he had several) he has left the reins of Far Far Away in the hands of Shrek and Fiona (Cameron Diaz).

Naturally, Shrek is thinking mostly of himself, and he isn't really interested. He just wants to go back to the swamp. So before the king dies, he asks if there is another option. Luckily, there is one. His name is Arthur. That's all that Shrek needs to hear. There is someone else who can handle running things and get dressed up, and he and Fiona can get out of there. So he and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss (Antonio Banderas) board a ship and head out to find Arthur.

Read All of "Shrek the Third (2007) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 18, 2007 in Adventure

Hapless Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is in danger of losing his son, Nick (Jake Cherry). He's not really concerned about his ex-wife, but Nick? That worries him. Especially when Nick mentions that he's ready to hang up his hockey skates and start practicing to be a stockbroker, like his new dad, Don (Paul Rudd).

Spurred on by the thought of losing his son's hockey career to the over-achieving Don - or at least to his utility belt of cell phones, Larry decides that he needs to get on with his life and do something. So begging for a job at the unemployment office, he begs for just about anything. What he gets is something that no one would have expected.

You see, Larry gets a job as a night watchman and the Museum of Natural History. And as they say, history has a way of coming to life. It's never been more true than it is at this place after they lock the doors for the night.

Read All of "Night at the Museum (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 13, 2007 in Adventure

The rumor says that if Elektra (Jennifer Garner) is going to kill you, she will whisper in your ear before you even know that she is there.

As the movie opens, we see that Elektra can indeed defeat an entire army of people who have been assigned the task of defending a single person. Naturally she gets past them without so much as breaking a sweat or even making it seem like a difficult task. But that is what she does.

Read All of "Elektra (2005) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on April 22, 2007 in Action

As Dr. Rae Crane (Lorraine Bracco) arrives in the Amazon jungle, she is met by a number of natives, and the focus of her trip - Dr. Robert Campbell (Sean Connery).

It seems that Dr. Campbell has for some time been operating on his own, without following typical company procedure, such as filing progress reports, and now that his contact has retired, the duty of figuring out just what he is up to down here has fallen to her. She isn't exactly pleased. But then, neither is he.

Read All of "Medicine Man (1992) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on April 13, 2007 in Drama

When Memphis (Hugh Jackman) drops the egg of his baby penguin during the long, cold, Antarctic winter, he is afraid that he may have literally dropped the ball. But luckily - for him - the baby does hatch, albeit a bit later than the other penguins, and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) won't be upset when she returns from the feeding grounds.

But when young Mumble (Elijah Wood) can't seem to find his heart song, Memphis blames himself. In this Disney-fied tale (which is actually by Fox), the penguins grow up, and sing their heart song in order to find their mate. Without such a song, Mumble is not only doomed to live out his life on his own, he is just about a disgrace. To make matters worse, he does this thing... with his feet.

Read All of "Happy Feet (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on April 5, 2007 in Family

In the not-so-distant future, the problems of the world's energy crisis have been solved by the New Economic Block (NEB). Or so it would seem. For once the mining begins, a massive radioactive cloud is released, and that would appear to be problematic. Do you produce a teaspoon of this wonder-fuel, at the cost of lives, or do you stop and look for something else? I suspect you already know the answer.

If you're the NEB, you continue mining, and do what you can to offset the radiation. But if you're the rest of the civilized people, you try and stop the NEB, and so war breaks out on Sirius 6B, and in 2078, this war has been going on for some 20 years between the two factions, all of which used to be a part of the NEB. But now, it's been six months since anyone has heard from the NEB, until one day a lone soldier comes in from the dessert bearing a message...

Read All of "Screamers (1995) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on February 20, 2007 in Science Fiction

Claire (Emma Roberts) and Hailey (Joanna 'JoJo' Levesque) are two girls coasting through summer vacation with their normal problems - namely that they are younger than all the "cool" kids - until they find out that they are about to be split up forever, and then their problems get much, much worse.

Until a freak storm throws the beach club into complete disarray. That at first seems like a disaster because the end-of-summer party might get canceled. But then something extraordinary happens. They find Aquamarine (Sara Paxton) in the bottom of the pool, along with a bunch of other ocean debris. How did this happen, you may ask? Easy. Aqua is a mermaid. That's when things get interesting.

Read All of "Aquamarine (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on February 15, 2007 in Romance

When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receives the hundred-year-old telegram from Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) at the end of Back to the Future Part 2, telling him that he's alive and well in the Old West, it also has another tidbit of information - that he's hidden the time machine in an old cave outside of town. But Marty needs some help getting it running.

So he returns to town just in time to see himself leave to go back to the future for the first time, and he surprises the original Doc (the 1955 Doc), and tells him all about what's happening. Or at least, enough so that he doesn't know anything about his future, because Marty doesn't know that Doc has read the note that he gave him, telling him about the terrorists in the original Back to the Future.

With Doc on board, he gets some help getting the DeLorean back up and running, and using the Mr. Fusion to generate the power, Marty heads back to 1885 to see if he can rescue Doc and head back to 1985 - which will hopefully be the same as they left it!

Read All of "Back to the Future Part 3 (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Adventure

During the daily grind, it seems as if we may never get out. For the Harvey family, that all changed one day when family leader Martin Harvey (Martin Short) gets a message that they have been left a sailboat once owned by Clark Gable. All they have to do is pick it up from Saint Pomme de Terre (loosely translated as 'Saint Potato').

This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a family vacation, especially since this boat may be worth a quarter of a million dollars. After contacting a yacht broker in Miami, they get a captain who will meet them there and help them sail the boat back to the US. Unfortunately, once they see the boat, they determine that it's not quite what they expected. It's seen better days.

Calling the broker, they inquire about what it might be worth in less-than-perfect condition. Sensing that the boat is a pile of junk, the broker sends a local captain instead - Captain Ron (Kurt Russell).

Read All of "Captain Ron (1992) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 22, 2007 in Adventure

Joe Dirt (David Spade) is perhaps your average janitor, if you consider your average janitor to have a mullet wig that was put on him as a boy to cover a hole in his head, and now it's been fused into the skull when the bones finally grew together, and a life so bad that he can do little about it but look at the bright side of life. If he didn't, he would probably have given up long ago.

So one day when his employer, Zander Kelly (Dennis Miller) comes across him cleaning the lobby and decides to put him on the show, the whole world gets to hear about the adventures of Joe Dirt and just how he got to where he is today. Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that by the end of the story, what started as poking some fun at the guy who didn't fit turns into a story of triumph.

Read All of "Joe Dirt (2001) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 20, 2007 in Adventure

When Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick) wakes up, he knows that he doesn't want to go to school. He's ready to take a day off and stop to take a look around. If you don't, life just might pass you by. But in order to do that, he has to convince his parents that he's sick enough to stay home, but not sick enough to go to the doctor.

In order to do that, Ferris gives us his plan. He's going for the clammy hands. While he's bent over from coughing, he licks the palms, which gives them the wet feeling. He also gives us a point-by-point on-screen blow of why not to go for a fever (you might end up at the doctor's office). Which is a little odd, really, because the on-screen thing isn't used elsewhere. But it works, and his parents head to work and he has the day off. Now he just has to get through it.

Read All of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 27, 2007 in Comedy

A seemingly never-ending line of dirt-encrusted men, women and at least one child prepare to be hanged in the gallows, all to appease Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) and his war on the pirates. As they march endlessly towards their doom, a cryer announces that item after item is suspended. No longer can people gather, demonstrate or even have lawyers. Instead, they can just die.

Then, a young lad, clutching a piece of eight, begins to softly sing. The song is gradually picked up by each of the others in line behind him, until it seems that everyone is singing the haunting song. This seems to do nothing more than infuriate Beckett.

Read All of "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 26, 2007 in Adventure

That cuddly green ogre Shrek (Mike Myers) has returned for the third go-round, and this time the stakes are a bit higher. King Harold (John Cleese) has croaked (he's a frog, get it, he croaked?) and with one of his last breaths (he had several) he has left the reins of Far Far Away in the hands of Shrek and Fiona (Cameron Diaz).

Naturally, Shrek is thinking mostly of himself, and he isn't really interested. He just wants to go back to the swamp. So before the king dies, he asks if there is another option. Luckily, there is one. His name is Arthur. That's all that Shrek needs to hear. There is someone else who can handle running things and get dressed up, and he and Fiona can get out of there. So he and Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss (Antonio Banderas) board a ship and head out to find Arthur.

Read All of "Shrek the Third (2007) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 18, 2007 in Adventure

Hapless Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is in danger of losing his son, Nick (Jake Cherry). He's not really concerned about his ex-wife, but Nick? That worries him. Especially when Nick mentions that he's ready to hang up his hockey skates and start practicing to be a stockbroker, like his new dad, Don (Paul Rudd).

Spurred on by the thought of losing his son's hockey career to the over-achieving Don - or at least to his utility belt of cell phones, Larry decides that he needs to get on with his life and do something. So begging for a job at the unemployment office, he begs for just about anything. What he gets is something that no one would have expected.

You see, Larry gets a job as a night watchman and the Museum of Natural History. And as they say, history has a way of coming to life. It's never been more true than it is at this place after they lock the doors for the night.

Read All of "Night at the Museum (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on May 13, 2007 in Adventure

The rumor says that if Elektra (Jennifer Garner) is going to kill you, she will whisper in your ear before you even know that she is there.

As the movie opens, we see that Elektra can indeed defeat an entire army of people who have been assigned the task of defending a single person. Naturally she gets past them without so much as breaking a sweat or even making it seem like a difficult task. But that is what she does.

Read All of "Elektra (2005) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on April 22, 2007 in Action

As Dr. Rae Crane (Lorraine Bracco) arrives in the Amazon jungle, she is met by a number of natives, and the focus of her trip - Dr. Robert Campbell (Sean Connery).

It seems that Dr. Campbell has for some time been operating on his own, without following typical company procedure, such as filing progress reports, and now that his contact has retired, the duty of figuring out just what he is up to down here has fallen to her. She isn't exactly pleased. But then, neither is he.

Read All of "Medicine Man (1992) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on April 13, 2007 in Drama

When Memphis (Hugh Jackman) drops the egg of his baby penguin during the long, cold, Antarctic winter, he is afraid that he may have literally dropped the ball. But luckily - for him - the baby does hatch, albeit a bit later than the other penguins, and Norma Jean (Nicole Kidman) won't be upset when she returns from the feeding grounds.

But when young Mumble (Elijah Wood) can't seem to find his heart song, Memphis blames himself. In this Disney-fied tale (which is actually by Fox), the penguins grow up, and sing their heart song in order to find their mate. Without such a song, Mumble is not only doomed to live out his life on his own, he is just about a disgrace. To make matters worse, he does this thing... with his feet.

Read All of "Happy Feet (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on April 5, 2007 in Family

In the not-so-distant future, the problems of the world's energy crisis have been solved by the New Economic Block (NEB). Or so it would seem. For once the mining begins, a massive radioactive cloud is released, and that would appear to be problematic. Do you produce a teaspoon of this wonder-fuel, at the cost of lives, or do you stop and look for something else? I suspect you already know the answer.

If you're the NEB, you continue mining, and do what you can to offset the radiation. But if you're the rest of the civilized people, you try and stop the NEB, and so war breaks out on Sirius 6B, and in 2078, this war has been going on for some 20 years between the two factions, all of which used to be a part of the NEB. But now, it's been six months since anyone has heard from the NEB, until one day a lone soldier comes in from the dessert bearing a message...

Read All of "Screamers (1995) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on February 20, 2007 in Science Fiction

Claire (Emma Roberts) and Hailey (Joanna 'JoJo' Levesque) are two girls coasting through summer vacation with their normal problems - namely that they are younger than all the "cool" kids - until they find out that they are about to be split up forever, and then their problems get much, much worse.

Until a freak storm throws the beach club into complete disarray. That at first seems like a disaster because the end-of-summer party might get canceled. But then something extraordinary happens. They find Aquamarine (Sara Paxton) in the bottom of the pool, along with a bunch of other ocean debris. How did this happen, you may ask? Easy. Aqua is a mermaid. That's when things get interesting.

Read All of "Aquamarine (2006) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on February 15, 2007 in Romance

When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) receives the hundred-year-old telegram from Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) at the end of Back to the Future Part 2, telling him that he's alive and well in the Old West, it also has another tidbit of information - that he's hidden the time machine in an old cave outside of town. But Marty needs some help getting it running.

So he returns to town just in time to see himself leave to go back to the future for the first time, and he surprises the original Doc (the 1955 Doc), and tells him all about what's happening. Or at least, enough so that he doesn't know anything about his future, because Marty doesn't know that Doc has read the note that he gave him, telling him about the terrorists in the original Back to the Future.

With Doc on board, he gets some help getting the DeLorean back up and running, and using the Mr. Fusion to generate the power, Marty heads back to 1885 to see if he can rescue Doc and head back to 1985 - which will hopefully be the same as they left it!

Read All of "Back to the Future Part 3 (1990) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 28, 2007 in Adventure

During the daily grind, it seems as if we may never get out. For the Harvey family, that all changed one day when family leader Martin Harvey (Martin Short) gets a message that they have been left a sailboat once owned by Clark Gable. All they have to do is pick it up from Saint Pomme de Terre (loosely translated as 'Saint Potato').

This sounds like the perfect opportunity for a family vacation, especially since this boat may be worth a quarter of a million dollars. After contacting a yacht broker in Miami, they get a captain who will meet them there and help them sail the boat back to the US. Unfortunately, once they see the boat, they determine that it's not quite what they expected. It's seen better days.

Calling the broker, they inquire about what it might be worth in less-than-perfect condition. Sensing that the boat is a pile of junk, the broker sends a local captain instead - Captain Ron (Kurt Russell).

Read All of "Captain Ron (1992) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 22, 2007 in Adventure

Joe Dirt (David Spade) is perhaps your average janitor, if you consider your average janitor to have a mullet wig that was put on him as a boy to cover a hole in his head, and now it's been fused into the skull when the bones finally grew together, and a life so bad that he can do little about it but look at the bright side of life. If he didn't, he would probably have given up long ago.

So one day when his employer, Zander Kelly (Dennis Miller) comes across him cleaning the lobby and decides to put him on the show, the whole world gets to hear about the adventures of Joe Dirt and just how he got to where he is today. Perhaps the strangest thing of all is that by the end of the story, what started as poking some fun at the guy who didn't fit turns into a story of triumph.

Read All of "Joe Dirt (2001) Review" »
Posted by Chad Everett on January 20, 2007 in Adventure