Rating: 5 out of 10

Anytime you change the game, those who follow you will be forever compared to your moment of brilliance. How brilliant that moment was is completely objective, but it really doesn’t matter if it was the best or worst decision you ever made, just that you made it before anyone else did. The same goes for movies and when a film comes along and surprises a global audience with a new take on a classic genre. It is not only bound to make a mark, but it is bound to make some copies as well. If one person strikes gold, dig where they dig, or so it goes. Many people are comparing The Last Exorcism with The Blair Witch Project and the connection between the two is quick and easy to notice. While Blair Witch was not the first film to use the method of hand-held filmmaking and inclusion of the cameraman into the cast, it was the first to do it in quite a long time to such an incredible effect. Did The Last Exorcism recreate some of that power and fright? Let’s see…

The Last Exorcism plays out as a documentary starring Cotton Marcus, once a poster boy for the Evangelical market and a wunderkind who performed his first exorcism before 10 years old. Now Cotton fights against the whole idea of exorcism and has devoted his life to debunking the practice. A small film crew decides to go with him on a trip into the backwoods of nowhere in order to watch him prove how easily the idea of possession can be explained away. Yet Nell, the afflicted little girl, proves to be more than Cotton has ever encountered before.

***SPOILER ALERT – IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE END OF THE FILM, STOP READING NOW***

OK, had to get that out of the way because the only way to tell you why this film only gets a 5 out of 10 is to talk about the ending, but let us build our way there. Choosing to shoot this film as a fake documentary gives certain benefits right away. The doc style has a subconscious effect on the viewer, making them believe what they are seeing is real. We are so attuned to flashy editing and that filmic look that when we see home styled video camera images, which are more common to documentaries, they bring us directly into the doc mindset. We instantly feel we are there to learn or be shown something incredibly unique, so this works perfectly in favor of the director because his audience is just a little more down that rabbit hole. With that being said, there is one big caveat to this method and that is you instantly have to make the camera operator a member of the cast and you must justify why the audience gets to see anything and everything on screen.

This is where we run into a problem.

In Blair Witch this was handled with amazing creativity because there was more than one camera, so the POV could change whenever they feel they needed to, but in The Last Exorcism there was only one camera, therefore only one point of view for the entire film. That’s not always a bad thing since it can increase the audience feeling that they are indeed one of the characters (personally I felt this worked quite well in Cloverfield also), but one thing the others did was think all the way through to the very end before hitting ‘Record’ for the first time. The Last Exorcism feels like they painted themselves into a corner and their big twist ending, which truly wasn’t even needed, was further ruined by the continued justification of where the camera was.

***LAST WARNING – HERE COMES THE BIG TWIST***

The big demon birthing ritual was wholly unnecessary and actually devalued what up to that point was an interesting and creepy pic, but if they felt the need to go down that route, I want to see the big fight at the finish. Here we spent a whole movie watching the hero try and debunk the existence of real demons, but now that he is standing right in front of one, choosing to fight, trying to earn the evangelical praise that was heaped on him his whole life, at that critical cinematic climax, all we get is a bouncy running camera shot because there was no way to logically keep the camera there, since the guy holding it was surrounded by crazy cultists. As much as I am a stickler for following the rules of logic set up in the world of the film, this is one case where that rule bites you in the ass. The running, panting and eventual collapse of our viewpoint in that world (also done before and done better by Blair Witch) left the audience reeling in disbelief that all the time they had put in came to nothing but a split second CGI-creation of a fire demon. On top of that, there also seemed to be no need to add Nell’s brother, Caleb, into the cult. It just came off as another random twist in an already convoluted ending.

The real shame of the poor delivery at the end of the film is it washed away some really great moments earlier on. Ashley Bell did a commendable job portraying the home-schooled Nell, balancing her wondrous innocence with the truly eerie possessed nature she developed throughout the film. The shot of her last second terrible smile as the door closed in front of her gained the highest creep factor out of the entire experience. Patrick Fabian also showed some real range as Cotton, the preacher caught in between his fictional religious beliefs and the seemingly real demon possession standing in front of him. I actually wanted to see more of his struggle between what he believed and the stories he relegated to nothing but hocus-pocus from his dad’s old books. There was a really nice world created here, but in the end it faded into a ridiculous genre pic that leaves viewers wondering if they paid too much.

The End of the Page Recommendation: The Last Exorcism had potential, but they failed to scare up anything in the end.

For every dangerous animal out there, a bigger one exists.

It’s nearing that time of year again when all the news networks, and partisan sounding boards, break out their horn choirs and play that familiar ‘Decision’ music. It’s meant to inspire, it’s meant to encourage, and it’s meant to fill our hearts with the desire to take part in the core meaning of our democracy. Instead, what it reflects now is the onslaught of fear-mongering and fact distortion in the most heinous of manners. One side is struggling to buck historical trend and not lose too many seats, while the other is struggling to hold on to any semblance of its previous character, having sacrificed themselves at the altar of public reactionaries. Both sides smell blood in the water, but they ignore that too much blood makes the water impossible to drink and it cannot nourish the nation.

Issues are now distorted instead of debated and the public is suffering at the hands and wills of those we are brought up to trust, our elected leaders. One step down from them is the ‘pure’ news outlets, who are finding themselves a lonely species in the world, ousted by a new hybrid, the news/partisan echo chamber. Crawling out of the political ooze, this fledgling evolution of money, power and influence is now wielding its might like a toddler with a baseball bat, unaware of the dangerous power to damage and destroy.

Every story now is another opportunity for the extremists on both sides to gin up more rage and anger, but most boil down to absolutely nothing when dragged into the bright light of the day. These political assassins are becoming masters of the newly coined, ‘non-troversy’, and these hack job stories are currently dominating the country’s dialogue, which is now on the verge of descending into nothing more than hastily scribbled placards and photoshopped racist images of their enemies.

At the top of the non-troversy totem pole right now is the “Ground Zero Mosque” debate. While I can completely understand that it is a sensitive issue and there is still much grief and sorrow floating in the air in Manhattan and around the country, here are a few key facts that are very rarely mentioned in the so-called ‘news reports’:

- The proposed mosque is not just a mosque, it is a cultural center that includes a mosque, as well as a pool and a community center for people of all religions.

- The location, while close, is not actually at Ground Zero. It is two blocks away, completely blocked by many other buildings from the now hallowed ground. So far only the Associated Press has directed all their employees to discontinue any usage of the term “Ground Zero Mosque” because it is intentionally misleading.

- If this cultural center is such a horrific idea and flies in the face of our freedoms and what we suffered nine years ago, what about the other mosque two more blocks beyond? When was the last time you heard in a news report just how many mosques there are already in that small area, not to mention New York as a whole? Hundreds.

- Some have tried to label the proposed cultural center as a ‘terrorist headquarters’ in the heart of New York, but do they recognize that there is a mosque right now located inside the Pentagon? Why not rally and protest that one? Seems like an incredibly dangerous location, don’t you think?

- While the opponents of the cultural center are claiming they can follow the money back to radical Islamic terrorists, they are trying to conveniently avoid showing how the money actually leads back to the second largest shareholder in Fox News and other religious leaders previous hailed on their very network as “moderate Muslims” and as shining examples of the peaceful and proper worship of Islam.

Those are only a few of the facts that might shift the debate were they to be boldly and loudly preached through the airwaves. Almost all the major news networks are to blame for taking the pill and getting on the ride for the sake of generating viewership over reporting on the facts. The direct and immediate danger of this is we are watching our country, which was once so wonderfully hailed as a place of religious freedoms and individual liberties, devolve into a religious monarchy, where only one religion rules the masses and the preacher’s pulpit will become the new oval office. We are already seeing the effects of the disease being spread. As I mentioned before, the location of the proposed cultural center in New York can easily draw up some raw emotion, but what about Murfreesboro, TN or Sheboygan, WI? Are those also too close to Ground Zero? We are creating an invisible line in the sand that is pushing any worship of Islam, or anything outside the Judeo/Christian norm, out into the oceans on either side of the country.

Yet there may be a flickering light at the end of this tunnel. The opponents of ‘the other’ are beginning to overplay their hand. They are losing supporters in the very base they are trying to rally. The violence is beginning to lash out in unavoidable ways, causing even the most staunch supporters to lower their hands. From the cab driver who was recently stabbed after being asked “are you a Muslim?” to the Ground Zero worker who was harassed at a protest rally just because he looked Muslim. Even Ron Paul, the un-official leader of the libertarian conservatives, has come out against this baseless fear-mongering:

It is repeatedly said that 64% of the people, after listening to the political demagogues, don’t want the mosque to be built. What would we do if 75% of the people insist that no more Catholic churches be built in New York City? The point being is that majorities can become oppressors of minority rights as well as individual dictators. Statistics of support is irrelevant when it comes to the purpose of government in a free society—protecting liberty.

We have reached the breakwater and it is time to turn this ship home. So next time you think about screaming about protecting your country from the dangers of Islam or blurring the lines in our Constitution referring to the “separation of church and state” and “freedom of religion”, it might be time to sit down, take a deep breath and look around at where that path will lead you.

Oh, maybe turn off Fox News as well.

What are your thoughts? What stories do you feel are meaningful or being blow out of proportion for political gain?

Rating: 10 out of 10

Could it really be possible? Could one movie company really release two movies in under two months deserving of my greatest accolade: a perfect score? I don’t give them out easily, many times feeling at least one little thing was out of place or lacking in the overall composition of the film, but almost in back-to-back form Universal Studios has made their mark on the summer with the release of one of the most anticipated comic book adaptations of the summer (at least by a small group of fanboys and fangirls).

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World brings to life the tale of an adorably square hipster/bass player named Scott Pilgrim. While trying to mend his broken heart and shake his unwelcomed status of ‘dump-ee’, he dreams about a punk-chic on roller blades and his world trips down the rabbit hole when he finds that the dream girl is real. Compelled to court her, he discovers that to win her companionship he must defeat in battle her seven evil Ex’s, each still equally enchanted and desperate for the love of this oddly endearing young girl.

While so many things came together in perfect harmony here, for the first time in a long while, first credit and top billing for the success needs to go to the man on top of the totem pole, director Edgar Wright. Erupting from the mind that brought us Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (plus the equally amazing, but woefully less well-known, Spaced), Scott Pilgrim displays the same skill and amazing amounts of research into the genre, which helped transform his earlier efforts into trophy case pieces of what makes a great film. So many tiny moments, pixelated pop-ups and even audio reminders of the original Nintendo generation helped shape the universe of Pilgrim into one we not only believed in, but recognized from our youth. The tone, the atmosphere, even the overly romanticized quest, it all hearkens back to the roots of comic book caricature mixed with action hero devotion. Without diving into too much more detail and turning this into a novella of wonderment about Wright and his talents, I will just say that as the captain of this ship, he steered brilliantly and I would very much like to see him awarded for it, even if that seems unlikely (although with a 10 movie Best Picture category, it’s not impossible).

Moving on to those lucky souls who got to inhabit these wonderful characters, it is a pantheon of young Hollywood elite who earn each and every second of their on-screen glory. Michael Cera, once dangerously on the verge of over-exposure and being perennially typecast, has surged back with his touchingly awkward, yet awesomely heroic rendition of the lead, Scott Pilgrim. This time Cera really feels like he is fully in touch with his capabilities and embraces the geek charm which many were beginning to feel was holding him back and turning him into a cultural antique before its time. What was also great is no one would really find a fight scene with Michael Cera truly believable in a normal world, but the world of Scott Pilgrim is legions away from normal. Blending comic book candor, anime stylings and 8-bit video game action gave Cera a universe he could truly become the nerd warrior of our fantasies. As the woman of his quirky and vivid dreams, Mary Elizabeth Winstead delights as Ramona Flowers, creating one of those tragically cute girls all men want to win and make happy for the rest of their days. She also tiptoes down that tightrope between confidence and cowardice, showing humanity in its most simple and pure form. Peppering the outskirts of this incredibly creative world, much can be said about the co-stars and side characters. Amazing on all counts, they helped firm up the reality of the world by embracing their individual quirks and all playing in that same wonderful tone. A special mention needs to go out to Kieran Culkin, who played Pilgrim’s sexually voracious gay roommate. His darkly comic timing and constant calling of ‘bullsh*t’ to the rest of the characters helped keep the story from spiraling off into a cartoonish purgatory.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Anyone who owned the original Nintendo should love this film. This is made specifically for you. As for the rest of the world, there is heart and humor to be had, but it might get lost on you behind the screen of random quick edits and constant cultural in-jokes. It has not gotten its due in the box office, but I guarantee this will become a cult classic on the DVD market. I’m already dusting off a space on my shelf for it.

Rating: 8 out of 10

3D has become the banner of a film industry looking for anything to spark the box office back to its previous high water mark, but many films use it only for the monetary bump, not to enhance the viewing experience. A few rare choices in the last year have actually made the extra dimension worthwhile, like Avatar, Despicable Me and How To Train Your Dragon, with an honorable mention to the short film in front of Toy Story 3. Even going back to the beginning of the recent 3D craze there was My Bloody Valentine, which truly catered to the technology in the way it was originally intended. So, it was with a true touch of skepticism that I entered the theater, high-tech, battery powered 3D glasses strapped to my head and waited to see what the world of hip-hop and dance could do with their extra dimension.

Step Up 3D has very little to do with the previous two films in the franchise. Moose, the lone holdover from Step Up 2 The Streets, has traveled to N.Y.U. to fulfill his parents dream by getting an engineering degree and leaving all that silly dance stuff far behind. He finds that extremely difficult since on his orientation tour he accidentally enters himself into a dance battle and wins, making himself enemy number one on the hip-hop hitlist of a local dance crew known as The Samurai. Luke, the lead hero of the movie, takes Moose under his wing and initiates him into his own crew, The Pirates, as they attempt to win the upcoming World Jam and earn enough cash prizes to buy the building where they all live and train.

Some people might wonder how I could rate a dance movie so high, only one down the totem pole from Inception, which some would think of as a travesty even being mentioned in the same long, run-on sentence, but my ratings are based on what type of movie it is and if it fulfilled its main objective. Dance films have one driving force – to showcase dancers and their incredible talents. If they can pull together a coherent story and make an audience feel something beyond the rhythm in their seats, then they have moved beyond the grade of a common genre flick. Step Up 3D definitely showcased the dancers, and by default the incredible choreography, by really paying attention to the movement of the camera during the various dance sequences. There is nothing more that I despise than quick, unmotivated MTV-style cuts during dance sequences, fight scenes, highly technical action sequences and the like. All you end up seeing is a lot of limbs flying in front of camera with no context or character. Here, they locked the camera center stage numerous times and only moved back to open up the frame even more, truly featuring the talent on display.

Also, the 3D element did not feel like a last minute add-on for a couple bucks per ticket increase. There were very specific moments in the film where the dancers popped out from the screen and it enhanced the experience of watching their highly technical moves. Even in the non-pop-out moments, the extra depth into the screen really provided a sense of place and character to the dance sequences that I feel would have been lacking otherwise.

As for the acting, where most people don’t expect much, I was shocked by the power and passion displayed by one of the films co-stars, our one man connection to the previous film, Moose, aka Adam G. Sevani. Born into a musical family and dancing since he was a wee toddler, Sevani filled his moments with heart and passion where many others just filled the frame. He stole each and every scene with a touching sense of honesty and a purity towards dance which poured out of the screen. His plotline was technically the ‘B’ story, but he yanked it out of the background and made the entire movie revolve around him. The saddest part of the film ending is wondering whether Sevani will actually keep working on acting, along with his amazing dance skills. Dance as a part of our culture is becoming bigger and bigger every year, with help from numerous TV hits like Dancing With The Stars and So You Think You Can Dance (the latter featuring Adam Shankman as a permanent judge, who also helped produce Step Up 3D). You never know whether another Step Up could be in the future, but if it does find its way onto the big screen, they better bring back Sevani or they can count on my rating being much, much lower.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Best all-around film of the franchise so far, but if you don’t like dance flicks, this will not put the spring in your step.

Thoughts? How’s it compare to other dance flicks?

Rating: 6 out of 10

Right off the bat, I want to publicly denounce anyone heard using the joke, “So the sequel to this will be called Pepper, right?” or anything that resembles it. Those people should be terribly, terribly ashamed of themselves.

Thank you. Now I will move from that soapbox to my other soapbox.

Salt follows the dramatic chase, catch and escape of an American CIA agent named Evelyn Salt. A Russian defector gives up secret information which claims Salt is a deep undercover mole, thereby sending her into a cat-and-mouse game played throughout the halls and caverns of American secret agencies. She is forced to cleverly evade and attack her enemies, her friends, even her former boss in an effort to prove who and what she really is.

Salt blasts into action incredibly quickly, which works well for its rather small 100-minute time frame, but in their efforts to hit the ground running, they left out one incredibly important portion of the common hero/anti-hero story – we – the audience, need to care. Angelina Jolie brings the razor’s edge to her intensity and the constant use of her powerful stare, but she gets precious little time to try and makes us feel anything for her character. There are tiny flashbacks here and there to expose a loving relationship between her and her husband, who is kidnapped early in the film, but it never quite rings true and feels like it was dropped in only by necessity. As I noted in the title, there are glaring and obvious comparisons between this film and the Bourne franchise, but Matt Damon was given great opportunities to bring the audience into Jason Bourne’s dilemma and struggle through it with him. Also, the romantic aspect to that original movie was one we got to witness growing on screen, unlike the momentary recalls in Salt, which failed to generate any flutters of the heart.

Yet, for what Salt lacked in the emotions department, they valiantly tried to make up for in the action arena. Jolie gets chased through nearly every type of structure known to man (sewers, church bunkers, packed highways, etc…) and shows herself to be quite the athlete when it comes to jumping off of nearly every set piece in the film, moving and stationary. Brief glimpses of déjà vu attacked me through the screening as I recognized the same Jolie we all rallied around in her Tomb Raider days. There were also a couple Matrix-ish moments of her using the now popular “jump-push off the wall punch-kick” maneuver, which made me wonder what it would have been like if Jolie had donned the black pleather jumpsuit of Trinity (after a few moments I realized she probably would have overwhelmed any scene she was in, so Carrie-Anne Moss was indeed the better choice). There was an attempt to bring a little more weight and depth to the film by using continuously solid actors like Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor, but while Liev gets a bit more meat packed into his role, Chiwetel ends up very much on the short end of the stick, saddled with one of the only story-changing arcs in the story, but absolutely no time to bring it to a full and believable fruition.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Salt delivers high-paced action, but fails to combine it with real meaning.

What did you think? Does it end up on your list of ‘Top Female Action Flicks’?

Rating: 9 out of 10

Everyone fears the sophomore curse, when you break out of the gate in any type of popular media with something so unique, so gripping and so monumentally accepted by the ravenous public that you set the bar high into the stratosphere, making it impossible for your second creative effort to even bask in the reflection of that initial glory. It frightens each and every person stepping out of the shadows and into the spotlight, but there is a misconception lingering making people feel safe after they are past their second credit. The cold, hard fact is each and every time you release something out to the public it is another audition to the world. If your newest effort becomes known as the best of your career, congratulations my friend, welcome back to the curse. It’s been right here waiting for you. Christopher Nolan felt the sting of the curse after his breakout indie darling, Memento, which he followed with a poorly timed remake of the chilly psychological thriller, Insomnia. Yet Nolan fought onward and grabbed hold of the frayed cape of the Batman franchise and resurfaced with a much more dark and gritty take on the legendary crusader in Batman Begins. This inevitably led to his crowning achievement in the comic book sequel, The Dark Knight, where the world witnessed the true beauty of a director and actor, in Heath Ledger, creating something that will be remembered and talked about for generations. As the accolades for The Dark Knight poured in, Nolan found himself right back in the lap of the curse, plotting his escape, scanning the horizons for a safe way out. Turns out, he found his escape not by looking outside, but by turning in.

Inception is the name given to a procedure where a person with incredibly specific skills and equipment can enter someone else’s dreams and gently plant the seed of an idea, which would then flourish and grow in that person naturally, culminating in the subject doing exactly what you wanted them to. Most believe it can’t be done, but one man, Cobb, says it is not just possible, but he’s done it before. Hired for one last job, Cobb builds a team of people to help him complete his mission and try to win his ticket home to his children.

The out and out winner here is the writing. While the directing and acting, which will be mentioned later, are both up to par, the writing of such an intricate, delicate and verbose script is an achievement worth high recognition. People are already talking Oscar race for this film, and while I might be on the fence right now in the Best Picture category (we still have quite a few months to go people), in the arena of Best Original Screenplay, this should be a shoe-in. Nolan is truly at his best when dealing with fragmented and fractured realities, achieving a tender balance between intrigue and confusion that makes the audience think, but not feel stupid if they all come up with different answers at the end. As for the ending, I’ll leave that for later, loudly hidden behind the spoiler warnings.

Moving onto the acting, Leonardo DiCaprio, who played our anti-hero Cobb, once again brims with sheer determination and builds layer upon layer into the role. The only fraction of a flaw in his performance in my eyes is it bordered on being too controlled. At times there felt perfect opportunities to let him fly off the handle or just peel back one more layer, showing his humanity, but the importance of the job and the need for sharp and complete focus kept him tightly wrapped up. Tom Hardy, playing Eames, the wise-cracking master thief of the group, steals many of the scenes not only due to his skill as an actor, but because he provides the only comic relief in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as Aurthur, brings back a little bit of his steam-train determination and tunnel-vision drive that he perfected in Brick. Overall all the performances were on point, but in the minority there were two people that I felt were under used and under developed, Michael Caine and Ellen Page. Caine is a tremendous actor that felt totally wasted in a partially unexplained cameo part (he’s mentioned as the grandfather to Cobb’s children, but it is never illustrated whether he is Cobb’s father or his stepfather.) As for Page, while they try with one line of dialogue to cover over her rapid acceptance of the world of dreams and being able to control them, she still ends up feeling rushed into the story more as a person to move the plot than a full fledged character.

***SPOLIER ALERT – SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE FILM***

Now let’s talk about that ending. While I really do enjoy a nice ‘leave ‘em hanging’ closer, I think people are reading way too much into it. Yes, the top was still spinning, and yes the idea was to make you wonder if Cobb is still in a dream at the end of the film, but the theory that the entire movie was all a dream inside Cobb’s mind, showing his own journey to release himself of the guilt of pushing his wife to suicide, well, that just doesn’t sit right with me. The ‘whole dream’ theory robs the movie of all its importance and power and steals all the thunder from the other characters. I prefer to believe the top would have fallen in time; it was just really well balanced.

The End of the Page Recommendation: Nolan is on a hot streak that could see him crowned as one of the greatest directors in our generation, but let’s not pressure him too much, right? Inception is clever, intriguing and everything you want in a psychological drama, even if it draws a little long at the end. Worth seeing, if only for the ensuing discussion you will have immediately after.

What did you think of the ending? Does this top ‘Dark Knight’ for you?

Rating: 7 out of 10

Summertime is a wonderful season for hiding from the baking, burning heat inside a cool, dark theater and being transported to endless imaginative worlds. Sometimes these worlds can be overwhelmingly complex and force you to think deeply about everything going on, and those create a very particular kind of enjoyment, but the season of the sun seems to lean more towards movies that allow you to put your brain on cruise control, sit back, sip your Coke and try not to smile. This recent cinematic offering is definitely one of those.

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice follows the story of a young man, Dave, who finds out at too young an age that he is chosen by destiny to become an all-powerful sorcerer for the side of good in a millennia-long battle for the safety of the world. His mentor, Balthazar, does his best to prepare him for the upcoming battles, while also keeping Dave’s focus off the one thing impossible to resist, love.

This popcorn presentation is brought to us from the minds at Disney who seem hell-bent on plunging the depths of the Mouse House catalog for anything and everything that could be transformed into a full-length feature film. The title of the film is taken from the famous scene in Fantasia where Mickey Mouse enchants all the mops, brooms and assorted cleaning products to do his chores for him. That moment is directly lifted up and dropped into this live-action semi-adaptation, and actually fits surprisingly well, but the rest of the story is completely fresh, at least where previous Disney stories are concerned. I can’t blame Disney for their addiction to recycling, it certainly worked well with their multi-million dollar Pirates franchise, but I don’t see this one landing as well with audiences and certainly very little in terms of continuing sequels.

Now, before I get into where the movie takes its many missteps, let me engage you on why I still gave it a fairly high ranking. Jay Baruchel is truly riding the roller-coaster of success right now and while some may complain that he is typecast and plays virtually the same person in each film, the same can be said of Steve Carell and many others. If they play the part well, let them play on. Baruchel epitomizes the adorably awkward geek who never sees himself as cool as the people around him do. The rest of the story notwithstanding, it is always enjoyable for me to watch characters like these grow and step into their confidence and full potential. It’s a classic and well-used storyline for sure, but that’s because people respond to it consistently. He holds the heart of the film tenderly in his charmingly goofy expressions and timing. On the other hand, Nicholas Cage delivers what we’ve come to expect from him, a quirky, oddity of a person, yet performed with the commitment and dedication that can almost only come from someone equally quirky and odd in real life. Cage has made a long and prolific career from taking roles almost no one saw as playable and inserting a real person where only a caricature was found before. That being said, if you weren’t a fan of him before, he doesn’t add anything here that will sweep you to the other side.

With the good stuff resting comfortably above, here are some of the downsides to this spellbound selection. Numerous plot holes are completely ignored as the movie races to keep up with a fairly energetic pace. This actually pales in comparison to the story points and moments of character development that could’ve been easily achieved if the writing was just that much tighter. In scene after scene I felt there were set-ups that were not paid off and you just feel the air slip out of scenes that had real potential. The ending makes painfully little sense when weighed against all the information given throughout the film and you once again feel things really needed to play out a different way to achieve full redemption. I’m not going to say the version playing out in my head would’ve worked better, you never really know, but it certainly made more sense to me.

The End of the Page Recommendation: If you are a real fan of either of the two main cast members, this should give you a smile somewhere along the way, but keep some change in your pocket and catch the matinee (or even wait until DVD).

What did you think? Feel any comparison’s to National Treasure? Where does it rank on you Cage scale?

Rating: 10 out of 10

Pixar has been wearing the sash of “Best in Show” for animation lovers out there since their inception, but Universal, considered by many to be the long-standing underdog in nearly every market, has proven they are on the rebound from earlier disappointments. Sometimes that’s the nice thing about being the dark horse, no one sees you riding up in everyone else’s shadows.

Despicable Me is the tale of a once super-villain named Gru (voiced by NBC Universal go-to-guy, Steve Carell), who has slid down in the ranks of evil over the past few years and is looked upon as a novelty by other villains, his evil banking investors and even his own mother. But that was before he rounded up his assets: a hearing-endangered mad scientist, an army of painfully adorable yellow creatures known as ‘minions’ and three young girls swept out of the local orphanage, all in a dastardly attempt to pull off the greatest heist in history, stealing the moon! Pitfalls and successes abound as Gru struggles against his decision to be the world’s greatest villain or to strive for something he never saw coming.

If there is one key to a successful animated film, it is making one or more of the side characters the most adorable, hilarious, or possibly both, creature or person you could possibly imagine. Aladdin had Genie, Finding Nemo had Dory, Wall-E had Eve (or basically any character in that movie), and here Universal has learned that formula well and created the minions. These yellow oddly pill-shaped creatures that speak in a language uniquely their own provide laughter pretty much every time they grace the screen. I have little doubt that the merchandising for them will be a great bonus for the company and I would be on the look-out for straight-to-DVD spin-offs or short films based solely around these mini-misfits.  Although you could only assume what they were talking about most of the time, this once again proved that real well written comedy has a language all its own.

Beyond the hilarious ovals of sunshine, Despicable Me stands up tall with a really tight script that is well paced and well balanced. Supremely funny moments are shared with more heartwarming beats and consistent plot and story. The main character of Gru was almost assuredly tailored for Steve Carell after he signed onto the project because in certain moments you could feel his TV alter-ego Michael Scott from The Office poking through. Normally that might be a tad unsettling and distracting, but the humor worked and Carell delivered, reminding us why he is one of the most sought after comedians on the market right now. The rest of the voice cast, including more big names familiar to the NBC Universal line-up like Russell Brand, Jason Segel, Kristen Wiig, Mindy Kaling and Jack McBrayer also lent their incredible timing and humorous natures to help make this movie the surprise hit of the year.

I also should mention I did pay the extra few bucks to see this in 3D since I had a feeling that was intended from the beginning and not retrofit into it after the fact, and I was correct. This is the only film I have seen since Avatar that actually had a real use for and benefited from the new 3D fad. I know we are due for more and more 3D films in the coming years, but hopefully they will learn that the decision to add another dimension to the film only works when you make it up front for creative reasons and not after the movie is finished for purely financial ones.

The End of the Page Recommendation: It’s a 10 out of 10 people. See it!

Already seen it? What did you think? How does it rank in your list of favorite animated films?

Rating: 7 out of 10

There are a few authors in the world that cause me to make a goal of reading everything they put to paper, or whatever medium they choose. Stephen King, Mark Danielewski and Dave Eggers are some of the top of my list, but included with them is a man who seemingly strives to be known as one of the most twisted and demented minds in the contemporary literary canon, Chuck Palahniuk. His written success was already on the path to fame and infamy, but the spotlight firmly became implanted on his typewriter after the release of the film version of one of his most famous stories, Fight Club. People began diving head first into his sordid tales of depravity, violence and regression of human tendencies to their most primal and animalistic. Palahniuk has mastered a way of detailing believably the worst choices people make every day and their sometimes grotesque ramifications. So, with a slightly nervous and queasy stomach, I took his newest tome off the shelf at my local bookstore and came home to test my nerves on Tell-All.

Tell-All is the story of a classic beauty from the golden age of Hollywood named Katherine Kenton and her relationships with her fans, her lovers and most importantly with her personal assistant, Hazie Coogan. Katherine and Hazie have been together since nearly the beginning of Katherine’s lunar career and Hazie has been the glue that held it all together, the captain that steered the glittering jewel in the tumultuous seas of Hollywood and the artist who used Katherine to not only create a star, but a mold a living legend. Now, a new young buck has slithered into Katherine’s life and Hazie must once again pick up the invisible shield and defend her creation from anyone or anything that would seek to tear her down off her pedestal.

The first thing I should warn returning Palahniuk readers of is this: this is not Fight Club, nor is this Haunted (which personally I don’t think will ever be topped for sheer shock and awe value), this new fable is more along the lines of Rant and Invisible Monsters (another highly underrated book). The violence is quiet here, a slow boil, and things aren’t always what they seem. Yet the twist of the story does reveal itself a tad too early for my tastes. In some cases, like many Hitchcock films, the twist was known to the audience from the beginning and the fun was watching the players stumble around it unknowingly, but here it happens to act more as a weight dragging down the tempo of the story.

What doesn’t falter is Palahniuk’s deviant ability to reach inside the characters and bring out their most wicked and base needs. Even though many, if not all, of the inhabitants of Tell-All and his other stories are deeply flawed people, he peels them down layer by layer with an almost meditative quality rendering each and every one recognizably human in the end. Hazie reflects that person in us all, the one who always stood by while their friend or family member soaked up the spotlight, in some cases, even the sun itself. Being forever relegated to the sidelines can darken a person, gray out their normally bright demeanor and inevitably tip their moral compass due south. Yet the choice is always there, as it is with Hazie, whether to protect the prize by keeping it away from all personal harm or protecting the image of the prize by destroying it before it is tarnished by time and heartfelt folly.

Palahniuk also continues to perfect his personal style of over-detailing brand names and creating a nearly encyclopedic rhythm to his prose with his incredibly verbose and seemingly heavily-sponsored descriptions. No one just wears earrings in this book, they wear Cartier chandelier earrings. He improves on this literary fingerprint in Tell-All by adding an excessive amount on name dropping, rolling out star after star of the silver screen (mainly from the time when the screens were still made of actual silver). For people who don’t know classic Hollywood legends, it can feel a touch redundant and meaningless, but there is a reason behind the madness and you can always rely on the fact that his research of whatever topic has brought him the very tidbit of information you just glossed over.

The End of the Page Recommendation: While this is not close to my favorite of his career, Tell-All certainly fills a stomach momentarily void of sordid stories. Yet, as always with writers like him, I found myself thinking on the last page, “What could he possibly come up with next to shock me?” I have no doubt he will find a way to answer that question, post haste.

Did you read ‘Tell-All’ yet? What did you think? Better or Worse for Palahniuk?

Cheers and tears dominated sports bars all over the country last night as the self-proclaimed ‘king’ of basketball made known his long awaited decision of where he would be playing next year. If the NBA was a calm and still pond, LeBron James and his free agent move this summer is the softball-sized rock thrown gloriously into the middle. In fact, maybe it wasn’t thrown, it was shot out of a cannon with fireworks and a five-piece trumpet band.

The fanfare and attention given to this one player and his choice of new uniform is unlike anything we have seen in modern sports history, possibly of all time. Some will argue it was too much, while some might argue it is well deserved, but for me, I honestly don’t care if he needed to take out an hour on ESPN live to announce his decision. What I liked was all the money that came in for advertising during that hour went straight to the Boys & Girls Club where he held the intimate press conference. Love him or hate him, that was a stand up move.

Speaking of those who hate him, none seem to be more vocal about it right now than the depressed and dejected owner of the Cavaliers team, Dan Gilbert. I get it, really I do, your superstar franchise player just walked away from his hometown and home team, where he built his NBA career over the last seven years. He walked away to a team in South Beach, Miami where he will join with two of the other modern day basketball legends and form a dominant trio that many seem to think will automatically destroy the Eastern Conference, if not the NBA as a whole (I’m sure Kobe and Pau have a few things to say about that). James leaving knocks the Cavaliers down quite a few pegs in the predictions and will drain the already economically depressed area of much-needed tourism and marketing dollars, but all I can really say there is, “Cleveland, you had your chance.” Dan Gilbert doesn’t really see it that way.

The despondent owner unleashed a verbal tirade in an open letter to Cleveland and their fans, which detailed a literary temper tantrum the likes of which John McEnroe would be proud. I won’t write out the whole letter here, but for those who have not witnessed its furious glory, you can find it here. Yet, here are a couple of my favorite choice moments:

- “I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE” [all caps was actually his choice, not added by me]

- Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there. Sorry, but that’s simply not how it works.

I predict Mr. Gilbert will be eating these words in short time, but the first chosen quote will take at least a whole year to come back to haunt him. David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, went on a tyrannical bend a few years back trying to clean up the sport and wipe out the violence and aggression from the players, but he clearly didn’t think to check into the attitudes and expletives of the owners. Mr. Gilbert should have taken the high road, thanked James for giving so much to his team and to his town. He should also have understood that after seven years and not one single championship ring, James had every right as a player to seek that illustrious fortune somewhere else.

Will Miami follow on the heels of the Celtics methodology, building a powerhouse trio and hoping some of the young blood pulled in at base salary can fill in the gaps? It certainly worked for Boston. Or could James have stayed in Cleveland and let the team continue to try and build around him until the perfect fit came to fruition? That certainly worked for the Los Angeles Lakers when Kobe was threatening to bail. No one really knows until we see the logos emblazoned on the jerseys next year as the confetti rains down from the rafters. Yet, whichever way it works out, the only thing truly lost here is the dignity of Mr. Gilbert and the Cavaliers organization.

What did you think of the letter? Was Gilbert justified in his reaction? Was James justified in his hype?