There was an unusual rise of Christian based television shows in the mid to late eighties, and my absolute favorite as a child was “Highway to Heaven.” I already was a huge fan of Michael Landon in “Little House on a Prairie,” so as a young boy I tuned right in to see Landon team up with old co-star Victor French in what was one of the best hours of television during my youth. Even as an atheist, “Highway to Heaven” can be appreciated for being an interesting and entertaining drama as Landon plays the enigmatic Jonathan Smith.
Tag Archives: Road Trip
The Battery (2012)
I wish more zombie movies could be like Jeremy Gardner’s “The Battery.” The problem with most modern zombie films is that the writers forget that the humans should be the centerpiece of the film, and not the zombies. Director Jeremy Gardner’s “The Battery” is the prime example of how to handle this kind of genre entertainment with a low budget. Rather than flood the screen with zombies, the monsters are used sparingly and for great moments of terror and memorable scenes, while Gardner focuses primarily on character, building two complex and unique people we can love and hate, in many ways.
Hick (2011)
If anything, “Hick” certainly is a movie. And it’s an adaptation of a book, so it’s a special kind of a movie. It has a beginning, a pretty good soundtrack, and some end credits. And our director pretty much loves to feature prepubescent actress Chloe Moretz barely naked for much of the film. But that’s okay, because her character Lulli is so lovable spending so much time drawing pictures, talking to herself, and acting out her favorite movies that we can forgive the fact that she walks around her house in frilly panties and a tank top, even when men she’s never met visit for the first time. Is she just naive or is she trying to seduce men? I never quite figured it out and neither did the writer, apparently.
Lulli is supposed to be this lovable little nymph who spends most of her days in her fantasy world, narrating her life story to herself (?) and then trying to figure out why her life sucks so much. She has her thirteenth birthday party in a bar where her parents get drunk and try to fight over her. She’s given a gun by her uncle and spends most of her time playing with it and imitating “Taxi Driver” in front of a mirror. Her parents let her keep the gun. Because they’re hicks. Get it? As for Lulli she goes on a coming of age journey that will change her life. Or alter it. In fact, let’s just be honest here. She learns nothing by the time the film ends. The basic bullet point of the movie is that Lulli ventures out to go to Las Vegas, meets an assortment of demented and violent characters along the way, figures out the world is one big scary place, and decides that maybe living life with two drunk dysfunctional parents using her in their ever lasting bitter battle isn’t so bad.
Hell in reality, Lulli would opt to swallow her gun. Or at least enter in to child services. But no, she goes home because, there’s no place like a broken home. The screenwriters can never seem to make up their minds about our protagonist Lulli. Sometimes she seems street smart, and then she seems too stupid to travel outside her door, let alone Las Vegas. Is she a Lolita or is she just naive? Does she know how good looking she is, or is she oblivious because her mom soaks up the attention from men? Is she more street smart than the audience is aware of or is she just a misguided dunce living by what she’s seen in the movies? Is she a tease or just someone who hasn’t yet realized the effect she has on men? Who does she spend her time talking to during the opening of the movie? “Hick” never seems to know thus the movie is painfully confused nine times out of ten. For all intents and purposes, the cast is pretty damn great with Moretz more than able to hold up the movie on her charisma and acting ability.
The most interesting sub-plot though belongs to Eddie Redmayne’s character Eddie Kreezer, a disabled cowboy with a penchant for violent outbursts who is constantly kicked around in his life and chooses to look after Lulli when the pair form an uneasy bond. Much of “Hick” is confusing and downright distracting as the writer can never decide on a tone to keep audiences invested. The story varies from drama to comedy to road film, and spends an enormous amount of time on broken characters to help emphasize how broken the whole world is. By the time Lulli awakens strapped to a bed, you’ll wonder if it’s leading to anything remotely meaningful. “Hick” has clear potential to be a compelling adult coming of age drama, but in the end it’s just a notch above dismal. Even with the star power.
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Zombieland: The Series
“Zombieland” seeks to be the antidote for folks still clamoring for a zombie television series, but hate the drama and politics of “The Walking Dead.” Where as Robert Kirkman’s pop culture smash is more of an adult take, “Zombieland” takes all of the best road trip movies and adds some zombies for good measure. Folks claiming this is an attempt to market off of “The Walking Dead” are half right. Originally “Zombieland” was pitched to every studio as a weekly series, but when it was turned down left and right, it was transformed in to a horror comedy feature film that would hopefully transform in to a movie series. When Woody Harrelson pulled out of ever playing hero Tallahassee again while stars Emma Watson and Jessie Eisenberg’s careers took off, the hopes of having a “Zombieland” movie series collapses.
Take Me Home Tonight (2011)
“Take Me Home Tonight” operates on the basis that we still give a squat about the eighties and thanks to the financial failure that was this film in early 2011, it’s great to hear America isn’t budging in their resounding boredom with the decade. This was only further remedied by “MacGruber” and its eighties crapola that touted the same sentiment “Take Me Home Tonight” does. Director Michael Dowse’s film doesn’t so much want to be a coming of age film from the eighties so much as it wants to be an eighties film. It takes every chance to define itself as the decade love letter that it almost convinces itself that it’s a movie ripped from that decade.
The Hangover Part II (2011)
It’s nice the producers of “The Hangover 2” loved the original so much they gave us the same movie again except in Bangkok. Unoriginal sentiment? Yes, but “The Hangover 2” deserves it for being an unoriginal movie. Unusually dark and lacking in the adventurous tone the original possessed, “The Hangover 2” is essentially the same formula except switched and mismatched for the audience to believe they’re watching something new. Of course, I put myself in to the mindset of the writers and wondered where else they could have gone with the sequel. It’s called “The Hangover,” there was a first movie about a hangover, and now we’re back to the sequel which will deal with what exactly? A hangover, I presume.
Sleepwalking (2008)
Director William Maher’s drama is not so much a story about Anna Sophia Robb’s character nor is it particularly about Charlize Theron, but a story about Nick Stahl’s protagonist James. Beaten down by life to the point where he is perpetually inept and in a funk, James is a man who gets through life as much as possible by soaking in the bile life hands him with a casual shrug and enduring about as much from the people in his life as possible. He is so absolutely immune to personal pain and stress he is constantly mistaken as mentally disabled. He sadly has to deal with Joleen and Tara, his sister and niece, both of whom are consistently in the pits of life. Joleen is a reckless neglectful mom who relies on James too much to get her out of trouble while Tara is her petulant daughter forced to deal with her mom’s indiscretions. But when Joleen leaves one night, she never comes home and now James and Tara are left all alone.