The Mercury Men @ The Syfy Channel

By Jason Apuzzo. Last summer we posted about a then-forthcoming web series called The Mercury Men. The Mercury Men (see the trailer above) is a retro-, 1940s-style adventure serial about a lowly government office drone, who finds himself trapped when deadly alien visitors from the planet Mercury seize his office building and use it as a staging ground for a nefarious plot. Aided by a daring aerospace engineer from a mysterious organization known as “The League,” the office drone must stop the invaders and their doomsday device, the Gravity Engine.

The Mercury Men received a fair amount of buzz last year, including an appearance in Sci Fi Magazine (right next to a feature about Libertas Contributor Steve Greaves) and at Comic-Con. I lost track of The Mercury Men, though, until Libertas commenter Vince (to whom I tip my hat) notified me that the series had finally been completed and picked up by The SyFy Channel as a web program. The series is currently 7 episodes in (at about 7 minutes per episode), with 3 more to go – and all episodes will be available on-line at the Syfy Channel website by the end of this week.

Since we’ve been talking a lot here lately about both superheroes and alien invasion sci-fi, this seemed like a good moment to remind everyone about this series.

Dodging an attack by The Mercury Men.

It’s important to keep an eye on the indie/low-budget world, not just because there’s a lot of creativity in that arena – but because tomorrow’s big-time directors are regularly emerging from these humble projects. For example, Joe Cornish, whose debut feature Attack the Block we just reviewed last week, is already getting buzz as the possible next director for the Die Hard series. And Gareth Edwards, director of the low-budget indie sci-fi film Monsters (see our review here), has already been tapped to direct the Godzilla reboot.

As I mentioned previously, I love the creativity of what director Chris Preksta did with The Mercury Men to evoke the atmosphere of the old adventure serials, so many of which were based around a charismatic American hero (Superman, Batman, The Green Hornet, Captain America, etc.) fighting some sort of fascist invader. It’s also quite remarkable how far low-budget VFX have come in terms of their ability to fill out the otherwise constricted universe of indie filmmaking; it’s a classic case of technology freeing up storytellers’ imaginations. Beyond that, though, I like the pizzaz the filmmakers brought to this simple project, and its old-fashioned humanistic spirit – exemplified by the great speech given by ‘Dr. Tomorrow’ in the “Men of Tomorrow” episode.  And of course it’s also interesting, once again, to see the ‘invasion of America’ theme recurring, which we’re seeing everywhere these days.

So once again, best wishes to the team behind The Mercury Men, and I hope LFM readers take time to check out this fun little series.

Posted on August 2nd, 2011 at 5:45pm.

Maya Indie’s Without Men: Fantasies of a Latin American Feminist Utopia?

By Joe Bendel. In the sleepy Latin American village of Mariquita, the battle of the sexes is over. Essentially, the women have won by default. A win is still a win though. Indeed, it allows the new mayor to institute some radical changes in Gabriela Tagliavini’s Without Men (trailer here), which screens for a week in New York as part of the traveling Maya Indie Film Series.

One fateful day, a band of Marxist guerillas arrive to liberate Mariquita. This entails shooting the mayor and forcibly impressing the rest of the village’s males into their ranks. Only the horndog priest is left behind in this village of supermodels. Rosalba should be the most distraught, since it was her husband who was executed. However, he was an unfaithful dog of a man, so good riddance. As she was always the brains behind his administration, she wastes no time in assuming office. Unfortunately, the rest of the village is at loose ends.

The first half of Without Men is likely to cause apoplexy among any women vaguely identifying as feminists. Incapable of even changing a light bulb on their own, the women of Mariquita basically sit around pining for some sexual healing. Naturally, to offend the Catholics in the audience, Father Rafael cons them all into believing the Holy Spirit has called him to ensure procreation continues unabated. Yet, once they boot him out of town (for running out of mojo), they start building a feminist utopia. This all sounds like a good story to the gonzo reporter who supplies the film’s framing device.

About ten seconds of internet research will reveal Eva Longoria makes out with another woman in Without Men. In fact, lesbianism becomes a major theme of the film. Even the great Maria Conchita Alonso gets in on the act. Frankly, her presence alone makes one far more predisposed to like the film. A truth-teller who has criticized the oppressive Chavez regime in her native Venezuela and its Hollywood cheerleaders, the film’s anti-Communist prologue must have appealed to her. However, aside from the general helpings of naughtiness (but nothing explicit), Without Men is fairly insubstantial.

Eva Longoria in "Without Men."

In fact, Oscar Nuñez’s shtick as Father Rafael really is pretty offensive. Eva Longoria is game enough as the type-A Rosalba, but Kate del Castillo is rather pedestrian as her butchy new love interest. Frankly, they are both outshined by the dazzling Yvette Yates and Fernanda Romero, who have little to do except look hot, but they do that well. Christian Slater recycles his familiar slickster screen persona as the reporter likably enough, but Camryn Manheim is just embarrassing as his potty-mouthed boss.

Given all the teasing going on, the net result is certainly watchable. Tagliavini keeps everything bright and colorful, always showing her cast at the most flattering light. Ideologically, it is something of a mish-mash, which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. There just is not much to it though, aside from Longoria’s scenes of you-know-what. One of the weaker installments of the Maya Indie Series, Without Men screens at the Quad Cinema in New York, once a day for a week, 7/29 through 8/4.

Posted on August 1st, 2011 at 3:15pm.

LFM Review: Cowboys & Aliens

By Jason Apuzzo. Cowboys & Aliens is one of those movies that probably looked great on paper – like a development executive’s dream. Take a popular graphic novel that combines two of America’s most durable genres (the Western and sci-fi), cast Indiana Jones and the current James Bond, add the Iron Man director and current It-girl from Tron, plus Steven Spielberg and Ron Howard as producers – and you’ve got a sure-fire hit, right?

Right?

Alas, we all know that movies don’t work exactly that way. There’s actually something rather mysterious about what makes one film work – and a different film made by the same people, even on the same subject, fall flat. It’s a matter of what we usually call ‘chemistry’ or ‘inspiration.’

Cowboys & Aliens is not a bad film. It’s entertaining at times and works reasonably well as light summer entertainment – but it’s the cinematic equivalent of the ‘superteam’ Miami Heat, or the Lakers back when they had a roster that included Kobe, Shaq, Karl Malone and Gary Payton … and lost the title. It’s a film that doesn’t know what it wants to be, so it ends up being almost nothing. Unsatisfying as a Western, and clichéd as sci-fi – insufficient as a star vehicle, and thin as an action film – Cowboys & Aliens is a genre mash-up that never really settles on being any one thing, and left me bored and disinterested as a result.

Reluctant allies, covered in dust.

Although Cowboys boasts two big leads, it’s mostly carried by Daniel Craig as Jake Lonergan – a man who, as the film opens, awakens in the desert in Jason Bourne-like fashion, having lost his memory but not his ability to kick peoples’ teeth in. Although he fights like a UFC mixed martial artist and shoots like Wyatt Earp, Jake can’t remember who he is, or why he has a strangely cauterized wound on his side, or why a bizarre slab of metal is wrapped around his wrist – like some sort of Stone Age Casio watch.

This is where the film makes its first mistake, in the casting of Daniel Craig. It’s time we acknowledge what has become obvious: which is that Craig, for what limited ability he’s shown in playing James Bond – limited, that is, to fight scenes – has neither the charisma, nor the warmth, nor the subtlety of person to really make a compelling, big-time movie star. It’s simply not there. Daniel Craig looks and acts like a rugby player, or maybe a bouncer – the sort of person who isn’t called upon on a regular basis to show vulnerability, or a sense of humor. (Qualities, incidentally, that his co-star Harrison Ford has specialized in over the past 35 years.) Think back to what Bruce Willis or Mel Gibson were like in their prime  – and you’ll realize how dull Craig’s performances are these days. He’s Cowboys’ first and biggest problem.

Eventually Craig heads into the town of ‘Absolution’ (which is probably the sister city of ‘Obvious Metaphor’), one of those typical Western-movie towns in which everyone speaks in parables, and nobody seems to have bathed during the past year. (Was the West really like that? I doubt it.) After a series of brief fistfights and shoot-outs, none of which are especially electrifying, we learn that the town is basically run by cattle baron and former Confederate Army Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (get it? he sells cattle!), played by Harrison Ford at his most grizzled. Ford seems to be channelling John Wayne’s character Thom Dunson from Red River here, as in vengeful fits he rides roughshod over the local sheriff, his men, and most particularly his worthless son. And of everyone involved in this film – and that includes the director, and the film’s eight writers – Ford is the only one who seems at home in this material, like he’s been itching to cut loose in a Western for decades. He’s ornery and authoritative, but always with a cracked smile and a twinkle in his eye. He’s trail boss, father figure and old coot all in one – and he’s good. You’ll be wishing this wasn’t his first Western since the bizarre The Frisco Kid (with Gene Wilder?!) back in 1979. Continue reading LFM Review: Cowboys & Aliens

Invasion Brixton: LFM Reviews Attack the Block

By Joe Bendel. These kids from South London do not have much of a sense of wonder. That’s okay, though, because the aliens they stumble across are not exactly cuddly E.T.’s. A juvie street gang and a marauding pack of aliens take it to each other real good in writer-director John Cornish’s sci-fi invasion mash-up Attack the Block (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Council estates (a.k.a. the projects) are not a fun place to live. Just ask Sam. The over-worked, under-paid nurse is mugged by Moses and his cronies on her way home from work. Much to everyone’s surprise, a crash-landed alien distracts the delinquents, allowing her to give them the slip. After a few tussles with the critter, Moses draws first blood, but there are plenty more on the way from who knows where. Before long, the kids will need the services of a nurse, even if she did finger them to the coppers. It is a reluctant alliance, but screaming balls of alien teeth are a strong motivation.

Some parts of London aren't easy to invade.

As a mere fifteen year-old, Moses is the oldest amongst his mates. Though poised to become a junior drug dealer for High Hatz, the estate’s top dog, he still has limited access to weaponry. Fortunately, they have well developed survival instincts and killer attitude.  Some might see all this as an allegory for the inner city’s ever-repeating cycle of violence, but it is definitely game-on regardless.

Cornish has a great ear for dialogue (when Yankee audiences can discern it), keeping the super cool banter flying fast and furious. Frankly, Block has the sort of the knowing genre edge overly broad spoofs like Black Dynamite sorely lack. Yet the film works rather well as an invading horde movie in its own right, capitalizing on the specifics of the council estate environment, like the notoriously slow elevators and winding hallways, for some cleverly staged thrills.

Sam the nurse is also a refreshing surprise, showing some backbone rather than merely assuming the role of passive victim. Indeed, Jodie Whittaker clearly plays her smart rather than dumb, which helps keep viewers rooted in the story. The young cast also bounces off her rather well in their scenes together, particularly the intense John Boyega, who is Block’s real find as Moses. He convincingly portrays the young tough growing up and coming to terms with his life choices, which is almost as hard to do in character as it is for real.

Wisely, Block largely eschews explicit politics, trusting those inclined to find class-consciousness in the council estate setting will duly find it. What is on the celluloid is an energetic, consistently inventive space alien smack-down. Definitely recommended as a high-end summer roller coaster, Block opens today (7/29) in New York at the AMC Empire and Regal Union Square 14.

Posted on July 29th, 2011 at 9:20am.

Van Damme vs. Adkins: LFM Reviews Assassination Games

By Joe Bendel. In 2010, former Interpol President Jackie Selebi of South Africa was convicted on corruption charges. Two hired killers will learn there is considerably more illegal skullduggery going on at that international law enforcement agency in Ernie Barbarash’s Assassination Games, which opens this today in regions of the country that can get behind a straight forward action beat-down.

Assassins do not often forge friendly rivalries. Taciturn Vincent Brazil does not have friends, period. However, he finds himself working with the highly motivated Roland Flint to take out Eastern European mobster Polo Yakur. Brazil only wants to fulfill the million dollar contract Interpol secretly put on his head. Flint wants revenge for his wife Anna, who suffered severe brain damage at the hands of Yakur and his thugs.

It is not that simple though. Interpol released Yakur from prison to deliberately flush out Flint, their former contract killer of choice, who now knows too much. The international bureaucrats are even willing to team-up with the Euro Jabba the Hutt to take out their former man Flint. Further complicating matters, Brazil’s aborted first attempt claims the life of Yakur’s brother, leaving the gangster somewhat out of sorts. As a result, there will be a lot of double-crossing and revenge taking in AG.

At one point, Flint and Brazil engage in some absolutely brutal hand-to-hand combat, yet walk away unfazed as reluctant partners. Frankly, it is rather cool to see a film like this again. AG is much like the relatively ambitious action B-movies Van Damme made on his way up (who can resist Bloodsport when it pops up on cable?). In fact, Barbarash and cinematographer Phil Parmet give it a legitimately stylish look, nicely exploiting the faded grandeur of their Bucharest locations.

Playing to his strength, the Belgian Van Damme portrays Brazil with ice cold detachment up until the very end. Conversely, British martial arts star Scott Adkins seethes like a madman as Flint, often looking like he could fry an egg on his forehead. Indeed, it is rather a good pairing. For the hardcore fan, Adkins might have more street cred these days – but regardless, the two action stars certainly know how acquit themselves in a fight scene. (They are both rumored to be in the running for the prospective Expendables 2, as well.) Perhaps AG’s coolest turn though comes from Andrew French as Brazil’s suavely duplicitous business agent, Nalbandian. The film is also something of a family affair for Van Damme, with his daughter Bianca Van Varenberg in the thankless role of comatose Anna Flint and his son Kristopher Van Varenberg trying to kill the old man as one of the crooked Interpol henchmen.

If not revolutionary, AG is a super-slick retro-action blast. However, depicting an intergovernmental agency like Interpol in such villainous terms is somewhat bold. Even the upcoming UN peacekeeping drama The Whistleblower largely cops out, shifting its outrage to a fictional Blackwater-like security contractor in a feat of cinematic jujitsu. Of course, AG is really just about beating the snot out of bad guys, which Adkins and Van Damme do quite well. Recommended for nostalgic action movie viewers and Adkins’ fans, AG opens today (7/29) in Miami, Charlotte, the Mall of America, and cities across Texas.

Posted on July 29th, 2011 at 8:56am.

UPDATED: Mid-Summer Invasion Alert! Skies Falling on Cowboys, Battleships & Moscow + Ridley Scott Returns to Outer Space!

From "Cowboys & Aliens."

By Jason Apuzzo. • We’ve been through Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Super 8, Green Lantern and Falling Skies thus far this summer, and our next scheduled alien invasion comes this Friday in the form of Cowboys & Aliens. Although initially skeptical about this project, I’m now looking forward to it – largely because it looks to be more of a Western, truth be told, than a sci-fi project – and I’ve been eager to see Harrison Ford in a Western for decades. In a summer in which we’ve seen aliens demolish the downtowns of several major American cities  – usually in 3D – Cowboys & Aliens looks to offer a more modest type of spectacle, one that’s based on old-fashioned star power and earth-bound heroics rather than visual effects.

Does this mean I’m going to like Cowboys more than Transformers (easily my favorite film of the summer)? Not at all – in fact, I’d say that’s highly unlikely at this point. But I miss the Western genre – its style, values and vision of the American frontier and the people who conquered it – and if it takes an alien menace to re-animate the genre for younger audiences, I’m all for it.

This is all to say that Cowboys & Aliens is currently looking like a film that is only nominally attached to the sci-fi genre, and is leaning heavily on the romance of the Old West for its appeal – and, ironically, this is probably why the film currently isn’t tracking very well, or is at least tracking more like a Western than a major sci-fi tentpole. The film’s director, Jon Favreau, has been taking a decidedly old-school approach to promoting the film, sitting down recently for some very enjoyable conversations with Harrison Ford, and also with the film’s producers Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Favreau almost comes across like an associate professor in cinema studies during these conversations rather than a hot director with a major film to launch. I’m liking his low-key approach, though, and I hope the film turns out to be good. You’ll get my full report on that Friday!

In the meantime, take a moment to check out this major career retrospective on Cowboys & Aliens’ producer, Steven Spielberg, held at the DGA recently and featuring James Cameron and J.J. Abrams. It’s 90 minutes of Spielberg at his most engaging, talking about his career from its humble beginnings all the way to today.

• The Battleship trailer finally set sail this morning … and I loved it. Imagine a cross between Top Gun and Battle: Los Angeles, with Liam Neeson and Brooklyn Decker thrown in, and you’ve basically got the vibe of this film.

Some of the big guns on display in "Battleship."

Battleship stars Taylor Kitsch (who for obscure reasons has been tapped to carry both this film and Disney’s John Carter next year) as some kind of ‘rebellious’/Maverick-style hot shot Naval officer assigned to serve under Liam Neeson on board a battleship, while conveniently enough being engaged to Neeson’s daughter, Brooklyn Decker, who plays “a physical therapist.” I’ll bet! After a few glamor shots of Ms. Decker providing ‘physical therapy’ to her fiancé on a beach in Hawaii (is this covered under Obamacare?), we then get some beauty passes of Naval ships, etc., then head out to sea where some kind of massive alien flotilla has arrived. We get a pretty good look at the alien ships in this trailer, and the whole thing ends with Neeson ordering all guns to fire on the alien attackers.

The whole thing looks pretty entertaining, very much in the Michael Bay style – romanticizing the military lifestyle and its flashy hardware – and also like it may have something the otherwise commendable Battle: Los Angeles didn’t really have: humor. One thing I wasn’t crazy about, though: Taylor Kitsch looks completely dull in this trailer, as he does in the John Carter trailer (see below). The studios have really got to find some better young male leads these days. (I’m still stewing, btw, over how godawful Garrett Hedlund was in Tron: Legacy.) My suggestion? Outsource. Hire Brits and Aussies exclusively.

Footnote: if you look carefully, the film depicts Neeson leading what appears to be an international naval flotilla – led by America but with the Japanese featured prominently. I like that. I think it’s nice to remember who our actual allies are these days, as opposed to those who are simply our ‘trading partners.’ Hint, hint.

Battleship hits theaters in May of 2012, and I will be there. Here’s the trailer below.

Continue reading UPDATED: Mid-Summer Invasion Alert! Skies Falling on Cowboys, Battleships & Moscow + Ridley Scott Returns to Outer Space!