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<channel>
<title>Sir Critic on Cinema</title>
<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</link>
<description><![CDATA[Sir Critic, alias Eric Robinette, reviews movies &mdash; both blockbusters and arty stuff &mdash; comments on theaters and opines about everything else cinematic.

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In a hurry? ActiveDayton.com's twice-a-week e-mail newsletter lets you know the top five things to do in the area twice a week.
Sign up]]></description>
<dc:language>en-us</dc:language>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
<dc:date>2009-10-07T12:41:04-05:00</dc:date>
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<item>
<title>That&apos;s a wrap for Sir Critic on Cinema</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/10/07/thats_a_wrap_fo.html</link>
<description>&amp;#8220;As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a critic.&amp;#8221; Freeze frame. Cue Tony Bennett&amp;#8217;s &amp;#8220;Rags to Riches&amp;#8221; as Saul Bass titles zip across the screen, a la Goodfellas. For nearly four years now I have...</description>
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<![CDATA[&#8220;As far back as I can remember,  I always wanted to be a critic.&#8221; 

Freeze frame. Cue Tony Bennett&#8217;s &#8220;Rags to Riches&#8221; as Saul Bass titles zip across the screen, a la Goodfellas.

For nearly four years now I have been writing about movies on this blog, having fulfilled a longtime dream of reviewing movies for a newspaper  audience.  So it is with mixed emotions that I announce this will be my final post on this blog. 

I have been named the Arts &amp; Entertainment reporter for our Southwest group of newspapers, covering Middletown, Hamilton and the surrounding area. I love writing about this field and am very much looking forward to meeting new people, and to telling all of you about things to do, of which there are plenty. I will also be taking over a &#8220;things to do&#8221; blog.

That means I will no longer have time to write a movie blog for the newspapers, a fact I recognize with more than a little regret. I will very much miss this forum. I have so many great memories here, ranging from co-writing an American Girl movie review with my dear friend Angela Allen to getting in a heated discussion with movie colorizers to interviewing the director and producer of Pixar&#8217;s Up. I was particularly proud when this blog and its readers prompted the Victoria Theatre to change its Cool Films program last year, so they would play the excellent 1933 version of Little Women instead of the less well regarded 1949 version. 

All that stated,  Sir Critic is not going away entirely - he&#8217;s just moved to new digs. I have already created a new blog, Sir Critic&#8217;s Cinema, with its  own domain name: www.sircritic.com. 

I will be doing the same thing there that I did here: opining about all things cinematic. With rare exceptions, I will no longer be able to write day-and-date movie reviews, but I will still see a great many of them. I was seeing more than 100 movies in the theater long before I started this blog, and I&#8217;m not about to stop now. In fact, just last night I caught the Toy Story 3D double feature, with a review on the new blog. 

I invite you to follow me to my new home, because my favorite part of writing this blog was not seeing the movies early - It was interacting with all of you. We&#8217;ve had more great conversations than my limited mathematical abilities can count, ranging all the way from your first R-rated film to the movie that most traumatized you to the recent controversy over the arrest of Roman Polanski. 

I hope I&#8217;ve been able to direct you to good movies and steer you clear of bad ones. Whether you agreed or disagreed with me, it didn&#8217;t really matter, as long as you found my writings interesting and entertaining. I thank you all profoundly for reading, commenting, and even occasionally criticizing. It has truly been the stuff that dreams are made of. 

My fellow bloggers Zack McGhee and Tony Black will continue their Movies and TV blog, and Ron Rollins is apt to chime in about movies now and again at Brain Droppings. As I fade out, I will slightly paraphrase the words of Orson Welles, when he accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute.

&#8220;Let us raise our cups, standing, as some of us do, on opposite ends of the river - and drink together to what really matters to us all - to our crazy and beloved pastime. To the movies - to good movies - to every possible kind.&#8221;

Hope to see you at the new site. Thank you all again.
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<dc:subject>Sir Critic muses</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-10-07T12:41:04-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<item>
<title>Zombieland/Whip It  - two very fun debuts</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/10/02/zombielandwhip.html</link>
<description>Zombieland and Whip It wouldn&amp;#8217;t seem to have much in common, but it just so happens they are both highly entertaining directorial feature debuts. When I first saw the trailer for Zombieland, I was surprised to learn that what looked...</description>
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Zombieland and Whip It wouldn&amp;#8217;t seem to have much in common, but it just so happens they are both highly entertaining directorial feature debuts.

When I first saw the trailer for Zombieland, I was surprised to learn that what looked like such a wild, zany ride  was the work of  a novice. The director, Rueben Fleischer, had only made a few shorts and TV shows. Thankfully, Zombieland really is a wild, zany ride. 

As is so often the case in zombie movies, hordes of the mindless monsters have overrun the landscape. In the thick of it all is Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg), a geeky protagonist who has become quite the zombie killer out of necessity. He&amp;#8217;s concocted a whole series of amusing rules about fighting zombies including &amp;#8220;Always check the back seat&amp;#8221; and, simply put, &amp;#8220;Cardio.&amp;#8221; 

Columbus eventually hooks up with Tallahassee, a trigger-happy zealot who is singularly obsessed with Twinkies, and is quite indignant to find a Hostess truck that has nothing but Sno-Balls in it (It&amp;#8217;s that kind of movie). Then, the plot thickens with  the addition of two con artists, winningly played by Emma Stone (Superbad) and Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine). 

You may notice I haven&amp;#8217;t said that much about the plot, and that&amp;#8217;s deliberate. Zombieland is very much a movie that&amp;#8217;s more fun the less you know about it. What I will tell you is that it&amp;#8217;s often uproarious. The momentum flags in a few places, and I could have done with less distracting voice-over narration. Most of the way, however, Fleischer, his cast and writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have imagination to spare. A lesser movie would  have contained the entire story in an amusement park and run out of ideas. Here, the amusement park scenes make for a hilarious climax to a movie that was already a great deal of fun. 

And speaking of climaxes, make sure to stay through the end credits to catch all the gags. As far as the fairly narrow genre of zombie comedies goes, it&amp;#8217;s not up to the original Dawn of the Dead or Shaun of the Dead, but it&amp;#8217;s a lot more effective than what passes for &amp;#8220;real&amp;#8221; horror these days.

GRADE: B+

Whip It review after the jump &amp;#8230;

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<guid isPermaLink="false">15053903@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>Reviews</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-10-02T07:54:17-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>What&apos;s opening Friday, Oct. 2?</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/10/01/whats_opening_f_42.html</link>
<description>If you believe the tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes, well, there&amp;#8217;s nary a rotten one in the bunch this week. Bright Star: Jane (The Piano) Campion&amp;#8217;s film about the romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne has gotten strong Oscar buzz...</description>
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If you believe the tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes, well, there&amp;#8217;s nary a rotten one in the bunch this week.

Bright Star: Jane (The Piano) Campion&amp;#8217;s film about the romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne has gotten strong Oscar buzz for the lead performance by Abbie Cornish. 

Capitalism: A Love Story: The mere mention of Michael Moore&amp;#8217;s name is bound to make some people roll their eyes. For what it&amp;#8217;s worth, though, I&amp;#8217;m hearing that people on both sides of the fence can find something to agree on in Moore&amp;#8217;s examination of the economic meltdown. 

The Invention of Lying: Ricky Gervais stars in and co-directs this movie set in a world where no one lies until Gervais comes along. It it&amp;#8217;s half as entertaining as the undervalued Ghost Town, this one will be a treat.

Toy Story/Toy Story 2: Pixar&amp;#8217;s signature films come back out as a 3D double feature for only two weeks. I will be there for at least one of them. 

Whip It: I saw Drew Barrymore&amp;#8217;s directorial debut set in the world of roller derbies at the public sneak last weekend. Gertie can direct - well. More Friday.

Zombieland: One wonders what it is about actor Jesse Eisenberg that attracts him to movies set in amusement parks with &amp;#8220;land&amp;#8221; in the title? (He was in Adventureland earlier this year.) Maybe it&amp;#8217;s good scripts and casts. More on this Friday too.

At the arthouses

Neon opens Bright Star and Capitalism:  A Love Story; Little Art plays this year&amp;#8217;s Foreign Language film winner Departures, as well as Richard Attenborough&amp;#8217;s Cry Freedom as part of the Screenpeace Film Festival.

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<guid isPermaLink="false">15033303@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>In Area Theaters</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-10-01T09:35:58-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>Do you like going to second run movies?</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/30/do_you_like_goi.html</link>
<description>The recent closure of the Beaver Valley movie theater in Beavercreek brings to mind something that I don&amp;#8217;t hear much in the discussion of moviegoing: the second-run experience. Somewhat surprisingly, I don&amp;#8217;t go to second-run houses much anymore. That&amp;#8217;s partly...</description>
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The recent closure of the  Beaver Valley movie theater in Beavercreek brings to mind something that I don&amp;#8217;t hear much in the discussion of moviegoing: the second-run experience. 

Somewhat surprisingly, I don&amp;#8217;t go to second-run houses much anymore. That&amp;#8217;s partly because I do most of my moviegoing in first-run houses because of this blog. 

However, it&amp;#8217;s also because, I have to admit, I don&amp;#8217;t find the second-run theater as appealing as I once did. I&amp;#8217;ll go every once in awhile, but I&amp;#8217;m a stickler for presentation, and by their nature, that&amp;#8217;s not the best feature of second-run houses. I&amp;#8217;ve been rather spoiled by the big screens and digital sound of the megaplexes, and you don&amp;#8217;t typically find those in a second-run house.  Moreover, by the time the prints reach the second-run theaters, they tend to be beat up and scratchy, and for me, that takes away from the experience. 

Probably most importantly, I&amp;#8217;m not personally fond of the second-run places here. The Danbarrys in Huber Heights or behind the Dayton Mall are OK, but I&amp;#8217;ve seen better second-run places. It would be nice if, for instance, someone would take the old Showcase Cross Pointe and turn that into a sub-run, but that seems like wishful thinking. 

Considering all the stories about the recession and how moviegoing supposedly booms in such times, I find it curious how news stories very rarely mention how well second-run houses fare in such times. Since they&amp;#8217;re not telling me anything, let me ask you:

Do you go to second-run movie theaters, like the Danbarrys? Why or why not? If you do, do you go to second-run houses instead of first-runs, or in addition to them? What has your experience been there?

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<guid isPermaLink="false">15019903@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>Moviegoing</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-30T11:29:31-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>What Are You Watching? Monsters, Aliens and such?</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/29/what_are_you_wa_15.html</link>
<description>Today&amp;#8217;s DVD selection brings us monsters, aliens, misfits, and a porn star starring in a movie by an Oscar-winning director. Away We Go: John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph play an expecting couple who travel around the country to find the...</description>
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Today&amp;#8217;s DVD selection brings us monsters, aliens, misfits, and a porn star starring in a movie by an Oscar-winning director.  

Away We Go: John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph play an expecting couple who travel around the country to find the right home, only to realize everyone else is crazier than they are. The movie gets a little too self-consciously kooky at times, but the strong performances of the two leads keep the movie grounded. Directed by Sam Mendes, the film makes a fascinating companion piece to his much bleaker (and underrated and misunderstood) relationship movie, Revolutionary Road. GRADE: B+


The Girlfriend Experience: One of Steven Soderbergh&amp;#8217;s experimental movies got quite a bit of press for casting porn star Sasha Grey in a non-porn role. I intend to watch it soon to see if it deserves press for being a good movie.


Monsters vs. Aliens: I enjoyed this funny, often inventive mash-up that pits a band of underground monsters against an alien force, but like so many DreamWorks animated features, this movie is noisy, busy and shallow in story and character. It&amp;#8217;s fun to watch, but it could have been even better. Full review: GRADE: B


Management: Some will be curious to pick up this indie title because Jennifer Aniston is in it. It didn&amp;#8217;t get much of a release (I&amp;#8217;m not even sure it played Dayton) and reviews were mixed.

The Wizard of Oz: Some movie about a girl with ruby slippers walking down a road paved with yellow bricks comes out on DVD again today. For those who are not yet Blu-Ray converts (like myself), there isn&amp;#8217;t much new material if you already own one of the special editions that came out a few years ago. However, If for some strange reason, you don&amp;#8217;t have a copy already, you really ought to remedy that.  GRADE: A+ (of course)

Speaking of Blu-Ray, check out fellow blogger and fellow movie buff Zack McGhee&amp;#8217;s roundup of Blu releases.

What Are You Watching?

Fame: I didn&amp;#8217;t watch much on the small screen over the past week, but I did catch the original Fame, as promised. Those who mainly remember the TV series may be surprised at how gritty and emotionally intense the movie was. That&amp;#8217;s very typical of the films of director Alan Parker, who is particularly skilled with musical material, as also evidenced by Pink Floyd The Wall, The Commitments and Evita. The &amp;#8220;fly on the wall&amp;#8221; narrative gives short shrift to too many characters and leaves a lot of story threads dangling, but at its best, the movie resonates and pulses with energy, especially during the musical sequences. GRADE: B+

Standard question for Tuesday: What have you seen lately?

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<guid isPermaLink="false">14999703@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>On Video/DVD</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-29T10:53:26-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>Free Roman Polanski?</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/28/free_roman_pola.html</link>
<description>Director Roman Polanski, who was jailed over the weekend by Swiss authorities in connection with his 1977 sex crime will fight extradition back to the United States, his lawyer says. Quite frankly, I can&amp;#8217;t blame him for fighting this latest...</description>
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Director Roman Polanski, who was jailed over the weekend by Swiss authorities in connection with his 1977 sex crime will fight extradition back to the United States, his lawyer says.


Quite frankly, I can&amp;#8217;t blame him for fighting this latest obstacle in his ongoing legal battle.

Make no mistake, what Polanski did all those years ago was despicable. Polanski&amp;#8217;s tragic past, including surviving the Holocaust and enduring the horror of  his wife and unborn child&amp;#8217;s murders at the hands of the Manson family, does not excuse his crime. The fact that he is one of cinema&amp;#8217;s greatest talents certainly does not excuse his crime.

When you get down to it, he, by his own admission, took advantage of a 13-year-old girl, to put it mildly.  Many  people cannot look past that fact, and I understand that.

However &amp;#8230;

Many people will point to alleged prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in the case, noting how Polanksi did plead guilty and did serve time, but, upon learning that a  judge was about to renege on a plea bargain and throw the book at him,  Polanski fled the U.S. and has never returned.

But that&amp;#8217;s not the crux of the matter for me. The crux of the matter for me is that Polanski&amp;#8217;s victim, Samantha Geimer, who has since identified herself, has long said she wanted the case against Polanski to be dropped so the ordeal could come to an end.

If the person most directly and seriously harmed by Polanski&amp;#8217;s crime forgives him and wants the case dropped, I ask you - who is anyone else to say Polanski should continue to be punished? 

What justice would be served by now? What&amp;#8217;s the point? To me the whole thing seeems like a waste of time, energy and taxpayer dollars.

But that&amp;#8217;s just me. What do you think? 

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<guid isPermaLink="false">14984603@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>Filmmakers</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-28T12:40:03-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>&apos;Surrogates&apos; too robotic for its own good</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/25/surrogates_too.html</link>
<description>Surrogates very effectively shows what it&amp;#8217;s like to be a fake human being. That&amp;#8217;s why it doesn&amp;#8217;t quite work. Although it sports clever action scenes, good performances and an intriguing premise, Surrogates fails to connect because it&amp;#8217;s too mechanical for...</description>
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Surrogates very effectively shows what it&amp;#8217;s like to be a fake human being. That&amp;#8217;s why it doesn&amp;#8217;t quite work. 

Although it sports clever action scenes, good performances and  an intriguing premise, Surrogates fails to connect because it&amp;#8217;s too mechanical for its own good. Bereft of emotion, the movie left me cold. Fascinated as I was by some of the ideas, ultimately I didn&amp;#8217;t really care about the characters.

That&amp;#8217;s  a shame because Surrogates, based on a graphic novel by Robert Vendetti and Brett Weldele,  had a lot of potential. At first, it struck me as kind of a low-rent Minority Report, depicting a near future that uses innovative but unethical technology. In this movie&amp;#8217;s case, that technology is robots, or as the title would have it, surrogates. Originally, the surrogates were created to help the disabled and the military. 

As humanity so often does, however, it lets the technology get out of hand. Surrogates become so popular, almost everyone uses at least one. From a remote location, humans can make the surrogates do risky adventurous things they wouldn&amp;#8217;t attempt themselves. 

This becomes especially dangerous when a terrorist finds a way to kill the surrogates. Not only does a specialized weapon disable the robot, it also taps into the robots&amp;#8217; feed to the human. So when the surrogate dies, the human dies with it. Investigating the crime is Greer (Bruce Willis), a police detective who is himself so attached to his surrogate, he hasn&amp;#8217;t left his house in years.

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<guid isPermaLink="false">14940003@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>Reviews</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-25T08:46:50-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>What&apos;s opening Friday, Sept. 25?</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/24/whats_opening_f_41.html</link>
<description>The last weekend of September brings us two sci-fi movies and a remake of an 80s musical - all of which are uncertain prospects. None of them has much in the way of advance buzz. Fame: The musical remake is...</description>
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The last weekend of September brings us two sci-fi movies and a remake of an 80s musical - all of which are uncertain prospects. None of them has much in the way of advance buzz.

Fame: The musical remake is starting to look to me like a High School Musical imitation, so my interest is flagging. I do, however, have the original Alan Parker film at home from Netflix. I&amp;#8217;ve never seen it all the way through; I hope to include it in my next What Are You Watching post?

Pandorum:Crew members aboard a spaceship wake up with no knowledge of their mission or their identities. Dennis Quaid is in the cast. I just can&amp;#8217;t get a read on this one. 

Surrogates: This is the best prospect of this week&amp;#8217;s openings. Bruce Willis leads the cast as a man forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of surrogate robots. Jonathan Mostow directs,  and I&amp;#8217;ve liked his work, which includes Breakdown, U-571 and Terminator 3. My review will post Friday.

At the arthouses

The Neon opens Soul Power, a documentary about an overlooked music festival that took place amid the &amp;#8220;Rumble in the Jungle&amp;#8221; in the 70s. Neon also hosts the Downtown Dayton LGBT Film Festival. The Little Art opens Inglourious Basterds.

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<guid isPermaLink="false">14927103@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>In Area Theaters</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-24T13:44:04-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>Do you want to see older films in 3D?</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/23/do_you_want_to_1.html</link>
<description>3D seems to be all the rage these days, what with almost every animated film getting the treatment, and a few live action ones (Harry Potter) besides. Now there&amp;#8217;s also a movement afoot to take older films, convert them to...</description>
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3D seems to be all the rage these days, what with almost every animated film getting the treatment, and a few live action ones (Harry Potter) besides. 

Now there&amp;#8217;s also a movement afoot to take older films, convert them to 3D, and rerelease them theatrically.  Pixar is releasing Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3D as a double feature on Oct. 2.  Reportedly, 3D issues of Titanic, Star Wars and The Matrix are also in the works.

I wonder, though - is there really that much of a market for this? The Toy Story reissues make sense, because they serve as a primer for Toy Story 3, coming out next June. I&amp;#8217;m all over that. I can see Star Wars working, because, well, it&amp;#8217;s Star Wars. 

But Titanic? And The Matrix? I guess The Matrix would be fun, but Titanic?  I dunno. When I&amp;#8217;m watching that film, I&amp;#8217;m not sitting there thinking, &amp;#8220;You know, what this movie really needs is for the iceberg to be in your face!&amp;#8221; I&amp;#8217;m not sure 3D would be a boon to that particular film. Adding flashy 3D effects to what is in many ways a tragic story just seems &amp;#8230; tacky.

So would you be interested in seeing older movies in 3D? Do you want to see any of the mentioned titles in 3D?  And here&amp;#8217;s something to think about: What older movies would you LIKE to see in 3D? Ghostbusters pops into mind as a fun possibility: Comin&amp;#8217; atcha with crossing streams!

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<guid isPermaLink="false">14913803@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>Coming Attractions</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-23T12:32:15-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>What Are You Watching? Skip &apos;Ghosts&apos;</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/22/what_are_you_wa_14.html</link>
<description>The summer&amp;#8217;s early movies continue to roll out on DVD, but this week&amp;#8217;s picks are not much inspiring than last week&amp;#8217;s. Battle for Terra: Nobody cared when this animated film made it to theaters. I doubt people will care that...</description>
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The summer&amp;#8217;s early movies continue to roll out on DVD, but this week&amp;#8217;s picks are not much inspiring than last week&amp;#8217;s.

Battle for Terra: Nobody cared when this animated film made it to theaters. I doubt people will care that much more even on DVD. 


Ghosts of Girlfriends Past: Recasting A Christmas Carol with a selfish playboy in the lead (Matthew McConaughey) could have worked, but the movie never connects because of an utterly pedestrian script bereft of laughs. Jennifer Garner is as appealing as ever, but not enough to make this worthwhile. GRADE: C

Next Day Air: If I were to name this movie based on my interest in it, I would call it Return to Sender. 

Observe and Report: Seth Rogen has one of his best roles as a mall security guard suffering delusions of grandeur, and I admire the movie&amp;#8217;s willingness to go out on a limb for a laugh. At the same time, I&amp;#8217;m not sure the movie always knows whether it&amp;#8217;s rooting for or against its lead character. The ending in particular, is a cop-out, pun slightly intended. Still, it&amp;#8217;s funny enough to recommend it - but maybe I feel that way because I saw it immediately after Paul Blart: Mall Cop. GRADE: B

What Are You Watching?

Camille: I often do not care for costume dramas like this one, but with George Cukor directing and Greta Garbo pulling out all the stops as a lovelorn courtesan, this movie was an affecting exception. GRADE: A


Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: I watched the 1931 version with Fredric March, who won an Oscar for the role(s). It&amp;#8217;s a bit primitive by today&amp;#8217;s standards, and the Hyde makeup is just this side of silly, but excellent performances by March, and by Miriam Hopkins as the &amp;#8220;bad&amp;#8221; girl Hyde goes after, sell the picture. Inventive direction from Rouben Mamoulian helps too. 
GRADE: A-


Johnny Guitar: This maybe the single most bizarre Western I&amp;#8217;ve ever seen, with always the always intriguing director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) upending Western stereotypes, pitting Joan Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge against each other and filming the whole thing in florid Technicolor. It&amp;#8217;s overwrought but fascinating. GRADE: A-

3:10 to Yuma: I watched the 1957 original with Glenn Ford and Van Heflin, playing, respectively, a criminal and a ranch owner trying to take him into custody. This version  relies more on a psychological battle of wits between the leads than the 2007 remake does, and it works very well. However, this is a rare instance where the remake is actually a little better, with more layers to the story and characters. GRADE: B+

What have you seen lately? 

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<dc:subject>On Video/DVD</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-22T11:39:25-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>The Wizard of Oz: Happy 70th birthday!</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/21/the_wizard_of_o.html</link>
<description>The Wizard of Oz turns 70 this year, and I intend to celebrate by attending one of the hi-def theatrical screenings of the movie on Wednesday - it plays at 7 PM at the Regal in Beavercreek, and at Showcase...</description>
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The Wizard of Oz  turns 70 this year, and I intend to celebrate by attending one of the hi-def theatrical screenings of the movie on Wednesday - it plays at 7 PM at the Regal in Beavercreek, and at Showcase Cinemas Dayton South. Click here to see if another location suits you better.

What is there to say about this film that hasn&amp;#8217;t already been said? I can only offer my own perspective. It&amp;#8217;s one of my 10 favorite movies of all time. Next to Yellow Submarine, it&amp;#8217;s probably the movie I&amp;#8217;ve seen more often than any other. I think Oz has got it all over that other &amp;#8220;great&amp;#8221; movie of 1939, Gone with the Wind, which I think is considerably overrated. 

And I&amp;#8217;ll go even further to state that Judy Garland should have been nominated as Best Actress, rather than tossed the miniature juvenile award. - and I think she should have won over Vivien Leigh. And if you take issue with that, frankly, dear reader, I don&amp;#8217;t give a damn.

But I&amp;#8217;m not here just to trump Oz at Gone with the Wind&amp;#8217;s expense. I can&amp;#8217;t think of a movie that&amp;#8217;s more beloved than Oz, nor can I think of one that&amp;#8217;s permeated the national consciousness as deeply. Think about it. I&amp;#8217;ll bet at least once a month you&amp;#8217;ll hear someone make reference to the film in some way, whether it&amp;#8217;s an anguished &amp;#8220;I&amp;#8217;m melting&amp;#8221; or someone playing the Wicked cast recording for the umpteenth time. 

Its regular airings on CBS for years and years (which I actually miss) went a long way toward giving that movie the foothold that it has on our hearts. Are you like me in that even when you watch a DVD of Oz, you still expect there to be a commercial after the Cowardly Lion dives out the window in the Emerald City?

And I have a personal connection with Oz a lot of people can&amp;#8217;t claim. Earlier this decade, I toured the Sony movie lot in California. That used to be the MGM lot, where The Wizard of Oz was filmed. (Indeed, the only exterior shot in the entire movie is the clouds behind the opening titles.)

Since Sony owns the lot now, the emphasis is very understandably on Sony product - but a little too much so for my taste. And here&amp;#8217;s a glaring example of that.

My group was walking around the sets on one of the big soundstages, and the tour guide was droning about a law drama with Tony Danza that was on TV at the time (and was off the next year, I believe). I will NEVER forget how we were walking out the door, and almost as if he were teasing us, the tour guide casually said &amp;#8220;Oh, by the way, this is where &amp;#8216;If I Only had a Brain&amp;#8217; was shot.&amp;#8221;

I just about choked and I wasn&amp;#8217;t even eating. I wanted to stay there and breathe the air a little longer!

Oh, and one other thing. I hate to break it to you, but that&amp;#8217;s not really a man who hung himself in the background after the Tin Man joins them. It&amp;#8217;s one of the birds they placed on the set to make it look more exotic. I know, the truth is no fun, but the myth is ridiculous. (The Dark Side of the Moon synch IS fun, though). 

So why does The Wizard of Oz endure for you? What are your favorite scenes? Do the flying monkeys and the witch still give you nightmares? What do the kids today think of it?

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<guid isPermaLink="false">14869403@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>Sir Critic muses</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-21T11:04:59-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>Matt Damon transforms into The Informant!</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/18/matt_damon_tran.html</link>
<description>When director Steven Soderbergh flipped a shot upside down early in The Informant!, that told me two things: that I couldn&amp;#8217;t quite trust what the movie told me, and that I was in for a memorable ride. The first great...</description>
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When director Steven Soderbergh flipped a shot upside down early in The Informant!, that told me two things: that I couldn&amp;#8217;t quite trust what the movie told me, and that I was in for a memorable ride. The first great film of the fall has arrived.

In telling the story of whistle-blower Mark Whitacre, a Warren County native who fingered his employer in a giant price-fixing scheme, the movie takes a great risk in asking its audience to laugh at a true story of a mentally ill character. The gambit works, thanks largely to an Oscar-caliber performance from Matt Damon, who makes Whitacre troubled, devious and sympathetic all at once. 

In 1992, Whitacre informed on the agricultural giant ADM, agreeing to spy on the company&amp;#8217;s questionable practices for the FBI. Whitacre gets so caught up in his role, at one point he calls himself 0014, &amp;#8220;because I&amp;#8217;m twice as smart as James Bond,&amp;#8221; he brags.

As it turns out, Whitacre is not exactly innocent himself, having embezzled from the company. When this comes to light, Whitacre, increasingly dogged by bipolar disorder, concocts an elaborate web of lies that eventually derails his life. 

Some may call The Informant! a jauntier version of Erin Brockovich, another Soderbergh film about corporate malfeasance, and that comparison is apt. However, the movie also reminded me of Michael Clayton, which Soderbergh executive produced. Like that George Clooney vehicle, The Informant! takes place in the present day (at least as much as you can say the 90s are the present), but it has the look, feel and even the sound of a movie made in the 1970s.

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<dc:subject>Reviews</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-18T07:27:00-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>Meet the real-life Informant!</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/17/meet_the_realli.html</link>
<description>Tomorrow I will write about Matt Damon&amp;#8217;s performance as Mark Whitacre, an FBI informant who fingered his employer in what was then the biggest price-fixing case in U.S. history. Today, however, I&amp;#8217;d like to introduce you to the real Mark...</description>
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Tomorrow I will write about Matt Damon&amp;#8217;s performance as Mark Whitacre, an FBI informant who fingered his employer in what was then the biggest price-fixing case in U.S. history.

Today, however, I&amp;#8217;d like to introduce you to the real Mark Whitacre, a Warren County native. I spoke to Whitacre about the experience of seeing his story become a movie; you can read my interview here.

My review of The Informant! will post Friday. 

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<guid isPermaLink="false">14813303@http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/</guid>
<dc:subject>Interviews/articles</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-17T10:57:56-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>What&apos;s opening Friday, September 18?</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/17/whats_opening_f_40.html</link>
<description>September&amp;#8217;s one A-list movie opens tomorrow; there are a few other high-profile prospects that might not be high-profile movies. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: My enthusiasm for this animated feature had been kind of muted. Given the positive buzz...</description>
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September&amp;#8217;s one A-list movie opens tomorrow; there are a few other high-profile prospects that might not be high-profile movies.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: My enthusiasm for this animated feature had been kind of muted. Given the positive buzz so far, I might check it out after all. 

The Informant!: The first great movie of the fall. Review posts Friday.


Jennifer&amp;#8217;s Body: I had been kind of curious to see this horror-comedy. Now, given some of the reviews that desecrate Jennifer&amp;#8217;s Body, suddenly I&amp;#8217;m not so curious.


Love Happens: But does much happen in this latest Jennifer Aniston romance? My gut tells me no. 

At the arthouses

Neon hangs on to Departures and opens Adoration, about a  high school French teacher who  gives her class a translation exercise based on a real news story about a terrorist who plants a bomb in the airline luggage of his pregnant girlfriend. Also opening: Tetro, the latest film from Francis Ford Coppola, which really hasn&amp;#8217;t attracted much attention despite the director&amp;#8217;s credits. 

The Little Art opens the well-regarded In the Loop.

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<dc:subject>In Area Theaters</dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-17T08:32:55-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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<title>What Are You Watching? Not Wolverine, I hope</title>

    

    


<link>http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/cinema/entries/2009/09/16/what_are_you_wa_13.html</link>
<description>My tribute to Patrick Swayze pushed my DVD post back by a day, but really, we aren&amp;#8217;t missing that much. X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Actually, my headline is a little mean. The movie isn&amp;#8217;t that bad, but it isn&amp;#8217;t that good,...</description>
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My tribute to Patrick Swayze pushed my DVD post back by a day, but really, we aren&amp;#8217;t missing that much.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Actually, my headline is a little mean. The movie isn&amp;#8217;t that bad, but it isn&amp;#8217;t that good, either. Hugh Jackman remains as watchable as ever, and that carries the movie a long way, but this pallid entry is a far cry from any of the other X-Men movies - yes, even the third one. Full review. GRADE: C+

Easy Virtue: This adaptation of the Noel Coward play didn&amp;#8217;t attract great attention in the theaters, bit I&amp;#8217;m curious because of the cast, which includes Colin Firth, Kristin Scott-Thomas and Jessica Biel. 

Next Day Air: If one were to gauge my interest in this movie by mail order titles, I would call this one Return to Sender. 

What Are You Watching?

I&amp;#8217;ve hit quite a strong streak lately in movies I&amp;#8217;ve seen on the small screen. 

Becket: An absolute acting powerhouse, thanks to sterling performances by Peter O&amp;#8217;Toole and Richard Burton. I liked this even better than the similarly themed A Man for All Seasons.  GRADE: A

Bubble: This is one of Steven Soderbergh&amp;#8217;s better experimental movies. It&amp;#8217;s a fascinating and surprising look at the dark side of small town life, made with non-professional actors. It&amp;#8217;s a bit self-conscious, as these movies tend to be,  but gripping nonetheless. GRADE: B+

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir: Having rewatched the immortal All About Eve recently, I decided to check out this movie also directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. It&amp;#8217;s a very charming romance, with fine performances from Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison and Addison DeWitt himself, AKA George Sanders. Also features a fine score by Bernard Herrmann. GRADE: A-

Great Expectations: Hands down, this 1947 movie by David Lean is the best Charles Dickens film adaptation I have ever seen, outside of the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol. This deservedly one an Oscar for its striking black and white photography. GRADE: A+

Topaz: Until last weekend, this is one of the few late-period Hitchcock movies I hadn&amp;#8217;t seen. I can see why it underwhelmed people in 1969; it&amp;#8217;s not so much a Hitchcock thriller as an James Bond-ian espionage story with distinct Hitchcock touches. Still, as critic Leonard Maltin accurately states on the DVD, even second-tier Hitchcock is still better than first-tier most anyone else. GRADE: B

Two Lovers: It&amp;#8217;s too bad Joaquin Phoenix antics got more attention than his actual performance in this underseen and underrated film. He gives a very fine performance as a disturbed man caught between two women: the steady loyal Vinessa Shaw and the unsteady, irresistible Gwyneth Paltrow.    GRADE: A-

Young Mr. Lincoln: This John Ford film isn&amp;#8217;t always mentioned among the great films of 1939, but it ought to be. Henry Fonda was quite simply the man. So, for that matter, was Abe Lincoln. GRADE: A

What have you seen lately, on any size of screen?

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<dc:subject></dc:subject>
<dc:date>2009-09-16T11:15:03-04:00</dc:date>
<dc:creator>erobinette@coxohio.com</dc:creator>
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