The Hills Have Eyes 2
Written by Jonathan and Wes Craven
Directed by Martin Weisz
Beverly Hills, Calif. : Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, c2007

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Staring:
• Michael McMillian
• Jessica Stroup
• Daniella Alonso
• Jacob Vargas
• Lee Thompson Young
• Ben Crowley
• Eric Edelstein
• Flex Alexander
• Reshad Strik
• Michael Bailey Smith

Horror sequels and remakes usually signify one more trip to the well, with a bucket of blood. But while "The Hills Have Eyes 2"--a sequel to a remake--may inhabit familiar geography, screenwriters Wes Craven and son Jonathan have shifted the dramatic landscape: The scene is still the A-bomb test site of Wes Craven's 1977 original, and it includes the mutant cannibals of Alexandre Aja's 2006 remake. This time, though, the victims are National Guardsmen, the issues include training and equipment, and the entire scenario adds up to an unmistakable critique of the war in Iraq.

The politics of "Hills 2" won't enlist any new converts to the horror ranks, but existing fans will be drawn to the combination of visceral tension, violent payoff and the patented Craven gift for innovative gore.

The scene is a 1,300-square-mile patch of New Mexico, where the Carter family of the previous "Hills" pics met their fate at the hands of mutant psycho Quasimodo look-alikes, bio-victims of government nuclear tests. Immediately upon arriving, the "Hills 2's'" National Guard patrol is set upon by the grotesque cave-dwellers, who hit and run with such eerie speed that the Guardsmen--all young and untrained--are immediately unnerved. It doesn't do much for their confidence that the team of scientists and military they were supposed to meet have all vanished.

While nothing is as broadly political as the impalement--via American flag--in the 2006 "Hills Have Eyes," the sentiments are obvious enough. Napoleon (Michael McMillian), the smartest member of the co-ed Guard group that finds itself in a hostile desert, is challenged about his lack of enthusiasm for the war.

"Presidents lie too much," he says. He's given little slack: "The last president who told the truth was Truman," barks his commanding officer, Sarge (Flex Alexander), "and you know what he said? 'The buck stops here!'"

Sarge and Napoleon are never going to get along, but the way things are working out with the natives, it really won't matter.

In their first outing as a screenwriting team, the Cravens don't offer a lot in terms of plot--mostly the imperiled attempt to become unimperiled. But with the exception of a ridiculous "Are you OK?" when the person has been abducted, beaten and raped (and which may have been intended as a "Scream"-style joke line), the dialogue sparks and the humor relieves without intruding on the mood of terror. A scientist offering a cheery "Hi!" to a ghoul lunching on intestines? How can you not laugh?

Helmer Martin Weisz, whose background is largely in music-videos, meets the challenge of creating dread in broad daylight, before the entire cast of soldiers and carnivores heads underground, into the warren of mines and tunnels where the mutants dwell.

Cinematographer Sam McCurdy's work is really fine--the outside world is crisp, creepy and khaki-colored, while his subterranean shooting is in surroundings so deprived of light you're surprised you can make out what's down there. But, oh yes, you can. And you probably won't like what you see.

Review from Variety - John Anderson

Mr. Brooks
Screenplay by Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon.
Directed by Bruce A. Evans.
Beverly Hills, Calif. : MGM Home Entertainment ; Montreal : Distributed by Alliance Atlantis, c2007.

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Starring:
• Kevin Costner
• Demi Moore
• Dane Cook

If you've seen the trailer for the Kevin-Costner-is-a-killer movie "Mr. Brooks," you might fear that the entire plot has been given away. The good news: there are many twists, turns, subplots and surprises that the coming attractions don't even hint at. The bad news: these twists and turns are so preposterous, or so irrelevant, that they undermine the movie they're meant to tart up.

The title character, played by Costner, is a pillar of the Portland, Ore., community, a happily married husband and father who has an unfortunate addiction to murder. He even goes to AA meetings to deal with his problem, though he's understandably reticent about sharing. His only confidant is--himself: Mr. Brooks has a devilish alter ego who goads him on in his life of crime, and this evil id-dude is played, very cannily, by William Hurt. As the bickering sides of Mr. Brooks's twisted psyche, Costner and Hurt have a delicious chemistry, but it doesn't bode well for a movie when the only two compelling characters are the same person, talking to himself.

Their testy, complicitous bond is far more interesting than Mr. Brooks's relationship with his wife , his troubled daughter , who has abruptly dropped out of college, the driven cop (Demi Moore) who is hot on his trail or the amateur photographer (Dane Cook) who happened to catch on film Mr. Brooks's latest killing--a couple in the act of making love. It's not giving too much away to reveal that this creepy fellow is no conventional blackmailer; instead of money, he wants the chance to accompany Mr. Brooks on his next killing.

This sicko is barely credible (an actor more experienced than Cook might have helped), but Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon's script has far more rank improbabilities ahead, the most egregious involving Mr. Brooks's lovely daughter. As if there weren't enough to hold our interest, they give us an escaped convict pursuing Moore for sending him up the river. (These scenes seem to have been borrowed from another movie entirely.) Did I mention that Moore's cop character is also a millionaire? Don't ask.

For its first half, "Mr. Brooks," directed by Evans, is pretty engaging trash. Costner is usually most fun when he's subverting his nice-guy persona ("No Way Out"), and here he gets to play both a paragon and a villain. The basic premise has real potential: think what Claude Chabrol could do with it. But Evans and Gideon aren't seriously interested in the psychology of their characters. They're so worried about holding our attention they overload their tale with bombshells, byways and bogus suspense. The movie becomes a crazy quilt of competing stories, none of them properly developed. You could cut half the major characters out of "Mr. Brooks" and never miss them.

Review from Newsweek (June 11, 2007) - David Ansen.

Nightwatch (Nochnoi Dozor)
English screenplay by Timur Bekmambetov and Laeta Kalogridis. Based on the novel by Sergei Lukyanenko.
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov.
Beverly Hills, CA : 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, c2006.

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Starring:
• Konstantin Khabensky
• Vladimir Menshov
• Mariya Poroshina
• Galina Tyunina
• Viktor Verzhbitsky

This movie is an adaptation of the first story in the book Night Watch. I read the book before I saw the movie, and in my opinion the book is much better.

The story follows Anton Gorodetsky and his introduction to the world of the Others, people with extraordinary magical abilities. He joins the Night Watch, those responsible for watching over the activities of the "Dark" Others. He hunts down vampires and tries to prevent a magical curse from destroying Moscow.

The problem with this movie is that unless you have read the book, there are a lot of things that would be confusing or almost nonsensical. The "Gloom" or "twilight" is not very well explained at all in the movie for example, but is a cornerstone of the world of Night Watch.

A decent film, but I would recommend reading the book first.

Music and Lyrics
Written by Marc Lawrence.
Directed by Marc Lawrence.
Burbank, Calif. : Warner Home Video, c2007 .

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Starring:
• Hugh Grant
• Drew Barrymore
• Brad Garrett
• Haley Bennett
• Matthew Morrison
• Aasif Mandvi
• Scott Porter

As Hugh Grant ages, something is becoming clear: The actor's most compelling attribute is not his floppy forelock but the vein of charming self-loathing that has always been pulsing under his masterfully mussed-up hair. The posh stuttering, the artful dishevelment, the way his characters blink and back away (from women, certainly, but also from men as chums or colleagues) are all gestures of a very cultivated, very British embarrassment. Oh, dear God, am I really an Oxford graduate mucking about as a movie star? his pouting mouth pleads, while magazine editors put him on Sexiest Man lists. How can you stand me when I'm such a delightfully horrid, selfish man? his characters flirt.

Grant is game for a new level of meta-ha-ha, joke's-on-me in Music and Lyrics. But with Drew Barrymore as his costar, this bland, light romantic comedy insists on keeping the commentary as disposable as one of the '80s gumball tunes Grant used to swivel to as Alex Fletcher, a washed-up '80s pop star. Alex had some hits in a Wham!-like band called PoP, and it shows: Grant readily embraces bad hair (that of a has-been desperately trying to accommodate the '00s), bad tight shirts, and a cute spritz of eau de failure. Having split with his PoP partner--the lyric-writing half of the duo, who went on to even greater success--Alex makes his dough singing solo on the nostalgia circuit (high school reunions, amusement parks). The faintly idiotic gigs are enough to bankroll a modestly comfortable, unattached, showbiz-adjacent lifestyle on Manhattan's Upper West Side.

Review from Entertainment Weekly-Lisa Schwarzbaum.
Read the rest of the review here.