IN TIME

20th Century Fox Film Corporation

Rated PG-13

Running time: 109 Minutes



20th Century Fox Film Corporation's In Time, is set in the near future where time is literally money - and if you run out of time, you run out of life.

Time poor Justin Timberlake, not meeting his quota of making time scanners, saves the life of Matt Bomer - who has a century of life on his clock. In gratitude, and because he is tired of living forever, Bomer transfers most of the time on his clock to Timberlake while Timberlake is asleep. Timberlake wakes up - just in time to see Bomer's time run out. Timberlake then must go on the run before the ghetto Minute Men and the Time Keepers discover Timberlake has more time than he should.

At first Timberlake decides to get out of the ghetto time zone that is his home - and live it up in the rich time zone. Traveling across the different time zones requires more and more time for payment, which surprises ghetto-raised Timberlake. While in the rich time zone, time-rich Timberlake meets Amanda Seyfried and gambles with her rich father Vincent Kartheiser at their mansion party. When Time Keeper investigator Cillian Murphy crashes the party to arrest Timberlake for the death of Bomer and take Timberlake's extra time - Timberlake takes Seyfried hostage and they go on the run.

While the beginning may start out similar to Blade Runner, the movie soon turns into Bonnie and Clyde. While kidnaped, rich Seyfried soon has her clock drained by the leader of the gang of Minutemen in the ghetto. Soon, Seyfried is living minute by minute, just as Timberlake has been living minute by minute all of his life. In order to change life in the ghetto - Seyfried and Timberlake soon begin to rob Kartheiser's time banks and disseminate the time scanners to the people.

While this supposedly takes place in the near future, it seems that the technology to produce this culture must have taken place over a long period of time - especially if you engineer everyone to be of the age of 25. The culture is too near to the our present for such a radical cultural change. Also it is somehow implied that everyone's clock just suddenly appeared, which would require a major scientific breakthrough to effect the entire world all at once. Other than that, the moral of using time as money and that when you run out of time - you die. This is a rather graphic portrayal of being broke, as shown with Timberlake's mother Olivia Wilde. A much more interesting portrayal than people just running out of money and being broke. This idea makes you appreciate being much more frugal with your money.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews

PUSS IN BOOTS

Paramount Pictures/ DreamWorks Animation

Rated PG

Running time: 90 Minutes





















Click below to watch the Puss In Boots trailer.



In Paramount Pictures/DreamWorks Animation film Puss in Boots, orphan Puss in Boots Antonio Banderas tries to regain his honor and retrieve some magic beans with his fellow orphaned brother Humpty Dumpty Zach Galifianakis from the bad guys Jack and Jill Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris.

While this is supposedly a prequel to the movie Shrek, in that these are Puss in Boots adventures before he met Shrek, this movie definitely stands on it's own and you do not have to see the Shrek movies in order to enjoy this film. Just as in the Shrek movies, Mother Goose characters populate the land, so it is in the same world - but the film is in the style of the Zorro movies with an Hispanic Old California type of feeling. This was quite an appropriate style given Banderas background as Zorro. There is the sword slash of a P which I wish happened at least once in the movie itself instead of being done as a logo for the beginning of the film. The DreamWorks Animation logo also had the same style/feeling that was appropriate for the movie. This is a swashbuckling film with lots of action and story - so much action and story, that I was surprised the movie was only 90 minutes long.

When Puss in Boots's caper of acquiring magic beans, beans that he has been searching for all of his life, from bad guys Jack and Jill is horned in on by the equally mysterious roguish rival Kitty Softpaws Salma Hayek - the upset Puss soon falls for Kitty and eventually tells her his story to woo her. Going from a kitten orphan to a disgraced hero, Puss struggles to regain his honor - especially after meeting his estranged orphaned brother Humpty Dumpty. As a baby kitten, Puss was very cute. His eyes were very expressive - especially when he was pleading, making him irresistible. I saw the movie in 2-D - but even in 2-D, the movie looked like it was in 3-D, that is how advanced the computer graphics have become. The use of old-style filmic techniques like split-screen and film wipes give a nice contrast to the high-technology of the 3-D style computer graphics. My favorite scene is the Dance Fight, which has a strong Latin musical arrangement. The character of the Old Man in the dungeon reminds me very much of my old friend UFO Bob, that I almost thought it was him.

While there are Mother Goose characters in the movie, they have a superficial resemblance to the characters that we grew up with. I always thought of Jack and Jill as brother and sister - but in the movie they were husband and wife, with desires for making a little Jack and Jill of their own once the magic beans lead them to the legendary Golden Goose. Jack and Jill's underhanded schemes make them worthy opponents to the dashing Puss in Boots. And several of the orphanage characters were not as nice as their original Mother Goose rhymes made them out to be. Executive Produced by Guillermo del Toro, his Commandante is determined to get Puss for the Commandante's belief of Puss's betrayal of Puss's heroic ideals from his hometown. It is rather sad to see what leads up to Humpty's story on the bridge, that his story has became so famous, especially after what you see of Humpty's childhood plans and dreams.

This is a wonderful family movie and I am so glad it had a theatrical release instead of going direct to DVD as was originally intended. It is a much more interesting story than the typical direct to DVD release. From the initial box-office, Paramount Pictures made a wise decision in releasing it theatrically. I think Puss in Boots is a better movie than Shrek, and I loved Shrek, although Shrek was more into turning the traditional fairy tale story upside-down. Puss in Boots is more of a traditional fairy tale story = that turns the Mother Goose characters upside-down.

Rated PG for violence. Running time: 90 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

 Pancho's Movie Reviews

THE THING

Universal Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 103 minutes



Universal Pictures The Thing is a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing which is based on the short story Who Goes There by John W. Campbell Jr. (Don A. Stuart). In Antarctica, a scientific research station discover not only an ancient spaceship - but an alien thing.

While Carpenter's The Thing is closer to the original story by Campbell, this version of The Thing is closer to the Howard Hawkes version of The Thing From Another World, although it is still the same basic story as Carpenter's The Thing. Scientist Ulrich Thomsen brings in paleontologist Mary Elizabeth Winstead to study the discovery in Antarctica. When the frozen alien thaws out and suddenly comes alive, the men and women at the research station not only must fight for their lives - but must discover which one of them has also turned into a thing.

I believe this is the first instance of the movies explaining the thing's chameleon/cloning capability of becoming another person. This movie is just as graphic as Carpenter's The Thing, including pieces of the thing becoming other things. Since this is a Norwegian outpost, it backs up Carpenter's The Thing as the first outpost that was attacked by the thing.

When Winstead is in her lab at the beginning of the film, she is listening to the Men at Work song Who Can It Be Now. This was appropriate to the future paranoia that will happen in the movie. The end scenes in the movie with the spaceship could have been done at the research post. As it was, it was basically the end scenes from the movie Alien and really broke the format of all the terror taking place at one location as well as just seeming unnecessary. I started to go ho-hum when the movie went in that direction. As a result, Winstead's character was based on Sigourney Weaver's character in Alien.

For a research post, the scientists have a lot of weapons - especially flame throwers. Flame throwers are not normal military weapons, for scientists to even have flame throwers is questionable. I might understand if flame throwers are used for ice mining, but they did not establish that and it is still a lot of flame throwers.

Do not leave as the end credits roll as there are scenes which lead directly into Carpenter's The Thing.

Rated R for graphic violence and language. Running time: 103 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Pancho's Movie Reviews

Real Steel

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 127 Minutes

















Click below to watch the Real Steel trailer.



Set in the near future, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Real Steel has down on his luck ex-boxer Hugh Jackman using the last of his money getting fighting gigs for his second-hand robot boxers - which gets trashed. When Jackson gets temporary custody of his orphaned son Dakota Goyo, Jackson reluctantly uses Goyo's boxing robot to earn more cash as he travels from city to city searching for his next boxing match.

Because the money went from human boxers to robot boxers for more violence, Jackman searches for parts to make another robot in a junkyard. After inadvertently saving Goyo's life in the junkyard, Goyo scavenges the remains of the small sparring robot Atom, that saved Goyo's life, from the junkyard. When Jackman's former girlfriend Evangeline Lilly overhauls Atom for Goyo, Goyo soon persuades Jackman to coordinate Atom's boxing skills. Built to take punches, Atom soon goes up the ranks of both the underground robot league and the World Robot League.

This movie is basically The Champ with robots. Or to get a better picture, it is The Champ, Rocky, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Robocop - without the criminal violence. This is basically a remake of The Twilight Zone's episode Steel, adapted from the 1956 short story by Richard Matheson. With Goyo in the film, it is a very cute human film - but very predictable. As Jackman's son, Goyo holds his own against Jackman.

The filmmakers wanted to make this movie in the "near future." Because this is a "science fiction" film, the opening shots can be confusing as it is set in a normal-looking Mid-West. You might think you are in the wrong theater - or rented the wrong movie - if you have not seen the movie before, because the filmmakers wanted the movie to be very familiar to the audience. The film being familiar is also evidenced by the various product placements, including Hewlett Packard and ESPN.

The robot boxing fights were motion-captured from professional boxers - who were supervised by world boxing champion Sugar Ray Leonard. Leonard's training also made Jackman's boxing performance believable. A part of the boxing scenes is like a computerized version of the old toy "Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots" by Marx/Mattel. The Rocky movies have a big influence on the film, with the final fight scene basically being a blow-by-blow scene from Rocky IV. The operatic championship music was by composer Danny Elfman of Oingo Boingo fame.

Rated PG-13 for language and violence. Running time 127 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Moneyball

Columbia Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 133 Minutes

















Click below to watch the Moneyball trailer.



In Columbia Pictures Moneyball, the major league baseball team Oakland A's general manager Brad Pitt tries to build a winning World Series team in 2002 by building a team of misfit ball players using statistics.

Based on a true story, this is not your typical baseball film in that the film is about the "Business" of baseball instead of about the players "playing a 'children's game.'" The players in the film are treated like commodities instead of athletes as Pitt uses the player's statistical skills to build a winning team the A's can afford instead of paying for expensive talent. In a world where big franchises can afford to pay millions of dollars to get players, that is an intriguing business decision when you only have hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for your players - or using baseball scouts searching for talent. The sports analysts like Bob Costas get on Pitt for using this experimental system on baseball - but totally ignore, or are at least are unaware, that Pitt is operating under a very small budget to produce a World Championship team. Pitt had also been the product of a talent search, which did not turn out well. This is one reason why he is going with this approach.

It was nice to see Jonah Hill play an adult role for once as Pitt's statistical assistant responsible for Pitt's entire team strategy. This is also one of Pitt's best roles and I would not be surprised at talks of an Oscar nomination. The writing by Aaron Sorkin definitely helped Pitt's performance. Several of the actors playing ballplayers has had baseball experience, which adds realism to their roles - especially as the team heads for the playoffs, although the film does not spend that much time in the ballpark.

I do not see why the movie is Rated PG-13. I do not recall any language and the only violence is when Pitt throws furniture around when he is angry. There are locker room scenes, but I do not recall anybody being really undressed. The rating kills an additional audience that would relate to Pitt's daughter Kerris Dorsey when Pitt is at home. The movie is over 2 hours, which makes the movie drag at the end of the film. A couple of scenes at the end of the film could have been deleted and made the movie tighter.

Rated PG-13. Running time: 133 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

Apollo 18

Dimension Films

Rated PG-13

Running time: 88 minutes

Click below to watch the trailer for Apollo 18.



In Dimension Films Apollo 18, a secret documentary from NASA and the Department of Defense shows the two organizations actually sending a classified Apollo mission to the moon - with horrifying consequences.

A combination Apollo 13, The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and Alien, the movie is more of a suspense film than a horror film. I freely admit that there were a few times where I did jump and flinch - but I was not really scared, just startled. The film starts out with a crawl stating that Apollo 17 was the last Moon landing mission, but then the crawl states that in 2011 hours of documentary footage was uploaded onto the web at http://www.lunartruth.org/ and that this movie of the recovered footage of Apollo 18 is the edited result. The quality of the footage looks like 1970's 16mm footage that would have been in use during the time. Make no mistake - despite the documentary style, and NASA confirms it - this film is a work of fiction.

Clicking on the lunartruth website is not worth it as the website says the footage has been censored. There are no links or anthing on the site except that disclaimer. This site is apparently not available anymore. The website that has the Apollo 18 conspiracy is http://lunatruth.com/. And while not noticing a Saturn V rocket on a launch pad could be justified for the movie, a night launch that was shown is much harder not to notice. I once was at Cape Canaveral for a Discovery space shuttle launch, and we had to pass through a security gate. After driving for a distance through the complex, we parked at a public viewing area. From across the lagoon, I could just barely see the launch pad without my telephoto camera lens. Aside from the noise, and even with the noise, it is quite possible not to notice a Saturn V rocket launch from a distance as the whole area is quite isolated and secured.

The various noises in the lunar module makes you think that the aliens are already around - but the astronauts hardly paid attention to them, so it is difficult to tell if the noises are natural lunar module sounds or the aliens crawling around. The sounds are pretty scary when you consider how empty and lonely the moon is.

Apparently there is an entire species on the moon with the aliens metamorphosing from rock to alien, which apparently got to a previous Soviet lunar mission. You never really get a good look at the aliens, but they appear to be small insect-like creatures instead of man-size creatures, so one astronaut being suddenly dragged away does not make sense. Lloyd Owen being infected by these creatures is reminiscent of Alien. With Warren Christie wanting to go home to his family, and not having a lonely death in space, you could feel Christie's desperation as the situation deteriorates rapidly towards the end.

The sets and effects of the spacecrafts and the lunar surface were very good and realistic in that you could easily believe that this was real footage from NASA.

President John F. Kennedy's classic speech about choosing to go to the moon was a nice touch.

While supposedly set during Christmas time - there are hardly any references to Christmas, with the most notable reference as the Christmas carol instrumental music played during the end credits.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 88 minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

I Don't Know How She Does It

The Weinstein Company

PG-13

Running time: 89 Minutes



In The Weinstein Company's I Don't Know How She Does It, working mom Sarah Jessica Parker tries to balance career and motherhood.

Parker loves her work, but her devotion to her family gets in the way. With office rival Seth Meyers ready to pounce on her achievements - Parker possessively goes after mature partner Pierce Brosnan, for whom she is developing a dynamic new investment fund for, who is in their New York office. As the major breadwinner, now that husband Greg Kinnear left his job and is going out on his own as a freelance architect, the pressure increases for Parker for her to succeed and still take care of her family. It does make Parker feel extremely guilty that she is missing out on what is important in her children's lives at home, especially when she has to travel from city to city during the holidays.

The film is full of asides to the audience and interviews of the characters as they comment on Parker and their lives in general. While it seems hard to believe that Parker's company would be involved in developing a brand new fund as most investments are already in place, it seems almost appropriate that it would take that long to develop a brand new fund.

Rated PG-13 for language and sexual situations. Running time: 89 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.