When did this sort of movie stop being funny? Parodies with so-called "saturation humor" used to be reliable - rarely memorable but typically good for 90 minutes of enjoyable, disposable cinema. At some point, however, the jokes lost their zing, and the writing team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were right in the middle. These two scripted Scary Movie (along with Shawn and Marlon Wayans), which was amusing, and Date Movie, which was anything but that. Epic Movie (with which these two make their directorial debut) is the third entry in the "trilogy" and it fails to reverse the downward spiral. If you thought it was impossible for a film to contain less effective comedy than Date Movie, here's evidence to the contrary.

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War films were suddenly big business again, after the success of war genre films in the mid-20s caused a revival, such as The Patent Leather Kid (1927) (with Best Actor-nominated Richard Barthelmess) and the early talkie She Goes to War (1929) with Eleanor Boardman. The start of the talkie era meant that war films would now be supplemented with the realistic sounds of war - aerial dogfights, explosions, gunfire, etc. Millionaire director/producer Howard Hughes' expensive Hell's Angels (1930) featured more impressive WWI aerial battle sequences - and the debut of platinum blonde sex symbol Jean Harlow (speaking the famous saucy line: "Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?") in love with two English brothers who were British Royal Flying Corps pilots (Ben Lyon and James Hall).

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Sleeper (1973) is Woody Allen's science-fiction satirical comedy classic and screwball comedy about the future - with Dixieland and swing music. The film's poster stated: "WOODY ALLEN TAKES A NOSTALGIC LOOK AT THE FUTURE." This film was from Allen's earlier period, when he was known for appearing in or directing lightweight comedies, such as Take the Money and Run (1969), Bananas (1971), Play It Again, Sam (1972), and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask (1972).

Filled with one-liners, Allen's film both satirizes the 1970's and parodies sci-fi books and past classics, such as Buck Rogers "Serial" (1939), Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971), George Lucas' THX 1138 (1971), George Orwell's futuristic novel 1984, and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It also evokes such slapstick comedy classics as Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton films, the Keystone Kops, Chaplin's Modern Times (1936) and the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933). Like Chaplin in many of his films, Allen directed, wrote, starred in, and composed the soundtrack for this film.

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Film Plot Summary

The credits, accompanied by the tune "Jingle Bell Rock" (sung by Bobby Helms) played atop nighttime aerial views of Los Angeles a few weeks before Christmas. The camera zoomed into the window of a penthouse at the top of a round Century City LA high-rise where a scantily-clad young woman, later identified as 22 year-old Amanda Hunsaker (Jackie Swanson) was snorting cocaine and ingesting pills. Obviously hallucinating, the half-naked female stood on her balcony, and then jumped from its railing to the street many stories below, landing on the top of a parked car - an apparent suicide.

The next scene introduced the film's two main characters, both naked: veteran LAPD Detective Sgt. Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover), an African-American celebrating his 50th birthday in his bathtub (although depressed about his age), with members of his large family including his wife Trish (Darlene Love) and gorgeous teenaged daughter Rianne (Traci Wolfe), and younger 37 year-old LAPD Detective Sgt. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson), tattooed, wild-haired, beer-drinking, and living alone in a parked, beachside camper-shell trailer with his collie dog Sam. Riggs emerged from his bed to strut bare-assed into his kitchen for a cold beer and greet his collie at the door, while a day-time game show (Family Feud) played on his television.

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Action-oriented (and adventure-oriented) survival films have commonly been set in harsh, uncivilized locales - a desert, an island, a searing jungle, or a cold polar area, where an individual (or a group) must struggle against the forces of nature to keep alive. The threats of death, the selfishness of other individuals in the group, and other forces test the spirit (ingenuity, will-power, and altruism) of the survivors under these grueling circumstances.

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It appeared that the height of weepie, melodramatic female roles came in the mid 1930s, when the five Best Actress nominees included four strong examples. (Only Irene Dunne's nomination as Lucy Warriner - one-half of a divorced couple in the hilarious screwball comedy The Awful Truth (1937) - didn't fit the profile):

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The acting duo of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake was first teamed in the superb early noir thriller This Gun For Hire (1942) (with the tagline: "He's dynamite with a gun or a girl"). From the novel A Gun For Sale by renowned British novelist Graham Greene, the moody noir featured Ladd in a star-making role (his first lead role) as a ruthless, cat-loving, vengeful, unsmiling San Francisco professional hit-man named Raven working for a peppermint-candy loving fat man Willard Gates (Laird Cregar) and his wheelchair-bound Nitro Chemicals executive Alvin Brewster (Tully Marshall) - both double-crossers who were selling secrets to foreign agents (the Japanese). Ladd was paired with popular wartime pinup star Lake as nightclub showgirl singer Ellen Graham, his hostage (and unbeknownst to him working as a federal agent).

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Starring Hilary Swank
Sam Rockwell
Minnie Driver
Juliette Lewis
Melissa Leo
Peter Gallagher
While all of the above-mentioned may be fiction, sometimes it’s the truth that can lead to even more rewarding filmmaking. In Conviction, director Tony Goldwyn takes a compelling script from Pamela Gray, throws in some tremendous acting and churns out his best film yet. Although he'd only directed only three feature films prior to this one (A Walk on the Moon, Someone Like You…, The Last Kiss), he’s been heavily involved in television. Having done episodes in series including Dexter (one of the best shows on right now), Justified, Damages, Kidnapped, Law & Order and Without a Trace, directing a movie like Conviction makes sense.



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Cast:

John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie, Jake Weber, Kurt Fuller, Vicki Lewis, Matt Ross


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Cast:
* Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers
* Mila Kunis as Lily
* Vincent Cassel as Thomas Leroy
* Barbara Hershey as Erica Sayers
* Winona Ryder as Beth MacIntyre
* Benjamin Millepied as David
* Ksenia Solo as Veronica
* Kristina Anapau as Galina
* Janet Montgomery as Madeline
* Sebastian Stan as Andrew
* Toby Hemingway as Tom
* Sergio Torrado as Sergio

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