FILM REVIEW OF ''MADEA GOES TO JAIL''

They call her Mabel Simmons, but everybody knows her as Madea. This elderly but agile, six-foot-five, African-American matriarch can whip her own weight in cops. She can mangle Biblical scripture, but still make her points. Atlanta-based filmmaker Tyler Perry has now helmed three theatrical features about this short-tempered, bespectacled, gray-haired grandma who packs an automatic pistol in her purse and isn’t afraid to use it. In Perry’s latest comedy “Madea Goes to Jail” (**** out of ****), an impatient young woman in a red convertible swerves past Madea’s Cadillac as our heroine cruises through her local Big K in search of a parking space. Madea has her sights set on a space near the front doors. Before Madea can pull into it, the red convertible woman cuts her off and parks in the space. Madea harangues the woman for stealing her space. Ignoring Madea, the woman saunters off into the store. An angry Madea commandeers a nearby fork lift and hoists the woman’s convertible out of her parking space! When the shocked woman scrambles into the parking lot screaming at Madea to put her car down, Madea obliges her cheerfully. No sooner has Madea dropped the convertible than the woman uses her cell phone to call her police husband to come haul off Jemima the Hun!

Anybody who has seen “Diary of a Mad Black Woman,” “Madea’s Family Reunion,” and/or “Meet the Browns” knows that writer, producer, director Tyler Perry makes people laugh harder and longer impersonating an angry black woman than Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence put together. The matronly Madea ranks as one of the most maniacal comic characters you’ll ever see, and her seismic slapstick shenanigans in “Madea Goes to Jail” register like an epic earthquake on the Richter scale. We learn at the outset that Madea has bounced checks, stolen identities, worked as a stripper to feed her family, and drives without a license. She refuses to admit that she has ever flown into a rage and she doesn’t like people touching her. Meanwhile, when Tyler isn’t playing Madea, he plays Madea’s beleaguered thirty-something attorney son Brian and Madea’s crotchety old coot of a husband Joe who smokes pot while he is hooked up to an oxygen machine. The antics of this dysfunctional family will keep you guffawing until your sides split, but Perry doesn’t make “Madea Goes to Jail” one long laugh after another. Moreover, he doesn’t utilize Madea strictly for comic relief. Indeed, he uses everybody’s favorite matriarch to make some heavyweight philosophical points.

Perry alternates between Madea’s pratfalls and the predicament of a drug-addicted young woman with a history of abuse who has been arrested for prostitution. Atlanta District Attorney Joshua Hardaway (Derek Luke of “Biker Boyz”) has the world by the coattails. Joshua has a great job, good friends, and a pampered princess of a fiancé, Assistant District Attorney Linda (Ion Overman), who boasts an 89 percent conviction rate. Joshua is about to prosecute the case against Candy (“The Cosby Show’s” Keshia Knight Pulliam) until he recognizes her as a childhood friend. Excusing himself, Joshua turns the case over to Linda. Joshua is clearly shaken by the appearance of his old friend, and he helps Candy make bail. Afterward, he introduces the defiant Candy to a tough-love minister, Ellen (Viola Davis of “Doubt”), who runs interference for prostitutes in the red light district and tries to rescue them. Candy turns her nose up to Ellen. Meanwhile, Linda isn’t happy about her new competition, especially when Joshua rescues Candy after an abusive pimp that beats her. Joshua reassures Linda that he doesn’t love Candy. Nevertheless, every time Linda turns around, Candy shows up at Joshua’s apartment. Linda tampers with the evidence in Candy’s case, and the judge sentences Candy to a 17-year stretch in prison. At the same time, Linda turns her wrath on Madea who hasn’t done a day in jail. The judge (real-life Judge Matthias) lowers the gavel on Madea. He sentences Madea to five to ten years because of the convertible incident.

When Tyler Perry isn’t making madcap Madea movies, he has been sharpening his skill with melodramas, such as “Why Did I Get Married” and “The Family That Preys,” that bristle with histrionics galore. Typically, proud villains flaunt the upper hand for the first half of these yarns. During the second half, however, the meek triumph over the proud. Half of the fun of watching “The Family That Preys,” “Why Did I Get Married,” and even “Madea Goes to Jail” is savoring the success of the meek over the proud. Perry likes to bring the bad to their knees the same way that Madea unloads that red convertible with a crash in the Big K parking lot. You’ll see more than enough of this in “Madea Goes to Jail.” The villains—especially haughty Linda—make you want to shadow box with their screen images while sympathetic individuals like Joshua make you want to embrace them. Anytime a movie can make you laugh, cry, and then laugh again, you know you’ve found something worth watching. “Madea Goes to Jail” makes you laugh, cry, and laugh again and you don’t have to be African-American to enjoy it. Perry concludes this cataclysmic comedy on a high note as Madea winds up having to attend another anger management session with Dr. Phil. Dr. Phil may never be the same after this movie. Incidentally, the theatrical version of Tyler Perry’s “Madea Goes to Jail” differs substantially from the 2006 video release “Madea Goes to Jail.” The two are alike only because they share the same title and title character. Realistically, "Madea Goes to Jail" should have been retitled "Madea Goes to Prison."

FILM REVIEW OF ''MAGNUM FORCE" (1973)

Clint Eastwood reprises his role as Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Police Department in "Hang'em High" director Ted Post's "Dirty Harry" sequel "Magnum Force." The sturdy supporting cast includes Hal Holbrook, David Soul, Robert Ulrich, Tim Matheson, John Mitchum and Mitchell Ryan. The vigorous John Milius & Michael Cimino screenplay clarifies our hero's law & order ideology that he took so much flak for in the original. Indeed, "Magnum Force" whitewashes Eastwood's saintly but insubordinate cop. Remember, in "Dirty Harry," he ignored the law when he tried to save the life of a kidnapped girl, but Harry's violation of the villain's Miranda rights allowed the fiend to go free despite overwhelming evidence that he was the murderer. In "Magnum Force," we find Harry back on the job. The filmmakers never explain what precisely occurred during the interim, but it really doesn't matter. Harry is back and that is all that counts. Harry encounters a quartet of gung-ho 'young Turk' motorcycle traffic cops who are crack shots with their .357 magnum service revolvers.

"Magnum Force" opens with an angry mob of citizens protesting the release of infamous mobster Carmine Ricca (career character actor villain Richard Devon of "The Silencers") and his associates, who walk out of court, climb into their automobile and tool off to freedom despite the riotous crowd. They don't get very far before a uniformed traffic cop in black leather with a cream white helmet pulls them over for crossing the double lines on the freeway. When the thug driver gives the cop some lip, the cop—who we cannot see because he is virtually anonymous in his regalia—whips out of his service revolver and punches holes in all four of them, leaving them sprawled dead in the car. Harry investigates and his new superior, Lieutenant Neil Briggs (Hal Holbrook of "The Great White Hope") chews him out for not being on the stake-out to which he has been assigned. By this time, Harry has acquired a new partner, an African-American (Felton Perry of the original "Walking Tall") to show that he isn't a bigot. Harry takes Smith out to airport to grab a hamburger and stumbles onto a hijacking plot. Harry masquerades as an airline pilot to get aboard the jetliner and thwarts the swarthy looking hijackers with a few shots. When Harry gets back to the stake-out at a super market, he nails a couple of gun-toting bandits. Later, a pimp (Albert Popwell who played the bank robber in "Dirty Harry" that was on the receiving end of Callahan's speech) corners one of his girls at night and takes a stash of cash that she has been hording. He repays her greedy by pouring drain cleaner down her throat. The next time that we see the pimp he is being pulled over by another traffic cop. He offers the cop a bribe and the cop blows him away. prefer to take the law into their own hands and execute crooks that rely on the loopholes in justice to get out of being prosecuted from their crimes.

Ted Post isn't half of the helmer that Don Siegel was, and "Magnum Force" pales by comparison with its illustrious predecessor. First, despite the presence of some strong villains, the bad guys are rather straightforward types. Nobody is as psychotic as Andy Robinson's Scorpio in "Dirty Harry." These antagonists are well-heeled gangsters with armies of gunmen or they are slickly dressed motorcycle cops with impenetrable sunglasses that make them look intimidating. All in all, "Magnum Force" is rather conventional. Dirty Harry fans would have to wait for "Sudden Impact" before the character had another memorable speech. The closest that Milius & Cimino come to a signature line is Harry's comment: "A man has got to know his limitations." Otherwise, the dialogue is as disposable as the spent shells that Harry empties from his revolver. The shoot-outs are staged with some competence, and lenser Frank Stanley's camera-work is far about average. There is a major shoot-out between a mob and Harry. Eventually, Harry winds up on the hood of the car being driven by a hood that conveniently loses control of the vehicle and impales himself on a crane. Early in the storyline, Harry stumbles across a career cop and an old friend, Officer Charlie McCoy (Mitchell Ryan of "High Plains Drifter") who hates the system almost as much as Harry does and makes no pretense about it. Milius and Cimino use McCoy as the red herring. He appears to be the unhinged cop who has been killing thugs, that is, until he gets killed himself.

A little more than half-way through the action, the badguys identify themselves to Harry and ask him to join them. Surprisingly, for them, Harry refuses to and it's only a matter of time before he has to confront them. As it turns out, Harry's worst suspicions have come true. Vigilante cops within the SFPD are knocking off suspected criminals with extreme prejudice. Eventually, Harry has to tangle with them aboard a mothballed aircraft carrier after a brisk but uneventful car chase. The motorcycle stunts come off looking tame.

The biggest difference in "Magnum Force" from "Dirty Harry" is the relationships that Harry has with women. He had no woman in "Dirty Harry," but here we see him date an Asian-American as well as Charlie's ex-wife. Harry never gets them between the sheets because he has to respond to some criminal emergency that cannot wait for him. Interestingly, according to scenarist John Milius—in an above-average but less than satisfactorily complete commentary—revealed that Eastwood had received mail from women requesting that he work women into the movies, but that the women come onto Harry instead of vice-versa. "Magnum Force" packs a lot of heat, but it cannot compare with Don Siegel's original. Hal Holbrook makes an okay villain. John Mitchum returns as Inspector Frank DiGiorgo, the only cast member who appeared in the original "Dirty Harry."

FILM REVIEW OF ''SAVING PRIVATE RYAN" (1998)

Lately, when Hollywood produces war movies, they focus on the debacle of Vietnam. Not director Steven Spielberg! Instead, the incredibly versatile helmer of "Jaws," "Schindler's List," "The Color Purple," and "Jurassic Park" impales a patriotic chapter of American history on a bayonet with his graphically realistic but otherwise sappy "Saving Private Ryan." "Saving Private Ryan" (**1/2 out of ****) ranks as a second-rate World War II movie with a first-class cast and top-notch production values that pass inspection with some of the most savage combat carnage ever lensed. As demeaning as this criticism sounds, "Saving Private Ryan" is one of the top 25 World War II movies. Unfortunately, the film contains so many glaring historical inaccuracies as well as wholly improbable plot contrivances that you wonder what Spielberg was thinking when he made it. Since "Saving Private Ryan" swamped moviegoers with cutting edge combat action, Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" and Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo" have eclipsed it with even greater cutting edge violence.

If the story had been as memorable as the kinetic, blood-splattered battle scenes, "Saving Private Ryan" might have been a classic. Essentially, "Saving Private Ryan" is a ten-star movie until the U.S. Army gets off the beach and into France where it devolves into just another standard-issue G.I. Joe war epic. Anybody who knows anything about combat movies will cringe the first time that they see the hero parading about in a helmet with the captain's bars painted on the front like a bull's eye. This is an egregious error! During World War II, officers didn't advertise their presence in this manner for fear that an enemy sniper would single them out for a bullet in the head. Okay, I'd dismiss this lapse of realism as a dramatic liberty except the filmmakers raise the same point. A seasoned dogface (Vin Diesel) warns a rank amateur to stop saluting the captain for fear that a sniper will shoot the captain down.

Dispersed throughout the movie is the usual quota of Hallmark speeches about valor, loyalty, and redemption. These platitudes add little dimension beyond the obvious to the purely physical rat-a-tat-tat. Spielberg could have trimmed much of this sappy dialogue and upgraded his movie. Running nearly three hours in length, this rowdy, often profane World War II melodrama creates a deeper impression with is grotesque special effects than with its drab, sometimes improbable tale. Consider the scene in the town when the wall collapses between the Germans and the GIs and they stand with their arms brandished screaming at each like a Mexican stand-off. Come on, give me a break, in real life, either side would have opened up on each other. Similarly, letting Steamboat Willie go is another incredible lapse of believability.

Told from the perspective of the infantry, "Saving Private Ryan" shares in the grand tradition of Louis Milestone's classic "All Quiet on the Western Front," Samuel Fuller's "The Big Red One," Lewis Milestone's "A Walk in the Sun," and William Wellman's "Background." Granted, none of them boasts the extreme combat that "Saving Private Ryan" commands, but they are solidly-made, engaging war movies with deeply personal stories. The muddled but high-minded screenplay by "Fly Away House" scenarist Robert Rodat follows a unit of U.S. Rangers on a dim-witted public relations mission to rescue an American paratrooper.

Captain Miller (Tom Hanks of "Forrest Gump") assembles a collection of stock characters to help him locate 101ST Airborne Paratrooper Private James Ryan of Iowa. Ryan (Matt Damon of "Good Will Hunting") has gotten lost behind enemy lines in the pre-dawn parachute drops that preceded the June 6th D-Day Normandy Invasion. When the War Department discovers that Ryan's two brothers bite the sand at Normandy and that the Japanese have killed a third sibling a week earlier, General George C. Marshall (Harve Presnell of "Fargo") decides to pull the last Ryan out of action. Along the way, Miller's G.I.s complain about the irony of risking eight lives to save one guy.

Before "Saving Private Ryan" grinds to its sanguinary conclusion, the Biblical theme of singling out an individual from a multitude for redemption grows tedious. Spielberg and Rodat, along with uncredited scribes Scott Frank and Frank "The Shawshank Redemption" Darabont, seem confused. Are they making a fiercely repellent anti-war movie? Or have the drummed up a gung-ho Hong Kong style, kick-butt actioneer? They pile on enough blood and gore for a platoon of war movies. Bullets zip and zing by the hundreds giving death an impersonal omnipotence. Presumably, the filmmakers hoped their grisly depiction of combat would eviscerate the memories of those flag-waving John Wayne propaganda sagas. The sadistic horrors that occur in "Saving Private Ryan" seems more commercially than philosophically oriented. We don't think so much about how terrible war is as how miraculous it is to survive.

The first 24 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" dwells on the famous D-Day landing at Omaha Beach. Spielberg shows the baptism by fire that befell the seasick G.I.s as they waded ashore into a murderous Third Reich shooting gallery. This is the best part of this movie and guarantees it an immortal place in the ranks of all great combat epics. The last 40 minutes are pretty good and Spielberg has a surprise awaiting us at the end, but you won't like that surprise. After the scary, visceral D-Day prologue, the film settles down long enough for Miller to receive new orders. Eventually, Miller locates Ryan with a bunch of paratroopers guarding a bridge behind Nazi lines. Ryan refuses to leave his buddies in the lurch. Reluctantly, Miller and his squad prepare for the worst. This part of "Saving Private Ryan" has a lot of action, but it cannot compete with the 1960s ABC-TV show "Combat." Tom Sizemore makes a credible sergeant, but the usually dependable Edward Burns plays a soldier that would have been shot by his own men for disobeying orders. Tom Hanks' former teacher turned combat leader is a little too sentimental to be believable as is his inevitable demise. Many soldiers have commented--among them retired Joints Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell--that Miller and his men should have blown the bridge and retreated. Of course, had our heroes shown this much common sense there would have been no climactic battle.

Spielberg relies on elaborate visual gimmicks to strengthen his screen activities. The astonishing combat sequences have the compressed look of a video surveillance camera. The only thing that saves Spielberg is the politically incorrect way that the G.I.s shoot the surrendering Nazi troops. "Saving Private Ryan," for all its obvious flaws, still qualifies a movie any die-hard World War II fanatic should watch at least three times. It is still difficult to believe that for such a serious film, "Saving Private Ryan" contains several mistakes that ultimately undercuts its impact.

FILM REVIEW OF ''JACKIE BROWN'' (1998)

If you’re expecting more of “Pulp Fiction” from writer & director Quentin Tarantino in “Jackie Brown,” the cult moviemaker’s first full-fledged cinematic opus since “Pulp Fiction,” then you may feel sorely let down by this extreme chick flick. Neither as sadistic nor as sexually bizarre as either “Reservoir Dogs” or “Pulp Fiction,” “Jackie Brown” (**** out of ****) represents something of a departure for the talented filmmaker. Indeed, an initial viewing may leave you with the impression that “Jackie Brown” suffers from a sketchy plot and lackluster action. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While “Jackie Brown” covers familiar “Pulp Fiction” territory, Tarantino emphasizes characterization at the expense of ultra-violence and implausibility. Furthermore, “Jackie Brown” may be Tarantino’s most accomplished film in terms of visual storytelling and the performances are simply unforgettable. Clearly, "Jackie Brown" deals with the themes of women versus men, women versus society, and women versus women in that order.

Veteran African-American actress Pam Grier, who made a name for herself during the 1970s with blaxploitation movies such as “The Big Doll House” (1971) and “Coffy” (1973), plays the eponymous heroine. As a 44-year old woman, Jackie works as a flight attendant for the worst airline, a shuttle that flies between the United States and Mexico. Life has not exactly been rosy for Jackie. She resorts to smuggling large sums of U.S. currency into the country that belongs to a treacherous arms dealer, Ordell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson of “Pulp Fiction”) who stashes his cash in Cabo San Lucas. As the film opens, prickly ATF agent Ray Nicolette (Michael Keaton of “Batman”) busts Jackie for sneaking $50-thousand in past customs. Nicolette and his LAPD partner Mark Dargus (Michael Bowen of “Iron Eagle”) put the squeeze on her, especially after they discover a two ounce baggie of cocaine hidden in with the bucks.

Jackie finds herself in jail, and Robbie posts her bond. Robbie hires bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster of “Medium Cool”) to spring her. Robbie follows an unmistakable pattern. Paranoid about going back to jail, Robbie ices any of his cohorts who come into contact with the law. Jackie got busted thanks to a tip the cops squeezed out of Robbie’s low-life henchman Beaumount (Chris Tucker of “Rush Hour”). After Cherry gets Beaumont out of jail, Robbie kills Beaumont and hides the corpse in the trunk of an abandoned car. Robbie is so leery of his buddies that he brings in an old-time convicted bank robber, Lewis Gara (Robert De Niro of “Goodfellas”) and uses him for his latest scheme.

Once out of jail, Jackie cooperates with the ATF. She plans to bring in more of Robbie’s dough and be a part of a sting against him. She tell Robbie what the law wants her to do and then presents him with a deal that will get him the rest of his money. She’ll bring in all his money at once when the cops aren’t expecting it, and they’ll pull a switch before the fuzz could figure it out. Robbie is leery again, but eventually he agrees. Meanwhile, Jackie pulls a fast one not only on the cops but also Robbie and get away with a fortune in cold cash. She devises another plan with Max Cherry.

While there are no overlapping plots, “Jackie Brown” is Tarantino’s best job of writing. He lays the story out in clear, simple terms and never needlessly complicates the action as he did in “Pulp Fiction.” You won’t get lost in the middle of this action comedy. Of course, the language is as corrosive as all get out. The F-word is used at least 131 times, and the S-word is heard as many as 69 times. Tarantino’s fans will appreciate the usual profane, inane dialogue that he writes so well, especially Robbie’s instructions to Gara about how to unlock his car.

Written and directed by Tarantino, “Jackie Brown” is based on best-selling novelist Elmore Leonard’s novel “Rum Punch,” published in 1992. Surprisingly, Tarantino removed two major shoot-outs that add bang-bang action to Leonard’s book. Robbie wants to kill a Nazi skin head and heist his huge arsenal of firearms. What might have made for a distinctively “Pulp Fiction” moment, however, Tarantino scrapped. Tarantino also eliminated a gunfight between Nicolette and Robbie’s gunmen. Usually, Hollywood filmmakers go out of their way to beef up Leonard’s novel. Consider the horrendous misfire that Burt Reynolds produced from Leonard’s entertaining novel “Stick.” While “Stick” boasted the trademark Leonard dialogue (he c0-scripted), the movie featured violence that the book did not contain. Although Tarantino doesn’t capture the quirky Leonard dialogue, he does a better job of transferring “Rum Punch” to the screen than either Reynolds did with “Stick” or Barry Sonnenfeld with “Get Shorty.”

As Jackie Brown, busty Pam Grier is ideally cast. Originally written for an Ann-Margret type (in “Rum Punch” she was named Jackie Burke), Tarantino has changed the racial composition of the heroine but retains the spirit of Leonard’s heroine. “Jackie Brown” is one of those pictures where the heroine isn’t fresh out of a Playboy centerfold, though Grier has the obvious endowments. Instead, Tarantino uses her as a woman caught in the middle that wants and deserves to get out of a bad situation. Compared with previous Tarantino efforts, “Jackie Brown” represents a definite feminist turn of the screw.

The supporting cast is both diverse and fantastic. Although Robert Forster has almost vanished from the screen, his performance as Max Cherry is so good and straightforward—in a poker-faced way—that you forget that Forster is acting. Cherry may qualify as one of the few tough-guy male heroes who could serve as a role model. Meanwhile, Robert De Niro brings his customary thespian skill to his bank robber thug and delivers a fastidious performance that relies on his physical presence. Lastly, Chris Tucker has only a few moments on screen, but he is hilarious as motor-mouthed Beaumont, especially when Ordell makes him climb in the trunk of his car so he can kill him.

“Jackie Brown” lasts over two hours, but nothing obstructs the straight ahead plotting. If you’re counting, only three characters get shot, and Tarantino stages each shooting incident off-screen or is shown from an angle that prevents the viewer from seeing much gore and violence. A sex scene between De Niro and Fonda is staged without nudity, too. The scenes from a video about machine guns is outrageously sexist. Feminists will be pleased to know that Jackie triumphs over all the bad guys and Max Cherry is the best guy in the world.

FILM REVIEW OF ''FRIDAY THE 13TH" (2009)

Jason is back with a murderous vengeance in “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” remake director Marcus Nispel’s “Friday the 13th” (** out of ****), and he doesn’t aim to please. This invincible villain with his attitude toward pre-marital sex has changed. Essentially, the new “Friday the 13th” synthesizes Sean S. Cunningham’s above-average original along with Steve Minor’s first and second gratuitous sequels to deliver the maximum amount of mayhem. Nevertheless, despite its slick, ultra-polished production values, nudity, and carnage, this “Friday” lacks a shred of creativity. Clearly, nobody expected anything fresh from the new “Friday the 13th,” but Nispel’s remake shows more interest in Jason than Jason’s truly demented mother. Gorehounds weaned on the “Saw” sagas will gripe about the lack of brutality. Everybody else will feel like they’ve suffered through a nightmare in a hospital emergency room. Prudes will carp about the soft-core porno scenes and the voyeurism that panders to its lusty teenage audience. Bluntly, “Friday the 13th” generates no suspense, but does a number on your eardrums.

The original “Friday the 13th” dealt with a mom gone amok over the drowning death of her son while teenage counselors who were supposed to be watching him indulged in sex. Mrs. Voorhees vented her rage and cut a swathe with a machete through those amorously distracted teenagers. Indeed, Jason appeared only at the last moment in Cunningham’s 1980 original and he was only a boy. Incidentally, the first “Friday the 13th” helped launch the slasher genre a couple of years of John Carpenter’s mildly bloody “Halloween.” Mind you, Jason didn’t don the hockey mask that provided him with more personality than any other slasher stalker until the second sequel, “Friday the 13th in 3-D (1982) and by that time his immortality was taken for granted. After all, Jason is basically supernatural. He has more lives than a cat. He’s been frozen, blasted into outer space, and consigned to Hell with few ill effects. A mute, inexorable, slaughter machine with the mentality of a battery powered hare, Jason is Death personified. The new Jason, however, takes on some of the characteristics—not surprisingly—of Leatherface from the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” franchise. Jason operates in and around Camp Crystal Lake, where he drowned as a youth, like a cunning Viet Cong guerrilla, living in a maze of tunnels with booby-traps galore. Boasting his usual god-like omnipotence, he is tall, dark, and deadly. You never know where he is going to strike and where his weapon of choice will penetrate you.

The problem with the new “Friday” is Nispel disposes of Mrs. Voorhees in the first few moments without giving the dame her due. The Damian Shannon & Mark Swift screenplay doesn’t take place in Camp Crystal Lake, and nobody is trying to refurnish the old campgrounds. Instead, the latest lambs for Jason’s machete are a half-dozen, college-aged hikers searching for marihuana growing wild on Jason’s stomping grounds. This subplot recalls the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Beach” where college kids swarmed into a pot field and died at the hands of machine-gun armed natives! Of course, these kids don’t have a clue that they’re trespassing on Jason’s bailiwick. Our deformed killer dispatches them with extreme prejudice in the first 30 minutes. In a throwback to an earlier Jason sequel, he bundles a babe into a sleeping bag and smokes her to death over a fire. Unmistakably, Nispel is paying homage to Jason bashing a girl trapped in a sleeping bag against a tree in “Friday the 13th Part VII—The New Blood” (1988).

In a departure from the norm, Jason takes one of these girls, Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti of “Role Models”), hostage because she reminds him of mom. He keeps her chained up in his subterranean lair. Later, to her credit, Whitney parlays her resemblance to Mrs. Voorhees to her advantage. Whitney’s motorcycle riding brother, Clay (Jared Padelecki of TV’s “Supernatural”), is scouring Camp Crystal Lake for her and handing out missing posters. Clay is reminiscent of Rob in “Friday the 13th Part IV: Jason Lives” (1986) who wanted to kill Jason for slaughtering his sister. Anyway, Clay encounters a group of obnoxious twentysomethings hanging out at a cabin on Crystal Lake. These kids look like they stepped out of a WB soap opera. They are pretty, but bland, except for Asian-American Aaron Yoo of “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist” who provides some comic relief. Eventually, Clay finds Whitney, but by then Jason has appropriated his hockey mask, whittled down virtually nondescript nitwits, and bears down on the hero and heroine. Nispel generates his scares with sudden bursts of deafening music timed with occur with Jason’s sudden appearances. Everything is rather dull when Jason isn’t slashing and gashing his victims. “Pathfinder” lenser Daniel Pearl’s atmospheric photography creates a modicum of mood. Incredibly, Nispel doesn’t take full advantage of Harry Manfredini’s memorable “ch-ch-ch/pa-pa” music. Comparatively, Nispel’s unsubtle remake makes Sean S. Cunningham’s original slasher look Shakespearean.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE PINK PANTHER 2" (2009)

The dreadful 2006 prequel/remake of “The Pink Panther” turned out to be a travesty of a once splendid slapstick franchise about the world’s most incompetent French detective. The late British comic Peter Sellers created Inspector Jacques Clouseau back in 1963 for director Blake Edwards in the original “Pink Panther” with David Niven and Robert Wagner. Watching Sellers mangle the language while performing his silly shenanigans made for a sidesplitting experience. Steve Martin tried to imitate Clouseau’s clowning in “The Pink Panther” and for the most part stumbled through the role. Indeed, he managed to salvage a moment or two with his bumbling bravado, ridiculous accent, and a naughty word. The biggest change between Sellers’ Clouseau and Martin’s Clouseau is that Martin’s Clouseau has moments of blinding brilliance that Sellers’ Clouseau never had. Surprisingly, three years later, Steve Martin has captured the comic spirit of both Sellers and Clouseau in the lively sequel “The Pink Panther 2” (*** out of ****) and “Agent Cody Banks” director Harald Zwart keeps slapping us silly throughout this nimble, 91-minute merriment with riotous pratfalls and sight gags galore. The 2006 “Pink Panther” looked abysmal, but it coined over a $158 million worldwide. Incredibly, the far superior sequel looks absolutely fantastic, but it isn’t generating the box office receipts of its predecessor.

Like most sequels, “The Pink Panther 2” plays for bigger stakes. A mysterious thief, the Tornado, has stolen the British Magna Carta, the Italian Shroud of Turin, and the Imperial Sword of Japan. The ingenious Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber screenplay has the world authorities assembling an elite team of crack detectives to catch the elusive Tornado. Included are Italian investigator Vicenzo (Andy Garcia of “The Godfather, Part 3”), British cop Randal Pepperridge (Alfred Molina of “Spider-man 2”), and Japanese policeman Kenji (Yuki Matsuzaki). It is only a matter of time before French Chief Inspector Dreyfus (John Cleese of the Monty Python troupe) is summoned by Joubert (Geoffrey Palmer of "Tomorrow Never Dies"), his immediate superior, and ordered to add Clouseau to the team. The envious Dreyfus volunteers to take Clouseau’s place. He tells Joubert that he has Clouseau on a special assignment to safeguard Parisians. In reality, Dreyfus has banished our hero to writing tickets for parking infractions. Joubert demands that Clouseau join the dream team. Initially, Clouseau is reluctant to leave France. He fears the Tornado will take advantage of his absence and pinch the Pink Panther diamond on display in a Parisian museum. Clearly, something must have changed because the diamond was set in a ring in the previous “Pink Panther.” No sooner has Clouseau walked out of the terminal to board his plane to Rome than the word hits the airwaves about of the Pink Panther’s theft.

“The Pink Panther 2” contains many memorable gags. In a restaurant in Rome, Clouseau selects a bottle of wine for his girlfriend, Nicole (Emily Mortimer of “Scream 3”), and winds up tipping the wine rack so all the bottles cascade out. Waiters scramble everywhere to catch these falling bottles. Only one bottle hits the floor, but it doesn’t break! Just when everything seems safe, Clouseau crosses the room, steps on that wine bottle rolling across the floor, falls and throws his wine bottle into the air. Clouseau’s wine bottle shatters on a flaming dessert dish, and the entire restaurant burns down! In another scene, Clouseau tries to sneak inconspicuously around a three story villa. He climbs onto the roof but falls backwards down the chimney, crashing through three fireplaces! In a duel of wits, Clouseau and Pepperridge display their powers of deduction. They observe things about each other that they have no apparent way of knowing. As the duel concludes, Pepperridge makes a comment about Clouseau’s trip to the airport. A puzzled Clouseau wonders how Pepperridge knew about airport as he holds up the back of his hand that the passport official had stamped by accident.

The lunacy in “The Pink Panther 2” compares favorably with the better Sellers’ “Pink Panther” movies. The martial arts hand-to-hand combat scenes in his apartment are hilarious. Director Harald Zwart and his writers have cleverly contrived events in advance so you are actually given clues about the villain’s identity before Clouseau unveils the guilty party. The trouble is that unless you’re vigilant, you’ll miss this bit of foreshadowing. Jean Reno returns as Detective Ponton, Clouseau’s right hand man, who is supposed to defend himself from any of Clouseau’s unexpected attacks. You see, Clouseau has trained Ponton to be constantly vigilant, and the best way for Clouseau to test Ponton’s vigilance is to attack him without warning. When Ponton’s wife kicks his two sons and him from their house, they move in with Clouseau. Ponton’s sons teach Clouseau a trick or two about vigilance. Not surprisingly, John Cleese is a lot funnier as Chief Inspector Dreyfus than Kevin Kline was in the 2006 “Pink Panther.” Lily Tomlin shines in a small role as a overseer at police headquarters who monitors political correctness. She busts Clouseau for his sexist and racist attitude toward women and foreigners. Canadian composer Christophe Beck does an excellent job of duplicating Henry Mancini’s unforgettable theme music. The Pink Panther cartoon that opens “The Pink Panther 2” is as good as any of the original “Pink Panther” cartoons. Happily, this “Pink” doesn’t stink like its predecessor.

FILM REVIEW OF ''CITY LIGHTS'' (1931)

The transition from silent films to talkies proved devastating for many movie stars. Some with thick European accents, like Teutonic actor Emil Jannings who won the first Best Acting Oscar, did not weather the conversion and returned to Germany. The silent clowns who practiced the art of pantomime became one group adversely affected by the advent of sound. Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd emerged as the first casualties of the talkies. Meanwhile, Chaplin had nothing but contempt for sound films. “Motion pictures need dialogue as much as Beethoven symphonies need lyrics,” he said. Indeed, Chaplin saw few advantages to sound, despite the sensation that the new technology created for the industry. Warner Brothers introduced sound pictures in 1927 with its quasi-talkie “The Jazz Singer,” and sound propelled Warners into the big leagues with exalted studios like MGM and Paramount. Chaplin did not rush to climb aboard the sound movie bandwagon. Instead, he hoped that “City Lights” (**** out of ****) would revive silent movies. As the popularity of sound waxed, Chaplin grew more anxious about sound. Nevertheless, he produced his greatest silent movie comedy “City Lights” in 1931. He took into account, however, the impact of sound and added a synchronized soundtrack as well as his own post-production musical score. Chaplin remained reluctant to convert to sound. When he made his next classic comedy Modern Times (1936), he made it as a silent. Eventually, Chaplin converted to sound with his classic anti-Hitler film “The Great Dictator” in 1940.

Chaplin’s survival is amazing since sound ushered in a new breed of comedian. These comics hailed from either vaudeville or the Broadway stage. As the silent comics vanished, the comedians who replaced them supplemented their slapstick with verbal wit. Although Chaplin maintained his popularity, these comedians who had polished their acts on stage for years entered the limelight as America entered the Great Depression and desperately needed wisecracking encouragement that these funnymen fed them. The Marx Brothers, Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo, with their peculiar brand of banter that emphasized puns reflected the changes in comedy. Paramount released their films beginning with “The Cocoanuts” (1929), “Animal Crackers”
(1930), “Monkey Business” (1931), “Horse Feathers” (1932) and “Duck Soup” (1933). Chaplin faced other formidable competitors, including Universal Studios’ curmudgeonly snide W. C. Fields and RKO’s buffoonish box office champions Bert Wheeler and Robert Woolsey.

Chaplin’s dismissal of sound grew out of his success as a mime. The former English music hall pantomimist created his life-long comic persona--the ‘little tramp’--for the 1914 silent comedy The Kid Auto Races at Venice. Chaplin rose through the ranks at various studios until his success with the little tramp enabled him to finance his own studio. Chaplin’s mute tramp appealed to everybody everywhere because body language constituted an international language. Asian audiences appreciated Chaplin’s comic body language as much as Scandinavians. “My own pictures will always be silent,” he assured his audiences. Although he added a synchronized sound track, Chaplin ridiculed talkies in “City Lights.” In the opening scene, when dignitaries dedicate a monument to ‘Peace and Prosperity,’ Chaplin pokes fun at these pretentious people with his use of squawky sound effects.

"City Lights" qualifies as a sweetly sentimental saga about Chaplin's trademark ‘little tramp’ character in his tattered evening clothes and a hat falling hopeless in love with a beautiful but blind flower girl played by Virginia Cherrill. Meanwhile, when the Tramp isn't buying flowers from the heroine and escorting her back to where she lives with her grandmother, he strikes up an on-and-off friendship with a real millionaire. According to the credits, mustached Harry Myers of "Getting Gertie's Garter" (1927) plays an 'eccentric millionaire.' He is eccentric because he lives alone without his wife and has only his butler to care for him. Unhappy, the millionaire either tries to commit suicide or gets plastered and goes from one party to another, even hosting them at his mansion. The Tramp runs into him late one evening when the Millionaire tries to commit suicide by drowning himself. The Tramp gets soaked for saving his new found friend and the friend reciprocates and becomes the Tramp's long-lost friend—that is—until he sobers up and has no memory of their friendship.

In any case, the Tramp learns about a treatment that a foreign doctor has used to help some blind people recover their sight and he sets out to earn the money so that the blind girl can see again. The Tramp tries to earn the money the old-fashioned way by joining the ranks as a city sanitation engineer. In other words, he scoops up animal droppings and hauls them away. In one amusing scene, he tries to avoid a street strewn with animals, only to have a couple of circus elephants stomp up out of nowhere. Eventually, he gets fired for being late back to work after his lunch break. Next door, at a gym, he agrees to box for a share of the purse and his opponent agrees to share. Things take a turn for the worse, when the guy has to leave unexpectedly. It seems that the police are after him. The guy who replaces the fleeing boxer is a dour tough guy who is a little afraid of the Tramp's efforts to ingratiate himself to him. Further, the new guy refuses to share the prize money. In one of the funniest scenes ever, we see the Tramp strenuously avoid blows with the rival boxer. The Tramp keeps the referee between them at times or gets behind the other boxer. This confusion is sheer side-splitting fun. Sadly, the Tramp loses, but he keeps trying to get the girl her money.

Charlie Chaplin does a flawless job directing this sappy love story. He alternates his love story with the friendship with the rich man. The way that he meets the blind flower girl is brilliant. The Tramp is walking along when he spots a cop (cops always scare him) and he ducks into a limo parked in the street. When he comes out the door on the other side, he sets foot on the sidewalk in front of the blind girl. The Tramp falls madly in love at first sight and the limo cruises away with the girl believing that she has sold a flower to a wealthy gentleman instead of a homeless transient. There is a pretty funny dance hall number with the Tramp setting fire to a woman's chair and then her dress. However, the crowning achievement of “City Lights” is its weepy ending. The Tramp has survived a sentence in stir and he meets the blind girl again, but things are definitely changed. Like the short story about the woman in the arena in Rome, "City Lights" asks you to decide for yourself if it has a happy ending or a cynical ending.