Film

XFEST

Music. Brews. Peace. Harrah’s Plaza 2012 July 21, 2012 | 4pm – 10pm

THE BANDS:

Tim Snider Whitney Myer Band Jelly Bread

THE BREWS:

High Sierra Brewery Sierra Nevada B.J.’s Brewing Great Basin Brewing Company Silver Peak Brewing Under Cover Ale Works

$10 ENTRY FEE INCLUDES THREE TASTER TICKETS

Additional taster tickets can be purchased for $1 each Proceeds benefit Keep Truckee Meadows Beautiful

TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED AT THE PLAZA ENTRANCE THE DAY OF THE EVENT

Must be 21 or older to attend event or to gamble. Management reserves the right to change or discontinue offer without notice. Know When To Stop Before You Start.® Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-522-4700. ©2012, Caesars License Company, LLC.

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Thursday: through August 23 (Dark August 9 for HAN) Whole Foods Sparks Farmers’ Market 3pm to 8pm

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Saturday: through September 29 Summit Reno Farmers’ Market 9am to 2pm

Contact: Shirley at 775.746.5024 PO Box 2898 • Sparks NV

Left cold

Ice Age: Continental Drift

The animated wooly mammoth (Ray Romano),sabertoothed tiger (Denis Leary) and sloth (John Leguizamo) take yet another journey to the land of the suck in this fourth, and undoubtedly not last, installment of the popular kiddie adventures. This time out, the animals must deal with the cracking of the continents, something that probably happened a billion or two years before they were born, but who’s counting? As with past adventures that involved dinosaurs, the makers of these movies just throw science out the window. Kids, don’t watch this film thinking you are going to get a head start on that big science test, because that would result in a big fat F. When the planet cracks, the mammoth, tiger and sloth end up on a piece of ice that floats out into the ocean. They struggle to return so the mammoth can be with his lame family, but a pirate monkey (Peter Dinklage) gets in their way. So they must fight this pirate monkey, who inexplicably breaks out into a forgettable song during a very awkward musical number. The part where the monkey sings would be this franchise’s most shameless attempt to ape Disney animation yet. When creatures sing in Disney animated movies, it’s magical. When they break out into song in Fox animation movies, it’s hackneyed. And I guarantee you will not be tapping your toe to the musical refrains of the stupid monkey pirate tune. The movie also features Scrat (Chris Wedge), the crazy-eyed squirrel-type thing eternally chasing acorns. His sequences are shoehorned into the movie, and they’ve lost

their charm over the years. Now he’s just an annoying, selfish little rodent that should quit the whole acorn thing and turn to something more bountiful and easy to catch, like scallops. The writing for the movie is almost nonexistent. The film uses the 3-D angle for time-killing adventure sequences in lieu of storytelling. There’s lots of sliding down mountains, riding waves, diving through by oceans, etc. In short, there are a lot of excuses Bob Grimm for characters not to talk. bgrimm@ The other major new character would be newsreview.com a white tiger voiced by Jennifer Lopez. Her character provides the possibility of a love interest for Leary’s tiger, but the movie 1 doesn’t do much with that because it’s too busy going “whoosh” and “swish” with crazy action sequences that leave no time for tiger lovemaking. And, oddly enough, the J-Lo tiger doesn’t get her own musical number. Strange that the Dinklage pirate monkey gets his own tune, yet the J-Lo tiger mostly just speaks drab dialogue. J-Lo does get a chance to sing in a song that plays during the credits, but Romano, Leary and Drake—who apparently voices something in this thing—sing just as much, so the J-Lo tiger never really gets to shine musically. Oddly enough, this little fact doesn’t really bother me at all. In a summer that offers the likes of Brave, parents are better off just taking their kids to that movie twice than subjecting their prepubescent eyes to this thing. I actually got tired watching this due to all of the frantic 3-D movement. Or perhaps it was the stupid pirate monkey song that made me want to go sleepy time. I fear these Ice Age movies are going to keep on coming. Future plotlines will probably involve more scientifically impossible adventures for these creatures, like their sailing to Mars on a leaf or battling evil pugs and bulldogs well before anybody even bothered to breed them. That wouldn’t be any crazier or more impossible than the notion of a sloth dealing with the terrors of continental drift alongside a wooly mammoth whilst battling a dreaded pirate monkey voiced by the short dude from Game of Thrones. Ω

A wooly mammoth walks into a bar. Bartender says, “Why the long face?”

1

POOR

2

FAIR

3

GOOD

4

VERY GOOD

5

EXCELLENT

2Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter Honestly, this was one of the movies I was most excited about this year. Abraham Lincoln killing vampires—how could they go wrong? Director Timur Bekmambetov has most certainly found a way, turning in a boring, redundant and humorless film that blows it in most categories. Benjamin Walker is given little to do as Lincoln. He walks around looking glum and occasionally swings an axe at very unconvincing vampires. The movie speculates that the Confederacy was full of vampires during the Civil War, and it has absolutely no fun with this idea. I was hoping for something that I could file alongside the likes of Evil Dead 2with this one—good, sick fun with a dash of camp humor. Instead, we get a movie that’s as tedious and bland as the Underworld films. It will surely stand as one of the year’s biggest cinematic letdowns.

2The Amazing Spider-Man I think it’s fair to say that Marc Webb was not a good choice to helm a big budget summer blockbuster. His sole feature credit is the sweet (500) Days of Summer, a film that, to the best of my memory, had nothing like a big CGI lizard man in it. This is a “reboot” of the Spidey franchise, with Sam Raimi parting ways producers after his outrageously bad Spider-Man 3and an aborted attempt at a Spider-Man 4that would’ve seen John Malkovich as a vulture dude. Webb gets it all wrong, from his casting of SpiderMan (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone), to the terrible operatic soundtrack, and, most disappointingly, a truly bad screen rendition of The Lizard (played drably by Rhys Ifans). As it turns out, Webb can’t handle an action scene to save his life. Garfield, so good in The Social Network, takes an “Oh-gosh-golly-gee-willickers-please-likemy-nerd-ass!” approach to the role of Peter Parker. It’s cute for about five minutes, and then it gets pretty painful to watch.

4Brave After the severe misstep that was Cars 2, Pixar gets back to goodness with this, the tale of Merida (voice of Kelly Macdonald). Merida is a princess who doesn’t want to conform to tradition, shooting arrows better than any of the boys in or around her kingdom, and not really too keen about marrying any of them under arranged circumstances. When a spell is cast on family members, she must search for a way to restore normalcy, while convincing her mom (Emma Thompson) that she has the right to choose her own destiny. Merida is a fun character, and Macdonald is the perfect voice for her. As for the look of this movie, it is beautiful for its entire running time. While I’ve liked many Pixar films more than this one, that is not a dig on this movie. It might not be one of the best the studio has offered, but it is still a highly entertaining piece of work.

3Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted The third in this franchise winds up being the best, and a decent comeback after a bland second installment. The zoo animals, still kicking it in Africa, wind up on a European tour with a circus, which gives writers Eric Darnell and Noah Baumbach the opportunity to introduce some fun new characters. These include a hoop-jumping tiger (voiced by Bryan Cranston), an evil animal control officer (Frances McDormand) and, most winningly, a dopey seal named Stefano voiced wonderfully by Martin Short. This one is a bit touched in the head, as evidenced by the “Circus Afro” sequence featured in the advertising campaign. Darnell and Baumbach write good jokes that will keep both the adults and children laughing. Stars the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer and Jada Pinkett Smith. 3Magic Mike Loosely based on the pre-Hollywood stripper life of Channing Tatum, the man himself stars as the title character in this dark character study from director Steven Soderbergh. While there are plentiful shots of male butt and thongs to go around, the film does have a semi-deep and dark narrative, so it’s not all about stripping. Tatum continues to impress as an actor, and the film allows him to mix drama with comedy effectively. Matthew McConaughey, who I’d say is in better shape than anybody in this movie, is fun as the stripper gang ringleader. Alex Pettyfer is pretty good as the up-and-coming stripper who has a few lessons to learn, while Cody Horn is a little drab as his sister and Mike’s potential love interest. This one isn’t a jolly romp, so don’t be bringing your bachelorette parties to it. There was one at my screening, and they were not having a good time.

5Moonrise Kingdom Writer-director Wes Anderson’s return to live action after his animated gem Fantastic Mr. Fox is probably the most “Wes Anderson” Wes Anderson movie yet, and that’s a good thing if you love the guy (I do!). The story here is set in 1965, where Sam the Khaki Scout (newcomer Jared Gilman) has flown the coop during a camping expedition, much to the worry of Scout Master Ward, (Edward Norton, in his funniest performance yet). Sam runs away with Suzy (Kara Hayward, also a newcomer), and they have themselves a romantic couple of days while parents and authority figures frantically search for them. The adolescent puppy love story is treated with the sort of storybook grace one would expect from Anderson. Every shot is a thing of beauty. Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand and Jason Schwartzman all contribute wonderfully in what stands, and will stand, as one of the year’s best films.

3Snow White and the Huntsman The 347th Snow Whitemovie this year is actually a fairly decent one, with Kristen Stewart doing a fine job as the title character and Chris Hemsworth contributing nicely as the ax-wielding Hunstman. Best of all the cast is Charlize Theron as Ravenna, a loony queen hell-bent on staying young and eating Snow’s heart. Director Rupert Sanders puts together a swell visual movie, especially in the way he creates dwarves out of actors like Nick Frost, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins and Toby Jones. The movie is quite good when it features Snow White running around in various enchanted forests, though not so much in the final act, where it becomes a weird Joan of Arc movie. The last act feels tacked on, like it belongs on another film. Still, Stewart is quite winning here and Theron is a bona fide scene-stealer.

4Ted Family Guycreator Seth MacFarlane makes his feature film directorial debut with one of the year’s funniest movies. MacFarlane lends his voice to the title character, an obnoxious teddy bear given the gift of speech and life after a wish by his child owner, John. The two never part, even when John, played as an adult by Mark Wahlberg, is in his 30s. They become pot-smoking buddies, and John’s girlfriend (Mila Kunis) starts to get annoyed. For those of you simply looking for good, raunchy, super R-rated comedy, Ted has got the goods. But MacFarlane also takes the human elements of the story seriously, and they wind up being quite charming. It’s a major directorial feat when a first timer creates an animated teddy bear character that’s more well-rounded than most actual human characters in movies today.

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