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Northern Nevada 8th Anniversary

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA & NEVADA CHAPTER & DINNER CHAIR NORM DIANDA CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO JOIN THEM IN

HONORING The Dolan Family

Thursday, August 21, 2014 5:00 pm cocktails 6:30 pm dinner The Silver Legacy Resort Casino Reno, NV

The Dinner of Champions, honoring community leaders, The Dolan Family, raises critical funds for cutting-edge MS research for better treatments and a cure, as well as services to help people with multiple sclerosis and their families to move their lives forward.

Southern California & Nevada Chapter

I am Groot!

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is a goofy, dazzling, often hilarious convergence of inspired nuttiness. You’ll probably hear comparisons to the original Star Wars, The Fifth Element and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, and all of those comparisons would be plausible. It’s a blessedly new and crazy direction for the Marvel universe, and director James Gunn (Super, Slither) has taken a huge step towards the A-list. Also taking a giant leap towards the upper echelon of Hollywood royalty is Chris Pratt, who mixes great charm, rugged action hero bravado and premium comic timing as Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star-Lord. After a prologue that shows the Earthly origins of his character, Pratt sets the tone for the movie during the opening credits, grooving to his cassetteplaying Sony Walkman on an alien planet and using squirrelly little critters as stand-in microphones. After unknowingly stealing a relic that could have the power to take down the entire universe, Quill finds himself in serious trouble. Events lead to his joining forces with a genetically enhanced Raccoon named Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper), a gigantic tree person thing named Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), a muscle-bound angry alien named Drax (Dave Bautista) and an ass-kicking green woman named Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Together, they become the Guardians of the Galaxy, an unlikely troupe of mischievous outcasts that plays like the Avengers meets the Marx Brothers. Well, if the Marx Brothers had a green sister. Hey, it’s a decent comparison. Quill is Groucho, Rocket is Chico and Groot is Harpo. Groot only has one line, “I am Groot!” while Harpo only had the honking horn. I’d say Gamora is Zeppo, but that would be slagging on Gamora.

The cast, buoyed by a spirited script co-written by Gunn, keeps things zippy and always funny. Visually, the movie is a tremendous feat of special and makeup effects. If you see it in 3-D, you’ll be happy with the results, because every shot of this movie seems meticulously constructed to benefit the medium. As for the makeup, just as much by Bob Grimm energy has been put into the practical effects as the digital work. bgrimm@ Michael Rooker, playing bad guy Yondu, newsreview.com looks especially cool with his blue skin and ragged yellow teeth. Josh Brolin shows up 5 briefly as Thanos, a major villain in the Marvel universe, while the likes of John C. Reilly, Djimon Hounsou, Glenn Close and Benicio Del Toro also chip in. With her presence here, and her work in Star Trek and Avatar, Saldana has officially inherited the Queen of Science Fiction mantle from Sigourney Weaver—and, let’s admit it, she’s incredibly hot when she’s blue or green. Pratt establishes his leading man status here, something that could be fully cemented with his turn in a Jurassic Park sequel next year. While Guardians is a terrific visual spectacle, it also packs an emotional punch. Rocket delivers a speech about alienation that’s far more moving than anything you’d expect to see in a movie like this, while Quill’s mommy issues also fuel some surprising emotional moments. The cast does some real acting, with Cooper’s feat being especially impressive in that we only hear his voice. Heck, even Vin Diesel packs a sentimental punch in the many ways he delivers his “I am Groot!” line. It must be noted that the use of classic rock on the soundtrack is a brilliant touch. Quill’s old school Walkman, which is still working decades after he left Earth, churns out the hits like “Hooked on a Feeling, “Moonage Daydream” and “Cherry Bomb.” Like Wes Anderson and Martin Scorsese before him, Gunn is quite adept at using great music in unexpected places. Note for note, Guardians of the Galaxy rivals Edge of Tomorrow and Godzilla for the summer’s best blockbusters. As for its place in the Marvel universe, I’m going to put it right alongside The Avengers as the company’s best. A sequel has already been greenlit for 2017, so this blissfully bizarre story shall continue. Ω

Shouldn't he be wearing a helmet?

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4Dawn of the Planet of the Apes The motion-capture apes take another step toward world domination in a sequel just as good as its predecessor, and certainly a step forward when it comes to pure, unadulterated ass-kicking ape action. The movie picks up 10 years after a well-meaning doctor played by James Franco first shot an experimental drug into a chimp and unintentionally initiated the end of the human race. Caesar (Andy Serkis doing his motion-capture best) is leading a group of genetically modified apes in the redwoods near the Golden Gate Bridge. Life is good, and the humans have seemingly disappeared thanks to the Simian Flu brought on by the Franco character’s experiments. As it turns out, some humans have survived, led by Gary Oldman’s frustrated Dreyfus, who fears the humans will soon run out of fuel for their generators. There’s a chance for some hydraulic power via a dam in the woods, a dam that just happens to be near the apes compound. A band of humans led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke) sets out to repair the dam, stumbles upon the apes, and those apes aren’t happy to see them. Koba, an ape who figured prominently in the first film, returns, and he has no interest in a peaceful existence with humans. So, they fight, and they fight in glorious and exciting fashion. Matt Reeves, who directed Cloverfield, Let Me In and the vastly underrated The Pallbearer, proves a more than ample choice for this movie. He’s already been announced for the sequel, due two years from now.

3Hercules Dwayne Johnson, following the likes of Steve Reeves, Kevin Sorbo and Arnold Schwarzenegger, steps into the role of Son of Zeus. Actually, this film suggests that the title character might not be immortal, and is part of a scam. It’s one of the many sly touches that make this movie enjoyable. Johnson is good in the lead, and his band of battle disciples includes Ian McShane and Rufus Sewell in fine form. It’s directed by Brett Ratner, the man who got himself into trouble with legions of rabid fans for screwing up X-Men: The Last Stand. (I didn’t think it was that bad.) Ratner does a lot with a medium-sized budget. (Yes, $100 million for a blockbuster is medium these days.) The movie looks good, and is quite clever at times. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting this to be much good given its pedigree, but the results are kind of enjoyable. Johnson has developed into a fun movie star, and Ratner can make a decent movie, even if he is the guy responsible for the Rush Hour films.

3Lucy What starts out as a potentially great movie winds up being a merely good one in the end. Scarlett Johansson stars as the title character, an American living in Taiwan who gets mixed up with the wrong people and winds up not only a drug mule, but a drug mule with a highly experimental drug placed inside her lower stomach. When the drugs start to leak, Lucy winds up using her brain to full capacity, not only resulting in her ability to control her body but also the forces around her. Luc Besson directs with his usual visual competence, and Johansson is great in the title role. The problem keeping the film from greatness is that it feels as if it’s going to some great place, and then suddenly ends at 89 minutes. Granted, it’s a good 89 minutes, but I was left feeling a bit unfulfilled. Morgan Freeman shows up as a scientist who knows a lot about brains, while Min-sik Choi (the original Oldboy) plays a true bastard of a bad guy. Surely, the premise is total bullshit, but the resultant mayhem is fun bullshit at that. I just wish Besson had a more complete story to tell.

2The Purge: Anarchy Last year’s The Purge was a good premise backed up by a boring slog of a movie. This sequel, delivered just a year later, is a better movie. Now, I’m not saying it’s a good movie, for it is not. It’s a better movie with a lot of problems. It starts mere hours before the annual Purge, a one-day holiday where citizens of the United States are allowed to put their cherished arsenals to use. Yes, murder is legal for a day in this universe, although certain types of explosives are strictly prohibited. This is sort of the Magnolia or Crash of Purge movies, in that we see a lot of story lines involving multiple characters eventually converging. Frank Grillo plays the most interesting of those characters, a vengeful man gathering up some heavy artillery and taking to the streets on Purge night. The whole affair feels like a bit of a John Carpenter rip-off, and not the good John Carpenter, but the fair-to-middling John Carpenter. Now, that’s better than watching Ethan Hawke mope around his house and having tense conversations through his front door for an entire film, but it still doesn’t feel fresh.

1Sex Tape Once upon a time, there was a director with a very promising career. In 1998, Jake Kasdan made his directorial debut with the excellent Zero Effect, one of that year’s best movies. It still stands as one of Ben Stiller’s best efforts, and Kasdan even wrote the thing. Since then, I’ve been following all of his releases and they have gotten progressively worse (Orange County, Walk Hard, Bad Teacher). Now comes this mess starring Jason Segel and Cameron Diaz, an ugly comedy that tries to get laughs out of people being very, very uncomfortable. The two play a husband and wife who don’t know how to have sex with each other anymore, so they make a video using an iPad. Then, that video syncs up with a bunch of other iPads that they gave away as gifts, so a bunch of friends and family are at risk of seeing them naked and sweaty. Somehow, Kasdan manages to work in an overlong bit of Segel getting attacked by a dog, while supporting stars like Rob Corddry and Rob Lowe labor for laughs. The film feels like a flat, dated and shameless piece of advertising for Apple—who must be seriously regretting the decision to allow their product placement in this movie—and internet porn. Let it be known that Diaz and Segel look and sound absolutely disgusting when they are making out.

2Tammy Having co-written this movie, Melissa McCarthy can take a lot of the blame for yet another bad comedy featuring her playing an uninteresting mess of a human being. She stars as the title character, a fast food worker who wrecks her car, gets fired and finds out her husband (Nat Faxon) is having an affair in the same day. She winds up hitting the road with her alcohol-swilling, diabetic grandma (Susan Sarandon), and virtually nothing works as far as laughs are concerned. McCarthy and Ben Falcone’s script (Falcone also directs) tries to mine laughs out of grandma being a trashy party girl and Tammy eating too much pie. It wastes the talents of everybody involved, including Gary Cole as a philandering barfly and Mark Duplass as Tammy’s love interest. When Tammy holds up her former burger joint employer, it’s almost funny, but most of that scene was covered in the preview trailer. McCarthy can be hilarious—her best film moment may always be the outtake during the This is 40 credits—but she can also be tedious as she is in this and last year’s Identity Thief. Her next film is St. Vincent co-starring Bill Murray, a film that will hopefully erase this one from our memories.

1Transformers: Age of Extinction Director Michael Bay seems to be taunting his haters at this point, employing all of those things that sicken his detractors, and cranking everything up to disgusting levels. Replacing Shia LaBeouf is Mark Wahlberg. He plays Cade Yeager, a crazy robot inventor living on a farm with his smoking hot daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz). After inadvertently buying Optimus Prime from an old guy at an abandoned movie theater (yep!), Yeager and his daughter wind up fighting alongside the Autobots as they battle an evil race of American-made Autobot clones courtesy of a Steve Jobs-like mogul (Stanley Tucci). The movie is a billion hours long, and none of those hours are ever any good. Some of the visuals pop, but you won’t care because you will be glazed over by the time most of the big action kicks up. If you should choose to see this one, make sure all of your bills are paid, and you’ve winter-proofed your house before you sit down, because you aren’t getting out of that theater for a very long time.

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