Release Date: September 14, 2012.

Who Needs a Reboot?: Iconic image from Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN

Chalk Spotlight host & producer Dan Persons up for the crisis of faith: While he concedes that there are enough laughs in the animated works of  Seth McFarlane to dismiss the notion that the creator of such shows as FAMILY GUY and AMERICAN DAD is everything that’s wrong with televised comedy (an assertion that’s nowhere near true so long as HOT IN CLEVELAND remains on the air), he still had his concerns about TED, McFarlane’s live-action, feature film debut about a guy (Mark Wahlberg) and the rocky relationship he has with his affable, raunchy teddy bear (voiced and performed in mo-cap by McFarlane). So Cinefantastique Online’s managing editor Steve Biodrowski volunteered to check the film out on his own, and in his review at the top of the show gives some idea whether it merits its #1 box-office take.

Then, in anticipation of next week’s debut of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, Dan and Steve sit down to discuss the trilogy that kicked-off the franchise: Sam Raimi’s SPIDER-MAN; SPIDER-MAN 2; and SPIDER-MAN 3. Among the topics covered: who, from Willem Dafoe and his Green Goblin to Alfred Molina and his Doc Ock to Thomas Haden Church and his Sandman to Topher Grace and his Venom, delivers the most credible villain; which film embraces its dramatic elements most convincingly; and is J.K. Simmons truly a gift from the gods?

Also: What’s coming to theaters next week. Actually tomorrow. Actually it’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, we said it just above, ya happy?

Shanyn Leigh and Willem Dafoe Embrace Their Fates in 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH.

The newest episode of my short radio series THE INDIE ON DEMAND MOVIE REVIEW takes a look at 4:44 LAST DAY ON EARTH, in which Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh are cast as a New York couple awaiting the end of the world, and director Abel Ferrara — he of such nihilistic exercises as KING OF NEW YORK and BAD LIEUTENANT — is cast as someone who sees the end of all humanity as a time of personal reflection and spiritual questing, rather than, say, raging masses clawing over each other in order to snag the last seat on the final spaceship out.

Click on the player to hear my review.

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Directed by Andrew Stanton (WALL-E) from a screenplay by Stanton, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon, JOHN CARTER is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ A Princess of Mars.  
The film, orginally to be called JOHN CARTER OF MARS, is due in theaters in 2-D and 3-D March 9th, 2012.

Nature-gal Dejah must have felt chilly that day.

Personally, I think the settings and character/creature designs are extremely mundane and disappointing, considering the cost of the production and the the fact that they seem to basically ignore Burrough’s  vividly described versions.

Tars Tarkas looks like a pin-head, rather sporting than the novel's spherical cranium.

I realize a Disney film (and any general audience version) couldn’t feature essentially nude characters, but other than Kitsch’s bared chest, you’d expect to see more skln in a wholesome 1960’s Beach Party movie than the released stills and trailer seem to suggest.

The oddly Muppet-y version of Woola

Barsoom Dogfight

Basically a riff on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, DAYBREAKERSexpands upon a concept suggested by, but never fully explored in, Richard Matheson’s novel or its filmic adaptations: that of a vampire society. In this future, the majority of the Earth’s population has been transformed into blood-drinkers by a plague. The few remaining non-vampires are stored like the human batteries in The Matrix, slowly drained of their remaining drops of life, which are served in increasingly diluted portions at the equivalent of coffee bars. As the blood shortage grows more dire, hungry consumers begin to riot. Meanwhile Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke), a scientist working for the world’s biggest blood supplier, works round the clock, searching for a cure. But does his boss, Charles Bromley (Sam Neill) really want a cure, or would he prefer to retain a permanently addicted customer-base, hopefully fed upon a synthesized substitute?

The plot runs on some fairly familiar fuel: Dalton abandons his company to form an alliance with an underground group of humans, one of whom, Lionel “Elvis” Cormac (Willem Dafoe) has mysteriously recovered from vampirism. Dalton’s former friends, family and allies think him a turncoat, and in a typical display of dramatic irony it is his brother Frankie (Michael Dorman) who is charged with bringing him back into the fold. Can Dalton find a cure; and even if he can, will the public be willing to surrender immortality? And if they do surrender, will it be without a bloody, climactic fight? (If you guessed no to the last question, you win.)

Fortunately, the plot mechanics are in the service of an intriguing idea. Taking a science fiction approach to the material, instead of focusing only on the horror of blood-drinking, writer-directors Michael and Peter Spierig use vampirism as a metaphor for capitalism. Without ever turning DAYBREAKERS into a simple-minded screed (a la the recent FURRY VENGEANCE), they use their story to offer satiric commentary on consumer culture and the corporate overlords the nuture and feed it. In a way, the film is less about the allure of immortality than it is about the laws of supply and demand, depleting natural resources until artificial ones must be used instead – at much higher cost, because they can be patented, and when the natural stuff is gone, the consumer has no choice but to buy the alternative, at whatever price.

Although the battle lines initially seem clearly drawn, the screenplay offers a few nice character touches that prevent the story from slipping into a simple “us versus them” scenario; these nods toward character development also help keep the drama alive, so that the film does not slip into being a thinly disguised anti-capitalist manifesto. Particularly touching is brother Frankie’s late revelation about what he vampirized his older brother (he was frightened by the thought of living on without him), which engenders unexpected sympathy for a previously one-note Judas character, so that we actually feel a pang of regret over his ultimate fate.

Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe

In keeping with DAYBREAKERS’ film noir style, the performances tended to be muted, almost to the point of being dour. Neil does a good job at projecting the smiling good-guy facade of a cut-throat businessman, and Hawke seems tailor-made for his role; there’s not a lot of depth required of him, but he makes the surface look interesting.

The exception is Dafoe, whose “Elvis” Cormac character is supposed to breathe some life into the proceedings. A working-class auto detailer (he used to make a living customizing cars to protect drivers from sunlight), Cormac is a bit one-note (we’re supposed to like him because he’s straight-forward and he loves his classic cars), but Dafoe is a good enough actor to make us like him even though he is little more than a generic type.

The critical mass missing from this equation is the joy of sunshine and warmth, the thrill of rolling down the convertible top and letting the wind rush through your hair as you race down a long road on a sunny day. The Spierig Brothers more or less take for granted the superiority of ordinary human life over the vampire’s night-time existence, so much so that they never bother to sell the idea emotionally. When Dalton finally effects his cure, it works as a plot point, but we don’t really feel it in our gut the way we should. Like many artists who work in the realm of cinefantastique, they seem better at exploring the darkness than bathing in the light. The result is a good film, not a great one. Perhaps next time out, they can strike the perfect balance between (in Byon’s words) “all that’s best, of dark and bright.”

DAYBREAKERS (copyright 2009, released January 8, 2010). Written and directed by the Spierig Bothers (Michael and Peter). Cast: Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe, Claudia Karvan, Mungo McKay, Emma Randal, Michael Dorman.