Not too long ago, Warner Brothers Animation teamed up the classic Scooby-Doo characters with animated versions of WWE stars in Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery. The pairing must have been successful as the two entertainment giants have joined forces once again, but this time taking a step or two — or 65 million — back in time to meet that modern Stone Age family, The Flintstones.

I grew up watching The Flintstones and I always enjoyed the shows with current stars appearing in Stone Age form like Ann-Margrock and Stoney Curtis. Other celebs, who probably didn’t actually voice their cartoon characters, included Cary Granite, Ed Sulleystone, Rock Hudstone and Perry Masonry. Through many revivals over the years and two live action feature films, the Flintstones and their friends the Rubbles, have encountered many prehistoric versions of modern celebrities. And they’ve done it again with the new home video release The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown.

The new story finds Fred promising to take Wilma and Pebbles on vacation, but as usual, his vacation fund is lacking. Another screw up at his job at the quarry costs him a paycheck, so the only thing he can do is tell Wilma the trip is off. But he knows it’s easier to tame a sabre-tooth tiger than tangle with Wilma. At a Water Buffalo Lodge fair, Barney sells chances for anyone to get into the ring with his pet Hoppy but a belligerent customer berates Hoppy so much that Barney steps in to save the day. He wins the match and Fred hatches an idea: create a sports entertainment event with Barney facing off against a group of people they hire and rake in the clams. Literally, since people pay with clam shells in Bedrock.

The event draws a huge crowd to see Barney face off against John Cenastone, Ray Mysteriopal, and The Undertaker, but Barney’s nemesis CM Punkrock returns for a rematch. When Wilma and Betty discover what’s happening and Barney refuses to get into another match, Fred’s fame and fortune looks like its about to go out the window along with his vacation plans. Will CM Punkrock prevail or get his comeuppance?

The new Flinstones & WWE video has all the trappings of the usual Flintstones TV episode including all of the “modern” Stone Age gadgets, like an automatic garage door opener, and businesses (Stonebucks Coffee and Marshale’s). The video also runs under 60 minutes, playing like a two-part episode of the TV show rather than a feature film. The animation is clean and fluid and pays homage to the original enough to please long-time fans but is still modern enough for a new generation, and the Blu-ray presents it all in sharp 1080p video with some of the brightest, most vivid colors you’ve ever seen. The audio is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that also delivers as you would expect from a Warner Brothers title.

The Blu-ray also contains a collection of special features including:

• The Superstars of Fred Flintstone Entertainment (9:46) — Director and WWE stars talk about the story and how their real life characters were incorporated into a Flintstones story.
• How To Be a Stone Age Superstar (4:45) — Director Tony Cervone and the WWE stars explain how to create a character’s personality.
• “The Engagement Ring” (26:22) — Original sports themed The Flintstones episode.
• “Take Me Out To the Ball Game” (26:05) — Original sports themed The Flintstones episode.
• Trailers for Scooby-Doo: Wrestlemania Mystery, LEGO Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu, Scooby-Doo: Moon Monster Madness

The one glaring omission on the bonus material featuring the WWE stars is CM Punk, who quit (or was fired from) the WWE last year. It’s a shame he wasn’t able to participate since he is such an integral character to the plot. That aside, longtime fans of The Flintstones should enjoy this new production chiefly because the actor doing Fred’s voice, Jeff Bergman, is one of the most accurate to the original that I’ve ever heard. The others are close enough, but Bergman really nails it. Other WWE stars lending their voices to the video include Mark Henry (Marble Henry), Daniel Bryan (Daniel Bry-rock), Brie and Nikki Bella (The Boulder Twins) and Mr. McMahon (Mr. McMagma). If you want to relive your childhood, or introduce your own children to The Flintstones, pick up The Flintstones & WWE: Stone Age Smackdown, sit back and, as the theme song says, “you’ll have a gay old time.”

The Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD Combo package was provided to CliqueClack by Warner Brothers Home Entertainment for the purpose of review.

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Any die hard movie musical fan knows that MGM produced most of the greatest musicals of all time in the 1950s. The Arthur Freed Unit became the touchstone of musicals with productions ranging from The Wizard of Oz in 1939 to Bells Are Ringing in 1960. While the 1940s was a productive decade for Freed, the 1950s gave us some of the most beloved, classic musicals of all time.

Now, Warner Brothers Home Entertainment has taken two of these MGM classics, plus one from the Warner Brothers library, and has given them a good scrubbing for Blu-ray and the results are astonishing. Best of all, you can purchase your favorite film as a stand-alone disk or get them all in the new Musicals: 4-Movie Collection. The three new titles are The Band Wagon, Calamity Jane, and Kiss Me Kate. Warners has added Singin’ in the Rain as a bonus to the 4-disk set.

The first movie in the collection is The Band Wagon (1953) starring Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Nanette Fabray and Jack Buchanan. The story follows a nearly washed up Hollywood actor (Astaire) who decides to head to Broadway to see if he can untarnish his star in a big stage musical (shades of the Oscar-winning Birdman!). An egotistical director hijacks the frothy musical and turns it into a depressing version of Faust, ensuring a huge flop but the cast bands together to save the show.

The film is very entertaining, and it allows Astaire to take on a different character than we’re used to seeing from him. No top hat and tails this time around, but his dancing is still on point, especially in the scene where he dances with a shoe shine man (who was a real shoe shine man in New York). Cyd Charisse is stunning as always and is simply magnificent to watch in what was her first real starring role. The film also introduced Broadway star Nanette Fabray to movie audiences in what was, surprisingly, her only MGM musical. The movie also has a great score, but it’s most well-known for introducing “That’s Entertainment” as THE song about showbiz, supplanting the standard “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”

The film looks terrific on Blu-ray. The image is bright and colorful but still has a film-like quality to it with an appropriate amount of film grain. The 1080p image(presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio) has not been completely scrubbed of any detail, and the soundtrack has been given a nice DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remix that keeps the dialog and singing front and center, allowing the orchestra to swell, but never overwhelm, from the surrounds.

Bonus features include:

• Commentary by Liza Minnelli and Michael Feinstein
• Get Aboard! The Band Wagon (37:09) — A vintage “making of” looking at the production of the film with many behind-the-scenes anecdotes from the film’s stars, crew and family members.
• The Men Who Made the Movies: Vincente Minnelli (58:25) — An episode of the WNET series focusing on Minnelli.
• Jack Buchanan with the Glee Quartet (6:00) — Comedic musical short film starring Band Wagon c0-star Buchanan.
• The Three Little Pups (6:46) — MGM cartoon featuring Droopy Dog in a variation of The Three Little Pigs.
• Theatrical Trailer (3:14)

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“All That Jazz.” “Cell Block Tango.” “When You’re Good to Mama.” “Mr. Cellophane.” “Razzle Dazzle.” If you’re a fan of Broadway musicals — or movie musicals — you know that those songs all came from the Broadway hit Chicago. Chicago first hit Broadway in 1975 under the guidance of the incomparable Bob Fosse. The show ran for 936 performances and was revived in 1996 and is still playing today. That makes it the longest running Broadway revival in Broadway history, and the second longest running Broadway musical behind Phantom of the Opera.

The Broadway show has been sustained by the familiarity of the music and the dancing, and has had a revolving door of big name stars taking on the roles of Roxy Hart, Velma Kelly and Billy Flynn. Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles is currently treading the boards on Broadway, while a new tour is crossing the country with John O’Hurley taking on the role of Billy Flynn in select cities (luckily, Baltimore was one of them). But if you’ve already seen the Oscar-winning movie, is it worth the time to see the show live on stage? In a word … yes!

If you’re not familiar with the story, Chicago takes place in the 1920s during the Jazz Age at a time when the public was fascinated by crimes committed by women. We first meet Velma Kelly (Terra MacLeod), who opens the show with “All That Jazz.” She’s become a manufactured celebrity with hopes of hitting the vaudeville circuit after lawyer Billy Flynn manipulates a jury into finding her not guilty. But another wannabe star enters the prison, Roxy Hart (Bianca Marroquin), and takes the spotlight off of Velma thanks to Billy. But how long will Roxy’s star shine before the next big crime makes headlines?

If you’ve seen the movie version of Chicago, the stage version is a completely different animal. The movie had sets, costumes, and set most of the musical numbers as fantasy sequences in the mind of Roxy. The stage show is a bit more abstract. The only set is a large, three-tiered bandstand with the orchestra on stage (the conductor even has interaction with the cast and dialog of his own). Everyone else is dressed in black (or a tux in the case of Billy) and never change costumes even when they’re playing various characters. I know some people are turned off by shows that don’t have flashy sets and costumes, but Chicago is about the music and the dance.

And on that front, the cast (and the orchestra) delivers in spades. Both MacLeod and Marroquin have powerful voices, but while MacLeod’s Velma is the more seasoned and mature of the two, Marroquin gets to have a lot of fun with the younger Roxy, particularly with her mugging and making funny noises when she’s getting bored with all of the legal drama around her. One of the show’s stand-out numbers is “We Both Reached For the Gun” as Billy plays Roxy’s puppet master, literally, in front of the press. Both women also handle the Fosse-inspired choreography with panache.

O’Hurley is perfectly cast as Billy Flynn, using that persona he’s honed so well over the years, the self-important, over-blown ego on full display. He doesn’t have to do much dancing, but he’s got a very nice, powerful voice to make up for that. Another member of the touring cast has a notable claim to fame: Roz Ryan has played Matron “Mama” Morton on stage, Broadway and touring, longer than any other actor. She clearly relishes the role and while she doesn’t dance, she has the voice and stage presence to make you forget all about that. While all the numbers are outstanding, there is one major showstopper in Act 2 when Jacob Keith Watson, as Roxy’s husband Amos, takes the spotlight to sing “Mr. Cellophane.” The song is about how no one ever takes notice of Amos, even when they’re standing right next to him, but Watson brings such emotion to the number with his amazing singing voice (which really isn’t heard until this point) that you can’t help but take notice.

Overall, even if the show feels a bit uneven with very little dialog to drive the plot in Act 1 (which feels almost like a cabaret presentation of the music of Chicago), the cast’s singing and dancing, the more than outstanding support from the dance company (who are all impossibly sexy in their curve-hugging costumes), and the beautiful, familiar music provided by the orchestra makes a trip to Chicago well worth your time. Chicago is currently in Baltimore at the Hippodrome Theatre through March 8, with stops in Ontario, Virgina, New York, Texas, Arizona, Kansas and California to come. You can find out more information about the tour by clicking the banner below.

After generating a lot of buzz during its theatrical run, and quite a few awards nominations and wins along the way to Oscar night, audiences who may have missed Whiplash in theaters can now check it out on home video. Does the film live up to the hype?

The story is fairly simple: young musician attends a prestigious music school in the hopes of becoming a great jazz drummer like his idol Buddy Rich. The student, Andrew (Miles Teller), doesn’t get much support from his family, is an outsider at school, and is terribly awkward with the opposite sex. Andrew stays focused on his music and thinks he’s on the right path when instructor Terrence Fletcher (J.K. Simmons) seems to take him under his wing. But the dream becomes a nightmare as Fletcher goes from mentor to monster.

It’s not hard to see why Simmons has been winning every acting award in sight (including the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor). He takes what could have been a horrible, one-note character and gives him many complex layers. He may appear to be a bully, but perhaps he just cares enough to want to help a young musician achieve their own greatness … or he could just be trying to show the world that he can create greatness. It’s a challenging role and Simmons shows us a side of himself that we haven’t seen before. Teller also gives a terrific performance that’s been overshadowed by Simmons, showing us Andrew’s insecurities and determination through his facial expressions. With Fletcher, you never really know what’s going on under the surface but Andrew wears all of his emotions on his sleeve. And Teller learned how to drum for the part as well!

The film is directed astonishingly well by Damien Chazelle, who based the story on his own experience, and produced a very accomplished film in the span of nineteen days! The final musical performance is a head-spinning montage of constantly moving camerawork and sharp editing that deservedly won the Best Editing Oscar. (Most prognosticators pegged Boyhood for the editing win, but there was no question in my mind Whiplash had it sewn up based on this one scene.)

Whiplash is now available on home video, and the Blu-ray is a thing of beauty. The image, consisting of mostly warm browns and inky blacks, is beautiful with enough fine detail to capture lines and scars on faces and drops of sweat and blood as Andrew drives himself to perfection. The disk’s 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio favors the center channel for the most part, but when the orchestra kicks in during performances and rehearsals, the surrounds fill with music.

The disk also contains a wealth of bonus material … something that’s been lacking in a lot of home video releases of late.

• Audio commentary with Damien Chazelle and J.K. Simmons — The two discuss the process of making the film from casting to locations to crafting performances, with Chazelle being the serious filmmaker and Simmons the comic relief.
• Timekeepers (42:56) — A collection of professional drummers talk about how they got started, their careers, education, influences and more. Featured drummers include Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Doane Perry (Jethro Tull), Roy McCurdy (Blood Sweat and Tears), Gina Schock (The Go-Gos), and Wally Ingram (Timbuk3). The film is entertaining to a point, but I lost interest after about twenty minutes.
• Whiplash Original Short Film (17:56) — The “Rushing/Dragging” scene from the movie with J.K. Simmons and many of the film’s actors/musicians in the same roles. Chazelle recreates this scene in the movie almost shot by shot. Also with optional audio commentary.
• Fletcher at Home (1:30) — A deleted scene with optional commentary. The scene was wisely cut from the film because it reveals a lot about Fletcher that could have affected the rest of the film.
• An Evening at the Toronto International Film Festival with Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons and Damien Chazelle (7:50) — Q & A at the festival, we learn it took 19 days to shoot the movie, how the director chose the actors and how they prepared for their roles. Best answer is from the director on why he went from jazz drumming to film directing.
• Theatrical trailer and Previews for other Sony titles.

I can’t say that Whiplash is the best film of the year, but it is certainly worth a look. It’s accomplished, the music is great and it features two outstanding performances from Teller and Simmons. The video/audio quality and bonus material on the Blu-ray is certainly an incentive to pick up the title and judge for yourself. And after Oscar night, we can look back on the film and realize that this is the moment Simmons went from more than just a familiar face (and voice of the Yellow M&M) who seems to pop up everywhere.

The Whiplash Blu-ray was generously provided to CliqueClack for review by Sony Pictures Home Video.

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Being a child of the late 60s/early 70s, I am an old school Scooby-Doo fan. You couldn’t get me up early during the week to go to school, but you can bet I was up at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning to watch my cartoons. Scooby was always a favorite because it combined the wacky antics of Scooby, Shaggy and the gang with my other favorite things — ghosts and monsters, except not as scary as those old movies that I loved but scared me to death! Of course, the supernatural characters on Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? were always some no-goodnik trying to get way with some crime that was always foiled by “those meddling kids.”

Scooby and the gang became entrenched in pop culture, spawning a variety of different series, a run of Scooby-Doo movies featuring animated guest stars like The Addams Family, Sonny & Cher, Phyllis Diller, The Three Stooges, The Harlem Globetrotters and many more. The idea of the “Scooby Gang” even carried over to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The character has been kept alive on Cartoon Network/Boomerang and through a series of direct-to-video movies. Our own Kim Tibbs reviewed last year’s Scooby-Doo! WrestleMania Mystery, which was released on DVD and Blu-ray. And now Scooby and the gang are back in Moon Monster Madness.

It’s usually never a good sign when a familiar character ends up going into space, an environment totally alien, literally, to the original concept (look at the alternately reviled/adored Jason X as an example). Take a character who spends most of the time solving earthbound mysteries and putting them on the moon to solve another mystery really stretches the concept, especially when the new city on the moon is basically just a stand-in for an earthly haunted house. But that’s what we have with Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness.

The basic plot has the Scooby gang winning a lottery to be the first civilians to fly with an egotistical Richard Branson type, Sly Baron, and a crew of professionals on a new spacecraft meant to usher in commercial space travel for the masses. Unfortunately, an alien starts to destroy the ship and they are forced to land on Baron’s moon base on the dark side of the moon (ZOINKS!), but the alien is not finished with them. Is the alien an advance scout for a possible invasion of earth … or is there something, or someone, else behind the attack?

Ridley Scott said that Alien was basically a haunted house movie in space, and Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness is just that. The moon base is simply a stand-in for the house and the alien is the typical ghost or monster that is trying to run the owners out. And if you know your Scooby-Doo lore, you will have to question whether the alien is even real especially with the red herrings of key characters always off screen during an alien attack. Could it be Sly Baron himself, or one of the other astronauts? You know those meddling kids will find out the truth.

The movie may not appeal to original Scooby fans, but a new generation not familiar with the old haunted house stories will most likely be dazzled by the sci-fi elements and animation. It should be noted, however, that very young children may be disturbed by some of the imagery, especially as the alien stalks Scooby and Shaggy, and during a sequence when each member of the group tells how they would avert an alien invasion. The animation goes very stylized at that point, with some videogame-style destruction and violence. The story also introduces a very intense rivalry between Daphne and Velma, and really paints Fred as a total doofus who never takes off his spacesuit or helmet, even inside the moon base!

What the movie does have going for it is the smooth, colorful animation (and it’s a shame Warner Bros. didn’t feel the need to release this one on Blu-ray) and the familiarity of the voice cast. Frank Welker returns as the voices of Fred (he originated the role back in 1969!) and Scooby, with Mindy Cohn doing a great approximation of the original Velma voice and Matthew Lillard reprising the role of Shaggy, which he did so well in the live-action movies. Guest voice talent includes Malcolm McDowell, Diedrich Bader and Mark Hamill.

The DVD also includes the short Space Travel Is Groovy hosted by Mindy Cohn. Cohn takes us behind the scenes at Space Camp to see how rockets are launched and space shuttles fly and land (although this is a bit dated now since the space shuttle program is no more). Everything is very simplified for the younger viewer, so adults may find the whole thing a bit tedious. But still, who doesn’t want to go to Space Camp?!

Scooby-Doo! Moon Monster Madness may be a good way to introduce a new generation to the simple joys of Scooby-Doo.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided a DVD to CliqueClack for review. The film is available on DVD and as a Digital HD download.

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The original 1966 Batman TV series took decades to see a release on DVD and Blu-ray, but the wait was definitely worth it! The first 30 episodes from the series’ second season are now available on DVD and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment graciously provided a copy for my review for this Throwback Thursday installment.

I grew up watching the original Batman series in reruns on cable television. It was always one of my favorites because it was so wondrously colorful and wacky. Everywhere you look in any given screenshot, your senses are bombarded by psychedelic, eye-popping costumes that only a 1960s series could pull off so well. It’s like a live-action cartoon with campy music, zany guest stars and playful puns and punches flying left and right. Don’t get me started on the delightful variety of villains the series also offered! From familiar comic book favorites like The Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and Mr. Freeze to crazy, new villainous concoctions such as Egghead, King Tut, The Clock King, The Archer and The Minstrel, the second season is full of fiendish foes and perilous plots. I’m having trouble deciding which villain is my all-time favorite because they’re all so interesting and diabolical in their own unique way!

The Second Season, Part One has many big-name guest stars, including Cesar Romero, Julie Newmar, Burgess Meredith, Vincent Price, Van Johnson, Art Carney, Shelley Winters, Liberace, Walter Slezak, Carolyn Jones, Victor Buono and Cliff Robertson. One interesting thing about the series was that they used various actors to play the same villain from season to season. Season two features Julie Newmar as a purrrrfect Catwoman and Otto Preminger as a space cadet-looking Mr. Freeze with a ray gun. In addition to the main guest stars, there are also numerous cameos from other notable stars, including Dick Clark, Sammy Davis, Jr., Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink from Hogan’s Heroes), Ted Cassidy (Lurch from The Addams Family) and musical group Paul Revere and the Raiders among these episodes. Just don’t blink, or you’ll miss ‘em!

Egghead (Vincent Price) is the only villain I remember being smart enough on the series to almost figure out that Bruce Wayne was Batman, so that makes him credible in my book (despite all of his “eggs-cruciating” puns every five seconds). The Archer (Art Carney) is awesome because he steals from the rich and gives to the poor a la Robin Hood and his Merry Men, while The Minstrel (Van Johnson) oozes charm and romantic lyrics that make you fall in love with Van Johnson and his velvety voice all over again. Not only is The Minstrel a musical genius, but he’s also equally versed in electronics and probably the only villain worthy of facing Batman in a technological showdown of wits.

I was delighted to discover that one of the most memorable episodes from my childhood was included in this set — “The Spell of Tut” — the one in which King Tut (Victor Buono) tries to resurrect ancient Egyptian scarabs to wreak havoc upon Gotham City’s water supply. Also look for horror icon Sid Haig as the Royal Apothecary in the King Tut episodes. Another old favorite of mine, “The Greatest Mother of Them All,” featuring Shelley Winters as criminal matriarch Ma Parker and her gang, is also included. The Parker clan has always reminded me of the Beagle Boys on Duck Tales, another beloved show from my childhood and perhaps the subject of a future Throwback.

An unexpected surprise was seeing footage from the Indianapolis 500 used as a racing event held in Gotham City in “Come Back, Shame,” an episode with Cliff Robertson as Shame, “The Conniving Cowboy of Crime,” a cowpoke/car thief who looks like he was lifted out of a spaghetti western complete with his sidekick Okie Annie (Joan Staley from The Ghost & Mr. Chicken fame). Of course, Shame and crew don’t look quite as tough as your traditional cowboys with their polka dot handkerchiefs and etc., but that’s beside the point when you can “get angrier than a hyena with laryngitis.” Another hidden gem was “Hizzonner The Penguin,” an episode in which Penguin runs for Mayor of Gotham City against Batman. It was the weirdest political debates I’ve ever seen, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t want all of Penguin’s cute, clever campaign paraphernalia. He had lovable, furry penguins all over his campaign buttons, posters, stickers, etc. I wonder if anyone ever made any of that stuff collectible because I would buy a lot of it for my personal collection of pop cultural oddities!

All of Batman’s gadgets in the Bat Cave, Batmobile and utility belts have never looked better — every detail has been completely remastered in this DVD box set. While reviewing the set, I realized that there are two types of people in this world — those who can appreciate the campiness of this series and those who simply cannot. Neither my mother or boyfriend could make it past more than a handful of episodes before they were begging me to turn it off, but I could have gone on for hours (the set has a total running time of 755 minutes), and my 21-year-old brother and his friends seemed amicably interested as well.

Every “Splatt!,” “Pow!,” “Biff!” and “Zok!” (yes, you read that right: Zok!) practically pops out of the screen at you in amazing comic book color as do the fabulous glittering outfits worn by Chandell (Liberace), and I had a lot of fun reviewing this set. The Season Two, Part One DVD box set features beautiful artwork from the eye-catching covers to the four discs depicting the iconic ’66 Batman logo on each. The only disappointment I had with the set was its lack of bonus features, but that’s what the expensive, all-inclusive Blu-ray collector set is for I suppose. I’ve read the Blu-rays come with an episode guide, Adam West scrapbook, vintage trading cards, digital copies of the episodes and an exclusive Hot Wheels replica of the Batmobile. The discerning collector would be better off saving their pennies for the Blu-ray set, but if you’re yearning to get your hands on some of the episodes in the meantime or if you’re introducing the series to a new generation of fans, this box set is a good starting point. If I’m ever lucky enough to review another Batman set, I’ll catch you at the same Bat time, same Bat channel.

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Mankind has long held a fascination with eerie things that go bump in the night and the mysterious fraternal orders that are bound by duty to keep us safe from such creatures. In Universal Pictures’ latest offering Seventh Son, we’re introduced to The Wardstone Chronicles (UK)/The Last Apprentice (US), a young-adult series written by author Joseph Delaney. This book series follows the supernatural adventures of Thomas “Tom” Ward (Ben Barnes), who is the seventh son of a seventh son, and therefore the apprentice of Spook John Gregory (Jeff Bridges). In this fictional world, a Spook is the title given to a knight who is bound by duty to fight against supernatural evil.

Only the seventh son of a seventh son is deemed strong enough to fight the good fight against a gaggle of ghosts, ghasts, witches, boggarts and the like. It seems this is a dying breed, as Gregory is the last of the Spook Masters. All of his apprentices have ultimately failed, having been killed by dark forces during their extensive training process. This is all bad enough for Gregory to contend with, but when you throw in the fact that the blood red moon is rising – an event that only happens once a century – and Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore) is once more free and gathering her evil minions to take over humanity, well it becomes a dire situation not for the faint of heart indeed. Mother Malkin is the evil queen of the witches. She is very powerful and dangerous with bloodthirsty, vengeful feelings for the Spook. She will stop at nothing to see that the Spook and his young apprentice fail their quest to undermine her uprising.

After Gregory’s latest protégé (Kit Harington) is killed by Mother Malkin at the beginning of the film, he is tasked with finding a suitable replacement immediately, for the ominous blood red moon is coming in just a week’s time. His travels lead him to young Tom, who is the seventh son of a simple farmer who was also a seventh son. There is more to Tom than meets the eye. He has haunting visions – mostly about Mother Malkin – that he doesn’t understand. One gets the impression that destiny has brought the Spook to his last apprentice, for maybe, just maybe, he is the key to Mother Malkin’s undoing.

While I haven’t read any of the book series, I was instantly drawn to the character of Tom. I love stories about humble, reluctant heroes; stories about people coming of age, meeting their destinies and embarking upon a noble quest or two. I think we all like to believe there is something deep-down special about us and that’s why we look to these types of heroes. I’m also a sucker for just about anything supernatural. When you throw in a good monster or two, I’m definitely down for the fight.

Seventh Son throws an abundance of monsters on the screen to delight the audience. Some of them are funny, some of them are creepy and some of them are cool to look at. The 3D effects enrich the overall experience, but it felt like the effects could have been better at times. When Mother Malkin summons her evil cronies, one is almost overwhelmed by the variety of creatures being presented. There’s Urag (a man who transforms into the most vicious-looking bear you’ve ever seen), Radu (the fearsome leader of a band of ninja assassins who also transforms into a dragon), Sarakin (a lady who transforms into a fierce jaguar), a four-armed, sword-yielding maniac known as Virahadra and Mother Malkin’s twisted witch sister, Bony Lizzie, who also (yawns) transforms into a dragon of a different color. By the end, it feels more like a dragon fight instead of a fight between good vs evil.

A friend of mine suggested I go into the film picturing everything Jeff Bridges says in his Dude voice from The Big Lebowski to make it more enjoyable if my interest started to wane. I don’t have the heart to tell him that this would be almost impossible because Bridges’ character mumbles almost unintelligibly throughout the film and sometimes I’m not even sure what he was saying, yet alone did I have the time to picture someone else saying it.

That’s not to say I didn’t like Seventh Son. I’d be lying if I said that my inner 10-year-old who often ponders such questions as “what do monsters have nightmares about?” wasn’t satisfied on some level. There are elements to it that interested me, and I especially enjoyed the fact that Ben Barnes was in it. In fact, I just crushed on him a couple of weeks ago in the historical television miniseries Sons of Liberty in which he played the affable Sam Adams. There’s also a love angle involving Tom and one of the witches (Alice played by Alicia Vikander) that is tender and playful and provides nice breaks from the effects-heavy action sequences. I also believe the villains were all well cast, especially Djimon Hounsou as Radu. He was a badass.

However, much like The Hobbit, I think some of the richness of the fictional world was perhaps lost in this film adaptation. While I enjoyed it, I felt it never quite managed to transcend into the film it possibly could have been given the imaginative subject material (and perhaps some of the higher-ups felt this too, for I read the film’s release date was pushed back). Upon reading an online synopsis of the first book, it seems the story was almost completely changed (including the addition of new characters), and I’m not sure it was for the better. While I won’t bash the film as much as some of the other reviews I’ve seen, I can certainly understand why fans of the book series might be disappointed with the final product. I think Seventh Son had lofty goals of being the next great supernatural fantasy, but it fell more than a little short of the prize. If you’re looking for a cheesy fantasy a la the ones of your childhood, it should be right up your alley.

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Disney, musicals and fairy tales. A match as perfect as peanut butter and jelly or wine and cheese. Add some Stephen Sondheim into the mix, and you have a very curious combination. Of course the new Disney cinematic musical Into the Woods started out life on Broadway and as far from Disney as one could imagine … and seven years before Disney even hit Broadway with its own musical fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast.

Sondheim’s take on some well-known fairy tale characters, like Cinderella, Rapunzel and Jack (of beanstalk fame), was more Grimm than Disney. Not many people realize that the tales we all know and love today, courtesy of Disney, are much darker and violent, and they don’t always end happily ever after. In Sondheim’s musical fantasia, our beloved fairy tales are close to what we know but with a little bit of a twist: a wicked witch is brought into the mix to stir things up after placing a curse on the home of the Baker and his wife (James Corden and Emily Blunt). Because of the misdeeds of Baker’s father (he stole vegetables and magic beans from the Witch’s garden), the house would forever be childless.

It’s up to the Baker to bring the Witch four items: a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn, a cow as white as milk, and a slipper as pure as gold. You can pretty much figure out which characters the Baker and his wife will run into in the woods.

As we meet each character, their stories are certainly familiar enough and the film seems to reach its climax with the “happily ever after” wedding of Cinderella (Anna Kendrick) and Prince Charming (Chris Pine). But young Jack’s misdeeds at the top of the beanstalk have brought giants to the land below, turning the happy day into tragedy as the land is destroyed, people are homeless and hopeless, and only the resilient spirit of the Baker seems to make the others want to make peace with the giants by returning the stolen items. But the giants want more than their golden egg and magic harp back … they want Jack.

With the arrival of the giants, the film’s bright, colorful palette turns dark and muted, as if dark clouds have come to cover the land. The characters become more human as well, and sadly, death will take some of them. It’s here that you have to wonder what the folks at Disney were thinking. Is it such a good idea for them to produce a film that treats many of its most beloved characters so badly? Parents should be warned that Into the Woods is not a children’s movie.

That being said, it’s nice that Disney has produced a fairy tale movie aimed at adults, and cast it with a who’s who of amazing stars. Blunt has already been nominated for a Golden Globe as Lead Actress in a Musical or Comedy and she is quite good. James Corden’s Baker my be the film’s true lead (and he acquits himself well, particularly with some of Sondheim’s more complicated lyrics), but Blunt’s Baker’s Wife is the film’s true heart and soul. She brings so much warmth and patience to her character that you can’t help but to fall in love with her. And Blunt also has a lovely singing voice, bringing tears to the eyes as she closes out the film with “Children Will Listen.”

Anna Kendrick can sing, for sure, but I really didn’t feel much for her Cinderella until she had a heartfelt moment later in the film at the ruined grave of her mother. She was much too flighty, but I did enjoy Christine Baranski as her Wicked Stepmother and Tammy Blanchard and Lucy Punch in the more broadly drawn roles of the stepsisters. Daniel Huttleston (Jack) and Lilla Crawford (Little Red Riding Hood) are major finds, giving great performances and tackling those lyrics with true professionalism. Pine and Billy Magnussen (Rapunzel’s Prince) deliver the film’s showstopping moment as they sing and try to outdo each other’s proclamations of love with the song “Agony.” The audience loved both actors’ hamminess, showing us what total douchebags these two princes really are. Mackenzie Mauzy is, unfortunately, locked away a bit too much in Rapunzel’s tower, and Johnny Depp shows up briefly as the Big Bad Wolf to leer lasciviously at Red Riding Hood. The role can come off as a bit creepy as he sings about the lusciousness of the young girl, but it’s all in quest of a meal and nothing else.

Of course, the biggest star of the movie is Meryl Streep (Golden Globe nominee for Best Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture) and she can really belt out those songs. She also seems to be having great fun playing the haggard, old witch (breaking her own rule of never playing a witch after she was offered three witch roles when she turned 40) and then gets to glam it up as the curse on her is lifted. Whenever she’s on screen, you just can’t take your eyes off of her.

The film, which was shot on location in England, sometimes feels and looks a bit too stage-bound instead of opened up for the screen, but it also adds more intimacy to the story than you can get watching actors on a stage. I suspect the minuscule budget Disney gave Oscar nominated director Rob Marshall played a big part in the almost claustrophobic feel of the woods (there are very few interior sets). Colleen Atwood’s costumes are also pretty amazing, appropriately regal and tattered, befitting the station of the character wearing them.

Is Into the Woods a perfect movie musical? That all depends on your taste in musicals. I’ve seen the stage version and I enjoyed the film much more. I think it was the music and the singing which drew me into the world more than it did with either stage production. I don’t think it rivals Marshall’s own Oscar-winning Chicago, but I enjoyed the movie very much. The only real negative impact the film may face is the downer of an ending. If you know going in that it’s not going to end happily ever after for some, you may not come out of it feeling so negatively about the rest of the movie. You have been warned.

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Refreshing! That’s the first word that came to mind as I walked out of the movie theatre after seeing the new movie musical Annie. Annie isn’t a new story, it’s an old story revamped with a funky fresh point of view. The story takes place in modern day New York City, and you’ll see a lot of changes; changes you can live with. There’s a diverse cast, Annie is no longer an orphan but a foster kid, she lives in a row house instead of an orphanage in the present instead of The Great Depression, and Daddy Warbucks is now William Stacks.

Annie follows a ten year old foster kid (Quvezhane Wallis) through her day-to-day interactions with fellow foster kids and foster mother all while in pursuit of her real parents. Annie tries to have an upbeat attitude, making the best of each situation even when she’s often disappointed by her lack of parental love. Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) doesn’t make life any easier for her or the other girls in her care.

Wallis is an adorable Annie with just pinch of sass! She has a sweet voice and I especially like her singing “Opportunity.” I like that the writers connected the old with the new by having Annie do an oral book report on Franklin Delano Roosevelt. At times I thought her acting was a bit one-dimensional, that she should have had more facial expression and a little more zing; other times she seemed to nail it!

It took me a while to warm up to Jamie Foxx playing Will Stacks, the cell phone billionaire. At times the acting seemed stiff, especially at the beginning when he was handing out free phones and being a germaphobe; the spitting mashed potato scene was absolutely horrid! I slowly but surely warmed up to his character. Jamie Foxx can carry a tune though. Yes girls, he can really sing and bust-a-move too!

Diaz seemed a little miscast in this role as Miss Colleen Hannigan. This role has always been tailored for a crotchety older woman; Cameron came across as trashy and vapid instead of cranky and cantankerous. Her voice is not robust but she can carry a tune. I liked that Miss Hannigan had been a lost soul; she eventually found that she did care about Annie’s welfare. She was like the Grinch whose heart grew three times its size that day!

Rose Bryne played the attentive assistant, Grace, to billionaire Stacks. I liked when Grace joined Annie outside the restaurant showing so much compassion in such a simple act of waiting to see if her parents showed. Just being there talking and waiting with a little girl who hadn’t dared to give up hope of one day being reunited with her parents was one of the more heartfelt moments of the film.

Annie kept true to the original score with these important, milestone songs: “Tomorrow,” “Maybe,” and “It’s a Hard Knock Life.” The movie added an updated cool twist to “I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here,” “I Don’t Need Anything But You” and “Little Girls.” More importantly, they came up with new original tracks like “Opportunity,” “Who Am I?” and “Moonquake Lake.” I personally loved “Who Am I?” and “Opportunity” the best!

I genuinely enjoyed Annie. It was musical; it was light, and also educational. It was a movie for the whole family. The storyline had a decent flow to it; the musical numbers were enjoyable with lively dance routines, plus there were cool guest appearances by Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher, and Rihanna! It was educational, because it helped to redefine today’s definition of family. There were also posters and Discussion Guides available so parents could open up a dialogue with their children on important issues facing today’s youth and families. Some valid question they asked were “How can you build a better tomorrow in your community?”, “What lessons did Annie teach her friends?” and “How do you handle life’s hard knocks?”

Kudos to the Annie cast for going above and beyond entertainment, for opening the door to something relevant!

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Although it’s been nearly five months since Robin Williams died, the devastating ripples his death left on the entertainment industry – and really the world at large – are still being felt. Ever the busy entertainer, Williams had five films released posthumously, the latest being 20th Century Fox’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. I think the only other film with Williams that has not yet been released is Absolutely Anything, which is due in February according to IMDb but he is credited for voice work only in that film. To my knowledge, Night at the Museum marks the final time one can view him on the silver screen, which makes it somewhat special despite what other film critics are saying about it.

I’ve been a longtime fan of the Night at the Museum franchise since the first installment came out in 2006 for several reasons. One, I really love that it makes history come alive in a fun, meaningful way that children especially can relate to (for if we don’t learn from the past, we’re doomed to repeat it). I know I’ve said this before, but anything we can do to get kids interested in – and actually revved up – about history from an early age should be done. When I was a kid, one of my favorite TV shows was a Canadian children’s program titled Today’s Special, which featured a department store at night. The main characters were Sam Crenshaw, a night security guard, Muffy the talking mouse, Jodie the store’s window dresser and a mannequin named Jeff who magically came to life each night as long as he was wearing his special magic hat. The premise of the Night at the Museum franchise has always reminded me a lot of that old TV show. Each night, the magic of Ahkmenrah’s tablet brings all the inanimate objects in New York’s American Museum of Natural History to life and only the night security guard Larry Daley gets to witness it all.

Secondly, these films feature great casting, from Ben Stiller as the affable Larry Daley and Williams as a stoic President Teddy Roosevelt to Ricky Gervais as Dr. McPhee (the museum’s stuffy, not-a-clue director), Patrick Gallagher as a hilariously over-the-top Attila the Hun, the hunky Rami Malek as Ahkmenrah and Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as the miniature best buds duo Jedidiah and Octavius. Finally, the special effects are amazing each time. In my opinion, the third film is no exception. This time I was blown away by the constellations in particular. Being able to see Orion the Hunter and the various other star clusters that make up the zodiac dance over the heads of the museum benefit-goers was nothing short of bedazzling.

Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb welcomes back all your familiar favorites, including Dick Van Dyke, the late Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs as former museum security guards Cecil, Gus and Reginald, who give helpful advice to Stiller. Even Dexter (Crystal the Monkey) is back for the final curtain bow. The only characters noticeably missing are Amy Adams as the plucky pilot Amelia Earhart, Bill Hader as George Armstrong Custer and Christopher Guest as Ivan the Terrible. It also introduces a few new characters that I instantly loved – Rebel Wilson as Tilly, the London museum’s night security guard, Dan Stevens as Sir Lancelot and Ben Kingsley as Ahkmenrah’s pharaoh father Merenkahre. Skyler Gisondo has stepped in as Stiller’s now grown-up son Nick. Also look for Stiller portraying an additional character – one of the cavemen named Laaa. At times, this character can grate on your nerves, but I think your kids might love him.

The plot is a relatively simple one. We learn that the power of Ahkmenrah’s tablet is fading and Stiller and crew must travel to the museum in London where Ahkmenrah’s parents’ mummies are located to discover the secrets of the tablet from the only person who knows them all (his father), including why it was created, how it works and what can be done to prevent its power from fading away completely.

There’s a finality about the third film that makes me believe it was planned to end the trilogy long before Williams’ unexpected death. The goodbye that Stiller’s character delivers to Williams’ Roosevelt in the end felt painfully real to me. It brought tears to my eyes, along with the dedication. It was fitting that the series began with Williams and ended with him. Williams was Stiller’s right-hand man, always there to dole out kind, intelligent words of advice when things looked despairing or particularly out of hand. I honestly can’t visualize anyone else filling the role of Roosevelt, so I hope the powers-that-be leave this franchise alone. It felt like it came full circle with the trilogy and I don’t need to see another Night at the Museum. I’m afraid they might wear out the magic and wonderment of it all if they did so.

There’s a dedication at the end to Rooney and Williams that brought fresh tears to my eyes as the credits rolled, mostly because of Williams. Don’t get me wrong, Rooney is equally missed, but he lived a long, rich life. His death wasn’t quite as shocking as that of Williams. He also only appeared in the film in one brief scene. No, it was the touching tribute to Williams that made me shed more tears. I believe it said something like, “And for Robin Williams … the magic never ends.” It’s Stiller and Williams – their chemistry and their heartfelt performances – that make this franchise shine. While I don’t feel this film is the strongest of the three, I enjoyed it for what it was – the ending to an imaginative trilogy that made being a dork who revels at the prospect of visiting a museum seem so much cooler. Although Williams may have departed this Earth, his memory will live on in the lives of all those he touched with his prolific acting career, and especially, in all those children who grew up watching this magical series.

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