Planet of the Apes

While some people have greeted the remake of the classic Planet of the Apes with relish, I prefer the original. It's one of those flicks that is easy to find in the back of your local rental place or even on the Internet. I encourage you to take an evening and rent it. You will notice details you forgot when you saw the movie the first time.

The concept is both simple and stunningly sophisticated. A manned space ship encounters a strange force field. They send a chimpanzee into the field as a test, to see what happens. When they lose contact with the chimp, the orders are given to avoid the field. Yet, one of the astronauts steals a shuttle and decides to try and rescue the chimp. The ship then loses contact with the shuttle.

The Astronaut goes through the force field and crash lands on a strange planet. He is shocked when he discovers that the planet resembles Earth, but is run by all sorts of apes! The gorillas rule society by enslaving humans they find. He is even more shocked when he discovers that the gorillas have learned to speak. While the book is fascinating, seeing the gorillas walking about in the movie is even better. Planet of the Apes used amazing special effects before such things became commonplace. The realism is just phenomenal.

As most of us know, the astronaut discovers that it was actually his long lost chimpanzee pal that had crash landed on the planet and had been the progenitor of the race of talking Apes. And just when we think the human will escape and find a way back to Earth, he discovers to his horror that he is actually on Earth, the Earth of the future!
If that's not enough to send you running to the video store, I don't know what will.

Lucky Number Slevin

You may be put off by the weird title of Lucky Number Slevin, but that would be a mistake. By the end of the movie, you will look back and see its greatness, although you will be very confused along the way.
In fact, the first half of the movie is quite strange. The plot doesn't seem to make any sense. Every time you think you understand what is going on, a wrinkle occurs that sets you back. Fear not, one thing I can tell you is it will all make sense in the end.
Bruce Willis gives us the background as the movie opens. He tells a man waiting for a train that all stories need to start somewhere, and this story starts with a horse. The horse is named Lucky Number Slevin, and it is a race horse. It is a race horse that has been given an injection of drugs to artificially boost its performance right before a race. While we are not told what mysterious figures are behind the fix, we do know that they don't want anyone else to know. However, one person tells another who tells another until word reaches a down-on-his luck family man who needs a sure thing. His day goes from bad to a nightmare when Lucky Slevin not only doesn't win, but dies right before the finish line. As he is walking back to his car, he is greeted by the ones who put the fix in in the first place. Not happy that he had been trying to use their secret, they kill him and his family. What a way to start a movie, right?
The film now goes forward about twenty-years. The main character now appears to be stuck in a case of mistaken identity. Two powerful mob bosses believe him to be someone else. He cannot convince them that he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Both claim he owes them considerable money and can work off his debt by becoming a hit man. As we watch him struggle to prove who he is, we always wonder what the first part of the movie has to do with the second. What does this fellow have to do with the fixed horse race twenty years ago?
Don't worry, all questions are answered in an artful although sometimes graphically violent style. By the end, you will find yourself nodding your head and picking up an all the clues that the director had left for you throughout the movie. Although the film is rated ?R? for graphic violence (and two very brief scenes of an adult nature), it is worth the price of admission.

Rocky Forever!

I know, I know. The whole Rocky thing is way past its prime. And many people point to how the original wasn't so great anyway. It was too much of a formula. We have seen it all before.
Yet, I have to disagree. I will even go out on a limb and say that the Rocky series is one of the best movie series of all. It is one of the best conceived and written, and one of the best filmed. So if you agree with me but have been remaining silent, now you can relax. You were on the right track.
I mean let's take a look at the original Rocky. Yes, it was predictable. Yes, I know that Rocky was a silly stereotype. Yet, in the fight at the end of the movie, who did not feel the excitement. Who did not deeply desire that Rocky triumph? We all knew that he couldn't. The movie kept hinting and hinting that there was no way Rocky could beat Apollo. Just to get the chance was a huge lucky strike for Rocky. We all knew he was going down, yet we all secretly hoped he wouldn't. Why?
Maybe it's because there is a bit of Rocky in all of us. We all see ourselves as the hard workers just hoping for a lucky break to prove that we are the best in the world. We labor in our pursuits, whether we are athletes competing for the Gold, businessmen trying to hit that one big deal, or even writers hoping to get the one shot to show the world what we are capable of.
Rocky lets us all believe that this is possible. We live through him and ignore the rougher aspects of his character, just because we all have rougher aspects that we would rather not admit. At the end of the day, it is all of us who are out there in the ring with Rocky, getting pummeled but still looking for the one big break.
Enjoy all the Rocky movies. There is nothing in them to be ashamed of. In fact, we can all be quite proud that eventually, Rocky triumphs as we all will one day.