Duncan Jones’ Moon is a science fiction story in the purest sense of the term. It concerns the plight of Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) working alone on the moon running a facility that mines Helium-3 for an energy company back on Earth. Inside of the first scene the audience is crushed by the sense of isolation shown to us as Sam has only GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey) the station Artificial Intelligence with whom to communicate. Through the simple premise of a man alone on the moon, this film explores speculative technology that leads Sam and the viewer on an emotional and introspective journey of what it really means to be human.

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Before I get to the review proper, I need to point out that we are now living in a day and age where any random person can be driving down the road, look up, and see the words KICK-ASS plastered on a movie theater marquee.  Much like Pluto being booted from its planetary status, it seems the word “ass” no longer counts as profanity.

Unlike other comic book movies, the film Kick-Ass and the limited Marvel Comic series of the same name were developed simultaneously. Even so, there are some significant differences between the comic series and the film, which I will touch on as they arise. The story begins with New York high-school student David Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) asking himself, and the audience, why no one has ever tried to be a comic book-style superhero. In spite of the fact that he has no special powers or tragic past, and has to purchase a superhero costume on the internet, Dave genuinely wants to help those in need and make a difference in his community, no matter how small or large the task may be. Sadly, his first attempt to “fight crime” doesn’t go very well and he ends up being stabbed, then hit by a speeding car. After several surgeries and some recovery time, David gets the superhero itch once more, dawns his green tights, and saves a man from a group of thugs trying to through him a boot party. This time, with his awkward fighting and damaged nerves unable to register pain, Dave is marginally successful and his valorous act is recorded on video and uploaded to the internet where Kick-Ass, as Dave calls himself, becomes an instant celebrity. Later, Kick-Ass is saved from some drug dealers by ex-cop Damon Macready (Nicolas Cage) and his eleven-year-old daughter Mindy (Chloe Grace Moretz) who were inspired by Dave to take on the costumed personae of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl respectively. This is where the danger and Dave’s ineptitude in his chosen hobby are highlighted as both Big Daddy and Hit-Girl are not only well trained with weapons and in martial arts, but the duo is not squeamish about using lethal and bloody force when dealing with criminals. Witnessing the carnage raining down upon the drug dealers by Hit-Girl gives Dave what addicts would call a ‘moment of clarity’ and he promptly returns home, hangs up his tights, and swears off crime fighting. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. New York crime kingpin Frank D’Amico (Mark Strong) knows that a costumed vigilante has been offing his men and, with his new found internet fame, Kick-Ass is about to feel the full force of this crime lord’s wrath.

While the comic series and movie both share the same set-up, what turned me off to the comic version of the story were the details regarding the Big Daddy and Hit-Girl characters. In the film, it is revealed through a wonderfully artistic scene that Damon Macready was a cop that was framed for drug trafficking by D’Amico’s organization and spent several years in jail. During this time, Macready’s pregnant wife fell into a deep depression and committed suicide, although doctors were able to save her unborn child, Mindy. When Macready got out of jail, he took Mindy in and began her martial and combat training so the two of them could one day bring down D’Amico’s criminal empire. Thus is Macready’s motivation for turning his young daughter into the Punisher; an act many parents in the audience, and Roger Ebert, would find unforgivably cruel and irresponsible. What saves these two characters, for me, is the loving father-daughter relationship the pair maintain in spite of their screwed-up revenge lifestyle. The comic book is actually far more bleak in that Dave discovers that the ex-cop Macready back story is just a lie that Damon told to his daughter to get her to want to learn about weapons and combat. Yes, in the comic, there really was no drug frame-up or maternal suicide.  Macready wasn’t even a cop.  He spirits his child away from her mother and turns her into a vigilante killer because he was board. Fortunately, Damon’s back story is legit in the film version, as it is confirmed during a visit from his former partner on the force Sergeant Marcus Williams (Omari Hardwick) and the movie is much better for it.

If you don’t mind some scenes of ultra-violence and you are not an up-tight, overprotective mother that would rather strangle herself than listen to an eleven-year-old fictional character say a few swear words, then I would highly recommend that you see Kick-Ass. Overblown controversies aside, this is an interesting story with well rounded and believable characters that is well told and well filmed with several genuinely exciting action bits that are sewn together with comedy writing that’s actually really funny. What more could you ask? The only real negative point that I can level at the film is that it has a tendency to lose its themes and ideas. As an example, the story starts off posing the idea of real people in a realistic world setting putting on costumes and fighting crime. The notion is that it’s taking the fantastical idea of ‘the superhero’ and grounding it in reality. As the film progresses, the situations and violence that occur become exceedingly more exaggerated and comic book-like with physics-shattering acrobatics and obscene amounts of bodily fluids. It’s like Director Matthew Vaughn introduced the very interesting theme of “What would super crime fighters be like in real life?” then got bored with the idea half way through and decided to make an over-the-top action movie instead. It’s still a good action movie, but any sense of reality the film might have had flies right out the window when the machine-gun-armed jet pack shows up on screen.

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This has to be my best find to date. Not only is The Running Man a great sci-fi action film staring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime, but the version I bought for $4.99 at Movie Stop is the Special Edition 2 Disc set with all kinds of extra features, including documentaries and audio commentary tracks. If you’re like me then you love extra features, but even if you don’t this is still a spectacular deal for a copy of this film.

Based on the novel of the same name written by Steven King, The Running Man takes place in the future, the bad kind of future with vastly depleted resources and a tyrannical military government. To keep people distracted from their terribly oppressive existence, the justice department has created a televised blood sport event where armed gladiators hunt down convicts for the pleasure of the masses. Arnold plays Ben Richards, a former military pilot that was framed and falsely imprisoned for massacring of dozens of unarmed civilians. After an unsuccessful escape attempt, he is conned into competing on The Running Man game show (the previously mentioned bloodsport) which is hosted by none other than Richard Dawson from Family Feud. Amazingly, Dawson manages to steal the show in this film with a truly villainous performance and is, in my opinion, one of the best bad guys Arnold has ever faced.

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Where were you when you first realized that there was no hope, and never will be any hope, for movies based on video games? For me, well, I was in the movie theater watching Wing Commander. This thing is a huge, steaming pile of weapons grade crap. I will concede that this wasn’t the first video game movie I saw that was utterly terrible. Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter, and Double Dragon were all released many years before this and every one of them is completely irredeemable. The difference is that the Wing Commander  franchise actually had a chance to be a pretty good movie for many reasons. First of all, this film was written and directed by Chris Roberts, the same man who produced and directed several of the video game installments. Secondly, the games were famous for their cinematic full motion cut scenes that featured several established Hollywood actors like Mark Hamill, John-Rhys Davies, and Malcolm MacDowell lending their talent to the projects. Thirdly, and finally, a story about fighter pilots in space battling evil aliens should translate very easily to the big screen. This film, at the very least, should have been on the same level of quality and entertainment as The Last Starfighter.

Our story begins in the future, obviously, and humanity has been flexing its manifest destiny muscle for some time by establishing colonies across the galaxy. Through its exploration efforts the human government, known as the Confederation, has managed to piss off a race of giant cat people called the Kilrathi (ten years before Avatar) and we are now neck-deep in a war against them. All of this story is explained in little sound bites as we scroll over a map of the galaxy that appears to have been drawn by 16^th century pirates. Seriously, I think that explorers charting out star systems IN THE FUTURE would have a better means of documenting their discoveries than inking them on stained parchment.

Our first glimpse of spaceship-on-spaceship violence is when the Pegasus base, a station built into the top of an asteroid is bombed, Pearl Harbor style, by about half a billion Kilrathi ships. I’m not sure why a military outpost that seemed so vital to the Confederation’s war efforts didn’t have any scanners or patrols that would warn them of a massive enemy fleet approaching, but, for what ever reason, the station is caught completely off guard. Plot hole aside, this would be a great way to start off a science-fiction action adventure film, except the audience never really gets a good look at the action. Our point of view is either several kilometers above the station looking down with barely visible flashes of what I can only assume are explosions ripping through the base, or inside the station’s tiny command center as a bunch of officers talk in great detail about the extent of the destruction the enemy is raining down upon them. Hey, director, how about showing the audience some of that awesome devastation your characters keep talking about. The cat army eventually boards the station and, in what seems like a good decision, the director does not give us a good look at the terribly fake-looking cat people suits. He’s saving that reveal for later. The Kilrathi manage to get their kitty paws the station’s navigation unit, which looks suspiciously like a car battery, and blow up the rest of the station.

We then cut to the bridge of a space cruiser that might as well be named the USS Exposition. There, Admiral Tolwyn, played by David Warner, lays out the plot of the rest of the movie for us. After receiving the distress call from Pegasus station, we know that the Kilrathi fleet has the coordinates to Earth and can get there in 40 hours. The main Confederation fleet, which seems to be dicking around well outside the major theater of war, won’t be able to reach Earth for 42 hours. So, ticking clock established, the Admiral sends a coded message to a transport vessel en route to the Tiger Claw, the only carrier between Earth and the Kilrathi fleet. So we cut to the transport ship on its way to the Tiger Claw when the terrifying realization suddenly hits that this is, in fact, a Prillard movie. For those of you not familiar with the term, a Prillard movie is one that stars both Freddie Prinze Jr. and Matthew Lillard. If there is anything that will turn off the predominately young male demographic that plays the Wing Commander video games or goes to see sci-fi movies, it is a double dose of the most annoying teeny-bopper poster children of the late 1990’s.

On this transport ship, Freddie Prinze Jr. as Lieutenant Blair (the hero from the video games) sits around in some red pajamas fingering his weird necklace while Matt Lillard as Lieutenant Marshall (also from the games) stares off into space with a dopy expression on his face. A dirty space Frenchman, played by Tcheky Karyo, enters the command deck to receive the coded transmission and then changes course to fly through a black hole to get to the Tiger Claw faster. Nothing really happens here except for dirty Tcheky talking to Blair about his bling and how it has something to do with the Pilgrims, whoever those are. Anyway, they make it to the Tiger Claw and Blair manages to piss off his commanding officer ‘Angel’, Saffron Burrows, within three minutes of arriving by sitting in the cockpit of a fighter that belonged to Lt. Chen, a pilot that recently died. Chen must have slipped in the shower or choked on a muffin or something because his starfighter, that still bares his call-sign on the fuselage, is surprisingly undamaged. Blair’s necklace also seems to upset a lot of other people on board the ship including Commander Gerald, Jurgen Prochnow, because it signifies Blair as a Pilgrim. Pilgrim must be space-talk for mutant because not only can Pilgrims navigate through the cosmos with what can only be called super-powers, but everybody hates them because a long time ago Pilgrims were at war with regular people. So, the Commander of the Tiger Claw gets the message that they must find and delay the Kilrathi fleet to buy the Confederation time to set up defenses around Earth. So maybe now we can get to some dogfights or some big ship battles that might be entertaining. No. In fact, we don’t get to see any real starfighter action until the 50 minute mark. Imagine if the people playing the video game had to wait almost an hour to start flying around in space fighting enemies. And where in the hell is Malcolm MacDowell? He was in the game. It’s not like he hasn’t been in bad movies before. The only explanation I can think of is that director Chris Roberts didn’t want him in his film. Even in a supporting role, Malcolm MacDowell would have made this movie ten times more enjoyable. But no, he’d rather have Matthew Lillard chewing scenery and making goofy faces. I cannot stand Matthew Lillard. He is a truly wretched actor, and the way he looks reminds me of Beaker from the Muppets.

So where are we? Half way through the film and we get our first major engagement between the Tiger Claw and the Kilrathi. As far as the special effects are concerned for this part, they aren’t all bad. Sure, they haven’t aged well, but some shots of ships swooping by the camera are convincing enough to get by. The real failure of the visuals here is in art direction. None of the spaceship designs used in the film are distinct or iconic in any way. The Rapiers that our heroes fly around in look like the front half of existing aircraft (the props were, in fact, built from scraps of British jets) and the Tiger Claw itself looks like giant metal almond. Our heroes manage to blow up a few enemy ships and then go hide next to an asteroid to avoid taking more damage from the enemy fleet. Then, we get a hilarious moment where the dirty transport captain, who was actually a military intelligence officer all along, tells everyone on the bridge to be quiet so a Kilrathi destroyer won’t find them. I hate to break it to you, Tcheky, but you’re not on Das Boot. The enemy won’t be able to hear anyone on your ship because SOUND DOES NOT TRAVEL THROUGH SPACE, you moron. The fighting from earlier and a bombardment from the destroyer has damaged the carrier’s life support which they say needs fuel cells to be repaired. A boarding party attacks an enemy ship to secure its fuel cells as Blair, a pilot, is sent in with the marines armed with a rifle to shoot up some badly made and poorly lit Kilrathi puppets. In all honesty, they look more like otters than cats. Blair finds the car battery, I mean, Pegasus Navcom and gets the Intel on where and when the enemy fleet is attacking Earth. So Blair has to fly this info back to the Admiral and uses his Pilgrim powers to navigate through a quasar and save the day. Wow, this movie is just as painful to remember as it is to watch. It has destroyed my expectations that there will ever be a good video game movie and left me with nothing but questions. How come everyone in space aside from Blair and his buddy had a European accent? Why were the Kilrathi so inept that their major offensive is thwarted by one Earth ship? And where in the bleeding hell was Malcolm MacDowell?

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I grew up in a family with two sisters. As an unfortunate result, I, through no fault of my own, ended up watching a lot of movies as a child that had horses in them. These films ranged in quality from the somewhat respectable The Man from Snowy River to the absolutely hideous My Little Pony Movie. Somewhere in the middle of all that is the memory of a film that my sisters watched a lot, and I mean a lot; something like two or three times a week. It’s called Wild Hearts Can’t be Broken and is about, get this, professional horse diving. The subject of this film always baffled me as a child and, even today, I can’t quite get my head around this concept. Apparently, if this movie is to be believed, during the great depression people were so bored out of their skulls that a woman jumping onto a horse’s back and then falling into an above-ground pool was seen as grade A entertainment. From what I understand, this story is based on the real life events of Sonora Webster Carver, so I guess people were, in fact, that bored.

Wild Hearts Can’t be bothered with a shorter title opens with or heroine Sonora, played by Gabrielle Anwar, as an orphaned child growing up during the depression and going through a defiant phase in her life, punctuated by a scene of her cutting her own hair… rebelliously. After she gets into some trouble breaking a fence, she runs away from her mean old aunt to join the circus and be with horses all the time. I’m guessing that every twelve-year-old little girl is supposed to relate to this, but I was born with a Y chromosome, so I liked dinosaurs instead. There, she meets up with some weaselly red-headed kid slinging hot dogs and a professional horse-diving troop lead by Doctor W.F. Carver, played by Cliff Robertson, the poor man’s Sam Elliot.  In all fairness, Mr. Robertson is this film’s only cast member who, after this feature, retained something resembling a career in acting. His son, Al Carver, is played by Michael Schoeffing, who you may recognize as the studly guy from Sixteen Candles.  Anyway, Sonora wants to join up with the horse diving team and decides that the best way to present herself as a valuable asset is to annoy the living hell out of Dr. Carver until he finally breaks down and takes her on as a stable hand.

As the group travels from town to town, they acquire a energetic, and somewhat feral, horse that nobody can handle. Sonora can relate to the free spirit of the psychotic animal and, to prove to Dr. Carver that she can do more than clean up horse crap, decides to tame the wild horse with the help of Al and a handy training montage. She then shows Dr. Carver that she has tamed the beast, whom she has named Lightning, and that she is ready to become a horse diver herself.  Dr. Carver is mildly impressed, but tells Sonora that she must learn to mount the horse while it is moving to become a proper horse diver. So, in the second training montage in just as many minutes, we get to see Sonora crash into the dirt about fifty times as she constantly fails to mount Lightning while he is running. I think this is meant to convey her unwavering determination, but I was too busy laughing to care about that. Bloodied and beaten, she does eventually get the hang of it. Not to be upstaged, the team’s caddy horse diving prima donna Marie thinks that she too has what it takes to ride the Lighting. The horse, sensing her smug, superior attitude, instantly catapults Marie off his back and onto the ground. Since their star performer is now injured, Dr. Carver begrudgingly lets Sonora take center stage, or center platform eighty feet in the air, in their next horse diving extravaganza.

After Sonora finally becomes the horse diver she always wanted to be, we still have about half a movie left. The story meanders around for the rest of its running time, but does take some pretty dark turns as we see yet another montage of several fairs and circuses closing down, Dr. Carver dies of a heart attack, Lightning gets sick and Sonora becomes blind. Even with all these awful occurrences, Sonora still sticks it out as a horse diver, Al carries on his father’s legacy of horse-based entertainment, and we learn through a little end movie narration that the two eventually get married. I think there was some kind of romantic subplot going on between Sonora and Al that justifies this, but I can’t be sure. I’m actually very startled at how much of this movie I do remember. I can’t in good conscience recommend this flick to anyone unless you have a daughter or you, yourself, are really into horses, and montages.

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The general consensus among horror movie fans is that John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing is awesome, and those fans would be right. It has a claustrophobic atmosphere, a haunting Ennio Morricone score, and many other fantastic factors that much more verbose critics have mentioned over and over again. But, one has to wonder if the movie would even exist without its Howard Hawks’ produced predecessor, The Thing from Another World.

I found this treasure of a DVD for $4.99 a while back at a sale that Circuit City was having right before it went out of business. I had seen the movie in my dad’s collection a long time ago but only had a few memories of watching it; mainly that it was black and white and had a big vegetable man stomping around in the snow. Upon a more recent viewing, I was able to appreciate the character archetypes and subtle nuances of the film. All of the classic sci-fi tropes are present and accounted for here. Kenneth Tobey plays the charismatic Captain Hendry who leads our military men, and an investigative journalist played by Douglas Spencer, to a research station at the north pole to investigate a downed aircraft reported by a group of scientists. Even though they loose the mysterious aircraft, the group does manage to recover its pilot, a huge alien played by James Arness, frozen in a block of ice. The plant based creature manages to escape from its frigid prison, however, and all hell breaks loose on the research station.

Most of the science fiction films to come out of this decade are mediocre at the best of times, but this film is an exception. The quick dialogue, characterizations, and subtle sense of humor running throughout the script keep it moving and entertaining, and the second half is filled with some truly tense moments. This film belongs in the same category as classic horror fare like Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein. It’s just that good.

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I’ll be the first to admit that I love movies with car chases, explosions, big rubber monsters, and boobies, but every now and again I need a change of pace. Call it an escape from escapism. Some real life stories are worth experiencing just as much as fantasy, and everyone should learn about the man, the myth, the real life legend that is Harvey Pekar.

American Splendor is the movie I watch to remind myself that for all the brainless Michael Bay boom-fests and boring vampire meat market movies out there, a film can still be a work of art. Now, I know what you’re thinking, or at least what I’m thinking, but artsy movie doesn’t always mean boring, self-indulgent pile of crap, and some directors need to learn the difference. (I’m looking at you, Vincent Gallo)

The film opens with images of kids trick-r-treating on Halloween dressed as comic book superheroes like Superman and Batman, but one kid is dressed in his mild-mannered garb. When a house-wife distributing candied apples at her doorstep asked the child who he is supposed to be, he simply replies “I’m Harvey Pekar.” And thus begins the story of this underground comic book character and real life everyday hero. This film has the strange distinction of being both a biopic and a comic book movie, since the American Splendor comic books are based on Harvey’s everyday experiences. Paul Giamatti plays Harvey as his second marriage ends in disaster and the crushing weight of his meager, work-a-day existence presses down on him. To help him cope, and to leave his mark on the world, Harvey begins writing comics about the quirky nature of his life. With help form his friend Robert Crumb, played by James Urbaniak, he finds some success in publishing his underground comic book, but not enough to quit his day job.

This film starts with one of my favorite opening credit sequences. Harvey walks through the streets of Cleveland as our perspective shifts from panel to panel on a comic book page, several illustrated versions of Harvey let us know that he has been drawn many different ways by different artist, but that he is a real person, too. Paul Giamatti continues walking through the streets as a narration begins by the real life Harvey Pekar about what was happening in that particular time in his life. This sets the tone for the rest of the film as we have interview scenes with the real Harvey Pekar, scenes with movie Harvey, and introspective scenes with animated Harvey all sharing the same celluloid. The whole thing is directed, acted, and edited brilliantly with its own brand of story telling and dry humor. With all the many perspective shifts and transitions this movie could have become very confusing or could have gotten mired down in its own high concept fluff. Thankfully, it does not. This film is engaging, funny, and really lets you know about the strange and entertaining life of Harvey Pekar, and it does all this without car chases, explosions, big rubber monsters, or boobies. This movie is a friggin masterpiece and I cannot say enough good things about it.

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My never-ending mission to find great movies for low low prices took me recently to the used DVDs of a local Movie Gallery.  Sitting on the shelf was a copy of the monster movie Slither for under five dollars.  Score!  As far as plot goes, this movie is nothing special.  An alien creature crashes in a meteor near small town U.S.A. and instantly takes over the mind of the town’s local douche to take over the world.  Seen it, taped it, recorded over it.  Anytime this movie takes itself too seriously, I just rolled my eyes and occupied myself with a book or sandwich for a few minutes.  Fortunately, that doesn’t happen too often.

Where this movie does shine is in the brilliantly written dialogue and over-the-top special effects.  The cast is surprisingly good with the always creepy Michael Rooker as the alien host, Elizabeth Banks as his beautiful wife and target of the alien’s weird affection, and Nathan Fillion as the local cop who has to stop the whole dang alien takeover and rescue the girl.  All of these people are great, but Gregg Henry, as the town mayor, steals the show whenever he’s on screen with some of the best delivered expletives I’ve heard in movies in a long time.  This film also features a lot of practical, and very disgusting, creature effects throughout it’s run time.  Writer/director James Gunn really understands 1980’s style gross-out movies, and Slither feels like his love letter to that whole decade’s worth of horror films.   If, like me, you are a fan of splatter horror and monster movies then I highly recommend you go find this movie and watch it right now.

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The shape shifting beast man has been a staple of horror fiction since, well, before horror fiction even existed. Legends of men transforming by the light of the full moon date back as far as the 13^th century C.E. In anticipation for the new horror fur-fest coming out this weekend, I have decided to pay tribute to the best werewolf movies that we have today. Don’t worry, Taylor Lautner isn’t anywhere on this list.

9. Monster Squad (1987) Although not purely a werewolf movie, this one does feature a werewolf prominently as part of a monster super-star tag team. It also answers the question of what happens when you don’t have any silver around and just blow up a werewolf.

8. The Werewolf (1956) The classic horror tale was updated in this Sam Katzman produced film with a sci-fi twist for the atomic age. Here, two scientists experiment on an auto-accident survivor, but a side-effect of the research transforms him into the familiar hairy beast-man.

7. Wolf (1994) Few things are as entertaining as Jack Nicholson acting all crazy. This film slowly builds a nice, thick tension and includes a lot of great actors.

6. The Howling (1981) Special effects visionary Rob Bottin cut his teeth, so to speak, on this gritty thriller. The beginning and end of the film make the view worth while, and the werewolves in this one are huge and very intimidating.

5. Curse of the Werewolf (1961) In this film, part of the Hammer Horror legacy, the curse of the werewolf is brought on because an unwanted child was born on Christmas Day. God has a sick sense of humor. “You’re a werewolf! Merry Christmas!”

4. Dog Soldiers (2002) Pitting a paramilitary squad against the shape shifters makes this a very different take on a werewolf movie right from the beginning. Sure, it’s pretty campy, but that just adds to the charm.

3. Teen Wolf (1985) Michael J. Fox is a werewolf, in high school, that plays basketball. That is just awesome. Sure, it’s not a horror movie, but who cares. How often do you get to see a werewolf play basketball?

2. The Wolf Man (1941) The movie that started it all. Like all classic Universal monster flicks, this one has great set design and creates a superbly creepy atmosphere. It also has a stellar score. Even without the aid of modern day effects, it’s still great to watch.

1. An American Werewolf in London (1981) This movie has, hands down, the best on-screen wolf transformation in any movie, ever. John Landis combined easy-going comedy and charismatic acting with brutal horror and effects to make this werewolf masterpiece

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I have an addiction. I cannot stop myself from buying DVDs. Whenever I go out to any big store or shopping center, I find myself attracted to the shelves swollen with new and used DVDs. To try and keep myself from starving to death, I have set out on a quest to find quality new and used DVDs for a great price. The magic number I’m looking for is $5 or under, pretax. My first venture took me to Best Buy’s $5 bargain bin, and, after sifting through some less than desirable films, I stumbled onto an overlooked gem from a few years back.

The Grand is a false documentary in the style of This is Spinal Tap or Best in Show that highlights the lives of several professional poker players on their journey to play for ten million dollars in a televised tournament of Texas Hold ‘Em. The impressive stable of comedic talent on board for this picture includes Woody Harrelson as Jack Faro (the closest thing we get to a central character) who is exiting drug rehab and entering the grand champion tournament to save the casino/hotel his grandfather left him. He makes it to the final table against David Cross and Cheryl Hines playing competing siblings Lainie and Larry Schwartzman, Chris Parnell playing the mathematically inclined Harold, Richard Kind as a very funny clueless berk named Andy Andrews, and, my personal favorite, Dennis Farina playing the grizzled, and somewhat racist, old-timer named Deuce. The parade of hilarious character actors doesn’t stop there. The supporting cast includes Jason Alexander, Hank Azaria, Ray Ramano, and Michael McKean, just to name a few. Movie snobs might be surprised to see legendary director Werner Herzog playing a sadistic German poker player simply named The German. This movie is a real treat for five bucks and will be fun for anyone with a taste for dry humor.

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