Film of the Day: The Poseidon Adventure

There's no better way to ring in the new year than this 1972 New Years Eve-set disaster film at sea. A tidal wave. An ocean-liner. Hackman. Borgnine. Red Buttons. A drenched Shelly Winters. What's not to love? Happy New Year!

Top 5 Albums of the Year

1. Come Around Sundown Kings of Leon
2. Midnight Souvenirs Peter Wolf
3. The Suburbs Arcade Fire
4. The Open Road John Hiatt
5. Le Noise Neil Young

Film Review: True Grit

Few will argue that Joel and Ethan Coen are two of the most original and idiosyncratic filmmaking auteurs of the past 30 years. Since 1984, the pair has collaboratively written, produced and directed some 15 feature films, each one more distinctive than the next and impossible to put a label on. When they do dabble in a genre ( Blood Simple, The Man Who Wasn't There, Miller's Crossing), they throw it on its ear, infusing its with their unique wit, language and style.

Three years ago the duo put their talents to work adapting Cormac McCarthy's contemporary Western No Country For Old Men and finally won a long-deserved Best Picture Oscar. So when they turned their attention to adapting Charles Portis' classic Western True Grit, the possibilities were intriguing to say the least.

True Grit opens with Mattie Ross (newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) arriving by train in Fort Smith, Arkansas to retrieve the body of her recently murdered father. Just 14 years old, Mattie is precocious to say the least. She quickly sets about squaring her father's affairs and finding out what is being done to track down his killer, hired-hand Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin).

When the local law shows no interest in tracking Chaney across Indian territory, Mattie propositions feisty U.S. Marshall Rueben "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to undertake the manhunt, with her in tow. With his bear-like physique, mumbled verse and gaudy eye patch, Cogburn initially has no interest in playing wet-nurse on Mattie's crusade but eventually agrees under her unrelenting persistence. Accompanied by LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a pompous Texas Ranger who's hunting Chaney for another crime, the three unlikely companions set out across the territory to get their man.

Bridges is a hoot as Cogburn, chewing up every inch of the role as if it were a carrot stick, and Damon is pitch-perfect as LaBoeuf, displaying all the comedic traits that made his earlier role in The Informant so effective. Brolin is quietly unsettling as Chaney and and the always-good Barry Pepper provides memorable supporting work as outlaw Lucky Ned Pepper. But the real standout is Steinfeld, her energy and verve stealing nearly every scene from her more seasoned co-stars.

True Grit is an extremely entertaining and satisfying adventure reminiscent of the big Hollywood Westerns of the '50s and '60s. While not the genre-bender some fans may have hoped for, it is still very much a Coen Brothers film, one that fits nicely in their canon and instantly makes you pine for their next unique trip out West.

2010 Film Registry Announced

Airplane, All the President's Men, The Empire Strikes Back and The Pink Panther were among the 25 films added to the 2010 National Film Registry, the Library of Congress announced today.

Under the terms of the National Film Preservation Act, each year the Librarian of Congress names 25 films to the National Film Registry that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant, to be preserved for all time. These films are not selected as the "best" American films of all time, but rather as works of enduring significance to American culture.

Other notable films for 2010 include The Exorcist, Macabe and Mrs. Miller, Malcom X and Saturday Night Fever.

See the complete list at: http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-273.html

Glad to see Airplane and Empire make it for their 30th Anniversaries.

Film Review: Tron Legacy

I was 12 years old when the original Tron hit theaters in the summer of 1982. Like most my age at the time, I was pretty captivated by the tale of programmer-turned-hacker Kevin Flynn who gets transported inside a computer and must compete in gladiator-type video games to survive. What wasn't there to like - the cool neon-infused suits, the jazzy Wendy Carlos electronic score, the then-cutting-edge CGI effects, the action figures that resembled four-inch-tall Jell-O molds and that ubiquitous arcade game that robbed me of so many quarters the next two years of my life.

The film made more money than it cost and ushered in the age of computer-generated effects, but it never really achieved a status beyond cult film of the excess-heavy '80s, usually mentioned in the same breath as other less-than-appreciated spectacles of the decade like Flash Gordon, Krull and Buckaroo Banzai. (Don't remember those flicks? Thanks for making my point.) If people remembered Tron, it would usually elicit the same response as the punchline of a joke.

For me, however, it will always hold a special place in my heart, a reminder of the waning days of childhood, when movies weren't followed online but in the pages of magazines like Starlog and Cinefantastique. I own the soundtrack and the out-of-print DVD, which I still take out for a spin every couple of years. So, needless to say, I was pretty jacked to hear Disney was releasing a sequel to this influential but misunderstood gem of celluloid 28 years after its initial release.

Tron Legacy picks up nine years after the first film left off. Kevin Flynn (a younger,CGI-enchanced Jeff Bridges), is tucking in his young son Sam and regaling him with tales of The Grid, the virtual world he was transported to so many years ago. It seems those stories have turned into big business for ENCOM, the multi-national computer company Flynn now runs. From action figures to video games, Tron, the security program that assisted Flynn on the inside, is now a brand to rival Coke and Pepsi.

As the lights are turned off and the door to Sam's room is slowly closed, neither father nor son are aware this will be the last time they will see each other, as Flynn will mysteriously disappear that night for the next 20 years.

Flash forward to present day and an adult Sam (Garrett Hedlund) is a brilliant-yet-unambitious loner who's about to play his annual prank on his father's former company. This year it's making ENCOM's new operating system available free to the masses online. Shortly thereafter, Sam is visited by Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner), Flynn's former partner and Tron alter ego, who claims to have received a page from his father's long-since-abandoned arcade. Investigating, Sam comes across Flynn's hidden office and the device that makes traversing The Grid possible. A quick boot-up of the system and we're off and running as Sam is transported to the world that obsessed his father a lifetime ago.

Upon arriving, Sam is brought before C.L.U. (again, a younger, CGI-enhanced Jeff Bridges), a nefarious lead program who eerily resembles his father. C.L.U isn't interested in chit chat and places Sam on the gaming grid where the younger Flynn proves to be a natural until C.L.U. joins the competition. As the proceedings turn dire for Sam, he is whisked away to safety by a mysterious program called Quorra (Olivia Wilde). She transports Sam to the Outlands where a mutual friend awaits.

Now it should come as no surprise that the mutual friend is the elder Flynn (Jeff Bridges, this time looking his age in a flowing white robe and graying beard). Once the father-son reunion is complete, Flynn tells Sam he's been living off-Grid, stuck on the inside since the night they last saw each other. Apparently C.L.U., who Flynn engineered in his likeness to assist in further developing the digital utopia, was the one that sent the page so the gateway would be reopened, thus luring Flynn back on The Grid so C.L.U could steal Flynn's knowledge and cross over to the user world. Well, Sam's all for getting back to the gateway and taking his father with him. When Flynn refuses to leave, Sam goes anyway, forcing his father to go after him and face C.L.U. one last time.

Tron Legacy is neither a letdown nor a revelation. Once Sam crosses over, the storyline basically mirrors the original film. Bridges and Hedlund have a nice rapport as father and son and Michael Sheen provides amusing support as The Grid's resident horse trader Castor. And even in his limited role, it's great to see Bruce Boxleitner doing anything.

The visuals are the real draw of course and they don't disappoint, expanding on the original's concepts with all the muscle and verve today's technology can provide. I caught the film in 3D and the effects were completely immersive, never distracting.

After 28 years of waiting, it's nice to see Tron make a worthy comeback and dazzle a whole new generation of movie-goers. Now, where's that Buckaroo Banzai sequel?