Tag Archive: movie


Winning Time

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June 5, 2010

Originally Published: March 5, 2010, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com)

When I was growing up and first getting into sports in the early 90’s, I remember clearly how my favorite teams were developing. The Yankees were slowly starting to come out of the funk they were in for the better part of the 80’s and the strike-shortened season was heartbreaking for the biggest Donnie Baseball fan under the age of 10. The Rangers were winning the Stanley Cup and I couldn’t understand just how significant it was at the time. Though, I still jumped up and down though knowing that it was the first championship I would truly remember for the rest of my life and it was exhilarating. The Giants were coming undone as their stars from the 80’s were aged fast, Bill Parcells was on his way out, and Dan Reeves would help usher in three of the worst years I ever had to see as a Giants fan. And finally, the Knicks had gotten what they had always needed with Michael Jordan retiring early and giving the rest of the NBA a chance to win a championship. The Knicks would run all the way to the Finals in 1994 before falling short against the Rockets. Of course, along that run, a young upstart named Reggie Miller would make his presence felt, an omen of things to come in 1995.

That story is what Dan Klores has decided to tell in the upcoming March 14th installment of ESPN’s 30 in 30 series. Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks is the story of how a second rivalry for the Knicks (in addition to the Knicks vs. Bulls rivalry) began to develop in the mid-90s and how one of the most dynamic characters of the NBA would lead the charge in the classic “David” (Miller’s Pacers) vs. “Goliath” (Ewing, Starks, and the rest of the Knicks) storyline that was the 1995 playoff series between New York and Indiana.

Of course, knowing how this story ended was already putting me in a sour mood, but I went in with an open mind and wanted to see Reggie’s viewpoint on the story. I have to admit, I was entertained. The way Klores builds the story up with the interviews of Reggie and his family to put Reggie in a better light while balancing that with the biggest Knicks fan in the world, Spike Lee, and several of the key Knicks who played in that 1995 series was nicely done.

There were several problems I had with the piece beyond the subject matter. The story moved at a frantic pace. Being only 68 minutes long, Klores fits in everything from the 1985 draft of Patrick Ewing, the entire high school, college, and then pro career of Reggie Miller up to that point, and the entire 1994 and 1995 seasons were run down leading up to that playoff series between the Knicks and Pacers. If Klores was going to try to fit so much content into the piece, he should have asked ESPN for more time, or cram in less of Reggie’s personal stories like his rivalry with his sister. Of course, my advanced screening was also without commercial interruption, which may help with the pacing of the story once aired on the network since this was made for TV.

This was a well-done documentary with interesting interviews that gave a completely different perspective on those two Knicks seasons. It could have done with better pacing and less fluff if they were going to try to fit everything they fit into only 68 minutes, but it will make a fine “made for TV” movie and continues the strong trend for ESPN’s 30 in 30 series. Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks airs on Sunday, March 14th at 9 PM on ESPN.

Winning Time: Reggie Miller vs. The New York Knicks gets a 3.5 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

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It’s Elementary My Dear Reader

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May 12, 2010

Originally Published: December 28, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com)

It is the quintessential detective story. A consulting detective from 221B Baker St. in London whose keen intellect has no match as he solves the unsolvable to try to keep streets of Victorian era London safe while having his own unique brand of fun along the way. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes is a character that resonates with people even now over 100 years since his creation. After all, he was the original CSI and we all know how popular those TV shows are. In fact, several of Holmes’ techniques concocted by Conan Doyle influenced modern crime solving techniques like finger printing and bullet printing.

In terms of popularity though, Holmes as an iconic character had quietly faded into the background noise of the modern media frenzy and passing fads. With a shortage of good ideas out in there in Hollywood, director Guy Ritchie pulled Holmes and the gang off the shelf to reintroduce them to the world with a more modern filmmaking flare and an original plot not directly based off of any of Conan Doyle’s stories.

With a little more base in the occult and the macabre than anything the original Sherlock Holmes ever had to deal with, this modern rendition starring Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson see the original Dynamic Duo deal with an ominous figure in a man known as Lord Blackwell, played by Mark Strong. The movie opens up with the duo breaking in and disrupting the sacrifice of a young maiden by Blackwell who is promptly arrested, thrown in jail, and then hung for his crimes. Not much of a movie if the antagonist is jailed and hung in the first ten minutes, but miraculously, Lord Blackwell rises from the grave and begins to haunt the streets of London once again, striking fear and terror into all who believe. Luckily for all of London, there is Sherlock Holmes.

As a fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, this is a fantastic modern rendition of the timeless tales. There were a few extra explosions and fight scenes to help keep the viewers attention than were in the original stories, but more importantly, the movie flowed well for the entire 2 hours and 14 minutes. The character depictions were more true to the original stories than most media portrayals have been over the years, such as Watson being a very competent companion and not the bumbling sidekick as in several depictions, or not leaving out the details of Holmes’ persona that he was an avid boxer who got bored very easily, to the point that he would shoot the queen’s initials into his wall to help occupy his time.

Aside from the accurate character depictions (with a lot of credit going to Jude Law and Robert Downey Jr.), the story was something worthy of the originals. Although a tad much with the occult theme for the villain, the way Holmes unraveled all the clues and came to his conclusions with his deductive thinking, all the while skirting just on the edge of the law, were done in ways that would’ve made Conan Doyle proud.

My only critique with the movie was that it was done in a third person perspective. The original stories were all from the perspective of Dr. Watson and therefore told from his perspective as Watson was being trained all the while in detective work by Holmes. I think it would have been nice to see Guy Ritchie try something a little different and tell the story through the eyes of Watson instead of from the movie-standard third person.

Aside from that minor complaint though, this was a fantastic movie with superb acting from everyone involved, tremendous action, some nice light-hearted comedic moments, and an enthralling plot. The dynamic between Law and Downey Jr. was a joy to watch and the movie held your attention the whole way through and, of course, the movie’s ending left it open for a sequel. If you plan on going to the movies only once this holiday season, Sherlock Holmes should be your pick.

Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law gets 4.5 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

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Looking Through 3D Glasses

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Originally Published: December 23, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (Now ESPNNewYork.com)

It is the most hyped movie of the holiday season with one of the most acclaimed directors of our time (James Cameron) and a $500 million dollar budget. Could it possibly live up to all this hype though or is it just a lot of bright colors and flashing lights?

The first thing I have to explain, due to many people asking me about how much money Nickelodeon put up for this, is that this is NOT the same property as the Nickelodeon cartoon of the same name! Nickelodeon’s Avatar will have its own movie in 2010 and it will be directed by M. Night Shyamalan. James Cameron’s Avatar has blue aliens and amazing visuals. Nickelodeon’s Avatar deals with monks who control the four main elements (earth, wind, water, fire).

Now that we have cleared that up, James Cameron’s Avatar deals with a human mining company trying to rip out special ore (imaginatively named “unobtainium”) from the crust of a jungle planet called Pandora. The indigenous people of this planet though refuse to let their land simply be cultivated or embrace the human culture that is being forced upon them.

In order to help bridge the gap between the two species, Dr. Grace Augustine (played by sci-fi staple Sigourney Weaver; if you want to have a successful sci-fi movie, you need Sigourney!) develops something called the “avatar” program where she melds human DNA with the alien DNA. The human who had their DNA harvested can then plug into the avatar body mentally via a machine that is safe back at the human mining colony.

This is where Jake Sully comes in (played by Sam Worthington, another sci-fi vet after his major role in Terminator: Salvation). His twin brother helped Dr. Augustine with the avatar program, but was murdered in cold blood and thus his avatar was left in storage. Since the avatar-human hybrids cost millions to cultivate, instead of throwing it away, the government contracted Jake due to his similar DNA.

Thus begins an epic, action-packed drama that really takes about 20 minutes too long to unfold and tries to cover up slow moments with some cheesy 3D special effects and a light show that would be too intense for most raves. Really, this was a very good movie, but it just dragged at a couple of points that helped shake you out of the world that James Cameron tried so hard (and spent so much money) to bring us into.

The South Park episode that summed it up as “Dancing with Smurfs” was very spot-on. This movie is basically the thought that a people who are one with nature are forced to leave their homes and fight against foreign invaders and their culture after bringing one of these foreigners into their fold and way of life. Instead of Native Americans and settlers though like in Dances with Wolves, it is blue aliens and humans.

The movie’s visuals were brilliant (and the creature that was a hammerhead shark crossed with a rhinoceros was awesome) and it should win a Visual Effects Oscar hands down. Anything beyond that would be a stretch and the fact that 7-10 Oscar nominations have been predicted for this is a joke. There was some good acting from those involved with a plot that has shown worth before with some simple twists and special effects to make it look new again, but this isn’t a ground-breaking feature film. Of course, with worldwide numbers, it should make back the $500 million dollar investment.

A visually beautiful film with a solid plot makes this probably worth a viewing in the theatre and maybe even a special edition DVD buy because it will probably have some sweet special features (it better with that budget), but I saw it once and that was enough for me.

James Cameron’s Avatar gets 3.5 out of 5 as a solid, but not special, movie worth one, but not multiple, movie theatre viewings.

-Ray Carsillo

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Eat Your Heart Out John Hammond

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Originally Published: December 20, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com), Lundberg.me, and Examiner.com

I think every boy growing up in my generation who saw Jurassic Park instantly fell in love with dinosaurs and the idea of “What if they roamed the Earth, today?” We even sat through the less than stellar sequels because the thought of living with these long extinct creatures excited and scared us in ways that stimulated our pre-pubescent imaginations.

Most of us have matured (and, of course, most of us now are obsessing over women, an entirely different breed of creature that excites and scares us), but we still remember the feelings that are stirred up when a concept involving dinosaurs is brought to the table.

In that vein, I present to you Jurassic: The Hunted, a new first person shooter from Activision. You play as Craig Dylan, a contractor for a private security firm that is hired by a scientist looking for her father whose expedition was lost in the Bermuda Triangle back in 1983. As your plane flies over the ocean and you prepare to parachute onto an island, a storm suddenly appears and lightning strikes your plane. As the plane begins to tail spin out of control, you, your teammate, and the doctor (Gilligan and the skipper escaped the same fate), fall into a bright blue light. When you wake up and begin foraging for weapons and supplies, you come across a lizard…a really big lizard.

Thus begins your adventure as you find out later that you fell through a temporal vortex and that the reversal of the earth’s magnetic poles are causing tremendous amounts of unstable energy to pull creatures and objects from all of time. You’ll explore a German U-boat, use weapons from the Civil War, and get your hands on a sweet plasma rifle from the future as you search for the missing doctor and end up trying to save the world in the process.

Well, it isn’t the most original plot, but it had great potential and like I said before, people love dinosaurs. Unfortunately, great potential does not a great game make. The execution of the plot felt rushed, like Activision was trying to just get this out before the holiday. I blew through the entire game in about five hours and even with the unlocking of a hard mode, and the inclusion of a survival mode that reminds you of a one-man Horde or Firefight mode from Gears 2 or Halo 3: ODST, is not enough to make this an elite game.

I will say that the game at least looks good. Seeing the dinosaurs on-screen in this game is like watching Jurassic Park again. All I would need is John Williams’ classic theme and I would be set with the peripherals of this game. Unfortunately, the sound falls flat on its face compared to the graphics. The music and SFX are generic at best and the voice acting would be comparable to Larry the Cable Guy trying to do Shakespeare.

The gameplay is solid, but not spectacular and I would have loved a larger variety of weapons, especially those from different time eras. The whole time travel aspect of the game wasn’t emphasized enough in general, but that again goes back to the rush job that Activision seemed to give this one. The boss battles were simple and you shouldn’t die more than a handful of times if you are any good at first-person shooters. The adrenaline feature you have is a nice idea and the graphics of seeing the vitals for the dinosaurs are awesome, but aside from that it is mostly unnecessary.

Going back to the survival mode, which is probably the only thing to try to bring you back to this game, but it isn’t special in any way and you should get your fill of hunting dinosaurs after a single playthrough of the game.

This game has a really strong core to it, but it just seems that everything was so rushed that it started to unravel at the seams as you continue through the entire game. The gameplay is average and there is no difficulty to speak of for anyone familiar with first-person shooters. A saving point for this game is that it is available on all systems and is only $40 compared to the full $50 or $60 price usually seen. Still, it shouldn’t offer you more than five to seven hours of gameplay and for that I would rent this instead of buying it.

Ratings are based on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best.

Graphics: 9.0: Easily the best part of this game is the visuals. The dinosaurs look just as good as if you were watching Jurassic Park and there were almost no glitches to speak of.

Audio: 4.0: Generic music and SFX do a horrible job of setting the mood or immersing you in the game. Add on top of that some of the worst voice acting I’ve heard in a long time and this game might be better played with the volume off.

Plot/Plot Development: 6.0: A fun idea that should appeal to a wide audience, but horrible execution and a feeling of being rushed through the game really takes you back and out of the experience.

Gameplay: 6.5: There weren’t any glitches that I could think of throughout the game, but there were only a handful of weapons to use and the melee feature was not necessary because if the dinosaurs got close to you, you were done for. Of course, every first-person shooter needs to have a melee option though. The adrenaline feature was also unnecessary. Add in the simplicity of the game and you have a barely passing score.

Replay Value: 4.0: A couple of difficulty levels and a survival mode is just not enough to bring me back to this game after the initial playthrough.

Overall (not an average): 6.5: The game gets a barely passing score because even with all the flaws it had, it was still fun. It is sad when a game like this comes out because if the developers had sat on it and put a little more into it, you could’ve seen this being a solid game that made an impact instead of something that is at best a good rental. The lower price tag does make it appeal a little more to the masses, but I would still rent it over buying it.

Jurassic: The Hunted is out now for Xbox 360, Wii, PS3, and PS2.

-Ray Carsillo

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Never Saw It Coming

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May 11, 2010

Originally Published: November 18, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com) and Lundberg.me

As a Giants fan, the first person who comes to my mind when speaking of defensive greatness is Lawrence Taylor, the one and only man who should be referred to as LT. When I think of LT, the first things that come to mind are the hundreds of great plays he made over his career, the MVP, and the two Super Bowl Championships. Many other football fans, though, instantly think of him snapping Joe Theismann’s leg like a twig and ending his career instantly.

LT changed the game forever that day as the position of left tackle (which fittingly is also LT on the stats sheet) had a spotlight shone on it like never before. The position was now seen as needing to be filled by someone just as talented as the quarterbacks they were hired to protect. Men like Orlando Pace, Tony Boselli, David Diehl (maybe my Giants bias comes through with that one), Walter Jones, and many others in their position have been lauded as the rocks of many franchises over the years.

This unquestioned importance for the position makes the true story of Michael Oher, the current rookie left tackle for the Baltimore Ravens (1st round, 23rd pick), something of a modern day fairytale (along with the whole rags-to-riches and inner-city struggles thing wrapped in football pads) as he did not have the most traditional of paths to the NFL.

The Blind Side, presented by Warner Bros. and based on the best-selling novel The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game, is the telling of Michael’s incredible tale that is still unfolding as we speak.

Growing up without a real family or home, Michael (played by newcomer Quinton Aaron) survived a difficult childhood in the poverty stricken projects of Memphis only to be taken in by the well-to-do Tuohy family, spearheaded by the unstoppable force that is Leigh Anne Tuohy (Sandra Bullock). With the help of the Tuohy family, specifically Leigh Anne, Michael is able to reach his full potential, both on and off the field, and help the Tuohy family find something they didn’t realize they were missing until Michael entered their lives.

We all know that this tale has a happy ending, but this is still a spectacular movie, even if you are not a football fan or familiar with the story. Everyone involved gives fantastic performances and Sandra Bullock could be up for an Oscar nomination for this role. The movie has you laughing one instant and tugs on your heart strings the next, all the while telling this amazing story in a way the whole family can enjoy.

But this isn’t just a football movie. Football is simply the catalyst for this tremendous story of how one man’s journey was forever altered by the love and generosity of complete strangers and how he was able to reach his fullest potential because of it.

I almost felt that the story, which took 2 hours and 5 minutes to tell, was actually a little too perfect, even with me knowing it’s true. There was clear adversity that Michael had to overcome, but I don’t think it was shown as much as it could’ve been, possibly just to maintain a PG-13 rating. How much he struggled adapting to a new school, these strangers who took him in, these teachers who didn’t want to teach him, I just needed something more. There just seemed to be a lot of help for Michael wherever he turned and that ever-present aid will keep this movie from being an all-time great sports movie like Rudy. Still, it’s a very enjoyable watch and a must-see film for any sports fan.

The Blind Side will be released nationwide on Friday, November 20, 2009, and gets 4 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

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Man vs. Machine. vs. Mutant

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April 18, 2010

Originally published: April, 24, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com) and Lundberg.me

Hundreds of years in the future, the wars of man will unearth an unholy relic that could spell the doom of the human race. At least that is according to the new Sci-Fi Action movie Mutant Chronicles.

The political boundaries of the world in Mutant Chronicles have merged over the centuries into four main industrial super powers, two in the east, one in central/western Europe, and the Americas. A thousand years before, an evil alien device that turned humans into nearly unstoppable humanoid zombie killing machines (say that five times fast) had crash-landed on the planet and only by the different peoples banding together was the machine banished far below the earth and sealed away.

As the four feuding super powers continue to struggle over control of the planet, the seal has been broken and only an elite force, composed of representatives from all over the world, can silence this ancient evil once again.

The movie stars Tom Jane as Major Mitch Hunter, one of the leaders of the group selected to attempt to infiltrate the abominable alien machine, and Ron Perlman as Brother Samuel, the head of the religious group entrusted to uphold the legacy of the original collective that sealed away the alien device.

I had a chance to catch up with Ron Perlman about this movie, several of his past roles, the future of the Hellboy series, and much, much more.


CLICK HERE – to listen to my interview with one of the greatest character actors out there, Ron Perlman.

I felt this movie had such great potential, but fell short in the end. It was like a combination of The Punisher and Resident Evil with even less writing and even more generic action sequences. The story is loosely based off an old-school pen and paper RPG (Role-Playing Game); like Dungeons and Dragons, but with Necro-Mutants and automatic rifles. Mutant Chronicles had the source material to deliver a solid action experience, but poor writing and character development left you wanting more from the experience.

The acting, at least, was solid from everyone involved. Tom Jane basically reprised his Punisher role in this as a solider-of-fortune so it wasn’t a stretch for him to succeed in it. Ron Perlman is one of the most underrated character actors out there and did a phenomenal job playing another great one to add to the long list he’s compiled over the years (some of which we spoke about in our interview above). The supporting cast did well in the few moments they were called on to rise up and take a scene including a short scene with John Malkovich as a political figure during the beginning of the Necro-Mutant invasion.

This isn’t a bad movie, but it isn’t a great one either. There were a lot of spots that dragged on with too many gaps in the plot, which is typical when taking a plot from an old-school RPG if you don’t take it upon yourself to fix these holes with additional writing. I walked away with seeing enough action and enough sci-fi, but I still needed something else from the plot to make it feel complete.

It also felt like the movie couldn’t decide if it was going to concentrate on the action, the sci-fi, or the zombie aspects a lot of the time and this tug-of-war keeps you from becoming totally immersed in the fantasy.

The movie is an hour and 51 minutes and you have to figure that if they could have tightened up the movie to somewhere around the hour and a half mark and wrote a couple more minutes of really concise dialogue then it might have flowed in a way that would have left a better feeling in my gut when I left the theatre.

Mutant Chronicles gets 2 out of 5 for Ron Perlman dominating his role as usual and some average action sequences.

-Ray Carsillo

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The Addendum to End All Addendums

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Originally Published: April 21, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com) and Lundberg.me

Watchmen is easily one of the most influential comics to ever be published. This is a fact that cannot be disputed even by the staunchest of critics of the comics. One of the things that made it great were the addendums at the end of each chapter to flesh out the characters of this fictional Earth and their society’s problems. It was also one of the reasons why many speculated it would be impossible to make it into a movie.

Well, here we are two months after the motion picture’s release without any of the addendums included and many, myself included, thought it was spectacular.

However, many diehards of the franchise were furious that Zack Snyder couldn’t find a way to fit in several of the addendums and many newcomers to the series couldn’t understand every facet of the Watchmen reality without them.

In response to their fans and in a stroke of money-making genius, DC has released an animated feature of Tales of the Black Freighter with the DVD including a live-action feature representing the Under the Hood addendum.

This DVD addendum to the movie (that started as addendums to the novel) is a near-perfect representation of these stories within the story.

The first story, Tales of the Black Freighter, is the response to the comic’s quandary: “If there are superheroes in real-life for these people, what would their comics be like?” Not a common thought when developing a plot, but that’s part of the beauty of Watchmen. The answer to this question was pirates and the supernatural (ghouls, demons, etc.) would populate the pages of these fictional rags.


Tales of the Black Freighter is a mirror for the story of Watchmen as it shows in a microcosm that sometimes the best of intentions don’t always have the best of results and that sometimes one’s focus on the worst aspects of life can blind them from everything good in the world.

The Black Freighter is a ship of ghoulish pirates who have committed so many heinous acts over their lifetimes that their souls are cursed to sail the seven seas on hell’s personal sea vessel in search of more damned souls to hoist her rotten masts. A testament to just how hard it is to find good help these days.

The particular tale in Watchmen that we see is how the Black Freighter attacks and ransacks another pirate ship, and how all the crew is slaughtered except the captain. The captain washes up on a desolate shore with the carcasses of his crew and the sole intention of seeing his family again. He also fears that the Black Freighter will sail towards his home and the very threat of his family being in danger is enough to keep his resolve strong.

In desperation, he strings up the carcasses of his crew into a makeshift raft and sets off in the hopes of reaching his family before the Black Freighter. Alone, hungry, and left to drink seawater, he begins to go mad, talking to his slaughtered friends’ dead bodies. Disgusting sights begin to drive him further into madness as gases trapped in his crews bodies begins to make them explode and leave a trail of blood in their wake that attracts the seas’ most feared predator: the Great White Shark.

With pieces of sharpened parts of his makeshift raft, he stabs one of the sharks in the eye and jams the staff deep into the cranium of the shark, killing it, adding it to his raft of death and scaring off the remaining sharks.

After nearly losing all hope and preparing to succumb to the sea, the raft finds shore. Convinced that the Black Freighter has reached here before him, the captain believes with every fiber of his being that all the shapes draped by shadows by the night sky are actually pirates laughing at his futile efforts.

He skulks through the town, approaching his home, the longing to see his family all that is keeping him going. The night continues to play tricks on him as he beats to death what he believes to be a sentry positioned at his home, only to come to his senses after his daughters’ shrill screams piece the night air and to realize he just beat his own wife to death. In his panic, he runs back to the sea where he sees the Black Freighter waiting for him, ready to finally claim its next soul.

The captain was so blind to his hate of the Freighter and that it would hurt his family, that in the end, the captain was the only one to do the harm as he condemns himself to an eternity of sailing the seven seas as a member of the Black Freighter’s crew with one misguided act.

The animated version of this on the DVD perfectly depicted the gruesome fates of the captain and his crew from the original story and Gerard Butler (300) played the voice of the narrator/captain very well, but I couldn’t help but want to hear him yell “THIS IS SPARTA!” or more appropriately “THIS IS THE BLACK FREIGHTER!” the entire time.

The other story is much simpler. Under the Hood is an autobiographical story revolving around the original Nite Owl and his driving motivations showing why he put on a mask and fought with the Minutemen. Not as deep a part of the universe’s main plot, yet still critical nonetheless because it retells almost the entire back-story to the Watchmen‘s world and sets the stage for the events taking place in the novel itself.

DC knew that an autobiography with no pictures clearly wouldn’t work on a DVD though. In order to counteract this problem, Under the Hood was turned into a magazine news program episode. Similar to 60 Minutes, The Culpeper Minute gets all the minor and past characters of Watchmen to come out and tell their story as if a Mike-Wallace-type was interviewing them.

All the actors who took the extra time to make this half hour mini-feature were great and showed how in-depth they got into their characters while explaining a lot of the key details that the main feature movie had to bypass to keep it less than three hours.

This supplemental DVD for the movie Watchmen is really high in quality and succeeds in filling in several of the gaps from the main feature’s plot, but considering both mini-features combined barely mark an hour, it is tough to say this is worth $20 (even with the sneak peak at this summer’s animated Green Lantern feature included).

Unless you are a die-hard fan of the Watchmen, then you can probably pass on this DVD and wait till it is included with the Director’s Cut Special Edition of the Watchmen DVD for a much smaller price. Rumor has it that these features will be worked in at key parts of the movie’s story just like in the book, which would make the Director’s Cut a much smarter buy for the die-hard fan than this DVD if they can wait a couple more months.

Good quality for poor quantity at an even worse price makes the Tales of the Black Freighter DVD only worth 2 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

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How Sweet It Is

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Originally Published: April 6, 2009, for 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com) and Lundberg.me

After two months of waiting through a sports drought, baseball season is finally starting. With it comes the smell of freshly cut green grass, warmer weather, and the feeling of rebirth that accompanies the game and the changing of the seasons. I recently had the opportunity to screen a movie that played on this theme of rebirth through baseball: Sugar.

Sugar was a 2008 Official Selection of both the Sundance and Toronto Film Festivals. It is the fictional story about Miguel “Sugar” Santos. Miguel is a Dominican league pitcher who gets signed by a fictional major league team and the struggles he faces in the minor league farm system as he chases after his dreams.

I had a chance to talk with the man who plays Sugar in the film, Algenis Perez Soto, and we discussed everything from his training to become a pitcher for the movie to the difficulty of playing such a complex, emotional, role on film.


CLICK HERE – to listen to my interview with the star of Sugar, Algenis Perez Soto.

The movie opens up on a baseball field where Sugar is pitching in the Dominican League where he is dominating. After the game, we follow Sugar to his home in a small village in the Dominican Republic where we find out that Sugar lost his father at an early age and is the main provider now for his mother, grandmother, younger sister and brother, and helps maintain the two room shack they survive in.

As the movie unfolds, Sugar ends up being signed to a small contract for the Kansas City Monarchs after a grueling tryout session. He is soon on his way to Iowa to join the Class-A affiliate of the Monarchs as a highly touted pitching prospect. He meets his teammates and quickly learns they are also his competition. He realizes, after speaking with older friends on the team, that not many prospects ever make it out of the minor leagues. Thus, the stage of self-discovery is set for Sugar to find out what sacrifice will truly mean if his dreams are to become reality and for him to find happiness.

What many people misunderstand about this movie is that this is not a movie about the process of how major league teams scout foreign players or how they can be treated once they arrive to the states. It is a story about one man’s unique struggles; the game of baseball is simply the vehicle for his journey.

What I loved about this movie is that it did not have the typical Hollywood ending-in-a-can that you all too often see with these fictional accounts. It had a sense of realism to see this man struggle, fail, pick himself up, and, in his mind, still succeed and find a semblance of happiness.

Sugar is a well-told story about the maturation of a young man and the pursuit of his dreams which forces him to leave everything he knows behind. It then chronicles his journey as the trials he face change his dream into something he wouldn’t have recognized at the start of his travels. It shows how time can change a person’s course in life and that in the end, being happy and satisfied with one’s self is all the matters.

This movie shows that not everyone who comes from the Dominican Republic ends up as Sammy Sosa or Pedro Martinez. For several scenes in the movie, real people who came from Latin America to chase a dream of playing baseball were introduced and it was revealed towards the end of the movie that many of them ended up doing something else, but they all cherished their memories playing for the minor league affiliates of the Padres, Mariners, Yankees, and many other baseball teams. It was a touching scene that gave credibility to this fictional account and reminds us that even though they may have failed at baseball, they are still people.

The only problem I really had with the movie was that it seemed difficult to follow Sugar’s thought patterns at times. The movie had a habit of showing Sugar doing things, but not always showing his reasons until well after he made his decisions and acted out on them. This made it a bit difficult to follow his character development and since the story revolves solely around that, I have to dock points from it.

When all is said and done, Sugar is the compelling coming-of-age story of a young Dominican man as he deals with problems many of us in the United States do not have to worry about (a language barrier, extreme poverty) through the game of baseball and how he finds himself in the end after being lost in this foreign land.

Sugar is out now in New York and L.A. and runs at 1 hour and 54 minutes.

Sugar gets 3.5 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

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A Wonder to Behold

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Originally Published: February 21, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com)

The first night of the NY ComicCon held one of the most anticipated events of the entire convention. The IGN theatre was filled to the rafters before a special complete viewing of the highly anticipated Wonder Woman full-length animated, straight to DVD, feature coming out March 3rd, 2009, three days before the Watchmen premieres in theatres (DC drilled that into our heads during the Lauren Montgomery/Bruce Timm/Michael Jelenic panel after the movie).

DC’s animation department has been churning out these full-length features for years now, and they have always pushed themselves to the limits in terms of story telling and doing justice to the characters (except for Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman, I’ve tried for years to delete that from my memory banks). It’s a credit to Producer Bruce Timm and Casting Director Andrea Romano who have been a part of almost all of them. Bruce and Andrea were also in the original brain trust that started the animation revolution in the early 1990s with Batman: The Animated Series and continued their relationship with DC with this project and it shows in another above and beyond effort.

This was a huge undertaking since it marks the first time in 30 years that any media form has devoted a sole project to the Amazonian Princess and DC pulled out all the stops in terms of talent: Keri Russell as Wonder Woman, Alfred Molina as Ares, Oliver Platt as Hades, Nathan Fillion as Steve Trevor, Rosario Dawson as Artemis, and Virginia Madsen as Hippolyta. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a DC animation project without a little pro voice over talent, perfectly cast again by Andrea Romano, with Tara Strong (Raven in Teen Titans, Batgirl in Batman: The Animated Series) as Alexa and John DiMaggio (Bender in Futurama, Marcus Fenix in Gears of War 1 and 2) as Deimos. Director Lauren Montgomery is a veteran in the animation game, but this was her first full-length feature where she was the sole director and she did a great job with such a huge undertaking. Add in veteran cartoon writer Michael Jelenic for the script and the pieces were in place for what could be one of DC’s best cartoon features to date.

Here’s the basic premise for those of you unfamiliar with Wonder Woman’s background. Taken with some liberties from Greek mythology, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, wages war against Ares, the god of war, in an attempt to save humanity from itself. After besting Ares in battle, Hippolyta wishes to do away with Ares, but is prevented by Zeus, the father of Ares and king of the gods. Hera, queen of the gods, and patron to Hippolyta, bargains to imprison Ares for all time on the Amazon’s island in the Aegean Sea and Hera would be given a child from the gods for her trouble. So Hippolyta locks Ares away and makes a child out of mud and clay that is blessed by the gods in the form of a daughter, whom Hippolyta names Diana.

Centuries later, the Amazons, who still look smoking hot because they are descended from gods and do not age like humans, are living in tranquility on their island, hidden from man’s eyes by a magic mirror by Hephaestus (Greek god of the forge) when an American fighter jet gets shot down and crashes into the invisible island. Upon landing in what he thinks is heaven (who can blame him), American pilot Steve Trevor is captured and learns that the Amazons’ culture involves the hatred of man and that he must be sent back to America with an emissary from the Amazons’ island. Diana, dying to explore the world, rigs the selection process so that she may be the emissary. At the same time, the Amazons are betrayed by one of their own and Ares is set free so Diana’s mission becomes two-fold, to re-capture Ares as well as escort Steve Trevor home.

This was a great watch. The only real snag I hit with this project was that it still never explained where the heck she got her invisible jet! Everything else was given a detailed, ornate history from her bulletproof bracelets to her Lasso of Truth. The jet though just sort of appeared as if an invisible jet was common place. Then, to add insult to injury, it seemed like too many people could see the invisible jet so it really wasn’t that invisible, was it? My theory is that the Amazons reverse engineered the jet that Steve Trevor crashed in and made their own improvements to it, but it still wasn’t explained outright. Cursed comic book speculation!

Overall, the story is relatively accurate to the comics, with a few liberties taken on the Greek mythos, but it was still done in an enjoyable and meaningful manner that does justice to the original stories from the 1940s. The voice acting was great, the story held your attention the entire way through, and it timed out nicely at nearly an hour and a half. It also answered every question (almost; damn invisible jet) that you might have about Wonder Woman if you weren’t a diehard and not too familiar with the character.

The Wonder Woman animated feature gets 4 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

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Collecting Interest

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Originally Published: February 12, 2009, on 1050ESPN.com (now ESPNNewYork.com)

After days of images of Green Lantern Rings, Batarangs, and Webshooters dancing through my head, I’ve finally been able to remotely connect back to reality, dragging myself out of my NY ComicCon overload and managing to write something. The amazing events leading up to and during NY ComicCon included more previews for big movies and video games than I could count and I got exclusive interviews and demos on some of the hottest games and movies coming out in the next couple of months, and enough to keep me writing for a good long time.

My articles dealing with NY ComicCon will span the next few weeks and probably go in order of what is coming out first so there is less time for you to anticipate the gems galore I was able to get sneak peeks at. Keeping that in mind, my first article deals with a movie that is coming out on Friday, February 13th. No, it isn’t the new Friday the 13th movie, although the horror genre does appeal to a special group of the geek community. No, I’m talking about my advanced screening of The International, the new action-thriller starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts.

The basic premise is simple. Everyone uses banks to keep their cash safe and to basically earn free money by collecting interest as the money sits in the bank. Of course, the banks are government funded organizations and what most people forget is that the money is allowed to be used by the government to do whatever they deem is necessary for the good of their representatives. So what happens when that money starts being used by the bankers themselves for some very underhanded dealings? Not the Bush Administration, but close!

Clive Owen is an Interpol agent charged with tracking a bank in Luxemburg that allegedly is using investors’ money to illegally buy and sell weapons. He teams up with Naomi Watts who works out of the New York City District Attorney’s Office and has also been tracking this case since the New York branch is one of the top fronts for this bank. Action and drama ensue as the two seem to be the only ones who believe what the clues are telling them as they try to take down one of the most powerful banks in the world.

To be honest, I went into this not expecting much and walked away rather pleased. Not the smartest conspiracy action-thriller to ever come out, it did at least hold your attention for most of the movie and kept the twists and turns fresh and fun from the get-go. Naomi Watts’ performance left something to be desired, but Clive Owen was solid as the Interpol agent whose career has revolved around this one case and would go through any means necessary to see justice delivered.

The ensemble cast around the two stars of the movie was great as well, from the assassin the bank hires, to the men at the top of the bank itself. They all seemed to fit in the movie perfectly, much like the clues Clive Owen finds as he tries to crack this career-long puzzle.

Aside from Ms. Watts’ lackluster performance, the only other negative aspect of this movie was that it seemed like everything came across as too simple, that everything fit too neatly and still not enough people in the movie supported Owen and Watts.

Positives, aside from the cast excluding Ms. Watts, include the overall flow of the movie. The pace was enough to keep you interested to the point that when it ends, you don’t realize that 1 hour 58 minutes has passed. The plot does move at a very traditional pace though with everything slowly building to a climatic shootout followed by a neat winding down of the plot to its conclusion in the final 20 minutes.

With all the God-awful romantic detritus that is out there right now from Confessions of a Shopaholic to He’s Just Not That in to You, it’s nice to see someone come up with a semi-original plot with decent writing and action that holds your attention. If you’re looking for a break from the Hollywood crap factory, for something a little bit smarter, then take a look at The International and you probably won’t be disappointed.

The International gets 3.5 out of 5.

-Ray Carsillo

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