Secretly Awesome - Young Sherlock Holmes

Release Date: December 4, 1985

Director: Barry Levinson

Writer: Chris Columbus

Cast: Nicholas Rowe, Alex Cox, Sophie Ward, Anthony Higgins

Box Office: $19,739,575

Rotten Tomatoes: 65%

Back when Steven Spielberg attached his name to creatively interesting projects rather than high-profile, big-budget blockbusters that don't exactly need his endorsement to be made, he produced a little film called Young Sherlock Holmes. It was written by Chris Columbus and directed by Barry Levinson which, including Spielberg, is virtually a mid-80s all-star team. The result is not exactly great, but is as hinted above, creatively interesting. I've always found modernizations and re-imaginings like this to be fun to watch. Well, maybe not always, considering the last one I can remember is Julie Taymor's take on The Tempest. Yeah, on second thought, some of them can be pretty awful, which just makes it that much better when a good one comes along, as is the case with Young Sherlock Holmes.

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Green Lantern - Zero Stars

Zero. Zero chemistry between leads; zero action; zero fun; zero humor; zero excitement; zero plot; zero cool; zero subtlety; zero intelligence; zero logic; zero narrative coherence; zero talent displayed; zero passable effects; zero effect on the audience who possess zero interest in the characters, zero interest in absorbing any of the crummy images put up on the screen, zero interest in fighting the urge to allow sleep to overcome them, zero interest in paying attention to some truly shit dialogue, unnecessary flashbacks, uneven and confusing introductions/uses of powers, ugly green imaginary weapons, unimpressive set pieces, lousy set/costume design, a villain that is more scary in the unintentional sense of more closely resembling the set of dreadlocks found on the head of some jackass wearing a tie-died shirt and trying to sell me on the benefits of organic toilet paper when I was in college than an evil, menacing entity bent on world-- no, UNIVERSE domination in a movie that looks less like it's based on a popular comic book series than on a line of generic action figures from the dollar store. Zero heart; zero grace; zero subtlety; zero wit; zero ambition; zero effort... Zero stars. And most importantly, zero desire for the surely shit sequel that was shamelessly teased during the end credits.

Secretly Awesome - Little Big League

Release Date: June 29, 1994

Director: Andrew Scheinman

Writer: Gregory K. Pincus, Andrew Scheinman

Cast: Luke Edwards, Timothy Busfield, John Ashton, Jonathan Silverman, Dennis Farina, Jason Robards

Box Office: $12,267,790

Rotten Tomatoes: 33%

There were a handful of solid kids' baseball movies released in the mid-1990s, the least remembered, most underrated of which being Little Big League. In my experience, I find that people who were actually kids when these movies came out seem to gravitate towards The Sandlot, which always surprises me. Perhaps they are just nostalgic for a time they never experienced, because anyone who has seen The Sandlot after turning fifteen has to agree that it doesn't exactly hold up well, and that it's essentially just watered-down Stand By Me. Not the case with Little Big League, however, which features a better premise, better characters, and much better comic relief, not to mention better baseball.

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Secretly Awesome - The Last Mimzy

Release Date: March 23, 2007

Director: Robert Shaye

Writers: Bruce Joel Rubin, Toby Emmerich

Cast: Chris O'Neil, Rhiannon Leigh Wryn, Timothy Hutton, Rainn Wilson, Joely Richardson, Kathryn Hahn, Michael Clarke Duncan

Box Office: $21,471,047

Rotten Tomatoes: 53%

Rather than wallow in my disappointment over last week's far-less-than-stellar Super 8, I decided to revisit the most recent movie I can remember that successfully attempted to portray the wonder and mystery of children discovering aliens, The Last Mimzy. I must admit that the differences between the two films are greater than I remembered, not having seen Mimzy in several years, there are enough similarities for me to wish Super 8 director J.J. Abrams had watched it before finishing his screenplay.

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Update

I don't know if you noticed, but I haven't posted anything on here for about three months. Sorry. A few reasons: First, the Secretly Awesome feature was adopted by Cinemit.com, which is a website that hooks people up with free passes to exclusive and advance screenings of movies in large cities. I believe they are only operating the northeast right now, but if you live in or around places like New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, I would certainly recommend frequenting their website or following them on Twitter (@Cinemit).

Second, I moved. Third, I bought a very large television and have been binging on blu-rays for the past month or so, so I really haven't been to many movies lately anyway. I had introduced Secretly Awesome for the purpose of adding some consistency to the posting of new content on this site. Removing it had the unintended consequence of removing my interest in posting anything new. Oops. From now on, I'll post Secretly Awesome in a preview format, with a link to the full feature on Cinemit, and hopefully I'll find it in me to post something on some current movies while I'm at it.

Secretly Awesome - Mr. Baseball

Release Date: October 2, 1992

Director: Fred Schepisi

Writers: Gary Ross, Kevin Wade, Monte Merrick

Cast: Tom Selleck, Ken Takakura, Dennis Haysbert, Aya Takanashi

Box Office: $20,883,046

Rotten Tomatoes: 13%

Tom Selleck plays aging, dick-head first baseman Jack Elliot, a veteran Yankee who gets traded off to Japan to play for the Dragons in Mr. Baseball. The Dragons' uptight manager, Uchiyama (played wonderfully by Ken Takakura), brings Elliot on to help them win the pennant and save his job, but stubbornness and ego get in the way, and Elliot ends up being more of a problem than a solution, bringing embarrassment and shame to the team, goofing around rather than owning up to the hole in his swing and accepting Coach's advice on how to fix it.

Hanna - ****

Hanna is the kind of movie that should be making one-hundred million dollars. It's original; it's intense; it has a great hero, fun villains, and some amazing action sequences staged in creative locations. It's gorgeously shot, and it also features a brilliant score by the Chemical Brothers, who use techno beats and lullabies that keep things fast-paced, even in the quieter moments. What more could you ask for?

Cedar Rapids - ***1/2

Nice guy leaves his cozy surroundings and gets sucked into a lifestyle of chaos and debauchery... It's a familiar comedy premise, and a tired one at that. Ed Helms plays our nice guy, Tim Lippe, a small town insurance agent chosen to go to an annual insurance convention, where the Twin Diamond Award is given to the representative who displays outstanding character and respect for God. What's amazing about Cedar Rapids is that it completely sidesteps all of the boring pratfalls that most films of this kind seem to indulge.

Secretly Awesome - Vampire's Kiss

Release Date: June 2, 1989

Director: Robert Bierman

Writer: Joseph Minion

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Jennifer Beals, Maria Conchita Alonso

Box Office: $725,131

Rotten Tomatoes: 62%

Buy It!

Whenever someone claims that Nicolas Cage is a terrible actor, I know I can name at least a half-dozen movies that person has never seen. Sure, some his recent stuff is pretty questionable, though not all of it (I'll get to some of those another time), but he has a solid bank of undeniably brilliant performances that will forever keep him far away from legitimately being labelled terrible.

Limitless - **

And we have our first contender for Most Deceiving Title of the Year, Limitless disappoints with its utter lack of imagination and ambition. What would you do if a pill could make you smarter? Apparently pretty much the same thing you would do if you won the lottery. Bradley Cooper plays a struggling writer who gets addicted to a hard-to-come-by street drug that allows him to use one-hundred percent of his brain. He gives up writing to play the stock market, and deducing from the film's hypothesis, brain use only correlates to how much money you want to make, and how fast you drive your car.