Also, rape? Necessary? I get it, the dude needs more kids so he can bring in more money/proud of his d, but still--rape? Then the dude who rapes a chick in the first ten minutes becomes the hero? And in those ten minutes we have like 200 extreme close-ups of people chewing of food? Not for me.

To be honest, I did really like everything that happened every time someone said, "Duck, you sucker." Consistently the best parts of the movie.

PLOT:

A Mexican village is periodically raided by bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach). As he and his men ride away from their latest visit, Calvera promises to return.

Desperate, the village leaders travel to a border town to buy guns to defend themselves. They approach a veteran gunslinger, Chris (Yul Brynner). He tells them guns alone will not do them any good; they are farmers, not fighters. They ask him to lead them, but Chris rejects them, telling them a single man is not enough. They keep at him though, and he eventually gives in. He recruits men, though the pay is a pittance.

First to answer the call is the hotheaded, inexperienced Chico (Horst Buchholz), but he is rejected. Harry Luck (Brad Dexter), an old friend of Chris, joins because he believes Chris is looking for treasure. Vin (Steve McQueen) signs on after going broke from gambling. Other recruits include Bernardo O'Reilly (Charles Bronson), Britt (James Coburn), fast and deadly with his switchblade, and Lee (Robert Vaughn), who is on the run and needs someplace to lie low until things cool down. Chico trails the group as they ride south, and is eventually allowed to join them.

Even with seven, the group knows they will be vastly outnumbered by the bandits. However, their expectation is that once the bandits know they will have to fight, they will decide to move on to some other unprotected village, rather than bother with an all-out battle. Upon reaching the village, the group begins training the residents. As they work together, the gunmen and villagers begin to bond such as when the gunfighters decide to share their food with the villagers upon realizing they are going without while their protectors feast. Chico finds a woman he is attracted to, Petra (Rosenda Monteros), and Bernardo befriends the children of the village.

Calvera comes back and is disappointed to find the villagers have hired gunmen. After a brief exchange, the bandits are chased away. Later, Chico spies on the outlaws and returns with the news that Calvera and his men will not simply be moving on, as had been expected. They are planning to return in full force, as the outlaws are broke and starving, and need the crops from the village to survive.

The seven debate whether they should leave. Not having expected a full-scale war, some of the seven as well as some of the villagers are in favor of the group's departure. However, Chris adamantly insists that they will stay. They decide to make a surprise raid on the bandit camp but find it empty. Returning, they are ambushed by Calvera's men, who have been let into the village by those villagers fearful of the impending fight. The seven's lives are spared, as Calvera is certain that by now, the Americans have lost any further desire to fight for this village, and he fears revenge if they are killed; they are disarmed and escorted out of the village.

Despite the odds against them, and despite their betrayal by the villagers, all of Chris' group except Harry decide to return and finish the job the next morning. During the ensuing battle, Harry returns to rescue Chris, and is mortally wounded. Bernardo is killed protecting children he had befriended; Lee and Britt are also slain. Seeing the gunmen's bravery, the villagers are inspired to overcome their own fear, and they grab whatever they can as weapons and join the battle. The bandits are routed. Calvera is shot by Chris; puzzled, he asks why a man like Chris came back, but dies without an answer.

As the three survivors leave, Chico decides to stay with Petra. Chris and Vin ride away, pausing briefly at the graves of their fallen comrades. Chris observes, "Only the farmers won. We lost. We always lose."

REVIEW:

I'm not usually a fan of remakes. This is a remake of a Japanese film, The Seven Samurai. However, in the '60s, people still had original ideas, and this is a total remake, not a reboot.

The acting in this film is dwarfed only by the gunfights. It's the perfect Western.

The film's score, composed by Elmer Bernstein, is memorable. Of course, I'm a little biased due to the fact that I played an arrangement of it in high school band.

Calvert, the villain, reminds me of Tony Shaloub's character in Men in Black. Not in terms of personality, but in terms of his mannerisms.

I always am fascinated when I see established actors in their younger days. James Coburn and Charles Bronson's youthful looks astounded me as I watched this film.

Each of the seven have their own set of issues that the audience can relate to, which makes them human, and Yul Brynner is more than a capable leader of this rag tag mob of hired guns.

They just don't make movies like this anymore. Anyone want to make a bet on how long it'll be before someone decides they want to reboot this. You know it's bound to happen!

4 out of 5 stars

Vidéo à regarder, bien évidemment, en mode plein écran.

My wife and I were channel flipping at the TV last night, and we came across what looked like a made-for-TV movie about Noah's ark. I could identify John Voight as Noah and Mary Steenbergen as his wife. They were looking over the rail of the deck down at another small boat filled with Middle Eastern-looking trinkets, piloted by a bearded peddler, played by an actor with a very familiar face.

My wife said he was Robert Redford or some such. (I love her, but she sucks at identifying actors. I'll occasionally quiz her, and laugh at the answers.) I knew who it was, what he'd previously done, some things I've seen. One of my earliest bosses resembled him, especially in the jowls. Which is one of the reasons he'd spent such a long time in my mental short-list of pop culture figures. But last night, I just couldn't make the memory of the face produce the name.

Before, I'd just keep thinking about it. Let it haunt me for the better part of an hour. Pace the floor. Play that game where I'd think really hard, then stop thinking, go and do something completely different, then think again. That would make it pop into my mind.

Now, I had my wife make another Firefox tab on her laptop, go to IMDB, enter Name: John Voight, look for the listing of Noah's Ark movie, click, look for peddler.... James Coburn.

Tip of my tongue!

Now granted, James Coburn's career is what it is whether I remember his name or not. And since I'm no casting director, I don't think I'm at a loss for having a big mental Rolodex of movie stars at my mental fingertips.

But I'm surprised how much of the ephemera of pop culture that I used to keep in my brain I've relocated to the renderfarm that is the internet. What am I using the remainder of my brain for? Clearly the analogy of the brain as a thought-attic needs to be re-examined.

What I'm more curious about is the mental rigor of remembering something you used to know, and the exercise you get recalling it. And that I do it less and less.

Back in time now, to the early '60s. My first favorite TV show was the game show Concentration, hosted by Hugh Downs. I got several editions of the home game, and found I couldn't wait to find playmates who were as into the game as I was, so I played by myself. This meant that I would have to give the solution of the rebus puzzle that's underneath all the squares my very best effort, because it was too easy to just pop open the little window with the solution printed in block letters. (One player was designated MC in the rules.) One puzzle had a big hot dog on a bun, plus an ampersand, plus a big German-style beer mug with a lid. I think I said "Hot dog and mug" every different way one could for the better part of a day, trying to distribute the stress among the syllables, bunching some together, drawing some out. No luck. Finally, the next day, I took the game board to my father and asked for his help. He gave me some hints, but that didn't help either. (The solution was "Frankenstein", of course. Frank + stein.) The problem is, I didn't know what a stein was. Some German-American I turned out to be!

The point is, I never put myself through such mental discipline since. I still wonder why I cared so much about not cheating. I was the only one who'd know.

If today life (as opposed to a game) should give me as bewildering a puzzle, I wouldn't even think about it. I'd tweet it. I'd Google it. I'd do most anything other than reason it out.

Is this kind of mental laziness a sign of age? Should I be grateful I'm so connected and agile with online tools? Or is it simply progress, the shucking off of a vestigal skill, like hunting and gathering? Should I worry? Are you?

They couldn't be more wrong.

At a time when many say that the USA is going into recession, the classic car market has not been recorded at a stronger point in the last 12 months, especially with the most recent auction results.

Sure, there may be certain distress sales, but when your talking about pure classics and muscle, you better bring a good bank account with you to the table, as the bidding is going through the roof. Alternatively, if you have been sitting and converting your hard earned cash into Euros - you bet well and can buy more.

SCM and its analysts have a great few things to say about what is and what isn't hitting the mark in terms of estimates for certain Hemi packed cars or Cobra stinging AC's  going up on the auction block. Have a look at what they have to say here in an article entitled "Recession Proof Muscle Cars"

http://www.sportscarmarket.com/articles/archives/1429

If you need more convincing, how about a $ 1 Million Ford while youy here? Think I'm joking? Think again. Have a look here:

http://money.cnn.com/video/#/video/fortune/2008/03/13/fortune.callaway.ford.fortune

But to top it all off, a ginger haired ex- Radio DJ from UK has gone and done what no man has done before. That is to buy a 1961 Ferrari California Spyder for over $ 11 Million (previously owned by a certain J Coburn). The Internet still burns with stories covering the event itself. No doubt, the man loves his cars, but paid perhaps a tad too much we think.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/05/19/1961-ferrari-california-spyder-sells-for-record-10-894-900/

http://uk.reuters.com/article/motoringNews/idUKNOA03787520080520

http://www.luxurylaunches.com/auctions/ferrari_fetches_11_million_at_an_auction.php

There have been numerous records set and many broken this year, in fact so many, I didn't want to list them just yet.

 We do still have 5 months left in 2008 and I will post the most exciting ones for last.

Till then,

Enjoy.

Tuesday: Joined Twitter to let everyone on Yahoo mailing list, including my congressperson, know about new eBay store. Turns out everyone could give a rat's ass, except congressperson, who sent kind, personal reply expressing appreciation for my concern and promising it will receive his immediate attention. Think he has his eye on pink size-2 sleeper with bunnies.

Today—am trusting you to hold me to this—am adding designer women's garb, tattered Levi's, clumps of infant stuff, and some brass candlesticks, unless decide to keep for purposes of filling with candles and lighting them in prayer ritual for success of eBay store.

The A.D.D. process

Attention-deficit-disordered persons seldom take straightforward approach. For example, I can't do this kind of work—laundering, assembling, photographing, folding, putting items in protective and environmentally unfriendly plastic bags, and the like—without start-me-up music.

Here's a sample (go ahead, click it!)... Start Me Up - The Rolling Stones

A.D.D. project management, in a nutshell, goes something like this:

1. Decide to sell items on eBay store
2. Ruminate on decision for, oh, 93 hours, give or take
3. Decide to take plunge
4. Can't remember what am plunging into
5. Bump shin on box of brass candlesticks, jogs memory
6. Decide to keep brass candlesticks; where the hell are candles?
7. Roll up sleeves, get to work
8. But first, need music
9. MP3-player can't be located
10. Decide, after tear house apart, to look in MP3-player case; voila!
11. Battery is dead
12. Decide to buy batteries, when solvent
13. Weeks ensue
14. Have money, buy batteries, pat self on back
15. Days ensue
16. Put battery in MP3 player
17. Dissatisfied with music selection; need Sousa marches and the like
18. Load MP3 player with honky-tonk, bluegrass, favorite upbeat music such as theme from The Great Escape (ghoulish, when think about tragic WWII context, but not when focus on Steve McQueen sexy smirk, or James Coburn with help from French underground [or Swiss?] riding bicycle to freedom)
19. Elmer Bernstein was greatest movie composer ever
20. Steve McQueen's first name was Terrence
21. Where was I?
22. Oh. Gathered up newly loaded, fresh-batteried iPod wannabe, headphones; damned iPod wannabe keeps falling out of pocket
23. Ready to roll... after nap

May Whoever's On Duty bless You and Your endeavors. —Mary

First up: The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983)

The pitchable element: a lesbian sex scene featuring one of his favorite actresses, Catherine Deneuve.

The length: 93 minutes

The verdict: What a strange film this is! It's a horror film of sorts, but without, really, any horrific moments. It's a vampire film, but the word "vampire" is never uttered, and almost none of the clichés are used: there are no fangs, no crufixes, they can be seen in mirrors and on photographs, and the sun is not a danger.

Somehow, directors love to defile Deneuve's impeccable, almost untouchable beauty. Here, too: her impossible, perfect coif comes undone, her face is stained with blood, and in the end... In the end, the movie just rehashes a trope old as the greeks: eternal life is nothing without eternal youth, and not being able to die is probably more horrific a thought than having, irrevocably, to do so.

Tony Scott's clearly chosen style over substance from the beginning, but is that really such a bad thing? I wasn't quite captivated by the story, but I was arrested by so many shots. It's too bad David Bowie is hidden in aging make-up for most of his (already limited) screen time. My father was less enthusiastic than me (although he had to grant the lesbian scene was good), but I'm glad I finally saw this cult classic.

Then: A Fistful of Dynamite aka. Duck, you Sucker (Sergio Leone, 1971)

The pitchable element: it's a Leone Spaghetti Western

The length: 157 minutes, quite a bit above the cut-off, but I proposed cutting it in two if we felt like it, and we ended up watching the whole thing.

The verdict: This is clearly a messier film than The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West, and unlike those two it could easily -and without loss - have been shorter. It's also the most unever in tone: at some points it's almost a slapstick comedy, but the revolution stuff in it is quite grim. James Coburn, whose Irish accent kind of comes and goes, turns out to have the perfect Leone face: deep crevices and grime can't quite disguise his charisma, and his eyes look good in close-up. Rod Steiger is 'the Ugly' to this hero: a thief and a murderer, but not one without a heart, or without insight: his speech on revolutions is great.

There are no real iconic scenes or shots here, nothing coming close to the level of the two films I mentioned, but for what it is - a B-movie with some political intent - it's actually pretty good. It drags in spots, but there are enough scenes (the first twenty minutes, the bridge ambush, etc) to make it worthwhile.

The rest of my selection? Tune in later to find out.

If you are looking for something a little more substantial then look no further than the Oscar winning Film of the Week, No Country For Old Men. This film is immense in both story and style and is easily the best film that the Coen Brothers have ever made, possibly even one of the greatest American films ever made. In case you hadn't spotted it yet - I love this film.

Moving on, this week also sees the release of Afghan literary adaptation The Kite Runner and the Michael Douglas starring The King Of California. I can't pass judgement on these as I have not yet seen them but I have heard great things and will hopefully be able to post reviews before the week is out.

There are a number of re-releases this week the most interesting of which is the restored version of Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee. Starring Charlton Heston in the title role alongside Richard Harris and James Coburn (plus regulars Ben Johnson, Warren Oates and L.Q. Jones) and this is a rip-roaring western adventure that has some real balls. Following a mixed group of Union cavalry officers and Confederate P.O.W.s as they hunt down a band of Apache, this film has been various seen as a retelling of Moby Dick, a lecture on the divided nature of the United States and a commentary on the Vietnam War. Like all great film it fits nicely into all of those and yet refuses to be tied to a single one.

Not so much a re-release as simply a re-package is the new edition of The Godfather Trilogy. If you already have the boxset that was released a few years back then you pretty mush have what is here. The first two films have been given a 5.1 sound makeover, there are a few new extras (including one called The Godfather on the Red Carpet which seems a good indication of the quality) and the box has a subtle streak of red across it. Quite.

Finally, UCA are putting out a new line of double feature packs. Whilst we all know that these can always throw up some badly chosen duets (Wilde/Ned Kelly anyone?) they have actually included some great couplings. My favourites are East Rider/Two-Lane Blacktop and Adaptation/Being John Malkovich. The first set unites possibly one of the most overrated (but important) films of all time with Monte Hellman's low key, under seen car classic whilst the second offers up two surrealist modern classics.

Have a good week.

"Of course Nebraska is a storehouse for literary material. Everywhere is a storehouse of literary material. If a true artist were born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for work. The only need is the eye to see."
                                                                                                        Willa Cather
                                                                                                        My Antonia

In other posts we’ve looked at screenwriters from Iowa and some surrounding states- Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, and Minnesota, but today let’s head to the west and take a look at Nebraska. 

Before we get to the screenwriting part of that state let me say that Nebraska has produced four giants of cinema on the performing end of feature films; Henry Ford, Fred Astaire, Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando.

Toss in producer Darryle F. Zanuck, TV personalities Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett as well as other actors James Coburn, Nick Nolte, Janine Turner and most recently Hilary Swank and you have a nice roster of entertainment talent  from this Midwest state.

But no list of creatives from Nebraska is complete without mentioning Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Willa Cather whose novels O Pioneers! & My Antonia have had lasting success.

As we look at screenwriting from Nebraska there is one name that stands out in bold, Alexander Payne. The Academy-Award winning writer of Sideways grew up just over the Iowa border in Omaha, reportedly on the same street as Warren Buffett. His films Election, About Schmidt, and Citizen Ruth were all shot in Nebraska.

Payne earned his master’s degree at the UCLA where one of his teachers was Lew Hunter. Lew’s also from Nebraska and his resume is more of a creative journey. He earned two master’s degrees, worked as a radio DJ, an NBC page, story executive and wrote the Emmy-nominated script Fallen Angel, before going on to be the co-founder of the M.F.A. screenwriting program at UCLA. His book Screenwriting 434 flowed out of that class. 

A couple years ago I was reading a screenwriting book by Skip Press and saw that Lew Hunter now lived part of the year in Superior, Nebraska. Since I was heading from Cedar Falls, Iowa in a few days for a shoot in Colorado Springs I found Superior on a map and decided I could make a slight detour and pass through there. (Superior, by the way,  is called the "Victorian Capital of the Midwest.")

I tracked down Lew’s email and sent him a note. He was in town and welcomed me to not only stop by but to stay the night in his writer's house that he uses for workshops. So I was able to not only spend some time talking with him about his various experiences in the industry but stayed up at night watching old tapes from his UCLA classes of various people like Billy Wilder talking to his class. 

I later interviewed him for this article that appeared in Create Magazine.

Where did you grow up?
I grew up on a farm outside the small, 392-person village of Guide Rock, Nebraska.

How did growing up on a farm prepare you for a career in Hollywood?
I was given a sense of a work ethic when I was five years old. I did all the things kids do on a farm.

Was there any expression of the arts or creativity in your home?
My mother was quite a different farmwomen. She was a graduate of the University of Nebraska, in music generally and violin specifically.And she went to the New England Conservatory of Music. My mother had me doing piano lessons when I was 3 years old. And she read Shakespere, “Beowulf” and Greek legends with me on her knee. My father was sort of a Will Rogers character in terms of humor and style.

What lead to your Hollywood writing career?
I went over to the story department at Disney Studios. After two years of reading scripts and books trying to get the material into the studio, I was having lunch with Ray Bradbury about doing the “Martin Chronicles,” and we were talking and I said, Ray I’m really thinking about being a writer, and I’ve read about 2,000 scripts and about 90 % are feces. And I think I can be in that top 10 percent of feces. And he gave me two books to read, One was “The Wisdom of Insecurity” by Alan Watts and the other was Dorothea Brande, “Becoming a Writer.”

So how did you actually make that transition to becoming a writer?
I had saved up enough money to focus on writing for a year and wrote six feature-length scripts. The more ponies you pick in the race, the greater your chances of winning. After the year was up my money had run out and I needed a job. My agent called and said that ABC and Aaron Spelling wanted my script, “If Tomorrow Comes” (about Japanese/Americans held captive in California during WWll) and that started my writing career.

The American Screenwriters Association awarded you with a Lifetime Achievment Award a few years ago. But you paid your dues. That’s a valuable lesson for young writers.
Everyone pays their dues to become successful. I’ll give you a perfect example. Screenwriter Brian Price is sitting in my UCLA graduate 434 class and I hold up a Variety (magazine). And on the front page it says first-time writer sells script to Universal. And I said to Brian, “How many scripts did you write before you became a first-time screenwriter?” and he says, “Ten.” I joined WGA (Writers Guild of America) in 1969 and came to Hollywood in 1956.

It seems like more people than ever are writing screenplays. What is your advice anyone wanting to be a screenwriter?
The most important thing I would tell anyone in terms of writing of any kind is when I was at Northwestern, John Steinbeck came and gave a talk and afterwards I went up to him and asked, “What must I do to become a wonderful writer?” Mr. Steinbeck twitched his beard a little with his thumb and forefinger and he said, “Write.” And turned and walked away.

Graduates in the UCLA M.F.A. program are required to write between six and eight screenplays before they graduate. That’s a lot of writing.
It astonishes me when someone telling me they’re a writer and I ask how many screenplays they’ve written and they say, “One.” You’ve got to do the process. Somewhere between four and six scripts is the equivalent of getting up on water skies.

Is it simply talent that separates UCLA Alumni writers David Ward, Francis Ford Coppola, Eric Roth, Alan Ball, David Capthem and former student of yours Alexander Payne from other writers?
It’s three things. Tenacity, focus, and there is an element of luck involved. Of course, there is the street phrase, “The harder I work the luckier I get.” I don’t think they’re smarter than anyone reading this transcript. I believe everyone has the opportunity to be a wonderful screenwriter.

Do you think with the digital technology there is going to be a new style of writing emerging or a revolution in storytelling outside of New York and LA?
I don’t think there will be a new style of writing, but I think it will be easier opportunities for people to knock people off their socks if they have a good story. It will always come doen to story and character and character and story. With a computer editing bay, a DV camera, very little money, and some talented friends and a good script, you’re going to be able to come up with something that’s going to knock people’s socks off. It’s very exciting to think of some boy or girl in some ghetto around the world will get ahold of a computer and tell a story like “Salaam Bombay.” 

Twice a year (June & September) Lew hosts 14-day workshops patterned after the UCLA M.F.A. screenwriting program.  Learn more about Lew and his workshop at lewhunter.com. Lew and his wife Pamela are gracious hosts and I think any screenwriter would benefit from spending a couple weeks in Nebraska learning from Lew.  

Copyright 2008 Scott W. Smith

Ferrari's 1961 250 California Spyder. (RM Auctions)

T Magazine's Senior Editor Sandra Ballentine opens up her little black book of tips on where to go, what to buy and whom to know.

Name: Ferrari Leggenda e Passione
File under: Vintage Car Auctions, Italy
When: May 18 (Previews from the 16th to the 18th)
Address: Ferrari S.p.A, Pista di Fiorano, Via Villeneuve 23,
Fiorano Modenese, MO, 41042, Italy
Web site: www.rmauctions.com

What to get: If you’re a Ferrari fanatic, this auction will have you in sweats. Collectors will bid for exotic and rare cars — both new and vintage — and a dream cache of prancing-horse memorabilia.

What I lust for: If I had six million dollars, it’d be a no-brainer: the black 1961 250 California Spyder once owned by the actor James Coburn, shown here, is the definition of sex on wheels. If I only had a million or so to spend, I’d go for the super-cute 1952 212 Inter Europa coupe Robert Rossellini gave Ingrid Bergman as an anniversary present. Bergman nicknamed the car her “Growling Baby,” and the couple drove it from Rome to the Grand Hotel in Sweden, via the Italian and Swiss Alps, Germany and Denmark. Rossellini raced Baby in the 1953 VII Stella Alpina event. How’s that for provenance?

Ambience: You have to be invited (or be a serious contender in the auction) to visit the hallowed, horsepower-filled halls of the Ferrari factory. The Pista de Fiorano track is legendary, and serves as the testing ground for some of the most impressive cars in the world. Even if you are stuck on the wrong side the track, you can sometimes hear the high-pitched scream of F1 racecars, and the throaty roar of streetcars being put through their paces. The auction occurs right next door.

Shopping notes: The best hotels in the area are the Real Fini San Francesco and the Maranello Palace. The hottest dish in town is a plate of spaghetti at Montana, a favorite haunt of superstar F1 drivers like Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen. The hottest invite this weekend will be RM’s special VIP tour of the factory on Saturday.

What's funny is that at some point we crossed a line. We went from familiar faces showing up in Neal Adams' or Paul Gulacy's art to swipes as an art style. I see the reason and the differences here. One is the proliferation of the Internet and digital technology. Adams and Gulacy didn't have it. They truly drew a character into their stories. By that I mean that they did sketches and finished portraits. They memorized the physical aspects of a face and body in their minds and through their hands.

Adams got his start doing a Ben Casey newspaper strip. He was used to dealing with actors as characters in his art from the beginning. From there he moved into advertising art along with his comic work. He could portray anyone in order to lampoon them or to further along a straight story. He wasn't held back by the lack of a specific facial expression or pose. He had mastered them by the time he put their image on a page. He made them do whatever he wanted and it was so fluid you bought right into it. (I don't care if it was fellow comics professionals for a Batman story, Spiro Agnew for Green Lantern,  or the many that came up in Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, to name a few.)

Gulacy didn't have Adams' background, but you could tell how he gravitated towards certain actors. You knew he had done his work off of the page before he started a story. Again, it was pure drawing and he integrated the images into characters that served a story. (Whether it was Lee, Connery, Brando, Niven and Marx for MOKF, or the porn actresses that showed up as female leads in solo stories, or Coburn for some of his Warren work.)

Now images show up and they are barely changed from the source material. They have a tendency to take you right out of a story because they are not integrated into it. Instead it's a little technical showcase. A game of "guess where this is from"? The story comes to a standstill, and if it's an ongoing character in the story, he suddenly looks very different. (Or are you to infer that the rest of the panels should look like Brad Pitt just because one close up does?)

I know it's not everybody's cup of tea, but I enjoyed the old stories when these things happened. It was the cherry on the top of my favorite artist sundae. Now, I miss the consistency. I realize it's an easy thing to do with Google image search and freeze frame DVD along with Photoshop. But, what's the point? Did you really service the story with that?

I know that it's tough to produce the books and that any short cut or advantage is being embraced, but it was just as tough back then. They made it work because they did the work. Now, I don't think the effort is worth it to trick out a couple of panels.

This is the realm of Monstropolis, where monsters live, work and play. The world has a major problem. They’ve found themselves in the middle of an energy crisis. The fuel they need is different from ours, instead of electricity, they harvest are the screams of children. Professional Scarers work every night by going in the closets of unsuspecting children and scaring the wits out of them.

It is only those who work at Monsters Inc. that have given monsters such a bad name! Relaity however is very different indeed. Because it is the monsters who are terrified of children. They believe them to be toxic, when only one touch could mean death!

The scariest monster of all, is a big blue hairy fella named James P. "Sulley" Sullivan, for years he has been on the top of the leader board, for the most child screams. Together with his assistant Mike Wazowski, they make up a scare team, that can’t be defeated!

One evening while returning back to his desk, to retrieve some paper work, Sully catches a co-worker cheating, by scarring children after hours. While investigating the matter, he inadvertently leaves a child’s door open, which allows a little girl to enter Monstropolis! Now Sully and Mike must figure out a way to safely get the little girl back, without alarming the monster authorities.

From Pixar Studios, Monsters Inc. is a ground breaking, original film sure to delight, anyone who watches! Pixar’s fourth computer animated film captures the mood and feeling so many of us had when we were little and afraid of the dark. Four out of four stars.