robmeister

Full disclosure: I was a teenager when the original "Knight Rider" aired back in the early 1980s. The whole "Solitary Samaritan" thing, a device for which this show was known, is something I like (See "The Incredible Hulk" or -- to a certain extent -- "The A-Team"), and as cheesy as the original looks today, it still holds on to much of its charm.

That said, I awaited the new "Knight Rider" with baited breath. With all that is possible with 21st-Century visual effects and technology, I wanted to see what they can do with one my favorite adolescent chestnuts. I watched the pilot. I saw viable technology with some "Gee-whiz" factor thrown in. I saw Michael and his comely comrade get into a scrape and, with KITT's help, they escaped unharmed. And KITT's transformation sequences were a real attention-getter, until I noticed a severe continuity problem. In one episode, Michael tells KITT to switch back to normal mode in a secluded area to avoid it ending up as video footage on YouTube, yet KITT frequently transforms in public areas (Vegas in broad daylight, for example). Still, I think they did well with KITT, and the fact that they landed Val Kilmer as its voice was a real "get".

Now to what is wrong with the show. Michael (Justin Bruening) is a lunkhead. Oh, he looks hunky to pass off as a young Hasselhoff, but at least Hasselhoff can act. Michael's on-again-off-again relationship with Sarah (Deanna Russo) is actually well done, but there's no chemistry! Russo does a fine job, but Bruening doesn't click for me.

You know who does click, though? Billy (Paul Campbell) and Zoe (Smith Cho). These two are actually good enough to keep this show afloat, especially since NBC's announcement that the cast is getting trimmed and the show's focus will be more like the original's "Solidary Samaritan" formula.

If you ask me, saying that the second bananas far exceed the leads speaks volumes. If this "new direction" doesn't work, then maybe NBC should resuscitate last year's cancelled "Bionic Woman". At least that show was interesting; it was just an unfortunate casualty of the Writer's Strike of 2007-08.

From the first frame of "United 93", it became obvious to me that writer/director Paul Greengrass was very well aware of the sensitive subject matter of this movie. I remember vividly the events of September 11, 2001, as do many of us, and this movie delves into the motivation of the passengers of the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 93, and why it crashed into a Pennsylvania field instead of a Washington, DC, landmark, as the hijackers had intended to do.

Every shot in this movie was hand-held, giving it a documentary feel. Every passenger captured on-camera at the terminal looked and acted so real, I thought I was in the terminal with them. Let me say, for the record, it is not easy for me to become that involved with a movie, but I did here.

I also want to give kudos to Greengrass for adding even more to the realism of "United 93" because of its cast. The crew of the airliner were real pilots and flight attendants (some of them employed by United Airlines). Many of the air traffic controllers were real, as were many of the military personnel featured in the movie. As an added bonus, some people actually played themselves. I'm not talking CNN anchors, either. Some of the people in this movie were reenacting their experiences on that fateful day, and I found them completely believable.

"United 93" is not the kind of movie you would "pop into the DVD player". But I would recommend that everyone give it a viewing. It provides a unique perspective of that day without being preachy, trite, or contrived.

I have been a fan of feature animation since I was a child. Since the advent of computer-animated features in the mid-1990s, I believe that this technology has the potential of growing ever more powerful with each passing year. But there is a caveat: Power is useless if you don't know how to use it.

And on that note, I give you "Monster House". In this film, some neighborhood kids believe a house occupied by a crotchety old man is haunted. Many of us can identify with this kind of tale; even I knew of a house or two in my old neighborhood that no one went to. The lights are never on, the landscaping is shoddy, it's in some state of disrepair. Whatever the reason, a house like this becomes the subject of some exaggerated urban tale among the 11-to-13-year-old set, and it just seems to grow wilder every month. There have been other films like this in the past, my favorite of which is "The Sandlot", and there are moments in which "Monster House" tries to duplicate that sense of exaggeration, but it doesn't quite succeed.

The technology behind the making of this movie was groundbreaking, in that it's not a traditional CG-animated film. Instead, it uses motion-capture technology to enhance the performances (by both the actors and the characters), as well as a new kind of editing platform that allows for a more "organic" feel to the camera motions (even a hand-held effect). For that, I was impressed by the look of this movie. "Toy Story" (1995) will always be a classic, but this technology would have made it a different movie with a completely different feel to it.

Overall, the characters were fairly well-rounded. Even though I thought Mr. Nebbercracker's motivation was a bit hokey (to say why would mean a Spoiler Alert), I still found it somewhat believable. I did enjoy the actors' performances in this movie, too (they didn't just speak -- they acted on a motion-capture stage).

Still with all the cool technology and the director landing his "dream cast" (watch the Special Features, and you'll see what I mean), "Monster House" turned out to be an enjoyable movie, but not a magical one.