Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant is another addition to American society’s newest fad. Vampires are running rampant through literature, TV, and the silver screen, but does that mean that you should care at all? Well, Vampire’s Assistant certainly doesn’t change a thing. The vampire genre is starting to get crowded these days and this film seems to be another stab at the hip, emo cash cow.  Welcome to the Cirque du Boring. This film is based off of a twelve book series and from what Wikipedia...

Astro Boy is the story of Dr. Tenma, one of the most brilliant scientific minds in Metro City, creating a robotic replica of his son whom he lost in a military robot experiment gone awry. Metro City floats high above the surface of Earth and is shiny and clean thanks to it’s reliance on robots to handle all day to day mundane tasks that humans have grown tired of. Robots are replaced when they go bad with their remnants dumped down on the surface dwellers which has become a vast landfill of robot parts. There is an increasing...

I admit it, I had my reservations walking into the KC Rep’s first, of three world premiers of the season in David Cale’s Palomino (now through November 15th at the KC Rep Copaken Stage.) Not that I was worried it wouldn’t be any good, I just wasn’t sure how well a story about a carriage driver turned gigolo by chance meeting would be as a one man show. As soon as Cale took the stage on Saturday evening my reservations were put aside as I was drawn into the story about five minutes in. Cale is a one man...

Dexter seems to be building a reputation of being a little slow this season, but this episode definitely mixed it up. They actually have plot progression for a lot of the sub-plots like Lundy and Deb, Laguerta and Angel and more of our new villain, Trinity. Not to mention, we finally get back in the old tradition of Dex killing the scum of society. About damn time, I say. In the latest episode of Dexter, our dark hero finds himself with some time to kill (that’s right, I went there.) His family has to go to an inscribed...

What could be cooler than taking control of your favorite super heroes and beating the snot out of unsuspecting bad guys?! Well, it would be an original concept if they’d never made the first Ultimate Alliance. This new supercharged adventure has everything you’ve come to expect from Marvel’s series of beat ‘em ups: super powers, super villains, super tight clothes and super gruff voices, but they forgot the super fun. Ultimate Alliance 2 does have a few changes from the first one, but the biggest...

The newest edition to the Harmonix music-game empire is The Beatles: Rock Band.  Boasting not only popular songs from the influential British band, but audio-samples, behind-the-scenes photos, and videos all previously on lock-down from Apple Corps; it seems that The Beatles: Rock Band should be an instant winner.  Unfortunately, only hardcore Beatles fans may actually think so. Instead of creating a player and beginning a career that takes you all over the globe, TB:RB has introduced a Story Mode.  As Harmonics and MTV...

First off, I just want to apologize for not covering last week’s episode. There was a family emergency, but I have watched the episode and basically can conclude that they are starting to delve a little deeper into the science versus faith issue with the flashes and who believes they will happen and who don’t. That was interesting. There was also the German Nazi prisoner who basically gave no information except the crows dying. Which, in turn, lead them to the previous black out in Somalia. We got to see it happen...

When going into Where the Wild Things Are you must remember one thing, this is not the story you imagined it was when you were a kid, this is director Spike Jonze’s (Being John Malkovich) story. For me this was not hard because I was one of the few kids that never really had a special attachment to the book. This story is also not for a new generation of children to fall in love with, this is a film for adults that want to remember their childhood. From the beginning we are introduced to Max (Max Records, Brothers Bloom),...

Law Abiding Citizen is the story of Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler), a man that in one moment lost everything he loved when his family was murdered during a home invasion. When the time comes for justice to be served, Clyde turns to Attorney Nick Race(Jamie Foxx), a lawyer more concerned with his 96% conviction rate than real justice. Nick’s concern about the evidence in the case forces him to go with a plea bargain rather than take the case to trail. The plea bargain sets one of the men that murdered Clyde’s family...

Enter to win advance screening passes for you and a guest to see THE FOURTH KIND. Contest ends on Tuesday, October 27. THE FOURTH KIND opens nationwide on November 6. Screening will be held on Tuesday, November 3, at AMC Studio 30 at 7:30 pm. Wanna win passes? It’s easy. Tell us if you have had any unexplained encounters. We’d like to know what kind of contact you think it was and explain your story. It can be anywhere from first kind, which is sighting; the second kind which is evidence; the third kind, which is contact;...

This was definitely a strange episode in the Dexter series.  Though a few of the seemingly forgotten elements are back, this episode appeared to lack a little focus.  Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of interesting plot threads that were thickened up, but considering we are 1/4th of the way through the series, I’d like to see a little more direction and see the cat and mouse game between Dexter and the Trinity Killer begin. We’ve seen a deeply demented Dexter, a darkly dangerous Dexter, but now we are...

Kansas City’s theater season has started out with a bang. Just days after the final curtain for the KC Rep’s amazing production of Into the Woods, the touring production of Spring Awakening hits town as part of the Broadway Across America Series at the Music Hall. I walked into this show knowing very little about it. I intentionally did minimal research on the show so I could go in fresh. Sure I knew the basic stuff, it is a seven time Tony award winner, so a quality lineage is there. A sort of coming of age rock...

Paranormal Activity is a film shot with a single video recorder following a couple whom have recently moved in together and have been experiencing strange  things occurring in their home. It’s setup as a mockumentary and does a pretty solid job of selling itself as such. There is not a single credit in the entire film. It opens with a thank you to the families of the two individuals in the film Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat in addition to the police department. It ends with a copyright notice. At no point is their...

Enter to win advance screening passes for you and a guest to see THE BOX with Cameron Diaz. Contest ends on Monday, October 26. THE BOX opens nationwide on November 6. Screening will be held on Thursday, November 5 at 7:30PM, at AMC Olathe Studio 30. Wanna win passes? It’s easy. In the movie, they are asked to push the button for one million dollars, but in return, someone would die. Would you push the button? Why or why not? Bring the pass and arrive early! Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Passes do not guarantee...

The trailer below is currently attached to the Toy Story and Toy Story 2 3D double feature that is in theaters for one more week. Not a whole lot is known about Toy Story 3 other than Andy is going away to college, giving his toys away to a local day care and the tag line of ‘No Toy Left Behind’. The trailer doesn’t help or reveal much more than that either. It’s good to see that Toy Story 3 will keep the wit of previous installments based on the great final line in the trailer. Toy Story 3 is due in...