Yes indeed.  Halloween 2010 is just around the corner.  Time once again for costumes, candy, jack-o-lanterns, and good old apple-bobbing.  It’s enough to make a child scream with delight and a dentist cringe in horror.

But Halloween in these modern times brings something else to the party — iPhones, iPods, and iPads.

What, you don’t think those things are scary?

Well, you’re wrong.

They can be both scary and fun!  So, join me as I review 5 apps that are sure to help you get your scare on, and tickle your monster funny bone as we head into the Halloween season with our vampire fangs, chocolate, and our i-devices.

1) ZombieAffirms ($0.99: Cynical Peak Software, Sunscape Photography, nobodysview.wordpress.com, and a zombie lover).

From the minds behind the inspirational app iAffirm (plus a zombie-loving associate) comes another in the pick-me-up series.  ZombieAffirms claims to be the answer to the question — where do the undead find motivation?  This application features hundreds of zombie-themed affirmations set against original photography.  It’s geared toward helping the ordinary zombie find the get-up-and-go necessary to battle those pesky machete-wielding humans.  Just a swipe of a finger (if your zombie hand has any left) and you are on your way to inspiration!

2) reMovem Halloween edition (Free: Mundue LLC).

It’s the classic game you love, with a little twist.  Tap on four, five, or six different colored balls to see how many you can remove from the board.  The more that are touching in the same cluster, the more points you get.  The Halloween edition comes with fun Halloween-themed graphics inside the colored globes including a cat, a jack-o-lantern, ghosts and spiders.  The free version I downloaded had a choice of six colors and featured a basic game mode.

3)  Paper Hangman (AFKSoft: Free or Paid)

Look, even in the modern age, there’s room for the classics, whether or not they are strictly Halloween-themed.  It may not be the scariest game on the block, but this free hangman game from AFKSoft is sure to satisfy your inner wordsmith as well as your ghoulish fascination with the hangin’ stick guy.  The free version features a choice of puzzle categories including “People,” “Places,” “Things,” or “Phrases,” and even has a customizable puzzle builder that allows you to enter puzzles for others to guess.  The paid version comes with additional categories, including “TV Shows” and “Movies.”  Both versions track scores for the day, week, and month.  Entertaining and fun for all ages!

4)  iHalloween – Halloween Sound Collection (ObjectGraph LLC: Free)

Ever wish you had scary Halloween sounds right at your fingertips?  Alright, maybe not, but now you can have them!  This Halloween sound collection features spooky music and the sounds of screaming, cackling, and howling, among others.  There is even a shake setting for random sound generation.  It’s simple, effective, and creepy.  Sounds like a recipe for a good time to me!

5)  Halloween Countdown (Greg Morris and Energize Software: Free)

And finally, an app to help you count down the days to a Happy Halloween!  This app is pretty simple.  A translucent skull set against creepy music tells you how many days are left before the big day.  You can customize the background out of which the skull appears, and choose from five eerie tunes.  Oh, and the skull gets bigger as the big day gets closer…and closer…and closer!

Those are just five of the hundreds of monster- and Halloween-themed apps on the market.  Your i-technology can really help you to put a scare or a laugh into your Halloween.

Enjoy, and be careful out there.  You never know who else had an iPhone or iPod with something freaky loaded on it.

(Blog Disclosure: This writer received promotional codes from some companies for their software.  This writer was involved in the creation of ZombieAffirms and iAffirm.)

It’s a nice word.  But what is it?

It is an origin.  A beginning of sorts.  The start.

Now, it will be defined as a cinematic masterpiece by Christopher Nolan.  And well it should.

Nolan’s Inception is a journey through the deepest levels of the mind and reality…a rare event that will unite scientist, science fiction buff, action lover, and spiritualist alike.  Indeed, these groups, as well as the casual viewer, can sit side-by-side in the theater, drawn into this insane tale of chaos and perfect sense.

Leonardo DiCaprio is Cobb, an elusive man with an even more elusive past, who carries a briefcase that holds the secret to entering your mind…and your dreams.  Once inside, he can take what he wants, or, in this case, leave what he wants.  Flanked by on-the-spot help including the surprisingly appropriate Ellen Page as Ariadne, and cool-as-a-cuke Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Cobb is on one last mission that could make or break him.  Literally.

The audience is left dangling off the high cliffs of reality, and I believe that is the key to Inception’s masterful touch.  We are often as disoriented as the characters, often not privy to information they are not.  Robbed of the usual in-the-know attitude, we sit on the edge of our seats as solid drama plays out in levels of reality normally reserved for a good night’s sleep or the deep subconscious.

The stakes are high and the action is real.  DiCaprio’s performance is a masterful blend of blank expression that masks deep secrets, and an intensity and passion for inception.  What he keeps out of public view cannot help but seep in while “on the job,” and his unintended disregard for his compatriots only adds to a character complexity rarely seen on the big screen these days.

I could tell you about Inception from start to finish.  I could describe each scene in detail and let you in on the twists and turns.  I could give away the beginning, middle, and end.

And it wouldn’t make a difference.  You would still be lost.  You would still enjoy the movie.  Trust me.

For those of you who meditate, explore the subconscious, study particle physics, or just love to be challenged and entertained, Inception is your imaginary cup of tea.  But make sure you grip your popcorn tight…it’s the one thing that will keep you anchored to reality.

-josh

1) Do you see a sequel because you think it’s gonna knock your socks off?

2) Do you see a sequel because you have high hopes?

3) Do you see a sequel because you think it will reveal new truths to you that the first did not provide?

If you answered “yes” to any of the above…c’mon.  Unless you’re talking about The Empire Strikes Back, then admit it…you’ll see Iron Man 2 simply because Robert Downey, Jr. IS Tony Stark.

I’m right, and you know it.

Iron Man 2 is that not-so-rare sequel that we know, out of the gate, will not be the mind-bending thrill-ride of its predecessor.  However, that in no way detracts from the fun.  We are again taken into the bizarre world of Downey’s Stark – now out of the closet as Iron Man – as he continues his quest for meaning in a life previously filled only with mindless materialism.

And he seems to be doing pretty well…Until a new nemesis in the form of Ivan Vanko (are those Mickey Rourke’s real teeth?) develops similar technology to Stark’s and sets out on a path of revenge with his iron suit and…light whip thingies.

Old standby Pepper Potts provides the familiar anchor, and new face Don Cheadle performs admirably as sidekick War Machine.

And, the same great message is ever-present – one person can make a difference.  Yes, even through the veneer of Scarlett Johansson’s rockin’ leather suit and Samuel L. Jackson’s creepy come-and-go mystery, the audience hears loud and clear that any life worth living must, on some level, be lived for others.  And isn’t that what the hero’s journey is all about?

If your socks were knocked off with Iron Man 1, check out Iron Man 2.  If you are looking for equal par with the first, you will leave disappointed.  If you are looking for a feel-good two hours with a man on a mission, then it’s money well spent.

You’ll keep your socks on, but you’ll still have that warm feeling inside.

-josh

I think that’s the appropriate word.

Yeah.  Craziness.

Andy Garcia is a fine actor.  We all know this.  But in Raymond De Felitta’s City Island, Garcia takes his talent to a new level, and the brilliant supporting cast as a whole takes crazy to a whole new level.

City Island tells the story of the middle-class Rizzo family living on the one-mile stretch of “City Island,” a small fishing village that’s part of the Bronx, New York.  It’s a small oasis amidst the hustle and bustle of the city.  However, the Rizzos (including Julianna Margulies in a fantastic role) seem to bring hustle and bustle with them…in the form of secrets.

We all know everyone has secrets, but Felitta’s screenplay shows us how devastating they can be.  When we try to push down who we really are and what we’re really doing, the truth oozes out, sometimes to our great benefit!

The cast is superb, with spot on family arguments that sometimes make us think we’re looking into a mirror of either our lives or the lives of those we know, and there is a dinner scene that is so uncomfortable, I almost wanted to get up and leave the table!

The theater was relatively packed for a Friday early afternoon.  I guess word of mouth is spreading about this gem.

And thank goodness.  It would be a shame if more people didn’t sit through City Island and see it in all of its…well…craziness.

-josh

I saw the movie that I’ve been waiting for, for a long, long time.

I saw “Hot Tub Time Machine.”

John Cusack?  Brilliant.  Rob Corddry?  Insane.  Chevy Chase?  Bizarre.  The squirrel?  Well, he’s great, too.

Don’t go into “Hot Tub Time Machine” expecting anything.  Don’t look upon it as a meditation on the futility of life or the broken promises of destiny.  Don’t assume anything.

If you have that ‘assume nothing’ attitude, you’ll have a good time.

And guess what?  You’ll get more than you expect!

Time Machine is more than a silly movie, although there are laughs galore.  It really does make you think about the question, “What if I could go back again?”  If you could go back to a defining day, or a momentous trip, what would you change?  How would you navigate the often-uneasy terrain between fate and free will?

Yeah, you’ll consider that.  Then you’ll laugh at a body fluid joke.  Then, you’ll ask the question again, right before you laugh at a sight gag.  Then, you’ll reminisce about your high school crush or that weekend getaway that changed your life, and you’ll choke up your cola as the group gets themselves into another stupid situation.

In other words, you’ll get something for your mental nothing!  (Remember?  You didn’t have expectations when you went in).

If you’re the kind of person that doesn’t take life too seriously, Hot Tub is for you.  If you go with a friend that analyzes everything and has to have deep and serious all the time, take them for a drink beforehand.

And if you both go in expecting nothing, you’ll get more for your $10 than you’ve gotten in a long time.  Maybe, say, for the last 25 years?

-josh

Quietly writing the memoirs of a former British Prime Minister.

Imagine, you are at a windswept beach house in a remote part of Massachusetts.  The roaring ocean, the rolling beach, a beautiful, spurned wife, some political issues…a murder…

Alright, at that point, your dream might start to break down, as it does for The Ghost (Ewan McGregor) in Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer”, based on the novel by Robert Harris.

McGregor is hired to finish the prematurely ended memoirs of Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan).  But what starts as a well-paying ghost-writing job quickly turns into mystery and mayhem, as The Ghost, writer-turned-investigator, is flushed deeper and deeper into the toilet of politics and family strife, that has roots much deeper than the surface.

The brilliance of Polanski’s movie is the crossing of intrigue, drama, and humor that keeps us involved.  McGregor is any curious person at a new job – he wants details, and he doesn’t always know where the boundaries are.  Frustration mounts as suspicions mount, and we are treated to an inside look into a very complicated inter-country cesspool that, very likely, happens every day.  There are thinly veiled references to modern political problems that will keep the attentive viewer smiling, and McGregor’s pitch perfect performance is more than enough to keep you involved for all 120 minutes.

Brosnan’s Lang is brooding and angry, counterbalancing McGregor’s nonchalant demeanor.  Both turn in terrific performances, as does Olivia Williams as Lang’s wife, Ruth.

Although you may start to put the pieces together a little faster than McGregor, “The Ghost Writer” is well worth it.

And, while you’re watching think about all the things in your life that you wanted…that you wished for…that you thought would give you freedom or peace (money, work, etc…).  Then, as you watch McGregor bang his head against the brick wall of political reality, think to yourself, “Should I be more careful what I wish for?”

-josh

To be our own person.

To cast tradition into the wind and break free of the bonds of those who would hold us back.

Ah, the dream of Alice.

Alice in Wonderland, the latest offering from the team of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, certainly scores points in the “giving me things to think about category” although I’m not sure it is one I would rush to think about again.  Burton’s Alice, the captivatingly airy Mia Wasikowska, finds herself in a tough predicament.  Marry a man she does not love or…run.

(SPOILER ALERT COMING UP!)

She runs.

And falls.

Down the hole she goes into a world of red queens, mad hatters, talking rabbits, and eye-poking mice.  The Burton-esque world that awaits is surely one viewers will find tantalizing, filled with digital creatures and dreary backgrounds (of course), but the quality certainly suits the mood of the movie and does much where the rest fails.  Alice has her hero’s journey and we root for her, but there was something in it all that seemed to come up short.  Depp is, as always, worth the price of admission, but don’t expect that you won’t regret missing at least some of that $10 you spent.

However, despite that, we are certainly given the chance to consider, like Alice, if we are making the most of our lives…are we only in the dreams of Wonderland wandering, or do we take life by the horns and face a new destiny of our own design?

With friends like Depp, we would be brave, too.  But for those of us who live in the real world, Alice’s story is something to consider.  If we have dreams, and we live in reality, then when they merge, that is where beauty can be found.

In essence, we can live the dream…even if Burton’s film leaves us feeling somewhat sleepy.

-josh

I am not schooled in the art of war.

But one does not need such schooling to be carried away by the intensity and profundity of Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker (2009; DVD 2010).  He or she only needs to have something they want to live for…something they care about…to feel the emotions that are quietly rampant through Bigelow’s work.

After its stunning Oscar trip, I decided to check it out on DVD and was, quite to my non-surprise, blown away.

The Hurt Locker, written by Mark Boal, is a harrowing look at the Army’s secretive bomb disposal unit that disarms bombs in combat zones.  The search for wires, fuses, and corpses (yes, bombs can be hidden in humans) is intense, and the documentary-esque, hand-held camera intensifies the already suspense-filled scenes.  Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd’s the ‘audience-as-fourth-in-the-humvee’ at times is suffocating and overbearing in the most exhilarating sense.

The movie follows a three-man team, Sergeant Will James (Jeremy Renner), Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) of Bravo Company on their forays through Baghdad, investigating and disposing of explosives.  The performances are raw and intense, as each man, through his courage, also harbors secret hopes and dreams that makes the countdown to home ever more excruciating, as each call could mean the end.  Following these men into the heroic and the insane sets the senses on edge.

As I watched the movie, I was taken by a range of emotions, such as the often perceived inanity of war and the undeniable pressure on brave men and women that is necessary to protect others from the absurdity of enemy war tactics that place civilian and army in like danger.  At times, one is led to question the veracity of Boal’s portrayal of the locals’ often laissez-faire investment in the almost-certain dangers they face every day, as they look on from rooftops and porches into skirmishes that might as well end with an offer of lemonade and a snack.

We can quibble with the Academy all day as to whether The Hurt Locker was the right choice for movie of the year.  However, one thing is clear:  the message it conveys, and how it conveys it with the thin $15 million budget it had, makes it an astounding cinematic achievement.

One certainly does not need schooling in movies or war to appreciate it.  One only need be a member of the human race, with hopes, desires, and a healthy sense of frustration.

-josh

After being squeezed between two suffocating rocks for 148 pages, one is hard-pressed to fully identify the emotion.  Is it rage?  Confusion?  Is it the vague sense that something is wrong with the world?  Is the killing of twins a wrong that deserves redress from outsiders with equally-troubling convictions?

Who can say?

Achebe’s classic has sold over two million copies.  I first read the book in college as a green anthropology student.  It was since brought back to my attention through a student and I decided to revisit it.  And it was worth the trip.

Short, yet gripping, Things Fall Apart is the story of Okwonko, a much-lauded, brooding man of the Umuofia clan of the Igbo tribe.  He is a well-known wrestler and warrior with ambitions in his tribe.  He has a large compound, prosperous yams, and many children.  He is molded into the ways of his tribe to the point where he follows the laws and customs to the letter, going so far as to condemn himself to exile for the good of his clan.

Over time, the white man comes to the villages in the Lower Niger bringing more than their skin.  Christianity and British-style government – strange customs indeed – arrive to upset the delicate balance between tribesman and tribesman, tribesman and stranger, and tribesman and gods.  Things Fall Apart carefully documents the life of the tribe, through Okonkwo, in all of its wisdom and harshness, setting them against the European colonization later in the book when we can no longer decide who should take credit and blame.

So much of misunderstanding is forged in the uneasy balance between what we are convinced is right, and what others know is true.  We often forget that when we come to another with a truth, it is often only as a guest in someone else’s home.  Achebe’s brutal reminder is that even a doomed hero such as Okwonko may not deserve his own fate, no matter how we judge him by our own standards.

Things Fall Apart is a slice of life.  A mere portrait in a gallery of such stories of tradition in the face of progress.  But it is worth a look.  I would ask, however, that as you take in the color and patterns of the delicate painting, do not be quick to judge it.  For, even as you turn the pages, you may find yourself streaked, smeared, and on trial.

-josh

Director Chris Columbus’ (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, based on the novels of Rick Riordan, comes alive on the screen with the help of some Potter/Rings-esque special effects and a very large book of Greek mythology.

Percy, who just recently discovered that the Gods of Greece are as real as tzatziki or a gyro sandwich, is wrongfully accused of stealing Zeus’ lightning bolt.  Eventually, this son of Poseidon heads out into the world with his god-ish and goat-ish friends to win back his honor, and his mother.

For the most part, I found myself quite entertained.  I attended the movie with two sexagenarians and an octogenerian, and they also reported a healthy dose of entertainment, if not some eye-rolling confusion, at certain points.  For example, though the Greek Gods are thousands of years old, their headquarters and entrances to Hades seem to be centered around New York and Hollywood (yes, I know it is fiction, and teenage demi-gods can’t drive to Athens in a pickup truck or Maserati, but still…I was hoping for some beautiful scenes of the Greek coast.  Dare to dream!).

However, the spot-on, “rock” star, rock-transforming Uma Thurman (Medusa), the always scoff-producing Steve Coogan (Hades), and the laugh-a-minute Brandon T. Jackson (Grover) provide more than enough levity and interest to offset the more pedestrian Logan Lerman (Percy), although Lerman’s Hades-may-care attitude does much to endear him to audiences of all ages.

The movie, though simple and formulaic (at one point, Percy refers to himself as having completed his quest), has qualities that can spawn much deeper conversation among adults and children alike.  Jackson’s ADHD and dyslexia are transformed into strengths that help him on his quest.  Also, parental issues and a difficult marriage feature prominently, as do loyalty, friendship, and a small dose of teen romance.

But perhaps the most important aspect of the movie is the reminder that, like Rowling’s Potter, Riordan’s Jackson encourages kids to read.  At the uber-large theater where I saw the move, an usher came out to introduce the film and asked the audience who had read the books.  Almost every one of the seemingly one hundred enthusiastic children in the theater shot up their hands (some even took those hands off a cell phone type-pad).  In that way, Percy Jackson was more than a movie.  It was the earned culmination of countless hours curled up with the books.

Bravo.

If you are looking for Potter or Luke Skywalker, stay home.  If you are looking for some afternoon entertainment, or just want to inspire a youngster, head to the theater.

And maybe, by the grace of the gods, you’ll be stopping by the local bookstore on the way home.

-josh