I admit it. I walked into the theatre completely biased. I was not expecting to like this film. Honestly, I haven’t really liked a Wachowski (Andy and Lana) film since the first Matrix film and I still think their best film is Bound. I think their visual style is impressive though, even if I don’t like their story-telling (In this respect, I feel about them the same way I feel about Tim Burton). So it was with low hopes I went to see Jupiter Ascending, a science fiction story about reconstituted genetic sequences, lost heirs and a dog (there’s always got to be a dog). Continue reading “Review: Jupiter Ascending”
Category: Films
Review: Theory of Everything
Since it’s release stateside I’ve been hearing good and bad about The Theory of Everything, the biopic about cosmologist Stephen Hawking. The conversations about the film increased when the Academy Award nominations were announced and the film took several spots, including a nod for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Music and two for the lead actors, Felicity Jones for portraying Hawking’s put upon wife, Jane, and Eddie Redmayne for playing Hawking himself. Continue reading “Review: Theory of Everything”
Review: Jodorowsky’s Dune
Jodorowsky’s Dune is billed as “The Greatest Film Never Made” and this film of the same title, which documents the first, makes a pretty good case for this statement to be true. The general conceit is that in the mid-70s, hot off another success of a cult film, producer Michel Seydoux offered to produce anything director Alejandro Jodorowsky wanted to do. Jodorowsky blurted out Dune, Frank Herbert’s seminal, award-winning novel.
Now, Dune had never been an easy sell. After it had been serialized in Analog no publisher wanted to touch it as a full novel. Finally, in 1965 Chilton (best known for publishing auto repair manuals) finally brought the book to the mainstream where it won all the awards and has gone on to be one of the most popular science fiction novels of all time. Continue reading “Review: Jodorowsky’s Dune”
Review: Big Hero 6
The latest Disney offering is based on a comic book although it retains little of its initial concept. In this incarnation, the main character of Hiro Hamada is a 14 year old robotics/computer genius who is recruited by Tadashi, his older brother, also a robotics whiz, to join him in a university robotics program. All Hiro has to do is impress the program’s founder at the annual robotics show and he’s in. Needless to say, he does.
What happens after that, though, is where things start to go wrong. When a fire breaks out at the show, Tadashi runs into the blaze to save his mentor. The subsequent explosion kills them both. Continue reading “Review: Big Hero 6”
Review: What If (2013)
What if.
What if you meet the person of your dreams but they’re already involved with someone else? What if you keep hanging around because having them in your life in any capacity is better than not having them at all? This is the premise of the film What If (originally titled The F Word) starring Daniel Radcliffe as Wallace, the smitten in the above scenario and Zoe Kazan as Chantry, the smitee (smiter? maybe more apt).
The two meet one night at a party thrown by the Alan (Adam Driver) who is Wallace’s old roommate and Chantry’s cousin. They bond over clever repartee and magnetic word poetry and by the end of the night, the leave together, Wallace walking Chantry to her door. Continue reading “Review: What If (2013)”
Review: Obvious Child (2014)
No matter what the ads say, this is not a “Rom-Com” about abortion. It’s romantic, yes. It’s has an abortion as a through line, sure, but it’s in the comedy part where I question things. I’m not saying it’s a bad film but it’s not a particularly funny one.
The story follows Donna Stern (Jenny Slate) who is a 28 year old, adrift in New York. She’s working days at a dead end job in a “quirky” book store (which, we find out we see her there, is closing) and at night she’s trying to make a go of it as a stand up comedian. After being dumped by her boyfriend, she ends up having a one night stand with a nice guy, Max (Jake Lacy) and gets pregnant. The rest of the film is her dealing with the consequences of this action. Continue reading “Review: Obvious Child (2014)”
Review: Night at the Museum 3
There is a serious law of diminishing returns with these Night at the Museum films. The first one was cute, the second was okay and this third installment seems to be living out its own plot – losing the magic altogether.
The basic premise of all these films is there’s a magic tablet which, for some reason, when the sun goes down imbues non-living things with life. This isn’t a case of bringing things back from the dead (although that does happen), no, this is a case of anything around is suddenly moving. Continue reading “Review: Night at the Museum 3”
Review: Walking on Sunshine
When you watch Walking on Sunshine one thing seems obvious: The budget lines for the music rights and locations were by far the largest numbers on the spreadsheet. This isn’t to say the film is bad. It’s exactly what you expect a film with the tag line “If you liked Mamma Mia!, you’ll love this” to be. It’s a plot barely held together with connecting 80s music set against the backdrop of Puglia, Italy, a beautiful seaside village.
Of course, the reason this film isn’t compared to the equally 80s Rock of Ages is because it’s a much lighter film with much peppier message. So Mamma Mia! it is and the opening confirms what we’re in for. Continue reading “Review: Walking on Sunshine”
Review: Chef
Chef, Jon Favreau‘s return to the smaller films which initially made his career, is a (insert complimentary food pun here). It’s been 13 years since he last wrote and directed something (Made (2001)) and his return to full on creative control is a little bit miss but mostly a lot of hit. Continue reading “Review: Chef”
Old Reviews
For about a year, from April 2007 – April 2008 (okay, so exactly a year) I wrote movie reviews for a website called FirstShowing.net. They are still going strong and doing some good stuff, but since I’ve got my blog up and running, I figured I’d migrate those reviews over here. So for the next week or so, you may see that I’m posting reviews of movies which are 6-7 years old. Sorry. But If you’re interested in seeing what I thought of the films of that era, feel free to click the link. All of those reviews will be tagged with the FirstShowing tag so they’ll be easy to find and each will include a link at the bottom to the original review so you can see all of the original user comments. The comments on my review of There Will Be Blood are priceless!
Review: The Angriest Man in Brooklyn
Phil Alden Robinson, who wrote and directed Field of Dreams and Sneakers more than 20 years ago, is back behind the lens after a 12 year hiatus (his last film was The Sum of All Fears) . This time around, he’s helming The Angriest Man in Brooklyn and the question you have to ask yourself is what was it about this film that drew him out of seclusion?
Maybe it was the cast? Led by Robin Williams (in a non-bearded role so the general assumption is this is a comedy) and supported by Peter Dinklage, James Earl Jones and Mila Kunis, a cast like that might have piqued his interest. Williams always has potential, Kunis looks pretty and Dinklage is incredibly hot at the moment. Jones doesn’t really count since Robinson tends to cast him in everything he does, almost like a good luck talisman. Continue reading “Review: The Angriest Man in Brooklyn”
Review: Edge of Tomorrow
I heard a rumor flying around Hollywood years ago, that Beverly Hills Cop was originally written for Sylvester Stallone. As the story goes, Stallone liked the basic story well enough but, you know, being an Academy Award nominated writer, he felt he had to put his own take on things and so re-wrote it extremely, turning the comedy into the action film Cobra. The original went on to be successful on its own with Eddie Murphy. This illustrates the idea, well trod ground in a number of screen and creative writing handbooks, that one way of being creative is to take an idea and swap genres with it. Danny DeVito did it with Throw Momma From the Train and now Tom Cruise and Doug Liman are doing it with Edge of Tomorrow. Continue reading “Review: Edge of Tomorrow”
Review: Godzilla
While Godzilla isn’t necessarily a good film, it’s not a bad film either. In fact, I’d venture to say it’s not even just one film. I’d say it’s two films, each serving a different purpose with a different result. The first film, the one with the character development and real story, is at the beginning. This is the part where Bryan Cranston (Joe Brody) is actually the star he is being touted as. This is a short film about a father and son dealing with a familial tragedy. It starts 15 years in the past when Brody is the chief at a nuclear power plant in Japan when something goes horribly, tragically wrong. Then, when we hit present day, it really blossoms into a smaller film, a story about redemption and forgiveness and what it means to be both a parent and a child, often in relation to the same person. This is NOT a monster film. This is a more intimate social drama.
Review: Trust Me
I like Clark Gregg the actor. Seriously, what’s not to like? Granted, I only have a limited exposure to him, mostly through his Marvel Cinematic Universe work as Agent Phil Coulson (Okay, and his two episodes in Sports Night were quite amazing). It doesn’t hurt he often plays likable characters, even his portrayal of badasses is tinged with a genial good guy vibe. He comes across as the kind of guy who, while he might not lend you fifty bucks, at least he’d feel really bad about not lending it to you.
Who I didn’t know before catching this film was Clark Gregg the writer and director. And to be fair, I like him almost as much as the actor. Maybe even more. This is the first time we’re getting the whole Gregg package, too. Yes. he’s written and directed a film before, but that was an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk‘s Choke. Gregg’s last foray into an original screenplay was for Zemeckis‘ What Lies Beneath, in which Gregg didn’t even appear as an actor. But with Trust Me, we get the complete vision, and wow, was it worth waiting for. Continue reading “Review: Trust Me”
Review: Noah
Walking out of Noah, Darren Aronofsky‘s new film about the biblical seaman who saved 2 of every living creature so he could replenish the Earth after it was laid waste by god’s vengeance I thought if I had to describe the film in one word, that word would be “ic.” As a film, the music was bombastIC, the storytelling was didactIC and the overall filmmaking pedantIC. So yeah, -ic would be a good way to describe it. This is certainly not what I was expecting from the director of Black Swan or Requiem for a Dream. Granted, I wasn’t expecting much, but this was even less than that.
Getting the Hang of Thursdays 