Category Archives: Film

This Is the End

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There were three things I liked a lot about This Is the End. First: Los Angeles gets destroyed. I mean, that’s always fun, right? Second: a lot of actors demonstrated a really solid sense of humor about themselves. Sometimes you get one or two, but this was pretty much a whole cast’s worth. (Special kudos to Michael Cera.) Third: I found it to be damned funny[1]

See, some guy I don’t know who is clearly a stand-in for longtime Seth Rogen writing collaborator Evan Goldberg has come into town to visit Seth, even though they both know how much he hates LA. Seth, see, hopes to make some inroads between notEvan and Seth’s actor friends. So they go to a party at James Franco’s house, where everyone acts exactly as annoyingly Hollywood as notEvan expected them to, and even Seth is slightly less likable / more dog-piddly than usual due to their influence. Then, out of nowhere, *boom*, it’s the Rapture Apocalypse. Suddenly, everyone is having to deal with unceasing waves of death and destruction, limited resources, demonic possession, the worst human being in the world[2], and coming to terms with the fact that, yep, they’re in this situation because they probably deserve it[4], all from the comforts of Franco’s post-modern mansion.

Also starring Emma Watson!

[1] Koz, as you will see in paragraph two, it’s generally about bad people, so you will probably not find it funny. I think most other people I know would, though?
[2] Spoilers, but if you insist:[3]
[3] Danny McBride
[4] I know, that’s not really how the Rapture is supposed to work, but somehow, getting an atheistic, uninformed view of the Rapture is very in keeping with the spirit of the thing. on every level. (Also, an accurate[5] representation starring Kirk Cameron would have been terrible in every way.)
[5] Yeah, I had fun with that word choice, not gonna lie.

Star Trek Into Darkness

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MV5BMTk2NzczOTgxNF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODQ5ODczOQ@@._V1__SX1537_SY723_I saw J.J. Abram’s Star Trek sequel on approximately opening night, which raises the entirely valid question of “why haven’t you reviewed it, that was weeks or months ago, and in the meantime it has been universally[1] panned by the internets, and also you could have saved me some trouble over here, so why are you wasting my time now?” Well, the long answer is that there was something that didn’t quite gel for me and I knew I would see it again because of having parents that I see movies with, but then scheduling failures made that never actually happen until yesterday, what with my active camping life and all. The short and far more relevant answer is because I (apparently) was waiting for all of that panning to occur, so that I could write a review in defense of Star Trek Into Darkness[2]. To that end: the remainder of the review contains spoilers. Since I really am pretty sure everyone has already seen it, and also since my cuts survive nowhere except here on the site anyway, I opt not to care so much.

See, what everyone seems to have disliked so much (aside from the standard summer blockbuster lazy shortcuts) is “why are you going back to the Khan well just because this is your second movie?” and “how are we supposed to believe the emotional connection between Kirk and Spock when you haven’t established it yet?” Which are entirely valid questions, but I think Abrams was coming in from the opposite direction. He doesn’t have three years of TV episodes and a decade of fans clamoring and fictioning and relationshipping and all of that to build from, he only has his previous movie, which got Kirk and Spock from visible dislike to something nearing respect.

The first thing that it’s important to remember, then, is that this is not a remake of the Wrath of Khan, certain climactic engine room sequences aside. It’s a remake of Space Seed, with the perfectly fair excuse that Khan and his ilk were found by someone else because Starfleet was crippled by that one Romulan mining ship last time, and isn’t spread out and exploring everywhere yet. So, yes, you can call Abrams cheap for picking a Star Trek villain so iconic they made a movie about him later, BUT, like I said, he doesn’t have the room to explore all these growing relationships comfortably, and I will not fault him for taking a shortcut on the bad guy so the audience understands the stakes immediately. (I also will not blame anyone else for faulting him that, though; it could have been done other ways, I reckon.)

Anyway, my second and much more relevant point is this. The scene I watched at the end of the engine room sequence was not an emotional payoff about friendship and loss that didn’t work on multiple levels, because it wasn’t a payoff scene at all. That was the moment in which Kirk and Spock became the friends we are meant to suppose they were always destined to become. Even knowing the Khan scream and the tribble were around the corner, both actors sold the sense of losing something they had just found, and it was more moving the second time around when it clicked into place than my first time had been.

Which, alas, brings me to the way the movie really did fail. Yes, there’s no fifteen years of accumulated backstory to rely upon, and yes, I was not seven years old when I was watching this particular film. All the same, Kirk’s “death” was terribly cheap. Why is McCoy randomly injecting dead tribbles with super-blood in the first place? Lamest, most random science ever. And as much as I respect the method of finding and exposing that moment of friendship on the screen, a sacrifice is still a sacrifice. I don’t want to watch a contrived third movie in which they race to find a cure for Kirk-on-ice, even more remaketastic than this one was, I admit that. And after just having praised the way the scene started, it’s pretty lame of me to turn around and fault the same scene from the other direction. I can’t say what I would have done differently, but man was it a clumsy band-aid on the problem. The moreso when I compare myself walking out of the theater at age seven, crying because how could Mr. Spock really be dead, and now today’s seven year-old has magic tribble blood?[3]

Upshot: it’s still not as good as it should have been, but I think it’s a lot better than I’m seeing it be given credit for. Upshot of the upshot: I really wish this cast would be put on television instead of making another movie in another few years or being put back on the shelf forever. Because the parts that work, they work really well, and the parts that don’t work are mostly Hollywood’s fault.

[1] Galactically?
[2] It really makes me twitch that IMDB expects that preposition to be capitalized even in the absence of a colon. I will not be defending the title part of the movie, thusly.
[3] I’m well aware that’s not what happened, but I’ve also talked to seven-year-olds lately, and it’s not nearly wrong enough for them to be well aware it’s not what happened.

Iron Man 3

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MV5BMTkzMjEzMjY1M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNTMxOTYyOQ@@._V1__SX1217_SY887_Well, it’s summer.

What’s the point, you ask, of seeing a summer blockbuster on opening weekend and yet not reviewing it much sooner than Monday morning? I have two answers. One, I do this for me also, you realize. Two, though, is because public reviewers are completely untrustworthy. Case in point, the Fresh Air review of this movie? I can’t say for certain whether my head would have been spinning with possibilities if I had heard it before I saw the movie, but at least one point raised in that review[1] not only definitively was a spoiler right after the reviewer promised not to spoil anything, but was a spoiler that I predicted he would drop, and in exactly the way he did it. For shame, David Edelstein!

But enough about him, and more about the movie. I cannot say exactly what was wrong with Iron Man 2. It wasn’t bad, by any means, but, as I said before, there was something just slightly not quite there to it. So, the good news is, Iron Man 3 was entirely there. The army of flunky villains was suitable comicky and menacing, Pepper Potts got some solid moments not being a damsel in distress, Kingsley’s take on the Mandarin was superb[2], and for possibly the first time in movie history, the plucky young sidekick trope worked.

But, as always, Robert Downey, Jr. was why you paid the price of admission. In a way, this is true of all Marvel comics. (That sounds like a grinding gearshift, but bear with me, it’s not.) Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby came up with a lot of really cool characters, and it is awesome to watch them swing around and fire their lasers and smash things and do whatever else they can do, but the reason they’re so very good is because Tony Stark and Peter Parker and Bruce Banner are really interesting people with really compelling problems, and the very best issues are the ones where the characters spend as much time in their primary identities as possible.

Hmmm. I wonder what’s out next week.

[1] Obviously I’m not going to give enough information about what he spoiled to spoil it my own self, but trust me, it was relevant information.
[2] I have incorrectly indicated a few times on the internet for sure and probably elsewhere that Marvel’s original Mandarin was not Chinese. I’m wrong, he was half-Chinese and half-British. Do with that information what you will.

Oblivion (2013)

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Since Oblivion is the kind of movie that it’s best going in knowing as little as possible[1], I will endeavor to keep this missive short and sweet. Remember when everything was basically fine on Earth, and aliens had not shown up to attack us and destroyed the moon and we had to retaliate with a bunch of nukes and therefore the planet wasn’t mostly a barren wasteland from which pretty much everyone still alive had emigrated to Titan? If so, you share at least a little in common with Tom Cruise, who despite the mandatory memory wipe has occasional flashes of memories that he knows aren’t really his, about the old days. When he isn’t having paradoxical contemplations about Earth-That-Was, Tom mostly flies around troubleshooting equipment (that is being used to collect what remains of the planet’s resources) or defending that equipment from the remaining aliens that still pop up to cause trouble now and then. When not on the job, he hangs out in a floating sky palace with his mission controller, Victoria.

Okay, that gets you through about the first five minutes of the film, and I am quite sure that’s all I want to tell you, except to say that you should see this one. It’s not a “run, don’t walk” kind of scenario, but if you like thoughtful science fiction, this is where you want to be. And Cruise, like Bruce Willis, has in my estimation been very reliable about picking the right sci-fi scripts. If you needed evidence outside my opinion about this one time, I mean.

[1] For example, don’t read footnote 2.[2]
[2] For real example, I wish I had been able to not know Morgan Freeman was a cast member, but every preview and the media blitz made it perfectly clear. Alas.

Evil Dead

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In a way, I’m disappointed by Evil Dead‘s prologue scene, since it removes the possibility of the film being a nightmare metaphor for facing and exorcising one’s demons. I mean, no, that’s not fair. It’s still a metaphor for that, but I wish I was able to believe that was true internally to the story instead of only externally, and the prologue is the line between those possibilities.

Metaphor aside, Evil Dead is a reasonably faithful adaptation of Sam Raimi’s original 1981 flick. Five friends head out to a cabin in the woods[1], find and foolishly read the Book of the Dead sitting in the basement, and then some fragment of hell breaks loose, the trees get frisky, and people start getting dismembered. I’m sure there are movies I’ve seen with more blood in them, but I’m hard-pressed to remember one. I know for a fact I’ve seen films with more gore, if only because nobody spilled their intestines. Still, though, I don’t think I’ve seen any movie that has as many things going into and especially being pulled out of someone’s body. So, that’s a claim to fame, I guess? At the least, you know what to expect now.

The acting (except for maybe the blonde chick) was above average, the effects were impressive (especially if you unfairly compare them against the intervening three decades[2] and more than an order of magnitude smaller budget of the original), and the soundtrack was pretty darn good. You could do worse for a horror outing and you could do a hell of a lot worse for a remake outing. …but seriously, who sees movies because they’re remakes?

[1] Not a Cabin in the Woods, though the influences of the original on that very fine movie are easy to spot.
[2] God help us.

A Good Day to Die Hard

The other movie I’ve seen lately is the newest Die Hard. You may recall (or at the least, I do) that I really liked the last one. I am sad to say that I liked this one quite a lot less. But I have a good reason. I mean, I have easy reasons too. It’s all about the chases and the explosions and feels more soulless than most Die Hard movies have, and that would be the easy way out. But there are troubling plot and character failures that make me wonder if it’s possible to make another good sequel in this series.

So, each movie has escalated John McClane’s talent for surviving the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s fair, as far as it goes. But… as of the last movie, he was escalated enough to do unbelievable things, because, as I said then, he didn’t really have a choice in the matter and he had the knowledge that not-quite-as-crazy things had worked before. The problem with A Good Day to Die Hard is that McClane, at this point, believes his own hype. The plot leads him to Moscow, to determine why his son stands accused of murder. So when he shows up, tall and proud and sure of his own importance, every inch the cowboy Alan Rickman once accused him of being and eager to be in the wrong place at the wrong time where before it had always been bad luck and fate, well, naturally he ruins all manner of secret spy plans that had been in place. And I’m okay with that, it’s fine drama!

Well. It’s fine drama if there are consequences to his actions. Instead, cleaning up the mess without any hint of an apology (or even a sense that he fucked things up in the first place) is the perfect father-son bonding activity. And this, in a nutshell, is my doubt about any possible continuance. You can make a movie with an overly prideful John McClane stumbling and having to get back to his feet. But John McClane the bull, smashing everything in the china shop and being greeted as the conquering hero upon his exit? That is not a metaphor I find myself perfectly comfortable with, after the past decade or so. But, political metaphor or not, the straightforward reading leaves him superhuman and undefeatable for the first time. Without some concern about the outcome, is it really worth watching?

John Dies at the End

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You guys. I am so embarrassed about this right now, and it’s going to be probably the worst review ever, but… I’m like four reviews behind, and at this point I can no longer separate out John Dies at the End the movie from the book that spawned it. At least, not in a meaningful way that I would use to form a discussion about it. In a way, that’s good; I mean, it wasn’t so awful as to make me wonder why they made the movie at all. In another way, it’s certainly bad as it did not transcend its source.

No, you know what? That’s not bad by default, I’m completely wrong about that. It’s great when an adaptation sees into the heart of the source material and creates something new, that part is true. But there’s no shame in making people remember, giving vision to words on a page, and broadening the audience. Which is the thing about this one: I hadn’t read the book in (apparently) six years, so I didn’t remember a lot, but every time some new event occurred[1], it all came right back, and yeah, I can dig that.

The plot is sufficiently strange that I’m not sure it’s worth explaining, except I have a thing that depends upon you knowing a little. See, there’s this drug on the street called Soy Sauce, which gives its users the ability to see through the barriers of time and space. And, okay, that’s pretty awesome, except that some users die horribly or are attacked by the things they can see that nobody else can. Everything else is a spoiler, except you should know that David and John are the two people standing in the way of all of this certain doom.[2]

The point of all of this is that I learned a very important lesson. See, I saw the movie at the Texas Theatre, which is known solely for being where they caught Lee Harvey Oswald, y’know, later that day. It has been somewhat remodeled, and now includes a bar. And the bar had a special related to the movie of the hour, the Soy Sauce Shot. (Which generated the first of the flashback memories I mentioned earlier.) That’s all exciting and fun, right? So we went for it (Jez and I), and… so, um, it was vodka and soy sauce[3]. Cheap vodka. It…. it tasted about like you’d expect. My lesson, if it was not entirely clear, is this: don’t drink a shot made of cheap vodka and soy sauce.

[1] Prime example: the meat monster.
[2] Trust me, it would be certain doom. Also, you may recognize John’s name from somewhere, so I will elaborate that David is the narrator.
[3] The sauce, not the reality-altering drug.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters

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It is nice to have an occasional horror film that doesn’t try to pretend to be anything other than what it is. No high-minded art, no unforeseeable twists, no goddamn filming a Texan[1] story in Louisiana. In short, a movie that tells you everything you need to know right in the title and doesn’t skimp on a single drop and/or chunk of the gore.

For example, Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. I mean, you know the fairy tale, right? And you know the genre of the movie? (Well, you maybe did not, but I have told you it, so now you do.) So, you now know everything about this movie. Let me prove it, by putting questions in your mouth.

1) “Are Hansel and Gretel a pair of siblings who make their living hunting and killing witches to save the people of medieval Europe from…. witches?” Wow, that kind of got away from you. Try being a little more planned and less off-the-cuff next time. However, to answer your question: yes! Yes they are and yes they do.

2) “Do they kill these witches in disgusting and effective ways that make you think they could never have been able to come up with such tools in real-life witch-infested medieval Europe, and do they crack wise with modern sensibilities in every line of dialogue along the way?” …I appreciate your taking my advice to heart, and also I’m growing impressed by your ability to glean fine points of detail from a movie title. Which is to say, again, yep, they sure do!

3) “No thanks, I’m good, that pretty well answers all of my questions.” I expected as much. So, um… huh. Didn’t really think about how awkwardly this would end the review. Maybe you could come up with more questions even so? Help a brother out here?

4) “Nope.” Well. Damn. This is because of that ‘kind of got away from you’ thing earlier, isn’t it?

5) “Yep.” …yeah. Fair enough.

[1] First person to mention Ed Gein gets chainsawed in the face.

Texas Chainsaw 3D

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Here are the problems with Texas Chainsaw 3D, in no particular order. 1) The 3D was honestly kind of… no, wait, I’m sorry. I’m thinking of the preview for the GI Joe sequel in front of it. That 3D was terrible. This 3D was perfectly fine, if you are not the kind of person who hates 3D. 2) The timeline did not make even a vague attempt at working. If you have an original movie set in 1974, and… man, I’m bad at this. Now I’m trying to remember what year was listed on all the stones in the cemetery. Maybe they pushed up the start year after all? But if I’m right and it was 1974, then you can’t very well have an infant in 1974 return to claim her inheritance in 2012, yet only be 24 or so at the most (and realistically, more like 19). 3) Lack of naked. And, okay, I do not require naked in my horror movies. It’s cool and all, but by no means required. But, if you’re going to condemn people by their sexual transgressions, or pop open the last two buttons of our heroine’s shirt, then you should deliver the goods. It’s perfectly fine to decide that the plot will not be served by naked, but teasing is a violation of the covenant.

And now I look like a chump, because I’ve overruled all of my problems but the nudity. But seriously, I did overrule them in real time, this was not a clever bait and switch (unlike when nobody got naked in the movie), I swear. Anyway, here is what they did right, also in no particular order. 1) Favorable violation of one of the far more unfortunate covenants set forth by the horror movie oeuvre. 2) Chainsaws. 3) Plot twists! 4) Yeah, I’m gonna say chainsaws again, because, boy howdy was there a healthy dose of chainsawing going down.

Oh, and hey, I just remembered another valid complaint! Do you know where they filmed? Louisiana. Are you kidding me?

Jack Reacher

Okay, admission time. Tom Cruise is one of those people you’re just supposed to not like, and considering the way he turned Katie Holmes from an actress into a birthing pod for a few years while simultaneously trying to do the most damage to the mental health industry since we elected an actor to the presidency, well, I get why it would be fair not to like him. But Katie Holmes has been set free and there haven’t been any bizarre mouthpiece moments in a while, and pretty much from the scenes where he made fun of himself in Tropic Thunder until now, the man hasn’t made a bad movie. Which is still probably not enough reason to like him, but dammit, the man has charisma on the screen.

It was my mom who picked us going to see Jack Reacher though, not me. Since I retroactively consider this to be a good decision, it’s probably not fair to disclaim the choice, but, y’know. So, I don’t know much about those books and I didn’t know much about the movie except that action would occur and also that some people were pissed about casting a wiry dude who is probably shorter than me to play a 250 pound slab of giant on the page. (Which, incidentally, has anyone read those? Are they any good? Because my unread bookshelf is not already groaning under its current load or anything.)

…I suppose I’ve given away, by now, that I liked it? Because yeah, if this turned into a franchise, I would keep watching. There’s this guy who has very obviously, with evidence all over the damn place, just sniper-murdered a group of five people walking around on their lunch breaks at the waterfront, but he says he didn’t do it and asks them to fetch along Jack Reacher. Reacher shows up, and, under unlikely circumstances, starts investigating what really happened. And instead of punching his way through everyone involved like the previews kind of implied, there’s a smartly written mystery to be unraveled, with lots of tension and comedy to break the tension, and you know, I laughed frequently and all the characters worked, and what more do I need? Plus, Tom Cruise makes for a pretty great PI type. Also, no worries, there is in fact a lot of the gunplay and car chases and judo that you’d expect from an action movie after all, but there’s a lot more here than what I expected is all I’m saying.