FANTASTIC FOUR FAILS FANTASTICALLY! ★1/2 out of ★★★★★

FANTASTIC FOUR
★1/2 out of ★★★★★

Official Synopsis:  Four young outsiders teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe which alters their physical form in shocking ways. The four must learn to harness their new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy.

Director: Josh Trank
Writers: Simon Kinberg (screenplay), Jeremy Slater (screenplay), Josh Trank (screenplay) supposedly based on the works of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Stars: Miles Teller (Reed Richards), Kate Mara (Sue Storm), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm), Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm), Toby Kebbell (Victor Von Doom), Reg. E. Cathey (Franklin Storm)

FANTASTIC FOUR is one of those movies that will probably have a Netflix documentary made about the production in about 20 years.  It is a bad fumble by a studio and talent that should never have messed up on this level.  My review is going to be in two-parts.  The first part is addressing the film on its own merits divorced from the source material.  The second part is a dissection of why the deviations from the source material sealed their....doom (pun intended).

I rewatched the, mostly derided, FANTASTIC FOUR film from 2005 last night as a prelude to watching this one today.  After watching both of them I can say that the 2005 version comes off pretty much like a super-hero sit-com with fairly cheap special f/x but enjoyable while the 2015 version comes off dark, depressing, and mostly incoherent.  The new film is a bait-and-switch, or at least it was for me, in that the first half of the movie was actually kind of interesting and intriguing.  Kicking off with Reed Richards as a young and brilliant child who has already cracked the code for teleportation—IF ONLY SOME ADULT WOULD LISTEN TO HIM!  He has a lifelong friend and protector in the less brilliant but implicitly athletic Ben Grimm.  In this version of the story, both come from clearly blue collar backgrounds somewhere unclear in the state of New York.  Reed's parents don't have a clue what to really do with him and Ben's family runs a salvage yard.  This is clearly supposed to set up a bit of a class conflict between Reed and Ben with the more upper class Storms (Sue and Johnny) and Victor von Doom. And in a better constructed film that might have actually been followed through more explicitly.

Dr. Franklin Storm, Sue and Johnny's father, is a scientist in charge of a program attempting to perfect human teleportation to explore an other-dimensional planet they have discovered and named Planet Zero.  Why Planet Zero?  The less questions you ask the more you will be able to handle this movie, so it's better you just don't ask.

Reed, Johnny, and Victor are the ones who decide after a night of imbibing that it's just not fair for the government to come in and use their technology to send some astronauts to Planet Zero and prevent them from being as famous as Neil Armstrong.  So they decide recklessly to do it themselves under cover of night.  Reed calls in Ben to tag along because, sure, that's what stupid college kids do.  Sue, being the only one with any semblance of responsibility is not aware of this scheme.

So our four reckless drunk numbskulls transport themselves to Planet Zero where it's all dark and spooky and then things start going completely to Hell as the ground starts quaking and glowing green liquid (lava?) starts spewing everywhere and they hightail it back to their teleportation machine.  But Victor doesn't make it, and when last we see him he is at the bottom of a mountain and his space suit is melting into his skin.  For some inexplicable reason, as the door starts to close on Ben a whole bunch of rocks from the planet start flying purposefully into his compartment.  Also, some flames appear out of nowhere and fly into Johnny's compartment.  Again, no reason given for these seemingly sentient actions by rocks and flame.  Also, during this, on our world Sue has become aware of what's happening and is trying to get these guys back by doing some sort of manual override of the remote return system.  And when it does return, there is an explosion and she's blasted invisible.

What follows after the return is eerie and creepy and the stuff of a horror sci-fi film.  What follows is a bit disturbing with the government taking control of the four and housing them separately where they are experimenting on them and studying them.  Franklin Storm is demanding to see his children.  And this is all very interesting up through the point where Reed breaks out, stretches his way in to see Ben and promises him that he'll fix things, and then runs away.

This is the point where the movie flashes a "ONE YEAR LATER" title card and an entirely different movie starts.  Whereas the first half of the movie had a clear narrative and developing characters and relationships along with a unique horrific tone to it, the second half of the movie is all over the place tonally and narratively.  Suddenly we've gone from something kind of haunting to a pretty run-of-the-mill super-hero movie.  And it makes no sense.  But then the government sends some astronauts to Planet Zero which means Doom has a chance to return here.  So he does.  And every gawdamned second he's on screen I wanted to set my hair on fire.  Visually he's ridiculous looking.  His motivations make no sense. His dialogue makes no sense.  His powers make no sense.  He's gone from being a somewhat vain aristocrat type to a skinny combination of the 1940s gasmask-wearing super-hero Sandman and Edvard Munch's "The Scream."  At one point, he's literally walking down a hallway and just looking at random people and their heads explode like we've walked into a SCANNERS movie.  However, at literally no point during the increasingly idiotic final act when Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny are fighting him on Planet Zero does Doom look at any of them and make their heads explode.

Seems to me if you're a psychotic robot man attempting to destroy Earth and you have the power to look at people and make their heads explode you might want to do that to the Fantastic Four if they're trying to stop you.  And yes, Doom is tryin g to destroy Earth but we have no idea why or how he's doing it.  First he says he just wants to return to Planet Zero and remake the planet into a kingdom he could rule but as soon as he gets his desire fulfilled he is suddenly making giant rocks fly up from the ground creating some blue electricity ring that starts creating a "black hole" (we know it is a "black hole" because thankfully Reed declared it so for the audience's sake) that is somehow now slowly sucking Earth through it into Planet Zero.  Now, I'm not sure Doom has thought this through fully because if I'm on Planet Zero I'm not thinking it's a very smart idea to then bring AN ENTIRE OTHER PLANET piece by piece ONTO my planet.   I doubt very much that anyone, including Doom, is going to survive that experience.  Also...THIS IS NOT HOW BLACK HOLES WORK!

Anyway, the good guys win. Doom is defeated.  And the Fantastic Four are created through one incredibly painful round of dialogue between our four heroes trying to come up with a name.  And they also never actually sayyyyy the words but instead they flash the title card up instead of allowing us to hear Reed speak it.  Reminiscent of Lois Lane not speaking the name "Superman" in MAN OF STEEL.

Now most people who keep up with the film-making scene know that the production on this film was in upheaval almost from the start.  It started with Fox needing to get a movie rushed into production quickly so that their Fantastic Four contractual license (bought cheaply way back when Marvel was in bankruptcy rather than the darling of Disney) did not lapse and return the rights to Marvel.  Then Fox handed a $120 million dollar budget to inexperienced young director Josh Trank and by all accounts a behind-the-scenes disaster went down.  Taking into account some of the rumors that swirled and within the context of the movie I just watched, I'm going to hazard a guess that the first half of the film was basically all Trank had inside him to give to this movie.  I think he basically hit a point where he was "done" but he still had an entire second half of a movie to construct and decided to just maybe not show up anymore.  The entire second half of the movie (other than maybe the heads blowing up) didn't seem like the same movie as the first half.  It felt like the kitchen had a whole lotta cooks playing around with the ingredients but nobody agreed upon what they were making or even which recipe to use.

Even within all that chaos, however, I have to admit that I like each of the main four actors.  If I was going to make a FANTASTIC FOUR movie but keep the characters substantially younger than their comic book counterparts, then I would be completely okay with these people.  They're giving it their best, but the chaos behind the scenes and shit-against-the-fan storytelling prevents them from ever rising up to catch a breath.  They drown along with the rest of the movie.

What gets my ire up about this mediocre at best movie is that the source material from the comics really does completely give them everything they needed to make a truly fantastic film.  The idea of using the Fantastic Four as the basis for a horror story about four individuals who are changed and twisted from within because of a science expedition gone awry is certainly fodder for a good story.  Ask Warren Ellis.  He did that in his ground-breaking series PLANETARY.  So, it's not an original idea.

An original idea would actually be to adapt specific storylines from the classic eras of the FANTASTIC FOUR comics.  The key here is that the FANTASTIC FOUR aren't really super-heroes so much as a family. They also are not tortured (altho Ben gets depressed sometimes).  The relationships are clear with the brotherly interaction between Sue, the older sibling, and Johnny the hot-headed younger.  We get to see the best-friend/brothers relationship of Reed and Ben.  Then there's the comic relief of the Johnny and Ben relationship as buddies who both love and hate each other at the same time.  These four are a family and the dynamics are like that of a family where frustrations and tempers can flare, but also each is completely devoted to the others to the point of self-sacrifice.  And this family is a family of explorers and adventurers.  They don't go on assignments for the government.  They don't go on patrol looking for criminals.  They seek out mysteries and explore the unknown.  Their enemies come to them, more often than not.  Doctor Doom is the would'a-could'a of the group.  He's the vain and megalomaniacal college classmate of Reed and Ben's who was always just a little bit less intelligent than Reed and through his own hubris mangled his face in an experiment.  When he returns on the scene after the Four have gained their powers, Doom has returned to his homeland of Latveria, a third-world country where he rules with a totalitarian control.

In other words, all the elements are right here for a relevant film about family, about wonder, about adventure, and maybe even a commentary on current world politics.   Where the first film adaptation failed was in going for superficial laughs over substance, this film failed because it did not embrace the large canvas it had available and made, instead, a very insular and small film.  It feels claustrophobic almost.  There's grand cgi spectacle in it but it all feels very small and limited.  The world of the Fantastic Four should be a world of excitement where anything is possible and mankind's potential is limitless.

The Fox bean-counters really need to reevaluate the cost-benefit analysis of whether it is in their best interest to keep dumping hundreds of millions of dollars down the shitter attempting to keep making movies that bear little more than the title in common with the Fantastic Four concept itself.  Take a cue from Sony and their recent Spider-Man deal with Marvel giving Marvel back the basic creative control of the films but retaining involvement and profit potential for Sony.  Imagine the marketing blitz available around 2020 after Marvel wraps up their Phase 3 with THE AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR PART 2 if Phase 4 was able to launch with "MARVEL'S THE FANTASTIC FOUR".

You don't even need to pay me for that million dollar idea, guys, but I wouldn't turn it down if you offered.

By the way, the following video is still the best FANTASTIC FOUR origin story ever done outside of the comics:

#fantasticfour
#fantasticfourmovie
#fantasticfourreview

FITTY SHADES O' CRAY-CRAY, or HOW BAD IS FIFTY SHADES....REALLY?

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
★★ out of ★★★★★

I never planned on seeing this movie and I most certainly was not planning to see it on Valentine's Day.  So, in the intervening couple of weeks since it premiered I have spent some time observing the reaction to the film and contemplating whether it was one of those awful movies that I should just bite the bullet and use my MoviePass to go see.  Of course, the danger is that I could walk in expecting the worst and end up with something like JUPITER ASCENDING which exceeded even that in its awfulness.  So I caved into my morbid curiosity and walked into a theater late last night to where I noted 4 other couples (kinky, I know) scattered strategically around the theater.  At this point in the rapidly collapsing attendance numbers, nobody was forced into sitting uncomfortably close to a stranger.

Oftentimes the first indicators of what I am about to endure in a theater is found in the movie trailers the powers-that-be have chosen to attach in front of the movie.  In this case, the ridiculously foul red band trailer for some upcoming Vince Vaughn movie and the regular trailer for TED 2.  That right there started lowering my expectations straight up.

Then the movie started and lo and behold, it is essentially EXACTLY what I expected.  Two fairly good actors caught like scared gerbils in a situation they can't get away from fast enough but giving it their best effort to find something resembling quality.  I'll say this, Dakota Johnson surprisingly brings a level of reality to her ridiculously simplistic character with the "laugh-out-loud" name of "Anastasia Steele."  The mere fact that anyone can say that name out loud without laughing (or cringing) is an impressive example of acting talent.  Jamie Dornan, as "Christian Grey," on the other hand, is trying his best but is unfortunately saddled with lines that would make Roger Corman turn over in his grave (if Corman were dead).  The absolute worst was Grey roaring "I'M FIFTY SHADES OF FUCKED UP!!!!"  And yes, I snorted embarrassingly out loud at that moment. I actually laughed inappropriately a number of times.

The movie almost kind of works as a parody.  The problem is that it is parodying itself so it is schizophrenically serious but ridiculous at the same time.  There were only 4 or 5 sex scenes crammed in between listless boredom. And the sex scenes were sometimes titillating, but that's all.  I was more distracted by the strategic cutting of the camera to avoid giving the movie an NC-17 rating by showing actual genitalia or penetration.  There is none to be had here. You will see more vagina in the half-second flash by Sharon Stone in BASIC INSTINCT.  Other than relentless lingering shots of both actors' nipples and butts, the most you are going to see is quick-flash glimpses of their pubic hair.  I also took note of Dornan's face being positioned way too far away to actually be doing to her what she was acting like he was doing and also his butt being positioned way too high for actual penetration (unless he's built like Long Dong Silver).  So, in other words, their efforts at simulating these "hot" sexual experiences resulted instead in an erotic detachment.  The single sex scene between Jennifer Lopez and her boy-toy in the mostly forgettable THE BOY NEXT DOOR was more graphically erotic than all the sex scenes in this movie.  I would almost say the movie would have benefited by going ahead and pursuing the NC-17.  At least it would have more authentically embraced its source material rather than a nervous self-parody.

Ultimately, however, if we want to analyze the controversial nature of the film, it is less disturbing because of the sex and more because of the psychologically abusive relationship.  Christian Grey was the victim of sexual abuse by a trusted adult who seduced him when he was 15 and used him as her submissive sex slave until he was 21.  She turned him into a sociopath who craves nothing but dominance.  He feels nothing but anger and pain and derives pleasure from inflicting it.  In fact, near the end when he is whipping Anastasia with a belt, the camera keeps cutting back to the clothed Christian reacting absurdly like Rob Schneider's "Orgasm Guy" on Saturday Night Live.  None of this justifies Christian's psychological raping of the young Anastasia's mind.  By being the shy introverted bookworm's first sexual experience and her first boyfriend, like all sexual abusers, he is replicating his own abuse with her.  Only now, he is the victimizer.  He becomes obsessed with her, to be sure, but there is no emotional connection on his end and she, being so inexperienced and naive, begins to mistake her attraction to him for love -- which is what he wants.  When the sociopathic abuser can make his victim think she loves him, then he has achieved his goal. He has her caught in his web where he can now feed on her at his leisure and on his terms.  Even in the end when she rejects him, there is no sense that she is leaving for good.  He has her where he wants her.  He knows she will always return.  And, like a good sociopath, this is all he really wants. There is no give and take in the relationship because there is no real relationship.  She serves a purpose for him and him alone and he does not have any concern for pleasuring her -- except as a means to further attach her to him.  All of this, by the way, is contrary to any real understanding of BDSM as a lifestyle between committed couples.  In Grey's case, the BDSM is merely an intriguing tool of seduction so the emotional vampire can be satiated and he can convince himself that he is powerful and in control (as a reaction to the 6 years he was a powerless victim himself).

It's all quite preposterous that so much of his time could be spent in these endeavors all while achieving billionaire status by age 27 and barely be seen spending any time actually doing his job.  I never believed him in that role as opposed to Anastasia's role as shy college student with butchered bangs -- she was imminently believable.  And from a personal standpoint, after actually seeing this, it is pretty shocking to me that the fantasy of subjugation by a sociopathic abuser appears to be the preferred fantasy of so many women out there. It is so contrary to what I would desire for any woman I care about.  In the end, however, the film itself suffers from the worst sin possible -- it is dull and boring most of the time.  It was less than 2 hours but felt like 3 and that's pretty bad.  I think there was an approach here that could have been good, but it would have required a wholesale rewrite of the entire story so that we actually got real characters and not caricatures.  They chose to play it safe, however, so that the studio could be more confident of making a profit.  But artistically, this is a movie that thinks it is clever just to frame shots and sets with a lot of gray.  It would have benefited from a director with a real personal style and approach who could have given this movie a heightened reality sense -- brought us into another world that is more exciting than our own.  A better director could have made us feel the pleasure and taste the sensations so we would find ourselves in Anastasia's place and experiencing her attraction and revulsion.  Instead, we got lingering shots of boobs, butts, abs, and watery Christian Grey eyes with no sparkle and a smarmy boyish smirk.

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY is watchable but forgettable and not anything I can really recommend.

OLD FASHIONED Film Review ★★ out of ★★★★★

OLD FASHIONED
★★ out of ★★★★★

This is a movie about 2 damaged people who take a less-than-normal path to fall in love. It's no spoiler to say that they fall in love. This is an intentional and explicitly "Christian Romance" movie marketed, in very groan-inducing ways, as a Christian alternative to FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (a film I should be seeing in a few days for contrast).

The plot, such as it is, tells the story of Clay and Amber. Amber, just off an emotionally and physically abusive relationship takes off on her own to a small town to start over. There she rents the upstairs apartment owned by Clay who also owns the antique store below. Amber is worldly wise and outgoing. Clay is an odd introverted duck who keeps to himself and conducts himself insufferably with an odd set of obnoxiously off-putting rules about his interactions with women. For 9 years, he has holed himself up like a hermit and annoyed the living Hell out of everyone around him with using God, the Bible, and his made-up rules about courtship, love, and marriage as a barrier to expressing any real emotion or allowing himself to be emotionally vulnerable or intimate with a woman on any level.

Why, you may ask? A really bad break-up.

So, the movie is really about us watching this completely self-absorbed paragon of self-appointed virtue lording his bizarre fake chivalry under the guise of respecting Amber, when he's actually disrespecting her. What he is actually doing is using his obsessive compulsive disorder and fear of attachment issues as a "Rebel Without A Cause" outcast with deeply hidden feelings as fishbait to hook her attention and then proceeds to demand that if she wants to be with him she has to cowtow to his endless, and inconsistent (sometimes incoherent) absurd list of rules.

He is surrounded by his long-suffering best friends. One of whom is in a committed long-term relationship (unmarried) and raising their child together. The other is an obnoxious radio talk-show host supposedly in the style of the revolting misogynistic Tom Leykis Show. Unfortunately, this being a Christian movie, the guy's show is actually just absurdly hilarious in how tame it actually is even though everyone listening acts like it's incredibly offensive.

 They also surround Amber with 2 new friends who I have to assume he just cast from the pews of some random local church. Ugh. Oh yes, also Clay takes care of his elderly Aunt who had me wanting to leave the theater if she said "tuh-maters" one more damn time!!!! 

75% of this movie is excruciating. Basically anything that involved the lead actor, the writing, the directing, and producing (coincidentally the same guy, Rik Swartzwelder, for all of that) made me want to set my hair on fire. The other 25% that was not excruciating was because of the very charming and likeable lead actress, Elizabeth Roberts and the moment near the end where the annoying Aunt finally tells Clay off about what an incredible twit he is and how his narcissistic self-absorption is preventing him from living the life God put him on this planet for in the first place.

Basically, the deal is, there is a good movie idea buried in here. The flaws that make it excruciating to watch are the result of the execution of the idea and the eyeroll-inducing sepia-warm filter placed on the outdoor scenes, and the rocking chairs on the porch, and the grating soft guitar pluck music played under every conversation. And the dialogue is so hackneyed that I was cringing half the time. Really, only Elizabeth Roberts seems to be able to rise above the script to bring some sparkle and energy to an otherwise listlessly paced story.

 But that good idea kept poking at me as I watched it. I kept wondering to myself as my mind wandered at times about how this could be so easily turned into something awesome. First of all, it needed to have a sense of humor! This movie is so relentlessly serious it is painful. This is a crazy guy obsessed with being "old-fashioned". Have some fun with that!!! Second, they need to hand that script over to director Paul Feig (who directed BRIDESMAIDS among others) and let him massage the script and find those points where real circumstantial and character humor would best fit. Then dump this cast completely and replace them like this: Amber needs to be Jennifer Aniston. Clay needs to be Owen Wilson. Clays best friends need to be Kevin Hart as his good friend in the long-term relationship and Bradley Cooper needs to play the misogynistic radio host. Cloris Leachman needs to be the annoying aunt.

Hollywood really needs to take this and run with it. I think the idea of a guy and a girl damaged by life and love and one of them decides he is going to obsessively (and obnoxiously) commit himself to a distorted form of chivalry that never actually existed is gold. But this version of it should never have made it into theaters. It is, at best, a discount bin DVD in a Christian bookstore movie or something you might check out from your own church library.

I really can't recommend it because 75% excruciating is really too much for most people to waste their $10-$15 on. But then again, I did see JUPITER ASCENDING....and it made this movie seem like CITIZEN KANE, so.... maybe some of you might want to see it. I don't want to see it again.

#oldfashionedmovie

MEMORIAL DAY 7-FILM MINI-REVIEW ROUND-UP!

 

MEMORIAL DAY 7-FILM MINI-REVIEW ROUND-UP:

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

The first fully-realized X-Men movie that finally takes its cues from the successful Marvel Studios AVENGERS franchise and successfully adapts a clas...sic storyline from the comics. Surprisingly smart and deftly shifts in tone and pacing between the decades. Best of all, director Bryan Singer did something that the directing of Amazing Spider-Man 2 should take a cue from -- he lets the character moments breathe and allows the actors to do their thing. When you surround the story with actors of the caliber miraculously assembled for this film, you better damn well let them act.

The heart of the film is the younger version of Xavier, who has lost his sense of purpose at that point in his life. Most interesting of all was the emphasis on Mystique/Raven who becomes the singular most important mutant on Earth and whose actions lead to the dystopian deadly future (10 years from now) the X-Men are trying to prevent from coming into being by sending Wolverine's mind back in time to his younger body.

Much has been made about the "reset switch" ending, but even without spoilering the details on that, I have to admit that I am completely okay with it. I have always enjoyed the X-Men films but they have suffered from a lack of cohesion and long-term vision. The benefit this film has is that now Marvel Studios has demonstrated that you can approach these super-hero franchise films with an eye towards building a larger universe and with longterm planning. It does not completely remove the other films from continuity for without them occurring, then the events that happened to rewrite history would never have happened. So, they are important pieces of a future that will never happen now (or will be different).

FIRST CLASS plus this film set up a future successful franchise with a closer adherence to the spirit of the comics themselves and I am glad to see it. This was a movie that was a hell of a lot better than it had any right to be.

#xmendaysoffuturepast

THE GERMAN DOCTOR

★★★★ out of ★★★★★
 

A chilling Argentinian film (with subtitles) about the infamous psychopathic Nazi "Angel of Death" Josef Mengele after he escaped to Argentina after World War 2. The story itself is fictional but it is wrapped up in actual history, specifically about a female Nazi hunter working for the Mossad who tracked Mengele down to Argentina around 1960 and was found dead after Mengele escaped capture.

The film is about a young family who open up a lodging home in the mountains so that the artisan father can focus on his baby doll design work. Their oldest daughter is a teenager who has a genetic disorder preventing her from progressing into puberty at a normal pace. A mysterious, but charming, German Doctor comes to stay at their lodge and becomes interested in her and her family. As he over-involves himself in their lives he becomes somewhat obsessed while crafting a co-dependency between all of them.

What makes this film so chilling is the charismatically charming performance of Àlex Brendemühl as Mengele. He captures the mind of a true psychopath replete with the magnetism and cold, but not dangerous demeanor. When things fall apart and his self-control begins to slip so we catch glimpses of the evil in him it is both fascinating and repulsive. We hate ourselves for liking him and getting drawn into his web.

An excellent film that just flows smoothly like a well-written novel.

 #thegermandoctor

NEIGHBORS

★ out of ★★★★★
 

There is nothing redeeming in this film. It only earns 1 star because there are a couple of laugh-out-loud slapstick moments. The movie assumes that every person on the planet is just a huge pile of excrement with no value, no morals, and no character.

The two worst parents on the planet suffer the indignity of having the worst fraternity on the planet move next door. What follows is just a series of patently unfunny bullshit in which I wanted to call CPS on them after the third or fourth time that their baby was simply left at home alone in her crib all night.

Revolting.
#neighbors

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
 

Fascinating vampire movie by director Jim Jarmusch and starring Tom Hiddleston, Tilda Swinton, and John Hurt. Really, that pedigree is enough to justify going to see this one.

It's slow-moving and eccentric. It felt less like a vampire movie and more like one of those odd little short stories you get in the occasional vampire anthology book. It really is not about vampires but is using vampires as a plot device to comment on the human condition. It's no mistake that Hiddleston's character is holed up a decaying brick home in the abandoned urban Detroit area. The modern decay is reflective of his own spiritual decay.

The movie is not "beautiful", but there is dark beauty in it. It is mostly absurdly funny in the blackest of black comedic ways. I enjoyed the love between Adam (Hiddleston) and Eve (Swinton) and it was interesting to see how they were stronger together than apart.

This film is not going to set the world on fire, but it is definitely worth your investment of time if you get a chance.

#onlyloversleftalive

THE RETRIEVAL

★★★★★ out of ★★★★★
 

One of the best films of the year. It's a gut-wrenching film set during the Civil War with a young black boy who is used by a white Bounty Hunter gang to retrieve escaped slaves and bring them back for a fee.

He gets sent, with his unscrupulous uncle, to retrieve a freed slave for a huge retrieval fee but over the course of long trek back they bond together and the boy is put in an excruciatingly difficult position.

The directing and the acting in this movie are fantastic and emotionally real. It is painful to watch at times but only because you, as the viewer, are so caught up in the boy Will (Ashton Sanders) and his youthful guilt and shame. He is being forced to grow up faster than his heart and mind can keep up.

Highly recommended.

#theretrieval

PARTICLE FEVER

★★★★ out of ★★★★★
 

Very simply the best documentary about the launch of the Large Hadron Collider you'll probably ever see.

For a science nerd like me, I couldn't really ask for more. The film follows the lengthy years-long process of getting the Collider built, and the key scientists involved in it. Before long, and through some quite clever opportunities for explanations to us lay-people, we find ourselves emotionally caught up in the moment when they finally discovered the almost mythical Higgs boson (or God Particle).

If you just said to yourself "What's the Higgs boson?" then I suggest you should be required to watch this movie. You can thank me later.

#particlefever

TRANSCENDENCE

★ out of ★★★★★
 

One of the worst films I've seen this year. It makes the fatal flaw of being relentlessly boring and just plain stupid.

This emotionally overwrought sci-fi flick just makes poor story choices after poor story choices after poor story choices in an attempt to engage us in its cautionary tale of the Singularity -- when artificial intelligence surpasses human intelligence. In this case, it starts with the death of a visionary scientist played by Johnny Depp whose brain patterns were captured and incorporated into a computer program.

As he evolves, all manner of stupid stuff happens. The movie also stars Paul Bettany, Amy Adams, and Morgan Freeman but they're all wasted on a ridiculous script saying obscenely stupid dialogue. Really, don't waste your time on this one unless you need something to help you battle insomnia.

#transcendence

GODZILLA Review

GODZILLA

Giant monsters tearing up Japan, Hawaii, and San Francisco with crazy good special effects.  That's about all you need to know in this reboot of the GODZILLA franchise for the American stage.

Apparently there is a huge Godzilla fan community locally because when we went to see this movie Thursday night the theater was a sell-out crowd (98% male) full of vocal Godzilla fans.  They gave a lot of loud "in the know" vocal reactions to the basically familiar Godzilla tropes that appeared in film including the use of a silly acronym like M.U.T.O. (massive unidentified terrestrial organism) to give us a name for the new monsters that battle the massive behemoth.
They also erupted into a huge round of applause at the end.

That definitely made for an...interesting movie-going experience.  My background with Godzilla is really just that I used to watch the movies on TV when I was a kid and I've gone to see GODZILLA 1995, GODZILLA (1998), and GODZILLA 2000 in the theaters.  Essentially, the basic set up for most of them (in my memory) is that (a) in 1954 Godzilla tore up Japan then disappeared (b) new monster(s) appear and start tearing things up (c) the humans somehow pull Godzilla into the mix to kill the other monster(s) (d) in the end, the grateful humans look on as Godzilla disappears into the deep waters of the Pacific Ocean.

So, essentially this is every other Godzilla movie ever made but with substantially better structure and effects (and star power) than ever before.  However, they still did that one thing that drives me crazy about every giant monster movie these days (JURRASIC PARK to PACIFIC RIM and every monster flick in between) is that they couch much of the monster f/x in the middle of a rainstorm.  Time for that cliche' to be done.  But make no mistake, I thought the monster f/x was incredibly well-done.  Godzilla has never looked better and the Mutos were outstanding as well.  The idea of a radioactively mutated bug species that consumes radiation and defensively set loose a pwerful EMP (electromagnetic pulse) worked quite well in updating the idea of monsters for 2014.

The opening sequence, set 15 years ago, with Bryan Cranston and his wife, Juliette Binoche, effectively established an emotional connection to the monster dramatics that kicked of the movie quite well.  In fact, the film might be criticized for it's over-emphasis on the human drama to the point of downplaying the Godzilla stuff a bit.  However, the biggest fault for this film in doing that was refocusing the film's narrative off of Cranston when it shifts to the modern day and onto Aaron Taylor Johnson who plays Cranston's now grown son.  I wonder if the filmmakers' choice of "Brody" as their surname was an insider's nod to Sheriff Brody of JAWS fame. 

There was something emotionally lacking in Johnson's performance, which prevents the emotional resonance of Cranston's obsessively emotional overload.  A balance between the two of them would have been better for the film, which is interesting considering the approach to the monster they have chosen for this reboot.

In this version of Godzilla, he is a force of nature.  He exists merely to rise up when needed and in a predatory way chase, confront, and battle whatever new monster(s) that appears and upsets the natural balance of co-existence.  The King of the Monsters is apparently the only monster the earth can support. 

It's all quite absurd and full of entirely preposterous coincidences to make sure that Johnson's character is always right there with the action.  In a film like this, that's just part of my expectations going in.  Ken Watanabe's scientist character, Dr. Serizawa, is completely wasted in what could have, and should have been, an integral role in dealing with these monsters.  Maybe it was the filmmakers' way of making sure we understood quite clearly that this is going to be an American franchise. I don't know.  It's not a dealbreaker, but it was disappointing.

Overall though, I would say (as a friend well-described it) this is an A-version of a B-movie.  It really is, for me, the "greatest" GODZILLA movie ever. That doesn't make it a great movie but it certainly makes it the greatest of the GODZILLA movies.

★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

#godzilla

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Film Review

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Wow. What a story.

Riveted from start to finish, Scorsese gets the nod from me for directing because of this movie. Leonardo DiCaprio slams a homerun and fully deserves it if he wins Best Actor.

I was warned by so many people about how filthy the movie is and how it glories in its filth that I found myself surprised by how much more was going on here than simply that. To me, none of the nudity, sex, or language every appeared as titillation for t...he viewer and all served the higher purpose of exemplifying how completely dissociated from reality DiCaprio's character, Jordan Belfort, was. In a sense, this movie is a different version of the same character path of Walter White in BREAKING BAD. A nobody who careens down a fast path into pure narcissism and sociopathy to become an arrogant criminal with a stream of destroyed lives in his wake.

Where the switch turns in Walter White because he is faced with terminal cancer, Belfort's switch gets turned because of drugs. Turns out this "normal" guy gets instantly addicted to anything if he can get a rush from it, whether it's drugs, lying, investing, speeding, or as he states at one point even his lover (and future second wife's) "pussy". He is addicted to anything and everything not related to his perverted perception of success and happiness.

And the one constant through it all is that he is never ever happy. He has "fun". He has "thrills". He has financial "success." But he is never actually happy. Enough is never enough. His loss of self and any sense of behavioral boundaries is so extreme that I found myself literally holding my forehead in my hand and shaking my head in disbelief.

It is a masterful piece of storytelling to get you to feel some sense of rooting for such a malicious lying little bastard who can self-justify even the grandest of conniving little scenarios to make money off scamming the weak and the poor out of their last few pennies. And yet, through it all, Scorsese and DiCaprio (and the phenomenal supporting cast) all keep a grounding in humanity and give the viewer these little "wake up calls" to remind us not only that this really happened but that there are victims and the victims matter.

When it becomes necessary for the audience to turn on Belfort, to lose our last bit of sympathy for him, Scorsese hits us with a two-fer punch to the gut. One, literally, Belfort punching his wife in the stomach and then, in a cocaine haze, attempting to steal his daughter away.

After the film I looked up the factual details to see how exaggerated the film's details actually were.

Sadly....it doesn't sound like there was much exaggeration at all.

The scariest thing to me is that Jordan Belfort is still out there, with a narcissist's smile and a sociopath's lack of empathy continuing to ply his trade in the motivational speaker circuit.

This movie is a condemnation of mindless overindulgence and selfishness to the extreme and it does so brilliantly. My only fear, considering that the real Belfort appears in the film to "introduce" the post-jail Belfort (DiCaprio) to an audience, is that Scorsese, DiCaprio, and everyone else involved with the film may have gotten overly caught up in the debauched mythology themselves and forgotten the very real victims. Regardless, this is a film that examines many of the same themes I've been noticing throughout the year's Oscar nominations. Primarily the theme of the facades we project to the world and the lies we tell ourselves to justify them. And one thing's for certain, Belfort's ability to lie to himself was his greatest natural talent and to see it on display in this film was mesmerizing.

★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS Film Review

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS

Paul Greengrass really knows how to direct films with tension like few others.  I really tend to avoid super high-tension films like that when I am aware of it before going in.  Greengrass's UNITED 93 is another one like CAPTAIN PHILLIPS that I waited to see on DVD because I just knew going in that the tension was going to a bit much for me.  I think I chose correctly in both those cases.  Watching them for the first time at home on the smaller screen and distractions made the intensity easier to bear.

It is an excellent film. I was never bored by it and got fully wrapped up in the events unfolding and that relentless sense of inevitability to the outcome.  I know many will have gone into this movie already knowing the story, but I am not one of those.  The 24-hour news cycle is not something I choose to partake in so when this even actually occurred I was only peripherally aware of it and was completely unaware of the specifics of how it ultimately resolved.  Everything other than knowing that Capt. Phillips was in charge of a boat taken over by Somali pirates was all I knew.

There is no attempt to justify the pirates' actions but there is humanity to them.  There is some sense of futility to their lives that earned them pathos and empathy as I was watching it.  Tom Hanks earned himself this year's Oscar nomination in this performance which felt honest and real all the way through. 

The film is excellent, but I wouldn't say it was the Best Film of the year but I can see why it got the nomination.

★★★★ out of ★★★★★

POMPEII & RIDE ALONG: A Review of Two Comedies

This is a tale of two comedies -- both cliché-ridden boilerplate movies with zero creativity.  One intentionally funny; the other unintentionally hilarious.

RIDE ALONG introduced me to Kevin Hart, who now accepts the crown of "Most Annoying Presence In Film" from Chris Tucker, as a policeman wannabe who goes on a "ride along" with his streetwise police detective and future brother-in-law played by Ice Cube.   Along the way we are treated to one more unnecessary buddy-cop movie where the two guys hate each other at first and then come to like each other by the end.

There's a couple of clever moments involving the use of Hart's online gaming friends and a bullet wound to the leg incident, but other than that this was pretty predictable Hollywood fare with nothing to distinguish it from any other buddy copy movie.

I really don't think I can fully describe how flippin' annoying Kevin Hart is.  And oddly enough this actually helps the movie work a little bit because at least his character is supposed to be irritating the living hell out of Cube's detective character.

The main saving grace for the movie is Ice Cube, by the way.  His dead serious straight man to Hart's Jerry Lewis impression made me laugh a lot.  Laurence Fishburne appears in the movie and seems to be exploding.  I swear his face is swollen up twice as big as Barry Bonds and his body is starting to look like Herman Munster.  John Leguizamo and some other actor I recognize from lots of movies get totally wasted in this movie.  But hey, a paycheck's a paycheck, right?

No way should you pay full price for this movie.  It's probably funnier if you just wait and Redbox it.  As it is, it's mostly lame and predictable but I laughed...or rather chuckled and smiled.  It is at least intentionally funny and succeeds at that....barely.

Now POMPEII on the other hand?  This movie is hysterically funny!

I started giggling 5 minutes in and was laughing out loud by the mid-point.  This thing is nothing but a mess of bad storytelling, bad acting, shitty special effects, and most of all bad directing.  Every single person in this movie was miscast but a special miscasting Oscar must be won by the horrifically awful Kiefer Sutherland as a pompous Roman senator.  The degree of bad cannot be overstated.  Kiefer is strolling around throughout this movie with his bony knees poking out below his skirt and above his knee socks boasting his 24 haircut and speaking with this affected high English dialect that I could not keep from chuckling at.  Maybe I'm just so used to his Batman voice from 24 that I didn't realize quite how...."fabulous"...his voice actually is.  Also, seriously people, with the modern advances in dentistry just why are we getting saddled with these actors who must have ill-fitting upper plate dentures that lead them to "shhhhh" all there "s" sounds????  First Old Spock's overwhelming upper-plating in STAR TREK, then Michael Shannon's Zod in MAN OF STEEL, and now Kiefer Sutherland in POMPEII.  It's maddening!!!  It's becoming the film version of fingernails on a chalkboard for me! 

Get a better dentist, Kiefer.

As to the film itself, it really has to be seen to be believed.  I so wish Mystery Science Theater 3000 could do this movie.  Oh how I wish it could happen.  The awful is just so much that it's hard to even know where to start.  I could start with our hero, Milo.  Yes.  Milo.

Milo. 

Milo is a Celtic warrior. 

Stop laughing.

He is also, essentially, Conan the Horse-Whisperer....with nicely gelled and coiffed curly hair.

There's a girlfriend, sort of, for Milo who looks like a waif weighing about 60 pounds and 20 of those pounds are her bobble-head.  There is an inept attempt to craft a love story, in one day, between Milo and this waif-girl like what James Cameron did with TITANIC, but in case you guys didn't realize it, the director of RESIDENT EVIL and DEATH RACE ain't quite James Cameron.   Oh yeah, and Mr. Eko from LOST appears as a slave gladiator who in one day becomes Milo's bestest buddy.
I laughed out loud at everyone attempting to play act in their costuming. Nobody looked or felt authentic.  It was almost like the director, Paul W.S. Anderson was actually striving for inauthenticity. It's like he was seeking to replicate the worst of the worst of those old Hercules films from the 60s.  There was every possible attempt to tug emotion from the furtive glances of the ingénue to the predictably forced overwrought dialogue and roars of rage.

The destruction as Mount Vesuvius erupts is so monstrously ridiculous I can't even adequately describe it. Just think of the most absurdly predictable sorts of Hollywood mass destruction you can think of and then add a dollup of stupid to push it right over the top.  It's all so hopelessly hilarious -- the attempt by Mr. Eko to save the little girl from a tidal wave, or the tidal wave being stopped by a boat plugging up a doorway. 

Are you laughing yet? 

Our heroes are also really strong.  How about Mr. Eko not only surviving a sword through his gut but is so strong he can break the sword handle off while the sword stays in his gut?  Or Milo, who can...using his bare hands, just....break a horse's neck? 

The amount of running and horse-riding and leaping and fighting while fire and brimstone rain down from the sky is also part of the huge hilarities in the movie.  It's so fun watching everyone else get pelted and smashed and burned and buried while our Hollywood heroes and villains miraculously dodge harm until it's time for the dramatic death moment. 

Because, you know, you don't go into a movie called POMPEII and actually expect anyone to make it out alive.

But you sure do expect them to try!  And that's where the ending becomes the funniest part of the movie.  Don't read any further if you don't want to know....

Milo and waif-girl are the only survivors as the firey ash and lava flow are overtaking the city.  They are riding away from the city on a horse when it bucks them.  But the horse doesn't ride off.  Rather than the two of them getting back on and giving it one more effort to outrun the death flowing after them, Milo tells waif-girl to get on the horse and leave him behind.  She says "NO!" and smacks the horse on the butt to send it scurrying away. And so they embrace and start slo-mo tongue-kissing while the lava flow overtakes them. Then it's a dramatic cut to their ash-covered bodies frozen in a kiss.

Cue dramatic closing music.

Cue the laughter from the audience as we all murmur together "Oh come ON!"

RIDE ALONG
★★1/2 out of ★★★★★

POMPEII
★1/2 out of ★★★★★
(the 1/2 is special bonus 1/2 star for unintentional hilarity)

ROBOCOP Film Review

 

 

 

ROBOCOP

To answer your first question: This remake is different enough from the original to justify it's existence.

To answer your second question: It depends on what your expectations are going in.

I expected the movie to be a total waste of my time and instead I found it inoffensive and good enough to sit through without getting bored. It's not particularly clever and is completely devoid of any sense of humor about itself (so it is already in very different territory t...han the original and its sharp satire just because of that). This film is not satire and is more of an exploration of what it means to be human than the original. It also explores the current state of politico-media demagoguery in ways that make it an effective enough commentary on today's cultural climate. Samuel L. Jackson's bombastic asshole TV pundit "Pat Novak" of "The Novak Effect" with its conflation of Bob Novak, Pat Buchanan, and Bill O'Reilly into one guy is about as clever as it gets -- and that's about as clever as a 90's era Image comic. Gary Oldman is very engaging as the doctor who saves Officer Alex Murphy by putting him in the prosthetic robot suit. Michael Keaton is his usual hyperactive lisping self (with terrible haircut). Robocop himself is played by Joel Kinnaman (from TV's THE KILLING). He isn't bad but I don't find the actor to be very charismatic. Original Robocop actor Peter Weller has an unbilled cameo during the final act.

For those who don't know, the plot is very simply about a near-future world where an American corporation wants to bring it's robot police drones onto the United States soil so they take a police officer blown to bits and connect him cybernetically to a robot body. This way they can convince the public and the politicians that there is still a human element to the drone program. Robocop is the "beta", so to speak.

Along the way there is a lot of super-hero style action but without any of the gore and violence that was a trademark of the original (well other than seeing his face, esophagus, and lungs working while the suit is removed a couple of times). And that is really key to the potential success of this movie. It's not a sci-fi satire but a super-hero movie now. So it fits the current moviegoing public's tastes pretty well I expect. Not one thing in the storytelling was surprising or unexpected; in fact, the entire movie is totally predictable but always slides just slightly under the bar of smart. There's even a line at one point by the evil corporation CEO where he says "You know what's better than a hero?" And I leaned over to my wife and muttered "A martyr" one second before he said "A dead hero."

And I just laughed.

Bottom line: It's a standard popcorn flick. Don't expect too much and don't overthink it. You'll have a good time. If you can't check your brain at the door or not compare it to the original you should probably avoid it. But I thought it was decent enough. Not awful. Not great.

★★★ out of ★★★★★

WINTER'S TALE Film Review

 

  

WINTER'S TALE

I don't have a freakin' clue what I just saw.

By the end I found myself trying to figure out how such an esteemed cast (Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Will Smith, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly, Eva Marie Saint, and more) could all have been conned into being a part of this mess of confusion masquerading as profundity. Then it all made sense when the credits rolled and I saw that it was written and directed by Academy Award-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman....

Here's the problem, though. Yes, that's right Russell, Akiva wrote A BEAUTIFUL MIND for you. Yes, that's right Will, Akiva wrote I AM LEGEND for you. However, need I remind all of you that he also wrote....BATMAN AND ROBIN and those awful DAVINCI CODE movies. 'Nuff said.

Maybe it depends on his sobriety levels or something, but clearly his screenwriting swings like a bi-polar wrecking ball in terms of quality or coherence.

I'll give you a snapshot of the massive incoherence. None of it is spoilers because you aren't going to go see this movie and even if you do there is no way I can spoil it worse than it spoils itself.

You have a baby set adrift in the ocean in a boat in the late 1800s, like a modern day Moses, who apparently grows up an orphan in New York City and a thief, named Peter Lake, working for a demon named Pearly Souls who is in a human form and speaks with a nearly indecipherable Irish brogue.  While the film is set in the early 1900s he works for Lucifer, played by Will Smith sporting a 2014 wardrobe, earring, and haircut.  When Pearly gets mad his face splits apart like the old Fantastic Four villain, The Molecule Man (see pic).  

Make sense yet?

Apparently stars may not be giant balls of gas after all but really humans who die and become angels and choose their starlike wings to sit in the heavens. And humans all apparently have one "miracle" they are supposed to perform during their lifetime and Pearly's sole purpose on Earth is to mumble gibberish and stop these miracles from happening. Of course, we never really see any other miracles other than the miracle Peter's supposed to perform and Pearly is obsessed with stopping that miracle.

Oh yeah, and there's a spirit dog who magically appears as a glowing white Pegasus. I shit you not. It is a dog......that looks like a....horse......with angel wings.

And I learned that "consumption" (Tuberculosis) causes your body temperature to be so high that it melts snow and you have to sleep on a roof in a tent during winter so that you don't die. And if you breathe in and breathe out slowly and then quietly name some stars while breathing out that will lower your body temperature.

Good to know.

This thing is a mess. It's trying so hard to be meaningful and tell a magical story of a true love, lost love, and a Divine purpose that spans lifetimes. But what got lost was any ability to thread these pieces together into a story that could be followed, with themes that really connected on a deeper level, and most of all delved deeply into the characters so that we actually cared about what happened to them.

I sat there with a confused and furrowed brow from start to finish. That's never good for a film and is crushing for a film with the pedigree of this one.

Avoid at all costs.

★ out of ★★★★★

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THE MONUMENTS MEN Film Review

THE MONUMENTS MEN

Well, THE GREAT ESCAPE this ain't.

It ain't OCEAN'S ELEVEN either. 

So, I hope you aren't planning to see it because you liked either of those classics.  The movie is technically well done. The details are good. The actors all are well-coiffed and moussed all spiffy in their uniforms.  The scenes are framed well. The cast is spectacular.

And yet....it plods along as dull as dull can be and thematically all over the map.  Even the soundtrack seems schizophrenic like it can't figure out what the tone of the movie is supposed to be.  Is it supposed to be clever and quirky? Is it supposed to be light and funny?  Is it supposed to be serious and emotional? Is it supposed to be sad and thought-provoking?  Is it supposed to be a rah-rah pro-America propaganda piece?

It's actually all of those things at various times with the rah-rah pro-America propaganda piece front and center most of the time.  Apparently, Uncle Sam is the only trustworthy country in the whole of the world to take the art of other countries and actually return the pieces to their rightful owners. 
It's not that the movie is bad.  It's not bad.  It's just not any better than middling good.  None of the actors really gets a chance to really create a character who is memorable; well, except maybe for Bob Balaban and his character.  Part of that is how the film is cut together in such a way that I could tell I was supposed to care about these guys but didn't spend enough time getting to know them so that when "war" stuff starts happening and the art-saving plot kicks into high gear I'm just not invested in them as people.  It's a bit of a crime that Bill Murray is restrained so much here rather than letting him and Balaban just start riffing off each other improvisationally and create a memorable duo out of their pairing.

Everyone is likeable and all, but...aw hell, this thing should've been so much better. George Clooney's directing was lackluster with no panache and his performance was stilted and flat.  I compare this to the performance Alfonso Cuarón was able to get out of him in GRAVITY and I'm tempted to say maybe Clooney shouldn't be directing himself again anytime soon.

I appreciated the efforts to save the paintings and statues that the Nazis were hoarding and I appreciate that Clooney and his crew all obviously worked really hard to tell this story.  It's an interesting story.  I wish the manner in which the story was told had been as interesting.

I think I understand why the studio released it in February rather than, say, during the Oscars run near the end of the year.  The biggest problem with a mediocre film like this is that it will just politely disappear out of the public's memories fairly quickly.

★★★ out of ★★★★★

VAMPIRE ACADEMY Film Review

   

VAMPIRE ACADEMY

Have you ever wondered what you would get if you took a little bit of HARRY POTTER, mixed it with BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, tossed in a dash of TWILIGHT, VAMPIRE DIARIES, and BEAUTIFUL CREATURES, then wrapped it all up in a CLUELESS tortilla?

No? Well, I suspect it would be something a lot like this movie I just watched.

I'll admit, I really just went to see it because I knew my daughter would be into it (vampires and teen angst are her movie bread and butter). And I will also say that the opening few scenes are so exposition-heavy I was starting to doubt whether I could sit through it. I have a hard time with films that start out with lengthy exposition. To me it is like a clanging gong to tell me that this screenplay is going to suck, otherwise they would find a way to tell me this information organically through the story.

So, yes, this is not the greatest script in the world. Do not go into it expecting....say....something on par with William Goldman's brilliant script for THE PRINCESS BRIDE.

However, this film has something going for it. It has a cast of extraordinarily charming and likeable young actors that make even the most cringe-inducing dialogue (of which there is some) not only tolerable but increasingly interesting as the movie putts along.

The story involves a not-so-complicated mythology about a sub-society in our world of good vampires, evil vampires, guardians of the good vampires, and some sort of not-werewolves but psy-hounds (I'm assuming that's how you spell it). There is a Hogwarts-style school for the vampire kids (hence the title of the movie) and we have a royal teen vampire princess and her bff guardian, Rose who start out on the run but get returned to the school at the beginning of the movie. And that's about all you really need to know. Time for some love, betrayal, intrigue, action, and some subdued scenery chewing by Gabriel Byrne (as opposed to Jeremy Irons chewing up the scenery and spitting it back out only to chew it right back up last year in BEAUTIFUL CREATURES)

The biggest kink in the potential success of this film probably will be owed to the fact that it came off more to me like an extended episode of a TV show and less like a big-budget film franchise. For that, I'll have to fault the director. But I would be lying if I didn't say it was better than I expected. In fact, I really enjoyed it. They could have definitely used a Joss Whedon script polish job, but it was still fun and I laughed and liked the characters and would be interested in seeing the next installment as it ends on a slight cliffhanger.

★★★ out of ★★★★★

NEBRASKA Film Review

NEBRASKA

Before discussing this film, I wanted to say a few comments about the last week or so in embarking on my Movie-Pocalypse.

It's an interesting thing about the usual disconnect between the Hollywood elites and the general public that often amounts to a lot of grousing around the time of the Academy Awards. I know that in the last 20 years or so, most years I find I have either seen only 1 or 2 Best Picture nominees and even some years where I have seen literally non...e of them. And as my friends and family know, I see a lot of movies. I love movies. But quite often what garners the attention of the Academy somehow runs contrary to my own tastes and/or interests.

This year is an exception.

This year is one in which I am interested in seeing every single one of the Best Picture nominees. As a result of that, it has been intentional to frontload this first run with MoviePass with screenings of the Nominees I had not already seen.

In the past week or so I've seen JACK RYAN: SHADOW RECRUIT, HER, I FRANKENSTEIN, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, THE BOOK THIEF, AMERICAN HUSTLE, DALLAS BUYERS CLUB, and tonight NEBRASKA. Four of these are Best Picture nominees. JACK RYAN, THE BOOK THIEF, AUGUST, and FRANKENSTEIN are not. However, BOOK THIEF and AUGUST both are up for Academy Awards in other categories.

Here's what's interesting, when going to see the four Best Picture nominess (plus AUGUST) my wife and I were literally the only people in the theater. The ONLY people. And yet, by contrast the I FRANKENSTEIN screening was a sell-out.

There is something seriously wrong when these amazing movies starring some of the greatest actors of this generation giving performances that are on levels rarely ever achieved on film. These are sublime movies that are as good as every other great classic award winners of the past. And there we sit in empty theaters while we fight for a seat to see one of the stupidest and lousiest turds ever to grace a movie screen.

This world is seriously topsy-turvy.

On to NEBRASKA though. An excellent movie. I went into it completely cold. I had no idea what it was about at all. I only knew it had Bruce Dern in it and something about the black and white simplicity of the movie poster generated a desire in me to see it.

The movie is very simply about an elderly man (Bruce Dern) teetering on the brink of dementia obsessed with redeeming one of those bogus "You've Won $1 Million Dollars" letters. He sets off on a road trip with his youngest son (Will Forte) to drive to Lincoln, Nebraska to "redeem" that letter.

Along the way, the movie turns into a peek inside all of our lives and our families and examines the choices that we make (and don't make) and how they impact us in the present. Everyone who has ever gone and hung out with distant relatives they only see every decade or so is going to be uncomfortable sympathetic with Forte's character, Dan.

Speaking of Forte, both he and Bob Odenkirk who plays his older brother, are unexpectedly exceptional in this film. Whoever thought to cast against type for these two was inspired. In fact, the casting for this movie was brilliant all the way through.

This movie, while deeply affecting is also quite simple on the surface. I also laughed out loud a number of times. There is great humor in here but all of it is real and occurs organically from the characters and the moments. The beautiful black and white cinematography and the minimalist score enhance the reality of every moment making it all the more effective.

Simply wonderful.

★★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★