Everything to do with films!
It’s hard not to love Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He started out as your average adorable child actor and then rather than transitioning into fluff pictures he went indie, working on great films like _Brick_ and _The Lookout_, building credibility and honing his acting skills. Now, after building a bank role with more mainstream fare he’s made the leap to writing and directing.
Turns out he’s pretty damn good at those too.
_note: I’m finally back from vacation so regular posting will resume._
Movies about people driving fast cars can be pretty hit or miss. It’s a good thing then that _Rush_ is a movie about the people who drive fast cars instead. The film follows the 1976 season of Formula One racing and the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, the former a hard drinking fast living playboy with a natural talent for driving and the latter a cool headed, clean living son of a businessman who relies on technical genius and precision. In short these men are polar opposites, an unstoppable force and an immovable object, and while both at the top of their game it makes complete sense that they would end up butting heads.
And it’s pretty fun to watch as a result.
The problem with converting books into movies (or into stage shows or comics or, less frequently, games) is that the medium has certain elements that cannot be recreated. The level of depth and flow of language can only ever be from a certain perspective when flipped into the flesh of a different storytelling vehicle. Ask any *Harry Potter* fan for their favourite entry in the series and they’ll soon light their eyes with elements of the book that the film didn’t capture. The wonderful thing about books is that often they tell a story in a way that could not be expressed as fully in any other medium. These are the ones that capture us and leave us breathless at the end, mourning for the closure of the final page.
What’s so special about *Gravity*, then, is that it is a film equivalent. This story, these characters, this situation – none could be told with the same level of effectiveness in any other form (books included). Not only an easy contender for film of the year, *Gravity* is one of the finest pieces of filmmaking you’ll ever see, and God help you, see it on the big screen. It is the true definition of a “cinema movie”, the white-eyed airless immersion a vital tool in director Alfonso Cuarón’s approach.
_Ed. Note: I know this is really late, but I’m on holiday!_
You’ve already [seen the trailer](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/06/prisoners-trailer-hugh-jackman-goes-crazy/) for Prisoners so you already know the basic set up. Hugh Jackman and Maria Bello are best friends with Terrance Howard and Viola Davis On thanksgiving they share the evening together and the couples youngest children go outside to find a lost toy and never return. Paul Dano plays a simpleton named Alex who is the best suspect and is arrested by Jake Gyllenhaal but it quickly turns out that Alex doesn’t have the faculties to have committed such a crime and is released. Angry, desperate and searching for answers, Hugh Jackman kidnaps Paul Dano and proceeds to torture him for answers.
Turns out though that there is more going on. I’m going to talk in more detail after the jump and while I’m not going to directly spoil anything this _is_ a mystery story so talking about it will give you clues. If you want to skip the review and know what I think? Yes, go see it. It’s good. It’s not perfect but it’s well thought out and incredibly well acted and beautifully shot. Details after the jump.
_Apologies for the tardiness of this, I’m on holiday again._
You know it’s been 13 years since Pitch Black hit theatre screens. Not an amazing movie by any measure, but entertaining enough that it made a bunch of money and put Vin Diesel on the map.
In the movie a transport ship crashes and the few survivors have to deal with Richard B. Riddick (Diesel), a sociopathic mercenary who happens to have night vision being transported in said ship but then it turns out that the planet is infested with monsters that only survive in the dark and that there is an eclipse coming, so they have to work with Riddick to survive. Talk about shitty contrived luck.
Both of these facts lead to a sequel in 2004 in which Riddick turns out to be the prophesied hero who will stop an army of dead guys who are killing their way across…. you know what? I’m not even going to finish that because it doesn’t matter. _Chronicles or Riddick_ wasn’t that good, and this new movie basically doesn’t pay any attention to it. In fact this movie is pretty much literally just _Pitch Black 2_. Or maybe _Pitch Black Again_.
Is that such a bad thing? Well…. yes and no.
2010’s Kick-ass was a movie not without problems, but what problems it had were easy to forget because it was actually fun. It melded over the top violence and profanity with an upbeat and optimistic “holy shit we’re superheroes” tone which gave the movie a unique energy, and a couple of brilliant casting moves made the whole endeavor…. well _fun_ really is the operative word here.
It’s 3 years later both in our world and theirs and Kick-Ass 2 is here and you know what? It holds up pretty well!
Love him or hate him, Steve Jobs seems like he’d be an interesting guy. A college drop out that rose to the top of the tech world seemingly by uncompromising vision and sheer force of will. He was a perfectionist and quick to temper but by all accounts an inspiring leader and in his lifetime changed a great many things about the way we now think of computers.
There’s a lot of potential for a great movie there. This movie is not that movie though.
Neill Blompkamp burst on the scene a few years back with District 9, a movie fresh new SciFi action film concerning a group of displaced aliens living in a massive ghetto in Johannesburg South Africa. The film was born out of Blompkamp and Peter Jackson’s attempts to put together a _Halo_ movie and when that fell apart those resources when to expanding Blompkamp’s short film _Alive in Joburg_ into a full fledged movie. The result was a fantastic film with an original approach, story, characters and clear allegory to social and political issues facing us today. I’m not going to spoil it, just go watch it.
I mention this because the follow up, _Elysium_, is another SciFi action film with an interesting and unique approach and some clear allegories to social and political issues of our time. So how does it stack up? Not bad, actually.
Outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe the X-Men universe maintained by 20th Century Fox is tied for longest, and is probably the next best in terms of continuity, but over all the films have been incredibly hit or miss. We’ve had two truly great movies in _X-Men: First Class_ and _X2: X-Men United_, a good movie in _X-Men_ and two pretty terrible films in _X-Men 3: the Last Stand_ and _X-Men Origins: Wolverine_.
So how does the latest entry stack up? Pretty good actually. Or mostly, anyway.
Nicholas Winding Refn has made a lot of movies with stood, nearly silent protagonists. His last film, _drive_, I loved. _Valhalla Rising_ manages to convey a much or more about it’s mute protagonist without any dialogue from him as his previous work _Bronson_ does with the protagonist addressing the camera directly. So how does this one fare?
*The World’s End has been released in the UK a full month before North America, so here’s a review from our UK office to get you suitably excited!*
You know that time in your life when you just left school? Do you remember when alcohol was something to be celebrated and experimented with, as were sex, drugs and music? It felt like you could do anything, right? Well Gary King can remember that time all too well, and while the rest of his friends may have moved on to have jobs, wives and families, he finds himself striving for those halcyon days. And so he decides to get his gang back together to undertake a legendary pub crawl in their childhood town. 12 pubs. 12 pints. What could possibly go wrong?
You don’t need to read this. I’d like you to but there’s no need. Pacific Rim is _awesome_ and you should go see it. I’ll tell you why but it really doesn’t matter, just go enjoy it because it’s the best big budget action movie of the summer so far, this year so far, and the most fun I’ve had at the movies in what must be years.
The Lone Ranger hasn’t been on screen in more than 30 years. I remember watching reruns of the 60s tv series when I was a kid, watching the masked man fight for truth and justice with his partner Tonto with the William Tell Overture playing in the background. This was a time when heroes could be heroes without being complicated.
So how does that translate into the current times of dark, gritty, rebooted superheroes? Meh.
It’s been a whole since I had such mixed feelings about a movie.
A few months ago there was a movie about a [paramilitary group attacking the White House](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/03/matt-watches-bad-movies-olympus-has-fallen/). It was a terrible, cliche ridden film which took itself far too seriously to be good.
Naturally, since these things come in twos, White House Down features a paramilitary group attacking the white house. Is it better than it’s predecessor? Yes, absolutely. Is it good? Weeelllllllllll…….
Shakespeare was a genius. You know how I know that? I just watched a movie set in the present based on a play written in 1600, retaining the dialogue as originally written, and it was great.
There was never much doubt that it would be though.
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