Everything to do with films!
World War Z has a rocky production history to say the least. They wrote it, then shot it, then decided they didn’t like it, re-wrote it and shot most of it again.
Given all that it’s kind of amazing that it’s a coherent movie at all. Too bad though that the end result is kinda boring.
It’s strange to think that _This Is The End_ is the funniest movie of the year so far. At first glance it looks like a vanity project where Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg just wanted to work with all their friends and then setting that idea against the biblical end of the world. It really feels like it shouldn’t work at all but you know what? It really really does.
To put it succinctly: I haven’t laughed that hard all year.
I feel like somewhere here there was a great movie waiting to happen. That’s not to immediately say that Man of Steel is _bad_, but I do very much feel that it could have been quite a bit better than it is. There are a lot of things to like here but the film is hampered by its writing, both in terms of dialogue and pacing.
Should you see it? Yeah, it’s fucking gorgeous to watch. Will you enjoy it? I’m not really sure, and here’s why.
Holy Moly!
[Mike Fleming at Deadline Hollywood](http://www.deadline.com/2013/06/benicio-del-toro-takes-lead-role-in-marvels-guardians-of-the-galaxy/):
> Benicio Del Toro has joined the killer cast of the James Gunn-directed Marvel Studios franchise launcher Guardians Of The Galaxy. They are keeping his role under wraps, but he’s playing a character that is built to be part of future Marvel films, which means he has signed a deal with options that put him into multiple movies.
So let’s the speculation begin: _who do you think he’s going to be?_ Could he be Thanos? Or Rocket Racoon? Or someone out of left field?
Either way, Marvel keeps adding more talent to its universe and that’s a good thing. I can’t think of a franchise that I am more excited to see more films from, not Bond or Star Wars or anything.
If you’d asked me a few hours ago what I expected to write here I probably would have said something like “Well, After Earth _looks_ like it might be cool but M. Night Shyamalan directed it so I’m worried it’s going to suck.”
To be fair, M. Night Shyamalan’s track record of late isn’t exactly stellar. Signs and Unbreakable were middling. Lady in the Water and The Village were terrible. The Last Airbender was atrocious. It seems that every subsequent film has gotten worse and worse. My fears were unfounded though because I thought that the movie would be bad because he’d throw in some ridiculous twist that would make me groan at having to sit through the movie to get to it. Turns out it’s bad just because it’s just a pretty straightforward bad movie.
Upstream Color is much anticipated follow up to 2004s Primer, a brilliant experimental sciece fiction film from Shane Carruth. Like Primer it’s experimental, like Primer it’s thought provoking and original, and like Primer there’s basically nothing else I can say about why I like this movie without saying something about the movie that I feel would spoil the experience of seeing it for the first time.
That’s not to say that I’ll be spoiling the plot if you keep reading, but there’s aspects of this film other than the plot that I need to talk about to tell you why I like the film so much and I truly feel that going in as blind as possible is the best way to see it.
So let’s get this out of the way: I love this film and I recommend you see it. Stop reading now and go watch it and then come back and we’ll talk.
It’s a little strange to me that Behind the Candelabra came out on HBO rather than in theatres. It’s a little strange to me that none of the studios in North America have picked the movie up for distribution. It’s a little strange to me that after all the progress we’ve made in the world the story of Liberace is still too gay for America, even though there’s nothing much there that you haven’t already seen in Brokeback Mountain and others.
It’s a shame too because Behind the Candelabra is a great movie, and this way you might not get a chance to see it.
The tagline for Fast and Furious 6 us _”All Roads Lead To This”_ and it’s actually pretty apt. I’m a fan of the series because I like watching fast cars but this is probably the first film where everything went right. In fact Furious 6 (as it’s called by it’s own title card) is likely the best film in the series.
Yeah, I’m saying that after 6 tries (or five, depending how you count) they’ve finally gotten the formula right and the movie is entertaining as hell from start to finish.
This isn’t to say the movie is objectively good by any stretch but a movie doesn’t need to necessarily be objectively _good_ to be solidly _entertaining_.
So, time to talk about [another of my most anticipated films](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/01/matts-most-anticipated-of-2013/). I am a life long Star Trek fan. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. When I was a kid I watched The Original Series. When it debuted on TV I watched Every episode of Next Generaion, Deep Space Nine and even Voyager despite all it’s problems. Enterprise, I am of the opinion, got cancelled just when it had gotten really good. I’ve seen every movie multiple times and, perhaps most relevant to what I am about to say, I really liked JJ Abrams 2009 reboot of the franchise.
Yes, it has problems. Hell, the whole plot falls apart if you pay more than a cursory amount of attention to the details, but it has that certain extra _je ne said quo is_ that makes me forget all this as I watch it. Despite it’s ridiculousness it sucks me in and I enjoy it every time.
Naturally I was excited for a sequel and today we got one. So how is it? It’s… well it’s something.
I feel like Baz Luhrman has the potential to be an amazing film maker. He has a strong and distinct artistic and aesthetic voice, he can get Oscar calibre performances out of the actors cast in his his films and his films are often entertaining (except for Australia, which was boring).
Luckily The Great Gatsby is one of the entertaining ones, but as with his Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge I came away thinking “that was pretty fun!” But feeling like something was missing.
As a sequel not only to Iron Man and Iron Man 2 but also to The Avengers, Iron Man 3 has a lot to live up to. The Avengers changed everything, not only for the characters involved but for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well; how do you sell these characters as solo acts again?
Luckily Marvel has employed some very smart people because as it turns out Iron Man 3 follows up nicely on a everything that preceded it, is one of the strongest stand alone films produced by Marvel to date and is probably the prefect anchor for the second phase of Marvel films.
Unfortunately in reviewing this there are going to be what could be considered some very mild spoilers involved. I promise that I won’t reveal anything big and keep the rest to a minimum, but if you want to go in blind (which I recommend you do) then just know that this is a movie I absolutely recommend seeing and stop reading right now. If you want to know what I think in detail, hit the jump.
Do you ever read or watch science fiction? Have you ever had your mind blown at some plot twist or big reveal? Has a story ever made you think about things in this world in a new and different way?
Oblivion is a film that really wants to have this kind of impact on you but doesn’t. That’s not to say that it’s a bad movie just that while it is _good_, or rather _pretty okay_, it isn’t _great_.
I have a lot I’d like to say about The Place Beyond the Pines but I can’t because it would spoil the plot and that would diminish your enjoyment of this great film. Yes, it’s great and you should see it. Derek Cianfrance has assembled a feature of great power and thought and you should see it.
In fact, that’s the TL;DR version of this review. It’s great. Go watch it before you read this. I’m going to avoid saying anything that would spoil the plot but there’s plenty beyond the plot to spoil and I feel you’d go into this best if you go into it blind.
So go. I’ll wait here. Last chance. Ok good.
The Place Beyond The Pines is a fantastic film about fathers and sons and they’re influence on one another and about sins and feelings that are passed from one generation to another. It follows Handsome Luke (Ryan Gosling), a motorcycle stunt rider turned bank robber, and Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper), a rookie cop who ends up involved in his case, and their relationship with their respective sons.
To say it’s a powerful film would be the understatement of the year. Gosling and Cooper as the two leads both give tremendous performances as characters under stresses they never anticipated and circumstances they’ve put themselves in.
Gosling, as with previous performances in Drive and earlier films such as The Believer seems to have mastered the art of calm, quiet rage. The rage in this case comes explicitly from his circumstance and implied self loathing rather than from an unexplored backstory.
Cooper by contrast manages to convey his characters barely covered guilt and fear with a visceral realism, and I can’t help but be reminded that he was nominated for an Oscar last year.
Both these men I am sure will win all the accolades they deserve in the next few years.
Following them is their sons, and Dane DeHaan playing Luke’s son Jason. This kid is going places. He hasn’t been in much, but between this and Chronicle the kid has some chops and I expect he’ll be one of the next big kids on the block.
The supporting cast, rounded out by Ben Mendelsohn, Mahershala Ali and Eva Mendes is pretty stellar as well. I wish Ben Mendelsohn has more to do in the film but that’s a minor quibble.
All of this is of course due largely because of Cianfrance’s directorial style. Much of the film is filmed in long single shot takes shot with unsteadied cameras. The desired effect of this –which often does not work– is to create a more intimate feeling for the film. In this case it works incredibly well, creating the feeling of being right there beside the characters as they are going through their trials.
Further, while many films will have a character (or two) explicitly state the moral or message of the film, Cianfrance elects to show instead of tell; the characters actions inform us rather than the script and i very much appreciate a film that trusts it’s audience in this way.
Cianfrane has only directed 3 features so far, and only two of those have released wide, but he can count myself as a major fan moving forward. This film is ambitious in it’s message and scope and it pulls it off on all fronts.
This [one of the films I’ve been most looking forward to this year](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/01/matts-most-anticipated-of-2013/) and I’m happy to report that it’s the first one to knock it right out of the park.
As you may recall [42 is one of the movies I was most looking forward to this year](https://awesomefriday.ca/2013/01/matts-most-anticipated-of-2013/). As both a baseball fan and history buff, how could it not be? Jackie Robinson is one of the all time great players and his story is one of the most important in American history, not just baseball history but American history.
Given these two things I feel I could be forgiven that I hoped this movie would be great but unfortunately it isn’t. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s actually a good movie but it’s also not exemplary. Other than being about Jackie Robinson there’s nothing that really sets it apart from any other “underdog/outsider makes good” sports story.
Like I say, that’s not a problem per se however it is kind of disappointing. There are a lot of things about 42 that are great though, so let’s talk about them.
First, the story is tight. It focusses on Robinson’s first season and not his whole career. This is a good thing because he ended up playing for a long time and eventually won a world series in 1955 a full 8 years after he debuted. There is a lot to explore but keeping the movie to his first major league season keeps the story more focussed and honestly, these sports movies always have 2 minutes of footnotes at the end about where the characters ended up and the World Series fact works as one of those given that his first season was by far his most important.
If I have complaints about the story they are first that the film, admittedly likely out of necessity glosses over how Branch Rickey chose Jackie Robinson ignoring basically all of the scouting and selection process (save seeing Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson’s names of a board at one point). It likely would have made the movie too long, but I still would have liked to see some more of the “who do we choose” stuff than just the one scene we get.
Second, it’s pretty much entirely predictable. To be fair, it’s a true story that I know, but also it’s an “underdog/outside makes good” sports movie, there’s a pattern to these things. Everyone is uncomfortable or doesn’t know what to think at the start. Antagonists say things like “you’ll never make it” and “you don’t belong here” and eventually he wins over most everyone and wins the day.
As an extension of this, while the film does actually very well with lot of these tropes it also does pretty poorly with others and the film is peppered with scenes that feel like they’re right out of a lifetime movie of the week that just scream “LOOK AT HOW BAD RACISM WAS AND HOW AWFUL PEOPLE WERE”.
Where the movie does shine greatly is in it’s supporting cast. Chadwick Boseman is good as Robinson but Harrison Ford is great as Branch Rickey, the owner of the Dodgers determined to integrate baseball. Ford is a great actor and it’s nice to see him remembering that for a change instead of just playing a grumpy old man. Oscar worthy? I’m not sure, but it’s certainly the type of role that the academy loves.
The other standouts for me are Christopher Meloni as Leo “Nice Guys Finish Last” Durocher, the manager of the Dodgers famous for telling the team if they didn’t like Robinson they would be missed, and also Alan Tudyk as Ben Chapman (manager of the Phillies) who famously opposed Jackie Robinson’s presence. There are a string of scenes where Tudyk has to yell a string of racial epithets that, were it myself in his place, I think would have made me sick as soon as the camera stopped rolling and as a member of the audience made me legitimately uncomfortable.
So to repeat myself, 42 is a good movie but not a great one. If you like sports even a little you should probably see it. If you don’t like sports you could certainly do worse (Scary Movie 5 is out, for example). I only wish that it were a great movie instead of just a good one.
Spring Breakers might be the smartest movie I see all year based on one fact: It’s managed to advertise itself dubstep and drug fueled sex romp for four girls but it’s actually a highly intelligent movie highlighting the emptyness and malaise felt by the current Gen Y crowd.
Yeah, I said it, Spring Breakers is really good and you should watch it.
The basic premise is this: four college girls played by Ashley Benson, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens and Rachel Korine (Director Harmony Korine’s wife) want to go to spring break but have no money despite saving all year. All of them are desperate to go, and two of them stage a robbery of a local restaraunt to get the necessary funds.
They then head down to florida for spring break and indulge in all the dubstep and drug fueled debauchery you can imagine without the film being X-rated before getting busted for posession and subsequently bailed out by Alien, the wannabe rapper and drug dealer played by James Franco, who then invites them to roll with him and his crew. Alien though is ankle deep in the criminal world of Florida and things get pretty real pretty quick.
At least three of the four girls are playing against type here, being current or former Disney pricesses, but that serves to highlight just about everything they do and make it, conciously or not (and whether you’ve seen their work or not) all the more shocking, especially Hudgens and Benson as the two bad girls of the group (Korine is the deluded one and Gomez is the good girl). All of this plays out semi-linearly, jumping back and forth around the immediate action.
James Franco is enough reason to see this film though. I know a lot of people who hate him, but every once in a while he bats one right outta the park and this is one of those times. He disappears right into Alien and it’s almost surprising he made it back out.
What makes his performance great is that you come to realize that Alien seems to undertand not only that hes a Svengali type character, but also that he’s kind of useless at it. There’s a weird sincerity about his character who is trying so hard but is ultimately still just a really highly functioning poser. He wants the thug life but doesn’t actually seem to want to be a thug, and later in the film when he says he’s falling in love with the girls it’s totally sincere.
This is one of those movies that looks like it’s going to be stupid but then turns out to be great, that has managed to marketed as one thing but is actually quite another. It manages to present what’s going on without necessarily praising or celebrating it which is hard to pull offl. It’s sharp and intelligent and gorgeous to watch. Fair warning though, this is a movie that you are going to either love or hate, I can’t see any middle ground but that’s kind of the point. Either way, I can’t recommend anything other than that you watch it.
So go watch it already.
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