EDGE OF TOMORROW: Fresh Repetition

Director: Doug Liman
Writers: Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth
Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt
Runtime: 113 mins.
2014

What if a big budget summer blockbuster could be more than ingratiating?

What if that blockbuster didn't focus on visual effects at the expense of all else?  What if it treated every aspect of the film with respect and attention?  What if it tended to script, performance, pace, and tone in equal parts?

What if that script had a more pristine structure than some Oscar contenders?

What if this film came from a director whose filmography has been radically hit or miss?  What if it came from a team of writers who have arguably one excellent film between them--a film that came out in 1995?

What if the star was a former Grade-A man's man of a movie star, who has recently been perceived as "going off the deep end" and "box office poison"?

What if, despite the presence of said man's man movie star, the real badass of the film was the female protagonist?  What if the male protagonist was cowardly and hopelessly out of his league, and he had to learn the ropes from her?  What if the film didn't relegate her to the position of trophy girlfriend?  What if the movie didn't focus on their romance and instead allowed them to be real characters with a real, mature, and evolving relationship?

What if, in addition to all of this, the movie delivered on everything that is expected of a blockbuster action flick?  What if that delivery was a heavy dose of sci-fi and some of the haul-assed best mech action and convincing special effects this side of Avatar?

Actually I liked these effects better than Avatar's.

This is Edge of Tomorrow.

GODZILLA: Big Bad Ballet

Director: Gareth Edwards
Writers: Max Borenstein and Dave Callaham
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Sally Hawkins
Runtime: 123 mins.
2014

I am not especially familiar with the Godzilla mythos.  Before this film, the only Godzilla movie I'd had the misfortune to see was the 1998 Roland Emmerich version, starring a big CGI iguana and featuring the deft tagline: "Size Does Matter".  The bar was set low.

For many others, however, the bar was rather high.  Godzilla is a titanic figure in Japanese pop culture, and at this point has to be considered a piece of Americana as well.  People have been craving a quality Hollywood treatment of the creature for years, one that isn't hampered by a special effects capacity that doesn't surpass "man in a rubber suit," and one that does not resemble 1998's Godzilla in any way, shape, or form.

This is what they've been waiting for.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER - The Man, the Movie, the Mythos

Directors: Joe and Anthony Russo
Writers: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie
Runtime: 136 mins.
2014

Part 1: THE MAN

Captain America is a wiener.  This character trait is an established fact, as undeniable as the claim that Spider-Man is a smart-ass, or that Superman is a wiener.

Think of it this way.  Of all the people you know, how many of them would say that Captain America is their favorite superhero?  I have an inkling that the number is zero, but if not... how many of those people would have said Captain America was their favorite hero before, say, the release of The Avengers?  I feel like we've narrowed the sample size to one dude living in Colorado.

How is it, then, that Captain America: The Winter Soldier has achieved such popular and critical success, to the point that some are heralding it as the best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie to date?  And, despite this near-universal acclaim, why do people still feel the need to preface their thoughts on the movie with some variation of the phrase, "I was never a big Captain America fan, but..."?

It has to do with the history of what Captain America means.

THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL: Tainted Laugh

Director: Wes Anderson
Writer: Wes Anderson
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Tony Revolori, Saoirse Ronan, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Mathieu Amalric, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Tom Wilkinson, Owen Wilson, Lea Seydoux, Bob Balaban
Runtime: 100 mins.
2014

Some of my best movie-watching experiences have been in movie theaters: the uproarious midnight showing of The Avengers; the palpable tension of Looper; the oppressive atmosphere of Sinister.  Sitting on the floor in the aisle of an empty movie theater during Gravity and getting lost in space.  Experiencing The Dark Knight in IMAX.  Hating every moment of Knowing.

"Movie theaters are fun" is certainly no groundbreaking statement, but I think it's one we have to think about and reaffirm every so often now that the way we consume entertainment is shifting drastically.  At any rate, I was more than pleased at having the opportunity to see Wes Anderson's new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel, this past Saturday with a few friends.  We had the movie theater experience, and we had it hard.

GRAVITY: In Space No One Can Hear You Win Seven Oscars

Real women don't let go.  Take that, Frozen.

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Writer: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Runtime: 91 mins.
2013

Here's the breakdown:

12 Years a Slave: 3.  Dallas Buyer's Club: 3.  Frozen: 2.  The Great Gatsby: 2.  Her: 1.  Philomena: 0.  Nebraska: 0.  Captain Phillips: 0.  The Wolf of Wall Street: 0.  American Hustle: 0.

Gravity: 7.

Seven Oscars.  That kind of success is remarkable.  Not to mention that it is absolutely unprecedented for a sci-fi film.  The question of Can Gravity win? has been satisfactorily answered.  The question that remains is Did Gravity deserve to win?  After that is answered, an even more savory question lingers: Why, after 86 years, did the Academy open their arms to a sci-fi film?  These are the questions I'm looking to address.

FROZEN: Ice Queens Aren't So Frigid

In ice, no one can hear you scream.

Directors: Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck
Writer: Jennifer Lee
Cast: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad
Runtime: 102 mins.
2013

Disney's Frozen has a lot going for it.  The visuals are stunning.  The soundtrack has its moments.  The characters are strong and well-written.  The humor hits the mark with pleasing consistency.  The pace is usually brisk.  The cast is spot on.  It's also just damned fun to watch.

The movie has another thing going for it though.  It strives to be a contemporary feminist version of the well-established Disney Princess paradigm.  In one sense, this branding of Frozen as a feminist film leads to a lot of bickering that distracts from the movie itself (some examples in a minute).  In another sense, the movie begs to be viewed and reviewed as a subversive step forward for women's issues in Hollywood--it's written into the film's DNA.  So that's how I'm going to review it.

AMERICAN HUSTLE: Neither Profundity Nor Moribundity

Director: David O. Russell
Writers: Eric Singer, David O. Russell
Cast: Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K.
Runtime: 138 mins.
2013

American Hustle lives in the endlessly entertaining realm of smart cinema, breezing past clever and falling short of intelligent.  It never even brushes its gaudy sleeves against profound, but the good thing is it never tries.

Our heroes are Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) and Sydney Prosser (Amy Adams), lovers and small-time con artists who get nabbed by F.B.I. agent Richie DiMaso (Bradley Cooper).  They make a deal to participate in a sting that, thanks to DiMaso's wild and dangerous impulses for glory, spirals into a situation too big for our savvy con artists to handle.  Irving's ditzy, manipulative wife Rosalyn (Jennifer Lawrence) is a wild card who only complicates matters.  Through all of this, the characters struggle to find something real and genuine in love and friendship despite the constant subterfuge.  But the plot isn't really what's important here.

DRINKING BUDDIES: Empty Calories

Director: Joe Swanberg
Writer: Joe Swanberg
Cast: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston, Jason Sudeikis
Runtime: 90 mins.
2013

Critics have embraced Drinking Buddies as an example of mumblecore hitting the mainstream: a mostly improvised romantic comedy that taps into the charming banality of relationships in an understated way that is rare for the often bombastic, overstated medium of film.

I suppose it is that.  Unfortunately, I also found it to be one of the duller movies I've seen in recent memory.

MANIAC: Cover Your Eyes

Director: Franck Khalfoun
Writers: Alexandre Aja, Gregory Levasseur
Cast: Elijah Wood, Nora Arnezeder
Runtime: 89 mins.
2012

This movie. . .

Let me first say that Maniac combines my discussion of found footage in my End of Watch blog post with my discussion of slasher films in my Scream blog post.  It is a found footage slasher film, without actually being as simple as either one of those things.

Let me second say that if you are squeamish, or don't appreciate being made to feel profoundly uncomfortable, you probably shouldn't watch this movie.  Note that I said "appreciate" rather than "enjoy."  Either way, there is no enjoyment to be had here.

TIMECRIMES: Cold and Calculated Like A Ticking Clock

Director: Nacho Vigalondo
Writer: Nacho Vigalondo
Cast: Karra Elejalde, Barbara Goenaga, Nacho Vigalondo
Runtime: 92 mins.
2007

Timecrimes, or Cronocrimenes, is a Spanish time-travelling film about a rather normal middle-aged fellow who stumbles into a rather abnormal temporal scenario.  This fellow Hector (Karra Elejalde) begins the film by relaxing with his wife in the yard of his new home.  As he is scanning the woods through binoculars for some unspecified reason, he spies a young woman in the woods who is calmly stripping for, again, no apparent reason whatsoever.  Of course our hero investigates this mystery, whereupon he discovers the woman (Barbara Goenaga) lying naked and unconscious.  He approaches her slowly, only to be stabbed in the arm by a bandage-faced individual with a pair of scissors.  This startling development leads him to seek shelter in a strange complex, and make contact with a mysterious scientist (Nacho Vigalondo) who coaxes him into a large machine filled with white, milky fluid, ostensibly as a place to hide from the bandage-faced dude.  Well, it's a time machine.  So ends the first act.

I'm not one for recaps-as-reviews, but it's kind of impossible to talk about this movie without some knowledge of the plot, because that's really all there is to it.  The acting isn't anything special.  The production values aren't anything special.  What themes there are are fairly straightforward, and rooted firmly in the plot.  The real draw of this film is how flawlessly it realizes its time travel scenario, careful to iron out all wrinkles as it speeds along.