Category Archives: Movies

Movies, TV

Burt Reynolds (1936-2018)

If you’re like me, and getting really old, you may remember the 1970’s and 80’s.

If you do, you can’t not know actor/director Burt Reynolds, who it was announced yesterday passed away at the age of 82.

Mr. Reynolds rose to prominence in the earlier 1970’s, specifically with his fantastic performance in 1972’s Deliverance as Lewis, the would-be alpha male outdoorsman who takes a group of fellow city folk friends to a nature/river weekend trip which rapidly spirals into horror…

The movie was incredibly faithful to the James Dickey novel it was based on, so much so it even had the author play a small but vital role in the movie’s closing minutes!

Reynolds’ Lewis is, IMHO, the most fascinating character in the film, someone who is outwardly virile, charismatic, and clearly the “leader” of his pack.  He’s the one who gets his friends into the woods and when things go bad, he looks to be the one who will deal with the dangers and get everyone out.  Deliverance, to my mind, is like an Americanized version of  Joseph Conrad’s wonderful book Heart of Darkness, which was the basis of Apocalypse Now.  We have “civilized” people venturing into the wilds of nature, where the rules of a polite society no longer apply and where the danger is very real.

Here’s the thing that makes Lewis so damn fascinating (MILD SPOILERS FOLLOW!): He’s ultimately not all that different from the others in his group and something of a paper tiger.  In less capable hands, Lewis could have been presented as the movie’s villain, someone who dragged his friends to near doom and, when the going gets really tough is taken out of action.

But this performance and this character is far more nuanced.  Yes, he’s a man who got himself and others in over their proverbial heads, but Reynold’s performance following one of this movie’s pivotal sequences, after he kills a man, shows some incredible acting on his part.  Lewis kills one of the mountain men/rapists, but as the man dies from the arrow shot through his heart, one is riveted by Reynold’s acting here.  He is tough at first, but then, as the man slowly, agonizingly, dies, the look on his face changes to horror, to a realization of the trouble they’re in and how he, the alpha male, is also in over his head (pay particular attention to his facial expressions from 1:44 seconds or so):

Unfortunately, this clip ends before what I consider the best bit, where Lewis says, almost in a whisper, that he hit the man with a “Center shot”.  His whisper is the sound of a man’s soul dying.

Here’s a funny bit from the Conan show, where Burt Reynolds talks about that famous scene and how one of the roles was cast:

Here’s the thing: By the time Burt Reynolds appeared in Deliverance in 1972, he had already racked up a LARGE number of roles, dating back to 1958 (14 years!), in numerous TV shows and movies and including roles in Gunsmoke, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone (the original!), Hawk (a detective show starring Mr. Reynolds), Navajo Joe (a “spaghetti” type western from 1966 which starred Mr. Reynolds), Sam Whiskey (another movie, from 1969, where he was the protagonist), Dan August (another TV series featuring Reynolds in the starring role), and, just before the release of Deliverance, he starred in Fuzz, a movie based on the famous Ed McBain (aka Evan Hunter) 87th Precinct novels and also featured Raquel Welch and Yul Brynner.

So Mr. Reynolds, following years of hard work and appearances in a number of roles, was suddenly “hot”.  He would follow up Deliverance with mostly starring roles in movies during the rest of the 1970’s.  Some movies fared better than others, most were interesting, including White Lightening (the first of his two “Gator” films), Gator (the second of the, you guessed it, Gator films), The Longest Yard, and Nickelodeon.

But Reynold’s biggest hit was to come in the year 1977…

Smokey and the Bandit was a HUGE hit, a film that was second in the Box Office that year, beaten by this long forgotten film called Star Wars, and it was a freaking delight.

The movie featured Reynolds, Sally Field (cute as a button!), Jerry Reed, and a spectacularly foul mouthed Jackie Gleason as the main cast in what amounts to a comedic full length car chase film.  It was wonderfully light-hearted and never had a dull moment and Reynold’s charisma was on full display.

(Side note, I wrote about the curious similarities between Jackie Gleason’s Sheriff Buford T. Justice and the James Bond film Live and Let Die’s Sheriff Pepper here)

From that point on Reynolds would continue working hard, appearing in films that were quite good if not quite as memorable as those that came before.  I loved The End, a movie Mr. Reynolds directed, though today people don’t remember it that much…

… and Hooper, a return feature with Smokey and the Bandit director Hal Needham (I reviewed that here).  He had a hit with The Cannonball Run, a sorta/kinda reworking of The Gumball Rally, but the film wasn’t as good as one would have hoped, though Roger Moore, of all people, was quite hilarious in it…

He would direct and star in the 1981 film Sharky’s Machine, which I feel is one of Mr. Reynold’s last great movies before he seemed to “lose it” with audiences…

He lost it, unfortunately, due to a number of middling films like Stroker Ace (back together with director Hal Needham), Cannonball Run II (though I wasn’t the biggest fan of the original, it was a masterpiece of comedy compared to the sequel), Stick, Heat, and Malone.

Though it wasn’t a great film, it was fun to see Reynolds paired with longtime friend Clint Eastwood in City Heat…

Mr. Reynolds, going into the later 1980’s and into the 1990’s, looked like his time had come and gone.  Yet he still worked, quite frequently, appearing in roles both large and small on the big and small screen.  And then in 1997 he appeared in Boogie Nights and, after too many years, received great kudos for his acting…

Sadly, Mr. Reynolds, in his later years, suffered from a number of health problems and, for the last decade or so, has looked increasingly frail.

So it wasn’t too big a shock to hear of his passing yesterday but, as you can tell by the length of this posting, I admired the hell out of him and his work.

Here’s to you, Mr. Reynolds.  You will be missed.

General, Movies

Obituaries in the news…

Over the weekend the biggest news was the passing of Senator John McCain.  He’s been a fixture of the news for many years, becoming all the more well known during his failed campaign for the presidency against Barack Obama.

Like all too many, I personally never knew the man but his background and service during the Vietnam War, at which time he sustained considerable injuries and was captured and held prisoner for a number of years, refusing to be released early until his fellow prisoners were first released, is the stuff of legend.

His personal life afterwards and his political career, however, gives me pause.  He proposed to his much younger current wife while still married.  His ties to the Keating Five is worrisome and during his presidential run he ultimately chose Sarah Palin as his running mate, a decision which very likely hurt his campaign but which hinted -and perhaps encouraged- some of the same far right know-nothings to keep working at taking over the Republican party… which they essentially have today.

Worst still, even though he had painful first-hand experiences with war, when he became senator he was a strong proponent for war against Iraq (he would, practically on his deathbed, acknowledge it was a mistake).  He was also infamously caught mock-singing “Bomb bomb bomb, bomb Iran” at a function…

Certainly these things, among others, disturbed me but even having listed these examples, one can’t help but admire him as well.  One simply cannot sweep under the carpet the literal hell he went through in Vietnam.  He also engendered considerable respect on both sides of the political aisle and, while many of his political leanings do not follow my own, he seemed respectful of others views and was willing to defend his opponents when he felt they were being maligned…

Hard to imagine Donald Trump would show a fraction of the decency of this moment.  In fact, as I write this (at 8:40 am, the day after the announcement of Senator McCain’s passing), the flag over the White House is no longer flying at half-mast and Trump’s only reaction to the Senator’s death was a tweet directed at the family which -of course- never mentioned the Senator by name and -of course, part deux- showed a photograph of Donald Trump himself.

Mixed feelings though I have about the Senator, I respect his service and will miss his presence.

Rest In Peace, Senator.

*****

Senator McCain’s passing all but eclipsed the passing of another very prominent person: Playwright, screenwriter, and author Neil Simon.

Known for creating many memorable stories which made their way to Broadway, television, and film, perhaps his most famous work wound up being this one…

Famous as the movie was, the TV show based on it, featuring Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, was an incredibly big follow up hit.

The Odd Couple would be reworked many, many times in many other ways, including a recent TV series featured Thomas Lennon and Matthew Perry.

One of my personal favorite of his works was Murder By Death (1976).  In some ways, this film predicted the arrival of Airplane! a few years later.  While Airplane! was a hilarious take on the then popular airline disaster/general disaster movie genre, Murder By Death amusingly took on all the major crime/detective works released up to that point.  It featured quite the cast, too!

Rest in Peace, fellows.

Rest in Peace.

Movies

Ready Player One (2018) a (mildly) belated review

One of the nice things about going on a trip like I did (sorry for sounding like I’m rubbing it in… I honestly don’t mean to!) is that if you’re lucky and, like me, you travel via “regular” class (ie, not first class), you’ll find yourself traveling in an airplane that offers individual monitors filled with diversions during your long trip.

That was the case on the way to California: Each seat had an individual monitor on which you could watch TV shows, movies, play games, etc. etc.  The first film I saw via this device was A Quiet Place (reviewed here).  The trip proved long enough to allow me to see another recent release, the Steven Spielberg directed Ready Player One.

Based on the 1980’s nostalgia heavy novel by Ernest Cline, the movie is filled with references to -natch- movies, TV shows, video games, and general pop culture, much -though not all- of which is heavily 1980’s oriented.

If you’ve read the book (I have not), there is an interesting review quote on one of the edition’s covers…

Image result for ready player one matrix meets willy wonka

I know it’s tough to see, but on the upper left hand corner of this cover is the following quote from USA Today:

Enchanting.  WILLY WONKA meets THE MATRIX.

This quote essentially gets to the heart of what Ready Player One, the movie, is.  Here’s the trailer:

Tye Sheridan plays Wade Watts, a young man who looks curiously like a young, beardless Steven Spielberg…

Related image

…who, in the year 2045, lives in your typical concrete and metal degrading city-hellscape and, like most of the people, longs to live there as little as possible.  Like many, he often heads out to the “Oasis”, a virtual reality playground wherein people can do all sorts of things with their Avatars, from playing games to participating in any sort of events (nightclubs, dances, romance, etc.).  This, obviously, is the Matrix-like part of the movie.

Oasis, we find in an exposition heavy first 10 minutes or so of the film, was created by an eccentric -and deceased- man by the name of James Halliday (Mark Rylance) who has hidden in this vast virtual playground 3 “keys” which, if found, will entitle the person who gets them control over Oasis.  And there, ladies and gentlemen, is your Willy Wonka element.

As you can guess, Wade Watts and his friends wind up chasing down the keys while an evil/no-good/bad industrialist tries to get the jump on them.

And… and…

It’s okay, I suppose, but the movie, on a whole, left me more underwhelmed than it should have.

That’s not to say there aren’t some delightful sequences, the biggest/best of which involves the hunt for the second key.  I won’t give the elements of this away, but it involves recreating key sequences from a very famous film originally released in 1980, a film which was directed by a person many, including myself, feel is one of the greatest directors there ever was.  I’ll say no more.

The problem with Ready Player One is that the film moves along at a rapid pace but doesn’t allow us to get sufficiently invested in the characters.  The fact of the matter is that they’re barely that: They’re the “good guys” and that’s that.  They’re up against the “bad guys” and that’s that.

Yet as a viewer I never felt they were in any big danger.  The film simply never makes us feel like there are real stakes involved, even though some ancillary characters are eliminated in “real life”.

Again, though, the film isn’t a total bust.  Along with the hunt for the second key, I did find myself laughing at a few sequences/jokes here and there, and it was kinda fun to try to spot all the “easter eggs” this film is filled with.

I also thought it was kinda fun that the film’s climax makes reference to the very first video game that did indeed feature an easter egg (as a long time video game player, I was aware of the game and the egg, so this stuff wasn’t a huge surprise to me).

Yet I can’t help but return to my main complaints: The movie never drew me in as much as I would have hoped and there is never a proper sense of suspense regarding the adventures shared.  We’re also, unfortunately, dealing with characters who are two dimensional and hard to care for.

(I could also get nitpicky and note the way the first key is found seemed waaaay too easy, especially when the movie notes how for so many years people going to Oasis were unable to “solve” it.  Considering the types of easter eggs found by people in all sorts of video games -some deviously well hidden, including that “first” easter egg- this “solution” was… lame).

So…

The bottom line is: The film has its moments and, as spectacle, is interesting.  But it could, indeed should, have been more.  I’d recommend it to those who are fascinated with video games and general pop culture.  Others may want to stay away.

Movies

A Quiet Place (2018) a (mildly) belated review

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It’s a strange thing to find yourself enjoying, indeed, enjoying quite a bit, a film that by all rights should have triggered all kinds of logic problems in one’s mind.  Logic problems that, in a lesser film, would have made you walk away shaking your head and/or laughing at the silliness of the story you just witnessed.

A Quiet Place is just such a film.

Released earlier this year to great acclaim, A Quiet Place stars and was co-written and directed by John Krasinski (best known -at least up to now and that may well change!- for The Office).  His real life wife Emily Blunt co-stars in the film playing his -what else?- wife and Millicent Simmonds, Noah Jupe, and Cade Woodward play their children.

The scenario is a frightening one: Strange, murderous creatures with hides as tough as metal and claws which can pierce through metal have appeared on Earth in the not too distant past.  These creatures have decimated humanity, appearing mysteriously and wiping out anything they can get their claws on.  Thing is: The creatures appear to be very sensitive to sound, so Earth’s only survivors are those who have been able to not make noise while trying to find a way to fight these seemingly indestructible monsters.

At the start of the film we are introduced to the Abbotts, the family we will follow through this movie.  I’ll tread very carefully here regarding spoilers, but suffice to say they lead a very quiet life, aided to a great extent by the fact that their eldest daughter is mute and thus had already developed the ability to communicate with her -and among each other- through sign language.

We follow them during one trip to the city for supplies and then a short time later during one fateful day where Mrs. Elliot, pregnant with child, and the family confront their worst nightmares.

It is terrific, suspenseful stuff and, wisely, John Krasinski knows how to build tension without going into gore.  This is an elegant film, a film that shows Mr. Krasinski’s a student of the masters.  His work here reminded me, quite positively, of Alfred Hitchcock.  The suspense at times was that good.

However…

As I said before, the main problem one might have with the film depends entirely on how willing one is to forgive the film’s many logic lapses and allow the work to, well, work for you despite these lapses.

I suppose if I get into them I’ll have to deal with SPOILERS so let me do so in a moment.

Before I do, let me say this: The problems I’m about to note below didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the film.  Despite these problems, the film works, and works quite well.

Very much recommended.

Now then….

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!

Still there?

Welp, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Now then, as I said before, the film involves these mysterious monsters who are apparently blind and hunt their prey purely through sound.

In other words, you make a noticeable sound and… bang, you’re dead.

Which begs the question: Why the heck didn’t humanity simply create a series of noisemakers to draw these blind creatures to where they want them to be then rain hell upon them?

How about leading them like lemmings after, say, a remote controlled vehicle and over a very high ravine?

I mean, there seem to me to be a number of ways humanity could -indeed should- have been able to use the monster’s main attribute against them.

The movie’s climax does feature a use of this, effectively finding a noise that bothers/freezes the creatures so they can be picked off, but, again, if sound is their way of hunting, why not put speakers all over a city and blast music 24 hours a day to disorient and draw them in?

But that’s just one logic issue.  Here’s another: How exactly did the Abbots have electricity in their farm?  The movie shows they have lights and a camera system which they use to watch their property.  It’s all well and good, but how do they have this?

If they’re using a generator, it would make noise and that, naturally, would attract the monsters.  I didn’t see any solar arrays, so that seems out.  This is presented in the film but never explained in any way.

Finally, the movie’s climax features a very emotional scene in which the head of the family sacrifices himself for his children, who are pinned down inside a truck while one of these monsters are attacking them.

The monster had attacked and injured the father and he makes eye contact with his children, tells them through hand signs that he loves them, then yells out loud drawing the monster to him and getting killed.

Pardon my French here, but this scene was the one that bothered me the most of all the ones I’ve presented so far.

Why the fuck did he yell?

He had an axe in his hand.  He could have tossed it against the metal shack to his side to make noise to draw the creature away.  Why did he choose to yell and draw the creature right at him.

It was an emotional scene.  It was a scene that ratcheted up the already near unbearable tension… yet it was a scene that made little sense.

IF, of course, you let it.  That one, as I said before, bothered me more than the others, but even it wasn’t enough to make me hate this film.

Congratulations, all involved.  You took a somewhat flawed/illogical concept that could have failed pretty spectacularly in lesser hands yet delivered a first rate suspense/horror film.

As I said before and I’ll repeat again: Recommended.

General, Movies

Disney and Fox

A few days back it was announced that Disney and Fox shareholders approved a deal in which Disney would essentially buy up Fox.  (You can read the New York Times article about this here).

For those into movies like I am, this means that Disney now owns pretty much ALL the Marvel Movie properties.  For those unaware, Marvel Comics was in trouble in the 1970’s and going into the 1980’s and wound up selling the rights to many of their then biggest properties (Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, X-Men) to keep afloat.

When Marvel’s magical movie win streak started, they had the rights to what were considered “ancillary” characters but not the “big” ones like those I mentioned above.  Yet the movies were good and audiences loved them and they made a ton of money and, quite suddenly, “ancillary” characters like Iron Man, Thor, Black Panther, etc. became BIG characters.

And yet there was, I strongly suspect, a desire to have all the major characters and their various rights (film, TV, etc.) to be under one house.

Understand, I’m not saying the only reason Disney bought up Fox was to get their hands on the Marvel movie properties they own (X-Men, Fantastic Four, and the characters tied in to them.  Spider-Man’s film rights are owned by Sony and they have come into an agreement with Disney to allow them to make movies with the character).

But it certainly must have been at least one reason they were interested in this purchase.

Some comic book fans are elated at the prospect of seeing all the Marvel characters interact on film, especially if the quality of the films are on the level of the current Marvel works.

Me?

I guess it could be fun and all, but…

We have another massive media company becoming all the more massive.  Recently, AT&T bought Warner Brothers.  Now Disney buys Fox.

I’m going to be blunt about this: It makes me uncomfortable.

Success is wonderful.  Monopolies, less so.

As a consumer, one should welcome competition among companies.  Competition makes companies innovate, effectively try to “one up” their competition.  The result is better product often at lower prices.  A win-win for consumers.

But with monopolies, there are far less competitors.  Further, do you want to live in a world where all your entertainment is provided by only a select few companies?  I can’t help but think it will mean less variety.  And will a “wholesome” company like Disney continue to release R-Rated Deadpool type films, or will they shut that down?

As I said, it bothers me, though given the era we’re living in and unless we have a serious look by politicians into the current monopolistic business practices we’re seeing, it likely won’t change.

Movies

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) a (right on time!) review

As I’ve mentioned too many times before, I don’t get much of a chance to go out and see films when they’re first released.  I wish I did, but that’s the way it goes.

But I do try to make time to do so and, once in a while, actually manage to see a film while it is in theaters.  So it was with the latest Mission: Impossible film, Fallout, released last Friday.  Here’s the movie’s trailer:

I’m a fan of the Mission: Impossible films, though I would quickly state that they haven’t all been winners.  Starting with film #4 in the series (Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol) the last three of the six so far released have have developed a certain style and have been successful following that style, and this extends to the latest film in this series.

Having said that…

Sometimes I feel like I’m “that guy”, the one who reacts negatively to things when everyone else views them as positive.  Likewise, there are times I’m positive about things when everyone else is negative.  I am that fool that really liked Batman v Superman when  so many dismissed the film as dark and dull.  I’m the guy who didn’t like Guardians of the Galaxy when everyone seemed to go ape… uh… crap over it.

And here I am telling you Mission: Impossible – Fallout is a very well made action/adventure film… that in the end left me wanting more.

Let me explain:

The movie presents us with nothing we haven’t seen before.  Yes, the movie moves and most of the stunt work is extremely well done.  And you once again have to give credit to Mr. Cruise for pushing the boundaries and doing some really crazy stuff on his own.

But the film offers a muddy story which doesn’t really surprise you all that much (if you can’t figure out who the bad guy is, you simply haven’t seen many films).  We have ancillary characters doing odd things to keep the story going, and the bad guys are presented as being unbelievably knowledgeable about everything going on and manipulate everyone so well yet of course manage to fail in the end.

Look, this is a good film.  A pretty great, in fact, summer popcorn film.  You will be entertained and there isn’t anything presented here that will make you groan of feel like the movie’s makers really screwed up.

However, this is not “game changer”.  Rather, it is the third film in a row of well done Mission: Impossible films and, alas, not much more than that.

And that, to me, is a shame.  Perhaps I was hoping the movie’s makers would push the envelope more than they did.

Still, don’t get me wrong: It’s a good film and worth seeing.  Just don’t go into this expecting anything vastly superior to the two MI films that came before it.

Movies, Music

More music…

…though I’m going to avoid David Bowie!

First up, as I’ve been reviewing my latest Corrosive Knights novel (the concluding Book #7!), I’ve been listening to some mood music.

Nothing better than John Carpenter movie scores…  Among my all time favorites are these two, from Escape From New York and Assault on Precinct 13:

There is something so gripping about this music and so appropriate to the movies they come from.  This is something that makes John Carpenter’s movies (many of them) so unique: The director is also the writer (or co-writer) and also created some of the music!

Before I go, and apropos of nothing at all, the Talking Head’s music video to their song Road To Nowhere.  While I’m not a big fan of the video (it does, IMHO, get pretty silly), the lyrics and message behind the song is incredibly touching and sobering…

Here are the full lyrics to the song:

Well we know where we’re going
But we don’t know where we’ve been
And we know what we’re knowing
But we can’t say what we’ve seen
And we’re not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out
Yeah
We’re on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride
I’m feeling okay this morning
And you know
We’re on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go
We’re on a ride to nowhere
Come on inside
Taking that ride to nowhere
We’ll take that ride
Maybe you wonder where you are
I don’t care
Here is where time is on our side
Take you there, take you there
We’re on a road to nowhere
We’re on a road to nowhere
We’re on a road to nowhere
There’s a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it’s alright, baby, it’s all right
And it’s very far away
But it’s growing day by day and it’s all right
Baby, it’s all right
Would you like to come along
You can help me sing the song
And it’s all right, baby, it’s all right
They can tell you what to do
But they’ll make a fool of you
And it’s all right, baby, it’s all right
There’s a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
And it’s alright, baby, it’s all right
And it’s very far away
But it’s growing day by day and it’s all right
Baby, it’s all right, yeah
Would you like to come along
You can help me sing the song
And it’s all right, baby, it’s all right
They can tell you what to do
But they’ll make a fool of you and it’s all right
Baby, it’s all right
We’re on a road to nowhere
We’re on a road to nowhere
We’re on a road to nowhere
We’re on a road to nowhere

 

As with everyone else, I imagine, I experience days that are sunny and bright.  There are days that are frustrating/annoying.  There are days that are rainy and sad.  Sometimes, you have days which are a combination of all of the above.

To me this song encapsulates those emotions and life in general.  Time flows and ultimately the end will come to all of us.  In two hundred years, will anyone remember you or I and the gamut of emotions we experience in our lifetimes and, most importantly, will they matter all that much?

They probably won’t, so make the best of your day and, in turn, life.  This is not a dry run and this is not a rehearsal.  This is the real deal.

You need to make the most of the time you have while you can.

Movies

Tomb Raider (2018) a (mildly) belated review

I know little about the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider games, other than the fact that the character appears to be a female version of the Cliffhanger action heroes of yesterday and Indiana Jones, more specifically, of recent vintage.  I also have seen the Angelina Jolie films based on the character/games and they certainly looked nice and Angelina Jolie made for a beautiful hero, but the films themselves…?

Kinda average.

As is (sadly) the case with the passage of time, Ms. Jolie is no longer young enough for this franchise and in 2018 it was rebooted with Alicia Vikander in the titular role and…

…the more things change…!

The 2018 incarnation of Tomb Raider aims for a more grungier “look” versus the two previous film’s almost James Bondian look.  If memory serves, the previous films also had more of a “fantastic/supernatural” element, which this movie hints at but ultimately tries to be more grounded.

The same essential plot elements from the first films are there: You have your young hero, her lost -and perhaps deceased- father (Dominic West), and trip to find the (possibly) supernatural whatzit while dealing with a villain.  In this movie’s case, the villain is played by the usually reliable Walton Goggins who here looks like he was told by the director to act as if he’s sleep walking.

Ms. Vikander’s Lara Croft is aided -eventually- in her journey by Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) but, like pretty much all the characters presented in this film, he’s another cardboard cutout pretending to be a human being.

It’s a real head-scratcher to watch something like Tomb Raider because all the essential elements to a good film are there: Good budget, handsome production and effects, and for the most part usually reliable actors in the titular roles.

And yet to me the film never seems to hit any sort of spark despite all this.  The movie starts with a too long bit involving who Lara Croft is, including the fact that she doesn’t want her missing father’s fortune.  Despite being a zillionaire she lives hand to mouth and works for a restaurant delivering food.  We are presented precious minutes of screen time showing how one of the family members of that restaurant, a younger man/son, is clearly smitten with Lara but doesn’t have the courage to ask her out.  These good folks appear in this one scene and are never shown again and you’re left wondering how the hell this got put into the film proper and not left on the cutting room floor, where it deserved to be.

But that’s not all!

Even when we get to the actual story, one fairly dull sequence, action or not, is presented after the other until, voila!, the movie ends and, frankly, I was left wondering how something with so much going for it could wind up so dull.

Needless to say, I cannot recommend Tomb Raider.  But, for what it’s worth, my wife liked it a lot more than me.

Take that as you will!

Movies

The Commuter (2018) a (mildly) belated review

I have to give those who made The Commuter props for trying to create an interesting mystery/suspense film which clearly offers a tip of the hat to the works of Alfred Hitchcock.

If you’re unfamiliar with the movie, here’s the trailer:

Liam Neeson is effectively the entire show here, playing ex-cop and now -but not for long- Insurance salesman Michael MacCauley.  He has a loving wife and son and, day after day, commutes by train from his home to the “big city” for work.

As the movie begins, he goes through his day’s office routine while alert, and not so alert, viewers begin to see clues as to where the story is going.  This, sadly, is one of the movie’s big problems and I’ll get into that in a moment.

MacCauley is called to his boss’ office and is told that he’s being laid off.  MacCauley is understandably disturbed.  He has mortgages and is only a few years away from retiring/getting a severance and *poof* that’s all out the window.

He then goes to a bar to meet a cop friend of his (Patrick Wilson) and there also meets the Chief of the police and more hints as to the plot are laid out.

From there, he heads back home via the train and it is there that he eventually meets Joanna (Vera Famiga, rounding out with Mr. Wilson the two leads from The Conjuring movies… though they share no screen time together here).

Joanna offers MacCauley an intriguing proposal: There’s $25,000 hidden in a bathroom within the train.  He can take it and for that money and, for another $75,000 given to him afterwards, he is to identify someone on this train going to its final destination.

After making the offer, Joanna departs from the train and, curious, MacCauley checks the specified bathroom and, sure enough, finds the money.  Obviously, its a welcome relief considering he just lost his job, but soon enough he realizes there is a sinister reason for all this.

Duh!

I wanted to really, really like The Commuter, and as I said before it was clear the makers of the film put a great deal of effort in this Hitchockian pastiche.

However, and as I already mentioned, the film unfortunately hits you over the head with things you can see a mile coming.  When the camera early on lingers on a news report of someone’s suicide, you know that this is going to mean something later in the film.  When MacCauley shows off his wedding ring to his wife and she reciprocates in the movie’s opening minutes, that too comes back in force later on.

The movie’s villain(s) are also pretty easy to discern and whatever “shock” you’re supposed to have later on in the film regarding their allegiances are simply not all that shocking.

But the worst thing about the film, something my wife noted perhaps halfway through the movie, was that if these villains are so good and so connected and “high up” and all seeing as to what MacCauley does while in the train (including, for example, while quite hidden writes a “call the police” note in a newspaper), then how come they don’t know who the person is they’re hunting?

Given their efficiency and all, that becomes something that’s just too hard to swallow.  And don’t get me started on this question:   Why is this person everyone is hunting traveling alone if s/he is so damn important?

With all that said, the film isn’t a total bust.

If you are able to turn your brain off and enjoy it for what it is and not ask too many questions or scratch too hard under its obvious surface, the film is a decent suspense flick with some decent action.

Still, for me its hard to outright recommend The Commuter and that’s a crying shame.  Despite good acting and a clear attempt to create a modern Hitchock suspense drama, this film really needed a little more work on its script and a lot more work on how to more subtly deliver the story.

Movies

Anti Matter (2016) a (mildly) belated review

So I finished up my latest draft of book #7 in the Corrosive Knights series (read about that here) and wanted to give myself a bit of a break yesterday so I popped in the latest Netflix film I had on DVD.

Titled Anti Matter and released in 2016, I can honestly say I have no idea how that movie got on my radar or why I put it in my Netflix que.  Regardless, there it was and, having the free time, I put it on.  Here’s the movie’s trailer:

Doesn’t look too bad, right?

Well…

Anti Matter, as can be implied from the trailer, involves Ana (Yaiza Figueroa), Nate (Tom Barber-Duffy), and Liv (Philippa Carson) who are students at Oxford and are involved in a radical experiment.

Ana has discovered a way to make small objects “disappear”.  She consults her friend Nate and shows him the results of her experiment and he, in turn, brings Liv, a “wild child” but brilliant fellow student into the experiment which, they soon find, isn’t just about making things disappear: They can effectively move matter from one place to another (shades of The Fly!).

Their experiments progress nicely and they manage to transport plants, then a caterpillar, then a cat, all while protests against animal cruelty are staged near their lab.  Outside of this trio, however, no one knows what they’re up to and, with stars in their eyes and thoughts of becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams lurking just under the surface, they are forced to speed up their experiments to see if the ultimate immediate matter transportation is possible: Sending humans from one point to another.

As the one who created this experiment, Ana decides to be that first test subject.

But afterwards, things get strange and suddenly she finds herself having a hard time remembering things and her two friends and lab partners are suddenly acting very strange.  Is she paranoid or is there something sinister going on?

Anti Matter is a low budget, perhaps even minimally budgeted film which nonetheless manages to present a clever, at times quite deep story to its viewers.  However, and this is one of the film’s biggest problems, the “shock” ending is something I suspect almost everyone can see coming from a mile away and, further, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given the story presented.

The actors are fine in the roles, though if there’s one quibble I have it is that I would have switched actors playing Ana and Liv.  The protagonist, Ana, is played by Yaiza Figuero and, unfortunately, she has a noticeable Spanish accent (she is originally from Puerto Rico) and didn’t seem quite as comfortable in front of the camera as Phillipa Carson, the actress who played Liv.

But this is minor compared to the film’s biggest problem: The script.

As I’ve stated many times before, a great script/story can do wonders to any movie, low or high budgeted.  In the case of Anti Matter, the story concept is quite good, though perhaps not the most original, but the story as presented has many flaws which become only more and more apparent after a) you realize what’s going on (again, that realization should come well before the movie’s end to most viewers), and b) once that realization is made, much of what we’ve seen to this point starts to make little sense.

I will discuss this in some more detail in a moment, but as it involves some rather massive SPOILERS, I’ll leave it for now.

There is a lot to like about Anti Matter.  I applaud the fact that the movie’s makers took what had to be a very low budget yet nonetheless tackled some interesting issues in its science fiction milieu.  I applaud the fact that they were trying to give us a science fiction film that made us think rather than resorted to cheap action or violence or “shock”.

But on the other hand I have to fault them for not thinking their scenario all the way through and giving us a film whose story, unfortunately, falls apart with close scrutiny.

A true shame.

Now, on to…

SPOILERS!!!!

 

YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!!!

 

Still there?

Ok, so now let’s get into the meat of the matter: Where I felt Anti Matter’s script let down the story proper.

As I mentioned before, we have a scenario that, while interesting, is not incredibly new to the science fiction genre: Matter teleportation.  As I mentioned, this has been used in the movie The Fly and Star Trek and a whole host of other sci-fi works.

So our protagonist, Ana, decides to be the first subject in this matter teleportation experiment but when it is done, she begins to experience odd things.  She cannot remember things well.  She finds herself not hungry.  Her two lab mates, too, begin acting strange around her, as if they’re hiding things from her.  Even her mother, whom she calls frequently, starts to act strange over the phone.

To make matters worse, when she goes to her apartment, she finds someone is there, breaking in.  The person wears an odd Monkey mask and, in the movie’s only real action sequence, Ana fights the disguised intruder, even breaking through the glass window of their apartment and falling a floor down to the ground (this particular sequence, by the way, stood out like a sore thumb and felt like maybe it shouldn’t have been there… it seemed a little too “action” for this otherwise cerebral film).

So what’s happening?

Again, it felt too obvious to me: Clearly this Ana wasn’t the “real” Ana.  Somehow, the matter teleportation experiment created two Anas, and I knew the “real” one was hidden somewhere.

Surprise, surprise, that’s exactly what happened.

The Ana we follow from the experiment on, we find in the movie’s climax, is an echo, a “non” being fragment of the real Ana.  Further, we’re told that the lab partners have been dealing with her for days now, that she can’t remember things from one day to another because she hasn’t the capacity to do so.  They’re acting suspicious, in part, because they’re tired of dealing with this echo and going over the same thing day after day with her.

But this time around, things come to a head and the “real” Ana appears to tell the echo she needs to go back into the machine.  The unreal Ana doesn’t want to, she fears for her life, but the real Ana tells her she will simply go back to being a part of her.  So she steps into the teleportation area and disappears, forever.

Ok.

I ask the following: If this Ana was an echo that was running wild, why the hell did the real Ana and her lab partners let this craziness go on for so long?  Why the hell did they leave this disturbed non-person to roam the city and university freely?  Were they not afraid of what she might do?

And if she couldn’t remember things from day to day, effectively becoming the same being every time she woke up, why didn’t they simply confront her the first day with the real Ana and explain things?  Why let this charade go on for so long?

Aaaarrrghhhh.

Look, I really was rooting for this film to succeed, even though I could see that twist coming.  But the problem not only lies with that twist but with how it was handled.  Almost everything from the point where Ana is transported to the end made little sense and, even worse, ultimately torpedoed the film’s story because of this.

And that, my fiends, is really too damn bad.