The Reel World

“Commencing at the siren, any and all crime — up to and including murder — will be legal for 12 continuous hours. Blessed be our new Founding Fathers and America, a nation reborn.”

You know writer-director James DeMonaco has a killer concept on his hands because the plot for this movie is simultaneously outlandish and thought-provoking. Unfortunately, The Purge ends up being a prime example of when bad movies happen to great ideas.
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“Come in close. No, closer. I want you to really pay attention because the closer you look, the less you’ll see.”

With these words, J. Daniel Atlas sets the tone for Now You See Me, warning us not to focus too much on what he and his fellow magicians are doing, but to look at the big picture…the overall plan. Sadly, curious creatures that we are, we can’t help but look closely, trying to catch them in the act, believing we’re a step ahead when we’re actually three steps behind.
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“Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real, but fear is a choice.”

It’s been seven years since father and son Will and Jaden Smith partnered up for Jaden’s first film role in The Pursuit of Happiness. Since then, Jaden has managed to forge a path similar to his father’s albeit his own starring in his blockbuster films The Day the Earth Stood Still and a reboot of 80’s popular franchise The Karate Kid. No doubt Will Smith looks upon his son’s accomplishments with pride, but no matter how fulfilling it may be to forge your own way, there is something to be said about the comforts of familiarity.
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“Any of this feeling familiar to you?”

Remember how everybody was really excited to see some of their favorite superheroes — plus Hawkeye (I kid, I kid) — in the same movie last summer? Well, I feel compelled to point out a different group of muscle-bound misfits actually beat The Avengers to the finish line by more than a year. Fast Five, released in April 2011, featured characters from each of the previous four Fast & Furious entries and, not coincidentally, easily became the biggest hit in the action franchise. So getting the gang back together for another round of motor-based mayhem was — much like these movies — a no-brainer.
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“Someone should burn this place to the ground.”

How do you satisfactorily finish a story? You bring it full circle. They say, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.” But for Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha), what happened in Las Vegas four years ago will come back to haunt them. In this conclusion to The Hangover saga, the Wolfpack returns to where it all began to face their toughest challenge yet.
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“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Every Star Trek fan has had that phrase beaten into their brain about as many times as Uncle Ben’s mantra about great power and great responsibility. Who knew that the tagline was appropriate to filmmaking? When J.J. Abrams signed on to direct the reboot/remake/reimagining/rehash (insert your own word here) of Star Trek he quickly made it known that he was not really that into the franchise. He considered himself a Star Wars man, and a chill went through the spine of every Trek fan on the planet.
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I still remember reading “The Great Gatsby” in my high school English class and dissecting its many themes, including the corruption of the American Dream. “One day, someone should make this into a big-budget 3D movie,” said Absolutely No One. When this project was first announced, it seemed more like a commercial parody on Saturday Night Live than a real movie. I mean, what other high school English staple was Hollywood going to co-opt next? Maybe next summer will bring To Kill a Mockingbird: Die Mockingbird Die! (in IMAX 3D, of course).
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The first question you have to ask: “Was Stanley Kubrick a genius?” There are those who assert his IQ was ridiculously high (200+). Kubrick himself replied that he was below average. I tend to agree with the former rather than Kubrick himself. Kubrick is a monumental legend in film history. I personally think he is the single greatest director of all time, but I say that with a little reservation. There are hundreds of directors who I admire and think are deserving of high praise, but Kubrick’s incredible mystique is what raises him above the rest.
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It’s easy to forget how important it was for 2008’s Iron Man to be great. After all, the film was only asked to A.) properly introduce a B-list comic hero to the movie-going masses and B.) successfully kick off what turned out to be Phase One of Marvel’s March Toward Global Domination Cinematic Universe. “Good” would’ve been a letdown; Iron Man needed to be great. Fortunately, it delivered in spades; its critical and commercial success paved the way for an unprecedented run of films that culminated with The Avengers last summer. With a release date for the Avengers sequel already on the horizon, Tony Stark and Co. have once again been asked to set the tone.
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“Poor John Doe, what a way to go.”

You might be asking yourself the obvious question here. I know that I was. Who is Arthur Newman? Arthur Newman is Colin Firth. The busy actor has been the king of the hit-or-miss movie. He’s scored some wonderful roles in films like The King’s Speech. But much of his career has been as a chameleon actor in niche independent festival films. Arthur Newman certainly fits in that later category. In fact, the film has been making its way through the European circuit for the better part of the past year.
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“Somebody somewhere knows something. And somebody’s going to talk.”

At the age of 76 many might consider The Company You Keep as a kind of swansong for Hollywood’s original pretty boy, Robert Redford. It has all of the earmarks of a grand finale. Redford plays the star role and directs the film as well. It plays out like a message film with the grace of not overplaying its hand. And so, while the film brings up the activists morality of Vietnam-era America, it never becomes preachy or too obvious. In almost every sense of the word this is about as picture-perfect a goodbye as Redford might have asked for.
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People have used a lot of different words to describe Michael Bay and his films: “loud”, “blockbusters”, “mindless”, “soulless”, “Hitler” and, of course, “awesome.” One of the words you don’t normally associate with Bay’s undeniably successful output is “clever.” I daresay Pain & Gain is the most interesting movie the action auteur has ever made; the film is both seriously silly and surprisingly smart in how it presents its stupid characters.
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Ever wonder what would happen if you took all the best or most memorable parts in a sci-fi film and cut them all together?  What you get is the hodgepodge mess that is Oblivion, which unless I’m mistaken or blinked a bit too long and missed it, doesn’t have an original bone in its already weak story.  Though they say if you’re going to steal, then steal from the best; the problem is that when you play it off as your own, please be able to give us a refreshing twist on a classic scene, not just make it cool.  Sure people will say the same about Tarantino, but he owns up to it and puts a spin on it that is undeniably his own.
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 “If you ride like lightning you’re gonna crash like thunder”.

The best film that you may not get an opportunity to see this year is The Place Beyond The Pines. The film has already scored great buzz at a few film festivals and is about to see a very limited theatrical release. It’s one of those films that absolutely deserves better, but somehow as you watch it you realize that this limited environment is a perfect match for the movie.
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The power is in the mind, or at least it is in Trance, the latest psychological thriller from Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle. From the original trailer I saw of this film, I had the wrong impression of this film completely; I was intrigued by the film, but I just expected it to be another heist film. Now, for the record, I love heist films; I love the watching the thieves plan the heist, I love watching them execute the theft, and I even love the eventual double-cross that everyone always sees coming. To call Trance simply a heist film is to severely undersell its value.
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“You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back — and I’ll give you the guts.”

More than any sport, baseball is all about numbers. Unfortunately, some of those numbers — like 73 (home runs in a single season) and 500 (career homers) — mean a little less in light of the steroid era. Others, like 56 (Joe DiMaggio’s legendary hitting streak), seem destined to live on forever. The most significant number on that shortlist might be 42, worn by Jackie Robinson when he broke Major League Baseball’s color line on April 15, 1947. 42 — the film, not the number — is significant for a somewhat surprising reason.
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 “Lucky Bastard was a pornographic website that invited fans to have sex with porn stars. The following footage is believed to be the last video shot for the site.”

You know exactly what that kind of an intro means. You should. The found footage genre has been around even long before it was turned into a modern trend by The Blair Witch Project. Since that time the genre has appeared in both large and small budget films. The shaky footage usually covers a variety of sins by the filmmakers. Rarely does the genre have anything clever or new to dispense. That’s not exactly true with Lucky Bastards.
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“Welcome to Jurassic Park.”

With those words begin an adventure that started with the legacy of Willis O’Brien’s  The Lost World. You see, dinosaur films are nothing new; they have held our child-like fascination since the industry was born. Jurassic Park was, however, something very new when it thundered into our cineplexes and forever in our imaginations 20 years ago. The marriage of brand new CGI technology with Stan Winston’s superbly detailed animatronics models transports you back 65 million years in time.
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Remakes, reboots, and sequels: these are the trends in Hollywood that seem to make fan boys groan.  Some films should be left in the past, and some franchises simply need to come to an end.  But every so often a film comes along that dares to show us something new, and the end result manages to capture some of the magic that got us to love the original film to begin with.  The new Evil Dead filmmakers managed to succeed in doing just that and deliver a film that has me excited about what is next for the Book of the Dead and all those unfortunate enough to flip through its pages.
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When I tell you The Host is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, you’ll probably think I’m exaggerating. There’s a decent chance you don’t know me and that we’ll never meet, so there’s no way for you to know I’m not prone to hyperbole or making “Best Ever/Worst Ever” statements. Obviously, I haven’t watched every movie that’s ever been made, but I feel reasonably confident in saying I’ve seen more than most people. Since I don’t make pronouncements like these lightly, I’m going to do my very best to explain why The Host — a stunningly bad sci-fi/romance that utterly fails as a work of science fiction and as a big-screen love story — is among the most inept films I’ve come across.
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“Sometimes you need to do something bad to stop you from doing something worse.”

If you are a fan of director Chan-wook Park, you are used to the kinds of bizarre images and somewhat enigmatic story elements that dominate the landscape of Stoker. While none of the images here reach quite into the territory of Oldboy, it’s hard not to plug into the disturbed nature of the film’s themes and story. I left the movie with more questions than answers and a little bit lost as to how exactly I was going to approach this review.
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For years it seems DreamWorks Animation has been living in the shadow of Pixar.  Sure, DreamWorks has had their success with Shrek and Ice Age, but when you stack the films next to Pixar’s library, you see Pixar just seems to be the best at what they do.  That is until The Croods came along; with the new DreamWorks release it would appear the animation studio has stepped up their game and released their best-looking 3D film to date.  My expectations were not too high with this release, but I was at least relieved I wouldn’t be watching Ice Age Ten: The Ice is Still Melting. 
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“I’m tired of seeing the same thing. Everybody’s so miserable here because they see the same things every day, they wake up in the same bed, same houses, same depressing streetlights, one gas station, grass, it’s not even green, and it’s brown. Everything is the same and everyone is just sad. I really don’t want to end up like them. I just want to get out of here. There’s more than just spring break. This is our chance to see something different.”

Somehow I really doubt that Gomez’s character’s desire for something different was quite like what she got. You remember Spring Break, right?
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“What’s the secret to getting in…There has to be one, right?”

You will probably never look at Princeton University in quite the same way again after you’ve seen Tina Fey’s latest film, Admission. Under the guise of a poorly-played-out romantic comedy, the film offers us much more comedic insight into the mysterious world of college admissions than it does about relationships. The film was actually based on a novel written by Jean Hanff Korelitz and takes us deep into the labyrinth of how a prestigious college goes about accepting its future students. Of course, it’s a romp and not intended to depict the actual process.
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It’s like I always tell people, the only thing better than one gloriously over-the-top action spectacle centered around an attack on the White House is TWO gloriously over-the-top action spectacles centered around an attack on the White House. Lucky(?) for us, Hollywood is happy to oblige in 2013. Channing Tatum gets a chance to protect Jamie Foxx from a very hostile takeover in June’s White House Down, but they’ve been beaten to the box office punch by Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart in the junky, wildly entertaining, and more mythical-sounding Olympus Has Fallen.
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