The Reel World

It’s an actioner with good special effects, and the setting for the flick is outstanding, but Breaking In is just another robbery-gone-bad film at the hands of a very upset mother.  Much like Kidnap where Halle Berry goes berserk because her son gets taken when her car is stolen, here Gabrielle Union turns into a determined killer mom to get her children free from robbers. Unfortunately there’ve been several movies with a similar plot, but in case you haven’t seen one, this movie should keep you on your toes.

Due to the recent death of her estranged father, Shaun Russell (Gabrielle Union) gathers up her children Jasmine (Ajiona Alexus), a teen, and Glover (Seth Carr), a pre-teen, and heads for his plush estate in the mountains. They are given the task of clearing the estate of any important objects and papers before the real estate company takes over the sale of the property. When they arrive, Shaun finds the sophisticated security system has been tampered with, but since the house is on the market, she passes it off as a real estate thing.

This Melissa McCarthy film flew completely under the radar for me, with me only hearing a few whispers about it. Ironically, I expected to see her in more films following the conclusion of Mike and Molly. Oh well, Life of the Party will have to suffice. Though it was not as entertaining as The Heat or Spy, it had its moments and exudes the charm that McCarthy has become famous for. I’m sure many of you are like: a movie about going back to college? it’s been done. Not by Melissa McCarthy.

Deanna Miles is a woman who has her world rock as her husband tells her he wants a divorce right after they drop their daughter off for her final year of college. Having dropped out of college in her last year due to becoming pregnant, Deanna is not left with any prospects for how she will support herself. Upon self-reflection about her regret of never finishing college, she decides to enroll at her daughter’s college, to her child’s chagrin.

"Goodtime Charlie's got the blues."

Every once and again a film comes along that you can't quite find the right label to describe. It doesn't want to fit in any particular genre or category. Andrew Haigh appears to be the kind of director who thrives on that kind of a film. He received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for 45 Years, and while I don't expect there will be any Oscar notice for Lean On Pete, it's the kind of film that deserves more attention than it's likely to get, including at the box office. When I first saw Lean On Pete at a press screening, it was anticipated to open earlier and wider than what has actually come to pass. In an already crowded early summer blockbuster season, I can understand the trepidation that your local Cineplex might have taking up screens for such a small marvel when there are literally larger Marvels eating up box office dollars. My hope is that the film will find an audience even among the blockbuster crowd. After all, as good as dessert tastes, there are some yummy nutritious items to be found in the cinematic ala carte of the spring/summer season. Lean On Pete is just such a film and worth the time to make what will be an extra effort to see it. If you’re in Tampa, you should check it out at the newly renovated Tampa Theatre, where you can revel in a one-of-a-kind, nearly-100-year-old theater experience and take in a warm film that serves as a wonderful balance to the action most of us are anticipating over the next few months. Bon appetit.

"Thanos Is Coming..."

Whenever a filmmaker is doing a middle film in a trilogy, or merely a film that's intended to be a companion film in a series, they often talk about attempting to capture The Empire Strikes Back. For years it's been the standard-bearer for anyone trying to end a blockbuster with a cliffhanger knowing it might be years before the ending is resolved for the audience. That's harder to do today than it was in the 1980's. I often say that the only thing wrong with instant gratification is that it simply takes too darn long. The Avengers: Infinity War is exactly that kind of film. It ends with huge elements left up in the air, but at least we'll only have to wait a year for its resolution. After watching how Anthony and Joe Russo have handled this nearly impossible task, I think the bar has now shifted. In Empire Strikes Back lexicon, let's just say the Russos just pulled out a huge chunk of carbonite, and future filmmakers will be using this as an example of how to pull of that herculean task in the future. The Avengers: Infinity War is finally here, and it pretty much lives up to all of my expectations. Now my expectations are going to need a bigger boat.

I’m going to go ahead and say Super Troopers is without a doubt one of my favorite comedies of all time.  Sure I know many will disagree with me, and that’s fine.  Since I first saw their film back in 2002 when I got the DVD I was always excited to see what would come next from the Broken Lizard comedy troop.  There was Club Dread which induced a few chuckles as they tackled the slasher genre, and then they had Beerfest which was pretty funny but simply didn’t hold up to their performances as Vermont’s Highway Patrolmen.  The antics from the first film are simply classic to me, and the film is something I manage to quote from on a weekly basis amongst friends and when I hear that someone has managed to go all these years without experiencing the film it’s something I feel the need to remedy immediately.  It’s more than just a simple stoner comedy and with rumblings about a sequel has been going on for years but things seemed to always fall apart, now after all these years it’s finally happened.

Incase you were wondering just because the film releases on 4/20 this isn’t a movie that requires you to smoke the green dragon to enjoy, the Broken Lizard gang just knows their audience and simply wanted to be part of the joke. For those that saw the first film and couldn’t stand it, well there’s no sense in even bothering to check out this entry. As for those who have managed to miss the first one, please check out the first before going in so you can enjoy the film for everything it has to offer.

Captivating, creepy, and chilling, the supernatural thriller Truth or Dare takes you on a never-ending journey of death.  Much like other horror films that have perfected the formula for surprise and contagious emotional terror, this film has it all bundled tightly and calculating to transfix the audience into believing. If you saw the films It Follows, The Ring, and the Final Destination series, you’ll relive the sensations those films made way beyond leaving the theater.

California college pals and best friends Olivia (Lucy Hale), Markie (Violett Beane), Lucas (Tyler Posey), Tyson (Nolan Gerard Funk), Penelope (Sophia Ali) and Brad (Hayden Szeto) head for Mexico on spring break. There they party down and are having a good time for two weeks.

Brad Anderson is a television actor who has puttered around that industry going back to David Simon's Homicide: Life On The Streets and The Wire. This is pretty much his first feature film opportunity in the director's chair, and Beirut certainly shows that he has a lot of talent... as a television director. No question the chops are there, but the framing and pacing of Beirut suffers from a kind of small thinking that fails to keep one's attention for very long. He hasn't learned how to take advantage of large set pieces and exotic locations to expand the experience for his audience. Some will believe I'm talking about action or the kind of cheap thrills that sell tickets, but that's not exactly my point. There's enough action here, and the thoughtful script by writer Tony Gilroy is actually clever and engaging. It's even a little old-school, and I like that kind of thing. But Brad Anderson just doesn't know exactly what to do with it, and it suffers at his inexperienced hands.

It's 1972 Mason Skiles (Hamm) is a skilled diplomat stationed in Beirut where he must juggle the concerns of the warring PLO and Israel along with his obligations to America and the restless population. It's a job he does well, and he's managed to balance the necessary agendas with some success. He's celebrating with a party at his home when gunmen crash the party and kill his wife. They also kidnap a local boy whom he was trying to help, who ends up being the sibling to the terrorist who orchestrated the attack. The loss sends Skiles into a downward spiral of alcohol and depression.

Bold and incredibly compelling, the movie Chappaquiddick is a “tell all” with a lot of authority.  Much like last year’s The Post, it tells its story pulling no punches, playing out the characters and holding nothing back.  Although I’m familiar with the incident, many of the facts were clouded, squashed, or lost due to current events at the time.  If you liked The Post, then here’s a film that will enlighten you and make you cringe. In 1969 about one year after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy while he was touring for votes to be nominated for President, his brother Ted Kennedy (Jason Clarke) was already thinking about his chance at the highest position in America. On the fateful night of July 18, however, things ran amok, taking him out of any chance for the Presidency. 

It was late in the evening on Martha’s Vineyard, Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, and a party was going strong in a cottage following the yearly sailing regatta. At the cottage were Senator Ted Kennedy, attorney Paul Markham (Jim Gaffigan), Ted’s cousin Joe Gargan (Ed Helms), Ray Larosa (Damien Di Paola) and six ladies in their late 20’s who served as the “boiler room” campaigners for Robert F. Kennedy.  They included Susan Tannenbaum (Katie Henoch), Esther Newberg, Rosemary Keough (Gillian Mariner Gordon), Mary Jo Kopechne (Kate Mara), sisters Maryellen (Angela Hope Smith) and Nance Lyons (Lexie Roth).

You might call me jaded, but I am pretty disappointed by the state of horror movies. It's not just the last few years. The truth is I haven't seen 10 really good horror movies in over a decade. Now that I've had a chance to see A Quiet Place, that number isn't going up. A Quiet Place is not a really good horror movie. It ends up making a lot of the same mistakes that filmmakers think define a horror film in the modern age. It relies too heavily on jump scares and characters who do some of the most idiotic things, thus placing them in a somewhat self-created dangerous situation. But I will make the argument that A Quiet Place is still a pretty good horror film because of a rather clever and unique concept and a filming process that allows us care for these characters more than the usual horror film red shirt fodder that too often leaves me rooting for the monster in a Darwin-like weed-out-the-gene-pool kind of way.

The film takes place in a near-future that newspapers place at about 2020. It's now day 86.  We are now in the familiar post-apocalyptic world of deserted streets and a family of characters scrounging through the derelict buildings for scraps on which to survive. The difference here is that this family, a husband and wife with three young kids, are going out of their way to remain as completely silent as possible. They communicate strictly through sign language and walk on bare feet to avoid the sounds of footsteps. Each move is carefully calculated to avoid even the careless sound of placing a pill container on a counter. Silence is golden, and before the title card is revealed, we discover the reason for all of this care. The Earth has been invaded by creatures that are blind but with heightened hearing ability. They hunt strictly by sound and move at lightning speed toward any sound and attack with razor-like appendages. These attacks are over in a second, and the viewer is left with graphic evidence that in this future world, silence isn't golden, it's survival.

Like so many others, when I read the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline I simply fell in love with the nostalgic ride through the 80’s, all thanks to the virtual reality world called The Oasis.  From start to finish it was a book filled with pop culture references that would make film and video game geeks squeal with delight, and it was no surprise that the book was a hit and would be turned into a film.  There were only two names I could think of that could ever come close to making this film a reality: Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg.  With Spielberg involved, he was the only person I could imagine that had the clout to get all the licensing rights needed to pull this adaption, but still the biggest question I had was does Spielberg still have it in him? I’m not questioning the man’s talent, but instead it’s the magic and wonder he would bring to his films, from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, to Jurassic Park, where he could get us to believe the fantastic and impossible was real while we sat in a dark auditorium watching his film.

The Oasis is an open virtual realty world like nothing we have ever seen before, but with the way our technology is developing, it is quickly becoming a possibility for things to come.  There are worlds and planets within The Oasis where you can be in constant battles to win coins, or go to exotic places for a vacation.  It’s a world where you can be whatever you want and experience just about anything you want.  Basically think about Westworld but on steroids.  The creator of this world is Halliday (Mark Rylance), who before dying announced to all of The Oasis that he created an Easter Egg hidden somewhere in The Oasis, and whoever was to find it would gain sole control of The Oasis and all of Halliday’s fortune.