The Reel World

"What have you been up to in your little zoo?"

It appears that we have been due for one of those untold stories amid the many tales of courage and bravery both fact and fiction, real and imagined, that have been told of the World War II era. There have been plenty of the battlefield hero films that include last year's exceptional Hacksaw Ridge from Mel Gibson. Then there are the quiet and unlikely heroes. These are people who did incredible things that were often unknown during the war and often even after it was all over. Schindler's List has become the gold standard for these kinds of emotional war movies. The Zookeeper's Wife is set in the mold of that kind of a film, telling essentially that very kind of tale. Here the action begins with the invasion of Poland, which was the spark that ignited a local territorial conflict into a global event. It is here at the moment of that spark we find Antonina Zabinski, played by Jessica Chastain, who used her small local zoo to save nearly 300 Jews from the Nazi extermination machine failing with only two souls during the entire war. This is that untold story which most of you will discover for the first time.

"In space no one can hear you scream"

Yes, Life is very much a knockoff on the basic premise of 1979's Alien. That's not so much of a problem for me. It's become increasingly true that there are few truly original ideas remaining, at least in Hollywood. And while it's trendy to complain that this is the unique state of affairs of our time, that isn't really true either. Alien itself was pretty much a knockoff of the 1958 classic It The Terror From Beyond Space, where a vicious life-form is a stowaway on a ship sent to rescue the lone survivor of a Martian expedition. In all three films we are treated to a claustrophobic rendition of Agatha Christi's Ten Little Indians as an alien creature picks off the confined astronauts one at a time. No, a film doesn't need to be terribly original in order to be entertaining. And Life certainly has its entertaining moments. More technologically advanced than its predecessors, the film is quite visually stunning. Unfortunately, it devolves pretty much into a slasher film in space. Instead of hapless and stoned teenagers making the kind of stupid mistakes that play into the hands of a maniacal killer, we have men and women who are supposed to represent the best and brightest planet Earth has to offer... making the kind of stupid mistakes that play into the appendages of a maniacal alien creature.

“First, there is an opportunity.  Then…there’s a betrayal.”

It’s been 20 years since the release of Trainspotting, and it’s fair to say a lot has changed in the past two decades.  I remember going out to the United Artists Mission Bell Cinemas to see Trainspotting the weekend it came out.  I was with my best friend at the time, and neither of us was old enough to buy tickets for the film, so we ended up having to sneak into the film.  We’d seen the trailers, and in a time before the internet, there just wasn’t much we could find out about it aside from reading articles in the entertainment magazines.  To this day, I remember walking out of the auditorium simply floored by the film.  Everything from the soundtrack to the visuals just hit me, and this was one of the first times I realized what creative influence a director has on the look and feel of a film.  I came out as a fan of Danny Boyle and the insane kinetic energy he puts into the look of his films.  Over the years Danny Boyle has stepped out of the independent film spotlight and become a big-league director with several other award-inning films i.e.: Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and Steve Jobs.

Daniel Clowes  is one of a handful of writers in the industry that when I see his name attached to a project I can’t help but be curious to see what he’s up to.  In 2001 he wrote Ghost World, which was based on the comic he created. It was an independent film smash, and I’d consider it a cult sensation.  Then he had Art School Confidential that had the same humor and a great cast, but it just didn’t seem to connect as well with audiences.  I love the odd little characters Clowes manages to bring to life, despite many being so over-the-top, he manages to somehow keep them grounded in reality.  So when the offer came along to review Wilson, the new film he’s written based off his graphic novel, it was an offer I couldn’t pass up.

Wilson (Woody Harrelson) is one of those guys who at some point we’ve all come across, the one who just manages to offend you by his very presence, and when he opens his mouth he manages to say the least appropriate thing.  He’s been divorced for 17 years, and his most loyal companion is his dog.  Wilson is definitely a frustrating guy who you can understand how no one could really want to be around, though when his father dies, as a member of the audience we still manage to feel some empathy with the guy.  Out of fear of dying alone, Wilson reaches out to attempt to find his ex-wife.

“Did you just slap me?”

“Yeah….weird, right?”

“Who could ever learn to love a beast?”

Although it’s not quite a tale as old as time, people around the world have been enchanted by the story of “Beauty and the Beast” for centuries. The French fairytale was first published in 1740 and has subsequently spawned everything from a classic 1946 big-screen romance to Ron Perlman. Still, the most popular iteration of this story is Disney’s beloved 1991 animated musical, which helped solidify the Mouse House’s cartoon revival and serves as the most direct inspiration for this dazzling live-action adaptation. Then again, the fact that this new version is essentially a pretty close copy of a copy takes some of the bloom off this particular rose.

Every year it seems the “summer” movie season starts sooner than the year before.  Here we are, the second Friday of March, and already we’ve seen the huge box office weekend for Logan, and now this weekend we have the release of Kong: Skull Island.  Ever since Kong first graced the big screen back in 1933, every film that followed was a mega-event. Personally it wasn’t till 2005 that theatergoers got to fully experience the massive beast in all his glory as he became worthy of the title “the 8th wonder of the world”.  Now we have Legendary Entertainment playing in the giant monster movie sandbox with plans to set up a series of monster films.  All this leads up to the inevitable clash of the kaiju monsters where we will finally see the showdown of Godzilla vs. King Kong.  Before we begin to get too excited, how does our current trip to Skull Island fare?

It doesn’t take long for us to get to Skull Island; in fact the film opens up on the shore of the island in 1944.  Two soldiers are shot down and crash on the island, and their fight to the death continues as they pursue one another into the heart of the island.  Their fight is quickly interrupted by none other than Kong, and the pair realizes they seriously have bigger things to worry about on the island.  OK, I’m fine with not drawing out the reveal of Kong, but really, the first five minutes?  Where’s the tension to build to his massive 300-ft-plus reveal?  Sure, we’ve all seen the trailers for about a year now, so seeing Kong should be no surprise, but come on, he deserves at least some kind of a buildup.

"I always know who you are. It's just that sometimes I don't recognize you."

Logan is perhaps one of the most interesting, endearing and popular characters in the Marvel universe. Wolverine has the distinction of having been created by someone other than Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. While they invented the X-Men team from which the adamantium-clawed warrior was born, he was actually created by the team of Len Wein and John Romita, Sr. in the mid 1970's. Since that time the character has taken on a life of his own, a life that is as much owed to actor Hugh Jackman as anyone else. The funny thing is that Jackman is really nothing at all like the comic book character, who was actually quite short. But it's Jackman who has come to personify the wirily Cannuck. He's appeared, if only briefly, in each of the X-Men films except for one and two less-than-stellar Wolverine films. It all comes to a rather fitting close with one of the best Marvel-character films to date. Logan is pure comic book film noir and an emotional ride from start to finish.

“Sometimes...if there's too many white people, I get nervous.”

Some of the very best horror films/psychological thrillers succeed by taking a relatable source of anxiety and cranking it to 11. For example, The Exorcist can be viewed as the worst-case scenario for anyone suffering a crisis of faith, while The Shining taps into the madness of being cooped up with your family for too long. Get Out works because it uses the nerve-wracking experience of meeting your significant other's parents for the first time as a jumping-off point to tell a subversive, insightful, and entertaining story that mashes together Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and The Stepford Wives.

It’s kind of a big deal when discussing the film The Great Wall to mention that it is the most expensive Chinese film made to date.  With an estimated budget of a $150 million, I can understand the stunt casting of putting Matt Damon in the film that takes place during the Great Wall’s construction.  It’s quite simple; Matt Damon is an international star, and he puts people in seats.  What’s more surprising is that at one time Edward Zwick was on board to direct, but eventually that position would be passed on to  Yimou Zhang. For those unfamiliar with Zhang, he’s responsible for such martial arts epics Hero and House of Flying Daggers, and for Zhang this would be his first Hollywood feature.  To bring another factoid to the table, the studio behind the film is Legendary East, the Chinese branch of Legendary, the studio that is responsible for such monster epics as Pacific Rim, Godzilla, and Kong: Skull Island; basically they are attempting to become the American version of TOHO, the studio that originally churned out all the hit giant monster films of the 50’s to today.  What this all means is, everyone on board this project was expecting this film to be a monster (pun intended) smash at the global box office. Sadly, this was a giant swing, but not quite a miss, because the film is actually pretty fun.
The film opens up with a band of mercenaries on the run; they are on a quest to find “black powder” and return home with it. Right from the start we are given some beautiful aerial cinematography as the camera sweeps over the landscape to capture this opening horse chase.  Everything about this opening sequence just screams epic, and it quickly elevated my hopes on what would soon follow.

During the night, the group of mercenaries are attacked by a dark creature that no one seems to get a good look at, but in the process of the struggle, William (Matt Damon) manages to sever the creature’s arm, and he keeps it to identify later. Later turns out to be the next day once William and his Spanish partner Tovar (Pedro Pascal) are separated by their group and are taken prisoner at the foot of the Wall.  The Wall is under the protection of The Order, a group of soldiers that have been trained to protect The Wall for centuries.  But protect it from what?