The Reel World

I'm going to start by listing a number of names that make up a kind of extended family. The names don't have a lot in common at first, and it seems like a hodgepodge. I'm sure I'm going to leave someone out, but let's start with Kevin Kline, Johnathan Demme, Diablo Cody, Sebastian Stan, Mamie Gummer, Audra McDonald, Joe Vitale, Rick Springfield, Bill Erwin, Bernie Worrell, Rick Rosas, and Charlotte Rae. I'm forgetting someone. Oh yeah, Meryl Streep. It's that kind of a movie which is being sold as a star vehicle for the most praised and beloved actress of the modern era, but is really an ensemble piece. We can debate who is as beloved as Meryl Streep in the history of cinema, but let's not, because Ricki and the Flash is not that kind of movie.

I have been hearing buzz about this film for pretty much a year. My first response after hearing about it was confusion. Now, I’m sure that I’m going to lose points for saying this, but I didn’t find the original Fantastic Four film to be that bad.  I’m not proclaiming it as the best, but for the time period, I found it to be an acceptable film. Now, I’m sure I lost of a lot of readers after that declaration, but if you if have remained with me, let’s talk about the latest installment in the Marvel universe, shall we?

I don't think there has ever really been a great film about a great writer. We naturally compare their lives to works of great fiction. Great fiction tends to distill the tedium and awkwardness out of real life. Real life can be exhausting in the day-to-day disappointments that can sometimes be wrapped in small victories. David Foster Wallace was a great writer. This is almost universally acknowledged. David Foster Wallace no longer is because he hung himself in 2008 at age 46. Many people who were in his life are now very protective of him and his privacy. They are angry at the idea of a movie being made about his life.

“This may very well be our last mission, Ethan...make it count.”

You wouldn't know it from looking at him, but Tom Cruise is now 53 years old. So it's only natural to wonder how many more Missions the indomitable superstar has left in him. Well if Rogue Nation is any indication, the above quote is meant to be more winking than prophetic. Just like its tireless star, the fifth installment of the 19-year-old Mission: Impossible film franchise is sprier, tighter, and more energetic than its age might suggest.

"Don't get hit too much."

Come on, it's the fight game. Warren Zevon said it best when he told us the name of the game was to be hit and hit back. If Southpaw highlights anything about the fight game, it's that basic principle. Director Antoine Fuqua makes sure that we see the physical toll of a fight in all its slow motion and gory detail. Such painful detail can be tiresome if there isn't something else to balance the experience. Southpaw certainly has that. But is it really enough?

"Different thing, entirely." 

I have been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was a kid. Mixed amidst those Universal horror films I watched with my Pop on weekend chiller shows was an occasional Universal Holmes film with Basil Rathbone as the master of deduction. Soon followed the Doyle books, and a new world was opened for me forever. Since those days we have seen every kind of incarnation of the character possible, or so I thought. I've seen Holmes as a child in Spielberg's Young Sherlock Holmes. There have been several comedies and even a musical or two. Robert Downey Jr. has turned him into an action hero, and Benedict Cumberbatch has brought him into the modern world.

“Just imagine...a soldier the size of an insect.”

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is now seven years into an unprecedented run of success. It's a consistent, well-oiled machine that has engendered enough goodwill to allow the company to take chances on properties that were previously considered deep cuts. (Before last summer, most people's reactions to Guardians of the Galaxy likely would've been, “Who?!”) Then again, if you believe in the idea of a “Marvel machine,” it could just as easily conjure something heavy or mechanical. As a result, the thing I enjoyed most about Ant-Man is that it felt refreshingly (and appropriately)...small.

Big blockbusters rule the summer. Sequels and reboots and remakes are demanded by a public that wants sure things. There are no sure things any more, but the big Hollywood studios try to form committees that take as much chance out of the equation as possible. But even in the middle of a summer ruled by big blockbuster, there is a school of thought that counter programming can work. You have to give the makers of Self/Less credit for releasing a non-sequel and one with such an odd title

“A straight line…you just go, and you never…look…back.”

Well, I hope you’re ready to have everything you know about the Terminator franchise turned on its head. As a franchise known for his alternative timelines where the things we come to know are often turned around, my previous statement may sound like the usual bread and butter to you. However, I must say that I feel like the latest incarnation of the franchise, Terminator Genisys, has really outdone itself this time. As far as reboots go, this may be one of the best that I have seen in quite some time as we are introduced to a completely new cast (well, almost completely new cast) portraying characters already near and dear to our hearts.

Me, Earl and the Dying Girl is not the perfect movie by any means, but it is pretty darn good. Sometime it is too clever for its own good, and sometimes its cleverness is what makes it good. It is a movie about a precocious high school teenager much in the tradition of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It has an offbeat and anarchic take on the high school experience, because the titular Me is giving his point of view. As with many narrators in the tradition of literature, his opinions can be unreliable. Me shall be known from now on as Greg (played by Thomas Mann) (no relation to the famous German novelist) (which I mention because German film maker Werner Herzog is all over this film).